day 10651: sometimes there is no tomorrow

A woman died today.

She wasn’t young. She wasn’t old. She wasn’t exceptional by any means. She never led a country. She never made a major contribution to society. No one will remember her for doing anything extraordinary. And except for the people who knew her, and a few plaques bearing her name in some remote school in some remote part of China, no one will remember her in a few years.

Her existence will begin to fade as soon as the last mourner walks away.

… … …

Yet, it feels like the news should be shouted from rooftops and plastered in headlines around the world.

A woman died today.

A good woman died today.

The world should know.

She was a mother, a wife, a friend to many, a person who cared about the well-being and feelings of everyone around her. She raised money for her charities, answering pledge calls even as she sat in emergency room after emergency room, waiting for her own pains to be diagnosed.

She bore her illness in stoic silence; never really saying a word about her suffering, never really asking for help. She hid the extent of her cancer from the world around her. She downplayed her illness, consoled others, hid her fears behind a smile and passed on stories of hope. Her children came and left after the holidays thinking that she was on the mend. Her husband only flew into town from Hong Kong last week. Her elderly mother still does not know.

She fought the battle courageously, but lost it quickly.

… … …

We like to believe that we are immortal. We like to believe that the people around us are immortal. We don’t pay enough attention to the present, thinking that we’ll always have time later to make amends and tell them that we love them. There will always be a tomorrow, we think, and so, we put it off.

We put off visiting our parents. We put of thanking them for guiding us into who we have become. We put off telling our grandparents how much we care about them. We put off telling people that we forgive them, and that we don’t really harbour a grudge. We put off caring about the people around us. We put off caring about ourselves.

There will always be a tomorrow, we tell ourselves.

But sometimes there isn’t.

… … …

She will be missed.

day 10649: when angels cry

What can you say when a doctor tells you that the best thing to do is to call your kids and tell them to get on the first flight home?

If you even believe in a higher power, please pray for peace.

Thank you.

day 10647: (not) geek accountant geek accountant geek accountant geek accountant

Last night, we went to see The Matador. The movie itself… meh… it was good for entertainment value with some nice one-liners, but that’s pretty much about it. A smarmy Pierce is really not so good for eye candy.

When I watch a movie, I pay attention to what they’re drinking. (Alcoholic that I am.*) Thus, little details really grab me… like the bottle of Makers Mark on the bedside table in the first scene, or the night they got drunk on Bushmills, or the two-fours of Corona at the bullfights, the Corona flags at the racetrack or the Corona they’re constantly drinking the entire time they’re in Mexico… and then I can’t help but wonder how much Fortune Brands, Constellation, and damned-if-I-remember-who-got-Bushmills-out-of-the-damned-takeover paid for the product placement.

Really, what they did with the alcohol was almost as bad as the Target logos blatantly plastered all over everything in Josie and the Pussycats.**

Almost.

*I SWEAR, this, by no means, has ANY correlation whatsoever with me being a geek accountant geek accountant geek accountant.

**See...I pay attention all the things that the studios are trying to subliminally advertise to us…

day 10645: I don’t get it

Dear Manchu Wok,

Ashamed as I am to admit it, I am a regular consumer of your high fat, low protein, high carb, low nutrient “food.” It’s kind of cheap. It doesn’t make me gag (that much) and spew chunks like some other places on the food court do (ahem… you know who I’m talking about). Best of all, you’re JUST ACROSS THE STREET. I only have to freeze my tuckus off a little in this -12 degree weather to get some of your ok tasting food.

But answer me this… when a carton of your SCRUMPTIOUS (note sarcasm) chicken or pork product costs $5.99, why, oh why won’t you let me get both sweet and sour pork and orange chicken in the same container?

It’s not like I’m begging you for that fortune cookie that you throw in for all of your other non-asian customers… don’t think I haven’t noticed. (I like fortune cookies just as much as the next person. Really, I do.)

It’s not like it costs you anything more to give me a little more variety and make me - a LOYAL CUSTOMER - a little happier. Really, I don’t think you want to lose my business to that no-name place next to Noodle King.

Love,

Schmassion.

Ps… I know what you’re going to say… they taste the same anyway. And ya know, they kinda do.

day 10644: voting schmoting... the day after...

Politics is becoming a joke in Canada. Minority government after minority government, it’s become more of a battle of ego rather than a battle for good, quality leadership.

It’s not even a question of voting for the best leader for our country. We’re now voting for the best of the worse.

I don’t generally follow politics. It’s a few people huffing and puffing and blowing steam, but never really accomplishing very much. It doesn’t interest me, because I don’t like to argue on suppositions and politic theory. I’d much rather argue accounting theory… that should tell you how much I hate it…

But some key schmassionisms on this year’s elections:

1. It is illegal for me to eat my ballot… too bad, because I remember that grey fuzzy paper to be mighty tasty when I was in kindergarten. I also liked the chemical smell of the ditto paper.

2. Our voting public is generally misinformed on where they can or cannot vote. A lot of people I know who have moved downtown didn’t vote because they didn’t want the hassle of traveling back to their home ridings. Really, all they needed was ID and a piece of mail from whatever riding they actually live in.

3. There was much ado about the Liberal “smear” campaign where no one ever saw the ads. Whereas the Conservative and NDP “smear” ads (about the Liberals) were broadcasted freely throughout all hours of the day. Talk about the kettle calling the pot black… monkey see… monkey do… monkey do nothing but smear poo…

4. Our voting public really doesn’t care. We had four days to vote. Most of us just didn’t feel like it. We are a nation of apathetic seamonkeys who just go with the flow…

5. The “majority” of people actually voted Liberal, but because of how the ridings work and how the population is divided, we have a Conservative government. That sucks.

6. The party with the third most votes doesn’t even really want to be part of the country… really, who can blame them… we’re seriously messed up sometimes. Gilles Duceppe looks like an elf.

7. It’s scary that Stephen Harper is pro-Bush. Anyone who’s pro-Bush is scary… but Harper also looks pasty and looks like he’ll keel over and die from a heart attack at any second. If he can’t take care of himself, how can he take care of a country? I swear he went to a tanning salon halfway through the campaign process.

8. Jack Layton has a porn mustache. He looks slimey. I don’t like his wife… I don’t like that he used his asian elderly mother-in-law as a picture op and tried to play on the ethnic vote. His Cantonese accent is really, really, REALLY bad… dude, you’d think after all these years of marriage, you’d be able to say SOMETHING that we can understand. Do you ever talk to your mother-in-law, or do you just smile and nod?

9. Paul Martin should have retired a long time ago, but I like that he didn’t feel obligated to send Canadian troops to Iraq just because the US did. I like a guy that doesn’t feel pressured by the neighbourhood bully. Seriously, when the Conservative tv ad talked about how his ships were registered in other countries for tax purposes, my geeky-accountant-side thought “Right on, dude!” (ok… so I’m obviously Liberal).

10. There’s a Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada… who knew… who cares…?

Awwww, fcuk it... it was a big waste of money anyway. We'll be going to the polls again within the next year. Just wait and see.

day 10641: i'm sorry, but wtf...?

I try to put the past behind me, but sometime no matter how hard I try, it just comes back and smacks me in the face.

Last night Triscuit decided to show up to a common friend's b-day dinner, and brought me a belated birthday gift. Other than contributing the typical $15 to a group gift, he's never bought me a birthday gift before. Not even when we were dating.

Except for wtf, I really don't know what to think or say...

But really, c'mon. Dude... if you're still spelling my name wrong, we obviously still don't have anything to talk about.

day 10639: until it happens to someone you know…

There’s a boy. Let’s call him Mike. He could be a Chris, James, Howard, Raphael, Peter Somebody the Third… but let’s go with Mike for now.

Mike was driving home to Brampton at 2am after a night of work and hanging out with his buds when he was pulled over by a cop. For speeding, he assumed. Except, his car is a clunker and barely capable of even making it to the speed limit.

He was polite when he asked the cop why he had been stopped. He was polite when the cop asked him to get into the backseat of the cruiser to take a breathalyzer test.

He’d had two beers hours ago, he told the cop. He passed the first breathalyzer test. Something must be wrong, blow again…

Are you giving me attitude?

No Sir, of course not.

He passed the second test.

According to the numbers, Mike was no where close to being impaired.

According to the cop, he was close to the legal limit. The cop had his car towed…

Mike wasn’t allowed to call his sister to come pick him up. The cop said he’d call him a cab, and left him standing on the side of the road… at 2am… on the 401… in the middle of winter…

The cab never showed. Mike had to call his own an hour later. He got home at 4am and is still wondering why he was pulled over in the first place.

You see, Mike is young.

Mike has an afro…

Mike is black.

Draw your own conclusions.

day 10638: running out of patience and time for other people's fcukwit drama

I hate it when two equally opinionated and pigheaded alpha males butt heads over simple things...

...and then having to deal with it when I should be working instead... oy...

day 10637: where would i be if it wasn’t for the internet

In a very short 32 days, I’ll be heading to El Potrero Chico, Mexico to do some wicked serious climbing. This trip has been in the works for the past year, and is finally coming together. The gear list is sorted - I know what I have, what I need to buy, what I don’t need (but want to buy). I’ve been eagerly anticipating the trip since we booked the non-refundable plane tickets way back in November (and, of course, have been terrified of injuries ever since). My palms are sweating just thinking about it.

Amongst other things (i.e. scorpions and tarantulas… limestone that rips off your fingerprints… oh my…), Potrero is famous for nice 5.10 multi-pitch routes where climbers “leap frog” up the wall (i.e. climb one pitch, belay your partner while they climb up behind you, climb again, and so on). Nice, I thought. I tried an easy multi-pitch route back in Rumney… 1200 ft how hard can it be… I’ve been training for the past while; I’ll be ready for the challenge.

No problemo, amigo.

But then, someone brought up something that I had never, ever even considered thinking about… not in a hundred million trillion years…

HOW THE HECK DO I GO TO THE BATHROOM HALFWAY UP THE WALL?

The climb will take the majority part of the day. We’ll start early in the morning, and will be lucky if we’re not rappelling down the mountainside in the dark. We won’t hit solid ground until hours after we start out…

Did I mention that we’ll be hanging off the cliff face for most of the day? Anchored into bolts 500 ft off the ground… swaying with the wind… grabbing bites of PowerBars for lunch, and hydrating from our Camelbacks that we’ve taken up with us…

If I was a guy, it’d be easy. But seeing as how I’m not, I can’t just “whip it out” and pee while hanging in midair. I mean, I could always unbuckle the back of my harness, drop trou (while still being anchored into the wall), and with a devil-may-care attitude, just let it rip, but EWWWW. I’d seriously hate to be the person climbing up behind me.

“Don’t look up… whoops… tee hee… sorry, dude... here’s a handy-wipe…”

Seriously. I’m having MAJOR issues with this. I’m a shy pee-r at best. I don’t even like to pee when there’s someone in the stall next to me, but I’ve dealt with THAT lost cause. If you thought camping without “facilities” was bad… this is much, much worse… so bad, that I definitely had second thoughts about going. But those damned non-refundable plane tickets…

Girlfriend of a geek that I am, I turned to the almighty Internet for answers. Some Googlees said not to drink too much water (um… did I mention that we’re going to be in the middle of the desert?). Some said to hold it. One person wrote about the wonders of using this and did you know that there very many dedicated websites teaching girls how to pee standing up?

Ugh. I really don’t think I can do it. Not in a million trillion years unless my bladder really was about to burst.

I know what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger and new experiences are always good for me. But ya know, some experiences in this world, I can really, really, really do without... kind of like the hole-in-the-ground toilets in China... you know the one's I'm talking about...

How’s that for fcukwit drama? Wish me luck.

[ed note: check out this Potrero site… the guy in the back of the pickup truck… look familiar??? hehe]

day 10635: a history frozen in time

Things I found while cleaning out my freezer:

~ chocolate goat milk ice cream I made for Triscuit two summers ago
~ homemade butter chicken (???)
~ vegetarian dish made by my grandmother last Chinese New Year
~ Buzz Lightyear
~ chestnuts that were supposed to be roasted over an open fire... last summer
~ 12 half eaten loaves of bread
~ 3 pints of half eaten Ben & Jerry
~ edamame from 2 summers ago when I used to live near a Korean supermarket
~ 2 boxes of ice cream bars from last summer
~ 1 tub of toffee ice cream that I don't remember buying
~ bottle of Belvedere
~ spinach and artichoke dip I made for my housewarming party in 2004
~ 7 packages of half eaten freezer burned dumplings
~ assorted cold packs for assorted injuries
~ 2 "special" cookies baked by Serious Boy
~ Mr. Potatoehead

day 10632: give me one good reason

Dear Monkeyco.

Why are you trying to piss me off? You need me. You really, really need me, and you're not giving me a reason to stay. I'd ask you to pay me (the official term is RETENTION BONUS), but that little voice inside my head keeps thinking that it's a little like blackmail.

I'm trying really hard to get over my personal ethics and my misplaced loyalty for you. I'm trying really, really, really, really, really hard to kill that little voice... capice?

Wishing you all the best in the new year,

Schmassion.

day 10630: days in which all you want to say is “kiss my flabby ass, fcukwit”

Much as I love this blog, I’m thinking that this part of my life will soon be over. Not because I don’t want to write mildly entertaining things about all the fcukwit drama in my life and not because there’s a lack of fcukwit drama, more because gosh-darn-golly, there’s too much fcukwit drama going on.

What with me holding a grudge against the maternal one, trying not to lose sleep over monkeyco not telling me whether or not I have a job in two months, training for Porterro, trying to teach myself French and Spanish at the same time and trying to sort out all the other little nitty-gritty details in my life, blogging about my fcukwit drama is just not doing it for me anymore. I have to do something to fix it instead.

day 10629: the story… finally…

Last night, I dreamt I hosted the Golden Globe Awards and won an award for being in a movie called Home Again. An extremely vivid dream, I woke up feeling elated, thinking that it actually happened. But the happiness I was feeling wasn’t from hosting the show, or even from winning best actress. Rather, it was because the maternal one finally said that she was proud of me.

The worse thing a child can hear from a parent is how disappointed the parent is in the child. We spend our childhoods trying to impress them and make them proud of us. We look to them for their smiles and nods of approval whenever we score a goal or do well in school. Even as adults, we try to gain their respect, and try to make them understand that we are indeed capable of living our own independent lives with minimal interference.

And for all that we accomplish and all the battles that we have fought throughout the years with or without them, it still stings when they claim their personal failure in life was because you didn’t live up to their expectations.

day 10625: things aren't all peachy-keen on the home front

Story to follow on the eleven o'clock news... stay tuned.

day 10622: um… yeah… happy new year and all that jazz

Because chances are that I’ll end up breaking them within a week anyway, I tend not to make any New Year’s resolutions. It’s just not my thing. If I want to do something and want to put my mind towards doing it, why wait until a certain date? Why not start now?

So… my list of to-do’s which just happens to coincide with New Year’s…

~ Je dois apprendre parler français pour le travail.
~ Stop eating crap and get into shape. Mexico is only a very short seven weeks away.

That’s it for now. Just trying to be the best me I can be.