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Clog (Chicken Blog) |
Thursday, October 31
Hallows Eve. Sitting in my apartment with most of my lights out as the landlord (who happens to live upstairs) does not believe in this pagan holiday. He turns off all lights and puts his kids to bed early. I have left my lights on in the past, but, the wee ones who come for candy ended up knocking on the upstairs door instead (the landlord's door) which made him grumpy. I am still having a hard time believing it is almost the end of the year already. Again, I feel that we humans have a very short life span. Personally, I need at least 200 years and need to be fertile for at least 150-180 of those years. I think I have noted this before in one of my rants. If for no other purpose I need that much time just to read all the books I have collect and will collect in future. Speaking of books, I went to the Trinity College annual book sale. I think it is arranged by the Friends of the Library. I spent about three hours walking around the rooms looking at all the books there. I bought some too. Now, I command all of you to visit O: fave bookstore in Toronto (virtually of course). Sunday, October 27
Busy Week. Still tired, but it was nice to spend a weekend at home. My place is now clean. my laundry is done. I have food in the frig. I have gas in the car. I feel not too shabby. Spent most of the week plopped on my couch dealing with the severe lack of Decorating Challenge/Trading Spaces intake during the last two weeks. Most the episodes were repeats, but I watched anyway as usual. Met up with PG on Wednesday after work. I spent a good half-hour playing with his 3 cats before we left his apartment. We did our usual walk down Yonge street, stop at Himalaya (the Tibetan store), and eat Thai food deal. I managed to convince PG that he needed yet another pair of shoes - burgundy square toed dress shoes. It doesn't take much to twist his rubber arm. Yesterday, I met up with HD for lunch (Kelseys as usual) and then a movie. We watched Hollywood Bollywood. I am embarrassed that this film was shown on the opening night of the Toronto Film Festival. I would not recommend it to anyone. I had watched Monsoon Wedding earlier this year and thought that it was a bit fluffy, but entertaining still in a sitcom kind of way. However, after watching Hollywood Bollywood I might have to upgrade my opinion of Monsoon Wedding. Speaking of Bollywood, I watched Bollywood Bound on TVO (and forced O: and Dan to do the same) while in Ottawa last week. It was goofy at best and made me question the mental state of some of the people filmed. Mercifully, there was a success story included; if not for Ruby Bhatia, the documentary would be a parody. Words of wisdom to end my entry for today (originally spoken by Tallulah Bankhead, actress, d. December 12, 1968 on her deathbed) - "Codeine . . . bourbon." Brought to courtesy of Brain Candy Monday, October 21
Back Home. Got back home 10ish last night. My place smells funny. I guess the landlord turned the furnace on yesterday and that's made the air quite dusty. I'm tired and have no food in my frig. Well, it wouldn't matter much if I did have food...it'd feel funny to eat by myself since I've got used to having company at mealtimes. Siiiigh. On the train home, I just stared out the window as I couldn't get myself to read my book. On the plus side, I did have a window seat this time. It's funny how fast the days in Ottawa passed. We got back from the Sault on Tuesday and I didn't leave Ottawa till Sunday at 4ish. I think I spent most of my time vegging and napping and maybe poking O: every so often to get some attention. Well, we did manage to go out for brunch with Farah on Saturday morning. We had brunch at some yummy place in the market...I had a waffle with lots of blueberries (almost too much, if that's possible). Farah told us about a tea shop around the corner from the market. O: and I walked around a bit looking for it, then we gave up and went home to flake out. Then same day, we met up with Stephanie to watch 8 women (which turned out to be a French musical with English sub-titles). The movie was cutely entertaining. Then we went over to Stephanie & Wendy's place in Vanier and had yummy spaghetti with home-made sauce, good conversation, and some Pictionary. Oh yeah, we also went to the Stittsville flea market yesterday. It is impressively vast. We had time for a quick walk-through, we left there at 3ish to go home with a pact to return there another day. Yaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwnnnnnnn. Must go sleep now. Tuesday, October 15
Back from the Sault. Here's what we did in the Sault:
Off to drink some Chai now. Thursday, October 10
Train to Ottawa. Took the 5:30 PM train up to Ottawa. I should get to O:'s by 11:00ish hopefully. I picked up some yummy fried green peas. They taste just like chick peas. I got my standard $1.50 tea, read my book, and chatted for a bit with the girl sitting next to me. I think her name was Crystal. Crystal's a York University student who is not sure about her religious beliefs, but she feels quite strongly about her spiritual beliefs. She said something that I myself have said so many times in the past..."Sometimes, I wish I could be like those people who have blind-faith like beliefs. It would make life so much simpler." Plans for the next 4 days:
Wednesday, October 9
Fun Day. Went Downtown with Sims, Gur, and Dimpy. We met up with Peter and his wife (whose name I don't know how to spell unfortunately). Had dinner at Zyngs. Everyone had a great meal. My food was a bit sucky. I ordered noodles, with vegetables and spicy coconut sauce...there was no salt in my food and not enough sauce in my noodles. Ah well, next time I'll order the Pad Thai maybe. Or maybe this was divine intervention to highlight my addiction to salt, sugar, and fat. Hmmm. Peter said that he'd honour my expired Shiatsu gift certificate. YEAH! I'm going to get a massage. I've never had a massage before in my life that I can remember. I think maybe when I was a newborn I might have had a few then. I'm looking forward to my Shiatsu session with Peter. Peter's wife (phonetically her name is Chi-amy, I'm sure that's not how it's spelt) is a free lance Japanese writer. She is taking the year off from her studies at U of T to write fiction that she hopes to publish back in Japan. She is also a food columnist/restaurant critic for a couple of Japanese publications in Toronto. After dinner, while Sims was at an Eck book reading, I decided to wander around in Indigo and spent at least a couple of hours looking through architecture and design books with pretty pictures. By 9:30ish however, I think I had taken in way too much colour. So we went home after that. Sims' uncle's home. Sims and I stayed around and worked on her resume until wee hours of the morning when I came home and packed for my Ottawa trip tomorrow. I get to see O: tomorrow night. p.s.: Jodel and me in Ottawa in the summer. Tuesday, October 8
Library Day. Returned the "Sense and Sensibility" videos and picked up the books I had placed on hold. I now have the following books to read in the next few weeks:
Sunday, October 6
Sims' here. Simi, Nadia, Gur, and their Mom are here from Falher, Alberta. Nadia is walking around now and is adorable. Toured around downtown, more specifically CN Tower, Sky Dome, and the Gardiner Expressway. It was surprisingly chilly...good thing Sims packed Nadia's blankets and stuff. But, then a funny thing happened. I had asked my Bhabhi (cousin's wife) to send me the Guru Granth Sahib in Hindi or English translation. She said that she would look into it and send it with someone who would be coming to Toronto in the near future. Today, Sims and her Mom asked me to stop by the Gurdwara on the way to dropping them off at home. I went in with them and there was a religious book and music store in the basement. And they had the Guru Granth Sahib with the pronunciations and translations in Hindi. So, now I have the Guru Granth Sahib and will begin reading it soon. I like such co-incidences. Thursday, October 3
Akaa Saaka. MR, AR and I ate Indian style Chinese food today. Delicious. We had sweet and sour vegetables, Manchurian vegetable curry, and steamed rice. I'm still quite excited that I now have a library card. I'd managed to tell everyone at work about this by 10:OO AM today. I think that the whole library idea is just so neat. I want to own a library. Or maybe, I just want to work in one. Can't wait to move to Ottawa so that I can get an Ottawa library card. Tuesday, October 2
Gandhi Jayanti. Today is Mahatma Gandhi's birthday. Yesterday was my sister R's birthday and a couple of days ago it was my sister D's birthday. No, I'm not trying to establish any sort of a pattern or link here. I called home today again and finally got through today. Everyone was home today since it is a national holiday in India. Bought my Via ticket...sometimes I actually follow through. After more than 4 years of living here, I finally went to the Mississauga Library and got a library card. I had forgotten how much I like libraries. They had a book sale on, so of course I bought some (hey, it's for a good cause - the money helps the library buy new books). I bought the following books for a total of $7.00:
Tuesday, October 1
O:'s gone. O:'s gone back to Ottawa. o:'s sad. I took another vacation day today, so O: and I would spend some quality time (which we spent sleeping-in) together. I made pancakes for breakfast, but didn't have fresh blackberries (no, not the ones manufactured by RIM) so they didn't seem as yummy as they have the last few times. In spite of my decision to be mopey and sad, I managed to clean my apartment (vacuum, sweep, mop, dust, laundry etc). I also bought groceries. Then, I just sat around by the phone waiting for O: to call me when he got home. O:'s called now and he's at home safe and sound. He's reminded me to purchase my Via ticket for the Ottawa/Sault Ste. Marie trip in two weeks. I have made a memo to self to do so tomorrow. On a happy note, Sims is coming to visit this weekend with little Nadia. It will be nice to see how Nadia has grown and to spend time with both of them. |
