Rob is at work as we speak. 40 minutes before he was due at work, he called up the stairs to me (yes I’m still barricading myself in the cold bedroom), “Love, I need a haircut!”

“Um…did you want me to cut your hair?” “No… well, not unless you want to… actually no. Will you take me to the hair cutting place?” (Yes, “hair cutting place”. We have both forgotten the words “barber” “hairdresser” and “hairstylist”, due to the fact that, for very different reasons, neither of us ever actually gets a haircut). So, 39 minutes before he was due at work, I took my
longhaired hippie love to… what’s it called? SuperCuts? SmartCuts? Some other word stuck to the word ‘Cuts’? Strip-Mall Shavers? Anyway. Before we got there, he asked me what he should tell them to do to his hair. Let me repeat this.

He asked me what he should tell them to do to his hair.

Really? Am I the boss of his hair now? It’s actually nice to be the boss of somebody’s hair for once but what do I know from style? I have been wearing the same basic outfit for about six days now, and I feel a-okay about that (black shorts, tshirt, by the way. Yes I wash the outfit. And yes I find the word ‘outfit’ extremely entertaining at the moment).

Anyway, I gave him the only advice I really could. “Get layers”. Two words which will no doubt live on in infamy. As soon as I uttered them I was a little taken aback and a little afraid because I began to remember my own experiences with layers, and oh, people, these were not good experiences. Here let me set down a story of The Girl Mullet (the Gullet?):

Back when I had hair, it was curly. Not only was it curly, it was thick. And prone to doing whatever the hell it wanted to, no matter how much I tried to reason with it. And it seemed that everytime I went to get it cut, the hairstylist would insist on layering it, saying that these magical layers would rid me of the triangle-hair fiasco I had going on.

And do you know what? They would. I would no longer have triangle-head. No. Instead, I would have square-head. I remember one hairstylist cutting me a set of bangs (I had specifically said I did not want bangs– “Not bangs,” she replied. “Layers.”) that actually went so far back that if I were to be perfectly honest with you, and, yes, with myself… well, I had a mullet. A curly girl-mullet, but a mullet nonetheless. Luckily this was 1992, and no one noticed.

Eventually, life got to the point when I was managing to have nice hair… and it all fell out. Just goes to show you that you shouldn’t diss the girl-mullet. Now, back to the present.

Given my hair experience, my husband asking me for hair advice was a little daunting. I scrambled around in my brain, looking for something to say that would prove that I’m actually a girl and know about girly things like fashion and style! because I don’t doubt that he would be sad if he were to find out that he’s married to… not a girl… and the first thing that came to mind was “get layers”. It was out of my mouth before I had a chance to think it over, or censor. Then, I didn’t want to take it back, because I’m pigheaded like that, so I basically threw him to the wolves of the hairstyle gods. (yes, ha ha Rob, I’m telling everyone that you have a hairstyle now! A HAIRSTYLE! YOU HAVE A STYYYYYYYYYLE).

Luckily for him, Rob has long, silky, straight, beautiful blond hair, and the layers actually worked well on him. At least one person in this family (there are only two of us! But we’re a family!) has Good Hair. My wig, meanwhile, is sitting on the kitchen counter where I tossed it when I got home from bringing him to work (where, miraculously, he was not late).

I can’t wait til he gets home so that I can feed him cake (I baked a cake this evening) and make him sit in front of a fan, where his hair will blow all supermodel-y and I can make him sashay.

There’s nothing wrong with that.

Having been informed that all my whining is a pain in the ass, I am instead going to show you a thing that has been making me laugh since about 2 this morning, when Erika brought its existence to my attention…

Brotherhood 2.0

From their website:

“Hank and John Green have been brothers for more than twenty-six years. Hank is an ecogeek, writer, and web designer who lives in Montana. John is a writer (he wrote the novels Looking for Alaska and An Abundance of Katherines) who lives in New York City.

After noticing that their relationship had for years consisted primarily of emails and instant messages, John and Hank swore off all textual communication with each other for 2007. Instead, they are making public video blogs back and forth every weekday for the entire year.”

And unlike myself were I to undertake this project with my brother or sister, these guys actually put an *effort* into things. Their videos are all edited up and are funny as hell.

To wit:

(any self-made vlog directed at my brother/sister would more than likely include me laying on the couch eating ice cream, me in the garden picking peas, me yelling at fruit flies, and lots of me watching The Facts of Life) (yes I know that sounds captivating but don’t hold your breath)

So… remember the new hair? The new wig I was gonna get that I would actually be able to go out in public wearing and not have to worry about it flying off my head, or becoming crooked, or looking stupid? The one that the seller never bothered sending?

We filed a complaint with PayPal once it became apparent that I wasn’t going to actually be receiving my wig. It took a good 10 days, but they finally ruled in our favour.

Except.

PayPal has changed its rules, and instead of getting back the entire amount we paid, we got their base amount. $200. About $260 less than we actually paid. So, I can’t actually just go out and buy another wig, because yeah, $260 is missing. I realize I won some money the other day, but we put that on bills, like you do when you’re not expecting to be completely ripped off by PayPal.

Seriously, I got all Dramatic and cried for like, two hours about this. “Why do I even get my hopes up?” “So much for my birthday present!” “I’m so stupid, why do I even think I will EVER look NORMAL” bla bla bla.
I really pity Rob, that he has to put up with my shenanigans. But, it’s just really disappointing, you know? Especially since I thought I was being so smart in asking all my questions and I trusted the seller and … waaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh! Okay less crying from me. There’s no crying in baseball!

Speaking of Rob, he has better explained why we didn’t get the full amount back. I still think it’s a ripoff.

Is that a word in English? I know it’s a French word and it means swimming (dictionary.com wants me to use my premium login to find out). Which is what we did today– swimming. We woke up, noodled around, and went to my parents’, where we partook of the ghetto pool. Three and a half feet of water never felt so good, people.
My brother and nephews were there, too, so it was a great old time. I was a little leery of the ladder– I don’t do heights well, plus I was all “I am going to break this ladder, yikes!” and the oldest nephew pipes up with “It’s okay, Tant’ Aweez, you can do it!”
At which point I began laughing so hard that I definitely wasn’t afraid of the ladder anymore.

On the way home we were noticing that there’s quite a bit of real estate on the market around here. I would love to eventually buy our own house (or, ideally, build our own, but I know that’s not in the stars for us) although the prospect does scare the heck out of me. I mean… we’d have to mow our own lawn. And like… fix stuff. Fixing stuff is for crazy people! That’s what I say! Okay! Bye!

Yep,

I know what’s up. I watch The News. The way things are going out there, I may well have to start investing in treatment centers. I’m pretty sure shares in drug rehabs are going to be worth more than, say, stocks in underpants stores.

In other news, today Rob and I went to see the Tall Ships. They were tall. We didn’t go aboard them because in all honesty we were only on our way to go grocery shopping and saw them there, so we stopped.

My parents just got a ghetto pool, and we are going to go swim in it tomorrow. Because fuck, dudes, it’s HOT out. And in.
I barbecued this afternoon and may as well have saut?ed my own skin. But, we had yummy hamburgers.

I think that’s all for now. I’ll share more with you at a later date, when I am not on the downstairs computer sweating everywhere. Oh, that’s another thing. Generally, I am not a sweater. I mean, I sweat when I’m exercising, and I may “glow” a little when it’s warm out, but sweat actually rolling down my face? Never happens. Except this week, because it’s been 38 degrees Celsius or above, every. damn. day.

I’m glad it’s summer. Very glad. But sweating? Not something I enjoy.

I just went through my Blogroll, and weeded out some blogs. I only threw out ones where people haven’t written in… well, months. If I happen to have somehow chucked yours, please rest assured that it was completely by accident. Let me know and I’ll re-add it.

I just did! Yay!

Read the rest of this entry →

Doesn’t “nautical” sound kind of … dirty? No? Okay just me then. Never mind, go about your business.

Oh, people, I am sunburned. Me! The girl who never used to change colours even if she was outside for 9 hours!

On Monday, my ex and I met up for lunch. We don’t see each other that often, what with him living in Nova Scotia and all, so we talked for a couple of hours before he headed home. He was here for the Aerosmith concert; apparently he had a bit of a weird weekend where his host’s wife’s grandmother died on Friday, and they only found out after he’d made the trip over on Saturday, so he was kind of stuck going to the wake and the funeral even though he’d never met the woman. I think that’s kind of bizarre… I mean if I had guests here and God forbid someone close to me passed away I would NOT ask my guests, who were there on vacation, to come to the memorial stuff… Then again, that’s just me. And of course, being the self-centred baby that I am, I felt a bit insulted that he’d gone to THAT funeral, yet when my grandmother died in January, I didn’t even get an “I’m sorry for your loss” email.

And that’s when I kicked him in his sac.

Okay, not really.

Anyway aside from my pettiness all was great, he paid for lunch, then yesterday and today Rob and I hung out with other friends (my matron of honour and her hubby) who were here for a few days. They were staying in a hotel with an outdoor pool, which is where the sunburn came in; we went swimming yesterday afternoon, and again this morning, and yikes, I am a little crispy.

Little story: After the swimming yesterday afternoon, we decided we’d like to go to the movies. The boys wanted to see Transformers, and the girls wanted to see Hairspray. So we decided that’s what we’d do, since the movies started/ended within 20 min. of each other. Rob and Ian went in to the Transformers, then Nella and I handed the guy our tickets, and he told us that Hairspray was showing in the theatre straight ahead.

Okay, here’s a visual aid (click to embiggen):

Now. This is where it gets tricky. “Straight ahead” were two doors. There was Theatre 1, which was next to a poster for Hairspray, and the poster for Hairspray was next to a wall (on its right). No theatres beyond that.
Theatre 2 had next to it, a poster for “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry”. I pointed at the door for Theatre One. “Right here?”, I said. “Yep, right ahead.” said the ticket kid.

So we went in. And sat down. And I started eating my wasabi peas (I do not buy stupid concession stand food– although I will buy a drink, because hey, free refills. I go to Bulk barn, and buy a big sack of wasabi peas or whatever. And I carry it in with me proudly. And no one ever says anything because if they do I have a big sack of dried peas to smack ‘em with) and nella and I talked about things, and didn’t notice until I checked my watch and noticed that 25 minutes had gone by and I was like ‘Gee this movie is taking a long time starting’, but then the previews started. So we shushed up. And what happened next?

You guessed it. We were in the wrong theatre. We were watching I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. And we were STUCK watching it, because Hairspray had started half an hour before, and there were no other movies playing.
Now. I had really not wanted to see Chuck and Larry. I mean, I love Sandler, I think he’s a really intelligent guy under all the yelling screaming fartiness. And Kevin James is all cute and cute and funny too but cute! But I don’t like movies where people make fun of… like movies with the fat suits? Yeah, not funny. Well, maybe funny to some people, but basically lowest-common-denominator funny if that makes any sense. And movies where people make fun of the gays? Just as not funny as Fat Suit movies. And very much done, back on Three’s Company. So… yeah. Not Impressed that we were stuck in that movie. And (SPOILER) within the first 3 minutes of the film– a guy in a fat suit.

FABULOUS.

But, after that, it turned out to be not horrible. And actually funny through most of it, once you got into the mindset. Not something I’d pay to see again (well, maybe rent it), but not the big flaming crap pile I’d thought it would be. Also it has Richard Chamberlain and Dan Aykroyd. Both of whom are The Man.

And that’s all you can really ask for, isn’t it?

Bet you thought I’d finally fallen asleep and stayed there, huh? Well um… yeah, that kind of is what happened. I stayed awake long enough for my doctor’s appointment (which was SO MUCH FUN YOU WOULDN’T BELIEVE) and then I came home, and… The Coma. I slept from 4 pm on Friday til 2 pm on Saturday (and I coulda kept a-sleepin’ if it weren’t for the fact that sometimes, a dude’s gotta pee).

Went and visited my mom last night, with her housefull of guests. It was SO WARM SO WARM in the house that I was like “MOM PLEASE PLEASE THE FANS O H P L E A S E”. And still? NO! Instead we went and sat outside where the mosquitoes could feast upon my tender flesh. And when I asked, again, why not put the fan on, her response was yet another cryptic “I just don’t want to!”. And she looked kinda pissed, so I didn’t push it. You don’t piss off my mom.

(I have theories about this. Theories! But I won’t discuss them here, because at the moment they are Top Secret Theories which have yet to be proven by modern science).

This afternoon is my youngest nephew’s second birthday party. I am very excited about this, because I love cake. And I also love him. He, and cake, will be in the same room. Yes!

So. As I said, I have that doctor’s appointment at 1. It’s 7:30 now. Should I even bother trying to sleep? Because I know if I go to sleep I’ll be all tired and stuff and not want to wake up and go to the doctor’s. But if I don’t, maybe I’ll go mental.

WE SHALL SEE.

Meanwhile, let me share with you an exerpt from an MSN coversation (I almost typed “convo”. Then I realized I’m not a ‘convo’ type of gal) I just had with my mom.

Mom: I have to go take a shower before everyone else is up.
(mom has about 9 people staying at her house this week, in addition to my cousin?s daughter who is there for the whole summer because she wants to learn English)

Mom: I was dying of heat again all night and now I?m all sweaty.

Louise: Mom, I am going to get you a fan for your bedroom.
(everytime we talk my mom is having hot flashes or something and she?s all sweaty and I don?t like to see a 60 year old sweat, y?all. (I won?t say ?convo?, but I?ll say ?y?all?. That is exactly the way that I roll) It?s just not right.)

Mom: Oh, I have a fan in there but it doesn?t help.

Louise: Really? Do you turn it all the way up? Is it facing your bed? maybe if you put it in your window it would blow air from outside onto you?

Mom: No, it’s just that I don’t ever turn the fan on.

___________________________________________________________________

WHAT THE HELL PEOPLE.
When she said that, it made my head explode and fire shot out of my neck stump. Because that is exactly the type of thing my mom does– sweats to death, when there is a PERFECTLY GOOD FAN five inches from her fingertips.

I dare not ask her WHY, even though THIS IS MAKING ME WANT TO EAT MY YOUNG, because her answer would no doubt be something sensible like not wanting to waste the electricity or being afraid the dangerous fan would burst into flames overnight, engulfing her home and endangering nearby potato fields, thus ruining the Island?s economy. But to anyone else out there, I say:

(and you can quote me on this one)

IF YOU ARE HOT
AND YOU OWN A FAN
TURN ON THE FAN
AND LET IT BLOW ON YOU
IT?S OKAY.