Phthursday Musings: Dramamine Week in Canada

A few years ago - when - whatever - I don’t know - well, I just got to where I got motion sickness just by being in a car. Not when driving, but when sitting anywhere else.

At some point before that I had gotten to where I could get a little motion sickness just from being on a basic swing. Rides I could handle at 12 were totally off-limits. Today if I’m at a carnival about the only real ride I can handle is the Ferris wheel.

Monday I had to go to the airport. Most of the time I drive and park, even though it’s kind of a pain, because otherwise I have to take Dramamine, and also rideshares won’t take the highway and instead take Mannheim Road all the way to O’Hare and that’s awful. So I was going to drive and I even checked the air in the tires of the second car and not long before I was going to leave I thought, oh, I should check parking. And, all of the economy lots were full. And I could have just gone and parked in a daily lot for $43/day, because hey I’ll get reimbursed anyway right, but I thought that’s lame, so I wound up ordering a Lyft, because Lyft is a slightly less creepy company than Uber.

And so I got to O’Hare and I did the extra stuff needed because my destination was in Canada and eventually I got on the plane and I had everything at the ready, I had my Afrin (which my old doctor said is terrible, except, it can be helpful specifically to use before taking off in a plane, to keep passages clear or something), and I had my gum (I always get real bubble gum for these flight), and I had my various reading and writing materials, and I had a USB cable for charging my phone. And it was difficult because the Air Canada flight had shit for legroom and I was window and the guy in the middle was a real big dude and I was having trouble just keeping things straight. And then they spent what felt like a year and a day deicing the plane and about when it was time to actually pull away from the gate, the Dramamine in my system said, oh, hey, man, like, you should really just pass out now, ok? And this was kind of a godsend because the flight was bumpy as hell but I was half out of it so it didn’t bother me like it usually does.

And so we got to Toronto and I took the maze to get through customs which was shockingly easy and then I needed to get a seond Lyft to get to the hotel in Markham, and a guy came and picked me up, and so we were on a 12 lane highway in a raging blizzard and I’m not really sure how I survived that, but I made it to Markham, Markham and vicinity feeling kind of like the Toronto version of Schaumburg or something, and the Dramamine was still working the whole time. I found my co-workers in the restaurant attached to the hotel which was called Boston Pizza, which look the name alone tells you a lot because no self-respecting pizza place is going to identify with Boston. Oh but before I found them I found a throng of kids in the hotel lobby, because this was going on:

I actually had to walk up the stairs to the 7th floor with my bags because it seemed like it might be a very long time for all of the kids and their families to make their respective elevator trips. But, again, the Dramamine was still working, so, all good.

We were spending two days in an alternate corporate office for something we do every year called the BUSR - Business Unit Service Review - or at least I think that’s what the acronym means. I will not bore you all with the details. Let’s just say that the actual BUSR involves giving a 72-slide PowerPoint presentation to people in the corporate layer and that is why we were in Markham, Ontario.

It was only a few kilometres from the hotel to the office and in the morning this was all good but in the afternoon, going to dinner, I found motion sickness kicking in very quickly, even though we were in a fairly large and high-riding vehicle. I had to close my eyes for the short drive, felt better with caffeine and bread, but then had to close my eyes all over again to get back the short distance to the hotel. I don’t think I’d ever had such bad motion sickness so soon in a vehicle.

Next day, it went much the same way - the morning trip was fine, but at lunch, going a very short distance to get food, I felt it starting up. The distance was short enough that I was okay, but at the end of the workday, I took Dramamine to handle the trip back to the hotel and back out for dinner. It is very unusual for me to take Dramamine in such a situation. It prevented the nausea, but I was still feeling it a little bit in the head - in the sinuses, I suppose - and although I felt fine generally, about 5 hours after I took the Dramamine, I felt super woozy and actually managed to nod off sooner than I can ever fall asleep in a hotel. That was last night.

This morning, a co-worker and I were sharing a car to get back to the airport, and so I had to take Dramamine again - third time this week. Flight home was uneventful. Lyft back from O’Hare was awful - all the way down Mannheim Road at about 4pm, I do not recommend it - and as I type now Thursday evening, I’ve still kind of got that background weird headache that I associate with motion sickness, but I never got the nausea that accompanies it. Dramamine saved me this week.

Now having written all of this I acknowledge that this doesn’t really seem like a very exciting story. The thing is that so many people have so many things going on in their worlds which are like needing to take Dramamine, and the world is just not always super great about acknowledging these things. My experience this week has absolutely convinced me to always try and drive everywhere I can - which was the case before but is especially the case now - and I can imagine some people thinking that comes off as me being a control freak, but damn, 10 minutes in a car can legitimately fuck me up for a few hours, except it doesn’t happen if I’m the one driving. Obviously this isn’t nearly as bad as, say, being allergic to numerous food staples, or needing to use a walker, or any number of other things. But it’s bad enough that I have to be mindful of accommodations so that I don’t get a terrible headache in certain situations, and the whole experience has really just reaffirmed for me the need to be mindful and conscientious of whatever someone else might have going on.

This is an obligatory share at this point:

Also somehow I spent much of the week in Canada but didn’t spent the time listening to Sloan. Here is an offering for the great north:

Normally at home we have a white noise machine, and when traveling there’s a white noise app on the phone, but when traveling alone there’s often a couple of albums I like to listen to right before bed instead, and sometimes I’m moved to play something on repeat in lieu of white noise. These three nights I had Songs:Ohia on repeat, and last night I had Ghost Tropic on repeat, and friends, that is a goddamn weird album, but in its own way strangely calming.

In trying to find an appropriate flag I found this wonderful thorough ranking of Canadian provincial flags which puts Quebec first and… last place goes to your Phthursday flag, that of Prince Edward Island:

Now, to be balanced, it seems that this flag is not universally regarded as poor. A 2011 survey of the North American Vexillological Association determined it to be the 21st best of the 72 American and Canadian state / province / territory flags.

That said, what on earth is with the fimbriation along the three non-hoist edges? I’m not sure what the number of rectangles is supposed to represent, and the number being even causes the flag border to lose symmetry, and I find that really bizarre.

The lion is allegedly passant but I think it’s pretty obvious that this kitty just needs a good stretch, not necessarily going anywhere, and is practically begging to be fed.

Apparently the flag is primarily based on the provincial coat of arms which has a whole lot more weird stuff going on:

I do not think you all truly appreciate how weird heraldry can sometimes be. This is the written explanation of the shield:

Argent on an island Vert, to the sinister an oak tree fructed, to the dexter thereof three oak saplings sprouting all proper, on a chief Gules a lion passant guardant Or

I mean… “to the sinister an oak tree fructed”… this only makes partial sense to me because I know frucht is the German word for fruit. I have never encountered the words “sinister” and “dexter” used to reference relative placement. So very much, only in heraldry.

Incidentally, parva sub ingenti is Latin for “needs a good stretch”.

The other wonderful thing I learned about while diving into this dexterousness (dexterity?) is the existence of the Canadian Heraldic Authority, which is exactly what you think it is, and which, so as not to be topped, manages to have this for its own coat of arms:

or, alternately:

The animals here are, of course, raven-bears, and yes, that is a shield with a maple leaf inside with another shield inside, and no doubt they wanted to put another maple leaf inside of that.

Look, I know we’ve got our own confusing things going on in America, but Jesus Murphy, raven-bears?

Anyway, PEI, that’s quite a flag you’ve got there.

You may see an explosion of META-SPIEL offerings in the next week as I have two other pieces half-written and I do very much want to get them out. Or, maybe, I’ll just pop more Dramamine and pass out again, like I’m about to do three hours earlier than normal on a Thursday…