10 Things that Suck

The following have all happened to me recently, although, thank God, not all today.


1. That "I wanna go back!" panicky feeling you get after you quit a well loved job, even though you know you did the right thing.

2. Putting your thumb through a brand new pair of nylons.

3. Worse, only having one pair of nylons left in your drawer on a day you are running LATE, and realizing they have a run in them so wide you could give birth through it.

4. Setting a full beer down on the floor next to you as you prepare to watch American Idol, and promptly kicking it over. (Okay, that happened tonight.)

5. Checking your lottery ticket and realizing you have yet another pink bookmark that cost $4.

6. Never getting laid again. (Hey, either you've been paying attention or you haven't.)

7. Non-stop Anna Nicole and Britney coverage on the "news".

8. Getting distracted while making your coffee, and inadvertently adding double the amount of sugar you wanted.

9. Condescending people. People who don't listen. People who repeatedly interrupt while you are mid-sentence.

10. Ummm.....writer's block.

End of a (mini) era

For better or for worse, I quit my job at Statistics Canada tonight.

Even though there were only three weeks left, I felt that now was the time to stop. To be perfectly honest, with the current state of Mario's back, it just didn't feel right to me to be out of the house every night until midnight. I felt terrible explaining this to my manager, but she was totally supportive of my decision. We even parted by exchanging personal phone numbers, which was great. I will definitely call her once things settle down for me a bit.

I am going to miss working there, I really enjoyed the work, as well as some acquaintances I made. Oh well, for everything that ends in life, something else begins.

Oscar Surprise

The biggest surprise of the night for me had nothing to do with the awards.

Melissa Etheridge won for Best Song, and in her acceptance speech she said, "blah blah blah, my wife, Tammy."

Mario: "Her wife??"

Jenn, busy watching the show: "Yeah yeah, they got married a few years ago."

Pause.

Mario: "Melissa Etheridge is GAY???"


I love this man.

Oscar

Ah, Academy Award Sunday. The one night of the year when I own the TV. When the awards are on, the rules are simple: you don't talk to Jenn unless spoken to. You don't check sports scores during commercials. You don't walk in front of the TV. You don't ask Jenn to do anything that will involve leaving the livingroom.

Okay, I'm exaggerating a bit... but only a bit.

This afternoon, Brian and I each made our list of predicted winners, I'm going to make Mario do the same after dinner. Whoever gets the most right will win, although we still haven't determined what the prize will be. Brian was all over this particular challenge. That kid slays me, unbelievable that the tiny baby I gave life to can look me in the eye and explain Djimon Hounsou's merits. Funny, funny kid.

I won't get into my picks (or why I picked them), but I will offer this opinion: Any year that Clint Eastwood puts out a movie, the Academy should just save everybody some time and declare him Best Director. Maybe that way the show would end on time.

Pity Party is officially over

Sorry for being such an "Oh-poor-me" loser yesterday, just needed to get it out of my system. So here's a quick update on the Rest of My Life...you know, the things that actually matter.

Mario is doing slightly better, he has seen the Light and turned to drugs. Seriously, the man has a deep aversion to taking medications of any kind. And while I respect this in general, I think he now sees that a few muscle relaxants and Tylenol 3's can be a pretty fine thing. He has also been to his chiropractor ("witch doctor", she said under her breath with her lips grim), which he says helps him. Whatever, I don't care if he does to an ACTUAL witch doctor, just help him with the pain.

Brian, on the other hand, is sick as a dog again. I was supposed to pick him up tonight, but Ken (his dad) was only able to get Brian a doctor appt tonight, so I'll go get him in the morning. We are all a little concerned about this; Ken and I took him to the doctor two Saturdays ago (Brian was too sick to come to my house so I went to their house for the day), the doctor said strep and gave him a course of antibiotics which only ended three days ago....so how come he's got the same thing again?? Anyway, I can't wait to get my hands on my little baby and mother him to death.

Mario has, gloriously, caught the Gardening Bug. I have NO idea where this came from, but he is turning out to be as big of a geek as me, all of a sudden. I get a gardening catalogue in the mail, and I have to fight him for it! When I come home with a magazine clutched to my chest and admit I have bought yet another gardening magazine, his response is "Gimme!" He even went out and bought a $100 landscaping software program. This is completely bizarre....but I'm not complaining! And finally, check this out: he wants to dig up part of our front lawn. Oh my God, my dreams may actually come true...



You know, I actually have the best life. I may have a sick kid and an injured lover, but I have them. My God I'm lucky.

My Pity Party

I'm not going to get in to details (because they are long, boring, and numerous) but I kind of half thought I was about to move in to a new phase in my career. Not a promotion or anything flashy like that, but a time of...oh, for lack of a better word, prominence. It just looked like I was going to have the opportunity to shine, to rise to new challenges, to move in new directions, to evolve. Please understand I am NOT saying I thought I was "entitled" to this, I just really thought I would be given a shot, and had reasons to believe this. And this type of growth opportunity only comes along every few years; someone is selected by the Groom-ers to become the Groom-ee. I was very, very excited. I so love what I do.

Blah blah blah, turns out I was wrong. The new opportunities which I thought were mine will actually go to someone else, and I am somewhat on the devastated side. I feel like I should add a line to my business card which says, "...when you're willing to settle for second best."

Not feeling particularly good about myself right now.

On the drive home tonight, I was actually able to look at the situation in a rational manner, was able to come up with several things I can do to ensure this doesn't happen to me again. All very positive, all self-affirming. I may have been looked over this time, but it is up to ME to ensure that doesn't happen again. And tomorrow, I promise I am getting on board with that.

But for tonight, I get to wallow. Surely I'm allowed one night.

Sigh.

This is how I know it's bad

Mario irons his shirt for the next day, every evening. To say that he is fastidious about his clothing is putting it mildly. Always perfect, always with crisp, knife sharp creases, shirt cuffs turned back at exact angles, ready to receive his cufflinks.

Soon after I moved in with him, I was home alone one evening while he was off working. My thoughts turned to the fact that, whenever he finally made it home, he would have to iron a shirt. Being young (okay, youngER), I immediately saw an opportunity to remind him how much I loved him: I would iron his shirt. No, wait, I would iron all his shirts! I mean, I had previously been married for nine years, and had ironed literally thousands of shirts in that time, no big deal.

Our laundry room is downstairs, but I knew this was an all-evening project, so I dragged the ironing board up to the livingroom and began. After something wild like twenty five shirts, I gave up, simply because I couldn't fit anymore in the closet without crushing them.

Several hours had elapsed by this time, so I decided to wait up for him. When he finally made it home, I took him by the hand and proudly opened our closet, so he could see what I had done. He looked at me with such love, tenderness, pride, and appreciation; he just couldn't believe I had spent so much time being so thoughtful. A good night for us.

The next morning, I got out of the shower and couldn't find Mario. I finally went downstairs, where I found him "touching up" the way I ironed his shirt. To be honest, I wasn't upset in the least; part of me laughed at the situation, and the other part of me said, "SCORE, now I never have to iron again!!!"

And, in almost four years, I never have.

Tonight, I got home from work at midnight. Mario was hanging over his crutches in the livingroom, clearly in pain. And he shamefully admitted that he didn't think he could manage to iron his clothes, and would I do it for him?

Oh God, it's really bad this time.

Grr

I have to leave for work in a half hour. I just spend the last hour watching a documentary about K-63, the tomb found last year in Egypt. The whole hour asked the question, "But whose tomb is it?"

Well, it just ended and I still don't know, the hour ended at the most exciting part! Why? Because there is a second documentary which, I presume, will contain the tantalizing answers. And I have to go to work!! Not fair, not fair!

Speaking of going to work, must admit that I have gotten pretty tired of my part time job. I still love statistics, and I still believe in the project, but as we approach the end, it is getting harder and harder to actually get anything done. To put it in context, on my very best day, I managed to get eight questionnaires done, and I had many days when I would finish five. The other day, our entire department finalized seven. Where I once approached my work day with passion, I am now reduced to the, "Well, I'm going to make my money and go home."

The other discouraging part is the actual amount of money I made....which is quite a bit, thanks. When I took the job, I once more had planned to save for our vacation, and based on how much I have made, we would have been able to have the best vacation we've ever taken. But sometimes fate has other plans; we ended up buying another car, second hand, which we did need. All of my part-time money will just pay for it. We really did need another car, but now I have no idea how I am going to finance any summertime adventures. At this point, it looks like we will spend two weeks at home, and for kicks we'll be able to go out to the driveway and sit in the bloody thing.

The Life of an Artist

Am currently experiencing technical difficulties, otherwise photo above would be cropped (to say the least).

Journaling is taken direct from Carleton' s DVD, and reads,

I was probably eleven the first time I actually put a guitar in my hands. At the family cottage, there was a guitar that belonged to my grandfather, a beautiful old Gibson Hummingbird accoustic, probably a 1960's model. And just out of sheer curiosity, I asked him to teach me some chords."

The smaller photo on the layout is from that day. I have no idea who took it (although I suspect our stepfather Kenny), and truthfully I don't care. The fact that we have captured the first time Carleton held a guitar means more to me than I can say.

The "embellishments" at bottom right of page include his band's latest CD / DVD, a documentary he scored (as featured on Oprah, thank you VERY much), and one of his solo CD's, "Sweet Loving Angel Boy". Plus a clock, to show that we are all willing to wait for Carleton's Time. A time which we all know is coming.

The life of an artist is never easy. In the cold light of day, he works full time managing a company which does movie props. Seen "Chicago"? Look at the lamps, the newspapers on the table, and you are looking at Carleton. By no means did he compose the shots in the movie, or have any impact on the movie's final glory, but he DID spend hours inside his cavernous warehouse with the set director, showing him different chairs, rugs, toasters, and old magazines. It figures that his "real" job is just as artistic as his "artistic" job.

Carleton realized very early that if he was going to make it Big in music, he needed to be in Toronto. And so, at twenty, he left New Brunswick with the pledge that he would give Toronto ten years, and then come home.

Well, it has now been fifteen years, not the promised ten. And although we love and miss him, no one wants him to come home. He has literally spent the last five years "on the cusp", so close to a breakthrough that none of us has breathed freely in recent memory. I remember, when my father died about a year ago, Carleton strongly considered leaving Toronto and coming home so he could "be here" for our little sister. I remember laughing and saying, "Yeah, see if MUM lets you do that!"

Hotel Widow

If you, or someone you love, don't work in the hotel industry, then you can't possibly understand the life Mario and I share. I suppose that, in many ways, it's like living with a doctor: you send your loved one out to their work day, with no idea of when they're coming home. At least with a doctor it actually IS an unknown... with us, Mario will go to work at 8 am, with full knowledge that the earliest he will grace our door is 4:00 am, and further with the understanding he will be back to work four hours later.

Do not misunderstand me, Mario doesn't work those kinds of hours every day, but those incredibly long days are a normal part of running a sucessful banquet floor.

The problem for Us-- and the pride of the hotel -- is that Mario is, literally, a Legend. There is no one like him, not even his incredibly trained protegees, and our clients bloody know it. If I had a dime for everytime a client said to me, "But Mario will be there for our event, right??".... well, if I had those dimes, he'd never be at anyone's function again.

Difficult to be "married" to someone who is in such high demand. I admire him, I am proud of him, I work with him and so I depend on him, I am in awe of who and what he is. But add to all THAT the fact that I happen to be in love with him, and you have a recipe for grumpiness. I understand that Everybody wants him, and I understand it is his responsibility to be there for Them. And I FURTHER understand that their insistance to have "him-no-one-else-I-don't-care-about-anything-else-just-give-me-him" pays our mortgage. And, even further, I understand that the long hours he puts in are a direct result of what I have done, with my job in Sales and the fact that I push, "Well...you know you get Mario..."

But there literally comes a point when I want to say, "Listen, I'm glad that you and your 400 guests had a great night, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your confidence and your business. But I am relatively sure that the man would rather be at home with me, so can I have him back, please??"

Come home, Mario.

Mixed Feelings

Tomorrow is, for better or for worse, Valentine's Day.

This particular "holiday" (snort!) leaves me conflicted. On one hand, I find the whole thing vaguely nauseous: if you need one day in a year set aside to tell someone you love them, you have problems far larger than I can help with, my friend. It actually creeps me out quite a bit, the idea that every February you turn to the person you love and say, "ummm.....I'm supposed to say something nice to you today, so...ummm...." Gross, gross, gross. I do NOT want that in my life.

I have long made this sentiment known, have long vocalized how offensive the very idea of the day is to me. And so one year I received no candy, no flowers, no recognition of the day. And I FREAKED. "It's Valentine's Day, couldn't you at least get me a card??"

Isn't it funny the way we believe we want one thing, but secretly wish for the other?

The Police on the Grammy's

That's it? Just "Roxanne"?? I mean, I knew it would only be one song, but....I'm not ready for it to be over.

Plus I lost my bet with Mario, I said they wouldn't do "Roxanne" because it's too predictable. Shows what I know.

Aw man, the POLICE. I am much, much more of a Sting fan than I am a Police fan, but they ROCK.


In other news, just to put closure on the previous post, I am no longer lonely, have my honey on the couch next to me. No, not lonely. But not particularly happy, either. Mario has somehow managed to screw up his back again, slipped disc. We went through this two years ago and it is NOT pretty. Last time, he spent several months sleeping in a wooden Adirondack chair in our livingroom. This afternoon, I went out to brush the snow off one of the chairs, and hauled it in to the livingroom to dry in case he needs to sleep in it tonight. I also got his crutches out from the back of the closet, and he is managing to hobble around the house with them.

My poor baby, I don't want him to go through this again. And from a selfish point of view (and in keeping with what I said yesterday), let's not forget the man had surgery seven weeks ago. And now his back is messed up. It is beginning to look like I will never have sex again.

Well....I'd still love him anyway.

Lonely

I adore being alone. I crave it, I love it, I look forward to it.

Being alone is something I absolutely need. As an example, for reasons I will never understand, I am completely unable to scrapbook unless I am the only person in the house... which may explain my annual page production.

The Empty House. The quiet, the peace, the idea that nothing occurs unless I want it to. I am a very solitary person and need these interludes to recharge my batteries. Dear God, just leave me ALONE.

And then there are the rare nights like tonight, nights when I am so bone-achingly lonely I can't stand it. I haven't "seen" Mario in quite a while, due to my work schedule, which, between both jobs, keep me out of the house from 8:00 am to midnight; and his schedule,which often sees him strolling in our door at 2:00 am.

I want my man. I want to see him, talk to him, look at hockey if I must, make love, eat dinner, fold laundry together, play backgammon, feel his hand on my hip as we drift to sleep, plan our garden, listen to his army stories, make love, play with our pets, argue over the roast, hear the electrical buzz of him trimming his beard, make love.

I am lonely tonight.

Drunk Monkey

Unrelated to the fact that I work part-time for Statistics Canada, I actually have a deep fondness for statistics....which, when you think about it, is probably why I really went to work there in the first place. It is such a fluid science...sometimes the results are very black and white, ie, "and therefore we know beyond a fact this is true", and sometimes the information isn't black and white, and leads to discussion and thought, ie, "look at those results, I wonder what caused them. Let's talk about it." Love it love it love it.

The part about statistics I don't enjoy is the part that, frankly, relates to winning the lottery. For those of you without access to a calculator (or those who don't remember the "probability" lesson from high school math), the odds of winning "6-49" are about 1 in 13 million. Odds of winning "Super 7" skyrocket to one in 120 million or so. (Approx number is because, while I DO understand probability, I currently DON'T have access to a calculator.)

We buy lottery tickets on a pretty regular basis all the same. It has been many years since I realized we aren't actually spending $4 on the chance of winning millions, we are spending $4 on the ten minutes of pleasure we get, dreaming about winning. And, for 4 bucks, I think we are getting a pretty good deal. There are many things in life we will never be able to do financially, but I really get a charge out of hearing all the things Mario would do, with me or for me, if we had the means. It may just be a silly, unrealistic conversation, but it reminds me, yet again, that he puts my happiness and interests before anything. (Lordy Lordy, you should HEAR about the scrapbook room he'd like to build me!)

So, for me, buying lottery tickets is usually a happy, positive thing.

And then there are the days like today, when I buy them with an impulsive "Oh GOD get me out of here and let me quit my job" mentality.

Nothing "bad" happened today, but I must admit I took quite a bit of offense to something my general manager did to me today. I guess now is the time to explain that, in my full-time career, I am a meeting planner; I plan conventions, organize gala dinners, cater to any celebrity clients and all their requirements, etc. Essentially, you give me a general idea of what you want, I will flesh out the details and make it happen.

Today I had a menu tasting for a gala, very important evening for our company (and for our client, of course!). My general manager had indicated that he wanted to stop in for a few minutes simply to meet my clients, no problem. He happened to still be there when the first course was presented, no big deal.

As usual, I began the critical discussion of the food. (Aside: people are often so intimidated by the fact that A Chef Prepared This that they don't want to say something if they don't like it. By NO means do I attack the food -- I love our food -- but it IS my job to get them talking about it.) So I said something along the lines of how I liked the colours in the salad and found the presentation of the blackened avacado an interesting touch. And they were off, some saying they loved the presentation and taste, some saying they liked the presentation but not so keen on the vinaigrette, etc. Things I need to hear so I can make sure they get what they want.

At this point, GM offers his opinion, which was very welcome; I know an awful lot about food, but he knows more. He made an observation that hadn't occurred to me, but I immiediately saw his point and totally agreed with him. All good.

Second course arrives, I am once again discussing different aspects of the dish, clients are once more in to what's going on. Then GM needs to leave for another meeting.

He chooses this moment to pledge to them that HE will speak to Chef about the presentation, HE will suggest a different garnish, HE will personally make sure the menu is flawless, HE wants to make sure the event is a complete success.

To be fair, he is a great guy who often praises my work and has total confidence in me. But after these astounding statements, I actually saw two of the four clients glance quickly at me with a look of surprise, as if to say, "Oh, but now you're going to leave us here with someone who must not know what they're doing???"

He completely undermined me, and never knew for one second what he had done. Plus he had suggested enhancements to the menu which, while lovely, are NOT in their budget, but now they have thier hearts set on them, and I'm going to have to be the bad guy. (and no, he did not ask me at any time what the budget was.)

Later on, this SAME DAY, I had another meeting with clients-- a meeting HE had called, please do know I was simply invited to the meeting, I'm not angry about that part-- when he pulled the same stunt again.

In both cases, I know exactly what his motivation was: he has been here less than a year, and he truly only wanted my clients to know he was personally interested in the success of their functions. Very noble, commendable, and necessary. He just could have thought about it a little bit more before he spoke.

By 4 pm today, I was ready to pack it in. I knew I was overreacting, but all I could think was, "If the way I am doing my job seems to indicate that a drunk monkey could do it, then BE MY GUEST. Here are my keys, here are my files, and here's my password to the network. Knock yourself out."

And so at 5pm, I bought a lottery ticket.

Bloody snow

Yes, I am the girl who stated emphatically that I love Canadian winters. And I still do.

But I had forgotten shovelling.

Between the ages of 26 and 31, I considered snow shovelling an activity I enjoyed. I would leave my husband Ken inside our house with baby Brian, and revel in a quiet hour to myself. There was silence, there was peace, there was refreshing and stimulating physical activity, there were the stunning Canadian Rockies always visible from the corner of my eye. And when I came back in, there was tea waiting for me.

Hmmph.

VERY different from today, when I realized that, because Mario was at work, someone needed to deal with our driveway, and I was the only person available. Okay, no big deal, I like this.

Here's a geographical fact you may not hear of any place else: Snow in Rockies= light, fluffy, and delightful. Snow in New Brunswick = wet, heavy, and nasty.

I spent the better part of this Saturday afternoon thinking, "Hey, today might actually be the day I have a heart attack in the drive way and no one finds me for six hours!"

Stupid, stupid snow.

That being said, after a winter of penguin-killing weather, it is encouraging to see Mother Nature finally show us her frozen glory. The number of days we have experienced this winter where the temperature actually dipped below freezing have been few and far between, and I thank God that the planet is still fighting back. Global warming is not the most important problem of our age, it is the ONLY problem of our age.

Guess I love that snow after all.