November is the Cruelest Month or..How To Maintain Sanity In An Insane World

It's November and you know what that means, right?

Well, maybe not.

It is November the first and that means the commencement of National Blog Posting Month. Every November since 2011, I have taken on the challenge of thirty posts in thirty days. It is exhausting, emotionally draining, and frankly it plays havoc with my creativity gene. I have tried to maintain a standard of excellence throughout these exercises, but it is impossible to know if I have ever truly succeeded. As I recently looked back on some of those mid-month posts, I noticed quite a bit of cow dung mixed in with the jewels. The Husband is adamantly opposed to my signing up this year mostly out of his own self-preservation. He frustrates easily by my constant whining about source material and he certainy tires of showing up in these missives.

In addition, I promised my single digit of readers that I would put a more positive face on these blogs at least until after the S&M exhibition to the south has reached climax. This added task of NaBloPoMo just might make that more difficult, but I promise to try.

So what to do?

I'll leave it up to you the "not-so-faithful" readers to decide. If I get more than twenty likes or comments on Facebook or in the comment section on this space, I will endeavour to fill your blog-reading needs. If not, I have my answer and I will relax and watch November pass me by like a normal person. So, basically it all rests on your collective shoulders. I promise I won't take it personally should the groupspeak deem it a non-starter.

So, off you go. Yea or Nay? Blue or Red? Sedate or Crazy?

Voting responsibilty is difficulty, isn't it?

Today's relaxing news. I'll see your Basket of Deplorables and raise you a Basket of Gus! Admit it. It made you smile.

And...We're Back!

Hello November

I would say welcome, but you and I both know that we share a historically tortured and labourious relationship, and offering you kindness and glad tidings would be tantamount to The Titanic offering hospitality to an iceberg.

November is a difficult month. It lacks the colour of October and it enjoys none of December's festivity, at least for us Canadians. It is saddled with shortened daylight, plunging temperatures, grey skies, and Arctic winds.

November is the month when I finally give up whatever pretence I ever had about fashion (which assuredly isn't much) and instead acquiesce to the comfort of utilitarian warmth. Can anybody honestly say that they would rather wear a poncho sweater and leggings instead of jeans and polar fleece? Those leather boots with the three-inch heels that looked so great in October are suddenly no match for slippery frosty mornings, and last year's Uggs are retrieved from the back of the closet.

November is when my morning grooming effort is defined by a personal mantra of "this will do". My hairbrush needs to be covered in a Bounce sheet in order to be effective, I purchase body lotion by the litre, and the sallowness of my pallor can only be matched in its apathy by the effort I make shaving my legs. (November is the month for the "only to the knee" shave and even then it doesn't occur nearly often enough.)

November is when all those wide-eyed idealistic notions about exercise tend to disappear into a haze of excuses most often defined by exhaustion, darkness, cold, or depression. The hauling of my carcass onto a treadmill requires almost as much exertion as the run itself. Still...I manage to persevere, only to be upended by the hormonal calling of comfort food in order to maintain whatever equilibrium is left.

Ah....November. You are the flaming dung pile that pollutes our calendar.

And yet...

For the past five (yes I said 5!!) Novembers, I have found a way to navigate through this minefield of a month. National Blog Posting Month has offered me a lifeline, a creative umbilical cord to sanity. As odd as it may sound, the burst of imagination necessary in attempting to post every day is my personal flotation device. There is life in these posts and I jump at the chance to reverse the effects of Seasonal Affective Disorder. In these posts I find renewal and energy.

It isn't easy. At times it can be gruelling. Thirty posts in thirty days. The task is daunting (I apologize in advance for the clunkers that will inevitably come) and I am fundamentally lazy. As such, old favourites (mine perhaps, if not yours) such as Meatless Mondays, Almost Wordless Wednesdays, and Shabbat Music Breaks will return. No matter how I manage to fill these days, please know I will complete the task. The Type A in me wouldn't have it any other way.

You, dear readers (all 10 of you) can help. Feedback is my sustenance. Comments and "likes" are like crack to a blogger.  Please do so...comment, I mean.... either here or on my Facebook page. (You can even "like" the page itself. I need a few new followers. Yes, I am that needy and starved for affection.) I would love to hear from you and it actually helps with the process. Nobody likes to write in a vacuum. I also wouldn't be averse to the odd share or two. If I can increase my readership by at least two, it's donuts for everybody.

So here we go...into that great abyss we call November.

Welcome Back November...You Are a Cruel Month

November Night

Adelaide Crapsey (1922)

Listen. . .
With faint dry sound,
Like steps of passing ghosts,
The leaves, frost-crisp’d, break from the trees
And fall.

November can be a cruel month here in the north. The days grow shorter, darker and colder. November doesn't have the flashy beauty of October nor does it carry the festivity of December. It is the middle child of autumn, with a goal of simple survival for many. Seasonal Affective Disorder abounds as cranky citizens strive for a sense of balance. Some exercise. Some load up on vitamins. Some binge eat. Me? I vent. Loudly and openly.

It is why I use November as my annual foray into National Blog Post Month. The discipline of having to crank out thirty posts in thirty days is a welcome distraction from the grey that can be the eleventh month. This is my third consecutive November journey into blogapalooza and once again I dive in with a mix of fear, trepidation, and maybe just a bit of apathy. I will do my best to fill this space on a daily basis, but I should warn all readers that as I have aged I have discovered a hard truth about myself....I no longer feel the overwhelming need to impress. Therefore there will be some cop-out posts such as a return to my Meatless Monday recipes and my absolutely necessary Shabbat Music Breaks on Saturdays. Even NaBloPoMo participants deserve a sabbath. I will also be adding an Almost Wordless Wednesday feature. (I know myself far too well to even pretend that it can be entirely wordless.) A photograph can convey so much that simple words cannot, but mostly I am adding it because I am fundamentally lazy and this feature will eat up at least four more days. 

And so...we begin. May this November pass with distinction and may all participants in NaBloPoMo find creativity in the everyday. Oh...and may God have mercy on all of our souls. Too much??

What Constitutes an Emergency?

A question: When is an emergency not an emergency?

Answer: When somebody else tells you that it isn't.

History: This tale of misery actually began almost three weeks ago. As is common practice for him, The Husband went to see his dentist for his quatra-yearly check-up. Yes, you read that correctly. He sees his dentist 4 times a year. You see he has a history of gum issues, and as a result of these past problems is meticulous about his oral hygiene. One day I will compose an entire post about his dental care regime, but for now just know that he is a dentist's wet dream. At this particular appointment, He was given the full workup. Cleaning, thorough check-up, and.....here's the kicker..... a full set of X-rays. He left the office with a clean bill of dental health. That was two weeks ago this coming Thursday. The hell was just beginning.

On Saturday evening, following an evening out with friends, he began complaining of stiffness in his jaw and a radiating pain from his lower lip to his right ear. He thought that maybe the hygienist had struck a nerve during his cleaning two days before and took a couple of Advil before bed. That lasted him all of an hour. By midnight he was literally screaming in pain, pleading for relief. Now, it should be noted that this man has an extremely high pain threshold. He has suffered countless bouts with kidney stones and several procedures to alleviate them. That said, I have never seen him so uncomfortable from anything. By the next morning, (Sunday) he was searching the Internet for emergency dental clinics. If he was willing to visit some strange dentist, than I knew this was serious. A trip north of the city saw him wait over 40 minutes, spend $140.00, have another set of x-rays taken, see a dentist young enough to be his daughter, only to be told that nothing was wrong. She told him to continue taking the Advil, gave him a prescription for an antibiotic that he refused to fill because he was suspicious of the non-diagnosis, and told him to rest. Rest?? He was literally in tears from the pain.

Another sleepless night, saw him calling his own dentist on Monday morning. His regular guy isn't in on Mondays, so he saw the new associate, another young woman who he thought might like to meet Older Son. Dentistry seems to be a young woman's game these days. Another $60.00 spent to be told that there was still nothing wrong. He was popping painkillers like breath mints, but nothing was wrong.

Fast forward two more unbearable nights to Wednesday. By now, he could hardly talk, he was displaying some puffiness on the right side of his face, eating was off the table, and sleep was but a memory. He finally got in to see his own dentist that afternoon. Another set of X-rays (cost: $40.00) and a whole lot of painful probing finally revealed a small crack in a rear molar and dead roots underneath. It is possible that the roots were interfering with a nerve which might be causing the radiating pain. Dentist #3 gave him two options. Remove the tooth, do a root canal, and put in a crown or remove the tooth and put in an implant. Through his haze of pain all The Husband could hear was "Remove the tooth" and frankly it couldn't come soon enough.

"Now?" He moaned hopefully.

"Oh no"' replied Dentist #3 "You will have to visit an oral surgeon. We will make you an appointment......6 days hence!" (Ok. The dentist probably didn't say "hence", but it makes for a better story.)

6 days. 6 days of more pain, more sleepless nights, more fasting, more misery. 6 days. Dentist #3 gave him Tylenol 3 to alternate with the Advil and a new prescription for antibiotics to combat any infection that might be present. He charged him $60.00 for the pills but didn't invoice him for the visit. What a guy!

Wait. It gets better. When The Husband called the oral surgeon's office to confirm that he would be sedated for the procedure, he was told that he would first need to come in for a consultation and then several days later they would do the extraction. He refused. Just get the f***ing thing out.

And so....here we are. Today's the day. Supposedly. I began composing this post from the waiting room of the oral surgeon's office, hoping against hope that this nightmare was finally ending. I should have known better. When The Husband was called in for the procedure, he explained the whole gruesome tale to Dentist #4 and asked if he could please be sedated. "Sure", replied the nice young dentist. "But you will have to return later this afternoon because I just don't have the time right now."

So here we stand. We will return this afternoon for a surgery that has been almost two weeks in the making. I am left fuming at the entire ordeal and I am not even the one In pain. Wouldn't you think that this mess constituted a dental emergency? Why couldn't the first two dentists read a basic X-ray? Shouldn't the oral surgeon have squeezed him in given the amount of pain he was so obviously suffering rather than have him wait an additional 6 days? When is an emergency truly an emergency? Did he have to lie bleeding and broken for somebody, anybody, to takes his pain seriously? I am thinking that the entire industry needs a rethink as to the way it deals with people in pain.

Oh....and this ordeal has already cost us almost $1100.00. Talk about piling on the misery.

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It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like......

Curse you November!

You the most hated of months. The magnificence of October's colours and glory has dissolved into your blandness and grey. You toy with us, November. You tease a few flurries and remind us that winter is fast approaching whether or not we have cleared the fallen leaves from our gutters or put the snow tires on our cars. Your darkness is pervasive and your bone chilling falling temperatures enough to induce the creation of my hermitage. Frankly November, I kind of loathe you. Your only saving grace is that you contain only thirty days rather than thirty-one.

Your endless nature is why I have once again chosen to participate in National Blog Posting Month. The discipline of creating and writing every day provides the perfect counterbalance to the dreariness that is November. It keeps my mind and spirit occupied while the first effects of Seasonal Affective Disorder begin to ravage my body. But....the pressure to be witty, original, and readable can be immense. I am already experiencing night sweats just at the thought of thirty fresh posts.

When I asked The Husband what he thought of my diving into this project for a second consecutive year, his answer was an unqualified "Are you out of your f*@#ing mind?" He complained vociferously about my driving him to more drink in a desperate search of ideas for postings. So, in other words, he has found a way to make my project all about him! And he wasn't the only one. Younger Son's Young Lady told me with tongue firmly planted in cheek, that she would only read if I wrote about HER. I told her that we would play a "Where's Waldo"-type of game. I would insert her somewhere in each post and she would have to figure out where. I'm not certain if I have that kind of cleverness in me, but we shall see.

I will be bringing back some of last year's favourites such as Meatless Monday recipes for my vegetarian brethren and the Shabbat Music Breaks for Saturday's listening pleasure. Yes it is a cop-out, yes I am fundamentally lazy, and yes it takes two days out of every week where I don't have to stress all that much about posting. But, those two features were actually amongst my most popular and most widely read. It just proves my assertion that most blog readers have the attention span of a three-month old puppy in a yard full of squirrels.

So here we go again November. I refuse to let you beat me. You may suck big-time as a month, but you offer up a challenge that I cannot decline. It's either you or me, November. Only one of us can emerge victorious. Game on!