I am a water Princess

My family and I just moved!
The move was fraught with complications, from cleaning out mouse-infested memory boxes caused by the Great Mouse War of 2012, dolled up to the nines in our homemade Hazmat suits(I should have taken pictures, we looked like we were in the middle of a chemical spill), to a round robin of the stomach flu the likes of which our plumbing (and the houses) will never forget.
But we made it through the wilderness. Yes, we made it through.
Our new home is Gorgeous.
It's spacious!
It's evenly heated!
It's got bedrooms for everyone!
It's got new carpet!
And Cupboards; Oh the Cupboards! You wouldn't believe!!! So much built in storage and doors to storage and closets, and- well, you get the picture. And for us to be excited about such mundane luxury items as space and storage and heat and carpet tells you the little I'm willing to share about our old crap-hole.

So what do we do to make this New Manse feel like home?
We flood it. Twice.
Well, actually neither of the floods were caused by me, you are supposed to find all the little faults in a rental property in the first month of living there, right?
We've only been here 5 days you say?
Well, kids, pets and Husbands are bound to find the faults a little faster, right?
Let me paint a picture:
Our first night, supper is being made, shiny tired happy faces bouncing around the basement play-room.
My husband goes to pour himself a glass of tap water(that's right! from the tap!) in the kitchen. He notices a trickle from the bottom of the nozzle.
'Oh, the washer must be off kilter, I'm going to get that fixed right now'
He gets his screwdriver, unscrews the lever, takes the cap off.
The kitchen explodes.
There is a 3 foot jet of water screaming out of where the tap should have been, my husband is soaked, hands frantically trying to plug the geyser, screaming at me to shut the water off. I scoot under his legs like some backwards game of leapfrog, open the cabinet under the sink and try to find the shut off valves. Only they aren't there. Well, they are, but they've been welded open. So I run downstairs, vaguely aware that he's yelling at me that it shuts off  UNDER THE FUCKING SINK and I'm in the area where all the pipes go, and I can't find a shut off valve, and I see a red tap, and I shut it down, and there's still water screaming out of the pipe. So I run back upstairs and yell at him that THERE'S NO WAY TO SHUT THE WATER OFF, WE'RE GOING DOWN!!!!! and he shouts at me to get over here and hold the water down, I'll do it myself, and then I'm holding a Fucking Cold gush of water, and I'm trying to use my hands to curve this fierce jet back into the sink while he looks under the sink, and then, he too runs downstairs, and then back up he comes and -CALL THE LANDLORD! CALL THE LANDLORD!
So we tag off on the water bending, and I attempt to dial the landlords number with freezing fingers on a TOUCHSCREEN PHONE because our landline isn't coming in for two more days, and I finally get the number right and call, and it rings once, twice, thrice, four times and finally he answers, and in my best professional voice I ask him how he's doing, and he asks the same,(while my husbands stares on through the water haze in his best incredulous look) and I say, well, I need you to tell me where the Water shut off valve is. And he says oh dear, what's wrong? And at this point I want to scream that I should be wearing my life vest right about now, but I just say that the kitchen tap has decided to stop working properly, and we need to shut the water down Now, here's my husband(since he was the one who started all this), and then I give the phone to him and grab the jet and push, and back downstairs he goes, and then the water slows to a trickle-hah-and then it is off, and my once clear kitchen is now quite sloshy, but I have just unpacked the towels and so I grab all of them, and thank-fucking-goodness we have a new HE Super Capacity washer and dryer right off the kitchen.
And then the doorbell rings. And in comes this old farmer and he asks us if we found the water shut off (I guess my husband kind of just hung up on our landlord), and he tells us that he got a call from the landlord (who happens to live on a farm 10 minutes away) and that since he was in town he could come over to check and see if we were okay. And then the Landlord himself shows up, and we all have a good laugh over us being all wet, and our silliness. One of the perks of small town living is that everyone knows everyone, and everyone is really helpful, but also they talk. And now we are not just the new people, but we are the new people who managed to flood our house the first night in. Right on.
Nothing got wrecked.
Nothing leaked.
Supper didn't even burn.
Husband went out at 8 at night and drove the 45 minutes into the city to get a new kitchen tap, since there wasn't much left of the old one, and the kids got to eat their first supper in the new house in our (now) Very Clean Kitchen.
We got the water turned back on around 10.
We started drinking about the time the kids went to bed.
There was a lot more swearing in that story than I let on, but I didn't want to frighten anyone.
Oh, and that red tap turned out to be for the water heater, husband managed to catch that before we broke other things.
Check back tomorrow for the Second Flood story.

Favorite winter tradition pt.2

ok. where was I? oh yeah. at the paraffin treatment.

So after she got through learning her numbers on my back, arms and lower legs, She left me momentarily to grab the paraffin, whatever that was. Now ladies, I know you'll understand me when I say I was a little uncomfortable waiting on a foldable table half nekked, with just a sheet on in too-bright lighting.
NE ways,
So she comes back with four long plastic bags half-filled with pink goo. Think Ghostbusters 2, and the bath tub. I couldn't bathe for a week after seeing that movie, mind you I was only 5, but still, little creeped out when I saw those bags. I swear for a moment there, I was holding my breath to hear a disembodied Vincent Price-like Cackle. But no dice.
So she proceeds to put my hands and feet into the pink goo, squooshing it around some to make sure the wax hit every corner of my extremities, and then tying up the plastic bag like a tourniquet, and then pulling on a white lobster mitt over the whole mess. when she was done this process I'm sure I looked like some kind of rag-doll, with the nosn-descript hands and feet. Sure felt like it. So, then she gave instruction to 'relax, have a quick snooze, it'll take about 15 minutes to set, and then I'll be back.'
15 minutes?
and what did she mean by letting it set? that sounds like cement! will I not be able to move my hands? how will she get this shit off? with a mini jack-hammer? belt sander? where was she when I had all these questions going through my head? gone of course. scarpered off while I was contemplating the probability of amputation.
bitch.
So three minutes into my sentence, and I find that I can still move my fingers and toes a little, having been frantically wiggling them to see if I still had feeling in them. I did. So I calmed down a little, and found myself giggling over my hypochondriatic situation.
Minute 7. My inner ear started to itch. Followed by my right nostril. Lucky for me, I can't move my hands anymore, due to me stupidly trusting the goo and backing off on the wiggling, not too mention that those stupid mitts had no sharpish corners into which I could dig into either orifice to my hearts content. As the itching grew worse, I found myself rubbing my head on anything I could find, pillow, blanket, shoulder, feeling like a retard and wondering if they had a camera set up in the room specifically meant for taping this type of thing. Candid camera or whatnot. piss me off.
Minute 13.? finally get rid of the itching in my ear, can deal with the nose itch now, feeling mighty tired after all that exercise, and I find my eyes closing on their own, despite my anger.
Not even 30 seconds later, my torturer shows up at the door, cryptic smile on her face, approving of how I did get a quick nap in after all.
bitch.
So, all in all, not the most relaxing experience, but certainly one of the most entertaining and challenging ones I'm sure I'll have in my lifetime.

p.s. is it a new standard procedure to wear latex gloves when giving a massage, or did my massager just have a fetish? hmmm....

a Whimsical Winter Wonderland of Wisecracks

I love winter. No joke. Most people here don't really like the white stuff, but not me. I love it. Here are ten good reasons why.(just cuz ten seemed like the right number to put down. gut feeling, that's all.)

1.Location, Location, Location:

I live in a province (yes I said province) where 6-8 months of the year are covered in snow. you can't get rid of it. You can't form petitions to have it forcefully removed, cuz goddamn muther nature will just keep giving it back. You can't escape it because the land is so flat you give up trying after about three days of running. all you see is white.

2.Kids:

I have a child, who loves to build and throw and destroy things. yes I have a boy-beast. Snow,to me at least, is a built-in toy/friend/bribe that I don't have to pay for. I mean... what the hell. yeah. it's free. and that makes me happy in my pants. and my heartstrings. if I had any.

3.Weather:

I can't quite describe the feeling I get when I look up and see the murky grey sky, that chill in my bones, and the wind through my hair. It makes me happy inside. it makes me think of past winters and hot chocolate, and don't eat yellow snow-too late, and forts and making graves for dead squirrels that you find in your annoying neighbours/ neighbourhood nemesis's yard, just so you can have the satisfaction of 5 months later having the snow melt and the looks on their faces. Now that, my friends, was long-term fun.

4.Clothing:

mittens. and toques. I believe that says it all. oh wait...

5.Holiday aromas:

The sizzle of wet mittens and toques as you dried them on the heating vents and the almost overpowering smell of wet dog that seemed to waft from these seemingly harmless little knitted accessories.

6.The Holiday Sales:

Not the Holidays themselves, those are just a bullshit commercialized reason for you to buy things for other people so they'll be your friends for another year. No. I like the shopping for me. and what better time to buy useless, and sometimes harmful, or at least pretty stuff, than when it's on sale for a completely different reason? no time like snow time, I always say. like just now.

7.Tunes:

On the topic of Holidays, that pretty much go hand in hand with winter, my next favorite thing is the X-mas Songs. Now, I'm a bit un-orthidox about this one, as I can't seem to remember any bloody holiday jingle when there's actually need for one, but give me a nice hot sunny sunday in June, when everybody else is singing about their blings, ices, ice-cream, umbrellas and whatnot, I'm singing Jingle bells.

8.Chocolate:

Yes kiddies, the Queen of all things sugary, bittersweet, and overpriced. Now, you can get chocolate pretty much any day of the year, but only during the winter can you get Cadbury's Chocolate elves a'la pop rocks. If you haven't had one of these things, you should. if you don't know what pop rocks are, you're stoopid. if you don't care, that's fine by me. These things are on the highest pillars of awesomeness, and they will never come down. unless they start putting pop rocks into reese's.

9.Boots:

well, a chance to buy new shoes of any kind really. I'm not particular. But I guess for the occasion, It'll have to be boots. or sexy heels for new years. . . mmmmmmm, shoes....

10.Golden Glowing Glacial Graupel:

otherwise known as: yellow snow. ahar de har ha ha. too funny.

Things I wish I never heard of

Kay. Surely everyone has heard the Fountain tire commercial on the radio. yes. radio. I happen to listen to it at work, since I LIKE hearing the same five songs over and over again. anyways, You know the ad, that one where the Fountain tire spokesperson is trying to gip a free box of cookies out of an unsuspecting girl guide. Well, I have to say that I hate that spokesperson with a passion. Not only does he have a nasally-impaired voice, not only is he blatantly dumb (and not the cutesy-Mr. Bean-not a clue dumb, the other dumb),but he's annoying too. However, He's got Midas beat, and so I can't Hate him entirely. Shame. Now, the politics of Tire-selling and adjustments and pretty arranging of the tires so they don't fall off, pretty much escape me. I don't know shit about cars. But I'm pretty sure the folks at Midas don't know much either. I do know that awesome phrase 'Righty-tighty, Lefty-Loosey" comes in handy when trying to replace a tire. The gents at this particular establishment anyway, do not. at all. In fact, the last time my car was in an accident(not by me by the by, but that's another story. and a few more by's) I had the unfortunate advantage of bringing it there, because they were the only place close by that was open on christmas. Now, it could have been the little fact that they were stuck working ON Christmas, or whatever. I make no excuses for the idiocy of this town and it's businessmen. They had to re-align my tires. and they did. They also left the car door open for about 2 or three hours after, so my car was completely dead when I came to pick it up. And cold. They also told me that my front passenger side rim was bent out of shape and they had to beat it back into shape. uhuh. I had to get that rim replaced by the by, as they had completely STRAIGHTENED IT, and it was literally shaving my tire bald. They also did Not apply the 'Righty-tighty, Lefty-Loosey' rule, and the two back tires almost fell right off my car on the way home. So. I ask you, oh Great Fountain Tire spokesman of the radio(yep, he's a man. that explains a bit) what are your promises? Cuz If you're place is anything like the Midas guys, I don't want anything to do with you. See, when cars get that 'Midas' touch(get it? Midas touch? heh? heh?... nevermind)at least in My town, Midas is essentially screwing itself over for not only it's own incompetence, but thousands of employees in hundreds of franchises across North America. Oh well. I'm sure your competitors aren't complaining, Midas. Like that Annoying Fountain Tire guy.

My Final and probably only piece of advice in this spiel is that no matter how insignificant, stupid people have a purpose too. That annoying dude on the radio may have to be someone to listen to, though unless it's on how to torment girl guides and brownies and such, I don't know. And for gawd's sake, DON'T Trust the Midas touch.

APOC*burp*ALYPSE!

AHH! Quick! Someone come up with 50,000 models of a car that goes on methane made just for saskatchewanites! we have the cows and pigs! and the old farts too! mebbe even some young farts to help out! where did that engine that ran on french fry oil go? Is Mcdonalds in the Oil and Gas industry yet? yech. I can't afford my gas at 1.34/litre at the creeway gas store, and now you tell me that it's gone up another 11 cents? Seriously freakin out here.

bugger you . you suck. Major goats. and anyone telling you otherwise is lying. You know, sometimes I just wanna scream Canada, you traitorous bitch, how could you? and then I remember something about having to be patriotic,so I get down on bended knee and pray to the gas gods for patience and forgiveness. Then I remember I'm an athiest and I get back up and start ranting again. hey wait a sec. isn't oil only at 101-something? isn't that not much of a leap from what it was like a week ago? where's the long weekend? that's usually the only reason they raise the prices this friggin much. oh wait. another natural disaster is gonna do the trick apparently. you know, I heard this funny little rumour a while back about when one of the alberta premiers wanted to keep the oil in canada, mebbe even alberta and refine it and what not so that gas prices would stay reasonable? do I even know what I'm talking about? mebbe not. all I know is that I'm gonna need a third job to pay for the gas to get to and from my first and second job. bugger.

Chocolates with Extreme Dizzying qualities?

Don't get me wrong, I LOVVE chocolate. Dark chocolate, light chocolate, truffles, clusters, muffin and cake form, whatever. Chocolate is Guuuuddd. I do not love the people who organise the chocolate in my store. I don't care what looks better per shelf, I don't care that the regular size bars go on a higher shelf than the king size bars, in fact I don't even think that we should be having king size bars in my store, if not for the fact that the fat people love them so much. I happen to have the few representatives from each chocolate company that the rest of the world deemed 'too retarded to actually work in a real city' so they sent them to bellybutton Saskatchewan so they could run free and play. seriously. Mr Cadbury isn't past puberty yet, and stares at those bloody white chocolate bars like they're the creamiest thing he's gonna see, Mr Hershey is usually a no-show, although he usually does have the courtesy to book an appointment to come in so he has a certain time that he can NOT bother to show up for, and Ms Nestle? Picture Foreman's mom from That 70's show, skinny her up a bit, then ladle on some extra annoying. She's got that tasteful way of saying the most tactless thing in her honeyed voice, then following it up with a little twitter and an 'okaaaaayyyyy....'. I want to slaughter her with the sharp edge of a Skor Bar.

Ms Nestle came in to my store today, rearranged everything whilst I did my damnedest to ignore her, proceeded to take 'before' and 'after' shots with her new for-work-only digital camera, and in the midst of her in-home candy renovation, tried to talk to me about my life like she actually spent more than 10 minutes every 3-4 months in my store wiping the dust off of old product before replacing it. I have to admit that I might have given her some of the ammo to work with, but the rest she managed to pull out of her own a**. or at least out of someone else's life.

So she comes in with her BINDER OF ALL IMPORTANCE, her LABELS OF DESTINY, and her BOX CUTTER OF JUSTICE, and tries to butter me up with a free smarties box. Now I've said I lurve chocolate, but smarties doesn't really contain a whole lotta chocolate. just so you know. In fact if you look at the Label, the first ingredient is Milk Chocolate, which then has a brackets bar naming about 9 ingredients, 5 of which Ms Nestle herself couldn't even pronounce, and about four or five ingredients down in the sub-ingredients listing is unsweetened chocolate, but diluted by chemicals and 'Modified milk ingredients' so it can't really be considered chocolate) (I could be just making this shit up, but Ms Nestle should saw the backlash coming.) ANYWAYS, she gives me smarties, I say I don't like 'em, she looks like a puppy I just booted, so I try to comprimise and pull a little kindness out of a rarely used orifice and say that I could probably give them to my son, he'd like them. (which is true, I do bribe him when teaching him the alphabet, see 'By the power of Leapfrog') She lit up at this, and I thought all was well. Too well, it turned out. I was rearranging books in the small section we have that carries various romance titles and such (for the little old ladies, I just love them and their constant perfum of toilet cleaner and kitty litter) and she starts asking me about 'my little girl'. I corrected her once or twice, but she seemed set that my kid was Not born with the barnacles of manhood, so I went with it. what the hell. Then she started asking me about my husband and his Dad's business. So apparently now I'm married to my bosses non-exsistent son, which is kinda... different... anywho, this went on with her making shit up, and myself grunting the odd acknowledgment until she aquired how my pa-in-law was coping with the loss of his wife. a little caught off gaurd I was since my boss is a step father to a coupla daughters, and vice versa his healthy wife. I can only keep up with a made up a story so far, then I kinda lose point of what my goal was in the original making of the story, which was to keep this woman happy with the least possible amount of participation on my part, and mess with her head a little. I was wondering if she wasn't doing this to me. she didn't do a very good job tho, cuz I wasn't really happy with her. I think she sensed my pause of discomfort as a 'it's too personal, don't really wanna talk about it' kinda thing, at which point she did her finest Foreman's mom and Nasally twittered into the ackward feeling silence and 'okaaaaayyyy....'. Then she left. I don't know if she was actually done, or if she just wanted to leave the scene of the crime, although I'm not exactly sure who's crime it was, or what it was for that matter. I'm still all of a tizzy trying to figure it out myself. ..

weird.