So wordy …

I’m a word person. I like words very much. I seem to learn languages very easily. I like to read, I like to write. I like to do word search puzzles, but not crossword puzzles. I like to talk. Probably too much.

I also have a list of favourite words. (I bet you don’t have a whole list of favourite words. Actually, there are a number of websites devoted to favourite words, so maybe you do.)

The words on my list are words that I simply like. I like the sound of them, the way they trip off my tongue, the musicality of the syllables. I don’t particularly care what they mean, and I don’t particularly use them a lot in my everyday speech or writings. I just like these words.

In no particular order, here are some of the words I like:

ubiquitous
undulate
sibilant
willful
paleontologist
serendipity
plethora
mellifluous
colloquial
quintessential
anomaly
discombobulate
effervescent
entomologist
loathe
heinous
facetious
onomatopoeia
lugubrious
pontificating

Do you have any favourite words?

Timing is everything

I awoke this morning in pain again. In my sinuses again. Crap, I thought. Better head off the migraine right away by taking some Tylenol.

I rolled out of bed to head into the bathroom to dig out the Tylenol. As I did, I looked at my bedside clock radio. It was some ridiculous hour like 4:47 am. Well, pain will make a person wake up at a ridiculous hour, won’t it? I still had an hour and 45 more minutes to sleep.

I took the pills, peed, then padded back to bed. I wasn’t sure if I’d drift back to sleep, though. I knew I needed to, but it just didn’t feel quite right. Besides, my sinuses hurt.

I tossed and turned for an hour. The Tylenol wasn’t kicking in. I got up and took another one. I turned around and around in my bed like a chicken on a spit. At 6:15 am, my clock radio alarm went. I have it set to a talk radio station (yes, I am that old and boring). I listened idly to the weather and the traffic and the whatever else they broadcast at that time of day, waiting for the 6:30 news. That’s my cue to get up, sinus pain or no sinus pain.

The traffic reporter said something about 7:20 am. It vaguely registered in my foggy brain that she’d given the incorrect time.

The announcer soon intoned that the news to 7:30 was coming up. Another mistake, I thought.

Wait. Another wrong time?

I sat up in confusion and looked carefully at my clock radio. It showed 6:29 am. What?

I grabbed my cell phone. I’d turned it off the night before so I stabbed frantically at the buttons to turn it on. The time on it? 7:29 am.

WTF?

I jumped out of bed, throbbing sinuses and all. I clattered downstairs and checked the wall clock, the stove clock, the microwave clock. They all showed (by now) 7:30 am.

BIG WTF!

Somehow, my clock radio lost exactly an hour. I have no idea how this happened, but I suspect something to do with the daylight saving time button. Did I inadvertently push it as I was setting the alarm the night before? How could I possibly have done that – it’s a tiny button at the back, not exactly front and centre.

Still, I managed to pull myself together and I got to work by 8:15 am, which was about 20 or 25 minutes later than usual. Not too bad, all things considered. And my headache eventually disappeared, too.

But I am a little concerned about tomorrow morning. I think I might need a rooster.

Monday blues

I’m not exactly blue, but today has been kind-of a “meh” day. I think I have an end-of-daylight-savings hangover. That extra hour of sleep on Sunday morning has me feeling rather sluggish and unenergetic.

I washed my car yesterday. So today, naturally, it rained. But I also have one new windshield wiper, so at least I could see very, very clearly on one side. Why just one? Don’t ask me. PG was in charge of that. Ask him.

At work, one of the volunteer things I do with the kids is organize and train our morning PA announcers and our MCs for our assemblies. Two new PA announcers started today, one of whom has come to see me about five times in the past week. She was so excited and bubbly and full of questions. She didn’t show up this morning. So much for enthusiasm.

Also on the subject of those announcers, another girl whom I have scheduled in and who is due to have her turn in December came to talk to me this morning. She has now decided that she doesn’t want to be a PA announcer after all, but if I really need her, she’ll still take her turn. Good of her. I told her we’d talk closer to December. I think I’ll still make her do it. I’m just that mean.

I had to change my own classroom clock back to standard time. I didn’t even notice that the time hadn’t been changed till almost noon. Ohhh … that’s why I was hungry! And I also didn’t go get the stepladder to do the climbing. I hopped on a chair. They don’t like that around here. We’re supposed to be all about safety. I was all about speed right then.

Am I the only person in the entire school who bothers to make coffee??? Well, yes. Yes, I am. Asked and answered.

Our school computers have been completely out of commission since last Wednesday, because all the schools in my district are going on this new centralized system. I have no idea why. I thought our old system worked just fine. We were given some training after school this afternoon on how to use the new system. The training lasted an hour. I figured it out in under five minutes – and I am most emphatically NOT a computer expert. And teachers are just the worst group of people to try to teach! We don’t listen, we continually make random comments just to hear ourselves talk, we don’t even look at the speaker – and after an hour of instruction, at least half of us are still wandering around saying, “I don’t get it. What was that first step again?”

And once again, when I finally got home, the recycling guy had thrown my emptied recycling box right in the middle of my driveway. I had to open the garage door, stop, get out, pick up the box and place it in its spot in the garage, get back in the car, drive into the garage, close the garage door. I must have wasted at least two extra minutes doing all that!

But the rain had stopped by then. And there was leftover Halloween chocolate to snack on. I’m feeling better now.

Tired

PG and I traded cars one day last week so he could take my car in to get winter tires installed. I’ve never bought winter tires in my entire driving career – this is Vancouver, after all, and it mostly rains here in the winter and doesn’t get super-cold.

Except last year. We had enough snow last year to cover our quota for about fifty years, and it lasted longer than our snow here has ever lasted. And there I was, in my brand new car with my all-season tires, stranded at home because I couldn’t get out of my driveway. And if I could have gotten out, I couldn’t have driven too far because we have no idea how to clear roads here. Oh, the excuse was that it was snowing so much that they just couldn’t keep up, but I’m not sure I believe that. Cities like Toronto or Montréal, which regularly have copious amounts of snow, seem to keep up fairly well. Those cities don’t shut down in the snow. But Vancouver? Wah, there’s snow, let’s all go hide under the covers!

But anyway, I don’t ever want to go through another winter like that – me and the other million people who live here. We’re all frantically buying and installing winter tires this year. It can be hard to get the tires you want, so many people are purchasing them. The first set of tires that PG ordered for me were sold to somebody else before they even were delivered to the shop, so he had to go on to Plan B. Fortunately, he is quite knowledgeable about tires, and loves doing the research and phonecalls to track down the best deal, so at least I had somebody with the time and expertise to do that for me.

The big issue, apparently, was that the all-season tires that came with the car are run-flats and the winter tires I ended up buying are not. When one of them is punctured or flat, run-flats can be driven for about another 100 km, at a reduced speed (whatever THAT means – is it 50 km/h? Reports I’ve read vary.) to safely get somewhere to get the tire replaced (most likely) or repaired (occasionally). This means that my car did not come with a spare tire or a jack. This means that now that I’m running regular tires, I still have no spare or jack.

The tire dealer was quite worried about this. PG reassured the poor man that I have both BMW Assist and BCAA, both of which can come to my rescue if ever I have a flat tire. And really, I’ve only ever had a flat tire twice in my whole life: once was from hitting a pothole in the dark in a construction zone and the other was when I was forced into the curb by the car beside me deciding to change lanes without checking to see if another car was already there. So I think the odds are pretty good that I’ll be just fine for the five or so months that I’ll be driving on my new winter tires.

It better snow like crazy this winter. I didn’t spend all that money for nothing, ya know!

No rest for the weary

I woke up this morning with an ache in my nose. Well, it was actually in my sinuses. I took some sinus medication and carried on getting ready for work.

The medication apparently did nothing. The pain spread to my forehead and around my left eye. I had a small breakfast and felt faintly like vomiting. Which should have been my first clue, really.

I went to work. The pain got worse. I took another sinus pill. I started to see faint lights at the periphery of my vision. Ah, I thought. I have a migraine.

I told the office staff that I had to to go home while I could still drive. I spoke to the other teachers with whom I usually work on Wednesdays. Then I went home.

Normally, when I have a migraine (admittedly not very often), a couple of Tylenol and a good nap works for me. I’m lucky that way, I know. I’ve only ever been really incapacitated by a migraine maybe once or twice in my whole life, but I know many people to whom this happens quite regularly, like once a month or so. I know people who have very strong prescription medication for their migraines. I also know a couple of people who don’t take their medication in time and end up suffering for an entire day and a half.

Anyway, when I approached my house (which is actually a triplex), half the driveway was blocked by one of those lift trucks. There were several signs posted along the driveway stating “Caution. Men Working Above.” There were hoses snaking all over the place. There were a couple of pressure washers parked near the house itself. Oh, I thought. Now I remember. Today is the day they start cleaning all the gutters, exterior siding, and windows. With pressure washers. Noisy pressure washers.

So I squiggled my car around all the cleaning paraphernalia into my garage, went into my house and popped my two Tylenol. However, a nap will be out of the question today. It’s just too noisy. But at least the Tylenol has done its job and although I’m still feeling a bit fuzzy two hours later, the pain has abated.

I guess I’ll just lie on the couch in front of the fire and gaze out my newly-cleaned living room windows, listening to the dulcet tones of pressure washers.