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i threw out my back saturday afternoon after i had been helping carol make a sample wedding invitation. i reached over to grab something and it pulled. i kept walking around when i should have been laying down. we ordered pizza. mark grabbed a piece and was talking as he walked back to the sofa. i reached for a piece and my back seized up and i crumpled to the floor in pain. i couldn't move. tears were streaming down my face. mark came over and asked what had happened. carol came up from the basement. we all stayed still because we didn't know what to do. is this something you call an ambulance for?

the kitchen floor looks so much dirtier from this angle.

we called tele-health and after several questions about if i had control of my bowels and bladder or if i could feel my legs, the woman told me that if i couldn't walk i had to go to the hospital. she would forward my file there -- it wouldn't get me in to see a doctor any faster but at least they would have my file. i decided to stay home. it sounded better than spending three hours sitting on an old orange vinyl chair waiting to see a doctor, only to be told to go home, rest and put a hot water bottle on my back.

the bedroom light isn't centred in the middle of the ceiling.

the pain will go away after a few days -- hopefully -- i'll call the doctor finally, because i've had this chronic back pain for at least seven years on and off and i should really take care of it. i might have to get an operation. i might ignore it altogether -- isn't that how i was raised? I don't have time for __________ (fill in blank) is my mom's favourite saying... considering i feel 80 most days i should probably call the doctor.

neighbours

we thought we killed her because we called her The Devil, and because we said we were waiting for all the old people to die so we could get some more young people in the neighbourhood. but really she died because she had cancer for five years and her poor body just couldn't take it any more. she was 82. she was just our neighbour until we saw that she had a daughter and a son-in-law from nova scotia -- she became real then.

we don't know why we called her The Devil -- we thought she was pretenting to be really old and senile. one minute she'd claim to be old; the next i would see her moving swiftly to and from her house with her heavy clothes basket.

she thought I was a boy when she first saw me strolling up the walkway from the back yard. when she saw that I was female she told me she had strong beliefs and if it scared me that she had strong beliefs. no should it? you just seemed like you were scared when i said it is all. i thought she was telling me she had strong beliefs about two people living together who weren't married, but mark said it was all in my head. she had someone chop our bush down in the front yard because it was hitting her in the face. she thought mark was a little boy when she saw him for the last time before christmas.

they're cleaning out her house now; they had a big dumpster on her front lawn and it was full. there is a lot of work to be done on the house and it will go up for sale in the spring her son-in-law said.

may she rest in peace