I am Iphoneless :)
July 12, 2008 – 3:05 pmSo yesterday was the Ipocalypse and it only annoyed me a little bit. I had to research Rogers corporate information and their Web server was down. Dixit for phone access for most of the day.
So everyone was talking about this and there I was NOT waiting in line. Not only do I not have an Iphone but I don’t even want one. I don’t even envy people who do. I got my first cell phone over 10 years ago and SMS the hell out of the first two years. I even had a program that would send status messages via SMS. It got old even before other people discovered that they could waste more time by slowly typing trivial gossip via text messaging. I don’t have a cell phone anymore… perhaps it’s because Fido charged me 50$ for calls I attempted to make from New York that would not actually go through. I had racked up over 10 years of loyal customership with Fido only to realize that they don’t care… They don’t have to.
The cell phone industry is THE most unsatisfying service provider yet people are really obsessed with their cell phone.
I now carry a really shitty phone activated on a pay-as-you-go plan… It belongs to my associate who only comes to Canada a few times a year. I very rarely use it and only 2 people know my number (other than the other business associates.) Some may think I am an inconsiderate bitch because I won’t give them my cell phone number but sincerely, I often forget it at home or find it off because I forgot to “feed it”. Why would I waste your time by giving you a number for a phone I keep forgetting I have.
Being constantly plugged in was cool while Kevin Rose minded the chat room on The Screen Savers… now I just don’t care about information overload anymore.
Did 6 million people really think they were going to be cool for having a 3G on launch day?!
Ringo Meets Marie-Tangerine
July 6, 2008 – 5:27 pmMarie-Tangerine came home this morning and met Ringo for the very first time. As usual Ringo jumped all over only to realize that this is not the best way to meet new people. After being a bit disappointed in the jumpy puppy, she slowly learned to control him.
Marie-Tangerine handling Ringo from MarieLynn on Vimeo.
In the afternoon she walked the dog herself. I tied a long nylon rope to Ringo’s collar as a security lead and followed discreetly behind them both. Marie-Tangerine, who is only 7 years old, did very well with such a large dog. Ringo wants to please and just needs to be told how.
This does not mean that Ringo is suitable for a household with young children or teens and in 4 weeks he will only have 14 days of experience with children. He seems completely disoriented around males.
Ringo is on in Doggie Foster Care for 4 weeks and available for adoption from the SPCA.
Tags: Ringo
Ringo First Full Day
July 5, 2008 – 2:21 pmBoy am I tired. Many things have changed around the house.
I received a visit from my parents on Wednesday. They are helping me get going again after being set back because of my fall in May. They brought a used bed frame from my brother and a mattress and a bunch of bed accessories including awesome memory foam pillows.
On Thursday night, Mathieu helped me put up the bed frame and it was already 10pm. Ringo, who had arrived home just 90 minutes before, jumped on everything. So I am now officially moved into my 2nd story bedroom. It is still a mess of things.
Ringo was stressed about going into the crate for the night. I closed all the windows downstairs so my neighbors wouldn’t call the cops on me. He barked for about 10 minutes before settling down quietly.
I set my alarm for 6am and took him out the next morning. On Friday I got some work done and he spend a lot of the day in dreamland on the floor in my office his paws moving. If I was a dog I would dream of being an Irish Wolfhound running across highlands and while breathing salty sea air. I wonder what Ringo dreams about. It’s not like he can watch TV, marvel at the lives of rich puppies and develop an interest in a newfangled chew toys.
In the morning he was very nervous, not knowing what to expect from me but grew more secure as the day went on. He has tried to kidnap my daughter’s toys from her room or her office. I let him play with a small rubber ball which he throws and catches himself. I will have to buy him his own toy this week, possibly a Kong. He will meet Marie-Tangerine on Sunday morning.
Tags: Ringo
Introducing Ringo
July 4, 2008 – 7:09 am
Ringo came home with me last night around 9pm.
He is not the puppy that I was supposed to pick up so I picked another.
He is a very large dog for his 5 months. His previous owner got him off the Internet, whatever that means but did not keep him very long. He has been at the SPCA for a few weeks and still has kennel cough which should clear up within 2 weeks. He is presently being crated and seems housebroken. He has puppy habits like jumping and mouthing forearms when you hold him by the collar. He seems to have been in a household where a woman was his primary care take while the males were his playmates. He still thinks he is a little puppy.
He listens and responds to commands. He can learn a routine pretty quickly like sitting down to have his leash put on. I ask him to sit before and after we come into the front door. He sits while waiting to cross the street. He is learning to heel. He needs to be told what to do and likes to follow around. He settles quickly at my feet when I sit down to work.
Tags: Ringo
Today is a sunny day!
July 3, 2008 – 3:01 pmWell in my heart anyway. Outside it’s raining.
After a few months of Hell, I woke up yesterday feeling just fine. I am not in much pain today either. I find this really strange. Other than that one day in April, I cannot remember feeling just fine. I just can’t believe it!
Tonight I am going to the SPCA to pick up a dog. The foster care volunteer has a 6-month old puppy from hell for me to take care of for 6 weeks. Maybe he is not that bad and what is written on his abandonment sheet is frustration from owners who didn’t think things through. Are they justifying it with the usual “He jumps on people!”, “He barks!”, “He pees on the carpet!”, “He’s too excited!”?
I remember when my first husband and I bought a puppy (an incredibly adorable long haired white Jack Russel Terrier who passed for Tintin’s Snowy.) I researched my dog and knew that such hard working dogs were a lot to handle. I selected my puppy carefully. I was overjoyed that he was so much easier to handle and train that I ever expected! My husband on the other hand would always complain that he was jumping on him, biting him and annoying him. The dog just realized he had no spine and was torturing him on purpose!!! Unfortunately, in the end, it was that exact lack of responsibility on my husband’s part that caused my dog’s death. This is basically why I haven’t bought or adopted another dog since then.
A few week ago I saw a dog rocket out of my neighbor’s yard. My neighbor tried frantically to get her new dog to come back but she wouldn’t listen. I was able to trick the dog into coming closer to me out of curiosity and keeping her attention long enough for her owner to catch her.
I haven’t cared for a dog in a long time and I like the day to day routine of it. When I do not have my daughter with me I tend to work all day and not go out so having a dog will fix that. I think that being in a calm house instead of the shelter will be good for him and he can integrate into a family much more easily.
Dogs are usually not that complicated to operate 
I am not 100% sure I will take the puppy from Hell, he has to meet a few criteria:
1. Like me and appear to trust me
2. Look at me when I talk to him
That’s it!
So today is my last calm day before the jumpy & barky puppy shows up.
So I have created a category for Doggie Foster Care for updates (the good, the bad and the ugly) and picture of the puppy
The whole Chinese chest!
June 20, 2008 – 4:26 pm
Solid wood chest. Left in a dusty place and a bit grimy unfortunately but washes up nice. 30$… yeah you read right… 30$
Mysterious Thrifty Find
June 18, 2008 – 9:01 pm
Obviously it is Chinese. I can tell you it is solid wood and I am currently cleaning it. I doubt it is very old but it is probably worth between 400-600. I saw a similar item on Ruby Lane for 12,500… I won’t hold my breath. I will post a picture when it is clean and in the living room.
Jon Paskowitz on The Colbert Report
June 4, 2008 – 1:07 pmI’ve had relatives and former employers who took their kids to Africa for a few years (in 1977 and 1989) and couldn’t imagine how cool it would travel as a child. I came close, my father worked in the defense department for Canadian and US projects and it took him to Germany amongst other places. However he left the army and took a job with Air France developing the navigation systems on the Concorde. Unfortunately, my brother and I always stayed behind.
Jon Poskowitz from MarieLynn on Vimeo.
Dorian Doc Paskowitz, his wife and nine children lived on various beaches in the US in a 24 foot camper. Together they lived a surfer life style. The Paskowitz Family proved that America may be running out of frontiers but it hasn’t run out of frontiersman. Jon made the documentary.
I Still Hate Gravity
May 25, 2008 – 2:52 pmUsually when I fall down I get back up, dust myself off and keep on going. I have been blessed by a body that will not break. Never broke a bone, not even when I was pinned in between two cars 4 years ago. However, what is chipped, dislocated and torn hurts like hell and I have yet to find someone who will listen.
My chiropractor is great but she is prevented by law from actually helping me with my ailments other than forcing stuff back into place when it becomes all crooked and I lose mobility. I have asked my parents for help so I can see my chiropractor more often. Maybe that will help me gain enough mobility to start fighting for my health again. Right now all mobility goes to work and child and there is not enough to go around.
There are many laws in my province that prevent me (and many others) from getting competent medical care. One of them is a law that prevents the hiring of immigrant doctors and nurses who have not passed the French test to the government’s satisfaction. A Romanian friend tried for 3 years to continue her nurse career here but eventually gave up. I know that on top of having the experience and credential, she was a fantastic person and knew well enough French to do the job because we talked in French so she could practice. She is now in New Jersey. I miss her 
This means that in Quebec there are not enough doctors to care for people in this province. If you figure in the incompetence factor of doctors and their staff, this means that it is almost impossible to get medical care. I have met 2 competent doctors (urgentologists) in the past 10 years of being in Montreal. The other 8 were absolutely useless and quite negligent. But as I am not actually paying for care to the actual doctor, I will likely get a “go fuck yourself!” if I complain. In fact I can name two doctors for whom this is the standard greeting upon entering the consultation. Competent doctors are really saddened by this too.
I’d rather work on getting help but it is soooooo annoying to have to deal with so many people who are “just doing their job” without any concern for anything else that happens around them. When you tell them about the disconnects between every steps of the process their eyes just glaze over. I was supposed to have a CT-Scan (2nd one) but I ran into an administrative stack of shit. The doctor’s office swears they sent the prescription for the second CT-Scan by fax. The Hospital (across the street) swears that they did not get it. I will never get a second CT-Scan because each side is doing their job, which is swear that they did their job. If one side tries to fix the problem it means they are admitting to doing something wrong and that’s would be way worse than me dying from the lump growing in my abdomen.
In those cases I usually use the “sad sit in” peaceful method. It work okay but it is very time consuming for someone who is in pain and late on every single contract. I recently was able to guilt an archivist into giving me my first CT-Scan results. Of course it only revealed that my doctor was a dumbass (or maybe he did not even read it.) The results from my first CT-Scan is “there is a lump. Lump is not a hernia it seems. Get a ultrasound instead.” Negligence is not the same thing as imcompetence but it leads to the same results.
I do not have a doctor anymore (he is obviously too old to read and spent most of the year in the hospital himself. I tried for a while to find an OBGYN. I have one from when I was pregnant but he is negligent too. One was recommended to me by a friend but the receptionist always tells me her book is full and she has no book to write down anything more unless I try again in 3 months. She too is just doing her job. I have not talked to a competent doctor in a long time (except my daughter’s doctor who is a vocal system critic) so you have to understand that I am not sure if there are any.
Sometimes I fantasize that a prince comes in and flies me on his private jet to the Mayo Clinic for one of them thorough physicals from ultra competent world-renowned doctors that rich and “important people” get in the US.
Nevertheless…
I had a great week last week. It was a high pain week but I took meetings, did networking and jotted down a lot of ideas in the little productive time I had but I am late on everything. I am very self-conscious of my affect when I am in pain. I know people hate sulkers so I try really hard to not show it. I did a lot of social work but little computer work.
Today I see I am losing the use of my left arm.
My associates are pissed at me. They don’t actually know I am sick but I will likely just resign. Sucks because I have put in a whole year of work and I will have nothing to show for it, again… There has to be a job out there that I can do to support myself as I watch every bit of my body slowly die.
