Why Moving Home was a Good Idea Reason #2

Guess who's taking tap dance lessons!!

C'mon, guess.



It's Me!!

Tap-a-tap-a-tappa!!

uggh

There has been a pretty gross flu bug flying around Toon town. Thankfully, i have been lucky enough to avoid the explosive diarrhea and the violent vomiting. I wasn't lucky enough to avoid this nasty head cold. It feels like my head has been jam packed with cotton balls. Almost like i've got my head under water.

i feel a little like Charlie Brown, everyone around me sounds like a muted trombone. Why am i at work? Good question. i have to be responsible. It's grown up time. As much as i'd love to put on my jammies and crawl under a blankie and eat Chicken Noodle Soup - i put on my big Girl Suit... and walked out in the world, Snotty Nose and All!!

Here i am, World. Your Stupid cold can't get me down...BITCH!!! Mwhhaaaaa ha ha ha haaaaa....

i also think i may be a tad delirious.

A Letter to an Old Friend

Dear C.B.,

in one month it'll be a year since we've spoken. God, i can't believe how time flies. Please don't think for an instant that i haven't thought of you in that year. Because that would be so far from the truth. Fact is, you're in my thoughts all the time whether i want you there or not. And i can't tell you how many times i've gone over and over that night in my head, wishing i would have reacted differently to the news. Wishing i could take back the things i said.

But i was hurting, and my vision was impaired by the emotions i was feeling. You're a taurus, you know what it's like to see red. All i could see/think/or feel was how much i was hurting. i didn't bother to think that maybe you were going through some stuff of your own.

Granted, a lot of the things going through my mind and heart were completely of my own creation, perhaps not founded on anything else but over analysing each conversation, each moment, each laugh. But you should know that everything i felt was real to me. And i felt so betrayed by you and by the other parties involved. Like, in some small way, you were trying to find a way to hurt me. And it hurt.

But, after a while the haze lifted and i was able to view things from angles i'd never seen them before. I was able to shake my head from the cobwebs and see clearly. I saw that whatever injustice i thought had fallen on me was small in comparison to the way i treated you. There was no reason for me to cut you out completely, other than my own selfish way of dealing with the situation. And i realize, had i been in your position, i may have reacted the same way to my attemps at reconnecting.

You should realize, by the way, that trying to contact you in anyway was one of the hardest things for me to do, being a bull headed taurus myself. We don't like to be wrong.

I thought that it would be easy for me to just keep going, not having you in my life. But small things, everyday, make me think of you. Did you know there's a Travel Gnome walking around the TV Airwaves saying RiDONKulous? after we saw that, brad turned to me and said; "I miss C.B." it tore out my heart. Here, again, is another example of my selfishness. It dawned on me then, for the first time, that i didn't just cut you out of my life. But out of his too.

There are so many things that i want to say to you, so many stories i know you'd find hilarious... so many moments that were incomplete because you weren't there. It's hard to say how i would handle it all, had i the chance to do it all over again, i don't even know if it would be any better the second time around - to be honest. But i just thought that you should know, that here and now, i miss you. And think of you.

And while i don't believe you'll ever find this letter here on the big bad world wide web... it makes me feel better, like i'm somehow connecting with you.

Love,
Laura

survey shmurvey...

1. Full name: I Am TheDiva
2. Who named you: My parents, but i don't think i'm named after anyone.
3. DOB: May 12
4. Place of birth: i was born in a hospital....barely...
5. How tall are you: 5'5"
6. What color are your eyes: Hazel
7. What is your NATURAL hair color? Boring brown
8. Any brothers/sisters: i have 3 brothers, one older 2 younger
9. Are your parents still together: Yep, going on 31 years...
10. What nationalities are you (Besides Canadian): I am Canadian. That's it. I mean how many generations have to be here before you just let someone be Canadian?? Cuz i was born here, my mom and dad were both born here, all four of my grandparents were born here....
11. Do you have any pets: 2 cats and one husband.
12. Are you currently single: Nope
13. What is your longest relationship to date: Who wrote this survey? i guess my current relationship is my longest - we've been married 2.5 years, but we were together for about 6 years before that....
14. What was your shortest relationship: just about 2 weeks, he was a bad kisser, i blame it on his braces (sorry). I've been told by several people that he's improved since then.
15. Do you want to get married: i already am, and this is it for me!!
16. Do you want children IF yes, how many: yeah, some kids would be nice. I'd like 3....but we'll see, maybe only 2
17. What would be your ideal age to be married and have children? Let's see, orginally while i was growing up i wanted to be Married by 23 and having babies by 25. It turned out we got married at 24, and i'm almost 27 and no babies yet, and that's okay.
18. Where is the last place you've visited outside of the province you currently live in (But still in Canada): Vancouver
19. Last place you've visited outside of Canada: Cancun in February for a belated honeymoon. It was awesome.
20. What SHOULD you be doing right now instead of this survey: I should be working.

Puppet Mania

Ever since B-rad and I moved back to Toon Town, it seems our dance card has been full. Part of this is my fault, i did want to get out more. In Calgary I was such a homebody, partly due to the fact that i didn't know anyone, and other partly because the people i did know lived 45 minutes away from me.

So, now that we're home we've been to Family Hockey Games, and dinner parties, and coffees, and lunches, and brunches... i've had to actually start using my day timer.

what? me organized??

not a chance.

anyway, i had the pleasure of going to a burlesque show, unlike one you've ever seen. Mika and i went to see "Bada Boom" at the Refinery on Sunday night where we met Savia for the first time (notice i said First, savia?). Mika and i were sitting at a table in the front, and we were informed by the staff that because there were only 2 of us sitting at a 4 person table, they were going to give the other 2 seats to some people who hadn't showed up, but had already paid. it turns out, that those persons were Savia and her Friend. Coincidence?
hmmm

The show, itself, had a delightful amount of song and dance, strip tease, dick jokes, and the occasional Puppet Penis, Puppet Tits, and Puppet Poontang. These are their words, not mine.
Never before have i laughed so hard...i mean, a grown man and 4 grown puppets singing in unison:

"Sit on my faaaace and tell me that you love me..... i'll sit on your face and tell you i love youuuuuuu toooooo..... I love to hear you oralize...When I'm between your thighs... You blow me awaaaaaaaaaaaaay. Sit on my faaaaaace and let my lips embrace you....... I'll sit on your face and then I'll love you truuuuuuuuuuulyyyyyyyyyyy - Life can be fine if we both sixty nine If we sit on our faces In all sorts of places And play till we're blown awaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!"

great fun. Good times.

anyway, while i was watching this performance i remembered how fun it was to be on stage in front of an audience, with those lights blinding you...

i miss it.

it was good.

PS - the "Margaret Atwood-esque" Puppet reading porn was fabulous.

This little light of mine....

I've decided to call Year 2007 "double-oh-seven". Why? because 007 is way cooler than 07. Plus it gives the illusion that this is the year of the license to kill.

While i never made any concrete new years resolutions (i'd never keep them anyway) i did resolve to be happier.

Part of that resolution, i decided, really had to center a lot on my body image. Seeing myself in the mirror does not make me happy. Being this out of shape does not make me happy. Shopping for clothes does not make me happy... what i would love is to look in the mirror and see in real life how i look in my mind. the two don't match.

So, i joined Curves.

a gym.

that i have to go to.

because i don't think this is going to work without some kind of excersize plan.

i'm feeling pretty optomistic about all this. i was a little concerned that i wouldn't be supported by my hubby. This is how i saw it going down:

i say: "Guess what!! i just joined Curves"

and he hears: "Guess what! i just threw away $XX.XX! And i signed a contract to continue throwing away $XX.XX for an entire year!"

what actually happened was this:

L- "so, i joined Curves today."
B- "oh."
L- "...oh? what does that mean?"
B- "what?"
L- "how about: That's great, Laura! I'm so proud of you!...aw, thanks Brad"
B- "...you're welcome!"
L- "I'm going to be supportive of you and help you anyway i can! ...aw, thanks Brad."
B- "...you're welcome!...what do you mean by 'supportive'?"
L- "i'm going to congratulate you when you do well, and encourage you when you don't feel like it. ...and i won't nag, or bug you about how much money it is....aw, thanks Brad."
B- "...you're welcome!"
.....

L- "wow. that was easy."
B- "yeah. that was easy."
L- "hm. we should do it that way all the time! that way you say exactly what i want you to say, and you know exactly how i want you to feel."
B- "i agree."

And that's how our marriage works now. :D

Good One!

My dad is the king of bad jokes. If there's an off-colour joke out there, he hasn't heard it - or said it at the dinner table for that matter. But last night the husband and i went to my mom and dad's for dinner and dad actually had a good one!

A few years ago, there was a terrible flood. The local minister told
all his congregation to run for higher ground. "But what about you?!?"
they asked. "Don't worry, God will save me!"

The water continued to rise and the townspeople began to flee. After
sometime, a man in a raft floated past the minister and his church. "Hop
on!" he yelled.

"No thank you, God will save me!"

the man in the raft floated away and the water continued to rise. It
was filling the church, so the minister climbed to the rooftop. Then a man
in a row-boat floated by: "Get in, Pastor! I'll take you to safety!!"

"No thank you, God will save me!"

As the water continued to rise, the Minister climbed to the top of the
steeple. A man, once again, came by in a canoe. "Pastor, for the
love of God, get in the boat!"

"No thank you, God will save me!"

So the water rises past the steeple and the Minister drowns. At the
pearly gates, the minister arrives soaking wet. "I want to talk to God!"
he says to Saint Peter. Saint Peter shrugs and allows him into the
House of the Lord where God Almighty was sitting on his thrown.

"Listen, God! I have a bone to pick with you! What happened down
there, why didn't you save me?"

and God smiled at the dripping Pastor and said: "i sent you a raft, a
row-boat, and a canoe! What more did you want?"

i love this joke is for two reasons:

1. It pokes fun at blind faith
2. it reminds us that miracles happen all the time. We just need to see them.

Hold your tongue...

**Disclaimer**: this post contains materials/content that some viewers may find offensive. Viewer discretion is advised!

Subject: Christians...

one of the perks of my new job is that my boss decided to take us all out for lunch today to say thank you for the hard work over the past year. i was lucky enough to tag along. the food was good, the conversation poor.

There are a few ladies who work part time in my office, who i call the God-Squad. They're the ones who come into the lunch room chitter chattering, and make a point to pray over their leftover roast beef dinner while i eat my pizza pop... almost as if they're making a point to say: "Hey, look GOD! I'm giving thanks, and that new girl-heathen definitely is not!! Plus, she must be a bad housewife if she doesn't have leftovers for lunch."

On the whole, i have no real problem them. They're polite ladies and generally friendly. But they have no problem telling you what they think or feel when it comes to christian behaviour.

Now, i'm not huge on religion, i think i've made that perfectly clear. I'm even okay with God for the most part. I have a really great fridge magnet that sums it up perfectly for me:

I don't mind God
It's his fan club I can't stand.

what is it, about being a 'christian' that makes people think that it's okay to shoot their mouths off about whatever topic or idea that happens to be outside their comfort zone?

what brought this whole rant on? A comment made by the God-Squad today at lunch. "I used to volunteer at the hospital, but there were ladies coming in for abortions so i just had to stop working there!"

first of all, how does she know that none of the people at that lunch have never had an abortion?
and Second - abortion is a highly sensitive discussion topic, not one to be thrown around to prove to the rest of the God Team how christian you are that you STOPPED volunteering because of it!

I never really thought of myself sitting on one side or the other on this issue... but today i think i decided to cement myself to the Pro-Choice side. Now. Let's get one thing straight - i'm not saying that i encourage women to get abortions. i don't think that i could ever personally go through with one. i know that that is not the best course of action for me. But i believe in the right to decide for yourself. I mean, this would be - potentially - one of the biggest decisions a woman might ever have to make in her lifetime! WITHOUT adding the stress of Pro-Life on top of it all.

I, unexpectedly, found myself extremely offended by this woman who proceeded to berate another woman (yes, one of the God-Squad) for ever putting yogurt in a ZummaBorscht recipe. "That's not a (insert christian religion here) recipe! No (insert christian religion here) would ever put yogurt in ZummaBorscht."

i would have loved to say something - anything! But then am i stooping to her level? Funny, you don't hear that everyday....Stooping to the Christian's level. There is definitely something about them that gives them that "Holier Than Thou" attitude, when i remember Jesus saying something about humility and being as meek as a child.

If it kills me...

Today is day number one of Laura's GET MY ASS IN GEAR year of Revolution!! 2007 is gonna be a good year for me, i can feel it. After making it through that shitty year of '06, i'm amazed i'm still alive!!

I mean, c'mon laura, this is getting pretttty ridonkulous!!

GO me.

SNOW DAY - PART II, RETURN OF THE PLOW....

I'm just kidding, there's no plow.

I can honestly say that i have never seen the likes of yesterday's blizzard before in my life. Also, the news was saying: "worst snowstorm in over 60 years!".

When i stayed home yesterday morning, i telt a twinge of guilt thinking: "i probably could have made it to work, i suck..." but as the day wore on and the drifts outside my house grew over four feet high, i felt a little better about playing it safe.

When i chickened out yesterday morning, my hubby braved the storm - taking our car to work. around noon i received a call... Brad said: "a bunch of us are carpooling home in big trucks, and Cam's spending the night!"

then around 4, Brad called to say: "Well, they shut the shop down early to give us a better chance to get home... we've been on the road for and hour and a half, and we're just turning onto Circle drive" WHAT? "yeah, we left around 2:30. Traffic is crazy out here, i've never seen anything like it."

So, after turning an 8 minute drive into over 2 hours, Brad made it home safe and sound. Cam, who was in a different truck in the convoy, didn't make it to our house until well after six. they had to turn around and go back to the shop.

Hearing the weather advisories on the news saying: "no highway traffic, do NOT travel if you don't have to" and that the Saskatoon City Police were only responding to Crime-In-Progress calls caused me to frantically call everyone in my family who may or may not have been somewhere in the city. Luckily both my mom and my little brother stayed home yesterday, but my dad DID make it in to work. I tracked him down at some friends house where he had been since noon. He was hunkerin' down there for the night.

There were so many phone calls last night. So many, in fact, that the phone lines were overloaded, and the radio was saying "Please do not make any calls unless it is an emergency, and stay off your cell phones!" It turned out that Cam tried to call us several times last night before he arrived, but was unable to get through. He wasn't even able to call his wife! He was able to get through to her when he finally did arrive, though.



The entire city shut down last night. Circle Drive was closed, Preston Ave, 22nd Street... the downtown core was gridlocked, people were trapped in their vehicles, staying overnight at offices and schools because they couldn't go home. The city transit gave up after 6 pm... My boss called me last night and declared a SNOW DAY for real saying there was no point going to the office tomorrow. Which is a good thing, cuz our car was still stuck in Brad's Shop Parking lot.

Thankfully everyone i know and love is safe and sound.

SNOW DAY!!!

Last night there was a Blizzard warning, and when we woke up this morning we found 15 cm of snow (that's 6" for you yankees out there). The snow was blowing and still is. Brad and i set out so i could drop him off at work and there was zero visibility. I'm talking, not even 3 feet in front of the car. The wind was blowing all around, the snow drifts were 4 feet high in some places. We eventually had to turn the car around and go home.

"There's no way i can drive in this!!" i said.

So i called the office and told them i wouldn't make it in. They were very understanding, considering it's a crazy blizzard outside. Brad was 45 minutes late for work today. It usually takes 8 minutes to get to his shop. It usually takes me 20 minutes to drive to work - through downtown and over the bridges. I just couldn't make the drive. In the car this morning, seeing how miserable it was, my heart started racing and i almost went into panic mode.

welcome home, laura!

Snow sucks.

on the plus side, my cats are having a ball standing at the windows watching the mini-snow-tornadoes in our back yard.
There's a snow drift blown right up against our patio doors... and our front yard looks just as blustery.

If i don't make it out alive, give my regards to broadway.

oh yeah?!?!

"My mom took a Cake decorating course."

"oh yeah? So are you saying your mom's better than my mom?"

"no, i'm just saying she took a Cake decorating course."

"well, my mom took a Better than Your Mom course."

"yeah?...too bad she failed."

conversation with christine....

C - "i didn't know the lung association had floors"

L - "what do you mean?"

C - "your blog said you were the only one on the floor."

L - "yeah? there was nobody upstairs but me."

C - "are you counting the basement as a floor?"

L - "...y-e-ah, why?"

C - "you can't count the basement as a floor!"

L - "why not?"

C - "Because it's NOT a floor, it's a basement!"

L - "okay, then what are they standing on?"

C - "......a floor..."

L - " A-HA!!"

i totally win.

2006: a year in Review...

MEME!
Okay, here's how it works: Put up the first line from the first post of each month for the past year

and here it is, a year in a nutshell:

JAN: Here's an update on my mom, as of last night around 10 when i last talked to my dad - incase you didn't know, mom's been in the hospital in ICU for over 2 weeks.

FEB: I sooooo stole this from www.dooce.com

MARCH: i got back from Mexico...and now everything is different, and there's a movement of change in the air...there's too much in my head to filter down into a coherent entry.

APRIL: Dear homeless creep who sits around panhandling outside my office building, i've been meaning to say this for some time now.

MAY: Dear hubby, i was sitting here at my desk during my lunch break, and i thought of you.

JUNE: This is the hair that i want...i'm waffling whether or not i should cut it again...the last time was such a disaster.

JULY: Stampede time again, y'know how i can tell...there are a million yahoos wandering around in bad shirts getting on my bus in the morning.

AUG: Not much to report - just another boring, stupid Wednesday...with your boring mid-week, nothing of interest on the tell, work sucks, and i have a headache GARBAGE!

SEPT: i love my married family

OCT: Winter is fast approaching the town of cows.

NOV: More puppets and dinner tables!!

DEC: I'm sorry folks, i have been busy - i know i've said it before, but now that it's all done i can finally tell you what the fudge is going on!


If i've learned anything from this little meme, it's that i love run on sentences.

Tag, you're it:
savia, Goldie, and Go-Go-Gadget-JAMES!!

First day at my new job

Welcome to day one, and i have to say i return to this job with mixed feelings. part of me is glad that i'm coming back to a nice slow paced relax atmosphere, and the people are great. however, there is the stigma that i'm just a little girl here. See, they knew me way back when i was a student and worked here over summer and partime during school. They know me as "little laura".

I find it hard to leave behind that younger image that they knew and present a more put-together adult package. For the first time in my life, i'm "doing my hair" and wearing "big girl shoes" as my friend Crystal calls heels...before coming to work. what's that all about? Where are my well worn blue jeans and t-shirts with funny slogans... i guess those are my "home clothes", as opposed to my "work clothes".

The