It has occurred to me that there are certain laws that might actually benefit from vigilante justice: for example…

1.Cars that double park – everyone knows this is illegal, I think that it should be legal for passers by to slash the tires of anyone who double parks. I mean it might take an extra five minutes to move the car out of the way but seriously, if you’re pretty much guaranteed to have your tires slashed, who’s going to double park anyway. The only people who might still double park are those who need to for the sake of an emergency and they have bigger things to worry about than replacing their tires.

2.People who don’t pick up after their dogs – I think there should be temporary tattoos for this one. In every park (or other place where dogs tend to do their business) there should be temporary tattoo dispensers (and dog-poo bag dispensers). If, after being politely asked to pick up after their dogs, people still don’t do it, they should be forced to submit to the application of a temporary tattoo of a dog taking a dump which would be ceremoniously applied to their forehead.

3.J-walkers who hold up traffic – now I don’t have a problem with responsible j-walking, I mean I’m a big fan of it myself but when people think that it’s their right to stop cars just cause they’re too lazy to wait for a break in traffic, well I think that every driver should carry a broom. Whenever a driver is forced to stop (or prevented from starting) by an irresponsible j-walker they should have the right to chase said j-walker of the street with the application of a few liberal wacks with said broom.

Ah yes, today we had one of those days.

It all started with a trip to the vet. We had been referred to a specialist for our dog and, half an hour and $100 later the ’specialist’ decided that she was going to refer us to a specialist. Well it turns out that the ’specialist’ was actually a generalist due to some error made by the woman who booked the appointment. Shrugs all around but poor Meeka is no better off.

Then we decided to pop across the border to do some shopping at the Factory Outlets. The border guard told us to go to the outlet mall at exit 37. 22 miles later we arrived at the regular mall at exit 37. “Excuse me,” I asked, “where are the factory outlets. “Ha, ha,” was the response, “they’re all the way down in Hudson Falls.” (i.e. really far away). No big deal, we had passed an outlet mall just across the border…so back we headed. 20 miles later we pull into the parking lot at the factory outlets and notice that we’re alone. Well, almost alone, the weeds and bushes pushing up throught the concrete did welcome us as best they could. Yep, despite having a functioning website, the outlet mall was well and truly shut down.

We crossed back over the border and, wonder of wonders, found ourselves stuck in traffic as we crawled home. Now thankfully we stopped off at Costco on the way and did manage to find shorts which will hopefully fit. I mean we tried on our respective pairs in the store, over top of our jeans (no changing rooms in Costco). Anyway, I’m convinced that the unattractive lumps were the result of wearing jeans, not flaws in the shorts themselves. You know what, just to make sure I’d better go and try them on for real…wish me luck!

Hello all, well life is plodding along, we are about to reserve our plane tickets for our delayed but fondly anticipated honeymoon, my mom and brother are coming out in a couple of weeks for a visit and a golf tournament, and I am trying to catch up on all those chores which I have been putting off for the last three months. Unfortunately with all this rushing around I haven’t had many opportunities to observe amusing things; being unemployed though, I have learned the value of a dollar. In fact, this is what you can get for $20 (Canadian) these days:

6.2 square feet of glass tiles or;
1 hour watching diving at the Aquatic World Championships – from the cheap seats or;
A train ticket to take you half way across Thailand or;
7 whole chickens minus the wings and drumsticks or;
15 kg of dog food – the one with the cute golden retriever on the bag or;
One gallon of interior wood stain or;
Five gallons of gasoline or;
Six pairs of underwear from the ‘mix and match’ bin.

You know, I thought that being unemployed would be boring. I had mental images of me in the kitchen, baking muffins to stave off extreme boredom…yeah well so far it hasn’t really been like that. In addition to the horrible interview (by the way, the Wyoming Toad was my answer to the question ‘name a dryland species which is critically endangered’…I got it wrong, the Wyoming Toad is actually extinct in the wild, not critically endangered. You know, saying that, over the past three months people have discovered three species in the wild that were previously thought to be extinct so perhaps I am actually a visionary, perhaps I am actually so connected to the drylands that intuitively I can sense that somewhere in a mud-hole in the grasslands of Wyoming a lonely toad huddles, critically endangered but not yet extinct.)

Wow, that was a long parentheses. Oh speaking of which, I have learned that I have absolutely horrible grammar. Now I’ve never really known how to punctuate, I generally toss commas in where they ’seem right’ and use the odd semi-colon to add a bit of excitement to whatever I’m writing. Well, it turns out that contrary to my hopes I’m not a natural grammatician (see, I even make up my own words). I learned this was someone was editing my work and they told me, ‘in this sentence here you should be using a long dash rather than a short dash.’ What? There’s more than one dash? Turns out that there are also four dots, in addition to the traditionally used three dots, that the rules for punctuating within and around quotation marks are currently under review, and that there are about seven different punctuation options associated with the word ‘but’.

I have a lot to learn; maybe that’s what I’ll do tomorrow instead of putting the insulation in our new wall…hmm, grammar versus playing with toxic insulation, that’s a tough one!

Ohhhh, I just had the worst interview ever. I had prepared dilligently…for the absolute wrong type of questions and so was left having to guess wildly and mumble ‘I don’t know’s on far too many occasions. Anyway, in an attempt to look on the bright side of life, here are five good things about my interview:

5. When I asked a question for clarification they didn’t know either
4. I managed to guess what ICARDA stands for
3. When they asked for a list of five partner agencies I got to say ‘only five’ (they didn’t seem impressed by that).
2. Who wants a job with such a stupid interview anyway
1. I got to say ‘Wyoming Toad’ in a job interview