I ATE THE GRAPEFRUIT

And that was a very poor decision.

Remember when I said that cutting it in half and segmenting it with a knife would be "time consuming"?

Haha!

I peeled that betch like an orange. All the rind was off except that white stuff. So I peeled that off. 10 minutes later I ripped off a segment and took a bite.

My, was that fruit a Bitter Betty. Maybe it's because i dropped it on the floor and then tore all of its skin off. Or maybe it's because that's what Grapefruits do.

So I realized the see through skin that holds the whole fruit together was too bitter to eat so I had to get rid of it.

So i separated every little bead of grapefruit from the skin.
It was time consuming to say the least.

After 45 minutes I had a bowl full of shredded grapefruit and a pile of refuse.

I wanted neither.

CT SCANS AND SPIES

Due to the alien that is still residing in my abdomen and making its presence quite well known, I have been doing a fair bit of driving. As I live in a village (therefore; I am a villager) our health clinic and hospital are lacking in some of the big equipment that isn't used ALL THE TIME by the villagers of my village. Some of this equipment includes ultrasound machines, CT Scanner machines, MRI coffin-machines and a swanky cafeteria filled with jello and Tim Horton's doughnuts (we have jello but no doughnuts). Because we lack these wondrous diagnostic image creators, and because the alien is giving me hella pains, I have to travel an hour and a bit to be scanned and poked and prodded at my family physician's request. I book the day off work and I try and do some shopping while I'm out there, but sometimes the hospital processes leave me in not so great a mood to be schlepping my tired self around an under-construction mall.

I woke up this morning with loads of energy and I was feeling pretty good about my CTscan appointment, scheduled for midafternoon. I had one a few years back and it was no big deal, so I knew what to expect. My dear mother accompanied me on the long drive to the bigger, newer, glassier hospital and even did all the driving, which was excellent because I kept getting toe-cramps which made me flail.

Anyway, she drove me to the hospital in the city (small city) and we arrived early enough to get almost lost in the demolition site of a parking lot. We walked toward the main entrance, passing many a sign stating that the entire property is SMOKE FREE. I also spotted a man who was, I kid you not, squatting below a window to remain undetected as he sucked on his cancer-stick.

As I'd been to this hospital (which is entirely new as of the past year) not 2 weeks earlier, I knew my way around. I led my mum to the Main Entrance and chose to bypass the revolving doors, opting for the much less stressful AUTOMATIC CAUTION doors. My mother followed me past the gift shop, library and doughnut cart (all of which I named aloud as we passed them, for no particular reason) and down to Diagnostic Imaging. I checked in and we were directed down numerous hallways to the CTscan waiting room where we sat and waited.

A nurse came out and asked me if I have allergies (hayfever and melon), asthma (mild; in conjunction with the hayfever) and whether or not I take some medication I do not recall the name of (I do not). Apparantly, for this CTscan it was required that I have some kind of dye pumped into me via an IV. I was displeased to say the least. I'm not a big needle person. They make me giddy. I cry and laugh and make odd noises and my mum gets quite frustrated with me and the nurses call me 'Sweetheart' and 'Hon'.

So I went in to the next room to get the IV started and that was just a messy experience. There was dizziness and nausea and pain and needles being poked in both arms and bags of liquid attached to me by tubes that were taped to my arm hair (which, if you recall, I have a fair bit of).

The CTscan itself was easy peasy. For anyone who doesn't know, they put you on a stretcher that moves back and forth through the centre of a giant metal doughnut (I'm realizing there's a lot of fried dough in this post. Forgive me.) while they take pictures of your insides. What I was not expecting was my reaction to the dye. The technician lady (who was very nice) told me I'd feel warm all over, and probably get a weird taste in my mouth that would go away quickly. Oh, and I might feel like I'm wetting my pants. But I won't be, it just feels that way.

I thought this was a weird little turn of events that I would likely not experience.

The scan starts and the automated voice of the doughnut tells me to "Breathe IN.... HO-ld it!.......... breathe." and I start feeling warm inside. Like I'm drinking hot chocolate. Through my fingers. It was weird but not unpleasant.

Then I taste paper and what glue sticks smell like. It was both weird AND unpleasant. I swallow a few times and get over it.

My other arm is feeling really warm too and I wiggle my fingers to make sure they're still there and OH MY GOD I'M PEEING MY PANTS.

But I wasn't. It just felt that way.

I LOLed right there and then felt a bit sick so I was quiet until the whole ordeal was over and I got to go sit in the waiting area again while they made sure I had no adverse reactions to the dye.

As I sat in my chair, connected to the ceiling by my inner elbow vein and some clear tubing, I became aware of the elderly woman who was sitting next to me, veiled partially by a curtain. I used my less-than-imppeccable peripheral vision and gathered that she was also in that end waiting stage like me, and that she was looking at me a lot. I made eye contact and smiled and she smiled back. She then jerked her head toward her IV tube and says to me:

"It's just like we're wired with surveillance mics."

That struck me as much stranger than the peeing sensation. Why would the mind of this sweet older woman go immediately to espionage? Could she be from an agency of sorts? Was she giving me a tip? Was I reading way too much into this and remembering that my sister was studying the Cold War for her history exam the night before? I decided it was most likely all three things in combination.

In case you were worried, there were no adverse reactions to the dye other than slight wooziness and complete lack of desire to shop. I did eat a Big Mac though, and that might have had more to do with this condition than anything else.

EPIC FAILURE AS A FUTURE PARENT

Yesterday I did laundry. Which I actually really kind of enjoy, mostly because when it's dry I get to fold it and organize it all. Maybe I'm a freak.
Whatever.

The point is that yesterday, I decided to wash my sheets so that they'd smell all delicious and clean and I'd sleep better and therefore do better on my exams (studying didn't go so well). So I peeled my sheets off the bed, stuffed them in my canvas laundry bag with some shirts and stuff and headed downstairs to the laundry room.

I crammed everything into the washing machine, turned it on and went back upstairs to work with Cameron while everything washed.

41 minutes later we went back downstairs to put the now clean laundry in the dryer.

I began to pull things out of the washing machine and then proceeded to toss them at Cameron so that he could then go put them in the dryer. The following items were thrown at my boyfriend.

Shirt.
Sock.
Boxers.
Shirt.
Sock.
Sheet.
DARCY BEAR?!?!?!

I tend to be overdramatic at times, but I was absolutely mortified when I realized that my soft, fuzzy, honey coloured teddy bear had just gone for a wild ride in the Maytag Coinomatic.

For those of you who don't know, I've had Darcy Bear for almost two and a half years and I adore him. He's pretty much the size of a small newborn and flops around if you don't support his neck. He is also "Surface Washable". He's cute. I love that inanimate bear like it's my child.

Well hopefully I'll love my future children more, because, you know, ACCIDENTALLY PUTTING TINY LOVED ONES THROUGH THE WASHING MACHINE IS VERY, VERY BAD.

Then again, babies would probably cry.
And not be mixed up in the laundry.
And they're not teddy bears.

Anyway, Cameron calmed me down a bit and assured me that I will one day be a good parent and this would not happen again. And we put the laundry in the dryer and Darcy Bear air-dried on the windowsill. We are all fine now.

Nevertheless, the whole ordeal left me quite shaken.

It left Darcy Bear smelling like Gain.

CALYPSO

The other day Tanisha-Who's-Not-Really-Tanisha and I were sitting on my bed discussing waxing our legs. I have never done such a thing before because I'm terrified that it will hurt and I'm a pretty big wuss and I know I'd scream. She says it's not that bad and that if you do it enough the hair just won't grow back. We then started talking about people who wax their arms. This led to my studying of my fine, blond, invisible but abundant arm hair. I then decided it would be a good idea to tell Tanisha about my thoughts when I was younger. I told her that when I was a kid (a ginormous span of my life; hence the use of 'ginormous') I used to really, really love my arm hair because it made me feel like a monkey. And I've always wanted to be a monkey. Named Calypso. Who lived in a treehouse.
I was a bit of a tomboy for a time in my life which was due to the influence of my older brother who was my best friend until he got too cool to hang out with me, but that's a different issue. In my boyish youth I would clamber over rocks, trudge through swampy, soggy ground and try to climb trees. I probably would have been a really good tree climber if I had more suitable trees to practice on. It's hard to be a monkey growing up in central Ontario. All the trees are maple. Maple trees don't have branches lower than a million feet off of the ground. I'm short and a pretty useless jumper. So I mostly stayed on the ground.
I used to get really tanned from spending so much time outside, which was great because then I was more monkey coloured instead of pasty white. Now that I wish I was slightly more tanned so that I can wear white and not look like a ghost, I burn. Maybe I'll go back to wishing I was a monkey. I'll let you know how that goes.
As time progressed, my dreams of reversing evolution faded. I couldn't climb anything, the mosquito population tripled and I was getting too big to clamber on the furniture and hide under the bed. My sister and I began to play more sophisticated role-playing games and I discovered that if I couldn't be a monkey, I still wanted to be hella cool and wild. I wanted to be a badass. I was always a bitch with family issues and I always had the lead role in our games. Sophie, I apologize for being bossy and making you do my bidding under threat of playing alone. I was horrible. But it was only because I was too polite and shy to actually be a badass in real life. I got over the shyness and I'm polite when I should be, but I'm more like I once wished I was. This is probably not a good thing, but we'll deal with problems when they arise.
So shaving my legs with Tanisha's company led to all of these memories and past ambitions bubbling up in my mind. And I realized two things:

1. Even though my arms still have fine hair on them I am not, and never will be a monkey

2. I can't get up the nerve to wax my legs because I'm a wuss. I am not, and never will be a true badass

Both of these things are for the best. For me, and the world.

WHAT I DO

I don't write poems
I write observations
With line breaks in
Awkward places because I think
That sort of counts as a
Poem