The washer is coming!!
They called last night, and the washer will arrive sometime today between 8 and noon, yay!! The only thing that compelled me to come into work was the need to pay for the darn thing. Pictures I'm sure will follow....

Got some extra time?
Check out zefrank. It's a lot of fun! My favorite so far is the online predate confidence builder. Warning, there may be sound. (from ni vu ni connu (Martine))

A visit from the washer fairy
It's official, our washer has ceased to be, it is now an ex-washer. The repair guy showed up yesterday and was able to put a screwdriver through the tub, apparently the rusted hole is not fixable. To replace the tub, hoses, and whatever else the darn thing needs and then wait for the motor to give out in a couple of years would cost the same amount as a new one. I called my friend who has worked in the appliance industry for many years and asked her advice, seeing as how I know absolutely nothing about washing machines. Not only did she suggest a good model, she also got me a discount. Thank you washer fairy, you rock!
The washer should arrive before the weekend! It's kind of exciting. I know it's silly to be excited about a washing machine, but I've never had a new one before, what do they smell like I wonder? It's white and square with knobs at the top, nothing fancy. It's also got some sort of feature that keeps it from going off balance and walking when all the towels end up on one side.

What's that smell in the air?
My temporary, soon to be permananent, office in located a few blocks away from a Kraft foods plant. When I got out of the car today, I smelled hot chocolate....mmmmm.....

Beautiful days and a tiny flood
What a great weather weekend! Sunny, windy, just cool enough for a sweater, you gotta love it! Bill was over Friday afternoon and evening playing the pirate game and watching some tv. She stayed for supper, then later we kicked her out into the cold. Saturday we didn't do much all morning, then in the afternoon I got an energy spurt and recaulked the bath tub and regrouted some tile in the shower.
Sunday we had brunch with Terence, Irene, Lyle, Maggie, Andrew, Jeannine and the kiddies. Normally the restaurant is very quiet, but a lot of people stopped in after the CIBC Run for a Cure event, so the service was a bit slow. I had waffles with fruit, so good! Afterwards, we waddled down to the Atwater Market for fresh apples, the grocery store for general provisions, and then home. I put a load of laundry in the washer and was preparing for a nice late afternoon nap when the doorbell rang. Our washer sprung a leak and water was pouring out of the bottom of the machine and flooding our downstairs neighbour's pantry and basement! Oops! It took a while to clean up, then we had to take the laundry to a laundromat and wash it there. So much for my nap! My Dad thinks that it may just be a broken hose, Steve's calling repair people today. Luckily, there's not much damage downstairs, but we'll have to take a close look at our floor to see if it's ok. I'm sure that we are not the only ones to have a flood in the laundry room and there may be some necessary repairs.
As they say, it's always something :-)

Friday!!
You gotta love Fridays. Today I'm meeting Maggie and her mom-in-law, Jeannine, for lunch. I'm still waiting to hear if I'm changing offices next week and where that office will be. I must admit that I'm growing accustomed to the dark cave I'm currently in temporarily because it's so close to the designers that I need to talk to all the time. Perhaps they will let us keep this office as a part-time space so that we don't need to run back and forth when there's a lot of work to do.
I gave in and watched Survivor last night. We also taped Push Nevada, which I think is one of the better shows this season. I'm starting to realise why I prefer British tv shows to North American. Perhaps it's just the ones that we import over here, but they all seem to have an end date. A certain number of episodes are shot and then that's it. Example, Cracker. I loved Cracker, they cast the wonderful Robbie Coltrane to play the dispicable gambling, adulterous psychiatrist/crime investigator. The show covered maybe six story lines with probably five episodes per storyline. It was a good show, but then it ended and that was it. Push Nevada will hopefully run this season and then not come back. Why must we continue shows that no longer have any life or ideas left in them? Who still watches ER? Most of the original cast is gone, and they've done everything that the show set out to do. Twin Peaks is an example of a great show that should have ended when Laura Palmer's killer was revealed. Stop flogging and give the space up to another deserving show. We'd have much more creative, entertaining tv if every show had a set life and then bowed out so another could take its place. Why do you think that most of our sitcoms are based on original British versions? North American tv producers aren't willing to take a chance and lose any precious revenue. You also wouldn't have actors making millions per episode or being type cast into one role for the rest of their lives.

ONION WISDOM

I love The Onion, but doesn't everyone? Sometimes I find their articles so profound; for example, the ones after Sept. 11th.

I thought this one was perfect for me. This is how I feel at work. Because I work part-time I find myself keeping my enjoyment of the rest of my week from my co-workers. This temp's philosophy is pretty close to my own.

Now if only I could stop feeling guilty about having a happy, balanced life!

Pitter patter, thud thud
Is there anything as maddening as cats who decide to start playing at 4:00 a.m.? I was woken from a very nice, deep sleep by the sound of at least two cats running up and down the hallway, one of them yowling every 3 seconds. From what I can tell, one was jumping into a cat-sized box in the hallway, crouching down, and waiting for the other cat to attack. When attacked, both cats would jump into the air and scatter in different directions, moving the box down the hallway in the mad dash to escape. At least this is what I think was happening. What it sounded like was a piano being thrown from one end of the hallway to the other followed by two elephants, one of them playing the bagpipes while running away. Repeat until you are so angry that you could easily throttle both of the furry little sweethearts (in my case, about twice, but I let it go on for longer because I really didn't want to get up). Needless to say, I'm beat today!

Reality-show-check

I watched The Osbournes last night. Okay, I know the whole world has watched it before, but I don't have cable so it takes me a while...

It's quite fascinating in its way. I love watching families, as I guess everyone does to some extent, hence the standard sit-com formula. I'm not sure whether it's the Osbournes' normalcy or their strangeness that's most interesting. I think it's how they defy expectations and clichés. Ozzy is just this bumbling, funny figure of a dad -- Oddly detached, and yet you know that he really knows his kids well, where many dads of his generation don't.

As I've mentioned before, I tend to like reality TV. Even the worst of it ("Meet the Folks", *shudder*) is a small study in human nature.

Dazed and amused
You're not the only trendsetter, Dina. Ever had one of those days when you woke up two hours after climbing out of bed? At 9:30 this morning, my spouse chuckled and pointed out that I was wearing my t-shirt inside out. This, after I took my son into preschool and spoke to half a dozen people. Then I left the car lights on--twice. And I can't even blame it on too much work. I think I'll try going back to bed and getting up again.


Food erotica
For all you food lovers, I made this wonderful discovery last week: Nigella. A British colleague at MVM had raved about her recipes and said all Britain was in love with her. Well, I can see why. For those not familiar with the Nigella phenomenon, she's a bombshell who serves up nouveau comfort and fusion food while wearing tight cashmere sweaters and leather pants. The recipes are relatively fail-proof and sound divine. But the real turn-on is the lush, glossy photos patently showing food as objects of desire. It's very interesting. (Note to all those with cooking hubbies: you might not want to share this discovery with your hon. He may not be checking out the recipes when he pores over her books.)

From Toyota to Toy Yoda

For all you word lovers out there, there's an amusing article on the CBC site today on misadventures with spelling and pronunciation in English. Save it for an unhurried romp through our much-loved and maligned language.

And in other news, Dave Eggers has managed to thumb his nose at convention yet again, this time by publishing his new novel himself. There's an interesting article on his decision to publish the novel and the new trend toward self-publishing on the Observer. So now you don't have to fret about enduring the crushing defeat of a publisher's rejection slip ever again. Just do it yourself!

Now if I could only find the time to write the great modern novel between taking out the garbage and scraping the playdough off the floor...

Dressing blindly
Now that Steve is at home, I get dressed in the dark. I keep a flashlight on the dresser to scrounge through drawers. I thought I was wearing a white t-shirt this morning, but I put on a pale lilac one instead. I don't think that it really goes with the brick red corduroy shirt I threw on top. Anybody with fashion sense care to give me a clue?

Home? Work? I walked into the ladies room at work just as a lady was leaving one of the stalls, her pants still undone. We both had a laugh about her feeling a little too at home. Have you ever confused office and home with embarassing results?

Laptop working!!
Well, the crappy laptop is finally working, so I'm over at the temporary office. I'm making a mental list of the things that I have to bring over from my other office. I'm going to be moving over here permanently at some point next week I think. I hope I don't get this office, it's quite dark. They don't know where they're going to put us actually, we may get stuck in another building on this side of the street. Not much intrigue going on this week, plenty of confusion though. It's that phase of the project where you irritate the heck out of the developers with questions that they can't answer.
Steve rented a pirate game for the PS2 that's pretty neat. I watched him play for a couple of hours last night, it's better than tv. You play this lady pirate who ultimately needs to avenge her father's death and find her mother's treasure (she was a pirate too before she dies). You sail your ship to all these islands and find buried treasure and fight nasty things. Steve's favorite part is the ship battles. You have to fight enemy ships and forts too. Steve likes to ram the boats, which makes for a lot of explosive crashes.
My blister is a bit better this morning, but I couldn't get into my shoes to work out last night. Did my feet grow in 7 months? What gives?

The weekend was great, but so far Monday has proved to be a repeat of Friday.
Friday night, Melissa and I drove to Laval and visited Suzie with Liz. We were all sitting around the diningroom table. Suzie had put out a few light snacks. Keeping in mind that Suzie is Italian, there was a fruit platter, two kinds of baked chips, a big bowl of bbq mini rice cakes, olives and pizza. Also, she made biscotti for coffee :-) We were having a great time, when someone looked at a clock and realised that it was 2am! Saturday I slept in and then we got Colin's gift and went over and gave it to him. We got him a semi truck that holds hot wheels-sized cars. It came with 20, but there's also room for storing about 20 more. He seemed very delighted and unlike most 5 year olds, thanked us very much and said that they were very cool. Saturday night we met Dan and Libby for Indian food. They are moving down to New York tomorrow where Libby's starting work at a law firm next week. They found a place in the village-too cool!
Sunday was a lazy day. I went to the fabric store and found some nice suede-like material for a skirt. Fabric stores are very strange, I'll have to write a post about it sometime soon.
Today has mostly been wasted by more computer problems and people who don't seem to know what's going on. I also managed to give myself a huge heel blister from shoes that were fine last year. I'm hoping that with enough bandaids I'll be able to go workout tonight.

Do over
Get to work, wait for laptop. Do other work. Wait. Wait. Call IS guy. He's says that he's waiting for my admin to call him back. Go over to admin's office and watch her talk to her friend for a while, then intrude and ask her to call IS guy. IS guy calls me back and tells me that the machine is ready and I can come and pick it up. Admin calls me and tells me that the machine is ready and I can go and pick it up. I ask admin where the machine is (I forgot to ask IS guy). Call IS guy and get correct location. Fetch laptop. Find cables, power cords, network adapter, and bag. Lots of last minute fixes to get the laptop 'network-ready' (included stealing my boss' network card - shhhhh!). Rush down and beg hardware guys to reconfigure machine.
Get to gym, change clothes, realise that I don't have my shoes. How could I not notice I didn't have my shoes? Change back into street clothes and leave gym. Drive home to do aerobics with shoes. Get home. No house keys. Get in car and go and pick up husband downtown who has keys. Drive home. Make husband watch tv for an hour so I can do aerobics in peace.
After 7pm, the day finally fell into place. Somedays just require a re-synch.

Hey, anybody wanna hear me on the radio?

Tomorrow (Friday) on C'est la Vie my first "pak" (packaged item) will be broadcast across the country. Tune in to 88.5 FM at 11:30 am to hear the humourous musings of the biggest dork in the world.

If you can't listen then (and you can listen live through the website), you can download the show from the C'est la Vie website after it's put up.

I worked very hard on this, so I want to make sure someone listens, even though I'm nervous as hell.

Thanks guys.

Laughing and exercise sound like a very good mix. A magazine I get (realsimple) has a series of exercises for exercise balls if you'd like to see it.

And now for something completely different... Need to find the Antichrist? Google to the rescue! Just type in "go to hell" (just like that; don't forget the quotes).

Now that we know where he works, does he have voicemail?

Meandering writer
Ok, so it looks like I'll have that laptop sometime this morning. I got a really great support guy who walked over here and picked it up yesterday. This means that I'll have to go over to the other building today. Of course, I was supposed to be over there last week. What else could happen? I'm betting that they haven't turned on the network outlets at my temporary office even though I asked them to last week.
I made my weekly trip to the veggie store and made a cucumber salad when I got home and washed my lettuce, etc. I bought some more mangoes, so maybe there will be sorbet sometime soon.
I tried the exercise ball for actual exercise last night. It came with a short video with a general range of exercises. You wouldn't think that rolling around on a large inflatable ball would be that difficult. Several of the poses that the lady on the video suggested were nearly impossible to get into without a great deal of clutziness on my part and all the failed attempts that resulted in me rolling off the ball in a heap. I had to pause the tape several times, because I was laughing too hard and couldn't hear the instructor or the relaxing background music.

You can't send me anywhere....
Remember the problems that I had when the company I work for sent me to the US for two weeks? Getting a laptop with the software that I need on it for two weeks while I work between two buildings is proving to be another pain in the neck. The admin is being a cow again and thwarting my attempt to work. The best was when she tried to talk me into replacing my hard-won pentium 3 desktop system for a clunky compaq pentium 2 laptop - you're dreaming lady! After talking to the manager, we may have something worked out. What a hassle!
Maybe I should just carry my desktop system back and forth, it might be easier.....

Meetings are fun!
Ok, normally they aren't, but today, a certain person known as a pain to all, was summarily dimissed from a meeting I was attending. There was much rejoicing, I definitely give the meeting a 9.5 for excitement. The office politics are escalating.......
In other news, my godson turns the big 5 today. Where does the time go? Seems like only yesterday that he was a stripe on a white plastic stick...........

Bounce, bounce
Last week was super busy, but I'm back!
Had a fun weekend. Friday night I headed over to Jen's for a Colin Firth extravaganza! We watched all 5 hours of Pride and Prejudice and stuffed ourselves with George's souvlaki and cookies.
Saturday we got up quite late and wandered around. Late afternoon we jumped in the car and went to Club Price where I bought an exercise ball. I've wanted one for a while because they look like fun. It took us forever to blow up, exercise in itself! Saturday night we watched a bit of tv. We watched the first episode of a new series called Firefly that premiered last week (we taped it). It's a western set in outerspace, not bad. It's created by the same guy who did Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but I doubt it will be that good. Sunday we also slept in and then Steve went to his card tournament and I went out and ran some errands. I ended up at the Bay downtown and had a nice lady at the Mac counter do my makeup. I looked pretty good, but I was dressed like a bum, so I looked a bit strange. Francois came home with Steve and we had bbq'd hamburgers and I did a bean salad. All in all a very good, uneventful weekend.
Today I am wondering where I am supposed to be. There's all kinds of office politics arising from the project that I'm supposed to be working on across the street. I just want everything settled so that I can work in peace. So far, I have only managed to go over to the other office for a couple of hours where I determined that no one had a clue what I was supposed to do, so I returned to my office where I await some answers.

Stir it up
Stir it up is doing something weird again. It's not displaying the number of posts correctly. Time delay perhaps?

Rent-a-writer
I just found out yesterday that I'm being loaned out to another department across the street for three weeks starting tomorrow. I have an office, but so far no computer or phone, so there's some rapid emails going back and forth trying to get me set up.
Do you think that my department asked for a deposit?

Who's the best husband?
Steve got home late last night from gaming and gave me the new Monsters Inc. DVD that just hit the stores. Kitty!!!!

I find this very funny....

Pregnancy for all
I was talking to a friend of mine recently who is planning to start a family soon. During the conversation, she said, "We're planning on getting pregnant soon, we may already be pregnant". First, I'm very happy for my friend and her husband and wish them all the best, but when did being pregnant become a tagteam event? I had no idea that a woman could hand off the little fetus so she could have a night out now and then. Seriously, I hear this turn of phrase a lot and it sounds wrong every time. Definition-wise, pregnant is defined as "containing unborn young within the body" (Merriam-Webster online). We don't point at a male and female animal and say "they are pregnant", why should we confuse the term with people? You can say "Sam and Betty are having a baby", in the sense that they will have a child at the end of the process, that seems correct. What's the deal? Do men have to be included in everything? Should I start saying things like, "Sorry Maggie, I can't come over and visit, we just got our period and we feel horrible" or "We just went in for a PAP test and a breast exam, everything checked out ok". On the same note, I don't think I ever want to say, "Wow, good thing we only have a prostate exam once a year".
We could always invent a new word that means "Sam and Betty are currently in the process of becoming parents, Betty is doing most of the actual assembly, while Sam is holding up his end by taking all the bitching and requests for strange foods in the middle of the night". Get to work!

Weekend update
Last week was crazy, but the project is now out and things are back to a grinding halt. I received special recognition for my work on the project, which I deserved completely :-)
I took off early on Friday and went to the gym and then went home and got ready to go out for Bill's birthday extravaganza. We all showed up at Carlos & Pepe's for margaritas and festivities. Bill got sloshed and a good time was had by all. We got her a CD and we made her personalized fridge magnets which she loved.
Saturday, we woke up late and eventually got the energy to go grocery shopping. Saturday night we headed over to Maggie and Andrew's for a theme Vietnamese dinner (we brought store-bought spring rolls) and watched Apocalypse Now afterwards. It was the redux version with close to an hour of extra footage. I saw it ages ago, and was a bit surprised by this second viewing. I don't like war movies, I never have. I realise that Apolcalypse Now is not strictly a war movie, I've read Heart of Darkness and I understand the underlying themes of the movie, but it is set around a war and I avoid those types of movies because of the graphic violence that they usually contain. I remember A.N. as being very violent, but as it turns out, it isn't graphic at all compared to recent war movies. It's scary how much more tolerant society in general has become of watching violence, and yet how few penises we see on the big screen....
Sunday we headed over to Club Price and bought a new portable phone because ours seems to have given up completely, even with the new battery we put in last year. I took it out of the box, put it together and plugged it in and set it to charge. It was only later when I looked at the instructions that I realised that I shouldn't have plugged it into the phone jack until it's finished charging. It's written in several places in the instructions. I think that they should have included a sticker on the phone. That's a tech writer for ya :-)

Movie Pick

Okay. I don't know if anyone else is going to like it, but I just have to recommend a movie to y'all.

If you're a bit of a film buff, and particularly if you like cheesy Asian flicks, check out "Kung Pow: Enter the Fist".

It unbelievably stupid and freakin' brilliant, IMHO. And it's so hard to find a truly good comedy, I thought I 'd pass it on.

Go give it a try. I laughed my ass off.

I don't think it's trite, Rebecca. If there is one bittersweet legacy to that devastating day, I think it is an appreciation for the here and now. Many of us are a bit less like sleepwalkers as we go about our daily lives. I suspect the shockwave has rippled through our lives and our consciousness in scores of ways that we're not even fully aware of.

I listened to the special programming on the CBC today in memory of 9/11 but admit I had to turn it off. It was making me too blue. My way of remembering all those lives so cruelly erased will be flying a kite with my daughter at her school picnic again this Friday. Held a few days after Sept. 11 last year, the picnic was the only thing that brought me solace after two days on an emotional rollercoaster. Flying a kite with Camille and her friends was so simple and so peaceful that it felt as if the jagged hole inside me was almost filled. And that's what I'm trying to remember about that time, rather than the palpable fear and paranoia around me on that day.

I won't go into what I was doing, etc, except to say that I saw everything live on TV, right from the first cut into regular programming after the first plane.

How it changed my life: I had just moved three days before into our house. On the Friday after the 11th, I had a terrible panic attack in my bed and got up and talked to my husband about it for about two hours. I had cried and had all kinds of intimations of mortality throughout the week, but that Friday night I really felt like this might be the beginning of the end, and that we would soon know what it was like to live in fear and violence, like so many people in the world.

What I think I've taken away from that day is a new certainty that anything can happen, at any time. Life can turn on a dime and become horrible, and more often, beautiful without any warning. Last night I saw a journalist who'd covered the scene in NY that day and he said, basically: "I never thought I'd see that, and I don't think I'll ever see anything that bad again." All I could think was, "How can you be so naive? Of course we will see that bad, and worse, in our lifetimes." But I don't feel morbid or despairing about it. There's nothing you can do about it but live your life every day and remember what's really important. Sounds trite, I know, but what else is there?

Memories of the 11th

I remember get a call from my husband who was in California at the time. He had flown to LA on the 10th. He had just gotten up and was wondering what on earth was going on. My brother-in-law was on his way to New York City that morning (by car) for business in the financial district. They got turned around somewhere just outside New York and were told to go back, that the WTC was gone and therefore wouldn't be needing the artwork that they were delivering to a client there. My sister-in-law was frantic wondering where her brothers were. By the end of the day everyone was accounted for.

Meanwhile, in Toronto, all our executives had assembled in the board room (for those of you who don't know, I work in the Financial Services sector) to watch events unfold on TV. My boss was there as well with a stack of files a mile high. She spent the day as she usually does multi-tasking. Watching what was going on and plaguing here colleagues with follow-up questions on the material in her stack of files. (Never one to miss an opportunity to catch up on work.) Our senior management sat there watching TV in complete horror while she apparently looked really irritated the whole time and was actually quite snarky to her subordinates the rest of the day and as it turned out for the rest of the week. (I didn't know at that point that her mother's cancer was in the terminal phase.)

The next day, after I had submitted a long awaited business report, (which she didn't at all like in spite of the tremendous work I had put into it), we had a major row which made me seriously wonder about my future here. The following week I went on holiday knowing that the die was cast, that I would be one of those selected to leave in March 2003.

So there it is, for what it's worth, how 9/11 changed my life.

It's around this time last year when one of the guys I used to work with called the office to tell us the news (he was in New York for business). So sad. I'm taking a moment to admire our lovely Montreal skyline.

The service seems to be down or even gone. Looks like we'll have to find another one! I'll see what I can do after work tonight.

I don't see Stir It Up, either. I noticed it yesterday but thought my computer was acting funny from low memory. Can you wave your magic wand and make it reappear, our Lady of the Rings?

What happened to "stir it up'?

I was just having a brief peak and I don't see any stir it up? Am I the only one?

Strip off that sweater baby!
It's back to the shorts and tank tops, we have ourselves a heat wave until Thursday. According to Environment Canada, we're supposed to get up to 34C today, that's HOT! I dearly miss my sweaters too, and my jeans, and long-sleeved shirts, and, well, clothing in general. If I was at home, I'd probably be wearing a wet towel. As it stands, I'm freezing in my office as usual.
We had a great weekend. We went up to teh townies for my mom's birthday and got to see the folks and my grandmother, aunt and cousin. We had a nice lunch and cake. The folks brought us back some knick-knacks from Cape Breton and got us a lovely clock, barometer, thermometer thingie that looks like a porthole for our anniversary. We have to reset the readings though because it was saying that it was much cooler in our hallway than it actually was yesterday. Yesterday we did a tiny but of cleaning and laundry and had a fun evening with Rhett and Debbie at a Thai restaurant downtown. Work's really super busy until Thursday, then we'll see what happens!

The best days of summer are in the fall
Yet another heavenly day of deep blue sky and warm sunshine! Add in the cool nights under a warm duvet, and you have all the fun of summer without the sweltering heat. Is anybody else out there enjoying the sunshine?

And speaking of creepy...
The movie One Hour Photo is out. Although the site is hard to figure out, it does a good job of conveying the creepy atmosphere of the movie and the sterile world of Robin Williams' repressed character. I won't be able to pick up my family pics again without wondering a little about the people who develop them, though... Can't wait to see the movie!

I'm not the only one!
It's truly creepy the way that actor Jeffrey Tambor and that Phil guy from Opra look so much alike. For a long time I thought they were the same person and could never figure out why anyone would get counselling from an actor. I also discovered that Jeffrey Tambor played a character called Dr. Phil..... coincidence?

Ghosts with shopping carts
I saw a smarmy boss that I worked for about 15 years ago at the supermarket last night. This guy came into the company that I was working for and got rid of everyone that he didn't like and eventually, one of those people was me (he fired my VP, so everyone working under him went as well). This man was responsible for turning me into the jaded, untrusting, and pesimistic employee that I am today. He taught me that know matter how well you do your job, or how happy you are to do it, someone can always just come in and fire you for no good reason. He burst my good-employee-work-ethic-give-100%-like-your-folks-taught-you bubble. Fortunately, he was as stupid as he was arrogant and made a mistake on my leaving papers that allowed me to sue the company for unjust dismissal and win. Didn't bring back happy-worker Dina though.
I didn't walk over and talk to him, he probably wouldn't have remembered me, and it's always embarassing when an arch-nemesis doesn't remember you.

All the time
Am I the only one out there that's absolutely tired of the catch-phrase, "24-7"? I hoped it would die out, but I keep hearing normal people using it in conversation and it makes me nuts. Damn reality tv shows and email, it's all their fault. How much more abbreviated do you think language will get? Binary? Any catch phrases that you can live without hearing ever again?

Livid
Steve just called and to tell me that he went down to the basement to get something out of our locked storage area and found that the teenage girls and their friends had taken the hinges off the door and were apparently going through our junk and watching our video tapes. Let's not even think about the stuff that they've taken......
Mad? You bet! Good thing I brought my bike upstairs a couple months ago.......

One year, wheeee!
We had a great anniversary long weekend. We went to two parties, relaxed, ate wedding cake and had a great mexican meal in Old Montreal. Steve gave me a Zen Alarm Clock, and I got him and Playstation 2 and watched him play Spiderman while I napped on the sofa. Life is good!

Great Weekend

This has to have been one of the best Labor Day Weekends I have ever spent. On Friday I thought I was going to collapse from exhaustion and I felt overwhelmed at all the things I had to get done before we took off on Saturday. All I wanted to do was crawl into a hole and sleep all weekend.

However, Friday went better than I could have hoped. My mother-in-law spent the afternoon at my place happily looking after her grandson (our nephew) and with my two dogs and my sister-in-law's two dogs while my husband and his sister went golfing. I went off to Agility (dog class) at 6:30 and had a great class. We got back at around 8:30 and my husband had delayed dinner for my return even though I told him to go ahead without me. Anyway, he had gone out and got some great steaks and wine and by this time we were all pretty hungry (dogs too.) He made the entire dinner and my mother-in-law cleaned up. Neither my sister-in-law nor I had to do anything much except look decorative....(sort of).

The evening was pleasant and everyone stayed over until Saturday morning. We had a good visit and the in-laws cleared out Saturday morning.

So after they left, we got our gear together and headed down Highway 15 to New York State around noon. Since we anticpated a long wait at the border, we detoured and crossed at Hemmingford which turned out to be very pleasant and faster. Once in the U.S. we stayed on the secondary roads until Plattsburg whereupon we switched over to the I-State 87. As a side note, how many of you know that the original intention of the U.S. interstate road system was built as part of its overall defense strategy? If you look at where the roads are placed, they all go through towns and cities where there is/was a military presence. That has changed since the end of the Cold War. (But I digress).

Anyway, we drove down as far as Elizabethtown and headed toward Keene Valley. The plan was to back pack in 5 miles to the Giant Mountain Lean-To before dark. We started our hike at about 2:30 and after several water breaks and chit chats with other hikers, we reached the Lean-To at around 6 p.m, set up our tent and then we settled in for the evening. Dinner was a vegetarian Tandoori dish which was surprising good. It was dark by about 7:45 so we hung out and looked at the stars and turned in early.

The next morning we woke up earlyish, around 7:30, had breakfast (Mulligan stew) and set our sights on the big climb.We left all our gear at the Lean-To except for bringing along our day bags which had some food and water for the morning. Giant Mountain is well named as its peak is at 4600 feet and we had 2000 feet to climb in a space of 1.2 miles. Yes, it is quite strenuous and more so when you have to lift up two dogs (about 30 pounds each) one at a time on the steeper/higher faces. (The dogs loved it by the way.) We managed to reach the summit in 45 minutes whereupon we enjoyed a break and some energy bars. The view was fabulous and you couldn't even hear the highway.

We hung out, took a break and then went back down. The way back was a lot harder on the legs but we got back to our tent in about 40 minutes whereupon we collapsed and had a short snooze before packing up and heading back the way we had come the day before. We left around 1:00 p.m. and figured we would need at least 3 hours to walk out since we were carrying a lot of gear and it would therefore be as slow as the day before.

However, the hike out took us 2 hours and 57 minutes this time and at the end of it we were pretty tired. The dogs couldn't wait to get into the car and have a snooze. We, on the other hand couldn't wait to get to our motel that we'd booked to have a shower and a rest before dinner. The motel was in Wilmington, about a 20 minute drive away. Just as a note to other dog owners, Wilmington boasts a lot of motels (most in fact) that take pets no problem. The motel we stayed at was very nice, clean and quiet.

There is something very satisfying coming back into civilization after a trek like that. First there is no guilt about what and how much you eat. Second, it is a really satisfying experience because the tiredness you feel is "the good kind". Third, we treated ourselves to a nice dinner at a restaurant called the Hungry Trout and yes, that is the specialty. In fact the restaurant is right on a stream and they catch their own so it doesn't get much fresher. Ralph had smoked trout and I had the trout marnier (pan fried with orange sauce).

We staggered out of the restaurant and managed to drive back to our motel to collapse for the rest of the evening.

Yesterday we woke up around 8:30 feeling stiff and sore, so we compensated with a lovely leisurely breakfast of blueberry pancakes and sausages followed by a nice leisurely drive home.

My legs are still sore but all in all I am rested and feeling peppy.

HAPPY 1ST ANNIVERSARY, DINA AND STEVE!!!!

One down, a whole lifetime to go....
Good luck and continued love and happiness.

This morning I brought my daughter, my eldest child, for her first day of kindergarten. What a feeling! I have shed a few tears about this in the week leading up to it. But today, although I have a heavy feeling in my chest, I was happy walking home after leaving her. She was kicking me out! She's like, "Okay mummy, you can go now." And I'm like, "Hey! Your teacher wants us to stay for a minute, Jeez!" I brought her home for lunch, which was fun, and I'm glad I can continue to do that, not least because the lunch programme costs $200 (!). The school seems so great, though. Small and cozy and very caring. It reminded me so much of my elementary school, I felt happy being there.

I'm proud of her. If ever there was a child who was ready for school, it's U.. I've never met a more confident and secure person in my life. I don't know where she gets it from; for neuroses, I could give Woody Allen a run for his money.

Still, *sniff*.

Friday!
Finally, a long weekend! I haven't had any vacation time, so this will definitely be a treat. Steve's doing ok, he hoped that the contract would last until the end of the year or until he could find something else, but no big deal. I'm sure that he won't be looking for long, and in the mean time, he has chores! Today, he's putting another couple coats of paint on those shelves so we can put them up in the bedroom this weekend. He didn't even sleep in this morning, I would have :-)
As for the weekend, we have two parties and an anniversary dinner planned. I would assume there will be lots of lounging about as well. What's everyone else doing this long weekend?

Ugh
Steve was told that his contract is over. They only gave him a week's compensation.....
Looks like we're back to one income for a while......

Two unrelated things:
I can't believe that almost a year of matrimonial bliss has passed, time flies when you marry a great guy! This time last year I was taking time off from a job that I hated and having a marvelous time hanging out with Caroline.
I found some really big, ripe mangos yesterday, so I made mango sorbet last night (drool.....)

School's back, get the mace......
For parents, this is the week that they've been waiting for most of the summer. For me, it means that the little delinquents who go to the school next to my house are back, pardon my enthusiasm. They get dropped off by parents who are too rude to even pull their SUVs over to the side of the street and then congregate in little uniformed groups to smoke and spit and swear and yell in front of my house. Sometimes, they sit on my steps and throw their garbage on the front lawn. I hate the little bastards....
This ends my curmudgeon statement for the week.

Sleepy Monday
What a nice weekend of doing almost nothing. Friday I left the office at noon and wandered around Ikea. Note to self: never go to Ikea when the fall semester is approaching. The place was crawling with university kids and their parents shopping for first ever apartment furniture. I've also realised that Ikea is also teeming with angry couples. If you're a psych major and want to do some research on relationships and stress, walk around any of the departments. I heard couples arguing about everything, it was fairly amusing. I got a footstool, a new rug for the kitchen, and a few Swedish krimskrams. After Ikea, I went to the gym and then home and just in time to meet Elizabeth. I had a great time too babe!
Saturday and Sunday were mostly spent in complete stillness, for some reason I didn't feel like doing much. I helped Steve a bit with his massive reorg of our library, but that was about it until Sunday afternoon. Sunday afternoon I went to reno depot and bought mdf shelving for the bedroom and started painting them, I also put up a magazine rack in the bathroom. For some reason, I only got brackets for two of the shelves, was I out of it or just stupid? Today I am tired and fuzzy despite the weekend of little activity, must wake up and get my brain in gear!!!

A heavenly weekend
This weekend was a lovely break from routine. On my way back from interviewing L'Oréal's plant manager out in St-Laurent, I stopped off at Dina and Steve's to hang out and do some much-needed catching up. Then we went out for some fabulous Indian food that got my Mmmmm motor humming all night (ahhhhh.... so satisfying...). Thanks for the great conversation and food, guys!

Saturday, we dropped the kids off at the babysitter, then went cycling around Hudson. It's so beautiful and quiet! It makes me think of Lakeshore Road in Niagara (minus the vineyards, of course). We hit the flea market there and made a mental note to come back with the kids--they'll love it! Then we went on to Old Chambly to the Fourquet-Fourchette, a restaurant I'd been to with the CDS gang. It's owned by UniBroue and offers cuisine inspired by the flavours of New France. It was every bit as fun as when I went before... it's a great place to go with a gang and really whoop it up!

Now I feel recharged and ready to tackle my pile of writing! And a lot more patient with the under 3-foot crowd...

Coffee....
Had a huge problem with the new SGML system that we just started using and I stayed until 7:30 last night trying to fix it-no luck. I got here at 7:30 this morning and fixed it, but of course there are other problems with the set up. Ever want to shoot your boss just so he'd stop slamming his phone down on the cradle and sigh so loud it shakes the building? Oh, and coffee machines busted first thing this morning, help......

Shopping at Les Ailes

I just got back from buying a knick-knack at Les Ailes and decided that the whole experience was completely irritating. First of all, finding the escalator that goes in the right direction is a challenge. (I know I already commented on that.) Second, are the gaping idiots who, when they get off the escalator stand right in front of you, not moving, (too busy trying to figure out how to find the next escalator). You have no choice but to walk right into them or shove them out of the way. Then, up on the housewares floor you have someone trying to get you to go into a karioke room. Why one earth do I want to hear myself sing in a department store when all I want to do is scream and get the hell out of there? The guy who was standing there looked like a sleezy goof-ball (very enticing and alluring). The whole thing has an air of being a pseudo IKEA atmosphere with a merry-go-round and a sushi bar. Tres weird in my vary narrow butt-clenched WASP view of the world. Then finally when I did get to where I wanted to go and find the merchandise that I had spotted on my last trip, there was a line up a mile long at the cash and someone is dickering over something. However, some employee did come along and show me to a less busy cash. Only I wind up waiting even longer because some woman is fussing about some towels and the availability of the store catalogue and why isn't she on the mailing list. I finally paid for my purchase using Interac, but of course the keyboard thingy was sticky and my PIN didn't work. All this effort was in the name of a very nice hand-painted glass bowl that I think will look wonderful on my kitchen table. Then the battle to navigate my way out began...I'll spare you the details, I think you already get the picture.

Somehow mail-order and shopping online is alot less annoying and I have been resorting to it alot more lately. So for you die-hard mall rats and shoppers and lovers of flea markets and garage sales I don't know how you do it, but you won't be seeing me pawing and drooling over merchandise if I can possibly help it. Maybe I should move to a lighthouse and have my sack of flour delivered once a year....

chim-chiminey
The chimney sweep came early this morning to ensure we don't set the building on fire this winter or roast a family of rodents. I'm always disappointed when Dick Van Dyke doesn't come bounding up the stairs with a "ello guv'nor".

Brain hurts.....
I'm back to being stupid busy at work and I'm also experiencing constant confusion from reading all these marketing docs that tell me nothing, and engineering docs that tell me nothing that I can understand. Will our heroine find a happy medium, or merely slap together a frankenstein combination of other documents and add a nice graphic? Stay tuned folks......
Go Maggie, go Maggie, it's heartening to know that there may be a good teacher soon at the CEGEP level :-)

Back to the gym
I finally managed to get back to the gym yesterday. Actually, I went Friday too, but only did about half of my routine. By routine, I mean that piece of paper that a nice gym employee wrote up for me which I seldom follow. One of the things on my list that I avoid are the ab exercises. The ab machines are in a room in full view of all the treadmills, bikes, etc., I stare in there frequently and count how many leg ups a person can do before they collapse, and for that reason I do sit ups at home. The people at the gym already know that I am a complete klutz, so there's no sense advertising that my core muscles are made of jello too. Another machine that I tend to avoid unless I'm feeling guilty is the hamstring machine. To use this machine, you must lie down on your stomach on a slanted bench with your head slanted down and your butt in the air. The machine is near the entrance of the gym and pointing out into the main aisle, so every passer-by gets a look at your great big spandex ensnared bottom. What were they thinking?

Summer Monday
What a great weekend! Elizabeth came over Saturday afternoon for some George's souvlaki and conversation, good to see you Elizabeth, lookin' good! I also realised that the fan on my computer's power supply crapped out at some point. I'm not sure how long it had been broken, but I almost burned my hand on the top of the tower. Not good at all. I took it to a computer store Sunday morning and they sold me a power supply. They wanted to charge $25 to install it, so I did it myself, it wasn't hard. Tada! No more fear of overheating everything! Sunday, we went to the Atwater market for some goodies. We got coffee and olive bread, fresh apples and Steve got some cheese. We also picked up this onion and garlic jam, which Steve said is wonderful, I haven't had the courage to try it yet. We did a few more groceries and got home early in the afternoon. Jon came over for a few hours. He rollerbladed over, not a huge distance because of the bike path, but it was very hot and humid, so Jon was a puddle by the time he arrived. He hung out for a while and watched some tv and a movie. Later on, Rebecca came over and we watched Lord of the Rings on DVD. We had a couple of technical difficulties, the DVD was skipping during the scene where Bilbo gives Frodo his sword, etc. That was irritating, our first DVD problem. I will replace it today. I hope that we get a good one this time. I suppose it's to be expected considering how many copies of the DVD were made. The heatwave has broken and we're now back to beautiful summer days. I'm hard at work on two projects, one that just got bigger after a morning meeting. I think we're going to resort to stealing sections from other manuals, a little creative plagiarism never hurt anyone :-)

Tomatoes by the bucketful
August is my favourite time of the summer. Each year I come back from my holidays to an overgrown, tangled garden weighed down by scores of tomatoes in every size and shade of yellow, red and orange. Sliced, sauteed, stuffed, in salads, in pies, or just plain popped in your mouth, we have them every way imaginable until the crew simply can't bear to look at another tomato. I'm running out of ideas on how to serve them up as those cherry tomatoes keep on coming...

I just love going to a farmer's stand and getting fresh corn, cuc's, peppers, green beans, yellow zucchini and anything else I can find fresh in these few brief weeks of food heaven. Then the mealy, rubbery hydroponic veggies come slowly trickling back for the winter. So enjoy the feast while it lasts!

Don't fight the lentils
Had a great lunch with Bill and Maggie at the Indian place near work. It's a vegetarian restaurant, and their lunch special is rice, two types of yummy curried vegetables (they decide) and either chickpeas or lentils. Bill ordered with lentils, Maggie and I ordered chickpeas. The waiter brought us all lentils, but gave Maggie and I chickpeas on the side. We think that it's a plot to get more people to eat lentils, I admit, they were very good.
I woke up this morning with our non-cuddly cat sitting on me, meowing loudly and trying to stick her head under my hand. It took me a while to realise that I was awake, because she never does that. Perhaps she is having a change of personality. My oldest cat is a calico, and for the first 3 or 4 years, spurned any affection that you gave her. My friends used to joke that she had a "three-pet rule", because that was how much she would tolerate before she turned around and shredded your hand. One day, she just started acting differently, I guess that it was a bit more gradual than that, but she started wanting affection, and now she demands cuddling time from me and Steve. She definitely mellowed with age. Maybe Stan's doing the same thing. I hope that doesn't mean that our always loving cat Woody suddenly turns into a nasty curmudgeon.
Dave came over last night to pick up some software, and dropped off his new CD of stories called "Tales from a Comfy Chair", I look forward to listening to it. I'm besieged by more work this week, I've been moved onto the big project that's due mid-September. Haven't heard from a few of the Coffeeringers in a while, perhaps a post to let us know you're still alive (hint, hint)?

Shopping anyone?
Les Ailes is the most stylish mall that I have seen since I visited Chicago. The entrance is surprisingly non-descript, I expected something breathtaking to set the mood for a unique shopping experience. At first I had a hard time believing that they managed to get so much space out of the building, it's amazing what can happen when you take four floors out of a building. Steve found it a bit claustrophobic, but I liked it, it certainly felt more intimate than your regular mall.
There is a mix of open concept and closed in areas with great, futuristic/deco lighting that is soft, yet not dim. At first, it's hard to get your bearings, because the main store is at the back of the building. There are escalators that go up through the centre of the building, as well as inside the main store. Sometimes, you're not sure where the main store ends and the rest of the mall begins. The true beauty of the design can be seen from the third floor.

Here, the floor plan suddenly becomes clear. The oval open 'roof' makes you feel like you're cocooned in the building. Oh, and did I mention that the roof lighting changes colour?

As Rebecca mentioned last week, the fourth floor holds a small art exhibit. I can't say that I was taken by anything up there, especially the three white canvases (you want *how* much for that?). I don't know if it's going to be a permanent exhibition area, there's not much room for anything else. The fifth to the eighth floor is supposed to be office space, I'd love to have a look at it, it's probably fantastic.
As for the store, I was surprised to find that there was merchandise that I could afford. There were tons of designer brands, but there was also there own label and their prices were comparable with the Bay and Simons. I didn't browse through everything, but they seemed to offer about as much merchandise as Simons, a bit more because they have a kitchen department. The one thing I did notice was all the sheep, which I assume were a big seller for the opening.

They also seem to have a nice kids department, but I didn't have a close look at the clothing because I was distracted by the merry-go-round.

If parents have a hard time with those quarter-operated, brightly painted monstrosities at malls and grocery stores, you can imagine what it's going to be like the first time you take them to Les Ailes. There's also a play area with a giant talking bear and some games.
Bathroom review, you must check out the bathrooms, especially the ladies inside the main store on the third floor and outside the coffee shop on the second floor. I was going to get pictures, but was not able to get in there alone, and didn't want to look like a total perv.

My husband is evil
Over the weekend, he heard the spongebob squarepants themesong for the first time, got it stuck in his head, and sang it over and over until I got it stuck in my head Sunday afternoon. He's just bad......

Separated at birth

Monday, already?
The weekend was a whirlwind of activity. Friday night, Steve and I went downtown and checked out the new Les Ailes. Nice store, review to follow. I also bought new sandals (on sale!). Saturday we went up to the townies again, this time for a short visit. My folks decided that they're going to Cape Breton for a couple of weeks, so I had to bring back their video camera and lend them my film camera. We got home, tired and just vegged for the rest of the evening. Sunday we got up and cleaned and visited Maggie and Andrew and went shopping for food because we invited Guislaine over for supper. Dave came over for a visit, which was nice because I don't see him all that often and then Guislaine showed up and we hung out and yakked and then talked Dave into staying and had a fabulous roast that Steve made. After we had blueberry/raspberry icecream that I made earlier in the day and coffee and sat out on the deck talking more until we kicked the guests out at 11:30. I am a little tired this morning, but we had such a nice evening.

Calendar says Friday!
The week has just whizzed by! Last night I stopped by Rebecca's place for a chat and to drop off my pledge for her run (there's still time to pledge people). I only see her kids once every six months or so, so they always look so different. The biggest change was that her son, who I've always thought was the strong, silent type, has suddenly found his gift of gab. He was talking up a storm yesterday! I promised that I would bring cookies for my fellow writers today. I ended up making cookies late last night and woke up this morning way more tired than I should have been. I think that the whirlwind week is catching up to me.
The good news is that the training material tested better than I thought it would and only needs minor changes as opposed to a major overhaul-yay!
After work I'm heading downtown to see Les Ailes, is it wrong to be so interested by a store? I suppose that it's not rampant consumerism if I'm more interested by the store itself than the goods being sold. Perhaps it's just because anything big and brand new in town is just such an oddity that you have to run out and see it before it goes bankrupt and closes. Speaking of which, we may head over to the AMC Forum for a movie afterwards.

I've just come back from Les Ailes. It's a very nice mall, with a great feeling of space and light. The art deco influence is obvious, but not fantastic. What I love about Art Deco is what's in the details. The Art Deco lines are there at Les Ailes, but ultimately it's a mall, right? The organic elements of Art Deco are missing, as far as I could see, which leaves a sort of retro-futuristic impression, which is nice, and it feels good and all, but Cours Mont Royal is nicer in terms of the marriage of structural and interior design, in my opinion.

If you go, check out the contemporary art on the 4th floor. I'll be talking about it on the Arts Report at 5:20 today.

Surrealist Compliment Generator

ah-choo!
There's something in the air ducts at work today that has my nose running like crazy. I was fine until I walked in to the office and then wham! I'm heading outside for a walk that I hope will stop this nonsense.
Kathy has been watching Les Ailes all morning and will probably be wandering in to have a look. Kathy, we expect a full report. Is it as pretty as they said it would be?
Still working like mad on that project, have to finish today! What's everyone else up to? What do you think of this nice, cool weather?

Tales of an errant blogger
I'm sorry that I am somewhat negligent with my posting lately, but I've had to work. The material that I am working on is going to be tested by my peers Thursday, no pressure there!
This weekend was a guilt weekend, aka visit the parents. The folks were happy to see us, a little too happy. I do not mind bringing joy to my folks, I just wish sometimes that I wasn't the only source of it. We had a lovely visit and a bbq and drove back home to famished, bored cats.
We have a deck off of our kitchen with a set of glass doors. When we first moved in, the screen on the door had a tiny hole in it from the previous tenant's cat. Over time, our bored cats expanded on that hole, and one day early this summer we came home and discovered the skinniest cat out basking on the deck. I said that I would repair the screen right away, but somehow never got around to it. Soon, the less skinny cat made her escape, followed soon after by our fat cat who transformed the hole into something I could get my head through, a fat cat flap, as it were. The weekend before last while the cats were all out basking, there was a loud noise outside which must have scared them, because they all ran into the house at warp speed. The fat cat must have missed the hole. I heard a 'thud rip' and ran into the kitchen to find that the screen was now completely torn out of the bottom of the door. I suppose that rescreening the entire door is probably easier than repairing little bits of it anyway....

I need a sponsor...stat!!

I am going to be running a wee (5K) marathon on Sunday, along with a bunch of other CBC folks, to raise money for Give Girls A Chance, a fund that gives money to Aboriginal and Afghani girls and women to go to school.

I have basically been in denial about this and haven't trained or anything, and only realized today that I'm supposed to get sponsors (duh).

So, Coffee Ringers, anyone want to sponsor my run/walk/stagger/fall? Whoever makes the biggest pledge wins my CBC marathon T-shirt, washed or not, however you prefer (weirdo).

Just answer in the commments and you will receive an e-mail detailing the next step ("put unmarked bills in a black briefcase, etc". type-o'-thing)

I loves ya gals, I really does.

My kingdom for a modifier
Just found out last night that the material I've been working so hard on is for "next" Friday.....at least I have most of it done. Oops! They added more! At least the days are flying by!

Is Les Ailes Ever Going to Open?
For those of you who may not know, there is going to be a new Les Ailes opening here right downtown. According to the signs that were posted on the building it is supposed to open next Wednesday, August 7. Frankly, I wouldn't place any bets on it making this deadline. There is still alot of construction going on and I don't see how they can do all the finishing (i.e. painting, plastering, etc.) and get the goods into the store by Wednesday. (My office faces the building and I have been monitoring the work off and on now for nearly 2 years.) The store if you don't know, is the former Eaton's building which has over the last two years been gutted and is still being refurbished from top to bottom. The good news is I am sure it is going to be gorgeous. I wonder if I'll be able to afford anything in there?

I'll keep you posted next week. So let's see if opening day will in fact be Wednesday. So we are now at T minus 5.

11 months and he still hasn't strangled me
I love my husband.......
Gotta get back to work, everyone keep drinking and relaxing for me!

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?