Paint Store Shenanigans

In order to totally spin myself out of control, I have decided to paint the guest room. We are week 8, going into week 9 of a bathroom renovation from hell, both Rick and I have lost many, many days due to stomach flu (although not simultaneously which is actually worse) and we are having family stay with us at Christmas (which, incidentally is two weeks away).

The room is currently ELECTRIC lime green sponge paint. I went to The Home Depot and chose a very subtle tan colour (called Gobi Desert) that would match the cream wainscotting and white wrought iron bed. The paint counter fellow told me that he could mix 15 gallons of this colour in the morning and it would be gone in the evening, it is that popular (although I read between the lines to mean COMMON or possibly BORING). He suggested that I punch things up with a black accent wall. WHAT?!?! I stammered that I didn’t think so. He then told me to consider black trim. Again, I demurred. He told me it would be an exciting new look and I finally practically shouted at him:

I DON’T NEED THAT KIND OF EXCITEMENT IN THE BEDROOM!!!

I took my Gobi Desert and slunk away quietly, to the snickers of the other shoppers who actually had no idea what had prompted my outburst. It was a hazardous kind of day.

Guest Hazard girl

My sister E is a worse hazard girl than I could ever be. I decided that she will be the guest presenter today. For some background, I make a baked square called a Skor Bar. They have a shortbread crust, toffee bits, melted chocolate and are to die for. She decided to make them for a cookie exchange and needed 10 dozen.I emailed her to find out how it all went and got this reply:
Skor bars …let’s never speak of them again. We had to go up to the cottage on Saturaday to shut it down so I had to make them on Friday, but since it was my birthday we were doing stuff and I didn’t get a chance to start until after 8 pm. Adri (daughter) was supposed to help me and went to the store to buy the ingrediants. Then she went out and I haven’t seen her since.. She bought FIVE bags of brown sugar. Do not buy any brown sugar for the next 2 years. We didn’t have any white flour so I used whole wheat. The base ended up rather concrete like, I broke 2 knives and permenantly damaged my hand trying to cut them. They were very crumbly and I couldn’t cut them as small as I wanted so some people got 8 instead of a dozen but who’s counting. I wrapped them in tin foil and thought I was done. When I got to the party everyone had the darlingnest presentations. There were cookies in cute little boxes, in oven mitts with Christmas ornaments included, in little Christmas stockings, in Santa hats, in plastic candy canes, in little handmade boxes with ribbons and butterflies glued on, and then there were my 10 lumps of aluminum foil. One little game they had was to vote on the best packaging – guess who didn’t win. The ladies were very nice and didn’t laugh too hard at my ineptitude. We were also supposed to bring a Christmas ornament, to exchange. I did buy one at the dollar store but forgot it. Thank goodness. The Christmas ornaments the people brought were from the one of a kind craft show, from Bowerings, from their visit to New York city, from Tiffany’s. My dollar store ornament would have looked way out of place.

I hope she doesn’t mind that I copied this here. She certainly can laugh at herself and really, sister, I am laughing WITH you and not AT you. (Well, OK a little bit at you).

Do not give me the drugs

Today I had the indoctrination into old age. Yes, I had to have a colonoscopy.

I am really not that old but as my father died of colon cancer in his early 50’s, so my doctor wanted me to start being screened early.
The procedures are basically done in an assembly line at the hospital  under a general anaesthetic. Waiting to be called in the tiny waiting room all I could think was “one of these things is not like the other!” as in, I am a cute young girl, and I am surrounded by croaking old – really old men.

So, I got called to my little tented pre-op/post-op space amongst all the other pajama partiers in which to change into a lovely gown — “open in the back” is what was barked at me by the nurse. Did I mention the chorus of farts going off in every direction!! Yes – farts!! Apparently they pump you up with air. This is just getting more horrific by the minute. Anyway, once dressed, off I was to “the room”.

As I am being wheeled back to my “slot” to wake up, past all the others waiting or recovering, apparently I attempted to sit up and exclaim “That was amazing!”. Except that it came out

“THHHAAATT WUZZ AMAAAAAZZHHINGG!!”

The Dr. without missing a beat said “well, that is one way to describe it”. Mortified is my middle name. Hazardgirl is my first name.

The prep, I was told didn’t “work” that well, so I have to go back in a year instead of five years. Crap. Really.

Locked in the trunk of a car

For all the tragically hip fans out there…Actually, it should be locked in a garage.

I was petsitting for friends that were on vacation who have a hamster and two cats. One evening I went to feed and water the critters and afterwards was to meet up with a friend to see a movie. Things started out badly when I realized that the hamster had stuffed a BUNCH OF BEDDING into the tube that separates her two cages. I emptied out the bedding, full of hamster food and probably hamster poop so that she could get to the other side. I then proceeded to deal with the cats. I checked their litter box and thought “hmm. Two cats, two days and there is NO shit in this litter box. I wonder where it is?”. I found it in the middle of the family room. Sigh.

I cleaned up the cat poop and went to throw it in the garbage in the garage. The door from the house to the garage LOCKED behind me. ALL of my stuff was in the house and I had also locked the front door. I panicked a bit, wondering how I would get back in the house when I opened the garage. Little did I know…I pressed the garage door opener and the door did not open. I tried again. Nothing. Uh oh. The side door from the garage to the yard was nailed shut with 2×4’s across it. Oh Crap. I actually almost passed out. There was No Where To Go.

I sat down on the stairs. As I was due to meet a friend and I think she knew where I was headed before the movie, I figured a few hours before I was discovered. Hyperventilating. Then I looked up. And saw that the garage door opener was unplugged. I scrambled up a ladder, plugged it in and YAY!!! I managed to get the door open and feel freedom, sweet freedom!

I remembered that they had given a neighbour a key (because I AM Hazardgirl after all) but wasn’t exactly sure which neighbour. I thought I would just start knocking on doors. Luckily it was the first one I tried. I spilled out my story  to poor Rob and his family. For those of you that know me, I am not a slow talked at my calmest. Get the adrenaline pumping and I am CUCKOO FOR COCOA PUFFS!!! IWASLOCKEDINTHEGARAGEANNEEDTHE KEYTOGETMYSTUFFSOICANGOSEEAMOVIE.

Happy ending. Got the keys, got my stuff and skedaddled out of there as fast as I could. Now I have an unnatural paranoia of getting locked in places. Great. Another thing to add to my list for my own brand of crazy.

Bathroom reno’s with a twist

We have recently decided to renovate our bathroom and are looking for a whirlpool bathtub. I did a search on the city we live in, the province and the word “bathtub”. Google awarded me with a whole list of “bathtub” related links and businesses. There was Bathfitters, the Bathtub King and one that particularly piqued my interest, Central Spa.

The link to the website is www.centralspa.ca. (Warning: NOT SUITABLE FOR WORK.)

Needless to say, I do not anticipate purchasing a bathtub there. Or anything at all. I need to take a shower now.