Hello would you like to hear about our concert experience last night? If the answer is no, then be gone! Because that’s all this post is about!

First off, I have to say that I was more than a little excited about the Bryan Adams concert last night. I love music. I love live music (unless it’s lip-synced, overproduced, not actually live music). And damn, I love Bryan Adams, I don’t even care.

I was 14 when Bryan Adams’ Waking Up The Neighbours CD came out – it was actually the first CD I ever bought (up until then I’d been spending my allowance pennies on cassettes – but my parents had just purchased a stereo with a CD player so I had to make the switch) and I played the arse off of that thing. I copied all the lyrics from the CD liner by hand, traced the cover art, taped off the CD, and gave it to my best friend, because her parents hadn’t bought a CD player yet. Yeah, I was kind of a nerd. And of course, being Canadian, all of his previous works were already a part of my musical lexicon. I actually did a figure-skating routine to “Heaven” when I was 9 or 10.

The only thing is that Bryan Adams, although we claim him as Canadian, mainly lives in England and France. Sure he comes back sometimes but he hasn’t done a Canadian tour in 20 years, and back then my parents (probably rightly so) thought that I was too young to take a bus to Moncton and go to a concert by myself on a Wednesday night, and they CERTAINLY weren’t allowing me to miss school to do so. DAMNIT PARENTS WHY YOU GOTTA BE SO RESPONSIBLE.

So, as I mentioned in my last post, this was my chance to fulfill fourteen-year-old me’s greatest wish.

Rob and I were seated up in the bowl, but we had a perfect view of the stage. Of course I didn’t bring anything that would in any way be capable of taking pictures, thinking that we wouldn’t be allowed… only to find that people all around us (and all over the whole concert) had brought their cameras. Oh well, live and learn.

Here’s the set list:

1) House Arrest
After they played this, he greeted the fans, saying “Well, I’ve never played here before, so I guess I’d just better play every song I can remember!”. And from there on, it was two hours and 45 minutes of just he and his band tearing the place up. They ran all over the stage, played and sang their hearts out, and just looked like they were having an amazing time. Not one break – no intermission, no opening band. Badams (I get to call him Badams)’ voice hasn’t changed at all in the 30 years since he released his first album – and he sings so well live, it’s incredible. We had a fantastic time.

Okay back to the setlist (with probably pauses here and there for me to tell stories):

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We get a four-day weekend for Easter, and boy am I enjoying the heck out of it.
I finished reading Carol Burnett’s latest book (I love Carol Burnett. As a person. Which I know is ridiculous because I don’t KNOW her, but I have always felt like maybe I *do* know her. And this sounds ridiculous so I’ll stop) this morning while walking the dogs (yeah, I love my Kobo). I saw a few foxes gamboling about while we were out there – luckily Doozer was busy smelling something and didn’t see them because he’d have probably wanted to run off and join them in some kind of unholy shih-tzu/fox alliance.

Because today is Good Friday, and I am Catholic, and Rob’s Nan was Catholic and had her own views on what Must and Must Not be Done on Easter, there was no eating or drinking between midnight last night and noon today. And for the rest of the day, no meat (not that we’re huge carnivores, but still). I made falafel with hummus and tabouli for supper, but skimped and bought some kind of boxed powder hummus mix (just add water!) and it was DISGUSTING. So… that was disappointing. Well – disappointing for us. The dogs thought it was great.

Speaking of Catholicism: I gave up Coke for Lent. Since it was my main source of caffeine, I guess I also unofficially gave up caffeine. It hasn’t gone horribly (the first few days I had a headache, but that was gone). I haven’t been drinking much soda (mainly club soda if I wanted the fizz) period. Anyway. Yesterday on a whim I picked up a 12-pack of diet Mountain Dew “Citrus Charge”. When we got home from shopping, I was super thirsty, so I opened a can and gulped half of it down without even reading the label. Then I did: 5 calories, contains caffeine. I was like “eh, whatevs, what’s a little caffeine?”. Except that I was all jittery and weird after. Maybe psychosomatic? Maybe not.

Speaking of psychosomatics: My swollen leg is all unswollen now. It stayed puffy for about three days, and then the swelling went away. I guess that’s going to remain a mystery.

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*** BE PREPARED I AM AN OLD LADY WHO IS GOING TO TALK ABOUT HER RHEUMATICS***

About three months ago, I called my family doctor’s office to make an appointment (I had some prescriptions that needed refilling). They told me that they were booking appointments for May. I asked about the other location that she goes to once a week – and I was told I could have an appointment there on March 28th. Have I ever mentioned that there’s a doctor shortage in my province, and that even if you HAVE a family doctor, it takes forever to get in to see them? If you have anything urgent happening it’s better to go to the hospital or a walk-in clinic. Anyway. I took the appointment for the 28th, because I had other things I wanted to discuss and it had been a year since my last checkup (plus, you take any opportunity you can get at the rare chance of seeing your doctor!) , and my doctor’s receptionist had her call my prescriptions in, since I couldn’t go three months without them.

When it finally came time to the 28th, this past Wednesday, I was kind of mystified – what had I wanted to talk to her about? Then I remembered that one of the issues was my eczema; it’s been HORRIBLE these past six months. I put on my steroid cream three times a day and it’s not clearing up at all. As I sat in her waiting room, reading the little debt relief solutions pamphlets that people are always leaving on the tables, I noticed that my right foot was swollen.

Now you may remember that this happened this summer, too. My right foot and leg, swollen up like a loaf of bread. Not painful. Just… gigantesque. I went to the ER, and they ruled out gout (!!!) and broken bones and pretty much told me to be on my way.

I decided to ask my doctor about it, and her eyes widened and she took out her iPhone right away and called the hospital. Apparently this is (potentially) a big deal. Since she’s my family doctor and has been seeing me since I was five, she knows my family history (she knew things that I’d forgotten). Both of my mother’s parents and one of her sisters had (multiple) strokes. My mom had a couple of bouts of thrombophlebitis when I was a kid.

Anyway, she wanted to check me for a blood clot in my leg. Which was frightening. So she told me to get to the hospital right away, that they would be waiting for me. And that she was putting in an urgent request for an ultrasound, as well, but that since the ultrasound people are done for the day at 4 and it was already 4:30, that might not happen until the next day.

Off I sped to the hospital, where the triage nurse called me in right away. Since I didn’t have to see a doctor for the blood test, I was immediately blood tested then sent out to wait. About an hour later the test results came back – negative. I was very relieved. “Oh great – so if it’s negative, I don’t need the ultrasound, right?”. Uh. The nurse explained to me that while this blood test was the best they had, it was also occasionally wrong. For example, it sometimes gives false positive results, but it also (although more rarely) gives false negatives. The only way to know for sure was to confirm the negative with the ultrasound to my leg.

So… yesterday (Thursday), off I went to the hospital (again) and had to take off my pants (and underwear! yikes!) for the lady to ultrasound my leg. And, sincethey let me come home afterward, I am assuming that they found nothing.

My foot and leg are still swollen, and we still don’t know why, but it’s not a blood clot and I’m not going to have a stroke anytime soon (that I know of). SO that is good.

I have been showing this video in my classes (hey, it’s in French). I mentioned to my students that it was a popular song when my Mom was their age. One of the girls in my class asked “Was your mom black and white when she was our age?”

She totally wasn’t kidding.

Anyway, here you go:

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Up pops a text message from my dad. “Does platform beds los angeles mean that they’re in Los Angeles or is that just a style?”

“A style? What?”

“Of bed. We’re looking for a new bed and I put in something about a bed style on Google and this is one of the links we got”.

Yep. My dad doesn’t have very great Google-fu. After I had pointed him in the right direction online (for beds that aren’t based nearly 6000 km away). I asked him why they were looking for a new bed and his answer was sort of… well.

“Oh, our bed broke”.

Now. Both of my parents are very slight people. And of course my thoughts immediately went THERE. And I want to bleach my brain now.

Of course there are other possibilities – they’ve had that bedroom set since I was five. I mean they’ve switched mattresses and box springs, but the bed frame itself is thirty years old. HOKAY, that’s what I’m gonna go with.