2004-02-15 - 10:10 a.m.

We crossed a very important check-point in our lives yesterday. After living in uncertainty for so long, we decided last month to embrace our upcoming adoption as a fait-accompli. In light of that, we went shopping for baby furniture yesterday.

At first, I was totally lost in there. Me, someone with the capacity for 3-D conceptualisation that amazes even architects and contractors, was at a total loss as to what we could fit in the room, how it would look, what I liked. I was totally overwhelmed. After I regained my composure, we narrowed down what we needed: storage. It's a small room with little to no closet (shelves only), so we need a big Armoire for hanging clothes (I know baby clothes are little, but babies grow!), a chest of drawers, a crib. Because our baby will be in the 10 to 14 months rage, we don't need a lot of newborn accoutrements, which will make it a little easier. We did opt for a changing table top to put on top of the chest of drawers, but it comes off easily.

We pretty much figured out which style we liked and then decided on a darkish cherry wood stain. We took down all the particulars and went home to see if we could fit it in the room.

In the past, I've often drawn up a plan of a room and made little paper furinture squares to move around and see what workds. But once, when I bought my condo, I built a scale model out of a cardboard box, with windows and doors and everything! Then I made 3D cardboard furniture and painted the insides with craft paint to see what I liked. After all, this was my very first property, I didn't want to do lots of renos and then hate it.

So that's what I did last night. I turned a shoe box into a scale-model of the room. Down to the panel windows, closet door and baseboards! I made little cardboard furniture and played around with all the different possible layouts. I'm still not sure what wall I like the armoire on, I think it's going to be decided once we live with it a little and see what is practicle, but at least now we know what will fit, and hubby's got a good sense of what it will look like.

That's it! Tomorrow, we'll go back and place the order. 6 to 8 weeks from now, we'll have baby furniture..... Now I need an electrician, and we'll be in business.

This is so unreal. We don't even have a picture of her yet...

Anything to add? 2

2004-02-14 - 9:28 a.m.

I've lost my favorite pink mittens. No, make that I've lost the right-hand pink mit. Over the years, I've read many a columns about the mystery of the disappearing socks, and trust me, I've lost many socks in my days. But as I sat there in my car, looking at the left-hand pink mit sitting in the front seat of my car, I thought about all those mits I've lost over the years. If you don't live in a cold-weather climate, let me enlighten you a little.

I have several pairs of mittens and gloves to get me through the winter. Yet, every year, I loose several single mits or gloves. Make that several *right hand* mits and gloves. I'm right handed. The right one is the one I take off to pay for coffee at the drive through, throw a coin in the toll-booth, dial my cell phone or write something down.

So every spring, I have a new collection of lonely left hand mits and gloves. I don't know what happened to this particular pink mit. I probably took it off to put in a CD or call home, laid in in my lap, forgot about it, got warm and took off the left one, put that one on the passenger seat. When I got out of the car, I probably forgot all about the right mit, it fell when I got out and I will never find it again. Sometimes the right glove/mit will turn up in the driveway, or between the seats, but most often, they are gone forever.

I'm not the only person who suffers from this. My best friend K is a notorious glove-looser. One year, we were bar-hopping in Sherbrooke with a bunch of law students and K was quite drunk. K asked the taxi driver if he had by any chance found the glove she had lost in the taxi the week before. Except the week before, we were in Quebec city, about 300 kms away! It's still one of the funniest memories we share. So much so, I ordered card #048 (page 3) from this collection of funny cards just so I could send it to her. And funnily enough, lots of people have bought it! So I guarantee you, there are lots of people who end the winter with single mits/gloves. Now we need to get the lefties together with the righties and do a swap, so we can at least try to salvage something. Because you can sometimes match up single socks, but I have yet to figure out what to do with all my left-hand mits....

afterthought I wrote this entry a few days ago, part of the entries that were stuck in my head. Since I wrote it, i've had a thought about what to do with all those mits and gloves: felt them and cut them up into little eye patches!

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2004-02-13 - 1:18 p.m.

It's been a while since I've ranted about dumb customers, but I've got a good one for you today: With the manufactured love-holiday just around the corner, I've come up with this little promotion at the store: buy a Valentine's Mylar balloon (those funky metallic shaped thingys) and get free heart-shaped latex balloons to make a bouquet. Also, for every 10$ you spend on gifts, you get a free red or pink regular shaped balloon. It's really not a hard concept, the signs are clear.

Enters lady customer. Looks normal, but turns out to be a complete Asshat... First, she asks for the price of each of the various Mylars that are in the window, which just happen to each have gigantic price tags attached to each of them! I made them especially so I wouldn't have to answer dumb questions all day. They even each say, buy this balloon and get X number of free latex blah blah blah.

Anyway, dumb customer proceed to go through each of the possibilities, which range from 4.50$ to 20$ (That is one big balloon!). Then she announces that she only wants to spend a couple of dollars, as in 2, tax in. ooooookeeeey. Fine, I show the regular balloons and explain to her that they are 50 cents empty or 1$ with helium. Following? Therefore, she could get either 2 or 4, depending...

Then she goes off on this long thing about wanting to pay for it now but only pick it up tomorrow. Normally, that would be fine, but she's starting to piss me off, so I tell her to just come back tomorrow and she can just pay for it then. So she changes her mind and selects on heart-shaped latex, unfilled, a whopping 50 cents!

So I ring it up and guess what, she only has 38 cents! She actually asked me to put it aside, she would pick it up tomorrow. Lady, there are about 300 more in the bin where you just took that one!!

Sometimes I think I'm not meant for retail service.....

On the plus side, I'm back to regular vision. The patch came off this morning and the doctor that looked at it today not only said it was fine, he couldn't find the scratch the other doctor had seen yesterday. Then again, he was walking a little funny and slurring his words, so I'm not sure how much confidence I have in this guy, but I can see fine and it doesn't hurt, so I'll hope for the best and go back if it starts to hurt again.

I did find a way to watch tv last night. Survivor was pretty good. Props to Jenna for doing the right thing. I don't understand why people gave her so much grief. When she agreed to do the show months before, her mother was relatively OK. Then, just before she left, she took a turn for the worst. Iguess Jenna thought she could hack it and then realised there were more improtant things in life and decided it was time to go. I didn't like her much the first time around, but I respect her more now.

As for my guilty pleasure, The Apprentice, how, oh how, is Assorama still on this show? (Actually, I like to call her Condaleeza-wanna-be: due to the crazy name and white-house references) That girl is a bitch on wheels! She'd better be gone next week. Also, I love Troy! The whole dumb-schtick is charming the pants off everyone, including straight men (the fab five and Isaac M were given, but Russel Simmons too???) Go Troy! Go Troy!

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2004-02-12 - 6:29 p.m.

There are many things my mother didn't teach me. She was not a woman to *talk* about things.

I learned about the birds and the bees at school, and the only tampon and pads conversation I remember having was not

very productive. So the day I got my period, I didn't know what to do. My father was home that day for some weird reason. He pointed me to the cupboard where I would find the *stuff*. I don't remember much of that day, but I do remember sitting on the toilet for a very long time, figuring it was the safest place to be. The next morning, I remember asking my mother how to change my underwear with the *thing* in it, and that's when she pointed out that not only could I change the pad, I should do so several times a day. Well, she didn't mention that before!

Anyway, another thing my mother didn't teach me is hair removal. She didn't allow me to shave my legs or armpits. So girls in gym class told me about it, and then I bought some disposable BICs and dry-shaved my legs in my bedroom so my mother wouldn't find out! That's right girls, *D*R*Y* shaved! Eventually, I got tired of the cuts and scraping, so I would do it in the sink when they went out for dinner, but obviously, it wasn't a very well done job!Anyway, because she never discussed shaving with me, she never discussed the other options either: Nair/Neat, Wax, etc. After high school, when I had my own money and moved to Europe to study for one year at age 16, I explored other means of hair removal, but no one ever tought me anything. Eventually, I settled on shaving (the proper way) because it seemed the most efficient and I'm really not hairy.

Here's the thing: I don't know the first thing about the Etiquette of Bixini Waxes. I've had my legs waxed about a dozen times, usually before vacations, or in the middle of winter, when there is enough hair to make it worthwhile. But I had never gotten a bikini wax until my honeymoon. It's not like it was the jungle down there, I just took care of it with a razor. But before my honeymoon, fueled by my big weight loss which made me much less self-conscious, and the desire to simplify my shaving on the cruise, I decided to get a Bikini Wax. I actually Googled it to try to find out what I was supposed to do and read that I should keep my undies on and simply pull them towards the center to reveal how much I wanted to take off. Seemed fine to me. Except the second time I went, a few months ago, I read a little note on the lady's table that said they were not responsible for wax stains on underwear if you choose to keep it on, which led me to believe that people don't keep their undies on..... So ladies, spill the beans. What is the Etiquette of Bikini Waxes? What about a Brazilian? (I read something about getting on your hands and knees and having part of it done from the back?!?) And this week on Sex and the City, SJP was having a waxing done by lifting her leg right up in the air. What was that all about?!?! I know I'm not the only one wondering. Someone actually got to A Little Pregnant's blog by Googling "Doctor recommendation for vulva shaving", so I can guarantee you'll not only enlighten me on bikini waxes, but G-d knows what you can do for *that* poor soul!!!!!

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2004-02-12 - 11:27 a.m.

Somedays, you really should read your horoscope, If it says to stay in bed all day, listen!

I had an OK day yesterday, but it all went downhill once the sun went down. When I came home, I slipped on ice in the driveway and fell on my ass, resulting in a big bruise, and hit my head on the car door, resulting in a goose egg on my head.

But I took some tylenol and rested on the couch. It really wasn't a big deal, I was fine by the time I went to bed. But at 6:00 am, my lovely Lucy, who is a cute, adorable dog, but isn't delicate or gentle in anyway, stepped right in my eye ball with her giant paw. The timing was quite sometihng, because she managed to stick her claw in right as I was opening my eye. It hurt like a bitch. I screamed. I cried. My husband froze in his tracks. I asked for a wet washcloth, he wet the corner of one and brought it to me. The corner!

Anyways, he managed to snap out of it (to his credit, he was probably dead asleep as this was happening), got some ice and some tylenol and I went back to sleep for a couple of hours. But by the time I did get up, my eye was throbbing and burning if I openend it.

So I had hubby take me to the clinic, where the nice doctor found a lovely scratch on my cornea.

So now I look like a pirate, with a huge patch, tons of tape, and a bandana on top of it all to hold my glasses on for the other eye.

Things you cannot do with only one eye: work, watch TV (gives me a headache), blog (This is it for the day people), read, cross-stitch. Things you CAN do with only one eye: listen to TV without looking at the screen, lie on the couch with your eyes closed and feel sorry for yourself, catch up on your sleep.

So that's my schedule for the day! I gotta have it checked again tomorrow morning. In the mean time, I'll upload one of the blog entries I typed up last night....

Anything to add? 5

2004-02-11 - 8:10 p.m.

Top then best things about our visit to San Francisco

10: 10$ pajama pants at Old Navy. Seems like a silly thing to get excited about, but it doesn't take much to make me happy....

9: Getting through the gift show in a day and half, allowing us plenty of time for sightseing and even more importantly, shopping!

8: Restaurant's with 's in their names: Ella's, Mel's, Moose's, Cafe Kati's (OK, I added it in this one, but still, it's a person's name): we ate our way through San Francisco!

7: My husband's excellent planning skills: he knew that Frommer's inside out and was always able to find the store, the restaurant or the *thing* we were looking for! Good Job honey!

6: The little out of the way Thai place that made a delicious soup and the best Duck Curry I have ever tasted! (Menora)

5: The Camper Store. Need I say more? (That's Camper Shoes, not some weird camping place!)

4: Anthropologie: Not a San Francisco thing per say, they have them all over the place, but until we get one in Canada, my shopping visits to Anthropologie will always be right up on the list. This time, a cute little cardigan with pretty ribbons, a boucle sweater and the MOST adorable cherry print blouse made the trip worthwhile.

3: A 3-day Muni bus pass: we rode th bus and cable cars, we criss-crossed the city to get where we wanted to and we took the bus just for the heck of seing a different part of town, all for the low price of $15 per person. You can't beat that deal!

2: Cafe Kati: one of the top 3 best meals we've ever had. It knocked Halifax's Sweet Basil Bistro of our top three, where it had been holding strong for almost 4 years. Food was delish, service impecable, cool decor. A+++

1: Beach Blanket Babylon: so cheesy, so corny, so tacky, yet the absolute funniest thing I've seen in a long time! I had tears running down my cheeks the whole time. Only thing that would have made it funnier: if Snow White much sought-after Prince had turned out to be a Princess!

I do have one question though. What happened to Rice-A-Roni??? I remember the commercials, and I remember it ont he Price is Right, but try as we might, we found no references to it during our trip, not on menus, not in our travel book, nothing. As it gone the way of the dodo-bird?

On the shopping side, I was incredibly reasonable: 3 pieces at Anthropologie, one pair of Camper shoes, a really cool lime-green laptop bag (they did have pink, but I *tried* to break out of my pattern), cheap pj's at Old Navy and 6 old hands from a glove factory that I will use to diplay jewelry at the store. Oh, and a copy of Stitch and Bitch, becasue once I finish my cross stitch project, I wanna get back to knitting and try my hand at felting.

**WARNING** Just wanted to give you a heads up on the frequency of upcoming posts. I've been feeling pretty creative in the last few days and I've got 3 or four posts in the can already, just ready to upload. So consider yourself warned: I will be babbling quite a bit in the days to come!

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2004-02-11 - 12:40 p.m.

I have an excellent entry about our trip to San Francisco all typed up and ready to go... in the other computer! you'll have to wait til I get home tonight....

In the mean time, Fluid Pudding's February 6th entry about her neighbours made me think of something funny about my neighbours.

We bought our house almost 3 years ago this month. (WOW, that just scared the bejeesus out of me!) It's a big, old, kinda fancypants house on a nice street with big trees. Not what most people think of when they think *first house*, but we don't plan on ever leaving the city, so we decided to go for our *dream* house rather than move every 5 years until we were happy. (Obviously, we are very lucky to have been able to swing that).

Anyways, because of the house we chose, we have little in common with our neighbours. The people in the back of us are the evil old retired dementors who tried to sue us over the fence we put in for the dogs. The family to the left of us is very nice, they have three kids age 9, 15 and 19. When we first moved in, there teenage boy was all confused, he thought we were the kids and kept wondering when OUR parents were going to move in!!! That made me laugh for days!

On the right of us there is a really cool family, with two boys who are now 10 and 7. She actually used to be my husband's art teacher in primary school, so I would put them in their mid 40's. Anyway, they are very nice. We speak to them all the time. They have our keys and check in on our house when we travel, their kids love to play in our yard with the dogs and whenever there is a jewish holiday that involves cooking (I know, that's redundant!), the boys come over to eat. They are especially fond of the Succa. Also, the youngest son has a big crush on me! He loves to talk to me, watch my wedding video (no comment) and ring the doorbell just to see if I want to come out and play.

Here's the funny part about these neighbours. You know when people tell you if you ever need a cup of sugar you should just ask. Well, this woman is frequently asking to borrow cooking stuff! We've given her sugar, milk on several occasions (my husband drinks an obscene quantity of milk so she knows there will always be milk at our house!). The crazy thing about this: her husband owns a food distribution company!!!!

Don't get me wron, I'm not complaining at all! They are wonderful people, it's just a bit weird that her pantry is so poorly stocked.... Although recently, we were able to enjoy the benefits of this close pantry relationship. Lucy came down with a nasty case of doggy-runs, gifting us with two giant smelly green puddles on the living room carpet. Of course, we were all out of paper towel. My husband was going to get in the car and drive 10 blocks to go buy some, but at the last second I thought: "Go ask the neighbour!". Sure enough, he came back 25 seconds later with 2 rolls of environmentally friendly, post consumer recycled rolls of paper towels. (she's an environmentalist)

So, Fluid Pudding, I totally understand your desire to make friends with the people across the street. Just be aware though, they might actually take you up on it and raid your pantry!

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