Easter Contradiction

The Saturday night/Sunday morning flip. I've been familiar with this since drinking age kicked in and I was still a regular church goer. Now, I am only a C&E (a term I learned this weekend which means Christmas & Easter churchgoer) but I still have the ability to make the switch pretty successfully.

This past Saturday night I hit up the club with my two favourite dancing boys (honestly, guys, it's like watching a show with you two sometimes - I love it) and stayed out late - a night complete with accidentally terrorizing the elderly in their homes, devouring Brie, rockin' it in wool socks at Metro and ending up at Koi.

The following Sunday morning, a mere four hours later, I was gussied up in my Sunday finest to attend Easter church with my family. With my headache pounding and the blasted sun shining through my shades, I was still in fine form, having mastered the switch. Although, my skills must be slipping, because while my parents went for tea and conversation after the service, I retreated to the car to wait out the nausea.

It struck me halfway through the hymns that while I was singing by memory the words to "He Is Risen" and "Alleluia" that morning, I had been bustin' out a wicked version of "I Wanna F*#k You" and "Gold Digger" the night before. Huh.

All in all, my weekend had the best of both worlds. One included street meat and greasy 3am pizza and the other provided me with not one, but two, ham and scalloped potato dinners. Eating post-bar has a fend-for-yourself mentality - apparently Hamilton bar-adjacent restaurants run out of 'za. Or maybe they're just tired of dealing with drunks at 3:30 in the morning. Huh.

Eating at Grandma's also has that mentality though, since they manage to consume an entire meal in about 7 minutes flat. Before your fork is down, the table is cleared and dessert is plated in front of you. How do older people do that? What's the rush? After dinner, I realized what the rush is - the weather channel loop for their neighbourhood. If they miss it, they have to wait another 15 minutes.

India Alfredo

I saw the following news blurb on the City Pulse ticker tape yesterday.

"World's oldest woman turns 115 in L.A. Enjoys extra crispy bacon and sweets."

Is there anything better than that?

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Double dose of trivia this week, but only a single serving of victory pie.
Monday night, Kevin and I won, against all odds. Well, against the one obstacle that has been plaguing us in past weeks - the fireplace seats. Whenever we score these comfortable seats that bask in warmth, our trivia scores plummet. The heat turns our brains to mush.

But this week we came out on top, even though we accidentally answered the question:

"Which type of pasta is used the most in North America?"

with the answer:

India.

Yeah. Uh?

I am tired of hearing about:

- Twitter. I barely know what this is, but it's everywhere and super annoying. Yes, I know I write a blog, but if I ever become so self-involved that I think people care what I'm doing every minute of the day, someone stage an intervention.

- Rihanna and Chris Brown.

- Zac Efron

- Recession. Until this actually affects me in a real way, leave me out of it. I've always been thrifty and never really had money so not much is changing for me!

- Michelle Obama's style. Obviously, I adore her, but even I'm getting tired of hearing all about how she wears J. Crew to appeal to the masses and how she's revitalizing the White House. Snore.

- In the same vein, Jason Wu.

- Tax harmonization. Again, if someone would just explain how it will affect me in 15 words or less, that would be great. I may have to cut back on audio books for the blind.

Showin' the love...

Here are some pictures of LG Fashion Week. I think it's safe to say that every single thing you see, was a product of our involvement. We primarily did decor, but also handled walls, layout, signage, tent and of course, mannequin fondling.

Randomness

- Shouldn't these cars be taken out of circulation unless they are actually driven by plain clothes police officers? Every time I see them I immediately ease up on the gas, stop talking on my cell phone (is that actually illegal yet?), and place my hands at 10 and 2. Then as it passes me I see it's actually this lady and I get furious for being unnecessarily cautious.

- The Billot Log is a gem of modern confections. Yes, it's unnaturally pink and I'm not even really that sure what a billot is in this sense, but they are highly delicious. Perhaps, they are the root of my cavities....hmmm. But, whatever negative side effects they possess, it is my professional recommendation that you all try one...at least once.

- The Stag and Doe. We are all familiar with them. If you haven't had the unfortunate experience of attending one, then surely you've heard of their purpose. They are a blatant money grab intended to encourage your friends and family to pay for your wedding expenses.

How about this? If you can't afford to have the wedding you want, why not wait until you can? Why should I be expected to go and throw loonies at a bottle of Jack Daniel's while eating cheese squares and kielbasa while on break from my "shift" at the Crown & Anchor table?

They are always, with no exception, held at a legion hall or a Knights of Columbus hall, require guests to buy tickets, offer cheap drinks (the only upside, except that it's probably you who has to work behind the bar serving them) and people are forced to play games that yield lousy prizes and empty your pockets.

Stop the madness!!

I believe this is the year of the Celebrity Doppelganger Encounter. In the past month alone, I've met:

Nick Cannon

(I asked him to sign my Drumline DVD. Mariah bitch-slapped me.)

Akon

(I asked him to not throw me off the stage. Since he still has charges pending, he obliged.)

Busta Rhymes

(I, uh, asked him, um...oh right, what Martha Stewart is really like.)

The flurry of CDE's that I've had recently is not that uncommon. I've known the following CDs for years.

You know who you are.

Today was my first day off since the blur that was LG Fashion Week and naturally I decided to spend it in the dentist's chair.

Things I hate about the dentist:

- the guilt about not flossing. Dentists do an incredible job of making a grown woman hang her head in embarrassment and admit that she "doesn't floss as much as she should." And we know we can't lie to them, they know! They always know....I think the blood gives it away.

- the blood

- when the dental hygienist wears glasses and you can see your mouth's reflection in her lenses. It adds another dimension when you can not only feel and hear the pain, but see it as well.

- the sharpening of the instruments and the fact that those instruments then go in your mouth.

- the grittiness left behind from the polish. Please. Polish? Give me a break.

- those cardboard pieces they stick in your cheeks for x-rays

- how my eyes water after I've been in the chair a while - it's not crying! It's gravity.

- the bill - this girl has no benefits (well, at least not those accepted by health practitioners) and I was shocked to find out that if I want to fix my 4 cavities (yes, 4, Peek Freans be damned) it will cost me $710!!!! If dentists want patients to floss, try telling them how much if will cost them if they don't! Speak to me in a way I'll hear you. Naturally, I haven't made that appointment yet.

**Does anyone know what exactly happens if cavities are left untreated?**
**More importantly, does anyone have $715 to spare? I'd like a sandwich too, please.**

Things I love about the dentist:

- the little sink beside my chair - how convenient would that be on those mornings of The Great Hangover?

- how the water fills up the cup and then stops right when it should.

- the heavy lead blanket thing they put on top of you when you get x-rays. It's the most action I've seen all week. It's like that Sex and the City Season 6 episode...you know the one.

- free toothbrushes

Today's posts brought to you by....

Alexander MacKenzie

Yes, he is a real person. In fact, he was Canada's second Prime Minister. I did not make him up and yes, he is different from William Lyon MacKenzie King.

I spent two summers working 12 hour shifts at Stelco and it taught me many things. I learned that when steel is red, it will burn any exposed skin. I learned that men are animals, especially when they've been caged up for 20 years among only men. I learned that a measuring tape can provide minutes of fun. But most importantly, I learned the names and order of all our prime ministers.

Go ahead, Kevin, doubt me again...I'll get that veto back if it's the last thing I do.

Crown from Burger King: free with purchase ($5.26) and an embarrassing amount of begging the teenage boy behind the counter. Crown came with a side of nausea and regret after consuming 2 Whopper Juniors.

Crazy Eyes glasses: $2.25 - eyebrow shaping and blue eyeshadow $17.50 extra, but I think worth every penny.

3 vodka cranberries: let's say...$15.00

The ability to look like the Crazy Burger Queen: priceless

I'm at LG Fashion Week this week - it's at Nathan Phillips Square and each day is a 16 hour blur of running furniture around, gulping lattes, ogling fashionistas, flashing VIP passes with the snobby demeanor that is required here, and catching all the shows I can.

I'm extremely exhausted and sore - each day brings a new inexplicable bruise - but am enjoying the chaos. I will post pics and stories once I am able to sleep more than 5 hours - sometime next week.

Read This Book

Obey your friendly neighbourhood librarian - we're not messin' around.

Oh, and speaking of librarians - our internet was down all day today and we had to keep running next door to the Jane and Dundas branch of TPL. Two days before Fashion Week, we're going crazy and not having internet was just not acceptable.

So, I sat down beside a smelly cat woman and started furiously emailing. I was fielding a call when Man Librarian came up, looked at me over his half-glasses, cleared his throat and pointed fiercely to the sign next to me:

Cell Phone Use Prohibited

I hung my head in shame, but not before I shot him a dirty look. I am shaming my degree. Seriously, we librarians are bitchy!

My boss said that the gun shots at Jane and Dundas are louder than my cell phone. Sad, but true.

Blue Mountain education

What I learned this past weekend at Blue Mountain:
1. Putting liquid dish soap in a dishwasher is not a good idea.
2. It is possible to have a great time at a ski resort without actually skiing.
3. I do have a threshold for bacon consumption. This goes against everything I thought I knew about myself. Serious reflection required.
4. People do not think About A Boy or Little Miss Sunshine are good movies to watch....ever.
5. Pouring bacon grease into a garbage will apparently start a grease fire.
6. Playing Jenga still makes me anxious.
7. Cougars can swim in hot tubs.
8. I hate jujubes - especially offered by aforementioned cougars.
9. A deal breaker for me is if a person says "Fuckin' eh!"
10. Or has his name tattooed on his back.
11.Watching a girl fight is highly entertaining until one of the gang members starts coming your way.
12.I can put on my makeup in the dark or while inebriated. I didn't look half bad - the boys weren't complaining! (Nick Cannon, I'm talking to you.)


What I did not learn this past weekend at Blue Mountain:
1. How exactly the grease fire starts - how does it ignite?
2. How to extinguish a grease fire without water.
3. Why I often wake up more bruised than the day before.
4. How to ensure I have enough milk for the sponge-like Frosted Mini Wheats.

Overall, I think it was a great learning experience.

Cheeky on the rocks, please.

Ok, I've just spent the last 10 minutes trying to find out how to throw a screen shot into this post. Whatever, you can see it here if you really want to.

http://gibsonsfinest.ca/thehouse/

I just saw this billboard downtown on my way home from trivia. It made me do a double take.
Is this inappropriate? I think it's cheeky and I'm sure someone will get up in arms over it.

It reminds me of the time my mother called....someone? The city? The FCC? The company? I have no idea who she called to complain, but she did about a billboard with a girl dressed suggestively wearing red lipstick and red heels. She was a little too Lady of the Night for the intersection of Main and Dundurn.

I bought the jeans she was wearing.

You've come a long way, baby?

My job is a contradiction. Some days I get to dress up, go to fancy A-list parties, get VIP access and hobnob with celebrities (by this I mean, shake Rainn Wilson's hand, ride in an elevator with Flo Rida - the whole time looking at my feet because I wasn't certain that's who he was - and make sure Diddy/Puffy/Daddy/Combs gets his Moonlit Mist candle in his green room). Other days, and actually most days, I find myself in the most peculiar of situations.

I'm often required to drive a 16-foot cube truck around town, toting anything from lion statues, chandeliers, and carpets to Christmas trees, couches and migrant workers. I end up at construction sites, garages that pose as storefronts for velour drapes, but really house an intricate pirate community (you know who you are), the Home Depot lumber yard, a field in Strathroy in search of a 350lb statue named Xenia (saucy minx), various car dealerships and countless loading docks.

As a tall, slight brunette who enjoys wearing sunglasses anytime between the hours of 8am and 8pm regardless of weather and who has a penchance for high heels, I fear I am often 'misunderstood' by the people I come across at work. Sure, I can pretend that I fit in at the party with Lindsay Lohan and Thelma Houston (although, who am I kidding? I don't at all), but I stick out like a sore thumb with a sapphire ring on it at the stockyards and construction zones.

Everyone knows it's a man's world, but it's never more clear than when you are the only female in sight trying to pretend you belong there. I've learned you have to buck up, look them straight in the eye (through the sunglasses if possible) and convince them that, you too, can drive this scissor lift, thank you very much! I am fully capable of lifting these ________ (insert heavy piece of furniture, slate piece or migrant worker here). I don't need your help one bit! Oh, but could you pleeease get the door for me?

Other times, (Sexual Revolution be damned!) it helps to act as clueless as they interpret and expect you to be and perhaps even flirt a little (this may require the removal of sunglasses). I don't condone this behaviour as the ideal way of handling it, but I'll admit, when I turn on the doe eyes and shrug my shoulders, I can usually get the gruffest of men to help me out.

Except for that one time that I hit this guy's car while backing up my huge cube truck. Hello? Can't he hear the incessant reverse beeping? And besides, I'm just a helpless young girl, too delicate to be put in charge of this big machine...

Bitter. B-I-T-T-E-R. Bitter

There are several things I am good at: alphabetizing quickly, peeling carrots, driving while eating/reading/sleeping, printing neatly, remembering your name if I only met you once and didn't really like you, avoiding exercise, making a Cosmopolitan (kinda), and drawing eye balls, but only the left one.

Another thing I think I'm quite adept at is spelling. I actually love spelling and grammar and nothing makes me happier than finding an error in a restaurant menu. Sure, I'm not perfect, I know, but I'm pretty good.

So, perhaps you can imagine my anger and disappointment when I lost an important trivia question about spelling. The question was required spelling and the word was about spelling!!! Double whammy.

I am a trivia addict. It's a serious addiction that I share with my trivia other half, Kevin. We're both pretty good and make a great team as we both know random stuff the other doesn't. Plus, we both like to play geography flash card games. I don't know why no one else wants to play.

Kevin and I have a veto between us. At any point, whoever has the veto can use it to challenge the other's answer. I have had the veto power for about a year and a half. I use it very sparingly. Last night, one of the questions was: "How many 'S's are there in the word misspells?"

I was convinced the answer was 2. I mean, look at it, which looks right to you?

- mispells
- misspells

Whatever. I used my veto confidently. When the answer proved to be 3, Kevin was elated. Seriously, the guy had glee all over his face and kept rubbing his hands together in a maniacal way. He now has veto power. And I have nothing....but shame.

I am pissed! Seriously, so angry. Yes, I am aware that it's only trivia and by nature, is meant to be trivial, but come on!!

I need to get the veto power back. It's all about hand. I need hand!

I hate you Absolut Five. And here are the five reasons why:
1. You do not taste like Pear, Peach, Mandarin, Citron or Raspberry. You taste like tears, shame, nausea, fear and loathing.
2. You are way more than an actual shot. Drinking one of you is like guzzling water after finishing a half marathon....at least I imagine that's what happens, never having run a half marathon. Yet.
3. You make me feel like a giant with your tiny replica of a regular bottle. Actually, no, I kind of like that.
4. You make my eyes water.
5. You are the catalyst of my peer pressure. At 27, I still feel it whenever someone hands me one of you. I am devising a plan where I fill you with 7-Up and no one will know.

The dress speaks for itself. However....

My wonderful friend Jen hosted the most fabulous Academy Award party, complete with red carpet, Oscar statues and champagne fountain this past weekend. We were required to come dressed to impress. I interpreted that as "dress to blind" and "dress to strike envy in the hearts of 80s teenagers everywhere".

I had originally purchased a full lace dress complete with four tiers of ruffles. However, perhaps after consuming too much champagne the night before, I had decided that it was too awesome and potentially wearable to don for the party. So, I ventured into my mother's pageant wardrobe from two decades ago. My beautiful mother represented Canada in the Mrs. World Pageant in 1987. Yep, that's right. Sash, tiara and all.

The clothes that survived that era made for one hilarious fashion show. They also proved that, alas, my 29 year old mother had a much smaller waist than I have today....at 27. After modelling all the flashiest gowns, I settled on this gold stunner. It was a delicate matter explaining to my mother that I needed the dress so I would be a shoo-in for Best/Worst Dressed.

I decided the best course of action and the way to adhere most closely to the party's theme was to come dressed as an actual Oscar statue.

After sitting in it for 4 hours, a small rash appeared on my chest and arms - a small price to pay for glamour.

Hamilton's Mardi Gras

A couple times each year Hamilton slides into a period of Joaquin Phoenix lunacy when "Roll Up The Rim" saunters into our claim to fame: Tim Horton's. The same thing happens when the No Frills Dollar Days occur. (Pop your blue collar, Hammertown!). Now, occasionally, during some sort of twilight zone of mountain bikes and 25 cent pudding cups, these two momentous events will coincide, sending Hamiltonians into a tailspin of frugality and soggy coffee cup rims.

Such is the case right now in our fair city.

Cars were lined up down the street to get into a No Frills this past weekend and although every Tim Horton's always has a line, people who don't normally drink coffee are ordering up. They're all convinced they will win the Toyota, the wads of cash or a sour cream glazed doughnut.

I'm not knocking bargains and the pursuit of them, believe me. My aunt once won a barbecue during Roll Up The Rim, which she wonderfully gave to us. And I enjoy any glazed confection as much as the next future diabetic, but it's gotten out of control.

All I wanted was to buy a head of Boston Bibb lettuce, at full price, and I ended up getting swept up in the bomb shelter stock-up mentality. I've never even eaten a Hot Pocket before, but I couldn't resist.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tw7xPaL56Ow

I left the store having spent $24.67 on an assortment of brightly coloured boxed items. I was at their mercy and I hate myself for it.

Oh, and I forgot the Bibb lettuce.

The pressure of an email subject

I recently tried to email a guy I went to high school with. He was much more popular than I, despite being a year younger than me. Sad. He now lives in NYC and I was emailing him to suss out the situation there as moving to Manhattan is always in the back of my mind. I thought it was a harmless enough endeavor and that he might have some insight into jobs, apartments, pretzels, etc.

So, I constructed a carefully written email that didn't seem too lame and that didn't pretend that we were once friends (although I had once driven him home - a strange aberration in a non-existent relationship). Then I came to the subject line of the email.

I needed to write something that jogged his memory, indicated that he might actually 'know' me and tell him why I was writing. Basically, I needed something that would make him open the email. After clearly not enough time thinking about it, I came up with this:

Delta Secondary alum - questions about NYC

After I clicked 'Send' I realized this was almost the worst possible subject I could have chosen, short of "Enhance Your Manhood - Naturally" - which actually might have had a better chance of being read. Someone told me it sounds exactly like spam.

Needless to say, it has been a week and he has not written back.

Lessons learned....

Champagne should only be consumed in single glass servings twice a year...max.
Drinking an entire bottle within 60 minutes will cause the following to happen:
- you will convince yourself that singing karaoke to both Nelly Furtado and Captain and Tenille is a great idea
- you will do this in front of a room of strangers at a house party you have just arrived to
- you will spend the following 3 hours on the floor of someone's bathroom, rueing the day you allowed yourself to buy into the sampling of Two Oceans at the LCBO
- you will remember that the day you are rueing was actually only two hours ago
- your own mother will comment the following day: "Uh, Melissa....you look really rough" Whatever happened to "a face only a mother could love"?
- you will have to apologize to aforementioned house party host and promise never to return

I vow I will never see the bottom of an empty champagne bottle again. For the rest of the month.