Monday, February 28, 2011

Amazing Race, Unfinished Business Episode 2

Yay Cowboys! I thought they were goners, wandering around Sydney for hours on end....thank God for Bunching Points! I wish they would smarten up a bit and not do that sort of thing anymore; I'm getting a headache shouting at the tv all the time.
I can't say that I was surprised that Kris and Amanda went, because a U-Turn seems to be the kiss of death for almost everyone who gets it.

Zev made me laugh out loud three during this episode; once when he said "and there's not a steakhouse in sight!" (because I would have said the exact same thing!!) and also when he said, very seriously "I shut my tail in the door". And when Justin said he was very artistic and he chirped in with "and autistic!" I just wasn't expecting any of that.

Did you know that Kent (which is how he spells it now) is 35? I thought the two of them were in their late twenties. (Vyxen is 32!) I've never seen a Goth over 40....this should be interesting when we see them on "The Amazing Race, All Star Season 56", and they are in their 70's and covered in glitter and pink lip gloss.

Colour me gobsmacked when Kent knew the periodic table well enough to know "mercury" and "bismuth" right off the bat. You think you know a person.....
Just for the record, I would have failed that task utterly. The only time I took chemistry, in Grade 11, I tried mightily for an entire semester, just barely scraping by on every test. My teacher told me that I had lots of potential for lots of things, but clearly chemistry wasn't one of them....if I promised to never take a class from him again, he would pass me. I took that deal, and never took chemistry from anyone again. True story.

I did enjoy Kent's random "gathering of the children". He was just so....gentle and calm about it, even though it was kind of creepy and seemed to foreshadow some terrible ending for those kids, like he was going to drink their blood or something. Luckily, that didn't pan out. It did remind me of the "drawing a circle around the children" from last season. Perhaps they should warn children who participate in this that frantic, shreiky Americans are wack-a-doo.

I think they should have to keep those kangaroo costumes on for the rest of the race.

My favorite Edit of the Night: when all the racers were bouncing down the street and the cameraman panned over to the "Animal Control" van.

Do you think Mallory's head just ever....bursts into flames?

Christina, honey, the only work you need to do is realize that your father is never going to change.

Next week: Oh please, pretty please, tell me Jaime spends some time in a Japanese jail!

Friday, February 25, 2011

Poop Deck.

I had coffee this morning with my friend, Mary, possibly one of the funniest women God ever created. She not only makes me laugh so loud that other people turn and look, she has an ear-splitting howl that makes me laugh all the harder, too.

Mary is a kindergarten teacher, and you'd be hard pressed to find someone better suited to the job. She adores the kids, takes everything in stride and, most important for a kindergarten teacher, has not one item of "dry clean only" clothing in her entire wardrobe.

She was telling me about a lo-o-ong day last week, where all the kids were behaving like raging meth addicts, and she was very much looking forward to the cold Blue Light she knew she had stashed in the fridge that morning. As the kids were getting their snow gear on, she became aware of a commotion in the coat room, with the phrase "I think it's poo" wafting through the little voices, spurring her on to get in there right smart.

She found two little ones on their hands and knees, inspecting a small brown thing at close range, one opining that it was a raisin, and the other concluding that it was a turd. Mary got them away from the offending article, and did a quick visual inspection of the rest of the classroom. Sure enough, another "raisin" was found behind the rocking chair, as well as some tracking evidence across the carpet. She called the custodian and started to try to figure out who the culprit was.

Naturally, no one was owning up to it; she said she'd have been surprised if anyone had. (Good God, can you imagine any 5 year old admitting to such a thing???? You'd spend the rest of your school career, nay, your life, as the kid who pooped in kindergarten. Even a little kid can see that right there would be a life-altering admission.) The girls in leotards were off the hook, that would take some fairly obvious manoevering to work that out in a hurry. Maybe a boy in boxer shorts and a fidgetly leg? Hard to tell.

When she was in the staff room when everyone was gone, one of the kids' parents came in and laughingly asked Mary about it, since her son told her there was a turd in the classroom and no one knew who it came from. (I think she was suspicious of her own offspring, in all honesty. )

Mary just told the mother "kids have so much fun in my class they just shit themselves. What can I say?"

My job is a piece of cake.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Amazing Race, Unfinished Business Episode 1

This is the eighteenth season of this show, and it still manages to have me on the edge of my seat and not knowing what will happen next....how do they do that??

So glad to see Kynt and Vyxyn again, and the Globetrotters, Justin and Zev and of course, the Cowboys. Not to happy to see Ron the Poophead and Christina the Wearily Patient. And, sigh, I really hope I don't have to listen to Jaime bitch her way around the world again. From snarking at the boat guys to hurry it up when they flipped the skiff, to her screeching "off my foot! off my foot!", I'm tired of her already.

Glad to see Big Easy cared if the heart attack patient lived or died. If anyone else thought that, they didn't mention it.

I'm pretty sure those sharks were well fed and drugged....they didn't look too interested in eating anybody. The turtle looked way scarier. Holy moley! even I ducked when that stingray the size of a minivan swam over Jen's head! Goth makeup does not seem to fare well in a shark tank.

Nice to see the Cowboys took the class "Spanish: the International Language of Foreign Places". They said "gracias" quite a few times, which is probably more helpful in South America or the Carribean than in Australia. As far as I know, the Spanish never had much of a foothold in Sydney.

Thank You Amazing Editors: John "Amanda's really good at puzzles", Amanda: "What?"

Kynt definitely slapped the beach-greeter on the ass. I rewound it to check.

Mallory and Jen both started the flag challenge with "okay, that's a triangle...", which clearly looked like a diamond to me. Was there some sort of International Conference on Changing The Name of Every Day Shapes that I missed?

The look on Mallory's face when Phil told them they were still running was priceless! They should put a picture of that in the dictionary under the word "gobsmacked". She looked a lot like the kid in "Home Alone" when she did that. I had to laugh when Phil told her to stop talking and start running.

Next week: old people have a bad day.

Until next week!

Friday, February 4, 2011

Things I Would Like To Know That Are None Of My Business

1. There is a homeless guy who hangs out near the Tim Hortons' near work, and I see him up at the mall occasionally. He's always polite and sober, and never says more than "have a nice day" with a genuine smile. He seems perfectly normal and functioning, except for the fact that he bathes twice a year and has no belongings or a roof over his head. Why is he homeless?? What's going on that he can't sort his life out? What's up with him. I want to know.

2. The people across the street have lived there for at least 5 years. I have barely set eyes on them in that time....they only seem to come out at night. I think they might be vampires. Also, on occasional summer evenings, I can hear what sounds like a tv coming from their backyard. From the backyard across the street. Why on earth is their tv that loud?

3. My parents have a neighbour we call "Mr. Dogshit", because he's an asshole, and he won't pick up after his dog. He's fought with everyone in the condo complex at one time or another. A few weeks ago, the police came to his door and very quietly arrested him. He's come back since (out on bail??) and been keeping a very low profile. What the hell was that all about? We are dying to know.

4. I read the obituaries every morning, and my morbid curiosity wants to know how some of them died.

5. We had a client who was planning her wedding for over a year; she was really excited about it, came in with her sisters and mother for trial runs and everything. They were all into it big time. And then one day someone called the salon to cancel everything, saying the wedding was off. We've never seen any of them since. And you can bet, even a couple of years later, one of us will occasionally wonder what happened there.

6. There is another client at the salon who's husband was convicted of fraud and sentenced to some jail time. (This was a family who regularly bounced cheques with us, and seemed to be cheerfully indifferent to financial responsibility. Turns out he was using other people's money to supplement their income, and was somewhat surprised when they objected. That was all in the paper.) She still comes into the salon, and we see him around from time to time, but he doesn't seem to be incarcerated....I am all agog to find out what's going on there.

7. I did a client's hair only a few times, and then didn't see her again. She was from Ukraine, right off the plane, and she said she had met her husband on the Internet and then came over here to marry him. I always wondered if she was a mail-order bride. It's not really something that you can ask someone, is it?

8. Other people's finances are an endless source of speculation for me. I come by it honestly, my mother and I spend a lot of time playing "How Do You Think They Can Afford That?"? I wonder all the time if people are in shitloads of debt or if money is no object. I find it difficult not to ask perfect strangers at Ikea if they can actually pay for that new bookcase, or are they adding to the tsunami of owing that will eventually drown them for ever? The Mister hates taking me to Ikea.

9. There is a woman in the neighborhood who walks a LOT. She's must be out walking for hours every day, I see her all the time. That in itself is worthy of note, but when she walks she swings her arms so hard and vigorously that it's a wonder they're still attached to her shoulders. Seriously, she'd hurt you if you got in her way. My father has nicknamed her The Woman That Walks With Her Arms, and if you mention that to anyone at this end of town, they will gasp with recognition and say "I know exactly who you're talking about!" Why does she do that? And doesn't it hurt? I want to know.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Kibbles and Bits

There has been very little blog-worthy of late....the winter doldrums have rendered me mute. All I seem to want to do these days in live in my pajamas and eat chocolate. (Truthfully, I want to do that all the time, but I especially want to do it around now.)

We've had lots of cold and lots of snow this winter. And somehow, when February 1st comes, I feel like we are starting to see the beginning of the end, and spring is starting to become a possibility. And every year, I'm dead wrong. This year, I'm wronger than usual....we had another storm yesterday, which meant more snow, which means it will never, ever be spring again.

Thing 1 had exams last week, the end of first semester. She's a good student, has very little trouble in school and gets through things like exams without much drama. But on Monday morning, she came upstairs from her room all wild-eyed and panicky: "Is it REALLY 8 o'clock???", she gasped. I assured her that it was......"My alarm didn't go off!! My exam is in half an hour!" she croaked. You know, I've had this nightmare, I totally understood her panic. (Except, usually, when I'm having this nightmare, I'm naked and riding a camel.) I told her to get dressed and put in her contacts, and I'd make her a bagel and drive her to school. She got there in time, and wrote the exam. Except, in all the morning fuss, she forgot that she had a vocal exam right after, and missed that. (The teacher was very understanding and let her do that exam the next day.)

Toby does not like the cold weather, and has decided on voluntary incarceration for the duration. This means that I have been elected to the Entertainment Committee, of which I am the sole member. Toby is deeply disappointed in my performance, as I do not provide ample amusement, such as changing the bed linen daily, or feed him tuna endlessly. Naturally, this means that Toby has to prompt me to pay attention to him,usually when I'm typing, or reading the paper. But mostly, he shows his displeasure when I am sleeping; my sleeping is an abomination, and will not be tolerated. (Which is ironic, really, since he sleeps all the live long day.) This morning, Toby walked all around the pillow, while I was still using it, managing to stand on my hair with almost every step. Then, this afternoon, while I was napping, Toby decided the best place in the world to settle down and purr like a jet engine, was right on top of my head.....I had a "cat hat". Any appendage that pokes out of the bed covers must be ambushed at once. Drooling and head-butting at 4 a.m. is mandatory. If spring doesn't come soon, I'm going to have to take a leave of absence from my job.

I bought a treadmill a few weeks ago, because running outside in a foot of snow is out of the question. (I haven't been running since the snow started at the beginning of December. And you know what? I haven't noticed one, tiny little difference in my weight, my energy levels, my moods, nothing. One more piece of evidence in the "Exercise Is Crap" file.) Man, running on a treadmill is a bazillion times easier than running outside! No hills, no wind, no curbs to trip over, and your shoes don't get wet. One downside? I end up watching "E! True Hollywood Story" while working out, and that shit will dissolve your grey cells. The other day I found myself watching a show about Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown....I mean, what the hell? My quads will be in great shape when I'm in the Early Dementia wing of the nursing home.

Luckily, February is only 28 days long.