RecCenter.com

So my wonderful sister-in-law recently updated her facebook status to wonder when I was going to write a new blog. Anyone who likes to dabble in their creative side surely must agree one doesn't just sit down a write a blog without a particular subject in mind. Why? Well simply because what might be produced is material like below, where the flow is disconnected, the subjects bounce around like Pamela's boobs when she's running on the beach on Baywatch, and the laugh factor is low like Tiger's score in a PGA tournament. But whatever, at least the good thing is you can stop reading whenever you want print a copy then take it up again when you're lying in bed or stuck in a traffic jam, or of course, sitting on the toilet. So I thought today I would start with sports, move onto weather, then literature (or fine arts as some would call my writing - hahaha), the financials, then health, and finally sign off with relationships. Sports- Alright, so I'm in 2 hockey pools this year but I was also the one who volunteered to record everyone's picks. Now I certainly can't use that as an excuse for being in 8th spot in the one pool since I'm in 2nd in the other. Rather, I can blame it on my Top 3 picks Marian Hossa, Ilya Kovalchuk, and Michael Nylander who collectively have 12 points. I mean really - Hossa has done (excuse my language) sh** in Atlanta. He's had 2 goals and 1 assist in his last 4 games. Oh, and Ottawa got Heatley during that trade! Kovalchuk (also a Thrasher) is even worse. Atlanta has won 1 game and scored 14 goals this season. nice. Nylander - well he's old. That was my bad. Plus, Washington has only scored 13 goals year-to-date. Enough about hockey pools. I could move onto our Fantasy Football keeper league but my Sunnydale Slayers are kind of stinking it up there too. The worst part about this is that I got beaten by both expansion franchises. Bru-tal! And, of course, since I do the Smooth Jimmy trash talk analysis, everyone is very quick to jump on any poor decision making on my part so they can get back at me. But obviously since I dish it out so well, I can definately take it. Some of you know that Buck Pierce and I are friends and as such he, on occassion, visits me at my place. Normally we'll have some tea and biscuits, discuss religion and politics, play Scrabble or Bridge, and rant about those opposed to PETA. But, of course, my fantasy league owners always have to take things a step too far. "Yo Juice I hear your new nickname is 99 cents since you're always under a buck." "Yo Juice, isn't he a little old for you?" "Yo, Juice, what the Hell did you do to his shoulder that he's been out 14 weeks." Blah, blah, blah. With the exception of my brother who is relatively cool, everyone else in the pool is either a homo or special needs person. Okay, I'm just joking here!! It's what you get to do in blogs. Am I still on sports? Oh yeah, so my coed hockey team, the Jager Bombers, played against my ex-coed hockey team last Friday. We won by a significant margin which is neither here nor there, but what irks me is that I scored the first goal but when I looked on the website stats page they gave my goal to Sina. Nice. She gets enough points, like allllll the time, that she doesn't need my one-in-a-blue-moon goal! On Wednesday night our Raging Daisies had a game and it was pretty late so I had a couple of Red Bulls to keep me hopping. The game went into 3 on 3 overtime. So we naturally play 2 F and 1 D. Well, Andrea (pronounced awndrea) was coming off right around the time when the other team turned it over at the centre line, so I jumped on the ice ready to take away the 2-on-zero that had formed, steal the puck, and skate end to end to put in the game winner. Yeah. In my dreams. Instead I somehow managed to trip on the blue line and go sprawling all over the ice while watching our most awesome ninja goalie save our asses yet again. Enough about sports. It's been a bad week. Topic 2 is the weather. So it's kind of been raining in T-Town. Well, a little. Yesterady for like half an hour. So when I think of the rain it reminds me of bad weather which reminds me of snow which reminds me of living in Ontario which reminds me of a little accident I got into during a storm this one time. (The rain also reminds me of golf and boys and vodka and concerts and best friends and family and all things good) but I really wanted to tell you about this car accident because it's what screwed me out of my insurance discount when I first moved to BC. And it's because I didn't automatically get my Roadstar discount that I now have to pay $7500 for car insurance. And yes, I mention this fact in most of my blogs because (a) I'm hoping for sympathy and free presents from you and (b) I'm very bitter about the fact that I'm a good driver, albeit a little aggressive, but a good driver who got screwed by an insurance company because of no fault insurance. Some of my friends may remember this accident as I have mentioned it on occassion. - sorry, quick sidebar - my coworker in Edmonton has been trying to boost my professionalism in speech and take the valleygirl out of my verbalisms. Have you ever noticed it's very difficult to stop saying catch phrases such as "riiight" and "like" and "eh" and "bite me" and "eff off" and "at the end of the day..." and "luu-oo-ser" and "you're a dufus" and "this one time..."? Anyways, I thought of this sidebar because I noticed when I write blogs there are some words that I seem to repeat quite often that you may find excruciatingly, mind-numbingly boring. Words like "I" and "me". I hope you don't find it too annoying or distracting. Back to the story at hand. We were smack dab in the middle of the worst snow storm that Toronto had seen for that season. Kind of like when I got married the first time and the snow was so bad that my parents couldn't make the drive to City Hall to see their black sheep daughter get married at 8-months pregnant. Wow. That was a sentence right out of Trailer Park News, eh? Ayways so I was working for Ericsson and we were having a team meeting up north in Huntsville for a couple of days. The team was taking a bus up but I had a client meeting so couldn't take the bus with everyone else and my plan was to drive up a little later. So after work, I drove home through snow and slush in my Ford Sportrac baby truck. As I approached my driveway I realized that I really should shovel the first layer of snow away before it got so heavy that I gave myself a hernia trying to do it. Well it took longer than anticipated and suddenly it was 7 o'clockish and I still had a 4-hour drive ahead of me. I called my boss fully expecting him to say not to risk driving up in the storm at night and to just head out the next morning. Instead I heard "Do you want me to save dinner for you?" Um. Yeah pause pause NO! So I pack my bags, load up the truck and 30-minutes later I cruise over the 407 toll highway and get to the 404 in about an hour. I'm feeling pretty comfortable as the roads aren't as slippery as I thought they would be. So my confidence grew. Of course, confidence is a good attribute until it gets the best of you. The trouble began when I was driving along the 404. Let's set the stage because visuals are always a fun thing. Close your eyes (but keep reading) and picture the scene.. It's dark, the flakes are coming so thick and furious that the wipers are ineffective, the highway is straight and 3 lanes but the lanes are indiscernable from the snow, the streetlights are all but useless, there is a huge meridian coming up on the right that is really part of the foundation for the overhead pass, and there are about 3 other cars on the road. So here's Juice in her little truck driving about 40 km/hr when suddenly she hits a patch of black ice. Honestly, I used to wonder what the Hell people were going on about when they talked about the dangers of black ice. Wtf? Well, now I know first hand. After hitting the black ice my truck went into this kind of hydroplane skid. And yes, I reacted just like a girl and slammed my brakes on which took me into an uncontrollable spin. I remember clipping a car, doing a full 360 degree turn then clipping likely the only other vehicle on the road before ending up at the right hand ditch and missing that foreboding meridian by about 20 feet. As my truck headed sideways for that ditch, time seemed to slow down to like that stop-watch click thing on the 60-minutes show. My truck rolled over 2 and a half times, my Second Cup white hot chocolate spilling eerywhere, until I was on my side, driver's door against the ground lying motionless. Super fun. I actually had to crawl out the passenger window to get out of my truck. When I called my boss to tell him I may not make it because I got into an accident he thought I was joking and hung up on me. Incidently, the RCMP officer who came to the scene ended up driving me all the way to the lodge. Okay, onto the next topic - literature. I recently was in Chapters to get a birthday present for one of my nieces who just turned 12. Yeah, I'm like the worst aunt ever. Not only did I mail the GC a week late but I thought she was 10. Anyways, while I was in the store I figured I'd pick up the latest Harry Potter book and Rollingstone magazine. I've never bought the Chapters Reward card because my lovely sister-in-law usually shells out the $30 bucks for it. Then I can take advantage by saying I forgot my card but here's my postal code and the name is Goobers. Chapters is kind enough at this point to give me my 10% off. Lo and behold, Sandra hasn't renewed the card yet this year. Crap. I gave her a friendly reminder when she came to visit me yesterday. LOL. Are we really on the literature topic? I did promise to give you some more of the book I'm writing so at the end of this blog will be a short continuation of the Amanda story. For now, let's move onto the next subject. Ah financials. When it rains, it pours. That's how the old adage goes and certainly how life seems to go for yours truly. Have you watched the new show Gossip Girl on TV? It's kind of like the OC but better. There's a narrator on it who blogs about the characters on the show. "Last spotted at the airport Serena back in town wearing blah, blah..." Anyways, I thought I'd talk about my finances from an outsider perspective because then the picture doesn't look as bleak, rather more like an amusing quip about some sad sucker down on her luck. "Last spotted at the vet with her beloved Macs, Juice tallies the last of her bills spanning a 2-week episode featuring her down-trodden kitty who has a giant hairball stuck in her intestine. (Macs, that is, not Juice). $1500. Spotted next taking the ferry to Nanaimo for some emergency dental work after she bit into a Starburst and her tooth came with it. $500. Oh, and wait, next caught crying on her balcony (not real tears, but produced from cutting an onion) after trying to watch the Cleveland/Boston game on her bigscreen TV with a mirror that seems to have dislodged itself leaving a blur on one half of one quarter of her picture. $2800. Poor Juice. This is only 2-weeks of expenses. Imagine her year." Well blog-readers, only 2 topics to go. Heath/fitness and Relationships. But this writer is getting tired of penmanship so will sum things up pretty bloody quickly. I stopped going to my personal trainer since $200 per month didn't seem to be helping me lose much weight or look very toned. Instead I thought I would just work out at home for a bit. I have some free weights, a medicine ball and Oxygen magazine. I got one of the bars you put up in the doorway so you can do chin ups, pullups and stomach crunches. I bought it at Candian Tire using CT money I had saved up (from all my expenses. See last topic). And, finally, I got a little workbook so I could record and monitor my activities and progress. The first log was dated August 31st where I performed 60 pushups, 80 lunges, 60 situps on ball, 40 glute raises, 40 squats with lateral shoulder raises, 160 crunches, 25 tricep dips, 18 pullups and 6 chinups. The second log is blank because I haven't worked out since. LMAO. I also bought this super awesome book on eating habits that would assist me in losing 20 pounds in 10 weeks. There is a meal plan - per meal per day - for several weeks. I managed to do the first week (with the exceptions of eating the tofu and substituting chicken for anything fishy) and lost 2 pounds. Yep, haven't been grocery shopping since then. That was 4 weeks ago. Doh! Can you say willpower? Oh man. I am soooo lazy. Okay finally - relationships. The topic you've all been waiting for. As if! I have this wonderful mentor who lives in Ontario. It's been my habit for several years to pick up these raunchy Hallmark cards and mail them to him at his office. They have secret coded messages in them from yours truly. Anyways my dilemma is this. Recently I found 2 fairly awesome cards. The first one says on the front "sick twisted demented warped". Inside something to the effect of no wonder I admire you since we are so much alike. The 2nd card has a man sitting on a cooler with a beer, cigarette and his back to us. He's wearing a T-shirt, shorts with his ass showing and a pair of workboots. When you open it up the caption reads "SAY NO TO CRACK". So you can see how I'd have to buy that card. Well, my mentor John recently left his job and is now enjoying a life of golf and some overdue family time. Oh, and while I'm very pleased for him, I don't have his home address so these 2 perfect cards are just sitting endlessly on my counter without a home. F**k. Want one? And, an update on my bfwi... finally met the parents! They were really quite normal. I can't even write anything awkwardly funny. How disappointing is that? Well, okay - 1 thing. It's about worms. No wait. I can't. Never mind. Trust me - it was good and clever and funny. I've been dating my bfwi for some time now and we may be approaching that point where it's time for "the talk". You know, are we going anywhere with this? We kind of progressed past being friends that f**k (pardon the expression. I'm so rude sometimes) or maybe we haven't? At the end of the day most of the time I don't know where I stand with guys and I'm usually okay with that. I do know, however, that I'm totally fun, awesome, independent, cute, black & white, opinionated, stubborn, smart, hilarious, friendly, big-hearted, and LOL - confident. Overall, I give myself an A- rating. *Grin* Peace out until next time. /Juice p.s. Here's the next bit of my book that I promised you. I'm going to re-write the paragraph that we ended with... Soon after this experience Amanda felt it might be time to have a boyfriend that would actually explain what that whole cum thing was about. So, in search of a boyfriend she went. It was at the local ski hill where she chanced to meet him. And, by chance, I mean to say that she took a spill off the T-bar and was swarmed by six or 7 ski partrols all making sure she was major injury free. Amanda was a little shaken by the ordeal and so chose to rest her embarrassed self in the ski patrol hut. The ski patrol guy that accompanied her happened to be Parker Pepper. Yes that truly was his name. Now Parker was a strapping young fellow that was quite taken with Amanda the Ski Bunny. Soon enough they decided to be boyfriend and girlfriend. And it came to pass that Amanda would lose her virginity in Parker Pepper's parent's place one quiet night after her sweet sixteen. The first time did hurt a little but after a few practices it got easier, more comfortable and definately more fun. Parker lived quite a distance away though and amanda thought it might be better to find a boyfriend who lived a little closer so she dropped him. By this time she was in Grade 12 and, oh yes, still hated school with a passion with the exception of participating in every sports program and team available. Since she'd also kept up with excelerated classes Amanda was left with a smokin' easy schedule for Grade 12. All she needed in order to graduate was English 12 and typewriting 101. She had completed her advanced math in the previous year. Amanda also decided to try a co-op class so that she could spend every other day out of the school grounds and get some work experience. She chose to work for the Durham Regional Police station. In the Identification Department. Fingerprinting accused persons. It was a total dream job. The adventures from this place alone were unparalleled. In fact they are too numerous to site. Once she saw a roll of film from a high profile murder that happened in her neighbouring town of this young girl Christine Jessup. Gruesome horrible pictures protrayed death and decay. What a rotten society we live in sometimes. Another time she read this case about this 18-year old kid that wanted to see what it would feel like to shoot someone so he feigned interest in buying a used car and lured the selling teenager to a boyscout camp to view the car and just shot him. Point blank. What a sick f**ker. There was some awesome times working there though too. Amanda recalled her first week when she was training how to take finger prints correctly. One of the Sergeants told her to grab something out of the fridge in the backroom for him so off amanda trots and when she opens the fridge door she's left staring at these 10 fingers in a bag. Ha ha good one. Another time, she looked up her family name in the extensive file room to find her cousin had once been arrested for fraud. Ha ha another good one. Amanda went through a couple of cops since cops like to "do it". All in all she loved her co-op job. It beat the Hell out of sitting in a classroom at the school. Ao anyways she's still scoping out potential new boryfirend when she comes across Kevin. Kevin is quite possibly the most beautiful man she has ever met. Actually, not beautiful. Rugged. Rugged and handsome. Picture a dark-haired, finely chiseled black belt with tattoos, rock hard abs and unruly wavy hair, thick eyebrows, piercing green eyes, a 5 o'clock shadow and did I mention the muscles? Kevin came into the cop shop to get elimination prints done since some schmuck had broken into his house. He and Amanada struck up a conversation about nothing in particular. How do you like your job? It's interesting. I get to meet a lot of different people. How long you been working here? Only about a year. Tell me about the most interesting person you had to print? Well, the very first guy I printed was accused of Sexual Intercourse with a Female Under 14. I went to school with him. Oh wow, how wierd was that? Pretty. You get the picture I'm sure. Trivial conversation but Amanda was drinking in his flavour and smell. Yummy. She also prudently noticed that he lived on Nash Road. This wasn't but 2 miles from her own house. Hmmm, potential new boyfriend? Well maybe not. He was after all, 28. Not that Amanda gave 2 shits about his age. They chatted some more, Amanda finished the prints and away he went. She assumed that would be the last time she would see Kevin in this lifetime. Oh, just in case it hasn't been mentioned this might be a good time to let you know Amanda also had a parttime job, at night after school and co-op. She was working (illegally I might add) as a bartendar at this shithole on the way up to the local mountain. One time these 2 guys came in and were talking about this fancy boat they kept over in the Marina and that Amanada and this other bartender Christine should check it out. Sure, why not? So after close one night Amanda drove the two of them over to the Marina in search of the boat. I don't remember the name of the boat so let's call it Harmony. Amanda and Chris found Harmony easily enough along with the 2 guys from the bar. Christene went for a late night stroll with Chap A while Amanda got a tour of the boat from Chap B. The tour ended in the bedroom where Amanda had her first experience of 69ing. It wasn't her favourite thing to do. She got off more when she could just concentrate on the guy going down on her rather than have to think about giving the perfect BJ too. Anyways, Amanda and Chris used to hang quite a bit together and so on another night they decided it would be fun to go to this popular dance club called Stairways. It was aptly named because it was an old house with 4 floors separated by stairways and converted into this awesome club. Each floor would have its own unique theme. Rock, pop, blues or hiphop. So this Saturday night the girls decided to drive over to Stairways and see if they could get in. Yeah right, a couple of 16-year olds with no fake id heading to the most happening bar in town. What are the chances? So they stroll on up to the door looking all sophisticated and such where lo and behold the bounces takes one look and says, in a very surly tone, I might add "Can I see some ID ladies?" To which, the poverbial reply "Oh yes, we left it in the car. We'll go fetch it." Bugger, says Chris. Bugger nothering says Amanda. "We are so going to this bar tonight. Let's take a quick walk around the block." Like that was gonna solve anything. But, off went the two girls to return five minutes later. Now I've never really been a big believer in fate however I must admit that I do think that all things happen for a reason. Once could philosophize that this is the same as fate but we're going with my theory that they are two completely different things. But, back to the ditty. Amanda and Chris walk back to the Stairways entrance and who is now working the door? None other than sexiest man ever Kevin. "Amanda, hey, how the Hell are you? I didn't know you partied here. I haven't seen you come by before. But c'mon in. I'm one of the bouncers. Have a kickass time!" Christine is obviously floored and is trying to pick her jaw up from the ground while Amanda cooly says "Thanks. I had no idea I would ever run into you, let alone here. What a small world. Catch ya on the flip." The girls entered on a high and had one of their best nights. Ever. I probably overuse the word "ever" but let's face it, when you're 16 pretty much everything significant that happens should be embellished with an exclamation point or the word ever, or a combination thereof! After dancing til the wee hours and coming close to shutting the bar down, Amanda and her bud Chris left but not before Kevin asked for Amanda's number. I have a couple of theories on this. Firstly, since Kevin met Amanda while she was working at the PD and had the very grown up chore of fingerprinting, one assumes that Kevin assumes Amanda is older than she is. Secondly, if ever asked, Amanda probably would have lied her ass off. Now don't get me wrong. All in all, Amanda is a very honest person. She truly believes that all lies get found out eventually so she tries to stick to little white ones. Harmless, if you will. There was this one time when Amanda and her family left church service one Sunday afternoon and the kids all went to the corner store. It was kind of a ritual where they'd get to buy a small treat. This one particular Sunday Amanda chose a Crunchie bar, simply one of her favourites. Her sister Ash loved the Mars bar, while Paul habitually chose Reeses. Anyhow, the kids got to chatting it up in the store, then Mom and Dad came along to rush the process and everyone filed out. Now, they lived about a 20 minute drive from the church, so when they arrived home and got out of the car Amanda dropped some coins. "What was that?" Oh, the moms with their elephant hearing-like quality ears. "I dropped my money." "How is it that you have money when I just watched you eat your chocolate bar?" "Oh no" moaned Amanda, "I think I left without paying." Well, didn't Amanda and Dad drive all the way back to that store so a red-faced little girl could pay for her Crunchie. Thus the discovery that the truth always comes out in the end. But let's head back to the Amanda/Kevin story. It's really quite the chuckle. Kevin hottest man ever, did indeed call on Amanda. With the closeness of their homes it was very easy for amanda to walk or cycle over or even drive. But since she didn't yet own her own car, if memory serves, it was easier to just walk. So the new couple f**ked like bunnies every chance they got and Amanda was gaga over the tattoed tough guy Kevin. I think they actually could have been labelled boyfriend-girlfriend for a couple of months there. Oh yes, now for the breakup.That unfortunate part of your teen years. Inevitably it's going to come. So one night, Kevin treats Amanda to a movie. If ever I could remember what flick it was, I would be so delighted. I would like to guess Die Hard or Total Recall but I could be so wrong so let's just leave it as the mystery movie. She had such a lovely time with him, eating popcorn, necking a bit, and giggling at inappropriate scenes in the show. She was still on a high when they got back to her house. "Wanna come in for a bit Kevin?" "Sure why not. How come you still live with your parents anyways?" Amanda proclaimed what good peeps they were, so why not? Enter livingroom stage left where Mom is doing some knitting activity while probably watching the news. "Hey kids, how was the movie? What did you see?" "Oh" Amanda says "it was super fun. We saw Mystery Movie." To which her mother replies "Oh. Isnt' that restricted? How did you get in?" See Kevin exit stage right very, very quickly. And thus ended the Amanda-Kevin romance. But Amanda, not easily thwarted by the throes of life bounces back to a newer, fresher man. To be cont'd...