Note to self

"In Car To Protect"

This is the rather cryptic message I have, at some indeterminate point, set my phone to remind me about today. Why? No idea. Whatever could it mean? My hypothesis: I am living in some kind of time-warp, a la Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, where my future self has already lived through today and has sent my past self (me) a message to warn me of grave danger.
If anyone wants me, I'll be cowering in my car all day.

Chocolate Banana Shake

Mmmmmm....... Peters'.

Props to Amy for joining me on my semi-annual pilgrimage earlier this month.

Google Analytics is telling me that my site has had zero visits since last Tuesday. Nearly a week! Can it be so? But, *sniff* I added new features and *sniff* I even had pictures of creme eggs *HONK* (that is me blowing my nose) Although, Laura left a comment this week (LOVE YA!) so it must be wrong. HURRAH! Laura also wins valuable BlogPoints** (registered trademark) for getting it right, first try, that she was the one who wrote me the unprintable note in junior high. Good times.

**BlogPoints are redeemable at Beaver Lumber, Peavey Mart, HomeHardware and SAAN (remember SAAN!!!)**

I am taking my laptop into the 'shop' (actually, Mike's Dad!) for repair, so I will be offline for a few days. Also, Michelle is coming to visit me, YAH! So I would probably be too busy anyway, showing her the sights and baking her cakes and things :) I will look forward to getting back online soon, catching up on all your blogs and sharing with you my latest Sven Of The Week.

As a sidebar, I will just add here that if you are reading this, and your name is Sven (unlikely, but there you are), I hope you will not be offended. It is an Atkinson thing.

Many moons ago, my dear brother Greg took a dislike to a Canadian politician called Sven Robinson. I can't remember now what his particular issue with him was, but since then, dear old Sven has been caught stealing a very valuable ring, so it appears Greg may have been right. Anyway, Greg took to labelling things he didn't like 'Svens' (literally: he had a label maker, and used to print off little labels that said Sven and stick them to things!) So that is the history.

T.Y.P.D.K.A.M:

2) I performed every year at my Dad's work Christmas Party, reciting poetry, dancing, or playing piano. For several of those years, I wore a homemade party dress that was seriously hot pink, with tons of layers and white bows dotted all over it. Attractive.

New Blog Features, Because I Am Very Bored

Over Christmas my sister and I went through our boxes of stuff at my parents' house and scaled it down bigtime. We did this about 2 years ago, so it wasn't actually that bad. I found some funny stuff, and spent a lot more time reading through old schoolwork, looking at old pictures and reminiscing than doing any actual work!

I think I may have missed a box of stuff, because I didn't encounter any old yearbooks, or some other stuff that I know I wouldn't have thrown out. Like notes from junior high. Let's be honest, they were so stupid, but worth a laugh, and I'm sure I kept a few. The point of this all is, I did find one old note, and was gonna publish excerpts of it on here, see if you could figure out who wrote it to me and which various people and teachers we were discussing. But looking at it now, it is all way too rude/raunchy/insulting/pointless to publish on here. That alone should tell you who wrote it!! (No, not me!) No one who reads this blog is in there, in fact, no one who I have seen in years. Man, we were such bitchy cows in junior high!

Well, that was pointless. On to other things: I think it's time for:

SVEN OF THE WEEK

This week's Sven Of The Week award goes to "X", at the hospital. I'm not fond of her attitude and find she delights a lot in the meagre amount of power she has been allocated. She is lording it over me and making me do a lot of pointless hoop-jumping. So I'm sitting at home, writing stupid blogs, when I could be out making money.

Rating:
(4 penguin pokes, out of a possible 5)

She wins: My freezer. Complete with death-breath smell, rotten food, and black mould.

WARM FUZZY OF THE WEEK

And this week's Warm Fuzzy goes to Hannah and Julie. It was great to meet up the other day, chatting for hours and catching up on all the gossip. I especially appreciate their friendship when I was feeling low after returning from my long hiatus.

Rating: (3 creme eggs out of a possible 5, points deducted for getting me so drunk that I spent the night with my head in the toilet!) They win: Drinks on me on our next night out

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And finally,

Things You Probably Didn't Know About Me (T.Y.P.D.K.A.M.)

#1) I know all the words to Ice Ice Baby (Vanilla Ice), Shoop (Salt 'n Pepa) and Whoomp There It Is (Tag Team) . I really get into it when I sing along too, especially Shoop

Nephew Time

Here is a pic of nephew Ben. He is two. This is him 'raising the roof', just like his Aunty Lindsay taught him. He has a stuffed Elmo, and occasionally, while he is playing quietly on his own, you will see him throw Elmo's arms in the air and say "Elmo raise the roof!". Ah, it's good to see I can have an intellectual influence on the future generation.

I include him here because I have realized my life has been a lot of moaning, groaning, ranting and raving recently. Now, I'm not one to get sentimental about children being innocent and seeing the positive in things (believe me, I work with the little runts every day!) and I can get positively ill when people go on and on about their cutesy-wootsey kiddy stories (Reader's Digest reader stories, anyone?!) , but Ben's little outlook on life does make me laugh.

Two stories, if you'll indulge me:

1) We were walking through the mall recently, Ben being carried by a female relative, who will remain nameless to protect the embarrassed. Being a doctor's son and a nurse's nephew, he is quickly learning all the parts of the body (I don't like to brag, but he can name and locate his carotid, brachial, radial, and femoral pulses, as well as his kidneys, clavicle and many others) (yes, we are losers!). Anyhoo, he likes pointing out body parts. So he turns to the lady carrying him, pats her belly and goes, "Your little belly". We all make the appropriate praising noises, thinking, what a charmer! He is thrilled with the attention, and, showing off now, he turns to her again, pats her boobs and goes, "Your big belly"

2) Ben certainly already has his own definite personality, and likes things 'just so' - doesn't like things to be untidy, likes people to do things the 'right' way and likes to correct people if they don't say things the 'right' way. He was having an omelette for dinner the other night. His dad was helping him eat, cause he was getting tired and fussy, so he scoops up a forkful of omlette, and as he manoeuvers it to Ben's mouth, he is making chit-chat: "This is such a nice omelette, it has egg and cheese, tomatoes and peppers and broccoli in it." Ben is listening intently, with a mouthful of omelette, and he suddenly pushes the fork away and starts spitting his mouthful out into his hand. I am thinking, is he OK, is he choking? He looks his dad in the eye and says, "And ham, Daddy!", replaces his mouthful and continues eating.

Aw....

Back in Brum

So I'm back 'home'. What an incredible month off. Happy New Year to all of you, by the way, and hope you had a great Christmas.

I did all sorts of fun things with my family: we went to the Zoo, out for nice meals, went to a hockey game (go Flames!), did lots of shopping, to the theatre, went out to Kananaskis and Banff. It was great.

I went for a little looky-loo around the Children's Hospital as well, and was offered a job there in the Emergency. Is Calgary ready to have this chick back? Who knows? Certainly not me! I have pretty much been in a continuous spin cycle since then...

"I'll go to New Zealand...ah but (insert list of 25 reasons why Calgary is better)...yes, that makes sense. OK, I'll come back to Calgary...oh but, (insert reasons why NZ would be amazing)...I'm being silly, I'll go to NZ...although..."

Welcome to my little brain for nearly 3 weeks straight. Ah. Very exhausting!

Anyways, I am back here until February at least. I'll keep you posted. Anyone who has any suggestions, thoughts, prayers, or visions to make this decision easier is extremely welcome to let me know.

So my adventures since leaving Calgary?
Careful...I'm on a rant!

Well the flight home was one big continuous party. When we boarded, one extended family of about 25 people got on and sat pretty much at random wherever they wanted, despite all seats being prebooked. Now let me say the family were annoying and uncooperative to the n'th degree, but the stewardess (or "purser" as her name tag suggested, just what is that now?) did not help situtations at all by being a magnitudinous cow. It took almost an hour to sort out, while we just sat there.

Meanwhile, the couple beside me (very unfriendly) were discussing if they could grab the empty back row, despite me saying I thought it was reserved for the crew to take their breaks (clearly novices, well, not everyone can be an experienced jetsetter like moi!) ;) Every time the already agitated 'purser' walked by, the guy beside me would do that kindof litte jump, sit up straighter, try to make eye contact while extending his pointer finger in the air to get her attention. Then sigh when she (quite rightly) ignored him. In the end, when he finally grabbed her (and brave! Oh my goodness... I would not have made eye contact with this pissed-off woman for any money, let alone made a request of her!) she told him, in not nearly such a nice way that I did (ahem!) that it was for the crew and "don't you think we deserve to sit down sometimes too?!"

Things pretty much quieted down, and I even managed to grab some shut eye (although I was poked awake WITH MY BREAKFAST TRAY by same purser!!!) until we strapped in for landing. Now, I have experienced turbulence in my day but this was turbulence. We bumped, we jolted, we were thrown sideways. We experienced those kind of stomach-losing drops that make the back of your legs go numb and the whole plane collectively groan. The pilot came on the horn to tell us that we were in line for landing but would be circling for 10 more minutes. It was like being on the funfair ride that never ends and is not fun anymore. Babies were screaming, Mums were crying and Oh, the puking! I am not kidding when I say this was vomiting on a whole new level. Now, I don't like to be crass (OK...I do) but the chick in front of me was drafting in vomit bags from all over the plane, and filling them as quickly as they arrived. One woman (from the family of 25) actually got out of her seat and was thrown here, there and everywhere as she tried to make it to the bathroom (meanwhile, our favourite stewardess is screeching, get back in your seat! It's not safe!) All in all, there was 4 different people in my eyeline alone who were chucking (not that I chose to have my eyes open or watch them, you understand. My eyes were screwed shut and I had a death grip on the armrests!)

Eventually, we landed, surprisingly without the oxygen masks falling. And what does the crew say? "Gee, guys, that was a tough one, sorry about that, fortunately we made it?" Nope. "Here we are at London Heathrow. Thank you for choosing to fly with us, hope you had a good flight, please don't take off your seatbelts until the aircraft has come to a complete stop"

Now I would never be so low as to defame the airline, but it was British Airways (oops).

At least my beautiful sister, my wonderful nephew and the baby bump were all there to meet me. She took me back to hers, fed me, watered me, bathed me (just kidding!), let me sleep in their soft and warm spare bed. Things were great.

But reality hit hard when I returned back to my cold, empty flat. What's that smell? Death? Rotting?...

Knowing I was feeling low, the gods had decided to cheer me up by playing a little practical joke. At some indeterminate point in the 4 weeks we were gone, we had a little power cut. Presumably, when the power came back, things beeped back into life and started flashing 00:00. No harm. Oh, except, the freezer forgot to turn itself back on.

It is too depressing to talk about. Suffice it to say, my flatmate came back to a soupy mess last week. And being a boy, he threw all the food out (but left the garbage can full of rotting food!) and wiped the freezer once, then turned it back on (why oh why?), shut the door and left for another week. So I came home to a freezer that was entirely black and smelled like the plague.

Yesterday I spent my first day back home, jetlagged, lonely, and elbow deep in bleach with my head in a mouldy, icy, soupy, dripping pot of stinky gunge. I did what I could, but it still smells like terminal bad breath in here.

I have to go out now. I will write a more cheerful post this afternoon, but right now, spare a moment to feel a little bit sorry for me!

Love ya all

My Blog Burden

Oh little blog -

I have abandoned you. I have thought about you often though. So here I am. Will you give me another chance?

Thanks