today is shrove tuesday. also known as "fat tuesday." also known by many as "pancake tuesday." why?
because, in many places, one consumes copious amounts of pancakes on the day before ash wednesday.
so, i went out for a pancake dinner tonight.
and ate about a half-dozen forkfuls too many of pancakes.
so now i have a pancake hangover.
the end.
yesterday, i went to IKEA with b-dub and dan2.
we were there for almost five hours.
seriously.
they dropped some coin on a whole whack of furnishings; i tagged along for moral support, dossier carriage and more silliness than a line of famnig hjärtas sitting on a tylösand. it was huge amounts of fun, with minimal melting down. always an excellent combo when shopping.
we began our home-decorating journey with b-dub – eager to begin the afternoon’s festivities – nearly breaking his spine as he gleefully disembarked the complimentary shuttle. once safely on solid, non-slippery ground, he composed himself, glared at the offending shuttle steps, briefly pondered a lawsuit and we all headed inside to get started... on a meal.
en route to the store, dan2 had informed me that they have a system for outings such as ours. (in hindsight, it’s not so much a “system” as a predetermined start line: the cafeteria.) very, very wisely, the fellas always start what might turn into a lengthy undertaking by fueling up. shopping stress + low blood sugar is never a smart idea. so, we hit the IKEA restaurant, grabbed trays and did some carbo-loading. well, i did – you can’t beat their $1.99 pasta special! – while b-dub opted for a pre-made sandwich of questionable origin and dan2 ate roasted chicken with fries. i will leave out what he did with the bones.
once fully satiated (a big chocolate bar split between us for dessert), we were off. on the agenda: get stuff for their office and kitchen, with random items for elsewhere in the home. we spent a long while mulling over kitchen islands of varying coolness – stainless steel? stainless steel and wood? neither? how high? how wide? notes were made, options weighed, and then we pressed on.
next stop, cabinetry. as soon as we arrived in the kitchen-design section, we hit the Wall of Doors, on which was hung every possible cabinet door one could order. i saw one i loved immediately: it was orange. bright orange. i jokingly suggested it, knowing they’d reject it outright... which they did. they might have even scoffed, i can’t quite remember.
after browsing, the guys decided to enlist the aid of an IKEA staffer in figuring out what they’d need and how they’d go about actually purchasing it. one such staffer – let’s call her “patty,” because i have no idea what her actual name was – led us all over to one of the planning stations, which is essentially a computer with which you can make magic happen. if not magic, then at least some really cool 3D renderings of your desired room and desired décor. patty did her best to maintain her calm amid a battery of questions (and i could see her tensing up several times, bless her), but once the guys figured out the software, it was a breeze. a fun breeze, actually.
virtual cabinetry was created and “hung” in the virtual office with the click of a mouse. virtual doors were attached. a virtual tour of the virtual room was taken to make sure it all worked. the room looked fab. then we discovered that, because of the measurements plugged into the system, custom cabinet doors were coming up on the order. expensive custom cabinet doors.
no.
faster than you can say “mercy save us,” dan2 and i scurried off – blueprints in hand – back to the kitchen planning area, while b-dub held their computer and all the coats. room measurements at the ready, dan2 and i set about creating a new plan with pre-measured (i.e., not custom and way less expensive) cupboards and doors. speaking of doors, guess which ones they eventually plugged into the virtual room and then decided they actually loved?
THE ORANGE ONES. the ones i loved. the ones they’d scoffed at.
that’s right. val’s initially outrageous and insane design idea turned out to be just what the office doctor ordered. white cabinets, white desks, white walls and spectacular orange cabinet doors for a brilliant punch of colour. that room is going to look amazing. and i’m not just saying that because i picked the orange doors. even though i am because i totally did.
after what seemed like a thousand years (for us and poor patty, who was later relieved from her shift by someone else because we were there that long), we were done in cabinetry and headed towards the office-furniture section... where we then sat for another few decades.
desktops were compared and contrasted, legs were scrutinized (for the tables, not on each other) and then the issue of the kitchen island re-emerged when one of the fellas stumbled upon a stainless-steel tabletop. this time, a helpful and patient staffer named elizabeth (per her tag) pitched in and guided the guys through a process that put the kibosh on the initial island in favour of a custom combo of tabletop and mount. once again, it’s going to look great once in place. i neglected to include the portion of the afternoon where they first picked out stools, mainly because those stools were chucked later in favour of a much cheaper option once all was said and done, and partly because i'm fairly certain no one is actually still reading this epic blog entry, anyway.
onwards!
once the kitchen and office furnishings were locked and loaded, we descended to the first floor, where all manner of sundry items danced before b-dub’s eyes. pillows! bath mats! duvets! faux-tupperware! we were all getting kind of punchy by that point – i think we’d hit the three-hour mark by then – so he actually began singing and pirouette-ing through the aisles. they picked up random bedroom items and supplies, and bickered over laundry hampers (nylon vs. wicker... nylon won) before we made our final stop: the pick-up area. for those unfamiliar with the world of IKEA, this does not, in fact, refer to some kind of well-hidden hot-spot for sexcapades with randy singles. it’s the warehouse, where you have to locate your desired items yourself, haul them off enormous shelves along massive aisles and then load them onto your well-oiled trolley. by yourself. heaven help you if you’ve gone shopping alone. so, the boys found their stools, loaded ‘em up and we were done!
save for... the checkout.
oh dear.
long-story-at-the-end-of-a-long-story condensed to a readable length: because some of the guys’ items were in stock and some would take a week or more to arrive at the store, they’d have to be delivered in two separate shipments (IKEA only holds in-stock items for 24 hours before mandatory delivery). which meant two separate $69 delivery charges. this did not go over well with dan2. at all. there was some ranting, some calls from the cashier to her supervisor, one stompy trek to the delivery counter (dan2) and b-dub and me repeatedly shoo-ing away other customers who were queuing up behind us (“you probably want to pick another line. we’re going to be a while...”). i started having JC penney flashbacks.
eventually, when it was clear this situation would not be resolved in-store without us having to tuck ourselves in and spend the night in the bedroom division because it would surely take that long, b-dub suggested they just swallow the double-charge. i suggested they then write to head office to complain, because they’d probably be compensated somehow... likely in the form of a gift card that would cover that second delivery fee if not more.
calmer but still peeved, dan2 relented and proceeded to pay for the purchases. as the cashier scanned the smaller items and sent them along the conveyor belt, she said, “you have to buy a bag to put those in.”
i tried not to start laughing out loud.
seems the delivery department – the one that would be charging $69 x 2 – won’t accept anything (loose) that isn't in a box. either you bag them, or you have to take ‘em with you yourself when you walk out of the store. so, on top of everything else and as if to rub a little salt in the wound, dan2 and b-dub had to BUY two plastic bags (@ ¢5 a bag) in order to have these items included in the delivery that would already be costing them $138. sure, it might only have been an additional dime, but by this point the sheer principle of the thing had become so hilariously wrong. nonetheless, amid MUCH muttering, they bought the bags, i bagged the items, they dropped everything off at the delivery desk and the words “put it in the letter... just put it in the letter” (i.e., the impending complaint letter) were repeated ad nauseum by us all.
(note: “put it in the letter” will now also be the go-to, smart-ass reply when one of us starts complaining at length about anything, anywhere at any time.)
with all the sturm-und-drang done, we boarded the shuttle back to the subway (b-dub carefully holding the handrails and gingerly stepping on this time), exhausted but satisfied. the boys managed to check off all the items on their to-buy list, we had loads of laughs as they shopped, and nary a weeping employee was left in our wake.
that we know of, anyway.
for anyone who worried i might have thrown myself off a cliff or something since last saturday, fear not. i didn't. i haven't updated in a week partly because i didn't really have anything to say, and partly because i wanted the valentine's day entry to stand at centre stage for a while. plus, i felt following it up too quickly with something silly or frivolous would be inauthentic and ring false. so, i left it alone for almost seven days.
to that end, i just wanted to say thank you to the folks who emailed me or called me privately to comment on that feb. 14th entry. it really meant a lot. ditto to my amazing pair of de-facto aunties who commented here. thank you, as always, for reading and getting it.
now. moving on...
i spent a sizable chunk of today shopping at IKEA with b-dub and dan2. it was, in a word, hilarious.
the details of that jaunt will be posted here tomorrow.
someday, i would like to have a valentine.
i’ve never had one. not ever. not as a teenager, not in my 20s, not now. it shouldn't surprise me, and i suppose it doesn't. i’ve also never had anyone say “i love you” to me, romantically. never been pursued. never even been asked out on a date. not once.
and that breaks my heart a little. or a lot, depending on the day.
with varying degrees of success, i try to remind myself that i’m not really a repellent human being, even if that’s the way my situation sometimes makes me feel. i tell myself that, you know, i’m actually quite a catch. that i would make someone a wonderful partner, that maybe i just haven’t been discovered yet and that perhaps the universe is keeping me woefully, achingly single because it wants to make sure i’m available when the right girl comes along. but it’s hard to keep that internal pep rally going year after year after year. i live in a world of couples, and i’m surrounded by friends who are married, or in long-term relationships, or who have found themselves someone great to love. yet my dance card remains empty.
each year i think, “next year will be different.” by next year, it’ll happen. by next year, i’ll have found someone amazing. by next year, that amazing someone will love me. and by next year, when valentine’s day rolls around, my hopelessly romantic heart will finally be able to celebrate properly. i’m so ready for it that it sometimes feels like i might burst from the strain of a lifetime of anticipation... or completely collapse under the sheer weight of the wait.
but fate obviously has its own plans, and a valentine for me has not yet been among them. maybe someday.
so today, on this valentine’s day, i want to make a wish. a wish for that someday. a wish for what i want... which isn’t anything grand or extreme or outrageous. it’s love. someone extraordinary to love, who’ll love me as much in return. i want so very much to know what that’s like.
i want to have someone look at me like no one else is in the room.
i want to feel the comforting warmth of a hand unexpectedly placed gently on the small of my back.
i want to hear a quiet whisper that says, “you’re beautiful.”
i want to see a smile that takes my breath away.
i want to melt into open arms. gently. tenderly.
i want the perfect kiss.
i want that kind of love. whole and complete.
i want these things and, really, little more.
maybe they’ll arrive someday. i hope they do.
so, today, that's the wish i make.
because, someday, i really would love to have a valentine.
* why have julia ormond and natascha mcelhone started using american accents out of character? i watched the former in an interview with bonnie hunt, and the latter is currently in a neutrogena ad... and both have scrapped their lovely british accents for (kind of shaky and unconvincing) plain american ones. whom do they think they’re fooling? and who told them this was a good idea?
* the smartest comedy on the air right now? in my opinion, Scrubs. brilliant and inventive, week in and week out. 30 Rock comes in second.
* Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives might be my favourite food network show ever.
* i have completely stopped watching Heroes, a show i once loved. why? oh, that’s right, because it now bores me silly. honestly, i don’t think a series has ever flamed out that quickly for me before. in related news, i am barely hanging on as ER wheezes to its final episode. i thought i could stay engaged in that drama right to the bitter end but, damn, the producers and writers are really, really trying hard to make me not care anymore.
* these days, i’ve found myself flicking on The Biggest Loser when i need ambient entertainment. i watched an episode while putting together IKEA furniture at young beatrix’s house one saturday and thought, “huh. not bad.” so now i tune in on occasion. (somewhere, denette’s head just exploded.)
* are you watching Celebrity Rehab Presents: Sober House? i swear to you, without a word of lie, it’s a really compelling, often shocking and surprisingly moving show. sure, these might be D-list “celebrities,” but their addictions are real and watching them battle their demons (sometimes winning, sometimes losing) is fascinating. it’s one of the few series i watch where i actually sit down on the couch for the full hour.
* speaking of, the other shows i watch undisturbed and without distraction are Damages and LOST. love love love love them both.
* every day, without fail, i watch the trifecta of regis, ellen and the ladies of The View. even if i’m not watching directly, i’ll have them on in the background while i clean, or write, or what have you. occasionally, i’ll swap out ellen for kathie lee and hoda on Today. i always eat breakfast during ellen. this whole schtick has now become my routine.
* i am strangely disinterested in the upcoming oscars.
* i hope that Dollhouse doesn’t suck.
i’ve been feeling unusually sad for the past few days. i blame it on a number of factors (including lack of sleep), but i know most of it stems from the impending arrival of valentine’s day and the canyon of loneliness i tend to fall into as a result. but that’s a post for another day.
suffice it to say, i was especially blue this morning. so much so that i eventually found myself just sitting at my computer, crying. it was pathetic and clichéd and i was upset with myself for even engaging the self-pity, but i obviously needed to get that out of my system because i felt better when i was done.
anyway...
i collected myself and went about my day. i had breakfast, did some work, chatted with linda on- and offline, made a smoothie, did some other work, watched TV... and so on. still in a funk, but just moving through it.
late in the afternoon, my phone rang. it was my mom, calling to read me my horoscope from the newspaper. now, my mom and i don’t really talk about my feelings (especially sad ones) and she didn’t know i’ve been down for a few days, let alone that i sobbed into my keyboard earlier today. and she also doesn’t usually call me with my astrological forecasts... in fact, i think she only does it around dec. 31st, when the horoscopes for the upcoming year are published. nonetheless, she called today.
“hi! i thought you might want to hear your horoscope...”
“why? what does it say???”
and this is what it said (copied from the paper’s website):
There's no valid reason to believe that destiny is working against you. Ignore any thoughts of doubt or failure. No matter what seems wrong, remain determined, resolute and courageous. The mood will soon turn positive.
seriously.
it’s not so much the exceedingly fitting content of the horoscope that kind of freaked me out – because, let’s be honest, “don’t stop believing!” horoscopes are not uncommon – but the fact that it was published today, that my mom read it (we don’t share a sign, so she'd made a specific point of seeking out mine) and that she then picked up the phone to call me and read it to me exactly when i needed to hear it.
maybe it’s mother’s intuition... even though she didn’t preface or follow the horoscope with anything that would indicate why she thought i needed to hear it more than any other horoscope on any other day.
maybe it was just a coincidence... even though, as we know, there is no such thing.
or maybe it was just the universe putting a couple of chain links together to gently offer me a nudge, tilt my chin upwards and wipe away a tear.
before i begin, a gentle caveat: readers with especially sensitive constitutions or an aversion to excess grossness may wish to skip this entry, because it ventures into decidedly disgusting territory.
you can go. it’s okay. i understand.
if you’re still here, please know that yesterday was a big day. a momentous day. an exciting day. a long and tiring day.
why?
no, not because of the superbowl.
yesterday was historic because yesterday i unclogged two drains in my apartment.
it may not sound like much, and i know it doesn’t seem like a particularly fun way to spend one’s sunday, but these were drains that have essentially been mildly to moderately blocked since the day i moved in, resulting in water sort of slowly gurgling down them rather than flowing in any kind of efficient, normal manner. they were functional, certainly, but they were by no means functioning properly. they’d irritated me since i washed my first set of dishes (kitchen sink) and engaged in my inaugural teeth-brushing (bathroom sink). as time wore on, they seemed to get worse and water was having a harder and harder time disappearing.
so, yesterday, armed with a 4L jug of vinegar and a fresh box of baking soda, i decided to climb my everest. it was me vs. the drains. for four hours. the whole process was, in a word, REVOLTING.
and yet, in two more words, it was also fantastically satisfying.
but i’m getting ahead of myself...
i like to think i’m a fairly clever, resourceful, sometimes-handy gal. i’ve got my tool box, i’ve got a brain, i’ve got google at the ready, and i did more than my share of macgyvering back when i lived at hell house. so, i can generally take care of the occasional odd job on my own. sure, it’s sometimes more band-aid work than anything else, but i get whatever weird and obscure task it might be done and i enjoy the satisfaction of having done it myself.
these drains were no exception.
i hesitated for a very long time about dumping vast quantities of toxic chemicals into the plumbing in order to solve the problem. aside from my own inherent, warning-label-induced fear that i might somehow accidentally splash some into my eyes or drop it onto the floor (where it would burn a hole straight through to the apartment below mine), i like to be conscious of the environment... and i figured anything with the image of a skeletal hand on the front probably might not be the most eco-friendly option out there.
ages ago, i’d looked for green solutions. one quick google for “unclog drain naturally” brought up multiple sites with the same recipe: baking soda + vinegar + 10 minutes + flush with pot of boiling water. repeat as needed until water whooshes quickly and easily down. i’d used this method in the kitchen sink last year, and it *did* improve the drainage, but didn’t completely clear it. i reasoned that, at the time, i didn’t use enough vinegar. that was not the case yesterday.
this time, with a moonshine jug-sized vat of vinegar, quantity would not be an issue. i started in the kitchen...
i followed the instructions, but the clog was still sort of there when all was said and done. dammit. i tried again... only, this time, i decided to add “use plunger” to the mix.
all i can say is: OMG.
for starters, this was the first time i had ever used my plunger, EVER. it was given to me back when i first moved into hell house, but i’d never needed it. so i wasn’t really well-versed in plunger dynamics or terribly familiar with how freakishly effective one can be. for the uninitiated, i would also like to present the following fun fact: when you plunge, whatever guck and filth and sludge and slime that you “free” when you push DOWN on the plunger often comes back UP into your sink when you release, as though your pipes are actually vomiting at you.
let me just say that plunger-induced pipe vomit is just as pretty as it sounds. when i plunged the kitchen sink, on the “updraft,” i was met with a small spattering of water and greyish debris that appeared to be solid but which was, in fact, semi-solid at best. when i went to pick up what looked like chunks of limescale so that i could toss them in the trash, they turned out to be sludge. melt-between-your-fingers alien sludge. i rinsed the sink with hot water to wash the sludge bits back down, plunged once more and, is that a chorus of angels i hear?!?!?!, the clog was gone. unclogged. the water poured down the drain unobstructed and free. at last! i poured a pot of boiling water into the sink just to be sure and watched with glee as it vanished in a heartbeat.
awesome!
buoyed by my success, i moved to the bathroom sink. i knew this one would be more of a challenge because of The Hair Factor (henceforth known as THF). see, the kitchen clog was likely a combo of grease and other fatty deposits (sort of like a clogged artery), but the bathroom sink was likely both of those things... plus decades’ worth of hair from previous tenants.
you’re forgiven if you just urped a little bit.
i will condense the THREE HOUR bathroom-sink attack into the following paragraph: i did the baking soda + vinegar + boiling water schtick to no avail. i plunged, and a large quantity of thick black sludge splorted out (not splurted... SPLORTED). the plunging process also sent filthy rust-coloured water squirting out from all sorts of nether regions of the sink... from where, i have no idea (it wasn’t coming out of any pipes or faucets, but it was splittering onto the floor each time i depressed the plunger). i plunged again. more nauseating goop.
now, i pause this story for the following bit of information: for portions of this process, both in the kitchen and in the bathroom, i did not wear gloves. i actually touched the alien sludge bits with bare hands. surprisingly, it did not gross me out. at all. for some reason, the germophobic part of my brain that would normally have been curled up in the fetal position and weeping at the mere notion of 40-year-old guck spewing from a pipe, was totally okay with everything. perhaps it was because the clean-freak part of my brain had completely taken over, and this was all just part of the job that needed doing. no idea. but i figured if millions of plumbers can do this kind of stuff and worse without wearing gloves, and none of them seem to be dying from it, i’d be fine. i did put gloves on when it got really really vile (see below), but for the most part i did my work unsheathed.
after several runs of the recipe on the bathroom sink, the water flow was better... but still not whistle clean. i had to go out to meet friends for a quick dinner, and the entire time we were eating i was quietly wondering if, in my absence, the loosened chunks of sediment, scum, slime and THF were somehow recongealing like the shattered fragments of the metal-alloy T-1000 played by robert patrick in T2: Judgment Day. would i get home and find a fresh, new clog that was bigger and stronger than the decaying one i thought i destroyed?????
turns out: yes. sort of.
upon returning to my apartment and the bathroom and the sink, i saw what i thought was a tiny gathering of hair hanging from the little metal crossbar about 3” down into the drain.
“oh! i’ll just pull that out,” thought i.
those of you who are shaking your heads already know exactly where this is going.
that innocuous-looking little cluster of hair was, in fact, attached to a long, complex, absolutely horrifying nest of hair that was also EMBEDDED in all manner of black and grey sludge. it was the mother of all THF. so, i pulled... and pulled... hard!... and what emerged was more and more disgusting with every inch that was revealed. the pulling also “disturbed” residual sediment in the drain, so i was pretty much back at square two by the time i yanked free whatever i could yank. (after the first inch, btw, i ran for the gloves. i’m brave but not insane.)
anyway, very very long and drawn-out story short: after several more doses of baking soda and vinegar, and umpteen pots of boiling water... the bathroom sink finally, FINALLY cleared. completely. i kept pouring huge volumes of water into it just to be sure i wasn’t imagining things in a fatigue-related delirium. but no matter how much water i dumped, the drain did not tighten. the pipes did not clog. the sludge had obviously melted enough that it could be washed away for good. i was so happy i actually jumped up and down and clapped my hands.
and today, my drains are unclogged. HOORAY!
last night, i went to sleep knowing that i would no longer have to watch dishwater pool and seep away, nor would i have to wonder what kind of THF might be causing my bathroom sink to hate me. both sinks are now just as beautiful and spotless on the inside as they always have been on the outside. both drains are now clear. totally, completely, entirely clear. and, while it may not seem like a life-changing experience to the casual observer, this was one big, fat accomplishment for me on a number of levels.
which is why this whole story is epic in its length, occasionally sickening in its details and totally, totally blog-worthy.
