August 7th, 2010 by Sherry

My house is still for sale. I guess that’s one of the reasons we’re having an Open House tomorrow, huh?
Ugh, open house. The thought of strangers wandering through my personal space, in my house unsupervised, yuck.
It doesn’t matter that there’s nothing really personal of me left in the space, but it’s still my space.
It doesn’t matter that I want to desperately get out and stop calling it my space, it’s still mine.
Which leads me to wonder, why am I not taking this open house more seriously? Well, because life has been stressful as always, work has been kicking my ass, there have been NO bites on the listing, and I’m just beaten up. I just don’t have the energy to give a crap and I’m back in the mindset that “it’s not really so bad”.
It’s kind of cathartic. It’s kind of scary.
It’s very much, typical me. If something has gotten so overwhelming that I can’t deal with it without losing myself in the process, walk away.
The problem is, typical me is getting really, really, easy to be.

July 31st, 2010 by Sherry

It takes a special kind of person to recognize the infamous imprint of “sucker” on one’s forehead, when it goes unnoticed to so many others.
I am, unfortunately, not the recognizer, but the recognized.
I blame no one but myself. I let the excuse of time and want cloud my vision, and didn’t cross my t’s and dot my i’s. But time was a factor, and want, with me, always wins.
I told the story of sitting in the garage waiting for the cabrio to get safetied. I’ve even blamed karma for the results, because I slightly mocked the 300 pound lady. Truth is, the result can only be blamed on my invisible customary forehead stamp.
I, ladies and gentleman, am a sucker.
The car that I was so proud of myself for getting for my price, and not the sellers, as it turns out will likely cost me as much as I paid for it, to make it safe, road worthy and adequate.
The seller, who I invested such a high regard for, was a freakin’ schister. (I’m sure that’s spelled wrong, but that’s okay. Misspellings don’t cost extra.)
There are SO many things wrong with it. Luckily I have found a garage that is willing to do the repairs and not charge me my first born. At least I hope, anyway. The car is still there and I haven’t heard the outcome of the etest repairs. Oh, ya, the etest repairs are only the first set of doctoring that the cabbie needs. If they can get it to pass the etest without charging me an arm and a leg, then we will proceed with the safety repairs.
I was on cloud 9 with this car. She’s adorable, and fun, and I’ve waited for her for 24 years, and I fell in love. I spent the greater part of the week planning her new body work, and paint job, and possibly a new roof during the winter months. Looking around for a new stereo and seat covers for the summer.
Now I’m using that money to just make her road worthy. And yet, I still love her.
I never got the allure of buying an old car and investing time and sweat and money into restoring it. I’m far too fond of comfortable seats, cruise control and new car smell to grasp that nostalgia.
That is, until I sat in the cabbie for the first time after I shelled out an envelope of cash and made her mine.
Now I own a total piece of shit, hunk of metal that is causing me stress, and grief, and a money bleed….and all I can think of is when I can have her back, when I can cruise with the top down, and how happy she makes me.
I won’t, however, ever understand why people do this:

July 28th, 2010 by Sherry

Here I sit in the garage waiting for the results of the cabbie’s eTest and safety.
Have I ever mentioned how much I don’t like car service areas?
Now, don’t get me wrong, this one is nice enough. Lots of chairs, air conditioning, big windows so you can totally creep the mechanics and watch them work on your car. It’s okay, but it’s still a garage.
I’m still girl who knows next to nothing about cars.
I’m still at the mercy of the grease monkeys who decide the fate of my wallet.
Today I’m even the girl who got gas before she came here, and forgot her gas cap at the gas station. Did you know you can’t pass an eTest or safety without a gas cap?
Ugh.
So, after a trip back to the gas station to retrieve my cap, here I sit.
Having to move chairs because the man 2 seats next to me won’t sit still and is rocking me so hard I’m getting sea sick.
Listening to a baby cry because his 300lb Mother is force feeding him ice cream.
I swear she’s that heavy.
Watching as the place fills up with more and more people on the other side of the waiting room, hoping and praying they don’t spill over to my chairs and suck up the last remaining oxygen in the room.
I’m learning an uncomfortable fact about myself, in my old age. I don’t like crowds. Maybe I don’t like people. Maybe both. Either way, I’m finding myself more and more uncomfortable in social situations and think I might be destined to live the life of the Unibomber, except with more technology and without the “bombing” part.

July 1st, 2010 by Sherry

Milestones. They are something, aren’t they?
First baby teeth. First words. First steps. First day of school. First day of high school. First boyfriend. First heart break. First car. Firsts. It was hard enough going through them on my own, let alone going through them with someone you love more than life itself.
This week brought us to Graduation and Senior Prom. And last night I sat alone and drank half a bottle of margaritas, thankful for the silence and calm. Bring on summer break.
Graduation was Tuesday night and went off without a hitch. She was beautiful in her cap and gown, and I was prouder than ever.

And then there was Prom. You know, the only Senior Prom that she will ever have. The one where she found found the absolute PERFECT dress, and was so excited for.
The day started out great. She was home early from the Grad after party, not hungover, and happy as a clam. She was able to go set up her tent for the Prom after party, pick her dress up from the seamstress, come home, shower, and we were actually early for her hair appointment…..until she realized after driving the 20 minutes to Niagara Falls, that she had forgotten her hair accessories at home. I pulled a U turn on the highway over passes and headed back home, only to realize that I should probably just drop her off at the Salon, go back home myself, and then drive the hair stuff back to the Salon while she was getting her updo. So I pulled another U turn on the next overpass, and headed back in the direction that I had just come from….with Allymonkey in the back seat chirping, “I’m pretty sure we just went in a circle.”
I was able to get back in time for the stylist to use the gold headbands, only to hate them while they were in her hair. And, funny thing, on my way back to the salon all I could think of was, “She should have tried her dress on this morning when we picked it up from the seamstress. Nah, I’m sure it will be fine.”
Hello, Mamabear instinct?? TRUST YOURSELF NEXT TIME!!!
So Caitlin is sitting in the hairdresser’s chair, as I’m looking at her hair and cringing because I hate it so much, and says, “I look like the janitor from Joe Dirt.”
Enter Christopher Walken….

And you know what? She did. So that’s when I spoke up and now her hairdresser probably hates me, but that’s okay because she only gets one senior Prom and I was not going to let her go looking like someone from Joe Dirt.
In the end, Erin fixed Caitlin’s hair and I convinced her that I liked it, even though it took until I saw it with the dress to convince myself. But she’s a gorgeous kid, and she can pretty much pull off anything, and usually does, while still looking beautiful.
We raced home while scarfing down drive thru in the car, Caitlin painting her nails trying not to give me a migraine, picked up the boutonnières, and barely having time to prep her and get her to the beach on time for pictures.
…….and she walks out into the living room, wearing her dress, in tears. I didn’t notice what it was right away, but one side of her dress was a half an inch shorter in the bodice, than the other. It was also a different shape. This is a problem, when the entire upper half of her dress is two simple pieces, that are identical to each other. Or, supposed to be.
The seamstress was only supposed to tack the straps 1/2 an inch in the back of the dress, so she could keep it and wear it again. Instead, she ripped the FRONT of the dress and altered the seams. Then she sewed the front of the dress back together, in a straight line instead of at a point, where the straps met and the upper left side of the dress was half an inch shorter than the right. I’m sure this would have been fine, if she was going to wear one heel and one flat shoe.
SERIOUSLY??!!
Long story short, I took the dress back to the idiot that ruined it, let her have it, got asked to leave, threw around some more threats, raced back to the house to calm Caitlin down and get her motivated to stop crying and finish getting ready, raced back to the seamstress with a half naked Caitlin, and arrived 45 minutes late for pictures and the prom bus.
A few more tears, a pep talk and a rushed five minutes of crappy wind blown picture taking, she was finally on the bus and on her way to, what I hope, was a memorable evening.

And I felt sick to my stomach.
If I didn’t still have the Allymonkey with me, I would have sat in my car and cried my eyes out. It was her Senior Prom, it was supposed to be magical. Not a day of disappointment and stress.

June 24th, 2010 by Sherry

The kids are each 1 exam away from summer vacation. Do you think if I go write it for them I can have the summer off instead? ’cause I’d totally do it.

Work is getting harder and harder to wake up for in the morning. I keep finding excuses to call in sick, although I never actually call in sick and I don’t actually have to find excuses.

Does anyone read this blog anymore?

This time next week Caitlin will have graduated high school, and will be recovering from her senior prom. A month from now, she’ll be in Africa. I couldn’t have dreamed (dreamt?) a better summer for her 18th year if I could have ordered it for her while she was still in the womb.

I’m afraid to go in the basement because we had a hellish thunder storm last night, and I think if I go down there and see water I’m going stab myself in the heart.

The house has been on the market almost 3 weeks and there hasn’t been one call on it. “You’re not alone.” my real estate agent says, “No one else is getting any calls either.” But I’ve seen some ’sold’ signs, although few and far between. Luckily not on the house that I want to buy.

We went to Perkins for Father’s day brunch. I found out that they offer a 25% local’s discount off their checks. I ended up getting $18 off my bill, but couldn’t decide if I was more thrilled to save the money, or more disgusted that the mark up was that much.

I got in trouble at work last week because a disgruntled ex-employee balled up and agreed to do some dirty work for a disgruntled existing employee. The “new me” showed up for work this Monday. I don’t think they like me very much. Too fucking bad, you made your bed, now lie in it.

I realized today, one of my blog friends unfriended me on facebook. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen one of her posts in forever and up until now never noticed, so I obviously don’t miss her all that much.

The G20 Summit is starting in Toronto and it seems like the entire world has gone crazy. The entire world being the one inside my bubble. It makes me want to wander around and take pictures just to see if I’d get arrested.

Don’t laugh. It’s already happened. No, not to me.

I have three minutes to finish this blog post. Two. Then I turn into a pumpkin. Or my carriage does. Or something like that.

It’s okay, I really don’t have much more to say anyway. Well, I’ve got a total shit load to say, but who wants to hear it, right?

June 17th, 2010 by Sherry

My neighbor’s an asshole. And he’s an asshole with a grudge.
He harbors ill feelings towards me because he heard me standing on the front sidewalk, phoning 911 when his dogs raced out of his house and attacked a man walking a golden retriever down our block. A year ago.
It doesn’t matter that his dogs bit a huge hole in the retriever’s leg, causing a few hundred dollars in vet bills, bit the man walking the dog, and bit his step father when he tried to pull the dogs back.
It doesn’t matter that the same dog came up on my front porch and attacked me through my screen door a few weeks prior to that.
He holds a grudge because I told the person on the other end of the phone that his dogs are vicious and loose on a regular basis. Because, you know, they are.
Well, they were. Now they’re dead. He probably blames me for that, too. He probably thinks that I called up the guy they attacked and twisted his arm until he agreed to force the SPCA to put them to sleep. Yeah, I’m that malicious.
I asked my dickhead neighbor last weekend if he had intended to clean up the mess that he created when he trimmed the bushes, and threw them on my lawn. He went a little loopy.
I found out from our conversation that I’m a f*cking bitch, he’s on medication because he’s schizophrenic, apparently I constantly call the police on him, my house is made of toothpicks, Brad’s a fat bastard, and if I would just build a fence, he would love me.
Just another notch in my losing faith in humanity belt.

June 4th, 2010 by Sherry

I simply said, “Remind me tomorrow to call and book your car in for service.” and this, is the email that I get:

Good Morning, My Love

I’m just reminding you to please, with your delicate touch, to please call those fine people at the Canadian Tire and make an appointment for our desired automobile due to its unfortunate front brakes situation.

Please remind them of this situation, that they should have in their records as it was them who notified us of the said situation.

If you could please do this using the skills that God above has given you to utilize, and make humanity and the Earth a better place.

It would give even more reason that I, because of you, am the luckiest man ever.

Thank You, my love. Thank YOU.

Love and kisses on your pretty pink parts.

Ted.

I don’t know who Ted is, but I think I’d better find him so I can finally live with someone who appreciates me.

May 24th, 2010 by Sherry

I’ve spent the entire weekend working on the house. Which means, I’ve spent the entire weekend working my ass off, and feeling accomplished and incredibly under appreciated. Yesterday bordered on really pissed off, frustrated and angry.
We moved to this town just before I turned 13. My parents bought our house, their first house, and got it for a steal. A steal, you see, probably because it was a shit box. Still, it was $25, 000 and soon became a comfortable home, after a lot of sweat from my Step Father.
My Step Father was a major prick when it came to making you feel guilty about not being as passionate as he was towards things. The house was no exception. I remember standing on a ladder with a wire brush and paint scraper in my hand, climbing the side of that house, scraping paint off the outside walls so I wouldn’t have to hear him bitch and complain about what an ungrateful kid I was, and how I should have enough pride in my house to want to help.
Who was he kidding? I was 13 years old and didn’t give a rat’s ass about pride in home ownership. I was a kid. I didn’t need to develop that crap until much later in life, and even then, I was going to live in a high rise condo in Malibu California and be able to pay people to think that way for me, right?
And yet, that teenage torment that I was subjected to as I pain stakingly scraped and scraped, taught me a lesson. And not a lesson about pride in home ownership.
As I sat there yesterday, after working more than 12 hours at this point, alternating between painting walls and tiling the floor…depending on what hurt less at the time…I was feeling really pissed off at my teenage children. (I was even more angry at Brad, but that’s not quite the feel good lesson learned story that this might never be) I sat there, as both of them went off in different directions to hang out with their friends, completely oblivious as to why I was in such a bad mood, and I thought back to standing on that ladder. I thought back on how I felt about being guilted into scraping paint off the side of a house that I was “lucky” enough to live in. I thought back on how I couldn’t stand my step Father at that time. I thought back to things running through my head about what bullshit it was to have to do this.
Then I wondered what different lessons I might be teaching my teenagers, by doing completely the opposite.

May 20th, 2010 by Sherry

I wanted to buy this tshirt:

Size large (I don’t give a shit if you wear a small, stick, go piss off) for 8 bucks. I didn’t even mind paying the 24 bucks shipping because I love the shirt, and the fact that an artist can poke fun at themselves is awesome.
Here’s how it went down:
-grabbed shirt, added to shopping basket
-filled in billing info…….ORDER!! (little dance of joy)
-something went wrong….our billing info doesn’t match your card billing info
-went back, realized that I put “Sher” instead of “Sherry” (oopsie faux pas)
-changed my blunder and resubmitted purchase
-same error
-wtf seriously? screw it, I’m late for work
-get to work, got an email with my credit card balance
-oh hells noh
-signed in to check Visa online transaction history
-password for user is incorrect
-requested user password change…success, we’ll send you a new password via email
-waiting
-waiting
-requested another user password change…success, we’ll send you a new password via email
-waiting
-emailed password!!
-wrong one
-waiting…….
-emailed password!!!
-checked Visa transaction history, was charged for three separate tshirt transactions
-called credit card company
-automated system not working
-”please enter this”…entered this….”please enter this”….entered this again……
-”goodbye.”
- you fu&*((%$%^##%$*&^%*%$&*^ son of a b*(&*^&*%$%&$&$&*%*((
-called online merchant
-closed, sorry try again
-left a message
-sent them an email as well
-called card company again
-automated system not working
-”please enter this”…entered this….”please enter this”….entered this again……
-”goodbye.”
- you fu&*((%$%^##%$*&^%*%$&*^ son of a b*(&*^&*%$%&$&$&*%*((
-got an email back from online merchant, no transactions were processed, they promise
-called credit card company back
-got as far as putting in my card number
-”I’m sorry, I had trouble reading that number.”
-that’s because you’re supposed to be listening to it, you stupid bit….
-finally automabitch transferred me to a Customer Service representative
-gave my entire shpeel
-customer service lady says she can’t hear me, that I sound like I’m under water
-asked for my phone number to call me back
-I got as far as the 905 area code, and was disconnected
-called card company back
-typed in the card number
-”I’m sorry, I had trouble reading that number.”
-that’s because you’re supposed to be listening to it, you stupid bit….
-finally automabitch transferred me to a Customer Service representative
-was on hold so long I had time to write this all out in point form, for blog fodder
-”Hello, this is some foreigner with a foreign name that I’m going to say so fast you won’t be able to understand it no matter how hard you try”
-gave my entire shpeel
-lady kept interrupting me with “yes”, “uh huh”, “right”
-can you hear me???
-”yes”, “uh huh”, “right”
-Seriously?? Shut the fuck up and let me finish.
-”okay”, “okay”, “okay”
-finally she told me it shows that the merch company declined the card 3 times
-but my credit card company charged me
-I can either wait a certain length of time to see if the merch company asks Visa for the money
-or ask merch company to sign a waiver and they will give my funds back to me
-Okay, tell me why I have to do all this work when you just told me that it shows the merch company declined the card???
-why do I have to fix your screw up??
-”It doesn’t say that it was declined. I just assumed.”
-that’s awesome, Habib. Thanks for your fucking assistance.
-she emailed me the authorization form
-I emailed it to the merch company, begging them to fill it out and send it back
-merch company basically tells me to fuck myself and wait the 3-5 business days to see if this works itself out
-Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” comes on the radio and I want to punch babies.
-then Steve Perry comes on and tells me that some day love will find me, and lulls me into a false sense of calm.

Hey Steve, do you have a “Journey Sucks” tshirt I can buy?

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May 13th, 2010 by Sherry

This is an ad for a free razor:

Let me bring you a little closer:

How ’bout now:

Contest open to residents of the US and Canada, but if you’re Canadian you have to answer a skill testing question. Seriously?