"Get Around to it" List

Do you have an "I'll get around to that sometime" list? If you're like most people you do. These are the things that eventually need to be done, but always get pushed to the bottom. Here's mine:

I'll Get Around to that Sometime - A list by Squirrelly Girly

1. Pick up my spare bedspread from the drycleaners - Jenge dropped it off in December. It's still there. I see it in the window as I drive by for morning coffee. In all fairness to me, until April, I thought Jenge was gonna pick it up. But she put the receipt on the fridge and I think I might have told her not to worry about it, I would do it.
2. Get my new pants taken in at the waist - They fit great everywhere except right at the waist. I bought them with the intention of taking them to a tailor. They are still on the floor next to my bed.
3. Change humidifier drum - this needs to be done once a year. I'm on year 3 right now.
4. Find Portia's collar - her tags have gone missing. I bought her a new collar but have put off purchasing new tags, knowing that as soon as I do, the old ones will turn up.
5. Take car to carwash - Chantal has written 'Wash Me' on my car twice.
6. Clean window sills - Blah.
7. Install garden gate - Dad was gonna get around to this, but sadly, since he has recently passed away, this task has fallen to me.
8. Take cardboard to recycling - It is currently in a big stack in the basement. I think Jimmy Hoffa is at the bottom of that stack.
9. Weed and Feed lawn - I have those prickly weeds all over. I hate those things!
10. Take clothes to goodwill - I have them in a pile. The pile was neatly folded. It fell over. Six months ago.

Theory of Time

Why is it that when it's Thursday it feels like forever until it will be the weekend, but suddenly it is the weekend and it's over too fast? Is it really that time flies while you're having fun? Is it possible to be so bored that time appears to be going backward, it's moving so slow? How come they say when you're asleep, it's your unconcious mind in charge, but the unconcious mind apparently does not wear a watch?

Don't you wish you could enjoy every second of sleep and not just have it whiz by in a "But I just went to bed" kinda way?

Don't you wish your weekend lasted longer?

Why does it take so long in the morning for my coffee to brew, but it seems faster at night?

What is it about the human brain and time? Why is it we don't easily recall all of our experiences? Why do only some remained readily accesible in our memories and others are long forgotten? Sometimes I feel like the human brain is actually time-incompatible and that's why we can only remember the past and not the future. Now for you non-geeks out there, you will tell me that remembering the future is impossible, but to you I say, au contraire, mon ami, au contraire. According to physics, the future and the past are just points along a timeline and theorhetically, we should be able to remember both. But we don't. Our brain is only capable of travelling one way on the time stream - forward. And why is that? Is it that it is an inefficient machine, too simplistic for the construct of time? Or are we afraid to use our brains to their full capicities, scared of what the possibililties may be.

These are the thoughts that keep me up at night.

Stressed out? Me? Of course not!

I'm a high strung person most of the time but if you asked me if I was stressed out, I would prolly tell you no, I'm always this tense. Case in point, whenever I go to Amanda to get my nails done she always tries to wiggle my fingers, telling me to loosen them up, to relax. I tell her that I am relaxed. In fact, getting my nails done is one of the most relaxing things to me.

At the chiropractor's office, my chiro says the same thing. Relax. I tell him, 'This is me relaxed!' Once he ran his finger down the tendon that was sticking out sharply on my neck and said, 'Then what is this?' But it's always like that, I explained.

So, am I stressed out right now? Mental inventory: hmm. Well, I have had a death in the immediate family, but the arrangements are all over. And work is busy but it's better to be busy than not. And I'm not sleeping very well, but my caffeine intake has gone up recently (see aforementioned death in family and work is busy). So am I stressed? 'Course not!

But my body appears to be trying to tell me a different story. My hair is falling out faster than normal (a classic squirrelly girly sign of stress), and I just saw my chiro last week and already I can hardly move my head today and I've gone over and above the daily recommended dosage of Tums (but really, what can happen if you take too many Tums??) and the Advil bottle is getting more of a workout. Plus there's this tight feeling in my chest that makes it hard to breathe.

Dammit, I think I am stressed! But what's a busy girl to do? Yoga? Who has time? Facial? Again, who has time? Massage? Already got one booked but it's not till next week. Sleep in? Who will pay the bills? Exercise? Hi, have we met? I don't think so.

So, like the rest of the peeps in the world who are stressed out, I've got to keep going. We're in this together!!

Paging Rock Hudson . . .

Man's man, ladies man, man about the town, yes, it's Rock Hudson. He was the studliest dudley Hollywood had seen in quite a while. I still watch Pillow Talk and Magnificent Obsession on a regular basis. Sigh, Rock Hudson, you dream boat.

But, unbeknownst to us at the time, he was gay. Sadly back in those days, you had to hide your sexual preference if it was not for the opposite sex. But they say, times have changed. . .. .

Or HAVE they?

My mum told me when she read a biography on Rock, that he said he and his 'guy pals' always made a point of hanging out in odd numbers, groups of 3, 5, etc. Hang out in even numbers and people might consider you 'paired off.' But hange out in odd numbers and it was 'apparently' clear, you were just hanging out with the buds, swilling a couple of brewskies.

Now I hear that Lance Armstrong, Jake Gyllenhall and Matt McConaughey are quite the threesome lately, hanging out all the time. Sure, they could be just good ol' boys, meaning no harm. But hey, this is Hollywood.

I smell a rat!

And that rat's name is Tom Cruise. So I heard on the radio today that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes were 'Good Samaritans' to a couple that were stranded by the side of the road after an accident.

Why is it that whenever Tom's carreer appears to be taking a nose dive, there is a media story about him being a Good Samaritan? Saving a trampled fan, a car crash victim. . . .YAWN! Tom, I don't care how many people you 'save.' I still think you're weird. I can still can't belive that the world seemingly accepts 'Scientology' as a real religion, but frowns and smirks upon people who call themselves Jedi's. Why is one totally acceptable and the other the sign of a whack job? Is it the money? The fame? The elitism of Scientology?

And if a person's brain stops making the right kind of chemical's, Tom says this can be cured with vitamins and exercise. So, all you Tom fans out there, don't forget that when your pancreas stops making insulin, I'm sure Tom will set you up with a nice Yoga or Pilates program and some fresh fruit and bulgar wheat pasta. Good as new!

Here's a quarter, call someone who cares - If you can find a phone that works.

Okay, so my office moved and the move was pretty sudden. Shaw Cable (my new best friend) was able to hook us up the very next day. They were helpful, polite and apologized for not being able to hook up our internet sooner. Shaw Cable - You are my hero!!

But, let's not forget the phones. Can't have an office without phones. So I phone my office's telephone company, Melus*. After waiting on hold, speaking to the disembodied voice of the phone system (Please speak your answer now. Okay, it sounds like you are moving. Is this business or commercial? Please speak your answer now. Okay, it sounds like you are a business account) I get a REAL LIVE person who asks why I am calling. What was the whole rigamorole I just went through? Am I on candid camera??!! Anyway, the earliest she can get me in is August 18th.

August 18th. It was July 28th when I called. But what can I do? Digital phone is not available in the new area. I'm over a barrell and she knows it. Alright, August 18th. But I ask her if she can set up call forwarding on our line so it will go to my boss' cell phone. She says she's doing it as we speak.

Flash forward to the following Monday and I go back to the old office to set up call forwarding and am told by the disembodied voice, "You do not currently have this feature installed." MELUS!! You are my nemisis!

And on Friday, the 11th, Melus dude shows up to do our phones, at 4.45, just as Chantal and I were leaving. We weren't expecting him and we have no key to the telephone room (where all the important blinking lights and pretty cable is kept). I explain the sitch to him and he says he will call to see if he can get call forwarding set up. He spends 40 minutes on the phone, gets transferred 6 times and at the end of it all, IT STILL CAN'T BE DONE!!! AND HE WORKS FOR THEM!!

I told him, you know what, don't sweat it, we went a week without it, we can go a few days more. He says, 'Oh, but I get off at 5.30 and I got a few more minutes to kill so I don't have to go somewhere else.'

That sound you heard was my brain imploding.

He SWORE he would be back noon on Monday. What do you think my chances are? Or should I buy a lotto ticket instead?


* Names have been changed to protect the no-so-innocent.

Imagination Station

Well, kiddies, in an effort to get back to normalcy after my dad's untimely passing, I'm back to the blog.

And here's my question for you: Why is it that imagination in young children is encouraged but imagination in grown-ups must be stamped out like a spider found in your bed?

Consider this: When you are a child, you have imaginary friends. You host imaginary friend tea parties. You build stuff out of lego and while it looks like stuff built from lego, you pretend it's a mansion, a shopping mall, a McDonald's. Your parents ooh and ahh over it and brag to all their friends how imaginative you are. You're so creative and bright. Why, just the other day, you put a tennis ball in a sock, tied a string around it and walked it around the house, pretending it was a dog. How cute!! How inventive!!

Flash foward twenty years later and anyone with a hair of creativity left on their head is considered a whack job. If my sister came home tonight and found me having a tea party with chairs set up for my teddy and my cabbage patch kid, Addie, she'd call the men in the white coats. If I decided I wanted to play dress up (in my own clothes, no less!) it would be considered odd, crazy and maybe even a little scary. If I put on my makeup like Baby Jane, Jenge would call the cops.

So what happened? What's the difference? Why are children allowed to 'play pretend' but grown-ups can't? Don't you think we need it more? Who has more stress? A four year old who doesn't know how to spell 'mortgage' or me with a full time job, bills to pay and an hour long commute? Can you imagine how much fun it would be to have a pretend tea party as an adult? Not only could you serve REAL TEA and SCONES but you have WAY BETTER imaginary guests. No longer would I have to invite Teddy and Addie, I could pretend it was Jake Gyllenhall and Dr. Daniel Jackson from Stargate (Shut it! It's MY TEA PARTY!!) and they could be arguing over which one of them I should choose. Who could buy me prettier things? Who would run out at midnight to get Coke Zero when I ran out? Who would mow the lawn and see if they could get the grass in front of my house to come back to life? Who could pay off my mortgage first?

It would be THE BEST TEA PARTY EVER!!

Circle of Life

Well, mes amis, it's a sad time at Squirrelly Girly's. My dad, John, passed away on Tuesday, August 1st. Jenge and I were with him when it happened and he went peacefully. I'd been away from the blog for a while while he was in the hospital, and I'll prolly be away from it for a while again while my family tries to process all this. They say the first stage is shock, and boy are 'they' right. My family is wandering around right now like walking wounded and every once in a while we stop to ask ourselves what the hell just happened? Is this really going on? Did this all just happen? No, can't be. But it is. So there you have it.

For everyone out there that has sent their condolences, my family really appreciates it, thanks. Everyone has been so kind.

Love,
Squirrelly Girly.