Au revoir Montreal!

It's been a vacationy sort of a week. We were in Montreal for three days. Montreal is suprisingly near here. I can't believe this was only my second visit there. We managed to get quite a bit accomplished in a short amount of time. Since the hotel we stayed at was only a block and a half from St. Catherine street we walked everywhere. I think we walked about a bazillion miles. My feet felt like they were going to break in half and I have a huge blister/callous on one of my little toes. We walked up and down the main drag, shopped at the Eaton Center, went to St. Joseph's Oratory, found China Town, and visited the Museum of Contemporary Art. There is so much amazing food in Montreal! There are all kinds of ethnic eateries all over the place. We sampled Mexican, Greek, Middle Eastern, Chinese, as well as coffee, smoothies, and many other various snacks. The candy there is also interesting. They have so many things we don't have here such as Kinder Eggs and Aero Bars. Yum! The gum is upside down-oops!

I picked these chips up at a grocery store on the way home. They were delicious! It seems that some store around here used to have the President's Choice brand?

Here's what I found in China Town. I also tried bubble tea-very interesting!

Here's what Eric got me at the Oratory gift shop. They had a museum filled with 275 Nativity scenes from 107 different countries made out of all kinds of materials.

We stopped at used book store where I picked up these records for a dollar each.

Here's what was inside of the Bee Gees album cover...There is much wonderful merchandise for sale. I wonder if I can still get a t-shirt for $7 or a logo necklace for $6.50? It says that there is a "tremendous demand" for these products. Tee-hee!

Montreal is a really neat place with so much to do and see. All was great until we returned to Vermont. And boy oh boy do I have a story to tell...
First let me offer this up as evidence. My favorite sweater/coat covered with puke that is not my own.

We had a pretty full day in Montreal on Friday and we got a very late start getting home. By the time we got to Burlington, Vermont it was about 12 a.m. We needed coffee and wanted a bite to eat. We drove downtown and there were hoardes of drunk college students everywhere. Not very much was open so we went to Denny's. That was a HUGE mistake. It was absolutely MOBBED, mostly with drunk students, some who didn't look old enough to have been drinking alcohol. We were seated and ordered water and coffee. We had only been in there less than 10 minutes and were looking at the menu. All of a sudden I felt something strange and soft hit me in the back. My first thought was the obnoxious bastards were throwing food at eachother, which would have been preferable to what really did happen. I turned around to look behind me and there was a kid with his head hanging down in his food dish like he was completely passed out. Apparently, he became sick and projectile vomited across the table and it hit me square in the back. I don't like wearing coats so I normally wear a shirt or turtleneck, a regular sweater, and the sweater shown above as a coat over it all. It is one of those handknit wool South American sweaters that I just love to death. I have been looking for a new one but they aren't as popular as they were a few years back when I bought this one. I haven't been able to find another anywhere. There was spew all over the back of my precious sweater, in the ends of my hair, all across our table, and all over the floor. I immediately got up and went into the bathroom to assess the damage. I spent a good 10 minutes picking chewed up toast and egg out of the sweater and wiping vomit off with wet papertowels. When I came out of the bathroom, Eric was standing by the door talking to the manager. I told them what happened and how upset and disgusted I was. At the time the puke didn't smell too bad and I asked the manager for money so that I could have my sweater/coat cleaned. However, I was told that could not be done as they would have to take my name, address, and phone number to contact me later about it. I was given $10 in gift certificates and two large coffees in togo cups and we left. We ended up going across the street to the grocery store to clean up better and walk around for a bit. It was about 1 a.m. by that time and we were totally wigged out. On friday it had gotten to be bitter cold out and very windy. I had to get home with no coat on and feeling like I had puke in my hair. I ended up having the Denny's employees put the sweater into a big garbage bag and it went into the trunk to bring home. It spent the night and most of today in the garbage bag in the entryway of our house. When I went down there this afternoon I moved the bag and the smell of rancid vomit reeked so bad it turned my stomach. I took a picture of it and placed it into another bag and put it outside on the porch. I think the sweater is going to have to live outside for a while until I decide what to do with it. I don't even think a good drycleaning will help it. It it completely contaminated. I almost doubt I will hear anything from Denny's. I am going to write them a nasty letter with the picture of the ruined sweater. I am just so sick over this! Since I will never be able to wear the sweater again I feel that I deserve a monetary payment so that I can replace the sweater with a comparable sweater or coat. I also feel that we deserve two free dinners at Denny's to make up for the ones we were supposed to have but couldn't. Even though I don't think I will be dining at Denny's for a VERY, VERY LONG TIME! I feel completely violated in a way that I have never felt in my entire life. Puke is bad enough when it is your own, worse if it is from someone close to you, but completely and utterly heinous when it is from a stranger and you are unprepared to deal with it. I know that I learned never to expect to eat a meal late on a Friday night at a restaurant such as Denny's. I would really appreciate an apology from that drunk little shit but I doubt he remembers anything that happened for much of the time he was at the restaurant. I sincerely hope that those college students learned a valuable lesson from the experience as well. I asked Eric what happened after I went into the bathroom and he said that that the kid's friends just sat there silent and stunned. No one could believe what had just happened! I would think that most normal people who are drunk and feel like they are going to throw up would let their friend sitting next to them know that they were going to be sick and ask to be let out of the booth. They would either go to the bathroom or outside and do their business and walk it off and feel better or go to the car and pass out. Not this guy. He just continued to sit there passed out with his head hung over the half eaten bowl of breakfast food. That kind of shit should happen in some random dorm room and not in public in a place where people are eating. People need to grow up and assume some responsiblity. When I was in college I had a couple episodes which did not affect anyone else, and subsequently I learned not to do it again. This was absolutly the worst thing that has happened to me in a very long time. Denny's will be hearing from me!
BAAAAAADDDDDDDDDDDDD!

Oh For Christ's Sake!

Since I am home without a job for the time being, I have gotten to experience all that normally goes on around here while I am usually at work. Things have generally been better since I spent the whole day cleaning the bathroom. I am working on getting things spiffed up and organized. As you know, I have been complaining about the mothball odor that my lazy landlord created when he tried to repell the skunks from under the front porch. We have been dying up here: Every time the heat blows it stinks, our eyes are burning and our noses are running, my shirts and sweaters reek. We smell like a bunch of old ladies! I was outside for an hour with my big purple ass sticking up in the air trying to retrive the mothballs from under the porch. They were all around the house and I think I got most of them. About 15 minutes later there was a knock at the door. I ran to the stairs thinking it was Eric home from work wanting the door unlocked. However, there were 2 young guys outside the door, clean cut with black jackets and name badges on. I just knew right there that they were from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints! Oh shit! And I knew that they had already seen me too. So I had to go down there, bra-less under my shirt to tell them that we were defininetly NOT interested. They tried to start their spiel, but I shut the door. God damn it! I hate when they show up. I am not religious, nor do I want to be!
Here are those stinkers are leaving the house.

And here they are leaving the neighbors house. Nobody wants to talk to you, you bunch of dummies!

I have become a slave to the zipper pins. Since I am not doing much of anything else, I need to get a ton of these made. Here are the first 6. The Farmer's Market is going to start before I know it. I also need to take these around to some local gift stores.

Last night we were at Walmart where I stocked up on super glue. The cashier commented "got enough glue?" The answer to that is yes, it looks like a lot, and no, I can never have enough for the project I am doing. I go through a ton of this!

Another funny thing that happened last night was that we were eating dinner at Applebee's. It was pretty busy and this couple came in and sat down in the booth across from us. The guy had big blond curly rockstar hair, and the woman looked kind of rednecky. All of a sudden the whole section of the resturant filled up with the smell of pot. Yes, pot. Weed. Reefer. Marahoony (as my ex-boss used say). Eric declared that they must have had a clambake in their car before they came in. It also smelled like they tried to cover it up with cheap perfume. They must have had a severe case of the munchies, as they ordered full-sized dinners that came on huge platters. It was thouroughly unappetizing, yet very amusing at the same time.
Well, it is dinner time and another day has rolled by. Eric just brought me a small plate of rice, baked beans, and hotdog. Sounds gross, but it is crazy delicious! It is also nice to have someone cook something and bring it in to me.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Things that suck today:

1. I'm cleaning the bathroom- You can't even imagine how nasty it was and how much work it is turning out to be. Bleach smell is everywhere. Ewwwwwww...
2. I've been listening to the most annoying dog yipping and yapping all day long and I can't figure out where it is coming from.
3. Everything stinks like mothballs still. Every time the heat blows it reeks like them. The other day I was out and my shirt and sweater smelled like them. MOTH BALLS!
4. I got up late and I meant to get up early. I am supposed to be looking for a job and going to the unemployment office. I didn't get any of that done today...Noooooooooooo! I also didn't get anything else done either.
5. My CD burner isn't working right. It started in around Christmas and is still happening. I can't make a mix CD and it is pissing me off.
6. I haven't showered yet and I feel awful. I won't be doing that until all this cleaning shit is done. Right now it looks endless.
   
7. I feel like I am coming down with the cold that everyone else had had for the past 2 weeks. Just what I need.
   
8. There must be something else that sucks?!?!?!?!
   

Moving On.

My last day of work was Friday. I really can't believe it is over. It was the pits being there those last few days. I guess should be feeling free. However, I am sick with dread over finding a new job. It is something that I hate doing, but has to be done. I am trying to put on a brave face.
We did a craft sale today at a church. It seems like forever since the last one but it was only the week before Christmas. It was slow, but I did ok and it was better than nothing.
When I got home I got a call from a woman in Proctor who saw me at a sale last fall and wanted to give me her old zippers. I ended up going to her house to pick them up. She and her husband were very nice and I ended up staying for a long time talking to them. I gave her a pin in exchange for 105 zippers.

They came in this 'Fashion Shop' bag from the olden days of Rutland.

I have to give my weekly thrifting report. I went to the Salvation Army today and didn't find anything. We were rushed out of there by the two workers who wanted to go home early. There were people banging down the door to come in to shop. Just about everything is way over priced. They had an ancient microwave marked $21.99. It looked to be from the early 80s, had a brown fake wood exterior, with pointy silver retro-looking dials. WTF? Those are two reasons why I rarely go there anymore. Thursday at the Mission I found this huge scarf with a pocket, a pair of gloves, a pair of mittens, as well as a new red mock turtle neck from J.C. Penney. All for $5.

After pacing, meowing, and giving us the hairy eyeball, Squeeky finally got her Fancy Feast tonight. Delicious!

I got up this morning when normal people get up. I must say that I am drop-dead tired right now and I am going to get ready for bed.

Stupid Bowl Weekend

Here's what I have been up to this past weekend:
On Saturday afternoon we went to Burlington. The first stop was to Costco. All 5 times that I have been there it has always been mobbed. I can't believe some of the stuff that people have in their carts. I think they were buying snacks and shit for the Stupid Bowl. I got myself some good snacks. Lots and lots of snackidy snacks. Giant bags of snacks. I ended up sneaking off to Michael's for some craft shopping. Here's what I bought with the gift card Trish gave me for Christmas:

Beads galore! These are going to make tons of keychains, suncatchers, necklaces, bracelets and earrings!

We sat at Barnes and Noble for a long time, where I bought this Iron & Wine CD. We ended up eating a very late dinner at Sweetwaters downtown. Bahhhhhh! It was so gross. It used to be so much better. As we walked up the street we saw a new Mexican restaurant, Miguel's, which then I remembered my sister telling me was there. Darn it! It would have been so much better. And maybe I wouldn't have been up at 5 am with the runs either!
On Sunday my Mom and sister came to visit. We went bowling! On the second game my score was 151-my personal best ever! We ate dinner at the Sirloin Saloon.
Valentine's Day is coming up soon and I thought I better figure out how to make a heart-shaped bookclip. Here they are on Eric's Hassock.

I packed up boxes of regular bookclips to send to my Dad and Grandma to sell for me.

I haven't done too much looking for a job. I have heard of a few things but I am being very lazy about it. My schedule is all screwed up and I can't get my ass out of bed in the morning. Here is proof that work is really closing. Here is my goofy boss:

Dishes, disgusting mothballs, and drama!

Here is my big accomplishment for the evening.
I also have a smell report: When I got home yesterday the mothball stench was heinous. It was all through the apartment. After a confrontational phone call with the landlord it was determined that the skunk was not in the basement but under the porch. The air intake vent is at the bottom of the stairs inside of the front door. Therefore, the smell was being sucked inside and into the vent to be circulated around the house. The spaces between the steps and the porch are now sealed with plastic. The mothballs were removed from the front of the porch. Tonight when I got home the mothball stench was also heinous. I donned rubber gloves and grabbed a grocery bag and a flash light and proceeded to pick up all of the mothballs I could get to around the house. There must have been 300 of them! I was picking them up by the handful. It was like an stinky easter egg hunt with little hard balls of crack rocks that look like marshmallows. There are still probably a few hundred more under the porches and the edge of the foundation I couldn't get to. No more mothballs please! The only smell more offensive is cigarette smoke. My co-worker told me that the best thing to keep skunks away is human urine. I guess we will need to work on that.
After I worked on that, I bagged up all of the recycling and cans and bottles. While I was working on that I witnessed a domestic dispute between my neighbor George, who is a rowdy and old man, and some redneck that owed him money. There was shouting, dumping garbage, a broken window, and a visit from a Rutland police cruiser. Excitement! After that we went out for dinner at the new Quiznos, and made a trip to Hannaford for a few groceries.

Look What I Won!!!

I am soooooooooo excited because I received this Feist CD in the mail today. I won it on my local radio station, WEBK 105.3, by playing a game called Short Cuts where they play a clip of a song and you have to be the first caller to correctly identify it. I didn't know what they were going to send, but what do you know, they sent me this CD that I have been wanting really bad all week. It was even on my Amazon Wish List!