I see the Cruiser is departed this world at the ripe old age of 91. He had a good long life anyway.
His books always made me feel incredibly stupid, so I shall continue that tradition by not saying anything intelligent now either.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Monday, December 08, 2008
Immaculate Shopping Lennon Day goes pear-shaped
When I was growing up, 8th December was a religious holiday in Ireland (well it still is I assume). The Feast of the Conception of the Virgin. Who was conceived by Elizabeth. Who is my favourite saint. For a number of reasons I won't go into, mainly around not really wanting to be the mother of the flippin' Virgin Mary.
It was also culchie shopping day in Dublin. Which is also known as GOIN"ONNATRAINTOSEESANTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Santy is the Irish for Santa.
Then it turned into John Lennon Died Day around thirty years ago, which was too early to mean anything much to me, even though I know it's important.
Now I live in Canada it's just another day when I feel all weird and homesick and everyone else has no idea why.
I am sitting in Cape Breton International Airport as I begin to write this, but there is no wi-fi so I will post when I get home.
If I get home…
Today was a day. I am going to rename this day Queenie's realization that winter is going to happen every year till she leaves Canada Day.
I wake at 4am because Himself’s cell phone is ringing. Normally when Himself’s cell phone rings at that hour of the morning in the winter, it means there is snow on the ground. I am so sleepy I don’t figure that out this morning, even as I listen to Himself wash, dress, make coffee and get ready to leave the house. I am irrationally annoyed because he is up so early.
Above me, the neighbours German Shepherd is pounding around begging to go out for a pee.
Finally, I call out to Himself and he says, ‘there’s a foot of snow on the ground, baby, be careful driving to the airport’ and then leaves to plough it away from all the shopping malls.
After an hour’s pointless worrying about snow and driving and lateness and the complexity of my day, I get back to sleep and have a bizarre dream about my aunt and cousin from Dublin who are visiting us in Halifax, but actually the city is Florence, Italy (this is my subconscious not wanting to deal with snow, I think). And in the dream Himself is a famous artist working in scrap metal (I don’t want to know what this is my subconscious not dealing with right now).
The alarm clock doesn’t wake me up at 5.30am when it was supposed to because I have forgotten to switch it on, so when I wake up in a panic at 5.47am, my day is already pear-shaped.
It takes about 15 minutes to scrape the snow off the car, see. And I have to be at the airport for 7am.
Up. Shower. Dress for a formal workshop presentation.
Coffee. Pot full.
I put snow clothes on over proper clothes.
Tramp downstairs. Scrape snow off car.
Tramp back upstairs.
Get coffee mug, laptop, proper boots for inside.
Tramp back downstairs with an armful of stuff.
Check I have torch, blanket, safety blanket, reflector panels, etc in the car.
Defrost the front windscreen again.
Finally, I back the car out of driveway at 6.36am. Everyone else in the building is still asleep. Apart from the dog of course.
Dogs don't shovel snow though.
Not too bad on time. My day is not too pear-shaped, but pear-shaped enough.
I drive to airport in the lightly falling snow.
In the dark of course.
On unploughed roads of course.
At 60kms per hour.
Because I’m too scared to drive any faster in case I crash, or in case Himself finds out somehow that I’ve done it, and has a fit at me for being so stupid.
I still haven’t recovered from the time I tried to sneak up to Cape Breton by road in the snow last winter because I was new at my job and thought it was important and Himself KNEW I was doing that, even though he was at work, and called me on my cell on the highway and told me I was to come home now or not at all.
Himself places a care call from the plough truck.
What speed am I doing?
I tell him.
Am I in four wheel drive?
Yes.
Good.
Keep ‘er slow now.
He listens to me moan through my blue tooth device about how unfair my life is from December to March every year. And how my snow driving stomach knots are really bad this morning, etc.
Then he has to go plough more snow.
At the airport, the signs for the long term carpark are covered in snow, and I have never parked there, so I drive around in confusion for a bit, then get lucky and follow the recently arrived LTP bus to the car park.
I park the Explorer in a snow drift.
There was nowhere else.
Anyways, it’s an Explorer, for chrissakes. It’s for moments like this.
I get on the airport bus at 7.35am.
Then I realize I am still wearing my snow boots.
I apologize to everyone on the bus for delaying the bus. Get off bus. Climb over snow drift to car. Change into proper leather-soled boots. Slither back down snow drift to bus. Re-embark bus.
We drive to the Departures Lounge in the dawn glimmer.
I have to re-check-in at 7.52am because my mobile device barcode check-in foolishness is just that.
That makes it too late for the latte and muffin I’d been promising myself on the highway…
I take off my boots and my belt in the security zone because I am beeping.
I put them back on.
I sit in the Departures Lounge for one hour with no coffee.
Finally, with the permission of the ground crew, I make a break for Tim Hortons…. Starbucks is too far away, way over in the International Flights Departure Area.
I get back to Gate 6 to find everyone has boarded.
But I can take my Timmy’s on the plane.
Hooray!!
Fifteen of us sit on the commuter plane to Cape Breton for two and a half hours while every other friggin’ plane at the airport gets de-iced before us.
No wonder Cape Bretoners are pure mule.
Now I am going to be late.
Frantically, as we barrel up to the de-icer, I email how-to-facilitate-workshop instructions to a colleague in Cape Breton and beg him to save my ass.
Then we are taking off and I have to switch off my phone without knowing whether my ass is being saved.
I panic the whole way to Cape Breton, while sitting in front of the man with the worst halitosis on the planet.
I can still smell his breath.
I decide to take my Champix on an empty stomach because I couldn’t feel any more nauseous.
Actually I could.
We get to Cape Breton only an hour after the start of the workshop.
Hoo-fuckin-ray.
The single taxi parked outside the airport has nobody in it.
I run around the airport trying to find the taxi driver.
I find the taxi driver.
I impress the urgency of my trip on the taxi driver.
He tells me he’s been here since 7.30am without a fare, so he’s taking a carload.
The taxi driver takes his time rounding up a full mini-van load.
It includes halitosis man.
I get into the front of the taxi, speechless with fury.
SPEECHLESS!
The workshop venue is the last stop on the taxi route.
I throw the money at taxi-driver who throws the receipt at me.
I burst into workshop to find everyone working quietly at correct point in workshop, thanks to innate genius of my colleague.
He is more pleased to see me than I am to see him, however, and he hands workshop over to me in alacratious relief before I even get my snow coat off.
I manage to complete the workshop in only a mild state of anxiety, which eases when I realize the participants are enjoying it.
This workshop is my baby right now. Everyone must coo at it. Everyone.
My colleague drives me back to Cape Breton International Airport.
I blag my way onto the early flight home. Which is late of course.
I go to the restaurant and order sausages and pancakes and tea for my nerves.
They burn the pancakes.
How can you burn pancakes?
The plane was due in at 4pm, but it’s arrives at 5pm covered in de-icing goo.
I wonder why…
Right now, I am sitting with seven other people and the pilot on the commuter plane from Cape Breton, bowling through the winter skies towards home.
Himself has texted to say he will be home around nine, hopefully.
That means it has probably stopped snowing in Halifax. But it’s supposed to go down to minus 10 tonight, so I hope that I scraped enough snow off the car so it’s not frozen too much.
If it’s not frozen too much, I can open my car door to get my snow boots on. With my snow boots on, I can stand up long enough to haul the ice scraper out. With the ice scraper in my hand, I can scrape the ice off the windscreen and windows and car lights. With my car in compliance with the highway winter code, I can see my way out of the snow drift and then out of the car park and finally onto the highway and home.
If not, I’ll have to hang onto the door and yank at it till it opens and I fall on my ass.
Normally I don’t drink on a Monday, but all I can think of right now is that I am two hours and a snow drift away from a big glass of red wine.
I get to the airport and I find the bus and we find my car and I get the door open after a couple of yanks and I sit there until my fingers are warm enough to drive (it's now -18) and I drive home in the dark and I get home and it's HOME and then I realise...
... NOBODY'S FUCKING SHOVELLED THE FRONT DOOR STEPS.
Anyways, it only took a few minutes and now I'm inside in the warm listening to Dragon's Den and finishing this and soooo glad I'm not out in the cold.
I hates the winter....
It was also culchie shopping day in Dublin. Which is also known as GOIN"ONNATRAINTOSEESANTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Santy is the Irish for Santa.
Then it turned into John Lennon Died Day around thirty years ago, which was too early to mean anything much to me, even though I know it's important.
Now I live in Canada it's just another day when I feel all weird and homesick and everyone else has no idea why.
I am sitting in Cape Breton International Airport as I begin to write this, but there is no wi-fi so I will post when I get home.
If I get home…
Today was a day. I am going to rename this day Queenie's realization that winter is going to happen every year till she leaves Canada Day.
I wake at 4am because Himself’s cell phone is ringing. Normally when Himself’s cell phone rings at that hour of the morning in the winter, it means there is snow on the ground. I am so sleepy I don’t figure that out this morning, even as I listen to Himself wash, dress, make coffee and get ready to leave the house. I am irrationally annoyed because he is up so early.
Above me, the neighbours German Shepherd is pounding around begging to go out for a pee.
Finally, I call out to Himself and he says, ‘there’s a foot of snow on the ground, baby, be careful driving to the airport’ and then leaves to plough it away from all the shopping malls.
After an hour’s pointless worrying about snow and driving and lateness and the complexity of my day, I get back to sleep and have a bizarre dream about my aunt and cousin from Dublin who are visiting us in Halifax, but actually the city is Florence, Italy (this is my subconscious not wanting to deal with snow, I think). And in the dream Himself is a famous artist working in scrap metal (I don’t want to know what this is my subconscious not dealing with right now).
The alarm clock doesn’t wake me up at 5.30am when it was supposed to because I have forgotten to switch it on, so when I wake up in a panic at 5.47am, my day is already pear-shaped.
It takes about 15 minutes to scrape the snow off the car, see. And I have to be at the airport for 7am.
Up. Shower. Dress for a formal workshop presentation.
Coffee. Pot full.
I put snow clothes on over proper clothes.
Tramp downstairs. Scrape snow off car.
Tramp back upstairs.
Get coffee mug, laptop, proper boots for inside.
Tramp back downstairs with an armful of stuff.
Check I have torch, blanket, safety blanket, reflector panels, etc in the car.
Defrost the front windscreen again.
Finally, I back the car out of driveway at 6.36am. Everyone else in the building is still asleep. Apart from the dog of course.
Dogs don't shovel snow though.
Not too bad on time. My day is not too pear-shaped, but pear-shaped enough.
I drive to airport in the lightly falling snow.
In the dark of course.
On unploughed roads of course.
At 60kms per hour.
Because I’m too scared to drive any faster in case I crash, or in case Himself finds out somehow that I’ve done it, and has a fit at me for being so stupid.
I still haven’t recovered from the time I tried to sneak up to Cape Breton by road in the snow last winter because I was new at my job and thought it was important and Himself KNEW I was doing that, even though he was at work, and called me on my cell on the highway and told me I was to come home now or not at all.
Himself places a care call from the plough truck.
What speed am I doing?
I tell him.
Am I in four wheel drive?
Yes.
Good.
Keep ‘er slow now.
He listens to me moan through my blue tooth device about how unfair my life is from December to March every year. And how my snow driving stomach knots are really bad this morning, etc.
Then he has to go plough more snow.
At the airport, the signs for the long term carpark are covered in snow, and I have never parked there, so I drive around in confusion for a bit, then get lucky and follow the recently arrived LTP bus to the car park.
I park the Explorer in a snow drift.
There was nowhere else.
Anyways, it’s an Explorer, for chrissakes. It’s for moments like this.
I get on the airport bus at 7.35am.
Then I realize I am still wearing my snow boots.
I apologize to everyone on the bus for delaying the bus. Get off bus. Climb over snow drift to car. Change into proper leather-soled boots. Slither back down snow drift to bus. Re-embark bus.
We drive to the Departures Lounge in the dawn glimmer.
I have to re-check-in at 7.52am because my mobile device barcode check-in foolishness is just that.
That makes it too late for the latte and muffin I’d been promising myself on the highway…
I take off my boots and my belt in the security zone because I am beeping.
I put them back on.
I sit in the Departures Lounge for one hour with no coffee.
Finally, with the permission of the ground crew, I make a break for Tim Hortons…. Starbucks is too far away, way over in the International Flights Departure Area.
I get back to Gate 6 to find everyone has boarded.
But I can take my Timmy’s on the plane.
Hooray!!
Fifteen of us sit on the commuter plane to Cape Breton for two and a half hours while every other friggin’ plane at the airport gets de-iced before us.
No wonder Cape Bretoners are pure mule.
Now I am going to be late.
Frantically, as we barrel up to the de-icer, I email how-to-facilitate-workshop instructions to a colleague in Cape Breton and beg him to save my ass.
Then we are taking off and I have to switch off my phone without knowing whether my ass is being saved.
I panic the whole way to Cape Breton, while sitting in front of the man with the worst halitosis on the planet.
I can still smell his breath.
I decide to take my Champix on an empty stomach because I couldn’t feel any more nauseous.
Actually I could.
We get to Cape Breton only an hour after the start of the workshop.
Hoo-fuckin-ray.
The single taxi parked outside the airport has nobody in it.
I run around the airport trying to find the taxi driver.
I find the taxi driver.
I impress the urgency of my trip on the taxi driver.
He tells me he’s been here since 7.30am without a fare, so he’s taking a carload.
The taxi driver takes his time rounding up a full mini-van load.
It includes halitosis man.
I get into the front of the taxi, speechless with fury.
SPEECHLESS!
The workshop venue is the last stop on the taxi route.
I throw the money at taxi-driver who throws the receipt at me.
I burst into workshop to find everyone working quietly at correct point in workshop, thanks to innate genius of my colleague.
He is more pleased to see me than I am to see him, however, and he hands workshop over to me in alacratious relief before I even get my snow coat off.
I manage to complete the workshop in only a mild state of anxiety, which eases when I realize the participants are enjoying it.
This workshop is my baby right now. Everyone must coo at it. Everyone.
My colleague drives me back to Cape Breton International Airport.
I blag my way onto the early flight home. Which is late of course.
I go to the restaurant and order sausages and pancakes and tea for my nerves.
They burn the pancakes.
How can you burn pancakes?
The plane was due in at 4pm, but it’s arrives at 5pm covered in de-icing goo.
I wonder why…
Right now, I am sitting with seven other people and the pilot on the commuter plane from Cape Breton, bowling through the winter skies towards home.
Himself has texted to say he will be home around nine, hopefully.
That means it has probably stopped snowing in Halifax. But it’s supposed to go down to minus 10 tonight, so I hope that I scraped enough snow off the car so it’s not frozen too much.
If it’s not frozen too much, I can open my car door to get my snow boots on. With my snow boots on, I can stand up long enough to haul the ice scraper out. With the ice scraper in my hand, I can scrape the ice off the windscreen and windows and car lights. With my car in compliance with the highway winter code, I can see my way out of the snow drift and then out of the car park and finally onto the highway and home.
If not, I’ll have to hang onto the door and yank at it till it opens and I fall on my ass.
Normally I don’t drink on a Monday, but all I can think of right now is that I am two hours and a snow drift away from a big glass of red wine.
I get to the airport and I find the bus and we find my car and I get the door open after a couple of yanks and I sit there until my fingers are warm enough to drive (it's now -18) and I drive home in the dark and I get home and it's HOME and then I realise...
... NOBODY'S FUCKING SHOVELLED THE FRONT DOOR STEPS.
Anyways, it only took a few minutes and now I'm inside in the warm listening to Dragon's Den and finishing this and soooo glad I'm not out in the cold.
I hates the winter....
Saturday, December 06, 2008
The Fall of the Court
Chocolate Court went on the rental market this morning.
Sniffle.
Queenie is sad.
Hopefully the next people will have as much fun here as we did.
Sniffle.
Queenie is sad.
Hopefully the next people will have as much fun here as we did.
To Coalesce or not to Coalesce
I can't be bothered trying to write about the mess that's going on in Canadian politics right now, so just read Jeffrey Simpson's article from the Globe and Mail this morning. It just about sums up what's going on.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081205.wsimpsonessay1206/BNStory/specialComment/home/?pageRequested=1
Alternatively, if you want a sense of what real Canadians think, you can read this article by Rick Mercer, from the same organ.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081205.wPOLmercer1205/BNStory/politics/home
With apologies to Knut fans.
Actually, the best comment I've read on all of this recently was from some Joe Bloe writing on the G&M site, who said what he wanted to see was Harper and Dion gone, replaced by Prentice and Ignatieff. Then we could get back to normal and watch them wiggle their stupendous eyebrows at each other across the floor of the House.
He he he...
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081205.wsimpsonessay1206/BNStory/specialComment/home/?pageRequested=1
Alternatively, if you want a sense of what real Canadians think, you can read this article by Rick Mercer, from the same organ.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081205.wPOLmercer1205/BNStory/politics/home
With apologies to Knut fans.
Actually, the best comment I've read on all of this recently was from some Joe Bloe writing on the G&M site, who said what he wanted to see was Harper and Dion gone, replaced by Prentice and Ignatieff. Then we could get back to normal and watch them wiggle their stupendous eyebrows at each other across the floor of the House.
He he he...
Thursday, December 04, 2008
The trouble is, we used to make things in this country....
... and now we just put our hands in the next guy's pockets....
We are about to watch Episode 12 of Season 2 of The Wire.
I don't know when normal service will be restored - there's too much to think about right now.
I still don't smoke.
Himself nearly doesn't smoke.
I don't know what kind of unfucked Canada is the last of right now, but it sure isn't democracy.
TTYL
We are about to watch Episode 12 of Season 2 of The Wire.
I don't know when normal service will be restored - there's too much to think about right now.
I still don't smoke.
Himself nearly doesn't smoke.
I don't know what kind of unfucked Canada is the last of right now, but it sure isn't democracy.
TTYL
Friday, November 21, 2008
House search: installment the latest
So the brilliant news is that Himself told his boss that he didn't want to do salt patrol this year because he was supposed to be getting married next year and he would like for that to happen and it definitely wouldn't if he worked 95 hours a week every week for the next five months. And his boss said that was fine, that he totally understood, so now he will be in charge of the biggest snow plough in the stable (big is best, of course) which means that he only has to go out when it's really bad. Instead of all the time. So we may even have a bit of a life this winter.
But of course we can't celebrate, because of course that has happened on the first day that we are all on storm watch here in Nova Scotia, with 30cm of snow and blowing snow forecast, and 80kmh winds until late tomorrow, so Himself is catching a few snores before he has to go plough the stuff away in the BIG PLOUGH (yet to be named), so people can go shopping tomorrow.
Why on earth people would bother leaving the house the day after that is beyond me, it's the first weekend of the year when you have an excuse to do absolutely nothing. But only five shopping weeks to christmas, so there you go.
So that means I am sort of alone right now and can blog. Hurrah!! Although James downstairs told me he was having a bonfire in the yard tonight. So I may have to go downstairs at some point to join in. Although it's too cold to stand in the yard, even in front of a fire. Plus the wood was all piled beside the firepit instead of under some cover, so it is wet and will take forever to light and will be smoky.
By the way, Accent Monkey, Himself and I are still laughing at that comment about trying to read your book .... still .... a day later....
I think some of you know now that we are coming to the end of an era. Apologies to those of you who don't. I can only send so many emails a day and then my hand seizes up. And I got an injection this afternoon and my left arm and hand is aching for some strange reason.
Yes, barring a major catastrophe, which is of course not unheard of Chez Queenie et Himself, we will be moving lake - and house - in January. The Melwood era will be over. We will be landing on Eagle, near Porters Lake.
We are finding solace in the continuation of the 'dark stuff' imagery.
But of course we can't celebrate, because of course that has happened on the first day that we are all on storm watch here in Nova Scotia, with 30cm of snow and blowing snow forecast, and 80kmh winds until late tomorrow, so Himself is catching a few snores before he has to go plough the stuff away in the BIG PLOUGH (yet to be named), so people can go shopping tomorrow.
Why on earth people would bother leaving the house the day after that is beyond me, it's the first weekend of the year when you have an excuse to do absolutely nothing. But only five shopping weeks to christmas, so there you go.
So that means I am sort of alone right now and can blog. Hurrah!! Although James downstairs told me he was having a bonfire in the yard tonight. So I may have to go downstairs at some point to join in. Although it's too cold to stand in the yard, even in front of a fire. Plus the wood was all piled beside the firepit instead of under some cover, so it is wet and will take forever to light and will be smoky.
By the way, Accent Monkey, Himself and I are still laughing at that comment about trying to read your book .... still .... a day later....
I think some of you know now that we are coming to the end of an era. Apologies to those of you who don't. I can only send so many emails a day and then my hand seizes up. And I got an injection this afternoon and my left arm and hand is aching for some strange reason.
Yes, barring a major catastrophe, which is of course not unheard of Chez Queenie et Himself, we will be moving lake - and house - in January. The Melwood era will be over. We will be landing on Eagle, near Porters Lake.
We are finding solace in the continuation of the 'dark stuff' imagery.
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Third time lucky
I see Myles has a nice photo of poppies on his blog today, it being Remembrance Day.
Lest we Forget.
Remembrance Day is a holiday in Canada, as there are many many veterans here from all kinds of wars, including two (I think) veterans of World War I who are still alive.
Of course, I totally forgot about what day it was, and booked a house viewing for the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Because I am from Foreign. So, when we tried to get down the road to see the house it was blocked off by the cops to keep it clear for the Legion parade.
The Legion won't mean anything to Irish readers, so I shall explain.
The Legion is a community centre for war veterans that serves cheap booze. Anyone can join a Legion and partake of said cheap booze whenever they want. They also hold dances and other socials and are the social centre of many small communities.
I suppose Legions are the Canadian equivalent of the local rugby or GAA club. Except that, instead of having to go to the odd rugby match in order to pretend you are in it for more than the cheap booze, you have to go to the Remembrance Day ceremonies.
Anyways, I digress, we got to the house eventually and it was not worth the gas to go look at it.
As usual.
I hate househunting. This is the third time I have done this.
Third time lucky I hope.
I keep moaning at my realtor; just find me a house and tell me what to write on the cheque. (Yes, in Canada, the purchaser has an estate agent as well as the seller).
She hasn't come up with anywhere yet. Well, to be fair, she only started being our realtor last week, when the old man we tried to buy a house from withdrew it from the market and wasted everyone's time for a week and a half. So in return for being nice about it (christamighty, it's HIS house, he doesn't have to sell it if he doesn't want to, although it would be nice if he didn't pretend he did), she said she'd help us find a house.
Up till now, we've found every house we've looked at. Himself spends hours on the Internet every night researching houses on MLS.ca (website of houses for sale through realtors) and kijiji (houses for private sale). If he makes me look at more than three a night I start to hyperventilate, so I am very glad that he is an Aquarian and likes this kind of work.
Those who know me know that the twice I bought a home, it was the first place I looked at. I just wanted a place.
However, this place has to be right, for the simple fact that it's not just me. It will be Himself's place too.
Also, it just has to be right. This is the house I will spend most of my forties in, I presume, so it needs to be hugely reaffirming and positive, so I can get on with whatever it is happens to me in my forties.
One of my friends, who is very organized, suggested we draw up a list of all the things we want in a house. That way, we can be sure everyone's needs are included and we can prioritise what we can do without.
It has to be the one.
That was all we could come up with.
I suggested we try harder. We thought for a while.
A garden, I said.
Not too difficult in Canada. Most houses come with a garden.
I came up with a house that you can have a puppy in.
Himself came up with woodstove.
That helped to narrow it down in wintery, pet-loving Nova Scotia, I can tell you!!
We're hopeless.
We'll know when we see it.
Anyways, after spending three months wandering around District 7 and telling each other that it was District 7 or nowhere, today we thought to hell with it and headed off in the opposite direction. I don't even know what District we were in. It was on the edge of the map.
An adventure.
Of course, even though it was a day off work, and the sun was shining and the sea was beautiful and it wasn't really too cold for Remembrance Day, I am on Champix right now and not supposed to want to smoke.
hahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
For most of every day right now, I am the Dark Overlord of Thundering Bitchland, and for the remainder I am a weeping mess. Also, because I am on Champix (the wonder drug that removes cravings, so you can break the habit- not), I am having the most vivid, lurid dreams every night and waking up completely freaked out by them at odd hours of the morning.
Put it like this, if I know you, you have been in one of my dreams lately, and you should be very relieved that I can't put them on You Tube.
Oh well, I want to quit. Third time lucky I hope.
As well as dealing with me, Himself has been fighting a deeply infected root canal gone wrong for the last couple of weeks, that has gotten so bad, it has sprouted a greenish-yellowish river of pus that seems to have spread up to his ear. He is on his second bout of penicillin and Tylenol 3 is his friend right now, so he snores like a bear all night and walks around with hot things attached to his face all day.
My, it was fun. Him driving around one-handed with a Large Double Double pressed against his jaw, and me crying with rage every time he didn't hear the mental directions I was reduced to thinking at him, because if I spoke out loud I would say 'give me a fucking cigarette NOW'.
Despite this, we found a house we liked.
If we manage to get this house, I will offer all my nicotine withdrawal rage up to whatever it is that ensures world peace and improved living standards for all.
If we don't, I will have to kill something. Hopefully just in one of my dreams.
Lest we Forget.
Remembrance Day is a holiday in Canada, as there are many many veterans here from all kinds of wars, including two (I think) veterans of World War I who are still alive.
Of course, I totally forgot about what day it was, and booked a house viewing for the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Because I am from Foreign. So, when we tried to get down the road to see the house it was blocked off by the cops to keep it clear for the Legion parade.
The Legion won't mean anything to Irish readers, so I shall explain.
The Legion is a community centre for war veterans that serves cheap booze. Anyone can join a Legion and partake of said cheap booze whenever they want. They also hold dances and other socials and are the social centre of many small communities.
I suppose Legions are the Canadian equivalent of the local rugby or GAA club. Except that, instead of having to go to the odd rugby match in order to pretend you are in it for more than the cheap booze, you have to go to the Remembrance Day ceremonies.
Anyways, I digress, we got to the house eventually and it was not worth the gas to go look at it.
As usual.
I hate househunting. This is the third time I have done this.
Third time lucky I hope.
I keep moaning at my realtor; just find me a house and tell me what to write on the cheque. (Yes, in Canada, the purchaser has an estate agent as well as the seller).
She hasn't come up with anywhere yet. Well, to be fair, she only started being our realtor last week, when the old man we tried to buy a house from withdrew it from the market and wasted everyone's time for a week and a half. So in return for being nice about it (christamighty, it's HIS house, he doesn't have to sell it if he doesn't want to, although it would be nice if he didn't pretend he did), she said she'd help us find a house.
Up till now, we've found every house we've looked at. Himself spends hours on the Internet every night researching houses on MLS.ca (website of houses for sale through realtors) and kijiji (houses for private sale). If he makes me look at more than three a night I start to hyperventilate, so I am very glad that he is an Aquarian and likes this kind of work.
Those who know me know that the twice I bought a home, it was the first place I looked at. I just wanted a place.
However, this place has to be right, for the simple fact that it's not just me. It will be Himself's place too.
Also, it just has to be right. This is the house I will spend most of my forties in, I presume, so it needs to be hugely reaffirming and positive, so I can get on with whatever it is happens to me in my forties.
One of my friends, who is very organized, suggested we draw up a list of all the things we want in a house. That way, we can be sure everyone's needs are included and we can prioritise what we can do without.
It has to be the one.
That was all we could come up with.
I suggested we try harder. We thought for a while.
A garden, I said.
Not too difficult in Canada. Most houses come with a garden.
I came up with a house that you can have a puppy in.
Himself came up with woodstove.
That helped to narrow it down in wintery, pet-loving Nova Scotia, I can tell you!!
We're hopeless.
We'll know when we see it.
Anyways, after spending three months wandering around District 7 and telling each other that it was District 7 or nowhere, today we thought to hell with it and headed off in the opposite direction. I don't even know what District we were in. It was on the edge of the map.
An adventure.
Of course, even though it was a day off work, and the sun was shining and the sea was beautiful and it wasn't really too cold for Remembrance Day, I am on Champix right now and not supposed to want to smoke.
hahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
For most of every day right now, I am the Dark Overlord of Thundering Bitchland, and for the remainder I am a weeping mess. Also, because I am on Champix (the wonder drug that removes cravings, so you can break the habit- not), I am having the most vivid, lurid dreams every night and waking up completely freaked out by them at odd hours of the morning.
Put it like this, if I know you, you have been in one of my dreams lately, and you should be very relieved that I can't put them on You Tube.
Oh well, I want to quit. Third time lucky I hope.
As well as dealing with me, Himself has been fighting a deeply infected root canal gone wrong for the last couple of weeks, that has gotten so bad, it has sprouted a greenish-yellowish river of pus that seems to have spread up to his ear. He is on his second bout of penicillin and Tylenol 3 is his friend right now, so he snores like a bear all night and walks around with hot things attached to his face all day.
My, it was fun. Him driving around one-handed with a Large Double Double pressed against his jaw, and me crying with rage every time he didn't hear the mental directions I was reduced to thinking at him, because if I spoke out loud I would say 'give me a fucking cigarette NOW'.
Despite this, we found a house we liked.
If we manage to get this house, I will offer all my nicotine withdrawal rage up to whatever it is that ensures world peace and improved living standards for all.
If we don't, I will have to kill something. Hopefully just in one of my dreams.
Saturday, November 01, 2008
Sunday, October 19, 2008
The doctor will see you. And then decide.
Sitting here not quite knowing what to blog about but feeling I should blog.
The worst kind of blogging feeling...
End of the weekend except it's not, as I have a day off tomorrow.
Tomorrow morning, I have an interview.
With a doctor.
I kid you not.
Here in Canada, we have the world famous Medicare, which means you don't have to pay for a doctor.
Which is great.
Except that it means there aren't enough doctors.
Apparently, there are five million Canadians without a family doctor.
Queenie, Himself and Kitty are three of those people.
So when I drove past the Spryfield Family Medical Centre and saw the sign saying lady doctor accepting patients, I was on the phone quicker than you could say 'take your clothes off and get up on the bed there love'.
So I had to make an appointment to meet the doctor.
I'm not quite sure what I should do.
Apart from bring the lashings of private medical insurance we have with me in an attempt to bribe her...
Oh yes, didn't you know, Canada, home of Medicare, has lots and lots of private medical insurance.
Himself and I pay out approximately $200 a month for coverage that includes pharmacare, massage, naturopathy, accupuncture, physiotherapy, counselling, dentist, medical emergency, etc. etc.
Of course, because everyone who has medical insurance pays so much for it, you tend to use it up as much as possible - hence the trips to the dentist, the massages, etc.
Which puts the cost of medical insurance up...
So it goes.
Anyways, I hope Lady Doctor takes us on. That will take a load off my mind.
The worst kind of blogging feeling...
End of the weekend except it's not, as I have a day off tomorrow.
Tomorrow morning, I have an interview.
With a doctor.
I kid you not.
Here in Canada, we have the world famous Medicare, which means you don't have to pay for a doctor.
Which is great.
Except that it means there aren't enough doctors.
Apparently, there are five million Canadians without a family doctor.
Queenie, Himself and Kitty are three of those people.
So when I drove past the Spryfield Family Medical Centre and saw the sign saying lady doctor accepting patients, I was on the phone quicker than you could say 'take your clothes off and get up on the bed there love'.
So I had to make an appointment to meet the doctor.
I'm not quite sure what I should do.
Apart from bring the lashings of private medical insurance we have with me in an attempt to bribe her...
Oh yes, didn't you know, Canada, home of Medicare, has lots and lots of private medical insurance.
Himself and I pay out approximately $200 a month for coverage that includes pharmacare, massage, naturopathy, accupuncture, physiotherapy, counselling, dentist, medical emergency, etc. etc.
Of course, because everyone who has medical insurance pays so much for it, you tend to use it up as much as possible - hence the trips to the dentist, the massages, etc.
Which puts the cost of medical insurance up...
So it goes.
Anyways, I hope Lady Doctor takes us on. That will take a load off my mind.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Passchendaele should have been called Passiondale
Christ almighty, I managed to delete the entire post and now I have to write it out again.
I thought auto save had a function.
SOOOOO, Himself and I went to see Passchendaele last night.
The movie.
The new Canadian movie, written, directed by and starring Paul Gross, who you will all remember as Constable Benton Fraser in Due South, the weird Canadian cop show of the nineties.
This movie is being plugged as the great new interpretation of Canada's coming of age as a nation during World War I.
Himself was very excited about it, being one of those (millions of) Canadians who has a deep interest in the subject. He even remembered the date we had to go to the cinema. Usually, Queenie gets to remember this kind of stuff on his behalf as part of her high end personal assistant role, the one with added benefits such as cooking and doing laundry tagged on.
Anyways, enough of that nasty sarcasm.
We remembered.
And we went.
We stopped into It's all Greek to me first for a stomach-stretching gastro-fest of Greek yumminess. We had the platter for starters which meant of course that we couldn't eat the main course, but we did our best and Himself did a lot better than me.
Himself and I are on a mission to check out the best restaurants in Halifax for the visitors who will be here next year, to ensure the euro-dollars go to the best places. Like I say regularly, we are dealing with the big issues before the big day.
Anyways, we were a little concerned the food would put us to sleep, but then we figured the film would be so good it wouldn't.
As it turned out, we didn't go to sleep, but we should've.
Yawn.
As one of the cinema reviewers in this town said, the movie is Saving Private Ryan meets Titanic.
I would add the scenery from Brokeback Mountain to that mix. And there you have it.
As we left the cinema to walk home (and get rid of some of the greekfest), I overheard someone say 'shit story, terrible plot, but that's what you get when the Tories fund culture.'
I thought auto save had a function.
SOOOOO, Himself and I went to see Passchendaele last night.
The movie.
The new Canadian movie, written, directed by and starring Paul Gross, who you will all remember as Constable Benton Fraser in Due South, the weird Canadian cop show of the nineties.
This movie is being plugged as the great new interpretation of Canada's coming of age as a nation during World War I.
Himself was very excited about it, being one of those (millions of) Canadians who has a deep interest in the subject. He even remembered the date we had to go to the cinema. Usually, Queenie gets to remember this kind of stuff on his behalf as part of her high end personal assistant role, the one with added benefits such as cooking and doing laundry tagged on.
Anyways, enough of that nasty sarcasm.
We remembered.
And we went.
We stopped into It's all Greek to me first for a stomach-stretching gastro-fest of Greek yumminess. We had the platter for starters which meant of course that we couldn't eat the main course, but we did our best and Himself did a lot better than me.
Himself and I are on a mission to check out the best restaurants in Halifax for the visitors who will be here next year, to ensure the euro-dollars go to the best places. Like I say regularly, we are dealing with the big issues before the big day.
Anyways, we were a little concerned the food would put us to sleep, but then we figured the film would be so good it wouldn't.
As it turned out, we didn't go to sleep, but we should've.
Yawn.
As one of the cinema reviewers in this town said, the movie is Saving Private Ryan meets Titanic.
I would add the scenery from Brokeback Mountain to that mix. And there you have it.
As we left the cinema to walk home (and get rid of some of the greekfest), I overheard someone say 'shit story, terrible plot, but that's what you get when the Tories fund culture.'
Monday, October 13, 2008
It must be chilly in hell tonight
If anyone had told me two years ago that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown would save the stock market by nationalising the banks on the day that Paul Krugman won the Nobel Prize for Economics I would have laughed.
I would have.
And remember boys and girls, Queenie and at least four of her New Canadian friends can't vote tomorrow, so please, if you have one, use it for us, if not for yourself.
I don't think any of the four would go blue, if you're interested.
I would have.
And remember boys and girls, Queenie and at least four of her New Canadian friends can't vote tomorrow, so please, if you have one, use it for us, if not for yourself.
I don't think any of the four would go blue, if you're interested.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Being Thankful is difficult in the current world paradigm
No, I'm not going to talk about the world economic crisis.
Charlie Brooker wrote the piece I was going to write, so I don't need to do it now.
He of course wrote it much better than I would ever have done.
He of course doesn't have to weave tales of domestic bliss and gardening into everything he publishes, which makes it easier.
But still...
... I know when I'm in the presence of writing genius.
geneflects sortof...
I had to look up the spelling of that word. I don't often have to do that, but when I do, I always find I'm trying to put a U in the word somewhere.
I wonder why that is?
You'd think I'd be trying to put an I into the word.
I'm not going to talk about reality television either.
When did you change to accentmonkey.com? How posh!!! I'm all jealous now...
Even though I love So you think you can dance?, which is what we watch over here in Canader.
It's too early in the season to have an opinion on it, apart from the obvious one which is why are all the contestants from Ontario? Which I'm not going to address because the answer is that Ontario is where all the funding for extra-curricular youth activities is spent, because Ontario decides the government.
And I don't want to get into politics tonight.
Apart from one thing I need to say: the Canadian election is actually very interesting this time around, because we get to choose between:
the Tories: who are bastards according to everyone you talk to, even Tories, but who did actually did foresee some of this mess and tightened some, possibly relevant, banking rules just in time - not difficult in banking-conservative Canada though (it costs $3 to take money out of your bank account with another bank's ATM here, I kid you not) - so no big kudos for the grey eyed robot and his lackeys out there,
the Liberals: who have a John Bruton type geek leading them, but have a very interesting Green Shift policy that would shift the economy's taxation system to a carbon tax based one with reductions in income tax and investment in green jobs. Which is a great idea as far as I can make out, but which of course is really scary now because no one knows whether they'll have a job in a year's time. Unfortunately, the policy is incomprehensible when explained in a thick Quebec accent so nobody understands it except its author, Stephan Dion, soon to be former leader of the Liberal party (although this man won the leadership against Bob Rae and Ignatieff, so who knows....)
the NDP, which is doing pretty well right now touting their usual business bashing stuff. People are getting it this time round of course. But they have a strange and inevitably pro-business take on energy, i.e a cap and trade approach, which is obviously a curved ball thrown in to demand blind obedience from the intelligent yet committed NDP voter (or else the outcome of the Canadian Auto Workers' union having five seats on a four seat energy policy committee),
the Bloc, who were supposed to die this election, but who are having far too much fun picking on Harper for cutting cultural funding just before the election to leave the party on time (and of course, where would they go, now that money to spend on good parties has been withdrawn),
and the Greens, who were on 13 per cent last time I checked, which means they are going to fuck the numbers up for everyone else in their version of the Nader approach to saving the planet. Why don't Greens just vote for other people? Instead of trying to be in charge? It would work. Honest.
Results on Wednesday morning with your oatmeal for all you international political junkies. Will Canada be a weathervane for the lumpen prols worldwide? Probably. Will the prols save us? Probably not.
Not a lot to be thankful yet.
Charlie Brooker wrote the piece I was going to write, so I don't need to do it now.
He of course wrote it much better than I would ever have done.
He of course doesn't have to weave tales of domestic bliss and gardening into everything he publishes, which makes it easier.
But still...
... I know when I'm in the presence of writing genius.
geneflects sortof...
I had to look up the spelling of that word. I don't often have to do that, but when I do, I always find I'm trying to put a U in the word somewhere.
I wonder why that is?
You'd think I'd be trying to put an I into the word.
I'm not going to talk about reality television either.
When did you change to accentmonkey.com? How posh!!! I'm all jealous now...
Even though I love So you think you can dance?, which is what we watch over here in Canader.
It's too early in the season to have an opinion on it, apart from the obvious one which is why are all the contestants from Ontario? Which I'm not going to address because the answer is that Ontario is where all the funding for extra-curricular youth activities is spent, because Ontario decides the government.
And I don't want to get into politics tonight.
Apart from one thing I need to say: the Canadian election is actually very interesting this time around, because we get to choose between:
the Tories: who are bastards according to everyone you talk to, even Tories, but who did actually did foresee some of this mess and tightened some, possibly relevant, banking rules just in time - not difficult in banking-conservative Canada though (it costs $3 to take money out of your bank account with another bank's ATM here, I kid you not) - so no big kudos for the grey eyed robot and his lackeys out there,
the Liberals: who have a John Bruton type geek leading them, but have a very interesting Green Shift policy that would shift the economy's taxation system to a carbon tax based one with reductions in income tax and investment in green jobs. Which is a great idea as far as I can make out, but which of course is really scary now because no one knows whether they'll have a job in a year's time. Unfortunately, the policy is incomprehensible when explained in a thick Quebec accent so nobody understands it except its author, Stephan Dion, soon to be former leader of the Liberal party (although this man won the leadership against Bob Rae and Ignatieff, so who knows....)
the NDP, which is doing pretty well right now touting their usual business bashing stuff. People are getting it this time round of course. But they have a strange and inevitably pro-business take on energy, i.e a cap and trade approach, which is obviously a curved ball thrown in to demand blind obedience from the intelligent yet committed NDP voter (or else the outcome of the Canadian Auto Workers' union having five seats on a four seat energy policy committee),
the Bloc, who were supposed to die this election, but who are having far too much fun picking on Harper for cutting cultural funding just before the election to leave the party on time (and of course, where would they go, now that money to spend on good parties has been withdrawn),
and the Greens, who were on 13 per cent last time I checked, which means they are going to fuck the numbers up for everyone else in their version of the Nader approach to saving the planet. Why don't Greens just vote for other people? Instead of trying to be in charge? It would work. Honest.
Results on Wednesday morning with your oatmeal for all you international political junkies. Will Canada be a weathervane for the lumpen prols worldwide? Probably. Will the prols save us? Probably not.
Not a lot to be thankful yet.
Thankfully, by the time you read this....
... it will be Canadian Thanksgiving.
This year, most of us here in Canada are thankful that we are not American.
Yet.
This year, we are also thankful we are not Icelandic, although we have started going there on holidays as a nation, because of the special offer flights.
Me, I'm currently thankful I like to cook.
Up until last Thursday, I was going to my out-laws for Thanksgiving, which is what I normally do (unless I am lugging a canoe around a lake, which is what I did last year). Then, Himself's work took a swerve towards winter hours. So for the last three nights and the next seven, Himself is working a twelve hour shift from 7pm - 7am.
So not only do I have to cook Thanksgiving dinner, I have to have it on the table by four pm.
Bah.
I figured I would just not do it.
I told Himself we'd just have pork chops or something, because I don't like turkey and I didn't feel particularly thankful this year anyways.
Oh, he said.
Oh...
Himself, being a youngest child, has said family member's innate ability to pull THE SAH-DED-EST FACE IN DEH WOR-ALD EHV-HER when he needs to.
Oh, he said, with his sad face on.
I held my ground for a bit.
Then I heard him telling Kitty on the phone that he would do a meal for everyone on Sunday .... if he wasn't too tired.
Or sad, I assume.
Or dead from the H2S levels.
I don't actually know if Kitty was on the phone or this was just a ploy of course.
Anyways, it worked.
Christ almighty, I can't be one of those women who sends her bloke off to work a twelve hour shift in a place where the H2S levels are higher than the highest H2S levels ever recorded in the world ever, forcing him to be extremely BRAVE and RESOURCEFUL and CAREFUL and SUCCESSFULL at STAYING ALIVE and then forces him to take a shower as soon as he gets home from the FREEZING COLD and DANGEROUS oil rig bilge barge pumping whatever the fuck it is he's gotten Himself into doing now thingummy.
Just so he can cook a nice supper for her.
Without even asking about the H2S levels that day.
Well, I could be that kind of woman, but I choose not to be.
Actually, I'd quite like to freak out about the H2S levels, but I'm not allowed. Because it's not an issue. Because Himself is TOO CAREFUL TO DIE.
Phew.
Why am I living with a danger junkie?
Oh that's right, everyone else bored me to death eventually.
Maybe Himself will scare me to death eventually.
Or H2S me to death. According to Wiki, a buildup of hydrogen sulfide in the atmosphere could have caused the Permian-Triassic extinction event 252 million years ago.
There you go.
Okay, how did we get here from Thanksgiving?
Get back to the point, please.
Yes, anyways, I'm thankful I can cook. Because that means I don't have to cook a turkey.
I hate turkey.
I worked on a turkey farm once, long long time ago.
Some of my readers will know why.
It wasn't for the glamorous surroundings or the wages I can tell you.
My job was to get the plucked turkeys, cut out all the oozing scabs from the fighting that goes on in a turkey barn, and sew the skin together like new with white thread.
So, I don't like turkey.
So we're having rib of beef instead.
With a Dijon mustard and cumin crust.
And Yorkshire pudding.
With mashed and sweet potatoes, butternut squash (roasted, with brown sugar and butter) and turnip.
Because you can't have too many Fall colours on a plate in our house.
It will be preceded by a nourishing barley and lentil soup.
And followed by pumpkin pie, of course.
With lashings of cream.
A careful blend of Old and New World autumnal cooking.
It's all prepped so I don't have to do anything until 2pm and can spend the morning in the garden.
I texted the dinner menu to Himself at work.
To cheer him up.
And distract him from his H2S monitor.
Which beeps constantly, such is the danger that man puts Himself in in order to put prime rib of beef on the small pine dining table in our apartment.
(I'm not taking the piss out of Himself, by the way, I am dealing with the slight, scratching the back of my brain dread I am feeling about this job by using my lifelong friend and ally, sarcasm.)
He texted me back with the standard text I get when he's getting what he wanted all along.
UR the best babe.
Yes, I know I am.
You're completely spoiled is what it is, I texted him back.
So now we're actually having Thanksgiving, I guess I should be thinking about what I'm thankful for.
I'm so going to make everyone at the table tell each other what they're thankful for this year.
Just to make a point.
About gratitude.
This year, most of us here in Canada are thankful that we are not American.
Yet.
This year, we are also thankful we are not Icelandic, although we have started going there on holidays as a nation, because of the special offer flights.
Me, I'm currently thankful I like to cook.
Up until last Thursday, I was going to my out-laws for Thanksgiving, which is what I normally do (unless I am lugging a canoe around a lake, which is what I did last year). Then, Himself's work took a swerve towards winter hours. So for the last three nights and the next seven, Himself is working a twelve hour shift from 7pm - 7am.
So not only do I have to cook Thanksgiving dinner, I have to have it on the table by four pm.
Bah.
I figured I would just not do it.
I told Himself we'd just have pork chops or something, because I don't like turkey and I didn't feel particularly thankful this year anyways.
Oh, he said.
Oh...
Himself, being a youngest child, has said family member's innate ability to pull THE SAH-DED-EST FACE IN DEH WOR-ALD EHV-HER when he needs to.
Oh, he said, with his sad face on.
I held my ground for a bit.
Then I heard him telling Kitty on the phone that he would do a meal for everyone on Sunday .... if he wasn't too tired.
Or sad, I assume.
Or dead from the H2S levels.
I don't actually know if Kitty was on the phone or this was just a ploy of course.
Anyways, it worked.
Christ almighty, I can't be one of those women who sends her bloke off to work a twelve hour shift in a place where the H2S levels are higher than the highest H2S levels ever recorded in the world ever, forcing him to be extremely BRAVE and RESOURCEFUL and CAREFUL and SUCCESSFULL at STAYING ALIVE and then forces him to take a shower as soon as he gets home from the FREEZING COLD and DANGEROUS oil rig bilge barge pumping whatever the fuck it is he's gotten Himself into doing now thingummy.
Just so he can cook a nice supper for her.
Without even asking about the H2S levels that day.
Well, I could be that kind of woman, but I choose not to be.
Actually, I'd quite like to freak out about the H2S levels, but I'm not allowed. Because it's not an issue. Because Himself is TOO CAREFUL TO DIE.
Phew.
Why am I living with a danger junkie?
Oh that's right, everyone else bored me to death eventually.
Maybe Himself will scare me to death eventually.
Or H2S me to death. According to Wiki, a buildup of hydrogen sulfide in the atmosphere could have caused the Permian-Triassic extinction event 252 million years ago.
There you go.
Okay, how did we get here from Thanksgiving?
Get back to the point, please.
Yes, anyways, I'm thankful I can cook. Because that means I don't have to cook a turkey.
I hate turkey.
I worked on a turkey farm once, long long time ago.
Some of my readers will know why.
It wasn't for the glamorous surroundings or the wages I can tell you.
My job was to get the plucked turkeys, cut out all the oozing scabs from the fighting that goes on in a turkey barn, and sew the skin together like new with white thread.
So, I don't like turkey.
So we're having rib of beef instead.
With a Dijon mustard and cumin crust.
And Yorkshire pudding.
With mashed and sweet potatoes, butternut squash (roasted, with brown sugar and butter) and turnip.
Because you can't have too many Fall colours on a plate in our house.
It will be preceded by a nourishing barley and lentil soup.
And followed by pumpkin pie, of course.
With lashings of cream.
A careful blend of Old and New World autumnal cooking.
It's all prepped so I don't have to do anything until 2pm and can spend the morning in the garden.
I texted the dinner menu to Himself at work.
To cheer him up.
And distract him from his H2S monitor.
Which beeps constantly, such is the danger that man puts Himself in in order to put prime rib of beef on the small pine dining table in our apartment.
(I'm not taking the piss out of Himself, by the way, I am dealing with the slight, scratching the back of my brain dread I am feeling about this job by using my lifelong friend and ally, sarcasm.)
He texted me back with the standard text I get when he's getting what he wanted all along.
UR the best babe.
Yes, I know I am.
You're completely spoiled is what it is, I texted him back.
So now we're actually having Thanksgiving, I guess I should be thinking about what I'm thankful for.
I'm so going to make everyone at the table tell each other what they're thankful for this year.
Just to make a point.
About gratitude.
Charlie tells us it's over, so it must be over.
The inimitable Mr. Charlie Brooker, from the Guardian today... the only person who was more scared reading The Road than I was, for which I will love him forever.
Great. I go on holiday, turn my back for a few weeks, come back and what has happened? The banks are on fire and we're at war with Iceland. As I type these words (on a Friday morning, fact fans), Sky News is zooming in on a screen full of red flashing numbers, apparently willing them to fall yet lower. The problem is a lack of confidence, they keep saying, cutting away every so often to show a big plunging downward arrow or a shot of a City trader holding his head in despair.
I'm a bit sick of that whole holding-his-head-in-despair schtick, to be honest. It's about time they tried something more spectacular. Surely it's time for a revival of that great cliche of the 1930s, the ruined City whizzkid hurling himself out of the window? The credit crunch high dive.
Extra points if you manage to pull a backflip on the way down, or crack your jaw on a window cleaner's cradle somewhere around floor 35. The ultimate high score goes to the first one who manages to successfully update his Facebook status using an iPhone seconds before slamming into the pavement. "Danny is plummeting to his doom." Click here to tag him in a photo.
Is this the end of the world? If so, it's a bit more boring than I'd imagined. So far, it's been an invisible apocalypse. Poke your head out the window and there's little evidence of charred debris. Perhaps that's yet to come. Like I say, I'm writing this on Friday morning. By the time you read it, it'll be Monday. Maybe we're already bartering with coloured pebbles or fighting over water or something.
Still, there's no point in worrying. If we're going to be plunged into some kind of barbaric medieval dark age, I might as well be philosophical about it, because there's no way I'll survive more than a month. I'd be hopeless at fighting over basic resources and don't have any essential manual skills, such as the ability to hunt and skin rats. Perhaps I can learn the lute and become a minstrel, or perform bawdy jigs in exchange for pennies. Assuming there are any pennies. Hey, maybe just before all currency is finally declared worthless we'll get to experience the whole wheelbarrows-full-of-worthless-banknotes thing, like they did in Germany just before the war. That'd be a blast.
It all seems particularly bizarre, because just over a week ago I was in Las Vegas, as part of a US road trip I'm writing up for the Travel section. The casino put me up in an outrageous suite the size of a millionaire's bachelor pad. It had a pool table, a butler, and a shower in the lounge with a lapdancing pole in the middle of it. The windows looked out over the Las Vegas strip; specifically over the multimillion-dollar fountain show at the front of Bellagio. I visited a nightclub full of pricks who danced around tossing banknotes in the air, then returned to the suite, which alongside a pool table and a butler, also came equipped with about six gigantic, wall-mounted HD plasma TVs, every single one of which was screaming bad news about the economy. I felt like I was trapped inside a terrifying satirical sci-fi flick.
And it had to happen, obviously. For years, money was just appearing from nowhere, or so we were told. People bought houses and bragged about how the value kept zooming up, and up, and up. In fact they didn't seem to be houses at all, but magic coin-shitting machines. It was all a dream, a dream in which you bought a box and lived in it, and all the time it generated money like a cow generates farts. Great big stinking clouds of money. And none of it was real. And now it's gone. Your house is worth less than your shoes, and your shoes are now, in turn, worth less than your mouth and your arse. Yes, your most valuable possessions are now your mouth and your arse, and you're going to have to use both of them in all manner of previously unthinkable ways to make ends meet, to pay for that box, the box you live in, the one you mistook for an enchanted, unstoppable cash engine. I hope you've got a nice kitchen. Maybe that'll take your mind off things. And sell that Alessi smoothie maker while you're about it. You can't afford fruit any more. It's tap water at best from now on. It's good for you! Really, it is.
All of it was a dream. All that crap we bought, all the bottled water and Blu-Ray players and designer shoes and iPod Shuffles and patio heaters; all the jobs we had; all the catchphrases we memorised and the stupid things we thought. Everything we did for the past 10 years - none of it really felt real, did it? Time to snap out of it. Time to grow our own vegetables and learn hand-to-hand combat with staves. And time, perhaps, to really start living
Great. I go on holiday, turn my back for a few weeks, come back and what has happened? The banks are on fire and we're at war with Iceland. As I type these words (on a Friday morning, fact fans), Sky News is zooming in on a screen full of red flashing numbers, apparently willing them to fall yet lower. The problem is a lack of confidence, they keep saying, cutting away every so often to show a big plunging downward arrow or a shot of a City trader holding his head in despair.
I'm a bit sick of that whole holding-his-head-in-despair schtick, to be honest. It's about time they tried something more spectacular. Surely it's time for a revival of that great cliche of the 1930s, the ruined City whizzkid hurling himself out of the window? The credit crunch high dive.
Extra points if you manage to pull a backflip on the way down, or crack your jaw on a window cleaner's cradle somewhere around floor 35. The ultimate high score goes to the first one who manages to successfully update his Facebook status using an iPhone seconds before slamming into the pavement. "Danny is plummeting to his doom." Click here to tag him in a photo.
Is this the end of the world? If so, it's a bit more boring than I'd imagined. So far, it's been an invisible apocalypse. Poke your head out the window and there's little evidence of charred debris. Perhaps that's yet to come. Like I say, I'm writing this on Friday morning. By the time you read it, it'll be Monday. Maybe we're already bartering with coloured pebbles or fighting over water or something.
Still, there's no point in worrying. If we're going to be plunged into some kind of barbaric medieval dark age, I might as well be philosophical about it, because there's no way I'll survive more than a month. I'd be hopeless at fighting over basic resources and don't have any essential manual skills, such as the ability to hunt and skin rats. Perhaps I can learn the lute and become a minstrel, or perform bawdy jigs in exchange for pennies. Assuming there are any pennies. Hey, maybe just before all currency is finally declared worthless we'll get to experience the whole wheelbarrows-full-of-worthless-banknotes thing, like they did in Germany just before the war. That'd be a blast.
It all seems particularly bizarre, because just over a week ago I was in Las Vegas, as part of a US road trip I'm writing up for the Travel section. The casino put me up in an outrageous suite the size of a millionaire's bachelor pad. It had a pool table, a butler, and a shower in the lounge with a lapdancing pole in the middle of it. The windows looked out over the Las Vegas strip; specifically over the multimillion-dollar fountain show at the front of Bellagio. I visited a nightclub full of pricks who danced around tossing banknotes in the air, then returned to the suite, which alongside a pool table and a butler, also came equipped with about six gigantic, wall-mounted HD plasma TVs, every single one of which was screaming bad news about the economy. I felt like I was trapped inside a terrifying satirical sci-fi flick.
And it had to happen, obviously. For years, money was just appearing from nowhere, or so we were told. People bought houses and bragged about how the value kept zooming up, and up, and up. In fact they didn't seem to be houses at all, but magic coin-shitting machines. It was all a dream, a dream in which you bought a box and lived in it, and all the time it generated money like a cow generates farts. Great big stinking clouds of money. And none of it was real. And now it's gone. Your house is worth less than your shoes, and your shoes are now, in turn, worth less than your mouth and your arse. Yes, your most valuable possessions are now your mouth and your arse, and you're going to have to use both of them in all manner of previously unthinkable ways to make ends meet, to pay for that box, the box you live in, the one you mistook for an enchanted, unstoppable cash engine. I hope you've got a nice kitchen. Maybe that'll take your mind off things. And sell that Alessi smoothie maker while you're about it. You can't afford fruit any more. It's tap water at best from now on. It's good for you! Really, it is.
All of it was a dream. All that crap we bought, all the bottled water and Blu-Ray players and designer shoes and iPod Shuffles and patio heaters; all the jobs we had; all the catchphrases we memorised and the stupid things we thought. Everything we did for the past 10 years - none of it really felt real, did it? Time to snap out of it. Time to grow our own vegetables and learn hand-to-hand combat with staves. And time, perhaps, to really start living
Why do we insist on leaving a vaporous vapour trail?
We are truly the generation that won't allow ourselves to get drunk in peace, aren't we.
First of all, there was drunk behaviour.
Which was frowned on, but forgettable mainly due to the fleeting nature of it (unless there was a video camera in evidence). Or photos. But they could be lost in the move, couldn't they.
Then there was drunk telephoning.
Bad.
Then we invented drunk texting.
Pretty bad.
And now there's drunk Facebooking.
Two types.
Actual Facebooking when drunk. Well, not drunk so much as slightly tipsy so that you can't remember what stellar thought was in your head at the time you wrote the thing.
And then there's the really scary Facebooking of the past through image and sound.
Why do we leave this vaporous vapour trail behind us constantly?
We should have one day a year when there's no technology and we all just have a party or a debate or whatever we want, in peace, with no phones or Interweb.
I hereby command that August 8th be that day from now on.
I'll organize the party next year, howzat?!
Sitting here waiting for the breadmaker to finish making the bread.
When you peer inside, the weirdly contorting dough looks like the beginnings of a clone or something equally nasty.
First of all, there was drunk behaviour.
Which was frowned on, but forgettable mainly due to the fleeting nature of it (unless there was a video camera in evidence). Or photos. But they could be lost in the move, couldn't they.
Then there was drunk telephoning.
Bad.
Then we invented drunk texting.
Pretty bad.
And now there's drunk Facebooking.
Two types.
Actual Facebooking when drunk. Well, not drunk so much as slightly tipsy so that you can't remember what stellar thought was in your head at the time you wrote the thing.
And then there's the really scary Facebooking of the past through image and sound.
Why do we leave this vaporous vapour trail behind us constantly?
We should have one day a year when there's no technology and we all just have a party or a debate or whatever we want, in peace, with no phones or Interweb.
I hereby command that August 8th be that day from now on.
I'll organize the party next year, howzat?!
Sitting here waiting for the breadmaker to finish making the bread.
When you peer inside, the weirdly contorting dough looks like the beginnings of a clone or something equally nasty.
So if I didn't do it, and your dad didn't do it, and you didn't do it, then who did it? The fuck-up fairy?
'Utter carnage' is how one trader described events as he caught the train home from Canary Wharf on Friday
Yeah whatever, go on...
More than £600bn has been wiped from the value of shares of companies listed on the FTSE 100 since it climbed to 6,732 on 15 June 2007. Now the index is trading at around 4,000, a 40 per cent slump in 12 months,
By my calculations that is 4.553 to the power of -7. Of course, I don't know what that means. I think it means that every point of the FTSE was worth 4.5 Billion before. So the FTSE used to be worth 30,294 billion. So now the FTSE is worth 18,000 billion.
Yep. They're right.
59.4177.
I thought you rounded it down if it was less than five?
That will have a big impact on the value of pensions
Yes, they told us that at work.
Mark Otswald, an analyst at Monument Securities, describes the last few days as 'sheer, bloody panic. The Western financial system is breaking down.'
They didn't tell us that.
Apocalypse now? 'Let's hope not,' says Gerard Lyons, chief economist at Standard Chartered
Hear hear, Gerard...
they don't know how bad things are going to get, so the temptation is to dump assets, no matter what.'
They always trot out that line, don't they. I always wonder who 'they' are.
The first priority is to free up the money markets where banks lend to each other to ensure there is sufficient credit around to lend to businesses and mortgage borrowers. Ominously, that isn't happening,
I wonder where the money is ending up.
David Frost, director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce, says: Companies are being squeezed and capital expenditure will be cut
Oh well, that's all right then. Capital expenditure is planned for and paid for in advance, by the government sometimes, isn't it.
Many businesses are already low on cash because of higher costs - such as fuel bills - and weakening consumer demand
Aaah, is that so.
(I saw three Hummers in the carpark at the superstore in Spryfield today... I swear to god I did).
The bank also charged £35,000 in fees. Derek Simpson, general secretary of the Unite union, says: 'The banks are trying to hoard cash and squeezing everyone down the chain
Aha. The banks are hoarding cash are they? There's a surprise.
September, there was a net outflow of $72bn from American mutual funds, and the figure for this month could be even higher.
In Britain, retail investors have held their nerve, although there was a £500m outflow in August
I have no idea what this means. But it sounds important.
But hedge funds are major sellers. That is happening for one of two reasons: either because banks are making margin calls, where they ask for more security as debt becomes dearer to service, or because investors are taking fright and cashing in their chips.
This is where I started to get interested. Why does the journalist not know why this is happening? He's already pointed out that the banks are hoarding cash.
Rich individuals, including Russian oligarchs, are also selling, in particular where loans are secured against equity stakes in companies under their control. As stock prices fall, banks are demanding more security from tycoons, many of whom have tied up their wealth in shares
If I were the banks, and I had totally fucked things up, and broken all the rules, and destroyed the meaning of the word trust, and been cast out in the street, and had to break back in and sit in the corner snivelling and begging, until I got the shrug that meant you had gotten away with it for about fifteen minutes, I would be hoarding too, obviously,
Ukrainian oligarch and iron ore miner Kostyantin Zhevago was forced to sell a 20 per cent stake in metal company Ferrexpo last week because of the steep fall in the price of commodities. Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska has sold 20 per cent of Canadian car parts maker Magna
To whom have these people had to sell their said to be one time ill-gotten gains?
who bought 20 per cent of Magna?
and why was it not on the news?
Or did I miss it?
When the world's wealthy elites are forced to sell shares, it not only adds to the downward pressure on financial markets, but also takes spending power out of the economy, with spin-off effects for sectors as diverse as luxury goods, property and investment in jobs
Why? Do the people that buy them not have any fun ever? Do they just sit and count their money?
Who could these people be?
Who doesn't like to have fun?
The Depression of 80 years ago was compounded by the fact that wealth was controlled by an even narrower spectrum of society than today; the effect of wealth destruction for a few was felt disproportionately by the rest of the population. Nevertheless, a version of that nexus exists today
What does this mean? It is counter-intuitive to me? Surely if a wider range of people have money the risk is spread? Am I missing something important about percentages here?
I was never any good at gambling.
Oh no!! I get it now. It's the same as I think, it's just too academic for me to understand it.
the insurance companies have escaped relatively unscathed, and fears that they might have to sell shares to increase their solvency ratios to make good a decline in equity prices appear overdone.
In 2001-02, British insurers such as Standard Life were forced to sell equities to meet capital adequacy requirements, but today insurers are less vulnerable.
Ahaaa!!!! This has happened before.
But not to the banks.
That's why it's terrible this time.
Of more concern are the potential liabilities hanging over credit default swaps, a huge unregulated sector that few people know about or understand.
Does anyone know what a credit default swap is?
Over the last 12 years, the value of the CDS market, where these contracts are traded like other derivatives, has grown to $55 trillion. CDSs have been used to insure risky mortgage bonds, as well as the debt of collapsed institutions such as Lehman Brothers. The worry is that insurers and banks that underwrote these instruments will not be able to meet their liabilities.
And they are?
With judgement, and perhaps a little luck, the financial crisis that has enveloped the world can be brought under control via a global rescue plan, but the aftershock will almost certainly be with us for years to come.
Yes, boys and girls, that's the end of the article. I swear to god it is. And there are no comments.
Investopedia says that a credit default swap is
A swap designed to transfer the credit exposure of fixed income products between parties.
The buyer of a credit swap receives credit protection, whereas the seller of the swap guarantees the credit worthiness of the product. By doing this, the risk of default is transferred from the holder of the fixed income security to the seller of the swap. For example, the buyer of a credit swap will be entitled to the par value of the bond by the seller of the swap, should the bond default in its coupon payments.
So in the case of Lehman Bros, they sold 'toxic something or others' and then they did a credit swap with someone else. The someone else gets the insurance. And then the insurance company can sue Lehman Bros for the pay out costs when the 'toxic something or other' collapses.
So the government is buying the toxic something or others so that means the government will have to guarantee the creditworthyness of the product.
So how will the government do that? Does it have to guarantee it to itself and just take the hit?
Why on earth would anyone do any of this?
If I am reading this article right, somebody has done this to the tune of $55 trillion.
This is the teenage equivalent of being in so much trouble that it's worse than the time that despite your best efforts at being sorry the cops rang the house in the middle of the night after they'd picked you up when you were puking up on the street purely to wake your parents up straight after they'd finally gone to sleep right after they had had an argument.
You'd think someone would fucking understand the pain they're all in, wouldn't you.
I do.
he he he
What has to happen now is that trust has to be re-established.
How many times have I heard that this month.
And now I finally understand
Who do YOU trust?
With the greatest respect to Richard Wachman and Tim Webb.
Yeah whatever, go on...
More than £600bn has been wiped from the value of shares of companies listed on the FTSE 100 since it climbed to 6,732 on 15 June 2007. Now the index is trading at around 4,000, a 40 per cent slump in 12 months,
By my calculations that is 4.553 to the power of -7. Of course, I don't know what that means. I think it means that every point of the FTSE was worth 4.5 Billion before. So the FTSE used to be worth 30,294 billion. So now the FTSE is worth 18,000 billion.
Yep. They're right.
59.4177.
I thought you rounded it down if it was less than five?
That will have a big impact on the value of pensions
Yes, they told us that at work.
Mark Otswald, an analyst at Monument Securities, describes the last few days as 'sheer, bloody panic. The Western financial system is breaking down.'
They didn't tell us that.
Apocalypse now? 'Let's hope not,' says Gerard Lyons, chief economist at Standard Chartered
Hear hear, Gerard...
they don't know how bad things are going to get, so the temptation is to dump assets, no matter what.'
They always trot out that line, don't they. I always wonder who 'they' are.
The first priority is to free up the money markets where banks lend to each other to ensure there is sufficient credit around to lend to businesses and mortgage borrowers. Ominously, that isn't happening,
I wonder where the money is ending up.
David Frost, director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce, says: Companies are being squeezed and capital expenditure will be cut
Oh well, that's all right then. Capital expenditure is planned for and paid for in advance, by the government sometimes, isn't it.
Many businesses are already low on cash because of higher costs - such as fuel bills - and weakening consumer demand
Aaah, is that so.
(I saw three Hummers in the carpark at the superstore in Spryfield today... I swear to god I did).
The bank also charged £35,000 in fees. Derek Simpson, general secretary of the Unite union, says: 'The banks are trying to hoard cash and squeezing everyone down the chain
Aha. The banks are hoarding cash are they? There's a surprise.
September, there was a net outflow of $72bn from American mutual funds, and the figure for this month could be even higher.
In Britain, retail investors have held their nerve, although there was a £500m outflow in August
I have no idea what this means. But it sounds important.
But hedge funds are major sellers. That is happening for one of two reasons: either because banks are making margin calls, where they ask for more security as debt becomes dearer to service, or because investors are taking fright and cashing in their chips.
This is where I started to get interested. Why does the journalist not know why this is happening? He's already pointed out that the banks are hoarding cash.
Rich individuals, including Russian oligarchs, are also selling, in particular where loans are secured against equity stakes in companies under their control. As stock prices fall, banks are demanding more security from tycoons, many of whom have tied up their wealth in shares
If I were the banks, and I had totally fucked things up, and broken all the rules, and destroyed the meaning of the word trust, and been cast out in the street, and had to break back in and sit in the corner snivelling and begging, until I got the shrug that meant you had gotten away with it for about fifteen minutes, I would be hoarding too, obviously,
Ukrainian oligarch and iron ore miner Kostyantin Zhevago was forced to sell a 20 per cent stake in metal company Ferrexpo last week because of the steep fall in the price of commodities. Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska has sold 20 per cent of Canadian car parts maker Magna
To whom have these people had to sell their said to be one time ill-gotten gains?
who bought 20 per cent of Magna?
and why was it not on the news?
Or did I miss it?
When the world's wealthy elites are forced to sell shares, it not only adds to the downward pressure on financial markets, but also takes spending power out of the economy, with spin-off effects for sectors as diverse as luxury goods, property and investment in jobs
Why? Do the people that buy them not have any fun ever? Do they just sit and count their money?
Who could these people be?
Who doesn't like to have fun?
The Depression of 80 years ago was compounded by the fact that wealth was controlled by an even narrower spectrum of society than today; the effect of wealth destruction for a few was felt disproportionately by the rest of the population. Nevertheless, a version of that nexus exists today
What does this mean? It is counter-intuitive to me? Surely if a wider range of people have money the risk is spread? Am I missing something important about percentages here?
I was never any good at gambling.
Oh no!! I get it now. It's the same as I think, it's just too academic for me to understand it.
the insurance companies have escaped relatively unscathed, and fears that they might have to sell shares to increase their solvency ratios to make good a decline in equity prices appear overdone.
In 2001-02, British insurers such as Standard Life were forced to sell equities to meet capital adequacy requirements, but today insurers are less vulnerable.
Ahaaa!!!! This has happened before.
But not to the banks.
That's why it's terrible this time.
Of more concern are the potential liabilities hanging over credit default swaps, a huge unregulated sector that few people know about or understand.
Does anyone know what a credit default swap is?
Over the last 12 years, the value of the CDS market, where these contracts are traded like other derivatives, has grown to $55 trillion. CDSs have been used to insure risky mortgage bonds, as well as the debt of collapsed institutions such as Lehman Brothers. The worry is that insurers and banks that underwrote these instruments will not be able to meet their liabilities.
And they are?
With judgement, and perhaps a little luck, the financial crisis that has enveloped the world can be brought under control via a global rescue plan, but the aftershock will almost certainly be with us for years to come.
Yes, boys and girls, that's the end of the article. I swear to god it is. And there are no comments.
Investopedia says that a credit default swap is
A swap designed to transfer the credit exposure of fixed income products between parties.
The buyer of a credit swap receives credit protection, whereas the seller of the swap guarantees the credit worthiness of the product. By doing this, the risk of default is transferred from the holder of the fixed income security to the seller of the swap. For example, the buyer of a credit swap will be entitled to the par value of the bond by the seller of the swap, should the bond default in its coupon payments.
So in the case of Lehman Bros, they sold 'toxic something or others' and then they did a credit swap with someone else. The someone else gets the insurance. And then the insurance company can sue Lehman Bros for the pay out costs when the 'toxic something or other' collapses.
So the government is buying the toxic something or others so that means the government will have to guarantee the creditworthyness of the product.
So how will the government do that? Does it have to guarantee it to itself and just take the hit?
Why on earth would anyone do any of this?
If I am reading this article right, somebody has done this to the tune of $55 trillion.
This is the teenage equivalent of being in so much trouble that it's worse than the time that despite your best efforts at being sorry the cops rang the house in the middle of the night after they'd picked you up when you were puking up on the street purely to wake your parents up straight after they'd finally gone to sleep right after they had had an argument.
You'd think someone would fucking understand the pain they're all in, wouldn't you.
I do.
he he he
What has to happen now is that trust has to be re-established.
How many times have I heard that this month.
And now I finally understand
Who do YOU trust?
With the greatest respect to Richard Wachman and Tim Webb.
Cross-posting from the Farm
Farmer Brown found an article in The Washington Monthly that I loved.
Here it is:
There are some great comments on this article, isn't it funny that already, online newspapers have found a way to tap into the great forum that is the human need to hours every day in the schoolrooms of their childhood...
The McCain/Palin ticket is "historical" on several levels.
First POW/First Sow (with lipstick even.)
First pill popping, beer heiress, trophy wife/First Dude.
Oldest ever/Dumbest ever.
Fought for the U.S/Wants to secede from the U.S.
Air jockey dad/Hockey mom.
Joe 12 homes/Joe Six pack.
Maverick/Moose hunter
That's all I can think of, I invite others to come up with more
You suck too.
You do.
If you haven't already realised, this is an article about the McCain/ Palin ticket.
I wonder if they have an article about the banking crisis?
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_10/015130.php
I do link, but I'm not going to do it before I explain why.
Here it is:
There are some great comments on this article, isn't it funny that already, online newspapers have found a way to tap into the great forum that is the human need to hours every day in the schoolrooms of their childhood...
The McCain/Palin ticket is "historical" on several levels.
First POW/First Sow (with lipstick even.)
First pill popping, beer heiress, trophy wife/First Dude.
Oldest ever/Dumbest ever.
Fought for the U.S/Wants to secede from the U.S.
Air jockey dad/Hockey mom.
Joe 12 homes/Joe Six pack.
Maverick/Moose hunter
That's all I can think of, I invite others to come up with more
You suck too.
You do.
If you haven't already realised, this is an article about the McCain/ Palin ticket.
I wonder if they have an article about the banking crisis?
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_10/015130.php
I do link, but I'm not going to do it before I explain why.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Tonight
I was going to stay in and blog tonight.
But I got invited out.
So I have put on a dress.
Yes, I have.
And now I am going to put my make up on prop'ly.
And go out.
HURRAHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!
Happy 18th Birthday Kitty.
You look so grown up in your new purple killer-sex-kitten boots.
The Queenie Knows about Boots.
Oh yes, she does.
May the next 18 years be what you want them to be.
But I got invited out.
So I have put on a dress.
Yes, I have.
And now I am going to put my make up on prop'ly.
And go out.
HURRAHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!
Happy 18th Birthday Kitty.
You look so grown up in your new purple killer-sex-kitten boots.
The Queenie Knows about Boots.
Oh yes, she does.
May the next 18 years be what you want them to be.
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