STUPID THINGS I HAVE DONE THIS WEEK

I am VERY well known amongst my gang of friends for being the loud, klutzy, spilly drunk friend who occasionally does stupid things - mainly to myself. See below for this week's stellar examples of my unparalleled examples of my own stupidity.

• punched myself in the face this morning. Why you might ask, I was fixing my collar and my hand slipped. And now my jaw hurts.
• tried on 4 different tops, settled on one and realized as I was driving away that not only did I not change my bra, but I did not put on the camisole and so I have showing my boobs off to the entire office building today.
• Was playing soccer with the dog last night and twisted my ankle. I know that I am not athletic AT ALL so why do I try to do these things. And yet, even though my ankle hurts today I am wearing heels.

I just realized dear internet - THE ABOVE HAPPENED IN THE LAST 24 HOURS! Good lord - I am beyond hope. In my head I am the ever graceful Audrey Hepburn. In reality - I am Bozo the clown!

The next time you see a girl walking down the street with a stain on her shirt, her bra showing and limping, please be nice to her - it is probably me!

SUMMERTIME - AND THE LIVING IS EASY....

There are a couple of things that I love and to me immediately evoke memories of sunshine, heat and all things summer. One is soft serve ice cream and the smell of sunscreen - you know the kind that smells like beach and coconut.

I grew up on a farm and there were no soft-serve ice cream trucks that went through the neighbourhood with the kids screaming after them "Ice creeeaaaammm!!! Ice creeeeaaaammm! - a la Eddie Murphy. However, when I moved to the city after college, I was quick to discover their delights. I love me this treat - always a vanilla cone dipped in chocolate - and allow myself only 1 per summer or else I would weigh 400lbs. I have tried to like the other flavours - chocolate or the vanilla chocolate swirl - but I always go back to the my tried and true favourite. As I was driving home today, I drove by one of those trucks, with his annoying music playing, and all I wanted to do was scream out the window "ICE CRRREEAAAMMMM!" but then EVERYONE in my neighbourhood would know for sure that I am a total lunatic!

The sunscreen smell is heaven on earth to me. Alas, due to my pale skin, Hawaiian Tropic doesn't work for me but I am like our dog Arthur around the BBQ when someone is wearing it - constantly sniffing the air. It totally takes me back to high school, sitting in the sun on our spare periods all greased up and trying to get a tan. Little did I know then that tanning and I would never have a relationship.

With our first long weekend of the summer coming, all I can think about is sitting in the sun (with my Ombrelle 30 on and a wide-brimmed hat) sniffing the air for the scent of coconut and my ear cocked for the sound of the ice cream truck. I can't wait!

A CASE OF THE CRANKS...

I have a bad case of the cranks - and I mean bad! Last night, I was such a complete bitch to Wilson. Seriously - it was an unprecedented level of bitchiness. I scared him a couple of times so badly with my overall bitchiness that he was afraid to answer my questions because he was worried that he would answer wrong. Which was probably a wise move.

I tried everything I know to get the cranks to go away - wine, wine and more wine, cheese, chocolate and nothing worked. I did not have a chance to try the surefire cure - shoe shopping which we all KNOW would have worked its usual miracle. However, I wake up this morning and dammit all - the cranks are still here. Thank Jebus that the crossing guards were gone by the time I drove through the neighbourhood this morning because I might have run one of them over.

Wilson might seriously consider leaving me if I come home again as grumpy as I did last night. However if he were a smart man - he should just point me back out the door and send me to the nearest mall with the instructions "Do not come home until you buy a pair of shoes that gets rid of the cranks!". I know that will NEVER happen but a girl can dream. And of course because of the cranks - the fact that I know it won't happen makes me cranky.

It is a cranky connundrum - what is girl to do!

WHAT HAVE I BECOME...

As I was driving into work today, there were a number of instances that made me go hmmmm...

- man in bright yellow car (we know what he is over compensating for!) comes roaring up behind me, passes me and then cuts me off and then got caught at the red light that I was slowing down for. My first thought was - "All that hurrying and it got you nowhere!" My second thought was - 'Mom get out of my head!"

- he then takes off like a crazy man - passing as many cars as aggressively as he can and my third thought is "let's hope that jackass doesn't kill someone while he rushes to nowhere". Again my mother says this (I never use the word jackass - asshole is more my vernacular) all the time and I had to come to the realization. GOOD LORD! I AM TURNING INTO MY MOTHER!

I knew that after spending my formative years with my parents that there would be some residual effect on how I think, act, etc. but this crap is kinda scary! Does this mean I am going to start reading Danielle Steele in hardback and loving it? Or taking up scrapbooking because it is fun? Or making conversation with complete strangers in the grocery line? Or going to church - REGULARLY? Or not gossiping EVER and cleaning up my trucker mouth? And GULP! does that mean I would have to give up drinking? OK - just breathe because we all know the last 4 will NEVER happen!

Being more like my mother would make me a much nicer person but I think my friends would run screaming for the hills looking for their gossipy, bitchy friend who drinks far too much!

Thank heavens I got to work and started slacking the minute I got here. I felt all normal and not mom-like because my mother would never slack off EVER.

WHEW! That was a close call!

HAPPY CHEESE DAY TO ALL

We here at our office - decided that there are not enough holidays to celebrate so we invented one and believe that will be come a international sensation. It is called Cheese Day - The Holiday with Culture!

To celebrate this holiday is VERY easy. You must first decorate - every house has cheesy items that need to come out and be on display. Secondly - you must play the music of Cheese Day -every one's CD collection or iPod has cheesy music within it - anything from the 70s qualifies. (Secretly I was hoping that David Hasselhoff would hear about our holiday and make an appearance as he is the Grand Master of Cheese - but alas, he is to busy trying to resurrect some kind of career.) Lastly you go and buy copious amounts of cheese - all different kinds and then add in some nice crackers and Presto Cheeso! you are ready for Cheese Day!

I am off to go and enjoy some fromage with friends and hope that all of you do the same. And don't forget the Cheese Day slogan - Cheese Day - It's Cheesetastic!

PS - I know that those of you who are lactose intolerant feel that this holiday should not be celebrated as much as it is - and to you I say, take a Lactaid and join in. Cheese Day is for everyone!

A GOOD START TO MY DAY

This may make me seem petty but I got whistled at by a construction worker this morning and DAMN! if that did not give my spirits a lift and make me walk with a bit more wiggle to my hips. I am 41 and this shiz does not happen with the regularity that it used to.

So today I am loving the construction workers around my office! (this will last only until they hold up traffic and then I am all about the honking and back to being pissed off at them)

Happy Thursday to all - just one more sleep to the weekend!

WE'RE IN!!

Summer has officially begun for Wilson and I as we launched our boat, Summer Breeze, yesterday. Alert your livers sorority girls - boating season has begun. Bring on the heat weatherman - this girl wants to get on the water!

LINK'D IN

Today I feel like I have arrived (finally!) in blog land. Why - you might ask? I have been linked in a blog roll - actually 2 blog rolls. Dating at Forty and My Friends are Sluts (which I have to say is the best name for a blog EVAH!) have now included me in their blog roll! I know that this post officially makes me a big, blogging geek for being so damn excited about it - but who cares! WOOO HOOOO! I feel all official now!


OK - moment of jubiliation is now over and back to reality. I think to celebrate this official day of wonderfulness - I must do something. Hmmm, what to do, what to do...(saying this while trying to look like I have not already formulated an answer). I know - I must go buy a pair of pretty shoes to celebrate. They will be forever known as my 'Link'd In' shoes!


Thank you fellow bloggers - you have totally made my day!

A DAY I WILL NEVER GET BACK

Today I was forced to sit in one of those soul sucking training sessions - you know the one - endless PowerPoint presentations, speakers that drone on and on and on for way to long until you want to stab yourself with a pencil to relieve the boredom. Praise Allah that ReRe was stuck in the session with me because at least I had her for entertainment. All I could think of the entire time I am there is that I WILL NEVER GET THIS TIME BACK!

However, all was redeemed when I got home because in our mail was the 2008 Spring Selections catalogue from Tiffany. Suddenly my severe case of the cranks vanished whilst I looked at pretty, sparkly things. This is what needs to happen during soul sucking presentations - flash a slide of a Tiffany box just to get my attention every once in a while. I am like one of Pavlov's dogs - I will pay attention just to see the box again.

Thank you Tiffany for mailing me a coated paper catalogue that I didn't request on Earth Day. I realize that I should be appalled at the trees you murdered to produce it but with all the pretty stuff inside it - that is the last thing on my mind.

Happy Earth Day to all!

I HEART PASSOVER!

Alas, Passover has passed over us for another year! An evening of much hilarity and beige food happened on Saturday evening. My favourite highlights:

- much singing in Hebrew (Wilson, Mellie and I did not partake in this part as our Hebrew education is sorely lacking!)
- kosher dills
- the beet horseradish
- brisket
- learning that sage is a goyish spice - I never new that sage was more goy than Jew - Who knew?
- hymns and camp songs to end the evening - nothing like hearing Jews singing Amazing Grace to make you giggle!

The only explaining of my love of Passover is that I love to eat carbs, laugh A LOT and that I was a Jew in another life. It really is the only explanation. And though I ate more carbs in one meal that I have since Christmas - I can't wait for next year!

IT'S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR!!

It's passover time again! Now in our very WASPY house - we do not celebrate it but ReRe in all of her Jewishness does. This makes me VERY happy! I love it all - beige food, carrot tsmimis, apple kugel with dinner (which still confuses me as it tastes like dessert but it is not) and all of the ceremony that goes with it.

Bring on the matzoh brie, tsimis, pickles and blintzes!

I wish all of you a happy passover! Good Yountif (ReRe will let me know how badly I have misspelled this word!


PS - If you get to go to Passover this year and you are not Jewish - take it from me, pass on the Gefilte fish and the Manoschevitz. You can thank me for this later!

IT HAPPENED AGAIN!

I have a photo inclusion in the Schmap Texas Second Edition. Again, Flickr leading the charge on this one again. Wilson and I were in Houston in January for an industry conference and got the opportunity to go to Minutemaid Park where the Houston Astros play for a SuperBowl party. We went down onto the field and with my Blackberry camera I snapped a photo of the scoreboard and poof - 2 months later this guide found it on my Flickr page.

This is such a total kick for me I can't even tell you! I don't get paid a dime for them including my picture but I do get photo credit (yeah, yeah I know that photo credit doesn't pay the bills or get DiDi that pretty pair shoes - but it is fun for this photo geek!)

Here's hoping that it happens again soon and that the next time, they pay me A LOT of money! Then my sorority sisters and I can go for lunch and shoe shopping. Life just wouldn't be better than that!

SPRING HAS SPRUNG

There are crocuses in my garden with more flowers to come as evidenced by the amount of daffodil, hyacinth and tulip leaves we have protruding from the ground. I can't tell you how happy this makes me. I don't care one wee iota that it is raining today and will rain the entire weekend and that means that traffic is going to suck. All that means to me green grass and leaves on trees and spring is finally here! Can everyone give me a big AMEN to that one.

I know that there are lots of you who live south of the 49th parallel who have more flowers than you know what to do with right now but for me, these small, hardy little flowers who poke through the ground when it often still feels like winter out - mean the world to me.

Happy spring dear Internet - we all deserve it!

AT LONG LAST!

I am wearing open toe shoes for this first time this year! Praise Jebus that spring has sprung, the snow she is almost gone and the pretty shoes are on my feet!

There is a god and she lives in the shoe department of Nordstroms!

IT'S OFFICIAL

A little known fact - well maybe not so little known, at least to my friends - is that I am a photo geek. I love taking pictures of just about anything and anyone (but mainly of Arthur - our dog). This is my only - and I do mean only - artistic venture. I do not have a creative bone in my entire body. Drawing is out, creative writing - not so much (as anyone who reads this blog is well aware - a Nobel prize in literature will NEVER happen for me), handicrafts make me frustrated and Wilson has banned me from ever painting in our house ever again.

However none of that matters as (pause for dramatic effect)...

wait for it...

I have sold my first photo!

(insert marching band, parade, showers of money)

Regarding the showers of money - not so much but small cheque did find me! A scrapbooking magazine wants to use a photo that I had in my collection from my brother's wedding in 1985. I was a bridesmaid and wore the worst bridesmaid's dress in history. You think yours is worse...check it out for yourself.

However these ever so crafty people took the above photo and did this with it

And that is how I am now a published photographer. I do not care if it ever happens again - this was a total thrill for me. Thank heavens for the keywords at Flickr or it never would have happened.

Yay - my work is out there in some magazine. I am a published photographer! Look out world, here I come.

POINTER SAVES A KANGAROO

Thanks to the mighty Dooce - I found this amazing article about how a dog saved a baby kangaroo - and the dog is a Wire Haired pointer so of course I am enamored all ready. Also, I want to bring the kangaroo home with me and keep it as a pet. Seriously - it would be a money maker - I would be the ONLY person in Toronto to have a kangaroo as a pet. How awesome would that be!


Baby Kangaroo story


I read this and thought to myself that Arthur would have been equally enamoured and then scared to death of the baby Joey. He would have wanted to play with it, then it would have moved and he would have barked his damn head off. However, Arthur is much cuter.


Thanks to Dooce for publishing the article. It made my day and I hope it brings a smile to yours.


Happy reading!

HAPPY AT LAST

At long freaking last - the temperature was in the double digits today, there was blue sky AND sunshine! Everybody say 'HELL YEAH!". The snow - it was-a-meltin and I do see evidence that we do have grass in our backyard. This could only mean that open toe shoe season is not that far away and that boating season is around the corner. This also means that my ranting, bitchy posts about the weather will soon cease for another year. Praise sweet baby Jebus for all of the above!

ANNOUNCING...

My gorgeous, talented and funny friend ReRe has entered the world of blogging and all should know (OK, the 2 readers I have should be aware). Her blog Dating at 40 is some seriously funny stuff about her adventures back into the dating world. All should read and be amused - I know I am.

You go my friend, keep writing, get a book deal and become fabulously wealthy. Just checking, you do know that when that happens, you will be expected to buy me really nice presents.

HAPPY BLOGAVERSARY TO ME!

I totally missed it - it was March 14th 2006 that this little inauspicious blog began for no other reason than I loved reading other people's blogs and wanted one of my one (also, work was boring and this was something to do during the day). It seemed all the cool kids had one and since I fancy myself a cool kid (pause while I pat myself on the back) I decided to get one.

I am going to have to go buy myself something pretty to celebrate. If the 1st anniversary is paper - what do you get yourself for anniversary #2? I know - shoes!!!

I LOVE THIS MAN!

This is an article from Macleans magazine - for anyone outside of Canada - it is a Canadian newsmagazine. I love this man because he put into words how we are all feeling about this goddamn winter that never seems to end. Please oh please - let spring find us soon. I have some very pretty shoes that are dying to be worn.

What's eating you, Mother Nature? Is it us?

I always pictured you as a nice lady, but after this much snow you're one mean slut
SCOTT FESCHUK March 12, 2008

An Open Letter to Mother Nature

Dear Bitch,

Are you for real?

We know it was wrong of us to stand idly by and let Al Gore show all those explicit photographs of what you're going to look like 30 years from now. But seriously — ease off. Enough with the apocalyptic downfalls of snow mixed with ice pellets mixed with freezing rain mixed with snow pellets mixed with the frozen tears of sedentary Maclean's columnists who just can't lift the shovel even one more goddamn time. I'm not saying I'm totally sick of winter, but see that animal's head mounted above my fireplace? Say hello to Punxsutawney Phil. Shadow-seeing bastard had it coming.

In Ottawa, we're closing in on the all-time record snowfall of 444.1 cm — a mark that has stood for almost four decades. Spring seems as far off as Jessica Alba's Academy Award. How bad is it in the nation's capital? I have to wear an avalanche beacon when I go out to get the paper. The local TV weather guy has the eerily distant look of a soldier with post-traumatic shock or a teenage virgin who's been left alone with Charlie Sheen for seven minutes. And at press time Scatman Crothers was desperately trying to get here before Jack Nicholson attacks my family.

Word is you've been kinder to other parts of Canada. Calgary was pushing 12 degrees this week. The mercury in Whitehorse hit the positive numbers. And Winnipeg reportedly made it a record six straight days without a single mosquito joke. But you continue to treat Ontario and all parts east as your own personal snow globe.

We've tried to have patience. Some of us have also tried patience's little helper, Xanax. But look what you've done to us. We're a quivering mass of shattered nerves, deadened eyes and extended middle fingers. Our arms ache from all the ice-scraping. Our eyes sting from the unrelenting glare. Our brains atrophy from hours spent staring at the shelves of the local DVD shop and trying to remember which of the Ernest movies we still haven't seen.

What's eating you, Mother Nature? Is it us? Listen, we all still have regrets about those 1970s commercials for Chiffon margarine — the ones with the catchphrase, "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature." The special effects were cheesy at best and some of those woodland creatures really phoned in their performances. And yes, we bear a collective responsibility for failing to punish Hollywood for callously having you portrayed in films by not only Phyllis Diller but also Bette Midler. Next time, Scarlett Johansson in a fig leaf. We promise.

But you need to lighten up. Winters like this — they're not something that humans are built to endure. In that way they're like all Robin Williams movies since 1987. We can't take the physical strain of trudging through this much snow. We can't take the mental strain of driving on impassable streets. And we can't outrun the yetis who've come down from the hills to feast.

What's that you say? If we don't like it we should go somewhere warmer? Oh you'd love that, wouldn't you? You'd love us to go to the airport so you can hurl another 50 cm of glistening white misery at us. We'll end up like those people on the news who spent half their March break in line at the departure-lounge Sbarro.

I always pictured you as a nice lady, sauntering through idyllic forests, bluebirds chirping merrily as they fluttered around your head. Maybe you'd stop now and then to enjoy a leisurely cup of tea with other famed anthropomorphized figures such as Jack Frost or Andy Rooney. And then you'd be on your way to cuddle a cute bunny rabbit or make the sun shine out of Barack Obama's ass.

But it turns out you're one mean slut. So much snow has fallen this winter that hell itself has frozen over — and you know what that means: now Rob Schneider gets to star in another movie. Thanks a lot, Mother Nature: first 410 cm of snow; next, Deuce Bigalow III: Gigolo Harder.

You and I have had our differences before. As one who sweats profusely under certain conditions, such as sitting quietly at room temperature, I wasn't too wild about the summer of 2005. By late June I was technically classified as an estuary. But this is different. This is worse. This winter has worn me down like a Rosie O'Donnell opinion. And to think this is the thanks I get from Mother Nature for spending 90 whole minutes cleaning up that riverbank that one afternoon 20 years ago when I was trying to hit on that enviro-chick who never wore a bra.

One last thing: because of the snow and the cold, I haven't been able to take down the Christmas lights yet. But with you in mind I did manage to rearrange them to spell, "Up Yours." We know it's not nice to fool you — but there's nothing in there that says we can't punch you in the face.

Sincerely,

Everyone