Stupid Blog!

I wrote a really great blog entry tonight. It was long and detailed and funny. Probably the best thing ever written. I bet I would have won all kinds of awards, and it would have been studied by people all over the world so they could pick out the subtleties...I would have been the next Shakespeare. But when I went to post it, it took SOFA KING LONG, I got bored and started playing Bookworm on Yahoo. Then I played Diamond Mine. Then I chatted with Mary. Then I went to close the Yahoo page, and accidentally closed the Blog page! DAMMIT! So, there goes my future, and your reading for the day. I'll try to recreate it again sometime, but not now. I'm sick of writing.

Christmas Trees and Shopping

YAY! I just finished decorating my Christmas Tree with Louis. I love decorating the Christmas tree each year. From putting the lights on (somehow this year, even though I started with the right plug end at the top, I messed up somewhere in the middle and we had to use an extention cord to plug the lights in...) to arranging all the ornaments (the old, expensive, and breakable ones have to go up top, the crappy home-made ones go down where the cat and little kids can get them), all leading up to when we turn off all the lights in the house and plug in the tree for the "unveiling." This year, though, the unveiling happened amid the Packers game on the big TV and 2 1/2 Men on the kitchen TV...you can see where the family priorities lie...Pagan symbol celebrating the birth of Christ or bad TV and football...bad TV clearly wins.

But, seriously, I do love unwrapping the ornaments. Each one is like a little memory. There are all the ones from when we were little and mom would buy us each an ornament at the Church Bazaar (like Baby Jesus in a milk weed pod...), the nice ones that Dawn has bought us (like the snot drops), and all of the ones we made when we were in preschool. This year Louis and I put all of the ones we made or that were given to us in front, and all the ones Mary, Mike, and Esther made in the back. Ours are much prettier anyway.

I also did a lot of my Christmas Shopping today. I wasn't impressed with the attitude of the Target Team Members. I wanted to pull out my discount card and tell them that I used to work there, and I knew they had been trained better than they were acting, but I knew then they'd probably take my discount card, and I couldn't risk that...I might use it someday. If I ever have cash (it only works if you pay with cash). The people at Starbucks were the best. I think because they were trying to sell mom a million dollars worth of coffee and she wasn't buying it, but, whatever...I like it when people are nice to me. I'll go back to Starbucks now, because they were nice. I'll go back to Target, too, but the experience will be tainted.

You know how people joke about having 900 television channels and there's nothing on? Well, right now, I really have 900 channels and there's nothing on. To be fair, about 50 channels aren't in english, so I just assume they're nothing on them, since I don't speak any other languages. And another 50 are music channels, and not like MTV or VH1, like radio channels. They don't count when you want to watch TV. And I think there are 20 or so pay-per-view movie channels, and another 20 pay-per-view porn channels, and about 100 ESPN-Game channels, but since there's no hockey there's nothing on them. So that brings me down to a possible 760 channels that are all showing absolutely nothing good. And I LIKE bad TV. I can always find something to watch! Even on "on-demand" there's nothing good. Haha, in fact, the only thing that I've enjoyed on TV so far tonight is a commercial I just saw where a guy was pretending to ride a bike, but he didn't have a bike...it was funny...

So, that's why I'm grateful for blogging. Even when there's no good TV, I can write in my blog. It's always here to keep me company and entertain me. But now I think I'll go to bed and get ready for my busy day of...well, watching TV :)

I'm Afraid of Americans...

I have some VERY upsetting news. Well, VERY upsetting for me, anyway. My mom went to Fort Erie yesterday to get flu shots with my grandma's because they can't get any here in the States. So, after they all got the shots my mom said, "I hope we aren't taking shots away from a Canadian who needs it." The Canadian nurse said, "No, we have specific shots reserved just for Americans..." It turns out that the French had a lot of extra flu shots and offered them to us, but OUR DUMBASS GOVERNMENT said no, because they were French, so the French instead gave them to the Canadians for any Americans who ventured across the border to get flu shots. WHY MUST WE MAKE THE WHOLE WORLD HATE US?!?! I even hate Americans right now!

Ok, enough about that. Well, one more thing. We don't belong in Iraq. Even if we ARE fighting for their freedom, which we aren't, not every country wants to be America. We already have America Jr (HI CANADA), we don't need another one, why do we keep butting into other coutries? Yes, I know it's because of oil, but that doesn't make it right.

Ok, now, really, that's all. I'm done with my ranting.

Yay! It's Thanksgiving Eve!

I think the day before any holiday is much more fun than the actual holiday itself. Maybe not secondary holidays, like Columbus Day and Presidents Day, but the Big ones, like Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving. When I was little I HATED the days before holidays, but I was young and impatient. Now I'm older, wiser, and more patient. Or at least I can drink more. No, really, I think it's because when I was little I didn't have anything to do with the preparations for the holiday, so the only event was that day. But now all the fun is leading up to that day when I'm helping get stuff ready (and by helping I mean sitting at the table or chopping block with a glass of wine, watching someone else do something productive). Thanksgiving will still be fun, but I always feel a little sad, because I know that by the time the whole family shows up, it's almost over. All the time we spent make the food is the real holiday. The dinner is just like the finale. Plus, until recently we all lived together and I never got to appreciate time off of work or school when we'd get to spend extra time together. I can't wait for tonight, when everyone's coming home to stay here for the night. We're going to finish everything for dinner tomorrow and watch Elf. And I think Dad said something about some wine he had...

It's the same way with Christmas. I love Christmas morning and day. I love getting stuff, I love presents, and I love laying on the couch in my pajamas all day playing with my new stuff. But my favorite part of the holiday is the anticipation of the presents (oh, yeah, and something about giving to others and Baby Jesus...) I find it a little sad to go to bed on Christmas Eve because our party is already over, and I know as soon as I wake up I have about 1/2 hour of present excitement if I open REALLY slowly, and then it's over. It's the waiting that's the best part.

Poetry

As I sit here in my bed
random thoughts fly through my head.
Did I turn the oven off at work?
Who's the guy on Scrubs that plays Turk?
I wish my clothes were put away
but to do that it would take all day.
Why is Bush such a dick?
Esther's dog is kinda sick -
she ate chocolate chips off the bakers rack.
I hope I never sit on a tack.
Caitlin calls Shannon "Titty."
I used to live in New York City
I miss living there a lot
but it was expensive to get things bought.
There was always something going on,
and I miss that now that I'm gone.
In East Aurora there's nothing fun
There's a Chinese restaurant, but only one.
I like it here, though
living next to Joe.
I like my job
and corn on the cob.
It's getting late and I need sleep.
The house is quiet there's not one peep.
So I'm gonna go and lay down my body
after I go use the potty.

Irish Car Bombs

I went to Genesseo with Shannon and Cait to see Amelia on Saturday. Amelia lives in an apartment with 2 other girls, Laura and Meg, so we hung out with them and Amelia's boyfriend, Matt, all night while we drank (a very odd mixture of orange vodka, Jamesons, and Blue...not all together), and played Mario Brothers on Nintendo. It was so much fun. I kept thinking that Papa would have been proud of us, spending our time together, getting wasted. At least he would have been until I passed out around 12:30 (I know, I'm a wuss). Then I woke up at some point alone on the couch. The TV was on still so I watched part of the Anna Nicole Show. Wow, that show sucks.

Anyway, we spent a lot of the night talking about the past. We called Louis and put him on speaker phone and made him make his fake throw up noises for us, then we talked about what a jerk he used to be, but how great he is now. We talked about this one time when we had some family party and were bored so I stole a bottle of something from behind the bar. I don't remember what it was, but it was red and syrupy and tasted like cough syrup. Amelia, Caitlin, and I sat in Amelia's computer room and drank it until Dennis came down to check on us. Then we went back upstairs and ate hotdogs. Later, Caitlin threw up all over her bed and her mattress is still stained red...

I had to work on Sunday, which sucked. I hate working hung over. Not that I was sick, just kinda stupid. Someone would say something to me and it would take me 5 minutes to process it before I responded, as opposed to the normal 3 minute lapse. But I spent a lot of the day thinking about how grown up our family has gotten. By family I mean the cousins. We're still the "kid table" at Thanksgiving, and the "kids," and Ben, Art, Alex, Tyler, and Brendan are still the "little boys." But have you seen them lately? They're all about twice as tall as I am! And Ben and Alex are going to college next year! But, if I do say so myself, we're all pretty cool. How many other families have parties where Irish Car Bombs are the drink of choice (speaking of which, are car bombs a Thanksgiving drink?) I thought about how far we've all come, from when Ben was little and choked on a piece of steak and wouldn't eat anything but milkshakes, and when Mike, Shannon and I would all get on the bus together to go to Wales. And then I got on the bus with Amelia, Louis, and Cait. Remember how we all used to fight when we were little, like we were all brother and sisters? Maybe because we all lived in the same house, practically (ok, so, some of us really did). And how annoying was it to start the school year at Iroquois as a Garvey? Every teacher would say, "You're a Garvey? Are you related to..." But, now, I'm so happy for all of us. Look how great we're all doing, and how hard we're all working, but how much fun we still have. And now the next generation is coming (YAY ALFIE!), how much fun is that going to be? Do you think you can make car bombs in baby bottles?

"I'm usually random and I'm rarely right"

As you probably all know, based on the high quality of my previous posts, I spend a lot of time thinking about what I'm going to write in this blog each night. You know what it's taught me so far (besides responsibility...it takes a lot of responsibility to keep a blog alive...)? That I have a lot of random thoughts that amount to nothing during the day. Take today for example. When I woke up 17 hours ago, I started thinking about my blog. I checked to see if anyone had left any comments (no one had, so I changed the settings so that ANYONE can leave one, even if you don't have your own blog), and then I got ready for work. It was still early (the sun wasn't even up, yet), so I didn't think much. But every though I did have (like, "mmmm, coffee" and "did I already brush my teeth?") were briefly considered as topics for tonight's entry. The Simple Plan CD, which I listened to while sitting on in traffic on my way to work, supplied a lot of ideas. One song is called "I'm Just a Kid." Am I just a kid? When do I stop being a kid? When I can support myself? When I get married? When I have my own kids? In another song they sing "I'm trying to forget that I'm addicted to you. But I want it and I need it I'm addicted to you." This made me think about coffee again. Then I saw the Mobile Library. Remember that big truck that used to come and park at the primary school and you got onto it and checked out books? I loved Mobile Library days. They were always so exciting. But, can you really write a whole blog on the mobile library? Maybe when you're in 1st grade and a blog is only expected to be 3 sentences long, but, as a college graduate, I hold myself to higher standards (even if I did go to a Canadian college...). I realized that EVERY Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I drive by the Mobile Library on my way to work. That got me wondering how many other cars I pass every day. I started paying attention to the other cars on the road (probably a good thing to do), and I recognized a few of them (one I knew I had seen before because it was a beat up piece of shit with old police lights on top of it...how many cars like that are there? The rest were probably just popular models.)

By the time I got to work I had come up with, and then dismissed, about a hundred different blog subjects. I could take the stance that I just have a lot happening in my life, and can't decide on one thing to write about...yeah, I think I'll do that. So, that's why I spend all day thinking about this blog. It's not because I have no life, or because I'm addicted, or because I have so many random, yet completely useless, ideas...it's because I have so much going on I have to take that much time to decide what to write about. Really. Believe me.

Tomorrow night I'm going to visit Amelia, so I probably won't write, but, don't worry, I'll be back with more useless information and pointless ramblings on Sunday.

less than important.

I was at work today, unmolding little pecan tarts (which were mostly cooked to perfection...only one wasn't done all the way, and when I turned it out into my hand the hot sugary liquid spilled all over me and burned between my fingers...I threw that one out, so all of them that will get to customers are fully baked), when Jeanne, the pastry chef, started laughing at nothing. She laughed for a few minutes, which is really not an unusual experience, and then said, "Do you realize what we do? We make dessert. Our job is to make people dessert." I was a little worried at first...I mean, she's been at Olivers for almost two years. You'd think she would know what she was doing by now. But, I understand what she was saying. It's the same thing they used to tell me at pastry school (they'd yell at us for messing up, and then say, "it's a good thing you're not performing brain surgery or something IMPORTANT." It was great for the self-esteem). Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love my job. There's nothing I'd rather be doing (except sleeping, or drinking coronas on the beach), but, really...it's not like the world would stop if all the pastry chefs went on strike.
After Jeanne stopped laughing, I went on unmolding my tarts, but now I couldn't stop thinking about my meaningless job. I wonder what it would be like to be a brain surgeon, holding someone else's life in your hands...I don't think I could handle that. I have enough pressure in my life, just trying to concentrate long enough to get my creme brulee baked so no one gets sick from eating it. Maybe that's why I don't make enough money to support myself...

Christmas Shopping in Canada

I was going to go to sleep and skip writing in my blog tonight. I have to work in the morning and you all know how I need at least 8 hours of sleep to be functional. But I slept all day (I woke up at noon, ate some lunch, watched some TV, fell back to sleep, got up around 4 and showered, then went out to dinner...) and now I'm wide awake. I have nothing exciting to write about (as opposed to my other entries which were packed full of useful information), but I have time, so I'm going to write.

I just had a thought...how do Canadians know when it's time to start Christmas shopping? How does anyone, other than the Americans, know? I mean, you start the day after Thanksgiving. But, if you're Canadian, you can't start the day after your own Thanksgiving, which is in, like, July (or Oct....whatever...), and on a Monday!

I never understood Canadian Thanksgiving. They didn't have pilgrims, except for the ones who left America, and by the time the pilgrims got to Canada, they had taken a lot of land from the Indians (on Thanksgiving it's OK to be un-PC and call them Indians, right?), so I doubt they were in the mood to be thankful and share a meal together.

Canadians don't have football on their Thanksgiving, either, except for the normal Monday Night Football. But Canadians don't have much football...and the football they do have...not real football. I wrote a paper once on how American football was better than Canadian football...I think I failed it. Anyway, if they don't have football to watch, and they don't have the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (Macy's only has ONE Thanksgiving Day Parade, and it's on the REAL Thanksgiving), what do they watch? I think TV is just normal TV on Canadian Thanksgiving. How weird is that?

Thanksgiving on a Monday is just not a good idea. Can you imagine having to go to work on the day after Thanksgiving??? I can't either, but I'll let you know what it's like this year, since I work the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Do Canadians even have turkey for Thanksgiving? Maybe they eat, like, caribou and maple sugar candy.

But, back to my original thought. When do they start Christmas shopping? I'm really worried about them, now, the poor little Canadians who don't have the Friday after Thanksgiving Sales. And to think I thought it would be the perfect country to move to after the disasterous election...

Dirty Bathrooms. Or, uh, Mary...

I was in the bathroom at the Galleria today and decided I would write a blog about the dirtiest bathrooms in the world. So, I was halfway through my blog for the night when Mary IMed me and told me to write a 5 page blog about her. Those of you who know me well know that I can't say no to Mary, so, here it goes...

You know when you're little and fighting with your brothers and sisters your mom says, "someday you're going to be best friends, and you'll regret that you're fighting now!" Well, my mom used to say that. Ok, so, she probably said the same thing only in words a 5-year-old could understand. But, anyway, I get what she meant now. My siblings are my best friends. I have a special bond with each of them that could never be reproduced with anyone else. I have great friends, and I have a lot of "best" friends. I have my best friends from high school, my best guy friend, my best friend from college, my best friend from culinary school, my best friend from People to People (even if she is a red sox fan...), and a best friend from every other phase in my life. Some of them I lose touch with, but I always consider them my "best friend" from that time. My siblings, though, have been there through every phase (except Louis and Mary, who missed the first 2 and 4 years of my life, and John and Lisa, who, although aren't related by blood, I consider my siblings...and I didn't meet them until, like, 7 years ago).

So, anyway, back to Mary. She's probably one of the funniest people I know. Sometimes when we're driving I'm afraid I'm going to kill us because she makes me laugh so hard. She's also one of the nicest people I know, underneath her bitchy exterior. She's sympathetic and always does the right thing. She's fun, though, and my favorite way to spend a night is to watch TV with her and Esther. It doesn't matter what we watch (although Babies: Special Delivery is always a favorite).

Mary really likes cookies, and she's been text messaging me every day asking me to bring her some. I drive right by her dorm when I go to work, and if I could, I'd bring her cookies every day. But the boys at work eat all the cookies I make. Mary also likes chinese food. She's my favorite person to eat chinese buffet with. She knows how to do it right, so you're in and out in 20 minutes, but totally full when you leave.

I could go on and on about how great Mary is, but, I'm getting tired and I have a busy day of watching TV tomorrow before I meet Esther and Louis for sushi for dinner. Come back tomorrow...you never know what I'll write about after sushi.

Ok, so, I'm in bed with my computer on my lap, my sunflower seeds and diet coke right next to me, all ready to write in my blog. It makes me feel like I'm back in college. Ah, college...

I didn't really have the "normal" college experience. I mean, I went to Canada...nothing in Canada is really normal. But, I loved it anyway, and I wish I could redo it. I don't think I'd do anything differently. Of course, while I was there I hated it. I couldn't wait to be done and "grown up." But I've learned that grown up isn't that great...especially if you consider me grown up :) But now that I look back on it all I remember is the good stuff. I think about my first year of college and it makes me happy. Kristen was the greatest roommate ever, although we never really had our room to ourselves. That was OK, though, because the rest of our floor was pretty cool, too. I remember Ten Things I Hate About You, Chantal Kreviatzuk's Surrounded and Before You, Strawberry Wine (drinking it AND singing it), The West Side Newsletter (I was creative in my procrastination...), sunflower seeds and coke, Mr. Pong, Pizza Pizza, Mike's Hard Lemonade, Blind Date, my SMC sweatshirt (which I still wear, but now I wash it...), Pokey and DUF (our short-lived fish), Wednesdays in the hallway, stealing pylons, watchin tennis at 4am, Peel Pub (Ok, so I don't remember Peel Pub much...more like standing outside of Peel Pub, waiting to get in...once we got in, everything gets a little fuzzy...), lamas, elephants, bunnies, pigs, and water buffalos. Once I wrote the top 100 ways to procrastinate. I don't think I did much studying...but it was a good year. If you aren't Kristen, Raissa, Dana or someone else from "the ghetto", you probably won't really get any of that, so, sorry.

The next three years were all good too, but, I think your freshman year of college is the best, because no one expects you to do well in school. I know that I took advantage of that. Not that I did great in the next three years, but, I did better than my first year.

Well, I've got to get to sleep now. I have a very big day tomorrow...I'm starting my Christmas shopping! If you want a present from me, let me know what you want...

The worst sports year EVER

Ok, so, I guess I could start out by telling everyone (all 2 people, including me, who will be reading this) why I'm going to start "blogging," but, I'm since it's MY blog, and I can do whatever I want, I'm not going to. I'm going to write about the worst sports year ever. But, come back, 'cause I'll probably post a lot.

First off, I know that the Yankees are a pretty popular team, but, they're one of those teams that you either love or hate, I think. I love them. I don't really understand how you can hate them...I mean, sure, they spend a lot of money, but, if you have it, why not spend it? And if you could buy championships, why wouldn't you? So, the worst sports year ever started when the Yankees lost to the Red Sox. I understand that the Yanks can't win every year, and if they had lost to, say, ANYONE ELSE, I wouldn't have been as upset. But the Red Sox??? They aren't nice people. They don't deserve to win.

Then, the Bills suck. I've heard some talk recently about how they aren't so bad, but, really people...winning 3 of 8 games does not make you good, no matter what sport you're playing.

So, yeah, I'm still a Bills fan, even though they suck. I think it's a Buffalo thing...I HAVE to be a Bills fan. Besides, it's not like I can watch hockey! Stupid NHL...I HATE THIS SPORTS YEAR!!! Oh well, at least next year can't be worse.

Me and my nephew, Aiden