On the Cat Walk. On the Cat Walk, Yeah.

One of the few times I leave the house these days is to go on my physio-prescribed walks around the neighbourhood. Seeing as how I live on the mean streets of New Westminster, (we might get turn-of-the-century-small-town-charmed to death), it's lucky that my mom and I have protection during these excursions: my guard cat Mika, who insists on joining us for every single walk. I think it's safe to say that no baby bunnies or starlings will be harassing us while Mika's on patrol.

This is therefore the sight that the good people of New Westminster see as I pass every day: me, shuffling along with my crutches, wearing baggy workout clothing and a pair of stained MaryJanes because they're the only shoes that don't a) give me blisters or b) require the use of a "sock aid" and shoe horn to put on, glasses askew, hair looking like that of a Barbie doll that's spent years in the bottom of atoybox , calling out every once in awhile to my cat to cajole her into coming out from a hedge and reminding her that she's a "good girl." I could not look more like a psychiatric-ward patient if I put on a tinfoil hat or one of those apocalyptic-themed sandwich boards. Step right up, boys. Can I interest anyone in a copy of my post-surgical sex manual? Anyone? Not all at once.

During my first hip replacement, Mika lived with A. I had worried that she would be a tripping hazard or that she would jump up on my freshly operated-on hip and thought it best that she stay with someone who could lavish her with the attention she deserves. This time, however, I didn't have a choice in the matter. And sure enough....Mika's a tripping hazard and jumps up on my freshly operated-on hip. Actually, she doesn't so much 'jump up on' my hip as she does 'stand on me and dig her tiny paw right into my hip in her efforts to reach over my body to drink from my water glass on the bedside table, which often results in me being woken up not only by the pain of having 10 pounds of cat foot on a place that was recently sliced and diced, but also by the clunking noise of Mika trying to free herself from the water glass that she's gotten her head stuck in.

Mika is also making it difficult to keep my hip restrictions. When she comes for walks, I'm always tempted to turn around to see where she is (I do my little turn on the cat walk), especially when she meows at me when I get too far ahead. Turning is a major hip-replacement no no because you can't twist from your hip.Mika also likes to rub her face on my crutches to claim them as her own (uh...you can have them, cat), which causes her to weave in and out of my unsteady feet.

Worse, she's unable to read the "I just had major surgery" memo, so she doesn't understand why I can't reach down to pet her while she's on the floor, or why I can't pick her up or why I take a really long time to shuffle over to the sink to turn on the tap so she can have a drink. It's one thing to be frustrated because you can't pick up your pants from the floor. It's another to have your little cat rolling on the floor in front of you as if to say, "Don't I look cute? Wouldn't you like to just break your hip precautions and risk possible prosthesis loosening and/or dislocation just once by reaching down to scratch me under the chin?"

All that aside, it's really good to have Mika here. There are few things in this world that a purring cat doesn't cure. Okay, actually there are a lot of things that a purring cat won't cure, (gluteus medius detachment, for example), but she is damn good at relieving the melancholy that comes from weeks spent in bed watching reality TV shows about American prisons.

Invisible Cartoon Old People Porn....YES!

As expected, the move back to Vancouver was rough (emotional Arley + emotional cat + wheelchair + heavy bag + leaving forever + impending surgery and months of recovery + tons of stuff to do for work + sleep deprivation + did I mention leaving forever? is not exactly a recipe for awesomeness), but we made it here in one piece. I could spend roughly 12,400 words rehashing my complex feelings on leaving, how much I'm going to miss everyone, and how heartbroken I am every time I see poor Mika curled up on A.'s shirt at the corner of my bed, nuzzling it as if she could make A. reappear by doing so, then laying down on it with her head between her paws with a look of pure feline longing. Cat heartbreak is the very worst heartbreak of all!


But let's leave the emo-ness to the cat because we have more important topics to discuss....Invisible Cartoon Old People Hip Replacement Porn!

The day after I got back from Illinois, I went to the OASIS hip/knee-replacement orientation session. In truth, I tried to weasel my way out of it on account of the fact that I am perhaps a little too well oriented in what to expect following a hip replacement. If anything, I would like to become less oriented so that the mere sight of that stupid "sock aid" sitting on a chair in my room ready to aid me in spending 15 minutes just to put on a single freaking sock doesn't give me PTSD flashbacks. I decided to go, however, for two reasons: 1) the lady on the phone insisted in a very firm voice that it was mandatory and I am nothing if not compliant and 2) the last time I did the OASIS program, some chick fainted and I like being around people whose coping skills are worse than my own.

I will spare you a rehashing of the OASIS session. Suffice to say that it is like kindergarten class for people who are getting their limbs sawed off and reassembled. Some nice lady with a calm, gentle, day-care-y voice teaches you to how to avoid post-surgical constipation and demonstrates the best way to inject your stomach fat with bloodthinners to avoid bruising. Just when I was thinking that the day was going to be a waste of time, however, I spied a thick booklet on a pamphlet rack by the OASIS lady's shoulder: Sex After Total Joint Replacement. Let the real lessons begin!

The first time around, all I got was a one-page handout discreetly tucked into a folder of other hip-replacement info. This time, however, they've pulled out all the stops. For starters, the manual stars an elderly couple who resemble the neighbor couple from Dennis the Menace...and let's just say that in this booklet, Martha's doing a lot more than needlepoint.




On one hand, I can understand the thought process behind the cartoon old people. After all, you don't want Doris Q. Hip-Replacement-Patient to be stuck in her fanciest flannel teddy staring at the handout thinking, "Well, damn. In the diagram, your breasts are supposed to be right here, but mine are down by my bellybutton....It's so confusing! I just can't make it all line up!" On the other hand, however, I'm not sure why they felt the need to include images such as this one:


Yes, ladies and gentlemen. That is a cartoon rendering of an old man counting the days until his lady love's post-surgical bruising has gone down to the point that he can rock her compression socks off.

Or this one, which I'm pretty sure depicts the same old guy waiting for his Viagra to kick in while the pamphlet warns about the post-surgical risk of...um....an arid climate in the lady garden:

Why does he look so downcast and alone? Is it because the clock on his chest is counting down the seconds until his sex-induced heart attack? Or maybe it's causing him to reminisce about the time he spent touring with Flava Flav? Who knows? Someone get this guy a Werther's Original because he needs to cheer the hell up. I mean, he's about to get some serious action. Perk up, buddy!

Of course, what would a post-hip-replacement sex manual be if elderly cartoon people didn't demonstrate the acceptable positions? I love some of the graphic-design choices that were made here. Eyes: no. Mouth: no. Perfect 1950s-old-lady updo: MANDATORY. Pearl earrings: ALSO MANDATORY. (Those of you about to make a 'pearl necklace' joke need to check yourselves). And if you ever want to know what exactly your beloved Gran-Gran and Pop-Pop were doing on that rocking chair you used to love as a child...the one with the hand-crocheted afghan....



I especially love the positioning of the artificial hip in this last position. It seems to say, "Oh, God, Walter. Take me with your four inches of medical-grade cobalt chrome! Don't stop!" (Too much? Too much).

But wait! Don't leave to go wash your eyeballs out with acid! It gets better. Do you want to know what this is? Do you want to take a guess?
If you guessed "an image of someone's Granny calling the doctor after she has f*cked her husband's hip right out of its socket," then give yourself a hand! Clearly, someone got a little in to the old cowgirl rocking-chair routine and is going to have a great story to tell to the Bridge Club. Apparently when you put a little Crown Royal in her Ensure meal supplements, she goes wild! You git it, girl!

But..see...here's the problem. I am single. It's bad enough that for ages post-surgery I'm going to have to greet potential suitors with the phrase, "It's nice to meet you. Let me put down this walker so that I can shake your hand." And I'm pretty sure that any sex that requires you to cross-reference your positions with any type of manual is not the kind of sex I want to have. But even if I did want to give some lucky gentleman this booklet as a little homework assignment, what do you think the reaction's going to be? "Thanks for this reading material, darling. I was worried about how to accommodate your post-surgical needs, but now that I mentally associate you with eye-less cartoon old people, I am suddenly overcome with wild feelings of lust! You can consider me officially in the throes of desire!"

Okay, OASIS program. Thanks a lot. You can consider me officially oriented. So oriented that I'm about to buy a few more cats and a pint of Haagen Daaz and call it a day.

Yes, My Valentine's Day Post Will Be About My Cat. Don't Judge Me.

For the past 8 months, my beloved cat Mika has been living the sweet life with A.: rolling in the finest catnip, clawing the finest pant legs, harassing the finest squirrels and getting to go in and out to her heart's content. Her life was basically the feline equivalent of getting babysat by your bachelor uncle who lets you eat Doritos for breakfast and watch "Ren and Stimpy" until midnight...and she loved every minute of it. Mika is one well-loved (read: spoiled) feline.

Now that I'm settled into my place in Urbana, have the internet back and no longer have to haunt coffee shops bruising my ass bones on uncomfortable chairs and listening to undergrads tearfully narrate their complicated love lives, however, it was time to get the final piece of the puzzle that is my life; (okay, maybe not the final piece, since I'm pretty sure that half the pieces of my life puzzle are collecting dust bunnies under the refrigerator...but still). Yes, two days ago I got my cat back. (What terminology do you use for that? Getting custody of? Taking possession of?).

It was actually a bittersweet moment. A. has done a fantastic job with Mika, especially considering that he only signed up for 3 weeks of catsitting, since I was supposed to be all better by July (ha ha). Those two are really close and it made me a bit sad to have to separate them. I cheered myself, however, with the knowledge that A. will get to see her at my place all the time, and that she'll probably end up sneaking over to his place for old time's sake, since we live less than a block away from one another.

So, yes, Mika is back. And I am a happy, happy camper. This Saturday, I found myself on the couch wrapped up in a blanket reading Robert Bolano's "The Savage Detectives," drinking coffee and eating fresh bread with nutella, with Mika snoozing away on my lap. It would have been difficult to come up with a better way to spend a Saturday morning.

Mika, however, has still brought her fair share of kitty drama. Since I don't want her to pack up her kitty bags and take off for A.'s place, I'm trying to keep her indoors for a week or so until she gets adjusted. My hope was that she would be so absorbed in the million cobwebby corners and high shelves and other good hiding places in my house that she wouldn't even notice that she hadn't been outside. (Besides, given the amount of wildlife that seems to find its way into my place, the distinction between 'inside' and 'outside' is not a solid line). No dice. Mika has been scratching at every door she can find (even the storage closet... she's not picky) to get a taste of sweet freedom.

To make matters worse, Mika is a savvy, savvy beast and she is not afraid to take advantage of my disability to get what she wants. Someone translate "politically incorrect" into cat speak because homekitty is shameless. She knows that I can't bend low enough to pick her up and that I'm especially bad at bending down on my left side. She therefore waits for me to come home when it's dark, then dashes out the minute I open the door, being careful to slink past my left side. It's a good thing that we have a closed-in porch or else Mika would be practically feral by now. That cat: taking advantage of the disabled! I thought I raised her better than that!

Still, it's good to have her home, and it's good to be settled into a little routine. Man, someone must have slipped some St. John's Wort into my coffee because I am remarkably more chipper than in recent months. Even though it's Valentine's Day. And my day involved eating a bag of gummy candy hearts and cleaning up cat puke.

No Updates, Just Cat Pics

After the emo-ness (emosity?) of yesterday, I figured that today needed a little dash of catness to put everyone (read: me) in a better mood. Luckily, A. sent over these photos this morning of my little cat Mika leading her glamorous life. So, while I have no updates to report (the fact that I'm working now reduces my "walking to Starbucks and getting mistaken for a heroin addict" time!), Mika the cat will fill you in on the details of her life.

And thanks, everyone, for your good wishes!

Go Ahead and Insert Your Favorite Bright Eyes Lyrics As a Post Title Here

Someone tell FEMA to turn off the sirens and send back the army. After a fun-filled week, Hurricane Arley has swept out of East-Central Illinois, leaving behind a swath of destruction in her wake; (beef brisket platters demolished! Beer bottles left empty! Frozen yogurt shops sold out of cheesecake-flavoured yogurt and brownie bits and white chocolate chips!). And, honestly, Hurricane Arley is feeling more than a little emo about the whole situation, so much so that I might even go a day without coming up with an outlandish simile about the way I walk. You might want to shout, "Geeze, Arley, relax. Think of the starving children in Africa" before you read this post, just to get that reaction out of your system.

I had a very hard time leaving Champaign Urbana, in part because the phrases “hip replacement” and “potential nerve damage” and “waiting for someone to figure out what’s wrong with me so I can get on with my life” don’t translate into cat-speak and it was difficult watching Mika flatten her ears back whenever I came close and give me an expression of pure feline anger that said “don’t play nice with me. I remember what happens when I give you my little kitty heart and sit on your lap and sleep curled in the crook of your arm. You go away and I am forced to take time out of my busy day of terrorizing squirrels and warming myself on people’s laptop keyboards to miss you, then to realize that you are not coming back and transfer my affections to A. I won’t be making that mistake again!” Oh, Mika. Why were you not hardwired to understand abstract concepts? Even young children can understand, "Now, go to sleep and when you wake up mommy will be back from the bar and hopefully she'll have hooked you a new daddy." (Reason #145 why I do not have children).

Before the hip replacement, even my most serious medical problems did not force me to change my lifestyle—well, except for a case of SuperMono that forced me into a lifestyle of watching "The Girls Next Door" and complaining about how heart medication was making my head tingle. I would just give my body a little pep talk ("I don't care if you're about to explode, spleen! Chill the fuck out because we're off to play some basketball!" "You know what, hip? You better get back in that socket before I try slamming you against a doorframe again. Don't make me call J.B.!") and go on my merry way. Alas, "going on my merry way" somehow translated into "running my hip into the ground and causing it to be replaced 10 years before the doctors felt comfortable doing so" and now I'm stuck in Vancouver (I guess there are worse places to be stuck, but still) while doctors figure out what went wrong.

This is all very frustrating, because I have a very finite period of time in which to live the kind of life I want to live. My work visa is only good until July and unless I get another job (or, you know, some handsome stranger sees me tip-toe-shuffling along the street and realizes that I am the six-foot-tall, crazy-haired, funky-walking Amazon woman of his dreams, marries me and whisks me off to a life of endless chai lattes and attractive babies) I'll be on the first bus back to Canada. Even if I did convince someone to employ (or marry) me, many of the people I care about are leaving the Champaign-Urbana area next year. My days of laying on A.'s couch listening to Pavement records and talking about books...or going to "Mexico" with my teammates...or watching Top Chef/ Project Runway at A & K's place are therefore numbered and the sand is running out of the "quaint Midwestern college town living" hourglass.

The last time I left Urbana, I was convinced I would be back for good within 6 weeks. I had weddings and cakes and early Fall to look forward to. Now, however, Vancouver is settling into 6 months of constrant drizzle and who knows when I'll be back to Champaign? If I were a whinier person, I would remind the universe that I'm not asking for a million dollars and a gold-plated pony (though, that would be nice), and that all I want to is to spend some time in a small college town in a house that hosts more toads/mice/squirrels/spiders/"cave crickets" than a Disney movie, do some writing and hang out for a few more months with my friends while figuring out what I want to do with the rest of my life...and to do all this while not walking like a meth addict with a wooden leg trying to dance The Nutcracker Suite. (Ok, apparently my crankiness does not correlate to my ridiculous-simile-use). It's all enough to make me download some Bright Eyes, and strum meloncholy downstrokes on my guitar while singing in an affected, quasi-Dylan whimper and wearing flannel ironically.

Alright. Enough with the airport pity party! (I'm currently chilling in the Seattle airport....for five hours...which is probably the time it takes to walk to Vancouver from here.) I have happier memories to relate. Since I was determined to squeeze one last bit of gluttony into my vacation, A. and I went for breakfast this morning at the Original House of Pancakes, where I was served pumpkin pancakes with a dollop of whipped cream that was literally the size of an infant’s head. Since I was feeling a little queasy from the two pints of beer I’d consumed at the Black Dog the night before—the fact that I always get drunk after consuming very little at The Black Dog makes me wonder if they slip a sprinkling of roofies into every pint—I actually did the mature thing and scraped most of the whipped cream off. A. and I drank coffee, talked about the contradictions of midwestern gas stations (a topic I actually care quite a bit about), and then drove home watching girls in short dresses and smudgy makeup shuffle home. Then, K.L drove me to the airport, thus saving me $50 and a hot date with the duct-taped seats of the Lex Bus, (thanks K.L) and we had a nice chat. It was a great end to a week's reprieve from physio and ass massages and Saturday nights watching wedding shows and commercials for singles hotlines.

Ok, Vancouver. It looks like you and I will be seeing a lot of one another. Can we make peace, preferrably in the form of a few sunny days and some hangout-time with the few friends I have the Lower Mainland?

Long Weekend!

Well, thank goodness. It's finally the long weekend: a nice little break from the exhaustion of my busy life of unemployment and physiotherapy. (Shut up. I work!) It's time to escape to S.'s cabin for a little "end of summer/ single life" celebration. (Well, okay, it's just an "end of summer" celebration for me, unless any of you Americans out there are looking for a green-card bride. I kid, Homeland Security! I kid!) Seeing as how I spent my Friday night using the camera on my Macbook to "scan" photos of my cat when she was a kitten, then uploading said photos into a Facebook album...yeah, I probably need to get out of the house.

Since I will be engaging in some madcap hijinx south of the border (the American-Canadian border...not the metaphorical 'south of the border' for those of you with dirtier minds), don't be surprised if you have to go 48 hours without your daily dose of Arley. If you miss me, just spraypaint a clown wig black and throw it on top of the tallest telephone pole/broomstick you can find. And, to make your long weekend a little cuter, here are two photos of Mika when she was just a little bite-sized morsel. She will watch over the blog when I'm gone.

My Little Feline Familiar

Since writing this blog, I have been counting the days until I have amassed enough hip-replacement-related content that I can throw in a little bragging-about-my-cat content. And now, since it's Mika's 5th birthday (yes, I know her birthday. Don't judge), that day is finally here.

Mika is a tortoiseshell cat and was born on an organic lavender farm in Metchosin, which perhaps accounts for her general craziness and wild-child hippie spirit (and the fact that she's a catnip fiend). Her real name is Mykonos (she's named after the greek island, which is in itself a long story), but she has 8.5 million nicknames: Pika-toes, Pika, Meeks, Miss 'Nos, Sweet Peek, Peeking Toes, Little 'Nos. She also responds to "pretty girl" because she is so incredibly spoiled. Though I originally tried to keep Mika as an indoor cat, she launched a six-month guerrilla warfare campaign to get outdoors, taking advantage of the fact that if she slunk down low on my left side when I opened the door, I would not have enough hip flexion to pick her up. Mika: 1. Arley: 0. I gave in, she became an outdoor cat and proceeded to live a fast-paced lifestyle of hasseling squirrels, terrorizing insects and climbing up to high places to sneak attack my brother's 20-pound monster-cat named Mr. Chubbz.

When Mika was 18 months old, however, she was hit by a car. I called her in one day and she didn't come. I called her again, still nothing. Soon, I heard something that sounded like a baby bird. It was Mika, slowly dragging herself up the steps, mewling pathetically. She collapsed on my lap, her eyes all scruffy and squinted with pain, looking up at me. The vet diagnosed her with a hip dislocation, she underwent surgery, was put into a cast and quickly made herself famous in the vet's office for her cast-Houdini antics. Though the vet claimed he'd never in 20 years had a cat get out of one of his special casts, she managed to do so in a matter of weeks. Twice. For this reason, her hip wanders in and out of its socket and she walks with a varying degree of a limp. Has this stopped her from doing backflips off the couch to catch a toy mouse in her paws? No. Has it stopped her from running circles around my bed when she's freaked out during thunderstorms? No. Has it stopped her from catching cicaedas mid-flight, carrying them inside and playing with them for hours until they die of fright, then leaving them for A. as a special gift for taking such good care of her while I'm recovering up here in Canada and feeding her tuna and trout? Not one bit.

Both Mika and I therefore have the same disability in the same place (my left leg, her left hind leg), which prompted the editor of my first book to refer to her as my devil's familiar. A few years after Mika was injured, I began to experience hip subluxations (or whatever they were), which would cause me to flop around and shake and generally make a big fuss. It was hilarious to watch Mika sitting there watching me as I tugged at my leg and swore, her head cocked to one side, looking at me with a cat-like expression of bemusement/ annoyance as if to say, "What are you complaining about? I've been doing this sh*t for years. Roll around in catnip, shut the hell up and come over here to tell me how incredibly attractive I am."

While my hip subluxations were excruciating, and while they would often make me throw up and shake exorcist-style, none of them were particularly traumatic (embarrassing, maybe. Traumatic, not really). Watching Mika drag her little self up the stairs, however, was one of the worst moments of my life and I still hate to think about it. This makes me wonder about the impact that my hip episodes had on people around me: Jen and Zach, who had to hang me from doorframes and tug on my hip while they had other athletes to attend to; A., who became quite adept at pulling me off the couch and walking with his foot against mine until my hip went back in, even though I know it made him queasy to do so; E.C. who had to keep reminding me not to sit on the ground. And though I have moments where I regret the hip replacement, I'm glad that I'm no longer upsetting the people around me with my hip's diva theatrics.

So here (courtesy of A.) is a photo of Mika displaying on her own blogging talents. It's hard work.