Asian grocery stores are a beautiful thing

We have been seriously missing Thai food lately, and despite our best efforts to make it at home, we always lacked what we need to make the delicious cuisine perfect: Thai bird chillies.  The regular super markets have only jalapeno peppers, serrano peppers, and twice per year, (if you’re lucky) you can find Scotch Bonnet peppers (habenero chillies).  The bird chillies from Thailand have a great flavour, and are just a little bit less spicy than the habeneros, but have WAY more kick than the jalapenos.  Neither of the other chillies will substitute.  Sure, you can add more jalapenos to accomplish the spice factor, but the FLAVOUR is wrong. 

Anyway, we took a trip to the Eastern Market.  We have found bird chillies there before, but they were often dark green and no matter how long we left them sitting around, would rot before turning red.  And if we used them green, the flavour was all wrong and the heat just wasn’t there.  Poor us.   This time was different.  Thanks be to Raptor Jesus, we found a big ole bag of RED bird chillies.  These things looked as good as or better than the ones we could buy at the market in Thailand.   See for yourselves:

Anyway, Monday Matt made me a red curry (my personal favourite of the curries), and tonight is noodle bowl night.

Raptor Jesus, bless the Eastern Market.

Inspiration

I feel the need to explain that the idea for shenanigans with Antonio in the house was inspired by my years of living with awesome roommates.  I happened to catch a few of these excellent pranks with a camera, although most were captured with my heart. (awwww)  The following photos may be disturbing to those who do not understand them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blogger is the worst for dealing with individual photos. I did the best I could.  By the way, the arrangement of the photos looks nothing on the blog like it looks in my publisher program. Live Writer Preview function FAIL

 

 

Fridge Magnets – Instalment II

I think the baby one is referring to the kittens we are expecting.  Minnie has been nesting her big baby belly all over the house:

  The countdown is on, we’re expecting at the end of February!  Fuck.

Meez tests my patience

Meez has been spending lots of time outside lately enjoying the nice weather.  Last night he went outside around 8:00 pm.  I woke up this morning to realize that he hadn’t meowed at the window to come in at all last night, but I didn’t think much of it, as often times he spends 8-10 hours at a time outside.  But then, at about 10:00 this morning, I started to worry.  Meez is hungry at all times, he should be back by now begging for Whiskas.

 

 

Over the next hour, I continued to work myself into a worried frenzy: this behaviour is highly unlike our Meezer.  He’s always back to eat and snuggle and never pulls an all-nighter.  Besides, it was a cool –12 this morning, he must be cold.  So I put on my jacket and walked around to his favourite spots in the back alley and around the block calling him and waiting, calling him and waiting.  Meez is like a dog, he will come to his name being called.  At the very least he will answer back with his trademark “meez”.  Nothing.
Assuming he was dead and counting up all the money we had spent to get him over here divided by the number of months we had him as a pet, I was pretty upset on a number of levels.  So I called the SPCA in a last ditch attempt to locate the Thai fugitive.  The lady on the phone informed me that two cats were brought in last night, neither of which fit Meez’s description, but she suggested I file a lost animal report, just in case he turns up.  So I was halfway through describing his tail being a weird length and his red collar while looking longingly out our living room window (Meez’s entry and exit point) when I heard a distinctive voice followed shortly by seeing this mug come into view:

I laughed with relief, and told the girl on the phone, “Nevermind, he just showed up at my window meowing his face off.”  THE END

 

Lately all my stories have a happy ending, I could get used to this.  That being said, we have found a new place to live.  A whole house, which will be shared with no crazies.  It’s a cute little house on the east side of the city, and with a little bit of fixing, it will be a home we will be proud to call ours.  It costs a little more, but at this point, any amount of money is worth getting out of our current situation, which is: living in a basement suite under a bitch and beside a crazy dude.  I feel like I’m too old to live in a basement suite and basically have roommates that never stop complaining or being obnoxious and loud.  And since I don’t mind doing stuff like painting and sanding and basic renovation stuff, and my dad has volunteered his knowledge and assistance, I told Matt we would be moving in. 

I phrase it that way intentionally: last night we went to look at the house, and the people living there are messy and have a dog, so the house smells like dog and is very cluttered, making it seem very small and claustrophobic, and I think Matt had a hard time looking past that to see that this house had potential, and most importantly, no crazy people living above or beside us.  He didn’t seem to be very excited about the house, and when pushed to make a decision this morning, left it up to me completely, as if he wasn’t interested in moving at all anymore.  But I know if we don’t, we’ll both complain all summer that we should have moved and we wish we didn’t share a house.  With some better paint colours and a bit of fixing, changing of light fixtures and a LOT less stuff in it, the house will be very cute.  It has a deck on the back, a covered porch/veranda on the front, and most importantly: A RED DOOR.  (I used to have a recurring dream 3-4 years ago about living in a house with a red door)  Also the landlord is pretty much absent, which is what everyone hopes for, because while we are respectful of where we live, I don’t enjoy the feeling of being watched and scrutinized.  Like I said, I don’t think Matt is 100% on board, but when it’s summertime, and we have our own backyard to spend time in and we don’t have to avoid or dodge any people sharing the house, he will realize we made the right decision to move.  I don’t want to spend all summer indoors because I dislike our neighbours so much.  And understandably, the idea of moving in February/March is enough to make anyone a little hesitant.  But I think it will be worth it, and I know once the place is fixed and furnished properly and in an organized way, Matt will think so too.

Fridge Magnets – Instalment 1

First, some entertaining back story: 
Matt’s dad and his wife sent us Christmas gifts which we received yesterday.  Mine said “To: Jacqueline - Can’t wait to meet you!”  And Matt was given Pick Up Line themed fridge magnets.  (??Can’t wait to meet you, Jacquie.  Here’s some pick up lines for your boyfriend??)  Anyway, they turned out to be pretty fun so I’m going to do a new recurring post every week or two of some of the phrases we’ve come up with.  Here are the first few that have shown up:

 

I’m an organ donor, need anything?

 

 

 

 

 

You’re my astronaut pants!

 

 

 

 

If you were a laser, you wouldn’t make money.

A decade in review

I guess 2010 starts a new decade, and since I have a serious hate on for the 80’s, I am willing to embrace the importance of chunking time into decades we can refer to later. Plus, as Dylan said, this is the first one I’m actually able to remember in any detail, so in honour of the future, I will dwell on the past? I guess that makes sense.

The year 2000!!!!!
I was in grade 8, and there was nothing notable about the year, except that Jesus didn’t come back and the world didn’t end, nor did planes drop out of the sky due to the Y2K apocalypse promise. I remember spending a lot of lunch hours at Outlook High School eating “Fruit-tip” popsicles in the hallway. At this point I was also growing my bangs out, which is the most awkward-looking thing a girl can do during her early teenage years.

Next time I’m at home, I will find my school photo from that year to prove how hideous and awkward I was. Awful. I should also remember to get my diaries and join in Lojo’s Teen Angst Archives.

2001
Grade 9. This year my since-Kindergarten best friend went absolutely crazy. She got her first “real boyfriend” then suffered a break up and went a bit off the deep end and flirted with self mutilation. Try as I might to help her, she didn’t seem to listen and spiralled deeper into her depression. I gave up on her quickly and focused on a new group of friends. We got a new girl in our class. (In Outlook, this is a big deal) New girl Jamie sat next to me in homeroom and we are BFF instantly. She is hilarious and I loved every moment of the next couple of years thanks to the trio of me, Terri and Jamie.

2002
Grade 10. I got contacts in 2002 and realized my love for Math and Physics. Learner’s license is attained, blah blah blah.

2003
Grade 11. I got my license the week after my 16th birthday on my first try, I am awesome. I also start dating Cody in this year and make the classic mistake of completely ditching my friends and putting all my time and effort into this, my first relationship. I also got a part-time job working at the motel in town, and with that, I gain my first bit of freedom: my own money and the opportunity to drive myself to school. Around this year, I stop riding the school bus almost completely. I get involved in almost everything I possibly can so that I have an excuse to drive to school rather than take the bus. Shit, I hated the school bus.

2004
Grade 12. Finally. This year I kicked it into high gear and got super high marks. I set the goal of university scholarships, and Valedictorian. I achieved it and gave the Valedictorian address at my high school graduation. Despite committing my first act of rebellion (a bellybutton piercing), the summer was not so great: Cody and I “took a break” which was the beginning of the end for that relationship. I moved away from home and enjoy a free ride my first year university. I met my roommates Jamie and Dawn for the first time, this Jamie also proves to be a BFF, as well as I learn a lot from her about “real” life. October 2004 was the big break up. As a result, I bombed all my midterms and tried to deal with the post-breakup drama and bull shit. I learned a lot about myself and what an adult relationship should be. A lot of highs and a lot of lows in 2004, but mostly lessons learned.

2005
The early part of 2005 was an extension of the breakup situation, but in the summer I traveled to Italy and Germany. I also started work at the Co-op warehouse this year and really came into my own, independence-wise. I questioned my education choices, but did nothing to change them. All is not lost though, some pretty key friendships start near the end of 2005, although I associate them more with the year(s) to follow.

2006
In 2006 I was no longer a teenager, I turned 20. In winter semester of second year, Team Lift assembles. Although Reegan was an original member, let’s face it: it was a tripod, standing on the legs of D-dub, Dan and I. Reegan was along for the ride, but I never felt any real commitment out of him. Team Lift worked both for and against me. For me, in the sense that we had awesome fucking times when awesome times were getting a bit hard for me to come by, and against in the sense that Dwayne and Dan are much smarter than me, and thus had to do much less schoolwork to get by. I tried to adopt a similar approach, but couldn’t hack it, and I failed my first thing ever: PHYS 226. Ouch. But I got over it quickly (except for still hating Hussey with every ounce of my being), worked night shifts at the Co-op, had a kick ass summer(complete with a fling), and cut my cord from Jamie to move in with my new BFFs. This was also the year that I met Ryan on his birthday pubcrawl, and an everlasting bond of BFFery was forged. Unfortunately he chose this year to move to Edmonton, but for the safety of Saskatoon and surrounding regions, that was probably a good idea. I’m not sure how much crazier my life could’ve gotten at this point without caving in on itself, so having Ryan 5 hours away probably kept us all out of jail.
All of these friendships have equally weighted importance in my life, and I treasure them very much to this day. 2006 was definitely the year that I found my second family and those totally cliché friends from college days: the ones that you visit and talk to forever.
Also, due to my extreme workload that year, extended sickness and stress factor, I was very skinny. I still miss my 2006 physique.

2007
Dwayne and I spend New Year’s Eve of 2006/2007 moving all of our shit into a new place to live. We had trimmed the fat, remedied a shitty roommate situation and move Team Lift into a new place, Edward Ave. In January, I had my first “date”, with Matt and around March, I am fairly certain that Matt is someone I might like to keep around. That same winter, we had our housewarming party + EP grad. It was awesome. I opted for more rebellion in 2007, getting two tattoos. Dwayne was gone for most of that summer, but I bought my first car (the Bumblebee) and had a fight with Dan. By the fall of 2007, I was ready to GTFO of Saskatoon. School was driving me crazy, after switching back to day shifts at work, I was starting to hate even my beloved Co-op. Matt has the idea to move to Asia and teach English for a while, and I was all too ready to take a break from school and figure out what the fuck I was doing with my life. Tattoos, plans for dropping out of school and moving to Asia to live in sin? I think it’s safe to say my parents were shitting bricks by the end of 2007.

2008
A lot of planning was done in the first few months, so that on April 28th, Matt and I were officially living in Bangkok. Naturally, I was a bit concerned about not only moving in with, but moving across the Earth with someone I had been with barely a year. Putting myself in this situation, and being so far from my support system of BFFs and family, if shit went bad with us, shit would go REALLY bad for me. Although Matt and I had been friends since 2005, I’d never lived with him, (or any boyfriend), and I’d certainly never lived in another country. This move would be the test of a lifetime on a pretty green relationship. Luckily, it seemed like there was no adjustment period, things were pretty great. We had only each other to lean on, to talk to, to travel with. And so that’s what we did. After traveling and vacationing for a few months, we find teaching jobs… at the same school. After about 6 months of teaching, I was impressed. We lived together, traveled together and now worked together (although we had worked together before, at C0-op). At this point, after the shit we’d been through, and even thinking about it now, I’m sure there’s nothing that we can’t handle together. We had barely a fight at all, and we spent Christmas in Laos at a small town in the middle of nowhere. It was also in this year I realized I do not want to be a teacher, AND the year that we find Meez. Fucking love that cat.

2009
I rang this new year in on a bus back from Laos. Getting pretty fed up with excessive heat and humidity, Thailand’s prevailing laziness and shitty school system, we make plans to come home. During a visit from Ryan in April, I was hit by a ton of bricks: I’d love love LOVE to be a publishing editor. So back to school I went in September, only to find out that the Linguistics program is no more, and I must reconsider my life choices yet again. Minnie entered our household in the fall and Matt landed a fantastic job at Saskatchewan Research Council and finally seems content with using his education in his occupation. I got a job at Pier 1, and things started to really fall into place, much needed, after a few months of questioning our move home.

So 2010. As it stands, I am applying to SIAST for the X-ray tech (MRT) program in the fall of 2010. We’re hoping to move out of our shithole basement suite in the summer. I’m looking forward to another Saskatoon summer, and hopefully meeting Matt’s dad at his home in Pennsylvania next Christmas. I’ll probably also take a few hundred more pictures of the cats.

Long term, after doing the MRT schooling, I would like to upgrade to MRI tech, then work for a few years until we can feel financially stable enough to move out to BC and leave Saskatchewan winters behind forever. There, I can hopefully complete the Linguistics program and start on the road to editor. Either that or have a couple of kids I can resent later because I had to forsake all of my dreams. We’ll see.

Traveling with Meez-related Update

June 30, 2009 – Packing to move commences.   Meez was obviously excited for the move (see: left), he insisted on coming with us from Thailand, and naturally we agreed.  

Our 48 hours of hell:
July 3, 2009:
3:00 a.m. – Meez is asleep in his kennel on the foot of the bed, his standard activity.  The front door is closed and he wakes up at the first movement, meows quietly, but hears my voice reassuring him and sits nicely.  We get in the taxi, Meez looks excited, pupils dilated.  He is trying to see everything out the windows, turning around and around in his kennel.  After a few minutes he sits again and waits.   Meanwhile, I am suffering the most terrifying cab ride of my life.  The driver is half asleep, the taxi is rickety, everything is rattling and it has trouble traveling highway speeds.  The lights barely work, and the expressway to the airport is under construction, but not well marked.  The only other vehicles on the highway are huge dump trucks with no tail lights.  Then it starts to rain: the windshield wipers barely work and I’m convinced my time has come.  If I had a God, I would’ve started praying about now.

3:40 a.m. – Against all odds, we arrive safely at the Suvarnabhumi International Airport just outside of Bangkok.  We load the Meez atop our [many] suitcases on the luggage cart and proceed to the Northwest Airlines counter.  I am nervous for him.  To put an outdoor cat into a kennel for 25+ hours of flying seems cruel, but leaving him behind is obviously not an option, so I swallow my nerves and present our passports for check in.  Things are going smoothly. the lady behind the counter even offers to change our seats around to put Matt and I together, as well as put us at the back of the plane so that Meez’s slightly-too-tall kennel can go behind the seat against the bulkhead.  Lovely.  They don’t even charge us overage on our ridiculously heavy and giant suitcases.  Perfect.  This is where things get stressful.  This is the watered-down version of our exchange with Northwest Airlines.

NWA Employee: “So I’ll need to see your export license for the cat.”
Jacquie: “Oh, Canada doesn’t require that license, so I just have this vaccination certificate.”
NWA Employee: “But you’re traveling through Japan, which requires additional documentation.”
Jacquie: “But we’re not even leaving the airport, we’re only there for 90 minutes.”
NWA: “Doesn’t matter, without that paperwork, we can’t let you fly today.”
Jacquie: “Fuck.”
NWA: “It’s ok, get a hotel, then go to the animal quarantine office and get the paperwork today and we’ll fly you out tomorrow morning on the same schedule at no extra charge.”

Ok, well it seems like we don’t have a choice, and luck would have it that I still have a free hotel stay on my Accor member card.   We’ve been waiting months to get out of Thailand, what’s one more day?

5:00 a.m. - We use up my free stay at the very clean, comfortable and classy Airport Novotel (not sarcastic, one of the nicest hotels I’ve ever been in).  I’m feeling a little guilty about the cat having to spend 24 extra hours in his kennel downstairs in the security office, but I visit him every few hours and take him outside.  

9:00 a.m. – I remove the Meez from his kennel and go for another taxi ride.  I obtain the paperwork, all the people in the office are loving the Meez/Jacquie duo:
”He’s so cute and well behaved.  I can’t believe you don’t keep him in his kennel.”
”You two look alike, so nice.”
”What a great kitty.” etc etc etc.
I know, people.  Why the hell do you think I’m hauling him across the earth?

12:00 p.m. – Back at the hotel, I’m calming down and ready to sleep a bit, but then the airline calls.  Long story short, I fight with them for a few hours because due to the July 4 weekend in the USA, no flights are leaving from Minneapolis to Saskatoon until July 6.  NWA refuses to pay for a hotel room for us for two days and Matt’s dad can’t be talked into driving 14 hours to hang out for a while.  I’m also wondering what we’re going to do with a cat for 2 days, because he certainly can’t stay in the kennel.  I fight a little more, demand I be delivered to Saskatoon that day and they better make it happen. 
July 4 – 3:30 a.m. - After some harsh words and a lot of phone calls, our flights have been fixed: they reroute us as far as Calgary, and my parents come to pick us up and drive us back to Saskatoon that night.  We arrived home safely, none of our luggage was lost and things are fine.
--fin--

Meez turned out to be a wonderful traveler and despite the fact that he spent two full days in his kennel being in and out of hotels, airplanes, airports and taxis, he still loves it in there (see: left) and sleeps in it every night after he tires of laying on my sweater cushions (boobs).

Now that we’re home, the run-in with NWA is a distant memory, but I will never fly with them again.  It was especially frustrating because I did my job.  I called NWA a month ahead and asked about what I needed.  I emailed the Canadian embassy to ask about paperwork and I asked two different vets what we needed.  None of this was mentioned.  There was no way I could’ve avoided this situation, no matter how hard I tried.  And try I did, I covered all my information bases...  

Meez has found his favourite spot to sit in my parents’ house (below left) and he’s got about 50x more energy in this cool weather.  His fur is soft and clean and he’s excited to be alive (below right).

                                

Of course, my luck ran out again, and this was all too good to be true.  He’s adjusting very well, but he’s making strange howling noises in his litterbox lately.  It sounds painful.  There’s no blood in his stool, but he really sounds like he’s in pain when he’s in there doing his thing.  He’s not constipated, but a treat disappeared off of the countertop this week and we can’t even find the plastic wrap.  So I’m wondering if he’s got that as a blockage and it’s causing him pain during bowel movements.  I’ve added some flaxseed oil to his food, and I’m going to be switching him back to a mixture of soft and hard food this week, see if that gets things moving for him.  If there’s still a bit of howling, I’ve read to add pumpkin to his food, so I’ll give that a try as well.  He might just be lacking fibre and it’s making his stools a bit too hard, thus causing the pain. 
I’m going to give him a week to try and straighten him out.  If the howling doesn’t stop, a vet visit might be in order.  He needs to be neutered anyway, I guess.  To quote a beautiful lady, he’s been rape meowing all over the place every day.  Misses his Thai bitches, I guess.  We’ll be moving him to a new place on July 25, and after that he should have some stability.  What a trip, I hope that cat knows what we went through to get him here.  I regret nothing.

Hello Doraemon bowls

As some of you may have read previously, I was planning on purchasing Doraemon merchandise at my local 7-11.  As it turns out, you could not just buy the merch, it was a points collection system.

So over the last 6 weeks, I was collecting these:

to fill up two of these:

the end result being these:

Huzzah, Doraemon!

I can't wait to eat cottage cheese/black pepper/green onions or Dairyland Classic Vanilla with Lemon out of them upon my return to Toontown.

Whee!!

:)

It should also be known that I purchased a Doraemon stuffed animal and watched a full length feature film, Doraemon Nobita and the Robot Army.  It was awesome.  I regret nothing.