It’s Sherendipity

You would think, with the amount of pictures that I take, (I have over 800 shots in my “sort and delete” file alone) that I’d have finally gotten the focus on this camera. Such is not the case. I’m pretty sure this guy jinxed me for life.
There’s also that teeny little matter of the large iced cappuccino that I had on the way to the Bigga Tomatofest. I’ve noticed that I get a bit of the shakes when I drink those. I’m really going to miss them when I go cold turkey tomorrow.
Oh, by the way, now would be a fantastic time to tell you what a total BITCH I’m going to be this week. I have some serious disciplinary issues happening at the office, I’m quitting iced cappuccinos cold turkey, I’m going back on my diet, and I’m about a week away from my period. Sounds like a motha thrifty party, doesn’t it? I bet you can’t wait.
Anyway, back to the photography……..alright, Cait is watching Bridget Jones Diary in the other room, and I said, “back to the photography” in my head in a brilliant, and totally spot on (because everything in my head always comes out absolutely perfect) accent. Speaking of which, whenever I say “absolutely” in my head, it always sounds like when Angelina Jolie said it in Tomb Raider. Always.
Shit, what the hell was I talking about? Right, butterflies. What, you didn’t know that’s where this was going? Jesus, pay attention, will you?
Here is a perfectly wonderful picture….if it was remotely in focus on the places that it’s supposed to be in focus on:

[click pic for larger image]

Now, I could be all…hey look how awesome my “flower” picture is, but let’s face it, that’s not what I was going for. This is precisely the reason that I recently turned down a wedding photo shoot. With my luck, I’d be taking a close up of the blushing bride and a bug would fly by and I’d get a brilliant shot of it’s wing span. Or something.
Oh well, practice, practice, practice.

You see, you take a little squishy:

Then a little fillage:

And if that doesn’t work, you smoosh:

And if you’re the first to fill your jar fill of tomato toe jammage, you win!
I hope to hell that isn’t how they made my jambalaya:

it’s because my Fall nesting instinct is kicking in a little too early, and I feel the need to redecorate.
So, please, bear with me and it’ll all be my version of normal again, sometime soon. Who knows, you might not even notice a difference.

Update:
Well, I really didn’t change too much.
I updated to wordpress 2.6.1 and installed a new Misty Look version site template. Then tweaked the hell out of it.
Links to previous posts now work !! and comments show on the posts when selected, along with previous and next post links. (love so much)
I made the background bigger, to avoid the black line separators that I had before.
Archives are now ‘tabbed’ on another page, rather than muddling up the sidebar. (love that)
The droplets banner has been revised just a tad, to match the background better and resized accordingly.
The delicious and technorati links have been removed. No one used them anyway.
Overall site looks cleaner.

I was sitting on my couch (my real couch, not the love couch) and reading responses from the “Love Couch” blog post, when my adopted Son (not really adopted, but he’s here as much as my own kids are, so he might as well be) looked out the front window and asked, “Why are the police here?”
I got up and walked to the front door, as I heard “Helllooooooo??” from outside.
“Hi.” I said, guarded, as I walked out onto my front porch.
This little policeman was standing on the bottom of my front porch. “I didn’t want to get eaten.”
Me: “You didn’t want to get eaten?”
Him: “What kind are they?”
Me: “Oh, the dogs?? They’re toy fox terriers.” Which, in hindsight, sounded like I could very well have said, “They’re midgets, you dumb ass.” We might not have gotten off on the right foot.
Anyway, robocop went on to ask if this was my Son’s house, and proceeded to tell me that my Son brought home the wrong bicycle. You can go ahead and translate that to “Your Son stole a bicycle today.” because that’s exactly what his mannerisms and tone implied.
I barked orders for the kid to put on his shoes, and meet me in the garage, while leading the way for robocop.
Long story short, I hoofed open the garage, not having a clue wtf I was going to find, relieved when I saw Jordan’s bike sitting there. As it turned out, adopted Son brought home the wrong bike. Did he steal a bike? No, but you certainly aren’t going to convince robocop of that and it was evident in the numerous times that he threw out accusations of theft and lies. In fact, adopted son wasn’t even responsible for said bike coming home, another friend was. It was all a complete mix up.
No, the bike that was in my garage didn’t belong in my garage. It looked like it did, though. In fact, the only difference between the bike that belonged, and the bike that didn’t, was an extra reflector.
Robocop, of course, could not be convinced that this was a simple misunderstanding. He had to be told the origin of the mix up, at least, three times. He also asked adopted Son if he was lying to him, at least three times, and told me that he finds it hard to believe that the kid didn’t know he wasn’t riding his own bike.
You know, because both bikes were this year’s model, the same colour, the same size, have all the same markings and are both filthy. Why the hell wouldn’t you know that you were riding someone else’s identical bike?
There wasn’t anything that the kids could say to robocop to convince him that they weren’t rotten, stealing, bike pilfering, little bastards. That pissed me off, and I made sure he knew it. He wasn’t going to come to my house, stand in my driveway and harass my kids, while trying to compensate behind his badge for being short and bald. The thing that really made me see red?
“I’d better take some notes, I don’t want this lady to………what is your name, ma’am?”
Wait, what?? Wtf were you about to say, buddy? Cause I’m certainly interested in knowing just where you were going with that. You don’t want this lady to what? Accuse you of harassing my kids? Tell you that you look like a square penis in a uniform? Stand up for our rights and not let you take advantage of two 14 year olds who are scared shitless and don’t know any better, so you can feel better about yourself?
Robocop finished gathering the info he needed. I don’t know why because he didn’t listen to anything we had to say anyway, so the names and addresses that he scribbled down on that piece of paper won’t mean jack shit to him when he gets back to do his paperwork. He demanded that adopted Son ride the bike over to [insert address here] and meet robocop there. No. I don’t think so. Not a chance.
There was no way in hell robocop was getting adopted Son alone. The next thing I knew I’d be getting a call saying I needed to post bail money because adopted Son was accused of causing a hit run, fleeing from a double homicide during a bank robbery, spawned by not getting enough cash from a break and enter of a convenience store, after he painted a graffiti billboard on a building down the alley from his last heroin purchase.
I told robocop that I would have the boys load the bike in the soove, and I would drive them over to exchange the two bikes. They would not be going alone.
Finally, the bikes were exchanged. As a deal breaker, robocop wanted to know how adopted son knew this was his real bike, when he didn’t know the difference before.
Hey, dude, remember those forty five times that we told you that adopted son wasn’t the one that took his bike out of the bike rack? You know, the bike rack that contained both bikes, side by side? Both bikes that were exactly the same, identical bikes? Remember when we told you that their other buddy was the one that removed adopted son’s bike from the bike racks and rode it away? Remember when we told you that adopted son didn’t even ride the damned bike?
Oh hey, remember when I said that you looked like a square penis in a uniform?? Ya, that was funny. I liked that one.

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You may not have noticed, but I had a really bad day yesterday, compounded by raging hormones and an over all sense that I was full up with life and didn’t want anything more than to pull the covers up over my head and rot away.  Contrary to the belief of some, I don’t like wallowing in my own pathetic misery, so I decided this morning that this would be New Leaf Thursday. 
As part of new leaf Thursday, I thought it would be cool to list things that make me happy.  Things that I love.  You know, other than you Guys.  And if you want to jump on the love couch and chime in with things that you love, I just might pee my pants with glee.  It’s okay, the love couch came from my Great Aunt Matilda’s house and it’s covered in plastic.

I love:

Tim Horton’s Iced Cappuccino.  (large, of course.  and plain.  none of that frilly shit with the stale brownie pieces and whipped cream.  putting extra anything in iced cap takes away from the room that you could be filling with caffeine.  if I want whipped cream, I’ll go home, put the trigger spout in my mouth with the can upside down, and dump the goodness right down my throat)

The drive thru side/rear mirror flirt game.  (if I have to explain, you obviously don’t play and you’ll just think I’m a freak)

Public washrooms all to myself.  (because no one ever respects the one-over rule and someone always comes and sits down right beside me, even though there are five other stalls open)

Senior couples who still hold hands.  (so please pledge, when you’re 80, that you will still walk hand in hand with your partner, and give me hope for humanity)

The thought that, even after taking a mental list of every flaw the man I love has, I’ll still want to hold hands with him when I’m 80.

Sharlene Spiteri’s voice.  (I’d be glad to share with you some “Texas”, if you fancy)

That first minute that you crawl into bed at night, just as your back hits the mattress covers and you ’shimmy’ into place.  (can you tell I’ve been sleeping like ass, lately?)

My hair.  (I have an unhealthy obsession with my hair.  I love how it looks, how it feels, how it smells, you name it.  un.health.y.ob.sesh.on)

Taking pictures of my toes.  (Don’t you even pretend that you think I’m a freak for that one.  I’ve seen pictures that some of you have taken of your toes and they’re exactly like the ones I’ve taken of mine) 

Finding out that my desk does, indeed, have wooden corners under those piles of shit that I ignore on a regular basis.  (translate: having a really good day at work and realizing that, had I tackled these jobs last week, they really weren’t all that bad and my time management sucks)

The Dominican Republic cigar box that I have on my desk that makes all my post it notes smell like wooden cedar cigars.  (seriously.  i have to keep it closed because the scent gives me a migraine)

That the guys who previously owned sherendipity.com let the domain name expire and I was still paying attention long enough to snap it up.  (R.I.P. sherendipity.org  you served me well)

There are so many things.  This list could go on forever.  I’ll have to revisit this idea when I’m feeling particularly ogre-ish and do a part two.  and three.  and eleventy hundred.

You know what’s my favourite? When there’s always people who have to have it worse off than you do. And even better? When they have to tell you about it because they’re too stupid to realize that they’re really not worse off. They could walk into your office and drop their arm on the floor in a heaping bloody mess, and you will still think they’re full of shit, and could care less what’s going on their world. You are at your lowest of lows and how the f*ck could they be so callous as to mock out your depression?

What the hell is the appeal of wanting…no, needing to be worse off than someone else? What type of mammal breeds people like this? I hear stories, and I listen to friends, family and coworkers tell tales of woe and hardship, and I think to myself, “Man, thank God I’m fortunate enough to have never been in that situation.” Shortly followed by, “I wonder what I can do to help.” In some cases, depending on my level of “like” for this person, I even think “Man, better you than me buddy. You knawimean?”

But never, I mean never, do I immediately come up with my own shit to smear on you while you’re down, and degrade your tales of woe with something far more grander and mock you out because, not only are you a life loser, but you can’t even screw up to my level of screwed up-edness. (that’s a word. just ask me, I’ll tell you)

Just what in crap makes a person feel better about themselves, to tell another person how much more their life sucks?

You have no idea where I’m going with this, do you? Me either. I just know that I had a really shitty day and it never seemed to get much better. I’m in a bad mood and the last thing that I needed when I was knee deep in wanting to drive my new soove off the Queenston Lewiston Bridge, (that’s where I work, btw. It’s pretty, innit?) was for someone to come into my office and tell me that their life has come to an abrupt halt because they got a fucking flat tire last night. No wait, they didn’t get a flat tire, their Husband did. No, no, I’m wrong. The last thing that I need is for that same person, later that afternoon, to openly condemn the way I handled my meeting with my Cleaning Service Customer Service Rep. Yes, that’s the last thing I need today. Especially after, just yesterday, the photocopier repairman was in explaining some things about our new machine to me, and when I went to make a phone call for him, this same person approached him and asked him to re-explain the entire amount of information to her, you know, just so she knows for herself.

*sigh* This is all over the place, isn’t it?

I’m sorry, it’s either blurt here or spend thousands of dollars on therapy that I can’t afford. Or act out on my need to wrap my fat fingers around a less than scrawny neck, and squeeze until I see brilliant shades of blue and purple….

Excuse me while I go and change my underwear.

Tonie and I were ‘gtalking’ today when she confessed that she’s finally figured out who I remind her of. I couldn’t wait for this one. The last comparison that I received was that Sally Field and I could be sisters. Here’s old Sally and the old Sally. What do you think:

Now, keep in mind that (unfortunately) Tonie and I have never met in person. Apparently she was watching Christine and when Leigh Cabot came on screen, something snapped in her brain that told her that’s what I look like.
See for yourself:

Christine was released in 1983. For a lark, I went looking through some old photos for my smiling mug from ages gone by. This is me in ‘83. See if you can see any resemblance:

Alright, stop laughing. Seriously. Knock it off.
Brad decided to chime in on the conversation, but with his own interpretations. This is what he said I look like:

So I went looking for an age resemblance photo:

Omg, the cuteness is killing me. This was for my Aunt and Uncle’s wedding, btw. Flower girls across the globe got nuthin’ on me.
The funny part about all of this is that, just this morning, I had decided to go through my old pictures and do a Sher’s life montage for my upcoming birthday. Be afraid.

If I happen to suddenly stop posting, and the site grows stale, please contact my family for my funeral arrangements and come and pay your respects. You can even come drunk, if you want to. That would be preferred, actually, because I’ll be hanging around just long enough to laugh at you.
Also, forward this blog post to my local Niagara Regional Police office.
(although, you’ll have to explain to them why they have to go to the site and look for the post, rather than just linking them to this story, because (( of course)) the links don’t actually work.)
See, this new cleaner started at work about two months ago. He’s kind of… odd. The type that slinks in quietly, wears his baseball hat way down over his eyes, never makes eye contact and won’t speak unless he’s spoken to. Darlin’, he’s creepy as all get out.
The first time I had the pleasure of interaction with him was shortly after he started. My office was a total disaster. I had just purged a filing cabinet and was getting ready for a large shredding hall, and I had boxes everywhere. My office isn’t really all that big to begin with, and you literally had to jump over disarray to get to my desk. Creepy cleaner/stalker serial killer guy decided that he was going to push the vacuum around a bit to make it look like he actually does something, and I looked up (smiling) and said, “Oh, that’s okay, you don’t have to vacuum in here today. My office is a total mess.” Look at me, all smiling and happy and showing you my pearly whites so I don’t look like the office boss ogre lady.
He slowly turned his head, looked at me with eyes deader than drift wood and barked, “It’ll only take a second!!” I was like DUDE WTF?? If I wasn’t so taken aback I might have even said it out loud, but thank gawd I didn’t because he prolly would have Psycho stabbed me, shower style.
The guy freaks me out. The guy freaks everyone out. And on top of that, he does sweet piss all when it comes to cleaning my office. He’ll slink in, walk to the back of the office in the kitchen area, open the microwave, then shut it. (I’m sure he does this to make it seem like he’s cleaning it, but to be convincing the nuker would actually have to have been cleaned at some point) He’ll grab a rag and clean my window sill. (I have an interrogation style two way window separating my office from the outer office….go ahead, take a minute….how flippin’ cool is that, right? I KNOW!!) Then he’ll fire up the vacuum and throw the handle here and there, missing half the carpet debris and being altogether annoying. Then he’s gone, just as silently and quickly as he arrived. After about 5.3 minutes. If that.
I’ve been meaning to call my customer service representative for a while now, but just haven’t had a chance. There was always something more important (read: shiny) that needed my attention and I wasn’t exactly looking forward to the call to begin with. Until tonight.
I was sitting at my desk, wrapping up for the day, when slinky-mcslink-a-creeper entered the office. Open and slam went the microwave door. Sweep went the dirty rag across my outer window sill.
And then the phone rang.
What did CSI-perp-suspect-wannabe do then? He turns on the vacuum and proceeds to haphazardly make his way over to and around the desk of the person who answered the ringing phone. While she was on it. You know, talking and trying to hear the other person talking.
I walked out to the outer office and up to stalker-freak-me-out. “Excuse me, would you mind not vacuuming when she’s on the phone?” Dude, it was like time freaking stood still and everything was in slow motion. He slowly turned towards me, and looked up at me from under the brim of his hat. He didn’t blink. He had no expression on his face what so ever. “It’s just that she can’t hear when you are vacuuming.” These weird saucer round blank eyes looked at me. “Sure.” he said, and I’m pretty sure his face didn’t move. I don’t even think his lips parted. If he wasn’t holding onto the vacuum cleaner hose, I would have half expected him to grab on to my shoulder with one hand, while plunging a butcher knife into my abdomen with the other….all the while cocking his head to the side and looking at me with those blank Friday the 13th Jason behind the mask, eyes.
I’m pretty sure I put a hole in the carpet running back to my office when he turned to flick off the vacuum cleaner. I wanted to put distance between myself and him and was willing to sacrifice my two afternoon employees to do it.
Turns out, I didn’t need to. Freakshow packed up his shit, and left. Just like that. Not only did he leave my office, but he packed up and left the building. He didn’t even clean any of the other offices that he was supposed to clean tonight. Just left.
Thank the heavens it was light out when I left tonight. And I was parked in the back parking lot. The busy one, where there are plenty of Construction workers milling about. And I could leave via the back door. Quickly. All the while looking over my shoulder and trying not to kiss my fradey cat ass goodbye.

My neighbour has lots of friends. He’s a popular fella.

He has so many friends, in fact, they can’t stay very long at his house and sometimes they have to wait outside of his front door. They drive in the driveway, exchange quick greetings, and are gone before I know it. If you’re catching my drift, you’re realizing that they don’t just exchange greetings.

Although my neighbour is (overall) a nice guy and never gives us any trouble, mainly keeping to himself, the fact remains that I live next door to a man who has lots of friends. *wink.

Every once in a while I’ll pull into my driveway (which is parallel to his) and one of his friends will be on his doorstep either ringing the bell, or waiting for him to return to the door. They always seem real nervous when I pull in and never make eye contact when I get out of my car and oddly enough, my neighbour never returns to the door while I’m still within eye sight.

You wouldn’t think that a man who has lots of friends would have a conscience and actually be ashamed of his popularity, but my neighbour seems to be and that’s plenty okay with me. In fact, it’s so okay with me that he’s a tad ashamed, that I might just sit in my car much longer than I need to, and linger in my driveway a lot longer than necessary, for the simple fact that I don’t mind seeing his friends just a tiny bit uncomfortable.

The summer after grade eight, I found out my parents were moving my family to the Niagara Region. I was devastated, but there wasn’t a damned thing that I could do about it. I was too chicken shit to run away, and none of my friend’s families were any better than mine, so I certainly didn’t want them to keep me.
My friends decided that they would throw me a going away party, but as the time grew near, those plans fell through like every other plan we ever tried to pull off. On the night of the party, I was home alone. My parents had gone to bingo and left me to my own vices.
I heard a commotion outside, because God forbid kids learn to actually use the doorbell and not just yell from the alley beside the house, so I went to the back door to see what the fuss was all about. In the house that we lived, the back door had a glassed in screen door, on the outside of a large wooden interior door. The screen door always and I mean always jammed and never opened on the first try. I think it was because of all the nights that I missed curfew and my parents locked me out, leaving me to pull on the screen door, trying to force it to open, all the while crying like a two year old.
Of course, this night was no exception and as I popped on the handle to casually lean out the back door to the throngs of boys that awaited me (read: three people standing outside) the damn door jammed once again. I might as well have been standing there naked for all the embarrassment that I felt. I mean, I was a 12 year old hottie and there were boys outside, laughing at me.
Not to be shown up by a lame screen door, I rammed the palm of my hand into that door with a force of a thousand men. Or one skinny, little girl. Regardless, you must realize how cool I looked to those boys when I put my entire hand through the window.
The best part of the entire thing was not the fact that I shoved my bony little fingers through a pane of glass, but that I leaned out the door in the coolest of coolish stances and pretended like nothing happened. Crashing glass and destruction has nothing on me.
Obviously the boys left quickly because there was no party, and of course, I had just proved how much of an idiot I was. That’s when my reality set in.
How in hell was I going to explain this one? I mean, obviously I’m going to lie my ass off, but if I was to pull that off, I’d better get my story straight and damn fast. And it can’t just be any story. This one’s got to be impressive, and dramatic.
And I was smart. Man, was I clever. I was so proud of myself.
Someone threw a rock through the window. There was a lot of commotion outside in the alley beside the house, but I was too afraid to go out and investigate to see what it was. I was home alone, after all, and I couldn’t defend myself if there was trouble. The next thing I knew, a rock came whizzing through the back door.
I was so upset, I didn’t know what to do. I called my parents at Bingo and had them paged. They had to come home. Someone vandalized the house and I was there alone and I needed them to come home. Now.
I even went outside and swept up all the glass, then dropped a few small shards on the inside, kitchen floor. I mean, I was a kid, it’s only normal that I would have tried to clean up but would have surely missed a few pieces. I told you, I was clever. These were my parents, they saw how I did my chores every weekend. There was no way they’d believe that I cleaned up each and every glimmer of glass. My God, I was brilliant.
My parents came home shortly after my phone call of desperation. They were pissed that they had paid for Bingo cards that they didn’t get to use, but got over it pretty quickly when they saw the big hole in their back screen door.
“what happened to the rock?” they asked.
Oooh, good one!! I never thought of that! Quick Sherry, think fast!
“I was so angry and scared that I was going to get blamed for all of this, I picked the rock up and threw it back at them.” My God, I’m a mother freaking genius !!
I can’t remember all the details of what went on after that. I know they didn’t buy it. You didn’t have to be a rocket scientist like myself to figure that out. I do know, however, that I never got in trouble, and they never found out what really happened. And even when the window was costly and repaired, it was never mentioned again.
I’m pretty sure that convinced me that I could lie my way out of anything. Not that I do that, of course.
I’ll never know why they didn’t push issue. I’m pretty sure they were just blown away and impressed by my pure brilliance. Either that or they couldn’t figure out how the hell they could possibly have raised such a moron. Regardless, I got away with it and grew up to be the fine, upstanding grown up that I am now. So who’s the moron?

Alright, here’s the thing: I don’t do anything just because it’s cool. I don’t wear trends because everyone else wears them, I don’t vacay in Meh-hee-coh because that’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re over that 35 year mark. I never have, and never will, just because someone said I should.

I blog because it’s cathartic and could give a shit if anyone else reads it. (alright, that last part is a tiny stretch, but not by much) I don’t read a lot of other blogs, either. I would love to be able to sit down with my coffee and bagel every day for two hours and read a list of blogs that I can’t do without, but it just doesn’t happen in my world. I’m so jealous of those of you that can, though. Seriously.

So anyway, the point that I’m trying to make with this babble is that I’m very new to the blog scene. Anyone else’s blog, that is. I poke in on Jer when he’s not looking, because I’m nosy and want to keep in touch now that I’m not hanging out at that “other site”. I infrequently ride the Meat wagon because Scott is one of the funniest bastahds alive. I say hello to Sandy as she and I share a teeny moment of history together. And about every three months or so, I pop on over to Dusty and catch up.

It wasn’t until I started reading Dooce that I learned about Blogher and the cult following that it’s inspired. Still, it was just a thing, and not necessarily my thing and I didn’t feel the need to start researching every single link to every single blog and become ‘one of the girls’.

I did, however, want to pick up a few new points of interest for my internet pleasure and expert time wasting ability so I was thrilled when Dooce linked into the Bloggie Awards in one of her posts. The awards have a Canadian category which, for some reason, I found of interest and the 2008 winner was The Redneck Mommy. I don’t normally miss a day away from Tanis’ blog and her quick wit. She’s a great read and she’s naked half the time, so how can you go wrong, right?

It was on Tanis blog that I found out about Neil and The Great Interview Experiment. (speaking of which, I want my f*cking interview, damn it. )

This, of course, led me to Gin. Stay tuned for a collaborative project that Gin and I are throwing around the idea of getting started. (you love that, right? only a true procrastinator like myself would say “throwing around the idea of getting started” instead of saying “are going to start”)

Gin’s site lead me to a comment left by Michelle who is new to this site (by the way, Michelle, I’m completely late to the voting party but had I known earlier, I would have totally voted for “Washed Ashore”. I love that picture)

…looks around nervously.

I don’t know where the hell I’m going with any of this, and I’m already bored. So I’m just going to pop up two more links that aren’t related to anything above, and move on.

Angela, at Fluid Pudding is slowly earning my love and Jenny, at The Blogess has to be one of the nuttiest, most hilarious women that I’ve ever not met.

K, I see something shiny…….