Return of the Killer Alarm Clock

Hello, dear readers, and welcome to this week’s (belated) Monday edition! As it usually goes with Mondays, I had grand ambitions to get the week off to a wonderful start. I set an alarm to wake me up nice and early-ish (8 am) yesterday, and I planned to start applying for jobs as soon as I could turn the computer on. Well… it didn’t happen that way at all. In fact, pretty much everything I had planned for was disrupted in one way or another, for better or worse.

To illustrate:

The Plan: To wake up nice and early-ish (8 am)

What Actually Happened: I was woken up at the ungodly hour of 6 am by the worst thing of all: the upstairs neighbours’ alarm clock. This isn’t the first time this has happened here in Victoria, and it’s also a phenomenon that, for whatever reason, has dogged Marty and I in our last three apartments! It’s never just a couple of beeps, either. Oh no. We have been plagued with neighbours who use perma-beep alarm clocks but never wake up to turn them off. They just go on and on and on… I’m usually awake by the third or fourth ring, and then I lie awake and listen to the beeps for hours. Literally. Are we the only people in the world who know proper alarm clock etiquette? Surely, dear readers, you can pass Alarm Clock Etiquette 101 with flying colors. A quick quiz will help confirm this:

1. Does your alarm clock wake up:

a. You

b. Your neighbours

2. When your alarm clock rings, are you:

a. Home to turn it off

b. Somewhere else entirely?

3. Does your alarm clock:

a. Ring for a maximum of one minute before shutting itself off

b. Ring until somebody manually turns it off, even if that means it rings for a whole morning

Hmm… seems pretty simple to me, but apparently many people find the act of turning off an alarm clock too difficult to handle. But I digress…

The Plan: To start applying for jobs as soon as I turned the computer on

What Actually Happened: Nothing of the sort. Instead, we cleaned our apartment, I knit a couple of toques, and I wove in the last ends of the end-ridden top secret blanket I’ve been knitting. Marty has always wanted a flat-top toque, and I finally found a pattern that would make it happen.






The Third Eye Chullo pattern comes from the Knit Wit book, and I used Patons Classic Wool for the grey one and Lang Tosca for the striped one. (Forgive the random hat-on-a-lamp shots... Marty went to work today before I remembered to take some pictures!) Maybe the third eye can wield off any unwanted alarm clock advances in the future… or better yet, land me a job!

Newly Deads

People are funny creatures. Just yesterday, we heard that a local artist had passed away. No funny stuff—just old age. Since his death, though, his family members have raked in around $100,000 in art sales. Can somebody please explain this to me?

I don’t understand why deceased artists manage to clear out their entire collection of pieces in such a short time (for a hefty price too, probably), when so many up-and-coming (and really good!) artists live relatively hand to mouth for their entire lives. (Not mentioning any names of course… Cough! er.. Cough! um.. Double hack and a cough!) It’s not just that, either. That deceased artist probably (by comparison) struggled with art sales while he was still alive. I can’t say this for sure, of course (seeing as I don’t know who the artist was), but I doubt he ever experienced a weekly windfall of 100 grand until it was too late. What is it about death that makes artwork so appealing?

Needless to say, one thought led to another, and it wasn’t long before we started debating the merits of faking Marty’s death. (Our pros and cons list looked something like this: Pros- $100K! Cons- the whole going to hell thing...) In Operation Windfall, Marty would suddenly and tragically ‘pass away’, and I, the weepy 'widow', would then hawk his remaining paintings to the now-mourning public (for double the price… Maybe even triple). I would make an award-winning (but highly unethical) documentary film about the whole experience, and then people might think more about supporting artists while they are still alive, too.

And what would we do with our $100K?

Well, some people might go nuts with buying luxury items—a sports car, a house, a boat, perhaps even a boatful of cashmere yarn—but Marty and I are yearning for only one thing: studio space. If we suddenly had a large amount of disposable income, we would get his studio out of our dining room and into a Room of Its Own where it belongs. I would get a studio for crafting, and I would decorate it with all of my kitschy knick-knacks that have been stashed away for much too long. We might get a dining room table—our first in three years!— and then we could haul out our classy dining room set that we received as a wedding gift and haven’t even opened yet. We might decide to have people over for dinner! Lap. Of. Luxury.

The truth is, we would never actually fake Marty’s death. But we will continue to support local (living!) artists as much as we can. I’m not one for bossing people around too much, but I suggest y’all do the same. Artists, artisans, and crafters earning a living wage-- while they are still alive? Now that would be funny.

The John Lennon Wall in Prague, CZ

You Can’t Make This Shit Up, Vol. 2

We brought back many things from Calgary on our last trip out. Much of it was very useful (our bed! A couch!), but a lot of it was stuff that has been resting in boxes since I was little. Somehow, we managed to bring back an entire trunk full of things saved from my childhood (photos, notes, old journals), but we couldn’t find things like our casserole dishes or even the bookshelf. Sigh. I guess veggie lasagna will have to wait. As will everything that belongs on a bookshelf… In the meantime, though, I have a ton of new fodder for the YCMTSU segment of this blog. Phew! We couldn’t have that stuff just collect more dust now, could we?

This week, I’m proud to introduce the Pie Plate placard.

Designed by the good folks at Fulcrum Communications (yes, it’s designer!), this placard was intended to retrieve a certain pie plate of my mother’s back from a certain ex of mine, but it served mostly to provide cheap thrills for my family for a good half decade.

Background Info: Way back when, I somehow ended up dating a guy that I was trying to set my best friend up with. The details of the situation are sketchy (methinks karma was just getting herself some cheap laffs at my expense), but I do know that in our three short weeks of ‘dating’ (read: hanging out at the mall?! Going to watch a Cannons baseball game?!!??!! WTF?!), I was called upon to bake a pie for said ex’s birthday. (Of course, his birthday conveniently happened to fall some time in those three weeks. Mine was likely still 8 or 9 months away. Isn’t that always the way?) Anywho, I’d never baked a pie before, but I was fortunate enough to be the daughter of the Queen of Pies. By the time of this fateful birthday pie, my mom had about a kabazillion gourmet pies under her belt, so she offered to teach me for the occasion. She also offered me the use of The Pie Plate.

Long story short, I baked the pie, presented it for his birthday, and promptly dumped his ass decided we were better off as friends. The only thing was… I didn’t get the pie plate back.

Days went by. No pie plate.

Weeks and months went by. No pie plate.

A year went by with no sign of the pie plate. I still ran into him occasionally, and I always asked about the pie plate. I even asked his dad about the pie plate and was assured that I would get it back shortly. This was getting a bit ridiculous. (Note: By this time, the regular old pie plate had been elevated to the sacred status of Pie Plate. Rumors began circulating at home that this very Pie Plate had been passed down to my mother from her mother, and her mother’s mother, and her mother’s mother’s mother, and so forth. Truly, things were getting out of hand.)

It was around this time that my mother implemented a 15 dollar security deposit fee for any new boyfriends I happened to bring by. This helped to ensure she got her books and baking dishes back, and it also helped to ensure that I would never bring any boys by the house. Ever. Again. You try explaining to your latest crush that they have to cough up 15 bucks for your ma… (Actually, by this point, it was all in good fun.)

This is how the Pie Plate placard came to be. My mom’s friends whipped it up to be displayed whenever I might run into the ex, just as a little reminder. They were eager to point out that the font type was called “Hey, Stupid!” (for real!), and we were all pretty amused to imagine me parading by the university with the Pie Plate placard in tote. Sadly, though, this story does not have a happy ending. Our beloved Pie Plate has still not been recovered. If anybody has any information about Pie Plate’s whereabouts, please phone CrimeStoppers anonymously. Cash rewards may be paid for information that leads to recovery of stolen property or to an arrest. With your help, we can put an end to crime.

Caution: Unchecked Rage Ahead

Last week I had the incredible experience of seeing a Cranio-Sacral Therapist for the first time. Going into the appointment, I wasn’t really sure what I could expect, but I did hope that she would be able to assist me in dislodging some very large chips (school, miscarriage, moving, etc.) off of my energetic shoulders. Well, I wasn’t disappointed. My therapist was incredibly skilled at reading energies, and she was able to help promote re-alignment in those crucial areas, as well as in areas I wasn’t even expecting.

One of the key recommendations she made for me (since you’re all apparently on a need-to-know basis now) was to let go of my tendency to take on other people’s issues and crap. My solar plexus was plagued with the weights of about a bazillion people’s problems, and she gave me permission to give all of that stuff back. This caused me immense relief when I was still in her cozy little office, but since stepping off of her healing table, I’ve been feeling something else entirely: completely and utterly irritated.

It’s like I’ve gone from being overly accommodating to other people (at my own expense) to being 100 percent about ME ME ME. Little things that never would have even bothered me before have taken on epic proportions in whatever part of my brain controls feelings of irritability. Upstairs neighbours listening to a little weekend music? Geez!!! Can’t a girl get any peace and quiet??!! Have to wait fifteen minutes to get on a cardio machine at the gym? Kuh!! I’m sick and tired of all this waiting!! In-laws phone in the middle of a hockey game? Hel-LO!! I am TRYING to WATCH the FREAKING FLAMES play the FREAKING OILERS!!! AT LEAST HAVE THE DECENCY TO PHONE DURING INTERMISSION!!!!!!!

Yes, it’s that bad.

Now, learning to say no to others might not be such a bad thing in general, but I don’t even feel especially nice anymore! I feel exasperated, bitchy, irritable, petulant, and really short-tempered. I don’t feel like myself at all.

I’m pretty sure (or at least really hopeful) that this cantankerous version of me is just a passing phase, one that will subside once I figure out how to maintain healthy boundaries. But starting to do this—now—after a whole lifetime of giving myself over to other people—might take some serious doing. In the meantime, if anybody has any favours that they’ve been waiting to ask of me… the magic 8 ball says it might be best to wait until Thursday or so. Or at least to offer the gods of petty anger some luscious fibres before asking!

Newly Weds and Newly... (hint: It rhymes with 'reds'!)

When I first told people that we would be moving to Victoria, I got more than a few mentions of the city’s notorious senior population. ‘What will you do there?’, I was asked, as though the whole city would suddenly shut down at 5 pm, just in time for everyone to watch the evening news or Jeopardy. I wasn’t familiar with the city back then, so I just reassured whomever I was talking to at the time that I was sure there were many things I could find to do for fun. In the back of my mind, though, I secretly hoped it wouldn’t end up being checkers in the apartment lobby or something like that.

Arriving to this beautiful city, I was impressed with the quaint little shops and the abundance of breathtaking scenery, but I was more than a little dismayed that I couldn’t find a Knit Club anywhere. (OK, aside from the $10 drop in at the Beehive. That totally doesn’t count.) Checkers began to seem like more and more of a likely (and even appealing) prospect for my Friday evenings… that is, until two nights ago.

I am happy to announce that I met with the wonderful Crafty Bird a few nights ago and took the first step to co-forming Victoria’s very own small knitting circle! Sure, it wasn’t 20-odd people crammed into a Kensington teahouse, ranting about something or other, but it was glorious and inspiring nonetheless. The Bird and I have lots to talk about, so it looks like we’ll be able to make our knitting nights a fairly regular thing. Hooray!