This little piggy cried all the way home

Another part of my preparations for our trip has been training my toes. I want to be able to throw a 99 cent pair of flip flops in the bike trunk so I'm not traipsing around in Harley boots all the time. Oh my gosh! My poor toes have not had a piece of rubber crammed between them for years, and let me tell you they let me know about it.

The first 30 seconds were fine. Then the pain mounted. It was like a hot knife sinking into my flesh, but I would not give up. Millions do this every day I told myself. I endured the pain for about 20 minutes and then almost as quick as it came the pain was gone. I then realized my feet had actually gone numb in self-preservation. I made it about an hour before I kicked them into the corner and opted for bare feet.

I did this for a couple of days and thought I was getting tough and took on the ultimate challenge: I wore the suckers to work! Ok, it was not the most professional thing to do, I'll admit. The next time you see customer service rep in bare feet wandering through a store, try to have some compassion and understanding - she's probably just got her toes in training.

I'll admit that halfway through the day this thought occurred to me:




I almost let this thought enter my mind:


Oh noooo. God, no. Don't let me even consider it. I can take the pain. I can take the pain. I can take it....

Mother always told me....

Wear clean underwear when you leave the house, because you never know...

I'm not sure how many opportunities she expected me to have to show someone my underwear, but I heeded her warning.

Why would she not rather give me some useful training like...

Never leave your house with the dishes undone and your stove filthy where you boiled over the pasta you made for supper. Because you never know when you are going to dash off to Saturday evening church and come home to find people, who have never been in your home before, sitting at your kitchen table when you get there.

Don't get me wrong, I had a great visit with Bob and Beth who have done a lot of traveling and gave us lots of pointers and advice for our upcoming trip. We scoured the Canadian atlas together and listened to their experiences on the road. I should have been taking notes because I don't know how much my brain will retain when it was being dominated by the thought of my dirty dishes that were not even piled, but rather strewn all over the kitchen.

Maybe they didn't notice. Or maybe they noticed that I am living without a dishwasher. Or maybe, just maybe, they couldn't care less that my dishes weren't done. Yeah, that's it. That's the thought I'm going to cling to.

'scuse me, I gotta run do my dishes before I head off to work.

Sawest thou a knight pass this way?

Is this not the coolest doorstop you have ever seen?

I love shopping at Home Sense.

That zone between porcelain and leather.

While the look on the top may be what Micheal Jackson is trying to achieve, I started out that way.
As for the woman in the middle: I love leather, but I wanna wear it, not be it. (As an aside note, click on her to zoom in and look where the sagging bikini top sits. I wonder if she nursed babies in her younger years)
My current state is more like unto the guy on the bottom (with slightly less chest hair) except my stripes are vertical and not hand shaped.

In preparation for our big trip I decided I'd buy a tan... you know, so I don't burn on those hot days riding in the sun. I had worked my way up to 20 minute sessions in a hot bed without so much as a hint of burning. One day I decided I'd throw some variety and adventure into my life and lay on my belly rather than my back. If you've never been in a tanning bed, it's basically just a giant glass waffle maker lined with fluorescent bulbs top and bottom. My belly, used to being about 10 or 12 inches from the top glass, was not so thrilled about being pressed against the bottom glass.

Imagine, if you will, pressing your self against a window and how distorted that looks from the other side of the glass. ... not a pretty sight when this involves fat bellies and boobies. About half way through the session I had a fleeting thought that I should roll over, but my skin was sweating and stuck to the glass and there's just not a lot of turn-over room, so I fell asleep for the rest of the session.

The lights, of course, are nice and straight. My skin and body shape - not so much. I ended up with a lovely burn in a zig-zaggy pattern down my torso. I assumed it would even out and go away after a few more sessions. I assumed wrong. And now I am peeling and fuzzy in crooked little rows. I look like I'm made of corduroy. It's one step better than leather, I suppose, but I'm thinking the Michael Jackson porcelain look was maybe not so bad.

When was the last time YOU did something for the first time?

Invariably, about once or twice a year I attend a woman's function and they have an ice breaker and one of the questions is "When was the last time you did something for the first time?" Not to appear lame and answering something like "I put my bedding plants out before the long weekend." or "I paid regular price for a pair of pants." I have to think waaay back to my teenage days and come up with some exciting dirt that someone just getting to know me would want to know, like shoplifting, having sex or dying my hair. My life is just so 'same old same old'. Well as of today, I have a new answer. "On May 16, 2007 I had my eyebrows waxed." Yeah. I know. I'm living dangerously!

The woman leads me into a luxurious spa room and has me lay down on a beautifully draped bed, which was actually a doctor's pap-exam bed disguised with a fluffy blanket. That should have been my first clue. She then proceeds to pour boiling wax on my forehead and then without warning, rips out those pesky hairs which apparently have roots that originate somewhere at the back of my head. And being that this is my virgin wax experience, I have numerous stray little devils that need to be individually plucked from my being. The procedure takes about 5 minutes and the lovely lady hands me a mirror for examination. Like there's any chance I'm gonna say "Please take more off." I cannot even see through my watering eyes, but nod my head emphatically and say "This is exactly what I wanted. Thank you. Goodbye."


From this to this??




I go to the front to pay the young girl at the desk my twenty bucks for torture services. "Did you want to book your next appointment?" she innocently asks. Uhh, yeah. My eyes are watering, my eyebrows are glowing red where she has peeled off 3 weeks worth of tanning, and my forehead feels like it's been dipped in acid. You mean to tell me this wasn't a permanent procedure??? Listen here pretty-face girl with fake boobs, this is not the most ideal time to be asking if I want to book a repeat visit.

No Raw Eggs and Burnt Toast

This was my first Mother's Day as an empty-nester. I did not get subjected to raw eggs and burnt toast for the first time in years. I did not even get coffee in bed. But come to think of it, one would have to be in bed in order to receive coffee in bed.

Why was I not in bed you ask. That is a good question and I thank you for asking....


This week has been the Royal Bank Cup hockey tournament and Jed has had a week long pass and has been attending 2 games a day all week. I didn't like the thought of him leaving his new bike chained up at the CN Centre for hours when passersby know that everyone is inside for at least 3 hours, so we have been driving him to the games and picking him up after. This posed a bit of a problem when games went into overtime, but we would just listen to radio to see when it ended.

We were listening to one such overtime game on Saturday night. We kept listening and listening and listening... the silly game went into FIVE overtime periods! About 11:30 Jed's home worker phoned all concerned that he wasn't home yet. I informed her about the ongoing overtime and told her we would just keep him here at our house overnight, so she could hunker down the home for the night.

Between moments of sleeping and wakefulness while sitting in a chair I managed to hear the Spruce Kings score in the 5th overtime at 1:15
AM, and Alb whips over to pick up Jed. When the parking lot became empty and the last exhausted fan left the building it became evident that Jed was not among them.

I know the police don't look for adults for 24 hours, but he's not really an adult. I decided I would hold off calling them until 7am.

Long story short, Alb became very familiar with every road and back alley in this town over the next few hours and I had played out all sorts of elaborate scenes in my head while staring at the phone waiting for it to ring.

I knew Jed had no coat with him and no money. He did have his wallet with ID, so they should have no problem identifying the body.

In the wee hours I decided I'd call his home just to see if he had materialized. Lo-and-behold if he's not sleeping peacefully in his bed oblivious to the fact that anything is out of the ordinary.
About midnight he had decided he'd had enough hockey. This was probably right about the time he discovered that there was a free shuttle service that would drive him wherever he wanted.

His reason for not phoning? "He didn't want to wake us" and thought he'd "save us the hassle." He said it like we had been sleeping or unhassled or something.

But I gotta tell ya, I had a beautiful funeral service planned and I'm thinking I may just follow through with it!

Hope you had a Happy Mother's Day.

The weekend starts Friday at 6 PM

At work our fenced-in back yard, which we share with the patio store next door, has a huge chain link gate that weighs 18 million pounds and rolls (I use the term 'roll' loosely) on a gravel path of pot holes. We girls always try to make sure one of the guys is there to close it. This sometimes means moving our vehicles out to the street if the guys leave before we close. This was the case on Friday, our guys left early but assured us that Kevin from next door would close the gate.

About 15 minutes before closing I sent B over to verify that Kevin was going to close the gate and remind him I was parked back there. My big fear is assuming someone else will close the gate and driving away leaving a million dollars in hot tubs accessible and free for the taking. "No worries," is Kevin's emphatic reply.

As is typical for a Friday, someone shows up at 3 minutes before closing and wants to look through every item you offer for sale and leave empty handed. No, I am not a bitter customer service provider.

At 6:05 I set the alarm and lock the store and get out to my car to see that Kevin has already closed and locked the gate. Bless his heart. But... I am still in the yard. Now locked in. No problem I think. I have a key and I can open and close the gate myself with a little struggle and cursing. My key hits the lock with a thud and I realize they have changed the lock and my key no longer works!

Thank God for cell phones. Even ones that only have 1/2 a bar of battery power left on them. I phone my boss's house to have someone rescue me. Apparently our copies of the gate keys are in the pockets of the technicians who are both in Vanderhoof and Burns Lake for the weekend. But they will look to see if they have Kevin's cell phone# so I can get him to come back and rescue me. After a long time on hold while they look for a # I am freaking that my phone is going to die any second. They find the number; I call Kevin. No answer. Now what? I have 1/2 a bottle of water and a granola bar, I could sleep in the car.

I know! I will drag my husband away from playing guitar at the Well and have him pick me up. I'll leave the car here overnight. I make the call... whew, battery still working. I tell him to pick me up out front. As soon as I hang up it dawns on me that my key still works for the store. I could actually go back in and use the land line phone. Duh!

I enter the store, reset the alarm and go out the front. As I step out the door, I see Kevin's vehicles are out front and he is in fact still in his store with customers. I make a quick call to let Alb know it's a false alarm, and I don't need him. Kevin releases my vehicle from it's temporary prison and I am free! That was extremely stressful. I go for a couple of hours of retail therapy. Ahhh.

Little Gardeners

I was on Sunday School in April. I have a great group of 3 and 4 year olds. Seriously, this current batch of kids is the best group I've had in years... if you can get past the occasional poopy pants to clean up.

As part of the post-Easter theme we planted seeds in tiny little pellet planters like you see above. You know...the seed looks dead, but you put it in the ground, like a grave, and miraculously it comes alive. Remind you of anyone you know? And 4 weeks before Mother's Day, it was perfect timing to have a beautiful mini garden to present to the mommies.

Yeah right. The nice little domed mini greenhouse sat in the window. Jed made sure it got watered. (almost daily, I think) Well, here we are at Mother's Day week and I want to place the plants into nice little containers for the children to take home. Not one - count 'em- Zero seeds even sprouted. What we have is little floating islands of peat!

Now I guess all we can do is pray that the children don't remember about them on Sunday.... and thank God that we've moved on to a new Sunday School teacher this month and I don't have to explain it to them.

Please Resend...

I opened the front door the other day to breathe in some glorious sunshine, and a withered yellow and black piece of paper that was stuck to the door caught my eye. The rain beaten and sun bleached paper informed me the UPS had been trying for over a week to deliver all the head set equipment for our helmets. And it's 3 strikes you're out. I frantically called the number on the paper and intercepted my parcel that was about to be sent back to wingstuff.com. Whew.

The next day, also a sunny day, Alb propped open the basement door to air out the dungeon for the first time since last summer. He reminded me that it was open when he left for work that night. Of course I nearly forgot about it when I left the house to pick Jed up from the hockey game. I decided to lock the back door and just go out the basement door. Good Thing. As I stepped over a pile of dead brown leaves that have blown into the stairwell outside I noticed a piece of weathered old paper sticking out of the pile. I don't know what possessed me to stoop to pick it up, but I did. And lo and behold if it's not a pick-up notice from the post office informing me that they have had my new half-helmet, that I ordered off Ebay for $18.99, sitting and waiting at the post office for over a week. It's too bad the mail deliverers don't realize that there is a sticky strip on those parcel cards and they can actually stick them to your mailbox so they don't blow away.

So anyway, as a note to those of you out there who are in the habit of sending me gifts - I haven't really refused your gift, it's just that I don't get the memo saying that its arrived. You can resend it now, I'll be sure to be on the lookout for it.

Eggs-actly what was I thinking??

Uh Yeah, so it was Monday morning. Too early to be thinking about anything but the smell of brewing coffee that was permeating my kitchen.

I open the fridge to find something to take to work for my lunch. Cool. There are still boiled eggs left from A's sandwiches yesterday, I'll make myself a sandwich. But there will still be one egg left, and since we only eat egg sandwiches once a year and today is the day, this last egg will go to waste if I don't eat it for breakfast.

I peel the egg and open the microwave door, and there sits the pain-in-the-butt dome lid that I store in the microwave. Oh for crap sake. Rather than remove it and put the egg on a plate under the lid I'll just set the egg on top of the lid and hit "Quick Start" on the mic. This automatically starts the microwave running on a 30 second timer. At about the 24-second mark, two thoughts collide inside my head. "30 seconds might be too long" and "I'd better open the door before the timer beeps and wakes up A".

Just as my hand touches the door handle at the 28-second mark, I hear the deafening sound of an AK-47 assault rifle firing a shot inside my microwave. After I regain consciousness and wipe the puddle of pee off the floor, I open the door. I guess I won't be having an egg for breakfast.

Seventy One Sleeps

Yes, only seventy-one sleeps until we leave on the bike trip. Well, it'll probably be only seventy, cuz I'm pretty sure we won't really sleep the night before we leave. It's a good thing I can sleep on the back of the Goldwing.

Every day we get a little more prepared. Yesterday the bike came out of hibernation. Summer has officially arrived. I got home from work, opened the garage door to park my car and realized I'd gotten the boot.

We've ordered the sound system, helmet mics, cords and crap, the Zen MP3 player is loaded up and the new guitar is ordered. Guitar?? Huh? What the heck is up with that? Would someone remind my husband we are going on a bike trip!

Come to think of it I'm going to have to have photo software on the lap top before we go. And it just so happens Adobe has launched the new Creative Suite 3. And for only $2400 US it's a bargain. Hand me the Visa, I have a trip to prepare for here.

Silly songs with Larry

Our curtain opens as Larry, having just finished his morning bath, is searching for his hairbrush.
Having no success, Larry cries out ...
Oh, where is my hairbrush?
Oh where is my hairbrush?
Oh where, oh where, oh where,
oh where, oh where, oh where,
oh where, oh where, oh where ...
is my hairbrush?

Now substitute hairbrush with "Chair Rush"

On March 6th I brought Albert's fabulous theatre seating home from work. It started out as one long sofa, but my tiny house didn't comfortably accommodate this, so we broke it into 2 pieces which leaves an ugly unfinished edge with a missing arm. No problem, when you buy custom furniture made in Chino, not China. You just order a new seat that has 2 arms.
Well, not so straightforward. You take the extra piece of leather the manufacturer staples beneath the foot rest and pay $12 to have it couriered to California so they can match it up. A couple of weeks later, about the time you think the courier is arriving with your new chair, you get a nice little scrap of leather that looks just like the one you couriered to Cali, only larger. Does this match close enough, Madame?

For crying out loud. It's black leather. From a cow. With it's own distinctive markings. There are no 2 the same. Just make the freaking chair, I have no where to sit!!

It's not even PMS time

Today is a sh*tty day,
I have nothing witty to say