The beaver is a proud and noble animal
Notes from a bemused canuck
I just looked at my watch and noticed that 6 hours had gone by. Katy and I went walkies to the city center for some shopping. I got some aftershave (Ralph Lauren Polo Blue) and a brand-spankin' new 4-slice toaster (cause the one I had was possessed by Satan). I got some goodies for other people, and a puzzle mat for Katy.
It was a really nice day to be out.
Life is good
Oh, and I got a teapot for Katy, because she's british and takes comfort in the fact that she now owns a teapot.
I bought Katy a new cell phone today because her old one was crap and I promised her a surprise if something nice happened. It did, so I got her a phone.
I can just hear her mom telling me off because I'm spending too much money on her (and I can subsequently hear her dad telling me to spend it on him :D )
hee hee hee :D
I've been moving all day today. Spent the morning doing housecrap : waiting for the groceries to be delivered, doing laundry, changing the bed linens. I was supposed to meet some of the guys from work at the Grafton center at 2:30, but the laundry took longer than expected and I cut it a bit close, but I got there on time.
Ran some errands. I bought myself a roasting pan I'd been lusting after for a while (it was half-off, which finally decided me on the issue), got some Whittards goodness. I was able to pop into the fabric shop (that's been having a going-out-of-business sale for the past 2 months) to get some more fabric for the last screen I want to make.
I went to La Senza to get something nice for Katy. Apparently, English men cannot shop for lingerie on their own. It's just Not Done. I walked in alone – Katy was working today again – and as soon as I walked in, two different sales clerks came to my “rescue” and asked repeatedly if I needed any help. Jeez. I mean, I've shopped for undies before and I have a good batting average, according to Katy. I don't know if it's a cultural thing or not, but the other blokes who were in the store with their girlfriends were all blushing and looking like they'd rather be having a root canal than being seen in a undies shop. Now I know I have little to no shame, but come on. It's La Senza, not Sexe Cité…
My phone number is one-off from a taxi serice. The taxi is 918, I'm 819. This means that once in a while, we get the occasional random phone call (usually either really late or really early) asking for a cab.
This morning, I spent 2 minutes arguing with a little old lady that no, this wasn't Phil's Taxi Service:
LOL: I'd like a taxi please
me: I'm sorry, you have a wrong number
LOL: No I don't, this is Phil's Taxi Service
me: I'm sorry ma'am, but it's not.
LOL: Yes it is, I have the number on the card right in front of me XXXXXXXX918
me: You've reached XXXXXXXX819.
LOL: That's what I said. Now I'd like a cab.
me: *silence*
me: I'm really sorry ma'am, but this is a private flat, not a taxi service
LOL: Oh bother (she actually said that) *hangs up*
I was told off because I wouldn't send a cab out to her. If I'd have been just a bit more evil, I'd have taken her address down and hung up way before the end of that stupid conversation…
Got my inner eye pressure tested again this morning and all is well. It actually went down. Given the antics of my ophthalmologist in Montreal, I'm betting that his head was up his ass (or headed in that general direction) when he told me that my IEP was elevated that last time. Anyway, its been measured twice by 3 different people here and it's well normal, so I'm happy about that.
I'm working from home today, cause my appointment made me miss my shuttle to the EBI and there's no real way to get there unless I take a very costly cab. So, working from home.
Surreal moment of the day: as I was waiting for the bus, a plane flew ovearhead. Now given that Stansted airport is close by, that's not really an unexpected event. This one was different though. The noise was so loud that I could feel the engines screaming in the pit of my stomach and when i looked up, it filled my field of vision. I thought it would crash just beyond the neighborhood. In the absence of a big boom and a column of flame, I'm assuming that it made it ok but dayum, that's impressive.
I was supposed to have a day off to go to a rock memorabilia auction at Cheffins today. This has not happened and basically set the tone of my day.
The auction has been postponed until August 16th, so I decided to go to work rather than spend a day doing nothing in particular. That's where the badness began. I spent the day chasing gremlins in code I've been working on. Now granted, bugs are a fact of life but I wasn't in the mood to chase them down. It ended up being a quick fix – I'd zigged when I should've zagged – but it took a while to chase down and ended up giving me a headache.
That's when the email conversation from hell started, which really added just that perfect touch to a rotten day. Over a series of emails of increasing hostility, I've been told that I'm cheap, rude, obnoxious and egotistical. That's always nice to hear. I promised that that conversation is over for today, which is probably for the best because I have rather a lot of anger in me right now.
On a completely different note, I love my sweetie.
Quote of the day:
I'm really my daddy's girl.
Why?
Cause I really need to pee but I have to dry these dishes first.
Item the first: My allergies are making my life miserable at the moment. I'm sneezing and sniffling, I'm dead sexy to look at. I've started taking benadryl on a regular basis again. You gotta love first generation antihistamines. They're as subtle as a shotgun, you have to take 'em every 6 hours, they make you a bit loopy, but da-yum, they work great!
Item the second: While I was getting a coffee this morning, the guy behind me was humming the crazy frog/axel F ringtone. I wanted to bitchslap him.
Item the third: I bought this to stop my epipen from rattling around in my bag and to have a convenient way to carry it when i'm just wandering about instead of stuffing it in my back pocket. I'm also impressed with british mail. I ordered it day before yesterday online and it was in my work mailbox this morning.
Item the fourth: This item intentionally left blank.
Item the fifth: lots of big changes happening these days, all of them for the better. More on this later.
The orange-lime bundt cake I made this weekend is YUMMY!
The next few weeks are going to be rough. Katy seriously hates her job, and it's affecting her physically and emotionally. I'm trying to be as supportive as I can, but sometimes, I'm only human and I react less than stellarly to her grumpiness. I feel bad about it – I know it's not directed at me – but it's still putting some tension between us that really shouldn't be there. She has some interviews lined up, so there are promising avenues, but I'm worried about the toll that the day to day grind is going to take on her (and us) in the meantime.
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Katy and I spent a very productive day finally clearing out the last of the stuff in boxes and putting up decorations. Did a massive cleanup of the place too, as well as doing a gajillion loads of laundry. We didn't go outside at all today, but unfortunately, outside came to us. We seem to have a minor ant problem. We’ve been seeing them once in a while now, but today was the worst – Katy found one walking on her arm while we were watching a movie – not fun! We're going to go to B&Q tomorrow to get some ant traps and call the landlady to complain.
Enjoy the pics and tell me what you think.
And I'm stupidly proud of my Zen garden.
I am.
Edit: what people might not realize at first glance is that the rocks come from: Alcatraz, the Oratoire St-Joseph, l'Ange-Gardien and New Orleans. Oh, and the turtle's from Fiji.