A 'victory' that is bittersweet, at best.

Having had roughly 24 hours to reflect on the revelations of last night, namely that U.S. special forces had finally captured and killed Osama Bin Laden I gotta say, I have some mixed emotions.  It might be fair to say I'm a little numb.

In no particular order, my thoughts:

I'm happy and relieved for the people who lost friends, family and co-workers in 9/11 who will hopefully find some sort of closure from this news.

I'm afraid of Bin Laden's martydom being catalyst for more aggression against North America.

I'm conflicted because I don't usually believe that justice for taking life should involve taking more life, especially without due process, but in this case, a big part of me is willing to give it a pass, just this time.

I'm irritated with people screaming 'America, Fuck Yeah' and 'Hooray for the good guys!' like we've won some kind of pissing contest.  It's not the Olympics.  It's not the bloody Stanley Cup Playoffs.  It's life and death.   It's not just about one man, it's about the memories of thousands lost, on both sides of the fence.  Let's show a little decorum so we can at least hold ourselves to a higher standard than those people who celebrated and rioted in the streets when the World Trade Center fell.

I'm apathetic because I know this is merely a symbolic victory.  Bin Laden's capture and subsequent death won't end terrorism, it won't end the blood spilt over conflicting ideologies.  This is a continuation of an ongoing cycle of violence with no end in site.

I'm still more than a little amused with the fact that Barack Obama's address cut into the end of Celebrity Apprentice.  Suck it, Trump.

Yeah, so all in all.. don't know how I feel.  There have been a few choice things I've read around the interwebs that addressed it nicely:

Yes, bin Laden the man is dead. But he achieved all he set out to achieve, and a hell of a lot more. He forever changed who we are as a country, and for the worse. Mostly because we let him. That isn’t something a special ops team can fix - The Stay-At-Home Feminist Mom

Osama Bin Laden is dead.  Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving guy. - Jill at Feministe

The world breathes a sigh of relief that the foremost terrorist leader has been eliminated, and rightly so, but let's not lose sight of temperance and grace. This is far from over and the actions we take and the words we speak today will color what happens in the future. - Everything I like Causes Cancer

ten years ago, i may have felt different.
ten years ago, i may have felt a bit of righteous and well deserved retribution.
ten years ago, i may have felt that good triumphed over evil...
ten years ago, i would have felt that we struck a huge blow to the terrorists.

i may have felt that we knew where they were and were coming for them.

not yesterday.
not today.
not tomorrow.

revenge is a dish that is best not served.
it is a dish that is best a lost recipe.

today this feels
like a lie.
a ruse.
a spin.
a hide the weenie.
a slight of hand. - Bruce's Evil Twin at Stupid Stuff I See and Hear

and this which has been going around Facebook:

I have never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure - Mark Twain

Vaguely creepy dream recap...

Had to get this down.

Foreboding, my stomach is in knots.  I can't rid myself of this nervous feeling.  I'm home, alone.  The house is dark and it may or may not be raining outside.  It's inarguably windy.  I sit down at the computer, and I'm trying to write something, a blog post, a short story, who knows? I struggle to type the few choices phrases that float through my head.

"It's a good night for a killing."
"Suicide is the last great performance art"

I try to write but my efforts are continually interrupted by the howling wind and my need to check door locks, and windows.  To peer into the bushes.  My heart won't stop racing.  I hear faint music and I realize my cell phone is beside me, ringing.  It rings, but is not lit up.  picking it up, I answer:

"hello?"
"Hi," a masculine voice answers.  The voice on the other end is smooth and calming, but I am anything but calm.
"Can I help you?"
"Not today."
"Pardon?"
"I'm a slave."
"Excuse me?"
"I'm a slave, that's all."

At this point I force myself awake.  I'm still tense and I have a sense of unreality, as I am hearing breathing which I think is my own, except that the sound doesn't match my rhythm.  A slight movement and I realize that one of my daughters has climbed into my bed.  Again.

Not sure what is going on my subconcious.  Last night it was tornadoes.  We were caught up in a tornado that threw our car a few hundred feet, then roared overhead as we (me, my girls, my friend and her daughter and my parents) hid in an old pre-school building.

Something is up with my sleep patterns.  It's going to be a long night.

I've been a bad Canadian...

... in the past, but tomorrow I'm going to get my butt out to the polls and put in my vote.  That's right folks, there's another federal election in Canada tomorrow.  I have a feeling it's going to be a nail-biter.  There's a lot at stake here, from what I understand.

I have my candidate picked and those who know me well (and are familiar with our political parties) can probably guess where my vote is going.

I am admittedly not terribly well versed in the political sciences, so I'm not going to get into a huge analysis of the parties and what they are offering.  I'm just going to encourage others, especially those in my age cohort or younger as we do seem to be pretty lax in the giving a shit area.

Boredom or Apathy?

(okay, maybe that clip is not entirely relevant... I just like playing with the idea.   And I love that film.)

Basically, if the same people are voting every election, the same candidates are going to get elected, and we're going to get the same bullshit.

We could get the same bullshit anyway.  But if the same people are voting, we guarantee it.  Or worse.

If you feel that Harper's minority has been doing a decent job, make your voice heard.  If you think the last few years have been an utter fucking travesty of a shit-show and that we are in desperate need of a change, then you need to be out there as well.  Hell, if you think the whole deal is pointless and we're fucked either which way, then show up and spoil your ballot.  At least that will be saying SOMETHING.

Okay, soapbox time is over.  In the name of adding a little levity to the situation, I encourage anyone who hasn't to visit this site for a good giggle.

Vintage Voter

It's worth clicking if just for Gilles Duceppe's hair.

Source

Must I always be 'The Other Woman'?

Avid readers may remember that one year less two days to this very date I had what I originally believed to be a brush with identity theft.  Thankfully the misunderstanding was a result of someone with the same name having a very similar email address to mine.

It seems that some people didn't take a minute to update their contacts list, as today I received the following email from the very same real estate agent who had emailed me almost a year ago today:

How is everything going?  Have you found another rental yet?  If you didn't let me know right away please.
[name redacted]

Excellent customer service, if I was indeed a customer.  I figured it deserved some sort of response.

Hi Maria,

We've spoken previously, almost a year to the day, in fact.  I am not the Andrea whom you seek. You're looking for another Andrea who I will assume has an email address very similar to my own.  I've never lived, owned or rented in the Toronto area, although seeing this kind of customer service, if I was considering a move to the GTA, I might consider using you as a rep.  However, a deep, abiding love for small town life, and a rather inflexible custodial agreement renders the possibility of my relocation as a highly unlikely scenario.  

Have a lovely afternoon.

Best Regards,

The Other Andrea.

 Maybe I've made a new friend.

a little bit o' twisted nostalgia

When I first started my job, I had the pleasure of working with my sister.  At that time I was doing a lot of internet research and data entry, so I'd pop my headphones on and well.. my mind had some time to wander.

Nicky was the lucky person that got to be subjected to whatever happened to cross my mind.  I just found these emails yesterday.

Remember way back when on the Y & R and either Cricket and Danny, or Cricket and Paul had their honeymoon (or some random ‘romantic getaway’) in Newark?  Did they ever clarify which Newark it was?  Because apparently there is a Newark Delaware, and a Newark, New Jersey.   Which begs the question… How effin' lame do you have to be to honeymoon in Delaware or New Jersey?  I mean if your heart is absolutely set on Jersey, at least go to Atlantic city, so you can gamble and junk.

Just my .02

I totally stand by that sentiment.

Exciting Delaware
Wayne's World at MOVIECLIPS.com

Next:

The Business development manager for M2M Imaging is HAWT.  http://www.m2mimaging.com/aboutus/profiles.html - Cameron Barnard.

P,S.  The depths of my idiocy knows no limit.  I've been driving around without a health card or drivers licence for the last week.  Why, you ask?  Because they have been in a safe at Staples, where some good Staples employee placed them after I LEFT THEM IN THE PHOTOCOPIER.  Gah, me=moron.

I checked that link.  Sadly it appears that hottie Cameron Barnard no longer works for M2M imaging.  Sad.

I wanna make dirty monkey love to my own hair today… it looks THAT good.

Well, it DID.

I think I’m in love with Mike Ness. I also think I’m becoming a country fan.  Of the old school, not the new.  Should I be disturbed?

 A lot of thoughts came to me via the hours I spent on my iPod:

I’ve tried and tried, for years to like Rage Against the Machine.  But I just don’t.

Nicky got to be privy to some of my geological discoveries as well:

Arkansas… Copycat? 

Let’s see, first there is the spelling.  If you pronounce it how it looks, it could say “Our (pronounced ‘are’) Kansas”  It’s like they wanted to be Kansas, but it was already taken, so they decided that parcel of land would be “Our Kansas”

Now I come across a site for the Ouachita Baptist college.  Doesn’t that look like it could be pronounced like a bastardization of Wichita?  And where is Wichita? 

….

That’s right.

KANSAS.

Buncha plagiarists, I say.

 Not to mention my observations about the lovely building where we work:

I found myself in the washroom on this end of the building, and avoiding the larger stall in much the same way I avoid parking in handicapped spots.  And it occurred to me:  How odd is it to have a wheelchair stall on the upper floor of a building that is clearly not wheelchair accessible?  And I said ‘AHA! I must email Nicky…”  But once I came out of the washroom, I looked at the so-called ‘wheelchair stall’ and realizing that the door on the stall was not nearly large enough for a wheelchair to pass through.  This is not a wheelchair stall, just a case of lousy designing resulting in two average size stalls and one freakishly large one.  Curses, foiled again.

*sigh* 

 Nicky doesn't work there anymore, so I don't have her to send my random musings too.  Thank God for Twitter.

In spite of my best efforts.

Yesterday as the girls and I were making dinner, Reegs told me she didn't ever want to get married.  This is not the first time she's made this declaration.  She once told me that when she grows up she's not going to get married, not going to have kids, not going to have a car, and is going to be a hairdresser.

I can totally envision this, by the way.

An artist's rendering of my youngest daughter in about 10 years. Source

I decided to ask her why she didn't want to ever get married.  Keep in mind, I also don't want her to grow up feeling like she is under any obligation to marry, either.  However, I was curious so I asked.

"I don't want to get married because I don't ever want to have a divorce."

Cue massive parental guilt.

What do you say? Between the ex, the new wife and myself, we've tried to do what we can to make sure the kids aren't negatively affected by our situation.  It's taken a lot of compromise and a lot of putting our (okay, MY) own  hurt feelings aside in order to give the kids as stable an upbringing as that.

Still, it broke my heart to hear her say that and I couldn't help but wonder how much of it was some deep-rooted fear of emotional pain that was subconciously implanted (even within the womb) into her psyche, or if maybe I'm taking too much guilt on myself and that this is a more global fear that she's picked up from television, books and movies.

So what could I do.  I did some fast-on-my-feet parental thinking and told her that not everyone gets divorced and even if it happens, although it genuinely does suck, it's not the end of the world and people move on and get through it.   Had I been quicker I could have pointed out her Grammy and Grandpa who have been happily married for nearly 35 years now.

Still my heart broke a little.  I hope neither of my babies ever have to go through it.  I guess they are lucky enough that they were both too little to remember the really rough post-split aftermath, as Tierney was just a toddler and Reagan was a newborn baby.

*sigh*  I guess we all just do what we can, right?  Right.

Conversations with my Kid: Pop Culture > Canadian Politics

A couple weeks ago, at my sisters place, we caught the energetic yet vaguely horrifying Iggy Pop performance on American Idol. (I say horrifying because put a shirt on already, Mr. Pop.)

This morning, the radio discusses the upcoming Canadian election and Michael Ignatieff's visit to Montreal.

T:  Mom! Iggy's coming to Montreal!
Me: Huh?
T: On the radio... they said Iggy's coming to Montreal!!
Me:  Not Iggy Pop, honey.  Michael Ignatieff.

*pause*

T:  Oh.

Conversations with my kid: You're lucky you've got looks, kid.

Tucking the girls into bed tonight I had this exchange with my almost ten-year-old daughter.

T (reading off my shirt):  "Karaoke Contest Summer two thousand seven. "  Mom, when did you get this?
Me:... 
T: What? 
Me:  Seriously?
T:  What? When did you get it?
Me: SUMMER 2007!!!!

Ugh, excuse me whilst I rant a moment...

I was just going through emails for work, so I don't have a metric fuckton to go through tomorrow morning, and I gotta say, sometimes people disgust me.

Whatever happened to professionalism?  Seriously?

I'm not even talking about bad spelling and worse grammar.

I'm talking about swearing in supposedly professional correspondence.   When did this become acceptable?  Oh wait, that's right.. IT DIDN'T.

Okay, so the site I work for has a number of newsletters that go out.  When someone signs up, they have the option of opting out of them.  It's right there on the registration page, and frankly, if you're too damn lazy to make sure all your boxes are unchecked, than you deserve to have your shit spammed.

Occasionally we get an an email requesting to be manually unsubscribed, if the unsubscribe function is not working.  Mostly they are polite, some have an air of desperation ("Please, sir, make the emails stop!").

Tonight I received an email from the CEO of what I can assume is some kind of fish processing company that simply stated:

Stop sending fucking emails , you are wasting my time.

 Wow.

I have a filthy mouth with the best of them, but really?  You're sending this out into cyberspace, to others in your industry, with your name and your company name?

That's just not good business sense.

I have a file I keep at work for dealing with really difficult customers.  Basically I write out the things I'd really like to say, so I can then move on and write the nice, professional, non-snarky, non-sarcastic response.  I make sure to write my imaginary responses in Word so I don't ever accidentally send one off to the customer.  Pretty S.M.R.T, no?

Dear Sir,


We have removed you from the mailing list.  Please accept our apologies for assuming that when you signed up for fifteen different newsletters that you might actually want to receive the newsletters.  In retrospect, I guess that's pretty darn silly.  We'll stop sending you fucking emails now.  Good luck in the fish business, by the way.

Signed,
The Helpdesk.

This is one of the more pleasant ones.  I'd almost consider sending this, minus the second last sentence, because then I'd just be a hypocrite.  But I probably won't.

Stop touching your crotch, sir, and an update on the vehicular situation.

Last night I went to a show/cancer benefit down in Toronto at the El Mocambo with some friends.  The venue was pretty cool, I'm told it was quite the rockin' place in its time.  Since my friend worked until 9, we ended up getting into the Tdot around 11ish, in the middle of one of the bands sets.  I don't know what they were called, but they were fronted by a very small woman with a very big voice and they ended with a pretty kick-ass cover of the Beastie Boys' 'Sabotage'.

Second band was a group called BlindRace, and hell, I didn't know what to make of these guys.  I wanted to like them, but they couldn't seem to make up their mind as to whether they wanted to be Creed or Sepultura.  I'd like them for a bit, then get a distinctive Creed vibe and I could see that although I may enjoy them now, they were probably destined for Creed-esque future suckitude.  And the singer came across like a rather mysogynist douche of Scott Stapp/Chad Kroeger proportions. 

And he kept touching his crotch while he was singing.  All.  The Fucking.  Time.  It's distracting as hell.  After the show I went up to him and told him "Good set, but you need to stop touching your crotch when you sing."  He laughed at this and said he couldn't help it and without considering the awesome double entendre I said "Yeah, I imagine it's probably hard."  He then proceeded to try chatting up T. and I we were just like 'Eep, okay let's get out of here.'

The headliners, Goldie Luxx I found fairly unimpressive.  I think the singers vocals threw me off.  They weren't laughably bad like the previous band, just kind of didn't do anything for me.  Maybe I'm just getting old, who knows.

On the way home we stopped at the King Road truck stop for gas and coffee and some guy in a Corvette came up to us and was trying to sell my friends car parts (They're both Neon Racing enthusiasts and do a lot of customization to their respective vehicles).  Out of nowhere, at a gas station at 3:30 in the morning.  Totally random.

Then between the south end of Barrie (you know the place, where all things good and pure go to die) and roughly Horseshoe Valley road we were being tailed by a douchebag in a giant pick up truck who was, I don't know, trying to goad E. into racing or something?  Slow down until we pass him, then zoom past us, then hit the brakes and slow down until he was beside us again, riding along side.  At one point I wondered if the jackass was going to try and run us off.  It was pretty scary.  A couple of times he pulled over until we passed him, then would speed up to pass us again.

Finally we got up right behind him to take down the licence and call the cops.  I guess he figured it out because soon after that he got off at Horseshoe Valley Road.  Some people.

So with that segue, a quick update on the car buying situation.  I put a deposit down on a 2007 PT Cruiser, after much deliberation and meeting with more car sales people than I could ever possibly want to.  I plan on having a giant bonfire with all the business cards and brochures that I've amassed over the last couple of weeks.

New wheels-to-be.  Tentatively named Petey.

I still stand to be vehicle-less for a few days, since I haven't gotten the insurance money back yet and the rental is due back on Monday.  I'm waiting on a check, which I then have to send to my loan people so they can take their chunk, then they put the remainder in my account.

Then i am motherlovin' CAR-LOAN FREE!!

So, I tend to anthropomorphize my cars (previous vehicles being Bessie, Lurch, Betty and Mabel the Sable) and my friend suggested the name Petey, relating it as a tribute to another friends late rabbit.  I didn't quite get what that had to do with anything.  Being the quick one I am, it took me a full 24 hours to make the connection

PT=Petey.