House flipping and home design shows.
Rock, paper, scissor.
White callas.
Hot sauce.
Lysol.
Feist’s new album.
Clean towels.
Daydreaming.
Laughing on the radio.
Singing really loud when I’m alone.
Pacifica candles.
Fight club references.
Winking.
Tipping.
Hoping.
Right now, it is 10 C (50 F) in Vancouver, with a rain warning, and lows of 8 C (46 F) tonight.
In San Diego, where I was last week (and the week before) at this time, it’s 21 C (69 F) with lows of 16 C (60 F). No probability of precipitation.
Seriously.
Come on now. I don’t even own any fall clothing. Or a raincoat.
I actually wouldn’t need to buy shoes or fall clothing if I lived there. I could live in skirts and Havis and be done with it, since I don’t work in a corporate environment. Sigh.
It’s not just the weather that bugs me, though. I love seasons in general (although I don’t know that Warm Rain/Cold Rain qualify as seasons.)
It’s that I went to Southern freakin’ California and felt good about myself and my body for ten full days, even though I am larger and don’t have all the “right” clothes — and wore less clothing, to boot!
If men looked at me, it wasn’t to scoff. I literally always felt like I fit in, even in a place often described as one of the more shallow locales on earth. No one ever looked askance at me… not even women with fake boobs in bikinis!
Funny thing, though. As soon as I got back to humble, polite Canada, I felt immediately under scrutiny, and that I didn’t look right or have the right things on. From the moment I arrived at the airport, actually. And ever since.
What the heck? Talk about a chill setting in.
I really gotta figure out why that is.
(To find all the other lists, just click on “listy” in my categories, or search on the term “Friday” right over there —->)
Well, it’s Friday, and I woke up with a dent in my head. I feel like a golf ball. If golf balls only had one dent.
It’s really sore, too, which makes me think I bonked it on something in my sleep, and don’t remember.
That is totally the kind of thing I do. In fact, I’ve done it before. More than once.
I’m not sure why I’m fussing about it so much, then. There always seems to be someone who can tie head dents into the presence of brain tumours or radical mental illness or aliens on the cerebellum. To them I say: STOP TYING THINGS IN. I really can’t do it, not with my OCD brain. I’m already freaking out that it seems to be getting wider.
I’m going to end up in the “As Is” section at Ikea.
AAA!
So, rather than continuing to Google variations on this theme, I’m going with a new mantra: when life hands you dents, make dentmonade!
Without further delay or head-feeling…
THINGS I LOVE
Undented heads
Concord grapes
Kitten heels
The photos that come up on my phone when someone calls me
The way my roommate gets excited about TV show premieres
Deck door open, fireplace ON
Hoity-toity grocery stores
The New Haven boys and Montelongos on Flip This House
Arugula (or maybe just saying it)
Hair bands (both the kind that sing and the kind that hold your locks back)
Stephen Colbert
Cheese parties
Car dancing
Good mergers
Blue skies on a Friday
Bacon Salt
Sleeping! Because I’ve been doing it for two weeks now!
Beanbag shipments by Fedex
Boot weather… and plans to buy some!
The smell of woodsmoke
Men who make me laugh instead of argue
Men who make me laugh WHILE we’re arguing
California tan, just hanging on
And you? Love it up on your blog, or in comments here.
“found dent in head”
“don’t think about leaving things plugged in”
“lyrics+november rain”
“head dent+brain tumour”
“eyelashes always tangle”
“ryan reynolds+hair products”
“head dent+mental illness”
“coffee good for skin”
“re-potting plants without trauma”
“radical change in sleep patterns+head dent”
HEY.
STOP TRYING TO KILL ME.
SERIOUSLY.
Before I go on, I should say that a good many of you are awesome. Helpful, funny, thoughtful, gracious, skilled… oh yes. You are a credit to your profession. I’ve really enjoyed watching you do what you do.
But as someone who has been on Vancouver buses for more than a decade — and in all three zones — let me say that many of you could use some remedial driving classes. Or maybe just a less violent sense of humour.
I’m not sure if you’ve just been dealt a bad hand in terms of vehicle quality (I’m sure that’s the case at times, and that’s not your fault) but the way you operate the buses MUST be having a fairly negative effect on their functionality.
You brake like you couldn’t make out the stop light from a block away. You take corners like Mario Andretti. You weave haltingly through traffic like you were a Yugo and not a giant death rocket with 40 people inside. You cross into other lanes like you don’t see the lines on the road. You drive too fast, merge too slow, stop unnecessarily, and refuse to stop for no reason at all. I’ve twice been on buses that have caused accidents with a fair amount of damage… and yes, it was the driver in error.
And with some of you, it’s not just the driving.
I’ve seen you yell at old ladies who moved too slowly to sit down. I’ve seen you kick people off for being a dime short who commute peacefully with me every morning. I’ve seen you keep up a running commentary on the appearance of everyone who got on or off the bus. I’ve seen you scream at people who couldn’t pull their wheelchairs into place properly (”Haven’t you been a cripple for a while now?”) I’ve seen you get off the bus to become involved in physical altercations with people who weren’t even ON the bus. I’ve seen you throw things and break things that were owned by your riders. I’ve seen you refuse to put down the wheelchair ramp because you were “running late.” I’ve seen you bellow at young mothers who were struggling with their strollers. I’ve seen you refuse to listen to people who couldn’t speak English, and refuse to speak English to people you didn’t like.
Yes. You’re human. We all get fed up at times.
But when your job is to drive safely and interact with the public in a polite and efficient manner, then I’m sad to say a great many of you are failing miserably. Not just slipping up now and then, but showing a total and complete lack of concern for any standards in your job.
I pay too much every month to feel this unsafe.
I don’t have another option economically or locationally, so I’m going to keep riding. And I’ve done my part by calling you guys in when things really got out of hand, as with the time I told you a man was smoking in the back of the bus, and you kicked him off at my stop after informing him I was the one who let you know.
I really enjoyed being followed by a screaming man. Thanks. It’s good I wasn’t some old lady, because I doubt she’d have felt comfortable to yell right back.
But according to my ideals, being a union shop should give you PRIDE in what you do, not an excuse to take advantage of job protections. If you’re too stressed to do it, you need to move on. That’s what the rest of us have to do, too.
It’s just that most of us, when we get stressed at work, don’t have multiple lives in our hands.
Like mine.
Yours,
Meg
Just a question.
In order to answer this question, you must:
1. Be a girl (Well, you can be a guy and recommend shoes, but only if they make a girl version)
2. Over-pronate when you run
3. Own running shoes
I’m looking to buy a good, solid pair of running shoes for my upcoming fitness kick (who knows how long it will last? WHO CAN EVER KNOW?!) and I’m considering Mizuno Alchemy shoes right now (for some reason, I can’t get images to load on that site, but you can read the description. They might load on the American site.)
What do you wear? Do you like them? What shoes HAVEN’T worked for you?
I’ve had bad experiences with New Balance shoes, and Saucony shoes. Nikes have fit well. I LOATHE UGLY SHOES. I know, I know.
Go!
Yes, I’m home.
And back at work.
And still tanned, but fearing a fast fade into pasty white oblivion.
Vancouver is about 10 degrees cooler, 20% more humid, and the pillow-stuffing sky doesn’t even remotely resemble palm trees outlined in azure.
BUT.
If vacations lasted forever, they wouldn’t be vacations.
They’d just be… well, who am I kidding. That would be awesome.
I’m going to write up the whole experience in the next couple of days, but I just wanted to say HI! HELLO! HOW ARE YOU?
And give you a tiny little love list to make up for my lack of Friday Love last week.
THINGS I LOVE
Laundromats with old ladies who point at your underwear and go “Oooh!”
Kindness
3-song playlists
Remote control boats at the Santa Monica pier
Bad girl eyes as created by this and this
Iced coffee
Crooked frozen smile
Fritz and Shirley
Peppermint gumballs
Lil’ Fiji (Eric brought these home and I went bananas. I call them Weejis. But not oujias. NOT TO BE CONFUSED)
Wearing a red muumuu at the beach
Freckles
Artichoke hearts
Drinking coffee at 1 am, but feeling so relaxed you fall asleep anyway
Snake bites (not the deadly kind)
Stepping away from all the chirping of Internet pundits for a bit to remember you know how to make your own opinions
5 new pairs of Havaianas (These in beige and black; these in rose and gold; and this style in brown with pink straps and dots. Mmmm.)
And you? Come on. I know it’s Tuesday, but this is a two love list week for me.
One must love it up when one is back to work!
Once I’m back home, that is.
Oy.
This sped by like a freight train.
Lots of pictures and silly experiences to share, from giving a woman a concussion in a Denny’s at midnight to having my pants come off after a particularly awesome wave to spending an unholy amount of cash on flip flops.
Stay tuned.
Love to all.
Catherine had a root canal yesterday.
And not just a root canal, but one with an abscess they discovered underneath!
WOO!
Yes, emergency dentistry when you’re away from home is no picnic, especially when the Vicodin they give you makes you ill, and you have to make do with Advil and Tylenol instead. She’s pretty tuckered out.
So we’re running close to home and low-key for now. We’ll see how things evolve in our last couple of days here.
In other news, San Diego weather reports indicated it would rain today… and it’s bright and sunny.
Good try, San Diego!
(NO ROOT CANAL STORIES OR HORRIFIED COMMENTS. NADA. UNWELCOME.)
(Sympathy is good, though.)
1. I have the same size hands Ava Gardner did.
2. Never go into a washroom when a man you’ve never met leaves it with a smile.
3. Seared tuna with wasabi dressing is perfection.
4. There can actually be coffee too strong for me.
5. I missed my calling as a DJ.
