Carl Sagan and Patrick Stewart try to save us from ourselves.

Over the past week or so, just about every single person I know has shared the Carl Sagan “pale blue dot” video. Tagged “must watch” or “life changing”. But I couldn’t shake the feeling I’d seen it, or something very similar to it, before.

And, though Google search strings failed me, my cousin pulled through with the link to the Patrick Stewart video. So here they both are together. Carl on the Earth as a tiny speck in the cosmos, and Patty-boy on the Earth as an island. Enjoy!

Carl:

Patrick:

“A Consumer”

As described by your pal and mine, William Gibson. Quoted in “Why I won’t buy an iPad” (which, btw, is also f’ing brilliant).

A Consumer

“[S]omething the size of a baby hippo, the color of a week-old boiled potato, that lives by itself, in the dark, in a double-wide on the outskirts of Topeka. It’s covered with eyes and it sweats constantly. The sweat runs into those eyes and makes them sting. It has no mouth… no genitals, and can only express its mute extremes of murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the channels on a universal remote.”

No fruit for you!

That’s it. I’m planting seeds.

Because I’m this close to giving up on organic fruit and veg delivery in Toronto. In the summer months, we’re well-positioned between a couple of farmer’s markets. But in the winter months, we’re close only to a very low quality/high price organics store, and a “whassaorganic?” Metro.

So I have, over the years, tried a couple of fruit and veg “box” services.

Man. Alive.

They have produce. I have (sometimes) seen it. So why, why don’t they want me to have it?

I want to love the hippies. I do. Beneath this crusty exterior, I am one of them. But not when it comes to organizing a business. Because in that respect, holy. hell.

In our old apartment, and for years, we battled it out with Green Earth Organics. Who got something wrong pretty much every order. We’d regularly be charged for items which weren’t delivered. Or the fruit and veg in the bin arrived so wet they’d either be spoilt when we got them, or they’d spoil within the day. Additional items would not arrive more often than they did – and with no explanation. The empty bins were not picked up, and the deposits on the glass jars we’d send back weren’t credited to our account. Every week was an exercise in finding out what we’d been charged for that hadn’t arrived, and what had arrived that we’d substituted out.

Finally, I gave up and canceled our service.

This year, tired of fighting scurvy with frozen peas, I decided to try again. So we placed a couple of orders with Wanigan. Since they let you place one-off orders, I thought I’d go with a few trial runs before we signed on for regular delivery.

Good. Call.

The first few orders went off beautifully. Fresh, as-ordered produce magically arrived at our door. Everything we asked for came, and everything we were charged for was there.

And then.

I came home from work on a Wanigan day, saw the small bag of produce left on the counter, and thanked the Mister for getting started putting it away. He didn’t know what I was talking about. “Well, I put the eggs away, but what’s on the counter is all that came.”

Where “all that came” were the additional items: cashews, eggs, 2 baby bok choy, some snow peas and a yellow pepper.

Exactly whose brain is not switched on here?

I can understand overlooking an item or two. But there are so many different points in the chain where it should be bleeding obvious to the people involved that this order was incomplete. Right down to whoever it was who left this teeny bag of teaser produce on my porch.

Still, putting them head and shoulders above GEO, when I contacted Wanigan about the mistake, they were quick both to reply and credit my account for the missing main “box”.

Whew.

Feeling gunshy, I tried again this week.

And this week’s delivery just arrived. Additional items? Check. (That additional items guy is so on the ball). Vegetables? Check. Fruit?

Fruit?

Nuh-ope.

My “Fruit and Vegetable” box is all vegetable, no fruit. And yes, for those of you playing along at home, I was charged for the full box.

Which, of course, triggers a crazy pills moment. I find myself shaking out the kale to see if it’s hiding oranges. If the avocado is simply squirreled away beneath the romaine. Going back to the patio two and three times to see if the pears and apples made a roll for it.

But the patio is pear-free, and I resign myself to an “about that fruit I ordered…” email.

Again.

What lies abajo

When I did spanish language layouts, the word for beneath (abajo) seeped into my brain. (Photo captioning).

Which just paid off, when I understood (without translation) my sister’s response to my question: “Si un capybara no es un carpincho, y cae en el bosque, ¿hace ruido?”

Her reply?: “Si hay un mono abajo, si”.

Qué manera de morir.

It’s not like I was going to eat it

I recently purchased this:

A stupid expensive clear foundation-y gel, which I read an article about, and then bought during a moment of suckerdom.

Problem is that its little pump action dispenser has this tendency to projectile squirt. If you’re not careful, it’ll forcefully ejaculate the goop across the room. Like this morning, when I pressed the pump and found nothing on my fingertips. And then I spotted the glob on the bathroom door.

And it is sufficiently pricey that I honestly considered wiping it off the door and applying it to my person.

But I didn’t. This time.

People, this is exactly what happens behind the closed doors of the make-up nation. Nobody’s per-fekt.

He’s not as innocent as he looks.

Some of you (*cough*V*cough*) make little sad faces while reciting back to me some of the “things I don’t get tired of doing to my husband“. “Poor guy” you say. Envisioning his life of constant rastling torment.

And so.

I thought I would share this evening’s extremely common occurrence.

That is, I am working, and he decides he wants my attention. And there is only one way my husband wants my attention, and that is RIGHT NOW.

I must emit some sort of “on-a-deadline” pheromone, because that seems to be the only time he gets this overwhelming urge speak with me immediately.

When he gets something in his little brain that he wants to tell me about, god help us all. “Stubborn” does not begin to describe this man.

It does not matter if I tell him I only need 5 minutes to send this document/ write this email/ finish this report. If anything, that just triggers some weird panic system where he really really can’t wait. If I ask for 5 minutes of quiet, he’ll give me at best 15 seconds. Then he’ll try again. Then he’ll likely start narrating about how he’s being quiet. Then he’ll lie down on the floor next to me. Then he’ll start talking about the underside of the coffee table. Or the ceiling. Or what we should do with the light fixtures. Or imitate some noise he’s hearing (like this evening’s extended remix version of “what the cat sounds like when she’s eating wet food”).

Then I will stop and say something along the lines of “honey! for god’s sake! please please just be quiet for 30 seconds! I literally need to read this email through once and then I can hit send and you can tell me whatever you want!”

Cue a sigh. Followed by another 10 seconds of silence, and then perhaps humming, then… you name it. If I’m lucky he’ll go and practice guitar. Without his headphones on.

(He might even patter back down the hall two chords in to ask if it’s been 5 minutes yet.)

Now, bear in mind that in 10 years of being together, I don’t think a single one of these musthappenrightnow conversations has ever ever actually qualified as urgent. This evening for instance? He wanted to talk to me about espresso machines. Sometimes he wants to tell me about music theory. Or the recycling. Or what he should have as a snack.

See? Wolf in a really frustrating sheep’s clothing. He’s lucky he’s cute.

Result: Average (and how!)

I just bought a scale. Where by “bought” I mean “cashed in RBC points”.

It’s a fancy shmancy scale. Which measures water/fat/muscle/BMI/recommended caloric intake/colour chakras/outfit coordination etc.

And it made me mad. Because it seems to think that I am very very average. My water is around 50% (average), my fat is around 29% (average), my muscle is around 36% (average).

I am displeased. I do not like being average (the husband says it’s cuz I’m “contrary”). And 36% muscle is exactly the number wikipedia says is what a normal woman has. NORMAL. MY. ASS.

This may bring a new (crazy mutterer) focus to my gym time. So if you see someone over by the weights, mumbling under their breath something about “stupid goddamn 36% I’ll show you who’s 36% maybe we’ll just throw another set on there how do you like them percentages 36″…

…that’d be me.

Update: I have fully 4% less body fat when the scale is in the bathroom vs the hall. Must be a gravity pocket.

Loveiversary

Today is my loveiversary. Neologism courtesy of the husband, who coined the term to reflect that while we’ve been married for 2+ years, we’ve been together for oh so much longer.

10 awesome years of big love.

You’re the greatest baby. MWA!

Things my husband probably gets tired of saying to me

1. “No it’s not a euphemism.”

Often following up on a sentence like: “Could you please flip my spring rolls over?”

2. “That doesn’t go there.”

This is broadly applied to dishes, winter coats, appendages…

Often attached to a sentence like: “No the cat does not like it when you put your feet on her head.”

3. “Is your playlist repeating?”

See also: “I think we’ve heard that song already.”

and: “Could you put your headphones on?”

and: “Are we listening to the same three songs over and over?”

4. “I don’t think you need another coffee.”

5. “Yes of course you have one anyways, but you’ll feel sick.”

6. “No you don’t like feeling sick.”

7. “Can I have my socks now please?”

See: http://chayday.com/blog/2009/things-i-do-not-get-tired-of-doing-to-my-husband/

8. “I did eat my greens.”

OH! You thought I was just going to list off things he says when I’m being bad. Well, he’s not all cherubic like he sounds.

For ages, I picked up our plates after meals, only to finally realize a few years in that he never ever ate all of whatever vegetable was on his plate. Not. Once.

When I finally twigged in, I started giving him smaller portions. So that basically I give myself twice as many vegetables as him. The first time I did this, he tried to hand me back his plate with veggies still on it. Looking all innocent. And I was all “oh no mister, I’m on to you, I gave you half as many veggies as me, and you still didn’t finish them. This is not a percentage activity buddy, eat those peas.”

To be continued…

That, or Kermit & Big Bird’s illegitimate offspring

The husband and I were bone tired by 9pm tonight. But, unwilling to just veg out, and unable to do anything that involved synapses firing, we settled on…

…

colouring.

It was my suggestion, and I stand proudly behind it.

I dug out a (decidedly musty) Muppets colouring book. Purchased a number of summers ago for cottaging purposes. I believe the same cottage trip whose supplies also included embroidery floss, henna, and green nail polish.

This was my contribution. A space/retro pig in floods with a ‘burbs dye-job. Feel free to notice the creative license wherein I added orange tread to her shoes. I know. I’m a star.

This… was his:

God I love that man.