injury!

my crokinole finger!
It's been chewed to hell by the garage that I've been scraping paint off of. I took skin off the knuckle THREE separate times yesterday. I didn't think much of it until I started my crokinole training session last night. It has a bandaid on it now, because it's stewing in some polysporin goodness right now.

Come on finger, heal quick! How will I become the world champion without you!!?

I live my life in the city, there ain't no easy way out...

So, some of you may be familiar with my crazy trip this summer. I wrote about it here. Anyhow, we're ending our tour with a couple performances at the Montreux Jazz Festival, which is a pretty big deal.

Here's the whole lineup.

You'll notice that this means I'll be at the same festival as:
The Chemical Brothers
Youssou N'Dour
Motorhead
Placebo
The Beastie Boys
John Legend
India Irie
Faithless
Tori Amos
Wilco
Chick Corea
Brad Mehldau
Pat Metheny
Rufus Wainwright
Sly and the Family Stone
Jeff Beck
Medeski, Martin and Wood
Norah Jones
Foreigner (??!)
Van Morrison
The Pet Shop Boys
The B-52s
Seal

And *drumroll*

Wu Tang Clan.

Yes, that's the Rza, the Gza, Ghostface Killah and friends. Yes, I am, in a backwards kind of way, opening for the Wu Tang Clan. We're actually playing the same days as Norah Jones and Foreigner...neither of whom I could care less about, not that I could afford to see them anyhow so it's probably for the best that I don't care. We lowly afternoon bands don't get any free admission or anything to the fancy-ass shows.

Regardless, it's kind of whacked that I'm playing the same festival as those people. I hope that I run into Norah Jones. I'll pretend to be all excited to meet her and then I'll fall asleep mid-conversation (her music makes me sleepy...her name should be Snorah Jones). It would be a jerky, yet awesome, and a great story to tell the grandkids.

"But it, it was contest for children!" - "Yeah, and Homer beat their brains out!" *wild cheers*

As an ode to Microserfs (A book by Douglas Coupland that I actually read once), Michelle posted the Jeopardy! categories that define her. Jason followed suit. Here are mine:

Icelandic Prog Rock
Modern Art
Crokinole
Random Celebrity Gossip
Children's Books
Grammar & Grammar Nazism

This just makes me think about how much I love Jeopardy! It is by far my favourite game show, and I would put it high on my list of top TV shows ever. It's so good. It's the only show that doesn't dick around with tons of commercials and fake suspense and all that. It's all trivia for 30 minutes. And there's none of that multiple choice bullshit. When the boy and I watch it together we're always giving each other these hilarious "how the hell did you know THAT??" faces followed by high fives. I especially like the junior high version, because I always kick their sorry asses. Stupid precocious kids.

pictures of the little monkey.

sooooo...we got the cat.

man, she's cute. The poor thing was on sensory overload, though. Her eyes were huge like saucers all afternoon and her little heart was beating about 1000 times a minute.

Other random cat junk:

1. We were having dinner at the boy's house (where the cat is staying until we move) and because she was kind of exploring and being kind of disruptive climbing peoples' legs at the dinner table and whatnot, Paul put her in the back room where her food and box and stuff are and put up a barrier (probably three feet high). She begins to wail, kitten style. So it was more funny than sad. Mew! Mew! Mew! After a minute she comes running back into the dining room. She figured out a way to scale the three foot barrier. She's like....4 inches high. Crazy cat.

2. She's not smart. You know those doors with glass panels on them? Well she tried to jump through the window not once, not twice but FOUR TIMES. The first time it made a hilarious "donk" noise. The fourth time she tried to body check her whole body through it. Stupid cat.

3. She purrs constantly.

4. She runs around and does kitten stuff like a maniac for a while, and then crashes hard. She'll sleep for like 10 minutes and then go nuts again for the next half hour. She sleeps so soundly though. We trimmed a whole foot's worth of claws and she didn't even wake up. She also sleeps on her back. Like flat out on her back with her paws in front of her face. Cutest thing ever. I think Paul has a picture of that. I'll have to get a copy and I'll post it.

5. I'll put up some more pictures later on. I'm going to take my camera over today, and I'll get the ones Paul took yesterday.

6. Her name is Bootsy Mr.Stinky Crowley-Shannon. I thought the Mr. Stinky thing might get kind of stupid after 5 minutes (I can still call her that though, when it seems appropriate). And even though Bootsy is a funk bass-player, it was my idea, so it seemed like a team effort. Hooray for team efforts.

I once did a stupid online quiz that said the bass player I most resemble is Bootsy Collins. Paul got James Jamerson. And the cat's name isn't James now, is it?

Pictures to come.

Holy crap.

Our cat is the most freaking cute thing I've ever seen. That picture at the top of the last post is ridiculous.

Man, I hope she doesn't turn out to be a jerk.

Introducing:

Mr. Stinky (or perhaps something else, but for right now, that's what she will be called)!



here's dad, playing with one of Mr. Stinky's siblings:


Cats live a long time....scaaaaaaaary.

life update:

sooo...

last Wednesday I decided that if I didn't get a call back from any of the jobs I'd applied for that I would do one of those "we'll hire you immediately" telemarketing jobs for the next six weeks. Luckily it didn't come to that.

So, Thursday everything started falling into place. I got a call from Indigo about a second interview. I also got a call from a friend of my mom's about doing some painting and gardening around her house.

The best thing, though, was that I serendipitously emailed a woman (who is also a library branch manager in Hamilton) whose daughter I tutored for the last couple of years to see if they maybe needed a tutor (perfect job for someone going away at the end of June). She replied that night saying not only that they need a tutor, but that her library needs someone from 9-1 on weekdays to do some busywork for May and June. So, that's perfect because:

1) I don't have to work at Indigo (they offered me the job today, and I turned it down)
2) I can reestablish library references
3) I know my hours every week, which include no evenings, weekends, days before 9 or after 1 (Indigo shifts ranged between 7 am and 11 pm), and are flexible enough that I can take the day off to go to my graduation and the boy's and make up the hours later "if I want"
4) I won't be tempted to spend my miniscule earnings on books
5) I can get there on the Hamilton city bus
6) There's no Starbucks at the library (or nearby) so I won't be tempted to buy Frappucinos every day (they cost almost an hour's wage at Indigo...how crazy is that??)
7) I don't have to lie about the trip, or worry about resigning - I was given the job on the basis that I would be leaving at the end of June. The timing was just a little too perfect.

The downsides are:
1) I have to get up early enough to be at work everyday at 9 am.
2) The pay is still crap.

But I mean, those two things are pretty negligible considering the insane constraints I have on availability and whatnot.

So that's my job update. I went from having no job to turning down jobs and still having three jobs!!

Can I just say that I love that TCBY didn't deem me fit to sell their icy yogurt products?

**********

Look at me and my asterisks. I thought I would divide work stuff and rest of my life stuff. Anyhow, my weekend was craziness, which is why there have been no updates. I hadn't really been home since Friday morning until today, when I savoured my last day of freedom by sitting in my pajamas until I decided to shower at 4 pm.

Friday was my birthday. I'm old now. Well, older. It was a really beautiful day out, and I had a really lovely day. Here's what I did:
1) Interview at Indigo, which went well.
2) Good phone call from Sharon.
3) The boy came over and brought me presents, all of which had something to do with Al Gore or Italy.
4) We went to the Art Gallery of Hamilton and saw their portrait exhibition (that closed yesterday) and some of their permanent collection. It was very nice, and I enjoyed it very much.
5) We enjoyed the fresh air and walked back to my house from downtown.
6) Allison got into town, and she came over and brought me presents. (they were books. people only buy me books now. I like books.)
7) The three of us went out for pre-dinner coffee.
8) We met a bunch of people for Indian Buffet. Ate so much tasty food that I almost exploded. Seriously.
9) Ended the night with some chilled out relaxing and conversing.

good times all around. thanks to everyone who was there, or who sent birthday wishes. It was a very nice day.

The rest of the weekend was a lot of family stuff for mother's day, and I visited my grandparents last night. Joanne (who should send me her blog link) came through Hamilton and we had lunch yesterday, which was very nice, too. There was also a stag and doe in there where I had to yell for like 2 hours straight and from which I am still hoarse.

now I'm sleepy.
I'm off.

my new hair.

EDITED TO ADD: the shiteous before picture. Just for additional effect.

minimum wage slave...?

so, I had an interview at Indigo yesterday. It was a group interview, which was kind of weird because it went sort of like a regular interview except they just went through all 7 of us and asked us to answer the same questions. If they hire me, they're nuts, and if I accept the job I'm nuts. I'll let you know if they offer me a job, and if I accept it. I should know this week.

Anyhow, we had to show up early to fill out a "short" form before the interview. So I get there, and I get the form and I read it over, and sitting there among the standard questions about my best customer service experiences and that is this question:

"In your opinion what were the three most important events of the 20th century?"

My head almost exploded. I mean, that's not a simple question. And there was a TINY space to answer, so I couldn't even explain why I thought what I thought....AND to top it off, I had like a nanosecond to think about it.

So, I kind of cheated. I went with HUGE umbrella things.

I started out with:
1. WW1
2. WW2

And then stopped for a second. Those were two pretty huge events. But what else?

So I put:
3. Women's Movement

I was happy with women's movement. I considered putting "oral contraceptives" on there, but I didn't want the Indigo people to think I was a slut. Oral contraceptives were pretty fricking important in the sexual revolution though....but "women's movement" was adequate.

Now My problem was that I was out of choices! My brain was blank at this point anyhow, but I thought I should maybe think a little harder. This is when my umbrella-ing got REALLY bad. I revised the list:

1. WW1 & WW2
2. Women's Movement

So I had one more space. My mind is blank but racing at the same time. Then I realize that I'm a librarian applying for an $8.35/hr job at Indigo and I put:

3. Arms Race (Cold War)

as my last choice.

After I got home from the interview I thought about that last one. It was pretty brilliant as it encompasses a TON of stuff. JFK's assasination fits nicely in there, as does the moon landing somewhat and the Berlin wall coming down....all HUGE events. In my opinion it's when the "culture of fear" really took off, too, which coincides with the birth of television (also a huge event of the 20th century).

So, I kind of cheated.

I realized shortly afterwards that I left off some pretty important, interesting stuff. I'm going to think about my real answer but I ask you good people:

What were the three more important events of the 20th century?

I bought the black ones.

that second pair in the last post...I found them priced pretty reasonably, so I bought them. I do like them, which is good, and I can definitely see myself wearing them on the trip and in my regular life.

A couple of my other thoughts for today:

1. Even though it will surprise me if Paris Hilton ever spends an actual day in prison, I love that she got sentenced her 45 days. That supposed comment that her mother made about "I can't believe we spent so much money on this (the hearing)" is also gold. I hope she goes to jail. I don't pretend to know famous people just because we see their pictures in magazines and on the internet, BUT, Paris Hilton has made a "career" out of making herself public domain and I'm pretty confident that she's a fucking stupid, spoiled bleeeezatch. And she shouldn't be above the law. So enjoy your time in the slammer, baby.

2. I'm going to see Tosca tonight. Lots of dying, I believe. Should be cool though. I'm excited about it.

3. I need some Honey Nut Cheerios. They're like breakfast AND a snack all rolled into one. And I'm hungry. So I'm out.

I want these.

I may be able to order them from the hypnotist in Westdale (who almost convinced me to buy shoes that didn't even fit me!)....but I would prefer them in black. I don't think they exist in black.



I'm leaning towards a Birkenstock because they seem to be the least hideous "comfort" shoes. And I have 2 months to break them in. The other style I like (and know exists and could go out and buy now) is this:


grrrr.
I don't know.

Thanks for the input though, everyone.

why?

Why are comfortable sandals so freaking hideous?

For my impending birthday my mommy is going to buy me a pair of sandals that I'll be able to walk around Europe in for a month. This is what the one lady at the one store suggested to me:



I mean. Come on. They're horrible. I'm sure they're marvelously comfortable, and great if you're climbing on rocks and wearing them in the water and blah blah blah...but nobody will ever convince me that they're remotely attractive. Horrible. And when I told the woman that I didn't want Keen sandals, she kept telling me to buy them. I DON'T LIKE THEM.

Geez.

So I need to find a shoe that is:
1) good for long days on my feet
2) cool (as in not hot on my feet)
3) Not hideously unattractive!!

Any suggestions?

hmmm.

Whoa. JoJo, the horrendous pop star, is Courtney Love's daughter!




Actually, that's Love and Kurt Cobain's daughter Frances Bean, but the resemblance is eerie no?


Places where I've applied for work:
1. TCBY
2. Old Navy
3. Indigo

I kind of don't want to work at all, but Europe won't pay for itself...unfortunately. Maybe I should plant a twenty dollar bill in the backyard just in case.