Monday, August 11, 2008

A VERY long, rambling post about nothing in particular.

What follows is a long, rambling, pretty boring account of my weekend. Feel free to read it, but I basically just wrote it so I could remember what I did this weekend.

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Pretty much had a great weekend. Was up bright and early(ish) Friday morning. Did my hair, makeup, put on nice clothes and cute new $4 shoes that I got from the Goodwill the other week. Went to see my favorite chiropractor in the world. I adore Dr. Tom. Our family has known him pretty much for 34 years or more. My brother and I even went to school with his kids. He is funny, and quirky, and always makes me giggle. He also knows just how to make my spine crunch in all the right places. *happy sigh*. Unfortunately, he’s also upped his prices by $5. It is now $25 a visit. Not a HUGE amount, but when I really feel I should be seeing him at least 2 to 4 times a month, it adds up. Which is why I only end up seeing him once about every 4 or 5 months. *unhappy sigh*

After I left Dr. Tom’s, I went to the do-it-yourself car wash. If I hadn’t had on a nice WHITE blouse, clean pants and cutesy shoes, I actually might have washed the whole car, but seeing as I actually made the effort to look pretty, I didn’t want to risk getting all wet/dirty. (plus, my hair was all fluffy curly, the mist/steam in the car wash bays would have turned that into ‘drowned rat’ in about 30 seconds). I settled for vacuuming out the entire car, including cleaning out the 40 billion empty popbottles/cans on the floor and in the back seat. I even spent $2 on one of those microfiber cloth thingies to dust and shine the dash and all the little knobbies and dials in my car (mmm….dog hair).

I then filled up with gas. Wow. I haven’t actually filled my car my car all the way up in at least a couple of months. Because of the stupid gas prices, I’ve been nickle and diming it, hovering in between fumes and 1/4 tank. This weekend though, I was feeling very optimistic about things because of Husband’s job, so I filled Sunny all the way up. It cost me about $66. That is just STUPID! I do NOT have a big car! I have a sporty little Pontiac Sunfire! Ok…I’m gonna get all “old people” for a minute and say that I can remember when I could fill the tank of my little Dodge Colt to overflowing for about $20!!! Seriously. The cost of living is getting ridiculous. If I didn’t think I’d have a heart attack and DIE right on the road, I’d haul out my bike and start riding to work. (actually, that is a goal of mine…to be able to actually ride my bike to work. However, realistically, that isn’t going to happen any time soon. The last time I rode my bike, I was passed by a 6-year-old little girl on her bike. With training wheels. True story).

With the car clean and full up, I went and picked up mum for coffee. We went to Lena’s (Italian deli/coffee shop/grocery). I actually had a latte (but only because there were absolutely NO tea products on the menu anywhere. Maybe they don’t drink tea in Italy??) and we ate delicious biscotti, and then wandered around the market trying to read labels in Italian. I have to say though, that now that I don’t eat meat, there was very little in the market to hold my interest (other than the gorgeous looking baked goods and chocolates). After Lena’s we decided to go to Planet Organic (who knew that my mum actually shops there occasionally?!). We took the long way, so we could drive around and look at houses, and passed a really beautiful Buddhist (?) temple of some sort. Mum only made one racist slur (not about the Buddhists). We had a couple of heated words about it, but I think neither of us wanted to ruin the nice day we were having so we both just sort of changed the subject. Fortunately, that was the only “off” comment she made all day. You know, growing up I don’t ever remember there being racist comments or overtones, but as my parents get older, they seem to have become completely intolerant of certain races/religions/cultures, and they don’t seem to care what they say. The rancor in their voices when they make their little comments is really quite shocking to me.

Anyway, Planet Organic was uneventful. I bought some spices, and some organic deodorant, and sampled the sweet potato salad from the deli. Mum bought some free range eggs and an organic stain remover that my auntie says is fantastic. We debated going somewhere else, but unfortunately, my feet hurt so much I thought I was going to drop to the ground weeping piteously at any second. I now know why those cute little shoes were donated to the Goodwill. It’s because they are fabricated out of pure Evil. Hey…anyone wanna see my blisters???

Dropped mum off, went home, crashed for an hour, and then took the boy to Callaway Park. Before we’d even made it a block past our house, I heard a clunk then a horrible rusty rattling noise. Turned out my muffler was in worse shape than I thought. The good thing is, the coat hanger I had used to truss it up was still holding. The bad news was, the rest of the muffler had just come off and was dragging along behind the car. So, technically, I still have a muffler…it’s just that it’s in my trunk now. Anyone know how much it is to replace a muffler??

After picking my muffler up off the road and stashing it in the trunk, we hit the Subway and headed for Callaway Park. It was about a million degrees outside, but we still had fun. Only went on 1 ride though (the roller coaster of course!). We wanted to go on the Log Ride, but didn’t want to walk around the park in moist trousers all afternoon…denim tends to get a little um…chafey. We agreed to go on it towards the end of the day, but by the time we were getting ready to leave, we were hot and tired, and the line up still looked about an hour long and we really just couldn’t handle standing out in the heat for an hour just to be squashed into a fiberglass log-boat with a bunch of sweaty strangers and then doused in dirty pond water. Maybe next time. We did eat some delicious swirly, fruity, softserve ice cream, which always makes me feel like I’m about 7 years old. We had a round of mini golf, and actually didn’t do too bad! Normally by the end we are just making up numbers/scores/rules, but this time we actually had fairly decent scores, and almost tied (Chicken beat me by 1 point). I passed on the whack-a-mole (usually I only play that when I have some built up anger to get out, but I was feeling pretty good…so the moles were safe), and I passed on the squirty gun game, but only cuz the prizes were lame. We played a couple of games of kerplunk, or kerplink, or whatever the hell it’s called. I sucked rocks, as usual, but Chicken won us a couple of stuffed pingwings, so I was happy. Mine’s name is Al. It’s short for Alopecia. My shirt was covered in shedding penguin fluff about 2 seconds after I got him. We stopped at the little restaurant for a drink, discussed book banning, Of Mice and Men, and human euthenasia for about 30 minutes, then hit the candy store on the way out of the park. Got some potato chips and a bag of Jelly Bellies (for Husband), and headed home.

Stopped at Safeway on the way home. Picked up Epsom salts, pop, ice tea for Husband, bread, cheese, fruit salad, sausage rolls, and sushi. The boy went into the fortress of Chickentude, and I soaked in the tub for about an hour. Spent the rest of the evening chatting with Husband, watching Holmes on Homes, and then finally crashed.

Unfortunately, there was a huge thunder storm and our big fierce dog had to get up on the bed and climb all over us while she had a panic attack. I also started to develop a migraine type headache at about 2 am that lasted all night, and all the rest of the next day. Pretty sure it was because I forgot to put a hat on when we went to the amusement park. Not sure what I was thinking. I guess it shows how little time I’ve spent outside this summer.

Saturday ended really well, but started really bad. The headache that started in the middle of the night and kept waking me up had reached full Please-kill-me-now-oh-God-why-won’t-anyone-just-KILL-ME capacity by the time I tried to get up. Took 3 or 4 Tylenol, tried to go back to sleep, failed miserably, and then just lay there watching lame home improvement shows, occasionally twitching and/or whimpering. After about an hour or 2 of that, decided I might as well finally henna my hair. Unfortunately, the batch I’d previously mixed up (4 weeks ago *cough*) was no longer any good. I did have another box of henna in the cupboard, but didn’t have the 12 hours to wait after I mixed it up before it was ready to use. Someone had told me (a very reliable source, actually), that if you mix the henna with boiling water, the dye would release right away, and you could use it and not have to wait the 12 hours. So that’s what I did. Unfortunately, the water was too friggin hot for me to mix the henna properly, so it was all lumpy and gross, and not wet enough. I slapped it in my hair, wrapped it up in kling film, put on my “henna toque”, took another 2 Tylenol, and went back to bed for 3 hours - not sleeping mind you...just laying there being all pathetic. After about an hour, Husband came up and put a movie in, and we sat and held hands, and giggled, and watched a movie. Charlie Bartlett. Was actually really cute. I adore the actor that played Charlie (can’t remember his name at the mo, but there’s something about him I find infinitely charming). Also, Robert Downey Jr. was in it. The man’s life has been pretty effed up…but I sure do like him as an actor. I suppose it doesn’t hurt that he’s cute, too. I’m glad to see him back doing movies again.

About 1 o’clock I rinsed the henna out and….bleh. It hardly took at all. Sure, the roots aren’t blond anymore…but they still don’t match the rest of my hair. They’re really kinda orangey. *sigh* guess what I’ll be doing again next weekend??

Forced the boy to get out of bed and took him down to Planet Organic. I had noticed when I was there with mum the day before that they were having some sort of meatless chicken schnitzel BBQ. Was only $2, and you got a burger/dog and a beverage. Alex didn’t want anything, but I had the “chicken” schnitzel on a bun with Vegenaise, and some maters (they had vegan cheese, but I don’t really care for the taste…I find it tastes of oil and chemicals.) I have to say, it was pretty tastey. I didn’t finish it though, as my blood sugar was being whack, and the tables they had set out for people to eat at were in the middle of the sunny parking lot with no shade, and that was just a little too much for me to handle. I did take home a tofu dog for Husband. They looked more “meaty” than the other dogs I’d bought before, plus it was BBQ’d, which automatically makes it better. Stopped at WallyWorld too. Still trying to find a damn pair of jeans that fits. I USED to always find the best jeans there! And cheap too! But this last year, it seems unless you are a size 8 or smaller, then ALL the jeans for us fatties basically look like denim trash bags. Most of them have cropped legs (cuz us fatties don’t look stumpy enough already. Thanks), and a lot of them have ELASTIC WAIST BANDS!! GAH! Elastic? Seriously? I got so fed up I went and looked through the sewing pattern books and found a fairly decent pattern for jeans. I would have bought it too, but the drawer that had the pattern I wanted, was the one drawer that was jammed shut (I looked like some deranged crafting mom had rammed her shopping cart into it just one too many times). I tried pulling it open, and only managed to break a nail, tearing it off too low and making it all sore and bleedy. I still need new jeans…but I’m a little too traumatized at the moment to go back to the mall and try again.

To consoler ourselves, we went through the drivethru at Micky D’s and got some frosters, which had improved my mood considerably by the time I got home. After I got home I crashed for about an hour, then got ready, did my hair, put on make up, jewelry and perfume even. I met Stevo at Chili’s for dinner. Food was good but there was just too much. We started off with pints (of course), and the spinach artichoke dip, which was delicious. Really, that would have been enough for me, but we ordered dinner as well. I had the portabello and veggie fajitas. Was really really delicious, but I was just too full to eat very much. I ended up taking everything home in take out boxes. We walked over to the Jubilee, got a couple of drinks, then went in to see the show.

Spamalot. Holy Crap. I laughed so hard! And my brother laughed so hard. It was neat to hear the audience members saying some of the lines along with the actors. Was better hearing my big brother laugh though. I don’t think he has enough of that in his life. He also made a comment that I hadn’t really thought of, but have to agree with. He said that every time he goes to see live theatre, he realizes that he doesn’t do it nearly enough.

After the show, I was totally ready to head home to bed, but Stevo offered more pints, so who am I to say no?? we ended up at this little pub that ive driven by about a million times, but had never really taken notice of before. Apparently, stevo has been going there since he was underage, although it was called something else back then. They had a live band playing which, while not bad, were way too loud. Had a good conversation with my bro, even though it was rather shouty to be heard over the music. Ended up getting home just before midnight, but was too keyed up to sleep right away. Chatted with the boy and the husband for a while. Finally managed to settle down sometime after 1:00 am. Not too bad, but the alarm going off at 6:30 sucked. Big time.

So Sunday…I worked. Or slacked, mostly. My ADD is totally kicking my ass lately. Wish I knew a quick & easy way to fix that. Sunday night I sat in bed eating my leftovers from Chili’s, sharing tasty bites of roasted veggies with Husband. We also watched Nim’s Island. Was very much a kids’ movie, but really cute for all that. Husband even laughed right out loud on a couple of occasions.

So, ya…that was pretty much my weekend. (believe it or not...it could have been longer. i had so many segues and asides and rants while i was typing it...i actually cut it back a lot. those little tidbits may turn into other individual, specific topic entries at another time...or i may just forget what the hell i was talking about by tomorrow).

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