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ShinyHappy - Thoughts For July 16th - 29th
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07/29/04 Look, at least I'm eating potatoes.
Today was a day of a lot of running back and forth between the laundromat and the apartment. I will always be thankful that the laundromat is in such close proximity to our apartment building, but dang, I sure was sweaty today. Of course, I will also be thankful that I did not fall and break my butt at all during the winter as I walked next door with large baskets of laundry.
Anyhow, I wanted to wash blankets and towels, which was one big laundry ordeal, and that made me so hot and grumpy and out of sorts that I saved the rest of the laundry (miscellaneous clothes) for this evening, hoping for cooler weather. The weather did not cooperate with me on that point, however, and went ahead with its own plans involving lots of sticky humidity. The only saving grace was that I got to use the smallest washing machines for the clothes, which is far, far cheaper than having to use the largest kind (which I did have to for the blankets and towels).
Andrew came home from work hot and not liking it either. We didn't want to buy groceries to make dinner with, as we are leaving town tomorrow until Tuesday and won't be here to eat any of them, so we decided to make good use of some coupons we'd gotten in the mail and make a trip to the McDonald's up St. Clair from us. I mentioned to Andrew that I'm actually quite amazed that we'd never visited that McDonald's before this, as I used to eat it all the time before moving in with him. But no, we've never gone there together until now, and probably won't hit it again before we move. The Harvey's is much closer, see. Tee hee.
The McDonald's was really busy and while Andrew was waiting for our order the woman serving him erupted into a huge screaming match with someone in the back. I didn't understand a word of it, but it seemed to blow over pretty quickly because while we were eating there was suddenly a huge burst of screaming laughter. For dessert we both got McFlurries and I even got Andrew to try eating some ice cream with a french fry. He wasn't too impressed with the combination, remarking that he wasn't likely to do it again. French fries a la mode just isn't his thing, I guess.
Someone referred me to a really hilariously creepy and fun site on Orkut the other day. Slow Wave is described on its main page as, " ... a collective dream diary authored by different people from around the world, and drawn as a comic strip by Jesse Reklaw." I read the first one and then had to go through and read all of them. They're so bizarre and funny and compelling. Each one is four panels, very brief, but recognizable as the kind of thing that makes sense to you while you're dreaming, and is so hard to understand once you're awake. It's definitely something I'm going to be checking every week.
So, as I mentioned somewhere above, we're going out of town and will be gone until Tuesday, so no updates from me until then (unless I write a quick one tomorrow, which may not happen). We're going to the annual cottage party at Colin's family's cottage which is always a joint long weekend/Colin's birthday celebration. This will be my first cottage weekend and I'm looking forward to it very much, even though I have to participate in the talent show under threat of being thrown in the lake if I do not. That threat goes for everyone, not just me, so I suppose it's fair. Anyhow, we will be boarding Halo at the vet's office instead of leaving him home alone, so anyone who has been concerned for him in the past need not be this time. He's going to be really pissed off, though. Just so you know.
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07/28/04 You take the good, you take the bad, you take 'em both and there you have ...
One year. One wonderful, wonderful year. I said to Andrew that I don't really know how to write this weblog entry in a way that will communicate why our night was so incredibly perfect, but I'll try.
Firstly, Andrew came in the door after work with a bouquet of sunflowers for me. Sunflowers! I love sunflowers, and nobody's ever given me any before. I need to look up how to dry them properly and see if I can save them. I've always been the type to prefer daisies and sunflowers over roses and carnations, so this was just perfect.
Andrew and I had been planning to go to East Side Mario's for our one-year anniversary dinner. Our first meal together on our first date, exactly one year ago, was at the East Side Mario's on Division street in Kingston, so we wanted to celebrate with a visit to a Toronto location. We took the streetcar along St. Clair to an East Side Mario's that Andrew knew of. Well, we tried. We got off the streetcar to find that it was no longer at that location. So we used the phone at a sports bar to find another location and ended up taking the subway to one down near the C.N. Tower.
I thought about getting what I'd had a year ago, but couldn't exactly remember what it was beyond having chicken in it. I guess I was too keyed-up and distracted at the time to focus. So this time I got the chicken skilletini, which was good, but not exactly what the menu described. Andrew got soup and pasta, and when our waiter served us he said, "I would offer you parmesan, but we're all out, so would you like some pepper?" Andrew was incredulous that they were out of parmesan, and rightly so. It's their staple condiment! How does an East Side Mario's run out of parmesan cheese? Boggle.
So, we ate our meals without parmesan, but it's just not the same. The salad especially. However, nothing could dampen the absolute glee we were basking in at how happy we were to be together. Mr. Pepper Man kept checking in on us to see how we were doing, and I'm sure we just looked goofy and starry-eyed the whole time. One of the things I love best about my Andrew is that he's not afraid to be romantic, and tonight he was very, very romantic. I gave him an anniversary card with a marzipan bar and he got out of his seat, came around the table and kissed me. Melt.
After our meal we headed toward the waterfront, but on our way I realized I needed to powder my nose, so we ended up visiting the washrooms at the C.N. Tower. I suggested that since we were there we might as well go up the tower, but when we went to buy tickets we found out there was a forty-five minute wait for the skypod, so we opted not to, continuing on with our mission of walking along the waterfront a bit. Andrew took me down to the disabled sailing club that he worked at for a few years and we sat on a wooden box at the harbour, admiring the moon on the water and talking about all kinds of things. Then Andrew noticed a group of people at picnic tables over by the disabled sailing offices and we walked over to say hi, as Andrew figured he'd know the people there. He was right and we had a bit of a chat with them before heading on our way.
We wandered along the street to check out a ferris wheel we'd noticed from a distance earlier. I had some mild visions of perhaps taking a ride on the ferris wheel, kind of a schmaltzily romantic way to top off the evening. We got closer and to our utter horror and disbelief realized that it was not a simple ferris wheel. It was an abomination. It was built just like any other ferris wheel except it had no seats. It had cages set up at the twelve, three, six and nine positions that held cars. I couldn't tell what kind of cars, but whatever. It was obviously an advertising stunt. The worst part was that they weren't just showcasing the cars, they were giving people ferris wheel rides in the cars! Agh! The whole point of taking a ferris wheel ride is ... never mind. It was just wrong.
From there we hopped on a streetcar and made our way home. I was afraid writing this that it would sound prosaic and dull to anyone not us, and perhaps it does. To us, however, it was a fantastic night spent enjoying each other's company and being on cloud nine over the fact that we've had such an incredible year together, and that two years from tomorrow we'll be getting married. When you feel like that, the way we did tonight, I think anything seems magical. Happy happy joy joy!
Right now, however, I'm a little stressed. I heard more raccoon noises pretty loudly out the window so I checked and there was the cyoooootest little tiny raccoon on the fire escape. He's been screaming and whining and calling for his momma for a long time now, and I don't think she's coming. So he's been climbing higher up the escape and getting more and more hysterical and I wish there was something I could do for him. He's really little. Most of his noises are high pitched trilling sounds, but every now and again he makes a very despairing whining noise, just like a puppy, and it breaks my heart. Closing the window pretty much shuts out the noise, but I know he's out there being sad and it makes me sad too. Poor baby raccoon. Sigh.
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07/27/04 Our night was chafe-free!
Today was a dark, gloomy, cool day. For some reason, I enjoyed it. I welcomed the coolness, as the extreme recent hotness was not so enjoyable, and the darkness felt cozy and autumnlike, something that was nice for a change. I wore my fleece to Dan and May's tonight and didn't sweat to death in it. I was very comfortable. Nothing to complain about there!
Going to Dan and May's was also full of enjoyment. I went on the bus alone, as Andrew had to work late and run an errand or two. When I got there Jonathan (whose name I have been spelling incorrectly and I'm full of shame about that, as I insist that everyone spell my name correctly under pain of death and other unpleasant things [like maybe chafing]) was in the living room window with Noah so my first sight was of a smiling, happy baby. Then I hung in the kitchen with May while she mixed up and baked a cake, using a rubber bundt cake thingamajig that I was highly impressed with as it did not melt in the oven. As Marcus was not attending the Tuesday night get-together we ordered food from Swiss Chalet (although Andrew opted for Harvey's take-out, not wanting to eat chicken) and we were well fed.
After this meal Andrew and I were left together on the sofa while Dan and May turned off all the lights and left the room. They then returned with the cake, lit with a candle, and sang the 'Happy Anniversary' song to us! Yes, tomorrow (July 28th) is the one-year anniversary of the day that Andrew and I started seeing one another. One year! Yay us! We are going to go to East Side Mario's near here, as that is the restaurant where we had our first meal together on our first date (although that restaurant was in Kingston, not on St. Clair avenue).
We ate the delicious beer and spice cake. It was loaded with beer-soaked raisins and covered in caramel (oh holy crap good cake) and I even had a spoonful of cookie dough after eating my piece, although I could only (to my sadness) manage one spoonful, as I was so stuffed with delicious goodness by that point. After this we watched the third-last episode of Firefly and unfortunately it wasn't the most feel-good episode ever, being one of the sadder ones, but that didn't destroy the overall feeling of having had the most wonderful evening with our wonderful friends. It was, to me, one of those nights where you realize how truly good are the people you're spending time with and you are glad to be able to appreciate that in the moment.
Then there was a tiny bit of excitement in the form of a centipede lurking above the doorway as we left, freaking May out. This is the second centipede in as many nights. I really hope that centipedes aren't my totem animal or something. I couldn't deal with that. At all.
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07/26/04 That dark stain on the wall? Oh, it's nothing.
Well, the verdict is in on whether or not I think Before Sunrise is a good movie. I loved it. Andrew and I finally watched it tonight and I just couldn't find any reason not to like it. I'm glad that I'd heard some negative reviews of it before seeing it, as it had me clenched to dislike it and actually finding it an enjoyable experience was a pleasant thing. I won't give away the ending, but I thought it was good. I suppose that I have the luxury of knowing that there's a sequel and that they will continue their story, while Andrew had to live with the thought that the first one was the only one for nine years. That could be colouring my perception just a little bit.
Anyhow, it was good.
Our evening was pretty uneventful other than that. I made a sort of macaroni/cheese/beef/tomato concoction for dinner (probably better known as a casserole) that seemed to go down well with Andrew. I didn't go out or do anything much during the afternoon, although I did talk on the phone a lot to May and Mark, and Alannah called tonight, so I socialized somewhat. Just not very socially, if you know what I mean.
I have a monster awful headache tonight and find staring at the screen a bit painful, so this will be a short and sweet entry. I'm also a little freaked out by the centipede that is lurking on the wall near the ceiling.
O.K.. I've just killed the centipede with my trusty sandal. It was either a young and stupid centipede or an old and decrepit centipede, as it didn't move very fast to get away. Those things are usually like leggy lightning. I've never seen anyone move as fast as Andrew when it comes to killing them, so I wish he'd been awake. When he first came to Kingston to see me and found that my basement apartment was infested with them he would be across the room in less than a second killing the thing before I even realized there was one in the open. I don't know that Halo ever really killed any of them. He's probably smart enough to be grossed out by them too.
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07/25/04 My lovely evening with a younger man.
Noah is really an uncommonly good baby. Babysitting him today was not only easy, it was enjoyable. I got to Dan and May's at around the time I was supposed to, and between asking Dan questions about perl and what I need to know to not be a dummy (made harder by the fact that I'm a hardcore perl dummy) he showed me everything I needed to know about taking care of Noah properly, at which I turned out to not be a dummy at all.
Noah handled being alone with me very, very well. That pleased me. I'd had visions of him learning to say my name so he could scream, "No Keltie! No Keltie!" One little girl I babysat during high school would wake up in the morning and find me there instead of her mother, and that is what she would say. With tears. Luckily at the time I found it funny rather than pathetic. She was a tough little nut and would recover and come out of her room all smiles eventually, ready for breakfast.
Anyhow, Noah was great. We played around on the floor a lot. He has a little Home Depot tool kit and I just realized today that the saw has weird sawing action. Basically, it has teeth that move independently of the rest of the saw, so you can move it back and forth on stuff and it makes a grinding sort of sound, which I suppose is meant to approximate a sawing noise. So I busily sawed off my limbs, sawed the sofa, sawed the coffee table, sawed everything sawable save Noah himself, which I could not bring myself to do. He wasn't overly impressed. I'm sure he's seen it all before, but I was amused. He also ate a lot, as I fed him every couple of hours as per instructions. I'm positive that Dan mentioned before leaving that Noah was not likely to present me with a messy diaper, but he in fact produced two rather impressive changing experiences for me and Andrew.
Oh, Andrew. Yes, my plan worked well and Noah was clingy with me around Andrew, actually having a bit of a crying fit when I left Andrew alone with him so I could go to the washroom. During our dinner (we ordered sushi) Noah chose to sit in my lap like an angel while I ate my teriyaki beef bento box with chopsticks. He didn't want to go on the floor at all, which I tried to suggest to him, so there on my lap he stayed, only grabbing at my bento box one time. I narrowly rescued it from dumping into both our laps.
Andrew turned out to be very good at amusing Noah during feeding times. Noah likes to chuck stuff on the floor so that people can pick up the things he's thrown and return them to him, whereupon he will toss them down again. Andrew took this game and improved on it by not letting things hit the floor. Noah thought this was high comedy and kept him hopping. Dan's brother John was also visiting and tried to show me a 'magic show' that he'd once put on for Noah using a milk jug. This time Noah wasn't falling for any of his tricks, though, keeping track of where the jug was at all times with a very unimpressed, solemn face. Have I mentioned how adorable his solemn face is?
When Dan and May got home May snuck upstairs to change before Noah saw her, and Dan came into the kitchen to play with him until she came back down. Noah was glad to see his dad and had a great time giggling and laughing with him as Dan tossed him in the air. As soon as May appeared, however, he immediately shrieked with wild joy and had to get right into her arms, at which point he started insistently making the sign for 'nurse'. He's been picking up the sign language very well lately and had half-heartedly made the 'nurse' sign at me a couple of times throughout the evening, giving up pretty quickly when I didn't cooperate. But I could and did cooperate when he made the signs for 'eat' and 'more'.
So, I think that my first experience babysitting Noah was a good one. I had a great time, and he seemed to enjoy himself all in all.
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07/24/04 I'm as gentle and sweet as a baby bunny.
Since I didn't write a weblog entry last night I will sum up what I can from yesterday. Let's see ... Not much happened during the day. I did stuff around here, went to Loblaws, what-have-you. Then Andrew came home. He was happy because he'd gotten (finally) the Buffy and Firefly DVD sets! They were delivered to him at work, just as he'd requested. I was happy too, and greatly looking forward to watching some horrible first-season Buffy episodes.
I'd also had my mind on my seamless combs, though. I knew that Andrew had ordered them and my Ketylo hairstick, and wondered when they'd be arriving. And knowing that they were on their way to me had me feeling less and less enamoured of the apparently vicious and violent combs already in my possession. So, figuring it certainly couldn't hurt to ask, I wondered to him about the possibility of me getting the small one when they arrived, and getting the large one on my birthday. Andrew seemed a bit iffy about the idea, but moments later he came into the living room and handed me my Creative 5 seamless comb! Hooray, hooray! He'd had them delivered to his work and they'd arrived yesterday as well, along with the DVD sets. He grumbled a bit about whether or not I'd be getting any gifts on my actual birthday, but I will wait patiently until then for the other comb and the mate for my exisiting Ketylo stick.
Apparently the shipper/receiver guy at his work was a bit curious about Andrew receiving all these packages. And rightly so. Andrew's a bit shifty, you know.
We then gorged ourselves on Buffy episodes, watching the first four before calling it quits for the night. It's funny to watch the way the show began and realize that that first season was so bad. Bad in a way that makes you feel fond and sentimental, though, not bad in a bad way. It made me realize just now that there are no Joss Whedon shows on the air currently. What a sad, sad thing.
So today, being Andrew's day off, was a wonderful day of sleeping in together, puttering around together and then going out together in the evening. We went out for dinner with Rayna to Jerusalem, then decided to take in a movie. We ended up seeing Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. I'd been dying to see that one and thought we'd missed our chance, but it was playing at the Bloor. It was fantastic. Even better than I thought it would be, and definitely worth buying on DVD. Jim Carrey is really a very, very talented actor who is putting in a lot of effort to transcend his early days of goofball comedy. Also wonderful was Tom Wilkinson, another actor that I have a minor crush on. He was also in The Full Monty and tons of other great movies, and does an impeccable American accent.
So, Rayna dropped us off at home not too late, but at around twelve-thirty we took a walk to the subway station to buy tokens, having realized we had none for tomorrow. It was very pleasant, the night being not-too-warm. There's an ugly tree stump on the way there and I dared Andrew to climb up to where it was and have a look in it to see what was inside of it, and he did (it being situated up a built-up sort of rise beside the sidewalk). I thought it was funny, but as he approached it and looked inside, I had visions of something really creepy happening, like a bunch of tentacles squirming out and dragging him down inside it, or there being a dead something-or-other in there. He reported nothing but a few earwigs, though, so ... yeah. No horror movie happenings for us.
Tomorrow we get the pleasure of babysitting Noah, which should be lots of cute fun unless he decides Andrew and I are currently the people he's afraid of. It was Marcus for a while there, but he seems to have shifted his unreasoning fear to someone else (who I don't know personally, so won't mock by name). Marcus seemed pretty happy about that last Tuesday, taking the opportunity to be his best friend ever and feed him his dinner. However, I get to spend the first couple of hours alone with Noah tomorrow before Andrew arrives, so I may make use of the opportunity to state my case regarding how much less threatening and more friendly I am than he is. I think Noah will see the logic.
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07/22/04 Apparently expecting the worst of me means he'll never be disappointed.
Today was also hot. Perhaps not quite as hot as yesterday, which can be considered a blessing. I took my shower in the mid-afternoon, a nice cool shower that refreshed me and made me feel far less disgusting and sweaty. I was surprised to hear the apartment door open just as I was getting out of the shower, but it (thankfully) turned out to be Andrew coming in to get something that he'd forgotten before he had to dash back out again on his lunch. However, one of his first questions to me was, "You're not just getting out of bed, are you?"
Hello? Mid-afternoon? I may sleep in, but not that late! Man.
Anyhow, we decided that it would be nice to go out for pho since we haven't done that in a while. Any semi-regular readers of this weblog will know that we repeatedly go to Pho Hung for our pho despite the wacky service we encounter there. The food is just so good! Well, tonight was a little wackier than usual, even. It started normally. We got our menus and teacups, quickly followed by a teapot. I poured us each a cup of tea and took a sip of mine, prepared for that first hot sip of tea that's really just a sort of practice run to get your tongue used to the idea. Well, it wasn't hot. In fact, it was decidedly cold. Andrew saw my face and asked what was wrong with it so I told him to take a sip, and he was also flummoxed. We pondered this, wondering if ours was the only cold tea, or if this was a summertime thing. Andrew watched as a pot of tea was served to the table near us and said he saw steam, so the next time a server came by Andrew asked if we could get some hot tea, as neither of us were keen on the cold green tea idea, and our tea pot was taken away.
Minutes later another teapot was plunked on our table by someone who disappeared right away. This time we could see the condensation on the side of the pot. It was even colder than the first one! We gave up and drank cold tea. I'm tempted to call it iced tea, but no. It was cold tea. Also, none of the regular servers that we were used to were there, and the two guys we saw the most of didn't appear to speak any english at all. When our pho came, the condiment plate of bean sprouts and limes didn't come with it, so Andrew asked for it. The guy he asked went off, but no condiments arrived. So we sat, eating our rolls and waiting for the other stuff. Finally we asked again, and a woman working overheard, so they finally did arrive.
After our meal we went to Greg's, as the yen for Grape Nut ice cream had still not left me. While we were in line I was tempted by flavours like Ginger, Green Tea and Strawberry, but I went with the Grape Nut, knowing that I had to get it while the getting was good. And it was so good. We sat by the window and watched pregnant ladies and people with ugly little dogs, spilling our ice cream on ourselves. Andrew ate his ice cream in ways that amused me and made me laugh like a loony, which was also fun, if not so much for the people at the next table. Good times.
After this we ventured out to try and rent Before Sunrise, but that was really just silly since everyone in the world wants to rewatch it before they go see Before Sunset at the theatre and it's not available at any video store than can be found. We put our names on a waiting list, but Before Sunset is leaving theatres soon, so we may have to watch them in reverse order. More of a downer for me, as I have not seen the first one, while Andrew has. What we did end up renting was Free Enterprise, which honestly really looked like it would be a better movie than it turned out to be. It was ... bizarre. Eric McCormack was the best actor of the whole bunch (and yes, I know William Shatner was in the thing), although it felt weird to see him playing straight. I kept expecting him to make a sarcastic gay joke at his own expense, but it never happened. The worst part of the whole film was that it was crammed with one-scene characters that seemed to be someone from the production crew 'getting to be in a film', and it was horribly obvious that they were non-actors. It cheapened the whole thing and made it feel like a weekend film-school project, not a serious movie effort.
Wow. I guess I didn't like it. Ah, well. I seemed to enjoy it while we were watching it, but I suppose it's like a candy that tastes good while you're eating it, but leaves a nasty aftertaste when you're finished.
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07/21/04 Today I sat low and looked dumb.
It was holy crap hot today. So hot that I barely wanted to move, even though, like the rest of civilization, I had to. I woke up stressed about the deliveryperson trying to deliver our DVD sets and was kind of on the edge of my seat waiting for the buzzer all afternoon. I took a chance and dashed down the street at around noon to go to the post office to pick up the parcel I got a notice for yesterday, which turned out to be a lovely package from Jerome! He sent us the copy of 'The Merry Pranks of Till Eulenspiegel' that we'd forgotten to bring back with us last time we visited him. It's a delightful little book illustrated by Lisbeth Zwerger, a fantastic artist who makes every page funny and charming. Jerome has great taste in books.
So that was nice and definitely worth the trip in the sweltering heat. When I got back home I checked the front door to see if there were any stickers left behind by a frustrated deliveryperson, but didn't see anything. So I waited all afternoon, fully dressed (which I so didn't want to be due to the heat and all) and ready to race to the front door. Andrew called later in the afternoon to see if they'd arrived, but they had not. Finally, finally I heard the buzzer, somewhere after six thirty. It was just a tiny, less-than-a-second-long burst, but I shot into the hallway only to see Andrew coming up from the front stairs. He'd rung the buzzer to see if it worked. Apparently, though, he'd pressed the thing three times and I'd only heard the tiniest noise, so even if the guy had come by and pressed it, it might not have worked. Argh! And he had come by, leaving another disappointed sticker for us. Andrew called and had them change the delivery address to his workplace, so it should arrive there tomorrow or Friday. Things getting delivered to us at our home address seems to involve a lot of delays and annoyance!
Unfortunately, when I got back from my post office trip I also discovered that Halo had barfed on our bed in a major way, so this evening I had to again venture the icky, stifling outdoors to go to the laundromat. This was also an excercise in sweatiness. Andrew came home very briefly before he headed out to a pro streetcar-right-of-way meeting, and then he had to head to his aunt's place to help her with some computer difficulties, so I didn't see much of him until late-ish tonight. I amused myself by lying very still for the most part and talking on the phone to sisters and friends, which kept me if not cool, at least not melting.
I know I'm bitching about the heat as much as I used to bitch about the cold, but at least I could escape the cold by being indoors. The heat is everywhere! Everywhere, I tell you! And the smog was so thick today that I could barely see the poor CN tower for it. That's gross. Halo didn't even seem as bothered by the heat as I was, though, and he wears a little fur coat. He did lie very still for the most part, even if he did want to do it on me. I don't understand that at all.
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07/20/04 Me + Coca Cola = weakness
Today our intercom buzzer decided to magically work again, but it worked at a time when I was sitting in the apartment with my head covered in henna and wrapped in plastic, so there was no way I was running down to the front of the building to see who was there. When Andrew came home he brought in a notice that a deliveryperson had tried to deliver our Buffy and Firefly DVD sets, so tomorrow I have to answer the door when they come back or I'm in a lot of trouble. They attempted to deliver Marcus' order to him today, too, and he wasn't home to get it so he's chafing at the bit until he gets it tomorrow.
Andrew also brought in a notice that there's a parcel waiting for me at the post office, which has me in great suspense. It's too early for my hairstick or combs to have arrived, and both will probably come right to our mailbox anyhow. Hopefully it's not some kind of horrible bad news letter that I have to sign for. That would really suck.
Tonight we went to Dan and May's as we usually do on Tuesdays, and there were even more people there than usual. Bea and Dave came, as did Michelle, so it was a party. We ordered Thai food, watched a funny little cartoon that Bea brought with her, and watched a really, really good episode of Firefly. I worry when people are watching Firefly for the first time (as Bea, Dave and Michelle were) that they won't find it as funny or appealing as I do, but they seemed to enjoy it. Bea most of all. She laughed in all the right places. As May pointed out, saying 'cowboys in the future' just doesn't convey the goodness that is Firefly.
Apparently our router is doing weird things lately and there will perhaps come a night when it dies altogether, leaving me weblog-less for whatever amount of time it takes to put a new one in its place*. I find it disturbing that the thought is so scary to me, not just for the sake of my weblog but for my online access in general. I do all kinds of stuff online, and more now than I have in years since I'm not working full-time now. What the heck did I do before I became an internet junkie? I didn't even own a computer until 1997 and didn't spend much time online until 1998, so I came relatively late to all this compared to Andrew, who seems to have been born clutching a mouse. I think I probably read a lot more books back then. Sigh. That new Guy Gavriel Kay book is out. I really need to buy it and read it before my brain turns to mush.
I was just remembering something a little funny that happened the other day. Andrew was going to leave a bit of money for me so I could go out and buy some food, as we hadn't much in the house in the way of edibles. We'd bought a six-pack of Coke the day before and he was going to take the three that were left to work with him, but he was in such a hurry that morning that he forgot to a) leave me the money and b) (to my glee) take his Cokes. So, what do those of you who know me think would happen in such a scenario? Andrew called during the day, apologetic over his failure to leave me foraging money, so I laughed and laughed in his ear, describing how all the Cokes were now mine, mine, mine! He laughed too, and we got off the phone. Then last night he turned to me from his computer and said, "Would you mind grabbing me one of those Cokes?" I looked at him like the crazy man he is and said, "Uh, what Cokes? They're gone. I drank them."
He was appalled. He thought I was joking when I said the Cokes were now mine, all mine. Does he know me at all?
*During editing I discovered that this is not so. Andrew informs me that we'd still have access, just one of us at a time.
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07/19/04 You never know what horrors might lurk within ...
I realized that I did not provide links to the actual combs that Andrew's getting me for my birthday. So, you can see the big one here and the small one here. People have been making fun of my current purse comb since I first got it, for some reason. It looks exactly like the large comb in this picture, even though I bought mine in a dollar store and that one is some kind of seamless bakelite thing. Every time I pull it out to comb my hair (and this mostly happened at my old job) people would laugh and point and ask why I have an afro comb. It's called a rake comb. They're very common. I've been using wide-toothed combs and picks since high school when I gave up using brushes. It's not really funny at all, O.K.? O.K..
In doing my research on combs, of course, I came across lots of other kinds that I want, too. I'd love to own a horn comb, and I'm in absolute lust with this wooden comb and the wooden hairpick. Lust, I tell you. I also crave the wooden rings on that site. The only downside to the horn comb is that I think you have to oil it or something. I want the combs to maintain my hair, I don't want to have to maintain the combs as well. I'm sure it's no big deal, though, so maybe when I get a job down the road I'll treat myself to a horn comb in the shape of a whale or sunfish.
Anyhow, today was a special treat for me, but not Andrew. He was feeling really sick so stayed home from work. I got to spend more quality time with him, but he had to feel like crap. It did afford him more of an opportunity to fiddle with his new Garageband software, though, so I suppose that was nice for him. He tried to write some porn music (at my request) but the software doesn't really come with enough of the kind of music you'd need for it. So he ended up putting together something much nicer and more pleasant for me to listen to. But he still called it the porn song. He's so sweet.
Otherwise, it was a very quiet day around here. We ended up taking a nap during the evening which left me with a headache. Naps always do that to me, for some reason. Then I tried to make supper. The broccoli wasn't in good shape so we couldn't use it, then I cut into the green pepper to find it all moldy inside. Eugh. That's one of my least favourite things in the world. I'm distrustful of foods with hollow centers, I think. You never know what's lurking in there. When I was a lot younger I cut into a green pepper that had an ugly green worm in it and it freaked me out. I guess vegetables in general are pretty chancy that way, coming from the great outdoors and all. Well, if hothouses are considered outdoors, anyhow.
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07/18/04 I think Soc said, "You're not the boss of me!"
Nice day.
Many good things happened today, not least of which was going out with Marcus for food and fun. He called this afternoon and left a snide message on our phone. I was trying to butter some toast when he called and our phone has been set to ring three times and go to voice mail since we moved here, so if we're not near the phone it's a bit of a mad dash to get there. If you have your hands in something messy (like henna or dish detergent or buttering toast) then you're pretty much screwed. I actually got to it by the third ring, but then the stupid cordless was all like, "Sorry, try again!" when I pushed the talk button. Have I mentioned my disdain for cordless phones and their tempermental primadonna behaviour?
Anyhow, I didn't get to answer Marcus' call, so he left a message insinuating that I never answer the phone so I must not be allowed to or something. Just for that I went and buttered my toast and ate it before I called him back. We had a lovely talk, during which he suddenly had to drop the phone and take his cat, Socrates, to task for doing whatever bad thing he was doing. It was great to hear Marcus as he reprimanded him. "Soc! Get down from there! Why you little ... !" The best part, however, was hearing Soc talking back to him in a very sassy tone of voice. Halo doesn't meow at us like that. Probably because he never does bad things. As I told Marcus, Halo's life is all about avoiding conflict.
So Marcus, Andrew and I went to The Big Slice at St. Clair and Dufferin for supper. I'd been to The Big Slice on Yonge before, but this one has a very different atmosphere. The Yonge one feels a little scragglier and a little more in-your-face, like a cafeteria. This one is calmer and a bit classier. O.K., a lot classier. Unfortunately for Andrew the pasta was fresh-made, therefore it had eggs. As a result, he was forced to eat steak, the poor baby. My pasta was excellent but I couldn't quite finish the whole thing. After we finished our meal we headed down to Greg's for ice cream. I was so looking forward to another Grape Nut ice cream cone, but alas, there was none tonight. I expressed my disappointment and Andrew pointed out that they had Banana Nut. The girl behind the counter glanced at the board, said, "Oh," and quickly wiped that flavour off. Sigh. I went with Sweet Cream, which is delicious. Just not what I had my heart set on.
After this the three of us went for a nice walk around the U of T campus. I've always wanted to go for a walk on Philosopher's Walk, as Guy Gavriel Kay uses it (among many other Toronto landmarks) as a setting in his Fionavar Tapestry trilogy. So we wandered along there and it was as nice as I could have hoped. Before we move to Ottawa I want to try and visit all the Toronto locations GGK mentions in that trilogy.
Andrew informed me today that the seamless comb I wanted for my birthday wasn't in stock when he tried to order it. He seemed to think this would crush me, but it only made me happier. I'd been regretting asking for a more expensive comb instead of two slightly less pricey ones that are of the same quality from a different company. So now I get two wonderful seamless combs, yay yay yay! Andrew ordered them tonight as I watched, so soon I will have them in my greedy little hands. Well, he'll save them for my birthday, I guess. It's not that far off, so my hair will have to suffer with the second-rate combs I'm using until then. Sigh.
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07/17/04 The ice cream cometh.
We had a pretty good day today. It was Andrew's day off and we hung out at home until evening together. Halo is always happy to have us both home during the day, too. He's turned into the suckiest cat in the world since I moved in with Andrew. He'll be pretty quiet all day long during the week, sometimes joining me if I'm on the sofa or in bed, but as soon as Andrew gets in the door Halo wakes himself up from wherever he's sleeping and comes out to welcome him home, doing all of his waking-cat calisthenics and waiting to be petted. It's very, very cute.
Erin had her housewarming party tonight so we got a lift there with Dan and May and had a really nice time. Erin's apartment is very cool. She's painted all the rooms funky colours and seeing them I'm now itching to do some painting to our new place when we get to Ottawa. I've always wanted to have an orange room in my house, and Erin's living room was a great orange colour very like the colour that Dan and May have their office painted. Andrew and I had planned to do some painting in this apartment, but I'm frankly glad that we didn't, only living here a year and all. And besides, I actually really don't mind the colour they are. I'm sure the paint can said something like 'buttercream' or 'sunlit'. I think I read somewhere, though, that colours like red, orange and yellow are 'hungry' colours, so best used in the kitchen. Erin's kitchen is a kind of fuschia, I think. I wonder what that's supposed to trigger? Hopefully nothing homicidal.
We opted to get a lift with Dan and May when they were leaving and ended up going to their place to watch a movie with them that Dan had rented. It was The Seven Samurai. We didn't have time to watch the whole thing as it's really long, but it was great. Hopefully I'll get to see the whole thing sometime in the future, as from what I've read it gets even more interesting at the end of the film.
Tomorrow night we are finally, finally going out for ice cream. I've been wanting to for a while now and we kept intending to, but hadn't gotten there yet. However, we have firm plans to go out with Marcus for ice cream and general hanging-out funtimes. It's possible that there will be other food items involved as well. Yay!
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07/16/04 I don't want a creepy baby, anyhow.
It's no wonder that the thought of having children makes me nervous. All my dreams about having babies are creepy. I woke up from a creepy baby dream this morning. I dreamed that my creepy baby could talk. And not clear, deliberate talking either. I noticed as I rode the bus with my creepy baby that if we passed by a retirement home the newborn baby would make noises that roughly approximated the term 'retirement home'. Then we passed by a picture of a president and the creepy baby said 'president', again in a weird, maybe-controlled-by-aliens manner of speaking.
And I forgot to feed the creepy baby. Any baby dream I ever have involves me forgetting to feed it for days on end. Or leaving it somewhere at home while I go on vacation or something, and then I realize what I've done and freak out. Screwed up, I tell you.
I sort of told Andrew about my dream this morning before he left for work, but I don't recall if I forgot to tell him about forgetting to feed our bizarre child. That's probably not something that will instill a lot of confidence in him regarding my mothering abilities!
So today when Andrew got home one of the first things he said to me after 'hello' was, "You look beautiful!" That's a great way to start our evening together, of course, but I found it funny for my own reasons. See, today I decided to do the 'compost' treatment on my hair again (thank you, Jerome). For those not knowing, it's a mixture of egg yolk, honey, and olive oil that you leave on your hair for half an hour, then wash out. It's supposed to be very moisturizing and so far, it seems to work that way for me. The last time I did this Andrew complimented me a few times on my hair, and it appears that this time it has had the same effect. So, eggs are good for something in Andrew's world now, I guess. It's a really ugly concoction and unless you love the smell of olive oil it's not the most appealing thing to wear on your head for thirty minutes, but oh, is it worth it. I get compliments from my fiance. Woot!
Oh, and speaking of creepy and retirement homes (which I did in the first paragraph), Alannah told me a very creepy story about the retirement home she has been doing her nursing placement in. Apparently when they were building it they discovered the remains of a Native burial ground. I know, it sounds like something from a cheesy horror movie, but it seems it's true. So instead of going with the original one-level building plan they built up and made it multiple floors, putting a memorial where the burial ground was found. However, it seems that there have been reports from residents of seeing the ghosts of Natives in the building. La tells me that some of these reports have come from the residents who aren't quite all there anymore, too. The ones who wouldn't be likely to be making it up. Brrr.
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