The people that you meet...

Christmas shopping in a small town at a major shopping center on a Saturday is an interesting experience, rife with opportunity to mix and mingle, and experience all sorts of interesting confrontations (and non-confrontations).

1. Ex-husband's ex-girlfriend. Duck and cover. It's just a good idea. Take small, petty joy out of knowing I look much better than she does. Old grudges die hard.

2. Guy I've had crush on for about 4-5 years. Asked out him out once. Was turned down on the basis of a messy divorce. Once bitten twice shy, I suppose. Is with his kid, so I forgo my 'Hey still given up on women? because I'd love to restore your faith in our gender' line for the incredibly suave "... Hi. How's it going? .... ". Slap myself silly for being such an obvious social retard and blowing an opportunity with this guy I see like once a year, MAYBE.

3. Sister and brother in law. again, and again, and again. Tell sister about incredibly awkward moment with number 2. Sister insists I should track him down. I probably should have, but on the other hand, I've already asked once. No point in being pathetic about it.

4. Out-of-town friend, visiting family. Invite to christmas party, since she's in town. Make idle chitchat, get in the way of numerous shoppers.

5. Sister and brother in law again. Suspect they may have gift for me in cart, since they are being elusive. May just be in a hurry.

6. Guy I once drunkenly made out with at a bar - with his kids and girlfriend, who happened to be his girlfriend at the time of said bar night. Gah, gah double-gah. Duck and cover time again. Time to get the hell outta dodge, methinks.

7. Sister and brother-in-law again, this time in parking lot. Sister, being the jokester she is, yells 'Stop following me!' from car window. Haw Haw Haw.

Okay, so it's been a few hours since I woke up, so my memory of the dreams I had are kind of blurry.

I'm in Toronto and I'm visiting with my sister in Law Gail, with the girls. Gail and her daughter kayla are there. I decide to go to the mall with Krystle and I bring Reagan with me, but for some reason, not Tierney. Reagan is dressed head to toe in a Bunny Suit. Think Ralphie in a Christmas Story. Pink Nightmare.

I lose Reagan in the mall, and Krystle. I'm frantically searching for Reagan, and crying.

After I finally find her riding the escalator in her bunny suit, I take her back to Gails and it's about 11 at night but we decide to all have some hot dogs. They've been waiting to have dinner until we got back.

I head over to Krystle's, and Melissa and her brother DJ are there. They're both having a smoke and I'm like "Whoa dude, take it outside. Krys is really allergic."

So they both ignore me. And I say again (meanwhile I'm still wondering where the hell Krystle went anyway) "You can't smoke in here, I don't particularly feel like rushing anybody to the hospital with huge asthma attacks"

And Melissa gets really pissed and we're out on the front lawn, just beating the shit out of each other. Not scratching, hair-pulling girl-fighting, but like full-on clenched fist Fight-club-esque fighting, but in that weird cartoonish dream way, where there is no blood or anything.

Then I woke up.

Conversations with my kid - 'Comprehension'

Me:  How was your day?
Reagan: *stretches arms wide*
Me:  This big?
Reagan:  Yeah.

Screaming lunchbags, Stolen bikes, pennies from heaven

This is not my morning.  I got half of this written out and I hit the back button somehow, and it ate the beginnings of my post.  Anyway, I can only chalk it up to a combination of work stress, money woes and sexual frustration as the cause for the dreams that haunted my sleep and woke me with a feeling of foreboding in the pit of my stomach.

Act 1, Scene 1.
I am at work, and the phone rings.  I pick it up and a man on the other end begins ranting and raving, asking why his ad is on hold, and he wants it released now, now, right-friggin-now.  Calmly I ask him for his email or the ad  number, so I can bring up the ad.  He gets as far as 'LV...' and then his voice becomes distorted.  He's screaming so loud that I can no longer hear him.  I repeat myself a number of times, trying to assure him that I'm happy to help, but he continues screaming and shouting.  On my end I'm going "I see sir... If you could... I understand..." but I keep getting cut off.  My boss comes out to see what is going on, and I put the raver on speakerphone so that Ken can see what I am dealing with.

He stands there and listens to the guy, and I try again to say "Sir, I cannot help you if you don't give me the ad number" and he screams "FINE FUCK YOUUUUUUUUU!!!!" at which point my boss nods and says 'Hang up'.

I hang up, but it hasn't stopped the screaming and yelling.  It gets to the point where the phone is dancing and shaking and moving around the desk.  I grab the phone, rip it from the desk and fling it into my lunch bag in an effort to contain it.  Now me, my boss and two to three other co-workers are sitting on the floor watching my lunch bag dance around the floor, spewing muffled obscenities.  As it's violence increases, I start to become afraid.  I force myself awake.
Act 2, Scene 1.
I am in London visiting Melissa.  We decide to go to McDonalds, and there we meet up with Eric (the friend from the Hamilton blog, not Melissa's husband).  He's got his mountain bike and we decide to take turns riding it.  Mel gets on, and takes a spin around the block, then decides to take the bus home, telling me she will meet me later.

As I awkwardly attempt to get on this huge monstrosity of a bike (keeping in mind that Eric's about 8-10 inches taller than me), he tells me to wait, that he's gotta go do something first.  I say "well, why don't I go for my ride while you're doing whatever it is?" and he says "No, just wait, I wanna watch, I just gotta do something first".

So I sit down in the McDonalds with the bike, and as I'm waiting, so begins monsoon season in London Ontario.  It's raining so hard that I can see that within minutes, the streets are ankle deep in water, and it's just torrential downpours.  I talk to some elderly ladies for a while, before I give up on Eric and decide to take the bus back to Melissa's, where she makes dinner and we shoot the shit.
Act 2, Scene 2
It is 2am in the morning, and I wake up at Melissa's house, realizing that I left my friend's $2K mountain bike at the McDonalds, unlocked, unchained, and I feel horrible.  I decide I can't wait until morning to take the bus, I have to take a taxi there at 2 in the morning, on the offchance that no one has stolen it.  I wake up Melissa, because I have realized that:

A) I don't know the cab number
B) I dont' know Melissa's Address
C) I don't know where the McDonalds is.

She's taking her time, and I'm contemplating how to tell my friend that I let his pride and joy get stolen, at the same time wondering just where the hell he went, anyway.  Then I am awoken by the cat.

Act 3, Scene 1
I'm at what I think is my parent's back yard, but it actually looks like the backyard of my ex-brother-in-law Curly's old place, and is located across from MSS where Ranville's live.  They are having some kind of children's party, and there are balloons and kids everywhere.  The girls are running around, and there are adults showing up with their kids.  I see two guys that I went to high school with, Adam and Dan, and I go up and give them hugs, tell Dan long time no see, and when I go to hug Adam he whispers to me 'you are looking amazing' and I tell him he doesn't look so bad himself.  Cleaned up, dressed nicely, etc.  I decide this is interesting, I'm sticking around for a while. 

Kids are running and playing.  I start to realize that the girls are horribly late for school, but decide oh well, it won't hurt them to pull them out for a day, they are having so much fun.  I have also realized however, that I haven't shown up for work, and haven't called or anything, and it's getting on 3-4 in the afternoon.

Act 3, Scene 2.
So it seems that this event my parents have held is a kind of fundraiser for the less fortunate, and somehow my friend Amber and I have won the two grand prizes.  I'm presented with a book full of checks for varying amounts, and I say "well this will definitely hold me over if I get fired for not showing up today".  We're both pretty much blown away.  I ponder the ethics of winning the prize when my parents ran the event, but eventually shrug it off and go to the bathroom.

Inside the house is some kind of converted mobile home.  The floor under the bathroom is rotting away and I have to step lightly to avoid falling through the floor.  I pull down my pants, and at that moment, I fall through the floor and manage to pee all over myself.  *sigh*
Phone rings, I'm awake.  And dry, thank god.

I fuggin' love my country...

Because our federal politics is like watching a season of 'Survivor'.

For the first immunity challenge, parliament's job was to pass a budget.  The Conservative tribe lost that challenge.

Now the tribes have merged, and the NDP and the Liberals are forming an alliance with the Bloq Quebecois to vote Stevie off the island.

Now PM Harper is trying to win immunity by getting the Governor General to shut down Parliament for the holidays.

I swear, this shit's better than hockey.  Tune in next week on "Survivor: Ottawa"