I was at the gym watching CNN or whatever repetitive television network they show at the gym when I read on the subtitle thingies that during the Pistorius case they had read text messages sent from Oscar to Reeva to see how their relationship was. And I thought ya good idea and woah, what if at some point Hennie accidentally murdered me in the bathroom one night and then they looked at our text messages? They range from a lot of I Love You’s to you are stupid, then responded by well your face is stupid. Imagine if the media got ahold of your text messages? Ok I just looked through our texts to find something that could be incriminating but apparently we are boring as fuck…as FUCK! Example: Should I throw out the cabbage? Me: Is it brown? Hennie: Not really. Me: Then it’s fine! I will make cabbage steaks.

So I am started the grueling process of finding a job in the city. I have had some interviews. I have some interesting interviews coming up but I’m not getting excited about them because last time I got excited about a job interview and didn’t get the job I ended up ham showed in a dive bar on Bank street smoking cigarettes and eating poutine and cupcakes…we shall not repeat that this time. One night I was talking to Hennie about how different my interviews were. They were everything from small independent businesses to giant corporations. I looked at Hennie and said, I like small businesses, I’m not sure if I am ready to be just a number, just another cock in the wheel. Hennie looks at me and tells me he is not sure being a “cock in a wheel” is an actually saying. So what are the things in wheels called? Spokes. Apparently I wasn’t sure about being another spoke in the wheel…not cock.

I got stressed out the other day when I realized I don’t even own a pair of dress pants. What if I get a big girl job? I just have leggings. I thought, if I were actually an adult I would wear pants. I would also feel comfortable with a tucked in shirt. So I am currently sitting here, typing with a t-shirt tucked into my pajama pants just to see what adult hood is really like. And I would like to report, it’s pretty comfy…a little nerdy, but comfy.

I was listening to the traffic report from CBC the other day and I appreciate that the dude always tries to throw a bit of flair into the dull traffic update but sometimes it falls flat or leaves me wondering what the fuck he is on about. The other day was my favourite, he said that for today’s traffic there was a lot of tight rides in Ottawa. My immediate reaction was to yell what?? a la Lois from Family Guy, followed by a phone call to Hennie to tell him about the tight rides in Ottawa and then a note to my self to share this wonderful news tip with you all. Tight rides? How come an alarm didn’t sound in his head indicating he sounded like a broadcaster for porn, if there ever was such a thing. Oh my god, I better untuck my shirt now, I am apparently 8 years old. The same 8 year old that nearly died every time we went past a Rona “Do It Centre.” Untucked!

I pulled out onto the highway in Almonte the other day and realized after that there had been a car coming in the opposite direction but I hadn’t seen it. And then as it came closer I saw it was painted in full camouflage. I thought firstly, that I couldn’t believe the paint job had worked, I literally hadn’t seen the car and then I though, wait, that must be fucking illegal to paint your car camo. Like first and foremost it’s hideous but secondly it impairs my ability to see it on the roads apparently.

My Dad was talking to us about my parent’s upcoming trip to Newfoundland this summer and we started talking about our previous family trip there. I said, didn’t we camp in Dildo? Dad nodded as Hennie realized what we had just said. “Dildo??” Yes, Hennie, everyone knows Dildo, Newfoundland. He asked why it was called that and I googled it but totally forget what it said but more importantly, on the Wiki sight it says “The town’s unusual name has brought it a certain amount of noteriety in the same vein as Fucking, Austria; Nob End, England; Effin, Ireland; Twat, Scotland; Intercourse, Pennsylvania; Bald Nob, West Virginia and Wankum, Germany.” I told Hennie we had to save up for an around the world trip (sort of) to all of these places so we could get our picture taken at all of the signs. He was so in. When I went out with some gal friends the next night we googled how long it would take us to drive to Bald Nob, West Virginia just to say we went there. Anyways it’s 12 hours and 20 minutes. So if anyone has some spare time this summer I would totally be up for a road trip. Just sayin’.

So a weird thing happened at a shop I worked at the other day. A guy asked me if peanut butter was gluten free and as with most questions, I counted to three to suppress my snarky comment and create an appropriate answer instead. I replied that, in general, pb was gf and that I considered myself a celiac and I definitely ate peanut butter. At the moment I cold him I was celiac he turned on his heal to look at me with this giant grin on his face. He walked over and tried to make some flirty small talk about gluten. And I thought, what’s going on here. Is he…? Omg I have heard of a lot of creepy fetishes but I think this guy gets off on celiacs?! What. The. Fuck. Nothing says sexy small talk like discussing gluten induced bloating, cramping and diarrhea. I pictured, instead of Christian Mingle, J Date and Dharma Match there would soon be Veggie Match, Lactose Intolerant Lovers and Celiac Singles (because apparently in my head religion is the same as diet?). Celiac singles, where the most annoying restaurant goers can come together, accidentally eat a cracker, bloat, fart and then eventually violently eliminate with a partner! Celiac singles, find your gluten intolerant mate who understands how stressful the subject of oats truly can be. Anyways, the whole thing stressed me out that the guy found my sad and angry gut a turn on. Move along creeper, I won’t even tell you my dairy issues, it might push you over the edge.

Well I just realized that this year it’s the last season of Mad Men, Californication and above all, Sons of Anarchy. I told Hennie there was no reason to live past this year. All the fun in the world will have stopped. A life without Don Draper, Hank Moodie and Jax?! And no JOAN & JEMMA? My female tv heroes?? Fuck it. My enjoyment in life was coming to an abrupt and stressful halt. What’s the point. Hennie shook his head and left the room. Thank you for the support in my time of need.

There is a guy at the gym that wears those weird muscle shirts that look more like pinnies (those stupid disgusting plastic vests you had to wear in gym classes). Where the whole side of the body is exposed and when standing sideways, nipples can be seen. I don’t know why it stressed me out so much to see man nipple but I nearly fell off my treadmill. I wanted to tell the guy his choice of shirt had offended me and unless he was planning on doing some breastfeeding at the gym, I wasn’t sure why I needed to see his nips at all.

We had a date day again, sushi again, beer again. The server was not very happy to be working on Good Friday it seemed. Hennie and I tried to kill her with kindness to lighten her mood. At one point when she delivered another order of yam tempura rolls to us, Hennie was so excited that he sang thank you with a long extended note at the end. She left and he looked at me and said, I sing to her and still no smiles? Yikes. I mentioned to Hennie that I was annoyed with all the Buzzfeed quizzes that were coming out but still felt compelled to take some of them. I took which SNL character I was and got Will Ferrell which is not what I expected. I always saw myself much more as a Tina Fey or Mike Myers sort. Hennie said they were all stupid. Soon they would have what kind of fart are you? Silent a deadly? Tily-a-whirl? Wet? At this point I choked and told him maybe he should lower his voice slightly. People were eating. As we were driving home, the David Guetta/Usher song called Without You came on. Hennie turned it up and said that this song reminded him of me, sweetly. I looked at him and said this song reminded me of Usher and he was super hot.

I decided to buy my first ever “Women’s Health” magazine. What a waste of $5.99, seriously. I thought maybe there would be some motivating articles and some new killer exercises I would get excited about. But no. There were reader questions like “I’m sleeping with a guy who is vocal about his fantasies, but when we get into bed, he never follows through. What gives?” When I read that I was pretty sure that was not an actual question sent in by an actual reader but a stupid question that the writer put in so he could talk about indulging his own fantasies. On another page there were diagrams for which sex positions are best for the penis size you were dealing with. I was like what? That’s a thing? Wow, I just learned something. The “Sex Secret” pages were just filled with hilarity. How many erections do men get a day? The uncut truth about circumcision. Which states sell the biggest condoms and which ones sell the smallest. (Spoiler-apparently all my single friends should be traveling to North Dakota, South Dakota and Rhode Island). And my fave, how many drinks does it take before your penis stops working? It was so golden! And I thought, I will never ever buy this fucking magazine again. What a shitty, shitty rag. But my favourite article was this, in big letters it said GET OUSTIDE!! The letters were against a beautiful backdrop of blue sky and mountains. And then right underneath it said #GetOutside on Twitter! And there we go. Way to kill the message. Go outside but tweet about it while you do it. Argh! I usually don’t believe in regrets but I wish I had not bought this magazine and had instead bought the Star that was a tell all about how fucked up Angelina Jolie’s family was…and how she apparently does underwater screaming therapy. That would have been WAY BETTER then this shit.

Thanks to sodahead.com for the image;)

The Chapters in Kanata has become a pretty intense place to go these days. It used to be a fun place to wander around, check out the books, over priced mugs, ridiculous pillows, magnets, pencils and other shit-I-don’t-need. And it used to be fun. But I noticed recently they have switched to a high pressure sales tactic which is most annoying. The first time I noticed I had three people ask me how I was doing and excitedly tell me that the throws and pillows were 20% off!! I don’t know what a throw is and judging by the fact I am homeless, I doubt I need one, even if it is on sale. So the next time I went I felt like I was playing Pacman or Frogger trying to get the the back bathrooms without being accosted by a terribly friendly sales person. Head down, no eye contact, SPOTTED ON THE LEFT, make a quick right, through the kids section and hazaaa bathroom!

So I’m sure only my family finds emergency phone calls about things at the Hub totally normal. I was at work the other day and on my break I popped onto Facebook. I noticed they were having an auction and one item immediately caught my eye. I had to have it. I wasn’t going home without it. The auction ended in a few hours and I was stuck at work so I called my Mom in a panic. “Are you coming into town? Maybe? Well can you come into town? It’s an emergency. There is a pipe stand with three pipes in it and a tobacco jar up for auction at the Hub. The auction closes at three, please hurry!!” My Mother replied, “Is this to use for drugs?” No Mom, god. I don’t think I would send my happily Christian Mother to the local second hand shop because I was running low on crack pipes or maybe I had just broke my bong. Noooo! It’s for when I have a place, if anyone wants to have a serious conversation with me it is imperative that we both are holding pipes. That is all. I picture Rob and I discussing things over fake pipes every day! I NEED THEM! Mom PLEASE!!! Needless to say my Mom didn’t quite get it but it is never too hard to convince her to go to the Hub. So in the end…I am the proud owner or a pipe rack with pipes in it, weeeee!! My life is practically complete!

Hennie and I, for the first time ever in the history of a long time, both had a day off together last Sunday. When we realized such an auspicious occasion had presented itself to us we planned to have a Date Day! Hennie was immediately worried about how it would all play out when on the morning of DATE DAY 2014 I kept singing “We are on a date day, No, we’re on a date day!” to Twisted Sister’s We’re Not Gonna Take It over and over until he begged me to stop. We went up there to the Union Hall like every other person in a 10 mile radius and ate an uncomfortable amount of pancakes, with full sticks of butter and local maple syrup. We sat amongst our neighbours, our friends and people who wore overalls with a giant wooden necklace around their neck that read Glen. It was so much fucking fun. Plus I hadn’t imbibed in pancakes for months but today, on DATE DAY, I would allow myself to eat whatever the hell I wanted! If Farmer Glen could, so could I! We then shopped around some health food stores in Ottawa, another one of our favourite things to do together, followed by going to an action flick that once again, turned out to be terrible. It was doomed from the beginning when I said we should go to the Coliseum because it’s cheaper and when we got there we realized it was 3D and twice as expensive. And I totally hate 3D! The glasses don’t fit over my actual glasses and I can’t focus properly and always by the end I have a headache because for the past 2 hours my eyes have been going, what the fuck is with the second pair of fucking glasses? We don’t get it? Anyways, Need For Speed, not good, some nice cars, but not good, like at all. Like don’t bother. Anyways, we finished up our DATE DAY by eating a ton of sushi and drinking Sapporo beer. I had no idea Hennie had a sushi addiction until this day. I think he ordered about 4 servings of sweet potato tempura rolls and wanted to order another million. I had to have an intervention with him at the table in order to leave. But yay DATE DAY, what a success!! I don’t have any days off until maybe Easter so this may never, ever happen again.

So I just saw the Conservatives commercial that is an attack ad on Justin Trudeau and I swear, I was by no means a fan, but the more people point out this dudes flaws the more he is growing on me. He apparently dropped the f-bomb recently (we are already best friends) and then in the attack ad they show him doing a striptease. I was like ya Justin is a douchebag…oh wait a second, wow, is he stripping, yup got my attention, he is pretty hot. And he swears you say? Well, I think I have some serious political thinking to do.

Doesn’t it feel weird to walk outside, take a big whiff or fresh air and get really excited that it smells like garbage and shit? I smelled poo the other day while walking to the car and I almost started crying! Weee shit equals spring! Bring on the sweet fecal scent that is Spring!!!

I have bought a new cookbook called Joyous Health and I am totally obsessed with it. I realize I have mentioned it to every second person I have talked to. I started following the author’s blog and also following her on Facebook. I have made the most amazing power balls (just so I can say power balls) and gluten free muffins known to mankind! But it’s crossing a line. This morning Hennie was like, “I noticed you took your cookbook to bed with you last night, is this something we need to talk about?” I explained to him that if there was a fire or an emergency of some kind, having the ingredients for goji berry muffins at my fingertips would make all the difference. Ok. I’m addicted to food porn. While I watch tv and flip through the pages I drool over raspberry cheesecakes smoothies and coconut banana pancakes.Stop judging me world! I love weird food! I am as pretentious as Gwyneth Paltrow and I know it! Ok done.

When I call my mechanic (almost bi-weekly) to ask him to look at my car because something is making a “funny noise” I tend to refer to it as the ancient Honda. He knows exactly who I am and which car I am referring to. When I took it in last week he asked me why the car keychain said Tina on it. I explained that was her name. He asked if it was from Napolean Dynamite. I had no idea what he was referring it to but he told me something about a donkey. I was insulted. I had not named her after a donkey but a lady! A classy, kick ass, Proud Mary, friends-with-Oprah, Buddhist, amazing lady. I told him I had listened to Tina non stop when I got the car because it was the only cassette I owned but then of course the cassette player broke. But Tina is still one classy lady and my car will carry on the strong woman legacy (until it totally shits out which could be any day now).

So I went to a gong meditation yesterday. I have been to it before. I quite like it. But something crazy happens to me after the meditation. It should be about healing and letting go and letting it flow through you and I get that. But for some reason, after the meditation and I take off the eye pillow I have used to force my eyes shut I am completely blind. I cannot focus my eyes for hours! I am in a glaucoma haze which is intensely weird and also makes me look like I have a twitch because I blink every four seconds and try and rub my eyes repeatedly. So, in conclusion, gong meditation does not heal me, it makes me blind. These are interesting times we live in people.

I am always shocked to overhear people at my various jobs talking about nutrition or healthy eating. I am by no means an expert but people are very, very opinionated about this subject whether they actually know anything or not. One lady asked me if I had ever had wild salmon. I told her no I have been a vegetarian for as long as I can remember. She looked at me and told me because I did not eat meat I would be very sick as an adult and would probably die young. Yikes! That was news to me lady! I thought us veggies lived longer?! Who knows. Some ladies were talking about a “diet” they were on but they couldn’t seem to lose weight. Then they both ordered chai lattes with skim milk. I felt reading out the sugar content in their chai syrup and the carb content in low fat skim milk but I left it alone. They were talking about how skim is way better and they drink milk all the time. Do I, they ask? Nope my friends, I do not drink milk at all, never have, never will. We are much more an almond milk and coconut milk type people. And then, the people that are eating healthy are SO EXCITED to see gluten free chocolate brownies!! Because I think in their head gluten free = salad. Even if it is covered in sugar and chocolate and butter, it is still gluten free god dammit. Practically a vegetable!Things without gluten are the equivalent of broccoli! That gluten free brownie is practically chopped carrots! Yikes.

So I watched darts again at the gym today. What has become of this sport? It should be old dudes in traditional thatched roof pubs, smoking pipes and gazing at pictures of her Majesty the Queen, playing this game. But no, now it is large middle aged men in the midst of a freak show of fans. The one guy playing had a faux hawk that was died orange and the shaved bits on the side were painted white and I-hope-to-god-it-was-face-paint but there was a giant snake mouth on the side of his head/face. I thought, that dude must be a pretty good darts player to come out looking like Carrot Tops meets Hell Angels mixed with tattoo fails. He seems pretty cocky. He was playing an ordinary looking bald bloke who looked terribly boring next to snake face. Don’t get me wrong, I think darts is amazing. It’s the only sport you can comfortably play with a pint in your hand the whole time in a pub. That, to me, is the best sport in the world. But the freak show part was not even the players, it was the fans!! Some were dressed up as smurfs, a group had matching giraffe puppets on their hands, one dude had a Lebron James mask on, it was a total riot! I looked up pictures and British dart fans and there are loads of pics of people dressed up at Oompah Loompahs, Wallace & Gromit, elves, Mario & Luigi and so much more! I have no idea what any of these costumes had to do with darts but it looked like pure madness. I remember when the dress code for going out in England was just to look like a total tart, but now, you need a full Halloween costume! God Bless the Brits and the darts league, god bless.

The other exciting thing that happened at the gym today was that I ran on a treadmill. RAN! Finally, after months of going to the gym, I pushed my irrational treadmill fears aside, tried to block out “the treadmill incident” and ran! In public! At oner point I started tearing up, which is hilarious. I think people must have thought I was a serious darts fan to have a little tear up there on the treadmill…watching snake face LOSE to ordinary bloke. People must have thought I was a die hard snake face fan. I guess I kind of am now. Anyways, I ran! And when I went to check my heart rate it was not in athletic training mode or endurance, it was off the charts. Or I’m sure as other people call it, the heart attack zone. Yeah me!

Well I just went snowshoeing for the first time. Let’s discuss the misadventure that was this. First of all I could not figure out how to put the snowshoes on. There were no instructions, just many knobs and strappy things that all outdoor sporting stores are full to the brim with. Then after figuring it out on my first foot by sitting down and really tightening every strap I could find I decided it was on right. I stood up to put the second one one but just as I was finishing I fell over. I felt turtled. I couldn’t understand how to get up with two snowshoes on. After some serious beached whale action I managed to scoot over to an outdoor tap I could use as something to grab onto while I pulled myself up. I was up! I was excited! I had finally managed to put on two snowshoes and was ready to be the Canadian Jesus of snow, angelicly floating on the cold white stuff. The first step I took felt powerful, almost surreal. Then with my second step my foot sank down a bit into the snow. With my third step I sank even farther until, with my fourth step, I sank so low into the snow that it started going into my boot. I made it to the bird feeder to fill it and then disappointingly trudged back to the front door. What a let down! My snowshoes were obviously broken and my Jesus experience ruined. I am over snowshoeing, we are done.

Sorry another music rant. I know I will never be a true hipster because I absolutely do not get Arcade Fire. The first time I ever heard the whole reflector song was when they were on SNL. I felt like anyone pretentious enough to sing mainly one word for 10 minutes on a comedy sketch show should be more aware of their audience. Comedy is an ADD cornucopia of quick wit and lightning fast zings and then these dudes dressed like eighties hipster trekkies came out and almost danced and sang the word reflector over and over again. It ground my gears so much. It felt like a form of torture sent right from Quebec. Quebec was providing me with emotions, just like their slogan. But they were negative emotions. Anyways, the point is I just found out the name of the album is “Reflektor” as is the name of the tour. I swear to god, If I hear that word one more freakin time…They are probably an amazing band but I can’t think of any of their other songs and this one makes me lose my mind. The end.

I keep sending house rental links to my friend Rachelle who we are moving in with in Ottawa this summer. I love the banter that goes on. Love the house but did you know that it’s in Barrhaven? Me-NOOO Barfhaven, no way, we are not living in the burbs. Then I sent another one and she thought it was nice on the inside but from the outside looked like it was in the slums. I thought that the slummy character would be excellent for people watching and may be exciting enough to maybe have to call the cops on occasion. It would be an “exciting” place to live. I would put slums in my pro category.

You know when you walk out into a parking lot and have that moment of panic because you have absolutely no idea where you parked your car? But at least if you don’t have an ancient car (like I do) you can remotely flash the lights or something to help you guide the way? I now have this problem at the gym. I walk into the locker room after a workout and panic as I look at all the lockers and realize I have no idea where I put my stuff. But there is no beeping or flashing lights option. I have to look like a creeper and open a million other lockers before coming to my own. Yikes. Total gym amnesia. Maybe all my rippling muscles are sucking energy from my brain…is that a thing? Does that happen? Oh wait…what rippling muscles…

There is a house for sale in CP and there is a little sign above the sale sign that reads “Bigger than it looks!” and every time I drive by I plan out doing some late night guerilla comedy and making a big sign beside it that says “That’s what he said.” Because it would be awesome. The last time I got ballsy enough to do some good ol’ vandalism, as I am sure I mentioned in other blogs, my friend Rob and I spray painted the sign that announced the new Wal-Mart coming in CP. We dressed all in black, made a plan and then spray painted “Consumer Whore” on the sign. Well, Rob had a little mess-up with the paint can and might have actually wrote “Consumer Whobe” but I imagine it still got our point across. So badass!

I think I’m the only gal in town that when I run into ex-boyfriends I get their life progress reports. You know like how rehab is or was and what they are doing to better their lives. Because I guess I was THAT girlfriend. I’m serious, there is more then one guy that I used to date that every time I see them I get the list of habits they have kicked and the ones they have not. I must have been the naggiest biatch alive for them to still feel they have to explain. Yikes.

I had a crazy dream last night. I dreamt I was being chased by bad guys, the exact bad guys from White House Down to be precise and there was intense fear and running and chasing but also an extreme sense of security. Because in this dream, Sofia Vergara was married to Bruce Willis but he was having an affair with me. And for some reason Sofia knew about it and it was cool but he was protecting us and seriously, there is no fear when Bruce Willis is on your side. None.

I just heard a news story on CBC about how prevalent cheating is amongst college and university students. Um ya?! When you have 5 classes, are working part time and have a million essays and exams due at the same time, you must find a way to accomplish all these things. When Hennie started back to college this year I told him that half of being a student was figuring out how to weasel yourself out of some work and cut corners. One of my Dad’s favourite stories about my University days is the time I used one essay for three different classes. I wrote a comparative essay on something hysterically dry like Plato and Locke. I used it for philosophy, history of political thinkers and something else. The worst part was that I intentionally acted while discussing it with my TA’s for the classes I recycled it in. Like, you know what would be really interesting, and then I did brain storm face, what about comparing Locke and Plato? How interesting would that be? Actually that story is my Dad’s second favourite University story of mine. The first is when I showed up to my economics mid-term and saw everyone taking out their calculators. I hadn’t even brought one. I didn’t think there was actual math involved, just theory. Calculators? Really? Damn. Adding to the fact that I already hated the cold, calculatedness of economics, I marched to the registrar’s office and dropped the class before my stellar 47% exam mark could show up on my transcript. Take THAT economics! That is my Dad’s favourite story. At the end of the news story the CBC news reporter wonder if that means our degrees are worth much less now if we are all cheating. How much less can my degree be worth I thought. Not much. But thanks you CBC for thinking it meant something in the first place. 

You know what drives me totally crazy? People at the gym that wear toques while working out! What the fuck? It is warm in here, you are sweating, my must you wear a bloody toque?! I am going to follow those dudes next time they go to the gym and wear mittens next to them. Mittens on the treadmill, mittens lifting weights, mittens stretching and see if they get how stupid they really look. Then I will add a scarf and do it all over again.

I have been taking a French class which has been really fun. But it’s quite the reaction when you tell people you are taking a French class. My overwhelming reaction has been that people start speaking perfect French to me and it’s like, fuck off. I’m in a one night a week class that is held in the basement of a church. I didn’t become bilingual overnight ok? Simmer. Now I’m pissed and am going to refuse to speak French to you. Take that. 

Hennie is so over winter, as is everyone. But yesterday he came in from outside and announced that winter had gone too far and was definitely laughing in our faces! Winter IS totally laughing in our faces. 

The sound that the vegetables sprayers make at FreshCo is the same shrill noise that happens right before people get murdered in horror movies. I felt like I was slaying each vegetable as I picked them. There should have been gratuitous blood everywhere each time I grabbed a pepper or head of cauliflower. 

Well I have done it. I burned through a whole season of House of Cards and also, somehow, 75% of our allowed internet usage. Weeee! I was so into it I decided to act like Robin Wright’s character. I tried to be insanely nonchalant about everything, while holding a calm, confident rich person stance at all times. Then I started seeing Doug Stamper at my gym. Omg! Kevin Spacey’s right hand man goes to the CP gym! I kept staring at him thinking of all the weird things he does on the show and then he started staring back at me playing right into his kind of weird and creepy character. And then he went on the rowing machine!! Which is crazy because Kevin and Robin are always on the rowing machine in their house when they are not taking over the world. Oh, Robin and Kevin? Yes, in fact, I am on a first name basis with them. We hang out all the time. No big deal. 

I have such a lady crush on Robin Wright. I recently saw her in an amazing movie about her and her best friend and how they start sleeping with each other’s sons. It sounds creepy and it is but it also well done, beautifully shot and will 100% make you want to move to the coast of Australia. When I came down to tell Hennie about the amazing movie I had just watched he started playing Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg’s song “Motherlover” from SNL. “I’m a Motherlover, you’re a mother lover, we should fuck each other’s Mother’s.” It had perfect comedic timing. So proud of my husband in that moment. Quick wit wins my heart. 

 I walked into a store in CP today and from behind one of the cashes a lady that I worked with a million years ago yells out that I have lost too much weight and that my face is all sunken in and sickly. I felt like saying, so is your face but that’s from your pack-a-day habit and probably lots of tears but instead I was dignified. I grabbed my cheeks and showed her that my face was NOT sunken in like a crazy person and then ignored all the following words that came out of her mouth. This women is missing teeth for god’s sakes and she just told me I looked like shit. Fuckkkk youuuuuu.

I’m not sure Hennie will want to watch a Slovakian olympic hockey game with me ever again. I was a weird machine of random Marian Hossa facts the whole game. Did you know he was born in Stara Lubovna? We should name our kids that. Did you know his Dad used to be the head coach of the National hockey team? When he lived in Ottawa I totally knew where, in the Kanata Lakes, he lived. I wonder if his brother is playing…oh he is! Marcel is playing! Have you ever seen pics of his wife? She is stupid hot. Did I tell you about the time I was so obsessed with Marian Hossa that I tried to learn Slovakian? Dovidenia! God he’s a hot, hot man…

I found the best music channel on Slacker. It’s called Indie Coffee House but I don’t think that any of it is actually Indie, someone just though that would be a good title for the station. But it plays all the music that I listened to in England, enough relaxtronica for a lifetime. It churns out Zero 7, Massive Attack, Badly Drawn Boy, Air etc. I listen to it at work and also during my baths. But last bath, as I cozied into my bubbles and expensive bath salts the song switched and it switched to U2. I know, I know, you all love U2, especially the old stuff. But I don’t. It all reminds me of how much of a douche bag Bono is. How self righteous and ignorant that dude is. Whenever I hear his voice I think of how Stephen Lewis mentioned, at a lecture I heard him give at Carleton, that the red campaigns Bono started was more tokenism then actually helping. Like buy a $500 Armani bracelet and $2.75 will go to Africa. And I listen to anything Stephen Lewis says because he is my academic crush. Then Bono, most recently, went to South Africa where turmoil and hatred is ever present and he sang a traditional folk song for the audience, it was called “Kill the Boer.” To me that was the icing on the cake. He had all the media presence in the world and he did that. Invoking violence in a country where tension is already palpable. And he says he is friends with Mandela, because Mandela would never have done that dude. Then his next single to come out was called Sexy Boots…wtf Bono. So when I slipped into my bath of relaxation and U2 found it’s way into my hearing space I was pissed. I almost thought of sloshing out and putting my wet hand on the iPhone just to make it stop. I tried singing over top of it to drown out the sound. I thought about cutting of my ears and in true Bono fashion, donating them to a charity that probably only received a small portion of the ear. But I grit my teeth instead and vowed that this was my last U2 song I would ever hear if I could in anyway help it.

I get concerned sometime about what I teach my husband. I appreciate that he respects me enough to believe the info I give him but sometime I think that I power trip and tell him false information without even thinking. When he first started driving in Canada I mentioned to him that driving 20 km over the speed limit was totally acceptable. Well it was in my books. But he thought that by law, 20 km over was totally fine. He still to this day says he read that somewhere but I know for a fact that it was something I said. The other day when he was watching hockey he said there was only about 10, 000 hockey players in all of Austria and I replied that yeah, Austria was tiny. Like the size of South Africa or Winnipeg. Hennie just took it all in. Now I’m not sure how many of you are geography buffs but Winnipeg is not even remotely comparable in space to South Africa or Austria. I think I give permanent sarcastic information, almost like a tick, that I have no control over. Also when I was in South Africa I was trying to tell them you could fit a few South Africa’s into Ontario, that’s how small SA was. Well this is also not true I have learned. They are roughly the same size. Ontario is a bit bigger. But I feel like I have abused my responsibility of giving out proper information to foreigners and I am repenting. And THAT was your fun geography lesson for the day!

We have spent almost the past year looking for a missing cord for our video camera so we could watch our South Africa videos on the TV. Yesterday Hennie realized that the cord was in the bag the whole time but we were trying to put it into the wrong thing on the camera. We are amazing. So we watched them. It’s always terrifying to watch and/or listen to yourself on camera. Firstly, the night I introduced everyone to Florida Track Suits (Jager, Sour Puss and Red Bull) I turned into a pirate. I have never heard such trucker swearing ever. I couldn’t believe, around my husband’s conservative, religious family, that I had sworn in that manner. It was kind of hilarious. I wondered if I sounded like that all the time and just didn’t realize it. Then our videos from the National Park made me consider a career at National Geographic. We had amazing shots of zebras, monkeys, lions, giraffes, cheetahs and more. But they all were accompanied by my commentary as well. “Omg I am videotaping the lion, fuck….fuck….fuck this is amazing…shit…holy shit there is another lion…Hi Poppa lion…Hennie get back into the car…shit” or “wow I was excited to see giraffes but these are weird looking dudes, they look like aliens…those nubs on their head are weird…shit…” But seriously, it’s some great footage. I hope to edit it someday, put some cheezy music on the background and share for all to see.

I love hearing slogans that are obviously translated. I was watching some Olympic hockey and I noticed at centre ice it said “Hot. Cool. Yours. Russia.” What the fuck Russia? What does that even mean. I totally don’t understand what this is about. Like, check out our temperatures and then we will offer ourselves to the world. Russia. I imagine a bunch of old men smoking in the Kremlin thinking ya perfect, we will mention some almost opposite temperatures then try to sound friendly, almost flirty. Good try guys. I spent the rest of the game trying to figure out this little mistranslated Russian puzzle. It reminded me a lot of Quebec’s most recent slogan which is obviously an awesome translation as well. “Quebec Providing Emotions since 1534.” All I could imagine were people with silver platters walking around Quebec handing out emotions. You get happy, you get confused, you get angry…Providing emotions? What? SO awesome.

This blog post is dedicated to a pretty kick-ass lil’ lady I have had the pleasure of hanging out with over the past few months. All the very best to you and your new life in Toronto! And Happy 18th Birthday!

Road trip to Montreal! Ben and I went in one car while everyone else went in another. Ben pumped his tunes and we we participated in some friendly sibling competition. First we had a dance off (yes while one of us drove), then sang, then rapping and finally, as things always end, a hand in the mouth competition. I had my fist three quarters into my mouth when a cop car flew in front of us with it’s lights on. I pictured us getting pulled over, each of us with our hands fully inserted into out mouths. Like we knew the biggest secret ever but we were keeping a lid on it. Like we had a car full of drugs or WMDs and couldn’t trust ourselves not to say anything. Like we had escaped from a mental institution and a hand in mouth competition was just totally normal. The cop ended up pulling the car over in front of us and not us. Thank god, we thought, that would have seriously disrupted the competition.

Road Trip # 2! Because of some extreme staff shortages I volunteered to drive the kid I have been working with, home to Toronto. She was turning 18 and free from group homes forever. I felt honoured to be the one driving her out into the real world. The whole trip was a celebration of a kid becoming an adult, of sweet, sweet freedom and it was wonderful. I even let my kid DJ the event. She told me she was putting on EDM. I asked what that meant. Electronic dance music, duh! But wasn’t all dance music electronic? What a redundant acronym. She shook her head at me like she couldn’t believe I had the brain power to function on a daily basis. After a few songs I realized something was missing. Like this music can’t really be enjoyed without alcohol and or drugs. But I can’t say that to my kid. Then she said it. And I quietly agreed.

Then she switched to uplifting/sad songs. We both cried our faces off listening to Time of Your Life while driving beside a frozen Silver Lake. She wanted me to listen to the lyrics of the saddest rap song she had ever heard too. After a few minutes she asked what I thought of the song, I admitted, like the secret adult I feared I was becoming, that I had no idea what the rapper had been saying the whole time. He spoke fast, had a lisp and was not enunciating to my standard. She found me some old people rap I could recognize like DMX, Eminem, Fifty Cent and the Notorious BIG. She was equally impressed that I had an iPhone loaded with Kanye and Kid Cudi (thanks Ben for telling me about those artists, I never listen to them but they make my music playlist way more badass).

Another alarming thing happened while I was listening to the rap music that I could actually understand…I started making making Mom face whenever the lyrics were sexually explicit or became offensive. I would scrunch up my face and do short side to side head shakes just like my Mom when she had to listen to Ben and I converse with our intense pirate swearing. Me! The same person who initially became friends with her husband because we both knew all the lyrics the Ballad of Chasey Lain, a seriously smutty song by the Bloodhound gang! I got so pissed off with myself for being so lame that I tried not to move my face at all when the next vocal hurdle arrived. I think at that point I started making more constipated face but it was an improvement. I felt like I was one step away from wearing eighties Mom jeans and I was stressed about it. I even made horrendous Mom music mistakes like when she put on PitBull and I asked if it was PitDog? Like, I should know better. We were listening to Justin Timberlake’s Holy Grail and there was a line, which I was positive said “I just can’t get your goat.” She heard it too. I had once had a music teacher yell at me and say “Don’t get my goat!” At the time I looked around wondering where the goat was and how I had attempted to get it but now I realize it’s just a weird, stupid saying. Then she thought it was “I just can’t get your coat” which makes sense because the next line says, “the next day you’re so cold.” We felt confident in that line until we googled it and it turned out to be “I just can’t crack your code.” The coat one made way more sense Justin, please consider consulting us and not Jay-Z before your next album.

I have crazy dance music on my phone from when I lived in England that she just loved. We were dancing so hard the car was shaking. I was driving so my only dance moves were striking a pose, there’s nothing to it, VOGUE & the robot. We were killing it with car moves when we realized a car full of dudes next to us were dancing with us. For the next few kms they tried to hang out with us…on the 401…dancing…while driving 120 km/h. I felt like I was 16 again.

We belted out so many Whitney Houston songs that by the time we got to Toronto my voice was permanently damaged.

Driving home was less exciting. My legs always start to hurt. Mainly because I refuse to use cruise control. I’m already a pretty distracted driver. I can do a million things while driving, so if I don’t even have to pay attention to the gas pedal I fear that I will forget I am driving all together and start reading or napping or something.

I passed the giant apple thing and was shocked to see the apple pies sold count at 8, 783, 294. It ended in 4. This made me want to go in, buy two pies and wait for them to change it to a six. Why were they not rounding? Why did the single pie matter? Who was the OCD go getter that suggested being that accurate? I contemplated this and stressed out about this until the next service station.

Just as I was arriving back into CP my favourite Soundgarden song came on, Outshined. I had never heard this line before but it made me terribly happy, “I’m looking California but feeling Minnesota.” I decided I would use that in a sentence before the end of the week and maybe even mix it up, maybe on a bad hair day I would look Minnesota. SO awesome. I remembered that one time I was in a band for 10 minutes we covered a few Soundgarden songs. I still want to start a Soundgarden, female led, cover band. And also an Aretha Franklin cover band. I think they could be the same band. And I just totally blew your mind.

I guess I’m getting old when I watch a smutty sex scene in a show I am watching and all I can think about is how straight the guy’s spine is. Wow! What I wouldn’t give to that have that perfect spine. I’m not sure when skeletal parts of the body became sexy for me but that’s not cool at all.

Hennie came home from work the other day to tell me he’s had a customer comment on watching his ass. He had, indeed, been sexually harassed at work. I actually felt a bit okay about it, knowing it wasn’t just the women that have to deal with it. I mean, it’s never okay, but I’m just glad men and women are going through the struggle together. And how come customers in restaurants think they can say whatever they want? I remember when I was working at an Irish pub in town and I was up on the bar cleaning the shelves the liquor was on. One of the old farts at the bar asked if he started waving around money if I would take my clothes off. The other old fart sitting at the bar, my Dad, quickly pointed out to him that I was his daughter. The other guy looked pretty ashamed, finished his beer and left. Good times. I got so used to sexual harassment from bartending in the UK and then Canada I couldn’t even tell the difference between a compliment or harassment. It all came back to me, just after graduating university, when my boss at my first (and only) big girl, salary job asked me if he could touch my ass. I thought, yup, that, my friends, is slightly beyond complimentary. But no worries, I handled it like a pro, I laughed and told him to fuck off. My boss! Ha!

So the most terrible thing EVER happened yesterday. I had spent the better part of the day watching Homeland. Someone had told me season 4 was coming out soon so I decided to google it to see if that was true. AND THE SPOILER THAT THEN PROCEEDED TO HIT ME IN THE FACE WAS CATASTROPHIC! The interweb is such a spoil sport! It happened to me more then once with Sons of Anarchy that I would be doing some extra super fan research on the actors when it it would just blurt out that they die in an episode. DAMMIT! So ya, one of the main characters dies in Homeland at the end of the current season I’m watching. Bloody great. First world problems…

I also watched an episode of Homeland online which had not been edited properly which was so much fun. A young guy’s voice did voice over for an old guy and when they were supposed to be looking at the sight where an explosion had taken place, they just showed a green screen with the word “crater” on it. Boy was that fun. I felt like I was getting the real deal. Like I was practically directing it. So the night after watching way too much Homeland I dreamt all night I was chasing terrorists and reporting all the developments to the Humm. That’s right, our local arts newspaper. I was reporting terrorist activity to the Humm.

I was totally horrified at the gym today when a young guy next to me hopped up onto the treadmill and started running crazy fast. I knew I had the horrified look on my face too. I wanted to yell BE CAREFUL! THE TREADMILL ALWAYS WINS! IT IS A MACHINE AND YOU ARE A HUMAN! YOU ARE RUNNING TOO FAST!! I have been slightly terrified of running on treadmills ever since I had “The treadmill accident” at home. Everyone remembers it. I was running on the treadmill in my flannel pink doughnuts and coffee pajamas when my foot caught the side and I lost my balance. It would have been just like every other Funniest Home Video if I had just flown off the back but instead I had put the treadmill up against the wall. I pinned myself between the treadmill and the wall while the treadmill kept going, burning holes in to my pjs and eventually burning my skin. I screamed and I my Dad RAN down the stairs (the only time I have ever seen my Dad run) to save me from the vicious attack. I sometimes feel like a treadmill war vet. Like I should educate the young people these days on the terrors of treadmills and what it was like to survive a treadmill attack. The nightmares I had! But instead I just horrified faced the guy next to me the whole time, waiting with baited breathe until he lost his footing and flew across the gym. But he didn’t. And I was shocked…and slightly disappointed.

Well we have hit a new low in our gypsy house sitting life. We kept saying, wow we are getting so much better at this moving thing and then something happened. We started acquiring ridiculous things that are now “necessary” in our lives. I travel with expensive bath salts for one, which is heavy and stupid. But even more then that we travel with a blender and now, to top it all off, an espresso maker. This makes us the worst homeless people ever. Hennie was helping me load the car for the move when he asked if he could put something on the passenger seat of my car. I explained to him, as I exited the house, holding my new espresso maker much like a new baby, that the front seat was reserved. And as I put a seat belt around the espresso maker I felt like we were no longer gypsy, homeless travelers but yuppy, homeless douche bags with two cars, two iPhones and some pricey appliances. Yup, this happened.  

Toronto road trip! Road tripped down to the gift show for work on Sunday. I packed too many nice clothes in my suitcase for the show, so I would pretend to look professional but ended up going straight there which had me talking to new suppliers in my pajamas. Serious fail.  After settling into our hotel that had a different name from what it was called on Expedia and letters missing from the sign with the wrong name on it, we ordered in food. It was a snow storm and we needed pad thai ASAP! After 1 hour and no food we started panicking. I started drinking soda so it would fill my stomach and I nawed on my emergency veggie burger I had packed that morning. After two hours I started making screaming throat noises as my hungry stomach tried to eat the rest of my body. All my boss could hear was “I’M NOT GOING TO MAKE IT!” for the last half hour of the wait. 

I had been excited to watch the Grammy’s that night for no reason at all because they weren’t exciting and after an hour I switched the channel only to find out later that that’s when all the fun stuff happened. Ringo’s song reminded me of a nursing home sing-along. And Beyonce had opened with a ridiculous song that had lasted, I swear, over a fucking hour. It was boring, had no melody and was really just background noise for her grinding a chair…and then her husband. The pad thai that eventually came was terrible. The end.

The next day we drove through some serious polar vortex inspired snow squalls on our way to Collingwood. After hours of knuckle clenching driving (I played on my phone, I was not actually driving) a sign from God appeared, he had sent his angels down to rescue us from the road (or urge us to take a break). We were about to drive through Creemore. Creemore!! I started screaming like I was about to meet the cast of Sons of Anarchy and started rambling on about how this was the Mecca for craft beer brewers and beer lovers alike. As I shakily walked into the brewery they asked if we wanted to join a tour as they handed us samples of beer. I almost cried. I was home. This was my homeland and they were welcoming me with open arms. To make a long story short I left with beer glasses and t-shirts and decided that that day was the greatest day ever.  

We stopped in the next town for coffee and food. The town was called Stayner. The name did not sit well with me. It was gross. I turned to my boss and said, you know what Bill did to Monica? He Stayn(dh)er. I felt bad for everyone in that little town with a name that reminded me of ejaculation. Poor Stayner. 

When we got to our hotel in Collingwood I ran to my room yelling that it was time for Homeland! HOMELAND! The next morning my boss said she hadn’t slept well and I said I hadn’t either. Well it wasn’t so much that I couldn’t sleep but it had more to do with the fact that there are terrorists in America and I for one am stressed out about it but also terribly concerned for Claire Danes mental health. Yes, I had watched Homeland until the wee hours of the morning. Dammit! When we were scheduled to leave Collingwood we found out all the roads were closed except for one. Quick! We must make our exit before they decide to close that one too! We settled on a radio station called “The Beach” the voice of Georgian Bay that played Backstreet Boys and Rod Stewart. Lame 101. It was perfect for some more white out driving (I didn’t do the driving here either). We finally got onto some big 4 series highway around Barrie when the traffic came to a dead stop. After about twenty minutes I told my boss that I had had to pee like half an hour ago and didn’t want to say anything but now I really had to go. I told her I KNEW I should have invested in adult diapers for this trip, because it was times like this that would lead me into a total bladder panic meltdown. I started, in my head, planning how I would pee next to the road, in a snowbank, with a million parked cars watching me. I started crazily searching Twitter and other news feeds to find out what the fuck was stopping us from getting to the next toilet. And finally, after 45 minutes we started moving. We spotted a sign for a rest stop and I almost cried. Then we saw it was closed and there wasn’t one for quite awhile and I almost cried again, but for a different reason. We made it home in one piece and I didn’t pee myself. Hurrah!

So I have started scanning for jobs in the city as Hennie and I are making the leap from homeless gypsies from the boonies to actually having a place this summer and we have decided to move into Ottawa. I know! You are all shocked! Here is the thing. We are still young. There is still hope for us finding big kid jobs and actually thriving. This will probably not happen in Almonte. Almonte, I love you, but I need something bigger. Size matters, you know? Anyways, after a few days of casual job scanning, just to see what was out there one of the job search sites sent me a list of jobs recommended just for me. How thoughtful! The first one was a funeral home worker…I thought, wow, this job search site doesn’t know me at all?! What makes them think I can keep a straight face for that long? Or not crack terribly inappropriate jokes and terribly inopportune times? Why would they think I would like to be around dead people? That I could resist putting funny make-up on the deaceased? This job recommendation list is broken but it will, I imagine, keep me thoroughly amused for days to come.