little things.: January 2006

kevin thom.

A friend of mine introduced me to Kevin Thom's amazing photography and I rediscovered today how much I really love his work. Thanks Kim.
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www.kevinthom.com

I need my yellow.

Today I went to the Body Shop to buy the two parts for my oil perfume that I have been buying since grade 9, so that's ... 5, 6... oh I can't count now, but that's a lot of years. I buy a big bottle which lasts me a long time, and I don't use much anyway, so I can go a long time without having to buy it.

I was looking around and noticed I couldn't find "mango" oils, so a lady that works there, who wasn't very enthusiastic at all, said to me "ohhh.. um...they discontinued mango...", and wandered off. I literally just stood there, without a word, in quiet panic not even attempting to recover from these news. It felt like picking a new scent would be cheating on mango & citrus. It just wasn't possible. I need my mango, and I need it now!

Just then, this other lady came up to me who works there as well, and in an attempt to sell her promotion, handed me a pamphlet and said "Come back Wednesday, we're getting a lot of new scents, like Strawberry Passion and bringing back some discontinued ones." So I asked "mango?", like I still had a shred of hope, though I must have sounded like it was more than just a shred of it. Then she answered "Yes, mango will be here". I could have kissed this woman, I was so happy!

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So on Wednesday, guess who will be buying two large bottles of mango & citrus oils?

The first person to answer this question correctly, gets to smell me next time I see them. Thank you for playing.

who needs milk?

Milk is for babies.
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think of something that makes you smile.

Tonight I went to Telelatino (TLN) to sing backup for these two sisters from my vocal school. They were singing "When you believe" by Mariah Carey, so me and 3 others from the school got to sing backup... you know... tralala stuff.

The song we sang is a little slow, so I guess we all looked a little straight-faced or as the host of the show called it, we looked like we were all forced to be there, hahaha. It was hard to keep an honest smile on your face for 3 minutes straight, while looking at one camera all the time, while trying to move your bum, and paying attention to the song so you know when to start singing ... sheesh, multitasking, hahaha.

So what did I do to make myself honestly smile inside and out for 3 minutes? I thought of funny things or images that make me smile. Here's one of a few images that popped up (Thank you Radek):

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born to rock.

My parents always said that I was quite a musical person since a young age and it always came naturally to me. I would wake up in my crib and reach for my guitar or tambourine, and shake my little diapered bum-bum. However, I now question any musical talent at the tender age of 18 months, if that is the way I held my guitar.

Thankfully, the DVD I bought recently taught me how to properly hold and play my guitar... I think I'll be fine now.

thank you mr. i-drive-a-white-car

This morning as I was leaving my apartment, I was going to check if I had any change for parking incase the metropass lot is full, but I was running a little late so I said "screw it" and left. As I was driving to the station, I thought "wouldn't it be funny if the parking lot was full and I have no change for pay parking?"

As I approach the parking lot, there's a TTC man in a van blocking the entrance, and a sign behind him that says "LOT FULL". For two seconds I panicked and I hand gestured with the guy that I'm just gonna turn around, and not actually park. I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do, and the clock was ticking for me to get on the subway and be on my way to work.

Just then, this nice man in a white Saturn drives out of the parking lot, and I excitedly gesture at the attendant that the man just left, and that there's probably a free spot now. So I was gestured that I can go right in, and get that last parking spot, which was all the way at the other side of the parking lot, at the back, right beside a snow bank, but nonetheless, yay!!

Thank you, Mr. I-drive-a-white-car, you made my day!

what's that you say?

Second day in a row:

Incoming call at reception...

Me: Good afternoon...
Ellen: Hi Cathy, how are you?
Me: Oh, it's Agnes, Cathy's off today.
Ellen: Ohhh, *giggle*, Hi Agnes, it's Ellen, David's wife. How are you?
Me (rushed): He's -- ohhh, gdya-damda-uhh, ahem-- good, you? *uncomfortable giggle*
Ellen: uh-huh... is, uh, David there?

ARGH.

gotta love mondays

So here's how my day at work went:

Me: Hey Lisa, can you do me a favour?

Lisa: Sure, what is it?

Me: Ok, uhhhh, theeee-a they aa..ma..ib...youl..uhh--

Lisa: Sure, ok.

Oh, brother.

talk about bad luck.

Last week I got a call from my sister that her hubby's car broke down, and needs a new tranny and suspension, which means big expense. But there was no option of buying a new car, so they had to spend $1500 on this new tranny and suspension, since this is Detroit we're talking about and public transit is not an option like here.

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Now fast forward to last night, January 14th. They were invited over for an evening at Marcin's parents house, and as they were leaving their house, my sister wanted to take their big car (they have two), but Marcin said "nah, let's take the old one", so my sister didn't argue and they took the older car.

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Towards the end of the night, they heard big bangs and tires squeeling so they decided to run outside and check out what's happening. As it turns out, a drunk driver was speeding down a small curvy road and smashed into Marcin's parked car, the neighbour's parked car, and nearly hit a tree on the lawn before speeding off.

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The neighbour heard this as well - pretty much everyone in the surrounding houses heard this maniac destroy screeching and hitting everything. The neighbour and Marcin jumped in the neighbour's car and started going after the guy as he was taking off.

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The police was notified at this point by many contacts and the chase was on. About 3/4 of a mile down from the house, they found the drunk driver pulled at the side of the road and trying to change a tire since all the chaos caused his tire to go flat. Marcin called police again but since they were already notified and were in the area, almost immediately they were on the scene.

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The guy had an alcohol level of 3 times the legal limit, and didn't speak much English (Russian), so since Russian is similar to Polish, Marcin had to translate a lot of the time.

Here's the kicker - the guy denies the claims made against him and even threatened Marcin that he'll get him back. The cops have been notified of the threat comment and are urging Marcin to call Police if the guy gets near again.

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The bad luck?

Marcin's car was hit exactly where the work was done last week.

The good luck?

That Marcin wanted to take the older car, not the newer one.

i miss ashley.

I just got the sweetest email from Ashley. Since she arrived in Australia Jan. 5, after 4 months of travelling in Southeast Asia, she's now living in Australia with Mike, in what sounds like a cute apartment (even got herself a library card... what a local, haha). She's having a wonderful time, and she has a job interview on Monday for a marketing job - good luck Ash!!!

I really miss her though.

oddly resembling

There was something about Jason Mraz that I found familiar, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Could it be that Jason reminds me of Radek? Hmmmm, what do you think?

guitar for girls.

I went to the music store today and picked up this awesome DVD called Guitar for Girls - I know, I know, hahaha, it sounds gay, but it's really great, hahaha, no joke. There's this girl on there in her late 20s teaching you how to play properly and she goes from the basics without making you feel dumb, hahaha. Although, she did compare buying guitars to buying shoes.. ughm, yeah, ok.

Anyway, the best part about this DVD is that she also talks specifically about singing and songwriting, including how to make up a melody. It was soooo cool and easy that I even wrote one melody for a song that I will work on this weekend. Best buy ever. (well, not really.. but pretty damn close)

ALSO, the other thing that rocks is that I actually, from pure memory, learned how to play the beginning of Jason Mraz's song "Bella Luna" ..YES! go me, and my devirginised fingers.

TTC = Take The Car

This morning I woke up and I said to myself, "today's friday, I think I'll take the car" so I ate breakfast, got ready and left my apartment at 7:35am. But as I was taking the stairs down, at about the 7th floor, I thought, "nah, I'll just take the bus - it's nice out today, the walk will do me good...yes, that's a great idea, I think I'll do that." What follows is a reason why you should always follow through with the original plan.

I took the bus to the SRT Station and saw my train just leave the platform. I thought "no problem, I'll wait for another one, it's packed anyway - I'm good on time." I saw the northbound train on the other side of the platform and it was stalling for a long time. Then after 5 minutes, all the people on the train got up and left to board shuttle buses going to McCowan station, but none to Kennedy, so I thought "Ok, we're fine, it must just be the other side that's affected" , especially since I just saw a train leave my side of the platform. So I waited, along with everyone else, but still kept our eye out incase any of the Shuttle Buses were headed to Kennedy Station, but no, they were all to McCowan Station. BTW, no announcement has been made by this point, but I start to worry and at 7:55 called work to make sure someone opens reception at 8:30.

About five minutes later, we all start to get worried since a train should be coming every 3 minutes or so, and it's already been 10 minutes, or thereabouts. We kept eyeing the bus platform from where we were standing for any buses going to Kennedy, but again, they were all going to McCowan. Then, the man beside me thought to leave the subway platform, walk out and check if there are any buses behind the building, a small area behind the station. He never came back. Another young man followed, and didn't come back either. I followed, and what I found were two empty shuttle buses just sitting behind the building where it's not visible to anyone waiting for people get on. Just sitting there, she was actually even doing her nails, as if it's no biggie. And again, at this point not even 1 announcement has been made about available shuttle buses because the subways were down - not 1, during their busiest time of the day.

Eventually, more and more people must have noticed the platform getting emptier and within 3 minutes, the bus was packed and going to Kennedy Station. Everyone was panicking, calling their employers that they're going to be late, and assured them that they're on their way, and should be there shortly once we got to the station.

When we got to the station, at 8:10, we had to circle around to find an available spot to unload, since shuttle buses don't have a designated spot. At this point, everyone was sighing and pushing, waiting to get out.

I got on the westbound train at 8:12 and was happy that at least I would be on my way, and was only going to be late by 15 minutes since it takes about 20 minutes to get to St. George. Riiiiiiight, that didn't happen. Oh no, it's Friday the 13th, things couldn't have possibly go right today.

We sat at Kennedy for about 5 minutes before we left the platform, so at 8:18am we left the platform. Normally, at 8:18, I'm already at St. George transfering to the Southbound trains to be at work at 8:27. Anyway, we left the platform and things were off to a good start, we passed our first station, Warden, and I was happy. Then about 20 seconds after leaving Warden, we crawl our way to the next station. At 8:30, which is my starting time, I was only on my 4th station - 16 more to go.

I arrived at work at 9:18. It took me about 1.5 hours to get to work today, which normally takes me 45 minutes. So no lunch for me today, yay.

Lesson learned? Take the car.

balance. lessons. sisters.

I had a wonderful talk with my sister today about life and how unbalanced some things seem, but yet how they all work out in the end, and how connected we all really are in the lessons we are to learn from life. I must also mention that my sister is not an overly-emotional or spiritual person, but still likes to remain optimistic about life despite her straight-forward thinking.

My sister was very lucky in love. Married her first real boyfriend, never been dumped by anyone, and never had her heart broken. If there's any heart in the world that's fully intact, it would be my sister's. Her falling in love was really love at first sight, and a wonderful story to tell. But while happily married, they struggle to keep financial bliss, as is common with so many people. They get by with great effort. Then we took a look at my life. I would say that I have financial security. I get by with little effort. But I lack the happiness of true love, and had my heart broken many times before. It may have something to do with the fact that I was once quick to fall in love, but none-the-less ended up broken-hearted. Oddly enough, the trouble now is that I find myself refraining from falling in love, and take too much time to fall.

Anyway, then we began to examine all the people around us and how each of their characters and their lessons are helping us progress in the lessons in our lives. We took a look at our parents, our friends, her husband (I don't have one hahaha), and how our lives compare. We found our imbalances to be so different, yet so similar.

Since she moved away to Detroit, she finds that she misses her friends the most, and wants someone to talk to other than her husband (though she loves him very much), even though letting them go when she moved was "doable". Then I said, that I would love to have someone to turn to, other than my friends (though I love them very much), and that I have a hard time letting people go. Then she said that her hubby, Marcin, has friends to turn to, so it's different for him. So I said that most of my friends have boyfriends/girlfriends to turn to, so it's different for them. Through this simple discussion, we found that while her and I are complete opposites, we are here for each other in this life, as sisters, to help each other with our imbalances and how to make the most of them.

We are each other's devil's advocates when we engage in heated arguments. Although I shouldn't call them arguments - they're discussions but because she's still the sis that used to taddle tale on me if a boy called me when I was 12, I think of every conversation we have as arguing, hahahaha.

Anyway, we realized that in order for us to find a happy balance for each other and not stay in the world of extremes, we would both have to work hard at what we want to achieve. She would have to work on her financial decisions and making friends, while I would have to work on finally letting myself fall in love with someone, but then again, not just anyone, but the right person, and work on learning to let go.

So, just as we think that opposites and our imbalances work against us, if you only open up yourself to the bigger picture, you might find that those who give you the hardest time, are those that will teach you most. Also remember that we are only faced with challenges that we can handle. So if you are faced with something you think you can't live through, think again and remain optimistic that you will get through it. Happy Learning!

little things.

January 29, 2006

kevin thom.

January 28, 2006

I need my yellow.

January 27, 2006

who needs milk?

January 26, 2006

think of something that makes you smile.

January 22, 2006

born to rock.

January 19, 2006

thank you mr. i-drive-a-white-car

January 17, 2006

what's that you say?

January 16, 2006

gotta love mondays

January 15, 2006

talk about bad luck.

i miss ashley.

January 14, 2006

oddly resembling

January 13, 2006

guitar for girls.

TTC = Take The Car

January 12, 2006

balance. lessons. sisters.

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