It's been too, too long

Mes amis...it's been too long. I've not written for weeks and I've finally realized that it has taken it's mental tole on me. Yes, that's right, I've realized that writing is an outlet I NEED to pursue to keep my sanity.

So where should I start with the updates? While I'm sure that some of you have been cyberstalking me through Facebook...or my feed just comes up in your home page feed, much has happened.

Let's start with the fun stuff - DATING!

*insert crickets*

Okay, it hasn't been that bad but I've been pretty unmotivated to date much this summer. Really, where did I have the time though. Rowing (which I'll come back to) has taken more and more time and so has patio season so it just hasn't fit in...but I will fill you in on the Chicken Guy in my next post - he deserves his OWN posting.

I'm going to be moving on to some house repairs in a few weeks that will surely entertain. In the mean time, I'm not looking forward to doing it alone and have to admit that house stuff is the one thing that keeps me up at night AND makes me wish I wasn't single. But as a wise person (read: one date wonder) once told me, 'if it's worth having, it's worth taking care of' and they're right. I'm trying to stay in more and do just that - even if that starts with the basic of cleaning more.

Besides that, I'm also taking care of me bod more these days. Rowing is still ongoing and I'm thinking of making the jump to the master's program. That's 6 mornings a week at 5 am on the water for April-November. Oye. I'm thinking that I'll test my resilience to such a schedule by doing winter training with the master's this winter. That's again, early mornings at the uni although not 5 days a week. It'll cost me like $30 for the season because my gym membership is included as an employee benefit. Can I get a woot woot?!? Besides that, my Dr. gave me a stern look and scolding last time I was in to lose the twins (aka my buttocks). She then sent me to The Crazy Lady (aka my dietican) who cut me off of, of all things, BANANAS.

I nearly lost my shit in her office.

And the rationale? She wanted me to 'discover other fruit'. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!? I seriously had withdrawl every time I went into Farm Boy. But here's the kicker...I'm now eating cherries, plums, mangoes, oranges, grapes, and grapefruit regularly. *insert grumbling re. maybe she's right*

Anyhoot, there's been a slow weight loss but it's not really something I care all that much about, to be honest. I'm a healthy shape by not storing all my 'could stand to be lost' poundage near my organs and I'm active. The good thing about this is I'm eating even better which in turn will mean weight loss. Really though, it's making me appreciate home cooking and nutritious cooking. And eating out is taking on less of an appeal which means...you got it...more money on the house.

*le sigh*

Work...well...that's another blog post for another day.

Commuting to work? That's another RANT for another day.

Other ramblings...they're sure to come now that I'm back from my summer hiatus.

So, did you miss me?

Thank you Lego, for making the World Cup bearable

Everywhere I go these days, it seems all people are talking about is the World Cup. Babes in orange dresses, status updates, uniforms that are dirty, Canadians breaking hearts, blah blah blah. Don't get me wrong, I find it kinda neat to drive around town and see flags hanging off of cars all over the place in our...well, conservative town...but frankly, I don't give a rat's ass about soccer.

However, if you get Lego involved then maybe, just maybe I'll wanna watch. J's to the E, this one's for you(s):

This woman kills me

Seriously, I get where she's coming from

Pain in my ass

Rowing's been interesting the last few weeks. With my sore back, I was out for a few weeks and then, we got a new crop of graduates from the learn to row program. I give 'em credit for coming out but I don't know what baffoons teach them to row because they can't balance worth shit.

Why does this matter? Because if the boat isn't balanced, one side's ores drag in the water and they can't get them out and subsequently, they can catch a crab. Remember crabs from last year? Yeah, those mo fo's suck arse.

Anyhoot, the boat was way off balance. Given that we got out late on account of the sun showers, we did a shorter than normal run, which was a good thing because at one point I thought my ass was going to fall off. No, seriously, I did. Now I don't want to blame the newbies but I'll tell ya, someone referred to it as an octopus for a reason...we just couldn't get our shit together no matter how hard we tried.

So, just before our last 500 m into the boat house, our coxie gave us a break. I took the opportunity to ask a question as you know only I can...the convo went something like this:

Coxie: okay everyone, take a break for a second
Me: Umm, excuse me (from 6 people down in the boat), can I ask a question?
C: sure 3 seat, go ahead
M: Um, why is my right butt cheek hurting so much?
C: Because port side is keeling and you're trying to compensate for it with your body and throwing your body weight. If you do what you're supposed to do and everyone else does, you won't have to balance like that.
M: So it's the boat's fault (btw, this is how we refer to our team - 'the boat') that my ass hurts?
*insert chuckles from the rest of the crew*
C: Yes, your crew mates are the pain in your ass tonight
M: Okay, thanks

Yeah, you know they love me at the rowing club.

Dude's not stupid

GBack put the radio on at work the other day and the latest song by Jason Derulo came on. He's one of those bubblegum pop, R&B whatever kinda singers that Hot 89.9 plays over and over and over again until he comes out with a new song that they then play over and over and over again.

But the thing about this kid - and I can say kid because he can't legally drink in the US until September - is that he's a smart marketer. He begins every one of his songs with a signature sound bite. He has this 'overlord' voice come on and say 'JR' which makes no sense to me as his initials are JD but maybe he goes by JR out in the industry? But that's always chased with him singing his name before he launches into his song. I can't think of any other artist that does this but I'll tell you what it makes me remember about him...his songs and his name. A winning combination when you are a fairly new artist on the radio.

Smart, smart marketing.

Here's some examples for you non-89.9 listeners. All you need to listen to is like the first 15 seconds so it won't be a total assault on your senses ;o)

This needs to be in a movie

I'd been exposed to Moby on an off-chance basis up until getting my iPod and then JJ & Co. gave me 4 albums worth to begin my musical education. I heard this song for the first time tonight. Put it on. Have a listen. Do other things and just think...

Could you see this with some crazy triumphant part of a movie? With great scenery? Perhaps wilderness? With a big panning shot of someone standing all alone? Or two lovers or two family members being reunited? Or maybe someone driving carefree with the roof down on a windy, sunny, autumn day with the leaves all colourful and blowing in the wind?

Something about this song moved me tonight. Thought I'd share. Because life's all about these little moments, isn't it?

(To listen: click on the title of my blog. You may be brought to a new page for just this post. Click on it again. Apparently, that will start a download of the song for you from box.net. I hope this isn't illegal sharing or something 'cause my intention was to have this embedded somehow. I blame Blogger for giving neophytes bad instructions. If only I was a bigger nerd.)

P.S. What's neat about box. net is that it is really a file sharing site so that it acts like a virtual network. Whenever one of you downloads the song, it sends me a notification. So I can see how many of you are actually going to listen to it AND who's not working mid-day. ;o) Don't get me wrong, I love that you read my ramblings so mum's the word, mmmkay?

Well played, CCS, well played

I'm a bit of a nerd. I know you're all saying 'pfffft, noooooooo'. Yes, I admit it. I'm a nerd. I like nerdy things like why my eyes tear up or Darwin's birthday or the surveys sent to me because I'm part of National Geographic Base Camp.

This also means that I'm pretty in tune with my work laptop. (*cough* loser *cough*) It also means, that when it doesn't work perfectly well or I have trouble linking to the network from home to feed my workaholic anxieties at 3:00 am, I call the service desk for help. Not at 3:00 am, just the next am.

I recently discovered that I actually call more than most other users. Like, um, a lot more. As in I'm on a first name basis with all of the service desk guys and there's a lot of general ribbing going on whenever I call. But whatever, they love me.

Or so I thought until a few months ago, one of them joked with me that I was on the CCS blacklist. The list, apparently, tracks their frequent users and is helping the powers that be above the service desk support guys to see if a cost-recovery model is required. I panicked for about oh, 3-4 days until I had to call them again for help and they all had a very loud laugh at me as they yelled over their fort walls that I had believed that BS story.

Fast forward to today and the admin was testing our emergency notification system again. As well as text messages and emails, a pop-up message is supposed to take over your computer and force you to stop working. Well it didn't happen for me. Last time, it was because I was on my laptop and wasn't connected through some software to the system.

So I did what a diligent employee does who doesn't want to miss out on emergency notifications. I emailed the service desk to say, not sure who this should go to, I know it's a technical issue, so can you please pass this along. I had two follow up emails. One stated that a 'ticket' had been opened to address my concern. The other stated the following:

It was determined by Campus Safety that you were not deemed sufficiently essential enough to warrant the use of emergency broadcast systems.

Have a nice day

HA HA HA! Well played, CCS, well played.

The Buried Life

It was a rough day at work. I almost lost my shit. I'm tired. I'm stressed and I'm sick of seemingly being the only one doing all the work or even stopping to think of how to get all the work done as a team, not just the stuff that is in (or as it may be, not in) my job description.

I need a holiday.

But that won't happen for a while. So instead, it's time to regroup. And when I need to do that, it's time to get a coffee and write. So here I sit in Sbucks collecting my wits about me and hoping for the best.

There is one thing that has put life into perspective a bit today. I had seen commercials a while back for The Buried Life, a show on MTV about 4 dudes aged early 20ish that travel around in a big purple bus doing the 100 things they want to do before they die. Tonight I watched the first two episodes. And it struck a cord in me for some reason. Watch them. I think they're only about a half hour each and they're really entertaining.

Maybe it's the fact that I'm starting to question, after everything that's been happening at work lately, just what is and isn't important, ya know? I feel like everything seems to be in limbo. The pseudo 5 year plan is long done and I'm not sure what's next. But I know this isn't it. I just haven't figured out what is.

In the mean time, I need to go back to dodgeball. I need to kick some ass.

I lied

A while back I put into my FB status update, much to all of your shock, that I was sick and tired of hearing Xmas music. Well, at least until March.

I lied.

But only because I saw this tonight:



Seriously, when I saw the car at 29 seconds in I actually had a little gasp of pleasure out loud with an 'awwww'. God, I'm a sucker for Xmas. But like you all didn't already know that. Dammit, I love you Google. I love you and your viral marketing campaigns. You warm my heart. You make my soul sing.

Oh, and here's another new Search Story. Seems like it's a much better out of office than I had earlier this month.

I'm now a narcissist. In red.

Is it totally narcissistic that I'm really liking the photos of me that have been taken lately? I never really thought of myself as photogenic but lately, a lot of the pics that have come up seem to have been indicating otherwise.

To get deep about it, I think it's the 'really-happy-with-life, genuine smile' that I seem to got goin' on. I've also noticed I belly laugh more. I am a lot less angry about things. Sure I have my short-fused moments (thanks Dad, for passing on that personality trait) still but fundamentally, I'm pretty frickin' happy. And I 'stop and smell the roses' and appreciate life more too. Poor Haileybird was the victim of that today (btw, welcome to the blog, Haileybird!) when she said that she hated the fact that it was a grey dreary day out again today to which I responded along the lines of 'yes but it's winter and it's supposed to be like that and without grey days, then we wouldn't appreciate the sunny ones.' Gback retorted with one of my favourite lines: 'I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.' And is it because I'm Canadian that I feel weird saying that I think I've got it good and I'm happy with my lot in life? Like I'm gloating or something? Whatever. I don't care.

I've also noticed that I have a lot more red clothing. Like I mean a LOT more. I had one pair of red fleece pants and one red long sleeved t and somehow, in the last two years, I seem to have a lot more colour in my life - especially red. Like enough that I can do a full load of clothing of just REDS. Again, I chalk it up to the changes I've seen in life these last two years. Those are my deep thoughts. And these are my fav pics of me of the last little while. I'd say 'enjoy' but that feels REALLY narcissistic.

Hot damn, Google, you know how to do me right

On a further note to the stuff that really amuses me, Google's at it again with their Search Stories videos on Youtube. This one is the best:



If you liked that, you'll enjoy, but probably won't like as much:

Potholes

Highschool

Parisian Love

Mad to Live

Newbie

Rattlings from inside the golden cage

I have had a few moments over the past few days to reflect on the golden cage that is my current employment situation.

The first came when I had to get a confirmation of salary for some banking purposes. I almost fell out of my chair when I opened the letter to see that since I started 3.5 years ago, I'm now up 25% in pay from what I made when I started. 25%. That also means I'm making more than double what I made at my previous employer whom I left to work here. That's...um...sick. And not sic as in cool, yo yo homey g. But sick - as in disgusting. And I have all of that to thank to my union who keeps negotiating ridiculous salary increases. On the down side, I actually end up paying them a fairly good little piece o' dough to keep me in those increases.

But do you know what this means? It means that pretty much the only place I can go to get comparable pay is to the government. And we all know how easy it is to get in there. And it'd have to be a 04 or 05 position. So really, I can't really afford to quit my job and go work somewhere else because of the pay cut I'd be taking. Now, if I had a sugar daddy to help me pay my bills so I could have the freedom to move, okay. But right now, on my own, I'm a little bit screwed.

The other came today when I went to buy fully licensed software for my new laptop. I knew that there were institutional rates for these things but I didn't know what the rebate was. So, I got Microsoft Office Professional 2007 and Adobe Acrobat Professional 9. Together, they retail for just over $1000 before taxes ($1040 at Best Buy, $1050 at Staples).

What did I pay? $50. $10 for Office and $40 for Acrobat. The woman who sold it to me did the whole breathing in between teeth thing and said 'yes, but....that's $40'. I didn't want to tell her...I'd even be willing to pay $50! Sheesh!

And yet there are still complainers at work...egads.

This guy leaves me in awe

I

have

no

words.

How to be cheeky and get your point across

So, I promised myself I wouldn't blog about this until AFTER my birthday and seeing as how it's now 12:06, it's fair game.

I found out this weekend, courtesy of the smallest grapevine in the world (aka Ottawa), that le ex is engaged.

My first reaction was....

nothing.

Yes, nothing. I didn't feel anything. No sadness, no remorse, no jealousy. Nothing. This, to me, is truly a sign that I'm over him. However, this chased an exceptionally bad date on Saturday night (more WHMPC to follow) so there was a little 'oh, 'eff me. I can't even get a good date and he's already getting remarried?' but then I realized that it's a good thing I'm out dating and not settling. Not saying that he is or anything but you know, I'm sure my time will come.

Then about two hours later, it hit me.

What name is this new wife going to have? Her own? Zrudlo (which as far as I know he's still not using)? Or....ALBERTA?!?!?!?!?

While so many things were not great about the divorce, the only thing that ever really fired me up was the fact that he refused to change his name back because apparently 'he's worked hard to build his *ahem* professional retail store manager reputation on it'. I hope, truly hope, someone is the voice of reason and perhaps tries to talk him out of the merits of keeping my name given this new development.

But if not, I think the following evilly crafted and so wish I was less of a lady to actually have the cojones to send it email would to him may get the point across:

Subject: Congratulations

Dear le ex (I'd actually use his name but still like to maintain some anonymity on this blog),

I know it's been quite some time since we last spoke and I hope all is well with you. I just wanted to send you a quick congratulatory note on your upcoming nuptials. While I have yet to meet the lucky lady, I can't wait to have her join the Alberta family and am sure she will carry our name proudly. In fact, I don't think we even have anyone of her name within the family so she may be the first of that name as well - unfortunately not something you too can attest to as the first SA was actually born into our family, not married into it.

Anyways, congratulations and again, I look forward to welcoming her to the family!

L

Yeah, I know...I shouldn't. And I won't. But it would feel soooo good.

Yum Yum, GIVE ME SOME!

Something about cooking and food lately has been leaving me feeling rather...

meh....

I'm not really into cooking which is surprising for me and as a result, I'm not really into eating. I have days of 'how little can I sustain on' because I'm just lazy, bored or just not in the mood to eat or cook. I think part of it is stress related too, as the work season of chaos ramps up.

So tonight, when I finally thought 'enough's enough, what can I eat' and I started to think that some peppered ham slices, a Babybel, glass of milk, banana and a yogurt chased by Doritos was a good idea, I opened up the cupboard to get out the Doritos and saw the new cereal I bought the other day.

And then it hit me.

Why have I never thought of having cereal for dinner before?!?!? After all, if it's part of the 'most important meal of the day' then there must be SOME nutritional value to it, non? Surely I can get away with having it for...DINNER!!!

So I had cereal with a banana in it (gotta keep the Chiquita plantation in business) with Doritos for dessert while I watched Hell's Kitchen.

Single has never tasted so good.

WHMPC - Gum Guy follow up

A while back I blogged about the Gum Guy I went on a date with. I try not to be a soapbox preacher about many things but gum in blister packs is my personal crusade so when he reacted so defiantly about it, I was turned off and appalled.

But somehow, this bizarre date lead to the Gum Guy and I forming a friendship. Bizarre as it sounds, we chat on MSN, get together from time to time and occasionally chat too. We've not talked about the whole gum issue since the day it happened. And then I got a photo text from him today with only 'damn you' as the message. This was the pic:


I WIN! I WIN!


My mission to convert everyone into paper package/stick buying gum chewers is paying off.

Have I converted you yet?

I nose....

I'd insert the tapping of my nose with my finger but well, it hurts, I don't wanna touch it.

So yesterday at rowing, I caught a crab. It's not a nice thing to catch a crab and this was probably the most violent crab I've ever seen anyone catch. It flattened me on my back and left me breathless with panic. The oar almost hit the woman behind me. And I jokingly said, 'that almost broke my nose'. It was violent enough that the woman in front of me patted me on the back and asked me if I was okay. And she's NOT the mothering type.

Fast forward about 5 hours and my face started to ache. A lot. By the time I left starbucks and got home, I thought 'geeze, you look like crap' because I looked really tired. And then I got up close to the mirror and realized that those weren't bags under my eyes but in fact, bruising.

I sat with some ice on my face and took some aspirin and thought I was feeling better.

And I was...until this pm.

My face, regardless of the tylenol Gback gave me, is throbbing. I'm seriously considering waiting a long time at the walk in clinic by my house to get it checked out. Could you imagine if I'd broken it?

For those that don't know, this is what it means to catch a crab while rowing:



But that was a pretty tame crab - this is more like the one I caught...



There was no slow mo trying to hold on to it (because sometimes you can do it and it's a 'leisurely' recline you have to do to avoid getting hit) but this was fast and hard, like that second video. Ironically, I was sitting in the same position in the boat as he was. Hmmmm....

This is also a good video so you can see how violent it can be:



But this one, takes the cake - at least this didn't happen to me:




I swear, rowing will be the death of me...

Rowing is not for the weakhearted

When I started rowing, I never thought it would be the sport I would sustain the most injuries from on a consistent basis. But week after week, I came home with new bruises, scrapes, callouses and blisters to show off in moments of toughness. One of the places I've sustained the most injury has been to my legs - I have big calves that are not only a little chubby but also really muscular. They tend to hit the gunnels of the boats and causes bruises and even skin burns (think rug burn) on my legs. It's lead to quite a few interesting comments out of strangers and non-strangers alike. The first reaction is usually wide-eyed horror and then some sort of aghast comment re. 'and you choose to do this?'

The other thing that we were told when we started rowing is that it's near impossible to tip an 8 man boat. Well, at this am's practice, we proved them wrong.

A larger power boat had gone by and made quite the wake. While we should have been fine to just bob through it, we apparently had some nervous rowers in the boat who freaked out at the size of the wake and did what you naturally want to do - put your hand out to the side where you feel like you are falling to brace yourself. This was also the side of the boat where we were pitching heavily too so before I knew it, we were in trouble. My thought process went something like this:

Holy F*&K, this boat is going to flip!

Holy crap, it's easier to get my feet out of the shoes than I thought (for those who don't know, there are shoes that are screwed into the boat that we put our feet into - yes, ones size 13 men's shoe fits all so we all wear socks).

Ahhhh, that feels good (it was really hot, humid and smoggy on the water this am).

Holy F*%K! This is the Ottawa River I'm in! EWWWWWW.....

After the obligatory 'is everyone okay? can everyone swim? (bit late for that one, I know)' questions, we decided to swim the boat in to shore. Once we got into the weedy wading area, we had to turn the boat over, lift it over our heads to drain the water out (onto our heads) and then get back in, one by one, and row on.

By the time we got back to the rowing club, the master's level rowers were all waiting on the dock. Apparently, they could see the whole 'show' from the Rockcliffe Boathouse Restaurant across the river from where we flipped. Besides coming to find out how the hell we managed to flip an 8, they also came to take our coach (who was in the motor boat nice and dry, might I add) for a scotch. Ugh, where's my bloody scotch?

After I got home, I noticed that my leg seemed itchy and burning. While I at first worried I may have swimmer's itch, I think looked more closely. Apparently when I pulled out of the shoes, I scratched myself along the rigger of the boat. The photo was taken about 3 hours ago before my softball game (gotta love the cleats!)...

it's now turning purple....
















Btw, did I mention I'm rowing again on Wednesday? ;o)

Are you F*%&ing kidding me?

Songs like this crack me up...

NY ladies to watch over me...

...and fill my head with half truths about dating.

Staycation is a wonderful thing. Unfortunately, I haven't been nearly as productive as I'd like to have been but well, to hell with it. Life is short and if the first two days I spent just puttering around and watching Sex and the City, then so be it. I'll be a painting queen all weekend so who cares.

One of the things that I did accomplish today was to finally get up a piece of artwork on my bedroom all that has been sitting beside my dresser for months. Yes, months.

If you've been to my house or you know me at all, you know I don't like...clutter. Not on my walls, not on my flat surfaces, nada no where. Except in my home office and well, that's just paperwork and laundry. And filing in my at work office. So it takes a lot for me to decide to put something up. And then, about a year ago, I was inspired in a home magazine for the perfect picture to go above my bed.

But it was $100. For a print. And not even a great one. So I said screw it. But the inspiration was still there.

Fast forward a half year and low and behold, I find another print, of similar composition for 1/4 the price. So I snapped it up. And as of tonight, lucky lady Audrey Hepburn will watch over me as I dream:


Ain't she a dish?