Who wants to start a company with me??

Here’s the deal. I got my air con fixed last year (needed to be recharged) but then it crapped out about two weeks ago. So I called the place I had it done and they said to bring it in.

When I dropped the car off that morning, I told the punk I wanted the air con fixed. Said punk said it was no problemo. Then I said, since I’m here, can you change the oil? I’m overdue. And by the way, the ‘Check Engine’ light on my dash is on, but don’t worry about it. My dad had someone look at it and the technical explanation was ‘Something between here (the dash) and here (the engine) is no connect.” (My dad has a greek accent). I explained to the punk that my understanding was the light can’t be cleared out until my car talks to a computer and gets the ‘code’ cleared. He said, “Oh, we have a computer. We can do that for you.”

Things the punk left out #1 – Their establishment doesn’t do air con anymore. So when they called me at 10.30am I was quite surprised to find out that not only can they not fix it, they can’t even look for a leak to see if that’s why it failed. A further conversation ruled out them taking any blame for it failing. Another conversation about why I wasn’t informed of their no air con service ended with another young punk (a girl this time) telling me that not everyone who works there knows what services they offer.

You know, when I worked at Starbucks, everyone knew how to make coffee.

Things the punk left out #2 – Hooking the computer up to my car is an automatic 90.00 diagnostic fee. FASCISTS!!

So, at the end of the day, I’m left with only an oil change and a tire rotate and I’m out 200 bucks. BARK!!

But I consoled myself that at least the ‘Check Engine’ light was finally turned off and people would stop asking me about it.

Guess what turned on again this afternoon . . .

What say a bunch of us girls get together, take some automotives class and open up a mechanic shop? Think of how great it would be for women to talk to other women about their cars? No one makes fun of you when you imitate the sound your car is making. No one looks at you weird when you explain that you brought it in because it just ‘isn’t driving right.’ No one jeers at you when they open up your glove compartment and six candy bar wrappers and a tampon fall out. We could hold classes: How to change your break light. How to change your wiperblades. Why what your boyfriend is saying is BS because he doesn’t know jack about cars.

Who’s in?

Ah, Minutia!

For those of you who don’t have enough minutia in your life, feel free to borrow some of mine. Case in point, Jenge and I are putting in lino on the main floor. Reason? Well, as you know, Portia is fond of peeing on the carpet. I once asked my vet why she pees on the carpet and not the hardwood and my vet said, ‘Well, that’s easy. She doesn’t want to get her feet wet.’

She doesn’t want to get her feet wet. How about she really needs to stop disappointing her mummy and making her cry when she’s sees the carpet??!!! How bout that??

Anyway, to see our top choices click the links:

Choice #1 – Cottington Scarlet
Choice #2 – Deep Bark

Feel free to vote, but Jenge and I really don’t care what the general public thinks as long as we’re happy.

Girly Girl in the City!

Okay, so I had to go downtown yesterday to go to the library. Being a suburbia girl , this is an unusual occurence for me. I could picture the library in my head, and knew it was on 7th ave, but I didn’t know the cross street (duh – Macleod Trail – seriously, how could I forget that!!).

Anyway, I parked at the Bow Parkade and figured I’d either take the C-Train (as I was in the free fare zone) or walk. And do you know what I discovered?

A) Calgary downtown is not nearly as picturesque as it should be – hello centre street C-train station, you cess-pool of activity. You squirrelled me out at 11am – I can only imagine what you are like after dark.

B) Calgary downtown is NOT made for women. My shoes got stuck FOUR TIMES. Twice in concrete sidewalk gaps and twice in some silicone putty gelly stuff that looked like concrete but was not! The last time, I had an armload full of thinky-thinky books (translation – gigantor sized library books) and was trying to figure out how I was going to extricate my shoe while holding 8 thinky thinky books, when some nice woman took pity on me, bent over and yanked my shoe free from the silicone putty squirrelly girly trap! (Said shoe is pictured above courtesy of Target.com). Whoever you are, you were my saviour. Muchos thanks!

It’s like when I go to the mall, and they’ve used that really slidy tile for the flooring. Women everywhere are doing the shuffle step walk because women’s shoes generally slide on that kind of tile. But women are the mall’s number one customer. If THE MAN is reading this, wake up and smell the lawsuit if someone falls on your slidy floor and breaks their back. DESIGN YOUR $#IT for WOMEN!! I’m sick of no one thinking of these things when it comes to construction and architecture. Ditto for stairs with out risers. You can see up our skirts. We don’t like it. Get that dirty smirk off your face, perv!

Save me from Idiots!

Okay, so on this exact date last year, I had the air conditioning in my car recharged. I didn’t even know that your air con could die and then need to be recharged, but after 2 years of having no air con, I did a little research et voila. So, my mum helped me out and I was able to get it done.

Flashforward to this week which has been a scorcher and I’ve got no air con again!

Now, I don’t know much about cars, but I consider myself resonably bright so I figure that I can’t be that wrong when I think that this does not make sense.

So I call the service station where I had it fixed last year (it is also a gas station). I get some young punk on the phone and I tell him (very politely – I am nothing if not excruciatingly polite) that my air con was charged at his establishment this time last year and it’s blowing hot air now. Does he know how long a charge is supposed to last?

And do you know what he said to me?? DO YOU??!! He said,

“How often do you use it?”

A sort of laugh-snort escaped me at this point and I said, “Well, whenever it’s hot.” and then do you know what he said, DO YOU!!??

“Oh, let it run for few minutes to see if it gets cold.”

Are you fraking kidding me? Like I just ran out to my car, turned it on and then immediately ran back in to call him. I politely add that this has been going on for a week, and I have an hour long commute. It’s run for a few minutes (like say SIXTY!! – that part was added in an internal monologue) and it’s still blowing hot air. And then do you know what he said:

‘Oh well, I can’t help you out because I only pump gas.’

And then there was a pause, a long pause while I waited for him to tell me to hang on, he would transfer me to the service department. But he didn’t. So I said kindly, “Alright then, can you transfer me to the service department, please.”

Pause from punk-head. ‘Um, I’m gonna have to put you on hold for that.” He said this as though it was some surprise to me and as though being put on hold was akin to having bamboo shoots put up my nails. I responded that it was fine, I was willing to wait for the next available service person to speak to me.

The service guy asked me to bring it in so they can check for a leak or something, which seemed reasonable to me. But what I couldn’t get over was this punk without common sense who was so unhelpful on the phone! If you don’t know $#it about something, pony up and say so and then just pass it off to someone who does. Don’t waste my time giving me jack$#it answers!

Seriously!!

Back to Real Life!

Hello my lovelies, I am back from my trip to Nova Scotia. Here’s your update on Margaritaville…

Having not been there in over 15 years, it was great to be there again. Not much has changed and I was reminded of a quote I once read (although I cannot remember where from) but it went something along the lines of: the best thing about going to a place that does not change is finding the ways in which you yourself have been altered.

Cape Breton is very relaxing without being boring. From my uncle’s bungalow you can sit on the porch and stare out at the Bras D’Or Lakes all day and time just sort of passes. But you aren’t bored. Just rested. Sadly, mum and I went to Cape Breton for my uncle’s funeral after he passed away suddenly. No one knew he was sick, not even him until it was a done deal. But as we say, he went out with his boots on.

We had fairly good weather on most days. Some rain, but some sun too. Mum and I drove around the Cabot Trail, did some shopping at gift/souvenir shops and Mum pointed out some of her old stompin’ grounds. I got to meet some of my cousins kids. Then we spent two days in Halifax. We went to the Casino, pretty much broke even (whoo hoo!) and I walked along the boardwalk and shopped some more. Halifax was very easy to get around in and we had fabulous weather while we were there, sunny with a nice breeze off the habour. Can’t ask for much more than that.

So, here I am, back home again. I’m just finishing up my holiday laundry. I like to wash everything when I get home from vacation. It sort of like my own personal reset button for my life. I missed Portia and Rocky terribly and in a perfect world they would have missed me too, but I fear that as long as there is someone around to drop kibble in their bowls, it really doesn’t matter who it is!

The Power of Three . . .

They say things always happen in threes, so I hope my famille is all done for a little bit . . .

We had two deaths in the family (one expected, one unexpected) and then my brother-in-law was in a car accident last night (but he’s OKAY!!).

So, mes enfants, I will be away from my blog for a little bit as I’m off to Cape Breton with my mum for some family time. . . . I’ll be back July 5th. No new posts till then . . ..

Love,
Squirrelly Girly

I watched Anderson Cooper 360 this week because Angelina Jolie was on. She was discussing her refugee work. It was unbelievable. Anderson Cooper was also talking about the things he had seen. Things I can’t even type. Horrible acts against humanity.

In a world that goes to war over oil, how can we stand by silent as atrocities are being committed against our fellow human beings? How do the leaders of the world sleep at night knowing these things are going on and that not enough is being done? 6 million people without a home, without a country to protect them. Jenge and I sat in stunned silence the entire time, the only sound being when something so horrible was said or shown that a sort of choked exclamation escaped our lips.

Children kidnapped and brainwashed. Forced to become killing machine soldiers before reaching puberty. Women assaulted so horrendously they will never physically recover, to say nothing of the emotional toll. Families torn apart and people starving. Starving! Look around you! How much waste do we have that they would be grateful one hundred times over to have?

So, if you think you can affaord 15, 20 or 25 dollars a month, sign up to make a donation with the UN High Council for Refugees . If you can’t afford to make a donation, tell everyone you know about this, maybe they can afford to donate. And if they can’t, tell them to tell everyone they know. Because the worst thing we can do is what we’ve been doing. Staying silent.

The Big, Fat, Puppy Version of FU (and I don’t mean Felix Unger!)

So. Yeah. Portia’s been peeing on the carpet again. Is it because she’s crying and I don’t wake up? I don’t know. But Mummy Jennifer has decided it’s time for the hammer to fall. “She sleeps in your room, or in her kennel. None of this traipsing around the house all night.”

Sniff. Kay. You would never guess I’m the older sister. But I do agree with Jenge. It’s just that I’m a softie!!

So I bring Portia upstairs last night and set up the baby gate to keep her from going downstairs. This morning, she cries. I groggily stumble out of bed, stop off at Jenge’s room to get Rocky and the three of us head downstairs.

I go to the laundry room to turn off the alarm and when I step back out (all of 2 seconds later) she is peeing on the carpet RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME! STARING ME IN THE EYE! I was so stunned a made sort of a ‘glick’ sound and then stammered: SHAME! SHAME ON YOU!! SHAME! SHAME!!

Like she cares. She’s already sauntered over to the food bowl and is looking at me as if to say ‘Why is there no kibble in her yet, bee-atch?’

She didn’t even care!! And I was two seconds from opening the door and letting her out!! You telling me she couldn’t even wait two seconds!! Glick!!

She totally flipped me off in dog language!! She didn’t even CARE!!

Relativity

Yes, Einstein really did have his finger on the pulse of the world. It’s all about relativity. Case in point: to my best friend Donna, I am an uber geek. I love Sci-Fi, read math books for fun, and actually have a comic book collection. On Donna’s geek-scale, I am a 9.5. The 0.5 being the room needed for spontaneous geek stuff I do that she just does not have the capacity to imagine.

However, being a proud card-carrying member of the geek club, I know that my geekdom is actually pretty low on the geek-o-meter. I’ve been to Star Trek Conventions, and let me tell you, I’m only about a 5 or a 6 in comparison. I don’t have a action figure (aka Doll) collection, I don’t have Star Trek posters plastering my room (okay, okay, I used to but not anymore), and I actually get out into the real world and am quite social when needs be (although I would prefer to stay at home and watch re-runs of Stargate).

But I am proud of my geekiness and wear it like a badge of honor. Geeks are the most open minded people I know. They are always willing to let their imagination run free to see where it will go. I would go so far as to say that geeks are the most optimistic, good natured people on the planet. We truly beleive that one day, we will be able to solve the world’s problems with science and we will finally be able to put all our differences aside and joing globally, and then universally (like the Star Trek Federation). It won’t matter what you look like or how you dress, we will all be the same, striving for a better world. Human curiousity will lead us to unimaginable places and things. Hopefully, it will be the geeks that make first contact. It’s the best chance of things going well. Honestly, if you were an alien, who would you rather meet? Enthusiastic, scientific, good-natured people with a love for technology or power hungry, war mongering, suspicious politicians?

Lead on Geeks!! I am but a humble follower of your ways!!