Again, why do I have friends?!

I talked to Special today, and apparently yesterday he decided to return the favour of calling obscenely early in the morning. Er... apparently I answered the phone and said, "I fucking hate you" and then hung up. Can you believe it?! That's so harsh! I don't remember that phone call at all. So hostile Brookes. I feel like a bit of a creep now.

Is it possible he called someone else's house and woke that person up?!

Just to clarify...

1) Gosh is not dead.
2) My sister Latina was not the one to put the weed in her hoo hoo.
3) I almost burned my house down by having my Rubbermaid of china, wrapped in newspaper, too close to the heater. As we could see, the plastic melted and some of the newspaper started to burn. Hmmm, pretty sure that wouldn't be conducive to a good reference in the future, not to mention the whole "I could have died" thing. I like firemen, but I'm not that desperate. Honestly, I'm not!

Cheapskate Tuesday: How to get the most from your flowers

As we all know, I love flowers. LOVE them. Not too picky about the kind either, except I'm allergic to lilies (they make me want to scratch my eyes out). Anyway, seeing as I don't have some handsome hunk of sweetness trying to woo me with flowers, I have to buy "my own damn flowers" (awww Genuine- tee hee). And because I'm cheap and currently unemployed, I need to make the most of the flowers I do get.

For example, when I came home from Calgary, my mom bought me a beautiful bouquet of some sort of green flower (LOVE green flowers). However after about a week and a half, the stems were creepy and the leaves had turned yellow and were floppy. Ew, not cool. Yet, the actual flowers were still gorgeous. What was a girl supposed to do, endure the yellow floppy creepiness or toss the beautiful green flowers? Aww sigh. So, being a cheapskate <sidenote, some hot guy just came into Starbucks; hello Mr. Gray-Baseball-Cap-And-A-Nice-Bod... Stop staring Heidi> Anyway... like I was saying: being a cheapskate, I decided to cut off the icky stems and put the short stemmed bunch of flowers in a wine glass. Perfect! Then I got another week and a half worth of enjoyment out of them.

Coffee, did I not learn?!

Met Whatever at Starbucks tonight. Awesome. Got some caffeine. Awesome. It's now 3:45 am. Not awesome.

So, I called Special and woke him up. He has developed a bad habit of waking me up in the morning. He thinks it's funny. Heh heh, I wonder how funny it feels for him to be on the receiving end.

He hung up on me after muttering something I couldn't quite make out. Now I think I can sleep :)

About that tenants insurance...

As if electric blue doesn't attract enough attention

If you go out on a Saturday night with your peeps and you decide to wear a super hot electric blue tank top, shave your armpits. If for some reason, you haven't, don't do the actions to YMCA. If you do and happen to remember the lack of shaving mid action, be smooth and don't announce it to the whole table.

Then later when people play the "how do you know so and so?" game, try to shift the conversation away from farts. If someone else brings it up, don't launch into a story about how you once farted like a motorbike and that it was so gross.

This is not the kind of impression you want to leave. This is how you get remembered as "that farty girl with the hairy armpits."

Venti rookie mistake

It's 7:12 in the morning.
I feel like death.
I haven't slept at all.
*Note to self:
Don't drink coffee before bed.

How Gosh almost died

Do you ever have those times when you start over-analyzing something and end up freaking yourself out? This happened to me this whole last week. I called Gosh about something. Probably nothing, but there was no answer. Usually he calls back within a day or two, but he didn't, so I just figured he was busy with exam prep. Okay. So I think I sent him a one liner e-mail or something (although I could fully be making this up). No response, which was probably not a big deal because it wouldn't have been serious or anything. Anyway, a few more days went by so I left him a message asking him if he was still alive. When I hung up, it occurred to me that it was super sunny and we should do a BBQ sometime in the future, so I called him back and left another message. No response.

Then I got to thinking: what if Gosh really did die?! I mean, he's a pretty private guy and lives alone, would anyone even notice right away?! Would anyone even think to contact me? Maybe he was just in the hospital. Maybe I should swing by his house to see if his car is there. Nope, that's creepy. Hmmm. Do I call his house or work from a payphone, wait until I hear his voice, and then hang up so caller ID doesn't bust me? No, if the last idea was stalkerish, then this def is too. I could call him from my place and just make up a reason for calling... no that's lame, besides, I've already called.

So for the next few days, I operated under the assumption that Gosh could very well be dead. He could be rotting on the floor of his place with no one to notice him until it smelled bad enough.

_____________________________________
Today, while I was out, Gosh phoned and left a message. I suppose his place smells okay, good thing I didn't overreact.

The value of smoking weed on your holiday

*Disclaimer: Potential permanent scarring from reading this is not my problem if you decide to continue reading. Read at your own risk.

So my sister Latina called me up the other day from the States. She said she was chatting with one of her coworkers that morning, who had just returned from a holiday with her hubby and brother in law. Anyway, I guess the three of them really liked their pot and wanted to bring some with them. Unfortunately, US customs isn't too fond of this, so they came up with a creative way to sneak it through.

The wife put some marijuana in plastic, wrapped it in gauze, and tied it with string and inserted it tampon style. I kid you not! She put this stuff in her hoo hoo and got on the plane like it was no big deal. When they got back to the hotel, she removed it and all was good to go. However, she only brought enough for her and her spouse. Turns out the brother in law was resourceful too. After 20 minutes in the hotel washroom, he too emerged with a baggie of weed.

My sister said that her coworker didn't see what the big deal was, after all, they ended up with something to smoke on their holiday. Latina was so grossed out and advised the chick NOT to tell ANYONE else this story. Ever. For the rest of her life, under any circumstances.

Can you believe this actually happened?! GROSS! If you smoked pot, would you really want to smoke stuff that had been *in* someone else's gear for who knows how many hours? Is it really that important? Besides, I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure marijuana is pretty easy to come by pretty much anywhere- just go down to any local bar and ask around. Why do something so sketchy and risk having to mess around with customs?

If I had a five star shudder rating, this would definitely be a five.

Cheapskate Tuesday: How to have dinner made for you

One of my 'food free-loading idols' is Lucky. I'm pretty sure that the entire time we dated, he didn't have to cook because other people volunteered to do it for him. Not going to lie, I was a bit jealous of this. Seriously, he could do commercials for World Vision to help them find people to provide food for others in developing countries.

Inadvertently, I scored a 'Lucky week' in which people fed me pretty much every day. It was dreamy and completely unplanned! When I came back from Calgary, it was just before Easter and I ended up with about eight dinner invites. Wow, that's freakin' amazing. I think I ate better that one week than the entire time I was in Cowtown.

If I leave soon, I can be back in time for BBQ season. Mmmmm.

Divine green crunch crunch

Snap peas. Mmmm. Munch munch. Genuine and I had this theory munch munch that munch when we *craved* vegetables, that was a really bad sign that we weren't eating well. Munch munch. Makes sense though right? I mean our bods must be trying to tell us something! Hmmm, must mean munch munch that we need cheesecake sometimes too.

How multi-tasking can burn your house down

If you decide to heat up onion rings in the oven on 'broil', don't put on your make-up and forget about them. Especially if you have a cold and can't smell burning. Perhaps your landlord will also have recently put new batteries in the smoke detector, so it can announce to the neighbourhood that you are culinarily challenged. Way to be a grown up.

The DQ dilema: How to avoid being that girl

All right, so it was 9pm and I was craving a blizzard: chocolate extreme with Reece's Buttercups and two extra pumps of cocoa fudge. And I wanted onion rings too. I called Enthusiasm, Mocha, and Wonder Woman (who's previous nickname eludes me), but all were busy or not answering their phones (cough cough Enthusiasm cough). So, what do I do?! Do I be that girl who goes to DQ late at night and eats a blizzard, *and* onion rings under the fluorescent lighting, portraying to the world that she has no friends, and a junk food binging problem?! I could just go in and order the food for take out. But would I only be a closet version of that girl? Shit.

Later:
So here's what I did: I went to DQ with my head held high and ordered two blizzards and large onion rings. Sounds confident right? Well, it wasn't, I bought all that so that it would look like I was getting junk food for two people. Brilliant cover. Then when I came home, I put each blizzard in containers (save enough for a small bowl.... mmmm) and stuck them in the freezer. Brilliant, now I have some for later! Then I ate some onion rings and put the rest in a container to stick in the oven later. Go Brookes go!

Flashback Memory Friday: Preschool postmodern art

So there was this boy... (again, it always starts this way) in preschool. His name was Jeff and I adored him; he was beautiful, rebellious, and older than me. Jeff had a responsible twin named Danny. Danny always made the right decisions, hence why there was no attraction.

The three of us ate our lunches together at the bench table. Neither of the boys ate their crusts, therefore, I didn't either. Because I was a picky eater and spent most of my childhood playing with my food rather than eating it, I figured I'd make something out of the crusts. So while the boys joked around and told stories about their dad and the cool adventures he took them on, I chewed my crusts. And chewed them. And chewed them. After each mouthful was ground to a paste, I spat it out onto my hand then proceeded to roll it into balls and place them in front of me. I lined them up in a row, each of equal colour, size, and consistency. Jeff saw me doing it and thought it was cool because I was doing something I wasn't supposed to. Awesome.

Perhaps Danny was in the washroom or enthralled in his own lunch, but somehow he missed my creative construction. At one point, he reached across the table grabbed one of my "cookies" and popped it into his mouth and gulped it back without hesitation.

Jeff and I laughed at him. A lot. End result: Jeff thought I was cool.

Forward shmorward: The jerks in your life

Sea forwarded this to me. Usually, I delete forwards without looking at them because I don't care if my wishes won't come true or my crush won't magically like me. However, on this particular one, my sister noted "Heidi please read this one. It reminded me of you :-D Love, Sea". This made me feel slightly guilty that I never read her forwards. It's like she knew...

There comes a point in your life when you realize:
Who matters...
Who never did...
Who won't anymore...
And who always will!
So, don't worry about people from your past...
There's a reason why they didn't make it into your future.

Golden. I think this could even be extended to say that, "There's a reason certain people aren't in your life in the same capacity that they once were, so don't be sad or regretful about it."

Maybe there is a reason Matt Damon is not in my life right now. Likely too much charm and tact for him.

How to fly poorly on a plane part 3: The security edition

1) Pack your carry on luggage too full. By five pounds. Smile and plead desperately with sign in guy. He's in a jovial mood, which works in your favour. Be sure not to let security see you struggle with your extremely heavy bag. Okay, got it.
2) Relieved that your shoulder hasn't dislocated due to excessive weight pressure, fill up *four* grey bins with your two pieces of carry on, your purse, and your lap top. This takes up most of the counter.
3) Go through metal detector. Set it off.
4) Go back and put hoodie in bin number five.
5) Go through again. Set it off.
6) Yes you have keys *and* change in your pocket. Take them out and put them in bin number six.
7) Go through medal detector again. Set it off.
8) Smile, you're doing a great job of holding up the line.
9) Finally security guy busts out the metal detector wand.
10) Your watch sets if off. Bin number seven.
11) Your shoes set it off. Into bin number eight. The line up officially thinks you're a terrorist.
12) Buddy makes you stand starfish style and runs the wand down your legs and up the inside toward your crotch. You giggle. Sooo mature.
13) Your belt buckle sets it off. "Can you undo it please?" Whoa buddy, are we performing a public strip search?!
14) Make a joke about how it must be your steel abs. No one laughs.
15) Buddy runs wand over your butt. It goes off. Obviously the "buns of steel" joke is out.
16) Buddy calls some lady and takes you over to her. She puts her hands on your buns and feels you up. Awkward! Plus they should really tell you that that is the next step.
17) Now that you have been groped in front of a crowd, you are good to go.
18) Oh wait, turns out you're not. "Ma'am, is this your purse?"
19) Stand back as there appears to be a sharp weapon in your carry on. WTF? Wonder what it could be and insist there isn't anything. Er yeah, those are yours. Your eyebrow scissors are confiscated. Probably feeling bad for all you've gone through, the man compliments you on how tidy and organized your purse is and asks if you're a doctor or a teacher. Wow.
20) Do up your belt, put on your shoes, and gather your things while people going through the line glare at you. Smile awkwardly.

Cheapskate Tuesday: Effen' commodity overkill

Charging for parking at a hospital is wrong. So is ticketing people who are late to their cars. Bastards. IT'S A HOSPITAL!!

Double take: Jordan? Kelly? Ashley?

I swung by Starbucks to pick up some coffee for someone in the hospital. If I was in the hospital, I would want good coffee. And flowers. Okay, I wouldn't reject good chocolate either. Venti caramel machiatto for her and a peppermint mocha for me. Beautiful.

Once I pissed around with parking, found the right elevator, the right floor, checked in with the desk, found the room, I had to check in with the security guard outside her room. I thought they only had guards for gangsters on crime shows. Apparently not. Anyway, while being "cleared" to enter the room, I tried to hide my surprise. Our security guard was about six foot seven, with long brown hair in a headband, pretty purple eye shadow, tight jeans, and shiny, black, six inch heels. Okay, this combo attracts attention as it is; However, it was the deep voice, the adam's apple, and the jean bulge that caught my attention.

To each their own.

Easter Sunday like no other...

I thought I'd be a good girl and go to church on Easter Sunday. Out of all the Sundays in the year, this seems like the most important one- you know that whole, "Jesus died and rose for the sins of mankind" thing. I even dressed up a bit. Well, if something other than Lulu pants constitutes dressing up. Easter Sunday just seems more holy or sacred.

Well, maybe not this one.

First, I stopped to pick up my aunt, who upon walking toward the car realized her slip was longer than her skirt. Heh heh "outrageous." I didn't know they still sold slips. When we got to the church parking lot, it was pouring. I parked in a spot that wasn't beside anyone. This is where my aunt decided it was a good idea to remove her slip in the car. How about the bathroom? Nope. As she's hiking her skirt up, an SUV pulls up on the passenger side. The lady gets out, looks over, and smiles. Church people smile. When in doubt, smile. Awesome, someone thinks my aunt is a fruit loop. Pass the milk please.

Because it was raining, some gentlemen from the church volunteered to escort people from their vehicles to the church with an umbrella. Brilliant idea. Super thoughtful. However, not such great timing. Poor Johnny-thirteen-year-old jogs over to the car to offer his assistance. I try to shoo him away while trying to subtly shield my aunt. However, he thinks I'm being polite or proud and insists on extending his kind gesture. He comes closer. Then the poor kid catches an unforgettable glimpse of my aunt from over my shoulder. Then he ran away. Yep, Johnny-thirteen-year-old will forever have the image of a 52 year old woman in all her nylon glory, shaking her hips, and taking off her clothes. On Easter. It's a shame he had to lose his innocence this way.

As I'm trying to recover from the parking lot strip show, we go inside to get coffee. It's really not that great, but in a pinch it will do. Bottom line: it's all about the caffeine. As we're waiting in line to get our java fix, my aunt compliments a little old granny on her matching powder pink skirt and suit jacket. I secretly wonder if she kept it from the fifties, but added beige support shoes, and more rouge. Flattered, the lady showed off her "lovely Easter necklace": a diamond studded bunny. She was so proud. My jaw dropped and I stared. Speechless. Apparently this lady was not familiar with the Playboy Bunny emblem. I wondered how many other people would notice her beloved Easter necklace. Priceless.

I must say, this was one of the most exciting Easter services I've been to. Ever. Rewind. Play.

Blah blah blah over ice?

On the way to Whatever's house for turkey dinner, I swung by Safeway to pick up some flowers. Cool, good plan.

So, how did I walk out of the store with a super-caffeinated drink? Didn't I want to go to bed early? I had absolutely zero intention of getting anything from Starbucks. Weird. What happened?! Hint: Sounds like 'Car' + 'Earl'. Yep, Karl <insert Halleluja music and a yellow light to shine above him>. Was he always this beautiful? I ordered the same drink I always did, but it turns out they didn't have it anymore. He asked if I would I like a blah blah blah over ice?! He's so pretty. Turns out the drink had five shots of espresso. Five shots. Pretty sure that can't be good for a person's heart.

I stayed up until three am.

Flashback Memory Friday: Sixth time's a charm

I think I was the pickiest kid I ever heard of when it came to food. EVER. My poor parents must have gone crazy now that I think about it. I was also super stubborn and independent.

Parent Strategy #1: Tempt her with dessert if she finishes her dinner.

Outcome: Ineffective, there was NOOO motivation strong enough to make her eat something she didn't want to. Even if the dessert was placed directly infront of her. Even if it was her favourite dessert in the whole world.

Parent Strategy #2: Don't let her leave the table until dinner is finished.

Outcome: Ineffective, because she is patient and can entertain herself. Eventually it would be late at night and the parents would need to go to bed.

Parent Strategy #3: Force feed her.

Outcome: Ineffective, because if she managed to open her mouth, she would just spit the food back out. Then what?!

Parent Strategy #4: Some sort of physical punishment.

Outcome: Ineffective, because she was not fearful and would rather be hit than eat something she didn't want to. Besides, this still was not getting food into her body.

Parent Strategy #5: Feed her the same uneaten meal for breakfast, lunch, and the following dinner until she eats it.

Outcome: Ineffective, because hunger pangs fade after a while and she'd be happy to starve before eating something she didn't want to. What if someone calls social services?!

Parent Strategy #6: Let her make her own food if she doesn't like what everyone else is eating.

Outcome: Effective- she didn't have to eat "gross" food and then there was no power struggle.

Critical

Critical
Pronounced ˈkrɪtɪkəl
–adjective

1. inclined to find fault or to judge with severity, often too readily.
2.occupied with or skilled in criticism.
3.involving skillful judgment as to truth, merit, etc.; judicial: a critical analysis.
4.of or pertaining to critics or criticism: critical essays.
5.providing textual variants, proposed emendations, etc.: a critical edition of Chaucer.
6.pertaining to or of the nature of a crisis: a critical shortage of food.
7.of decisive importance with respect to the outcome; crucial: a critical moment.
8.of essential importance; indispensable: a critical ingredient.
9.Medicine/Medical. (of a patient's condition) having unstable and abnormal vital signs and other unfavorable indicators, as loss of appetite, poor mobility, or unconsciousness.
10.Physics.
a.pertaining to a state, value, or quantity at which one or more properties of a substance or system undergo a change.
b.(of fissionable material) having enough mass to sustain a chain reaction.
11.needing Baileys in your drink with a friend on a bad day.

League Lesson: Part Three

So last Saturday, some girls from work planned a good bye house party for me. Birthday Girl switched her shifts around so she could make me a cake. She tried to make it all rainbow coloured, but it ended up mushy and crumbly and looked more like Rainbow Bright bled all over it. It was pretty funny. She felt terrible and made another one. So thoughtful.

With the second cake, they made it into a two layered cake, but iced it when it was still warm. So when they put it in front of me, the whole top layer slid off onto the table. It was awesome. We took pictures. Ha.

Ten showed up to my party, which I was pretty surprised about since I never talked to him. Plus I didn't invite him. Anyway, with the help of liquid courage and the fact that I was leaving anyway, I made an effort to say hello. We joked around a little bit. Then later on, we did courage shots and played fuse ball. He won, but I'd like to say I gave it a good go... well except for the three times I put the ball in my own net. Whoops.

We talked. A lot. Turns out he's even cooler than I thought. He's funny, smart, and responsible. And he's a BC boy- born in Port Alberni. Who knew?! The more we talked, the more we got along and the more we discovered we had in common. And the more both of us wished I wasn't leaving in two days.

Then he kissed me. *Kissed* me. Me. On the mouth. With his lips. Wow. This totally caught me off guard. Not going to lie, I loved it (although some tongue would have been better).

Anyway, this situation got me to thinking about the whole league thing and how stupid it is. Who made up leagues anyway? Who decides who fits into which league?! I spent six months avoiding a totally awesome guy because of a false conception that he was somehow "better" than me. But it turns out he liked me too.

Moral of the story: Eff leagues, if you like someone, just go for it.

Confession Tuesday: By the way...

I'm home!!!!!!!!!! Call me, lets hang out!!! Margaritas?!

Girble rats

I went for blizzards with Darius and commented on how there were girble rats everywhere. Turns out they're actually gophers or "ground squirrels". I prefer girble rats. From where we were sitting, we could see a grass field where I counted nine of them running around. If these were actual rats, that'd be nasty. Shudder.

League Lesson: Part Two

I remember the first time I had to talk to Ten. There was something wrong with the food for one of my tables and I had to ask him about it. I called him "Ryan", which is def not his name. Wow, way to botch it from the start. I floundered with words, muttered something, then ran. Shit.

For the next two and a half months I avoided eye contact.

At one point, I confided in a guy at work (Let's call him "Dry Storage") that I had a crush on Ten and that I couldn't speak to him. Dry Storage thought this was pretty funny and decided to tell Ten. Shit. I was standing right there and almost died. Seriously, cardiac arrest. I played it like I was cool, but I wasn't. Ten laughed and seemed surprised.

Stupid shyness, stupid Dry Storage, stupid leagues!

I continued not talking or looking at Ten. Okay, that's a lie, I checked him out when he wasn't looking, but I still avoided eye contact. Sometimes I'd need something from the walk in fridge and he'd be there, so I just pretended like he wasn't. Smooth Heidi, smooth.

League Lesson: Part One

So there's this guy (it always starts that way) and he is the kitchen manager. He also happens to be beautiful. He's about six inches taller than me, has brown hair, and brown eyes. His build is medium, he's got darker skin, big lips, and white teeth. Gorgeous- but not in that "I just spent five hours preparing for a photoshoot" kind of way, but in the "Hey I could throw on a tux and take you to dinner or put on khakis and go hiking with you" way. It always looks like he just came out of the shower. Out of ten, I give him a 9.8. But if you're going to give someone a 9.8, you might as well give him or her a ten. So, I'm giving him a ten. He's a ten.

Not only is Ten good looking, but he's kind, shy, and has a good work ethic. He's also got a bit of "bad boy" in there somewhere because he once came to work with a black eye. I didn't ask him about it. In fact I didn't even talk to him. This was nothing new though, I didn't talk to him for the first three months of working together. Not a peep nor a hello. He is way too good looking for me. Way too intimidating and definitely out of my league.

Some connections shouldn't be made

Okay, so we got a new salad lady at work and it has been nagging me for over a week who she reminds me of. Not my friends back home. Not a family member. Not a previous coworker or classmate. Shoot.

Today it clicked. She reminds me of the "woman" in Zoolander who gave him a massage at the "daiye spa". Shudder. The resemblance is incredible.

I know there's a 15

At home, I got off the elevator and noticed a new Asian girl was unlocking the door next to us. What?! I didn't know she lived there! Maybe she moved in with that dude. Or maybe he moved out and this new girl moved in. Hmmm. While I stared at her trying to figure this out, I put my key in the door. It wasn't working. Right key? Yeah. Turning it properly? Yeah. What the heck?!

Shit. Wrong floor. We live in suite 315, not 215.

As far as I know we have the same dude for a neighbour.

Road trippin' Atwood style

I've been reading Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood, because I felt like I ought to be more familiar with her work because I am a Canadian English major. Anyway, I came across this sweet excerpt:

"My brother Stephen sits in the front seat, beside the partly open window. He smells of peppermint LifeSavers; underneath that is his ordinary smell, of cedarwood lead pencils and wet sand. Sometimes he throws up into paper bags, or beside the road if my father can stop the car in time. He gets carsick and I do not, which is why he has to sit in the front."

I love the description of his smell. And the creepiness of barfing in a paper bag. Wouldn't that soak through? Anyway, so far I'm liking Atwood's writing. I read her novel Alias Grace, last week. It's decent.