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ShinyHappy - Thoughts for April 16th - 30th
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I'm not a mean person at heart, but sometimes something unfortunate happens to another person and all you can do is laugh. See, Andrew was really tired from being up late doing taxes last night, so when he got home from work he quickly degenerated into 'naptime Andrew' which is the lazy, goofy, blinky, rubbey-eyed Andrew that really needs a nap but doesn't go to take one until I say he really looks like he needs a nap. I eventually said he looked like he needed a nap and he agreed and headed to the bedroom to take one. I went with him to tuck him in, and he thought he'd be clever and playful and grabbed me from behind and pulled me down on the bed. That's all well and good and fun, but in doing so he got himself a hairstick right in the left eye. He still had his eye so it was O.K. for me to laugh helplessly as he nursed his wound.
Then he went to sleep. A little while into his nap, however, Marcus called and asked if we were up for a little hanging out. Andrew said he'd get back to him after his nap, but by the end of his nap I had a bad headache and he was still feeling like mostly crap, so he called Marcus and said we weren't with it enough for a get-together. I was sad about that, as I'd mentioned before the nap that I was feeling sociable and wanted to do stuff. Eventually we figured we could drag ourselves out for some Italian food at Amato's and called Marcus back. He'd just ordered some food in, though, so had to then diss us as we'd dissed him. Which is unfortunate, because Marcus is the kind of person you want to hang out with when you can.
So, we went. On the way Andrew noticed that his preferred video store had opened in its new location, so on the way back home we stopped in so he could rent a movie for himself and check out the new digs. He was browsing movies and I was waiting somewhat impatiently because we were also going to Shoppers Drug Mart and I wanted to look at conditioners (of course). As I stood there and he looked at movies he reached out a hand in my direction without looking, probably to stroke my hair, but ended up poking me right in the eye.
Accidental? Or payback? I don't know. I leave it to you to decide.
Oh, something that was rather exciting (to me, I must amend) at Amato's was that a group came in and they had a baby boy with them that appeared to be Noah's age, or just a bit younger. He was adorable as babies that age always are, of course, and had a gorgeous smile to boot, but the best thing about him, the very best thing, was that he was wearing a pair of red leather baby monkey shoes just like Noah does!
Even more exciting is that I Googled the search term "red leather baby monkey shoes" and that link was the first on the list! Woo hoo!
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04/29/04 Pranks, persecution and taxes, oh my!
Today must be considered good as Andrew still has a job! Yay!
I was revisiting The Credit Card Prank that I linked to in yesterday's entry and realized that not only is that funny, but the entire site is hilarious! In fact, I must point out to my friend Corey Tamas if he's reading that it's even funnier than TheSpark.com. So everyone should visit the ZUG site and read all the pranks this guy has pulled. I love The Viagra in Church Prank, but my all-time favourite will forever be The All-Natural Prank. Perhaps the best part is the epilogue where he lets us know what happened in the store where he bought all his natural items.
Oh, and nobody is allowed to tease me about hair stuff any more, as Andrew expressed a slight interest in trying the conditioner only method of hair washing. If I'm not the only one doing it, it's not weird. He hasn't actually done it yet, though, but I'll see what I can do about that. Also, I went to buy some henna the other day at the natural foods store and there wasn't any there! I saw plenty of boxes last time I went, so they must run out of that stuff fast. Or someone decided they were going to have a henna party. This all sucks because I wanted to henna tomorrow and now cannot, but I'll do some exploring around and see if I can't find some elsewhere. They may get some back in stock, but I'm starting to think like Andrew does about these things. He has a persecution complex wherein he believes that every product that he loves gets discontinued. This also extends to restuarants and theaters that he loves closing or getting torn down. He just informed me that everything he loves goes away. I'm not sure where that leads in regard to me. Hrm.
I laundered some sheets tonight that Halo had puked on and was very careful not to bounce my face off the washing machine coin slot this time. However, I was very angry when I went back over there to grab the stuff from the dryer. When I'd put the sheets in the dryer I'd made sure it was on high and came home for half an hour. When I went back over to check it, it was on low! You have to push a button to set it on low, and I'd double-checked the temperature setting before leaving because I hate not realizing it's on low and ending up with a basketful of damp clothes. So some loser had changed the temperature setting on me in my absence. I hope they got their kicks, but lucky for me it was pretty much dry anyhow.
I was positive that my stupid prior place of employment had sent me my T4 form, but when I went to get it tonight from where I was sure it was, it wasn't there. Argh! Andrew had planned to do both our taxes tonight. Mine would have been ridiculously easy, too, but no, not without that form. And since we're right down to the wire on them, mine will have to be filed late. Not the end of the world, but typical. My record of employment was where I thought my T4 had been, so I guess that's what I'd had in my head as being the T4, so now I'm wondering why I didn't receive my T4. Argh again!
Taxes suck. Although I never have to pay, so why am I complaining? See, being poor has its benefits sometimes.
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04/28/04 Oh, I'm just going to get worse as time goes by!
Today made me very, very happy. For various reasons it was a kind of fluctuating happy/stressed sort of day, but in the end happiness prevailed.
Happy firstly because today was Andrew's and my nine-month anniversary. What a wonderful, fantastic nine months it has been with so many changes for the better. I got to quit my nasty job in Kingston, move to Toronto, meet fabulous new people and friends, try new foods (that's really due solely to Andrew, believe me) and most importantly build this fantastic, incredible relationship with the man I love.
Then the day took a downturn. Andrew came home from work. That's not the bad part. He had a bouquet of flowers for me, which is also not the bad part. The bad part is that he was highly stressed and worried. His work environment has become more and more unstable over the last few months, and there's been a long string of firings that have him very concerned about his job security. They've taken to calling his boss 'The Donald' because he invites people into his boardroom and then fires them. So Andrew, having given his notice for the end of July, has no idea if that means he is at risk of getting fired or not. You'd think that since they have a time limit on his employment anyhow he'd be safe, but this business just doesn't seem to work that way. So we're worried, but Andrew is slightly optimistic that he's just suffering from paranoia.
The day was rescued, however, by the fact that we've decided to share with all our loved ones that we're engaged. Yes, we are engaged to be married July 29th, 2006. We were going to wait and tell our families in person, but since that won't be for at least a few weeks yet we broke down and told our loved ones over the phone tonight. And sharing happy news like that just chases the blues away, I must say. Our friends have known since the weekend, as we wanted to tell them when we had them all together in one room for the most part, and I've been barely able to contain myself when it came to writing in my blog. Sigh. But now I can! I can! Wheee!
So I'm going to kick off my wedding related wackiness by sharing this hilarious wedding dress sale on eBay. You have to admit, the guy has a sense of humour about the whole thing, and it's really a very nice dress, even if he doesn't have quite the body type for it. I have heard speculation that it's all a hoax, but even if it is ... Come on, guy in a wedding dress, people!
Oh, how did Andrew ask me to marry him? Well, it was on the Monday night that I got back to Toronto from Kingston, on the 19th. I was feeling sick, I was in bed, and Andrew joined me to snuggle and talk. Our conversation got around to how great we are together and how much we missed each other over the weekend, and then Andrew just got overcome with the urge to ask me right then without waiting until our one-year anniversary like he'd planned. It was wonderful, sweet, and romantic, and I'm extra lucky because then when he gives me the ring, it'll be like I get two proposals from him. Yay, us!
O.K., I know. I need to calm down. Heh heh. Our friends have told me more than once since we told them about it that I'm just glowing. Yeah, I know I am. It's hard not to right now.
To end this on another funny note, I think you should check out this Credit Card Prank that this guy repeatedly pulled. Very funny stuff!
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04/27/04 My last paragraph demonstrates excessive use of exclamation marks.
Once again we did not go out to see Kill Bill Vol. II with Pez and Skye. What ended up happening was that Andrew went out with Pez and Skye and bunch of people from work and got really tipsy without going to see a movie, then came home and yakked my ear off, tipsily. It was kind of neat to be very sober while he was not and listen to how talky it made him. I could have asked him anything and he would have answered. At length. The trade-off, however, is that he'll also spontaneously tell me stuff I may not want to hear, too. Eh. You take the good with the bad.
I had some things to take care of around here so was unable to join in the fun, but I got to talk to my mom and Alannah and May and Jerome on the phone, which was all very good. Actually getting Jerome on the phone was a bit of a chore. I called and he was on the other line, so he said he'd call back. Well, he called when I was talking to Alannah, so I told him I'd call him back. Then when I called him back, he was on yet another call! Finally he called me back and I was not on another call and we actually got a chance to talk. Yay! And he was in a fine mood as today was the first day of the school production that he basically put together all by himself and it was a huge success. I mean, he wrote it and choreographed it and did the music for it and probably stood outside the windows of all the little actors and whispered their lines at night. He works hard, and deserves every accolade he gets as a result of everything he put himself through to make this a success. And he put himself through a lot.
Because May requested it so sweetly and it was a gross oversight on my part not to do one in the first place, I have made not one but two South Park portraits of baby Noah! The first is of Noah's solemn face which he wears quite often and to great effect. It's a sort of enigmatic thing that he does until he breaks out into the happiest baby on earth style of being. I do, however, believe that this is where the South Park Character Generator breaks down, as there are no real baby options and it doesn't do his magnificence justice. What does is the Noah Friedman Gallery. Check him out.
My mom did the animal test, she tells me, and was either a beaver or penguin. Since I am a penguin I think that's pretty cool, but the beaver profile is nothing to sneeze at. Go, Mom. Andrew does insist that he's going to do the test. Every time I ask him, he insists. I believe him. Really, I do.
Really.
OH! I found out the best thing today! Mimi has a computer now, and by next week will be diving into this crazy thing we call the internet! So I will have not one, but two sisterly tormentors crapping up my weblog comments with unnecessarily snide comments! Yay!
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04/26/04 Today was not Andrew's day.
Well, tonight was the final fun get-together with Colin and Jen at Dan and May's place before they return to Ottawa tomorrow. May cooked up a bunch of pasta sauce, meat and vegetarian both, for our dining pleasure. That was wonderful, but I was not otherwise entirely pleased, however, as schedules got slightly tangled and Andrew did not make it over to their place to join us. See, some friends of ours had their baby last week, a healthy little girl with all her fingers and toes, and with their schedule being a bit unpredictable Andrew told them that they could name any night this week and we'd be there. Well, as luck would have it, tonight was the night. I was already out with Rayna when this transpired late in the day, so Andrew went there on his own after work and I spent the night until very late at Dan and May's.
I felt bad about that as Andrew apparently had a very, very rough day all told, so I was a bit melancholy for him throughout the evening. We did play a fun game of Trivial Pursuit, then Colin and Jen showed us a selection of their pictures from their trip to Australia, plus Marcus showed his pictures from his trip to Kentucky. Normally slide shows are boring, but they had great commentary to go along with the pictures which made it enjoyable and fun and not boring at all. I know I've mentioned before what a pleasing group of people my friends are, but it really bears repeating. I'm so glad they can stand having me around even without Andrew, who is the reason I got to know all of them in the first place!
Then I got to come home and comfort Andrew, which he sorely needed and I think it helped a lot. Sometimes it's a very good thing to have someone around to bitch to.
Andrew and I plan to go out tomorrow night for our postponed movie date with Pez and Skye to see Kill Bill vol. II, which I've been looking forward to for a while now. I thoroughly enjoyed the first one, and usually excessive violence doesn't really do anything for me. It's actually been a while (for us) since we've been to see a movie. All good.
Um ... that's about it, really. Today was a good enough day for me (if not for Andrew), but I don't have a lot else to report. No personal injury, no spills or slips or stumbles or crashes. I like that people are willing to do the 'if you were an animal, what animal would you be?' poll. It warms the cockles of my little penguin heart. Oh, and you may have noticed that I've added a dedicated page for blogs belonging to various of my friends. Read them and enjoy them as much as I do.
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04/25/04 I never claimed to be coordinated.
So, on Saturday night I was walking out of the kitchen and raised my arm to scratch my head or check my hair or something and majorly bashed my elbow on the doorframe. Hard enough to make me stagger and curse in pain and cause Andrew to call out from the bedroom where he was trying to sleep to see what was wrong with me. It sucked, but the pain went away. Or at least the initial, piercing pain faded. After a while I went to lie down on the sofa to read for a bit and when I put my weight on that arm, my elbow screamed at me, and it's been freaking sore ever since.
That was bad enough. Then today I had to brave the sudden monsoon weather to go do laundry, and when I was bending around in front of the washing machines putting clothes in I managed to slam my face into the coin slot. Not the nice flat kind, no, the kind that juts out like a pier and you have to "KACHUNK" the change into the machine with a metal slide. It hurt, and I was horribly embarassed because there was a woman sitting on a bench directly behind me doing nothing but watching what I was doing. So of course she saw it happen. I tried to be cool after that, but it was hard.
I thought I must have been bleeding from my face somewhere around the eye, which is what caught the brunt of impact, but upon inspection I wasn't bleeding at all, and have only a small, negligible bruise on my eye bone (you know, the perimeter of my eye socket).
So those things sucked about the last two days. What's not sucked is getting to spend lots of quality time with our friends, which we did again tonight. We went to Dan and May's for Survivor tape watching, and not only were Dan, May, Colin and Jen there, but also Rayna, Hilary, Marcus, and Bea. It was a great time. We ate sushi, watched Survivor and had a very nice chat after about the show and sundry other things. There was also a strange dessert that I'd never heard tell of before called a Smash Cake that is apparently a hit at parties. It's basically a hollow cake made out of chocolate. It comes with mallets which are used to 'smash' said 'cake'. And ... that's it. So Andrew and Colin sat on either side of a table with mallets, someone counted down, and then they gleefully smashed that poor, defenseless cake to itty, bitty bits. After which we picked at the carcass and then May bagged up the remains to send home with people. These Torontonians and their odd customs.
And people still need to do the 'if you were an animal, what animal would you be?' poll! Colin and Jen are not exempt from this and when they return to Ottawa on Tuesday I greatly hope that they'll inform me that they're cats or badgers or something. My new comments provider will make sure that I see results in a timely manner.
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04/24/04 Out with the old, in with the new.
Well, it's breaking my heart, but I've decided to leave Enetation, my comments service provider up until now, and go with Haloscan, who seem to be far more reliable and less buggy. It's a little bit different, but not extremely so, and I like the manageability of it much better.
Today was quite nice. It was mainly quiet, as Andrew had to go out to meet with a couple whose wedding he'll be deejaying in August to talk about music selection and whatnot. That left me to my own devices all afternoon, until evening when we went out for our postponed pho dinner. We met at the St. Clair West station and made our way to Pho Hung and had a nice, long, leisurely meal before heading down to Union station. We were meeting Dan, May, Colin and Jen at C'est What but had time to kill, so we went for a walk down to the C.N. Tower, where we ended up on a bench at the foot of the tower being the PDA couple that you often see and shake your head at. However, I like to believe that we were not the sickening kind, we were the sweet, obviously in love kind. Yeah. Now I can sleep at night.
Then we did go to C'est What and met up with our friends and had a very, very nice time. I didn't get drunk or anything. In fact, I only had two drinks and a really amazing chocolate brownie dessert that is definitely worth going back for. The coolest part, actually, was getting carded on our way in by the bouncer. This place had the best bouncers! They were all dressed up and walking around with headsets on, and at least one of them thought I was pretty young looking. Woo hoo! I hauled out my health card and he was fine with it, but Andrew didn't have his drivers license with him so there was a tense moment or two until the guy told him to go ahead in. I guess at that point he figured, heck, if he can grow a beard like that he's man enough to go in and drink ale.
So that was our night. It's been lovely having Jen and Colin in town and I'm greatly looking forward to having Survivor night tomorrow with the whole gang. J and C have not been keeping up with this season, and it's a doozy. This particular episode is great, so I'm going to have a difficult time keeping my mouth shut at particular moments, but I think I'll get by.
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04/23/04 Halo would be a chicken, too.
Well, since all the other cool people who might participate in my 'if you were an animal, what animal would you be?' poll are gathered here in Toronto amusing each other instead of reading my paltry weblog (with the exception of a few other people like Jerome and other coolios like him who will participate), nobody appears to be paying attention. Hmpf. I may have to talk about it every day until people take it or just quit reading my weblog in sheer frustration. And thank you, Alannah, for doing your part even though Enetation has gone all wacky, hiding the fact that you went to the trouble to actually do it. Once again I must reiterate that if you're not seeing comments even when the numbers indicate there are some, open the comments box, scroll to the bottom and click on the 'edit comments' link. You won't be able to edit any comments, but it will show the ones that are there in a new screen, for some reason.
For when Enetation actually recovers itself and shows comments properly, here are the listings of all the animals and their attributes. Interesting reading, even if Alannah seems to be kicking dust on their efforts. Kind of like a chicken, hm?
Andrew and Colin went to a Kraftwerk concert tonight, so me, Jen, Dan, May and Rayna all hung out at Dan and May's and ate food and chatted and had a really, really nice time. I love that all these people that I didn't know a year ago are now friends that I consider some of the best I've ever had. Good times! We actually rented a movie to watch, but ended up watching Dan and May's wedding video instead. I'd never seen it and have been dying for quite some time now to share in the hilarity that it is. It doesn't disguise how wonderful and moving the entire thing was, of course, even with the inexplicable shot of rumpled gray silk that was inserted between scenes as a sort of transitional thing.
I'm feeling in much, much better health now and once again am in the stage where I can do whatever I want yet still don't sound so hot. I have that rough, old-man throat thing sort of going on with a bit of a nagging cough, but nothing painful or serious. Just weird-sounding.
So that's it. I had a great, fantastic night. :)
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04/22/04 Penguins are cool.
Sigh. A bit of a blah day for Keltie. Andrew and I were going to go out tonight for a nice dinner at Pho Hung, as I was feeling a bit better and I've read that pho has curative properties. (I may have mentioned that before now. Have I? Hmmm ...) However, Andrew was not up to going out and actually crashed in bed almost directly after getting home from work. I, having not left the apartment since arriving back home on Monday, eventually out of sheer stir-crazy desperation made a trip to the drugstore and browsed around so much that they probably thought I was working up the nerve to shoplift. I wasn't. I'm way too paranoid to shoplift, despite lusting after the barber scissors.
So I bought some conditioner and eyeliner and made change for doing laundry when I work up the energy for that. Wheee!
Also, because I was desperate and bored and lonely I did what I said I wouldn't do and watched Survivor tonight, even though we have a date to watch it with our friends on Sunday night. That's fine, as it's an episode I'll enjoy watching again for the sheer, sadistic satisfaction of it. Oh, the things I could say! The rants I could rant! But friends of mine who wish to remain spoilerless could possibly read this before then, so I will refrain. I really wish I could say that ______ is a snot-nosed, useless ____, and that ______ should grow some _____, but that might possibly give too much away, so I can't. I will say that this is by far the most hostile Survivor I've ever seen of any at this point in the season. Fun!
Oh, I did also buy another Rum and Raisins chocolate bar tonight as I was feeling just that petulant about missing out on pho, and wouldn't you know that I'm going through yet another deadened taste sensation phase brought on by my cold? I set the bar on top of my monitor to let it soften up a bit, as that's how I like my chocolate, and it's like eating soft wax with crunchy and chewy bits throughout. There's not even any point, so I put it away for the time when I can taste again. Andrew also very sweetly bought a bag of President's Choice Peanut Butter Melts yesterday as a treat for me, his poor sickly girlfriend, and I can't taste those either. Boo hoo!
So yeah. I'm going to rip a page from Colin's book and ask, if you were an animal, what animal would you be? What prompted this was Alannah saying to me the other day that she is like a chicken, the chicken that pecks the other, weaker chickens. I don't think she really wants to be a chicken, she was just using it as an example of human behaviour, but it was funny so I wanted to share. However, I then idly wondered if there was an online test that would determine what animal personality different people could be, and lo, there was. I appear to be a penguin. It was that or the otter, but I do think I'm more of a penguin even though it was hard to choose between the two. They both have aspects that I want to have, and both have aspects that I wish I didn't. The test is short and easy, but interesting and I'll like you forever if you take it and tell me your results in the handy-dandy comments box. And I kind of like the fact that it gives more than one possible choice of animal you can be.
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04/21/04 Panamanian Tree Puppies! Yay!
I missed a day of posting in my blog. Wah.
Of course, I missed a day because I was so deathly ill that I honestly didn't care. I probably wouldn't have cared if the apartment was burning down around me, frankly. I developed a high fever by evening and spent the whole night tossing and turning on the sofa, aching and chilly and clammy and generally as miserable as I could be. I'd wake up and have no idea how much time had passed since the last time I'd opened my eyes. And every time I gained consciousness all I could think was, "Ow. Ow. Ow."
I felt a bit better today, but still nowheres near well. It's such a relief to have the major head and sinus pain gone, though, that this feels like relative health. And after an annoying search I managed to locate my nasal spray, so I feel great about that. Nasal spray is miracle stuff. And I think echinacea might be too, as I've been downing it faithfully since Monday night and I think it's doing some good.
However, what definitely helps is to feel at your most unattractive and beastly and have your boyfriend hug you and tell you you're beautiful and that he loves you. That is some good medicine. Part of it might be a wicked lie, but it's the best kind of lie there is. What doesn't help is to talk to your big sister on the phone and have her repeat back the snide things you say with a 'stuffed up' accent, thereby taking away all snideness and making you ridiculous. Love you, La, really, but you can hit a girl where it hurts sometimes.
So since I've been doing absolutely nothing but lying on my back and wishing snot didn't exist for almost two days now, I don't have much new stuff to write in my dear old weblog. I missed out on Survivor Tuesday last night which was disappointing but non-negotiable. Plus, we were supposed to go see Kill Bill vol. II with Pez and Skye tonight and we had to beg off because I'm still unfit for public consumption and Andrew isn't feeling great either. We must rest up and regain our health for this weekend, as Colin and Jen are coming to town and if we have to party hard we must be prepared.
Andrew did borrow the Survivor tape from Dan and May for me to watch today and it was a great episode, I must say. I got to see a Panamanian Tree Puppy (thanks, Andrew), plus Boston Rob weaving his evil even in his most tender and human moment in the history of Survivor. I nearly hurt myself laughing when he said (regarding the letters from home for everyone that he managed to trade his video for), "It's not about strategy. Well, O.K., it is about strategy a little bit." Classic, wonderful Rob.
Oh, and my Mom reports that she did try the Spicy Thai Curry chips and although they are a bit too spicy to eat very many at one sitting, she doesn't mind the flavour too terribly much. Now, my Mom is Scottish and we know they don't know much about flavouring their food, but still ... whatever turns your crank, I guess. (I love you, Mom.)
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04/19/04 I'm a cheap drunk.
I'm back in Toronto and feeling fine!
Well, that's not entirely true. I'm back in Toronto, anyhow, and I brought a cold with me that I picked up over the weekend. I started to feel it this afternoon as a vague suspicion, and it came over me fast while on the train from Kingston to Toronto. Weird, but true. I'm feeling full-blown lightheaded and spacey now, and prepared to whine for a few days about my throat and sinuses.
I wondered this afternoon why that last Vex Alannah pushed on me during our final visit seemed to hit me so hard. We had some time between Alannah taking the kids to Tae Kwon Do and my train arriving, so Mom and I went to McDonalds, and I felt really swimmy the whole time. I guess it was just the cold taking over my brain or something, because the feeling has lasted far beyond the power of a Vex. Who needs alcohol? All I require is a fever and compromised immune system.
Frankly, I'm thrilled to be home with my dear, beloved Andrew and Halo, but since I'm feeling so fuzzy and have about the attention span of a gnat at the moment, I'm just going to quit while I'm ahead. Well, except that I feel I do need to advise most everyone not to eat President's Choice Spicy Thai Curry rice chips. I ate exactly one and half of those chips at my mom's place last night, and it was a kindness that I did not throw the rest of the bag in the trash. In fact, I'm going to go ahead and blame my sudden illness on those chips. They certainly can't have done me any good!
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04/18/04 That's what it's all about!
Hooray for Ottawa! The Senators pulled it together to beat the Leafs 2-1 in the second overtime tonight! My mom is surprisingly into hockey nowadays and I got sucked in tonight while she was watching the game. This is good, though, and the next game is the big one so I have to make sure to pay attention now.
I didn't have a non-stop exciting day, but it was very pleasant. I went out for lunch with Mom, Mimi and July, then we went to Alannah's place for a visit before Alannah and Mimi had to go to work. It was a short visit, but fun. July came upstairs with a green rubber monster mask on and threatened us. She's such a ham, and actually pretty good at sound effects for a four-year-old. Because the sisters were both working Mom was babysitting again, so I considered calling Carolyn this evening to see if she wanted a visitor. I didn't get around to doing that, and then my aunt and cousin asked me to go for a walk with them, so I ended up doing that instead. It was nice to get out and get some exercise and conversation, and Mom was home watching the game by the time I got back so we watched the rest of the game together.
I did call Jerome tonight to see how he's doing, and as it turns out he was given a much more in-depth role in the play he's in this summer (The Merchant of Venice) than he'd originally been handed. To begin with he'd been assigned the roles of Tubal and Arragon, and now he's playing a main character whose name I can't recall, even though he told me twice. I'm not surprised. He's a superstar, and one of my great regrets will always be that I did not see him play the Emcee in Cabaret. I'm determined that I will see him in Merchant of Venice this year.
I think that one of the things I'm going to bring back to Toronto with me is the most unbelievable earworm in the world. Mom has a bunch of CDs in her car, and since I moved seems to have gotten a few for July's listening pleasure. I think they're called Kid's Party Songs or something along those lines. Anyhow, July's particular favourite is actually a very good rendition of The Lion Sleeps Tonight. She has very discerning musical tastes for such a youngster, too. Directly following that piece on the CD comes a song with a really promising danceable beat that had me bopping in my seat the first time I heard it. Well, until the lyrics begin. It's the most funkified version of The Hokey Pokey you've ever heard, and I'm going to be singing it to myself for the rest of my life. Andrew will leave me.
All right, Andrew may not leave me for singing a jazzed-up version of The Hokey Pokey, but I may have to do some emergency trepanning if it doesn't leave my brain.
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04/17/04 No hot, taut Asian interior decorators for me!
So far I am having a lovely weekend in Kingston. I was up way too late last night. I'm spoiled by having someone to snuggle up to at night, so sleeping alone in a twin bed just doesn't cut it for me any more! I don't feel like I'm in my bed, so I don't sleep well. Plus, my Halo boy wasn't there to sleep next to me either. He takes up an amazing amount of room for a skinny little orange tabby. Come to think of it, I guess I should be thankful to have a bed to myself once in a while. But I'm not.
Surprisingly, though, I didn't sleep in too late today, which was good because Mark and I had plans to grab some lunch. It was nice to hang out and get caught up on stuff over breakfast-type food at Denny's. I got to hear all about his two-week business trip to the States and how crossing the border was actually pretty difficult. He and everyone else going on the trip were grilled like crazy about their reasons for going, and the border guards kept trying to get them to admit they were going to be doing work, not just visiting. I think if I was in that situation I'd crack under the pressure and start admitting to things I hadn't even done. But they eventually got through, except for one woman who did slip up and admit that she was going to be doing some training work, so she got sent home. How embarassing for her.
So I stuffed myself on a big Belgian waffle and Egg Beaters (better than actual eggs any day!) and got Mark to drop me off at the mall. Mom had told me to try her cell phone when we were done lunch so I could meet her and Mimi and July at the mall, but when I tried I got the annoying "The customer you are trying to reach ..." type crap, so I just figured I'd go, browse around, and get a bus back to Mom's if they were nowhere to be found. The mall was obnoxious. I remembered why I hate malls on weekends as I tried to walk in a relatively straight line, with little success. I figured I had zero chance of finding Mom and Mimi in the crush, so I managed to fight my way to Zellers. I was looking at hair stuff (of course) when I thought I heard a familiar sound a couple of aisles over; July's patented high-pitched, questioning tone of voice. I headed to the end of my aisle, and who comes walking by but Mom, Mimi, and July. Yee haw. I didn't have to ride a bus at all today!
Being tired and in the mood for relaxation, I opted not to babysit with Mom again tonight. Alannah and Mimi are both working, so I decided to spend a quiet evening doing something that I haven't had the opportunity to do in a very long, long time: I indulged in three glorious hours of intensive TLC watching. An hour of While You Were Out, followed by two hours of Trading Spaces. Aaaaaahhhh ... an old addiction of mine fulfilled once more. Sadly, I did not get to see my true interior decorating love, Vern Yip.
I'm hoping for an earlier bedtime tonight. I've talked to my Andrew tonight already and all is right with the world, so I should be able to go to sleep peacefully.
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04/16/04 I'm Vexed.
Today was a pretty good day. Last time I had to take a train out of Toronto it made me very grumpy because walking to the subway station with all my luggage makes me hot and irritated. I solved that little issue this time by catching the bus right outside our building to the station, which resulted in less exercise and fresh air, but also a far less grumpy and irritated me.
Of course, my day wouldn't be complete without doing something a bit foolish. See, I got to Union Station and saw the tail end of a line of people boarding at gate 11 going up the escalator. I thought, Hey, that's gate eleven, the gate that we always board from when we're going to Kingston or Ottawa. I'd better hurry. So hurry I did, and I made it on the train after being instructed to board the last car if I was going to Kingston (which I was). I got a good seat by a window near enough to the washroom and settled in. A very nice lady asked if she could sit beside me. We were getting our tickets out to have them ready for the ticket guy when I noticed that her ticket, which she had stuck into the top of the seat in front of her, had a different train number on it than mine did.
Weird. I started to figure out that there was a possibility that I was on the wrong train. When we bought the tickets there were two trains leaving within twenty minutes of each other, both going through Kingston. My seatmate said I should probably check it out with someone, so I got off the train and asked the dashing young platform guy. He just shrugged and said that it wasn't a big deal, as the car wasn't full, and that I could just stay where I was. Then, when he came around and collected the tickets he tore mine off with a big old wink. Tee hee.
I had a really nice train ride, too, except when the snack cart came around I ordered a mini tin of plain Pringles and the snack cart guy told me he'd have to come back with them. So that was fine, but he didn't go and get them then, he finished servicing the whole car, then he kind of forgot for a while, then he seemed to remember that he had stuff to take around to people and wandered up and down the aisle asking everyone if they'd bought licorice. I hadn't, but it seemed like he really wanted to deal with the licorice problem first. Eventually after the second or third time he went by I said, "No, but I did buy those Pringles," and he gave them to me, saying, "Sorry to keep you waiting."
And then I felt bad. Blah.
It's nice to be in Kingston. I'm at Alannah's right now with Mom as she is babysitting while La is at work. It's really late and I'm not tired, even though I should be. La called and told me I could drink some of her Vex, which is yummy, yummy stuff. Hard Peach Raspberry Lemonade. So, I am. It's no sacramental wine, but it'll do! And I got to talk to my Andrew when he got into Ottawa, too, so my night is complete. There was a slight phone emergency, actually. Mom and I can't find Alannah's cordless anywhere. We pressed the call button on the base, but it's not answering. So people were trying to call and getting antsy about it until Luke came over to ask what was up with the phone. He then kindly brought over a spare phone for us to use. See, my irrational hatred of cordless phones doesn't seem so irrational now, does it?
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