It begins.
Tomorrow.
7:30 a.m.
Yours truly will be at the Farmer's Market flogging cards.
Excited.
p.s. I've spent a lot of money (well, not a lot, but a fair amount), on toys for Gary, but he only likes playing with pipe cleaners... We call them his "Wilson's" after the volleyball from that Tom Hanks movie, "Cast Away".
... When you type the word "Holes" into a keyword search, you get an awful lot of books about "our bodies."
Gross.
“I stand, cold and unfeeling, on plaster casts—that which contain the hallow pits of my heart. Sledgehammers shatter my hopes of true love, and take with them my knees.”
Snaps.
The use of brand-name bags as lunch sacks.
This is for all you lunch-goers out there who tote Banana Republic, Sephora, Club Monaco, and Tristan and America paper bags day in day out, like you've been on a shopping spree all year long. We all know what you have in there! It's no surprise! It's your lunch! We're not impressed by you simply because eight years ago you bought over priced nylons from Holt Renfrew.
Sure, I get that they're sturdy. But then why not use your Wine Depot paper bags? Hmmm? Or by yourself one of those nifty cloth sacks? Or one of those ultra cool hard top lunch boxes? I'm proud of my Safe Way plastic bag. It's a way of reusing them... Lord knows I have enough of them.
But to the girl on the bus this morning who had gone so far as to tape up her disintegrating Bebe paper bag... Not cool.
I hope this is a trend that dies quickly. Along with the fashion mullet.
It's the small things. Like when someone comes home from working a night shift, and before crawling into bed, they go to the kitchen to make you a fresh pot of coffee for when you get up. I mean, really? What's better than that?
P.S. An update on the Farmer's Market: the lady never called back, so Nikki and I are working under the assumption we don't have a table for Saturday. Hurrah! And yet boo...
Things have escalated much faster than they were supposed to.
Farmer's Market lady called last night to tell us we had a booth for Saturday if we wanted it... Whatthef? I thought it was supposed to be a year?! I thought I had months to build up a sizable card collection?! It would seem not. And would it be foolish to say no? Would they "black ball" us from future markets? Would our name come off the list, and would we henceforth be known as "those girls who said no?"
It's not a chance Nikki is willing to take. Thus, my not having a life for the next two days. Instead, I will be at the market on Saturday pushing whatever number of cards I can madly make after work between now and Saturday at 8:00 a.m.
Last night I had a sweatshop of sorts set up. Adam and Gary were unbelievably helpful--Adam cut all my paper and folded cards (I'm so lucky to have him...), and Gary managed not to pee on anything but his litter. However, I now have a claw of sorts from using the scissors for 3 hours straight... Sigh. No one said it would be like this...
Last night Nikki and I had a meeting with the people from the Farmer’s Market to potentially sell our cards. It was quite the experience. Based on the phone message we got from the lady in charge, Nikki and I assumed that we’d show up and display our product to a panel of people who would judge us "acceptable" or "unacceptable". We’d be in and out of there in 45 minutes, tops.
Nope. Think again. We were so completely wrong.
We arrived at the market, to be faced with 25 other groups of people looking to get a table. Each “seller” was given a booth, and we were privately interviewed by maybe a half dozen judges. They asked us questions about our cards—some actually looked at them, others just stood staring at the table and said nothing. It was very bizarre, like an elementary school science fair. I was nervous and sweaty and I fidgeted. I glared at the lady next to us who gave out individually prepared bags of gourmet dog treats to the judges as a suck up. Damn suck ups.
Basically, they told us they’d let us know within a month if we were “accepted,” based on the scores given to us by the judges. Then we’re put on a waiting list, and it could be up to a year before a booth is available. Any longer than a year, and we’d have to re-apply. There are maybe 200-250 booths, and 157 are run by permanent sellers. Only 20% of the total booths are crafters, so I gather it’s a tough group to crack.
Overall, however, after wandering around and looking at the competition last night, I think we had the best craft. There was a man selling rain barrels, and a bit of a nutter selling bath salts (which she kept making me sniff, which in turn made me sneeze.) Another lady was selling meatballs, and a man who looked like a chubby Weird Al had quite possibly the ugliest art on the planet. But, it takes all kinds, right Pants? We all have our gifts...
We got a kitty!
So cute. So tiny. So fluffy. Such big fuzzy feet.
I want to name him "Billy the Kitten."
Adam likes "Dude."
I think we'll settle on "Mu Shu," with "Mushy" for short.
He looks like this:
Where to begin?
1) There was some excitement on my bus this morning. A lady sitting two seats down from me found a needle under her seat. So we pulled over, right in front of the fire station, and four firemen in their uniforms and fire jackets came on board and "took care of the situation." It was very intense. Not to mention a nice way to start the morning--forget the needle, who doesn't love a man in uniform? I was grinning like a drunk woman.
2) I'm wearing my new Christmas clothes to work today. A pair of grey and pink pinstripe pants I got from the Gap for $10 and my pointy black boots, both purchased during a boxing day binge. I'm feeling rather tall and slim. I'll keep you posted on the condition of my feet after 8 hours of work on 3 inch heels. So far so good.
3) Adam and I purged last night. Not our bodies, but our apartment. We got home from dinner and took down our Christmas tree, shook out our carpet, cleaned out cupboards full of crap we don't use, and ridded our closests of the clothes we don't wear. I have a whole bag full of sweaters, if anyone is interested.
I'm feeling good today. Hurrah!
(This is a list of one)
1) The middle seat on an airplane, sandwiched in between two strangers, nowhere to put your legs for four excruciating hours.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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?
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?!
