Dust is part of the natural order of things...

I've lived alone for a long time now. I've essentially come to the conclusion that I'm now far too eccentric to handle any company aside from the occasional visitor.

Or perhaps I just resent the inevitable snide comments about my housekeeping abilities.
I cherish my dust bunnies, several of them have names. I throw little showers when new baby dust bunnies are born.

Anyhow, I have this friend who seems to love being a student. He's been in and out of school for as long as I've known him. His most recent degree resulted in him being at McGill for the first time this year. However it is now practically summer and he's found himself homeless.

Since I haven't had a victim/roommate in a while I offered to put him up for the summer rent-free. All he has to do is pay for his own food. I've never understood roommate-ships that share food. Why would I allow someone else to eat my caramel Haagen Daaz? I lived with a chocoholic once - every time I went to bake cookies I discovered that he had eaten all my chocolate chips in a midnight craving. (He also like to hide the phone bills on me because he frequently made 1-900 calls, but that's a story for another time).

I hope this one doesn't mind what a complete and utter girly girl I am. His room is where I store my plethora of scrapbooking supplies and magazines, as well as the pink plaque declaring me a "Princess" (in case anyone dared express doubt on the matter).

He will also have to share the room with Daphne, my Groovy girl. Daphne and I tried sharing a bedroom once - her snoring is absolutely intolerable.

I am looking forward to living with someone for the summer - it should result in lots of free dinners and manual labour.

He has promised to attempt to be relatively neat. I promised to do the same.

He's also begun to reconcile with the girl that he left here last summer. He's promised that all conjugal visits will be very quiet. I think he was concerned when I warned him that a jealous roommate is one that will suddenly start charging him rent and utilities. ( *I feel compelled to qualify this- I'd be jealous of the fact that he's getting sex and I'm not- not jealous of him and another girl)

My only concern is the "experiment" that he initiated last year. Apparently his goal was to make me so angry that it came around the other side and I ended up being laughing and happy again. Not a fun few months. Let's hope that he doesn't try that one again - it REALLY didn't work.

This is my last week of solitude for a while- I should train myself to start walking around the condo fully dressed again!

The Princess and the Spider

I found a spider on my ceiling today. Unfortunately I am short.

The spider was spotted in my vanity area. Perhaps it is a girl spider. From now on we will call her Charlotte. I didn't mean to take away her primping time- clearly doing nails on 8 legs must be time consuming. However, I have very strict rules about uninvited guests- especially when I suspect they might be using my make-up. Very unhygienic.

Now for all I know Charlotte has lived here longer than I have - however since (to my knowledge) she's never contributed to my mortgage payments, I felt comfortable asking her to leave.

However I also have a rule about murdering uninvited guests. I've never done it before, and it seems a bit harsh. After all, I don't use really expensive make-up...
So I was hoping to just calmly escort her out the door, and explain to her why it was that she had to vacate the premises.

She seemed reluctant to leave.

I finally gave up trying to talk her down from the ceiling- so I resorted to the next logical step: throwing things. First I tried a rubber elastic. Charlotte was unfazed. Then I tried a bracelet- but she simply scooted over. Then I got a brilliant idea: water! So I threw 2 glasses of water at her. Charlotte had the good sense to get out of the way. Unfortunately I did not.

It amazing how all sense of pacifism leaves you when you suddenly find yourself dripping wet. So, I went for my old stand-by. The vacuum. I had been reluctant to take this measure- mostly because I've had it pointed out to me that Charlotte could simply crawl out again. So I promise, if she manages to escape, and weaves a lovely web that says "Some Princess" in the middle I will find a way for us to co-exist peacefully.

Chakra-lee, Chakra-laa...

As promised, I am following up on my amazing spa day. I have to say, I had a pretty good idea of how wonderful it would be, but I must give a shout out to the fine staff and designers of the Riverstone Spa. It was even more amazing than anticipated, and exactly what I needed.

The second you walk in to the reception area, your shoes and coat are taken, you're given slippers and told about beverages, comfy chairs and fireplaces to come...

And the change room! So lovely! It smelled wonderful, had products and showers, and plush robes and samples to use and steal. :) (For the record we did NOT steal a robe - neither of us had bags big enough!)

The you're led out to the "Quiet zone" with food and tea and a wall with water flowing down, and you can order food and wine...

We didn't even have time to get impatient before our hotstone masseuses and chakra balancers arrived...we chose our crystals (mine represented the heart, solar plexus and throat - something to do with self-esteem, communication and some other stuff which is escaping me right now...)

If you've never had a hot stone massage before- go get one. Right now. Me and this blog will wait for you to get back...SO amazing...

Then we moved on to the pedicures, where we had lunch served to us, and watched some other women go pretty hard at it with the wine. Then my person had a facial while I got my manicure.

"French" mani & pedi for me - why not spend the extra while I'm there? Cause I'm made of money right?

Then another relaxing half hour by the fireplace and we were ready to go. I honestly didn't expect to get so much out of that day. I wanted to reward myself for a ridiculously long, crazy, over-worked few months, but it was so much more than that. I think I'm going to petition the Canadian government for mandatory spa days for all employees. I actually feel like I can handle the next month or so until I'm able to take a holiday...(Maybe there's even something more to my newly balanced chakras than I realized...)

Anyhoo- thank you Rivestone Spa. And special thanks to my person for coming along with me yesterday.

I am SOOO relaxed and zen now...

Rock the Chakra!

This Saturday my person and I are spending a lovely girly day at the spa.

(For those of you who don't watch Grey's Anatomy- your "person" is the one whose name you write down when you're filling out forms and they ask "who should we call in case of...." or perhaps the person you call when you get hauled off to the drunk-tank...for those of you who are dying to meet my person, as you all should be, feel free to check out my "Stop the Insanity" link)

Anyhoo...we have a fabulous full day planned. Manicures, facials, massages, pedicures, food and sitting around in robes just generally feeling pampered.

I've worked a LOT of overtime in the past few months, and have essentially turned into a quivering pile of goo (or "stress package" as one of my co-workers has lovingly nicknamed me). So, I took this year's bonus and instead of responsibly investing it into an RRSP or fixing my car, or upgrading my computer, I decided that I should spend it on my me and my person's emotional well-being. There perhaps won't be any tangible evidence of it being money well-spent, but there will be many fond memories, and less goo when I go back to work on Monday.

Aside from all the pampering that I've already listed, the thing that I'm most curious about is the part of the day that we booked completely on a whim. One thing on the spa list was "Chakra Balancing." We have no idea what that means, but we're both convinced that we absolutely need it. I've never balanced my chakras before, so it stands to reason that they probably need it.

I even tried asking the girl that I booked all our other services with what it meant. She had no idea.

I hope it doesn't involve anything too strenuous...

If anyone has any idea what it might entail, feel free to give us the heads up! Otherwise, stay tuned- I'll tell you all about it on Sunday.