SCIENCE!

So this song is the reason I maniacally shout SCIENCE! at my co-workers whenever they tell me what the afternoon activity is on Fridays. Then it gets stuck in my head for hours. Not so much the melody but the SCIENCE! parts. If you think it must be annoying for them, try living in my head for a few hours.

SCIENCE!!!!!!!!!!!

kxx

The dishwasher is running...

The keyboard keys are clicking (ever notice how the backspace and spacebar make different sounds from the rest of the keys?).

The chair I'm sitting on is creaking.

The one that my feet are on is uneven so a leg hits the ground when I shift.

The cat is scratching herself somewhere in the house and I can hear her collar bell tinkle.

The fridge just switched on.

Audrey just turned over in her creaky bed.

I just took a snorty breath through my nose. Damned allergies.

My neck just made a crackly sound as I turned my head around. Ugh... that didn't make me feel old.

My mouse clicks as I search for a photo to insert.

Those are the sounds I hear at 11:52pm in my "quiet" house.

kxx

Come ON...

How is this NOT a word? Freaking Words With Friends...

kxx

At 2:01 today I was

Chilling at the library. Do people still say "chilling"? I was thinking of going with "chillin'", but I went more cerebral.

Yes, I'm sitting on the floor of the children's library. Wanna make something of it?

kxx

My "Six Word Memoir"

I was reading through this really cool website where people write, in just six words, something about themselves. Obviously you can't get too deep with this thing but it can be interesting. Like "She's the storm I never named" and "Yearning to sing, tending to shriek". Awesome.

It being as late as it is, I thought I'd try it myself. Interestingly it took a longer time than I expected to come up with this little gem:

This was harder than it seemed.

Deep, right?

"One Life. Six Words. Whats Yours?"

kxx

I love my family

So this evening we were all sitting around watching tv when a guy in a 10 gallon hat walks across the screen trying to sell me a truck. I break into song...

"I'm a cowbooooy"

And the rest of the family chimes in:

"On a steel horse I riiiide. I'm wanted, wanted dead or aliiiiive!"

The fun part is that it was all 5 of us. So great. I love it when that sort of thing happens.

kxx

Posting at the last second!

Four minutes to midnight and I'm quickly posting under the wire. Here's a pic of what I did tonight... paddled under the moon with my friends a the Ottawa River Canoe Club. Beautiful warm awesome night for a night paddle!

Sad.

As you may have heard, there was a terrible accident this morning in Barrhaven, not far from me. A packed bus and a passenger train collided. Six people on the bus died including the driver and nearly 30 were injured, 10 critically. I can barely grasp it.

I have so many friends who live there and lots of them take public transit to work every morning. All I think about is all those people who were just trying to get to work this morning just like every day. How many people ran for that bus and were relieved that they caught it? How many were pissed when it drove past them? Did they swear at its taillights? How many kids were on their way to school or daycare? Supposedly people saw the train coming and were screaming at the driver to stop but it was too late. I can't even deal.

My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone involved in this horrible accident. This really sucks.

kxx

At 2:01 today I

Was getting back into the car after FINALLY getting my newly issued credit card. Sheesh, guys, took you long enough. A girl without her plastic is like a car without an engine. A pen without ink. A radio without... err... a volume knob? I don't know. It just sucks, all right?

kxx

What is going on?

I've had such a hard time with cards lately. A month ago I had the info from my VISA card stolen. It sucked but they caught it right away (within a day) and cancelled the 3 charges that were made (at 2am in Bangkok, no less) without so much as a whimper. In fact, they noticed before I did. This is what happens when you only use a credit card for gas, the dentist, my cell and the odd nerdy tee shirt. When you get crazy charges from a Thai electronics store, a flag is going to go up.

Anyhoo, while they caught it with no problem, they've been dragging their fricking feet over sending me a new one. I've been waiting a month, and in the meantime my phone and bus pass have lapsed, and the cutest Totoro t shirt has gone by in one of my favourite geeky tee shirt online stores. Damn.

It wasn't this but it was just as cute. URG.

So yesterday, continuing my winning streak vis a vis VISA, I went shopping at Costco. As one does, I filled my cart with literally a metric ton of food and merchandise and made my way to the cash. But what's this? Where is my flipping debit card? I pulled over and dug into that Fossil purse like an archaeologist but came up with nothing but sand. Well, purse dust but I'm trying to paint a picture. Nope, nothing. Then I thought, "Hey, not to worry, I can just use my VISAAAAaaaaah DAMMIT!" I asked a kind employee if they took personal cheques and thank GOD, they did so I was that person at the register writing a personal check, holding up the line like a little old lady counting change. Luckily I had a gross folded one in the bottom of my bag because that doesn't happen often either. 

I knew I hadn't lost my debit card (I never do that) but where was it? When I got home I checked the straw bag that I'd just swapped out that morning for the Fossil (you can't use a straw bag in the fall... I'm not a fashion Luddite). It wasn't there. Then I remembered when I last used it. It was girl's drinks night at a local seafood restaurant. What was I wearing? Yes. The blue skinny jeans. And lo and behold, there it was, tucked in the back pocket (I never do that). But there it was. I guess I had one Gibson too many. 

Anyway the moral of the story is... well, there isn't really a moral, I'm just telling you about this card thing. And I'm just about to call that Indian call centre to find out where my bloody credit card is. Again. They promised it by today. Grrr....

kxx

Just bread and meat

So what would you surmise if you got a list like this for a Subway run?

• 6 inch
• brown
• toasted
• cheese
• turkey/bacon
• sweet onion dressing
• no pickles
• no jalapenos
• no olives

Would you bring home a sandwich with nothing in it but the turkey, bacon, cheese and dressing? Was I crazy to assume that eliminating 3 choices would mean that I wanted everything else? 

Suffice it to say that I got a pretty crappy sandwich. Bleh.

kxx

Hmmm... nothing interesting to post today

I accidentally fell asleep in front of the tv and only woke up about 10 minutes ago realizing I hadn't wrote a post. I had a very busy day at work today and thinking about the days ahead (rainbow cake, appointments, chauffeuring dinner with friends... non-stop until Sunday) who can blame me?

So please enjoy my fractured effort at a haiku. I'm really terrible at it, but I love to write them. I'm like those delusional singers during the audition phase of American Idol. Here we go...

I'm calling this one:

Another Crappy Nap

Excited to sleep
So I doze off on the couch
Now my neck hates me

kxx

At 2:01 today

I had my hands full at the eighth circle of Hell Walmart. I went in only for one thing and as usual I left there $90 lighter in the wallet. How does this happen? Well, I know how this happened but you know what I'm getting at...

kxx

In case you need a refresher on the circles of Hell, here's a handy graphic...

How many phone numbers do you remember?

Right off the top of your head? How many? The last number I memorised is my Elliott's cell number and he got that phone 4 years ago. Any number after that has been assigned a speed dial number on both my home phone and my cell.

So Audrey's number and Scott's new number just never stuck. God help me of I'm stuck somewhere having to give them out. There's no way I can remember. I think Audrey's starts with a 315 and I know for sure Scott's ends in the letters BORD (he chose that for a specific reason) but that's as close as I can get.

Ask me what the phone number was of the house I grew up in. I know it 656-2480. My best friend's number? Sure! 676-6213. Kathy from down the street? 656-8962. My own child? Fruit of my loins? Um... there's a 7 in it but that's all I got besides speed dial 3.

Want a pizza? 737-1111. Hurt in a car? Call William Mattar 444-4444. Need new carpets? 800-588-2300 (Empire today!). Embarrassing.

Oh, and remember when all the people in your neighbourhood had the same exchange (that's the first 3 numbers)? Scott recalls a time when asked for numbers, his neighbours just gave the last 4 because his area was so small, it was assumed the first 3 were always 989. You always knew where people lived from their phone numbers.

Here's some trivia I learned: the reason New York and L.A were given the area codes 212 and 213 was because they had higher population density than the rest of the states when they were the first issued. Those numbers were easier to dial on an old rotary phone. No one could dial 999 as a area code without finger cramps. Hey, and whatever happened to 0 for the operator? Does that still even work? I remember using it a lot before call waiting to cut the line when there was a busy signal for too long. My mother hated when I did that.

Anyway, all that to say that I won't remember your number even if you tell it to me 100 times. I'll just store it away in the contacts of my phone. And to be honest, I won't call you anyway. I mean, don't you have Facebook? Sent me a message or an email. Geez. Are you a Luddite or something?

kxx

I love YouTube

I'm just coming up from a black hole of kitten videos, So You Think You Can Dance routines and kids doing parkour to post the favourite video that I've seen in the last hour. I've actually posted it here before but I guarantee no one would remember. It was 2007 or '08 and I don't think anyone has stuck with me that long. Here it is again... enjoy it at your leisure. Have a great weekend, everyone!

kxx

So what did you all do today?

Today I had the great pleasure of hanging with one of my dragonboat teammates. She's so funny and awesome and we often refer to each other as "Chocolate" (Me) and "Mocha" (she's Pakistani). We crack each other up in the boat and finally decided to get together off the water.

When I arrived at her place, she offered me something to eat. I said sure and she immediately started peeling potatoes. Whoa! I told her a was expecting something along the lines of a couple of cookies out of a box or a slice of freezer cake (do they still make those?) but she insisted on cooking. Who am I to argue? So I watched in utter fascination as she almost absent-mindedly made pilau from freaking scratch! Yum!

Then we went to her screening room

I know, right?

to watch a Bollywood movie starring my favourite Indian actor Shah Rukh Khan. This one was a 3 hankie cryfest (on my part... Afshan has a cold heart of stone). I seriously spent 90 minutes of this 3 hour movie in near hysterics. I was so dehydrated when it was done that I needed a Gatorade but I settled for a glass of water. Then to top it off, when we were enjoying our rice and talking about the best parts, I started crying again. And holy crap, typing this I'm welling up again. Crazy. Seriously nuts.

[I took a few minutes here to calm down after setting up that video... seriously, this movie messed me UP]

After the movie she drove me back home but not before a stop at Starbucks for my new favourite thing. A chocolate chai latte. I don't usually hit Starbucks since they used to have only a few sad choices for us tea drinkers but this is worth a detour. Yum. Again.

Then it was back to normal at home for about an hour until my next dragonboat practice. I'm seriously wiped out from all that crying and paddling. I'm going to bed. But it sure was an awesome day.

How was yours?

kxx

Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin...

I've written about the indignities related to aging before. I still can't trampoline without protection. I've also had issues with a brand spanking new ragweed allergy and all the peeing sneezing  that goes with it and it reminded me of the other night.

I was reading in bed and stroking my chin (as one does) and noticed what I thought was a blemish. I started to pick at it (as one does) and started to pull. And pull. To my complete and utter horror, it wasn't a tiny pimple but a hair. A freaking whisker.

I had been in bed about 15 minutes and I was all cosy with my comforter and approaching sleep. After I found that offending nasty hair, I bounded out of my warm bed and raced to the bathroom where I stared into the mirror, pulling on it incredulously. It was unspeakably gross, wiry 3 inch, disgusting beard hair.

Anyway, I rifled through the appliance drawer, desperately looking for tweezers. I found them and yanked that sucker out without a second of remorse. Except for the death of my youth, of course...

kxx

At 2:01 Tuesday I

Was decorating my classroom, getting ready to meet the parents tomorrow. It's shaping up pretty well even though this picture doesn't show it yet!

kxx

Run or Dye

Remember when I said that I'm only running fun 5Ks from now on? That isn't to say I won't run timed races or big races but I really want to enjoy myself and not kill myself training or starve myself to get that runners body. That's why this race was such a scream.

Would you believe this is a 5K? Okay, it was over by then but they had a dance party where you just got covered with paint and partied with hundreds of strangers. I'd definitely recommend anyone do this race if it comes to your town. It was honestly the most fun I've had in ages.

kxx