| December 11th, 2000 |
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This year I decided to use 'The full power of the Internet' in my Christmas letter... (but in this 'printable version', I've deleted the rest of the first paragraph where I describe what I did and why. If you have access to the net, go to my website (https://www.colleenmeade.com) and make your way down the branches to my 'Christmas Cards and Letters' page, where you'll find the 'online version' and you can read it there). Although this version doesn't have any actual links (or any of the images referred to in some of the text below), I have underlined the words or phrases that are links in the online one - there are lots of them! The year didn't start out very well. When I'd been feeling fairly good back in September (of '99), I started looking for a psychiatrist, since I know I always get depressed as the fall progresses but by then I'm too enervated and discouraged to do anything about it. Anyway, to make a long story short, I'd had no luck (and some really miserable experiences). Fortunately, around the end of January I finally got hooked up with one, though I wasn't able to get in to see her until almost the end of February. Those two months are just a grey blur of hanging on minute by minute to make it through each day. I came home from my first appointment feeling quite optimistic and started researching some of the medicines we'd discussed - the Internet is a great source of information on that kind of thing. Then, just for the heck of it, I thought I'd type in the doctor's name and see if I got any hits. I was expecting maybe one or two, from the BC College of Physicians and Surgeons or something; instead, I got about 22 hits from all over the world. It turns out this woman has an INCREDIBLE history. She was born in Norway and studied medicine in Switzerland. She worked as a bush doctor in Africa (her first specialty was tropical medicine) and she wrote her first book about her experiences there. Then she worked with Schweitzer at Lambaréné and she wrote her second book about her time with him. She also set up an epilepsy clinic in Tanzania (which is still going) and did some fundamental research into new means of treatment for that disease. She then married an Austrian doctor she'd met in Zurich and eventually they moved to Canada, although they also lived and worked in other places, like Thailand. They live in Tsawwassen and her office is in Ladner; her husband was (is?) a professor in psychiatry at UBC. She works with him also, editting journals and doing studies on indigenous peoples and the two of them travel around the world giving papers at conferences (at places like Bangaladesh and Brazil, for example). All but one of those things I learned from the Internet. She's 69 years old (she's just at her office two days a week now), but she hardly looks any older than I do. I always felt that if I was going to have a therapist it would have to be someone I could respect, but to say that I respect her would be an understatement! Anyway, I did end up on one of the newer medicines (called Celexa), but I'm not sure how much good it's done. This HAS been my best fall in quite a few years though. Meanwhile, I've gone from seeing her once a week to every two weeks to once a month. I still look forward to our sessions - what a delight to talk with someone so intelligent and well-travelled. She says I have a 'lively mind', which I'll take as a compliment. Originally, the justification for my seeing a specialist and having it covered under Medicare was that my doctor thought I might have bipolar disorder. Actually, it took quite a while to convince Dr. Jilek-Aall (that's her name) that I didn't. She kept wanting to put me on something called Epival, to even out my moods - definitely not something I wanted to do! The winter (and early spring) did have some high points, like reconnecting with my best friend from high school (also through the Internet), but there's more on that later on in this letter. Still, once the days start getting longer, it sure is nice to get out into the yard. I'd never really had a chance to finish off my garden last year (because of going away to New Brunswick on the photography workshop), so there was extra work to do this year. Fortunately, though, I was also extra motivated, since I always hate leaving something half-done, so I was determined to get it all in this year. I even managed to find time to shoot a couple of rolls of film, though nothing really good enough to put up on my website. About the only thing I did was make a 'Happy Easter' card to email to friends, using one of my photographs - clicking HERE or on either of the images on the right will link to it. Back in the spring, one of the people that Kathleen rides with at the stables asked her if she'd be interested in going to the N'Sync concert in June (the 14th). This girl has an aunt who works for Ticketmaster, so she was able to get tickets before they went on sale to the general public (which is pretty much the ONLY way to get them - they disappear in a FLASH!). Anyway, they cost a fortune, so we agreed that she'd pay half and I'd give her the other half as an early birthday present. Boy, the build-up to the day was amazing - Kathleen was practically beside herself with anticipation. However, I figured it was an experience she'd remember for a long time (I still remember the two concerts I went to when I was just a couple of years older than she is now - Jimi Hendrix and Cream), so all the trouble was worth it. Just the logistics of picking up the ticket, getting her in to GM Place (and picked back up), etc. was a nightmare, but she DID make it, she DID enjoy it and she even shot a roll of photos with one of those cheap little disposable cameras which, amazingly enough, turned out not too badly. I scanned them in and put them up on a webpage for her, along with her favorite N'Sync song. Click HERE or on the middle image on the left to see and hear it (clicking on the bottom image will take you to The Official N'Sync Website, if you want to know more about them). We both think Lance (Bass) is the hottest one! The Mom's Group had been meaning to get together all spring, but we finally made it in late June, just before everyone went on their summer vacations. We all met (well, seven of us, which isn't bad) down at Gill's 'yacht' in False Creek Marina. It was a gorgeous West Coast evening, in a picture-perfect setting. We sat on the boat chatting, drinking and nibbling on appetizers for about three hours, then the rest went on to have supper at Monk McQueen's. However, by this time it was 10:00, so I just wanted to make my way home and see Kathleen before she went to bed. It was a really enjoyable time though - sort of like an early birthday party (I turned 51 the next day). I shot a roll of photos and put them up as a page in the 'Mom's Group' section of my website, but since that's part of all the other mom's group stuff (addresses and other confidential information), we want to keep it private, so the pictures in the 'online version' don't link to anything. Kathleen didn't get a job for the summer, so I put her to work around here - cleaning out the gazebo, sorting out all the newspapers and magazines that had accumulated over the winter, etc. Before we knew it, it was July the 19th again, and time for her birthday - this year she was turning 'Sweet Sixteen'. Hard to believe! We made it a pretty special (and fattening!) day, with McDonald's for breakfast, Dairy Queen for lunch and South Beach House for supper. We were supposed to have her 'cake' in the afternoon, but when I tried to get a 'Blizzard Pie' at DQ they told me they didn't make them anymore. So, I had to run around getting the stuff to make one, but then it wasn't ready in time. Kathleen was pretty upset (she didn't know what the problem was - I couldn't go into detail without ruining the surprise), but we had it after supper and everything worked out fine. It was really hot weather, which was why I didn't want to bake a cake and why an ice cream pie was so appealing. Hard to get the candles lit and blown out before it melted though! Kathleen also got some lovely presents from other people, including a CD walkman from her godmother. She could use it to listen to some of the CD's she got from me and that she bought for herself with money from her dad. She ended up getting quite a bit of cash in gifts. She was just going to use it to buy even more CDs, but then we were in at the vet's (picking up some of Snowball's special cat food) and she saw the most adorable kitten. At the time, she hadn't thought about spending the money that way and, by the time she did, that kitten had already found a good home. However, she went down the next week and they had in seven new kittens. She spend a morning with them, picking out her favorite, and that is how 'Wuffums' came into our life. She's another 'Galiano cat', like Rascal; the mother was rescued by the vet and brought over here for an operation and to find homes for her kittens. She was named after a cat I had when I was in university - the friendliest cat I ever owned. Major adjustments had to be made by the other three cats, but everything has settled down now. Snowball looks out for her, like a big brother should, and Smudge and she play endlessly. Mocha is still a bit hissy, but nothing serious. We got her on July 27th, and the top picture on the right was taken just a few days later (July 31st), but the second picture was taken August 22nd. You can click on either photo or HERE to go to a 'Wuffums' webpage. On July 30th, there was a partial solar eclipse here, just as the sun was setting. Only 33% of the sun's disc was obscured, but it was still kind of neat, especially for someone like me who's never seen one (at least, not under clear skies). I'd run around earlier getting some stuff together (making a pinhole camera and finding a bunch of sunglasses to use all together for a filter). With lots of help from Kathleen, I managed to get a few photographs. I particularly like the one on the left, as you can clearly see the 'chunk' out of the sun in the little refracted 'ghost' image, just to the left and above the actual sun image. Click HERE or on that image to go to a webpage with more of the pictures from that evening. I still keep in touch with quite a few of the people from the photography workshop that I went to last year. In fact, one of them (Guido from Montreal) was supposed to come out here in June, but he had to cancel at the last minute (and go on a business trip to Paris - rough life!). However, at the beginning of August (the 2nd), one of the other participants (Margaret, from Ottawa) was coming out here to go to the Camera Canada College 2000 Conference at UBC, so I picked her up at the airport, drove her to UBC to register (she was staying in the residences there) and drop off her stuff, then took her to Trimble Park in Point Grey for a picnic. Vancouver provided perfect weather, a great view and a gorgeous sunset. People were already gathering for the 'Symphony of Fire' performance that night. They were going to open a suite on the 16th floor of the residence for attendees to watch it from, but I just wanted to get home (I do that a lot - I must be getting old!). Hope she had a good view of them! You can click HERE (or on the top image on the right) to go to my webpage of the visit, or HERE (or on the bottom image) to go to her website to see lots of her photographs. More about me and Kathleen seeing the fireworks a few paragraphs down... As I mentioned in one of the first paragraphs above, early in the new year I had a surprise call from the person (Kati) who was my best friend all the way through junior and senior high school. She and her husband, Pat, live in Grande Prairie, Alberta and have for many years now. She'd been at home (baking pies, yet!) while her husband was surfing the Internet and she wondered if he'd be able to find ME on there. Fortunately, the search engine turned up my website, along with my email address and - Boom! - we were connected again after I don't know how many years of being out of touch. I ended up helping her create a personal website for her and her family, including pages on the Edson High School 30th Reunion for our 'Class of 1966' (she mailed me down a huge package of photographs which I scanned in). It turned out there was going to be another reunion this year (a 'Millenium Celebration' for everyone who ever went to the old 'Red Brick School' - yes, Edson did have one and I attended it, but it DID have more than one room!). Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make it up to that (it was on July 1st), but she went and took more pictures. Now we exchange photographs using the London Drugs system, where you take in your roll and they scan in the negatives and then post the images on the Internet, from where you can then download them (of course, you can also get prints made too, assuming you want them). I'd been using that service for over a year and a half now - partly because it's a lot easier than scanning in the pictures myself (and better quality) and partly so that I can share my pictures with friends and fellow shutterbugs from my photography workshop. Anyway, it worked out great for the two of us as well. Good thing there's a London Drugs in Grande Prairie! She was coming down to Kelowna for a family reunion at the beginning of August, plus her husband wanted to visit an old friend on Vancouver Island, so it was easy for them to stop off here in Tsawwassen for a day - we had our very own 'Kati and Colleen' Reunion. It was SO great to see her again!! We spent the afternoon gabbing in the backyard by the pool (Kathleen and Pat took their dog, Sheba, up to the park for a walk - they had a great time too), then we went out for supper to our favorite restaurant (South Beach House again - you can't beat it for a real 'West Coast' experience), then back here to sit out in the gazebo for more yakking. Once again we were blessed with perfect weather. They had their camper on the back of their truck, so they just parked in my RV parking out front (first time I've actually had someone use it for the purpose for which it was intended), which made it handy (and Sheba did guard duty). They left for the island the next day (but not before giving me a t-shirt from the reunion that I'd missed - that was soooo cool). The other neat thing about getting in touch with her was that it gave me the impetus to get in touch with a whole bunch of other kids that I went to high school with (back when I was Kathleen's age - hard as it is for her to imagine me that way!). Quite a number of them also have email addresses, so we could exchange news and stories, plus I could send them the links to the pages that I'd put up on my friend's site for both of the reunions. I even scanned in a bunch of old pictures from our yearbook, so I could do a 'Then and Now' page - boy, is that fun to see (or scary, depending on how you look at it!). Kati and Pat had been thinking for a while about trying to sell their property (they live on 23 acres of lakefront, about 22 km outside Grande Prairie), and they'd like to move back into town. They think the Internet is a great way to advertise real estate, so they asked me to help them prepare a website that would allow them to show their home to potential buyers. They got their own unique domain name for this endeavor (to keep it separate from their private, family webpages) and together we created a very thorough (and hopefully attractive) site. They've had quite a number of inquiries already, but we'll have to wait and see if any of those result in concrete offers. Click HERE or on the image to the left to go and see it for yourself (and if you know anyone who might like to move to Alberta, please forward them the link!). Some friends of ours had just moved from a house in Coquitlam to a condominium on the south shore of False Creek. They invited us down to see their new place and take in the 'Grand Finalé' of the 'Symphony of Fire' on August 9th. It was a beautiful evening and we really enjoyed the display (and seeing their new place, which is very nice). They'd parked one of their cars out on the street and given us one of their underground spaces, so we had no problem parking, then we just walked down to the beach. Unfortunately, leaving was a different matter - it took us 20 minutes to go two blocks! We figured that next year we'd just bring our sleeping bags and camp out on their floor, but now it looks like there might not be a next year - the government has changed the rules on how much a tobacco company can advertise an event and Benson and Hedges has withdrawn their sponsorship. Unless someone else steps forward, which seems unlikely (who else has that kind of money except that kind of company!), we may have seen the last one. Oh well, I'm glad we didn't miss it! Click on the images on the right to go to two different Vancouver websites about the fireworks: Discover Vancouver and Vancouver Tourist (I never bring my own camera to these things). Late in August (the 28th) it was time for the annual salmon barbeque at Crescent Stables. They seem to luck out on the weather each year - it was another gorgeous evening. Kathleen is still really enjoying her riding - both the regular lessons and the 'schooling shows' they put on in the spring and fall. She continues to bring home ribbons (one memorable Sunday she got one in every class (3) she entered) - you can barely see the fridge any more! Click HERE or on any of these images to go to my proposed website for Crescent Stables (I haven't yet convinced them that they need one). Then, on September 5th, it was 'Back to School'. Kathleen is in Grade 11 at SDSS (South Delta Secondary School) this year. She's finding it a lot of work, but she's doing quite well. She really enjoys her biology and chemistry classes, but her favorite is drama. She got an 'A' in it on her last report card. In fact, she's in one of the 'One Act Plays' in the 'Drama Festival' this month (December). She's really excited about it (but nervous too). Click HERE or on the bottom image on the right to go to a page with thumbnails of my 'first day of school' photos for every single year that she's been going - that's 14 so far! Each of those thumbnails links to a page with that year's school picture(s). I spent the latter part of September and the early part of October working on the 'Alberta Lakefront Home' website for Kati (see above), though I did make time to get out and take some photographs on one of those magical, misty, autumn mornings (and, of course, I had to do webpages of them - click HERE or on the picture on the right to see them). Thanksgiving came and went, with turkey and trimmings and taking a few moments to appreciate what we have (all those things we take for granted the rest of the year - health, family, friends). Then on October 18th, I took on a second, part-time job. I'm the 'Internet Site Facilitator' at Pebble Hill Elementary School (part of the Delta School District). I work Monday through Friday from 3:30 to 5:30. I'm paid by the federal government (your tax dollars at work!) through the 'Community Access Program'. I'm assured (I gather) of three months employment, but maybe as many as 18. My boss is the brother of the boyfriend of my best friend from university, whom I've known for 26 years (though that's not why I got the job - it just goes to show what a small, small world it is!). It doesn't pay much, but since I haven't had any 'customers' yet, I just sit there and surf two high speed lines, doing whatever I like. Boy, have I been having fun! Actually, I'm hoping people do start coming in (it's FREE, for heaven's sake), since I love showing someone all the neat things you can do on the Internet. I've also had a great opportunity to learn all sorts of new things - Internet Explorer (I've always used Netscape), Yahoo and Hotmail, Quicktime, and they even have Microsoft Word, so if someone sends me their Christmas letters in that format this year, I'll be able to take them in to work and read them the way they were intended! I spent the latter part of September and the early part of October working on the 'Alberta Lakefront Home' website for Kati (see above), though I did make time to get out and take some photographs on one of those magical, misty, autumn mornings (and, of course, I had to do webpages of them - click HERE or on the picture on the right to see them). Thanksgiving came and went, with turkey and trimmings and taking a few moments to appreciate what we have (all those things we take for granted the rest of the year - health, family, friends). Then on October 18th, I took on a second, part-time job. I'm the 'Internet Site Facilitator' at Pebble Hill Elementary School (part of the Delta School District). I work Monday through Friday from 3:30 to 5:30. I'm paid by the federal government (your tax dollars at work!) through the 'Community Access Program'. I'm assured (I gather) of three months employment, but maybe as many as 18. My boss is the brother of the boyfriend of my best friend from university, whom I've known for 26 years (though that's not why I got the job - it just goes to show what a small, small world it is!). It doesn't pay much, but since I haven't had any 'customers' yet, I just sit there and surf two high speed lines, doing whatever I like. Boy, have I been having fun! Actually, I'm hoping people do start coming in (it's FREE, for heaven's sake), since I love showing someone all the neat things you can do on the Internet. I've also had a great opportunity to learn all sorts of new things - Internet Explorer (I've always used Netscape), Yahoo and Hotmail, Quicktime, and they even have Microsoft Word, so if someone sends me their Christmas letters in that format this year, I'll be able to take them in to work and read them the way they were intended! For Halloween this year, Kathleen was a 'Greek Goddess'. She had a fabulous make-up job, but my photograph unfortunately doesn't begin to capture it - we're going to have to try it again sometime. We also had fun carving four pumpkins - I let the shapes inspire me. We had a 'Kitchen Witch', a 'Nutcracker King', a 'Munch's Scream' and a 'Mr. Peanut'. The top picture on the right links to one of the webpages in a series I'm doing for each year of Kathleen at Halloween (though I'm waiting on her Dad, to borrow back the little mini-album of photographs that I made for him), and the bottom one links to a page I did on 'Our Pumpkins'. We didn't have nearly as many kids as the last couple of years (60, as opposed to 90), so I had a bunch of stuff left over for once. Oh well, I just popped it in the freezer; it'll keep fine for a year. I'm so excited about the 'Lord of the Rings' movie coming out next year ('The Fellowship of the Ring', the first one of three, opens December 2001; the other two ('The Two Towers' and 'The Return of the King') open December 2002 and December 2003 respectively). I visit the fan website every day (I've even sent them a few things for their 'Cast Watch' section) and one of the big perks at work is having a fast enough line that I could download the Internet Preview (click on this link (or the top image on the left) to go to the 'official' site, then follow the instructions to view it yourself). The first theatre trailer is due out next month, with 'Thirteen Days'. I'd put together some webpages, using images from various sites on the net, just for my own enjoyment, but now that I have more webspace with my new domain names, I was actually able to put them 'up' (though I'm probably violating about sixty-five copyrights in the process). Click HERE or on the bottom image on the left to link to them. I found time to shoot a few more rolls of film in November (and put up webpages of them, of course); still lots of that artsy, abstract, macro stuff. Click on 'Frosty Morning' or 'Gift Bag' (or on one of the thumbnails on the right) to link to them. I've also gotten a pretty good start on my Christmas stuff. If I can just stay healthy, I might even get done without the usual last-minute panic, though I seem to be having a lot of migraines lately (makes it hard to get down on the floor and cut up photos for the Christmas cards). Kathleen has a really bad cold right now too, which is even more annoying than usual, since those 'One-Act Plays' which I mentioned before that she's going to be appearing in are on this week - her first big 'theatrical performance'!. Hope she's feeling better by then... Hope you had a wonderful 2000 and that you have a fabulous holiday season. And may 2001 bring you an interesting 'Odyssey' of your own! All the best to you and yours... |