 |
free hosting image hosting hosting reseller online album e-shop famous people |  |
  |
||
|
free hosting image hosting hosting reseller online album e-shop famous people | |
|
||
ShinyHappy - Thoughts for October 16th - 31st
Archives / Search The Site / Friend Blogs
10/31/04 We partied. I didn't survive.
Man, I took a bit of heat for missing a couple of days in my blog. Some people must be real hot to know about the non-events in my life. Tee hee.
Anyhow, I didn't write the other day because partying with May, Dan, Noah, Colin and Jen wore me out, and I didn't write last night because ... well, you'll see if you read on.
Yesterday was our Halloween/Housewarming party. I'd been looking forward to it, but was also a bit nervous. This was the first party that Andrew and I have thrown together, so I was hoping that a) enough people would come and b) it wouldn't suck enough that people wouldn't want to come to the next one. I think, today, that it was a success. However, we went through some minor trials during the day yesterday while preparing.
We still had a bunch of boxes hanging around. The other day our super showed us our storage space down in the basement and we planned to get the empty and still packed boxes hanging around down there in time for the party. I told Andrew he could take care of that if he was willing, and he was, so on Saturday he began the process by heading down there with a couple of boxes to begin with. He returned very quickly (and angrily) to tell me that someone had appropriated our storage space by putting stuff in there and padlocking it. I was freaked out by this, because our hallway was full of boxes and the party was to start in just a couple of hours. Andrew called the super and as it turns out the moron who did this is the guy across the hall from us. The guy who used to be the superintendent of the building. The guy who knows better. So our current super gave us a temporary storage space right then and there and said he'd get it taken care of. This is not optimal, but it was what we needed right then.
Now, I'd been stressing about this because I had told people who wanted to come early that the unofficial start time of the party was six o'clock. It was nearing five and I was starting to get my costume together, really pushing to get the stuff cleared out of the hall. Andrew was telling me to relax, that it's a party and people never show up on time. Well, at five on the dot our buzzer went, and my cousin Paul was outside with his fiance, an hour early for the party. I'd tried to explain to Andrew that I come from a family where being on time and even early is a common and accepted practice (although an hour early was a surprise even to me), but he chooses to disbelieve that other humans can function in this manner. So we got Paul and his fiance settled in the living room with drinks and snacks, I put on my costume and Andrew cleared the boxes out. Phew.
Right around sixish my cousins Shannon and Erin arrived with Shannon's boyfriend and his daughter in a nicely punctual manner and the party started to get underway for real. The nice thing about our party was that it worked in shifts. It began with my cousins, our friends, and some of Andrew's family. These overlapped quite a bit, with some arriving as others were leaving, almost everyone staying for a few hours at least. Then more toward ten some of Andrew's classmates arrived, and more kept arriving. At any given point there were no less than six but no more than eight guests around, and it stayed rather constant until the party ended. This was good as seating, despite having our fantastic new furniture, was a bit limited.
I realized as the night wore on that I was developing a migraine. I'd had a wee headache since the afternoon and had hoped it would pass, but it kept growing in intensity until I knew things were not going to end well for me. Nearing midnight I was assuming that the remaining group would be the last arrivals and was relieved to think that soon I could retreat to safety and silence in my bedroom. This was not to be. At midnight(ish) the buzzer went and two more of Andrew's classmates came in, settling in with beers and stamina. If I hadn't had a migraine, this would have been more than O.K. with me. However, I was reaching that point when you know that there's going to be an inevitable face-to-bowl meeting with the toilet.
When that moment came it was the type where there's no denying nature and you go into a sort of autopilot where your body rises and carries you to where you need to go with hardly a thought. I fled to the bathroom, blew my chunks and managed to stagger to my bedroom where I closed the door behind me and collapsed on my bed, my head absolutely bursting with agony. Seriously, it was like getting a piano-wire lobotomy sans anesthesia. I was due for a headache, though, and of course it hit like a freight train on a day that I'm a bit stressed and have barely eaten a thing. As I lay there, cranium throbbing and wondering if the final four guests would think I was horribly rude for disappearing without a word, I felt the injustice of the fact that I felt as if I'd been drinking all night but in reality had only had one teensy-tiny cup of cheap pop booze, not even enough to inebriate a ladybug. I might as well have had the entire bottle of cheap pop booze instead of leaving it for others.
Eventually Andrew came to check on me. He saw me sprawled moaning on the bed, asked me if I was O.K. and went back to entertain when I told him I wasn't dead yet. Finally, at three a.m. (two a.m. if you're going by daylight savings time, which I am not) the last two guests left. I got up briefly to survey the party damage, which was really negligible. After putting stuff in the fridge that wouldn't keep we gave the finger to the rest and went to bed, where I was unable to sleep due to my fiery brain.
We awoke to a phone call from Dan asking if we wanted to go to The Manx for breakfast with him, May, Noah, Colin and Jen. We did, so we peeled ourselves out of bed and had an excellent brunch-type meal. Most of us were either sick or tired, so it wasn't a hugely energetic meal, but it was wonderful to be able to grab a bit more time with them. Then Colin and Jen dropped me and Andrew back here to our home where we bent our energies to cleaning up the remaining party mess. My head was still not all the way better so I took some time to relax in bed, and by evening was feeling much better. We'd invited Colin and Jen over this evening to help us eat some of the massive quantities of leftover party food, but Jen came solo as Colin was still feeling under the weather and needed some recuperation time. So we had nachos and drinks and had great chats.
OH! Andrew and I finally managed to get our Ikea dining room chairs! Yeehaw! So we were able to sit at the dining room table with Jen and eat like civilized people. It was great.
Anyhow, this has been really long. I'll leave off with a picture of the itty bitty kitty jack-o-lantern that I carved for us. That's a clear shot of it, but here's a shot of it lit up as well, although the quality isn't great. I liked that jack-o-lantern a lot. And neither Andrew or I took any pictures at the party of our costumes as we were doing the whole host/hostess thing. I was the devil in a blue dress and Andrew was Rainbow Man. I think our costumes both turned out really well. My plan is for us to put the costumes back on and we'll take pictures of each other to share here. Thankfully, neither costume was very involved. :)
Archives / Search The Site / Friend Blogs
10/28/04 So, I'm not just visiting Ottawa?
Today we had a visitor to the apartment in the form of a little lost ladybug. I assume she was lost, as she had never visited before. Halo really, really wanted to welcome her properly. Or eat her. Whichever it was, he was hanging around under the largest paper lantern in the living room where she was buzzing around, hoping she'd come down to his level for a bit. The funniest part of the whole thing (to me) was that his ears assumed a very evil sort of twist and stayed that way for a long time, and every time she foolishly smacked herself against the lantern he'd get all interested again and go crazy with the evil ears.
I don't know. Perhaps I'm too easily amused. Although it can be argued that everything Halo does is special to me and therefore worthy of great attention (again, to me).
I'll be honest and say that not much else interesting happened today. Andrew came home from the university with a pile of marking that he has to do for his TA work. He also did some very helpful sorting of boxes and books in preparation for the party on Saturday, which made me happy. We finally got some storage space down in the basement of the building so it's good to know that whatever we don't need right now can just go down there. Having storage makes it so easy to be a packrat without having to clutter up your living space. I'm not saying that it's a good thing, just that it makes it easier. Heh heh.
Dan and May are in town! Yes, they arrived tonight and are staying with Colin and Jen. We'll be going over for a visit tomorrow which I'm greatly looking forward to, although sadly Noah will already be in bed by the time we get there. Gosh, I miss them. I had a very sad 'missing Toronto' moment the other night when I saw the opening to that terrible show 'Train 48'. There's a shot of Union station that just made me think all of a sudden, "Hey, I really don't live in Toronto anymore!" I must be in some kind of denial most of the time. Sniff.
Archives / Search The Site / Friend Blogs
10/27/04 Queer Eye For The Ill Guy
So. What are you dressing up as for Halloween? What? You don't know? Well, no worries. I have a handy little tool here to help you out, because dressing up for Halloween is what it's all about (hey, I'm the poet laureate!). Only party poopers don't dress up for Halloween! So, if you're at the point that I'm usually at oh, right about this time of year, go to this handy dandy page to find out what you should be for Halloween.
And no, I'm not dressing up as any of the stupid things it suggested for me because all of the things it said I should dress up as were stupid!
It seems that Halo has accepted the new furniture as part of his environment, and has even selected his favourite piece for lounging on. Yes, he chose the item which would best highlight his fur, shed or worn. Check him out as he gets his precious, precious sleep on the dark, dark blue loveseat.
I had to make some phone calls tonight, and I was made very happy by the fact that I got to talk to Marcus for a nice while. I'm sad that he won't be coming to town this weekend for the party, but he has a living to make and all so I guess I can't begrudge him that. Talking to Marcus is especially entertaining because his cat, Soc, is seemingly a very intelligent cat that knows how to push Marcus' buttons when necessary and likes to get his attention while he's on the phone. And like me, Marcus listens to his cat. It's one of the reasons we get along so well, I think.
Andrew is still sick, poor guy. I'm drugging him with Neo Citran and trying to see that he relaxes some. I made him lie on the couch and watch Queer Eye For The Straight Guy with me tonight, which is always a pleasant way to pass an hour. Try it sometime if you never have. You might learn something! I think it did Andrew some good anyhow, even if only because he got to turn off his brain a bit and be amused.
Archives / Search The Site / Friend Blogs
10/26/04 Non, je ne parle pas francais.
So, as I told May in the comments for the 25th, my interview wasn't a rousing success. Well, the interview actually went really well. The woman who interviewed me seemed to really like me and we had a very easy, comfortable conversation. She said the only problem was that I was not bilingual. I do find it funny that when I said that the job description did not specify that being bilingual was a requirement she said I was wrong, then went on to wonder aloud why none of the 20 or so applicants before me had been bilingual either. Tee hee.
So, lucky for me Andrew had borrowed his dad's car today and was able to take me to the interview, as the directions the woman had given were rather shoddy. This also meant that we could go to a couple of costume shops today and find the items we needed to complete our costumes. I'm not going to give away what either of us is going to be, but Andrew did point out that my costume from last year and the one I chose this year are both visual puns. Last year I went as a killer bee (bee wearing black bitch boots and carrying a fake knife). Andrew, who went as a Technics record player, won for best costume at the party we went to but probably doesn't remember that. I have a feeling that we're going to be the only ones dressed up at the party, so it's not like we'll be competing with anyone else for most original or funniest costume.
I've been threatening to get sick with my usual fall cold for a long time now but it still hasn't really hit me. Andrew, however, is definitely sick. He went to the living room to do some reading for school and I went in a bit later to find him passed out on the new leather recliner. So I covered him with a blanket and hopefully it did him some good to get some sleep. Hopefully whatever is going on with me (sinus, achey head, tiredness) will either resolve into a full-blown cold or just go away.
Archives / Search The Site / Friend Blogs
10/25/04 I'll keep my kidney. For now.
This may not be a very long entry. I have to get up earlier than usual in the morning because I have a job interview! Yay! My first Ottawa job interview. I'm so excited. O.K., well, more nervous than excited, but that's how it usually is with me and job interviews.
Today I went shopping for my Halloween costume. I had an idea of what I wanted to get, but it was crucial that I find one particular element of the ensemble or else it wouldn't work. So off I went to Phase 2, which is practically next door to us, and after a lot of searching and angst I not only got my Halloween costume, I also found a nice skirt and shirt to wear to my interview in the morning. Did you know that it's practically impossible to buy nylons in the Glebe without selling a kidney to afford them? Seriously, man. Ah, well. I got them.
We also took a trip to Ikea tonight to get our dining room chairs. And I was practically livid when we left because they didn't have our chairs in stock when we went to get them from the self serve area. Argh! I can't be too upset, or at least I shouldn't be, because we did get a new bathmat and a nifty desk chair for me. I picked out the Jules desk chair and it's surprisingly comfortable, I swear. I'm still mad about the dining room chairs, though. Our second visit to that store and it's the second time they didn't have what we'd come to buy in stock. Blah.
So, yeah. That's about it for excitment today. New costume, new job opportunity and a new desk chair for me. Yay.
Archives / Search The Site / Friend Blogs
10/24/04 These flowers have never been seen in nature, let me tell you.
I liked today. Why? Today we got living room furniture! Yay!
Yes, Andrew picked up the rental van today and we went first to his aunt and uncle's place. Before we loaded the furniture into the van we went inside for some tea, and it turned out that Andrew's granny was also there. We had a nice visit, then went out to the garage to check out the furniture. They'd mentioned a chair that we could have as well and we wanted to see what kind of shape it was in.
The chair was in good shape, although it's obviously been 'well used'. It's a black leather recliner type with an ottoman and it's faded quite a bit. However, it's the most comfortable chair ever. I could tell just by looking at it. Andrew's uncle also showed us some other items and we ended up taking a coffee table and a storage thingamajig made of wire. Oh, and a couple of table lamps as well. So we made off not too badly. After Andrew and his uncle loaded the stuff in the truck we came back to the apartment to bring it inside. I was a bit nervous about bringing in the sofa, as it's rather large. I did end up struggling a bit as we were bringing it through the front doors, but a nice man came along and helped me with my end. I love surprise Good Samaritans.
After all that stuff was unloaded we headed back out, this time to Gav and Emily's old condo where there was a loveseat waiting for us. I'd never seen the condo before and was quite impressed with it. The loveseat, which I immediately loved (har har), was sitting alone and lonely in the big empty place. The crappiest part was taking it down their very long and narrow stairs down to the front door, but we managed. It's a heck of a lot lighter than the sofa.
So to break in our new, wonderful and mismatched furniture we had Colin and Jen over for snacks and a movie. Andrew went out to pick up the snacks and rented Repo Man while doing so, the strangest movie I've seen in a long, long time. Andrew assured me I'd like it, and I can honestly say I did. But it left me feeling slightly ... odd. I think it's the ending that did it to me. It really wasn't the type of resolution I'd expected.
I must get back to the furniture for a moment. Specifically, the sofa. We had no idea at all what the sofa looked like before we went to pick it up. The only thing we knew about it was that it had a floral pattern. I felt that this sufficiently prepared me for it to be an unattractive sofa at best. I'm of the firm belief that anything that large cannot carry off a floral pattern, no matter how expensive or rare the fabric. Florals just weren't meant to be such a major part of any room. But there are different kinds of floral patterns. The old sofa we had that got junked in Toronto was the kind of floral that somebody obviously tried to make lovely and acceptable for a sofa. They wanted it to work. It didn't. It was done in muted shades of gray, pink and white and I always said that it looked like something that belonged in the 'recreation' area of a retirement home.
This sofa, however, is the kind of floral I can respect. It's hideous. It makes no pretense of being subtle, muted or tasteful. Here's a shot of its wild, happy pattern. That's a psychelic garden, baybee.
Archives / Search The Site / Friend Blogs
Tonight I'd planned to make a lovely dinner for me and Andrew. I went grocery shopping this afternoon and picked up some ingredients, all set to make it as soon as he got home from the conference he was attending. The phone rang somewhere around sixish, though, and it was Colin calling to say he'd had a bad day and wanted to improve his mood by having us over for a roast beef dinner. I have to say that Colin's coping mechanisms certainly have wonderful benefits for us. I said that I was certainly up for it and just needed to check with Andrew.
It was eventually worked out that Andrew couldn't come until rather late, but since it was going to be a rather late meal this was not a problem. So I met Colin and Jen at the Glebe Emporium where they were trying to choose a roasting pan for making a delicious roast in. Apparently it was the time for them to bring a bigger and better roasting pan into their lives. I had quite a good time helping them choose one, as it wasn't my pan and it wasn't my money. In the end Colin got quite the Cadillac of roasting pans and I must admit that in the deliberations I played the devil's advocate. "Yes, it's expensive, but you cook all the time. It won't be a waste of money because you'll put it to use!" Jen may have wanted to pinch me, but she refrained.
The roasting pan was bought and the roast was roasted in it. It came out quite delectably, too. Colin and Jen can make quite amazing meals. Since the three of us like our meat quite rare Colin was careful to watch the temperature of the beef core (I have no idea if that's an actual term, but I like it) with the nifty electronic meat thermometer he has. Andrew, who likes it more cooked, got to eat the less bloody bits near the end. I think all in all we all got what we all liked. I also brought with me some of my fakey-fake Skor bars which seemed to go over fairly well with Jen and Colin. This time around I actually figured out how to make the chocolate look like the chocolate on a Skor bar, which Jen noticed and commented on. I feel like such a fraud since it's probably the easiest recipe I've ever made in my life, but even I think they're delicious. So delicious that I left the rest of them with Colin and Jen so I wouldn't end up eating them all myself.
Archives / Search The Site / Friend Blogs
10/21/04 365 days of cohabitation and love.
One year ago today Andrew, Halo and I moved into our little apartment on Vaughan road in Toronto. It's bizarre to think that it's been that long, but it has. I remember Dan meeting us outside of our building to help carry in the heavy stuff, then May's dad arriving to help out too. I don't think I've ever mentioned what a genuinely nice man May's dad is, but he is. He was certainly under no obligation to help us out and we said he didn't have to, but he just ignored us and started lifting. I also remember being fascinated by the weird tree in front of the building with a creepy pipe coming out of it and going down into the ground. What would anyone be draining out of a tree? (Other than sap, duh.)
However, it's really been a year. And a very good year, at that. I got to know the city of Toronto. I rode the subway a lot (which I'd never done before). I discovered I liked pho and now must have it every few weeks. Best of all, however, I met amazing people that became very dear friends. I miss Dan, May and Noah. I miss Rayna. I miss Marcus. I miss Bea and Dave. I miss the people I didn't get to see as much of but still loved seeing, like Jen F. and Michele and Erin and Hilary. Toronto was so good to me.
The best thing about this year has been, of course, that Andrew and I spent it together and realized that we want to spend the rest of our years in the same way. I can't think of a better way to spend the rest of my life.
Another great thing is that Halo has seemed to improve drastically over the last year. His health perked up after moving to Toronto for some reason, and he's very obviously a contented, happy cat. He loves Andrew like crazy, so it's clear I made the right choice.
Speaking of Halo, Jen asked me over dinner the other night how he was warming up to the Daddy Pompom Legs toy I'd bought him. I had to report that he doesn't seem to actually play with it, but I do find him sitting beside it or over it quite often, smelling it. I don't think the catnip it came with is very potent, so it probably just smells a bit interesting to him, not wildly intoxicating like the catnip fish was in its heyday. Those were some crazy times.
Archives / Search The Site / Friend Blogs
10/20/04 My fiance, the Andrew.
I feel an illness coming on. It's probably going to be a doozy, too, since I haven't had a cold in quite a while. If fact, I can't even recall the last one. I could find out, of course, since I document them so thoroughly here in my weblog. However, I won't do that. I'll just live with this one as best I can and relive the old ones that way.
Andrew had to go to the school this afternoon and tonight. I had some little personal plans for the evening, like taking a relaxing bath and buying some fresh pasta for my dinner. I had a slight yen for something pasta-like with something tomato-like. Just as I was about to get ready to head out the door, though, the phone rang. It was Jen calling to invite me over for a meal with her and Colin. Knowing that I am a woman of strong likes and dislikes when it comes to food they wanted to be sure they were serving something I was likely to eat, and as it turned out Colin was making his Spanish Dinner, something that I was very likely to eat. Best of all, it has both pasta and tomatoes plus other delicious ingredients.
So I headed over there and ate a lovely meal with the two of them, then we three took a walk to the video store so they could return their overdue movie. I won't tell you how many days late it was, as that may embarass them too much. Andrew and I would never let one of our movies go, say, five days overdue, though. That would be shocking.
After we'd returned the movie Jen brought up the idea of going somewhere for dessert. We peeked into Bridgehead but it was pretty crowded so we thought about going to the one closer to where we lived. By the time we got to my building, though, I knew I was not really feeling up to much more in the way of energetic socializing, so opted to go back home and take that relaxing bath. I'd popped into the Quickie by the movie store to pick up some stuff and while I was in there the clerk had looked at me and said, "Wow, you look really tired," so I knew I must obviously have not have been doing so well.
Andrew got home a bit earlier than I expected him, which was nice, and we ended up watching last week's Survivor together since I'll be taping tomorrow night's for him too. When it was finished I just let it play and he ended up watching The Apprentice too, without kicking up a fuss. Yes, friends, I do believe he's become a fan. It's scary how he and the Donald think alike.
Archives / Search The Site / Friend Blogs
Well, the decision was made today to cancel our futon frame order. Andrew took a shower and when he came out announced that since the whole thing was still really bothering him, he felt strongly that we should not buy from that store and that even sitting on the thing would make him feel weird. I agreed wholeheartedly and so he called the place to cancel.
A woman answered the phone and told him that the guy who'd sold us the stuff wouldn't be in until later, and that he would call us between four and five sometime. Andrew actually put off going in to Carleton like he'd planned to so he could wait for this call. At ten to five he said it looked like the guy wasn't going to call, and I said that he was perfectly within his rights to call them and say he'd been waiting around for it. So he did, and got the guy on the phone. He told him he wanted to cancel our order, at which point he was informed we'd have to pay a restocking fee, perhaps in an attempt to get Andrew to change his mind. Andrew said if he had to he would, and then the guy asked why we'd changed our minds.
Andrew told him why straight-out, and did so very calmly and clearly. He told him it was because the comment the guy had made about the woman on the phone had upset him and that he didn't feel right about buying our futon frame from somone who would say such a thing. Apparently the guy took this rather calmly as well, and then in the way of an explanation proceeded to tell Andrew that he'd worked in the business for a long time, and that Lebanese people (!) are always after him to knock off three hundred dollars here and three hundred dollars there. Andrew, apparently unmoved by this, of course said he still wanted to cancel the order and asked whether the restocking fee was on the pre-tax total or not. Then the guy said that we didn't have to pay the restocking fee after all. And that was that.
I'm mostly frustrated because this man clearly doesn't get why we canceled our order. He more than likely thinks that we don't really comprehend what he knows to be a matter of fact and that we're overreacting. Bah. Anyhow, all's well that ends well because as it turns out we're going to have more than enough furniture and won't need to buy the futon frame. We'll have a sofa, love seat and chair as of Sunday, so the futon mattress will live in the gianormous living room closet and come out when we have people sleeping over.
We got a call from Gav and Emily this evening asking if we wanted to meet them at the Arrow and Loon while contractors cleaned out the ducts in their house. This sounded like a good idea, so Andrew and I went off and spent some lovely time with them and the girls. We'd already eaten supper, but ended up sharing a plate of antijitos. Then Andrew got a craving for some soup and I decided a dessert would go down nicely. I got the raspberry chocolate tart thingamajig and wow, was it ever rich! I couldn't eat the whole thing so ended up giving the rest to anyone at the table who wanted any, which turned out to be pretty much everyone except Andrew who couldn't risk it.
I haven't talked about mask making much, but that's because I haven't been doing any recently. I did make a batch of paper pulp this week, though, so while Andrew is desperately busy over the next few days I'll probably do some mask work.
Archives / Search The Site / Friend Blogs
10/18/04 I think I'd rather be a cat.
So, we've decided not to buy our futon frame and cover from the place with the racist salesman. Andrew mulled it over and told me today he wasn't comfortable with it, and I feel the same way. This means putting off getting our frame by possibly another couple of weeks, but it's worth it. It also means possibly finding a futon cover I like even better!
Yesterday I was doggedly trying to remember the name of a television show that Andrew had reminded me of. He'd been singing the song 'Would You Like To Swing On A Star' for some reason and I'd suddenly recalled that there was a terrible sitcom with that name. The premise was that there was a teenage girl who could put her fingertips together and stop time, and for some reason she talked to her dad through this weird glowing cube thing. Andrew didn't remember it either, so I decided to call on the fount of all knowledge and dialed up Jerome. He was on the other line but took the time to tell me the name and more complete premise to the show. I was very grateful and got off the phone, only to realize that I'd promptly forgotten what he'd said the title was.
Duh. I didn't want to call him right back since he was talking to someone else and I felt very silly, so I bent my brains trying to recall. I went on Google to see what I could find, but had also misheard the first name of the main character and was putting in the wrong information. Double duh. I shared my dilemma with Jen later that night and she also could not recall any details, but I did tell her that I'd gone to the Jump The Shark site to see if I could find the show title. Since there are more than 2000 shows on file there I wasn't successful, but I ended up thoroughly enjoying reading about shows I'd watched as a kid. It's hilarious to see what people consider the pinnacle of a series, and when they thought it definitely started going downhill.
That's actually the beauty of it. All the comments are made by random people from all over the place, submitted to the site and posted whether they're good, bad or indifferent. Some people are raving lunatics, some people are real fans. It's all highly entertaining if you like reading the thoughts of people you've never met, and I happen to know that some of you out there do. Go check out your favourite T.V. show and see what other people thought of it. I was definitely surprised by the amount of vitriol spewed over The Facts Of Life!
Oh, and the show I couldn't remember and didn't end up remembering until I called Jerome again tonight was Out Of This World, with the voice of the father by Burt Reynolds! Ha ha!
Archives / Search The Site / Friend Blogs
10/17/04 Bad, bad futon man! (To be sung to the tune of 'Bad, Bad Leroy Brown')
Today, today was futon day! (To be sung to the tune of 'I know something you don't know'!)
That's right, today we made the trek out to the futon store Andrew had found online so we could choose a futon frame for our existing futon mattress. This was good and we were happy about doing so. We arrived but there was already a couple in there talking to the sole working employee so we browsed around and thought about which frame to get. I was also very interested in looking at futon covers because frankly, the cover on the futon mattress that we have is so hideous that small children should not be allowed to look at it in case it warps their fragile little minds.
So there we were. The employee finished up his business with the customers and they left, but he had to get on the phone so told us he'd be with us in a minute. While he was on the phone we stood around and talked futons, but as we did so it became apparent that the conversation he was having wasn't going so well. In fact, it was getting downright nasty. He kept explaining that the delivery truck was broken down and couldn't make deliveries today, but the customer on the phone was having none of that. Things got rather heated and when he finally got off the phone and came over to us he was obviously angry. I heard him curse under his breath about 'customers'. Andrew, being the nice guy that he is, commiserated with him about working retail and how he'd had to deal with some real jerks from time to time himself. He said that he often wondered what kind of jobs people who had such high expectations worked at themselves.
The futon guy shook his head, then came back with, "Well, I can tell you one thing, she wasn't white!"
Now, I didn't hear him say this. I had turned away to pick up a little booklet of swatches to ask about a price for the red pseudo-suede covers. I did notice that Andrew's manner had cooled a bit and he wasn't as enthusiastic about the entire process but I figured he was just wanting the whole futon-buying process over with. I did hear the futon guy go on to comment that 'people like that expect everything' or something along those lines, but just figured he was still talking about a common spoiled customer type, not making racial generalizations.
We ended up choosing a good futon frame and a lovely futon cover (although not the pseudo-suede) and I was very pleased. The guy said the frame would be delivered on Thursday and the cover will be available to be picked up in three weeks (which seems like an excessively long time to me). We paid and walked out to the car and Andrew immediately exploded about the racist asshole comments the guy had made. I was nonplussed, having missed out on the racist aspect of it, and assured Andrew that if he wanted to cancel the order I was on board with that.
We left and are still mulling over whether we should just buy our futon somewhere else. I like to believe that one person's ignorance doesn't taint an entire business, but for all we know he was the owner. We'll see.
Things improved greatly with a lovely dinner at The Arrow And Loon with Colin and Jen. I had a bison cheeseburger with a salad. I'd had one of the bison burgers before and remembered it as being very delicious. It was great this time too, but huge. I gave the last few bites to Andrew, who'd polished off his bowl of bison chili and was ready for more sustenance. We hung out for a while just chatting and relaxing, then went off to Starbucks for some after-dinner hot drinks. Andrew made his obligatory noises about the evils of Starbucks but they were muted and strengthless as he'd recently enjoyed some of their coffee anyhow. After more great chat and a delicious piece of lemon poppyseed cake for me we went back to Colin and Jen's place where we watched Strange Days.
It was a bad movie. Andrew had recently bought a copy of it, at the same time that Colin and Jen bought theirs, actually, and I expected that it would be fairly good considering all this 'wanting to own it' action. But it was bad. Not joyously bad, like most of the other bad movies we watch with Colin and Jen. Bad in a sad, 'the world sucks and everything has gone to hell but at least we can still find small glimpses of good if we try real hard to scrape away the evil' sort of way that I think one must be more prepared for if they're going to watch it than I was. I had no idea what it was about going in. Andrew said that he didn't remember it being as poorly written as it was. Anyhow, I am glad I saw it despite the lackluster review, but it probably won't be a repeat watcher for me.
Archives / Search The Site / Friend Blogs
What, Keltie's pissed off about a restaurant experience she had today? It must be Tuesday.
Apologies to the non-Buffy fans out there who won't get that reference, but I really was pissed off. I'm not angry now, but I sure was earlier.
However, I'm getting ahead of myself. Today Andrew had to help his dad out at the Railfair show that's going on this weekend so that meant he had to get up early this morning, and I mean hurtfully early. Like, 5:00 a.m. early. Blah. I did my best to ignore him getting out of bed and whatnot, but it was hard. After he was gone I curled up under the blankets and slept the sleep of the not-having-to-get-up-for-Railfair and was content.
He came back late afternoonish to pick me up so we could go look at futon frames. We figure we'd better buy one of those before we get a bed frame since we really do need somewhere to sit and to seat people in our living room. So we went off to some bourgeois futon place where they had one ugly affordable frame and five or six lovely overpriced ones. The cheap one was at the back of the store and it's fairly obvious that they just don't care about it at all. The guy showing us futons was trying to make it sound nice since he was picking up the scent of our 'thriftiness', but the gaping staple holes along the plank of wood on the front piece were a bit of a turn-off. I asked if they all came like that and he kind of gave a hangdog 'yes' and said they used to make them with screws instead of just stapling them together. Back in the glory days, apparently.
So, we left without a futon frame. I was unhappy about the whole thing, but Andrew went online when we got home and found a place that sells what we want at a better price, so next Sunday we're going to rent a truck and hopefully get our sofa as well as the futon frame. Yeehaw.
We went to the Railfair location at Algonquin college to pick up Andrew's dad so I got to go in and see all the train people and their toys. Tee hee. It's actually interesting, despite my affectionate tweaking. I was pleasantly surprised to see an entire booth devoted to a Thomas The Tank Engine setup, and I got to see his dad in an engineer's hat.
After we dropped Andrew's dad off at home we headed out to the Mexicali Rosa's at the Dow's Lake pavilion. I was excited about having some of their delicious enchiladas again. So, we went in and a hostess seated us. I noticed that she walked us past a lot of nice looking window seats where she'd seated the people before us that looked over the water, instead seating us against a wall in the interior, but that didn't make me angry. I wasn't there for the view, really. So, we started looking over our menus and deciding on what we wanted to drink. Soon some other people came in and were seated a little past us. Andrew noticed that a waiter hopped right on them and was putting in their drink order a minute later.
A little while after that another couple was seated near us. A waitress immediately took their drink orders, returning minutes later with beers, chips and salsa. We started to wonder why we hadn't been served, and when another couple was seated I said that if they were looked after before us we should leave. And what happened? A waitress was right there with them. We were confused about why we'd been abandoned, and both of us were getting mad since it wasn't like we were hidden in a corner. We were seated directly beside the order station with servers walking past us constantly. Andrew said he was going to say something to someone as we were on our way out, which I (of course) protested against. I hate scenes. But when we finally did put on our jackets and leave we didn't see the hostess anywhere in sight to talk to, anyhow. We did walk past about three servers who watched us leave.
It was bizarre. We know logically that there must have been some confusion or screw-up, since deciding arbitrarily to not serve people doesn't happen. We were both still in the mood for Mexicali Rosa's after leaving, so went to the one on Bank street near us. I realize that may seem odd, but we really didn't want to eat in the restaurant where we'd been ignored. The one we went to is the cool one, apparently. It's the original Mexicali Rosa's and has a lot of character. The exterior is kind of crazy looking, but inside it's nice and the service was fast and pleasant, more than making up for the odd experience we had at the Dow's Lake location.
After our meal we went and rented The Last Samurai. I've been curious to see it and Andrew said it had been coming up in discussion in one of his classes so he wanted to see it too. I was very pleasantly surprised. It's a great movie. Andrew did point out that, like The Last Of The Mohicans, it has the embittered white guy learning new wisdom and passing it on to the wayward 'savages'. While he is right, and the resolution was a bit heavy-handed, I still liked it overall. Tom Cruise is another one of those actors that I roll my eyes about, but always seem to like his performances. Except for Eyes Wide Shut. I could barely watch ten minutes of that.
Home
