Bubble Squeak

Roller coaster

August21

It has occurred to me that I might be a tad on the emotional side these days. I mean I’ve always had a touch of moodiness but this is a whole new level.

Case in point…

Why don’t people cry when their anthem is played after they get a gold medal? I’m totally um, watery eyed and I’m just watching it on TV. I don’t even have the years of pain and hardship to look back on. Oh here comes the crescendo – it’s so beautiful (sniff, sniff).

God damn it why isn’t he crying. Doesn’t it mean anything to him? He isn’t seriously winking at the camera is he – a friggin wink. You know what maybe he should just stay home next time and let someone who cares win for once.

Asshole.

And another…

Obnoxious guy who lets his dog poo in our yard and doesn’t pick it up: Your dog attacked my dog.

Me: Oh I’m sorry, she was just barking because your dog was on our property.

OG: No your dog is evil I don’t like how she’s looking at me. Get her away.

Me: Ok, sorry again. Meeka, come here…good girl.

OG: Good girl, good girl how can you say good girl.

Me: It’s ok really, we’re going inside now.

OG: Next time I see your dog I’m going to hit her.

Me (at the top of my lungs): BERT, BERT, BERT, BERT, BERT, BERT, BERT, BERT, BERT, BERT, BERT, BERT, BERT, BERT, BERT, BERT, BERT, BERT, BERT, BERT, BERT, BERT

So you see I’m flipping from soppy to unreasonably angry in the space of a note and from overly placating to completely flipping out in a step and a half. Is this what hormonal feels like?

posted under Diary | No Comments »

Rings of Rage (aka my Olympic Rant)

August14

First off, Canada hasn’t won a single medal so far while even Mongolia has won 2. Yes, Mongolia. In fact both Uzbekistan and Togo have won medals and their school gymnasiums have like, corrugated metal floors or something.

Which brings me to the whole Canadian attitude of ‘it’s not about how well we do, it’s only a matter of how much fun we have’.

Um…bullshit.

That kind of attitude is great for minor hockey. It’s what you tell a 6-year-old so they don’t cry after letting in a crappy goal. But we’re talking about the Olympics here. If you’re expected to medal and instead don’t even qualify for the finals you should be pissed off. I sure as hell am.

Can you imagine pulling that crap at your work?

Yes, I know I spelled ‘report’ ‘txloer’ but it’s not about how legible my work is, it’s about how much fun I have doing it and t-x-l-o-e-r is way more fun to type than r-e-p-o-r-t.

Saying that, I was watching the Olympics on NBC this morning (because CBC was showing Olympic baseball and while I’ll watch pretty much any sport at the Olympics I have to draw the line somewhere). Anyway, the attitude on NBC was completely different but just as lemon suckingly lame.

They have perfected the ‘I totally would have won if it wasn’t for the fact that they made me wait to long / kept the stadium too cold / told me that robotic super horses are not allowed in the dressage event.’

Now I have a whole world of respect for Olympic athletes, and I totally couldn’t do it myself (except maybe in pole vaulting cause of my weirdly long arms and freakishly bendy back) but maybe we should let our six-year-olds cry every now and then – you know, instill the Olympic spirit earlier.

The Olympic motto is, after all: Stronger, Faster, Higher not Funner, Whiner, Txloer

posted under Diary | 1 Comment »

Mint, mason jars and madness

August6

Last night we met a couple of friends for a beer after work. After a beer (or two) we decided to go for dinner only to discover a line up at the restaurant.

And that is where everything went wrong.

The restaurant is next to a bar that serves the best Mojitos in all of Montreal – where else to out wait the dinner rush.

At this lovely bar they use whole sprigs of mint instead of a pathetic spattering of soggy leaves.

They use Bacardi Rum which I’ve been a staunch supporter of ever since they set up their free samples stand in Charles de Gaulle airport – even though I’m not usually a fan of warm rum in a plastic shot glass anything that can distract from the collapsing ceilings, garbage strikes and rude mobs that define Paris airport is top on my list of friends

They muddle* the mint and lime with a giant wooden stick. Actually staff is probably a more apt description *(muddle = mash, mix and crush – I learned that at the Bacardi free sample stand).

And they serve the whole thing in a giant mason jar.

Did I mention that the mason jars are giant?

I did, didn’t I. Sorry my memory isn’t all that great today, because of all the rum they need to fill those giant mason jars.

The only real question that remains is…why did I have two?

posted under Diary | No Comments »

Collective Self-Exploration

August4

Today we had a two and a half hour debriefing on our ‘staff opinion survey’. For those of you who are laughing at the ridiculousness of a debriefing on our own opinions welcome to my boat, the good ship ‘wow they’ll hire consultants to do anything these days’.

Here of some of the main findings:

Finding: Almost 90% of people are proud to work here but only 25% would stay here if offered another job with ‘slightly higher pay’ somewhere else
Conclusion: Sure we all like the idea of saving the world but have you seen the new Porche Boxter-S? It does 0 – 60 in 5.1 seconds.

Finding: 80% of people consider themselves to be excellent at sharing information with other people but only 42% of people feel that information is being shared with them
Conclusion: There are one or two people in the office who spend all day being told stuff by other people – I’m guessing they hang out by the bathrooms

Finding: 90% of people have done their best to create a congenial work atmosphere but 40% of people are afraid to speak up during meetings
Conclusion: We’re all sensitive enough to say good morning before launching into manic fist waving tongue lashings over spilled pencil sharpener shavings (I said pick them up with your teeth you fucker…Please)

posted under Diary | No Comments »

Charity

July31

Bert and I donate to UNICEF on a monthly basis - not just at Halloween although those little orange boxes the kids bring around are great for getting rid of the pennies in our change drawer (yes we do have an entire drawer dedicated to lose change).

But I digress from my story which is all about our latest charitable donation. We went to the tennis last weekend because it was only $10 and we wanted to see if all that grunting is amplified by the tv microphones (it’s not). Anyway, they had these tents with promotional crap (like free pots of yogurt and Irish Spring body wash) and one tent that was running a silent auction.

It was one of those silent auctions where you can see everyone’s bids and it was early in the morning so Bert and I decided to help Tennis Canada by driving up the price on a photo of Tiger Woods on some golf course somewhere. So I bid on it.

Later that night we got a phone call: ‘Congratulations, you have the winning bid for the Tiger Woods photo’.

‘Um, yeah? Really? That’s great. I mean, really? Um how much did we bid?’

We’re still waiting for the bill to come through. In the meantime, I’m pretty pissed cause I’m pretty sure you don’t get good karma for being charitable by accident.

posted under Diary | No Comments »