Hubby Will Never, Ever...

...let us come back to Grand Forks on vacation. Ever again.

Three years ago when we were here for a few days of shopping, we passed by the "Pets-R-Inn" store in the Columbia Mall. Big mistake. There through the shop's front window, we fell in love with a little black kitten in a matter of seconds.

Needless to say, "Dakotah" soon joined our family, along with our other cat Sheba and our dog Casey.

So when we came back to North Dakota this year for another shopping vacation, the first words out of hubby's mouth was "And NO more cats!"

Daughter and I laughed.... of course not! We were there to get her some back-to-school clothes and a few goodies we can't get in Canada. We weren't there for more pets! What a silly thing to say!

Ummmm... until we made the mistake to yet again pass by the "Pets-R-Inn" store.

Say hello to our third (yes, THIRD) cat "Tawnee":

I AM Trying... Really I Am...

... to create some "Family Time" whenever possible.

Now that I have a laptop with wireless, I don't have to blog or surf alone in my home office anymore. So I join hubby (and sometimes even daughter, on the rare occasion when she is home and ventures out of her room) in our living room to spend some time together most days. I share news, funny posts or wacky videos with them.

But there is a definite downside to this newfound freedom. Even though I try to concentrate on reading or writing, I can't help but be distracted by the television.... my husband's favorite thing in the whole wide world; the box that all our furniture is pointed to.

Distracted because he can never watch just one show at a time. He is, at this very moment, watching not one, not two, but three movies at once. Yup. Three.

Back and forth.

Every commercial break.

I wouldn't mind so much if I actually liked even one of them (okay maybe that would bug me even more). Tonight one slime-splattered movie's description included the phrase "patrons being terrorized by a marauding pack of blood thirsty monsters."

Wonderful.

Oh, and if the commercial breaks are synchronized?

He flips through EVERY frickin' channel up and down the dial... hunting for yet more things to watch, or to mentally record when these same movies will be re-broadcast later on tonight. I call it his "Five Second Show".... that is all we get to see at a time.

Well, at least this afternoon I got to watch the movie "Elizabeth" starring Cate Blanchett. "We can learn something", I thought. "Acquire some culture for a change."


But yay and verilly, it was apparent I was thine only royal subject absorbing culture and historical knowledge.

As soon as I left during a break to check on the laundry, hubby swifty chnaged the channel to the "Hooter's Swimsuit Pagent".

So much for Family Time.

I'm heading back to my home office now...

And It's Not Even Halloween Yet

Get me a clove of garlic, a wooden stake and a crucifix.

Hubby was bitten by a bat yesterday.

Yup. A bat.

This is something that I have NEVER seen up here. But there they were. A few of them, hiding in a pile of wood at his work. He disturbed it by accident when he was moving the four-by-fours, and said it was kinda cute. Luckily, the tiny thing didn't puncture his skin.


But just to be on the safe side, I think I'll get a mirror and make sure he still projects a reflection...

Downs And Ups

As I mentioned in a previous post, I seem to have an uncanny knack of things evening out in my life.

It happened again.

Yesterday my greedy Angelica catfish, in a grand imitation of Bruce the shark from "Jaws", devoured $ 10 worth of brand new Neons (little tropical fish, not the cars...) For the gory details, see my previous post below.

Well, after work today while walking through the parkade, I happened to look down (okay.... actually, I constantly look down when I walk - a bad habit of mine) and I spotted this:


So I pick it up and come to slow understanding that it is, in fact, real money.

Holy crap.

So what do I do? For some reason, looking a bit like an idiot, I hold the money up over my head and slowly perform a 360, surveying the deserted parkade. Just a couple of cars remain, but not a soul is in sight. Now I really had no idea what to do.

Do I wave it around, yelling "Um, has anyone lost twenty dollars?"

"Anyone?"

Yeah. Right. Even if I did, no one was around to hear me. And what would I have done if someone came along and said it was thiers? Do I ask them to recite the serial number as proof?

After ensuring that it wasn't some little old lady's grocery money, I decide to pocket it... but my hands were shaking (guilt, I guess). I definitely would have (and have in the past, actually) returned it to it's previous owner if I had seen it drop, but there it was, slowly flapping in the breeze near my car.

Just waiting for me to pick it up and buy more Neons.

Then again, maybe not.

A Five Course Fish Dinner

And Mother Nature yet again teaches me a hard lesson.

Yesterday, daughter and I headed off to our favorite local petshop... another establishment we are well-known in for our many dog, cat, gecko and fishy needs. I wanted to re-stock our aquarium and it didn't take long before we spotted something we had never seen before: a single male specimen called a "Kribensis". When I asked if he could be added to our 30 gallon tank with 3 Tiger Barbs and a 4" Angelica catfish, the store owner said "No problem... it's an agressive fish, but so are the Barbs. He'll grow to be 3 to 4 inches long."

Perfect.

Next we asked him to catch us five Neon Tetras to create a nice school of flashing blue and red.

They looked so great in our aquarium last night, keeping close together and turning in unison, like a little group of Olympic synchronized swimmers. Even the Kribensis settled in and began to display his bright orange highlights once more.


Then I woke up this morning and checked out our new family members. Happily, I found the Kribensis swimming and poking around the tank.

But where was my school of Neons? I checked behind the plants. I checked behind the rocks. I couldn't find a single one.

And then I saw the Angelica... his distended belly scraping the bottom of the tank.

*Sigh*

Yup, I actually bought a $10 meal for the greedy thing. Not only were the Neons pretty... I guess they were tasty too.

Needless to say, the Angelica cat has been sent to his "room" (his side of the now-segmented tank), while I yell at "Ben" the Kribensis on the other side to "Hurry up and GROW!!!"

I Am Such A Geek

I spent a few days Milwaukee on a business trip this past week. Being one of the very few females there, I felt so out of it. Until I started up all my techno-gadgets, that is. Then I felt better.

In went the iPod earbuds.

Out came the Palm Pilot.

Then while checking my cell phone for messages from home, I booted up my laptop.

Good thing I was there on a computer course. I was surrounded by Geeks.

Each one with their own iPods, Palm Pilots, cell phones and laptops.

So I fit right in.

Yes.

I was ... nay, I AM

Geek Personified.

Oh My

It's late. Very late.

I'm on a business trip in Milwaukee, in my hotel room cringing at the loud music permeating from my neighbor's room. After I can't take any more, I call the Front Desk to ask them to kindly keep it down.

Could it be teenagers? Party-hardy young adults? Or perhaps the local Harley Davidson gang whooping it up?

Worse.

It's SPAH. Yup. Right next door. To me!

I shudder as the music continues... When the heck will that call come to stop the madness?

What? You mean you've never heard of "SPAH"?


Yup. A harmonica convention. Right here in the same hotel I am trying to sleep at. Even though the average age of the participants is about 105, they are a force to be reckoned with.

Literally.

Get a hundred or two of these Senior Harmonica-Players together, and you'd better watch out. They won't budge as you attempt to weave your way through the crowd to your room. They barge in front of you at the buffet. Blue-haired ladies with walkers cut in line at the Front Desk. Old men in suspenders commandeer all the lobby seats proudly displaying their instruments to fellow musicians, breaking into impromptu jam sessions with gusto. They don't care; there's strength in numbers.

They're a wild bunch all right.

Makes me long for the Harley gang.

Noisy Night

1:30 am: I awake to the sound of raindrops splattering on the still-open windows.

As usual, I am the ONLY one to get up in the middle of the night to lock down all means of entry by Mother Nature. In a stupor, the constant flashes of lightning guides me safely down the hallway. Kitchen, dining room, bedrooms. All get locked up tight as the deluge begins in earnest.

I crawl back into bed.

Booming thunder splits the silence and beats in time with the storm's incredible light show.

I try to get back to sleep.

A torrent of rain beats at our north-facing windows. Then the hail comes and I am positive I will soon hear the crash of shattered panes at any moment. The house shakes with the violent gale-force winds.

I still try to get to sleep, but I give in to curiosity and have to watch.

I am out of bed again, peeking out into the storm at it's worst. Lawn furniture has been carried off the patio and into the middle of the yard. Larger recliners have simply slid across the slick deck, smashing into my terra cotta planters. Potted flowers have flown, limbs are ripped from trees and debris is everywhere.


2:30: I finally crawl back to my waterbed as the squall continues.

And the loudest, scariest noise of the entire night was there beside me.

Yup, hubby snoring, oblivious to the entire hurricane roiling around us.

Endeavour Away!

When I was nine, I distinctly remember sitting cross-legged on my parents living room floor, barely inches from our console black and white television set watching grainy images of Neil Armstrong as he proclaimed, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."

I was mesmerized.

My dad even helped me make a diorama of Apollo 11 using a shoebox, plasticine, toothpicks and aluminium foil. I made two little astronauts, the Lunar Module and the moon surface... it was the closest I would ever get to being there myself.

Just like the majority of kids in the 60's, I dreamed of being an astronaut. It didn't matter that I was cursed with severe motion sickness. I couldn't take long car rides, cross high bridges or even sit near the window of a tall building without getting nauseous.

But I wanted to go into space.

Yeah, I would have made a GREAT astronaut alright...

In the 40 years since, I have continued to watch each launch with envy.

So here I sit, still grounded and watching STS118 climb to the stratosphere, wishing I were up there with them.

Lucky for them, I'm not.

God speed, Endeavour.

Prison Break

I used to work with a lady. A very nice lady, really. She was caring, sincere and extremely generous. Her parents had passed on, she never married and had no one to go home to. I guess she considered work her "family". She was there at the break of dawn and stayed till late at night.

I know she was lonely.

I really enjoyed working with her for many years before she retired. Except for one thing: she talked.

And talked.

And talked.

Oh, and did I mention she could talk? A LOT.

About her relatives I had never met. About her frustrations with work. Hell, about ANYTHING.

I tried to be a good person, really I did.

At first I would listen and try to keep up. But it didn't take long until I resigned myself to the fact that I would NEVER be able to figure it all out and found myself simply shaking my head in faux-understanding. I was lost; like some soap-opera I just tuned into, the characters, situations and story were at most times, incomprehensible to me.

And it didn't matter how busy I was; I could never have a short to-the-point phone call from her. Even though I could answer her question in the first 3 seconds, she would drone on and on for 20 minutes about something entirely unrelated... most times a story she told me just the day before.

What was worse was when I would have to go to her office. I would cringe and mentally-prepare myself.

I'd even contemplate escape plans beforehand, like some prisoner at Alcatraz.

If there was a way to page myself, I surely would have done so. "Sorry, but I really have to go; computer-related emergency you know."

But it didn't matter.

She was oblivious to my attempts at closing the conversation. "So, I'd better be off to that important meeting now..." as she kept yammering, me backing away like Richard Kimball dodging the FBI.

My usual escape was the stairway, directly across from her fifth floor office. But even that didn't stop her. As I decended, I would still see her, peering down two flights, STILL talking, talking talking....

The only way to escape her grasp was when some other unsuspecting victim co-worker came by that needed her in some way.

Ah Freedom! Glorious Freedom!

Now that she is retired, I miss her. Really.

And I have about four extra hours a day of work-time to fill.

Workplace Princesses

According to a recent survey, almost half of American workers said there was a "Workplace Princess" at their job site. And 16 percent said that workplace princess was a man.

"We defined this as a co-worker who had a special sense of entitlement or privilege. The study found that 48 percent of these princesses expected special favors from their employers and 35 percent made other people do work for them."

Oh, man, don't get me started.

Oops, too late. Already thinking about the "Princess" here at my office. Oh, yeah, she got that EXACT monniker months ago...

Now, I've seen some unbelievable behaviour in my 28 years of office work, but this one takes the Royal Cake. A physician who thinks she's all that and a bag of chips (fat free, 'o course).

Expects her secretary to drop everything immediately to make Diet Coke runs for her.

Looks you up and down with a smirk of disgust whenever she passes by in her haute couture outfits.

Whines and stomps her Jimmy Choos when she doesn't get her way.

Cancels appointments for a "Code N"...

That's "N" as in Nails. Yup, you read it right.

Nails.

She actually made up the phony paging code to make her secretary arrange "emergency" visits to her manicurist. Screw the patients, she has to look her best.



Methinks one of her slovenly subjects shouldst send forth her majesty that enlightening passage.

Anonymously, o' course...

Proof That Real Life Is NOT Like The Movies

...especially musicals.

Case in point: While heading down the corridor at work today, I was behind an elderly gent who proceeded to sing.

Not just to himself.

Actually, quite loudly in fact.

At the top of his lungs.

While onlookers stared. Open-mouthed.

Now, I know this would not get the same reaction if he were in a movie.

In a musical, the star of the show can suddenly burst into song, no matter where they are... while limber dancers glide in from either side behind them to perform a perfectly-timed musical number proclaiming their love/despair whilst the unseen orchestra belts out the Oscar-hopeful soundtrack.


No one gives THEM the looks this guy got.

Although I was walking behind him, I had no temptation to join in (well, I didn't know the tune, after all...)

Nor did I keep in step and dance my way down the hallway.

But then again, I DO work in a hospital and the fellow had his left hand all bandaged up.

Must have been some great pain killers they gave him...