Aquanet SMS

PS to PL:

I got a new hairspray for

$1.99 and my head feels 

like a helmet!

Terribly Delicious!

We made paneer for supper today since someone who hates curry is in China! Hooray for curry! Turns out there is little I know about Indian cooking, since this recipe doesn't actually involve curry. Matar Paneer

It was terribly delicious just as Pom.Sugar predicted! We would like to highly recommend it, but note that we at least doubled the amount of yoghurt and milk in this dish. Maybe tripled it. We like our sauces saucy!

Notice please how she doesn't like her food touching. On these man-sized dinner plates the naan is practically pushed off the edge while the paneer is cowering over in one corner of the plate, having been scraped back into place several times.

We also made chai afterwards. Or at least she did while I watched. (watched TV that is. well someone had to!)

PS and her colleague M texting me from the United way kick off downtown

---

PS&M: Mike Sobel is at the United way opening, one can only hope he won't be involved for the entire 2 hours.

• Me: Oh! you are so lucky to be within rotten fruit throwing distance! DO IT! Our childhood saturday cartoon mornings demand it!

• Me: Also you're lucky it's not Bob Layton and his wooden ventriloquist puppet. ASK ME HOW I KNOW.

PS&M: I almost feel as though being pelted by rotten fruit wouldn't hurt his career at this point he's already made the descent from tv host > meteorologist > radio host on his own.

PS&M: We also feel that a wooden puppet would be a more captivating host than Mike Sobel. OH NOES HES LOOKING THIS WAY!!!1!

• Me: He sees your age and knows you pity him!

PS&M: If the president of our company wasn't standing 10 feet away we would totally be getting our pix with him.

• Me: DO IT! The prez will be so impressed by your enthusiastic spirit!

In my purse

I've a habit of carrying things in my purse because they're handy. My sister does the same. I've got a little fold-up pliers-screwdrivers toolkit in mine and she's got a measuring tape among other things.

So then is it any surprise that occasionally I'll carry food stuffs? Today my lovely sister sent along some fresh baked bread for me. "Oh yummy!" I said, "good thing I've got butter in my purse!"

600th post

I was trying to figure out a really amazing post for my 600th post on this blog but I haven't come up with something.

Luckily my sister sent me this first thing this morning:

I can hear someone's nose whistle from where I am... yet no one is sitting close to me at the moment.....

Office 2007 Training

From my sister:

Just had an orientation training session. The instructor, who has a long reddish/blond pony tail and a twirled handle bar moustache began with: "You will experience the full gamut of human emotion. You have paid for the entire seat, but you will only need the edge."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Minding my own

My sister texts me:

Um so standing at the bus stop minding my own business and there's a bum laying on his side on the other side of the bench. i look over and all of a sudden there is a stream of liquid coming from him. does not even bother to stand to pee. just lets it go. by the time my bus came he had rolled over into it. and we wonder why they smell so rank

My sister writes

So I bought a flask/thermos thingy from the dollar store this week so I can take milk to work and eat my cereal at my desk. Turns out it is not very water tight. Although this is not entirely too surprising to me being that I paid a dollar for it, I am still disappointed.

How to identify a cult

My brother and sister and I were in a car stopped at a light and he points to one of those blue air freshener dolphins hanging from someone's mirror and he says suspiciously pointing at it "I see those dolphins EVERY where in cars now. I think it's a cult."

I thought my sister and I would have to get out and sit on the curb we were laughing so hard.

A few weeks later I reported to him that I saw a car with about 10 dolphins and a plastic cherry thing, that it must have been the leader. Not so funny, he thought.

Red Plague

Red Lobster has been a place I have avoided. I ate there this weekend, for the first and only time ever, and boy was it yuck.

I don't enjoy franchised food that is delivered to a restaurant for warming up. I don't think making a big corporation richer while their staff make minimum wage is the right thing to do. If I want to go out for food I would also prefer something tasty. I would also rather support an immigrant who will bend over backwards to be helpful and make my eating experience tasty.

But on Saturday to use up a gift certificate and to thank my sister for packing up all my stuff I relented. She wanted Red Lobster rather than Olive Garden. (another place I avoid like the plague)

First of all we had to wait for an hour -- this is baffling. It is not that good.
Second of all, the parking lot was filled with SK plates. Odd.
Thirdly the service was surly. Probably because the restaurant had been packed since sun-up.
Fourthly, I felt sick afterwards.

NEVER AGAIN!!! Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me!

Marcella couldn't decide whether or not to call me Lucky or Spot this trip. Spot because of all the freckles. Lucky because of: the attack sparrow, two terrible sunburns and a portuguese man o' war sting on my texting thumb. (no, peeing on stings is a myth. The locals recommend putting vinegar on stings. I recommend ice.)

I learned: sunscreen and hats are important for fair blondes, don't touch jellyfishes, and for goodness sakes don't look down while you're bobbing around in neck-deep water.

Rogue chickens roam everywhere on Maui. E v e r y w h e r e.
On vending machines.
Under cars.

This one chased our car as Marcella took a picture out the window.
We ate a lot of fish.

Maria & Marcella on Maui 2006

Less Puffy

A gym junkie told my sister that he was on day 42 of Absolutely No Sugar. And if he dieted as well, he'd be less "puffy."

Yeah. If I dieted I'd be less puffy too.

Squash Pro

Last year my sister played squash for the first time ever. She came home and told us she was considering turning Pro.

I played squash for the first time on Friday. Then I went out and bought a racket, a ball and eye shield. I'm considering that after my squash butt thaws I might become a Pro squash player.

Pollyanna and the talking clock

Sounds like a Nancy Drew mystery.

Ever since my Grandma's eyesight has failed she's had a talking clock. She whacks it across the top and it says "Good Morning/Evening. The time is Nine Fourty Six. The Day is Friday, October 28th." It's quite clever. I've felt a teeny bit cheated though because she associates the voice with my sister, even though when she's talking to the real live versions of us she can't always tell us apart.

Tonight we listened to her favourite cassette: Pollyanna. I feel better now -- or worse about being slighted that my voice isn't the clock... because to my Grandma, when she thinks about my personality and life story, I am Pollyanna.

Greetings

The Germans make a huge deal about greeting one another.

The other thing they totally make a huge deal about is greeting people, for you, when they travel.

I totally don't get it in this day and age anymore. I mean... by the time that I send greetings with you to my sister in Winnipeg, I'll have talked on the phone with her. Twice. At very least.

Pink boots

Yesterday on the way home I watched this little kid being towed along by her mother out of the bus window. She was wearing pink rubber boots. Pink Boots was about three years old and she would step-kick, step-kick, step-kick. Her older sister was walking on ahead of them with a box of timbits, and her brother was on the other side of the mom. Our bus stopped at the bus stop for a while to unload a passenger in a wheelchair. When the bus finally drove on down the street I saw a pink boot lying on the sidewalk... but no little girl in sight. When we got way down to the end of the block the mother was standing there laughing while Pink Boots stood with one sock and one pink boot, while her sister with the timbits ran back all the way down the street to fetch the boot.

I wish I had pink rubber boots

Velcro

Marcella and Andrea and I overheard a conversation at the mall. It was odd that all three of us were listening in on it, and the best was that we all three burst out laughing, probably as long and as loudly as we have laughed in a good long while...

A man was pushing his wife in a wheelchair through The Bay lingerie section and remarked to her in a very loud, incredulous voice, as if what he was about to say was the next great invention or the solution to a worldwide problem "you know what? do you know what I just don't understand? I can't figure out how come they haven't made a bra yet that closes... with velcro!"

Granted: velcro is useful. Very useful. In fact, it's probably one of the top 20-or-so inventions of the 20th century. It's application though, however useful the invention is, has its limitations.

The New Mattress

This afternoon we had a mattress set delivered by two guys -- one was named Don who couldn't get enough of our house (just loved it) and his partner a little guy who didn't say a word. The little guy went to throw the plastic wrap into the truck while Marcella and I helped drag the old mattress to the stairs... and Don called out "hey! Marcello! Get in here!" We both went "hey!! Marcello?" and Don said "yeah, he's from Mexico. He wants to see snow -- so he came up here and he's not leaving until April next year, can you believe it??"

We introduced Marcello to Marcella and he pointed and laughed this funny little laugh and said "Ha ha, we could get married!"