The Shame.

This morning I fell asleep on the commuter train. Not just any ol' attempt at sleeping- it was full on snoring and drooling sleeping. Normally, I reserve such a display for the assembled duvet and pillow audience, but not this time. Canadians are such a polite bunch, at least the people sitting around me, that no-one gave me a nudge to wake me up or to shut me up. I cut quite the stylish figure what with my face pressed against the window of the carriage, giving my snores, what I can only imagine to be, a beautiful echoing quality. I awoke with a start when the annoucer yelled, (he must have known I was perfecting my Sleeping Beauty impersonation), over the intercom that we had arrived in Union Station. I shot up in my seat, hair akimbo, make up successfully transferred to window, mouth wide open, with strand of saliva connecting my tongue to said window. And people wonder what Ian sees in me.

My trip home was much more successful. I was aware that I did not stand a chance against the might of sleep so I cleverly set my alarm to ring at 5.25pm, leaving me a full 5 minutes to arrange myself before arrival at Whitby. However, I had forgotten that I had set my alarm to nerve shattering loud so when the offensive little thing went off in my hand, I threw it from my fist in shock right onto the lap of the gentleman sitting opposite me.

My Go Train image is in tatters

It fell off the back of a lorry

Today I acquired "Chanel" sunglasses, (think wearing saucers over your eyes rather than actual glasses) for $13 from a Flea Market. They may or may not be lifted goods. To be honest I would not be surprised if they aren't "Chanel" and more "Channel". I have come across a number of items in the last week that have unknown origins. Take for example the brand name cosmetics I found at a store that suddenly appeared in the mall near work- 70% off without any explanation. Packaging was still intact, cosmetics didn't burn the skin off my face so what was wrong with them? I am on a misson.

Saw Parry Hotter last night. I nearly fell asleep. Nothing really happened. What's with this new broodier Parry? I understand the book is darker and choc full of activity but the movie failed to brew even the smallest hint of interest. Also, the fact that there was so much Coca Cola on the floor from the previous person meant that I had little to no grip on the floor and kept sliding off my seat. In a final act of desperation I used cinema literature to glue my shoes to the floor. That'll learn the cinema staff to keep their auditoriums clean- you try scraping up a combination of the world's sugariest (sp?) drink, paper, cinema tile and a fascinating blend of dirt.

We may be going to see We Will Rock You this coming weekend. And for all the smartasses out there, yes it will have the Best of Queen (minus Mr. Mercury..unless it's been a hoax all these years), raising the roof. I hope I can sing along. I love to sing. Ask Ian. I am never in tune, but imagine all the singing along I could do at a Queen themed musical. It would be neverending.

I was very disappointed not to find any fleas at the Flea Market. Although judging the state of some of the vendors I would imagine the arrival of said fleas to be rather imminent.

Robots in Disguise

I went to see Transformers this week. People, ( by people I mean 30 year old men who played with Transformers when they were 6 and should know a lot better by now), started clapping and cheering when Optimus Prime appeared on screen and could barely contain their squeaks of joy whenever original Transformer power lines were uttered.

That said, it's not half bad.

Toronto, boring?

Eventful day. I saw the burnt out remains of the SUV that tore into a large truck on the 401 Expressway causing all Eastbound lanes to be shut down for a number of hours. I narrowly missed chaos on the subway when someone fell onto the tracks causing the system to be shut down for half an hour. I watched a girl in front of me get mugged at my subway stop and stared in shock as the mugger ran off with her possessions.

Toronto. It's great!

As heard on the GO Train this morning

A woman describing her first trip to Europe to a friend. Said woman visited London, Paris and Malaga. In a week.

"Well, having seen all of Europe, I have to say I think Paris is Europe's best city"

"Spain is really boring. There is nothing to do there"

"I didn't go to Madrid but I can tell you it is full of drugs and prostitutes. It's really dangerous, don't go there".

Slow News Week

It's been a slow one. I could probably find something to write about, but to be honest each night after work the last thing I want to do is blog. I can't even email... although I do make time to stalk someone on Facebook. However I shall soldier on. Pat on the back what, what.

Canada Day came and went on Sunday. The high point of the day was getting a dose of high powered runs compliments of some dodgy sushi and watching a new episode of "Entourage". I know. Wild. On Saturday we got a beautiful Italian duvet reduced from $400 to $99..bargain. Apparently it is "discontinued". Not for me it ain't. I also stained our coffee table. It is now the hue of Early America. At least according to the tin it is. The clear coat hasn't gone on yet so lord knows what shade of America it will eventually resemble. However, I am pretty proud of my first attempt at home decorating.

Work is work. I am still at the learning stage, which is frustrating as I am keen to get my teeth into a project and get this career moving.

I have become a commuter rat joining in the daily ritual of pushing people out of my way and snorting at those that are incapable of breaking land speed records to catch the subway. I am horrible at 730 am in downtown Toronto. Should you wish to say Hi or hit me back with your briefcase I am the person dodging 'amblers' and snarling at those attempting to overtake me.

It's fun.

The highlight of last week was getting a belt tie for my work security card. It attaches to my belt and can be dragged a full 3 feet from its protective casing before popping back into place. To say it has brought me endless hours of entertainment would be an understatement.

He ain't heavy. He's Ian.

Ian seeing me with a pen placed in my ponytail-

"I wish I had long hair so I could put pens in there. I could be a pencil case. Could you fit an eraser up there?".

Ambitious.

Front Wheel Cow

Actually when thinking brisket, don't think arse end, think flank area. This is all according to Wikipedia. ............ If you want to trust the people who actualy WROTE AN ENTRY INTO AN ENCYCLOPEDIA ABOUT COW MEAT, be my guest.

Moo.

Early. Bird. Worm. Catch

There have been some questions relating to my sanity over the last few days, possibly prompted by the news that I am out of bed and fully functioning at 530 in the morning. I can assure you my actions are sane and with reason. I have chosen to start work as early as I possibly can so I can get home as early as I possibly can each evening. At the moment I am starting at 8am and finshing up around 4-430 getting me home for 6. Some of you may be aware of the jokes doing the rounds concerning Torontonians and how they complain about neverending commutes. People should not makes jokes. This is a serious and real matter! For those that choose not to live in the heart of Toronto and get their paycheck ripped from their hands each month to pay for adequate housing, the downside is commuting. Luckily Toronto and GTA folk set up a pretty swiffy commuter train that transports a few hundred thousand people a day and a subway system, which like all subway systems in the world, has more nut jobs than I have hairs on my head.

So in conclusion, my sanity is intact, I am getting up out of bed in time, I am really enjoying this job.

More to come on the job front at a later date.

As for brisket. I still have no idea what it is. I presume we have a piece of meat the exact same as brisket , only with a different name, in Europe. Think huge chunk of meat from the arse end of a cow. What is that called?

Lazzzeeeeee

There will be a great, big, long, boring description of my first week at work, what I do, where I do it, how I do it, how it is treating me and how I am treating it. In the coming week. Getting up for work at 530am and getting home for 630pm has been a little bit of a shock to the system so I shall be a little more accustomed to my farmer like early morning rising shocker in the next few days.

This weekend was spent lying on my rear end moaning as I had contracted a little cold. No doubt due to all the air conditioning......... and work.

Today we went to MoSport to watch cars chase each other around a piece of cement. I brought a book. It would have been fun had there not been trees sapping on me. And bugs flying around. And bees.

Barbeque chez King tonight. I must go eat my body weight in salad, dip and brisket. No idea what brisket it. I shall report back on its status.

Hurrah!

I am ever so happy. Paul Potts won Britain's Got Talent. I am very pleased for this very unassuming little guy from Wales. Go the Welsh!

It was also a Hurrah! week for me as I finally set up a bank account here, got myself a swanky cell phone and managed to locate a few work clothes that should fit the "respectable" bill. Of course, locating said clothes was not as easy as expected as stores were lacking in my size. I can only presume that it is the popular size. I am convincing myself that is so.

I start work tomorrow. I shall be up and about at 530am. No doubt you can sense the excitement.

Must go back to watching the Much Music Awards, (think MTV Video Awards. In Toronto. Obviously.)

Score!

For something crude and rude, yet laugh out loud, may I recommend "Knocked Up"for your viewing pleasure. Hilarious movie, with the odd tender moment.

I think this one tops my 'Best of....Summer 2007' List. Although, it's not that great a feat when you consider the competition.

Sensational.

Every so often you hear something beautiful. This guy, a very humble unassuming individual had the power to make tears run down my face.

Beautiful.

Head High!

Last night Ian and I went for a few drinks with some people from his college course. One guy had his girlfriend with him, both of whom were eager to hear about my experiences in Canada and comparisons with Ireland. The following discussion ensued,

Girl It must be great in bars with your accent!

Me Huh?

Girl Lots of guys must chat you up because of your Irish accent. A friend has arrived from England and everytime we are out with her, guys line up to talk with her and get her number

Me That has never happened to me

Girl Oh..............................

Well, I felt great last night.

Egoboostastic.

Joke

What's Mr. T's favourite yoghurt?


A Petit Filous!



I have not been able to stop laughing! It's comic genius

Stanley Cup!

Over the last few nights I have been watching the ice-hockey playoffs for the Stanley Cup. And I have to say I have really enjoyed watching them. I have only ever glanced at games in the past so know little to nothing about the sport, other than it is very fast, very technical and demands high levels of skill from its players. So, No Hockey Knowledge Me was watching the games between the Ottawa Senators and the Anaheim Ducks and was intrigued by a Ducks player by the name of Niedermayer. His movement on the ice, his skill in the game and his ability to work his opponents drew my eye. I liked what I saw, and, in particular liked how effortlessly he game skated.

I was rather pleased with my observations when Niedermayer was voted MVP, (Most Valuable Player) and his team won the Stanley Cup. I could be a scout! YAH!

I must dig out the pictures of me and the cup, (or should that read, "the cup and I"?), for memories and what not. Another trip to the Hockey Hall of Fame is due.

P.S. The Stanley Cup is the equivalent of the UEFA/FA Cup in football and the Six Nations in rugby.

Brrr

On Saturday the temperature was 32 celsius with sun. Today it dropped to 8 with rain. Welcome to Canada.

Ian and I went apartment hunting. I was in four layers of clothes and still felt the chill. I am in quite the spot of bother come Winter.

Sand

Forgot to mention the anal relationship Ian has with sand.

While walking on a sandy beach at the lake, Ian kept stopping every few paces to SHAKE THE SAND OUT OF HIS SANDALS. Does anyone else find this as hilarious as me?

He was quite the happy camper when he managed to walk from the beach to the cottage without getting any sand in his sandals. The fact that he looked like an arthritic 80 year old trying not to get sand in his sandals was too funny for words.

I imagine he will dump me after reading this post.

Lake Eerie

It would be so much easier to stick up a few photos and comment on them re: the weekend at Lake Eerie, but seeing as I forgot the camera, I no longer have the easy option. Mutter.

So, our weekend was fantastic. I really am getting old. Gone are the days where a weekend involving no sleep, bars, clubs and half the population of a city could entertain me. Now I want a comfortable chair, lights out at a decent hour and three square meals. I got just that for two whole days. Ian and I left chez nous on Friday afternoon with the car packed full of food and underwear. Seeing as I am new to the whole Canada experience, Ian and his parents discussed which expressway to take to the Lake. There are multiple options, the common one being the Road of Terror, aka the 401. However, seeing as it was a Friday afternoon, it was assumed that the 401 would be a nightmare and so it would be prudent to take the Toll 407. So off we went, 407 bound. Turns out we sat on a glorified parking lot for an hour. Traffic around Toronto at any point of any day is completely and utterly insane. So insane, that if there is a single little hiccup at any point on the expressway, all lanes suffer. Ian compares it to the Butterfly Effect. If someone brakes suddenly 20 miles ahead, the effect will vibrate its way back to the last car, increasing strength as it travels. In our case, there was a minor accident on the 407 involving a slight dent to one car from another. Both cars had pulled over to the side, freeing up traffic access, but because humans are nosy, everyone kept tapping their brakes to slow down for a look. The result was traffic slowed to almost a complete standstill adding an extra hour onto our journey. We moaned and complained but we still made sure we got a good gawk at the scene of the accident.

Once at the lake I regained my love of the countryside. Until all the bugs came at me. Seeing as it was dark when we arrived, we had no option other than to sit down and indulge in an Entourage marathon. I aspire to one day be as obnoxious as Ari Gold.

The following day I bossed Ian into making breakfast and afterwards we went for a walk on the beach. It was sunny and 32 degrees and Ian seemed convinced he was immune to skin cancer. He sat out in the sun for three hours and then ambled along the beach for another hour followed by another two hours just sitting on a chair in the sun. My pleas with him to put on some sun block were met with snorts of disgust. Was I not aware that his reddened arms would turn a golden brown? Did I not know that Ian isn't going to succumb to skin cancer?

As you can imagine I got in quite the snot with him. I understand that he naturally tans, but correct me if I am wrong here, but scorching your skin to turn brown makes zero medical sense whatsoever. I was pretty pissed with him for being so irresponsible, but of course, there was no talking to him. Instead I sat in the sun LATHERED in factor 45. I actually glowed with all the block I applied.... of course sand kept sticking to my lathered skin so I had quite the odd look going.

After breakfast we went for a walk on the beach. Never, ever, have I seen so many fish and bird skeletons as I saw on that beach. It was like being on Animal CSI. While ambling Ian found a bone in the sand. I can assure you that Grissom's job is quite safe as neither one of us could determine if it was human or not. We decided to lump it on Ian's Aunt's deck. Maybe she can determine what it is.

That night we continued our Entourage marathon. Aren't box set DVD's the best thing ever?

The next day was, unfortunately, grey, damp and not very sunworthy. Ian and I enjoyed breakfast, stuck our heads outside the door and pulled mine back in pretty quickly what with the dramatic increase in the mosquito population. Bleurgh. Seeing as there wasn't much point in sitting out in the rain, we started to clean the cottage and while doing so turned on the TV. On it was a show called "Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader?"The concept of this show is to have adults answer questions relating to school subjects for those in Grade 5 and under with the potential of winning $1,000,000. It sounds very simple, but not so for some of the parents... and if I am being truthful, even myself. Most of the questions are pretty simple, but some can leave you in quite the pickle. Take for example the contestant I saw yesterday. She was asked what country has the largest border with the United States. The woman said Mexico.

Has she ever seen a map of North America? Really? How ditzy do you have to be to get that one wrong. How do you not know about the second largest country in the world to the north of you?

Gah.

Anyhoo, after that Ian and I returned to Toronto. With Ian almost having a child seeing as traffic wan't going to the speed he would have selected. Once home, I scratched all my bug bites and made them worse than they were.

Lord in Himmel........

So, Ian and I went to Lake Eerie for the weekend. I shall talk more about that later on. I feel the most important thing to discuss right now is the blatant disregard the Ontario authorities have for the volume of human inbreeding in certain parts of the Trillium province. Allow me to explain. While driving to the lake Ian and I had a craving for Taco Bell. Yeah, I know. No need to lecture on the potential side effects. I know them all. But, the new cheese taco thing looked AMAZING on TV and we all know how easily swayed I am on certain things. I mean, hell, they look good on TV, so OBVIOUSLY they will be yummy in my tummy.

Ian and I stopped at a town enroute that had a Taco Bell. We were quite the ecstatic pair and almost blew up with excitement when we saw the Taco Bell sign. We pulled into the parking lot and merrily tottered in. I had to run to the bathroom first so let Ian join the queue. A toilet is a very good benchmark for any food establishment and this Taco Bell was sliding down the scale, (much like the edibles on offer). There was an inexplicable smell, one that nauseated and encouraged record breaking bladder evacuation and the fact that the toilet failed to flush, instead gurgling human excrement at me, had me in a quite the pickle. I quickly evacuated said bathroom and ran to the queue to find Ian lurking at the back of it with a rather dubious look on his face. A scan of the restaurant patrons revealed that all were from the same paternal line and that most, if not all, were suffering from some form of genetic trauma. There wasn't a functioning brain cell in the place. I am not exaggerating in any way. The genetic trouble did not stop at the patrons, it most certainly extended to the staff. Not willing to sacrifice our remaining intelligence out our digestive health, I am ashamed to say that we ran away from Taco Bell. In a fit of hysterical laughter.

The closest alternative was McDonalds. It was clean at least, but still demonstrated the need for sexual education and contraception in this particular blip on the population scale.

And don't get me started on parents that allow their children run riot in a public place. The sound of a three year old saying "Hello" over and over and over again like some moronic demon serves to augment the evidence of something not functioning all that well upstairs.