There is birthday cake in the staff room (conveniently located next to my office) which shouldn’t be cause for concern as I am not really a sweet fan. Gimme meat & cheese and bread and I will purr like Mexican hairless cat in heat.

Having said that, I just finished-I shit you not-my third piece of chocolate cake with day-glow radioactive looking icing.

Now I’m a little bit pukey.

Torture has been in the news a lot lately. Well, less so now that Bush & Cheney are no longer in the oval office, but certainly what I would consider a great deal. What defines torture, who has given torture the nod and who just turns the other cheek while rendering a prisoner somewhere that will surely result in torture? People are up in arms about whether or not their government would ever contemplate (let alone carry out) such a heinous act as torture and when can they justify letting some other country do their dirty work in order to keep their hands clean? What about those tortured who were later cleared of all charges or never even charged at all? “Oops! Sorry about that. Don’t worry though, the shaking and nightmares will stop eventually.” The big question; When is torture appropriate?

Guess what gang, the answer is never. Ever heard of a little thing called the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service has stated that they will act on tips that were a result of torture because- and I quote-

“It happens rarely in the exchange of information that we have.”

“The recipient of that information doesn’t know how that information was obtained”

-CSIS adviser Geoffrey O’Brian

Correct me if I’m wrong here, but doesn’t that just sound like a slightly more “hands off” and politically correct version of rendition?

Today is Tuesday. I still have to wait all of today and all of fucking tomorrow until I know whether or not random chick picked up the bike THAT SHOULD BE MINE! I am not a patient gal- I just don’t have it in me. Let me give you an example from years ago of my ability to wait for things that I REALLYREALLYREALLY want….After visiting the pound and magically finding the little black mutt that pushed her nose up against mine through the wire while I lay on the cement that smelled faintly of piss & Lysol, I was told I had to wait 3 days in case her owner showed up. I looked around. I plotted. I told the little black puppy (that would eventually grow to be a 90lb beast of pure crazyhappywonderful) that I would return for her. 3 days my ass!

Drive to Surplus Herby’s. Bolt cutters, CHECK! Replacement lock (because I’m not a total bastard) CHECK! Backpack big enough to shove in puppy, CHECK! My plan was perfect. Nothing would stop me because she needed to be MY DOG!!! I even had an envelope to leave the dog fee cash in. Unfortunately by the time I got back they had moved her to a different run for the afternoon and my bolt cutters were useless on her new cage. I had to wait 3 whole fucking days. By the time the waiting period was over and I was allowed to take her I had phoned them upwards of 50 times to make sure she was still waiting. They practically threw her at me and I kept those bolt cutters for years because they always made me smile.

I am not good at waiting. It just isn’t my thing.

(ps- I walked Maggi by the bike shop after work yesterday and it was STILL THERE!)

There is a slight glitch with my bike. Though I was on a CANADIAN site, the cost quoted was actually in US dollars which bumps my Nirve cruiser to $630

Uh…..hmmmmm.

I was still considering it until it turns out the one I want “Orange Julius” is not available in Canada. WTF? Canadians don’t like orange? Is there some import/customs law that prohibits items that are a blinding shade of orange from crossing the boarder? I’m not spending over 600 bones on something that is NOT EVEN THE RIGHT COLOUR! Sooooo…. Steve and I checked out our local used bike shop on Saturday. It was closed but right there in the window was my DREAM vintage cruiser. We debated breaking in and just taking it but clarity prevailed. There is a note taped to the bike that we couldn’t read through the window and if it says “sold” I will kill someone (and then steal their bike.)

It kinda looks like this, but imagine it with a basket & a shiny silver bell. My bike will be the less flashy, less pretentious version of what I originally wanted. Like the “yokel” cousin that you are never sure will behave appropriately in public. It will only be about $50 so I will spend the remaining $580 on hookers and blow.

Updated*** Apparently the sign is “sold” but she hasn’t picked it up yet- She has till Wednesday otherwise IT’S MINE!!!! (Stay away from that bike bitch!)

For the last several months I have developed a rather amusing habit. (amusing to me, I mean.) During a totally unrelated conversation or even a peaceful silence I will whip my head around with a look of “horrified raging bitch” on my face and shout “Did you just call me fat?” at Steve. The first couple of times that I did it I could actually see the wheels spinning madly behind his eyes and could almost hear his thoughts…

“Oh fuck, did I? What were we just talking about? Did I mention her ass? Was I joking? Oh shit oh shit oh shit. What did I just say?”

Now when I do it he just looks over like he kinda wants to punch me a little bit.

I’m never above humiliating myself- in fact, I’m usually quite good at it. After reading about TMIT over at Live it Love it and again at The Change I Wish to See among others, I have decided to jump on the bandwagon of embarrassment for this weeks communal little trip down what the fuck was I thinking lane. The premise is simple- share a humiliating story about yourself or others, an no one loves the awkward more than I…..

As I child (grade 5 or 6 I believe) my friends and I had an all consuming interest in bodies and body function. We diligently researched and wrote endless papers on menstruation and fertility (please keep in mind these were not required for class, they were assigned to us by us because we were freaks.) We devoured library books on anatomy and body systems and went so far as to create a “club” of sorts. (This is about the point you should prepare to begin cringing) For whatever reason-and I’m quite certain Susin will chime in with some embarrassing notes in the comment section- we decided that it was a very good idea for all of us to climb into a bathroom stall and stand on the toilet to hide our feet (I think there were 3 or 4 of us) and secretly listen to people going to the bathroom. We were the GROW club. Get Rid Of Waste. (Seriously, why the fuck am I writing this?) I have no idea why this fascinated us so, but it did. If I remember correctly, we may have even compiled reports and “data”, though what that data was (thankfully) escapes me.

There. You have it. Proof that I was a total weirdo as a kid. However, as I don’t like to end a story with my total humiliation without adding some type of redeeming feature, I will add another one from the around same time period that makes me look like far less of a stalker/creep.

My grade 6 self and two friends (Susin and someone else, whoever our “third” happened to be that week) were sitting in the library discussing our adventures from the weekend. This adventure happened to include Susin & I playing a game of truth dare double dare with our little grade 6 boyfriends (who I believe both had the same name- Greg & Greg? Chris & Chris? I don’t remember.) Anyhoo….. nosy little librarian happens to be listening in just as I am describing being dared to go into the back seat of GregGreg/ChrisChris/whatever’s older brothers car and kiss. It was all very innocent, but Miss Librarian hears it differently and much to my confusion I am being hauled into the principals office a short time later. (Not to say that my getting in trouble was an amazing thing, but this time I couldn’t remember having performed any of my usual antics.)  So it turns out to be quite the deal- the Principal (it must be added here that we shared a barely containable hate for one another) and Miss Librarian as a “witness” due to the “sensitive” subject matter. So Principal fuckface proceeds to recount snippets of my earlier library conversation and begins to drill me on whether or not my mother is aware of this behavior. Unbeknown to me, Miss Librarian had heard only enough to assume that my grade 6 self was making out in the back seat of an older boys car- 19 to be exact, though where the hell they came up with that number I’ll never know. So, blah blah blah and I say something to the affect of “My mother encourages me to bring my boyfriends home so she can meet them.” and Principal fuckface says “Oh? In what way does she like to meet them?” His voice is dripping with dirt & sleaze and I then do what every self respecting grade 6er who’s hippy mother has just been insulted would do. I punch him in the stomach and call him a cocksucker and walk out.

**Just as a side note, I think he was eagerly anticipating how much shit I would be in when my Mother arrived. He was wrong. I think she made him cry.

The end.

You know how some days you lay under a leafy shade tree in a sweet smelling meadow on a beautiful summer day while soulful music plays in the background and you think to yourself “If I could be any animal, I would be a bird so I could soar through the bright blue sky without a care in the world???”

No? Well, anyway……

If I posed that question to myself today I would be a lion. To be more specific, I would be a Tsavo lion like the ones from The Ghost and The Darkness. The reason for this is simple; today I am not laying in a pleasant grassy field. Today I would gorge villagers.

After finally falling asleep last night amid a burning sore throat and white hot searing cramps I was accidentally woken at 1am and then spent the next several hours tossing and turning, unable to get back to sleep despite being soul suckingly tired. So today I am Bitchy McCrankyPants. Where in this scenario is the “Green” part of the equation that the title alludes to, you ask? Well, in an effort to dig myself out of the Land of Bitch that I am currently residing in, I have decided to write about something that gives me pleasure and as I have been banned from talking about our sex life here, I will instead tell you about this;

I have a car. I like my car. It’s silver and named “Beauty” and I leased it brand spanking new off the lot just under 4 years ago. (Yes, leased. I don’t commit easily and like to have an open escape route.) However, despite our symbiotic relationship, I am returning it upon it’s expiration. It’s all about want vs. need and seeing as I have had it for nearly 4 years and it has well under 30,000 km, it clearly fits into the want rather than the need category. I have been drooling over the following photo for months and as of July, it is going to be my smarmy new ride.