And We Are Off!

I got off work this morning and tomorrow morning we are going on vacation!  We will be in Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec.  Make sure you tune in as I will be taking you along with me.  There will be pictures!  All sorts of fun is planned.  We are starting in Alberta then on to Kitchener/Waterloo for Oktoberfest! I intend to drink a lot of beer and get drunk as that is on my Bucket List.  From there it is on to Montreal and Quebec City.  There will be poutine involved. We have plans for something extra fun on the 11th so stay tuned for that too.  A lot of our trip will be on the train!  Yay!!!!

1946 - 2011

A year.  You were with me for over 40 and now it has been a year since you left.  I miss you every day.  It is not any easier.  My god mom, I miss you.  I miss you so much.  I miss your hands and yet when I look down at my own hands I see them.  When I look into the mirror I see your eyes shining back at me. 

How did you do it all those years?  I sure would love to ask you.  It is a question that I never considered until now.  You just did it.  You loved all of us and kept us together.  Loving was your gift to give while you were on this planet and I have no doubt that thousands of people‘s lives were better because of you.  I count it one of my biggest blessings that I was able to be your daughter.

I am not 100% sure where you are right now but I know that I take you with me every single day.  Your love sustains me.  Your memory keeps me moving.  And now I need to stand up and take your place as the family matriarch, a job I feel so inept to do.  But, you taught me well and it is a job that I can do because anything good in me is because of you. 

Bonjour! Je ne parle pas francais!

And because of that I am having a difficult time with booking parts of our trip in Montréal and Québec City. However, I am totally pumped because it is going to be so much fun!  We are planning to go to the Old City and Chinatown as well as Basilique Notre-Dame de Montréal.  I love cemeteries and can`t wait to see some of the oldest ones in Canada.  For anyone that has been to Québec, do you have any recommendations? 

We went to see "Hope Springs" tonight.  Isn't Meryl Streep a brilliant actor?  I don't usually get excited about a particular actor but she is so entertaining to watch.  Kathy Bates, too.

OK, you all know I am into geneology, right?  This month my province came up with the best geneology site I have ever seen!  Check out this and this.  These are the death certificates of my great, great, great, great grandparents.  How cool is that? And this is the birth certificate of my great grandfather. And here is the marriage certificate for my grandfather and his first wife.  If you look at the very top you will see that the marriage was dissolved in 1954.  It proves what my mom suspected all along.  She was born out of wed-lock in 1946 and her father was still married to another woman.  No big deal but my mom's mother was always so judgemental of anyone that divorced.  Very hypocritical considering she was living with a married man and had two children with him.  My grandma never considered my step-sister one of her grandchildren when my mom married my step-dad. At Christmas all the grandchildren got a present and she wouldn't get anything for her. It makes me angry that all along she had her own dirty little secret.  It all comes down to "Thou doth protest too much".   She made my mom's life miserable after my mom finally got the courage to leave and divorce my biological father that beat the shit out of her.  She did not offer any support. Anyway, I can let it go as she is dead and she was always a good grandma to me.  Good thing we were connected by blood. 

What dirty little secrets were in your family? 

Things I Love That Other People 'Don't Like'

Crows and Seagulls- The are both intelligent creatures with a strong will to survive.  Crows are especially devoted to family and amazingly intelligent.

McDonald's - I love their fries.  Oh, yes.  I do!

The Royal Family - This one is the fault of my grade 6 teacher who loved the Royal family.  She brought the video of Charles and Diana's wedding and went all nutty when William was born.  When they came to my city she took the whole class to see them.  I have loved them ever since.  Even though I think the monarchy should be a thing of the past I still love seeing the queen and her frocks.  The same goes for William, Harry and Kate.  Camilla? Not so much.

Rain - I live in a rain forest so I better love it.  After 9 months of rain I get a little weary of it but I am always glad to see and hear again come October.

Red Lights - Sometimes it is just nice to sit and not think for a few moments.

Being Alone - I have always been an introvert and when I spend time alone I like it.

Snakes and Spiders - Love them!  

Getting a mammogram - With breast cancer in my family it is nice to get my mammogram and know that I don't have cancer or if I ever do get it that I will have caught it early. 

Filling Out Forms- The love of this one came about when working at a job where I applied for medical equipment for disadvantaged people.  It was important that every thing was perfect or it would be returned so I made a game of it. Now when I receive a form I am happy to fill it out! 

Crocs - OK, I don't own them any more but when I did I found them so comfortable!  Ugly?  Yes!  But I could wear them all day at work and my feet would not get sore.  

Things I Hate That Other People Love

Ok, break is over.  I was going to be off longer but in the past when I take a blogging break I never come back. 

My topic tonight is things that I hate don't like (there is 'don't like less offensive?) that other people love.  

1.  Parades - Standing for hours to have someone come along and stand in front of me and I end up not seeing a thing.  The parades where I live are painful and boring.  All it consists of is a bunch of city alderman driving by in cars that have advertising on them. There are also businesses in their cars advertising.  Boring.  And the weather is usually way too hot or raining.  (I am going to give one more parade a try when I go to Oktoberfest.  I bought seats in the grandstand so I will be able to see. After that parade I may be able to add parades to things I like.)

2. Julia Roberts - She lost me back in Pretty Woman.  It pissed me off that we were giving young women a message that prostitution was in some way glamorous and not degrading. It pissed me off even more that we are still feeding women the crap that women need to be rescued. I do not think she is a talented actress.  Every movie she has that fucking huge mouth with that loud obnoxious laugh. 

3. Black Licorice - Is there any worse taste on the face of the planet?  I think not.  A few years back one of my bosses gave me candy with black licorice flavouring and I almost fainted.  Yes. I hate it that much.  I spit it out and she gave me a look like I had sacrificed a kitten.  

4 .Make-up - I have had problems with acne since I was a teenager and that is the reason I don't use it but I actually hate it.  When I wear any make-up I feel like a freak.  I can't stand the feeling of my face being coated.  Mascara makes my eyes feel heavy.  Lipstick makes me feel like I have had my lips injected. Even powder and foundation annoy me. Hate it. I won't go into the safety issue and the crap that is in it that gets absorbed into your skin.  

5. Reality T.V. Shows - I know.  Watching Reality T.V. is what normal people do but I can't get past the fact that we are encouraging bad behaviour such as lying, cheating and bullying.  (Celebrity Gossip can be lumped into this because it is just more encouragement of idolizing people exhibiting bad behaviour.) 

6. Pumpkin Pie- As I age I realize that I am not alone on this one but pumpkin pie is in my opinion almost as bad as black licorice.  It is so thick and it bites your tongue back.  Awful stuff.  Maybe it became popular the year when there was an apple famine and they still wanted pie but that is no reason to keep eating it.  

7. Facebook and Twitter- I don't care that you are driving your kids to school and I don't give a shit that you played Farmville today.  And I am not in the least bit interested that you "became a fan" of Crest toothpaste.  I am not interested in reading about the trivial daily minutiae of your life. My own life is boring enough.  And who the hell has 726 friends?  I call bullshit. My guess is if you met 3/4 of those people on the street you would not be able to say hello to them by name.  As I have said before, I think social media is keeping us out of touch with each other, not in touch.  

8. Hockey - I have mentioned this before so I will not elaborate.  Apparently I am going to Canadian hell for hating this but I would rather go to Canadian hell than watch this pathetic waste of time.  How the fuck does Nashville have a team?  Seriously? Nashville? When I was growing up getting into the NHL was a major accomplishment. Now there are way too many teams and it has become a watered-down cash cow. 

9. Shopping - I can't wrap my head around spending hours in a mall with the crowds, loud noises and the smell of the food court. And the amount of money people put out to buy shit that was made in a third world country because it has a certain label is beyond me. 

10. Music Recorded in the last 20 years - OK, I love Adele and Susan Boyle because they actually have talent.  The rest of the music is i-tuned shit. 

What do you hate that other people love? 

Addendum - I also hate fabric softener.  I do not like my clothes and towels etc to feel all coated in oil and reeking to high heaven.  That smell that it emits is not not "morning fresh", it is a noxious smell created in a lab, likely carcinogenic. Pass also the smells in laundry soap, dish soap, hand soap... 

Looking over my last few posts I see I am scraping the bottom of the barrel for things to say.  My body is tired, my spirit is weary and my soul is in need of refreshing.  I need a break from posting.  Will be back when I am ready.  xo

Well, here goes another Sunday.  I have been up for almost 24 hours.  Coffee is who we need to thank for that.  Yes, who.  Not, what.  Today my geneology site is open and I can add whomever I want for free so I am adding people like a wild thing before the free weekend ends. Today I think I found out the names of my great grandparents but the details are a little sketchy.  B.C. archives are incredible but this time I need to find information from Saskatchewan but I am not able to find anything because there are no archives in Saskatchewan. 

I have a very old aunt.  She is at least 162 years old. She keeps telling me she is going to send a whole bunch of information to me about my family but then she forgets. Bless her forgetful little heart but I could really use the information she has because it is the information that is still protected under the FIPA.  And maybe she is not 162 but she is close to 100.  I just sent her another e mail again but I worry because she could be dead now for all I know.  I told her in the e mail that she is likely going to be tits-up before long and someone will go through her things and throw out all the information she has for me.  I told her to get off your bony Depends-covered ass and grab hold of your walker and take your knurled fingers and stuff the shit in an envelope and mail it to me, godnamit!    God, I am like a Basset hound on a smell with this geneology.  OK, I didn't say any of those things because she is a sweet, kind woman that is just about perfect.  All I asked is for the spelling of a name and I think I could figure out the rest from there.  She will probably not even check her e mail but after this I won't ask anymore because I don't want to make her feel bad.  Also, my mom will come back from the grave because she loved her aunt and they were good friends.  My mom will give me the look and say, "B@rbara" all disappointed-like and I am not about to piss off my mom.  Update-  the e mail I sent came back as undeliverable so maybe she really did die. *gulp* 

In other exciting news I washed the outside windows today.  My love and I also went downtown for breakfast and then browsed around a second-hand bookstore.  There is this really cool lady that works there that looks just like Madeline except she has black hair and she has a nose.  We started talking one day and now when I go in she knows my name which makes me feel glad and happy and all warm and fuzzy inside.  

So that is it for today.  It feels good to be back and I am going to bask in every second of its wonderfulness.  Tomorrow I am going to write a post about this really freaking creepy facility I go to that is either haunted or has some bad energy floating around.  There will be pictures so you can decide if it is creepy or is it just me. Until then, I will satisfy your need for creepiness by giving you this link for this video which scared me so bad I could not sleep the first time I watched it.  Nothing is going to jump out at you as I hate when people do that.  Just watch.  It is fucked up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJkP2C8Bg6Y

The Ungrateful Bastard

Norbert made it on "Shame Your Pet"!

http://shameyourpet.com/2012/09/01/the-ungrateful-bastard/

and don't forget to check out the rest of the site.