I spent a great deal less time in the hospital in 2008 than I did in 2007.

That’s not really an epic feat or anything; I just didn’t break anything this year.

What did 2008 bring, if not dire injuries and an assortment of new scars?

January: Unemployed, dizzy and full of rage. Went back on brain meds after two unsuccessful months off them; world applauded my decision because I had been a complete psycho bitch. Got an XO, got a slow cooker, got a job. Hooray!

February: Started new job. Was almost assassinated on the Sea Turtle in a case of mistaken identity. Did not play the trumpet while dressed as a pirate; attended Northern Voice despite my pathological fear of people. Got an EEE PC, got a Wacom Tablet, got a tiny stuffed Che and reenacted the Motorcycle Diaries on our street. Was also pulled over on the worst corner in CANADA because our car had tinted windows; shock and outrage followed.

March: Played video games in bed with an umbrella over my head. Cleaned out the fridge for the first time since we moved in; horrors spilled out onto my shoes. Went deep undercover (pun intended) as a Frumpy Angel to visit a Potato Farm in the middle of Idaho. Watched our downstairs neighbor give a blow job in a car in the middle of the afternoon; am stilling referring to her as “Blow Job” (and her roommate, “Blow Job’s Sister”). Attended the Vancouver Pillow Fight. Got thrown out of the Worst Bar in Town. Swabbed myself in the hopes that my DNA will be used to create short, busty Super Soldiers. PC died; started using Mac full time.

April: Caught a really horrible stomach flu that had me dead for several days. Bought some drugs in the most discreet way possible. Successfully passed my three-month probation at the Lab.

May: Saw Queens of the Stone Age. Bought some accidental fish flakes. Had a horrible flashback after visiting Miranda in the hospital after her trip to Cuba was cut short. Drove to Edmonton to eat many donairs and attend a family wedding; got trapped in Golden overnight due to mudslides. Broke my poor SqueePC and had to send him in for repairs. Almost destroyed Ed’s family via Twitter. Successfully vanquished the princess of Castle Suck.

June: Decided I did not have enough toys; made decision to buy laptop. Bought laptop the next day. Quit my day job to become a rapper. Got birthday shoes with a healthy dose of insanity. Drove away most of my friends due to the above mentioned insanity. Naked man in Chinatown!

July: Friends came back. Scooted to Victoria for the first time; had a blast. Confessed to being a graduate of Charm School. Caved; bought iPhone. Tried to deal with my broken feet; failed miserably. The original Delicious Juice Dot Com was hacked and the entire site (including the blog, on a different server) was declared a hostile website and people couldn’t come visit me. Was sad. Got in trouble at work; desk was moved to a corner away from people. Xbox 360 died. Was sad. Broke the news to Ed that I was getting a kitten, with disastrous results.

August: Ed’s parents visited BC for the first time ever. Received highly disturbing toys in the mail. Some guy got bear sprayed and brought the fight to our apartment building. Tried to talk to a doctor about getting my tubes tied. Was cock blocked. Fed some chickens.

September: Went to a Renaissance Fair. Adopted Cream Lemon, the Incestuous Bad Idea Kitten. Had a Weapon of Sperm Destruction inserted into my uterus. Spent our 6th anniversary alone. Posted terrible pictures from my early days. Went to some ice hockeys. Thought about getting my mother a computer.

October: BAM! Fellatio! Ali came to visit. Met Chris for the first time even though we’ve known each other for years. Was a spectacular dancing zombie. Ran for vice president by virtue of my iPod. Photo walked with the gang for Toy Camera Day. Got over my irrational fear of Squash Blizzards. Graduated to a DSLR. Went to the symphony.

November: Survived Ed’s insurance course. Learned my cyst is not what I thought it was and is in fact a true mystery. Went to Richmond a lot. Did a photo project. Attended a fondue party. Was seriously grumpy at routers.

December: Saw Amanda Palmer twice. Went to Seattle and hung out with Ali for crazy fun times. Came out of the abortion closet. Defeated Vista and successfully installed XP on my laptop. Came in third for Best Personal Blog in the Best of 604 Awards. Participated in Cans for Comments; raised $100 and 100 cans for the Vancouver Food Bank. Got a baby-eating alligator for Christmas! Good times.

In retrospect, it was a busy year but it certainly didn’t feel like it. I hope 2009 is just as injury-free, and perhaps a little more drama-free, than ’08 was. Overall, I give the year 1.69 thumbs up. You were a good one, 2008. Let’s see what 2009 will bring!

I’ve fallen back into the terrible trap of the nap, and I have to get myself out. For the last few days I’ve had an extremely lovely “nap” (okay, a four hour solid block of sleep) in the middle of the day to early evening, then finding myself unable to get to sleep at bedtime. I’m looking and feeling pretty wretched today because I couldn’t fall asleep OR get up when my alarm went off, and I know if I let myself, I’ll crawl into bed as soon as I get home and wake up at 8pm. I can’t do this. Okay, willpower. Time to prove you actually exist.

Lemon’s getting neutered today, and Ed feels very guilty about it. It’s kind of cute, really. He’s never had to take any of our pets in for fixin’. Lemon will be ready to come home at 3pm, and in the meantime I’m fighting between trying to stay awake and not worry about him. He should be fine; I just hate the thought of my animals being all drugged and sore and alone :(

This day is just dragging on.

Absolutely nothing of interest has happened to me for the last few days. Sorry about that.

My Sausage McMuffin has cheese on it. This is not a good way to start my Monday morning. I managed to scrape it all off, but the eau du processed cheese still lingers and I had to TOUCH it, which brings up a whole host of other horrors. I have cheese fingers! Help me!

It’s a short week ‘round these parts, but I’ve had to do quite a bit of scrambling to make everything flow smoothly. Ed, the somewhat lucky bastard, is only working today and then he’s off until next Monday. He’s also sick as a dog, which is hampering both his luck and his ability to breathe. Since Ed has the time off, I’ve made him master of the balls – Lemon’s scheduled for his neutering tomorrow morning. I planned it this way so that Ed has to take him in, because I am tired of being the one who always takes the cats in to have their genitals tinkered with and then they hate me for a week. Now Lemon’s balls will be on Ed’s head (hopefully not literally, although I’ve been teabagged by Hobbs more times than I can count) and I will reap the kitten love!

Ed will need the car to take Lemon to and from the vet, so I’ve had to bump up my much-loathed trip to Richmond to today instead of tomorrow. I’ve had a nice two month break from the warehouse, but Project: Donut is starting up again so I need to make sure the filthy warehouse is ready to send out our filthy routers. I am thrilled about it. No, really. Look at the joy in my cold dead eyes.

It’s going to be a good week, though. I’m really looking forward to the 31st, when there will be both a party with debauchery AND Friendmas, which is usually even better than Realmas. The gang gets home tomorrow or Wednesday, I have a 4.5 day weekend coming up, and things are just super. Stuff is good, and that’s just the way I like it.

I should really learn to not be cocky, or at the very least the fine art of being a little less cocky. Once again, my cock has gotten me into trouble.

I braved the forces of nature and slush today to go outside. I meant to go yesterday, but I was daunted by the snow and rain and general unpleasantness that awaited me outside my door. Today, though, was the day. I was to go OUTSIDE! I had things to do. Cheddar, the lovely idiot she is, hadn’t eaten since Christmas Eve because we ran out of her food and she won’t eat anything else, so at the very least I had to get cat food or run the risk of becoming dinner myself.

The plan to get food was carried out with some difficulty, as our usual vet didn’t have any in stock. I traveled halfway up the mountain to another pet hospital, but the lot hadn’t been shoveled and was practically impassible. I took the risk of parking in the damn street and running in to get the food – stupid, probably, but I wasn’t going to get myself stuck in that damn lot. I had things to do, you see.

Food fetched, I made my way to the mall. I needed to buy Ed some jeans, as the ones I got him for Christmas were too long. We’ll return those when we go to Seattle next month, but in the meantime, he needed pants. I ducked into the Gap and got his jeans, as well as a couple lacy tank tops for myself and a scarf all for super cheap. I also grabbed some more of my hair-make-big spray from Aveda, then left the mall to head into Vancouver Proper – it was time for Main Street!

All throughout my travels today, I found myself getting the car stuck in various compromising positions in the ice and muck. I kept my head about me, as I wasn’t going to get any stupid snow keep me from Operation: Outside. Using my mad skillz and the awesome tires on the Mazdabator, I maneuvered myself out of many a sticky situation and was feeling quite smug about the whole thing. Winter had nothing on me! I am far too awesome for snow!

Then I hit Main Street. Parking was a pain in the ass – there was one incident in particular with a jackass in a Jetta who wanted me to back out onto Main Street from 28th so he could get around me without having to put his cell phone down (he didn’t appreciate my exaggerated pantomime of PUT THE FUCKING PHONE DOWN AND DRIVE, either). I managed to score a sweet spot though, and went to Voltage for some more blind box toys and a cute Gama Go track jacket, and to Bodacious where the fabulous Bonnie sold me a gorgeous black jersey dress that is my present from the in-laws. Feeling happy and all shopped out, I made my way back to the car to head home because I was both poor and soaking wet; having had a close encounter with an enormous puddle that came up to my shins.

And then I got stuck.

I couldn’t get the car out. I tried for a few minutes, then realizing I was utterly stuck, attempted to dig myself out using an ice scraper and some road salt. Nothing was happening – I couldn’t move an inch, let alone get out onto the road properly. My tires were spinning, the car was making awful noises, and I felt like a jackass especially since I had, less than an hour earlier, Twittered something about having a blast getting stuck in the snow because my car was awesome. Okay, so I probably deserved to get stuck for being as cocky as I was about the situation, but it still sucked. I couldn’t go to OR fro. Ed was no help, as he was at home on the North Shore doing the dishes for me in exchange for my not dragging him outside to go shopping. I resigned myself to sitting around looking pathetic until someone took pity on me and pushed me out, when lo! The clouds parted, the angels sang, there was a rainbow of some sort, and two burly young guys with shovels came by to dig me out!

It took both of them digging for 10 minutes and a great deal of grunting, but eventually they pushed my car back and I was able to get enough traction to get moving again. Thank you, mysterious strangers with shovels! If not for you, I would still be on Main Street feeling all sad and wet!

I like helpful people. Those guys were awesome, and absolutely made me feel squishy about humanity again (unlike the last time I got stuck in the snow in Vancouver).

Yay for those guys!

My stocking was completely filled with nothing but blind box toys – Ed knows how to make a girl deliriously happy. In addition to the wonderful things I got under the tree, this guy was in one of my blind boxes:

true love

I love him SO MUCH! HE IS AWESOME! AND HE’S EATING A BABY!

I also received a kinky reindeer:

naughty!

I love the attention to detail in the paddle. I may or may not have one very similar, except my says “slut”.

Then there’s this, which is just plain adorable:

cute!

So much fun! Happy day, everyone!

HAPPY NINJAMAS !!!

merry ninjas!

I’m not going to make my travel-apprehensive mother come to Vancouver in this weather. I’ve left a message at her house and will call her after she’s off work, but Chrismas is effectively cancelled .. as least as far as my mom is concerned. I have a feeling she’s going to be very happy about this, as she didn’t want to come anyway (let alone in the worst winter weather BC has seen since ’96). Her bus ticket is good for a year, so we’ll get her to come out to North Van when all the snow goes away. She’ll be happier, I’ll keep my sanity, and we have a great deal of egg nog in the house. It sucks, but it’s also the smart thing to do.

I hope everyone is safe and warm and happy, regardless of your celebratory status. As for Ed and I, we’re going to hang out with the cats, watch some terrible movies, play some video games, and have ourselves a merry little christmas all by ourselves. Did I mention there is a lot of nog in the house? Oh yes. Rum, too. There will be noggin’.

Merry everything, everyone!

Just what I wanted for Christmas – some sort of horrible flu!

I noticed last night that I was feeling pretty crummy, but I chalked it up to being unwashed and overtired (let this be a lesson to you all: 11pm is not the best time to start a leather craft project). It’s now almost 10 hours later and I am washed and rested, yet I feel no better. In fact, I daresay I feel worse. This is not good – I don’t have any grandiose Christmas plans or anything, but I’m babysitting 4 cats in addition to our own (Josh and Shan’s two, and Miranda and Reilly’s two in Gastown) and I have to entertain my mother for three days. I do not have time to feel like crap, so if this thing could just go away, that would be super.

I learned something today! An hour ago I had no idea what a Harmonized Code is, but now I am totally able to ship things made of human hair across the border with all necessary documentation intact. For that reason alone, I am glad I came into the office today. Learning is awesome!

There’s still no sign of the mystery package. Last week I ordered my Christmas gift from Ed online, but two days later I received an email saying the item was backordered and wouldn’t arrive for 2-4 weeks. I was prepared to wait, but a couple hours after that email I received two notifications from Canada Post that something from that vendor was received on 12/19 and would be delivered to me on 12/22. Yesterday there was nothing in the mail, but perhaps today there will be something. The tracking number still says the package is in Mississauga, but the status hasn’t changed since the initial pickup. So exciting! I wonder what to believe – the Canada Post notification, or the email saying that Christmas is ruined for 2-4 weeks?

The joys of working from home: I just called the RCMP on three kids from the reserve across the street for throwing ice chunks and kicking at a dog. They were no help and told me to call the SPCA, who were understaffed and told me to call the police. It looks like the dog was trying to play in the snow with another dog belonging to one of the kids, and for whatever reason they tried to drive the second dog off by hurting it.

I hate people.

Now I am mad and sad.

And now they’re chasing the dog with a big stick. Time to call the cops again.

The snow is freaking me out. There’s just so much of it! Don’t get me wrong – with every second breath I scream hallelujah that I’m not in Alberta – but that doesn’t mean I’m at all prepared for a winter wonderland full of disgusting slush in my shoes. Sure, the snow is pretty while it’s falling, but when the falling’s all done and it’s sitting around blocking the sidewalks and making life treacherous for those amongst us with balance issues, it’s kind of really ugly. Dirty snow is not pretty. There’s a reason people don’t paint modern winter landscapes.

I had a productive weekend, all weather aside. On Saturday, Shan and I picked Miranda up from Gastown and hit up the Blim Winter Market for additional crafty things, then completed Operation: Secret. Reilly came by to whisk Miranda away in his yellow chariot, so Shan and I completed the remainder of our errands and returned home. My game plan was to not go outside on Sunday at all for any reason, and I was mostly successful – Ed had to leave at one point for cat litter and milk, but the rest of the day was a frenzy of preparation.

My mom is coming over for Christmas. She’s visited us in Vancouver exactly once, while we were still in East Van. Her lack of travel is nothing new; I lived in Calgary for seven years and she never visited me once. We’re not close, my mom and I. Still, my family-related holiday guilt forced me to urge my mother to come visit us over the holiday, and after much bitching about it, she finally agreed.

She doesn’t arrive for three days, but she’s already being a pain in the ass. First, she won’t get here until almost 4pm on Christmas Day because she refused to travel after her 4 hour Christmas Eve shift at the bakery. That sort of negates the whole idea of her coming here, but whatever – we’ll have a nice dinner together and she can open some presents. She’s already started making demands – she needs green tea, and peach yogurt, and coffee (which poses a problem; we don’t drink coffee at all), and a bath robe and slippers because she doesn’t want to bring her own, and special milk, and .. gahhh. There’s still the matter of what the heck I’m going to DO with her for three days, too. She’s here until Sunday. I imagine we will be at each other’s throats by Friday evening. I’m planning on keeping a lot of beer on hand to keep Ed drunk; I do not envy him for having to spend the weekend dealing with his suddenly-14-year-old wife and her insane mother.

And to think I’m going to ask her if she wants a computer so she can start to use the internet.

Perhaps it is time I had myself committed.

doooooom!

slightly less doooooom!