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ShinyHappy - Thoughts for December 16th - 31st
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12/31/04 Every cat loves magical Marcus!
I'm still ill, but we're going to Toronto. Even if I have to spread my nasty germs all over the highway between here and there, it's happening. Even if I have to wear a hazmat suit, it's happening. Uh ... unless Dan and May don't want my sickly ickiness near their beautiful son, in which case it's not happening.
Anyhow, last night's entry was a recap. Today I can linger over some of the smaller details if I wish.
To begin with, Marcus used his magical way with animals to completely charm Halo. Now, it might not have looked to the untrained eye that Halo was completely charmed, but Marcus was able to pick him up and keep him on his lap long enough to get him to purr. That, my friends, is charm. When coming into a room with Marcus in it Halo even did his patented cat yoga stretches that he has to do when he enters a room with people that he loves in it. He would rub his pointy little face on Marcus' hands when he held them out to him. It was wonderful.
He didn't show himself at all when Alannah and the kids were here, but a cat can only take so much. It could have had something to do with the fact that Sehrin discovered that our floors make a fantastic skating rink when you pull your sweatpants over your feet. Come and try it. It looks like fun. And no, I haven't tried it. Yet. I don't own any sweatpants.
I got a pile of chocolate for Christmas! People, what are you trying to do to me? Dan and May contributed most to my new stash with a 1.5 kg jar of incredibly delicious Quality Street treats. Oh, my. I'd hoped that Marcus would help make a dent in all the goodness before he left and he did by concentrating mostly on the Toffifee that my mom gave me. Andrew also got some chocolate, but I'm going to let him concentrate on his own since he can't eat any of my Quality Streets. There's an ingredients list, but it's not specific to each one and since egg does appear he can't trust any of them. Boo.
Ooh, if you may recall I was working furiously on some gift projects before Christmas and being very, very mysterious about them. Well, I was able to buy people real store-bought gifts in the end because I got paid more than I'd expected, so I made the crafts a gift of a different sort. Firstly, the project itself was a whole bunch of eggs. Yes, eggs. I took eggs, emptied them out, and used polymer clay to make decorative percussion eggs. Here's an idea of what some of them looked like. I made a whole bunch of them and put them in a bowl, then whenever we had visitors over during the holidays I let them choose their favourite to take home with them. The best part was when Marcus was trying to choose. He tried every single egg to see what the sound was like.
So that was my big polymer clay venture. I used to use polymer clay a lot when I was a teen, and I've remembered how much fun it is so I want to try maskmaking with it. We'll see how well it works out.
O.K.. So we leave for Toronto in just a couple of hours. I won't be weblogging while I'm there, of course, so it'll be yet another few days. Then I'm back at work on Monday and life should settle down into some semblance of what I once knew as 'normal'. Happy New Year, everyone!
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12/30/04 At least I have my ... oh, dang.
Hi, weblog. I sure have missed you.
I'm sick! Again! And I don't know who to blame because everyone is sick. I probably picked it up at work or something. Yeah, work. That's the ticket. Anyhow, I'll do my best to recall what's been going on since the last entry but my fever-addled brain may not be able to reproduce events exactly as they occurred.
Let's see ... Post-Christmas Christmas was wonderful fun! There were seventeen adults (at least) sitting around three tables pushed together in Jen and Colin's living room. It was so much fun to see all the people we never get to see any more (some of them even living in the same city [and neighbourhood] as us). I won't lie: it was kind of crazy and a bit overwhelming at times, but it was so good to see so many of our friends together in one place like that. And even better was the fact that Alannah and her kids came too! They showed up after the meal and hung out with us for a long time. It made me extremely happy that they got the opportunity to meet the people I've come to know and love over the last year and a half.
I'd actually gotten to see La and the kids earlier in the day. They came over to see our apartment and hang out for a bit. They came to Ottawa for a mini-vacation before the kids have to go back to school and had planned to visit a bunch of museums on Monday. This was a good plan, except for the fact that for some reason there are no museums open on Mondays in Ottawa. So they were able to come and see our place instead, which happens to be in a very lovely historical building and thus can (in my opinion) be considered a museum of sorts. Heck, our refigerator is a museum of old and forgotten foods. They could have just looked in there.
Anyhow, that was the 27th in a nutshell. The 28th found me back at work doing crappy work-like things, but when it was over I headed over to Colin and Jen's place to rejoin everyone. There was So Good there to be eaten so Andrew and I sat in the kitchen and stuffed our faces (and I shamelessly added a little turkey and stuffing to my plateful of Chinese food), then we all gathered in the living room to watch The Hebrew Hammer. Dan, May, Marcus and Hilary had not seen it yet. Having now seen it twice I do think that it's a movie that is funnier the first time around, although I did enjoy it this time too. Once it was over and we started delving into the special features I realized that I was feeling very tired and out of it, so went home a bit early. I believe I was starting to feel the effects of getting sick and just didn't know it yet.
Yesterday I definitely knew that the illness was coming on and wasn't enjoying the experience at all. I had a very long, very difficult day at work and then directly afterward Andrew and Jenny picked me up and we headed over to his parent's place for the annual New Year's fondue night. I was feeling the feeling of 'holy crap things haven't stopped being hectic and non-stop for like a month straight now and I can hardly wait for it all to calm down and just END' when someone mentioned in the middle of fondue that there was another family get-together the next night and that I'd be picked up from work again and whisked off to it. I was stunned. I had no recollection of ever having been told of this event (and still do not). I thought to myself how I'd be going home and straight to bed, then getting up and going off to an equally hard day at work, then going straight to the get-together, then going back to bed, then getting up and heading off to Toronto. It made me feel tired and I wondered to myself how I was going to find the energy for it all.
This was all (more or less) solved by my waking up this morning feeling like I'd been driven over several times in my sleep by a large SUV-type vehicle. My sinuses screamed in agony, my throat rasped, my eyes burned and my temperature hovered nastily a few degrees higher than is considered acceptable in healthy circles. I dithered about whether or not it was enough illness to actually have me calling in sick during my third week of training, but after an hour of being awake and up trying to see how functional I was I realized that yes, it was enough. I called in sick and it was a good thing that I did.
So here I am trying to will myself to get better so that I am up for a gloriously relaxing and fun time in Toronto and have my health back in time for work on Monday. Neo Citran will play a large role this weekend, I'm certain, as will Otrivin. And perhaps Advil. And booze! But not all at once, so don't worry.
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Oh my, did my weblog ever take a hit! I've never gone this long without making an entry. Poor, poor dusty, cobwebby weblog.
Late Merry Christmas, everybody! I did kind of plan to make an entry on Christmas Eve, but as it turns out that was just silly on my part. We had lots to do on Christmas Eve Day. We even had to cancel some plans early in the day because things were overflowing off our social platter. In the afternoon we went to Andrew's grandparent's place for a visit. The plan was that his parents would pick us up and after the visit we'd drive them home and take the car to Kingston. Well, the car had other ideas, suffering from a nail to the tire. So Andrew's dad worked extremely hard to get the car into driveable shape for us and came through. I'd been a little afraid that we wouldn't be able to take the car to Kingston after all, but it didn't happen that way. Thankfully.
So after visiting with Andrew's Granny and Grandpa and his Aunt Rosemary and Uncle Paul and cousin Bridget we got a lift home and got ourselves ready to head out to Kingston. Andrew's parents came by in the repaired car and we took them to their place, then hit the road. Well, after grabbing some fast food to eat on said road. At first the drive was lovely. The air was clear, the roads were fine. Then, maybe somewhere around Merrickville, it started to snow. It got steadily worse and worse and the visibility did too. The snow coated the road so it was impossible to see the lines. If anyone was driving ahead of us they kicked up swirling clouds of snow that blinded us. Andrew just slowed down and drove calmly and steadily, though, and got us to Kingston in one relieved piece.
We went straight to Alannah's place where there was much in the way of Christmas excitement going on. The kids were dancing around like kids do on Christmas Eve. Alannah immediately offered us drinks to fortify us and we accepted. Of course I opted for cheap pop booze, although I did have a little egg nog as well. It was Christmas Eve, you know. My mom eventually came over and we called Mimi to come over. She said she'd be there in a little while. She said that every time we called over the course of the next few hours, and I started to wonder if I'd see her at all. The kids went to bed and the serious Christmas Eve action began. If you don't have kids then you may not know, but Christmas Eve after the kids go to bed is a seriously busy parenting time. This is when the hidden gifts come out and get wrapped. This is when assembly of bigger ticket items takes place. So Mom wrapped a bunch of gifts and Andrew assisted with the assembly of a vanity table for Skotia. I cheered everyone on and played with the kitten.
Oh, yeah. Alannah has the most adorable little baby kitten in the world. Andrew and I experienced some severe kitten envy.
We managed to leave Alannah's place at some ridiculously late hour, Andrew nearing a coma due to having perhaps had two hours of sleep in the prior forty eight. I still had, oh, all of my presents to wrap when we got to Mom's place. I managed to get them wrapped by three a.m. at which point I decided that my warm, snuggly fiance was a better option for me than sitting down to write a weblog entry. I did want to be up by around eight in the morning so we could get back over to Alannah's place by ten at the latest.
Christmas Day was fantastic. We did get over to Alannah's place to give them all their gifts. Alannah gave us our gift too. I'm so excited about what she gave us that I can hardly express it, so I'll just go ahead and say that she gave us a George Foreman Grill! Yay! A George Foreman Grill! I will grill, I will. And Mimi gave me some hairsticks! And a beautiful glass vase with river rocks in it. Real river rocks, not the fake kind. My dad gave me a Japanese tea ceremony kit that comes with all the things you need for it and a book explaining the history and everything. Very cool. My mom showered us with countless wonderful things. For my main gift I'd asked for funding to buy more work clothes with, which I can hardly wait to go out and do. Yeehaw, clothes shopping!
I was thrilled to see my Grandma on Christmas Day too. I definitely don't see enough of her these days, so it was wonderful to hug her in her big fuzzy fake fur coat. I did what I could to help my mom get the Christmas dinner ready, although I think my main contribution was peeling and slicing the carrots. Anyhow, for dinner there was me, Andrew, my mom, my dad, my grandma, Mimi, July, my aunt Norma, my cousin Graham and my cousin Lori. Poor July was sick with a bad cold, but she didn't let it stop her from getting what she could out of Christmas. She ran and played and opened gifts and was generally a four-year-old on Christmas Day.
The meal itself ... how can I describe something so indescribably delicious? My mom makes the best turkey. The highest quality gravy. The worlds greatest stuffing (and I'm not exaggerating in the least). Then for dessert there were two of her unbelievable apple pies. My mom makes a pastry that might not be legal, it's so good. It was the pie we made sure to pack up some of and bring home with us, although right now I'm nearly crying for want of turkey and stuffing, glorious stuffing. Boo hoo.
Eventually, however, things wound down and the time came for Andrew and I to head back to Ottawa. I was very sad to leave Kingston. It felt like I hadn't spent enough quality time with my family, but Christmas (for being the big family holiday it's supposed to be) doesn't really lend itself to the relaxed sort of togetherness required. It was a fantastic Christmas, though. Even better than last year. It was our second Christmas together, and definitely had a more 'settled' feel to it. It also wasn't the traveling nightmare that last year was.
So now we're home. Today Dan, May, Noah, Marcus and Hilary arrive in town. Tomorrow is the big Post-Christmas Christmas get-together at Colin and Jen's place. Marcus is staying with us which will be lovely. He'll finally get to meet Halo. I've been telling Halo that his Uncle Marcus is coming and I think he's very excited about it, although he'll probably be shy at first. I have to go back to work on the 28th which I'm not excited about in the least, but it's only for three days and then we get to spend New Year's with Dan and May in Toronto which I definitely am excited about. Oh, and Alannah and the kids will be here in the Ottawa area over the next few days and will be coming over to visit, which is exctingly happymaking as well. Life is good.
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Oh, I am so stuffed. We went to Brian and Denise's place for dinner tonight. Jenny is in town and she and Andrew met me at the mall after work. They were going to borrow their dad's car and pick me up, but the weather was so vile that they decided against it and opted for the bus instead. I was kind of excited about not having to take the bus for once, but I suppose our safety is a priority or something.
As it turns out, Denise is an amazing incredible unbelievable cook. She made stuffed pork loin, scalloped pototoes that I actually ate and had second helpings of because they were loaded with cheesy goodness, a fruit salsa type thing (that blew my mind) and salad. Then for dessert there were mincemeat tarts with brandy butter and nanaimo bars. I was so full I hurt. Literally.
Last night I was so tired I was in bed by nine. I never, ever go to bed that early, but I was so tired there was no way I was able to keep it together enough to stay up any later. I'm kind of grumpy tonight because I really did want to be in bed earlier, but we're having a potluck at work tomorrow and I had to make a dessert for it. So here I am at almost eleven thirty writing my weblog. Bah. I fully intended to write the old weblog, just not this late. The positive note here is that I got sleep last night. Real sleep!
I have four gifts left to buy. Four. I said earlier I thought it was three, but it's four. Ah, well. At least I know what one of them is. The other three are still a mystery in my head. And we haven't even bought a Christmas gift for Halo yet. I do know what I'd like to buy him, though, and I think there's little chance of us getting it for him before actual Christmas. I don't think he'll be too offended if we get it for him after Christmas. Anyhow, this is what I want to get him. Cool, no?
Speaking of Halo, he and Jenny get along really, really well, just as I hoped they would. I wasn't here when they met, but apparently he sniffed her and rubbed his face on her, and I've witnessed him doing so even more now. Those Jeaneses are cat people at heart. They just don't know it.
And speaking of Jenny: she gave me my Christmas gift tonight! She bought me two absofreakinglutely gorgeous hairsticks. I've never seen anything like them before. Tomorrow I'll get a few pictures of them and show them off here. What a wonderful sister-in-law-to-be. :)
As of right this moment it's three sleeps until Christmas!
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12/20/04 I think it was May who claimed that Ottawa winters really aren't that bad, really. Really.
It was cold today.
O.K., I'm lying. It wasn't cold today. It was stupid today. There's no need for the temperature to go anywhere below -15 degrees, but it did. In fact, it went down to at least -25 with a wind chill of -40 (or so it was reported to me by people on my team at work). That's not cold. That's unreasonable. That's unnecessary. That's just SHOWING OFF. It was cold enough to freeze the enthusiasm out of polar bears.
Today was our first day at our official place of work, since we spent the last week at an alternate location while there were no training rooms available to us. Our training room this week is on the ground floor in a room with big giant windows. I chose to sit beside a big giant window and as I sat at my computer I looked out said window and saw a small brown bunny crouching outside it. I tried not to move so that I wouldn't startle it (it could see me too, of course) and watched as it sniffed a big, brown, dry, crackly maple leaf. Then, to my sadness, the bunny slowly ate the horrid leaf. I watched him and thought about how absolutely agonized I was walking up the hill to work from the bus in the punishing, killing cold. He was fat and fluffy looking, and I know that this happens every year. I just wish wild bunnies didn't have to eat dry, frozen leaves in -25 weather.
Sigh. So after work I froze myself over to the mall and bought a new winter jacket that is slightly warmer than the one I have been using. I got it on sale at Zellers for 40% off, so it was a good deal and I'm pretty pleased with it. I was so grumped out about the cold and having to go shopping right after work that I just bought that and some groceries and went home without finishing my Christmas shopping, which I'd fully intended to do today. I only have four gifts left to buy! It's supposed to be warmer out tomorrow, so maybe I'll just come home to the Glebe and finish my shopping here rather than at the crappy mall.
Andrew's sister is coming tomorrow to stay with us for a few days. I'm interested to see if Halo decides he likes her. He already loves Andrew and even seems tentatively O.K. with their dad, so there's every chance that Jenny will go over well with him. Especially since she's also allergic to cats and won't be seeking him out much. I feel badly that Halo hasn't sucked up to Jen S. more than he has, although he did actually rub his face against her at one point before he realized what he was doing, at which point he fled. She always makes a point of sitting quietly and trying to entice him to love her dearly. I've told her, though, that he has no idea what 'beesh beesh beesh' means (that's my phonetic interpretation). That's the cat-calling noise that Jen uses with him, but nobody's ever said that to him before so he isn't sure what to do about it. I've had enough trouble getting Andrew to do Halo's cat call properly. It's 'psss psss psssss' said lovingly and enticingly. Andrew started out just saying 'PSSS PSSS PSSS', which is obviously wrong. He's improved greatly, though, and now Halo responds to him almost as well as he does to me. He's so good. He almost always comes when he's called.
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I can't believe I forgot to write last night about the dinner that Andrew and I went out for. Neither of us felt anything like making dinner at home, so it was decided we'd go to The Works for burgers again. We got there and started reading over the menu and it seemed we were both in the mood to try something we'd never had before. Andrew went with the Henry Burger, which is an openface burger with mushroom and peppercorn gravy. I will not comment on how gross mushroom gravy is, O.K.? He had Lumpy Mashed Potatoes as his side dish, which to me translates as: Mashed Potatoes We Don't Have To Take As Much Time With.
I hemmed and hawed, unable to decide between two particular burgers. I was drawn to one called the Gatineau Gal. It's basically a hamburger with poutine on it. Yes, fries, cheese curd and gravy. I realized that the fries there are too thick-cut for my liking so in the end very nervously went with the Lucky Seven. Do you know what's on the Lucky Seven? If not, you might be horrified to know that it comes with lettuce, Nutella and sliced bananas. The waitress assured me that most people who get it love it, and that they have one regular who orders it every time she comes in. Now, the burgers take at least twenty minutes to get to the table so it gave me some time to reflect on my choice, but in the end everything turned out fine. More than fine, it was great! I loved the Lucky Seven, and I'll more than likely get it next time I go.
Another thing I keep forgetting to mention is the parking meter in front of our apartment. Specifically, the one in front of our dining room window. It doesn't really work, and I very often overhear people trying to use it and failing. It's most interesting when I'm at the dining room table working on some project or other and an angry person attempts to use the meter. I've heard much in the way of swearing, yelling and sometimes physical violence visited upon the poor meter itself. So, if you're visiting us with a vehicle, try not to park in front of our dining room, O.K.?
I went out today and did even more Christmas shopping. It was seventeen degrees below zero today, and yet I trekked around in it so I could buy things for those I love. I'm not sure, but I think I only have three gifts left to buy. Woo hoo! That's pretty awesome, and hopefully I can pick those up tomorrow night when I go to the mall after work.
Work. That means I have to sleep tonight. Wish me luck.
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12/18/04 Maybe the Sandman didn't get our change of address.
I've been prone to insomnia since I was a teenager. I haven't had it severely over the last few years and it isn't like I'm getting zero sleep now, but I sure would like more than I'm getting! Now, I do know the more obvious tips about getting a better night's sleep, but I think I'm going to pay extra attention to the information on this page over the next little while and see if it helps. I recall reading somewhere once that a really good way to combat insomnia is to keep the room you're sleeping in slightly chilly and have lots of blankets. I know that this one does actually kind of work. I've slept in some very cold basement apartments in my time and I remember the loveliness of a cozy warm bed in a cold room.
Anyhow, I'm not asleep right now! Argh! I'll get there eventually, yes, but it doesn't bode well for tomorrow night. I mean, I could force myself out of bed early-ish tomorrow morning in order to make sure I'm tired tomorrow night, but I'll be honest with you: It's unlikely. The two days of the week that I get to sleep in will be the two days of the week that I sleep in. I'm not going to lie to you or myself, here. So, I'll just make sure not to have any caffeine after three tomorrow and not do anything terribly strenuous or exciting before bed. Damn.
I did some Christmas shopping this afternoon. That's kind of exciting since I'm most always a last-minute shopper. I was just excited to be spending money that I earned this week, though, so it was nice to go and do just that. I'm hoping to get the rest of my Christmas shopping basically finished on Monday night after work. Since there's a mall directly across the street from our building I'll be doing a lot of shopping, I fear. And speaking of shopping, I opened up a Paypal account so now I'm going to be a terror online. Hairtoys, hairtoys, hairtoys!
O.K.. I'm going to bed.
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12/17/04 Sleep sleep. Please please.
And so ends my first week at my new job.
It went as well as could be expected. The people on my team are nice. My trainer is nice. I learned how to get to the St. Laurent mall on my own. I've regained my rabid appreciation for weekends in very short order.
Sleep has been a problem. I had one night of semi-sufficient sleep this week, and the other four were definitely insufficient. Last night was difficult, making today also difficult, but I got through it. I'm quite lucky that I do know a number of the things we're learning already or I'd have been in a lot of trouble. The hardest part is when we're listening to a lesson. If we're doing something that takes action on our part (such as following along on the computer and performing functions) I can keep it together, but when we're sitting and listening to a long explanation I find my eyes doing that thing where they close no matter how much you try to keep them open. I sit there driving my nails into my palms trying to stay awake, inflicting actual pain on myself since I can't sing or shake myself or anything else that helps when one is trying to keep from dropping into sweet sleep oblivion.
Usually after lunch it gets a bit better, but it's still not easy. I will adjust and get used to it eventually, but until then I'm going to need to develop tricks to stay focused that don't involve drawing my own blood.
Tonight we headed over to Colin and Jen's to spend the evening with them and May and Dan. I brought my Ficcarre over to share the joy since I knew that they (and especially Jen) would understand how special it is to me. Because they're my dear friends everyone ooohed and aaahed, making me very happy. We had a nice, laid-back evening for the most part. We drank tea and some booze, ate all kinds of nice snacks and watched a lot of flash animations on various websites. Andrew and I were definitely getting extremely sleepy by the end of the night (although I did manage to stay awake and not actually drift off, unlike poor Andrew) so we took our leave a while after midnight. Everyone else was crashing at that point too, so it worked out.
I was pretty sure I'd be totally ready for bed once we got in the door but the walk in the ridiculous cold (and it really is ridiculous, don't think I'm exaggerating) woke me up sufficiently to enable me to actually pound out a weblog entry for tonight.
Oh, I get a sweet cell phone deal through work and this is the phone I'm getting: A Siemens C61. I was tempted by a flip-phone at one point, but don't really prefer them so went with this one. I know it's not the fanciest, most feature-loaded phone out there but my cell phone needs are fairly minimal. I now have to decide whether to call it 'Phonie' or 'Celly'. Because I assure you it will be one or the other.
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12/16/04 It's a Medium Jean Maximas, even.
Well, yesterday there was just no way I could possibly write a weblog entry. I haven't been sleeping well this week. Not at all. I really want to sleep, it just hasn't seemed to happen. So by last night I was toppling into some kind of braindead fugue that had me repeating sentences over and over and saying them incorrectly each time, realizing they were incorrect, but unable to fix them. Ugh.
Dan, May and Noah are in town for a few days, and the plan was that we'd all get together last night at Colin and Jen's and have a birthday debauche for Andrew. This was a great plan and one that I was looking forward to like you wouldn't believe. I got together with Jen, May and a friend of Colin and Jen's after work and we made our way back over to Colin and Jen's place in time to meet the guys there with So Good for dinner. Woo hoo! Incredibly yummy food, even if May purposely didn't order the crispy beef that I especially requested.
I knew from quite early in the evening that I wouldn't be able to stay for the entire thing. They'd rented a movie as well, but I basically had to leave and stumble home almost directly after the meal was done. I didn't stay for dessert or cheese or booze or anything. Not even the booze! I must have been some tired.
So I did stumble home and went to bed, where I crashed and crashed hard. I got some sleep, thankfully. Still not enough, but more than I had been getting and it served me well for work today, I must admit. We're getting together with all the friends again tomorrow night so I'll be able to party it up more energetically, I trust.
Oh, today I got something very special in the mail. Andrew bought me (for Christmas, ostensibly) a very, very special hairtoy. Not just any hairtoy, but the Rolls Royce of hairtoys. Yes, he bought me a Ficcarre. You might look at that picture and say, "But it's just a hair clip!" You, my friend, are wrong. It's the Rolls Royce of hairclips. It's the boss of all hair clips. It's Teh Best hair clip EVAR! It's basically something that has thrilled my little hair freak soul. :)
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