6

so so so much to say.  my advice is to get comfy.

1. -tuesday after work i stopped at tisol to buy my felines their beloved dry food.  i'd been giving them wet food for 3 days straight and they were starting to plan my demise.  i'd wake up in the middle of the night to izzy's spooky eyes and archie's calculated razor sharp claw at my throat.  ok that didn't happen but i'm sure it was about to.  anyhoodle, it was a fresh evening and excitement was in the air. the excitement was wafting over no.3 rd from landsdowne mall where the spring break fair was in full swing.  there's something about a fair that just reeks of fun--full fledged un-fettered  fun.  i longed for it.  after buying the cat-crack my car took me there because my car is in tune with my heart.  so i got out and looked around, started thinking "who would join me at the fair for some unfettered full-fledged fair fun?"  lisa always jokes when the fair is in town that we're going to go there to get dates with the carnies.  "it's a guaranteed date when the carnies are in town." she is known to declare.  but i wasn't looking at the carnies.  i was looking at the rides.  so fun!  i wandered towards the ticket booth. that's when fun was slapped in the face by reality.  there's no way i'm going to pay 45 big ones for only 10 rides in a chill march evening when i can wait and go to playland for 20ish bucks unlimited in the warm summer evening. 

so i went to winners instead.  i needed socks(!) and i needed them badly.  there was a whole wall of socks(!) to choose from.  bundles of socks(!) for only 5 buckeroonies.  i picked out two packs but it was hard. there were so many choices!  everyone knows that socks lead to shoes and that's what happened here.  it was a classic case.  if i was sock needy i was even more desperate for shoes.  so i decided to take a lookiloo.  surprisingly there were quite a few to choose from.  i was looking for a cheap shoe in the 40 dollar range.  i was also looking for freedom from constraint (my feet despise constraint.  constraint turns them into bucking broncos and the shoes into rodeo cowboys) and comfort.  well i saw some pumas.  these won't be comfy, i said to myself.  no harm in trying them on, i replied, preferring the last word even with myself. so i basically tried them on and hello!  they were like buttah.  i didn't want to take them off.  so in the end i bought them.  they weren't exactly 40 dollars but they weren't 100 either so.  i left winners feeling like i had done something a little bit bad, so naturally i reached for my phone to confess it to lisa.  that's when i couldn't find my phone.  i stopped at the bottom of the escalators and emptied out my purse.  not there.  with fear in my heart i went back up the escalators (the up ones not the down ones, i'm no clown!) and retraced my steps.  when i saw it laying there alone and lonely on the bench by the shoe racks, my heart swelled with relief and thankfulness.   i ran to it and cradled it like a frantic mother.  a lady sitting on a nearby bench witnessed our reunion and chuckled in a knowing way.

back on the down escalator i phoned lisa.  "hi lisa, i've done two bad things..."

2. --wednesday was a long exhausting day as usual.  i got up early to do pancakes, we were short staffed, i was on dishes duty and it was one of those days in the dish pit.  one of those days when the dishes, pots and pans never end.  kaz had to leave right after lunch and milka had to go on the walk and if lisa  didn't show up early for her late shift i would have been alone cleaning up lunch, clearing the dining room and whittling away the huge piles in the steaming dish pit.  meanwhile r. paced behind me in the kitchen waiting for me to be done so we could start our baking.

our baking adventure was granola bars.  i was excited about it.  however i chose a lousy recipe and it was a crumbly mess.  so you know when life gives you lemons? we made them into granola balls and topped them with a schmeer of chocolate.  

i was so tired when i left work.  i had a date that night with claudine.  we were going to improv the musical on granville island.  we had free tickets because we were going to watch it on the night of her birthday but it was cancelled due to a poor showing so we got our money back and free tickets.  i had put it off for two weeks due to wednesday-itis, basically.  so i believe i gave myself a short little nap (you don't know how hard a short nap is for me.  it takes a LOT of effort to wake up  from a short nap) and drove to the faux island to meet claudine.  claudine always says she sees me drive by but i never believe her.  "your hair was down and you were wearing somthing azure blue!" she insisted via cell phone as i walked towards her after parking in front of the emily carr library.  "ha! i'm not wearing blue! (i was wearing my grey elastic top and bottom top) and my hair is usually down so that's no proof" i taunted her.  "well it looked blue through the glass!" she insisted.  

we exchanged our free tickets fro real tickets and then went to the market to get some eats.  i stopped at the first place i saw because i saw one special word.  this word is panini.  panini has the power to stop me in my tracks.  it was a build your own panini place.  there weren't actually a lot of interesting things to choose from. "what's good?" i asked the baggy touqued boy behind the counter.  he shrugged.  "anything but the salmon."--which caused claudine to guffaw.  so i got ham and he threw in some bacon for free because two kinds of pork is best.  claudine broke down and got a panini too.  that's the power of panini.  she was all excited about the banana peppers.  we each got vitiamin waters.  she pretended she knew all about mine but i made her read the blurb anyways.  "you don't know EVERYTHING". became my catch phrase for her that night.  

after wolfing down our eats we went outside to look at the shops in the loft but before we got there we saw a group performing in front of the library.  so i cuddled up to this old man on a bench and claudine cuddled up to me and we watched.  they were an accapella choir group from berkley.  it was a group of very quirky looking people which i very much enjoyed.  there was the skinny guy with big ears in a purple shirt, the balding guy with rosy cheeks, the tall looker that claudine was crunching on, the two soulful asian girls, the curly afro guy etc. of course the fact that they were all wearing gold capes with a glittery blue b (i think it was a b, but it could have been a c or a d) added to the general quirkiness.  i think you guys would have really enjoyed it.  they did one number just with the sounds of mario brothers and they acted out the different parts of it--pretty funny. and they did a hilarious 90s music montage.  i knew claudine wanted to go chat up tall stripes and turn on her funky flirt but i squashed her dreams.  "we'd really like to get to know you so come talk to us" said rosy cheek at the end.  i looked at claudine "we're not talking to them." i said firmly.

we looked at some boats and talked about living different places and walked back to the improv theatre.  "i have to go to the bathroom." says claudine so we walked into the bathroom.  claudine pushed open a stall and found a present in the toilet so then she yarded on the handle of the stall that was in front of me.  it was locked but it slammed against it's restraints because she pulled so hard on it.  next she pulls open the stall on the other side of the undesireable empty stall.  it opened easy and in just the moment an old woman inside said stall, with a walker in front of her was pulling up her panties.  it was too much for me.  i silently turned away and headed straight for the door out of the bathroom.  claudine was right behind me. once on the outside we lost it.  i haven't laughed that hard in a long time.  it was the highlight of the evening.  i still get a good chortle when i remember it.

the musical was pretty good too.  the audience picked the city toronto and the profession of stock broker and the cast took it away.  in the end it was an intrigue with the church  of scientology, insider trading, acts of terrorisim and romance.  i enjoyed it.  as we were walking back to the car claudine said it was 'awkward'.  she couldn't explain what exactly she meant and that's just the enigma that claudine is sometimes.

3.-- i was tired on thrusday too.  but the house that i live in is up for sale and people were coming to look at it.  and....and i hadn't done the  dishes for at least a month.  listen i don't use a lot of dishes in a month!  i do use a lot of spoons though.  but they had piled up and i didn't want to deal with them  but now i had to.  so i came home and did a major tidy/dishes/dust/garbage run/vacuum in the two hours that i had before the showings began.  i also opened all the windows to freshen up the place a bit.  well in the end only one couple came.  after they looked through the house the stood outside and talked with the realtor.  they were right outside my open livingroom window so i heard everything.  i even heard how much money my landlord gets out of this place every month and discussions on rezoning for development and bulldozing the house to build a bigger house or dividing the lot etc.  so i may be moving some time soon.  

4.--on this same day i got my letter.  i somehow knew it would be that day.  i had a tiny flicker of hope because last year i got my rejection letter on the 6th of march.  maybe acceptance letters come late in the month i thought.  but dont' get your hopes up because it was a rejection.  just a late in the month rejection.  for the whole masters of ed. program they only accepted 15 and for my community/agencies it was probably around 3.  so that was stinky but not too surprising either. una found out the next day that she didn't get in either.  also in the mail that day i got a continuing studies catalogue from langara.  maybe i'll take a photography course this year.  anyway, i'm not discouraged like i was last year.  i just need to figure out a way to get into grad school somewhere.

5. --last night i went over to fatima and mister d's after a little nap of course.  when i got into my little filly whinnie the sun was low and shining through fluffy clouds.  it was a beautiful drive and not very frustrating, tack o lov.  i was still basking in lisa's praise of whinnie.  she had borrowed her on tuesday because of some car troubles.  after she told me that whinnie drives nice and tight and that she has pep like a race car.  that's my whinnie.  she's all heart.  when i got to fatima's she came down to get me because buzzer by the elevator is malfunctioning. as the doors opened she saw me there clutching my laptop to my chest and i saw her in her skinny jeans and green waffle hoodie.  we saw each other.  it was a deep moment.  

up on the tenth floor the mister was bustling about.  he showed me the business cards he got made for appa's karaoke gigs.  or should i say 'big daddy'.  so he whirlwinded out to go drop them off and fatima and i leisurely prepared for going out for dinner. this involved a reapplication of lip gloss for me and peeing for her.  she approved of my puma's (shout out to my old friend puma from the park!) and i approved of her new red lipstick (daman said it was 'bright' and so was on the hot seat).  we went down to the lobby and chatted on the couches while waiting for the mister to come back.  well he was delayed by fatima's mom piling him up with groceries.  it's what she does.  she was especially grateful for the return of her favourite spatula.  she called me laura the destroyah on the telephone wires.

after daman got back, and deposited the groceries we walked down to the local pho joint.  it was packed full of legit pho eaters.  we got ourselves a little table and we got ourselves some good eats.  it was one of those small no frills, hole in the wall cheap good eats places.  daman got the beef balls pho, fatima got chicken and noodles (really good) and i got prawns, spring roll and fried rice.  i told them stories from work.  daman wants to do some sort of documentary.  we met charles from fatima's superstore days. so as we walked back home we talked all about the old superstore stories.

i showed daman some of our old stories. just three so as not to overwhelm the guy.  his favourite of the three was the wiggly willus, bug eyed one armed cupcake one.  i minimally helped as fatima steamed her veil and wedding dress.  she's a model for a shoot today.  i worked on some photos and we watched the food network.  i left around one.  when i got home i had this really weird fluttery, jiggery feeling in my arms and chest.  i fell asleep without knowing it with lappie on my chest.

6. i didn't get up until 10 this morning.  i talked with barb as i stretched out lazily in my sun dappled bedroom. she's roped me into helping with the food for the upcoming msa/sa conference.  i have meetings to go to.  i've got things to plan and calculate.  i don't have to do the big stuff.  the real meals.  that's all gary.  i'm just the snacks, breakfast, lunch person.

well that's the 6. don'tchya just miss these super long posts?  don'tchya?  i'm all alone aren't i.