Since I did my LiveBridge posts way back when as a trilogy, I have decided to do the same with my Blog Lovefest posts. So following is the final in this series. Since I follow so many blogs I obviously may direct you to more in the future but it will be under (a) different title(s).
For my final Lovefest post I have picked a blog that is called One Year of Rapid Fire Change ( http://oneyearchange.blogspot.com/ ) This is a blog by a guy named Michael Thiessen. He now lives in British Columbia but was previously an Albertan like me. He was born here and grew up on various farms as the child of Mennonites. His blog is meant to be a chronicle of 2011.
Even though the year in question is 2011, he actually started it with two posts on December 31st, 2010. These posts were meant to provide the background for what is essentially a one post a day blog diary. So far, as I have just found his site, I have mainly read his introductory posts. But they really set the stage for what appears to be quite an interesting journey. I encourage you to read it.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Thursday, February 10, 2011
The Fuzz Was Abuzz
Not much happened today so I will just share a unusual little happening that occurred later in the day.
I was coming home from an errand downtown in the late evening. A bit of an odd thing happened. Police cars went in three different directions - multiple cars in each direction - from one intersection within about 5 minutes total. Crazy, huh.
I wonder if there is a full moon tonight. LOL. That's the only explanation I have. I mean three different directions from the same intersection and I don't think that there is a police station that close. I'm not sure but I haven't seen one.
Makes me a little curious what those calls could have been. On second thought, I probably don't want to know the details.
Carmen
I was coming home from an errand downtown in the late evening. A bit of an odd thing happened. Police cars went in three different directions - multiple cars in each direction - from one intersection within about 5 minutes total. Crazy, huh.
I wonder if there is a full moon tonight. LOL. That's the only explanation I have. I mean three different directions from the same intersection and I don't think that there is a police station that close. I'm not sure but I haven't seen one.
Makes me a little curious what those calls could have been. On second thought, I probably don't want to know the details.
Carmen
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
A Gay Joke That's Actually Funny!
Just a short post again this time but a funny one I think.
I wish I could attribute this one but I was furiously site surfing - jumping from one site to another and back again so I don't know where I got this from but I thought it was so funny that I was tearing up when I read it.
Here goes... There was a recent study from the UK that asked gay people how they became gay. 44% said they were born that way ... 10% said it was a product of their environment ... and 46% said they were sucked into it!
I know, I know. Very bad. But very funny. Wouldn't you say?
Carmen
I wish I could attribute this one but I was furiously site surfing - jumping from one site to another and back again so I don't know where I got this from but I thought it was so funny that I was tearing up when I read it.
Here goes... There was a recent study from the UK that asked gay people how they became gay. 44% said they were born that way ... 10% said it was a product of their environment ... and 46% said they were sucked into it!
I know, I know. Very bad. But very funny. Wouldn't you say?
Carmen
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Blog Lovefest Part II
On Friday I did a post called Blog Lovefest Part I. Well today it's time for Part II. I am doing this so soon after the first because I have yet again spent the better part of yesterday "blog-surfing".
I'll cut to the chase and just tell you that the source of today's blog that I am going to share with you (minus the bonus one that you got last time) was the blogger "coffee shop" that I have spent a lot of virtual time in lately.
The blog that I'd like to encourage you check out is one that goes by the name of http://findyourselflove.blogspot.com/ It is a blog of a young girl named Angela. Her actual blog's title is ... "to put it simply, it's quite complicated" - and yes the first word isn't capitalized. Her url is different so if you remember only one remember the address.
Her blog is includes several different things. She uses lots of quotes. She often starts off a post with a quote. She also takes a lot of pictures. She writes poetry. She also talks at times about her struggles and challenges with her somewhat more dysfunctional than the usual family. This time I won't suggest any particular posts to read. Just go on over and browse for yourselves. See what you think.
Carmen
I'll cut to the chase and just tell you that the source of today's blog that I am going to share with you (minus the bonus one that you got last time) was the blogger "coffee shop" that I have spent a lot of virtual time in lately.
The blog that I'd like to encourage you check out is one that goes by the name of http://findyourselflove.blogspot.com/ It is a blog of a young girl named Angela. Her actual blog's title is ... "to put it simply, it's quite complicated" - and yes the first word isn't capitalized. Her url is different so if you remember only one remember the address.
Her blog is includes several different things. She uses lots of quotes. She often starts off a post with a quote. She also takes a lot of pictures. She writes poetry. She also talks at times about her struggles and challenges with her somewhat more dysfunctional than the usual family. This time I won't suggest any particular posts to read. Just go on over and browse for yourselves. See what you think.
Carmen
Monday, February 7, 2011
The Concrete Jungle
Toastmasters Induction Day - the theme was Spring - I had 3 jobs and a Table Topic. So as you can see I was busy today. At least at the TM meeting. Otherwise, all I really did was pick up my last paycheque.
The day didn't start out very well though. First of all, I didn't sleep at all last night. Well that's not entirely true. Well then again, yes it is. See, I did sleep. But it was in the morning after I took my morning pills. For about two hours. Then I had to be at Toastmasters. I couldn't really miss today, since it was my Induction Day - along with a fellow new member, Jeremy.
Jeremy also jumped right in and signed up to give his IceBreaker Speech today as well. I feel a bit bad that I didn't do mine even though I was asked. This is because I've been in Toastmasters before and Jeremy is just new so if he can jump right in then why the hell can't I. Well I guess that's just me. I also imagine it is better to make sure I'm fully prepared. This time around I want to do better than my first go round.
Anyway, the day continued to be bad after the sleep thing because, in order to get that two or so hours of sleep so that I would be at least functional at the meeting, I had to take a cab. That wouldn't be such a big deal as it is only an occasional thing now but after all, I'm not working anymore so it wasn't something I really wanted to do. Oh well. That was the least of it. The cab driver has a brand new GPS that he wants to screw around with. So when we get downtown and he seems to be going in the wrong direction (further west) at the last second just before going up the hill I stop him.
I get him to go up a hill that I think will get us close. It turns out that had I been right about the location of the building (based on the directions I was given at the previous meeting after all) it was exactly the right hill by chance. The one that goes up to the Chateau LaCombe and The Edmonton Journal building. So the building I was looking for was supposed to be just behind (to the South of) the Chateau LaCombe. So since there was no place to park on the hill, I had the driver drop me off in the Chateau LaCombe parking lot.
I then walk down the steep, curving hill that thankfully wasn't too icy. I find then that there is no front entrance, just two parking garage entrances. I walk back up the hill and the only thing I see is what appears to be an office or appartment building and not another hotel like I am looking for. So I walk back down the hill to see if I missed a side path to walk around to the front entrance. Nope.
I end up walking into the second entrance of the parkade and walking around the curving parkade for about a level. The first level had a card locked door so no luck there. So curving around the parkade I reach the second level. Finally a door that I could get in. It however, takes me to an area that has several doors that are numbered but seem to be hotel maintenance rooms only. The door to the hotel area is still a card lock door. So I decide the only thing left to do and hope for is that if I walk up the remainder of the seven total levels to the first main floor maybe it won't be key lock.
After all, how do new guests without the card get in. Luckily, at the top I am able to get in. But still, aargh. Seven levels through a damn parkade itself and it's stairwell. Turns out I was given faulty information. The main entrance is not actually behind the other hotel (the Chateau LaCombe), it's the parkade that is. The main entrance is off to the west side of the Chateau. It's on the top of the hill and off a couple of blocks as the river valley is wont to have strange ways. Perhaps if I had trusted the GPS I would have been taken to the front entrance.
Then when I get into the main entrance, there are several people in line at the dual check in/check out area. Even though I expected to be quite early I am only about fifteen minutes early at this point. I had to use the front desk as we weren't given the floor or room information at the previous meeting. While I was waiting, my luck changed though. Another Toastmaster walked in. He too needed to find out where to go
Since I was already in line, he waited by the elevators until I got the information. When we got up to the floor we were supposed to be on, I was glad he was there. It turns out that the hotel has hallways like a mouse maze. He found the way to the room. I'm sure I would have eventually but I would probably have gotten even more annoyed. Also, when we got there, we were only five minutes early.
I ended up with three jobs as I mentioned at the start. My assigned duty was to do an invocation. I chose to do it as a quotation which I was previously told was an acceptable alternative. I actually found the quote on the internet site Brainy Quotes
It was by the actor, comedian and all-around zany guy Robin Williams. The theme of the meeting was Spring of all things. The quote was short and sweet (and quite funny, not surprisingly considering the source).
It went like this... Spring is nature's way of saying "Let's Party!". LOL. I couldn't figure out why they picked spring as a theme though. At the meeting it was explained early on however that it was in relation to Groundhog's Day being a portend to spring. Still that is a minimum of six weeks away. Sheesh. A better theme might have been Groundhogs Day itself. Well I guess the Educational Vice President was being optimistic.
The second job I got was timer. I knew probably be doing this. The Ed. V.P. told me when he confirmed my main role that he didn't yet have a timer and if he couldn't find one would I do it. My final job was a big surprise. After the meeting had already started, a member who was sitting next to me that was doing the Speaker Evaluation (of Jeremy no less) asked me to evaluate his evaluation for his Leadership manual project.
I was surprised he picked me since I was just being inducted today as mentioned but I guess he remembered me saying that I had previously been a long term Toastmaster. I must say I enjoyed getting to do an evaluation and especially so early on. I will say it was a little bit of a challenge, though not as difficult as I thought it would be, to do the evaluation while trying to time Jeremy's speech. I slipped up a couple of times very minorly in timing the Table Topics due to trying to eat lunch but the evaluation and timing of the speech went without a hitch.
My Table Topic went ok. this time. It was definitely an easier topic this time than the last (first) time I got one since started at the Kossowan club. It had to do with the icy conditions. A lot easier than the previous one dealing with the possibility of an impending oil crisis. Lunch was simple. Hot dogs and hamburgers. There was also a macaroni salad but that didn't appeal to me. I would have preferred a potato salad. One nice thing was they didn't just serve coffee and tea but also had juice and pop to choose from.
After the meeting I made the trip over to Xentel to pick up my final cheque that I should have picked up Friday. That was rather uneventful. A few of the staff noticed me and said hi. One asked if I had found a job yet. I told him I hadn't even really started to look. My friend Debbie wasn't there though. The person who asked me about a new job, who is also close to Debbie, told me that she was off sick. She has had something for quite awhile that she hasn't been able to shake. I'm glad I never picked it up.
Well as you can see, the day started badly but in the end turned out ok. After all, it ended with me getting money. LOL. So my time in the concrete jungle of the parkade was a case of all's well that ends well.
Carmen
The day didn't start out very well though. First of all, I didn't sleep at all last night. Well that's not entirely true. Well then again, yes it is. See, I did sleep. But it was in the morning after I took my morning pills. For about two hours. Then I had to be at Toastmasters. I couldn't really miss today, since it was my Induction Day - along with a fellow new member, Jeremy.
Jeremy also jumped right in and signed up to give his IceBreaker Speech today as well. I feel a bit bad that I didn't do mine even though I was asked. This is because I've been in Toastmasters before and Jeremy is just new so if he can jump right in then why the hell can't I. Well I guess that's just me. I also imagine it is better to make sure I'm fully prepared. This time around I want to do better than my first go round.
Anyway, the day continued to be bad after the sleep thing because, in order to get that two or so hours of sleep so that I would be at least functional at the meeting, I had to take a cab. That wouldn't be such a big deal as it is only an occasional thing now but after all, I'm not working anymore so it wasn't something I really wanted to do. Oh well. That was the least of it. The cab driver has a brand new GPS that he wants to screw around with. So when we get downtown and he seems to be going in the wrong direction (further west) at the last second just before going up the hill I stop him.
I get him to go up a hill that I think will get us close. It turns out that had I been right about the location of the building (based on the directions I was given at the previous meeting after all) it was exactly the right hill by chance. The one that goes up to the Chateau LaCombe and The Edmonton Journal building. So the building I was looking for was supposed to be just behind (to the South of) the Chateau LaCombe. So since there was no place to park on the hill, I had the driver drop me off in the Chateau LaCombe parking lot.
I then walk down the steep, curving hill that thankfully wasn't too icy. I find then that there is no front entrance, just two parking garage entrances. I walk back up the hill and the only thing I see is what appears to be an office or appartment building and not another hotel like I am looking for. So I walk back down the hill to see if I missed a side path to walk around to the front entrance. Nope.
I end up walking into the second entrance of the parkade and walking around the curving parkade for about a level. The first level had a card locked door so no luck there. So curving around the parkade I reach the second level. Finally a door that I could get in. It however, takes me to an area that has several doors that are numbered but seem to be hotel maintenance rooms only. The door to the hotel area is still a card lock door. So I decide the only thing left to do and hope for is that if I walk up the remainder of the seven total levels to the first main floor maybe it won't be key lock.
After all, how do new guests without the card get in. Luckily, at the top I am able to get in. But still, aargh. Seven levels through a damn parkade itself and it's stairwell. Turns out I was given faulty information. The main entrance is not actually behind the other hotel (the Chateau LaCombe), it's the parkade that is. The main entrance is off to the west side of the Chateau. It's on the top of the hill and off a couple of blocks as the river valley is wont to have strange ways. Perhaps if I had trusted the GPS I would have been taken to the front entrance.
Then when I get into the main entrance, there are several people in line at the dual check in/check out area. Even though I expected to be quite early I am only about fifteen minutes early at this point. I had to use the front desk as we weren't given the floor or room information at the previous meeting. While I was waiting, my luck changed though. Another Toastmaster walked in. He too needed to find out where to go
Since I was already in line, he waited by the elevators until I got the information. When we got up to the floor we were supposed to be on, I was glad he was there. It turns out that the hotel has hallways like a mouse maze. He found the way to the room. I'm sure I would have eventually but I would probably have gotten even more annoyed. Also, when we got there, we were only five minutes early.
I ended up with three jobs as I mentioned at the start. My assigned duty was to do an invocation. I chose to do it as a quotation which I was previously told was an acceptable alternative. I actually found the quote on the internet site Brainy Quotes
It was by the actor, comedian and all-around zany guy Robin Williams. The theme of the meeting was Spring of all things. The quote was short and sweet (and quite funny, not surprisingly considering the source).
It went like this... Spring is nature's way of saying "Let's Party!". LOL. I couldn't figure out why they picked spring as a theme though. At the meeting it was explained early on however that it was in relation to Groundhog's Day being a portend to spring. Still that is a minimum of six weeks away. Sheesh. A better theme might have been Groundhogs Day itself. Well I guess the Educational Vice President was being optimistic.
The second job I got was timer. I knew probably be doing this. The Ed. V.P. told me when he confirmed my main role that he didn't yet have a timer and if he couldn't find one would I do it. My final job was a big surprise. After the meeting had already started, a member who was sitting next to me that was doing the Speaker Evaluation (of Jeremy no less) asked me to evaluate his evaluation for his Leadership manual project.
I was surprised he picked me since I was just being inducted today as mentioned but I guess he remembered me saying that I had previously been a long term Toastmaster. I must say I enjoyed getting to do an evaluation and especially so early on. I will say it was a little bit of a challenge, though not as difficult as I thought it would be, to do the evaluation while trying to time Jeremy's speech. I slipped up a couple of times very minorly in timing the Table Topics due to trying to eat lunch but the evaluation and timing of the speech went without a hitch.
My Table Topic went ok. this time. It was definitely an easier topic this time than the last (first) time I got one since started at the Kossowan club. It had to do with the icy conditions. A lot easier than the previous one dealing with the possibility of an impending oil crisis. Lunch was simple. Hot dogs and hamburgers. There was also a macaroni salad but that didn't appeal to me. I would have preferred a potato salad. One nice thing was they didn't just serve coffee and tea but also had juice and pop to choose from.
After the meeting I made the trip over to Xentel to pick up my final cheque that I should have picked up Friday. That was rather uneventful. A few of the staff noticed me and said hi. One asked if I had found a job yet. I told him I hadn't even really started to look. My friend Debbie wasn't there though. The person who asked me about a new job, who is also close to Debbie, told me that she was off sick. She has had something for quite awhile that she hasn't been able to shake. I'm glad I never picked it up.
Well as you can see, the day started badly but in the end turned out ok. After all, it ended with me getting money. LOL. So my time in the concrete jungle of the parkade was a case of all's well that ends well.
Carmen
Friday, February 4, 2011
A ...Kiss... By Any Other Name
I can't remember what brought me there but I was at Dictionary.com. I ended up looking up a lot of different things as the site is more than just an online dictionary. It has quotes and a thesaurus too.
One word I found did stick out though. In honor of Valentine's Day, which is just around the I've picked a word to highlight for today's post. Osculate. Just another slightly fancier way of saying kiss.
I actually prefer the simple, straightforward word kiss. Osculate sounds like a medical term don't you think. LOL. Kiss is much nicer, far more romantic. At least I think so. What do you think. Will you be osculating or kissing this Valentine's Day?
Carmen
One word I found did stick out though. In honor of Valentine's Day, which is just around the I've picked a word to highlight for today's post. Osculate. Just another slightly fancier way of saying kiss.
I actually prefer the simple, straightforward word kiss. Osculate sounds like a medical term don't you think. LOL. Kiss is much nicer, far more romantic. At least I think so. What do you think. Will you be osculating or kissing this Valentine's Day?
Carmen
Blog Lovefest Part I
Well today, I'm here to talk about blogging. The AAYSR people would definitely say %$#@, not again! In my defense, it isn't so much "blogging about blogging" but instead blogging about other bloggers. I had the idea of doing three in mind. But I've changed my mind and I'm just going to do my very favorite one.
First off too, I should probably give credit where it's due. And oddly enough, that's to AAYSR again. I hadn't been there at their extreme review site ( http://www.iwillfuckingtearyouapart.blogspot.com/ ) much since not long after my review in August last year. I decided to start with the present and work my way back in the previous posts to when I was last there. It just works better that way based on how they are set up.
I only got to the beginning of December/the end of November because of all the digressions I was taking to the reviewed blogs, the blogs on their blogrolls, and the blogs of those on those blogrolls too! LOL. Even after planning to avoid the reviewed blogs themselves (and therefore all that came after) until catching up on all the reviews. Aah, "the best laid plans of mice and Carmen".
It's a blog called http://mrlondonstreet.blogspot.com/ It is a blog that is actually up for an award right now. If you like it as much as I did please vote for it to help the guy win. You can click on the link to the awards on the top right hand side of his blog. When you get there click on the European choice on the left side as he is in the running for Best European Blog. Hurry though, voting ends on February 20th and the prize is awarded February 27th.
When you go to vote, also know that when you get the nominees pop up after you click on the European option, there will be about five different choices. If you click on both the name of the blog or the picture either way it will take you to the blog to have a look (in case you want to check out the other nominees). To actually vote you have to look a little harder.
In the bottom right hand corner of the picture is a little white box. click on that and it will check it off and then ask for your e-mail which is required for voting so that they know you have only voted for each category once. In order to finalize your vote you must then check your e-mail and click on a link in the e-mail they then send you within a day (if you don't get it go back to the site and do it again). Then your vote will have been cast. Not that difficult really.
The winner of the 2011, 11th annual weblog awards or Bloggies as they are also known gets the astounding prize of 2,011 U.S. cents, or $20.11 U.S. But more important, are the bragging rights. I can't remember if Mr. London Street has won before or not. I seem to remember reading that he did. If so, it wouldn't be a surprise to me as, from what little I have read, it is extremely funny.
Now I have probably, no definitely, put the cart before the horse in telling you all about voting for his blog before even telling you a little about it. I will correct that oversight now. Without cribbing his very funny stories, I will simply tell you a few that I read that I think you should check out. On the right hand side again, a little ways down you will find a section called Selected Highlights, 2010 Edition - The One... Under that pick ...about the Other Side, ...where I explain the birds and the bees, and finally ... which contains shaved testicles.
There is also two recent ones. One is from February 3, 2011 called Chemistry. It is about a quirky friendship of sorts with a rather unique male co-worker. One is from February 6, 2011 and is called Running Mates and is an interview with a fellow nominee for a Bloggie Award but in a different category. His category is Best Entertainment Blog. The guy he interviews writes a movie review related blog called The Kid in the Front Row. You can link to it at the bottom of the Mr. London Street post. There is a companion post on TKITFR's blog where Mr. London Street is being interviewed by him as well.
Anyway, do check out these two blogs Mr. London Street and The Kid in the Front Row. Especially Mr London Street as this is the one I actually picked to talk about. The Kid in the Front Row is just a bonus because of the post on the dual interviews being one of MLS's best recent posts. Also, who doesn't like a movie blog. As well, if it wasn't Mr. London Street who previously won a Bloggie, then it was Kid in the Front Row. I know I read that one of them did. Maybe even multiple times. Well that's it for today.
Carmen
First off too, I should probably give credit where it's due. And oddly enough, that's to AAYSR again. I hadn't been there at their extreme review site ( http://www.iwillfuckingtearyouapart.blogspot.com/ ) much since not long after my review in August last year. I decided to start with the present and work my way back in the previous posts to when I was last there. It just works better that way based on how they are set up.
I only got to the beginning of December/the end of November because of all the digressions I was taking to the reviewed blogs, the blogs on their blogrolls, and the blogs of those on those blogrolls too! LOL. Even after planning to avoid the reviewed blogs themselves (and therefore all that came after) until catching up on all the reviews. Aah, "the best laid plans of mice and Carmen".
It's a blog called http://mrlondonstreet.blogspot.com/ It is a blog that is actually up for an award right now. If you like it as much as I did please vote for it to help the guy win. You can click on the link to the awards on the top right hand side of his blog. When you get there click on the European choice on the left side as he is in the running for Best European Blog. Hurry though, voting ends on February 20th and the prize is awarded February 27th.
When you go to vote, also know that when you get the nominees pop up after you click on the European option, there will be about five different choices. If you click on both the name of the blog or the picture either way it will take you to the blog to have a look (in case you want to check out the other nominees). To actually vote you have to look a little harder.
In the bottom right hand corner of the picture is a little white box. click on that and it will check it off and then ask for your e-mail which is required for voting so that they know you have only voted for each category once. In order to finalize your vote you must then check your e-mail and click on a link in the e-mail they then send you within a day (if you don't get it go back to the site and do it again). Then your vote will have been cast. Not that difficult really.
The winner of the 2011, 11th annual weblog awards or Bloggies as they are also known gets the astounding prize of 2,011 U.S. cents, or $20.11 U.S. But more important, are the bragging rights. I can't remember if Mr. London Street has won before or not. I seem to remember reading that he did. If so, it wouldn't be a surprise to me as, from what little I have read, it is extremely funny.
Now I have probably, no definitely, put the cart before the horse in telling you all about voting for his blog before even telling you a little about it. I will correct that oversight now. Without cribbing his very funny stories, I will simply tell you a few that I read that I think you should check out. On the right hand side again, a little ways down you will find a section called Selected Highlights, 2010 Edition - The One... Under that pick ...about the Other Side, ...where I explain the birds and the bees, and finally ... which contains shaved testicles.
There is also two recent ones. One is from February 3, 2011 called Chemistry. It is about a quirky friendship of sorts with a rather unique male co-worker. One is from February 6, 2011 and is called Running Mates and is an interview with a fellow nominee for a Bloggie Award but in a different category. His category is Best Entertainment Blog. The guy he interviews writes a movie review related blog called The Kid in the Front Row. You can link to it at the bottom of the Mr. London Street post. There is a companion post on TKITFR's blog where Mr. London Street is being interviewed by him as well.
Anyway, do check out these two blogs Mr. London Street and The Kid in the Front Row. Especially Mr London Street as this is the one I actually picked to talk about. The Kid in the Front Row is just a bonus because of the post on the dual interviews being one of MLS's best recent posts. Also, who doesn't like a movie blog. As well, if it wasn't Mr. London Street who previously won a Bloggie, then it was Kid in the Front Row. I know I read that one of them did. Maybe even multiple times. Well that's it for today.
Carmen
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Hey Rocky, Watch Me Pull A Rabbit Out Of My Hat
Happy Chinese New Year's. This year is the "Year Of The Rabbit". According to http://www.theholidayspot.com/chinese-new-year/ the year of the rabbit is "a placid year" following the "ferocious" year of the tiger.
It starts today, February 3rd and lasts 15 days until the next full moon when it ends with a night-time lantern festival.
I didn't do anything to celebrate it today but I think I will in the very near future make up a list of indeterminate length of resolutions. After all it is my last chance of sorts.
Chinese New Year's has always been my last minute resolution stop ever since I can remember. First there is New Year's Day, then comes my second kick at the can, Ukrainian New Year's. Finally, third time presumably lucky (and Chinese being more into lucky things I think) Chinese New Year's.
I guess the future is now. Now being as good a time as any. So what are these resolutions? How about a list. I've seen so many on other blogs. My first I think. The time seems ripe for it here. So here goes...
1. Lose some weight. A serious amount! No less than 25 pounds and no more than 100 for now as I worry about baggy skin.
2. Go swimming 10 laps to start/3 times a week at least and take a "brisk" 30 minute walk daily (in a mall if necessary).
3. Do my taxes in a timely fashion. Fix up the previous years in need of it. Further resolve to do it on yearly basis.
4. Read and save my mail in a serious, adult fashion that involves a filing system. Do not wait to open my mail ever!
5. Get a new part-time job at H&S temporarily before trying back at Xentel in April of this year as per Jatin's suggestion.
6. Pick a charity to sponsor for the year and donate the $30ish dollars I save on an AISH bus pass monthly when working.
7. Blog on a regular basis. Eventually resubmit to AAYSR review site. Save for a Cutest Blog On The Block package.
8. Read 5 different blogs on a daily basis for inspiration for my blog as well as for my Toastmasters speeches.
9. Go to the library and read 5 different newspapers & newsmagazines weekly for the above reason as well.
10. Take Mom out to lunch/dinner once a month after I start working. Try and get her to go to new places sometimes.
11 Call friends/family on a more regular basis. Remember that we do have un-limited long distance for a reason.
12. Write letters where calling is not possible or when a card/letter is the more appropriate choice.
13. Always have my calling cards and my "info-lets" to hand out as needed. Make sure to always have pens and extra paper too.
14. Write in a paper version of a diary daily - both as inspiration for blogging regularly and to have an alternate "voice".
15. Go through all the papers/magazines I have on my desk and nightstand on a regular basis and keep the piles to a minimum.
16. Sort through the 3 or 4 remaining drawers in my plastic cabinets and organize/rework/purge what is in them.
17. Plow through the 3000-5000 backed-up emails at live.com main email and get it down to a daily amount then check daily.
18. Go to Goodreads, AVEN, IMdB, and other sites I belong to on a more regular basis of at least once per week if not more.
19. Complete my new CTM/equivalent in 1 TM dues period if possible - 2 tops. Do some "outside" speeches if necessary with 1/2 @ my club.
20. Take a TM officer position if they continue to offer it but find out exactly what's involved & plan accordingly.
21. Re-do my parlimentary procedure & my contest judges training again by end of calendar year. Also do a speech contest as participant.
22. Attend this years AGM at UCE to put parlimentary procedure skills to work as well as attend some city council meetings when I can.
23. Learn about civic/provincial/federal issues and candidates well in advance of the next elections for each of the above. Then vote strategically.
24. Find a volunteer job. UCE Sunday School, Lung Association, Food Bank, Bissell Centre, Food Not Bombs, etc. are all some good possibilities.
25. Go back to O.A. Ask K.C. if she wants to do this too. If L.U. is still there try to "make amends". Get and use a sponsor this time. Make a F.P & E.P.
26. Use a mentor in TM this time around. When I reach CTM/equivalent level offer to be one. Keep/get new mentor as needed for next level of certification.
27. Take a sales training &/or writing/editing course through continuing education if it is a "reasonable" price. Find a partner to go with if I can.
28. Keep up with Laura at Mental Health about job status and also about my possible attendance at Highwood to do my diploma and not a G.E.D.
29. Help Katherine with potentially finding a new apartment in a better location transportation-wise and use that experience to consider my options.
30. See if L.B. is willing/able to be reasonable and if I can get my stuff back from her. If she does decide to do this, don't let her "bully" me this time.
31. Use my digital camera and learn how to upload and print (after getting printer hooked up finally). Get Virginia, etc. to show me how to do it.
32. Start adding pictures to my blog or if it doesn't suit the background and I can't or decide not to change it then start a 2nd blog for pictures too.
33. Get my scrapbooking materials from Mom's place, cautiously buy what else I need to do a full, smail album. Is Jin or K.C is interested in doing it too.
34. Find out from Karen about the writing for money (to a paypal account - set one up) site she uses called __________. Try & write sometime daily/weekly.
35. Get Larissa to make good on her promise (of 1-1/2 years! ago) from back at the Life Without Limits Challenge. Try and get this done by the 2 year mark.
36. Buy a single Lotto-Max ticket weekly as it is hard to hit the jackpot without an actual ticket. LOL. Have "my pie" divided and my exit strategy in place.
37. Continue to do the Random Acts of Kindness gifts both small (Werthers, Sweet & Low Candies) and larger (Purdy's, etc. cards). Set a goal and a limit.
38. Always carry adequate money for a payphone/to use someone else's cellphone esp. but not limited to if I decide to stop using my Telus cellphone.
39 Have one package or portion thereof of bus tickets in case my bus pass is ever lost/stolen & to possibly help out people. Keep separate from pass.
40. Clean out purse & any carrying bag daily. Do this so I can safely carry food, important papers needing later filing, etc. Give set time to do this.
41. Remember people's birthdays/special days with a card. Try to find a blank card to personalize when possible. Use dollar store/find sales due to volume.
42. Save money in a rainy day (emergency) fund. Try to save $25 per check when working and $25 a month when simply getting my monthly benefits.
43. Drink more water. Try for the oft-quoted 8 glasses a day amount. Carry a non-toxic water bottle with me in my tote bag or in my purse, ie. Nolan one.
44. Eat salad or raw vegetables every day. Use far less dressing and possibly even low-fat/low-sugar varieties. Vary the vegetables even if I end up buying.
45. Tell ten people something nice every day. Try and make it specific & out-of-the-ordinary when I can. Do this for family/friends/strangers alike.
46. Make a list of affirmations for myself. Post them within my room at "Veggie House" and at Mom's, and general ones in common areas incl. work.
47. Continue to use bus link, and the complaints and commendations line at ETS on a regular basis. Also start utilizing the safety line as well.
48. Write a to=do list daily and also do a weekly and a monthly version. Use the check off boxes & numbering system. Write in pen and check in red felt.
49. Be prepared to add/subtract from this list as needed but check it daily either first thing in the morning or last thing at night. Be flexible about it.
50. At the end of each month (and finally at the end of the calendar year or next Chinese New Years!) make a written list of now well I did. Then celebrate.
As I said, and then amended myself, at the beginning the time went from in the near future to now and as you can see the "indeterminate length" was soon to be decided on 50 items.
I picked 50 because a lot of my resolutions where in twos and therefore 50 was the best number for a major (and in some cases minor or "glossy"/"detailed") list to fully renovate my life. A resolution make-over if you will.
A make-over seems appropriate since it is also a bit of a do-over what with the 3rd time lucky Chinese New Years version of resolution mania. Now it's just a matter of starting out keeping them.
One thing will make it easier though, I think. I picked both small and large things and with the large things made them "measureable" as they say for the most part. And to further make it easier I will try to capture my successes (and failures) here in periodic update posts.
I'll end this with a few final thoughts. First, do let me know what you think of my resolutions. Too much? Not realistic? Ambitious? Silly? Also, which ones do you think are more important to keep? Which ones inspired you (if any) or made you laugh at their triviality perhaps? Second, if you blog, consider a list of your own.
Carmen
P.S. If you aren't a blogger but are a commenter consider giving me a few of your resolutions - big or small - to see how they compare. And Happy (Chinese) New Year. Again.
It starts today, February 3rd and lasts 15 days until the next full moon when it ends with a night-time lantern festival.
I didn't do anything to celebrate it today but I think I will in the very near future make up a list of indeterminate length of resolutions. After all it is my last chance of sorts.
Chinese New Year's has always been my last minute resolution stop ever since I can remember. First there is New Year's Day, then comes my second kick at the can, Ukrainian New Year's. Finally, third time presumably lucky (and Chinese being more into lucky things I think) Chinese New Year's.
I guess the future is now. Now being as good a time as any. So what are these resolutions? How about a list. I've seen so many on other blogs. My first I think. The time seems ripe for it here. So here goes...
1. Lose some weight. A serious amount! No less than 25 pounds and no more than 100 for now as I worry about baggy skin.
2. Go swimming 10 laps to start/3 times a week at least and take a "brisk" 30 minute walk daily (in a mall if necessary).
3. Do my taxes in a timely fashion. Fix up the previous years in need of it. Further resolve to do it on yearly basis.
4. Read and save my mail in a serious, adult fashion that involves a filing system. Do not wait to open my mail ever!
5. Get a new part-time job at H&S temporarily before trying back at Xentel in April of this year as per Jatin's suggestion.
6. Pick a charity to sponsor for the year and donate the $30ish dollars I save on an AISH bus pass monthly when working.
7. Blog on a regular basis. Eventually resubmit to AAYSR review site. Save for a Cutest Blog On The Block package.
8. Read 5 different blogs on a daily basis for inspiration for my blog as well as for my Toastmasters speeches.
9. Go to the library and read 5 different newspapers & newsmagazines weekly for the above reason as well.
10. Take Mom out to lunch/dinner once a month after I start working. Try and get her to go to new places sometimes.
11 Call friends/family on a more regular basis. Remember that we do have un-limited long distance for a reason.
12. Write letters where calling is not possible or when a card/letter is the more appropriate choice.
13. Always have my calling cards and my "info-lets" to hand out as needed. Make sure to always have pens and extra paper too.
14. Write in a paper version of a diary daily - both as inspiration for blogging regularly and to have an alternate "voice".
15. Go through all the papers/magazines I have on my desk and nightstand on a regular basis and keep the piles to a minimum.
16. Sort through the 3 or 4 remaining drawers in my plastic cabinets and organize/rework/purge what is in them.
17. Plow through the 3000-5000 backed-up emails at live.com main email and get it down to a daily amount then check daily.
18. Go to Goodreads, AVEN, IMdB, and other sites I belong to on a more regular basis of at least once per week if not more.
19. Complete my new CTM/equivalent in 1 TM dues period if possible - 2 tops. Do some "outside" speeches if necessary with 1/2 @ my club.
20. Take a TM officer position if they continue to offer it but find out exactly what's involved & plan accordingly.
21. Re-do my parlimentary procedure & my contest judges training again by end of calendar year. Also do a speech contest as participant.
22. Attend this years AGM at UCE to put parlimentary procedure skills to work as well as attend some city council meetings when I can.
23. Learn about civic/provincial/federal issues and candidates well in advance of the next elections for each of the above. Then vote strategically.
24. Find a volunteer job. UCE Sunday School, Lung Association, Food Bank, Bissell Centre, Food Not Bombs, etc. are all some good possibilities.
25. Go back to O.A. Ask K.C. if she wants to do this too. If L.U. is still there try to "make amends". Get and use a sponsor this time. Make a F.P & E.P.
26. Use a mentor in TM this time around. When I reach CTM/equivalent level offer to be one. Keep/get new mentor as needed for next level of certification.
27. Take a sales training &/or writing/editing course through continuing education if it is a "reasonable" price. Find a partner to go with if I can.
28. Keep up with Laura at Mental Health about job status and also about my possible attendance at Highwood to do my diploma and not a G.E.D.
29. Help Katherine with potentially finding a new apartment in a better location transportation-wise and use that experience to consider my options.
30. See if L.B. is willing/able to be reasonable and if I can get my stuff back from her. If she does decide to do this, don't let her "bully" me this time.
31. Use my digital camera and learn how to upload and print (after getting printer hooked up finally). Get Virginia, etc. to show me how to do it.
32. Start adding pictures to my blog or if it doesn't suit the background and I can't or decide not to change it then start a 2nd blog for pictures too.
33. Get my scrapbooking materials from Mom's place, cautiously buy what else I need to do a full, smail album. Is Jin or K.C is interested in doing it too.
34. Find out from Karen about the writing for money (to a paypal account - set one up) site she uses called __________. Try & write sometime daily/weekly.
35. Get Larissa to make good on her promise (of 1-1/2 years! ago) from back at the Life Without Limits Challenge. Try and get this done by the 2 year mark.
36. Buy a single Lotto-Max ticket weekly as it is hard to hit the jackpot without an actual ticket. LOL. Have "my pie" divided and my exit strategy in place.
37. Continue to do the Random Acts of Kindness gifts both small (Werthers, Sweet & Low Candies) and larger (Purdy's, etc. cards). Set a goal and a limit.
38. Always carry adequate money for a payphone/to use someone else's cellphone esp. but not limited to if I decide to stop using my Telus cellphone.
39 Have one package or portion thereof of bus tickets in case my bus pass is ever lost/stolen & to possibly help out people. Keep separate from pass.
40. Clean out purse & any carrying bag daily. Do this so I can safely carry food, important papers needing later filing, etc. Give set time to do this.
41. Remember people's birthdays/special days with a card. Try to find a blank card to personalize when possible. Use dollar store/find sales due to volume.
42. Save money in a rainy day (emergency) fund. Try to save $25 per check when working and $25 a month when simply getting my monthly benefits.
43. Drink more water. Try for the oft-quoted 8 glasses a day amount. Carry a non-toxic water bottle with me in my tote bag or in my purse, ie. Nolan one.
44. Eat salad or raw vegetables every day. Use far less dressing and possibly even low-fat/low-sugar varieties. Vary the vegetables even if I end up buying.
45. Tell ten people something nice every day. Try and make it specific & out-of-the-ordinary when I can. Do this for family/friends/strangers alike.
46. Make a list of affirmations for myself. Post them within my room at "Veggie House" and at Mom's, and general ones in common areas incl. work.
47. Continue to use bus link, and the complaints and commendations line at ETS on a regular basis. Also start utilizing the safety line as well.
48. Write a to=do list daily and also do a weekly and a monthly version. Use the check off boxes & numbering system. Write in pen and check in red felt.
49. Be prepared to add/subtract from this list as needed but check it daily either first thing in the morning or last thing at night. Be flexible about it.
50. At the end of each month (and finally at the end of the calendar year or next Chinese New Years!) make a written list of now well I did. Then celebrate.
As I said, and then amended myself, at the beginning the time went from in the near future to now and as you can see the "indeterminate length" was soon to be decided on 50 items.
I picked 50 because a lot of my resolutions where in twos and therefore 50 was the best number for a major (and in some cases minor or "glossy"/"detailed") list to fully renovate my life. A resolution make-over if you will.
A make-over seems appropriate since it is also a bit of a do-over what with the 3rd time lucky Chinese New Years version of resolution mania. Now it's just a matter of starting out keeping them.
One thing will make it easier though, I think. I picked both small and large things and with the large things made them "measureable" as they say for the most part. And to further make it easier I will try to capture my successes (and failures) here in periodic update posts.
I'll end this with a few final thoughts. First, do let me know what you think of my resolutions. Too much? Not realistic? Ambitious? Silly? Also, which ones do you think are more important to keep? Which ones inspired you (if any) or made you laugh at their triviality perhaps? Second, if you blog, consider a list of your own.
Carmen
P.S. If you aren't a blogger but are a commenter consider giving me a few of your resolutions - big or small - to see how they compare. And Happy (Chinese) New Year. Again.
A Marmot, A Mass And A "Memo"
Yesterday, for various reasons, I neglected to note in my two posts for the day that it was, in fact, Groundhog Day. This can not be considered a slight oversight as Groundhog Day has assumed, in my mind anyway, the position of actual holiday.
If for no other reason than one of the better films of fairly recent times in the greater scheme of movie history is, of course, Groundhog Day with Bill Murray. So much so that I even bought it with the idea of celebrating the day with a yearly viewing. LOL. That's the marmot aspect of this post.
There is also a "fantastic occasion of greater importance" according to http://www.theholidayspot.com/ called Candlemas. This is a religious holiday for Roman Catholics and Anglicians, etc so I won't go into it much except to say that if I was more religious then the idea of blessing all the candles to be used throughout the coming year as it does would seem "quaint" for lack of a better term. This is the mass aspect of the post.
Finally the "memo". I told FJ, in the comment section of my last post, that I would probably talk briefly about the details of "the funny" that I purposely left out of the post. I did this under the impression that it was more of a you had to be there moment, but well, he did ask. So here goes.
The three funniest words or phrases that people on the blogger coffee shop forum came up with that annoy the shit out of them were "that's sick", "bangin'", and especially "a whole 'nother". Like I said you had to be there. The nominators reasons really made it. For instance, the "whole 'nother guy was practically frothing pointing out that it would have to be short for "a whole another" which makes no sense. Truly. And he's absolutely, hilariously right.
So the "memo" aspect of the post is in actual fact a "in-the-body-of-the-post P.S." that made for better alliteration and the ability to use the law of the threes in my title and I'm nothing if not "pedantic" about my titles. Almost as much, maybe more than my spacing as mentioned in a long ago post.
Carmen
P.S. Both quaint and pedantic were put in quotation marks because I wasn't sure - until checking with dictionary.com - that I had the essense of how I wanted to use the word right. I did, but I left them that way to show that there was some thought put into those words and using them correctly.
If for no other reason than one of the better films of fairly recent times in the greater scheme of movie history is, of course, Groundhog Day with Bill Murray. So much so that I even bought it with the idea of celebrating the day with a yearly viewing. LOL. That's the marmot aspect of this post.
There is also a "fantastic occasion of greater importance" according to http://www.theholidayspot.com/ called Candlemas. This is a religious holiday for Roman Catholics and Anglicians, etc so I won't go into it much except to say that if I was more religious then the idea of blessing all the candles to be used throughout the coming year as it does would seem "quaint" for lack of a better term. This is the mass aspect of the post.
Finally the "memo". I told FJ, in the comment section of my last post, that I would probably talk briefly about the details of "the funny" that I purposely left out of the post. I did this under the impression that it was more of a you had to be there moment, but well, he did ask. So here goes.
The three funniest words or phrases that people on the blogger coffee shop forum came up with that annoy the shit out of them were "that's sick", "bangin'", and especially "a whole 'nother". Like I said you had to be there. The nominators reasons really made it. For instance, the "whole 'nother guy was practically frothing pointing out that it would have to be short for "a whole another" which makes no sense. Truly. And he's absolutely, hilariously right.
So the "memo" aspect of the post is in actual fact a "in-the-body-of-the-post P.S." that made for better alliteration and the ability to use the law of the threes in my title and I'm nothing if not "pedantic" about my titles. Almost as much, maybe more than my spacing as mentioned in a long ago post.
Carmen
P.S. Both quaint and pedantic were put in quotation marks because I wasn't sure - until checking with dictionary.com - that I had the essense of how I wanted to use the word right. I did, but I left them that way to show that there was some thought put into those words and using them correctly.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Serendipity, Friends ... and Berries ... and Cows
Back again. I was just sweeping the floor and I came across a fancy picture frame that the main staff lady here at the house bought on shopping day a few months back.
It is a black frame the has the word Friends written on the top and six smaller boxes for individual pictures to be placed in.
I was looking at it again as I have in the past since it was first purchased and aside from being quite attractive with it's six b&w pictures of model versions of friends in a matching b&w frame it never fails to impress(?) me about the serendipity of Virginia having found it.
You see, there are six women living here in this house and that was what made her buy the frame. While friends may be overstating the roommate situation most of us have a little bit (friendly is more the word) it was a nice thought that worked out numbers-wise.
When I was looking to write a little something on the picture frame and my musings I questioned whether I really was using the word serendipity right. So I checked it out on dictionary.com. Yes, I was right but for those of you still wondering about the word I will give the definition(s) they gave.
The first one of the two listed was what applies here. It is as follows ... "an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident". The second in case anyone is wondering was simply "good fortune; luck". I guess it applies as well, if not as nicely. It also listed a synonym that I also like ... happenstance.
I would also like to direct those interested to the dictionary.com site as they have other things on there like the listing of the origins of the word. For instance, if we go back to the word serendipity, it actually was coined in reference to the characters in a book from the 1700's called "The Three Princes of Serendip".
If you are interested in the origins of the above in a little more detail, check out dictionary.com yourself. Other things they have on the site are lists of "like words", quotes(!) and a thesaurus. I will briefly mention the like words and the quotes before stepping back and talking a little more about the friends angle.
The like words included serendipper if you can believe it. Personally, I think that is a stupid way to conjugate (if that is the right word) the word serendipity. Another "like word" was serendipity-berry. Also known more commonly it seems, as the miracle berry, it is African berries (2) that when chewed turn sour things sweet!
Now for the quote. There is a random quote button that I tried about a dozen times but none of the quotes that came up rivaled the original quote that brought me to the button. The first quote was by advice columnist Ann Landers from what they attribute to a August 21, 1989 Time magazine article. Here it is ...
... "I don't believe that you have to be a cow to know what milk is." It goes on to say that she was 'explaining why, despite her untroubled Midwestern upbringing, she felt qualified to advise people with serious problems.' Well said.
Maybe not the best way to look at the subject considering the proliferation of advice doctor's like Dr Phil, Dr Drew (oh so gorgeous Dr Drew - sigh - lol), but still it does make some sense and is a pretty cute saying.
Well back to the friends. I said that me and my roommates aren't exactly friends but I can definitely say that I am not worried that it's a Leighton Meester movie (the soon to be released The Roommate) waiting to happen. LOL.
Carmen
It is a black frame the has the word Friends written on the top and six smaller boxes for individual pictures to be placed in.
I was looking at it again as I have in the past since it was first purchased and aside from being quite attractive with it's six b&w pictures of model versions of friends in a matching b&w frame it never fails to impress(?) me about the serendipity of Virginia having found it.
You see, there are six women living here in this house and that was what made her buy the frame. While friends may be overstating the roommate situation most of us have a little bit (friendly is more the word) it was a nice thought that worked out numbers-wise.
When I was looking to write a little something on the picture frame and my musings I questioned whether I really was using the word serendipity right. So I checked it out on dictionary.com. Yes, I was right but for those of you still wondering about the word I will give the definition(s) they gave.
The first one of the two listed was what applies here. It is as follows ... "an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident". The second in case anyone is wondering was simply "good fortune; luck". I guess it applies as well, if not as nicely. It also listed a synonym that I also like ... happenstance.
I would also like to direct those interested to the dictionary.com site as they have other things on there like the listing of the origins of the word. For instance, if we go back to the word serendipity, it actually was coined in reference to the characters in a book from the 1700's called "The Three Princes of Serendip".
If you are interested in the origins of the above in a little more detail, check out dictionary.com yourself. Other things they have on the site are lists of "like words", quotes(!) and a thesaurus. I will briefly mention the like words and the quotes before stepping back and talking a little more about the friends angle.
The like words included serendipper if you can believe it. Personally, I think that is a stupid way to conjugate (if that is the right word) the word serendipity. Another "like word" was serendipity-berry. Also known more commonly it seems, as the miracle berry, it is African berries (2) that when chewed turn sour things sweet!
Now for the quote. There is a random quote button that I tried about a dozen times but none of the quotes that came up rivaled the original quote that brought me to the button. The first quote was by advice columnist Ann Landers from what they attribute to a August 21, 1989 Time magazine article. Here it is ...
... "I don't believe that you have to be a cow to know what milk is." It goes on to say that she was 'explaining why, despite her untroubled Midwestern upbringing, she felt qualified to advise people with serious problems.' Well said.
Maybe not the best way to look at the subject considering the proliferation of advice doctor's like Dr Phil, Dr Drew (oh so gorgeous Dr Drew - sigh - lol), but still it does make some sense and is a pretty cute saying.
Well back to the friends. I said that me and my roommates aren't exactly friends but I can definitely say that I am not worried that it's a Leighton Meester movie (the soon to be released The Roommate) waiting to happen. LOL.
Carmen
Laugh Till You ... Cry
Hi again. So I was at the blogger coffee shop forum and I was reading about some non-blogging topics. They had me laughing so hard that I was gasping for air, my stomach hurt (and I mean really hurt) and I actually vomited. Yes vomited.
I didn't actually cry (this time) but the title would have been gross if I had made it more accurate. So this is just a little post where I am going to ask the question what makes you laugh till you ____________.
Oh, and if anyone is interested one of the two "offending" forum post questions I was reading (can't remember the other) was about words/phrases that annoy the shit out of people.
Now I could tell you what some of them were, but I think that if you aren't already a blogger member you should join so you can start blogging too and I can find even more blogs to read. Then you can find out too.
Carmen
I didn't actually cry (this time) but the title would have been gross if I had made it more accurate. So this is just a little post where I am going to ask the question what makes you laugh till you ____________.
Oh, and if anyone is interested one of the two "offending" forum post questions I was reading (can't remember the other) was about words/phrases that annoy the shit out of people.
Now I could tell you what some of them were, but I think that if you aren't already a blogger member you should join so you can start blogging too and I can find even more blogs to read. Then you can find out too.
Carmen
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
"Schooled" By A Religious Drunk!
Hi again. When it rains it pours. Second time posting today. When I was at the aforementioned (see last post) movies something funny happened on the way home. I thought it deserved it's own post/title.
Katherine and I had just gotten on our second and final bus to head back to mom's place for dinner and were sitting in our pretty much usual places on the bus when they are available. Up front near the driver. Call us Bus Driver Loonies, Greg. LOL
Well, that meant I was sitting in the first seats facing the side and Katherine was sitting in the first front facing seats just behind me. About one or two seats separated us.
I was just starting to tell Katherine what I considered to be a very funny story - which because this story was funny but infuriating at the same time I don't actually remember! LOL.
Anyway, just as I start to tell my now forgotten story a homeless type man gets on. He was a pleasant looking man albeit quite scruffy and carrying a big black plastic bag. Well the pleasant looking younger, darker version of character actor Cecil Kellaway was only pleasant in that one regard.
Immediately after boarding the bus and only seconds into my planned story, this man plunked himself down directly between Katherine and me and started talking to Katherine even though I was clearly already talking to her!
As this was pointly and not the slightest bit just mildly rude but really pretty outrageous (to me anyway) I decided I was not going to stand for it. Just about seething would be an accurate description of my mood.
Nevertheless, I didn't tell him where to go and how to get there. I merely decided not to "give up the floor" to him, so to speak. So I tried to continue talking as if he wasn't even there. A mere pesky little fly if you will. Didn't work.
I tried this numerous times over several minutes (or what seemed like it). As I said it didn't work. Probably because he was directly in between Katherine and myself. It didn't help matters any either that Katherine was actually responding to him. The nerve.
This of course, made me even madder. LOL. At the end of this story though, you will see why I ended up actually being glad that she was paying some attention to him. If she hadn't we might never have known why he did what he did. And it's funny! At least I think so.
So, back to where I left off. I had been trying, without success, for several minutes it seemed to get him to stop interrupting me until I finally snapped. Well, snapped might be a bit of an exageration but I did get snappy at the very least.
I finally stopped trying to talk over him (pointless!) and said to him directly "Do you mind if I finish my conversation with my friend!". And sweet as pie (aargh) he says something like "not at all". As if nothing had happened!
As I said before, the story I told Katherine is now lost to the sands of time (and infuriation!). What happened next, happened after we got off the bus. I confronted Katherine (mildly - as I could concede even in my state that it wasn't that much her fault) about her actually letting that oaf interrupt me.
That brings us to the funny. Seems he told her something like that he was 1) very religious and 2) had just had about 10(!) beers - not sure how the two connected in his mind other than maybe they were just the two biggest things of note about him.
I guess, according to Katherine, these revelations were both followed with "praise the lords" "hallelujahs" "hail mary's" or somesuch. Most of what else he said she said she didn't understand. Probably because of the 10 beers. LOL.
But she did get one last important thing. Apparently, he told her why he planted himself between us and interrupted. It seems it was on purpose.
Being God's little angel he decided upon boarding the bus that we were gossipping. And it was his job to save us from this!
How sweet! How noble! How very big of him! LOL.
Carmen
Katherine and I had just gotten on our second and final bus to head back to mom's place for dinner and were sitting in our pretty much usual places on the bus when they are available. Up front near the driver. Call us Bus Driver Loonies, Greg. LOL
Well, that meant I was sitting in the first seats facing the side and Katherine was sitting in the first front facing seats just behind me. About one or two seats separated us.
I was just starting to tell Katherine what I considered to be a very funny story - which because this story was funny but infuriating at the same time I don't actually remember! LOL.
Anyway, just as I start to tell my now forgotten story a homeless type man gets on. He was a pleasant looking man albeit quite scruffy and carrying a big black plastic bag. Well the pleasant looking younger, darker version of character actor Cecil Kellaway was only pleasant in that one regard.
Immediately after boarding the bus and only seconds into my planned story, this man plunked himself down directly between Katherine and me and started talking to Katherine even though I was clearly already talking to her!
As this was pointly and not the slightest bit just mildly rude but really pretty outrageous (to me anyway) I decided I was not going to stand for it. Just about seething would be an accurate description of my mood.
Nevertheless, I didn't tell him where to go and how to get there. I merely decided not to "give up the floor" to him, so to speak. So I tried to continue talking as if he wasn't even there. A mere pesky little fly if you will. Didn't work.
I tried this numerous times over several minutes (or what seemed like it). As I said it didn't work. Probably because he was directly in between Katherine and myself. It didn't help matters any either that Katherine was actually responding to him. The nerve.
This of course, made me even madder. LOL. At the end of this story though, you will see why I ended up actually being glad that she was paying some attention to him. If she hadn't we might never have known why he did what he did. And it's funny! At least I think so.
So, back to where I left off. I had been trying, without success, for several minutes it seemed to get him to stop interrupting me until I finally snapped. Well, snapped might be a bit of an exageration but I did get snappy at the very least.
I finally stopped trying to talk over him (pointless!) and said to him directly "Do you mind if I finish my conversation with my friend!". And sweet as pie (aargh) he says something like "not at all". As if nothing had happened!
As I said before, the story I told Katherine is now lost to the sands of time (and infuriation!). What happened next, happened after we got off the bus. I confronted Katherine (mildly - as I could concede even in my state that it wasn't that much her fault) about her actually letting that oaf interrupt me.
That brings us to the funny. Seems he told her something like that he was 1) very religious and 2) had just had about 10(!) beers - not sure how the two connected in his mind other than maybe they were just the two biggest things of note about him.
I guess, according to Katherine, these revelations were both followed with "praise the lords" "hallelujahs" "hail mary's" or somesuch. Most of what else he said she said she didn't understand. Probably because of the 10 beers. LOL.
But she did get one last important thing. Apparently, he told her why he planted himself between us and interrupted. It seems it was on purpose.
Being God's little angel he decided upon boarding the bus that we were gossipping. And it was his job to save us from this!
How sweet! How noble! How very big of him! LOL.
Carmen
Movie! Movie! and (One More) Movie!
The title was supposed to be Movies, Movies and More Movies but I changed it since "we" will be talking about exactly three. Two and then one. Just like the title says.
About two weeks ago I went and saw two movies in a row again (the time before it was Life As You Know It and Due Date as I mentioned in a previous post). This time it was The Social Network with Jesse Eisenberg and How Do You Know with Reese Witherspoon.
Got to the theatre a little late, what with the ticket and concession lines both to contend with, to see the trailers or even the first few minutes of The Social Network. Not an auspicious start. Especially considering the point where I came in.
The Mark Zuckerberg (Eisenberg) character was reeling off a list of colleges where he wanted to get into their info and was explaining the tech issues at each one - in about a mile a minute voice. Snore. Annoying snore.
But it got better from there. Much better. I had wanted to see TSN sort of, but when it came time to put money and time into it I wasn't really sure. I thought it might be quite dry/boring. It really wasn't.
Surprisingly, there were a lot of funny moments. None of which I can really put my finger on. Partly because it was two weeks ago and partly because it was mostly one liners I think. Mainly, the Zuckerberg/Eisenberg character being a smartass.
I thought it was worth seeing. Being in a "dollar" theatre didn't hurt matters either but although I wouldn't have bothered seeing it in a first-run theatre, I'd say it would have been worth it. It definitely had its share of laughs.
Then came How Do You Know. This one was a surprise of sorts. First of all, I wasn't really sure I'd be going to two movies that day as I wasn't sure about Burlesque (which I still haven't seen - more on that later maybe). I hadn't planned on seeing HDYK since although I was looking forward to this movie for some time, it's name had me drawing a blank.
I only amended my choice to it, instead of likely seeing Burlesque with TSN, because I spied a poster of it in the entrance. I was a bit surprised it was already in the cheaper theatre. I'm not sure why as I guess it had been out long enough.
HDYK not only stars Witherspoon but also Owen Wilson and Paul Rudd along with a small but funny part for a favorite actor of my mom's - Jack Nicholson. The baseball angle was thankfully kept to a bare minimum.
Perhaps it was because, as my brother said when he asked me what I saw (he knows when I've been to the movies because he gets the leftover popcorn - lol), he commented on how unbelievable he thought it that RW would be baseball star.
I r-e-a-l-l-y enjoyed this movie. I think I am a poor judge of a movie's originality as I think of myself as a pretty easy audience for the most part but I definitely enjoyed this and would say it "didn't smell like day-old fish" to me.
Even more so than Social Network maybe, I would say check out How Do You Know. It was certainly a fun movie considering it's two "themes" were about unfortunate situations. I say maybe because while I liked HDYK a bit more, TSN was very good too.
See what I mean about an easy audience! LOL. Anyway, the final movie I saw I saw this last weekend with my friend Katherine was the Angelina Jolie, Johnny Depp movie The Tourist. I also enjoyed this. I'll leave it at this - really liked the ending.
And no I don't mean, I was glad it was over. LOL. Although it was very predictable in many places (except for two notable exceptions at the beginning) and not at all realistic even for this type of film I enjoyed it. The leads were a nice pairing.
Well, that's it for my Roger Eberting for this week. I would have had to say that with the recent loss of my job that I probably wouldn't be seeing as many movies till I start working but for my Christmas gift of a bit of a sizeable gift card.
I will however, probably be cutting back at the concession though as you can literally eat through a gift card pretty fast at the concession.
Carmen
PS. One nice thing happened when Katherine and I were waiting in line for our single show we saw this past weekend - turns out someone passed Katherine (who gives off a charming older lady vibe - lol) several coupons to get in for seventy-five cents each. And I thought $3.50 was good!
About two weeks ago I went and saw two movies in a row again (the time before it was Life As You Know It and Due Date as I mentioned in a previous post). This time it was The Social Network with Jesse Eisenberg and How Do You Know with Reese Witherspoon.
Got to the theatre a little late, what with the ticket and concession lines both to contend with, to see the trailers or even the first few minutes of The Social Network. Not an auspicious start. Especially considering the point where I came in.
The Mark Zuckerberg (Eisenberg) character was reeling off a list of colleges where he wanted to get into their info and was explaining the tech issues at each one - in about a mile a minute voice. Snore. Annoying snore.
But it got better from there. Much better. I had wanted to see TSN sort of, but when it came time to put money and time into it I wasn't really sure. I thought it might be quite dry/boring. It really wasn't.
Surprisingly, there were a lot of funny moments. None of which I can really put my finger on. Partly because it was two weeks ago and partly because it was mostly one liners I think. Mainly, the Zuckerberg/Eisenberg character being a smartass.
I thought it was worth seeing. Being in a "dollar" theatre didn't hurt matters either but although I wouldn't have bothered seeing it in a first-run theatre, I'd say it would have been worth it. It definitely had its share of laughs.
Then came How Do You Know. This one was a surprise of sorts. First of all, I wasn't really sure I'd be going to two movies that day as I wasn't sure about Burlesque (which I still haven't seen - more on that later maybe). I hadn't planned on seeing HDYK since although I was looking forward to this movie for some time, it's name had me drawing a blank.
I only amended my choice to it, instead of likely seeing Burlesque with TSN, because I spied a poster of it in the entrance. I was a bit surprised it was already in the cheaper theatre. I'm not sure why as I guess it had been out long enough.
HDYK not only stars Witherspoon but also Owen Wilson and Paul Rudd along with a small but funny part for a favorite actor of my mom's - Jack Nicholson. The baseball angle was thankfully kept to a bare minimum.
Perhaps it was because, as my brother said when he asked me what I saw (he knows when I've been to the movies because he gets the leftover popcorn - lol), he commented on how unbelievable he thought it that RW would be baseball star.
I r-e-a-l-l-y enjoyed this movie. I think I am a poor judge of a movie's originality as I think of myself as a pretty easy audience for the most part but I definitely enjoyed this and would say it "didn't smell like day-old fish" to me.
Even more so than Social Network maybe, I would say check out How Do You Know. It was certainly a fun movie considering it's two "themes" were about unfortunate situations. I say maybe because while I liked HDYK a bit more, TSN was very good too.
See what I mean about an easy audience! LOL. Anyway, the final movie I saw I saw this last weekend with my friend Katherine was the Angelina Jolie, Johnny Depp movie The Tourist. I also enjoyed this. I'll leave it at this - really liked the ending.
And no I don't mean, I was glad it was over. LOL. Although it was very predictable in many places (except for two notable exceptions at the beginning) and not at all realistic even for this type of film I enjoyed it. The leads were a nice pairing.
Well, that's it for my Roger Eberting for this week. I would have had to say that with the recent loss of my job that I probably wouldn't be seeing as many movies till I start working but for my Christmas gift of a bit of a sizeable gift card.
I will however, probably be cutting back at the concession though as you can literally eat through a gift card pretty fast at the concession.
Carmen
PS. One nice thing happened when Katherine and I were waiting in line for our single show we saw this past weekend - turns out someone passed Katherine (who gives off a charming older lady vibe - lol) several coupons to get in for seventy-five cents each. And I thought $3.50 was good!
Thursday, January 27, 2011
OMG! I Can't Believe I Forgot This.
Yesterday when I was relaying the bad news about my (ex) job I mentioned briefly that I forgot about two things in my post just previous to yesterdays. I said I remembered one (Toastmasters) but forgot the other.
Like I said in the title, I can't believe I forgot this. On about December 28 I was checking my blog for the first time in over a month and I came across a new comment on my newest comment widget. It kind of surprised me as I hadn't posted in so long.
Turns out it was only a little over a week old at the time. The guy who posted it put it in my last post comments so his comment was just shy of a month after my post. It seems he, a blogger too, found me (probably through the next blog feature)
On his blog he seems to have a regular feature where he links to other blogs he has come across (and presumably liked). Well mine was one of them. I don't think I got much traffic out of it but it was nice to be featured. I was 2nd of about 10.
Carmen
P.S. I don't feel (depressed? probably just lazy! - LOL) like trying to add a link so go to the Nov 20th post comments and click on the name of the commenter (FishHawk I think) and it will bring you to his site.
Like I said in the title, I can't believe I forgot this. On about December 28 I was checking my blog for the first time in over a month and I came across a new comment on my newest comment widget. It kind of surprised me as I hadn't posted in so long.
Turns out it was only a little over a week old at the time. The guy who posted it put it in my last post comments so his comment was just shy of a month after my post. It seems he, a blogger too, found me (probably through the next blog feature)
On his blog he seems to have a regular feature where he links to other blogs he has come across (and presumably liked). Well mine was one of them. I don't think I got much traffic out of it but it was nice to be featured. I was 2nd of about 10.
Carmen
P.S. I don't feel (depressed? probably just lazy! - LOL) like trying to add a link so go to the Nov 20th post comments and click on the name of the commenter (FishHawk I think) and it will bring you to his site.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Finally! And It's Not Good News Either
Well it happened today. I was at work and a little after mid-way into the shift the shoe dropped. I was finally fired. I guess I knew it was coming but I hoped it would turn around. The advice that I got when they gave me "the talk" just a day less a week ago seemed to help at first but either I didn't keep up the mono-tone or the first day or two after was just a fluke.
The supervisor who had the job of firing me was extremely nice about it and even offered some advice on where to apply after asking my plans. He also offered a written reference which was decent considering I was only there just over two months. Finally, he told me that if I'm still looking for another job at the end of March/beginning of April I should come back and they will give me another try then.
I guess end of March/beginning of April is "bad selling reps season". LOL. At least I am trying to keep a sense of humor about it. But it really sucks since I really liked the job and the people. Especially the people. The job not so much I guess unless you consider being rejected c-o-n-s-t-a-n-t-l-y to be "fun".
Not only did the manager who fired me tell me that I was "too nice" to do well at the call(s) and not agressive enough but before those final moments, a newer co-worker (at least she was a co-worker at the time - lol) told me again for the second time maybe an hour before the ax fell told me the pretty much the same thing. Only it sounded more like a compliment even though I was smart enough to know that comments like that didn't bode well for my future.
Oh, as for the advice I got when I got canned - it was to apply at inbound call centers as opposed to outbound ones where my personality and demeanor would be a better fit. I think he is on to something. He even suggested Telus and one other higher end place (Epcor maybe, I can't remember). I said that that wouldn't work as I only had my Grade 10. He told me that based on the codes given the call center industry (ie. the labor market information center) it shouldn't matter. Good to know.
I will probably (if I don't get lazy/depressed) go job hunting sooner rather than later. Since I joined a new Toastmaster Club (The Peter Kossowan Communicators) that is relatively pricey I probably should. Joining the new club was one of two things I forgot to mention in my last (compilation) post. I remembered the other, along with the Toastmasters news just a day or less after posting but with the hullaballou of getting sacked I don't remember the other anymore.
I remember the Toastmasters because without a new job soon it will definitely cut into what little money I have after my other main bills each month. So if I don't find a call center job soon I may apply at places like Second Cup and Subway. At least there, not only would I be making a secondary income to cover things like Toastmasters, I would also be eligible for a title, such as it would be. Barrista or "Sandwich Artist" (lol) is likely the highest level I could attain with my limited skill set.
I don't know about the barrista thing. Coffee smells quite nice even if I rarely drink it (so the fringe benefits there would be limited!) but I think there is more heavy lifting there than at Subway. Also I must admit that "Sandwich Artist" although a rather tongue-in-cheek title appeals to me more than Barrista. I can see a rotund "Sandwich Artist" more than a Barrista. Barristas strike me as more the waifish/bohemian &/or edgy types.
Ultimately though, a job's a job. It remains to be seen where I'll land. Where exactly will my parachute take me and what color is it? I don't know yet. I will also probably make a trip in to see my occupational therapist Laura. She is the one who went with me when I applied at Xentel. Back when I thought it was harder to get hired and easier to stay hired than it turned out. LOL. This time I don't know if I'll bring Laura for moral support, if she is available, or not.
Even though it wasn't neccessary to getting on at Xentel, Laura was instrumental in giving me the confidence to apply for the job (any job) as she graciously did not one but several (at least two anyway) mock interviews and printed out the results of my answers to use as a reference point. If I do go to try at Telus, etc (which I probably will) this will definitely come in handy there as I have absolutely no doubt that I won't be getting hired at places like that without an interview (or two)
Somebody told me (possibly more than one somebody but definitely more than once) that you either start as a 411 operator when you start at Telus or that that is where you should try. I think that would be fun. Sadly, whether Telus or Epcor or some other places like that, I think many of them expect/demand that you work full-time hours. I really don't like that! But I guess I would try it, if neccessary. Maybe that is where Laura could come in. As a bit of a negotiator.
Anyway, there isn't much more to say on the subject until I get started. If anyone has any ideas of either call centers that I might like or other jobs that they think I might be good at please do leave a comment. "They" always say that it's your extended network of people (including everyone a person comes in contact with) that can help in a job search to make it shorter and more productive. I hope that is true for me. So bring on the tips and leads, etc. And wish me luck!
Carmen
The supervisor who had the job of firing me was extremely nice about it and even offered some advice on where to apply after asking my plans. He also offered a written reference which was decent considering I was only there just over two months. Finally, he told me that if I'm still looking for another job at the end of March/beginning of April I should come back and they will give me another try then.
I guess end of March/beginning of April is "bad selling reps season". LOL. At least I am trying to keep a sense of humor about it. But it really sucks since I really liked the job and the people. Especially the people. The job not so much I guess unless you consider being rejected c-o-n-s-t-a-n-t-l-y to be "fun".
Not only did the manager who fired me tell me that I was "too nice" to do well at the call(s) and not agressive enough but before those final moments, a newer co-worker (at least she was a co-worker at the time - lol) told me again for the second time maybe an hour before the ax fell told me the pretty much the same thing. Only it sounded more like a compliment even though I was smart enough to know that comments like that didn't bode well for my future.
Oh, as for the advice I got when I got canned - it was to apply at inbound call centers as opposed to outbound ones where my personality and demeanor would be a better fit. I think he is on to something. He even suggested Telus and one other higher end place (Epcor maybe, I can't remember). I said that that wouldn't work as I only had my Grade 10. He told me that based on the codes given the call center industry (ie. the labor market information center) it shouldn't matter. Good to know.
I will probably (if I don't get lazy/depressed) go job hunting sooner rather than later. Since I joined a new Toastmaster Club (The Peter Kossowan Communicators) that is relatively pricey I probably should. Joining the new club was one of two things I forgot to mention in my last (compilation) post. I remembered the other, along with the Toastmasters news just a day or less after posting but with the hullaballou of getting sacked I don't remember the other anymore.
I remember the Toastmasters because without a new job soon it will definitely cut into what little money I have after my other main bills each month. So if I don't find a call center job soon I may apply at places like Second Cup and Subway. At least there, not only would I be making a secondary income to cover things like Toastmasters, I would also be eligible for a title, such as it would be. Barrista or "Sandwich Artist" (lol) is likely the highest level I could attain with my limited skill set.
I don't know about the barrista thing. Coffee smells quite nice even if I rarely drink it (so the fringe benefits there would be limited!) but I think there is more heavy lifting there than at Subway. Also I must admit that "Sandwich Artist" although a rather tongue-in-cheek title appeals to me more than Barrista. I can see a rotund "Sandwich Artist" more than a Barrista. Barristas strike me as more the waifish/bohemian &/or edgy types.
Ultimately though, a job's a job. It remains to be seen where I'll land. Where exactly will my parachute take me and what color is it? I don't know yet. I will also probably make a trip in to see my occupational therapist Laura. She is the one who went with me when I applied at Xentel. Back when I thought it was harder to get hired and easier to stay hired than it turned out. LOL. This time I don't know if I'll bring Laura for moral support, if she is available, or not.
Even though it wasn't neccessary to getting on at Xentel, Laura was instrumental in giving me the confidence to apply for the job (any job) as she graciously did not one but several (at least two anyway) mock interviews and printed out the results of my answers to use as a reference point. If I do go to try at Telus, etc (which I probably will) this will definitely come in handy there as I have absolutely no doubt that I won't be getting hired at places like that without an interview (or two)
Somebody told me (possibly more than one somebody but definitely more than once) that you either start as a 411 operator when you start at Telus or that that is where you should try. I think that would be fun. Sadly, whether Telus or Epcor or some other places like that, I think many of them expect/demand that you work full-time hours. I really don't like that! But I guess I would try it, if neccessary. Maybe that is where Laura could come in. As a bit of a negotiator.
Anyway, there isn't much more to say on the subject until I get started. If anyone has any ideas of either call centers that I might like or other jobs that they think I might be good at please do leave a comment. "They" always say that it's your extended network of people (including everyone a person comes in contact with) that can help in a job search to make it shorter and more productive. I hope that is true for me. So bring on the tips and leads, etc. And wish me luck!
Carmen
Thursday, January 20, 2011
The Prodigal Poster Returns - 2 Weeks Late
Howdy "everyone". I'm back again for another of my lately very occasional and conversely very lengthy posts. It's not that there isn't the usual "little stuff" that is somewhat interesting from everyday life to post, it's just that I have continued with the rather slothful attitude toward my blogging that started about mid-August or so of last year.
I will go back to approximately the time of my last post to start things out again. That is to say I will try to remember back to mid/late-November of 2010. First off, the easy stuff. Just two days after my last post - Nov 20th - which incidentally was the one year anniversary of what s/h/b my last day at CPAA but was actually the day after - I started a new job. The place is another call center named Xentel. Just think of the word xylophone.
I really have enjoyed my almost exactly two months there, even though I am not doing very well oddly enough. I just can't seem to get my LiveBridge momentum going again. But more on that later near the very end of this post (It's a doozy). I have met some really nice people there. Exchanged info with a couple recently. Even had the bright idea to photocopy a "info-let" about myself to hand out to people on the spur-of-the-moment.
These "info-lets" (name, both home phone numbers, facebook and twitter status and my blog address) have come in extra handy on two occasions in very short order. Short both in terms of from the time of coming up with the idea to the time I handed them out and also in terms of the time between giving them both out.
First, I ran into Jon M(u) on the platform at Corona Station. Took me a second, I admit to recognize him as he seems slightly plumper and he had his head shaved. The killer smile was still the same though. He was off work for a little bit after leaving Xentel but said he was quite happy at his new job (just started!) at a place called Supply Sergeant.
I told him that it was especially nice to see him as I had planned to exchange info with him on the very day that was his first day of not working at Xentel anymore. :( I told him something [can you all keep a secret - LOL] somewhat scandalous). I admitted that I had planned to get up the nerve to ask one of my favorite supervisors to "raid" the personnel files and get me his e-mail address.
Not his phone number, just e-mail. I had it all figured out! To encourage said supervisor's would-be shameful misconduct and give them some plausible deniability I would say if Jon asked where I got his e-mail that don't you remember giving it to me just before you left. LOL. A believable "fib", if I do say so myself. It's like I just recently read in Cosmo (I'm always the good little attributor). Lying doesn't get you in trouble. Lying poorly does. ROTFLMAO.
Anyways, shortly after (about a week actually) meeting and exchanging info with Jon I ran into Bianca M(e). Also at Corona Station but this time in the mid-level by the top of the escalator. A minute or two more - if even that long - and we would have missed each other, as I always use the elevator to get to that level. Strange how well things sometimes work out. Funny too, that on this day I saw Jon again for only the first time since originally running into him. Apparently, Wednesday is his band practice day.
That reminds me, other than telling him about my plans to purloin his info if a supervisor would have been accommodating enough, I also reminded him of his "promise" to play the bagpipes at my - hopefully far-off - funeral. He not only re-committed to it but offered the services of the entire ETS band - for free. I hope this is not too good to be true!
As for Bianca, we exchanged blog info and I don't know if she has read any of mine but I have read quite a bit of hers. I read all of her secondary (actually the original) blog from 2008. Also, a couple of screens full of the new one. Unfortunately, I kind of gave up on her primary (the more recent) one because it - like the other one - had no date stamps just time ones (kinda dumb, sorry Bianca but it's true).
The reason I read the entire old blog is because at least on that one she had an archives which she, in addition to no date stamps, didn't have on the new one. So there is absolutely no way of telling how far back it goes or how much of it has been read.
This is too bad because her more recent blog is even better than her original. Much easier to read and more adult-like. Which makes sense since the older blog was started when she was in middle school.
I am getting ahead of myself however, talking about the "info-lets" and Jon and Bianca as this happened in the last week or so (Jon) and the last day or so (Bianca), but it seemed to flow from what I was saying about all the nice people I've met through working at Xentel. Of course, it was the same at LiveBridge. I guess you can't help but meet plenty of nice people in short order when you work at a call center as so many people cycle through them in such a short time so a person is bound to meet many good (or at least interesting) people.
But back to a chronological order of sorts.
My mothers 84th birthday fell on the day that my late brother-in-law's brother had his memorial service after a freak winter farming accident. He actually died 9 months to the day after his brother. This was the first of two memorial services I went to so far this winter. More about the other later. As for this one, I have to say it was quite beautiful. There were two huge paintings of farm scenes on either side of the cross on the altar of the funeral chapel. It was a mostly non-religious service which I personally liked, and one that had probably the longest eulogy I've ever seen but as I said before a very beautiful one by his three daughters.
I asked for December 23rd off for "Blue Christmas". Actually I had mistakenly asked for the 22nd off thinking the day of the week it fell on was the 23rd. When I went to ask that it be changed a supervisor was nice enough to remind me that taking that day off would disqualify me from receiving holiday pay. I totally forgot about that. As "luck" would have it I was about 5 days or so short of qualifying for it anyway as I hadn't worked the 31 days you need to. So it didn't hurt at all to take the day. Which also took some of the sting of being just shy of qualifying away as otherwise I would have had to have voluntarily given something up either way.
I'm glad I decided to make an effort to go to Blue Christmas. I'll explain that in a second, but first I should explain Blue Christmas itself.
It's a day that some churches have to acknowledge that the holidays aren't always a time of fun, festiveness, and good cheer for everyone. For some people, the holidays are a sad time that may be filled with loss. When I first heard of Blue Christmas back when I started going to the Unitarian Church in the late 90's I thought it was just a "Unitarian thing" but I have since learned from my mother that they have it at her church too which is a United Church. Possibly other churches do this as well.
I'd be curious to know though whether or not "we" (the Unitarians) pioneered it. I do know that there is one "big" difference between the two churches observance of it. At UCE (Unitarian Church of Edmonton) it is always on the 23rd (the day before Christmas Eve). At BUC (Beverly United Church) it is always the Sunday just before Christmas.
But back to why I am glad I went this year. I have been to at least one other Blue Christmas back when I was first going to UCE. That year I went to see what it was all about more than anything. This time I decided to go for two reasons.
One was that with my mother being 84 just two weeks before Christmas Eve (Dec 10th), it is only a matter of time until she will be gone. Christmas Eve, when my brother and I along with her boyfriend and some "singletons" that me and my mom know get together to celebrate a smallish event with, just won't seem the same. My brother and I will be singletons then. So I thought that getting used to attending Blue Christmas might be a good idea. Not that it really gives you any idea until the time really comes.
The second, and probably more ___________ reason was because I wanted to see if anyone I knew and especially cared about was there and why so that I could offer some good wishes/support to them. When I went I ran into a casual but dear friend Susan and her wonderful father Bob who were there much to my surprise. Susan's mother/Bob's wife, who I never had the opportunity to meet as she had been sick for a number of years, died somewhat unexpectedly considering she had hung on so long on December 17th.
As a result, I was able to find out when the memorial service was, as I wanted to attend in support of Susan and Bob. I am happy to say I saw many faces I recognized who were probably there for much the same reason. Hopefully Susan and Bob know how much they mean to many members of the UCE family. As for Mrs. Koles funeral I will say that it too was (as is fitting for a Unitarian service) not very God centered. It was heavy on classical music as she was a huge fan of the genre. I am not really into classical music but thought the pieces played were very lovely. I believe there were two selections by her favorite composer, Lizst. There was also a nice story that was translated from her native Hungarian.
The previous paragraph too is a bit out of the chronological order as they delayed the service for the holidays and it didn't happen until Jan 14th.
December 17th (a Friday) was also the day I met my new work friend Debbie. It was the day she applied at Xentel. I noted to her that starting on Monday she would -just- miss the Xmas party on December 18th. It is for this reason and others that I will likely remember her start date (December 20th). I started the 22nd of November, she started the 20th of December and my day of "infamy" at Xentel - to be discussed later - happened on Jan 19th (yesterday).
I also remember the Xmas party on Dec 18th for another "sad" but "funny" reason. File this one under not learning my lesson the first time. LOL. I brought my friend Katherine to the Xmas party and while she was at the table I was looking for some people I knew and liked to introduce her to. I happened to end up standing next to two supervisors and one of their guests. The one supervisor appeared to either be using sign language or was quite a gesturer.
As I approached to find out who the guest he was talking to was, he walked away a few feet towards the music area which he was taking care of. I asked the guest his name and he replied in a way that let me know he was in fact deaf. As I didn't understand, I asked the other supervisor if he knew what the first supervisors "fathers" name was! Immediately, the first supervisor who was several feet away as mentioned replied from afar with a shocked tone that his guest "wasn't -that- old".
It gets worse. LOL. I go back to my table and tell my friend what happened. She smiled and commisserated and maybe even pointed out that it was typical. LOL. Anyway, awhile goes by and after stewing about my error I alight on an idea to perhaps redeem myself a little. The guest I inadvertently aged was standing near the bar with a drink so I thought maybe he is almost done and I can buy him another as a sort of an apology. So I go over to the bar and oddly, it's the second supervisor who is again with the guest (not his host) so I ask him if he knows any sign language.
Now for a funny and brief aside. The second supervisor, a normally somewhat "buttoned-up" type was a few sheets to the wind and came out with the following answer ... "I only know three things in sign language - hello, goodbye and FUCK OFF" (giving the finger!). LOL.
Well, back to the main story. Just then, like magic supervisor number one (the host) shows up like clockwork. On second thought, maybe it wasn't so surprising as he might have noticed me approaching his guest again and got worried. Apparently, if this was the case, it was not without reason. LOL. You see, when he showed up, I asked him if he could ask if I could buy his "brother" a drink. (I guess I assumed again that if the guest looked like the supervisor's father to me and wasn't he must still be related.) There was a brief pause. Then he said it was his PARTNER. Oops.
And naturally, he also pointed out that the offered drink was redundant as he had a fresh one. Foiled again. One lucky thing, when I told the first supervisor that my friend had told me to say I was drunk (LOL), I also said I didn't know which was better (or worse) - saying I was drunk or saying I was sober. He either smiled or laughed. Thank God he had a sense of humor about it. All in all a super nice (and very forgiving) guy.
As for why else this shows I learn some things very slowly other than the fact I made not one but two assumptions, it was the second time I put my foot in my mouth with someone's guest. The other time was not at this event, but still. A few years before, at a due at my mom's church, one of the three women who have been pastors at her church over the years (yes, three!) was there with a male guest.
The two of them, my mother and I and perhaps one or two others were in a group and I made the mistake of asking her about her "son". Turned out it was her husband! Again, oops. So as I said, some people never seem to learn the first time and apparently I am one of those sad, sad people. Hopefully there won't be a third time. "They" say things happen in three's. Lets hope for my sake that in this instance this isn't the case.
On a happier note than deaths and missteps, on the way to the Blue Christmas Dinner/Service I got a little unexpected Christmas gift courtesy of an ETS driver. I was waiting for a #7 to take me the second half of the way to the church and I noticed from (quite) a distance a older lady seemingly vision-impaired trying to figure out if the buses coming in were hers when a female driver noted what bus she was driving loudly enough for me to hear in the shelter. When my bus finally came I had forgotten about the older lady until the driver of my bus noted that he wasn't sure whether or not a woman wanted his bus or not. It was then I remembered the older woman and yelled at him to stop as it was probably a vision-impaired woman I had seen earlier. I went to the door to tell her what bus it was and it was not the one she was waiting for.
As we took off and I went to my seat at the front the driver called me up to see him. I assumed he had not seen my pass and when I said that we both joked about him calling me up to throw me off the bus. LOL. In fact, when I got up beside his seat to find out what he wanted, he handed me something. It turned out to be a two dollar coin. He said that he thought what I had done was extremely nice and wanted to treat me to a coffee at Tim Horton's. It really wasn't anything special but appparently he is more used to bad things happening on the bus and he wanted to show his appreciation. I thought it was not only a nice thing of him to do but as I said before, a bit of a little Christmas gift. Maybe even the nicest of many nice gifts I got this year since it was so unexpected and given with such a nice thought.
Also on a happy note, in late December/early January I treated myself to a whack of costume jewelry. I was walking past a window display and noticed a really nice, flamboyant, dangling, white "glass" necklace (I'd post a picture rather than trying to explain if I actually knew how - maybe I'll see if Virginia will show me how to do it with my cheap kids digital camera). I decided to go in and check on the price only half thinking I might buy it.
When I went in and asked I decided to look at their other jewelry and left $250 later! I bought several necklaces, two bracelets (one matches one of the necklaces and one matches one of the earrings), and a number of earrings. The last ones mentioned, the earrings, were kinda putting the cart before the horse as my ear holes have totally grown in. So I'll have to go to get them re-pierced and then wait the what-is-it, like 6 weeks or so it takes to go from the piercing studs to being able to take them out and wear other things.
I bought all the earrings, which were about 5 or 6 pairs, because I was afraid they wouldn't still be there later. This was because most of what I bought was sale-priced and some/most were the only ones on the rack of their kind. Also, finding jewelry I like can be a problem. At least when I'm in department stores. This was like finding a lost portal to the '80s. LOL.
For Christmas Eve, like I said, we had our small part of the family and one single friend dinner at Mom's followed by a Christmas Eve church service at mom's church just a few blocks away from her house (the house we all grew up in, me my whole life). On Christmas Day, we went to my oldest sister's for the huge dinner with all her 3 kids and spouses, 9 grandkids, "adopted" daughter and granddaughter (a friend of one of her girls who is a singleton too), both grandmothers (one being my mom), me and my brother (both without families of our own) as well as her daughter-in-law's sister, husband and two young kids (who think of her and her husband like additional grandparents) and last but not least a late old family friend's daughter and her girlfriend. Quite the houseful. I think the count was something like 30!
On December 26th (Boxing Day being a Sunday) I went to church at UCE again for only the second time in like 4 months (the first being Blue Christmas just 3 days earlier) for a wrapup to 2010 service. Typically Unitarian. I showed up quite early and ended up setting off the alarm because apparently someone set the alarm but forgot to lock the doors on Christmas Day after leaving and I was the first one there and of course didn't know the code. I also didn't know that there is a public access phone in the building (there is!) and thought the only one was in the locked church offices so when the alarm company would have phoned I wasn't able to answer. Luckily (sort of), on the 23rd at Blue Christmas, there were problems with the alarm and I (who was 5 minutes late) and another person (who was about 15-20 minutes late) both set off the alarm so I the alarm people &/or the police never showed up as they probably thought it was another malfunction and so likely there was no charge.
January 1st/New Years Day we decided to postpone the dinner my mom was having with the Christmas Eve bunch (Mom, me, my brother and my/my mom's friend Katherine) till January 2 because it was a Sunday so that my brother could take me and Katherine home together rather than taking her on Saturday (January 1st) because of her bad bus connections on the last leg of her ride home and me on Sunday. We started the New Year off with a very nice dinner. Mom found a prime rib that was $44 regular price for $29 so that was what we had. First time in a year or so. A very nice treat. Thanks Mom. BTW, left over prime rib makes for "quite the sandwich". LOL.
It is only now that I am getting to the point at which the title of this post comes into play. I had plans of posting at least semi-regularly from between Nov 20th when I posted for the first time in like three months as mentioned before, until my 1 year anniversary of blogging on Jan 6th. Of course, as we know, this did not happen. Many things, like the unexpected Christmas gift, Blue Christmas, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, our belated New Years Day, etc. all happened in a short span of time but I didn't seem to get anything down originally.
So when Jan 6th came, it not only came - it went. Without fanfare. Not exactly what I had "planned" for my first year finale. So here it is, exactly two weeks later. Not planned that way, it just happened. I guess it's the next best thing since I'm so big on patterns and anniversaries and second and third chances, etc. Like my yearly New Year's, then Ukrainian New Year's and then when neither of those panned out, Chinese New Year's resolutions of past years.
Speaking of Chinese New Year's ... two things of interest that I read lately.
First, apparently, there is a new, 13th zodiac sign. This only has to do with Chinese New Year's in so much as the Chinese have their animal zodiac and that reminded me of the "regular"/Western one which I just read has had to be re-jigged because of slight changes to the earth's something or other over many years. Yeah, whatever. As there are now 13 signs the dates have changed somewhat. My birthday is one of the dates affected. I have been a Libra for 42 years but am now being told that I am a Virgo! Not very impressed. For as much as I believe in astrology (not much) I have always seen many traits of mine in the Libra traits. I liked being a Libra. I find it difficult to believe that suddenly, my traits are going to be/really have been all along something entirely different. Virgo traits. Whatever they are. Haven't researched that yet.
The new sign is being "wedged in" just before Sagittarius (Mom's sign - actually didn't check if it still is) and I think it may start with an O. Just a minute, I will Google it...
...here it is. I was right about it being wedged -before- Sagittarius and also about it starting with an O. It is Ophiuchus. Apparently though according to the New York Daily News Jan 19th, 2011 article The 13th Sign - Zodiac Madness "Don't panic, your star sign is still the same. And so is the sign of your lover, mother and best friend. That is unless you follow the sidereal (emphasis mine) system of calculation that the Eastern philosophy of Astrology does...".
Apparently we of the "Western Zodiac" as opposed to the "Eastern (Vedic) Zodiac" follow a tropical system of calculation. Also, according to Betty Matteson Rhodes' "true" astrological chart Scorpio got screwed (my words) as most Zodiac signs are 3 to 5 weeks long whereas on her chart Scorpio is 6 days I noticed. For those interested, the small window of November 23rd to November 29th. Oh and Mom's sign did change - if your into Eastern "Zodiac Madness" - she is actually the new sign Ophiuchus which is November 30th to December 17th. Consider this your astrological lesson for the day.
The second thing about Chinese New Year is that according to Yahoo News the manufacturing industry is in a tizzy about Chinese New Year because it seems that Chinese workers including the lower class types that do the cheap labor take a extended break of about ten days or two weeks at Chinese New Years AND there are fears that some/many won't return to their jobs after that and Chinese already has a newish labor shortage as Chinese workers are starting to move away from working for such low wages that made China a great place to export jobs. Consider this your economics lesson for the day.
After the jump to Chinese New Years which is a few weeks away I believe after talking about January 6th and my blog anniversary that brings us to the present. Yesterday, I got called into the office at work. (This is where I will now mention the doozy I was talking about at the beginning of this post). It has been a long time coming, but I finally got "the talk". Three days shy of my two month anniversary at Xentel (yesterday, January 19th), I get told that my numbers suck (not a direct quote - the manager was more tactful) and it's shape up or ship out time. I have to admit, I am surprised it took this long. Not that it makes it any easier to take. After all, I really do like it there. The people, the work, the location. The hours and pay, meh. Still, all in all, a great job in my opinion especially since the hours and pay are the least of my concerns all things considered.
I did get some advice which I wasn't sure about it's effect on my performance when I started writing this this afternoon. I only had about half a half shift (2 hours) to test it out yesterday before I started writing this. It did seem to help a little. I got one sale/donation almost immediately (the timing if not the actual "sale" being a fluke) and two more that "bit" but then fell off the hook. I mentioned that - the 2 could have beens not the 1 donation - to the manager and to his credit he called it progress. The donation was only $30 but it was better than a kick in the head.
Then today, I actaully managed about 5 sales/donations for a total of $130 or $10 above the amended amount the manager told me I should be reaching daily on average and only $30 below what we were originally told is the sales "goal". One of these sales was even to an "ethnic." lady (who had her young daughter pass along the info!) & which is a hard sale to make as "ethnic" women always seem to want to talk to their husbands. Now that I think about it, one of my two sales on the day of "the talk" - albeit before the talk I think - was to an older lady who gave the I'm a pensioner, ie. obviously I can't afford it speech before saying why not to one of my few pre-talk successful rebuttals.
So I guess I'm saying considering the day and a half (part-time hours) that I've worked since being put on notice I'm getting better. Hopefully it isn't an aberation and the success continues and the advice is truly responsible for the seeming turn-around. As for what the advice was, I was told that my voice was all over the place (not his exact words which I don't remember) but basically meaning it is high-pitched and up and down, up and down in intonation. He actually drew me a picture of my voice! LOL. The word I would use to describe his picture with is - "wavy". So the advice was to do something that they don't usually want people to do, which is to try to be more monotone. Again, LOL.
The other thing he told me that was funny (or would be funnier if my job weren't on the line) was that my pitch/spiel sounded like I was "telling people a fairy-tale". Like I told my friend Debbie when I told her about "the talk", I wish by fairy-tale it meant that my voice was so mesmerizing that I could hypnotize people into giving me $100-$150 at a time, on credit card no less. You are getting very sleepy, when you awaken you will give me money and lots of it and you will use our preferred method of payment! LOL.
Finally, I promised in the previous post that I would talk a bit about movies/tv. and some stuff like that. I will keep this part s-o-m-e-w-h-a-t short since this is probably the epic of all epic posts possibly exceeding the Life At LiveBridge posts in their three part entirety! I saw both Life As We Know It with Katherine Heigl and Josh Duhamel & Due Date with Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifanakis back to back at the discount theatre last weekend. Enjoyed both. Due Date probably slightly more. Then again maybe not.
LAWKI ended abruptly. DD was ok with one r-e-a-l-l-y funny scene with the dog in the car when they were trying to sleep in it and a few other sorta funny things most of which were in the trailer I think. Actually, LAWKI's funniest scene was probably the one of the baby getting "shoved" by the "doofus" that was also in the trailer. Nevertheless, I enjoyed them for what they were. I'm a reasonably easy audience. I love movies.
Tonight I saw the new replacement for Larry King Live which is called Piers Morgan Tonight I think. Not only do I like Piers Morgan (who I "met" on the Celebrity Apprentice Season that he won) but his guest was Ricky Gervais who I also like. Unfortunately, I didn't see the Golden Globes which RG hosted and was apparently wickedly funny and irreverent on.
Also, unfortunately I only saw part of the interview and without the sound (but with captions) as I was at McDonalds for a late dinner. The bright side I guess is if I were at home I probably wouldn't have had the tv on/known that PM's show was on and that RG was the guest. So I should be grateful because now that I know about it maybe I can find the interview on youtube.
Till next time. Hopefully, there will be more posts and fewer paragraphs per post. I counted over 50-60 here (including the 1,2,3,4 line ones as well as the bigger ones). LOL. That means its actually probably only 1-1/2 to 2 of the LiveBridge posts if I remember their length correctly. LOL. Anyway, hope to be back sooner rather than later but as I've learned - no promises.
Carmen
P.S. This is Post 105.
P.P.S. I neglected to mention considering again that the title of the post refers to my missed anniversary anything about not making my anniversary date bet deadline. I missed it by "only" 20. But in fairness, I kind of gave up several months before and I had a good opportunity to mine people at my new job. Then again, it might be a good thing if not everybody there knows all about me. LOL.
I will go back to approximately the time of my last post to start things out again. That is to say I will try to remember back to mid/late-November of 2010. First off, the easy stuff. Just two days after my last post - Nov 20th - which incidentally was the one year anniversary of what s/h/b my last day at CPAA but was actually the day after - I started a new job. The place is another call center named Xentel. Just think of the word xylophone.
I really have enjoyed my almost exactly two months there, even though I am not doing very well oddly enough. I just can't seem to get my LiveBridge momentum going again. But more on that later near the very end of this post (It's a doozy). I have met some really nice people there. Exchanged info with a couple recently. Even had the bright idea to photocopy a "info-let" about myself to hand out to people on the spur-of-the-moment.
These "info-lets" (name, both home phone numbers, facebook and twitter status and my blog address) have come in extra handy on two occasions in very short order. Short both in terms of from the time of coming up with the idea to the time I handed them out and also in terms of the time between giving them both out.
First, I ran into Jon M(u) on the platform at Corona Station. Took me a second, I admit to recognize him as he seems slightly plumper and he had his head shaved. The killer smile was still the same though. He was off work for a little bit after leaving Xentel but said he was quite happy at his new job (just started!) at a place called Supply Sergeant.
I told him that it was especially nice to see him as I had planned to exchange info with him on the very day that was his first day of not working at Xentel anymore. :( I told him something [can you all keep a secret - LOL] somewhat scandalous). I admitted that I had planned to get up the nerve to ask one of my favorite supervisors to "raid" the personnel files and get me his e-mail address.
Not his phone number, just e-mail. I had it all figured out! To encourage said supervisor's would-be shameful misconduct and give them some plausible deniability I would say if Jon asked where I got his e-mail that don't you remember giving it to me just before you left. LOL. A believable "fib", if I do say so myself. It's like I just recently read in Cosmo (I'm always the good little attributor). Lying doesn't get you in trouble. Lying poorly does. ROTFLMAO.
Anyways, shortly after (about a week actually) meeting and exchanging info with Jon I ran into Bianca M(e). Also at Corona Station but this time in the mid-level by the top of the escalator. A minute or two more - if even that long - and we would have missed each other, as I always use the elevator to get to that level. Strange how well things sometimes work out. Funny too, that on this day I saw Jon again for only the first time since originally running into him. Apparently, Wednesday is his band practice day.
That reminds me, other than telling him about my plans to purloin his info if a supervisor would have been accommodating enough, I also reminded him of his "promise" to play the bagpipes at my - hopefully far-off - funeral. He not only re-committed to it but offered the services of the entire ETS band - for free. I hope this is not too good to be true!
As for Bianca, we exchanged blog info and I don't know if she has read any of mine but I have read quite a bit of hers. I read all of her secondary (actually the original) blog from 2008. Also, a couple of screens full of the new one. Unfortunately, I kind of gave up on her primary (the more recent) one because it - like the other one - had no date stamps just time ones (kinda dumb, sorry Bianca but it's true).
The reason I read the entire old blog is because at least on that one she had an archives which she, in addition to no date stamps, didn't have on the new one. So there is absolutely no way of telling how far back it goes or how much of it has been read.
This is too bad because her more recent blog is even better than her original. Much easier to read and more adult-like. Which makes sense since the older blog was started when she was in middle school.
I am getting ahead of myself however, talking about the "info-lets" and Jon and Bianca as this happened in the last week or so (Jon) and the last day or so (Bianca), but it seemed to flow from what I was saying about all the nice people I've met through working at Xentel. Of course, it was the same at LiveBridge. I guess you can't help but meet plenty of nice people in short order when you work at a call center as so many people cycle through them in such a short time so a person is bound to meet many good (or at least interesting) people.
But back to a chronological order of sorts.
My mothers 84th birthday fell on the day that my late brother-in-law's brother had his memorial service after a freak winter farming accident. He actually died 9 months to the day after his brother. This was the first of two memorial services I went to so far this winter. More about the other later. As for this one, I have to say it was quite beautiful. There were two huge paintings of farm scenes on either side of the cross on the altar of the funeral chapel. It was a mostly non-religious service which I personally liked, and one that had probably the longest eulogy I've ever seen but as I said before a very beautiful one by his three daughters.
I asked for December 23rd off for "Blue Christmas". Actually I had mistakenly asked for the 22nd off thinking the day of the week it fell on was the 23rd. When I went to ask that it be changed a supervisor was nice enough to remind me that taking that day off would disqualify me from receiving holiday pay. I totally forgot about that. As "luck" would have it I was about 5 days or so short of qualifying for it anyway as I hadn't worked the 31 days you need to. So it didn't hurt at all to take the day. Which also took some of the sting of being just shy of qualifying away as otherwise I would have had to have voluntarily given something up either way.
I'm glad I decided to make an effort to go to Blue Christmas. I'll explain that in a second, but first I should explain Blue Christmas itself.
It's a day that some churches have to acknowledge that the holidays aren't always a time of fun, festiveness, and good cheer for everyone. For some people, the holidays are a sad time that may be filled with loss. When I first heard of Blue Christmas back when I started going to the Unitarian Church in the late 90's I thought it was just a "Unitarian thing" but I have since learned from my mother that they have it at her church too which is a United Church. Possibly other churches do this as well.
I'd be curious to know though whether or not "we" (the Unitarians) pioneered it. I do know that there is one "big" difference between the two churches observance of it. At UCE (Unitarian Church of Edmonton) it is always on the 23rd (the day before Christmas Eve). At BUC (Beverly United Church) it is always the Sunday just before Christmas.
But back to why I am glad I went this year. I have been to at least one other Blue Christmas back when I was first going to UCE. That year I went to see what it was all about more than anything. This time I decided to go for two reasons.
One was that with my mother being 84 just two weeks before Christmas Eve (Dec 10th), it is only a matter of time until she will be gone. Christmas Eve, when my brother and I along with her boyfriend and some "singletons" that me and my mom know get together to celebrate a smallish event with, just won't seem the same. My brother and I will be singletons then. So I thought that getting used to attending Blue Christmas might be a good idea. Not that it really gives you any idea until the time really comes.
The second, and probably more ___________ reason was because I wanted to see if anyone I knew and especially cared about was there and why so that I could offer some good wishes/support to them. When I went I ran into a casual but dear friend Susan and her wonderful father Bob who were there much to my surprise. Susan's mother/Bob's wife, who I never had the opportunity to meet as she had been sick for a number of years, died somewhat unexpectedly considering she had hung on so long on December 17th.
As a result, I was able to find out when the memorial service was, as I wanted to attend in support of Susan and Bob. I am happy to say I saw many faces I recognized who were probably there for much the same reason. Hopefully Susan and Bob know how much they mean to many members of the UCE family. As for Mrs. Koles funeral I will say that it too was (as is fitting for a Unitarian service) not very God centered. It was heavy on classical music as she was a huge fan of the genre. I am not really into classical music but thought the pieces played were very lovely. I believe there were two selections by her favorite composer, Lizst. There was also a nice story that was translated from her native Hungarian.
The previous paragraph too is a bit out of the chronological order as they delayed the service for the holidays and it didn't happen until Jan 14th.
December 17th (a Friday) was also the day I met my new work friend Debbie. It was the day she applied at Xentel. I noted to her that starting on Monday she would -just- miss the Xmas party on December 18th. It is for this reason and others that I will likely remember her start date (December 20th). I started the 22nd of November, she started the 20th of December and my day of "infamy" at Xentel - to be discussed later - happened on Jan 19th (yesterday).
I also remember the Xmas party on Dec 18th for another "sad" but "funny" reason. File this one under not learning my lesson the first time. LOL. I brought my friend Katherine to the Xmas party and while she was at the table I was looking for some people I knew and liked to introduce her to. I happened to end up standing next to two supervisors and one of their guests. The one supervisor appeared to either be using sign language or was quite a gesturer.
As I approached to find out who the guest he was talking to was, he walked away a few feet towards the music area which he was taking care of. I asked the guest his name and he replied in a way that let me know he was in fact deaf. As I didn't understand, I asked the other supervisor if he knew what the first supervisors "fathers" name was! Immediately, the first supervisor who was several feet away as mentioned replied from afar with a shocked tone that his guest "wasn't -that- old".
It gets worse. LOL. I go back to my table and tell my friend what happened. She smiled and commisserated and maybe even pointed out that it was typical. LOL. Anyway, awhile goes by and after stewing about my error I alight on an idea to perhaps redeem myself a little. The guest I inadvertently aged was standing near the bar with a drink so I thought maybe he is almost done and I can buy him another as a sort of an apology. So I go over to the bar and oddly, it's the second supervisor who is again with the guest (not his host) so I ask him if he knows any sign language.
Now for a funny and brief aside. The second supervisor, a normally somewhat "buttoned-up" type was a few sheets to the wind and came out with the following answer ... "I only know three things in sign language - hello, goodbye and FUCK OFF" (giving the finger!). LOL.
Well, back to the main story. Just then, like magic supervisor number one (the host) shows up like clockwork. On second thought, maybe it wasn't so surprising as he might have noticed me approaching his guest again and got worried. Apparently, if this was the case, it was not without reason. LOL. You see, when he showed up, I asked him if he could ask if I could buy his "brother" a drink. (I guess I assumed again that if the guest looked like the supervisor's father to me and wasn't he must still be related.) There was a brief pause. Then he said it was his PARTNER. Oops.
And naturally, he also pointed out that the offered drink was redundant as he had a fresh one. Foiled again. One lucky thing, when I told the first supervisor that my friend had told me to say I was drunk (LOL), I also said I didn't know which was better (or worse) - saying I was drunk or saying I was sober. He either smiled or laughed. Thank God he had a sense of humor about it. All in all a super nice (and very forgiving) guy.
As for why else this shows I learn some things very slowly other than the fact I made not one but two assumptions, it was the second time I put my foot in my mouth with someone's guest. The other time was not at this event, but still. A few years before, at a due at my mom's church, one of the three women who have been pastors at her church over the years (yes, three!) was there with a male guest.
The two of them, my mother and I and perhaps one or two others were in a group and I made the mistake of asking her about her "son". Turned out it was her husband! Again, oops. So as I said, some people never seem to learn the first time and apparently I am one of those sad, sad people. Hopefully there won't be a third time. "They" say things happen in three's. Lets hope for my sake that in this instance this isn't the case.
On a happier note than deaths and missteps, on the way to the Blue Christmas Dinner/Service I got a little unexpected Christmas gift courtesy of an ETS driver. I was waiting for a #7 to take me the second half of the way to the church and I noticed from (quite) a distance a older lady seemingly vision-impaired trying to figure out if the buses coming in were hers when a female driver noted what bus she was driving loudly enough for me to hear in the shelter. When my bus finally came I had forgotten about the older lady until the driver of my bus noted that he wasn't sure whether or not a woman wanted his bus or not. It was then I remembered the older woman and yelled at him to stop as it was probably a vision-impaired woman I had seen earlier. I went to the door to tell her what bus it was and it was not the one she was waiting for.
As we took off and I went to my seat at the front the driver called me up to see him. I assumed he had not seen my pass and when I said that we both joked about him calling me up to throw me off the bus. LOL. In fact, when I got up beside his seat to find out what he wanted, he handed me something. It turned out to be a two dollar coin. He said that he thought what I had done was extremely nice and wanted to treat me to a coffee at Tim Horton's. It really wasn't anything special but appparently he is more used to bad things happening on the bus and he wanted to show his appreciation. I thought it was not only a nice thing of him to do but as I said before, a bit of a little Christmas gift. Maybe even the nicest of many nice gifts I got this year since it was so unexpected and given with such a nice thought.
Also on a happy note, in late December/early January I treated myself to a whack of costume jewelry. I was walking past a window display and noticed a really nice, flamboyant, dangling, white "glass" necklace (I'd post a picture rather than trying to explain if I actually knew how - maybe I'll see if Virginia will show me how to do it with my cheap kids digital camera). I decided to go in and check on the price only half thinking I might buy it.
When I went in and asked I decided to look at their other jewelry and left $250 later! I bought several necklaces, two bracelets (one matches one of the necklaces and one matches one of the earrings), and a number of earrings. The last ones mentioned, the earrings, were kinda putting the cart before the horse as my ear holes have totally grown in. So I'll have to go to get them re-pierced and then wait the what-is-it, like 6 weeks or so it takes to go from the piercing studs to being able to take them out and wear other things.
I bought all the earrings, which were about 5 or 6 pairs, because I was afraid they wouldn't still be there later. This was because most of what I bought was sale-priced and some/most were the only ones on the rack of their kind. Also, finding jewelry I like can be a problem. At least when I'm in department stores. This was like finding a lost portal to the '80s. LOL.
For Christmas Eve, like I said, we had our small part of the family and one single friend dinner at Mom's followed by a Christmas Eve church service at mom's church just a few blocks away from her house (the house we all grew up in, me my whole life). On Christmas Day, we went to my oldest sister's for the huge dinner with all her 3 kids and spouses, 9 grandkids, "adopted" daughter and granddaughter (a friend of one of her girls who is a singleton too), both grandmothers (one being my mom), me and my brother (both without families of our own) as well as her daughter-in-law's sister, husband and two young kids (who think of her and her husband like additional grandparents) and last but not least a late old family friend's daughter and her girlfriend. Quite the houseful. I think the count was something like 30!
On December 26th (Boxing Day being a Sunday) I went to church at UCE again for only the second time in like 4 months (the first being Blue Christmas just 3 days earlier) for a wrapup to 2010 service. Typically Unitarian. I showed up quite early and ended up setting off the alarm because apparently someone set the alarm but forgot to lock the doors on Christmas Day after leaving and I was the first one there and of course didn't know the code. I also didn't know that there is a public access phone in the building (there is!) and thought the only one was in the locked church offices so when the alarm company would have phoned I wasn't able to answer. Luckily (sort of), on the 23rd at Blue Christmas, there were problems with the alarm and I (who was 5 minutes late) and another person (who was about 15-20 minutes late) both set off the alarm so I the alarm people &/or the police never showed up as they probably thought it was another malfunction and so likely there was no charge.
January 1st/New Years Day we decided to postpone the dinner my mom was having with the Christmas Eve bunch (Mom, me, my brother and my/my mom's friend Katherine) till January 2 because it was a Sunday so that my brother could take me and Katherine home together rather than taking her on Saturday (January 1st) because of her bad bus connections on the last leg of her ride home and me on Sunday. We started the New Year off with a very nice dinner. Mom found a prime rib that was $44 regular price for $29 so that was what we had. First time in a year or so. A very nice treat. Thanks Mom. BTW, left over prime rib makes for "quite the sandwich". LOL.
It is only now that I am getting to the point at which the title of this post comes into play. I had plans of posting at least semi-regularly from between Nov 20th when I posted for the first time in like three months as mentioned before, until my 1 year anniversary of blogging on Jan 6th. Of course, as we know, this did not happen. Many things, like the unexpected Christmas gift, Blue Christmas, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, our belated New Years Day, etc. all happened in a short span of time but I didn't seem to get anything down originally.
So when Jan 6th came, it not only came - it went. Without fanfare. Not exactly what I had "planned" for my first year finale. So here it is, exactly two weeks later. Not planned that way, it just happened. I guess it's the next best thing since I'm so big on patterns and anniversaries and second and third chances, etc. Like my yearly New Year's, then Ukrainian New Year's and then when neither of those panned out, Chinese New Year's resolutions of past years.
Speaking of Chinese New Year's ... two things of interest that I read lately.
First, apparently, there is a new, 13th zodiac sign. This only has to do with Chinese New Year's in so much as the Chinese have their animal zodiac and that reminded me of the "regular"/Western one which I just read has had to be re-jigged because of slight changes to the earth's something or other over many years. Yeah, whatever. As there are now 13 signs the dates have changed somewhat. My birthday is one of the dates affected. I have been a Libra for 42 years but am now being told that I am a Virgo! Not very impressed. For as much as I believe in astrology (not much) I have always seen many traits of mine in the Libra traits. I liked being a Libra. I find it difficult to believe that suddenly, my traits are going to be/really have been all along something entirely different. Virgo traits. Whatever they are. Haven't researched that yet.
The new sign is being "wedged in" just before Sagittarius (Mom's sign - actually didn't check if it still is) and I think it may start with an O. Just a minute, I will Google it...
...here it is. I was right about it being wedged -before- Sagittarius and also about it starting with an O. It is Ophiuchus. Apparently though according to the New York Daily News Jan 19th, 2011 article The 13th Sign - Zodiac Madness "Don't panic, your star sign is still the same. And so is the sign of your lover, mother and best friend. That is unless you follow the sidereal (emphasis mine) system of calculation that the Eastern philosophy of Astrology does...".
Apparently we of the "Western Zodiac" as opposed to the "Eastern (Vedic) Zodiac" follow a tropical system of calculation. Also, according to Betty Matteson Rhodes' "true" astrological chart Scorpio got screwed (my words) as most Zodiac signs are 3 to 5 weeks long whereas on her chart Scorpio is 6 days I noticed. For those interested, the small window of November 23rd to November 29th. Oh and Mom's sign did change - if your into Eastern "Zodiac Madness" - she is actually the new sign Ophiuchus which is November 30th to December 17th. Consider this your astrological lesson for the day.
The second thing about Chinese New Year is that according to Yahoo News the manufacturing industry is in a tizzy about Chinese New Year because it seems that Chinese workers including the lower class types that do the cheap labor take a extended break of about ten days or two weeks at Chinese New Years AND there are fears that some/many won't return to their jobs after that and Chinese already has a newish labor shortage as Chinese workers are starting to move away from working for such low wages that made China a great place to export jobs. Consider this your economics lesson for the day.
After the jump to Chinese New Years which is a few weeks away I believe after talking about January 6th and my blog anniversary that brings us to the present. Yesterday, I got called into the office at work. (This is where I will now mention the doozy I was talking about at the beginning of this post). It has been a long time coming, but I finally got "the talk". Three days shy of my two month anniversary at Xentel (yesterday, January 19th), I get told that my numbers suck (not a direct quote - the manager was more tactful) and it's shape up or ship out time. I have to admit, I am surprised it took this long. Not that it makes it any easier to take. After all, I really do like it there. The people, the work, the location. The hours and pay, meh. Still, all in all, a great job in my opinion especially since the hours and pay are the least of my concerns all things considered.
I did get some advice which I wasn't sure about it's effect on my performance when I started writing this this afternoon. I only had about half a half shift (2 hours) to test it out yesterday before I started writing this. It did seem to help a little. I got one sale/donation almost immediately (the timing if not the actual "sale" being a fluke) and two more that "bit" but then fell off the hook. I mentioned that - the 2 could have beens not the 1 donation - to the manager and to his credit he called it progress. The donation was only $30 but it was better than a kick in the head.
Then today, I actaully managed about 5 sales/donations for a total of $130 or $10 above the amended amount the manager told me I should be reaching daily on average and only $30 below what we were originally told is the sales "goal". One of these sales was even to an "ethnic." lady (who had her young daughter pass along the info!) & which is a hard sale to make as "ethnic" women always seem to want to talk to their husbands. Now that I think about it, one of my two sales on the day of "the talk" - albeit before the talk I think - was to an older lady who gave the I'm a pensioner, ie. obviously I can't afford it speech before saying why not to one of my few pre-talk successful rebuttals.
So I guess I'm saying considering the day and a half (part-time hours) that I've worked since being put on notice I'm getting better. Hopefully it isn't an aberation and the success continues and the advice is truly responsible for the seeming turn-around. As for what the advice was, I was told that my voice was all over the place (not his exact words which I don't remember) but basically meaning it is high-pitched and up and down, up and down in intonation. He actually drew me a picture of my voice! LOL. The word I would use to describe his picture with is - "wavy". So the advice was to do something that they don't usually want people to do, which is to try to be more monotone. Again, LOL.
The other thing he told me that was funny (or would be funnier if my job weren't on the line) was that my pitch/spiel sounded like I was "telling people a fairy-tale". Like I told my friend Debbie when I told her about "the talk", I wish by fairy-tale it meant that my voice was so mesmerizing that I could hypnotize people into giving me $100-$150 at a time, on credit card no less. You are getting very sleepy, when you awaken you will give me money and lots of it and you will use our preferred method of payment! LOL.
Finally, I promised in the previous post that I would talk a bit about movies/tv. and some stuff like that. I will keep this part s-o-m-e-w-h-a-t short since this is probably the epic of all epic posts possibly exceeding the Life At LiveBridge posts in their three part entirety! I saw both Life As We Know It with Katherine Heigl and Josh Duhamel & Due Date with Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifanakis back to back at the discount theatre last weekend. Enjoyed both. Due Date probably slightly more. Then again maybe not.
LAWKI ended abruptly. DD was ok with one r-e-a-l-l-y funny scene with the dog in the car when they were trying to sleep in it and a few other sorta funny things most of which were in the trailer I think. Actually, LAWKI's funniest scene was probably the one of the baby getting "shoved" by the "doofus" that was also in the trailer. Nevertheless, I enjoyed them for what they were. I'm a reasonably easy audience. I love movies.
Tonight I saw the new replacement for Larry King Live which is called Piers Morgan Tonight I think. Not only do I like Piers Morgan (who I "met" on the Celebrity Apprentice Season that he won) but his guest was Ricky Gervais who I also like. Unfortunately, I didn't see the Golden Globes which RG hosted and was apparently wickedly funny and irreverent on.
Also, unfortunately I only saw part of the interview and without the sound (but with captions) as I was at McDonalds for a late dinner. The bright side I guess is if I were at home I probably wouldn't have had the tv on/known that PM's show was on and that RG was the guest. So I should be grateful because now that I know about it maybe I can find the interview on youtube.
Till next time. Hopefully, there will be more posts and fewer paragraphs per post. I counted over 50-60 here (including the 1,2,3,4 line ones as well as the bigger ones). LOL. That means its actually probably only 1-1/2 to 2 of the LiveBridge posts if I remember their length correctly. LOL. Anyway, hope to be back sooner rather than later but as I've learned - no promises.
Carmen
P.S. This is Post 105.
P.P.S. I neglected to mention considering again that the title of the post refers to my missed anniversary anything about not making my anniversary date bet deadline. I missed it by "only" 20. But in fairness, I kind of gave up several months before and I had a good opportunity to mine people at my new job. Then again, it might be a good thing if not everybody there knows all about me. LOL.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Long Time Gone
Well today is the first time I am posting in about four months or longer. The first thing I want to say is, I guess, related to that. I decided to note here (in direct contradiction of a promise of sorts to the people at the AAYSR site who did my review way back around the time I was last posting, give or take a few days/weeks) that I finally posted my 100th tweet on twitter within the last half hour. If the time stamps don't reflect what I say it's because I have the time zone wrong on the blog but haven't bothered to change it since that is the way it has been since the beginning. That is my excuse anyway. It is 1 hour behind (Pacific Time I think it is called - it is the West Coast time regardless - ie: BC & California). I always forget what our time is called and that is also why I haven't corrected it. I guess it would be easy enough to ask someone a bit smarter to tell me what it is. Anyway, on to other things.
I am not really sure whether to start at the beginning of when I was last here and move forward to now or to go backwards. It might seem obvious to start at the beginning but I think there are two reasons to start at the end at work back. Maybe three. First, the new stuff is freshest in mind. Second, the new stuff is kind of the reason I finally am getting off my duff to post again. Third, my vitamin d deficiency being what it is, I guess there are only two after all. LOL. And no, in my absence I have not lost my love of the term LOL. :) Well, I guess a decision has to be made. Oh, before I get to that, I remembered #3. Posts are by default backwards so I thought that might be a good reason to do it that way. Nonetheless, I have made the bold decision (pun intended) to go with oldest to newest. Just seems to make more sense to me to go chronologically.
Keep in mind that the older stuff may (or may not depending on how things work - which you can never tell) be sparser in detail as time may have taken it's toll on my memory of those events. See vitamin d deficiency in previous paragraph - lol. So onward and upward (backward?) to about 4 months ago. First off, I just went into edit to see what some of my last stuff was although I had an idea (of the very last one anyway) since I was stuck there so long. I mean, periodically I would come back here and debate a bit whether to post or not. After all, obviously, some things did happen - not the least of which way my birthday!, but I never could get in the spirit. In going into edit, I took note of exactly how long it's been. It turns out it is actually not quite 4 months. In fact, it is exactly 3 months and 3 days (3 hours and 3 minutes? Probably not. LOL). In case you are thinking, so what?, I mention that to note that I was gone slightly less long than I thought which makes me slightly better at posting (and therefore a slightly better person. LOL).
I guess I want to mention near the beginning that my review at AAYSR ( http://www.iwillfuckingtearyouapart.com/ ) was not great but went much better than it could have. The date of my review was Thursday, September 9th, 2010. The reviewer (Madame Bellicose), in her comment to me (approximately comment 40 or 45) did note that she didn't say she hated my blog, just that it was too much yapping about twitter, facebook, and especially, blogging about blogging. LOL. I have to admit, I can't exactly completely blame her for that view. There were alot of those type of posts. I would, in my defense, like to say though, that if you treat my blog like the treasure trove it is - lol and are prepared to hunt for nuggets of gold - lol, I am sure you could find a few. And after all, they only would have needed to read about 100 posts in their entirety. LOL. By the way, now may be as good a time as any to share a joke I came across at about this time about LOLing since I've been doing so much of it. I can't remember where exactly I came across it, for attribution purposes, but I think it might have been at imdb. Then again, maybe not. Well, here it is. I seriously doubt whether you are LOLing as much as you say you are. LOL. :) That struck me as somewhat true and definitely funny but in my case maybe not the most accurate.
If you didn't want to spend all that time scanning back to get to Sept 9th on the review site, I will give you another way to check it out. Go to my second last post, ironically titled "I'm Back, And I'm So Excited" and go to the comments section at the bottom. There is only one comment. It is from Madame Bellicose. If you click on the link she made directly in her short comment, where she highlighted the word reviewed it will take you not only to the AAYSR site but directly to my review (which after all was 3 months of reviews ago so I understand if you don't want to wade through all of them - although I must say the site's reviews are awfully funny and can be addicting)...
...
... don't worry I'll wait for you to read my review. LOL. Done yet? Agreed, disagreed, wet your pants laughing? Whichever, I am glad to have been reviewed. It's nice to be validated. Someone reviewed me!
Next up, in checking the web to see when exactly the Chilean miners were freed I found an article datelined October 11th (my birthday!) that said it would be the following Wednesday. I briefly mention the miners as it is a feel good story that beats hearing about the Chilean earthquake. Let me just say that I am looking forward to my Chilean FB, etc. friend FJ, who has posted a guest column here as have I on his blog ( http://english-fj.blogspot.com ) getting back to his blogging and writing his thoughts on the subject. I was about to say "him getting back to his blogging schedule" but as he pointed out when I asked him about his not blogging on his English blog for even longer than me (our last posts were the same day but his last post, which you will see if you follow the link to his page, is a guest post by me - his last post of his own was about a month earlier still!) he told me he "doesn't blog on a schedule. LOL. Come on FJ. If I can do it so can you.
BTW, if you check out FJ's blog, you might be in for a treat if you like shorter posts. Because English is his second language and the English blog (he has a Spanish one you can link to there if you happen to read Spanish) is to practice his English and, while not a stated aim of his - lol, so I can read some of his thoughts and not have to use the annoying mechanical translation feature that is a blessing, I guess, but does not work that well. Including my guest post, FJ only has about 17 posts up on the English blog so far, so if you want to check out a new blog that you can easily read in it's entirety in a short time, then check him out. Also, if you are so inclined, please consider "officially" following him as he only has about 5 followers so far. This may also be a reason why he isn't posting. I'm sure he would really appreciate it. Also, he loves comments (don't we all - lol).
As I said, the dateline on the miner story I read to get the rough date of the rescue was on my birthday, which brings me to, well, my birthday. LOL. This is where the laughing will stop for awhile. Some bad stuff happened the day I celebrated my birthday as well as, I forgot about till I mentioned the birthday, on Sept 19th which was shortly after the review so the first crummy thing I am about to mention could have been placed between those two stories but it actually is better this way as the two stories are same shit, different pile kind of things. So from the beginning, in somewhat short form. On Sunday night, Sept 19th, at about 8 pm I was getting off the bus at the stop near my mom's house. I had just had dinner with a friend at my mom's house, then went to a discount movie with the same friend not too far from mom's by bus. After the movie, we went our separate ways. She back home on the other side of town and me back to mom's to get a ride home with my brother.
As I am getting off the bus I did not notice it (I definitely pay more attention now - but that's closing the barn door a little late) but some asshole on a bike was lurking. The thing is the bus stop is within spitting distance of my mom's house. You can see the garage from the bus stop. It's about 1/2 a block away through a parking lot and down a flight of steps behind a building. Anyway, I am a little less than halfway through the lot probably when said asshole rides up behind me and takes my purse. Yep. There's a first (and hopefully last!) time for everything. Right out of my hands. I could feel the tug but unfortunately, instead of that making me reflexively hold tighter, it made me let go. Because it was raining slightly and also probably because I happened to yell something at the young kid on the bike (that's the closest I could come to a description for the police - a youngish man, teen to early twenties) he got about 20-30 feet away, I would guess, before he fell off the bike.
I am not in the shape to run up and get him not to mention I wasn't expecting it to happen so I was even slower than that but I headed towards him and he ran off without the bike. Lucky for me, I didn't catch up to him. Who knows what he would have done. There would have only been a very slight chance I would have gotten my purse back and could have gotten hurt. Still, it's possible I could have yelled enough to scare him away. I'll never know. So anyway, I decided he wasn't coming back for the bike too. I took it down the steps and through the alley and back yard and left it in the back yard out of sight of the alley he had just run down like Speedy Gonzales (I just got the bike down the stairs and looked down the alley and he was a little more than 1/2 a block away at the beginning of the next block just standing there, resting I assume) for the police to take. I was hoping that maybe they could i.d. him through the bike if, on the off chance, it was some dumb kid doing this on a lark as a newbie and on his own registered bike. Ha. As if.
Well, one good thing I have to say about this was that when I called the police they certainly responded! They were there within no more than about 15 minutes and they sent three officers. Maybe one of them was a student or a teacher. Not that it helped though. Two of them searched the immediate neighborhood for either the kid or, more likely, the discarded purse but came up empty. The officer who took my statement was nice enough but I am not sure he wasn't new or something as he tried calling my cellphone (as if they would answer and if they did that they'd tell him anything) rather than asking/telling me about possibly GPSing the location. Of course, I lost far more than I originally thought about at first glance. Thankfully, I had little money ($10) in there but of course it's all the things you have on you. The phone especially. And the bus pass. The i.d. Drivers License. Library Card (a bigger deal than you might think - just think how many items can be taken out at once and at what cost per item if you forget to cancel it).
Fast forward to the day we celebrated my birthday. My birthday fell on Thanksgiving Monday this year so we celebrated it on a Friday. That day, before we went out to a nice restaurant for a family/friends celebration where my mom celebrates all the kids (me, my sisters and my brother) birthdays on my birthday (I guess cause I'm the baby - lol along with a couple of my friends. Just before we went for dinner, mom and I went out into the garden to take the heads off all the carrots. One of the few things left in the garden. Being stupid, I, the last one out the door, decided not to lock it. I did close the door. But I didn't lock it. Especially stupid since I usually do. Well sure enough. Someone "breaks" in. I didn't even know my purse was gone until after dinner since I didn't bother to look for it when we went out since I wasn't paying so I thought I'd leave it at home. Uh huh. I noticed pretty much right when I we got back because I got money and a gift card that I went to put in my purse. That was g-o-n-e.
Thankfully, my mother had her purse in a less visible place and the person who came in was looking for a quick score. Also, thankfully, even though it was about 3 weeks between each purse snatching (a incredibly short period in which to be robbed twice! but an extremely long time to wait to do what I did) I didn't yet replace my i.d. and although I did replace my phone I didn't yet activate it so it was safely in a drawer at home. Also, my bus pass was in a different location entirely by sheer luck even though we of course had driven to the restaurant. I guess it is also lucky we didn't chance upon the person who took it as, again, who knows what level of larceny they were at and what they would have done. On a side note, that is to say looking on the bright side, the dinner it self was lovely, everyone enjoyed it and as it happened after and not before the robbery all my gifts were intact.
At the beginning of this post I said that the earlier stuff might be of sparser detail due to the time factor. This was obviously not the case. For one thing, I didn't think about what I was going to write about for the early stuff until I started writing. So I didn't even think about the robberies. Or the fact that the details would still be fresh (like a gaping wound) in my mind in all the minuate. So it works out well that the last stuff I want to discuss in getting back into things on the blog (and that I had planned out a bit more than the early stuff) is all stuff that I feel now like summarizing rather than going into detail on. There is time enough for that later. These things are much more recent, and thereby fresh, so I can come back to them in more detail at a later time. I'll mention three things. First, on the "technical" side of things (again disregarding my promise of sorts to the AAYSR people), I finally learned to copy and paste. LOL.
I know, I know. How pathetic. Since I promised to keep the rest short, I will leave the sorry details for another day. They are kind of funny. I think so anyway. Next up, in the celebrity news section, there is the news of the royal wedding s. Yes plural. Again, not to go into detail but in reading about William and Kate, I came across the news (almost 6 months later - lol) that Prince Albert of Monaco is also getting married next year. More on my thoughts, as a big-time royalty watcher in the past, about both of these upcoming events in a future post or two. Finally, I will leave you on a funny note. Again, it involves my Chilean friend FJ. I haven't been on FB for ages until recently and when I got back on I asked him if he was on imdb.com so we could follow each other there as well as we also do on goodreads.com. Anyway, that was the main conversation but is beside the point as far as getting to the funny.
In one of those recent talks, the most boring subject in the world came up. The weather. Yet this is where the funny comes in. When I told him how cold it was here as of just recently he said, and I quote, "When I pick up ice from the freezer, I try to imagine your weather". LMAO. Kind of like if I were to say "When I sit by a campfire, I try to imagine your weather". Well that's it for now. Next time, maybe a little more on some of the things I just touched on. Or maybe I'll talk about something that I left out - my new favorite tv shows or some past, present, and future movies I have seen/would like to see since I spend so much time browsing around imdb. I did decide that so as to, sort of keep my promise that I mentioned today twice before, I will perhaps talk about movies/tv (a la reviews, previews), news in general (both serious and silly) and even, yikes some personal stories that I promised more of, way back when I first started this blog (see my first entry).
Bye for now, Hope to see you soon but I think I'm through with the promises. Too much pressure. LOL.
Carmen
I am not really sure whether to start at the beginning of when I was last here and move forward to now or to go backwards. It might seem obvious to start at the beginning but I think there are two reasons to start at the end at work back. Maybe three. First, the new stuff is freshest in mind. Second, the new stuff is kind of the reason I finally am getting off my duff to post again. Third, my vitamin d deficiency being what it is, I guess there are only two after all. LOL. And no, in my absence I have not lost my love of the term LOL. :) Well, I guess a decision has to be made. Oh, before I get to that, I remembered #3. Posts are by default backwards so I thought that might be a good reason to do it that way. Nonetheless, I have made the bold decision (pun intended) to go with oldest to newest. Just seems to make more sense to me to go chronologically.
Keep in mind that the older stuff may (or may not depending on how things work - which you can never tell) be sparser in detail as time may have taken it's toll on my memory of those events. See vitamin d deficiency in previous paragraph - lol. So onward and upward (backward?) to about 4 months ago. First off, I just went into edit to see what some of my last stuff was although I had an idea (of the very last one anyway) since I was stuck there so long. I mean, periodically I would come back here and debate a bit whether to post or not. After all, obviously, some things did happen - not the least of which way my birthday!, but I never could get in the spirit. In going into edit, I took note of exactly how long it's been. It turns out it is actually not quite 4 months. In fact, it is exactly 3 months and 3 days (3 hours and 3 minutes? Probably not. LOL). In case you are thinking, so what?, I mention that to note that I was gone slightly less long than I thought which makes me slightly better at posting (and therefore a slightly better person. LOL).
I guess I want to mention near the beginning that my review at AAYSR ( http://www.iwillfuckingtearyouapart.com/ ) was not great but went much better than it could have. The date of my review was Thursday, September 9th, 2010. The reviewer (Madame Bellicose), in her comment to me (approximately comment 40 or 45) did note that she didn't say she hated my blog, just that it was too much yapping about twitter, facebook, and especially, blogging about blogging. LOL. I have to admit, I can't exactly completely blame her for that view. There were alot of those type of posts. I would, in my defense, like to say though, that if you treat my blog like the treasure trove it is - lol and are prepared to hunt for nuggets of gold - lol, I am sure you could find a few. And after all, they only would have needed to read about 100 posts in their entirety. LOL. By the way, now may be as good a time as any to share a joke I came across at about this time about LOLing since I've been doing so much of it. I can't remember where exactly I came across it, for attribution purposes, but I think it might have been at imdb. Then again, maybe not. Well, here it is. I seriously doubt whether you are LOLing as much as you say you are. LOL. :) That struck me as somewhat true and definitely funny but in my case maybe not the most accurate.
If you didn't want to spend all that time scanning back to get to Sept 9th on the review site, I will give you another way to check it out. Go to my second last post, ironically titled "I'm Back, And I'm So Excited" and go to the comments section at the bottom. There is only one comment. It is from Madame Bellicose. If you click on the link she made directly in her short comment, where she highlighted the word reviewed it will take you not only to the AAYSR site but directly to my review (which after all was 3 months of reviews ago so I understand if you don't want to wade through all of them - although I must say the site's reviews are awfully funny and can be addicting)...
...
... don't worry I'll wait for you to read my review. LOL. Done yet? Agreed, disagreed, wet your pants laughing? Whichever, I am glad to have been reviewed. It's nice to be validated. Someone reviewed me!
Next up, in checking the web to see when exactly the Chilean miners were freed I found an article datelined October 11th (my birthday!) that said it would be the following Wednesday. I briefly mention the miners as it is a feel good story that beats hearing about the Chilean earthquake. Let me just say that I am looking forward to my Chilean FB, etc. friend FJ, who has posted a guest column here as have I on his blog ( http://english-fj.blogspot.com ) getting back to his blogging and writing his thoughts on the subject. I was about to say "him getting back to his blogging schedule" but as he pointed out when I asked him about his not blogging on his English blog for even longer than me (our last posts were the same day but his last post, which you will see if you follow the link to his page, is a guest post by me - his last post of his own was about a month earlier still!) he told me he "doesn't blog on a schedule. LOL. Come on FJ. If I can do it so can you.
BTW, if you check out FJ's blog, you might be in for a treat if you like shorter posts. Because English is his second language and the English blog (he has a Spanish one you can link to there if you happen to read Spanish) is to practice his English and, while not a stated aim of his - lol, so I can read some of his thoughts and not have to use the annoying mechanical translation feature that is a blessing, I guess, but does not work that well. Including my guest post, FJ only has about 17 posts up on the English blog so far, so if you want to check out a new blog that you can easily read in it's entirety in a short time, then check him out. Also, if you are so inclined, please consider "officially" following him as he only has about 5 followers so far. This may also be a reason why he isn't posting. I'm sure he would really appreciate it. Also, he loves comments (don't we all - lol).
As I said, the dateline on the miner story I read to get the rough date of the rescue was on my birthday, which brings me to, well, my birthday. LOL. This is where the laughing will stop for awhile. Some bad stuff happened the day I celebrated my birthday as well as, I forgot about till I mentioned the birthday, on Sept 19th which was shortly after the review so the first crummy thing I am about to mention could have been placed between those two stories but it actually is better this way as the two stories are same shit, different pile kind of things. So from the beginning, in somewhat short form. On Sunday night, Sept 19th, at about 8 pm I was getting off the bus at the stop near my mom's house. I had just had dinner with a friend at my mom's house, then went to a discount movie with the same friend not too far from mom's by bus. After the movie, we went our separate ways. She back home on the other side of town and me back to mom's to get a ride home with my brother.
As I am getting off the bus I did not notice it (I definitely pay more attention now - but that's closing the barn door a little late) but some asshole on a bike was lurking. The thing is the bus stop is within spitting distance of my mom's house. You can see the garage from the bus stop. It's about 1/2 a block away through a parking lot and down a flight of steps behind a building. Anyway, I am a little less than halfway through the lot probably when said asshole rides up behind me and takes my purse. Yep. There's a first (and hopefully last!) time for everything. Right out of my hands. I could feel the tug but unfortunately, instead of that making me reflexively hold tighter, it made me let go. Because it was raining slightly and also probably because I happened to yell something at the young kid on the bike (that's the closest I could come to a description for the police - a youngish man, teen to early twenties) he got about 20-30 feet away, I would guess, before he fell off the bike.
I am not in the shape to run up and get him not to mention I wasn't expecting it to happen so I was even slower than that but I headed towards him and he ran off without the bike. Lucky for me, I didn't catch up to him. Who knows what he would have done. There would have only been a very slight chance I would have gotten my purse back and could have gotten hurt. Still, it's possible I could have yelled enough to scare him away. I'll never know. So anyway, I decided he wasn't coming back for the bike too. I took it down the steps and through the alley and back yard and left it in the back yard out of sight of the alley he had just run down like Speedy Gonzales (I just got the bike down the stairs and looked down the alley and he was a little more than 1/2 a block away at the beginning of the next block just standing there, resting I assume) for the police to take. I was hoping that maybe they could i.d. him through the bike if, on the off chance, it was some dumb kid doing this on a lark as a newbie and on his own registered bike. Ha. As if.
Well, one good thing I have to say about this was that when I called the police they certainly responded! They were there within no more than about 15 minutes and they sent three officers. Maybe one of them was a student or a teacher. Not that it helped though. Two of them searched the immediate neighborhood for either the kid or, more likely, the discarded purse but came up empty. The officer who took my statement was nice enough but I am not sure he wasn't new or something as he tried calling my cellphone (as if they would answer and if they did that they'd tell him anything) rather than asking/telling me about possibly GPSing the location. Of course, I lost far more than I originally thought about at first glance. Thankfully, I had little money ($10) in there but of course it's all the things you have on you. The phone especially. And the bus pass. The i.d. Drivers License. Library Card (a bigger deal than you might think - just think how many items can be taken out at once and at what cost per item if you forget to cancel it).
Fast forward to the day we celebrated my birthday. My birthday fell on Thanksgiving Monday this year so we celebrated it on a Friday. That day, before we went out to a nice restaurant for a family/friends celebration where my mom celebrates all the kids (me, my sisters and my brother) birthdays on my birthday (I guess cause I'm the baby - lol along with a couple of my friends. Just before we went for dinner, mom and I went out into the garden to take the heads off all the carrots. One of the few things left in the garden. Being stupid, I, the last one out the door, decided not to lock it. I did close the door. But I didn't lock it. Especially stupid since I usually do. Well sure enough. Someone "breaks" in. I didn't even know my purse was gone until after dinner since I didn't bother to look for it when we went out since I wasn't paying so I thought I'd leave it at home. Uh huh. I noticed pretty much right when I we got back because I got money and a gift card that I went to put in my purse. That was g-o-n-e.
Thankfully, my mother had her purse in a less visible place and the person who came in was looking for a quick score. Also, thankfully, even though it was about 3 weeks between each purse snatching (a incredibly short period in which to be robbed twice! but an extremely long time to wait to do what I did) I didn't yet replace my i.d. and although I did replace my phone I didn't yet activate it so it was safely in a drawer at home. Also, my bus pass was in a different location entirely by sheer luck even though we of course had driven to the restaurant. I guess it is also lucky we didn't chance upon the person who took it as, again, who knows what level of larceny they were at and what they would have done. On a side note, that is to say looking on the bright side, the dinner it self was lovely, everyone enjoyed it and as it happened after and not before the robbery all my gifts were intact.
At the beginning of this post I said that the earlier stuff might be of sparser detail due to the time factor. This was obviously not the case. For one thing, I didn't think about what I was going to write about for the early stuff until I started writing. So I didn't even think about the robberies. Or the fact that the details would still be fresh (like a gaping wound) in my mind in all the minuate. So it works out well that the last stuff I want to discuss in getting back into things on the blog (and that I had planned out a bit more than the early stuff) is all stuff that I feel now like summarizing rather than going into detail on. There is time enough for that later. These things are much more recent, and thereby fresh, so I can come back to them in more detail at a later time. I'll mention three things. First, on the "technical" side of things (again disregarding my promise of sorts to the AAYSR people), I finally learned to copy and paste. LOL.
I know, I know. How pathetic. Since I promised to keep the rest short, I will leave the sorry details for another day. They are kind of funny. I think so anyway. Next up, in the celebrity news section, there is the news of the royal wedding s. Yes plural. Again, not to go into detail but in reading about William and Kate, I came across the news (almost 6 months later - lol) that Prince Albert of Monaco is also getting married next year. More on my thoughts, as a big-time royalty watcher in the past, about both of these upcoming events in a future post or two. Finally, I will leave you on a funny note. Again, it involves my Chilean friend FJ. I haven't been on FB for ages until recently and when I got back on I asked him if he was on imdb.com so we could follow each other there as well as we also do on goodreads.com. Anyway, that was the main conversation but is beside the point as far as getting to the funny.
In one of those recent talks, the most boring subject in the world came up. The weather. Yet this is where the funny comes in. When I told him how cold it was here as of just recently he said, and I quote, "When I pick up ice from the freezer, I try to imagine your weather". LMAO. Kind of like if I were to say "When I sit by a campfire, I try to imagine your weather". Well that's it for now. Next time, maybe a little more on some of the things I just touched on. Or maybe I'll talk about something that I left out - my new favorite tv shows or some past, present, and future movies I have seen/would like to see since I spend so much time browsing around imdb. I did decide that so as to, sort of keep my promise that I mentioned today twice before, I will perhaps talk about movies/tv (a la reviews, previews), news in general (both serious and silly) and even, yikes some personal stories that I promised more of, way back when I first started this blog (see my first entry).
Bye for now, Hope to see you soon but I think I'm through with the promises. Too much pressure. LOL.
Carmen
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Tulula Does The Hula
The title of this post is the actual name that a nine year old Hawaiian girl had until a judge forced her parents to change it. No word what it was changed to. One thing I don't understand is why it went to a judge when she had it for nine years already.
The weird name story comes from a site called Holly wired that I found through Yahoo News. In this article they list the 75 worst baby names celebrities have given their kids. One that is truly funny (the authors of the article thought it was clever. Sad but clever) is Tu Morrow. This is the child (I forget if it was a male or female child) of the actor Rob Morrow who I thought would be above this sort of thing.
Carmen
The weird name story comes from a site called Holly wired that I found through Yahoo News. In this article they list the 75 worst baby names celebrities have given their kids. One that is truly funny (the authors of the article thought it was clever. Sad but clever) is Tu Morrow. This is the child (I forget if it was a male or female child) of the actor Rob Morrow who I thought would be above this sort of thing.
Carmen
Monday, August 16, 2010
I'm Back, And I'm So Excited!
Well, minus the short post from the 4th of this month that I just posted, this is the first post in exactly a month. A long time to go without posting I know but two big things happened.
First, I hit 20+ postings in 16 days so I decided to quit until the new month started. Then, me and my family went on vacation for a few days at the end/beginning of the month and I got so sick right after we got back (like the day after!) that I was sick for something like a week and a half.
Anyway's, like I said I'm back. Now why am I so excited. Well, when I looked at my FB account yesterday after getting back to Veggie House from Mom's I noticed 3 new friend requests. One of the three I deleted almost immediately as it didn't seem like a "make friends" group request and I didn't know the person either.
As it turns out, it was a little hasty of me. When I looked at my messages I found that the same person had sent me a message about the author Wendy Shanker, whose name I did immediately recognize. It seems that this man is her literary agent or somesuch and he was offering me a free copy of her next book.
I know that after reading her first book, The Fat Girl's Guide To Life, which I think I reviewed here, I went on her website. I may have left some info on it to get ahold of me like an email address but I don't remember doing anything else so I have no idea why they would contact me on FB or why they would offer me a free book.
No matter. I love the word FREE. It just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it. LOL. So, when responding to the letter I mentioned my little blog (I didn't mention it's small size though) and said I would write a little something about the book, which is titled, Are You My Guru?, after reading it. So look for that in the near future.
Maybe this will be the start of something greater (LOL). Perhaps they will send me more stuff that I can review and then I can really call myself a "professional" blogger. Or maybe not. LOL. Whatever. It is just nice to be asked this one time.
Carmen
First, I hit 20+ postings in 16 days so I decided to quit until the new month started. Then, me and my family went on vacation for a few days at the end/beginning of the month and I got so sick right after we got back (like the day after!) that I was sick for something like a week and a half.
Anyway's, like I said I'm back. Now why am I so excited. Well, when I looked at my FB account yesterday after getting back to Veggie House from Mom's I noticed 3 new friend requests. One of the three I deleted almost immediately as it didn't seem like a "make friends" group request and I didn't know the person either.
As it turns out, it was a little hasty of me. When I looked at my messages I found that the same person had sent me a message about the author Wendy Shanker, whose name I did immediately recognize. It seems that this man is her literary agent or somesuch and he was offering me a free copy of her next book.
I know that after reading her first book, The Fat Girl's Guide To Life, which I think I reviewed here, I went on her website. I may have left some info on it to get ahold of me like an email address but I don't remember doing anything else so I have no idea why they would contact me on FB or why they would offer me a free book.
No matter. I love the word FREE. It just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it. LOL. So, when responding to the letter I mentioned my little blog (I didn't mention it's small size though) and said I would write a little something about the book, which is titled, Are You My Guru?, after reading it. So look for that in the near future.
Maybe this will be the start of something greater (LOL). Perhaps they will send me more stuff that I can review and then I can really call myself a "professional" blogger. Or maybe not. LOL. Whatever. It is just nice to be asked this one time.
Carmen
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Happy Birthday, POTUS
Happy Birthday, President Obama.
On a similar note, today is the 10th anniversary of my starting work at LiveBridge (see the Life at LiveBridge posts - particularily Part III, which is the funny one).
Also, a brief aside - did you know that President Obama shared his birthday, when she was alive, with the Queen Mother. And oddly enough she died the year I started at LiveBridge when she was about 101.
Carmen
On a similar note, today is the 10th anniversary of my starting work at LiveBridge (see the Life at LiveBridge posts - particularily Part III, which is the funny one).
Also, a brief aside - did you know that President Obama shared his birthday, when she was alive, with the Queen Mother. And oddly enough she died the year I started at LiveBridge when she was about 101.
Carmen
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