The Anonymous Commenter...

I have a few friends from high school - 4 if I'm counting correctly. 2 of whom I don't see too often. One is my person, whom you hear about all the time.

The other one would be known to all of you as "The Anonymous Commenter."

Anonymous, my person and I met in the change room of Grade 10 gym class. We started talking about Dean Koontz books. Apparently we were all literate.

I never really thought that I was "cool" enough for Anonymous. She was one of the "smokers."
Now there were 2 smoking doors in our school. One for the preppy/popular kids and the "Banger" smoking doors. Anon's choice was the Banger smoking doors. She would ask our Bio teacher to go to the bathroom, and have a cigarette. It's hard to hide the smell of fresh smoke, so the teacher would frequently make comments about it either when she got back, or even before he gave her permission to go.

What's funny about Anon choosing the banger smoking doors is that she went through our entire high school career calling me a "Banger wannabe" as if it was a bad thing. Probably because I was unwilling to commit. I was a fan of the hair bands, but wasn't into the lifestyle (smoking, cutting class, hanging out at the mall food court etc.) (That would be the high school bangers' lifestyles - not the hair bands' lifestyles - I don't remember ever seeing Sebastian Bach at my mall).

Anon didn't seem to really like a lot of my friends either. I was always surprised that we managed to stay so close even to this day. Perhaps it was because I let her cheat off of me in Biology.
"No Anon, I guarantee you that eyeball juice is not the right answer...v-i-t-r-e-o-u-s f-l-u-i-d..."
Anon seemed to think that a lot of my friends were too uptight/goody-goody. I would like to state for the record that I don't think I can name a bigger goody-goody than myself. I admit that I play it up a bit- but at the core it's relatively genuine.

So our friendship IS a mystery, but still, it's there.

Anon and I went "window" shopping yesterday. Anon is much more devoted to money than I am. I made a purchase at our first stop. The sandals ARE adorable though.

While we were in London Drugs, Anon told me about her ants. Apparently she isn't a fan. I'm unclear on exactly which measures she took to get rid of them- but I can relate the trick that actually worked: Paint thinner.

Her logic was that since she hates the smell of paint thinner, she bets that the ants will too.
So down the anthill she poured. Her Mom was apalled.
Anon began to have second thoughts after she had already done the deed- what if she's now killed all the animals in the neighbourhood? What if she's suddenly going to see birds falling from the sky because she's poisoned them? I had nothing to say- I was laughing too hard.

While we were at dinner we discussed world events.

First we discussed politics: "Did you hear about the fight that Rosie had with Elizabeth on The View?" "Kinda - it had something to do with Al-Quaida or something..." "Did you hear that Donald Trump supports her?"

Then we moved on theatre and travel: "Did you see the interview with Angelina while she was in Cannes?" "No?! Where did you see that?" "Entertainment Tonight" "How do you say Cannes anyhow- do you pronounce the s?"

Then we discussed family: "Ugh, are they still showing Dani-Lynn and Howard Stern every night on ET?" "No- but do you think the father is going to pursue the lawsuit for the old guy's money?"

We are very diverse and informed individuals.

Here are some quotes from Anon in my high school yearbooks:

Grade 10:
"Hey there kiddo, have a really cool year cause you're a really cool chick." (Apparently I was cool enough!)

Excerpts from Grade 11, because she took up a whole page:
"Now in Grade 12 you will accomplish the following-
1. Get totally wasted and make love to the toilet
2. Get laid by a Scotti look alike (guitarist for Skid Row - see banger wannabe)
3. Flunk or drop out of a course"

Grade 12: (excepts again)
"Well amazing enough we did somehow remain friends"
"Rules: 1. Get laid by a hot guy
2. GET DRUNK"

Seeing a trend there?

Things haven't changed much- she was very sorry that she missed the one time that I got completely drunk and passed out (embarassingly recently). And is still quite encouraging of my sex life.

Why wouldn't we stay friends with support like that?

I luv you Anon!

Caramilk and white roses

So Mist did a post the other day about an impressively bad date that she ended up on.
This has inspired me to post about the most ridiculous/awful/hilariously bad date that I've ever had...

I actually had a crush on this person (J) when I was 16. However he seemed much more interested in my already taken person at the time.

I was picking up my person to go to a party, and J was over visiting. He was apprently impressed with my new highlights (new since 10 years earlier) and called me up at work a few days later to ask me for lunch.

I declined for that day, but he persisted and I eventually gave him my home number and email. He called with a bizarre range of questions for me. "What is the condition of your heart?" "What is your favourite car?" "Beer or wine?" *"If a guy really screwed up, what would he have to do to make you forgive him?" My response to this was something along the lines of showing up at my door with flowers and caramel Haagen Daaz.

We arranged for a date the following Friday. I was very busy with work as I had a few days of meetings with some out-of-town clients. Suddenly J felt that I wasn't enthused enough about our date, so he sent me a message to cancel it. (It's worth noting here that he didn't actually have email, I just got text messages to my email account. If he had a lot to say I would get several texts in a row).

My response to the cancellation was that I'd never been dumped before the first date before- generally it happened after I didn't put out...
He changed his mind about cancelling since I was so charming.

The date:
-He told me all about his first 2 finacees. Those weddings never happened.
-He told me how he subscribe to Cosmo so he could understand women better (he should have kept reading).
-We decided to go for a drive.
-Because I was feeling romantic I asked him if he wanted to go for a walk in a graveyard.
-He instead took us for a drive in the sticks and got his car stuck.
- He tried using his Dad's name when calling CAA, but they weren't impressed so I had to use my last service call.
-He told the CAA driver that it was our anniversary and this is where we had gone on our first date (I'm sure the driver was wondering which part of getting stuck in the woods made me decide that J should be the father of my children).
- He also asked the driver if he knew a good divorce lawyer since I was sure to leave him after this (he's not wrong).
-When we got out I decided that I was done. He drove us through a car wash and asked if he would get another date. He kept asking and asking - so I eventually said "no."

The next day:
- He called to apologise for the night. (It's OK J, let's keep in touch.)

Sunday:
- I checked my email to find many text messages from J. Not complimentary. Talking about his last fiancee who ended up with a guy who broke her jaw and what a terrible person I was etc etc. (To this day I don't really understand how the broken jaw came into it).
- I found out that he was both drunk and on drugs (meds?).
- I moved on and was reading a book. Suddenly there was a knock on my patio door.
- I looked to see *white roses and Caramilks there. Along with MANY notes of apology for the texts.
- I admit I had a girly episode, freaked out and called my brother over to rescue me from the scary flowers.

Monday:
- More apologetic phone calls. This time for the "Patio incident"
- Can he come over? No.
-Bring me coffee? No.
- A Muffin? No.
Several hours later:
- Bring me dinner? No.

And that was that. Scary and horrifying at the time.
Now I'm just irritated with myself for my irrational freak-out.
Aren't there any nice normal guys out there?

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...