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| The Big D again |
| 05.31.04 (2:30 pm) [edit] |
I think I got kind of complacent after the endocrinologist told me I was doing well. I was still trying to eat right and exercise, but not quite as much. Then we went away for the weekend and ate and ate (although we also did lots of walking) and when we got back, the weather was too crappy to walk. So now I'm trying to really get back on track.
I was reading how upset I was in my earlier entries and realized I hadn't felt that way in a while. Which is a good thing, but it seems a bit false - it's always waiting to sneak up on me again, I think.
My blood sugar was really high the other night and I got all upset because it was too cold and rainy to go for a walk (perhaps that's why I didn't enjoy Animal House that much - I was worried about my level. :) ). My lovely husband suggested I go for a swim, which hadn't occurred to me. Our building has a pool, but I don't usually use it at night because there are usually families with kids having pre-bedtime swims. But happily it was empty and once I'd finished, my blood sugar was cut in half. He's good at giving practical advice when I'm all strung out. :)
It's been both very nice and rather worrisome to not be thinking about it much. I start the diabetes education clinic tomorrow and I have a feeling that their focus is to get you to think about it a LOT. Actually, I think that's why I've been slacking a bit - I know that once I finally really and truly have it set out for me what I have to do, I'm going to really have to stick with it. Ugh, that doesn't sound like any fun at all.
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| Downloadin' frenzy |
| 05.30.04 (10:02 pm) [edit] |
My husband's doing his first graveyard shift tonight, so I'm all alone, playing away on the computer. It feels kind of weird, like my single days again.
And oh no, I'm hooked on song downloading! While I don't think any of tonight's songs are as embarrassing as those first two, they're kind of a hodge-podge:
Madonna - American Pie
(my husband will be disgusted, but it was playing all the time on a trip I took with my friend M to Holland, so it has fond memories attached)
The Crystals - Then He Kissed Me
Jerry Lee Lewis - Great Balls of Fire
Starship - Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now
(Okay, that one's a bit embarrassing - it's from that movie Mannequin, yeesh. :) )
Shirley and Lee - Let The Good Times Roll
And last night we did:
Alice Cooper - Only Women Bleed
Spirit of the West - Home for a Rest
(which I love even if I'm not drinking heavily :) )
Dierks Bentley - What Was I Thinking?
(I know, I know... but I like a bit of country now and then.)
Iggy Pop - Lust for Life
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| Movies people think you should like |
| 05.30.04 (9:21 pm) [edit] |
My husband and I watched Animal House last night. It was the first time I'd ever seen it. My general response was "...eh." (That would be an uninterested noise, not the Canadian eh? :) )
My husband kept saying what a classic it is, etc. and I can see how maybe it was really risque and daring for that time. I didn't hate it and it was mildly amusing, but it didn't wow me as a laugh riot. Of course, I've never been a big John Belushi fan, so I was a bit biased.
It made me think of Elaine in that Seinfeld episode where no-one can't believe she hated The English Patient.
And also of one of our favourite bits from The Onion about a girl whose boyfriend just can't believe she's never seen movies like Apocalypse Now (she calls him "Mr Big Army Guns" because of it, which I sometimes call my husband now :) ). I loved that, because it's totally true, people (often guys, I find) can be really shocked that you haven't seen their favourites.
[b]Are there any "classic" movies that you didn't like or have no interest in?[/b]
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| Superstar USA - what the HELL??? |
| 05.30.04 (10:13 am) [edit] |
I just caught part of this show and all I can say is - what a freakin' CRUEL thing to do!!
(If you haven't heard, it's a fake American Idol-ish show where they choose the worst singers, but tell them they're fab and then on the last episode reveal it's a hoax and they're actually the worst.)
Now, I love to watch the crappy auditions on American Idol, I admit it, but at least there they're told that they're bad and sent packing, not strung along. They're given a shot like everyone else and if they don't measure up, that's it. And I watched Joe Millionaire and Joe Schmo, I confess. Joe Schmo came out a hero. Evan Marriott was an idiot from day one, as were the gold-digging girls. But for all the big lies in those shows, they weren't completely humiliated (any more than any other reality show and the people knew they were signing up for a reality show) and they won prizes in the end. Maybe they win something on this thing, but at what cost? Their dignity?
This show chooses people who not only can't sing, but are in most cases unattractive and weird-looking (many have very large teeth). It's like that old prank of a jock asking an unpopular girl to the prom and then standing her up.
There's this one little guy who collects Winnie the Pooh memorabilia. He looks like a Hawaiian version of SNL's Pat mixed with Pooh. He has a voice like Michael Jackson's without the singing talent.
And every element of the show is just MEAN. When they went to tell the people they'd "won" a spot on the show, they caught one of the guys as he was coming out of a port-a-john. Little Hawaiian boy showed off his homemade be-dazzled jeans as he was packing.
On this episode, they took 12 to Hollywood where they were given a "makeover" to resemble their favourite singer (one sweet-but-clueless little gay boy says he models his look after Britney Spears - oh, the horror!) which involves giving them bad highlights and bleach jobs and putting them in silly clothes.
It breaks my heart.
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| Underrated TV shows |
| 05.29.04 (10:52 am) [edit] |
If you can't think of any songs you're ashamed of (see below :) ), how about TV shows that you think didn't get their due/were cancelled too soon?
My husband introduced me to Seven Days http://www.geocities.com/Holl..., a timetravel show in which Agent Parker can travel back 7 days (thanks to alien technology) to avert major world disasters. They showed it on SpikeTV last year and I got totally addicted to it. Then they showed it sporadically, then they stopped showing it, the bastards. It wasn't the highest-brow show ever, but it was fun. I liked that it was filmed in Vancouver (like Smallville). It had 3 seasons, which I guess isn't a bad run, but I definitely could've used more.
While I was never as addicted to it as to Seven Days, The Tick http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0... didn't get enough of a chance. It had potential and the always-great Patrick Wharburton. But it vanished too soon.
When we first met, my husband would often go off a rant about how ABC cancelled Cupid http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0... with Jeremy Piven without giving it a chance. So passionate about the show was he that I eventually had to start teasing him about how often he mentioned it. :)
Do you have a favourite show that ended too soon?
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| Blasts from the musical past |
| 05.28.04 (9:21 pm) [edit] |
My husband has been trying to get me interested in downloading music. I've suggested a few and I knew there were tons of hey-remember-that-song songs in my brain, but couldn't think of any whenever he had the computer on.
Well, I finally remembered a couple and downloaded them all by myself. Prepare to be horrified, they're from my 80's childhood:
Boom Boom Boom (Let's Go Back to my Room) by Paul Lekakis
Holiday Rap by MC Miker G
I'll understand if you want to shun me now. :)
But hey, I bet you've got some songs of shame you wish you could hear again! Lay 'em on me so I don't feel like the only one who had bad taste in my youth. :)
Additional after listening to them:
- Boom Boom Boom was just as I recalled (although I ended up with the extended version somehow).
- Oh my stars, I had no idea the MC Miker G guys were Swedish! They sound like they should be in an Ikea commercial! I always wondered about the Sven part, but I never noticed their accents - worse than ABBA's! :)
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| There's someone on the other side of the door |
| 05.28.04 (8:00 pm) [edit] |
That sounds like the title of a horror story. :) But it's not - I've just noticed even more than usual this week that people do not understand this simple concept.
The other day I got off the elevator at the train station, which is in an alcove so there's not much leeway room, and a woman was standing right in front of the door with her stroller and her child out of the stroller, taking up the whole space. She made no move to move, so I had about 6 inches to sidle past her. If the baby had been in the stroller, she probably would've gotten bonked by my briefcase because there was nowhere else for me to go.
Today I was getting on the train at the mall and there was a man in front of me who was basically standing with his nose pressed against the glass of the door. There was, of course, no room for people to get off (hello, it's the mall, it's a bit busy) so the first guy to emerge had to wham into him with his shoulder because there wasn't enough space for them to both occupy the doorway. He deserved to get whammed, the idiot.
Do people think the elevator/train is going to vanish if they don't get on the nanosecond the door opens? Admittedly, the train can require you to shove yourself on during rush hour, but you have a much better chance if you let some people leave the space before you try to enter it.
Okay, sometimes I zone out and end up right in front of the door, but by the time it opens it usually dawns on me that perhaps I should step out of the way.
Everyone is so impatient and rude these days, it just floors me.
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| Ah, bureaucracy... |
| 05.28.04 (11:47 am) [edit] |
I've been fighting with the provincial PharmaCare people for months now. Well, not really fighting, but I can't get them to understand the situation and they just can't get it.
My husband moved here in 2003 to marry me. Just before we got married, the government changed everyone's prescription drug coverage. It's now based on your income, rather than being universal. So, I sent off my form because the deadline was before we were married and my husband wouldn't be entitled to coverage until his immigration papers came through, and we had no idea when that would be.
So, in mid-January I got a letter (dated in December) telling me that there was a problem with my account, which I assumed meant they knew I'd gotten married and my husband needed to be added. No problem, I expected that. So, I call up and tell the very nice PharmaCare phone person that my husband is a new resident and has been unemployed since April, so he has no income to tell them about.
The guy mentions something about using his US 2002 tax return and they'll convert it into the Canadian equivalent (what?? he'd been unemployed since April and will probably never make as much in Canada as he did in the US and certainly not when he's new to a job). Ugh. But, he doesn't really know much about that, so I'll have to call the administrative number.
Thoroughly discouraged, I kept hoping that I'd be able to just call them up with his new income when he got a job. But no job came. So I left it and left it. I have coverage through work, anyway (which is much better than anything the gov't will give you, thankfully), so I didn't have any problems getting prescriptions.
Except when I was diagnosed with diabetes in March and it came time to get the test strips. Apparently the Safeway pharmacy computer can't communicate with my work insurance provider after office hours (I was picking them up after my night shift), so she tried my provincial coverage, only to have the computer say I wasn't on file!
So, I finally called them (and I admit, I should've called before, but I didn't know what to tell them) and it turns out they suspended me in February with no warning. Thanks, caring government! What if I didn't have any other coverage? I told the phone person the whole situation yet again and she said that we'd have to fill out an affidavit about his 2002 income in the US, that they'd mail to us. It sounded weird to me, but okay. And in the meantime, we have temporary coverage til it gets sorted out.
That was in March. Instead of the affidavit form, they sent a thing asking for authorization to view his tax return. I assumed that since it was now 2004, it would be his 2003 return, which he'd filed with an income of $0. So we sent that off. Yesterday, we got a letter that said they had looked for his 2002 Canadian tax return and been unable to find it. Um, yeah, that would be because he wasn't in the country at [b]all[/b] in 2002. Which I've told at least 2 or 3 people by now.
So, I call up this morning and the person says that we'll have to fill out an affidavit about my husband's [b]2003 [/b]income both in Canada and out and get it notarized. Would I like the forms faxed or mailed? Ummm...so, you just sent me a letter telling me you couldn't find a 2002 tax return and that I had to phone to "discuss my options." And yet the sole option is for us to pay to have his 2003 income information notarized, even though you can easily access his 2003 Canadian tax return. So, if he'd had a 2002 tax return, none of this would be necessary, but because he happened to move to Canada in 2003, you need all this crap done?
Why do they need to know about his US income?! How does it have any bearing? It wasn't made here, it wasn't taxed here, it has nothing to do with Canada! And, he only worked for 3 months last year. So, they're going to base his [b]Canadian [/b] provincial drug coverage on on 3 months of income in a foreign currency. That makes lots of sense.
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| Shift work |
| 05.28.04 (8:52 am) [edit] |
While I'm really glad that my husband's going to be working, I'm a bit worried that we won't see much of each other. From Sunday - Wednesday, he'll be leaving the house after dinner and getting home when I'm waking up for work. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I don't get off work til 9pm, so even though he's off on Thursday, I won't see much of him that day. So that leaves us with Friday night, Saturday (and I work every 3rd Saturday), and part of Sunday. I'll be a work widow!
Does anyone else have this kind of problem in their families? Is it do-able?
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| TV musings |
| 05.27.04 (4:17 pm) [edit] |
Alas, we are in the time of the season finale. And then, the dead TV season of summer.
I guess it's getting a bit better these days, now that they've finally realized that people aren't out barbequing and picnicking and sunbathing 24 hours a day all summer long. And that's when Survivor debuted originally, I believe. So maybe there are some good things in store. Although that's also when Paradise Hotel was on, which I'm ashamed to say I watched every week. I think my husband was horrified to find out his new wife had such bad taste in TV. I even admit that it was dreadful, but I kept on watching.
And happily, the Amazing Race is due to start up again in July. I love that show. I wouldn't want to be on it, since I'd want to actually have time to sightsee and have no desire to hanglide or crawl through a sewer or eat bugs. But I like to watch. :)
But boy, those finales! My husband and I love Smallville and I cannot believe the cliffhanger they left us with? Anyone else a fan? What the hell is going on there? So many people are dead or dying! I started watching it with him last May, when we were on our honeymoon and I remember us shaking our fists at the TV because Clark was about to be obliterated or something. They do an excellent job of leaving you hanging on that show.
It's going to be weird without Friends next season, although I gather the Joey spin-off will take its place. I dunno how I feel about that. I'm thinking maybe they should have just stopped completely. But it'll give David Schwimmer somewhere to guest star when his career goes nowhere, I suppose. (I know, it's mean, but his movies have all sucked. Matthew Perry's haven't been great, but he's got more hope than Schwimmer.)
I wonder if I'll get sucked into American Idol again next year? It's on the night that I work and that we tape Smallville, so I ended up missing a lot of it. But I love those auditions, I must say. I feel mean, but some of the people are so bad its hilarious. I can see being an average singer and thinking you're great, but how have these people managed to get the impression that they can even carry a tune? Liking to sing doesn't always mean you're good at it.
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| Hooray!!! |
| 05.26.04 (9:53 am) [edit] |
My husband has a job!!! Woo hoo!!
And, wouldn't you know it, the feast or famine rule was true for him. Last week he was offered a job and was to start today. But when he went to the interview for that job, he noticed a place nearby similar to where he used to work in the States. He'd looked up places when he first moved here, but hadn't seen that one. So, when he got home he gave them a call and they told him to send in his resume. He called them on Friday and they told him to come in on Tuesday, when the boss would be back. So, all through our weekend getaway we were wondering what would happen. It was great to have the one job, but he'd much rather work at something he knows he's good at and enjoys.
So yesterday he went down there and the boss wasn't in til the afternoon. He talked to the production manager, but after the long weekend he was super busy. So, he came home and in the afternoon the boss phoned him and said that they had a lot of stuff to get caught up on, could he come and show them what he can do? So he did and he got the job! It was perfect timing (apart from the other job) because apparently they were going to be looking into increasing their workforce because they've gotten so busy.
It's the graveyard shift, which is both good and bad. He worked that in Minneapolis and he's kind of biologically wired to be a night owl. It's 4 10-hour shifts, so I'll have him on the weekends. And, I must confess, I'm still bad at sharing a bed, so I'll get lots of sleep. :) (I'm just a really picky sleeper, it's awful.) I'll miss him in the evenings, of course, but he won't have to leave until after dinner. And it doesn't have to be forever, he can always switch shifts eventually.
So, hurrah! That is a HUGE weight off our of minds.
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| Weekend getaway details |
| 05.25.04 (4:16 pm) [edit] |
We had our weekend away in Gibsons, BC which is on the appropriately named Sunshine Coast.
I don't have a digital camera, but here are some pictures I found:
Our b&b was right up the hill on the left. It was only a block from the main street, but the hill is, as my husband described it, the kind that has sherpas across the road snickering at you. :)
The friend we were visiting lives just up the street from here. Our bed and breakfast is up in that second row of buildings on the hill.
Speaking of the b&b, it was called the Maritimer and it was great! http://maritimerbb.com
The location couldn't have been better (even if we did develop buns of steel going up the hill) and it had just been renovated. The guest room is a private garret with a huge bed, satellite TV, kitchenette, little balcony...all decorated in a nautical theme. The food was insane - 3 course breakfasts! If you ever visit the area, I recommend it highly.
Another great b&b on the Sunshine Coast is in Roberts Creek (the area is made up of tiny little towns that are determined to stay individual) is owned by friends of my parents. It's a custom-built, Victorian themed house with its own attached yet private cottage. http://www.phillipandi.com
I feel like such a travel agent, but it's really a lovely relaxing place to visit! For more info, go to http://www.gibsons.ca
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| Who ARE these people?? |
| 05.22.04 (9:28 am) [edit] |
It seems that these days, every darn person on the planet is getting their 15 minutes of fame. The term "celebrity" now applies to anyone from actual Hollywood starts to anyone who's been on a fifth-rate reality show to kids of uber-rich parents who've never actually done anything of note. I like to read my library's copies of People and US at lunch, but lately I have no idea who half the people are, and I thought I was fairly up on pop culture.
Jane magazine does a "celebrity-produced" issue every year and this year they claimed to have 374 1/2 stars participating. Well, a look at their list showed me that they have a very different definition of "star" than I do. At least for some of them they said what TV show or band they were from (which still didn't make them actual celebrities, in my opinion), so here are just the ones who they felt didn't need explanation. How many of them have you heard of?
Asia Argento
Melissa Auf der Meyer
Bridget Barkan
Amber Benson
David Berman
Michael Ian Black
Dianne Brill
Cam'ron
Amy Davis
Zooey Deschanel
Dollar Bill
Clea DuVall
Aunjanue Ellis (I assume she tried rename herself Ingenue. Geez!!!)
Sean Faris
Jonathan Safran Foer
Ghostface Killah
Jay Gillespie
Judy Greer
Dean Hudson
Matt Katz-Bohen
Stephin Merritt
Rhona Mitra
Michael Musto
Missi Pyle
Giovanni Ribisi
Samantha Ronson
Carina Round
Skillz
Mike Skinner
Shawnee Smith
Sydnee Stewart
Angie Stone
Justin Theroux
Travis Webster
Nick Zinner
Somewhere in the issue they explained who most of the people were, but half the time it didn't help. I left out most of the bands, because I know that I don't have the widest musical knowledge (but I have a feeling that most of them are obscure).
Just because they've had a bit of exposure in the realms of TV, movies, or music, they're now "celebrities." Hey, hundreds of people read our blogs, shouldn't we all be considered celebrities now? :)
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| Weekend getaway |
| 05.21.04 (10:23 pm) [edit] |
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Just in time for Tblog to be up and running again, my husband and I are off for the Victoria Day weekend! Hope our Canadian bloggers have a great long weekend and that everyone else has a great not-long weekend! :)
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| For Islandartist - my first online romance |
| 05.20.04 (1:23 pm) [edit] |
Thanks to Islandartist for taking me up on my request-a-topic. :)
This isn't meant to scare people away from meeting the person of their dreams online. I did eventually meet the man of mine online and marry him. But caution should be used, because online relationships can often seem a lot more intimate a lot more quickly than they actually are.
I was 21 and in university. I still lived at home, had never had a boyfriend, and was pretty sheltered. The Internet was just starting to get popular and I learned how to use it during an 8-month work experience stint where the student employees had little work to do (it was a great job! :) ). I was enchanted - I loved e-mail and chat rooms. We didn't have Internet access at home, so I tended to hang out in the computer lab in the basement of the library when I had a chance. One Friday afternoon, I came across a man whose online name was Lonesome Lighthouse. He was funny, wrote well, lived in New Hampshire, claimed to like Leonard Cohen...we started chatting and exchanged e-mail addresses. I replied to his message before I left the lab for the May long weekend. I went away feeling happy that I'd met someone interesting to e-mail. Well, when I got back the next week, there was this angry e-mail waiting for me going on and on about how he couldn't believe I hadn't written back to him, he was never going to trust this horrible method of communication that got your hopes up again... That should've been the only warning I needed to get the hell away from him, but no. I wrote back, explaining that I had indeed written and all kinds of soothing stuff. Turns out there'd been a power outage in his area and the message hadn't gotten through. Dumbass.
We started e-mailing every day and doing all the stuff you do when you're falling in cyberlove. He mailed me cards and letters, wrote me poems... But oh, remember that thing about me being 21? He was 42! Somehow that didn't phase me, I convinced myself I needed an older man, since I'd never had any luck with guys my own age. We started talking on the phone - payphones and phones borrowed from friends (this was before the advent of everyone and their dog having a cell). My poor friends, I gave them some serious long distance bills (which I paid back eventually!). Another thing, since I lived at home, I only worked as a page in the university library part time and usually made less than $100 a week. He was a pediatric home care nurse and, it turned out, basically lived hand to mouth despite his age. Our relationship lasted about 7 months and had insane lows that really weren't worth the occasional highs.
I started trying to write the whole saga, but it's just too long. Here are the highlights.
He came to visit me (on the condition that I'd have sex with him) but wanted me, who made less than $100 a week at my part-time library job, to pay for his hotel. I'd just decided to get the virginity thing over with, but he'd brought a bottle of vodka for me, just in case I needed loosening up. I ended up losing my virginity in the only nearby hotel I could afford, which had broken a/c, droopy beds, and a dank bathroom. I'll spare you the details, but I don't think a girl's first time is ever all that much fun and he made me do most of the work, which would continue for the rest of our relationship.
Afterwards and for the rest of that day, a weird thing happened - I couldn't look at him. My eyes would automatically close when I tried to look at him. How's that for a psychological warning?
After sleeping with him, he told me he was 47 and had had been divorced 3 times. He didn't think those were big lies, since he felt he looked 42 and had said he was divorced.
I had to lie to my parents about his visit in June, since they would've (wisely) freaked out. He didn't like the grubby hotel and made me go with him across the US border to find one he liked. How stupid was I to leave the country with him? Fortunately for me, my parents went away for the weekend for most of his visit, so we stayed at our house. Which was yucky, looking back on it, but at least I was relatively safe.
He didn't have a father and his mother died when he was 12. I fell for the poor orphan act and said I love you first. While I do feel sorry for his early life experiences, he had serious anger problems and basically hated women. I think he had one actual friend in the entire world, the rest were all online.
He was Jekyll and Hyde, exploding with rage over something he thought I'd done (usually to do with other men) and then being sweet again like it had never happened. This happened on the phone, via e-mail, and in person. The second (I think) day of his visit I had to work at the library and thought he could hang out in the computer lab for my shift. I gave him the wrong password, so he couldn't use the net and sat there fuming the whole time. Before we left, I checked my e-mail and mentioned something about a male friend and he freaked out and decided he was leaving. I actually did manage to say fine and walk away, but he convinced me to come back to the car for my stuff and during the drive he calmed down. If only I'd kept walking.
After meeting my 2 best friends (who were, at the time, experimenting with lesbianism together), he talked about sleeping with them, particularly the one that high school Tom had fallen in love with, basically saying she needed to experience the male member. Ugh.
I went to visit him in New Hampshire at the end of the summer. By this time my parents knew the extent of my madness and were totally freaked out, but couldn't stop me from going. I can only imagine how terrified they were when I got on the plane. It's weird, I'm a really cautious person, but I threw it all away with him. Still don't understand why.
I'm sure he was an alcoholic. He was often drunk or hungover when I spoke to him on the phone and when I visited him, he had to buy a 24-pack of beer and drink it in the car for the last leg of our road trip around New England. He was totally angry until he got that first beer in him, then he was fine.
He had no problem commenting on my weight. Once we were on a ferry and I said something about whales and his reponse was "But you are a little whale, honey!" He also felt free to remind me about his heart condition if I ever rested my vast weight on top of him.
He basically expected me to finish university ASAP and get a job to support him if he moved up to Washington state (he even applied for a nursing license there). I still had one more work experience term to go and I believe I'd already started to think about my master's in library studies but nope, he wanted me to be done with it and focus on him. How supportive.
When I agreed to come to New Hampshire in August, he'd said we could drive up to Montreal, one of his favourite cities. I was really excited, having never been there before. When I got there, he ended up deciding we'd go to Nova Scotia to visit an old woman he chatted with online, instead. Woo hoo. We spent the night in her house while she chain-smoked and they chatted with their online pals. I later found out she was very worried I was with him.
Despite all of these horrible things, I was determined to visit him at Christmas. I'd never spent Christmas away from my poor parents, and they even offered to have him for Christmas, but he couldn't stand the thought of a Christmas without snow. So, I booked a ticket for December.
Oh, the reason he loved Montreal? Because he'd had so much fun with hookers there. He mentioned that in December we'd make it to Montreal and he'd find us one to share.
Afterwards, he was given a nickname by one of my girlfriends - OPP. Not Ontario Provincial Police, or that awful rap song, but Old Perverted Prick. I'll spare you the details, but the hookers were the least of the perversion problems.
We went downhill via e-mail and phone for months, with him being enraged and accusing and me being hurt and confused. Finally, one day while we were e-mailing he just wrote "F***K OFF!" so I decided that's what I should do. I ignored the pleading e-mails and, after a few attempts at getting back in touch with me by e-mail, he gave up. He never did phone, strangely, said he was "too afraid." He tried to emotionally blackmail me into calling him, but I'd wised up by then.
He tried some weird cyber-stalky stuff where he'd write to me from bogus e-mail addresses for a while. I had one more from him a few months later, when I wasn't feeling quite so raw. When I apologized for not replying sooner, because I'd been busy with term papers, he went into yet another of his raving rants about how "selfish" I was and that was that.
So I was left with a lot of hurt, even worse than before self-esteem, and a non-refundable plane ticket. Happily, I was able to put it towards a graduation trip to New York with my parents, which turned out to be the best trip of my life.
Last I heard, he'd moved up to Canada (Ontario, I think) and was on wife number 4. There but for the grace of God would I have gone and God help her.
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| Holy shirt |
| 05.17.04 (11:00 am) [edit] |
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I was so annoyed yesterday! I went on a shopping spree last week so I'd have something casual but nice to wear to our party. I was able to fit into some pants I hadn't been able to get into the month before (woo hoo!) and made sure to get them shortened in time. I'd also found a couple of v-neck t-shirts I liked. Well, yesterday about half an hour before we're to leave, I get the pants all ironed and go to put on the shirt and there's a huge rip down the side!!! Not even along the seam, where I could've fixed it (well, my husband could've :) ). I'm so mad at the store. Now I've got find a day this week to get back there and return it. They'd better take it back. Damn shoddy merchandise.
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| My worst patron experience - for Librarianguish |
| 05.17.04 (9:39 am) [edit] |
We get a lot of awful people at my library - junkies, the incredibly stupid, the enraged... one of my worst experiences every was with an enraged one.
Our library system requires you to log into the Internet with your library card, but at our branch we've found that people also like to be able to sign up for a certain time slot. The system used to give people 46 minutes, but our sign-up sheets went in 45-minute blocks. No-one ever knew why it was 46 minutes on the card and after this incident, it was changed to 45.
Mr. Rage is a regular patron who comes in every day to use the Internet. He's in his mid-40's and is big and mean. One day, a patron came up to me and said someone was on the computer he'd signed up for and wouldn't get off. It was Mr. Rage. I went over with the sign-up sheet to politely point out that someone else was signed up now. He went into a complete rage, screaming and swearing at me that it said he got 46 minutes and he was going to get his goddamn 46 minutes. He got out of his chair and towered over me in a very threatening manner, still yelling and glaring down at me. I honestly thought he might hit me. His time ran out while he was freaking out, so he went to leave, stopping to yell at the innocent guy whose turn it was and another patron who'd been trying to defend me. It took me so much by surprise, since he'd exploded in an instant, that I started to cry and actually went in the bathroom and had something of an anxiety attack - I couldn't stop crying.
He tried the same crap with another staff member the next day, but since I'd warned her, she knew to remove herself from the situation. His complaint was that the sign-up sheet said 9:30 but, according to him, we didn't open the door til 9:33, so he missed part of his precious time. All that rage over less than 5 minutes of Internet time.
And the worst thing is, nothing ever happened to him. He still comes in every day to use it. And, weirdly, months later he assaulted a homeless guy outside the library because the guy threatened to kill the security guard (from what I understand, he was scrawny and elderly and no threat at all, just pissed at the guard). He claimed to be protecting the staff, which is a laugh, since we need protecting from him. But the guy never filed a complaint, so Mr Rage gets to keep coming into the library, ready to explode at any second.
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| Bowling, bowling, bowling... |
| 05.16.04 (11:23 am) [edit] |
Not much blogging today because we're having an anniversary party! The big day isn't til Tuesday, but this way we can have a party and then spend the actual day with just us.
It was my mom's idea. We wanted to do something fun (since we did all the nice fancy-schmancy stuff at the wedding), so we decided on bowling and then burgers. The bowling alley has a banquet room upstairs and does party packages. And then we've got anniversary cake and grab-bag prizes for everyone with the highest score to the biggest shoes to the best bowling cheer.
But, there's a ton of stuff still to do, so that's it for me for today.
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| European feet |
| 05.15.04 (11:24 am) [edit] |
I finally had some luck in my hunt for comfortable shoes for my increasingly-painful diabetic feet this week. I went to Ronsons, a comfy-shoes store, where they actually know something about feet. Apparently they know a lot about feet, because the salesgirl exclaimed over my tiny feet (barely size 6) with their high, long arches. Apparently I have "European feet" due to those arches, but in miniature with "tiny baby toes!" So all week my husband and I have been going around exclaiming about my tiny European feet. But heck, I got 2 pairs of comfy shoes and am going to go back to get another today, since they're having a sale. Apparently these ones have a "deeper toe box" so that your toes actually lie flat and aren't crunched up. What a concept!
By the way, I can't believe no-one has taken me up on my ask me anything offer! How often do you get to tell someone what you want to read about? :)
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| Taking requests... |
| 05.14.04 (4:26 pm) [edit] |
Can't think of what to blog about. Or rather, what anyone would find interesting. So, whaddya wanna know? The horror of my first kiss, the saga of my first disastrous online relationship, the shame of having to wear the world's most badly-made bridesmaid's dress? Wanna see the place where we got married or where we stayed on our honeymoon? I've also got a head full of books to recommend. Want me to visit your blog and leave you a comment, even? I can do that, too. :)
Go ahead, ask me anything! All requests will be granted, if possible, except for ones for photos of me. I'm enjoying being anonymous. :)
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| The Olsen twins |
| 05.14.04 (11:51 am) [edit] |
I saw on TV the other day that there's a web site that is counting down the days until Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen turn 18. Why? I mean, I understand the big twin fantasy for guys, but does this guy actually think he'd have a chance with them? I guess it's just a joke, but it just seems weird to me that someone would go to the trouble of designing a countdown clock. Plus, I think 18 is still waaaaay too young, legal or not. Ick.
My husband doesn't get their appeal, he thinks they're weird-looking. I think they're cute enough girls, but I wonder where they're going? They're famous because they're twins and because they were cute little kids. They're a set and that's their gimmick. But in a few years, when they're actually grown up, I think that will be it. So it's a good thing they made all that money in their youth (apparently they take control of their billion-dollar fortune at 18). I hope they put it to good use for their futures, because they can't be Two of a Kind forever. Their target audience is preteen girls (many of whom come to my library and demand their videos and books every day) and no matter how much they pretend to be grown up and parade around in towels in that New York Minute movie, they're not going to be the next Hepburns (who I realize were not twins or related).
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| Good news from the endocrinologist! |
| 05.13.04 (6:54 pm) [edit] |
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Yay! I feel so much better. Dr D was really nice and positive. And finally someone has explained to me how serious my level of diabetes is, and it's not as bad as I'd feared! Apparently my blood glucose was at 8.4% when I was diagnosed and now it's 7.2%. And at 7%, I get stop taking the medication! And the non-diabetic level is 6.2%, so I'm not as skyrocketed as I thought. Hooray, I can cope with this! :)
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| Grad Night Heartbreak |
| 05.12.04 (4:20 pm) [edit] |
So, we've established that I was a weird teenager with a small core group of friends. We've had the nanoo, nanoo'd commencement ceremony and now it's time for what we call grad, but most people call prom.
But first, the boy. I had a huge thing for a certain young man, who I shall call Tom. I'd had a crush on him briefly in grade 8 and it resurfaced in my latter high school years. He was part of my crowd and everyone in it (and most of the school) but him knew I was in luuuuv with him. Being shy and figuring I had no chance because I was fat and hideous, I never did anything about it, but took great delight in hanging out with him at lunch, talking to him in class, etc.
Now Tom was an artistic, literary type, you know the kind. Dressed all in black, wore sunglasses all the time, said obscure things, seemed to be a tortured soul. He was also very, very funny, and that's what gets me every time. Sigh...
We went as a group to grad, not many of us had boy/girlfriends and I don't think we were allowed to bring anyone not from our school. It was fun, I had the hideous but beloved dress (described in About Me), we ate and danced in a group, etc. I was longing to dance with Tom, but no luck.
After the dinner, we'd arranged a cruise around the harbor for our merry band. We'd also invited my best friend J, who went to another school. We happily shucked off our dresses and put on the school-logo'd shorts that were our grad keepsake and various other changes of clothes we'd brought. I ended up in a t-shirt, the shorts, and still in my garter belt and stockings, with falling-down hair and too much makeup. J had dressed for the event, and looked gorgeous in a pretty dress. Tom took one look at this newcomer and was completely smitten. He later described it as a "blue light" going off. (Nobody ever really figured out what he meant by that.)
So, he spent the whole night trying to canoodle with her while she was horrified because she knew I luuuuv'd him. And was just kind of horrified by him, as he was very weird (which was why I luuuuv'd him) - he plucked a hair from her head and flossed with it as a pick-up trick, something he'd seen in a movie, I think. (She was also in a top-secret relationship at the time, so she couldn't just tell him to piss off, she had a boyfriend.) I, horrified that my last chance to be with him was slipping away, clung to them like a limpet, which I'm sure annoyed the hell out of him.
After the cruise, we had a limo take us to the top of a local mountain to watch the sunrise. K decided to take matters into her own hands and tell Tom how I felt (without consulting me!). She reported back to me later that he'd been stunned, had had no idea I liked him, and was genuinely concerned, but said he'd always thought of me like a sister. Oh, the pain of that word!!!
Afterwards, Tom tried to get J to go out with him after that, but she wouldn't. So we both were miserable because he liked her. A few days later, he tried to get both of us to go to a Monty Python double feature, but he only got me. I was wounded, but still in luuuv and heck, who turns down Python? We were quite the morose pair and I was pretty morose for the rest of the summer.
He kept popping up. He worked at a movie theatre downtown and would let us in for free. He turned up in a few of my later classes at university, where we had fun chatting. Sometimes I'd still feel a spark, but he dampened it considerably when, before class, he got into a discussion of how he could only date a really beautiful woman but of course they weren't interested in him. I think the gist was that normal people should go and live on an island somewhere where they're not tortured by not being able to get the beautiful people. And of course, the non-beautiful people were people "like you and me." Thanks! I confess I'm not a model, but I'd luuuv'd his non-modelly self for years and thought him just lovely.
The last time I saw him was at our 10-year reunion. And boy, a few minutes of conversation with ol' Tom showed that he hadn't changed a bit, except to grow a scary I'm-a-writer beard and get more pompous. I was SO happy (even more than usual, which is very happy) that I'd met my (at-the-time) husband-to-be.
So, things all work out in the end, eh? But you couldn't have told my 17 year-old self that.
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| More about low carb madness |
| 05.11.04 (8:25 pm) [edit] |
Marie Claire magazine has a great article this month - "11 Low Carb Myths That Will Make You Fat." It points out how, in the rush to cut carbs, people are jumping on the low-carb product bandwagon and therefore consuming way more calories than they would with balanced eating. It has a Which Is The Healthiest Choice? chart comparing things that seem high carb with low-carb products. The best one is a cup of carrots vs. low-carb Doritos (what the hell? it's a chip, people). Surprise, surprise, the carrots are better for you. Both have the same carb count (9g) but the carrots have no fat and only 52 calories. Yet I bet there are tons of people out there who won't eat carrots because Atkins says no, yet think low-carb Doritos are great.
To that end, the article has this great quote (from a nutritionist named Jonny Bowden who wrote a low-carb book): "If low-carb mania continues," we could see overweight families waddling around Disney World scarfing down low-carb burgers, low-carb shakes, and low-carb fries, and thinking it's all perfectly healthy."
That's the problem - healthy carbs like fruits and vegetables are branded as evil, but because companies slap a "low carb" label on their products, people think that they're healthy. Hello, when were any kind of Doritos ever healthy?? (Yummy, yes. Healthy, no.)
(I know, I've been trying some low-carb products, but not as a substitute for everything else. Mainly as an alternative to things that I know are loaded with bad-for-my-blood-glucose carbs and sugar that I still want to be able to eat occasionally.)
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| Nanoo, nanoo |
| 05.11.04 (4:11 pm) [edit] |
And now, the real weirdness! In grade 9, we all moved to the big high school (they were closing the jr. high). It was pretty scary, all those big grade 12's. But it was also exciting, since we got to choose even more of our classes. I took grade 9/10 Drama and had a great teacher (who I also had for English - he's locally famous for being Michael J. Fox's drama teacher).
One day he brought in a video camera and our assignment was to make a brief "audition tape." Basically we just stood on the stage and told the camera about ourselves. So, we all lined up and everyone crossed the stage one by one. While I was waiting, I was trying to think of something interesting to say. I decided that instead of just saying my name and where I lived, as everyone else had been doing, that I'd say "My name is Gigi, I'm not originally from this planet." and it would get a bit of a laugh. I did not mean it to be any type of a big deal, but it became one.
Right after we were finished, everyone started asking me what planet I was from. I had assumed they'd be able to figure out a joke (albeit not a laugh riot of one) when they heard it, but I was wrong. So, I figured I'd run with it and told them Ork. (I had a big crush on Robin Williams.) And I wouldn't be rid of it for the rest of my high school career.
I got the nanoo nanoo's all the time from that point on, even as I walked across the stage on graduation day. I had people interrogating me about my planet. And since I couldn't believe that they were all such idiots who couldn't let it go, I actually had quite a bit of fun creating a backstory and I think I even invented an alphabet. I also got really good at maintaining a completely deadpan face when they asked.
One of my best high school friends, K, came to our school in grade 10 and later told me that she'd actually been warned away from me by one of the girls, because I believed I was from another planet. Luckily K was made of sterner stuff and actually said that that just made her want to get to know me.
It was just so bizarre that 4 years of teasing resulted from one tiny off-hand remark. I never really did understand it. I probably should've just shut up about the whole thing, but it had already snowballed and the fact that they were so eager to find something to bug me about and that they were so persistent really pissed me off.
Fortunately, I did end up with a good group of friends and it's not like the entire school hated me. They just either thought I was weird or didn't know what to make of me.
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| Strawberry Shortcake and Ham |
| 05.10.04 (4:37 pm) [edit] |
Carrying on with the school days theme, I was reading Scubadiva's blog about her prom and it got me to thinking about mine, which led to more musings on my high schools days. The main thought that comes to mind is that most people thought I was weird. So then I tried to trace the beginnings of that weirdness and found that drama class and school plays contributed to it a lot.
I started jr. high school in grade 8. I only went to the school for one year, because they were closing it and next year everyone from tiny grade 8's to big ol' grade 12's would be at the high school. But grade 8 in that smaller school turned out to be quite the transitional year for me.
I hadn't changed since elementary school, still fat and bookwormy with few friends. But in jr. high, I discovered I was smart! Imagine that. Probably because I tended to have PE teachers as my classroom teachers in elementary school and because I wasn't great at math, my grades were pretty average. I did well in most language arts subjects and really enjoyed writing, but figured I was just average.
Well, once we had different teachers for each subject and could choose some of our classes, I got good grades and was amazed and delighted. And I'd be a pretty grades-oriented person for the rest of my academic life.
I still got teased, of course, and was tormented by a hugely tall and fat girl named Veronica (who a friend later of mine later dubbed Veronicow) who definitely believed in picking on those below you on the social ladder. But I was mostly enjoying my classes and I decided to try out for the school play.
Well, I wasn't that great an actress (and was only in grade 8, not exactly leading lady material) but the kindly drama teacher gave me a bit part in Tom Jones as something like Maid #3. My one line was something like "I've been here 15 years!" But I was delighted to be involved. Then came the costuming. The other 2 maids were also little grade 8's, but they were actually little. They fit into the little gingham dresses the sewing teacher had for them. I did not. For me they found a huge, blood-red, ankle-length skirt and a red gingham top. Plus an apron and mop cap, like the other 2. I absolutely looked like
only not as cute and tiny.
Now, I am a big ham. I admit it. I like to make people laugh. So I really milked my tiny part. In addition to our single lines, the maids did some of the scene changes, so I hammed it up whenever I was on stage, miming reactions to things and staying "in character" while I was moving things around. It was great fun, but between that and the costume, I was definitely weird. I'm sure I was weird before that, but that's when people really started to notice it, I think.
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| School days... |
| 05.10.04 (2:44 pm) [edit] |
Mean Girls made me think of my school years, and how I was pretty much the brunt of a lotta teasing. I was fat and quiet and didn't wear the right things. But that social ladder really does work, because I ended up picking on the one girl in the entire school who was lower on it than I was.
In earlier years, we'd been best friends. Her house was the same floor plan as mine, she was an only child and had a dog, too. We went to Girl Guides together, I went camping with her family, we spent lots of time at each other's houses. But in grade 7, which seems to be the beginning of the end for simple childhood friendships, things changed. She was teased even more than I was, she was even weirder-looking/dressed than I was and she started having to go to special tutoring classes, which is always a big target on your back. I don't know what learning disability she had, but she was definitely slow in both the academic and social arenas. (It's sad, really, she grew up to have a string of boyfriends and has a toddler daughter that her widowed mother is having to raise because the government deemed her unfit.)
I don't really remember our friendship ending, but by grade 7 it had. She wasn't blameless, she gave me grief, too, even shouting out "At least I'm not ADOPTED!" in the class when we were having some kind of argument. My response was "At least I don't carry maxi-pads around in my purse!" because the labels showed through her purse. But looking back, I should have known better and been a better person.
I can only think of a few incidents of teasing, and they usually involved someone else, too. But the one thing that really got me in trouble, was one day when she wore an ugly, itchy sweater that caused her to scratch her arms. One of the boys nearby said "S. has fleas!!" and I joined him and we had fun for the rest of the day (it was nice to be involved in [b]something[/b] with a classmate, especially a boy). In the vast history of teasing, it wasn't particularly cruel, nor was I the instigator. But you can bet I got all the blame, since our dislike was so mutual.
We had 2 male teachers who job-shared, so I got bawled out twice. The first teacher was a British guy, a bit eccentric, and I'd always liked him because he liked my writing assignments. I can remember him taking me out of the room and asking if I had any idea what it was like to be teased. I looked him straight in the eye and said "Yes." (Hello, look at me. Fat bookworm girl, how would I not know?) He didn't really know what to do after that, he clearly wasn't expecting that answer and was ready to tell me all about the evils of teasing.
The next day, though, was harder. Our other teacher was a Japanese guy who wore track pants and openly leered at the busty/leggy 12 year-old girls. Apparently later students dubbed him Mr. Itchyballs, because of his habit of rubbing them on his desk and, no doubt, also because of the leering. He coached the girls' volleyball team, which I've always found disturbing. No sympathy from him, him didn't like me much, probably because I wasn't athletic or leerable. I can't remember what my punishment was. It was nothing compared to how angry my parents were at me. That was the worst part, disappointing them. So that pretty much cured me of being a Mean Girl.
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| Duck envy |
| 05.10.04 (10:44 am) [edit] |
As I was out for my diabetes-fighting walk yesterday afternoon, I went to visit the ducks at the fountain. They were curled up on the cement wall with their heads under their wings. And I must admit, I envied them. Nothing to do but doze in the sunshine and take a dip when they felt like it. On my way back, the male was paddling in the water, but still with his head under his wing. That's even better, being able to snooze while swimming. No work, responsibilities, disease, stress...just sun, water, and sleeping. It's a duck's life.
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| Another Survivor over |
| 05.10.04 (10:42 am) [edit] |
And I still keep watching them. :) I've even gotten my previously-uninterested husband watching it.
I'm glad that Rob didn't win, because while he was an excellent player both physically and mentally, the fact that he promised everyone an alliance and broke almost all of them was scummy. I know there's bound to be some lying, but he lied to [b]everybody.[/b] I do think that Amber pretty much rode his coattails the whole way, though. But the point is moot because they're going to be married, which I hope wasn't just a publicity stunt. His proposal was very sweet and sounded sincere, though. Of course, as Cyberpal pointed out, I'm very soppy. :)
Of course, I'd like to know why those 2 were the final two. Why, why, why do the Survivors never vote out the power players? They get rid of all the strong people before the merge (when they can help the tribe win) because they're "a threat" but after the merge they're incapable of seeing people as threats? Why did no-one vote off Rob or Amber? I know Rob got immunity a fair bit, but they could've easily gotten rid of Amber. But no, even though Rob lied to everybody and everybody knew it, they just kept on believing him and advancing him. And it happens on almost every Survivor. Like the Jon debacle last season. The guy was not only a liar, he was a weakling and an utter asshole. He should've been voted off early just because he was so unpleasant and didn't contribute. But they kept trusting him and kept him around until the final 3. I don't get it. Something must happen to their brains out there from lack of food.
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| Movie review - Mean Girls |
| 05.09.04 (11:35 am) [edit] |
My friend M and I went to see Mean Girls on Friday while our husbands saw The Punisher. This was also our strategy for getting out of seeing the final Lord of the Rings movie - we went and saw Peter Pan. Hey, we sat through the other 2 and each boy will be getting the whole trilogy with 50 hours of extra footage on DVD, so we're going to have to see it, anyway. :)
I think we got the much better movie, apparently the first half of The Punisher "was hurtin'" (as M's husband described it) and had a score like an old-fashioned melodrama, with dark chords every time the bad guys appeared. It was only redeemed in the second half by lots of things blowing up.
Anyway, I like Tina Fey, so I was looking forward to MG. And it was funny and well-done. There was a recurring school bus slamming into people theme, but apart from that, we enjoyed it. And it definitely showed the high-school hierarchy, with all of the groups. That was actually pretty funny, the descriptions of the groups - "nerdy Asians, cool Asians, sexually active band geeks, girls who eat their feelings, girls who don't eat anything..." all the way up to the popular girls, the Plastics.
(I don't know what group I was in, really. Fat girls/theatre geek/nerd/weirdo, I suppose. :) )
At first I couldn't figure out how Tina Fey had adapted it from a parenting book called Queen Bees and Wannabes: helping your daughter survive cliques, gossip, boyfriends, and other realities of adolescence, but when all of the girl-fighting reached its peak, they did some relationship exercises that I bet came straight from its pages. Plus they used the term "queen bee" a lot.
And even though it was basically a Saturday Night Live movie (with some of the actors from SNL and produced by Lorne Michaels), it didn't suck! How astonishing. That hasn't happned since the first Wayne's World movie.
Man, though, I must say - what's up with all the jailbait movies lately???? It's kind of creepy. The girls in this movie were seriously busty and leggy and scantily-clad. And they've turned the Olsen twins into eye candy (ugh) and we saw a trailer for yet another teeny girl movie called Sleepover. I know they're a big market, but do they have to be dressed like call girls? That seems to be appealing to the dirty old man market rather than the teen girl one.
My poor husband's feeling accosted by them all - he saw a picture of Lindsay Lohan online and at first didn't recognize her, so he admired her assets (which I don't mind, since Cosmo regularly runs spreads of hunky men that I like to admire :) ). Then he realized who it was, and that she was 17, and he felt like a DOM himself. :)
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| Great minds |
| 05.08.04 (2:48 pm) [edit] |
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What a hoot! My husband and I are cooking my mom dinner for mother's day and we'd decided it would involve pork chops, but we didn't have a particular recipe. So I looked online at work this morning and (unbeknownst to me) he looked at home. He just called me and I told him I'd found a recipe and he said he did, too. And we picked the same one - Minnesota Pork Chops. Our couple telepathy strikes again. Of course, he's originally from Minnesota and we'd both agreed we wanted a recipe that used wild rice, but still, I like it when we're in sync like that. :)
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| Salad dressing mishap |
| 05.08.04 (10:22 am) [edit] |
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I'm so clumsy. Last night we went to Wendy's and I got one of their salads, like a good healthy girl. I wanted a big of the huge pouch o' salad dressing they give you, but I guess I didn't "tear here" enough because it wouldn't come out. So I, very stupidly, squeezed it. SPLORT! All over my favourite new t-shirt, my pants, the chair... I kept finding new places it had hit me all through dinner. And I smelled like sweet and sour bacon dressing all through the movie (Mean Girls). I am constantly spilling stuff on myself. It's gotten to the point where I'm scared to wear anything mildly nice out to eat, because something always lands smack dab on my boobs. Or I dribble it into my lap. Very embarrassing.
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| Ella Enchanted |
| 05.07.04 (3:46 pm) [edit] |
I saw Ella Enchanted the other day. I was both excited and wary, because it's one of my very favourite children's novels. But I thought they did a good job, as well as they ever do for movies based on books.
One unexpected bonus was that a bunch of my favourite British folks were in it! Joanna Lumley (Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous) as the evil step-mother and always-a-treat Eric Idle (my husband says I have a crush on him) as the sly, witty narrator.
And, weirdly, Cary Elwes (Westley from The Princess Bride) plays the evil, goofy uncle. I didn't recognize him in the dark hair and beard, and he's not as slender as he once was, but it was fun to have him in another fairy tale.
It did remind me of some other movies, Shrek in particular. But then, they have a lot in common, being both children's books and fairy tales. Lots of fun CGI castles and scenery and a big musical number at the end.
And it reminded me of A Knight's Tale a bit, mainly because of the out-of-place Queen song (Somebody to Love, in this case). And anachronistic fun, like a wedding registry at Crockery Barne.
It followed the basic plot of the novel, although she goes through a lot more strife in the book. It may have a lot of the same old, same old fairy-tale elements, but then, fairy tales often do. So for some fluffy family fun, I recommend it. But for a real treat, get the book from your local library. :)
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| Disclaimer feedback |
| 05.07.04 (3:30 pm) [edit] |
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Whaddya think of my new disclaimer? Too wordy? I had no idea what to put, but thought I should point out that there's other stuff in here beyond the diabetes struggle. And I couldn't think of a quote. Geez, all of the lyrics and quotes in my head, and I couldn't manage one. Maybe one will come to me later.
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| It's May! |
| 05.06.04 (6:10 pm) [edit] |
Yes, I'm almost a week late, but May snuck up on me, man. I cannot believe it's here - in a couple of weeks I'll have been married for a year! (Well, [b]we[/b] will, of course.)
May always makes me think of the song The Lusty Month of May from Camelot, as sung by the lovely Vanessa Redgrave in the movie (although I'm sure the incomparable Julie Andrews did a fab job on stage).
I'd actually forgotten what a fun song it is (I no longer have the soundtrack, due to an unfortunate incident involving it and my 2 best friends when I was 20), so here you go, just because it's May!
(Abridged and minus some of the tra-la-ing.)
Tra la! It's May!
The lusty month of May!
That lovely month when ev'ryone goes
Blissfully astray.
Tra la! It's here!
That shocking time of year
When tons of wicked little thoughts
Merrily appear!
It's May! It's May!
That gorgeous holiday
When ev'ry maiden prays that her lad
Will be a cad!
It's mad! It's gay!
A libelous display!
Those dreary vows that ev'ryone takes,
Ev'ryone breaks.
Ev'ryone makes divine mistakes
The lusty month of May!
Whence this fragrance wafting through the air?
What sweet feelings does its scent transmute?
Whence this perfume floating ev'rywhere?
Don't you know it's that dear forbidden fruit!
Tra la la la la! That dear forbidden fruit!
Tra la! It's May!
The lusty month of May!
That darling month when ev'ryone throws
Self-control away.
It's time to do
A wretched thing or two,
And try to make each precious day
One you'll always rue!
It's May! It's May!
The month of "yes you may,"
The time for ev'ry frivolous whim,
Proper or "im."
It's wild! It's gay!
A blot in ev'ry way.
The birds and bees with all of their vast
Amorous past
Gaze at the human race aghast,
The lusty month of May.
So there you have it - go forth and be lusty, it's the month of yes, you may! :)
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| Just ducky |
| 05.06.04 (5:55 pm) [edit] |
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I was happy to see both of the ducks were out sunning themselves by the fountain today. I hadn't seen the female in a while, I wonder if they have a nest full of eggs somewhere. Is this egg-laying season? How lovely it would be to have a bunch of ducklings in our garden, too!
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| New foods |
| 05.06.04 (2:33 pm) [edit] |
I've been trying out some new products in an attempt to reduce my sugar and carb intake. I keep forgetting, though, that those designed for Atkins often have seriously high fat content. Gotta watch that. Here are some product reviews of things I've tried lately, just because I've got nothin' else to say at the moment. :)
Watch'n Carbs Blueberry Muffins - taste a bit mealy, absolutely ooze grease
Watch'n Carbs Peanut Butter Cookies - taste surprisingly good, pretty high in calories but make a good snack
Snackwells No Sugar Added Chocolately Chip Cookies - taste like any regular boxed chocolate chip cookie, good for cookie cravings
Atkins peanut butter cups - suprisingly very tasty, I'll be buying more
Pete's Tofu2Go Dessert, caramel flavour - Recommended by a friend and I had high hopes, but ugh. The texture did me in, plus all the watery stuff that escapes from it. Ick. Had to throw the second one away.
Light Cool Whip in a can - I got addicted to the tubs of light Cool Whip during my Jenny Craig days and in a can it provides all the joys of spraying it directly into your mouth but without all the calories. :) The frozen tub kind also makes good diet root beer floats.
Can someone explain low-carb pasta sauce to me? Why does it matter when you're about to pour it on pure carbs? Or do they have low-carb pasta now?
Does anyone have any other low-sugar, low-carb (but not high fat) suggestions?
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| It wasn't gym-dandy |
| 05.05.04 (2:37 pm) [edit] |
Last night as we were locking up the library, we commented on how several staff members have gotten locked in. Not overnight or anything, just that we've locked the door and prepared to leave while someone's still in there. It's happened to me a few times because I used to be slow. Now my husband picks me up on my night shifts, so I get out of there on time.
But it made me think of the time I got locked in the gym. I don't belong to one anymore, but about 8 or so years ago I did and one day (probably a Saturday) it closed at around 5 or 6:00. I finished my workout, got showered and changed, and when I came out, the place was silent and dark. They hadn't checked the change room! Or if they did, I'm so small (as my husband pointed out) they didn't notice me behind the door of the changing stall. The front door was locked, so I was trapped.
I think I found the number for the security company on the sticker on the door, but had a hard time getting through because it was the weekend, so no-one was there. I think I eventually tried the police, too. Finally, someone (probably the security company) got hold of someone who worked there and they phoned me. It turned out there was a back door I could escape through. Which made me wonder why they bothered with the highly secured front door, since someone could slip in the back, apparently.
They gave me a gift certificate for merchandise, at least and now it's a funny story. But I was pretty scared at the time and mortified afterwards.
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| Ugly bruises |
| 05.04.04 (5:37 pm) [edit] |
I had to go for yet another fasting blood glucose test this morning. I was SO hungry by the time I escaped from the lab. Usually it doesn't hurt much, but it did today, boo. And in the middle of the nurse taking the sample, my vein collapsed, so she had to start again on the other arm. I have notoriously bad veins for blood samples, which is rather unfortunate, given my new need for frequent blood tests. So, I now I have a blue bruise on each arm, bleagh. It always sounds so dire when they say that the vein has collapsed, as if you need to send in someone to rebuild it.
I had lunch with a friend afterwards and, upon seeing my bandaids, she remarked that I looked like a heroin addict. Sadly, that would make me fit in with a lot of the people who hang out at my library.
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| Barbies |
| 05.04.04 (5:21 pm) [edit] |
When I read the "Slutty Barbies" entry in Why Girls Are Weird, I was rather taken aback, but once I thought about it, I realized that most little girls probably do create a lot of Barbie 'n' Ken action. Of course, now that she's "broken up" with Ken, I don't know what the little girls will do. Wish for brothers with GI Joe dolls, perhaps.
When I was a kid, I didn't have a Ken doll. Neither did my little best friend/Barbie player. So we had to use a Barbie that she'd cut the hair off of as the boy. It wasn't particularly convincing. Plus, we had no boy clothes, so he often ended up wearing rather girlie outfits. The biggest problem, though, was that when you tried to make "him" kiss another Barbie, their rigid plastic bosoms prevented them from getting very close together. Not very satisfactory. But I was an only child and she had 2 sisters, so there wasn't a GI Joe in sight.
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| Book Review - Why Girls Are Weird |
| 05.04.04 (3:07 pm) [edit] |
I read a lot of fluffy Chick Lit books, and they're all sort of starting to sound the same. But this one was different, because it centered around blogging. Or online journalling as she called it. The author, Pamela Ribon, kept an online journal on her site pamie.com and this book is the mostly-fictionalized account of her experiences.
I've read quite a few books based on e-mails (which I love because that's largely how my husband and I communicated for the first 3 years of our relationship) but this was the first blogging book I've come across and it was a fun read, given my newfound interest in the subject. Also, some of her entries are hilarious, particularly the one about the Tiny Hand back-scratcher (which is apparently based on a true story from her blog - she let her readers vote on which stories should be included in the book and that one got a huge response).
It starts out with an entry about the kinky things that the site's author, Anna K. used to do to her Barbie dolls. It gets passed all around cyberspace and she suddenly has quite the fan club. The only problem is, the life of Anna K, web maven, is similar yet different from that of Anna Koval, real person. Eventually the 2 worlds collide, leading her to take down her site. There's an online romance, too, for good measure.
Unfortunately, it doesn't really give the answer promised in the title, which is unfortunate, because my husband constantly says girls are weird and I wanted to be able to give him someone else's explanation. Ah well.
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