So Fat

I went for a physical last week and for the first time in my life my doctor told me I should lose weight. I know I'm fat. I don't need a doctor to tell me this; I sweat gravy for goodness sake. I haven't seen my feet since the late 80s and I get short of breath if I type too fast. However, when a doctor tells you to lose weight it's time to do something. I know it's not going to be easy but I vow to find a doctor who is fatter than me. When I was living with my parents we had a family doctor who weighed close to 400 pounds and he was great. One time he mentioned to my father that he should drop a few pounds and my dad said "no problem, just give me your exercise regime." The doctor never mentioned it again.

I also had to get blood taken as part of the physical. This is normally not a terribly onerous procedure but I guess he wanted to test everything so he requested a lot of blood. I had to fast for 12 hours prior to the bloodletting. This was difficult for me to do because I usually wake up around 4am and scarf down a couple of BLTs (sans the LT) just to get me through to wake-up time. The lab was supposed to open at 8am and wanting to get it over with and wanting to take the least amount of time off work as possible (just in case my boss reads this) I got there a few minutes before to ensure I would grab the first number. There was a sign on the door saying that the lab wouldn't open until 9am. Great 12 hours of not eating for nothing. I went back the next day at 8am and they were open and I was third in line. I would have been second if I was able to wrestle the number out of the old lady's hands but she was surprisingly feisty for an 82 year old. They call my number, I go in and the nurse has already dropped a couple of things on the floor leading me to wonder how sanitary these conditions are. Is she going to pick those up and use them on the next person? She took 7 vials of blood and knocked 2 empty (thank goodness) containers off the counter.

We'll find out next week if I've got the black lung or not.

Ramblings

There was a guy on the streetcar today, well dressed, reading the Globe & Mail and picking his nose like a six year old hillbilly at class picture time. He wasn't just running his thumb along the ridge or pinching the septum and giving it a pull; this guy was in it to win it. He'd stick his finger in, root around for a bit, pull it out, have a look, wipe it on his pants, or paper or bald head and then go back for more. Disgusting? Yes, but I had to actually see it, you're just reading about it.

I went to the One of a Kind Show this weekend. Did I want to go? No, of course not. So why did I go? I took the path of least resistance. I could either listen to my friend cry and whine about it for 3.5 hours and then breakdown and go or I could go immediately and get it over with. I did manage to get a couple of Christmas gifts so it wasn't entirely unproductive. I also bought some roasted soybeans which were being touted as a delicious, nutritious, healthy and low-fat snack. They are quite tasty but the women who own the company are a couple of roly-poly twin sisters who must only eat soybeans when they're sprinkled on top of bacon and butter pie.

There were many men at the show who had short ponytails. This irks me beyond belief but thankfully I was still able to get some sleep over the weekend. These men are usually balding, but not always, and their hair is only shoulder length but for some reason they put it in a ponytail. Is the heaviness on the neck too much for them to bear. Does it feel like a shag carpet brushing up against the skin? Either get it cut or grow it to a respectable length. Don't make me tell you again.

Finally, at breakfast a couple of weekends ago a friend ordered an omelette and the waitress asked how she would like her eggs. How about in the shape of an omelette.

Craigslist

A couple of nights ago I sold a laptop via Craigslist. This was the first time I had used Craigslist and was pretty pleased with it. I put up an ad and within five minutes had about six responses. I replied to the first guy around noon and he said he’d be able to meet me at 7pm to make the purchase. At 6:15pm I received an e-mail from him saying that he would not be able to buy the laptop because he didn’t have any money. This led me to wonder what happened in the previous six hours. Did he have money and then was robbed or perhaps he donated it to purchase new fezzes for circus monkeys. On the other hand he may have been hoping to earn the money in the six hours and came up short.

I called the next guy on the list at around 6:30pm and he said he could meet me at 8:45pm. I asked to meet at a Tim Hortons in my neighbourhood because I’ve found in the past that when you’re selling shoddy merchandise to people it’s best not to give your home address. He asked how he would recognize me and I replied that I’d be wearing a red baseball cap. This seemed to stump him and he paused for a bit before muttering, “oh, um, I was planning on wearing a red baseball cap.” I was thinking of telling him that he still could, it wouldn’t confuse me but he said he would wear a grey one. Can you imagine the chaos if we both wore red baseball caps? I’d see him and shriek in terror because I’d know I was wearing a red baseball cap but that guy looks nothing like me. I assumed he’d look nothing like me because he’s 75. My friend asked how I knew he was 75 and the answer is because he told me. Once you reach a certain age, I’m not sure what the exact age is, you’re obligated to tell everyone you speak to how old you are. Some people will follow this up with “years young” as in “75 years young”. At this point you are legally allowed to punch them in the face but it is frowned upon.

The guy sat down and like all people 75 and older proceeded to prattle on about subjects completely unrelated to the task at hand. I don't really give a rat's ass that you used to do typesetting for old man Winterbottom's half-sister's fiance in the 30s and that's how you got to meet the woman who posed for the Sun-maid raisin box. After 45 minutes he finally gave me my money. I distracted him by saying that one of the customers in line looked like Andy Griffith (who is the patron saint of the elderly) and ran out the door cackling.

One last thing, on the streetcar today a blind man got on. A woman near the front tried to take his hand so she could lead him to a seat. The streetcar was very crowded though so she was having a difficult time. The guy in the very front seat finally noticed and got up to give the blind man his seat. As he got up he said, "sorry, I didn't see you there." Nice. I wonder if he goes to schools for the deaf and says the problem with children today is that they just don't listen.

Just Another Weekend

Friday night I went to see Dan in Real Life. Good movie, not great. I'm a huge Steve Carell fan and while this movie had some incredibly funny parts I would not classify it as a comedy. That was my exciting Friday night.

On Saturday I went to my dad's. He lives near Bowmanville so it's not too far of a drive. A friend asked if she could park in my driveway on Saturday because she and a couple girlfriends were taking a fourth girl out for her birthday and they wanted to take one car and my place was a convenient meeting spot. I said that I didn't give a rat's ass, which I've been pretty fond of saying lately, and that my standard parking fees of $20 per half hour or part thereof would still apply. So the four of them met on my driveway and proceeded to blindfold the girl whose birthday it was because they wanted the final destination to be a surprise. Just as they were shoving her in the car my brother rounded the corner to see three Chinese girls trying to get a fourth, blindfolded, Chinese girl in a car. I had to explain to him that although I hadn't signed all the paperwork yet we were starting either a sweatshop or a massage parlour in the apartment.

Sunday was a pretty dull day. I spent the majority of time "smiling" at girls, who are completely out of my league, on Lavalife. Lavalife is an online dating service in which a person enters their specifics (height, body type, religion, ethnicity, salary, smoker, drinker, kids, education, etc) and a biography. A typical profile is something like:

"I'm a single white down to earth gal looking for an easy going guy. I enjoy hanging out with my family and friends. I'm just as comfortable in jeans and t-shirt as I am in a full length ballroom gown. I'm looking to meet someone who is funny, intelligent, thoughtful, kind and ambitious. I'm not into mind games so if you are please don't respond to this ad."

Let's dissect this shall we. You're a single white female. Fabulous, the last dating service I signed up for was all married people. Oh and being female is great. I don't want to give away too much but after my last date I couldn't walk properly for a week. And you're white; thank god you told me because even after seeing your picture and reading your ethnicity I was still wondering.

You enjoy hanging out with your friends. Really? I hate it. There's absolutely nothing I dread more than spending some quality time with my friends.

Just as comfortable in a ball gown as jeans? So when you're going to Walmart to pick up a box of Bugles and some pork rinds you're just as likely to wear either?

And you're looking to meet someone who is funny, intelligent, thoughtful, kind and ambitious. How rare, most people are looking for a thoughtless idiot who enjoys torturing animals.

Finally, we come to my favourite part of the profile, if you're into mind games please don't respond to this ad. I imagine hundreds of guys viewing this ad and saying to themselves, "gee that's too bad, I was thinking of really jerking her around for a couple of months until her self-esteem was shot and then just disappearing. But, she's not into mind games."

Mandatory Entry

I used to have penpals that I never wrote to because I never had anything to say. A friend suggested just making crap up to amuse myself, "sorry, it's taken so long to write. Last month I was involved in a gang war and got shot up pretty bad". I think I ended up writing something like "I hope this correspondence finds you well. I regret to inform you that this letter will be my last. My government needs me to embark on a top secret mission and I must break all contact. Fare thee well good lady." I'm not sure if anyone bought it because I was only 13 at the time. I was thinking of making up a blog entry because nothing remotely interesting has happened lately (not that that has stopped me before).

Last weekend a friend wanted to make cookies because she saw a recipe in a Martha Stewart magazine. I didn't think this would go well for two reasons; 1) she's a perfectionist and 2) her idea of cooking is to put a can of ham in the microwave. Her kitchen is about 3 square feet so she wanted to make them at my place. I said absolutely no way, I refuse to do this, there is not a chance this is going to happen.

So we're at my place making cookies. This is normally a one hour job. It took us nearly six hours.
The main hold up was that we had to chill the dough for an hour. During this hour we decided to grab a bite. By the time we returned an hour and a half later the dough was almost frozen solid. We thought leaving it on the counter for a bit would thaw it out. Eventually, because I didn't want to make this a multi-day affair, we nuked the dough to soften it up. Considering that the dough was frozen and then nuked the cookies turned out very well.

One other thing happened last weekend that I found mildly amusing. I was in Staples and my friend was going on about some other recipe she saw in Martha Stewart. I had little interest in the topic so I was only partially listening while walking around and then I heard her say "are you listening to me?" all snotty-like. I turned around and in an exasperated, annoyed tone said "what?!?!?" It turns out that my friend had long gone her own way and I was shouting at a woman who was talking to her daughter.

I'm sure you're now thinking, geez I wish the bastard would have just made something up instead of writing that boring ass cookie story. Perhaps next entry I'll tell you about the time I single-handedly dismantled a nuclear bomb while performing neurosurgery on the Prime Minister of Belize. I'm sure many of you didn't know that I was once single-handed. Thanks to a rigorous rehab program and Buckley's cough syrup my right hand grew back. It's a long fictitious story but perhaps one day I'll tell it.