My Sober Concert

Way back on August 30th, a wonderful event took place.

Zac Brown Band played in Toronto and The Girl, My Guy and I attended the show.

Now.... 

...last year,  ZBB played in Toronto and My Guy and I attended the show...and I imbibed rather heavily...mostly RockStar [+Vodka]s and a few Bacardi Breezers...as is evidenced in this blog post aptly titled... My Drunk Concert . I had a whoooooooollllle big bunch o' fun BUT I feel that while I may have gotten the most out of the spirit and the vibe of the show, I kinda missed a lot of the finer points...like the encore...and the coyote. The day after that show I swore to you, my Beloved Readers, that, if ZBB ever came back to Toronto and I was lucky enough to attend, I would attend SOBER and I would beat down my basic inner nature and stay for the encore.

Here's my video vow:

So, August 30th arrived and the three of us piled into the car and made the journey to the Big Smoke and things were going swimmingly until THIS...

Damn.

When all hope of getting to the concert before ZBB came on had all but faded (we had already for definite sure missed the opening act The Sadies ...a very cool Canadian Indie band...oops) but then My Most Excellent Guy had a brilliant idea...he suggested that The Girl and I hop out of the car and walk to the Molson Amphitheatre...we'd get there faster à pied than we would en voiture. 

He is a fine selfless soul.

Neither The Girl or I are particularly selfless so it didn't take much persuading for us to leap out into traffic (slow-moving as it was) and sprint for the venue.

We got there and then had to wait in line FOREVER for the "facilities"  and I came terrifyingly close to peeing my pants and then we made our way through the drunken masses...barbaric boors... ;) ...and got to our seats and did a little happy dance because.....

Look how close we are to the stage!!!

YAY!!!!!! 

And then we did what girls at concerts are supposed to do and took a myriad of selfies. Apparently, according to my daughter, I am crap at taking selfies so I had a crash course in Selfie Photography and these are the results...

Obligatory Concert Mother/Daughter Selfie

'Nother One

'Nother One

The mic is in place...the tension mounts...

And here is when My Guy, out of the blue, pops in beside us...telling us a wonderful story of how he got fed up and frustrated with the fact that the traffic was not moving AT ALL and he noticed that there were parking spots available in the parking lot right off the highway... and a Parking Lady had just told him that he'd have to travel (at breakneck speed...a snail's breakneck speed) another 3 whole blocks...

"Well"...said My Guy to himself...

"F**K THAT!"

...and cranked the wheel to the right and drove up and over the curb and the boulevard into the supposedly full parking lot that was right in front of the front gates...and found a sweet spot right at the front of the parking lot right in front of the front gates.

Oh yeah!!!

Take THAT stupid Toronto traffic jam.

So, after patting himself heartily on the back to congratulate himself for accomplishing a feat of ballsy and timely 4X4 wheelin' parking ingenuity, he sprinted and got to us just in time for THIS....

The Zac is in place!!! YAY!!

The Band

The guys slow it down a bit...and yes that is a taxidermied(sp) coyote...awesome.

The Girl "enjoying" the show ;)

I got photobombed...Brilliant!!

Look Ma!! No Booze!! Vow #1 fulfilled.

This is me last year...lots o' booze. Pre-Vow #1

Me and My Guy

And...

Guess what!!??

I stayed for the encore.

Yes, I did....and I'm soooo happy that I did because otherwise, I would've missed the whole band reappearing on stage in glow-in-the-dark skeleton suits...HA!! I haven't seen that old trick since The Boy's 5th Birthday/Halloween party... Jack didn't play the fiddle though.

Proof that I stayed for the Encore...Vow #2 fulfilled.

Glow-in-the-dark Skeleton suits...yep.

The concert was INCREDIBLE!!

Goddamn they put on a good show. They did all their big hits and a bunch of their hilarious songs and we heard a few anecdotes and they did some kickass covers ...they did some Zeppelin, Metallica's Enter Sandman, Bob Marley's One Love,  Eagles' Seven Bridges Road and Bryan Ferry's Avalon...and of course, a crazy high-energy rendition of  The Devil Went Down to Georgia.

Yep... 

....good stuff.

Great concert.

Oh...and then the great concert was made even greater when it turned out that the parking lot that My Guy had so tricksily.... and illegally ... parked in was "Pay on Entry" and since he had entered by unconventional means...we didn't have to pay for parking...in Toronto...at the Molson Amphitheatre....

Oh yeah!!

Anyhow...great concert. Hugely enjoyable to be there but not necessarily all that much fun to recount because there are no ParkingLot RockStar Shenanigans to report.

...hmmmmm

...just a minute.

I've had a brilliant brain wave. 

There is always...

NEXT YEAR!!!

Next year...I'll have many boozy drinks...and I won't stay for the encore.

One year on...one year off...one year on again!!!

Balance.

Yin. Yang.

Sounds like a plan.

Next year there will be scores of hilarious hijinks to relay and that post will be waaaaay more fun to write and to read.

I'm a genius.

It's a date!! 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

p.s. I am not entirely sure why the whole post (except for one paragraph) is "centred".

...I can't fix it. 

I tried.

But...

I can't.

Weird.

!

The Greatest Thing...

So...the greatest thing just happened to me.

I finished my yummy lunch ...left-over souvlaki, tzatziki sauce and apple slices...and I was shuffling around the kitchen like a slug, grumbling to myself about the fact that there was nothing crappy to eat and I really felt like eating something crappy because it is a cold blah September day and cold blah September days remind me that summer is over and that November is coming and that makes me feel blah and grumpy and sluggish and leaves me wanting to eat crappy food.

As I grumbled and shuffled away, I checked and re-checked the cupboards and fridge in my quest for crappy food.

No dice.

Crap.

I didn't feel like veggies or fruits or wheat-free granola.

grumblegrumblegrumble

In a last ditch effort, I opened up the freezer and guess what I found???!!!

A MOSTLY FULL TUB OF OREO ICE CREAM!!!!

WAHOooOOOoOOOOoOOOOooOOOo!!!

I asked my Self... "Self, how the hell did THAT get in there??"

And then I remembered that The Girl bought some Oreo ice cream to go along with the deliciously thoughtful greatest birthday cake EVER that she made for me way back on August 13th (Thanks, Katy!! Love you!! xoxoxo)

So, the hugely unexpected appearance of Oreo ice cream in my freezer is awesome on a couple of different levels...

Level #1... there was Oreo ice cream in my freezer.

 ....and that's AWESOME!!!

AND...

Level B) ...there was Oreo ice cream in my freezer....

....ONE MONTH AFTER it was originally and most thoughtfully purchased by my beautiful daughter...which means that there has been Oreo ice cream in my freezer for ONE WHOLE MONTH and I haven't eaten it ...which means that I am actually mostly adhering to my new "Eating Well" regime.

...and that's AWESOME!!

Now some of you might be quick to point out that "Of course, the Oreo ice cream is still there, dumbass!! You FORGOT that it was even there...how can you eat something that you forget is there??"

To which I will counter ...

Yeee-ssssss...

BUT!!!

... the very fact that I actually FORGOT that there was Oreo ice cream in my freezer is evidence that my dietary habits have changed.

The old me would never EVER, in a million years, have forgotten that there was Oreo ice cream in my freezer. Its very existence in my home would've been Top Priority in my "Things I Should Remember" file and I would've had a bowl (or two) a day until it was all gone.

And I didn't.

And a month later, the mostly full tub of Oreo ice cream is still in my freezer.

BAM!!!

Greatest thing!!

....

....

....

Unfortunately, it is still a cold blah September day and now that I have finished a wee small bowl of delicious Oreo ice cream, I am going to curl up on the couch with my 2 doggies (one who smells of skunk...gross) wrapped in  my Winnie the Pooh blanket and have a nice nap.

n'night!!

I Bet This Has Never Happened to You...

So, this afternoon, The Girl and I had matching chiropractor appointments...

Mother/Daughter spinal adjustments are the next big thing...Just you wait and see. Mother/Daughter Spa days are très passé.

Trust me.

Anyway...

Today, as well as an adjustment, I was in the market for some orthotics.

You see, earlier this year, I went to see my family doctor because my feet were falling asleep...whilst I walk around.

It's rather distracting

My lovely angel of a physician(who just happens to be a devout Christian...but I love him anyway) took one look at the bottom of my foot and said..

"You're screwed."

...which totally cracked me up.

...because he is Dutch and a very VERY active member of the Christian Reformed Church ...and he had just told me I was screwed.

Hilarious.

Trust me.

Anyway...

In spite of the hilarity of the initial diagnosis, it turns out that my arches are non-existent. It's not the normal arch that's bad (of course it's not). There is an arch that I never knew existed that resides in the middle of the ball of one's foot. Apparently, it never existed in the balls of my feet and as such,  this lack of arch puts pressure on some nerves and my toes quite often go all pins and needly-like when I'm wandering about.

 AND...just to add insult to injury, because of my arch-less-ness, I am also developing some nice callouses on the soles of my feet...which is quite different than developing diamonds on the soles of my shoes.

ANYWAY...

Due to my malformed feet, I am in the market for some orthotics and my chiropractor provides such things and I figure with flip-flop season drawing to an end...f**k...I'm gonna have to start wearing real shoes again and my toes are going to start falling asleep again so I should probably start looking into rectifying this situation BEFORE this shit goes down.

I'm renowned for my pro-active-ness...

BAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA

No I'm not.

So, we get to the Chiro's office and, in compliance with the nice sign at the door, we remove our shoes...or rather...our flippy flops, and, with a growing sense of horror, it dawns on me that my former flippy flop wearing extremities don't smell so good ...the whole "bare feet/rubber shoe" combo generally does NOT work in my olfactory favour.

Crap.

What to do? What to do?

I spot the handy dandy hand sanitizer on the receptionist's counter and think to my Self...

"AH HA!! Problem solved!! I will over-power the flip flop smell with the smell of mediciney alcohol. Self, you are a genius."

Only, the flip flop/hand sanitizer smell combo is actually way way waaaaaaaay worse than the plain old flip flop/bare feet combo.

Crap.

What to do? What to do?

Another magnificent brain wave rolled over me and I realized that there was probably some sort of bathroom facility in the office and, typically, bathrooms have sinks with running water... and soap.

AH HA!!!

So, I legged it to the loo and, lo and behold, there WAS a sink with running water and soap...and paper towels.

Excellent.

So, picture this, if you will...

Me.... standing in the small little bathroom with one foot hoisted up into the sink, washing it thoroughly with vanilla scented Soft Soap.... following it up with a quick and thorough rinse. Hoisting said foot up and out of the sink and giving it a quick and thorough dry with the paper towels so graciously provided.

I imagine I cut quite a fine figure.

On to the next foot...

Hoist foot UP and into the sink...where the water is already running and ready to go...and...

OH MY CHRIST!!! WHEN DID THE NICE WARM WATER TURN INTO MOLTEN LAVA!! I THINK MY FOOT FLESH IS GOING TO BLISTER AND BUBBLE OFF MY FOOT BONES!!

I fumble and bumble my way around the taps, trying to get the temperature to something a little less than thermonuclear...which was way more difficult and took way more time than I am willing to willingly admit...

It probably would've been more sensible to perhaps actually remove my foot from the sink full of water drawn from the fiery pits of hell...but my crisis-handling skills aren't fabulous and, really, I was worried about getting water all over the nice bathroom...would hate to make a mess.

So...

Um...

Yeah.

I scalded my right foot in the bathroom sink at my chiropractor's office today.

What did you do??

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

p.s. My foot is still red and ouchie from its time spent in Satan's bathtub...and this happened at 2:30 this afternoon.

It is now 6:37pm.

Kids...don't try that at home.

p.p.s. It may still hurt like a sonofabitch but it sure does smell purdy.

More Confessions from the Squirrel Cage

ok....

I'm going to share what just happened here, in my squirrel_e_world, during the last 20 minutes or so.

Quick Clarification: the last 20 minutes or so prior to my sitting down to write this pointless blog post...the writing of which will take a good hour and a half ... or so...Hey...you can't rush magic. Fact.

I'm not proud of this story.

It's rather ridiculous.

It makes me look like a complete dumbass but I think this sordid tale might make a few of you chuckle.

...at me.

...and that's ok.

It's not a bad thing to bring a little bit of laughter into this big ol crazy Universe...even if it IS at the expense of my dignity.

I'm good like that.

OK...

So, as some of you may or may not know, I have a little problem with stupid silly games I play on my iPad.  I am a wee bit hooked and it verges on being an addiction...and when I say it "verges on", I mean that it is totally an absolutely mindless addiction.

My current game of choice is the super stupid and super silly game called "Candy Crush Saga"

...even the name is stupid.

I've been stuck on this one level for the past week-ish. It's nigh on impossible to complete and I'm getting a wee tiny bit frustrated. That's why, today, when I got to the point where I had this level by the balls, and was soooooooo close to winning I could taste it (the winning not the balls), I was giddy with joy and relief...

All I had to do was shift one sprinkle-covered super crazy exploding candy down beside another sprinkle-covered super crazy exploding candy and I'd be VICTORIOUS!!!

VICTORIOUS, I SAY!!

Looking at the board, I had mentally mapped out the moves I was going to have to make in order to ensure my victory...but then...horror of horrors...I noticed that all I had left was ONE SINGLE MEASELY MOVE and there was no way in hell that I was going to do what I had to do in ONE SINGLE MEASELY MOVE.

SONOFABITCH!!!

I was so shattered that I began to think the unthinkable.

I began to contemplate breaking a solemn oath I had sworn to my Self.

A mighty oath that promised I would never ever, in a million years, spend any(more) money on this wretched game..

... yet,  there I was, actually considering the purchase, for $1.03, of 10 gold bars so I could visit The Yeti Shop and buy the 5 more moves necessary to guarantee sweet glorious victory.

In the name of full disclosure, I have on one other occasion, forsaken my pride... and common sense ... and purchased extra moves but that particular $1.03 came from my cache of banked  iTune dollars that were all gifts, so that transgression didn't really count...it was like a teeny tiny belated Christmas gift to my Self.

However, today I was playing through Facebook on the desktop and not, as I had been for my previous fall from grace, through the app on my iPad ... SO... there was no way I could figure out how to gain access to my iTunes Christmas present money.

If I was going to do this dastardly deed, I'd have to pay real money.

Damn.

I wrestled with the moral implications of using real money in this stupid game and after a couple of minutes of deliberation with my Self, I decided I was going to do it.

I committed to buying 5 extra moves.

BAM.

...

Damn.

I clicked all the way through the steps and got to where I had to decide what real money payment method I was going to use and I decided that I'd throw it on my debit card instead of my Visa...no use going into debt buying gold bars in the Yeti Shop.

I typed in all the numbers required and took a deep cleansing breath and hit "Enter"...

Where I expected my guilt-ridden gold bars to magically appear on the screen, I was met instead by a message in BIG RED LETTERS that said

DECLINED- This account is not authorized to buy Gold Bars in The Yeti Shop, You Dumbass.

It actually didn't say that but it did decline the payment because my account was not authorized to do online transactions... the very same authorization I revoked earlier this week when I got a new debit card because my other one had been breached...through online purchases not purchased by my Self (but THAT's a whole other somewhat baffling tale).

DOH!!!

Foiled by my own security measures.

I must've had some subconscious trip into the future and knew that I was going to suffer a Candy Crush break in sanity and want to buy Gold Bars and therefore said "Nah...better not" when the nice lady at the bank asked me if I wanted to authorize the card for online transactions.

Onto Plan B...

I decided I had sunk this low so I might as well go the distance and put it on my Visa....but my wallet was out in my car....damn...perhaps my card was in a pant pocket on my bedroom floor. So, in an effort to save myself a trip out to the car to grab my wallet, I rifled my way through my dirty laundry and discovered, as I had figured I would, that the Visa was NOT in a pant pocket.

So, I sighed and trudged the whole 30ish feet out to the car to grab my wallet.

No card.

And that's when I remembered that I had given my Visa to the kids for their flight to Hawaii, in case they wanted to buy a snack or a beer or something on the plane, and The Girl had yet to give it back.

Note to Self - When The Girl gets home from work, demand the prompt return of my credit card.

And, while I do have the actual Visa number, I don't have any of the important Gold Bar Buying enabling info like an expiry date or security number.(that card is new, too)

Damn.

I banged my head on the counter and looked at the screen and saw that another option was PayPal.

hmmmmmm....

I don't have a PayPal account, but they have a link to where you set up an account if you want to....of course they do.

So, in desperation, I clicked on the link so I could set up a PayPal account and buy some f**king gold bars and what does it ask you for right after the whole name and address part???

Your credit card info.

The credit card info that I had quite recently discovered I didn't have.

Good Christ.

I reluctantly and embarrassedly gave up my search for gold and decided to take that last futile move and finish the f**king game.

Then I noticed that I had a "booster" that had been given as a reward simply for being a Candy Crush Saga user...probably to get you hooked on the power of the "booster" so you buy the booster packs so you can take the easy way out of levels...and make the game-making people a shit ton of desperation money.

This free booster would smash a single candy.

Any single candy.

This free booster was EXACTLY what I needed.

I needed ONE single candy SMASHED...and then my one sprinkle-covered super crazy exploding candy would gently fall into place beside my other sprinkle-covered super crazy exploding candy and then I could use my one remaining move and make a sprinkle-covered super crazy exploding candy combo and the level would be COMPLETE!!

SWEET VICTORY WOULD BE MINE!!!

Thank you, Lollipop Hammer.

I laughed at all the shenanigans and foolishness that had transpired over the past several minutes and tsk-tsk'd my Self for stooping so low as to even attempt to buy 5 extra stupid moves in that stupid silly game and then clicked on the "booster" and moused it down onto the game board and unleashed its candy smashing booster power and...

....hit the wrong f**king candy.

I smashed one of the sprinkle-covered super crazy exploding candies....

...not the candy below it.

And everything...

...including my already battered dignity...

....exploded in flash of sprinkle-covered super craziness.

Game Over.

Level Failed.

I am a dumbass.

At least I can laugh at my dumbass-ness.

And now you can, too.

The End.

Level Failed.

P.S.

HEY!!! Look what I found!!! A video explaining exactly WHY Candy Crush Saga is PURE EVIL!!

Well played, young man. Well played.

UPDATE....August 12th 2013

NAILED IT!!!

No Poorly Aimed Boosters OR Stupid Extra Move Purchases required!!

I am a bit of a purist.

If there's such a thing as being too good at growing tomatoes...

...then that's what I am.

Seriously.

My tomato plants are extraordinarily HUGE.

Too huge for their own good.

Too huge for my own good.

And prolific....holy crap!!

Last year my tomatoes were too big for their cages and they fell all over themselves and the res of my garden.

See:

This year, in an effort to avoid a repeat of last year's "success",  instead of buying regular tomato plants, I bought grape tomato plants.

Grape tomatoes are the size of ...well, they are the size of grapes....and the way I figured it, wee small tomatoes would logically have smaller, more manageable plants than the regular big tomatoes did.

I was incorrect.

These are my two grape tomato plants (there are no ripe grape tomatoes..I ate 'em. They were delicious):

I just went out to take pictures of my enormous tomato plants but photos alone could not do their enormity any justice...so I videoed it.

Real live veggie garden action.

You don't get that anywhere else but here, folks.

Here's my garden:

Oh, and in case you're wondering what my interloping gourds look like, this is one:

In keeping with the theme of insane gardens... here is a song:

Madness by: Muse

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
p.s. This is how you pronounce "gourd"....http://www.thefreedictionary.com/gourd

Oh By Gosh, By Golly!!

shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Did you hear that??

That's the sound of me ... SMILING!!

And NOT swearing!!!

I just got back from my dentist appointment...you know, the one I've been dreading for the last 9 months (read this Post "And The Tooth Fairy Can Kiss My Ass, Too!!" if you'd like to know what the heck I'm talking about)...

AND....

...it didn't even hurt one little bit.

I'm not even making this up.

It was beautiful!!!

It was like the good old days...back before I turned 40.

Here's how it happened:

So, a half hour before my appointment, I downed a couple of Advil (as has been my pre-dental cleaning pain-relieving precautionary measure since turning 40), reminisced about my last few nasty visits to the dentist, grumbled, cringed, swore a couple of times and then hopped into the car and drove to the dentist office with my soul chock full o' dread, tension and resentment.

I arrived and took a seat in the waiting room.

gumblegrumblegrumble

I read a few pages of a People magazine and got caught up on Kim and Kanye's latest antics...

gumblegrumblegrumble

I hated myself for a second or two for getting caught up on Kim and Kanye's latest antics...

gumblegrumblegrumble

Had a couple of xrays taken...pain-free.

No big deal.

Xrays never hurt anyway.

grumblegrumblegrumble

Then I was ushered back into the hall of horrors by the beautiful and kind Corinne. She showed me to her chair and I sat down.

She bibbed me up and leaned the chair back into ready position.

I put my sunglasses on...

Tensed my entire body up in order to face the imminent pain and suffering head on...

She lowered the light...

Game Time.

35ish minutes and some lovely chit chat later, she raised the light, put my chair back into its upright position and it was over.

Not. One. Single. Ouchie.

Even midway through, when she asked, "Is this area tender right here??',

I answered honestly and eagerly...

 "Nope!!"

Before I stood up, I flipped my Oakleys to the top of my head and told her...in reverent and hushed tones ... that she had just made me a very very happy girl and that my last several cleanings had been rather "unenjoyable" and that I loved her with all of my heart.

No, just jokes... I didn't tell her the last part about loving her with all of my heart...even though I do.

I actually had to keep myself reined in and force myself to not give her a great big hug of love and gratitude...I'm not a particularly huggy person, so the fact that I had to stop myself from embracing someone is really quite something.

Anyway, I walked out of there with a spankin' new blue toothbrush, some minty floss, a SpongeBob sticker, a spring in my step and a song in my heart.

I was ... and still am, really ... downright giddy.

YAY!!!

Thank you, Corinne!! You are an angel of mercy and gentleness!! ...Do you think you could possibly put a good word in for me with the Tooth Fairy?? I kinda trash talked her a while back and may not be on her Or Nice list anymore.

And...thanks for the sticker.

SHARK ATTACK!!!

...no...not really.

They all survived their  Hawaii Shark Encounter.. limbs and innards intact.

Phew!!!

There is actual video footage to prove it.

See:

So, that's the sharks taken care of.

...now there's just the almost-hurricane to contend with.

*sigh*