Can You Hear Me Now?

Yeah, original title, I know. But when you just want to babble about your day, creative and interesting titles are hard to come by. I ain’t no Shauny.

I would like to say, proudly, that a new season of The Bachelor started on Monday, and I DID NOT WATCH IT.

I added a “to do” list to my sidebar. It’s actually a link list without links, because that’s all I know how to put up there, and when I complete something the word “done” will appear if you hold your mouse over it. Let’s see how on the ball I am this month, shall we? The easy stuff always gets done first.. I got a pedicure yesterday and I’m getting my hair done Friday. See Andy Stochansky? Heh. Hard stuff. Who am I trying to kid, I really should just put “eat” “sleep” and “shower” on it too. The “lose 10 pounds” is my attempt at actually having a real goal for myself. Anyway, I plan to update that monthly, maybe it will keep me in line somewhat. Or maybe it will just be for fun, time will tell.

I haven’t seen AH. Friday morning will be my last chance for this week, and of course since that is the day I am going downtown to get my hair done, my hair will be dirty and pulled back in a hair band, and I’ll also have my bulky walker with me. So I am quite certain that is when I will see him.

Sylvie’s hang glide is this Sunday! She still hopes to raise another £ 200 for the MSRC (the best MS organization out there) so if you can help that would be great!

When I arrived at my client’s today, there was no one in the office so I let myself in and got settled. There was a nice woman’s leather jacket strewn along the back of the chair I sit in at Troy’s desk (I use his office when I’m there) but I took no real notice of it and just sat myself down. Later when talking to Troy on the phone he asked me if I liked the jacket, because it was for me! He said his girlfriend gave it to me; I figure it’s too big for her since she lost some weight. It’s too small for me at this point, but you never know. It’s really nice and I hope to be able to wear it someday! It’s lined so it will be great to wear in the fall.

I bought this Lancome Flash Bronzer self tanning mousse yesterday. I had heard it is da BOMB, and with my white pasty legs I wanted to get some colour on. I wore a sun dress and sandals yesterday and it was not pretty, so I bought this stuff to assist me with that situation. IT DOES NOT WORK. Or, perhaps my pasty white legs are just a hopeless case because you actually need some pigment to work with? Heh. I love the feel of it on my skin… but “a golden, radiant tan in a flash”? I don’t see it. It feels great going on, though. But if I want to spend that much money on something that feels nice to put on my skin, I will spend it on body butters, thanks!

Another thing I spent money on recently are some Detox Foot Pads. I hope they serve me better than the self tanner! I’ve been hearing about these for awhile, and always one to try a new detox method, I purchased a 30 day supply and we’ll see what happens. They sound pretty cool. I was going to order them cheaper from somewhere else, but they emailed me and said “we cancelled your order because shipping to Canada will cost more than you are willing to pay plus we don’t know what the duty will be for you.” Well pfffft, why do you even have a choice of country on your order form then, if you don’t ship internationally? Their cancellation forced me to keep looking so I found these, and will save in the long run because they ship a lot cheaper. I’ll let you know how black and gooey the sap sheet is after my first night. Maybe even scan it and show you. HA! Like I’d subject my scanner you to that.

My cleaning lady comes tomorrow, so now I must go do housework. Funny how that works.

I haven’t felt like updating my blog lately, my life has been about work and feeling crappy and it;s all a little overwhelming and stressful. It’s Easter Sunday and I’ve already had two clients come by today and when my family is here later for dinner, I have to get my mom to help me with the handwritten part of a project I need to finish for another client. Bah.

Thankfully, most of dinner is being brought over prepared by my mom and my brother is bringing a turkey. We hold family gatherings here lately because my home is in the middle, and nobody drives except Bob. My only duty is usually to make sure my apartment isn’t a mess and that I have clean dishes available. Oh, that reminds me, I better run the dishwasher! Read the rest of this entry »

I have been thinking lately about my Good Luck Love Vibe. I must have one (and it works on everybody except me). I have been around a lot of people when they first met, that have ended up in love and wedded bliss and the whole nine yards. The first couple that comes to mind are my good friends Paul and Connie that, although I wasn’t around them when they first met, (that was in elementary school), I am responsible for first getting them together. There was a good sized group of us that hung out around that time, and I even went out on a date with Paul first. But there was nothing there (except respect and admiration for the great guy that he is, but I felt no attraction whatsoever, and I was kicking myself because he is GORGEOUS and I don’t know what was wrong with me!!!). It wasn’t meant to be though, because then it dawned on me that him and Connie were going to get married, although they weren’t aware of it yet and had never even been on a date. I changed all that. 12 years later they have been married forever and have 3 kids. They thank me when things are good, and blame me when things aren’t so good. Heh. Read the rest of this entry »

Okay, I have finally decided to finish off my Montreal entry so I can get back to posting about my oh-so-exciting day-to-day existence. I have been deathly ill for the past few days, I don’t know where it came from or how, but I imagine my lack of taking my usual supplements and stress from work overload has something to do with it. Of course now I am several days behind in work because my deathly illness has made it impossible to do more than lift my arm to click the remote, but now that I feel a bit of strength coming back I’d still rather do this than look at numbers. Work will… get done soon.

So, Emma and I crash in our hotel room Friday night after a very long and exciting day, only to wake up around 9:00 so we can get up, shower/dress/eat/pack etc. and be ready to check out of the hotel in time. We ate our wholesome croissant (I think I actually had two that day, gotta get my money’s worth) and juice and I managed to pack all my shopping from the day before into my suitcase. It was about 11:00 and we didn’t have to check out until noon, but we decided to anyway because the Hyatt was just a more exciting place to be than the Econo-Lodge. We now knew we could leave our bags behind that curtain upstairs and that even though the first performer (Luke Doucet) didn’t start until 1:50 p.m., we’d probably see some people. Their lobby was pretty hoppin’.

So we took a cab to the Hyatt, dropped our bags behind the curtain on the 11th floor, and went back down to the lobby. I remember seeing Jeremy Fisher hanging about and approaching him to tell him how much I enjoyed seeing him the night before (which I am quite certain made his day). I think it was around this time, maybe taking the elevator from the front doors to the main lobby, that we were sharing it with a couple members of The Bills (that we had seen on Thursday night). We were telling them how much we enjoyed them and I made a comment about Marc Atkinson being some kind of a God, not realizing he was also on that elevator. Heh. That cracks me up. He smiled and acknowleged my comment as I said “oh, hello” and the bass player noted “that’s a good thing to say right now!”

We sat in the lobby and made ourselves comfortable while we waited for magic to happen. Hee! It wasn’t long before Arlene Bishop and her husband/my old friend Blair Packham arrived; when Blair saw me he said “WHAT are you doing here?!?!” (He had no clue I was going to be there, even though I knew in advance I was coming to see Arlene I figured I’d surprise them). We hugged and chatted a bit. Arlene gave Emma and I a copy of her French Phrase booklet she had created especially for this occasion:

She’s a clever lady, that one!

I was telling Blair how I didn’t know this conference was happening when I first booked my flight, and how it just seems that when I plan a trip somewhere, my favourite musicians end up having a show there. Arlene quipped “will you travel somewhere warm?” Ha ha I mentioned how excited I was to see Danny Michel the night before. “Danny was here?” Blair asked (they’re good friends and play together a lot). I explained how we were dead tired and didn’t stay after he finished his last song, and that I really wanted to meet him and talk to him but we were just too tired to stay. “Oh, he’s disappointing”, Arlene said. “He’s great on stage; but off… and she shook her head shamefully and disapprovingly . Ha ha ha ha ha now I know I really want to meet him!

The four of us headed up to the Beaver Suite to see if there was any action there yet. There wasn’t. The doors were still closed and no sound coming from behind them. Along came Ben Sures, another artist from the conference and friend of Blair and Arlene’s. We all chatted a bit and Blair, seeing my glasses, asked me if I had one of those cloth wipey thingys to clean glasses. I reached in my purse and pulled out my yellow cloth, all neatly folded in its plastic compartment and handed it to him. Blair was impressed by the clean state of my cloth, and when Ben commented Blair said “yes, Donna is my official cloth glasses cleaner handler, I bring her on tour with me… Read the rest of this entry »

Friday morning we got up earlier than we would have liked to, because the FREE Continental Breakfast included in the cost of the hotel was from 7:00 to 10:00 a.m. and I don’t think wandering out to the lobby in flannels is acceptable. We showered and dressed and I got a head start on my coffee from the little pot in the room, and prepared to stuff ourselves (well, I did, because I thought I knew what a Continental Breakfast consisted of) with a variety of muffins, danishes, fruit, etc. When we got to the breakfast area at about 9:45 the only thing we saw was a coffee pot and apple/orange juice dispenser, and a counter with crumbs and little peanut butter and jam packets. I went to the front desk to advise them there was no breakfast left, and she shockingly said “no croissants??” and scurried off. She came back and re-filled the croissant tray. THE CROISSANT TRAY. That was the extent of our Continental Breakfast: croissants. No choices, no fruit. Welcome to Econo-Lodge!!

So we ate a croissant and juice before heading out for our big day at the downtown Eaton Centre. I knew I wanted to go “somewhere” on St. Catherines, and I checked in advance to see if there was a major mall there that would allow me to borrow a wheelchair for the day. No problem, and we could leave the mall with it to wander around if we wanted to (but we never did, it was cold out and Eaton Centre is big enough!) So I left my walker at the customer service desk and traded it in for a wheelchair and Emma pushed me all over that place. I spent a fair bit of money that day, lots of shower gels on sale and body butters to be had. I bought a cute square glass thingy that has a sun sort of floating inside, and you put it on a base that lights up and changes colours, and it is very cool. We went into Old Navy where they always have grrrrreat sales (but I rarely get to one in Calgary) and I bought a few pairs of flannel pajama bottoms for $3.97 and Emma bought THREE hoodies that were about $6 each. Woo hoo!

Emma thought it was strange that I wanted to take pictures of the phone booths, but I thought they were cool.

The mall

Emma took this cool one

Me in my new pink sweater

We went to the food court to have lunch, and I came very close to hitting Edo Japan because that’s just what I do, but I decided I should try something different, some vendor we don’t have in Calgary. There was a Thai place, which I thought to be very cool, and they had a curry dish, and I love me some curry, and really, how often do I get curry?? So I ate the hot curry chicken dish which fulfilled my curry consumption needs, for a couple weeks anyway. Read the rest of this entry »

Thursday morning when I woke up (Feb. 24th, we are back in Montreal now), Lynn was already back from an early morning class and brought fresh Montreal bagels with her for breakfast! So we had yummy bagels before getting dressed to head over to Fairview Mall in Pointe Claire… Emma was getting new clothes! We didn’t have a lot of time because Lynn had to be back at work that afternoon, so we just hit a couple stores. Emma found a few great things to buy and I got myself a pink sweater that was on sale, too good to pass up! On the way home we went through Tim Horton’s Drive Thru ’cause we were really short on time. Back home Emma and I ate while Lynn whizzed around getting ready to leave for work again.

Emma and I got ready for our big night out and she packed a bag (and I re-packed whatever I had messed up in less than 24 hours), and we called a cab to be at Emma’s sister-in-law’s work by 4:45. Trish was kind enough to offer us a ride to the hotel downtown, saving me at least a $50 cab fare. She was very sweet and friendly, and amazingly everything fit in her car, too. Seeing my walker, she asked me if I had ever been to the hotel we were staying at, and when I said no, she warned me that it was on a very steep road. St. Dominique slopes at an approximately 180° angle (give or take). Crazy! I treaded very carefully from the road to the door every time… if it had been icy on the sidewalk, I would have been a goner! Read the rest of this entry »

I will get to Part Two of my Montreal trip soon, but first I have to tell you that I saw Duran Duran in concert last night and it was AWESOME!!! Ohhhhhhh wow, wow, wow!! I arrived and found my crappy seat, which was as far across from the stage as you could get, but at least the view was good. Aside from the band being so small, I can’t complain. There was an opening band called The Cure Ima Robot, but the stadium was still fairly empty for them. They were pretty good though (the lead singer fell off the stage! For real! He just crawled right back on and kept going without skipping a beat. Hee!) By the time Duran Duran hit the stage the place was packed. Up until that point, I was my calm, cool, collected, 36 year old self (shaddap). Until the main lights went down and the stage lights started flashing, opening music played, and you could see the outlines of the band moving onto the stage as they burst into “Sunrise” from their new album. Then all of a sudden I turned into a 16 year old screaming idiot like the rest of the 30-something women in the audience, strategizing my plan to find out what hotel they were staying in so I could go touch the door knobs of their rooms the next day. Ha ha (I DID NOT!!)

It was so damn exciting, and we were all caught up in it, even the 20-something guy next to me was screaming louder than me. Ohhh the memories! Nick Rhodes announced later “it’s been 21 years since we last played here…” and I was there for that too, right down front, screaming my head off and trying to make eye contact with John Taylor. They played all the hits, all our favourites from albums dating as far back as 1981 like Planet Earth, Save a Prayer, Hungry Like the Wolf, The Reflex, Notorious, I Don’t Want Your Love, Come Undone… the long encore included a kick-ass version of White Lines as well as Girls on Film and Rio. There was a totally hot back up singer who has the best job in the world, and I would love to steal that job from her, but that would mean I would need to wake up with her body, hair, looks and voice, and, well, that would just be torture. Heh. One of the funniest moments for me was when Simon was trying to talk to us while removing his jacket and he said “this is difficult, trying to talk into a mic while taking off your jacket. They teach you how to do that on American Idol, though.” Ahahahaha! Two hours of total bliss for me, that was! It was the third time I have seen them live (the second was in Toronto when they opened for David Bowie on his Glass Spider tour circa 1987!) and by far the best. Simon’s voice has improved tenfold in the past 20 years; they look hot, sound better than ever, and their new album is awesome, and they are soooooo awesome!! OMG!! Eeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

On Wednesday, February 23rd I boarded a plane early in the morning, heading for Montreal to meet my favourite 15 year old and good friend Emma live and in person for the first time, and hang out with her for a few days. We had all sorts of fun plans that included a couple nights in a hotel downtown while we took in some live music. At the time neither of us were aware of what a completely overwhelmingly amazing few days that would turn out to be!! Read the rest of this entry »