For some reason I remember that I was 15 years old when my parents instructed me to always keep a flashlight somewhere easily accessible in case of a power outage. So I got a flashlight and kept it on my bedside table.
I didn’t keep a flashlight near me for the 2 years I lived in transitional housing for various reasons (mostly the fact that as government buildings, they had emergency lights), but when I moved into my own apartment at 18, one of the things I bought on my very first shopping trips was another flashlight - one for my bedside and one for the main room.
Never once had to use either. At my apartments in Toronto, all the power outages seemed to happen during the day, but I still kept the flashlights handy and each successive time I moved, I made sure I knew where it was and took care in placing it somewhere obvious in my new room.
Makes me sound paranoid, right? I swear I never gave it much thought. Just one of those “oh, this thing again. That’ll be handy to have around in case of an emergency.” kind of things.
So it is with great pride that at 21 I have experienced my first power outage at night and without a single panicked thought I got out my trusty flashlight and was able to find my way to the bathroom in the darkest of dark.
…and then carry on painting:
At work we had to water the plants even if it was raining and then people would be like LOL WUT R U DOING THAT SEEMS LIKE A WASTE OF WATER and I’m like ARE YOU BLIND, THESE PLANTS ARE ON SOLID SHELVES EIGHT HIGH THAT OBVIOUSLY AREN’T RECEIVING ANY RAINWATER, SO GTFO NOW.
True story.
Addendum: I don’t think my story really applies to this image, because I really don’t know why people would water a garden on the ground that is open to the sky while it is raining.
10 or 11 years ago I went to my first out-of-province ringette tournament. It was awesome. My team loaded up on a coach bus and we headed out to Longueuil, Quebec, for a weekend of fun and sport. I ended up going 2, maybe 3 times in total, all around the age of 10. The only things I remember about it are:
one of girls from our hosting team was named Fanny and we all thought that was adorable (seriously - say Fanny with a French accent.) (We also thought it was adorable how little English they could speak, and how little French we could speak, which pretty much left it up to their parents to help us work out “conversations”. Ah, bilingualism in Canada.)
I tried an iced capp from Tim Hortons for the first time and decided coffee was disgusting
I visited my Nana at her home for the first time in my life (she always came to ours)
we got t-shirts as part of our welcome gifts, pictured above. Yes, I am wearing it. I’ve always wondered over the years how a t-shirt I got when I was about 10 years old continues to fit, so today for the first time I checked what size it is. Hanes adult XL. Well… that explains it. Props to those tournament organizers who were thinking ahead.
I do love this shirt though. I think the fact that I’ve worn it to bed for the last 10 years is a good indication. The embroidered logo has been unraveling for a long time but I just keep trimming the threads back. You can’t tell in the photo because it was taken on my ipod with a bad camera, but this shirt is the most fabulous shade of blue. I think that’s why I like it so much.
Story time! You all love stories, right? (The song above is Phoenix Ignition by Thrice.)
Like many people, Artist In The Ambulance was the first album I heard in full by Thrice. I’d had several songs of theirs from that album and earlier that I loved, but it took me a couple years to get into actually becoming interested in the bands I was listening to.
I can’t remember too well, but I think Vols I & II of the Alchemy Index was the first CD I actually owned by them, although I had downloaded a bunch of stuff from Vheissu by that point. I got Fire/Water in a fire sale of Music World on a whim - I wasn’t too familiar with Thrice other than that I knew I liked their general sound. Got home and listened to it. Decided I needed the rest of their CDs, and got rid of all the downloaded files I had.
It didn’t take too long for me to amass their collection. I bought Vheissu a month later while eagerly awaiting Vols III & IV of Alchemy Index, and then went on a mission to get their earlier stuff. I had little interest in Illusion of Safety (which persisted up until about 6 months ago, and now I adore it) but I really, really wanted Identity Crisis. It was so hard to find. I remember calling music stores all over Toronto trying to track down a copy. I read review after review of it online, some negative, some positive, but all I would let myself listen to online was their title track, “Identity Crisis”. Up until that point, it was my favourite song. Hence why I needed the album.
It took a few months, but I finally got the CD. It was not quite what I was expecting. I have since learned that debut albums are often much rougher sounding and a lot less polished, but back then I was a little surprised. Nonetheless, it got a lot of play on my ipod - and by “a lot of play” I mean a lot of play. I wasn’t in school at the time so I had a lot of time to myself.
But I remember my very first listen-through. This track is #2. The first song, “Identity Crisis”, ended and then this one started… well, have you played the video up there? The beginning is a little strange, you could say. I giggled and thought to myself “what the fuck is this” but quickly decided I could like it. And then. At 0:36 when it gets to the real song… my adoration for Thrice was solidified and I have never, ever waivered in my love for their music and for this amazing album.
If you caught my post-show entry of pure excitement of seeing Thrice a few days ago (since deleted), you’ll have read about my utter thrill of them playing this song in their encore, since they played nothing earlier than Artist In The Ambulance for their entire set. They played this and To Awake And Avenge The Dead as their encore - which, if you could imagine, made for some serious end-of-the-night moshing after songs like In Exile, Of Dust And Nations, and Call It In The Air. These are all amazing songs (seriously, I love them) but they are definitely the softer side of a band that used to play hardcore!
this one time in grade 7, we had a substitute teacher on a day where we had to do that homeroom class where you learn about “real life” stuff as opposed to educational stuff - TAP or something it was called?
We all knew the teacher but considered her a bit of a joke, as most substitute teachers are considered by 12-year-olds. So when she asked for a definition of “well being” we all just sat there quietly waiting for her to answer her own question and move on. When she didn’t, and there was a minute or two of awkward silence, my classmate raised her hand and proposed “The state of being well.”
And we all burst into giggles.
And all these years later, I can’t come across the word “well being” without immediately following it in my head with “the state of being well”.
I am terrible at math and could probably be considered illiterate (something that I am highly embarrassed about but don’t know what to do about). I was reviewing my geography quizzes and noticed all the ones I get wrong are the math related ones (go figure). The whole representative fraction concept was throwing me… so like any millennial kid, I put the question to Facebook.
What I had in my screenshot from my quiz was the question and the correct answer, but no method. So all my uncle does is post the calculations in a comment… I tried them out on my own. IT WORKED. I just made something mathematical work!
It’s mostly the conversion between units that’s been throwing me. I learned a way to remember it back in grade 4, but haven’t been able to remember the mnemonic for the last two weeks. Until now.
K H D M d c m
King Henry’s Daughter Makes delicious cookies monday.
I definitely just wrote up a cheat sheet to put in my lab binder so I can stop failing all these questions:
I refuse to make the same dumb mistakes over and over again.
I refuse to be a dumb kid
On the highway, my roommate said “Hey are you still in Geography” and I said yes and he said “quick - what kind of clouds are those?”
They weren’t cirrus, that’s for sure. Cirrus clouds are the wipsy, high altitude ones. But I couldn’t remember the name of dense low altitude ones. “Nimbus.” he said. “Cumulonimbus I think.”
My redemption: “Do you know why sometimes clouds have flat bottoms?” (I say this to the car full of people.) “Because they’re only just high enough in the atmosphere to hit the dew point, where inches below they’d be water vapour but at a certain height they condense into clouds.”
To normal people = who cares.
To my roommates who loves science = cool.
To me = OMG I REMEMBERED SOMETHING FROM LECTURE HOLY FUCK CAN WE CELEBRATE?! I LEARNED SOMETHING!
I fell off it on Thursday trying to cross streetcar tracks in the rain. Crossed at a shit angle and down we went.
The only things my dear bike has to show for this wipe out:
Meanwhile, I got thrown across the wet road with this stuck between my legs and when I came to a stop, I couldn’t move due to pain and shock. Spent the afternoon at the hospital, screaming bloody murder until they gave me enough Percocet that the pain went partially away and I could actually move my leg a little bit. Got x-rays of my hip and knee, neither of which were broken. So they wrote me a prescription for more Percocet, said take it easy, and sent me home.
I’ve been at home the last 4 days going back and forth between a somewhat functioning leg, able to bear some weight, able to hobble around my apartment to keep packing for my move in 3 days, and a barely functioning leg, unable to bear weight, unable to even exist in the atmosphere without intense pain, rendering me completely useless to do anything except lay in bed feeling stoned on Percocet.
But you know, life doesn’t stop even when things like this happen. I have so many errands to do. I have so much packing to do. I can’t just lay in bed. I’m halfway through my prescription so I called my doctor’s office today to make an appointment to get more. They said I probably won’t get Percocet, not many doctors in this office are willing to prescribe it. I said well, will they give me anything? “Maybe a different pain medication.” So tomorrow I find out whether I will get any more synthetic relief from this dumb accident or whether I have to spend the next couple weeks in pain.
Today I went to the laundromat. I’ve been walking with a cane to try and alleviate the strain on my bum leg. But today, with every single cane-aided step, my knee was popping. What that even means, I do not know. But after hauling my bags there and back, my shin, knee, and hip all hurt worse than they have since the day this happened and the prospect of having more errands to do is infuriating me, because I just can’t do them.
I feel like an asshole for complaining but I am so angry that I’m capable of shit-all right now when I have so much to do that I am going to explode.
I have years worth of school work that I’m sorting through. Mostly to get rid of, but also to see what I can re-learn before starting university in less than two months (what).
When I was 17 I attempted Chemistry. I am frustrated that I let that opportunity go by. But, back then, I just didn’t care. Can’t do anything about that now. It just sucks because that teacher was brilliant, he loved me, and his teaching methods were great. I remember at the beginning of the year he told us to develop a fondness for our textbook, because we’d be reading it cover to cover and there would be weekly chapter tests that count towards our final mark.
Everyone scoffed. This is grade eleven, we all thought. No one does that.
There were weekly chapter tests. On every single part of the text book.
Me being the studious note taker that I am, this would have been the most perfect review for first year Chem, but no, my notes end after chapter 6 thanks to me dropping out at the end of November and giving up the best chance to learn Chemistry I’d ever have.
I wish I could punch my former self in the head and ask what the hell I thought I was doing, why I thought I had all the time in the world to waste. Because now I have to teach myself as much Chemistry as I can from whatever bits of information I can understand wherever I can find them. And that is ten times harder than whatever I thought was hard back then.
Growing up, I’m learning to stop giving up because everything has a use (if it doesn’t, I can make one) and I may just thank myself down the road for having the discipline to seize opportunities when they come up.
Because this, dear self, is bullshit.
(I assure you this tastes better than it looks.)
Recently, my sisters and I went to visit our grandparents. I asked my grandmother for some recipes so she took a look at her recipe cards and showed me one called “Tossed Salad Dressing”. The first thing I noticed was it was the most beautiful hand-writing ever. She said she would have written that when she was 16 (making this recipe card a good 66 years old or so), and it is not so nice anymore. I lamented over the fact that schools don’t teach handwriting anymore, and wished mine were nicer.
I then asked whether this was the family dressing I’ve grown up with. She said she didn’t think so, it was just a standard dressing her mother always made. I copied it out anyway even though the ingredients seemed strange. Figured I’d give it a shot, having never made my own salad dressing before (and it really couldn’t be any easier).
I modified the proportions of the ingredients a tiny bit (1:1:1 sugar:vinegar:oil whaaat) and was at first put off by the strange colour of it. Contrary to what the photo shows, it is a very thin liquid. I gave it a taste. “Tastes like home” was my first thought. I looked at it some more.
It is, in fact, the recipe for my favourite salad dressing ever that I grew up with. I have a tiny bit left of a batch my grandmother made a while ago and while my jar doesn’t quite look like hers (and mine tastes a little bit more oily), I am pleased as punch to have finally gotten a hold of this wonderful recipe that dates back to the early 1900s.
At the height of my Disney obsession in roughly 2002, I decided I would collect all my favourite Masterpiece movies on DVD since all the ones I had were on VHS, having been bought in the 80’s and 90’s.
It was during this mission that I discovered the sad reality of the Disney Vault. In my research, I learned that the Jungle Book would be re-released in 2007, but in 2002 that seemed too damn far away.
2007 rolled around and I remember seeing the ads for the ~newly released special edition 40th anniversary~ DVD of the Jungle Book, but by this point I had stopped caring.
And then this week rolls around and a number of things made me decide that I need to own the Jungle Book DVD. My mission of having the Masterpieces on DVD never came to fruition, alas, but this is one movie that I really, really liked. So I went to Blockbuster today, February 27, 2011.
The movie is back in the motherfucking vault.
This may be one of the saddest days of my recent life :(
When I’m not about to pass out at any given moment due to a virus laying my immune system to waste, I will go search Sonic Boom, Bay Street Video, and other stores that sell used movies. (I have a pitiful total of 2 Disney movies on DVD: Beauty and the Beast and Pocahontas. I wish I had just kept all the VHS. Ah, hindsight.)
This hardening chocolate sauce only uses TWO INGREDIENTS. I need to try this.
The first time I ever had that “Magic Shell” stuff was in 1996 (or 97?) when my mother and I went on a road trip to Vermont to go meet some lady she met online, and they had this tiny little cottage in these remote woods. Sounds sketchy, eh? Yeah, let’s bring my 6-year-old daughter along to meet some person I met on the internet :P
No, it was actually really cool. The woman had her grand daughter who was my age come stay with her, and kids make instant friends. The best parts of that trip were:
1) learning how to read maps, because back in 1996 there weren’t any rules about kids sitting in the front seats of cars.
2) they had a hot tub in their living room. Inside their living room.
3) they had a water bed, which I had never even heard of before and thought was wicked.
4) this crazy Magic Shell chocolate sauce that poured out liquid but turned solid on the ice cream =0
Interesting story from my life: I am moderately allergic to nearly every antibiotic on the market, and I found out about my allergy to cephalexin after finding out I am severely allergic to metal and/or ear piercings.
The spring I was 14 I got my ears pierced which was ~exciting~ until my body rejected everything I tried putting in my ears, resulting in deep abscesses and more pus than I knew what to do with. Went to an urgent care clinic after I got tired of swabbing hydrogen peroxide into the holes with no results, and they prescribed cephalexin and told me to take the earrings out.
Don’t remember too much about my ears, but I remember the drug fucking me up beyond belief and spending days basically dead in bed and itchy as all hell. Had no energy to go up or down the stairs so I was stuck in my room. I think this was in late June, and I’m not sure if this drug reaction was why I was so sick in the first week of July or whether that was a different drug reaction, but the first week of July was memorable in the sense that I remember three whole things from it given that I was barely conscious from whatever was wrong with me that week: 1. my only attempt at summer school 2. dropping out of summer school after the second day 3. my parents sitting me down to tell me my mother’s a lesbian and they were getting divorced.
