Happy New You!

Today is the last day of the year.  

January is a time of winter white slates.  Fresh, crisp, clean and white.  Waiting to be marked, tarnished, and slandered.

January is a time to start over, because the calendar told you too.  

So Happy New Year and Happy New You!
(Although personally, I think the old you is fabulous.  And how do you improve on perfection?)

Oh Christmas Tree!

It usually takes me two or three outfits before I decide to leave the house in the morning. It usually takes 2 or 3 wardrobe changes throughout the day to keep me happy and comfortable.

The Christmas day outfit, however, was a no-brainer.
I needed something festive, very festive. Normally, I’d go for the put-together look with matching shoes, but this year I went festive.

And let me just say, if you show up to work, at 7 am on Christmas morning, wearing a Christmas Tree Moo-Moo, people will be pleasantly amused. Well, Amused. And it was funny to watch the look of confusion change to the look of, Oh, Tracy. Funny enough, someday the “Oh, Tracy” seems to be enough an explanation.

So yes, in fine and tacky form I wore the Christmas Tree costume to work. Sadly, only two strings of the lights were working. There used to be four. However, it had garland and stars. So that was good enough for me.

By now, you’re probably itching for a photo. I was hoping that it was the type of event that would be relayed via rumour, without the proving photo. But some of my friends are just too clever for that. At least it has a great poem to go with it.

And really, this telling of the story is better than mine. Thanks Joan.
Enjoy everyone! And I hope you had a Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

It’s officially Christmas Day.  

In what is officially 17 hours away, I will be on a plane to Ontario.  There still seems like much to be done before then.  But it’s all coming together.  Most of the presents are wrapped.  I’m taking my chances and hoping that airport security will scan them instead of unwrapping them.  My luggage, except for toiletries, is ready to go.  I’m not sure if it’s going to close or not.  I’m hoping so.  Thankfully, most of what is in it is traveling to permanent residency in Ontario.

Casey and Finnigan are  at Marti’s – aka Cat Sitter Extraordinaire.  I miss them though.  It’s funny how much easier it is to run around doing things, I’ve been using ribbon without anyone on my tail.  No one has flopped down on my lap, and no one has climbed in my suitcase to take a nap.  It’s quiet around here without the cats, and strangely enough, I really miss them.

So it’s almost bed time.  I’m packing the laptop tonight.  It’ll make my life easier.  I have about one hour between finishing work tomorrow (I work 7-3) and then leaving for the airport.  The trek to Upper Canada lands me there at 7:30 pm.  Presents with the family—HOORAY! I’m excited for my parents to open their gift.  I think they’re really going to like it.  And then the real Christmas dinner will be boxing day.

Anyhoo…. MERRY CHRISTMAS….

And I guarantee you, if I pull off what I plan to pull off for tomorrow morning, I should have a great story for tomorrow

Still Frames and Snapshots in My Mind

Much like the rest of my life, my collection of photographs is very helter skelter and in no particular order.  I pulled down one of my photo albums today because I was looking for a particular photo.  But it’s amazing how many other photos I had forgotten about.

There are some funny photos with some funny stories.  Most of the photos made me laugh out loud and grin from ear to ear.

Remember the practical jokes?  Adam, what were you doing in the pancake room?
And my tinfoil room, who could forget that.  

Remember the time I wanted to have a sit-down dinner for 30 people at Larch St?  We all came together to make it happen.  Those photos still make me smile.  I think that was the best dinner party we ever had.

There were pictures of Italy, and Egypt and Scotland.  I was actually looking for pictures of Japan.  Instead, I found Germany and the photo of me drinking a Litre of beer.

I found pictures of what the fridge looked like before I transformed it into my wardrobe.  No wonder no one else saw the beauty in it.  It was in pretty rough shape when I found it.

Sky-diving and Audrey Hepburn day.  Weddings, birthdays, parties, formal dances and random times hanging out.  

So many good pictures with so many stories to be told.  Tonight, a picture really is worth a thousand words.
I might not have found that one picture I was looking for. But the little stroll down memory lane made the journey entirely worth it.

Always on my mind

Willie Nelson sang quietly to me.  I know, I was always on your mind.  

He moved from near the front of the bus to the seat directly behind me.  He looked a little disheveled, and I wondered if he had a safe place to call home.  As he sat behind me, I could faintly smell the smell of street and stale booze.

“Excuse me Miss, Do you have the time.”

I removed my headphones and answered his question.

“Thank you, and Merry Christmas”

I returned his salutation.  Approximately 15 seconds later, he had another question for me.

“Excuse me miss, does this bus go to Dartmouth.”

Again, I respond.
”Thank you, and Merry Christmas”.

Fifteen more seconds pass, and now he wants to know if I will let him know when we’re in Dartmouth. I tell him that I’m not going to Dartmouth, but the bus will soon cross the bridge.  Seconds later, he asks me again if the bus goes to Dartmouth.

The big black guy sitting across the isle looked at me with a look that equal combined sympathy, concern, and a “Don’t worry, I’ve got you’re back” kind of look.  I made eye contact with him.  I wondered if the look on my face was feeble, worried or a plea for help.  It was then he spoke,

“Why don’t you stop bull-shitting the lady.  Leave her alone. You know damn well where you’re going.  You do this all alone.  I don’t want you to bother the lady. Stop bull-shitting her.”

The other guy tried to defend his position and speak but my defender wouldn’t hear of it.  As for me, I didn’t know what to do. Was I supposed to thank the chivalrous efforts of the stranger? Was I supposed to defend the slightly annoying, yet harmless banter of the man behind me?  This didn’t seem like an opportune time to attempt to defend my own self when I didn’t even know if I needed defending.  Not knowing, I tossed a half smile in the general direction of both of the men.  I put my Ipod away, and clutched my cell phone as if to say, I have a lifeline.

I sat quietly as the bus barreled down Gottigen Street. The only sound I heard was the man breathing behind me.  It was paced with an undertone of congestion, and sounded like he had potentially drifted off to sleep. I didn’t turn around to check.  Finally, it was my turn to pull the chord and exit the bus.  Thankfully, neither man followed me.  I got off the bus just before it crossed the bridge.  I wondered if anyone would wake him up to tell him that he made it Dartmouth.  Or was he really bull-shitting this lady?

I can have my Cookie dough and eat it too

.

At some point in the evening, she came up to me and said not to leave without talking to her first.  I was intrigued.  Given that work was unusually pleasant we had spent a fair bit of time chatting and catching up I was confused as to what else she had to say but could not at that given moment.  I wondered if I had let any secrets slide lately.  Maybe there was a story or a thought that wasn’t appropriate for general knowledge and consumption.  I was definitely intrigued.  And I do love a good intrigue.

Coming near the end of my shift with not so many people around, I asked her.  And that’s when the secret came out.  Cookie Dough! A tub of chocolate chip cookie dough… just for me!  And if that wasn’t exciting enough, she even thought to put it in the fridge so it would thaw enough that I could indulge when I got home from work. How thoughtful is that!

So at 11:00 pm, we’re laughing and joking about purses and boys professing their undying love for me.  The thought of purses, boys and cookie dough makes me excited.  But really, the most exciting is the one I actually have in hand.   I’m on my way out, happily swinging my cookie dough, anxious to make it home.  

By 11:10 pm, I was in my happy place.  I was pajama clad  and sitting on my couch with a tub of cookie dough in hand, and a spoon, of course.

Winds of Change

carrying a recognizable picture of herself because she got dressed in the dark, so there's no telling how close she came to her usual self

-storypeople

Sometimes I behave in a way that isn't usaully like me. I dont mean to misbehave but it happens.
What's worse than me misbehaving is the fact that it lets people down because they've come to expect differently than that from me.

And the sometimes I wonder, is that really the Me I am? Maybe I"m changing and don't want to admit it. Maybe this is my underlying personality. Can I get the old me back?

Until and Unless

Life is full of isolated events, but these events, if they are to form a coherent narrative, require odd pieces of language to cement them together, little chips of grammar (mostly adverbs or prepositions) that are hard to define since they are abstraction of location or relative position, words like therefore, else, other, also, thereof, theretofore, instead, otherwise, despite, already and not yet.

Carol Shields, Unless p 313

And that’s what I liked most about the book.    Each one of those words bravely titled a chapter.  Providing it the strength to stand on its own in its reclusive sense of meaninglessness. Unless.

At the end, it left me feeling a sense of goodness—not greatness.

Coffee, tea or me?

“Wanna go for tea?” he asked as we walked down the street.

“Sure, that sounds good.”

“I was going to say coffee, but people take that too literally. They complain that they can’t drink coffee this late.”

“Whatever I would have gotten the idea, I can handle it.”

“I’m just gonna start asking if people want to go for a generic hot beverage. A GHB”

"GHB, isn’t that some sort of date rape drug?”

“I dunno, is it?”

“I’m pretty sure, you might want to reconsider using that term. It’s a little misleading. Unless of course, that is your intention. But that leads to bigger issues.”

“Indeed, I never realized that.”

“In fact, I think my safety is threatened. I dunno if we should head out afterall. First there is the night that you got me drunk, and now GHB.”

Leaving my mark

As I looked behind me, I noticed the way the dark blue ink had spread over the beige leather couch.  It was a big patch, two inches by 4.  I’m sure I would have noticed that before I sat down.  The stickiness of the ink reveals that I’m the source.

I pull the two blue pens out of my back pocket—they’re both covered in ink.  So is the couch. So is me.  

Now, first you must understand the sacredness of the couch in the lounge at work.  It’s new, its leather. We want to keep it nice.  I don’t think anyone would appreciate the ink motif I artistically and totally unintentionally inscribed on its fairly pristine surface.  First thought “Holy crap, they’re going to kill me, or at least fire me.”

But really, there is no one to be mad at.  And directing anger towards a situation never got anyone anywhere. So I categorize it as embarrassment, stupidity, hassle and crappy. Why can’t I just blend in?

I decide to ignore the fact that the back pocket of my new jeans is now stained in dark dark blue.  With the advice of some nurses, I use alcohol on the ink on the couch.  Miraculously, it comes pretty close to clean.  

I ask our ward aide if she could go down to laundry and get me some scrub pants to wear since sitting down is totally not an option.  When I go to change out of my jeans, I realize that there is a large blue stain on my ass to match the stain on my back pocket.  I work on the pocket stain for a while….. still leaking lots of blue ink.  Eventually I admit defeat and sheepishly accept the offer of the fantastic friend who offered to take them home and wash them repeatedly for me because she is pretty sure she can get the stain out.  (I cannot say thank you enough).

And if they don’t come clean, I’m going to buy a new pair.  That was an overtime shift, so spending a bit of it on replacing my favourite jeans is a justifiable expense.

But right now, I can’t help but thinking that the entire incident was a subconscious way of me trying a little too hard to leave my mark.

she wore a blue tattoo on her finger to remind her that, no matter what they paid her, some stains never come out.

Winter Wonderland

I was almost ready to go when the phone rang for the second time.  My roomie had just returned home.  The snow that covered her, and her backpack was a testament to the fact that there really was a winter storm happening out there.  I was convinced that the second phone call I had received this evening was to cancel the plans.  Instead, it was to confirm that I was up for the adventure.

I left on foot to meet her, and then we would take a cab from her place.  After trying several companies, on several different phones, we finally got through.  Twenty minutes later we called to ask them how much longer, and the answer was “well, we haven’t even dispatched anyone yet.” We decided to go with someone else.
Finally, my old faithful cab company answers the phone.  The car is at the door in 5 minutes.
We enjoy our festive celebration with hors d’oeuvres and Martinis.  And then it’s time to go home.  After an hour of 3 of us trying three different cell phones to get a cab from any company at all, we admit defeat.  There is one person I know with a car—my roomie.  I call, explaining the situation and thankfully, she’s able to come rescue both me, and my boss to drive us home.

A few minutes later, Jon, Gregg and Megan come to the rescue.  Finding their way through the slippery streets they arrive to drive us both home.  We squish into the back seat of the car – we’re glad to be in a moving vehicle capable of returning us to our respective houses.  

The winter wonderland added a certain festiveness to our celebration.  When we decided not to cancel our Christmas party and carry on with it, Carol did ask if I was up for an adventure.  And adventure it was.

Stay Tuned

As I open up this window, I still don’t know what I’m going to write.  I’m trying to think of what I know, or what I’ve wondered recently.  I don’t know what I know, and I haven’t wondered about a whole lot these days.  Neither provides me with material that is ready to become public domain.

Yet strangely, I feel compelled to write. And I know, this is probably the point where you will stop reading, because I am babbling without a point.  Sorry, about that.
But sometimes you really have nothing to say.

I could bore you all with the nitty-gritty details of my week. But it’s been uneventful. Some people crave uneventful.  I loathe it.  It leaves me with nothing to do, nothing to imagine and nothing to write about.

Soon, I’m going to turn this into a work of fiction.  Stay tuned.

Manic Monday

Today was definitely a Monday kind of Monday.  Manic Monday doesn’t even begin to describe it.

And I don’t even want to tell you all about it.

Tomorrow is Tuesday, and if it’s a Monday kind of Tuesday, then I might consider hibernation for the winter.  Unless of course this is the beginning of the apocalypse—which I think is entirely feasible at the moment.

Entirely.

Half Baked

I dipped my spoon in one more time, and passed the package of Pilsbury Cookie Dough  to Adam.  He looked at me as if he was missing something. I passed him a clean spoon.

“Did you just double dip?”
“Yep. Sorry. Does that bother you?”

There was no sense denying it.  It was true. And to tell you the truth, among friends, double dipping has never really bothered me.  

Adam admits and reminds me that he’s been sick, and I probably don’t want him to double dip.  We have one extra clean spoon, but we gave that to Megan.  So instead, he spoons a portion of dough into a cup.  I continue eating from the package.

An hour later, I can feel the change of mood in the air.  Normally, it’s the type of mood that is pre-cookie dough, not post.  The Garden State soundtrack gives him away. But that’s okay, there really is beauty in the breakdown.

Not that there was a breakdown.  That’s just a test to see if you caught the reference to the soundtrack song that that’s from.

But a little introspection and pensiveness is good from time to time.

By the time I walk home, I too have slipped into the mode of quiet introspection and pensiveness.  I’m all done eating cooking dough for now though, so I guess I’ll just wait it out.  At least I didn’t catch a cold.