I want snow!!!!!

Huzzah! I'm back. Internet, rejoice! This weekend was about a 7 out of 10 in terms of solidness, but I came out feeling excessively tired which I'm blaming on the grey sky and dismal feel in the city right now. Friday night was a Raptors game with a bunch of friendsicles. You can see another account here which features some details about the family sitting in front of us.

The main "small talk" question these days seems to be something about one's readiness for "the holidays." In case you're curious about my own readiness, I finished my shopping two weeks ago and everything's wrapped and already at my parents' house. I do NOT mess around when it comes to Christmas. Also, I'm all for being politically correct, but I don't think it's necessarily offensive to call Christmas by its real name. Christmas is, as far as I know, the only holiday taking place on Dec. 25th, so can't we just call it Christmas while still acknowledging that not everyone celebrates it? Oh.... we can't?

My new cellphone, the Samsung Link, has served me fairly well so far, but I still miss the smooth stylings of the old Nokia. Also, I can't totally figure out the alarm clock on the Link. I hope it continues to wake me up faithfully. I purchased my first cellphone in the summer of 2002, at Future Shop, and I remember feeling so awesome that I finally had a cellphone. It was one of those huge bulky ones with a tiny screen that was green with black writing. At that time I didn't trust the cellphone fully, and was still paying for a home phone at my apartment AS WELL AS the cellphone. Almost no one does that anymore. Right?

On Friday I took the liberty of decorating our office for Christmas The Holidays. It looks like sweet sweet nectar. There are fake plastic bells hanging near the main trays, and red lights along the back wall behind the supervisor's desks. Yesssssssss. I would've liked to wrap some monitors in wrapping paper, making them appear to be gifts instead of monitors, but people would probably just unwrap them so they could do their work.

Tonight I have to go to choir even though I'd rather get some icing and decorate all the sugar cookies I made on Saturday. The cool thing is, I can *technically* do whatever I want! I often don't eat the crusts of toast or pizza because I don't want to, and I don't have to because let's face it: I'm 29 and in charge of my own destiny. I think I'll probably still go to choir tonight and not decorate the cookies, but it makes me feel better knowing I have a choice.

Lotto Max just takes your money and runs.

Have you ever put your phone number into one of those websites where you can figure out if it spells anything? My phone number(s) throughout my life have never spelled ANYTHING. It would be THE COOLEST if I could be like, "yeah my number is 416 YOU SUCK" or "you can get me at 416 THE CARA" or something. In high school one of our buddies' numbers was 9-DIRTY-9. You don't forget a phone number like that.

Soooo, last time I was complaining heavily about the dentist. Today was that fateful day which saw me swinging wide the door of the evil Waterview Dental and glaring at all in sight while considering running for it. Despite the fact that the dentist is a total and complete loser, who makes jokes like, "Are you nervous? Me too!" and "Don't you think I'm cool? Girls often get nervous when I'm in the room because I'm so cool", I did survive the procedure. They made sure to give me a double-dose of anaesthetic right off the bat, and they also let me wear the TV GLASSES (a solid invention). I'm sure I looked space age and awesome wearing them.

After I left the dentist I was super hungry, so I stopped by my fave digs, McDonalds, for a cheeseburg and fries. Eating when one's mouth is totally numb is really weird and difficult. I kept feeling like I was chewing my cheeks instead of the food. Maybe I was. Really unenjoyable.

As you cats know, I'm an avid reader and usually have a lot of books going at once. Novels are my mainstay and I go through them the quickest, cause they're my fave! I just read one of THE WORST BOOKS ever. You probably remember the romantic loveliness of "The Time Traveller's Wife", which was a pretty good read. I didn't LOVE it, but I thought it was interesting and sad and made me want to keep reading. The same author just wrote another book, called "Her Fearful Symmetry", and it was SOOOOOO horrible. First of all, the characters were all unlikeable. I couldn't relate to any of them or root for them, which is of prime importance when trying to have fun in a novel. The plot wasn't too interesting and it turned weird and sad, but not good-sad. I do NOT recommend this book. Seriously. I was told it was awful and I still wanted to read it for myself, and now I wish I hadn't.

ANYWAYS, now I'm off to games night, the best night of all!

Skippity Bop

People keep getting all up in my grill for not posting on this blog!!!!!!!! I have so much amazing and incredible stuff going on, you know, it's hard to find the time to just sit here and write. Here goes.

I got home 18 minutes ago and I'm still wearing my parka. I don't feel cold, but I love this parka because it's knee-length and feels comforting like a housecoat. As a teen, I wore my housecoat around the house pretty much all the time, just over my clothes. My mom was super annoyed by this for some reason. But even now, I often wish that housecoats were a normal part of people's clothing rotation. I'd love to wear one out in public. SO much comfort would be achieved. Who's with me??

Last week I went to the dentist. I HATE going to the dentist and I hate Waterview Dental and their insistance that I come back every 3 months. (I did try to fight this last week, and said that I only wanted to come in every 6 months, like regular people, but they told me that my gums bleed more than normal, which is why they "strongly recommend" I come in so often. FINE. Just call me Cara "Bleeding gums McGee" Pauls.) A few months ago, I did exert some power and refused the flouride, because it always makes me feel pukey after. And guess what? My refusal of the stupid flouride resulted in me GETTING TWO CAVITIES. I was extremely traumatized when they informed me about this, and I just sat in the dentists' chair going "Oh MAAAAANNNN, this is so horrible, I can't believe it!" etc for like five minutes, and they didn't know what to do with me.

The reason I'm 100% freaked about getting the cavities filled is because I have this crazy rare non-response to anaesthetic, both local and general. I woke up once while under general anaesthetic, and when the doctors noticed, they were like, "Holy crap! She's awake! Quick, give her more, give her more!" and then I got knocked out again. And EVERY TIME I have had to get dental work done, they insist on just giving me one dose of freezing stuff, and then start drilling. I always tell them that it's not frozen and they don't believe me. They just give me this disbelieving look like "Suuuuure", and then tell me that they'll start drilling anyway "just to see". Which is a horrible and hurtful idea. So it happens every time that they start drilling, I experience SEVERE PAIN, they realize this, and finally give me more drugs. I am literally going to REFUSE this time. I will cover my mouth with my hand, and give them all the stinkeye, and kick them even if necessary, if they try to start drilling without giving me large doses of anaesthetic.

I currently have 6 books on the go. A lot of people find this weird, and say that they can only read one book at a time. But the trick is not to read the same type of book. I've got 3 novels going, plus a psychology book, a religion book, and a health book, all non-fiction. If you keep things varied, you can read any number of books at once, and then just switch it up. I find the psych one to be really good right before falling asleep.

P.S. I have almost a full container of buttermilk in my fridge - WHAT can I do with it?!?!?

City where the heat is on.

Good morning, friends. I spent last week on the beautiful shores of MIAMI BEACH, FLORIDA. It was a pretty prime vacation spot, with tons of hotels, nice cars, rich people, and hot weather. I think the thing that kept us most busy was just sitting somewhere having a drink and watching people and cars. That may not entertain YOU, but trust me, it was gooooooood times.

Here are some of my astute observations on Miami:

- It seems to be the case that it is legal, or else just 'okay' in everyone's eyes, to get a drink from a bar, and then just walk around on the streets with it. They usually serve mixed drinks and beer in plastic cups (think those red plastic ones from all your university keggers, only clear instead). If you feel like parading yourself around instead of sitting at the bar, you can just pick up and leave and keep on drinking. It was really odd... reminded me a bit of my year in Namibia, where it's legal to drink anywhere you want, even in a moving car.

- The cars in Miami Beach are ridiculous. SO MANY PEOPLE had mustangs, lambourghinis, jaguars, beamers, etc etc etc. And a lot of vintage convertibles. The "cool thing to do" is to just cruise up and down Ocean Drive slowly in your nice car and hope that as many people as possible will notice.

- A huge percentage of the people there are runners. Out on the beach in the morning or the evening, you would see swarms of people running in packs, and also some flying solo. This was okay with me, but what really got my goat was when people would be running in the middle of the day. The heat was super oppressive and it was really humid, which was conducive to sitting around drinking, or swimming. That's IT. Some people would jog by at like noon, just dripping sweat and about to keel over. I just don't like seeing this. It's like torturing yourself!

- An odd contrast to the number of runners was the number of pizza places. Probably every other shop along the major streets was a pizza place. I don't really get this, because most of the non-caucasians there seemed to be from either Mexico or Haiti, countries which I didn't think were huge on pizza. It was comforting and satisfying though to see so many pizza places, and gave me a vision of what Toronto could look like one day if we get our priorities straight.

- There were two other types of shops besides pizza places, and one was tattoo parlours. I think I counted 4 tattoo shops on one block at one point. Pretty much everyone, guys and girls alike, seemed to be heavily tattooed. An interesting trend, but understandable, because it seems that the main goal of people there was to show as much skin as possible. Showing skin on its own maybe gets kind of boring (???) so they get tattooed to give other people something else to look at.

- Restaurants in Miami Beach could be counted on for HUGE portions, including epic drink sizes - like daquiris larger than a baby's head. There were always lots of drink specials going on, and our hotel even gave us free drinks from 7-8 every night. The huge portions of food also didn't really jive with the fact that a lot of people there are ridiculously skinny, but who am I to question these things? Mom and I usually just shared one meal between the two of us which worked out well. Oh and I also got carded several times when ordering drinks, which got annoying after awhile. (Restaurant side note: We also saw a guy order an entire bottle of red wine and a dish of pasta at 10 am.)

- This list would not be complete without sharing with you Miami Beach's biggest obsession: ED HARDY. The store windows were dripping in rhinestones and emo-esque phrases splashed onto shirts and shoes. SOOO many people, even moms, were wearing Ed Hardy crap constantly. I do NOT get it - Ed Hardy seems pretty tacky to me, and it's overpriced. Plus it's become synonomous with sleazeball Jon Gosselin. Please explain to me why this brand is so popular. Am I getting too old to understand??

ME AGAIN.

I guess fall has brought with it not only cooler weather, lots of wind, and the early musings of Halloween, but also more motivation for me to express my thoughts with the handful of folk who enjoy this WEBLOG.

I know you're wondering how the fantasy hockey draft went. I felt pretty solid about my picks and just hope to high heaven that my players do okay. I feel like I've done a heck load of research so far, so I think it's just a matter of sitting back and waiting to see how things go. I also feel like, in my effort to be more connected to the other side of the gender dome at work, I may have inadvertantly distanced myself from the ladies there. I HOPE NOT!! Geez.

Here's a quote for you by someone called Tom Stoppard, who claims to be a british playwright: "Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art." I gotta admit that I kind of agree with him. Our city's in a tizzy about the upcoming Nuit Blanche right now, and confession: I turned down, somewhat rudely actually, an invitation to be part of an exhibit/music thing there. I didn't think the exhibit/music thing was a horrible idea, but it was pretty bad. I have a really hard time appreciating Nuit Blanche, and modern art in general. I'm really not sure why. I mean, I had a fairly cultured childhood. Our parents took us travelling often, my mom took me to see the symphony and theatre, my dad took me to hockey games (ok not a good example of my cultured childhood, but anyways), we learned other languages, I took music lessons and dance lessons and drama lessons, etc etc etc. So WHY do I have next to zero appreciation for modern art? I'd actually like to figure this out, because I truly don't get it. I'm thinking maybe it has something to do with the whole "open to interpretation" thing. With good writing, for example, a group of leaders in the field could all look at one piece of fiction and generally come to a consensus that it is GOOD. This would never, ever happen with a piece of modern art. Maybe I just like standards and parameters? I don't know. I don't actually know how or why so many people are into things like Nuit Blanche. Maybe they just like the chance to stay out all night and wander the streets with crowds. Admittedly, it's a good atmosphere. But after attending last year, I concluded that I "just don't get art."

Tonight I played my piano a bit and realized I'm really out of practice!! I miss the times when I was in a band. I felt like such a rock star.

Here's an excerpt from an email I wrote to a friend on July 25, 2004. Apparently I had a lot of fun back then:

on friday, mary and i left for port rowan. we went to my grandparents' house on friday night, and then saturday, got up early and started the day. we had a really busy day and it was just perfect.... such good weather, so many fun times... went to garage sales, to a provincial conservation historic area, and to a beach. in the evening after dinner we left for a campground and spent hours gathering the perfect firewood and then building a massive bonfire and poking at it with sticks. SO much fun!! slept in a tent and then today went out for lunch with my grandparents before driving back here. we stopped a lot along the way to take pictures of roadkill. it was truly the greatest weekend i've had all summer....

Another taste of the good life.

It's Sunday Afternoon, the most boring time of the entire week. Not in a bad way though, because you're free to do whatever the heck you want! It's just hard to mobilize friends into an actual activity though, so I mostly end up hangin' in my apartment and being cool. Right now I've got some cookies baking that will PROBABLY turn out crappy because I didn't exactly use a recipe, just threw some stuff together. I also have SCALLOPED POTATOES (including ham, cheese, and onions) in the crock pot. Hooooooooly crap, can't wait til that stuff is done. The trick is to wait til it's cooled off though, for obvious reasons.

I'm listening to this right now - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_FhEL1JL2Y - pretty catchy stuff by Little Boots. I saw her in concert a couple weeks ago and it was a good time, although being a heterosexual female, I was totally a minority at the bar. That seems to happen whenever I go to shows that feature a hot chick as the lead singer. WHAT GIVES?

Tried to take a nap earlier and it didn't even work. Got a solid 9+ hours last night, so even the idea of napping was pretty ridiculous, but I like to take advantage of every sleep-op possible. (Cookie update: they turned out! I'm eating one right now. Get yourself over here if you want one!)

And now, for a non-exhaustive list of things I'm into these days:

- Olives

- Ridiculously high-energy dance music, useful for "pumping yourself up" while trying to get ready for work when you're still really tired. eg. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uDixD4tXXU

- Recliners

- Loafers

- Candles (best part of FALL!)

- socks

- Thinking about whether to chop all my hair off (opinions??)

- Pizza - not really eating it, but thinking about it and hoping for good pizza. It's so, so, SO hard to find good pizza lately! Please recommend some if you know of really good gooey pizza.

- McDonald's (I'm actually always into McDonald's)

- Not quite getting motivated to start running again

- Setting aside the mixed drink joviality of the summer and getting back into solid wines

There you have it. Tonight's the draft for the hockey pool at work, which the guys have GRACIOUSLY allowed me to be a part of this year. I'm kind of scared since my hockey player knowledge, while semi-decent, isn't as good as it should be. But let's face facts: I'm good at contests, I'm delightful, I do know quite a bit about the sport of hockey in general, and I'm the ONLY girl in the pool. So these things should work for me and not against me. I hope. Cross you them fingers.

For my 3 loyal fans.

ANNNNNND, I'm back! Today was the "working from home" experiment/extravaganza '09 . I thought I'd hate it: being the life of the party (well, in this case, the life of the office) is not a feat easily achieved whilst sitting in my tiny apartment wearing sweatpants. But I really enjoyed the freedom, and the chance to do things like make tomato soup, not put makeup on, wear pink socks, listen to trance music, and open up the windows to let a cool breeze blow through the room. These things would never have been possible at the office. Except for wearing pink socks, but still.

Quick food update for those of you interested: haven't really had anything too noteworthy lately, although I did hit up one of my fave sushi/korean combos, Hosu, on Sunday after churchy church. Unfortunately I ordered too much food... easy to do at those places. You order one dish but then they bring all this extra stuff like soup, salad, and tiny bowls of spicy stuff. It's so yummy and filling! I went the extra mile and ordered a side order of glass noodles, and pretty much filled up on those, so I had to bring the cali rolls and maki home. Don't worry, I polished 'em off at dinnertime in my recliner.

Today's food hasn't been as yummy or as filling. Breakfast saw me heading to the local java joe's for some craptastic "java" and a crummy excuse for a muffin. It was the kind that crumbles into bits as soon as you look at it. Pfffffffffffff LAME MUFFINS AT JAVA JOE'S!!!! At lunch I made Campbell's Tomato Soup, one of my fave childhood treats. Unfortunately there's no bread here so I couldn't have a grilled cheese sandwich. I finished off the meal with a couple of frozen chocolate chip cookies. I keep 'em in the freezer. Got hungry again a few hours later and made some sweet potato fries, which were okay, but really, who am I kidding? They taste a thousand times better at the local pub.

And now, a list of things that are a TOTAL WASTE OF MONEY that I regularly spend money on:

- Magazines. Ok, I don't really buy them too often, because I have a subscription to Toronto Life and that's all you really need. But sometimes I'm suckered in by the glossy covers of Marie Claire or Glamour. They always only provide about 10 minutes of entertainment, have pointless articles, and just make me wish I had more money to buy all the clothes gracing the pages.

- Coffee from the Second Cup. This is now part of my budget. I officially spend $40 per month on Second Cup coffee. Some would say this is a waste. I could probably get away with spending about $10 per month if I made my own coffee. But folks- life is about enjoyment. Would I enjoy making my own disguistoid coffee and carrying it to work on the subway? HELLS NO.

- Books. Ok - NOT a pointless purchase. But I could just as easily go to the library, right? Thing is, I'm somewhat obsessed with bookstores, and with the new book smell. I just don't get as much pleasure from a library book with sticky germs all over it as I do from a brand new book that is ALL MINE!!!! BWA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAA!!!

Okay. So, that's it. Who wants to play board games with me? Also, I'm taking a week off soon and my plans "fell through" as they say so... I NEED SOME PLANS post haste. Disneyworld, anyone? (P.s. I'm serious.)