Opinionated Bean

While leaving the office today I took note of a gentleman who’s hair was a very striking shade of red - a cross between burgundy & flame with a dash of violet. At first I thought he may have been dipping into the Clairol or L’oreal hair colouring products - usually used by women; older men still tend to use Grecian Hair Forumla.

What I did discover when I passed him by was that he was wearing a very bad weave. He could be bald due to medical reasons, such as cancer therapy or having alapecia. But he had his eyebrows, there were hairs hanging out of his nose, so I assumed that he was just ashamed of his baldness.

Why can’t men celebrate their baldness. Relish it, enjoy it. All you really have to do, other than wipe it down is to put some sunscreen on so that it doesn’t burn. No more need for shampoo and hair conditioner.

Celebrate your baldness!!!

Now I have heard everything. Seems an inmate one of the glorious american prisons is being starved to death, story here.

A fat man is in jail waiting for his murder trial. He went into prison at above 400lbs but is now down to a svelte 308lb, and is quite unhappy about this. He is complaining that the 3000 calorie a day prison diet is tantamount to starvation- seems his wee little tummy starts to rumble an hour after eating. He’s also pushing to have the prison serve hot meals -  he hasn’t had a hot meal since September 2007 as the prison serves cold meals.

I could say that I am shocked that a complaint like this could even potentially be taken seriously. But I am not. The United States of America, home of the free and land of the brave, is a highly litigious society in which parents of fat kids try to sue McDonald’s for fattening their kids.

With regards to the fat prisoner, he’s also complaining that he’s short of breath and refuses to do any exercise in the exercise yard. Maybe if the lard-ass actually got off his arse and even strolled around the yard this might help with his hunger pangs.

I wish I had the problem of losing 100lbs in 7 months. Someone should just whoop his ass. He’s in prison, at some point he has to realise that he cannot have the comforts of home - which probably include several pizzas, fries/chips, several pounds of doughnuts and other wonderfully processed foods each day. Life is soooo hard.

I had a lovely day today just going from patio to patio, with tarotcub and diresquirrel. By mid-afternoon I had to call my nurse as my dressing was getting itchy and a little uncomfortable. She came over to my apartment at 5pm to do my dressing. She took some strip gauze and packed my abdominal wound (it hasn’t completely healed, btw) and realised she didn’t pack enough in, so she added more. But, she didn’t leave any dangling out so that it could be easily removed.

She tried to remove the gauze with foreceps, two types of tweezers and a pair of surgical scissors. The gauze is embedded in me, and won’t come out.

I called the Urology Resident on Call at Sunnybrook and they recommended that I get to the Urology Clinic as soon as possible tomorrow after work (my first day of work…yipeee). A Resident will be waiting for me to deal with the gauze.

Now, my nurse in a way is happy that this has happened. My previous nurse, Rhonda, had asked me to speak to my urologist about opening up the hole so that instead of packing the wound horizontally it can be packed vertically. This would require cutting into the top layers of the abdomen. Theoretically by packing the wound horizontally the healing process would speed up and the hole would actually close more quickly.

I am not really relishing the idea of enlarging the wound.

I just had a nasty experience on an elevator today - a stinky man was next to me, wafting his pits about, airing them out because he was schvitzing. I know it’s fairly warm today in Toronto, everyone knows that, so why this gentleman couldn’t have the decency to put on some antiperspirant or deodorant is beyond my comprehension.

I don’t relish my olfactory senses being assaulted by “man stench”. I was stuck on this elevator going up to the 18th floor while he was fanning his pits near me. I nearly gagged and made it obvious, I believe, that I didn’t appreciate this and moved to the other side of the elevator; and I did the typical Canadian thing, I glared but stayed mute.

I implore all men out there - wear your blasted antiperspirant, or I’ll smack you.

I had two job offers at approximately the same time - within hours of each other actually. I have never been in a situation in which I was that “desirable”, but I have to admit, I enjoyed it.

It was between two very large companies working two very divergent industries: one is a telecom has has its fingers in cable internet, cable television, magazine publishing and mobile phones; the other, a huge multi-national advertising firm with office spanning the globe with a parent company in the UK.

I now get a snazzy new title - Chief Accountant

And to think, I have  become queen of the coupons so I could save my shekkels to eke out an existence whilst recovering from surgery.

Huzzah I say! Huzzah!!

This past Saturday I had the good fortune and great pleasure of having a Kannel lesson. The kannel is a type of psaltry instrument from the Baltic area known by different names - kantele in Finland, kannel in Estonia, kokle in Latvia and kankles in Lithuania. I have an itty-bitty one, from the Aukstaitija region of Lithuania - a 5 string.

Saturday’s lesson was on hand positioning, moving from first position and fourth position while playing a very moving song from the Estonian Regilaulik, about the mythic origins of the kannel. As the song has 6 notes and my poor wee kankle has only 5 notes there were some areas in which I couldn’t strum/pluck. But we did get to sing the song, so that we could get a feel for it before attempting our pluckings.

The group I was with was primarily Estonian, all of us taking lessons via the Estonian Ethnographic Society here in Toronto Canada. The teachers were a friend of mine, Dace, who is Latvian. The other teacher is a master kannel maker, Tiit Kao. We played with Maja, Karin, Kristina and Anu (who’s livingroom we had invaded). At the end Tiit offered all of us a copy of “A Guid for Five & Ten String Kanteles” by Gerry Luoma Henkel from The Kantele Shop.

My only regret is that there isn’t anything like this amongst the Lithuanian community here in Toronto. I have searched, maybe not hard enough but I did search, for teachers but couldn’t find any. Dace graciously invited me to these lessons and I am enjoying them - not only because I get to learn a musical instrument but also because I am getting to know other Baltic people.

In days of yore I was an undergraduate at York University, here in lovely Toronto Canada. I have to admit that I found it odd that my university would cancel classes for 3 days out of the year that were not considered statutory holidays (Bank Holidays to you Brits) - Yom Kippur & Rosh Hashana (sp?). But it was 3 days off from school, and what self-respecting student wouldn’t love to not having to go into class at an ungodly 8am.

Most recently there was a complaint lodged that this practice is discriminatory. The Ontario Human Rights Commission agreed and York University is to stop this discriminatory practice. Now, it appears that it was not a student complained - god forbid that some pimple faced self-centred 18 year old would actually think of religious rights.. that doesn’t happen until the 3rd or 4th year of university. It was a professor who lodged the complaint.

Officially, yes, the practice is discriminatory as it tends to favour those of Jewish Faith. But I ask now, if it is unfair to favour the Jewish students, why are we still favouring Christian students? — Christmas Day, Boxing Day, Good Friday. These three days the university is closed, as is any other educational institution in this country.