The World Without Us

The World Without Us by Alan Weisman is a penetrating, page-turning, exploration of how our planet would respond without the relentless pressure of the human presence.

Check out what would happen to the earth 1 day to 5+ billion years if people disappeared.   Do you know?  Pretty interesting.

Dear Weather,

This is my last week of free time and we're planning on doing some traveling so please, either just rain or just be sunny for an entire day at a time.  I usually like samplers, like with cheese, but in this case I'd just like enough notice to know what shoes to wear.  And while we're talking here, could I ask one favour tomorrow?  If you could rain but just on my neighbours house and nowhere else so they can't launch fireworks on my deck that would be really great.  Picking up stuff that says "explosive" on it kinda creeps me out.

Your friend,
Ann-Marie





I forgot to mention I had a great time this weekend @ girls night with some friends, and Sharmy who I haven't seen since she moved to Alberta 4 years ago or so.  She got married and had a little guy in that time so it was pretty great to get to hang out and watch everyone get super drunk on the Devil (aka Tequila) and beers.  I was the a-hole who just watched, and I have no problem admitting it was fun!  I know Sharmy is a lightweight now she hasn't drank in 9 months but her sister Jaime though, she actually fell out of the car!  By the way, did you know Coke is FREE at the bar?  FREE.

Hope everyone has some great Canada Day plans :)  Nothing like celebrating your country by blowing up a large chunk of it. 

Little to say

In the interest of not being repetitive, I will stop referencing anyone who dies after this point.  I just had to include this because of it's pure tech-cultureness. 

Celebrity pitch-man Billy Mayes Mays died and it was announced first by his son via Twitter this morning.  My only request to my children is now to simply never tweet my death.  That and pick up after themselves because GODDAMMIT I AM NOT A CLEANING LADY.

I say that with humbleness and love because it's a known fact I'd be booted out of cleaning school for writing "Fuck This" on every toilet my second day and therefore could never be a cleaning lady.  Bless their tidy little hearts.

Daily thankful

• Perfect lunch.  Bagel with sliced tomato and cream cheese, good.
• Side of Asiago cheese, good.
  
• Burn Notice, good.
• It's Friday, home with my family all weekend, good.
• Ladies night out tonight, good.

If I could eat Asiago cheese everyday for the rest of my life, I would.  Just thought the world would like to know that.

Time is running out.. jammies everyday

Is it wrong that I looked down to make sure I wasn't wearing jammies before I went out of the house today? I'd like to say no, but when you have some time to yourself you realize just how much you'd like to save time and mix all the good things in life together.

• Jammies, good.
• Going out for Ice Cream, good.
• No makeup, good.
• Avoiding calls from grandparents, good.

WTF face, by the way, that Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson died today. Anytime a celebrity dies I get a call from my friend Andrea within 5-10mins. I'm always the person she calls first when someone dies, and nothing has changed since she moved to the other side of Canada. It's like a touchstone in life, we will always quote The Simpsons, we will always go out for Thai food and she will get Mango Chicken, and Andrea will call me if someone important dies. I am sure this will continue into our old age; she'll be Mildred and I'll be simply known as "Mother" and we'll scan the obituaries over a cup of decaffeinated tea. For the record she thinks Michael Jackson was our generations Elvis, and died taking uppers and downers. I'm inclined to agree since heart attacks at 50 are unusual. I also think that this possibly completes the only superstition I have in life, that people die in threes, if we're including Ed McMahon.

Watercooler, good.




"don't you just love it when celebrities die?"
- Andrea "Mildred" Salciccioli

My Neighbours

How I've managed to keep mention of my neighbors, in huge ranting tirades, off this website is beyond my understanding. The only clue would be I don't really enjoy tirades and it's hard to 'tone it down son' when you've been having to call the police every weekend.

As a note that I have never called the police on anyone for being loud or having parties in my life, and in this situation it was completely the logical thing to do.

Let me introduce you to my neighbours. 5-28 white trash high school kids with 1-2 dogs who shit in my backyard, 1-4 cars and tractor, who shares a driveway with me. There is a big f'ing tree splitting our actual backyards of course but the shared (aka unfenced) driveway area goes as far as the back of my house, which they use to 'roundabout' their cars in my backyard instead of just backing the f out. My neighbours rent this house from some poor lady who apparently hates the rest of us since nobody in their right mind would have them stay in anyone's home. One of the girls who I'm sure lives there is also a stripper that works down the street... I've seen her lucite heel imprints, or hooker tracks, in the snow head all the way there in winter months. I assume that is how they manage to pay for rent since none of them have a job aside from occasional landscaping (ie the tractor) and most of them go to high school, which I know because I see them come home with backpacks at 3:30pm.

My lovely neighbours, whom I could care less about their personal lives, decide to have raging Animal House parties EVERY Friday and Saturday night. They don't miss a single day to take the party somewhere else for a change, and always make sure to take it outside where drunk little girls and boys whos parents don't love them decide to have 'really cool' fist fights on our lawn, yell directly at the side of our house (into our bedroom window) 'f'in this, f'in that' and keep it up until about 3-4am. I know way more than I should about people piece of shit conversations when they've been drinking since 5, and oh what a BIG DEAL this all is, someone drive me home or I'm going to punch so-and-so. All while we are literally trying to sleep. Sean has had to personally go out there and physically stop fights and ask for the party to END... and he's a convincing guy. They walk through our backyard constantly as a note, because it's apparently public property.

My 'the children are our bright future' neighbours have attracted police here for assult, public disturbance, been arrested, all by themselves or on other neighbours calls. We decided 2am was a really good time for everyone to go home so we call every weekend now, as doing our part for the community. Unfortunately the police don't seem to be interested in actually doing anything and unfortunately after police we called left one night a few weekends ago, an ambulance was rushed over and a girl was taken to the hospital for alcohol poisoning. No idea if she ended up OK or not. Great job right?

Well, now that you know my neighbours I'll tell you what happened yesterday.
Yesterday was the end of school.

I was home when at 3:30pm they decided to do this. Blasting music out of the FRONT of the house and dancing on the porch, drinking in FRONT of the house (not nice little coctails either, just a cup of coke and big bottles of whiskey and rum right on the table.. they throw the empties of those in my backyard btw). Why they refuse to use their equally as large as ours backyard to do this, I have no bloody idea. They absolutely MUST party right beside my windows! I took this picture right now in fact, this is my kitchen, and not yesterday but at 1pm on a Wednesday.. and this is presumably how it is going to be until someone dies or the house blows up. Fan'freaking'tastic. Why would I ever want to move? Hmm.

As another note to anyone who has never read my site and does not know me, I grew up in Hamilton OK. I once had a drunk guy fall off the balcony of the appartment above ours, onto our lawn and paralize himself. Then someone did the exact same thing the weekend after while talking about it to a friend, and was paralized because he kept trying to get up and finish his beer. I have seen psychiatric patients my parents look after cut themselves with plates. Vandals in the park. I am used to noise, loud drunks, police cars... but NOT EVERY WEEKEND. This situation is over the top stupid and that is saying something.

Jon minus Kate

I am all about pop-culture, what's happening, who sucks who doesn't etc. I have to know that stuff. It's like calming waves on a sunny beach.. which is a great time to read gossip mags by the way! Really looking forward to spending $80 in gossip at the cottage.

One thing I am finding it really difficult to get right now is the crazy obsession with Jon and Kate getting a divorce. I kind of see that as an ending, not a crescendo, to the story so while I'm technically interested I'm also pretty horrified this is happening on tv. With their 8 children. It seems like the kids matter so so much until the public decided who Jon has a beer with was way more important, and then, so did the show. Tonight is the inevitable and secretive/lucrative "announcement" that's been "coming for a long time" on TLC, which I personally think they could have just released a statement insted of made a show of it. How gross is a "teaser trailer" for the Divorce Episode? The editor who put that together should feel like a piece of garbage.

So here's to watching the divorce unfold tonight and look around to see if the plus 8 are mentioned, because I am sure it'll be "all about them" .. that's why the show is still happening, because we all love those children right?

yes this is a real shirt

Don't forget now. Happy Father's Day!

For my Dad who spends special moments with me, watching me and listening if I need anything as intently as our everyday moments.

I appreciate all Dad's I know today for doing the one job that is the longest, most thankless, most second-guessing, most worrysome one they'll ever have.  And the best.

30 to 30

I finally have a definitive answer to something I left out of my 26 things I learned in 26 years experiment. What the heck do you do when you drop an egg? I offered simply that I learned it was not easy, and perhaps try some flour. Since I didn't want to waste an egg to figure out if that was true, and didn't know if it made any sense, I left it off the list. Now I know!

Egg on the Floor

If you drop an egg on the floor, cover it with salt and leave it alone for a couple of minutes. When you come back, you'll be able to easily clean the mess with a paper towel.

Excellent!

Practical life lessons are so my favourite because they are so easy to apply. Open ended big-picture items like follow your dreams, be more alive, you are born an amazing individual, be the change you want to see etc. I have never found to be particularly easy for my mind to get around (ahh this is me being the change I want to see! good for me, changing and seeing). I'm not making fun here, really, and I can attribute this ironically to my needing to do things definitively, collectively, competitively and perfectly. Following my dreams is not definitive, collective, competitive or perfect in it's conception or implementation and planning (or IS it, to you?). I think the essence and "hustle in the game" of people who do the whole life-isms thing like that is that you like learning and re-learning as you go, and need a bunch of reminders and motivation to stay the course having no idea where they're going. That just doesn't happen for me so practical things and goals is my bestfriend.

More than just the egg on the floor as a topic (check out Cooking LifeTips) I have become interested in my next list slash experiment that is practical but goal based. I figured 26 years in learning something is generous, and 30 things to 30 to DO something is as generous. So 30 things to do before 30? I'm interested in both writing the list and accomplishing each one. For once (like leaving egg on the floor out of my 26 list) I am not tempted to place any limitations on my goals, like, I must succeed.. because to be a true competitive person at heart you must lose, fail, and come up short quite a lot of the time.



1. Write and submit a short-story for publication.

90s fad, hero to babies

Apparently hypercolour can save your baby's life.  Oh yeah, it's real.

I know that putting my baby in a heat-seeking onesie is far better at diagnosing my baby than holding them, or paying attention to see if their behavior is off like I care.  I'm also seriously impressed that "white ain't right" is the super helpful signal that my baby has been dead for hours because to my knowledge when a person stops breathing they take a little while to be stone cold.  You get your money's worth right there!  Can't I pay an extra $5 or so to put some kind of alarm on one of them in case I'm not staying up all night to check my mood colour baby while they sleep?  All I am picturing are frantic parents screaming "check the colour legend!!" into the night because oh dear Jesus what does green mean again???

Why did nobody tell this guy of the invention that already exists called a self-adhesive temperature strip, where you just put a sticky film over the kids forehead and it tells you if they have a fever?

Hypercolour onesie fails.  I review life, by the way.. I just got my license to do that yesterday.

Open letter to the dicks at NBC

With your huge 'hit' shows like Chuck? (wtf is Chuck?) and Medium, did you really think it was a great idea to cancel Life after it's 2nd season. I don't know if you've ever seen this particular show but I think it kicks ass.




NBC I like that you have enough sense to broadcast 30 Rock and I guess Biggest Loser is fine too, but you don't have a better comedy-zen-drama (I just made that up) than Life. It's just stupid not to give it at least one more season to wrap up, if not just let it peak for gods sake, it's a good show and that doesn't happen a bunch to you! Damien Lewis is practically the only guy in television to either look like a totally nice guy OR an axe murderer within a few seconds, why would you let him go to another show? You have Heroes and what? Their storyline completely jumped the shark by the way and I don't know who watches it anymore. Do you know how frustrating it is to follow a show and have the cryptic season finale ending be the ACTUAL ENDING of the series? We'll never know who framed him, or the outcome of the conspiracy wall? What the heck, for real. 8 Million viewers weren't enough to keep it afloat? I don't do 8 Million of anything!.. and now you're making me make no sense! Thanks.


Regards,
Your target audience females ages 18-44


Sign your name if you'd like Life to move to the USA network.

What happens?

What happens when a fish gets a can of fish flakes dumped in their tank?

First they get super happy because they are a particularly hungry fat fish.  Like that plant in Little Shop of Horrors, I swear the fish talked to him and made him do it.  However, later, if their owner leaves them on the counter and forgets to clean the tank they'll return to a fish swimming on their side because they're almost dead.

I cleaned the tank anyway thinking this at least would serve as a very valuable lesson to a certain pair of helpful hands that you should not feed animals without grown ups around.  Gosh darnit if the fish didn't LIVE.  I'm pretty glad it's still alive though just surprised, it's also had one fish-illness in the past I got medication for which cost 3 times as much as the fish.  Also relieved though since I hadn't realized I've never had to dispose of a dead pet before and it was mega grossballs thinking about it.  With all the pets I've had growing up that is actually pretty amazing, never seen a dead pet nor disposed of one.... my parents always did that.  Ahhh adulthood, this hidden responsibility for me later in life will suck!   Dad you didn't prepare me for yet another thing!!  I am calling you when it happens!

I will google anything

I haven't posted any Search of the Week in a while and that is because things only stay on this here website when they make me laugh, and reading about peeps searching for unsavory illegal photo-situations of underage boys or girls just doesn't make me laugh like it used to. The first 86 times, I mean, hilarious. It must be my old age because if I've learned anything at all it's the lesson that people are completely screwed up and it's NOT AS RARE AS YOU MIGHT THINK.

Confession: I really do read my own website occasionally and I'll laugh at my own jokes. I honestly do, and it's only in text and I wrote it. If I were another person, and not me, I'd think this was the best website ever. If I had no readers I probably wouldn't notice because I'm all the fan of myself I need! Haha.

This week I decided to check again though and the winner is "my new mom eats the sun".. which is a reference to the super crazy episode of Wife Swap where the lady decided to sunbathe her meals, which I blogged about here. Kudos to that person who needed to find that episode reference 3 years later. That reminds me I should really add my own idea to the list of 'websites that I can't believe exist': www.imsoborediwillgoogleanything.com.

Also The Hangover was hilarious by the way.

Sweater Love

It is no small secret, or shouldn't be anyway, that I am a fan of Jennifer Aniston (post-Friends) based entirely on her fabulous choice of sweaters in every single movie she's in!  Fan might even be the wrong term here actually because whilst she wears the fabulous fitting sweater I don't particularly like her since I DO NOT HAVE IT.  IT IS HER AND NOT ME WALKING ALONE ON A BEACH IN MAINE WHILE A SALTY BREEZE AND LATE AFTERNOON SUNLIGHT DECENDS UPON ME PONDERING MY LOVE LIFE.

I'm aware she doesn't personally pick the sweaters but I do not care, they are always fantastic so something is clearly going on there.  I will be watching a movie, see her and yell "oh my god that's a great sweater!" as if someone is going to jump up and agree with me and then go shopping.  And let me tell you, Sean NEVER does!  Not even once.

If Jennifer Aniston had a vault full of every sweater she owned I would break in a swim in them just like the opening credits of Duck Tales.  Then put 8 of them on and run away in a feverish sweat.

Sears Baseball

Last weekend we got to catch a Sox/Jays baseball game.  Nothing like watching the Jays lose horribly to make the place clear out as fast as possible.  Everyone I went with is a Boston fan so that really didn't bother me at all, it should be noted that it's just a rule though ever since my first baseball game: the Jays always lose when I attend.*

We got to see some pretty funny people when we were there, as usual.  Last time it was the Boston fan in FULL uniform, running in the streets.  This time it was Yogi's #1 fan who found a redsox turban somewhere.  

And the Boston Stripper Fan, with 89 pieces of redsox flair.  Lots of people stopped her to take a picture and Alicia also wanted a pic with her, that's Wes taking it there.

Funny thing about Wes he told me he googled himself the other night and my post about the story of his impersonation of Randy Steele was the number 5 hit.  He called everyone he knew to check it.  Luckily my good friend Wes has a fantastic sense of humor so he thought it was hilarious.  Here's his Sears pose at the game.

Kudos to you my friend for being linked in a google search with an impersonation that turned out to be worse than Hitler, and still thinking it was funny.  This is why we're friends.  I also wanted to clarify that I still find the impersonation funny as hell, which makes me a very bad person.

Sean's Sears pose at the game.  Is it just me or even though we were making fun of the Sears pose, they actually turned out pretty good?  I think so.

I had a gigantic lemonade which was 8 dollars, and yanno, it was a good day :)  This weekend? I've been sick with the plague that doesn't like when you breathe out of your nose, and I am not impressed.  Try harder, flu!  I have tons of OJ and chapstick (that is what happens when you stop breathing from your nose, btw).  Hope you guys have a great Monday morning!  I know mine will be just a peach.








*Except one game.  That's it.  I've been attending games since I was 10.

New: Accusitory Nursery Rhymes

♫ ♫ Twinkle-twinkle little star, I wonder how you get up there?  how you get up there?! TWINKLE STAR???!!!! ♫ ♫

          - Bee, 3





Yes, twinkle star, good question... where WERE YOU last night?  I was looking for you!

No hell, no dignity

It is as interesting to me how anyone deals with bad days, bad people, bad situations as much as their good counterparts. After a suuuper nice convo with my Dad while I was at a baseball game after he had a bad day (read: not super, not nice) and then visiting there yesterday I realized that there definitely was a time in my life where I actually could not accept any bad OR good things that would happen. Most of the best things to happen for me were either those I didn't care too much about, those I could have taken or left it, and those that were mildly nice, un-intrusively sweet on a small scale and non-conclusive so that I could think about them later on.

If it seems like that is a lot of work for something nice happening to you, that is because the bad days defied rational explanation. I was not sexually abused, kidnapped, drugged, sold into slavery or anything else that I am sure has happened or is currently happening and totally dismembered someone else's life with paralyzing fear. There were only crazy emotional outbursts from my parents to which there was absolutely no attempt of masking my involvement, and sometimes someone got stabbed with a knife, or hurtful words thrown as well as objects, t-shirts were ripped, or the wheels spinning out on the car. Sometimes it involved talking to someone who bought you candy you like and then went into the many conspiracies being thrust upon our lives by doctors, but let's not go into that lest we lose my point in there somewhere. Crazy just blends everything together and sucks it all up with a straw, doesn't it? At least I think so.

"Adulthood isn't an award they'll give you for being a good child. You can waste... years, trying to get someone to give that respect to you, as though it were a sort of promotion or raise in pay. If only you do enough, if only you are good enough. No. You have to just... take it. Give it to yourself, I suppose. Say, I'm sorry you feel like that and walk away. But that's hard."

Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign, 1999

It was not a case of those kids who thought everything was their fault, and I don't know what is worse in comparison: the thoughts and responsibility you feel to fix it while secretly knowing it's all going down or actually being physically put in the middle and told to tell the other parent they were killing the other and that I fucking hate them for doing so. And if I didn't, of course, I was ungrateful and they might as well leave since they were only there for my benefit. We can honestly only know our own experiences and that is why unless I can imagine from experience what someone is going through I tend not to give my opinion because I find that a little bold.

My point is though that you kind of can't accept good things after that and I guess it's a difference in my life now that I enjoy. I am ok with great things happening, and some pretty great things are happening right now :) I have a different focus and I think that's really helped see the bad days, bad people, and bad situations as what they are which is limited.. not important.. and fixable.

"It takes two to love. It takes liberty. It takes the right to reject. If there were no hell, we would be like the animals. No hell, no dignity.”

Flannery O'Connor, 1959

Guest Appearance

Hi this is Andrea, I bought my ticket to Jurassic Park last week and I still haven't received it in the mail. What do you mean it's not real?

I SAW IT ON TV! *click*