Not Your Average Butcher

Fast Fact: The average butcher has 7.3 fingers. Actually, I made that up, but I have all 10 of my fingers, so that's saying something... or is it?

Thursday, June 29, 2006

Ttuna and the Avoidance of Pancake Magee

Well, I think it's about time I put a post up! I can't believe it's already been almost a week since we got back from Cuba! Anyway, it was a great time and a lot of fun!

Usually when I go on a trip I keep a journal but this time I didn't and I'm so mad at myself for being so lazy! It always seemed like there was something going on and I "didn't have the time". Or so I told myself. But how do you not have the time when you spend an entire week lounging around by the pool or on the beach? Yup, I was just lazy. So now I suppose I'll just have to try and describe my experiences as they currently exist in my memory before they fade away completely. I don't imagine I'll get everything down in one sitting, but let's see how far I can get this evening.

So the trip started out interestingly enough: Most of the close family associated with the wedding (ie. the bride, her parents and brother) met us at the resort's reception as soon as we got there. We rushed off to the dining room as soon as we checked in as we were all starving. That was when we met the cats. They're these atrociously skinny little beasts with protruding eyeballs that sit by your table meowing, begging for food. Naive as I was, I held out a piece of tuna to one particularly pathetic little animal. It swiped at me, leaving me with a cut on my thumb which would subsequently sting every time I went into the salty ocean (that went really nicely with the blisters I would get on my feet from the too-small shoes I wore to the wedding). Anyway, several drinks later I (naturally) felt some pressure on my bladder so we went in search of a washroom. Faced with a door with an 'S' and another with a 'C', I had no idea which one was the women's washroom. So I ended up in the 'C' room ("It stands for 'Chiquita'!" I was told). Upon entering I noticed a wall of urinals but at that point I had consumed just enough alcoholic beverages to not care! After that, I have a vague recollection of wandering around the resort, a group of us, looking for the pool. It was only the next day that we realized we had walked right by the pool without even seeing it. But we did find it eventually and enjoyed our evening swim by jumping off of the waterfall into the lower level of the pool, despite the extremely low water level...

The next day we found the beach... gorgeous white sand, tuquoise water, very picturesque. Unfortunately, large chunks of the shoreline were rocky so we had to walk further down the beach for the prime swimming areas. Not the end of the world! Anyway, we quickly settled into a deaily routine of swimming in the ocean, tanning on the beach and then going to the pool to rinse off the salt water and cool off.

On Monday we went to the Japanese a la carte restaurant for dinner, where we met out wonderful "Japanese" cook, Juan Carlos. At the Japanese restaurant your food is cooked right in front of you. And Juan Carlos would throw his cooking implements into the air and catch them again, sometimes behind his back. What a show! On Monday night we all ended up in Danny's room. That worked out fine since that was the one night it poured rain. While sitting out on the balcony, (we think) some kind of freaky bug bit Martin's foot, causing it to swell enormously in the next few days and turn a scary shade of dark menacing purple.

Tuesday was the day before the wedding. As such, Christine, the bride, would require a bachelorette party. We arranged for all of the girls to meet up at 9:30 pm. Kim immediately decided to take on the responsibility of organizing something for the party, and it's a good thing she did because it turned out to be quite the memorable evening! Kim's first requirement was to dress Christine up in a toilet paper wedding dress (with trails of beer cans dangling from her wrists to clatter along the ground). From there, we would have her do all sorts of embarrassing tasks around the resort while wearing her TP dress. So, we met up at 9:00 pm to formulate a list. Among other things, Christine ended up doing a crab-walk across the lobby, 15 people kissed a smiley-face beach ball with "Martin" written across its forehead in pen, she got a kiss from a stranger, she got another man to buy her a drink, she ran out in front of a group of dancers posing for pictures in front of an audience and she sang "Relax" in karaoke despite not really knowing the song. And never again will we sing that song, now that we know just how dirty it actually is! While in the karaoke bar, there was a very friendly man from Scotland there with his wife. He got very excited and gave Christine kisses and stuffed a convertible peso down the front of her shirt. Funny how some people can pull off such a stunt. From anybody else that would have been utterly creepy and disgusting but somehow from this man, it just seemed funny and nothing else! What's also funny is that the Scottish couple ended up having reservations at the same retaurant and the same time that we would be there for the reception so Christine was able to go and say hi to them the next evening.

Hmm, I think that's enough for tonight! I'll pick up with the wedding itself next time!

Saturday, June 17, 2006

Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola, Mojito!

Here I am back at home in the good old West-Island... but not for long!

In half an hour we'll be going to pick up Mike and Danny.
In 1 hour we'll be checking in at the airport.
In 4 1/2 hours we'll be getting on the plane.
In 8 hours we'll be in Cuba!

See you in a week!!!

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Never Stopping With Her Head Against the Wind

It's official: I am terribly out of shape! But that's alright, it won't be that way for much longer!

I've been feeling pretty listless lately, falling into the bad habit of coming home from work, making dinner, and plopping down in front of the TV. I've finally smartened up (and gotten really bored) and joined a gym. I went for the first time this evening and attended a hip-hop type aerobics class. It was a lot of fun, and it wiped me out. I can't believe I used to do this three days a week (and 5 days during the summer)! Although I'm now exhausted, oddly enough I also feel pretty revved up, if that's at all possible! All in all, the activity has made me feel really good!

On a completely different note, imagine my surprise today when I ran into someone I know from school! I only realized it afterwards that that's another thing I miss about home: I miss running into people on the streets, or the bus or metro, or whatever. It's kinda lonely always being by yourself and knowing no one is going to randomly appear to have a quick chat with. So you can imagine my delight and surprise when I had such an encounter today! Anyway, there are three of us from the DEIA program that are working in Ottawa this summer. Now that we've touched bases, hopefully we'll all be able to hang out once in while... I can see it now... Nancy regains some semblance of a social life... WOO HOO!!!

Sunday, June 11, 2006

Just When You Think You've Got It All Figured Out...

At first the whole deal with knowing nothing about the city I moved to was fun, because I was constantly making new discoveries, exploring places, etc., etc. It was grand! But now, honestly, I'm getting quite tired of getting lost, getting mixed up, not knowing exactly what's going on. Seems we take a lot of things for granted when we're too comfortable and familiar with things. Like garbage. And recycling...

I was so proud of myself when I managed to figure out Ottawa's recycling program. You see, garabage and recycling day is Friday, so I'd always leave my little bag of garbage at the corner of the driveway and my landlord would take my recyclables, for some reason I haven't figured out. But two weeks ago, he wasn't in sight so I dropped them myself into the black plastic bin at the end of the driveway. I came back from work that afternoon to find most of my recycleables looking quite sad and rejected, sitting at the corner of the driveway. Mortified, I ran my juice jug and three metal cans back into my apartment. What had I done wrong, why were MY things rejected when everything else was taken? Anyway, I checked it out on the internet to discover that black bins are for cardboard and paper, and blue bins are for glass and plastic. Ah-ha! So let me tell you, I was so proud to prepare my recycleables on Friday, and put them into the right boxes and do it properly! So there I was, marching down the driveway, arms brimming with a bag of garbage, squashed cardboard boxes and de-labelled jugs and cans, when I made a horrible discovery: not one house on the entire street had any garbage out. I went back into the house where the landlords were eating breakfast. "I'm confused!" I said to them, "Is today garbage day?" A cardboard box fell from underneath my arm where it had been pinned to my side. "Oh, we got a notice, garbage day was switched to Wednesday!" One said said to me, and added sheepishly; "I guess we should have told you!"

Anyway, I've just returned to Ottawa from a nice weekend back home in Montreal. I know I've spoken of my misadventures with the city buses before and once again, I had to take a cab home. This time, it was because the first bus had to take a detour because of construction. So I missed the connecting bus that comes only once an hour.

Oh yeah, and on Saturdaymy mom and I went shopping together and I bought myself a really nice vase to put up on my brand new shelves in my place. About 20 minutes later, while still in the mall, I dropped it on the tiled floor and it shattered into a gazillion pieces. Of course, the store didn't have another one like it, but my mom, angel that she is, bought me a similar one to replace it. It's not the same, but I still like the replacement.

I'm hoping this week will be a better week!

Friday, June 02, 2006

An Olfactory Extravaganza!

Today my office smells like farts. It’s really quite unpleasant. There’s some construction work going on behind our building and I suspect the odour is coming from there. Anyway, I’m not about to close my window because then it would be too hot.

My nose was assaulted yesterday as well when my landlord decided to mow the lawn. Living in the basement, my one window is at ground level, so when he passed by with the lawn mower, the stench of gasoline instantly filled my entire place!

Speaking of smells, I can’t believe the debate that is going on now in Ottawa. Apparently, some people are trying to form a campaign to ban perfume and scented deodorant! I mean, come ON, aren’t there more important issues to consider than the way people smell? Honestly, I’m much more bothered by the people who don’t wear deodorant and perfume and reek of BO. Now that’s what ought to be banned! I just can’t believe that there’s a group out there that’s trying to take away my right to smell nice! Sure not everyone is going to like my perfume as much as I do, but I don’t bathe in it so it can’t be offensive. Hmm, maybe I will bathe in perfume in protest of this stupid movement.

They’re saying that “sensitive people” and asthmatics can’t cope with the wafting smells. Well you know what? Some people can’t cope with peanuts and they’re not banned. In fact, peanut allergies are often deadly. “Perfume allergies” are not. Sorry folks.

So while we’re banning perfume, I would also like to ban farts and lawn mowers. Because they smell bad, too.

Thursday, June 01, 2006

I've Heard It All Before

Interesting things I saw today:
  1. A man wandering up and down the street in front of my office yelling "F**k the french! F**k the french everywhere!"
  2. Two seeing eye dogs on the bus at the same time. What are the chances?
  3. Two old men in wheelchairs having drinks on the side of the road.

And lastly: Today I noticed a little handicapped/wheelchair symbol underneath the validation area for putting comments on my blog. Apparently, you can have the sequnce of letters read to you aloud and you type them in as they are orated. What is that for?? Is it for blind people? Because I'd really like to know how many blind people are reading my blog!