lezlee’s Neighborhood

What are you hoping to find under the tree this year?

*HP Mini Notebook
*I-pod Nano 5th Gen 16GB
*Canon Ixus
*A Flip Phone
*Portable DVD Player

Back on track. But so hot here today. And windy. And stuffy.

So today is get all the final little bits and pieces I want to add to the pile.

I know it looks like there's a lot of wet ones there but I'll be the one laughing when there's no toilet paper somewhere we go. They they'll all be calling for me.

Muesli bars because Emjay has convinced me I must never eat on a plane for fear of food poisoning. Because then there will only be 2 toilets between hundreds of people. And my wet ones would be in high demand then.

Diarrhoea tablets, because..... well because its starting to sound like I have some fixation with toilets and bowels.

Lots of antiseptic handwash, allergy tabs because I always get itchy and ear wax because my ears get sore in water. I think I only need to add panadol and mylanta.

I'm sure I can buy all this stuff over there for half the price. I should have been a girl guide. Apprently you can get all your prescription meds there with no prescription really cheap.

 

 

 

And I'm cashed up in baht now. I felt like I was carrying a brick around in my handbag. Just enough for us all to get through a few days.

 

 

And now I'm off to take up my temple pants.  Bought a pair of light white longs in case we go anywhere where they like you to be fully covered.

Which means getting out the trusty old sewing kit. Look, it even has white cotton.

 

 

Then its off to my doctor to see what he thinks about what the hospital doctor told me and advised.

Ok, I don't have an income or any idea of how I am going to have one over the next year, BUT I would like to take 6 weeks to travel in Europe next August/ September. Iceland Air has ridiculously cheap airfare. I would start with 5? days in Iceland, then fly to London and take the train to the south coast for my friends' (The Wedding Present) music festival in Brighton on 8/28. Then fly to Copenhagen and spend up to 2 weeks at my uncle's place in southern Sweden, reading, writing, and relaxing. Then maybe Paris? It has been a few years.

All I need is several thousands of dollars and a birdsitter. I've got 9 months to find those things. No problem.....

It's been freezing cold, I went running at the Lake today and it's already covered in ice. Lovely, though. Downed conifer limbs, blue jays singing.

Now I'm drinking my third hot beverage (hot chocolate) and hoping to hear back from employers. Oh, did I mention, the school hasn't sent me my diploma yet? But the Registrar confirmed that I'm officially graduated. I'm not celebrating until I get the diploma in hand.

We've been consuming good movies and hot cider for Solstice. No fancy celebrations this year, til we get to my sister's. SyFy channel has 2 great holiday specials. One is a remake of Alice in Wonderland. We haven't seen it yet. The other is a really dark, modern remake of Wizard of Oz.

The second one is called Tin Man and I never thought I'd say this, but Alan Cumming is adorable as the Scarecrow. The plot is completely different and you wouldn't even recognize the characters from the original. I love, love love creative remakes, or just simple, creative films. They're in low supply these days.

Another fun plug is the new Sony Ericsson "eco phones", Hazel and Elm. (Cute, right)? They look nice and I used to love my old Ericsson before the *ahem* screen ribbon broke.

Does anyone have other fun film ideas for Solstice? I don't especially like fantasy unless it's mixed with a good plot. Harry Potter is pretty fun for this time of year. I thought the sci fi was a stretch but as long as it's not overly dramatic vampire movies or something, it's an okay medium.

 

 

This is so adorable, I wish I had seen this a month ago! These are alternative Christmas trees from Treehugger. The photo at the end of this post is a ladder. No extra purchases, no tree cut down. Someone remind me of this a year from now.

We have a norfolk pine. I like the idea of a living holiday tree - but after Solstice we can't plant it because it's an invasive species. I'm not crazy about tree farms because it creates a monoculture where a diverse forest could otherwise be. Then there's all the energy used to mulch them (again monoculture). These Treehugger ideas are genius. Oh well, I did a few things right this holiday. Hmm, let's see....(tries to alleviate guilt)...

1. I'm using newspapers and paper bags for gift wrapping. Decor on top includes ribbons from last year's gifts, dried leaves, stamps and beads. I'll post photos.

2. Saved glass milk jugs to fill with candy, instead of elaborate, plastic wrapped truffle boxes

3. Used rechargeable candles instead of wax ones (I suppose the ecological benefit of this is debatable, but at least our house won't burn down)!

4. Collected fallen branch pines for wreaths, instead of buying material (at my Lake I saw many people doing the same, dragging huge branches behind them and one woman even had an armful of toxic berries - how fun)!

5. Shopped locally and all in one town so we didn't have to drive far.

It's a decent start, anyway! Feel free to share your ideas for the holiday too. And check out this Christmas tree!

 

 

I have not been in love.....

I don't know what it feels like or how it is like to be in love

Partly it is my choice.

I am happy though.

I know I am

but...

is it a loss?

should I be sad?

I post stuff about love and lost and everything in between. From poems to quotes to lyrics, but I really don't know what they mean.

Well the plan for today had a major upset.

Mainly me finding myself at the hospital at 9am hooked up to the ECG machine thinking I was having a heart attack.

I thought I was having a heart attack yesterday morning. About ten minutes into my morning treadmill session. But as usual you tell yourself you're being ridiculous and it seemed to get better pretty quickly anyway.

Then this morning I thought I'd just walk on the treadmill. All went well until I finished and got in the shower. Then I had the most terrible gripping chest pains.

So I had an aspirin and went and lay on the bed. Then after five minutes I had two quick-eze and went back to bed. After ten minutes I put on my shoes and a bit of blush. And after twenty minutes I rang Daz and said, if you're close by can you come and take me to the hospital.

So I walked in and said to the desk lady - do I have to see you before I see a nurse. And she said - yes, just wait a minute and went back to her phone call. And after a bit I said - its chest pains, leaning on her desk and gripping my chest.

So nice nurse came and got me and put an oxygen mask on me, slipped a pill under my tongue and wanted to give me an aspirin but I told her I'd had one. Then she hooked me up to the machine and mixed me a not terribly pleasant drink of mylanta mixed with pink anaesthetic.

Doctor came and YAY - no heart attack. Some wobbly bit on the graph but apparently nothing important.

So he tells me maybe its gallstones or a stomach ulcer. I said what gives you gallstones. And he said too much of that fatty rich food we all eat too much of. Are you kidding I said, I've just lost 8 kilos, I haven't eaten a piece of fat for months. So I didn't really think it was gallstones, because I googled it and it didn't feel like that anyway.

But it still meant an hours drive to the ultrasound place to have the pesky gall looked at. But YAY no gallstones.

So now I'm taking a course of tablets for 6 days for stomach ulcers. I don't think its that either really.

Stomach ulcer doesn't bode well for Thailand food. Better though than a heart attack I have to say. Or gallstones.

He tells me that sometimes the body just has strange pains. I have to see him on Thursday for a final check over. But there will be no exercising again before we go.

Its been a tiring kind of day. And now I'm going to end it with Lizzies school presentation night. A long night in a hot hall full of women wearing way too much perfume, and watching a lot of kids I have no interest in getting their awards. Until we get to the important one. Lizzies. And she's last because she's in the highest year.

No rest for mothers. Can't even have a suspected heart attack and get a night off the job.

There's a common theme that arises among self-improvement gurus and writers that really bothers me. It is, basically:

"Take 100% responsibility for your own happiness."

or

"The only thing standing between you and happiness is YOURSELF."

or

"The problem is inside you."

Now, I think there's a valid point here. Those who live their lives to please others or blame others for their feelings are looking for external excuses too much... but also too little. What we tend to miss is the BIG PICTURE. The really big one. As in, we live in a world that is fundamentally built on oppression. Our global economy has never gotten over its dependence on the slave trade, despite appearances, and I believe that this state of affairs is toxic to everyone that lives in it.

Suppose you were in a bad marriage. A really bad one - your husband beats you every Tuesday and takes your paycheck to buy himself hookers and blow, let's say. You'd get out, right? But that is precisely the kind of relationship we have with multinational corporations. They cover the bruises well... giving out holiday bonuses and personal time off. And in order to receive those cheap rewards we bend over and take what they tell us we deserve.

And then we read self-help books to figure out why we are not satisfied with what might even look like "success" according to our cultural values. I posit that this epidemic of anti-depressants and meditation retreats that took hold the latter part of the 20th century has more to do with the advent of "human resources" as a viable term than it does with our own personal neuroses. I don't think we can fix this by working on ourselves.

Not that self work is a bad thing. The revolution won't get far if we can't individually manage to even get out of bed to get angry. But the problem is not inside you. I think it is important to hold on to that if we want to see any real change in our lifetimes. This abusive power structure will not hold up if we ALL refuse to accept it.

I'm looking forward to spending Winter Solstice at my sister's house, in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. We talked about moving again and we're actually considering some places close to the border that are nice.

I was talking to my friend Rosie about my article idea; she mentioned that I should start with a variety of topics to start with. One idea I had was showing how products get from the ecosystem to our homes.

We wake up to our Starbucks Costa Rican Coffee; you get to learn about the colorful tropical birds that use the rainforest canopy there; the vines that hang high above the farmers as they tend to their crop.

I know a few authors up North and I think it's a much quieter place. There's nothing like a quiet study, with umber bookshelves and a skylight covered with snow on a cold winter day. Rosie has big picture windows in her house where she can watch the furry squirrels play in the snow.

We need the perfect mix of a serene town but still a good central place where there's bookstores and events. Many of those towns are more enlightened too. Less politics and more community involvement. They appreciate author events and science because it gets them out of the snowbound house.

Sitting around and talking to other authors about ecology while sipping spiced hot chocoloate. Hmmmm.....