And in other news...

I watched the news this afternoon.  I seldom do this voluntarily but I was at the gym and not about to risk the ire of the crazy seniors on the recumbent  bikes; I was just thankful that for once the TV wasn't tuned to Championship Darts.  In our house, Husband is the news watcher, I prefer to get my social commentary from Spongebob, Stewie and You Tube.

As you will see, I have been missing out.


Normally I would not bother to pay attention to the television while I focus on not hating my workout but my iPod batteries chose that day to calve so I had little else to occupy my mind.  I stared for a while at the closed captioning-enabled news broadcast before I noticed something absolutely magical was happening on screen.


Every second or third sentence would contain a word which was misspelled (unless Marcia MacMillan was reporting about the 'one yeast anniversary of the earthqwerk in Haiti'). On it's own that isn't outstanding, since everyone, even tele-typists, can make mistakes.  They're only human and aren't due to be replaced by robots until Skynet goes online. But sometimes the words would stop altogether, as the broadcaster went on, then a gobbledygook of nonsense would appear on the screen like "ghjk" or "frmp" followed by what I can only assume was the typists' best guess at what they had missed. Awesome. 


Seriously.

I took a look around at all the other treaders and peddlers and no one seemed to be noticing which was actually even more wonderful than the captioning itself.


I think this magical little moment taught me something important; that good comedy doesn't just come from a little square sponge under the sea, that people will sometimes overlook the extraordinary when the ordinary gets in the way and that even high school drop outs with only one finger can still be gainfully employed in the broadcast news industry.


  

The Ouija Incident

Now is the part in the blog where you learn more about me as a person and wish you hadn't.  

It would seem that I have a brother.  He is two years my senior. Our childhood rivalry is the stuff of family legend but we get along quite well now that we are more mature.  Shut up.

However, when I was small he was The Enemy and I was The Pest.  From his perspective I was a holy terror.  From my perspective I can assure you that 'holy' is 100% the wrong word for the trouble I caused that boy from the moment I drew breath. 

The Enemy was older than I, was allowed to ride farther on his bike, could stay up later and was allowed to drive Grandpa's lawn tractor without supervision.  According to my parents he was also better behaved, quieter and more easily entertained than I. 

For these crimes I swore The Enemy would never sleep soundly in his bed.

I tested out my claws on that poor boy many, many times over the years, with varying degrees of success.  This was gauged by the size of melt-down into which I could goad my otherwise mild-mannered brother.  The following story measures a mere .2 on the Little Sister From Hell O-Meter but I am still proud of my efforts. 

And so our story begins...

Once upon a time, at a family party, I brought out my Ouija Board.  I convinced The Enemy it would work better if everyone was blindfolded.  Being the trusting sort, he obliged and the roller coaster left the station.

We learned the tragic story of a murdered young boy, the killer still walking free while the spirit writhed in torment over the The Enemy's bed each night, trying in vain to get his attention and bring the murderer to justice.  My brother, who believed in the holy trinity of ghosts, The Force and Captain Kirk, was appalled at the idea of such a grisly ghoul watching him sleep at night. 

The Enemy was shaking as the board spelled out detail after gruesome detail.  Demands were made to fetch pen and paper so the proper authorities could be notified. We would have kept it going all night if his scarf hadn't slipped, letting him see my hand moving the glass around the board. 

As a child The Enemy was open, honest and trusting, attributes one can only hope for in an arch nemesis. I would like to add quick on his feet to this list. Quick on his feet and surprisingly agile when enraged.

Happy New Year. I've Bean Better.

It's that time of year again, when we take a long hard look at ourselves, pull out the Big Red Editing Pen of The Soul and draw X's through all the bits we swear to change.  I had a little help choosing mine this year.


I have given up coffee. Husband, who should never be allowed to talk to people, came home from skiing with a hippie last week and was fraught with concern about my calcium and magnesium levels.  Simply fraught, I tell you. 

Did you know that caffeine leaches calcium and magnesium from your body by impairing your bowels' ability to absorb it from food as it passes through your digestive system? 

Neither did I.  You're welcome. 

Husband is a morning person and requires nothing more than his own deranged sense of well-being to buffer his tender soul against the day ahead.  It has already been noted, loyal reader, that I will dig through piles of boxes in the basement to find the last remaining, out-of-date packet of freeze-dried camp coffee rather than face the dawn light caffeine free. 

"You are addicted, dearest, you shouldn't need anything this much," said Husband as he threw away the last few precious coffee grounds left in the container.  I watched him with narrowed eyes as he extolled the virtues of green tea and something called 'wah-terr'.

I don't understand this whole green tea thing.  They put it in everything now; it's like the lead in children's toys.  It must be good for you because it tastes like something that has to be good for you.  Green tea may be the coffee of the new millennium but it turns my pee a funny colour and tastes like the dog's bath water.

"Coffee is not good for you, sweetie, we have to give it up," Husband continued to talk about antioxidants and bone density but I couldn't hear him very clearly, as he was cowering behind the sofa.

Interesting how coffee is not good for me so we are giving it up.  I shall see to it that my caffeine withdrawal symptoms make our life a living nightmare.