Sharing My World 67

Share Your World March 13 2017

Do you push the elevator button more than once? Do you really believe it makes the elevator faster?

Since I am rarely in a hurry I don’t care if the elevator is slow, or even if it goes in the wrong direction because I got on the wrong one and someone else pushed the buttons first.  Not that that has ever happened to me of course.  Another thing that might not have happened is me arriving so early for an appointment that the receptionist told me to go have a coffee and come back in 45 minutes.  Because it was too early to check in.  Who knew that was even a thing.

So the answer to both these questions is no.  Elevators don’t have speed choices no matter what magical number of button pushes you try.  But if it makes you feel better and less panicky, go for it.

Do you plan out things usually or do you do them more spontaneously (for example if you are visiting a big city you don’t know?)

You don’t normally get places 45 minutes ahead of time without meticulous planning for every conceivable disastrous circumstance that might come up.  It’s annoying sometimes when absolutely nothing goes wrong after so much anticipation.  Spontaneity is scary.  Always have a plan.  And six back ups.

Describe yourself in at least four uplifting words.

Loving and Kind.  Tolerant and Accepting.  Grateful and Generous.  Well those are all things I aspire to anyway.  A work in progress.

If you had a choice which would be your preference – salt water beaches, fresh water lakes, ocean cruise, hot tub, ski resort or desert?

Okay, so that’s salt water, fresh water, water under a boat, hot water, frozen water, and no water at all.  But there’s a beach!  I’ll take the beach.  And probably stay out of the water altogether.

Instead of the Optional Bonus Question, here are some random questions from previous world sharing weeks.  I missed them.  Spending too much time in elevators perhaps.

Which are better: black or green olives?

I love black olives on pizza and green olives in egg salad.  I don’t believe they should compete against each other trying to prove which one is better.  Which is just a fancy way of saying I can’t decide.

Do you chew your pens and pencils?

No.  I don’t know where they’ve been.  And many of them are charcoal.  That would not end well.

Do you sleep with your sheets tucked in or out?

I used to love it when we were little and our dad would tuck us in.  But the minute he left the room I would get myself completely untucked because it felt awful to be constrained, even if it was only by blankets.  I like my arms and my feet out.  I hate zipped up sleeping bags.  I do not tuck in anything including children.  I live in constant escape mode.

Have you stolen a street sign before?

No, but I was in possession of a stop sign once.  It was left behind in the closet of the bedroom I used where I boarded while going to university.  In black marker I wrote “I’ll Never” at the top of the sign and “Loving You” at the bottom.  With STOP in the middle.  I thought I was being ridiculously clever and funny until I tried to give it to W. as a gift.  He was appalled and freaked out because did I not know that stealing street signs was ILLEGAL???  Such a romantic, completely missing the point.  I don’t know what became of that altered sign or where it ended up,  but I do remember putting it back in the closet and waiting for the police to arrive.

Do you cut out coupons but then never use them?

Yes.  When they expire I put them in the paper recycle bin.  That’s sort of like using them I guess.

Do you have freckles?

Yes I do. I think I was born with them.  They are everywhere.  And now I have age spots on top of them.  In another life I was a Dalmatian.

Regarding your fridge, is it organized or a mess inside?

HAHA!  I don’t know what that means.  I can find things.  Isn’t that all that really matters?

Thank you to everyone who has followed and visited my blog in the past month or so even though I’ve raised some suspicion as to whether or not I have been in a coma or out of the country or tied up and gagged.  Or unable to get my sheets untucked.  I will try to do better.  But you know me, I always say that.

Doesn’t make it any less true.

It’s the news people.  I’m blaming the news.  I read it and then I can’t even.

Have a great Thursday.  Clean up your damned fridge.

Sharing My World 66

In case you slept through the first day of the month.  Not like that would ever happen unless January wore you out completely….

Share Your World – January 30, 2017

What is the most incredible natural venue that you’ve ever seen in person?

I’ve seen the Canadian Rocky Mountains and Arctic icebergs and glaciers and the Atlantic provinces rocky ocean shores.  I’ve been to Niagara Falls.  Those are all pretty impressive.

Whenever I see a picture of Glencoe Scotland I remember how being there gave me just the weirdest feeling of chills and deja vu and I get those sensations all over again.  In another life maybe I died in battle there.  Maybe I just have a green lumpy hills fetish.

I’ve seen the vertical sea cliffs of Santorini from the water and from the bus driving up the zig zag road and from various places at the top of the island looking down.  It made me wonder why any sane person living there would ever let their children go outside to play.  They didn’t inspire awe in me as much as a rather anxious fear and dread thinking about how we had to go back down them to leave the place.

How many siblings do you have? What’s your birth order?

I had an older brother who loved his visit to Santorini and was the reason we traveled there, to remember him.  I have two younger sisters.  So three siblings, but now two.  I am one of the middle children, but the oldest daughter.  How to make a simple question complicated, right?  Quite often I make people regret asking me things.

If you were a shoe, what kind would you be and why?

Oh, probably an old comfy croc.  Because it’s not making much of a fashion statement but it’s really amazingly good for your feet.  And bonus, it can also be crazy colours.

What is the strangest/weirdest thing you have ever eaten?

Muktuk, haggis and calamari.  Imagine having those three on your plate all at the same time.  I liked calamari just fine until finding out what it was.  Muktuk was smelly and disgusting.  Haggis was surprisingly not so bad.  But not good enough to want to ever have it again.

Optional Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

Hmmm.  Laziness without guilt.  Or more laziness than usual with less quilt than normal.  My knee is fine but I’m still resting it to avoid re-injury.  This could go on for weeks.  I’ve cut back on the news because I think I finally reached my personal disbelief saturation level.  I baked muffins.  Amazingly enough that was less stressful for me than baking normally is.  More proof that the whole world has gone crazy.

I’m looking forward to getting lab work done (because I will be leaving the house to do it), renewing my passport (not going anywhere, it’s just expiring in April) and closing a bank account which has gone defunct from me ignoring it for two years.  If the balance had been higher than sixty seven dollars it might have interested me more.

Enjoy your Super Bowl Sunday!  I’ll be watching Netflix and eating muffins.

 

 

This Tree

“I read the news today, oh boy” (McCartney/Lennon)

Every morning while we sit drinking our coffee, W and I trade interesting or funny or unbelievable crap we read about on our different news feeds.  Sometimes it’s really entertaining tuning in to the next instalment of the current gong show going on in our neighbouring country.  Sometimes it’s downright frightening.  I’m afraid that all the attention, no matter how negative, simply feeds the beast.  I’m afraid we all might soon be buried alive in alternative facts (a new and improved name for bullshit). I’m afraid there might be some devious method to their madness, piling it on so high and so deep that we lose the will to claw our way out from underneath it.

So in the interests of not feeding the beast (while at the same time not turning my back on him either) here is a slide show of our wintry ice-foggy  backyard.

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I snuck in a couple of shots of my bad hair day to show you how I am becoming one with nature.  By resembling a half dead tree.  Or something way more poetic than that.  This awesome big old tree is the same one in which my sisters grandson discovered an alligator nest last fall.  We had no idea it was harbouring such an amazing thing. Around Christmas time this same grandson explained to his grandma how he could recognize Frosty from the other snowmen by the brown hammer in his mouth. For sure this boy is going places.

I hope gazing at this tree with its magnificent icy alligator nest sheltering branches towering above the other frozen things in our yard on this cold grey January Monday gives you a brief respite from whatever doom and gloom crap is taking up valuable space in your brain.

If not, here’s something completely different.  Not all news is bad.

Family of boy in Justin Trudeau town hall photo to name baby after prime minister

Something in the Air

Woman sneezing (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have good news and bad news.  The good news is:

1.  There’s green grass here.  Really!  I saw some.

2.  The snow has all but disappeared where I live.  All that’s left is what remains of our backyard snow mountain.  And it’s looking pretty pathetic.

3.  Today it rained!  You might even say poured!  For roughly  45 seconds.  Hey, it’s a start.

4.  The wind picked up and blew stuff everywhere.  Sorry,  I can’t remember why I think that’s good news.

5. I now have two days off in a row.  Be still my heart.

Spring-ing (Photo credit: mountain_doo2)

 

 

The bad news is:

1.  My eyes are itchy and weepy.

2.  My sinuses are giving me grief and we will soon be out of kleenex if this keeps up.

3.  I am trying to sneeze my face off.

4.  My throat feels all scratchy.

5.  Snow mold is brutal.

It seems like such a shame to have to close all the windows when the weather is finally getting nice.  I go through this to some degree every spring.  I look a mess for several days and then suddenly, as fast as it comes, it goes.

Allergic rhinitis – harbinger of spring.  I would prefer birds, actually.  But whatever heralds spring this year is fine with me – I’ll take it and be glad.

 

 

The News

What section of the news do you read first? What sections could you care less about?

The section of the newspaper that I read first (because it’s usually in big bold type and hard to ignore) is the front page headline.

Tsk tsk, plinky. Asking me what I could care less about is actually asking me what I do care about, because if I could care less it means that I already care to some extent. If what you really wanted to know is what I COULDN’T care less about, no matter how hard I tried, it would be pretty much the whole rest of the paper.

Except maybe for the comic strips, but often they’re so buried in such strange and hard to find places that it’s hardly worth the effort. And sometimes I pick up the sports section to see how they’ve re-worded the fact that the Oilers are still pathetic losers. Also I hate all the advertising and all the pictures of houses and cars for sale. Okay, let’s face it. I don’t even remember what else is in there, it’s been so long since I read one.

Normally I don’t see the paper at all, because W gets to it first and reads it from beginning to end and mixes up all the sections and throws them into the ‘paper basket’ in a huge unholy mess. I never feel the urge to sort that out. If he’s away I put a vacation stop on receiving the news. If I get to the paper first I take out the fifty pounds of glossy flyers and throw them into the paper recycle bag. And then throw the remaining bits of the paper (all sections neatly in order!) on his footrest so he can read them from beginning to end and sort them into a huge unholy mess. Tomorrow we will repeat this whole process in the same order, or some variation of it.

So, are you sorry you asked me yet? I could go on for a bit about the black newsprint finger marks on the inside of our front door, or how sometimes the paper comes in a skinny orange plastic bag if the weather is dismal. Or how it’s very useful for starting fires and lining the compost bin.

But perhaps you COULDN’T care less about that. So I won’t.