I *did* find what I was looking for

Friday was very stressful. I pretty much wanted to kill anyone or anything that came in my path. To top off the stressful work situation, my mother called, she's been sick the past few days, and left what I like to call the "pathetic mother voicemail" about her garage door opener being there, and if I would drop over after work and pick it up "in case you need to get in here." Ok, well, this sounds like a 3 year old kid who is trying to get someone's attention. If you aren't familiar with the trials & tribulations of my mother & I, this may sound a little harsh, but if you've received as many "pathetic mother voicemails" as I have, you become immune to them and begin to wonder if they are indeed some kind of manipulation tactic. This also means I call back without much sympathy in my voice. This phone call pretty much put the cherry on the stress sundae I was eating on Friday. I said to myself, you know what? I know she's sick but since all she's doing is begging for attention, and not saying "please come and visit me" like normal people do if they're lonely, I'm not going to call back for this. She's not asking me to pick anything up for her. She also said she "had" to take the garbage out this morning and she fell. For f&^%'s sake. If you're sick, you're not well enough to go outside and take out the garbage. You are sooooo not getting any sympathy from me on that, that was just stupid and you were asking for it. Or else you're not as sick as you're pretending to be. I can't handle this on top of everything else today.

I headed straight from work to the Ale House for dinner with the Usual Suspects. Spent way more than I should have on one single meal, but it was delicious and hanging with friends helped me to come down from the "I want to kill someone" ledge.

Came home after that and did my usual catch-up routine of TV from the week. Also had to do a small bit of work so I got that cleared up.

Saturday morning I got up, attempted some yoga but this particular episode had the instructor almost yelling at the screen and I was not finding it restful or stress-reducing so I shut it off. Did some reading, watched some TV, headed to church. Left church early because they were showing a movie and I didn't have time to stay - had to get home to change & pick people up for the dinner party at Mare's.

Saturday night was the big dinner party, and I must throw out a big thanks to Mare for all her hard work, especially on my part with the pickiness. Muchas gracias! We began the evening with drinks, there were what seemed like endless bottles of wine. I ended up bringing an Australian Riesling, some others brought 2 or 3 bottles, so let's just say there was lots to drink. I also brought some ale of ginger for myself so at least it looked a little more like wine than coke. Our meal began with smoked salmon (or for me, ham!). I was very appreciative of the ham. Then on to squash soup, which I was meh on but that was just me being picky, everyone else enjoyed it a lot. Main course was pork tenderloin, roast garlic mashed potatoes and green beans (except me :) ). Our dessert was "creeps" (actually crepes, but after a few bottles of wine they ended up being called creeps). Delicious all around, a lot of work put in by Mare and I think everyone had a great time. After dinner (and about 7 bottles of wine) Mare broke out the Trivial Pursuit, where I was the only one who could read questions without slurring.

At some point in the evening we were making some bad jokes which led to the quote of the evening, "Release the hams!!!" Still laughing my ass off, hehehehe!!!

The ironic part of the evening was a friend of mine telling me about her new temp job. Working at the TJ. Taking calls from people who didn't get their flyers. Most of us in the room had some kind of combination of laughter/jaw dropping when she said this, and she hadn't been reading my blog and heard about my campaign. So it is possible that my complaining got the TJ to to realize they needed to get someone to help with the flyers, and my friend got a temp job out of it. Possible, not necessarily what happened though. But incredibly ironic.

We left around 11pm I think, it seemed later than it was. Drove people home uptown & back West. Came home and saw that my mother had called both my house and work cell phone, and not wanting to ruin a fun evening I didn't bother to pick the message up until this morning. Another pathetic sounding message asking that I call her. Ok, I'll do it later once I get some stuff done.

Did my yoga this morning, had my breakfast, took a shower... same-old, same-old. Folded some towels and the phone rang. Mother. Needs me to pick up some stuff. [insert the most pathetic voice you can muster here] "I called you on Friday at work, I fell because I had to take out the garbage." I not-so-nicely informed her that she didn't *have* to take out the garbage. I was actually sounding kind of mean which I regret but I just can't handle the pathetic phone calls, I've been getting them for the last 9 years, whether she's sick or not. Anyway, I said I'd come over and pick up her list of stuff that she wanted me to get, which I think had been there since Friday but she didn't tell me that in the original message. If she had, instead of acting like a 3 year old whose mommy won't pay attention to her, then I would have gone out and gotten her some stuff. Anyway, the list - it was typed. As in she sat at the computer and typed it up and printed it out. Now, am I the only one who thinks if you're as sick as you are making yourself sound, that you wouldn't have the energy to sit at the computer and type up a list? Do we see where I'm coming from here? Went out and got her stuff and came back home.

Decided today should be the day I tackle my taxes. I've done plenty of returns during my stint as an accountant, I actually found that was the best part about the job, so I don't mind doing them, as long as I have software. This is the first year in about 7 years that I don't have software to work with - between working as an accountant myself and then living with my ex who brought the software home, I've always had it at my disposal since I left university. So another change I have to get used to, not a big deal but another annoyance to add to the pile.

I had to rip open the PC so I could boot from my old hard drive and fire up the tax prep software that my ex had installed last year, so I could print off my 2003 return to refer to when doing this year's return. I dumped it to a PDF and headed to my office to print it off, it was just going to be a lot quicker on a laser than an inkjet. Glad I did too, because there was something I was supposed to run today that I would have forgotten about if I hadn't stopped in. Came back home and that's where the subject of today's blog makes a little more sense.

Cleaning up my desk trying to make room for the tax paperwork. Hmmm, I need the mileage I've written down, that's in the car. Decide I'd better put some music on while I'm in the T1 zone, so as I'm going out to the car I figure I might as well bring some CDs in from the car, it's not like I need them until my new radio comes in. I start putting them back in cases, and I grab "All That You Can't Leave Behind." Find the case for it in the centre console and open it up. A-la-peanut-butter-sandwiches, there's my U2 Best of 1980-1990 cd. They got it out, yay! Wish they had told me it was there instead of the story about sending it away. Anyway, it's back, I didn't lose it, yay! Nor did I promptly try to insert another cd into the player to see if it would work... I think I'll just leave it alone until they call me with the new radio. I am smrt. S-M-R-T.

So some good news today in finding the cd. Now I am off to do my tax return. I am expecting a refund since I made a RRSP contribution, but that money will have to go towards paying my dad back, I still owe him money for all the paint I bought for the bedroom and the While You Were In Texas. I also have the water bill to pay too. So likely nothing left over for me for fun, but hopefully I'll be no more in the hole.

Made some changes to my blog today, added a pic and requisite accompanying quote :) Also figured out how to add links to other people's blogs so I have those up now as well. If anyone wants theirs added, send me an email, or get my email from someone else. I'm not posting my email here to encourage spam.