Helenka, Queen of Outer Space

Hello Folks I am Brian - Helenka's chosen baby brother and you may have seen me mentioned many times over the years through her blog entries.

Just wanted to write and let everyone who follows or reads her daily journal that unfortunately Helenka passed away suddenly yesterday morning (January 4th 2021).

As you can imagine I am in a state of shock as she was my best friend and big "sister" - family is family no matter if you are related or not.

She and I had known each other for more than 30 years and boy did we have many adventures. She was known to many as the Queen of Outer Space - such as on this blog, and I the Ambassador to Risa (Star Trek fans will get this reference).

We met at a local Star Trek fan club here in Toronto (Idic/uss Hudson Bay), ventured to Toronto Island for picnics and played naughty scrabble, She took me to my first Pride and we both were on MCC Toronto floats a few times - she just loved the church, she attended Toronto Trek conventions (a locally loved Star Trek convention of the time), had many many hosted dinners at each other places, She also attended Out and Out's annual Jamboree a couple of years, we cooked and baked together (she made me a Titantic supper once - a fond memory), had a love of high teas Shangri La was where she wanted to go this year - and I will of course be going there sometime in the future now.

She was also a prolific writer of sci-fi fan fic called slash and kept this daily blog of her activities.

We dreamed, made big plans, laughed and enjoyed visiting each other (for years weekly).

Before Christmas I got to see her through the screen door and dropped off some food she requested, and I made her some of my bread creations (bagels and a loaf of levain bread) along with cookies (I know she mentioned this in a previous blog entry).

Just last week we had a Zoom video call prior to New Year's and that was the last I will have seen her.

She was loved by me and I told her so many many times.

I know she will be missed by many people - though I will miss her the most.

Live Long and Prosper my Queen of Outer Space!

Brian

The good: sleeping all the way to 10:38.

The excellent: getting an eVite from Brian for a zoom get-together, set for 1:30. Eek. I had to hurry to get ready in time.

The excellent: finding out completely by accident - when I grabbed the iPad by the upper right corner = how and where certain control buttons were revealed.

Everything after that was a disaster as I headed to bed to try to sooth the pain. I also tried the long fanfic reading as a distraction and my usual TV shows. Now I'm just hanging on for midnight.

Whether it was trying to keep track of spasms per minute or minutes per spasm, the numbers were simply grotesque and made my day nothing more than an ordeal. Sigh.

So, naturally, it was nearly impossible to sit in front of my desktop and I spent most of the day flat on my back. Booooring. I realized - a little late - that there are still two people to whom I'd like to send holiday greetings, but I'm having technical difficulties. For one, I can only contact him via FB Messenger but I can't find that option in my current state. For the other, the only way is to find his address in an old Yahoo Mail, but I'm limited to using the app on my phone, because my colours are all borked on my desktop. Sigh, again.

I'm officially tossing this day into the shredder which I suppose is appropriate as it was Boxing Day. Not the quaint Brit practice of giving little boxes to household staff, but more like getting my torso pummelled.

At least I managed to sleep until after 7 and nodded off while watching the evening news. Just hoping I can conk out overnight. ::crosses fingers::

Gee, it's a good thing I didn't wait until tomorrow morning. Yes, LoL. So, I'd woken up really early but convinced myself to just stay in bed. When I finally got up, I was mostly devoid of pain. Aha, the little piggies of the universe finally got their acts together and also delivered on crisp, colourful vision. Yay.

Still, I took it easy in the morning, reading "Albatross" until I'd finished it. Terry Fallis once again left me with a smile on my face. He just exudes sunshine. After that, I had the rest of Brian's cookies for brekkie. Then, I got to work. I ended up just decorating one tree with two sets of lights (one clear, one multicolour, a long roll of translucent holiday ribbon, as well as a few other colourful items around the base.

I was unable to put up the sequinned wall hanging because I couldn't find the special hanger; OTOH, I thought my golden sleight was lost/misplaced, yet it was right in one of the storage boxes. Naturally, I blame the cats! I filled the sleigh with pine cones and set it on the fireplace and also hung my stocking. I still have to add a decorative bejewelled ribbon to the dining table and then I'm calling it done. Decorating while blind is always a challenge and I'm definitely avoiding wearing myself out - for a change.

So I need to climb in the shower now and hydrate. Tired little piggy.

With that intro, you may be sure that I did little decorating, other than putting the summer flowers into storage and removing the lovely scarves from the bathroom door. Well, there's always tomorrow.

First, I had to be dressed to wait for my food delivery because I was expecting my surprise gift bag. Oh, it certainly contained surprises. I'll post separately of the contents. The delivery volunteer was even wearing a hat - I presume Santa's as I couldn't see, and she was definitely jovial.

After that, I had to wait for Brian to arrive with his delivery of goodies. I had the phone turned off, but managed to intercept a call from my former group's co-leader who was calling to wish me a happy Christmas. And then Brian showed up. He's so silly. He threw in items from his pantry, as well as a "sliced" loaf of round bread, four bagels, cookies, and his special Newfie snowballs.

After he left, I had to send my thank you email to the meals administrator, thanking her for her thoughtfulness in a year when it must have been much more difficult to secure donations on behalf of all of their clients.

I'd changed my mind about having a movie night tonight, so joined SuM and S. at 7, bringing treats with me. We exchanged gifties, nibbled on Brian's baked goods, and drank peppermint tea while watching "Ma Raimey's Black Bottom". After the sugar rush (the cookies had been my supper), I bonelessly returned to my space, to relax and watch TV.

I'm so ready to slide into bed, with not only decorating but also all my planned emails to friends. ::waves hand languidly:: Nighty-night.

Sigh. After a second night in a row of falling asleep naturally (aka without conscious thought), I woke up early but devoid of pain. Well, you just know the universe can't stand that, so the pain returned, little by little, over the hours. Sigh. So, instead of tidying up and decorating, all I did was remove the summer flowers. Before I knew it, it was time for movie night at the house. SuM, S. and I watched "The Prom" which we hadn't realized was a musical. We finished off my bottle of Hypnotiq, had peppermint tea and cookies. I'd cheated a bit and used a drop of atropine in my right eye. So, right now, I can see so amazingly clearly. I'd like to stay up reading, but my mind is telling me to conk out. What to do, what to do?

Quick response? Nighty-night, all.

Well, I've been throwing many towels around for the last two days. At least, I did manage two almost decent sleeps. But, yesterday, I sat down to get a whole pile of paper ready for recycling. I was in my office chair, bending over the pile on the bed, fumbling blindly with the staple remover. And it seemed that the staples weren't standard, either. Sigh. So, not only an aching back, but also a couple of shredded nails.

More torso/gastric pain didn't help either. I think I'm going to have to stop getting my entrees at least and just stick to soups and desserts that don't disagree with me. I guess that'll be a conversation for next week. It's not a good time to be feeling sick when I eat.

At least I had some determined distractive TV that included a tiny shocker on Young Sheldon and two inventive epis of Dragons' Den. But my vision was crap all day yesterday, so I delayed watching ST:Disco until this morning where it did an excellent job against the pain. Then, tonight, there was MacGyver but there was too much shooting so I couldn't really tell what was going on. However, I had luscious, glorious vision All. Day. Long. Too bad I didn't have the patience to read my library book. Sigh again.

Anyway, it's almost time for pills and bed. Crossing my fingers for a good sleep.

… doesn't deserve to have any ink spilled in description. But it was grotesque. And I've nodded off a couple times during the day in order to make up for missing sleep.

The only good thing was receiving a card from my sis RS. Alas, because of my incompetent vision today I couldn't tell what was on the cover or written inside. I'll try again.

As diversions from pain, there was reading fanfic and watching a touching epi of tonight's Bull. Really … awwwww. Right now, I'm fading fast so had better press Post.

HPCP;ATE. lots and lots of glorious chocolate! So, Brian and I agreed that he would phone me at 5:30 p.m. Early on, I allowed (uh, begged) him to possess my computer, because my vision had colour but was very fuzzy. So he took over and we went through two sites, one in TO and my original fave in Niagara. Because I wanted everything(!), that's what I'm getting. I'll just have to wait for the free delivery.

After that, he fixed one of my issues with my Office suite. After that, I mentioned my expired parking permit. Instead of dealing with it on my computer, he said he'd d/l it and fill it out with me over the phone, then print it and mail it to me. Whew, that's a load off my mind. He's also planning to make a - sigh - contactless delivery of baked goods (by him, natch). Then we'll look at each other longingly - him outside and me inside through the window - hoping for when we'll be able to get together and travel once again. We got off the phone at exactly 8.

I had some other lovely news earlier. The blind group's secretary phoned me and said there's a $50K grant that's being disbursed to people affected by the pandemic. She remembered that I'd lost the use of my magnification software, so I should apply to get a bland new version. Hmmm.

Then, in the evening, one of the group's members earned from the Prez that the wee winter survival kits were my idea, so she sent me a lovely thank you. I replied to her, saying there are a lot of cases of paying it forward in our community and that I hope it continues.

In other non-news, I slept well (until 9:30) but was in pain for most of the day. Sigh. Watched some TV including news and am about to watch Young Sheldon. And, finally, it's almost time for pills, so I'm grateful for that.

More than eight hours of sleep in a delightfully cozy, cheerful bed did me a world of good. Mind you, I still had to stretch my boundaries, finishing off the steam cleaning of mf the bathroom and then doing a small load of laundry. I think I've definitely determined that pushing the machine and inhaling steam improves my vision.

As the day wore on, the pain returned, so I spent much of the two-hour Executive Zoom call in discomfort. Good thing it was audio only. At least I was happy to hear how pleased our members have been receiving their winter treats and our other efforts to their benefit. Just makes me really grateful for belonging to such a group and being able to contribute.

Anyway, I'm fading quickly. Trying to watch a titch of TV before bed. Earlier, I'd watched yesterday's repeat of Bull that was heartbreaking - about a respected member of society who'd overcome his unfortunate upbringing by paying it forward - establishing a summer camp for at-risk youth. The only problem is that he ended up putting them at risk - from his increasing sexual advances. The ultimate proof (after "He said" vs the only "He said" the team was able to secure) was found in cameras stolen from the man's house which still contained film of some of his improprieties. Taking their existence as probable cause, the authorities carried out a raid and found current evidence that he was still seducing assaulting 13-year old foster children.

Okay, I'm yawning and my fingers are getting all fumbly. Nighty-night, all.