My Friend Makes a Good Johnny Depp, yes?

Here's my dear friend Deb, whom I'm spending the holiday weekend with over in Vancouver.

She's looking rather Captain Jack-ish in this photo because it's Halloween, and also because she moonlights as a makeup artist. I think she makes a rather fabulous (hot) pirate.

In this photo she remains suave despite actually being in the midst of calling 9-1-1, having just been robbed at the bank where she works as a teller.

" I've been robbed, matey! Sort of ironic, yarr, being robbed, me being the pirate and all!"

The officer taking her statement had a hard time taking her statement without cracking a smile.

This wasn't the first time Deb's been the teller facing a bank robber.

The other time was a few years back, on Valentine's Day. My friend told me she sometimes wonders if she should perhaps not show up at work on the lesser holidays.

Deb has a massive collection of the tools of the make-up artist's trade, including the The Death Wheel , which is a handy palette of shades designed to make one look decidedly unhealthy and er, dead. So for all my Zombie Pirate costume needs, I now know where to go.

The real Johnny Depp is currently in Vancouver working on a film. He's staying at the same hotel where Deb's husband works as a chef, but he hasn't yet managed to spot the elusive fellow.

Warning: This Post Might Mention Puke

A couple years back I made a post that explained Why I Could Never Ever Go on Fear Factor. I'm re-posting it here because I told Kim I would. Why, you may ask?

Well, let's just say I told Kim all about getting a double handful of a little kid's puke the other day at work. And instead of reliving it again by typing out the most recent incident here, I'll just regale y'all with some of my old musings on grossness. Have a lovely day, dear readers, and after you're done reading, go out and smell some flowers. It's Spring! :)

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Besides the fact that I would never climb out on a plane's wing, bungee jump off a sky-scraper, or ride in any car that goes purposefully airborne (except for that one time in Tai's old Charger), I could never win at a show like Fear Factor because they would probably ask you to eat something disgusting.

Now, embarrassingly enough, I used to enjoy that show because I figured I could at least do as well as the onscreen contestants at the gross stuff like eating tentacles and bugs. I'm not Eval Kneivel perhaps, but I'd always prided myself on not being grossed out by...things.


I mean, come on, I tried worm pancakes in Grade 4 science class, and once I tried (didn't actually get very far to be honest)eating a mouse as a child. WHAT was I thinking, you may ask. Well, thank you very much Mr. Farley Mowat (mmmm, remember the recipe for souris a la creme in "Never Cry Wolf" when he tries out what the wolves are eating?)


Also, I seem to recall some really disgusting "corn" bread made from gerbil food when my dear pre-adolescent friends and I liked to play "We're Lost in the Woods and It's a Survival Situation".

So I hypothetically had a shot at winning if I should ever find myself in front of cameras on that sort of reality show eating or wallowing in something gross. But now I know I've been fooling myself.


Somewhere along the way, my olfactory sense has honed and turned against me. NOW what would I do In a Survival Situation?

The SMELL factor would really be my downfall.

Two recent incidents have led me to this conclusion.Once, several months ago, I opened a small Tupperware container from the back of the fridge. "Hmmm, I wonder what this could be?", I said all unknowing.

By the gods! How could vegetables in salad dressing become a Thing of Satan? The thought of eating this runny lettuce suddenly sent chills down my spine! I would probably die if I had this smell in my mouth.

Suddenly the rat-milkshake people from television had more of my respect (if that's the word).


And today at daycare, just at the end of a sunny pleasant day, my intestinal mettle was tested anew. I heard my co-worker calling out for someone to help her. I went in to the children's bathroom and was met with the sight of one of our kids projectile vomiting. My co-worker was splashed to the knees. The four other children in the washroom were similarly decorated.

There was a tide of chunky pink puke everywhere. On the mirrors, the baseboards, the art cupboard.

Everywhere.

And the smell was a creature all its own.

The other kids and Justine started to heave in sympathy. No, please, no!! If there were going to be six people throwing up, I don't get paid enough!

I helped Justine herd them all out before disaster could strike. She took care of the poor little sick girl. And me, I was on cleanup duty. I waded in with rubber gloves and towels and bleach.When I came out of there,my eyes were watering from the smell.

Bazooka barfing in Technicolor Smell-A-Vision. That'll do it to ya.

And that's why I will never be seen on Fear Factor.

Sploosh

Hmmmm...that's funny...the water filling the bathtub won't warm up.

Hmmm...strange... we don't have any hot water from the kitchen tap either.

Funny how that impending sense of doom comes over you when you're walking down the steps to check out what's happening with your hot-water tank.

Yep. I think the water tank's gone bye-bye. I think SPLOOOSH is a fairly accurate description of the area of the floor in that vicinity.

Sigh, so apparently hot water tanks that are run on natural gas have to be installed by a licensed gas fitter (which is fine by us as we really don't want to mess around with that sort of thing ourselves, do-it-ourselfers though we usually are).

But our tank blew on a weekend and gas fitters charge time and a half for Saturday and double-time for Sunday, so we're waiting for Monday to get our new heater installed by the only fellow who returned our phone calls.

He charges seventy-five bucks an hour which makes me feel like I might have gone in for the wrong career choice, oh, plus travel time and plus eighty cents a kilometre driving down from Campbell River. He seems like a nice enough fellow (gave us the tip to drain the tank ourselves first so he doesn't have to charge us for that time), but it seems like a lot of money that all of a sudden is (ahem) going down the drain.

But, drat it, I need my hot water. Bath-time is just not the same at the moment. *sigh*

Now, if I put the kettle and a large pot on every burner on the stove, heat them up, run them up the stairs and pour them into the tub, run downstairs again---repeat. Well, then I have roughly two inches of warmish water. Ah, woe!

*more tragic sighing*

My Garden Has Been Interviewed

Yes, my garden has been interviewed....and I'll be on the garden tour this May. :)

It almost did feel like a job interview of sorts when two of the local garden society representatives arrived to evaluate my garden, notepads in hand: there were background questions to be answered, inquiries about shrubberies which required botanical lingo to answer (most gardeners do their best to appear as if they speak Latin of course), and garden design questions to field.

Half an hour later, they shook my hand and thanked me and congratulated me.

This despite the fact that:

*despite the crocuses featured on this page, my garden is a squishy, muddy bog this time of year, and anybody who is not a horticultural type will have to take it on my word that those funny pinkish bumps in the dirt will two months hence be glorious peonies

* that I obviously had no clue that the odd-looking plant off in one corner was a Himalayan honeysuckle (and not the What-sit as I have referred to it for the last five years), or what species my ornamental cherry trees might be

*that my sword ferns were looking particularly unruly that afternoon (they gave me some fern-whacking tips)

*that there was a large dead mouse lying across one of the pathways ("I have bunnies too!" I exclaimed brightly)

Yes, they seemed to quite like it despite all that...and I'm glad because I've been working my hiney off out in the yard since I put that application in the second week of February. I've put in about thirty-five hours out there (ahem, not that I'm counting, but I'm curious to how much effort I'm eventually going to expend on this project now that I've committed to it).

And speaking of that....

Who needs the gym, my friends, when you can burn off huge amounts of calories weeding in Spider Girl's garden?

Yes, don't waste your time on the StairMaster people! Free "Garden Gym" memberships for all--- I've got plenty of toning and er, weight-lifting activities around about.

Just ask Jeff about the physical benefits of digging large holes.

He's, er, thrilled that we're on the tour.

Just thrilled. :)

Happy Birthday Pol!

There are some friends that you can't imagine the landscape of your life without...... They've been a true friend forever, and they can hold a photograph where we're all in it from ten years before the one we just took, and in theory we could have a tinier image in that photo taken ten years before THAT.

It's Pol's birthday today, and Tai (who is at my house and drinking tea right beside me as I type this) and I just wanted to wish her a "HIPPO BIRDIE!"

No matter where in the world we are, we will always be friends....

...knowing that our creative, art-appreciating....

...beautiful....

....scampi-loving...

...sensible and sun-shy....

...bottom-appreciating....

....amazing friend is OURS! We will always love her. Happy Birthday!

Love Spider Girl and Tai