Have Yourself a Cherry Little Mistmas

December 22nd, 2017

It's three days until Christmas.

I like Christmas. I'm not a religious person at all, in fact, at this point I'm pretty sure if I so much as set foot inside a church I'd burst into flames on the spot, while terrified priests set about sprinkling holy water and hail marys and exorcisms like confetti.

My love for Christmas, however, holds no religious significance, and is more about reflection and relaxation and food and tree lights and joy. I mean, so long as we all end up in the same mellow mental place over the holiday, who cares? You have Jesus, I have gin and tonic. We're all happy.

Merry Christmas!

I don't feel all that christmassy though. I mean, it's been pretty sunny all week, until today, and I haven't worn a coat at all this winter yet. Today's forecast is threatening weekend snow so maybe I'll have to crank up the old Bing Crosby version of "White Christmas" and try to get motivated in the mood department.

Actually, my favourite Christmas song I think, is Rosemary Clooney's version of "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas". I don't know why, it's just perfect. Until you've had seventeen tequila shots that is, then it's "Feliz Navidad" because it's the law.

Whatever you're doing for your festive time, whatever holiday you celebrate or if you just have a nice meal somewhere and contemplate, I hope you have a good one and that you are happy. There's only one law at Christmas, and really it should be your law all year round - 'don't be a dick'. There you go.

And remember, don't eat the yellow snow.

Short Rant About Net Neutrality or Not

December 18th, 2017

Wow, start kissing your freedom goodbye, America. Wait, you already did when you elected that demented orange demon, president. Now, as if that wasn't excruciating enough, your Internets are going to be controlled by corporations who can charge you extra for your Facebooking and your Netflixing and all that nonsense, while making themselves richer and more like the big, proud, evil Dementors they've always tried to hide, but soon won't have to.

Net neutrality was arguably the most important debate in years because it affects everyone. You know that big, free, online world full of possibility and promise and equality? That's probably not happening any more thanks to these ridiculous asshats who took a bribe....wait, I'm sorry...a DONATION...in order to sell you out to the corporations. I mean you can still HAVE your Internet. You just are going to eventually have to pay way more for it, to the likes of Comcast - the upper echelon of so much evil they should probably just put horns on their logo.

Here's hoping this whole ridiculousness is overturned and we can return the Internet to whom it belongs. ME. So I can write crap like this and get back to calling Fuhrer Trump a huge ginger, donkey and not giving a damn.

Actually, I'm doing a huge disservice to donkeys. Sorry donkeys.

The Post That Wasn't

December 11th, 2017

What are Wednesday nights for if not lighting some candles, opening some wine, and watching some fetching gentlemen kill demons in a "Supernatural" marathon of my own making? This was a rhetorical question.

Hi. The weather is still cooperating which is much appreciated and I will now pray in deference to the Sun gods. It's so nice for it to be December, therefore winter, yet no one seems to have told them. Even the Olympic mountains don't seem to have any snow on them. I'm not wearing a coat yet, just a sweater. What is this new, fragrant heaven?

Yesterday I made a custard pie as anyone who's seen me on Instagram knows, since I boasted about it earlier. It did not suck! It wasn't the best either, truthfully, as it sunk a little in the middle in some sort of sad, eggy defeat, but it was adequate and it tasted fantastic with a little cinnamon and browned sugar on top. Oh yes. Custard pies are so very British, I'm not sure anyone else appreciates them. Here's my pie (which is a sentence I never want to type again)

Shut up, it was good.

My next attempt at a pie is going to be an Atlantic Ocean Beach Pie which is actually a thing in the Carolinas (I believe) and is a creamy lemon pie with a saltine cracker crust. Seriously. That is a real actual thing. And it belongs in mah belleh. Salty and lemony? Sign me up.

My garbage pick up guys are making me mad today. Twice now they've refused to take my kitchen scraps. Turns out, kitchen biodegradable bags and kitchen compostable bags are two TOTALLY different things and I was using one instead of the other. Sigh. Why is life so hard? That is why wine exists.

Cheers.

A Christmas Walmart Tale

December 11th, 2017

Last night, in an ill-conceived plan to avoid traffic and crazy people, I decided to take a trip to my (not exactly favourite place) Walmart. Walmart, on a normal people schedule is a hotbed for insanity, where all your deepest, most perverted, stabby nightmares live and breathe and clog up the cheese aisle with their sticky offspring. So 9 p.m. on a Sunday night is going to be deliciously, decadently free of such wanton depravity, am I right?

Turns out, no, I am not right.

I should've gauged the situation the second I entered the underground parking lot to see pockets of dazed, zombiesque individuals lurking around randomly, with no apparent purpose, peering into empty carts and glancing around like they're hiding from something. Then there's the occasional car driving through empty parking spaces like the car equivalent of "dance like there's no one watching".

Since the place was nicely empty, I parked near the escalator for the sake of a) laziness, and b) I'm a lady who doesn't enjoy the notion I might get pummeled into unconsciousness and thrown into the back of some serial killer's Trailblazer (because you know it's always a Trailblazer) if I park away from the entrance at night. I made my way upstairs and inside to the safety of the....uh, yeah. No. The inside was just as perplexing.

I bade a cheerful "good evening!" to the security guy on the door, who looked a lot like an ex-boxer only less charming, and was gifted with a look that suggested that not a lady, but slimy, bulbous slug had addressed him. Which...truthfully, I wasn't dressed as my best self or anything but I wasn't that bad.

I wheeled my retarded cart that squealed like it was being tortured and tickled at the same time, around the grocery section, avoiding the plethora of inexplicable Indian ladies who seem to frequent the WalMart at night (probably thinking wrongly, like me, that they'd avoid the crazies) and weird, solo, furtive looking dudes who seem nervous all the time, and that guy who likes to stand in the produce section fingering kiwis.

The fruit that is, not New Zealanders. Just so we're clear.

While waiting in line at the cashier, with my fantastical booty of kitchen sponges, brussel sprouts, bread, tonic water, and the big bag of chips I'd procured as payment for my ordeal, some dude ambled up behind me and picked up the hoodie I'd placed on the conveyer with the rest of my loot. Like MY hoodie, I was planning to fork over twelve goddamn dollars for. I gave him the Assassin look of "Oh no you di'nt!" thinking he'd pee his pants in terror and put it right back, but no. No, he starts looking at it and checking the other side of it like he might want to buy it.

Um. No, guy. That is MY hoodie. I snatched it out of his hands with the authority of someone who is so in charge of matters. I don't think so, hoodie stealing fucknut. Then he had the audacity to suggest I was being rude.

Seriously. This is Walmart in a nutshell to me. Cheap groceries and hoodies, and deranged fucknuts who'll steal your shit right off the conveyer.

I then drove home on empty roads (AWESOME!) singing ABBA loudly, and stopped in the harbour to admire the Christmas lights, the end.

There is no point to this story except to say, what the actual fuck?

This Week's Public Announcement: The Cleanliness of Your Car Reflects Your Veg-a-Rating

December 6th, 2017

There's a thing I've noticed and it's that people are giant, pulpy, slobby beings much of the time. I say this because it's astounding to me how many people don't mind their cars being stuffed full of crap.

Whenever I see such a vehicle, know that I am making judgments about you. Petty little snide judgments about your general level of stank and assessing my need for a Hazmat suit before entering. It always surprises me, because I thought it was a movie thing, where the teenage girl/boy has an old car and it's just a massive germ factory of wrong, filled with fast food wrappers and cups and general dismay. But I see it in real life too and not just from kids.

My own little run around car is ancient. It probably knew a few actual dinosaurs in its heyday, before I knew it, and it possibly once had square wheels, I'm not sure. But it is clean. I dust it regularly. I never leave trash in it. I have a canvas tote in the back to hold anything I need to stow or deal with temporarily. If I have a coffee in it (and I do, regularly) I take the cup out and throw it away immediately. I just thought everyone did. Turns out no, they do not, and I am some sort of OCD, maniac Martha Stewart. I'm not even an overly tidy person in general, sometimes I will procrastinate dusting my house for two weeks, and you do not want to see my underwear drawer, but man, the car thing is like a litmus test for insanity if you ask me.

Now the OUTSIDE is another matter. I have been in my current city for three years now and I have NEVER been to a car wash. You heard me. I have, however, washed it by hand maybe five times and it rains all winter, so you just shut up, it gets plenty of water cleaning manna. I live by the sea and it's windy a lot, and I have to park under a tree all the time, so it's never clean for more than a day. So what's the point in all that effort?

The Queen of Hyposcrisy has spoken.

When Winter Attacks

December 4, 2017

Someone (Bill) kicked my ass and so I'm making a post to tantalize (!) you all, as the seasons have changed once more, and that means updates must be provided. I'm told this is a law.

It's gotten chilly. Good chilly, where you step outside at night and breathe in that cool, lung-cooling sea air. The sort of chilly where you can still get away with a thick sweater and no coat, but you don't dare eat a peppermint and take a deep breath. Then you step inside and have to put on the heater, a blanket, and that same sweater, thick enough to insulate an igloo. I like it. Sadly, it's also rainy season here so days that aren't chilly are wet, and that means my wipers are getting a workout and stopping distances have increased. At least it's not ice.

In an attempt at frivolous festivity, I put the Christmas tree up last week. This is uncommonly early for me. Usually I'm a "not till December and even then, you wait a week" mentality, but what with the grey skies and the rain I just wanted a nice, pretty-lighted pick me up. So I opened some wine (as encouragement because wine helps make all pleasant tasks ten times more pleasant) and did it. And I've been smug and pleased with myself since. I like nice lights and a TV fireplace - I prefer a real fireplace but as I don't have one, Netflix fireplace it is - Now I have coloured lights UP THE WAZOO and all my extremities are happy.

It was my birthday the other day as well, so the two things sort of overlapped and made November less of a grey monotony. I have a helium birthday balloon hanging from the tree top in fact. If hanging is the right word here (it isn't), since it's floating up. I like a measure of confusion with my festivities. I will say, about the birthday, there was a rather wonderful cappuccino cake with gooey chocolate topping and real, fresh cream filling. Oh my God. I thought I'd gone to heaven. I don't have cake much these days so I wanted to stick my whole face in it. I didn't, however, as I am a lady. Or I had company, one of those things. If I'd been alone, sure, I'd have gorged myself silly, like a zombie in the ball pit at Ikea.

Anyway, winter has brought with it some awesome stormy skies. Here's a photo I took last week or so, of it looking all dramatic and sexy.

And here's a boring phone one from this morning of my favourite coffee shop - my car! Cheers.

Not that I'm anti-social or anything. Well not much. Okay, I sort of am. I'd have coffee with YOU of course, but you weren't here.

Other than this I'm working and driving between printers and grocery stores and Starbucks way too much, and pretty much being a-ok. I wish I had something more juicy for you but hey. I'm not your Netflix, buddy.

Merry Christmas Hanukkah Kwanzaa things! Say hi.

Seasonal Check In

It's funny how the moment the calendar becomes September, I have the urge to go buy some ugly, but oh so soft, slippers, new PJs and some candles. That's autumn to me. Nice lighting and enough cosy, woolly products to smother an entire kindergarten. Particularly when I'm living in a really old, nineteenth century house, that doesn't know what insulation is.

And of course, wine. I mean wine's for every season, it's true, but it just goes along with all the cosy, no? It does, because I live inside of a Hallmark movie.

Talking of movies, (because damn if I cannot segue like a boss!) I just need some good horror movies, because those also go with autumnal things. Trouble is, there are so few good ones. There are about three trillion terrible horror movies, however. If anyone has any suggestions of some good ones I might not have seen, let me know! I'm not big on paranormal type horrors, or anything that's just a jump-scare slasher film. I like tense! Tense and slow building, and the less gory the better, although I make exceptions. I guess I like horror/thrillers maybe?

Talking of horror movies, I vacuumed under the bed the other day. Yikes. You don't want to know what sinister underworld was occurring down there. I needed a stiff shot of something strong to recover.

Nothing much else to say, so here's a poster I made for fun, a few months ago, of an evil ginger troll in a bathtub full of money while the world burns. You are absolutely welcome.