How many times do I have to tell you?

So I says to the guy, I says, 'If you leave the house in the next two minutes, don't lock me out. I'm just running upstairs and I haven't got my keys.'

'Hrablweg?' he says, through a mouthful of toothpaste.

'I said, I'm leaving for a minute, don't lock me out. I'm just going upstairs.'

Hwwwwwwack-pat! 'Sorry, what?'

'I'm running upstairs to bring them a book. I'll only be gone a minute. If you leave while I'm gone, don't lock me out.'

'K.'

I run upstairs. I drop off the book that my book club is passing around because we're all too scattered to buy our own copy. I run downstairs just in time to wave goodbye to Joel as he drives away.

Having locked me out.

You wish you had

Apologies, friends. I've been dying to tell you all about how we Eat(ed)! Vancouver! but I've been distracted and busy and generally a jerk. So.

Last year Joel and I went to Eat! Vancouver! with our landlords and ate many things and came home with edible loot.

This year, Joel and I went to Eat! Vancouver! with our landlords and their tiny baby and about six other friends, and ate many things and came home with edible loot. People, I cannot recommend this enough.

Serious, you're going to pay $12 anyways for a meal out, so why not have several dozen tiny meals out, and get a bit of exercise, and bring home free bags of baby potatoes? Behold!

Yes, that is a cheese-shaped pad of paper. Yes, that is a tiny bottle of tabasco sauce. Yes, that is a pedometer over on the right. Yes, those are cow-shaped corn-ear-prongy-holders. Yes, that is a razor and, as such, completely unrelated to food. I ask no questions when its free.

Behold also the cheese-tasting (one of three rounds).

The smeary cheese tasted of udder.

Behold also the man making the...thing.

Behold also the man pouring the chai.

Behold him again.

Behold also the tiny kiwi slushies.

Behold also...*snicker*...I know. I'm sorry.

Next summer we won't be around, so you'll have to go in our place.

I just want to be left alone.

So, I was all set to come on here and tell you about my whirlwind weekend in which we drove into Vancouver! Twice! We live such exciting lives.

But then today, I'm out on the town running some errands, and I'm crossing the crosswalk and this guy hollers out his window, Hey! You're hot!

I keep walking.

He honks.

I keep walking.

He honks again.

I keep walking.

He hollers out his window, Hey! Don't be a stuck-up bitch!

Which puts me in mind of the time boo and I were walking through the *shudder* mall to pick up tomatoes or catch the bus or something else practical and uninteresting, and we hear (in the way that you 'hear' rain for four hours, and all of a sudden you look up and hey! It's raining!), Hey ladies.

Obviously, this guy is trolling for mall ass, in which case we obviously aren't his target, so we keep walking, and then closer and louder and less ignorable, Hey ladies!

We turn and there's this guy...what would you say, boo, early 30's? Anyways, he's all, What's going on, ladies? Boo says to him, cool as you please, Can we help you? Goodbye, suave Dr Jekyll with his hey-ladieses. HelLO Mr Hyde.

What the hell is your PROBlem, he says. I'm just trying to be FRIENDly. What, you think you're too GOOD for me? What the HELL!

Dear menfolk - you are trying to give us something we do not want. Do not get angry because we do not want it. There are hundreds of tiny teens in tight pants who are desperately seeking your...affirmation. They are not subtle. You should be able to spot them. They will give you giggles or blushes or whatever it is you're looking for. I'm not even sure what that is.

Victory is ours (as though I did anything)

Ladies and other ladies (I am under no delusions - there are no dudes that read my blog), may I present to you my husband, the med-school applicant:






and *obligatory fanfare* his acceptance papers.




My baby's going to med school.

Two posts in one day!

It is a feast of posts! Except that this one is to bitch about summer.

It is now 30 degrees, and that is awesome. I have a basement suite, and it's cool and fabulous. It is, tragically, also in a family-friendly neighborhood, which means that my air is full of shrieking kids. And not 5-year-olds who've just discovered sprinklers and trampolines shrieking. This is 14-year-old girls who think that the murder-shriek will convince their mom to come outside and tell their little brother to leave them alone, except that by now, mom is well inured to the murder-shriek, and I want to go out and tell these girls the little story about the boy who cried 'wolf.' Because one day, if one of them falls down a well, say, they will be shrieking for help and no one will come. We will all be sitting in our living rooms and shaking our fists.

Damn kids.

Vous etes mon soleil

Today is the first day of summer, because it is 26 degrees. Yesterday it got up to 30, and the day before was a balmy 27, but I was in class for most of both of those days, so they don't count. Today is Saturday and 26 degrees and that means it is time to wear sunscreen instead of make-up and my shortest of shorts and to run around sweating unabashedly. Vive l'ete!

It also means the end of this:

- What are you doing?

- Documenting.

- Documenting h'why?

- So that when our kids ask, 'Was mommy always this cold?' I can pull out this photo and wave it in their faces.

How's this gonna look when you're 60?

Ok, yes, we've all been drunk or up too late or among the right friends, and been all, Wouldn't it be funny if I got a tattoo of a cat so that it's butthole was my belly-button? And what we mean is, Wouldn't it be funny IN THEORY if I did this hilarious-sounding theoretical thing? In theory?

And then there's the guy eavesdropping who's all, YEAH man, that would be awesome.

Weekends are fun.

Hey Jane, remember how you were always telling me how awesome House is and how I should watch it, and I was always all, No, it's not my thing, I won't like it, etc. etc. etc.? DUDE! House is awesome. It's like CSI, but with doctors. And more funny jokes and less lame jokes. Guess what I've been doing for the past two days. Differential diagnosis, people!

Also, Joel's gone for the weekend, and we're out of groceries, and the buses don't run on Sundays (long aside: one time when CBC was hosting a high school basketball tournament and there were all these high school boys running around campus and I asked one of them what they did in the long stretches of time between games, and he was all, Oh, you know, walk around, check out the Big City. And he wasn't joking) so I couldn't go pick up more groceries, so I ate Joel' pizza pops instead, and burned my damn lip. Karma is a bitch.

Also, Happy Mothers Day to all of you with children and wombs.

We have a winner

I am all about winning things online. I am what you call a contest-whore. Sadly, most contests are only open to US residents (if we ever move south of the border, oh the things I will win) but THIS ONE has a few that are open to les canadiens as well.

You should go there and win stuff, and thank me later.

Hola senoras y senors

My Spanish class is full of nutters.

There's this guy who totally speaks fluent Spanish, but can't spell a word of it.

There's this cute little Asian girl who wears one silver hoop earring, like a pirate.

There's this brother-sister combo who come dressed in slacks and a tie, skirt and a sweater. School is serious business.

There's this guy who comes in twenty minutes late, using a cane to walk and with a bandaged right hand. His face is covered in wounds maybe a day old, and he is sweating profusely. WTF?

What happened to other people, normal people, people who put their pants on two legs at a time?

In other, unrelated news, my birthday present from Joel finally came in the mail. It includes, among other things, this hilariously pessemistic mug.

The prodigal returns, and with no good excuses

Where have I been.

Sorry again for the radio silence. Somehow when I'm on vacation and I have all this free time, I can't convince myself to do anything productive, or even anything useless-but-interesting (i.e. post here). Fortunately for you, dear stalkers (by which I mean boo and September), I start school again tomorrow which means I'll be back on some sort of regular schedule, AND means I'll be doing things, and doing things = blogging about them.

After two weeks of rolling around on the floor singing 'Jingle Bells,' my free time was brought to a swift, brutal halt with a very busy weekend. Friday morning I did registration for the Heart and Stroke Big Bike, which (if you don't know) is a giant, 30(ish)-person bike. People ride it. The proceeds go to the Heart and Stroke Foundation, I presume. I really just did a lot of writing numbers down.

Friday evening, we visited my parents to check out my mom's new hot-car, and then I teased up my bangs and put on my best green eyeshadow, and Joel and I went out on the town. To a friend's house. Where we watched an episode of Jem and an episode of He-Man interspersed with commercials for Glow-Worms and the Brooke Sheilds doll, and then watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off on a BETA player. Not even VHS, people. Beta. There was a great deal of crimped hair, and more neon than I'm really comfortable with. I wore spandex in public.

Saturday we had a massive-assed garage sale.

People came and carted away our junk, and gave us money for the privalege of doing so. This guy tried to talk me down to $15 from $20 for a boxful of 40 books, but my books are my children and 50 cents/book is a steal. I made him cough up the 20, but I sense that he's going to turn around and re-sell all those books for $5, in which case he's making a killing and I don't feel bad at all.

Saturday night we went upstairs to eat Chinese food and speak English with our landlord while fifty of her Chinese in-laws ate and drank and gambled and spoke Chinese. It was both exhausting and delicious.

Sunday we visited my in-laws to celebrate all the birthdays that fall in April and May, as well as anniversaries and Mother's Days, and I murdered at bocce ball. And I know that bocce ball is probably one of the least athletic pasttimes that still involves moving, but all these people do is sports, so I'm pretty damned proud of myself.

Today I cleaned the house head-to-toe and did all the laundry so I don't have to think about it once school starts, and then I made enchiladas for supper (which is something I hated as a child because I had terrible taste in food, but seriously people, enchiladas are effing amazing).

Consider yourselves updated.

In which I link you to my own blog.

Best berfday present ever.

The beast emerges from its lair

So, all I do during finals is bitch about how busy I am, and how I can't write you a proper post because I'm studying and writing papers and whatall, and then as soon as finals are done I promptly drop offline for a week. What gives?

What gives is that I've been lying around in my robe reading fantasy novels and drinking wine straight from the bottle, and I didn't think you cared.

I did get out of the house yesterday, though, to celebrate the 26th anniversary of my birth. This shall henceforth be known as the Birthday In Which People Bought Me Flowers and I Consumed Too Many Calories. Serious, I don't think I've ever gotten flowers for my birthday, and then this year, blam!

That is THREE sets of flowers. Also, Joel made me breakfast and my landlord and favorite baby took me out for lunch and my parents made me wings and potatoes and caesar salad and pie for dinner. I am a lard.

Speaking of lards, now that finals are over (for me), I've started cooking again, so that we can eat more like this:

and less like this

Ok, maybe kind of both.

Also speaking of lards, rather round-a-boutedly speaking, Facebook has been running this ad for some diet or other, along with this picture:

Does this woman's abdomen not look vaguely androidal to you? Sort of yellowish and plastic? Come on, now. If I'm going to be shamed about my body, I want it to be by another REAL (albeit photoshopped) body. At least grant me that.

Ok, that's it. Maintain radio silence until I do something else interesting.

How do you get here?

The hilarious Karen over at Verbatim has been filling her readers in on what sort of Google keywords have led people to her site, so I thought I'd scootch her idea and give you a little taste of how people are finding their way unwittingly to these very cyberpages.

Google search terms that have led here:
- cursing symbols (it's called 'the finger')
- difficult to undo pee (I suppose it is)
- balance my karma (that is not one of the services I perform here at The Buoyancy)
- city of abbotsford bylaw chickens (I am an expert on these)
- handless maiden and incest (durrrrrrrrrrr, what?)
- what's in my lunchbox (citruses?)

So now you know! If you ever forget how to get here, you can just Google in 'handless maiden incest,' and I will be on the bottom of the second page. I checked.

Because I clearly have something else I should be doing.

Wicked. Blogger lets me write in secret code now. That was in Telugu, my last post, although I'm not sure it'll have stuck after I turned off the 'transliteration' button. They should make it like 'italics,' so that I can make certain words in...Hindu, or something. To emphasize them.

తోటల్లి హిలరిఔస్ నాన్-ఇంగ్లీష్ experiment

అవేసోమే. ఐ స్పెఅక్ ...ఐ ఫోర్గేట్. బట్ సోమేతింగ్ ఇండియన్. బ్లాగర్ లెట్స్ మే టైపు ఇన్ నాట్-ఇంగ్లీష్ నౌ. ఐ వండర్ ఈఫ్ ఇట్'ల్ల్ స్టిక్ తో థిస్ అఫ్టర్ ఐ చంగే ఇట్ బ్యాక్ తో ఇంగ్లీష్. గుఎస్స్ వే'ల్ల్ ఫింద్ ఔట్.

The Swami speaks

Joel and I went 'grocery shopping' because we were out of milk, and pretty much the only thing we eat these days that isn't giving us cancer is cereal. Since it was the day before my first of three finals, I also bought four varieties of exotic cracker. As I am now a cracker swami, I will fill you in on my learns.

Cracked Pepper and Olive Oil Triscuits

Peppery and good. Ok, maybe you aren't like me, and don't like your tastebuds seared off with flavah flavah flavah, but I like all of my crackers to taste like the salt that's left on the bottom. So these = deliciousness. Also, they have that Triscuit-y way of tasting vaguely good for you, like they're made out of hay, or something.

Walmart-brand tiny Ritz-like cracker/cheese-like-substance sandwiches
These are just as disgustingly good as I wanted them to be. They taste like those little cheese-and-cracker snack paks you can get at Superstore, 5 for 78 cents, or whatever. Except without that little red stick that always breaks, and without all that bothersome spreading.

Incidentally, I also bought the Walmart-brand fig newtons, because I wanted something semi-sweetish to be putting in my mouth...Nyet. Do not do this thing. They are cakey and disgusting. They will lure you in with their low cost and high bulk, but spring for the extra 7 cents and get the chewy deliciousness you want. You do not want these.

Crispers - Nacho flavor

Firstly, when things say 'nacho' flavor what they mean is 'artifical cheese' flavor, which I'm totally fine with because I'm not sure how well all the jalapeno-and-ground-beef-and-cooked-tomotoes would transfer to cracker, but at least be honest. Secondly, you are not a cracker, Crisper, no matter how hard you try. Who do you think you are fooling with your 'Baked, not fried' business? We know what you're not saying. Yeah, 'baked in a vat of oil' is right. Still, you are very high on the deliciousness scale, and you come in a re-sealable bag. We are friends.

Walmart-brand Jalepeno-Cheese Ritz-like crackers

These had the potential to be the biggest let-down, if only because I looked at them and thought, Jalepeno-cheese crackers, that HAS to be good. I will slit my wrists if these are not good. So, you see, quite a bit was riding on them being good. The first one, though, tasted just like a regular old Ritz. So, damn. But turns out they are whatayacall, cumulative-flavor. Four or five crackers later, and my lips were zinging nicely. Looks like I will live another day.

I was not built for daytime sleep

I took a little nappy mcnapnap after my final this morning, and have spent the last half hour playing scramble and trying to drag myself back into the land of the living.

One down, two to go (finals, I mean).

How much do I suck at stuff?

Ok, have I seriously not told you about my freakishly low blood pressure? So, one day in bio lab we were measuring our blood pressure for...something. And healthy is 115/80, and mine is 96/64. Which essentially means that my blood isn't moving. Also that I should eat more salt (p.s., I made both those things up. Probably I should drink more water).

So today, I went to give blood, because it's IN YOU TO GIVE, people. And every time, I think, 'Should I tell them that I have the lowest blood pressure in the world, and also that I'm a fainter?' But then what if they don't let me give blood? Also, you think someone would have written on my chart by now 'Lowest blood pressure in the world. Also, fainter.' But apparently no one has.

So they do the whole prickety-prick thing with the finger to test for anemia, and I have loads of iron, and this time I make it all the way over to the little cubicle where you fill out all those awkward questions about who you've had sex with in the last 3 months/6 months/30 years, and then I have to look around and catch a nurse's eye and wave her over because whoops! There goes the world.

So they laid me down and gave me juice, and the worse thing about coming out of a faint is that they wont let you sleep, and you're confused and pissed because they keep telling you to keep your eyes open, but your eyelids are so heavy.

So, damn. I still have all my blood. But hey, it's sunny out today!

Babies are everywhere.

Ok, I just held my first ever less-than-a-day-old baby (except for my sister, but I was 2, so it hardly counts) and she is everything tiny and perfect and her fingernails are sesame seeds.

And now this woman is blogging through her labor! I mean, ok, you're on your 12th child and it's probably not that big a deal anymore. But YES IT IS!!

The world is a crazy place.