Friday, March 30, 2007

Here we go again... ***UPDATE - AGAIN***

If you have a pet, take a moment and read this article. While Iams/Eukanuba are not subject to a recall on this, I just thought you should all know about it. This applies to both wet AND dry foods for overweight pets (and it's by prescription only).

***Apparently the pet food recall involving Menu Foods (cuts in gravy), they've now found out that it wasn't rat poison after all, they're now claiming that it's Melamine. Somehow I still don't believe that they've gotten to the bottom of it, but maybe that's just my suspicious nature.

It seems that Hills Science Diet M/D DRY FOOD has been added to the recall now. Once again, it's a prescription food, so if you have any get rid of it. This is the only dry food being affected right now because of the wheat gluten. GRAH!***

Any guesses?

Well it seems that the next referral batch is on it's way and the burning question seems to be how far will they get? I'm guessing, and this is based on absolutely no research whatsoever, that they'll go from October 24th to about November 2nd ('05...I have to put that in, since there are some people who read this blog who have no idea where the cut-off currently is).

Anyone else feel like tossing out a guess?

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Is that a dead squirrel on your head or are you just happy to see me?

Nice 'do, Sanjaya...

So, the results are in, and again I won't say who was kicked off, but I will say that I'm disappointed. The one that was kicked off was one of my early favourites but lately they had been in a steep decline. Tuesday's performance by this person was definitely not up to par, but there are others, like SANJAYA who should have been gone long ago.

I think I've gotten over the fact that he's still on the show and actually find it funny that there are sites like this. It seems that Simon Cowell he will quit if Sanjaya wins the show. The funny thing is, I think there are more people out there that want Simon off the show than want Sanjaya off. He wasn't even in the bottom three tonight. ;)

No smoking...in your own apartment

Every now and then I find an article about something silly that our beloved provincial government tries to implement, or discuss, or blow smoke out of their @$$. Well today I found a lovely little gem that I thought I would share.

You can read about it here or here. In the government's infinite wisdom, they're thinking of having a debate about not allowing people to smoke in their apartments. Not just the lobby or any common area (which is already outlawed), but your actual apartment.

Both Josh and I are non-smokers, so whether this ban goes into effect or not, it won't have any affect on us. Now don't get me wrong, I understand the ban and appreciate the health benefits of not having to breathe smoke in. My question is, how on earth are they going to enforce it?

Are superintendents going to have to run around and make sure that their tenants don't smoke? Will it get to the point that they will have the authority to evict you for smoking? What about if you have guests over? Can they get you evicted?

It just seems that there are a lot more pressing issues in today's society instead of having smoke-free apartment buildings.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Don't ever press the red button! - Posted by Josh

It looks like my professional colleagues at a certain large New York based advertising firm were paid way too much money by Doritos to create a series of ads that do not heed Daffy Duck's advice. "Don’t ever touch the red one". What is the red button of catastrophe that I speak of? It's the red button marketers push when they run out of ideas. In SUV advertising, it's convincing Mom that she's taking her kid's soccer team through the Alps to get to their game on time. Everyone knows that will never happen and yet SUVs are sold to people that never go off-road and may only be carrying two passengers.

Two Doritos commercials feature snake charmers in one spot, and bartering a dead otter for a woman's hand in marriage. Yikes! The commercial in both cases is complete with subtitles, gross stereotypes of South Asians all framed by actors using obvious Indian accents akin to Homer Simpson's friend and Quicky-Mart owner Apu. The agency could have done a lot more with the hundreds of creative staff at their disposal. The problem is that within the halls of certain agencies, I am sure the spots were seen as funny while addressing the constant complaint that television does not reflect North American diversity. The spots do not inspire me to buy the product. They do not project a positive light on Indian culture and quite frankly, if this is a theme put forward by the ad agent, which ethnic group is next? I could create a list of flavours and their respective matching ethnic group, but that would diminish the dignity of this post and the site. It is enough to say that these commercials took the path of least resistance. Why not take a bite of these chips and be transported to a luxurious resort on the coast of the Indian Ocean? One could be transported to the time of ancient kings. Instead of "peel me a grape, pass me a Doritos". If an SUV can get you over the mountains, why can't an exotic potato chip make you feel like a King? An affordable luxury.

When advertisers choose an ethnic group to highlight their product, they have to approach their stereotype with care. Notice that Calgon does not advertise their washing soap as "an Ancient Chinese secret" anymore. Why am I passionate that marketing portray the product and my neighbours in a positive light, because, I am reminded of the words of Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984). His poem has undergone many changes and his past was not squeaky clean, but his poem does guide me to not press the red button when building campaigns and to be sensitive when my neighbour is being marginalized.

As it relates to these ads, the Canadian Code of Advertising Standards section 14 refers to "Unacceptable depictions and portrayals". These commercials may fall under this category.


New England Holocaust Memorial


They came first for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

Happy anniversary, L & Ugly!

Today is my brother (AKA Ugly) and his wife's 10th wedding anniversary!

Happy anniversary, guys!

Monday, March 26, 2007

(Insert your opinion here)

I'm not sure if these commercials are shown in the States, but there's a whole series of them with a variety of 'outcomes', shown here.

I have my own opinion about these commercials, what is yours? I'll update this at some point tomorrow with my take on it. Please give your honest opinion, and don't be swayed by other comments that you may read. If you want to leave an anonymous comment, go ahead.

Saturday, March 24, 2007

Pi pie ***UPDATE***

Josh and I went to the supermarket today, to get a few things for Passover. Our big shopping trip though is next week and I DON'T want to think about how nucking futs busy it's going to be in the supermarket. Seriously, for the non-Jewish readers, the carnage is something akin to going into a toy store with 5 minutes to go before the stores close on Christmas Eve.

Anyways, as we were perusing the aisles, I noticed they had the candles that we use for our LIDiversary* cakes. I decided to bite the bullet and get the rest of the candles we'll need for the rest of our wait.

When we got to the cashier he looked at me like the RCA dog and quizzically asked, "Why do you need so many candles?!" Since I didn't feel like explaining our reasons, I shot back, "Oh we're baking a pie for a mathematician friend and we're putting candles representing pi on it." He said "Wow, that's so creative!" I just smiled back...

*For new readers who might not know about this, check out this link which explains why we have LIDiversary cakes.

***C.J., we originally only bought candles 2 through 6 (and we had planned on getting 7-9 at a later date, since that's how long we naively thought the wait would be). We got a bunch more, plus a second 1 and a second 2. I still refuse to get the second 3...***

Friday, March 23, 2007

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's Captain Sarcasm*

So, I was tootling around on gmail and, you know those ads that pop up along the top? Well one came up for this with the tagline "Your milk band reminds you which breast to nurse from by flipping it inside out!" (Talk about butchering the English language...you almost wonder what you have to turn inside out...)

Well, me being me, I had to go to the site...now I'm going to have night terrors tonight.

When I told a friend of mine, D, about it he replied "It's really funny that gmail is serving you ads about breastfeeding because you're 'having a baby'. Yeah, adopting a baby you f***ing creepy email reading robot..." which I thought summed up my feelings on the subject QUITE nicely.

While I have never breastfed since, well, I don't have any children but...wouldn't you kind of KNOW or FEEL which breast you had just breastfed from...or which one you would need to breastfeed from next?

*Now, please bear in mind that this post is totally written tongue firmly planted in cheek and I'm not talking about adoptive breastfeeding...there are entire forums filled with information on that. I know that people feel really passionately about this topic and I don't mean to put anyone off by joking about it.

Hmm, I wonder what kind of weird hits I'm going to get on the blog tonight...I think I'm going to go hide...

I think I'm going to be sick...

Well they found out what was making cats and dogs sick. How messed up is that? People were innocently and unknowingly feeding their pets rat poison. I hope none of you have been affected by the food recall. (Deuce wasnt affected, but now I have to go hug him.)

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Who wants to do a meme? ME! ME! ***UPDATE***

I haven't done a meme for a while, so I figured I'd take the plunge and thrill you all with a little more information about me. Woo! Aren't you all thrilled?!

I got this one off of Dolores who got it from Nic.

1. Can you cook? I can boil a mean pot of water. Really!

2. What was your dream growing up? To become a veterinarian.
***To answer Kathy's question about why I didn't become a veterinarian...I'm terrible at science and, honestly, I just can't make friends with math.***

3. What talent do you wish you had? I wish I could "roll my r's" like Josh, but sadly, I'm a little lax in that regard.

4. Favorite place? If we're talking about a city, then it's probably Glasgow or Rome.

5. Favorite vegetable? Cucumber.

6. The last book you read? From China with Love.

7. What zodiac sign are you? Virgo. No comments from the peanut gallery, please...

8. Any Tattoos and / or Piercings? No tattoos, it's against my religion. Hey, I can actually claim that and it's true. ;) I've got two piercings...my ears.

9. Worst Habit? Biting my nails and cuticles. NASTY!

10. Do we know each other outside of this blog? Yes. Both of them actually.

11. What is your favourite sport? Baseball.

12. Negative or Optimistic attitude? Optimistic, of course. I just KNOW that the next referral batch is going to go from October 24th 2005 to September 13th 2006. Hey, it could happen...on planet bizarro. :)

13. What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator? Make a phone call like that dude on the Rogers phone commercial, and be stared at like I have a third leg.

14. Worst thing to ever happen to you? Losing my dad.

15. Tell me a weird fact about you: I can put my left thumb behind my left hand.

16. Do you have any pets? Yup, Deuce the wonder kitty.

17. Do you know how to do the Macarena? Thankfully, no. Though I do have horrible nightmares of people doing that at my wedding in 1996. *cringe*

18. What time is it where you are now? 10:15pm...that was an exciting question, wasn't it?!!

19. Do you think clowns are cute or scary? SCARY! Especially that one from Poltergeist that was under the bed. Oh dear lord did that thing freak me out for years. My brother (AKA Ugly) made me watch that movie, knowing that I hated horror movies, when I was young. What made things worse was that I had a needlepoint of a clown in my room and I was positive that it would come to life and attack me in my sleep. For YEARS I used to look under my bed before I went to sleep.

20. If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be? That my hair wouldn't frizz in the summer. Josh likes to call me Captain Caveman...

21. What colour eyes do you have? Brown.

22. Ever been arrested? Nope.

23. Bottle or Draft? If the CCAA is reading this, I don't drink...
Is the coast clear? Ok, bottle

24. If you won $10,000 dollars today, what would you do with it? Put it in the "Little Maple" fund...or buy a pony. Every girl wants a pony, right?

25. What kind of bubble gum do you prefer to chew? Juicy Fruit.

26. Which is your favourite bar to hang at? I don't do bars. Never have.

27. Do you believe in ghosts? Hmm are we talking about ooga booga ghosts? Casper the Friendly Ghost? Or Patrick Swayze in Ghost? I think I'll go for #3.

28. Favourite thing to do in your spare time? Hanging out with Josh and the family, playing with Deuce, talking to friends, and blogging.

29. Do you swear a lot? Nope, not me. Never. Nuh uh. I'm saintly. Really. Methinks the lady doth protest too much.

30. Favorite swear word? Can't say it... :)

31. Biggest pet peeve? Stupid people.

32. In one word, how would you describe yourself? Trustworthy. Though if you can come up with one, that would be kind of neat too...*points at the comment section*

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

AI, dinner and WTF?!

I'm starting to wonder, are people voting for Sanjaya because they're getting tired of the show, so they will just vote for the absolutely worst singer...ever? Or are people paying attention to this site? In a way it's kind of amusing that they're keeping him on the show.

You know now, of course, that he's going to be touring when the Top 10 does their travelling sideshow. Does anyone actually go to see that? I mean, I watch the show and all, but I wouldn't pay money to watch it live. Maybe that's just me?

Like last week, I won't say who was voted off, just in case you all haven't seen it yet. I have to say though, I was a little surprised who it was. This person CAN sing, while last night might not have been their best performance...they are impressive. Oh well.

--

Anyways, we all went out for dinner tonight to Kelsey's. I didn't count how many of us were at the table, but there were probably about 20 or so. Granted, we were a big group, but oh dear lord it took FOREVER to get them to take our orders and have it delivered to the table. If a restaurant can't serve big groups, they shouldn't take the reservation! The waitress couldn't handle the group and it was PAINFULLY obvious when she brought out one drink at a time.

Seriously.

One. Drink. At. A. Time.

My mom, who isn't one to sit around and wait for poor service, spoke to the manager who then came over to our table and took orders herself. I think Z got frustrated in his own right and walked around the table with his placemat and a crayon trying to take orders himself. He walked all around the table, asking everyone what they wanted, pretended to write it down...and he got finished while the waitress and manager were still taking orders. He's too cute. :)

We got there for 6:30 and pretty much everyone was there by 6:45 or so. We placed our drink orders, talked, ordered our meals and everyone finally got their food at 8:00. I'm sorry, but that's just ridiculous! Especially when there are little kids at the table.

Everyone gave L her presents and we all had a great time, exclusive of the restaurant...

--

Josh found this article and I thought I should pass it along to all of you. Hanging is too good for this guy.

Happy birthday, L!

Today is my SIL L's 35th birthday. (For those of you keeping track, that's Ugly's wife and Z's mom). We're going out for dinner tonight to celebrate...woo!

Leave a comment, if you want, and wish her a happy birthday. :)

I can't wait to see Z tonight, we went over on Sunday afternoon to visit with him and he was SO happy to see Josh and I. He was watching some Nascar race (I don't follow racing, so I can't tell you much about it). So while he was enthralled watching the race, Ugly, L, Josh and I were talking about the adoption, the timeline (slower than molasses), and our social calendar which lately is extremely busy with meeting fellow A-bloggers. We haven't told Z about the adoption, as he'd want his cousin home TODAY (as if we ALL don't)...and I don't think he would really understand that it's probably 1.5 to 2 years away.

A little later in the afternoon, he wanted to use the laptop to show me some gambling game that they have on it. He really likes playing the slots...hey, who doesn't? ;)

Anyways, he wanted me to play it as well, so we were taking turns for a bit while he sat on my lap and nuzzled into me. (He never does that...he must have really missed seeing us).

A couple friends of L and Ugly's came over as well, and the topic of conversation came around to adoption (her friend brought it up, we didn't). They didn't know we're adopting, basically we're not telling anyone outside of immediate family about our plans. I guess it goes back to superstitions or something, but we haven't really revealed our plans to many people...other than those directly involved.

I decided to tell their friends about it and she replied 'Oh! That just warms my heart!' I thought that was one of the nicest things she could say. We talked a bit in depth about China, they've got a few other ideas of places to adopt from, so they're going to look into those first.

It felt really great to talk about our plans, even though I still feel a bit iffy about talking to people about it. I know that's a contradiction, especially since I have a blog about it, but oh well (other than my brother, Ugly, nobody else in my family reads it on an ongoing basis). :P

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

I give up... ***UPDATE***

...at this point all I can do is laugh at Sanjaya's performance. He completely butchered The Kinks song, not just butchered it, but threw it down the stairs, set it alight and then butchered it. It was just bad. Bad. BAD! The only thing that kid has going for him is his hair and his smile. As far as singing talent, nope, nada, zip, zero.

If he makes it through this round, I'm going to do...something.

Suggestions are welcome.

The rest of the performances were generally really well done, with the best performances of the night going to Chris S (more so than Chris R, sorry Krista), Blake, Melinda and a few others. I didn't like Gina's rendition of Paint It Black though, I thought it was a bit screechy, but maybe that's just me. I also wasn't fond of Hailey either...any girl that has to hoochify herself like that to get votes, certainly doesn't belong there. She *can* sing, but not in the same league as the others.

By the way, Bloglines appears to be down again, so if you're reading this, you're one of the very few that have visited my blog since it went splat. My numbers have plummeted since Saturday when I had a total of 18 hits. (Usually I get anywhere from 50-100+ hits a day...and the odd occasion I've hit 200, but that was just bizarre.)

***Well, it seems that Bloglines is slowly correcting itself again and I had a bunch of blogs to read this evening. I hate when that happens...I'll whine that it's down and then *poof* it will come back up and I have egg on my face.***

Monday, March 19, 2007

Odd...

I got an email today, well I get a lot of email everyday, but this one got me thinking.

It was from a company that developed some software for translation (English/Mandarin and some other languages as well). While it looked interesting, I was a little taken aback that in the email they asked me to write a review of their product. I'm sure it's a great item, but that's not what my blog is about. I know that there are blogs out there where people do product reviews, etc., but my blog is about our journey to our daughter...not product endorsement.

If any of you are interested in the site, I'll pass it along, but I'm not going to post it here...sorry. ;)

Was I the only one that got that email?

The fourth time's the charm...

Forget all that you've read about that the 'third time's the charm', I now believe that it's really the fourth...or at least it was tonight.

I've been in contact with a really nice woman lately, Cari, we've exchanged emails and decided that we would go ahead and meet. A couple weeks ago she invited me to a play that she was performing in, but plans didn't work out, so we decided to take the proverbial plunge and go out to dinner tonight (with Josh in tow).

Since we hadn't met before, we had been jokingly referring to each other as the Jolly Green Giant and Sprout. I'm 5'10" and Cari is 5'0"...we figured one of us would 'stand out'. Though Josh was cute and wore his Canada/China friendship pin.

We ended up at Sierra Grill as it's a good location for both of us. Actually, she's the first A-mom who lives within a 5-10 minute drive of our apartment...bonus!

Anyways, we sat down at our table, talked a bit and looked at the menu. Cari ordered an Asian noodle and chicken dish, Josh ordered the meatloaf, and I ordered the cedar plank salmon. Seems simple enough, right?

Wrong.

With my order I had the salad bar and Josh added that to his meal as well. We went up, got our salads, came back to the table and chatted some more. We ate our salads, talked a lot, and waited for our meals to arrive.

Cari's arrived, Josh's arrived and mine arrived a minute or two later. What could possibly be wrong? Well, unless they changed how cedar plank salmon looks...they brought out a chicken dish swimming in sauce with onion rings on top. Hmm, I think they got that one wrong. So back it went.

We talked a lot about travel, work, adoption (of course), while I waited for my second kick at the proverbial cat. The waitress finally brought out the salmon but it was overcooked. Well, not so much overcooked as dry as the Sinai. So back it went.

We continued talking as Cari and Josh were enjoying their meals. I think they both took pity on me and ate extra slowly. The waitress came back out with yet another cedar plank salmon. This time, not only was it undercooked, it was RAW in the middle. I'm sorry, but I didn't think we were having sushi tonight...So back it went.

At this point, I was getting exceptionally annoyed at the whole endeavour, but I held my tongue. Normally I would have opened up with both barrels, but I held back since it was the first time I met Cari and I didn't want her to think I was some witchy woman. ;)

The manager came to our table, knelt down beside me and started apologizing. She said that if it wasn't perfect this time, I could go into the kitchen and beat the chef. We suggested that if it wasn't perfect we would all go into the kitchen and beat the chef senseless. She also said that my meal would be gratis, well I would bloody well hope so.

Finally the fourth order came out...and that one was JUST RIGHT. I swear I felt like Goldilocks tonight.

We both had a really great time with Cari tonight and hopefully we can get together again soon! This is the one amazing thing, not only about adoption, but the online a-community...the amount of support that we're receiving (and hopefully giving), is truly remarkable. I can't wait to have "Little Maple" home so she can meet all our friends that we've met along the way.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

It's not easy being green...

Last night Josh and I made a little trek out to Dolores and Shawn's place so we could celebrate his birthday and St. Patrick's Day as well. A fun time was had by ALL!

Michelle was there, sans Mark, as he had a bit of a head cold. Poor guy. We also met Lisa, Craig, and their daughter K. Their daughter was an absolute delight and she was kept quite busy at the cookie decorating station. I haven't visited their blog before, but I'll have to add it to my favourites.

We all stood around the kitchen talking (about adoption, of course), and we listened intensely to Lisa and Craig reminisce about their first trip to China. They're getting close to referral with a December 05 LID.

The amusing part of the evening is that it was St. Patrick's Day and all the A-parents were wearing some shade of red. It figures.

Saturday, March 17, 2007

Recalled pet foods

I was over at my in-laws for dinner last night and my FIL mentioned that there was a big pet food recall, but he couldn't remember which brands were affected. We mentioned the ones that we feed Deuce, and thankfully they didn't sound familiar to him.

This morning I saw Kathy's recent post about recalled pet foods, which lists all the brands and foods affected. If you have pets, please take a moment and look at the following links.

News story
Cat foods affected
Dog foods affected

If you want to copy/paste any of these links on to your blog, go ahead. The more people that know about it, the better.

Friday, March 16, 2007

*BOING*

(Thank you for the nice comments about my nails...and no, I'm not a hand model, and as far as typing I do it...very carefully. Kathy, can I take you up on the nanny anyways?)

I went to the manicurist this morning so she could decapitate the rest of my nails.
For the past couple of months she has had a donation box on her table for a cat rescue and this morning I noticed that the box was missing. She still had her flyers up, mind you, but the box was gone.

I decided to ask her what happened. She told me that she had a new customer come in who was very friendly and affable, but the manicurist had to leave right after she was finished. The new customer paid her by cheque, the manicurist left and the customer waited for her nails to dry. I think you can see where this is going...

The new customer took the donation box. The manicurist isn't sure how much money she had in there, but she probably had quite a bit. I felt SO bad when she told me this. The other part of the story is that the new customer's cheque went...

*BOING*

Talk about a class act. Not only did she steal the box, she also 'stole' services.

Though really, I don't think I would have accepted a cheque from a new client that nobody knows. If it was a new client who had been referred by someone, then I would have taken it. This is not to say that the manicurist was in the wrong, but unfortunately, she's now learned her lesson. :(

When the cheque bounced, she tried to trace it through the bank, but they couldn't find the woman. I don't have all the details, but apparently she used cheques where you fill in your name at the top. So the bank has no record of this person whatsoever. Nice, huh?

Thursday, March 15, 2007

How not to cut a bagel... ***UPDATE***

Yesterday, after my 'lovely' adventure getting my ankle X-rayed, I went home, relaxed a little and made lunch. Seems simple enough, right?

Not so much.

I was cutting my bagel and I cut a *BIT* too far...into my left middle finger...to the point that I threw the knife down, had to cup my right hand under my left and run to the washroom to wash off the blood. Yes, that's me, I'm a klutz.

While the picture doesn't look like much, believe me, it was painful and bled for a good few minutes. I have another picture, more of a close-up that doesn't look too purty, but I decided not to post that. You can also see where I decapitated my fingernail on the freaking transcriber...

In other news, I'm about to pass 11,000 hits...probably as soon as I press "publish". ;)

***Well, it seems that Dolores got the 11,000 hit. I'm finding that I get 1,000 hits every two weeks. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself.***

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

What is wrong with YOU people?!

...and by 'you people' I mean the voting public for AI. Since I don't want to give away who was kicked off because some of you may not have seen it yet (though I'm sure you can figure out who stayed). Why are you keeping him in the competition?! Why? WHY? WHY?!

He's probably the worst contestant they've ever had.

He. Can't. Sing. At. All.

I had a massive migraine all day and the only thing I was looking forward to tonight was him getting kicked off the show. What a disappointment. When I saw the results I think I threw up in my mouth a little...

By the way, if any of you haven't voted for my little poll (something that really matters), please do so. I'm finding it pretty interesting the way the results are tallying up...

What I did on summer vacation this morning...

So I took all your advice and went to have the X-ray on my ankle this morning. I went up to the counter, gave my information and waited...

and waited...

and waited some more. After half an hour or so, I noticed that a couple people went in ahead of me, but I figured they were going in for more serious things, so I let it go and took out my trusty Sudoku book.

After finishing four puzzles, I looked at my watch and another half hour had passed. I went up to the window and the receptionist said 'you're still here?' Umm yeah.

I asked her what the hold up was, and I gather that they forgot about me or my file was misplaced. She went to the back and called for me and I was seen right away.

I got up on the X-ray table and the technician started moving my ankle around and said 'does this hurt?' After I stopped wincing in pain, he said 'oh, then I won't have you move it like that', and I said 'that's a good plan...'.

Which reminded me of a story when my brother (Ugly) broke his finger when he was much younger. He went to the doctor, he waggled it and said 'does this hurt?' What do YOU think? Broken finger...waggling it...ouch?

But I digress...

He took one of the X-rays, came back and moved my ankle again and this time it made another loud cracking sound, and he said 'that must have hurt.' It was on the tip of my tongue to reply 'no sh!t sherlock', but I held back. Anyways, all the X-rays were done and I now I get to wait for results.

I'm sure it's nothing and I'll keep you posted... :)

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Ooey gooey goodness...*

Well another month down and another cake. I really don't want to go on the scale when we get our referral. ;)

I had a somewhat hectic day at work today. The transcriber that I use broke. Well, it didn't so much break but gave its final gasp of air this afternoon. It fought a good fight, but we had to take it out and shoot it replace it.

The volume kept wavering in and out, so for the past week I've had the volume up to 11. It was a bit painful when the sound eventually came back and hearing my FIL's voice basically screaming in my ear. Anyways, he had an idea that the problem was that the head(s) on the transcriber were dirty and had to be cleaned. He gave me a bottle of alcohol (not the good stuff) and a swab and told me to clean them.

I did.

Then nothing. No matter which button I pressed, the machine just refused to work. It wouldn't play, rewind, fast forward. Even the foot pedal went on holiday. So our only choice was to go and get a new transcriber.

It was the middle of the day (our 1:30 patient no-showed) so we had some time to kill. We first headed over to The Source. He drove into the parking lot and parked in the handicapped spot (he parks there legitimately, he's got a bad back and walks with a cane). Imagine our surprise disgust when we found that the only place in the entire parking lot that had any snow was piled into the handicapped spots. That shouldn't happen. He had to open the door and climb over the snow, hanging on to me for dear life. Granted, he could have parked elsewhere, but that's besides the point. It's far more convenient for him to park in the handicapped spots. GRAH!

Anyways, we went into The Source, but they apparently don't sell any...or at least this store didn't. The salesman was a bit of a dolt AND it was his first day at that store so he didn't know where anything was.

So we left.

We then headed over to Staples and they only had ONE. Not just one brand. ONE transcriber. They don't carry them anymore. I know our office is a bit 'outdated' in that we aren't computerized, which is probably a good thing or I'd be blogging (and reading) from work. I do enough of that by bugging the owner of the UPS store in our building. Hey, a girl has to keep on top of her rumours, even if our referral is 10 billion months away. ;)

So we got our transcriber ($350 + tax) thankyouverymuch and headed back to the office to find our 2:30 patient waiting impatiently at the door. After that all the patients showed up for their appointments early. The 3:00 showed up at 2:35 and the 4:00 showed up at 3:15. I think I'm going to suggest that my FIL starts handing out little clocks to the patients so they can learn to tell time. Now granted, it's always better to be early, but when they sit there and stare at me while they wait, it gives me the heebie jeebies sometimes. ;)

* I almost forgot the most TRAGIC part of the entire day. When I was assembling the new transcriber, I broke a fingernail! Oh the horror! Oh the humanity! (and I was going to get a French manicure for the weekend.)

Monday, March 12, 2007

*Snap* *Crackle* *Pop* ***UPDATE***

Somehow, about two months ago I hurt my left ankle. I don't know what I did, I certainly don't remember hurting it in any fashion, but it's been quite painful. It snaps, crackles and pops whenever I move it around and at times it feels like it's locked. It's a really weird feeling...especially when I get out of bed in the morning and put my foot down, the first thing I hear is...

*CRACK*

Anyways, I went to the doctor a month ago and he said 'it's just a bad sprain/strain and it will clear up soon'. Yeah ok.

I went back again today because something freaky happened a few days ago. The pain in my ankle was particularly bad on Wednesday, so I took an Aspirin. Nothing weird about that, right?

Well the following day I had horrible pains in my right leg. Really sharp, stabbing pains that didn't go away for about a day. On Friday, I noticed I had bruising on my leg. The pain subsided somewhat, but I was concerned about what was going on. I noticed that this happened on a previous occasion when I took Aspirin, but at the time I didn't think much of it, other than thinking it was 'odd'.

This time I went to the doctor and he said 'so don't take Aspirin'. I felt like saying, 'Gee, thanks for that advice...as if I hadn't thought of that ALL on my own', but I held my tongue. He told me to take Tylenol for the pain and that I have a sensitivity to Aspirin. He also gave me a requisition to get an X-ray, but I haven't decided if I'm going to bother doing it or not. I probably should though.

Have any of you ever heard of such a thing? I know that Aspirin, obviously, is a blood thinner, but this is a bit ridiculous...

***E, there was no bruising when I hurt my ankle. I just woke up one morning and it hurt. Personally I think I'd be better off if I went to a vet instead.***

Saturday, March 10, 2007

The numbers game...

Josh and I went out for a fancy shmancy dinner tonight (for no reason other than it was Saturday and we wanted to go out) and we talked about 'the wait'. I said that we've got our 6 month LIDiversary coming up next week and that I'll need to pick up more candles for our celebration cakes. Originally I only got numbers 2 through 6, and I was going to get the others later. At the time, I figured I wouldn't need to get a 1 or a 0 (since the first LIDiversary cake was our second as we didn't find out our LID until almost two months in) and I was sure we wouldn't be hitting 10...yeah ok.

I mentioned that I'm going to have to pick up a couple 1 candles, and sadly a couple 2s as well. I refuse to get two 3s, that's just *not* going to happen (and don't leave a comment that it will, I know it might, but I refuse to accept that at this point). :P

He looked at me and said 'with all this waiting I'm going to need a 222 from the headache I'm getting...'.

For those of you that don't know, a 222 is another name for a Tylenol.

By the way, don't forget to turn your clocks back at 2am Sunday morning...

Friday, March 09, 2007

Super Z!

I meant to mention this earlier this week, but my nephew Z (Ugly's son) got his report card this week. He got almost all A's and his lowest mark was a B! He's in grade one because he skipped senior kindergarten.

He's quite advanced in a few areas, and I'm not just saying that because I'm a proud aunt. His teacher said that his reading is "at a high grade 2 level". Not too shabby for a six year old, if I do say so myself.

He's also quite good at spelling and one of his spelling tests earlier this year he got 11/10. He got all 10 questions right plus the bonus question. :P Now while they don't spell words like antidisestablismentarianism (memories of grade 4 for me - my teachers were mean), he can spell a lot of words if you ask him. The last time I went over to visit him he spelled the word 'couch', which I thought was pretty impressive.

At birthdays he reads everyones cards out loud, even words that he hasn't seen before. Last year at Passover, he read from the Hagaddah (the Hebrew text that explains the story of Passover) and read the word "Egypt" without any prompting, and at that time he was just a little over 5 years old.

So leave a comment and perhaps he might read it too! :)

Future dreams

Perhaps this will be us someday ...

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

*Insert Twilight Zone music here*

A lot of you don't know this, but I felt in the mood to share tonight. Twenty-one years ago today my father passed away and he was only 45.

A bit of a back story, my brother (AKA Ugly) went to a Rush concert the night before (Thursday), and actually he was let out early because a teacher had died at school.

The following morning (Friday), my dad was at the top of the stairs talking to my brother about the concert and I was standing next to him. All of a sudden our dad fell down the stairs and had a massive heart attack in front of us.

Traumatic? Duh.

My dad always hated if we missed any school and it's almost like he 'planned' that day, as it was the last day before March Break. So we spent the entire week of March Break sitting shiva (the Jewish seven day period of mourning), and we went back to school the following Monday (the 17th).

Flash forward to today...

For the past four or five years my mom and I have always bought Heart and Stroke lottery tickets. Today I got a letter in the mail from the lottery that we won $100. Technically we broke even, but that's not the point. Of ALL the days, why did it come today? I was kind of weirded out by the whole endeavour.

Josh came home for lunch today and as we were walking through the apartment building towards the parking lot, I found $5 lying on the ground. (Of course all of this is going directly into the Loonie/Toonie jar).

When I told Nicole about this in an email earlier today, she replied "I wonder who sent it your way". Indeed.

Needless to say, I bought lottery tickets on the way into work...

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Short, sweet and to the point ***UPDATE***

I don't want to come across as ignorant, and please excuse my lack of knowledge on this, but...

I've noticed that a number of adoptive parents are learning and teaching their children ASL (American Sign Language). Why? If any of you are or will be doing this, can you please explain it to me? I can understand, perhaps, if it's an older child...but if the child has no real language capabilities yet why start ASL?

If you'd rather email me about it, go for it and click the link in my sidebar. If you have any articles about it, please pass them along.

***Well not much of an update, other than to say a sincere thank you for the comments and emails, especially from the BTDT A-parents, I appreciate it. Please keep them coming. :)***

What would YOU do with an extra $4000?

If you're Kanye West, you do this. Not only is he having the food flown from Wales to the U.S., but he's also flying in the chef as well. Normally, a take-out meal from that restaurant is $17.50...he sure is getting value for his money. ;)

I'm sorry, are there no restaurants in NYC where he can get good Indian food?! I'm sure it's delicious and all, but this goes one step beyond ridiculous.

He's obviously doing this for the media coverage as this story seems to be *everywhere*. Are sales slumping on his albums that he has to do something like this to garner attention? It was obviously leaked to the press, otherwise who would know that this was being done?

So-called 'stars' really annoy me, he might be a brilliant rapper, but when things like this are done...ugh.

I hope he gets heartburn. :P

Monday, March 05, 2007

I'm a sheep! ***UPDATE***

I was looking at Redmaryjanes' blog and noticed that she enrolled in "The Ultimate Blog Party". Since I'm never one to turn down anything that has to do with blogging or partying, I figured 'why not' and decided to follow the herd. ;)

For those of you that might be new to my blog, welcome. Look around, read the archives if you wish, kick back and enjoy!

If you visit, please leave me a comment and I'll visit your 'party'. (I guess this is a new form of 'I'll show you mine if you show me yours') ;)

***Ok, it seems that some of you are confused, so I'll explain this a little. I found out through Redmaryjanes blog that there was a site that was hosting a 'blog party'. Basically all you have to do is write a 'party invitation' post (which this is), add your blog to 5 Minutes for Mom's site and put an icon in your sidebar. After you do all that, then other people who have signed up for the party will come to your blog. Does that make sense?

Remind me not to try to explain things when I have a migraine... ;)***

Nice...not thrilling, but nice *

It looks like the new referral batch is just about to come out and the CCAA did 11 days worth of LIDs. I was hoping (beyond hope) they might get to at least October 26th or 27th, they went from October 13th to October 24th.

There are still ten and a half months worth of LIDs to go through before our referral. If only that meant we'd see a referral in 10.5 months...

I'm still holding on to the hope that we'll see our referral sometime between September 08 and January 09, with the wildcard, of course, being the Olympics in '08.

It's disappointing that we're still so far away from our daughter, but I know (eventually) this will happen...right?

*For those of you that remember History of the World Part 1 you should recognize that quote...

Sunday, March 04, 2007

I'm honoured...I think?! ***UPDATED***

So as usual I was checking out statcounter and for the past few days I've noticed a certain site that's been showing up and I've had a few people trickle in, so I went there to check it out.

Apparently the people at this site like my little blog as they've added me there under "related blogs". Two things strike me as funny:

1. It's an American site that talks about adoption...and I'm Canadian
2. Out of all the blogs out there, why would they choose mine?!

Now this isn't a plug for you all to heap praise in my comment section, because honestly there are a lot better blogs out there. While this obviously is an adoption blog, the amount of time that I spend actually talking about adoption is somewhat limited.

So to those of you from that site, I just want to say welcome and, umm, thank you?

***Well, I wrote to the webmaster of the site, just to find out why they chose my site. He came by and read my current posts and I guess since they weren't 'on topic', I'm now off the list. Honestly though, my blog has always been written with a bit of 'snark'. How much can I really write about adoption when our timeline is possibly September 08 or January 09 for referral? How many times can I write 'woke up today, still waiting...' ;)***

Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar?

Yet another month of collecting loonies and toonies for the jar which is going into our "Little Maple" account in the morning. We were actually a little lax with saving this month, even though the total is 'average', part of it came from that experiment I did a while back. The cheque came in for that a couple weeks ago, and while it isn't huge, every little bit helps. Oh and the $50 in the jar is because I needed some loonies for the laundry. It would have been stupid to go into the bank to turn all this in for the account and then ask for a couple rolls back. So I just took the easy way and threw the money in and took the two rolls I needed. :P

On a different note, I noticed when I looked at the blog over the last couple of days that the ladybug in my ticker has gone right off the page. Perhaps it knows something that I don't?!

It looks like Redmaryjanes is having a slumber party! So if anyone is visiting from there...HI! Welcome to my blog and make yourself comfortable. ;)

Saturday, March 03, 2007

Running with scissors...

Josh got the following email, and I thought I'd pass it along to all of you...

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE KIDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE 1940's, 50's, 60's and 70's!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a tin, and didn't get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, our baby cots were covered with bright coloured lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking .

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a van - loose - was always great fun.

We drank water from the garden hosepipe and NOT from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We ate cakes, white bread and real butter and drank pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because......

WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem .

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no text messaging, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms..........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents .

We played with worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

Made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not poke out any eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!

Local teams had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

And YOU are one of them! CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good...

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?! For some reason this made me chuckle out loud...hell I remember ALL of these.

By the way, the vote on the sidebar is still open if you're interested...

Friday, March 02, 2007

10,000 maniacs...

Well, maybe not maniacs, but certainly 10,000 hits on my site! Thanks Spitgirl (E) for getting #10,000. ;)

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Snow snow snow!

Toronto, and many areas, were hit with a major storm today! We were only supposed to get about 5cm of snow with the possibility of freezing rain. Well, something funny happened on the way to the forum...

We got at least 10-15cm (between 1/3 and 1/2 foot) of snow, and the freezing rain is falling on top of that. I know, it doesn't sound THAT bad, compared to what other places have been getting, but this is the first major storm of the season. I remember when we'd get completely hammered with snow when I was younger. You know, where you'd wake up in the morning and the snow would be up to your knees (if you were lucky, it would only be your knees)...or little kids would go out and play in the snow drifts and all you would see is the pompom of their hats sticking out of the snow. I *miss* that kind of snow.

The only part I don't like is how long it takes to get anywhere in it.

We went to pick my mom up from the subway station after work. I told Josh to leave early, I figured that if he did, it wouldn't take us terribly long to get to the station. Well, I was, umm wrong.

It took over an hour and a half to drive 5km. The only way to get to the station was to go down a big hill. Cars were swerving and fish-tailing all over the road and one car came close to fish-tailing right into us. There were cars broken down all over the place, and it didn't help matters that we're right in the middle of a gas shortage.

(Long story short, there was a fire at a gas refinery and the majority of Esso stations ran out of gas this week...and then the other stations that were trying to make up for the shortage ran out themselves.)

I felt sorry for people who were stuck on the road in this storm.

The traffic was going so slowly that people were getting out of their cars and cleaning off their windshields. Trust me, they had the time to do that...the traffic simply didn't move.

We finally got to my mom, picked her up and she took us out for dinner. We were basically just waiting for the majority of the storm to pass before we got back on the road again, which was probably the smart thing to do. After dinner, we dropped mom at home and that's when the freezing rain started...

It wasn't too bad, we took the side streets home (since the major streets were still bunged up with traffic) and got home just in time to watch American Idol. ;)

How did you all fare with the storm? I'd talk about AI, but I don't want to ruin it for any of you that haven't seen it yet. All I *can* say about it is, what the hell is up with the voting public?! :P