travelin' thru

i had no idea that i knew this many people in montreal & ottawa. heck man, i have never even been to ottawa before.

regardless, in a rather uncharacteristic way, i have left most of my trip planning to the last minute. it will serve me right if i only manage to see 2 or 3 non-family-members during my little trip.

i haven’t even thought about the fact that i am going to be at a conference for the first 4 days. good lord. no offense to the conference organizers, but last year the conference was so *acutely boring* that i thought i might throw up.

just as i am eking my way out of town i have received several calls to do button pressing. this makes me *very* excited. i will do one order tonight (while i should be packing!) and do the others on the days after my return. right fucking on.

tonight i shall place an order for button parts for 5,000 more buttons. the first 1,000 has gone so quickly i can’t believe it.

a certain girl.

if you have any last minute suggestions of things to do/ things to eat/ places to shop/ people to see while i am in montreal & ottawa - - - email me or post them.... post haste!

we want male nipple

This week:

- I met Jack Layton *and* his moustache. I even watched him lead a totally homo-uber-metro conga line. It was worth sitting through a terrible meal just so that I had the chance to *not* wiggle my butt in the middle aged celebration of playfulness.

- I got a cold. I blame Lief. Lief blames his coworkers. There is a lot of finger pointing and a great deal of coughing and nose blowing. In an unprecedented turn of events, I took two days off work. One week later and I still feel like dog snot.

- Me and my cold went to Gambier Island with friends/ loved ones where we walked around, ate good food, drank bad wine, did some off road golf-cart driving, and saw two deer and a snake (they were not traveling together).

- Finished knitting slippers to take to my cousins + aunt when I go to Montreal. I have knit four pairs to take with me (three cousins + aunt) and I am going to let them arm wrestle over who gets which pair. I will not presume to know who would prefer slate grey with pink racing stripe over alligator green with purple fleck. Let the games begin.

- Have read my way through half of ‘The Elephant Vanishes’ by Haruki Murakami. Short stories. Thumbs up.

- Almost forgot my best friend’s birthday. Sorry Miikey! Luckily, I was awake at 5am this morning (thanks to Miss Missyfuss) and had the wherewithal to send him an email. HAPIR BIRTHDOO!

- Had a NiQuil accident that has rendered many of my possessions sticky.

Anyway, it has been a bumblebee week. I am very glad to be back at work, even if it is at half capacity.

I was sad to have missed Strangle Hold’s convocation ceremony, but I think it was for the best. I am all about process anyway…. and I am glad that I was able to be there for the process, if not the destination.

Congratulations Strangle Hold, you are now one of the degree-holding masses. Masses of asses!

jump they say

You may be wondering where I am, but I doubt it.

In order to keep tabs on myself, I have created the following schedule. I have made short notes on what I plan to do/ accomplish during each leg of the journey:

May 13th – 16th
Gambier Island
- walking, reading, making out, cooking, exploring, knitting, watching.

May 25th – June 5th
Montreal and Ottawa
- working, slacking, swimming, eating, shopping, driving, visiting, observing, fretting.

July 8th – 25th
Winlaw
- tubing, campfiring, helping, cleaning, hugging, hot springing, lazing, driving, climbing.

Are you coming with me? I sure hope so.

shut up and drive

Many of you know that I have been registered with the Jack Bell Online RideShare program for about two years: http://online.ride-share.com/

You know when you are driving down the highway and you see signs for a phone number to call if you want to get linked up with other people to carpool to work? Yeah, that is the RideShare program too. It’s all the same thing.

Anyway…. I have had two profiles listed on there for two years. One of my profiles is seeking a ride to and from work, three days a week, leaving any time between 8 – 10am and coming home any time between 3 – 6pm. My other profile is seeking a ride one way (to work), three days a week, leaving any time between 8 – 10am. As you can see, my profile(s) are very flexible. You would think that as a single, female, nonsmoker who has a *very* flexible schedule that I would be linked up with a carpool in no time.

Wrong!

Two long years.

In those two years I changed my profile many times (trying to figure out whether or not I should tell people that I have MS and may need to take a washroom stop somewhere along the way), had ongoing email contact with the administrator of the site (letting him know the numerous short-comings of the site/ system) and sent dozens and dozens of people messages inviting them to rideshare with me.

Not a single response in two years.

Then, last week, I got a message from a woman who lives about 3 minutes away from my house. She works a few blocks away from me (in the downtown east side). Although her work hours are far earlier than I would *prefer* to work (i.e. 8:30am – 4:30pm, which means waking up at 6am and leaving my house at 7:30am), our routes and schedules are totally compatible.

On Sunday, I met her for tea and we discussed the arrangements. Today was day one of rideshare party. I am hoping that it will work out. We have agreed to try it out for two weeks and see what happens. If, at the end of the two weeks we both feel that it is working, we will continue on.

Here are my thoughts: I am *amazed* that it has taken this long for a possible rideshare to present itself. There were literally 50 people registered on the system that had perfectly compatible routes and schedules to mine. I messaged all of those people – and I am sure that I messaged some of them more than once. Why would people register if they have no intention of making a connection? Is it something that people do to make themselves feel good/ charitable, even if they don’t follow through? What does it take to make rideshare programs workable for people?

I wonder if the ever-rising costs of having a vehicle will be incentive for folks to get into their cars with other people (not to mention environmental and time-saving reasons to carpool). As me and my new carpool buddy noted during the drive to work today, the HOV lane continues to be nearly clear of cars – even at the heart of rush hour.

So, you city-planning savvy people, what gives? What cities have rideshare programs that work? Why? Tell me more!

of montreal ~ aka ironman

It’s true that I have not traveled much since I have had MS. It is also true that I am not someone who really has ever really had ‘the travel bug’. Oh sure, there are places that I have thought about going – but I have never been someone who has been fixated on a destination or who would ever be willing to ‘abandon everything’ and buy a plane ticket. I am too much of a home-body. I am too conservative. I am also too much of a pussy. Honestly.

Aside from Austria, Ireland, random places in the USA and many places of Canada (as far east as Montreal) I have not done much traveling.

It’s funny, a couple of years ago I read a story written by a wheelchair-bound lady who has MS. Her health issues are such that she is able to wheel a wheelchair (which is unusual, in and of itself… most people with that kind of MS-related limited mobility are scooter-bound) and she ‘sometimes’ suffers from fatigue. Yeah. So, she wrote a story about her trip to the Great Wall of China in a publication that is only really read by MS people and their caregivers. She talked about how helpful people were, how they were so surprised by her being there in her wheelchair. At many points in the journey, she had to get people to lift her in her wheelchair so that she could navigate the rough terrain. Despite her not speaking a lick of Chinese, she was able to survive, explore, overcome.

I am very good at extracting the moral from the story.

Disabled people can be your heroes. Hope that helps you sleep better at night.

My disabilities have all but destroyed any plans that I have had to travel.

Invisible disabilities are a bitch, man. Unlike lady-wheelchair, people do not *help* me. In fact, any of the few times that I have requested help (and this tends to come in the form of me asking people if I can use their washrooms, as my MS includes the paralyzing symptom of having ongoing/ unpredictable pee + pooh problems), people have treated me like I was a liar, like I was suspect, like I was asking for a hand-out, like I was deceptive.

People don’t really get to pat themselves on the back for helping or being kind to a person like me. I do not have a wheelchair, cane, braces, scooter, eye patch, or mechanical limbs. There would be no story for them to go home and tell their wife. “Today I helped this girl who looked fine but told me she had MS” just doesn’t have a charitable ring to it.

Sometimes I am exactly like the people around me. Sometimes I am better than them and I can run faster, climb higher, and take on bigger challenges.

There are also times where I am overwhelmed by new surroundings and panicky because I do not know how to provide all the safeguards that I have developed in order to get myself to leave the house every day.

Again, it is a good thing that I promised myself that I would never be anyone’s ‘disabled hero’. Otherwise, I would feel pretty crappy to tell you that I am not even approaching being ready to travel the world and inspire you to get off your ass.

That being said, in a few weeks I am going to Montreal and then to Ottawa. I am scared as hell. If you tell me how courageous I am for trying to ‘overcome my fear of traveling’, I will kick you in the teeth.