Day 55: Fall - beautiful or depressing?

Between You, Me and the Lamp Post

Day 55: Fall - beautiful or depressing?

It’s September, the month fall starts and with it the most depressing time of the year.

Some see beauty in the fall, I’m not one of them. Sure, the foliage in fall is beautiful but look beyond the colors and you’ll realize that the leaves are dying and soon after that rotting.

Everything is dying ... the trees, the shrubbery, and the flowers. For months the world will be devoid of color. No more green trees offering shade on a hot day. No more bright red geraniums, playfully pink petunias, or yellow and purple smiling pansie faces. No more anything.

Winter at least offers the beauty of snow and ice. 

While it might be cold, falling snow or gazing upon a white landscape can be a source of joy. But what joy is there to be found in the fall?

Even more depressing is the temperature. Warm days are a thing of the past. It’s only September 8th and I’m already sitting with a sweater on. 

Last year was very different. The air conditioning in our condo building was switched off in the second week of September and the residents descended on the management office un mass. They asked, pleaded and begged the building manager to turn the air-conditioning back on because it was stifling hot in their units.

Not this year. The air-conditioning unit hasn’t been on for days, instead of shorts I’m wearing jeans, instead of sandals I’ve reached for socks and slippers, and as mentioned earlier, I’m wearing a sweater.

Halley and Greyson aren’t bothered by the sudden chill in the air. As you can see, they continue to nap in the balcony swing. 

Yesterday I thought it a little too chilly for Halley to be outside, so I covered her with a blanket. She stayed and continued to snooze. That is, until Greyson came along and started trampling all over her.

Fall ... I guess we'll just have to put up with it. In another six months, it will be spring again.

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Day 21: Which is worse, too hot or too cold

Between You, Me and the Lamp Post

Day 21: Which is worse, too hot or too cold

OMG, it’s hot. One source says it’s 27 deg C (80.6 deg F), but it feels like 32 deg C (89.6 deg F). Baloney others say it’s 30 deg C (86 deg F) but it feels like 42 deg C (107.6 deg F).

Personally, I’m inclined to believe the latter. It is hot ... OMG, it’s just boiling out there. There is a heat warning in effect but not many people will take that warning to heart. Even though the message states, ‘If you don’t have to go out, stay indoors’, many will venture out and end up in the hospital or worse, in the morgue. Yes, that’s how hot it is.

Now today’s post is once again inspired by a friend. Amidst this heatwave, her A/C packed up. I can relate to that.

In the summer of 2010 the A/C in the condo building where I live gave the ghost. From what I’ve been told, management and the Board of Directors had been warned that is was about to happen, but they chose to ignore the inspector. 

When the A/C suddenly stopped working, Toronto was experiencing a heatwave with temperatures exceeding 40 deg C (104 deg F). We were dying in our units!

Dieter went out to Walmart and got three fans. Two medium-sized ones for the bedrooms and a big one for the living room. The first time he switched it on, it sounded like a helicopter was about to take off. The cool air was wonderful though.

In addition to the fans, I constantly had my feet in cold water, and a towel soaked in cold water around my neck.

After three days the heatwave broke and temperatures went down to 32 deg C (89.6 deg F). Still hot, but a lot cooler than it was before. 

All in all, we spend 18 without A/C.

When the situation was finally resolved, the residents demanded a reduction in maintenance fees. After all, why pay for the convenience of A/C when there was no A/C for 18 days. Management and the Board of Directors said no, and no amount of pleading or threatening would change their mind. 

A few residents said we should take them to court for pain and suffering, yet that didn’t happen. Lawyers require a hefty retainer and charge a fortune by the hour. Money that none of the residents had, and management and the Board of Directors knew that.

Funny enough, three years later we experienced the opposite situation ... an ice storm with temperatures of -32 deg C (25.6 deg F) when we had no heat, no electricity, and no water. 

While the majority of residents of Ontario had their power back within 72 hours, the building where I live had to make do without heat, electricity and water for 18 days. Apparently, the generator had packed up (another thing management and the Board of Directors had ignored) and now we were all paying the price.

Nature turned into a winter wonderland, with the sun glinting off the frozen trees, but few of us could appreciate the beauty of it.

Too hot or too cold ... I honestly don’t know which is worse.

  

Day 139: The day Greyson scared us half to death

My Project: 365 Creative Writing Prompts

Day 139: The day Greyson scared us half to death

There are people who complain that their life is boring, that nothing ever happens. In my opinion, those are lucky people. Here there’s always something happening and none of it is good. Take the past weekend for instance …

After a long hot summer, last Saturday the temperature dropped to about 18 degrees C (64.4 degrees F). Not exactly cold, but the air was definitely chilly. Still, I saw no reason not to let the cats out on the balcony. Dieter even took a nap in the swing there, joined by Halley and Greyson.

Saturday evening Halley and Greyson were playing, as usual, racing in and out of the living room to the balcony and back again.

This continued on Sunday morning. Halley and Greyson were playing while I showered and got ready for the day. And then suddenly things went wrong.

When I presented my fur kids with breakfast, Greyson didn’t take one bite. Thinking that he didn’t like that type of food I scooped meat from another can on a plate, but he didn’t want that either. Instead, he curled up on the couch.

When I remarked “Oh this is no good,” Dieter thought I was panicking for nothing. “So Greyson doesn’t want to eat, so what?” he said, “perhaps he’s just not hungry.” This sounded absolutely ludicrous to me. Greyson is always the first one by his plate and the last one to leave. That kitten has an appetite that makes me wonder where he puts it all.

For the rest of the morning, Greyson remained on the couch. Dieter thought he was just tired and sleeping, but I knew something was wrong. I know the difference between a cat who rests, who sleeps and who doesn’t feel well. Still, maybe he just had a cold from being in the chilly air the previous day, so I tried not to be overly concerned.

Dinner time came and went and again Greyson didn’t want to eat. Okay, so now even Dieter had to admit that something was wrong. I called out vet, but unfortunately, the doctors at the clinic were fully booked.

Now it so happened that Greyson had an appointment today, Monday, at 9:30 a.m. for his second inoculation. If he couldn’t see the doctor on Sunday afternoon, at least he would be able to be seen the next day. He wouldn’t be fit to receive his inoculation, but at least he would get a doctor’s attention.

By 6:00 p.m. his situation turned into an emergency. Greyson became unresponsive and we decided to take him to the emergency hospital. I called a cab, we put him in his carrier and took him downstairs to the lobby of our building.

And then something strange happened. While we waited for the cab to arrive, Greyson got up on his feet, took an interest in his surroundings and seemed so much better. He clearly wasn’t as sick as I thought he was so I canceled the cab and we went back upstairs.

Back home again Greyson curled up on a blanket on Dieter’s bed and went to sleep. Thinking that he had to eat at least something, I opened a tin with lots of gravy and let him lick my finger. After licking my gravied finger perfectly clean a few times I switched to a spoon. I loaded the food onto the spoon, presented it to Greyson and he licked/ate the gravy and meat. Ten minutes later he had finished his plate.

That made me feel a whole lot better. He had eaten and with this food, he would get his strength back.

From there on it got better and better. About an hour later Greyson came and ate from the big plate, a little later went for seconds and finished off his dinner with some kibble and a drink of water. Another half an hour later he was playing with Halley with a ball.

Today he’s back to his usual self. He eats, drinks, grooms himself and plays. It’s hard to believe that this is the same kitten that was so sick yesterday to the point that we thought we had to take him to the emergency room.

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Day 115: Battle with the Bottle

My Project: 365 Creative Writing Prompts

Day 115: Battle with the Bottle

Everyone will agree that children need to be protected from harm, but where it comes to medicine bottles, they are not only designed to be childproof, in many cases, they are also adult proof.

You should have seen me wrestle with a bottle of cough mixture this morning. If this battle had been captured on video, it might have received thousands of views with people laughing their head off.

The instructions on the bottle were quite clear … push down and twist. So, I pushed and twisted, pushed and twisted some more but other than a clicking noise, the cap didn’t budge.

With a ‘fine, have it your way’ I pushed the bottle in the corner of the kitchen counter and went to sit down to rest. That battle with the bottle cap had left me exhausted.

Never one to give up easily, some fifteen minutes later it was time for round two. I grabbed the bottle by its neck and was gonna show it who was boss. I pushed and twisted, pushed and twisted and after a few failed attempts I had to admit that the bottle was boss. We each retreated to our corners.

As I sat in my chair, making coughing noises that would have scared a bulldog, I eyed the bottle on the kitchen counter. Why did the manufacturers make it so difficult for people to open the darn thing? Surely, they realized that those who needed cough mixture were not feeling too great to begin with, so why make things extra difficult for them?

I was not gonna be defeated though, I would persevere and that bottle better watch out because I was coming and this time I wasn’t leaving until I had its top severed from its body. “Come here you,” I said. “I’m gonna push and twist and you’re gonna open or I’m gonna throw you off the balcony.” The prospect of taking a flying leap 11 floors down must have filled the bottle with panic as he released his cap on the second try.

Now that the bottle was open I faced a second challenge … was this stuff safe to drink? According to the label, the syrup could cause serious kidney and liver damage, was not recommended for patients with heart problems or asthma, while in bold letters the label stated that pregnant women should not drink this. Holy smokes … cure a cough, run the risk of developing more serious problems.

In the end, I decided to risk it. It wasn’t as if I was going to drink copious amounts of this stuff. But still, why does it have to be this way? Why can’t the scientists come up with safe medication?

Some might say that there are natural ways of healing a cough and believe me, I’ve already researched and found that honey has healing properties. So, I’ve been sipping honey water, but I’m sorry to say it doesn’t work. I still cough and cough, or shall I say, I bark and bark.

Still, if you have any suggestions for how to calm a cough, I’m all ears. Thanks in advance.

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Day 112: How is this fair?

My Project: 365 Creative Writing Prompts

Day 112: How is this fair?

I’m sick, or rather, I was sick, I got better and now I’m sick again. It’s only a cold, but I feel terrible. A head filled with cotton wool, watery eyes, a stuffed nose, a raspy throat, and limbs that seem to made of flannel.

How did this happen? My guess is my dear son came home with germs. He started sniffing and sneezing and I knew it was only a matter of time before his germs paid me a visit. Sure enough, 24 hours later I was sniffing and sneezing too.

While he got over his cold fairly quickly, it took me days to feel like my old self again. Yesterday I finally felt better and went out to have my health card renewed.

I had checked the list of what I needed to have this card renewed and I gathered the following:

Existing health card

3 original identification documents from the Ontario health coverage document list

1 to prove citizenship/immigration status

1 to prove residency in Ontario

I had all that and thought I had it covered, but I was wrong. For proof of residency, I had taken with me a Visa bill with my address on it. At the office, though I was told that a Visa bill is not acceptable. Well, that was a problem because I have no other paperwork.

We are constantly told to save the environment and to switch from paper to electronic forms. But now that I did, and don’t receive anything in paper form anymore, that counts against me. How is this fair? To have my health card renewed, I had to request a statement of my account on paper.

I came home thoroughly dispirited. The first time I went to Service Ontario their computer system was down. The second time, yesterday it was the lack of a paper document that stood in my way. Third time lucky?

As if that wasn’t enough, the effort of walking to Service Ontario and standing in line caused a relapse of my cold. Now I feel worse than before.

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Day 98: A day in the life of a TTC commuter

My Project: 365 Creative Writing Prompts

Day 98: A day in the life of a TTC commuter

What a day, what a day, what a day I had yesterday.

Over the weekend we had two days of freezing rain. If you wonder what freezing rain feels like, let someone take a handful of uncooked rice and from a distance throw it in your face, hard.

Not only does freezing rain feel painful, I also find it painful to look it. I mean really, yesterday it was April 16, but nature looks and feels like it’s January 16. It’s cold, the sky is grey and instead of nature awakening in a variety of color, everything is white. Sorry for the poor quality of the pictures, they were taken from the safety and the warmth of a bedroom window.

Before going out yesterday morning, I wondered what to wear … snow boots or regular boots. “Wear regular boots,” Dieter advised, “if it’s a little slippery you can hold on to me.” A little slippery???

As soon as we left the building where we live, I knew I was in trouble. There was so much melting ice that we either had to trudge through the slush or step into ankle-deep puddles. And that wasn’t even the worst of it, oh no, the worst was yet to come. Once out of the garden, the street was no longer a street but an ice rink. We were no longer walking, but slipping and sliding and desperately trying to stay upright.

Moments later we faced another problem … going down the steps to the train station. I wasn’t sure whether to hold on to Dieter or to let go. After all, if he fell, he would take me with him and vice versa.

To make a long story short, we made it the station in one piece.

More bad luck awaited us though. The trains weren’t running due to a power failure and everyone had to take a shuttle bus to the nearest station where they did have power.

Don’t imagine this as simple. Along with hundreds and hundreds of people, we stood in the cold, in the freezing rain, waiting for a bus. When the third bus came along, we finally got on.

At Victoria Park station we all got off and made our way to the subway station, only to find out that now that station was out of power. So, everybody back outside and back onto the bus. Eventually, at Woodbine, we managed to get on the train.

We arrived at work cold and wet and very late, but we had made it. Lots of others didn’t, they either didn’t bother coming out or ended up in hospital. I can well imagine that quite a few people fell and broke something or their car skidded and hit something. Good business for the doctors, nurses and panel beaters.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, have a look what we had to deal with.

Don't forget to donate to the Toronto Cat Rescue.

Any amount will make a difference.

www.canadahelps.org/en/pages/toronto-cat-rescue-bowl-a-thon-9/