All in the name

As I mentioned previously,
BJ and Cousin Alex came over last week
and we hung out at the Elmwood Spa.
We had a lovely time.
I mean, really, how can you not?

If you've never been,
after you check in,
they give you an itinerary
listing the services you are going to have,
who's going to pamper you,
what time each service begins
and on what floor.

It's a big place.

So we're in the locker room,
I'm sitting on the bench,
reviewing my itinerary.
I glance at the names of the people
who are going to be my Pamperors
(me, of course, being the Pamperee).

And I notice a pattern.

"Hey," I say, to no one in particular,
"All my service people have porn names."

The girls look at me. "What?"

"Listen," I say, and rhyme off the names.
"Kashmir, Lilac and Laguna."

I hold out my itinerary. "See. Porn names."

BJ takes the sheet from me and scans it.

"No, honey," she says, "those are the names of the rooms."

Spa Week 2010

TH left early yesterday to visit The Boy in Calgary.
He'll be back on Friday.
Cousin Alex arrived last night to spend the week with me.
We're trucking downtown to meet up with BJ on Wednesday,
and we'll be spending the day at the Elmwood Spa.

The cat's away, so the mice, as they say,
are going to have a helluva time!

There is going to be a whole lot of Buffy watching,
copious amounts of Wii playing,
and a disgusting amount of junk food eating.

The guest room was completed not a moment too soon.
The girls will be our first guests.

It was a disaster for a while, to say the least.



We repainted floor to ceiling,
and had Jim from Pristine Clean come and do his thing with the carpet.
It used to be a dingy peachy-beigey sorta icky colour,
but now it actually looks rose.



I made some curtains,
made matching table covers,
covered the chair in the corner.
and I still have some fabric to make pillows,
although that might be a little too matchy.

I think the girls will like it.
In fact, they may never leave.
Which is OK with me, but TH may think otherwise.
Then again, three women cooking and cleaning for him ...

Talking Good

My Facebook status update is:

Crazy Mo is amazed that so many Facebook users can't properly use contractions or even spell. Honestly, people, the entire world is reading your text ... take some pride in what you write.

This is one of my (many) pet peeves.
Grammar and spelling, that is.
Not Facebook.

I grind my teeth every time I see
a comment that reads:
"Your so right!"

Your?
Really?
As in MY so right?
You're kidding, aren't you?

We're not talking about teenagers here;
although that is still inexcusable.
These are adults.
People who have post-secondary education.

Is it because they're too busy to proofread?
Or too lazy?
It can't be because they don't know the proper use
of their, there, and they're.

If that's the case, their education is sorely lacking and there really is nothing more to do than shake my head and hope they're not reading this.

Then again, they probably didn't understand that last paragraph.
Even with the red font.

And don't even get me started about the plural of YOU.
Unless, of course, you're joking,
then yous can use it all ya'll want.


Having bitched about that ...

Last night,
TH picks me up at the GO Train.
We head over to Burger King
for Whoppers and Rings.

As always, as I get out of the car,
I remind him to turn his lights off.

"Is your lights on?" I say.

And I stop in the middle of the parking lot.
"OH MY GOD!" I shout. "Did I just say IS your lights on?!"

TH shakes his head and says in his best drawl,
"C'mon Ma, let's go git us some vittles."

Go, Helen, Go!

GO Transit recently changed the schedules.
Juggled them around to add an extra train to our line.
They cancelled my normal train, but added one
several minutes before and
several minutes after.

It was enough of a difference that
I made the choice to come in even earlier.
So I'm catching the 7:03.

Sadly, GTB is catching a later train.
And I miss our morning bitch sessions.
Sending visual daggers at the morons who
talk too loud,
play pop music on their cell phones,
and insist on encroaching on your personal space.

I really missed him this morning ...

It was a wonderfully quiet ride in.
Everyone was sleeping or reading.
The few people who were talking were whispering.
It was bliss.

And it was shattered in the last 10 minutes of the ride.

"Hello?!
Hello, Helen.
Thought I'd call you and say hi.
Yes, I did try to call you.
Just a few minutes ago.
Yes, I thought I'd call and say hi."

Heads snap up at the intrusion.
We look around to see who's shouting.

Some idiot, three quads away from me,
is talking very loudly on the phone.

He starts telling Helen about his headaches,
and how the medication the doctor gave him isn't working.
But the therapist he's seeing with his wife
wants to start having more frequent sessions.
He's been making an effort to do things her way,
but he is coming in to work an hour earlier
and staying later.

Everyone is looking at each other,
with looks of "Is This Guy Serious?!"
People are popping up in their seats and
turning around to see who's talking.
He just talks louder.

The woman sitting in my quad turns to look behind her
to see who's shouting.
She turns to her husband, who's sitting beside me.
"Who's talking?"
He points the guy out.
I say to them:
"If I was his wife,
I'd leave him for telling the whole train our business."
The other coupled laughed.
The guy says, as we're pulling into the station,
"Pat him on the shoulder as you walk by
and tell him everything will be ok."

The usual fun commute, but not the same without GTB.

Hmph...

I get a phone call from Lady Fairchilde the other day.
She speaks in hushed tones.
Her whisper is frantic.

We're both at work,
and although we're both very busy,
I know it's not work that has her all riled up.

I know her.
It can only be one thing.

"Cousin Alex has a duck with a KITE in it's mouth!"

LF is awed and more than a little jealous.
I don't know where Alex gets all the cool items on FarmVille,
but I'm convinced she 'knows a guy'.



LF even named the JPG attachment "Hmph".
She wonders how Alex got it too.

We'll be starting FUA soon.
Farmville Users Anonymous.
But the acronym means so much more.

Don't roll your eyes at me cuz I'm a FV Junkie.
I don't judge you because you're a sci-fi geek,
or watch back-to-back episodes of Dancing with the Stars,
or spend hours playing World of Warcraft with total strangers.

You want to make fun of me and FV ...
My name is Mo, and I'm a FarmVille Addict.
FUA.

Duke-ing it Out

When I joined this department last year,
Boss #1 insisted that I join the NCAA March Madness pool.

I don't know anything about basketball, I insisted.
Doesn't matter, he assured me.

So I paid my $10.
And I picked my teams.

Last year, I had Michigan State going all the way.
North Carolina ended up winning,
but I won the pool anyway,
simply because I had Michigan State in the finals,
and a lot of my other picks were good.

People were pissed that me -- a newbie -- won.
"Why Michigan State?" they all asked.
"Um ... cuz I've been to Michigan,
and ... um ... I had a good time."

There was a lot of eye-rolling.
And I think I learned a few new swear words.

This year, I was positive my $10 was a donation.
There's no way I can win two years in a row.
I mean, I really know NOTHING about basketball.
It's a bunch of really tall guys,
bouncing a brown ball around,
making squeaking noise when they run.

But I was wrong.
Not about the tall-guy part ...
about not winning two years in a row.

Before tip off last night,
I was in second place.
It didn't matter who won,
I was coming in second.

I had Duke going all the way.
And Duke went all the way.

I don't think they're going to let me play next year.

And the reason I picked Duke?

Well ... North Carolina won last year.
And Duke University is in NC.
It's just logical.