Crappy Customer Service

*Grunt*

Now, I know I have quite a few visitors who weren't born in the seventies and maybe aren't experiencing this phenomenon yet.  Just bear with me because we all get there sooner or later.

Chronic lower back pain comes for everyone eventually.  For me it started with 12-hour shifts in steel-shank boots in front of a metal lathe and continued on from lugging books & mags.  That adds up to almost ten years of lifting some of the densest materials known to man.  So yes, my back hurts every day; some days are better than others.

I find inactivity makes everything worse.  Even if it's a bad day I know I have to get up and move around or it's going to seize up.  In spite of all that I rebel against exercise.  I just hate the tedium of riding or doing sit-ups.  I find the whole concept of exercise ridiculous, undignified and a waste of time - even though I know otherwise.  I used to think it was laziness but I am a born worker - put a job in front of me and it's done.  I think it's more that there is no concrete goal to exercise.

What got me thinking about all this is this article from My Yoga Online about how breath-holding compensates for lack of strength in the lower back.  Everyone over a certain age does this - it's that grunt you hear when you bend over to tie your shoes or pick up the laundry basket.  I have been working on freeing up my lower back, which is a concrete goal.  My goal is to be able to move about when I am 80 because I come from a line of long-lived women.  Thirty-six is too young for shit to be rusting shut.

Rock Band drumming has done wonders for my upper and mid-back.  It seems silly but playing the drums hard and fast forces you to use your core to stabilize your torso.  I have let a natural seasonal indolence combine with anxiety over my job and my yoga schedule has dropped off a bit, though.  I have to start working on that.  I also bought some tribal dance DVD's because, as I mentioned earlier, I am not afraid to look silly.

Ai!

What's something you would splurge on this year to improve your future?
Presented by Intel, Sponsors of Tomorrow.

 I actually splurged on something today to improve my future.  I pulled out my AmEx and paid for a couple of courses at the local university.  I'm taking some open registration courses to begin getting my Supply Chain Management Professional diploma.  For those of you who don't know, I am already a junior buyer at a sportswear company.  Until a few years ago this was a school-of-hard-knocks type of profession where you started at the bottom in shipping or merchandising and learned your way up.  Now there are actual professional designations and courses and all that jazz.  If I want to be able to transfer my purchasing experience to another job and maybe sort of like have a career - and I do, I do - I have to go back to school during my evenings and weekends.  I've been boring Mr. W about it for two years now, and I finally kicked myself in the ass and joined the revolution.

Those who know me in real life are going to be shocked by my decision.  I am known for dissing higher education left, right and centre.  I have wasted thousands of dollars and hours of my life getting two post-secondary diplomas I can no longer use.  Well, it wasn't really wasted, you know.  It's just that after I quit machining I swore I wasn't going to go back to school ever ever ever, even though machining school was quite fun.  Circumstances aligned against me to put my education to waste in ways that were outside of my control.

And now here I am, back at it for a third go 'round, older but no wiser and certainly poorer since tuition has tripled since I last left.

Going Natural - Just Like Tyra Banks!

Listen, my hair is not a subject of conversation that interests anyone but myself.  I understand that, so I'll keep my discussion on the subject as brief as possible.

I mentioned a couple of months back that I'd reached a high level of frustration as to what to do about my weird hair.  I surfed the Internet for answers out of sheer desperation.  I remembered discovering the amazing Oil Cleansing Method through the long hair forum so I thought maybe those guys will have some ideas.

I found naturallycurly.com on my journey back.  My hair is not curly, just badly behaved, so I started reading and reading...for like a week.  There was a vast cavern of useful information on what the fuck to do with your hair when you're at your wits' end.  I have since begun to adhere to some of the tenets of being a Curly Girl, including:

• Stopped using sulfate-based shampoo
• Stopped using terrycloth towels on my head
• Stopped using any products with silicone - this one's difficult and involves a patient husband standing at the end of the hair aisle while I read about 1000 bottle backs
• Started using hard-hold gel instead of hard-hold hairspray
• Using my diffuser to cup my hair as it dries

This has created quite a change.  I'm in the process of growing out extensive flatiron damage.  I also had to have my hair thinned quite a bit so I'm growing that out too.  I'm hoping in time to actually look like I give a rat's ass.

*CRACK*

I've been having ongoing trouble with my back for a few weeks since building our deck - I knew I was in for it.  Big projects take a toll on the middle aged, after all.  I had intense pain and weakness on my right side above my pelvis.  I went to see my chiropractor last week as I mentioned earlier.

My chiro is not a hippy-dippy weirdo who tries to sell me pills or balance my qi - he just fixes my back and neck.  He is a believer in science-based therapy, which is a controversial stance for a chiro.  Here's what he tells me.

1.  It's going to get worse before it gets better.
2.  Once the muscles relax enough you will have one or more big "self-adjustments" and you will start to recover.

This morning I got out of bed, after having been able to sleep in a normal position for the first time in a while.  I stood up and got halfway through the thought, "I'm feeling better today, this isn't so bad".  At the halfway point something went off like a gunshot in my pelvis.  Luckily I was still standing by my tall bed or I would've hit my knees.  As it was I gasped and fell forward onto my bed, somehow not disturbing my half-asleep husband.

I guess that was the "self-adjustment" part.  I don't have any bullet holes over the area.

I forgot to have kids so I could give away shit jobs.

The weekend of July 17 was our deck-building weekend.  Is it me, or do you have to be a master fucking engineer to figure this shit out?  We had to submit blueprints to the city and give them a big piece of pie so they'd put an "OK" stamp on our plans.  Fortunately my husband is a genius because if I'd had to sit in front of the city's structural engineers and explain beams and joists I'd have shoved my finger up my nose as far as it would go and commenced drooling.  Spatial relations were always my weak suit. 

Day One went well but then Mother Nature interceded on Day Two with a plow wind.  I sent my kind volunteer force home before the worst hit, with the deck done but no railings.  These last two weeks have been about coming home and chipping away at the last few hours of work.  The shed we're putting up there was delivered yesterday too - complete with 10 000 parts to assemble.  This shit makes IKEA seem like a joke, people.  The last several HOURS of the shed assembly have to be done in one shot on a windless day or someone's going to get cut to ribbons by flying sheet metal.

And on top of it all I've injured my lower back somehow. My chiropractor declared me completely nuts for hand-digging those post holes.

The Meta-Post

I Don't Want to Jinx It...

...but I fixed my OWN damn Eustachian tube.  I know you guys don't give a crap about my ear parts but I'm going to talk about it here because I did a LOT of internet research before stumbling on the solution.  So it's going on the record where others can read what to do (consult with your doctor, people).  If you don't care, shuffle off with my regards.

My doctor sent me on my way last Saturday with a bottle of Otrivin, which didn't help at all.  My E-tube was still swollen, ringing and hot.  It was an all day, all night distraction.  My searches led me to this pilot's forum thread about blocked E-tubes.  Pilots have a lot of ear problems because of constant pressure changes, and they have to pass high-level hearing tests on a regular basis to keep their flight status.  I benefited from their interest.

A person on this thread had good results with high-dose guaifenesin syrup.  I already knew my E-tube wasn't infected, just blocked (there was no inflammation or fever and the doc said it wasn't infected).  I've taken guaifenesin before during a cold so I knew I could tolerate it.  I have mucus issues about which I won't elaborate in print but I knew the problem was a blockage.  So to get things moving I took double doses of syrup for four days.  I also took Aleve (naproxen to Canadians) to reduce the swelling, which was the only thing to work - Advil woudn't touch it and Tylenol bounces off my pain.  24 hours after starting guaifenesin my ear popped.  Today the ringing is gone and I'm off the Aleve.

Now, why didn't my doctor know this?

Did I Say Quiet?

The Edmonton Examiner has a little article in it this week that mentions that the city is not going to enforce stricter traffic noise bylaws in June as they had previously stated.  Looks like the street rods and Harleys win again.

I live at the end of a long residential road where the speed limit is rarely obeyed.  It's become a popular cruising route for motorbikes that are nowhere near street legal.  They gear down as they approach my house and the noise is so loud I can't hear my TV.  My windows rattle.  This issue is one of the highest volume complaints to the City of Edmonton phone line, and yet they say it isn't their problem.  It isn't bylaw's problem and it isn't the city cops' problem.  It isn't the RCMP's problem, either. It's MY problem.

On Sunday I was watering my lawn and I was thinking about putting the sprinkler on the edge of my lawn and turning it into the street.  Sure, the water would be expensive, but every motorcyclist would get a shower at the end of the road.  Or how about if I sat on my front lawn with my camera and a pad of paper?  Step onto the sidewalk and take their picture as they approach my house.  Write down their licence plate numbers?  Nah, maybe not - some of them are flying gang colours.

I've got to move out of this damn city.

Edmontonians, Lend Me Your Ears.

Spring does things to us here.  I'm not talking about the improvement of the moods of a million people once they can take off their socks and bust out their sandals - although that happens too.  When you live in a place where the max. and min. temperature are 80°C apart, the change has a physical effect.

I celebrate spring as the end of my dry vasomotor rhinitis.  The cold, dry air in a place where no humans should live has scarred the inside of my nose and sinuses.  It was a mild condition that increased from years of breathing coolant steam and metal filings while machining and is now a full wintertime pain in the ass nose.

This year brings something new!  I thought I had impacted ear wax.  It creates a full sensation on the side of the head.  If you've had it you know it's not painful, just annoying.  I sat in the doctor's waiting room for an hour just to have him look in my ear, see no wax, and tell me that I have an inflamed Eustachian tube.  He tells me this is a common Spring condition in Edmonton, when the pollen rises and the air pressure changes.  He is seeing even more cases now since there are prairie fires to the north.  All that dust and smoke and schmutz gathers at the connections between our ears, nose and throat. 

I have since spoken to two other people with E-tube problems - one of them with a chipmunk-cheek swelling.  I had no idea it was so common.  So, if you're out there suffering, save yourself an hour wait followed by a 2-minute discussion:  Take some Otrivin for a couple of days and some Advil for the swelling.

You Can Thank Me For Personally Saving The Earth Later.

Oh, to be a renter.  No!  I didn't just say that.  I never want to rent any domicile ever again.  I fucking loathed every second we had to rent.  It's just that owning a house is really damned hard on the pocketbook. 

It's like owning a car, see.  I know quite a lot of people who don't have a car and they squeal with envy when they see my shiny black hotness.  BUT - they don't see my scheduled maintenance bills and payments and $2000 winter tires and insurance and gas and registration and....$$$ I always tell them it's a money pit and if mass transit was better in this town I'd switch in a minute.  I bet it costs half of my paycheque just to own and maintain our one car.  It's that sad (both the paycheque and the expense).

Yes, owning a house is like that, but much more satisfying.  There is none of the frustration that comes at the end of the car's life when you find out it's worth nothing.  BUT - one day you smell something funny.  You turn to your husband and say, "Do you smell something funny?"  "Nope," he says, not having your bloodhound nose.  An hour later he smells it.  Experience sends us to the furnace room.

Our furnace is the original one in our 26-year-old house.  There was a crack in the heat exchanger when we bought it.  Our home inspector told us we could get another four years out of it, six years ago.  We've been waiting for it to conk out.  When we opened the furnace panel, we could see that the edges of the crack were white-hot.  "It's time," we said.

That funny smell is going to wind up costing us $4500.  We do get a 95% efficient furnace out of it, though, with a two-stage motor that actually keeps the house at an even temp and will lessen our gas and power bills.  I won't be sorry to see the back of that old, inefficient, polluting and underperforming piece of crap that leaves my living room ice-cold.  We also get to claim it on our income taxes next year.

And I will be toastier than ever by next Wednesday!!!