You want that when?
I have a set of training material to create and complete for Friday and I'm learning the software as I go. Busy busy! Someone please have something alcoholic for me and soak up some sun......

I'm back!
Let's recap the journey:
Friday at 11, I said my goodbyes to the people at the NY office and jumped in the car to drive to the airport. Of course, traffic, tons of it, but I factored a ton of traffic into my plans, so no problem. I listened to my bootleg Sheryl Crow and enjoyed the last hours of air conditioned car goodness. I arrived at the airport (yes, I actually didn't get lost this time) and started following the signs to the rental car buildings. 30 minutes later, I was still trying to figure out how to get to Hertz. New York has many signs that have arrows which point in vague directions, not left or right, more 'over there someplace' and then no follow up signs to let you know that you guessed correctly. The airport is no exception. I finally followed a courtesy pick-up bus. The car drop off was amazing, there was a guy who motioned me into a parking spot, scanned the code on the windshield and handed me a bill. Easy! I took the courtesy bus back to the airport and made the driver circle the route twice because I didn't hear him call the airline the first time.
At the airport I waited in a long snaking line for about 45 minutes. While there, Danny Glover passed by me with his cart of baggage two or three times. He looked like he'd been travelling for a while and needed a good sleep and a shower. I got through the line and was waiting in line for the baggage x-ray when one of the x-ray machine ladies yelled for three adults and a little girl to cut the line and come right over to her. One woman seemed a tad overdressed and wore sunglasses. I found out from the lady at my x-ray machine that it was Lil' Kim. Some other women around me were surprised that she didn't seem to be travelling with a bodyguard.
The computers went down all over the airport causing many delays. We finally got on the plane and were almost ready to leave when a man from the airline boarded and asked for two volunteers to wait for another flight so a woman and her two kids could get on. One man volunteered, but no one else wanted to leave so the airline guy said that the plane wasn't taking off until someone else got off. There were a lot of Americans on the plane, and they staged a small revolt. A couple were bumped by the airline guy amid much grumbling and the woman and her kids boarded and we were off, over an hour late. I was surrounded by a family, grandparents, parents and three children, a girl of about 7 was sitting next to me, who all had the plague. They were all coughing and hacking. I finally had to ask the little girl to please cover her mouth, she resembled a goose honking germs into the air and it was making me crazy. Her mother looked over at her and said, "I told you so". I'm not sure what that was supposed to mean because not 6 seconds earlier she was doing the same thing. Their son remarked that they were going to freeze when he heard that the temperature was 20C, and no parent corrected him. I'm starting to discover why Americans get such a hard rap. It seems that they only let the ignorant ones travel.
We had a fantastic flight and landing which of course ended with me stuck in rush hour traffic in a cab in which the driver spoke neither of the official languages and smoked in the cab.
It's great to be home!

Welcome Back Dina!!

Hope you don't miss "the city that never sleeps" too much. Doesn't it suck that we don't have a good beach near us?

We missed ya. Thanks for the frequent updates. It almost felt like we were there with you!

Last Day
As much as I was loathe to come here in the first place, I will miss it here. Americans are friendly people for the most part, and I have had a lovely time.
Went to the beach last night and walked in the waves for the last time. I will miss the beach, I will miss wandering around the city and I will miss the yogurt.
I'm looking forward to seeing Steve though :-)
Now I have to finish some work before I leave.

Almost the last day
Went into the city again last night. This time, my colleague took me down to Canal street. We had to hurry, because they close up at 8, but it was knock off central! The street is lined with tiny shops with pull-down metal doors. Every day they open the doors and sell fake every designer brand of watch and handbag that you can think of. Then of course you have to haggle. A lot of the stuff looks the same from store to store, but the quality can be different. I would have taken pictures, but seeing as how it's illegal to sell this stuff, I didn't want to risk pissing anyone off. There was also shoes, toys, souvenirs, thelist goes on and one. A few people had carts in the street selling CDs and movies. We got 3 CDs (complete copies of course) for $11. I was surprised to see that every movie in the cart was something that was out in theatre or was going to be out in theatre (I saw the new Austin Powers). All for $5-not bad....
After Canal street we took a tour through SOHO, very much like a large Old Montreal with high-end stores, very pretty. We then headed over to Grenwich Village and parked and walked around. This is my type of neighbourhood, lots to see, lots of bars, not as sterile as SOHO, kind of like the plateau. We found a bar with live music and had a beer, then enjoyed watching all the people as we took a walk around the area. I stopped at a dep and bought something called Naked Juice, people at the office rave about it and I admit that it's very good.
We got back to the hotel after midnight and I fell into bed, the alarm was way too early this morning. Today I'm working my brains out trying to get things done before I leave, rush rush!

Meanwhile, back in Montreal....

We have a superly gorgeous day...cool, clear and hey, what the heck am I doing at the office kind of day! Our building is throwing a BBQ in the square. Free hotdogs for all! I however will not be attending (much and all as I would like to, the smell of BBQ has been permeating my office all morning) as I have power walking date with my friend at McGill.

Things are typically quiet for this time of year, sort of. However, with the bleeding of the markets, CDS is very busy and once the selloff stops things will likely slow right down to a trickle until investors start buying again...????

Day 10
It rained here yesterday, so I went to the mall. The rain is crazy here, torrential and violent, then nothing. My colleague went down to the beach after work and said that there was a huge sandstorm with the rain that forced people into their cars. If you've ever been out in a sandstorm with bare legs, you know how painful grains of sand can become when they work together.
As for shopping, so far I haven't seen anything that I can't live without. I am going to pick up some marinades at Trader Joes before I go.
Tonight: beach? we shall see.....

Day Nine
Yesterday was a rough for various bad reasons and I was glad that I had enough stuff to do to hide in my cubicle with my head down. After work, we drove into the city and had a meal and walked around Times Square and up to Rockefeller Center where they have the ice skating during the winter. It is much smaller than you think it is when you see it on tv. I think that ice makes a place look bigger. I always thought that the Molson Centre was enormous, but then I got a chance to go skating there and it's way smaller than it looks when you watch a hockey game on tv. Anyway, we wandered around the city and only got back to the hotel after midnight. I arrived to several phone messages from Steve, I had him worried sick. Oops!
Tonight I'm going to the mall or the beach, I will let the weather decide.......

Weekend Update
The weekend did not get off to the greatest start, but it picked up soon after. Steve's flight was cancelled and he called me to let me know that he'd be flying in Saturday morning instead. I decided to drive to Kuan's anyway and come back in the morning and pick up Steve. With no traffic, the drive from work should have been about 90 minutes. I left the office at 6:30 pm and the rain started. There were downpours all over NY and NJ, and they seem to have created tons of traffic. I was stuck for an hour trying to get off Long Island, then I missed a turnoff somewhere and ended up going south when I should have been going north, oops. More traffic, got turned in the right direction, more traffic, got to a bridge, traffic and a toll, traffic, another bridge, traffic, off the bridge and onto to NJ turnpike, traffic, another toll, traffic, traffic, finally get to Kuan's area and it's dark and there are no house numbers visible from the road. I called her, but they had gone out for supper because they knew I was going to be late. I sat in the car for a while, watched a possum cross the road, and then dug the flashlight out of my bag and tried not to look like a burglar slinking quietly up to houses where they could be armed. Finally found Kuan, she made me a big drink and we talked late into the night.
Kuan woke me up early in the morning, made some coffee (the first good coffee that I've had all week) and off we went to get Steve. The trip was a breeze compared to the night before, we sailed through, getting lost only slightly in NY city and made it to the airport in under an hour. Let me just say that I have now driven through Ny city three times and I'm amazed at how clean it is. We went out for a big breakfast after we picked Steve up and then spent the rest of the day lounging on Kuan and Chris' comfy furniture and in their backyard and had an amazing home cooked shrimp supper.
Sunday we feasted on fresh bagels and hung out some more and I did some laundry, then we got ready and headed over to Debbie's for her birthday bbq. They live about 45 minutes away. We got to meet Debbie's husband and many friends that Kuan talks about. We had lots of yummy food and enjoyed their huge backyard. Kuan and Chris drove us back to their house and we said our goodbyes and headed out for the airport. The drive was again quite uneventful, no traffic to speak of and we arrived at the airport on time. Saying goodbye to Steve was hard too, I hate being away from him. I was a bit down on the way back to the hotel. I saw the sign for Jones Beach and thought, what the heck and drove down there and spent a few hours at the beach watching people packing up and enjoying the end of the day. I went ome, unpacked my laundry and did some reading. Steve called to say that he was home safe and sound. It felt like a long weekend, but I would have loved to spend more time with my friends.....
Now it's back to work, lots to keep me busy!

Bloody weather
Steve's flight was cancelled because of a storm somewhere in upstate NY. Now he'll only be here tomorrow at 9. I'm so bummed......

Day 5
We went out for yummy Indian food after work. We were planning on going into the city, but it was too hot. We will go in next week. Today, my sweetie is getting on a plane and coming to see me! His flight only gets in at 6, so I can probably leave here at 4:30 or 5 and make it. There's a ton of traffic here getting on and off the island. There aren't many routes, so they seem to be constantly jammed. It may not be that bad because a lot of people seem to take Fridays off here during the summer. After he gets here and I find him at the airport and get him in the car, we're going to New Jersey to see my friend Kuan Yin (name's can be deceiving, she's blonde and nearly 6 feet tall-her mom was a hippy, but that's another story). I have directions this time, so it shouldn't be so bad. She has promised to feed us when we get there. I'm dying to see her house, they bought it two years ago and this is the first time I've been down to visit and see it, I'm a horrible friend! I'm very excited. We're planning on just hanging out, going to a party Saturday night, maybe doing some light sightseeing.
The NY office apparently has bagel Fridays, when I walked in this morning the receptionist told me that there were fresh bagels upstairs and the fixins. She was right, there's a huge pile of them and about eight containers of whipped butter, some cream cheese and jam. I decided to steer clear of the whipped butter. There were four people in the cafeteria, they were making fun of a yoga show that they had on the tv:
woman: Hey Bob, do you like yoga?
man: Yeah, with strawberries.
You gotta love 'em.......

Day 4
Yesterday got busy and I was here last night until 8 with a developer testing an installation. I got back to the hotel and ate one of my Trader Joes frozen meals-tandoori chicken with spinach, popped open a vodka cooler, and read and watched tv until I fell asleep. Nothing special at all. The travelling and running around finally hit me and I was glad to have a quiet evening to myself. Today at lunch a couple of the other ladies are taking us to some big store called Fairway.
I forgot to add the yogurt yesterday, it was whipped yoplait peaches and cream. It was good, but not an outstanding yogurt.
Addition:
The trip to the store was good. The store was HUGE and full of all kinds of regular and tons of specialty food. I bought some lunch and a few other things. You'd really have to spend a couple of hours in there to see everything.
Yogurt of the day: Yoplait whipped key lime pie (as opposed to custard style): as good as the pie itself, I hope that they start selling this flavour in Montreal.

Day 3
We went to Jones Beach last night, six miles of beach, I'm in love. The only thing missing was Steve. It's about 25 minutes from here and there's free parking after 4 on weekdays. What a terrific and relaxing way to end the day. We walked down the beach for about an hour and watched the sunset and then came back on the boardwalk. I'm tired this morning, but happy. I think that I'm genetically drawn to the ocean (I'm half maritime). I'm definitely going back and doing that again as often as I can.
I will add my daily yogurt, etc. later.

Day 2
The first day went ok. I'm getting organized and trying to figure out what needs to be done. The hotel is ok, I will take some pictures. It's not the nicest place that I've stayed at, but it's certainly not the worst. It's very clean and critter-less and smells good. The kitchenette has a full-sized fridge, two stovetop burners, a little sink and a microwave. They give you a pot, two plates, bowls, glasses, cups, etc. My colleague got a little coffee machine. I asked for a kettle, but they didn't have any. They also didn't have any extra pillows so I had to bunch up the bedspread into a Steve-shape. I got a room on the second floor, so I didn't have to worry about murderers climbing through the windows. It's a big hotel, but it's in a fairly industrial area with nothing good within walking distance. I'm not that fussy because I have a car, and there's lots within driving distance. I got a silver Mazda 626 with a/c and a cd player. If it was standard, it would be absolutely perfect.
Last night we went out for supper at a Persian restaurant and then stopped at a 24-hour grocery store for cereal, milk, more yogurt, etc.
Today I had to go and buy a sweater because I didn't bring one and I'm freezing in the office. On the way back I stopped at this healthfood store called Trader Joes. Good food, cheap as a regular grocery store. I picked up a grilled veggie wrap and noted that they have a bunch of frozen indian meals for $3 that I can pick up for suppers.

The accents are starting to bother me and it's only Tuesday.

Yogurt of the day: key lime pie yoplait (custard-low fat) - YUM!

Hey hey!
Well, I made it down to NY without anything bad happening. The customs officer was grouchy and almost didn't let me through, but he decided to cut me some slack after scowling at me for a minute. I forgot the directions to the office, so I had to do some of my famous navigation to get here. I only went the wrong way for about 30 minutes, not bad really. Long Island is like the West Island, I expected it to be more built up, but it's very suburban. On one of my wrong turns I was in an area that could have been the country.
There are Canada geese everywhere around the office. They cross the street and paddle around in the pond near here. It's kind of funny that I had to come down here to see them.
First impressions:

• Almost everyone drives too slowly
  
• Americans can be so friendly. The guy at the rental car place serenaded me. A woman at the grocery store in front of me apologized for having more than 10 items (probably 12)
  
• Creamsicle whipped yogurt rocks!

Went to a great wedding of two close friends Saturday in Rigaud and really tried out the camera. I've discovered the secret to good photography: when you take over 200 pictures, a few are bound to be good.

Friday!
Well, I managed to thwart the evil admin's plan to strand me in New York and will soon be heading off to the bank with my shiny cheque in hopes of getting it cashed and traveller chequed. Tonight we are off to pick up the gift for Laura and Sylvie's wedding tomorrow and maybe we'll even catch a movie. I'm meeting Maggie for lunch today. She got layed off Wednesday, which really sucks. I'm sure that she will blog the details soon, her company's bad......
I've been running around trying to get everything ready for the trip. I did a bit of shopping for clothes that are slightly more appropriate for the office down there (I've heard that they dress a bit nicer than we do). I have a list of everything that I need to bring (and tons of stuff that I probably don't, but will take "just in case"). I'm looking forward to taking pictures at the wedding with my camera. I have to figure out how I'm going to download pictures form my camera while I'm down in NY. Perhaps I can talk an IS guy into burning a few CDs for me.

Snoozin'
This morning I woke up at the time I regularly leave the house, oops. I managed to get out the door 35 minutes later. After I got to work I was trying to discuss literature (that thing I have nearly two degrees in) with a colleague and couldn't remember the subject of my thesis. That was embarassing.
I remembered later, but it didn't help much at that point. I should have crib notes for the mornings when I'm not so sharp.
Another reason that our admin is a cow: I'm waiting for the cash advance for the trip. I requested it from the admin last Friday and she knew that I needed it ASAP so that I could put money into my visa for the rental car and get it exchanged into US. I have still not received it, so I call her and asked when it will be coming. She informs me that I will only get it at 3pm tomorrow (after my bank closes). Apparently it's company policy and she knew this. I called accounting and had to explain to them my situation with the hope of getting it earlier. Now that I know that our admin's job description is "impede other employees from doing their jobs" I know exactly where I stand. There will be revenge, oh yes, you know it..... :)

Busy, bust busy
Nothing like a last minute complete rush to make the day go by. A project went from being completely being ignored to "we gotta have it now" in the time it took for a client to buy it.
Latest travel news: I'm going, my boss is paying for my hotel and they've promised to send me money mid-week. They seem to have booked me at a different hotel than the other woman I'm going down with, but I'm not going to be fussy as long as it's clean and has a fridge and a microwave.

Going? Staying? Who cares? Let's watch a movie!
After a very stress-filled day yesterday I went out and had a nice supper with Steve and decided to try to stop worrying about the damn trip. If I don't go, then we'll have to try to get Steve's money back, or I'll try to get the same flight and go for the weekend anyway. We'll see.
We rented Gosford Park last night. Warning, this is not a movie for the hard of hearing. There's a lot of whispering in accents. We were fiddling with the volume for most of the film, and there was some dialogue that I missed. Despite that, the film was wonderful and funny and a touch sad. The story is set in 1932 in one of those grand English country houses with tons of staff. The upper class have gathered for a weekend of shooting and brought along their various butlers and maids. The upstairs and downstairs relationships are explored and you really get to see how they interact and reflect each other in an age when the traditional family estates full of staff were rapidly disappearing. In the middle of the movie there's a murder and everyone is treated to a short, but very entertaining appearance by Stephen Fry who plays the inspector. Highly rentable!

I feel like a second class citizen in a third world country
I can't believe it, our power is out again at home. It went out at 1:45 a.m., came back on at 2:00 then it went out again at 5:10 a.m. and was still out when I went to the train station at 8:00. (The gym where I work out had power so at least I didn't lose my workout.) This is the third time since June 24th. I know that there are forest fires, but why does everybody else have power? (I don't expect an answer to that question.)

Then, I get to work this morning and my boss had left 2 long voice mail messages (2 minutes each). The system cuts you off at 2 minutes. Between her talking at 1,000 words a minute and the sound quality (which was frankly terrible, sounded as though it was coming from Afghanistan), I had a really hard time following what she was saying. I had scheduled a status meeting this morning to follow up on a number of things (our monthly deal), which she declined. Then I got mad. I called her at the office, actually got her (a surprise) and I told her I couldn't understand a word of her voicemail for the reasons stated above. I then told her I would have to spend the whole morning trying to decipher what she had said and that this was unacceptable. Then she told me she was not feeling well and has been under the weather for a week and her doctor doesn't know what's wrong with her. To which I said, let's reschedule for next week because I cannot work this way. I need to interact with her. (Or do I really?) Clearly she doesn't understand how isolated I am. If I sound unfeeling about her illness, I'm not. But I suspect she has brought it on herself, especially if you live in Toronto, you owe it to yourself to have air conditioning in your house. She is an AVP, she can afford it.

Anyway, that's my day so far. It can only get better and I will make it so.... End of rant.

Arghhhhhh!
The travelling saga continues. More problems, our admin is being a total cow, they can only give me a limited cash advance, which won't pay for everything and then I find out that it's Canadian funds, which barely buys a stick of gum down there. My boss probably will never send me anywhere again, but at least he's being as helpful as possible. The admin can't get it through her head that I don't have an empty credit card with a 10k limit, she keeps telling me to "just charge it". This is especially frustrating when I have told her of the pitifully small amount that I have left on my card about ten times. I'm incredibly stressed about the whole thing. Steve has booked his flight for the weekend, so if they cancel my trip I may have to hurt someone. Business travel should not be like this...

The end is nigh....

Not really. The fires up north have had a rather startling effect on today's sky. The entire day has been extremely hazy and almost like early evening. A litle spooky. The winds are supposed to change soon and blow the smoke east tomorrow.

Becca's on the radio!
I keep forgetting to mention this, but Rebecca's doing the arts report at 5:25 in the afternoon this week. I know that the week is almost over, but tune in today and listen.

Hot hot hot!
Woo damn it's a steam bath out there! For some reason, this week seems longer than it should despite the fact that we had Monday off. Perhaps the heat is frying my brain. I've heard that we are supposed to get a reprieve from this weather tonight. Yay!
Happy July 4th to everyone down south of the border. I've heard that security is tight in many cities and that a lot of people plan on staying home. I used to go over to Vermont with my folks to watch the fireworks in one of the small towns, so pretty! We also used to go over to the drive-in before they closed it down. It was amazing! Big buckets of popcorn for next to nothing, a playground in front of the screens, and those speakers that you hung on the inside of your car window. Sometimes you had to try a few before you found a good one. Everyone would bring out their lawn chairs and blankets and little kids wore their jammies to the movies so they could fall asleep in the back of the car. The concession stand was run by four old ladies who could have been working there since the drive-in opened.

The ants come marching in...
The past couple of days our kitchen has been besieged by tiny ants. They are on the floor, the counters and we've even caught a few wandering around the stove top. They must be coming inside to escape the heat and humidity and they are definitely not welcome. I put some caulking around where I think that they're getting in, we'll see how well that works. The cats have no interest in them, perhaps they're too small to be considered prey. Anyway, every time you walk into the kitchen you have to stomp on a bunch of them. I've wiped the counters and removed all food, but they're still hanging around.

New York, New York
I was told at the beginning of the week that I was going to NY from the 15-26. Since then I have been struggling with the company travel software. You have to create a profile and then give preferences for airlines, hotels, rental car places, etc. that the software will then completely ignore in favour of whatever the company prefers. So you fill that out and then fill out a request for a trip and then someone calls you to discuss the arrangements anyway. I am sort of a special case because I don't have a corporate credit card so they have to give me cash advances instead, and I've been trying to avoid giving them my personal credit card number out of fear that they'll screw something up and I'll be charged for stuff by mistake. I also fear that I'll be wandering around NY with a whack of cash. There's some debate about whether or not I'm allowed to rent a car (I'm really fighting to get one). Canadian girl, looking lost, walking around NY with a wad a cash in her pocket and a map, yeah, I won't get mugged.......

I have been busy all day trying to put my computer back in order (new OS) and book a business trip. I am very close to losing my mind........

Spielberg disappoints me again
I love a good sci-fi movie. Sadly, really good ones are all too rare. Case in point: this weekend, we went to see Minority Report. We came away feeling cheated out of a movie that had such great potential. In a nutshell, an agent from Precrime, a unit dedicated to preventing murders by intervening before they happen, sees himself committing a murder in the immediate future. He's determined to prove this prediction wrong. He does, and he doesn't, in a beautifully ironic twist of fate.

The story had such amazing potential, probably thanks to Phillip K. Dick's writing and visionary talent (I haven't read the short story it was based on). And the imagery was great, with wonderful, sombre lighting and rich or wispy, grainy images, depending on the sequence. What got me was Spielberg's need to spell out everything to the obvious, use a child for the most irritating, corny emotional effect, and cast one-dimensional, wooden actors (although Tom Cruise was pretty good). Add non-stop product placement (Lexus, AmEx, Reebok, Guiness... the list goes on and on and on), and bad screenwriting (made for a woman, clearly written by a man), and you get a very disappointing interpretation of the work of a sci-fi master.

AI was a great movie marred at the end by Spielberg's maudlin touch. Minority Report sinks two thirds of the way through. And I so wanted to like it! If anybody has any suggestions for great sci-fi movies or their all-time fave sci-fi flick, I'd love to hear about them.

Niagara heat
It's a very St. Catharines' kind of day. Sweltering heat to fry an egg on a sidewalk, near-100% humidity, hazy... I feel totally at home today.

We had a very lovely weekend down in Niagara. We went cycling along Lake Erie from Port Dover to Turkey Point Provincial Park. Saw no turkeys except for the two-legged kind driving convertibles with trophy babes perched at the back (they would have made good hood ornaments). We rolled into the beachside town on our road bikes and I felt like a complete alien in my cycling shorts and helmet. The beach was nice, though.

The next day, we went cycling on the Niagara Parkway trail. (What an amazing bike trail! It's got gorgeous scenery, lots of shade from stately high trees, and a cool breeze from the Niagara River.) Then we joined my folks for a picnic at Queenston Heights. All in all, it was a very relaxing, fun weekend. Love to visit, love to leave.

Summer rocks!
What a great weekend! Friday night we went and visited with an old friend who is in town. Saturday we parked the car at the Old Port and walked everywhere. We walked around the Old Port, up to the Jazz fest and then up St. Laurent and down St. Denis. There were Canada day festivities as well as Jazz, so Montreal was full of summertime action. It's fun to see so many people out enjoying the city. We stopped for a very unmemorable dinner and then went back to the Old Port to watch the fireworks. All in all it was a great day. The only problem was that I shouldn't have walked all that way in sandals and I ended up with some nasty blisters. Walking back to the car was a huge effort. Sunday Steve went out gaming and I wandered around at home and Sunday night we went to Bill's housewarming. It was appropriately very warm. We broke out the fans and enjoyed the party. Monday we cleaned the house in 32C heat and cleaned out a closet. We had the air conditioner running in the bedroom for quick cooldowns. I am not a fan of air conditioning, but it was very welcome last night. The cats were limp dishrags, occasionally they were smart enough to go into the bedroom, but mostly they just found cool spots on the floor. Today is more of the same sweltering heat, and I'm at the office wearing a fleece and shivering. Apparently it's a very nasty shock when you walk outside. I don't think that I'll be going out at lunch unless I need to warm up.

Summer Heat Hysteria

I don't need to say it, so I won't. But I will say this, the media seem to think that our current weather is something to go crazy over. Announcers are telling us to stay indoors, restrict physical activity (and yes some people are more at risk than others). But when a normal summer day becomes the big news, I really wonder if anybody(particularly radio announcers) ever remember previous summers where it gets really hot especially around July 1st. We have hot weather and it does last longer than 2 weeks a year. Is anybody out there genuinely surprised that it is now hot and yes, people actually have to work outdoors in the heat...like farmers, construction workers, messengers etc. Am I the only one who finds the media hype really annoying? Do we really need to be told to be safe? I mean there are people who despite all the gum flapping you hear who will go jogging when it is 35+ celsius. They don't listen anyway. So the rest of us have to put up with dire health warnings and one announcer this morning said that Environment Canada recommends you sit under a tree and drink lemondade. (No wonder our productivity is in the toilet...we're all supposed to be sitting around drinking lemonade because we were told to...although it would be nice.)

So there it is my summer rant. But wasn't it a great weekend? So how is everybody doing today?

What's the big deal with Amazon.ca? I just looked up a book from my summer reading list. Indigo/Chapters has it for $25, Amazon wants $47! Not much competitive threat there. Both are hardcover by the way.

My invisible hair
I finally got sick of my long hair and had it cut last night. It is at least 2 or 3 inches shorter and I now have bangs. So far, only one person at work has noticed, and he was more, "there's something different...." than "hey, you got a haircut, looks nice". I probably could have told him that I shaved my beard. The funny part is, when a guy gets his hair cut (what? a whole centimeter?) everyone seems to notice. I am starting to suspect that my hair has some sort of ignore-the-mop-field around it.

Woo hoo long weekend two!
Has everyone seen the beautiful weather forecast? Break out the sunblock and go play outside! We have a full weekend of wandering and relaxation planned, should be a blast!
What's everyone else doing for the beautiful Canada Day weekend? I know that Elizabeth is on her way to Ontario even as we speak to spend some time with her family.

Let the jazz begin!
It's the first day of the Jazz fest and I plan to make it down to some of the free shows for a change. When you live in a city with a lot of great festivals, you never seem to take advantage of them as much as you should. I recommend them to people new to the city or visitors, but usually ignore them in favour of staying home on the balcony. One of the things I'm most grateful for is the fireworks competition. I love fireworks, and we have one of the most wonderful shows every summer. Belgium is this Saturday, perhaps we will go to the Old Port and have a look....

Watching the lettuce grow
I had a very uneventful evening. I had planned on reading, but instead ended up spending a whole bunch of time in front of the computer. I planted some lettuce in between rain showers. I bought these seeds that are placed between two pieces of biodegradable paper. You don't have to worry about spacing them out. I liked them because for once I could see where the seeds were in the soil. We should see something in about two weeks. Lettuce is easy and fast, I like that in a vegetable. After a one week hiatus, I am returning to the gym tonight after work. I am calling upon my powers of guilt to get me back there increased by the fact that I ate out Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, great big meals full of yummy calories and covered with creamy sauces and butter. Time to pay the elliptical trainer a nice, long visit.

I wonder what happened to the seventh dwarf??

Caroline sent me flowers!!!!

You gotta love long weekends
Long weekends are just too darn short! Friday night was the STC summer banquet. Steve passed the crown of supreme ruler on to Howard and everyone had a great time with amazing food and free drinks! It was hot and humid. We took a quick tour of Bill's house which was also really hot, but really nice. I look forward to seeing it again when I'm not sweating buckets.
Saturday I slept in and then went out and got some flowers for the deck. I also picked up a hanging cherry tomato plant. Atwater Market was beautiful, tons of flowers and the renovated canal. I promise that I will go back and take pictures when my hands aren't full of perennials. That evening we met Kathy and Ralph for supper on Prince Arthur. Everyone was out and it was a wonderful evening. We had a nice meal and good conversation. Afterwards, Steve and I stopped at a used bookstore and I picked up a couple of old German phrase books and a small book of all kinds of reference knowledge published in England in the 60s.
Sunday, the folks came in and visited and brought the outdoor cabinet and tomato plants. We had some lunch and visited and after they left we had the storm. It was really wild. Hurricane-force winds and driving rain for about 15 minutes and then it was gone. The park across the street is a wreck, huge branches were felled. One fell on a car across the street from our house (the car was illegally parked). After the storm, we went out and had Indian food with Maggie and Andrew (for Maggie's birthday).
Monday we didn't sleep in that much and I planted the flowers and Steve did laundry and fiddled around with his cards. Maggie and Andrew came by for a short visit with the boys and then Steve had a long nap while I read in the livingroom. It was the perfact lazy day. Later, we went out for a walk and had some ice cream and just hung out. I doesn't get any better, just wish I didn't have to get up so darn early this morning.

Happy Belated Birthday Maggie!!!!!!

Is it any coincidence? Ice storm redux
What a glorious long weekend it was! You couldn't have asked for a better day yesterday right? You could if you had no electricity from roughly Sunday evening 6:00 p.m until 4:00 a.m today. The up side was you didn't need to worry about getting cold, but you did need to think about keeping the contents of your fridge and freezer cold. By noon yesterday any outlet close to our house that had it, had run out of ice. I managed to snag the last 3 bags at two different outlets. Since ice was inadequate for the freezer, I wound up by taking the contents of the freezer to my mother-in-law's place.

I found it odd that nearly everybody who was out was restored fairly quickly. However, in the Anglo enclave where I live, (note it was St. Jean Baptiste Day) there were 43 alleged work crews working on the problem. We called Hydro about 4 times yesterday and each time we called we got a different answer. Not once did I see a Hydro truck anywhere. However, I did see Videotron trucks buzzing around.

What was particularly haunting were the sounds of generators going at houses that had them. Neighbours did share their power with others. I found the whole thing very reminiscent of January 1998 and I can't say I felt warm and fuzzy. I felt warm all right but not in the least fuzzy.

Anyway, I finally heard the evidence of the work crews at about 1:30 a.m. when I heard chain saws going and some peculiar beeping noises. Finally at 3:50 a.m. the light in the bathroom next to our bedroom went on and all of a sudden we were bathed in light. Then I discovered that the fridge had leaked water all over the kitchen floor (bags of ice melting in the fridge and condensation from the ice bags). So I had a mess to clean up at that ungodly hour. (I also have hardly slept now for 2 nights...a total of about 6 hours...Sunday night I kept listening for the power to come back on as I did last night and am not a happy camper this morning.)

There is a thunder storm in the forcast today and I am keeping my fingers crossed that some tree doesn't fall down and start the whole thing all over again.

I hope that Canada Day is less stressful.

STC dinner
It's the last night for Steve to wield supreme executive power over the Montreal chapter. After this he becomes just another past-president curmugeon ("...never did that when *I* was president"). I will be taking pictures of the banquet at Hurleys (program coordinator's that love pubs are the best) and putting them up some time soon.

Frodo rocks!
We saw Lord of the Rings again last night and it's just as fantastic the second time. I did find the final fighting scene harder to watch this time though. Also, let me tell you that the Eaton Centre theatre is no place to watch a long movie. My legs were all cramped up and my butt was asleep by the time it was over. Of course, the Paramount upped the price of a ticket, so frugal movie goers like myself will have to put up with limping out of theatres. Steve bought our tickets earlier that night, but we managed to walk into the theatre and watch the movie without giving anyone our tickets. Too bad you can't do that at the Paramount.

I'm seriously thinking that my husband missed his calling as a film reviewer.

Trips ahoy!
Business trips that is. My company has been threatening to send me and a few colleagues to a)New York and b)North Carolina. They have been telling us that there are trips planned, but we have yet to see the physical evidence of trips such as plane tickets or hotel reservations. Initially, I was supposed to be in New York this week and next week, but that plan seems to have floated off without a trace. Now I've heard that we'll be going to NC the second week of July and then straight on to NY in order to meet some deadlines. What are the odds? Anyone care to wager? Why can't my company have urgent business in New Zealand?

Movie Tuesday
This is turning into a movie week! We went and saw The Importance of Being Earnest last night and it was a delightful bit of fluff. They adapted the play very well and added some fun visuals. Tomorrow I might go and see The Lord of the Rings again with Steve and Guislaine. I'd like to see the trailer for the next one that they now include.
The sun is finally back! Everyone is delighted and alive again after walking around being soggy for a week. It's incredible what a bit of sunshine does to lift your mood. I'm going out to lunch today with Bill, we're going to the little Indian place around the corner. Yay Indian food!!
****Lunch was very good, now I have to stay awake until 5.....

Do you recognize that big yellow ball in the sky?

After what was it, 5 days of rain with intermittent lighter grey (to cheer us all up), we actually have a day that resembles summer! Wow! Hurray!
So is everybody in a better mood today? I know I am! I want to go out to play!

Oh yes, in this brighter sunnier vein, yesterday our HR department announced that we would be getting raises effective next week. (These were the ones we were supposed to get in January, but didn't for all kinds of convoluted economic reasons. Instead we got those now notorious letters telling us whether or not we would have job next year.) They (the raises) aren't much, but it's better than nothing...something like this summer, which until today, hasn't been much, but if we get it now, it's better than nothing!

Happy Birthday Caroline!!!!!!
Sorry I woke up your roomie this morning, I couldn't resist!

Grey day
Let me just say that we've all had enough grey skies and rain, if someone could flip the switch to warm and sunny we'd all be very appreciative. The weekend was pretty good, did some shopping, had dinner with friends, and went out to the townies for Father's day/my birthday. I was completely spoiled, the nicest surprise being the cabinet my folks made me for the deck. We're standing up next to it in one of the pictures from yesterday. We originally thought that it was for inside, but apparently they made it to endure the weather and even designed a handy place for the bbq tongs. Last night, Steve made lasagna and we sat down and watched the last bit of Harry Potter. After we were looking at the extra bits on the second DVD. I was trying to find deleted scenes, but all I found was little games and clips from the movie, it was very frustrating. We saw About a Boy on Friday, very good movie with absolutely no overacting. I recommend it, but you can wait for the video. We're going to see The Importance of Being Earnest tonight, Colin Firth, hee hee hee!

Santa Story

Okay, here goes. Maybe it will inspire you.

When I was 15, I was a punk, with all the clothes and weird (or no) hair that went along with that style-choice. I hung around with a small group of friends who were also punks. One of these was a younger guy, J. He was one of those stunningly beautiful guys that could be a model, actor or anything. All the rest of our gang were girls, and we used to talk about him and sigh and all that. He was never interested in us. He always liked the "pretty" girls with normal hair and nice clothes.

Well, we must have been the most innocent punks in the world, because one Christmas, J. and I decided that our gang's gift exchange would be at my house and our little secret for our friends was that he would dress up as Santa and give out our gifts. (we were so sweet! If my mom had only realized how non-threatening we really were -- but I digress.)

So J. came over early and I dressed him up in a Santa suit up in my parents' room while the girls waited downstairs. I had had almost no experience with guys, and only dreamed of J. in the most vaguely sexual way, knowing he would never want me. Well, we were kind of laughing about trying to get his mohawk under the Santa hat and having fun, and he sat back on my parents' bed with the Santa suit open and with his (beautiful) chest bare, and said "Before we go downstairs, we should get down." and he smiled this incredibly sexy smile. I laughed, embarrassed, and turned to walk away and he grabbed my hand and pulled me on top of him. We just kissed a little bit, and then went downstairs to give out gifts. I was bursting with this little secret all night, and then he stayed afterward and kissed me a little while we sat on the porch in the cold.

I have never had someone use the expression "get down" to describe making out since. And whenever I think about that night I feel again all the excitement and surprise of the young me who never imagined anyone would want to kiss me.

It was very fun, and did I mention he was gorgeous?

Weekend pictures

See more
Who's got some good dirt to share so we can hear about Santa and Becca?

Speaking of Sex (sort of)

Anyone feel like sharing any real-life memories that still make them blush many years after the fact? I'm not talking about dirty talk, necessarily, more along the lines of a suggestive comment made by someone or an unexpected touch or something. I wouldn't feel comfortable talking about my husband in this way on a blog, but I often think of one memory of a gorgeous friend in my early teenage years. It involves a Santa suit.

If you dish, you get to hear it.

Passport heck
I spent two+ hours waiting in the passport office this morning. My passport will be ready in just over two weeks. I played with my camera while I was there, my study in waiting will be up sometime soon.
I want more comments about the movie post yesterday. Did everyone besides Kathy just think that I was retarded? There's gotta be a movie out there that turns your crank....share! It's Friday and I'm in need of distraction. If you do think that I'm being stupid, tell me about that too....

All A-twitter
My brother-in-law gave me Bridget Jones' Diary on DVD for my birthday. This is fast becoming one of my favorite movies. I rented it after that painful visit to the dentist and watched it three times over the next five days. Now that I have my own copy, I'm sure that it will be on often. Steve asked me why I like it so much, to which I replied, "Colin Firth and Hugh Grant".
This is a true chick-flick with a plot taken from one of the original chick novelists. Austin knew what people wanted to read. Remove the manners and pomp, and you have the basic sexy bad man and noble good man scenario that puts a twitter in the heart of a woman. Realise that underneath the noble good man exterior lurks the desires of the sexy bad man, and the twitter moves elsewhere. I don't know what all women want, but I for one can't get enough of the final scene when Mr. Darcy kisses Bridget Jones:
BJ: "Nice men don't kiss like that"
MD: "Yes, they fucking do".
sigh....hold on while I listen to that again.
"Yes, they fucking do".
sigh.....
Anyone else have a movie scene that makes them twitter?

The advantages of having no memory
I know that I'm getting older, but sometimes I really do think that I have some form of Alzheimers. Steve took me out for a lovely dinner at out local Indian place, and then after we went home and watched most of Harry Potter (Steve got it for me for my b-day). I saw the movie in the theater when it came out. That was only about seven months ago. I swear that I could have been watching a brand new movie. I didn't remember huge bits of it. I've read the books a number of times, so perhaps I'm confusing the books with the movie, but it was just weird. Steve assured me that we were not watching some director's cut, that this was exactly what we saw in the theatre. I feel like that guy from Momento.......

Is it me? Or am I just being a Yutz?

This morning I got 2 voicemails that were really cringeworthy, or if you prefer really Dilbertian. Here is the scenario.

I have been asked to draft up an outline for some orientation training which will be given to all new employees. I have done so and submitted it to my boss for her feedback.

Last evening she called me at 7:30 p.m. from her home in Toronto, leaving me a voicemail at work that was over 2 minutes long explaining to me what changes she wanted me to make to the outline. The second voicemail came shortly thereafter (the vmail system clearly had cut her off) this was only about a minute long, but it wheezed on some more about how I need to include a piece about my role. She also wants me to include my picture in the orientation materials so that people can identify me.

I find this a little weird. Granted I won't be out of here until next March at the earliest and they are paying me to do a job after all. But there is something about this that I find a) annoying and b) vaguely humiliating.

The thing that peeves me is why couldn't she take the few minutes and talk to me in person? (BTW it is her habit to leave stealth voicemails with everybody, but that isn't the point, I am in Montreal and rarely see her). Am I not worth it? Second, what is she trying to prove by calling me from home in the evening?

Tell me if I'm being touchy and to get over it..or is there something slightly valid here?

Feeling a little abused and neglected (as usual).

Happy Birthday Me!!!!!!
I'm having a great day so far, despite the rainy day. I've had nice presents and phone calls and ecards. Wheeeee!

Only a day away
Tomorrow is my birthday, I'll be 33. I think that on the whole, I'm doing ok for 33. I don't miss 22 like I did a few years ago. If my 22 year-old self looked at my 33 year-old self, she'd think that I was as boring as hell. I now appreciate that what I enjoy doesn't have to be glamorous or impressive. Having a happy life full of friends and people that you love and who love you is about the best thing in the world. My life isn't boring, it's finally full.

Say, haven't we met before?
We already know that the human male is not hardwired for skilled social interaction. Here's further proof. Jean-Luc (my other half) is on location to shoot a Rona commercial yesterday night. He looks at the lead actor and says hmmm, I know I've seen that guy somewhere. It bugs him for much of the evening, then the light bulb goes on. He walks up to him and says "Excuse me, but were you at Dina and Steve's BBQ last night?" To which Terence replies very matter of factly, "Yup." They were sitting roughly 6 feet from each other for most of the evening at Dina's b-day party. Sigh...

Oh, and in case you're wondering, you won't get a glimpse of Terence's formidable acting talent any time soon. It's for the Toronto market.

Weekend recap
What a great weekend! Steve threw an amazing birthday BBQ for me and even made a fantastic chocolate fudge raspberry birthday cake. What a guy! Much fun was had by all!! Click here for some pictures (scroll past the banners on the bottom to see the thumbnails). I still have a bit to learn about the camera. For starters, the night setting should not be used without a tripod. Being drunk didn't help either.....
We got ready for the party on Saturday and Sunday was a relaxing day with napping. Thank you everyone who showed up and especially to Steve for making everything wonderful.

They really ought to put up a sign
They installed new self-flushing toilets in the ladies room today. I didn't notice and nearly had a heart attack when the damn thing flushed itself. I'm glad that no one else was in there to hear me scream.

More Rum!
Bill came over last night and together we attempted to adapt her tasty-yet-deadly Billacoladas into ice cream. Steve and I got the ice cream maker from Bill and her 'consort' and it was high time to put it up to no good. After we had the machine running, we threw the leftover ingredients into a blender and Bill made us yummy rum and kahlua-soused drinks to pass the time. It took all night to freeze, but it seems that we have cheated basic chemistry. We now have ice cream that requires a proof.
She's gonna kill me when she finds out I put up a picture......

Friday!
Wheh! What a week! The highlight of course was the new camera that lets me do this:

Is anyone else wondering why it's taken the media so long to start picking on Jean Chretien and why now they seem to be going at it at warp speed? Are they making up for lost time?

Goodbye Hotmail
That's it! I just received an email from hotmail informing me that after July 16, they will no longer be supporting POP mail on their free accounts, it will become a paid feature only. The only reason that I set up a hotmail account in the first place was to check my home email. I'm sick of the ads, the constant junk mail and the fact that they completely forgot to mention that when they added a few new features months ago that they reset the defaults on the personal options so that my email address and name became 'shared'. As soon as I get another account set up, I'm outta hotmail forever.

Waiting....
I hate waiting, I'm not a patient person. I always arrive for appointments early or on time so that I never inconvenience others, and I tend to expect the same thing from others, even if I know that they're always late. My doctor always runs late. No matter when I make an appointment, she has never seen me on time. I take this into consideration and always bring something to do or plan to walk around and get some errands done while I'm waiting. I had an appointment with her yesterday. I arrived on time, asked the receptionist how late she was running and left to do errands. I returned 30 minutes later, sat down and started to wait. I waited for an hour and a half. The receptionist left for lunch, the phone rang endlessly. I pulled some work out of my bag and did that for a while, but it's hard to concentrate when you're angry. Finally, it was my turn. I was ready to lambaste her good and proper, but when she walked into the exam room the first thing that she said was, "I know you want to kill me right now". I had my sarcastic mad comments I'd prepared during my long fume ready and now I had nothing snappy to say but, "yes". Then she told me how she's going to start being less of a doormat to patients who don't respect time constraints. After she went on about this for 5 minutes, I realised that she's never going to change, but I wasn't going to tell her that. I'll just start calling her receptionist before I leave for the next appointment.

Thanks for everything, Grandma
Just got back after being out of town for my Grandma's funeral. Did much reminiscing with my cousins about my Grandma's quirks and contradictions. She had the softest skin but was tough on anyone who tried to spank her grandkids (even when we were awful!). She loved her dirty books (Harlequin Romances) and daily prayer books. She loved Humbugs and lemon drops and liked to indulge in half a beer. She had more friends than anybody else in St. Thomas her age. She never had enough shoes or purses. Children were everything to her, and her 20-odd grandkids were all her favourite, each and every one. I felt like the luckiest person in the world this weekend as we sat around and laughed and cried about little things we remembered about her. It was real and it was good, just the way she would have liked it.

<Separated at birth
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I got the camera! I got the camera! I have the best husband in the world!!!
There will be much playing with the camera after work!!! There has already been much playing with the camera at work, and I'm beginning to feel guilty.......

Russki yizik?
I was at the pharmacy last week waiting to talk to the pharmacist about pain killers. I was in the 'consultation area' next to the waiting area. There was an old woman sitting down, I presumed that she was waiting for a prescription. I heard her say something, but assumed that she was talking to someone else. After a minute or so, I felt a tug on my jacket. I turned around and the woman asked me in Russian "Do you speak Russian?". I answered, in Russian "No, I don't speak Russian. My Grandmother is Russian". These are two of the maybe five sentences that have managed to stay in my brain, leftover from a semester of Russian I took in CEGEP, over 10 years ago. Goes to show you that anything that you learn is never wasted, it just sometimes takes a while for it to be used. The woman looked a bit surprised, but I shrugged and looked apologetic and she smiled. As I was leaving, she was getting up to talk to the pharmacist and I wondered whether she had been sitting there all day waiting for someone who speaks Russian to come into the pharmacy. I felt bad that I couldn't help her, perhaps I should have stuck it out for another semester.

Look Ma, no shotgun wedding!
Nine months and one day since the big day and things are getting better all the time :-) What a lucky girl I am.....

Friday! (Whoop whoop! )
Despite my mouthful of pain yesterday, I managed to finally get out to the digital camera place I've been meaning to visit all week. I called them last week and they had the best deal on the camera that I want. It's a tiny place that only sells one brand and is really an office supply business. They didn't have the camera (drag), but they are getting one next week. I have dibs, nobody's allowed to buy it but me. Don't even think about it! He offered me a good deal on the next model up, but it's too pricey. If anyone's looking for a really nice $1000 camera for $850, let me know!
This weekend will hopefully be an organizing weekend with maybe a tiny bit of gardening. Of course I will be obsessing about the camera until get it......

They fight crime! discovered thanks to Textism

Toothless McGee, part two
My dentist saw me yesterday (which is nice considering he's kind of retired and only works on Thursdays) and after much novocaine and horrible yanking, he managed to extract the tooth. He was as gentle as he could have been, but the tooth just didn't want to leave without a fight. By the time it was out, I was sweating profusely and shaking like a leaf. Then the fun part of the dentist, we take apart the tooth and see what happened. I find this fascinating, and since I seem to be his only patient who enjoys this forensic portion of the visit, he looks forward to pulling stuff out of my mouth. He has had many occasions to do this. We sawed the tooth in half using his dental tools (it's basically a dremel) and he showed me the tiny split in the root that was allowing bacteria to come in and cause me all that pain. It was also neat to see the root canal. I stopped by the pharmacy for Boost and the video store for some movies, then went home, took some codeine, drank the Boost and watched movies on the couch with pillows and a blanket until I fell into a pain-free sleep. Today I am still sore and my face is swollen, but it's nothing compared to before and it will go away in a couple of days.

Taste test
I bought some of those new Bacardi rum drinks at the SAQ this weekend. I thought they might taste like the Smirnoff ice. Well, they do, they're just lemonade-flavoured rum. They're not bad, but you can definitely taste the rum. They'd probably be yummy mixed with coke.

Toothless Mcgee
I'm heading over to Walmart again at lunch. I need painkillers for a massive toothache that started yesterday and woke me up last night. Too bad I don't have dental. The true pain is that it's a tooth that was root canelled and therefore, shouldn't hurt at all. My dentist thinks that it's a cracked root and if I want that fixed, it means a bridge. I don't have the money for a bridge, so that only leaves pulling it out and leaving a gap on the side of my mouth. It doesn't hurt all the time, it just decides to flare up for a few days every few months. I've been trying to ignore it until fixing it becomes an affordable option, but this time it's way more painful than before. I may have to get the dentist to extract it and live with a toothless look for a while.

Hand me that allen key
It was a very nice weekend all around. First, we didn't have to go anywhere out of the city, which is nice after spending a couple of weekends away from home. Second, the weather was so nice compared to what we've had lately. I talked to two of my neighbours who were outside doing lawn work that I hardly saw all winter. Third, we finished the livingroom painting and put the livingroom and the diningroom back in order. Actually, Steve finished painting the trim while I followed him around picking up newspapers and removing tape, and then Steve put everything back together in the rooms while I went out and endured the grocery stores, I figured it's a fair trade. When I returned, two rooms had been transformed from absolute disaster areas to rooms you can walk into and use.
On Sunday we hopped in the car and went to Ikea to hunt for something to put the tv on. We found this, which is very nice. We also got a nightstand for Steve and got home and put everything together. I love putting together Ikea furniture. It's like a big Kinder egg. You drag the box home (thoughtfully engineered to fit in the trunk of a mid-size car), open the box, take out the picture of what it's supposed to look like and go crazy. Actually, I'm very impressed by the instructions Ikea has come up with lately - yay tech writers! It's definitely a challenge to come up with instructions that contain as little text as possible that are also useful. I'd also like to add that the new fasteners they are designing to keep the furniture together are a far cry from the stuff that we used to get from them when I was in CEGEP. That furniture would fall apart in seconds and the box never seemed to contain enough parts, or contained too many, making you wonder what the heck you did wrong and waiting for your diningroom set to collapse in a heap while you were having a romantic dinner with your new beau. My roommates and I kept all the extra pieces just in case they were needed for the next piece of furniture that came from the store. It was fun putting together beds and finding ways to Macgyver the structure so that it was almost sound. I remember one of my roommates did fall through her bed one night at about 2am. Perhaps it was the lawsuits that convinced Ikea to start making a more foolproof product?

Friday!
Wheee! A short week that felt pretty long is almost over. I needed more work this week, that's the crazy thing about this business, you can have almost nothing to do one week and be working like crazy the next. When I was contracting, I just went home. Now, I have to stay here and make work, which usually ends up being research or reading, who wants to do that on a Friday afternoon? Maybe I'll just run up and down the halls yelling "woo woo!" Oh wait, I think that's a reason for dismissal in the employee handbook.
On the way to work this morning I saw this huge, white cadillac eldorado, probably 72 or so, the ones that they made realllllly long. It was in mint condition and the driver had the top down. What a car!

Did you hear that?
If you heard a funny whooshing sound coming from the South Shore, that was probably me heaving a big sigh of relief when I got paid by the e-comm place I worked at in April. The place laid off roughly half of its staff and I was left wondering whether I'd be paid. It was great fun to work there and the people were fantastic, but I think I'll stick to brick-and-mortar companies as my main gigs, at least for the next little while.

This weekend, it's a glittery, glammourific disco party at our place as Camille rings in her 9th birthday with 4 of her girlfriends. If you don't like Britney, S Club or Madonna, don't come anywhere near our place...

I Want My CBC...

We're goin' back baby!! My union voted yesterday to accept the Corp's offer and go back to work. And I couldn't be happier.

So tune in next week for a return to stimulating discussion of the issues of the day, and other interesting tidbits too! Tell your friends; come one come all. Thanks for the support and and birthday wishes from everyone. Hope you're all enjoying this fabulous day.

Sunny day!
We're experiencing our second sunny day in a row, everyone rejoice! Worked out last night and didn't fall off anything (hooray for klutz girl!) and bought some fiddleheads on my way home. I love fiddleheads. In case you don't know, they're the heads of certain ferns that are still curled up and they're really tasty. We used to pick them in the woods at my grandma's place, but now I have to settle for the ones at the market. They're only good fresh and they're only available at this time of the year when the ferns are growing. I'm sure that they're good for you too, but who cares? I'm walking over to Walmart to pick up wedding photos, maybe I'll scan a few for tomorrow. What's everyone else doing on this sunny day?

I meant to do that
I was at the gym last night and was doing my stint on the ellyptical trainer. I love these things, smooth, gliding motions, none of that up and down jerky hurt-my-knees type motion. They do take some getting used to. The ones at my gym seem to have a shorter stride than the ones I used a couple of years ago. I stab at the buttons randomly because I have no idea what the settings mean and just start moving. Once I'm moving, I know how to make the slope steeper and increase the resistance (or not, as the case may be). I thought that I was getting pretty good at this machine, yeah, I'm way too cocky. I've watched some people using the machines while swinging their arms back and forth. This seemed more constructive than holding on to the bars, it didn't look that hard. Picture about twenty people turning to stare at the klutz woman falling backwards, flailing her arms and almost falling right off the machine. Maybe I'll go in tonight with a bag over my head.......

One wedding and some snowflakes
The weekend flew by and now I'm back at my desk wondering where the long weekend went. Friday night I went for a short workout and then spent some quality time at home with the hubby. Saturday morning Steve rolled out the last coat of red in the livingroom and I cleaned up the place so that Steve's friend Ramsay, who came over for playtime, wouldn't think that we live like slobs. While Steve and Ramsay played, I decided to go out and find something to wear to the wedding. I wandered off to the mall and found nothing. You wouldn't believe how uninspiring the stores are right now. I haven't been in a while and there was nothing that made me say "wow, that's nice". The colours all seemed drab and the cuts of the skirts and dresses were so plain. Damn the stores! Why is it that when I have money to spend there's never anything to buy? I came home and found something in the closet that looked decent. I made the friendship cake. It's very good (nyah, nyah). After that, we jumped downtown and saw Spiderman again. It was just as good the second time, but I missed the audience from the opening night. The first time we saw it there was tons of audience reaction and people were really into the movie, Saturday night was quiet (except for me of course). We got home late and fell fast asleep.
Sunday morning we got up and did the coffee thing and wrapped the present. I went out to get a nice bow and picked up some nail polish to match my blouse which looks very lovely on my toes. After the wrapping, painting, showering, buffy watching, and dressing, we drove out to the townies. We went up to the folks' house and hung out for about a half an hour and listened to my dad pick at me. I don't know why, but whenever we're going out somewhere, he looks me up and down and starts to notice things. My hair is curly, my eyes are blue, there's a mole on my cheek. It's like he's never noticed these things before. It's annoying.
We made it to the church without incident and the ceremony was lovely. They wrote their own vows, her dress was beautiful, the church was packed, and everyone looked marvelous. I sometimes wish that we could have written our own vows, but I never would have been able to get them out, I had trouble not blubbering through "I do". After the ceremony came picture time. Did I happen to mention that it was 7C and windy? It was freezing and those poor girls out there posing in front of the manse in sleeveless dresses and gauzy wraps. At one point there were a few snowflakes drifting down. Brrrrr! My grandmother nearly froze waiting around for the family photos.
Off we went to the reception at a ski hill in the States. Everyone got a white pompom, so it was easy for the customs guards to recognize us. The hill hasn't changed much since I worked up there, a few more condos.
I was really looking forward to catching up with Colleen, an old friend from highschool who just happens to be the bride's older sister. It's strange to think that we're kind of related. Anyway, I haven't seen Colleen since graduation (that's a looong time ago) and it was great to see her again and see how well she's doing and how happy she is.
On to the dreaded and interesting part of the evening, the relatives. My uncle from Calgary was there, he's a 'recovered' alcoholic and a first-class jerk. Not only was he drunk off his ass, he was loud and sitting next to me at the table. Next to him was another uncle, also drunk. Alone, they would have been easy to shut up, but together, they were an unstoppable, cackling, swaggering, rude heckling gallery of two. Add to that rather frosty relations between the bride and groom's families and a few incidents which will remain unpublished, and you have a wedding that will be fodder for years to come. We left at 11 and got home at 1, dog tired and ready for a coma-like sleep.
Monday rising came too early thanks to the cats. I was dazed most of the day. Another day off wouldn't have hurt :-)
Off to gym again tonight!

Happy Birthday Becca!!
(A little late, I'm sorry :-) )

We seem to be experiencing technical difficulties...

Going to a wedding
I still have to decide what I'm going to wear to my cousin's wedding on Sunday. I'm not sure why they're getting married on Sunday, but it gives me the day I need to ponder the closet and then go to the mall. Normally it would be a beautiful weekend, but this year we seem to have received the rump end of Mother Nature and we'll be lucky if it's more than 12C. Oh well, it's not an outdoor wedding so who cares? Should be a blast!

About to go into a two hour meeting. I hope someone got doughnuts........

What's that smell?
It was a typical morning: got to work , got myself a cup of coffee, took the elevator upstairs, walked to my office, sat down and started the computer, etc. I scratched my nose. I smelled something different. Somewhere between the car and my desk I got men's cologne on two fingers on my right hand. How the heck did I do that? I've narrowed it down to the elevator button or a door handle. My next question is how much cologne do you have to be wearing in order to leave enough of it behind on a door handle or elevator button? Maybe they sprayed it on the elevator buttons? The cologne reminded me of someone, problem is I don't remember who. I've always found smell memories so baffling, mine tend to be very elusive. I recognize a smell, but sometimes I just can't put it together with the memory before the odor vanishes. I washed my hands, now they smell like institutional pink soap - blech!
Workout update - I went again last night. Today, I am acutely aware of which arm and shoulder muscles I use on a regular basis. Perhaps I will give the arms a day's rest.......

One small step...
I went and worked out last night, I'm depending on my sense of guilt to keep it going until I actually enjoy it. Any guilt that you can contribute would be greatly appreciated....... :-)
Another grey, May day, I'm getting a little tired of this. My office doesn't have a window, but I can see a window across the hall, so it's not so bad. Some people have inside offices that have no natural light. To compensate, they have these giant lights on one wall that I think are supposed to simulate sunshine. I'm not sure if I could work in a room without any natural light, seems a bit cruel, but on a day like today, maybe simulated sunshine is better than none at all. I added a link to a Monsters page (from tbit) that I think is wonderful. I'm hoping that she'll come out with a book. At least you can buy prints. Check out the link on the left somewhere.

Getting along with your spouse tip #1:
For birthdays, anniversaries and such, agree to have a nice dinner and exchange a very small token. This way, everybody's happy.

Say Cheese!
Bill and I have been having a rousing email discussion about digital cameras (ok, the 'discussion' mainly consisted of us drooling and saying "I want"). There are many good sites out there to help you find a camera to suit your needs, we were looking at zdnet. We found a decent camera and then looked it the prices in Canada, would you believe that even with the exchange the cameras in the US are $120 cheaper? Ugh! Steve wanted to get me a digital camera for my b-day, but I told him that I wouldn't let him unless he let me pay for half, I think that's fair. If anyone out there knows an affordable place for digitals, let me know, I'll be out there shopping and haggling soon!

Happy Mother's Day
To all of you moms out there, hope you had a good day yesterday!
Saturday, Steve and I put another coat of paint on the livingroom and Steve did the trim so there is nary a spot of pink left in the room. Saturday night we went over to Rhett and Debbie's for a BBQ get together. Everyone seems to be fine and we got to see Bill's new glasses and laugh at her trying to walk through a room with them on.
Sunday we drove out to the townies, visited with the folks, changed my tires and BBQ'd again. We gave my mom a Chinese tea set and some green tea. We got home yesterday and I was beat and this morning came too quickly.
I went to two places on Friday to get tea. The first place was a tea merchant in Westmount. I am definitely going back there, they had all kinds of tea. You could buy it in prepared metal containers or the lady at the store would scoop it out into bags from these really huge tins. She was very helpful. The tea's pretty expensive, but you can buy very small amounts. The second place I went to was the healthfood store across the street where I get the English Toffee tea that I have raved about. In addition to tea, I found this stuff called Badger Sleep Balm. I'm not an awful sleeper, but I do tend to wake up in the middle of the night. Since Friday night, I haven't woken up in the middle of the night and have fallen asleep very quickly. I like it!

Friday!
My folks stopped by last night. Normally, this would never happen because my folks live a two-hour drive away and they don't like driving in the city. They used to live here, but with age and country living comes an absolute fear of driving around other cars. They come into town maybe twice a year to drop something off or lend a hand with a project, the rest of the time we drive out there for the day to visit. My folks came into town to visit a relative who had a three-hour stop over at the airport. My folks had never been to the airport, so they called on Monday to find out if I could take the afternoon off and take them there (presumably from my place). I couldn't take the time off, so they were forced to make it there alone. Despite their misgivings, they got there just fine, had a nice visit, and made it to NDG without incident. They brought Diet Dr Pepper with Spiderman on the cans! We decided to take them out for Chinese food, which went over very well. We ordered things that the folks had never tried and they discovered that they really like green tea. We sent them home with the doggie bag (they're always loading us up with food, so this was our revenge). My Dad's fortune was "You will try something new today", which couldn't have been truer. Mine said "You have an unsual talent for success, use it properly". What do you think? Is that me?
We are going to try very hard to finish the livingroom walls on Saturday. Sunday we are off to the townies for Mom day, we're going to BBQ and change snow tires!

I just looked across the hall and saw my boss cleaning his phone. Do I look that obsessive-compulsive when I clean my phone? Nah, that can't be......

How many guys in the military have wives at home who would like to read this?

Whew!
Well, that's done! Finally finished the NY work at 5:30 yesterday, went home, ate watched a little tv and went to bed by 9. Woke up early to get the car to the garage for 7am, I'm still tired, and I think I'm getting a chest cold. Oh well, I feel better than yesterday afternoon!
Apparently we aren't helping NY again until the end of June when we get to go down there for two weeks and rewrite everything. I'm hoping to visit Kuan and finally see her house while I'm down there. If you're reading this Kuan, I know I haven't told you about this, I'm waiting for confirmation, which should happen probably the day we go down.....
I got my Cuban boxset! It's a 3 volume compilation of Chano Pozo, one of the best conga drummers ever. It's a truly marvelous thing.

Am I ALIVE? Hmm...
Well, I almost never post, so I'm sure I haven't been missed, but here I am in all my glory.

In a nutshell, I'm still locked out of my job, which is much less awful now that the weather's good, but I still have no money to pay my brand-new mortgage. I am going to a dinner tonight put on by the English radio producers to feed their locked-out friends and colleagues. This whole thing has been very hard for them too. It should be fun, and I know the food will be good. I'm bringing my whole family with me. Meet the Freeloaders!!!

In case anyone's interested, I'll be singing with my choir in a concert this Saturday at Wesley United church in NDG. Admission is a good-will offering or non-perishable food, so come on down! It's actually gonna be good, I think. After the concert part (45 min.) there's a coffehouse with a jazz trio with food and drinks (non-alcoholic - BOO!). Come out and support the NDG food bank and your little songbird blogmate. Betcha didn't know I could sing, eh? Any way, it starts at 7:30. Hope to see you there!

Finished work at 11:30 pm, didn't finish, still working on it, very sleepy.........

It's 6pm, we're still waiting for the files and I've noticed that no one has accepted my offer of Amish Friendship cake starter. What's a matta with you people? Don't ya want my f***in friendship cake!!!?
:-)

My hair comes out so light and fluffy!
I went to Walmart (surprise!) and bought a hairdryer exactly like the one that broke. I bought the old one about two years ago, but this one is the spitting image, same colour, same size, shape, and power. The only difference was that my old one came with a diffuser and a straightening attachment, and this one came with something called a "volumizer", which looks like a spiky plastic torture device from the depths of hell. Still, my diffuser fits on it just like the old one, so I'm all set. This morning I tried it for the first time. You ever notice that when you're running on autopilot the least deviation from the normal routine can freak you right out? The hairdryer, the exact same hairdryer, makes a different sound. As soon as I turned it on, I jumped and stared at it (by the way, you really shouldn't look directly at a hairdryer nozzle that's turned on) and turned it off. I turned it on again. It's quieter, softer, wimpier. It doesn't roar like the old one, it's like the good twin of my old hairdryer. I miss the evil twin.......
We didn't paint last night, we were too tired. I stayed up and watched NottingHill on tv, what a waste of time. For some reason, they stretched it out to 3 hours. I should have gone to bed early. Tonight is the late night at work. We receive the files from our office in NY at 4pm so we can put them into something that resembles manuals.
Steve just told me that my Cuban boxset has arrived at HMV-yay!!! I may have something new to listen to tomorrow!
A colleague at work brought me an Amish friendship cake starter, it works like sourdough. It takes 10 days to make, then I will have two or three starters to give away, any takers?

Spiderman rules!!
What a fantastic movie! Go see it NOW! The story was great and Toby's perfect for the part. I wanted to see the sequel right away. Tip: If you stay in your seat and watch the credits, you are rewarded with the original Spiderman theme (Spiderman, Spiderman, does whatever a spider can.....)

The rest of the weekend
While not as exciting as watching the Spiderman movie, it was slightly productive.
On Saturday, Steve went over the BBQs and gave the grills a soak, then we went to the comic book store and got free comics for Free Comics Day. After that, we bought paint and primer and BBQ stuff and went home and prepped the livingroom walls for painting and Steve did some more work on the BBQs. We tried to have pork burgers, but they fell apart, so we settled for veggie burgers, which weren't bad.
The vacuum had been giving us some trouble and I discovered that we had a bottlecap stuck in the hose. It was easy to find the obstruction because we also have a shop vac, so I just used the shop vac to suck out the bottlecap. I remember once, before Steve and his shop vac came along, I sucked up a sock and spent three hours trying to get it out of the hose using a coathanger. Tip: always have two vacuums.
Sunday we washed the walls and started to paint. Ok, so we started late in the afternoon, the morning was filled with relaxing and coffee and laundry. The livingroom is going to be a deep red, so I asked the paint store guy to tint the primer. Normally, this would mean that the primer was the same colour as the paint, but we needed high adhesive primer because of all the fresh plaster work, and that type of primer can't have much tint added to it. What we got was a primer the colour of Pepto-Bismol. When we finished priming the room it looked liked Barbie's dreamhouse-yuck! We toyed with the idea of leaving it like that and inviting some people over to ask what they thought of the colour, but we couldn't stand it. The first coat of red is always a resounding disappointment, blotchy and streaky, but it still looked nice compared to the pink. We also primed the molding that runs along the ceiling and that's still pink, it really doesn't work with the red.
After the painting we watched Amelie, which was very cute. The DVD that we rented only had French subtitles, which seems very odd for a DVD, but I was able to follow enough to get the story. I'm sure that I missed a lot of little jokes. We went to bed very late and this morning my hairdryer gave up the ghost, the cat puked all over the kitchen mat, and I spilled coffee all over my purse. Need more sleep!!

If you are very brave, take a look out the window...but you must be very brave....

It is 8:50 a.m. Friday, May 3, 2002. I gaze out the window and behold, I wonder did I fastforward through summer and if so, what did I miss and do I have to get my Christmas shopping done? Is it a dream? No, it really is snow! Again!!!! Yikes, double yikes! !!

Now, how many of you succumbed and started to plant your gardens? Don't all raise your hands at once now! (Seriously, there were people on my street who started to get going with their gardens last Saturday.)

Never fear, it is supposed to be gorgeous tomorrow. So here's my advice, ignore today, just get done what you need to get done and tomorrow, magically all of this will go away and you will have a glorious spring weekend to enjoy....But do yourselves a favour, don't plant your gardens yet (not until Victoria Day) and don't pull out your white shoes and purses until then either ; - )!

We're going to see Spiderman tonight! Yay!!

Life under the big top
Step right up folks! Lots of idiocy and feats of amazing underring do going on.
Let's start with the dangerously confused milk truck of the Decarie service road. This truck will barge in front of you in traffic, cut you off without noticing (as you slam on your brakes), and then veer off and cross three lanes of traffic to get to an exit amidst much honking and braking. Next, we'll move on to the meeting that says nothing. This meeting will take place in a room with insufficient seating, forcing it's hapless members to stand for great lengths of time and stay awake while pie charts and quarterly figures are discussed. In the end, no real answers are provided. Finally, watch as a writer tries in vain to finish her projects, only to be thwarted by newer documents and installation changes.
Plenty of tickets available, come on in!

Happy 8 months
Life is good......:-)

Ow, the brick wall hurts my head....
I found out yesterday that at least two documents that I have spent about two days trying to fix are being rewritten. The other writer decided not to work from the server and has been storing these new miracle docs (which I will have to fix - another 2 days of work) on her hard drive. Her boss knew that she was doing this, didn't tell me or my boss, and thought that I would just know that this was happening. This means that I have wasted two days that could have been spent reviewing the many other docs that I have to do. It's like a really awful clown act at a second-rate circus. I'm not laughing.