You think I'm going to zig...and then I zig

Some days I imagine I'll have more time that is temporally possible. Today was one of those days, by which I mean I frittered away my morning and over scheduled my afternoon, so I'm literally writing this as I walk to my friend Andi (to the) Maximum's apartment. I'm assuming I won't accidentally wander into oncoming traffic, but if I do, I'm hoping my iPod will survive so there is evidence of my attempt to blog.

As I listen to my completely randomized music I'm struck by the proportion of country I have (usually I wouldn't notice things like this because I skip a lot). This country-music-liking thing started pretty subtly, if you'd asked me if I liked country 4 years ago, I probably would have laughed at the idea. To be honest, I'm pretty sure it's Shamus and Lilliput's doing. Who started them on it? I don't know. Probably some sort of a leprechaun (or so Occam's Razor would indicate).

My favorite thing about country (or at least my random assortment of country songs chosen mainly for nostalgia purposes) is that it often contains a story and usually zigs for awhile before it zags, just to mess with you. Like there's one song about a poker game where they're all talking about who they would be if thy could be anything, and they all want to be famous and rich and generally awesome...until you get to the guy singing it. He's pretty much like "I want to be a good husband and a father, because my life's pretty damn good." If I had written that song, I also would have added "Now don't you all feel unappreciative. Booyah M.F.s!"

I also have a song about a horrible highway accident where the whole song you think it was the preacher that survived. Until, BOOM, you find out it was the hooker all along. I also like the added touch of a blood soaked bible immediately after that revelation. I don't get to spend enough time imagining blood soaked bibles, so I always appreciate when that one comes on, even though I already know the answer to the mystery (in case you didn't catch it, it was the hooker).

So, I didn't die from my iPod writing, although it was close. But it turned out it was unnecessary because our movie doesn't start until 10:30, so I have a chunk of time to write now. Oh well, now I know that I can do it if I have to, although I suspect people are driving by thinking "Stupid kids, attached to their electronic doohickeys." Actually, this chunk of time is less "blogging time" and more "publishing and then stuffing my face with food time", so I'm going to sign off now. Tomorrow, I promise more crayon drawings, even if both my hands are chopped off in a horrible lathe accident and I have to draw by gripping the crayons between my painful stumps. I guess I could do in my mouth too, but the taste of wax too easily brings me back to kindergarten, which would result in mainly heart people pictures, because for a few years, I would not draw anything that wasn't completely composed of hearts. Tomorrow, I will draw an example. But for now, I'm going to fend off starvation.

It takes 21 Days to Break/Make a Habit

I bet you didn't notice the time passing, gentle reader, since your life has been abundant with metaphorical rainbows and puppy-dogs since my blog filled the dark hole in your heart you didn't even know existed until it was occupied by my musings. Or so I assume. But, time has passed, so much time that this is my 21st post. And, as my title may indicate, I've often heard it takes 21 days to break a habit, or, in this case, to make a habit. Unless you want to think of it as breaking my bad habit of not writing down random stuff everyday and posting it for your amusement, which is what I'm choosing to do. So today, I'm celebrating 2 things: My 21 days of posting, officially making daily posting a "habit" and the fact that I wasn't eaten by bears...yet. Everything's coming up Sharon!

Today I learned that when walking at Lilliput's place, it is important to watch for cow pies. That was a good lesson. I went on a quest to see their new calf while simultaneously not being eaten by bears, and though I was good on the second count, I could not find any sign of baby cow. I did see big cows though, and I think I need to apologize to Yelsel D'Stupid for mocking her belief that cows eat meat, because I'm pretty sure they were eying me in the way that something that wants to eat something else will eye up that something else. Then one licked its side, the universal sign for "I'm going to eat you and you will be delicious." Cows are terrifying and I'm glad for the invention of fences.

Thinking of fences, since going to the zoo, I have been considering ways it could be improved. My friend, Enna McLoggin suggested that it would be better if you could pay extra to go in a tiny cage inside the carnivores cage, so that they might be more interested in eating you. Also, to further increase the thrill, they could throw a rabbit in with you. I think that Alfred Von Bunnikins has super bunny senses, because after writing this I tried to pick him up and he bunny-ninjaed me.

So, later on (after first writing about my cow adventures) I went back with Shamus and did see the calf. Forgetting exactly how much the cows seemed to want to eat me earlier, I decided that I would try to pet one of them. Despite Shamus' assurances that the chances of them killing me were low (wait, in hindsight, he never actually assured that as much as didn't disagree when I asked whether it might be a possibility), I didn't manage to pet one because they seemed a little bloodthirsty as I approached. The point of this story is that I tried though. Tried and failed. And the lesson is if you never try, you never fail. But you also won't get to pet awesome cows. Although, I did try, and failed and also didn't get to pet cows, so I'm not sure what the point really is. Perhaps it's that before I die, I will pet a cow, even if it leads to my cause of death being cow.

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.