Me: I was kidding - learn how to take a joke! EliseArt: Aw, Heather, I missed you!

Judging by my title, I think the Simpsons quote email has gone on too long. Or maybe not long enough. Anyway, I'm going to try and get more posts done in June, but since it's only 3 days until the end of the month, I'm going to have to post things without pictures and without a point. Enjoy.

I moved into the place I live in ... 5 years ago this July 1st. Happy Anniversary! When I first moved in it was shortly after having lost my poor puppy to illness; I wasn't ready to own another animal. So when the ad said "no pets" I didn't really care. But when I had my interview, I wanted to see how serious the landlord actually was, so I asked "The ad says no pets... how do you feel about a cat?" He said "You have a cat?" and I said "No, but I was thinking I might want to get one, one day". He assured me that no furry animal would be living in the house and gave me a list of reasons. I accepted this by giving him my damage deposit and saying "I'll take it!".

Stompy and hubby were always on the landlord to let them get a dog. When I moved in they approached me on the subject. I told them my situation and explained that I might be ready for an animal "some time soon". They started asking me to talk to the landlord and bug him to see if he would let me get a cat or dog. I knew his stance (partially because he told me at the interview, but also because he would complain to me about them constantly bugging him about getting a dog) so naturally, I never bugged him about it.

So Stompy moved out and new people moved in. Every so often I hear a yappy little dog upstairs barking its fool head off. It's not often, so I know that the dog can't possibly live there. I figure, he must be visiting with his owners, right? Makes sense.

Today I was getting out of my car and happened to look up and saw the cutest little white kitty. On their porch. Cats don't usually visit with their owners, do they?? I wonder how long it'll take the landlord to see or hear about the cat.

 

P.S. I probably spent more time linking things in this post than writing it. Cheers to being a devoted blogger!

P.P.S. Therefore, please don't call me on typos or incorrect grammar. Thanks!

There were boats!

I have a few recent driving stories that I would like to share. Mostly because they're so ramdon that they will likely never come up in conversation. 

The first one occurred roughly 10 days ago. It was a Friday - I left work early to go out to the passport office to hand in my application. After battling rush hour traffic (twice) and the passport office, I was having a pretty good time as I was making my way back to work.  At one point the one lane road opened up to two lanes, I got into the new lane and stopped at the red light beside the truck I was just behind. I saw something move out of the corner of my eye, it was the passenger in the truck rolling his window down. I looked over, he looked at me and said "You wanna race?", I laughed and said "Yeah, let's do this!" I eyed his truck (a truck that has an engine the size of my car) and said "I have a feeling you might have a bit more power than I do". He smiled and said "Maybe" with a wink.

The light went green and we were off. I accelerated slowly because I didn't actually want to race someone through a park zone in the middle of the day. Even with the slow start, I was a considerable distance ahead of them.  The next block was another red light. They pulled up beside me and the guy said "We weren't ready. Let's try again". I said "Okay, ready, one, two, three" and we were off again because the light had gone green at some point during my countdown. Again, slow start; I was ahead of them, but not by much.  As I'm chuckling at our pathetic excuse for a street race I see traffic ahead and realize that the lane I'm in is backed up for the next two blocks and the lane they're in is totally clear. I couldn't help but laugh when I had to gun it  so I could cut in front of them and avoid traffic. I was happy they were laughing too.

The next incident isn't quite as wow-that-made-my-day as the last. This one happened 2 days ago; I was driving through a parking lot. A car on my left put its reverse lights on just as the front of my car was behind them. By the time my driver's door got behind them, they had almost backed out right into me. It was close. I wasn't able to swerve or go faster because there was a lot of other things going on in front and to the right of me. I could only hope they would stop. They did. I breathed a sigh of relief and continued on my way. A couple of store-lengths later, I'd reached my destination and parked. As I did so, the car that almost hit me was driving past. The driver looked angry, fingered me emphatically and told me to learn how to drive. I was flabbergasted. He was the one that almost backed up into me. What the hell did I do? (Other than have the right of way). I fingered him back, told him to fuck off and went and bought samosas.

Today I was driving home and the hill up to my place was flooded with skateboarders. I see one without a board walking weird; at first I thought it was cuz he was wearing kneepads but then he started sporadically clapping. I was confused. But then it dawned on me... oh... he hurt himself. As I get to the top of the hill he  just came down, two of his buddies were at the top, presumably waiting for their turn. Just as I'm pulling up to the intersection, one of them turned to the other and said something about "that shit really looks like it fucking hurt".  The kid who said it sheepishly made eye contact with me as I stopped at the 4way stop. I don't know if it's cuz I'm a girl, or because I'm old, but he was clearly ashamed of having made the comment. His friend said "How about you wait for cars to pass before you say shit like that", just as I'm clearing the intersection. I burst out laughing and the boys turned around smiling.

And I just remembered another one... I was driving past one of those chipper trucks... you know the landscaping trucks that tow around a chipper? Just as I'm approaching the truck one of the landscapers was on the driver's side making sure everything was secure; he went around the back to check on the passenger side and also get out of my way. As I'm approaching the truck, he's at the back, walking towards the other side.Suddenly, he stopped and turned towards me; at the last second crouched down and did this big "Ta-DA!" production complete with jazz hands and then stood back up and went to go check the other side of the truck. I burst out laughing because it was so unexpected and looked fricken hilarious. A second later, I see him peeking out from behind his truck with a giant smile on his face. I'm not sure which one of us made the others day more.

So... are you afraid of your moral high horse?

I've been an honorary member of the Social Committee for my dad's work for quite a few years now. But I've recently taken the relationship to the next level and thought, hey, why not write a post about it?

Up until two weeks ago, I limited my involvement in the social committee to volunteering on the day of (and the days leading up to) the event. I wasn't a part of the organizing and besides taking orders from K helping K, I wasn't really involved.

Until now.

The latest extravaganza is the Youth Convention - basically an event to educate youth in the workplace. It's a giant event - taking place over 3 days with numerous fundraising events leading up to it. It's quite the undertaking. K has been talking about it for months and I've helped out at the few events they've had to raise money so far.

The problem is, people sign up to be on the committee and when they realize how much work it is, they stop showing up to the meetings. Essentially abandoning all the dedicated members and leaving all the work for them. Not fair.

Tim, Mr Social Committee, has asked me to attend meetings a number of times in the past but I always considered it to be a pity invite. You do a lot, so I have to invite you, but I could care less if you show up. Well, when the youth committee dwindled to a handful of participants he started mentioning ways of getting new members. Again.

Since all attempts at increasing membership have failed long-term thus far, K was extremely skeptical and voiced her opinion. Tim's response? Well, what about your friend?

So she called me and despite my busy schedule, I agreed. Because even with working full-time, going to school part-time, drinking, ice skating and hiking, I'm going to be far more dedicated than most of the people that actually work there. In fact, that's how I started volunteering at events in the first place, so why not start going to meetings??

In my two week tenure, I've made two posters and a sign up sheet, have attended two meetings, proofread/edited three letters and helped with the budget for one, very large, event.

This summer will be packed to the tits with events. Hopefully I keep busy enough to stay out of prison.

Big thanks to Brain Trepaning for accusing me of barely keeping out of prison and to EliseArt & Gorm for finding the term "pack to the tits" so damn hilarious.