the confusion sets in.....

Coffee…

I am not a coffee drinker. I don’t dislike it and can even go as far as saying that I do like it or even love it … but … I don’t need it and I can’t drink it on a daily basis. It is the same love I have for any of my beverages of choice… Coke, Ribena, Cranberry, apple cider…

I’m not sure how people drink 2 or 3 or 6 cups a day… I don’t think I can drink any of my favourite beverages that often. Perhaps a Coke a day or maybe a glass of this or that but not several glasses. On occasion, I will crave certain drinks and coffee ranks up there with the others. My craving however is not one that will be satiated only by a cup or many cups of something… most of the time, the craving is curbed after a few sips.

My manager has been buying me coffee fairly regularly lately. Not daily, but a couple weeks ago it had increased to a few times a week. The first time he came in with coffee, I figured it was an anomaly and accepted it graciously. He came into my office with a bag of milk, cream and sugars and the novelty of adding all that stuff into a beverage excited me. Like I said, I’m not a coffee drinker – most of my beverages are pour-drink, pull tab-drink, unscrew top-drink … and on occasion, the little girl in me finds drinking coffee fun … kinda like in science class when you mixed two things to see what you end up with. It’s fun and a welcomed distraction to a monotonous day.

Every coffee experience, in fact, is quite novel for me … it never tastes the same mainly because I don’t drink coffee often enough to know if I like milk or cream or how much sugar to put in. The whole notion of lattes, espressos, cappuccinos and caffe this or that gives me a headache. I don’t know where they sell better coffee or stronger coffee or the watered down stuff. All I know is that I love the mocha
Frappuccino at Starbucks and often wondered if there is a HOT equivalent for the winter months but not daring enough to try other drinks to find one. If you know of one, please let me know. (I guess I could ask the next time I’m there… but that probably won’t be till the spring when it’ll be warm enough again to have a Mocha Frappaccino and then I won’t even remember that I wanted a hot version….)

Anyway, so I drank my coffee and continued with my day. The second time he brought coffee in … circumstances at work, made it so that a coffee was definitely needed by the coffee drinkers amongst us – so again, I thanked him, had some fun adding the milk and sugar and drank the coffee. That continued a couple more times and we were so busy that sometimes I didn’t even see him put it on my desk. Then Christmas came. Everyone had gotten busy with year end business and he took holidays and then we took holidays so the coffee delivery stopped.

Lately we’ve been pretty busy and it seems that at times a treat (in this case, coffee) is well deserved. So in the mornings on his way in, he stops and buys a coffee for each of his direct reports. See, the thing is, he’s been bringing the coffee premixed now. The days of the little bag with cream and sugar is long gone. I’m not even sure what he puts in it. I honestly can say that I can’t even tell if it tastes much different when I put all that love and care into mixing my own. Anyway, the point is, that I'm essentially, still not a coffee drinker. I’ve had enough of it over the past couple months that I no longer crave it. I no longer enjoy it because it has become like a chore to drink it. I continue to drink it and the worst part is that I don’t have the heart to tell him, after all these months, that I don’t drink coffee and to please bring me a tea instead.

Yesterday, he dropped one more on my desk… and as usual, I thanked him and this time added something like “I can really use that!!”. What was I thinking??

I am proud to say though, that I seemed to have found a solution … yesterday, I stared at the coffee for a couple minutes trying to decide what i was going to do with it. It was 3:48pm. I really didn’t want it. I poked my head outside my door to make sure he was neatly tucked back in his office, grabbed the coffee and made a mad dash into our kitchen to get a mug. I went into my friend’s office, poured the coffee out for her, whispered something like “please drink this for me, I can’t drink this much coffee” and took the little paper cup back into my office and pretended I was still enjoying it.

OK… so it’s not really a solution but it really seemed like a good idea at the time.

Today, he invited me for coffee again. I agreed but at the same time told him that i was going to get a juice. I even made sure he saw me buy the juice when everyone else got a coffee. Maybe next time I’ll just tell him. Not saying anything is really too much effort.

pb

my popcorn is burnt. i don't want to finish eating it.

in the twilight, day turns to night...

i almost... want to knit this

what would i do with it after its finished??

pb

wow...

where the heck would you store this?? i want to climb it.

pb

r2

this is so funny ...

Before it starts, before I begin?

oh how soon things just fall back into place ...

skye and i spent a whole day last week at the hospital repairing her crooked nose. the waiting took forever because the surgery wasn't scheduled, but the actual surgery was fairly quick.

and.. no black eyes, no swelling. what a relief.

she no longer has pain her black eyes are gone.. and all the swelling is going. quite amazing really.

her nose is still a little crooked. any further surgery will require an incision - but we'll see again in 3 months or so.

i'm sick. my throat is really sore. i missed hockey again last night. 4th week in a row. ugh.

sama just finished her chem exam. she said it was really hard but i'm sure she did well. she always does.

i woke up this morning and watched "Becoming.." on much. backstreet boys. isn't that funny. i don't think i've ever seen a backstreet boy video and sat and watched the "becoming.." version. i must be sick.

pb

All these things that i've done

A few weekends ago, i worked my second of two apprentice teaching weekends. What does that mean? Apprentice weekends are pay-free teaching weekends. I got scammed into this one. I was originally signed up for a “regular” weekend but prior commitments for the in class on Wednesday allowed me to be available to teach an “all women weekend”.

Unpaid. No wonder the other instructors made fun of me for agreeing to take the all women weekend … Now
I know why… LOL

Don’t get me wrong. I had a tonne of fun – and would gladly do another women's weekend.

My first apprentice weekend was wet and miserable. I don't think it stopped raining once. So, I was thrilled to see 60% chance of rain for the women's weekend. the overcast clouds allowed the sun to hide for most of the day. we lucked out and didn't feel a drop of rain except for a little spitting at the very end of the day.

In the late morning the sun decided to poke out from behind some clouds for about an hour. Once again i was caught off guard slapped with another sunburn. OUCH.

The women’s weekend - wow.. you really need patience for this one – definitely a good one to have under my belt. i can't tell you that i have a lot of patience nor can i even begin to say how much of it i do possess. Before this weekend i would have guessed that i would have a lot less patience. Our saving grace was that there was six of us to take turns coddling and dealing with the tears.

Riding a motorcycle has always been pretty easy for me and when something comes so naturally for me it's hard to understand why it doesn’t connect with someone else. now, having taught a few weekends, I’ve realized that some people are just not cut out to be on two wheels. Just like T will never go near any type of pet now matter how much you emphasize that it won’t hurt her and isn’t coming after her - some
people will never realize that the brake is there in case you do give too much throttle and others will be confident that the brake is there… but just forget
to use it…

i just finished my 4th weekend this past weekend. sunburned again but that's not new. sunscreen doesn't help that much...

What have I learned during these teaching weekends??

I’ve learned to jump – far and quickly out of the way. Really not a hard lesson to learn when you have a 300lb motorized vehicle heading in your direction.

I know now that it’s harder to push a motorcycle up a ramp backwards than it is to pick up one that is lying on its side.

Some people look like they can ride.. but can't... some people look like they can't ride... but can..

I’m still a little reluctant to speak in front of people .. ok.. a lot reluctant ... that "i'm going to vomit" feeling only appears right before i have to teach a lesson not all day anymore.... …

but as with all things, in time, that too will go away.... i hope.

pb

don't let it get away...

YAY!! Skye was voted valedictorian for her graduating class!! That was the good news from yesterday....

it was however preceeded by this....

up until yesterday i had never seen a broken nose. i've seen them after they've healed and i've seen them on TV.. but never in real life just after it happens.

skye broke her nose yesterday. this btw, is her second baseball injury. last year at around the same time she came home with a black and blue finger, after running into her friend. after sitting in emergency for 8 or so hours, the doctor confirmed it. broken.

yesterday, was a little more dramatic. when i usually get a call from her school, it's usually skye or the receptionist saying that she's not feeling well and wants to go home. however, when it's her teacher calling ... i know something is wrong. yes.. that dreaded call. "hi pb, this is mr. c". my heart stopped. something happened to skye. it's like that old adage "no news is good news"... it's never good news when the teacher calls. "skye got hurt playing baseball." "again???" i asked. "yeah... she caught a pop fly with her nose." i thought, what?? her nose??? where was that glove she made me go with her to get the other night at 11pm. why didn't she use the glove? after a few minutes of evaluating if she had to go to emergency or not, i decided to take her anyway.

thank goodness skye was in good spirits and laughing in the background when he called. my heart was pounding and i was already in a panic when i heard mr. c's voice. when i finally got to her school to pick her up, she was still pretty happy. but ... the blood.. so much blood (i'm so glad i didn't see the pool she so vividly described to me) and ohhhh.. the swelling ... i can't even begin to describe the swelling. i still can't look at her without my eyes tearing up.

4 hours in the emergency room, 2 minutes with the doctor. again, broken. this time, no splint, nothing. too much swelling and too much blood at the time. ugh.

so we agreed. no more baseball for a while and if she does want to play baseball, i certainly won't mind investing in a full caged helmet for her.

pb

If you never tried, then you'll never know...

I have this love – hate relationship with the game of golf. What’s there not to love?? A few hours of frolicking in the sun with 3 friends that you love hanging with, good exercise when we don’t rent a cart and when we do… it’s even more fun driving the golf cart around. After 9 or 18 holes, I’m nicely sun-kissed and got a few good shots out, had tonnes of fun …

I love golfing.

Who am I kidding? Yes it’s sunny … but honestly, the sun has never kissed me, it beats the crap out of me with a big fat burn on my head shoulders and neck… hurts to move, hurts to lie down, hurts to shower. Yes, I have heard about sunscreen.

A few good shots. Let me define this. We were at a par 5 course. Thank god we only played 9 holes. I doubled par almost every hole – ok… EVERY hole except for one which was a par 2 or 3 and I got a true 4. Sometimes it took me 6 strokes before I even got anywhere near mb or paul’s drive off the tee. So out of something like 70 – 100 shots (not swings.. I don’t count it when I swing and miss the ball completely, even though I should) I may have had 10 good shots. WOW - a whopping 10-15% of my shots are relatively good? LOL.

I keep on forgetting, but I usually only last for about 8 or 9 holes before I get bored on a par 3 course. Sunday’s game was par 5. I was done after hole 3. There was a water hazard at every hole – so it seemed. I know I can’t make it over some of the water hazards so most of the time I just took the drop on the other side.

Mb got negative yardage on one swing – a feat I only thought yves was capable of. His ball hit a tree and rebounded about 15-20 feet behind him. He also looked for a MIA ball behind a couple trees at one point only to find that will’s drive off the tee found its way through all the trees to his head. Luckily his oakley’s were on his head and took the brunt of the impact. We’ll have to shop for another pair of sunglasses but at least his noggin is still intact and unscathed.

I didn’t lose too many balls and probably found as many as I lost but not without consequences. I walked through some branches to look for my lost ball and ended coming out with my legs covered in scratches top to bottom which, by the way, I was allergic to. The scratches turned into huge red welts and my legs were all splotchy for about 4 holes. How deceiving though, because the scratches didn’t even hurt till I showered that night.. and thank goodness for that because the burn from the water on the scratches way over shadowed the pain from the hot water hitting my sunburn..

All in all, a great day. I still got to spend the morning hanging with 3 people I love to hang with, the battle scars from the 9 holes were not really that bad and in the end, I still love golfing. Sunday was the lovely mb’s bday and mother’s day. 1/2 price for 9 holes for mommies. we spent the rest of the day napping, stuffing our faces with cake and then a bbq.

Happy Birthday GCL. I hope you had as much fun as I did.

pb

take a look...over head..

wow.. how cool is this....

good night, good night...

as a single mom of two teenage girls i find myself often wanting to be way too overprotective. can a parent be too over-protective?? in any case, i often talk to my friends about "how we were at that age" and that is usually enough to want me to lock them in the basement and throw away the key until they turn 18.. make that 30. reality sets in and i usually find myself just asking them the "concerned" parent questions hoping to balance the fine line of cool concerned parent and over-protective crazy parent.

so over the past week skye has asked me several times if she could go hang out with her friends at the park after school. because it falls on a friday, it would mean that i pick her up, drive her to piano lessons, then pick her up from there and drop her off at her friend's house so that they can walk to the park together. i hummed and hawed about this for days... logistically, for me, it doesn't make sense because since we moved, her school and her friends houses are not as close to our house as i'd like it to be...

so today, skye begged the question again... "mom, can i go to the park with my friends??" ...

me: who are you meeting there??
skye: some friends from school??
me: what time are you going to be home? how are you getting home?
skye: i'll be home by dinner and i'll take the bus.
me: the bus?? who are you going to take the bus with??
skye: hmmmpf.. mom, i can take it myself.
me: um.. ok.. be home by 5 for sure, not a minute later.
skye: 5:30!??
me: 5.
skye: ok 5. i'll be home by 5
me: so who exactly are you meeting??
skye: san, john, kyle, marcel, miguel
me: what?? you and 5 boys?? skye.... is catherine or JQ going too?? how bout wong??
skye: no, they can't go.
me: skye.. i'm not sure i'm comfortable with you meeting 5 boys...
skye: mom!!?? what exactly do you think i'm going to do to them???

....

so... to that, i had no response. i told her again to be home at 5 and dropped her off. what was i thinking???

pb

Even heroes have the right to dream

spring is definitely here. took my baby out several times and wow.. did i ever miss it. everything is running smoothly and as usual numb bum sets in even after a short 1 hour ride. ;) gotta luv it.

even sama went for a ride with me on saturday to gm's house. she loved it (yay!!!). just as she hopped off my bike mel pulled up with her parents in their car. sometimes she pretends to be all embarrassed when her friends see her on my bike but i think she secretly loves it.

all is good...

:)

pb

The future’s open wide

i can feel this little splinter in my hand. i cannot see it. when i rub my finger over my palm the little splinter moves and i can feel it pinching me. i can't feel it with my finger though... only the pain from it moving when i rub against it. i would love to be able to dig it out as it is quite bothersome but because it is nowhere to be seen, i don't even know where to start digging. this is really bothering me. can you see it?? let me know if you do.

Open up my eager eyes

ALL YOU CAN EAT - those words are enticing to say the least.
particularly so, when they are strung together with "SUSHI".

several weeks ago, amazing t sent an email out asking if any of us would like to join her to satisfy her hankering for soft shelled crab rolls at this new all you can eat korean / japanese place nearby. i reluctantly, agreed. ALL YOU CAN EAT - those are dangerous words. i always feel an unexplainable pressure to consume way more food than my body is capable of processing or storing comfortably. growing up, my parents instilled in us the need to not only literally eat all that you can but also eat the expensive food items like meat and seafood... don't bother with the pasta and rice. even on the best of days where i starve myself all day, i can barely ingest what i perceive the value of dinner to be. most of the time, i go in, knowing exactly where to draw the line and then at some point, before i get too full, i stop and i leave content.

the players that night ... yves, amazing t, jord, don, elaine, mama y, skye, me and the adorable MB. we must have had at least a couple hundred pieces of sushi, sashimi, etc. amongst other things... teriyaki, soba, udon, edamame, and some other stuff we only referred to by number. the rolls just kept on coming out.. and just as we finished what we thought was the last plate, another plate came out. we ate and ate and ate and before we all knew it, we were past full. at the end of the night, even laughing hurt because i was so full. i don't ever remember eating that much before... now i know why.

that night i got home and sat with MB - both afraid and unable to move too much. we both agreed that the night's binge was a little outrageous - i even learned something new about him and his abilty to eat. what i believed to be a bottomless pit, in fact did have a bottom.

today, several weeks since our sushi binge, i still think about that night when someone invites me out for sushi. t, don, elaine, skye, jord, mama y and i think even yves, all have gone several times since. mb and i, we haven't indulged in sushi at a restaurant in weeks. i know for a fact that this is by far the longest time i've gone with out having a roll of some sort. i think i'm due for some soon... anyone want join me??? just say when...

buttercup

light up, light up...

bloomington illinois. 10 hours from toronto. this is where i am tonight. sama. skye. koos. yves. tina. don. mom. and sweet little jordan. here with jade. conner. tj. mark. julie. a.terry and a. virginia and adorable ian. :) walmarts are 24 hours here. targets close at midnight. we had intentions for a big shopping day.. but that didn't work out as well as planned. driving thru the night proved a little more exhausting than we imagined. we won the lottery crossing the border. mom had tonnes of meat dumplings packed and the border 'puter arbitrarily picked our car for a check. luckily it only required us to get out of the car and make an appearance at immigration. it helped that we had 3 sleepy kids in tow. dumplings made it here with only a few casualties which we ingested this morning. yum.

:)

pb

do they wobble to and fro...

it's really amazing how disconnected from the rest of the world i've been feeling over the past few weeks - particularly last week. thanks to a nasty virus on my 'puters, i've had no internet access at home - it has been about 2-3 weeks. last week, however, i took the week off for March break. my only access was through my cell phone, occasional visits to t's house, or when i was able to convince the ever charming MB to bring over his notebook at which point we would also have to count on "ap router" to also have his unsecured wireless line open. none of these proved very reliable. my cell phone was a slow connect and displayed limited text, visits to t's house were not as frequent as i would have liked, and "ap router" didn't have his computer on sometimes (it's actually quite terrible that i'm complaining about someone who doesn't know enough to secure his/her wireless connection).

i've been checking email infrequently and have not visited any of my favourite "check daily" websites and i haven't been upkeeping this blog. i'm way behind on my reading now. this week, i'm back at work - feeling a bit more connected but still not able to catch up on reading/blogging because i'm just too busy here.

so ... some random thoughts ...

'puters
as of last night virus is gone and internet is back up. i need a new router too.
yay...

motorcycles
ahhh.. i went for my first ride this season last sunday... it was cold. lovely but cold. not my motorcycle either. i had to get certified to become a motorcycle instructor (yes.. i passed!!!). it was so cold my fingers were numb and hurting. i couldn't even tell if i was actually moving my fingers at one point without looking at them. in any case, after many attempts to gain feeling in my fingers, i mustered up enough warmth to take the test and passed with zero points :). woo hoo...

the other day sama's bf came over and i pulled the cover off my bike to show him my baby. man, it took every thing in me to not give it a big "i miss you" hug. i've been really craving a ride especially with the weather starting to warm up. the certification ride came just in time, but not quite the same when it's cold and not my bike. i may even put the battery in and fire it up over the next few weeks. i'm tired of sitting on it in my garage making "vrrroommmm vroooooooooooom" noises.

march break
i have never taken a week off work to just stay at home and relax. this past week was my first. i can't really say what i did with myself most of the time. it really is something to have no commitments for the week. no appointments, no gymnastics, no tramplining, no ball hockey, no work ... amazing. no internet left me with no surfing and no msging and no emails. i didn't sleep as much as i would have liked to, i didn't go out much. i cleaned my basement. i ate - too much. my family, the three of us, put on 15-20 lbs. ice cream everyday will do that. sama saw a lot of guy and skye had a tonne of fun with jq and wong. i had lunch with thesnowdog on wednesday and brought lunch to the very busy but delightful MB on thursday who cancelled the lunch date we planned all week. i visited iln on her bday and was even able to squeeze in some studying for the certification day for the motorcycle course. thursday today and i am just starting to wrap my head around all things work related - thank goodness this is a short week.

Happy Easter ...

princess buttercup

Happy Birthday Patrick. :) Hope you have a great day.

pb

The heart is a bloom ...

Happy Birthday Slowpoke!!!

Slowpoke...

Of course i wish to extend the traditional birthday wishes but first i just wanted to say this...

the other day i looked at the calendar and noticed that my birthday falls on a friday. It's not for several weeks still but i wondered and almost stressed over whether or not i will be playing hockey that night. I think in the past, there would be nothing better than playing hockey on my birthday.. but now, not so much. i'm on the fence. so here you are... your birthday today and you will be playing hockey tonight. knowing you the way i do, i'm pretty sure it was a decision you made without hesitation. for whatever reason, thinking about your passion for hockey always inspires me to play more as well. i'm feeling a bit more pressure to go play for my own birthday now.

i hope you have a really great day. i hope you don't read this till monday cuz that would mean you took the day off. i still don't know who john wong is but if i ever cross paths with him, i'd thank him for playing hockey and planning badly so that you came to play with us. Thanks for your friendship, sharing your occasional hockey wisdom and listening to me gripe about all things hockey all these years.

Happy happy Birthday M!

pb

Destiny is calling me

...

yes.. i still have THAT cough. since christmas. i've given up on the puffer and went to some homeopathic concoction that was given to me. 10 drops of this plus 5 drops of that. tastes boozy. i've been doing that for 2 weeks. no noticable change.

after much prodding from many people i decided to go see a chinese doc about this cough. he did some acupuncture- one needle in each hand by the meaty part between my thumb and index finger and two needles in my face just underneath on each side of my nostrils - and he gave me some "foo cha" and sent me on my way. he's treating my allergies/asthma, which will hopefully fix my cough, and my migraines. coincidentally, i got a migraine after seeing him on sunday and today is the first day without any sort of head pain. hopefully, it has just worn itself out.. typically 3 days is how long a migraine lasts for me.

i stayed off the more potent drugs this time so that it doesn't counteract the eastern meds... my migraines mixed with the right drugs, creates the most wicked dreams. i missed that this time around.

no cold food/drinks, no spicy foods - those don't go well with the foo cha.
the "foo cha" tastes awful. a brown powder mixed with a little warm water creating a brown pastey liquid that i have to drink. the woman who gave it to me said it was sweet... but i'm thinking that she's never tasted sugar before.

now i should be on my way to a cough and migraine free existance. next ... i need to get my foot looked at. it's still bothering me.

pb

this moment she's been waiting for ....

Marty: You should wait 'til you meet someone who excites you.
Willie: Well, you know, she may not be out there.
Marty: It's like "The Wizard of Oz," Will. The whole time it was right in your own backyard.
- Beautiful Girls

******************************************************


so it turns out that the adorable MB called me from blockbuster a few nights ago telling me he was going to rent a movie ... he asked what i wanted to see... i told him i didn't care and that he could just rent anything and bring it over to watch (that's probably why i'm getting scammed on the movie choices.. it's totally my fault for really not caring what we watch..) ... so we went back and forth and after a few minutes i realized that he must've read my blog from last week. so i chose - "touch of pink".

since my blog, (which was actually more just me griping about my indecisive nature and not directed towards mb), we've seen two movies ... touch of pink and a couple nights ago we decided to forego the oscars and saw million dollar baby (mutual choice). both movies were excellent... but i really recommend million dollar baby though...


pb