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SexyBack

Last night my sister, Jaime, and I went to the Justin Timberlake concert at the ACC. My sister, Lindsay, and her friend, Leslie, were also there, but we weren't sitting together (we did see them briefly just as we were passing security). Jaime and I were a little late (me coming from Niagara Falls, then having to change, accident on the Gardiner, find parking, dealing with someone at the ACC that didn't know where are seats were).

Pink was the opening act. We missed her first song (we think) and she was amazing. She is way tinier than I thought she was. She looked great. But, the sound was bad. I had forgotten how bad the ACC sound is. The first concert I saw there was Alanis Morrisette and all I heard was the band. It has gotten a little better, but I still find it hard to hear the vocals. Now, Simon and Garfunkel were different, probably because they don't have that much of a band. Bob Dylan? Well, that could go either way :)

During her set, Pink actually did some acrobatics. It was wicked. If you have ever seen the performers that wrap themselves in fabric and flip themselves around over the stage, that is what Pink was doing. Not her dancers (well, one of her dancers was also doing some of the acrobatics), but actually Pink. It was tres cool. I would definitely go see her again.

Justin was damn good. He is just so sexy. He sounded good (well, as good as he could have with the horrible ACC acoustics), he looked amazing in his black suit, and damn can he dance. I normally go to rock concerts, this is probably only my fourth pop concert (Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, New Kids on the Block). I was very impressed. the stage was in the round and they had an excellent set up. Timbaland did a 20 minute set in the middle of the show and it was very good. I'm not sure I've paid so much for a concert ticket before, but it was definitely worth it. The show was over 3 hours long and I couldn't talk the next morning because my throat was too sore from all the screaming.

Check out the review of the show: http://www.thestar.com/article/176593

The States

So, I ended up in the states this morning. Apparently I was really tired. I knew that I was falling asleep while driving, but I didn't realize that it would lead to me missing my exit. I went over the bridge, through US customs where they let me turn around and then had to explain to Canadian customs that I was really only over in the states for a total of 30 seconds.

Needless to say, I was late for work today. Not by much, though.

Out of the Blue

I almost fell out of my chair while checking my mail today. An email from Liz (and Michelle). They hadn't fallen off the face of the earth, or lost my email address, or decided I was evil incarnate (well, I don't actually know about that one).

Liz has once again come up with an amazing trip idea. For my last trip with Liz and Michelle you would have to go back to the very first blog entry to see my trip to Newfoundland. It was awesome.

Well this time they have their sights set on Nunavut. How cool is that? So, of course, I want to go. One small problem. They leave on the day of my brother's wedding. I'm not speaking with my brother right now, but that doesn't mean I don't want to be at his wedding. It does mean that I looked into options of flying out of London first thing in the morning after the wedding.

I guess this means I need to start tightening that proverbial belt and save some money. This will not be a cheap trip, but it will be a once in a lifetime experience. Wish me luck. I can not wait to add a Nunavut postcard to my collection.

Flooring

My dad was here today for dinner and we headed out to look at flooring. He is going to help me install laminate flooring so that I can finally get rid of the hideous pink carpeting (woo hoo)! We actually bought half of it (it was on sale, but they didn't have enough so Dad is picking up the rest next week at another home depot). I am so excited. I can not wait until the carpet is gone. I will definitely have a 'so long to the pink carpet' party when we are done. I think I may keep one small scrap so we can burn it at the party.

While he was here, Dad also helped hang some new paintings for me. My friend Dorie is super creative and did some painting for me. Aren't they beautiful? (The picture is against my red wall.)

Cell Portability

I'm so excited. On March 7, 2007 cell phone numbers become portable. This means I can keep my cell number, but get rid of Bell. So, I'm looking at Rogers. Anyone else have Rogers for cell service? Good / Bad? Any details would be great.

Hockey

Well, it has been awhile since I mentioned my hockey team. As always I'm having a great time playing, and as always our team is in last place. I don't know what it is about our team, but we are always in last place during the season and then we do well during playoffs (let's hope that is the case again this season). But, even though we haven't won a game yet (we did tie one), we love being out there and we aren't one of those teams that gets angry or discouraged. There are teams that we play against that when they are beating us 4-0 they start getting really aggresive. I don't understand that. Do they want us to get bitchy because we are losing? It just doesn't happen. It's very weird.

I did have a good game last night. Two shots on net (we are pretty happy when we play in their end, so a shot on net is a very big deal) and my couch was really impressed with my back checking in our end. I seem to finally be getting the idea of this game (it's about time).

This weekend I also watched a couple of movies. I watched Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock with Ingrid Bergman and Carey Grant), it was okay. Not one of my favourite Hitchcock movies. I also watched Out of Africa. This movie so makes me want to go to Africa on safari. It was absolutely beautiful. Meryl Streep was amazing; and Robert Redford was damn good looking as always.

On Saturday night, my friend Dorie made an amazing stir fry dinner and we played a couple games of Sex and the City trivia. I was finally able to help her with setting up her wireless router for her laptop and she completed some paintings that she had done for me (I can't wait to post a picture - they are awesome).

That's about it for me. This week I am off to see Justin Timberlake with two of my sisters. I'm so excited, he is just damn fine.

Parking

Well, my travel to Niagara Falls just became much longer. I have to relinquish my parking pass. This means taking a shuttle to work. This always adds so much time to the morning / evening. You have to make sure you plan / time everything just right.

I'm so annoyed. I had this at Clarica as well and it sucked.

Sisters

This past weekend I was able to get together with two of my three sisters. Unfortunately, Rach was not able to join us. Her guy (current or ex, I'm never sure), Steve, had to have back surgery so she has been run pretty ragged taking care of him. I'm hoping that the recovery is going well.

Lindsay, Jaime and their respective others, Dave and Sami, and I met up for dinner and a night of playing pool down on the Lakeshore. We have decided to try and get together every month. There was too long there when I didn't get to see them at all. As always I was pretty inconsistent with my pool playing. I made some great shots and really blew it on others. But, either way I had so much fun and can't wait to do it again. We are thinking bowling or the cottage (for snowboarding and skating) next. I'm hopeful that we can go to the cottage. I really want to get Jaime out on the slopes. She says no way. But, that's kind of how Lindsay felt the first time and now she loves it. Either way, it should be fun.

Happy Birthday Kitties

Today the kitties are 6 years old. I thought they were five, but I was wrong. As always Jason (not my brother) sent out an email to remind everyone of the bday celebrations. Six! Wow, how time flies.


Placenta Head is just as bad as ever. He really likes to scratch my new couch (which means it is still covered in the plastic it was delivered in to keep him off of it). Bad kitty. But, he is such a suck and so cute that I forget how bad he is (until he jumps on my head at 2:30am).



Noke (Princess Mononoke) is also becoming very cuddly in her old age. She isn't near as scared as she used to be. But, she still does hide on occassion (especially when there are children around).



I meant to go out and buy them treats today, but I forgot (to buy gifts, not about the birthday).



So, once again, Happy 6th Birthday to my babies!

The Falls

So, I finally made it outside to see the Falls. Yes, I've worked here for over a month and it took me that long to make it outside.

I'm stuck in the basement all day and by the time I leave I just want to get home.

The day I was able to go out and see them was after the ice storm. It was so pretty.

Then I caught the flu. Stupid flu. Of course, the flu did not stop me from hanging out in Christi's hot tub.

Snow!!

Yay, I love snow. It is so pretty outside. It's funny how the weather can affect your mood. I have this perma grin on my face today because there is snow outside. Even with the pain in my stupid ovary I can't help but smile when there is snow outside. This global warming thing better end (all of you stop destroying the environment) so that we can go back to our normal seasons.

Have fun with the snow!

Ovaries suck

The ongoing saga of my crappy ovaries continues. On Thursday I went to work and at about 10am the pain became unbearable. It appears that I am going to be in extreme pain like this every month. Personally, I wish they would just take the cyst out. Instead, my doctor has put me on the pill. She thinks that will shrink the cyst and the pain should subside. I really hope she's right. I've been hanging out on my couch for two days trying to sleep. Even the percocet wouldn't put me to sleep. When I stepped in the fire and had 3rd degree burns on my feet, I thought that was the worst pain; then when I ripped my cornea and it felt like a knife was being stabbed in my eye, I thought that was the worst pain; now I'm not so sure. I think the cornea was the worst, but this was definitely up there.

Last night, I had dinner with Mohsen, Anna and Lisa. It was really nice to see them and dinner was excellent, but I had to leave early due to this stupid ovary.

On a happier note I finally started reading again. For awhile there I really wasn't in the mood to read, which is weird for me. I've only read one book in the past couple of months and it wasn't that good of a book: The Murder Book by Jonathan Kellerman. Currently, I'm reading Predator by Patricia Cornwell. Both books are part of series that I've been reading for years. Predator really isn't very good either. But, next I'm planning to read the new Guy Gavriel Kay and I can't wait. Kay, Moore and King all have new books out this season. So, it should be a good time for reading. I have a ton of books waiting for me.

On the movie front I've watched a bunch of movies including 'Dial M for Murder' and 'Suddenly, Last Summer'. They were okay. 'Suddenly, Last Summer' wasn't near as shocking as I expected it to be. The whole build up is to the end when Elizabeth Taylor explains how Sebastian dies. Really it wasn't that good of a build up. I also watched 'Sahara', which was actually fun; and 'Pieces of April' with Katie Holmes, it was pretty good, but boy was her mom a bitch.

Happy New Year - Well not really

I am so happy to start a new year, 2006 was not my best year and I am hopeful that 2007 will be much better.

Right now, I'm extremely upset with my brother. I don't remember being this angry with him since I was in high school. I know I told some of you that I had this special surprise gift thing I was going to do and would let you all know how to join in, but that just isn't going to happen. I don't think he would have appreciated it anyway.

On to a different topic, my Great Aunt Alma (the picture is of her and her brother Glenn) passed away a couple of days ago. She was one of my mom's favourite people in the world and she will be greatly missed. My cousin Kim was married just after my mom died and as a surprise my aunt had Alma fly in for the wedding. Well, it was a bit too much of a shock for me. I burst into tears (personally, I thought Jason and I should have been told ahead of time, not that Jason needed the heads up, but I certainly did) she reminded me so much of my mom and I just didn't handle the surprise of finally seeing her after my mom's death very well. The wedding itself was pretty hard for me because my mom would have been so happy and so involved. One of my first Christmas memories is of being in Plymouth, Massachusetts when I was probably four years old. We went on a train Christmas Eve and the lights with the snow were so beautiful. My grammy, mom and Alma were there and that was the last time they were all together (my grammy, Mom's grandmother who raised her, died the next year when my mom was 25; I lost my mom when I was 24, if only I had of known how hard that must have been for mom).

The last time I saw Alma was when I was in California on business. I flew earlier than I needed to so that I could spend the weekend in San Diego with Alma. This was another trip where my luggage went missing. It really messed up the amount of time I was able to spend with her because alot of the time was spent at the airport and fighting on the phone with United. But, we did have a wonderful visit and even went to Tijuana (my only trip to Mexico, so far) and went to the beach (where I was stung by a jellyfish). We talked alot about my mom, which was really great. I always wanted to go back to see her; but the chance was never there. Hopefully, I will get to visit with her in my dreams like I do with mom (maybe we will all go shopping together, as that is normally what mom and I do when I dream). It's times like these that I want to believe that we do go to a better place and be with our loved ones. I know that my aunt Lynda (on Dad's side) believes that my grandpa looked after my mom when she died and now maybe my mom has Alma as well to keep her company.

This is a picture of Alma and I in Tijuana in June of 2001:

On a happier note, as with most weddings and funerals (not that there is going to be a funeral) I did get a chance to speak with family that I haven't talked to in a very long time. My cousin Nicole called to let me know. Nicole and I used to be very close, but we haven't seen each other very often in recent years (I did get to see her and my other cousins back in August, and that was awesome). Along with this news she reported that her mom (my cousin Chris) broke her wrist after falling off of a horse in Jamaica a couple of days ago and was going in for surgery. I then called my mom's sister, Deanie, to see how she was doing with everything. Found out that she had just gotten out of the hospital from a burst appendix and that my cousin Kim was out of commission due to knee surgery. I then called my mom's brother, Ian, who I haven't seen or talked to in probably ten years (my mom seemed to be 'the glue' and when she passed away it really did a number on this family). But, he sounded exactly the same and we had an awesome 1 1/2 hour conversation. He, unfortunately, is suffering from really bad arthritis in his knees (Jason and I better watch out, since we have such bad knees already). During our talk, I found out that mom's side of the family has even more Scottish ancestry than my dad's. This we never knew. We thought it was only Grandma that had that Scottish blood. But, my grampy (Stanley) had family from Scotland as well. My dad, is named Robert Bruce (after Robert the Bruce) and I found out that my great grandfather's family fought alongside Robert the Bruce. We can trace our ancestry back to James the 1st of Scotland. Unfortunately, we also have relatives that fought against Bonnie Prince Charlie. My uncle believes that the family has a curse due to switching sides.

My aunt Alma's daughter Lynn is hoping to have a service sometime this year when she can get back to New Brunswick. I will then meet her there and take my mom's ashes as well to be scattered on Grammy's grave as she would have wanted it. That way the three of them will be together again. Now, I wasn't really paying attention, but I think my Uncle Ian may have also indicated that my grandfather (Gerald) is no longer with us. As I said, our family really doesn't keep in touch. I would hate to think that no one contacted Jason or I to let us know. I know that we were not close to Gerald and didn't really know him, but he's still family. My mom, her sister, and brother were raised by their grandparents, so Gerald was really not a part of our lives. But, I do know that for years my mother kept a mug that she had bought him for Christmas in the hopes that one day he would show up and she could give it to him, but he never did. The only time I ever remember seeing Gerald was at my mother's funeral.

Well, that is all my sad news for today. It's been a pretty emotional couple of days, with much crying.