What I Want to Remember from 2006

Here I sit in my disastrously untidy room in my little basement flat in Lethbridge, trying to relive the moments that made 2006 memorable -

Well, there was that big boxing day sale at the Gap (two pairs of pants and a shirt for $50).... ok, just kidding. Let's try again. If I keep going on like this, no one will ever believe that I'm not terribly materialistic. (I work in a mall, okay? I can't help getting excited about clothes for cheap.)

One of my best memories from Taylor was sitting beside Randa on the edge of the Schindler bathtub - shaving our legs and doing pedicures - and just talking about life and school and how time goes by so fast. That was a few days before I moved to Lethbridge.

Oh April! You were so rainy... so dark and depressing and cold. I was looking for a new job - meeting new people - trying to decide what the next year of my life would look like. I'm glad that that decision was wrenched out of my hands - even though my life right now isn't what I planned at all, I wouldn't trade it for anything else.

And then I met Galac. I remember the day he asked me out - I remember the terribly awkward movie that we went to (has anyone even heard of The Brick? No, I didn't think so) - I remember the delicate process of getting to know each other - I'd like to say that I remember our first kiss, but that would be a lie - heck, it happened, and anyways the first kiss is not usually the rock-your-socks-off moment that chick flicks like to make-believe. I remember the day that I knew I was in love with him - I was sitting on the bus on my way to work (at Subway. I was going to try to get through this memorable-moments-of-2006 post without mentioning that job, but I guess I just did, so I'll just say that I didn't exactly enjoy that chapter of my life, and move on - I have a better job now) and I was thinking about him, and suddenly I just knew. I've never fallen in love before... so it was kind of terrifying and joyful and giddy all at once.

Little Miss Sunshine. I couldn't talk about 2006 without mentioning the hands-down, best-ever movie of the year. I could watch Little Miss Sunshine every day.

And then there was the guy who tried to break into my house. Probably lost at least two years of my life from that scare. I know it's overplayed, but Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars" is definitely on my top songs of 2006 list. (Okay, I don't have a list exactly but if I did that song would be #1.)

And kudos to Jose, my raunchy Mexican car. Jose I love you even if you are slightly touchy and tend to crash into things (or is it just my bad driving) and by the way your wipers suck and it would be great if the gas gauge would work but whatever you're mine and I'll try to look after you. I promise.

Oh, and in 2006 I made the Best Chocolate Cake Ever. I wish I had a picture to show you guys but you'll just have to take my word for it. It was amazing.

If there's one thing I learned this year, it's to not take your loved ones for granted. They could be gone at any moment. Life is short - breath is fragile - so cherish the people that you love. And tell them. Every day. That's important.

I guess this is it for 2006. I'll see you all in the New Year. Happy partying, may you all get as hungover or un-hungover as you want to be.

p.s. The picture at the top was taken at my parents' house this Christmas. We had a wonderful holiday - it was pretty loud and there was lots of excitement but I must say that it was a great finish to 2006.

Random Thoughts about Christmas

Christmas is almost here.
Is it just me, or did this year fly by? It seems like just yesterday that I was sitting in my room at Taylor, staring at the mess, and thinking about how great it would be in my new place in Lethbridge. That was in April, and the eight months that followed have been a blur. Meeting Galac... working at Subway... falling in love... working at Bluenotes... my new roommate... my new car... my sister's wedding... my brother's engagement... it's been insane, but in a good way.
Galac and I celebrated six months together on December 6th. Six months! To me, an insecure commitment-phobe, that's crazy. How did I end up in such a fantastic relationship?
As usual, I'm working through the whole holiday season. I get Christmas Day and New Year's Day off, but only because the mall is closed on those days. The Christmas crowds have already arrived in full force. I'm actually typing this on my break, and my head feels as if someone has been repeatedly kicking it. Possibly that could also have something to do with my lack of sleep, but that was my own fault. From here on in, I need to make sure that I go to bed early every single night - the deluge of grumpy customers is only going to increase in intensity.
I was thinking the other day about how happy I am to not have a school Christmas banquet to dress up for. Oh Taylor, how I don't even miss you one tiny little bit.

Quote of the day

Grace (to customer, who has come to pay for a pair of jeans): "Would you like to grab a second pair for half price?"

Customer (with a very confused look on her face, while staring at the price tag on the pair of jeans she already has picked out): "How much is half price?"

Some people apparently didn't pass third-grade math.

I love my job.

A new job and a new car

In the last month, two very exciting things have happened to me:
1. I got a new job.
2. I got a new car.
The job is a full-time keyholder position at Bluenotes. No, that is not a bar - it is a clothing store. I get to help people pick out jeans - I am the one who knows everyone's waist size in inches. I especially love the women who come in who ask for a size that we all know is much smaller than they will fit... but I give them what they ask for because in order for people to part with cash, their egos must be stroked. I really do enjoy my job, although some days the customers are insufferable. I find that the more tired I am, the ruder people seem to be. Coincidence? Probably ;).
And the car... oh people, I love my car. His name is Jose, and he is the gorgeous color of poo-brown, with a burnt orange interior. Jose is an 85 Honda Accord. I adopted him just last weekend, and I already love the little luxury of having a car. I named him Jose because I bought him from a man who lived in Mexico, and Jose just sounds so much more raunchy than Pedro or Pablo. Jose is a raunchy car. I don't even want to think about what the previous owners used the backseat for. It is just that kind of a car.

LOVE

Which Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Character are you? Willy Wonka "It's in the fridge, daddy-o! Are you hip to the jive? Can you dig what I'm layin' down? I knew that you could. Slide me some skin, soul brother!" - Wonka

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

And to think that I saw it on Mulberry Street...

Today on my way home from work, I encountered a woman pushing two small dogs in a baby carriage. Lost in my own thoughts, I wouldn't have even noticed this unusual sight, but a car full of rowdy and probably intoxicated adolescents cruised through by the crosswalk, and started yelling at the poor lady. "That's cruel! That is SO cruel!"
It was quite amusing.
I'm sure that lady must have had a screw loose somewhere. Who in their right mind would put a dog - no, TWO dogs - in a baby carriage and take them for a stroll downtown?

the boy

I don't know about you guys, but I think we make a pretty cute couple!!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have a great, huge, hideous Fear that lives in my head. The Fear of Getting Fat. It pokes its nasty fingers at me whenever I get a longing for Marble Slab ice cream and it either succeeds in keeping me to my diet or else makes me feel terribly guilty when I don't listen to its screechy, whiney voice. Somedays I wish this Fear would just leave me alone forever; some days I wish it would yell louder. I want to have a Jennifer Anniston-flat stomach... but I'd rather not exercise the self discipline for it. (Besides, obviously her stomach wasn't enough to keep one of People's Sexiest People - Brad Pitt - around for her. So why should it work for me?) Instead, I live in the shadow that the Fear of Getting Fat casts on my existence.
And today I made chocolate chip cookies. I plan on taking some of them to work, and some of them are for my boy. In this way I hope to get them out of my house before I eat any (more) of them. But oh... the smell of brown sugar and butter and chocolate all mixed together... Dear God, why did you make chocolate chip cookies taste so good? And why did you make it so perversely difficult for me to self-discipline myself to actually get up off my fat butt, put on my nikes, and go running? I always enjoy it while I'm out there, so why don't I do it more often?
And why do fitness magazines always make it seem so easy to schedule an hour workout which includes a balance of cardio, strength training, and stretches, into a normal person's life?
These are just a few questions I have.

Ants again

Well... I know I haven't been posting much lately, but it's been so busy. And really, this post is only because my older brother was at my house yesterday nagging me to publish something on my blog. "Some people still read it," he said sarcastically.
I've been living in Lethbridge for 3 months now. It feels so short and so long. I'm kind of discouraged because I was planning on going to school here... but now I'm not going for at least another year, and I will be working full-time at Subway. Aaagh. Not that it's such a bad job, it's just hot and sweaty and I come home smelling like subs... and when people ask where I work, I have to be truthful and say "Subway" and it's kind of humiliating. Well, that's enough of that.
I have to tell you about the ants. I posted a bit ago about the flood in my basement. Well, if that wasn't traumatic enough... it seems that when we ripped up the carpet in my room we also opened up an anthole. When I got back from my sister's wedding I noticed a few little ants crawling around in my house. I can deal with that, I thought. The ants were really tiny - no big deal, right? That was until last weekend when I was sitting at my computer, and, no joke, there were at least 50 ants crawling around my chair. I kind of spased and then vacuumed them up. I thought they were coming in my window so I closed it... but then, an hour later, there were still ants all over my bedroom floor. They were marching in a little line out of a hole in the carpet. I spased again, got out the vacuum cleaner, and then laid down ant poison all along my wall, under the carpet.
Now the ants are dead.
It makes me happy.
And that is the story of the ants. This summer has been crazy for ant problems. They are still really bad outside, along the side door. Those are the big ants, but those ones don't seem to want to come inside anymore, which is nice. One less ant problem to worry about.
And no, I haven't seen Ant Bully yet. And I don't plan to. I don't need to have nightmares about the ants' revenge on me.

little bits of news

The last two weeks of my life have been busier than the past six months combined! Well, maybe not quite, but they certainly have been eventful. Last Thursday my family and I flew out to Victoria to go to my sister's wedding. It was a pretty busy weekend but a really wonderful time. I think I got a lot of issues in my life figured out while I was there, which is what I was hoping to accomplish. Talking with my sister usually helps. We are more alike than I want to admit. I don't have pics of the wedding yet, but they will be coming soon and I will post some here. It was a gorgeous day, and the location on top of the mountain was just beautiful. Now I have to come up with a better place for my wedding! It would just be too normal and boring to have it inside a church after the stunning mountaintop view that Marie had.
And in other news... I've started my new job at Subway, and it's working out OK. I still work at Bluenotes, so that breaks up the monotony a bit. This next week will probably be pretty busy again, but I have today off at least and hopefully will get a little bit of baking done.

New Job!

Well, after much complaining and whining about my pathetic hours at the Wholesale Club, I finally got my fat arse off of the couch and went out looking for a full-time job. I finally found one at Subway. OK, so it's not exactly an amazing career opportunity but at least I won't be sitting at home every morning and borrowing money from my parents to pay my Mastercard bill. I start there on July 4th, after I get back from my sister's wedding in Victoria. I wish I didn't have to leave the Wholesale, since it was so easy and convenient. But I just can't make two part-time jobs work!
In other news, I've finally moved back into my own bedroom, the carpet having dried sufficiently. It smelled like sewage in my basement for a while but I think either I've gotten used to it or else it's finally actually been aired out enough.

You Are Homer Simpson

You're just an ordinary, all-American working Joe... With a special fondness for pork rinds and donuts. You will be remembered for: your little "isms" and philosophies on life Your life philosophy: "Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals ... except the weasel."

The Simpsons Personality Test

Your 2005 Song Is

Since You've Been Gone by Kelly Clarkson "But since you've been gone I can breathe for the first time I'm so moving on" In 2005, you moved on.

What Hit Song of 2005 Are You?

Your Love Life Secrets Are

Looking back on your life, you will have a few true loves. You're a little scarred from your past relationships, but who isn't? You expect a lot from your lover - you want the full package. You tend to be very picky. In fights, you seek compromise and back down from conflict. You always try to smooth things out. Getting over a break-up doesn't take long. Easy come, easy go.

Your Love Life Secrets, Revealed

Cashier Awareness Days

OK, so I don't think that there's such a thing, but I wish there was! I guess I will just have to take on the formidable task of educating the public about How to Make a Cashier's Life Infinitely Easier. I know it's a hopeless task, but a girl can always hope! So, here's some simple, common-sense tips on how to make your sojourn into the grocery store a little bit quicker, more efficient, and more pleasant for everyone involved.
1. When you put your groceries on the belt, always, always, ALWAYS use a divider to mark the spot where your groceries end. You'd be amazed how many people expect me to watch them unload their groceries and know exactly which bananas are theirs and which bananas belong to the man ahead of them. Just taking that extra half-second and putting the divider down saves everyone a lot of grief.
2. If you have 24 dahlias in your cart, DON'T unload them ALL onto the belt. They spill dirt everywhere, take a lot of time to unload and reload, and they should stay in your cart! The cashier only needs to see 1 of them.
3. If you want a tub of Number 7 tobacco, please tell me if you want 65%, 85%, 95%, or 100%. Before I walk all the way to the tobacco cage. Believe it or not, your kind of tobacco is not the only kind we sell and I can't read your mind about which kind you want.
4. When I ask you how many bags you want, don't turn away and kind of mumble the number into your shirt. It's noisy in the grocery store, and I can't hear you. Then I have to ask you again, and you get miffed because I didn't hear the first time.
5. Don't tell me how to do my job. If there's twenty people in line and it's obvious that I haven't yet had time to wipe up a spill from the last person's potted plants, don't point at the counter and say "Look, there's dirt there." Yes, I know there's dirt there. Yes, I am going to clean it up. But if you knew what kind of dirty hands had already pawed through your peaches while they were still on the display, you wouldn't be worried about a little clean dirt out of a pot.
OK, so maybe I'm being a little bit anal about this! I just thought that the public needed to become aware of some of the pet peeves of grocery cashiers. After all, we're people too, and I think we deserve a little respect!

Flooded

Those pictures were taken at 3 am. In my basement. My very wet basement. On Tuesday night we had a nasty thunderstorm in Lethbridge, and the window in my bedroom couldn't withstand the onslaught of water. Luckily, Jen was worried about the books that I keep in that window, and so she came downstairs at about 2:30 am to see if everything was alright. Well, to make a long story short... we ended up spending about an hour and a half mopping water out of my carpet. Then we discovered that the floor in my kitchen was leaking as well. Needless to say, it was an exciting night.
Now my basement smells just a little odd. Musty, dank, dungeon-esque. Lovely. It's still kind of drying out, but some scented candles and open windows have helped.
How about those Oilers? I'm writing this during the commercial break before the third period, game 6 against Carolina in Rexall Place. Go Oilers!!!
p.s. I'm still a Flames fan at heart. Really.

Fantastic Music I Have Been Enjoying Lately

Fernando Ortega:

The Most Relaxing Classical Album... Ever!

Shrek 2: The Soundtrack

Norah Jones

Violet: a sample of some of my writing

I'm always talking about writing, so I thought I'd post the beginning of one of my stories. I wrote this last winter.

Violet Anuree would most likely have gone on to be an excellent professor of English literature. She would have been well-loved by her students, well-liked by her colleagues, and well-rated in peer-reviewed journals. She would have written a great many exceedingly boring articles and spoken at a great many only slightly less boring literary conferences. She would have married a clean-cut gentleman whose intellectual pursuits complemented her own, and they would have raised three exceptional children who excelled in art, music, and sports. She and her professor-type husband would have grown comfortably plump and old together and gradually faded away, visited to the end of their lives by a prolific number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

But Violet Anuree never found out what her life would have been like had she pursued this venue of academia. Some days – when the sun was too hot, or a particularly large bug crawled into her purse, or she was just really longing for one or another of the hygienic amenities that were once an ordinary facet of her existence – on days like those, perhaps she fancied that she regretted never becoming a professor and raising a family. But deep down, Violet Anuree knew that what she was meant to be was what she was becoming.

Violet would have never discovered this simple truth had it not been for a series of ordinary and extraordinary events. She was in her dorm room in Edmonton on a very snowy night in December. The name of the university she was attending is not important to our story. Neither are the names of her best friends, or her ex-boyfriends, or even that professor whom she liked so much and longed to emulate. I am only telling you that she was in university in Edmonton, because you need to know where she was when her life changed.

I will, however, tell you about Maxine Topher. Maxine gets a spot in the story, because although she is dead now, she played a very important role in Violet's story in the moments before Maxine's untimely death. Maxine was one of those people who make the world just a little bit more interesting. Her friends would have described her as a unique, although somewhat abrasive, individual. Violet would have described her as loud. Violet lived below Maxine, and she wondered how such a skinny girl could make such heavy thudding noises at such regular intervals that one could only suppose that a heavy-weight champion was having a casual wrestling practice on the floor. Furthermore, it seemed as if Maxine woke up when Violet went to bed. Violet was always calling upstairs to crabbily tell Maxine that the loud noises had to stop. Violet prided herself on not being scared to be blunt.

However, Maxine had other interests besides dropping large objects on her floor. Maxine also enjoyed playing with fire. Her room was filled with many flammable objects that were meant to be lit, and many other objects that weren't. She had stacks of matchbooks and every kind of candle imaginable. On this particular evening, Maxine was enjoying a rather dirty romance novel while she sat beside a long row of lit, scented tealights and absently sipped a martini.

Downstairs, Violet was writing a paper that she really didn't want to write, and thinking about Christmas holidays, and how she wished she was anywhere but here at school. She was almost ready to start another game of solitaire when her phone rang.

Violet answered it, spoke for a few minutes, and then pulled her coat on over her pyjamas and went outside. Her boyfriend had parked his car in the loading zone by the front door of her dorm. He was just swinging by to drop off her wallet that she had accidentally left in his car the night before. He also wanted to ask her if he could borrow her Sociology of the Family notes from yesterday's class, which he had skipped. Violet had reluctantly acquiesced, and she had a photocopied stack of notes for him. She had a faint idea that he was using her; however, he was very good-looking and Violet liked keeping him around.

On this particular evening, Violet's boyfriend was in a very impatient mood. He was late for a movie that he had promised to meet a friend at, and although stopping to see Violet was mutually beneficial, he couldn't resist honking his horn rather loudly as she stepped outside.

Upstairs, Maxine, who was deeply engrossed in the throes of a particularly romantic love scene in her novel, started at the sound of the horn. Her elbow jerked slightly...

...tipping over her martini glass...

...which spilled onto the tealights...

...causing the entire table to erupt into flames!

Maxine stared at the scene, transfixed in horror. The flames were licking at the bottom of the window, ravenously devouring the ancient drapes. The angry tongues of fire climbed quickly...now they were at the ceiling...now the ancient tinder of the roof and walls had caught fire and were beginning to crackle dangerously. For someone who normally reveled in fire, Maxine was paralyzed with fear. She ran into the room across from hers, shouting intelligent things like “Oh my God! Fire! Fire!” Then, she lifted the window and jumped out.

Maxine's shouts had brought the rest of the girls into the hall. Then, the fire alarm finally went off, screeching shrilly at the smoke that was now coming from Maxine's room. Chaos, panic, and general pandemonium ensued.

Half an hour later, 150 girls were standing outside the dorm, watching all of their earthly possessions perish in the now out-of-control blaze. The asbestos and dry wood of the dormitory had erupted in flames almost instantly, and by now the entire building was consumed. There would be no salvage. The firefighters had hardly even bothered to try to douse the raging inferno. Schindler Hall was, in the words of one of the firemen, “a bonfire waiting to happen.”

Violet, watching in a kind of a dreamlike trance, didn't feel any emotion. Her first thought was for her new hoodie, trapped in her room and by now surely destroyed. She'd probably miss her computer... her music collection... and there was a slice of pecan pie in her fridge that she'd been looking forward to eating... but this hadn't really been her home.

The question burning (excuse my pun) on Violet's brain was actually whether or not she would have to complete that paper she had been working on before the fire had so rudely interrupted her.

These Sunny Days

Oh goodness. Where to begin? So much has happened, and yet life is still the same. I eat, sleep, read, go to work... those are the basics of my existence. I don't like to think about the past, and I'm scared of the future. So I just live in the moment.
I want more out of my life. Yet I'm frightened to try to make it happen.
I want to write something real, something that's from my heart and yet not just a rehashing of the last couple years of my life. I want to write a novel that will transport me from my bland, mundane existence. The problem is, the only thing that I actually do write is this darn blog. And cheques to pay my rent.
Ick.
I'm going to pop out to the library now, just to make my Sunday afternoon complete. I want a mystery novel, a fantasy novel, a good cookbook, a couple good movies, and an interesting CD.