the day after tomorrow

I love living near the lake... I love knowing which direction is which (based on the lake always staying still) (what a concept!)

I love watching the weather as it comes across the lake... which isn't all that often, more often you can see the weather as it's leaving us... remember that time the Snowbirds were here? and there was a WALL of fog that came and ate the lake? We watched it as it came from about halfway over the lake, and it ran at us to the beach... stopping about 3 feet from the edge... eating the sky and the water and the pier, until they canceled the show altogether.... yeah... moments like that are pretty cool.

Yesterday had me frightened to go outside... once an hour I had to go and drive someone to a placement... or pick someone else up. Each hour I could see the cold front coming closer and closer....

The first time I looked out at the lake this morning I wasn't sure what I was seeing.
Upside down clouds? Clouds on the lake trailing up to the sky? what the heck?
The second time I looked out, it was closer... and I could figure out what is was.

You know those days when the air is colder than the water, but the water hasn't frozen yet? Early morning mist on the pond?

This was no warm pond on a cool late summer's morning....
This was the FRIGID lake Ontario sending giant clouds of vapour into the frosty air as it came closer and closer and closer....
Have you seen the movie "The day after Tomorrow"? I was having visions of that as it came closer to the shore.... Today a large cloud hangs over the lake... waiting to fall on poor little cold Cobourg.

Speaking of Movies, anyone want to watch the movie Chocolat and discuss? A sort of Pre-Michael-Frost engine starter??? eh? eh? eh? Tonight, Dad's house.

post 600

ok, I had some time while I was waiting to pick someone up, cell phones can be a wondrous thing.

Our Cobourg Sunoco's number is 905-373-8317, when I asked for the manager, the man (Mike) on the phone asked how he could help. I explained that I really liked the car wash that I'd gotten the day before, that the machine did a great job, better than I could and with a lot less water (I always end up soaked and start writing on the street with the hose....) I also said I appreciated the fact that there was a sign referring to the fact that it might take a little longer to get in, because it was about quality not speed... blah blah, chit chat... I then mentioned the 9:3 ratio of cars with their engines running for more than 20 minutes at a time, and asked him if he would consider placing a no-idling sign. His response was that it was a good idea, but he wasn't just going to "slap any old make-shift sign" up, and that I should contact the Sunoco customer relations department.
I called them, related my story again, and was told it was a good idea, she would email the manager and tell him, and would pass the message along to the org as a whole.
Here's the customer relations number for you too 888-858-7242
And Mike at our local shop 905-373-8317

took me a total of 5 minutes including dialing 411 for the local number.

my footprint

Ok, so I briefly mentioned that everyone needed to go and rent "an inconvenient truth" the other day.

Let me say it again... go rent it, watch it with a few people, eat food together, discuss.

With the topic of climate change and environmental issues as a whole being front and centre this "non-winter" (meh, I guess it's winter now) I totally recommend it, if only to bring people up to speed on what we've been ignoring or, just passively watching for a number of years. If by chance you decide to do something after watching it.... even better. There are so many small things that we can be doing that as a whole, are going to help to make a difference. There's a bunch of really neat ones listed in the credits, and there is a copy of the 10 easy steps you can take on the site.... ooooOOOoohhh... there's also a quiz to figure out your "carbon footprint" (what your personal impact is) which I found really interesting... sadly, they don't have it set up for Canada, but if you choose California as your State, they are pretty much the closest to us in terms of emissions... as far as I can figure out... Anyone know better?

yesterday I got a car wash. After chipping away at some ice stuck to my car... and discovering it wasn't ice, it was salt, I figured for the life-sake of my little Morgan (yeah, his name) I should get that off before he melted to a pile of rust before my eyes.
I drove to Sunoco, the new place out by the Hospital, on my way out of town. I'd heard they were pretty good there and decided to give it a try. As I was waiting in the line, I read a sign that said something to the effect of "good quality because we take our time". I took that as a hint I was going to be in that line up for awhile (with 8 cars ahead of me) and shut my engine off and read a few chapters of my book. Once in a while, I turned the car on and crept forward, where there was enough hill, I took off the brake and coasted. Back to my book... I got a good chunk read... more on the book later.
In total I waited 30 minutes to get my car washed... in horror I sat and looked at the cars around me... in front, two huge SUVs, behind me, a late 70's early 80's gas guzzling-beaster car... all with their engines running.

of the 12 total cars in line with me only 3 turned off their engines during their half hour wait.

Tonight after work, I'm going to head over to the Sunoco and ask them to place a "no idling" sign in their line up, hopefully I'll have their phone number by tomorrow or tonight, I'll post it, please, take the 2 minutes needed and ask them to put one up, if enough of us are asking, maybe it'll help.

(hee hee... random info... the spell checker wants me to change the word "Sunoco" to "smog")

red alert

I ventured out to the "alternative" service at the Anglican church this morning with the Sheff bunch. The service itself takes place in the small chapel that was just recently added on to the giant church across from the beach. I love this space. I've mentioned it before with the Taize services there... It brings you to a place of worship just being there... the place feels set apart. That, and the floors are heated. I like that.
We were just about to get into everything when it happened.....
The heat had been turned up so high in the building, that the boiler room, after labouring away, gave up... and something burst. Not that we knew that.. but we did know that the fire alarm was bursting our ear drums.
Stage right, the evacuation. And outdoors, a continuation of our worship, while the firemen tramped about.

other big bunnies

other big bunnies can be found here....

hee hee hee.

Tender.

big bunny

Ok... I don't know who that woman is, but I'm getting a big bunny.
That would be a "blue" bunny above. Mine will be grey (a mix of black white and grey hairs). Right now it is two weeks old, and I hope it will be this big.

4 things

there are four things I'd like to blog about... but I don't have the time.

1) An inconvient truth. - go see it.

2) Drama Club started. - it was fantastic.

3) I get some singing time in tonight with the old crew. -for that I am thankful.

4) I may get a new bunny in two to three weeks. - it will start out small.....

I do not like them sam I am

I do not like eggs shells in my cooked eggs.

*gaaack!*

better than massage.

ok, so I finished posting the earlier article, then did my daily juant through the blogosphere and found that Bethfield had posted the same article. How funny.

I've just returned from the most wonderful ever expierience. AND it was a training session for work! crazy... I know.
ok, so at this point in time I don't know weather to cry or to laugh... I'm so relaxed my body isn't sure which emotion is going to be allowed first.
I just had a two hour session at CL-WN (community living west northumberland) about their new Snoezelen room. This is a stimulation/ multi sensory room that allows people to choose how little.. or how much stimulation they need to focus and relax. They've been around for nearly 20 years, but it's hard to find any good information out there... The name snoezelen is from two dutch words meaning to "snuffelen" to explore, seek out and "dozelen" to relax. And that's just what you do... wander around the room till you find what YOU need to do to relax. It's alittle strange at first, but you need to lose your inhibitions and try everything, try different positions and combinations... pretend to be an exploring toddler... touch and manipulate....

Anyway... there are lights... there are soft mats, there are balls, there are bubbles... there are colours... it's beautiful.

I'd seen the catalogues in the past, advertising some of the elements found in a basic room.[note::that link is for some fancy rooms.. I know it's in Dutch, but I'm sure you can figure it out].. and I'd always fancied that I'd be one who would be happiest with a giant draping puddle of fiber optic light strands... thousands of thin ones, that I could cover myself with... and just sit propped up in a corner... or... maybe the ball pool... with those lights...
When I got there I was surprised that more than anything... I wanted to hug the giant bubble tube and keep pressing the button that starts and stops the bubbles...
Also... I found that the giant swath of lights that I thought I'd like... were almost too much... I didn't like some of the colours that they changed and found that they really did alter the way I felt depending on the colour.
The other part I was surprised at was the ball pit... it was amazing (as I knew it would be) but I was surprised at the fact that when I was in there... I wanted to be at the bottom, covered in the balls. And... I wanted to have one single cable of lights in there with me... it was a light blue and it just lightly shimmered (as the lights inside changed). When I placed the lights right up close to my face... it was so relaxing....

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day.... er... a week late.

[Thanks RJ for the forward]

TheStar.com - Life - Rev. King remembered
January 20, 2007
Stephen Scharper

This past Monday, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., would have turned 78. He has been dead as long as he was alive – 39 years – and the world and especially his country are still grappling uneasily with his memory and message.
As Seattle journalist Geov Parrish has noted, many often recall King's "I Have a Dream" speech from the 1963 March on Washington. But our memories of King are often selective.

We don't always recall, for example, that his home was bombed, his chest pierced by a knife, his body beaten and repeatedly jailed, his face rendered a spittoon by white racists, his personal world invaded by theFBI, and his life, and that of his wife and four children, constantly menaced by death threats, at times up to 40 a day.

Though each year on his birthday, now an official U.S. holiday, we are reminded of his lofty rhetoric and successful desegregation campaign inthe U.S. South, we seem to forget about mainstream U.S. scorn for Kingduring his lifetime, and his widely held sobriquet, "Commie dupe." We often even forget that he was a Baptist minister, and that his Christian faith and black church community served as wellsprings of his activism.

Yet our recollections become particularly dissipated when it comes tohis powerful indictments of poverty, state-sanctioned violence, and unchecked U.S. militarism, especially in Vietnam.

One of King's most prescient and compelling speeches, in fact, is one ofhis least quoted – his April 1967 address to a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned about Vietnam at Riverside Church in New York City. It was the first time King spoke out publicly against the war, and his outspokenness continued until he was silenced by a bullet in Memphis one year later.

King's diagnosis of our society that night remains as pertinent today as it did 40 years ago:

"I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution," Rev. King intoned, "we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a`thing-oriented' society to a `person-oriented' society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered."

Anticipating the Jubilee international debt relief campaigns of Canada,the U.S. and the U.K. (not to mention U2's Bono), King continued:

"True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa andSouth America, only to take the profits out with no concern for thesocial betterment of the countries, and say: `This is not just.'"

In light of the Bush administration's failed and morally insupportable invasion of Iraq, and Bush's recent order to escalate U.S. troop commitment there, [Lesley's side note... I read something yesterday that caught my attention.... when did troop start to mean individual persons?] King's words could have been uttered yesterday:

"The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: `This way of settling differences is not just. This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love.'

"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defence than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

King's speech invites us to pause and reflect on what kind of future we want for our children and ourselves. Do we want a future marked by endless war? Do we want to live in a future increasingly divided into the desperately poor and insouciantly rich?

King had a dream, and he asks us, across the years, to ponder what our own dream as a society might be. He also invites us to ensure that our collective dream is not a nightmare.

old

ok, I take a lot of flack for my age. But only in the group of people I hang out with- who are themselves young 'uns....

The other day I was in the "gee Les, you're old" camp.

I was driving down the road in the work van, and I spotted up ahead this kid... sitting in a snow bank. This kid in a snow bank, making snow balls....
I watched in horror as he launched the first of the snow balls into the air, aimed directly at a Jeep's windshield. Thankfully... the kid will never make the baseball team... but I was LIVID! True enough, it wasn't my vehicle, so I wasn't too concerned about the welfare of it... but I know I've struggled to afford my car and the repairs it's had along the way... and here's this little kid, unsupervised, on the main road of town lunching chunks of ice towards people's hard earned money!
I lay on the horn.... REALLY laid on the horn...
then I swerved to the side of the road right into the drive way beside him... skidded to a stop, all the while honking my horn madly.
I rolled down the window....
and said to the boy who had come running towards me to see what was the matter....
(in a sweet, calm and collected voice believe it or not)
"Please don't throw snowballs at the cars, it's dangerous"
and drove away.

I could see him stareing slack-jawed at the van as it drove slowly away.

not much

I don't have anything to write...
but I haven't written anything in awhile. Not that I haven't written. And not that I haven't posted. I just haven't sat down with the intention of writing.
I miss writing.
I miss not feeling hurried.
There are so few places I've not felt hurried.
...where I've felt that summer feeling- like when you're little, when there is no time... The summers where you leave the house in the morning to play with your friends, when you sometimes remember you haven't eaten lunch... where you test fly kites off the highest pile of dirt in a field.... pound old apples with rocks and try to feed them to someone's dog... spent hours perfecting your cannon bomb in someone's pool... or constructed the most perfect ash tray and sun dial out of clay you've found (for your non-smoking parents)... or raced the wagon down the hill... or tried to really cook eggs on the sidewalk...
the smell of fresh dirt, and warm air.


... back to work....

Not the stupidest thing we've tried to do... who's up for it?

From: Trent Film Society <trentfilmsociety@gmail.com>
Date: Jan 15, 2007 1:18 PM Subject: TV pilot to be shot in Ptbo needs studio audience
To: Trent Film Society <trentfilmsociety@gmail.com>

The Trent Film Society has received a call looking for participating audience members in a pilot episode of a new show called Dr. Grizz.

The show is hosted by Dr. Mathew "Grizzly" Stewart, a dynamic teacher and learning/healing specialist who is taking his ability to help those in need to the broader masses. The shows' format is a dialogue between Dr. Grizz and the audience, and has been requested by Discovery Health, who are looking for a pilot. Active participation from the audience will enrich the show. The four topics to be covered in the pilot episode are:

--Getting yourself unstuck
--Planting seeds of action
--Sex with Soul
--Hopes and wishes

The show will be filmed on location at Splice - the downtown bar/lounge that has replaced Cinema379 - on January 23rd, between 10:00am and 2:30pm. A lunch will be provided to all who participate.

Anyone interested in taking part must be over 18 years of age, and be willing to sign a release form allowing for their image/voice to be used in the production. The show promises to be a lot of fun. There are a limited number of seats; if you are interested you should contact Dr. Stewart by email: doc@drgrizz.com

x- files

This morning I woke up and my Pajamas were on inside out.
This may seem insignificant, as they often are inside out.
Only made significant by the fact that I wasn't wearing any when I went to bed last night.

sound track to my life...

as stolen from T.Lam's blog...

If your life was a soundtrack, what would it be?

So, here’s how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play4. For every question, type the song that’s playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don’t lie and try to pretend you’re cool…

Opening Credits: Perfect Picture - Vertical Worship
Waking Up: This is for the best - These Silhouettes (oh man... I think there's going to be some drama in my movie! How depressing.)
Monday: Stuck in the middle (with you)
Fight Song: Love Song - Vertical Worship (doubting my "random" settings)
Breaking Up: Feels like Winter - Downhere
Prom: Back to me - Building 429
Life: Michael - Franz Ferdinand
Mental Breakdown: O praise Him (all this for a King) - David Crowder
Driving: Song for a winter's night - Sarah McLachlan
Getting Back Together: Do they know it's Christmas? - Barenaked Ladies
Wedding: Running Naked - Nathan Caswell
Wild Sex Scene: I need a hero - Bonnie Tyler
Birth of a child: Suspicious Minds - JD Fortune
Death Scene: 36 days - Hawk Nelson
End Credits: Sweet Evelina - Aengus Finnan

life lessons

You know, I grew up in a CLEAN house. Ship shape. Tidy. Germs killed. And so, I always thought it bad to not clean my room. In fact, like most, I got in trouble for not cleaning.
there are some perks to not cleaning your room for 3 months.
Not only will you find extra socks....
but you might find half a large box of uneaten Halloween chocolate.

underneath it all

so, despite the fact that there's crap around. There is some good.. nay, there is some great, left in the day to day.
In two weeks we launch our Drama Club for the folks we support at work, and it's super cool because it's a joint venture with another agency... making linkages... that's life right? Not only that, but we have a site for it that is perfect, the YFC drop in centre...
perfect how?
By being a large open space, with a raised platform that runs the length of the room.... and a number of mirrors (it used to be a gym). Not only that, it's neutral. It's downtown. It's accessible. Fantastic.
AAAAAANNNNNDDDDD
And what?
I was talking with one of our guys the other day about the craft night thing, and he said he really wanted to put his art in a gallery (to get a ribbon). I tried to explain to him that really, that wasn't what happened at gallery's.... and then thought... hmmmm. It would be cool if it did happen.
So I contacted Aengus, and he said we could use the Lawless Gallery for a night.!!!!! Super. so... sometime soon, stay tuned. I'll have a date available.
oh, but don't tell the guys yet.. it's a fair way away still and that's a lot of pressure/waiting for them.

who now and the what now?

I recieved some lovely mail today....

Who the heck are Lesley And Marie? and why am I getting mail sent to Geroge St?

unacceptable.

Due to work's decision to pay me in one lump sum, instead of fixing the problem as soon as they were alerted.... I've lost 152.49 in taxes. Plus the overdraft charge on my account.
It's been a long time since I have been THIS angry.


in other news, stupid quote of the day from yesterday::
one other staff and myself decided to stop for coffee as we were going to pick up the work vehicle from it's oil change... in asking the boss if they would like a coffee...
"oh, um, no thanks, I don't have any money until tomorrow [payday]"
I bit my tongue and cheek and anything else that I could pinch to keep from saying something about the situation.

really?

OK, some days are just better than others for supplying you with endless quotes.
Tonight, so many were given, and each one more funny than the one preceding it... that many have been lost to the air to which they were spoken into.

I got to attend my first Resonate meeting... I've wanted to go since they started to meet in this area, and I've followed the websites/blogs er... whatever... since that time... but they've always met on a bad night for me. Not only did they switch to a better night... but this meeting was in Cobourg. Haza!

You know it's going to be a good meeting when someone says::

"and then I looked around and realized, SHIT, this IS church!"
or
any sentence with "dirty bible study" in it.

how fast can I walk to lose him?

Have you ever been in a confined space with someone and wished and hoped and prayed to get out of that space as quickly as possible?
Has that space ever been someone's vehicle?
Has that person ever been a talker?
Has that talker, in the first portion of your 60 ride not allowed you to finish one complete thought without jumping in and talking non-stop?
Left you wondering just how many words one can say without taking a breath?
Has that talker talked about them self the entire trip?
Has that talker talked for so long on the return trip without you even trying to add a comment that they notice after 30 minutes?
Has that talker asked you to share your story, only to be interrupted one minute and twenty seven seconds into your story?
Have you ever kept track on your watch how long a talker will let you talk?
Have you ever listened to endless details about something you know nothing about nor care nothing about?
Have you ever watched in horror as the gas needle slips below empty in the talker's vehicle?
Have you ever planted your feet on the floor of a vehicle in hopes that you'll feel the early chugging of an engine without fuel... so you can RUN from the vehicle as fast as you can when it dies?
Have you ever spent that last fifteen minutes of a ride praying for a safe driver to take up speeding?
sometimes that stuff happens.

silly game

so, awhile back we had a girls gathering "the 4th-we-wish-it-was-annual Christmas craft day" at our house.
This is a day of us getting together and trying each other's baked goods and making crafts for ourselves (as a Christmas gift to each other- time spent with one another and we come away with something pretty).
At this gathering we made the wise choice of not including the cooking or baking that we had so Martha Stewartly been inspired to do in the past. Instead, our baked goods were pre-made... and.... we ordered Chinese for lunch! I'm not sure how we fit it all in the first year... I think it was pre-baby for everyone, we each brought a recipe to bake, a craft and the supplies to create with, and if that wasn't enough... we cooked a several course meal for our "men" afterwards. (Jenny was my man... I was Jenny's)
AHK!!! maybe that's where the rumour started!

anyway. there was much food... and several fortune cookies remained. I opened one last night.

"Keep your idealism practical"
for those of you who know and love it....
in bed.

Just what are you getting at here Makepeace?

At this time the amiable amusement of acting charades had come among us from
France, and was considerably in vogue in this country, enabling the many ladies
amongst us who has beauty to display their charms, and the fewer number who had
cleverness, to exhibit their wit."

Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray

the good news?

I'll be receiving a double pay cheque next week.


Also, There's still all that money in my account that belongs to someone else, AND Santa was very generous this year. I have a cushion.

redneck humour

you know you're not employed when:: you receive your Record of Employment from head office.

do they want me to stay?

work can be a little bit... uh... disorganized.

the Thursday before I was to return to work I still hadn't heard from them as to where I was to report ... I went in and filled out a return to work paper and phoned my manager at home to tell her it was there and remind her that it needed her signature before it was sent (so I could return from my LOA) the next day.
I never thought of it again.
A few weeks ago I discover an error in my favour by the bank... I've been doubting the contents of my account since the investigation began. I just operate under the assumption that I have my pay cheques in a timely manner and continue on with life.
Yesterday (I've now been "back to work" for nearly 4 weeks) I received an urgent message at 2:55 that I was to phone a manager. I phoned and discovered that my return to work papers had not been delivered. Not only that, but because of this, I didn't receive my pay. Not only that, but I was to be terminated the next day for failure to return from my LOA in a timely fashion.
With that, I searched the office, the paper was not to be found... thankfully, I wasn't going crazy, there was someone there who remembered me coming in that day (December 8th) to fill in the form.
So, I dashed to the computer to print out a new form that I could fax to this other Boss (as my own was out of town). The computer program generates an error, the program shuts down... I open it again... the program generates an error, the program shuts down.
Now, maybe I should mention at this point that the form needs to be filled in, signed by me, then sent to this other manager, filled in some more, then faxed to the corporate office BEFORE 4pm, at which time the office is closed and I'm pretty much outta luck.
I restart the computer at 3:10. I hit print at 3:15.
The printer is not working.
The fax machine is not receiving.
I restart the printer.
Still not printing, I phone PTBO, they try faxing it to me again.
no dice.
I drive to another program at 3:30.
Arrive, hurriedly explain that I need their computer, and dash to the office.
I print, fill out the form and fax by 3:43.
I drive back to my program.
Throw up.
And then dive into the mess of financial disasters left for me by my Coworkers.
Welcome back to work.

I need cable

It turns out that there is soon to be a new show on Nickelodeon TV. That's right.. my dear Vendetta and Charlotte are about to make fiends RIGHT ON TV.
I know!
It really doesn't get any better.
I know it's a little late, but the above is a quick Christmas video... and I have to admit I've been singing the song to my little tree in my bed room since it arrived.

The big day...

right right right, you too can make it happen! We're about to reach 17,000 hits!!!!


Also good news, Dolly's coming for a visit this week.
Also good news, I have the weekend off.
Also good news, SVFF meeting/potluck/song circle this weekend.
Also good news, I have an interview on monday.

deja vu

This morning was a rough morning... not that there's anything horrible happening in life...
I just had to wake up in time for work.

I rubbed my eyes, tried to tame my hair, then stretched my atrophying muscles and headed to the door.

I promise to find something other than puzzle pirates to talk about. Honest.
yesterday someone told me I had nice elbows.... on puzzle pirates.