Jess

What an eye opener today was for me. I did a ride along with Brent in the ambulance from 1:00pm until midnight. He was working right downtown Vancouver – the East Side, which is known as the “not so nice” part of town. That is putting it mildly. It was a relatively uneventful night – especially for a Friday night. We only got to drive Code 3 (lights and sirens) twice. That was the most exciting part for me. I loved being able to race through traffic and watch as all the cars moved over and stopped for us. So cool!!!However, the not so cool part was seeing things that I don’t normally see, and things I don’t normally think about. We drove down several dark alleys, full (and I mean full) of people, mostly addicts. From the safety of the ambulance (with doors locked of course) I saw drug deals taking place, and some other not so nice things. Each call we went on, and each person that I watched Brent attend to, has left a small impact on me in some way, some left a bigger impact. We first went to the hospital to transfer an 89 year old Punjabi man to a rehabilitation hospital. He suffered a stroke and still hadn’t regained the use of his right side. He also didn’t speak or understand a word of English. Apparently he has been living here for almost 20 years! How is it possible to live here for 20 years and still not speak or even understand English?? His daughter in law was there though and she translated to him, she also followed us to the rehab center so she could translate again to the staff there. Kudos to her, what a remarkable daughter in law! Next we went to a community sort of center (icky) to see a 50 year old schizophrenic who hadn’t taken his meds for a couple days and was thinking about hurting himself or someone. 2 cops were there with him and since he was a psych patient, one of the cops rode in the back of the ambulance with the patient and Brent, and I sat up front with Ian (Brent’s partner who was driving tonight). The guy didn’t get violent, but you never know with psych patients. We ended up waiting awhile with him at the hospital. The cop waited too and he was really nice. He tried to convince me that it would be more exciting doing a ride along with them then it would be with the ambulance. By the way the night went, I am beginning to think he was right! Next we got called to a “3 house fire”. Lights and sirens!!! 6 fire trucks were there on the scene – roads blocked off. How cool it was to be able to drive right through. It turned out to be a garage fire only and they had it out about 30 minutes after we arrived. Luckily no one was hurt, so we headed back to headquarters. The next call was a transfer from the hospital to a care home. We picked up this man who was about 72 or so (who had a hip replaced several months ago and was just in the hospital for a procedure) – he talked a lot but was friendly and harmless. He lived at this care home (which was more just like a hospital) but he seemed to be happy there. He talked about it fondly and said they feed them well there. We got there and it was not a great place. He shared a room with 3 other men and it was nothing more then a regular hospital room. No privacy whatsoever. Stark…bare….sad…. well, it made me sad. He seemed happy to be “home” though. The few other patients I saw there were simply sitting in their wheelchairs staring blankly at something. Lifeless. It made me wonder what kind of life this man had before coming here. If this seemed like such a great place to him, my goodness, I can only imagine what he has been through.

Onto the next call, to a skuzzy hotel. We were told to wait outside in the ambulance until the police who were on scene came out and gave us the go ahead to go inside. When it was ok to go in, we trudged up this dingy stairwell where all the stairs were uneven and sagging. I thought they might crumple right underneath us. 2 cops were with us and we went up to find a 62 year old man in the hallway. Drunk and had a nice big gash at the back of his head. Seems he got into a fight with someone. This was an odd one. He lived at this trashy place and had dirty clothes on. However at the hospital he took out a wad of cash from his pocket and had about $1000 on him! He wasn’t cooperating at first with Brent and didn’t want to go to the hospital even though Brent told him he needed stitches. One of the cops stepped in and told the man to be quiet and listen to Brent. Oh and they found a knife on him too. (Brent and Ian did, not the cops). He finally started to cooperate so we took him to the hospital. Next was a call for a 40 year old lady who was nauseous and throwing up. Lovely. We pick her up from another not so great building (although not as bad as the previous one) – she is all skin and bones. She was moaning that her head hurt and she was feeling sick and it was like pulling teeth while Brent was trying to get information out of her. She was trying to make herself throw up which was just disgusting. Then she admitted she did crystal meth earlier and then had a few drinks. Off to the hospital we go. We got called to check on a guy who was wrapped up in a blanket sleeping at the back of a parkade. Someone passed by and thought he was dead, so they called 911. He was just sleeping. Poor guy, he only looked like he was in his 20’s. He was wrapped tight in a blanket, had a couple sweatshirts on, and had a bag of chips beside him. Brent and Ian woke him up and just asked him if he was ok. He said he was so we gave him a couple emergency survival blankets, then we left. All this made me so thankful for what I have. I am thankful for my family, thankful that I have people who I love very much and that they love me back, I am thankful for my friends. I am thankful for my pets. I am thankful for my house and that I have a warm place to be every night. I am thankful for the clothes in my closet and the food in my fridge. I am thankful that I am relatively healthy (I have a disease called Ankylosing Spondylitis – it affects my spine and sacro iliac joints. There is no cure and I will have it for the rest of my life. But to look at me, you would never know anything is wrong.). I am thankful I can walk and take care of myself. I am thankful I have no addictions (well, unless you count candy or things with sugar….). I am thankful that I have a warm cozy bed to sleep in every night. I am thankful that I have a car. I am thankful for everything that I have. I don’t want to take things for granted anymore.

Wow, my own Blog. Finally I have joined everyone else and started my own Blog. Blog- what a funny name, I wonder who came up with it. Anyway, today is September 21, 2006. My Grandma’s birthday- Happy Birthday Grandma! It’s also Brent’s mom’s birthday too! Happy Birthday Suzanne! Oh- and isn’t it the first day of fall too? Or is it the last day of summer….. Its funny cause last week it was still scorching hot and now its so much cooler and rainy. The wonderful Vancouver rainy season has started.

Here are some pictures of us:

The first pic was taken in Victoria, the 2nd was taken at the Grand Hyatt in Hawaii

Now, back to my blog….

Never keep chocolate in the house. Actually never keep sweets of any kind in the house. I swear they call out to me until I gobble them all up. There is a bag of glossette raisins over on the table and I can hear it whispering my name. They aren’t even that good, yet I still find myself making a detour to the table everytime I get up. Bad chocolate. Is there really such a thing as bad chocolate? Yes, yes there certainly is.

I am so proud of Angus. He (and Zoey too) have been so good for so long now- no accidents in the house. They actually TELL us when they want to go out. What a concept!!!! Angus has a habit though of waking us up in the middle of the night (and it always seems to be me who ends up taking him out). He paces back and forth in the bedroom and then goes and scratches on the door. But at least he is letting us know!!! And its so much better then a year ago when we were in the condo and he’d just lift his leg on the corner of the bathroom door. Yeah, wasn’t that lovely. We have to keep all the doors in our house closed at all times because of Gracie the peeing cat. Yep, that is how I refer to her now: Gracie the peeing cat. She pees on beds. ANY bed. She especially loves ours though. She was doing so well for about a week and we were letting her sleep in the room with us. Then all of a sudden, I find a huge wet spot on the duvet. ERGH! I immediately threw the duvet in the washer. I know, its probably not good to wash the duvet, but it costs like $50 bucks to have it drycleaned. The other couple times I washed it, it was fine, but this time it must have gotten snagged on something in the washer cause there is a hole ripped in it. We didn’t even notice it until we found all these feathers and fluff all over the bed. hehe.

Angus is on the couch right now looking at me. He is so damn cute!! I just love him to bits.

Woohoo- tonight there are new seasons starting for good shows- ER, CSI, Grey’s Anatomy. Well, I don’t really watch Grey’s Anatomy. I wonder why I just said “don’t really”, its more like “not at all”. LOL. I think I’ve watched about 5 minute portions of the show a few times between channel surfing. I’m going to start watching it though, I’ve heard its an awesome show. At least now we have PVR (Like Tivo) so I can tape all kinds of things and watch them later.

I can’t wait for Desperate Housewives to start again- just LOVE that show, LOVE it.

So we went on a trip last weekend up North. A camping trip. Are we crazy??? Yeah, I guess we are kinda. I was so used to the nice weather we had down here that I wasn’t even thinking up North = COLD. I was so used to wearing shorts and tank tops at home, that I even packed capris and t-shirts to take camping. LOL. Its a damn good thing that I also packed lots of sweatshirts and fleeces, cause I was wearing 2 shirts, and 2 fleeces to bed everynight. The first night we woke up to find the tent covered in ice. Yes, ICE. We were sleeping in a friggin IGLOO.

We were also in the middle of nowhere at a campground we found down a logging road. It was beautiful though- right on Cariboo
Lake. I never even heard of Cariboo Lake before. We were 30 minutes down the logging road from the nearest town. If you can even call it a town. It had a population of 300. Town of Likely- consisted of one general store, and a pub located inside of the Likely Hilton Hotel. Certainly unlike any other Hilton I’ve seen. See the pic below.Ok, gonna sign off for the moment. Stay tuned for more stories of our Great Northern Camping Trip!!!

Those damn glosette raisins are chirping again……

posted by Jess @ 1:31 PM

Hmmm…the pic I posted of the magnificant Likely Hilton didn’t show up, so I’ll try posting it again. I just realized they have a gym at the hotel. Take note of the treadmill sitting outside the window. Now that’s classy.

 

Here is a pic of our igloo…er…tent.

Yesterday I had my eyebrows done- had them threaded actually. First time I ever had them threaded. I am cautious about going to new places to have them done as I have had some not so great experiences before- even at higher price spas. One time I got burnt- like really burnt. The temperature of the wax was way too high and damn did it hurt! The skin above my eyebrows and in between my brows was bright red- scorched- for days afterward and it HURT like mad.

So since moving to Vancouver I hadn’t ventured out to find a new eyebrow place yet. A couple of my friends recommended this place so since I was in the area yesterday I stopped in. I drove up to the salon and saw huge signs all over the windows that said “LADIES ONLY. NO MEN ALLOWED TO ENTER”. Hmmm… interesting. I briefly wondered how a business with the opposite signage would fare. (MEN ONLY- NO WOMEN ALLOWED TO ENTER). I’m thinking- not very well.

So I decide to go in and ask the girl at the counter if I need to make an appointment to get my eyebrows done. She says I just have to have a seat. I waited not even a minute before I got called. Not bad. The place was busy too. It was like I had stepped into
India. All the women working there were from India- as well as all the other customers except for me. And they had the Indian music playing quite loudly throughout. So I sat in the chair, the girl reclined it, and here I was about to have my first threading experience. It was different- wow, was it ever. It felt so odd!!! She was so quick and yeah it hurt. My friends warned me that it hurt more than waxing. But the pain was over instantly- it didn’t linger like the pain from waxing does. I was done in about 2 miuntes. Ok, maybe not that quick- maybe 3 minutes. And the best part- it was only $2.50!!!!!!!!!! How is it possible to find anything that cheap these days??? I used to pay $15-20 to get my eyebrows waxed at other places and they didn’t do as good a job as this threading girl did. I paid, then rushed out to the car to look in the mirrow. Amazingly, my skin was not all red and sore like it always is after I have my brows waxed. This was great!!! I will be back here for sure!

Originally posted on September 25, 2006

Ok, its super late, but I am loving this blog thing and I just had to come write something today! I realized I haven’t finished writing about our glorious camping trip from last week. Ok, where was I?

The first night: we stayed in the middle of nowhere. I may have already mentioned this once or twice, but this was a BIG deal! 30 minutes down a logging road to the nearest town- Likey, population 300. Remember the photo of the Hilton? Yep, I know. And then Likely was an hour away from the nearest city, or what I would call a city up North. It was still tiny, but they had grocery stores, a tiny mall, but NO Walmart. So I guess that really does show they are a small town. lol

So our campground- really beautiful- right on Cariboo Lake. Like RIGHT on the Lake- you took a few steps out of our campsite and you were on the beach. There were about 5 campsites in total, one of which there was another couple staying at – in their camper. Oh, I was so envious. They left the next morning though so we really had the place to ourselves basically. We were roughing it though. Pit toilets, no showers, no running water. Ugh.

It got SOOOO cold the first night. And to think I actually brought shorts with me- HA!!! What an idiot. I was wearing 2 shirts and 2 fleeces to bed each night, and when I wasn’t wrapped tightly in my sleeping bag with 3 blankets piled on top, I had my winter coat on OVER the two fleeces. And gloves and scarf too. I lost one of my gloves for a few hours and geez was I pissed.

We have this great tent- it’s high quality, light weight and meant for when you’re backpack camping, but its tiny. It is supposed to be a 3 person tent but I don’t see how the hell you could fit 3 people in there, its tight enough with us two. We can barely sit up inside it let alone stand. We have these mattress pads called Thermorests for when we hike cause they don’t take up much room and they’re light. Thats cause they are like half an inch thick!!! You can still feel every rock underneath the tent when sleeping on those things. So last time we car camped we went and bought a blow up air mattress to make things more comfortable. It does help somewhat. Must remember to inflate the mattress INSIDE the tent. Yep, made that mistake once. lol! The door to the tent is so small, we couldn’t fit the mattress inside it once it was inflated. It’s a double size mattress and it barely fits in the tent. It really is more like a twin size, seriously. So we get our stuff set up in the tent and it was really cold, so so cold. And to think the day before at home, it was still scorching hot. I went from sleeping under a thin sheet at home cause it was so stifling, to sleeping under 10 layers in the friggin arctic the next night.

To make things all the more lovely for my fabulous sleep, we had put the tent on a bit of a slope, a downwards slope, which happened to be on my side of the tent. All night long, I kept rolling off so I was awake trying to hold myself on this silly air mattress. It was so uncomfortable. Having to sleep on the double (I still swear it is a twin size) mattress was a pain too. We are used to sleeping in a King size bed at home, and with 2 dogs joining us, the King size feels too small sometimes. Yeah, they’re small dogs, but we all like to spread out. Oh and did I mention the dogs were sleeping in the tent with us? On the mattress with us? In the sleeping bags with us? All the more cozier. Actually they were like little hot water bottles for us. We both fought over who got the dogs, since there were two, we compromised and each took one. The poor dogs were cold too, when we got up the next morning, they got out of the tent long enough to go to the bathroom, then they climbed back into the tent and snuggled up under the blankets. Ah, such city dogs.

We spent that whole day in the campsite, not leaving once for the ENTIRE day. I think it was the longest day of my life. Brent had some fun fishing though, although he only caught a few small trout. I tried to read but didn’t get much done. We only had a certain amount of food with us, so we ended up having Kraft Dinner for lunch, and Pork and Beans, Instant Mashed potatoes and Chef Boyardee Ravioli for dinner. Oh yeah, it started raining too, right as we were making dinner. Then it poured. So we made a mad dash for the tent with our bowls of food. That was funny- all 4 of us sitting in the tent (practically on each others laps it was such close quarters), eating crap food out of our superior bullet proof dishes. At least if anything happens- the dishes will be safe! I don’t think we’ll ever eat instant mashed potatoes again. The highlight of our meal was the Ravioli.

So we ate then we sat there cause there wasn’t anything to do. It was either sit in the tent or go sit in the pouring rain. I chose the tent. We all did actually. So we sat there and played Uno. After 2 games of that, total boredom set in and we decided just to go to sleep.

Oh yeah, I forget to mention poor Brent’s lowlight of the day. While he was fishing, the hook got caught on a log underwater. The end of his fishing pole broke off and then the line broke and he lost his favorite hook. Or is it called a lure? Whatever. He was so upset. Well mad. No, upset. Ok, both. He stormed back to the campsite and had a bit of a pout. He was ok like an hour later.

We went back to the store in Williams Lake the next day – where he bought the fishing rod- and they exchanged it for another one. Then he was really happy again!

We continued further north to Quesnel. (Pronounced Quennel by the way. I kept saying Queznel and thoroughly embarrassed myself a couple times). But really, if its supposed to be pronounced like Quennel, why don’t they spell it that way? Why spell it with an S. Who uses a silent S?? A silent T or a silent P, but a silent S???? So we continue on to Barkerville- the old Gold Rush town that is now a tourist attraction. I had been looking forward to coming here. We made it 1 week before they were closing for the season so there weren’t many people there. Some, but not many. A bit disappointing in that some of the stores and businesses that were supposed to be open were closed. Oh well, we had fun anyway. We stayed about 3 hours then we went to this small hole in the wall town called Wells – to get something to eat cause we had a long logging road drive ahead of us. There was only 1 restuarant open in Wells, there were only 2 that we saw. It was like a roadhouse family restaurant, where all the locals hang out. Too funny. Totally old decor- it was stepping back in time. But the food was actually really good. The next journey was our drive back to the campground- this time all on a loggin road- 2 hours of logging road. Oh yeah, and in the pitch black. I thought Brent was driving quite quickly and it was freaking me out cause I was so worried some animal was going to jump in front of us and a) we’d hurt the animal and b) we’d probably get in a huge accident and kill ourselves. So it was a bit of a terrifying ride back. The road was very bad in some areas and really bumpy. Of course we got a flat tire. Wouldn’t you be surprised if I had said we made it without a flat tire? Brent didn’t discover it until we got back to the campsite so we’re not even sure how long we were driving on it like that.

Since it started raining once again, we left it until the next morning, when Brent put the little spare on. Then we drove all around with that silly tire on the car, hoping we wouldn’t get another flat cause then we’d really be hooped. We spent all morning trying to find a good spot on Quesnel
River (there’s that stupid silent S again) for Brent to fish. No luck. So we drove down another very long logging road to Quesnel Forks. It turns out this spot was our favorite of our whole trip. So secluded and so beautiful. It is an old ghost town so there are actually buildings still there. Small houses and stuff. Brent went fishing in the river and caught lots of fish! He releashed them all back into the water.

Ok, so that was our trip. It is super late here, so I gotta get to bed. I will post more pictures of our trip later.

posted by Jess @ 1:17 AM originally written September 26, 2006