quiet adventures

Babywearing contest!

2008-07-10T18:42:00.001-06:00

Win the Essential Babywearing Stash from Along for the Ride (one Beco Butterfly, one Hotsling baby pouch, one BabyHawk Mei Tai, one Zolowear Ring Sling, and one Gypsy Mama Wrap)

I love my various babywearing carriers, and this is an awesome contest. Click to enter!

Tongue-tied

2007-08-16T12:00:00.000-06:00

Poor blog. Neglected, lonely, bereft of new posts. It seems I've moved on to greener pastures, that is to say, Facebook. My brain has been rewired to think in terms of 25-word status updates instead of 400-word posts. So many times I load up this page and then stare blankly at it with nothing interesting (to anyone other than me) to say. And then I turn around and realize it's been over a month since I last posted. Somehow I missed the entire month of June. Does time seem to be moving as fast for everyone else as it is for me? Because I have never been happier in my life than I am right now, and I want it to slow down so I can enjoy it! Mairead is learning something new every day it seems. Like on Tuesday, she found her feet. Sure, you're saying, "big deal, so she found her feet. They were attached to her ankles the whole time." But it is a big deal. She didn't used to be able to grab them, and now she can!

And there is a perfect example of a thing that is interesting only to me. It doesn't make it any less special, but not exactly exciting for you to read. Somehow Rebecca Eckler managed to turn tidbits like that into an entire book, I have no idea how. Reading about some stranger's baby is very boring, and the only reason I finished the book was to gather more examples of the kind of mother I don't want to be. But I digress.

I feel bad, I really do. I've been keeping this blog for almost four years now. It's not that I don't still like it, I just don't seem to have the time, or the brain. The mummy dum-dums have taken over. I can barely put my pants on the right way forward some days. I've taken to wearing yoga pants so it doesn't really matter if I do or not.

Truthfully, I think it's because I'm rarely bored anymore. Blogging was always something to stave off boredom for me, and these days there's too much to do.I'm just at a different point in my life now, I guess. My mom used to love to say, "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." I guess I feel now that if I can't say something interesting, I won't say anything at all. And so I think I'll put the blog to bed for awhile, give my brain a chance to rest and learn how to be creative again. Farewell for now...

Dumb Criminals

2007-07-15T22:22:00.000-06:00

You have to wonder how some people make it to adulthood intact, they're so stupid. Natural selection should have weeded them out long ago, yet they're still around. At least they serve to give us, people with intelligence and common sense, some amusement.

So what with tonight's severe thunderstorm/hail/tornado warning (and we saw a rotating cloud right above our house and I saw what I'm pretty sure was a funnel cloud dropping out of the sky, although it didn't touch down. But that's another story.) I decided to move the car into the garage to prevent it from being trashed by hail. So I drive around back through the alley and pull up to our garage, when I see a giant pile of trash laying in front of the garage door. I'm talking rolled up carpets, two sinks, some rebar and some other type of metal bars. It looks like a truckload full of reno waste, and it's all been dumped at our house. So I'm completely furious. Not only can I not get into my garage, but this crap is way too big for the garbage men to take. No doubt it was dropped off because of the time and cost of taking it all the way to the city dump. So I'm totally livid about this.

So I go to take a closer look and to try and move it out of the way, when I notice one of the items is a suitcase. With a luggage tag. With a name and phone number on it. At which point I think to myself, "hahahahahahahaha."

This guy is the dumbest criminal I have ever heard of. He's like the guy who robbed a house and left his wallet behind. I mean, could you make it any easier? So I phoned the number on the tag and left him a message kindly asking him to come pick up his shit. And then I phoned the police. They advised me that if I call the city, they will come and pick it up and send the guy the bill. I only wish he'd written his address on the tag as well, so I could borrow somebody's truck and take it right back to his house and dump it on his front lawn. Unfortunately, he's not in the phone book either.

Interestingly, he is on Facebook.

Anyway, time will tell if he calls me back and comes to pick it up himself, or if the city's going to be doing it for him.

***UPDATE***

So the guy phoned today and we had a chat. He seemed pretty sincere about not knowing anything about it and says he donated the suitcase to charity a long time ago. Furthermore, he was out of town. Maybe I'm a sucker, but I believed him. Unfortunately, the city says that since it's on private property, we're stuck with the responsibility and the cost of disposing of it ourselves. Darcy's suggestion was to toss it all across the alley onto the little green belt and let them deal with it, but I don't think we will. I'm hoping against hope that the garbage men will take it on Thursday. We'll see.

On Being A Mommy

2007-07-10T21:46:00.000-06:00

Well, this blog pretty much up and died, didn't it? You'd think something happened that took away the brunt of my free time... I don't know who those mommy bloggers are who write daily missives of their parenting adventures. Maybe they dose their kids with cough syrup in the afternoon so they can have some alone time. As it is, I've got Mairead strapped to me in the Snugli, fast asleep, so I thought I'd make note of some of the many things motherhood has taught me so far.

1. You don't understand how much your own mom loves you until you have a baby of your own. You just don't have a clue. I love Mairead so much it hurts. Sometimes it makes me cry, all the while smiling through my tears as she looks up into my face with utter trust and love. This is the single most important thing I've learned. Possibly in my entire life.
2. A baby can poop their own weight in a day. And then there's the pee.
3. Sleep is actually an optional activity. If it was necessary, I would have died in the first week. That said, I'm told I shouldn't brag too much because other moms will hate me, because Mairead has been sleeping through the night since she was four weeks old.
4. It's impossible to be selfish and be a good parent. After years of living a self-absorbed lifestyle, suddenly I'm not the most important person anymore, which is a hard change to make, especially after being pregnant when all the focus was on me. I'm going to have to retire my "Me Me Me" shirt, and make way for Mairead's "It's all about me" onesie.
5. Babies are like bonfires. You can stare at them for hours, even if they're only sleeping.
6. Every baby smile is precious. Each one fills me with joy.
7. All your principles and convictions go right out the window after you have a baby. I use disposable diapers (the cloth ones we bought don't fit yet), the air conditioning in the car, I'm late for everything... none of it matters. The only thing that matters is that your baby is comfortable. Oh, and everything she owns is pink. I always swore I'd never be one of those moms who dressed her daughter all in pink, but I do. Shamelessly.
8. I'm not going to be writing a book while on maternity leave. I didn't have the slightest inkling how much time being a mother to a newborn involves. Even getting this far on this post has taken over three hours, due to various baby needs (crying, changing, feeding, playing, putting to bed, etc.). I figure if there's going to be any book-writing going on, it will be once my kids are in school.
9. Getting out of the house every day becomes monumentally important. I can't stand it if I have to stay in all day. Thank god it's summer and we can take walks every day. I have no clue what we're going to do in the winter. I do not want to become a mall-walker.

There's so much more, but my addled, sleep-deprived brain (Mairead may sleep through the night, but I'm compelled to check on her every hour or two, so I'm up and down a lot) can't think of them right now. Suffice to say I like being a mommy. It feels like this is what I was meant to do, which is something that I've never really felt about any job that I've had. It's just right somehow. How people hand their kids over to nannies or daycares is beyond me.

I'm going to try and keep this more current in the future, and while the lion's share will be baby-related, I've no doubt, not all of it will be. No more six-week breaks in between posts. I'm not my sister, after all...

And as a point of humour, one of the suggestions the Microsoft Word dictionary makes for "Mairead" is "Airhead." Don't tell her...

My Birth Story (and Mairead's Birthday)

2007-05-27T17:48:00.000-06:00

Some may find it interesting, some may not, but I want to record it while it's still reasonably fresh in my memory, both for myself, and hopefully for my daughter to read someday. She should know everything I went through to deliver her into this world, and hopefully will feel bad enough about it that she'll always behave herself and listen to her mother. And it's in a fun first-person stream-of-consciousness narrative!

May 15, 2007

10:00 p.m.

Sigh. I'm still pregnant. Why am I still pregnant? I'm huge. My hips hurt. My back hurts. Doesn't this baby want to be born? I wonder what we have to eat.

10:05 p.m.

Oh, great. I just wet my pants. Life could not be better.

10:06 p.m.

That's. Not. Pee. Neat! I'll go tell Darcy. Hmm, he has his headphones on and isn't paying any attention to me. I guess I'll tell him over Messenger. Yes, he's only four feet away but I have to use Messenger to deliver the news that my water just broke.

10:10 p.m.

Shouldn't something be happening right now? Like contractions? Or am I just going to leak all night? Time to call Helen.

10:15 p.m.

Helen says labour should start in the next 24 hours, and in the meantime, to get used to the leaking. Gross.

10:30 p.m.

Oh, owwwwwww. Oh, this sucks. And this is only the beginning? I am totally crazy for thinking I could do this without painkillers. This is the worst thing ever. I'm going to walk up and down the hall now.

11:30 p.m.

Still walking up and down the hall. Still in horrible amounts of pain.

May 16, 2007

12:30 a.m.

Still walking up and down the hall. Okay, this is lame. We're going to the hospital now and I'm going to make them put a nice big needle in my spine and make it all go away. I don't care how scary it is. Make it go away.

12:35 a.m.

I do NOT want to get in the car. There's no way I can stay sitting down for ten whole minutes. I'll just walk in circles on the front lawn.

12:40 a.m.

Okay, we're in the car. Darcy's knuckles are white as he's gripping the steering wheel. I'll try to be quiet so he doesn't roll us. He's talking about what the plan will be once we get there. Something about dropping me off while he parks. I'm not listening.

12:50 a.m.

Okay, we're here. Had I been in better spirits, I would have laughed at the triage nurse in emergency, who took one look at me, said "oh, we don't want you down here," and opened the door so we could go up to the labour and delivery floor. Funny stuff.

12:55 a.m.

Okay, I'm in the labour and delivery triage room. I'm in a very roomy hospital gown. Helen's here now too and I get to have my assessment. They'd better not try and send me home. I'm not going anywhere.

1:00 a.m.

Seven centimetres dilated! That was fast. Baby is coming quickly. I'm going to a proper delivery room now. Ooh, it has a couch. It looks really comfy. Too bad all I can still do is pace back and forth. I have my own nurse now too. Her name is Melanie. I'm wimping out on the epidural though. I can't go through with it.

1:30 a.m.

Still pacing.

2:00 a.m.

Still pacing. I like Melanie and all, but she needs to stay away from me with her monitoring stuff. Being monitored means not being able to walk. I need to walk.

2:30 a.m.

Jesus. When transition hits, I'm not going to be able to take it. This is the most sucky thing that I've ever experienced. I'm re-reconsidering the epidural. I wonder if I can have it in the next two minutes? Probably not.

2:45 a.m.

I am so, so ready to start pushing. That whole thing a few minutes ago... that was transition. Who needs a needle in the spine now? Pushing feels great. Finally I get to do something.

3:45 a.m.

Still pushing.

4:45 a.m.

Still pushing. I'm in the bathroom, sitting and pushing on the toilet, along with Darcy, Helen, Melanie and Melanie's monitoring equipment. I don't care in the least.

5:45 a.m.

Still pushing. I have pushed in every possible position. I'm getting a little tired of pushing. Hey, it's Dr. Chappell! She's been my pre-natal physician and she's here for a visit. She wants to give me a quick exam and find out why I didn't push out a baby two and a half hours ago. And Dr. Allen is here too! He's the obstetrician on call tonight. He also wants to take a peek. Only his peek is quite ouchy.

5:50 a.m.

Dr. Allen says the baby is posterior, or face-up, and has her head tilted back in a brow presentation to boot. Consequently, the baby's stuck on my pelvic bone and isn't moving, which explains how three hours of pushing has not produced a baby. I have two choices: a) epidural and more pushing, or b) c-section. He says no to trying forceps and says that frankly more pushing probably won't do any good. He's going to leave for a few minutes to let me think it over.

5:51 a.m.

C-section, please. I am so done with this labour thing. But in the meantime, I have to keep pushing. It hurts so much to not push.

6:00 a.m.

Off to the operating room! It's cold. More monitoring and blood-taking and whatnot. Who cares. I'm too tired to be annoyed.

6:10 a.m.

Eww, I still have to have a giant needle in my spine, although not an epidural, just a spinal anesthetic. Still, very freaky. This was the one thing I really, really didn't want. The anesthesiologist looks like a very nice man, but that's my spine he's injecting drugs into. Hey, it doesn't hurt at all.

6:15 a.m.

I love you, Dr. Anesthesiologist. I mean really love you. I have no more pain. I have only good happy feelings. Suddenly I'm in the best mood ever. It's baby time!

6:20 a.m.

Hee hee, Darcy looks hilarious in scrubs. I'm actually joking with the doctors about what a turn-on they are and asking if we can take them home. The change in my mood is surreal.

6:25 a.m.

Wow, they're already messing around behind that sheet. I can feel pressure and movement, but no pain. Bizarre. Again, I love Dr. Anesthesiologist.

6:30 a.m.

Oww, owww! Dr. Chappell is pressing really really hard on my ribcage for some reason... that part's not frozen!

6:32 a.m.

Baby! I can see my baby girl! She's crying! Now I'm crying. And laughing. I don't know what I'm doing. She's huge! Oh, they're moving her away. I can't see her anymore. I want to see my baby!

6:33 a.m.

Dr. Anesthesiologist is helping hold the sheet aside so I can see her at the warming station. He wins my vote for Doctor of the Year.

7:00 a.m.

All done! Off to the recovery room!

7:15 a.m.

Yay, my baby's here! I get to nurse her now. This is so cool! I'm a mommy!

So that's how it went, as far as I can recall. The times should be fairly accurate, as there were clocks everywhere we went and I became a serious clock-watcher. It maybe didn't go quite how I expected or wanted it to, but I ended up with a healthy baby, and that's the only thing that really matters.

Stay tuned for details of our first week!

So Then...

2007-05-10T15:51:00.000-06:00

I have a lot of free time on my hands and not much to keep me occupied. After I wrote my last post I also went to the Dairy Queen website and filled out their customer comments form outlining my concerns about the commercial about me. The letter went like this:

I was a little bit upset to see that Dairy Queen has apparently made a commercial about me without asking for my permission. The one I'm talking about is the one for the Mother's Day cakes that features a woman named Nicole who is about to go into labour on Mother's Day. Well, I'm about to go into labour too and it could very well be on Mother's Day, who knows? Seeing this commercial and thinking about having to wait another five days to give birth when I'm already four days overdue made me cry for a long long time and my husband had to change the channel because the commercial played so many times and each time I got more upset. If you could at least change the name on the cake to something else, that would help because then it wouldn't seem like it's about me so much. Having to wait so long to have a baby gives you enough things to cry about without having Dairy Queen steal your identity for a commercial. Thank you.

So then DQ phoned me at home yesterday, and when they couldn't talk to me in person because I was out, called back again today. They wanted to make sure I knew that the ad wasn't actually about me, and was in fact made several years ago and they play it every year around Mother's Day, but they still apologized that it upset me so much and wanted to make sure everything was okay with me.

They went to a lot of trouble to find me, since I never gave them my phone number, only the city I lived in. The lady I talked to, Jean, was very nice and told me how emotional my letter was and how all the ladies in the office were upset by it because they're all moms too. Anyway, I felt a bit bad about that so I told her that I understood now that the commercial wasn't really about me and I'm just a bit hormonal. So she asked me to email her when the baby comes so they know everything went well. No offer for a free cake though, damn.

My mom says I'm a brat. She's right.

Can I Get Some Royalties?

2007-05-08T13:14:00.000-06:00

I am the victim of identity fraud. My life's experiences have been stolen in the name of commericialism, and are apparently being used to shill delicious frozen treats, and all this without any consultation or permission from me.

Have you seen the latest ad from Dairy Queen for their Mother's Day ice cream cakes? Allow me to walk you through a step-by-step comparison.

DQ Ad: Starts with a close-up of a cake that says "Happy Mother's Day Nicole"

My Life: My name is Nicole! I'm going to be a mother!

DQ: A woman, supposedly "Nicole" sitting in a wheelchair, heavily pregnant and rushing into the hospital, obviously in labour.

Me: I'm heavily pregnant and supposed to be going into labour this week! (Well, technically last week...)

DQ: "Nicole," who by the way seems to think labour involves looking beautiful and panting a bit, is holding the same cake seen at the beginning of the commercial and talking about how she's not a mother quite yet but they stopped and got the cake on the way, just in case.

Me: Getting a DQ ice cream cake on the way to the hospital is totally something I would do! And it's totally realistic that I could go into labour this Sunday!

Do you see the similarities here? Now why Dairy Queen would choose me as the focus of one of their ads is beyond me, since I don't even go there very often, but I'm a little miffed about it. (I tried to find a clip of it on YouTube or on the DQ website, but it doesn't seem that anyone's posted it. CTV plays it a lot during prime time, you can't miss it.) Further to that, the first time I saw the ad I cried and cried, because it made me think about having to wait another five days before having the baby, which is not something that appeals to me, already being four days overdue. At the very least, I should get something for the emotional distress I've suffered.

I wonder if I could go into a DQ, say "I'm Nicole, the pregnant chick from the commercial," and get a free cake?

I Feel Like A Girl Again

2007-04-30T18:21:00.000-06:00

It's incredible how a little personal upkeep can make you feel like a whole new person. Having just shaved my legs for the first time in about three weeks, as well as doing a full-body exfoliation and other grooming activities in a very long, hot shower, I feel very, very good in ways that I haven't felt in awhile. Next I'm going to paint my toenails. It's like the feeling you get when you've just gotten your hair cut and styled and you're walking down the street thinking about how hot everyone thinks you are because they also did a mini make-up touchup and you've got a new colour of lip gloss on.

It's easy, being at home all the time, to fall into the trap of not really caring what you look like. Why bother to get dressed if you're not going out, when it's so much easier and more comfortable to just wear pajamas all day? Why take the time to shave your legs when they're just going to be covered by the aforementioned pajamas all the time?

Because it feels good when you do, that's why. This has been my life for the past few weeks, and today I got a little fed up. There comes a point when you have to do that stuff for yourself, even if no one else is going to notice or care. And now that I have, I'm in a good place and feeling better than I have in awhile.

I wonder if this is my nesting instinct? Like some women feel the overwhelming urge to scrub their house from top to bottom and cook enough meals to freeze and eat for a month, whereas I suddenly just want to make myself smooth and pretty. Pretty funny if it is, because now the bathroom's a mess and I have no desire to clean it.

Correction

2007-04-19T17:55:00.000-06:00

So last week when the doctor said the baby was around eight pounds, she meant WOULD BE if I went to term, not currently. There was a little miscommunication there.

Currently, the baby's about six and a half pounds.

We can all start breathing again.

Oh. My. God.

2007-04-12T15:40:00.000-06:00

Funny story about my doctor's appointment today. I asked her if she was able to estimate the size of the baby right now to see how it compared to the average baby size for how far along I am. For 37 weeks' gestation, the average baby should be between six and six and a half pounds. Babies gain about half a pound a week in the last month of pregnancy, making the average baby about 7 1/2 lbs. at birth, maybe a little more. A nice and reasonable size for a baby.

But not my baby. Average isn't good enough for her. After much prodding and feeling, the doctor throws out a guess of, in her words, high seven or low eight. So already the baby's bigger than most babies are at birth, and I have another three weeks to go. At half a pound a week, we're looking at around 9.5 lbs.

Nine and a half pounds.

And since the baby hasn't even dropped yet, something that usually happens at least a couple weeks before birth, if not earlier, I'm nowhere close to going into labour.

No wonder I've gained so much weight.

Wouldn't That Be Weird?

2007-04-06T16:40:00.000-06:00

As I've been all by myself today with no one to pester or amuse me (I notice Darcy's work days at Jay's have increased since I've been home on leave) I was going through my bookmarks to see if there was something interesting to keep me occupied for another three minutes when I discovered something that's actually really cool, or will be, if it happens.

I use a date calculator to remind myself how much longer I'm going to be pregnant, because I like to know stuff like that but am bad at math and can't figure it out myself. Anyway, upon figuring out that I'm supposed to be pregnant for only 28 more days if all goes according to plan (which it never does, you don't have to tell me) I noticed that they also have a Useless Dates thing which, if you plug in your day and time of birth, will tell you all kinds of quasi-interesting things about how old you are in seconds, etc. etc. So I plug mine in, and in a bit of strangeness, it turns out that I will be exactly 10,000 days old on May 3, which is a day before the baby's due date. And I think it would be cool if the baby was born when I was exactly 10,000 days old, so now that's the date I'm rooting for.

So at some point later in the day on May 2, it would be nice if everyone started willing me to go into labour so I can make this happen and have a fun/pointless little anecdote to tell afterwards.

I (heart) the Calgary Farmer's Market

2007-04-02T13:12:00.000-06:00

I am seriously in love with the Calgary Farmer's Market these days. It's better than a trip to Disneyland. It's like the anti-Superstore, where everything is homogenous and regimented. You never know what you're going to find when you go to the farmer's market, whether it's a new vendor, a delicious tasty treat or even, as we discovered last weekend, gourmet organic baby food which I'm very excited to try out in about six months' time. We even tried a fruit neither of us had ever heard of before, called kiwi berries. They're like kiwis, only the size of grapes. They only grow for two weeks a year, and come from New Zealand. Who knew? You can bet they didn't have them at Safeway.

There's also the fact that the produce is way, way better than at the big grocery stores. Tomatoes actually taste like tomatoes, nice and acidic and flavourful, not the watery tasteless things you get at the grocery store. Most of it's organic. A lot of it's grown right here in Alberta or BC too, which makes me happy since I've been reading about the 100-mile diet lately. I've never tried the meat from the butcher's before, but I'd like to get some bison since I hear it's better for you than beef. The fish market looks like it has a great selection too, although I'm fairly certain none of it's local...

Plus the food there is to die for. Have you ever had a Simple Simon shepherd's pie before? Delicious. So are the crepes from the crepe place, whose name I can't remember right now. We had them last time we were there and I haven't had a crepe that good since I was in France, no word of a lie. I always make sure we go over lunch so we can have a bite to eat while we're picking up our produce. We missed going this weekend and I'm feeling a little empty inside. I really really wanted a crepe too. Ahh well, there's always next weekend, and the weekend after that, and the weekend after that... because they're open year-round! And it's much better than the Crossroads Market, which is more of a flea market with some vegetables. They do have Artspace though, which is cool.

The best is when it's summertime and we can ride our bikes. I suppose this year we'll have to get a trailer for Darcy's bike so we can bring the grom along with us!

That's all, just wanted to express my love. Allow me to borrow a line from Winners: "you should go."

Ooh, I'm Purdy

2007-03-09T18:52:00.000-07:00

So I'm 86% as hot as Jessica Alba... I guess the remaining 14% is why she's on the cover of Maxim and I'm not.

Does anyone else think this lookalike thing has more to do with facial angle and expression than actual similarity? I put in other pictures and I get completely different matches...

...like Ross Perot.

Mail Call!

2007-03-03T18:06:00.000-07:00

Have I ever been getting some weird mail lately, both of the spam and snail variety.

For example, last week, in a strange and incredible run of good fortune, I logged in to my email to discover a note from Manager Thomas Chess saying that I had won the UK Online Lottery! Even though I don't live in the UK and don't even remember entering! I'm anxiously awaiting their response. I'm also sure there's a very good reason why the email originates from Israel. Maybe they have a branch office there or something.

Then, immediately following that email was some very good news from Barrister Greg Friggs that in another random draw, my name was selected from a pool of philanthropists to share in the estate of one late Mr. Philip, who tragically died in a plane crash, leaving behind no clear instructions on how his vast fortune was to be divided other than some apparently vague notion to just find someone to give it to. But I only have two weeks to claim the money or else the evil Nigerian government will take the money for themselves! I am also waiting to hear from Mr. Friggs.

Then I check my mailbox to find a personal invitation from none other than Donald Trump, who says I was hand-picked to attend one of his wealth-building seminars, "The Trump Way to Wealth," and he even enclosed two free tickets! I didn't know Donald Trump even knew my name, much less considered me worthy enough to share his vast financial knowledge with me. What an honour! And before you say it's just a mass-marketing ploy, it's not. He signed my invitation, see?

If that isn't convincing proof, I don't know what is. Sadly, it doesn't look like the Donald is going to be able to make it in person, but he is sending a "hand-picked member" of his organization.

(Incidentally, I love how the tickets point out that "seating is limited." Is there any scenario where seating is unlimited?")

Finally, yesterday the postman once again brought me strange tidings. This, however, was not news that I was expecting or am happy about.

You see, I found out I'm going through menopause.

I thought that at age 27 and nearly eight months pregnant, menopause would be decades away, but this letter tells me otherwise. But there's good news: the letter advises me that a clinical trial is underway which may be able to relieve my bothersome hot flashes. And if I participate in the trial, I will receive, at no cost, medical care, lab tests, electrocardiograms, medication and compensation for travel costs! I'm hoping they'll even throw in a sandwich or two. It makes dealing with the shock that I'm menopausal so much easier to bear.

Is the world really this full of suckers, or have I earned some sort of reputation?

Go, Hormones!

2007-02-09T19:34:00.000-07:00

So sometime in the last week or so I seem to have lost all control over my emotions. I understand that it's common during pregnancy to become a little volatile, but I think it's funny that it took almost seven months before it hit me when it's supposed to be at its worst during the first trimester.

I have cried at least once every day this week. Yesterday I cried three times. It's not always full-on sobbing, sometimes just a welling of tears which subside after a minute or two, but most often it's a good ten minutes of tears, hiccups and snot. I cried myself to sleep last night, much to Darcy's disgust as I'm sure he wanted to be anywhere but in bed with me and my carrying-on.

These are some of the things that have made me cry:

- E.R.
- Grey's Anatomy
- "Lightning Crashes" by Live
- A news story about a woman with ALS
- Anna Nicole Smith dying (and I don't even like her, I just feel horribly sorry for her poor baby daughter who has to grow up without a mom)
- "The Last Whale" (a scene from Famous Puppet Death Scenes which we saw the other night)
- Talking about how I'm crying so much

Yes, even thinking about how much I'm crying makes me cry. Mostly I've become hyper-aware of my own mortality and how at this point not would I be faced with my own death if something awful were to happen, but the baby's death as well. It's a pretty gut-wrenching thought. All of a sudden I'm super-protective of the baby and am realizing that she depends on me 100% for life, up until the point where she's born and other people can take care of her if necessary. It's freaking me out a bit. I think ever since I reached the point where she was developed enough to be born (which was some time last week) it's been on my mind. It's like it's so close to being time until she's born but we're not there yet, and in the meantime some horrible thing could happen and I really don't want it to.

It's weird, I've always been pretty afraid of dying, but this is the first time I've been more afraid not for myself but for someone else. I don't even really care if something happens to me anymore, as long as she's safe.

So this is what it feels like to be a mommy, I imagine. I don't know if the feeling ever goes away... it's mind-boggling.

Oprah would say I need to stop focusing on the negative and start inviting the positive into my life. Oprah obviously doesn't know anything about me, but in this case I think I'm going to have to try, otherwise these last 12 weeks are going to be a real treat for everyone around me. So, can anyone suggest some positive thoughts I can use? I like the "getting to meet my healthy baby girl for the first time after a quick and easy labour" one, but any other suggestions are welcome.

I Just Had A Warm And Fuzzy Thought

2007-02-02T21:13:00.000-07:00

...as I was reading through the post I just wrote I glanced over at the "vitals" part. Under "aspirations" I currently have "mommy."

Well in 13 weeks (please, no more than 13 weeks!) I will be a mommy!

I Am So Lazy

2007-02-02T20:06:00.000-07:00

I'm loading up some new music into iTunes for my iPod, and rather than walk down one flight of stairs to where we keep all our CDs to rip them from there, I'm instead trying to download them from Limewire. And it's frustrating, because half the songs are loading at about 1kb per minute and the other half are bad files or mis-titled and it's taking an extremely long time to get anything done at all. But not so frustrating, apparently, that I'm willing to make the effort to get off my ass and get the CDs. If Darcy was here, he'd be laughing at me.

I'm also starving, but too lazy to make myself dinner. That's truly retarded, I really need to eat something, but I just don't feel like cooking anything. Even something as simple as soup. This is probably going to end up as one of those nights where I eat a bowl of cereal for dinner.

I also have a sink full of dirty dishes and several loads of laundry to deal with. I'm not sure what this whole "nesting" thing is about, I sure haven't experienced so much as an inkling of desire to clean my house from top to bottom in preparation for the baby. Maybe that's still to come, but in the meantime my house is going to continue to be a barely contained disaster.

But hey! It's the weekend, what more do you expect?

Therapy Time

2007-02-01T00:23:00.000-07:00

Okay, so some people get rid of mental tension and aggravation by punching things (which Darcy made me try, no such luck), some people eat, some people exercise, and me, I need to put it all down in words. So welcome to my therapy session, getting this out of my head is the only way I'm going to get to sleep tonight.

So I started the day in a really good mood, I'd been to the doctor's, and my checkup went really well, I'm healthy, the baby's healthy, I passed my diabetes test, everything was super good. And because of my appointment I had a short day at work, which is always nice. I even got a really good parking spot. Today I was working with my training class for four hours, which meant that because of my late start, I only had to talk to customers for about two hours. So all in all, I was a pretty happy person and figured this would be an nice, easy day.

Yeah, not so much.

So like my second or third customer of the day immediately demands to speak to the retentions department, which deals with collections accounts. They don't talk to customers and don't have a transfer number. They are the Unreachables. So I let this guy know that, but he says he just got transferred to them earlier in the day and he wants to talk to them again. Again I tell him that there's no way of transferring and they never, ever take customer calls. Period. And I ask him if it could be another department he was looking for. So he says he wants to talk about cancelling his account. That means it's actually the relations department he wants. Retentions, relations, I can see how you can confuse the two. So I tell him I'll put him through to relations and explain to him that they're the ones he must have been talking to earlier this morning. And he goes absolutely ballistic. He wants to speak to my supervisor.

Umm, what? He says I have a bad attitude. How's that, I wonder? Like I am totally baffled. He was a little confused about who he wanted to talk to, I figured it out, I told him I'd transfer him, and he wants to speak to my boss? So I tell him that's no problem but I need his account information first. Standard policy. He says no. I say sorry, but no supervisor will talk to you without reviewing the account first. So he says he doesn't have an account. Okay, so you're calling to cancel an account you don't have? What am I, retarded? But all he will say is "get me a supervisor, get me a supervisor, get me a supervisor." His vocabulary has been reduced to four words. So fine, whatever.

So then I get one, and he goes off and starts telling all this bullshit about how I called him a liar to his face and have made him so angry he's cancelling his account and I should be fired because I have the worst attitude of anyone he's ever talked to at any company ever.

First of all, his original purpose for calling was to cancel, that's why he wanted "retentions" (relations) to begin with. So it's not my fault and I have nothing to do with it. Second of all, I never called him a liar, just corrected him. For his own information. Thirdly, what I gave him was not attitude. If I was giving him attitude, he would know it. And I wouldn't mind if he complained about it, because I'd deserve it. But all this is total crap and now it's eating away at my brain. I've never had anyone complain about me before in all the time I've worked there, and I'd expect that if someone did, it would at least be for a valid reason, not this nonsense. And what's worse, he hung up before the supervisor could even tell him that I was right, and retentions wasn't the department he needed for his concern. That, maybe, is what's bugging me most of all, that I was right and he doesn't even know it and is probably sitting at home still thinking what a crap person I am.

I think maybe I'm more sensitve to shit like this because I know I'm not supposed to get upset, and then I start worrying about how upset I am and that it's bad for the baby so I get more upset. Or maybe I'm just having a bad week, because I've had to deal with about ten other equally stupid people and their irrational, unfathomably obtuse attitudes and demands. Stuff like this used to just slide off me and I wouldn't give it a second thought, but now everything is getting under my skin. I'm feeling so burned out right now. I can't wait until my mat leave starts.

Okay, session's over. Hopefully now I can go back to bed and stop fidgiting so Darcy can get some sleep. I need to work on focusing on the big, important, happy things in my life and let the little, petty, lame things like this go. Thanks for reading, if you still are.

(and FYI, if anyone so much as utters anything about "the customer is always right" they'll get a healthy heaping of the attitude that I was falsely accused of adopting earlier)

Behold

2007-01-24T20:44:00.000-07:00

My phenomenal girth.

Kinda cute, innit? And although you can't tell, I'm wearing the pregnant (not fat) shirt too.

Buyer's Remorse

2007-01-14T20:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we went shopping. We both had some Christmas/birthday/graduation money that we'd been hanging onto until after the Boxing Week rush was over and we had some time together to go spend it. And spend it we did, in a highly materialistic fashion. Darcy even bought $150 jeans, which had better last until the end of time. I spent most of my money on clothes too, because I was getting a little sick of my current rotation of four pairs of pants and five shirts. Anyway, among other things I bought this shirt which I thought was highly funny at the time. It says "pregnant (not fat)" on the front and I thought it was quite clever, especially since certain people lately have been ribbing me about how I over-indulged with the turkey dinners over the holidays and making all kinds of other witty comments on my size.

But now I'm having second thoughts about the shirt, although a part of me wonders if I'm being a little too PC. I still think it's a funny shirt, but I'm worried that some people, overweight people, will find it kind of offensive, like I'm rubbing it in their faces that I'm not fat. Is that overreacting? Complete strangers I don't much care about, because you can't make everyone happy no matter what you wear and I'm sure there are people out there who are offended that I'm wearing pants instead of a dress and bonnet, but I don't want to hurt the feelings of people I know and like. So I'm wondering, do I take the shirt back (which I don't actually think I can do because it was on sale), or maybe just try and be sensitive about who I wear it around, or just screw it and wear it whenever I damn well feel like?

Why do I get the feeling that guys just don't worry about things like this?

I'm Not Dead

2007-01-10T21:52:00.000-07:00

I just have nothing going on of interest these days. I have no thoughts. I have no ideas. I just work and sleep and work and sleep. And a whole lot of eating gets crammed in there as well.

For, yes, I'm a giant pregnant woman. My girth is astounding. I can't see my feet when I look down. And I'm only going to get bigger.

I almost might as well be dead though, I started prenatal yoga last night and realized how grossly out of shape I am. It's like a level 1, basic easy yoga class, and I came out hurting. I mean hurting. My ab muscles (what's left of them) were just burning. I don't think they want to accept the fact that they're not all tight and hard and compact any more. They just need to let go. Just let go and face the facts.

Anyway, more to come when something interesting occurs, and perhaps a pic of my ever-expanding belly, which is kind of cute now that it looks like a baby. I just wish people at work would stop saying things like "you must be due any day now!" They ain't seen nothing yet.

Say Hello!

2006-12-07T12:47:00.000-07:00

I had my 18-week ultrasound today, at the fantastic Calgary Women's Imaging Centre and they gave me some pictures of the baby which I thought I'd put up because I'm a proud mommy-to-be. We also found out the gender, but as not everyone wants to know, I'll give you the opportunity to find out only by highlighting the next row. If you're the weird type that likes to keep things a surprise, just skip over it and keep reading.

It's a girl!

All right then, there's that over with, and on to the pictures!

A nice side view of the baby's head and torso.

Flipped over - the spine, which looks nice and normal.

Aww, look at the little footy-wooty!

Yes, I've become one of those people. What's worse is the baby's not even born yet...

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a thumbsucker.

We also got some of those cool 4-D pictures that you've probably seen in the news lately, which was a nice surprise. The detail on them is amazing!

This is the first shot we saw. Clearly, the baby's telling us to go to hell and leave her alone. (Whoops, did I say her? Guess the cat's out of the bag... Meh, I know you peeked anyway.)

Clearly, we have one hip baby. 18 weeks old, and already flashing us the peace sign.

Much better! Who do you think she looks more like? That definitely looks like Darcy's nose. Isn't she beautiful?

There are a bunch more pictures if you're truly interested - email me and I'll forward them off to you. It's so more real to me now that we've seen the pictures and I can feel her bumping around inside me sometimes. Oh, and the fact that my bellybutton is starting to pop. 22 weeks can't come soon enough!

Party Party Party!

2006-12-03T18:13:00.000-07:00

In case you didn't get the email somehow or you're looking for a refresher on the details, we're having a Birthmas party December 15, starting at 7 p.m. or so.

That's a Friday, so you'll have lots of time to go home and get spiffy, because it's a dressy-uppy party! Maybe not tux and tails dressy-uppy, but smart-cas would be nice. You're all such attractive people! I'm even going to wear mascara!

My end of the bargain will be to provide a location (and if you don't have my address, email me, I'm not publishing it online) plus a few nibblies, some mix and a sizeable selection of hard liquor, as well as music, foosball and possibly a crackling fire. Your end of the bargain will be to bring an appetizer for 12-15 people (no full potluck this year, I'd rather have a finger-food party) and any beer or wine you plan on consuming, keeping in mind that you don't have to bring extra this year because the hostess is pregnant and won't be stealing from your stash (although if someone brings some Quelque Chose I might be persuaded to have a snifter's worth. Try not to be scandalized).

RSVP via email to me if you're coming (while random visitors and partycrashers can be fun, this party really is only for people I know, sorry stalker-wannabes) and who you're bringing along with you.

Consider yourself invited to Birthmas 2006. I hope to see you there!

Call The Militia...

2006-11-21T20:59:00.000-07:00

...my breasts are about to destroy Tokyo. In fact if I didn't know better, I'd swear they were exposed to some sort of Godzilla-esque radiation, they've grown so large.

The funny thing is, I hate them. I always used to want to have huge boobs and cleavage instead of the fairly average portion I was meted out and even swore that when we could afford it, I'd get implants. But after having experienced them firsthand, I have to admit I want my little boobies back. And to make things worse, they're getting bigger. The $75 bra I bought two months ago is already too small, and I have no idea where I'm going to find a bigger one, since F was the largest cup the lingerie store had in a 32 size. Never mind the fact that I don't particularly want to spend another $75 on something I'm going to have to replace another two months down the road!

Not only that, but they get in the way of everything. I can barely button up my winter coat, my sweaters are all stretching unnaturally, and even when I'm not wearing clothes, they're a pain. I have to sleep on my side now, being too big to sleep on my stomach and not allowed to sleep on my back, and they're always resting on my arm and making it fall asleep, and I wake up two or three times a night because it's all pins and needles.

Further to that, Darcy thinks they look, in his own words, absurd, and he's a big fan of the big boobies. I can only agree, they're completely ridiculous.

Well, Great.

2006-11-17T12:04:00.000-07:00

So I had to take Frances to the vet's yesterday, which itself is no fun task: getting her stuffed into the kennel at home, and then persuading her to come out of the kennel once in the exam room is a battle royale, not to mention the anguished "mom, how could you?" expression she puts on the whole way there in the car. By the time she's de-kenneled I'm usually wracked with guilt, even more so when she starts clawing and biting the vet.

But this time I feel extra-super-mega guilty, because my poor kitty has an infected, abcessed tooth which she's apparently been suffering from for some time, without my having the least idea. It's all loose and rotten and apparently quite painful (not so painful that she's stopped eating however, on the contrary she's managed to gain about a pound and a half). And I've been putting off her vet visit for about a month because I didn't feel up to taking her with the whole morning-sickness/exhaustion thing.

So now the tooth has to come out, which means in a week I get to stuff her back in the kennel, drive her down to the vet's again and leave her there for a whole day while she undergoes a general anesthetic for the extraction. And if I thought she was grumpy yesterday when I brought her home (she walked around hissing at everything and nothing, which was pretty funny actually) I can only imagine how she'll be next week. I'm really not looking forward to it.

Nor am I looking forward to having to pay for it. $500, a month before Christmas, with a baby on the way, is a lot to swallow. Good old Visa will have to pull me through this one. Bad timing all around, is what I say.

Further Proof

2006-11-03T16:16:00.000-07:00

This is me at the end of August, five weeks along, when we had just found out.

This is me from a few days ago:

Kinda just looks like I ate a couple of Christmas dinners, doesn't it?

If only the picture showed the truly ridiculous size my boobs have reached too... sadly they're kind of hidden by the folds of the sweater. And while it's all wonderful to have cups that runneth over, do you know what a pain in the ass it is to try and find a 32F bra? Trying to find anything bigger than a B in a 32 is verging on impossible. When I finally did, it was $75. Insanity! I don't know what I'll do when I'm breastfeeding. Probably buy a 34 or 36 and have it taken in.

FYI, I'm going to try and keep the pregnancy/baby blogging to a reasonable minimum, so I hope you don't feel like this is all I'm ever going to talk about from this point forward... I hope there are still other interesting things going on that are worth mentioning.

But seriously, look at my stomach!

So I've Been Holding Out

2006-11-01T19:49:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's exactly what you think it is...

I'll be busy May 8, in case you're having a party or something.

That Darn Cat

2006-10-27T22:09:00.000-06:00

Catrina has a special ability to sense the absolute instant I decide I'm going to haul my rump out of bed in the morning. As soon as the thought crosses my mind that yes, it's time, she appears, often seemingly out of nowhere, and promptly settles down on my chest/side/back for a good lay-down. The same goes for when I'm going to get up off the couch to go upstairs to bed. Suddenly, there's six pounds of fur and two pounds of cat curled placidly in my lap, purring and feigning sleep.

In fact, any time I need to do something and I'm sitting or laying down, she'll pull this trick.

I mean this in all seriousness. It's uncanny. And once she's laying down, despite my tremendous advantage in size and strength, I'm paralyzed until she decides she's ready to let me get up.

I've been late for work because of this. I've let my dinner get cold because of this. But a Catrina cuddle is such a sweet thing. Who could be mad at a little Catrina, even when you just found out she tore up a patch of carpet in the family room?

(repeat post title here)

My Life: One Word

2006-10-22T18:06:00.000-06:00

weltschmerz \VELT-shmairts\ noun, often capitalized
1 : a mental depression or apathy caused by comparison of the actual state of the world with an ideal state

I get the dictionary.com word of the day in my email (no need to tell me I'm a geek, I'm fully aware) and this is today's word. So this one hard-to-pronounce, probably German word pretty much describes my entire state of mind, and I even never knew it existed!

I feel complete. Completely weltschmerz, that is.

Take, for example, cupcakes. Cupcakes always look so delicious, with the frosting and the little candies on top and the colourful paper, and I always get so excited about eating one. And then I bite into it, and it tastes like cake. I hate cake. It's always such a disappointment because it looks like it should be so good and not cake-y at all. In order to meet my perceived flavour ideal, a cupcake should taste like a big fresh strawberry or maybe a piece of the Black Dragon roll from Sumo Lounge. Not at all related, but two of my favourite things to eat. Anyway, and I think you can see why, cupcakes, like so many other things, give me a big screaming case of weltschmerz.

God, that's a hard word to type.

Great.

2006-10-21T21:32:00.000-06:00

Now I have a frigging Facebook too. This one is all Jockstrap's fault, she having goaded me with taunts of not being able to see her profile unless I joined. How many more of these sites do I need to join before my senses of self-validation and needing to belong are fulfilled?

My guess is four. Anyone else belong to some obscure members-only type site that they'd like me to sign up for?

More MySpace Shenaniganery

2006-10-13T16:56:00.000-06:00

So in case you're curious, MySpace is not a "social networking" site at all, apparently it's a site for desperate horny guys to troll girls' profiles and send them random requests for naked pictures and/or sex.

My profile picture is of me absolutely shit-faced drunk, so you wouldn't think this would garner much attention, but apparently drunk chicks are a hot commodity in the sleazy world of online sex, to my dismay. But it's written all over my profile that I'm not interested in any sort of encounter, virtual or otherwise, from the part which gives my relationship status as "married" to the section that says "interests include not having sex with you." And I get all kinds of creepy solicitation emails anyway, which, in order to shame the individuals in question, I'm republishing. And sending them a MySpace mail pointing the way to their shame. Ha.

First up is some weirdo named Ron, who out of the blue sends me this:

Subject: Hi
Body: I like your picture. Is that your hubs with you? Have you guys ever considered a three way.....very discreet

To which I made no reply to whatsoever, being seriously weirded out. Freaky doesn't begin to describe how that would be. I am not lunch meat, and as such don't make a good sandwich. So about a month goes by, and he sends me this:

Subject: Hi
Body: I love your pics... would you be interested in a discreet incounter.

So he's not even interested in poor Darcy anymore! Poor guy. Ron's still pushing the discreet angle, although I imagine that he'd have to up that a notch or two to keep Darcy from finding out. In-counter indeed. I'll pass.

Then a couple months later I hear from Daniel, who has the following query:

Subject: No Subject
Body: hey is tehre any good sex parties in calgary?

To which I replied that yes, they're great, I have them all the time, but he should bring his golden retriever (his profile says he has one). Apparently he's also 17. Umm, eww. And I capped it by calling him a loser, hoping that this would indicate how completely un-serious I was. And he fires back thusly:

Subject: No Subject
Body: hey why did u call me a loser, thats not very nice, and are ur sex parties good

Do you know what's not very nice, Daniel? Emailing complete strangers for sex. I couldn't muster a reply, so my tete-a-tete with Daniel died off.

Last month I heard from Sugarlips (probably *shock* not her real name)

Subject: Hello
Body: Hi u there I had to tell you that i really liked your profile. This is the reason I added you to my friends list. I hope the feeling is mutual and we can give each other a chance. If u want leave me your email adress and i will send more new sexy pics with me ...
kiss kiss
Kitty

Wow Sugarlips/Kitty, my profile says I'm straight, your profile says you're straight, but you want to send me sexy pics? Is this a front for a porn site? Kitty didn't get a reply.

Then just a scant few days ago, which is what gave me the idea to write this post, I hear from Hart. Poor, misguided Hart.

Subject: hey
Body: saw yur pic, u look good, if u ever wanna chat a exchange photos write back i could use a sexy woman like u to chat with.

First of all, as I already have about 10 photos on my MySpace and so does he, I can only assume he means naked photos. Also, Hart's profile is full of pictures of him and his girlfriend, who he claims is the best girlfriend ever (he's also 17 - why am I attracting so many minors?). This is my reply:

Subject: RE: hey
Body: So a guy with a girlfriend wants to exchange photos and chat with a "sexy" married woman. That's really nice. I think I'll jump all over that one.

PS: I'm forwarding your message to your girlfriend. Because you don't deserve one.

Panic! Panic! Panic! Backpeddle! Deny, deny, deny!

Subject: RE: RE: hey
Body: no please don't i changed my mind i love her and that was stupid of me cause i was drunk please don't i beg of you

Heh heh heh. Did you know you type better when you're drunk than when you're sober? But the dude's getting off, I don't want to cause that kind of drama for his poor girlfriend, who will figure it out on her own. Hopefully this will make him think twice about soliciting strangers though, huh?

Until next time...

Mmm, Delicious

2006-10-12T15:26:00.000-06:00

Apple juice and ginger ale is a very tasty beverage, as I've just discovered. It came about because I was thinking about orange juice and ginger ale yesterday, but I don't buy orange juice because I don't like it, unless there's ginger ale in it, which there seldom is. Anyway, today I have brilliantly substituted apple juice, which I do like, only now I like it even more.

I've had the most ridiculously busy week ever. Two Thanksgivings, dinner with my brother and his girlfriend, Cirque du Soleil, poker night tonight and the ballet in two more days. All this at a time when I'm feeling highly anti-social. It's a good thing I have my refreshing gipple ale beverage to sustain me.

Apparently I'm wearing my sillypants today. Maybe the bubbles are going to my head.

I Have A Problem

2006-10-06T13:55:00.000-06:00

My problem is I'm obsessed with Dr. Phil.

I hate Dr. Phil. I mean really loathe him. Everything he says is wrong. He's a jerk. He has funny ideas. But at any opportunity, if I can, I watch the show. I don't know why. Maybe I'm feeling like there's not enough scorn in my life, which, with my profession, you wouldn't think possible. Actually, it probably makes more sense that I'm so addicted to scorn that on my days off I need a fix. Enter Dr. Phil.

Now I know the show is hugely popular and that lots of people rely on his advice and consider him to be very wise. But it seems like most of these people don't actually think for themselves, which is a problem that all the Dr. Phils of the world can't fix. So your boyfriend of 15 years won't marry you and all your family tells you to dump him, but until Dr. Phil tells you to do the same thing, you stick with him? Puh-lease. Maybe, being Western Canadian, I don't really have a feel for the thought processes of Middle America and so am impervious to the Dr. Phil brainwash experience.

And isn't it nice that his wife has written a book? How do I know this? Because it gets plugged every five minutes, that's how. And every member of the studio audience gets a free copy! Every show! In fact I've figured out that in a one-hour show, there's only about 25-30 minutes of actual show content. The rest is either commercials, "coming up on Dr. Phil," "tomorrow on Dr. Phil" or "get tickets/transcripts for Dr. Phil." They must have a serious problem losing viewers partway through the show.

Why can't I watch Ellen instead? I like Ellen. She's funny. She dances. She makes Jake Gyllenhaal take off his shirt. It doesn't make sense.

But I have to finish because Dr. Phil is on in, like, five minutes.

Okay, One Thing

2006-09-23T20:44:00.000-06:00

I got duped into downloading Microsoft's stupid Windows Genuine Advantage software a few weeks ago which is giving me all kinds of grief because I apparently don't have a proper version of XP. (Apparently... ha ha ha) At first it was trying to cause this big login delay with this countdown thing, but I quickly got rid of that... now I just have a tiny star icon in my system tray, which is actually kind of amusing. Before it used to very politely tell me that I may be a "victim" of software counterfeiting. I'm of the opinion that the real victims are the people who shell out $300 every couple years so they can have a different style of start menu and have to reset all their preferences, but whatever. Now, however, the little star coolly tells me "your system may be at risk," which I just noticed.

Oooh, danger. At risk from what, may I ask? Not being able to download the patches that make my computer crash all the time? Say it ain't so.

Looking forward to next week's even more dire message.

They can keep their patches, and I'll keep my eyepatch. Arrrrr, I'm a software pirate.

Sorry

2006-09-23T19:58:00.000-06:00

I'm not dead, as some of you may have surmised. I'm just not feeling the blogging love these days... too much going on in the Real World to lay into my world of words. I know it's been like six weeks. An explanation is forthcoming.

France was lovely though, we had a wonderful time and when Darcy's finished editing the pictures we'll upload them to our Flickr site and I'll post the link. There are over 400 of them, so it's taking awhile. And when I have a bit more time I'll set down some of the funnier and/or more interesting stories, like The Time I Lost Our Plane Tickets and The Time Someone Tried To Pick My Pocket Even Though I Was Carrying A Purse. And I can't forget The Time We Took The Wrong Train. Ahh, memories. The trip wasn't nearly as disastrous as I'm making it sound, though.

I hope you're all keeping well, and I'll get back into my proper head soon enough. :)

My Blog: Your One-Stop Shop For Random Information

2006-08-15T19:00:00.000-06:00

So I have a little bit of java embedded in the blog to track things like what country visitors come from, what pages they visit, how long they stay, and if they used a search engine, what they searched to get here. I find stuff like this both interesting and entertaining. That probably makes me a nerd, but oh well. Anyway, over the last few days I've had some really, really weird search engine results. They're beyond the usual Lindsay Lohan's boobs and Crest Whitestrips and Miraclesearch that I see on an everyday basis. Like the following:

- grass jeans ottawa (are we talking grass stains, jeans made from hemp, what?)
- what does a thong feel like when it's up your rear end? (heh heh... someone on the verge of converting, I assume. For the record, it doesn't feel like anything is there at all)
- can't sleep stomach hurts in morning (I'm scared for the person who's coming to my blog for medical advice)
- reading playboy and side effects (I'm even more scared for the person who's coming to my blog for psychiatric advice. What sort of side effects are you thinking about anyway, horniness? Cause, uhh, that's supposed to happen. The whole hair on the palms of the hands thing is a myth though.)
- "don't bother sucking up" (I think I might actually have this printed on a t-shirt)
- hotmail wrong not my address gets through (incomplete not sentences searches get confusing)
- fat Daphne from Frasier (people actually still watch that show?)
- there's a monster in my closet cartoon (kids' shows need more interesting titles, in my opinion)
- where to go for a quiet night out in Coventry (the airport?) (actually I think they meant the Coventry in England)

And the star over the past few days, our friend from a few posts ago, Lavina Velman, with around ten separate searches. Guess I'm not the only skeptic out there when it comes to her sad, sad tale, huh?

***UPDATE***

And they keep getting wierder and wierder. Since I first wrote I've also gotten queries about:

- black diamond cheese sticks for kids and lucerne string cheese (I never knew string cheese was so popular, or that I'm apparently the leading expert on it)
- swirly wallpaper (thanks, I'd all but forgotten that horror show)
- "explodes cow" (wtf? why are you searching for this?)
- a lady hit by a car while she was pulling out (dare I ask, pulling out of what? Or who?)
- Highlife Adventures membership for sale (apparently this is a dating service, but it sounds like a stoner's club to me)

What will tomorrow bring?

How Cool

2006-08-11T22:14:00.000-06:00

Wordcount is a neat idea, it ranks words used in advertisements in numerical order based on the frequency they appear. Run all together, they can make some oddly poetic sentences. Some are eerily fitting:

- Pharmaceutical greed conceptions
- Democratic elections guide profit
- Slow reform expensive
- Nature necessary, states bank
- Crotch eunuchs
- Pacific dirty deliberately
- Religious/cultural latest famous contrast
- Inevitably loose employee falls

And for you conspiracists out there, type in "America." I don't think it's coincidental.

What Am I, Stupid?

2006-08-09T19:27:00.000-06:00

This lands in my email inbox today:

---------------------------------------------------------
From : lavinavelman@hotmail.com
Reply-To : "lavinavelman@hotmail.com"
Sent : August 9, 2006 1:46:24 AM
To : "blog@help.org"
Subject : Help Needed!
---------------------------------------------------------

Hello,

I am writing to request your help in a very disturbing case of a 10 year old girl who is fighting for her life. Her name is Lavina Velman and she was a lively and beautiful child until one day tragedy struck.

Four years ago, Lavina Velman was returning home from the kindergarten when she was hit by a car. The recovery was hard and at one time her life depended on a breathing machine in a hospital. On 24th of December 2004, Lavina received as donation a semi-portable breathing machine she could use at home. Lavina's life had begun to return to normal. She could move her hands and could stay without the breathing machine for up to 10 hours.

A new tragedy struck in October last year when an electricity black out caused Lavina's breathing machine to stop. The black out lasted for a few hours, so long that even the breathing machine's batteries ran out. The child panicked and went into cardiac arrest. The medics were very skeptical regarding her chances of survival.

Now the only solution is an operation in a hospital in Sweden (Karolinska University Hospital). The costs for the transport and operation are around $30,000. Lavina's family lives in Sofia, Bulgaria. They are quite poor and have been able to gather only a small part of that amount. Please make a donation to support Lavina and her grief torn family. Please help her in her fight to survive.

Your donation, whatever the amount, is greatly appreciated and can make a difference.

Donations can be made via check or money order to:
Victor Velman
Box 11143
SE-40423 Gothenburg
Sweden
Please make checks payable to: VICTOR VELMAN .

Thank you very much in advance!
Silvia and Bill Durham, trying to support a worthy cause

Okay, first of all, this is so blatantly a scam, there are a hundred things wrong with this. Like how it was sent from a Venezuelan i.p. address. Or how the address given to send the donations to is actually to a mail-forwarding service. Or how if the girl was hit four years ago while in kindergarten, she would be 8, not 10. And then first she can go for 10 hours off her breathing machine, but a couple hours of power failure makes her panic? Furthermore, there's how panicking can't possibly put you into cardiac arrest. If it could, I would be dead a thousand times over. You would also think that the family, upon realizing that the power was out and the breathing machine wasn't working, would immediately take her to the hospital as a precaution, rather than waiting until the batteries died. Are they retarded? And what the fuck is blog@help.org? Cause last time I checked, that was not my email address. help.org is nothing but an advertising hub/search engine, run by the same company that operates casinotrips.com and anti-virus.com, two other outstanding sites.

A very disturbing case indeed.

Check This Shit

2006-08-04T14:01:00.000-06:00

We'll just forego the blabbing this time and let the picture do the talking:

Yes, my friends, that's a 6 lb. 11 oz. rainbow trout, making me one of only three poeple in my dad's entire life that he knows who caught one this big.

Ahh, the good life.

Hi-Larious

2006-07-27T11:57:00.000-06:00

My life gets funnier and funnier. Sometimes I wonder if it's possible for my life to get more absurd. This is what happened to me the other night: It's 1:30 a.m. and I'm gradually awakened by this weird sound, kind of a snapping crackly sound. At first I think it's the venetian blinds blowing in the wind so I get up to close the window because really, it's a very annoying sound. And I look out the window and see this giant fire and it looks like it's in my garage, which has a window that I can look into from my bedroom window. The crackling snappy sound is the sound of burning wood.

So I freak right the fuck out. Darcy heard the noise too and was asking me what it was while I'm trying to put a pair of pants on backwards and find some sort of shirt. So I'm yelling about how the garage is on fire and running down the hall with my pants still only half on and run right out the back door.

Only there's no fire in the garage. And then I look next door, and the neighbours have a very robust fire going in their firepit. And I'm all, "eh?" because when I looked out the window, the fire was definitely in my garage. I can't even see the neighbour's yard from my bedroom window.

And then I realize: my window opens outward on an angle, and I was seeing the reflection of the fire in the pane, which made it look like it was in the garage. Whoops. Had a taken a moment to calmly observe the situation instead of freaking out, I would have realized that there's a big tree betewen my window and the garage, which would have partly blocked me from seeing the fire. Upon a second glance I also realized I could see my neighbours and their house in the reflection as well. In conclusion, I'm an idiot.

Rage, Fury

2006-07-20T18:04:00.000-06:00

Ahh, it's not been a good couple of days for my inner zen. It seems the world is conspiring against me, and unfairly, I might add.

First of all, eBay. Well not eBay itself, but underhanded eBayers. I've been trying to buy the Buffy complete series box set, all seven seasons in one nifty package, with fun bonus things. Buffy's probably my all-time favourite show, but I've never owned any of the episodes. So I thought I might be able to find a deal on eBay, and keep my eye on a couple of auctions. There's one in particular that seems like a reasonable price from a guy in Montreal, but the auction page says shipping is $35US. I imagine that's his top figure, for priority courier or something, which is what we do in our auctions and then provide individual quotes on request. So I mail the guy and ask him what regular small parcel shipping would be to Calgary, and he replies $35US. Now the Canada Post website tells me that it should actually be more like $9CAN, so I mail him back with this info. His response is he likes to make extra profit by overcharging on the shipping. Sure, throw in a couple extra bucks for your trouble, no problem, but four times the price? By my reasoning, if you expect to be making an extra $25 off the auction, raise your minimum bid by that much. Don't be a dickhead.

So then I'm watching another auction, and decided to wait until the last few minutes to bid so I don't get outbid at the last minute. This guy is offering free shipping, which is far more to my liking. The minimum bid is higher, but that's fine. So I'm waiting, watching, and there's about 10 minutes left with no bids. There's me sitting in my office, rubbing my hands and cackling with glee. Until I hit refresh, and see that the auction has terminated. The guy who was selling decided to log into his other account and use the "buy it now" feature to end it early. To be clear, the minimum bid was $75, there were no bids, the buy it now price was $150. Do not tell me that someone is going to pay double the price with minutes to go. No.

I have learned my lesson. I find a third auction but this time bid with about a day to go. Maximum bid, $85. With about five minutes to go, I'm the winning bidder with about $65 I think. Jockstrap comes to pick me up on our first and highly unsuccessful attempt to see Pirates. I'm confident in leaving that I'll come back home to find myself the new owner of a Buffy Complete Series set. Instead I come home to find out that I was undercut with a minute to go by some other person. Stupid.

The next morning I got our Mastercard bill, which made me cognizant of the fact that I don't have $85 for me to be spending on DVDs right now anyway. It also made me cognizant of the fact that Mastercard are thieves. I underpaid our last bill by $100 or so, I had made the payment before the statement was sent out. I do things that way, due dates on bills mean nothing to me. I just make a payment whenever I think about it. Anyway, I expect to be charged interest for that $100, that's only fair. But instead of a $3 or so interest charge, there was one for about $35. Now I'm thinking, there's no way they can charge 35% interest per month, and I call them to ask WTF. Apparently they have a new policy down at Mastercard where if you don't pay your full balance on a bill, not only do you get charged interest for the difference, but all your charges on your next bill as well. Now I don't see how they can charge me interest for something that isn't even due yet, and especially after I'd already paid the whole thing off. Anyway, they reversed the interest charge. It's funny how a little question like "does Visa have this policy?" can get instant results. Suffice to say I'll be cancelling my Mastercard just as soon as I can get off my ass and apply for a Visa or Amex. That's just highway robbery, and, it would seem to me, illegal. I suppose if we as people keep rolling over and taking it, they're going to keep getting more and more unreasonable in their demands. This is a card I already pay a $100 annual fee for.

Thank god it was a nice sunny day so I could restore my mental harmony. An afternoon in the yard has me nicely sorted.

Also, I wore pants yesterday. First time in two weeks, ladies and gents.

Some Post-Op Notes

2006-07-13T11:50:00.000-06:00

Well it's over and done with. I've been meaning to write sooner, but frankly I spend my days watching Dr. Phil and Deadwood and napping, and there hasn't been any room for blogging.

So it went all right I suppose. The tumor which had been peach pit-sized at the time of the ultrasound in March was grapefruit-sized at the time of the actual operation, so it was a good thing I didn't take the "wait and see" approach to it. Sadly, I'm short an ovary as well now, as the tumor had pretty much encompassed it and couldn't be taken off. No lopsided jokes, please. The one on the other side had gone away completely and was probably only a cyst after all. It took about two hours to do the actual surgery though, which was twice as long as expected. I woke up, they kept me nice and high, made me lay around for a few hours and let me go home around 1 p.m.

And because it's me, the ordeal had its moments of hilarity. The following conversation actually took place, and before they gave me the drugs too:

Nurse: So the surgeon will be making four incisions altogether, one in your bellybutton, two on your side and one at your hairline.

Me: (shocked) You're going to cut into my HEAD? (covers forehead)

Nurse: (flustered) No dear, your other hairline. (points)

Me: Ohhhhhhhhhh. That hairline.

Cue Darcy laughing his ass off at me.

So now I have all these gross stitches everywhere and Darcy calls me his Franken-wife. They hurt. I can't sleep on my stomach. I can't wear pants. I can't walk around the block without needing a nap afterwards. But on the upside, I've been totally babied. I've gotten cookies, homemade soup, flowers, movies and books. So I guess life isn't that bad. Would love to be able to get dressed and do something though - even if it's only going to see a movie or having dinner. But my 45 minutes or so wearing pants on Tuesday taught me that it's too soon, and I refuse to wear pajama pants in public.

Guess I have to keep being lazy then... ho hum...

It's All About Who You Talk To

2006-06-29T19:20:00.000-06:00

I've been having this ongoing problem with my cell phone (maybe you've tried to call it in the last three months or so and have never heard back from me?). It doesn't work. It has to stay plugged into the charger 20 hours a day to work for the other four. I've had two software upgrades and replaced the entire motherboard in it, which cost me over $200 altogether, and it just gets worse and worse. And every time I call Rogers I get a different story - first there was nothing they could do. Then I could have a new phone for free as a hardware upgrade, but I had to wait until the end of July. Then I didn't qualify for that anymore, but they offered $100 off a $350 phone instead. Umm, no thanks, not when it's cheaper to buy out the remainder of my contract and switch providers.

Then it stopped working altogether. It wouldn't charge, wouldn't turn on, wouldn't do anything at all except make me progressively angrier and angrier. Rage. So I'm all, take your stupid phone and shove it. But I said it in a nice way. And as I've learned, being nice but disappointed goes a long way.

Now I get a $350 phone for $4.99. Granted I do have to send in a rebate coupon but still a fine deal in my eyes. And I get to go back to trusty old Nokia and be done with this Motorola crap.

So I'm having a phone-smashing party once the new one arrives. For the low price of a quarter, you can hit my Motorola phone with a hammer.

I'm also curious as to what you think of me: take a moment to fill this out It's fun. Really. The question is, do you perceive me as I perceive myself?

My Black Thumbs of Death

2006-06-21T13:06:00.000-06:00

If those gifted people who are good with gardening are said to have green thumbs, mine have got to be the black thumbs of death.

There's been a mass suicide in my flower beds. Out of the 40 separate perrennial flower plants I planted back in May, only six are surviving today. The rest, although carefully watered, nurtured, Miracle Gro-ed and weeded, have passed to the great flowerbed in the sky. And for the life of me, I can't figure out why. Most of them were dead within a week of going into the ground. I even re-soiled the beds before planting because the dirt was pretty old, and I figured the nutrients would be pretty spare.

Furthermore, out of the six remaining plants, only one of them has actually bothered to flower.

It's very frustrating. My neighbours all have perfect gardens, with stunning multi-floral displays that all seem to be thriving. Having had little luck in previous years with tulips and other plantings, I decided this year I'd go the lazy route and plant perrennials, a one-time job that would pay dividends for years afterwards. But as the majority of them are deceased, I'm going to have to come up with some other plan. Gardening just can't be that much of a priority for me right now, what with working full time and doing freelance on most of the days I'm not working. I don't want to spend two hours a day planting and arranging and fiddling with the thing. I didn't even bother with the vegetable garden this year, I know I don't have the time to commit to doing a proper job of maintaining it. And this after I spent something like $40 on seeds. (We won't even mention the $150 I spent on the perrennials...)

Sigh. I'm a murderer.

Muwah-ha-ha-ha

2006-06-09T19:50:00.000-06:00

Let this be a lesson to all of you out there: never EVER bet pants with me unless you expect to lose. Darcy's known this for a long time now and will only agree to bet for pants because we share a bank account and he knows I'm going to buy them anyway. (He currently owes me three pairs, I think)

(Confused? Let me fill you in: anytime I ever make a wager with anyone, I always make the bet for pants, as in the loser has to buy the winner a pair. I never bet for pants unless I'm 120% certain I'm right. I've never lost a pants bet.)

Even my mom won't bet pants with me. The furthest she'll go is for coffee (which reminds me, you still owe me a Starbucks because you didn't think spiders have eight eyes, Marmee) (Yes, the bets are that stupid) (Yes, a lot of this post is going to be in brackets)

Anyway at my mom's birthday party dinner the other night at Vintage, we were talking about Luxembourg and how Darcy and I had briefly considered taking a day trip there while we're in France, and my dad said something about how it's so far and we'd have to go all the way through Germany or something. So I told him that Luxembourg shares a border with France, at which point he became belligerent and denied it.

So I called pants, and he accepted, and we shook in front of 10 witnesses.

Then I forgot to look it up for about a week, because even though I was 120% certain Luxembourg does border France, I figured I should probably offer up proof. Anyway, this morning I sent off a nice picture of a map to my dear dad and he replied this afternoon, conceding defeat.

Which means on Tuesday I'm going shoooooopping...

Where can I find Versace in Calgary?

(just kidding dad)

Ahh, Comedy

2006-05-30T01:42:00.000-06:00

Recent comedic moments at work:

- someone asking about the recently released pay-per-view movie "Memos of a Gisha Girl" (a heart-rending tale about an Iranian receptionist) (Gisha is a city in Iran. There. Now you don't have to wonder)

- man who kept calling us "Starlight" (it's Starchoice)

- man who kept calling me Kristen (sounds nothing like Nicole)

- a 45-minute conversation about pajamas

- being told that I "sound single" (if there's desperation in my voice, it's because lunch is in 10 minutes)

- being asked why we cut off their phone service (you may want to consult the toll-free number on your phone bill and dial again)

- 12-year-olds pretending to be their parents in order to get porn, and when asked to verify how they pay their bill as a security question, replying "with money" (sadly, we abandoned the barter system years ago)

- being asked for a good recipe for chicken (KFC?)

- being asked if I would pay their bill for them "just this one time" (when I start paying my own bills, I'll consider paying yours too)

It's the little things that make it interesting.

It's Been One Of Those Days...

2006-05-23T18:52:00.000-06:00

You ever have one of those days where so many embarrassing things happen to you that you just want to crawl into a hole and die? Well that was my today. Only no one knew about any of the embarrassing things except me. As far as I know, the entire world is oblivious to all of it. Which frankly doesn't make it any better, because they still happened. Mostly I was embarrassed for myself in a real "oh-my-god I can't believe that just happened" kind of way.

(and if you're sitting here waiting to hear about what those embarrassing things were, forget it. I'm not telling.)

I'm sure it would have been even more humiliating if other people were aware, because then I'd always be thinking about how they were thinking about it, but I'll probably still do that anyway, and possibly even obsess about whether or not anyone does know and is just too polite to mention it. It's entirely possible. The thought kind of makes me sick.

Oh how I long to be one of those cool, collected people that can just take everything in stride, and/or never has anything bad happen to them in the first place.

In the meantime, I think I'll just laugh at myself.

Stupid MySpace

2006-05-19T22:49:00.000-06:00

Great, like this thing doesn't take up enough of my time, now I have a MySpace too. It started out as an accident, I think it was Lindsay that sent me the initial invitation. So I set it up and promptly forgot about for about six months. Then I chanced to get an email from MySpace saying that some random wanted to add me as their friend. Fine, accept, yes, go on with life. Then another one. Now I have three friends, including the City of Calgary. I feel vaguely popular.

Then I realize that some peoples' MySpaces are prettier than mine. Annoying. A downloadable template and much html fiddling later, mine is pretty too.

Then I realize that some people actually write things about themselves on their MySpace. I muster up some words and spend a great deal of time thinking about how to make myself sound interesting. Now I have content.

Then I realize some people have more friends than I do. Very annoying. I want more friends. I go through my hotmail address book and search out for anyone who has a MySpace of their own. A surprising number do, including some people that I would have never guessed would bother. Jason, I'm looking at you. A surprising number don't though, including some people that I would never guessed didn't. Jockstrap, I'm looking at you, she who already has a MSN space and a blog. Whatever. Friend requests sent. Friend requests pending. I now have nine friends. I want more friends. I want 700 million friends. I check every day to see if I have more.

My MySpace wants to be friends with your MySpace. Things it offers: content that is virtually never updated, several pictures of me in various poses including the infamous "i are drunkded" picture, a pretty background in soothing tones of green and blue and a blog that has never been written in. Because frankly, one blog is enough.

A link to my MySpace is over to the right, in the links section. Please be my friend?

Read This Book

2006-05-16T10:55:00.000-06:00

The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger. This is the best book I've read in a long, long time. It's so well-written, so compelling a story, that I couldn't put it down. I read it at every spare moment until it was done.

(by the way, hey Jockstrap, can I borrow your copy of The Time Traveler's Wife? Yes? Thanks. xoxo)

It's about a man who has a genetic defect that causes him to jump forward and backwards in time at random, with no control over when or where he ends up. The woman he marries has known him since she was six as he keeps going backwards in time to see her when she was young, but he meets her for the first time when he's 28. It's basically the story of their relationship and how they deal with his time traveling. It makes for a very unusual love affair. And the end made me cry. Not just a gentle welling tear that rapidly subsided, as the odd book has done, but sobbing, face in the pillow weeping. It scared Darcy more than a little bit. I've never cried like that from a book. Movies, yes, even the odd commercial (the one by the Humane Society with the dead puppy springs to mind) but never a book.

I'd love to see how it would work as a movie. They would have to find an actor who could could be just as convincing at 28 as at 45 though, which might be hard.

The somewhat depressing part is when I read books like this, that just steal my heart, I get kind of sad because I feel like I'll never in my life be able to write something this powerful and gripping. But at the same time I'm appreciative that someone can, because I feel like a different person after having read it.

Highly recommended, a future classic in my opinion. I wish more modern literature was this good.

Whoops

2006-05-10T11:37:00.000-06:00

So I've sort of let this slide for the last little while, can I help it if there's nothing interesting going on in my life? I'm at a creative low, and all the things I want to rant about are best kept to myself.

My mommy and daddy are leaving me tomorrow for like four months. I'm feeling abandoned and sad.

Actually I'm feeling sad about everything right now. I ran out of my happy head meds a few days ago and my appointment to get a prescription refill isn't until tomorrow. So I've been very mopey and generally self-loathing. I think it's withdrawal. The moral of the story is I really need to keep track of these things and not wait until the last minute to get them done.

In one bit of good news, we leave for France in three months and 13 days. I'm starting to feel vaguely excited in the way that you do when something good is coming up.

In one bit of bad news, my surgery is in only 8 weeks. I'm starting to feel more than vaguely nervous and upset about that. But don't worry about it, I'm just being melodramatic, creating these soap opera scenes in my head. Most of the time I try not to think about it at all.

Eww. I just realized I'm not going to be able to sleep on my stomach for like two weeks. I always sleep on my stomach. Dammit.

Le sigh. I'm going back to bed.

Woot!

2006-05-02T11:35:00.000-06:00

Finally, all those years of taking language and grammar classes, reading and playing Scrabble have paid off.

My work had a Text Twist tournament the other day, and I demolished everyone.

I won an iPod Shuffle.

That's right, not because I'm a good employee or anything, but because I can spell.

Nice wife that I am, I gave it to Darcy, since I already have a Nano. So don't bother sucking up to me.

I'm also in the running to win another Nano (a black one!) in another work contest later this week, but that one I'll be selling if I win it to help fund The Trip. And next month they're giving away a couple XBox 360s.

See mom? All that money you spent on my education wasn't a waste after all.

Le Sigh

2006-04-26T12:13:00.000-06:00

So awhile back we had to change our phone number due to a high frequency of fax machine calls at all hours of the day, most especially at 5 a.m. You may recall the extreme frustration this produced.

Well it seems I just can't win when it comes to phone numbers. At first when we got our new number everything was fine, absolutely 0 fax calls. Telephonic peace was restored in the Bross household.

Everyone gets the occasional wrong number, it's a fact that there are plenty of funble-fingered people out there or dyslexics who can't tell the difference between a 6 and a 9. Some people even like wrong numbers, but those are sad people who have no one to talk to all day. I recommend getting a cat. Anyway, as soon as we got our new number, we started to notice a pattern in our wrong number calls. They were all for a company called Gregg Distributing. They deal in automotive parts, from what I can gather. And it seems Gregg's number is only one off of ours.

People call us three or four times a day.

Granted, not at five in the morning, but still. When the phone rings there's generally some expectation that whoever's on the other line wants to talk to you and isn't going to hang up as soon as you say hello. It's about to the point where if I see the caller is a car dealership on the caller ID, I'll answer by saying "hello, this is NOT Gregg Distributing" which generally makes whoever's on the other end pause for a good ten seconds (okay, I've only done that once).

If it wasn't for the fact that Telus has me by the short hairs due to an ill-advised internet contract I signed, I'd just cancel the whole thing and live off my cell phone.

I Love...

2006-04-11T17:43:00.000-06:00

My lime-green spatula.

I'm not allowed to say how much it was because I'll get into trouble.

I heart you, Williams-Sonoma.

Spirit Fingers!

2006-04-11T16:57:00.000-06:00

There's nothing quite like a dance competition. I've been going to my sister's for years and years, and it gets to be you know what to expect when you're there. There are certain unspoken rules, which, with my incredible powers of observation, I happened to note at her last one in Lethbridge where I was a spectator. This is what I discovered:

1. All 14-year-old girls will dress too scantily for their age, but justify it because "it's only for dance." They'll also wear five pounds of makeup.

2. All tap dance numbers will have one big girl, and she'll always be half a tap off the rest of the group.

3. Solo numbers are hideously boring, without exception.

4. Contemporary dance is designed to be as ugly and unattractive as possible. Movements must be jerky, or not in step with the music, or if the dancer is truly adept, both.

5. All dancers in lyrical numbers must put forth the Lyrical Anguish Face (LAF). Their expressions indicate they've just seen someone step on a kitten's head, or something equally horrible.

6. Jazz pants don't look good on anyone, whether you're a rail or a blimp. They're the Impossible Garment.

I should have been an anthropologist.

"Snobs Recoil"

2006-04-05T12:34:00.000-06:00

I've also been playing anagram this afternoon. Anything to keep myself from working on my article, right? There aren't too many interesting ones with just my first and last name, but when you throw in my middle name, you get gems like:

- redescribe moth loins (not being an entomologist, I think I'll pass)
- herbicide rots melons (no shit?!?)
- lost herbicide sermon (maybe if they hadn't lost it, they'd know it would rot their melons...)
- herbicide snot morsel (I don't know how to respond to this)
- incredible mesh torso (This is quite possibly my superhero name)
- incredible shoe storm (The current condition of my closet)
- incredible moth sores (Possibly located on their loins?)
- recombined loser shit (Ouch.)
- smooth line describer (A career with endless potential!)
- describe hotel minors ("Well, officer, one of them had a skateboard...)
- describe mother's loin (Umm, no thank you.)
- bisected rhino morsel (It's what's for dinner.)
- bicolored semen shirt (I really should do some laundry.)
- moldier obscene shirt (I really should do some laundry.)
- Hitler's bodice sermon (One of his more famous speeches)
- more bristlecone dish! (It's what's for dessert.)
- broiled ostrich semen (a sauce for the bristlecone dish)
- retch inside bloomers (if any of the above don't appeal to you)
- become hired nostrils (now that's useful career advice)
- become doltish rinser (not so sound advice)
- biochemist nerd loser (awwww...)
- bitchier models snore (I however, don't)
- embolic shit endorser (buy yours today!)
- chiseled tin sombrero (it hangs above my incredible shoe storm)
- horrible incest demos (tickets at your local Ticketmaster)
- stone crib demolisher (trust me, I'm doing you a favour)
- horns bleed eroticism (oh my.)
- coiled hermits' boners (oh my.)
- bile directs hormones (I've always wondered where they came from)
- their bosoms reclined (mine are still pretty perky though)
- coltish reindeer mobs (downright dangerous, frankly)
- shoot Berliner medics (but only if they overcharge)
- boil censored hermits (since we're already maiming people)
- Berlin dooms heretics (officially not a nice place to live, what with all the shooting and boiling)
- morbid, chestier Olsen (I think that's Mary-Kate)
- mindless robotic here (hey, it's my day off)
- hire demonic lobsters (they're good for dirty work)
- cheerio, blond misters! (and to everyone else reading)

courtesy of wordsmith.org

Now that I've laughed my ass off, I'm in a fine mood for my doctor's appointment this afternoon...

Sensationally Stupid

2006-04-05T10:38:00.000-06:00

I hate commercials that make me despise the product they're advertising. I've seen that horrid Wendy's Sensational Salads commercial about 40 times in the last two days (if you don't know what I'm talking about, click here and watch the second one on the top), and far from making me want one of their salads (who wants a salad with chili on it, anyway?) it makes me actively hate the salads, that woman and the entire Wendy's chain in general. I'm afraid to set foot in one of their restaurants, for fear she'll actually be standing behind the counter threatening to toss a regular salad at me. I mean, really. Say 'sensational' one more fucking time. I dare you. It gets said eight times in the ad. That's once every 3.75 seconds. Furthermore, why does she say 'ole!' after she adds the cheddar cheese? Since when is cheddar the least bit Mexican? And is she supposed to be on a cooking show? Because last time I checked, Emeril and Jamie and Bobby don't use plastic disposable bowls on their shows, nor, for that matter, do they repeat the same word every 3.75 seconds. Not even Emeril, who seems to be toning down the Bam!s a little.

Dave Thomas must be rolling in his grave.

Oh. My. GOD!

2006-03-29T20:41:00.000-07:00

I'm going to Paaaaaaaaris!!!

The Ultimate Survey Thing

2006-03-24T23:15:00.000-07:00

My sister made it, and every time I get one of these I always think to myself that instead of mailing it off to all these people, I should just post it here, but I remember about 8 seconds after hitting the 'send' button in my email. Bother, as Winnie the Pooh says. So here it is. There should be no need to send me anymore surveys, because you will shortly know every single last thing about me. But don't let that stop you, keep sending them...

1. What's your favourite constellation? Casseopeia, it's one of those ones that not everyone knows, so if I point it out, people get the vague idea that I'm smart about these things. My least favourite constellation is Orion, because when I was a kid and I could see it out my bedroom window, that meant it was winter.
2. Have you ever eaten something ridiculously spicy for money? Yes, I got $20 for drinking a bottle of hot sauce at the Santa Fe Grill immediately before my grade 11 math final. Needless to say, I didn't finish the exam.
3. Are you really good at something embarrassing? (ie - flower arranging) I don't think it's particularly embarrassing - I knit. As far as things that are embarrassing, I'm pretty good at mentioning how awful the wait staff are in a restaurant when one of them is directly behind me.
4. What's your favourite Christmas tradition? It's a toss-up between always sitting in the same spots Christmas morning, or seeing my 91-year-old grandma wearing a paper hat at the dinner table.
5. What kind of things do you draw when you're doodling mindlessly? Triangles. Lots and lots of them.
6. Do you consider yourself a good tipper? If the service merits it, then yes. But I'm not the type who will leave a lousy tip to make a point. I just won't leave one at all.
7. What age were you the first time you ever got drunk? What and how much did you drink? 15 or 16, it was a long time ago. I was at a friend's apartment and it was Mike's Hard Lemonade. Yech.
8. When you were a little kid, what was your dream career? What do you mean, when I was a kid? I still want to be a pop star.
9. Have you ever hung up on a telemarketer before? Sure, but more often I'll let them go through their entire spiel without saying a word after 'hello' so that they spend less time harrassing other people. Lately I've also taken to asking them over and over if this is Aunt Mabel until they hang up.
10. What do you cook best? Comfort food like homemade mac and cheese, meatballs and gravy, lasagna... I do it all, baby.
11. What was your favourite cartoon as a child? Jem and the Holograms. She-Ra was pretty wicked too.
12. What's your shower routine? I love long hot showers, but I feel incredibly guilty about the water and power waste from taking them, so I try to be fairly efficient. Shampoo, body wash, rinse body, rinse shampoo, apply conditioner, wash face, rinse conditioner. I do only shower at night though, showering always makes me sleepy. And the water has to be scorchingly hot.
13. What's your earliest childhood memory? It's hard to pinpoint how old I was, I know it was the first house I lived in and we moved out of that before I was two. I had a nanny then and when she was watching TV or whatever I ate about four bananas. I really liked bananas.
14. What and where is the most interesting scar on your body? Maybe my face-first-into-the-goalpost scar through my eyebrow. Looking forward to having a real live surgical scar in the near future.
15. Everyone is irrationally afraid of something; what's your phobia? I am utterly irrationally afraid of spiders and flying. In fact, the last time I had to fly (this is totally true,I'm not making it up) I had a dream that I was on the plane and got bit by a black widow.
16. Do you have a passive movement? What is it? I am the queen of passive movement. I can't hold still. Usually I'll jiggle one of my legs. You know you can burn an extra 400 calories a day just through passive movement?
17. What's your favourite kind of cheese? Mmmm, cheese, the forbidden fruit, the only dairy food I can't give up. I have yet to come across a cheese I didn't like, but my favourite has to be triple-cream camembert or smoked gouda.
18. Where were the monsters when you were a kid, in the closet, under the bed, or somewhere else? When I was a kid? There's a monster in my closet right now, thanks to a horrible short story I read by Stephen King...
19. If you had your dream bathroom, what would it look like? Oh lord, words can hardly describe. First of all, it's outside, at the edge of a tropical garden. There's a huge cast-iron tub with feet under a gazebo. The water is always warm, and the towels smell faintly of vanilla.
20. What's the most exotic animal you've ever touched? Python. I was feverish, and since reptiles are attracted to heat, it was pretty hard to get it unwound from my waist.
21. What's the most exotic animal you've ever eaten? Ostrich maybe? Then again, who knows what that mystery meat is at the little hole in the wall in Chinatown...
22. Where was the most inopportune place you've ever thrown up? Hmm, well I threw up on my mom's fur coat when I was a kid... since then, just the bathrooms of various bars.
23. What's in your omelette? Cheddar, tomatoes, ham and green onions, plus seasoning salt.
24. Who's your alter-ego? The girl in my head who's way cooler than me.
25. If you were to permanently and legally change your name tomorrow, what would you change it to? I spend more time thinking up names for my kids than I do for myself. I've never really considered it.
26. Can you bring yourself to tell someone outright that you don't like them? Oh yeah. No qualms about it whatsoever. Unless I have to see them again, that's just awkward.
27. Let's say the speed limit is 100 km/h. How fast would you be driving? I tend to fall into the 125 km/h zone. Not sure how I haven't gotten a photo-radar ticket on my way to and from work yet.
28. Are you, or have you ever been pee-shy? To the extent that I'll sometimes sit in a public washroom for minutes until the person in the next stall leaves. If they're a couple down, I'm okay.
29. What makes you woozy just to look at? My own blood, especially if I've cut my finger. Needles. In fact I don't even need to look at the needle, just thinking about it is enough to make me feel queasy.
30. What do you consider "staying up late"? These days... 11 p.m.
31. Everyone has some kind of collection. What's yours? I used to collect shot glasses, but I've kind of fallen out of that. I'm pretty good at collecting debt though.
32. Do you believe in fate or destiny? In what way? Nope, I believe in chaos.
33. Are you superstitious? In what way? Not really, I am a little OCD about some things though.
34. Do you own a musical instrument? Can you play it? Nope, not even a slide whistle.
35. Can you play any (other) kind of musical instrument? I can play a bit of piano, and a bit of guitar.
36. How many times do you usually hit the snooze button? I'm only allowing myself one snooze these days. I recently realized that if I set my alarm later and snooze less, I actually get to sleep more.
37. What's the most shameful CD in your collection? Umm? I sold a bunch of CDs I didn't listen to anymore a few years back, so I'm really not sure.
38. What do you do when you're listening to music, sing out loud, lip sync with the words, or just listen? I'll sing sometimes if I'm alone, especially on road trips. Otherwise, I just listen.
39. When it comes to hygiene, what's something you're really picky about? Towels. I will never use the same towel more than once before washing it again. Needless to say, we own about 20 towels.
40. If you were going to find a dead body somewhere, where do you think it would be? Not really something I've ever even thought about before... maybe camping? The victim of an unfortunate grizzly encounter?
41. Have you ever read the Bible? I've tried once or twice, but only got about four pages in. All that begetting gets pretty monotonous after awhile.
42. What do you consider to be the foulest substance on earth? Republicans.
43. What's a song you're embarrassed to say you've obsessed over? Hit Me Baby One More Time.
44. Do your feet get too cold or too hot? They're cold more often than hot, but hot feet are way harder to ignore than cold ones.
45. What's your favourite conspiracy theory? That cold fusion was really invented years ago, but the oil companies are suppressing the technology.
46. What kind of calendar do you have? I have a day-planner. It's... black.
47. What's your favourite fad? Round-toed shoes. Perfect for someone with peasant feet like me.
48. How do you like your drinking water? Room temperature, and preferably mixed with scotch.
49. What kind of keychain do you have? A blue carabiner.
50. What's something you're always losing even when you try to be careful? My sense of perspective. I tend to blow things out of proportion.
51. What's your favourite amusement park ride? Roller coasters, or the swing ride.
52. What was the name of your favourite teacher(s) during grade school? Do you know his/her first name too? Mr. Blanchard in grade 9, Mr. Goodman in grades 11 and 12.
53. Off the top of your head, what's the funniest word you can think of? Underpants.
54. How many languages can you swear in? English, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Serbian, thanks to Stan.
55. What kind of charitable thing do you try to do regularly? Donate to the food bank.
56. Do you have any weird goals? I'd kinda like to try being a hermit.
57. What are the best and worst parts of doing laundry? The part where it's doing itself in the machine and you can walk away (best) and putting the clean laundry away (worst)
58. If you had a tank full of goldfish, who would you name them after? They'd all be called Sharkbait.
59. How do you take your marshmallows? With my fingers...
60. If the world suddenly ended and you were the very last person left, what would be the very first thing you'd do? Hope to god I don't get appendicitis and need a doctor.
61. Name something you horde. The remote.
62. What do you do when you can't sleep? Take a sleeping pill, then go look to see what the cats are doing until it takes effect and hope I can get back to bed in time.
63. What part of your body is the most ticklish? (Now be honest!) One small place on my back, where if you press it just right, will make me squirm.
64. Have you ever gotten a bull's-eye while playing darts? Probably. Not really high on my list of great achievements.
65. Are you a label peeler? Yep, and a coaster shredder too.
66. When/Where is the best time/place to think? I like to pretend to be reading but actually just be staring blankly at the page, running ideas through my head.
67. Do you have a habit you display when you're deep in thought? (ie - pacing) I tend to eliminate all sources of distraction from my brain, to the point that people will think I'm incredibly rude because they'll say hello or something and I'll walk right by them.
68. What's the bane of your existence? Slow walkers in malls and people who kick the back of my chair in movie theatres.
69. What's something you're always breaking or ruining? Plants. Not so much ruining as killing though.
70. Do you prefer full- or wide-screen movies? Do they even make full-screen movies anymore? Who's that dense?
71. Do you name your plants? Do you think if I did, they would live?
72. What's something you're thoroughly uncreative with? Organization. Everything is just alphabetical.
73. If you were to die tomorrow and, as a ghost, could give instructions for your own funeral, what would you tell your loved ones to do with you? Pass a bottle of rum around at my graveside, and make my headstone a sundial.
74. What do you do during long phone conversations? I pace. I can't sit still on the phone.
75. Do you have any small (or large) mutations on your body? Other than the golf ball-sized tumour inside me? My eyes are off-kilter and if I don't wear my glasses I see two of everything all the time. It's not as big a deal as it sounds, I'm used to it.
76. Where is a place where you never ever smile? In my sleep.
77. In your point of view, who is "the enemy"? Republicans. And Wal-Mart.
78. Do you have any self-taught skills? I tought myself html from scratch, and can generally figure out anything computer-related with a bit of fiddling.
79. Have you ever cross-dressed specifically for the purpose of looking like someone of the opposite sex? Don't I always look like a 12-year-old boy?
80. Which do like better, funny quotes, inspirational quotes, or some other genre of quotes? I like fake quotes, but I'm also a fan of Bushisms because they sound like they should be fake, only they're not.
81. Do you have some genre of books/TV/movies that's especially dear to you? I've been reading a lot of classic novels these days. As for movies, anything with Audrey Hepburn or a natural disaster. The disastier the better.
82. When are you most photogenic? When I get married. I don't do that too often though.
83. Who are you jealous of? People who have the means to travel as often and to wherever they want.
84. Got any weird eating habits? I always, always leave something on my plate. And I'm possibly the world's slowest eater.
85. Do you know what your parents were going to name you if you'd been born the opposite sex? If not, what do you think your opposite sex name would be? I was to have been David. In fact until I actually emerged, everyone was 100% certain I was a boy, so I think I didn't even have a name for a bit.
86. What's something interesting about your handwriting? That I don't handwrite and I never have. I print.
87. Where do you sleep on your bed? On whichever side is furthest from the door, and way down so the blankets cover my entire head except for my nose.
88. Who's your favourite Muppet? The Swedish Chef. Bork bork bork...
89. Ever been completely naked outdoors? What did it feel like? I once streaked down a country road in the middle of the night. It felt cold. I hurt my foot on a rock. I was drunk.
90. What's the most sick you've ever been? Hard to say... having food poisoning a couple years ago wasn't too pleasant, and the whole intestinal thing from a couple months ago wasn't exactly a walk in the park either. But from what I understand I was sick a lot when I was a baby with weird fevers and stuff.
91. Any part(s) of your body fake? Pins, plates, cyborg brains...? Part of a molar, but otherwise I'm just like God made me. Except for the piercings and tattoos and stuff.
92. What do you normally eat for a midnight snack? Cereal's a popular one, or celery with peanut butter. Or sherbet. Or popcorn. Or I'll just go ahead and make myself an entire meal.
93. Any learned taste aversions? (A learned taste aversion is a violent, pseudo-allergic reaction to foods and drinks that have, er, "caused trouble" in your system in the past. They usually develop from food poisoning.) Tequila, for sure, and mussels weren't my friend for awhile either. Oh, and scrambled eggs and smoked salmon thanks to a particularly choppy boat ride I took in Ireland... thinking about it still makes me nauseous.
94. Everyone should have a personal Monopoly piece. What's yours? I like the wheelbarrow. It's pretty silly. But I usually pick the car or the hat.
96. What's the most you've ever won from a Scratch-n'-Win before? $20? I don't really buy them.
97. Which accent is your favourite? At first I thought Irish with Pierce Brosnan in mind, but then I thought Scottish and Ewan McGregor. I'm leaning towards Scottish.
98. Where do you usually find money unexpectedly? In the pockets of jackets I haven't worn in awhile, or in Darcy's pants pockets when I'm doing the laundry.
99. What's your vice? I can only pick one? Okay... porn. Just kidding. It's kittens.
100. If you were to make up your own religion, what would you call it and what would it be about? It would be called Nic-o-mania and my followers would be the Nicanese. They would all have to be male and handsome and supply their own pirate costumes. Our fortress of lust will be on a tropical island.

As if anyone actually read all the way to the bottom...

Fragrant Spring Onion Sauce Explodes Cow Son

2006-03-12T16:24:00.000-07:00

Or perhaps a little fragrant bone in garlic in strange flavour? With a side of big bowl fresh immerse miscellaneous germ? But don't worry, a west bean pays the fish a soup, so your bill's covered.

The best menu EVER

I laughed till I cried.

Okay

2006-03-09T08:53:00.000-07:00

Okay, okay, okayokayokay.

Breathe.

I am not dying. I'm sick, but I'm definitely not dying. This is a big plus. All the same, I'm sick. Or diseased, or something. Abnormal.

Backstory. Last month, when I was in the hospital for the whole colitis-infection incident, they did that CT scan of my abdomen to rule out appendicitis. How unfun was that? At any rate, when they got the pretty pictures of my insides back, they said they found "abnormalities" on my ovaries. Probably cysts, I was told, go get an ultrasound when you have a moment.

So I read up about cysts, and cysts are all right. They sort themselves out in their own good time. So I put it out of my head and go for my nice holiday, with the ultrasound scheduled for when I get back.

So I have it, and first of all it's not the type of ultrasound where they rub the wand over your belly and get you all gooey. It's an "internal" ultrasound, which is basically a large sound-wave emitting dildo.

Good times.

And then they make me wait a whole week to find out what's up. I knew it was something right away, because the sonogrammer spent about 30 seconds looking over at the left side of me, and ten minutes on the right. Awesome. But it's still just a cyst, right?

Nope. Tumour. The size of a ping pong ball. Sitting right there on my ovary, being all secretive and covert and not even letting me know it's there with some sharp abdominal pain or something. And growing.

Okay, so it's not cancer. Or, as my doctor put it yesterday afternoon when I finally got my results, "there's a very slim chance it's cancer." It looks like something called a dermoid, which I urge you not to type into Google images if you want to have an appetite for lunch. So yay, I have to have surgery sometime in the near future to get it out of me before it gets so big it starts twisting things around in there, which will, I'm told, give me that reassuring abdominal pain I've been missing.

I feel so betrayed by my own body right now. If I can't trust it to take care of itself, what can I trust? I feel disgusting, knowing that this thing is inside me, on my reproductive organ, no less, which I was planning on using. Dammit. But I keep telling myself, it could be worse, right? They're going to fix it, right?

I am freaking right the fuck out.

Another Adventure

2006-03-07T12:06:00.000-07:00

Well, welcome back. I've been feeling far too meh these days to bother posting anything, due to various circumstances. But, I took all these pictures while I was in the Bahamas with the intent of constructing a little story, so here it is. Pretend I'm not despondent and enjoy it.

The Adventures of Sandy the Starfish

One day a lonely starfish named Sandy washed up on shore. "I'm so lonely!" he cried.

Sandy spotted a crab scuttling by. "Will you be my friend?" he asked the crab. "No!" shouted the crab, and he pinched Sandy on the leg.

Just then Sandy spotted two colourful starfish coming up to him. "Hello!" he waved. "Will you be my friends?"

"Silly starfish!" said a voice from above. Those aren't real, they're just tattoos! But I'll be your friend anyway," and Sandy felt himself being lifted high in the air to behold a young-ish girl.

"You can't keep him!" the girl's more pragmatic sister said. "He'll die, and make your suitcase smell." The girl reluctantly agreed.

"Well, I guess it's back to the sea with you, Sandy," the girl said. "I'm sure you'll make other friends there." She gently released him back into the surf.

Sandy said goodbye to the girl with the starfish tattoos one last time before swimming off.

Sandy leapt out of the sea for a final wave goodbye, while the girl waved energetically back.

"Hooray for Sandy!" the girl cried!

The Game

2006-02-09T20:49:00.000-07:00

Ever since I can remember, we've always played The Game. The Game, in my childhood, was a sort of variation of the "what do you call a man in a mailbox?" "Bill" and so on and so forth. We mostly played it with Go-Bots (the cheap version of Transformers), as in "what do you call a Go-Bot in the winter time?" "A Snow-Bot." Yay, much fun and laughter ensues. It was a particular favourite of me and my dad.

So anyway, I'm not sure if you know, but I'm a bit timid. Sometimes, things scare me. This is the understatement of the century. But when they do, I like to play The Game. The Game can make things less scary, because you laugh at them. And the better the word you play with is, the funnier The Game is. The other night was a particularly awesome round, utilizing the word "asteroid." (Yes, from time to time I fret about asteroids. Not in any serious way, more of an abstract "what if an asteroid is heading for Earth and kills my grandchildren?")

Some of the highlights, which still make me chuckle:

"What do you call an asteroid that grows in the Southern US?" Sassafrassteroid.

"What do you call an asteroid from Ireland?" Belfasteroid.

"What do you call an asteroid that's also a terrorist?" Hamasteroid.

"What do you call an asteroid that's opposing colours?" Contrasteroid.

And so on, and so forth.

Hard to believe I'm actually 26, isn't it?

My Least Favourite Cat

2006-02-02T12:27:00.000-07:00

So, I bet you think this is going to be another rant about either Frances or Catrina, don't you... nope. I'm talking CAT scan. I had one yesterday.

So sometime after dinner two days ago, my tummy started to kind of hurt. I figured it was indigestion or something and didn't really pay any attention to it, and went to bed.

6:30 rolls around the next morning and suddenly the minor stomach irritation has become a full-blown abdominal pain, the likes of which I've never felt before. I can't think of anything I've ever felt that hurt this bad. So Darcy, being the most wonderful husband ever, gets up and walks to IGA to get me some medicine. By the time he gets back I'm way, way worse and we call that Healthlink number where you can talk to a nurse. She tells me to skedaddle down to the emergency room since it sounds like an intestinal blockage. Yay, I think.

Every other time I've had to go to emergency, I've had to wait no more than half an hour before getting admitted. Well, not this time. We had to wait over three hours, and this despite the fact that I was in so much pain I was losing consciousness and had to be put in a wheelchair. Finally, I get my bed, and they start running some blood tests. The doctor thinks it's only a stomach flu or food poisoning, but when the blood tests come back, my white blood count is through the roof, which means infection. Then he starts to think appendicitis.

Joy. Just what I need two weeks before I go on holidays, a huge abdominal scar. Anyway, he says I have to have a CAT scan to find out for sure.

On ER, they always just say, "let's get a CAT scan" and off the patient goes. Well, it's not nearly that easy in the real world. First of all, you have to drink a bunch of this contrast solution really quickly. I had to drink a litre and a half in 45 minutes. Not too easy to do when you've already got stomach issues. It was really, really hard. Then you wait for awhile and head down to the scanning room, where you get onto the bed, which slides in and out of the machine. It's shaped like a big donut. Only before you start sliding in and out, they have to inject you with this radioactive dye which provides another type of contrast, or reacts with the first contrast, or something, and that hurts like a bastard. My IV for the scan was in the top of my hand, and they have to inject a lot of the stuff into you very quickly, which makes the vein stretch out. Oh, did it hurt. I'm kind of ashamed, actually, because after the first 20 seconds or so of the injection I started crying and kind of yelled out. It felt like a hot poker was being shoved under my skin. The poor guy who was doing the injection felt terrible, he kept apologizing. It hurt worse than the pain in my stomach, which I had previously thought was the worst thing I'd ever felt.

Once it was over I went back to my room and had a little nap, since my mom and Darcy had gone to eat some dinner. Finally the doctor comes back and says I don't have appendicitis, but I do have colitis, which is in infection of the lower intestine. Then I get another IV for fluids since I was so dehydrated (despite having just drank a litre and a half of fluid) and I got to go home. We were there for a total of 12 hours, and I have to go back for an ultrasound in a few days.

In short, I feel like twelve layers of ass. I am also in desperate need of amusement, since I've found even I can't sleep all day. And as for my kitties, I love them dearly. I swear, cats can sense when a person's feeling unwell. Before we left for the hospital yesterday morning, they would both sit quietly with me in the bathroom, and when I climbed into bed, they both followed me there too, even though they normally can't stand to be near each other. And last night, Catrina lay on my back and purred me to sleep. They're my most favourite cats.

Vanity Can Be Very Ironic

2006-01-31T20:12:00.000-07:00

So I asked for those Crest Whitestrips for Christmas this year, having recently developed an obsession with the whiteness of my teeth. It's not like they're yellow or anything, but they're certainly not blindingly white either. Anyway, I got them, but I've been waiting until a few weeks before we go to the Bahamas for maximum contrast, what with the being super-tanned and all. (My obsession with looking like hot shit while on holiday is another topic altogether and a little harder to explain)

Yesterday was the first Whitestrip day. As they say in the movie business, wackiness ensues. These things are an utter disaster. The little booklet that comes with them says "Crest Whitestrips are so easy to use, you can use them almost anytime, anywhere. You can wear them while you: Shower/get ready in the morning; Check email/surf the web; Commute to work/in the car; Watch TV/read/talk on the phone."

No fucking way are any of these tasks possible. The booklet goes on to tell you not to swallow any of the peroxide gel, which is essentially impossible to do, because your saliva gets all under the back of the strip pretty much as soon as you put them on, which means the only solution is not to swallow at all. For an entire half hour. Not only can I not "talk on the phone," I can't even open my mouth.

So I've been wearing these things for a grand total of three minutes, and my entire mouth is full of peroxide-tasting saliva. I can't move my tongue, because if I touch one of the strips it's bound to shift and slip off my teeth. It requires my total attention and concentration just to keep them in place and stop myself from swallowing the possibly highly toxic gel. At first I stuffed a wad of Kleenex in my mouth to try and soak some of it up, but the thing about salivating is that the more you try not to do it, the more you do. So after fifteen minutes or so, the saliva is just falling right out of my mouth and all down my front. If I'd been smart, I would have gotten a tea towel or something to tuck in the front of my shirt, but instead I just took it off, since I was going to shower afterwards anyway.

Making me (wait for it...) a Crest Whitestripper.

Come on, tell me that didn't just make you groan.

Today I figured out a sort of system, which worked out a bit better. The key is not to wear them both at once, and then at least I can sort of hold it in place with my tongue so the gel doesn't leak out, and swallow normally. It takes twice as long, but I was able to "check email/surf the web" and even perform a task the booklet doesn't suggest, shovel the walk and bring in the mail (we got our Ralphbucks!). I'll have to write Crest to let them know.

Goodbye, Hell

2006-01-30T10:03:00.000-07:00

And hello, vacation every day. No more getting up at 6am for me! I'm working afternoons for the next month, and I'm overjoyed. I get to sleep in every morning, eat a nice breakfast, take my time getting ready, maybe go for a nice tan and then just cruise on down to work. Hurrah.

It seemed like no matter how early I was going to bed every night (sometimes as early as 8:30), I'd still be exhausted and grumpy the next day. My body just isn't adapted for getting up before sunrise. It never will be. If doing it every day for six weeks didn't break me, I can't imagine it'll ever change. As a result every aspect of my life changed, I've been grumpy and snappish with everyone I know, I've hardly gone out at all, on the few occasions I did I had to leave early to go to bed, my house is a mess and all I'm doing is eating and sleeping, which means I'm turning into a chunk again. What's worse is that all the foods I've been craving lately have been bad for me - fast food, chocolate, all kinds of greasy yucky fat-filled things. Maybe not the best thing to have happen two weeks and three days before I leave for vacation.

It really does feel like every day's a vacation for me when I don't have to get up. It's like work is just this incidental thing that has to get done later in the day, and it becomes so not a big deal anymore, less of a task or a chore. The funny thing is I didn't even really sleep in that late today, I got up around 8:30. Might climb back in to read for awhile though, but that's the beauty of it. Relaxing in the morning just feels so much better than in the evening.

Anyway, I should be fun again for the next little while, provided I haven't alienated everyone I know. No more lameness until March, and even then I'm hoping I'll get some later start times than I've had this month, which will pretty much eliminate the issue altogether. Yay for feeling normal.

Ahh, Nostalgia

2006-01-24T18:47:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, I was a real bookworm. I guess I still am, but back then I would spend a couple hours every day reading. I could read a book front to back in one sitting. I love to read. My favourite books back in the day were ones from series, like Little House on the Prairie, Anne of Green Gables, Trixie Belden, all the Enid Blyton series, and especially Nancy Drew. I had every single one of the original Nancy Drew books, in hardcover. They'd been in my mom's family for a couple generations. I read that series at least a half dozen times. Then one day when I was all grown up, my mom and I were talking about them and I asked her where they were, fully expecting that I'd have them for my kids someday, when she told me she'd given them all away. Apparently they were never really mine to begin with, I was only "borrowing" them. For sixteen years. And now the person who'd given them to me wanted them back for some stupid grandkid.

I was devastated. Not my Nancy Drews! So I went to check it out on Amazon, and it turns out that buying the whole series costs like $400. Lame. My children will now be deprived of these literary gems. I told my mom she should have said she sold them years ago at a garage sale or something, but apparently that would have been "dishonest." To which I say, her own future grandkids should be more important than being honest.

So anyway, we went out for shawarmas at the Shawarma Station in Kensington tonight, and decided to take a little stroll around the neighbourhood afterwards, when we got the whim to pop into a used bookstore to see what we could come across. Since we bought those bookshelves after Christmas, I've had a notion to find lots of really old, gold-gilded type books to fill them with to make it a bit more interesting than my collection of Anne Rice and Charles Dickens paperbacks. And to my amazement, they have a ton of old Nancy Drew hardcovers.

Jackpot! I bought them all. Almost a hundred dollars' worth of books. I only have about a third of the series, but I'm sure if I keep looking around I'll get them all eventually. And, for good measure, I also bought all the Little House books. I'm so stoked.

I like to tell myself that I'm buying them for my kids to enjoy as much as I did when they're old enough, but you know I'm going to go to bed with one of them on my night-table tonight. Maybe I'll even read them under the covers with a flashlight.

Umm?

2006-01-21T22:24:00.000-07:00

So, HAWCS is circling above my house right now, spotlight on... there are about eight cop cars at the other end of my street, sirens wailing and lights flashing... I'm home alone...

Help?

What's The Big Deal?

2006-01-16T20:26:00.000-07:00

If I didn't know myself so well, I'd almost say I'm underreacting, but that gene sequence was left out of my DNA.

The issue is privacy. Not the type of privacy one needs while in the bathroom, but consumer privacy, for lack of a better term. It's been in the news a lot lately, and I just don't see what people are so up in arms about all of it. It just takes too much energy for me to be in a constant state of righteous indignation.

I mean, so what if someone is tracking my music preferences or what books I buy on Amazon or the websites I click on or the brands I buy at Safeway. Really, so what? How am I harmed in any way by this? Let the marketing companies waste their money trying to direct specified advertisements at me based on my previous actions. They may find that a) I'm not all that consistent when it comes to things like brand loyalty, pattern buying, etc. and b) I'm not really influenced by marketing anyway. I don't buy things because I saw an ad on TV, and as far as I can remember, I've never, ever clicked on a banner ad to purchase something, or even find out more about something. They don't even register in my brain. Even if they're flashy.

Having a peek into my bank account or my credit rating is another thing, since that would be entirely unauthorized and really isn't anyone else's business, not even yours, mother. But as far as I'm concerned, when you sign up with a loyalty card or a website or whatever, you sign away some of your privacy rights, and if you're not willing to do that, then go without the benefits. People annoy me so much when they whine about their privacy being invaded. Fine, get off the grid then. Cut up all your cards, toss your computer right out the window and do all your shopping at the little convenience store on the corner. It's your own freaking fault, do you get what I'm saying? Shut up already. Is this really worth half a page of print in the newspaper?

According to the media and privacy rights groups, I should be outraged that there may be software on my computer tracking my every movement, or that loyalty cards like Air Miles are building a sophisticated profile of my purchases at various retailers. As far as the software goes, as long as it's not affecting the performance of my computer (like a tracking cookie, for example) then I could care less. The problem is most of that spyware stuff messes everything up or changes your settings around, in which case I delete it. And Air Miles and all the rest of them can go ahead and keep collecting their information, so long as I can get my free flights. It matters not to me. Why anyone would care that I prefer Kraft peanut butter to Skippy is beyond me. It's not like Kraft is going to come around to my house and start peeking in my windows, trying to find out exactly how I enjoy that peanut butter (for the record, on celery, with salt). That would be an altogether different invasion of privacy, which, if it weren't so weird and kind of pathetic, would probably piss me off. But I'm sure Kraft have better things to do with their time, and if not, enjoy the show. I often get up to make a snack in the nude.

Five More Weeks...

2006-01-06T15:54:00.000-07:00

... and I will be here, doing some of this and a bit of this, eating a lot of this (it's cracked conch, in case you didn't know) but spending most of my time doing this (but unfortunately, not with them).

And time is going by so faaaaaast...

Oh, Those Crazy Germans

2006-01-05T18:04:00.000-07:00

I watched the funniest movie ever last night on Scream, called The Killer Condom. When I say funny, I mean howling with laughter, tears streaming down my face, Kegel-ing so I don't wet my pants funny. It has to be the best awful B-movie ever made. It had so many cultural stereotypes, I literally can't remember them all. Some of the most absurd points:

- Although set in New York City, it's entirely in German (at least when we make movies set in non-English-speaking places, we have the courtesy to have the actors speak in foreign accents)
- It featured a Italian detective whose name was Macaroni (but who spoke German) who has, he claims, a 32-cm penis
- The token Oklahomans wore cowboy hats and were from "Farmville" (but spoke German)
- The hotel where most of the events take place is called Hotel Quickie
- Killer Condoms bite off men's penises
- Said penis-chewing condoms then run down the hall of the hotel (best. scene. ever.)
- The Killer Condoms make noises very much like the Gremlins, and also bite off one woman's nose (whoops)
- Seemingly everyone in the movie is gay
- Macaroni and his rent-boy have such wild sex in an elevator it breaks down
- In the end it was all purported by the Republicans and the religious right

I'm not sure if I should try to to find it on DVD or rue the fact that I'll never get those two hours of my life back.

Today's Surreal Moment

2005-12-21T15:25:00.000-07:00

...is brought to you by toast, part of a healthy, balanced breakfast.

So, it's 5:30 a.m. and I'm driving east on Glenmore, on my way to work. There's a huge cloud of smoke in the air ahead, and many flashing lights and sirens, so I slow down, partly because I don't want to drive through the cloud of smoke past ten cop cars doing 100, and partly because I want to see what's happening. As I'm approaching, I notice the smoke smells kind of... delicious.

The vehicle on fire was a semi with a trailer full of bread. The doors were open and I could see the loaves stacked in pallets up to the roof. As I pass it by, I'm thinking, "did I just see what I thought I just saw?"

Yep, a massive scale toasting operation, right there on the side of the road.

Now that's what I call breakfast on the go.

Oh, That Makes Sense

2005-12-19T19:19:00.000-07:00

Heavy on the sarcasm there.

So, no iPod today. In fact, my iPod is thousands of miles away, and is being sent to me in a fashion that makes absolutely no sense.

It started out at the happy iPod factory in China, where I'd like to pretend that it wasn't assembled by 6-year-olds and their tiny, dextrous fingers. That part is fine, lots of things are made in China.

Then it arrives in Anchorage, Alaska, which if you look at the globe, makes some sense. It's faster to go over the Bering Strait than all the way the other way across Russia, Europe, the Atlantic and the rest of Canada. So, my iPod's pretty close now, Alaska's just north of Canada.

Then they ship it to Memphis, Tennessee. Memphis?

Why not just drop it off on the way? They could even drop it down the chimney, and wouldn't that be cool, seeing as how it's Christmastime and all. But no, right over my head it goes and off to Memphis.

No wonder Fedex costs so freaking much, with all this doubling back. It had better come back with Elvis' greatest hits loaded onto it, that's all I have to say.

And Another Year Bites The Dust

2005-12-17T12:47:00.000-07:00

I survived my first day of tewenty-sixdom, and it really wasn't that bad. I did have to get up super-early and go to work, but it went by pretty fast, which was good. I thought I'd be fidgetier, but before I knew it, it was 4:00 and time to go home.

Dinner with the fam was a good time, I think everyone had fun with the Korean barbecue. I ate way, way too much, in fact I still feel full more than 15 hours later which I'm pretty sure means I shouldn't eat for the rest of the weekend. But I'm fine with that.

My mommy made a special cake too, and without my even asking! It was my favourite, an angel food cake with orange dairy-free whipped cream, which I was admonished for taking lots of. Meh, I say. It was my birthday. So delicious! I only wish there'd been leftovers, because the one thing I'd consider eating today would be another piece of that cake.

I also got some presents... yay! An iPod nano from Darcy, which I've been wanting for approximately forever, if you measure forever in intervals of three weeks. I don't actually have it yet, it's on its way from wherever these things come from when they get shipped. Totally stoked. I've been converting all my songs on iTunes all morning. It only holds 500 songs, but I'm hoping that will be enough. I imagine so, for me and what I'd use it for, which is mainly in the car and travelling. 500 songs is over 24 hours of music, and if I reduce the bitrate to 96 I can probably squeeze on another hundred or so. Yay! My mere and pere gave me a wicked rectangular vase-type thing from Pottery Barn, with which I can finally fulfill my three-year dream of having a lovely cut-crystal vase full of coffee beans to put on my coffee table. I've been looking for the right one ever since I bought that table. Jockstrap got me some uber-comfy gloves, which I need because my poor little hands have been freezing this winter in only my thin cotton ones. I burnt my other mitts last year winter camping, putting my hands too close/in the fire. What can I say, they were cold. I ruined one of my pairs of Smartwool socks doing the same thing with my feet. Stupid winter camping. Dan gave me some Body Shop cocoa butter stuff, hand lotion and body scrub and whatnot, which I desperately need since the abovementioned cold hands are cracked and yucky. Both my grandmas gave me some birthday cash which I plan to spend entirely irresponsibly, or perhaps on a haircut. Anything but bills. More major stokeage.

There were a few signs I'm getting older though. When I got home from work, I headed straight to bed and took a nap, which is a very old-person thing to do. I also didn't even have a drink on my birthday. The restaurant had a shitty beer selection, and only one red and one white wine, neither of which looked too appetizing. And yet, I still feel hungover today, maybe because I had such a crap sleep due to thirst and the cat having some sort of nightmare and freaking out at three in the morning. Poor Catrina.

Now I have to go and update everything that says I'm still 25, which might take awhile. And maybe go eat something after all. I'm feeling a little peckish.

Oh, and happy birthday to you too, blog. You're two now.

sizzle

2005-12-13T19:03:00.000-07:00

I'm fried, and for three reasons:

1. I have some strange fever. Mom, since you clandestinely read this and would know better than me, when's the last time I had a real fever? I feel like I'm burning alive from the inside. Of course I don't have a thermometer at home, but I'm pretty sure it's at least 108F. Possibly even as high as 112F. And do you think I can get a doctor's appointment? That's a big hell ho. What's stranger is I have no cough, no stuffiness, no tummyache, just this skin-hurting hotness and the desire to drink 6 litres of fluid a day. I don't like it. I want it to stop. It's my birthday in three freaking days. Or maybe this is just what being old feels like all the time.

2. I'm tanning again. Already my little bottom is getting nice and brown. In eight weeks and three days when I leave for the Bahamas, I'm going to be a golden beach beauty. And now I smell like coconut all the time, which I like.

3. Work is making my brain stupid. I have so much to remember and I feel totally burnt out. Sometimes I just stare at the computer screen and my brain is going "buuuuuhhhhh..." as I'm slowly trying to process the fact that I'm supposed to be doing something. I hope this gets better.

Le sigh...

Shoulda Kept My Mouth Shut

2005-12-03T15:19:00.000-07:00

It's inevitable that when you brag about how good your life is going, fate looks down on you and says, "you cocky brat, time for some humble pie."

My old nemesis the check engine light came on again Thursday morning, a problem which I attributed to the cold weather and Jimmy the Jetta's needing an oil change. No big deal. So I take her in to Mr. Lube yesterday after work to get that done, pop the hood, and almost immediately hear the mechanic gasp and say "holy Christ." He waves the other mechanic over and they start laughing in disbelief.

Not a good sign.

Of course I can't see what they're looking at because the hood's up, but after a couple seconds the one guy comes over with the oil cap and holds it out to me. In my head I'm thinking, "what the hell am I looking at?" so I just kind of nod vaguely like you do when the server shows you the cork from your bottle of wine, and turn back to my newspaper. And then he starts talking about how there's water on it, and I'm going, well, I just drove all the way down slushy Deerfoot and Glenmore to get here, what do you expect? There's water all over the fucking place, including the insides of my shoes. But apparently, there isn't supposed to be water on the inside of your oil cap, and it didn't come from driving down the wet road, but from condensation because I don't let my car idle for a few minutes before I drive it. Sounds like a ploy by Big Oil and the car companies to get us to buy more gas, so I'm not playing that game. I've been driving for over 10 years now and I've never been told to let my car idle for five minutes before driving it. Besides, don't we have a bylaw that says you can't let your car idle for more than 30 seconds?

Now, last time I checked, oil and water don't mix, so I'm still not sure what the big deal is. You think they'd just keep to themselves. Anyway, it's bad, so I have to take Jimmy up to Northland Volkswagen next week to get the seals replaced, or something, because also, apparently, water is strong enough to corrode vulcanized rubber, and consequently make the oil leak.

Hey, I didn't know either.

The long and the short of it is I may or may not have to pay $300 or so to get it fixed, depending on two factors. 1. If it's a defect and can be warranteed. 2. If I even still have a warranty, since unfortunately I can't remember if I bought my car in 2001 or 2002. 2002, I think, but I'm not entirely 100% sure. About 80% sure, but I'm old now, and the memory's starting to go.

Time shall tell, and in the meantime I'm going to put a piece of electrical tape over the check engine light so I at least won't have to look at it.

Yep...

2005-12-01T18:51:00.000-07:00

...that's new music you hear. It was about time to retire Yann Tiersen (much as I love him) and switch over to a little Dario Marianelli. I had a special request via email to get on with something new, but it's taken me a couple weeks to find a piece I liked. So turn up your speakers, because it's pretty. Now if there's one regret in life, it's that I never learned to play the piano. And don't go on about how it's not too late to learn, you may have noticed that I don't own a piano, and I hear it's kind of hard to pick up if you don't practise.

By the way, everyone should go see Pride and Prejudice. It's absolutely wonderful. It's also where I got the music from... in case you were wondering. Seriously, I could see it ten more times, I loved it. P&P is my favourite Jane Austen book of them all. And I'm fortunate enough to have a Mr. Darcy of my own...

And you know, things just keep getting better and better for me. Not only am I not working the evening of my birthday so I can go out to dinner, I have the day after it off completely. Oh, and Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. I like it, this Star Choice place.

I just found out too that my imood thingy (which is over there ===>) logs all my previous moods and what I wrote with them, and I just spent a good 20 minutes laughing my ass off at some of them, especially the one which my sister apparently wrote, thinking she was logged into her own account, but which was actually mine because she was using my computer. So what if I'm easily amused?

I also got to hang out with my mommy last night and see the aforementioned P&P, and eat some spicy chicken wontons and browse through Pottery Barn, my new favourite store, tied with Williams-Sonoma. I'm seriously thinking about taking a once-a-week job there just for the discount, and then saving the money I made there to buy things they have that I want. It's all about getting the discounts, that's what I've learned. Never pay full price for anything.

Oh, and speaking of discounts, if anyone out there wants a deal on satellite, you just talk to me.

Progress

2005-11-27T19:31:00.000-07:00

Things are moving forward in my life. For the first time in my entire working career, this week, I went to work and didn't have to clock in or sign in or punch in or otherwise record my time of arrival or departure. Yes, someone finally trusts me to be punctual. That trust may or may not be misguided, as many of you know I'm genetically incapable of being on time for any sort of social function. Work I'm usually pretty good with.

Speaking of work, I'm liking it so far. I'm still in training, but this is the first job that's had a training program more involved than just throwing me into the fray and leaving me to sort it out for myself. I appreciate this. It's great. It's a lot like school, there are tests and readings and group projects, but I like school. The fact that they're willing to put so much time and effort to train me properly says to me that I am worth having.

The other thing I've noticed is that everyone who works there seems so happy to be there. I mean genuinely happy to be working. It's so novel, I just don't know how to react to it. I'm used to working with people who either hate their jobs and are bitter or who could care less and just want the paycheque. I've always been some combination of the two, but the attitude is really winning me over.

And I'm making new friends. Awwww...

I've also finished the last of my articles this weekend, which is a load off my back. Memo to self, it is permissible to begin work sooner than three days before it's due.

I've also been writing, or more accurately, plotting to write. Actually putting words down on virtual paper, if only character and location information. This is a big step forward, but I think once it's done it will be easy to start because I'll be so organized. I'm kind of stoked. I don't know what the turning point was that made me go from not-ready to really-ready, but it occurred and I'm running with it. I even overcame my greatest obstacle to date, which is finding names I like and fit well. Mission partially accomplished.

I also paid off more than half of my stupid credit card bill, and all without having to dip into savings. The situation was not as dire as I thought, it's complicated but suffice to say, it's fine. So stop being disappointed in me, parents.

In short, my life is moving forward at a nice rate and I am happy. I may even treat myself to a coffee tomorrow morning. It's been over a week since I've had one, which these days is miraculous. Let's hope things stay on this track for the next little while, I could use a good six months to make up for the bad last six.

Yuck

2005-11-18T01:48:00.000-07:00

It's, like, exactly four weeks until I turn 26. How much does that blow? At least I've gotten used to the signs of aging, like grey hair, because that started happening when I was about 18. But still, 26? That's beyond the halfway point of my twenties. Soon I'll be 30, and then no one will like me or want to talk to me anymore and I'll probably even have to start wearing a bra all the time because my boobs will be down to my bellybutton.

I have an irrational desire to get another tattoo or pierce myself somewhere to prove that I'm still young and reckless. Or maybe sell everything I own and move to Australia or Wales or some other place where scruffy youth are the norm.

Okay, I have no idea if there are scruffy youth in Wales. Well there must be some, but not like a culture of them. I don't even know anyone Welsh to ask. And even if I did, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't understand them, because I don't think their language includes vowels. Ahh well.

I realized today that even my clothes are all grown-up clothes now, dress pants and sweaters and (I can't believe I'm saying this) trouser socks. Yes, knee-high, black socks. Pretty soon I'll be wearing them with sandals.

At the same time I don't want to turn into one of those totally sad people who won't accept their age and do things that are completely inappropriate, like the moms who shop at the same stores as their daughters in an attempt to seem cool. It's hard at this point in my life to find a balance because the mid-twenties are such an ambiguous age. At least when I'm 30 I'll be firmly in the adult realm.

Eww. At least I've still got four more years. By then someone will surely have invented a reverso-time thing. Right?

Catharsis

2005-11-15T23:34:00.000-07:00

It's the end of an era. I've quit Reitmans. A job which I once thought would be easy and kind of fun turned out to be 40 hours of hell a week. One thing it did teach me, was to value a job that requires me to use my brain. Mindless jobs are fun for about, oh, a week, and then the brain starts to atrophy and soon you realize how stupid your job has made you and that it's leaking over into other aspects of your life. Plus it turned me into a fucking shopaholic. I mean, I had to buy something new almost every single day. Now we have a $2,500 credit card bill six weeks before Christmas, but at least I can say I have seven new sweaters, three pairs of pants, countless t-shirts, two skirts, a bathing suit, a purse, about 15 pairs of socks, knee-high leather boots, etc. etc. etc. And these were all things that apparently I needed. I haven't even told Darcy about the purse yet, it's hiding behind some other stuff and I may take it back because I haven't used it yet. So this job has also made me a sneak and a deceiver.

There were a million little things that drove me crazy about that place. Everything from size 15 women insisting they were still an 11 (and subsequently splitting the seam or popping the button off the pants) to the absolute inability of anyone else to understand that if you press the repeat button on the stereo, you don't have to go press play again every couple of hours. People would actually complain that the stereo was "broken" when they would have to do this. I mean, come on. It's not rocket science.

And then there were "Power Starters." Power Starters are a form of harassment disguised as a sales technique, whereby you use various "engaging" ways to open a sentence, such as "our pants have..." or "this sweater can..." which are supposed to make people be unable to resist buying said item, whether or not they actually like it. The only thing Power Starters do is make you sound like you're reciting a script. I, you may have deduced, was often admonished for not using Power Starters enough.

And can we talk about "bling bling" for a moment? You know when a retailer marketing to 35-and-up women adopts a hip-hop term, that term is officially dead. Reitmans refers to anything that has sequins, sparkles, rhinestones, etc. as bling-bling, and this was supposed to be a positive attribute. First of all, I've always been under the impression that bling-bling, in its original sense, referred to diamonds, gold, platinum and other very expensive precious gems and metals. Not glitter. I absolutely could not ever bring myself to use the term "bling-bling" with a customer, in a Power Starter or otherwise. So I can say I still have a shred of self-respect. Bling-bling. Christ. People are getting killed in the streets for this stuff, and Reitmans is promoting it as the next cool thing for moms everywhere, a chance to get in touch with their kids. "Honey, look at the great shirt I just bought! Isn't the bling-bling on it just so darling?!?"

Please, someone kill me. Oh, and in case you were wondering at all, "Bling! It's not just a night thing!"

Oh, and FYI, I don't smile enough. Anyone willing to venture a guess why? Maybe it's because I hate the people who shop there, or that I'm filled with self-loathing for working in this job? I'm just not a fake-smiler I guess. It's not a fun job. What's there to be happy about?

Lord, I'm so happy to be out of there. I even quit a week early just because I couldn't bear another two weeks of that place. So now I'm sitting around at home, knitting and making soup and working on the house and generally relaxing until I start at Star Choice next Monday. I've got a couple of freelance articles to write, which will help stem the hemmorhage of money that has become my existence and give me an excuse to get out of the house before I become a hermit.

Of course, all this would have come out much sooner, but I had no internet for a week. It's been brewing in me for quite some time. I feel much better now. Well except for the whole $2,500 credit card debt thing. That's a bit lame. Sigh. Who wants homemade cookies for Christmas?

Drumroll, Please

2005-10-29T10:36:00.000-06:00

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls... I can knit.

Check out this sweet piece of knitty genius:

Pretty crap, don't you think? It's a rectangle. It's about two and a half inches long, and it has a hole in it. And I didn't bind it off properly. And I started out with fifteen stitches, but ended up with 22. How does that happen, you ask? Magic, I reply. I'm the Harry fucking Potter of knitting.

Oh, and one last thing: that little rectangle took me over an hour to make.

At this rate, I'll have a scarf done by Christmas... of next year.

An Homage To Scrabble

2005-10-28T18:51:00.000-06:00

I love Scrabble. It appeals to a grammer and vocabulary nerd like me, who collects weird words and loves correcting other peoples' essays and things. Scrabble is also very dear to my heart - you may not know the story, but Darcy and I got engaged over a game of Scrabble. Once he pulled the last tiles out of the bag, he unbeknownst to me slipped the ring inside for me to grab on my next turn, helpfully reminding me that there was one tile left. Well, imagine my surprise when instead of a wooden tile, I pull out a shiny diamond ring. I believe I made some faint-voiced comment like, "it's an O." Yes, I'm a dork. We have since vowed to get Scrabble-tile tattoos sometime in the future. Yes, we're both dorks.

Anyway, Darcy and I play all the time, and I always, like always win. I think he beat me once, after I'd drunk an entire bottle of wine. Anyway, it's a point of honour with me that I'm an unbeatable force at Scrabble. But I've been playing online lately, and I've gotten my ass whipped. One time I only scored about 270. That's poor. That's humiliating. It's been a humbling experience. I'm not the world's best Scrabble player. I would say I'm only average, and here I used to think I was so smart.

Even though I've been losing, I've still been having a good, geeky time, learning new words and challenging myself mentally for a change. It's a nice break from the mundaneness of my my job.

This is where I play, if you're interested in taking it up yourself:
The Pixie Pit
Yahoo Games (they call it Literati, must have gotten sued)

If you ever want to play, email me and we can do it up. :)

Now I Need To Buy A Hottub

2005-10-23T13:47:00.000-06:00

We went to a house party at Martin's new place last night, and I fell in love with a hottub. There is nothing cooler than sitting outside in the freezing night air with a beer and a lollypop, secure in the knowledge that the water will always be warm and bubbly.

It was a total cool-kids party. There was cheap beer, a six-piece live jazz combo, gratuitous nudity, the aforementioned hottub, damn tasty homemade hummus, a firepit and even a tickle trunk full of costumes, because unbeknownst to us, it was a Halloween party.

Okay, well the gratuitious nudity part was maybe not so cool, I felt a bit sorry for the guy actually. But to each their own. I personally don't have such confidence in my physique, but whatever. Although a random (and admittedly very, very drunk) guy did tell me I was "so fucking hot" as I was getting into the hottub. But then I think he went and threw up in the bushes so I'm reserving judgement.

Highlight of the night: sitting in the hottub listening to the group spontaneously break out into the theme from the Phantom of the Opera. Too cool for words.

Thanks to Frank for the lollypop, Kevin Hicks for the beer, Jason for offering to pay for a third of our hottub if he can use it and Martin for hosting the whole shebang. Next one's at my house. :)

Pay Attention

2005-10-22T13:38:00.000-06:00

I'm getting kind of sick of receiving stupid, pointless unfunny forwards all the time. People I don't even know are sending me these stupid things, and they're all lame. I like those "all about me" forwards, and funny videos and pictures and other clever things, but in the last week I've gotten about fifteen "forward this to everyone you know or Microsoft is going to start charging to use MSN Messenger!" emails. You're fucking retarded. No they're not. And for your information, I don't want "my crush" to ask me out, so I'm not going to send your stupid "make a wish" email on to 50 other people. I haven't had a crush since fifth grade. I offer the following advice to anyone who's considering sending me a forward, especially anyone who may or may not be under the age of 15 and mistakenly thinks I'm someone called Nicole Meech and is therefore bombarding me with 15 stupid emails a day:

1. Read what you're sending first. If you've seen it before, chances are so have the people you're sending it to. Unless it is genuinely interesting, do not forward it. Especially do not forward it to me.

2. No one likes to scroll through fifty pages of email addresses of people who have previously received the forward. Delete them before sending something. The same goes for footers tacked on by free email services.

3. Forwarding an email will not make your wishes come true. Nor will it save some kid with cancer, nor will it keep programs like MSN free. Do not send these on "on the off chance" it might be true. It is 100% not true. You're retarded.

4. Stop spending so much time on the computer and try reading a book. This will teach you valuable skills like grammar and spelling so that when you do send an email, it will be legible. P.S. The "shift" button on your keyboard, when pressed in conjunction with a letter key, will make that letter uppercase. Learn to use it.

Seriously, I don't have the time to weed all this crap out of my inbox. Please leave me alone.

What Is It?

2005-10-19T20:15:00.000-06:00

It seems like every time I have a job interview the position turns out to be not at all what it was advertised or described as. Case in point: the ADT security system sales job, which was supposed to be straight up full-time, $20 per hour and turned out to be $20 per presentation, three presentations per day... or the Avis customer service job, which was supposed to be at a desk, serving customers (how novel!) but was, in fact, shuttling cars back and forth from the lot to the airport. Lame. Well, add another one to the list: *Large Famous Company* customer service agent. In the job posting, it was described as a call centre customer service agent, so I applied. Customer service is not exactly brain surgery, and furthermore, it's not something I really mind.

Then the guy phones me for a preliminary phone interview, and I ask him specifically, does the job involved any telemarketing. I loathe telemarketers. The happiest day of my life (sorry, honey) will be the day the do-not-call list comes into effect. Anyway, the guy says no, only something like 5% of the job is calling prospective customers, and in any case it's not cold calling, they're warm leads. The majority of the job is serving customers.

So then I go for the job interview, fill out the forms, answer the questions and do a bit of a job shadow for 15 minutes or so. And guess what? At least 75% of the job is telemarketing.

What an utter fucking waste of my time.

But here's the dilemma - it pays about $8,000 better than my current job. Am I willing to sell my soul for $8,000? Am I willing to be filled with a constant self-loathing for $8,000? I might as well start selling crack to schoolkids, I don't think I'd feel any worse about myself.

Sigh. I'm going to keep looking.

Scariest. Dream. EVER.

2005-10-16T16:38:00.000-06:00

This time I'm serious. This dream utterly destroys any scary dream I've ever had in the past. The dream about the witch in the cave? Kiddy stuff. The one where I was being shot at by monks in a canoe while camping? Psh.

It was one of those dreams where you feel like you're awake, and in fact, I was (more on this in a bit). So I'm laying in bed, sleeping. I feel this very evil, menacing presence in the room, so I open my eyes, and there's a man in a three-piece suit standing on Darcy's side of the bed, staring at me. I try to say something or scream or move, but I'm totally paralyzed. I can't move anything except my eyes, so I close them. I feel the presence again, only stronger, and I open my eyes again, and there's a woman standing on my side of the bed, staring at me. In my head I'm thinking "this is not real, this is a dream, no one's there" and then she climbs on top of me, sits on my chest and leans in and says to me, "Still don't believe I'm real?" She's crushing me, I can't breathe and I still can't move or make any sounds. I close my eyes again and the crushing weight on my chest stops. I open them one last time and both the man and the woman are standing at the foot of the bed, staring at me again. They are radiating evil. For the last time, I close my eyes.

I have experienced something called sleep paralysis, where a person wakes up while in REM sleep. REM sleep paralyzes the body so you can't act out your dreams, which is why I couldn't move. I was, in fact, awake. The people I saw were hallucinations from my REM sleep patterns. As for the woman sitting on my chest, that, according to my sister, is a textbook case of "old hag syndrome." After reading this informative site, I've learned a few things that help explain why it might have happened:

1. I'm not getting very good sleep these days, and what sleep I do get is often interrupted
2. I suffer from an anxiety disorder and experience panic attacks
3. I'm taking antidepressants
4. I was sleeping on my back

Apparently after it was over, according to Darcy, I sat up and said "no" or something like that and then curled up into him, shaking. I don't remember that part, but generally after I have a nightmare that's pretty much what I do.

Ever since the dream, I've been afraid to sleep on my back for fear of it happening again. Seriously, I was terrified. Thinking about it again, a few days later, still gives me the heebie-jeebies. If I live the rest of my life without that ever happening again, I'll be happy.

What's My Age Again?

2005-10-11T17:22:00.000-06:00

Hooray for fall! Today, we raked some leaves.

By raking, I mean "played in."

I actually really hurt my wrist that time...

It's clear we both have some mad Superman skills.

And ninja skills.

I'm laughing because I have leaves down my pants.

Awwww....

Oh, Jimmy

2005-10-03T23:03:00.000-06:00

I love Jimmy the Jetta. She's the best car a chic urban girl like me could have. Stylish, powerful, comfortable, and with one of the biggest trunks of any mid-size car.

Sometimes Jimmy pulls some weird shit.

Like the times when her stereo mysteriously short-circuits and stops working. Pulling it out, unplugging it and plugging it back in again fixes it right up, but that's just a little bizarre. Northland Volkswagen says it has to do with power surges in the air from transformers or something. Uh-huh.

Or the time when, after not having a single flat tire in two years, she got two in two weeks. What's up with that? How does a nail get into the sidewall anyway?

Then there was the time when every once in awhile, when I would start her up, the engine would rev to 4,000 rpms and then die. Jumping the battery didn't work, restarting it didn't work, in fact the only thing that fixes it is by slamming on the gas as soon as she starts and to keep it revving at 4-5,000 for a few seconds. I've never heard of a car doing that.

Of course who can forget the highly amusing check engine light incident, which turned out to be not an engine problem at all but a loose gas cap. Jimmy spent all day at the dealership getting diagnostic tests for that one.

Tonight, as I was leaving work, I had only driven about 50 feet down the parking lot when the engine overheating light suddenly comes on and starts beeping at me. In minus 5 degree weather. Fifteen seconds after I started it. I'm screaming at poor Jimmy, going, "what? What's wrong with you?" as this death-red light is flashing and shrieking. So I slam her into park, turn off the ignition, wait a few seconds and turn her back on.

All systems normal. What the fuck was that? Just a random overheating-engine-light test? Maybe Jimmy thought I haven't been stressed enough lately? Jeez. Cars are nice to have, but man can they freak you out. I'm wondering what critical malfunction false-alarm is next, a fake engine fire? Maybe a fake carbon dioxide warning?

Oh, Jimmy.

Writer's Block

2005-10-02T23:04:00.000-06:00

Working on this article for Condo Living right now, and I am so, so stuck with only 75 words to go. I just don't have anything else to say about this development. I've used everything in my notes, everything from the promotional material... and nothing. I haven't written more than three words in the last 45 minutes. Normally this stuff comes so easy for me...

This is due in about eight hours and I want to go to bed now. I need to come up with something that's more intelligent than filler...

Argh, this is so frustrating!

I'm On Ice, Are You?

2005-10-01T12:49:00.000-06:00

This is a neat idea I read about the other day. It's called ICE, which stands for In Case of Emergency. The idea is in your cell phone's saved numbers, you put ICE - and then the name and number of someone who can be contacted in case of an emergency, like one of your parents, spouse, friend, whatever. I've just done this for my own phone, why don't you take a second to do it too? I know you've got the time, all you're doing is sitting around your computer reading this!

My Poor Boy

2005-09-29T11:22:00.000-06:00

This is what happens when you don't go to the dentist for six years.

Eww, can you say abcess? Guess who's actually looking forward to his root canal next Tuesday?

And today's comedic moment: Donald Rumsfeld is briefing the President, "Yesterday, three Brazilian soldiers were killed. "OH NO!" cries the President, "...but how many is a brazillion?" (thank you, Popbitch)

And, comedically, this is how I'm going to die.

Your First Mistake...

2005-09-27T22:37:00.000-06:00

...was thinking I cared more about my job than my amusement. At least when it comes to my shitty retail job of mere necessity. No, I am not going to cancel my vacation to the Bahamas in February just because you've changed your mind and have decided you want me to work that week after all. Yes, I will smile and nod and say "uh-huh" while you tell me all this, but when it all comes down to it, it's a guarantee that I will not be working, there or anywhere, from February 18 to the 26.

Your second mistake was assuming I'll still be there by then. Nope, that's not in my plans. So sorry about that. Please prepare for immediate evacuation.

What's that sound I hear? Is it my resume printing?

Go Flames Go!

2005-09-22T00:34:00.000-06:00

Guess who went to the first home-ice game in over a year? Me, that's who. I settled into my Sport Chek Zone $17.50 seat with my Pocket Dawg and my ridiculously expensive beverage and watched the Flames cream the Blackhawks 4-2. I had thought those nosebleed seats would just be awful and I wouldn't hardly be able to see anything at all, but they're really not bad. I could see all the action fine, I just couldn't read the names on the backs of the players' jerseys.

Some highlights from the game that made it way-cool:

- Sean Donovan shattering the glass on a crazy slapshot

- A girl falling down three rows of seats because she was so drunk

- Seeing Kipper in net in person for the first time

- My first Pocket Dawg in over two years (mmm, Pocket Dawgs)

- The new shoot-out rule for tied games which they demo-ed after the end of play. Normally I'm not a fan of shoot-outs to decide tie games, because hockey is, after all, a team sport and to decide the score on a one-on-one situation doesn't seem quite right. But it was really exciting to watch, even though it didn't even count for anything. I can't imagine the excitement if it was for real (the Flames won, by the way)

- Almost getting a free jersey from the guy that goes around and finds "the loudest fan in section X" or whatever. He came up to our section and I was screaming my face off and waving and pointing at myself (and, I might add, wearing a very low-cut shirt and bouncing around a lot) and he points right at me and tosses the jersey at me, but the dumb bitch in the seat in front of me throws up her hand at the last second and snagged it. I suppose I could have gotten it, but that would have meant falling down several rows of seats like the drunk girl, and I don't like facial flesh wounds. I'm still choked. It was my jersey. I was the loudest fan in section 305 by a mile. My throat still hurts. Maybe next time.

During my 20-minute wait for my tasty, tasty Pocket Dawg, I made an interesting sociological observation. Women are fucking rude. So it's a long line-up, right, going almost to the other end of the hall, so naturally people walking through have to cut through the line. And because I don't particularly like crowding close to people I don't know, I always leave a little bit of space in front of me so I don't feel like I've got someone's shoulder in my face. Anyway, any time a man would cut through the line in front of me, he would almost always say excuse me, and if he happened to bump into me, he would always apologize. But when women would do it, they would never excuse themselves (not a single one did) or apologize for bumping me. And although the majority of the people who cut in front of me were guys, the majority of the bumping was done by women. Make of that what you will.

Anyway, a fantastic opener for the Flames' season, even though it was just an exhibition game, and I'm totally glad I went.

Next time, I'm getting that fucking jersey.

Like Mother, Like Daughter

2005-09-20T22:11:00.000-06:00

I have this cat, Catrina. Catrina is plumb crazy. I mean, just bat-shit crazy. She is the definition of high-strung. I love this cat like she was my own child, but lately she's just been off the wall. A little while ago (like four months ago) she stopped pooping in her litterbox. And I mean completely stopped. At first we thought maybe she'd lost bowel control or something, but it soon became clear that she was purposely not using it. We even locked her in a room with a box for two days, and she still wouldn't use it. She'd go beside it. We changed her food, we changed the brand of litter, we got a new litter box, we got a second litter box, we tried giving her fibre (which only resulted in very large, very smelly poops outside the litter box), we tried absolutely everything. We paid around $200 for blood tests and exams and whatnot. And all the time, the vet's telling us it's probably anxiety, but I'm seriously anti-medicine. I mean, my lord, I went through a year of misery before I started taking mine, and this is with my doctor telling me repeatedly that clinical depression is not a problem that goes away on its own. But I just don't know what else to do with this cat, and I can tell she's stressed and miserable, since she's a lot moodier and needier than usual, and fights with Frances a lot more. As for the cause of this anxiety, it could be anything from me changing my routine and going back to work to her having been scared while using the litter box one time. Who knows. It's not like she tells me these things.

Anyway, so the cat's on anti-depressants. Kitty Prozac. Seriously. It comes in little syringes and every day I have to squeeze out 0.2 cc's and rub the cream into her ear tissue, because that's where it absorbs best, and it's ten times easier than trying to shove a pill down her throat. Next thing you know I'll be calling the pet psychic and taking her to the pet psychiatrist and doing pet yoga. I just want my girl to be happy, no matter what it takes.

The good news is since I've been giving her the medicine she hasn't gone poop on the floor.

The bad news is it's only been two days and I'm not sure if she's gone poop at all yet.

Time will tell. Time will also tell who's crazier, me or the cat. The jury's still out on that one.

Open Mouth, Insert Foot

2005-09-19T11:26:00.000-06:00

Recently I've developed the bad habit of saying unkind things in a too-loud voice so that the people of whom I speak overhear me. Mainly this has been in restaurants or bars, and it's horribly embarrassing and makes me feel terrible. Well, sometimes.

A few weeks ago we'd gone to Seannachie in Signal Hill for some mussels and beer after grocery shopping. First of all, they didn't have either of the beers we ordered, even though Limerick's does and they're owned by the same company. So that was strike one. Then the waitress tells us in a real smarmy tone of voice that they're out of mussels, but she'll give us a few minutes to find something else on the menu. Strike two. Then when she comes back fifteen minutes later to take our orders and we tell her what we want to eat, she says "oh, the kitchen closes at 11:00."

It was 11:02.

So she walks away, to where I thought was far away, and I say really loudly, "I hate this place! I'm never coming here again." And she's, like, right beside me somehow.

Whoops. She ended up giving us a $10 gift certificate to make up for it.

Then a few days ago we're at Limerick's this time, and I'm so starving. The waitress keeps coming to check how our drinks are but just kind of pops her head in and leaves before I can say I want to order food. So once again, I bust out with "this place has the worst fucking service ever. I want to order food NOW."

Yep, she's right over at the next table. So she comes and takes our food order right away, but all night I'm in mortal fear that there's spit in it or pee or something. I did feel horribly ill that night, even though all I had was a bowl of soup and some dessert. Yes, the service was admittedly terrible, but I didn't need to be such a brat about it.

The last night we went for sushi, and it took an inordinately long time for our Love Boat to arrive. And I'm all, waah, waah, I want my sushi NOW, why's it taking so long, etc. etc, not taking much note that I'm sitting with my back to the hallway. Once again I'm overheard and much profuse apologizing goes on when it finally arrives.

I'm turning into such a brat. I don't think I should be allowed to go out anywhere until I learn some manners.

For My Next Vacation...

2005-09-15T11:50:00.000-06:00

I think I'd like to go for a coma. An unusual concept, but one that I think has merit. With no disrespect intended to people who have or had catastrophic brain injuries, what is a coma but a really long, healing nap, after all? I mean, doctors voluntarily put people into drug-induced comas all the time so their bodies can concentrate on getting better while minimizing energy spent on other things. So you go, get hooked up to an IV and have a nice two-week rest, full of pleasant dreams. You wake up refreshed, probably ten pounds lighter and with a renewed sense of life. That doesn't sound too bad to me at all. And best of all, when you show up for work and they ask you where you've been, you've got an air-tight excuse: "I was in a coma." They can't say anything to that.

This came up last night while we were talking about naps. I love napping. For the record, Darcy's anti-coma. I, obviously, am pro-coma. Not the kind that you never wake up from, just a short one.

I could open a coma spa where people could come for a whole lot of R&R. It would be as easy as setting a timer and pressing a button. No need for fancy rooms or restaurants, just a comfy bed and some nurses to make sure everything's working properly. Charge them, say, five hundred dollars a day for the all-inclusive package. You could even combine it with a weight-loss program. Exhausted, overworked people would come from all over the world.

It must be obvious at this point that I need to get more sleep.

This Is Why Canada Kicks Ass

2005-09-13T00:03:00.000-06:00

I've just spent the last half an hour watching the Northern Lights from my deck. I can't remember ever seeing them this bright in the city, only way, way out in the countryside. They're just mesmerizing. I'm in total awe of nature every time I see them. While I know and understand the scientific explanation of the atmosphere being bombarded with solar particles, I prefer to think of it as nature's movie screen.

I tried to take some pictures, but our digital camera doesn't have adjustable shutter speed, and I didn't have any film in my camera. They're not really something you can capture fully on camera anyway, half the magic is watching them drift and fade across the sky.

It's funny, the things that inspire patriotism.

Owwie Owwie Owwie Part Deux

2005-09-12T20:54:00.000-06:00

Wow, I thought my feet hurt while I was getting them tattooed, but it's nothing compared to how much they hurt now. It's like having giant bruises throbbing all the time. And god help me if I accidentally bump one of them. It feels like I'm being amputated. I hope this is over soon.

Sorry to be whiny. I'd just like to be able to wear shoes again.

So a charity solicitor came to the door this evening, selling calendars for STARS air ambulance, and the guy was kind of mean to me. First of all, we are not wealthy people, and can't really afford to give much to charity. Second of all, I don't entirely trust door-to-door solicitors, since it's hard to tell if they're really from the charity or not and you hear about these scams on the news from time to time. Anyway, I told him that we had the Block Watch calendar already and that was probably enough. I was totally polite, and he's all, "what does Block Watch do?" and at first I didn't understand what he meant, I thought he wanted to know how they'd made me part with my money and he couldn't, so I said they went door-to-door as well, and he's like, "what does the organization do?" In my head, I'm thinking, who doesn't know what Block Watch does? I said something about how they keep the neighbourhood safe from crime. And he says in this incredulous voice, "do you know what STARS does?" And I say, "they're the helicopter." I mean, duh. And then he goes into this little tirade about how it's completely free, they save lives, get people to hospitals, etc. etc. Basically he was implying that STARS is a worthy organization, and Block Watch isn't. And he's just looking at me like, what's Block Watch going to do for you? Well frankly, helicopters scare the shit out of me, and if I'm at all conscious during some catastrophe and needed urgent care, I'd probably refuse to get on it. I had a dream awhile back that I was hurt in a car accident out on Highway 8 and STARS came to take me to the hospital, only the it crashed before we got there and I died. I'm a strong believer in prophetic dreams. So I said I was sorry, but $50 for two calendars in one year was just too much and we didn't have much money to spare, especially since you don't even get a tax receipt to offset some of the cost. And in this sarcastic tone of voice, he says, "well maybe next year we'll come around before Block Watch does," and walks out of the house. I started out feeling like a total piece of shit and almost called him back, but then his whole attitude started to piss me off. He had a giant wad of cash and cheques on his clipboard, so I don't think he was doing too badly. Maybe the whole bully routine worked better on other people than it did on me. Yes, maybe if I'd been able to choose between the two at the same time, I would have chosen STARS, since I do mostly agree that they're probably more important. But come on, buddy. Learn to take rejection with a bit of grace and tact.

Come to think of it, what I should have said is that we buy the STARS lotto tickets instead. Damn.

It'll be very ironic if I choke on my sushi right now and need STARS to come and rescue me, only they're out of gas or something. I think karma's going to bite me in the ass sooner or later.

Owwie Owwie Owwie!

2005-09-09T19:02:00.000-06:00

Today I went on another adventure: a tattooing adventure. I racked up numbers 4 and 5, no small accomplishment for a girl who is terrified of needles.

As you all know, my nickname is Starfish and I love the sea, expecially the tropics. So I thought this was more than fitting. Behold:

I actually got the left foot done second. By then I had lockjaw and my fingers had gone numb from squeezing the table. My feet aren't really this fat, by the way. I don't know why they look so bloated and huge. Must be the camera angle. They're size 7, I swear...

The right foot went first, and it took over an hour and a half. All that detail takes time. See the part right near my pinkie toe? That hurt like fire. Like I'm-about-to-throw-up pain. And it bled. Good lord, did it bleed. All I have to say is God bless red Powerade. In every truly nerve-wracking and tense moment I've ever had, it's been there to work its reddy magic on me. I don't know what they put in that shit. I think it's heroin. Keeps me coming back for more, anyway.

And here they are together. Now every time I look at my feet, I'll imagine I'm on a sandy beach... I love them.

Edit: And this is Darcy's:

Also looking very good. I love the cracked-stone look and the green. That's the colour my little shamrock used to be, over eight years ago when I got it. Time sure flies, doesn't it?

Anyway, we're poor to the tune of almost $500 but very happy with our permanent adornments. Now I have to convince him that we should get Scrabble tile tattoos to commemorate how we got engaged, maybe a D for me and an N for him. That idea came to me in a dream, actually. I kind of like it. Maybe when we've been married ten years or so.

%&()%#^%!

2005-09-02T13:47:00.000-06:00

Well, there goes my weekend. Thank you, capitalistic, price-gouging asshole gas companies. You have ruined the only weekend I've had off with my husband all summer. There is absolutely no way we can pay $60 for a tank of gas on top of the $20 per night per campground plus firewood, beer and other sundry expenses. What a scam.

Yes, Hurricane Katrina has disrupted pipelines and oil flow in the Gulf of Mexico, but both the US and Canada have huge reserves of oil for just such emergencies. Furthermore, even though there was this disruption, it should not have affected gas prices that quickly. There's a lag of something like 60 days between the increase of the price of oil and an increase at the pump, because ittakes time to refine the oil into gas. There should be some sort of investigation into it all. Yes, companies have the right to make a profit, but not blackmail an entire country, especially when they all get together and decide to fix the prices.

For the record I'm not going to just lay back and accept these prices and fill up anyway. I'm not driving anywhere this weekend. If I want to go somewhere I'll walk or ride my bike, but I'm not giving in. This is just a long weekend cash grab, and I'm not having anything to do with it. Maybe my $50 won't make any difference on its own, but if everyone did the same, maybe it would send a message. Anyway, I'll be at home if you're bored and looking for someone to hang out with.

In other news, are you brave enough to obey the crab?

No Excuses Now

2005-08-30T10:46:00.000-06:00

...well, maybe I've got one or two left up my sleeve.

Okay, so for the longest time (literally, years) I've talked about possibly, maybe, if I can, writing something. Something like a story. Okay, like a book. There, I said it. I want to write a book.

See, you're rolling your eyes right now, thinking what a silly idea that is, she's just wasting her time, etc. etc. etc. I can feel your scorn. And maybe it is all that, but I've always wanted to anyway. And ever since I made the mistake of mentioning it to my family, there's been a constant harping: when are you going to start that book? Written anything lately? How's your book coming along?

So here's a funny anecdote. Some time ago (like three years ago) I bought this hardcover notebook that was supposed to be my story ideas book. On the front, which has a soothing blue swirly pattern, it says "You Are Pure Potential." It was supposed to be inspiring or something. It cost me like $30. And I was going to write down all my ideas in it. Well, if you were to open that book today, you would find it exactly the way I bought it: blank. Not a single mark on the page.

For me, there's a huge chasm between making up stories in my head and actually committing them to paper. Once they're written down, they're out there for everyone to see and criticize. They can't be taken back. Can you see how scary that is? It was the same thing for the longest time for me and this blog. I actually opened the account in June, shortly before I got married, but didn't write anything in it for a good six months. Now, of course, I'm hemmoraghing words.

Anyway, I'm off on a tangent. So I have one less excuse to not start writing my story, thanks to my dad. We were talking last night about how I hate being poor (not being accustomed much to it) when as usual, it comes up that if I'd get off my ass and write my book, I wouldn't be poor anymore. My sister chimes in about the empty notebook, and my dad suggests using MS Word's Outline tool to organize my thoughts, when I offhandedly remarked that there was this software out there that was created to do exactly that. And he's all, do you have it? And I'm all, no, I asked for it for Christmas but never got it, and he's all, no you didn't, and I'm all, yes I did. That went on for awhile until it was ascertained that I did, in fact, ask for it. And then he's all, well I'll buy it for you right now then.

And I'm all, oh shit. Now I'm actually going to have to start writing. Because I'm going to feel extremely bad if my dad spends $80 on this program and I don't even use it and consequently produce something resenbling a book. Shit, shit, shit. I'm not ready! I'm too thin-skinned to face rejection and all that.

I did receive a last-minute injunction last night when my Hotmail blocked me from opening the executable file, so now I have to wait until it gets resent to another email address. But that's only a matter of hours.

Ahh, I'm a big chicken. To me it feels like the first day of school. Right now I'm still hiding under the bed, but sooner or later someone's going to drag me out and throw me on the bus and send me on my way, for better or worse. Who knows where it'll go from there?