I Write Whatever Comes to Mind.

Quote for today:

Even a pigeon is smart enough to know to build a nest before it lays eggs.



I have decided to begin each of my posts with a quote that I like. I grew up surrounded by quotes, my mother used to post them all over our house. This one was tacked up beside the bathroom tissue. What was she trying to tell us really? Maybe to make a nest of toilet tissue but I can not be sure. Anyhow, I will probably end up posting poetry and other bits and bobs also but I promise not to get too carried away. I would prefer to keep this less personal and more like a column.

I was going to post this awhile back but I got sidetracked making homemade baby food which is not as simple a process that they make it out to be but I still believe in the benefits and so I am an endless slave to my food processor. Days later and I now have a freezer full of about a billion little ice cubes of brown, brownish brown, yellow, yellowish orange, green, greenish brown. Some of which look exactly the same except for the neat little label. I am now pleased that my baby will not have to feast on the watered down chicken flavored slop that you can buy off the shelf and have probably been sitting there for a few months at least. That is all I have to say about that because I have promised not to make this all about me and my bee bee.

In the News

The Stock Market plummets which is understandably a crisis on a full scale. I know, it sucks, those big wigs on Wall Street losing their money which probably wasn't theirs to begin with. I mean, world hunger and poverty is one thing but this, this is catastrophic. So why don't they just leave us poor joe schmucks with our measly investments out of it? I mean really, I have a few minor investments that I am squirrelling away for a comfortable retirement, my child's education etc. Nothing too fancy. I don't want a quick rich scheme, just squirrelling little by little so why should this involve me anyway? Take the big schmucks big bucks not mine. Alas, it doesn't work in that way. It actually fails to work in any way because in reality I will never retire comfortably and I will shell out more than I ever expected for my child's education. So how do we win? We don't, this is because none of us has the canolis or the moola to take the big risks at the TSX and therefore we don't reap the big rewards. Of course we also don't lose our shirts when the whole bloody empire comes toppling down. So now they say that Canada won't really experience recession the way the rest of the world will and yet our dollar is worth crap, yet again. Should have bought up all of that American green while the getting was good. Crappity crap crap.

Election Day: Whoo hoo! No more Steven Harper!! Boo yeah!! Wait a minute, does that mean I have to vote for one of these other guys? Come on, is this some sort of joke. Crap, our chance to get rid of this guy and we get Celine....oops I mean Stephane Dion who stumbles over the big questions on national television or maybe he just doesn't understand English not that you need to for the PM job, Jack Layton who is on fire in Montreal but that's about it and besides no one really wants NDP anyway, oh and a bunch of crappy little parties like the Green Party who no one really cares about but who run lovely commercials about environmental issues. Christian Heritage Party anyone? Anyone? Alright already, just send me my Steven Harper for PM ballot in the mail and we will get this hyper democratic process over and done with. At least this election race is amusing. It has gotten so petty really. I just love watching the two big fish go at each other over the little pesky details that don't matter in the long run, don't you? It really was quite humorous when CTV explained that the two parties are bringing in high profile reinforcements to try to close the deal with the voters. They then cut to show the liberals bringing in chocolate pastries for everyone. That oughta get the votes. They should have said high calorie reinforcements. Of course Jean Chretien showed up too, probably to remind us all that he can't really speak English either and we still voted him in. (What is with that guy's mouth?) Anyway, all Stevie boy keeps going on about is how he understands the economy even though he has no plan whatsoever in regards to it as well as proliferating over and over that his campaign is only about himself so that is why he is the only reinforcement that he needs. Huh? I will definitely be voting Liberal again anyway, I don't think that a leader ought to be chosen based on the way he talks or the way he looks either. I am so far entrenched in the liberal ideology that there really is no other choice for me. That and Steven Harper is too close to a George Bush think alike. That's creepy. Ok, so go vote already people!!!

Afghanistan - 18 billion dollars???? 97 Canadians dead! What's going on here? We must be at war. Hmm, didn't get that memo. As I said, seems a bit Georgie Porgie to me.

At least gas prices are lower. $108.9/L Phew, finally. Wait a minute, WTF?? Does anyone else notice what is happening here? Anyone? Since when is this a steal of a deal? I know that it is much better than $130.9/L but don't you see what is going on? This is what they do! They keep raising prices and raising prices and then when we are just about to go postal on their asses they lower it and we all celebrate the price that we were so pissed off about in the first place! Which was about a week ago!! This is hideous. I am not even going to think about it but let me tell you this. I remember working at a gas station and people would threaten my life over $35.9/L. So there you have it and I was 18 at the time. This was only a few years ago people!! (I am not going to divulge how many years precisely but it wasn't that long ago!)

1000 unmarked cartons of cigarettes seized at the weigh scales near West Hawk Lake north of Winnipeg. Good job, now all of those bad drug dudes will not receive their weekly supply of nicotine and will probably go on a stressed out, crazy, killing spree. To serve and protect. But seriously, at $12.00 a pack, you have to be a drug dealer to afford to smoke anyway. Me, I'm quit so BWAHAHAHAHA!! That is my stressed out, crazy, killing spree laugh. Just jokes.

Halloween:

I am excited for halloween this year. I get to dress my little dolly princess up. She is dressing as a witch and she has the cutest little black and purple witch dress and hat. She will be the chubbiest little witch ever. Also it gives me an excuse to go trick or treating. But besides that, I haven't really gotten that excited about halloween in a long time. It used to just be another day besides the fact that a bunch of kids showed up at your door to raid your house of sugary loot. Or else no kids show up and you end up with 80 gallons of treats afterward, which inevitably signs you up for Weight Watchers. This year is different because I get to do the Halloween mom thing. I carved a pumpkin and everything. Although she couldn't make hide nor hair of it. It is all quite confusing to a 9 month old, this giant, smiling squash. She did find ways to amuse herself with it though by sticking her chubby little hands in the eyeholes and smearing gooey pumpkin guts all over her shirt. This did not hold her attention for long though. I took some pictures and then I just cut the poor thing up into cubes and stuffed it in my deep freezer. No use having it turn to decay in my house. So it is now going into all of my good intention Thanksgiving pumpkin pies and then I can fully declare that I am a wholesome mom. Of course we all know that this is just a farce because I am really just a supermarket pumpkin pie kind of mom and that neat little graveyard row of pumpkin ziploc baggies in my freezer will probably just go all freezer burnt to be replaced next year at this time.

Well, time to go!! Be well!

Murphy's Law

Murphy's Law states:

If anything can go wrong, it will.

Now there are extensions to this law and other people go for the extreme versions such as:
If there is a possibility of several things going wrong then the one that will cause the most damage will be the first thing to go wrong.

You could go even further with this and say:
It will be all your fault and everyone will know about it.

Whichever way you look at it, this seems to be a very pessimistic, unrealistic nutshell of life. I mean, if people really believed this and always looked at things in this light then we wouldn't do anything at all.

I would like to pose a new law. I am opting for a more humanistic viewpoint that better suits how life really treats us. I would like to say:

Proceed with Caution: Anything can go wrong at any time.

This can be expanded to also include the following since life is not that simple:

1. If you are in a state of hurry, things are bound to go wrong.
2. If you have a feeling that something is wrong, it probably is.
3. If you are headed in the wrong direction, things will eventually go wrong.
4 If you have never done it before, it will go wrong.
5. If it has never gone wrong before, then this is the time it most likely will.

You will find that if you think about it, these are laws that basically cover everything that could possibly go wrong in life besides being kidnapped by a yeti or extraterrestrials and even then, maybe. At least that is what I have found anyway. If you want to challenge this then feel free but for now, I will keep it as is and propose the following summation:

1. Slow down and get organized
2. Act on your instincts.
3. Turn around and try another avenue.
4. Read the instructions carefully.
5. Carefully re-read the instructions.

#4 & #5 are curious because there are very few things in life that instructions are provided for and yet when we do get a step by step guide, many people ignore it completely anyway.

I would add 'Expect the unexpected' but then this could very well be at risk of sounding horrendously cliche.

Quote for today: Sometimes in life the best way to keep from drowning is to let go of the man with the cement block tied to his foot.

Facebook

Okay, I am not trash talking facebook because I like facebook but here is the thing. Why fix what is not broken? I am talking about the old vs. new facebook. It worked just fine, everyone was having fun, why mess with that? Now the site is claiming that it needs maintenance so I can't access my account! Now, I know, I know. It is just facebook, not heroine. Nothing to get my knickers in a bunch about anyway. But tell that to the guy that thinks that just because he has created a facebook group believes himself to now be the all powerful dictator of a small government regime in a lack lustre communist country. There is no need to be a facebook Deputy Dog people! This is facebook, not some house of parliament caucus meeting. They really take this stuff uber serious so I guess I should too. I love facebook, I have to admit it and I need my fix every day especially when I tell some random dude off and he has the canolis to rebut. I need to see that rebuttal in all of its damn glory so get this site back up and running people!! Vamanoose!!! (is that how it is spelled? It means hurry in Spanish, so's you know.)

My New Elliptical

After having a baby, I wanted to get rid of the excess weight so I was excited when my guy bought me a new commercial elliptical trainer off of Ebay. I was a bit skeptical because even though I use Ebay quite often, I had never ordered anything of this magnitude. I eagerly awaited its arrival. I knew that it would take a fairly long time because I had perused other feedback that the seller had received and most people said that everything worked out great but that their purchase took a relatively long time to arrive. It did take a long time but I was patient to wait. Finally, one day the doorbell rang. I opened the door to a tiny, confused 60 year old man with a clipboard. He asked me if I had ordered a piece of fitness equipment and I nodded. Then he laughed and asked me where I expected I was going to put it. I had not thought that far ahead you see. I did not realize that this thing was a monstrosity that would not fit through the front door of my house. I really thought that the company would send me two great, huge, hulking men with a forklift or something to delicately carry my beloved new toy down my 15 basement steps for me. Instead I got a librarian with a pacemaker and a portable manual jack lift. I had to think fast because the guy wanted to just drop this thing off on my doorstep and take off. That would leave just me, with my baby screaming for her dinner in the house, to try and figure out a way to not leave this thing out in the weather. My guy was out of town for work as were all of his friends. So I finally convinced the little old guy to drive his semi truck around the back alley where I have a detached garage and we could put it in there. Now our garage is quite old and it took me a very long time to figure out how to open the doors but I finally got them open and he backed up and proceeded to try and unload my lovely inexplicable disaster. This took about half an hour as said fitness miracle weighed about 300 pounds or more and my blessed dashboard bobblehead senior was probably only weighing in at about the same as a wet shirt. We also had a few heartattack threats so I am sure that I was the death of this elderly gentleman and now I will have to pay for it karmically for the rest of my mortal life and more or less into the afterlife as well. So we got the thing in and I said my many thanks to the poor wretch and bid him good day. Now it was about 2 months sitting in my garage before my guy was able to round up help to bring it into the house, I wanted to get it in before the cold weather. So after lugging it out of the garage and having to take the front door off of its hinges in order to get it in, here it now sits in all its glory in the middle of my living room. There was no way it was ever going to fit down those 15 basement steps without falling and killing or, at the very least seriously maiming someone.
Whoo hoo! That was my exclamation after it was safely through my front door. I also proceeded to make several long enduring vows of lovefest extraordinaire to my designated significant.
So there I was, I was going to be a fitness diva! Beach bod here I come! I hopped aboard my torturous contraption and began to stride. Seconds passed: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5..................5................5...............hey wait a minute, what's going on! A minute later, my machine was still insisting that only five seconds had passed. I tried resetting it. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5............5.............5. No use, it couldn't count past five. Damn it!!! I had a bum machine that would never pass grade one! This is where it gets good because now I had to call, wait for it, duh duh duh: TECHNICAL SUPPORT!! Now anyone who has ever had to deal with these people knows that for the most part they are just a bunch of talking heads in jars of formaldehyde. Oh and one of them, more than likely the one that you get to talk to, doesn't speak English at all but has memorized a few English words or phrases to try to fit in at the talking head school. I get on the phone with these people and one of them, Brian, says that they get this kind of problem all of the time. ????? What the hell? Then fix it you morons!! Anyhow, I calmly ask how it can be remedied and he tells me that he will ask the best guy on his team to contact me and walk me through fixing it. He also asks if I would kindly go to the website and leave 5 stars once the machine is up and running. Sure, why not, I just want to use the damn thing. Turns out, the best guy on his team is the one that doesn't speak English. Xjlutuk calls me up and we get nowhere because he just keeps repeating, 'Tell me now your problem is?' So I hang up with him while he goes to look at the manual and I phone Brian back. I actually get to talk to Brian again and I am so stunned by this that I just completely blank for a minute but then I quickly regain my composure. I tell Brian that I would like to talk to the second best guy on his team or anyone else really, even the secretary would do. Hell, at least then I might get some sympathy and a free stapler. Brian reminds me that once the machine is running to go and leave a 5 star rating on their website. I then get to talk to Jason who walks me through the simple procedure of taking the whole machine apart to look for a magnet the size of a smartie, which is not there. Jason asks me if I see it and I say it is not there. He asks me if I am looking in the very right spot and I reply that yes, I am. Then he asks me if I am sure it is not there. Yes, I am very sure. Hmmmm, this is super puzzling to Jason who then comes to the conclusion that it must have fallen off during shipping. He promises that he will send me another one and I am very pleased because if I receive this part then Jason assures me that my machine will most certainly work perfectly as it should since we paid a ghastly amount for it. Before he lets me go, he reminds me about leaving that 5 star rating on their website once the machine actually works. A few days pass and I receive the magnet. I am so excited, I am going to be a fitness guru!! I slap it in there and then arduously put the whole machine back together which is not a simple process after all since most of the screws refuse to go into their right and proper holes. Of course, why should they? I finally get the whole thing put back together and I plug it in. It doesn't work at all. WTF!!! Oh wait, that extension cord just didn't work. So I plug it into the wall and it starts up and I am relieved. I jump right on and get ready to bust my ass. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5..........5............5...............5 Arrrrrrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhh!!! What the hell is going on!! Okay, relax, bikini season isn't until next year. I call Brian back. Oh, hello Brian, (I really did get the same guy again if you can believe it, holy crap!) I tell him that it still doesn't work. He isn't surprised. This machine does this all the time apparently. I want to wring his neck. Anyway, he tells me that again he will get his #1 guy on the phone with me but I have already been through all of that so I just ask if there is a technician in my town that can come to my house and just fix it for me. He tells me that he can get his secretary to phone me and set me up with a technician but it would be easier for me to just talk to Xjlutuk because he could walk me through getting the thing realigned and up and running by that night. I pass politely and just ask him to get his secretary to phone me. He says he will and then asks again if I would go to the website and give my rating of 5 stars. Ok, I will already, what is with these people. John calls me back. I never realized I would meet this many men. I mean seriously, hey single ladies, forget the bars and other hotspots, just call technical support. John takes my info then tells me he will call me back to let me know if there is someone close by that can help me out. Yes! Now I was getting somewhere although I didn't get a free stapler. Boo. John reminds me to please leave 5 starry stars on their site.
Today Ryan calls me up and we set up an appointment for him to come by tomorrow morning. Yay!! Now I will be master fitness connoisseur for life!!

My First Post

I have been experiencing a strange feeling of anticipation lately. It has been really taking over my life. I wake every morning and I feel lucky. I don't know why. It is as though I am waiting for something big to happen. That is why I am starting this blog. It might not be anything at all and my ramblings probably are not really that interesting but it is worth a shot. At least until I can figure all of this out. So here is my first post just to test this out. :)