pick on someone your own size

at 5'3", it's not often that i'm taller than anyone, but it does happen occasionally. and when it does.... well.... it's just weird. my brain feels confused at the downward angle of my eyes and the view of the top of someone's head. what's happening here? it thinks. are you standing on a step? is that person in a hole? this is unfamiliar and disturbing, do something to make it normal! slouch, sit down, back up a few meters, anything!!! i get all awkward knowing i'm taller, it's all i'm aware of, and i suddenly feel like a lumbering giant. i want to be nonchalant about it. oh? there's a height difference? i hadn't noticed. but oh god, they can see it in my eyes; they know i know they're shorter than me!

the other day in my kickboxing class i got paired up with a girl who must be 4'11", tops. ok amanda, be cool, act natural. we introduce ourselves and i try to pretend that i can't see over her head. subconsciously, i hold back a bit on my kicks and punches. after all, i'm a towering amazon, she's a delicate little flower. sadly, although perhaps not surprisingly, she kicked my butt. i like to think we probably have the same amount of strength and power, but hers just seems more intense because it's concentrated into a smaller package. yeah... that's definitely it. i could totally take her if i were her size.

intoxicated accomplishments

sometimes i surprise myself with how competent and coordinated i can be when drunk. i'm not talking threading needles or building a house of cards, but feats of dexterity nonetheless. last night was blair's work holiday party, and the wine was flowing! the end of the evening is a blur, and i only vaguely recall stumbling to bed. in the morning there was the brief moment of panic until i confirmed that i brought home all the essentials - purse, new shoes, mittens. i also notice that i had the presence of mind, not just to remove my jewellery, but to put it back properly. my earrings were still in a pair, and that oh so delicate necklace was hanging up where it belongs. i thought for sure my clumsy drunken fingers would have fumbled an earring or broken that fine chain. but no; all is well! i didn't lose anything and i didn't break anything. I'm amazing!!

i had my nightshirt on inside out and backwards, but hey, no one's perfect.

pompoms are for pansies

my original title was going to be "pompoms are for pussies" but i blushed and realized i was too much of a pus -- pansy -- to write that. plus, that may bring in visitors on false notions of what this site contains. wait a second... i don't have any visitors. i want people coming to my blog; sketchy perverts welcome! sigh... my blog is like a ghost town, just the occasional tumbleweed blowing through. ooh, if only i could work that into a customized theme.

back to the point. i have these fairly ridiculous winter boots, with both zipper pulls broken off and replaced by key rings to keep them functional. yes, i am ingenious, thanks for noticing! yeah yeah, cheap too. less thanks for noticing that. anyway, they took about 3 hours a boot to put on because of all the damn lacing up that was required. plus, each lace tip ended in a pompom, which although cute, was excrutiatingly impractical because the laces always caught on each other, swirling together in a bola like tangled mess. so finally i chopped 'em off. adios pompoms! i feel much tougher in my pompomless boots. i tramp through snowdrifts and forge through raging storms. I'm an arctic survivalist, outta my way!!

on my home today, through a haze of blustering snow, I scowled at the slow moving woman in spike-heeled boots walking in front of me. squeak squeak squeak went the pointy heels into the snow. My boots would be across the bridge by now! as we reached the other side she stopped and backtracked, realizing she had to use the stairs to get down. Ha, move it princess! my boots can go off-roading. or off-sidewalking, whatever. i would never have felt so ferocious with pompoms on my boots, no sirree.

yup, i'm a changed woman. all grit and power, and not a pompom in sight.

except for the one on my toque.

so far so good

woo, look at me go, two posts in two days! i sure am living up to my promise.

now i have to figure out how to "personalize" my blog. i can't just leave that default banner of the trees up forever. but i hate making decisions. especially epic choices like blog themes. i'll leave that for another day; don't want to overwhelm myself.

today is going to be uneventful. i stayed home sick yesterday and i'm still under the weather today, so i feel completely justified in being an unproductive lump. i'm going to watch tv, play Zuma, and maybe read my book. i can do that because i'm SICK. not sure how to justify it every other day....

the NEW blog

so, i'm all upgraded! time to get used to the new look... quite boring at the moment. i'll need to spice it up at some point.

i feel kind of sad that my old "spaces" blog is no more. i know all the content was transferred, but it's not the same. no more menacing finger pointy amanda, no more photos of the great wall or my less than great chinese toilet. no more out of date book lists or links to sites i stopped visiting. I started this blog almost 6 years ago; seems hard to believe! i remember sitting in my little chinese apartment and getting started, not knowing what to expect from this new "blog" craze. but it was the perfect way to share my experiences with friends and family. i was shocked to discover that strangers also enjoyed reading of my adventures. and you don't seem like strangers anymore :)

so i've promised to put some real effort into reviving this place. and i will. i won't be writing about living with mongolian nomads, getting arrested in a chinese military zone, or riding camels through the desert... but i'll find something. and hopefully you'll read it.

wrapping it up

 

 

ok, i'm almost ready for the "upgrade" to the new blog. I just imported all my entries, copied all my photos and all my lists... just to make sure nothing gets lost in cyberspace. I considered just shutting Whoopdeedoo down completely, seeing as i never seem to write anything anymore. but i decided against that. maybe the new format will inspire me to start writing again. it's just that i always feel so boring these days. reading back over my old adventures makes me sad. i feel very disconnected from that fun, witty traveler who wrote all those years ago. sigh.... :(

 

so i'm not traipsing around the world these days, that doesn't mean i can't still find something to say! i just can't find something to say right NOW. but later, when the transformation is complete... muahahahahahahaha!!!! ok, next time you (if there is anybody to be the "you") read this, it will be the new and improved wordpress blog. feel free to wait with bated breath.

Ack, change!

 

What the hell?? I don't visit my space for 5 measly months and suddenly i'm confronted with all these changes! First of all i have to upgrade so that i don't lose everything. Good thing that's far in the future, i would have been devasted if my space was gone. Although I guess they said it doesn't vanish, it just gets frozen. And what happened to my menacing finger-pointing photo? I've been replaced by a space shuttle! Ok ok, i suppose this teaches me not to leave my space unattended for so long. I'm sorry! I've learned my lesson! (yeah right).

 

Small, inconsequential changes in my life. I'm learning a slightly new job. Same title, same salary, i'll even be doing it from the same desk. But now instead of answering questions about employment insurance, i'll be answering questions about canada pension. Wow, how exciting. But the change is good. It'll mix things up a bit. So right now i'm in training. I've gone from a know-it-all to a know-it-not-at-all. So things are kind of interesting again. Yeesh, i never thought i'd be describing learning about pensions as interesting :(

 

Anyway, lunchtime is over. I'm going to update my space to the new and improved whateveritis and make an effort to write more often. I have to stir up those creative juices - they've grown stagnant!

buttons on ice cream

 

for auntie beryl

who always read my blog, even when it was boring.

 

i just came back from dinner with my family and had lots of fun playing with my little neice. i can't believe she's almost a year old! seems like just the other day she was coming home, swaddled tight in her blanket, an adorable 5 pound 10 ounce burrito. i'm pretty new at being an aunt, but luckily i had a great role model. from what i can tell, being an aunt means that i'll love little naomi and she'll love me; i'll help take care of her and watch her as she grows up; i'll spend time with her and give her treats she doesn't get from mom and dad, and she'll tell me things she won't tell them. we'll have that magical combination of familial love and easygoing friendship. i get to be that grown up that's cool because... well... because i'm not the parent!

 

i used to go for sleepovers at auntie beryl's when i was a kid. my cousin is just a bit older than me, so we would hang out sometimes, and sleepovers meant that we could stay up later and play board games or calecovision. and there was always something exciting about sleeping away from home, in a bed that wasn't mine. i guess it made me feel like a big kid, even though i brought my stuffed animals to hug at night. i had a terrible nightmare once and woke up sobbing. good thing auntie beryl came in to calm me down and make it better.

 

later on, when the 14 month age gap made my cousin too cool for me, i still went to visit, i just spent the time hanging out with auntie beryl instead. she was so easy and fun to talk with. and she let me have vanilla ice cream with kahlua, how cool!

 

once, having caught my brother de-wedgying himself, she asked if he was going to a show. "what?" he asked, not understanding. "no...." then the punchline: "cause you're picking your seat!" hahaha, david and i still giggle over that one. although my favourite auntie beryl line is still the one i first heard about 25 years ago (yikes, that long??): "So...." i drawl, not going anywhere in particular. "buttons on ice cream," she finishes. i give a confused look. "sew buttons on ice cream and watch them melt off". ha! i like that one. way cooler than "hey is for horses". to this day, i have been heard to interject the buttons-on-ice-cream line on occasion.

 

in the winter time, as christmas starts to close in and decorations go up, i always think of auntie beryl. we used to drive around the neighborhoods looking at all the beautiful lights. some streets really went all out; it's like the neighbors were in cahoots. they had a reputation to uphold! they couldn't disappoint their fans, as we drove along slowly, oohing and aahing at the colours twinkling on the eaves and in the trees. yes, the place to be on christmas was definitely auntie beryl's house. the piles and piles of delicious food! meatballs, creamed peas, stuffing, ham... ooh, ham!! auntie beryl could always count on her little jewish neice amanda gobbling up a plateful of that amazing ham. yep, once a year; oh, how i looked forward to it! and even with all the kids, grandkids and us moochy nieces and nephew coming by, i always felt welcome and wanted.

 

you may think that auntie beryl is gone, but she isn't. she is still hanging on, fighting. she is a tough cookie! and although this is just a snapshot, i didn't want to wait to write about what a fantastic person she is and express how much i love her and how she has touched my life. i hope i can be just as wonderful an aunt to naomi as she has been to me.

no title

 

hello strangers.

 

what's happened to me? when did i become so boring? i work my monday to friday, 8-4 job. i come home and tell my boyfriend about my uneventful day. i have dinner with the girls once a month and we talk about work, their babies and other grownup things. i routinely go to pub quiz where we routinely lose. i do crosswords, i watch tv, i indulge in a few beers, i complain that i've put on a few pounds. i grumble about the constantly empty coffee pot in the employee kitchen. i look forward to weekends. i work overtime to rack up additional vacation days. then i check my vacation leave balance, rubbing my hands together greedily at the sight of all my hoarded holidays. they just sit there, accumulating nicely but going nowhere. i like to think of planning a trip, but then it never seems like i have enough time. one week? i can't go anywhere good in just a week. two? three? it's never enough time for my daydreamed travels.

 

the other day i got a nice new haircut and colour. the greys were gone, my hair shone and bounced with health and youth! i went shopping and bought some new jeans and a gorgeous blue coat that i adore. oh how vibrant and stylish i felt! while getting changed, i stared at myself in the mirror. hips and thighs were no longer held svelte by the form flattering denim; blue sophistication now hung from the coat hook. this body in front of me... it wasn't mine. the inward curve at the waist was less pronounced, the belly not as hard, everything looked a bit softer and squishier than it should be. this was the body of a 30-something, not me.

 

oh wait. i AM a 30-something. that is indeed my reflection staring out at me with disappointment.

 

 

 

i started writing this several weeks ago. it's just taken me a while to publish it. so i'm 33; it happens. i have a steady job, i live with my boyfriend and i hang out with my friends. that isn't so bad! i've got a week of holidays coming up this summer, and although i'm not going anywhere exotic, i'm very much looking forward to relaxing, camping and just enjoying the time off. in terms of perking up my sad doppelganger in the mirror, i ride my bike and i've rejoined kickboxing to get into better shape. i'm not succumbing to monotony or stagnancy yet!!

Repo Manda

the other day while watching some junky tv, i saw a commercial for a show called Repo Man, or something to that effect. the ad itself was unmemorable and left me with no desire to waste any time watching it. but with a flash, it resurrected long forgotten memories of my days as a repo girl.

1995: innocent 18 year old amanda arrives in new zealand ready for adventure, armed with not much more than a backpack and work permit. i met some girls in the hostel and we decided to rent a room in a house together while looking for jobs. i scoured the classifieds and pounded the pavement, walkiing into every little restaurant and bar i passed. but i was fresh out of high school with no experience other than taco bell. i did of course embellish my work history with entirely ficticious jobs, knowing my references would never be checked. i got a few shifts in the kitchen at a late night cafe, until they told me i didn't make the nachos fast enough. i got a shift at a pub, until they found out i was underage. i got half a shift at some hoity toity restaurant but was quickly tossed out when i dropped a plate. and a smattering of other inconsistent odd jobs.

so when my landlord offered me $30 to go with him on a repo run, i jumped at it. all i had to do was tolerate the creep for a one way ride and then drive his car back so he could take the repossessed vehicle. it was easy money. i never saw too much of the actual repossessing as i usually parked several cars back so as not to be detected. sometimes it went off without a hitch, a few times there was yelling and cursing and doors slamming. once something was thrown at him and he went nuts kicking at their door. little me just stayed motionless with the car doors locked. the rides out were no better. between his sleazy sexual innuendo and his enraged expletive filled rants (about anything and everything), i was beginning to think it might not be worth the $30 a pop.

luckily i didn't have to do it for too long. eventually i got a job at a nearby hotel and was more than happy to take the 6am shifts if it meant not needing to work for my cuckoo landlord anymore. i ignored his filthy and inappropriate comments on the few occasions we crossed paths, and tried to shut out the screaming matches and threats of violence between him and his equally wacko girfriend. it was a terribly unpleasant place to live, but super cheap and just blocks from my work!

of course, it improved greatly after we killed him.

but that's a story for another day.