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ShinyHappy - Thoughts for September 1st - 15th
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09/15/05 The Corn Snakes are coming! The Corn Snakes are coming!
You want to know why my weblog has taken a hit the last few days? Well, I'm doing this thing that the kids nowadays are calling 'Getting A Good Night's Sleep' and 'Being Awake During All The Daylight Hours'. Yes, indeed, my insomnia issues culminated in a day where I couldn't keep my eyes open and likely slept for eighteen of the twenty-four hours. I was up at six the next morning, listening to things like birds outside of windows and confusing the hell out of Mong who isn't used to me getting out of the bed at that time. It's been like this now for a few days.
What this means is that when the later nighttime hours start to roll around I realize that I'm exhausted and barely able to keep my eyes open. That time is when I usually write my weblog but the need for sleep has definitely won out, let me tell you. Anyhow, I think this sleep pattern is a very healthy thing and hopefully will continue on, as a slight feeling of normalcy can be good for the soul. Yay, me. I just have to tweak my weblog-writing timeslot a bit, I guess.
My dreams are still weird, however, and still involving disturbing animal situations. I dreamed last night that I was in a bedroom that Mimi and I used to share and there were tons of red and white baby snakes slithering around on the floor. They seemed to be coming from under one of the beds and I was trying to figure out where their hatching area was. I somehow knew they were poisonous and was freaking out trying not to get bitten. They were able to leap up in the air, but since they were so small they didn't get terribly high. After a while they seemed to go away and I looked under the bed to see if there were more, but there was only one big dead one that was dried up and withered looking.
I don't have anything against snakes, although I haven't had much contact with them in my life. I was curious to see if there was any kind of snake that looks like the ones from my dream, but wasn't able to find anything that really matched them. This one gives you a general idea, except they weren't exactly like that. The white and red patches were larger and of equal size. Each snake probably only had two red patches and two white patches.
I do find dreams and dream interpretation fascinating, even if I can't bring myself to believe there's truly any way to interpret them successfully, or even that there's something there to interpret. I guess I should just assume they don't mean anything unless someone in my dream is screaming at me, "I'm in your dream and I'm trying to tell you something, you nitwit!"
Anyhow, I'm exhausted and I'm going to bed. Maybe tonight I'll dream about baby bunnies.
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09/11/05 This time it's not bunnies.
We haven't had a bizarre animal event in a while (excluding Mong's everyday actions), so we were due. Andrew and I were sitting in the living room this afternoon and suddenly a noise like a bird freaking out started up. It was very loud and sounded like it was right outside our living room windows. It didn't stop quickly, as bird noises often do, so I eventually raised the blinds on the large window to see if I could see what was going on. It turned out that it wasn't a bird making the repetitive squawking noise; it was a squirrel. A fairly small black squirrel, perched on the window ledge, screaming its lungs out over and over and over and over.
At first I was worried that it was hurt, but after observing it for a few minutes it seemed like it wasn't in pain or anything. It was just freaking the heck out. It screamed and screamed, getting a really panicky screech sound into the end of each noise. It could see me looking at it out the window, and it could definitely see Mong (who of course came and busybodied himself into the situation). It gradually moved itself from one end of the ledge to the other, stopping to screech and scream and be as loud as squirrelishly possible. I was worried that it was hurt in some way that wasn't evident to the eye, but it seemed to have no trouble moving. It kept cocking its head to look at me and Mong, then would go back to yelling into the lilac bushes.
After a while of this it jumped to the smaller window ledge closer to the street, still relentlessly screaming. I kept my eye on it for a while while I was watching TV, and realized at one point that the noise had stopped. I checked the ledges and it was gone. No more screaming squirrel. It had taken itself off somewhere, either to rest or harangue some other lucky listeners.
This was kind of odd, but I found it slightly disturbing because lately for some reason I've been having disturbing rodent dreams. Last week I dreamed that I had a number of rats and hamsters as pets, but kept forgetting to feed them and give them water. I kept the cages somewhere covered so it was a case of 'out of sight, out of mind'. I'd suddenly remember them and rush to check on them and they'd be all emaciated and near death, at which point I'd give them food and water and then keep forgetting about them for a long time afterward. They were never actually dead, just suffering horribly.
The other night I dreamed that I had a cat (which didn't seem to be Mong in the dream) that had attacked two little tiny rodents in a house. I rescued them from the cat, but when I had them in my hands it was obvious that they were terribly injured. One died, but the larger mouse didn't die and I kept thinking that maybe it would pull through and I could keep it as a pet. I was upset, though, because it kept trying to get out of my hand and was screaming in pain.
After waking up from these dreams I kept wondering what they could mean. I don't necessarily think that dreams always mean something, but they were so vivid and disturbing that I decided to see what various dream interpretation websites had to say. Apparently rats and mice foretell trouble, but I call bullshit on that because I like rats and mice and have kept both as pets in the past. I don't conceptualize rats especially as sneaky and cunning, as the dream sites describe them. Plus, various sites had various interpretations of the same symbols, so I think it's a fairly unreliable science.
Any actual dream interpreters out there who want to give it a go? I'd be interested to know what you think it means.
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09/09/05 Cannibalism just doesn't tempt me.
I was spoiled tonight! Colin and Jen bought me dinner and ice cream and gave me an awesome birthday gift!
Yes, we went to New Mee Fung. I was looking forward to having pho, since I haven't had it in a long time. When we got to the restaurant and were in the process of ordering, though, I suddenly realized that I was craving barbeque beef on rice noodles, so that's what I had. It was awesome, so I'm glad I had it, but I still want some pho. Next time.
Colin and Jen picked me up and Andrew met us at the restaurant since he was out watering his parents' plants for them while they're away. There was a nicely wrapped gift sitting in the backseat and I was informed that it was for me. It was (very fittingly, as it turns out) wrapped in somewhat festive-looking red and green wrapping paper with tools of the hardware variety all over it. Hammers, wrenches, pliers, saws, rulers, screwdrivers, levels; those kinds of tools. When I opened the gift I was momentarily slightly confused, as it was a rechargeable battery charger. I come from a family where we recycle boxes to wrap non-related items in for birthdays and Christmas, so I was trying for a moment to figure out if the recharger was the gift or if I was supposed to open the box. I spied a package of rechargeable AA batteries along with it, however, and deduced that my first instinct was correct! Yeehaw! Colin has noticed that I'm always talking about needing batteries for the digital camera, and this is going to save us a ton of money in battery costs as it seems we're always buying them.
After our delicious meal we headed out to Pure Gelato for some ice cream. I'd declared that I was intending to get a flavour that I've never had before. It's very easy to do so at Pure Gelato, since they have a ton of flavours and many I've never heard of before. This time I went with 'cookies' which isn't exactly exotic but since I'd never had it before it counts. It tasted like ladyfingers. The cookies, not actual fingers of high-born women. I regretted my choice after having a taste of Jen's, however. She got kiwi and it was incredibly good. Tasted just like a kiwi, dudes. The fruit, not a native of New Zealand.
After this we went off to rent a movie to watch. There was no parking near the video store so Colin and Andrew dropped Jen and me off to select a movie while they went to pick up the car that Andrew drove to New Mee Fung in. This was brave on their part, as Jen liketh the bad movie and I admit I often do too. We narrowed our choices down to three finalists, and when Andrew came in to fetch us he helped us settle on Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. The other two selections were Sahara (which wasn't available in widescreen) and something else that I can't remember right now.
Unfortunately, none of us thought that Sky Captain was all that great. I think Jen liked it best, I liked it second best, and Andrew and Colin might have tied for lip-curling derision. It wasn't that it was a really horrible movie, but as Andrew said to me in the car on the way home, "It could have been so much more than it was." I agree, although I honestly don't think the writers or producers envisioned it beyond what it was.
So that was my post-birthday celebration with Colin and Jen! Thank you so much, you two! I had a fabulous time and I looooove my gift. Many, many pictures of Mongkut and egg art will ensue.
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09/08/05 Fun day for me, boring read for you!
Today was nice. Firstly, I actually slept during the time when the sun was down, and woke up at an almost reasonable hour! Yay for that. So I decided to go out shopping with some of my birthday money today which was also yay-worthy. I started off with a trip across the street to Wallacks. I am starting a new art project involving eggs again and I needed to buy some pens. I was looking specifically for india ink, but decided not to go the quill pen route and instead bought some marker-type black ink pens. I was very impressed with the range of art pens they had and bought one for Andrew too, since he prefers writing with that style of pen.
I had a lovely time browsing in the art store and ended up leaving with a great big package of fast mache and the pens that I wanted. Woo hoo! I could spend hours just wandering around in art stores and imagining all the artwork I'd do if I had the cash and space to do it in. Hopefully I will very soon have some new artsy fartsy stuff to show off, though. I came home and dropped that stuff off, then went back out again, this time to the Home Hardware where I bought some sandpaper and then the Body Shop where I bought a hairbrush I've been coveting for a while. It's a wooden quill hairbrush so it's very fancy, you know. On my way back home I went into the candy store and lingered around for a bit, trying to settle on some kind of nougaty treat since I was craving nougat, but all the nougat there was chocolate covered so it was not to be. Sigh.
I imagined I was finished with my shopping for the day, having purchased all the items that I immediately wanted. Later on in the evening, though, I began to regret not stopping in at the bead store as well so I hauled myself back out and went to my beloved bead store. It's been a while since I did a really good browse in there and they had a lot of neat new beads, some of which I admired and some of which I purchased. That was pretty awesome.
Upon returning home I failed to notice that there was a message on the phone and quite a while later when I finally did notice the flashing lights alerting me to them I found that there were two messages, one of which was Jen and Colin inviting me and Andrew out for an evening of ice cream and pho to celebrate my birthday. Awwww! Andrew was at his first class of the year anyhow and was home not long after I'd discovered the message, so we called them back and arranged to pho it up tomorrow night. Yay! Pho and ice cream with dear friends! I think I'll have two good days in a row.
We finally bought some batteries for the camera so I was able to take a picture of the new toy I bought for Mong. As I mentioned before; it's a fuzzy squirrel with a fluffy tail. Frankly, Mong isn't all that interested in it except for liking to groom its tail every now and again. You can kind of tell in this picture that its tail has been licked:
We also still have the mysterious range of cable channels that we did not have before. We've thrown around the idea of it being a freebie week from the cable company or something to get us so addicted that we simply have to buy it when they yank it away cruelly. I think I'd definitely go into CSI withdrawl if they do that. Mong, however, will not. Here is the level of enthusiasm he displayed while I watched CSI tonight:
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09/07/05 Getting creative in the kitchen with Keltie.
I haven't really known what to say in my weblog about the New Orleans disaster. I write in this weblog about the lighter side of my life but it's been worrying me that not writing about the hurricane might make it seem that it hasn't impacted me or like I don't care. I've read in other people's weblogs and on message boards that they feel like they have to say something about it; for whatever reason they have to acknowledge it. I guess I'm feeling that pressure too, but why? Only people that purposely avoid the news in all its media forms would be ignorant of what happened. I'm not one of those people. I know what happened, I read a ton of news reports about it, have been reading weblogs of people directly and indirectly involved with it, have watched coverage on television. I've been horrified by it right along with everyone else, so why should I suspect that anyone would assume I'm either ignorant or uncaring? I'm aware that even writing this paragraph means that I have in a way bowed to the pressure I feel, but it bothers me that I feel it. I don't have a rant to post or anything new to say on the subject. Here are some few things that have made an impact on me, though:
A ton of websites and weblogs have posted this tidbit: Bush said, "There's no way anyone could have predicted those levees would fail." He apparently hadn't read this article from last November in the National Geographic or apparently a ton of other sources that I can't directly cite that have predicted the failure of the levees.
A man from a newsgroup I used to read has been detailing his escape and the later escape of his wife in his LiveJournal.
Andrew posted a very compelling weblog by some guys who stayed in New Orleans throughout the hurricane and its aftermath.
On a lighter note, I made spaghetti sauce today. Andrew had picked up beef and tomatoes for me yesterday, and when I went to mince the garlic for it I discovered that we were out of garlic! Oh, no! I already had the beef browned and didn't want to ask Andrew to race to the store, so I decided to make it without the garlic. That might seem sacreligious, but it doesn't end there. I wanted to add something else to give it some zip, zing, what-have-you and settled on mincing up a couple of stuffed manzanilla olives really fine and throwing them in. I was a bit worried, but it turned out as good as usual, though not better. I don't think it's something I'll repeat since I do like garlic in my spaghetti sauce but it's nice to know that it doesn't make that much difference in the end. Can anyone suggest anything else I could have used to replace the garlic? If I had an onion I probably would have used that instead, but I don't put onions in my sauce when making it the regular way.
Something else new and different: The other day after we installed our new VCR Andrew discovered that we suddenly have tens and tens of channels more than we'd had before. Like, sixty more. I don't know where they came from or if they're related to the installation of the new VCR, but it's been crazy suddenly having all this choice! It turns out that between them Spike TV and ShowCase are running CSI (Miami and Las Vegas) twenty four hours a day for some reason, so I've been getting a lot more educated about epithelial cells and DNA sequencing. Things like that. The Vegas show is the best one, but I admit a fondness for the Horatio character from Miami. He's so cheese-tastic!
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Today was my birthday! I'm 31 now and not minding it too terribly much. Turning 30 didn't really bother me, so this wasn't much of an issue either. Mom and Mimi gave me gifts when they were here last weekend, and so did May and Dan. I'm not the type to save them for my actual birthday if they're being given to me, of course, so I've been enjoying them for over a week already.
My birthday tends to fall on Labour Day quite often so I'm used to it being fairly quiet, especially when I can't get to Kingston to see my family on the day of. Andrew and I had an uneventful day here at home, and will be going out for a nice birthday dinner this coming weekend. Andrew very, very sweetly rented me a movie that I've been dying to see; Bride & Prejudice. I loooooooove Pride and Prejudice (book and movie), so was very interested to see the Bollywood take on it. It doesn't quite measure up, of course, but it was thoroughly enjoyable and I'm very happy that I got to see it. Now I must watch my copy of the miniseries which is worth every second of its 300 minutes.
On Saturday we went to Andrew's grandparents' place for lunch. They'd invited us over for a barbeque since the summer season will soon be over. I was worried going over there since I'd been up all night long with a horrid, awful bout of insomnia. I managed it fairly well, though, suprising myself since I don't function that well on not enough sleep. Andrew's grandparents are incredibly lovely people and we had a very nice time with them. It did start to rain while we were eating our lunch out on the patio, but we were under a canopy and were fine.
After we left we went on a hunt for a new VCR to replace the one that Mong trashed. I also sent it flying down behind the television set last weekend which can't have been good for it. July had dropped some candy on the floor and I was bending over to help her pick them up when I backed into the 'entertainment center' (such as it is). The VCR, which was not incredibly stable where it was perched on top of the DVD player, was the casualty. So I wanted a new one for my birthday and they're very cheap now if you buy the kind that doesn't have a DVD player as well. We went to Best Buy where they advertised one for $59.99, but the store was sold out. We were disheartened by this point and I was nearly weeping with exhaustion, but I've been dying for a while now to buy a particular organic brand of conditioner that's hard to get and since we had the car and all Andrew took me to where I could get it. That was awesome, and when I finally had it in my tired little hands we began to head for home, then decided to try again for the VCR. We went to another Best Buy and they were sold out of the same one as well. So off we went to Futureshop (which was right next door) and they didn't even have anything in a nice low price range at all. I really wanted to get the thing. So we went to Audiotronic where we not only found exactly what we were looking for, we found it for $49.99! Woot!
We now keep the VCR and DVD player in the shelf below the television, not on top of it. It's a good thing.
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I sat on Mong tonight. I didn't mean to. He has a habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Andrew has stepped on him multiple times in the last while since he's always lurking just behind him. He also does a kind of cute thing where he'll chase us when we leave or enter a room and act like he's going to take our legs off at the knee, which sometimes ends with me staggering around trying not to step all over him. Tonight I was just about to sit on the sofa and he thought he'd run across where I was just about to sit. I knew that there was a pillow where I aiming myself and at first thought that the resistance my butt had met was just that, but after a second I realized that it was a bit more of a wriggly resistance than it should have been. I got up very quickly and Mong escaped from under me.
Andrew witnessed the whole thing. He looked mildly horrified as he said, "You really sat on him!" Well, if you're going to do something as stupid as run around under people's butts when they're about to sit down, you're going to get squished. Of course I was concerned and immediately checked to make sure that he was all right. Surprisingly, he didn't seem fazed at all. He just shrugged it off, immediately beginning to purr and grooming himself like nothing had really happened. I have a theory that cats know when you've done something accidentally and don't hold it against you and I think this backs it up. Being mushed into a sofa with my butt didn't tick him off, but you should have seen him when I wrapped him in a towel so I could clip his claws. Talk about pissed off! He used swear words I didn't even think he knew.
Have I told you that I love Rosie O'Donnell's weblog? I do. Some people hate it because of the way she writes in a free-form poetry style. I like it.
it makes me want
to write all my entries
like this
capitals and punctuation
be damnedI'll stick to my usual style, however, since it's what I'm used to. Anyhow, Rosie's blog is nice.
Speaking of blogs; Andrew has changed the address of his so make sure you read it and update your bookmarks if you're a weblog collector like I am. He caved in to Colin's peer pressure and has started using a perl weblog application with which to write his. I started out writing mine in plain html because my webspace provider didn't allow the use of perl, and now I'm just so used to it that I probably won't change. Unless I really, really want to.
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September. I love September. It's my favourite month. Not just because it's my birthday month, no. I just love the feeling of September. I assume it's left over from when I was younger and looking forward to the school year starting. It was such an optimistic, happy feeling and every year around this time I just get that giddy little sensation. It's nice.
It's soon going to be a year that we've lived in Ottawa. I can't quite believe that we've lived here that long already. For some reason my time in Toronto felt much longer. I do admit that I've had a much harder time adjusting to living in Ottawa, which is kind of odd since I always thought that Toronto would be the last place I'd love living in. So many people told me that TO would be overwhelming and scary and cold and they could actually have been right about that if I'd been moving there on my own. I had Andrew, of course, and so it wasn't scary at all. It was exciting and new and I loved learning about it with him. He already knew all the great places to eat and the neat cinemas to go to.
Ottawa has been more difficult for me for a lot of reasons. I had learned to love living in Toronto. I loved the people and routines we had and knew how very much I would miss them when we went away. I knew that we wouldn't see Noah as much and would be missing out on seeing him go through the changes that happen so quickly with toddlers. He's recently started talking an utter blue streak and it's always different every time we see him.
I always complain that there's no subway in Ottawa, but even though I'm mostly kidding when I bring it up, I'm not entirely joking about it. It made me feel a lot more comfortable traveling around Toronto on my own, as soon as I started going to job interviews. I still feel very unsure of getting around Ottawa by bus. Admittedly that's something I could work on with some studying of the bus routes, but ... yeah. I have traveling paranoia issues and the simplicity of the subway comforted me.
While we love our apartment beyond all proportion, it still might have been smarter for us to find a place located closer to the downtown area, for a couple of reasons; Firstly, no matter how you look at it you pay to live in the Glebe with higher rent and higher prices at the stores. Secondly, it would just have been a matter of convenience, really. It would make walking to some of the places we very regularly go to a much simpler thing, and taking the bus up Bank street to see Colin and Jen would have been just like it was to take the bus to see Dan and May back in TO.
Yes, I miss Toronto. It might even sound like I hate Ottawa, but I don't. There are things about Ottawa that I love, too. I love going for walks in Ottawa. The neighbourhood we live in is perfect for going for long walks in. Andrew and I talk about all the gorgeous houses we walk by. Living here has given me an opportunity to discover that I am actually interested in heritage architecture and old barns and silos and farmhouses. The Rideau Canal is also perfect for walking along and I hope to get in a few more long, pleasant strolls beside it before the nasty winter weather comes along.
New Mee Fung. What more can I say? Only that it has the best cold pork rolls anywhere, ever. And their bubble tea rocks.
I've gotten to spend more time with Andrew's family while living here, and that's been great. Knowing that I'll be gaining such a fantastic set of in-laws is a very nice thing. Andrew's family always makes me feel like I'm one of them, which you'd think would have been a tiny bit difficult in the very beginning when I was this brand-new, where-in-the-hell-did-she-come-from face. But no; they've never been anything less than incredibly accepting and giving and that blows my mind.
Colin and Jen! Being able to live near them, spend time with them, drink booze with them, eat many fantastic meals with them and watch many, many, many horrible movies with them has been something that makes Ottawa a happy place for me to be. Having dear friends nearby is a very important necessity of life, I have learned.
What is true for both Toronto and Ottawa, however, is that neither would be a home for me if it weren't for Andrew. Wherever we are together is where I want to be.
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