I'm melting...

There are so many things I want to write about in this space, but apart from the fact that I'm juggling several clients and deadlines, misery started for me as of the weekend. The Rainbow Voices concert went very well, the audience had fun, and I felt the sense of accomplishment and excitement that buoyed me after the last concert. But because the humidity had risen considerably during the day, I sang with rivulets of sweat pouring into my mouth. My hot flashes have returned to their summer frequency of every 45 minutes -- you can set your watch by them -- and the air feels like syrup to me. Most of May was actually lovely -- cool and sunny, in fact spring-like, which is odd for Toronto. We usually don't get spring. I've had a very happy May -- a happy winter, in fact. But now spring is over, in my book. And the Toronto summer is increasingly unbearable to me.

On top of everything else, I wrecked my back by standing through the whole concert and helping clean up afterward, so I'm feeling like a cross beached whale.

I'm counting the minutes before I leave for my summer in Calgary, where I expect the air to be dry. I remember the morning my friend Michel drove me to the airport in Edmonton after my 10-day vacation in Alberta last summer, when I felt almost frantic that I was leaving that wonderful air to return to what feels like a swamp to me. Thank God I don't live in New Orleans. I'm genetically a Teutonic type, but it's not so much the heat that bothers me. People laugh derisively about phrases like "But it's a dry cold!", but the truth is my life is dictated to a great extent by the amount of moisture in the air. I was even miserable when I lived in London, England. As soon as the humidity exceeds 45 percent on my little barometer, I turn into a dishrag.

How a dishrag resembles a beached whale, I'm not sure, but never mind. It's not just the hot flashes, but I become tired and lethargic in the summer, I get dizzy spells when I exert myself (low blood pressure, the doctor says) and I sweat like a longshoreman. (Well, I imagine longshoremen sweat as much as they supposedly swear. Can I blame the weather for my poor use of metaphor? I can try...) This condition runs in my family. We all hate hot weather. And my mother still gets hot flashes in the summertime at the age of 69! When people tell me, "Oh, they'll pass," I just laugh ruefully. (I asked the surgeon at the breast clinic a year and a half ago if the hot flashes, which were brought on in full force by chemotherapy, would pass eventually and he said, "Oh, yes." Standing in the corner of the examining room was a clinic volunteer, who locked eyes with me and slowly shook her head from side to side. "How old are you?" I asked. "Seventy-three," was her reply.)

Of course, I don't have air-conditioning in my house -- boiler heating precludes that, as I have no duct-work, and not enough exterior wall to support the no-duct kind of A/C. Last night I slept in my basement, which isn't a very cool basement, but it beats the second storey.

(The funny thing is, my hair loves humidity. I'm the type of irritating woman whose whole life seems to be one long quest for the right hairstyle, whose mood is substantially affected by the condition of my coiff. So when the rest of my body is happy -- when it's nice and dry outside -- my hair is flat and brittle and flyaway. But when I'm feeling like I want to die, my hair is full of body and curl. How many women do you know who travel with a barometer? I'm always meaning to call CBC Radio's morning show and beg them to include a humidity reading with the temperature on the weather forecast. It determines whether I should air-dry or blow-dry my hair, what kind of styling product to use -- and whether I'll have the energy to do any of it.)

Poor me. I could be living in an earthquake or hurricane or war zone. There are far worse things than heat and sweat and smog and the mouldy smell that hangs over our neighbourhood at this time of year. But hot flashes are only funny until you've experienced this level of temperature disturbance. I used to laugh when I saw the Shoppers Drug Mart ad where a woman runs into her backyard wearing shorts and a T-shirt in the dead of winter, and uncovers the air-conditioning unit. Now when I see that ad I want to cry. One thing they don't warn you about (well, nobody warns you about menopause at all, actually) is that when I'm not having a hot flash, I'm often so cold I can barely work. Hot flashes every 45 minutes means I'm freezing more than I'm hot. The effect of this seesaw on my sleep patterns is devastating, which is why I'm so tired all the time. I used to sleep eight hours a night easily. Now I wake up every half hour or so, when a hot flash comes, and when a cold "trough" comes.

There. Selfish rant over. Life is really pretty good otherwise!

Testing, testing...

While I was in the middle of breast-cancer treatment a couple of years ago at St. Michael's Hospital, I was also seeking advice from various orthopedic surgeons at Toronto Western Hospital about my back, foot and leg -- my regular guy was retiring, and I was making overlapping visits to a new one. One day I found myself, clad in a skimpy gown, being summoned from the waiting room by an X-ray technician who seemed awfully familiar. My chemo-addled brain made some grinding noises and with difficulty I managed to recall that she had taken an X-ray of me just a few weeks before -- the same back X-ray she was about to give me, again, it turned out. I asked her to check, and, sure enough, we were about to do a completely unnecessary test. After some consultation with the doctor, the X-ray was cancelled and the recent films were dug up. Had I not recognized the technician, I would have been exposed to yet more radiation (my lifetime total is approaching the scary), and charged the taxpayer for it needlessly.

Last week I booked a physical with my family doctor (what made it a physical, I'm not sure -- he did very little) and mentioned that I'd recently had a bone-density test -- I couldn't recall exactly when, or exactly who had ordered it, but concluded it had been my oncologist. The GP had no note about it, let alone any results, because he hadn't ordered the test, and I still don't know how it turned out. And if anybody at St. Mike's wants to compare it to my earlier bone-density tests, they're out of luck, since those were done at Toronto Western. The GP then ordered some bloodwork -- quite possibly the same bloodwork that the oncologist did just a month ago (except I couldn't remember the date), but unless he'd been sitting at a computer in St. Michael's Hospital, he couldn't know that.

"Aren't you supposed to be Cynthia Central -- the clearing house for my medical care?" I asked my GP. He gave me a look that made me realize that only I can be Cynthia Central. I resolved to start my own medical journal, in which I'll keep track of doctor visits, recommendations, prescriptions and diagnostic tests. But I was thrilled to hear on the radio yesterday that the city of Edmonton, Alberta (wouldn't you know it), is proposing to create a central database in which all medical diagnostic tests will be recorded, so that patients don't keep having the same tests over and over again, ordered by different doctors in different locations. Not only does duplication of testing cost the taxpayer a fortune, but there are risks involved in many lab tests -- a CT scan apparently exposes me to hundreds of times more radiation than a simple X-ray, and my doctors order CT scans at the drop of a hat, it seems to me. Once you've had cancer, every little bump and twinge gets checked out automatically. By every doctor you go to. And the lack of a central database can cause some major slip-ups: My original breast-cancer diagnosis was delayed by a month because the breast centre lost my mammogram and ultrasound, which had been done at an outside lab, and wouldn't do new ones without the old ones.

One more reason to move to Edmonton...

Weird Weather

This afternoon I sat out in my back garden in a comfy chair, reading a textbook and soaking up some sunshine along with the heavenly scent of lilacs and lily-of-the-valley. Suddenly it started to thunder, so I went inside. Within minutes the sky opened up, the garden was covered with hail and our street was turned into a river. It didn't let up for 30 minutes -- I've never seen so much hail in my life (which may just mean I've led a fairly sheltered life), and I've certainly never seen that much water running down our street. It appeared to be pretty local -- friends I called said it wasn't even raining downtown, let alone hailing.

Green energy

While searching on the Net for a better natural gas rate last fall, I stumbled on Bullfrog Power, Ontario's first 100% green electricity retailer. The idea is that the money one pays to Bullfrog goes to purchase only wind power or low-impact hydro power, which in turn should help create a larger market for those types of power. I signed up without realizing how new this option was -- turns out I was one of the first 100 customers; the list includes people like Margaret Atwood, The Tragically Hip's Gord Downie, Steven Page of Barenaked Ladies, photographer Edward Burtynsky, and U of T prof Thomas Homer-Dixon. Adding to its trendiness is the cute Bruce Mau-designed logo. I ended up writing an article about Bullfrog for the issue of Green Living magazine that was just distributed with the current Toronto Life.

Bullfrog charges about a third more than Toronto Hydro, and I blanched when I got the first bill. But I do find I'm more conscious now of how much electricity I'm using, and I'm developing better habits of turning lights off, using the dryer less, etc., proving that a hit in the pocketbook is the best motivator -- and that our deregulated electricity market can foster environmentally friendly practices by encouraging eco-entrepreneurs.

And now I hear that Walmart has signed up some of its Ontario stores for Bullfrog Power, in keeping with its move toward selling organic foods (a seeming contradiction on one level -- "organic" would seem to mean not just pesticide- and drug-free but also local and small-scale -- but surely fostering a healthy world is not only for the Margaret Atwoods and Steven Pages of the world).

Is it all just pissing into the wind (pun not intended)? I hope not. I have to believe that putting my money where my mouth is does more than just make me feel self-righteous and poorer.

Donate points

Interesting item in today's Globe and Mail: Air Canada's frequent-flyer program, Aeroplan, is partnering with charities such as the Stephen Lewis Foundation, Médecins Sans Frontières and others to motivate people to donate unused frequent-flyer miles, which can help transport volunteers to farflung countries in need of help. The item (subscription required) says that "to make it easy to donate, Aeroplan's website is being revamped to allow the program's members to click and deposit miles directly to one of the charities listed." They're urging people to comb through their papers in case they or somebody in their family have points they won't use -- evidently if you don't use or acquire Aeroplan points for three years, they get cancelled.

Rainbow Voices of Toronto

I seem to have run low on steam -- no postings in the past few days. Aside from regular work, gardening, preparing for my parents' 50th-anniversary party, registering with the University of Calgary and trying to find a place to stay while I'm studying there this summer, I'm also busy rehearsing for the concert I'll be singing in on May 27, with Rainbow Voices of Toronto. It's a non-auditioned choir composed of a colourful mixture of what I fondly refer to as semi-misfits (I fit right in) with the mission statement "Building bridges between the straight and gay communities through the power of song." We sing some semi-serious choral music and a lot of pop tunes, with a predictably campy flavour. There's a fairly strong group of men, but we always seem to have trouble filling out the soprano and alto sections (I'm an alto). If you're a shower singer looking for a bigger venue, take note. There's no test to determine whether you're gay or straight...

Our director, Michael Bouzane, is a stout, entertaining imp who manages to coax something worth listening to from a group whose talent varies wildly. The concerts are always a lot of fun (I went to several before I joined at the behest of my cousin Lynne and next-door neighbour Tom, who were both members); they're vigorously unhip events, by the standards of my media pals, which makes me love them all the more.

Our spring concert will feature Sixties music, among other things -- if you like Franki Valli, Dusty Springfield, Petula Clark and (yikes) John Denver, come on down. You can find the details here.

Same or Other?

Got an email from Egale Canada, "the national organization which advances equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans-identified people in Canada," pointing out that the Canadian census form now being filled out "instructs same-sex couples who are married to check the 'Other' category at the bottom of the list of relationships, rather than checking the top box marked 'Husband or wife.' "

I took a look, and it's true. What's the point of that? Here's the rest of the email:

Egale Canada...is recommending that same-sex married couples list their relationship as 'Husband or wife' rather than 'Other.' According to Statistics Canada, either response will be captured correctly as a married same-sex couple. In addition, Egale is calling on all concerned Canadians to add a comment on Page 6 of the questionnaire, such as 'Same-Sex couples deserve equal treatment.'

Please take further action to make express your support for same-sex
couples. Please visit http://www.egale.ca/census2006, and see how easy it is to make your voice heard.

Out of energy

I'm glad I took advantage of Canada's Energuide program last year -- the new Conservative government has apparently just slashed it. At a cost of about $150, I had an energy auditor go over my old, leaky house, and he gave me a score of 55 out of 100 for energy efficiency. After replacing my ancient boiler, insulating an upstairs ceiling, putting down miles of caulking and a few other things, the rating went up to 68. I received a government grant of over $800, which really helped, because the boiler alone cost me at least $6,000.

Evidently the feds are telling us they'll soon bring out their "own environmental plan" -- this I want to see.

The nutty thing is that replacing my boiler has been a mixed blessing. I hate hot water radiant heating -- because I have no ductwork, I can't get central air conditioning -- and there is no radiator in my basement. I've been told that I can't have one on the same level as the boiler. But the old boiler, a cast-iron affair that was as old as the house (about a century) and used to burn coal before it was converted to gas, was so inefficient that it handily heated the basement just by throwing off its own heat. So a radiator wasn't necessary. My new, efficient boiler is completely cool to the touch, so now my basement is freezing. I've put in a couple of electric baseboard heaters, and they ship the heat up the stairwell, leaving the basement as cold as ever. (And I'm now paying a premium for green electricity from Bullfrog Power -- at least my gas consumption seems to have dropped, though I think I was overpaying for a while because of an administrative foul-up. More on Bullfrog Power another day).

The other nutty thing is that my old boiler had no electrical parts. The water was pushed through the system by gravity. In a power outage, I would have had heat. Now I have an electric pump (which makes the system no more responsive than before, to my surprise). So -- no power, no heat.

Skype: a new kind of pick-pocket?

I've just been reading about Skype, e-Bay's Internet phone service, and "Skypecasts." Whoever came up with a name like Skype? It sounds more than vaguely illicit -- no, illicit would probably be a good thing. It sounds sneaky and shifty -- perhaps because it rhymes with swipe. More than anything, it sounds like a name Dickens might have come up with. I picture an unshaven Mr. Skype with fingerless gloves and a greasy top hat -- maybe the name reminds me of Bill Sikes? Somebody I know used to say (jokingly) that she wanted to name her kids Pucky and Smike, and that rings in my head, too. And then there's the British slang term "skive," which means to slack off or shirk a duty.

I wonder how long it will be before Skype is part of my daily vocabulary.

Speaking (writing?) of names, I was flabbergasted when the daily free newspaper called DOSE debuted last year -- to someone of my generation, a "dose" was a case of venereal disease. If you were unlucky, you might get a "dose of the clap" or just "the dose." When I mentioned this to some of my students, they of course looked at me like I was Methuselah. To them, the word has only drug connotations. Of course, the execrable DOSE is not aiming at me.

Clothesline Part II

There's a poster in the women's washroom at Ryerson University that shows a closeup photo of a lot of laundry hanging on a line in front of an older building. The slogan is something like: "This could be your summer home." [CORRECTION MAY 17: IT ACTUALLY SAYS "THIS COULD BE YOUR LAUNDROMAT"] It's intended to sell some kind of work-abroad program for students, I think (I can never remember what ads are selling). I guess it's meant to represent Europe, though I often wonder, when I see it, what impression all that laundry makes on Toronto university students. Is that image appealing? Exotic?

When I first heard that some suburbs and neighbourhoods don't permit laundry lines (I guess it's a bylaw, or maybe in some cases a condo ruling), I was shocked. My small-town upbringing still leaves me naive about what's considered proper in some urban settings -- I laughed out loud when a student of mine told me that in his neighbourhood every house was required to have the same colour of window blinds. But both small towns and cities include citizens who would regulate what other people's houses and yards look like, and I've never understood that. I might not like the fact that my neighbour's porch looks like it's going to fall off, or is so packed with junk it's a fire hazard or is painted bright purple or is ringed by old refrigerator racks. I'm a fairly house-proud person, and people say my home is attractive and neat. But I've never felt I had the right to impose my standards on anyone else. Occasionally I try to include adjacent neighbours in decisions that will improve our properties, but if they aren't interested, I certainly don't call the city or stop talking to them.

My laundry line gives me a great deal of pleasure (see previous post), and the sight of a line of clothes is, to me, a comforting and often charming sight, though I admit that a former neighbour's practice of hanging dirty rags on his line for days did put a tiny blight on some of my patio parties. Our narrow adjacent yards are divided only by low wire fences, and what we lose in privacy we gain in social contact and an expansive, almost forest-like haven of trees and perennials. A couple of houses away, a family of five dries all of their laundry on their backyard line. When an American friend of mine was visiting, she asked, "Why don't they use their dryer?" It didn't occur to her that dryers waste electricity, and she was stunned to learn this family has no dryer.

I admit that the dryer does a better job on a lot of clothes -- T-shirts and towels, in particular, which lack shape and softness when they're line-dried. I'm trying to get in the habit of putting a a limit of 20 minutes on any given dryer load, and finishing the job by hanging stuff either in the basement or on the line. And I'm trying to learn to live with rougher towels.