Today activities to pass the time from 5-6 PM when there's NO ONE in the office:
1. Having a staring contest with my computer monitor...it won (though it may have cheated because it has no eyelids)
2. Sending myself emails which include various witty remarks (Dear Megan: poop smells. That is all)
3. Sneak onto the Internet and play the following games on
http://www.ebaumsworld.com : Home Run, Tetris, Pac-Man, Bullet-Time.
4. Stick Post-It flags on my fingernails to see what they would look like if I grew them out and painted them the following fluorescent colours:
Pink
Blue
Green
Yellow
5. Snuck on to
www.blogger.com and posted this very message.
I am SO BORED.
It is now 5:46 p.m. ... screw you guys, I'm going home.
It’s gonna be a looooooong week!
One more week. Seven more days. 168 more hours. 10,080 more minutes…I could go on but I’m even boring myself.
To sum up, Lauren and I are leaving in a week, and though I can’t speak for her, I’m starting to get pretty damned excited. I’m trying not to, since it was around this close to our departure date in May that Mr. Mono decided to pay me a visit and screwed everything up, but I just can’t help it. It’s been a while since I went on a trip for a significant amount of time, and this will be a first in many areas for both Lauren and I: First trip to the UK, first trip for this long without our parents (sad but true), first time backpacking, staying in hostels, travelling on the train (for me at least, not to sure about Lauren on that one). Basically our first real taste on independence. At 21 this might seem like something which is long overdue, but staying at home while going to university is exactly what has provided me with the opportunity to be able to finance my own trip abroad. My parents have been very generous in their support for my studies, and with careful spending and even more careful saving, Lauren and I have been able to squirrel away enough money to head out and see the world (well, not the WHOLE thing, but you’ve got to start somewhere, right?).
This time is also pretty exciting for me because we’ve sold our house and have found a new home which isn’t far at all from where we are now. Living in the same house for 10 years has made it hard to accept the fact that we’re leaving, but lately with all the planning surrounding the new house, it’s getting hard not to be excited about starting something new. I’ll miss my old house (and especially my back yard…the one at the new place is TINY!), but change is something you have to get used to, and this is just the start of many changes which are bound to take place over the next few years…
I can count…all de way…to schfifty five…
Oh my gosh am I bored today! My boss is in PEI and when she’s not here there’s not much to be done. However, being bored does have its perks, like sneaking into my blog and posting on the absolutely fantabluous weekend I had this past weekend at Shannon’s cottage! Good times full of food, friends and fun, not to mention great weather!!
The gang (minus Karen who was still at camp) headed out Friday evening for Shannon’s gorgeous cottage just outside Beachburg, Ontario. It’s about an hour and a half outside the city, so we busied ourselves in the car with good music and good conversation, mixed in with the odd banter on the walkie-talkies between the girls and guys cars. As is tradition, we went to the Beachburg Family Restaurant for a late dinner, squeezing in just before they were about to close (that’s also tradition!). This year, before going to eat, we made a quick pit-stop to see Shannon’s grandmother who also lives in Beachburg. She showed us around her lovely new home, and wouldn’t let us leave without a batch of homemade muffins and a warning about the storm-clouds ahead (such a grandma!!). The rain came down in sheets almost as soon as we got inside the restaurant, and our dinner was almost compromised as the power went out right after we’d ordered our meals. The owners of the restaurant didn’t seem at all phased by the blackout, and instead of telling us to leave, they brought out mood lighting and assured us that our hungry bellies would be full in no time. Such small-town hospitality!
The storm raged as we ate, but as soon as the bills were paid the rain slowed to nothing more than a light sprinkle and soon faded into sunshine. It would be the last we’d see of it until Sunday night! Shannon’s parents (who, oddly enough, were also in PEI!) would not be at the cottage this year, so we were invited to sleep inside instead of pitching tents on the front lawn as we’ve done the two years previous. There were enough beds for three of the five of us, and Lauren and I quickly offered to sleep on an air-mattress in the living room. The two of us are going to have to get used to less-than-perfect accommodations while we’re away on our trip, and we were more than happy to get an early start on our training ;). With night-time approaching, the boys and I unpacked the groceries and the bags from the car as soon as we got in. Lauren and Shannon had a special errand to attend to: the dock that was slowly fading away under the unusually high tides. We’ve had a lot of rain this summer, and as such the docks were having trouble staying above water. Lauren came equipped with a rope and her trusty hip-waders (Captain Entomology to the rescue!!) and she and Shannon securely fastened the dock to the nearest tree to keep it from floating away in the night.
The first night was a lot of fun. Another new addition to the cottage tradition this year was alcohol, and we brought it in spades. Coolers, beer and hard liquor (vodka and rum) filled the fridge, and we wasted no time cracking them open along with a deck of cards to play a few drinking games. We didn’t over-indulge by any standards, but we wound up having a lot of laughs (oh, and a lot of chocolate! Malt balls will be the death of me!!) before crawling into our pjs and drifting off the bed.
Saturday morning was a lazy one, as mornings usually are at the cottage. Tim brought Zavida’s coffee with him, and he wasted no time making a pot while the rest of us went out to greet the day. It was warm and sunny, which we were all ecstatic about, but looking out onto the water from the deck we saw a not-so-pleasant sight: though Shannon’s dock had survived the night virtually unscathed, her uncle’s dock (he owns the cottage next-door) was almost completely submerged, and was missing three large pieces of wood which plank the top. Lauren and Shannon ran down to see if they could spot them, and were relieved to see they had only floated a little farther down the bay and were presently stuck on the other side of the boat house. Confident that they would be going nowhere fast, we went back inside and prepared a big breakfast of pancakes and fruit. After the clean-up it was time to decorate the cottage for Karen’s surprise birthday celebration. Lauren and I won’t be around during her birthday, as it takes place while we’ll be in the UK, so we decided to start the celebrations early, and hung balloons, streamers and even a “Happy Birthday” banner outside the front door. Also, knowing Karen’s track-record for getting lost, we made a huge sign with her name on it to put out front of the cottage so that she would know where to turn when she got there. After that we went into Beachburg for some cooking spray to make the cake, and of course to the LCBO for some more drinks (our stock was getting low!).
After the cake was safely in the oven, Lauren, Shannon, Andrew and I got our suits on and went for a lie in the sun while Tim worked away on a report he had due this week (it sucks that he had to work, but better a Tim with his head buried in a lap-top then no Tim at all!). After we felt sufficiently baked by the hot sun, we decided in was time for a swim. The word ‘cold’ could not begin to describe the feeling of the water. It was FREEZING! But we stuck it out and after a while you got used to it (either that or my entire body went numb…). Shannon, Lauren and I fetched the wood from her uncle’s dock and brought it to shore, and decided that we’d had enough of the water when the goose-bumps started to arrive.
Just as we were setting out a late lunch, Karen arrived from her last week at camp. She’d been volunteering at a Christian camp for the last three weeks as a councillor, and had to stay there until Saturday as part of her commitment to the camp. We were all really happy to see her and to hear about all she’d done over the past few weeks. Things got really silly once she unravelled one of the leis we brought as a birthday favour and decided it was time for the human edition of cat’s cradle. We made a few unsuccessful attempts and then wound up wrapping it around Andrew about 60 times so that he would turn off the video camera :P.
That night we made our big pasta dinner with garlic shrimp, mushrooms and a chipotle pepper pesto sauce. It was really good, but a little rough on the tummy! Cake was for desert. After dinner we just sat around for a while, talking about life, love and the lack there-of. Talking openly and honestly with my friends is one of my favourite past-times, and I’m really lucky to have such a great group of people I can open up to. It makes me feel like no matter what happens, there will always be someone there for me if I need them!
Now, you really can’t have a cottage weekend without a campfire, so after a search for logs that weren’t too wet from Friday’s downpour, we got a fire going and had a sing-along with the guitar passing back and forth between the only two who know how to play: Karen and Tim. I wound up going in early because of my stomach ach, and after a can of ginger-ale proved futile, I crawled into an empty bed as some more deep conversation carried on in the background.
Sunday morning also began with coffee and a big brunch. This time it was bacon and eggs and the rest of the mushrooms and fruit (though not together. Ewwww…). More clean-up (we were forever doing dishes! Nasty hobbitses who like to eat so much!!) and then it was time to throw on our suits and get ready for another lazy day! Being Sunday, Karen and Tim decided to have their own worship service outside in the sun. Lauren, Shannon, Andrew and myself busied ourselves inside the cottage for a while, and were well entertained as Andrew took to bouncing a left-over birthday balloon with his head. His happy grin had us all in stitches!!
Sunbathing and swimming were also on the agenda for Sunday’s activities (I mean really is there anything else you’d rather do at a cottage??). We finally got Tim off the computer and convinced Andrew, who is not an experienced swimmer, to get in past his knees for a lesson or two in the basics of floating. Not wanting to have a too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen type scenario, I distracted myself with a mass of dragon-flies which had accumulated on the remains of Shannon’s uncle’s dock, and also took to sunbathing on the floating dock (AKA the barge of hotness).
After we’d all had quite enough of the sub-zero temperature water, we got dressed and resumed our lounging in and around the cottage. Shan, Lauren, Andrew and Karen had the urge to go for ice cream, but Tim and I chose instead to stay behind and watch a movie. James Bond: Die Another Day was one of the only ones he’d brought that I hadn’t seen, so we threw it on the lap-top and vegged-out with a couple of pints while the others went to town. The movie was horribly cheesy to say the least (what was with all the lasers???) but it was a good way to spend the remaining hours of the afternoon (after-all, we were at a cottage…who wants to THINK?).
Dinner that night was a simple BBQ with chicken burgers and whatever else we had left that we didn’t want to take home. After that a MAJOR clean-up ensued…rolling up sleeping bags, packing up clothes and bathing suits, washing out all the left-over containers in the fridge, sweeping the floors and generally rendering the cottage in as good a state, or better, as when we arrived. We had aimed to leave for 7 p.m. and our planning was perfect, save for a small incident involving two bees which refused to vacate Shannon’s car. But that was remedied as soon as I got hold of a fly-swatter…yea, I squished ‘em good. We got back into the city at about 9 o’clock, relaxed, happy and eager to go back again next year!
Thanks so much for a wonderful weekend gang!
Cottage time!! And, in other news...
Woohoo! Best Zoo-Crew event of the summer is here! It's time for camp Shannon, the BESTEST camp EVER!! Soooo excited for this weekend. We always have tons of fun up at Shannon's cottage, and every year it winds up being the highlight of the summer. This year, of course, it'll have a bit of competition with the upcoming MegLaur trip to the UK (18 days!!!) but good food, good friends and good fun always rank high on my highlight-o-meter, so I'm not too worried ;).
We went out for a grocery/booze run today, which always gets me hyper, especially after working a full (mind-numbingly boring) day at work. My boss decided to take an impromptu holiday until the middle of August, so I'm working full-time now. It's great for the bank account, but it's been so long since I've had a routine that it's getting a little hard to get used to. Plus my sleep patterns are so out of wack that I've been having trouble getting to sleep at night. I'm going to turn into a robot dependent on coffee to function I think...oh well, there are worse things to be addicted to I guess!
Ok, before I forget (or I take a shower and the writing comes off my hand) I need to bring the following things to the cottage:
1) Blender
2) Grapefruit juice
3) Popcorn
4) Pan
Whew..ok, it's published on the internet now...I shouldn't forget it (hopefully :S).
Ok, I'm listening to the Black Eyed Peas right now and usually hip hop makes want to stick my fingers so far into my ears I can scratch my brain, but for some reason this isn't bothering me that much. When the chick sings it's really good, and then the guys come in and rap, and that's cool. There's one of the guys in the band I can't stop looking at whenever I see him. It's not that he's really hot, or really ugly, he's just really INTERESTING looking. Here, I'll go find a pic:
He's the guy on the far left. See? Isn't he cool looking? I can't really place him with a specific nationality, though I suspect he's latino (maybe native??). He just completely engages me every time I see him...weird eh?
There was one other thing I wanted to mention...but now I forget (shoulda written it down..). OH YEA! School!! Finally got my schedule worked out. Registration isn't until Aug. 10, but I know what I wanna take and when I wanna take it, so at this point it's just a matter of doing it. My schedule looks as follows:
Fall Semester:
Monday - 11:30-2:30 History of the Aztecs (cooool)
Tuesday - 11:30-2:30 Mass Communication and Music Industry
Wednesday - 8:30-11:30 The Study of Mass Media
2:30-5:30 Intro to Broadcasting
Thursday - 11:30-5:30 Journalism Lab
Fridays - OFF! Yippie!!
Winter Semester:
Monday - OFF!
Tuesday - 2:30-4:30 Roman History
Wednesday - 8:30-11:30 The Study of Mass Media
2:30-5:30 Intro to Broadcasting
Thursday - 11:30-5:30 Journalism Lab
Fridays - OFF! Yay for four-day weekend!
It sounds like I have a lot of free time, but journalism tends to take over my entire life, so I'll most likely be doing interviews, chasing stories and tracking down sources of some kind when I'm not in class. Should be fun though, and the cool thing is after this year I'll have completed all the requirement for my mass communications minor! I know it doesn't sound like much, but when most of your closest friends are GRADUATING after this year, you take what you can get ;).
Ok, that's everything. I know this post was sort of all over the map, but that's the kind of mood I'm in right now (SO DEAL!!!).
Bah, must pack...COTTAGE TOMORROW! YIPPIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Weekend 'O News
Wow do I have news!
First of all, I had a fantabulous weekend with good food, good friends, and good weather (and yes, I put those in order of preference:P). Friday night I met up with Shan, Tim and Andrew for Vietamese food at (*gasp*) somewhere other than Phu Yen! We tried a new place in my end of the city which was rather cheeseyly named 'Mrs. Lee's Vietnamese Food.' Despite the fact that their patio overlooks the picturesque Carling Ave. (free pollution with every meal!) we ate outside in the nice weather and enjoyed every yummy bite (except Tim, who enjoyed every SPICEY bite!!). After that Shan and I dashed off to YIG with some expert manuevers to outsmart the boys (umm...they're going straight. Lets turn left) and got some ice cream before crashing at Lauren's place for some good ol' fashion vegging. A quick stop at Tim Horton's (really, was there any doubt??) and then I was off to bed to get a good night's sleep before the massive cleaning spree which was to take place Saturday morning.
An open-house was scheduled for Sunday between 2-4, so Saturday morning (and much of the afternoon) was spent with either a cloth, mop, broom or vaccuum cleaner in my hand. Dad took care of all the outside cleaning, and mum and I split the inside work. Since her back is still in rough shape, I offered to vaccuum and mop the kitchen floor while she did the dusting and the bathrooms. I worked pretty steady until about 2:15, then I jumped into the shower before Lauren came to pick me up at about 3 so we could head off to Carleton Place to see Vicki. MEC back-pack/sleeping bag in hand, we were off, and we made it in record time!
Vicki's was an all-around good time. Her country home in Carleton Place is perfect for BBQs, long walks, and just lounging in the sun. We didn't make the traditional trip to the Hershey Chocolate Factory in Smith Falls, but it didn't seem to put a damper on things at all, and we wound up having a great time talking, watching movies and goofing around. When we first got there we chatted in Vicki's room and eventually migrated down to the sunroom, a lovely addition recently added to the already gorgeous home. We BBQed burgs and dogs for dinner, and invented a new type of combat sport called "Jig-Fighting." Basically this entails blasting Great Big Sea at illegal volumes and jigging with a partner. However, instead of dancing peacefully, you simply kick each other as you jig until one of you falls down screaming in agony from their various injuries. It's a lot of fun actually, despite the owwies! Road To El Dorado was the movie of choice Saturday night, as it usually is when the three of us get together, and Vicki finally made peace with the fact that of all the character's in the film, she's most like the horse, Altivo. You'd really think calling a girl a horse is an insult (and in most cases, you'd be right. FYI guys: girls don't like that), but in this movie the horse is arguably the smartest character, so it's not so bad. After the movie, pillow fights and other such slumber-party nonsense ensued, and after a giant fiasco involving Lauren and the ceiling fan ("it's gonna fall and kill us! Vicki, switch places with me!!...Ok fine, just turn it off then!") we finally nodded off to sleep.
Sunday morning was a lazy one, but after a wonderful brunch of pancakes with local maple syrup and fresh starberries, which was supplied by Vicki's mother, the three of us were infused enough for a short walk down the road and through the bush. The bugs were out in full force, as is expected in the dead of summer, so it wasn't long until we were back under the refuge of the porch. I had to change my shirt after Lauren thwarted the attack of a blood-filled mosquito. The blood wound up on my shirt instead of in my neck (which is where I would have liked it to stay!), but the mosquito got his, so I'm not complaining! A bit of salt (a homemakers trick provided my Vicki's mom!) and cold water and the stain came right out! The shirt was hung on the line to dry, and we decided to use that as inspiration and draped ourselves over Vicki's deck chairs. The sun was partly to blame for our lethargy, but I think it was mostly a mix of nice scenery and good company that put in the mood for a little R&R.
Lauren and I packed up and headed home around 3:30 that afternoon. She had dinner at her grandparents to attend to, and I had a date with Andrew to arrange. We wound up meeting downtown for a Pita Pit dinner, a nice chat and cuddle in Major's Hill Park and then a romantic dessert at Oh So Good on the market. Richard almost (literally) ran into us with a bunch of his gaming buddies, and Andrew led him to believe we were actually headed to Barefax, the strip club right next to the dessert bar. I let him have that one...mostly cuz I know it'll never happen!! We finished up our chocolate-brownie-cheesecake and my chamomile tea, and then split up so that andrew could head out for his football game, and I could get home to see how my parent's fared up at my uncle's place in Wakefield.
Alright, enough about the weekend. Here's the REAL news: We sold our house!! Yup, that's right, the crazy Chinese family that showed up at my door last week finally decided to take the place after much haggling and a polite but forceful push from my impatient father. We've decided to look for a house to rent for a year because of Dad's job instability, so be sure we'll be searching a newspaper or front lawn near you for any house (preferrably a 2-3 bedroom bungalo!) that's up for rent. HAHA! Clean your houses Ottawa...it's MY turn now!!
New Template!!
Woohoo! Check out the new template! I've been searching the net for something new for a while now...my old template was really neat and simple and classic, but I realized after a while that if a blog is something that's supposed to record your thoughts, and thus reflect your true self, then something that is neat, simple and classic is REALLY not going to work for me!! I thought this might have a better fit to it...plus the little guy in the corner moves WITH YOU AS YOU SCROLL DOWN THE SCREEN!!! How awesome is that??!!
Ok, I'm quirky, slightly evil and am amused by little things...yes I think this template will do quite nicely :D
Selling your house sucks monkey butt!!!
GAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! Why are we selling my house again?? I mean sure it's right next to a major street, it's too big for my family's needs, and you have to go up three flights of stairs to go from the laundry room to the bedrooms, but WHY have we chosen to put ourselves through the unbelievable TORTURE that is selling a house?? I ask you why, but you don't know...NO ONE DOES!
Whew...glad I got that out. I had a little bit of a "mishap" (that was for you Lauren) this morning. Here's the story:
10:00AM
I am woken up out of my peaceful slumber by a ringing doorbell, which I hate because then I have to greet strangers in my pyjamas, with messy hair, and while I'm still half asleep (and that ain't no pretty sight, lemme tell ya). When I finally open it I am faced with not one, or two, or even five people. There have got to be at least a dozen people sitting on my porch, standing in my laneway, and leaning against their cars parked out in front of my house, yamering away in what I think may be Cantonese. There's a little boy of maybe about 3 years running up and down the stairs. His parents smile politely at me, apologizing because their son was the one who rung the doorbell. I recognize them as a family who had come to see the house last week, and I start to wonder if maybe my parents have sold the house, moved out and forgot to tell me, and now these people are waiting for me to leave so that they can move in. After a moment that seems perposterous, so I continue to stare at them, searching for perhaps an explanation as to WHY they're loitering on my property. They notice my confusion and tell me that they're waiting for a real estate agent to come show them the house. This sends a surge of panic through my body because the house is NOT clean, I am NOT dressed, and, most importantly, I was NOT informed of a showing.
I smile and nod at this little tidbit of information and proceed to close and LOCK the door. I pick up the phone and call my mother. She'll know what to do. She's sensible, calm, rational, right? The conversation went as follows:
Meg: "Mum? It's me. Ummm, we have sort of a situation at the house."
Mum: "A situation? What is it?"
Meg: "There's a family of Chinese people sitting on our front step who want to see the house. What do I do?"
Mum: "WHAT?? Who are they??"
Meg: "The couple who came to see it last week, except they brought reinforcements this time..."
Mum: "OH MY GOD! Is the house clean? Where's the real estate agent?? Have you called Remax? I know, why don't YOU show the house??"
Meg: "WHAT? Are you nuts woman?"
Mum: "Megan! This could be a sale! How long have they been out there? You need to show them the house!"
Meg
*getting impatient with the crazy lady on the phone*: "Yea, sure mum, I'll go do that right now. I'll go open the door to 15 strangers and walk them through our MESSY house while wearing my PYJAMAS and NO BRA!! Yea, I can FEEL a sale coming, can't you?"
Mum: "Oh fine. I'll call Remax."
Meg: "Thank you."
Mothers...
I run upstairs and start frantically making my bed and cleaning my room. The nice lady from Remax calls about three minutes later, telling me that she has no idea why these people are at my house. Apparently they called the agency at about 9AM saying that they wanted to see the house again, and she thinks that they may have just assumed they would be able to see it right away and proceeded to my house to wait for an agent. So now I'm freaked out that people have been standing outside my house for an HOUR while I've been ASLEEP. *shudder*. She says that my mother has given them permission to see the house ASAP (CRAZY LADY!!) and that an agent is on his way over. I tell the nice lady that my mother is, in fact, insane, and the house will not be ready to show for at LEAST a half hour. She seems to empathize with the crazy-mother situation, and says she'll tell the agent to wait for a bit so that I can clean up. I thank the nice, sane lady, hang up the phone and do a whirlwind tour of the house, straightening beds, putting away clothes, folding blankets and the like. The futon is still down from the weekend, and by some miracle (and most likely adrenalyne) I get it back up by myself. Just as I finish dressing and am throwing on my contacts, the doorbell rings again, and I hear the agent wrestle with getting the key out of the lockbox and into the door. I'm still annoyed with the mix up so instead of going down and unlocking the door, I wait for him to remember the lockbox combonation and unlock the door himself. HA!
He's very courteous, saying it was a communication error, and that it's very kind of me to allow them to see the house on such short notice. I refrain from telling him that it was, in fact, NOT me who was letting them through the house, and that the woman he talked to on the phone must have been my mother, who is at Tunney's Pasture...where I can't get her...
Assuming that it's not a problem that I'm there while they look around, I grab a book and a glass of OJ and head outside to relax in the sun while an army of people trapse through my unsuspecting house. After they're gone the agent comes outside to apologize again, and to say that the family is very interested in the house, and he hopes to have an offer on the table by tonight. I tell him that's good news (it's not really...I don't want to move). He leaves and I go back inside and call my mother back to inform her that they've been and gone and that if she ever does that again the feds won't find her body, and I'll be taking the money from the sale on my way to sunny Mexico...
Frigging...gah. I need a drink.
So...much...alcohol...
Woohoo! What a weekend! It was actually a sort of extended-but-interrupted weekend with us getting Canada Day off on Thursday, then having to work Friday, and then having the weekend. It was a good one though, even work was fun!
Canada Day itself was probably the most low-key I was all weekend. I slept late, and saw my parents off to their romantic getaway to a B&B in Kingston to celebrate their anniversary which was on June 30. My plans weren't set to take place until the evening so I vegged out for a while, just enjoying the quiet solitude of a parentless house, until I decided that I could lay on my ass no more and it was time to go for a walk. Well, in the time it took me to shower and get changed (about 30 minutes) the sunny, cloudless skies had turned to a dull grey. I was just about to head out anyway, armed with an umbrella incase a light shower came along, when a very nasty thunderstorm broke out. I got a little freaked when the flashes of light and the subsequent B-O-O-Ms got really close together, so I shut off all the appliances and watched the storm from the safety of my livingroom. Not too long after it passed, Lauren, Shannon, Greg, Andrew, Nenad, Kevin, Lawrence and later Steve showed up, armed with 2-4s of beer (3 to be exact) and the like and proceeded to tuck into them while watching Star Trek movies and trying to explain to myself and Lauren (the only non-trekkies there) exactly what the hell was going on. Having had a brother and a father who were both huge fans of Star Trek:The Next Generation, I knew a few things, and was actually impressed about how much had stuck in my mind seeing as I only caught bits and pieces of the show throughout my childhood.
Anyway, we ordered pizza, and then more pizza, and when the guys (minus Greg and Lawrence who were both driving) were sufficiantly intoxicated, they headed downtown to meet Richard and check out the fireworks. The rest of us, who had taken part in the human sandwich that is Parliament Hill after the fireworks for the last four years, decided not to partake and instead went to do something rather un-Canadian: we drove down to the movie theatre and saw Spider-man 2. And as unbelievably un-patriotic as that was, it did turn out to be a really good movie! After that Lauren and I took a drive out to K-town to drop Shannon off, and then headed home with hopes of getting a decent night's sleep before work the next day.
Friday wound up being surprisingly busy at the office, especially since I was one of about 6 people on the entire floor. Most people took the Friday off as part of the long weekend, but we students only get paid for a stat holiday if we work the day before and after, so there I was busily typing away at my computer first thing Friday morning. My boss let me off an hour early after I mentioned something about the building being so empty I could shout obsenities up and down the halls of the Assistant Deputy Minister's office and most likely not get fired. It was a subtle but effective approach, I think:D.
The REAL partying began after work. Seeing as my house was still empty (my parents weren't due home until Sunday) and we didn't get to party on Canada-Day because we all had to work the next day, I invited everyone back over to my place to drink their PANTS off. Everyone from Canada-Day was back (plus Richard and minus Kevin and Steve who both had birthday parties to attend). The guys brought another 2-4 over to replace the one they'd drank the day before (the other 2 they'd left at my place), and Lauren, Shannon and I made a pitstop at the LCBO down my street to get some girly drinks so that we could take a break from all the beer. Lawrence is a hard-liquor man, so he came armed with a bottle of Bacardi Limon and a shot glass. Yup...that's Lawrence all right. We started getting into it around 8, and drank the night away until almost 3:30AM. Most of it was spent either on the couch watching The Rock (the Sean Connery movie, not the wrestler), on my patio smoking cigars, or in my hottub getting insanely hammered. The guys were absolutely hilarious, and between Lawrence's antics and non-sensical ramblings, Nenad trying to swim on my hardwood floor, and Greg electing to take a piss in the hedges instead of the house, we were constantly in stitches.
Everyone found either a couch, a futon or a bed and crashed after the booze started to run out. Nenad waited until 3 in the morning to remember that he had to leave my house by 6:30AM to drive Richard to work and then head out to the 1000 Islands to meet up with his family. I have a feeling the two of them were still slightly intoxicated when they left, but they both made it in one piece, so I heard. The rest of us slept until about 10 and then I whipped up a batch of blueberry pancakes to soak up the remaining alcohol in our stomachs. I must say, after 5 Woody's, 2 Smirnoff Black-Ice, one oversized can of Keith's and another bottle of beer, I was fairly hungover, and after eveyone helped with the clean-up and left, I took to the couch with a large bottle of water and the extended edition of Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. I don't think I moved for the entire 4 hours with the exception of changing the disks and a trip or two to the can.
Well, 5 o'clock rolled around, and I decided it was probably time to get dressed as we were heading out to party YET AGAIN at Kevin's place for a BBQ. I'd promised him I'd come no matter how hungover I was, and I was impressed at how good a long shower and a short nap wound up being for the hang-over. Greg picked up Lauren, Lawrence and myself and we headed out to K-town to see Kevin and his buddies. He and Steve tought me and Lauren how to play snooker, which was cool, and the two of us wound up not being too bad for a first try. We left Kevin's early (around 11:30) because the four of us were falling asleep, and I hit the sac as soon as I found my way through the door. I didn't drink at Kevin's, having had my fill on Friday night, so there was no hangover to deal with this morning. I wound up having a relaxing day reading and walking in the sun before my parents got home to tell me all about their romantic weekend away.
So I guess it's back to reality tomorrow. I'm going back to half-days this week because the girl I was replacing is back from her vacation. It sucks from a $$ stand-point, but I still get to enjoy the sun, so it's cool. I'm counting the days until Lauren and I head off to the UK, but I'm trying not to wish the summer away. Warm sunshine and weekends like this last one are definitely not something I want to rush through, not matter what's on the other side!
Cheers to friends. G'night:).
