On a day like today

I like to brew myself an non-caffeinated cuppa joe, brewed in my special way with a few dashes of cinnamon throw into the basket. Mmmm.

The emperor's new time, and coffee!

This morning I'm awoken by my fiancé telling me it's 7 o'clock. Well then why didn't my alarm go off when it was supposed to at 6:50am?, I ask myself. I check my phone. "It's SIX a.m.!!!" (5:58 to be exact) He hadn't manually changed his phone for daylight savings. Sigh. And I'm sure we weren't the only ones this morning. Better yet we're not the dude I heard about in university who totally slept through an exam once due to the same thing. A university EXAM. Don't envy that guy.

Can't wait to race home tonight to try out my brand new personal pouch of 23 Degrees Roastery coffee supplied to me by the terrific people at Borden. They even hooked me up with decaf brew "Declawed" (only because I begrudgingly don't drink real coffee anymore). I'm loving the experience so far and haven't even ground the beans, or brewed the coffee or DRANK it yet. I'm going to savour - and tell you about! - the whole thing.
To kick things off, their packaging is right on the money. Check it owwwt!



I will consider sharing this brew with my work buds. Heh heh heh.

On the subject of Me

Two things:

The Gap has the best dress/office pants in right now. I bought ankle length (for the shorties among us; but not as "ankular" as you might think - just right for wearing a nice pair of boots), in a nice charcoal grey, their Curvy fit Perfect trouser pants and I would say they really are quite perfect, especially when I don't have to have them tailored! The fit is wonderful - they are ever so slimming and sleek as all get out. A great pant to have for the workplace that'll take you right into evening. Now don't I just sound like a magazine. Buy some. Price is right (bought them when they had a BOGO; what store doesn't have these kind of sales now?!). They don't always have the best fits (last year was the pits) but this year they're right on the money, honey.

In other news, B's dad and his girlfriend are staying with us for a few nights. This morning started off by him knocking on our bedroom door to inform B that it was past the time that he told him last night he would wake up this morning to get to work on time. Being woken up by your dad - when it's still dark outside - in your own house: priceless(ly infuriating). Of course I'm exaggerating. It was endearing. A throwback if you will to when we went on a trip with him earlier this year in Europe and insisted on acting as our daily alarm clock. We're on vacation!!!

Moving right along, my regular morning breakfast ritual was interrupted this morning by my dear future father-in-law giving me career advice from his perch on the living room futon while I prepared my breakfast just above his head in our conveniently open concept kitchen-living room.

Office thoughts

You know what really gets my goat? Office people who do not properly wash a mug. They claim to have washed it, it looks washed, and then upon closer inspection, there are LIP marks. When I see this on a mug I just think, what part of the cup DID they wash? HONESTLY.
Also, also, I'm officially over herb and garlic cream cheese from Tim Horton's. I told them to put on half the amount on a sandwich today - which I think they did - but it is just wrong. Doesn't taste the way it used to; plus I'm not even supposed to eat dairy anymore.
Lastly - lastly - Oktoberfest. I'm going tonight. Kim Mitchell was playing. When my cousin booked the tickets she said, "Hope you like her." HER? WHO doesn't know who Kim Mitchell is!???!

Oh PS - wanted to update you on the Behr situation. They came back to me saying I need to present them with the original receipt for the paint, not a duplicate. I said well of course I don't have this after having done the painting a full seven months before I finally contacted them. They CALLED me yesterday to tell me in the weirdest phone message that since I don't have the original receipt the LABEL from the paint can will do. If I haven't kept a receipt for seven months will I really instead have kept an empty paint can!? Come on people, I wrote back the following:

If Behr wants to continue to have me and anyone in my circle of friends and family (not to mention anyone in the social media world) remain consumers of Behr paint then you will accept my duplicate receipt/copy of my credit card transaction. Otherwise I will not purchase Behr again and will instead buy Benjamin Moore for my next project. Please confirm at your earliest convenience. I will be buying new paint within the next couple of days and need to know which brand to buy. Thank you.

Booyah.

Keeping up with the conversations

On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 10:21 AM, LF wrote:

I know, I'm bored as all hell too! Today, I actually remembered that I had to take a salmon "filet" (ew, hate that word) out of the freezer for din (to be honest, can't remember how long it had been in there, a while) and it was black! EW. Guess I'm having tuna for dinner, blargh!!!!

"Omg" my boss just hired a contract person here, at least she is closer to my age, but yesterday she was like, "oh my god, I'm 23, I'm getting so old" I HATE when people do that, I was like ugh, I just want to work with some normal ppl my age!

Then, oh, this is la creme de la creme -- I told her I was going away in october, and that I wanted to go to spain, so she was just telling me about a recent trip she took there, and she was like "the food was awful" are you f****d??!! she was like "we had to eat at mcdonalds" because apparently the food in spain was just too greasy and heavy. Again, are you f****d?!! Omg, some people are seriously just out to lunch!!!!!!!!!! WTF???? She'll fit right in with the people I work with!! Oh man, just heard my coworker "coke lady" pop back her 1st or 2nd one of the day. GROSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ps: Getting my hair cut tonite! Any ideas? I'm thinking bangs, but on the fence...


On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 10:21 AM, KM wrote:

we used to have a prof in third yr or something, when i took summer school (yah!) and every a.m. in our 8:30 class he'd have a 1 litre bottle of diet coke - he ALWAYS wore suspenders and had a gut that looked like he was expecting OCTUPLETS!
yikes.
ok, that spain woman!? what the f*** ever. that's like the woman who told my mom to bring CEREAL with her when we went to JAPAN because they don't have any there. WHAT THE HELL!???! we ended up eating fish and tofu for breakfast Ms. North America, thank you very much. people like that don't deserve to travel, and they deserve only the finest STAYCATIONS money can't buy.
i couldnt agree with you MORE about the whole old-at-23 bullshit. complete bullshit.
leftover roti for lunch, from pam's caribbean kitchen.
haircut? i once asked a child how i should get my hair cut and he said, "with eyes and glue." sooo, i wont give you that advice.
i always like bangs :-)

Fridays morgens

When you're hungry at work at 10:15am because you had to eat a bowl of milkless cereal this morning maybe don't drink half a cup of brown drink (read: Diet Coke) from an open can in the staff fridge.

In other news, I wanted to report on my other "free" thing. Earlier in the summer I had purchased a pair of Mephisto (read: old lady) sandals, of the snake print persuasion. These are the most comfortable things I have had the pleasure of slipping my feet into, ladies and gentlemen. Also, each time I took them off, my feet were silky smooth; and I don't know why! They were that good. But, after wearing them fewer than 10 times, the snake print started to wear off :( I got in touch with my friendly neighbourhood Walking on a Cloud where I purchased them and as of a few days ago, they offered me a credit for the value of the sandals. Yay! So I'm going to pick up some newwies today. These are the best, I'm telling you. Buy some. Not cheap, but your feet will proverbially thank you.

Also, I wanted to tell y'all about this. I am in week two of my weekly dose of CSA from Kawartha Ecological Growers. I like everything about this deal. The pick-up is right behind my work, the basket is always plentiful and colourful, the people are great, there is no waste (you bring your own bags 'n such) and it's such a nice way to celebrate the bounty of the summer and fall. Yes, I'll be getting a basket until November. Yessss! An amazing value for $15 a week of veggie and fruit goods. And that's just for the mini basket. There are small and large baskets as well, at $25 and I forget the other amount, respectively. Check them out. It's such a pleasure :)

Have a great weekend! Go check out The Ex! Maybe try a cheeseburger donut! Ok I'll stop there.

On the topic of free things

Hello,
Here to update y'all once again on more free things I've procured. Well, it's one at the moment, and I still have to put a bit of work into this one, but the other one I may get later this week.

Soooooo, on the Family Day weekend in February of this year my fiancé, mom and myself painted our (my fiancé's and my; not my fiancé's, mom's and my) bedroom. It's a big room. We chose Behr colour Silver Charm, which I agonized over for months until finally deciding on it. Long story short, the edging never, and still hasn't ever matched the walls. I'm not talking about the trim, I'm talking about the upper, lower and all corner edges of the room. It's the most annoying thing! People would come over and check out our new shade and say, "Oh, you need another coat." No, we did not actually, we had done plenty, and still had a terrible result. Fast (more like slow, because it's me we're talking about) forward to earlier this week. I sent Behr a message through their website explaining the sitch. No one had been able to tell me one way or the other WHY this had happened or how to ensure it would NOT happen again, so I went to the source (walked, but didn't run. I had to get a few months of complaining about this situation you see).

No later than two days after I sent them a message I received a great response. It wasn't the response of "We'll come over and repaint the room for you, and while we're at it we'll give your house a total paint, design and furniture makeover!" but it was more one of, "For your trouble, we'll reimburse you the cost of a new can of paint." Small victories.

Thanks Behr, you made a woman's day. Now I just have to track down that pesky receipt from Home Depot to produce to Behr. One tiny caveat. But still, more free (sort of) things!

Casual online conversations at work

On Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 11:13 AM, L.F. wrote:
God, I am SO BORED.....................!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Please email me back and tell me something funny. I'll be eternally grateful.

The most exciting thing I have to eat today is carrots. F***.


On Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 11:14 AM, K.M. wrote:
most food is rather boring. especially brought-to-work half-assed lunches. things always seem better when you pack them up in the morning (half asleep admittedly) and then once you get to work you think why did i even bother? and, i dont care how much money i spend on a lunch today. $100 soup? fine. anything is better than house-brought food. haha, that sounds so gross. speaking of gross, i have all these fruits and veggies in my office today because i've joined a CSA (you get a basket of fruits/vegs every week) and the pick-up is right next to my work but i couldnt bring the stuff home last night 'cause i didnt go home directly after work. sheesh. passers-by are probably going to think i have pigs or chickens living under my desk, or that "someone" needs a shower. "it's not me, i swear!" i had the AC blasting before, but someone already came by and commented on how cold it was in here. "just trying to keep my veggies from wilting," i said! dont quite know what to do with the melons i have sitting here in a plastic bag.

My slapstick morning

OMG, as I'm getting ready for work this morning, running late, my life turned into a slapstick. While primping in the washroom, my whole makeup bag completely tipped over, dumping everything onto the floor - stuff went behind the toilet, on/in the toilet brush, near a plunger; oh yah, the real deal - and when I came back up from picking up most of these things I unbelievably hit my head on the sharp corner of my medicine cabinet. How? Why? I actually said out loud, "Oh my god, I'm TRYING to get ready!"
Friday it is!

The politics of a dog's voice

I wouldn't send neighbourhood children into your home early in the morning to jump on your bed and spill hot coffee on your face, so why is it ok for your dogS to bark as loud as __ each and every morning at the butt crack of 6am which wakes up the entire pod of our complete neighbourhood? A very, very dense neighbourhood, with a LOT of people, as a matter of fact.
It's the equivalent of a child jumping on my bed and spilling hot coffee in my face.
Next time, I'm calling the Humane Society. Your backyard looks like a destitute bone yard anyway. So I got that on ya.

Back by popular demand - ME!

Yes I've been negligent. I'm baaaack ladies!

Last Wednesday during my lunch hour I decided I buy an orange popsicle from the store. Initially I had wanted grape - old fave, what can I say - but they didn't have any. I bet they don't even make them anymore. Too "fruit-like" for the kids of today. So I gawt an awrnge popsicle (how they'd say it in the US). Can I tell you that awrnge popsicle was like the best? It was the best thing in ages! Gawd. It was just a regular old orange popsicle and I was loving the shit out of it. My coworker also gave me a chocolate mint chewy sort of candy and that was the shizz too.

It was a good sort of day.

Happy Snowz

People and their snow freak outs. You should have even seen this woman on the streetcar this morning – it was so packed and I could barely get off so I said excuse me so people would let me through (obviously) and she said, “There’s like no room.” Ok, so does that mean I should just STAY on the streetcar then and NOT TRY to get off then?! Would it just be pointless for me to try to move because YOU SAY there is NO ROOM!? Is there REALLY NO ROOM!????!
That is all.

The Princess and the Sleep

Weirdest thing - a few weeks ago when the weather was at its winter worst, I was going to bed probably almost an hour earlier than normal 'cause my bod just couldn't carry out the rest of the day. I found the early bedtime felt nice in the evening hours, but by the morning I was more tired than ever. Do you ever sleep too much and then feel exhausted? So last night, I went to bed around 11:30, got about 7.5 hours of sleep, and felt like a new woman this morning - not wanting to punch anyone in the morning! Not like I ever feel this way...

Me + Animal Collective = lurrrve

Just listening to it on the i-tns (aka: how we pronounce iTunes round these parts). Man, love. Not man love, but music love... wow.
So tonight going to an audition for ITC encore - loves that place. Gonna get me onto a student team again. That is if I remember correctly how to do improv, since my last taste was in early December 2010. Sheesh. I just might fail ce soir. No, I won't at all. Alllllso, I'd like to take 202 (wouldn't YOU?) but I dunno guy with being on a team, AAAAAND class? That would mean three nights a week of comedy. Who do you think I am? Well yah, I'm funners.
Gawd, there's a lot of talking to myself 'round here today.
I don't have any streetcar stories today. No men exposing their naked butts, no people cramming themselves in through the back doors. But I must say, I love the feeling of having a jam-cram-packed streetcar roll up to the stop, replete with people just barely hanging onto the 'car and spilling out the windows, only to see another, very lonely, empty streetcar directly behind that one, which no one happens to think to get on but myself, leaving me a nice, large, luxurious streetcar to really let loose in, and be able to bask in graffiti such as the below.



Breakfast anyone?

P.S. On a note related to the beginning of this post, I also love Supergrass. If they have a concert upcoming in TO, LET ME KNOW

Friday mornings

Drinking a cup of coffee and chewing Trident Strawberry Twist gum. Never a dull moment 'round these parts. Who told you Friday mornings weren't fun?

Ok I'm back, sorry

Conversations with Auntie:

Auntie: Anyone interesting on the streetcar today?
Me: No one interesting today. Just stupid people who keep loading themselves in through the back doors. And then they laugh 'cause it's awkward, but it's only awkward because there's no room for them at all and they're probably just embarrassingly laughing at themselves 'cause they look so stupid cramming their bodies into an already JAMMED streetcar. And then the driver yells at everyone on the car because someone's standing on the back steps and "the door won't close if you're standing on the back steps." Heard that about 100 times already today.