Cleaning...

I should be tidying my room some more. With the insertion of a ton of crap from under the stairs and the upheaveal of all my stuff, it looks like a bomb went off in there. Because of the way the water was heading, there's a big spot on the floor where everything got moved from. Actually, there WAS a big spot on the floor, but it's currently being occupied by stuff for the business. My desk is buried under several pounds of "to be sorted", and the area in front of my desk is completely blocked by ten or fifteen boxes of stuff. I don't know what to do with it all!! However, I just spent the last hour and a half scrubbing my bathroom, so at least I did SOMEthing tonight. I want to put my desk together, but I'm tired, dammit. Maybe I'll knit for a while and see if I want to do some of that. I've got to put my fabulous new office supplies somewhere, after all.

That is, somewhere besides the formerly clean spot on the floor.

Have you ever had one of those nights...

...where things just "click"? Where you talk to people that you've known for a while, and discover that you've got more in common than you thought before...and that these people would make amazing friends outside of the context in which you have known them in?

So yeah. I had a pretty awesome night.

And I bought $100 worth of office supplies today. I should NOT be allowed near office supply stores by myself...however now I have a pretty green stapler. Ooh! And HANGING FOLDERS! And a CASH BOX! And, and...a "keep track of mileage and gas" book! AND CLIPBOARDS!!!! *claps hands in excitement which is probably not shared by the majority of her readers*

Ahem. I will be placing an order for my business around Tuesday. If anyone is interested in buying bath stuff (Valentine's is coming up, guys!), vibrators, lubes, lotions or various other creams, let me know and I can bring stuff to you to look at and smell and so on.

o/~ Is this...the Phantom...of the Operaaaaaa???? o/~

Saw Phantom of the Opera today with Kit. It's a damned good movie. I was expecting it to be, and it was far better than I'd expected. Now we've got the songs stuck deep deep DEEP in our brains. :D

Maybe Famous?

I was checking referrers today and noticed that I've been getting hits from Urban Vancouver. I had been before too, but just today I noticed that I had my own XML site feed. Wow. I feel all warm and squishy. Maybe I should start going to Vancouver Blogger meetups since I'm getting famous.

Must remember to bring shades. You know, so the paparazzi don't take incriminating photos. :)

So that's it, then.

Today was my last day at the craft store. Because the schedule wasn't up until this afternoon, I didn't realize it until three hours before my shift ended. I went back and forth between euphoria and "OhmyGodwhathaveIdone?" for about ten seconds, then the euphoria won out for the rest of the shift. :D

Now I can focus on my home parties business. Anyone want to host a party? Buy some stuff without hosting a party? Let me know!

Quick notes before I dash off to work.

I've got fabulous new business cards, thanks to the fabulous Dave. I love my cards.

On Alias last night, the two main characters went undercover as married couple Karin and Dave. Hehe. (ok, probably it was Karen with an E, but I saw no passport or any documentation with the name on it...therefore I will continue to believe that it was spelled the same way as mine.)

One other thing that I can't remember. Oh well. I'm sure you will hear of it in excruciating detail later.

Yays and boos.

Yay! My package arrived.
Boo! I can't get it until after tutoring.
Boo! My dad had to pay $60 GST/PST on it...which I already paid. >:( Will have to talk to them about this.

Yay...or boo? My dad knows about this. He didn't seem upset, but he requested that I pick it up after tutoring before I go out. Eep?

Tentative "yay"

It looks like the water's stopped. We had a guy come and clear out the sump pump line, and it seems that we might be finished. *wheeewwwww*

And my kit hasn't arrived yet. Bother.

***GLEE!!***

The Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy movie is coming out May 6th.

*starts hunting for her towel*

Edit: I think it should've come out on April 2...you know... 4/2... but that's just me.

I told her

Everything seems to be ok. She's a little upset, but not freaking out. *hooooooo*

Is everyone having a bad week?

I know of several people who are having really shitty weeks... is this generalized, or am I just kind of noticing because I'm one of those people?

Timing.

My mom has known that I've got a blog for about a year now...so almost the whole time it's been active. Today and yesterday, she's been giving me a hard time about me not giving her the URL for it. Weird, huh?

The water's coming in faster. I was telling Dave today that it reminds me of a blackmailer (although I used different numbers in my conversation with him). Instead of asking for a million dollars and having his mark just give up, he (or she) asks for a manageable sum, thus the mark is constantly being drained and is constantly aware of the damage being done.

*hops onto the bandwagon with a resounding crash*

Beta testing Flickr. It's good stuff. Here's my photo gallery.

I meant to go to sleep several hours ago. I kept getting distracted... but now there are pictures! Of me and the flood!! Yay!

Ok, I'm going to bed now. My dad's home, so he can help with the water.

Free to good home...

...or mediocre home. Or any home, for that matter.

We've got about thirty 500mL Mason jars, lids and rings for canning fruit and vegetables. Anyone wants 'em, they're yours. For any friends, I'll even deliver them on a visit. Especially if you buy me a hot chocolate.

Things looking better?

Currently, the rain has stopped, which means that as soon as the last of the water already in the system works its way through our basement, we'll get a bit of a break. We've done over 200 gallons of water, by my exhausted estimate. It's supposed to rain REALLY hard over the weekend, but my father will be home, so that's another pair of hands to vacuum. Although, this means that I'll need to either sleep on the couch or somehow clear off my bed.

My back is killing me. I think I did something to it just now on my shift. :(

Water numbers update

We've emptied the big shop vac (60 L) 16 times in three or four days. That's about 900 L of water...or 240 Imperial gallons.

We fill the shop vac about every three hours now.

Why my boyfriend is the awesome.

(Geez, nothing like a crisis to get my ass posting, neh?) (Oh, and we've got about 115 gallons out now.)

He just sent me upstairs to rest and blog etc. while he does some magic stuff in the leaking closet involving duct tape and plastic wrap. Oh, and a hairdrier. He brought over two (much better!!) shop vacs and helped suck up a bunch of water, then took me out for dinner. I didn't enjoy it as much as I normally would have, since I was practically falling over, and each sip of my lemonade caused a minor flashback. "Augh! Water being sucked up through a tube away from the floor!" I kept looking at puddles on the ground in the parking lot and seriously...my hands itched to suck those babies up.

*blink* *blink* I. Am. So. Tired.

I want my daddy to come home from Mexico. :(

*cries*

We accidentally overfilled the shop vac and it sprayed several liters of water out all ove my bookshelf.

100+ gallons and counting.

Hey Internet...gimme a job.

So I arrived at work this morning. I had been told on the phone that the major reason that I couldn't just stay home was because I was going to be the only cashier all day besides the supervisor. Ok, fine. I can accept that particular answer.

However, one hour after I arrived, a second supervisor came on shift. Now there were three cashier-types. Umm...huh? THEN, another hour later, a second cashier arrived. WTF? THEN, another another hour later, a THIRD supervisor appeared. This means there are FIVE cashier-types, not the two I was led to believe.

So I handed in my letter of resignation. If I'm going to be flat out lied to, I want to make more than $8.75/hour.

*shakes fist*

Folks, a word of advice. Never be honest with your employer. Never say that you're calling in "flood", because they gots NO sympathy. Ironically, I started to feel like total crap about five minutes after I hung up with work. Argh.

The way I see it, I now have carte blanche to have an unbalanced till, and no ass-hat to be left unyelled back at. :D

*whoosh* goes the water.

We've sucked about 100 gallons of water out of our carpet over the last couple of days, and it's still coming in...faster than before.

There's a guy here trying to fix it...the water pressure pushed his industrial grade foam out of the cracks. He keeps looking at it and going, "I've never seen anything like this before." My mom keeps hearing "This is going to be really, really expensive."

Updates as they occur.

Update 8:55 pm: Ok, not 100 gallons. About 180 litres...which is um...180 divided by 4...only 45 gallons. Except that there's probably another 40 L or so in the shop vac again. My back is killing me.

Update 11:05 pm: Looks like the water's stopped coming in for now. Ye gods, what a day.

Update 11:29 pm: Spoke too soon. Since the water got stopped up in the hallway, it's now going under the stairs into the closet, along the cement floor much more quickly than on the carpet, and seeping through the wall that's 5 feet from my bedroom wall. Crap.

Update 12:44 am: Gawdammit. We've put up kitty litter barricades and the water just keeps finding new and innovative ways to circumvent our efforts. We've started making Maginot Line jokes. Flee!!

Update 3:00 am: I'm covered in clay from cleaning up the useless kitty litter. Water's going into another room. I'm exhausted. I've been vacuuming all night. (75 gallons)

Ugh...

I'm having trouble finding the right time to tell my mother about my new business venture. I decided to force the issue by having my kit sent to my house...which meant I'd have to tell her before it arrived.

Now our basement is leaking, so there's not a good time to tell her since she's freaking out about that right now. :(

Heeeeeelp....

Official Advertisement

As I briefly mentioned, I was thinking about becoming a home party consultant for lotions and potions (lubes and bath stuff etc.) as well as a tasteful selection of sex toys (not my first choice...I'd rather there was more with the leather and latex m'self). Last night I stepped off the pier into the water and now I'm starting to swim.

So, here's the deal. I now am officially a consultant. Go me!! Soooooo... Valentine's Day is coming up. Would anyone like to host a sex toy party? There's good hostess rewards and I'm a really fun speaker. Also, if you're considering becoming a consultant, you can talk to me about it as well. I do co-ed or all female (or all male, I suppose, but that's not usually the way it works) parties and my schedule is currently COMPLETELY EMPTY for the time slots that I'd be running parties. This will (hopefully) change as of tonight, since I've already got some party leads.

Next time, I'm skipping the drama and going straight to the hot chocolate.

The fast version: Friendship saved. Ye gods, what a day.

I was totally messed up last night and "made" Dave drive me home and stay with me all night...which meant I didn't get much sleep. (not in that way. I don't sleep well when there's an extra body in the area.) We woke up early, several times, finally getting me out of bed around 1 or so (read: 2 or 2:30)...when we'd hoped to start getting stuff done earlier.

Here's our original hoped for schedule...
1130: Leave Coquitlam so I could pick up my car.
1200: Get my car in Burnaby so that I could run errands.
1230-4: Go to Best Buy (Coquitlam) to return stuff, get my car insured, iron my uniform.
430-630: karate
930: try to make friendship happen again.
later: sleep the sleep of the dead.

Here's what really happened...
1200: kind of wake up.
1230: totally not awake.
130: finally awake-ish
200: actually awake
300: pick up stuff from my car (car registration and stuff to return) in Burnaby and iron my uniform at Dave's. We leave in Dave's car because I'm still too messed up from last night's badness to drive.
330: back in Coquitlam to insure my car. It closes at 5, so I'm fine. But then... "What do you mean I need to get my car air-cared?!" AirCare also closes at 5. CRAP.
400: BACK in Burnaby to pick up my car to get it AirCared, in...you guessed it...COQUITLAM.
430: Finished AirCare, off to the insurance guys to get the insurance done. (incidentally, this guy was a saint. He gave me a sticker and told me to get the AirCare done and he'd do the money thing over the phone and I could come in on Monday to sign all the papers.)
445: We make it to the insurance place so that I can sign the papers (it was supposed to [and did] snow tonight, so Dave figured it'd be a good idea to have everything totally by the book.)
500: I'm not going to make it to karate. DAMMIT. Two weeks in a row.
530: We go to Best Buy. I was told that I had until the 15th to return stuff. Apparently it was the 10th. Today is the 15th. Crap. After a hassle, they told us that we couldn't have store credit, but we could exchange the merchandise for other merchandise, but we had to spend it all today. *rolls eyes* Okay... :p So I got some stuff for my Rio. YAY, STUFF!! And a bunch of other stuff. (I was returning a $115 item...so there was much stuff to be had.)

So, now Dave's out in Coquitlam. His car is in Burnaby. This was happening a lot today. To make a long story short (TOO LATE), we went back to his place and chilled out looking at sex toy companies to decide which (if any) I would become a consultant for.

Then I went and successfully mended fences with my friend. Over hot chocolate at Starbucks. GO TRY THEIR CRAZY NEW HOT CHOCOLATE. Get dipping cookies with it (two for each person) and water. Lots of water. Then wash it all down with regular hot chocolate, but get peppermint syrup in it. Holy. Crap. I'd never thought I could ever be chocolated out, especially from hot chocolates, but oh, my. I don't think I'll be able to have any chocolate for at LEAST...six hours or so. ;)

Ok, I'm tired. And I have a right to be. So there. :p And I just bashed my hand on the corner of my computer desk. Ouch.

A new experience

I think that tonight I may have destroyed one of my oldest friendships.

There's too much going on in my head right now. I feel oddly detatched from everything. I'm glad I don't have a bottle of something alcoholic in front of me right now because I would probably drain the whole thing.

Business Opportunity

Question for y'all. After going to the Everything to do With Sex Show last night, I came to the conclusion that I'd make a pretty kick-ass sex toy party representative. Anyone disagree with me? Anyone interested in booking a party? *looks in Donna's general direction*

For those of you who would rather not think of me and sex toys in the same universe, please pretend that the above several lines had to do with Dave and I going to see Elektra this evening. Ignore the critics...it's a good movie.

Ok, that's all. Comments in the comments section. You know how it works. ;)

unmotivation

I don't have much motivation to do anything these days. Several things I've been putting off involve me making money...so it's not like I don't have extrinsic motivation... but I just don't feel like doing anything. :p Dave posted about not being motivated as well. I guess it's a weather thing.

Although it's been sunny lately! Yay!

*rereads post* Ye gods. Could I BE any more boring? Uh...wait. Don't answer that unless it's a happy thought. :)

Sholy snit!

"It snows every winter in Vancouver, and every winter Vancouver is COMPLETELY SURPRISED by this."

Too true. Too true, I says.

This year, my dear papa is in Mexico (c'mon say it with me. MEHHHHEEEECO) and so I shoveled snow for the first time in a couple of years. Luckily it was fairly dry and powdery, so I got the (very steep) driveway cleared in about ten minutes, then did the steps, a path to the front door and the sidewalk in front of our house and our neighbour's house (they are also in Meheeeco.) in about another fifteen minutes. I got back to the driveway, and was horrified to see that it had almost a centimeter of snow on it. DAMMIT. Now I know how Sisyphus felt. Except that Sisyphus doesn't have a brother whose turn it is to shovel the driveway later tonight.

That's the same kind of hat I make!! Now I need to make me a red one!


Which Family Guy character are you?

This is a post for the person who complained that there was no post yet today.

I feel yucky in my tummy. And my throat. :(

Mushy

I'm sitting here blushing as Dave listens to the following song right now...

Where have all the good men gone
And where are all the gods?
Where's the street-wise Hercules
To fight the rising odds?
Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed?
Late at night I toss and turn and dream
of what I need

[Chorus]

I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night
He's gotta be strong
And he's gotta be fast
And he's gotta be fresh from the fight
I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light
He's gotta be sure
And it's gotta be soon
And he's gotta be larger than life

Somewhere after midnight
In my wildest fantasy
Somewhere just beyond my reach
There's someone reaching back for me
Racing on the thunder end rising with the heat
It's gonna take a superman to sweep me off my feet

[Chorus]

Up where the mountains meet the heavens above
Out where the lightning splits the sea
I would swear that there's someone somewhere
Watching me

Through the wind end the chill and the rain
And the storm and the flood
I can feel his approach
Like the fire in my blood


Yeah...mushy. Sorry.

Thinking:

I think my Weather Pixie is broken. I don't know too many people who voluntarily go out in -5 C weather in a turtleneck.

ARGH

Based on my knowledge of my car-phobia, and seeing the snow coming down like crazy for the last two hours, I made the decision that I wouldn't go to karate. I really didn't feel comfortable driving in those conditions. Now, I look outside, and it's cleared up with only a few flakes to be seen. DAMMIT! I'm so annoyed with myself. I was planning on training for the two hours that I would have been at karate, so I'll still do that.

I REALLY need to work on this "fear of the elements while driving" thing that I've got going on. :( I'm not impressed with myself at all right now.

So Dave and I stopped at a bookstore in Chilliwack on our way to Harrison Hot Springs. They had a lot of free things to pick up by the door, and one of them was How to be well-read: Fifty books you must be acquainted with to make the grade by Siri Agrell. Here they are for your benefit in no particular order.

Bold means I've read it, italics means I want to read it, underlined means I own it but haven't gotten around to it yet.

1. The Tin Drum - Günter Grass, Germany



2. Krapp's Last Tape - Samuel Beckett, Ireland



3. The Stranger - Albert Camus, France



4. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad, England



5. Inferno - Dante Alighieri, Italy
Actually, I want to read the whole thing.


6. Bleak House - Charles Dickens, England



7. The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Russia



8. The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner, United States



9. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Márquez, Columbia
I've read "1000 Years of Solitude"


10. The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway, United States



11. Dubliners - James Joyce, Ireland



12. Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka, Bohemia



13. The Time and the Place - Naguib Mahfouz, Egypt



14. Moby-Dick - Hermal Melville, United States



15. Beloved - Toni Morrison, United States



16. 1984 - George Orwell, England



17. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie, India/Britain



18. King Lear - William Shakespeare, England
As an English major, perhaps I shouldn't come out of the closet here, but I HATESES Shakespeare. >:( I managed to go through an entire English degree and only have to read Romeo and Juliet (three times...once in high school, twice for classes) and MacBeth (high school)


19. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy, Russia



20. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain, United States



21. Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman, United States



22. To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf, England



23. The Red and the Black - Stendhal, France



24. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov, United States
God, I wish I hadn't. What a horrible, horrible book. *shudder*


25. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald, United States



26. The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger, United States



27. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller, United States



28. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood, Canada
It's so good. I love it. And not just because it's Canadian, or feminist, or science fiction-esque.


29. On the Road - Jack Kerouac, United States



30. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath, United States



31. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck, United States
I've read a bit of Steinbeck, and I have a book of his about King Arthur, but never read this one.


32. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee, United States



33. Heartbreak House - George Bernard Shaw, Ireland



34. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde, Ireland
Wicked good book.


35. A Clockword Orange - Anthony Burgess, England



36. The Glass Bead Game - Hermann Hesse, Switzerland



37. The Awakening - Kate Chopin, United States



38. The Color Purple - Alice Walker, United States



39. One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey, United States



40. Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller, United States
Tis supposed to be filthy. I'm interested. :)


41. Naked Lunch - William S. Burroughs, United States



42. Howl - Allen Ginsberg, United States



43. The Waste Land - T.S. Eliot, England



44. Gravity's Raindow - Thomas Pynchon, United States



45. Slaughterhouse Five or the Children's Crusade - Kurt Vonnegut, United States



46. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen, England
I've never had any urge to read Jane Austen. I probably should.


47. Lord of the Flies - William Golding, England



48. Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes, Spain



49. Collected Poems - Robert Frost, United States
Of course, I've read some of his stuff, but I really should read the rest. Is it a bad thing that sometimes I get Robert Frost and Robert Burns' poems mixed up? *blush*


50. Barney's Version - Mordecai Richler, Canada

*haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate*

I had my rant all ready and then blogger fried it. EVEN MORE HATE!

I loathe TeenageGirls(tm). Understand first that I know several girls of teen age, and of course I was of the ages of 13-19 for pretty much seven years, so I'm not talking about teens in general. What I hate is the plastic, prissy, arrogant, obnoxious girls like the ones in Tim Hortons today who got the cashier to recite everything that he'd ever eaten there and then decide not to order.

While we're on the subject of hate, this is aimed towards the jackass who came into the store today, asked me about something, then interrupted me with "Bullshit!" Dude, go get a penis extension or something and don't irritate the cashier, mmmmkay?

Stolen from lots.

It's Delurking Day!

So if you read this site, even if you comment already, leave a comment! I wanna know who reads me. :)

Not a haircut entry...

...it's worse! It's a fingernail cut entry!

So, I bite my nails. I've been doing much better lately, and I haven't had either Ultimate (frisbees tend to snap fingernails like crazy) or karate (very very bad dojo ettiquette to have fingernails that might cut or snag someone...not to mention if they get snagged on the tatami. OUCH.) so I've actually had some. I needed to cut my nails today. Crazy.

*siiiigh* :D

*big stooopid grin*

Every time I think that I can't love my man any more, he goes out of his way to completely disprove me.

Happy Birthday Dave!!

And I should probably go to bed so that I can actually be conscious when I see you all day. :)

Whoa. All techie...

I fixed our internet. Not even the guy from Telus could do it. Of course, it was because there were hardware power difficulties...aka, someone knocked the power cord out of the router. *grumble*

However! *I* was the one who fixed it! Much proudness.

In other news...I started packing today. Well, I supposed it was yesterday, but whatever. I don't have an apartment yet, but I'm getting stuff organized that I won't need until I get into my new place. Current date appears to be March 1st, so I'll need to start looking...oooh... this week...

Of cramps and sleeplessness

Yesterday was spent recovering from a non-alcohol fueled New Years Eve. I managed to get Kit hooked on Alias, which we watched until 4 am or so then talked until 630. I slept until 1:30, then crashed again after lunch and more Alias from about 4-7:30. All this sleeping meant that I wouldn't get to sleep again until nearly 5:30 this morning. I only slept until noon, so hopefully I'll have my sleep schedule back on track for going back to work on Tuesday. One of the happy side effects of not knowing what time it was at any point was that I could go to the field with Dave at 9 pm to toss around his new discs that light up. Much fun with LEDs!

Part of the reason I couldn't sleep was a horrible pain in my left leg from my ankle to above my knee. I know that I'm supposed to ice horrible pains, but instead I used the Magic Bags that Jen, Dave's sister, got me for Christmas. Hey, it is FREEZING in my basement. My toes are still cold. Thanks Jen! They work awesome.

Ok, that's it. Except for the MP3 player update. Currently I have over 45 hours of music on it, and I've used less than 25% of the memory. I loves me my Rio.

My dad sent me this, and I thought it was amusing enough to post. 

Happy New Year.

I think one of the best things about this new year has already happened...I reconnected with my best friend like we hadn't since we were 11 or so...but it's even better now. :)

It can only get better from here.

PS look for the obligatory year in review post.

PPS due to the power of dooce, I'm waiting for my overload of celebrity to come to me from no name yet. ;)