Monthly Archives: April 2007
One Day Blog Silence
| April 30, 2007 | Posted by thatgrrl under Creative Fat Grrl |
On April 30th 2007, the Blogosphere will hold a
One-Day Blog Silencein honor of the victims at Virginia Tech.
Note: The original site for this disappeared about April, 2008. I rebuilt this post (rather than deleting it) because I think of the women in Montreal who were mass murdered years before 2007 and all the women still being killed in acts of aggression and violence.
Your Favourite Colour?
| April 29, 2007 | Posted by thatgrrl under Uncategorized |
| What Your Favorite Color Red Says About You: |
 Ambitious — Energetic — Passionate Spontaneous — Attractive — Inspiring Seductive — Powerful — Addicting |
Meanwhile, I should be back on Monday or Tuesday.
All Adventure, No Regrets
| April 25, 2007 | Posted by thatgrrl under Uncategorized |
“An adventure is a transgression you don’t regret.” Kate Wheeler
Laundry Night in Canada
| April 25, 2007 | Posted by thatgrrl under Uncategorized |
Why does it take so long to do laundry? There are other things that take a long time but I can at least enjoy something about them. Like taking the bus to get somewhere. It can be kind of bland when you do the same route each day, but there is the hope of the journey being interesting in some way. Tonight on the way home a guy was babbling away on the streetcar. He sounded less than intelligent but at least this time it wasn’t me he had latched onto. (I seem to attract crazy people who want to talk to someone). Anyway, one thing he said made me laugh though quietly so he wouldn’t notice me and come on over.
First he said about what a great job the streetcar driver was doing. How it was hard work and very complicated. Which is debatable, it’s not brain surgery after all. Anyway, then he looks outside and says something like, “Look at all those guys over there, just lying around like they’re dead.” I thought he was looking at a couple of teenaged boys who were slurping down slushies while they played around with their skateboards, waiting to cross at the lights. But, I was wrong. Cause crazy guy elaborates a minute later. “Oh, they are actually dead.” I think you had to be there but “they” were graves in the cemetery which I pass each day on the streetcar a block from where I get off. It was pretty funny in the moment. I did wonder if he was trying to be clever but he had been so anti-clever for so long before that I just can’t believe he suddenly grew a really sharp sarcastic wit.
On goes the laundry tonight. I had four loads cause I got ambitious and decided to wash all the sheets first. Even the new ones I had not unpacked yet. But, I decided not to wait for them to dry and used my old red ones (my favourites even though a pillow case got lost when I was still stuck with taking everything to the laundry matt). So I have a fresh bed when ever all that laundry is finally done so I can curl up into my fresh bed with it’s soft and comfortable cotton jersey sheets. Mmm.
No Hero on American Idol Tonight
| April 25, 2007 | Posted by thatgrrl under Uncategorized |
I was watching American Idol. It was their sentimental show about feeding the hungry, world peace and all that other stuff that makes people feel they are doing something to solve the problems of the world.
I wish someone had done Hero, by Mariah Carey. That song has made me feel better at all kinds of times.
And then a hero comes along
With the strength to carry on
And you cast your fears aside
And you know you can survive
So when you feel like hope is gone
Look inside you and be strong
And youll finally see the truth
That a hero lies in you
I don’t know if she wrote the lyrics herself. But she did a great job finding the words.
Crazy, But That’s How It Is
| April 24, 2007 | Posted by thatgrrl under Uncategorized |
I like getting those packs of sugar, salt, pepper, ketchup and vinegar from restaurants. Often I bring a few home from those fast food places that have them out for everyone to help themselves. I don’t take coffee creamers (past really bad experience with one of those quietly breaking, being forgotten and then really stinking up my purse). But, I take the others and I’m careful. Sometimes I still forget them for awhile, weeks even. But all those condiment things are really made to last now. I bet they will give that famous Twinkie and the cockroaches a run for their money eventually. Of course, that just makes you wonder why we eat them. (No, not the cockroaches, unless you like them in that way).
Anyway getting those little packs of condiments saves me buying the big containers for things I almost never use. I did break down and buy pepper though cause I have been going to town on tuna wraps and they just NEED pepper. But, I don’t use salt or sugar. Once, long ago, I was addicted to salt but that was when I could count my age on two hands. Nowadays I keep a bottle of ketchup in the fridge and a jug of vinegar in the cupboard cause they are good for somethings, not just edible things. Vinegar is an eco safe/ green cleaner and much cheaper than the other fancily packaged stuff. Ketchup… well ketchup is good to torment your brother with. Also handy for really sick April Fools jokes once a year. Not that I’d do something like that.
It’s not that I’m cheap entirely. I like that bit of the vagabond lifestyle. The idea that I’m living like someone who doesn’t have a lot of things tying them down and could pack up and move with just a moment’s notice. I think the best example of that was Madonna in Desperately Seeking Susan. That’s about all I remember from that movie, the lifestyle of the Madonna character.
Anyway, that’s about it for my thoughts for the day. I’m turning my brain down to low early tonight. Painters are supposed to be starting early on the upstairs and I plan to avoid being here for the aroma. I hope it is mostly dry and not so smelly when I get back. I’m allergic to fresh paint. I’m sure I wouldn’t care for having it wedged under my skin dry either but the fresh stuff really does mess me up. I’m not looking forward to tomorrow. But, I hope it will be ok. They say it should dry quick cause it’s latex. I’ve heard that story before.
I will be away Thursday sometime. My Mom needs me to fix her computer. I wish she would try to learn how to run it herself. She does try for short periods of time but forgets everything by the next day. I don’t mind helping her but I feel guilty cause I’m not there to help her right now as if it’s all partly my fault. Crazy but that’s how it is.
The Mexican Dolls
| April 23, 2007 | Posted by thatgrrl under Uncategorized |
These dolls came from a Mexian boy who stayed at my sister’s house for a week. He brought them for her daughters. I took a photo while they still look cute and new.
The Big Red Phone Caller Zapping Button
| April 21, 2007 | Posted by thatgrrl under Uncategorized |
I began paying for my current phone number almost a year ago, June 2006. Yet, I still get calls for people I have never met and certainly do not share an address with. Wrong numbers. I don’t mind a few calls like this. But they are endless. I can count on at least two every day, weekends included. It is annoying to answer the phone at this point. I usually just let it ring and filter the calls with an answering machine. I can count on only one in fifty actually being for me. Half are spam but even they are asking for someone else. They think I am someone who filled out a contest for something I have zero interest in or they think I’m the homeowner or I am signed up with their financial services, etc. It’s annoying.
Ordinary spam calls are aggravating enough but I get more than double that cause they think at least three other people have this phone number. Each time I talk to one of them I ask to be removed from their calling list. It isn’t making much difference and this is nearly a year since I began using the number.
I would like the option of zapping them all. Just a little electrical shock. Not something to really hurt them. Just a little jolt to give them the idea that calling my number is bad. A bad idea with a little pain too. Not quite enough to make their eyes bug out but maybe at least some of their hair could stand on end.
The ones that peeve me the most though… they get the full shock treatment. Those are the ones who call and then hang up on me before I can ask them to stop calling my number. That’s just plain rude after I drop everything to answer their damned call. Ignorance like that must be punished, severely. Just the idea of a big red button near my phone is making me feel better already.
Cellular Seagulls
| April 21, 2007 | Posted by thatgrrl under Uncategorized |
I was downtown today. Walking along the city sidewalk to the coffee shop I noticed all the people wandering around the doorway area and thought how funny all those cell phone and cigarette people look. Like seagulls circling and hovering around a landfill. It’s funny the things people will do for their habits. What would all those people have been doing if there were no cell phones and cigarettes were not allowed? They’d have less reason to flock around like seagulls or pigeons.
I took photos of the damage to the house by the tenants who lived upstairs. Each time I take a batch there seems to be another site to photograph. Today my brother was here and noticed a damaged window in the bathroom. Other things too and I will try to remember them in the morning when I take the camera upstairs for another round.
I bought two new science fiction books. It’s nice getting new books, I miss that though it is smarter to buy them used when book prices are over $10.00 each. It doesn’t seem so long ago I was buying several at a time when I was a teenaged bookworm taking the day off school to go to the World’s Biggest Bookstore downtown.
I mucked around with the sidebar on the blog tonight. So aggravating to choose what to keep versus how much space it takes up and how much it drags on the loading time for the blog. It was a good way to check for dead links in my links which is always a good thing.
Tomorrow I need to redesign thatgrrl.ca. It’s a lot to do and I really don’t have a plan at the moment. Not sure I will get it done as a bunch of guys are coming over for more construction/ demolition on the house above my head. So often all your best plans get whacked by someone else’s best plans.
Quotes from Bev
| April 21, 2007 | Posted by thatgrrl under Uncategorized |
“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”
–Stephen King“A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.”
–Ayn Rand“I do what I love, and what right does someone else have to judge whether it’s ‘real’ or not? If you listen to those kinds of people, you’ll only do what everyone else has done; you’ll never discover anything new. Never listen to people who tell you that you can’t do something. They’re the same people who said that we’d never fly.”
–Denny Dent“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust, sweat, and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes up short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.”
–Theodore Roosevelt
