There’s something wrong with the air and water in Saint John. I don’t think I noticed when I was living here. Perhaps it was better back then. Aside from a few short visits over the past 15 years I’ve been living elsewhere. Elsewhere has usually been blue collar or industrial cities. Larger than Saint John and without the surrounding Bay of Fundy to wash in ocean air. I’m surprised there’s such a significant difference.

The water pouring out of taps is a distinct yellow. It doesn’t smell like sulfur (as the water in Borden did) but it’s definitely not the clear colour I’m used to bathing in. It’s bad enough that I want to brush my teeth with bottled water. I’m not too impressed with it’s impact on my hair and skin.

I’ve also been experiencing bloody noses for the past few days. I can’t recall the last time I had a bloody nose simply from breathing! My entire nasal cavity seems to be one big ache. Of course, the sinuses are also acting up. Heaping joy upon joy on this quickly devolving mouth breather. Not meant in a derogatory way of course. I’m just experiencing a large amount of difficulty breathing through my nose today.

When K and I were at dinner on Saturday – we had a fabulous time thank ye very much – we spent a bit of time talking about environmental impacts on health. Nearly every family I know in this city has been touched with some form of illness or cancer. In the neighbourhood I grew up in, 3 families (that I am aware of) have lost someone to cancer. Anther 4 families are currently battling or are in remission from cancer. Those are only the ones I know about. No one has the same form. Despite it’s doubling (perhaps tripling) in size over the past decade, my childhood neighbourhood consisted of one street and one side street. I’m not counting any of the new houses or streets that didn’t exist while I was growing up. No idea what the incidence of illness is there.

I dread to think what the incidence rate might be a few miles to the west in Champlain Heights. Where we occasionally woke up to strange black powders on our homes and cars; they often found odd powdery residues near (or in if they left their windows open) their premises. I remember residents battling to have more controls put in place to clean up the refineries and mills. Hoping it would help clean up the air and environment. I’m unsure as to the degree in which they may have experienced success.

I’ve been a smoker on and off for over 15 years. I know, as well as anyone does, just what smoking can do to a person’s lungs and health. I watched my father die of lung cancer – taken far too young – after smoking for 50+ years. Understanding ramifications isn’t the same as breaking an addiction. As most former smokers can tell you, it’s not an easy habit to break. In the past I’ve tried Zyban (nasty allergic reaction), the patch, and cold turkey. I never seem to manage more than a few weeks before I break down and pick up a cigarette. Strangely enough, despite all the emotional upheaval this week, I haven’t had a smoke since leaving Edmonton. I had fully intended to attempt to quit again this week. I just never expected to find that the desire to light up isn’t nearly as strong now that I’m camped out in a hotel.

It’s only been a few days. They do say the first are the worse. Then again addiction specialists also indicate that most smokers attempt to quit, on average, 8 times before succeeding.

The downside of all of this is the hubby’s cigar habit. I think I took up smoking again the last time as a line of defence against the cigars. Despite assuring me he’d try to quit this week too – we’re our own worst enemies – he’s still puffing away. To all those friends from Edmonton who read my blog I have a request for assistance. Call Drew. Harass him on phone, cell and email if necessary. Ask him to PLEASE try to avoid cigars so I can continue to try avoiding cigarettes when I return home. I shall participate in the campaign from afar (hi honey!).

Dad always used to say “there are three sides to every story; yours, mine and the truth.” I’m certain that’s probably applicable in the current situation. However, I know I have no imagined everything – despite mom’s vehmenent arguments to the contrary. I think at this point we all believe what we want to – whether or not it’s 100% accurate is still up for debate.

By now I’d normally start wondering if maybe I’m completely crazy. Witnesses help keep me sane though.

The hotel I’m staying at has a little kitchenette and complimentary popcorn. I’m a sucker for popcorn. All evening as I’ve been typing away I’ve been happily anticipating the time when I decide to shut down the laptop and make the popcorn. Best laid plans and all that. I popped the bag in the microwave only to be thwarted by a damanged inner spinning device. It stopped spinning, the popcorn bag got stuck on it’s side and started burning. When I stopped the microwave – early and as soon as I noticed the lopsided bag – it was too late. Now the room smells of burnt microwave popcorn. Worst still is the sad realization that the anticipated midnight snack has gone the way of the dodo and is not gracing my gullet. I think I’ll just give up and go to bed now.

Well that was certainly interesting. Rather than a quick upgrade, I discovered that I’m not fond of the new WP interface and that I can bugger up my install in less than 30 minutes. Killing the install was easy. Trying to recover from the mess was the interesting part. The Export function in WP exports everything! 1000+ pieces of month old stinky spam? No problem. *sigh* Then, the import function was limited to 2MB in the php.ini file. My backup file was 4MB. I tried editing max file size in the php.ini with no joy. Needless to say I had to manually edit back up files so I could import the old records. At least the recovery process for my pretty pictures and themes was pretty painless.

And somewhere during this mess I walked away from the laptop and headed out to dinner with a friend. I needed the break in so many ways.

For the moment, I’ve downgraded. Once I figure out how I blew up the upgraded install AND have a chunk of time available I may try again. In the meantime, I apologize for all the havock I’ve been wreaking on my glorious (and brilliant) reader’s RSS feeds. Mea culpa.