Ms. Fruit Fly

Happy Pride Week y’all! When I first moved to the ‘Couv, I wound up in the West End which just happens to be the gay area of the city. I like to think that my friends and acquaintances are all open minded and cool but of course, some people just aren’t which in this day and age, I find kinda shocking. I have had several people ask me or say behind my back “Why does JJ have so many gay friends?” to which I have to say, why the hell not? My stylish boys are there for me no matter what, they are amazing listeners, they are happy to go shopping with me and go for a beer on the patio afterward. We can chat about boys in a non-competitive atmosphere together which makes people watching on Davie St. that much more fun. Unlike most girlfriends, my boys have no issue being honest and telling you if something on your outfit is all wrong but they will always tell you when you are looking fabulous or what pants make your butt look awesome. My boys are hilarious, love to dance and I don’t have to worry that they are trying to get in my pants. So I will be wearing my dangerously short skirted costume and proudly marching in the Pride Parade with my friends again this year and I can only hope that people will one day realize that we’re all here on this earth just trying to get through another day: gay, straight or other.

The key to marital bliss

Well, besides separate duvets , it would have to be hiring a housekeeper! Pinkie came into our lives recently and I don’t think that I can ever go back now. Not that the man and I ever really fought about cleaning duties but we were spending too much of our free time cleaning the place and keeping it up to our high standards as we both hate a mess. She has an assistant named ‘Cherry Pie’ who reorganized our closets and our pantry to look like some sort of show home. Pinkie is a godsend and has freed up our evenings and weekends, woo frickin’ hoo life is good!

Who ya gonna call?

I had the best birthday ever this year! The ‘Couv aka the City of No Fun decided to bring in a huuuuge blow up movie screen to David Lam Park in Yaletown and have a free outdoor movie night under the stars. They showed Ghostbusters and hundreds of people showed up. The cops didn’t come to bust up groups drinking responsibly and everyone acted extremely neighbourly. It was a great night shared with fantastic friends, YAY!

Office spandex

Since when did spandex bike shorts become office appropriate clothing? I can see wearing them into work right after you stash your bike and then changing into something that won't scare your colleagues, but some of you insist on wearing them all day and show up to meetings in your scarily revealing spandex. Yuck! I think that I am going to hang bathrobes on the back of all the meeting room doors so that I don't have to be subjected to the horrific view anymore.

I lose things aka I am the luckiest bastard

I often do stupid things, we all do, but I think that Tuesday was one of my dumber moments. I had an appointment at St. Pauls at lunch time where I had to run on a treadmill like a rat for 45 long minutes while hooked up to all sorts of gadgets and chords. When I do this, I sweat, a lot...so I put my engagement ring aka really expensive solitaire diamond ring, into my wallet change purse for safe keeping. Once I got off the treadmill and somewhat caught my breath, I realised that I had to be back at the office for a 1pm meeting and it was now 12:51pm, crrrap! I ran outside, flagged down a cab, paid the guy cash and ran to my desk, making it just in time. I realised later that day that my bling was gone. I have a suitcase for a handbag so I figured it was somewhere in there, stay calm. After I got home I dumped and re-dumped my bag out over and over again to no avail, my ring was gone. I got maybe 20 minutes of sleep because I wasn’t sure how to tell the man what a tard I am. The next day I retraced my steps, filed a police report and came clean with my man (he handled it so well, said it was just an object and not to worry, awwwww, he’s the absolute best!) As a last resort I went on Craigslist and I saw an ad for a found ring. After copious e-mails back and forth, handing my gemological reports over to a jeweler to verify that the ring was indeed mine and meeting the angel at the community police station who found my ring in the cab that I dropped it in, I finally/thankfully have my ring back. My faith in humanity has been restored and I am so glad that there are good people left in the world.

Jacko ‘fans’

It’s funny how last week everyone thought that Michael Jackson was nothing but a washed up weirdo pedophile but now everyone is all distraught and can’t believe that the King of Pop is dead. The majority of you ‘fans’ are exactly like Canucks fans, fickle at best.

Toadstool

I arrived home this evening to see a massive toadstool in my houseplant, I felt so violated in my own home! We dug it out and hopefully it will not make a reappearance. I did some reading online and apparently this lunacy is normal?!? There is just something so damn creepy about fungi in your own home.

Have your cake and eat it too

Why do airlines assume that just because someone orders a vegetarian meal that by default, they must not like real desserts?? Vegetarians like cake too dammit, enough with the crappy ass fruit salad already.

Urban jungle

You try to blend in, pretending that you are one of us, quite stealthily that is, until you open your mouth and tell me how much you love expresso. I’m onto you suburbanite ;)

Who came up with that name?

We often watch the tv in our staff lunch room and I can't help but notice the various shitty daytime commercials on the CBC. There is one for this stairlift company that helps seniors unable to navigate stairs anymore get up and down the stairs safely. The strange thing is, is that the company is called "Acorn"...who in the hell came up with that name? Acorns fall...Eeesh.

I love you guys!

Some of you may have read about the saga of my beloved Cole Haan peeptoe heels and the Korean shoe repair bastard who ruined them. Well, I e-mailed the Cole Haan service department and told them the story, sent them the link to my blog post as well as 4 pictures of the heel damage. They were more than apologetic, said that the posting was ‘well-written and amusing’ and said that of course they stand behind their product. I had a brand spankin’ new pair of black peeptoe heels arrive at my office today, YAY *happy dance* Cole Haan friggin’ rocks long time, worth every penny.

Songs that I may or may not have been conceived to

So a group of federal Liberal party members and myself were sitting around at the pub today and the above topic came up (after many, many pitchers of beer mind you.) We all whipped out our mobile devices and started looking up the top songs the year before we were all born. To my shock/horror/amusement I realized that the top song around 9 months before my birth was “The Gambler”, by Kenny Rogers…dear lord is all I have to say on that one.

Name dropper

What is with people who insist of throwing out name brands with every day, common items? Some examples that I am sick to death of hearing are as follows: ‘I was reading the news last night…on my iPhone’ or ‘I drove down to Seattle for the weekend, in my Prius’. Why don't you just say that you were reading the news and saw something interesting or just tell me that you drove down to Seattle this weekend, what the frig is with the name brand dropping? About the only vehicle that you can get away with this name dropping shit is a Jeep because it is a breed all to itself. When you name brand drop to try and make yourself sound cooler, you end up sounding like a pretentious tool.

Ding dong the witch is dead

There is a god...My work nemesis, the one who makes me want to spontaneously shout out the 'c-word' in meetings, in the kitchen and in the hallways is finally gone. Coming into work already feels so much better. There is no stress, everyone is smiling and the sun is shining. It’s truly amazing how one toxic personality can really bring an entire office down.

Japadog hair

Japadog has always been outside of the Sutton hotel but a second location has opened right across the street from my office tower which is bloody fantastic if you ask me. For my non-Vancouver readers, Japadog is quite possibly the world’s best hotdog stand ever! I love the veggie dogs with seaweed and wasabi mayo, mmmm. So I walked into work today with my hair tied back into a ponytail and my colleague Anton says “Oh look, you have your Japadog hair today!” Am I that predictable? It is a total bitch getting wasabi mayo out of your hair, trust me.

And so the war begins...

Parsons Shoe Renew on Pender Street, you're going down. I used to recommend you to everyone telling them how awesome and speedy you were but you can forget that now. I brought in my priceless black patent leather Cole Haan peep toe heels in last week to get Topy’s put on the bottom and to get the heel tips replaced. The little Korean fella behind the counter calls me at work and says “If you pay in cash, I will give you a good deal.” Ok, I thought, why not? So I go to Parsons with 60$ cash in hand for the 50$ repair job and I am met at the counter by the little Korean fella who is all too happy to see my fist full of 20s. I look at the shoes and they look good so I hand over $60. He hands me back $10 plus a loonie, he says ‘to buy myself a drink’ (gee, thanks asshole, even a bottle of water is like 2 bucks downtown). He keeps saying over and over again “Don’t tell the lady that I gave you a deal, don’t tell her, ok? You promise?” I said yes, fine, I won’t tell and figured he was underpaid and pocketing the cash, whatever. Afterwards I realise I am probably actually being ripped off royally but as if I will ever find out. So I put my shoes on as I am going to an event that night and got half a block and then my heel snaps, muthafucka! I go back to the shop but he has now closed up and turned the lights off. Seriously…these shoes ain’t cheap and he fixed the heel, he must have done something to my shoes to make this happen, this is totally mental and I am pissed and he wants another $100 from me to fix this issue. Screw you Parsons Shoe Renew, it’s on…like Donkey Kong.

A scare at bedtime

I never learn. I really have to stop watching Mantracker before bedtime cause it tends to freak me right the fuck out. His gaze and how he just turns up out of nowhere never ceases to scare the crap out of me. Last night’s episode was hilarious because the male contestant was like “The Mantracker is a dick…I can totally beat him.” Well guess what? Buddy turns around and who is right frickin’ there? The Mantracker. Buddy screamed like a girl and ran towards the bushes ha ha.

Perfectly Marvelous

I got on the bus after a long week of work and just wanted to get home as soon as possible. The bus driver seemed a little more chipper than normal, ok fine, it is Friday, that’s cool. About 3 blocks into the trip, she starts belting out Broadway show tunes loud enough for me to hear them in the back of the bus. Then some crack whore sitting around mid-bus decides that all attention should be on her and not on the singing bus driver so she saunters up to the front of the bus and starts chatting up a blind guy sitting in the special sitting area by offering him half of her bakery loot (which amazingly, he accepted). I just shook my head and continued on reading the paper. 5 minutes later I decided to look up; the Cabaret tunes were getting louder and louder and now the crack whore has straddled the blind guy and is feeding him a chocolate muffin from her loot bag. Life would be so boring without public transit.

What the deuce?

Nothing in Vegas really surprises me anymore, well, until we got onto the Deuce bus after midnight tonight. This double-decker bus runs up and down the strip dropping everyone off at their various hotels. We were the first ones on and so of course claimed the best seats in the house. Everyone else on board pretty much were in their 30s and 40s and appeared to be re-living their teenage years, it was completely out of control. The woman behind us had a Sarah Palin/Fargoesque accent and kept shouting out all kinds of stupid crap i.e. passing Circus Circus she starts yelling “It’s slots of fun everyone!! Come on, let’s go…slots of fun.” Oh god, this place truly is like adult Disneyland at times.

Viva Las Vegas

I have never been to Vegas in my life and already after day number one, I am fed up with all of the bells, ringing, cigarette smoke and the mirages; everything looks to be just across the street but really it’s like a 25 minute walk away, frickin’ desert! The one thing that I cannot get over is how you can be wandering the casino floor at 1 am and parents are still gambling and dragging their toddlers and babies around the smoke-filled casino floor. One would think with such stellar examples of parenting that the casinos would be teeming with child welfare agents or something. It’s 1 am and your kid smells like booze and smokes, stop gambling for Christ sake and take junior to bed already, gawd.