Than!ks

Today, I finally achieved my lifetime dream of petting a cow. Actually, it was really only a 2 day dream, and I'm not completely certain that I haven't petted a cow at some other point in my past, but I realized a dream of some sort, and that's what counts. The following is pictorial evidence.
This did not last long before she decided to show me exactly how she felt about me petting her by eliminating a large amount of waste on her tail. I tried to pet her again, but, she had managed to protect herself by swatting herself on either side, leaving a manure barrier between me and fantastic cow petting. This made me say, "Clever move, my bovine opponent." (or wait, maybe it was more like "Ew...there's manure everywhere." but who really knows...except for Shamus and Lilliput's sister Angelica...and their dog Tobias...and the video of the entire event that Shamus was taking. But other than that, no one knows what actually transpired.) and look for something else to pet. Unfortunately, the other cows were reportedly more likely to destroy me, so my only response at this point was this:
Note that I'm running with my head down, because when running from bloodthirsty cows, one should always watch for cow pies, or else live to regret it. You can't say you don't learn valuable life lessons from reading this blog.

Later, we had a lovely game of croquet, far away from the cow pies. Since most of my croquet knowledge has come from Alice in Wonderland, I had trouble figuring out how one is supposed to play without flamingos and hedgehogs. We seemed to work it out though, and in the 3rd game, I came in second place by default when everyone else decided they didn't want to play for second place, so one might say I'm a croquet master of sorts.

I logged onto Facebook today and it said "Sharon, you can now use Facebook to send thanks." Which made me think, "Crap, I've clearly been thanking people illicitly through Facebook for years." In fact, the majority of times I send messages on Facebook or e-mail, I like to try to slip in a request, just so that I'll have something to thank them for, because I have an awful time choosing a good sign-off. I do "Cheers" sometimes, and "Regards" can be good when you really don't know someone, or want to give it a little chill at the end, but really there's nothing like a good "Thanks" to end a message. Anyways, I was curious about this whole Facebook thanks thing, so I clicked on it, and all that happened was a new message opened with the subject line: "Thanks!" I'm luckly I had them to do this for me, because, had I done it myself, I would have had no idea where to place the exclamation point for maximum effect, and my person would have been left feeling completely unthanked. Th!ank you Facebook for once again enriching my life.

Char-Char (my 6 month old niece) came over to help me finish my blog. She's much better with a computer than I am, and managed to open some sort of magical code box and then reset my internet privacy settings. I would have let her do more, since she seemed to really know what was going on, but when she started drooling on the "R" key, I realized it might be time for a computer break. Although, I'm not certain that she didn't just know something more than me. Like that drooling on the "R" key will reprogram your computer to start dispensing delicious milkshakes, or that liberal use of words starting in "R" will help make a blog really rewarding for readers, as well as (w)riters. Rrrrrrrrrrrrrr (that's me rolling an "R" to close off this post, in case you're confused, but I'll do it again now for effect). Rrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Clearly sweets are on my mind

Today I went to Vancouver to visit my friend Jemima Brooklyn. Actually, I'm writing this post on my iPod notepad (note: not equivalent to the iPad, which is continuing to confuse me as I try to figure out how something that's pretty much an awkwardly sized iPod/iPhone is so desirable) on the train(bus) home that I just had to sprint to catch. There's nothing quite like sprinting away from a plateful of desserts to catch the last train(bus) home. What makes such a trip particularly fun is the increased metabolism of the couple of drinks I had with dinner, one of which was full of cotton candy. It was so very awesome that the well dressed, stiff-shouldered children across from us looked incredibly jealous.


I felt sad for the poor stiff children, who struck me as just an accessory to go with their mother's perfect, and also stiff, hair. Jemima texted me on the train(bus) after I'd left to let me know that the mother had left them to go to the washroom and they relaxed for a bit. I noted earlier that the washrooms smelled like candy, so I'm hoping that kept her in there a little bit longer to allow their tiny trapezius muscles to get a good break.

We also were given complementary Kobe beef meatballs. Jemima thought that grinding up Kobe beef seemed like a waste of particularly good beef, then described how the process of producing Kobe beef involves regular massages to keep them tender. So, naturally, I asked, "Is that before or after they're dead?" and she said, "Before." Which made me think that they probably have a better quality of life than most farm animals. If it weere after, I would have thought it was about equal.

Then Jemima wondered if rich people who get a lot of massages produce better meat, which I thought was a good thing to look into in preparation for if you ever find yourself in an island planecrash. It's also a good reason to avoid massages if you're planning on flying anytime soon. Additionally, I'm not certain that the bears aren't already aware of the relationship between massages and deliciousness, so probably best to avoid bear country too if you're fond of massages.

I should probably mention that at the time of the Kobe beef discussion, I tried to write a note in my iPod to remind me to blog about it. But, the "M" button is so close to delete that "Kobe beef massage" became "Kobe beefassage", which seems quite unappetizing. Almost as unappetizing as cannibalism jokes, one might say.

Last night, I discovered one more reason that I very much love Char-char Junior the Second. She was a bit fussy, so I was singing her "New York, New York" which I know pretty well, due to my vagabond shoes' generally strong desire to stray (and also to step around the heart of it). Unfortunately, as impressive as my lyric knowledge and emotional connection to the song may be, it doesn't actually help me to sing it on-key. Usually, I get midway through and realize that the song is suddenly out of my very limited range and need to go down an octave, or just fake it and hope for the best. But Char-char, being the perfect niece that she is, actually smiles more the further off-key I get. This is good, because it happens often and baby smiles are like delicious candy, but in baby form and less likely to cause diabetes.

Based on that last simile, I'm wondering if I'm still missing the delicious plate of desserts that I left behind to ensure I could make it home to blog this. So, I'm going to end this post with a delicious picture of the aforementioned dessert. Enjoy.

Marbles are magical, like the number 3

Tonight I went to Shamus' softball game. It brought me back to my T-ball days. T-ball was upsetting to me because I had to wear pants, which I was not fond of at the time. Also, I didn't quite understand the rules, and no one realized that they needed to explain them to me. When my coach brought me out to the field and told me to "stand here", I thought that meant that I needed to stay in exactly that place. Looking back, it seems I was aware that I could temporarily leave my assigned spot, but was worried that I would never find my way back to it, because I'm bad with directions and could have ended up anywhere. Then, I feared, my team would lose the game because of my inability to stay in one spot.

So, I created elaborate schemes to guarantee that I could find my way back. Usually, this involved drawing designs in the dirt that would allow me to identify my assign position. I would draw a picture and then step back and think, "Could that happen naturally?" and if the answer was yes, I would erase it and start again, to ensure that I wasn't distracted by any spot marker decoys. Unfortunately, this gave me a rep as the team dunce, which meant that I was always in the outfield, so I always felt like I needed a special marker. The funny thing is, had I been put at a base, this wouldn't be an issue and I probably would have actually played. Just one of the many Catch-22s that make up life. I had one day where I found a marble, and that game was the highlight of my entire T-ball career. I was running all over the place, safe in the knowledge that nature was not going to magically craft distraction marbles.

Here are some examples of markers I would draw:

This one is easy to draw, which is good, but is too easily reproduced by an evil child falling on their face. So, I would erase it and replace it with this:
Also, far too commonly found in children's t-ball fields. So I would replace it with this:
This one will work. No drawing of this caliber could be produced without significant, deliberate effort. Now I can finally get into this game. Wait, where's everyone going? Noooo, not again. Why am I so bad at this game?

After reading my blog about baby names, Shamus said to Lilliput, "If we have 7 children, I'm calling the 7th one Seven. That's our deal." And, after having dealt with a fussy Char-char all day, Lilliput said, "If you're having 7 children, it's not with me." To which, Shamus said "You could have sextuplets, and if we do, we'll just give them numbers." But I said, "What about poor Six," because you know that Six is totally going to be mocked mercilessly when the other children realize that a simple vowel substitution will lead to a wonderfully horrible nickname. And Lilliput said, "What about Six? Because Two, Three, Four, Five and Seven won't have any trouble." (Sarcastically, obviously, I hope.) Lilliput frequently makes good points. Except that I think Five will be good, because the kids will probably call him/her "Five Alive" and often high five him/her, which will lead to a positive sense of self. Also, Three might be magic.

4 8 15 16 23 42

I'm visiting my brother Shamus in BC this week. I don't get to fly often, so I got pretty excited about it today. I got up early yesterday morning to check in online and stake my claim on a window seat. As I was boarding today, I realized I'd inadvertently chosen a seat in row 15, one of the evil numbers from Lost. I think, as a rule, when flying one should try to avoid anything that could be connected to Lost, like knives or polar bears, so I'm not sure what possessed me to choose one of the numbers. As we took off, I noticed a 23 on the runway and decided I was most likely screwed. I was wrong, but I'm still going to stick with that rule, just in case (and I hate polar bears anyways).

When I fly I like to think of the beginning of Fight Club and wonder if this is the flight where I'll finally get to meet my soap making alter-ego. Could it be the middle-aged Asian woman beside me? I'm thinking that it probably isn't because she seems quite perturbed by me staring at her as I try to size her up. I guess I'll just have to wait until the next time I fly to meet my alter-ego. I bet she'll be tall.

Since my jinxing the flight didn't make it crash on a mysterious island (in Saskatchewan...?) I am now able to blog to you from Shamus' apartment where he lives with his wife Lilliput, their baby Char-char Junior the Second and their rabbit, Alfred Von Bunnikins. Alfred has been shedding lately, so their is fur everywhere. It kind of rolls around the place, like tumbleweeds. I'm trying to figure out how to monetize on it somehow, but the only idea I have so far is that when Char-char is a bit older we can use her tiny dexterous fingers to create elaborate rabbit fur crafts to sell at various novelty shows. Or maybe we can use it to make her whiskers and somehow make money off the resulting cuteness.

Well, that's about all that happened today. I had thought that a plane ride would give lots of blog material, but apparently not so much. The following are some thoughts that don't really have much follow up. Edmonton is a very nice city for a stopover. The writers block in me wishes they were jerks instead, because that makes for good blogging. Mountains make me happy, because of the tallness. I'd like to be a flight attendant because it's like you get to perform a show every time you tell people how not to die in the event of an accident. This random assortment of facts does not a blog make, but I will still put them in to bulk it up.

Actually, I forgot to put something into my blog yesterday, and that to mention the CN tower is exciting to Byla because she's from Yellowknife, where all structures are made of ice, so nothing even close to the CN towers size has ever been built because of the inevitable tower floods in the summer. Sometimes, it's fun to mock where people come from. Just kidding, Byla, you know I'm just jealous because you can stay at a bar until closing and walk home in the sunlight. Actually, I'm not, because I'm a ginger, so sunlight is my enemy.

This post has gone downhill fast, I'm going to blame jet-lag, which is confusing me into thinking that I should have the energy to write this, because the world is still light. But I don't. I wish I'd brought my crayons. Tomorrow I'll get Char-char to write this. She seems to have some awesome graphic design skills. Also, she's a baby, so everything she does is automatically entertaining.