Recently, I hear this tale which really makes me hope even more that I don't ever have any trauma inflicted on me in Cold Lake.

One of Sean's work friends was cooking one day and went to grab something out of the fridge, tripped, and stabbed himself in the leg. He lost his shit, and pulled the knife out. Turns out he severed his femoral artery so blood started blasting out all over the place. His wife came running in, and presumably having just completed first aid training from Black Hawk Down, reached into this guy's flesh wound and pinched off the artery.

But wait! It gets crazier!

They call 911. The firemen show up first, bust down the door and do some basic first aid crap - pretty much hanging out waiting for the ambulance, who deign to show up fifteen minutes later.

You probably aren't familiar with Cold Lake, but you can pretty much get from one place to ANY OTHER PLACE in less. The EMTs come in, take one look at the guy, and say "we can't do anything."

Dude is unconscious by this point, but the wife isn't; she's just hanging out pinching arteries.

So the firemen are all "WTF?" and put a tourniquet (First Aid 101) on the guy.
They load the newly tourniquet'd dude onto a stretcher, wheel him out of there, and get to the ambulance.

But uh-oh, the incompetent EMT staff can't even lift him into the ambulance.

The firemen (who by the way aren't the TOWN'S firemen, they're the MILITARY fire department) say "holy shit, fuck y'all", load this guy into the firetruck, and drive him to the hospital themselves.

They get to the hospital, call in the surgeon. He walks into the room and also says, "I can't do anything about this."

So the military airlifts this guy to Edmonton and FOUR HOURS LATER, he gets medical treatment.

Too bad everyone seems to have skipped Tourniquet Day in their St. John's Ambulance course, because no one ever loosened the guy's tourniquet and the nerve damage is irreparable.

He said he doesn't intend on suing unless he loses his job, which is a possibility, because his leg doesn't have any fucking nerves anymore.

Eeeek! Get me out of here!

My life has been relatively quiet these days - no cross-country moves or anything - so in order to correct these matters, the past two days have been bat. Shit. Crazy.

At around 6 PM on May 30th, I get a call from my sister's fiance Jason letting me know that Shannon has gone into labor. There was no need for me to come, as he would be keeping me updated. After a long, long night of pacing and jumping at every single sound waiting for the phone call that would beckon me to the hospital and my niece, 6:30 AM rolls around and it's time. The hospital told me that I wasn't allowed to come until visiting hours at eleven, but pfffffffttttt, like that was going to happen! So Sean and I get showered and dressed and drive over. Getting off the elevators at 7:40, my mom tells me that it just ended and they're stitching her up. Calli is tiny (less than 6 lbs), but healthy and in possession of all the required digits. Being that I have no desire to see my sister's vajay in that state, Sean and I wait outside until the gore ends. I walk into the room, and there's Shannon and Jason and my dear, perfect little lady, Calli Kathleen Bonany. She has a ton of black curly hair (thanks to Daddy) and Shannon's cute tiny nose. Of course I start bawling like a fool and hugging Shannon around her IVs. The past two days, I have smooched, cuddled, gotten over the initial terror of holding something so small, and fell head-over-heels for her. The twitch in my womb makes me wonder if my adamant "no way" toward having kids may be waffled on.

Oh yeah, and also, I got married. June 1st, Sean and I called the two JPs in town. The first wasn't available until Saturday (nuts to that guy) but the second took us at one'o'clock, that day. Sean called his master corporal to witness and put on his shiniest jeans. 1 rolls around and we're on the dock at the marina, saying our vows and swatting away ten bajillion fish flies. We bought the world's cheapest wedding bands (a grand total of $200!) and practiced saying "holy fuck, we're married."

Did I mention we didn't tell anyone but my sister and her fiance, who were supposed to witness? But then Shannon had to go ruin it with labor. Pft.

Eventually, the secret began to bore down on me, as struggling to remove my wedding ring whenever my dad's wife was in the vicinity became trying, so I (get this) sent my father a text message. I called my mom and told her, at which point she informed me that I was "schwacked" and a "crazy broad". My dad eventually called and I awkwardly informed Daddy that I'm no longer a Stevens, but a Finnegan instead. They're both "happy for me if I'm happy" and Sunday is super-fucking-awkward-dinner-day now. My mom was a little miffed she wasn't there, but felt better after I informed her of the completely informal nature of the whole thing. We'll one day have a proper wedding with rings that didn't come out of Cracker Jack's boxes, but what was important to us is done - we are married and in love. Also, I get 90% of my eyeglasses covered, which is handy because Odin ate my old ones.

I'm sure this entry makes no sense, because these two days have been exhausting, so here's something that makes all the sense in the world"

These are my tiny baby pubpies.

This is Mayday. Her hobbies include endlessly chasing anything that you're willing to throw, biting Odin, moaning irritably when disturbed, and literally trying to drown you in her saliva.

This is Odin. He enjoys being the laziest puppy in the world, except when overcompensating for his lack of testicles by humping Mayday and eating the paper things off muffins.

So, lately I've been feeling wildly unattractive. I've put on some pounds since Sean's been home thanks to eating out a lot, and it's had an impact on my self-esteem because, Hell, I'm shallow like that.

Last night, I asked Sean what it was that he found sexy about me. And you know what his answer was? That I'm smart, funny and unique.

Holy shit.

That was the absolute worst answer, next to "you have such a pretty face!".

So, in my usual, gently prodding way, I ask, "what about physically? Is there anything about me, or anything that I do that's sexy?" and after a long, long pause, I get "everything."

Objectify me, for chrissake! He seems to have no problem objectifying younger, sluttier girls. He has no problem objectifying women in porn. Why not me? I'm a girlfriend, not a nun. I'm not sure at what point I became so entrenched in the physical, and so obsessed with comparing myself to other women - real life, or celebrities. I'm not sure when so much of my worth became dependent on what someone else thought of me, but it really, really sucks.

I'm afraid of being rejected sexually by him (which has happened before- ouchers!) and it's made me totally stop trying to seduce him. This is counter-productive, I realize, but my ego can't take another shoot down. Sean isn't responsible for my self esteem, but I could really use the help. These feelings are what drove me to cheat in the past and that's not a road I want to go down again. Hell, I feel bad enough fighting the urge.

I just feel bad.

So, because I no longer wish to be a useless turd, I've been looking into schooling. Turns out that through Athabasca University, I'd be able to get my BofArts, with a concentration in psychology (which I can upgrade to a major afterward), all from the comfort of my own home. Which is good, because my own comfortable home is about 300 kilometers from any real institution. I realize it's not the most reputable school, but it's feasible and that's a nice change from "freakin' out of the question".

The only issue is that after this three years, I will have spent almost $20,000 and frankly, I don't have $20 at the moment. I'm considering speaking to my (totally loaded) father, but with him already agreeing to put his (third) wife's kid through college, who knows? This fact is a major point of contention for me for a lot of reasons. First, these aren't his kids, they're the kids of the woman he's railing (married to, whatever) and I have sprung from his very loins. I realize I might sound like a petty, selfish asshole here, but I'm really bitter that these kids are benefiting from my father's new employment situation and are receiving innumerable things that a) Shannon and I never had the opportunity to receive, and b) we could both really fucking use. For example, Shannon and her fiance don't have a car and being that they're about to have a child, they could really use one. Carla's (Dad's wife) children are both receiving a vehicle. I am fully aware that as my parents were in the military, this wasn't an option for us, and now we're "all grown up", but to see other children receive what I feel that we should be receiving, is disheartening, embittering, and all-around infuriating. I feel like my life would have been much different, had we gotten the opportunities these kids are getting, and it makes me angry.

Further complicating matters is the fact that my father completely checked out for almost five years and only recently has come back into our lives at all. And don't get me wrong - he helps us both out a lot when we need it - just not to the same extent. I almost feel like he should be making up for the past, and the materialistic part of me wants it in the form of a university education. I do like having him in my life in any context, but I am growing more and more bitter and angry every day. I don't know how to broach it without coming off a twat, but it's eating me up a little bit.

Gugh.