Welcome to the Coldest Place on Earth, My Friends!

Yah. You heard that right.

The C*O*L*D*E*S*T place on earth!

Colder than the Territories.

Colder than freaking ALASKA, people!

Seriously, WTF???


It was minus 59 at the airport today.

Who knows if my van will even start tomorrow!

Yes. I know I'm using a whole lotta exclamation points.

But they are totally necessary!!!!

Colder than freaking Alaska, and you can bet your arse than we don't get to close up shop and stay home. No sir'ee.

Because WE are CANADIANS.

We're used to this shit, right?

W*R*O*N*G!!!

Holy shitfuck it's cold out there!

Liv

I N*E*V*E*R buy the big package of school pictures, but this time, I just couldn't help myself!

Merry SITSmas!

Always a day late and a dollar short. Oh well!

Merry SITSmas anyway!

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

What I'm Reading

This one is my current read. I'm quite enjoying it, and am about 1/2 through.

I thought this would be a hoot, being a hard core soccer mom and all. And you know, now that I think about it, I don't think soccer was even mentioned!! It was a desperate housewives sort of book. Enjoyable, light, dorky, and pretty funny in some spots. I would like to read this author's book, the journal of somethingorother moments. I'll know it when I see it! lol

I got a few stories in and realized that this is NOT the book for me. It was just dumb.

Sad. Incredibly vulgar. I have no interest in seeing the movie, but hey, knock yourselves out.

This one was definitely better than Cross Bones below. A pretty OK read.

Not horrible. Just not for me.

So tune in again in a couple of weeks for another edition of "What I'm Reading". I have a bag of books from the library awaiting my attention. And you know, that sad thing about all this reading is that while my brain is soaking it all up, so is my ass! Holy COW!!

Hurry and get here Wii Fit! I don't know if my wardrobe can wait until Christmas!

Oh My God, Did She Just Spit On Me?

Fun in our household is pretty rare. Rarer still when our 15 year old is home. Today, however, we had some very inappropriate hilarity.

We were eating supper, when Liv looked at me with her little cheeks full of water. So I, of course, put a hand on each side of her face and squished.

Water dribbled down her little chin, and she giggled and giggled.

So, my turn. I put water in my mouth and got nice and close to her. This time, she put her wee hands on my cheeks and pressed.

I shot the water out of my mouth and got her right in the face!!

We laughed pretty uncontrollably for a few minutes.

Then Liv continued to try to put water in her cheeks for me to squeeze so she could get me back, but she would laugh too hard and just spit it all over herself!

So then the other two girls join in and shot water at each other.

Asia had her head on the table, laughing, and I snake spit water across the table and got her in the ear. She had no idea where it came from, but now she's laughing even harder!

Not being one to pick favorites, I then snake-spit Cassie.

Livvy now is picking up her whole glass of water to throw at someone.

It was at this point that I was thankful that when Liv set the table, she did so with about 10 tea towels to make a nice "tablecloth".

When one of them picked up the whole water jug, I knew it was time to run!

So I went and hid in the bedroom while poor Leon is trying to talk on the phone with all the screaming going on.

It turns out the phone was for me and when I came around the corner to get the phone, one of the girls got me right in the face with a full glass of cold water. I happened to be looking up at Leon at the time, so the water actually shot me right in the eyeball, under my eyelid. I seriously could not function for a full minute, my eye hurt so bad.

So now, at this point, I'm thinking we're done.

It's all fun and games until someone drowns their eye, right?

Wrong.

One last shot was from Liv.

A full glass of COLD water down my back!!

It was a lot of fun. Fun and laughter at the expense of my mascara and clothes that had done their time anyway.

Totally worth it, I'd say.

Dear Santa

Language warning!! Language warning!! Language warning!!

Don't say I didn't warn you....

It is time for another edition of Thursdays with Kat!! She really pretty cool, especially late on a Wednesday night when you have writer's block.

This week's prompts:

1.) Verse by verse, dissect a favorite song you had in 7th grade. (Okay, one I remember from grade nine was Too Many Men!! lol Me and Char would sing it at the top of our lungs!! How totally inappropriate is that?? Grade seven, though, heck I was still into cabbage patch dolls!! lol)

2.) List 5 must have gifts you are purchasing for a loved one this Christmas. (And spoil the surprise?)

3.) Open letter to Santa Claus. (Oh, this is so mine!)

4.) Describe how you would celebrate the holidays if it was totally up to you and money was not a factor. (Easy. I can do it in three words: Tropical Tropical Tropical)

5.) Book review time! What winter read has you snuggled in and turning pages? (I did this one fairly recently and I will have another coming out next week.)

Let's begin, shall we?

Dear Santa:

My request this year is not for me. There are so many other needy people in the world. I don't technically NEED that awesome Bath and Body Works Vanilla Bean Christmas candle. I don't technically NEED the Biggest Loser Wii Fit game, because I don't yet have a Wii. I could use a lifetime supply of Slimweigh, but screw that noise!

This year, Santa, I want to think of others. One person in particular comes to mind.

This dumb-ass fuck face this morning seriously held up traffic while in the lane next to me, going about 15km under the speed limit. Then, wouldn't you know it, when his lane ended in a mandatory right turn, he just glided straight into my lane.

Being the incredibly considerate person I am (Okay, everyone who knows me can just quit laughing and get back on their damned chair now!! Sheesh!) I slowed down to let him in.

Suddenly, dumb-ass fuck face realized what he did, and S*T*O*P*P*E*D!! Right there in the only lane there was. Somehow he thought that this incredibly stupid move was going to save the day. Seriously??? Coming to an immediate stop in the lane you just illegally sidled into was a really bright idea, you idiot.

Now, even though he was clearly in the wrong, it is me that would get in trouble if I had hit him. So maybe, Santa, you could straighten out some of these "to cover stupid people's asses" traffic laws while you're at it, okay?

I pretty much knew he was an asshole at that point. And while we all waited for him to figure out what to do (uhhh, DUH!! DRIVE YOUR STUPID CAR!!) he rolled his window down a bit and lit himself a cigarette before he slowly started to creep forward.

Now, I'm not normally an ass-rider. Seriously. I do not want my insurance to go up just because I'm angry. But this time? I rode his ass harder than some of the scene's in my friend's gay soap opera.

He was all over our one scrawny little lane. He held up traffic trying to turn right up ahead by his swaying.

As I got closer, I realized the problem. He could not take two minutes and an old credit card to scrape his windows. His entire car was covered in frost! He couldn't see a damned thing!

I'm afraid visibility was an option for this dumb fuck. My safety wasn't much of an issue for him this morning, either. Nor is the cleanliness of our streets, as he threw his cigarette butt out the window in front of me.

When I finally got to go around him, I could barely see in his window, but I could see that he was hunched over his steering wheel, trying to see out of a tiny spot in the lower portion of his window where his defrost had started to work.

So that said, Santa, there are three things on my list for the poor soul.

1) General driving ability would be nice.

2) Even just a teensy amount of common sense.

3) An ice scraper.

It's not much. But, really, you have the power to save lives here. Because next time I see him driving like that .... I might just kill him.

Oh, and Merry Christmas!

This Will Just Have To Do Ya Today

Because, WOW! Did we ever have a busy, tiring weekend.

Leon's Fire Department family Christmas party was at West Edmonton Mall Waterpark. It is a pretty big place, with huge water slides, wave pool, tube rides, kid's splash area. That is just one of the features in this mall. There is also an amusement park, where my friend's work function just happened to be this same day, a skating rink, sea life area, movie theatres etc. I suppose it's pretty impressive if you weren't here growing right along with it.

We also fit in a soccer game and date night today (The Blind Side with the gorgeous Sandra Bullock and uber sexy Tim McGraw.) along with the Christmas party. Friday set up our Christmas tree and watched My Sister's Keeper. Saturday we had another soccer game, and a family movie night. (Old Dogs - Definitely a renter, just FYI)

This gal is tired.

I know. Same old story. I just desperately need a whole day, if not a weekend, at home where I can organize and have a therapeutic cleaning day and just mentally de-stress.

Maybe this coming weekend, the four soccer games not included of course.

Have a happy Monday!

You Want Me To Touch WHAT?

Welcome Thursday visitors from Mama Kat and big hugs and high fives to my regulars!

Today I chose prompt number one:

An ER moment. (I'm assuming real life, not the show, right?)

Having kids, there were a few ER visits to pick from, especially from our acreage days. However, I am opting to tell you about something that happened during one of my ER shifts.

Nights in the ER were actually a lot of fun. This particular night I was working the same shift as the orthotech, who assists in casting and amputating appendages.

It was about two in the morning, and I was on "B" side, which is a little quieter than "A", but not as quiet as "Minor".

I was still quite new, so didn't get involved a whole lot; more of a people watcher. Suddenly the orthotech came up to my pod group and showed us an amputated finger packed in ice in a specimen jar.

"Touch it!" she said.

"Touch THAT?"

"Yeah! Just touch it. It's okay. It's sterile. It just feels really rubbery when the blood is drained and (naturally) the circulation has stopped and the ice is packed around it making it cold." she tried again.

"Um. Not a chance." There was no way on God's green frigging earth that I was going to touch some poor fool's amputated finger.

The other nurses around me wouldn't even touch the thing.

Well, can you believe that within a couple of minutes she had me convinced?

So I slowly and gently reached over....

I turned my face slightly away and watched out of the corner of my eye as my finger moved, seemingly with a life of it's own, toward the speciment jar....

And ever so bravely, I stuck my finger down into the container....

And wouldn't you just know it?

THE DAMNED THING MOVED!!!!




OH! MY! GOD! I screamed bloody murder.

And woke all the patients trying to get some sleep.

And scared the hell out of the nurses huddled around me.

My delightful orthotech had cut a hole in the bottom of the container and stuck her own finger in through the bottom, packed it with ice and went around to each pod playing her little trick.

Yup. Definitely my favorite ER moment.

Go see Mama Kat for more! And say hello to Victor E while you're there!

Whose Shoes Would I Choose?

While walking around the hospital today in a bit of a funk, I noticed a mother pushing her shiny-headed, IV-toting, teddy bear-snuggling child down the corridor in a wheelchair. I realized that while my shoes hurt right now, I wouldn't want to be in hers.

Nor would I want the burden of my dear friend's shoes right now.

My 15 year old? Nope. I don't want that ordeal either.

So that led me to realize that as much as they hurt, and as tired as I am of wearing these shoes, and as petty as my own shoe troubles are, other's ARE definitely worse for wear, but it doesn't make wearing these shoes any easier to put on every morning.

But, then, whose shoes WOULD I choose?

The person, and I feel I must add that this is a real person in my life, whose shoes I would choose is my age, but she isn't me.

She is smart and confident and successful in her career.

She knows the direction she is going and is well on her way.

She is natural and very likely doesn't swear at her hair for 30 minutes every morning, just to throw it back into a frigging pony tail.

She is outgoing and energetic and easily fits a size 8.

She has friends and time to enjoy them.

She is financially chuckling just a little bit.

She is happy.

But then, perhaps if I wore her shoes around for a little while, I'd find them, too, uncomfortable. Just because she doesn't wear her problems on her sleeve for all to see, doesn't mean she doesn't have them, right?

I guess my shoes are okay. They're broken in pretty good. And the devil you know is usually better than the devil you don't, right?

Sigh....

Sidenote: My shoes just came down and bitched me out pretty good. Maybe the devil I don't know IS a better option.

I Really Hate It When You Walk Into The Bathroom To Find A Coworker On The Toilet.

It's so true what they say about that "gut feeling", that "sixth sense". Oh so true, in fact, that you should listen to the damned thing.

I seriously had doubts when I was pushing the bathroom door open at work today. Part of my little brain registered that someone not overly concerned with the hospital electric bill and current need to cut costs left the lights on.

Next was just the fact that I was turned away as I was opening the door, perhaps subconsciously shielding myself and my victim from what was to come.

My third clue was the little "oh!"

I turned to see a co-worker, granted not one I know well, just from seeing her in the halls, as she shrunk to her tiniest self and she said "I swear I locked the door!"

I squeezed my eyes shut and turned and walked away without a word.

I then went back to my office and explained to my peeps to make sure the door is locked when they go to the biffy. Apparently our lock is broken again.

Like, I swear, HOURS after I heard the bathroom door close and I knew she was out, I went back, knocked and peaked, ever so gently, into the bathroom. I then tried the lock several times myself before I was confident enough to risk my pride and go to the bathroom.

I seriously pushed my pee out so hard I think I ejected my uterus - which is actually fine by me, because I'm done with it anyway, and from a preventative medicine perspective, it gives me one less place for cancer to inhabit - but I made it out without being anyone's peep show.

So, now, I ask you, W*H*A*T do I do when I see her tomorrow or the next day. Do I make light of it and say "Fuck, I hate it when that happens!" Do I apologize?? Do I instruct her on our finicky lock? Direct her to a bathroom down the hall with a code AND dead bolt?

How on earth do I handle this incredibly awkward moment????