Happy Halloween

I had about 25 kids come to the house for trick-or-treating. They were such cuties. My favourite little costumed kiddie was a little 3 or 4 year old boy who was wearing a body sized yellow tinsel covered egg. He was wearing the top of the egg as a hat. His little face was popping through the egg, like a little chick peeking out of an egg. I'm sure in a few years he will join the legions of spidermen and batmen, never to wear his egg again.

A few years ago, I worked at a bank and one of the customers was a man who had his own construction business. He had three sons, 7, 5 and 2 1/2 years old. He told me that his wife put him in charge of their Halloween costumes. On Halloween, he came into the bank to make a deposit and he had dressed all three of his boys as little girls. He too was dressed in women's clothing. All four of them were "in drag". They looked great. I asked him what his wife thought of the costumes. He said she wasn't very happy. The 7 year old didn't look very amused either.

Signed up for Sailing with Scissors

I am soooo excited. I have signed up for http://sailingwithscissors.com which is a cardmaking cruise hosted by Jessie Hurley of http://www.cherishthethought.ca It will be so much fun. Five instructors teaching 5 different card classes. It is an Alaskan Cruise and the price is right. Check out the sailing with scissors site, mentioned above for more info.

My parents still use a rotary phone

I decided to visit my parents yesterday. I entered their house through the basement and was in the process of taking off my shoes, when I heard a super-loud ringing noise. It sounded like an intermittent fire alarm.
What a minute...it sounded like the crazy-loud ring of a rotary phone. I followed the noise and sure enough, I found a rotary telephone on it's own little table hidden in a corner of the basement. Of course, I ran up the stairs and began harrassing my mother mercilessly about the phone. I asked her if she had churned her own butter that day and if she was going to go wash her clothes on the rocks at the nearest river. Fortunately, mom has the best sense of humour in the world and she just laughed. She said that they use the phone to answer calls when they are downstairs or outside in the garden. Yes, they can hear that horrible ring outside, with the doors and windows closed - yikes.
I ran back downstairs and decided to call one of my pals using a telephone I hadn't used in twenty years.
I called my friend Ana (correct spelling) on her cell phone. Firstly, it took several long painful minutes for the dial to return to it's original position in order to be able to dial the next number. Secondly, and more annoyingly, I had to listen to her whole voicemail message. I have known her for years, and have been able to press the "#" key in order to get to the beep and leave my message. In fact, I have never heard her whole voicemail message. It was lame. It just went on and on and on. My mind drifted off to a scene of a white sandy beach with palm trees and jewel blue water. Suddenly I was jolted back to reality when I heard the beep. I left my banal message informing Ana that I was calling her from a rotary telephone.
When she called me back later, she laughed because when I hung the receiver back onto it's base, she heard a loud clunk that she hadn't heard in years, since she had last used a rotary phone. It wasn't a delicate little "click" that occurs when you press the "off" key, or closed the flip of your cell phone. Next week, I'll have to dust off the 8-track tape deck I eyed in the back crevases of my parents' garage.

Alien Hat

It was time for my monthly visit to my hairdresser. Unfortunately, I began greying quite early in my life so I have had to have my roots dyed every month for many years. My hairdresser is wonderful. She knows exactly how to do the colour so I don't have weird stripes down my hair. Anyhow during one of my visits, my hairdresser had applied haircolour only to my roots and put my head under one of those big dome heaters. She says the heat sets the colour very well. The remainder of my hair is dry because the colour is combed through later on in the process. As I sit there with the heater over my head, with my hair protruding from my head because only the roots have the colour, a little boy, no older than three, stands in front of me and stares. I am reading my magazine trying to ignore the little guy. I'm in no mood to be social when I'm inhaling haircolour fumes, feeling a burning sensation on my scalp and unfortunate enough to pay quite a bit of money for this experience. The little boy's mother takes his hand and says it is time to go. He starts yelling "I WANT TO WEAR AN ALIEN HAT TOO!!!". This behaviour continues for several minutes, which feels like several hours. The other customers look at him, look at me and begin giggling. I pretend to ignore the whole chaotic situation. Finally, the mother drags the little boy out of the salon as he continues to scream about my alien hat. Guess what, sonny...you too can wear the alien hat, $110 will give you this privilege.

Tangled in door at mall

I decided to venture to the mall again, hoping I don't see the lady with the cart again. As I was walking towards a side door of the mall, there was a little old man who got his right coat sleeve caught in the left door handle. He almost appeared like he was in a straightjacket because his left side was pressing into the door and his left arm was not visible. He was struggling to break free. It was just not working for him. I came up behind him and thought to myself how on earth could have done this. I gently pushed him more into the door so that his right sleeve was more slack and peeled it off the door handle. His right arm became free and he was able to untangle himself from his predicament. He was very grateful for my help. He called me Wonder Woman and wanted to buy me a coffee. I kindly declined his generous offer, yet creepy offer and just ran into the mall. Mental note...stay away from the mall.

Stepping on a Strawberry

On my weekly visit to the grocery store today, I'm strolling down the frozen food isle checking out the frozen orange juice when suddenly I hear a "squish". I look down and I had just stepped on a big fresh strawberry. It made a huge splotch on the floor. In fact, it squirted back onto the arch of my foot, through my sandal. What the *bleep*? This thing was the size of a golf ball. How can an innocent little strawberry make such a huge mess.
I looked around in a faux-innocent manner, just to catch the look of a teenaged employee of the store who had seen the full spectacle of my actions. Rats! I turn to him and said "oh sorry, I had never seen the strawberry". He just rolled his eyes and called on his walkie-talkie for a "wet clean up on aisle 3". How embarrassing. Mr. Wet Clean Up must have just mopped up some spilled pudding from aisle 4 because he was at my side in a flash. I didn't know what I should have done at that moment. Quoting from The Clash, "should I stay or should go". I'm not sure about wet clean up etiquette. Anyways, I apologized again. Mr. Wet Clean Up then asked me if I wanted a towel to clean my foot. I declined his offer, apologized again and then ran off. How super embarrassing. Now I'm going to have to find another grocery store to visit.

Cute baby

A couple comes in today to see me at work. They bring their six month old daughter. She is cutie. She has chubby cheeks and little dimples on her arms - absolutely adorable. She is a bit of a rolly-polly, so I ask innocently how much the baby weighs. I know it was none of my business but you are allowed to ask someone's weight if they are under the age of 4. After that, it is either creepy or they are old enough to ask you how much you weigh.
Anyways, the mother says to me that the baby weighs 9 pounds, 3 ounces. This may sound normal to you. However, this is downright scary for me. You ask why? The reason is because I weighed the exact same weight as this baby when I was BORN. I had never realized how Godzilla-like in size I must have been until today.
As soon as I got home from work, I called my mother. I told her the story and then I asked her what the H - E - double hockey sticks did she eat while she was pregnant to have a sumo wrestler for a new born. She said she ate normally and that her and dad sprang extra money for a specialist for her pre-natal care. I don't see how these two things are related but I let it pass. Calmly, I asked to speak to my dad. Again, I repeated this story and asked dad what mom ate while she was pregnant. He told me that mom (he is very cute, he doesn't call, his wife, my mom "my mom"; he just calls her "mom", ate bananas all the time. He even told me that the doctor wanted to give mom diet pills while she was pregnant. Geez, what a great specialist. Mom and dad should have saved their money. At this very moment, I hear an unworldly scream come from somewhere behind my dad. Mom grabs the phone away from dad, calling him a bad name in the process. She said that this was a lie and it was time for her to hang up the phone. Click. She's gone. I am left holding the receiver, realized that the demise to any diet I will break or any exercise regime I will discard is the result of the lowly banana. I never stood a chance.

My Pinky Problem

I have been having computer problems over the last couple of months. I should have listened to Gailishus and KayDee who said "just buy a new one". Well, I just loved my ol' reliable Toshiba laptop. It was great. I had that thing for about 4 years. It was heavier than my car, but worked like a charm. Anyways, one day when my system froze, I decided to just turn it off. Bad decision. It actually corrupted one of the system files and the computer would not boot back up again. I went to my friendly computer guy to fix it. He said it was unfixable. I said "Oh no!!". I have pics on there that I have been planning to upload to my papercraft site but just have not had the chance to do it yet.
Anyways, the guy was able to save my pics onto an external hard drive. Have I tried to retrieve the pics yet...nooooo, I'm too afraid it won't work.
As per my charming and delightful friends, named above, I went to BB to buy another laptop. I found another Toshiba that was silver and very blingy. It also had alot of guts, 4 gigs of this and 4 ram of that...anyhoo, it was pretty and I liked it.
Well, I get the pretty laptop home, install Microsoft Office which I purchased at the same time, and bingo - I was connected. I am writing emails to my pals telling them the news and catching up on my 300 emails that I had not received for a month due to not having a computer. I attempted to use the library computers but the hygiene aspect of using a computer touched by numerous strangers, really did not appeal to me and made me feel icky...however I digress.
As I am typing, I am happy as a clam and then it dawns on me. MY PINKY CANT REACH THE ENTER KEY. I keep hitting the backslash key. Huh? What on earth is this? Was there in-breeding in my genetics that caused the only part of my body to be exceptionally small? I dig for the old laptop that has been tossed aside into the garage and check out the keyboard. The backslash key on the old laptop is higher up on the keyboard. Ugh! How dumb! I was foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog!
I packed the whole thing up, drove to BB, as soon as it opened in the next morning. I showed the customer service rep at the return counter. Her pinky couldn't reach the enter key either. She was shocked. She called over a customer service guy and he was fine. She shooed him away and called another female employee who's pinky also could not reach the enter key. "Son of a Gun" she exclaimed. She had no problem giving me my money back. Most of the laptops at BB had this dumb keyboard configuration. I had to drive over to FS and found an HP that had a normal keyboard. They too had non-female-pinky-friendly keyboards. I couldn't be choosy at this point. I spoke to the manager of FS and he said he will be discussing this issue at the next meeting. I have a feeling this subject may be filed under "g" in the circular file. However, I don't care. I am connected and was able to start this fun little blog.

Elevator Exploits

Today at lunch, I decided that I would grab a Slurpee at th 7-11 down the block. I know I know...my blood sugar will be higher than a Sherpa guide on Mount Everest. Anyhow, as the elevator doors open, a little old man scoots out of the elevator past me. I just walk into the elevator. For a split second I have to decide on whether to press the "close door" button as quickly as possible, or linger a bit since my spidey sense tells me, the old guy exited on the wrong floor. I decide Karma will get me if I don't wait. Sure enough, a few seconds later I hear "wait, I got off on the wrong floor". I hold the door for him and he thanks me. He then states that he meant to press the "G" button for Garage. I looked at him perplexed and asked him if he meant "G" for the ground floor. He just laughed at me. Oh yeah...joke's on me. He then said "hey, you just got on the elevator from the third floor, are you a dentist or a doctor?". I told him no, I did bankruptcies. He then says to me "oh no...you are very bad" in a faux delirious voice. He continues to laugh, wave his hands as if surrendering to me until he exits the elevator on the garage, I mean, ground floor. He then jumps out the elevator and says to me "I don't want to talk to you". He was still laughing and he was quite amused with himself at his behaviour. Of course, I just had a "oh no, I should have pressed the close button quickly" look on my face. Anyways, Karma should be nice to me, at least for 5 minutes.

Last night Catch Up Project Night

Last night I went over to my friend's place (Maureenie) with my other peeps. KayDee, Gailishus and Flower Linda were all there. We each worked on cards that we had not had a chance to complete for one reason or another. K and L worked on previous club cards. G and me worked on Clipper Street card kits. M was the best hostest. She made sure her guests were happy. Thanks M.

Really Nice Sunday

I had a really nice Sunday today. I met a friend I had not seen in a very long time. We went to Granville Island and had a nice lunch at Bridges, outside on the patio. It was delightful.

Hello

Hello
I don't know what has compelled me to start a blog. I have a poor and neglected website that I keep meaning to update. This blog will be more day to day events, as opposed to my stamping. Peace.