In defence of sangria

In response to Peter: I am totally looking forward to Saturday Sangria, I think the missing part is looking forawrd to things like summer vacation and such.

There is a hole in my bucket, dear Liza a hole.

Christine would appreciate it if she had something to look forward to.*

Thank you.

* Please note that Christine acknowledges the need for an individual to be proactive in creating opportunities in his/her own life. She is just feeling a little bit run down at the moment.

The no blogging is as a result of the library

I haven't blogged much lately, and I blame the reading.

I have developed this habit of putting books on hold throught the library system. It started when I discovered that there is a library located right near a subway stop that is routinely on my way to other things (as opposed to the library that is near me, which is actually out of the way of my every day life) . I also found out that the library system will gladly bring books to the library of my choosing! I just go online, ask them to bring a book to my library AND THEY DO IT!!!! As a result of this I have read over 10 books in about three weeks.

I must say that for all the hype and all the people saying, that you have to read it because it will change your life, Eat Pray Love was still a really good read. And the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, also very good.

Odds and Ends

I spent today cleaning and tidying and organizing. Although I did not vacuum. I also listened to a lot of CBC Radio 2. It has yet to let me down. Oh! I also added my Life List to the blog. If I remember correctly it is over there --> ish. I had been meaning to add it for a while, and Ithought I was going to have to bust out my limited knowledge of html, and then blogger was all up ons with a widget for list making! Way to go blogger. The Life List is not complete but it does highlight my desire to learn how to dive. Not just dive once, but actually have the knowledge of how to do it over and over again, even if I haave not done it for awhile. My Dad has patiently spent hours trying to teach me (much like he did with bike riding) but it has not taken. The tricky bit is I refuse to learn in my pool at home, because it specifically says "no diving, shallow water, risk of paralysis" so you know, I'm weird like that.

Sunday Morning

Its Sunday morning and I am Heather's, abusing my unmonitored access to her laptop. She left for work already, I had to stay at the apartment as the subway does not run until after 9 on Sundays. It has been a good morning. There is sunlight, there is quiet and there is cats. And a pretty laptop. I feel like I am on vacation in Heather's life.

Book Club

I attended my first ever meeting of a book club! We were to have read Hunting and Gathering. By someone. It was a good book, very good. I should mention at this point that our book club is seriously considering being renamed Team Sangria.

I was one of two people who had read the book. This is the first book club I have ever been a part of. In fact my cousin is the only other person I can think of who is in a book club. Except my Mom, who does Bible study. Which is like being part of a book club, except you only really talk about the one book.

Okay my apartment smellls seriously funky as a result of my landloard. but still a very good day.

Mass murder on a Sunday Afternoon

For the past month our fridge has not been a pleasent area of the apartment to visit. Whenever the door was opened a smell wafted out that rivaled a composter. Turns out, it was because things were composting in there!

I cleared my schedual and for the first time since we moved in, our fridge got a thourough scrub down. All previous clean outs had been a simple matter of opening containers and seeing if there was new life growing in it. This cleanout included taking out all racking and drawers and washinging them/scrubbing them/scrapping the congealed mass of whatever the hell got stuck to them. And of course a whole bunch of moldy things were thrown out. I feel kinda bad, because those were a whole lots of new breeds of things I kind of killed. One of them may have cured the common cold. Or caused it.

In the end it turns out it was my ricotta cheese that was causing the unholy smell. It had somehow turned a weird shade of pink.

So much easier to find

I don't remember where it was that I heard it, if it was a passing comment by a DJ or am hilarious zing by a character on a sitcom. But someone, somewhere said; "What are you going to do? Stay home and alphabetize your Cd's?" in such a derisive tone it was more than clear that this was the epitome of pathetic. For some reason this comment has stuck with me. Whenever I get to thinking something like I should stay in and clean out my closet, this comment runs through the back of my mind.

I know I care too much about what people think. But recently I have started to realize how much I let what other people might think affect my life. I make choices as to what to do with my time and my resources based on how I believe other people will perceive me. This is not only unhealthy, but stupid. Realistically, no one really cares all that much.

I have decided that this needs to stop. It will be slow going probably, as old habits are hard to break, but I am going to make a concerted effort to stop imagining how other people will see my actions.

It is my Saturday night, and if I want to spend it organizing my shoes then that is what I will do. Because you know what? My Cd's ARE alphabetized! By CATEGORY! And you know what else? It's damn fucking efficient.

ART!

So I meandered into an art supply store while waiting to meet up with a friend. I tend to do this a lot, there is something about being around millions of different coloured pencils that makes me happy.

I wandered back into where they keep the preframed canvas. Lately I have been wanting to paint. I don't know why I have this urge. I haven't painted anything since nursery school. I have been fighting the urge because of the prohibitive cost of buying a canvas and other supplies. I wandered through the canvases in search of a price list. Did you know you can buy a canvas for like 5 bucks? That's practically free!!!

I am so buying a canvas and pretty paint and finger painting!

Internet, you are jealous.

An ode to some pants

A couple of years back I bought two pairs of jeans. Glorious jeans. They became my every day jeans. My, wear-them-to-breakfast-class-dinner-library jeans. I read textbooks in those jeans, went to parties and bars in those jeans, and on more than one occasion, slept in those jeans. Those two pairs of jeans have seen me through the last year of school, from the summer before it, straight through to two years after it. I wore a pair of them to drop off my resignation letter at Canadian Tire, and I wore a pair to my first day at work (I chagned when I got there) . These jeans have been on dates, been to exams, graduation parties and house warming parties. I moved into my apartment wearing one of these hardworking jeans. These were some damn good jeans.

About three months after I owned them I walked through the bottom of them, the cuffs were frayed beyoned repair. Over time the jeans started to fade, even some of the belt loops tore. But still we soldiered on my jeans and I. A month ago the zipper broke on one of them, one of the teeth fell off, stopping the zipper in its tracks. Two weeks after that I noticed that a hole had worn through the butt on the other pair. It appears my jeans knew my weak point, they claimed retirement because of their willingness to expose my underwear.

So two weekends ago, with my Mom's awesome help, I bought two new pairs of everyday jeans. They are the right size and length and colour. they have already been worn to work, out to dinner and to two house parties. They watched as our fencing team swept the OUA finals. I was wearing the boot cut version when I got some awesome news from a very good friend of mine. These jeans will see me through the next little while, they will go on dates, be worn to parties, concerts and movies. They will be worn to move into my new apartment, and they will be what I put on after my first day at work when I get my new job. I will change into a pair of them after my brothers' weddings. There will be a lot of good that will be seen in these two new pairs of jeans.

Dear Winter

Dear Winter,

We have had good times. I am not going to deny that. Like the calm that washes over everything with that first evening snowfall. The hilarious snowmen. The chance to bring out the winter wardrobe of hats and scarves, so long unworn that they feel new. Good times.

But sweetheart... it's over. I just don't feel the same way anymore. Your fresh white snow trick is no longer cute, it's just another inch on our overburdened roads. And yes it has been nice that your mercury dropping temperatures have deadened that weird ass smell that always comes in off the lake, but it's also deadened all the nerve endings in my fingers.

I know you think if we just try harder we can work this out, but I just can't do it anymore. I'm tired of compromising to you all the time. You just don't give winter, you always have to have it your way. I'm tired of wearing four layers okay?

Please don't cry though, you'll find someone new. Someone who hasn't heard all your jokes, someone who thinks slush is a cute 'quirk' . I wouldn't look at Africa though, she's pretty committed to summer, those two are very long term. But I hear Austrailia is back on the market.

See you around,

Christine

Not as much blood, but a lot more vitamins.

Today I ate a tangelo. It is a fruit I had never heard of, and certainly had never eaten. This week, as established spur of the moment yesterday while grocery shopping, is "Interesting Fruits Week". While not as edge of your seat as "Shark Week", it is, hopefully, much more delicious. Unless you like chum.

I have bought, a tangelo, plum tomatoes (I hear you nay sayers, saying they are vegetables, well they look like a fruit so they qualify to me), a peach, and a tangerine. These are fruits that I do not normally hang out with, but you know what, I have had all my stock in apples for a number of years, and as a result of this unpredictable economy I felt it was high time that I diversify.

Future Me

I wonder sometimes if me and friends will look back on these times with great fondness. If we will sit and reminise about all the layers we used to wear to go to sleep because none of our apartments could hold heat. Or that time one of us had a cockroach problem. Times when things were simpler.

So many mysteries solved

So I have spent the past few days trying to figure out where my punch bowl, with remnants of sour cream and salsa dip, went after the party. Our apartment is not that big, and I had looked in all the logical places.

Recently another mystery developed, why in the hell did our fridge smell funky?

Turns out the two mysteries were very related, and in solving them I also found the answer to a third question that I had never asked! Is the fruit crisper big enough to throughly hide a large punch bowl filled with dip detrius? YES! Is this a good idea? HELL NO.

I can only blame the drinking.

Party and such

I am having a lazy day today. Watching a lot of Charmed, a show I was totally addicted to in high school. It's soundtrack is filled with songs from the first few years in high school, it's a bit odd, hearing these songs, that were hip enough at the time to qualify for appearing on a tv show, but most really have not survived well over time. But it does give me unusual flashbacks where I realize that I am lot further from high school than I realized, which makes me both happy and feel startilingly old.

My party was a sucess, it was nice and cozy, and everyone seemed to have a good time. I relaxed after the food was prepared, and after I drank a couple inches of vodka.

New Years

I am hosting a New Year's Party again this year, mostly because I always freak out about not having plans for New Year's. I always freak out a little before hosting a party, well to be honest I am just always freaking out about something. Today's something is, what will I serve at the party??? I am thinking Brushetta..... some chips... some salsa... and some popcorn. And then that is it. I am out of ideas. I guess I could do a veggie platter. Damn it this is the part of party hosting that I hate, the food part.... and the making sure everyone has fun part.

Tragic

Today I needed to say 'seven' in Spainish. Can only count to 6. Damn you "Pretty Fly For a White Guy"

Living in Excess

I am currently struggiling with the feelings of having too much. Which I have to say is a nice change from my usual complaining of having too little. I believe that this current moral crisis is stemming from two books I recently read; "Not Buying it", about a woman who stopped buying things for a year, and "The Poisonwood Bible", a fictional novel based in Africa, a running theme being the excess of America versus what is considered neccessary in some parts of Africa. Compounding this is the fact that I went Christmas shopping over the weekend, and I was overwhelmed by the amount of things, and people at the mall. HOw can we need so many things? I realized that the whole mall, every square inch of it could be torn down over night (this is assuming an intentional tearing down, wherein everyone who may have been inside exited), and we would all survive. Because everything in there is not a neccessity.

I have at least twice in my life, eaten to the point of throwing up. How can I argue that I do not have enough, when I routinely get told by my body that I have had more than enough? How can I argue that I go without when I am running out of places to put all the things that I am with? One of my professors provided an andecote on the topic that I have never quite forgotten; "a foreign leader was invited to visit Toronto, this man was from a country that was commonly reffered to as a third world country, and he was flown in to see how ties with Canada would help his developing nation. To impress him he was taken down the main street, past the skyscrapers, the billboards, the speedy moving cars, the high powered people, to the main square, a true pulse point of people with it's tv screens, and flashing lights. The intent was to impress him, to show him how advanced our country was. His response was only to ask, "What sadness, what hole exists in all these people, that they are trying so desperatley to fill it with all of these things?" "

Office Gift Exchange

I need to purchase some fun and interesting baking and cooking things for my friend at work for the office gift exchange. I have decided to go to Kitchen Stuff Plus. The problem is I don't know much about baking and what someone would enjoy. If only I knew someone who lived near a Kitchen Stuff plus and enjoyed cooking and could give me advice. And if perhaps they were available on Thursday... If only

What I haven't quite been able to put into words.

On Saturday morning my Grandfather passed away. My cousin sent out a request via Facebook (and maybe other ways I don't know) that we share with her our thoughts and memories about Grandpa because she will be speaking at the funeral. I have copied my response to her request below, mostly because it is the best way I have of explaining where I am coming from right now.


The thing I remember most about Grandpa was his strength. He was a strong man who took pride in what he did, and found joy in his family. He was always ready to laugh and to play along with a joke. He brought joy with his music and loved participating in events and being a part of clubs and committees. He was kind, he was loving and he was gentle. To me he never aged a day, he seemed just as capable and just as strong this year as he did when he was living on the farm twenty years ago. He could make things work without seeming to try, he could make a harmonica sing and make it look easy. I never doubted his abilities in anything, and he made me feel like he never doubted mine.

Grandpa was a joiner, a do-er and a fun-haver, I believe those three are made up words, but I don't think he would have minded, because they are honest, and genuine, like him. He was a good man, and I think I am blessed that he was a part of my life for as long as he was. If I can live to be half the person he was, have just a quarter of the friends he did I would have lived a full life.


There are a million more things I could say about Grandpa, but that is where my words ran out, other than the obvious: he will be missed.