Heavy Rainfall Warning: Uh-oh

Yup, you guessed right: time to break out my Ark and go sailing in the basement. Hey, I already have the animals down there to go with it. Tonight it was pouring in, as in 2 steady streams of water coming in either side of the door. From the outside you could see water piling up against the door. It is soaking the carpet at the bottom of the stairs. It is nasty. I knew it was coming, so I was able to put all the cardboard boxes on top of plastic boxes to keep stuff dry. But this is the worst it's been.

While I was downstairs, wearing my rubber boots, trying to direct water traffic, I heard this noise. What's that noise? Sounds like a draining noise, but where is it coming from? The water heater? Oh yeah, there's a drain right beside the water heater in case it ever leaks. Being a first-time homeowner, and still getting acquainted with every nook and cranny of my house, I didn't realize it was there. So I cleared out the tile and paint cans and now water is draining there. Slowly, but at least it's going. Also have the stove on so that the heat will be able to dry things faster.

In surfing around to various blogs last night, I found a sports blog from New Zealand discussing primarily rugby but also American sports, and caught a post about hockey and NFL football. I posted a reply mostly centred around our hockey fiasco and they seemed to like it, so that's pretty cool. I thought for a while I might have ranted on too much about hockey but they liked it so much they gave me my own post. Now if I can just answer the sports questions of TP, I'm all set.


Now on to those two fabulous things that happened to me yesterday:


The announcement of the fall leg of U2's Vertigo tour, Montreal, Nov. 26 2005

Within minutes of reading it, I was on Aeroplan checking flights. I was writing crazy emails with exclamation points all over the place. The word is out, and am I ever excited. I have been waiting for this since the guy with the white t-shirt in front of me stopped bouncing up & down at the Bell Centre at the Elevation tour. Note: short people do not do well standing on the floor with tall people bouncing in front of them. Anyway, I can't wait!!!!

Anyone who is really serious about going to this concert let me know and I will see how many people my brother is willing to put up in his house. Drop me an email ASAP if you're interested. Tickets go on sale in the next couple of weeks so we need to get organized beforehand.


It came in the mail from Toronto. It comes twice a year. It can only be...

The Harry Young Spring/Summer 2005 shoe catalog. Why is this so special, you ask?

I have narrow feet. The average woman's width is a B. C,D,E being wider, and A being more narrow. Like a circus freak show, I can show you my shoes that have this stamped into the bottom of them: AAAA. Yup, that is a quad A people. Only freaks have feet this narrow. I, like my mother before me, and like her mother before her, have been cursed with this. Shoe manufacturers don't seem to care that their B width shoes do not fit every woman. Very few of them make a shoe in AA width, let alone AAA or AAAA. Therefore it is very difficult for me to find shoes. Can't find any anywhere in SJ, obviously. I have to go to TO, which is where this store and their beautiful, wonderful, magnificent catalog comes in. I love these people. When I get to go to TO, if I do nothing else, I make sure I go there. Mare calls this my "pilgrimage to Mecca." Vagabond should not be surprised if I show up on his doorstep one day and say that I am in town to buy shoes. Just warning you now :)

Needing shoes of this nature also means you have to spend a lot of money to get them. No Payless shopping for me. I also have a limited selection of what I can wear on my feet. I was never so proud of the purchase that got me a slip-on flip-flop type shoe. Do you know how hard it is to have a flip-flop shoe stay on a narrow foot? I love them so much I call them my "normal woman shoes", because I was finally able to wear shoes that looked like normal women wear.

If you notice, I always have black shoes. Since I am spending a lot of money on shoes, I have to make sure they will go with as many things as possible, which also means I can't buy fun colors that are "in" this season, as I wouldn't be able to get a lot of wear out of them and thus would have spent a lot of money for something "fun". Hey, I'd love to do that, but my practical side has to kick in there.

So how much is "spending a lot of money"? Well, on average I'm looking at $200/pair. Yeah, that's pretty expensive. I am getting good quality shoes from brand name manufacturers though. And it's not like I can walk into Payless and buy something similar for a cheaper price.

This is my life, and therefore the arrival of this catalog constitutes my shoe shopping. I shopped last night, pouring over the pictures. Looks like a lot of pink & red this season, so Jenn, you are on the fashion edge. If I had some extra money I would be getting a pair or two, but unfortunately the financial situation dictates that I calm down on the spending for a while. Thankfully I didn't see anything I would kill for, as that would have increased the temptation.


Ok, didn't realize it was this late. Better go check on the Great Flood of '05 and get to bed.

One last note: my mother asked my older brother why I hate her so much. [sigh] I don't hate my mother, I am just incredibly frustrated by her sometimes. See Sunday's post for details. At least I'm not disowned again, she's still emailing me jokes.