It seems that, like our blog friend Sandra and my friend Mark, I too have succumbed to the flu. At first I tried to pretend it was just a cold, but since my symptoms match those of H1N1, my pretence didn't last long.

I must say though, the information on H1N1 symptoms is rather conflicting depending on which website you check. However, the US Dept of Health, the Public Health Agency of Canada, and the Center for Disease Control all list the same set of symptoms: fever, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, body aches, headache, chills, fatigue, and possibly vomiting or diarrhea. The Mayo Clinic has a similar list, but also includes eye redness and burning, and loss of appetite.

The main decision factor for H1N1, as far as I can tell, are the sudden onset and severity of symptoms, particularly the cough and fever. H1N1 apparently hits within hours, whereas seasonal flu and colds develop over a period of a couple/few days.

I was fine until felt a bit of a cough coming on late Friday. I woke up Saturday morning with a fever, chills, a very painful chest cough and my body felt like I'd been hit by a bus and thrown against the building across the road. My eyes have definitely been burning today and yesterday, so it was interesting to find that listed as an H1N1 symptom on the Mayo clinic site. I'm also having an occasional brief flutter in my chest, not sure what that's about but imagine is nothing since there's no mention of it as being something to watch for. I haven't noticed a significant loss of appetite, although come to think of it, I haven't been eating much in the way of solids. Mostly I've just had popsicles, crappy tea and chicken soup. (Valerie made me home made chicken soup and brought it over yesterday...I've never had anyone do that for me before, it really lifted my heart. ♥) I'm not sure about the stuffy nose. My sinuses feel a bit full and are throbbing along with my head, but my nose isn't runny...except for the moments I am overcome with tears of frustration because I hate being sick.

And it sucks having to miss out on things because of being sick. I was supposed to go to Truro with Valerie today. (She was guest preaching at a First United's anniversary celebration and I was going along just to share a special occasion with her because that's what friends do.) But given the strongly emphasized message to quarantine oneself at the first sign of swine flu, it would not have been very responsible of me to go along and spread my germs, so I stayed home.

I now understand why people use the expression "laid low" in relation to illness ... I feel low in every possible way: physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. Dave's gone away hunting. I'm honestly glad he gets to have his hunting trip and wouldn't have asked him to cancel, but...I also wish he was here right now to give me a hug, I really could use it :(

Well, I'm too tired to write anything more right now. I'm hoping to be one of those who has a relatively mild, short lived bout of swine flu...I am so not enjoying feeling this draggy and low.

A belated entry this week, since I haven't been able to access my blog for two days. And a short entry too because, well I'm feeling crappy right now and haven't the energy to write up anything meaningful. (Hoping I just have a cold and not the flu, but the fact that I have a fever does not exactly support that theory...will keep you posted.)

I am grateful for ... humour :) My friend Andrea sent me the following...definitely made me laugh out loud - enjoy!!

HELL EXPLAINED BY A CHEMISTRY STUDENT

The following is an actual question given on a University of Arizona Chemistry mid term exam.

The answer by one student was so 'profound' that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well :

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today.

Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls
enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase
until all Hell breaks loose.

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in
Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes
over.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, 'It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,' and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over.
The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct..... .leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting 'Oh my God.'

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED AN A+

As always, each Friday I invite you to click over to Diana Strinati Baur's blog and check out the other Gratitude Friday Club blogs...

We had an wonderful service of remembrance at our church on Sunday. A young woman in our congregation told us of her experience visiting Normandy and Vimy Ridge, where there is a Canadian war memorial. She spoke eloquently and shared her own emotional reactions through her story. She also showed an accompanying slide show of her own photos from those places. I was moved to tears listening to her. Toward the end, she said that she wished so many more could have the chance to visit places like this. I agree, visiting places of honour and remembrance opens people's hearts and minds to the reality of war. And it's important to shine a light on that reality so we do not keep going down that same path. The closest similar experience I've had was standing in the ghetto in Venice, on the very spot where thousands of people were rounded up and sent to concentrations camps. It really does hit the heart hard to stand in those places and feel the presence of those who suffered the horrendous atrocities of war...

The plaque says:

Duecento ebrei di venezia
ottomila ebrei d'italia
sei milioni di ebrei d'europa
da cieco barbarico odio
in lontane terre
cacciati martoriati soppressi

il ricordo dell atrocissima offesa
alla umana civilta
richiami cli uomini tutti
alla santa legge di dio
ai sentimenti di fraternita e di amore
che primo israele affermo fra i popoli

Which words I typed into google translate and then tried to make sense of the result. Here's a very rough translation in English:

Two hundred eight thousand Jews of the Jews of Venice, Italy, six million European Jews, hunted tortured exterminated by blind hatred in barbaric distant lands.

The memory of the atrocious offense against human civilization calls all humanity to the holy law of God to the feelings of brotherhood and love told first among the peoples of Israel.

Someone was selling calendars in my office recently. I asked what they were for, and was told they were to raise funds for the care of the feral cats around the dockyards and throughout the Halifax region. A man named Pierre Filiatreaut has been looking after the dockyard cats for a number of years, and is now trying to raise funds for their continued care (food and cat medicine are expensive!) and also to expand his TNR program to other feral cat colonies. The TNR program - Trap / Neuter / Release - is something he started at the dockyards and it has been so successful that there have been no kittens born in the past two years.

This article tells more of Pierre's story, and some photos of Pierre's cats and cat shelters are found on this website.

According to the notes in the calendar: Pierre has recently been awarded a "Future Thought Leader Scholarship" from the pet recovery specialists Pet Lynx Corporation. He has been invited to attend the 2009 Summit on Urban Animal Strategies in Calgary to speak about his work with feral cats.

As soon as I learned of this story, I thought oh I must share it with my blog friend Annie! She herself volunteers at a cat sanctuary in her own area, not to mention befriending the feral cats of Venice each time she visits that magical place!

Today is my Mom's birthday, so Happy Birthday to her!!!

Here is a cute photo of Mom and her #1 granddaughter (number one in the sense of first born, not in the sense of favouritism!)

And here is Mom and her #2 daughter (duh...that would be me!):

If we are peaceful,
if we are happy,
we can smile,
and everyone in our family,
our entire society,
will benefit from our peace.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh

I am incredibly grateful to live in a country, like Canada, where it is easy to feel peaceful, to be happy, to smile. O how I wish the same for everyone in this precious world of ours...

Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous.
~ George Bernard Shaw

Let us not be afraid to walk the arduous path of peace...

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
~ Mother Teresa

Let us be living reminders that we all belong to each other...

Let us join our voices and hearts and prayers together...Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.

As always, each Friday I invite you to click over to Diana Strinati Baur's blog and check out the other Gratitude Friday Club blogs...

Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday, dear OLDER sister,
Happy Birthday to you!!!!!!
With love from your YOUNGER sister ♥
Muahahahahahahahaha...

The Happy Happy Birthday Song by the Arrogant Worms

As I wrote yesterday, we bought ourselves a Boler. I'm sure we will tour around with it a bit, but we're also getting a seasonal site at the campground where our friends have their camper, and I expect we'll mostly just camp there. It's far enough from our house that it has the "getting away from the real world" feeling, but still less than half an hour's drive away - is perfect really!

The campground is pretty much smack dab in the middle of Nova Scotia, on a small lake which is suitable for swimming early in the summer season (before the geese mess it up too much) and for canoeing (although it would help if we actually had a canoe or kayak!) I also hear they shoot off some amazing Canada Day fireworks from a platform out in the middle of the lake, so hoping to check that out next summer.

So my hubby, Dave, has been wanting one of those little fibreglass Boler trailers for years, decades even. They are not easy to come by, at least not ones that are in good condition AND a decent price. (Not to mention that over the years I've mostly just laughed and said yeah right, I'm not going camping in something that's barely bigger than a breadbox.) But, after all these years, the universe has finally smiled upon him. A guy in a neighbouring community was selling his 1972 Boler, and we happened along just at the right time to buy it.

Now you might wonder how Dave convinced me to go along with this purchase...well, he started threatening to build some kind of camper himself. Suddenly a factory made Boler, no matter how small, seemed like an attractive option! Therefore...

I am grateful that we now own a real camper, albeit tiny, and not a homemade contraption.

I think we'll enjoy camping in our new (old) Boler. It's actually pretty cute, although it would be nice to paint it something more exciting than off white (something less egg-like perhaps?) And if it turns out I hate it, we can always sell it in a year or two for the same or higher price - they are just that much in demand. Seriously, it's like some kind of cult or something...and now we're part it, oh dear!

These campers seem often to be referred to as an "egg on wheels" (you'll understand why after you check out the following photos.) I was just reading an article on the history of the Boler, and it said the creator Ray Olecko "was looking for an unusual name for the trailer, and thinking that it looked a little like a bowler hat, he decided on Boler!" (So Valerie, there is a connection to the hat after all!)

Here are some photos:

"Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me. To see reality - not as we expect it to be but as it is - is to see that unless we live for each other and in and through each other, we do not really live very satisfactorily; that there can really be life only where there really is, in just this sense, love."
~ F. Buechner

I don't know how one would truly capture such a thought visually, but I was browsing through my photos and stopped at this one, which I took in Newfoundland this past summer, of my friend Valerie and her sister Juanita (aka "J" in my vacation stories):

And I was reminded of something Valerie wrote in one of her recent Thursday Thoughts emails to our congregation:

"...we walk a road that is filled with twists and turns and sometimes difficult blows as well as the moments of joy and celebration. Faith is about not making that walk alone. God comes to us in many ways – the quiet of moment; a beautiful sunset; the changing colours of the fall; a raging storm; or a gentle wind. But more often than not, God comes to us in the presence of another who stands beside us- holding, challenging, loving, listening.

Today I give thanks for those in my life who have revealed to me, again and again, the presence and power of God..."

I remember that when I read her words, I imagined she was speaking of those in her life like her sister J. So I thought what better portrays Buechner's sense of lives that "flow into each other as wave flows into wave" and "where there really is, in just this sense, love" than this beautiful photo? ♥

A friend posted this video on facebook recently, I hadn't seen it before but think it delivers a powerful message.

I am grateful for rainbows...

This morning, in particular, I am incredibly grateful for the rainbow that arched across the sky above my backyard. The graceful curve and brilliant colours brightened my cloudy heart.

I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
~ Genesis 9:13 (NIV)

Leroy bet me I couldn't find a pot of gold at the end, and I told him that was a stupid bet because the rainbow was enough.
~ Rita Mae Brown

Be thou the rainbow in the storms of life. The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, and tints tomorrow with prophetic ray.
~ Lord Byron

What a privilege to be here on the planet to contribute your unique donation to humankind. Each face in the rainbow of colors that populate our world is precious and special.
~ Morris Dees

Walk on a rainbow trail; walk on a trail of song, and all about you will be beauty. There is a way out of every dark mist, over a rainbow trail.
~ Navajo song

As always, each Friday I invite you to click over to Diana Strinati Baur's blog and check out the other Gratitude Friday Club blogs...

Where the Wild Things Are...is in the original book.

Plot summary from wikipedia:
The text consists of only ten sentences. It tells the story of Max, who one evening plays around his home, "making mischief" in a wolf costume. As punishment, his mother sends him to bed without supper. In his room, a mysterious, wild forest and sea grows out of his imagination, and Max sails to the land of the Wild Things. The Wild Things are fearsome-looking monsters, but Max conquers them "by staring into their yellow eyes without blinking once", and he is made "the King of all Wild Things", dancing with the monsters in a "wild rumpus". However, he soon finds himself lonely and homesick, and he returns home to his bedroom, where he finds his supper waiting for him, still hot.

This was one of my favourite books when I was a little girl. I could totally relate to the whole inner wild thing concept. Feeling overwhelmed with emotion, not knowing why or what to do with it, but needing some way to release the pent up energy of it. I delighted in the imagery of the wild rumpus and the roaring beasts who gnashed their terrible teeth, and sighed their terrible sighs. And it made perfect sense that young Max's interlude with the wild things was just a temporary one after which, with no explanation needed, life returns to normal.

I listened to Simon and Garfunkle's The Sound of Silence this morning, and am inspired to write a second gratitude entry this week!

I think there is much truth in the lyrics to this song...the metaphoric words of the prophets are most often written in places where we forget to look, and whispered in the silences we don't take time to listen to.

This song about the sound of silence kind of ties in with my previous entry, although a different way of listening to the silence. Not listening for your own sake, but listening for others. Listening for the voices of those who have grown silent, weary of having their words fall on deaf ears. Those of us living lives of wealth and privilege do too often bow and pray as lip service only. We go to church on Sunday morning, we hear the words about what we are called to do, but we do not always listen, and certainly we do not always act. In fact, we often simply return to our comfy lives and think no more about the ways in which we might help others, or the ways in which we might change the world. In fairness, it is hard to sustain a belief that one person can make a difference, so we get disheartened and feel helpless and overwhelmed at the size of the problems facing our world.

I am grateful for an employer who is engaged in charitable efforts, who offers us opportunities to respond with action. One such opportunity arose last week, when volunteers were requested to participate in the United Way Day of Caring. I, and several others from my department (I work for the provincial government) were allowed time off to volunteer and were assigned to a work team that would be painting sections of a men's shelter owned by the Metropolitan Immigration Settlement Association (MISA). A small act of helping, but every small act is a step in the right direction. Here is the story, and a couple photos of our team.

This week's entry wrote itself...and a day early at that!

It all began with my friend Valerie's weekly email to her church family. (For those who don't already know this, Valerie is the minister at my church, which is how we came to know each other and then grew into being best friends.)

Anyway, her email went like this (with the reminders of upcoming events edited out):

"Good morning

Blessings
Valerie