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.

He's not religious, so he must be native

As mentioned earlier, Stompy moved out. I got the opportunity to meet the new tenants awhile back. Upstairs Lady and Upstairs Lady's Daughter, or Upstairs Girl. I'm sure I'll have nicknames for them soon enough.

From our brief conversation I determined that it would be a good fit. She claims they're not home much and Girl is old enough not to be loud as fuck. Plus we have staggered days off, so I now have the entire weekend to do laundry and they get a few days during the week. Sounds great, perfect even.

My landlord also told me that Upstairs Girl plays guitar, so I figured their tolerance for loud, obnoxious 'music' making would be high and I could play to my hearts content.

Everything was going swimmingly. Until I came home one day; Upstairs Lady was out on the porch, she peeked over the edge and said she wanted to give me forewarning. Girl has a dance recital coming up, so I might hear some thumping and what-have-you for the next two weeks while she practices.

Not too big of a deal, considering she said that the thumping would not happen any later than 9pm. Sounds great, perfect even.

So what kind of dance?

Breakdancing.

Great. Perfect.

Needless to say, 'some thumping' is the understatement of the century.

Wow - she really barricaded through that door

I found a bunch of hot dogs in my freezer the other day. As it turns out, that in and of itself is weird on so many levels. (this (*) denotes one level of weird) For one, I didn't know I had them*, and I have absolutely no idea where I got them from*. Also, they made me realize that I have hot dog buns in my freezer*, which I happened to notice* moments before finding the dogs. I'm pretty sure I got the dogs and the buns at the same time, from the same place*. And even with that, I still can't figure out where they came from*. I'm going to blame my dad on that one.

Anyway, that's not the weirdest part. The weirdest part is that I've been thinking about hot dogs a lot lately*. I've even told stories about hot dogs*. In fact, I even have more hot dog related stories in reserve that I haven't had a chance to tell*.

So, onto the first installment of Heather vs Hotdogs*.

When I was a kid, I can recall watching my mom grate cheese for dinner one night. I was young, maybe 4 years old. I was mesmerized by it - it looked like so much fun and it produced a tasty treat. I wanted to try it, I wanted to help; my mom wouldn't let me because she was afraid I'd grate myself. Understandably, I was left to observe.

Another day, who knows how long after, I was sitting in the living room watching TV. It was one of those old wooden ones with a built-in speaker and everything. One day for lunch, Granny gave me a hot dog.

A raw hot dog. I can't recall if it was intended to tide me over until she could give me something else, or if she actually gave me a raw hot dog for lunch. We all know that, texturally, raw hot dogs are gross and we also know that if anything about food is going to throw me off, it's texture.

I may or may not have been too happy about having to eat the thing. That's about the time I noticed the speaker on the TV.

It looked an awful lot like a certain kitchen appliance that I'd seen my mom use. A certain kitchen appliance that I was not allowed to use because I'd hurt myself. I looked at the speaker. I looked at my hot dog.

I started grating. I grated a good portion of hot dog into the TV before I got caught.

I don't remember what happened next. I probably got sent to my room without real lunch. I may or may not have been spanked. But I'm 100% certain Granny had a hard time keeping a straight face on that one.

Big thanks to EliseArt for providing illustrations.

Then I looked up "Syphilis" under Google images.... I saw things you can't unsee.

The past few days have been a roller coaster of events and emotions; I've come to the conclusion that the universe hates me and wants me to cry.

I think I wrote a post about karma, or Murphy or The Spite Gods having it out for me. Well, folks, it's happening again. Luckily, for EliseArt, I will be able to reuse pictures from the post that I'm pretty sure I already wrote. These are all true stories. (*dramatization... may not have happened).

Stompy moved out and my landlord was working on the place getting it ready for the new tenants. He called and asked me to go through the storage room and pick out anything that wasn't mine and he'd deal with it. Sounds great. I pointed out a few items, one of them being a set of crutches, and he took them away. All the while, I was eyeing the crutches, thinking "Wow, those could come in handy!".

I was reluctant to actually keep the crutches, because of karma, or Murphy, or The Spite Gods or The Universe having it out for me, so I let him put them out in the alley. Later that night, I went and had a few drinks with K, told her about the crutches and said "If I take them, isn't it just asking to get hurt?". She said no. And then I fell down.

I didn't hurt myself in an I-need-crutches-kind-of-way, but it sure answered my question. And the answer is, yes, yes it is just asking to get hurt.

The other day I was driving home and realized I needed gas, I also realized that I forgot my wallet at home. I had to stop in at work for a few minutes before heading home and chuckled to myself when I considered calling BCAA and having them bring me $10 worth of gas, just so I didn't have to go home and then go straight back out. I thought it's a bit ridiculous, but I never use BCAA so I might as well. Then I realized that my BCAA card is in the wallet I forgot at home. Dammit.

I cleaned my car the other day and it made me think that maybe my car isn't dead to me and maybe I don't need to buy a new one soon, maybe it is a good car. And then this morning I was driving to work and BAM - it sounded like my front brakes fell off and were just rolling around in the wheel well. I was pretty sure the car was going to burst into flames. I parked it and then walked the rest of the way to work.

I went about my day and I decided early on that the breakdown wasn't the end of the world, it would almost work out well. My mechanic is close to my home and my home is close to the polling station for the election. I could tow my car to the mechanic, walk to the polling station and then be home, all within a reasonable time period. It was practically perfect.

As I was getting ready to leave, I thought I'd give the mechanic a call just to let him know I was going to tow my car there. I get the voicemail, which isn't unusual, and I listen to the greeting and it says they're shutdown UNTIL MAY 23rd!

My other mechanic is in Surrey and there's no way I could be back in time to vote. Luckily, BCAA was able to fix my problem and I didn't have to have my car towed and repaired. So.... never have to use BCAA, huh? Blamo - Spite God powers initiated!

Big thanks to EliseArt for providing illustrations

Now I KNOW you're fucking with me

Amphenicols? Really? Plus a ramdon string of words... AND "I'm on to you"!?!?! Definitely fucking with me. Definitely. I have never once blogged about Amphenicols. (I suppose I just did... but still!).