Nepal. Or Alberta.

The current mindless job I'm working on has to do with Rural Telephone Companies. I've just done Mountain View Saskatchewan, and I'm wondering where that might be. Alberta? BC? Switzerland?

Yeah, I know

Yes, it's a bit of a misnomer on both counts, isn't it? But...I'll be able to tell people what the blog is called without getting the "kama a WHAT" look from them. I just liked this title better, is all. So there.

Just Another Manic Monday

Where am I? At home. Why? Because I have the kind of cold that makes you alternate between curled up in a ball of misery in bed and floating in a death-like stupor in the bath. Why is this awful? Because there is stuff I have to do today - and it won't get done, so tomorrow I'll have to be brilliant and efficient. One or the other I could have mastered, but both? We'll see.

(If you're wondering why I am even posting, instead of sleeping it is because there are problems with getting the kids from my dads to their other grandparents. They did get to Victoria safely, but the remainder of the trip didn't happen due to bad weather, and I am supposed to talk to them at eight this morning to try to work something else out. Which means ten o'clock here, I think. Because admittedly my brain is not up to par).

PS: thinking of changing the blog name. I love it, love how it sounds, love what it means but it's a bugger to tell people, and impossible for them to remember how it is spelled.

Blink, Damn you!

I spent part of this afternoon in a presentation – a presentation that humoured me, although that was not the intent. Here are some of the things I learned today:

If your eyes are too dry…blink more.

Surgery for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is pretty serious, so a much better choice is to not get it at all. (Hmm. It’s a choice? Is there a point at which you think to yourself “what should I do – change how I work, or get CTS? Think I’ll go with the latter”? Does that work for other things? “Chemotherapy is pretty serious, so it would be better not to get cancer in the first place”).

If you need bifocals to see with don’t use them when you’re looking at the computer screen.

Arrange to have a pregnant video display policy. Now that one was just silly. Yes, I know she meant policy for people who are pregnant who use computers for long hours, but that is not what she said. So I laughed. By myself, apparently no one else found it funny. But it was a thick crowd; no one laughed when someone asked if was safe to sit on large balls. And again yes, I know what they meant, but it was still funny!

Drink lots of water. Not, as you may be thinking, because your body needs water, but because “the more you drink the more you pee, and then you HAVE to get up”.

Totally profitable afternoon. I guess I am grateful that I didn’t have to pay for attending. (Interestingly enough, she started the whole thing off with “apparently I’m qualified for this because I took a course on the internet. Whatever”. Should have guessed RIGHT THERE that it was going to be a roller coaster of fun!

Affordable to whom?

So there I was, reading the December issue of Bon Appetit when up comes an ad for a gorgeous stove. Beautiful. Truly, I lusted. And in the little blurb it was referred to as beingin the "more affordable factory assembled range". The price tag for this beauty? This affordable beauty? Eight grand. Yup, eight thousand smackeroos. I figure if you can afford eight thousand dollars for a stove, why go bottom of the line? I mean really, how much more expensive could top of the line be? Me being me (something I like to do whenever feasible) I had to find out. Turns out if you don't have to worry about money and you want top of the line, you can get their best baby for thirty-four thousand dollars. American. Plus tax. And Delivery. And Installation. Thirty-four thousand dollars. Even if I won 18 million dollars in a lottery I'm pretty sure I couldn't bring myself to pay thirty-four thousand dollars for a stove.

Bad, Badder, Baddest.

Bad: I took my cell phone into a meeting. I didn't think this was bad; I turned the ringer to vibrate, so if it did ring, no one would know.

Badder: It rang - or rather buzzed. I squealed. The kind of squeal that happens when your derriere's been pinched.

Baddest: Well, I couldn't just let them think I occasionally squeal for no reason whatsoever, could I? And they were all staring at me. Which was nothing compared to the reaction I got when I said "sorry about that - my pants are vibrating and I'm not used to it".

Coulda been poopy.

I am, for the most part, pleased that they redid the entire street that I live on. It is beautifully smooth, and I'm gonna take up rollerblading. Yes, I am. Ignore the laughter of my kids, they'll get over it. So yes, mainly good things here. Except...

The workers appear to know when I have migraines. The day the machine with the giant metal disk came to tear up the sidewalk and bottom of my driveway, I was home with a headache. And here I thought bagpipes would be the worst thing to have to hear when you have a migraine! Oh so sadly wrong.

The day they put the final layer of asphalt done I was also home with a migraine. In the bath, in the dark, hoping the pain would go away. I was quite...startled to be bombarded with what turned out to be shampoo and conditioner bottles from the shelves. Turns out the pavement pounding machine made the whole house vibrate and things were jumping off the shelves all over the house. In the fogginess of the headache, my first reaction to the flying bottles was to leap up screaming, thinking a murderer had somehow entered the house whilst I was underwater. Because you know, that's what murderers do first: throw plastic bottles at you to render you unconcious. Even with a migraine I quickly twigged to what was going on, and the screaming stopped. But all in all, a bad experience. Nevertheless, the road is done and life will return to normal - whatever that is for me!

Or so I thought. Turns out that there are some sewer things that need to be done. Which means that from 3:00 am this morning until 8:00 pm tonight - NO WATER. No flushing, showering, bathing, dishes...nothing! Until eight tonight, curse them.

So this morning we brushed our teeth with water I'd run last night, spitting into a bowl in the sink. We all waited to get to where we are going today to use a bathroom, and whilst we did all shower last night before bed, I still feel somewhat unwashed. Ick. Maybe this is the last of the road repair interruptions. Maybe.

Oh, wait, I have one more rant: the notice that they sent to tell us to not run water was put on the doorknob. They didn't ring the doorbell (and we were home all night), and if I hadn't been taking A. out to play some games, I wouldn't have known not to run water. So we would have showered, pooped, done dishes and probably some laundry too. And, according to the notice, if you do any of those things while they're working whatever you have done will "flood back into the home". Yup, that would have been JUST what I wanted to do today, clean up flooded sewage from the basement. So I am going to phone the contact number they gave and suggest that perhaps in the future they could ensure that people actually GET the notice. Perhaps even a day or two before the shut down.

Men and their things

Nope, TOTALLY not what you thought this was going to about!

I just thought I'd mention, so y'all can remember, there are only two men in the world that can pronounce "thing" as "thang" and get away with it: Delbert McClinton and John Hiatt. If you think more need to be added, you have to get my permission. I am the protector of thing pronunciation.

Captain Picard

Don’t you think that as my sister’s soon to be mother-in-law lives in the same neighbourhood as Patrick Stewart that he should be invited to the wedding? Just to be neighbourly, of course. And because baldness rules! Or because they haven’t invited any single guys at all. AT ALL. The buggers.

I'd be rich were it not for...

Boardgames, Lingerie & Kitchen Gadgets. None of these, you'll notice, fall into the category of "necessary". Like food and air and stuff. I have this recurring nightmare where I'm on some news expose and the world finds out how much money I've spent on these things. These lovely lovely things.

You'd think I'd have the willpower to stop, yes? But...but there is always one more game or game expansion, some bitty piece of underwear in a colour I MUST have, and kitchen gadgets are tools, not toys. Sigh. I don't things are going to change any time soon. I don't think the sickness is under control just yet. So keep quiet about this, ok? Thanks.

An Angel? Really?

If you’re one of the people who read this blog on a semi-regular basis, you’ll recall that I mentioned my crazy blue coat, and that one of the things that I said about it was that is was huggable. So here’s the story.

I was in the mall, wearing the fluffy muppet coat when a woman with a little girl holding her hand came up to me. The woman asks me if its ok if her daughter asks me about the coat. No problem, thinking it would be a muppet comment. But no, the philosophy went thusly:

May I hug you?
Well...ok.
(Big Hug)
You are so soft!
Thanks!
What are you?
(Silence from me. I mean, really, what am I? What is anyone?)
Are you...are you maybe an angel?
Not today honey (I keep forgetting not to call other people’s children honey) but you sure are!
Thank you lady. Bye.

This made my whole weekend last weekend. What a thought - Angels aren’t white and winged, they’re furry, and really really blue!

Whither, mad maiden, wilt thou roam? Far safer 'twere to stay at home.

I’m an idiot. And it’s two –fifty. That’s how long it took me to figure out I’m an idiot. So when I go to take boys home at three-thirty I’m not coming back here. Which is the smartest thing I’ve done all week.

On the plus side, next week is a short week, with Friday being a statutory holiday. Long live three day weekends.