Oh, Mr. Weatherman...Wrong YET again!

Well, we didn’t really get ICE STORM 2011 here last night. I’m a little disappointed. I know areas around us got a lot more ice and the areas north of us got a fair bit of snow but our fair city got a little freezing rain that wasn’t really enough to even make the pavement that slippery.

I’m not disappointed about the ice. As I said, thick and heavy freezing rain is scary to both drive in and walk in. I’m more disappointed that we didn’t get our Weather Event.

Also, a lot of my Facebook friends who live in areas further north and west of us got either snow days or ice days from work today. I’m jealous of that and I don’t mind admitting it.
The problem with having the perk of living six minutes away from the office by car is that…I live six minutes away from the office by car. I have a have three left turns and a right and I’m at my office building. Things could be worse. It means I can run home to the pups at lunch, grab some food and get some puppy love before I go back to work.

It also means that I have no excuse to call into work unless there’s a level 3 snow emergency and you can get a ticket for being out on the road.

It’s a trade-off. It also means that when the weather is ropey, even though it’s scary for the short distance I have to drive, I only have a short distance. I’ve learned already where the areas of my ‘commute’ are the worst and so I’ve come to know where to be most cautious on my drive. Nevertheless, there are some days that would be nice if they were snow days. I blame Facebook for all the comments of my snow/icebound friends who were settling in with hot chocolate or pancakes or a movie or a book. Some of them still had to work from home but speaking from experience, some days, it’s quite nice to work from home while you’re wearing your pajamas.

Of course, I say that but I’m not actually the pajama-wearing-while-I-work type. I adore wearing my pajamas. However, my brain has this rather strict schedule about wearing pajamas. During the winter, it’s ok to take a shower or bath and put them on quite early…as long as it’s dark outside. Thus, in the winter it’s perfectly reasonable to get in from work, do some necessary things and then take a shower and be in my pajamas by 7 pm. In the summer, however, when it’s still light at 7 p.m., I cannot wear pajamas. It just feels…weird. The mornings are a little different. As much as I’d like to stay in my pajamas all day, once it gets passed 9 a.m., I feel rather odd wearing pajamas. You know in a dream where you realize you’re in the middle of a public place and you forgot to get dressed and put on your makeup? Being in my pajamas past 9:30 a.m. feels a little like that to me, even in my own living room.

So, that’s why I can’t work from home wearing my pajamas. I’m sure you don’t really care but I thought I’d share anyway.

Our little ice ‘storm’ last night wasn’t terribly newsworthy. It was enough to rim the trees with a thin casing of ice and enough to cause people who parked outside to have to chip their way into their cars but that was it. By the time we went to work, salt had been put down and the roads were travelworthy.

Also when I left for work, our forecast was for the temperatures to warm up, the freezing rain to turn to regular rain and eventually, overnight, turn to snow.

So, when I came out of work this evening and almost fell on my bottom, I was a little surprised to discover that it was raining heavily and freezing when it hits the ground. This, for those of you not used to it, is called freezing rain not regular rain. The temperatures did NOT warm up and thus, as I write this, the world outside is now encased with ice and looking a little lethal. It’s now supposed to turn to snow rather than regular rain.

What I find interesting is the forecast I heard was about seven hours before I came out of work. How is it possible to be quite so wrong about the weather, particularly when the people telling us it’s going to be warm make their living predicting the weather? I’m not the first person to say it and I won’t be the last but if most of us were as wrong in our jobs as weathermen and women, we’d get fired. They simply shrug and say “nature has a mind of its own.”This is true except, well, they have technology and gadgets and training that’s supposed to predict the weather accurately. If nature has a mind of its own, then why do we have weather reports? So, this evening, I’m now tempted to turn on the news and see if they’re back to the excited ICE STORM 2011 or they’re sheepishly reporting the weather as it happens? Given that most of us weren’t prepared for such an icy deluge, I think they have a right to be at least a little sheepish.

Still, we listen to the weather reports even though they’re frequently wrong. We care about the weather a lot because it governs so much of our life. It’s fascinating, really. People can always find something to talk about in the weather.

My dad in particular likes the weather. He has one of those fancy indoor weather gadgets that tells you absolutely everything you want to know from wind chill to barometric pressure. He likes to inform us of dramatic things such as “the temperature….is dropping.” If there’s a weather event predicted, he frequently checks his weather gadget. If it’s a winter weather event, my mother shrinks with each passing moment into a little ball in her chair because she simply despises winter. I think, if she had her way, she’d put a paper bag on her head and pretend winter wasn’t happening. Or, more likely, she’d hibernate because, honestly, who wants to put a bag on their head? I’ve tried it. It’s not comfortable. Also, it’s quite hard to get the eyeholes and nosehole to line up so you can actually see and breathe.

I digress. Again. Sorry, mum, by the way. I didn’t mean to divulge your secret desire to be a Mrs. Paper Bag head.

I think my mother should embrace winter. She should build a snowman and turn her face up to the falling snow and let it tickle her face the way I do. If she could just turn that frown upside down, she’d realize snow is lovely.

More likely, though, she’d tell me that it was cold and that there was no way she could like the stuff. Everyone’s different, I suppose. She likes summer which is my least favourite season.

Still, this time of year, the weather is unpredictable. When even the weather forecasters have to come up with alternate forecasts because they don’t know what the weather is going to actually do, you know that they can’t really predict anything. I suppose this is why they were so very wrong this morning. Last night, at least, they gave two forecasts for what could happen. Perhaps if they gave us multiple forecasts every day, just in case something changes, they’d be right more often.

But that still wouldn’t be very helpful, would it? Ah well, you live and learn. Stay safe if you’re reading this from an icy/snowy clime!

Happy Wednesday!

Ice Storm 2011 and Other Random Musings...

Today was definitely a better Monday than last week. I don’t know if it was the sunshine this weekend or just things felt better but the gloom and heaviness of January seemed to be absent and things were better.

Whatever the reason, it’s nice to go to work, have a good day and feel like I accomplished something which isn’t always the case on Mondays.

Of course, tomorrow may be a different story. We’re supposed to have a ‘crippling’ ice-storm sometime between tonight and tomorrow morning. I’m not sure what a ‘crippling’ ice storm is, really. While I love the beauty of the ice-encased world after an ice-storm, it’s my least favourite winter weather when I have to drive on it. If it’s the type of day where I don’t have to go anywhere, I’m fond of ice-storms. Everything becomes frozen and framed within a layer of ice and it’s just stunning to see.

It’s just horrible to drive on. I’m an ice-wuss. I hate driving on the stuff. Snow isn’t so bad. Ice…well, it’s ice. Once you slide, you just have to let it go. There’s no easy way to deal with it.

My guess as to the word ‘crippling’ is that it’s likely to knock out the power everywhere. This often happens when the power lines get overloaded with ice and they end up snapping or causing problems. In my case, I have to say, at home, at least, I’m not too worried about it. I’m very fortunate in the location of my house in that I live on the street where the fire station and police station resides. Thus, they’re one of those places that really, really needs power particularly when it comes to paramedic and fire calls. Thus, power gets restored to that grid first. That grid is my grid. I’m ok with that.

The things with storms like this is that the weather and media sets them up to be An Event. Right now, we’re on the ICE STORM of 2011. This is not a joke. This is what the local news is calling it. It’s all action stations now with people checking in. Reporters are doing that weird thing where they stand outside and wait for the storm to begin so they can report it As. It. Happens.

I don’t understand that, honestly. Why stand outside during an ice-storm. Why not, say, look out the window and report on it? I always feel sorry for the reporters who get stationed outside during a snowstorm and have to report how traffic is moving and how quickly the snow is accumulating. For one thing, they always look rather cold and, another, they just look…a little silly.

It’s like when there’s a hurricane brewing down in Florida. There’s always the reporters who are waiting for it to begin and then, when it does, they look like they’re having trouble standing up. I suppose to some extent, there’s a sort of thrill that comes from that. Maybe it’s an adrenaline thing. At least for the hurricane reporters.

But what about the snow/ice reporters? They’re basically waiting for it to…start raining/snowing. When it does, every single person within the viewing area can also look out his/her window and see that it is, in fact, snowing/raining. It’s not like, say, a massive bird death where hundreds of bird corpses rain down on them while they’re standing there. Now, if the ice came down like that lake in the Superman movie where he freezes it with his superbreath and then picks it up and flies it over a fire, that would be cool. And don’t judge me for my Superman reference. I used to love Superman. This was back before I got all dark and twisty in my tastes and started to prefer Batman and Iron Man. It was the same period in my life when I was in love with Luke Skywalker. Hey, I was seven.

I digress. So, Ice Storm 2011 has yet to commence. I feel like I’m being brainwashed to think of it as an event, like I should look out the window and say “It. Has. Begun” in an ominous James Early Jones-y kind of voice. I end up sounding more like a terrible version of Gandalf from Lord of the Rings when I do try and say that, by the way. Oh, no judging there either. Who doesn’t like a little LOTR. In my case, who doesn’t love a little Aragorn? I’m digressing again. So, long story short, I think the news is working. They’re making me feel some weird sense of anticipation over the weather. I suppose I should give them some credit for that because I’m a cynic and don’t want to care about the blasted ICE STORM 2011.

It’s the same sort of credit I have to give the band Train for that bloody “Hey, Soul Sister” song. When I first heard it, I was apathetic. Then it started to be everywhere with that “Hey, Hey, Hey-yay-yay-yay” refrain. Then the song popped up everywhere and I began to hate it. Then, I heard it on the radio and my brain said, “Hey, I like this song!” even though I had only moments before despised it. Thus, I now like that song because the radio and every fourth TV commercial tells me I should and my stupid brain believed it. Grr. It’s proof positive when you hear something enough, you just go with it. It’s a little too 1984 if you ask me. Orwell would be quite proud of Train, I think. Them and Kings of Leon who used to annoy me with that “Use Somebody” song because it was EVERYWHERE and then without realizing it, I realized I was singing along which meant I started to like the song.

So, basically, my summation of ICE STORM 2011 is that it’s like that song by Train. I try to play it cool and not care but the more the frenzy builds in the media, the more my subconscious things that after “Gossip Girl”, I should turn on the news to see if it’s raining yet even though I could simply stick my head out the back door and see for myself. I also suppose that the mere fact that I’ve blogged about ICE STORM 2011 means that the weather forecaster’s evil ploy has worked and I’m now anticipating some type of weather Event.

I’m sure I didn’t use to be quite so susceptible to this type of thing. Then again, I never cared so much about the weather either. Does this mean I’m getting old? I did want to yell at Son of Dog Whisperer yesterday for cutting across my lawn.

Oh dear. It is happening. I’m turning into an old person.

Help me!

Happy Tuesday!

Sunny Weekends...

Sunshine does a lot for the mood and this weekend was full of it. As much as I adore snow, there are times when it's nice to see the sun. I think there's definitely something to that Seasonal Affective Disorder in which depression sets in during the winter months. Spending some time outdoors in the sunshine does wonders for the mood.

It was a little too cold to spend too much time outside but Rory, Sookie and I had a lovely time taking walks around the neighbourhood. We took two each day: One in the morning, one in the evening. I think the pups were pleased to get out. It was a little hard going at times. Even though the sun was slowly melting the snow and ice, there were patches that were a little hard for two little dachshunds and one unsteady human to maneuver. It's not really even snow anymore- it's just snow coloured ice, much like the stuff you see on snowcones.

Yet each time we walked, there was less ice and snow. The grass, flattened and soggy, is starting to show again. The pups seem to appreciate being able to walk on the grass, wet as it is, rather than have to trundle through the snow. I can't blame them- it has to be cold on the feet.

It's been a nice weekend overall. It's the first one I've had at home in quite a few weeks which is probably why I enjoyed it so much. I love going to my parents' because I love seeing them but there's something to be said to having time in your own home to do what you want.

In my case, I took advantage of the time to cook. I now have a fancy KitchenAid stand mixer with pasta roller so today, I spent the day making ravioli. It was relaxing and fun, especially when I put my iPod on my iHome speaker set and had fun dancing while I kneaded pasta dough, made filling and, finally, put it all together in the form of cheese ravioli and butternut squash ravioli.

I even made the ricotta myself. I've seen them do it a few times on the Food Network and Mario Batali kindly provides a recipe for it in one of his cookbooks. It was ridiculously easy and twice as tasty as the stuff you buy at the store. Tonight, for dinner, I'm going to have homemade ravioli with homemade ricotta filling topped with homemade marinara sauce. It's a nice feeling to know that I've accomplished something, even if it is only making food. To me, cooking and making things in the kitchen is relaxing. The only time it's not is when it involves baking becaue I don't find that particularly relaxing. It's ok when I have time but it doesn't help that my oven isn't the best and so baking isn't as easy as I'd like. I do like to bake at my parents' house because they have a nice oven. Also, my dad likes kitchen tools and gadgets and they have almost anything you could need for a good baking experience.

I'm trying to get my kitchen like that. I'm getting there. Yesterday, I bought a fish spatula from Williams Sonoma. My good friend Saz was kind enough to give me a gift card for my birthday so I took advantage of it yesterday. I'm very excited about my spatula. I think I mentioned in my blog a while ago that I thought I might use my gift card for this and it turned out, I did.

I don't know why things like fish spatulas make me happy. It's the same content feeling as having a day where all I have planned is to make ravioli, walk puppies and relax. I think maybe that's one of the reasons I've been feeling blue: I haven't had time to just relax at home for an entire weekend.

Now the weekend is drawing to a close. The sun has set and it's dark outside. I don't know what the weather is supposed to be like this week. I did hear a rumour that more snow is on the way. I don't mind. I never mind snow. It's just nice to separate bouts of it with a little sunshine.

Sometimes, we just need a little sunshine in your life. It chases the Pootle clouds and the January blues away.

Happy Monday!

January Blues...

I am ready for this week to be over. I feel as though I’ve been under my "Pootle” cloud since Monday. I don’t know if it’s the time of year or just one of those times in life where everything just seems blah but that seems to be what’s going on.

Work is going fairly well, at least. I like my job because it’s different every day. It’s actually different every hour. Gone are the days when I feel like I’m so bored, I’m going to climb over the walls of my cubicle, wave my arms in the air and tear off running down the hallways screaming “ARRRRG”

For one thing, I don’t have a cubicle. I have an office. All of my very own. Until today, it even had artwork. It was an enormous, framed, slightly tacky poster of Las Vegas. Today, I removed the artwork. I’ve disliked it since I started and the account manager next to me who is a young guy who’s never been to Vegas but wants to go asked if he could have it. Naturally, I told him yes. Now I have a bare spot on my wall but I quite like it. It’s crying out for something interesting. I’m not sure what that is but I think I’ll find it in time. I’m eying the large framed poster of London we got from HQ that’s supposed to inspire us to do our job well enough to have earned enough ‘points’ to go by August. I’m not sure where that poster is going but I have a nice empty spot on my wall where it would fit…

I digress. I like having an office. I like having the variety in my day. I don’t necessarily like that my boss hired a ‘temp’ recruiter to help me and my fellow full-time recruiter out and she’s competing with us more than she’s helping us but that’s up to my boss. We originally thought she was going to help us find resumes for open positions but it seems she’s started recruiting on her own. I suppose that’s fine. I just wish she wouldn’t use my Monster.com account and call people for my open jobs before I get there. I’m trying to rise above but I know that my fellow recruiter is also getting a little frustrated by her. We’ll see what happens there, I suppose.

However, I like virtually everything else about my new office. I like my coworkers. I like that I can leave if I need to as long as I tell someone. I like that I have sick time and vacation time. I really like that my boss doesn’t care if we go on Facebook during the day as long as we’re doing our job. At my old job, they blocked Facebook except for lunch time. This was a bit of a nuisance for the staff who were expected to maintain the company’s Facebook page during their workday. It meant…they couldn’t. It was a bit daft when you think about it. Besides, what companies don’t realize is that the majority of people have Smartphones and if they have a Facebook account, they have it on their smart phone which means you can block it all you want on the PC but it won’t stop employees from accessing it, commenting and posting regular status updates throughout the day.

So, I think I’ve established that my job isn’t the reason I’m under my 'Pootle' cloud. I don’t even lie in bed with the puppies thinking of ways to avoid going to work. This is actually a strange feeling. I spent almost two years feeling that way with my old job so to get up each morning, detangling myself from puppy bodies and paws, turning on Fox 19 Stormtracker Weather and following the rest of my morning routine doesn’t feel at all like a prison sentence. It’s quite nice.

I think it’s just a state of mind. As I said in my ‘chubby day’ blog yesterday, I’ve been feeling unhappy with myself and my clothes. I’m wondering if it’s because winter clothes feel so lumpy. So many of my big, warm sweaters make me feel blobby, I’m wondering if I need to replace them. Some of them need it. I have a fondness for chenille but I’ve discovered that no matter how careful you are when you wash chenille, inevitably, it wears away and you’re left with bare spots on the garment.

But what to wear when it’s below freezing outside and your office isn’t the warmest either? It’s an interesting dilemma. Any suggestions on that?

I’m hoping that this weekend, if I take some ‘me time’ and just enjoy myself, I’ll lift myself out of the doldrums and feel better about everything. I’m feeling the need for something ‘new’ in my life. I don’t know if that’s a new novel or a new boyfriend or simply a new friend. I think I just need to shake the January blues. Even though February is a little too ‘pink’ in my mind, it’s short and sweet and doesn’t come on the heels of a major anticlimax as the holidays end and the world is grey and cold. I like the world when it snows but lately, we’ve just had the remnants of the last snowstorm sticking around and making everything look messy. I’d rather have a nice fresh covering. I even wore my snowflake pendant today. (Please don’t kill me, mum!). I’m hoping it’s good luck charm will bring on the snow this weekend. Then I can have a lovely self-enforced snow day. That sounds like a treat.

Next week I promise to be less ‘grey’ and more upbeat. Thanks, as always for reading!

Happy Friday!

The Nuisance of "Chubby Days"

There are days in life when you just feel blah about things. They are days when you go to your closet and look at all your clothes and wonder what on earth you should wear. Sure, you have a bursting-at-the-seams selection in front of you but nothing jumps out. You feel as though everything you put on will make you feel like an enormous blob because you’re having a ‘chubby day.’

If you’ve never had a ‘chubby’ day, you’re very lucky. I’m not sure if men have ‘chubby’ days or not but I know that I, as a female, have them far too often.

In my case, a chubby day means that you realize you no longer have the fabulous metabolism that you had when you were 18 and could fit into size 2 jeans. It means that you have to wake up and realize that as much as you enjoy the taste of French fries, butter-sauced food and lots and lots of cheese, you can’t always give in to the urges. Instead, you find yourself looking up ways to make a healthy dinner that’s tasty.

Chubby days also mean that you look in the mirror and feel unattractive. You know you’re not and that you don’t look like a drag queen or Arnold Schwarzenegger when he dons that woman’s disguise in “Total Recall” and, yet....you can't help but feel like you do.

Often, when I'm feeling like this, my strategy is to make sure I wear something that makes me feel good or attractive. I try to spend a little extra time on my makeup, make sure my hair looks right.

Sometimes this helps. However, there are occasion chubby days where nothing makes you feel that great and even when you try to look nice, you feel like you don't.

I know it's all in how you feel about yourself that counts. I'm pretty sure people don't look at me and say, "wow, she's quite chubby!" There might be people who remember my 18-year-old metabolism who would say, "wow, she's gained some weight" but, in the grand scheme of things, it's not that bad.

It's all in my head. I know it. The fact that I think I have nothing to wear when I have a closet full of clothes is definitely a psychological block rather than a physical one. It's just that my sweaters make me feel bulky. If I wear something that isn't a sweater, I'll freeze. It becomes an issue of common sense vs. vanity. Vanity often wins. Then common sense laughs at it and says, 'told you so,' when I'm sitting in my office, hugging my tea mug for warmth.

I usually try to fight chubby days by trying to eat a little lighter or healthier and make sure I'm doing at least a little exercise. That way I feel like I'm doing something about that which is bringing me down. I might dwell on a problem for a while but eventually, I always find a way to deal with it. In the case of chubby days, I can attempt to fight them. Or, more realistically, wait for them to pass and try again tomorrow.

Perhaps I should pick out my outfit for tomorrow now. That seems logical.

Except that by the time I get up tomorrow morning, I probably will have changed my mind.

Hopefully I'll feel less 'chubby' tomorrow.

Happy Thursday!

Remake Rant: Taking Offense to "Skins" (But Not for the Reasons You'd Think)

Well, today was definitely not a Monday. It was one of those days where you’re so busy that you don’t have time to stop and realize that you were busy. You just happen to look up at the clock and suddenly, it’s almost five.

Days like this are nice and much more preferable to Mondays.

I just feel bad. After all, it’s not really Monday’s fault that it’s a Monday. There are some good things about Mondays. Well, sort of good things. After all, when they’re done, it’s a nice feeling that you’ve got one work day under your belt and there’s only four to go. I’d say that it’s a good night for TV but, alas, since “24” has been cancelled, there’s really not much to watch. I do watch “Gossip Girl” because, well, it’s trashy fun and after a hard day at work on Monday, it’s nice to turn your brain off and watch over-privileged teens try to out-scheme one another.

Last week on Monday, I gave that new MTV series, “Skins” a try. I’m a big fan of the original version that was made over in the UK. For those of you that have never heard of it, it’s an ensemble show about a group of teens in their last year of school in a UK town. There’s drugs, sex, violence and a lot of other things that parents pretend teens don’t do/know about. It’s pretty compelling because each episode is from the viewpoint of a different member of the ensemble and while the story moves forward, you feel like you’re actually part of the group because you know everyone so well.

I have to admit, I was a little disturbed they were remaking it for a U.S. version. This goes along with my puzzlement as to why they’re remaking “Being Human” in the U.S. for the Sci-Fi channel when there’s a perfectly good version on BBC America. And, if you’re wondering why I didn’t spell “Sci-Fi” the way the network does- SyFy- it’s because I think it’s stupid and I refuse to cater to the need to abbreviate something that was already abbreviated, let alone spell it badly.

I simply don’t get the need to remake British shows. It’s one thing if they take a concept and Americanize it. “The Office,” for example, works brilliantly because while they adopted the concept of a humdrum office with a bad boss from the British version, they didn’t try to take exact same characters, plot and situations. Instead, they took ideas from the original version and made it work for an American audience.

I can’t speak for “Being Human” because I haven’t seen the U.S. version. I have, however, seen the British version and it’s very entertaining. In short, it’s about a werewolf, vampire and ghost who live together in a house in London. Here’s what I don’t understand: If it was a French show or a Japanese one or even one from Sweden, I’d understand the remake. Dubbing is a nuisance and it’s nice to hear actors actually…act in a language that the audience can understand without subtitles.

However, last time I checked, English people…spoke English. Certainly the cast of “Being Human” has British accents but that’s the only difference. So, why the remake? This is exactly how I felt after watching “Skins” on MTV. Truth be told, I turned the pilot off 20 minutes in to the episode. I suppose it’s because I was hoping that like “The Office,” they’d take the concept behind “Skins” and Americanize it.

They didn’t. Instead, they changed the names of some of the characters, turned a gay male character into a gay female character and then pretty much blatantly copied the British version. The acting was, for the most part, absolutely terrible. The dialogue didn’t work because an American boy calling his girlfriend “Nips,” because she has weird nipples is just not the same as when a British boy does it. Also, last time I checked, most high school kids didn’t say, “I’ll ring you up,” or “let’s smoke a spliff.” They do in the UK but not in whatever generic East Coast city they in which the U.S. version of the show was set.

In the UK version, they primarily used amateur actors. The main actor in the first two season was the only ‘famous’ one- he was played by Nicholas Hoult who was in “About a Boy” with Hugh Grant. His Tony was a slick-talking, slightly sociopathic charmer who mostly cared only about himself. Yet you could see why his friends were drawn to him and why he was able to get away with everything. In the U.S. version, the Tony was just…awful. He was stilted and ‘pretty’ and overall bland.

I’m picking. I know it. I shouldn’t pick because I only watched 20 minutes of it. It’s just after realizing it was going to be mostly a copy of the British show, I couldn’t help but think I’d rather go back and watch the original episodes which I enjoyed rather than watch a second rate version on MTV.

What’s interesting is the uproar that the show is causing with parents and, as a result, advertisers. Parents don’t like TV shows where teenagers have sex all the time, smoke pot, swear and drink too much. I get that. As a parent, I probably wouldn’t want my younger teens watching something that glorified a partying type of life style. Yet, for the older kids, I’d like to think that, as a parent, I’d raise them to have their own minds and that they’d be able to watch something like “Skins” and not suddenly feel that their magical peer pressure button was being pushed and thus, they, too, had to suddenly go out and hunt down a joint.

Note to parents: If you think a TV show will influence your child, you might be right. However, it has to have something to work with in the first place. If your kid watches “Skins” and then goes out and gets drunk, I can almost guarantee…it’s not the first time. Sorry but that’s the way it works. I was a teen once. I was a boring teen because I had good parents. The worst thing I ever did was steal a small “River Greenway” sign from a bike post along a walking trail when I was 15 with my friends.

Then, I felt so guilty, I went back and returned it. That’s a true story. Yes, I was pathetic. My friends and I used to go buy a two liter of Mountain Dew and a box of ice-cream sandwiches and then go eat/drink at the park. That was our naughty indulgence. Have I mentioned that I was a pathetic teen? Then again, I didn’t have shows like “Skins” to influence me.

Anyway, long story short, while I understand parents finding the content of “Skins” offensive, there is a thing called a remote control that changes the channel. Also, make sure your kids have enough common sense to not want to replicate the behavior on the show. I’m sure there are surveys that show that overprotective parents end up with more rebellious children than parents who have a little more trust in their kids. Of course, I may have made that up but it seems like common sense to me.

Besides, to me, what’s more offensive is the bad remake of a perfectly good show? Also, I’m offended that MTV found something offensive about the Britishness of the original show and thus felt they had to remake it. What’s so bad about the Brits, huh?

I might be taking that a little personally. I’m also ranting. My apologies.

But I feel better now.

Happy Wednesday!

Nonsensical Ideas in a Non-Sensible World

Today was, without a single doubt, a Monday. I think I’ve mentioned that I find some Mondays more Monday than others. I think, actually, Monday should become a noun as in “I feel very Monday today.”

I think everyone would know what you mean. Real Mondays are gloomy. For me, they’re days where I wake up groggy because I slept badly the night before. The day is grey and unsettled and seems indecisive about what it wants to do so it just stays grey. The sun doesn’t come out. It doesn’t rain or snow. It’s just…grey.

Mondays at work are days when no matter how much you like your job and enjoy what you do, you don’t want to be at work. You feel fuzzy headed because of the lack of sleep and you feel like you’d be better served going back home, flopping back under the bed covers and being lazy. Then, when you did finally get out of bed, you didn’t HAVE to do anything, you could simply do…nothing.

I’ve often felt that it would be quite beneficial to employers to allow employees to have one three day weekend a month. It would be nice if the three day weekend always included the Monday. That way even though the Tuesday of the week would become the ‘Monday’, it still wouldn’t be a true Monday.

Ah well, that would be in a more sensible world, wouldn’t it? We don’t really live in a very sensible world. If we did, there would be things like a three slice toaster. I invented that in my head. It would be a triangular shape with toaster slots on each side and a warmer in the middle to soften the butter. It’s always been annoying to me that butter is often too hard to spread on toast without ripping it up.

I take my toast very seriously. I put a lot of thought into my Tri-Toaster. Well, about ten minutes, anyway. I also invented the solar road around the same time. This would use solar energy to heat the road in the winter for colder climates. This way, there wouldn’t be much need for snowplows. Granted, it would be expensive but in the long run, think of the manpower it’d save in having to deal with bad roads. There’d be less accidents as well as less corrosion on cars.
The only problem is that I’m not a scientist or an engineer. I’m a writer. Thus, I like to make things up…like inventions. I come up with the ideas. I need a scientist/technical-type person to actually make them a reality.

Of course, I’m not even sure my inventions are possible. In fiction, if you don’t know how to do something, you make it up. Thus, if I was writing a story that included solar roads, I’d invent a miraculous bit of technology named something like the Solarium Sprocket that made it possible to harness the power of the solar ray, amp it up and pump it into a special complicated underground system of chambers. These chambers not only allow the energy of the sun to be stored for centuries but also distribute it to a central point (The Ra-Eye) on each major highway so that all roads within a cold region would be thermalized.

Granted, once I invented that technology in my work of fiction, I’d then think of all the evil ramifications of such a nifty system and it would end up turning toxic and create particles that became evil beasties that destroyed human life but, hey, the technology would be interesting, right? This is probably why I like to make things up rather than actually invent them. Also, the physics behind it would make my brain bleed because my brain is not humanly capable of doing complex mathematics. Also, I’m not smart enough.

What was I saying? Oh, yes, the world isn’t sensible but it should be.

The only problem with that is that I’ve just proven that even if the world was sensible, I’m not always the most sensible person. I try. It’s just that sometimes, my imagination goes a little wild. Also, I can be a little, um, oblivious. Case in point regarding my obliviousness: The first time I wen t on the “It’s a Small World” ride at Disneyland, I had an epiphany mid-ride as to the nature of the ride. You see, I had thought it was going to be all about miniatures or something. We’d already gone through half the countries before my poor, oblivious brain figured out that it was a small geographic world we were seeing.

There. I don’t tell that story to everyone because it makes me look like an airhead. I’m not. I just have these moments of pure ignorance and then, bam! I get it. And everyone around me looks at me like I’m an idiot. I’d say that I feel like an idiot at these moments but, actually, I don’t. I feel quite elated that something that was previously a bit of a mystery has been solved. It took me quite some time, for example, to realize that Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio was named after the Wright Brothers. I knew that the Wright Brothers were from Dayton. It’s just I didn’t put two and two together. That would involve maths, you see and, well, I try to avoid to avoid maths.

I can, however, be quite sensible about some other things. In general, I’m mostly quite sensible. I have common sense, at least.

I just have this horrible habit of tuning out of reality once in a while and letting my brain have some peculiar thoughts. I find they make life more interesting. They also help you come up with some nifty inventions. Now, if only they’d supply the knowledge of how to make the inventions happen.

Ah well, as we’ve established that would happen in a sensible world. A sensible world would probably not have Mondays.

This is clearly not a sensible world.

Happy Tuesday!