Happy Over-Rated Day!

I'm not being negative. Really, I'm not! I'm actually looking forward to New Year's this year. My mum, dad, and best friend Heather and I are all going for dinner someplace where there is no menu, only a prepared five course dinner, where you have your choice between one of two salads/soups/appetizers/main courses/desserts. It's called "Dody's Oyster Bar & Grill." Don't be fooled by the name, however, I won't be eating oysters... My mum and I went to the new and improved Art Gallery here, and there was a contemporary piece (if that's what you can call it) of a recording of a kid chewing and sucking on an raw oyster. I won't soon forget that. Even the thought of it makes my stomach turn.

On that cheery note, have a wonderful new year, everyone, be you in the Hammer, Edmonton, Saskamatoon, Innisfail, Calgary, Mexico, Taiwan, or wherever WM has run off to with his beautiful wife.

I love you guys. You make things better.

Reunion

I'm going out with high school friends tonight. I went to St. Mary's, so we're affectionately referred to as "Smarians."

Totally bizarre. I haven't seen many of these people in the last 8 years, so it's going to be weird. I saw this one guy last week at a pub, and he got up and screamed across the table, "Library Lady, you haven't changed since I last saw you in grade 13! Not one bit!" I don't know if that's a good thing or not...

I'm wearing my new Christmas clothes... Hopefully they'll make me look a bit better than the dumpy kilt I used to sport. Here's hoping!

Wish me luck!

Merry Christmas, everybody! I'll leave you with an image from my all time favorite Christmas Movie, "Christmas Comes But Once A Year," from the Cartoon Festival, Volume 6. And a quote from the movie's song:

Christmas comes but once a year,
Now it's here, now it's here!
Bringing lots of joy and cheer,
Tra-la-la-la-la.

You and me, and he and she,
And we are glad becuase,
Why because, because, because,
There is a Santy Clause,
Ohhhh...

Christmas comes but once a year,
Now it's here, now it's here!
Bringing lots of joy and cheer,
Tra-la-la-la-la.

Christmas Miracle

It would appear I know the answer to the question of my fish's laziness. She was pregnant. She wasn't pouting, or depressed, but full of little fishy baby Jesus' (is that sacrilegious?) Actually, only one fishy baby Jesus. And then she died... Bringing life into her tiny aquatic universe, she kicked the bucket. Now father fish has taken baby fish under his wing, like that scene from Bambi.

'Tis the season.

Something very funny happened to Adam the other day. He went snowboarding in Jasper with a buddy from work, and his buddy's daughter. She's twelve, and a tomboy, and very shy.

I guess Adam was sitting on a bench at the back door, waiting for the two of them to collect their stuff and pack their lunches. The bench faces the basement stairs, where I gather this twelve year-olds room is... Anywho, she comes hurtling up the stairs, and just as she's about to pass Adam, he takes the opportunity to introduce himself...

"Hi," he says.

She gets so flustered, she manages a, "Hi," before tripping on the top step and falling ass over teakettle, banging her chin on the kitchen table. She's so embarrassed, she runs away outside.

I almost died for her when he told me that story--I know I'm biased because he's mine, but I can just imagine it: I was that awkward twelve year-old, and there in your kitchen sits a cute snowboarder who's talking to you and you're trying to be cool and you end up screwing it all up and doing the worst imaginable thing. Oh man... I guess he felt pretty bad. A sad (yet funny) story.

How I Live Now

I had to do this book as an entry, not just as my book-a-licious entry, because it's so overwhelmingly good. You need to go out and read this book, and recommend it to every single one of the teenagers/adults you know. It's one of those stories that will haunt me forever. I know it.

Has anyone else read it? If you do, or have, please post what you think here--I'd love to talk to someone about it: How I Live Now, by Meg Rosoff.

Quick and Dirty

Yes, I said it. Why, you ask? Because it seemed the thing to do. I've been in training this past week, and every single solitary professional I've come in contact with has used it in one context or another: in describing a book; in describing their teaching technique; in explaining what we'd be doing over the course of the next hour; in explaining how the coffee maker works...

It creeps me out. I don't think we're given our "shushes" when we graduate, I think we're given the rights to the saying, "quick and dirty." Like we feel we have some responsibility to inflict this terrible phrase on the population as a whole.

Has anyone else encountered this phenomena?

Rebel Angels

I'm in the last 1/4 of a really good book, and I can't stop thinking about it. I even had a dream about it last night! It's the second in a series I featured a couple of weeks ago in my book-a-licious column called, "A Great and Terrible Beauty." This is the second instalment, "Rebel Angels." It's even better than the first, I think, which is weird, becuase usually the first is better... With the excpetion of perhaps "The Godfather" and "The Godfather: Part II" which seriously rivaled the first.

I'm almost sad that it's coming to an end. I've slowed down in my reading just to make it last longer. Don't you just love that?!

Ramona hits the big screen!

Log Love

It's that time of year again--channel 18 has started their Christmas log and holiday music marathon. For those of you in Taiwan and not able to experience the wonderful-ness that is this station, it's basically a TV channel completely dedicated to a 2 minute looping of a burning log in a fireplace, perfectly blended with Christmas tunes. I love it. It makes me giddy. Oh Christmas, how I love thee. Three cheers for the log. Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

Odd

I was watching Star TV last night--the classiest of classy TV stations--and I learned that Mayim Bialik, the girl who played Blossom on the self-named TV show, left Hollywood in 2000, and has recently completed her PhD in Neuroscience...

Did anyone see that one coming? I certainly didn't.

Squeaking and Meowing

It's finally happened. Yesterday, while I was at Southgate doing a little Christmas shopping, Adam found a mouse in our apartment. Granted, I was prepared for this, as there are holes in our walls filled with steel wool by the previous tenants, and granted, it's a very old building and thus bound to be full of mice. But last night as I was getting ready for bed, I was spooked, convinced every sound I heard was the hum of giant mice pillaging my walls.

Needless to say, his pizza box mouse trap--although caked with three day-old cheese--proved ineffective. The mouse got away, and is now living it up somewhere in the building, no doubt giving birth to millions of mouse-lings who will someday return in a hostile take over of our apartment. Adam's back-up plan was to fetch the she-devil herself, Marley cat, who in all respects is usually a lean, mean ninja machine (she's been known to take on a German Sheppard or two in her day). It would seem, however, that her powers are tied to 7603 119th Street. Upon arriving at the apartment, kitty became a tiny lump, cowering beneath Adam's jacket, periodically releasing something that sounded like a deflating bagpipe. Every once in a while she'd come out to rub her face against yours, making sure you were still there in case she needed you.

Sigh. In my hour of need, kitty failed me. Damn her for being so cute in her ninja pants.

Goodbye Pretty Lesbian

Kim got the boot from "America's Next Top Model" last night. This makes me sad for two reasons, 1) I really wanted her to win, and 2) Bre, the irritating, conniving, you-know-what is still there. Sigh. As my Gramma would say, she'll get her comeuppance. One can only hope...

And now for something completely different: I can't stand it when someone, say someone sitting at your lunch table, scraps every last tiny little itsy bitsy bit from their yogurt or applesauce container, making that horrible *sccccrrrraappppeeeeee*-ing sound. It drives me nutters.

Ohmygod...

Lord Tader? Tofu D2? Ham Solo? It doesn't get better than THIS!

#102

I live in Edmonton, and amongst our other climactic complexities, the winter brings with it an excruciating dryness. It’s unlike anything I’ve encountered before. You’re entire body itches and flakes until eventually you find yourself with a ruler down your back trying to reach that spot on your back that your stumpy arms can’t reach. I slather myself with much too much lotion. This brings me to my point:

Item #102 on my “Things That Bug Me” List: lotion plugs. Those little nubbins of lotion that get caught in the nose of the pump, and ooze out into your hand leaving you with that little nugget of hard moisturizer. You’re forced to either a) flick it from your hand, to be found a week later stuck to the bathroom wall in the midst of your weekly clean, or b) rub it into your hands, leaving you with little chunky bits stuck into between your rings and your fingers.

Ew and gross and all things ick.

Tra-La

Heather is here. Tra-la. This makes me very happy. As much as I love and adore my Edmonton buddies--and don't get me wrong here, you're the icing on my Alberta cake (including the ones in Calgary and Saskatoon)--there's something very cathartic about having someone around who's known you since you were three apples tall; who's seen you through your worst, and nursed you out of it; who was there when you wore track suits and Micromachines were the coolest.

On another note, I've added two new sidebars to my blog. I hope you enjoy them...

Drama

I hate it when people make situations more difficult than they need to be. In one context or another--organizing an event, relationships--I have no use for it. Drama makes things difficult, and it makes getting things done down right impossible. This rant comes to you courtesy of work.

Lets say you're trying your dandiest to plan, say, um, I don't know... "An event." Let's call it an event. And then, out of the blue, someone comes along and says "Frances, you need to look at the bigger picture," even though looking at said bigger picture is really not what you're trying to do, and the bigger picture is completely unfathomable for the time frame you're working in.

(And really, the bigger picture isn't your concern, but the concern of that someone.)

And let's just say that someone comes back and says, "and don't forget you'll have to do this, and this, and get this, and we'll need to arrange meetings with him, and her, and it all has to be done sensitively, because there's the bigger picture to look at here, and blah friggin' blah."

But you darn well know, right around the corner, there's someone doing the exact thing you're trying to do, and they didn't have to call him or her. And they didn't have to buy gifts for them or they or get food and funding. And they didn't use fancy words or sensitivity training or have to consider the bigger picture. They just picked up the phone and arranged it. Full stop. A wonderful event. No hassle. No drama.

Maybe some people should stop creating extra work for themselves. Some people should learn that while the bigger picture is wonderful, sometimes it's just nice to stop the chit chat and actual do something productive. To quote that awful song from the Black Eyed Peas: "You don't want no drama, no, no drama, no, no, no, no drama."

p.s. Is my italics use excessive? Was the use of the italics on excessive, excessive?

I've Finally Seen It...

Hurrah, Pants, and I went to see Pride and Prejudice last night. I won't say much, except the entire movie is ruined in one small, 2 minute concluding scene. Boo.

But I will say this: Keira Knightly annoys the heck out of me. She's so angry all the time! Or at least, she always looks angry, with her squinty eyes and weirdo mouth. They should have left her out of the movie. I was distracted by her snarling gob and Domino Harvey haircut poking out from beneath her 19th century up-doo wig. Couldn't someone have fixed this? I know I wasn't the only one who saw it. Sheesh.

(Mind you, I was also looking for anything to feed my Keira loathing...)

Who Knew?

Last night I sat on the couch with Adam and watched Lost, and ate chips, and drank red wine. Let me tell you, all dressed Ruffles and red wine go well together. Who knew? Not me. It said nothing on the bottle about being a “dessert wine.” I’m as surprised as you are.

Adam has suggested we write a book matching chips with wines. One of them classy coffee table ones with big shiny pictures of people on their fancy French couches with their pocket sized dogs, showing off their homes and their wealth. Except in our book, on the coffee table next to the Faberge Egg will be a bowl of Cheese Pleasers and a bottle of merlot. Adam’s convinced there’s a niche for us there.

What do you think? Can I take any pre-production orders?

It's the uniform from highschool...

... That's what got me. I wanted to be Maximus Deciums Meridius (*said with a husky voice*) from Gladiator. Oh well. Is William Wallace even really an action hero? I guess he has a costume, and the blue face is pretty cool, but he doesn't have any sort of trademark move. And it's the trademark move is what makes it. Wonderwoman's crossed arms? Buzz Lightyears karate chop action? Heman's sword thingy? What does William have? Riding across a field on a horse... Good times.

You scored as William Wallace. The great Scottish warrior William Wallace led his people against their English oppressors in a campaign that won independence for Scotland and immortalized him in the hearts of his countrymen. With his warrior's heart, tactician's mind, and poet's soul, Wallace was a brilliant leader. He just wanted to live a simple life on his farm, but he gave it up to help his country in its time of need. William Wallace 75% Maximus 71% Captain Jack Sparrow 63% Indiana Jones 50% Neo, the "One" 50% James Bond, Agent 007 46% Lara Croft 46% El Zorro 42% Batman, the Dark Knight 38% The Amazing Spider-Man 33% The Terminator 29% Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0 created with QuizFarm.com