random happenings

So my life has been unbelievably exciting lately. Every hour has been filled with one adrenaline rush after another.

For example, I went grocery shopping at Loblaw's (ding! ding! where's my endorsement cheque?) after work on Wednesday and I got to use the self-checkout machine! It's great. Not only can I avoid human interaction altogether during my grocery-store run, I also get to live out a childhood wish of playing cashier. The only bump in the otherwise smoothly paved road of the experience was when I had some trouble opening the grocery bag. Those darn bags - the opening was practically fused together and the machine kept repeating "Please put your item in the bag! Please put your item in the bag!". I was on the verge of beating the machine with my bagels until one of the grocery store employees who had been standing 10 feet away and watching me struggling with a wary eye hurried over and oh-so-helpfully separated the bag I was trying to open from the rest in the stack. Because separating the bag from the rest will magically make the plastic in the bag opening disintegrate. Anyway, I managed to open the bags, shut the machine up and proceeded with checking out my items without any further incident. I felt such a great sense of accomplishment afterwards that I left the grocery store with a grin on my face.

Another exciting happening this week: my folks bought a new washing machine earlier this last weekend and it makes almost no noise during its wash cycle. I got to use it for the very first time on Wednesday and it was so quiet that I was checking it every 10 minutes to see if the machine was still going. Whew!

I also went to Toronto last weekend. Interesting bits from that weekend:

1. It took us SEVEN hours to get there. That's quite a bit longer than the usual 4 it takes when I drive. Of course, witnessing nine separate accidents in a 45 minute window will make one drive a little more cautiously in crappy weather.

2. I got to stay in both a downtown penthouse apartment AND a mansion in the suburbs. (Thanks Sima and Roopa!)

3. Never say. "I'm not going to buy anything this weekend," and then go shopping on Queen street during sale season unless you enjoy contradicting yourself.

4. Table for 10 downtown at 9 o'clock on a Saturday night? As John would put it: no love.

5. Auto shows are much more fun when your prime objective is to sit in as many high-priced luxury vehicles as possible (and grabbing the steering wheel, yelling "Vroom vroom!" and cheerfully waving at the perplexed dealership representatives there. Ok, we didn't do that. Some people pretended to make out in the back of an Audi, though. I don?t know them anymore.)

Lastly, at the risk of sounding like a total sap and thoroughly embarrassing Tim, I have to declare to the entire cyberworld (or to the two people who read this page) that he is the bestest. He drove down from Ottawa, picked me up and drove to Toronto, shuttled between downtown, Mississauga, Scarborough, drove back to Montreal over the weekend and then drove home to Ottawa the next morning. All because I didn't want to drive my car and he wouldn't hear of me renting one. Everyone say it with me now: Awwwww!