Bubble Bubble.......

.....something is a-brewing in Pixyland.

Can't say too much right now, but I can tell you that it includes:
a suitcase
and a passport
and a city
and an Irishman

I'm sure you're all quite clever and will figure it all out, but in the meantime, that's all I can say.

Big Momma's Watching!

Text message received last night:
Spencer did you go to math on Monday and write the test? Mom.

My reply:
Either you misdialed, or Spencer gave you the wrong cell phone number. If its the former - hope he aced the test. If its the latter, I suspect a bad mark is not all he has to worry about.

Book Review - The Secret Diary of Adrain Mole; Aged 13 3/4

Recommended by Beans who said that he first read this book back when HE was around the same age as the protagonist, I found it an easy read. Written in a personal diary format, it is charming, interesting, real, funny and a very insightful look into the mind and world of a young boy on the cusp of adolescence talking about his life in a very open and downright honest format. The "Bridget Jones" of teenagers, Adrian Mole is a delightful character and I'm looking forward to reading more about him as I just found out that Sue Townsend has written a whole series of "diaries" aging Adrian from the gawky young teenager to a middle aged man.

Groundhog Day

Scene: Local coffee shop by the office.
Time: Too-bloody-early o'clock

Me: Could I have a toasted sesame bagel with butter please?

Girl: Right. *punches code in machine*

Girl: So, that will be a bagel?

Me: Yes *I thought I said this, but perhaps it was just in my head*

Girl: Toasted?

Me: Yes, toasted - with butter. *there, its out loud this time*

Girl: With butter?

Me: YES. *am I the only one who can hear me?*

Girl: Right.

Me: OH MY GOD. I'm stuck in the mini version of Groundhog Day. HELP!!!

Only in Canada

Only in Canada, when the temperature is -12 will we still insist on sending the kids out to play! The scene reminded me of the picture we have on our $5 bills with the quote from the story The Hockey Sweater by Roch Carrier.
Picture taken at Too Good pond in Unionville, just north of Toronto.

Not so technically challenged after all!!

Hurrah!!

I was finally able to figure out how to:

• Create a "new" travel blog that was exact in every way to the old one - with a slightly different name
• Save everything from the "old" travel blog and move it over to the "new" one so that I don't loose all my previous hard work
• Disassociate this blog from the travel blog so that I can go back to being "open" and my 3 faithful readers don't have to sign in anymore
• Hopefully gain new readers now that it is back to being an "open" blog

I really am quite proud of myself folks! I consider this a significant step for me getting closer to technology. We're not moving in just yet. But we will be dating more frequently from now on.

Nite of Fun, Friends and Fashion

The ever amazing Trippy hosted her annual "Awards Nite" dinner yesterday. The actual show began at 8:30pm EST, but we were there well in advance for the red carpet extravaganza because let's face it, that's what we were most interested in. Trippy had some delish munchies to keep our tummies full, and exciting and fun filled Oscar trivia games for the commercial breaks and the boring speeches. And prizes too!! At the end of the night, Ms. Trippy was voted "Best Hostess" and richly deserving as well. (WHY is this girl still single??)


And because I cannot resist, here's my two pence:

• Best opening sequence in a long long time. Yes people, the Oscars are about MOVIES and ACTORS - not comedians with their trying-too-hard monologues.
• Best year for acceptance speeches. Personal fav, the Japanese dude winning for best short animation ended his speech with "Domo Arigato, Mister Roboto". Kate Winslet telling Meryl Streep to "suck it up" was also pretty damn funny.
• Best intro to the 4 big acting awards. It must have felt pretty damn good to be celebrated in that fashion - win or no win.
• Best presenter pairing - Steve Martin and Tina Fey. Now that's how you do a comedic presenter piece.
• Worse gown - Beyonce. It looked like someone had vomited gold all over the dress and her too plain hair and make up and utter lack of jewellery wasn't a hit either.
• Worst presenter pairing - Daniel Craig and Sarah Jessica Parker. Thank god for the teleprompter, because it was obvious that they had NOTHING to say to each other.
• Best awkward moment - cameras cutting to Angie as Jennifer Anniston and Jack Black did their thing on stage.
• Worst let down - Hugh Jackman kept his clothes on for the entire show. I want a refund.

Just in case you were under a rock and missed out on what happened with Hollywood's biggest night of the year, here's an excellent article that nicely sums it all up.

Wish this guy did some of the acceptance speeches!!

Just in Time!

Extract from an email received from Air Canada re upcoming promotions:

More ways to earn Aeroplan® Miles!Earn 2,000 Bonus Aeroplan Miles when you book your flight at aircanada.com by March 15, 2009.

This offer is valid for travel from April 1 until December 31, 2009 between Canada and the following destinations:
Frankfurt
Munich
Paris
London
Zurich
Geneva
Rome

And isn't it just handy that I have to travel to London in August for (yes, you got it) a friend's wedding? Hurrah for online deals!

A Quickie

No, you pervs - not that! Just a little update on Bean's visit to the T Dot.

Monday: Beans hung out with my bro for most of the day and they did the following:

• Tried to get a local SIM card for Beans
• Abandoned that idea when they found out that the cheapest one would be $60*
• Visited the Scarborough bluffs by the lake where they bonded with the local wildlife by following geese around and attempting to mimic their calls
• Went for a tour of the Rogers Centre (the baseball stadium)
• Waited at the pub while I finished up with work

After work, Beans and I headed over to the CN Tower to check out the sights of the city from way way way up high. It was a nice enough day and we had plenty of time to see everything before the sun went down and the clouds rolled in. Oh, should mention that it was the first time I'd ever kissed anyone at an elevation of 342 m. It made my head spin; then again he always does. Finished off the evening with an absolutely scrumptious dinner at the restaurant at the top of the tower. The view was spectacular, the food was amazing, the company was delightful - what more could you ask for in a meal?

Tuesday: Beans and the bro continued with the male bonding with trips to the Police Museum, The Hockey Hall of Fame and the Steam Whistle Brewery where I caught up with them after work for a couple of pints. The 'rents wanted us back for dinner and the Mater had gone all out with the meal. Gee, she must be really desperate to make a good impression on my behalf!

Sidebar funny story: On Sunday morning, my mum comes up to me and tells me this: "He seems to be a nice boy, very pleasant. How nicely he made his bed this morning and came up and said hello to everyone. And you? Not even out of your pyjamas as yet! You'd better shape up your ways. Nice boys don't like messy girls."

I was dying to tell her that its not how I make my bed that turns him on, rather what I'm able to do IN it. But it was too early in the morning to get into that.

After dinner, we had a nice congenial chatty session in the basement before a warm wood fire before calling it a night. How civilized!

Today: More sightseeing in store followed by the basketball game with Trippy and Beer Baron tonight.

And in case you're wondering, yes, there has been ample opportunity for "extra curricular" activities.

He Came, He Conquered, I Came (Twice)

And so 132 days after he told me that he was planning on visiting me, Beans landed in the T Dot on Saturday.

Trippy and the Beer Baron were on hand to watch me dance, jump and jiggle my way through an agonizing hellish 30 minute wait in the arrival hall at the airport. Yes, they have video clips. But even the anxious "I-need-to-go-potty" like dance didn't prepare them (or the rest of the airport) for the ear splitting shriek I let out when Beans FINALLY walked through the doors. Or my mad dash to get to him where I (apparently) pushed 3 children and 2 old ladies out of my way. Or my spectacular leap right into his waiting arms.

When I finally pulled my lips off his, they drove us home where the much anticipated "Meet the Parents" scene played out. Thankfully there was no talk about milking cats or any other such topics and he hasn't knocked out a family member, nor burned down the backyard - yet. AND most surprisingly, my mother hasn't been the anti-dating, relationship-hating, ball-busting villain that she usually is, but has been a model of hostessing delight. For the record, I'm afraid. BUT, Beans has charmed the proverbial socks off both parents and also the friends - some of who he met at Cosmo Girl's house warming party on Saturday night.

And speaking of socks off, those and more were were discarded for all of yesterday afternoon thanks to les parents being at a christening party and le frere away at work. As I mentioned to Trippy this morning, my FB status should read: Pixy spent last afternoon at the amusement park and enjoyed several extended rides on the sexmobile.

But perhaps that would be socially inappropriate?

Utimate Rejection

Back in November last year when my mum was in the hospital, I had made up my mind to sign up for blood donation as soon as I got back from the holiday. Accordingly, I called up the Canadian Blood Services (CBS) last week and got an appointment for today. I set off in my lunch break very eagerly and excited that I was going to do something "important".

After getting there and filling out a load of paperwork, I was told "Thanks, but no thanks".

Turns out, I cannot be a donor after all because I've had malaria. Formerly, CBS used to accept donations from people who'd had malaria because they would separate the blood and just not use the red blood cells part coz that's where the malaria bug (virus?) infects and it can lay dormant for up to 6 years. But they've since found that it is far more cost effective to simply turn down donations rather than have to dispose off the RBC component in a safe way. They did let me know that if the rules change, they'd call me back.

I totally understood the reasoning behind my donor rejection and it all made perfect sense when the nurse explained it to me. But still, as I left the clinic and stepped outside, the sharp wind that hit me was not as cold as the feeling I had deep inside that I'd just tried to do something nice, and failed. Rejection, is never a warm and fuzzy feeling.

Vexing

I am very surprised by the seeming lack of basic etiquette in today's world. And I'm not talking about grand gestures to society.Just simple everyday niceties that when collected and put together make for a nicer, happier existence for us all.

Like holding the door open for the person behind you instead of letting it slam into their face.
Like standing to right on an escalator so that persons behind you can walk up the left.
Like paying a little visit to a new neighbour, or new colleague to say hello and welcome.
Like RSVPing to an invite in a timely fashion.

Case in point. I sent out an evite to my birthday celebrations over 2 weeks ago. The evite called for people to respond yes/no/maybe with the option to change that response at any time. 52 people received the email. To date, only 23 have responded - either verbally or online. And the rest? I know they've all read the email. I can tell from the timestamp on the evite. It's just about a week to the event, so won't you know your schedule by now? I don't mind if you've other things planned and cannot make it - that's fine. But, at least let me know that. Right now, I have only a vague sense of who will be attending and if I was catering for the event - I'd be left clueless as to food quantities.

It may seem like a petty issue, but I am peeved, especially since all the people on that invite list are folks who I consider my friends and hence I would expect better of them.

Take that V-Day

Email received from our IT team this morning:
We have become aware of public reports of malicious code circulating via spam email messages related to Valentine's Day. These messages contain a link to a website that contains several images of hearts and instructs users to choose one image. If users click on one of the images, they will be prompted to download an executable file. Reports indicate that the executable files could be named: youandme.exe, onlyyou.exe, you.exe, and meandyou.exe (please note that these file names may change at any time). If users accept the download, malicious code may be installed onto their systems. We encourage users to be aware of these type scams during the occasional holidays and if ever in doubt, don’t.

My response:
If this isn't a lesson to folks to stop perpetuating this ridiculous "celebration" of so-called "love" in a manner that is both exclusive and irritating to many, then they deserve to have their computers devoured by V-Day viruses. *insert maniacal laughter*

A Warning

Today, I saw this article online about the slamming winter weather in the UK and the ensuing chaos of a county grinding to a standstill.

All I'm saying is that those dudes at Heathrow better get their act together by Saturday or else I'm going to be VERY VERY upset if Beans is even a MINUTE later than scheduled.

They really DON'T want to mess with a woman who hasn't had sex in a very very long time!

Never a Dull Moment

I never realized just how insulated my office space was until today. I came out of my cubby and walked towards the kitchen for a coffee and stopped short when I saw 2 paramedics and a firefighter standing in the reception area.

Turns out, our Payroll Coordinator was having some sort of a panic attack and we'd dialed 911 for help. The paramedics showed up and had began working on my colleague for about 10 minutes before I'd even realized that something was amiss!

They ascertained that although not in any immediate danger, she would need to be moved to a hospital.

Then came the fun part!

Our office building is roughly about 120 years old. Built way before the times of notions of complete accessibility etc etc. There is a short - but steep - flight of stairs from the street to the elevators, that are themselves rather small and pokey. One of my colleagues went off to find the building manager to check about the freight elevator while the firefighters went off to check the exit access to the street.

The building manager was nowhere to be found, and so they ended up having to take her down in the regular elevators (the stretcher folds up into sitting position) and then between them they carried it down the flight of stairs to the street.

Lessons learned:
1. We need to know how to contact the building manager in a hurry.
2. We need to know how to access ALL exit routes on the floor. (Some of my colleagues didn't even know there was a service elevator)
3. Firefighters are hot hot hot tamales! The stereotype is SO true in this case.

Wishing and Hoping

We are a mere 3 weeks away from my birthday and this is what I hope the Birthday Fairy will be bringing me.

Natural Spin Lady's Dance Shoes - Size 9 (US), Model no. 160801
I am supremely confident I'll be able to just nail all those Tango turns and Foxtrot sashays with these babies on!

Metamorphosis

I used to be a realist and a pragmatist. Then along came Beans and turned me topsy turvy. Under his influence, I have grown soft and mushy - like an overripe pear. My bad ass, devil-may-care, tough girl persona crumbled and some sort of sappy-girly-walking-around-on-cloud-nine persona replaced the old me.

Case in point, I (voluntarily) watched a Hallmark Movie last night and *gasp* ENJOYED it! Loving Leah was

a quirky love story revolving around the unexpected wedding and unconventional
married life of a 26-year-old widow and her late husband's brother, a handsome
30-year-old cardiologist.

(from imdb.com)

The plot was looser than an unravelling jumper, the acting mediocre, the dialogue strained and boring and the storyline OH SO predictable. And yet, I kept watching. OK, so there wasn't much else on due to the SAG awards being aired so it was essentially between the movie and watching re runs of re runs of re runs of Seinfeld, Fraser and Family Guy that I'd watched a hundred times before AND Adam Kaufman the actor that played the "handsome 30-year-old cardiologist" is truly drop dead gorgeous AND there were multiple scenes in a swimming pool..... (!!)

But still, a HALLMARK movie????

This was sadly the crown to my weekend of sappy movies.

It started off alright on Friday night with Meet the Parents even though in between laughs I cautioned myself that this was to be my situation in a few weeks time!

Saturday started off a bustling round of house cleaning after which I deemed it necessary to reward myself by settling down to Four Weddings and a Funeral and carried over the Runaway Bride. I did redeem myself for a bit by also watching a bits of classic movies like Huckleberry Finn and Witness for the Prosecution over on TCM, but I did shamelessly revert back to the cheesy genre a la Sweet Home Alabama later that night.

I do owe The Blonde One a sincere apology for not attending her Stagette on Saturday night. She will perhaps be infuriated to know that THIS is what I ended up doing instead. My only excuse is that I was seriously NOT in the mood to drag my sorry behind out of bed and dress up and head out into the cold cold cold night all the way across town. I like parties just as much as the next gal, but my sunshine quotient was all used up after the vigorous round of cleaning and I suspect I would not have been great company in any case. I am however really looking forward to the wedding next weekend and no amounts of vacuuming and frigid temperatures will keep me away!

Closure

I finally did yesterday something I needed to do for a long time.

Over the weekend, I gathered up all of the Ex's stuff that I had still lying around and packaged them neatly into one nice bundle. CDs, photos and a whole lot of t-shirts were all delivered to his apartment last night.

I'm now totally out of sleepwear, but very happy with myself for tying up that one last loose end.

Heck, Beany prefers me naked in bed anyway! ;)

How Do I Love Thee? Let me count the ways.....

I got a call from Beans over the weekend. He said he was in Edinburgh and standing outside the Children's Book Store that I'd "found" when I was there. And he wanted to know if he could pick up anything for me.

Several excited squeaks later, I was conversing with the store manager who was kind enough to take down all of my requests and said she'll figure out the best book-price combo for me. So, I'm now the proud owner of 10 new books! They include two Enid Blyton first editions (!!), some early edition hardbacks and an assortment of paperbacks as well. Beans will bring them over next month.

Seriously folks, how can I NOT love this man????

Random Thoughts from the New Year

It's a good thing that "update blog more often" was not one of my new year resolutions! I cannot believe that today is already the 16th and that this is my first blog post for 2009. Shameful!

Thanks to the stress from my nightmare journey back home from Australia, I fell ill the day after I got home and I'm still struggling to shake off a nagging cough. Two coughs/colds in a month's time is no good. My body screams tired.

Going on holiday is wonderful. Playing catch up with work when you get back is NOT. Also, one of my colleagues left our company 2 days after I got back, so I'm trying to juggle managing my workload AND hers until we find a replacement. No one wanted me at work spreading germs, so ended up having to work from home for a few days until I wasn't such a cesspool!

Caught up with the Beer Baron and Trippy last weekend and we exchanged "Christmas" prezzies!!!! Trippy gave me a lovely holiday album/scrapbook for my holiday pictures and BB gave me a sock hat! Literally, a toque with two socks popping out of the top. I can twist and manipulate the socks into various "styles" like the Princess Leah or the Shrek or the likes. SO COOL! Stay tuned for pics through out winter!

The prezzie came at a great time too! This past week, the temperatures have averaged a balmy -20C with sharp winds on some days that took us all the way down to -33C. Brrrrrrr.

BUT in a mere 22 days,
BEANY WILL BE HERE IN TORONTO!!!!!!!!!!
Hip Hip Hurrah!!!
Just the thought of seeing him again and spending 2 glorious weeks with him makes me warm and fuzzy all over and allows me to face anything - even this the bone chilling cold with a modicum of a smile. I have HEAPS of things planned for him when he's here including dining at the top of the CN tower (reservations made!), going to a Raptor's game, visit to Niagara Falls (which I hear is really beautiful in the winter), celebrating my birthday with friends and family (not together!) and travelling to Montreal and/or Ottawa for a couple of days of sheer blissful alone time............
...........................
...........................
...........................
...........................

Sorry... was dreaming a bit there!

Anyway, there's loads to look forward to over the next few weeks - Beany's arrival, my birthday and a friend's wedding are just some of them! Go 2009!