Month: June 2016

It’s been over a week since my last blog post. That’s mainly because my hip adventure has slowed down to a crawl. Over the past week, I’ve done my three daily physio sessions, and the hip is healing slowly. Today, however, I have something to write about.

I’m seeing my surgeon tomorrow, and he gave me a requisition to have x-rays done at Hôpital de Gatineau prior to the appointment. I asked if I could have the x-rays done at a private clinic close to my home, but he told me it had to be Hôpital de Gatineau. So, this morning, since I’m not allowed to drive yet, Corinne drove me to Hôpital de Gatineau.

When we got to the hospital, we followed the signs to the x-ray department. On our way, we passed a huge room that was packed with hundreds of unhappy-looking people. I said to Corinne, “I’m so glad we’re not going there.”

At the x-ray department, we stood in line for 15 minutes. A sign told me to have my requisition from the doctor, my health card, and my hospital card ready. I had all of those things in hand, but, when I got to the desk, the lady looked at my hospital card and said, “I can’t do anything with this. It’s from Hôpital de Hull. Don’t you have a card for Hôpital de Gatineau?”
“No,” I said, ” It’s my first time here.”
“Oh,” she said, “You’ll need to have a card made. For that, you must go to the room with too many people.” She smiled and pointed down the hallway.

I went to Corinne and said, “We have to go to the room with too many people.”
“Oh dear,” she sighed, “not the room with too many people.”

Corinne knew where the room was and lead me there. When I entered the room, I was overwhelmed. There were too many people. The signs were all in French, and I didn’t know what to do. Corinne went up to an electronic kiosk and pressed a selection on the touch screen. The kiosk spit out a little slip of paper with the number 191 on it.

Because there were too many people in the room, I was discouraged about the prospects of getting a card any time soon, and the number 191 seemed like a big number. I said to Corinne, “This is ridiculous. Let’s get out of here. We’ll go to a private clinic, get my x-rays put on a CD, and I’ll bring the CD to my doctor’s appointment tomorrow.”

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “We’re staying. Most of these people are here for appointments and other reasons.”
She pointed to a screen that showed that Guichet F was now seeing number 180. “Your number will show up on the screen within 15 minutes,” she reassured me.

Because all the chairs in the room were taken, we stood in the crowd of too many people, and soon my number appeared on the screen. The pleasant, efficient lady at Guichet F made me a card within seconds, and we headed back to the x-ray department. This time, there was no line, and I was processed and sent to a waiting room. While Corinne read her book in the waiting room, I slipped into an attractive blue hospital gown, had my x-rays done. The technicians were delightful, and we had a lot of fun getting the pictures taken. We all laughed when I bumped my head on the x-ray machine as I got up.

The entire Hôpital de Gatineau adventure only took an hour and a half. I’m glad that Corinne stopped me from bolting. I’m glad that she made me stay in the room with too many people.

Corinne is reading a book entitled “The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing.” She decided that we need to declutter our house, and since tomorrow is our neighbourhood garage sale, this is the perfect time to get rid of stuff.

I’m on-board with the project, but in my current condition I’m not able to provide much help. I can, however, act as a consultant about what things should leave our house. Corinne has been going through our stuff and periodically brings me an object, such as a lamp, to pass judgement on. I almost always tell her that the object can go.

Corinne believes that we have too many windsurfers, and she may have a point. One of my windsurfers is a sinker board that has been in our garage for many years. A sinker is a board that doesn’t actually float when you stand on it. It must be planing on the surface of the water in order to support your weight. You can only use it on very windy days by lying in the water with your feet on the board, pushing the sail just above the water, and hoping that a strong gust will pull you out of the water. If the wind stops, you sink. I never mastered the technique of using the board, and so I haven’t used it. But, I’m not ready to give up on the idea that I will someday master the technique, even though I never practice it. I reluctantly agreed that we should get rid of the sinker; however, I told Corinne that I would need to organize the rigging, and we both agreed that it would be too much trouble for me in my current condition. So, the windsurfer will stay in our garage a bit longer and won’t contribute to the life-changing magic at this time.

Corinne decided that she should sell her 1962 Barbie’s Dream House at the garage sale. She looked online and saw that people are asking $50 for a vintage dream house. But those ones look pristine, and Corinne’s looks like it’s hosted some wild parties. So, Corinne brought the dream house up from the garage, and because it smelled like her mother’s damp basement, where it had been stored for 50 years, she put it on the back deck to air out. Here are some pictures of the dream house as it looks today.

As you can see, it’s a small but comfortable house made out of cardboard. That’s the bed on the right. Apart from that, Barbie has a couch, easy chair, coffee table, and make-up station–everything that Barbie needs. There’s no kitchen or washroom, but Barbie doesn’t need those rooms.

If you look at the house from another angle, you can see that Barbie has a stereo with a TV in it, and a large picture of her boyfriend Ken.

Corinne looked at Barbie’s Dream House wistfully and said to me, “Ron, do you really think I should sell it? Whenever I look at Barbie’s Dream House I’m flooded by feelings of attachment.”

I said to her, “Corinne, don’t sell Barbie’s Dream House. Let’s keep it a little while longer.”

“OK,” she said, sounding relieved. “We’ll keep it.” And she thanked me for my support.

So there won’t be much life-changing magic happening at our house this weekend. Decluttering isn’t as easy as the book leads us to believe. We may not have many articles to sell at the garage sale tomorrow, but at least we still have the sinker and Barbie’s Dream House.