Hope and Change have been 8 long years missing. I'm proud to be an American!!

Big changes a'happening...

Wow, I've logged on and was told my last published post was July 17! And there are several new faces on Facebook who told me they only joined because I've been so bad about blogging. (Sheepish shrug) Sorry!

So let's see, what's been happening...Wickus and I celebrated our first anniversary mid-August, a week after his surprise birthday party, and between those two events he ran off to Rome to get his tourist visa for our upcoming trip to the US. (Rome because the London embassy wouldn't give him an appointment until October which is slightly too late for our trip that starts this Thursday evening.) Luckily the process in Rome was very smooth (South Africans are often denied several times before they secure an American visa), and the visa is good for multiple entries for a 10-year period, woohoo!

For our anniversary, he made reservations at a fantastic Italian restaurant in Bermondsey...it was a perfect little place with a wonderful atmosphere, dee-licious food, and for the first hour we had it to ourselves. He gave me some beautiful earrings that he picked out himself, and a Nintendo DS Lite...very cool and very Wickus! And I am now addicted to a game called Animal Crossing. I gave him some artwork for his walls, which he always talks about wanting. I took a close-up picture of a snarling cheetah in South Africa which was his favorite, and also the one I got the most comments on from people who have seen the pictures. I had it blown up onto canvas, 2 foot by 2 foot, in a sepia color and separated into 4 square panels and voila! Artwork :-) And I also played a song for him from my a cappella group in college where I sang the lead-- luckily, he loved it.

We have both been busily working, trying to tie things up before our trip to the States. I have successfully interviewed for and taken a job on a community stroke rehab team, which is a promotion for me. I'll be starting that job as soon as I get back, so I'm trying to tie up all the loose ends on this job before we leave. This has all happened so quickly that my supervisor, who's been on annual leave for the past two weeks, doesn't even know I won't be returning to work with her after my holiday. The new job means I now have to get a British driving license and a car. Aside from the fact that this will mean I get to do work I love to do, it would be more trouble than it's worth with all the associated costs. But I've chosen a very reliable make and model that should cost me very little in maintenance, gets good MPG, and is in a low tax and insurance bracket. And I've got a car fund now so that by the time I've got my license I'll be ready to buy.

The housing market here is starting to plummet, so W and I are also talking about buying...the plan was to move in together in October or November (renting), but it may just make more sense to buy in terms of an investment. He makes a good salary, and I am what they call a "key worker" which gives some nice advantages in terms of getting a mortgage.

So lots of changes going on around here. I am very very much looking forward to going home again, the week in July was just a big tease. It's been too long since I've last seen the Aveyards so the wedding in Denver is going to be a blast! I'm very excited to show Wickus some different sides of the US (Denver, NYC, Pennsylvania for ex-housemate Nicole's wedding), and very excited for him to meet the most important people in my life (Aveyards, Heilalas and Burks, Viv and Eric, Jenn and Chris, and Carla, Brian and Brett). He's already met my parents, my sister (who will also be home while we are!) and the Florys. Can't wait, just 4 days now!

Love to all

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety Jig

Surprise, surprise, I've been terrible about my blog for several months now. I'm headed home tomorrow for a whirlwind trip, including good old Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York and Vermont, all within 8 days. Yay!! Summer and sunshine here I come! Boy have I missed you! I promise I will be on here when I get back the week of July 28th. Much has been happening, and there is much to tell ;-)

I can't, I can't, I can't stand losin'...

Can't stand losin' you!

We said goodbye last night at Hyde Park to one of the all-time great bands, The Police. As I'm sure a lot of you know, they reunited for one last tour, and we saw them finish off last night with a bang in front of 35,000 fans! It was an amazing show, the energy was incredible!!! And I have to say, in spite of the salt and pepper beard, Sting still looks finger-licking good, and he knows it (he wore a muscle shirt--tasteful, but still a muscle shirt). Guess yoga really does pay off ;-) And wow, his voice sent shivers down my spine. You haven't heard Sting until you've heard him live.

We were also treated to performances by The Bangles, Starsailor, and KT Tunstall. I think Starsailor has a new fan in W, who had never heard of them before. The lead singer has a great voice, and was obviously enjoying himself up on stage. We sang our lungs out for most of the afternoon and evening and the weather was definitely cooperating with a fair bit of sunshine amazingly enough! But as W put it, The Police just blew everybody else out of the water.

Next up, Jack Johnson and Ben Harper !!! on Wednesday in Hyde Park again. Let's hope the forecast of heavy showers changes by then...generally the forecasts here can only be trusted on the same day, and sometimes not even then, so there's good reason to hope ;-)

Running on Empty

I'm feeling a little sensitive this week. Although I am getting 8 hours of sleep a night, for the past 3 days I've been waking up seemingly from a deep sleep. I'm groggy, disoriented, in the middle of crazy disturbing dreams, and generally very unhappy. Not how you really want to repeatedly start your days.

I've been poked and prodded at for poor posture (belly dancing teacher, physio, fellow OTs), which is fine when it's one at a time. I've had a very sore coccyx bone, from what I don't know. You'd think I must have had a nasty bump to cause such pain, but I can't remember anything. And because I sit with my pelvis in a posterior tilt, the "slump," I'm in pain most of the time unless it's a really soft cushy chair. Now don't be smirking out there, most people sit like that. I'm going to start using a wedge cushion to force me into an anterior tilt so I can sit pain free until the problem is gone. Let's see, I also don't stand straight, don't use my core stability muscles to hold myself up against gravity, have one leg slightly shorter than the other (which tilts and rotates my pelvis)....the list goes on and on. It's been a week of people pushing me into different positions, and told to do it that way from now on, and it's just too much to work on at once!

I've got a big meeting with the Head OT tomorrow, which has little butterflies in my stomach, but there were big butterflies and outright knots already in there from other things going on, but it was just that little bit extra to upset the scales.

Right...I think I'm going to call the "Waaaa"mbulance on myself, as Cogger used to say. Sorry about that.

Housemate Nicole's hen do is coming up this weekend, Saturday night. Unfortunately, the forecast is for heavy rain all weekend, but then again they never get the forecast right here, so hopefully she'll have a clear warm night. Her mom and little brother arrive tomorrow morning, so she is in full tour guide mode already, having spent the week packing things up. When they leave in about a week, she'll only have two weeks left before moving back to the States permanently. Still doesn't seem quite real yet, even though her room is half empty.

Wooohoooo!

"I'm in the money, I'm in the money, I've got a lot of what it takes to get along!" That's partly in deference to my own musical theatre obsession where for a lot of things in life I find myself singing show tunes in my head...but it also reminds me that Aunt Sue and Emma are in NYC this week, attending as many Broadway musicals as possible. Ah, a trip after my own heart. I dragged my family to four musical and dramatic productions during our first trip to London. As I recall it was actually something like 4 shows in 3 days. Anywho, congrats on graduation Em, hope you are loving the Big Apple!

Back to the whole hullabaloo--I have won the housemate lose weight contest! Which means the kitty goes to me, albeit I don't really expect to ever see the money that one particular housemate owes, ahem!, as she has not paid into it at all and represents the largest portion of money that should have been in there. Seriously though, I am proud of myself that the only time I gained weight was whilst on holiday in SA, and I have so far lost 8 pounds overall. I'm not actually finishing now that our bet is over, I have my own goal weight set to reach and maintain, and I'm happy that along the way I'm re-educating myself about healthy foods, healthy portion sizes, and learning to recognize my bad habits.

Go Allison, it's your birthday!!!!

Meerkat Manor!

Kung Fu Panda

Well-measured words

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7434740.stm

Amazingly, given the rapid decline of America's influence in the international playing field, a lot of eyes around the world are following this election closely. Some sobering and thoughtful reflections, although the author stops short of making a prediction...

Oooh, they make me so mad sometimes.

Sometimes you've really got to have some chuzpah (or however you spell it) to be an Occupational Therapist, because it feels like everyone else is trying to tear you down. Or I guess tear you down isn't the right way to put it, but they just sort of dismiss you, like their service is valuable but yours isn't. My supervisor has had a history of struggling with the physio outpatient service...not that they are overtly separatist or rude or mean or anything, but there have been issues in terms of who gets new referrals. Consultants and their teams of doctors have a bad habit of using an OT referral form, but writing "hand physio" as the reason for the referral, so even though it is an OT referral some of them have been "stolen" so to speak by the physio team in the past.

I recently had a lady call in to say she wasn't going to keep her next appointment, and in fact would not be coming for any more sessions with me because her physio had told her she doesn't need to see me anymore. Although there is some crossover, the OT hand therapy service would not exist if we were nothing more than a duplication of physio services! Regardless of my own opinion on the obvious differences between our services, in the NHS, anything that can be cut, will be cut. I have also recently taken on a patient only a year or two older than me who has already had physio for awhile, been discharged from physio, and was only given a referral to see me by the doctor because she wasn't happy with the end result, and he didn't know what else to try. It was kind of like, well, we've done everything we possibly can for you, and out of sheer frustration finally said, well, there is an OT, I suppose I could refer you to her.

The icing on the cake was a phone call this morning from a lovely patient...she saw the specialist hand surgeon yesterday. He discharged her and told her she's got about as much back in her arm as she is going get. So she asked about her OT sessions and he told her not to bother! She was a bit thrown off and rang me today to ask about it. Since we see people for as long as they are making progress, and when I saw her two days she had improved, I told her she was welcome to continue coming, which she has decided to do. But honestly!!! Your self esteem could take a dive if you weren't the type of personality to get fired up by this kind of thing instead. Why on earth do you make referrals to a service that you don't think is of benefit to your patients? And what business is it of yours to decide when a patient should finish therapy?! Once a referral is made to me, that patient is mine as much as yours, and what I do with them is in conjuction with what you are doing, true, but also separate. Agggghh!!!!!!!!

Incredible!

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/05/30/brazilian-tribe.html

What would they think of New York City?

I hadn't realized there were any tribes still in existence completely unaware of the rest of the world, let alone 100 of them.

Ok, maybe just one

I lied, I'm posting a photo. Pikkewyn!! (That's penguins in Afrikaans.) I can't wait for you guys to see some of my wildlife pics that I took with my SLR! And I still have a couple of rolls to develop yet.

Back in the UK

We landed yesterday morning around 7am, following a 12-hour flight where I did not sleep at all. So essentially I pulled an all-nighter. Neither did Wickus, and believe me, the two of us trying to navigate the tube back home was a comedy of errors, as neither of us could think straight. I think we finally got into bed at 11am and were knocked out for 5 hours. W bounced back, but I was a complete zombie all day. And only better by about half today, as I made many various small and big mistakes at work. However, I did manage to get through belly dancing class after work, and felt energized for about an hour afterward. I have re-gained 4 pounds as I did not regulate much at all for those 2 weeks, although I think I should be able to lose them again rather easily. And as is generally my luck, there has been beautiful hot sunny weather here in the UK whilst I was gone, and I have returned to gray skies, rain, and cooler temps. The weather cooperated in South Africa for about 2/3 of our trip though, so I suppose I can't really complain. I'm rather depressed at the moment, and would happily turn around and go straight back if someone would just pay for my ticket and give me lots more annual leave ;-)

I am busy putting tons of photos on facebook tonight, and will pick and choose some to put on here as well. But not tonight.

One more day

Does no one stock bloody 35mm film anymore?!!! Granted I hardly ever use it myself, but still! I should be able to find it when I need it! My lovely SLR camera has come out of the closet with its lovely long distance lens, that I unfortunately didn't realize I needed and therefore didn't buy until after my family's first safari in December/January 2002/2003. I'm so excited to use it, and I can't find the right film anywhere, grrrrrr. Boots only has 200 speed, Tesco only has 400, and I have yet to find any place else that even carries it. I would love to get 60 or 80 speed, but would settle for 100. My last options are the airport, and then South Africa itself.

Yes, it is finally here. Tomorrow night we take off for Cape Town. Finally, finally. Although first I have to get through a day packed solid with patients...I have patients right up until 4:30pm, which means I have to drag my suitcase to the hospital with me, so I can get straight on the tube as soon as I finish my last notes (which realistically is probably 5-ish). I've had 10-thousand To-Do lists floating around (slight, but only slight exaggeration), and at the moment am listening to Michael Buble for stress relief.

But everything is coming together--I packed my suitcase previously, or at least most of it, and just need to go through tonight and hopefully pull a few things out. Mom and Dad's retirement thing is settled. Oh, yes and Weight Watchers is going fabulously well, 6 pounds lost so far, three weeks in. Which means that thus far, I'm winning the little jackpot we've got going in our house (the one who loses the most by Nicole's Hen Night in June wins the money we've all contributed whenever we gain weight). However, I figure if I'm lucky and keep a close enough eye, the best I can hope for after two weeks on holiday is to stay the same. More likely I'll gain a pound or two, but I will do my best. Knock on wood, I'm the only one who hasn't gained yet, but consistently lost. Oh yes, and W and I have booked our tickets for a US trip in September. He'll be joining me at an Aveyard wedding in Denver, as well as spend some time in NYC, and meet a number of my friends, including hopefully the Burks and Heilalas. Sorry guys, I know you were really looking forward to spending some time with him in Vermont in July, and he did intend to come, but the situation is beyond his control with work permits and what not as he changes to permanent status with Deutsche Bank.

Possibly more later, but if not, I won't be online again until May 14 or 15. Apparently the internet is ridiculously expensive in SA. Weather forecast is absolutely beautiful at the moment, I'm crossing my fingers it stays that way! Much love to all, Allison :-)

"To Make You Feel My Love"

When the rain is blowing in your face
And the whole world is on your case
I would offer you a warm embrace
To make you feel my love

When the evening shadows and the stars appear
And there is no one to dry your tears
I could hold you for a million years
To make you feel my love

I know you haven't made your mind up yet
But I would never do you wrong
I've known it from the moment that we met
There's no doubt in my mind where you belong

I'd go hungry, I'd go black and blue
I'd go crawling down the avenue
There ain't nothing that I wouldn't do
To make you feel my love

The storms are raging on the rollin' sea
Down the highway of regret
The winds of change are blowing wild and free
But you ain't seen nothing like me yet

There ain't nothing that I wouldn't do
Go to the ends of the earth for you
Make you happy, make your dreams come true
To make you feel my love

Alternative Exercise

I went to my first belly-dancing class tonight. What a blast! Unfortunately, I can't seem to get my arms and hips to be doing two different things in a graceful, coordinated way. Ok, to toot my own horn, I did pretty well for a complete beginner, but I can only seem to do the arms or the hips right, not both right at the same time. But I figure after a 7-week course of classes, things are bound to fall into place. Well, 5 weeks anyway...I'll miss the first two while I'm in Cape Town (tonight was a free intro class). Now, I just need to find one of those small triangular scarves with bright coppery discs all along the edges....

Next Wednesday is coming up way too fast. I'm now making 2-3 To-Do Lists every day as I try to keep up with everything I need to take care of before I leave. Agggh.

I should be an events planner, I really should.

Whew! The planning is finished! And I'm not just referring to Cape Town here...but since I've started off there, we went back and forth this weekend, and finally settled on an itinerary we were both satisfied with. I think Wickus may be even more excited than me at this point because when he goes home, he normally stays in Cape Town, but we will be going out to the Eastern Cape, as far as Knysna! We'll be staying two nights in Tsitsikamma National Park at a romantic tree-top log cabin, two nights at a game reserve (with two game drives per day, as well as horseback riding and a cheetah experience at their breeding centre), two nights in Hermanus with W's family (a relax at the beach weekend) and the rest in Cape Town itself. I managed to talk W into hiking up Table Mountain rather than taking the cable car (hee hee), we have a day set aside for working our way through the wine farms, and we'll be going to Boulders beach to see and walk among the penguins!!! And that's maybe half of our plans. Hard to believe it's only 9 days now until we leave...

I have also finished planning (with Tressa's valuable input of course) our retirement surprise for our parents. They know some of what is happening, but I've still got several tricks up my sleeve. I'm really quite chuffed (er, patting myself on the back) with the end result, and I hope it's an amazing experience for them.

Right, it's already past bed time, and I've still got a new Scrubs episode to watch, now that the writer's strike is over and Season 7 episodes have started arriving via iTunes again, so "Th-th-th-that's all for now folks!"

Sud Afrika

So it is now only a week and a half until we leave for Cape Town! We are currently planning out our days (although of course we don't expect it to go according to plan all or necessarily even most of the time). Our current bone of contention is whether to go to Addo Elephant Game Reserve in the Eastern Cape. It was his idea initially, I found an unbelievable deal for 3 nights that is luxury accommodation, all meals and drinks plus two game drives a day, all included-- it's only available to SA residents, but I think W could get away with that ;-) But anywho, he is now balking, and I think I've figured out that the real reason is that it's a 6-hour drive. To me, totally doable. Not so much to him!

Claire and Nick's Wedding

...Was at a beautiful old converted house and barn in Coopersale Essex. The bride looked beautiful, the groom was estatic (awww) and they are now in Mauritius for 2 weeks, the lucky devils! We had a fantastic time at the reception.

Sweaty from dancing all night long, but very happy. It was a great reception-- Claire and Nick had a guy who sang Rat Pack songs for the first hour, and then it switched over to a DJ.