Murder murder murder!

So we were invited to a murder mystery dinner party. We blocked it out of our minds since we are anti-social dorks. We figured it would be a bit of a chore but it turned out fun. I must say, I think the spiffing costumes I came up with 2 hours before helped us get into character. I'm pretty proud of the costumes and at the same time, a little worried that I have that much ridiculous clothing in my regular wardrobe.

My character was a traditional feminist. T was a piano bar pianist. I went for the Simone de Beauvoir look and was shocked at just how matronly I could turn out. By the end of the night though, I was really digging my look. As for T, I was digging his look straight away. Dude needs to grow a pencil mustache for real. He was hilarious as his character all evening.

It was played in french and I barely understood what anyone was saying but I made my character to be from England so at least I could speak in English and play my part with some gusto. I summoned up my best British accent as compensation and that seemed to go over well. Everyone else got into it their characters too which made it more fun. I didn't ask permission to post everyone else online so I haven't included their photos in the set.

Colonel mustard did it in the salon with a candlestick. Ahh Clue. I am definitely playing that soon.

Happy endings and happy beginnings

Well well. Look at me trying to type with my cat blocking the screen as he tries to kill the cursor. Why is my cat with me at work? He's not because, ha ha, I am also not at work. Oh no siree. My last day was yesterday. Goodbye bank. Smell ya later. Smell ya later forever.

I was presented with a card and a mug, in an excruciatingly awkward manner, with the 5 dollar price tag still on the box. I accepted it like a dork, as is my way. I wrote my own reference letter. I scoffed some pens and a glue stick. And as I stepped out into the open air, at the end of the day, imagine me throwing my hat in the air and spinning in slow motion like Mary Tyler Moore, only under a dark grey Montreal winter sky. Then I put my glove on one of the beer bottles as it passed me on the line and then I hit the jukebox to make it work and gave the thumbs up and...wait that wasn't me...

In any event, you could say, that yesterday as of 5:01 pm, I was an employment-free lady feeling pretty damn good about my decision. Last night, I celebrated with a repeat viewing of Napolean Dynamite, some pizza and a Brio and DiSarono cocktail.

Now, the kitten is purring nicely on my lap, the snow is falling outside, the fire is toasty and Vince Guaraldi is playing Christmas music on my CD player. I can dig it.

On other fronts, tonight is Tennessee's engineering ring presentation ceremony. He tried his suit on last night and looked pretty darn spiffy. I am super proud of him and extremely happy for him. It's been a goal and dream of his since he was a child and I have never seen anyone work so hard and with so much dedication toward something as I have seen T work these past 4 years. With his degree of natural talent and smarts he could have easily coasted through with less effort. However, instead of resting on his laurels he pushed himself (sometimes exhaustingly and painfully) to excel and got everything he could out of the experience to become the best kind of engineer; one who does it for the love and belief in the principles of engineering. I saw him do it and I saw how much work it was and he deserves that ring without the slightest doubt.

You will make the finest of engineers T. I congratulate you muffin pants!

So we will get dolled up and get him his ring and go eat some tasty vegan chinese food after.

Welcome December. Let's have a good time together you and I and you too reader. Let's all have a good December.

Houston, we have river ice.

Autumn weather is definitely over. Here's the last Autumn sky from weeks ago.



Now, here's the season's first river ice.



And my trusty astronaut sleeping bag coat.




And, for good measure, the sleeping kittycat.

Ready to rumble and dressed appropriately for it.

I've been training a new lady at work so I've no time to wander around internet land. One more week of work and then I am a free lady. You betcha.
Here's a quick list of the recent weeks and their happenings:

*turned 35. so far so alright.

*woke up to hearing Gordon Lightfoot or covers of his songs 4 times in the past 2 weeks. I like it.

*made some peanut butter flavoured granola and as soon as I eat it in the morning, I spend the rest of the day longing for the next day's breakfast. It's good shit.

*smacked on the window of a woman waiting at a red light in her car that nearly ran me over and gave her shit for it. Her response was; "The hand was flashing!", meaning, she felt she had the right to run me down in her car while I was on foot because the crossing indicator was a flashing hand. I told her she was a menace and a fool.

*nearly got in another fight when the woman across from me on the train was sprawled in her seat, reading a book, legs stretched out well beyond her reasonable boundary and leaning over onto the seat beside her, elbowing the woman next her to constantly as she obliviously read her book. She seemed to think the train was her lounge and all the rest of us were sitting up straight and respecting other people's space because we weren't as deserving of comfort as she was. I kept saying to myself: Pick your battles! Pick your battles! The poor woman beside her endured it selflessly. I would have had distinct "words" with her. But after I "rested" my foot on hers when she pushed it aside to stretch her legs, she made an effort not to touch me again. I was ready to rock if she did. Ready to rumble.

*Trained a nice French woman to take over for me at my job. She's an ex-librarian. Poor thing will want to quit in under 3 months. I can nearly guarantee it.

*Discovered my injured toe, whose injury dates back to being in California last year, creaks like breaking spaghetti or a crumbling cracker when I wiggle it. Hurts too.

*Congratulated myself once again on the choice of an excellent winter coat which I have employed again for the first time this year. 3 years so far, it has served me as the best damn coat ever. Light as a feather, warm as a tropical sunrise. I call it my astronaut sleeping bag because that's what it looks like. Other people may have prettier coats but they have been shivering and shaking down the streets of Montreal in them while I skip lightly in my confident warmth. Call me Canadian but I just love being well-dressed for cold temperatures. Makes me feel ready to rock. Ready to rumble.

*Updated my blog....wait, you know this part.

Unicorns and Shipwrecks

This morning, my radio woke me up to the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Still can barely understand a word of what he is saying but one day, I will learn the lyrics.

The gales of November have not yet turned gloomy. It's not even cold enough to wear my newly knitted and embroidered mittens.





Also, I didn't think it was possible for a cat to get more cute with each passing moment, but it is so:







We are most recently calling him Kitcat and Kitty and Cutey Poop etc...he is too cute to be tied down with one name.

Restless cat syndrome, not to be confused with cat scratch fever

Work is sooo slow. I have been watching comedy videos all day. I am so spaced out. I have only one earphone in, so that my other ear is free to half-heartedly hear my co-workers, should they need to address me (rare). The other earphone is dangling freely and due to screen watching catatonia plus lack of sleep from restless cat syndrome, I think I am starting to lose my capacities. I keep absent-mindedly trying to use the free earphone for purposes other than it's inteded one of being in my ear. I coughed into it, instead of coughing into my fist. I tried to use it as a paperclip. I tried to use it as a pen. I just keep picking it up without realizing it and using it for whatever, like a crazy lady.

Congratulations U.S of A

Well done United States of America. The entire world breathes a sigh of relief. Except for maybe Austria. They've got their own weird thing going on.

Maria Bamford is the Queen.

Okay seriously, I love this woman. I love Maria Bamford. Watch this and then go to superdeluxe and watch all of her episodes. Watch them all! All of them!! All hail the Bammer!



ps: I have spent an hour watching these at work. Uninterupted.

Bald, apathetic, monkey robots: Nature's candy

Let's face it, my job could be done by a monkey or a robot or a robot monkey. Instead, they pay me, quite well (all things considered), to do it. I guess that may spoil me somewhat when I go to another job and get paid less to do more? or the same even.

I guess it might also be hard to find another job that, for lunch, I can just leave whenever I feel like it, without looking to see what time it is, and wander back when I feel "ready". Or find a job where everyone else takes so many "personal" days that no one cares or can complain if I call in sick or leave early or come in late.

Yes indeed, my workplace is one big den of apathy. Dream job? Hardly. Apathy is not inspiring, enriching or fulfilling, did you know? It sure is an easy way to make money, if you don't count the mind-numbing boredom and emotional dullness. If there was just one person here that I could joke with or with whom I could have a decent conversation, I bet I could have stuck it out longer. Like in school, the classes where someone could laugh with me, I attended, the others, I did not.

And so, my cushy, well-paying job is nearly at a close and as the end day draws near, I feel lighter and lighter. Can you have a rut on your shoulder? I felt I was in such a rut here, but it feels heavy, like it's weight I'm carrying. Was carrying.

I'm glad I'm leaving. I might not feel so glad when I'm getting paid minimum wage to clean toilets in the Tim Hortons in January when no other job on earth is available to me...but I'm a daring lady. I'm willing to chance it. I have chanced it. I'm chancing baby. Chancing big time. Cha-cha-chance.

And so.

Work is sooo odd. So many of us, counting minutes, in limbo, life drifting past...
eating dates and listening to Tenacious D....getting paper cuts and burning our tongues on hot tea and/or coffee...steering clear of annoying coworkers and hiding gin in a water bottle...taking surveillance photos with our cell phones, up the skirts of colleagues and contemplating revenge plots in the bathroom...smuggling in firearms, "just in case" and drawing identifying sketches of the leprechauns that hide in our bottom drawer and who use psychic powers to control our will...

Yep, yep yep.

Is it too early to put up a christmas tree? Answer: No. Not according to commerce. Malls are filled with them. I have to admit though, the snow smell in the air has been giving me the hankering to listen to my Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack. So I'm a sucker. Sue me. Charles Schulz made melancholy children's entertainment. Who does that now? No one I know of. All the cartoons characters and child actors and adults acting for children all seem to be smiling so hard, you figure they are pushing their gallbladders out of their assholes with the force of their fake positivity. Cartoons about depressed, bald losers. That's what's what people.
That is what is what.

Anyhoodles.