BlueAir 201

I purchased this air purifier from a website in the US today. I am very excited about this purchase because I'm tired of all of my co-workers 'God Bless'ing me 30-40times a day. I'd be a lot more on board with the whole religion thing if there was someone I could pray to, or light candles to, who would lower my chances of getting hit with crazy customs fees. Fingers crossed!

It's a multi-cultural commute!

There's a big snow storm in TO today. They're advising that everyone stay off the roads if they can. Since I still have to get to work, my solution to this problem is to leave my car, and all that insurance liability, at home and take a cab to work. So, this morning, I got dressed for the elements, called a cab and went outside to shovel some snow until it arrived.
When I got in the cab, my driver was chatting on his cell phone in a language I didn't recognise with a CD hanging from the rearview mirror with Arabic writing on it. The heater in the cab was cranked to 5 million degrees and I started to feel almost immediately that I was going to doze off. But it also got me thinking.
(Now, I don't want to start anyone bitching about cab drivers or immigration, because I'm a big supporter of immigration and I'm greatful to our cab drivers for doing a very dangerous and difficult job. And if anyone says anything that even hints at racism in my comment section I will delete it.)
It just occurred to me how funny it is that almost every single cabbie in Toronto is from a warm weather country and how silly it is that they're the ones who are on the road getting us around 24/7 in hail, sleet and snow. Driving a cab is often the first job an immigrant gets when they come here, and these guys probably never in their lives had to drive in, or even experience, these kinds of conditions before they came here. So it's really a pretty ridiculous situation when I, who grew up here, and learned to cope with these conditions from when I was a little kid, is depending on a guy who has probably been here less than a year to get me around in bad weather. I read recently that the weather condition that causes the most traffic accidents worldwide is sandstorms.
Sometimes, in fair weather I get frustrated with the cabbies for how carelessly they often drive, but on days like today I appreciate the hell out of them and their 5 million degree heaters.

Championship coverage

Here is a link to an article on the championship bout. (I'd like to request that my friends remember that I'm camera shy, and would prefer if you don't comment on the pictures in such a way as to point out which person I am.)

We won!

I'm in pain, and I'm tired, but we won and I am so happy. I don't have any video from the game yet, but I'll post it if I get any.

A Private Hatred

I'm furious with someone. I really want to vent about it. But the problem is that it's not very mature to bitch about someone publicly when it will most likely get back to them.
This kind of brings me to wonder about blogging ethics, what to write, or avoid writing. Is a blog more like gossip on the bathroom wall, or writing an article for a newspaper or keeping a diary? Each kind of writing has different rules.
If the blog is my diary and I slam someone in it, and that person is mad, then is that their problem for reading my inner thoughts? Do you open my blog at your own peril? It can't be like the bathroom wall, because even if I don't have my name attached to this blog really, most of the people who read this know who I am. If it was a diary, then you wouldn't be reading this at all because it would be on a piece of paper in a book under my mattress, with one of those funny little locks on it.
I always admire the way that Linny can talk about her feelings and issues she's having with other people without revealing too much, it's deliciously cryptic. But when I do anything like that it doesn't seem nearly so interesting, perhaps it's just not possible to find oneself interesting?
Anyway, if you're reading this, and you're wondering if it's you that I'm mad at, it's probably not and I wouldn't really worry about it, I'm not planning on sending ninjas to any one's house or anything. I just kind of wish that I believed in an afterlife so that I could believe that the person I'm pissed at would get some kind of punishment for what they've done.

First night out after surgery

As I've already mentioned, I've been staying with my mother since she had surgery 7 weeks ago. My mother's an early to bed early to rise type of person these days. And, that's altered my social life significantly. Saturday was my good friend Neil's birthday. Neil's birthday is always a pretty big event, not something that you could flake out on if you could avoid it. So, I arranged for my mom's friend to come by and serve breakfast and made plans with my lady posse, Miss A and Big D
and the lovely Claire who
was in town for a vacation.
It seemed like a lifetime since I'd been out past 9 pm, and resultantly I had some cash in my pocket, perhaps those two factors led to a certain amount of overindulgence...
We met the party at the Embassy and then headed over to Neutral.
So, I drank too much, I got in a humourous (I thought) arguement with our cab driver on the way down. We got to Neutral and suddenly I felt like I'd walked onto the set of one of my 5 least favourite films of all times, Slacker by Richard Linklater. It was totally excruciating to watch. The sensation kept coming back to me all night. While I was with my friends I was having fun, but as soon as I walked away from them to got to the bathroom or the bar, and had to interact with other people there, the sensation came back. I suppose I was too drunk, and had too big a crowd with me to figure out a plausible exit strategy. It was quite odd, because I normally enjoy myself at Neutral.
The most hilarious part was when a woman came up and struck up a conversation with me. I had no idea why she wanted to talk to me, I'm not even sure what her opening was. If it had been a guy, I would have had my armour on and said something witty and smooth and slightly cutting so he'd get the picture and leave me alone, but, when a woman approaches you, you don't immediately know what she's after. She might be planning to tell you that you have toilet paper on the sole of your shoe or that you've lost an earring. Anyway, this woman started talking to me, and I went along, thinking that I would just find out what she was after. Then, she asked me for my email address. So I gave her my junkmail address, of course, I've never been so drunk that I've given my actual email address to a stranger at a bar.
All week, I kept discovering new reasons not to drink so much. On Sunday, I woke up to find a huge ketchup stain on the front of my new white shirt. Later, I realized that I never said goodbye to Claire at the end of the evening. I told her how to get home and then went back to chatting with my other friends, never acknowledging that I'd enjoyed her company and that I'd probably not see her again.
On Monday, I realized that I'd broken the top button of my favourite jacket in half, not sure how or when or where.
On Tuesday, Ash emailed me pictures of parts of the evening I didn't even remember.
On Wednesday, I suddenly realized that the woman who had struck up the conversation with me at the bar was likely a lesbian and that she'd been hitting on me. Then, I had to admit to my bf that I'd unwittingly given my email address to a lesbian who was hitting on me. Also, with relief, tinged with dismay, I had to acknowledge the fact that the lesbian hadn't emailed me (perhaps I don't still have 'it'?).
Today, I realized that the random friend request that I'd gotten on facebook on Tuesday, and not thought too much about, was from the lesbian, and that I'd made a huge tactical error by giving out my junk email address because it's also the one that's linked to my Facebook account. Fuuuuuck!

OK, so now I need some advice. I'm not really interested in being friends with this woman. She seemed nice enough, but not my kind of person. Also, she's clearly interested in doing stuff that I'm not interested in doing at this hetero/monogamous period of my life. But I don't bear this woman any ill will. Do I ignore the friend request? Do I refuse it? What if I run into this woman again. Do I send her a message and tell her that I'm in an LTR with a dude? I suppose that's the grown-up thing to do? I dunno. Maybe I don't owe this woman anything.
It was pretty embarrassing/dubious telling my bf that I'd given my email address to a lesbian.... If I start an email convo with this woman, I'll have to admit that too.
Jesus Christ!
I'm not vowing to quit drinking... obviously it was going to be a crazy night, Neil's b-day always is.... but next time I'm not going to drink so much that I don't gracefully exit immediately I sense the presence of Richard Linklater.

Update

I've been very absent from my blog lately. It's been a couple of months. My mother fell off a ladder and broke her leg in 5 places and had to get a plate put in surgically. She's not very mobile and her house is the opposite of wheel-chair accessible. So my lovely aunt and I have shacked up with her and are tag-teaming the cooking and cleaning.
It's pretty sucky for my mom to be stuck at home all day. You'd think it's fun to get to lie around and stay home from work and watch TV and read books. But my mother is in pain, she's tired of being at home and she can't do a whole lot.
Thankfully, I have the world's best job and my boss has been really understanding about everything.

29 is divine! 29 is divine!

Since my last post I've turned 29, become a quiz master, and resumed my weightloss competition with my fat friend Ashley.

Turning 29
On CBC radio 1, there's a First Nations advice columnist, she answers letters people write in and her advice is unfailingly sage. Years ago she said that Native people believe that the stages or cycles of life are 7 years long. So every 7 years you enter a new phase. Around my birthday, I started thinking about where I am in life, where I'm going, what's different in my life now... I'm coming up on 30, I've been out of highschool for 10 years (no I don't think I'll be attending my reunion - I didn't like most of those people while I was there, and I don't keep up with more than 3 or 4 of them, and I really don't want to have to explain to the rest of them why I blocked them on Facebook). Anyway, I realized in looking back at things, that I really did enter a new phase of my life last year. I started playing rollerderby, running, started working in a job that I could see myself staying in for a long long time.... it just really seems like a lot has changed for me and for the better too.

Becoming a quizmaster
TT has held a quiz night once a month, for the last year. It's sooo much fun, you end up getting all hot around the collar about the most obscure stuff. I love to let my inner nerd out. Anyway, I had the most points in last year's competition and part of my 'prize' was that since TT is leaving us, I had to become the quizmaster. Last night was my first foray, and while, it wasn't an all around success, it was definitely a good start. Some of the categories were too hard, some too easy. When it was just right I could tell by the excited chatter, the debating. The perfect trivia question is one whose answer you have to deduce or you think you know but you're just not sure that it's right, it really gets you thinking.
Anyway, I already have ideas for questions for the next one, and plans for improving my technique. I'm going to start growing my mustache and then... Alex Trebeck.... watch out... I'm coming for your job!

My fat competition with my fat friend Ashley
Ashley's expanding by the second, it turns out that her failed attempts at losing weight during the last incarnation of the competition were actually successful attempts at maintaining her weight and once the competition ended, she ate her way to gargantuan proportions.
I'm actually not sure whether I gained or lost since we put our competition on hiatus. I have been skating twice a week and running twice a week all summer. So, while, I haven't been weighing myself or watching what I eat (well actually, I have been watching myself eat cake and cookies and fast food by the truckload), my clothes still fit well and I can fit through doorways (which is more than I can say for poor, fat Ashley).
I have to say, and maybe this is going to seem kind of Oprah-ish, but playing derby has altered my body image. I used to exercise and diet for vanity and health. Lately I've started to see my body as a vehicle, a means to an end, I just want to win, and I have to work my body really freakin' hard to make that happen. It's way more motivating. I don't know if my run club realizes this, but I work them waaaay harder when I have a game coming up.

City life can be a kooky experience....

On my way home last night, I noticed a police cruiser on my street, a few buildings away from my own. I didn't wonder too much about what was going on (since this is a common occurance) until I got closer and saw a whole bunch of police tape and the super of the building hosing blood off the sidewalk. I have a friend/acquaintance who lives in this building, so I emailed him to see if he'd heard what was going on, and his response was so hilarious that I just had to post it here word for word.

I wrote:
"What the heck happened outside your place last night? There was police tape all over and someone was out front washing away blood when I was on my way home!"

He wrote:
"It's a pleasure living there, obviously. Thing is, I'm not sure what happened last night.
On the way in last night I saw the police cruisers, the cops, the blood stains, the blown-out panels of glass from one of the front doors, a bun (?), and what I think was a bottle of piss, but, you know, nothing that clued me in to what had gone on.
And that's a bummer since I'm sure the story's pretty wild.
I'll let you know more when I know more."

I'm still giggling. Wacky wackiness.

Another perspective on Jenni

Apparently, this is how the people I work with see me.

The Troll returns

Imagine you have two jobs, each with some upsides and some downsides and one day you go to work and all the downsides of the one job have transplanted themselves to the other workplace and added themselves to the downsides of the other job. That's what happened today and I thought my head was going to explode.

The Troll went to the museum this weekend. The same musuem I volunteer at. I thank Jesus I wasn't there that day. But, I'm not thanking Jesus that I had to listen to her whining about her experience there all day at work today.

Here's the thing, the museum has a new addition. This addition sucks (but maybe not as much as I thought it was going to). The museum is overpriced, I'll be the first one to tell you that the addition sucks and the admission is too much. Usually, when visitors come up to me and tell me this, I let them know diplomatically that I'm not shocked that they said this and that I sypmathize with their situation. Then I tell them who to complain to, where they actually might get some action, rather than just torturing the staff with their complaints. If these visitors are nice people, they'll get my drift and complain to the right person, or let it go. Sometimes someone comes up and complains about these things and you try to sympathize and agree but they just won't let it go - that's where the Troll was today, and I couldn't get away from it.

First she stood by my desk talking to my co-workers about it for at least 45 minutes. I missed about ten of it, because I went to the kitchen to get some tea, actually, just to get away from the conversation, but I got some tea while I was there. Then later, I went to get my lunch in the kitchen and she was in there bitching and moaning about it. Everywhere I went today, she was there. I wanted to give her her 30something dollars back just to get some silence, but I doubt that it would have worked and she probably would have gotten bent out of shape if I'd talked to her at all, so I just tried to go to a happy place.
I bet she made the museum staff miserable, I bet the all talked about her when they were discussing all the especially bitchy people they had to deal with that day when they were locking up.
In the past, when I've had to deal with people like that at the museum, people who were totally unreasonable and intensely snotty, I often wondered if they had family who loved them, co-workers who respected them.... if they were just having a bad day or if they were assholes 24/7.... now I understand.

One of those days

-two buses closed their doors and drove away from me this morning as I
was running towards them trying to get on on my way to work
-mid-morning I decided to go to the coffee shop across
the street for a muffin and a tea. I went to the bank machine to get
some cash, as I had nothing in my wallet, only to discover that no
money at all was available in my account
-I abandoned the muffin-run
to go back and find out where all my money had gone only to find that
my landlord took more than twice the amount of my rent out of my
account and overdrew it by 500 dollars
-I called the landlord to say WTF
and they were completely indifferent and told me to write a letter and
drop it off to them so they could decide what to do about it and the
soonest I could get my money back was in two weeks (what do I do for
cash between now and then? *have you ever been shrugged at over the
phone before? now I have)
-I called my bank, they were much more
sympathetic, but I'm still looking at some pretty hefty bank fees that
I'll have to try to reclaim from the landlord after this whole thing
gets resolved
-I went to the walk-in clinic after work to try to get
someone to get to the bottom of why I have an itchy rash all over my
poor little body, waited for hours, finally got a prescription for a
medication that I could have bought over the counter
-went late to practice, pulled my groin
-couldn't
get my skates off after practice, because of the knot I tied in the
laces and because I couldn't lift my leg with the pain in my groin,
decided to cut the laces, only to find that the scissors I thought were
in my bag got taken out over the weekend
-went to the pharmacy to
pick up my prescription only to find that I might be allergic to the
medication and that the pharmacy didn't have it anyway
-I am now going to try to go to sleep and hopefully tomorrow won't suck so much

Turns out, I'm "That Guy"

Instead of going camping this weekend, I decided to stay home and relax and watch movies. It's been pretty busy lately and I thought I'd be able to get some rest. But the the boyf who normally doesn't want to do anything decided that this weekend was the weekend that we should deal once and for all with the pigeon infestation that we have on our balcony. These pigeons are disgusting, every inch of our balcony is encrusted in their shit, including the intake for our heating and air conditioning - which means that whatever diseases they may have are most surely circulating around our apartment, killing us with every breath we take. So we buy some netting and wood, and spend the entire day putting the stuff up. It's tough work drilling into poured concrete, we took turns and recharged the drill every 15 minutes. Late that night we finally had the whole thing done, when suddenly I saw a streak of light whizzing past our balcony railing. It had to be about midnight at this point, I figured it must just be a one-off, some drunk lighting their last fireworks on the way home. But then there was another one, and another one metres from our nylon, very melt-able, netting. Turns out that some idiots decided it was a good idea to have a midnight to 2 AM fireworks display dangerously close to my building. Finally, at a quarter to two in the morning, I called the super and asked her to go down there and tell them to can it. Her response, "They're following the safety guidelines that were posted in the building."
What? It's 2 in the freakin' morning!
(Out of curiosity, the next morning, I went out to where these guidelines were posted and I checked, sure enough, it didn't say to stay away from structures while setting off your fireworks, and it also didn't say to follow noise bylaws and stop your display before 11 PM. But, it did say make sure someone responsible was in charge of your display, and, seriously, as if any sober, responsible person ever thought it was a good idea to set of fireworks at 1 am... assholes.)
So, I told the super that if she wasn't going to stop it, my next call would be to the police.
So, now, I'm 'that guy'. I didn't want to be 'that guy' but they made me. It was mostly because I was afraid they'd melt my precious pigeon netting, but also, a little bit because I didn't want to be woken by the ambulance sirens when one of them blew their hand off.
I'm starting to think that selling fireworks to just anyone is a mistake, you should have your own barge and a licence, and a million dollars of insurance, before you can do a fireworks display. There are very few people out there who are responsible enough to be able to put on a home fireworks display, and if you were really that responsible, wouldn't you just go down to the lake shore and watch the professional display anyway?

Rick the Mailman

I was just reminded of the nicest story....
When I was a kid, we had a mailman named Rick. He probably had the same mail route for 20 years. He was the nicest guy. When we were kids and we were out watering the garden on hot summer days, Rick would come up and drink out of our hose to cool down. He knew all our names. If he knew when your birthday was, he'd drop off a birthday card for you with the mail. My mom always gave him a bottle of booze at Christmas every year, in case she missed him when he was delivering, she'd leave it in a gift bag in the mailbox for him to find when he made his delivery.
When I was 11 or 12, Rick and his wife won the lottery and he retired. But every so often he would come back and walk his route just to say hi to whoever happened to be out when he was around. I miss that.

California Dreamin'

The boyfriend's brother got married last weekend in LA. So we flew down there to attend the festivities. That couple really knows how to throw a party.
I left on Friday afternoon and met the boyfriend in LA. We stayed in a nice enough cheap hotel in LA's downtown. We were quite close to the nicer hotels where the other guests were staying, but ours was significantly cheaper, and really what do you do in a hotel room but shower and sleep anyway, and for most of that time the lights are off, so what's the big deal with an expensive hotel room. On the other hand, I actually started to wonder after a few encounters with the staff if there was something wrong with them, perhaps the hotel was a sheltered workplace for the mentally challenged or something (I changed that just for you Ash!). For example, when I went down to ask for more pillows, and told them my room was 1255, instead of calling housekeeping, the woman called our room and told us to bring pillows up to 1255. The BF tried to explain to them that we were 1255 and if we had pillows we wouldn't have asked for them. It was more funny than annoying.
The first morning we were there, we went for the rehersal breakfast dim sum. Some of the bride's family were from less multicultural areas and so dim sum is a new thing for them. Normally, when we go out with TT, we take sort of a sink or swim attitude to introducing people to new Asian food experiences. Many readers of this blog have had heard TT yell, "NO FORKS!" at a waiter who was charitably trying to bring forks to our floundering whities at Asian restaurants. Before meeting them, I was threatening I would do this to the bride's family. But when they got there, they were such good sports about the whole thing, even though some of them were really out of their element, that I really had to admire them.
We dropped in at a grocery store after brunch and I just wandered up and down the aisles looking at how much stuff they have for sale there that we just don't get in Canada, so many different kinds of pop. The BF's dad was waiting in the car and I was just wandering up and down the aisles looking at stuff. After that we headed out to a discount shoe store we'd heard about, it was the size of a football field. I bought 3 pairs of shoes, two more practical and one pair of high-heeled leopard-print Steve Maddens that came in very handy later.
Later, while the BF was 'playing videogames' at the bachelor party, I met up with a friend from high school who lives in LA, it was great to see her. It's so nice to be friends with someone you can not see for years and you just pick up where you left off.
The wedding was held at an old art deco hotel in downtown LA called The Oviatt. The wedding was lovely. I really enjoyed it. The theme was picnic, so there were these amazing grassy flower arrangements on the tables and a burger buffet with all the fixin's you could ever hope for, and the dessert table was all cupcakes and glass jars of licorice and candy bars. It was just lovely. It's the kind of wedding I could picture myself having if I ever got married. Elegant without being fussy, and the focus was on fun. The venue was so beautiful, I think that's what really made the evening. I love Art Deco.
And there was a hallway full of signed pictures of Howard Hughes and Leslie Howard (from Gone With The Wind) and other famous people. The original Lalique decorative glass was still there, and some beautiful Deco art. There was even a secret toilet that looked like a chair and a sink that looked like a side table. I love that stuff.
All the pictures in here are from the Oviatt.

A Sad Day

I'm back from LA, the trip was fun. But I returned to some horrible news. Someone I'd met through work was killed on Friday. I didn't hear about till I got back from my trip. It's frightening and sad. Being at the office today was like sitting in the middle of a funeral at a desk trying to work. All the media calls brought up memories of when one of my relatives was killed in a workplace accident several years ago. The whole thing is so awful, I don't even know what to say about it.

Goin' to the evil empire

I'm spending the long weekend in LA y'all. Don't bother trying to break into my place it's being housesat by someone who will probably burn it down or flood it before you even get there with your lock picking tools. I just want to leave you all with a thought:

Given the expected cost of global warming, the Optimum Population Trust in England calculates that the use of a 35-pence condom produces a "9,000,000% potential return on investment.

And that's just the cost of global warming, that's not including the actual cost to the parent. One of my co-workers, who has a child, asked me this morning, how I can possibly afford to take so many vacations. I think she was expecting me to tell her that I sold drugs on the side or something. Instead, I told her about how if you invest in condoms, you get a guaranteed return on investment, ie your paycheque goes directly into your pocket instead of spending it on diapers, and video games and the latest craze in athletic shoes. I don't think she liked my answer.

4:14

Last fall I joined a rollerderby team. In the past I've been a bit skeptical about the whole fitness thing. And, getting into it, I don't think I really considered it a fitness commitment so much as an ass-kicking good time. But the fitness part of this thing is punishing. My feet have been like chopped liver all winter from my skates, practicing in a cold arena is not a good thing with leather skates that get stiffer the colder they are. I spent the winter being obsessed with the temperature of my skates on practice days. When the team started doing endurance training the first one was so rough that one of our team captains threw up.
Since I started last fall my fitness has improved immensely. I can see improvements with every practice, but when the skills and safety testing for the season started looming I started to get scared. The skills and safety testing is for our insurance coverage for the season, if you don't pass the test you don't play. Among other things, we have to be able to skate backwards, jump and land on our skates, and the scary part, skate 5 laps of the track in 1 minute and skate 20 laps of the track in 5 minutes. I've been sweating about this for weeks. The last time I did a trial run on the '5 laps in a minute test', I managed 4 laps in a minute. This was pretty far from the goal.
So I started looking for things I could do between practices to get my speed up. I went running by myself for the first time ever. My maximum heart-rate for that first running expedition, according to my exercise heart-monitoring watch gizmo, was 218 beats per minute. After that, I didn't really feel like going out again, but one of the girls I work with is a big fitness person, so I asked her if she wanted to maybe do some running some time. But then after I asked her, I started feeling self-conscious about the running, so I suggested that we should invite some other people at work who might be interested which turned into a real life Running Club.
Anyway, I've been working my tail off because I'm so afraid of the speed and endurance part of this test. And today it all paid off! I did my test and I got my 20 laps in 4:14, a full 46 seconds to spare. I am over the moon with relief. And... now I'm part of a running club and suddenly very fitness minded when all I really wanted was to kick some ass!

There are some crazy bastards out there!

Sometimes when you live in a city you have encounters that leave you wondering if you've been caught by some kind of hidden camera shows, here's one such tale of something that happened to me earlier this evening....
I have a friend staying with me this week. And tonight I decided to stay home and get to bed early so he went out with some of his other Toronto friends. When he was leaving to meet his crew, I decided to walk him as far as the corner store and get some milk and pop for my evening in.
We had a nice chat as far as the corner, we stopped and hugged, and then I turned to go to the store and he kept going straight. As I was walking away from my friend this older, probably gay, guy in a suit walked out of his way and into my path to lean towards me and said, "No offense, but I don't have any spare change." And walked off. I raised my eyebrows and looked at the only other person within earshot and asked what he thought that was all about. He just looked kind of confused and shrugged.
Did the guy think I was homeless? I wasn't wearing the nicest outfit I've ever left the house in... my gym clothes and a jacket over top. But anyone who has ever read my other blog should know that my gym clothes couldn't be ratty, they don't really get a lot of use. I've been mistaken for a hooker a couple of times, but a panhandler? I usually assume when a john tries to buy my services as I walk over to friends' houses in a bulky winter coat, long pants and flat shoes (or some other similarly unprovocative outfit), that he must assume that any woman walking in a neighbourhood known for the sex trade must be a hooker. I don't know what to think about this guy and his change comment. Even if he did think I was panhandling, as I walked
towards a store not making eye contact with people, have you ever gone out of your way to tell a panhandler that you didn't have any spare change when they didn't ask you for any? I sure haven't.
The only possible reason I can think of for this guy accosting me was that (since I
didn't have any pockets in my exercise clothes) I had my house-keys on one of thosepasscard -holder/necklace-thingies around my neck and they were jingling a bit as I walked. Maybe it sounded like change to him? I dunno. Thoughts? Anyone?