My Mother's Crazy Dog

I know, I know. Where the Hell have I been? Let's just say I've been living by the motto, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." Things have been rough lately, as most of you know. I made a conscious decision to leave the negativity out of my blog, but that's made it a lot harder to post. It's nearly impossible to have happy thoughts when all you can think about is horrible, awful, negative shit.

But I finally have something super awesome to blog about! My Honey gave me the most awesomest, bestest birthday present ever which I've had a ball playing with all weekend! No it's not a dildo--get your minds out of the gutter! It's about the size of a deck of cards, fits in my hand and isn't a digital camera. Bet you can't guess what it is!

It's an HD digital video recorder! So I guess it is technically a digital camera, but it doesn't take stills, although you can isolate individual frames in the video and make them into pictures. I guess what I'm saying is I'm full of crap and if you guessed "digital camera" you guessed correctly.

I have had the best time filming my family this past weekend! Really! Especially my Mom's crazy dog, Murphy. So without further ado, here I present my first feature film--ok, I guess it's more of a "short"--"Crazy Time" starring Murphy the Dog!

I apologize if the video seems really choppy--I'm new to this whole thing so it's a work in progress. I think the .mp4 format is perhaps the problem, but I'm not sure. Either way, I'm sure you'll enjoy snickering at my laugh which is loud and abundant.

Stay tuned for more videos and pictures!

Anything to Avoid Doing Dishes

I've been an absent blogger all week, but I had a good excuse: my life was boring and I felt like a sack of shit. However the last two days were much more eventful, and I'm mostly over the cold I developed on Sunday night and am now just plagued by my agonizing allergies.

Friday I got my Birthday Haircut ('cause Monday's my birthday...hint hint) which I'm very happy with. It's still a bob but he cut it nice and short in the back to keep my neck cool in the heat of summer--if it ever gets here. At around 8pm or so I went out with Kiki, Randy, Katie and Guy for a much anticipated "Evening in Paris." Sadly not Paris, France (or even Paris, Ontario) more like a bar with cardboard Eiffel Towers on the tables and an annoying (but hot!) mime. It was an event hosted by the staff association at work, so our expectations weren't high. Tickets were $15 each and for that you got 2 free drinks, all the deep-fried pickles you could eat, and a shot at some sweet prizes which (not unsurprisingly) none of us managed to win. Despite the lack of prize winning, we had a good time and didn't leave until the music stopped and we were nearly forcibly removed.

But the weekend was just getting warmed up! A special woman in my life takes me every year for my birthday to see a play in Stratford and to either lunch or dinner at a nice restaurant. Yesterday that day finally came and it did not disappoint. We saw Colm Feore star in MacBeth at the Festival Theatre and it was really well done. It was set in Mid-century, civil-war torn Africa which seems strange but was oddly fitting.

Feore is one of my favourite Canadian actors, but he wasn't my favourite player in this--I really enjoyed the actress who played Lady MacBeth, Yanna McIntosh, and I was impressed with the short but effective performance of Kolton Stewart who played the young son of MacDuff. In his final scene he's murdered by having his throat cut by MacBeth's henchmen. It was done in a very realistic and visceral way and it was quite disturbing, as was all of the violence in the play.

I found in general the performances were very subtle, not overblown in the way Shakespearean theatre can sometimes be. The modern military setting served to enhance the feeling of tyranny and control MacBeth tried to exert over his domain, with the ever-present soldiers in army fatigues standing watch from towers equipped with searchlights and machine guns. The use of television screens in most of the second half of the play conjured up comparisons to an Orwellian "1984"-like state. It was an interesting and effective interpretation of a play that's difficult to execute in a modern setting.

For dinner, we went to Charbries, a local fine dining establishment and one of my special friend's favourites but one I have never visited. I had a lovely spring salad with chevre to start and beer-battered pickerel with sweet potato for my main. I somehow found room for strawberry rhubarb pie flambeed table-side for dessert. My friend and our other dining companion (a childhood friend of hers visiting from Arizona) each had crab cakes and pizza Provencal--a flatbread crust with "spicy garlic sausage, roasted sweet pepper & red onion ... layered between mozzarella, parmesan & goat cheese ... drizzled with balsamic vinaigrette." I had a bite of it and it was as delicious as it sounds!

Today I'm recovering from the food coma by doing dishes, making Father's Day cards and throwing together some chocolate peanut butter squares for my co-workers for tomorrow--it's tradition to bring a "treat" to work on your birthday. My rule is you don't get a treat until you wish me a happy birthday. What?! It's my birthday, my rules! Who's gonna argue? These squares are awesome!

I Wonder If They'll March in This Year's Gay Pride Parade?

Get it? "March?" Gay Pride parade? They're penguins?

Never mind.

We can learn a lot from these birds. Whoever says homosexuality is "unnatural" has obviously never watched Animal Planet.

The Bad and the Good

I just found out that my supervisor has been "let go." This really sucks for her since she's been with the company for something like 15 years, but also for me because I really liked my supervisor and she really liked me. She was my champion and mentor and now I'm feeling kinda lost and adrift.

Change is afoot and I'm still a little unsure of how it's all gonna turn out. I'm still not really worried about my own job, but there's a definite sense of unease around here. Two supervisors have been let go in as many weeks--not a good omen.

On the bright side, I was chosen to be a contributor for a newsletter that has been developed by our investment processing services area to be distributed all through the wealth management division, so that's pretty cool! I'll be responsible for the CSR perspective I guess--we meet on June 10th to plan the July newsletter so I'll know more about my responsibilities then. I'm really excited to do this--it'll look good on a resume and on my performance evaluation, but it'll also give me an opportunity to meet people that work in other areas and give me another perspective on my position within the company and where I could be headed. This is just the boost I needed after the disappointment of not getting the trainer job!

Hello? Are You Still There?

I know, I know--I suck. Apparently my little ol' blog that I thought nobody cared about actually has a loyal following that's clamouring for a post. Who knew?! So here goes:

I had a busy week last week! My friend Jenn has recently become a Mary Kay representative so Shara (among those clamouring) hosted a party on Wednesday to help get her started. It was lots of fun, got to see some people I haven't seen in a while and even managed to spend a little money on a couple of items I couldn't live without--hello lipgloss!

On Friday I went to dinner and symphony with a close friend. We enjoyed Beethoven's Ninth which I had never heard performed live before--the choir was awesome! Then on Saturday I got to see even more friends (who knew I had so many?) that I hadn't seen in a long while. I finally got to meet (just about) 10 month old Evan and had my ass handed to me by his (not even) 4 year old brother Joshua when we faced off over Wii bowling.

Saturday night I was initiated into the S&M Bookclub (is it even still called that?) where we discussed (among many, many other things) The Book of Negroes which is this year's One Community, One Book selection and I highly recommend it. I will host the next one--which we'll be doing in July--and chose The Red Tent as my book selection. This is one of my absolute favourite books and I'm looking forward to hearing what the other's think.

So are we square now? I promise I'll keep posting so long as you all keep providing me with an active social life ;)

Shame On You Indeed

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/us_vote_gay_marriage

California has disappointed me yet again.

Bang a Drum

I have always had this dream of learning how to play drums. The closest I ever got was playing the crash cymbals and the triangle in the high school band. I did have a huge crush on a drummer in said band, but I'm pretty sure that doesn't count.

I finally got the opportunity to live my drummer rock-God fantasy on Thursday night when Kiki and Randy had me over for dinner. After a few glasses of wine it occurred to us (okay, I sort of insisted) that it would be a splendid idea to play Rock Band 2. I didn't really give either of them the chance to pick the drums--look, I'm the guest so don't I get first pick? I've played with My Honey before, but I was always too intimidated to attempt the drums. It's amazing how wine will turn that kind of thinking on it's head!

Now I have a good sense of rhythm, but I'm not very coordinated which probably helps to explain my complete lack of success in activities requiring the ability to do one thing with one body part and a different thing with another--like basketball or the "sixty-nine" position. So imagine my surprise when I turned out to be not only competent but, dare I say, moderately talented! I managed a score of 87% on my very first song! Okay, so I was on the "easy" setting but still--87% That's not sucky at all! Especially after 3 or 4 glasses of wine--hey, I'd like to see you try it!

Next time I'm at their place I'm totally making them play with me again so I can see if it was a fluke. If I can master the drums in Rock Band I can do anything! Maybe I'll even try walking-while-chewing-gum again...