Why am I up?

Okay, I'm torn here. On the one hand? Charity is good. On the other? Ewwwww.

http://www.thestar.com/Entertainment/article/555841

I knew veggies weren't good for me

My Fortune Cookie told me: Don't you just hate it when even the aubergines are plotting against you? Get a cookie from Miss Fortune

Psst! I have to tell you something

I haven't been totally honest with you, and it is eating me up inside, so here goes:

I have a boyfriend.

I know, I know. I should have mentioned it sooner, but I just wasn't sure I could share our love with the world. See, he doesn't call a lot, or frequently, and we don't go on dates or anything, and I didn't want to get too excited about it, but now I know it is real, so I need to share this with all of you.

It started a little over a month ago, the day I moved into my new place. The phone rang, and I saw that it was "private". Now, I figure it is probably my friend E, whose cell number is blocked for complicated reasons, as the only other people who call me from "private" are my mom and Stormy, both from work, and I didn't think they were in the office in the middle of the night.I answered the phone, exhausted beyond belief from all the unpacking, and almost said "Hey E!" but my brain and mouth didn't connect on that. Boy was I happy I didn't say anything, as on the other end of the line was this unintelligible male voice, one I had never heard before. I said he had the wrong number, and was about to hang up. Then he asked how the move went, and I wondered if maybe my exhaustion was affecting my ability to recognize my own friends, so I said it went fine. Then the voice kept talking, wanting to know how his "sweetness" was doing, and wanted to know if he could come over. I kept repeating that he had the wrong number, and eventually hung up. Then, I promptly fell asleep and forgot all about it.

This weekend, I get another couple of phone calls from the mysterious "private", and I don't answer them, due to my status as a grumble-puss. I check my voicemail earlier today, and along with some messages about the bar snafu, there is a garbled message from the same unintelligible voice, asking how I was doing, suggesting we should get together, saying that he misses and loves me. So, I guess it is official. I have a boyfriend. Granted, we've never met, and I feel dirty and kinda uncomfortable after he calls, but it is better than being alone, right? Ah well, maybe I can get over those feelings in the next month so that I'm ready for his next call, and he can finally arrange to see his "sugar".

Are you a loan shark? Do you understand how high finance works?

I'm walking along the street in my neighbourhood, and I see this man kind of edging towards me, like he wants to talk to me. Like any good Torontonian, I ignore him. But he keeps trying, so then I wonder if I'm being callous and he just wants directions, and I turn towards him. He doesn't want directions. He launches into a spiel that starts with him being a diabetic, and ends with a request for me to give him money in exchange for his ticket for the subway to help him get insulin.

My knowledge of high finance is extensive. It tells me that you break someone's legs in advance to ensure that they pay back the money you've lent them. But while I may not be up on the exact cost of insulin injections, I'm thinking it is a tad higher than 2.75$ Canadian, no matter how high the dollar is right now. So unless he had a ginormous wad of tickets to sell, I think he won't be able to afford his insulin shot.

Oh my, do you think he was just trolling for cash, and lied about the insulin?

Fashion Tip #18

Women who are crowding 50 should not, under any circumstances, wear their hair in pigtails in public. Especially not when combined with bangs that are curled and spritzed to within an inch of their lives.

Dear Bell Service Centre:

Your warranty on phones covers them accidentally being dropped in a pint of beer, right?

Not that that's why I'm bringing my phone in. I'm just curious.

Really.

Robert Smith, have you lost your mind?

Please, oh please tell me that this is a belated April Fools joke:

http://www.nme.com/news/the-cure/27471

If it isn't, you will find me sitting in my bathtub, bashing my head repeatedly into the wall, downing copious amounts of booze in the hopes of obliterating this knowledge from brain by way of killing the brain cells that contain this horrible data.

It sure ain't the old 'yawn and stretch'

Recently, my good friend Stormy was invited over to a gentleman's place for dinner and drinks. They sat on the couch, and in due time, he made his move. You know, the move to indicate that he was interested in more than just her wit and vivacious spirit. And while she wasn't necessarily surprised that he made a move, the move he made shocked her.

He stuck his head in her armpit.

I know. I was blown away too. I consider myself a pretty modern woman, open to new ideas and all that jazz, but a head in the armpit as a declaration of romantic intent? New to me. We talked about this scary, apparent latest development in the art of seduction, and couldn't figure out what would possess anyone to try it, especially when breaking in a new partner.

But upon reflection, I think we may have misunderstood the gentleman's intentions. I was perusing the archives of a favourite site of mine, when I read an entry that shed some light on things. The writer in question was going to shake hands with someone, when there was some confusion about whether it was a hug or a shake, and her head ended up in his underarm.

So, maybe, just maybe, Stormy, you misread his move. Maybe he was just trying to hug you. Or maybe we should all be very afraid.

Wha?!?!

While reading the newspaper today, as I do every day, being the erudite lass I am, there were a couple of stories that caught my eye. Two very different stories that both made me go, "What in tarnation?" (I'm actually a grizzled gold miner. I hide it well, don't I?)

The first story was about, I kid you not, a person who died in the middle of a flight, and so that the family could 'deal with their grief', the body was moved into a seat next to a complete stranger.

I'll give you a moment to take that in.

The second was about a man who had been bitten by his sister's cat and ended up in the hospital for three weeks with an infection, and when he couldn't get any satisfaction from her insurance, he sued his sister, won, and was awarded over 100 grand.

Now, I frankly can't decide which story is more appalling.

On the one hand, you've got a person who paid for a flight, first class no less, and after waking up from a nap, notices that a person is sitting next to him, and learns that this person is dead, and was moved from the seat where they died, and into the seat next to him so to ease the pain of the family they were sitting with. Now I'll grant you that moving the body away from the family was the right thing to do, but couldn't they find a better place to put it? Like away from paying customers? If I'm that guy, I'm suing the airline fast than you can say 'me so litigious'.

On the other hand, you've got a guy who was at his sister's place, and her cat bit him. He says that the bite got so infected that his hands swelled up so that they looked like, and I quote here, "plump hot dogs" and he had to spend three weeks in hospital. This ran up medical bills in the thousands of dollars. I don't want to sound like a heartless bitch - or do I? - but seriously? What the hell did you do after the bite that it got so infected? Did you take any sort of precautions, or did you just start pouring test tubes full of bacteria over the broken skin? I mean, three weeks in the hospital is a crapload of time, so it must have been some kinda infection. And suing your own sister to get money for the bills? Yeesh. Way to build family unity. I don't want to be at that Thanksgiving table. No sir.

Both of these stories piss me off to no end, but for different reasons. I can't believe that the airline would treat one of their passengers that way. Well, actually, I can, but I just hoped they wouldn't, and I recommend litigation to anyone on that flight. But as for the suing bite victim, the fact that he would sue someone because he can't properly clean a wound or seek timely medical attention chafes my ass something fierce. That's what medical insurance is for, jackhole.

I'm so blinded with rage that I can't even concluded this little rant here cogently, so I'll just end with this:

Some people suck chunkers.

Is left is the new right?

So I'm taking a cab - again, yes I know, I have a problem. I'm working on it people, but this addiction is harder to break than heroin. At least I assume it is. I'm guiding the cabbie through the winding side streets of west Toronto, and I tell him to turn right at a stop sign. So what does he do? Of course. He turns left. When I repeat that I wanted him to turn right, his response was "Oh, yeah, too many right turns". Can someone explain to me in what world that actually makes some sort of sense? I could understand if I'd asked him to go left, and because of all the right turns we'd been making, he went right instead, but this whole "So many right turns so I went left" thing is beyond me. Am I missing something?

Mister Cab Driver

I have this theory.

In a former life, I was a cabbie. And not just any cabbie, oh no, I was a terrible cabbie. A cabbie who rigged her meter to overcharge unsuspecting passengers, who refused to take direction, who got lost all the time, who drove so recklessly as to cause accidents wherever she went. A cabbie who brought terror and anger to her fares. And now in this life I'm getting my karmic payback.

I'm sure there are nice cabbies out there, but lord knows they don't seem to pick me up. My friends can testify to the fact that while I do take cabs more often than them (no car and laziness - not a good combo) I get more than my fair share of wackos. There was the time the cabbie yelled at me because he was concerned I wanted to make a couple of stops en route, and even when I said no, he kept freaking out. Or the time when a cabbie refused to listen to my directions, missed the exit, thereby adding at least another 6$ to the fare. Oh, and the time when I was rudely informed that the intersection I wanted to go to didn't exist, even though it totally did. And let's not even get into the time I spent a rush hour trip with Mr "Those damn immigrants are ruining everything by being on welfare". Sigh.

But for all the insane cabbies that make me fear for my life, or at the very least want to bash my head repeatedly into concrete, there have been two that were awesome. One is an older gentleman, with a beard like Santa. He drives me home from curling on occasion. He remembers me, even though there was a 7 month gap between rides. He always opens the door for me. Until tonight, he was the only one who I wouldn't mind driving me again.

Tonight, after a humiliating loss, a cabbie came to pick me up and he wanted to know all about curling - which reminds me of the cabbie who lectured me about how stupid curling is and how I shouldn't waste my time with it, especially because I was a girl. I'd forgotten that one. Boy that was a fun trip. Anyhow, I explained to the cabbie tonight that while losing is never fun, it might have been the best thing for us. See, we're gearing up for the playoffs, and we've been doing pretty well. After this week, we all get seeded, and the way we'd been going, there was a pretty good chance we'd end up in 'A' Division. Problem is, we aren't really 'A' Division material. We've been lucky. We've played some weak teams. And if we end up in 'A' Division, we will get our asses kicked so hard they'll be coming out our mouths. As a team, we agreed that this wasn't something we were looking forward to, so we joked about tanking tonight's game. We didn't though. We got beat soundly just by sucking royally. The cabbie wasn't sure that maybe we didn't tank it subconsciously, and was concerned that maybe our plan would backfire, and we'd still end up in 'A' despite everything, or that we'd have to play this team again and lose. He talked strategy with me. Not that he knew anything about curling, he just wanted to chat. Combine that with the fact that he got me home quickly and without any close calls, and he may be my favourite cabbie ever.

I hope that if I'm heading home after the finals and I need a cab that he is on call. Thanks sir, for restoring my faith in cabdrivers. Now if you could just do something about my poor shot-making...

Just another morning in the big smoke

So this morning, heading into work for my second last day ever (but more on that later) when I see a truck trying to turn right onto Bay from the middle lane of Bloor St. I'm trying to figure out why this driver is apparently unaware of the rules of the road when I see that he is being blocked from the curb lane by a taxi which is parked across both the curb and middle lanes. I mutter something about cabbies and their craziness - which is something I know a lot about - and finish crossing the street. Then I see a middle aged man charge from the road into the GAP store on the corner. I assume this is the cabbie. Stereotypes are a bitch, aren't they? I peer into the store, trying to see what the urgent matter was. Did he all of a sudden decide that he simply had to have a new pair of khakis? Or is he looking for help folding sweaters? Seconds later, he comes back out, dragging a young man with him. The two of them are screaming and swearing at each other (though the swearing part is an assumption, as I didn't actually hear them. For all I know, they are just two members of the Loud Talkers Association.) all the while grappling with each other. Then the punches are thrown and the kicking starts. I'm transfixed. I don't quite know what to do. Pretty much everyone standing on this busy Toronto corner in the middle of morning rush hour is stopped dead in their tracks. Then, the young guy breaks free and takes off down the street, with the cabbie in tow. The young guy easily out paces the cabbie, but then a police car comes along, so he decides to charge into a hoity toity store to avoid detection. It works, at least initially, as the cabbie, who finally caught up, looks around in bewilderment at where he could have gone. I keep watching, trying to see what happens next, and then, realizing that my desk isn't going to clear itself, I head onwards to work. As I'm about to head into the building, I notice that the police car is now parked in the middle of Bloor, and the officer is bringing the young man towards it. They stand there chatting for a minute, and then the young man is ushered into the back of the cruiser. When I get inside the building, I turn around to see what else has gone on, but the cruiser is nowhere to be seen. I'm trying to decide if the reason I didn't even try to intervene is because I was so freaked out I just didn't know what to do, or if I'm so used to random craziness that I wasn't even fazed. I don't even crane my neck at the weirdos who scream on the subway anymore. Am I jaded?