There are many reasons for Wednesdays to suck – one of them being that the high point of my day was getting away with jaywalking… and when the high point of my day hits before 9:30 am, well, I know it must be Wednesday. Wednesday’s just “bad” that way.
Random Song-for-the-Day: “Blue Odyssey” – The Steve Miller Band
A friend of mine emailed this link to me: The Globe and Mail Canada Quiz 2005
It’s a “test”. How much do YOU know about Canada? I thought, “Hey, this is cool! I wonder how my Asian/British/American Imaginary Friends will do on this?”
And then I took the test…
Let’s just say my score was equivalent to Bad Canadian! Bad! Bad!
I hope all my Non-Canuckian buddies do worse. For my sake, at least…
I have to clean this today.
I’m afraid to open it. I’m so afraid to open it, that it’s been taped shut so that I can’t accidentally open it.
There’s… stuff… in there. Dead stuff. Somewhere, somehow in the now distant past of last spring (maybe…?) my freezer got shut off. I didn’t figure it out until I decided to move it from what is now The Schoolroom into the laundry room.
As we were moving it, the lid was accidentally flipped up and Kyla dissolved into a puddle on the floor as the result of breathing the noxious gas that enveloped her head.
We’ve been talking about cleaning it out. Talking.
If a friend comes over, she and Ky talk about conniving someone into driving it far far away (covered in many many layers of duct tape, of course, as a courteous warning to anybody that may stumble across it), and dropping it in the bush, or a field. Artsy a thing as that would be to do, I had to put the kibosh on it.
I also had to nix the idea of “dropping it off” at a used appliance store for disposal, which prompted a discussion on why you just don’t unload your rotten food on unsuspecting people because you’re afraid to open the freezer. You just don’t.
Which means, I gotta clean the thing. Today.
I have a game plan involving moving the thing out to the balcony and pouring vinegar into it to diffuse the situation. I’m going to leave the lid open and come inside for an hour or so, perhaps taking small home-videos of the birds falling out of sky to land on the roof. At least we won’t starve…
If I can stand to be out there with the thing after that, I shall don industrial strength rubber gloves and move the… stuff… into a trash bag.
I think I may have to get drunk tonight.
**** LATER ****
So, I figure it’s safe to go out, and I go out armed and armoured. Trash bags, rubber gloves, metal garbage pail circa 1957 that has survived lobsters, trash can fires, and 50 years of various other kitchen mishaps. I inherited this pail early, at my insistence. Life without it would not be worth living. It’s sort of like the relationship a hitchhiker has with his towel.
When I get out there, I decide I can survive the stench. I also discover this:
Some JERK threw his trash up onto my ROOF!
I am not impressed, to say the least as I have to sacrifice a trash bag to bag HIS crap that split the bag open when it hit the roof.
I pulled about a dozen plastic containers out of that freezer. As I lifted each one out, the lid would slide off and the liquified contents of the container would pour out. I considered the Wrath of Mother Nature and then I actually thought about washing these containers out rather than putting them in a landfill. For about 2.4 seconds, I actually thought about doing that.
Mother Nature and Planet Earth be damned. Those things are now sandwiched into several layers of green garbage bags, shopping bags, and some JERK-with-a-Great-Throwing-Arm’s garbage.
I think I can handle it from here, now. I just have to bail it out and scrub it. Then I’ll pray a little bit.
Then I’ll get drunk.
Random Song-for-the-Day: “Wake Me Up When September Ends” – Green Day
1. Les needs good public relations
2. Les needs the same information a simple client would need…
3. Les needs to be reviewed and verified.
4. Les needs federal approval from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission…
5. Les needs to be run with proper user.
6. Les needs to raise a minimum of £2000.
7. LES needs your help in maintaining the reliability of the electrical system
8. LES needs to replace faculty who have retired or are retiring
9. Les needs to take a long look in the mirror.
10. Les needs parent foster care.
11. Les needs to be flown in by helicopter.
12. Les needs an income while [s]he is getting the credentials.
13. LES needs you to participate, or we will cut the program short!
14. LES needs it.
15. what LES needs is some tea rooms like they have in Vancouver and Amsterdam.
16. Les needs to be investigated by the Alcohol Beverage Control.
17. Les needs a wide variety of things.
18. LES needs work.
19. Les Needs to Know.
20. LES needs to include the physical processes.
21. Les needs your advice.
22. Les needs functional, complicated underwater housing.
23. Les needs to oil the Chenbot more regularly.
24. Les needs to get some idea of how many people plan to come.
25. Les needs 81.
26. Les needs a date.
27. “Les Needs More”
28. Les needs a rest.
29. Les needs to read Reforming Project Management more often
30. Les needs this as soon as possible.
31. LES NEEDS TO GO ALONG WITH [HER] STAFF
32. Les needs feedback from people in positions
33. Les needs to get an idea of interested parties.
34. Les needs less, we need more!
35. Les, Needs Timing Chain.
36. Les needs that ASWA satpic stuff like now!!
37. Les needs to suck it up
38. LES needs to obtain a “substantive commitment”
39. Les needs to take some credit.
30. ‘Les needs help’
31. Les needs strong men to help check the permit numbers.
32. LES needs to include a contingency factor
33. Les needs money to make phone calls, send letters and buy personal necessities.
34. Les needs to hook up again with Mr. Rollins.
35. Les needs to know what the 60-amps is used for and whether the booth needs to be hardwired or has a 3-prong connection.
36. Les needs to increase my upload file size limits, please
37. Les needs a “refresher” trip to the USA
38. Les needs to take into account both conduction and convection
39. Les needs to prepare drawings that we can show people
40. LES needs spatial filtering
41. Les needs all the help [s]he can get
42. Les needs update
43. LES needs.
44. Les needs to take direct action
45. Les needs. to . be added in chapter VIII.
46. Les , needs , practices and. understandings
47. Les needs to build a stage and a pole for Shirley.
48. LES needs only a “plausible strategy”
49. Les needs to be released dependent
50. Les needs to cleanse [her]self inside out with holy water
51. Les needs your information regarding the walk for the website.
52. Les needs to relinquish …
53. Les needs a new name
54. Les needs de Mongolo
55. Les needs to be handled by the server.
56. (LES) needs to be solved,
57. Les needs a mount
58. LES needs. to address, for example pursuant to a section 57 direction. …
59. Les needs the extra oomph on stage
60. Les needs only. be applied to entities
61. Les needs to go from a distance
62. Les needs to contact Eirwen Godden to see if any more funding available
63. Les needs no introduction …
64. Les needs to retire and go golf or something.
65. Les needs to change things
66. LES needs a groundwater-discharge permit
67. Les needs a couple more volunteers
68. Les needs to collect some money
69. Les needs a good slap tho
70. LES needs to be returned by this date
71. LES needs to come in direct contact with something acidic
72. Les needs a complete year
73. Les needs games
74. Les needs to go in the room of mirrors.
75. Les needs to go looking for something special
76. Les needs….. A BIGGER HARD DRIVE
77. Les needs to lose x amount of fat
78. Les needs to toughen up a bit.
79. Les needs to revive Friday night Hooters.
80. Les needs a lot of clues it would seem.
81. Les needs to shut up, play bass, and let someone else sing for a change
82. Les needs to dump them.
83. Les needs to do good on these claims
84. Les needs to represent
85. Les needs to let out the leash
86. Les needs to make a visit to this post.
87. Les needs to think about it
88. LES needs a pH of less a 3 in the stomach
89. Les needs to find a good DC soon.
90. Les needs cosmos pizza
91. Les needs to get some advice from Eddie on how to help
92. Les needs to test a soft “m” shaped end.
93. Les needs quick cash advance
94. Les needs a faster computer
95. LES needs to look at this man as being the perpetrator.
96. LES needs to process
97. Les needs a loyal gay male friend.
98. Les needs one!!!!!
99. Les needs to quit moonlighting.
….and the BIG ONE…..
100. Les needs something else to do.
This one came from Suzi, but I kind of went overboard with it…
Random Song-for-the-Day: “Pure Morning” – Placebo
So I’m walking home from the Day Job tonight after closing, with the cell-thingy in my ear. You know; the Little Doohickey (that’s a technical term, I swear). The “handsfree” over-the-ear-hide-in-my-hair-and-no-one-can-see-it-so-the-whole-city-thinks-I’m-wicked-weird-headset thing (Downtown Dennis calls me “Suzanne” for Ye Local Lurkers’ information).
The thing the cat is wearing…
This guy is chatting away in my ear, and I’m practicing ventriliquism in a vain effort to get people to stop staring at me. The “back away slowly” part is kind of cool, though. I hope they keep doing that.
It had rained buckets (it sounded like the rain was still in the buckets from inside the mall) earlier, and Louie had pressed his little stubby “man-like” umbrella into my hands. I was worried that I’d forget it at home tomorrow and was telling Guy-in-my-Ear that I would probably be alright without it, and besides, it’s an expensive umbrella and obviously never yet used, because Louie probably just carries it back and forth from the car, when Louie (who thinks I’m talking to myself) tells me to take it, take it, I gotta car, take it (Louie scared the b’jeezuz out of me when he spoke, because I didn’t see him over the stacks of product shipped today. I’m going to get him one of those flags with the long whip-antenna extension poles that they weld to shopping carts so that the cart-boys can find the strays in the parking lot).
So, I took the stubby man-brelly with me, and yes, I’ll probably forget it, because no, I didn’t need it.
But I did need margarine. Guy-in-My-Ear said so. So I told him to shut up while I went into the Canadian Tire Gas-Bar. He didn’t shut up. He started telling me all the reasons that the Canadian Tire Gas-Bar doesn’t sell margarine.
I practically yelled, “I need cigarettes!”, and a big burly trucker-looking fellow on his way from the pumps stopped dead in his tracks, looked over his shoulder, looked back at me, and grinned. I withered him right where he stood.
Have you ever been in the Canadian Tire Gas-Bar in Sault Ste. Marie? It’s small. It’s about the size of the CityTransit Bus Shelters. And it’s got two aisles! You don’t have to speak above a whisper to have everybody in the “shelter-mart” hear every word (That’s why they don’t sell condoms – actually, they probably offer condoms, but I’ll bet nobody buys them).
When you are wearing a Doohickey in your ear, you speak approximately as loudly as that 11-year-old with the iPod turned up too loud.
The second he heard the little silver bells crashing against the door to the shelter-mart, Guy-in-My-Ear started up again.
“Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”
I know why he does this. He does it because on one Walk-About, we went one-after-another into every pawnshop and used-goods and bookstore in Sault Ste. Marie, which are generally small enough that the proprietor can hear our conversation, and as we entered each store, I gripped his wrist tightly and said very slowly, “Now remember! We look with our eyes, not with our hands!”, and all the shopkeepers followed him around and tried to lead him to the toys. Then they wouldn’t let him play with them. He fell for this in every single store, and so did the shopkeepers (someday I’m going to do that in Wendy’s China Cabinet, just to see what they do).
He’s been trying to pay me back ever since, and I think he did it tonight.
Anyway, he wouldn’t be quiet the whole time I was in the shelter-mart, and there was a line-up of at least seven burly trucker-like men in there, taking up one whole aisle, and I bee-lined for the magazine racks and pretended to browse.
I whispered to Guy-in-My-Ear: “Where would the margarine be?”
He replied,”La-la-la-la-LA! La-la-la-la-LA!”
I got a little pissy, and said (think 11-year-old wearing iPod), “Where is it, already?!”, and heard the scraping of seven pairs of steel-toed boots on concrete as the line at the till turned toward me. As I lifted my head, I noticed that I’d been “browsing” in front of the porno rack for 3 and a half minutes of “la-la-la”, and, mortified, I tried to crawl under the coffee station.
Finally, I thought “Screw it, since they already think I’m nuts”, and marched boldly up the second aisle and interrupted the sale of Guy #1.
“Do you sell margarine?”
Seven grown men took a step back, in unison.
The nervous teenaged salesgirl poked her finger toward the fridge beside my head, and I turned my head a fraction of an inch to find about 8 dozen containers of it. Guy-in-My-Ear asked what brand they had, and I forgot where I was again, and answered, “Hmmmm…. Parkay®…!” with a fairly representable “dirty-french-laugh” accent, and two of the guys in line stepped forward again.
To make an already too long story slightly shorter, let me just say that Guy-in-My-Ear kept saying things like, “Lift the lid a little and say ‘Parkay®!’ in an evil little troll voice,” and even weirder things, and I couldn’t understand that the nervous teenaged salesgirl was telling me, “No, don’t swipe the card! Push the buttons, now!”
I finally got out with my margarine and was half-way home when the cell died in my ear, and the La-la-la’s stopped. That’s when I realized I had forgotten to buy cigarettes.
Random Song-for-the-Day: “Eastbourne Ladies” – Kevin Coyne
Taken August 28, 2005, with HP PhotoSmart R607
Random Song-for-the-Day: “Us” – Regina Spektor
Taken May 29, 2005, with HP PhotoSmart R607
Random Song-for-the-Day: “Everybody Loves You Now” – Billy Joel
