Katastrophe

2011 Highlights

2011-12-31T23:56:00.025-05:00

January

We started the new year off with a wonderful flu that took the whole house down in the matter of a weekend.
The flu managed to get itself not one but two entries.
The Vomit Cometh and More Vomit Cometh
Poor little me feels sorry for myself.
Socialization for Parents of Disabled Children
I get pissed off when I read about a woman, suffering from dementia, freezes to death while her cries for help go unanswered.
Unanswered Cries for Help

What's for Dinner 2011

2011-12-31T23:31:00.001-05:00

A years worth of meals can be seen here.

The Moon Glitters on the New Fallen Snow

2011-02-02T23:24:00.000-05:00

The snow has stopped falling, for now, I'm sure it will start up again in the not too distant future. After all, this is Canada in the winter and while I like to think that spring is just around the corner, I do know that we have a whole lot more of winter to hit us before we can pull out our shorts and sandals and start to worry about how much the humidity is going to kill us.
But back to the snow. It's stopped falling and I hate to admit it but as much as I really hate the cold of winter and all the slipperiness that comes with snow and ice, it is really pretty to look at freshly fallen snow.
I always liked looking at the fresh snow in the night, when each little flakes reflects the lights of all the houses, street lamps and even the moon light, as the freshly fallen snow reflects all these different light sources it looks like it's glittering. The snow looks like it's made up of thousands or even millions of little diamonds.
Very pretty.

Television, Weather and Moving

2011-02-01T09:13:00.002-05:00

Hubby and I have started to watch Grey's Anatomy, it was the season 6 finale that grabbed our attention and who can blame us because who could watch that and not be drawn in?
So we're watching these past episodes and really enjoying them, and wondering why the hell we waited for so long to give this show a look, and then we see the opening credits and remember that it looked like it was just another cheesy soap opera-ish looking show and that's why we avoided it for so long. It's the same reason that I do not watch Desperate Housewives. Please don't leave me hate comments, it's just the way I am.

Talking about Grey's Anatomy and the reason for us not watching it wasn't the reason behind this entry. This entry is about the weather in Seattle, which for those of you who actually don't know this, is very similar to the weather in Vancouver, the city that I long to pack my family up and move to.
As we're watching Grey's Anatomy, they keep showing landscape shots of the city of Seattle being pelted by small drops of water plummeting from the sky and Hubby keeps turning to me in amazement and asking me "And you want to pack up and move there?" or something along those lines.

My response to Hubby is yes, I want to move there. My reasons for wanting to move there haven't changed and I haven't made this choice lightly. I've gone and done research on the weather in Vancouver and compared it to the weather here in Toronto and yes I am aware that Vancouver gets over 300 mm more rain that Toronto, but what makes that better than Toronto, half of Toronto's precipitation is snow.
Vancouver does get snow, and that because they have wet snow it makes it slippery and a bit more dangerous to drive in, and the fact that Vancouver doesn't get a lot of snow means that they don't have a lot of snow removal procedures or equipment in place, but part of the problem for the low budget for snow removal is also a bonus for me wanting to move there. Because of the warm temperatures in Vancouver, by the time they get any snow removal equipment on the road the snow is already thawing.
The warm temperatures are definately a bonus for me, the fact that the temperature rarely gets below freezing is a big bonus.

I can go on and on about all the reasons why I want to move to Vancouver, but the reality is that right now the reasons for not moving to Vancouver outweigh the reasons for leaving.
Hubby's just been given a promotion to Supervisor at work which means a pay raise, even if he is the night supervisor, which means he leaves for work at 5 in the evening and comes home at 5:30 in the morning.
Also, right now Sean and Ceilidh are in highschool, and Ceilidh's school is a specialized school for girls that have difficulties with learning as well as have difficulties with socialization. Which, with Ceilidh's dyslexia and her difficulties trusting people and all the other baggage that comes with being bullied like she was, this school is the perfect fit for her. She's made friends and her grades at mid-term were all in the high 70's to mid 80's. She's never done good at school before, never. She's blossoming and I don't want to remove her from that.
Plus, I don't know what sort of school Dev would get if we moved out there. I've had problems with his school in the past, but this year seems to be going pretty well and I'd hate to yank him from this school, move to the other side of the country and realize that I'd pulled him from the frying pan and put him into the fire.
But I'm not giving up on my dream. One day I'll move out to Vancouver. It's on my bucket list.

What's for Dinner

2011-01-29T17:19:00.002-05:00

My own personal recipe, Bacon Wrapped Beef Medallions. Gravy and mashed potatoes, bacon and onion fried green beans and corn.
Dessert will be peanut blossoms.

What's for Dinner

2011-01-28T17:00:00.004-05:00

Today I'm preparing home made meatballs with sweet and sour sauce over a bed of rice.
I'm hoping that dessert will be chocolate brownies over a scoop of french vanilla ice cream, all of which will be drowned in chocolate sauce.
But if the kids keep behaving badly, which will probably be the case, then the brownie, ice cream chocolate sauce concoction will have to wait and I'll just enjoy a Vanilla Hazelnut Crunch Häagen-Dazs ice cream bar all by my lonesome.
C'mon kids, isn't it your bedtime already?

What's for Dinner

2011-01-27T17:00:00.002-05:00

Tonight's feast will be made up of Honey Garlic Chicken with a honey garlic pasta toss. There will be glazed carrots and some peas and corn.

Of Crumpets and Complaints

2011-01-27T09:41:00.001-05:00

"Crumpets, the name is unappealing and they don't look like they'll be any good either." That was Sean's statement to me this morning when I told him that we were all out of English muffins but were up to the eyeballs in crumpets. "Try one." I said, he rolled his eyes and explained to me in very determined tones that he would never try a crumpet and then he said the above statement as an explanation as to why he'll never eat one.
My response was that I'll make two crumpets, one for me and one for him to try. If he didn't like his crumpet, I'd eat it for him and after much complaining and his repeated statements of "what I really want is an English muffin with peanut butter on it." and my answer of "well we don't have English muffins so either try a crumpet or shut up." he finally agreed to try one.

He must have enjoyed the crumpet because I blinked and his plate was empty and he was saying how he might like to have another.

What's for Dinner

2011-01-26T17:00:00.008-05:00

Frozen pizza for dinner again tonight kids, because I'm full of fully loaded baked potato soup and not caring about any kind of food. Sorry.
Or perhaps you'd like to enjoy some of the left overs that are in the fridge, tacos, chicken pot pie and beef stew are all sitting there waiting for you.
Enjoy

What's for Dinner

2011-01-25T16:55:00.000-05:00

Today I'm feeling really run down, I'm not sure if I'm fighting off a cold or if this is just my sinusitis acting like a bitch. One thing is for certain though, tonight I just feel like making it Taco Night in the Katastrophe Household.
Scrumptious seasoned ground beef filling, soft shells. Shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, grated Tex Mex blend of cheeses (with jalapeno peppers), sour cream and salsa or taco sauce, which ever is preferred.

What's for Dinner

2011-01-24T17:39:00.005-05:00

Today I had to take Devlin out to the opposite side of town to see a doctor and have a feeding assessment done, which ended up taking hours and that meant we didn't get home until almost 3 in the afternoon. Which meant that I was tired and not feeling like cooking.
So out comes the frozen lasagna for dinner tonight.
Yay!

To Make: Sample Afghan

2011-01-23T15:24:00.001-05:00

A while back I found a beginner knitting project which seemed right up my alley. You knit sample patches, 5"x5", and you knit a whole bunch of them. You use these little 'blocks' to practice your knitting technique on these blocks, just doing the same stitch over and over again.
Then when I laid out my project, and I decided to make it a queen sized afghan. Perhaps that may have been a bit of a mistake. I was hoping this would be a project that would show me results fast. I figured that the little 5"x5" blocks would be satisfying enough for me to keep going.
Yesterday I laid out my pattern, and I realized just what I'm in store for.
I have to knit 63 blocks of each of the colors below.

And all around the edge of the afghan will be 68 knit blocks of the below color.

Right now I'm able to knit 1 block a day. In total I have to knit 320 blocks, this afghan is going to take me quite a while.

What's for Dinner

2011-01-23T10:04:00.000-05:00

Ceilidh has decided that she wants to make dinner tonight, and she's decided that she wants to make Hobo Stew with her Dad.
Personally I think she just wants to cook with booze, but whatever. I'm not going to complain because it means that I don't have to cook today and that means that I won't have to have cooked a thing for 2 whole days.
Oh the joy!
So, what's for dinner tonight, Hobo Stew and a break for me.

Ouch

2011-01-23T10:00:00.003-05:00

Head hurts. Sinuses exploding. I've taken all pills that are relevant, nothing helping.
Send help now!

Feeling Run Down

2011-01-22T18:33:00.000-05:00

Just got back from grocery shopping with Chris (Hubby) and Ceilidh and I feel exhausted.
I keep flashing back to last year and how I felt leading up to my hospitalization and I'm comparing it to how I feel right now and I know I'm just being paranoid but man I have to say I'm seeing/feeling a lot of similarities. Now I'm not talking about the pneumonia or sepsis, I'm thinking more along the lines of the dehydration, low potassium and iron.
Right now I've got cotton mouth all the time, I'm always tired and feeling like I'm dragging ass. I know I don't eat all the right foods all the time and I have a severe aversion to taking vitamins, I do try but for some reason my brain never lets me remember them.
Like I said earlier, I'm probably just being paranoid, but when I remember what I went through back then, well I just don't want to do that to myself or my family again.

Although I do have to say it was nice to get room service, in bed, every single day. Even if the food did suck. It was nice to have time to just lie in bed and breath without someone clinging to me or demanding my time or asking me to just do one thing for them, and then another thing, and another and another, and so on.
I don't have money for a vacation, so I figure that's the closest thing I'll be getting to a vacation any time soon.

What's for Dinner

2011-01-22T10:00:00.001-05:00

In honour of so much running around that needs to be done today, I shall be grabbing 2 chicken pot pies from Costco and we shall be enjoying them tonight.
Also, because I'm feeling lazy and sick and just don't want to cook tonight!

Bit Better Knitting

2011-01-22T00:54:00.001-05:00

I've been slowly teaching myself to knit for the past couple of years and while I've knitted more rows than I can even put a number to, I am ashamed to say that I have never actually completed a piece.
Instead I just knit and knit and knit and then I unravel the whole damn thing because it's not perfect and I don't want to hold on to some awkward looking thing that in a few years I'll look at and wonder what they hell I thought was so special about that lopsided scarf anyways?

But I did start to keep little sample swatches of my knitting. My plan was to knit a whole slew of the things, all of them 5 inches by 5 inches and then I was going to sew them all together and make a sort of afghan out of them.
Problem? Yes, now that I've gotten about a years worth of practice in since I knitted the last 'kept swatch' I can now see just how much I've improved in my knitting talent, but the problem is that the perfectionist in me is now wondering what the heck I'm going to do with those earlier swatches, because I don't really want to sew them beside the newer, much improved ones.
Don't get me wrong, I am going to use them, and I love how this afghan is going to be an example of how my knitting skills got much better. But I know that every time I look at the damn thing I'm going to see the flaws in some swatches and love some of the others. Some I'll just look at and think 'you're middle of the road, aren't you?' and there's nothing wrong with that. It's just that it will sort of irk me.

What's for Dinner

2011-01-21T17:00:00.002-05:00

I've been working on todays meal since lunch time, well it's not like I've been standing over a stove cooking all that time. Today I am making a lovely roast beef (eye of the round) and some yummy Italian seasoned roasted vegetables.
The house if filled with such scrumptious smells right now and it's making me hungrier with each and every minute that passes.

Home with Dev

2011-01-21T10:25:00.000-05:00

Yesterday at 3:30pm I discovered that Devlin would be home with me today due to a PD day at school. Normally his school sends notices home at the beginning of the week, at the latest mid-week, but this week he brought his notice home with him last night. Hmmm. A nice surprise for Mommy.
So I've now gone onto the school boards websight and marked on my calendar all the upcoming PD days and I won't be surprised again. Hooray!

What's for Dinner

2011-01-20T17:36:00.004-05:00

It's been so long since we had any Mexican food, so tonight we've elected to enjoy some scrumptious chicken fajitas.
Nom Nom

Unanswerd Cries for Help

2011-01-19T15:14:00.002-05:00

I got this story via the Globe and Mail, but it was all over the news on the day it happened and I've been thinking it over ever since. I've been listening to the excuses of the residents of this street and after they've had the chance to share their story, I have to say that their excuses are weak and there isn't a hint of regret or guilt in anything I've heard or read.
Read the following article, and at the end look for my thoughts on this.

Toronto woman’s desperate attempt to stay alive in freezing temperatures
Written by: Jill Mahoney, Ann Hui and Trevor Melanson

In the snowy streets of a Scarborough, Ont. neighbourhood, Judy Tak Fong Lam Chiu left a chilling trail that led to her frozen body.
Her winter coat and glasses were discarded, a symptom of the dementia that clouded her mind, while fingernail marks on the screen door of a house and on a parked car demonstrated her desperate attempt to stay alive as the temperatures dipped as low as -20 C early Monday morning.

The body of the 66-year-old woman was discovered on a sidewalk on Kennaley Crescent around 5:30 a.m., just 300 metres from her home on Cleadon Road in the city’s northeast.
According to police, her husband, 60-year-old Chiu Wing Tung, noticed that she was no longer in bed around 2 a.m., but assumed she had gone downstairs to sleep on the sofa. When he awoke again an hour later, he realized she had disappeared, and he began driving around the neighbourhood looking for her. He finally called police around 4:45 a.m.
She was eventually found by a newspaper carrier, her body so cold that paramedics were unable to revive her.
She was pronounced dead in hospital at 7:05 a.m., but may have survived, police say, if some of the neighbours who heard her screams for help around 2 a.m. had intervened or called 911. One resident even looked outside and noticed someone stumbling around in the dark and cold, said Sergeant David Dubé, and then went back to bed.
“It’s a circumstance where we should have been notified to attend,” Sgt. Dubé said. “As a community, we have an obligation to look after each other. That’s what it’s about.”
Some 500,000 Canadians live with dementia, and their relatives live with the fear that they may just wander away.
Ms. Chiu’s neighbourhood is populated with a mix of long-time residents and recent immigrants, residing in unassuming, attached brick homes. Many, like her, have a Chinese background.
But few of her neighbours reported speaking with the couple, and most did not know her name. Some said she would rarely leave the immediate area around her house, and she would often walk back and forth in front of her driveway, or pace to the edge of the curb.
“There seemed to be some evidence of illness, but also some evidence of awareness,” said neighbour Courtney Fisher, who lives two doors down from the couple.
George Cheang, a 22-year-old York University business student who lives on Kennaley Crescent, awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of screaming, but assumed it was neighbours arguing or returning home from a party, and stayed in bed. He would have acted differently if he had he known what was happening, he said, and insisted that most neighbours on the quiet street are friendly, say hello and help each other out.
“The way I see it is, it happened on my street. It could have happened on your street,” said Mr. Cheang, who has lived with his parents in the neighbourhood since they moved from Macau 10 years ago. “I’m not worried about people judging me. I’m more worried about what happened to the woman on the street.”
Other residents said they believed people should have helped, but may have been too fearful to intervene. “You don’t know who’s going to be there when you open the door,” said Lucy Abdelmaseeh, who lives about half a block down from where the woman was found, but said she didn’t hear anything.
The elderly woman would often stand alone at her doorway, staring at the street for hours, said Jian Cao, who lives across the street. He said the couple rarely had visitors, and he was unsure whether they had any other family living in the city.
Domenico Capotorto, 60, lives two houses over from the elderly couple, and said Ms. Chiu didn't appear to speak English. Property records show the couple have owned the house since 1989.
“She was a nice lady. I would see her walking in front of the house and say hi, but that was it,” he said.
He said he wasn't aware of ever seeing the woman looking lost or confused, but said that he had heard she had gotten lost last year and that police had become involved. Eventually, he said, she was found wandering at a nearby shopping mall.
Mr. Fisher believes his neighbours would have helped Ms. Chiu, had they known what was happening, and may simply have not heard her cries for help. “I don’t like to believe that people heard her and did nothing.”

Years ago, an elderly neighbour of mine went missing. All of his friends were coming to the apartment, knocking on his door and it was out of place, normally he never had anyone to his home. So I asked what was going on, not to be nosy but because this was out of place. They told me they hadn't seen or heard from him in a week and they were concerned because nobody knew of his whereabouts. I waited for a bit, continued to keep an eye out of him. I still had no sign of him, so I attempted to call the landlady and see if she'd heard from him, but I got no response.
This was during a heat wave and all his windows were sealed tight, and I knew he had no AC, so I called the police. They broke down his door and to all of our relief we discovered that he wasn't in his apartment. He showed up the next day and told me he'd fallen on his way home and had been in the hospital for the past week. He thanked me for my concern.
I didn't do it because of any other reason than it is my obligation to be a good person and look out for others as I'd hope they would do for me.

This lady didn't just lie down on someones driveway and fall asleep in the cold. She cried out for help. She tried to claw her way into a warm place and nobody cared. Perhaps they just thought it was some homeless person and that it wasn't their problem to deal with it.   The idea that homeless people chose to be homeless and that means that we're relieved of our obligation to treat them as people is widespread and it disgusts me.
But no excuse of 'you don't know what's on the other side of the door when you open it' or 'I assumed it was neighbours arguing' will ever wash their hands clean of Judy Tak Fong Lam Chiu's blood.

At the worst I would hope that charges for blatant disregard for human life be brought against these residents, and at the very least I hope that for the rest of their lives they carry this moment with them and hopefully if they ever have the chance to help out a person in need again, they won't make the same mistake twice.

A few years ago, another elderly neighbour of mine passed away and to this day I am still disturbed by his death. He was a sweet old man and before I got my job I'd see him almost every day as he walked by my house. But once I got my job I stopped watching for him, suddenly my life became too busy.
So when I came home from work to discover he died and nobody had missed him, the guilt was horrible.
As a society we need to look after each other better.   We should each and everyone of us be held accountable for our actions or lack thereof.
Never again should someone be able to throw their hands up in the air, shrug their shoulders and make lame excuses as to why they just walked away from another person in trouble!

Breakdown in the Bathroom

2011-01-19T11:35:00.001-05:00

After a night of practically no sleep due to Hubby's chainsaw (snoring) in the bed beside me, I somehow managed to drag myself out of bed when the alarm went off at 5:00 and staggered up the stairs in the dark to Ceilidh's room, woke her up and told her to go and have her shower.
By the time I made it back down the stairs, the water was already running for the shower, a new precedent because usually I have to yell up to her about 10 after and tell her to get a move on. I smiled to myself, hoping that this was a good sign for how my morning was going to go.
I puttered along in the kitchen, packing up lunches and getting things ready for the big rush at 6:00, when the boys got up and things start to really get popping. So I wasn't really paying attention to Ceilidh, which is a mistake because that girl has no concept of time, no concept of getting things done and basically no concept of how not to piss her Mom off. Normally I'm right on top of that girl, pushing her through each stage of getting ready in the morning, because if I'm not, she falters and fails. But today I thought that it would be ok, because she was on top her game.
Big mistake.
At 6:00 I turn on the kitchen tap and try to get some hot water to wash something off, but I run that water for a couple of minutes and it's still cold water. Then it slowly dawns on me, the water is still running upstairs. I run up and bang on the door and I can hear her, scrambling around in the bathroom, in a panic. I tell her to unlock the door, and she says "Hold on a sec." and I can hear her jumping into the shower.
She opens the door, her hair is only half wet and not all the way to the roots and I glower at her. I'm furious at the deception. I accuse her of sitting in that bathroom, with the water running, pretending to be showering, while in fact she was probably sitting on the toilet, dozing off or something.
"No, I was in the shower." She claims. After I browbeat her a bit she finally comes clean and admits to what I already ~~suspected~~ knew.
I'm furious at her for the deception, I'm furious for the lies that she attempted to tell me to cover up her deception. I've always told my kids that one of the few behaviours that I will never accept or forgive them for is lying to me. I've always told them that they should just tell me the truth, I'll still punish them for the things they've done wrong, but if I catch them in a lie, it'll go a hundred times harder on them.
They used to be good. They never used to lie. Then suddenly they became teens and it seems that any shred of respect they had for me went out the door and got left on the trash pile.
Tonight, when Ceilidh gets home from school I will be having a sit down with her where we can discuss the why's and what for of this behaviour.

What's for Dinner

2011-01-17T23:19:00.001-05:00

Today I hang my head in shame, for I am not a good Mom. I will not slave over a hot stove to feed my family. I will not do anything more than open a box and throw a couple of frozen disks into the oven, something some would call frozen pizza. I call it easy.
Tonight's dinner will be 2 Delisio pizzas, one Vegetarian and the other Bacon Hamburger. The first pizza will be for me and anyone else that wishes to enjoy it's vegetable laden, saucy and cheese crust.
You couldn't pay me to eat a Hamburger pizza of any kind.

What's for Dinner

2011-01-16T17:34:00.002-05:00

Corned beef on rye, red cabbage salad (sort of like a coleslaw only made with red cabbage instead), pasta salad and for anyone who doesn't feel like having a corned beef sandwich, there's roast beef.

What's for Dinner

2011-01-15T17:32:00.001-05:00

It's Saturday and that means leftovers. We finished off the Hambruger gravy over mashed potatoes and some ate leftover perogi with sour cream.