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Clog (Chicken Blog) - August 2002 |
Friday, August 30
TGIF. Drove to work and parked in the Harbour Commission building parking lot. Left work early in order to bring my plants home. My place now feels like a jungle and my forearms hurt from carrying the plants from my desk to the parking lot across and down the street, squished them into my car and then carried them again from my car into my apartment. Two of these plants are actually quite a bit taller than me. Went to visit Mr. & Mrs. M in the evening. They've just moved to Canada from India and are renting some guy's basement apartment. Mrs. M and her daughter seem to be having a hard time adjusting. They miss their chauffeur, servants, big house, daylight, and the social atmosphere of their life in India. I feel badly for them, but only mildly, as they are making this change by choice. After my visit with the M family, I met up with my friends P and M to watch Austin Powers - Goldmember. Not very entertaining at all, but the popcorn with the cheese powder sprinkle was good. Drove home without any traffic on the highway - just the way I like it. Oh yeah, going to drive up to Ottawa with B and Y tomorrow morning, so I must sacrifice my sleep to get up early and get a good start on our trip. I'm taking up to Ottawa all of O:'s wine bottles, along with his brand new Martini glasses and Grappa glasses. O: is spoilt. Must pack clothes, snack food for the drive (cookies, almonds, cheese, and water), all the gifts for O: (funky beverage glasses, lots of books, wine, grappa etc.), and one of the plants in the car now...maybe I'll do that in the morning. Off to get some ZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz. Thursday, August 29
Another Pizza Day. Had another girl bonding session. Also finalized plans for R's wedding shower, which is on Sep. 7th at On the Curve. AK met me for lunch at the Tim Hortons. He seems to be enjoying his time off and catching up on his writing. Have to pick up a couple of orphan plants from work tomorrow so I must now clean out my car to make room. Wednesday, August 28
Pizza Day. P came over and we ordered pizza. Her favourite - 2 for 1. No comparison to the Pub Italia pizza. We discussed our plans for R's wedding and the merits of Silk Epil versus waxing versus shaving versus Laser hair removal. Apparently the fourth generation of laser- "CoolGlide" is now on the market and is quite effective. Made plans with P for tomorrow. She will come over and we will go buy a Silk Epil to start our comparisons of the various Hair Removal techniques. :) Of course, we will have pizza again. Tuesday, August 27
Back to work. My 4-day weekend was over way too fast. I didn't get my fill of lounging around. The weekend was good. Did lots of fun things including: * Bike Riding * Bar-b-que dinner * Book shopping at Octopus book store (finally bought my 9-11 book and David bought a cosmology book) * Bought beads and a set of "The Little Prince" greeting cards at a garage sale * Ate extremely sweet baklava off an extremely sticky plastic tray at the Greek festival * Tried to fly my kite (no breeze whatsoever! Of course when we gave up, returned home and put our kite away...the trees were whipping around in the wind. Not funny.) * Ate yummy pancakes at Lt. Pooley's Also watched 5 movies: * The Art of Woo. I'm still amazed I sat through this movie. It started off very much like Breakfast at Tiffany's and then it continually got worse. The acting, dialogues, and the storyline were on par with the last Hindi movie I saw - Akhion se Goli Marey...well, maybe worse. * Bicentennial Man. I fell asleep through this movie, although O: said it was ok. We both agreed however, that the story had quite a few holes in it. On a somewhat loosely related note, my favourite Robin Williams movie is still Being Human. * Wickerman. Goofy. * Lola. Strange film, but definitely wins over Art of Woo in the Canadian Film Category for the weekend. * Vertical Ray of the Sun. This was the one of my picks for the weekend. Picturesque. I especially liked the decorated feast chickens. :) Talked to Sims, it's her birthday today. I'm looking forward to her visit in October. It'll be fun to spend time with her, Nadia and Gilles. I had to pack and move my desk for the fourth time at work. I was told that I would move on Thursday, but someone made a mistake and I had to move today. ICKY. I had to pack Sally's and Andrew's desk up too since they are now gone. :( No more typing...I must go eat dinner now. I got take-out from Brars. Thursday, August 22
T-1 day. I'm going to Ottawa tomorrow! To see O:. Woo hoo. Went out for dinner. The dinner was to celebrate an ex-co-worker's birthday. It was nice to see DR, my old manager again. I had to leave early (7:30 PM) so I actually didn't get to eat dinner. Must go pack my clothes and O:'s bottle of wine. Looking forward to a long-weekend in Ottawa. Hope to do lots of bike riding and brunch eating. Train leaves tomorrow morning at 9:30 AM and my big plan is to get brekkie at the station before my trip. Wednesday, August 21
Too many words, too little time. I had all these things I wanted to write today, but, too tired. Woke up super early so that I could get to work early enough to get set up for the training course I had to deliver at 8:30 AM. I was off by a little, my course didn't start until 9:00 AM. I missed out on half an hour of sleep for NO reason! Wish I had checked my calendar before leaving for work. Oh yeah, in case you are wondering, I did pick up my VIA ticket yesterday. Anyway, during my web surfing yesterday, I found Aunty Krish's site. Interesting. Nothing exciting happened to me today. Well, the bagel people did burn my lunch. Pthuuuiii. Thought of starting my wish list, but, put it off for today at least. Must get my poultroglyphics link working first. Sat through one more Indian movie today - Ankhiyon Se Goli Marey. Govinda and Raveena were the main characters. Both have an admirable amount of tummy fat, but only Raveena had the guts (pun intended) to show her midriff. I did remember to mail out the Rakhi card to Nidhu, but Shamaz's is still sitting here, I can't find an addr. for him. I'll have to check with Muks tomorrow and then mail it out. Must remember to also send them both a virtual Rakhi. If tomorrow morning, I can get my behind out of bed in time, I might even try to call Shamaz. I'll call Nidhu after work tomorrow. O: finally got his Ikea catalogue, two weeks later than I. I wonder if I can create a wish list on their site too? Hmmm...I will look into that tomorrow. Too exhausted to write anymore. I must sleep now, since I have to get up early again tomorrow. Monday, August 19
Sick day! Still didn't feel better, so called work and advised them that I'll work from home. So there I was at 7:30 AM this morning answering emails. Although, I put in about the same amount of work as I would have if I were at my desk, I didn't have to factor in the 3 to 4 hours of travel time for the day. Thought about how much I dislike the non-creative aspect of working. I wish I could quit my job and still qualify for EI, then I could at least have the time to explore something with slightly more creative potential. O: and I discussed this as well. Again. Seems I'm kinda stuck on this. Watched an episode of the Trading Spaces that I had not seen before. Nothing special. Also found out during my compulsive channel surfing that re-runs of the Jerry Springer show are on during the day! Other than that, all the news channels were playing these tapes (owned by CNN of course) of a puppy being gassed. I wonder how much of a difference there is between a puppy being gassed and Chinese labour camps...but I don't see CNN talking about that. On a lighter note, I finally returned "Devdas" to the Indian movie rental place. It took me a month, but I did return it. I must make a disclaimer here - I didn't keep the movie for a month because I was so awed by it, rather I was lazy. The movie itself was sparkly, shiny, overly melodramatic, and full of really cheesy dialogues. I did appreciate the work that was put into the costume designs, but after a while of being bombarded by colour and glitter...all the costumes looked the same to me. Sigh. I think the last good Hindi movie I saw was Hari Bhari. And then at the "filim-store"...even though I had no intention of renting another movie, I got shamed into renting three more. One of them is "Bend it like Beckham" and I don't remember the names of the other two. Now I wish I had just rented another Shyam Benegal movie. Ah well. You can't always get what you want. Bought two rather drab Rakhi cards from the video-wallih today. Too lazy to make my own rakhis this year. Shall mail them out tomorrow. It rained today. I like rain...especially after what seems like an eternity of overly sunny days. The rain today was not the heavy kind that makes everything soggy and squishy (I like that kind too), but the soft refreshing kind that I like to walk through and catch on my tongue. I wish I had my bike here...I'd go for a bike ride along the Credit River (well, I'd think about it at least). Maybe it is a good thing that I don't have the bike here...probably better that I rested today anyway. Room temperature today is 24.4 degrees Celsius. Comfy enough for me. That's all the blabbing I can do today, on-line that is. I'm sure I'll still have plenty of blabbing time on the phone. Oops. I had to pick up my Via train ticket today. Must do it tomorrow. Sunday, August 18
Hhhhfffffffff. Definitely feel better than I did yesterday. Even managed to sleep through the night. The family who lives above me is back. I'm back to being woken up by the pitter-patter (@#$%&!*&%$#@#) of little feet early mornings (weekends only) now!! After I woke up, I sorta sat around moping for a while, my fave procrastination mode. Then called my parents and yapped with them and my sisters for a while. They reminded me that Rakhi is this week. Darn. I never do send out my rakhis on time. I should just mail out 5 or 6 at a time and ask them to keep it for the next few years. Ah well, I'll mail the Rakhis out to Nidhu and Shamaz this week and send them a "virtual" one on Rakhi....Yes, I know how tacky that is. Watched some more repeat episodes of the Trading Spaces today. In fact, they were the same episodes I watched yesterday. But, I watched them again anyway. :) For lunch I made myself the yummiest mango shake ever! And on my continued mission to appease O:, I completed my "draft" version of the Poultroglyphics Compendium. However, when I tried to convert it into HTML from Word, I lost the formatting and it looked like crap, so I decided to take the easy way out and convert it into a PDF instead of coding the whole thing in HTML. Had my once a month conversation with O: once more to convince him of inability to continue my existence without a scanner....think I've finally persuaded O: this time to see things my way. Wish that I hadn't thrown away my thermometer so I could check my temperature...think I now have a fever. How else could I explain that fact that I'm freezing with the room temperature of 26.9 degrees Celsius. Also, I'm sick and tired of seeing Elvis on TV. I still don't get the whole Elvis mania thing. Nor do I get the British Royal Family Mania (who by the way is of German origin!) thing..or the constipated look that George Bush constantly sports. Aside from my gripes above, my day so far has consisted of the following accomplishments: * Watched bad Indian programs presented by girls who can barely speak Hindi but insist on Emcee-ing these programs in their trademark "Hin-glish". I don't even know why I watch these programs. All they consist of are glorified advertisements of Indian versions of Hollywood movies, crooked immigration consultants, morose astrologers, and convulsing white girls in the background while decrepit Indian actors lip-synch songs like "happy..happy...happy days are here again!"...of course, don't forget the shoddy editing and the wonderful echo effects! But, I watch them anyway. Religiously. (Aside - I long for those days when Jaya and Shan Chandrasekhar presented the Indian programs.) * Drank my usual weekend quota of two cups of chai. * Listened to the soundtrack of Monsoon Wedding. * Walked aimlessly around my apartment. A few times. * Reserved my Via train ticket for this weekend. Must remember to pick it up on Monday. I can't bear to look at my screen any longer...eyes are burning. So this is it for today. I'm going to give myself a manicure and a pedicure now in my continued attempts to keep my mind off the fact that I'm not feeling well. After that, if I have the energy I think I'll walk over to the Indian Video store and maybe rent a movie or two. Or maybe not. Foot files, orange sticks, cuticle and peppermint creams beckon. Ta. Saturday, August 17
Blah. Icky day. Sat at home on
my futon and stared at my orangebrownyellow dingy carpet and the telly...didn't
feel very well. Posting this under protest. O: keeps harassing me - poor
sick me! O: has an issue with the fact that I have let my site go inactive
for far too long. So O:, here it is. Finally. So, this is what I, o: did today: * ate a mini-muffin, drank two cups of chai and two glasses of orange juice, and ate half a mashed avocado. This is way more than I've been able to eat in a couple of days, so it's a good thing. :) * Talked to my brother, who had apparently cooked up a great big feast for his house warming party today. Did I mention that he went on a diet yesterday...gotta love those one-day diets. * Called R and had to decline the bar-b-que invitation for the afternoon. * Didn't have the energy to go down to the Masala Mehndi Masti festival to meet my cousin. Her film Some Kind Of Arrangement was screening at 1 PM today. During our conversation (when I called to apologize for missing the screening) she seemed to be quite surprised to learn that I was 29 (Aside - I seem to have the same reaction sometimes). She said that I better get on with the business of getting married and having babies if I do want kids. siiiiiiiiiiiggggggggghhhhhhhhhh. This whole concept of living a finite amount of time as the current me is really restricting...I need at least 2 to 3 hundred years to live a nice non-hurried life and I want to be fertile for at least 70 to 80 percent of those years so that I'm not forced into this kids business. I'll stop here with my griping. For now. * Watched three episodes of the Trading Spaces. All three were repeats. Darn. * Talked to P for a cumulative time of at least 2 hours (4 phone calls I think). * It's my friend DD's birthday today. When I called to wish him, I got silicone Sally telling me to either check the dialed number or try again or accept the fact that the number has been disconnected. So I did the impersonal email thing and hope that he gets my birthday wishes. * Talked to O: many many many many times. O: also not well. aw. Somehow managed to convince both of us that it wouldn't be good for him to drive down today. Now its hours later and I wish O: was here. * Of course, cleaned my place. * Listened to lots of ghazals. Ok, maybe the same ones over and over again. Ghazals by Hariharan. Oh, in there somewhere I also managed to listen to the soundtrack of Tamanna. There were many other little activities during the day, including an hour long nap...but nothing that I (when thinking like O:) would term as productive :). I'm tired now and must try to sleep, although I'd rather go dip my feet in some cold body of water while staring at the stars or make grass angels instead. Off to bed. ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzz. |
