well-dressed foolish ideas

(*Also known as the day I got the keys to the new place.)

Dear Previous Tenants in my new place --

Isn't the place amazing? I'm sure you're heartbroken to leave the harbor views behind. I know I would be. And what about those views of downtown from bed? Yeah, those will be nice to wake up to. I can't wait. I love that 70% of the walls in the place are glass. Windows to the whole city. How awesome! Views of loads of interesting things to look at. And a balcony to sit on when it's not -2 degrees in the sun like it was today (supposedly).

My whole day was giddiness. I got the keys from one of you people. I cleaned up after you (for shame!) and polished the kitchen appliances. I even cleaned the oven, which took me not long at all. So to all the others of you that have done that before me, my thanks. Really.

Tomorrow some burly men will be moving things around the place. I imagine everything should settle down by the weekend. So I was thinking about having a party. Ya know, one of those housewarming types. Why don't you come by to see what will be changing with the place and how all the new furniture looks in it? I'll be handing out door gifts - Windex and a roll of paper towels. If you want, I'll even give you a demonstration since it seems you've never before seen or heard of the concept of cleaning windows. Here's one of the views from one of the windows for you to remember the place by. (See how you can now see through the windows? Neat, huh?)

See you at the party!

Hugs and kisses,

-The New Windexer
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I'm watching a TV show about sharks and some guy trying to parachute into a shark cage - in the ocean - near a well known galapagos shark swarming area. According to this TV show, they are fond of chewing on humans. They're apparently engaging in some kind of extreme sporting activity. Those young whippersnappers!

I see three problems with this plan. 1 - This guy is jumping out of a perfectly good plane. I don't get it. 2 - This guy is attempting to land in an area about the size of a queen-sized bed. In the ocean. Which means it's not exactly completely stationary. And 3 - Yeah, he's totally gonna miss and then be shark bait.

Oh my god, there's a guy parachuting in lederhosen. In Bavaria.

I can't take it anymore, I have to turn it off.
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My dream last night was a bit odd. Keep in mind that anyone's name below was actually just a dream extra that looks a bit like what I imagine (or in some cases know) the real people to look like. And I know none of them personally. Further, no one I know personally appeared in the dream. Not even my cat.

I was having a party. In my apartment. I've never before seen this apartment but it was nice! It may have been some kind of combination of the new place and the old place in Vienna. And it wasn't really a party, per se. Perhaps it was just more of a people coming round kind of party. So, onto the guest list. Deb from SmittenKitchen was in my kitchen. She was cooking something that smelled fantastic, and I was sitting on the floor playing with Sir Hal with Fish hoping like there was no tomorrow that Deb was being kind enough to make cinnamon rolls. Leta was sitting on a couch I've never seen before watching Elmo, while Maggie, Heather and Jon were relaxing with some tequila (??) by the bar. Ari was rolling around on the floor with her puppy - in her winter coat. (Okay, sure.) Udge was discussing books and music with Smitten while she cooked. Photographing the whole thing was Torrie, bustling about the place with her Nikon camera. She was wearing scrubs and looked fantastic in them. And because every party needs a tax person, Erin was volunteering to do everyone's taxes only if they were unemployed and would pay her with carrots. Just before I woke up, Sam arrived with a bottle of wine - the best I've ever tasted in my life.

Yes, these are some of the blogs I read.

Oh, and Heather and Jon look great with purple hair. Just so ya know.
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In preparation of NaBloPoMo, I'm scouring the very edges of my brain trying to come up with my backup list so for those days when I have utterly nothing to write about I can fall back on my backup list of superb ideas. I expect I will be needing somewhere in the region of about 25 backup topics, as I fully expect to run out of ideas on November 3rd, but I know I'll have something to mutter about on Thanksgiving and Election Day. So, I'm gearing up.

But at least I know that I'm not the only one with OCD.

Throw me some ideas if you're so inclined, eh? Please.
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So there I was, wallowing in my own self pity. It's what I do every day, well mostly every day when I'm not distracted by the internet or my camera or Flickr - which is so not the internet, but rather just my sick and twisted addiction for which I need intervention. At least once a day I get distracted by looking at job postings on various websites, and this is in no way similar to being distracted by the internet. It is an exercise in futility, or so it seems, and it is just mind bogglingly depressing. I'm surprised it has yet to incite a breakdown or me falling to pieces in a sobbing and wailing fit. Oh how my cat would just love that! (Look... The washing machine terrifies her. A door closing terrifies her. Seriously, she would be shaking and cowering under the bed if and/or when the breakdown begins.)

The problem with the whole not being employed thing that I have going on here is that I can't seem to find a remedy that suits me. I'm over qualified for this many jobs and under qualified for that many jobs. I've gotten a few emails that said that they were so happy to see that I would want to work at company x, but they're so sorry that they don't have an opening that suits all of my skills, but just some of them. Those people promise to contact me when they have an opening. Should I hold my breath or put those emails into a special folder? Some emails seem to say, "Nice try, girlie, but you're WAAAY out of your league here." As I read these, I can just hear my resume hitting the rim of the wastebasket and a cheer from an HR lady "THREE points, Wally!", or if we must be precise, the digital equivalent of the emptying of the recycle bin. God that sound is just insanely annoying, isn't it? And then there are the emails that are enticing and intriguing, "We want to talk to you, but we just want to know if you fancy moving to Timbuktu." Ugh! Moving again? Not my idea of a good time. Plus, I like Vancouver, so I'm staying put. It's rather saddening to think if only I would be willing to move to Timbuktu, I might already have a job. But really, Timbuktu? Meh.

I've lost count of the number of places I've sent my resume. I don't know how many different versions of cover letters I've written. I've even sent my resume to offices where I have no prior experience or knowledge at all of the industry just, ya know, for kicks. I've redone my resume and resent it to people. I've made contact with HR people that I spoke with months ago. I'm starting to think that the end of the rope is coming up pretty quickly, and to make matters worse, it feels like the end of the rope is fraying just as fast.

I've even gone so far as walking around the neighborhood to check out nearby coffee shops for Help Wanted signs. Even they aren't looking for people. It's like the stars are aligning and this kinda karma means I was Adolf Hitler in a previous life. Or ya know, Eva. Or Ilse. Or Pol Pot. Or Barney the purple dinosaur. I love you, you love me, we're a .... Yeah, sorry about that.

So imagine my astonishment and surprise and shock horror! when I got a phone call to set up an interview today. I almost burst into tears right there on the phone, but I noticed my cat, so I kept my shit together long enough to jot down some details. It's so depressing the amount of excitement one interview appointment has instilled in me. But it's true, I'm all giddy about it.
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(Mrs. Kennedy says that's (probably not) latin for "blog or die.")

I put down my name. I'm on the list. Go find out what it is, and if you have a blog, do it! If you don't have a blog, read the damn thing Mrs. Kennedy wrote anyways because you can put your name down, too! (Your commitment is a little less than blog posts everyday, but DAUNTING nonetheless. Not really.)

Hey leave me a note if you're doing this too, so I can come and read your posts and commiserate about not having fun things to write about after November 3rd, k? K.
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So I went and threw out some old links on the right there and reorganized a few of them. And renamed the Links section because let's be honest here, I never updated it on a weekly basis, so that was a whole lot misleading. Nonetheless, if you haven't already, please go check out those sites. Especially, as its October - breast cancer awareness month - go and check out the Breast Cancer Site.
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I have nothing to report, nothing to write about. I'm still looking for a job and I'm still quite bored with the whole process.

I wake up in the morning and read the news on the internet, I flip on the TV for background noise. And I go outside and take pictures of things within a random vicinity of the place where I sleep. Then I come back, defrost some meat and make something for dinner. I fill in sudoku puzzles for a couple hours or read the internet after dinner and then go to sleep. At some point everyday I throw a bunch of toys at my cat in an effort to toy with her. Sometimes she plays along, just to make me feel better. Sometimes I mix it all up and do laundry or dishes. Its overwhelmingly dull. Today I spent a bunch of time arranging delivery of things and hooking up services for the flat that we're moving into in a week. I'll have something to do in a week. Yay?
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So I went ahead and basically forgot about the internet for the past couple of days. Well I forgot about the communicative part of the internet - blogger and flickr. I think I might have been struck over the head, but there's no proof. Anyways, go check out where you fit on this quiz. I found it amusing that there are so few questions. Apparently I'm one of those people that thinks its socially responsible to defend civil liberties and private citizens from coercion and violence. Yay me.

I've been feeling a bit out of it and poorly for the past two days and have been sleeping a lot to see if maybe that would make me feel better faster. It does seem to work for a couple of hours after I wake up, but then if I don't go back to sleep within a couple hours, I just seem to go downhill and fast. On the up side of the past two days, I have finally found a Starbuck's in this city that still had the Halloween coffee mugs that I totally fell in love with during a coffee break on that one day that I was looking at places in which to live. It took me a while to find a Starbuck's with these mugs in the city of 30 bajillion Starbuck's. Shocking, I know.

On a side note, if you're reading this can you go ahead and do me a favor and let me know what kind of experience you have had with a previous employer writing you a letter of reference? How did that whole process work for you? (Pretty please, and I promise I won't pester you about this again.)
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Over the course of the past 24 hours, these are the things that I have learned. This list is very very disjointed. Each paragraph is alarmingly different than the next.

Night pictures are, generally, best taken when one owns a tripod. I would further suggest that should one own a tripod, it would behoove one to use the tripod for night shots.

Recycling deposits in Canada are not really worth getting back, since all I got back today couldn't even get me half a cup of coffee at one of the three thousand Starbucks in the city.

Questions on the practice driving test online are hilariously silly, sometimes suggesting that traveling too close to a truck is unsafe only when one is using their cell phone. Which I guess is true, but maybe not the only time.

Reality TV is absolutely and entirely hilarious. Why it is that I just didn't see it before might have had something to do with me being in a place where I didn't actually have access to any American TV shows, but whatever. Seriously, has anyone watched this (apparently British import) wife swapping show? It is pure brilliance. They take two completely different families and trade wives. They do the stupidest things and are obscenely hilarious, in the not funny, but head-shakingly hilarious. Also, hey who doesn't already know the premise of The Bachelor? Oh my god, whoever thought of this has got to be some really disturbed individual. 25 women battle it out for a night or week or something for a dozen roses. The bachelor hands them out after the end of the time span. The next week he only has 9, the week after 6. I don't know how many after 6 because there were only 6 in the show tonight and I've never seen this before! But during the weeks, he takes them on dates. Dates with like 6 girls at a time. Or if you're the lucky girl that week, you get a date with him alone or with one other girl. And apparently at the end of the season, the bachelor and the girl he chooses get married. WHAT? WHO THOUGHT OF THIS? There's so much drama it's stunning. And oh my god, the series on now, they're all in Rome. And the guy, yeah, he's a prince. Someone give him some shining armor and a damn horse already. Seriously.

I like peanut butter cookies fresh out of the oven, and I like them even better when they have chocolate chips in them. I also learned that I need a proper mixer, or better biceps. Either or, really.

Lasagna is totally easy to make, but you need a lot of cheese. Oh dear arteries, please don't hate me so!

Mia is adorable, and has taken to sleeping on a chair in the dining area. Its best to not sit on cats. In case, you know, you were considering it. However, it is perfectly acceptable if a cat sits on a human's lap. That's okay. You can let that happen.

Butter is one highly popular ingredient in desserts and we have actually gone through TUBS of butter since arriving nearly 4 weeks ago. That's plural as well as indicative of a big container.

French subtitles or identification on food labels intimidate me. I know literally no French. I have less than no desire to learn French. I spent 7 years studying Spanish in school. I was fluent for about 4 of those years. Maybe 3. I learned German in Austria, although I hate the language (sorry, its so not nice to spit on people when you tell them you love them.) and hardly spoke it to people that I actually knew and spent time with. Everyone else was totally fair game though. I have used up my brain space that was reserved for languages. Once the German drips out of my brain entirely, maybe I'll consider caring about any little bit of French. Til then, grocery store shelf stockers, can you please rotate those damn jars so English is facing the aisle? Especially since, you know, we're in BRITISH COLUMBIA, where people here... well they don't really even acknowledge that they're of the same country as those French Canadians a couple provinces away. Thanks much, dearies.

I still don't really like Adam Sandler in movies, but I can so tolerate him more than a few other actors. Their names have been blocked from my memory, thank god.

I can make peanut butter cookies in a very short time span. The baking is the part that really gets me down since it takes SO LONG. (Hey, 5 dozen cookies take a while when one has only one cookie sheet to use.)

The Oakland A's totally didn't deserve to be in the World Series anyways. Detroit Red Wings - they still rule. And I didn't openly have to be supportive of the Canucks, I just had to act like I didn't really care who won. This won't go well when Detroit comes to Vancouver and I go to the game.

Flat LCD TV screens - they're big. And expensive. At least the ones I saw lately. But shopping online for TVs and beds is totally much more fun than going to stores and talking to people.

I'm not allowed to have peanut butter and apples in bed anymore, as I'm too klutzy to actually hold on to the pieces 100% of the time. And I needn't accidentally kick the door frame in the middle of the night. It tends to wake up everyone in the house when I scream "Fer fuck's sake!" Whoops.

Someone I know is crazy about the word rib-rageous. Sweet, non?
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I have been fearing this moment since actually realizing that I was really going to move to Vancouver and actually live here.

Today is the first day that I will publicly support the Vancouver Canucks. For fear of my life, mostly. Red Wings, please don't kill me. I'm not really a traitor! I still heart you, Red Wings. Secretly.
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First things first here. HI BLOGGER! STOP SUCKING. You've totally been sucking for over a day. I don't like it, so cut it out. (I know, right? And this is all I wanted to post really, but I definitely am allowed to complain how crap this is. Because. Just because.)

Thanks. On to other more personal things...


Hi.

My name is Kirsten and I'm a complete Flickr addict.

I fear I may need some intervention soon from my most nearest and dearest.

And can you please stop staring at my hand that has this camera attached to it? I can't put it down. It's really not my fault. It's glued to me. In a not-really-glued-to-me kind of way. But, whatever, you know what I mean. I can't put it down, I am sure I'd turn into a pumpkin if I did that! And since it's nearly Halloween, being a pumpkin could be dangerous, suicidal even. Don't make me!

Oooh look at those pretty new pictures on Flickr! Oooh!


Oh my god, Bush used the word - intransigence - in the proper context in a speech about North Korea. I fell over when I heard that. I wonder if he can spell it.
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Making Thanksgiving dinner wasn't my responsibility. I was treated to a dinner-making free night. But I couldn't resist doing something, so I made the stuffing, which is always my favorite part of any thanksgiving dinner, and chopped some veg and cleaned dishes. I also ate until I literally nearly burst. I thought I wasn't going to make it through the night without just bursting. I was so shocked to wake up this morning in one piece. And thankful! For not having to pick up little bits of burst me. I had made the apple pie for dessert, of course, the day before thanksgiving, and I didn't have any room for pie last night, but I had some nonetheless. With vanilla ice cream. It's all about gluttony on thanksgiving. Or is it all about stupidly stuffing yourself so you feel ill? I can't recall.

So, as is tradition, one has to be humbly thankful and honor stuff that, you know, you should. I was honoring and thanking the new camera all day yesterday for coming home with me from the store. I took nearly 1,000 pictures of way too many things, most of which came out too light, too dark, too weird, bad angle, funny composition, garbage in the background, garbage in the foreground and then a couple of the kitten. And I find her terribly cute. I still have yet to understand the fascination with the sink, but she made herself very comfortable in the sink during the afternoon.

We didn't play the typical thanksgiving game. You know the one where everyone lists the things for which they're thankful. I've got a list, but I'm going to save it for my native thanksgiving. Canada, please don't stone me to death. Thanks, eh!
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I got the cheapest cell phone on offer, whereby cheap means free. So I can call people now without it costing me all of my savings for 5 minutes of chat. With this new cell phone plan, I get 15 minutes more without all of my savings dwindling to nothing. It's like Christmas came early. Or something.

My mother thinks the new cell phone is extravagant, what with there being a few other purchases of late. Because buying a 7 dollar melon baller, that's just over the top. But seriously, I love it. It removes the horrible hard core of apples quite well and I'm sure it would do a lovely job balling melon pieces. I also acquired a nice new pie plate in which to make Dutch Apple Pie. And, oh dear baby Jesus, the pie, it smelled like sweet heaven.

We got one of those handheld mixers, and I think some people call them mixing wands? I don't know, but I think it's the greatest kitchen appliance for being compact and easy to store and clean. It has a whisk. Everyone needs an electric whisk. That's really all there is to say about that.

We bought a moose. Or he's an elk. I don't know the difference. Okay, okay, so he's a little stuffed animal, but he's dressed up like a mountie. (That mountie is missing a vital part of his mountie-hood - the horse. Where's the horse??) Better version?

And as I tend to be like this, I saved the best new gadget for last. Because I can, and it's so awesome I had to have the time to dream up which were the best and most awesome-est adjectives I could use to describe my love and my lurve for my new toy.

Oh Canon Rebel EOS, my most favorite-est (and newest!) digital camera, how I adore thee! I shall compare thee to a summer's day. Or maybe just save that and say oh-my-god-you-rock-and-roll-like-no-other!

It sure fixed the no pictures taken problem. Since I got it, and the battery was charged (Ahem, last night at about 8 in the evening) I have taken over 500 pictures. But they're all test pictures. Experimental. Ugly. But I am so going to start taking pretty ones soon. Because with this camera, you can't help but take pretty pictures.
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So today is all about cleaning, doing laundry, editing my resume, fixing my cover letter, signing a lease for a GORE. JUS. apartment, and finding a new recipe for cookies because we're out of brownies. Yeah, that's right. We have no dessert. Oh god NO!! So I intend to purchase the makings of peanut butter cookies, oh-my-god-how-I-love-them-so! I need something to pick me up after the disaster that was more cornish pasties last night. I swear ta gads, I need to find a new dough recipe because the one I have, well it just sucks.

Oh the funnest (that's a word now, I just made it a word) part of last night's disaster of dough that was dry and gross for the pasties was that the smoke alarm went off while I was preheating the oven. Apparently, the cleaning lady, yeah, she likes to put oily grill pans BACK into the oven rather than leaving them in the dishwasher. Hooray for the cleaning lady! The windows in the temporary place, they're not the kind that one can open. Well, not the windows that one would want to open in case the smoke alarm was blaringly beeping its alarm that the cleaning lady is cruel. There are three small squares of glass along the floor that have hinges that allow the glass to open from the bottom out, so there's a teeny tiny wedge of open window. It doesn't make much sense to me, but I guess it keeps human adults (and perhaps fat children, as well) from throwing themselves (or let's be realistic here, falling) out of a window from the 13th floor. They do not, however, make for good ventilation devices. Smoke rises, okay? Nonetheless, we opened the windows. All three of them. And then for about 10 minutes I could be found standing beneath the deafening smoke alarm with a big pillow in my hands waving it frantically past the smoke alarm to just shut the thing up already. Every few seconds I would yell, "Mia!" to get her to stop walking around on the one inch ledge on the outside part of the window. I mean, we're 13 floors up. That fall would probably be deadly. I imagined after about 5 minutes of yelling at her that if I pushed her, it would still be deadly. So instead, I put her in the safety of the bedroom-sans-windows.

I've gotten myself a phone and I tried to transfer all the information from my Austrian phone to my new and horribly cheap Vancouver phone, but the new one, the one I presume was put on the market after my Austrian phone, it doesn't have Bluetooth. Or infrared. Or any transferring capabilities. I can only Bluetooth a handsfree device. WHAT?? So yeah, I'm just going to go have the Austrian phone unlocked and hope that I don't lose everyone's phone number what with unlocking it and changing the sim cards. I expect it all to go horribly, horribly wrong. Plus I feel stupid carrying two cell phones. Who does that?

Housekeeping came by yesterday and told me that the air conditioning unit in this place is broken. Oh. Okay. (Huh?) And then he said that he'd just test it out if I think I would need it in the next couple of months. Yeah, mister, I totally will need the AC in the dead of fall, followed closely by the dead of winter. And just to mention this once more, I'm not staying here past the beginning of November because we got a PRETTY PRETTY place to live... So I told him I thought it wouldn't be needed and ask if maybe he could test it out later. So I guess he'll come back in November and ask the next people to stay here if they want the AC to work properly in November and December. Cuz who doesn't want AC when it will be pouring down rain all the time?

Okay I can't dream up another disaster story so I'm going to go follow the cleaning lady as she walks around the place and see if I can't freak her right the fuck out.
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So the apartment hunting went well. We didn't take any pictures while we were touring around in any of the available options, but we did decide on the one that we want to live in and let me just say...

It. Is. GORE. JUS.

Pictures to come - in like November when we actually live there.
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Oh the thrill of being (still) unemployed! Its like I can't get enough of cooking and baking and shopping for fresh food with which to cook and bake.

I'm ashamed to admit this, after being so dismissive about it a couple weeks ago, but I've been watching the reruns of Gilmore Girls that have been airing during the day. I love it! It's not at all what I thought it would be, and I can't believe that for 7 years I've missed out on this show. This just means that I'm going to need to go to the store and buy some DVD's.

I haven't taken one photograph since I got here. I shall amend this and maybe post some here if I feel so inclined.

I love the rental car. I use it everyday. I love it, love it, love it. I want a car again. It would help a lot if I had a job for that, huh?

I have read 6 magazines in 2 days. Please someone, make a new magazine for me to read? I am not buying books mainly because I have about 200 being shipped over here at the moment, and really, do I need to add to that? No. I think not.

I had a weird dream last night. I got married. In a park with trees and grass. And a girl there, she stepped on a dead squirrel. And the dead squirrel guts, they were on her shoe. There was also a chase scene, where some government-looking people in shiny black cars and those typical sunglass wearing guys were trying to get my (and here's where it gets fuzzy, I think not-quite-yet, but could-have-already-been-ceremonied) husband and my man, well, he turned us both into butterflies. Yeah I know, right? Who wouldn't want to marry a guy that can turn you both into butterflies when running from the law! And even better, after being found, AGAIN, by those pesky G-men, he turned us both into AIR. We were wind. For like 5 minutes until the stupid people chasing us couldn't find us and gave up. Quitters! But at least they didn't breath us in, or that would have been bad.

Oh! And the guy doing the ceremony, he had a voice like Christopher Walken. But he looked more like Dom DeLuise, at about the age of 75. There were children dressed up like fairies, and there was some trees. Lots and lots of trees.

And now I have to go look at apartments.

But while I'm out, can someone please psychoanalyze my very interesting dream? I'll fill you in on more details if you need. Just let me know.
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In the past week and a half I have made two successful purchases for the kitten. I figure I should try to make it up to her, ya know, that 18 hours in transit thing that I did to her that she hated me for for a week. So the first thing I bought her that was a little treat was a toy. It's like a fishing rod with a fluffy bell at the end of the line. And she LURVES it. I can make her jump 4 feet in the air with the fluffy fishing pole. She runs back and forth for ... minutes! And then she lays down and breathes all heavy.

So she's not in the best of shape, I guess. But I suspect that might be because she is constantly sleeping. And usually she's sleeping on her second treat - a cardboard scratcher. That's right. I bought a box of slices of cardboard. For my cat. And if she could speak, I know she would be thanking me for it every waking moment. But in between those waking moments, she's mostly laying across the slices of cardboard for her regular snoozes. Like a good little kitty.

The best part of the cardboard is the bag of catnip, which makes her crazy. Her eyes go all spirally and she flinches and twitches a lot. (I kid. She only twitches when there's any sound or movement within a 10 mile radius of her.) But the worst part of the move of the kitten is the appetite that she seems to have adjusted. She used to be kind of picky about her food. She would protest certain flavors of food for a couple hours, snubbing it in front of me. But then she'd get over it and eat at least some of it. And now? Yeah, now she's a complete snob. She will leave food that apparently doesn't whet her appetite for a whole day. And then I'll clean it out, washing the dish and all the while, she'll be stood at my feet meowing like a crazy cat and rubbing her face on my shins, begging in that cat way for some food that's edible. So when I put more food in the bowl after the begging session and put the bowl on the floor and she snubs it and walks away, I'm starting to think she's just being bitchy for fun. Or she's starving and it totally serves her right.

Speaking of food... Last night's dinner experiment went a couple different shades of wrong. I'm rather disappointed, and I have been since sinking my teeth into the homemade cornish pasties last night. It's like the dough lord came into this place and cursed me. And since I have at least half the filling left over, I'm going to try a different dough to see if I can't coerce the dough lord that I am not as scared of dough as perhaps he thinks I need be. And ya know, I will triumph and all that good stuff.

I had one thing to do today, and I haven't done it. Yay me?
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