Benefits and health coverage

At the beginning of November, I went to see the optometrist to get my eyes checked out. My work health benefits do include a little bit of vision coverage, though at a paltry $90 every 24 months, I wouldn't really call it much of a vision plan.

But here's the kicker. My visit to the optometrist isn't covered by this $90. The one thing that I have that's eye related that comes out to under $90, and it's not covered. I called Sun Life, and the nice lady on the phone told me that glasses and contacts are covered, but the actual visit to the optometrist isn't. I don't know what you guys think, but I thought that was pretty stupid.

Pack rat-ness is in my blood

So, my dad dropped by my place yesterday so he could park his car while he had a meeting downtown. Since he was coming, he decided to bring me this box of odds and ends they've fished out through the process of cleaning stuff out of my old room. And when I say odds and ends, I really mean it.

Included in the box:

• a doll that I don't remember ever belonging to me, but also looks like it's from the 70's
• a poem that I wrote in grade 4 that had a photocopy of a photo of me, and laminated to put on display in class; the poem consisted of 4 lines and was quite ridiculous
• a project on squirrels that I did in grade 3. It's written entirely in French since I was in French immersion at the time. Again, this was also laminated
• not one, but two penholders full of pens and pencils

For the pens and pencils, I'm pretty much going to throw them away. I haven't used them in 10 years, so I obviously can't be missing them too much. I'm not even going to go through them because once I do, I know I'm going to want to keep certain ones. I'm trying very hard to break out of my pack-rat tendencies.

But the school project stuff is what really cracked me up. I think it's a hint from my parents that they'd kinda like to keep it, but just don't want to keep it at their place. But I have a little condo compared to their two-story house, so there's a 99% chance that I'm just going to ditch it.

There were some photo albums that I'm planning to keep, but other than that, I think I'm gonna chuck it all. I don't think I'm really that nostalgic that I have to keep it all in a place that's easily accessible so I can reminisce on a regular basis. And if you wind up shoving it away and forgetting about it until the next time you have to do a massive cleaning, then what's the point, right?

I'm trying to convince myself of this so I don't fall back into my "let's keep it for the heck of it" instinct.

Stupid HR

For those of you who live in Ontario, you may have heard about this new statutory holiday that our provincial government has instituted. It's called Family Day, and it falls in February. At first, I thought 'Hey, this is great. I get another holiday!' Except it doesn't work out that way for me. Here's why.

Here at UHN, we get 2 holidays a year that they call 'float days'. We can't bank them, but we can take them when we want. What HR has now done is they've taken away one of our float days, and given us Family Day. Grrrr. Their logic is that UHN gives us more than the 9 legislated days off, so we're still ahead. But the truth is I'd rather have a float day instead of being forced to take it on some random day in February. I personally like to use my float days around Christmas time so I can get a whole week off instead of having to be work.

I feel kinda cheated, actually. I feel like I totally didn't get an extra holiday at all. Am I just looking at this the wrong way?

Happy Halloween!

So, what's everyone doing this year? Each year, I think I do less and less for Halloween. I don't really have a desire to come up with an original costume idea, and put together said costume. Jamie and I went to a Halloween Party on the weekend, and while Jamie did dress up, I have to admit that I cheaped out and just brought a witches hat with me. While some people really did have some great costumes (the Crocodile Hunter one that Mark - Pierre's brother - had comes to mind), I think I'm quite content to just admire other people's costumes.

Great dinner!

My brother took me out for dinner tonight as a belated birthday present. We went to Hiro Sushi, which is on King, near Jarvis. We had the omakase meal, and the food was really great. We started with a sardine and veggie appetizer. Then came two soups - the first was a pumpkin miso soup, and the other was a sort of mushroom soup that came in a very cute teapot. The soup was poured into this little sake cup with a slice of yuzu in it. Very light and refreshing. then came a chilled duck and eggplant dish, and a quail and tofu roll. The duck was amazing. The quail tasted really good, but all the little bones in it were annoying. Then there was a boiled fish in sauce (very tasty), and this persimmon + black miso + seafood dish that was really amazing. Lastly was a big plate of sushi. At first, my brother asked me how come there wasn't any wasabi on the plate, and the reason is that you're supposed to trust that the chef will always put the right amount of wasabi on there for you. Needless to say, there were a few times when we got hit with wasabi bombs and felt like crying. But wow, did my sinuses feel better after that!!

All in all, I have to say that the meal was amazing, but the service was a bit slow at the start. Things got better, but it was a bit annoying to have to keep asking them to refill our teacups.

Please vote

Just a little public service announcement:

Today, we're having our provincial elections, and referendum on changing the way we provincial elections. I don't care who you vote for, or whether you like MMP or not; if you are eligible to vote in the province of Ontario, please do so. Thanks.

Okay...that was random

So, by now, I'm guessing that many of you have heard that Jason Blake has been diagnosed with CML (and the more grammatically correct term is actually chronic myloid leukemia, not chronic mylogenous leukemia). Well, I was returning to the office from lunch and found a reporter and cameraman there talking to my boss. Out of the blue, they decided to drop by the hospital and wanted to talk to an expert in CML. My poor boss didn't have any time to prepare or anything. It was pretty amusing from our point of view though, that's for sure. And yes, he tried to get the reporters to say myloid instead of mylogenous.

I guess I should've expected some media to show up here at PMH; it is the leading cancer center in Toronto after all. But even still, it was pretty random.