Good day to you all!
I just thought it was a good time write a post about positive thinking and optimism. Why? WHY NOT?!?!? There is a common expression that goes something like this: "Some people see their glass as half full, while others see it as half empty" This expression is meant to symbolize one's general outlook on life, given that the same situation can be viewed from two equally correct, though opposite viewpoints (the positive and the negative). Some people tend to be "glass half full" people in that they always look at the good in a situation, while the "glass half empty" will always focus on the negatives the situation offers. I do believe this expression is assumed to involve a glass half filled with water, though in my situation I might make the argument that my glass is half filled with sulphuric acid complete with a stick of trinitrotoluene (TNT) floating around in it, being carried through a crowd of people during an ill-timed candlelight vigil. I might be dramatic, but rest assured my glass is still always half full :)
A few thoughts to share with you that I might have already touched on in past Blog posts. Firstly I have seen first hand that while I might have things "bad", there are so many more people out there who have things worse than I do. I am surrounded by caring loving people who would do anything for me. I have not gone a single day without food or shelter, I have not been abandoned and left to deal with my situation on my own... I have an amazing wife who is there for me on a daily basis, helping me physically and emotionally wherever and whenever I need. I have a job that I find challenging and stimulating in all of the best ways. I may have unfortunately unfavourable odds when it comes to living beyond the five year mark, however the very fact I'm alive to type that sentence into my blog is enough to remind me I should not take such things for granted.
There have been moments in my life when I have been particularly touched. I recall having to read a poem or short story in elementary school around Remembrance Day about young boys growing up in Germany. They moved away and went on with their lives only to both join the army on opposing sides. At the end of the story one brother in battle charges over the trenches and stabs his enemy in the chest with his bayonet. As he looks down he sees the dying man call out "My brother! My brother!" I recall getting choked up at that moment, thinking about the senselessness of war and conflict. I'm not sure this really has to do with optimism or positive thinking, but it was on my mind, and this is my blog... so there!
There was a film that impacted me far more than anything else (including the above story) It was the 1997 Italian film "life is beautiful" starring Roberto Benigni. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. I don't want to spoil the ending in case you haven't watched the movie, but I will say it very much reflects what positive thinking can do, and how looking for ways to find the best in even the worst situations can make a world of difference!
Another moment of reflection finds me going back to a close friend's wedding back on July 31st, 2010 when Tim & Jasmine Zurbriggen were married at the OakBank Baptist Church. At the reception that followed another good friend of mine (a man those of you who were at my wedding will remember as "the guy who gave the most hilarious wedding speech ever" and a man who had the honour of being one of my "Best Men", but you may know better as "Nelson") gave another amazing speech. I'll obviously butcher the details if I try to quote him word-for-word, so I won't. But essentially he said something to the effect of "Try to think of the last time Tim ever said a bad word about anybody". He then left what I can only describe as the most meaningful pause I've ever experienced in my life, and then said... "If you're like me you probably couldn't think of a single time." And so right he was. I could tell by looking around I was not the only one to stop and realize this. It was a moment of pure awe, and a moment I will never forget. I have now, and have always, had much respect for both Tim, and Nelson. I think it takes a special person to live the sort of life Tim has lead in being the amazing person he has always been, but it also takes a special person to see that trait in someone and point it out for all to see. How many of you can honestly say you have not spoken badly about anyone (be it a friend, family member, coworker, or a complete stranger) either to their face or behind their back?
I recall in working my many many days in retail at the one... the only... MCP!!! (greatest store on earth, and "Best Second-Hand Clothing Store" in Winnipeg for 9 consecutive years [when I last worked there as the guy who did the marketing] as voted by the readers of Winnipeg Parent Newsmagazine, that at the end of a long Saturday shift I would remember those customers who really got on my nerves. If someone was particularly rude I would remember that customer at the end of my shift. If someone was particularly kind, I generally let it slip into the generic "things that happened today" part of my brain along with "the colour of shirt that guy I saw in line ahead of me at the Starbucks yesterday"... in other words stuff I will never remember ever again. We need to learn to make a conscious effort to see the positive things that happen around us each and every day, and just as equally, learn to play down those negative events that occur (or try to see the goodness in them). I have found that doing so has made me a far more positive and optimistic person.
I mention this because I believe my positivity and optimism has played a very large role in my dealing with having such a terrible terminal illness. I will continue to keep a positive optimistic outlook on my life & my medical situation in the hopes it helps me in whatever way possible. It can't hurt afterall now can it?
This blog post was somewhat rambling and lacking a solid coherent theme... But they say "Do what you know best", and anyone who knows me knows I know my incoherent endless rambling!!! Hope you all have a good day eh? Cheers!
--
Tom
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Best Day Ever!!!
...then again, there was that day I was married. Okay, second best day ever!
It would be fair to say my wife Nicole & I have had our share of "bad news" & "tough times" over the past couple of years. Things don't generally tend to "go well" for us. 50% of us have a terminal illness, our vehicles tend to end up written off or falling apart on us...
RIP: Nicole's '94 (Literally flooded while parked in front of my Mom's house in Transcona)
RIP: Tom's '00 Hyundai Tiburon (Pretty much rusted away / fell apart on me)
RIP: Steve & Pat's '02 Chrysler Concorde (Taken out by an errant driver on Corydon)
...etc., etc., (please read former posts for more).
When we have a day when things don't go badly, we consider it to be an amazing day. When things go well, we nearly have heart attacks while running around with excitement laughing aloud with glee. If I go shopping and cashier forgets to charge me for an item, I nearly wet myself... that's all I'm saying. Well, today I should have been wearing a diaper because IT WAS AN AWESOME AWESOME DAY!!! This whole weekend has been pretty darn good, likely a direct result of it having been my wife's birthday on the 29th. She must have emanated "birthday luck". That is the only logical explanation. We went to her parents' on her actual birthday after a day of running around and just "being regular people". Okay, not really, as we had my blood work appointment at the HSC at 9:30 am, and my monthly "exam" (which is pretty much just a day to weigh me, and give me my next month's medication calendar and speak to a nurse... this last visit was "71 kg, no seizures since last time, see you in a month"). After that we started our day of "being normal". We hit up George's (Burgers & Subs) for a breakfast special, where Nic's eggs were a little runny. Keep in mind that they were still eggs. The fact that the plate didn't come out with a chicken fighting a gopher on it means we were still on track for a good day. Even when we went to Starbucks and her green tea frappuccino had waxy bits of chocolate mixed in (obviously from the last drink they made) it was made out of mostly what she ordered, which for us is amazing. The evening at her parents' was fantastic (as always) as Steve made more food than any of us could eat if someone forced us to with threat of physical harm. Jen may have had raw meat thrown in her face by her fiancé, but Nic & I officially had NO RAW MEAT thrown at us!!! (clearly this was a great weekend already)
Nic enjoyed her gifts and we went home for a good night's sleep. The next day we got to SLEEP IN!!! It got even better for me when my wife (who should have been celebrating her day after birthday, woke up before me and made me pancakes with fresh fruit which she then brought me IN BED along with a hot cup of coffee. Paradise. She puts up with my bad jokes and brings me breakfast in bed? I married the right girl :)
Afternoon saw us go to the Farmer's Market in St. Norbert. Just being able to walk around with my wife in the nice afternoon sun without having a seizure or facing any other medical issue was a real joy. There was an ambulance and firetruck that arrived to help someone else in need (as if to point out "this is usually you guys!")... though I hope the other people were not in any serious harm.
A quick stop off at Winners was enough to cap off our excursion, as we headed back to our apartment. We were incredibly productive... getting laundry done, sorting through bins and boxes that someone (unbelievably one might say) that we STILL have not unpacked since moving to our current "home" in late April of this year. I think we only have 10-15 of such boxes & bins to unpack before we can remove the quotation marks and call it a home! Then we can invite family & friends over without having to say "this is where we almost live!"
In our productive bin/box unpacking Nicole came across a lottery scratch ticket that had never been scratched. Again, the fact that it wasn't an envelope filled with anthrax would have been enough to keep me happy, but an unscratched lottery ticket? It had to be too good to be true. I told my lovely wife that it was probably expired and to check the date. The ticket expired TODAY!!! Ok, I could feel my body pulsing and adrenalin pulsing through my body. After scratching the ticket... it couldn't be... double check it... YES! IT WAS A $3 WINNER!!! I nearly had a heart attack while peeing my pants! We had to cash it in by the end of the night or it became a worthless piece of paper. So, we found a wonderful convenience store that is sure to be a hit. It was called Seven Eleven, though I'm not sure why the name (I can only assume it is meant to reflect the class of the joint, much as the name "529 Wellington" does). The well dressed Seven Eleven "customer service representative" scanned my ticket, and the screen above him shouted "WHOO HOO!" as the word "WINNER!" appeared just above the "$3.00 payout" line. This was the best day I had had in... well probably since my wedding. I raced to the car where my day-after-her-birthday-girl was waiting for me. It was time to treat her to a proper meal. I took her to Sydney's at the Forks, where (after taxes and gratuities) we had a meal that went over the $3.00 we had won. It was well worth it, as the food was simply amazing. Not that I'm saying it in any way compares to the food one might enjoy at any WOW! Hospitality Concepts restaurant, but it was certainly up there. After our four course meal we enjoyed a nice walk along the river walk where we were not stabbed or mugged or even bitten alive by mosquitoes! Surely this was a dream. If so I'm still dreaming, because it hasn't ended yet.
We went to the Casino's of Winnipeg "Club Regent" (named as such because of it's close proximity to the "Regent Mohawk" I can only assume). I had been mailed out a card notifying me that I had been awarded $10.00 of "Gold Play" to use by a certain date. Since we had overshot our lottery ticket winnings on our meal, we figured the best place to come to make up the difference would be the casino (pretty much a no-brainer), and with a free $10.00 to burn through, how could we go wrong?
After walking around a casino we clearly had not been to in a while (as EVERYTHING THERE IS DIFFERENT NOW!) Except the fish tank that is, as I suppose that would be hard to move. They'd even upgraded the free coffee/hot chocolate/mocha dispensers... so we had already won. Putting in my player's card into a $0.01 slot machine of Nicole's choice we proceeded to put in $5.00 CAD to try to figure out how to access my $10.00 of "Gold Play". The machine was not as simple as we might have thought, as we had not taken any courses in University that covered the operations of slot machines. After losing the $4.90, and being no closer to figuring out how to use our $10.00, we decided to cash out. Pressing the cash out button lead to an interesting course of events...
The machine did not "cash us out". Instead it made a lot of annoying sounds and did a whole lot of nothing. We pressed the "CALL HELP" button (button may or may not have specifically said "CALL HELP"), and waited for an attendant to arrive. After some time one did walk by clearly unaware of our situation. I flagged him down and he came to service our machine. After 10 minutes of clearly having no idea what he was doing, he called for help. After 10 minutes the help came, only 5 minutes after the Help gave up, she called in what I can only assume was the Backup Help. Backup Help managed to reach in and remove our "cash out slip" which had simply been jammed in the machine. We now had our $0.10 cash out slip and the WORLD WAS OURS!!!!
I asked Nicole which machine to choose next, and she said that having waited so long on that machine, it was pretty much ours, and we should just wait for Backup Help to put it back together. Upon regaining the machine Nicole took her Birthday Luck and went to town. Lights & Music & Sounds OH MY!!! She worked it up to a nice $65 (okay, $64.90... but who's counting?), which was all based upon having put in a $20.00 bill and using only the $10.00 free "Gold Play" (Meaning we had won $45.00!!!). We cashed out our ticket without issue and took it to the cash out machines. There was one free on the left side, which Nicole put our cash out slip in to and a few seconds later the machine was giving us a combination of paper and metal money that added up to $60.90, a mere $4.00 short of the $64.90 that we had actually won. I grabbed an attendant (Not physically! I don't know why you think I would do that. I'm not a violent person) and she opened up the machine. After looking over it and seeing no reason why our $4.00 never came to be she called her Help (though not the same Help as we first encountered). The two of them eventually found out that the $1.00 dispenser within the machine had jammed and actually had what looked to be around 10 unclaimed loonies stuck in it. The Help handed me my $4.00 and we were off!!!
It is about 2:00 in the morning, and I have five times promised my wife that I'll "only be 5 more minutes", so I think I should actually go to bed, being that it has been over an hour since I first started promising such. I just wanted you (the world) to know that Nicole & I had an AWESOME DAY in which we broke not one, but two Casino machines, found an old unscratched scratch ticked... which was a winner... on the last day it could be claimed, and weren't both killed by bears!!!
Hard to believe even for me, but I was there and saw it happen. If this trend continues tomorrow my incurable brain cancer will be cured. One can never give up hope, even if that hope is a single electron in a single atom of a single molecule of aluminum in a single needle of a single haystack, assuming that haystack was the size of the entire known universe. I might even buy a lotto 649 ticket tomorrow???
Cheers everyone!!!! & HAPPY CANADA DAY :)
PS: There is no way I'm proofreading the above, being that it has been 12 minutes since I said I would stop.
It would be fair to say my wife Nicole & I have had our share of "bad news" & "tough times" over the past couple of years. Things don't generally tend to "go well" for us. 50% of us have a terminal illness, our vehicles tend to end up written off or falling apart on us...
RIP: Nicole's '94 (Literally flooded while parked in front of my Mom's house in Transcona)
RIP: Tom's '00 Hyundai Tiburon (Pretty much rusted away / fell apart on me)
RIP: Steve & Pat's '02 Chrysler Concorde (Taken out by an errant driver on Corydon)
...etc., etc., (please read former posts for more).
When we have a day when things don't go badly, we consider it to be an amazing day. When things go well, we nearly have heart attacks while running around with excitement laughing aloud with glee. If I go shopping and cashier forgets to charge me for an item, I nearly wet myself... that's all I'm saying. Well, today I should have been wearing a diaper because IT WAS AN AWESOME AWESOME DAY!!! This whole weekend has been pretty darn good, likely a direct result of it having been my wife's birthday on the 29th. She must have emanated "birthday luck". That is the only logical explanation. We went to her parents' on her actual birthday after a day of running around and just "being regular people". Okay, not really, as we had my blood work appointment at the HSC at 9:30 am, and my monthly "exam" (which is pretty much just a day to weigh me, and give me my next month's medication calendar and speak to a nurse... this last visit was "71 kg, no seizures since last time, see you in a month"). After that we started our day of "being normal". We hit up George's (Burgers & Subs) for a breakfast special, where Nic's eggs were a little runny. Keep in mind that they were still eggs. The fact that the plate didn't come out with a chicken fighting a gopher on it means we were still on track for a good day. Even when we went to Starbucks and her green tea frappuccino had waxy bits of chocolate mixed in (obviously from the last drink they made) it was made out of mostly what she ordered, which for us is amazing. The evening at her parents' was fantastic (as always) as Steve made more food than any of us could eat if someone forced us to with threat of physical harm. Jen may have had raw meat thrown in her face by her fiancé, but Nic & I officially had NO RAW MEAT thrown at us!!! (clearly this was a great weekend already)
Nic enjoyed her gifts and we went home for a good night's sleep. The next day we got to SLEEP IN!!! It got even better for me when my wife (who should have been celebrating her day after birthday, woke up before me and made me pancakes with fresh fruit which she then brought me IN BED along with a hot cup of coffee. Paradise. She puts up with my bad jokes and brings me breakfast in bed? I married the right girl :)
Afternoon saw us go to the Farmer's Market in St. Norbert. Just being able to walk around with my wife in the nice afternoon sun without having a seizure or facing any other medical issue was a real joy. There was an ambulance and firetruck that arrived to help someone else in need (as if to point out "this is usually you guys!")... though I hope the other people were not in any serious harm.
A quick stop off at Winners was enough to cap off our excursion, as we headed back to our apartment. We were incredibly productive... getting laundry done, sorting through bins and boxes that someone (unbelievably one might say) that we STILL have not unpacked since moving to our current "home" in late April of this year. I think we only have 10-15 of such boxes & bins to unpack before we can remove the quotation marks and call it a home! Then we can invite family & friends over without having to say "this is where we almost live!"
In our productive bin/box unpacking Nicole came across a lottery scratch ticket that had never been scratched. Again, the fact that it wasn't an envelope filled with anthrax would have been enough to keep me happy, but an unscratched lottery ticket? It had to be too good to be true. I told my lovely wife that it was probably expired and to check the date. The ticket expired TODAY!!! Ok, I could feel my body pulsing and adrenalin pulsing through my body. After scratching the ticket... it couldn't be... double check it... YES! IT WAS A $3 WINNER!!! I nearly had a heart attack while peeing my pants! We had to cash it in by the end of the night or it became a worthless piece of paper. So, we found a wonderful convenience store that is sure to be a hit. It was called Seven Eleven, though I'm not sure why the name (I can only assume it is meant to reflect the class of the joint, much as the name "529 Wellington" does). The well dressed Seven Eleven "customer service representative" scanned my ticket, and the screen above him shouted "WHOO HOO!" as the word "WINNER!" appeared just above the "$3.00 payout" line. This was the best day I had had in... well probably since my wedding. I raced to the car where my day-after-her-birthday-girl was waiting for me. It was time to treat her to a proper meal. I took her to Sydney's at the Forks, where (after taxes and gratuities) we had a meal that went over the $3.00 we had won. It was well worth it, as the food was simply amazing. Not that I'm saying it in any way compares to the food one might enjoy at any WOW! Hospitality Concepts restaurant, but it was certainly up there. After our four course meal we enjoyed a nice walk along the river walk where we were not stabbed or mugged or even bitten alive by mosquitoes! Surely this was a dream. If so I'm still dreaming, because it hasn't ended yet.
We went to the Casino's of Winnipeg "Club Regent" (named as such because of it's close proximity to the "Regent Mohawk" I can only assume). I had been mailed out a card notifying me that I had been awarded $10.00 of "Gold Play" to use by a certain date. Since we had overshot our lottery ticket winnings on our meal, we figured the best place to come to make up the difference would be the casino (pretty much a no-brainer), and with a free $10.00 to burn through, how could we go wrong?
After walking around a casino we clearly had not been to in a while (as EVERYTHING THERE IS DIFFERENT NOW!) Except the fish tank that is, as I suppose that would be hard to move. They'd even upgraded the free coffee/hot chocolate/mocha dispensers... so we had already won. Putting in my player's card into a $0.01 slot machine of Nicole's choice we proceeded to put in $5.00 CAD to try to figure out how to access my $10.00 of "Gold Play". The machine was not as simple as we might have thought, as we had not taken any courses in University that covered the operations of slot machines. After losing the $4.90, and being no closer to figuring out how to use our $10.00, we decided to cash out. Pressing the cash out button lead to an interesting course of events...
The machine did not "cash us out". Instead it made a lot of annoying sounds and did a whole lot of nothing. We pressed the "CALL HELP" button (button may or may not have specifically said "CALL HELP"), and waited for an attendant to arrive. After some time one did walk by clearly unaware of our situation. I flagged him down and he came to service our machine. After 10 minutes of clearly having no idea what he was doing, he called for help. After 10 minutes the help came, only 5 minutes after the Help gave up, she called in what I can only assume was the Backup Help. Backup Help managed to reach in and remove our "cash out slip" which had simply been jammed in the machine. We now had our $0.10 cash out slip and the WORLD WAS OURS!!!!
I asked Nicole which machine to choose next, and she said that having waited so long on that machine, it was pretty much ours, and we should just wait for Backup Help to put it back together. Upon regaining the machine Nicole took her Birthday Luck and went to town. Lights & Music & Sounds OH MY!!! She worked it up to a nice $65 (okay, $64.90... but who's counting?), which was all based upon having put in a $20.00 bill and using only the $10.00 free "Gold Play" (Meaning we had won $45.00!!!). We cashed out our ticket without issue and took it to the cash out machines. There was one free on the left side, which Nicole put our cash out slip in to and a few seconds later the machine was giving us a combination of paper and metal money that added up to $60.90, a mere $4.00 short of the $64.90 that we had actually won. I grabbed an attendant (Not physically! I don't know why you think I would do that. I'm not a violent person) and she opened up the machine. After looking over it and seeing no reason why our $4.00 never came to be she called her Help (though not the same Help as we first encountered). The two of them eventually found out that the $1.00 dispenser within the machine had jammed and actually had what looked to be around 10 unclaimed loonies stuck in it. The Help handed me my $4.00 and we were off!!!
It is about 2:00 in the morning, and I have five times promised my wife that I'll "only be 5 more minutes", so I think I should actually go to bed, being that it has been over an hour since I first started promising such. I just wanted you (the world) to know that Nicole & I had an AWESOME DAY in which we broke not one, but two Casino machines, found an old unscratched scratch ticked... which was a winner... on the last day it could be claimed, and weren't both killed by bears!!!
Hard to believe even for me, but I was there and saw it happen. If this trend continues tomorrow my incurable brain cancer will be cured. One can never give up hope, even if that hope is a single electron in a single atom of a single molecule of aluminum in a single needle of a single haystack, assuming that haystack was the size of the entire known universe. I might even buy a lotto 649 ticket tomorrow???
Cheers everyone!!!! & HAPPY CANADA DAY :)
PS: There is no way I'm proofreading the above, being that it has been 12 minutes since I said I would stop.
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