Oh say can you see?
Well, am back from my madcap adventures in the land of the FBI and George Bush. I've decided to organise this particular blog into chapters cus it's so long! But hey! I have a whole week of adventures to recap. Give me a break! Ahem, here goes.
THE JOURNEY THERE
Karen's ex-boyfriend was the one that drove me to the airport in Saskatoon. As I got my bags out of his trunk, he managed to mumble out a desperate, "Can you do something for me? *pause* Can you tell Karen I still love her?"
"Sure, but I'm not sure if it'll do much good." I mumble under my breath.
"What?"
"Uh, nothing. Sure, I'll tell her."
While waiting at the airport for my flight, I wandered into the bookstore and got a kick out of the fact that someone had filed Bill Clinton's new autobiography right in the middle of the shelf under a great big sign that said "Fiction".
As for the flight itself, it was idiotic as I had to fly back to Calgary to catch a flight that would take me to Toronto where I'd switch over to get on a flight to DC.
It was pretty touch and go for a bit, especially when I had to go through the security checks at the Toronto airport. I had to take off my shoes, my jacket, open my backpack for them, let them poke at my sheep pencil case and just when I thought I'd had enough, they'd ask to swab my calculator.
I made it though.
Strange thing was that when faced with the custom forms, for the first time in my life ever I was forced to tick off the box that said, "I have been on a farm and have interacted with livestock within the last 14d."
Fortunately, Karen and Joanne's charms so distracted the customs officer that he never noticed and just stamped my form. I'm serious! The man was besotted with them!
I told Karen about what her ex-boyfriend had said about still loving her. She laughed.
TOP SECRET CLASSIFIED INFO
Once down in DC we were met by my uncle at the airport. Joanne and I have a secret theory that our uncle is part of the CIA. He's an ex-marine, lives in Washington DC, has a black belt in karate, and is entirely too vague about his job as a nuclear engineer.
When he does talk about his job, it's boring to the point of implausibility. Kind of like in "True Lies" when Arnold Schwartzneger is telling Jamie Lee Curtis about his so called computer job.
Perhaps I've said too much.
Anyhow, our uncle drove us to our hotel and as fate would have it, I was forced to share a bed with Joanne as Karen claimed she farts in her sleep. Fun times.
PSYCHIC TWIN VIBES
The next day was spent with my aunt shopping at this crazy cheap outlet store called "Gabriel brothers". The store was gigantic and we decided the best method to cover it all was to split up (gotta have a shopping game plan you know). Joanne and I must have had about 20 different outfits we had pulled off the racks to try on. Two hours later, we emerged triumphant from our change rooms . . . holding the exact same two shirts.
My aunt and Karen laughed their arses off at us.
EATS, SHOOTS AND LEAVES
The next day was more productive. We went to the National Zoo where they have just succeeded in breeding the first-ever baby panda to be born in captivity that has survived to 4 months of age. The parent pandas are on loan to the States from China. Anyhow, this baby panda is like a national treasure and my guess is that should anyhting bad happen to the little guy, all hell would break loose between China and the USA. Well, that and half of PETA would hang itself for the loss of such an adorable little furball. Heck I'd hang myself. The thing is ADORABLE!!!!!!
We were lucky enough to see the baby panda, the mommy and the daddy panda. Normally, none of them come out but I guess we were lucky. The father panda is kept in a separate enclosure and made a show of climbing up on this rotten log and rubbing his back on it to scratch himself and then breaking the log and nearly falling off. Totally hilarious!
Someone once told me that pandas are so ill-adapted to survival in the wild that it's a wonder we're trying to save them at all. Watching hte male panda struggling to hold on to the log with his paws while his bum and legs were dangling and lazily kicking below made me think maybe that person was right afterall.
KNIGHTS IN SHINING ARMOUR
Our birthday was even more exciting. My aunt booked a dinner for us at this Mideival Times crazy restaurant/amphitheatre thing. It was this huge addition onto this shopping mall that looked exactly like a mideival castle. It was stone with wooden doors and torches and eveyrthing. We were all given gaudy paper crowns to wear and were seated in this weird arena where knights on real live horses were jousting and doing all sorts of knightly things.
The arena was divided into different sections. We were sitting in the "Blue" section we were expected to cheer on the "Blue Knight" who had this horrible long brown hair and was as manly as the green fairy. We were served food by these poor "wenches" that had to fake a British accent and we were told to eat with our hands as ppl back then didn't eat with utensils. My poor little cousin Hana, being one to never get her hands dirty, was mortified. "Vivian. Why can't I eat with a fork? I WANT A FORK!" I spent the rest of the evening consoling her and offering to tear up her chicken for her. She was inconsolable, sulked and crawled under the table. I shrugged and ate some of her food.
Karen got really into the whole thing though and cheered on the Blue Knight with much enthusiasm. I guess it paid off though in that half-way through the show, even though we were in the back row of the arena, the Blue Knight noticed her and threw a flower up to her.
Sigh, even wearing a paper crown and holding a handful of chicken she can manage to have a knight in shining armour sweep her off her feet. Why didn't I get any of those genes?!!
Back at my aunt's house, my aunt whipped up a lovely sour-cream cheese cake with a teddy-graham crust. Then there was her famous strawberry pretzel salad (sweet but salty! mmmmm), oatmeal raisin coookies (better than Gabe's, shhhhh don't tell!), chinese new years pudding (crispy on top, gooey in the centre), fresh fruit, candy, cupcakes, gingerbread and every other fattening but yummy thing in the world. Karen, Joanne and I swear we each gained about 10 pounds and an extra ass in the span of three days.
WHY I WISH I DIDN'T HAVE A UTERUS
We had another shopping day after that and my little cousins and nephew came along this time. After spending my weekend with kids, I have to admit there's a lot to be said for ovariohysterectomies. It's not that they aren't lovable. It's just that I can't be selfless enough to invest 26 hours of my day devoted to taking care of and pleasing a little human being.
Take my little nephew for example. He's cute, intelligent and when sleeping, he's almost angelic. Problem is, when he's awake, he's like the devil incarnate. I was sitting there happily watching March of the Penguins on the couch when suddenly, he marches into the room and farts. The he looks at me and starts doing the lip-trembling thing.
"You're sitting ON MY SEAT!" he screams at me.
"Uh, you wanna sit beside me? How about on my lap?"
"NO!"
"OK. Well, I was here first."
"NO! MINE! MY SEAT!"
I give up and move over. Then he jumps on my head in revenge for me sitting in his seat and decides to start slapping my head and ears as hard as he can.
I decide to play dead and ignore him.
He notices he's getting nowhere and starts pulling my hair and mushing it into my face.
Then he starts screaming and slapping my head again.
I eventually get up and attempt to walk into the kitchen. He clings to my shoulders and hangs on to my hair, which by now rivals Edward Scissorhand's. Hana is in the kitchen and starts screaming at Samuel to let go of me. Samuel hangs on tighter and Hana screams louder. Samuel screams back.
I eventually get him off me and then he wanders off, turns back and gives me a good hard punch right in my belly button. I yowl on the floor in pain. He laughs and then runs off screaming.
I'm in a rumpled, defeated heap on the kitchen floor.
"You shouldn't have sat in his seat." says Hana, not looking up from her Polly Pocket doll house.
Samuel comes back into the room and farts.
"YOU POOTED SAMUEL!" said Hana.
"No, YOU DID!"
"NO!"
"YES!"
"NO!"
"YES!"
I vowed then and there never to have children.
And that was pretty much my week in Washington DC. By the end of it, I needed a vacation from the kids.
THE JOURNEY BACK
My flight back was at 8:30 in the morning and since it takes an hour to get anywhere in DC and since it was an international flight, I had to wake up at the ungodly hour of 4:45am. On the plus side, I sat beside a guy who runs an "Ice rink" company on my flight back to Saskatoon. Very interesting.
And now I'm back at school. The whole class is aware that I played hooky the last week and they made sure they embarassed me for my belated birthday by singing a song to me about Chinese food and my parents owning and Chinese food restaurant. Bless their hearts. Jasmine the education bird that I work with decided to attack my head and I got to practice suturing a fake dog abdomen made out of foam.
I found out from my crazy cab driver ("I am a cab drrriver! I know everrrything!") on the way back to my apartment that the Conservatives are now in power. I also found out that Alberta found another case of BSE in 6 year old cow. What do you know? I leave the country for a week and there's a whole new government and the borders of South Korea are closed to Canadian beef again!
Still, I'm not complaining. Looking around my cozy apartment, free from fattening foods, farting kids and sisters that kick in their sleep, i have to say:
It's good to be back.
THE JOURNEY THERE
Karen's ex-boyfriend was the one that drove me to the airport in Saskatoon. As I got my bags out of his trunk, he managed to mumble out a desperate, "Can you do something for me? *pause* Can you tell Karen I still love her?"
"Sure, but I'm not sure if it'll do much good." I mumble under my breath.
"What?"
"Uh, nothing. Sure, I'll tell her."
While waiting at the airport for my flight, I wandered into the bookstore and got a kick out of the fact that someone had filed Bill Clinton's new autobiography right in the middle of the shelf under a great big sign that said "Fiction".
As for the flight itself, it was idiotic as I had to fly back to Calgary to catch a flight that would take me to Toronto where I'd switch over to get on a flight to DC.
It was pretty touch and go for a bit, especially when I had to go through the security checks at the Toronto airport. I had to take off my shoes, my jacket, open my backpack for them, let them poke at my sheep pencil case and just when I thought I'd had enough, they'd ask to swab my calculator.
I made it though.
Strange thing was that when faced with the custom forms, for the first time in my life ever I was forced to tick off the box that said, "I have been on a farm and have interacted with livestock within the last 14d."
Fortunately, Karen and Joanne's charms so distracted the customs officer that he never noticed and just stamped my form. I'm serious! The man was besotted with them!
I told Karen about what her ex-boyfriend had said about still loving her. She laughed.
TOP SECRET CLASSIFIED INFO
Once down in DC we were met by my uncle at the airport. Joanne and I have a secret theory that our uncle is part of the CIA. He's an ex-marine, lives in Washington DC, has a black belt in karate, and is entirely too vague about his job as a nuclear engineer.
When he does talk about his job, it's boring to the point of implausibility. Kind of like in "True Lies" when Arnold Schwartzneger is telling Jamie Lee Curtis about his so called computer job.
Perhaps I've said too much.
Anyhow, our uncle drove us to our hotel and as fate would have it, I was forced to share a bed with Joanne as Karen claimed she farts in her sleep. Fun times.
PSYCHIC TWIN VIBES
The next day was spent with my aunt shopping at this crazy cheap outlet store called "Gabriel brothers". The store was gigantic and we decided the best method to cover it all was to split up (gotta have a shopping game plan you know). Joanne and I must have had about 20 different outfits we had pulled off the racks to try on. Two hours later, we emerged triumphant from our change rooms . . . holding the exact same two shirts.
My aunt and Karen laughed their arses off at us.
EATS, SHOOTS AND LEAVES
The next day was more productive. We went to the National Zoo where they have just succeeded in breeding the first-ever baby panda to be born in captivity that has survived to 4 months of age. The parent pandas are on loan to the States from China. Anyhow, this baby panda is like a national treasure and my guess is that should anyhting bad happen to the little guy, all hell would break loose between China and the USA. Well, that and half of PETA would hang itself for the loss of such an adorable little furball. Heck I'd hang myself. The thing is ADORABLE!!!!!!
We were lucky enough to see the baby panda, the mommy and the daddy panda. Normally, none of them come out but I guess we were lucky. The father panda is kept in a separate enclosure and made a show of climbing up on this rotten log and rubbing his back on it to scratch himself and then breaking the log and nearly falling off. Totally hilarious!
Someone once told me that pandas are so ill-adapted to survival in the wild that it's a wonder we're trying to save them at all. Watching hte male panda struggling to hold on to the log with his paws while his bum and legs were dangling and lazily kicking below made me think maybe that person was right afterall.
KNIGHTS IN SHINING ARMOUR
Our birthday was even more exciting. My aunt booked a dinner for us at this Mideival Times crazy restaurant/amphitheatre thing. It was this huge addition onto this shopping mall that looked exactly like a mideival castle. It was stone with wooden doors and torches and eveyrthing. We were all given gaudy paper crowns to wear and were seated in this weird arena where knights on real live horses were jousting and doing all sorts of knightly things.
The arena was divided into different sections. We were sitting in the "Blue" section we were expected to cheer on the "Blue Knight" who had this horrible long brown hair and was as manly as the green fairy. We were served food by these poor "wenches" that had to fake a British accent and we were told to eat with our hands as ppl back then didn't eat with utensils. My poor little cousin Hana, being one to never get her hands dirty, was mortified. "Vivian. Why can't I eat with a fork? I WANT A FORK!" I spent the rest of the evening consoling her and offering to tear up her chicken for her. She was inconsolable, sulked and crawled under the table. I shrugged and ate some of her food.
Karen got really into the whole thing though and cheered on the Blue Knight with much enthusiasm. I guess it paid off though in that half-way through the show, even though we were in the back row of the arena, the Blue Knight noticed her and threw a flower up to her.
Sigh, even wearing a paper crown and holding a handful of chicken she can manage to have a knight in shining armour sweep her off her feet. Why didn't I get any of those genes?!!
Back at my aunt's house, my aunt whipped up a lovely sour-cream cheese cake with a teddy-graham crust. Then there was her famous strawberry pretzel salad (sweet but salty! mmmmm), oatmeal raisin coookies (better than Gabe's, shhhhh don't tell!), chinese new years pudding (crispy on top, gooey in the centre), fresh fruit, candy, cupcakes, gingerbread and every other fattening but yummy thing in the world. Karen, Joanne and I swear we each gained about 10 pounds and an extra ass in the span of three days.
WHY I WISH I DIDN'T HAVE A UTERUS
We had another shopping day after that and my little cousins and nephew came along this time. After spending my weekend with kids, I have to admit there's a lot to be said for ovariohysterectomies. It's not that they aren't lovable. It's just that I can't be selfless enough to invest 26 hours of my day devoted to taking care of and pleasing a little human being.
Take my little nephew for example. He's cute, intelligent and when sleeping, he's almost angelic. Problem is, when he's awake, he's like the devil incarnate. I was sitting there happily watching March of the Penguins on the couch when suddenly, he marches into the room and farts. The he looks at me and starts doing the lip-trembling thing.
"You're sitting ON MY SEAT!" he screams at me.
"Uh, you wanna sit beside me? How about on my lap?"
"NO!"
"OK. Well, I was here first."
"NO! MINE! MY SEAT!"
I give up and move over. Then he jumps on my head in revenge for me sitting in his seat and decides to start slapping my head and ears as hard as he can.
I decide to play dead and ignore him.
He notices he's getting nowhere and starts pulling my hair and mushing it into my face.
Then he starts screaming and slapping my head again.
I eventually get up and attempt to walk into the kitchen. He clings to my shoulders and hangs on to my hair, which by now rivals Edward Scissorhand's. Hana is in the kitchen and starts screaming at Samuel to let go of me. Samuel hangs on tighter and Hana screams louder. Samuel screams back.
I eventually get him off me and then he wanders off, turns back and gives me a good hard punch right in my belly button. I yowl on the floor in pain. He laughs and then runs off screaming.
I'm in a rumpled, defeated heap on the kitchen floor.
"You shouldn't have sat in his seat." says Hana, not looking up from her Polly Pocket doll house.
Samuel comes back into the room and farts.
"YOU POOTED SAMUEL!" said Hana.
"No, YOU DID!"
"NO!"
"YES!"
"NO!"
"YES!"
I vowed then and there never to have children.
And that was pretty much my week in Washington DC. By the end of it, I needed a vacation from the kids.
THE JOURNEY BACK
My flight back was at 8:30 in the morning and since it takes an hour to get anywhere in DC and since it was an international flight, I had to wake up at the ungodly hour of 4:45am. On the plus side, I sat beside a guy who runs an "Ice rink" company on my flight back to Saskatoon. Very interesting.
And now I'm back at school. The whole class is aware that I played hooky the last week and they made sure they embarassed me for my belated birthday by singing a song to me about Chinese food and my parents owning and Chinese food restaurant. Bless their hearts. Jasmine the education bird that I work with decided to attack my head and I got to practice suturing a fake dog abdomen made out of foam.
I found out from my crazy cab driver ("I am a cab drrriver! I know everrrything!") on the way back to my apartment that the Conservatives are now in power. I also found out that Alberta found another case of BSE in 6 year old cow. What do you know? I leave the country for a week and there's a whole new government and the borders of South Korea are closed to Canadian beef again!
Still, I'm not complaining. Looking around my cozy apartment, free from fattening foods, farting kids and sisters that kick in their sleep, i have to say:
It's good to be back.
posted by Viv at 8:33 p.m.
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