::alio!::

Playing God a Little Bit

It's a crime to wake up this early on a Saturday.

But alas, I'm opening the store today, and I have to be there in 25 minutes. I also get to spend the day with a woman who is very selfish and 8 months pregnant. There are no other staff who can help me today.

What a week!

In addition to fielding response from Monday's tragedy, we didn't get a single order in until Thursday and Friday, when we got all of them - and Thursday and Friday are our busiest days, which is why we ask for the orders to be delivered Monday and Tuesday. So last night I did nearly three thousand dollars worth of sales AND processed three huge orders. Yippee.

AND

There was this dog, a Coton de Tuleres (basically looks like a cotton ball), that I had to work hard to convince the owner that it needed grooming for the summer. And I finally convince him and then the dratted dog has an anxiety attack on the grooming table, asphyxiates itself, and goes into cardiac arrest. Amanda and Darby performed CPR and brought her back, but it was an interesting start to a very long day.

Today will be even longer, but at least I get tomorrow off.

Superman Monty

It's been a sad and stressful day.

Monty the Bulldog died tragically last night and so the staff at work is distraught. We told Lynne and Eric not to come in for the rest of the week so they can recover from the shock. It really sucks because we were going to have his birthday party next week. Amanda and I even replaced Lynne and Eldar at the Smug Pug Picnic tonight - it wouldn't have been a fun party for anyone concerned.

I did get a nice picture of George, the star of the party:

The hardest part will be telling everyone connected to the store about what happened - it's just so shocking. Children would come in day after day just in case Monty was around so they could pet him - it's hard to believe he's gone - and I only knew him for three months.

Amanda and I will be covering for the other staff the rest of the week, which means my ten-day straight work week will now be thirteen days straight (I get Canada Day off). I am very much looking forward to my next day off. I have so much furniture to refinish!

Temporary Update

The world is conspiring against me on my ONE DAY to sleep in, so I'm sitting here trying to gather my thoughts before I settle down and do my accounts for the past week - they're not going to be pretty.

Anyway, I survived Westfest and the days that followed, but I was more than ready for a vacation. Camping was good, although if we'd planned it better we wouldn't have gone so far for such a short time. Grundy Lake is about halfway between Parry Sound and Sudbury, so it's about 6-7 hours there and another hour or so for groceries.

As usual, our trip was fraught with difficulty. On the first day, we were driving to get groceries and a bird committed suicide on Andy's side of the windshield. Luckily only the bird was injured, but we took it as an omen.

The next day, we were driving to Parry Sound and Andy witnessed a near head-on collision in his rear-view mirror. We stopped to see if we could help the victims, who were luckily uninjured, but slightly hysterical, and then we stood by the side of the highway in the blistering sun for 2 hours to wait to give a witness statement. Unfortunately, the police officer who knew who we were had left after an hour, and the rest of the people there seemed to think we were with the perpetrator. It would have been all right except we both got horribly sunburnt and I was rather hungover, having had a mishap with a tetrapack bottle of wine the night before.

The day after THAT, we (I) decided that the Big Nickel was something that needed to be seen. But when we got to Sudbury, we discovered it had been MOVED and we couldn't find it. So we bought some champagne to celebrate my graduation (which had been on the Friday), and trundled back down Hwy 69, admiring the rock formations.

Finally, Saturday, we were all set to sit and enjoy the night with our champagne, when it POURED rain. We knew it was coming, and had everything put away and tarped up tight, but the sound of sheets of rain crashing down on the top of the tent and the thunder hitting above us and then rolling around the valley for an interminable amount of time was a little stressful. Once we passed through the eye of the storm things calmed down a little and we were able to sleep, but it was a damp morning as we packed up.

Other than that, the trip was lovely. Our site was right on the beach, and the water was divine. I could only get Mr. "Aquaphobic" Pie to swim once, but it was worth it.

So now? I'm on day three of my ten-day work week. I also need to refinish some furniture and carry on with my busy social schedule somehow in the middle of it. When it's done I really need to start picking out paint chips and packing. Moving day is coming up much faster than I had anticipated.

There are peonies on my desk.

This is our place. The colouring is to try to match paint to the garishly coloured fixtures we have. Yes, the two bathrooms are turquoise and pink. Yes.

Official Post-Game Post

I actually watched the game last night - well, most of it. I was packing up my best china for moving, so my attention was mostly on that. I turned the television off after the second intermission, because I knew it was going to get worse.

Our boys had a bad series, there's no denying it. And the best team did actually win - it just wasn't Ottawa's team.

But you know what? It's a cliche, but there's always next year. And this year! What a year! Ottawa went from having no chance of even making the playoffs to playing in the Stanley Cup Final for the first time in modern history. Only one team out of 30 can win the Cup. I think in this case coming in with a silver medal is pretty damned impressive. You really can't label them as chokers any more.

And they'll get there some day.

welcome to the big time

So we signed the lease last night. Our official move-in date is 15 July. Early, I know. I need to get cracking on a bunch of things.

I didn't take an exterior photo last night because it was raining, so you will have to wait to come and see it to appreciate the true Italianess of the whole thing.

However, I did take some better pictures of the inside. You can see them labelled as "Home Sweet Home" in my "Home Sweet Home" photo set.

Now, I want you all to be aware that when I move in there, I'm going to be incredibly impoverished. I make enough each month to afford rent, bills, and food, and I'll have maybe $200 left over to go into my line of credit. So I don't plan on going out much. However, if you bring the alcohol, I will cook for you, and we have a futon, a sofabed, and another couch that you can sleep on. Come and stay with me! It will be like going on a little trip!

In other news, I'm not sure I want to watch the game tonight. It's unlikely that they'll win, and I don't want to see another team hoist the Cup. And if they do win, it will be very stressful for me.

Also, is it bad of me to say that I'm tired of hockey when the most exciting thing that has ever happened to Ottawa hockey is going on right now?

My personal hockey season got extended by a month to the end of April, and by the 29th, I was more than ready to quit for the year. There's something strange about arriving for a game on ice dressed in shorts and flip flops.

Then this hockey season gets extended for a month after it normally ends, and I find that the weather and all the things I have going on in my life makes it extremely hard for me to get into this thing, Stanley Cup or no. And in this case, likely no.

daily inanities

Just so's none of y'all believes I really did get sucked into the Facebook void . . .

I was *supposed* to go to the LaChute flea market today. It's only open on Tuesdays, and I took the day off for it. BUT THEN my parents decided it was going to rain, so we didn't go. And it hasn't rained.

Poo.

So I began the monumental herculean task of refinishing my furniture. I have a kitchen table, two end tables, a massive coffee table and a chest of drawers to do before August (I did the feet for the table today - stripped and mostly sanded). Plus doing transcriptions on the side for Matt. Plus work and filling in for Pam when she leaves this week to have a baby. Plus moving and painting and learning how to cook for a diabetic.

But am I really me if I don't have too many things to do? Honestly.

As far as the apartment goes, Pie and I are going to sign the lease tonight (I hope they don't ask for first and last tonight, because I don't got it), and take some measurements and the like. I will also take some better pictures for you so you can see what it really looks like. The ones I took before were more just to give us an idea of the features it has. What a weird place it is . . . Incidentally, if anyone knows where I can get some enormous area rugs for cheap, lemme know.

Work? Well, work's great. I'm a little tired of humping dog food up and down a set of rickety stairs, but I can deal with that. I'm going to be putting in a lot of overtime this month. Westfest (yes, the very same event I posted on Facebook) is this weekend, and I'll be right in the middle of it with my store. You should come down and see it - it should be fun. Did I mention it was free?

After I come back from camping (next weekend!) I'll be working for ten days straight. That's going to suck muchly, but I can deal with that as well.

And that's about it.

So here's my question to you (perhaps a Catholic could answer this one):

The Pope, right? Benedict? Did he officially give up his real name when he became Pope? Was there a legal name change involved? Because you don't really retire from being the Pope - you're Pope until you die - so there's not going to be a name-change back.

And when he's talking to people who don't call him Your Holiness, do they call him Benedict? Does he sign his letters to friends Benedict? Or whatever his real name used to be?

And what's his last name? Pope?

Think on that for a spell.

HOORAH

We got the apartment! The Italian place, otherwise known in my flickr files as "Potential Apartment 239."

WHEEEEE!