Nothing to see here.

Back in a week and a bit.

The furry spawn of satan

Dear Fur,

I understand that my pill box looks like a cute cat toy to you but it is not. As such, please discontinue from knocking it off my desk. I did not appreciate returning from a day of snowboarding yesterday and finding the pill box knocked to the floor, open, with one pill remaining. I had no idea where the other eight happy pills had gone to, and initially worried that you had eaten them. Then I looked around the floor.

Appreciate that although it may be a fun game for you to bat the little white pills all over the hardwood floor, it is not fun for me to have to crawl around picking them up. This was made even more unpleasant due to the fact that both knees were bruised, scratched, and swollen from falling on icy hills. It was especially not fun hunting for the pills given that I hadn't swept that floor in ages, and might I just mention that although it is a highlight of yours to dig so violently in your litter box that piles of cat litter scatter in the vicinity, having to rescue one of the pills from one such pile was not appealing to me?

I now have all the pills back in the box and please leave them there. Content yourself to playing with your scratching post, walking on my head in the morning, and terrorizing Tasha. And never forget, as the human in this house, I'm the one who is able to work the can opener.

You need me. I need my happy pills.

Much love.

When American politics looks so much better

Thank you to my workplace which encouraged us all to go watch the inauguration of US President Obama. That was cool.

It's odd because most Canadians have this arrogant and very tiresome superiority complex to Americans. Yet now, now that it's President Obama, Canadians are all over the inauguration. It's like: We were part of this!

Meanwhile, we have a moralistic nutjob as Prime Minister and the most idiotic coalition of three parties, NONE of which the Canadian public resoundingly endorsed [well, maybe the Bloc Quebecois got many votes in Quebec - I can't remember, but as they don't run anywhere except Quebec and their goal is to separate from Canada, it's kind of silly that they are supposed to be part of a national coalition). And our parliament has been prorogued while the whole mess simmers down. The only upside is that all of us in Canada learned what "prorogued" meant.

There is no voice of the people here! My parliamentary representative is a well-respected politician in her own right, and also is the wife of the leader of the NDP [socialist] party. I sent an email to the party office stating [as one of her consituents]: No to Stephen Harper, but no to the Coalition. In the body of my email I noted that although I hadn't voted for Harper, I was not in support of the Coalition and wanted the chance to vote. Not to just have them overthrow the minority government and assume power.

The whole spin of the Coalition was that 64% -or something like that - of the Canadian population didn't vote for Stephen Harper. Yes, agreed, but I CERTAINLY didn't vote for the Coalition. Holy crap, faced with that freak show on the ballot, I would have voted for the Marxist Lennonist party. Anyhow, my email was pretty clear.

Now, I know that staff for an MP have no time to individually respond to constituent emails, but apparently they can't read either. I got back a form letter thanking me for my support of the coalition. It then went on to tell me to attend a rally for said Coalition, and listed every single online poll about the Coalition, and encouraged me to click the links and vote in support of the Coalition.

Yes... I could clearly see how this Coalition was going to be the voice of the people...

You know, many Americans were considering moving to Canada during the last of the Bush era. Can I go to the States now?

Update from the dating world

A is for adultery: for me and Hester Prynne
B is for the Bible that tells me it’s a sin
C is for the cheating, that causes much tumult
D is for divorce proceedings, that surely will result

And of course, S is for Sue who doesn’t give a crap about any of this because I’m not the one who took any sort of vow of fidelity. Also because nothing has happened yet except for a brief email exchange.

I’m slow, but I’m not a complete moron. When a guy is mainly only available during the day, you know it’s because he is in a relationship. I called him on it and asked if he was married, and yes, he is. He’s also apparently separated, and it’s mutual. I’ll see. I appreciate his candour though. I can decide now how to proceed.

Confessions

I love pizza.

I had fries tonight and am over my fries fixation. I'm even over my -*gasp* - mocha fixation at Starbucks. It's way too sweet for me, and that's after asking for with only two pumps of syrup. But pizza still makes my heart beat faster.

Here are my fave toppings:

In a restaurant: Pizza margherita - just sauce, cheese and basil. Sometimes I like black olives (provided they aren't canned), and anchovies. Regardless, it has to be a thin crust pizza.

Homemade: I love cauliflower on pizza. Such a delight. I also love a pizza smothered in green olives - it has to be the ones which come pre-sliced in a jar. Sheer bliss.


Tonight I had homemade pizza with cauliflower and red peppers. The base was a cilantro/parsley pesto I had made in the summer, and the crust was whole wheat dough from Whole Foods. Their dough is delicious! I used plain old mozzarella for the topping, but it was perfect. Now tomorrow I can have my all-time fave breakfast: hot coffee with cold pizza.

What are your favourite toppings and is it different between take-out/restaurant pizza and homemade?

Why 2009 is okay so far

First of all, 2008 sucked.

I had a complete breakdown. Finally all those years of being depressed and dealing with it became too much. Partly crazy hormones as I get older, partly stress increases, and partly never really having had true depression. Instead I think what I've had my whole life is a major form of PMS, otherwise known as PMDD. I'm not going to bore you with details, but this is a public service announcement so that women can be aware of yet another condition we can all be subject to, and because it's basically a state that leaves you 'normal' for two weeks and then moody, irritated, and distraught for the other two weeks. Every single month. In other words, you seem bat-shit crazy to everyone around you.

So after crying for three months straight and going every lunch hour to the park near my work and crying my eyes out, I finally saw my doctor. By this point I did have true depression. I ignored every friend who suggested therapy [been there, done that - and although invaluable, if it's your hormones that are making you crazy, talking about your relationships is no going to help], and went and got a prescription.

6 months later and this is the first time in my adult life that suicide is not a viable option for me. I've never been actively suicidal, but I've always kept it as a good option. I don't even think of it now. My life is no better or worse than it was last year (ah hell, it's probably a bit worse), but mentally, I'm coping.

This is why I had to blog the small successes of 2009 so far. Up until mid-December last year, I was struggling to cope and faking my way through almost every social situation for about five months. Not that I didn't have some good moments, but over-all I was lost.

I so hope that this continues.

Bad body! bad, bad, bad...

I ate apples. I ate oatmeal. I had a salad for the love of god. Yet my body still stubbornly clings to the five pounds I gained over the holidays. Does my body not realize what an effort I am making for it? I should be rewarded!

Okay, I broke down and had a chocolate bar today, but it was dark chocolate! And it had raisins in it! That's health food. Tomorrow morning when I step on the scales my body had better show some appreciation.

Note to self: stop booking vacations when drunk

In my sorrow over turning 40, I decided to spoil myself and book a snowboarding trip. So, I went on my ski/snowboarding group's website and saw that there was still space on the Jackson Hole trip. A few glasses of wine and a credit card number, I'm contacting the trip leader saying, "Sign me up!"

All I knew about Jackson Hole was that it was supposed to be gorgeous and apparently has a lot of hot men. This was told to me by a friend who had been there with the [very wealthy] family she had been a nanny for. Notably, this friend does not ski or snowboard. But I figured that every place has beginner runs and never thought more about it.

This past Saturday I went snowboarding and during lessons, the instructor mentioned that Jackson Hole was known for its steep inclines and expert runs. I blanched.

Although my snowboarding has VASTLY improved, I still can only rarely do two turns in a row without falling. Me going down the small hills in Ontario consists of the following steps:
1. Dismount from chairlift. Glide forward and fall. Crawl out of the way quickly before next group of people dismounts.
2. Get bindings fully adjusted. Start to edge down the hill. Accept the fact that I need to try to do a turn. Fall on my ass.
3. Get up and try again. This time have one successful turn, followed by another, and then fall forward landing on my shoulder.
4. Get up and start another turn. Fall.
5. Get up and start again. Have a pretty good groove going. Realize that thighs are so sore I can no longer stand upright. Stop and sit on hill, to the complete annoyance of all the skiers.
6. Summon up the strength to complete steps 3-5 again until I reach the end of the run.

I went on the website for the resort and the pic I have at the top of this post is what greeted me. I suppose this is supposed to be a big selling point for their clientele, but for me it signified a complete loss of bowel control. I hurriedly looked up their trail map and scanned for beginner runs. There was one. There are several novice runs so I hope I at least manage a few of those. I can do the novice runs in Ontario, but you know, Ontario's 'expert' runs don't exactly look like that death drop in the promo pic.

My plan is to find a hot snowboarding cowboy who will give me private lessons. Maybe I'll come back knowing how to do the half pipe. And if that doesn't work, I'm going to sit my ass in the heated indoor/outdoor pool at the hotel and fully relax for the week.

The problem with skinny jeans

It's Friday so I wore my skinny jeans to work with a professional looking sweater. I'm comfortable enough in them but there is a new emerging problem: they fit so snugly that I am now constantly turned on at my desk.

Oh how I wish I had a boyfriend to greet me at home after work. Now I'm not only turned on, I'm depressed. I must get a boyfriend. In the interim, my solution to never, ever wear these to the office again or any other situation where I'm sitting for an extended period of time.

Here's to 2009!

So far, touch wood, 2009 has been great. Here are the highlights:


EATING
- I held a small dinner party on New Year's Day. It is so important to me to start the year off with people I care deeply for and the people around my table fit in that category. I made steak pie which is the traditional New Year's meal in Scotland, and also made chicken for my sister-in-law and me [not to mention pasta for my oldest niece and congee for the little one]. However, I did not make enough veggies and poor D. didn't get any - neither did my brother but he doesn't eat veggies. I had a medley that included tons of Brussels sprouts and as D. doesn't like those [I didn't realize beforehand] I didn't put any on his plate. However, there were other veggies there so by the time he asked for some, the medley was gone. I should have picked out the Brussels sprouts to begin with. Normally I have WAY too much food. Bad hostess...

I got to spend time with my nieces, D., my bff and his charming partner, and my snowboarding buddy - not to mention getting to see my brother R. and my sister-in-law. That was a lovely start to 2009.

SHOPPING
- I had my awesome friend B. and her partner Ian over for waffles on Saturday. Then we all went on a shopping excursion to outlets north of Toronto. We didn't stay long there, but drove to the other end of the city to check out J-Town - a Japanese shopping centre B. had heard about. Apparently it had a bakery, a butcher shop, and a fish monger. When we got there they were all closed. It turns out that the shopping complex shut for five days over new year's. B. was undeterred though and walked around until we found one store that was open. It had an aisle of cheaper looking goods (think of some type of Japanese Dollar Store), and a centre table covered in nice looking dishes.

I grabbed a box of two cute bowls from the centre table and went to the cash to pay. The guy at the cash immediately told me that I couldn't buy them. I was a bit confused as I hadn't grabbed the ones on display. But then the guy added that I couldn't buy any of the items from the centre table. He explained that we could only buy from the first aisle (ie. the Japanese Dollarama) and that the guy who sold the stuff on the centre table wasn't in that day. I felt like I was in an episode of Seinfeld, or perhaps Candid Camera.

I think B. was having an even harder time accepting the news. She started asking the guy, "What if we give you exact cash?"

I wandered over to a selection of bowls and asked, "So, I can buy these?"

That was approved, so I picked up a bowl and wandered with it for a while. But I didn't really like it. I only felt guilty that I didn't like the dude's goods and only wanted the stuff that wasn't for sale that day. The three of us kept wandering up and down the same freaking aisles. At one point Ian and I started giggling in front of one display of particularly lame looking goods. It's like we were all desperately trying to find something of interest to make our trip worthwhile. I ended up leaving with a pair of sandals with fake wooden soles. They are cute to wear around the house.

Ian I almost died laughing as soon as we got outside. We couldn't believe that everything was closed. What made it even more unbelievable was that the Chinese mega grocery store had been open on New Year's Day (from 9am to 10pm no less) so this started endless jokes about how the Japanese were lazy but the Chinese were hard workers (B. has Chinese heritage and my nieces are Chinese so we were just making lame jokes. None of us actually has anything against Japanese people). We all decided that sashimi meant "too lazy to cook" in English.

So then we ended up at Congee Queen which is a great Chinese restaurant. Lots of laughs and lots of good food with good friends. What could be better?

EXERCISING
I rented a car on the 2nd and my snowboarding buddy and I (let's call her SG for Snowbird Girl) went off to a nearby hill. I fell. A lot. But they were controlled falls and over-all we both had a great day. Lessons start this Saturday so we wanted to get in a run or two at first. Even better, although I still have a good deal of lower back pain, it isn't affected in the least by snowboarding. In fact my back was a little bit better after snowboarding. Yay!

NEXT...
Who knows? I'm very grateful that so far the first days of the year have been kind to me.

The alarm cat

Sometimes Fur Snake wakes me up by coming and purring right next to me. The other morning though she started purring right in my freaking ear. And then she started licking the inside of my ear - some sort of kitty version of a wet willie. All I know is that it was disgusting and it got me up pretty quickly.

I'm used to her licking my eyelids or my nose in order to wake me up, but I think this is a new approach for her. It shouldn't surprise me though as she ate my used Q-tip.

Perhaps I have yummy ear wax?

Or should clean my ears a bit more?

"R" U up for a new meme? (i'm such a moron)

Here's the instructions: How this memetic works is that you leave a comment on this post, and I'll assign you a letter. Then you write about ten things you love that begin with your assigned letter, and post it at your place. When people comment on your list, you give them a letter, and the chain continues on and on.

Rachel/Richard/RooRoo/Rob: What should come first in the list of loves? Why the people and furry pets evoked incredible love in me. Niece, brother's father-in-law and also name of first boyfriend, first kitty, most recent ex. And all R people/animals who I have omitted from the list - forgive me!

Rollerblading: Summer's answer to snowboarding in my life. Ah how I love it. Not only because it's a lot of fun and good exercise, but because I so sucked at it and worked until I was competent.

Ramones and Riff Randall: I adore the Ramones and Riff Randall (played by PJ Soles) was the rebel chick in their movie "Rock and Roll High School". I so wanted to be her, but alas, I was a dork.

Red wine: Years back this would have been rye or rum, but I do enjoy my reds nowadays.

Road trips: NOTHING like the open road. I miss my first car tremendously. She saw me through a lot.

Rail travel: I suppose train travel would be more accurate, but how about "riding the rails"? I love taking the train. It's so civilized.

Reading: The book I most relate to is "If on a winter's night a traveller" by Italo Calvino. Truly it captures the joy of reading. One of my favourite books is L'etranger by Albert Camus. In fact, wanting to read it in French was the impetus behind me continuing with French classes. The poetry of Jacques Prevert is another reason. Oddly enough, although I love book or poetry readings, I hate it when it's made to be dramatic or put to music.

REM: As in sleep. I like the band too, but I have become one with my bed.

Remembrance Day: Meaningful and moving ceremonies for me.

New Year's Resolutions

1. Date
2. Organize more celebrations with friends
3. Master linked turns in snowboarding
4. Buy a condo
5. Get back to cooking (learn 5 new recipes)
   
6. Get below 140 pounds
7. Do weight training
8. Once a week read the news in French instead of English
9. Spend more time with my nieces
10. Be the best hag I can be. My bff deserves to be surrounded by love and glamour.