A nice walk in the park later, it was back home for Time Tests and Predicted Grades, and although the rain showers put paid to my earlier foray into the garden, the afternoon was pottering along pleasantly. A glass of vinho verde and some chat, a hand or two of poker, ... what next?

The Saturday papers at The Fiery Angel was our next port of call, although this is where our ship foundered:

And now the STORM-BLAST came, and he
Was tyrannous and strong :
He struck with his o'ertaking wings,
And chased us south along.

With sloping masts and dipping prow,
As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe,
And forward bends his head,
The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
The southward aye we fled.

And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold :
And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.

And through the drifts the snowy clifts
Did send a dismal sheen :
Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken--
The ice was all between.

The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around :
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound !

Crackling and growling, roaring and howling, these were not the best moments we've ever shared. Aboard that ship, with our landlubbers legs and our ghosts, we should have known better than to try and sail to port.

Thankfully a little voice suggested sleeping tablets:

Oh sleep ! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole !
To Mary Queen the praise be given !
She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,
That slid into my soul.

This morning, although I am suffering the 'post-sleeping tablet hangover', the world once again seems a happy, sunny place and somehow we've made it to port!

Laying to rest some ghosts of mine...The Man hasn't left me, he even made me coffee this morning! Long may we sail together The Man and Me.

* The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Me? Well, let's put it this way -- I have had this prompt bookmarked for attention for a week ....

Actually, my procrastination follows a pattern and seems to have purpose. It is something I noticed when I was in college. Even if I tried to do a paper early, I just couldn't get my ideas to gel or make sense until the deadline loomed like a major specter over my head. The pressure of having to produce and the mad dash for the deadline seems to be a necessary component for my success.

I had a major paper due for my reading theory class. The paper was worth 50% of my grade and if I didn't pass the class, I couldn't go on to student teaching, which is all I had left of my degree classes. Every night for a week I sat in my bedroom ankle deep in drafts (the semester before I bought my computer) and all I could write was crap.

The assignment was straight forward. I was to describe in my own words the various theories on reading acquisition, then I was to explain my personal thoughts on reading acquisition and the approach I would take with a beginning reader. I tried writing that paper and it was just so stilted and boring. Reading is -- or should be -- exciting and dynamic and interactive. I wanted my paper to be the same.

I sweated through the week writing every single second I had free, and tossing reams off paper -- one sheet at a time -- at my overflowing trash can.  The paper was due Monday.  By Friday the tossed papers were accompanied by tears.  Saturday I wrote and wrote and wrote and finally cranked out a stiff, starched dry, one-paragraph-per-theory (including my personal theory) technically correct paper -- with no personality or soul whatsoever.   Sunday morning I took it to the computer lab and typed it, but I hated it.

Sunday evening, 10 p.m., I crawled into bed, turned out my light, and thought about handing that paper to my reading instructor -- who was about to have her opinion that I was a bright, dynamic, out-of-the-box-thinker changed forever.  A little caricature of a crazy psychiatrist with a horrid and ever changing accent popped into my head, "Vhat did ju vant to zay?" He asked.  "Well,"  I thought in answer.  "First off,  I would explain that  one of the first steps in reading acquisition is the recognition  of environmental print, and that letters have meaning."   And the little psychiatrist asked, "Whad ish  environmedal printz?"

And I hopped out of bed and started writing.  I popped out a five page paper in under an hour.  It dang near wrote itself.  The little psychiatrist poked and prodded and questioned me through every step of language acquisition.  Occasionally throughout the paper I could question him about his  ever changing accent -- which  pulled the whole paper into my final paragraph about the ability of an accomplished reader to read text for meaning even when it is written in a non-standardized manner.

I was at the computer lab at the crack of dawn and typing furiously.  I arrived in class and looked at a few of the papers written by my friends.  They were formal reports, everyone of them.  I'd brought mine formal paper with me, just in case I decided I didn't really want to be cute with an assignment worth 50% of my grade.

My instructor entered the room and asked that the papers be passed forward.  Just because of where my seat was, I was the one that carried the stack to her desk.  As I handed her the papers she said, "I am especially looking forward to reading your paper.  I heard about the speech you gave yesterday in Psych class."

I walked away from her desk scared to death.  My speech had been very formal and by-the-book.  We had been given a very precise outline to follow and were told not to deviate from it.  I hadn't -- but I had seriously deviated from the outline given for this assignment.  I told my friend Robin I didn't think I was going to pass the class.

On Wednesday I entered the room with great trepidation. Shawna, the reading instructor, came straight across the room to me.  Smiling, she said, "I won't be giving that assignment again.  I have never been so bored in my life as I was reading those papers, until I got to yours.  I laughed until I cried.  Oh thank you!  You and that crazy psychiatrist probably saved my sanity. "

What I learned from that incident probably saved my sanity as well.  After that, if a paper wouldn't flow, I didn't try as hard to force it.  Most of my best grades were received for papers written just hours before they were due.  That's how I give sermons and speeches as well.  I study the material.  I make possible outlines and I try out thoughts and ideas, but I don't commit to my course until I have no more leeway.  That always leaves my nerves just a bit on edge and my stomach just a tad upset, which apparently is my most creative condition.

On my resume I have a line that reads, "Works well under stress", but the truth is, I work BEST under stress, but I'd just as soon you not tell my boss that.   Another thing she doesn't need to know is that if things are too easy, they're apt not to get done at all.

It is 10:23 p.m. here in the last inhabited time zone at the end of the world.  Everybody else has passed on to Sunday.  I suppose there are still a couple of hours left for me to spruce this post up and make it better, but since there is no dire consequence attached to assure perfection, I declare this "close enough."

Now:

I woke. OC was still asleep. I left the room quietly so I wouldn't disturb him.

In the living room I read my email, checked my feed reader, and commented on a few blogs. OC slept. I went into the kitchen and emptied the dishwasher. He slept. I got the waffle iron out, mixed up some batter -- from scratch! -- and set the table. OC slept. I mixed some orange juice. He slept.

I returned to the couch, leaned forward to retrieve my laptop from the coffee table, and looked up to see an intruder come through the lanai door. OC slept.

I stared at the intruder in terror and thought briefly about screaming, but that's too much drama even for me. Instead I lept from the couch, dashed to the kitchen, grabbed the bug spray, and blasted the intruder with at least a half a cup! The intruder writhed on the floor in agony. OC still slept!

I grabbed a piece of old newspaper and bundled the intruder up in it, squeezing until I was certain it was well and truly dead. OC slept.

Having vanquished the intruder, I headed to the bathroom for a well deserved shower. OC slept. However, when I emerged from the bathroom, he was awake and ready to start the day. He was overjoyed to see the waffle iron out. I plugged it in and took the condiments from the fridge. OC sat on the couch and opened his lap top.

I said, "We had an intruder this morning."

OC looked up with great concern. "Who? Wha--"

"A centipede," I said.

OC looked around. "Where?"

I pointed at the can of bug spray. "I murdered it."

"Oh," OC said. His attention returned to his laptop.

"It tried to murder me," I said. "And you slept right through it!"

OC grunted.

"Hey," I said. "It could have killed me. You'd have come out here and found my dead body on the floor and the centipede doing high kicks on my nose."

OC looked up from his computer, raised his eye brows and said, "Right."

"You are the hero," I said. "It's your job to save me. You're not supposed to be asleep when I am in mortal peril."

"Uh-huh," he answered, eyes still on his computer.

"Don't you have anything to say for yourself?" I queried.

"When's breakfast?" He asked hopefully.

* * *

Happy Anniversary, OC. I love you. Aren't you glad to have me?

When I moved to the US and used the term to HL he seemed entirely ignorant of the concept of 'ashfelt', and I had to explain to him what I was talking about. Once he grasped what I meant he laughed at me, long and heartily, that we could be so silly as to pronounce the word 'asphalt' as 'ashfelt', not 'ass fault'. "But you're adding an extra 'h' where there isn't one," he said incredulously, "it just sounds silly".

And yes, he was right, it does sound silly. So I now pronounce it 'ass fault'.

Tonight I was watching Can We Help? , and the 'Wise Words' segment dealt with this exact question - why do we mispronounce 'asphalt'? Apparently it has something to do with the British propensity for turning foreign, unfamiliar words into something that sounds more like a word that might exist in English - so the Latin 'asphalton' becomes the pedestrian 'ash felt'.

Huh...so I guess the playground 'correction' wasn't so helpful and enlightening as I first thought it to be. Turns out I was given the lazy and uninspired version of a much better sounding word. And, in hindsight, 'bitumen' is actually a much more interesting term. There's so much to unlearn from childhood...

Sur la route de Berthier Montréal Châteauguay Longueuil Hemmingford !

Tout d'abord, un petit mot sur le trajet d'aller. Une des affaires amusantes avec le fait de voyager au Québec, c'est l'incroyable nombre d'arbres de rochers de zones de travaux routiers qu'on peut croiser. Alors, informations pour tous ceux qui comptent prendre l'autoroute 10 au cours des prochaines semaines : il y a au moins 3 à 4 zones de travaux entre Montréal et Sherbrooke, dont une, plutôt longue à la hauteur de Marieville où ils refont 2 viaducs donc... Mais bon, ce n'était pas trop grave. En fait, le gros problème, ça a été les maudites bretelles routières. C'est que, voyez-vous, on n'a pas pris de chances, avec Google Maps qui nous a fait un bel itinéraire, on a même agrandi les bouts qui nous semblaient "problématiques", les bretelles à prendre pour prendre les bonnes autoroutes. Or, Google Maps aura beau être efficace, il ne peut démontrer à quel point dans la région métropolitaine les maudites bretelles sont mal indiquées et on apprend TOUJOURS trop tard qu'il fallait tourner là ou là. Bon, je sais, les Montréalais vont se foutre de ma gueule: "Ah franchement ! Ça prend ben du monde des régions pour rater ça, petit monde de campagne, gna gna gna gna gna !" Peut-être, mais quand beaucoup de monde disent que c'est mal indiqué (car pas la première fois que j'entends et je m'aperçois que c'est l'enfer prendre une autoroute dans le coin), faudrait peut-être s'y attarder, non ? Bon, bref, après un détour de 10 minutes pour cause de sortie manquée, on a finalement atteint le chemin voulu et continué notre route.

Vol au-dessus d'un troupeau de coucous

Bon, passons au circuit de safari. Bon, en fait, je vais rectifier 2 ou 3 affaires que j'ai dites: premièrement, on peut nourrir les animaux, mais avec des bouboules de grains spéciaux qu'ils nous vendent ou des carottes. Deuxièmement, on peut ouvrir les portes des Caravan , mais il faut pas être pratiquement sortis du véhicule (ce que les enfants de mon anecdote n'avaient pas écouté). D'ailleurs, le fait de nourrir les "bebêtes" causent un problème: tout le monde veut nourrir tel ou tel animal. Donc, des fois, il se fait des bouchons incroyables. Mais bon, on a quand même acheté 2 boîtes de bouffe au cas où... Finalement, elles ont servies. En fait, même, je dirais que cette abondance de nourriture, cette chaleur et toutes ces photographies rendent les animaux fous. Comme par exemple ces buffles africains qui accouraient pour je ne sais quelle raison...

ON MANGE DE LA FONDUE ! ON MANGE DE LA FONDUE !

Il y avait aussi des autruches divas...

Non, merci, il est hors de question que je sorte des herbes... mon maquillage n'est pas prêt !

Le 11 septembre 2001 aura affecté tout le monde, au point qu'au Parc Safari, ils ont engagé des buffles Ankole-Watussi pour faire la sécurité...

Que j'en vois un essayer de mettre le feu à sa chaussure, j'encorne son beau char neuf !

N'empêche que cette "police animale" n'aura pu arrêter quelques prostituées bovines plutôt entreprenantes...

Je te meuh tellement fort ! 5 bouboules de grains mon grand et je te fais tout ce que tu veux...

De plus, je me sentais comme dans certains quartiers de Montréal ou Paris avec tous ces zèbres sans-abri qui quêtaient de la nourriture ou de l'argent...

Hé man, à part ta carotte, as-tu 30 sous pour que je me cherche un café ?

Sans blague, on s'était fait dire de ne pas les nourrir car les zèbres peuvent mordre, mais bon, il y a toujours des délinquants ! ;)

Le lama qui m'aimait

Bon, en continuant sur le chemin du safari, on était un peu "découragés" d'avoir acheté 2 boîtes de bouffe alors qu'on avait même pas tout à fait finie la première. Puis, sont arrivés des daims qui ont apprécié la fin de la première boîte. Mais bon, il en restait une complète. C'est alors que la vie a mis sur notre chemin, le lama que j'appellerai affectueusement Chose...

(à lire avec un ton suave amoureux) Voilà Chose qui me regarde (ça ne paraît pas mais il me regardait). Ses yeux disent "tu es beau toi" et sa bouche dit "j'ai faim clisse". C'est alors qu'il s'approche langoureusement, essayant de me séduire avec sa démarche de lama. Bon, ça marche plus ou moins parce que j'ai en tête Tintin qui se fait cracher au visage, mais... je laisse tout de même Chose approcher. C'est alors qu'il baisse la tête, apercevant ma main pleine de bouboules de bons grains pour sa santé. "Tu en veux ?" lui demandai-je en m'allumant nonchalamment une cigarette un cigare rien, je ne fume pas, j'essayais juste de rendre ça sensuel un peu. Il ne répondit rien, mais je compris tout dans son regard. Il plongea sa bouche dans ma main et croqua toutes les bouboules. Il en voulait encore le bougre. Il était prêt à ce qu'on aille encore plus loin. J'enlevai mon t-shirt qui laissa paraître mes muscles (imaginaires) et je versai, en sueur, dans ma main ces bouboules qu'il aimait tant. Il en voulait encore. Mais bientôt, il allait finir la boîte. Je ne voulais pas que tout finisse, lui non plus. Mais il avait tant besoin de la bouffe. Il passa proche de me rouler une pelle pour en avoir d'autres. Je versai donc la fin de la boîte dans ma main. Nos yeux brouillés par les larmes se croisèrent. Je tentai de le retenir dans son élan. Mais Chose était un amant passionné. Il me fit un clin d'oeil et finit les bouboules. C'était la fin. Chose était repu et je devais partir. Mais alors que je devais lui faire mes adieux, c'est lui qui quitta, incapable de me dire adieu.

(arrêtez la lecture langoureuse ici) HÉ WÔ ! Comment je suis embarqué dans un délire sensuel avec UN LAMA ?!!! Tout ce qu'il a fait c'est bouffer pratiquement tout une boîte de bouboules à lui tout seul et passer proche de me rouler une pelle alors qu'il voulait pratiquement entrer dans la voiture pour que je continue à lui en donner ! Bref, c'était mon aventure avec le lama entreprenant et gourmand.

Finalement, vers la fin du parcours, on a croisé mes amis les bisons qui étaient eux aussi entreprenants (mais là, on n'avait plus de bouffe et on s'entend qu'il fallait pratiquement fermer les fenêtres pour pas qu'ils mettent leurs grosses têtes dans la voiture...). Mais, oh que c'était mignon, il y avait plusieurs bisonneaux (bébés bisons) dont celui-ci. Attention les filles et les gars, c'est le temps de crier...

Y ES-TU CCCCUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTTTTTTEEEE !

La Mère Thérésa des ours

Puis, nous avons dîné et d'ailleurs, alors qu'on avait une belle vue de l'entrée du parc à pied, moi qui ai joué à beaucoup de jeux de gestion comme Zoo Tycoon, je m'imaginais le gestionnaire omnipotent comme dans les jeux qui voient tout en isométrie 3D, qui voient les animaux bouger, les manèges, les gens, qui a une barre en bas où il voit l'argent monter... Ça, c'était une pensée de "geek". Puis, nous sommes entrés dans le parc et dirigés vers là où se situaient encore quelques animaux. On y a vu des chimpanzés, un mara (un genre gros rongeur proche d'un lièvre qui se trouve en Argentine), des macaques japonais, des loups arctiques, un cerval, des hyènes et des félins, entre autres. Évidemment, pour beaucoup de ces animaux, la chaleur et le soleil intense faisait qu'ils n'étaient pas beaucoup actifs, sauf l'immense groupe de macaques japonais qui étaient tordants, qui grimpaient et jouaient même sur une planche qui faisait presque office de plongeoir au-dessus de l'eau... :P Il y avait les loups qui bougeaient un peu quand on est passé. Mais mon coup de coeur, ce fut les ours noirs. Il y en avait 6 dans l'enclos (c'est rare ça, les ours ne sont pas reconnus pour être très grégaires), mais ils s'entendaient bien. Quand on est arrivé, ils étaient comme ça...

Mais, nous étions proches d'une collation. En effet, ils surveillent le poids des ours pour ne pas qu'ils prennent trop de poids (surtout qu'en captivité, quand tu n'as pas à marcher des kilomètres pour trouver de la bouffe, tu prends vite du poids...). Ainsi, à la collation, nous étions invités à leur lancer (pas sur eux mais dans l'enclos) des fruits et légumes frais, préparés par les zoologistes. Aussitôt, dès que les premiers fruits et légumes tombèrent, les ours se levèrent...

Ainsi, je me suis senti en phase avec les gros nounours : un est allé chercher les deux morceaux de pommes que j'avais lancé, aucune des bêtes ne fut attiré par les poivrons vraiment (sauf ce qui semblait être le mâle dominant) et puis, pour un, il n'a même pas eu besoin de se lever, je lui ai pratiquement offert le petit déjeuner au lit. Je m'explique. Je prends un kiwi et je me rends compte que la plupart du monde ont oublié 3 ours qui dormaient dans le coin droit de l'enclos. J'enclenche donc un mouvement de masse en me dirigeant vers la droite de l'enclos pour nourrir les 3 "oubliés". Un fruit tombe et un des ours se lève pour l'attraper. Quant à moi, je me dis qu'il faut que j'envoie mon kiwi, dernier fruit que j'avais pris dans la chaudière, proche des bêtes. Je lance de toute mes forces et il tombe juste sous le nez d'un des deux autres qui dormaient (voir le premier ours en haut de la première photo des ours). Il ouvrit les yeux, vit le kiwi à sa portée, mangea le fruit et retourna à sa sieste. Puis vinrent d'autres fruits pour les deux autres qu'ils mangèrent. À ce moment, je me sentis comme un missionnaire qui avait contribué à ce que ces ours ne meurent pas de faim. ;) On assista ensuite à la collation des lions et des hyènes pas longtemps après et ce fut là aussi très instructif et plaisant. Mais là, je ne montrerai pas toutes les photos, le billet se fait déjà assez long !

Alexandre le petit

Puis, nous visitâmes un charmant petit jardin avec quelques oiseaux, un sentier où l'on pouvait marcher parmi les chevreuils (ou les Bambis comme disent les enfants). En revenant sur nos pas, nous prîmes un autre chemin et tombâmes sur un éléphant qui faisait faire des promenades. Ma mère me proposa de le faire. Au départ, je n'étais pas d'accord : premièrement, l'animal n'avait pas l'air très heureux et deuxièmement, c'était une arnaque pure et simple: 7$/personne pour un tour qui dure même pas 100m... Sauf qu'effectivement, c'était une occasion qui n'allait se produire qu'une fois ou presque dans une vie et bon, après avoir parlé avec des gardiens qui m'ont assuré que cette femelle de 40 ans avait une vie de reine. En tout cas, s'ils ont été vraiment honnêtes... euh... elle est presque traitée comme un chien domestique, adorée par son entraîneur avec qui ELLE COUCHE (oui, oui, ils dorment dans la même place !), elle se fait offrir toutes sortes de bouffe vraiment cochonnes, et il paraît que quand elle a revu son entraîneur ce matin-là qui revenait d'une période dans un autre zoo, elle l'a pris avec sa trompe et l'enlaçant et en barissant... En tout cas, je l'ai vu boire avec sa trompe qui empoignait un boyau d'arrosage qu'elle mettait dans sa bouche... J'avoue que là, elle semblait tripper. Alors, tant pis si c'est de l'arnaque, on y va. Là, c'est là que je déteste le fait d'avoir d'être petit et d'avoir des petites jambes, ça a été un exploit quasiment de grimper dessus et j'ai eu un peu la sensation avant qu'elle parte de faire la split... Mais bon, une fois démarrée, ça bien été. C'est fou, malgré qu'on était sur une genre de "bâche" (tissu) fait pour le dos de la bête, on sentait toute la colonne vertébrale bouger et la manière dont les pattes se mouvent. Je ne regarderai plus jamais un documentaire sur des éléphants de la même façon... En tout cas, malgré le coût exorbitant, ça valait la peine, j'avoue. Je me suis senti comme Alexandre le Grand (mais pas grand) aux Indes. Par contre, pas certain que je passerais des heures là-dessus... Puis, pour sortir, ça a été aussi le calvaire. Vraiment, les éléphants ne sont pas faits pour les petits. ;)

Puis vint le soleil couchant...

Nous nous promenâmes un peu en revenant, prenant une boisson fraîche pour se réhydrater de cette journée belle, mais chaude. Nous passâmes même par les manèges qui, bien qu'on était très loin d'un vrai parc d'attractions avec manèges à sensation, nous firent beaucoup rire. Nous passâmes par l'immanquable boutique de souvenirs où j'ai même peut-être trouvé un futur collaborateur au blogue... ;) C'est bien, d'ailleurs, avec les achats, ils donnent gratuitement un sac de tissu réutilisable à l'effigie du parc. :) Puis, comme le roi des animaux sur cette photo, fatigués par le soleil et la chaleur, on quitta le parc, la tête pleine de souvenirs et de beaux moments. :)

Sans compter que plus tard, après avoir encore une fois manquée une bretelle dans la région montréalaise, on allait manger un bon repas sur la route du retour la maison.

Fin

P.S.: Évidemment, je n'ai pas montré TOUTES les photos (il y en plus de 160 dont à peu près 120 sont consacrées aux bêtes), ça prendrait trop de temps et de place. Le but était de vous donner une idée globale de la journée. En espérant que vous ayez apprécié !

1. Zinedine Zidane - After all, Gonzales in "Le Peste" is an attacking mid, and a man named Zidane leading France to glory surely would have warmed his heart.
2. Senegal beating France in the '02 World Cup - and French players trading hugs and jerseys with the victorious former colony.
3. The '98 World Cup - all of it (well, maybe not the USA matches)
4. Sam Shephard plays
5. Phillippe Gaillard, who seems  a real life Dr. Rieux, who in turn was allegedly based loosely upon Andre Trocme.
6. Patrick Stewart's The Tempest - the hottest ticket in New York during the summer of 1995.
7. Gabriel Garcia-Marquez Novels
8. The European Union
9. The arrests of Augusto Pinochet and Slobodan Milosevic
10. The Truth and Reconciliation Committee

Hier soir, malgré un mal de tête dû à la chaleur, le soleil intense (une chance que je portais une casquette) et un peu des aléas de la déshydratation (bien qu'on ait bu comme des chameaux déshydratés... qui peuvent boire 130 litres d'eau en 10 minutes ! Vive les zoos où on apprend plein de trucs "insolites" qui servent pas à grand chose sinon la culture générale !), je suis allé voir les billets de ma blogosphère. Puis, en allant sur le célèbre petit nombril, je vois aussi que la thématique de sa BD est zoologique: une visite au Zoo de Granby avec son ami, aussi blogueur, Patrick. En effet, le webmestre du Blog plein de fautes (c'est le nom du blogue) qui parle de vélo, de sa petite famille, de musique, de cinéma et de zombies (!!!) a tout fait pour que son ami Pascal fasse une BD de moments cocasses provoqués par celui-ci. Sauf que ce n'est pas ça qui m'a marqué. C'est que Patrick (appelons-le par son prénom puisqu'on le sait) a parlé de cette visite dimanche dernier et a mis une photo de lui (à gauche) avec... mais qui est ce jeune homme à droite ? LE PETIT NOMBRIL ?!!! Là, faites l'exercice que j'ai fait: mettez une BD du petit nombril dans un onglet et la photo de Patrick et Pascal dans un autre et alternez sans arrêt pendant quelques instants. Si je me sentais déjà en lendemain de veille, là, c'était le comble ! :P

À Patrick, je remercie cette photo digne d'entrer dans les annales. :P Et un bon texte aussi, bonne plume, bon humour... (reniflements) Sentirai-je un nouveau membre de la Communauté du Blog ? À suivre... Quant à toi Pascal, merci pour cette bonne BD hier et aussi pour ta générosité de temps envers "tu-sais-quoi" ;) . Et désolé, de te dire ce qu'on t'a dit 1000 fois auparavant, mais Dieu que tu as l'air plus jeune en vrai que dans tes BDs. Là, je peux confirmer ! :P

Restez à "l'encoute" (j'aime dire ça de même), un compte-rendu de mon aventure à la Steve Irwin (comme l'a dit si bien le Médiateur Farceur) très prochainement...

I went to bed the night previously feeling not great, with a lot of pain in my neck and shoulder that painkillers just didn't seem to be having any effect on. I did manage to get to sleep, and slept soundly till 5 minutes past midnight, at which point I woke, fairly abruptly, to a horrible and pressing and tight pain in my chest.

After walking around the house for 5 minutes and feeling like I wanted to pass out, and as though I could barely take a breath, it occurred to me that perhaps there might be something seriously wrong. The pain didn't feel like anything I'd felt before; it was a very high, flat and horizontal pain up under the ribcage.

I went back into the bedroom, and said to a now very awake HL, "I feel wrong...I'm not right...there's something not right. I think I need to go to the hospital." I took some aspirin and we threw on some clothes and jumped in the car. Once we were driving I felt like I might faint from the pain and the shortness of breath before we even got to the hospital. 

On the way I wasn't able to decide if I would prefer it if the doctor told me I was fine and that there was nothing really wrong, or if I really was having a heart attack, or something similar (which seems ridiculous, in hindsight). We drove towards the hospital and I tried to direct HL to the Emergency entrance - which is silly, as he's a taxi-driver and they know everything, and he told me as much: "I know where Emergency is...".

We pulled in and I got out at the front entrance, while he went to park. Fortunately, there was nobody else in the Emergency waiting room so I went straight up to the window and, breathlessly, tried to explain that "I'm sure I'm fine, but I'm having chest pains, and I can't breathe, and I just want to make sure that I'm fine." She then asked me to fill out a form... Well, I could barely pull the Medicare card out of my wallet, let alone figure out what the form was asking me, so I struggled for a second and then she took it from me and indicated that HL could fill it out.

Someone (not sure who, it was a bit blurry) ushered me in to the ER and directed me to a bed. I lay down and then there were two people bustling around, putting a gown on me, wheeling in an ECG machine, sticking monitors all over my chest and on both ankles and wrists. I remember apologising and saying that I knew it was nothing, but it felt different than any other pain and I wanted to be careful, and, sorry for bothering them.

The machine was doin' its thing for a few minutes and then they unplugged me and the nurse said that the heart functions seemed normal, but she would get the doctor to come and see me. The pain hadn't subsided at all by this time; it was still very heavy and pushing on my chest, and I still was finding it very hard to breathe, but it was a relief that death didn't seem to be imminent.

The doctor came in a few minutes later and asked lots of questions about what the pain felt like, what my lifestyle was like, and etc., and confirmed that the results indicated that it wasn't a heart attack, but they would take another reading in 10 minutes just to be sure.

The 2nd reading was the same as the first, and so they let me go. They offered pain medication, which I declined. They said that they weren't sure what was wrong with me, but that it definitely wasn't a heart attack. Towards the end of my visit a man came in who actually did seem to be having a heart attack so it was all very quiet at the front desk as we left, with all the staff focused on the very unwell man.

It was an odd drive home. I was very relieved to be fine, but feeling a bit silly and tired and guilty for dragging HL out in the middle of the night, especially knowing that he had to get up at 6.15 the next morning. I was still very much in pain and breathing was still difficult, but it started to subside on the drive home.

I threw up a few times when we got home, probably more from nervousness than anything, and then fell into bed and had a fitful sleep. I felt much better when I got up in the morning, and haven't felt that pain since, so the mystery remains. It wasn't anything like indigestion (I've had that, so I know what it feels like), so, who knows?

In the bright sunshinieness of the next day it all seemed/seems faintly foolish and surreal and dream-like. It was a very odd experience. I'm not usually a rush-to-the-hospital-in-the-middle-of-the-night type of person, and I cope with pain pretty stoically, so I know that the pain and the breathlessness and the feeling of 'not-rightness' was very real. Even though I felt/feel embarrassed I was/am very grateful that it wasn't serious.

I'm certainly not afraid of dying but I am afraid of not only feeling grief, but of causing it. I remember standing in the loungeroom feeling awful, and thinking that it would be ridiculous if I died purely because I felt too silly to go to the hospital. I had a vision of HL coming home from the hospital and realising that he was alone and that he would have to pack up our lives and probably move home to the US. It was not a good feeling.

I know that, as Christians, we are not alone, and that, ultimately, eternally, it will 'be ok', but sometimes God feels very far away, and our fear and grief and pain feel like the only real thing. Last night though (the night after the early morning/middle of the night ride to the emergency room) God used this to tap me on the shoulder. But more about that soon.

I blame Matt?

Sounds like I have a new expletive to add to my dictionary.

Ok. That's a lot of blogs. How the hell am I supposed to read all those? Oh well. Let's hope the majority of them are accessible from work. Heh, I just found out how to run firefox from an external drive, which neatly bypasses all security because it was all designed for internet explorer... this company I work for really isn't that intelligent.

Also, it would appear we have a critical lack of shaman blogs.

OLIVETA. GET OFF YOUR ASS AND BLOG, DAMMIT! There's like, 8 shammy blogs out there. EIGHT! Not even a two digit number!

Finally got around to watching Iron Man. I have never regretted not seeing a movie sooner ever before in my life. Can they do that ending thing with more superhero movies? It really would make them better if they were more intertwined... like the comic books?

Watched the Diablo III game play video. It was pretty awesome, and then... and then something glorious happened. The Witch Doctor tossed a fireball, and as he did, he said "Alleoup" (allezoop? alleyoop? Spellchecker says "Allentown", I don't think that's right). Right then and there, I figured that there would never, ever be something as friggin' awesome as that was.

And then the voice over dude said "have you ever seen... a wall of zombies?"

Right about there was when my awesome meter broke. It's still in repair. The awesome mechanics at the awesome shop says it might take a while, after all, it's hard to fix awesome when it's this awesome.

To fill out my nerd cred, yes, I do play D&D. I play a dwarf monk. He punches people. Very hard. Or bears. He also has witty lines such as:

"Hey guys, should I be concerned about bears? Guys?"

*The rest of the party is capable of stealthing/turning invisible*

*One of the bears attacks my monk*

"Ok, be concerned about the bears. Thanks for the heads up."

And just an eff why eye, I have the coolest names EVER for EVERYTHING.

My monk's name is "Cricket Sloat."

Go on. Try it on. Wouldn't you be a better person if your name was Cricket Sloat? Of course you would.

The installer for Age of Conan says "This might take a long time." It suuuure is!

Did you know you can play a BEAR SHAMAN? Thats right. A SHAMAN OF BEARS. I simply cannot see how this can possibly go wrong.

I just jinxed it, didn't I?

I went to Safeway to get myself some ham. Upfront, serving me the ham, is this huge tough looking guy, got tattoos of motorcycles and such. In the back, ripping apart dead chickens to get the meat, is this scrawny girl, no older than 16. She doesn't even have ear piercings. Something ain't right here.

The idea of a female Tauren Deathknight. I shall namer her "Susie".

Well, the good news is, enough Mangoes already littered the ground that there were plenty for me to gather up, bring into the house and feast upon. Mangoes are very pulpy -- at least the kind that grow in our yard are -- and they are very juicy. I eat mango while standing over the sink. What's a little stickiness when one is munching on sweet, yummy mango?

Those of you who have been around awhile might recognize a quote from OC written on my blog about a year ago, as we were preparing to move to Hawaii.

No, I haven’t eaten one. I ain’t even touchin‘ ’em. The mango tree belongs to the poison ivy family, for crying out loud. Yes it does. For me to eat a mango, would really be a rash act.

I quite happily told OC that, members of the Poison Ivy League or not, mangoes didn't bother me. That turned out to be a rash proclamation. It seems that an occasional mango is fine, but indulging in them everyday is not.

I'd gathered an armful of mangoes and brought them into the house, where I proceeded to eat them, one or two at a time every day for three days. The evening of the third day I said to OC, my face really hurts and it's all sore and chapped feeling. OC looked at me and said, "You have a rash around your mouth."

I immediately looked down at my plate in concern. (We were eating out when the conversation occurred.) I said, "There's nothing on my plate I haven't eaten before." He said, "I noticed the rash when you picked me up from the boat."

I said, "You know, my arms really itch, too." I showed him the angry red stripes (for want of a better word) on my forearms. OC looked at them, turning my arms this way and that and then queried. "Have you been eating mangoes?"

"Well, yes," I said. "But --"

"Those look like juice streaks," he said, pointing at my arms. "You might want to lay off on the mangoes for awhile."

Yeah. A looooong while.

]]> http://blahblahblahger.wordpress.com/?p=77 Tue, 01 Jul 2008 05:00:58 +0000 blahblahblahger http://blahblahblahger.wordpress.com/?p=77

What were you in your past life?

You were ... a slave.

'What were you in your past life?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Je pense que je n'ai pas à m'inquiéter d'éventuels bébés!

-Bonjour, Est-ce que vos sous-marins se font avec du pain brun?

-Heeuu, non madame.

-Bon ok, jvais continuer à regarder le menu...

Entendu par moi-même, à la CANTINE DE LA GARE.

Thing one: "Swallaby Swoop was a BAD badger!"
Shoshanna came to me and told me this with exactly that much context one morning. She's been pretending a lot about a group of badgers, I have no idea why.

Thing two: Saturday morning, Shoshanna decided she wanted different cereal than the one that was in her bowl. I told her that she had to finish what she had (all of three bites) before she got a different kind. The conversation went like this:

At which point all the adults present (M, me, and Grandma) completely lost it. Because she was REQUESTING things mid-tantrum. (She did finish the cereal and get the frosted mini-wheats that she wanted so badly.)

Thing three: Yesterday as we were driving home, Shoshanna was pretending to write e-mails to her pretend friend Shoshanna (who was new for this game... lately her invisible friends are nearly always Dora and Boots). She "sent" one and then said sadly, "But she's not there so I can't talk to her right now." We explained that the nice thing about e-mail is that her friend can read it when she gets home - it will be there waiting for her. Two seconds later, "She wrote me back!" Us: "What did she say?" "Hi Shoshanna. Do you want to come play at my house? Ok! We will have fun! But I can't come play right now because I'm not there. OK, you will come later. Bye."

HL: Whore!

Me: WHAAAT?! What you call me?

HL: ummm...I called you Hu Or...it's Chinese for 'lovely, gentle, forgiving wife who is shining like the sun'

Me: uh huh

So me and my father went to Dairy Queen (if you don't know, it's a large fast food chain, specializing in ice cream products) to get some of those newfangled chocolate covered waffle bowl things.

We placed our order, and as the cashier was ringing it up, dear ol' dad asked the fateful question: "Are they dipped in chocolate?" and the cashier responed with "Oh, I'm sorry, we don't actually have any chocolate covered ones, the machine broke".

Good job, Mr. Minimum Wage. Perhaps you could have told us that before dad was handing you his debit card.

So we went with regular sundaes instead. No sense in paying an extra $2 per... uhm... desert thingy, when they weren't even going to have chocolate on them.

Then it went downhill. Quickly. Painfully.

There was this one girl, walked up to the Blizzard machine. Put a cup under it, pulled the lever, and the machine made a sound like a near empty whipped cream spray can, except much louder. And splattered ice cream like substance all over the floor and this girl.

What we quickly ascertained to be the manager on duty, judging by the aura of confidence and competence (who shall henceforth be referred to as Manager Woman) came by and said to use the drive through machine, this one was obviously nearly empty.

So this girl leaves, and comes back a few seconds later with a fistful of paper towel, squats down, and starts wiping. I say "Guess they don't have a mop". The manager person, as if one cue, says "use the mop", so the girl, tosses the paper towel, and grabs the mop... which is precisely a forearms' reach away from where this girl is. So she mops, and gets back on duty.

My dad laughs, and I say "Spoke too soon".

25 seconds later, a young lad walks by and slips on the freshly mopped floor. Betcha didn't see that one coming.

About this time, an order of onion rings and some spicy chicken thing is placed in the outgoing food dispenser rack... thing. Can you tell I've never worked in one of these places? I'll get back to the onion rings.

So me and my dad are waiting, to see what happens next, out of morbid curiosity.

The girl who just tried making a blizzard with the near empty machine walks over with a new cup and tries to use it again. Same result, ice cream stuff everywhere, a total mess. Manager Woman said "Don't use that machine, use the drive through one".

Hold up a sec. Didn't she just say that? 40 seconds ago? To the same person?

Manager Woman... I'd like to say walked, as that is technically what she was doing, but it was more like swiftly striding in a manner that says "I can and will &*^@ you up". Anyways, she moves over to help out with the desert people, and within a few seconds says "Whoever is making the banana splits, please remember to peel them first."

At this point, my brain started packing its bags.

So we stood and watched. Father and son, awaiting our order, watching total chaos express itself as a fat... err, fast food joint. Ok, sorry, that was horrible. To be fair, everyone in line was either fit, sweaty, and ready for some ice cream after a nice day of summer, or had three or four little kids in tow who adored the very idea of anything that contains sugar within any geometrical object.

We watched a girl make a sundae, and, finding it was leaning over to one side, ran her finger around it to straighten it up. She then licked off her finger, wiped it on her jeans (specifically, the ass part of her jeans) and moved on to the next sundae.

We watched a guy make a sundae, and, finding it was leaning over to one side, hold it sideways so it would straighten due to gravity. It fell on the floor. I'm betting someone slipped on that too.

The people standing in line behind us, a young, athletic looking couple, were exchanging horrified looks at this point. The man said "Walk away. Walk away quickly. Don't make eye contact" and they left.

Approximately ten minutes have passed. We get our order (we watched it carefully, nothing worse than someone who appears to have never even seen whipped cream before was visited upon our deserts), and start to leave.

The order of onion rings and the chicken stuff was still sitting there. It looked rather lonely.

So whenever you find yourself angry at what incompetence you perceive Blizzard to have, whether it be their billing department, account management, whatever, just remember that you could have gotten an idiot who didn't know that you had to peel bananas before eating them.

You could have had a nitwit helping you. Instead, you have an educated nitwit helping you.

Heh, I tied that with WoW rather nicely.

Stay tuned, I'm going to try connecting public transportation and toasters to WoW next.

Very early this morning,after I had a breakfast prepared by my lovely charming hubby...(the fried mee was soo yummylicious together with keropok goreng)..we both went strolling down the hill headed to pasar presint 8...tis was our first time going enviroment friendly (we literally walk)...we bought a few stuff that cost me a bomb i can hardly believe it myself..my hubby got mad because i didn't ask the salesman to recount our stuff..my best excuse was just...i was so shocked i almost did not utter a word about it...

the item bought :

1. 3 tomatoes
2. 1 capsicum
3. 2 packet of mee
4. 1 packet of kuey teow
5. lemongrass
6. daun limau
7. cabbage(half)
8. 1 packet of fish cake

GUESS HOW MUCH IT COST ME???!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TOTAL : RM 15!!!!

[Clang. Clatter.]

"Ouch!" She yelled, then added, "I am out here in the kitchen poking holes in myself with sharp objects."

He sat on the couch watching the baseball game and didn't look up. "That isn't an activity I would recommend," he said.

"There is blood leaking out of me," she said.

"You've proven my point," he said, still without looking up.

"Hrumph!" She grumbled, and wrapped a bit of paper towel around her thumb and went on about her work.

Later, she sat beside him on the couch and reached for her laptop. She had removed the paper towel and washed and dried her hand, noting nothing amiss; but with just a bit of typing, the cut on her thumb reopened. "Look," she said, shoving her hand in his face, "Blood!"

He glanced at her thumb, gave her that look over the top of his glasses and said, "Get a Band-Aid."

She looked at him in a perplexed kind of "thinking it over" sort of way and queried, "Band-Aid?"

"That is what most people do when they have a cut," he answered.

"But --" she waved her finger for maximum blood display, "-- if I cover it up with a Band-Aid, how will I get any sympathy? Not," she said pointedly, "that I am getting much sympathy as it is."

He smirked at her and said, "I don't know why but there is a Band-Aid on the piano. Get it and paste it on your hand."

She said, "I am waiting for sympathy."

He said, "You can put the Band-Aid on so you'll have something to do while you wait."

The murmuring began about 5 minutes before the movie was supposed to begin, and grew into muttering and nervous giggles at 5 minutes past scheduled time, until, at 15 minutes past, when we had originally thought we would be sitting inside with our popcorn and choctops and Diet Cokes, there was a feeling of growing crowd-crushing hysteria and, somewhat edgy, supposition as to what could be holding them up.

At first people thought that the staff were simply incredibly stupid and had forgotten to open the door - there seemed to be no logic in letting hordes of people congregate outside when we could all be out of their way and comfortably seated. As time went on though, it was obvious that this could not be the case, and so we concluded that some dolt had been unable to figure out when the previous movie would end and schedule the next screening accordingly.

Finally the exit door opened, people streamed out and we were allowed to go in. Fortunately, from this time on things got (mostly) better. We were able to settle into good seats - in the middle, towards the front, with foot-rests and no-one in front of us (yay!) - and wait.

As the lights were going down a lady scrambled over and sat in the seat next to me. My tension level immediately rose a notch. Theatre showings are rarely full here, so you mostly don't have sit next to anyone but the people you've gone with. Consequently, the people that one fights with for the arm-rest tend to be friends/family, so when a stranger sits next to one, one hardly knows what 'correct procedure' is...

Being very much a 'movie-enjoyer', and quite detail-oriented, and, let's face it, pretty selfish, I like to be comfortable and have everything 'just so' when I sit down to watch a movie (I'm SO fun!). It's bad enough to have to figure out which bit of the arm-rest belongs to HL and which bit is mine, so, when my other neighbour is somebody I've never seen before, but whom I have to sit next to for the next two hours, I find the whole social conundrum of 'polite, polite, we're both so polite, which bit's yours?, sorry, I just bumped you, is my arm too close for comfort?, 'scuse me, but your arm seems to be taking up three-quarters of the space' a bit tricky.

We played 'push forward to claim territory' and 'pull back to maintain polite social conventionalities' for a few minutes until we both seemed to find comfortable ground and were able to settle into the movie-going experience, phew.

One of the previews at first seemed to be a joke, a spoof, but after watching for a little bit, I finally concluded that they were serious. The new attempt at producing more income from the Star Wars empire appears to be a poorly animated movie/tv series The Clone Wars. This, to me, looks like nothing more than a pathetic grab at a few more dollars from a dwindling and increasingly grumpy fan-base. *disgusted grimace*

I'm trying to withhold judgement, but it looks so bad I don't even think I could watch it to find out. What a way to continue to spit on the already-tarnished (probably irrevocably) reputation of a beloved and originally ground-breaking phenomenon. *sigh* (Though I reserve the right to apologise and change my mind if it turns out to be better than the ad indicates it will be.)

FINALLY we got to the actual movie. I laughed very hard. It was much, much better than I thought it would be. The writing was more sophisticated than I had anticipated, and the humour was just the right amount of obvious 'see-it-coming' punchlines, 'ball-crushing, smack-into-a-wall' slapstick, genuinely humorous 'tickle-your-funnybone' comedy, and 'wink-to-the-audience' homage to the original.

Max was cleverer and much more competent than he was in the tv series, and 99 wasn't quite as overtly adoring of him, but, on the whole, it was a very adept rendering of an updated, 21st century version of a much-loved, cliché-producing tv institution.

We left the theatre (as crowded as it was when we were waiting - knock-on effect I guess) and I felt like skipping to the car with a very light heart. aahh...happy, fun movie-goingness...it's a 'good thing'