Well my new plates were here waiting for me when I got home from work last night. And luckily I had arranged for a vacation day today, because I had to go over to the Ministry with the old and new plates to do all the paper work involved in putting the new plates on and transferring what was left on my year’s sticker.

I thought, because it was a government office, that they all opened at 8:15 or 8:30, so I headed over for 8:30. Well they don’t open til 9:00, so I had to sit there for half an hour and wait.

As I was sitting in my car, a line-up started to form, which only pissed me off because I had already been waiting longer than those people. I think you should get a ticket or something to wait in your car and then they can call your number – like in all other government offices.

I did notice this woman in line who was so skinny, I think her girth was about the size of my thigh. I can’t even imagine being that skinny. I don’t even think my kids were ever that skinny when they were babies. I wonder where she gets her clothes. She must have to stop in a kid’s department somewhere. And it’s not like she was short, so she’d have to find adult length with kid sized waists. Is that a size zero? I’ve seen size zero before and they looked bigger than she did.

Anyway, my new personalized plates are on the car. New car, new plates. Everything’s looking good. Now I’ll have to take it for a car wash, inside and out.

I forgot to tell you one of the reasons I had such a good sleep the other night at The Royal York Hotel.

Apparently, my snookey got up in the middle of the night to go to the washroom. While in the washroom he fell asleep. When he woke up, he made a wrong turn, and he walked out into the hotel (outside our room). The door shut, of course, as soon as he was out, and so he was out there by the elevators in his underwear, wandering half asleep.

When he finally got with it and realized he was out in the middle of a hotel floor, he found a phone and called to the security desk. They sent two big black burly guys up to the floor. He told them that his wife had arranged this for his birthday and they asked where his wife was – to which he responded, “asleep in the room”.

They opened the hotel room and I was in there sleeping alright. They let him back in the room… probably because he looked so cute in his little stripey underwear.

So it was quite the interesting night for him. I slept right through it. I’m glad we weren’t on the first floor somewhere where he’d be wandering around the lobby

So I decided to go off to the doctor’s this morning and get that note so I can get the ergo chair at work. I figured I’d get the note whether I actually go for the chair or not – just to be safe.

I got to the clinic around 10:00, the place was already packed. I put my name in, they told me it would be at least an hour’s wait, so I headed off to Wimpy’s and had some breakfast.

That only took about half an hour so I walked down the plaza to Rogers and rented a movie. I hope I haven’t seen it already.

I went back to the doctor’s office, put on my iPod and waited another half hour til they took me into the doctor’s office (aka little waiting room), where I waited another 15 minutes.

Then a doctor came in. I said, “where’s my family doctor?” and this female doctor said, “this is a clinic, you see all the doctors”.

I said, “no, the other doctor asked me if I’d like her to be my family doctor. So what was that all about if I’m just going to see any doctor?” This doctor said, “would you like me to get her for you?” and I said, “no, I have no intention of waiting any longer”, to which she walked out and I sat there waiting for my ‘family’ doctor.

I got my note. I left.

But WyTF is it that her assistant asked if I’d like her to be my family doctor, and since then, every time I’ve gone there, I’ve seen some other doctor? Just what is this family doctor thing?

After two hours of my time I then went and strolled through Costco. I thought the walking might be good for my back, and I almost bought a couple of things. That is, until I saw the line up at the cash.

I’m afraid I spent a little too much time already today, waiting. I wasn’t about to wait any more. I left the stuff in the cart and walked.

Yesterday, while my snookey and I were on our ‘walkies’, we passed a house that was for rent.

I’d love to have a house with a backyard where we could barbecue, but the prices are too steep, especially considering how our 3-bedroom apartment is cheaper than most 2-bedrooms in Toronto.

Anyway, I had my cellphone with me in my little pouch, so I decided to call the real estate agent to see how much they were asking for rent.

I called and told the girl that I was calling about X house on X street and the girl asked me if I could hold – to which I said, “I’m on my cellphone”, just so she’d clue in that this was using up my minutes and I didn’t really want to hold.

She said that she’d have to look up the agent’s number to page him and would I “hold for a second”. So I said sure.

I heard the beep indicating that one minute had already gone by, and I was counting while I was waiting for my ‘second’.

After 44 seconds she came back on the line and I said, “that was 44 seconds”. Then she said, “well, if you’re going to give me attitude…” and I don’t know what else she was going to say because at that point I said, “fuck off” and hung up.

I don’t know why a receptionist at Royal LePage thinks that I don’t have the right to say that she took 44 seconds of my cellphone time. How is that attitude? Seems factual to me. Stupid bitch.

Yes, on the windiest night of the year, I’ve gotta drag myself downtown for a meeting. One of those 2nd Wednesday of every month type of meetings. If it wasn’t for the fact that I think I’ve only gone to one other meeting this year, I probably wouldn’t go tonight either. Let’s hope it’s not a complete waste of my time.

Now I have to run out and see if all the shows I watch on a Wednesday (WvTF they are) are on record.

I hate going out after I get home from work. I used to be such a ‘go-out’ kinda guy, and now I just want to come home, get my clothes off, slip into my robe and do whatever inside my comfy home all night.

Once those clothes come off, they don’t usually go back on. So that means if I’ve run out of something, guess who’s gotta go get it (guess that it’s not me).

So I don’t have much to say except, ta ta. Heading off into the monsoon now.

I went in to work for half the day – mostly cleaning up any mess that was left for me and trying to make sense of what was done in my absence.

Then I had a dentist appointment at 12:00 until 2:00. I had 3 fillings done – she wanted to replace old, silver fillings and that was just on the top left of my mouth. I’ve gotta go back and do the bottom left in a couple of weeks. I don’t want to go too soon and have my boss thinking, “Christ, is she ever at work?”.

The bill for those fillings was $451 (make sure you get that $1.00). I didn’t pay for it. I told the girl I never pay – send it to my plan and see if I owe anything. Like I’d be paying $451 for fillings myself.

The only reason I scheduled this dentist appointment was because the year is almost up and our benefit plan is an annual one, so I figured I’d get as much as possible done on this year’s plan so I’d have next year’s plan free for more stuff.

Anyway, after we talked about whitening, which is my plan when I come into some money (I haven’t checked my lottery ticket yet but I’m feeling quite anticipatory), I headed off to my next appointment – the doctor. I needed to check whether my toe is broken or sprained.

Apparently my toe is broken, so he shipped me off to the hospital for x-rays to make sure it wasn’t fractured. Before he did that though, he made sure to give me a flu shot. I’ve never had a flu shot. And I found it strange that I went in for a broken toe and came out with a flu shot.

I did finagle my way into seeing the doctor first though. Today is walk-in day and I had called this morning to see if I could see someone. They told me that the walk-in doctor started at 3:30, so I said I’d come at 3:30.

When I got there (at 3:30) they told me that I’d have to wait, probably til about 6:30. I put up quite the argument on this one. “You told me to come at 3:30! I left work early to come here for 3:30! I am not sitting around for 3 hours when you told me to come at 3:30!” Luckily for me, the other girl who works there and who I’ve seen every other time I was there, did a little calming, and told the other girl that I could probably see the doctor first. That’s what I wanted to hear. Thank you. That was better than my dentist, who was 20 minutes late.

When she was 20 minutes late, I said to her, “you’re late. 20 minutes. I could have stayed and worked another half hour”, to which she apologized, which is all I want to hear when someone’s late.

Why? I can’t stand people being late for stuff. If I make the effort to show up at my appointments on time (usually even early), I expect others to be on time for me. To me, it’s a matter of courtesy and professionalism.

Needless to say, after I’d gone to the hospital and had my x-rays, I was still hanging out there for about 2 hours. I asked if they could just phone me with the results and they said, ‘no, they don’t do that’. I had a big decision to make – was I going to waste my entire night away waiting at the hospital or was I just going to go home.

I walked. I don’t care whether my toe is fractured or not, and I don’t care to spend 2 or 4 or 6 more hours sitting around a hospital, so my broken toe and I came home. There’s not much they can do for a broken toe any way.

Now I’m going to put away the laundry that my snookey did today, then I may or may not finish off a necklace I’m making. I’ve got 2 or 4 or 6 hours to spend just doing WvTF I feel like doing.

Last night we headed off to Yorkdale to see Colin and Justin (from HGTV’s Home Heist) who were doing a book signing.

We watch their show (and their previous shows) all the time. They’re so amusing, light-hearted, Scottish and naughty, so we couldn’t resist heading over to Yorkdale and buying their book and having the opportunity to meet them in person.

And let me tell you they were very gracious. They not only signed people’s books with whatever they wanted them to sign, but they also hugged and did pictures with whomever wanted them and I even got a nice arm around me during our little photo shoot.

Nice guys. I had fun and enjoyed myself. So did my snookey and my daughter. And now I’ve got a book of tips for my own home (so that I don’t misdecorate it).

I’m off work tomorrow on two courses – jewellery courses. One is just an hour at 9:00, but 9:00 way downtown. So you know I’m gonna have to wake up at 6:00, like usual, to get ready in time.

I can’t even remember how much parking costs down at the Convention Centre, but I think I’m outta luck with my credit card, so I’ll need to get some cash together.

Then at 10:00 I’m on an all day, for the rest of the day course. I better effing learn something. I hate when I take these courses and you have the big yakky instructor, telling you all about her life and here’s what happened one day, and a funny thing happened, and wait til you hear this.

Just show me how to do the stuff I’m paying for and shut the fuck up. I’m such a people person.

Tomorrow night I’ll be racing home to get everything ready for the show on Saturday. Thankfully it’s the last show of the year. Then I’m going to look at going into boutiques for sales. I can’t quite handle these outdoor shows. Pray that the weather is nice (as it’s supposed to be).

Talk at ya later. I might need to make a little more jewellery right now. Or play Zuma. Maybe Wolfenstein… I reinstalled that on my computer, it’s like a brand new game again.

Well, today, boys and girls, I did my first jewellery show INDOORS! There was No wind, (No wind) no rain, (no rain), Nor winter’s cold, Can stop me, babe (oh, babe) baby (baby)
If you’re my goal. Without elements, I had no worries.

With that said, let me tell you what it’s like to stand for most of the farging day. Tiring, very tiring. I’m used to sitting almost all day, staring at a computer. Now I was staring at people all day. Maybe not ‘staring’, maybe gazing lovingly into their eyes as I told them that “that’s sterling silver, that’s rose quartz, that one’s jasper and rhodocrosite”, and they lovingly responded back… “is that the best price you can do?”

I took a vacation day from work to do this show and I’m going to do it again in August. And it’s funny how the first part of the morning I felt really nervous and stilted – I guess my inexperience showing here. I suppose there was some fear that ‘maybe no one will like my stuff’. However, people bought stuff. Certainly not as much as my MUCH cheaper cohort, but then she’s not making all her own jewellery. She buys really cheap stuff and sells it for about a 500% mark up which still comes out fairly cheap. I know this cuz she took me to one of the stores she buys from and I saw the prices.

I guess what pissed me off a bit was the fact that some people weren’t buying my stuff because of the price, but they headed right to her dollar store stuff and bought a bunch.

That tells me that people don’t really give a flying fig about whether you’re using gemstones or not, whether it’s sterling silver or not, they care about, “wow, I can get 10 pairs of dollars store earrings for $20″.

I had a decision to make and that was, do I continue making quality, hand-made jewellery and not charging that much for it and maybe making fewer sales, or do I buy some really cheap stuff somewhere else and sell it relatively cheap while still making a great profit on it. I asked myself that question and I think the answer I came up with was that I enjoy making the jewellery, not buying other jewellery to sell.

And with that said, I can’t complain about the money I made today since it was twice as much as I made the last time I did one of these shows. But what I will say is that I have two more shows scheduled to do. It’s a lot of work and expense to prepare for while having a full-time job as well. After the next two shows are done I may decide that I only do website sales or private shows. Christ knows that it’s a big job just trying to keep the website semi- up-to-date, at least 20 of the items I brought today weren’t up there.

I have some thinking to do, most of it about just how much work I can do in my lame little life, or how much I want to do. The biggest problem with me is that my hobby is working on something, so if I’m not working on stuff, I’m bored. I’ve just been going overboard lately. Could I acclimatize to that or is it just too much? I guess I’ll find out. Christ knows I’m old.

You know we’ve been on the South Beach diet again. So far I’ve lost 5 pounds and my snookey has lost 10 – in a week and a half. Not bad. I’d like another 5, so I guess we’ll see.

However, today we had a farewell lunch for a coworker and the place we were going to was a dim sum place. I, in all my worldliness, have never eaten dim sum. And let me tell you, I don’t want to eat it again.

Aside from the fact that everything was deep fried, I had to pull off wrappings from every bit of food there… except for the scallops – which were breaded!

The food tasted as if it had been boiled. Imagine the taste of yummy boiled meatballs. Mmmm, mmmm. It was crap. And I had to cough up $9 for it. I think I had a meatball, a scallop, two little round things of tofu and that was my $9 lunch. All just to show my team spirit; I barely knew the guy.

Needless to say, when I get off this diet or decide to cheat one night, I am gonna have me some good tasting food. Even if it’s chinese food, I’m gonna go get something decent tasting. And at the same time I was sitting around this big table with everybody talking about how good the food was. Ya, good.

We went out for dinner tonight to Satay on the Road (on Avenue Road). I was meeting up with the woman who hired me on my last job and her husband.

It was nice to see them again after about a year since I worked at the other place. They were both looking pretty damned good.

Unfortunately, they’d just gotten their car towed before they were supposed to come to meet with us, so they arrived separately while the husband tried to find out where his car had been taken to.

The food at the restaurant was ok. It was a thai place and I like a few thai places but even though this one wasn’t too far from our home, I don’t think I’d go there again.

I found there was way too much lemon grass in the food, and cilantro(maybe?). I think it was cilantro in the food and maybe ginger, but whatever it was it wasn’t impressing me with the flavour.

My snookey paid for the dinner even though they offered, but I told them that next time they had to pay and we were going some place really expensive. I don’t know if that’ll happen any time real soon since it took us a year to get together this time.

What I’d like best is to go to their place. They live around Yonge & Eglinton (almost the heart of downtown for those of you not from here) and have access to a rooftop pool. Not that I feel like swimming or anything, but I’d love to take some pictures from up there at night – or even the day. I’ll have to weasel myself an invitation.

Anyway, we’re home now and it’s time to relax and drink copious amounts of beer. Going out is nice for a change but it’s good to be home and kick off.

it’s like standing still, only faster.

Tonight we went for our free dance lesson and it was a bit of fun. Our next free lesson is next Friday evening at 7:45. If we sign up for the lessons we get to join in to the dance studio’s Friday dance party at 9:00.

What did we learn? We kinda learned a rhumba step. I say kinda because neither of us were mastering that circle-y thing too well. When I remembered the circley thing, I forgot the steps, and when I remembered the steps, I forgot the circle-y thing.

It was a bit of amusement. Bobby was our instructor and he seemed like a nice enough guy. Not the least bit homophobic since he and my honey were having a gay old time ← (what else am I gonna say?) dancing with each other.

If we sign up for lessons (they wanted us to choose tonight, but we’re gonna do the other free lesson before we decide) we get a new student discount of 40%, which means that 8 lessons would cost $400 and something or 4 lessons would be $220. I guess that’s not a lot of money. We’ve got to weigh the pros and cons:

Pros:
It’s a bit of exercise.
It’s a bit of amusement.
It gets us away from our computers.
It’s something different for us to do.

Cons:
It costs money.
We’d have to drive downtown from Markham.
Parking is iffy down there, we had to find a meter and that wasn’t easy.
We’d have to trust my daughter to stay home and do her homework.
Would we remember any of these dance steps with the number of times we go dancing.
We never go dancing.
Who really gives a flying shit about dancing.

So we haven’t decided whether we will sign up for lessons or not. Apparently, my snookey took ballroom dancing lessons with his ex wife and by the time they got around to dancing again they’d both forgotten what the lessons had taught them.

We never go dancing. We don’t even go to weddings (anyone we know is old and not getting married). We don’t even go to funerals where there might be a dancing wake afterwards – we have no friends.

And yet we’re still wondering whether or not we’ll choose to sign up for lessons. I guess we’re just strange. But strange in a nice way. Right?

Last night my snookey decided to take me to dinner at Wimpy’s. Usually this place has a line-up going out the door but not yesterday, probably because we got off work 45 minutes early so it ws only around 5:00 when we went.

This is the same place we went a few weeks ago and I had liver and onions for dinner. It was good but way too much food, I think I left more than half my meal there. They have a bunch of locations, but this one at Bathurst & Sheppard seems good – they’re not all the same.

We were sitting in a booth when this woman and her two kids came in to sit beside us. The woman was a real skag. She had died blonde hair (kinda golden from a mix of dyes) and camouflage hip-hugger capris with a short camisole. Needless to say, the short top with the low capris left her whole roll of fat hanging out for a muffin top… a muffin top that had a piercing in her navel. Put that together with her fake tan and you’ve got the whole picture.

The woman said something to her kids about going to the bank machine and so she left the two kids there (had to be about 8 and 11 by the look of them).

As I sat there half looking at them, didn’t the older kid take his gum out of his mouth and glue it to the bottom of the dinner table. Yes, I saw that.

So I said, “Hey!, get that off there!”, and the kid, knowing exactly what I was talking about, pulled his gum off the bottom of the table. Some waitresses were walking by so I said, “scuze me, can you get this kid a napkin so he doesn’t stick his gum to the bottom of the table again?” and the one waitress said, “there are napkins on the table, right up there on the jukebox”. “Oh, thank you”, said I.

So I told the kid to wrap his gum in a napkin and he did.

The skag finally came back and they ordered their meal. Neither kid said anything at all about the gum ‘incident’. I don’t know if they were embarrassed about it or if they were waiting for me to leave so they could talk about the nosy woman next door. Either way, at least we got the gum off the bottom of the table.

My meal was the hot hamburger with onion rings and vegetables. It was very good… good gravy, but of course it was too big again. This time I took half my meal home and I’ll be having that (or at least part of it) for dinner tonight.

So I told you how we were heading off for The Donald thingie last night to get the free Donald book.

They told us to be there at 6:30 for registration, since it started at 7:00. When we got there at 6:30 there was already a line-up going around a big ballroom.

Funny thing, one of the first people in line was a guy named Chad who I was on a course with. Nice to see you, Chad, small world. He didn’t save us a spot at the front of the line.

We waited, they made us fill out these little cards, and then after a little chatting with our fellow lineupees, we happened to ask, “does anyone know how long this thing is supposed to last?” and one of our cohorts said, “three hours”, she’d read online. We had figured maybe an hour, maybe an hour and a half.

When we heard that it would be three hours long, this was my first reaction:
Download audio file (what.mp3)

Play that again and again.

Three stinking hours? We looked at each other. I said, “I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel like spending three stinking hours here”, and we decided to leave. Then the guy who handed us the little cards was approaching and we asked, “is this thing 3 hours?”, to which he responded, “maybe three-and-a-half”.

Well, boys and girls, I don’t care if it’s free. I don’t care three and a half hours worth of my time. And the funny thing is, Mr. Trump is so important. He is so important that I heard the card guy earlier telling someone else that The Donald charges $1 million for an hour of his time.

You know what I think about that? I think it’s fucking ridiculous. The Donald is only semi-literate for crying out loud. Who in their right mind is so caught up in themselves that they think one hour of their time is worth $1 million? It was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard in my life.

So we didn’t go. We didn’t get the free book. And we didn’t buy into WvTF it was they were gonna try and sell us at the end of the night – cuz you know damned well that we would have had to stay the whole session in order to receive our free book.

Who are we? Tonight we’re headed off to the Westin Prince Hotel, to have a listen to Donald Trump (I assume it’s him recorded) doing a “Way to Wealth” seminar.

Aren’t we special? We will soon unlock all the secrets to becoming wealthy. And then I will laugh at all the poor people, like I once was. And still am. But not for long, because I will have The Donald’s secrets.

Ok, they’re giving a free book. That’s why I’m going. Plus the seminar is free. Eh, it’s something different to do.

Our plan for today was to go downtown to the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition and see what they had to see. A friend of ours has a booth there (booth white 11) and we wanted to go see what new stuff he’d done.

However, with that said, about 10 minutes ago some big thunder started happening, then, of course, the rain started pouring down. Of all these days where the weather station said it was going to pour all day, for days in a row, it never happened. We’d have a little 15-minute rainfall and then it would be muggier and just plain ookey outside.

Now, when I didn’t see any prediction of rain, and the only time that we want to go somewhere with an ‘outdoor’ event, it has to start effing pouring – and the kind of pouring that doesn’t look like it’s gonna let up soon.

Isn’t life just like that? Well, I suppose it’s not all bad news in life. My snookey just got a new job at the big, beautiful company that I’m known to inhabit. He’ll start there in another week, just when I’ll be away on some training. He won’t know where to park! He won’t know where I usually park. Oh, so many things to get him up to speed on.

In other news, last night we rented Black Snake Moan. I’d seen a trailer for it and figured we’d rent it if we were hard up for a movie, but this one wasn’t too bad. I suppose it was a ‘feel good’ movie because it ends up with the happy ending.

It’s about our hero (Samuel Jackson) just splitting up with his wife because she found life with a younger man (our hero’s younger brother). He’s a farmer. On his road he sees a woman passed out and beaten up and decides to help her by taking her inside.

The woman (Christina Ricci) is the town slut. We find out that the slutdom started off with some abuse by the mother’s boyfriend at the time and grew from abuse to a craving for recognition through sex (while out of it for the most part). She had a boyfriend, Ronnie (Justin Timberlake – I thought it looked like him but had to look it up to be sure) who enlisted in the Forces to try to make something out of himself, but as soon as he’s gone she feels abandoned and unloved and goes off on a mission to get laid.

Our hero ends up chaining the woman in his house in order to save her from herself. From there you get the bond happening and then the happy ending.

It wasn’t bad. I spent the first half of the movie thinking, “WTF is wrong with her?”, knowing that what I thought would be the answer, was. But we got into it, and at least it wasn’t all preachy.

Tonight I’m going to the theatre, dahlings. I got free tickets. I hope the show is good. I don’t remember going to see any other musicals other than Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and that was years ago.

So we’ve got to get something for dinner and be there in time for the reception, where someone from my work will be giving a little speech about being a proud supporter, yada yada yada. We get a free drink and free coatcheck too, although with the weather here today, I don’t know how much we’ll need a coat. I suppose I should wear one just to take advantage of the free coat check.

That’s what I’m up to. I don’t have much time, reception starts at 7:30 and we’ll probably have to leave by at least 7:00, maybe 6:30. I have no time. I gotta go.

If you’re blue and you don’t know where to go to why don’t you go where fashion sits….

Ya know, I’ve gotta stop visiting other people’s blogs before I write my daily post, cuz I start leaving comments on others’ sites and then I feel like I’ve written something already.

My honey took the day off work today just cuz he felt like it. Said he was tired and so he went back to bed. Oh tired are we? Well me bucko, others are tired too but we don’t get to take the day off work and sleep. There’s the problem, if I decided one morning that I wasn’t going in to work because I was tired, you know damned well that I wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep. Stinking no-sleep-ins for me.

So tonight we went out to dinner. Down the street they’ve opened up a new Fox and Fiddle and so we went to check it out. Apparently Tuesday is Two-for-One Wing Night so guess what we had? A hamburger. No, no, we had the wings of course, maybe they have a hamburger night, who knows?

The wings were huge, thank God the wings came by weight (as in a pound) or we would have had too many. They were ok. The house special “buffalo butter” sauce was not the least bit flavourful, spicy or hot as the waitress told us it was so we then asked for some hot sauce. She brought us what she said was their hot wing sauce but just tasted like tabasco to me. We used it for dipping sauce since the wings were a bit dry, but overall they were still better than St. Louis Bar & Grill’s wings which are really dry and pathetically small and overcooked.

We learned that there were pool tables downstairs so we headed down there. I asked the waitress what kind of tables as in, ‘bar tables, regular tables, snooker tables’ and she told us that they were regular tables so we expected to have a good game of 8-ball. Instead they were bar tables, so weeny that we played pathetically. I guess it doesn’t help that we haven’t played in so long (perhaps years, perhaps a year, I can’t remember), however, if I hadn’t been driving I would have had more beer (I had one) and probably would have warmed up to the pool game.

When we were leaving I still didn’t drive. Funny, I felt like I had a bit of a buzz from one beer, so I got my honey to drive.

I figured that since the place was relatively close (as in, we could hop on one bus to get there or to get home) so we could very possibly make it “our bar” since we haven’t really gone out to the bars for years like we used to go every Friday night.

Once public places implemented the ‘no smoking’ rules, we pretty much didn’t want to go to any of them cuz we couldn’t smoke there. Now that we don’t smoke, we can go anywhere we want. Speaking of smoking, geez I’d love a smoke right now and forever. 10 weeks of not smoking. Stick the fucking not smoking up yer ass. I like to smoke.

So anyway, we’re home now and I’m gonna wash off my makeup then watch American Idol. I was gonna do the birthday boink with my honey – still haven’t done that since his birthday last week since my daughter was staying for the week and then yesterday my honey was with his kids. The dinner plans kinda ruined the birthday boink. Perhaps tomorrow.

We had a not bad time at Yuk Yuk’s last night. The host was amusing and a couple of the comedians had some good spots – not all the way through, but enough to put a smile on our faces. The only bad one there was Kenny Robinson.

I may have mentioned this before, but I first saw Kenny Robinson about 15 or 20 years ago in Niagara Falls, where a new Yuk Yuk’s had opened up. He was hilarious then. I was on my honeymoon (2nd husband) and Kenny had me in tears, he was so funny.

So what happened to him? Seems he was trying to be a little political amidst talking about how his daughter is never going to be picked up by any rapist because she’s rude. I don’t know how many imitations of kid rudeness he did but, Kenny…. hmm, not funny.

When I found out he was going to be the middle act I was a little disappointed because I’d seen him over the years on TV and he wasn’t funny then either. But then I got hope and thought back to 15-20 years ago, and hoped I might be in luck – maybe Kenny had gotten funny again. Alas, he hasn’t.

Regardless, we had a good time going out. We were going to head off to play pool and go to Alia afterwards, but as we walked out the door a big slushy snowstorm was going on (we, of course didn’t wear boots yesterday cuz the weather’s been so nice), and it was cold and ooky so we decided to just jump into the car (covered in ice) and go home, cozy up with our big woolly robes on and have some more cold beer.

I caught up a bit with my son who had kindly agreed to stay with my daughter last night, and then his date showed up for them to leave.

The funny thing was that his date lit up a cigarette in the house. I didn’t mind the smell but then I kept thinking about our new rules where we weren’t going to let anybody smoke in the house (remember that ceiling picture?) and so I asked her to put it out.

She seemed aghast, “you want me to put it out?!?” After my momentary silence and staring, I said, “yes, we just quit smoking a few weeks ago”. My son then said that he’d been smoking in the house all evening, but we hadn’t smelled it since we went straight into the computer room anyway, I guess. I found it strange though that she hadn’t asked us if she could smoke (although I think she asked my son, however, this is not my son’s house), and we asked her to put out the cigarette and instead of saying, “oh, sorry, yes, of course, no problem”, she did the, “you want me to put it out?!?” thing.

I think it was hard enough for me to see the pack of my son’s cigarettes sitting on the coffee table without me asking if I could have one (or sneaking one out of the pack), never mind me breathing in someone else’s smoke.

So that was our exciting evening. The snow didn’t amount to much so I guess it didn’t last too long. Today perhaps a photo shoot if it’s not too cold out. Perhaps not.

Ok, so yesterday’s post doesn’t actually count as a post, but so farging what… I didn’t see you posting.

I had quite the day today. I’ve told you about how I bought a new car battery. And then took it back after it wouldn’t start two days later, so I exchanged it.

Friday, my car wouldn’t start yet again, so I took my honey’s car to work. Today we took my car over to the mechanic’s place (the guy who did my e-tests) and asked for a new starter. I figured it was the starter cuz someone told me that if your lights and beeping noise go on, it’s the starter and not the alternator. They were right. Cuz we called CAA the other night, he whapped the starter a couple of times with a metal pipe and then it started. He told us it was the starter.

So after going to the mechanic’s, we had to go to the auto parts store. They didn’t have a starter, said they’d have one by Tuesday. So we went to Canadian Tire. They said they’d order one in from another store and would have it by Tuesday. So we went to Napa (car parts) and they actually had one in and it cost $233, but if you brought back the old starter, they refunded $66 + tax, so that’s what we did.

We brought this over to the mechanic who was ONLY charging us $60 (cash) to replace the starter. However, he said afterwards, “have a look at this coil spring on the passenger side, that is very dangerous, you must replace that”. And he was right. The stinking coil spring was broken. I’ve been driving around with a broken coil spring on one side.

So I spent half a lifetime trying to get ahold of someone at the dealer’s but the best they could do was Tuesday for a coil spring. The mechanic got hold of another dealer who could bring it to him by Monday and so I left my car there to pick up fixed on Monday for another $80 for the coil spring and $80 for the installation.

That was one fabulous day, wasn’t it? Considering the fact that I just got paid on Thursday, and that just paid off my overdraft with a little to spare, but I had to use that to buy my mother’s birthday presents, and now all this stinking car shit, I tend to wonder how I ever end up NOT in the hole. What am I saying… I’m always overdrawn.

Anyway, tonight is my mother’s birthday dinner. What a treat. I got her some more pajamas, and some underwear, and some socks that aren’t tight around the legs (cuz apparently there’s some problem with that), and loads of different types of candy (from my daughter) to give her.

Let’s hope that the meal is half decent cuz it’s certainly going to be boring.

BTW, my car sounded so farging powerful once that starter was replaced. That was one of the healthiest sounding cars I’ve heard in a while. I’m actually looking forward to driving it when I get it back. My beautiful car. No cheap date there, let me tell ya.

When you’re alone and life is making you lonely
You can always go – downtown
When you’ve got worries, all the noise and the hurry
Seems to help, I know – downtown
Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city
Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty
How can you lose?

The lights are much brighter there
You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares
So go downtown, things’ll be great when you’re
Downtown – no finer place, for sure
Downtown – everything’s waiting for you

This is one of the pictures I took last night when we went downtown to the housewarming party. I had a great time and got to take some spectacular night shots. Too bad these pictures were with my old Kodak camera. I didn’t bring my new camera cuz I didn’t want anyone stepping on it, or spilling beer on it, or knocking into it.

I also didn’t remember to bring a tripod with me, but someone was nice enough to lend me his tripod (you’ll have to keep in mind that almost all at this party were photographers – and I mean ‘real’ photographers, not like me who doesn’t have a clue).

I’ve gotta get invited back there to get some shots with my new camera and my own tripod. I like my tripod better even though it’s one of those mini ones that expands and is not as heavy as the other guy’s tripod. Mine has an arm to manoeuver the shot – his just had a bolt that you had to tighten and loosen all the time to switch positions.

Anyway, I had fun. It was nice to see a few people I knew (not many, mostly strangers there) and meet some new folks – who of course were almost all younger than me. Who wouldn’t be younger than me? Only dirt is older, let me tell ya.

I drank 3 or 4 beers, we only brought a six-pack and someone drank one of them and my honey had two so I tried two of the host’s beer. Oook, that Steam Whistle beer, fuck that is one horrible after-tasting beer. I’d be happy never to try that one again. I tried one other kind that I’d never heard of and can’t remember the name of. It was at least better than Steam Whistle.

We wore our new Zazzle t-shirts, regardless of the quality. I wasn’t paying all that money to get what I wanted and then send them back. But that leads me to more interesting news.

I got an email from Ken, at Zazzle, telling me that if I wasn’t satisfied with the product that Zazzle happily accepts returns. I told him that I had already ripped my shirt – and I had when I was pulling that too-tight shirt on I ripped the bottom of the seam a bit, but he told me that I could return it anyway if I wasn’t happy with it.

You know, that sounds like good customer service. If I hadn’t had to wear the t-shirt last night (the whole stinking reason I made the shirts was for the party), I would have returned the shirts on Monday. However, they won’t be returned now. I’ll sew the rips in the one I wore, and by the time I wash it, it will probably shrink, and if we’re lucky it may fit my daughter then. We’ll see. Otherwise I guess I’ll be throwing the stinking thing out.

I’m going to try Cafe Press. I had ordered stuff from there before and was quite happy with their service (mugs and plain t-shirts), I just can’t remember if they also have that extra (exorbitant) customs charge for ordering.

Lyndon, I did check out Threadless, but it looks like it’s a competition and you can just have one product up there for which you’re competing with others to buy. I’m not really into that kinda thing, I just want to create products and sell them and maybe wear them and give them to friends or family, and I want a bunch to choose from, so now I’ll try Cafe Press.

If none of this stuff works out, I know a guy who has a dollar store downtown who will make custom t-shirts and they’re certainly not $40/shirt – all I have to do is give him the graphics, just like all these online stores. Christ knows I could create a script or put a shopping cart on my own damned site and sell my own stuff since I do know a supplier, so WTF am I doing paying over $80 for stinking t-shirts when I could do this crap on my own?

Anyway, enough yathering. A cigarette would go nicely right now but I’m having a beer instead… same hand to mouth action almost (except for that inhaling and exhaling part). We have been so good and I’m proud of both of us for making it to this, our one week anniversary of quitting *woohoo*. Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t love one right now though.

I was so damned busy today you’d think I had a job or something.

It started off with me meeting with my accountant at 10:00 to do all the tax stuff. But apparently he made a mistake in a few of those years’ returns and so I had to do them all over again. Let me tell you, I can’t write. I can type up anything, but writing… my hand starts to cramp up after I’ve written my signature. So 6 years of tax returns did not sit well. I was there until about 2:30 in the afternoon.

Then I came home and wrote the letters to the various tax agencies, provincial and federal, to send off with the returns tomorrow.

Then my honey and I went over to the Unemployment office but who knew that they got today off as a holiday? Not me. So much for that great plan.

Then we headed off to vote. I tried very hard to remember who it was I had decided on and I know that I got at least two of them right. The third person is a little iffy.

Then we came home and got us some. Then we headed off to the beer store and while we were there, my honey treated us to some Subway subs. I took the special, which was only $2.99 for a 6-inch meatball marinara (eh) and he had a steak and cheese full sub which tasted better than mine – I know, cuz he let me taste it.

Now we’re home and I’m going to look for jobs online. Last night I started looking for smaller apartments because I’m thinking that maybe we have to give up the 3 bedrooms of luxury and go down to something smaller. And if that happens, we’ll probably also have to have a contents sale because we have so much damned stuff.

It would be very difficult to move into a small place, even when I think of how many clothes I’ve got and how they now currently occupy all the bedroom closets in 3 bedrooms, I don’t know how we’ll manage. Furniture is no problem, but when I think of how my dining room suite is not selling, I start to wonder about how much luck we’ll have in having a contents sale.

Maybe I’ll just play some Painkiller (I could use some painkiller) and forget about my troubles. But I’m at a point in that game where I have to jump over some gap in the floor with spikes in it, and it’s just a little too wide to jump over. Every time I die it takes forever to reload so I get fed up playing. Oh will those troubles never stop!

Enough yakking. I deserve fun.

Holy Jeezus, they’re certainly getting their money’s worth outta me at my last week on the one-month job. If I hadn’t had to go pick up my old car tonight, I actually would have stayed late to try and finish some of those things off. But I didn’t.

Instead, my honey and I drove all the way down to Eastern Avenue and Pape to see if my son actually had left the keys in the car. And he had. The car actually started too. And it sounds like it needs a muffler. I don’t know if I should fix that because, in the past, any time I had one of those “lifetime guarantees” on the muffler, it was never the muffler that needed replacing, it would be an exhaust pipe, or little fixtures, or something that would always end up costing $200. Lifetime guarantee my ass. They know they’ve got you.

So my honey drove behind me most of the way home and everything went well. He’s just gone now to pick up some sammich fixings and whatever other sundry items we need in order to have lunches to bring to work.

He’s been making me a coffee every morning lately with the big travel mug. He made me one this morning. As I was driving along to work, I reached for my coffee and it was gone. Where had it gone? I had forgotten to take it with me. I was a little dozey this morning since we stayed up til 1:00 last night and then I was a little late getting up, so it was a bunch of rushing around and forgetting to take the coffee. At least I remembered my lunch. But he forgot to give me a breakfast bar, so I guess we were both kinda out of it.

I learned when I was picking up my car that there will be another ticket that goes along with it getting impounded. This one will be for $60. The two $30 tickets he got in my name weren’t enough, let’s add a few more and see if we can really break the bank.

Oh, my honey just got in. I gotta go help put groceries away (and see if he bought anything yummy that I could call dinner).

I now believe that my time is my own. After adding a few more things to my friend’s website (and some plugins and crap), I think he’s all good to go, and my time is my own.

I just drove my daughter home but we had a busy day starting off with doing the laundry (must have been over a month’s worth) and then going out to God’s green acre to look at a car my honey wants to buy. It was a beautiful car with leather, heated seats and power everything you can think of. I hope he gets it. Maybe we’ll start riding around in his car as the default car – it certainly was more of a luxury car than mine. I hope he buys it.

Since we were way out at McCowan and Eglinton, I figured my son’s place was not too far away and we could stop by there and pick up my other car keys. But, of course, there was no answer so that didn’t happen. I talked to him later though and he said he dropped off the keys at the impound so tomorrow night we’ll go pick up the car to sell. It better not be fucking filthy after we spent 6 hours cleaning the thing before he got it.

Then we went off to Best Buy where I purchased a new router with an installation package. The installation included two computers but I talked him into doing 3 for the same price (saving $50 for the third installation) and I picked up a new memory card for my camera (2 gigs) and gave my daughter my old one for her new camera. The 2 gig cards were on for $50, instead of $100, so I had to have 2 gigs.

All in all a busy (and expensive) day. Now that I have this time to myself I’m going to go play some Painkiller. I switched to baby mode and started from the beginning so I’m now at the level I was at in my previously played harder mode. I’ll see if I can get through the level any easier.

One more week to go at the one-month job, and then apparently my office is closing for Remembrance Day (just because most of the staff are going to be out of town), so I’ll have a long weekend next weekend, which is why I switched with the ex and had my daughter come over again this weekend. Next weekend I’m gonna sleep, and sleep (ya right).

I should go decide what I’m going to wear to work tomorrow but I don’t feel like it. I’m off to play a game and relax. No websites to create. No work to do. No emails to check. *woohoo*

I got up early for piano this morning – 6:30, although I didn’t need to get up til 7:30. I did the usual shopping, bought some new underwear – no, not those kinda underwear, but normal, sensible, silky feeling underwear that I’ll wear under normal, sensible clothes. I won’t even bother with a picture – 2 pairs were black, 2 pairs were beige.

I also bought a new bra (oh ya, I don’t have enough of those) that was wine coloured with bright pink circles and straps that’ll go with any wine clothes I have. Hey! It was on sale! So I spent about $100 cuz I also found some neat earmuffs that I figured I had to have for winter. They look cool; not like regular ear muffs. You know I gotta look cool. After all, I’ll be 50 in a few months. You can’t be fucking 50 without being cool.

So I was supposed to go sit with my mother this afternoon as she moved from the retirement home to the nursing home. But it turned out that they had the wrong kind of room for her – they had a room that was shared with someone else and so she had to go back to the retirement home. I could just see her sharing a room with someone else. She doesn’t even recognize me most of the time, I can imagine her waking up every day to someone in her room. There’d be a freak, and a big one. She battled 3 security guards one time because she didn’t want to stay at the hospital when she’d gotten sick. She told everyone she was fine and wouldn’t leave the poor security guards alone when they were trying to keep her from escaping. This at 78.

Tomorrow I was supposed to go to my son’s for a barbecue. This has also been called off because he has to work tomorrow (so he says). So we’ll do that in 2 weeks when my daughter is here again.

Tonight I’m just gonna drink copious amounts of beer, relax and watch District 13 (I think it was called). Maybe I’ll play a little Painkiller Gold first. I can’t get my honey hooked on to the multiplayer – he needs to upgrade. It’s always something.

So I told you that I went to see John Wing taping a CBC radio show on Saturday. They were taping 3 shows to play on Saturdays/Sundays at 6:00 or 6:30 starting in September.

This is the picture I took of him before the taping started, and let me tell you how that went.

I walk into the room, see him up on stage with the other ‘cast’ members. I ask the sound guy if we’re allowed to take pictures because I thought it might be nice to get a picture of myself with him and he told me that I’d have to ask John Wing.

So I walk right up to the stage and ask if I would be able to take his picture. He gives me this strange frowny look and says, “do I know you?”, whereupon I say, “no, but I’ve seen you lots of times”, and he allows me to take his picture. Needless to say that with a response like that, I wasn’t going to push my luck and ask him if we could have a picture together.

I took his picture (just one – and hoped it would turn out because it was so dark down there) and went back to my seat (which was one of those foldy lawn chairs). My honey finally arrived just a minute before the taping was to start and so I caught him up on events.

The taping consisted of a ‘real life’ skit with other actors reading the voices of his wife, his daughter, his neighbour, and a sound effect guy doing the opening and closing of the doors.

Now I don’t know if John Wing wrote this little dialogue. It was the same type of stuff (and some of the lines) that he does in his stand up, but this was a boring, scripted, really corny version of what used to have some comedic value. Needless to say, we didn’t stay for the 2nd and 3rd tapings and we probably won’t be listening to this crap on the CBC.

The audience had its share of fake laughers too. You know, the people who laugh too loudly – and at an inopportune time. How about waiting for a funny part there guy?

All in all it was a disappointing little adventure – one that made me think, geez, I could have stayed home doing google searches and had more amusement.

And the biggest disappointment was Mr. Wong’s reaction to my asking for a picture (and thanking profusely). While I’d probably still watch him on a comedy show, I’ll have an entirely different outlook on who he is now. And I would think that he might like to keep some semblance of a fan base – especially if he continues to do the kind of drivel he’s putting on the CBC.

I’m just about to leave to head downtown to the Drake Hotel. What’s at the Drake Hotel, you ask? John Wing.

Do you know him? He’s a comedian – and a very funny one at that. They’re going to tape a radio show, I assume for the CBC, and I’m going to go down and be a part of that.

Doors open at 1:30 for the show at 2:00, so if you’re downtown around Queen St. W. just 3 blocks east of Dufferin, join me there for some amusement – downstairs.

*woohoo* I’m looking forward to this. My other choice was to stay home and clean up my place. *woohoo* I don’t have to stay home and clean up. This should be fun.

Everywhere you look at this time of the year, there are flowers blooming.

It’s not that I’m overly fond of flowers (although I have nothing against them, personally). I am allergic to plants but, so what. That doesn’t mean anything to me since I’m going to encounter them everywhere I go… if it’s not outside, somebody will have a bunch of plants in the office. So I’m kind of used to the sniffing, sneezing, stuffed up vision of me.

I took this picture on my way to our rained out baseball game, and I took the top picture at a grocery store.

Imagine what people are thinking when you’re running around a grocery store taking pictures of the flowers. I guess they’re saying to themselves, “hey, you can get a good picture of the cereal boxes over there in aisle 5 *har har har*, oh look! a photographer”.

Being one who doesn’t care much about other people’s looks at me, I did it anyway. And for the hell of it, I decided to take a picture of the cashier too.

She said, after I took her picture, “I’m not going to find my picture on the internet, am I *hee hee, ho ho*”, to which I responded, “Yes, I’m going to take your picture and paste your head on top of a nude body and put it up on the net”. She looked a little taken aback by that, but then she realized I must be joking. After all, I’m an old broad and therefore must be harmless.

I was over at St. Lawrence Market yesterday on my lunch hour and I saw this shy guy just sitting there, waiting for his best friend to finish shopping.

He was such a sweet dog. I wish I could have a dog.

We decided that today we had to go for the restaurant breakfast at this little hole-in-the-wall restaurant we know of over on Alness. It was more brunch than breakfast, hell, it was more linner than brunch since it was so late.

We go there because the prices aren’t bad and the sausages are good, even though my honey always has bacon and I have the sausages. But their coffee is lame so we always bring our Tim’s with us and now there are different owners so the service is really bad too.

Picture this: customer walks into restaurant and sits down. You, as the serving person, see the customers come in and proceed to go over and chat up some old guy sitting somewhere else. Then you make your rounds to some other tables while the new customers sit there and think, “hey, could you at least take our order and then chat up the old guy?”

Then, when we think, “what… did they send out for the food or something?” because it’s been so long, the serving person comes over to say, “we’re all out of homefries, would you like something else instead?” Seeing that the homefries or french fries (which is what we said we’d have instead) take the longest to cook, we’re wondering on what day will we have this meal.

Upon serving, the serving person can’t remember who’s having sausage and who’s having bacon. It is a hard call since we always order the same thing and there are 3 other tables with customers who’ve already ordered and pretty much finished their meals.

Then my honey asks for some ketchup. Then my honey asks for some salt and pepper. Then my honey asks for some jam. Oh, they’re all out of jam – have some marmalade. I tried the marmalade. I hate marmalade. It has little bits of orange peel in it. Who wants to eat orange peel, I ask you.

Since we were having french fries instead of homefries, I said to bring gravy with it. The gravy came and it was all lumpy – like someone had stirred a layer of skin into it. When the server picked up our used dishes I mentioned that the gravy might be better if it didn’t have all that “stuff” in it. She told me that it must be the gravy for the poutine… that’s what the lumps were. I said that it looked like skin off the gravy. Hello. Aren’t the lumps in a serving of poutine due to gravy being poured over cheese curds?

We left. You never really appreciate good service until it’s gone.

See, I wasn’t so lazy this weekend. We had lots of stuff to do.

See this pic? Well then look harder. This was a picture we took from the top of the CN Tower yesterday.

We had to go downtown, my snookey, my daughter and I, and so we ended up in this final resting spot at the top of the CN Tower. I haven’t been up there in years. Of course when I did go up there before I wasn’t scared of heights. Now I am.

The worst part about going up was the anticipation of going up. I started getting all antsy, and nervous, and queasy feeling. But the actual ride up was nothing. Ha, ha. It is to laugh.

Since I am now afraid of heights, I expected to be having a little freaky deaky going on, especially in the elevator. But no, I didn’t.

The worst thing for me was the glass floor. I could only walk on the black parts as if I was balancing on girders in a high rise. Not once did I walk on the glass floor. And people actually had to move out of my way on the black part so that I wouldn’t fall off. I tried to get some pictures down, but the glass floor (I don’t assume it’s glass) was really scratched up looking and all I got was reflections.

So that was our weekend. We also did stuff on Saturday but who remembers what. What did we rent? I’m trying to think of it. What the hell was it?

Oh ya, we rented two movies. One was a graphic-y/cartoony one about the real story of Little Red Riding Hood. WTF was the name of that? Oh… Hoodwinked. That was it. It was good. Quite amusing despite the puppety kinda stuff that I hate. I’d recommend it.

The other one was, ah yes, Aeon Flux. It sucked the big one. It seemed like a lame Matrix-y type of movie (only not succeeding where The Matrix did) and it got into the action right away, before you even knew the story. No, wait… what story?

Rent the Hoodwinked one – nice witty humour that the kids may or may not get.

Anybody living in or around Toronto, may want to go see the Toronto Squared photography exhibition at Le Petit Déjeuner this coming Saturday.

I’m hoping to go myself since there are some great Toronto pics (and I love Toronto pics).

If you’d like to do something different, let me know and I’ll meet you there.

TORONTO SQUARED
Photography by RANNIE TURINGAN
Le Petit Déjeuner
191 King Street East.
April 29th – June 6th

OPENING Saturday April 29, 2006
4:30 – 7:30PM

Mon – Tues 8 – 8:30pm, Wed – Fri 8 – 10pm, Sat – Sun 9 – 3pm
T 416 703 1560

Check it out

Ok, I’m no restaurant reviewer or anything, but I thought I’d share our experience with Lakes tonight.

We had a reservation for 7:00 so I came from downtown to uptown to pick up my snookey at 6:00 and then we headed back downtown to the Summerhil/Rosedale area for our reservation. I would have had my honey meet me downtown but that would have meant that we had two cars down there, and that would be a waste (plus a pain in the ass).

We were early arriving at the restaurant and when we walked in the place was empty except for one two-seater. The maitre d and waiter were standing at the bar when we walked in, looking at us, and so I said, “Hi, can we eat?” to which the maitre d said, “do you have a reservation?” and I said, “Ferguson”. Then he told us that, “well, then, of course you can eat – and drink too!”

So they seated us, we ordered Bloody Caesars but they had no horseradish to put in them – Caesars taste best with some horseradish, worcestershire, tabasco, and lemon pepper, but theirs were ok. They made them nice and spicy for us but I hate when restaurants rim the glasses and my lips feel like they’ve got sand all over them.

For our appetizers, my honey ordered the Lakes caesar salad tossed with grana padano, toasted garlic croutons & crispy pancetta. It didn’t taste like any caesar salad you usually get in restaurants, but it was nice, light and flavourful. I ordered the soup of the day, which happened to be potato & leek, and it was fantastic but very filling.

My entree was the lobster & saffron risotto with roasted red peppers and baby spinach in a light vegetable cream. He had the slow roasted chicken supreme served with a calvados reduction, finished with goat’s cheese. His meal was fantastic (we each tasted each other’s food). I wasn’t thrilled with my meal and had about 4 bites and that was enough. I found it too salty and the risotto a bit undercooked and starchy tasting.

So the waiter took my meal away and credited us the $25 for it. Because I’d had no meal I decided to order dessert, and we split it – passion fruit cheesecake with tahitian vanilla creme anglais. Even though I’m not a big ‘sweets’ person, that cheesecake was fabulous, dahlings, simply fabulous. I’m skipping my WW tomorrow cuz I think just eating half of that cake may have added 5 pounds since the loose pants I put on this morning weren’t feeling too loose by the end of the night.

Overall, I’d give the restaurant a high rating. It was very small, the service was excellent, and, in general, the food was savory.

We still tipped on the food that was credited back to us, so the meal was $100 – but that was without any wine. When I saw that the house wine was $16 a glass, I said no thanks to that.

This weekend it was like spring here in the good old TO. I didn’t even need a coat on yesterday, but I wore one anyway because I am a responsible adult and responsible adults wear the right clothing for the right season.

This morning was a big rainstorm that had me doubting whether I should be driving all the way downtown to work. However, responsible adults get up every day and go to work like they’re supposed to.

As the day wore on the rain stopped and started. When did it start? Whenever I was outside without my umbrella.

I am a weather predictor. I can tell you that it is going to rain as soon as I’m outside without my umbrella. And it does. But being a responsible adult, luckily I had the appropriate coat on. Well, no, I didn’t. I could have worn this big honking poncho-looking thing I have that’s made out of rubber (or it feels like rubber) *mmm, rubber* – stop it you pig.

Anyway, the only reason I’m talking about the weather is because this is what it looked like by the time I was coming home.

It was very foggy and very spooky. I could hear a tap-tap-tapping on my window pane. Then I realized that it wasn’t the window pane, it’s the stupid loose screw I have on my muffler so it makes a kinda jingly noise to let people know I’m coming.

So that’s all. Thought I’d keep you informed as to our weather conditions. More info later. Film clip at 11:00. I’m heading off to see the Donald tonight and go have some salad now. BTW, today is my snookey’s birthday, but no birthday boink for us… his son is taking him off to dinner. Ya, well I’m taking him out to dinner on Friday night, to Lakes (we saw a restaurant makeover show about it). That’ll be much better. Followed by a belated birthday boink.

My phonecam takes the shittiest pictures ever. But I don’t happen to have my digital camera with me every waking moment, so I sometimes snap pics with my phone. I suppose that’s one reason I want the new phone, the resolution is higher in the one I want.

The other day I happened to be driving along, minding my own business (you always have to say “minding my own business”) and the sky was looking so freaky, I figured I’d have to capture a picture, so I did.

For some reason, you can’t tell with this phonecam just how freaky the atmosphere was, so it’s almost not worth showing, except for the fact that I was taking the picture.

So when I was downtown, heading home from work, the sky was really beautiful and I thought to myself, “hey! I gotta get a picture of that”, and I did. But again, you can’t really tell exactly what it was like with this cam, just get a rough idea.

I have no idea what people in the cars beside me thought as I sat there in my car with my phone pointed at my windshield. Maybe they just thought I was using the speakerphone with the phone held right in front of me (poor girl, has no idea she could leave the phone on the seat beside her).

Still on my way home, I had to get one more picture and I think this one’s a little better at showing the mood. It’s great now that it’s not total darkness when I’m driving home. And I suppose the pictures might turn out a little better if I was not snapping them through my dirty windshield (*duh, ya think?*).

So I just wanted to share, after all, WTF did I bother with these pictures for if nobody’s gonna see them?

Tomorrow remind me to tell you about my new haircut and how they decided that they’d choose their own colour for my hair.

I decided today that I’d better drive out to the spots where I have the job interviews on Monday and Tuesday since one is in Mississauga and one is in Scarberia, and I don’t know either of those areas.

So I left home around 1:00 and I just got back now, at 5:00. Four stinking hours of driving, and it was all on the highway.

Let’s just hope I don’t get either of these jobs, cuz quite frankly, I never drive on the highway, I hate it. However, seeing that they’re both so far from me, it would probably take me forever if I were to look for some city streets to get to either of them.

Watch, it’ll be just my luck that I get a job that’s 25km away from home.

Other than that, there’s nothing to report, since I did nothing else today but sleep in til about almost 9:00, have my brekkie, and then go touring the GTA.

Oh, yes, the Spanglish movie… don’t even bother. Way too much of listening to someone translate the woman’s Spanish into English, and not enough making the movie into a good story.

So I didn’t write yesterday. I was way too busy cooking up a nice dinner for my snookey (ya, that took all day).

Actually I just made something up. I cooked noodles with lobster and bacon pieces and vegetables with a lemon sauce and curry.

There was no recipe and that was a damned shame, cuz that meal was ooky. And luckily for us there’s enough left for dinner tonight!

Actually, once you got used to the taste, I guess it wasn’t that bad. So much for my winging it cooking skills. I tried the lemon stuff because I bought it and it said it was good for seafood dinners. I’m not buying it again.

Last night we watched Rock Star: INXS yet again (3 nights a week) and I’m very impressed with the way they’ve set up their voting. I vote all the time when this show is on, unlike Canadian Idol where you have to try a busy phone number and never get through.

I don’t bother voting for Canadian Idol – they should have kept the text messaging. I’d gladly pay 25¢ on my cellphone in order to not keep trying a phone number.

INXS… you just go to your MSN Messenger, click on the RockStar INXS symbol, and it takes you to the voting. Poof, you’re done in a second. Very good planning on their part.

Tonight I’m going to look at an apartment up the street from me with my ex and my daughter. He’s looking to move since at the place where he’s living now (top part of a house), the owners (who live downstairs) keep coming up into his apartment – he has no privacy and he’s pissed off about it.

I don’t know how well it would work for them to be just down the street from me. I hope that doesn’t mean that I’d end up with no privacy, or that he’d think that somehow I’m now responsible for my daughter all the time, even when she’s not with me, but the good point would be that she would be able to come over more often.

Maybe he figures he’d get his place cleaned up more often since every time I go to pick her up I end up cleaning his place.

If he gets the place, he better not try to take advantage of my good nature. After all, I’m not married to him any more.

We’ll see how that goes. I just hope for his sake he finds something good, and private, and that he can afford. It would also be nice if he didn’t keep his place a pigsty too.

So I’m going. I got two calls yesterday and today and so I have job interviews set up for next Tuesday and Wednesday. The Tuesday one is way out in the other end of the city, so I’m kinda rooting for the Wednesday job. Now I’m going to go research the websites.

Oh, and that reminds me, I’m going to get my hair cut really short again. I’ve got an appointment with Paul on Friday at 1:30.

I have to. My hair looks like shit now that I’ve been trying to grow it, and I looked at some other pictures of me with longer hair and decided that they were ugly and boring as dirt. So I’m going short again (before another job interview – maybe it’ll impress them).

Perhaps I will a little remiss by not writing yesterday. It’s not like I was so busy doing stuff that I couldn’t have found the time. I did get another call about a job, and I’m to have a “casual” interview on Monday taking place in a Starbucks by Eglinton and Avenue Road. The guy from the other job (where I’m waiting for him to call me to the second interview) should be back from holidays next week, so I’m holding my breath on that one.

Tonight we have a special viewing, by invitation only, to some new store called DirectBuy. We’re to be there at 7:30 and shop around for about an hour-and-a-half.

I’m assuming it’s some kinda membership thing, maybe like Costco. But I really can’t see myself signing up for it since the place is way to hell out in God’s country – over by where my son lives.

I thought that perhaps I should get a membership to give to him. But WTF – he doesn’t even have a car, so how would he get over to buy the 10,000 bars of soap for $1.99?

Last night we watched the voting on Canadian Idol and it was the night to determine who the wildcard would be. Well didn’t they put Apu back into the mix.

I’m telling you right now, if the winner of Canadian Idol turns out to be someone from another country, I will stop watching the damned show. If it’s Canadian, get the fucking Canadians in it you assholes.

So my snookie will be home any minute and then we’ll head off to our ‘invitation only’ shopping experience. What the hell, there’s nothing on TV tonight anyway, is there? The Apprentice is finished.

So baseball has started already and I wasn’t even aware of it cuz they were sending the emails to my old “work” email. I’ve missed two games already and I’m off now to play.

My honey is taking off work an hour early so he can go with me, so I’ve got to stop at Tim’s, pick us up a couple of coffees and then we’re heading off to McCleary Park North to beat the crap out of the Bombers team.

I just hope I can play. This tennis elbow is getting progressively worse, and I now have it in my left arm too.

I bought another arm brace, so we’ll see if that helps. I’m a little worried that at some point I’m going to lose the use of my arms.

I think I need to see another doctor. I don’t, for the life of me, know of any repetitive tasks I’ve been performing (like tennis), and especially not with both arms.

So wish me luck. Or if you’re in Toronto, come on down and watch us play (or pretend to play). We’ll talk tomorrow and I’ll let you know whether I’ll be continuing the season or not.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Ya, so, sometimes I feel like having two cigarettes at once. You got a problem with that?

I’m an idiot. I suppose I could look to see if I’m smoking a cigarette already before I decide I want one.

I had my busy day today. There’s something very exhilarating about the thought of not spending your day in your robe.

I got up early, applied for some jobs online, had my shower and got ready to go downtown.

I took back empties and bought beer, drove downtown and was at least half an hour early to meet Emmett for lunch.

So, as agreed, he and I went to the Salad King for lunch. I had the green curry beef and he had some pad thai. It was a good lunch but I had to take half of it home – I just finished it for dinner.

Thank you for lunch, Emmett. I love a man with money .

Then we walked back to his office and I headed off to HMV to look for a CD that my daughter wants for her birthday.

I mostly just lagged around since I had about 2 hours to kill before my doctor’s appointment.

I stopped at many a shoe store. Whoever came up with that? Many “a” shoe store? Why not be saying “many shoe stores”? Idiots.

I did not buy any shoes. I almost did but I kept in mind my SA (shopaholic) coach’s words… (you don’t need that), and so, once again, thank you, Emmett.

It was a very psychological moment for me. I’d try on the shoes I wanted to buy and start walking in them. Then I’d tell myself that they were too tight, or they’d start hurting after a while. See, I could be counselling people for a living… “those shoes will hurt your feet” – “thank you, doctor, I won’t buy them”.

Then came the dreaded laser therapy. The nurse? practitioner? cosmetitican? who was doing it explained that it would feel like a little “ping” on my nose – almost like pinging an elastic. Nothing really painful.

She then covered my eyes with cottonballs and put some lead? glasses on me, I suppose to prevent blindness by that pinging laser light.

The pinging wasn’t too bad. She ended pinging my whole damn nose. I guess she found more spots than I was aware of, but then she’s young, which means she can probably see.

Susan (name changed to protect the innocent), no, I’m joking, that was her name, proceeded to comfort me throughout my pings, telling me that I was doing a good job, doing well, patting my head.

It was good when she counted to three, and then I knew it was coming. 1-2-3 ZZZZZZZZZZZZT. Sometimes though, she forgot and just surprised me, making sure I was awake still, I guess, since she couldn’t really tell through my convulsions and lead glasses.

All in all it wasn’t too bad an experience. I can see a difference already in my nose looking less reddish and she said it would take 3-10 days for the spots I really went for, to disappear.

It only cost me $125 plus tax, which is good, cuz I thought I remembered the doctor telling me that it would be $150 or $175.

Then my red nose and I drove home. Apparently there may be some bruising and swelling, so I’m to apply light cold compresses periodically.

I think an ice cold beer can qualify as a cold compress, so I’ll look after that this very minute, doctor.

In an hour or so, I’ll go watch the results of the voting last night.

You can see the way I want it to go. I’ll really only be happy if Carrie wins it, but if she loses I’ll be satisfied if Bo wins. As long as it’s not Vonzell. Jeez, my glasses were cracking on that first off-key song she sang last night. Let’s wait and see.

I’ve got a busy week ahead of me.

Monday, for instance, I have something to do. I have to take my daughter to her piano exam to pass grade two. Then I’ll probably take her to lunch, and then I’ll take her to school. That’s a pretty busy day for me at the moment.

Wednesday I have a doctor’s appointment. No, I’m not sick. I’m having this laser treatment stuff to get rid of a spot on my nose. I have a red spot on my nose. In the winter, when it’s cold, my nose gets red, ever since I was a kid. I don’t need any other red spots on my nose so I’m having it removed.

On that very same day I am going to meet Emmett for lunch. We are going to go to the Salad King. Guess what? It’s not a salad place. It’s a thai place. Why is it called the Salad King? I have no fricking idea.

So I guess I’ll drive downtown on Wednesday, pay my $20 for parking and roam about the city. What a busy week I’ve got happening here.

Last night we rented Assault on Precinct 13. It was ok, I guess. Better than I expected it to be and we watched the whole thing, so that’s a good thing.

I just put another coat of polyurethane on that trunk and it is starting to look lustrous. If it stays looking like this (as opposed to the wood sucking up all the shine) it will be good.

I’m gonna make some wings for dinner – we bought them at the Super Centre. We went to pick up some Frank’s Extra Hot Sauce and spent $75 on some basic groceries. I hope the wings are good, we’ve never tried them.

I suppose I’ll play some free cell, maybe install Doom 3, Painkiller, and Half Life 2 (I haven’t done any of them yet) and then go look through the newspaper for jobs. So far I’m not in any hyper mood about finding work… as if it’s gonna come to me.

My son stayed over last night and I was gonna give him a lift home this morning because he had to work. He was to wake me up at 9:00.

Well, so far it’s been a day of crap going on. Whatever could go wrong, did. It went like this:

1. The alarm clock was an hour behind. I guess I never set that clock when we changed the daylight savings time. We woke up an hour late.
2. We stopped at Tim’s on our way (to wake me up) and the line up was out the driveway. They didn’t put the right stuff in the coffee either.
3. My son suggested we take the Allen to Eglinton. There was a line up at Eglinton going back almost all the way to the previous ramp. I normally take Sheppard.
4. When we finally reached Eglinton I made a left turn on a red light and was pulled over by the police which only made us later. Take your time there, buddy.
5. The cop gave me a ticket for $190. I knew as soon as my son said, “he’ll let you off”, that I was gonna get a ticket.

So I have never had a ticket, not even a parking ticket because I’m one of those drivers that always does the speed limit, never does anything illegal. Til today… left turn on a red light.

I don’t know if I should try to fight it; whether it would help if I said, “but the light was yellow when I started”; whether that would make a difference or not. I’ll have to give this some thought.

So happy belated Mother’s Day to me. My son gave me some Lindors.

Emmett called me about 11:45 to tell me that Bruce Willis and Michael Douglas were standing around the streets, waiting for the action to start. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get away at that moment.

So at lunch time I went down with my camera again to try to get some pics, only to be shooed away by one of the road crew, who said “if you’re not here for us, move off down the street”, to which I responded, “I can be here for you”. As smiley as she was to that, she still shooed me.

So I went off to The Bay and bought myself a new wallet. The plastic card/picture holder thingie in my old wallet was all broken, and everything was soon gonna fall out of it.

I bought the cheapest wallet there was. It was plain black leather, would fit all my stuff, and cost me $34 with tax. Most of the wallets I was looking at were $50-$75 bucks. Can you believe that? For a stinking wallet? Who’d need a wallet after paying that, you’d have no cash left.

I did ask the maintenance guy at work if he’d take me up onto the roof to take some pictures. He agreed to that, but then it was so cloudy and grey at lunch time, I put it off til another day – perhaps Friday.

I have been good tonight. I actually shaved my legs (finally) and am now able to wear a skirt or some capris or just some flood pants if I damned well feel like it. I also did my ironing so I will have something new to wear. With this strange weather that’s cold and yet sunny, you never know what to put on. You want to wear something more spring-like, but it’s too damned cold to do it.

I went to the focus group last night and had fun with it. How can you have fun at a focus group, you ask? Well it was all about fashion, and shopping, and it was with a bunch of old ladies around my own age. And the best part of it was that my car window didn’t get smashed in – so the $60 I made paid for some beer.

Now it’s time to go do my exercises. I’ve been putting it off doing other stuff. But my honey is out with his son and I’m sitting here doing nothing now, so there’s no reason not to get off my lazy, fat ass and ‘just do it’.

Well, I am busy blogging. Unfortunately, there’s nothing left to talk about.

I did it, boys and girls. Finally bought myself a 1 gig mp3 player on eBay. I was gonna go to Compusmart to get the iPod Shuffle but I don’t like the fact that you can’t see the songs and that they always play in random order.

So Emmett talked me into eBay and I did my first auction. The last mp3 player I bought on there I just paid full price for since it was so cheap anyway.

I think the owners were there driving up the price. The bids were fairly reasonable until the last 4 minutes of the auction where I was the highest bidder and all of a sudden someone outbid me. Then again. Then again.

It was finally down to the last 22 seconds when my bid won. Stinking bastards. I don’t think I’ll do that again. If I ever do one of these auction things again, I think I’ll just let the other person take it away if I can’t get it for the lower price.

However, I’m expecting this thing to arrive fast since the seller is also in Toronto, out in Scarberia. I got email notice this evening that it’s already been shipped. I don’t imagine I’ll have it tomorrow (although I could easily have picked up the damned thing) but, if not, maybe by Monday. I have no idea what Expedited Parcel means in terms of timing.

At lunch Emmett and I made our way up to the 54th floor of the TD Centre and got some pics… this being a sample.

You may guess (correctly) that I was looking down. We went across the hall to the Canoe Restaurant and got some more pics of the lakefront, but, unfortunately the sun was coming in there and there were all kinds of reflections on the glass – mostly of a person taking a picture.

I realized that my fear of heights was not really affecting me up there. So maybe the fear is in the getting up there (as in the see-through CN Tower elevator) – not the actual looking down. I guess that the idiotonastick is not a big scaredy-cat idiot at least.

Maybe I will try to go up in the CN Tower again and get some more pics. If you want to see today’s pics, click on gallery at the top, and choose Toronto Pictures *duh* photo album. Or if you want to see the pics I took the other day you can go to http://idiotonastick.blogspot.com/.

That’s it for now. I’ve done my weight machines already (like a good girl) while we were waiting for the pizza to cook (like a bad girl). If you put that Frank’s Extra Hot Sauce on almost everything, almost everything tastes great.

I’m off to wait for The Donald. Queue the music.

Ok, so I talked about the haircut, so here it is. Yes, it doesn’t look like much, but it’s certainly different.

And, you know what? I got a helluva lot of compliments on it today. Two from guys I work with. Guys who never compliment me on anything, complimented my hair. Of course I also had some make-up on at the time too, so I looked a little better than I’m looking now (pesky uneven-toned skin).

A woman from the office next door also complimented me twice! Once this morning when she saw it, and once when I saw her in the elevator on the way home. So even though I’m not used to it, maybe it looks good. Or else they’re all a bunch of liars.

Tonight my honey picked me up at work again and on the way home we stopped at another thai restaurant. I was telling someone about Young Thailland and he had to tell me about the best thai restaurant in the city, which is supposedly Thai Magic over at Yonge and MacPherson.

Well we were passing right by there on the way home, so we decided to go check it out. Of course we have enough food for tomorrow’s dinner too, and it was pretty good. I enjoyed it. But, ya know, I really liked the Young Thailland place. My honey said this place was better – no grease in the spring rolls – but I never thought the other spring rolls were greasy.

So I guess I’d recommend both but I’m gonna have to try the Young Thailland place again and try another dish to see if I’m wowed by it.

That’s all for tonight. Voting on American Idol in about half an hour. I’ll have to see who gets the boot tonight, and then tomorrow is The Donald. I’m feeling so good I should have a beer.

Is it a bird? Or a plane? No, it’s a fucking hernia or something. Let me tell ya, I have coughed so hard and long for this last week, as of last night I’ve either pulled a muscle or given myself a hernia. Now I can’t cough at all without holding my ribs and bending over to cough… I’m in too much pain.

I woke myself coughing at about 4:00 a.m. and from that point on couldn’t stop coughing and having to sit up bent to cough because of the pain. I could hardly pull myself up because those muscles by my lungs/ribs were so sore. Tra la la, isn’t life grand?

I went to Costco today and bought me a year’s supply of Halls Centres, hoping that would soothe the cough, but it hasn’t. I’ve gone so far as to take some Buckley’s today, but no, aside from making me want to puke, that didn’t soothe it either. There was a young girl in line behind me with a cough, so I gave her a pack of the Halls Centres… WTF, I now have only 41,999 of them – I hope that’s good enough.

Aside from all the pain, I managed to go to the WW meeting. I went to the early one since I was up. Managed to lose 2.4 pounds this week, although I don’t know how that happened and it’ll probably be up again later.

Then my honey and I took back all the beer bottles. I let him have the money since I usually keep it but he has no way to get any money til he gets a new bank card. We then headed off to Value Village and gave them about 4 bags of clothes, mostly mine, but a couple of things that are too small for my daughter now.

I took a purple suit into the dry cleaner (one of 3) to have cleaned and the hem shortened. I was gonna give it to Value Village too, but my honey said not to, and it is a good fit, I just didn’t like the length of the skirt.

I can’t do any shopping (other than the Halls, gum and All Bran Breakfast Bars from Costco, and of course it was renewal time) since I’ve actually paid the bills that were a bit overdue, ergo twice as much. So I’m hanging tight til next Friday so I don’t go too much into my overdraft.

I was thinking that I’d like a new 19″ flat screen monitor since mine is only 17″. Costco has them on for $399. If I do that, I’ll give my son the 17″ one since his computer desk is really too small for the big CRT monitor that he’s got there. But I’ve got to wait a bit. There’s no urgency for me to have a 19″ one, other than the fact that I want it. Pay off credit cards. Pay off credit cards.

I managed to pick up some beer for tonight, thank God. It is my master plan to drink as many beers as possible and pass out, not even noticing that I’m coughing in my sleep and herniating that chest muscle even more, and not get up til noon tomorrow. Let’s hope that works.

I’m not even renting a movie for tonight cuz I can’t be bothered going anywhere else to rent one. We’re gonna watch VOD or PPV instead, although we already looked and there’s dick on. Perhaps we’ll end up seeing Little Black Book, although it looks like a stupid chick flick.

I didn’t get a chance to write last night since we went out straight after work. We headed over to Hoops at Yonge and College because they have a smoking room and pool tables. Turns out the pool tables are little bar tables, but it was pool, so it was nice.

There’s always some idiot with attitude… some guy who comes in and thinks he’s a shark. Last night was Mr. Silverteeth. Yes, boys and girls, the guy had his teeth all silver. What up with that?

Mr. Silverteeth thought he was God’s gift and came over to challenge me. Even though I haven’t played in quite some time, and even though I don’t really like the little small bar tables, I beat him. The best part was that his friend who was watching walked away about half way through the game when he saw that his friend was losing.

Take that, Mr. Silverteeth. And next time leave the attitude by the door. Yes, there are some women who can beat you.

We totally blew the WW by having some onion rings and chicken wings for dinner. Mmm Mmm Mmmm, they were good. Why can’t that stuff have 2 points so you could eat them every day?

Then we headed off to The Opera House to see Basement Project. Once again we had to wait until about midnight before they were on. I’m not sure that I’m gonna go to any more of these shows. They’re on so stinking late. After that we came home and crashed.

Today I got the big sleep in – til about 11:30 *woohoo*. Too bad it took a zajillion beers in order to get it. We spent $105 at Hoops, and I don’t know how much at The Opera House since my honey had to pay for that since I had no more money left on me.

I suppose I should go out now to rent a movie and, of course, stop at Tim’s. The only reason I’m thinking of getting a movie is to drive over to Tim’s.

I did have my botox done yesterday morning and so far I don’t see any difference. He told me it takes a week or two for everything to kick in – then I go back for him to check up on it.

While I was there a woman in the room next door was having her lips done. But she was interested in the eyebrowal area and so the doctor asked me if she could watch and I said yes. Then I got to see her lips getting done. While it looked gross while he was sticking needles up under her lips, she did look good with it. It suited her.

While I have practically no upper lip, I’m not considering having that done. I kinda like my lips and I think my honey finds them kissable enough.

Enough for now… Tim is calling to me, I’ll have to get dressed. Oh and there seems to be a comment problem right now – at least if I’m testing, all my comments go into spam. I’m waiting for someone in the WP Support Forum to help me, but so far I’ve heard nothing.