My Relationship With Tacos

Every once in awhile, when it is near the end of the work day and I am debating what to make for supper, one of the most marvelous words in the spanish dictionary forms in my mind:


(I actually do visualize it in that crappy '97 Microsoft word art format. I clearly need to upgrade my mental operating system.)

No matter how bad a day I am having, realizing I will soon be partaking in savoury tacos is enough to put me in good spirits. The rest of the work day is usually a write off since all I can do after I have this epiphany is bounce up and down in my chair while my brain rhythmically chants Tacos tacos tacos TACOS TACOS tacos tacos T-A-C-O-S, tacos tacos TAAAAACOS!

TacosTACOStacosTACOStacos!

TaCoStAcOsTaCoStAcOs!

taCOS! taCOS! TAcos! TAcos!

socat!

Tacos??

Ta......

COS!!!!

TACOS!

As soon as 5:00 p.m. hits, I begin the taco obtaining process by racing to the grocery store. I approach with the intensity of a Mission Impossible movie, determined to fend off danger and distractions in any form. Runaway shopping cart in the parking lot? BACKFLIP OVER IT! Driver not paying attention? DRAMATIC ROLLING OFF OF HOOD THROUGH THE AIR WITH PERFECT LANDING! Shoelace undone? LEAVE THE SHOE BEHIND, THERE IS NO TIME! Elderly woman taking too long to go through the entrance? VULCAN DEATH GRIP! (It's possible the vulcan death grip actually appeared in a different movie, but that is irrelevant.)

Upon entering the store, I am immediately greeted with more obstacles and distractions. Slow walkers, delicious non-taco food, cute guys with scottish accents asking for help with their packages...........of sugar. (The latter ONLY happens on taco craving days. It's a cruel conspiracy of the universe.) I skillfully dodge them all, assemble my taco ingredients, pay, and depart for home. Tacos tacos tacos tacos TACOS!

I arrive home in a tizzy. I can't get to my door fast enough. My work clothes fly through the air like a child's refused vegetables and are replaced by ground beef and sour cream splatter acceptable clothing. It's usually at this point that I realize I've forgotten to buy one of the main staples of tacos: taco seasoning. Once I have recovered from this initial blow and have finished blaming past Lorraine for her blatant incompetency, I review my options.

Current Lorraine's Options:

1. Drive back to grocery store. Repeat Mission Impossible theme. Consider repelling through roof over taco seasoning aisle.
2. Go to the nearby gas station in the hopes they have taco seasoning.
3. Call gas station to first confirm if they have taco seasoning as to not waste precious potential taco-eating minutes.
4. Decide all prior options take up too much time and attempt to make own seasoning with pepper, montreal steak spice, and a bottle I'm pretty sure is garlic salt. (I always go with this option.)

Waiting for the ground beef to cook is the part that requires the most patience.

There's so much pink! Why is there so much pink? HOW IS THERE STILL SO MUCH PINK!? Why won't you turn brown?? Are you too GOOD to turn brown? Are you not turning brown just because I want you to turn brown?? Fine, I DON'T want you to turn brown! Okay, I didn't mean it; please turn brown.

Once the ground beef is ready and the ingredients have been strategically placed in the taco shells, the excitement starts to climax. I am SO close to the prize. I take a second to mentally prepare myself. It's time. No more waiting. Everything, everything (from the grocery store) has lead to this moment. I pick up my first taco, which is horribly overstuffed in all the excitement and has already started to fall apart. Handling it delicately and lovingly, I take my first bite. And then.......

Tacorgasm.

Yes, it just doesn't get any better than this.

I eat until I am over satisfied, and put away my leftover ingredients in a post-taco-daze.

Until next time tacos...until next time.

Sometimes The Most Effective Way To Express Your Feelings Is Through a Pie Chart

Last night started off as a pretty average night. I came home from work, ate, relaxed, tv'd, internetted, and completely ignored my plans to go to bed at a semi-decent time. I'd finally started to drift off around 12:30 a.m. when I was awoken by what I can only describe as the sound of someone stomping in big, wet, sloshy rainboots down my condo hallway.

I was immediately extremely confused. My brain struggled to push me into full consciousness while trying to comprehend why someone would be stomping in big, wet, sloshy rainboots down my hallway in the middle of the night.

Fully awake and slightly terrified, I stared wide-eyed at the ceiling and weighed what I had heard against logic. I decided there were only two distinct possibilities; either there was an angry fisherman standing outside my condo door, or something else happened that only SOUNDED like an angry fisherman stomped down the hall to my door. Which was more likely though?

Reasons it could be an angry fisherman:

-Was raining today...could account for sloshy rainboots

-Building security not very effective. Could totally see some pimply teenager holding the door open with one hand for murderous-looking angry fisherman while holding six pack of beer, video games and graphic novel with the other

Reasons it would NOT be an angry fisherman:

-Fishermen rare in Edmonton due to lack of large bodies of water

-Have you ever seen a picture of a fisherman who DOESN'T look happy? Like, really.

Although I carefully weighed each factor, I was still pretty torn:

My next step was to determine if this sound was worth getting out of bed to investigate.

I quickly made a mental list of pros and cons for getting up:

Pro - If angry fisherman is present and threatening situation ensues, can better utilize mad ninja skills if not lying down

Con - Must leave illusion of impenetrable fortress created by hiding under covers

Pro - By getting up, I will burn 7 of the 400 calories I intended to burn off before deciding to skip the gym today

Con - On a scale of "unlikely" to "extremely likely", the odds of me tripping on something in the dark are "definite"

Pro - Angry fisherman might be cute?

Con - If there is no evidence to back up strange sound, will have no choice but to determine sound was a result of a bad food dream forcing me to sacrifice my customary fruit-roll-up snack before bed

Pro - Maybe the lottery ticket I bought last week WAS a winner, and the sound I heard was actually people excitedly hiding so that when I walk out of my room they will jump out and yell "SURPRISE! YOU ARE A MILLIONAIRE! Here is your oversized cardboard cheque. We apologize for how difficult it will be to fit it into the bank machine's deposit slot. Would you like to pay someone to deposit it for you?"

It was upon realization that the safety of my cat could be in jeopardy (I don't know how fishermen feel about cats) that I finally decided to conduct a quick walk-around.

I stepped into the living room, turned on the light and was astonished by what I saw...

As it turns out, my cat was the angry fisherman!

Apparently the sound of big, wet, sloshy rainboots stomping down a hallway is identical to the sound your cat makes the first time she yaks all over your floor.

Chasing The Apocalypse

I feared for my life a little bit last night. Just a little bit.

My friend Peter and I were taking a stroll around the plaza where we got our ice cream (CHEESECAKE flavoured ice cream...how long has this been around and why did nobody tell me sooner?!) when we looked up at the sky and saw a huge storm front moving in complete with suspicious looking green clouds.  Peter made a comment about how he felt like we should be in Independence Day, and I agreed. I stared up at the sky and waited for some gigantic alien ship to emerge through the clouds.

We'd already changed our plans because of the weather. We were going to head down to Ed Fest to see The Arkells and Pilot Speed when the thunder made us change our minds. This was probably a good thing because apparently, according to the Sonic 102.9 twitter feed, the stage blew over, and garbage cans were flying through the air.  Not wanting to be blown over OR hit with garbage cans, Peter and I did the next most logical thing. Got food and went tornado chasing.  

Although I had my smaller, lesser quality camera with me, I still wanted to go home and grab my "good" camera, which took us in the same direction as the ominous dark clouds.  I've got my head out the window while snapping pictures with one hand and steering with the other, and Peter is torn between staring at the clouds and making sure I don't crash my car.  We came to a stop light where I could finally take some non-blurry pictures, and noted that we just may be witnessing the apocalypse.

Earlier in the evening, Peter had rolled down my passenger side window not knowing it was broken, and naturally, it refused to go back up.  This wasn't that much of a problem until a huge cloud of dust and debris came tumbling down the road at us. Peter is now manually holding my window up, and the wind decides to take some rocks - not stones, but rocks - and attack my car, leaving a nice crack in my windshield. You know, because the broken window just wasn't enough. *growl*.

We turned into my parking lot, and the street lights, as well as the lights in my building, are flickering on and off. Peter had been kind enough to hold on to the cup of my leftover ice cream until he had to put it on the dashboard to hold up the window, but since I'm driving like a maniac, it went flying through the air and landed in his lap.  I start laughing. He is not too pleased, but figures it's an equal trade off for the broken window. 

Up in my condo, Peter cleans up while I grab my camera, a few garbage bags and some packing tape.  We go back down to my car and notice that it has decided to start raining.  We frantically try to tape up my window but keep losing the end of the packing tape. Okay, *I* kept losing the end of the packing tape.  I can't do things when there is a storm to distract me!  I get all giddy and excited and ridiculous.

Peter uses the light inside my car to search for the impossible to find end of the packing tape

We finally get it taped up as much as possible and try to drive off to find a good place to watch the storm. Except for one little problem. With the passenger side window now completely covered in black garbage bags, I can't see any traffic coming from the right, and therefore cannot make any left hand turns.  So, four right hand turns later, and we'd settled in a little parking lot near my condo building. And, after years of trying, I was finally able to photograph some lightning:

This one flickered for a good few seconds and Peter said "You HAD to have gotten that!" Yes Peter...yes I did.

I call this one "Nature Doing The Splits"

Sheet lightning making my condo building look like the entrance to the abyss

We eventually decided to head back to my condo and watch the rest of the storm from my balcony.  Of course we did this when it was raining its heaviest, my parking lot was a massive river, and it was hailing.  I thought it would be a good idea to take a video of the mad dash from the car to the condo. You can't see much in the middle of the video, (it's mostly my high pitched giggles), but it was the most fun I've had in a long time.

A Surprise Around Every Corner. Well, One In Particular.

It was an average night after an average work day when Nikki and I decided to go for some average food at an average restaurant. We finished a scrum-diddly-umptious meal and headed out into the parking lot, giggling about something that I'm sure only we would find humorous. We turned to go around the corner of the building, and stopped dead in our tracks. Here is the conversation that immediately took place:

Lorraine: Um. That's a penis. That man has his penis out. 

Nikki: ...and he is peeing.

We abruptly turn around and walk back the way we came. Nikki is laughing uncontrollably. I am in a state of shock.

Nikki: I didn't see anything except the stream.

Lorraine: I noticed IT first and THEN the stream! He wasn't even using his hands to aim! He was just STANDING there! I don't know whether to be impressed or disgusted!! No wait, definitely disgusted!

I start gagging. Nikki laughs harder at me gagging, because for some reason, it's hilarious to her.

Lorraine: I really hate Edmonton sometimes.

Luckily when we went around the other way to my car, mysterious drunken peeing guy had disappeared. But I still gagged, (and Nikki still laughed) alllll the way home.

Home Sweet Hotel Room

Today has been a gong show.  

Why is it that every year I fly home for the holidays (and by every year, I mean this year and last year) there has to be some ridiculous snow storm exactly when I am traveling? Is mother nature so cruel that she would send her frozen fury right at the time that everyone wants to travel for the holidays? Is she bitter that she doesn't have a family to visit for Christmas, and is taking it out on us? No Father Nature to cozy up to? No little mini-natures running around the...uhh...earth or sky?

Today started out with me being worried I was going to miss my flight at 4:40 p.m. Turns out I didn't have to worry at all. I could have even stayed home for a few more hours. My flight didn't leave until 9:30 p.m. This would be all well and fine if it was a direct flight to Hamilton.  Except this flight was only 36 minutes to Calgary, where I was supposed to catch a connecting flight to Hamilton. The connecting flight did wait, but not long enough. So here I am using a hotel voucher from Westjet at the Travelodge, which I arrived at with my voucher for a taxi from Westjet. Do I have a flight tomorrow? Nope. What did they say to do? Call between 10 a.m. and noon. WHAT!? I just tried calling Westjet and got a message along the lines of "Due to the immense amount of phone calls Westjet is experiencing, our phone system is not capable of holding your call. Please try again later." 

Honestly, I don't even mind the delay itself. There is no rush to get home as long as it's before Christmas. What upsets me is that my flight hasn't been rescheduled. And I'm sure any remaining flights to get anywhere in southern Ontario between now and Christmas are booked solid. And all I can think about is that I'm going to end up spending Christmas in neither of my homes, but in a Calgary hotel room. And that thought is so depressing that I may have to break into the mini bar. Actually I don't even see one in this room. Probably a good thing right now.

I have to say, so far, and despite what I have written, I'm proud of myself for taking all of this so well. Up until I found out my flight wasn't rescheduled, I was doing great. I was even laughing at the ridiculous things other pissed off travelers were saying. "You know it's all Westjet's fault right? They new from the beginning it was going to be delayed that long. They just kept delaying the flight by 30 minutes so we wouldn't get upset."  Now with this logic, either Westjet is incredibly stupid as obviously people would be more upset in the end, or the person who told me is immensely stupid for believing a conspiracy theory between Westjet and it's customers. I'm going with the latter.

What really gets me is the people who think they have a right to scream and complain to anyone wearing a westjet uniform.  When the customer service desk rep was asked when another rep was coming to help him with the insanely long line, he said soon, and some huge jackass behind me in line actually had the nerve to yell out "'Soon' according to Westjet means an hour and a half." This was after he discussed with someone how in "flight attendant school" they have a special course for time terminology (such as soon=an hour and a half). He also advised not to ask too many questions because they wouldn't be able to understand. I finally turned around and faced his immense beer belly and said "They're doing everything they can. There's no need to be a jerk!" He nodded and, I think, concentrated on not tearing me a new one. Anyone who thinks that Westjet intentionally delayed the flights and caused the chaos at the airport is off their rocker.  I wish that full grown adults had the maturity to realize hey, it sucks for everybody. Snowstorms screw up flights. It happens. Deal with your anger in a "grown up" way instead of complaining and screaming at people. 

Some funny things have occurred through all of this.  It was the first time I had seen a roll call done on a flight. We all raised our hands as we heard our name, just like in grade school. I wanted to yell out "PRESENT!!" but lost my nerve.  My favourite part was when they asked if Ryan Hays was on board;

Stewardess: Is there a Ryan Hays on board? Can you raise your hand please? Ok, I see two hands there. I only need one for Ryan Hays. Thank you.

I guess one was Ryan Hays, and one just really wanted to be Ryan Hays??

Other things that happened:

• Got "randomly selected" to be padded down by security. A VERY thorough pat down, mind you. I had to swallow back "So...are you going to buy me dinner now?" jokes.
• Asked for a tea when the beverage cart came by. Got it just as the pilot announced "we are now beginning our decent. Please place your trays in their upright positions and prepare for landing." Subsequently had to chug hot tea.
• Nearly yelled "DOWN IN FRONT!" at a child in the way of the Shrek Christmas movie they had playing at the gate.
• Voucher said "Travelodge, Mcloud". Taxi driver said there were two on McLoud. Naturally, only one took the vouchers, and we went to the other first.
• Fell asleep clutching my cell phone and laptop in a comfy chair in Second Cup.

Things that are happening now:

• I'm going to bed.
  

Here's hoping I make it home for the holidays. I'd give just about anything to hug my parents and hold my baby niece right now.

We're All The Stars Of Our Own TV Shows

I was accosted the other day on my way to work.

I had just stumbled off of my bus ride in my usual early morning zombie-like state and made my way to the street corner across from my work. I immediately noticed a few people standing around the corner with a tv camera aimed at them. Before I turned my head in an attempt to discretely walk by, I saw that it was two people collecting for the Salvation Army with a bell and a collection ball hanging thingy. I'm sure there is a more technical term somewhere.

Turns out it was someone from Citytv breakfast television trying to help the Salvation Army rep collect donations. I made the mistake of turning around and accidentally making eye contact which she used as her opportunity to ask me if I would like to donate anything to the Salvation Army. 50 cents, a dime, ANYTHING she says. Not wanting to be the jackass that turns down a charity, especially on tv, I dug out my wallet, faced the camera, and wished I had been a little bit more attentive with my make up that day.

When I put it in, the Citytv host asked me if there was anyone I wanted to say good morning to. Knowing that A) there would be nobody I knew who was watching that

station at that time and B) well...actually just point "A)" again, I stared terrified into the camera and said something resembling "uuuuuummmgggguhh...gooooood moooorning...uhhh....Edmonton???" to which she responded "Well said!"

I was actually able to retrieve a shot of me being on tv. Here is a screen shot of the incident:

After this, I swiftly walked into work extremely flustered and hoping nobody saw my tv debut.

Nikki wasn't in yet, so I went up and left a note on her desk saying "I was accosted this morning." but left it unsigned. She called me about 15 minutes later. Our conversation went like this:

Nikki: How were you accosted?

Lorraine: How did you know it was me?!

Nikki: Honestly Lorraine...you're the only person I know who would use the word "accosted."

She knows me too well.

Premonition

Driving home on Saturday night:

Thought process in Lorraine's head:

Why are these freakin' cars driving so slow?! Why do people drive EXACTLY the limit here? Get out of my way. Yeesh. Finally, I can accelerate. Okay, I'm only going 70k/h in a 60 zone. That's not bad, I can live with this. Hey, it's weird, I keep hearing about how they have photo radar here, but in the year I've lived here, I've never gotten caught. Which I'm pretty lucky for, because I speed a lot. Although now that I'm thinking about how I've never been caught, I'm probably going to get caught. Ha, wouldn't that be a crappy coincidence. That would suck. *Looks around nervously*

*FLASH*

Me: Nikki. Did you see that.

Nikki: Yes. You just got caught on photo radar.

Desperate for a drink

Nikki and I are waiting to get drinks at the bar at the bowling alley. The server is checking ID for some people ahead of us.

Server: Can I see some ID?

Young girl: *hands a piece of paper that looks like an official government document*

Server: *pause* I'm sorry, I can't accept this.

Young girl: Why not??

Server: Well...the picture is taped on.

Further Evidence That I Should Not Procreate

It's getting harder to laugh at the stupid things I do when they occur so often.

Some backlogged items:

3. A month or two ago I told Nikki that the drain in one of our double sinks was clogged. The water was murkey and I couldn't see the bottom. Turns out I just completely forgot that I put the plug in. I discovered this two days later. (Thankfully before I contacted our landlord)

2. A month ago I was working late and realized I had to move my car as my parking had expired. Got my car, moved it into the company parkade, then tried to use my keycard to get up to the lobby. Didn't work. Had to wait for someone to come out the door and then snuck in. Got to the lobby, couldn't scan in the elevator. Got security to scan me in. Got to my floor. Couldn't scan into my floor. Went back down to the lobby. Security calls our company rep. Gets permission to scan me onto my floor. I leave a message for Facilities to fix my dang card. I grab my stuff and leave. I go to scan into the elevator on the off chance it will work. I hold up my key card and realize...yes. I have been using my apartment keycard instead of my work keycard. Yes, they look identical. But are on separate keychains.

That brings us to today's incident.

1. I tried baking a carrot cake last night for our United Way bake sale today. I got as far as getting the batter ready in a bowl before taking a break and subsequently crashing. Tonight I attempted to finish, which I thought I had done successfully until I realized I had forgotten one vital item; the carrots.

I'm getting kinda scared. Hold me.

Note to self: don't...do...anything.

Nikki: You're a disaster today.
Lorraine: You tell me that every day.
Nikki: No, I usually say you are a mess. Today you're a disaster!

I'm not sure if this is the way I have always been and I just never really took note of it, or if this is something new. The last time I felt this clumsy was probably around puberty, when my body started growing rapidly but had apparently left my hand-eye coordination behind.

Lately I've been doing things like walking into walls, coffee tables, various other inanimate objects, and just getting hurt in very strange ways. (Moreso than usual, is my point.)


I guess they aren't only strange but also stupid. For example, I can't keep a drink from spilling to save my life. I also keep perpetually walking into the corner posts of my bed. On closer inspection, it looks like someone specifically designed the posts for this purpose. Despite the obvious lack of esthetics, I am still considering buying foam or some type of padding and using duct tape to securely fasten to each post. *brief moment of affection for duct tape*


Then there was the incident a few days ago where I seared my finger on a broken part of a mixer that belonged to a movie-theater style popcorn maker. How did this happen, you ask? Well, first of all, I'm an idiot and immediately grabbed it when it fell out of the popcorn pot without it even occurring to me that it would be ridiculously hot, and secondly, it was part of my volunteering duties for our United Way campaign at work. Since it did occur on work time, I briefly considered filing for workman's comp, but discarded this idea due to the consequence of having more people find out about my stupidity, and subsequently creating a safety incident report which would soon be circulated to the entire company.


Unfortunately, this was not the only incident with the popcorn maker...oh no. I also had a burning hot kernel fly out of the pot and target the gap between the collar of my shirt and my chest like a fat kid on a smartie. Fearing I would accidentally bare my breasts in front of my coworkers during my mad attempt to remove it, I ran away clutching my chest. (You can imagine how graceful and sophisticated this looked.) Two days later, I have three very red and very large blisters from where it first fell beneath my breast, stubbornly moved to a second spot under my breast, and firmly planted itself in the center of my bra, the part which provides the most pressure against the skin. If I could put up a tactful picture of this, I would.


I can't help but wonder how this particular kernel found it's way three feet away from where it was sitting and into the tiniest crevice of my shirt. Really...the angles must have been so precise and exact, along with the amount of velocity it took to shoot out of the pot. AND it knew to do it when somebody I had just met on the United Way committee was talking to me. Which makes me hope I haven't developed a reputation as "girl who burns herself by accident a lot." Yes, there is no doubt...this kernel was out to get me. This kernel HUNTED ME DOWN. (Kudos to anybody who got the Dane Cook reference.)


I've been trying to come up with a good reason that these things keep happening, and after ruling out brain tumor (mostly because that is clearly a child of my paranoia), I have yet to come up with a good explanation. So for now, let's go with a second puberty, and I will heartily await to grow another few inches taller.

Key Calamity

First of all, I'd like to acknolwedge how crappy it was of me to send a note out to everyone saying "Hey, I'm blogging again, check back often!" and then proceed to not post anything new. I think I kinda scare myself every time I do that. You know. Because that means people might actually be reading this.

I seem to be having bad luck with keys today.

I was so proud of myself for getting up early (by early, I mean on time, which really is early for me). I went to leave the house when I realized, as usual, I had forgotten my car keys downstairs in my room. The weird thing is, they weren't in my room. Or in my purse, which I tore apart, or in my jacket pockets. Or in the tv room. Or on the kitchen counters. Or in the upstairs hallway. (You get the point.) I'm starting to snicker at the irony that the one day I am actually early/on time, I'm going to be late because I can't find my car keys. So I finally give in and grab the spare set, which I don't like because the lock remote doesn't work (I know, spoiled). Halfway to work, I remember; yesterday I had softball and was wearing my rain jacket. Guaranteed they are in that pocket.

I feel a bit better pulling in to work. Until I get up the elevators to the electronically locked door. I hold my purse up to activate my keycard (because I am too lazy to take it out at the time, and it still reads it) but the little red light doesn't turn green. You've gotta be kidding me.

In my search for my car keys, I took my keycard out of my purse because it has little keys attached to it that fool me into thinking it is my car keys. Evidentally, I forgot to put it back in.

Funny how losing one set of keys can cause you to lose another.

I also walked into the corner of the open metal drawer of my desk.

It's 9:00 a.m. Can't WAIT to see how the rest of the day will go.

*AFTER PUBLISHING NOTE: I asked for an extra keycard from our admin. It was when she brought it to me that I realized my keycard was already hooked on my beltloop, and not in my purse. I didn't forget it at home, I forgot I was wearing it!! That's the LAST TIME I'm going to get up early for work!!!!

Absent-Minded

*Staring blankly at screen*

Today I drove to work. I pulled into the dreaded Impark parking lot that I hate but have no choice to park in and parked beside the machine I have to buy a ticket from. I got out of the car, went to the other side of my car closer to the machine, and proceded to open my gas tank. After staring blankly at it for a few minutes I remembered that hey, there's no gas station here, and hey, I'm trying to pay for parking, not pump gas.

I did something else absent minded today but I can't remember what. HA.

Innovative Car Repairs

I don't know why it is people keep hitting my car when they are backing out of parking spaces. Is my car invisible? Because it looks silver to me. If I have been driving around with an invisible car, I would hope that someone would have told me by now. The idea that I have had an invisible car this entire time and not taken advantage of it is upsetting to me. I wish Impark personnel couldn't see my car the way these people that keep driving into me don't.

What makes me the most angry is knowing a simple glance in the rear view mirror or side view mirror would quickly indicate to them that yes, there IS indeed a car behind them and maybe, just maybe, they should attempt to avoid hitting it. Who ARE these people that slam on the gas pedal and think "Look out, I'm coming back, if you get hit, it's your fault!" Perhaps they are the same people that ride their bikes into parked cars. By the same logic, would you walk backwards without looking? No...so why would you operate a huge device made of steel worth thousands of dollars with you in it without watching where you are going? WHY!?

The inspiration for this rant came from a recent incident in the Best Buy parking lot. Here I was, driving very slowly, making my way over to an empty parking stall. I see a car backing out to my left. I see the car isn't stopping. I'm too far along to brake and avoid a collision, and cannot accelerate fast enough to get out of the way. So I slam on my horn and hold it down. The car still comes. I look around me trying to think of what other possible signal I can give to indicate "HEY YOU ARE ABOUT TO DRIVE RIGHT INTO ME YOU MORON". After a good three seconds of horn blasting, the car backs into me anyway, crunching my driver's side door. The wonderfully ironic part of the story is that the weather conditions were atrocious as it was the second day of our April blizzard. So one would think that car accidents would be more likely to happen. But this accident had nothing to do with the weather! She didn't slide...she didn't even try to brake. It had to do with stupidity instead.

She gets out of her car all distraught and apologizing. I say it's ok, these things happen, once I take a few deep breaths to calm myself down. After all, it could be a lot worse. After going inside her van to get a pen, and me hearing her teenage son in the passenger side say "I TOLD you to stop!" and her replying with a polite screaming "SHUTUP!!!" she advises me she wants to pay for it herself instead of going through insurance. I'm fine with this. But upon consultation of my witness, he says I might be able to just take an ordinary hardware store plunger and pull the dent right out. Apparently this is a secret weapon to many a body shop repair man. The paint isn't scratched at all, and I figure if I can do this, I can save both of us some trouble.


There is no way you can plunger your car without having someone take pictures of it. (Thanks goes out to Nikki. Ma homegirl slice. Word.)





First, I had to try to sterilize the plunger a bit. My car is dirty enough without feces on it. This is me soaping it up and doing my best to avoid touching it. Gross.

This is me doing my very best to get the best suction against the car door as possible.



This is me losing my plunging mojo. As you probably would have guessed, it didn't work.

So...anyone know a good auto body shop in Edmonton?

Spring In Edmonton

This is a cell phone picture I took from my bus on the way to work on this lovely late-April morning. That is, after I walked to the bus stop, slipped and fell on my hands and knees, froze at the bus stop for 45 minutes waiting for a bus that was, coincidentally, 45 minutes late, and froze at my transfer bus stop for another 20 minutes. Oh, I also had the priveledge of listening to someone's crappy music while snuggled tight against strangers in the bus shelter. What is with those crappy ear phones that come with ipods that make it so that not only the listener but everyone around them has to deal with their poor taste in music? That is, unless my ipod is on. Because we all know how wonderful my taste in music is. *Lorraine hopes anyone who knows that she has a song from the movie Cinderella in her itunes is not reading this.*

Let's all try and ignore the fact that it was 24 degrees out a week and a half ago. Which just happened to be on my birthday. Being as it snowed the next day, logically, the only way to make sense of what happened is to deduct that it was a birthday miracle. And Edmonton weather is spawned by the devil.

Hospital Humour

Yesterday Nikki and I had the pleasant experience of spending essentially the whole day at the hospital. It wouldn't have been so bad if she hadn't of been doubling over in pain and I wasn't weathered down with what I had just discovered was strep throat, a nasty sinus infection, and a nose bleed that was on the verge of needing to be cauterized. (Dry Alberta weather + sinus infection = Lorraine thinking she must be hemorrhaging from the brain.) But no, we could not be free to enjoy the multitudes of sick (and strange) people, rude receptionists and doctors, and the maze that is finding radiology. Something was wrong with Nikki, and we had to find out what.

After being guided from hallway to hallway, wrong room to wrong room, we finally found where we were supposed to be only to be told to go to the front of the hospital and go through patient registration. Back through the maze we went and got in line.

There was a sign posted at the front of reception:

MATERNITY VISITING HOURS

Friends and extended family: 4 - 8

Siblings and grandparents: 11 - 9

Father: Anytime

Nikki made a seemingly logical observation: "What about the mother?"

Lorraine: "Well...it's 'maternity' visiting hours, so...I'm pretty sure she'd already be there."

Nikki: "Oh yeah. Ha. I'm an idiot."

No Nikki, you are not. You do, however, have blonde hair...

Text of the Day

After texting Nikki for awhile while I am on the bus on my way to work, she writes:

"You're sitting on the bus beside a creep while you have a bloody nose...and I'm falling into holes. No wonder we're friends."

Pack Rat: 1) A person who collects, saves, or hoards useless small items. 2) Lorraine

I should be in bed, but I had to write something about this.

I just spent the last four hours going through my old bedroom. Last summer I moved into my new bedroom next door which is a heck of a lot bigger and therefore a heck of a lot awesomer. (Yes, I said awesomer.) As such, there were many items in my old bedroom that didn't get transferred over, and hadn't been sorted through in years.

Some examples of things I found:

-certificate of acheivement in piano. From when I was FIVE YEARS OLD. That means it's been in there for *counting on fingers* 17 years.
-Treasure trolls. If you felt the urge to go "oh YEAH I remember those things" when reading that, it will give you an indication of how ridiculously old they are.
-The price tag from my grade 8 graduation dress. Yeah, I don't know either.
-A grade 2 illustration of different types of spiders. Apparently there is one called The Lazy Cowboy or something of that sort. I think our teacher made it up as a joke to play on us, cause really, it just sounds like an unsatisfying sexual position to me. What?
-Newsletters from ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. Why...why??
-An ultrasound. Of me. Dated November 1984. In a bag with tonnes of congrats on the new baby cards. Apparently my mom is just as much of a pack rat as I am. Although I suppose those things are more sentimental. Why she kept them in my closet all these years? I have NO idea. She likes to put things in "safe spots" and then forget where they are.
-A hospital bracelet from when I was admitted for my back years ago. (I couldn't even lie down without screaming in pain). I also found in that bag with the baby cards my mom's hospital bracelet from when she had me. It was a nice "Aw, mother and daughter both save hospital bracelets" moment.

...and there are many MANY more strange things like this that I found and have no idea why I kept.

The good thing is I've been able to detach myself a lot more from things like that so I don't feel bad throwing most of them out. After all, what am I going to do with my grade 6 school year agenda? Remember how I had a spelling test on a Thursday? Oh the memories...

Negative Parking Meters

The other day a friend and I headed out to get some food at The Snooty Fox. (I almost wrote Snotty Fox...I'd imagine the restaurant would have significantly less appeal if that were it's name...) We parked, put money in the meter and headed inside. After a yummy breakfast complete with potato catapulting contests (actually it was just me launching them at him,) we came back outside to find our parking meter expired. The weird thing is it wasn't just expired, it was actually showing a negative amount of time by six minutes. In light of this occurrence, I must ask the following series of questions:

• Since when do parking meters actually start counting the time that's passed since the meter expired?? Am I really that behind on my parking meter technology?
• How does it get reset? Does it monitor the weight of the car on the parking spot so it knows when one leaves or pulls in, like a drive through?
• Is this REALLY how we are using our advances in technology?? Parking meters?? Who the hell is out there devoting their life to developing more technologically advanced parking meters? "I used my university degree to develop a better hearing aid for the hearing impaired." "I used MY university degree to develop a more efficient device for diabetics to keep track of their blood sugar." "...I used MY university degree to make parking meters count backwards."

Kudos municipal government. If you're going to start charging for expired time, I'm going to request a refund for the remaining time on the meter the next time I leave before it's expired.

Office Smack Talk

I recently got Laura, one of my best friends, a job at my work. Which means the days are a little less boring. And by a little, I mean a lot. We like to spice things up by emailing each other quotes from The Office throughout the day and making hap hazard paper airplanes to throw at each other when no one's looking.

So, in our comfy little accounting department, we have these two stamps, one to fill info out to enter an invoice and one to fill out info for paying an invoice. Today after some of Laura's usual smack talk, I menacingly held up the stamps to her and said:

"I will TOTALLY enter you and pay you."

"Lorraine...think about what you just said."

*pause*

"...OH MY GAWD!!!!!"

Toronto, Kyle Wellwood, Sushi, Shoplifting, and Darrin Pfieffer. Good Weekend.

This past Thursday night, at approximately 9:38 pm, an insatiable urge to have a night out in Toronto hit me, and hit hard. So I called up my Toronto friend who lives right downtown and asked what he was doing the next night. I soon figured out he was at the pub due to how long it took him to put words together. But he assured me he wasn't drunk and we finally concluded that I would visit and we'd go out and do something. Friday night I called again to confirm and he said "I wasn't sure if I'd dreamt that conversation or not." Never make plans with a drunk person. Although the view from his condo is enough reason to forgive him:


Before I drove to Toronto, I stopped by to see Laura who was home sick in bed. She was supposed to have a roller derby bout the next day (also her birthday) but her doctor thought she had mono, so she couldn't play. Well, she could, but not without the risk of rupturing her spleen. Spleens are unpleasant enough when they are intact. Also, Kyle Wellwood, her all time favourite Maple Leafs player (who she is also in love with) was supposed to be signing autographs at the new Future Shop in Erin Mills the same day. While she was lying down, I snuck into her closet and stole her Wellwood jersey, and two pictures she had of him. Thankfully she didn't notice. The next day I got them signed and took a video clip of him wishing her a happy birthday/hoping she feels better. I burned it on a cd for her, along with some pictures I took of him. Here is the video of Wellwood: (please note his enthusiasm)

http://www.motionbox.com/video/player/359cd9b1181dbe



Now here is the video of Laura opening my present, which I enjoy much more than the previous video. I missed the part where she first figured out what I had done but got most of the surprise in:

http://www.motionbox.com/video/player/359fd7bd1a1ebe


Other notable parts of my weekend:

• Tried sushi for the first time and gagged. Although I do like sakki
• I accidentally stole a camera lens cleaner pen from Future Shop. But I felt so bad that I had mindlessly walked out of the store with it that I went back in and paid for it, after a good five minute internal moral debate
• Two words: Home Movies.
• Apparently Darrin Pfeiffer from Goldfinger thinks I'm hot. GREATEST COMPLIMENT EVER. Although I think he might need glasses...
• Dawn is working at 102.1 the Edge and I am JEALOUS. But it was awesome seeing her again. But I am JEALOUS.