Day Two Hundred and Three - Corporate Kitty

In my previous job I organized a lot of meetings. I never went to any of these meetings or really was too bothered about what went on there. The one time when I attended a meeting with clients it was pretty horrific - like a cross between Wall Street [the film] and a Tennessee Williams play. So I didn't have much interest in attending any further meetings after that. However, if I was chatting on MSN with someone [usually this happens while I'm experiencing one of my bouts of unemployment] and they say "I have to go into a meeting" I'm immediately struck down with jealousy. For some raisin.

We also had many board meetings @ my old job. They were always a big scary deal and even though I had less than zero to do with them we always had to wear extra nice suits on these days. Well, after many years of being on the outside and not caring too much about looking in, tonight I attended a board meeting. I felt that my cashmere sweater and purple nail polish would be in order. I didn't eat anything or drink anything and mostly just sat there being quiet. I did have to speak to the board, which was fine. After three years in executive search the whole "stuffy board member" [paranthesis to indicate that this is not always true] is what I know and I'm very comfortable in that setting. And yeah, I can't share much more than that - just pleased to be invited [and then I came home and ate a tin of Zoodles - just like all important people].

Day Two Hundred and Two - Death Is Just The Beginning

I have long wanted to do this ET and since today is a holiday Monday [yes, a week ahead of Memorial Day which unfortunately we Canucks do not get off] it was the perfect opportunity. Also, a special assist from the Space network [the Sci-Fi network in the USA] really made this happen. Today I held a movie marathon. The movies of choice? The Mummy not-so-triology [because the official third film is coming out this summer, however it looks like unwatchable ass so I won't be seeing it] of: The Mummy, The Mummy Returns and The Scorpion King. Yes, starring The Rock. We started watching it around 2pm and after the second film took a break to watch Rome and eat dinner then watched the third film before bed. Oh yum, a whole day off to spend watching crummy popcorn flicks.

The truth is, I do enjoy these films. I know, I know - I'm supposed to not like them as they are well...kinda mostly entirely rubbish. But, Brenden Fraser is entirely endearing in the first two and there is something inherently likeable about The Rock. His name is Duane. Rachel Weisz and the faux-Egyptian chick are all kinds of hot and kick all kinds of ass [including that epic chick fight]. And lots of fun Egyptian stuff that is kinda mostly entirely inaccurate [and yes, I speak from my vast knowledge of like three Near and Middle Eastern Civilization courses]. So I can overlook the annoying precocious child and the crummy CG on the Scorpion King [yes, right on him] and the hacky dialogue...for the sake of fun-ness.

Day Two Hundred and One - The City Of Brotherly Crunch

I love Stephen Colbert. I think that his show is consistently the best thing on late night TV [and I watch a lot of late night TV]. It's incredibly well-written and he is the quickest of the quick. Love it. When he was running for President the coverage of this was presented by Doritos. I have such a love/hate thing with Doritos. During high school for two years straight I lived on Doritos + ice cream sandwich + full-fat Coke for lunch. Healthful. But, let's face it - Doritos are pretty gross. And yet, whenever I see Stephen eating them or talking about them, I want them. And because I have no willpower, I eat them.

Today @ the grocery store I was shopping alone and found some treats for Joseph and then thought I should treat myself. On an end cap was a promotional display for a new flavour of Doritos and naturally, I couldn't resist. I managed to wait until I got home to dig in and I tried the new Doritos Collisions - a mix of spicy hot wings and blue cheese. I love that I can eat meat flavoured things [bacon + sour cream are one of my absolute favourite chip flavours]...especially in chip form. However, this was so not good...and I am a big Doritos apologist. The spicyness was too strong [not too spicy, just too much] and the blue cheese was not strong enough. Truthfully, they tasted pretty vile on their own so I decided to start eating them together - like two or more chips @ a time - kinda to speed the process...that was also...not highly recommended.

Yes, I know eating Doritos is pretty lame ET. However, I spent lots of money [that I don't have] on a digital camera yesterday. Deal with it.

Day Two Hundred - Game Show Winner

It's not often in my life that I pursue the materialistic. And yet, my house is filled with crap. I have closets [and chests of drawers] filled with clothes and shoes and everything else, I have a half dozen bookshelves filled with books, hundreds of CDs [yes, I still buy CDs - shut up], there are currently four computers here and lots of unused furniture even [lamps, TV, a brand new mattress, a slightly broken VCR, computer desk, phones, etc.]. Truthfully, I don't enjoy shopping at all - it's not something I would willingly do or make sport of like most other women [okay, except for grocery shopping]. By nature I am cheap with money and I accept the limitations of having a small living space so much that I do dread bringing new things into it...so most times I don't. I just hold on to what I've got for years and years and sometimes even longer than a decade.

Every so often though I become entirely convinced that I need something new. I do convince myself that it's a "need" and then Joseph becomes convinced of this so then we research and search and then buy that one missing element in our lives. A recently identified "necessary" item was sought out today after much careful consideration and today I am the proud owner of a digital camera. Right now I can't remember why this item was so necessary. It had a bit of something to do with this project and my desire to keep on a-bloggin' after the year is up [haven't decided on format yet]. Also, the desire to share photos easily online with family I guess...though Joseph and I are hardly cute or worldly enough for that to be even vaguely interesting. But yes, digital camera acquired - and with that I make the leap into the twenty-first century. And no, there won't be a photo with this entry as I'm totally into being ironic.

However, I did feel a bit like a game show winner [old fashioned game shows where they had a showcase of prizes that just might have included a camera and a fridge, not new game shows where you are given vast sums of money just for not being a total moron or picking a suitcase or some rubbish] today as we also got a new fridge. Brand spanking new. Although not my first-ever new fridge, this is also exciting. Can't get enough of that new fridge smell. I should probably take a picture of it.

Day One Hundred and Ninety-Nine - Office Yoda

My recent attempts to get back into yoga have been anything but successful. The class times @ the gym are sucky and I don't like the instructor. I haven't tried my @ home yoga since we moved [which yes, was a long time ago] and I don't own Wii Fit yet, though I'm very interested in the whole competitive yoga thing. We have a very overzealous health and safety committee @ work...or rather, we actually *have* a health and safety committee [my old job did not. they didn't have HR either.]. We get internal e-newsletters I think every month and this month it included some exciting new exercises so this afternoon I took advantage of being all alone in my office and I did desk yoga.

The good news is that I did not manage to hurt myself. I seem to hurt myself doing just about everything these days. Honestly, it is a lot easier to relax @ this job than my old one. There is no constant screaming, which helps, and most days the person I share an office with is fine with me not putting on the fluorescent lights. So yoga is maybe not as necessary. I did three different exercises - all of which required me to remain seated. Good times. Good, lazy times. My favourite one was something like the corpse pose in regular yoga - but done in a chair. So, basically just sit in your chair and then pretend you've been shot or something - just slump on down, let your head go and relax...Feel the burn!

Day One Hundred and Ninety-Eight - Word Up

It is very rare that I ever hold a newspaper in my hands. It is this excuse that has allowed me to dodge the whole issue of crossword puzzles well into my twenties [thank you internets for online papers]. See, like Scrabble - crossword puzzles seem like the type of things that I would be good @...rather that I *should* be good @ - and yet - I somehow doubt this. I struggle greatly with puzzles of any kind or little games like Boggle [Peggy Hill would not be impressed] or the Jumble. I think if I were to attempt Sudoku, my brain would explode in a fit of impatient fury pushed too far.

When I did have a longer subway ride back in days of yore, I did pick up the crappy free Metro [this provided much fodder for my many rants against the crappy free Metro and especially their one entertainment "journalist"] and I would attempt their crappy free crossword puzzle. I never once finished it. Even though - the New York Times crossword puzzle this ain't. Well, it's still not the New York Times [you think you're better than us?!?] but today I completed my first crossword puzzle! The reason I played it was because this puzzle got a shout out on ONTD the hot celeb gossip site I like the most [ONTD was an answer!] so I thought I would give it a shot. Many of the clues were hot celeb gossip related. Plus, you could really easily search for hints. I tried to resist doing this, but after letting it sit for a couple of hours and still racking my brain and coming up empty I got kinda antsy and desparate. And yes, I'm fully aware that all newspapers have their puzzles online these days so I really have no excuse for not increasing my word power.

[yeah, no updates. lack of internet for a couple of days. but mostly extreme sloth-itude on my part. i enjoy how the counter seems to go up when i don't post. i guess that tells me all i need to know about my writing skills - you prefer me silent. well. i'm not dead yet.]

Day One Hundred and Ninety-Seven - Shameless Self-Promotion

For anyone who got an email from me today, I'm sorry - but this post is just a big olde repeat. However, it does give you another chance to participate. Here we go: on June 8th I will be participating in the 4th Annual Walk Now For Autism, in support of Autism Speaks. The money raised from this event will provide vital funds for autism research and also be used to raise awareness about the increasing prevalence of this complex disorder. I registered the other day, but my donation box was sitting empty as I had not done any self-promotion. So tonight I solicited friends and family via email to pledge me in the Walk For Autism. And, as an extra bonus - I'm going to shamelessly do the same right here, right now.

In this modern age, donating couldn't be easier - below is a link to my my page on the walk website and donations can be made securely by clicking on 'make a donation online' and following the directions. I have been told that donations can be made from Canada, the US of A and Europe. Autism Speaks Canada is a registered charity and all donations $20 and over will be provided with a tax receipt within 6 weeks of the walk. The website can be a little slow, so please be patient. Here's the link to my personal fundraising page. So please, click to donate or click to check out how I'm doing. By participating in the walk it means that I will be waking up early on a Sunday morning and engaging in physical activity. Outdoors! With no videogame controller attached! Certainly, that alone is a valid reason to lend your support.

While Autism Speaks is not the autism organization that I work for [that would be this website - please check it out to see what we are up to]. However, they do worthwhile work that is a bit different from what Geneva Centre does. And, as always - please feel free to pass this information along as so many people know someone who has been affected by autism.

Day One Hundred and Ninety-Six - Say It Frenchie!

Our unseasonably cold May weather [well, it feels that way to me, but maybe this is normal? seasons be all jacked up lately] has led me to once more turn my attention to my slow cooker and to soup. Including today's soup there were four soups that I wish to try to make for myself - chowder, gazpacho, mulligatawny and vichyssoise [okay and maybe a vegetarian French onion]. Today I made chowder. To be specific, it was a corn chowder and vegetarian in nature. It was...not great. It did not thicken properly, I think because I wussed out and tried to make it slightly lower in fat by using table cream in place of whipping cream. Not really to reduce calories, but I find things that are too much like a crock of rich creamery butter to be a bit sickening. I am getting too bold I think in experimenting in cooking.

As mentioned, I used my slow cooker. I love my slow cooker as it means I can do all the dishes before dinner is even served. In addition to corn the chowder was prepared with red-skinned potatoes, orange bell pepper [supposed to be red, but all the red ones looked gross in the shop] and red onions. I went heavy on the seasoning - to counteract the cream - kinda TexMex style with lots of pepper too [I love pepper - I know that's boring]. Then vegetable stock...then lots of waiting...then the cream mixture that was supposed to stiffen things up [and didn't]. The bowls of chowder were festively topped with cheddar and freshly snipped chives. The flavour was actually not bad, but texture all wrong and not like chow-da at all. Boo!

Day One Hundred and Ninety-Five - There Once Was A Man From Nantucket

Today is Limerick Day - not sure what countries it applies to, but one suspects that it orignates in Ireland? I actually didn't do my usual internet research on this one, instead relying upon the stupid morning radio show I listen to, despite hating it a lot. They were making up a lot of limericks - some baudy, some not and some about celebrities. I was going to try to make some up about my favourite celebs, but I'm saving that for a day in the future when I compose haikus about famous people. But still, I think you can plainly see where I am going with this as today I celebrated Limerick Day by reading and writing limericks.

Yes, I finally looked up the original "man from Nantucket" limerick and also one of the dirrty versions. It's quite filthy, while the original is quite clever. People say that limericks are funny, but this obviously is not true. I mean, they aren't funny-funny, more clever-funny like when people say that Shakespeare is funny or maybe Noel Coward. For me...well, earlier today I almost peed myself while looking @ a tattoo of a dolphin in an easy chair using a bong...so...I think you can see where my sense of humour stems from. Still, it was fun reading a bunch of limericks and as a literature graduate [sure, trying to work this in more and more - get some buzz going] I really can appreciate them [colour me impressed, I really was]. And while the format is deceptively simple, they were harder than I thought to write. I'm only going to share one [and you have to know about lolrus to really get it, thus limiting its broad appeal], but I highly suspect that with a bit of booze and some clever friends writing them would quickly become high-sterical.

There once was a girl from Nantucket
Who was pleased with her very fine bucket
But her walrus, named for her Da
Ran away to a spa
And as for the bucket, Pawtucket

Day One Hundred and Ninety-Four - Loosen Up Your Buttons

Okay, so reaching into the far reaching of my ancient history I'm assuming that somewhere along the way I did sew a button. I mean, I was a Brownie and a Girl Guide. However, I tend to treat my clothes very gently, so I don't lose buttons [although I always keep those extra buttons for some reason]. But on the glorious day when I do lose a button or sustain any other type of clothing damage - I throw out the item of clothing. Okay, I know. It's terrible. In my defense I have too much clothing anyway due to me not growing since I was like 12 years old [okay, I'm fatter...but I still do wear clothes that I bought when I was 14 years old].

What I know for sure is that I've never sewn a button on for someone else or used the original button [I seem to recall funky-ing up some tight pants with different buttons while @ university and going through an exceptionally frugal/vintage phase] so tonight I sewed a button on someone else's shirt. Of course this person was Joseph - he is good enough to keep his buttons when they fall off. I used an innovative x-style of sewing [and I still can't thread a needle], which seemed to secure the button moreso than its fellow button brothers, which seem ready to pop off @ any given moment due to shoddy stitching.