Justification(s) of the Day:

• If I drive the car to work, I can get cat food on the way home – we’re completely out, and they’ll appreciate me getting the food BEFORE I come home (and also I won’t have to take the stupid fucking bus)
• If I get an iPad, I can get electronic copies of a lot of the books on my shelves meaning I can donate them to others AND free up some precious shelf space – the Harry Potters and Stephen Kings take up most of one bookshelf alone! Buying an iPad would mean I have a CLEANER HOUSE!

Last night at the Police Museum, I got double-teamed by John Biehler and Tris Hussey. They both pulled out their iPads and spent a goodly amount of time showing me the many cool things you could do with it, and I could immediately envision where I could use the thing in my everyday life. I hadn’t actually ever played with one before last night, and was a little taken aback at how gorgeous the display was. John brought up the Marvel Comics app, and I nearly jizzed in my pants – godDAMN, that looked fine. It didn’t help my resolve all when John showed me the camera attachment either; instantly importing the pictures I had just taken with my Tiny Cam and editing them on the screen. Damnit, I already said I didn’t want or need an iPad – and now it’s all I can think about; the number of ways I could use it and how incredibly sexy it was (and would make me by association).

I am pretty much ruing in advance our trip to Portland; home of the tax-free shopping and plentiful Apple stores.

I’m officially on vacation as of 5pm today, and it’s not coming a moment too soon. I am perpetually annoyed at work, and I need a break – time to clear my head, shake off my angst and think about what I want to be when I grow up. I’m really frustrated with a lot of things right now, the least of which is not the fact that I was docked a day’s pay for being sick last week. We get sick days, but our HR person put me on some kind of sick day probation for being absent too much last year. Okay, fine – I get it; I’ll come in when I feel like shit and be useless for the entire day. Unfortunately, our HR person left the company a few months ago and her replacement doesn’t start for another two weeks. In the meantime, I’m flagged in our system as “sick = unpaid” and no one can remove it. I seethed for a little bit, then did some research – according to the office assistant, I took 10 sick days in 2009, and 1.5 days so far in 2010. 10 sick days is a LOT, but 5 of those don’t really count – I had the Piggy Sniffles, and the company-wide policy was that H1N1 didn’t count towards your sick days and for the love of god, don’t come into the office until you’ve got the all clear. Since I had The Talk, I’ve actually been really conscious of my absences and have worked through many migraines and sniffles so I wouldn’t be penalized. I’ve taken 1.5 sick days in 6 months, which I don’t think is out of line at all – yet I’m still being docked a chunk of pay for it, which bites.

Using this new thing called “Confrontation”, I talked to my boss about it then emailed him the cold hard facts. He’s passed the info along to the Ghost of Karen (our HR person is working on a contract basis until the new person starts), who will hopefully a) lift this ridiculous probation on how often I’m allowed to be sick and b) credit me back those 8 hours of pay. After tax, that’s a good-sized piece of the iPad I don’t want. They should give it back to me.

Tonight I pack and do laundry. Tomorrow, I get rid of this Dora the Explorer haircut. Saturday, we leave .. for FORKS. Expect pictures.

The Bad News: Darth Lola needs both her head and base gaskets replaced; something that requires a complete engine rebuild (a 5-hour job)

The Good News: The parts are in stock – if they weren’t, it’d have been a 1-4+ week wait.

The Better News: Lola is still under warranty, for another two weeks – this couldn’t have happened at a better time (assuming it had to happen at all)

The Best News: I’m going on vacation, so they’ll work on Lola next week and she’ll be done by the time I return next Thursday so I’ll have her back in time for a glorious summer of two-wheel fun!

HOORAY!

<3 <3 <3

Okay, it’s raining. Has been for some time. Yes, it’s June. Almost summer, even. Blah blah stupid rain blah blah where’s the sun blah blah hate being wet.

People, it could be SO MUCH WORSE:

current weather condition: dusty

Still whining? How about the upcoming week in Djibouti?

feels like breathing fire

Okay, some people like it hot. But how would you handle a forecast of impending doom?

cloudy with a chance of apocalypse

It could always be worse. Remember how beautiful our February was? This’ll go away soon enough, and we’ll have our gorgeous Vancouver summer. In the meantime, carry an umbrella and stop complaining. At least it’s not raining fucking spiders:

oh sweet jesus why

.. on second thought, maybe I’ll just never go outside again. Just in case.

Well, fuck.

I had it all planned out: Lola is due for service, so I’ll drop her off on Friday before we leave for our trip and pick her up when we return. I made the appointment, entered it into my calendar, and gleefully checked it off my anal-retentive To-Do list.

Then Lola sprang a leak. I noticed a puddle under her when I left this morning, but didn’t think anything of it – it had been raining. When I got to the parkade this afternoon though, it was obvious she was dripping something. I inspected the wet but couldn’t place it – it wasn’t oil, it wasn’t water, and it wasn’t gas. What gives? I placed a panicked call to Ed – I may be an Independant Woman with all the sassy Beyonce songs that brings, but I fully admit that I am a mechanical dunce – I needed a knight in shiny armour; preferably one with a mop.

Ed figured the problem out quickly enough – Lola was leaking coolant. I called the shop to ask what I should do, and they suggested I bring her in immediately (as they closed in 18 minutes) and to be careful I didn’t go faster than 88 miles per hour (or as they put it, hotter than 20 degrees). I broke many laws in my race to West 4th, but Lola made it in one piece, before they closed, and without getting too hot or seizing.

So, I’m without Lola for who knows how long. I am a sad monkey who did NOT need this – I was already having a lousy day and now I am both convinced Lola is deathly ill AND missing Gina’s poutine Tweetup. This sucks.

I am currenty waiting in a Starbucks for Ed to come rescue me. I ordered myself a treat – a chai Frappucino, now that you can get them non-fat and all. I’ll keep the whipped cream, though. I’m having a bad day.

The two following things make me happy despite my growing anxiety:

Yesterday was Ed’s birthday, so the lot of us went out for dinner to celebrate. Our first choice in restaurants is closed on Mondays, so we cast about the internet for an alternate; settling on the highly rated House of Dosas.

We really had no idea what a dosa was or why there would be a house of them, but we were familiar with the location – we used to live in that area, and often drove past the place giggling at the name. Feeling adventurous and not really having any desire for our usual haunts, we made plans to meet for Ed’s birthday and eat our fill of whatever the hell a dosa was.

We soon learned that Monday is Dosa Night; everything on the menu was $5.99. Well! You can’t really go wrong for $5.99, so we converged upon two large tables and awaited the rest of our crew. The place was hopping; people were lining up to get in so we were glad to have gotten there early to hold our spots. Yeah, we’re bastards. Sucks to be other people.

The boys enjoyed beers named after (and possibly made of) various animals, while Shan, Pocket Barry and I drank our fill of mango lassi:

so thick and creamy

I hadn’t had a decent mango lassi since Calgary, so I was a little too delighted at the creamy goodness set before me. Darren ordered a plate of pakoras, which were spicy and delicious:

it's healthy coz it's vegetables

The main course arrived then, and it turns out that a dosa is an enormous, man-sized crepe:

i like my dosa like i like my men: 2 feet long and crispy

It’s hard to tell from the picture, but this thing was huge and daunting. Tasty, too, but the size was really the issue here: I hadn’t expected it to be so big (which, coincidentally, is what she said). It was good though, and we had fun tasting each other’s selections and talking Josh and Darren into sharing a Gun Powder Dosa (which may have contained actual gun powder; we never did clear that up). I did make the mistake of ordering a second mango lassi; the price of which turned out to be an evening of indigestion and anxiety – by 1:30am, I had figured that it wasn’t worth it but it was a little late for second thoughts.

The best part of the evening was probably the DJ – the House of Dosas has a DJ who spins and occasionally reminds you where you are, and that it is number one. Every time he got on the mic I laughed uncontrollably because it was WEIRD – but I am all about the weird, so that is okay with me.

In my excitement over yesterday’s ridiculous travel announcement I neglected to give a birthday shoutout to Ed – so happy birthday, yo. Here’s to another year of Good Times, with or without (but preferably with) extra dongs.

I would like the following things:

• The 9 (NINE) different things Canada Post is keeping from me to arrive already
• This anxiety attack to go away

It is no good inside my head today.

I just stabbed myself in the back with a pair of scissors.

I was using them as a backscratcher.

Now I am bleeding.

And I’m still itchy.

Is there a stranger I can take candy from around here anywhere?

I did go to the Apple store to plead my case – give me a free iPod Touch – but I left empty handed, after talking to nobody.

Because this is the sensible thing to do, you see.

I still think I should qualify for the deal, because I bought my iMac 3 days before it was announced. If I had known, I would have waited. That being said, I went to the store and read the fine print – it’s a mail-in rebate for the cost of the iPod, meaning you pay for it up front and eventually get your money back. When I had been buying my computer, I may very well have gone for the deal in the heat of the moment. Taking time to think about it, however, made me realize just how stupid it would be to spend $250 on something I don’t need, just for fun. And then what? I’d be stuck with a piece of hardware I have less than zero need for; not even half a little. I already HAVE a 16GB iPod Touch that’s collecting dust on my nightstand; why would I add an 8GB Touch to it? That would be stupid, so I didn’t do it and instead I bought a taco. It came with free tomatoes; no mail-in rebate required.

That was all my energy and common sense for the month, though. I am completely knackered, and moments away from being made into glue.

Things that are less clammy than me at this moment:

• Your 8th grade crush
• A round of spicy Caesars at the bar
• Actual clams

I hate being sick.