I’m very excited for tomorrow.  We’re having a leaving party at our favourite karaoke place in Chinatown and I have some friends coming in from out of town, which I’m so happy about.  These two girls who were my very good friends when I loved back here from Random European Country, and who both left (one to teach English in Japan and the other to do her masters somewhere far away) the same summer and it made me very sad.  

(In fact, this is probably the reason why I stayed with EmoEx after that summer. I felt very alone after my two best friends left and I don’t think I could handle being MORE alone.)

I think I might cry at this leaving shindig.  So many awesome friends will be there and unless they come to visit, it will be the last time I see many of them.

Okay, I’m getting teary-eyed just writing about this.  Gawd, I’m such a baby.

I’m finally back at work after a weekend of delayed flights and spending too much money at the airport.  I’m exhausted but happy I got to see my dad accomplish his dream (even though I missed the whole ceremony because I was drinking my eighth green tea latte in Toronto’s Pearson Airport, praying to whatever God would listen to please let me be one of the people on standby that was picked to get on the plane).

It went something like this;

My flight out to Toronto on Friday was obscenly early. at 5 a.m. I think. Urgh.  Anyway, I got to Toronto fine.  Tired, but fine. My flight from Toronto to Thunder Bay was a little later in the morning so I had time to dawdle. I finished reading Three Day Road, and then got a Starbucks latte to take on the plane with me.  The flight takes off great, and we get to land and there is a lot of fog. So much fog that after three attempted landings, the flight turns around and heads bck to Toronto.

Okay, so that sucked.

Back in Toronto I’m told that we have all been re-booked on a flight at 2:40 p.m.  That’s irritating, but I’m still getting there in the end. So I buy another book and settle down with another latte. 

About 20 minutes before I’m supposed to board the plane I check the information board on my way to the bathroom and it says my flight is cancelled. Great.  I make my way to the Air Canada desk and they tell me it’s because of weather and that the earliest available flight out is the next day, at 6 p.m. 

I ask if they’ll pay for a hotel and they say no.  Great. What are my options?  I ask if they’ll fly me back home now, and then back tomorrow to catch this flight. They say no.

I start calling people I know in Toronto to beg to crash on someone’s sofa. The last call I make (to a friend I haven’t seen in years) is the only one home.  And actually, it was great cause she picked me up at the airport and dropped me off the next day early because I wanted to put myself on standby for earlier flights.

I wait all day at the airport and don’t get on any flights.  Meanwhile, I finished another book (The Other Boleyn Girl), consume many more lattes, spend WAY too much money at Lush and get a pedicure because I’m just so damn irritated.  I finally get there very late on Saturday night and even though I missed all the festivities, it was great to my dad and step-mom. 

Coming back on Monday, my flight was delayed again, but just by a couple hours.

The cable guys came when he was supposed to (finally!) and the BF and I went out to dinner at a friend’s house.

I’m finding work impossible today; even though everything seems to be coming together really nicely. (Tenants found for the house, insurance booked, flights confirmed, visas submitted, immunizations underway etc.)  I just can’t be bothered to do anything right now, to be honest. 

Maybe it’s because I gained five pounds over the last four days and I feel like an absolute whale of a person.  Or maybe I’m just still damn exhausted from all the va et vien from the weekend. 

Time to start jogging off those lattes, I think.

I’m back at work after a four-day weekend and I’m having trouble getting into the groove of things.  Yesterday was Canada Day and so a public holiday, and Monday I was told not to come into work because I should use up my accumulated sick leave before leaving.

Leaving date is confirmed for August 14th.  Yes, that is only 45 days away.

Looking at my calendar, only about five of those days are free; although it’s not all craziness. This weekend BF and I (along with some close friends) are going canoe camping (something that I find incredibly relaxing and fun). Next weekend I’m flying out to Thunder Bay to see my dad come in to Fort William after canoeing across Canada. Yup, you read that correctly.  He left from British Columbia on Mother’s Day (June 16th here) and he arrives in Ontario on July 12th.  I’m really proud of my dad for doing something like this because it’s been his dream to canoe across Canada his whole life.  I guess it’s inspiring to me that at 56, he’s still following his dreams.

On Monday, a cable guy was supposed to come over and disconnect the cable seeing as we’re not going to be home much anyway in the coming weeks. He was supposed to be there between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m.  We left the house for a dinner party at 8:15 p.m. and he still hadn’t shown up. I called today to set up a new appointment and the young kid at the call centre tells me that there’s a note on the account saying that we weren’t home and that we missed the appointment.  Unless the guy showed up at 8:30 p.m. he wasn’t there at all and on top of that, there was no “Missed Appointment” card at the door when we came back later in the evening.  So I’m trying to reschedule the appointment and the kid tells me all he has is appointments during the day. Well, excuse me but I’m not taking time off work for the stupid cable man.  To get my hair done, yes.  Priorities, people! 

Finally we settle on on a date late in the month. “Oh, by the way, I hope I won’t be charged for cable during that time. I mean, it’s not my fault that your cable man didn’t show up when he was supposed to.”

He put me on hold, probably to write a note on my account saying what a bitch I am, and then comes back on the line, “Of course not. I’ve updated your account.  If you get charged, just call us back and we’ll credit your account.”

Great. I can foresee a big mess coming. I know they’ll charge me and I’ll have to call and spend half a day on the phone trying to sort it out.  So frustrating.

The only thing that’s keeping me going right now is the three-week layover in Thailand we booked for ourselves before going to Random Asian Country.  Three weeks of beaches, good food, and BF.  Absolute heaven.

This last weekend went by in a haze of hot, humid and rainy weather.  A party on Saturday night, preceded by dinner and a movie (Sex and the City) with Bf and friends was pleasant. Farmer’s market on Sunday morning equally so.  Spending Sunday afternoon curled up on the sofa reading was just what I needed before what’s sure to be a hectic week ahead.

(Senior Correspondence person is away for the week – sick, or sick of her job more like – and so I am ‘acting’ in her place.)

This morning I’ve spent in contemplation. For one thing, why do I find this job so insanely easy? I have double the work and still I’m here twiddling thumbs. For another, why can’t I stop biting my nails? Mysteries of the universe, I tell you.

So, in order to alleviate the boredom a little, I’ve been making a list.  Not just any list, though.  A list of things I want to do when I move to Random Asian Country later this summer.  After consulting numerous resources on the phenomenon of becoming a trailing spouse, I’ve discovered this bit of advice in almost all of them:  Making a list is meant to help me find some sort of purpose once I’m out there. Apparently.

So far,  I have:

1. Become a kung fu master (Okay, I know this is silly but wouldn’t it be great?).

2. Take dragonboat racing lessons.

(Both of the above are to help me in the bigger goal of losing 15 lbs.)

3. Take cooking classes.

4. Take some sort of landscaping class (just something that’s always interested me).

That’s it so far.  It’s comforting to know that if one day I’m bored of sitting in my skyscraper home in a huge, polluted city, I’ll be able to look at a list and have that irrisistable urge to get something done in order to cross it off my list.

Over the weekend, the BF and I (and two very, very good friends):

-Painted the kitchen walls a fetching blue/grey/silver colour called Sterling (it’s the same colour we have the living/dinning room.

-Took all the cabinets off and washed them (seems easy, but it was pretty gross because really, how often do people remove their kitchen cabinets to clean them?)

-Primed the cabinets and then put two coats of paint on them (we have lots of cabinet doors – 30 to be exact).

-Primed, painted (2 coats) and sealed (2 coats) the tiles on the backsplash (they were an ugly blue and are now a pretty dark red).

-Ripped up the baseboards and put down a new tile floor (gone is the blue and white check lino!).

-Attached new knobs and handles to the cabinet doors and then re-attached them onto the hinges (this is much, much harder than it sounds).

-Painted (total of 4 coats) an old sideboard I got at the Salvation Army and attached some legs onto it.

Tonight we must:

-Attach two floating shelves to the wall.

-Put up a new curtain rod and some curtains.

-Put down new baseboards.

Oh, and we have a dinner party to go to.

So this weekend was very good (because it was 25 celcius and sunny and gorgeous) and bad (because I tried on my summer clothes from last year and THEY DON’T FIT because obviously I’ve turned into a fat cow over the winter).

So, I either have to do WAY more exercise, or really watch my eating habits to lose some pounds. I know this is partly because I’ve picked up a very bad habit over the last month.  Pretty much every day when I get home, I eat a bag of BBQ chips doused (okay, drenched) in vinegar.  I know it sounds gross, and it is.  I can’t even imagine the calories that are in a whole bag of chips…   So, I know it’s something I have to give up because more exercise is not something I’m willing to do.

The highlight of the weekend was when Bf and I cleared out the garden on Sunday and then when it was done, we sipped beers in the hot sunshine, all dusty and dirty but satisfied that we had accomplished something so visible.  It really was a great moment.

No news in the events of Little Family.  LM is no longer talking to me because I questioned some of the inconsistencies in her story. She said something like, “Well it’s obvious who’s side you’re on.”  I told her I wasn’t picking sides, but that some of what she was saying either a) doesn’t make sense and/or b) is not the same thing as what she’s telling other people. She hung up on me and hasn’t called me back.  My heart goes out to the kid

Contrary to what I said in my last post, I didn’t have a crap time the whole time I was in Big City. Friday night we went out and danced our little hearts out and I had a great time.  Saturday was spent watching DVDs and eating pizza to recover from wicked hangovers before venturing out for New GF’s birthday celebration. And Sunday was spent at dim sum and in the pub for pre-game drinks before going to a basketball game.

I just think the whole thing was made worse by the fact that we had to sleep on the floor as the BF’s BFF didn’t have a functioning air mattress. Oh, and the fact thats someone stole $200 from me.

We had to get up on Monday at 5 a.m. for our flights back to Little City and so Monday was a hard day. I had to keep busy all day for fear of falling asleep at my desk.  I was even too tired to unpack last night, and TOO TIRED TO CLEAN.  Crazy, I tell you!

The BF and I are even boycotting our weekly yoga tonight because we’re still too tired to do much of anything. 

On another, more interesting note, Loud Girl sent me a link to this article today –> I Want Babies. Not quite sure what to make of it…

What would you do if you and your BF went to a birthday party for the very new GF of your BF’s best friend. BEST FRIEND IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD. And at this party, which is at her apartment where there are maybe 15 people, all the money disappears from your wallet ($200 CAD) which was safely in your purse and on the bed with all the coats, and that you only discover this the next morning when you go to pay for your Grande Soy Latte and find your wallet …. empty.

I ask you, what would YOU do?

What I did was get BF to call his BEST FRIEND IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD and ask if they had by chance, found a nice chunk of change in the bedroom. He answers no.

BF is reluctant to push the matter further with his friend because he doesn’t want to put his friend in an awkward situation with his new gf (who he is head over heels for).

Would you also be somewhat appaled that she didn’t apologized to me at all for what happened and carried on all day on Sunday as if nothing had happened?  Because I am.

I would like to think if this happened at my house, that I would be mortified and that I would send out a pretty terse email to the people at the party to the effect of, “This is my address. Send me the money. If I ever find out who you are we are no longer friend. You are a despicable person.”

Should I push the BF to contact his friend again and ask if something has come up? Something like a wad of $20 bills?

I just don’t know how to handle this…

Oh, and I had a pretty terrible trip.

This last weekend was busy and confusing.  I might do this in point form because I’m not feeling well enough to write out full paragraphs.

• Friday night BF went out with The Boys and came back at a resonable hour (3 a.m.). 
• I woke up early Saturday morning, itching to clean, but couldn’t because there was someone passed out on the sofa in the TV room. Played around with my new laptop instead (why is it that laptops come with so much junk on them these days??).
• Woke up BF at noon and we went out for dim sum.
• Forced the BF to help me clean house because it was pretty dirty and disgusting.
• BF mentions while we’re cleaning that several of his friends have been questioning our relationship, saying that I’m not social enough for him. I respond by trying to explain it’s not a matter of not being social, it’s a matter of me having issues with HIS behavior when he’s drunk and my desire to NOT be around him when he’s drunk.  He changes the subject and we don’t talk about it again.
• BF goes out to a housewarming on Saturday night and I stay in because I’m feeling introspective and sad at the thought of his friends not liking me.
• BF gets home at 1 a.m.
• On Sunday we do all sorts of chores. Bring back cases of beer to get refunds, drop off old clothes at the Salvation Army, get groceries.  We take a long walk in the afternoon because the weather is gorgeous. BF complains that he feels he wasted his weekend doing chores and cleaning.
• We have people over for dinner on Sunday and as usual, we are hosting superstars. Go to bed at around midnight and for some reason, can’t sleep all night and am sore and knackered today.

Why do I feel like crying?

Bf and I were lying in bed on Friday morning, looking at each other and wondering who was going to call in sick first. We knew it was one of those We Aren’t Sick But We Don’t Want To Go Into Work Days.  We have them every once in a while; a double sick day where all we do is sleep and play around the house in our PJs.

So we called in sick and slept until 11 a.m., then went out for lunch and to a movie, then called up some friends and organized a night out that was very fun.  Not so fun waking up at 11 a.m. on Saturday for dim sum when you only went to bed at 6 a.m. – but nothing cures a hangover like BBQ pork and shrimp dumplings.

We spent the rest of Saturday watching movies (American Gangster, Timeline, and Season 2 of Battlestar Galactica). And we ordered pizza.

Sunday was one of those days where I woke up frustrated because the house was such a mess and took it out on the BF for most of the day.  I got even more grumpy when he insisted we take advantage of the beautiful sunny day to go skating.  I mean, I’m all for doing sport things SOMETIMES, but I was just so out of sorts because of the mess that I complained the whole time.  Kudos to him for putting up with my whinny ass all day.  We ended up not skating very much because the ice wasn’t in good shape and actually quite slushy. 

I made a very yummy supper for us (duck with a blueberry port reduction, and rapini with garlic and mushrooms) and then left a big huge mess in the kitchen that is haunting me as I write this.  I hate leaving the kitchen all messy from a meal, it’s like it ruins my whole day before it even starts.  And it’s not even like I have time to clean it because right after work we’re going to a Korean restaurant for dinner, followed by a movie with friends.

Social calendar too busy… makes me stressed…