Brain Fart

Hello?

Blog? What blog?

Oh...MY blog...you mean the one I never write anymore?

Yes, yes that's the one.

Well....ummmm....hmmm...I'm not really sure what to say...

Get my act together you say?

OK.

Fine.

Yes. I will.

Soon.

:)

"Advertising helps me decide"

+

=

What would you think if in the middle of the most recent episode of Cashmere Mafia a commercial came on where a lovely young woman walked along a pretty village sidewalk with a beaver in her arms? Wait, it doesn't stop there. No, this woman and her beaver proceed to go to the park...then out for coffee....then to buy balloons...and then to a romantic restaurant for a cozy little dinner where the woman proceeds to hand her little beaver friend A PACKET OF SANITARY NAPKINS.....GIFT WRAPPED!

The voice over then says something to the effect of "You’ve only got one. So for the ultimate care down there, make it U.”

Do you get it? Do you? I had to think about it at first, and then I was shocked! I mean, I was under the impression that calling your beaver well....your BEAVER was wholly inappropriate. Am I wrong in this? Are we now supposed to walk around referring to the female genitalia as the beaver? (ala, "My poor beaver really would prefer I wore granny-panties rather than thong underwear?") (Note: this is fairly disturbing but true. I love good old fashioned cotton undies!)

My yoga instructor (who always tells the men in our class to tighten the "muscles between the genitals and the anus"....yick!) would likely not agree, and being that she can fold herself in half AND does not shave her armpits I'm totally taking her as my model for the new-feminist.

Now, I'm not really a feminist (I mean, beyond the typical I think woman have a right to equal wages type of stuff) but I really just don't want to call any parts of my body by animals names. I just don't want to. And its just the icing on the cake that these types of names ONLY ever become attached to parts of the female body that have a sexual function. Hmmmm, go figure.

I'm not on a soapbox here and I wanted to give a fair assessment, so I called JL to get his take on the matter. As luck would have it, he had viewed the same commercial last night to which he said "I was shocked aloud." "Thought it was just hopeless." While I have no idea what those statements literally mean (how can someone be "shocked aloud"? does that make any sense at all?) I do get the sense that he's on the same page as me.

In lthe name of further research we then went to the font of all wisdom (i.e., google) where we learned that so many other people had been offended that Kotex had to actually pull the commercial (what braniac thought this up in the first place? (actually, if we're being completely honest, that person is kind of a genius. i mean ads are supposed to be attention-grabbing right. well this one sure grabbed my attention!) But what was even more surprising were the people who actually LOVED the commercial.

One of those people said:

"Fantastic concept. The ad looks like it's achieved everything intended - controversy and public attention for a product which has previously been lost in an amateur advertising campaign; centered around coloured packaging and how it relates to the lives of gen y women. Well done Kotex!"

So now I'm really disturbed. Are all these ads aimed at "gen y" woman? Does that mean, that because I don't like them, I am not a "gen y" woman? At the age of 32, what am I? A "gen x"? "gen w"? Am I finally to the age where I do not have to be influenced by every revolutionary new type of advertisement? Am I? AM. I.?

Fantastic. Finally.

Now if I can just learn to stop luxuriating in the lives of B-grade celebrities I'll be perfectly grown up.

That and giving up the cotton panties, I suppose.

:)

Great-Aunt

yes I am....a great Aunt (but I PROMISE, I'm only 32). Ryan Spencer was born 2 days ago....

Here is a link to my sister's blog which gives pics, stats etc. She's much more on the ball then I am...clearly.

http://www.debztalkin.blogspot.com/

Go. He's pretty freaking cute!

Sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug*

As you well know, there are days when you really shouldn't get out of bed. Wait....to clarify, there are LOTS of days when I really should not get out of bed.

If on a bad day you think to yourself, today I'm the bug....well then TODAY would be a Mac Truck sized windshield, moving at the speed of light....and I, well I'd be a microscopic miniscule gnat flitting around the heads of atoms. Really. It was that bad.

Since I'm sure everyone has had there share of bad days and really, who wants to hear me complaining YET AGAIN....I'm going to plagarize a comment that JL made to my last post. That'll have to do you for today. Enjoy.

_______________________

Further Chopstar update:

Thanks to her new-found ability to (1) sleep all night, and (2) hold it in for more than 5 mins at a time, Chops was recently upgraded on the party-pooper-boyfriend-can-we-keep-her scale from "No" to "Maybe".

That was before she decided to do a runner from the park yesterday morning, dodging through four lanes of rush-hour traffic, running into the underground train station a half mile away...me stumbling after her in a pair of flip flops...through the turnstiles (no ticket!), back through the turnstiles again...just as I go through...and out the other side, trying to find Kristen who'd just caught the train to work.

The party-pooper-boyfriend-can-we-keep-her scale now reads "Humph".

JL

Shooting From The Hip

WARNING

The below has 3 instances of Rated R cursing. I apologize, but I feel this is necessary for a true telling of this story. (Again, sorry Mom!)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have a bad boss. Wait....I really mean it....a bad bad bad BAD boss. He is rude, overbearing, back-stabbing, and a bully. I could give you numerous examples of the kind of guy he is, but I'll just tell you one, from today:

______________________________
Bad Boss: [Charging into my office, no greeting, no knock; begins spastically shaking an agreement at me.]

WHY DID YOU ADD THIS PROVISION? ITS NOT IN THE MODELS! WHY DID YOU DO THIS? DO YOU WANT TO MAKE ME LOOK STUPID!

Me: It was in your mark-up, so I made the changes.

Bad Boss: WELL WHAT THE F*CK DO I KNOW? I'M JUST SHOOTING FROM THE HIP! YOU HAVE TO LOOK AT THE F-CKING MODELS.! IT'S NOT F-CKING ROCKET SCIENCE! [Charges out of office]
______________________________

Now what I truly love about this story is that he is such a colossal fool that he doesn't even recognize that either (a) it truly is rocket science since he screwed it up in the first place or (b) maybe, as a partner in a law firm, he should KNOW WHAT HE'S DOING??? Eh, maybe its just me.

By the way, this is not the first time this has happened. Uh, no. It's just the first time today. AND this is coming on the heels of working until midnight or later for the past three days.

My life rocks.....

Bad bosses aside, I've been working so much that JL has been taking on all of the party preparations himself! What party you ask? Oh, we're having a housewarming party....yes, yes, you're all invited....IN AUSTRALIA! He has been doing very well, but today he made the mistake of asking me what he should be doing tonight. So I sent a list:

General tidying up of all common areas
Clean the kitchen
Clean the floors (including the bathroom floor which is grody)
Straighten up/hide all the stuff in bedroom
Clean the courtyard
Wipe down the outdoor furniture, including the green chairs (note: kill those spiders!)
Clean off the airconditiong unit (which is mainly my stuff I know)
Organize the furniture etc. to allow for seating etc.
Prepare music
Cook dumps
Bake brownies
Cook chorizo and prepare the skewers
Buy prawns and milk and anything else left off the list?
Get ice
Get rid of dead flowers
Get recycling box up from garage
Vacuum
Shred chickens for pita pockets
Boil 8 baking potatoes

Oh, and this is for tonight! The party is tomorrow!

But get this. I sent him this list and you know what he said? "Thank you for the list. There were things on there I didn't think of!" Hahahahahaha! Well, at least he makes up for Bad Boss!

I suspect JL might think his life was much simpler before he met me!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CHOPSTAR UPDATE

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've started walking her in the morning and she is being such a good girl now! Sleeps through the night even! I'm very happy she's come back!

And the lucky streak continues! (or, Poor, Poor Canucks)

My horse's name was Mr. Darcy (ala, Bridget Jones).

On Monday morning JL and I went horseback riding in this little town in the mountains of New Zealand called Hanmer Springs (though you know the New Zealanders call in "Ham-ner" Springs, I couldn't begin to tell you why). In a fit of enthusiasm (and likely believing we were 10 years younger) we decided to go on the 2 1/2 hour trail ride. What we didn't know is that this involved trotting AND cantering along very narrow rough trails, under low hanging branches and around very tight curves.

I know what you're thinking, especially those of you that know me well.....but no, I did not fall off the horse! Surprise surprise! Of course, I still can't walk (2 days later) but that's another story altogether. What DID happen is that somehow I was bitten by the most virulent strain of (non-biting, according to the "infinitely knowledgeable of all things New Zealand" Canadian tourists on our ride) tiny flies to buzz along the face of this planet. My index finger has subsequently swelled to triple its normal size! I swear I look like I have a club hand....and its not like my hands haven't been through enough lately! Not to mention the huge icky bite on my neck, the 15 additional ones on each hand, ankle and foot, and the random one on my hip (I was wearing jeans!).

JL though...whatta guy. He offered to "pop" my finger with a safety pin. True Love? He might truly be sick in the head.

Speaking of JL, he got on the lucky streak bandwagon this weekend as well after causing a multi-horse pile up during one of those scary-as-crap, I-think-I-might-die canters. He did manage to keep his seat, but one of the poor Canadians stuck behind him as he widely careened out of control, did not. Poor guy came off his horse straight into the bushes!

Now this is the same guy that wouldn't stop talking about how good a rider he was prior to even getting on the horse. Not only that, but he and his wife actually had the nerve to try to tell us that if we get tired we should just let them know and they could slow down! So, even though I know its wrong, and even though I'm probably one step closer to H. E. Double hockey sticks....I couldn't help but be secretly pleased. Karma baby! Plus, the guys "injuries" (I'm not sure what they were...he never said specifically, other than "sore" -- We're all sore buddy! Its a 2 1/2 hour horseback ride!) meant we had to cut out the cantering for the rest of the ride much to the relief of our chafed backsides.

No worries though. After leaving the truly pissed off Canadians behind, we headed to the thermal springs that this town is famous for.....

where we did this:

No! This is not a picture of me and JL....just some better looking randoms. And what, exactly, is that guy looking at?

AND got this:
Totally worth it! :)
PS - Still at work so no chance to download pics just yet. You're stuck with just my ramblings for now.

Chopstar....sheeeee'ss baaaacckk

Even her little butt is cute!

So the good folks who were going to adopt Chopstar aren't going to be able to keep her after all....and I am THRILLED! We get her back tonight and I really cannot wait. I'm so excited. I've missed her cute little face.

I went to visit her in her new home last week (before they decided they couldn't keep her) and she was sooooo happy to see me. She followed me everywhere, only wanted to sit on me, and tried to follow me home. Once I left she apparently sat by the door and cried all night!

But she gets to come home now!!! Woohooo!!

JL is, of course, super excited as well (hahahahahahaha, ha). He LOVES the wee, fleas and constant yip-yapping. Seriously.