Trying out a new template. Linkage ('cause I'm an ASS and never bothered to save them)and other sundry items to come later.
Man, I need to geek out more. Since I started working in a non-Internet-enabled office, I barely ever have time to mess around with my 'puter.
Kirk: Did you know that Debbie Gibson's going to be in Playboy?
Me: [watching Harry Potter and The Prisoner Of Azkhaban]
Kirk: Did you even hear what I just said?
Me: Yes but don't really care about seeing Debbie Gibson naked. Do you?
Kirk: [long thoughtful pause] Maybe.
It's been hard to post the last few days. Wedding plans are in a holding pattern as I'm in the middle of tough negotiations with a couple of banquet halls. My dad's footing a large part of the bill and I knew he'd want to have a big Italian wedding reception and they're THE best place to throw one of those. (Watch the Wedding Singer if you need some reference material Anyway, I'm hoping that by Tuesday I'll have the place booked, nail down a date, AND then find someone to officiate. Kirk and I are still a little fuzzy on the whole spiritual/god/religion/faith thing so we're definitely going with a civil service.
Today was my grandmother's 82nd birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY NONNA MARIA!
We stopped in and visited with my family for a while. It seems that the appearance of babies in the last few years has definitely made it easier for everyone to get along. We're too busy marvelling at all the cuteness to be bothered by the usual irrirants. I ate way too much pizza and cake (standard italian canadian birthday party menu) and baby hands and cheeks.
I didn't think that my aunt Deb and uncle Vic we're going to make it. Deb's been fighthing a very agressive brain tumor for the last couple of months. Her neurosurgeon managed to remove a small portion of it last November and then intensive radiation treatments, five days a week for five weeks. Halfway through the treatments she started having seizures every few days. They did end up making it after all and I was shocked to see how her condition had so deteriorated since I saw her last at the beginning of December. She has lost most of her hair, is unrecognizably swollen and is losing muscle control in her right arm. There's been some talk of more surgery and chemo, but after seeing her, I wonder if she'd survive such an ordeal.
She told me she so hopes to be there on my wedding day. Even with everything she's gone through she still told me to call on her if I needed anything. All I could do to not start bawling was to hug her and tell her that I love her.
It's 9:30 am on Sunday morning and I am supposed to be cleaning. I tried...I really did, but dammit I MUST have music. So, I booted up the iMac, loaded up the iTunes party shuffle and here's what I got.
Fu-Gee-La (Refugee Camp Remix) - The Fugees
Rag Mama Rag - The Band
Bomb The World (Armageddon Version) - Michael Franti & Spearhead
Flame - Sebadoh
Suicide Chump - Frank Zappa
Perfect Silence - Scapegoat Wax
All You Facists - Billy Bragg and Wilco
Oh Canada - Rheostatics
Drafted Again - Frank Zappa
Absolute Beginners - David Bowie
War - Outkast
Sound and Vision - David Bowie
Julia - The Beatles
Tango Shoes - Bif Naked
Trance - Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
Now that I've shown you mine, please show me yours!
I almost never remember my dreams but when I do it's usually a doozy. The last one happened about a month ago. I remember the dream vaguely but I found some notes today that I had taken that morning.
Here's what I can decipher from my chicken scratch:
It's the present, or some dystopian near future, where all semblance of social, political and economic order in North America are just GONE. Over night. The power grid and telecommunications systems are out. And I am alone and pregnant. Kirk is somewhere in Texas on business and there's no way to get in touch with him. All I know is that I have to leave immediately to find him.
I grab a knapsack and fill it with as much food and valuables as I can safely carry. I don't have any cash, so I fill my pockets with change from the change jar. I leave on foot and things are in total chaos. People are looting and beating each other. I'm totally freaked out, but keep as clear from others as I can travelling on foot.
Suddenly I'm getting out of a vehicle, having hitched a ride from someone. I'm on the side of a highway at an abandoned truck stop somewhere in Texas. It's late evening and I cross a field into a seemingly deserted suburban-type neighbourhood. Suddenly I hear shouts and gunshots far enough away that I'm not immediately terrified, but close enough that I know I need to find shelter FAST and before nightfall.
I sneak into a nearby backyard and see some small children playing in a sandbox in the next yard over. They look like they haven't eaten in days. My stomach grumbles in sympathy and I check my knapsack. All I have left is a stale loaf of bread. The shouts are getting closer now. I go around to the other side of the house and can see a group of people arguing, then fighting, savagely beating each other.
For some reason that's when the baby in my belly kicks for the first time and I gasp loudly, surprised by the sensation. I don't wait around to find out if they heard me, I immediately turn and run towards the children. I want to get them, and me out of there. I figure if those kids survived this long they must know a good hiding spot. They're surprised to see me, but don't run from me. I offer them my loaf of bread in exchange for asylum and as they reach for it their father comes storming out of nowhere holding a gun. I suddenly realize that he has something to do with the gunshots I heard earlier. I try to explain that I just need a place to stay for the night and he won't listen, he's threatening me. I tell him I'm pregnant and I need help, he points the gun at me and I bolt.
I don't hear any shots fired but I can't stop running. After a while, I'm gasping for breath and have to stop. Somehow I'm back near the truckstop and I can feel that Kirk is close by. I can see lights in one of the abandoned buildings. It's a small house that wasn't there the first time I was there. I walk up to it and knock on the door. A small group have barricaded themselves inside but open a window and let me in. They give me food and tell me I can rest here for the night but then I have to leave with them in the morning. It's not safe here.
I peer out of the window and notice 6 or 7 police cruisers doing donuts in the field I had crossed earlier but now instead of grass it's a field of mud. They're spinning around and around and around and all of a sudden the house we're in starts spinning like the cruisers. Then the cruisers turn into houses and we're all spinning around like some insane carnival ride. Instead of being scared all of us in the house are having fun and we're all shouting "Wheeeeeeeeeeee!"
That's when I wake up and it's 5 minutes before my alarm is supposed to go off.
Last night Kirk and I went to a bridal show. I was going to go with my mom, but she had to work late, so Kirk offered to go with me.
Yes. He IS a keeper.
Within the first 3 minutes of entering the show, we were handed a plastic bag with 2 500-page wedding magazines. After about half an hour, we needed a frickin' sherpa to carry around the 30 lbs worth of paper that people were giving away. Some of it useful, but most of it unwanted, thrust into my hands before I even realized what was happening.
We were especially charmed by this one dude selling men's formal wear. Oily-haired, smarmy and unnaturally energetic, he cloyingly peddled his tuxedo rental information package to each man that walked by, which was often considering his booth was on the main aisle. After the third time we passed his booth, Kirk turned to me and said "We all look the same to them don't we?". To which I replied, "Pretty much. Keep in mind it's only day 1 of a 3-day show. That guy's going to be a total mess on Sunday."
Despide the hoardes of the cheesy DJs, videographers and limo companies, we did meet a couple of approachable, informative people folks, and we were sort of grateful for an opportunity to actually make some decisions about how much we could afford to do vs. how much we actually wanted to do. There were lots of great ideas for cakes, invitations, flowers and I got some more info on one of the venues I've got an appoinment with next Monday. Oh the wedding dresses that were modeled.
After watching about 15 minutes of the bridalwear fashion show, I decided that I absolutely do not want a big pouffy, flouncy, cream puff of a dress. Nor one that requires it's own attendant. I want something simple, sophisticated and sexy - more Sophia Loren than Cinderella.
I was going to go to a giant wedding dress sale today but I've had my fill of the wedding industry and wedding planning for a few days. Instead I went to paint at the studio and finally managed to get that workout in.
My left rotator cuff and left hip are a little fucked up right now. Turns out that sitting and lying down a lot and doing little physical exertion irritates old injuries from that time that that car hit me while I was crossing the street over 2 years ago. I am never going that long without working out EVER again.
Fybromyalgia anyone? None for me thanks, I exercise!
Seriously, no one was meant to do that much lying and sitting.
Front page news from Kirk's hometown: Tim Horton welcomed by Tim Hortons
So New Year's wasn't very hangover-y but it was still pretty damned yummy. I roasted a chicken, made some risotto with broccoli and ate that with some rolls that Kirk had baked the night before. Booze-wise we drank a bottle of wine, had some chocolate martinis and topped it off with some sparkling wine at midnight. We've basically spent the last few days holed up in our little home, eating and lounging, only venturing out to walk the dog. It's been sweet and romantic and TOTALLY lazy. Now, I'm trying to decide if I was really serious when I said I was going to work out today. My last day off before going back to work.
Anyway, while I mull that over, here is a list of things of stuff I'd like to do (in no particular order) in 2005:
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