Attention smokers...

If the above pic isn't enough to make you quit smoking, then I don't think anything will. No one should be in the same category as this douchebag. I'm half inclined to dye my hair blond just to make sure I have one less thing in common with him.

On another note, when you have EIGHT kids who look up to you (maybe one day they're learn not to) and may emulate you shudder then maybe that should be inspiration enough to quit smoking. Oh that and the press already rips on you, do you really want to give them fodder? The only thing that could make this picture worse would be an Ed Hardy tshirt.

In fact, instead of a warning label on a pack of smokes, just put the above pic. Let's be real, even *I* would be more afraid of being like Jon Gosselin than lung cancer, bad skin, nasty-smelling clothes, and smoker's cough combined.

Grim

I'm 32.

I vow to write more. I got into this mentality that there was nothing important enough to blog about. Uhhh this is "random thoughts and gripes"...by virtue it's supposed to be pointless.

However just to note...

1. It sucks when a spouse loses their job and you have a mortgage. Being a grownup sucks.

2. Someone I know lost their daughter today. I can't fathom what that must feel like. I really can't.

Being a grownup sucks.

3. Someone I grew up with (well, babysat) is getting a divorce...this shocks me, to me she's still a kid let alone someone who's married and ready to divorce.

Being a grownup sucks.

Yeah, grim and unfun. I'll write more upbeat bitching in days to come...right now I'm just sort of in awe of how, as a kid, you think being an adult is the best thing EVER.

Our 9-year-old selves were wrong.

Pics from Canada!

At last...finally uploaded all the pics on Shutterfly from the Ottawa trip. Oh the glitz and the glamour! And how I miss it :(
Oh Canada...our home and native land...

Note that this was the bank that USED to be National Trust, the bank I worked at (eep...over ten years ago!)


And yes, I've got pics of the infamous BCBG red dress (worn last week on Dancing With The Stars...without Samantha Harris' stupid belt) that I tried on in Ottawa, later bought in OC, and destroyed in New York (can't show all of it because Syl's wedding dress is in the background):


I also got stuck going to the Mer Bleue Bog...i f*cking HATE the bog. HATE IT HATE IT HATE IT. Plus it was freezing, so I was stuck wearing my dad's sweatshirt. Want to know how much I hated it? Check it:


I found this makeshift button that was taken when Erin, Stace and I volunteered for some Ronald McDonald House fashion show...in 8th grade?


I love that Nat drove all the way from Montreal just to have breakfast with me for ONE hour (yeah, she looks high here)...and that through a fluke I ran into Jay and then saw him a ton during my stay :)


Sigh...can I go back now?

And this is why I seriously need therapy

So I'm finally getting around to posting pics and blogging about Ottawa and NY...

Now I had mentioned previously that my mother is obsessed with stocking up on paper goods. Didn't believe me? Here's what I found when I was home...and this doesn't include her stashes that i DIDN'T find!

This is from my old closet in the basement:


Here's the kleenex stash she's got in the basement cupboard:


This is the TP stash in one of the upstairs bedrooms:


This one cracks me up the most. This is the stash under the basement stairs. Not only is there TP, but those boxes to the right of the safe are all kleenex boxes, and seriously this stash goes up to my waist!


Here's the stash in my mom's closet:


I couldn't even TELL you which closet this is from:


Here's the ghetto TP holder my dad got at some garage sale (a new habit my parents have adopted since my brother and I moved out):


This is one side of the entryway hallway:


And here's the other side:


FINALLY....i went to stash some stuff in my old bathroom drawer, but instead I had no room because I found this:


I swear I'm not crazy...my parents made me this way!

Canada Trip: Days 3-7

Oh where oh where is Sabinas latest blog about the Emmys and the red carpet crazy outfits???
Nothin here for me to read about your opinions and thoughts!

She's in Canada...with no DVR and no time to watch tv (gasp)...I didn't even know the Emmys were on...

So I've totallys lacked on writing, mostly because Kraig was here and he spent more time on the laptop my dad's got in the basement than I did.

Friday was a day of shopping, picking up Kraig, more shopping (saw Syl's wedding dress, gorgeous, and tried on the most AMAZING red dress from BCBG. It's sad when Kraig is like "who cares that it's $340cdn. You HAVE to buy it. HAVE TO."), then did this all you can eat sushi thing. Then Kraig met my dad, which went exactly as I figured it would: my dad was friendly, cheery, all that good stuff. He even gave Kraig a HUG...my dad hasn't hugged me since I took the plane ride to move to California 8 years ago.

Day 4, Saturday, we got our Caveau de Schezwan on...it's a sit-down buffet. To die for. For real. Then we wandered around the market till 5:30, where my partayyyy night got on...hung out at Lonestar, drank like mad, and saw dozens of friends I haven't seen in ages. I was jonesin' for Poutine, and I had promised Bryan that my first time having poutine would be with him. Well Lonestar doesn't have poutine, so I went next door to Dunn's ordered gravy and cheese curds (also got a side of fries, only because they charged me for the whole damn poutine so I figured i might as well take the fries as well even though I had a plate of fries waiting for me back at Lonestar)...went back to Lonestar, and proceeded with my "do it yourself poutine"...so, so good...

After that, headed out to a lounge...went home, all good times...i had SO MUCH FUN (Thank you thank you thank you Bryan for organizing it!)

Sunday was The Bog day, which pretty uneventful....

Monday at 3:30am woke up to take Kraig to the airport, only to have the plane break and he then missed his connecting flight, sohe got back to LA pretty late. I spent the day with Christine and her boys (I am beyond impressed with her ability to maintain total calm in the face of chaos), got my poutine on with Bryan later :)

And finally, today, Day 7...got to see Erin at work, got to see Stacey's house and meet her adorable little girl Faith, got to chill for a bit with Sylvia and her mom, and got to enjoy my mother bitching me out for something so incredibly retarded. My dad agreed to drop me off at Syl's mom's house because he needed the car, and Syl offered to drive me home...this concept rocked my mother's foundations and she went into serious hysterics. I have no idea why. My dad and I were like "WHAT is your problem woman!?!"...

Tonight she wanted me to go through some of the crap I still have at home so I can pack stuff up to take home. Her logic is that my brother and i still have too much crap in our house (well, her house, whatever) and that she wants to clear stuff out. BUT...thing is, she's a PACK RAT. I've found over the course of the past few days things that i know 100% for sure that I threw out last time I was here (uhhh my Dangerous Minds soundtrack cassette? This ghetto VHS on makeup application?!)...so WHY am I throwing things out only to have her go back and insist that she may need it?!

She's also mad because she figures all I had to do was see my friends ONCE and that would be sufficient...ummm, no, i'm going to max out every second that i can with my friends since the next time I see them will be...who knows! (Okay it might be sooner than we think if Syl has a post-elopement reception in ottawa)

Going to Toronto for the next 2 days, and then Friday will be my last day...sniff...this has honestly been one of the most awesome trips EVER. I wish I could stop time...it's amazing how homesick I am. I went to the grocery store today and was like a moron touching all the products I had forgotten about...and i bought a big container of Kraft Peanut Butter...oh and these like baby cookie things that have chocolate on one side...how you can actually catch a Sens game on tv...seeing YTV...

My flight tomorrow is at 8am and my mom wants to leave at 6:15am. Her theory is that if something happens, that gives us enough time to call a cab. (Oh gee, I guess with my cell phone and the $20/min roaming fee since they're too neanderthal to get their own cell phones). It'll take us max 20 mins to get to the airport....

Canada Trip: Day 2 (part 1)

Nothing, and i mean, NOTHING is more fabulous than sleeping in till noon on a work day. Especially when it's not because you're unemployed. I only woke up out of a sense of guilt that I was wasting my day, even though really...I don't feel guilty at all. I did however have a nightmare about some dude coming to kill me and my friends, and some random couple had Ryan's new baby Olivia...but the chick wasn't bonding with Olivia, so they handed her to me and was like "here, you take her", and I had a hard time sneaking her out because i was trying to avoid the killer.

Then in my dream i dreamt that i woke up from the nightmare, and told Nicole (Olivia's mom) about the nightmare, and she was laughing it off. So weird to pseudo-wake up from your dream only to have another dream where you're telling your dream to the next dream people.

Anyway.

After I got ready (blowdrying my hair with my mom's old blowdryer that all the power of a small child blowing on my head...whcih also reminds me, their vacuum is so old, the front popped off and now you can see the lightbulb on the front), I went upstairs because my mom was griping about something to my dad. All i heard was "Why do all these people get new things while I'm stuck with rubbish" my mom says rubbish as often as I say "douchebag", so I came up and was like "wassup yo with all this griping"...I guess my mom was complaining about how my dad goes to garage sales and buys alot of crap. Which is like calling the kettle black, but whatever.

Then the next convo went like this:
Me: You guys seriously need to get rid of your Powerpoint VHS tapes. They're outdated.
Dad: No, i don't know powerpoint that well, I might need to reference it.
Me: You're retiring, if you don't know it now you'll be okay. Trust me. Plus those tapes will be of NO use to you. It's changed so much now.
Mom: Yeah, i have those books you can use instead.

Me: No, those books are even WORSE. There's no such thing as "Microsoft Mail" anymore.

Dad: Well the idea is still the same.

Me: NO it's not. You can't even just go to "File, Print" anymore in Office 2007. You have to click the little logo int he corner. AND if you dont' know what you're doing, just do a search for "Powerpoint for beginners".

Dad: Oh good point. Can you install MS Office on that laptop in the basement? It's for the mosque.

Me: Sure, but you know Office isn't free right?

Dad: It's not?
Me: NO it's not, Microsoft doesn't give their moneymaker away for free!
Dad: well how did your brother get it on the upstairs computers?

Me: He had the CD...did he leave it?
Dad: no, he left nothing.

Me: Well i have one at home I can send you and tell you how to install it...
Mom: I don't understand, why don't you just copy it from the upstairs computers?
Me: It doesn't work that way. It's not like one file that i can drag to a CD.

Dad: So it's not free?

Me: I'll hook you up. Don't worry about it.

To quote cher: Old people can be so cute sometimes.

I also discovered why I couldn't call anyone...I was trying to call Christine, i KNEW i had her number right...it kept saying "your call cannot be completed as dialed". Then I was like "okay, I guess this is like one of those things where i need to dial 1-613 first, even though it's not like distance". Well then I got a "the number you have dialed is not long distance". So i'm like "well wtf!"...

Turns out I had to dial just the area code, no "1" before it. I swear I feel like i'm trying to call a third world country.

Canada: Day 1

I actually have an entry I wrote at the airport but...i disabled the radio on my laptop and argh, stupid me, i forgot what a f*cking pain in the ass it is to turn it back on (hitting Fn+F2 doesn't help).

Right now at this second, my mom is yelling at me from the other room about a necklace she gave me years ago. The conversation/yelling is going something like this:

Mom: Do you still have that necklace I gave you last time?
me: Which one? You've given me alot.l

MOm: The one i won from Zellers. (Note: zellers is like...Kmart...ghetttoooo)
Me: That one got all nasty and gross, it wasn't real gold. I threw it out.

Mom: (freaking out) Well of course it wasn't gold, why would you throw it out?

Me: Because it made my skin all green! This was like 20 years ago!

Mom: no, the one i gave you last time i was there.
Me: Oh, i don't know which one that is, but yes i still have it.
Mom: why are you throwing things out?
Me: it was 20 years old! It was just an old cheap necklace!
Mom: no, i just gave it to you! That wasn't cheap!
Me: i'm not TALKING about that one, I'm talking about the one from 20 years ago!
Mom: Well i'm talking about the one i just gave you!
Me: I don't know which one that is, you have to tell me more than just its origins.
Mom: it's the one from Zellers!
Me: I KNOW THAT...but you have to tell me WHAT IT LOOKED LIKE I DONT KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT

Mom: it's the one with those two things! Do you still wear it? Don't throw things out!

Me: WHAT TWO THINGS ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?:!

Mom: you know, those things. It came from Zellers.


THis is pretty much the same conversation but with a different topic since i've arrived. Some things I've forgotten or re-learned about my parents:

1. No wonder I have a hoarder's mind. My mom has no less than ELEVEN frying pans. I keep bagging onher for it (until she yelled at me to stop, insisting she needed them, and i'm like "there's only 4 burners!"), she has a PILE of brand new cutting boards but still uses the same pink one from when we were kids, she has an entire boxed collection of crystal glasses (that she let me know were SO expensive when i went to scope them out, precariously balancing on the counter, as i also pointed out that she still has the little cup holders for soft boiled eggs that i guarantee have not been used since i was 4), and the ultimate:
There is not ONE SINGLE CUPBOARD in this house (and there's more cupboards than you can imagine, we have a finished basement) that doesn't contain some paper goods. THere's enough toilet paper and kleenex to last through World War III. Heck, even IV.

I told them I'm "shopping"...I've already claimed dibs on around 20 metal skewars for bbqing.

2. My parents have lost all touch in their sense of decorating. My house use to look decent, now...sigh, my parents are old. And they like going to garage sales. I can't begin to tell you the crap that has found it's way into this house. You'll have to see when I take pictures. It's just...wow. Right down to the wooden cat who's tail can hold a remarkable 7 rolls of toilet paper.

3. My parents will never listen to me. I tried to point out that there's some mold growing on the bathroom wall (I know, because when I rented in Santa Clara my lease required me to keep a spray bottle of bleach and spray down my bathroom whenever i saw the mold since there were no fans)...my mom just told me "it's behind the wall, stop worrying about it"...uhhh you can SEE IT all over the house. I'm sure I'm going to get cancer in a week.

4. How do parents' have more food than I'll ever buy? I opened the fridge and there was more food there than I've ever had in my fridge, even on days when we had bbqs. I mean, for real, it's incredible that i didn't gain a trillion pounds living at home.
Wait for the pics of the bagged milk. I know at least Tim and Shane have my back on the bagged milk! ALthough my mom likes to buy milk on sale in World War 3 War Time Saving mode...and puts them in the freezer. Who freezes milk? My parents, that's who.

5. You forget east coast architecture when you've been in california for so long.l The carpet is short (none of this berber stuff), the walls don't have that bizarro orange peel texture, and today it was raining...even weather "smells" different on the east coast. That could be all the worms on the ground (we don't get worms in california like here in Ottawa. We get effing snails. It's effing sick when you step on one by accident.)

6. It's weird when your parents dick around with the house, because then you think you know where stuff is...and then, it's not there. Or you look at something and you're like "did we always have that?". It's almost sad really, like someone erasing your memory so you're stuck with the bastardized version of it...that's how i feel about my house right now.

7. Back to the hoarding...my mom seriously buys so much stuff and then justifies it by saying it was on sale. They have THREE COIN SORTERS brand new, in box. Which i would consider taking one with me, except they're super big to accomodate loonies and toonies. Oh what else do my parents have? Like eighty random computer books from like 1970 that they got at a garage sale, two VHS tapes on how to use PowerPoint, promotional VHS tapes that are still sealed, and the best...this wooden coaster set that they've had since i was a kid and we would use when we played with our toys...i don't know if they keep it for memory's sake or if they really think one day, that wooden coaster holder with the black metal handle will come back in style.

Stay tuned for day 2. I told my mom I was going to take her to see a movie...she wanted to see Batman: The Dark Knight but i'd rather stab myself than see it again (i loved it but no desire to see it AGAIN) so I convinced her to see Be Kind: Rewind instead. But we have to go early because she doesn't "want to be running around all day"...no one gave her the memo that going to a movie is the laziest thing you can do.

Campfires make me hot

So I recently ran into a charming young gentleman firefighter guy....and of course, I had to bombard him with random questions about...well, fire.

I wonder if firefighters actually say this ishh...


Now it's pretty safe to say that I'm obsessive compulsive about two things: locking doors and turning off things that can cause a fire. I seriously get beyond paranoid thinking about my stove not turning off (although I think it has a timer...but that's after it's been on for NINE HOURS), my house burning down, and my poor cats. Really, I just worry about my cats. I think i'm good with insurance and stuff (i've got pics that i keep in a safe deposit box).

Some random ishhhh that I learned:

- apparently they use wooden ladders. I don't know why this blows my mind. It's like, "oh we also find that pouring kerosene on our ladders is better than an aluminum or metal ladder". WOODEN LADDERS. My brain wants to explode just thinking about it.

- we had an earthquake a month or two ago here in SoCal which leads me to the big debate: doorways or the Triangle Theory. This whole Triangle thing just seems like uhh...kind of a big risk (just crouch NEXT to a big object...ummm...when they hunk of plywood whacks me in the head I'd feel like a douche explaining to the paramedics about how i got an email forward in my spam folder telling me not to duck)...but the doorway thing just bugs me becuase i'm thicker than a doorway, so how the eff is that supposed to protect me?! Well apparently the doorway wins...the dude who invented the triangle of life theory is what they call "Ricky Rescue"...I wonder why no fireguy hasn't just punched the inventor in the face.

- This one cracks me up...apparently when you're freaking out and hyperventilating, it's called Hispanic Panic...I did a search on it later, and wtf, it's apparently a common term! And also the username of a boatload of dudes on MySpace. It seems that umm...some ethnicities freak out more than others when there's an incident requiring firefighters or paramedics. And when you start hyperventilating to that extent, your extremities go numb. Like breathing crazy fast makes your toes and hands go numb. If your hands are numb, how are you supposed to breathe into a paperbag? And then I wonder...when i'm at the gym using the elliptical for an hour super fast, and my hands go numb and i'm barely breathing, is that the gym version of hispanic panic?!

And on the subject of fire...

My mom used to hide the matches in a mug in the way back of our cupboards. Which clearly defeated the purpose, since us kids knew where the hiding spot was. My brother would light a candle when he was stuck babysitting me and poor the crazy hot wax on my hand, telling me that I need to toughen up (he would do it too so uhh, i guess that's not sibling abuse!). I think it really was just us doing the ONE thing you're not supposed to do when your parents aren't home: start a fire. (Note: hot wax on your hands actually isn't hot at all, and my brother cried harder at Titanic than I did so who's the tougher one now bitch?!)

My niece kicks ass

Check out my niece...she's frickin' gorgeous. And it helps that she looks IDENTICAL to how i looked (and sounded) at that age.


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