Questionable Answers to Unanswerable Questions

Of course no question is unanswerable because you can always say I don’t know.  Or answer it with another question, such as “why in the world would you need to know that?”   I’ve also found ‘get away from me you weirdo’ can get you off the hook at least temporarily, giving you some time to think up a more intelligent response.

There are so many plinky prompts I’ve missed!  Where the hell have I been and what have I been thinking, letting them all gang up on me like this?  I’m going to pretend that there are people out there just dieing to know what I think about random things.  So here are my answers.  Some of them considerably less well thought out than others.

What’s your favourite place to grab a cup of coffee?  That would be in my kitchen, in my housecoat, in a state of semi-consciousness.  Next favourite – McDonalds.  Their coffee here is that good.

What was the last thing you got really excited about? I tend not to be a very excitable person.  Or exciting either if you want to get all personal.  Getting ready to go on a trip with my sister to Scotland was pretty thrilling.  That was five years ago.  I’m kind of seriously overdue for hysteria of some sort or other.

Make a list of things you’ve accomplished so far this year. I have lived through yet another dreaded month of January without going mad.  I have managed to stay gainfully employed.  I have used up every last millisecond of my holidays until mid September.  I’ve reconnected with my brother.  Visited family.  Got rid of a closet door.  Eaten enough salad to choke a very large rabbit.

Have you ever written your own music or song lyrics?  Sort of, but not really.  I have been known to make up my own lyrics for tunes that are already out there.  I’m the only person I know who can sing along to instrumentals.

What famous monument do you hope to see one day? The Eiffel Tower, at night, by elevator, with all of Paris at my feet.  But if I never get there, that’s okay too.  Probably couldn’t stand the excitement anyway.

Do you have a favourite work of art?   No.  All works created by skill and imagination are beautiful to someone.  Even if it’s simply a mom in love with her childs crayon scribbles.  There’s no such thing as the best beautiful thing.

Pick a new pet to take home for free.  I think I’m done with pets for this lifetime.  It’s hard enough to tend to the care and feeding and grooming of me.  I’ll just enjoy other peoples pets and go home to my own lint roller when the day is done.

How many books do you read each year?  Since I got my Kindle, I sometimes average one a week.  So over fifty would be a reasonable estimate.  Because I still buy real books too.  I don’t really know.  I’m too busy reading to add them all up.

If you were going to open a shop, what would you sell?  Coffee beans, cups, creams, pots, filters, cakes, grinders, makers and machines and presses, and many different types of the brewed stuff.  Perhaps I should just go work for Starbucks.

When was the last time you visited a library?  My library card expired a decade ago.  I honestly don’t remember.

Make a list of all the countries you have visited.  It’s a short list.  U.S. and U.K.

Have you ever tried to grow your own fruits and vegetables?  I grow tomatoes every summer.  They flourish and thrive in spite of me.

What’s the coolest airport you’ve been in?  Can’t even imagine what would make an airport cool.  It’s a necessary evil on the way to somewhere else.

Should coffee shops limit the amount of time that lap top users can occupy tables?  Yes.  No longer than 48 hours at a time seems reasonable to me.

What’s your favourite foreign film?  I love all foreign films as long as they have subtitles.  I like subtitles for films in English too.  Actors mumble.  It’s SO annoying.  Especially for the people I’m watching the film with when I’m constantly asking ‘what did he say??’

Should the U.S. get rid of the penny?  Yes, please.  Canada is phasing it out and American pennies showing up in our country would just piss us off.

Would you ever visit a psychic or palm reader?  Been there, done that.  Will live to be 93.

Do you ever purchase lottery tickets?  No.  W does.  If he wins I’m hoping he’ll share.

Have you ever had something stolen from you?  My prescription sunglasses.  I hope the person who took them goes cross-eyed with migraines.

Do you ever listen to the radio anymore?  Well, funny you should ask.  Since W got satelite radio I’ve been listening to it non-stop.  He has found a station he likes that plays about 90% Carole King 24/7 and that’s what we’ve had playing for two days straight.  I have tried to convince him to look for other stations because to me that seems to be the whole point of having a satelite working for you. I read the list.  I made suggestions.  But Carole King it is. He will be taking it with him soon to the island and I hope he and Carole King have a very nice summer together.

Do you need coffee to wake up in the morning?  Not really, but if I don’t have any at all I’ll never last through an entire afternoon without a nap.

What type of hat suits your personality?  A tall black pointy one with a wide brim and a silver buckle and lots of stars.

 

For The Love Of Coffee

It’s a working Saturday for me, so I took a quick look at how the day is supposed to go.

#1.  You probably will be facing another really busy day, Taurus, in that the Moon is still passing through your Zodiacal house of communications, errands, siblings and neighbors. There is a good chance that you’ll be interacting with a lot of people, but mostly for the purpose of following up and getting things done. It’s crucial that you don’t skip any connections or any opportunities to chat with others. It’s possible that events concerning children or group activities you’re obligated to attend may interfere with having fun.

#2.  You’re grabbing on to something (or someone), but you of all people should know that this is when things get squirmy and weird. Loosen that grip before it’s too late.

How can the phases of the moon and the alignment of the planets tell you two such different things?  It’s making me feel all squirmy and weird.

However, there’s something more consistent in my life than the star predictions from outer space.  Every morning I brew a pot of coffee, even when I’m home alone, and even if I have to go to work before I could possibly finish all of it.  I just have this strong feeling that half pots don’t taste as good.  Plus I’ve got the measuring down to a science and don’t want to mess with that by attempting to make a smaller amount.  Just a creature of habit, and too stubborn to change.

Almost every day at work I also purchase large coffees for myself and for whoever happens to be working with me, from McDonalds.  (And of course I guilt my co-workers into buying it for me).  No matter what you have to say about that place and its food, their coffee ranks high with the best that’s out there.  They don’t even wait for me to place my order there anymore, they just see me coming and say  ’how many?’  I also have a Tassimo coffee maker and a French Press coffee pot.  It’s hard to fit one or both of those into my daily coffee routine, but sometimes I manage to do it.

So that should be quite enough coffee for one person for one day, wouldn’t you think?  But apparently not.  Because when I get home I like to make myself a cup of ready brew instant with one of those cute little individual foil packets from Starbucks.  At that time of day the real stuff is guaranteed to keep me awake, but the decaf is also quite good and it’s hard to tell the difference.  Except for the falling asleep part.

So those little packets are my current addiction.  I really really love them.  With this little add-on to my much larger basic addiction, I could quite possibly be courting death by coffee.  But there’s probably a couple of worse ways to go, so I’ve chosen my poison and it looks like I’m willing to suffer the consequences, whatever they might be.

Gawd, Starbucks and McDonalds should send me free coffee for life for this post.

March 3rd is I Want You To Be Happy Day!  If that involves consuming buckets of coffee for you, I say go for it.  And this advice is universal - let nothing interfere with having fun.

 

Not Exactly Flip-Flop Weather

It has been snowing like crazy all day long!  Since we haven’t really had any snow to speak of this winter, perhaps in the next little bit we’ll get the entire winter’s worth all at once.  And that would be okay, I think, just to get it over and done with.  Of course, on a day when I should have stayed at home, I went out and slid around on the icy roads with the rest of the crazy motorists who are too stupid to wait for better conditions.

I ran into two people I haven’t seen in years at Tim Horton’s, of all places.  Not in my car, but over the donut counter.  One was an optician I worked with over ten years ago who is still in the business but going back to school to become a plumber.  How’s that for a change in direction career-wise.  I remember though that he was always planning crazy career moves, so perhaps this is just his latest wild dream.  The other person is a long-ago contact lens patient, and I’m surprised we even recognized eachother.  So in the process of talking to both of them and ordering a coffee and a hot chocolate and having my grandaughter pick out six donuts (it is not at all easy to make such choices in such a place) I completely forgot what I’d come in for in the first place, which was to get a gift card.  So I’ll have to go back.  But not today.

February 19th is National Chocolate Mint Day.  I remember liking peppermint patties when I was little (because any kind of chocolate was such a treat) and, in the not so distant past, After Eights, but now I prefer my chocolate and my mint on different days.  It’s just a weird combination and one kind of ruins the other.  Sort of like mixing chocolate with strawberries, which makes both of them taste funny.  I guess I’m just a food purist at heart.  Like a kid who freaks out if the peas touch the mashed potatoes.  Or if the ice cream is green.  Ick.

Yesterday at Chapters I bought an awesome little book – How To Live in Flip-Flops by Sandy Gingras.  It takes about ten minutes to read and will make you feel good about yourself and your life for much much longer than that, once you discover your flip-flop self.

If it’s Family Day weekend for you, I hope you’re having a great time with your family.  Or without them, if they drive you insane.  I’m going to light a candle or two and curl up with my grandaughter and my kindle and my I-Phone and her I-Pod and about fifty moshi-monsters and be thankful that no mint chocolate (in do-nut form or otherwise) will pass my lips today.  Or ever, if I’m lucky.

 

Come Out To Play

Girls and boys, come out to play,

The moon doth shine as bright as day;

Leave your supper, and leave your sleep,

And come with your playfellows into the street.

Come with a whoop, come with a call,

Come with a good will or not at all.

Up the ladder and down the wall,

A halfpenny roll will serve us all.

Why why why do I have this rhyme looping endlessly through my head?  I must have dreamed about our high school glee club because I can put the damned thing to music.

No time for play today for me, so go ahead without me - it’s my weekend to slave away at work.  Or not.  I thought  I was all booked up for appointments but turns out I was looking at the wrong dates and I actually have no one booked at all.  It’s so easy for me to freak myself out for no good reason.  So once the doctor leaves perhaps we’ll drink a LOT of coffee.  That I can handle.

AND – my hair has been growing for a week and two days, and is showing signs of normalcy, I am happy to report.  And that really has nothing at all to do with anything else stated here but it filled up a bit of blog space.  Depending on how the day goes, I may be back later with a post that actually makes sense.  Do not hold your breath.

 

Eve of the Eve

Since it’s quite ridiculous how many people are still shopping on the night before Christmas Eve, I decided to just join them when I finished work tonight and I bought some Christmas presents for myself.  Now I’m sitting here drinking a mug of decaf coffee made with my brand new coffee maker, and burning a stick of patchouli insense.  Which really really stinks.  But the coffee is good!  I decided (finally after weeks of deliberation) to just go with a pot that’s pretty much exactly like the one I had, but makes 10 cups instead of 12.  And one of my favourite cups holds what my coffee pot says is two cups, so it’s really just a FIVE cup coffee maker.  I’m hoping that this down size will result in a lot less cold coffee getting poured down the sink at the end of the day.

Also got some new glassware so that at least for the next couple of weeks or so we will actually have a set of something, as opposed to 14 different mismatched pieces.   And then they’ll start to break one by one until eventually we’re right back to where we started.  And about the last thing on earth I really needed was a couple more coffee mugs, especially ones as big as bowls with a Christmas theme.  However, they made their way into my cart as well.  I don’t know why, really, except that maybe it can be explained as some kind of shopping plethora.  A person just gets into that mode and on a roll and it’s too difficult to just suddenly put yourself in park so you gear down and come to a grinding halt instead.

I’m thinking those things will hold a LOT of irish cream on Christmas morning.  Maybe that thought was in the back of my head all along.

The prompt today is suggesting that I summarize my 2011 with one sentence for each month of the year.  That would be a breeze if I had actually happened to do something even vaguely interesting once a month.  But I’m sure I would have remembered at least 10 out of 12 things if that were the case, so it probably wasn’t and I probably won’t.  Give you a summary, that is.  I’m breathing a sigh of relief, and I imagine you must be too.

My daughter made it safe and sound to my son and daughter-in-laws house late this afternoon, so their Christmas fun has already begun.  I hope the cousins will cherish the memories of these times they spend together.  I’m already missing their little faces.  I’m back at work again tomorrow!  Isn’t that insane?  As if anyone in his right mind would decide Christmas Eve is a fabulous time to buy a couple pairs of glasses.  Oh yeah, I forgot – the Dec. 24th shoppers are NOT in their right minds at all so it’s anybody’s guess what I might sell to them.  Although a more likely scenario is that I sit at the dispensing table staring off into space and occasionally nodding off.  I hope somebody thinks to wake me up when it’s time to go home.  But not before it’s too late to do any more damned shopping.