Ed's Edward Gorey-esque Jack-o-Lantern

Funniest Kindergarten joke ever (believe me, we've been splitting our sides for the last two days on this one....): What did the ghost give to the monkey? BOO-NANAS!!!

Just imagine

You and your family have been living in Burma. Actually, no. You have been TRYING to live in Burma but for many years there has been persecution of your tribe of people by various groups, so your family, and many others, have been forced to retreat into the jungle for your safety. You stay there for many many years until finally it seems safe to come out. Only to find out that it is not safe, and you have to go back into the jungle. You have never in your lifetime had access to running water, electricity, school, or any sort of health care. Suddenly, a handful of countries offer to take you as a refugee. 250 of you are brought to Canada, of which 80 come to Calgary. You are plopped into a Kindergarten classroom with, remember, no previous exposure to water, electricity... Oh, and since there are only a few thousand of your people in the world, there is nobody in Calgary who can translate your needs into English for everybody else to understand. My god, how do they do it?

Look Kenny, I'm sleepin' and the keyboard is making zzzzzzzzzzzzzs like I'm sleepin'

Or, the story of how not to break your dishwasher.

First, do not think it wise to put in an old dishsoap container thinking that it will be a good way to wash it out to reuse it. If you do, the dishwasher will fill up with suds and the normal whirring sound will turn into silence when it's not supposed to. Then, you'll have to scoop out all the water that's stuck in the bottom, and don't forget the suds. You'll also have to rinse off all the dishes by hand (thereby negating the whole convenience of the dishwasher thing). Oh, and if you run an empty cycle with a cuppa vinegar that should get everything running back in order.

Believe me. I'm speaking from personal experience here.

By gosh you've done it again, Sherlock

Thanks to Joh for sending me this quote. Context: Watson is flabbergasted at learning that Sherlock Holmes doesn't know that the Earth revolves around the Sun and this is what the detective had to say for himself:

"I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend on it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones."

The Payoff

A solid 4 hour hike today with the snowboard team at Barrier Dam Pass in K-Country.

I cried about eight times today. Damn you, Season Two finale of Grey's Anatomy.

Bizarre

Last night I was at the Elbow River Casino here in Calgary. I'm not a gambler, I'm not very good at poker, and to be honest I need to hold on to every penny I have right now... The reason I was at the casino: our school needs money and they do work the casino every 18 months to raise money. They get 50% of whatever they make at the table games, and 15% of slots for the two nights they do it. I guess they raise about $75 to $80 thousand dollars for things like field trips, school equipment, books, whatever. Now I'll try not to get political here, but it strikes me as odd that the school's parent association is responsible for raising EIGHTY THOUSAND DOLLARS to buy things like new playground equipment or printers or software or something. But I digress.

The main reason I'm writing this is because I got to spend 8 hours in the cash cage at the casino. I ate dinner with the gamblers. I talked to the security guards. It's a strange strange world. I counted out, at one point, $14000 of cash money to a little old Chinese lady. I also had a very jittery young woman come and cash out $10100 of chips, confessing that she had just withdrawn $8000 from her credit card to gamble with in the first place. When they asked her for ID it turned out she lives in subsidized housing... At another point I had to get all stocked up with cash because some high-rolling drug dealer (I didn't realize how great a money laundering scheme a Blackjack table could be) had $60000 worth of chips in front of him, and as much as they didn't want to, he could have walked away at any point with that much cash in his back pocket. Nuts.

Tonight: DELIRIUM! Cirque du Soleil, courtesy of Ed (my congratulations-you-got-a-job present). I am sooooooooooooo excited. Life is sweet. I love the holidays. I want to make another turkey dinner and pie just to relive it another time. I want to read more books. I want to make the curtains I keep promising to make. I want to get work done for work so I don't have to do it next time. I want to take myself out for tea downtown in the daytime and maybe get my hair cut. I'll say it again, I love the holidays.

I'll huff and I'll puff

I was just looking up some ideas for my week of "Three Little Pigs" since we are, after all, studying the letter P. You know the drill, 3 pigs, 2 get eaten by the wolf, the 3rd one wins because he's smart and he takes his time and builds a quality home. Some teacher somewhere thinks it's a nice idea to make "Pigs in a Blanket" with your kids as part of the book study, as if wrapping up little wieners in Pillsbury dough is somehow cute. ARGH. First of all, it's like turning your kids into the freaking wolf (EATING THE PIGS?!), also, how many 5 year olds understand 'smokies' come from pigs, and WANT to know, and third of all, GROSS. We will NOT be making Pigs in Blankets this week. Nonono.

Soaked for the Cure

This morning I woke up at an absurdly early hour (actually, it's kind of like warming up for the snowboarding season, but...) to drive Ed to the airport. And then, to school. On a Sunday. In the rain. To help out with my school's running team. They've been training for Run for the Cure since the beginning of school, too bad it rained all morning and we were cold and wet by the end of it. I scored a free pink headband from LuluLemon. And there were lots of cute puppies there, most of them wearing t-shirts. And the girls I supervised running were girlish, screaming and laughing and giggling and all that. Good way to spend a Sunday morning if you ask me. As for the afternoon.... planning and Grey's Anatomy, my pyjama pants and a cuppa tea. xo.