Crappy Customer Service

May As Well Finish It

December 26 – Soul Food What did you eat this year that you will never forget? What went into your mouth & touched your soul?

I don't have the type of relationship with food that causes it to touch my soul.  It's food!

I can't remember any truly ass-over-teakettle food moments this year.  I did make sex in a pan for Christmas dessert, which was pretty nice.  It's unfortunate that that particular recipe is so dated.

December 27 – Ordinary Joy Our most profound joy is often experienced during ordinary moments. What was one of your most joyful ordinary moments this year?

Sitting with my husband on our new deck on one Sunday morning, before the asshats get out of bed and start their leaf-blowers and muscle cars.  I don't even know how we wound up out there together, since he isn't the type to hang around outside.  We were just listening to the breeze and the birds in our PJs.

December 28 – Achieve What’s the thing you most want to achieve next year? How do you imagine you’ll feel when you get it? Free? Happy? Complete? Blissful? Write that feeling down.

Putting another drop in the educational ocean.  I will feel glad not to have to do that part again, and that's about all.  There isn't any bliss involved in that.

A Bad Night

I was on the LRT tonight when it ran someone some teens over between Stadium and Coliseum stations.  You will probably be hearing about it in the next day or so on the news.

I was on the third car back, and what was left was eventually found just out of my sight between the second and third cars.  We knew there was an accident, but weren't certain of its nature until the firemen started to pull out the tarps.  Yes, it was that bad.  I am smart enough to keep my eyes averted as I climb down from the train, and up to the rescue train.

The lady seated next to me was not so smart.  She saw something that can't be unseen.

My thoughts are with the driver tonight.

 

 

Can You Put That Out?

Yech, I'm recovering from a summer cold, extended for a week by the presence of BC forest ashes in the lungs last week.  I had pot-smoke-eyes for three days.  I went around with my upper lip coated in lavender-scented body butter to mitigate the smoky smell.

Smoke is, to me, the worst smell out there.  As a small child I drove my Colt Cigarillo-smoking dad right outdoors with my tirades.  I also occasionally suffer from olfactory hallucinations related to mild migraine - and they are always smoke scented. I am the silent Edmontonian who was relieved when the indoor smoking bylaws were passed.

Don't worry, I'm not an anti-smoking nutjob who shouts at people inside the 5m radius...though that is the result of good restraint.  I keep my many arguments & opinions inside my skull.

Is It Wrong...

To be so, so tired of the "bohemian" look jammed down the throats of plus-size women?

To walk a wide berth around loitering groups of surly-looking First Nations teens?

To pay 10¢ extra per bus ride for air conditioning?  (Hypothetically.)

To have this huge summer entertainment extravaganza taking place outside the front door, yet stay indoors for a meal and a nap on my lunch hour?

Welcome Downtown, My Friend

Yes, I am officially a worker bee of the downtown area.  I was standing at a crosswalk, waiting to go back into the Ugly Government Building and a dude in a fouled Canadian Tuxedo let out a huge wet fart...after looking at me over his shoulder. 

It took me at least an hour to laugh about it.

Fuck.

A "For Rent" sign went up on a house near me today.

We don't have a great record with the three families that have lived in that house in the seven years we've been here.  This last one is a douche who doesn't keep the yard up, but at least he's quiet.

I don't expect better neighbours.  I have a bad track record.  Time after time I've said to myself, Maybe it's I who am the shitty neighbour.  But I kill my dandelions and put out nice flowers and pop misdirected mail into the proper box.  If anyone was willing to put their hand out in any way, I would be happy to keep your spare key and water the containers when you go on vacation.  I will even acknowledge you, which everyone knows is against my nature.  I, your neighbour, have the most interest in a good relationship with you.

But...the last few years have seen my neighbourhood go downhill.  Crime is up.  The sidewalks are a civic embarrassment.  Muslim and First Nations families are moving in...which I don't consider a negative, but plenty of people buying houses won't buy in an area with lots of brown people in them, yes that still happens.  So the house price explosion didn't happen to the extreme it did elsewhere in Edmonton.  That means people, like myself, who couldn't afford much are coming in.  And the ones who bought at the top of the bubble are finding that they can't sell for what they need to get, so they're renting out.  As a rule you can spot the rented houses in Edmonton - they are the ones with the shitty upkeep.  They are a drag on other properties' value.

I'm hoping to get a relatively tame military family, since I live near two bases.  Or perhaps a guy who is away on the rigs a lot.  Or maybe somebody just normal and quiet, how about that?  I don't care what colour they are.

Let's Talk About Something Else

Here's the part where I mention that I have a real shot at that job.  And I'm still waiting to hear and it's making me crazy and I lay awake at night worrying about things that haven't happened yet.  I am on a very short list.

But I'm not going to talk about that anymore.  I'm going to mention a couple of good food experiences I've had in the last couple of weeks. 

Food is my comfort and salvation.  I was raised by the daughter of a caterer and prize-winning chef, who could have had her own restaurant.  I married someone who can cook.  I know it is all kinds of wrong but I just love food.  You can't make me hate it, even if it's making me fat. 

My first experience was the Italian Centre Shop on the Via Italia in downtown Edmonton.  Everyone had been there except me!  At least, everyone who is related to someone Italian in Edmonton.  But the purchase I enjoyed most was not Italian - they have a whole freakin' aisle of German, Belgian and Czech chocolate bars.  I had a blueberry flavoured chocolate bar, which was damn good.  Plus a truly epic, fatal deli.  You will die with a smile.

The second was Paradiso Pastries.  This bakery is associated with a halal butcher in my neighbourhood, and their specialty is baklava in every possible nut flavour.  They had a foot-high mound of jalebis, the crunchy sweet my husband is addicted to.   Rum baba, too.  I could live in there.

Mood: Raw, Sore, Grouchy. Wishing for Spring.

It's kinda funny what brings the traffic to one's website, isn't it?  Apparently I wasn't the only one pissed off with Westjet.  Mr. W has put in a claim for our missing hygiene products, and we'll see how it goes. 

In the meantime the entire city has been sick this week, including me.  My class was cancelled...my work was down about 30% of its staff...and everyone is miserable.  Business as usual for an Edmontonian February with two weeks of cloudy skies.  I have coughed myself into a headache. 

I missed half a day of work and the planet damn near cracked apart.  What the heck are they going to do if I get a new job?

I love being busy, and I enjoy being essential - but there's a line that shouldn't be crossed.  Am I the only one that feels this way?

That, And The Terribly Hard Seats.

Big Fat Deal asks us to read Roger Ebert's column Nil By Mouth.  He has similar things to say as did Jon Reiner in his article The Man Who Couldn't Eat.  While I cannot imagine food and drink leaving my life forever, as it has Ebert's, I was intrigued by how their sense of smell dominated their thoughts and dreams.

Reading these articles, I thought about my experience in going back to school this past Thursday.  I have started another course on my long & expensive journey to a Supply Management diploma.  This time my course is on the U of A's main campus.  I attended the U of A for a year when I was 17 - it was a decision on my parents' part to keep me in school for another year so I could be 18 when I started at NAIT.

I hated university and I felt it was a waste of time to be there.  It's hard when you're under the drinking age, which is strictly enforced.  It was a large stumbling block to my social development.  I didn't like the learning environment either.  I knew I wasn't staying so I made almost no effort to learn anything for the first time in my life.  I was absolutely miserable because I wasn't making any friends, my 23-year-old roommate was never around and vastly uninterested in me.  My high school friends had all moved on to their own post-secondary paths - and they were all 18, of course.

Toward the end of the year I ran into some long-lost friends from my hometown and had a better time.  But the U of A has always been associated in my mind with that feeling of being set adrift on the sea of adulthood too early.  Those feelings rushed back to this 36-year-old overgrown girl when I set foot in one of the buildings where I had a class.  It was the smell - that institutional, cement-based waft with overtones of chemistry.

Pity, Part II

Know what's funny?  I found myself outside earlier this week with Mr. W.  I was wearing a neck-to-ankle wool felt coat, mittens and winter boots; Mr. W was dressed similarly.  We were eating ice cream.

I saw a guy on the coldest day of the year exiting a 7-11, Slurpee in hand.  It was colder outside the Slurpee than in by a large margin.  Perhaps he was drinking it to warm himself.

No wonder people think Canadians are mildly insane.