Jenni's Page

I've been thinking lately about a lot of my old friends, the ones that I don't see anymore. I guess this is bound to happen when you get older but I miss them!

Many have been lost to early demise but there are others who have simply disappeared, moved away and/or changed phone numbers and aren't on Facebook or otherwise online so I can't find them!

What made me think of these people was getting a Facebook notification that I might know a certain person and sure enough it was someone from the past who has just opened a Facebook account. I was thrilled and friended him right away. He is the male half of a husband and wife team that we were very friendly with up to about 25 years ago. Sadly, he and his wife are no longer together. They have a daughter the same age as our Olivia, so 33 now. We haven't had much contact with him yet - he posted that he had just bought a new iPad and it was doing strange things such as not letting him post and/or changing some things that he'd written. I guess he isn't used to Auto Correct!

Making contact with him also brought up some old baggage that I feel sad about. It's that I may not have treated some people that I cared about very well in the past. I've always prided myself on being a 'nice person' but maybe that was only in a superficial way. I've always tried to be non-judgmental and sympathetic to other peoples' problems but in other ways I think I've let some of my friends down. Self-reflection has led me to believe that sometimes I have 'used' people and not given them very much in return. By that I don't mean by not paying them for things they've done but by neglecting them once they've done something for me. For that I am truly sorry and I wish it had never happened.

I find that I have an aversion to too much closeness, or what I believe that to be. I've never enjoyed things like long phone calls when there is really nothing to talk about, or visiting other peoples' houses when there is nothing to do. I do remember getting together with two other couples every Saturday night before we all had children. We would play euchre, drink wine, eat good food and watch Saturday Night Live back in the day when John Belushi, Gilda Radner and Dan Ackroyd were on the show, among other greats. We made it a regular thing and I enjoyed it because we had specific things to do, the company was enjoyable and we had a set time to go home (when SNL was over).

Now I find I don't much enjoy going out at all - at least I find I have anxiety over the anticipation of going out. I don't like the traveling to get there - mainly I'm scared of the traffic and the way people drive these days, or maybe it's because I've slowed down. But what usually happens is that once I get there I really enjoy being wherever that is. Like yesterday - I took the commuter train into Toronto to meet my sister and brother, to go visit our parents' grave site at the Mount Pleasant Cemetery. Then we went for lunch at a really nice restaurant, The Granite Brewery, which serves English-style pub food. I had an almond-crusted sole fillet with basmati rice and a simple green salad, my sister had a delicious looking shrimp linguine and my brother had his usual - a club house sandwich, but at least he tried the home-brewed beer. We talked, laughed a lot, got a little rowdy (luckily the restaurant wasn't very busy) and thoroughly enjoyed each others' company. It took me right back to our childhoods because we all got along extremely well. Now we're all so busy with our immediate families and hardly see each other anymore although we do keep in touch online or via phone calls.

All in all yesterday was a very enjoyable day although I didn't particularly enjoy the trip down on the train full of Blue Jays fans (it was too crowded and noisy for me) but I made sure to go home before the baseball crowd got out so the trip back was much better. And at least it didn't rain yesterday, the first day in awhile!

I got this from heartofoshun

Two names you go by:

1. Jenni

2. Grandma

Two parts of your heritage:

1. English

2. Dutch

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Unfortunately my husband Eddie has suffered another two cerebral hemorrhages and was in hospital for most of last week (Saturday to Thursday). He's really not doing too well at the moment. The hemorrhagic stroke he had in 2014 wasn't as severe as this one. He may also have a brain aneurysm because there is a third area on his last 2 CT scans that show a suspicious area but it's not quite visible enough to see what it is exactly. He needs an MRI now but that can be done as an outpatient.

Anyway, this has set me back again as far as regular posting goes. I hope to be back soon and becoming more involved in the community.

It's almost time for me to watch my Woodstock DVD again but I can't wait until August 15th so what better time than now? There's only so much time I can waste watching the GOP convention no matter how fascinating it is to see a political machine self destruct.

One of my favourite performers from Woodstock 1969 was Richie Havens. I cannot express how much I love this singer and the way he expresses the words of a song. This isn't from Woodstock but I do love how he interprets Cat Stevens' 'Peace Train'. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

https://youtu.be/3T_bowzT8tw

I've been gone from here for so long it's ridiculous but let's forget all that for now.

I'M FREE!!!! My retirement from work took place a week ago and true to my word I slept for the first week. Now I'm ready to do all the things I enjoy most, including immersing myself once more into LJ and my fandoms.

It was very busy during June. It wasn't the best time to retire. The stress was almost unbearable.

First was Sean's graduation from his public school. I can't believe that high school is only two months away!

Pictures from his grad and my leaving do are below.

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Thanks to all the problems with LJ lately I am behind on reading all your posts. If you've been able to make any.) I'll be catching up with everyone soon. There are lots of stories and things I want to read. :)

Off to work soon and hope everyone has a good day! :)

I've never written about this, and I'll keep it short.

Last Thursday I got a bad scare when I learned that my co-worker of many years had been rushed to hospital with abdominal pains and was awaiting the result of a CT scan. We were on tenterhooks at work, all of us worried as hell. On Firday morning the results came in. They didn't look good. While not knowing exactly what they meant in terms of prognosis, I can tell you that they involved the pancreas, a possible aneurysm and some other stuff that may or may not be important. The past weekend was a long one for us, to celebrate Simcoe Day here in Ontario. We worked only half a day on Friday so I was not able to find out until yesterday when I went back to work how my colleague was feeling. She came in late in the day, and said she felt much better, although she still had some reduced abdo pain and was very tired. She's going to take next week off work. I went home before she could speak to the doctor about her result, and she clearly didn't know anything yet. Today is my day off, so I won't find out until tomorrow what the doctor told her. :(

This is bad enough, but my sister recently had a hip replacement that didn't go too well. She had been suffering from a genetic hip disorder that my mother had, my brother has also, but somehow I escaped. My sister's operation was in the middle of June. During the course of the surgery, while her 'old' hip was being removed, the surgeon managed to fracture the large bone in the same leg - the femur. As a result, she suffered trauma while she was under anesthetic, which resulted in her vomiting in the middle of the surgery but luckily didn't aspirate it, and her blood pressure went sky high. They had to stop the operation halfway through, wire her fractured femur together, try to stablize her blood pressure and some other things, and then continue to replace her hip.

Since then she's had a long recovery time, she cannot bear weight yet on that side of her body, and it's going to be awhile until she can walk again. She's not even an old woman, for crying out loud.

And to make a long story short, I've had very bad luck with friends. Six of my close girlfriends have passed away much too young. The first one was a schoolmate of mine who died in a sky diving accident while in university. She was only 19. The next one died of breast cancer at 25 years of age. After that, another was killed by a truck on her way to work, two had heart attacks and the final one passed away suddenly from an aneurysm.

Seriously, I am glad to be healthy and to have escaped any accident at all so far, but I do not want to lose my sister, my co-worker or any of the friends I have left. Or any of my online friends, who are all very important to me because I really don't have very secure feelings about making new friends in real life.

You know what it really means to be a survivor? It means that you lose everyone that you have loved and it means that you are left alone to carry on.

Today was terribly hot - that flesh-melting, steaming-blob-on-the-pavement kind of hot in which you can do NOTHING but flop down somewhere and stay there for hours not moving at ALL.

I had to work today. Sean wanted me to bring him home a smoothie and a sandwich from Tim Horton's, but I could NOT walk the half-block to Timmy's in this weather at lunch-time. I got him a smoothie from the coffee shop downstairs so I didn't have to go outside, and thank god Eddie went to the grocery store today and bought a fresh baguette, so I was able to make him a sandwich when I got home.

But seriously, we have an indoor-outdoor thermometer which is right now showing 109 degrees F outside and 76 inside. Even the 76 is a bit too much but at least it's not 109! The inside-the-car thermometer was showing 36 C on the way home, which I suppose is the equivalent of near 100 F.

Some of my plants are dying. Everyone's lawn has gone from lush green to dusty brown in the matter of a week. We killed two weird-looking bugs inside the clinic today. That's not good.

But in talking to Olivia on Skype, I discovered that in Lloydminster, Alberta it never gets above 23 C during the day and drops to 5 C at night - perfect sleeping weather. And it stays light outside until almost midnight. And they get the Northern Lights! If anyone doesn't know what the Northern Lights are, here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_(astronomy)



The picture was taken near Edmonton, Alberta, which is near where Olivia is living as well.

So I am good for nothing the rest of the day. I am going to watch some movies, try to eat something although I'm not even hungry, and then go to bed.

Btw, last night I watched an absolute stunner of a movie. It was just excellent, and not the type of thing I usually like (a prison movie) but it was so much more and I thought it was great. It's called 'A Prophet' and here are the details:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1213205-prophet/

And last week I enjoyed another immensely entertaining film called 'Winter in Wartime', about a couple of Dutch kids who rescue a stranded British pilot during WWII. It was not at all depressing, but kept me on the edge of my seat with its amazing suspense. And it was beautifully photographed, as well as starring the incredibly attractive Jamie Campbell Bower as the downed pilot.



Okay, time to soldier on...

Hope everyone is managing to keep cool! :)

Twitter

Someone tweeted the other day: "How does anyone ever get anything fucking DONE?" Another person once told me how to use Twitter when I first opened my account. She said to use it only to get information from/about certain things that interest you. But I've noticed that a lot of people also use it for holding conversations, somewhat akin to texting each other. I find that Twitter works best for me if I check it quickly to find game scores or other news about my teams. Conversations, as long as they are brief, are okay too. But because the tweets update so quickly, it gives me a headache if I stay on it for too long. And it is so easy to get sucked into spending loooong hours on Twitter that prevent you from doing anything else at all!

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Game of Thrones, Season 2, Episode 5

This was the halfway point in the season, and having read through Book Two again, here is what I thought would occur on the show.

WARNING: SPOILERS!

If you haven't read through Book Five in the series, DO NOT read this post!

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I have been in absentia lately for a number of reasons. The Easter weekend was very busy, with family and friends eating up a large part of my time. Also, there's been a nasty stomach bug making the rounds and has all but knocked me out so I've been too tired for anything other than lying on my bed watching TV after coming home from work.

And I've been a lot cheesed off with football. My teams aren't doing particularly well and I've been concerned about corruption in the sport raising its ugly head once again. But I am looking forward to the European Championships this summer, as well as the Olympics.

On TV, Game of Thrones' second season has begun and looks great - the same high quality as the first season. The Borgias' Season Two is about to begin too. And I have become a big fan of Mad Men, a series I had never watched before. But I've spent so much time in watching it the past week that I feel I'm actually living inside the show! LOL.

I've also watched a LOT of movies on Netflix. I prefer independent dramas to the blockbuster stuff, and I can recommend the following movies highly:

Heading South (a film taking place in Haiti), Fish Tank (British), Bride Flight (Dutch), The North Face (German), The Beautiful Person (French), Sidewalls (Argentina), and three films from or about Belgium (Antares, In Bruges and Moscow, Belgium).

Now it's time for me to get caught up with my flist! ♥