Updatey...but not really.

Heyyyyyy kids, what've you guys been up to lately?  Me?  Not much...bit o' this...

Little o' that...

Couple a' doors that lead to nowhere...

And I made churros.  Ha cha cha.

They look like tasty snakes.

I was not at home to witness whatever madness happened at the house today.

Don't be alarmed if the house smells like smoke, the note says.  It is all taken care of, the note says.  You might want to air out the upstairs.

This is becoming a saga.

No poo-related misadventures today, but a guy hit himself in the leg with a saw and they hauled him off to the hospital, so.  Things are never not exciting around here.

In other, less bloody news, I got a nifty gifty in the mail yesterday from THE NETHERLANDS!  Sweet, right?  Only don't click on the moat-link in that post because it'll just bring you back here and then you'll be caught in an infinite loop.

In which I am weary of my castle

This thing with the moat is getting way less fun.  It was actually only fun in the first place because I could go around saying I have a moat!  And that has about eight seconds worth of appeal.

ANYhoodle, 98% of this story will involve poop, so if that offends you you should probably turn away now.  Still here?  Ok.  So since this started we've been all, Should we be doing laundry, should we be running the dishwasher, but we assumed they would tell us if we shouldn't because we live upstairs.  But today they turned the water off without telling us, so after I unwittingly wasted my only flush on a pee, I took a huge poo and had no way of dealing with it.  Also, I had to pee again.

A surprising number of people recommended peeing in the moat, which, guys, it is AROUND MY HOUSE.  Besides which, I already sort of inadvertently did that yesterday.

So I mentioned how one of the guys knocked a hole in a ground pipe so that the pipe had a little skylight, through which we could watch our toilet-flushings flush, right?  Ok so yesterday I took a poo and then peeked out the window just to check seriously I don't watch every time I flush.  But it's a lucky thing I did this time, because apparently they had unhooked a pipe in preparation for fixing it but then did not fix it and a bunch of water came rushing out of the pipe onto the ground and I'm pretty sure my poops were in it.

Luckily, there were no dudes around at that time, and somewhere during that day they fixed the pipe (probably because they found poops in the moat).  But surriously, I am too old for these sorts of adventures. 

Where are my crocodiles and where is my drawbridge?

HA!  I thought I'd been totally negligent and not mentioned the flood in the basement AT ALL yet, but I definitely did.

SO!  Flood in the basement = we have a moat.  This is not a euphemism for something less medieval, we have an honest-to-goodness moat.  I could put crocodiles in it to eat the prowlers and any fractious serfs. 

I do not understand the ins and outs of house repair, but something something draining something ok, I can't even pretend but apparently all the things that have to be replaced are right hard by our house, and a good bit down.

So.  A moat.

It goes around the whole house and is about half as deep as I am tall and as wide as maybe three of me and the other day there was a guy in there with a blow-torch (also not a euphemism.  Seriously, a blow-torch, and he was torching things).

There are dudes all over the lawn all the time now.  And the other day the house shook and whatever machine was machinating stopped and there was a bunch of general cursing and then someone who sounded managerial swore AT someone and now there is a hole in one of the ground pipes so that when we flush our toilet, you can look out the window and watch it go.  I try not to have the poops when the lawn-dudes are around, but I refer you to above: they are here all the time.

Also here was a wood chipper, because apparently if your house floods you need to cut down the tree that is furthest from the problem, and chip its ass.

I imagine that for the basement troll (who is now the swamp troll, due to the basement's swampy nature) these past few weeks have been hell on wheels, but aside from the near-constant noise, the inability to walk around our curtainless kitchen in my ratty jammies, and my chronic need to furtively photograph the vehicles, we haven't been too inconvenienced.  Sometimes I dream about owning a house, but in times like these I am only too grateful that renters aren't responsible shit.

Things I do not recommend

Yesterday I made a cauliflower-cheese pie and farmer sausage for dinner, and then an apple cake for dessert.  I also cleaned the bathroom.  And then Joel and I went to a movie and the reason I'm telling you all this is because an infinite number of monkeys on an infinite number of typewriters could not begin to describe the sausagey-appley-baked-cauliflower smell, underthreaded with a strong hint of chemical, that greeted us when we got home.

In Memoriam

Weep!  Oh, lament for the Little White Car that was.  Mourn its tight turning radius.

Take comfort in the trips that were, in the journey to The Gorge to see Dave Matthews and then back again that same night, in which we were pulled over twice. 

Delight in the voyage to Seattle to see the Woodland Zoo hippos (more plentiful than Vancouver's own), and the side-trip to the outlet malls in Tulalip on the way home where I bought my black Roxy flats, which I wear to this day.

Rejoice that we did not die that time we got caught in a blizzard on the way home from Washington.

Though it was a near thing.

Marvel that we survived the trip to Victoria in the Great Inconvenient Snowfall of '08.

Ponder how much snow this lower-mainland car has seen.

Oh Little White Car.  I will not miss the way the seatbelt on your passenger side didn't retract so that it always got caught in the door.  I will not miss your lack of air conditioning or cruise control.  I will not miss the HNNNNNNN sound that your right blinker made, or the shhhk shhhhk shhhhk shhhhhk sound that we could never place.  I will not miss the way that, no matter how dressed up we got, you always made us look like po' white trash.

But I will miss putting my feet on your dashboard.  Enjoy the scrap heap.

Alright, this is usually the part of the game where I would eulogize our little white car (may peace be upon it) which we took to the scrap heap yesterday, but instead I would like to complain about Canadian Tire.  Should you, dear friend, ever find yourself in our neighborhood with car trouble, you might be tempted to pull into the Candian Tire.  It is SO CLOSE!  I adjure you, dear friend.  Push your car, if you have to, that extra couple of miles to Somewhere Else.

So, the Kruegers bought a new car and gave us their old car, so that we could get rid of OUR old car, and then Joel went to insure what is now our new car, and then drove it straight to Canadian Tire, because what is this thing it is doing?  And the guy at the Tire was all Hrrm harrum belt hmmm hum missing teeth hhhhem needs to be replaced immediately, cost you about $900.

And I'm not going to tell you what we pay for rent every month, but it is NOT VERY MUCH MORE THAN THAT!  So nearly a month's rent to fix our veeeehickle?  Alas.

But then Joel's dad hopped the ferry this morning to come have a look-see, and replaced a doo-hicky here and a whazzit there and one long day later, the car runs like a top.  The 'belt' had all its 'teeth' and also that was not the problem.  *sigh. of. rage*

So...we have a new car now!  That's thrilling.  It has twice as many doors.  If we come to pick you up, I will not have to get out so that you can get in.  Also, it is a full four years younger than our old car, so you can suck it, 1988.  I will probably eulogize Little White Car tomorrow, though, because I am ensaddened to see it go.  I have an over-active nostalgia muscle.

AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE 2.0

Things in the mail yip yip yip! 

Ok, so the whole issue of internet-friends vs. real-friends has kind of gotten blurred for me by this point.  Stephanie is a real friend who I have never met in person.  Yet.  Also, she had Cancer of the Ta-Tas this time last year.

I didn't really know Stephanie that well before all these shenanigans, but back in August when the doctors were all, Hrmm hmmm we think you might have cancer, I emailed her all, Hey, I know I don't know you very well but the doctors think I might have cancer and what do I do?

And then I emailed her again when they wanted to cut me open, and then I emailed her again when we found that I had cancer on the real.  And through all this she emailed me every few days to say kind and encouraging things and and talk me down from my Tree of Panic then tell me hilarious stories about her biopsy (this after mine almost made me faint).  It turns out that long, pokey needles give you the almost-yacks across the board.

Aaaanyhoodle, she emailed a bit ago to tell me she'd sent me a 'little something' in the mail, and then today I got a BOX but I was running out the door to catch a bus and the whole time I was out I was all Eeeeee I have a present at home!  (I am ridiculous about presents.)

So I get home and open it and there are THESE THINGS:

A Bookmarks magazine, which everyone always raves about but which I've been too poor to buy, a copy of the Cake Wrecks book, the site of which has been part of my daily larf for ages and the book of which Joel is leafing through as we speak, and then Jen Lancaster's Such A Pretty Fat: One Narcissist's Quest to Discover if Her Life Makes Her Ass Look Big, or, Why Pie is Not the Answer which I have heard good things about and also, UNREASONABLY LONG TITLES!!  AMUSEMENTS!

And then also some chompy monster magnets that act as bookmarks, and then also exotic coffee!  And I know that 75% of you are all, Dude, it's just Dunkin' Donuts but we do not have a Dunkin's in Canada and now 90% of you are all, Dude, it's just from the Merica and didn't you used to live, like, half an hour from the border and didn't you used to LIVE IN THE MERICA?  But at least 10% of you are with me in this, all, SQUEEEEEEEEEE treats from other countries!!

Not pictured there is this cranky mug:

Because I am using it.  It is perfectly shaped for my hands.

Stephanie!  It has been raining all day and I got stuck downtown in the wrong jacket and I don't even care.  I am filled with delight (also, coffee).  Many, many thanks.

Blogging is hard

The new druglings aren't as shiny and helpful as I hoped, so I have the raging aches again.  It's like I'm coming down with the flu every evening, only I never actually get it.  Ah me.

Also, it looks like my radiation won't be until the new year, and I'm pushing for late January so that I don't have to go on a low-iodine diet over Christmas (low iodine = no salt and no dairy and no processed foods and no fun).

Also, our basement has flooded and so the troll has dug two enormous holes beside the house.  I'm not totally sure why the holes, but they keep him busy and he seems less pissed at us now.

I need to blog earlier in the day when I have not got the glooms.

AIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Treats in the mail!!!  I cannot TELL you how much I love treats in the mail! 

So, purple, right?  Purple goes with everything.  Purple is the new black, except that all of my purple is either summer- or very-early-fall-related.  Except that now I have purple gloves and a purple scarf!

And then also, festive magazines!  I am addicted to holidayesqueness.  I wish every month had a theme, so that I could be all, It's November!  That means bacon and turquoise all month! 

Jane, Andie, Christine, thanks so much for this and for all the emails.  You guys are the best writing-group-that-never-talked-about-writing-or-even-really-books-because-there-are-so-many-other-things-going-on.  I wouldn't trade you for the world.

I wish I had more for you.

That thing that I ate the other day:

The chef tried to make a monkey out of my sour cream and almonds.  It looks like a Wild Thing.

Hrm hum.  What to tell you, intrawebs?  I wrote a paper today.  Also, I went to the gym this morning and do NOT feel like shit at the time of writing (8:17 in the pm), which is a welcome change.  The bigger, better, badder drugs are working.

Also, how awesome would it be if I got one of these?

And then named it Bruno?  I would need a yard.

Monkey's Brunch

My Large Paper is due tomorrow, so this will necessarily be short.  But I ate this thing today and I wanted to feed it to all of you.  So say you take a skinny omelette and fill it full of sauteed bananas and brown sugar and then roll it up like a crepe and top it with sour cream and toasted almonds and fresh bananas and cinnamon?  Tasty or not tasty?  DUDE, totally tasty.  And I have a raging sweet tooth, especially when it comes to breakfast, so there is little in the way of sugary morning eats that I won't relish.  But this was an unreal combination of sweetness and eggyness.  If I weren't dying of the fullz, I'd totally eat another.

Also, there were pan fries.  And harvest toast, with apple butter.  *dies*

Do me this one favor

Can you all please start watching Glee so that we can talk about how awesome last week's episode was, how it was overflowing with everything that is great about the show (Kurt hitting a high-F, Rachel being told she's irritating, teamwork solving everything, the pathos of Kurt's mechanic-dad dealing with Kurt's gayness, the kind-of-sweetness that is how much Puck wants to take care of his baby-mama, wheelchair dancing, Principal Figgins) and how it was totally devoid of everything that is wrong with the show (Mrs Schuester, the whole fake-pregnancy storyline entirely, Emma and Mr Schue making dopey eyes at each other, uninspired numbers with no real choreography, that fake-pregnancy bit, Mr Schue rapping, fake pregnancies)?

Kthx.

Exertions

I ran a mile today.  I sort of felt dumb going all the way down to the gym for my 12-minute run, but I mostly felt dumb because I put my t-shirt on backwards and didn't realize it until I was on the treadmill, and it was really obvious but too late to switch it.

Also, the doctor gave me better drugs today.  Tomorrow I plan on building an igloo out of sugar cubes.

A minute, please.

Ok, so I know that those idiotic things on facebook you can become a fan of (like breathing!  Seriously, if I do not 'become a fan' do I not get to breathe?) aren't the epitome of long-lastingness or professionalism, but WOULD A SPELL-CHECK KILL YOU?!??!

(I'm paraphrasing because if I go look them up in their original forms, my head will a-splode)

Become of fan of 'randomely laughing because you remembered something funny.'  There isn't even an 'e' in 'random' anyways, why would you add one before the 'ly'?

Or 'going to do homework but then finding yourself on faceebook.'  Facebook should automatically delete your account if you spell its name wrong.

Back to my paper.

This story ended up being way longer and having way less of a point than I anticipated. Hey! Sort of like my paper will!

Ok, so the office chair that came with the house broke so that the thing where you lower yourself to the appropriate height was always at the lowest height.  So I couldn't sit at the desk ever (which I really only do when I need to feel like I'm doing Serious Work [like this paper, which is actually going to be fine because of its length and not despite it, which allows me to just sort of talk about the re-appropriation of power through the re-writing of history for some ten pages {or fifteen!  Seriously, look that up} without ever really making a point or coming to a conclusion]) and even Joel was uncomfortable with the chair that low.

And we looked on craigslist for chairs, but this is Victoria and so everyone's all, I bought this chair for $165 but I'm selling it for $130!  That's a savings of $35!!!  Which, people, used.  You have to at least half the price.

ANYhoodle, so we found this one chair for $35 and I'm apprehensive that it'll end up being something that an ordinary person would try and sell for, like, $5 just to get it off their hands.  I'll tell you right now that the chair is great and whatever, because that is totally not the point of the story.

The POINT is that something did not want us to get that chair.  Part of that something was me, because of this paper and my Bad Attitude towards leaving the house when I should be facebooking and pretending to do research.  But I enjoy adventuring, and sometimes leaving a thing alone makes you care less about the thing so that you can do a better job of the thing later. 

So we hop in the car to get the chair and the car starts making this awful chugging...something something flooded something?  Whatever, it wasn't safe to drive.  So we stop to get cash and then grab a few energy drinks to make change because the chair is $35 and not $40 and drive back to the house all Werp werp, what are we going to do now?

But Joel gives the car a few revvs just to see what's the what, and suddenly it runs fine.  You are such a KOOK, little white car.  So we head back out on the road except at the first stop the energy drinks fly off the back seat and hit my chair and roll under it.  So BECAUSE WE ARE DUMB we decide to put them in the glove box.  And as Joel is handing them to me to PUT in the glove box he's all, I just don't want them to smash into something and dent and for us to have energy drink squirting everywhere.

Ok right, except that I close the glove box with the drinks in it and one of them punctures and by this time we're driving again and I can't figure out which one is the one that punctured and purple energy is oozing everywhere and there's nowhere to pull over and seriously, WHICH ONE IS PUNCTURED and I have to roll down the window so that I can hold the drink outside the car because we still can't pull over yet and my arm smells like Trix.

And then, I guess that's sort of it.  I kind of wanted one more bad thing to happen to round out the story, but we got home alive and didn't bump into any cyclists.

Also, I've been eating this cereal that, in English, is called 'On Track' (which is sort of encouraging, I guess) but which, in French, is called 'Victoire!' (which is far more triumphant-sounding).  We English-o-phones need to up our enthusiasm.

Is it another day AGAIN?

They have seriously got to make us do this in a month that isn't November.

Ok, so I know I just had, like, five days off school, but I spent the weekend recouperating from being miserable about things and then yesterday I ran mad errands, and now it's Tuesday and the in-laws are coming for a visit tomorrow and then I'm back in school on Thursday (AND MEETING WITH THE ENDOCRINOLOGIST!  I am going to be all, Dude, you have got to make me feel better than this) and then it's the weekend wherein I have to write a 10-page paper.  Or 15 pages, I totally forget which.  I should figure that out so that I can recalibrate my panic.

ANYhoodle, I also have a paper due a week tomorrow, but all time after today is going to be taken up with that 10-(or 15!)-page paper, so I have to get this one sketched out in the next three hours so that I can go see Men Who Stare At Goats.  It's an 8:15 showing, at which point I'm usually in bed so I had to sleep in an extra 2 hours today to compensate.

Right.  So I came on here to tell you a Halloween story but now I don't feel like I need to.  Probs I will anyways.  So we're playing Cranium Pop 5 (which is easily the best of the Cranial incarnations) and the answer is 'Seinfeld' and Chelsea is drawing and she was going to draw a little soup bowl with steam squiggles, which I totally would have gotten, and then a swastika.  Because soup nazi!!  Clever, right?  But she DIDN'T EVEN GET A CHANCE because she's all *draws line on paper indicating single-word* and I'm all, SEINFELD!  Because I have espn like that.

Also, it was Chelsea's turn again later and the category was 'Characters' which is the champion of vague categories, and before she gets to look at the card I'm all, If it's the Kool-Aid man I want you to just Look At Me Significantly.  And it WAS and she DID but I was TOTALLY JOKING and so I didn't even get that she was Looking At Me Significantly and I'm like, What?  Food on my face?  Luckily, Shannon did and we got the point.  *phew*

All that to say, I am busy and maybe a bit psychic.

Oh right.

Oh.  Hullo.  Rather forgot I was doing this.

Hrmm hum.  Haven't been doing much since I tried on those shoes.  Err, I finally got around to reviewing Where the Wild Things Are.  That was fun.  I'm working on a longish paper now.  That is less fun, because I'm not totally sure what I'm supposed to be doing.  I went to find some sweatpants today but couldn't uncover anything less than $40 that didn't also say SweetPeace68 or something equally idiotic.  I will probably end up springing for a pair of UVic sweats because hey, I go here.

Oh no wait!  My sister was featured on dooce.  THAT'S what happened today, and it was hella awesome.

In which I geek out rather uncharacteristically, which is to say, fashion-wise.

So.  Shoes.  ADMITTEDLY, I have shoe-pairs in the dozens, but 88% of them are ballet flats in various colors and then maybe 10% is heels that I have almost no occasion to wear, and the other 2% is my boots, which I wear every day.  I love shoes and I love the idea of having somewhere to wear fancy shoes to (also, of not having bunions so that I could wear said fancy shoes for more than eight minutes), but I'm not a madwoman re: shoes.

And ok, more or less everyone in Joel's class is feelthy reech, because they are all the only children of doctors or lawyers or what have you.  But Sam is reedeeculously feelthy reech, and has a deep and abiding fondness for designer shoes.

So there was a party at her house last night, and we get there and Claire is trying on Sam's dresses because she wasn't happy with any of her own, and I'm all, I am discontented with my jewelry.  And Sam is like, Let me bejewel you.  And one thing leads to another and then suddenly we're all trying on Sam's ridiculous collection of shoes and Joel sneaks off to find a tv and some sports because the party right now consists of him and ten rabid girls and then Morgan and Shannon show up and I'm all Look how HIGH these boots are! 

aside: look how high these boots are

And Shannon squees and Morgan is all, Where are there boys and sports?  So Morgan slinks off to find Joel and Shannon joins the shoe-wearing-party and she knows things about designers and apparently these are Louboutins that I'm wearing here?  Whatever, they were leopard-print and made my legs look amazing.

But the ones which I loved and never wanted to stop wearing EVER IN MY LIFE were these dainty Cinderella darlings:

You cannot see them close enough here.  You MUST see them closer:

Closer still!  To the GooglePhone!

They have a teacup handle on the back!  Me googling these shoes was brought to you by Shannon, who so helpfully informed me they were Miu Mius.  Google let me in on these are worth more than my car!

*hem*  So.  Many thanks to Sam for both hosting a party and for letting us traipse around in some very valuable footwear.  She is indeed a generous soul.  If I ever get my hands on these delicate beasts I may very well keep them in a glass box in my room.