Somebody's Watching You

Just for you BILL

Last night I was terrorized by a raccoon.

Yeah it sounds funny NOW.

There are raccoons in the neighbourhood, I knew this already. Now and then I encounter one in the driveway, steely eyed, looking at me like it's trying to calculate how easy it would be to knock me down and eat my face off. On those occasions, we regard each other warily then I back up and leave, and it does whatever raccoons do in these situations. Sometimes, in the evening, they even scale the trees in the yard and wander onto the roof, where they stomp around like tiny Nazis, giving me the fear at 2 a.m. because I think someone's in the attic.

Last night, however, necessitated an evening drive to the supermarket as a tragedy had occurred and I'd found myself devoid of both Coke Zero and wine, and well...if that's not a Defcon 1 situation I'd like to know what is.

It was only 8 p.m. or so and just gotten dark. When I rounded the corner into the drive, I saw some smallish critter with a tail like a particularly hirsute toilet brush, dart behind the end of the house at the other end of the drive. I commenced to my car and got in. While sitting there, fiddling with the club lock (because my car's the approximate age of Christopher Columbus) I saw the little furry piece of evil lurking at the bottom of the drive again, clearly thinking I'd gone and the coast was clear. It then proceeded to march up the slope towards the car with the clear intention of murdering me and nibbling on my spleen. Nope.

It then darted right under the car. Great. I was just about to leave. I didn't want to start up and drive over it, I can only take so much trauma in one day and the running out of wine thing had taken its toll already.

I jiggled around a bit hoping the movement would alert it to my presence and it would move. I saw nothing even though I was scoping out all my mirrors like a madman. So I tooted my horn which...I don't know if anyone else has a '99 Cavalier but man, it's about as manly as Barry Manilow in a tutu arriving at a Liberace concert while riding a unicorn. It sounds like a 4 year old girl whining. Anyway, no luck.

I started the engine figuring the sound would scare it out and I could commence my great wine and coke zero quest. I figured wrong, though. I reversed just a few inches hoping that would do the trick. No sign of the raccoon.

It was at that moment I thought two things. 1) fuck my life, and 2) I had to get out and look under the car to see if it was actually there, and risk it leaping out from the depths of hell and attaching itself to my face while screaming like a banshee.

I could've also decided to maybe not go to the store after all but, seriously??? I mean NO wine, not even the shitty stuff you cook with.

So I carefully tested the waters, so to speak, by allowing my left leg to dangle, precariously, over the edge of the car, listening furtively for any sign of a rabid screech that would suggest some zombie-esque nibbling was about to begin. Nothing. I got out of the car.

"Get your ass out of there!" I said in a really bold, confident, and completely "I have the situation under control!" type of way (maybe). Nothing happened.

I was pretty sure by now it wasn't even under the damn car, it had escaped around the front of the house or next door or something. But I didn't want to risk running over it and skeezing myself out, not to mention the guilt factor of killing a little creature that looked comically like Judd Hirsch.

I slowly bent down and tried to get a look near the wheels at the front. I saw nothing! Phew. I breathed a sigh of relief and turned around to get back in, and as I did THERE IS A FUCKING RACCOON RIGHT BEHIND ME, its evil little eyes glinting at me like, "You want to run your little, pussy, ancient car over me? huh?"

This happened in this order.

I shrieked like a little girl.

The racooon made a sound like if you'd accidentally trod on a six foot tall budgerigar.

It took off like a bat out of hell in one direction, and I ran the opposite way.

I dropped my car keys in some tall plants and tripped over my own feet.

Hell yes, I found those suckers and still went to the store. If a person ever needed wine, it was RIGHT THEN.

The moral of this story is, never run out of wine.

* I don't mind raccoons really. Mostly.

The world is new, the world is now...

Well here we are. Another year, another possibility, another respondent burst of enthusiasm about new beginnings we probably won't stick to.

I think most people seem to be in agreement that 2016 was a year best left behind in a haze of gratitude (that it's finally over). It's stupid really - years are man made things and events, good or bad, do not adhere to such ridiculous human-imposed time restrictions, but still, we are mortal beings and so we respect our self regulated time containers and agree. 2016 was a pretty terrible year for the world.

2017 though, will be awesome. Full of positivity and well...stuff that blatantly defies 2016's legacy right in its smug, fat face.

So here's to you, friends. Happy New year, whatever it means to you. A psychological new birth of spirit, to us all.

NSFW. But Safe for Life.

This has been making me laugh all afternoon. Awesome in its simplicity. I'd buy that lady a beer for her sheer determination. You rule, Scotland.

Travellin' (Wo)Man

I've been on a short vacation recently and returned more exhausted than when I left, which, part of me firmly believes, is not how vacations are supposed to be, although the other part of me thinks that this is merely proof that you did it right.

At the end of the holiday I spent a few days just hanging out in Vancouver, walking my feet into bloody stumps, drinking too much wine/beer/cocktails, having food with friends, etc. Here are a couple of my friends here. Both are tasty. I favoured the brunette...

Other than that, I enjoyed being in the mountains, staring at glacial lakes and staying in a mountain cabin. I especially enjoyed the return journey into Vancouver in the pelting rain and fog and rush hour traffic. It's like it knew I was coming.

Here are a few photos, to bore you with.

Beautiful Lake Moraine on a cloudy early morning

Bridge in Golden, BC

Lake Louise in the morning - the water is actually that color

Some logs on the beach in Vancouver

Rainy night in downtown Vancouver

Part of the Vancouver Skyline

Lake Louise again

Canoes on Lake Moraine on a chilly, cloudy, early morning

I could go on, but I'll spare you. Hope you're all well?

Half Way To Comatose

When you work from home you have a lot of leeway with everyday stuff, you didn't use to have. Sure, it can be a gigantic recipe for laziness, but it can also be more productive and relaxed than sitting in an office, avoiding your boss and throwing pencils at the ceiling tiles.

You can make your own hours for one thing, which for me are afternoons and evenings, when I'm most productive. This leaves mornings for drinking coffee, treadmilling my face off, showering, and drinking coffee by the sea.

Plus, working from home means you can work in your pajamas if you feel like it (I do not, this is a lame activity). You can stream playlists all day long and play with your collection of Funko Pop toys. You can also have a nice, evening glass of wine on your desk if that floats your boat, although, sadly, I usually don't in case I have to drive somewhere, because I take sudden urges to just GO and everyone knows, sudden urges must be obeyed. The following photo is the result of a sudden urge the other night.

Then one day you wake up and start to realize that you haven't left the house in four days and even then it was only because you ran out of food and wine and had no other choice but go out or expire from lack of sustenance. Plus you look like a feral child and haven't had a haircut in eleven months and have worn nothing but jeans every day for the last half year, and almost no make up.

Then you realize, eff it, you're actually okay with that.

An Update: Nothing is Happening

This week's been sweaty. And showery. Because one, logically must follow the other or else you'll stank up the environment with your fumes. Allegedly.

I've been putting my new treadmill to work. Every day I've worked out and I'm feeling stronger already. The first day, my running shoes conspired to try and strip the skin off my heels, but I was ready for that shenanigans with double socks and band aids. You have to get up pretty early to get ME, shoes. So good to get back to it though. Now to get that old fitness level back!

Other than this I've been enjoying casually swearing at rampant tourists and people playing that infuriating pokemon game, who think it's perfectly reasonable to be wandering in front of my car like lobotomized turkeys. Alternately I am calming myself down by looking for whales at my favourite look out point while filling my innards with coffee. Whales and tourists. Two non-complementary opposites when relating to my psyche. Part of that sentence was redundant, but I think we'll all live.

When not indulging in the two above activities I've been not sleeping (I'm pretty much an Olympic grade champion at this) and working strange hours, wearing out my Wacom tablet (note: Need new nibs) on new designs.

To summarize: running, designing, coffee, tourists, whales. I really should have led with that.

Scattered

I live on an international border, so I usually have both American and Canadian cash on me at any given time, just because. In the immediate regions on both sides of the border you can generally spend either currency, and so sometimes it all becomes a big blur in my cluttered little brain. And my wallet.

Sometimes I'm paying for parking, and the machines in my city only take local currency. I'll stand cursing at the smug little metal jackwagon, which is insolently spitting coins right back at me, then realize I've tried to squeeze in one measly U.S. quarter instead of a Canadian one and it's having a bitchfit. They're barely indistinguishable in appearance and size but the machine? IT ALWAYS KNOWS. And it always happens when I only have the exact change, therefore, I wind up a quarter short and either have to move or use my credit card for a two dollar ticket. Gah. FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS, am I right?

I already feel better having ranted about this highly important event.

I just bought a new treadmill and I'm stoked. It's been two - almost three - years since I last ran and I miss it.

I should point out, I hate running. Let me put it into context for you. 

Take Tom Jones. Infamous for inducing people's moms everywhere, into a panty-soaking mass of hysteria. Tom's fans love Tom so much they will hurl said gross panties at him on stage, faint all over the place, and defend him to the death with their all-encompassing adoration. If you were to take all that mom-generated passion, put it in a cocktail shaker, shake it up violently, clone it seventeen times, and pour it into a giant cosmic container, you STILL would not have the amount of passion strong enough to equal my passionate hatred for running.

But I do like the way I feel after I run, so I am excited to get back into being a wobbly, shaky, sweaty, sweary mess - albeit one whose jeans fit better! - four times a week. If nothing else I'll get to listen to some new podcasts or music. And maybe it will render me too tired to yell at the assholic dickweeds in their gigantic, tiny-wanger-compensating, pick-up trucks, who keep trying to illegally park in our 'residential only' parking outside the house, and who keep backing into my tiny car like it's not there. 

MAYBE...

Hope you all had a good July 4th/Canada Day/weekendy summer thing!