M&M

He is my little love hate relationship with M&M (also known as Mervial and Meadowlands). M&M is where many car enthustis get together to talk - cars. Every Friday and Saturday night, a couple of people get together and show off or check out what other people in the Ottawa area have.

I have been invited to M&M more than once. It’s o.k. In Markham, we have something very similar, It’s at 16th Avenue and Woodbine. Every weekend, a group of us would head out there and just sit, hang out, smoke cigarettes and look at cars.

I guess it wasn’t so bad back in the day, at least smoking cigarettes was able to entertain me. I quit smoking a couple of years ago and now I can’t stand just hanging out in a Tim Horton’s parking lot anymore. This is  one of my reasons I have a love/hate relationship with M&M. There are so much better things to do with my time to stand around and do nothing.

My like relationship with M&M is that it is something positive. These guys that go here (A. included) are not out at bars, doing drugs (we’ll they might, just I’ve never seen it before), spending money gambling. Not that there is anything wrong with these things, but are good guys just hanging around talking about cars. Something that they enjoy.

I’ve heard rumors that they race, or used to race. I have no idea anymore. But I do encourage men to go to M&M. It’s nice to be able to talk to people that have the same passion.

I guess this is where the really hate part with M&M comes in. My hate relationship with M&M is that when you try to make plans with your boyfriend and you suggest ideas, he says no and doesn’t feel like doing any of them. So, then he says that he wants to go to M&M and you don’t want to, so you end up going to bed at 9pm.

I would consider myself to be a very flexible, willing to try anything once person. Tonight, I told A. to let me know if he was already planning to go to M&M tonight, because if he was, I am going to going waste my time suggesting things. It’s 10:30pm right now and I am sitting on my portch with A. listening to him talk about cars with a friend of his. He didn’t suggest anything to do tonight and neither did I.

This sucks. He might as well just have gone to M&M. He got four phone calls from friends asking him to go. This is very frustrating for me, because I would have liked to do something fun tonight…

I guess that’s the way it goes. I hope that things improve. Any ideas on how to shake things up?

- J.

topsy-turvy

Things haven’t been going as planned lately:

- I lost my visa two weeks ago, and requested for a new one. I needed it asap, to pay for part of the event that I organized. Wednesday, I received some information about my card, but no card. Today, is the last day for me to pay for it. Last night, I called CIBC and they told me that if I had received this information and no card, this means that my card is either lost or stolen. Great. Now I’ll be using A.’s card and not getting the points from Aeroplan.

- A. was working on his car last night. He put these special ‘flame’ thing on it. It ended up blowing up his muffler. Literary. Poor guy. Hope it’s not too expensive to fix.

- Because of the muffler thing and A. not being able to get around with out his car, we may be canceling the house appointments tonight due to this. Bummer. I was really looking forward to it.

- Yesterday, I bought a new bathing suit. It’s cute, but it only looks o.k. on me. I’m going to the gym today to do BodyPump and RPM to get me into shape for that suit.

On the bright side..

- I made spaghetti squash for the first time ever! It was extremely good. I should pat myself on the back for that one. Will do again.

- I watched Ugly Betty. I haven’t seen an episode of Betty in a long time. I like that show.

- I also watched one of those medical shows about surgeries. I am very thankful that I am not in any of their  patients place.

- I had a nice chat with my brother. I talked to him about a couple of things that were bugging me. It’s so nice to know that I am not alone feeling the way that I am lately.

I guess I’ve been having mixed feelings over the past two days. I think that today will be a good day. If we don’t go house hunting, I will go watch the movie I’ve been waiting to see at 4pm and then afterwards.. I don’t know.

Have you been feeling topsy-turvy too lately?

- J.

Fill in the blank

The most romantic thing I did for someone was ….

Dear Diary: How are you doing?

Dear Diary

How am I doing? Thanks for asking. Things have been going well over the past couple of days. A little too much car stuff, but otherwise I’m fine.

I’ve been trying to get myself to the movie theater to watch Young People F&^%ing. Have you seen it? Is it worth me bugging A. for the past 3 days to go watch it with me? If not, maybe I’ll go by myself and watch it tonight. Movie ticket for one please.

A. surprised me last night after work with some sushi. Very very good sushi. Not good, is that I had to work an extra two hours last night. Good news, I’m going to meet A. at work and get some more sushi and leave an hour early from work.

I’m looking forward to moving offices. They had a competition at work, that I didn’t apply for, and I think there are a few people in my office who got it. I’m looking forward to having a space of my own and not living in the ‘am i moving soon?’ mode.

Life is pretty good. My back is super burnt still, although getting better. I’m going to go to the gym tonight, I haven’t been in since last Sunday! I’m looking forward to it.

How are you doing? Everything going okay?

- J.

Summer hurts

Somehow, over the past two days, I’ve been able to completely destroy myself. I have sun burn on my back, that burns me ever time I move. I should I known when my back started to get itchy. Warning to everyone, when your sitting in the sun, and you skin starts to feel itchy, get out of the sun! Ugh.

Also, on Monday, I wore my new Crocs wedges. They are super comfortable, except that they gave me blisters on my feet the size of a toonie. It is hurting my feet like crazy. I put these ’special’ band-aids on, that are supposed to help heal blisters. They are more expensive band-aids and they keep coming off.

I am writing this before I have to get into the shower this morning, wish me luck. I’m really not looking forward to it.

- J.

The Adventures of your Mom

So, I guess now that A&J blog is no more. Now it’s just J. I guess it was always J. to begin with wasn’t it. I was hoping that he would post more, since he has such a nice way of writing (and I have alot to learn still).

The good news is, at least he is blogging. Him and his friend Paul started a blog of their own last week. I hope they keep it up. They plan on writing ‘interesting’ posts and posting funny videos that they have created.

To view A. and Paul’s blog, check out The Adventures of your Mom and encourage them to keep blogging!

-J.

note: omg! all these new blogs! I’m going to have to update my link list too.

Friendly Strangers

So I guess I’m not the only one home alone this weekend. It seems that Amy’s Quest to Skinny is mate less today too. So far my day today has been pretty amazing. Funny enough, I’ve met some really nice people.

I started off by going to Goodlife on Queen St for a 9:15am Body Pump class and then because I had the time, decide to do a RPM class at 10:30am. Am I nuts? I don’t know, we’ll see how my body feels tomorrow. After the gym, I went to Wellington and Bank to wait for the bus. In the 10 minutes that I had been waiting, I convinced myself that I deserve a treat and headed over to Rib Fest for a Pulled Pork Sand which. Yummy!

While I was in line, the was a very nice lady that made small talk with me. This is the first time that she’s been to Rib Fest, and since I am an ‘expert’ (I’ve only been twice before), I was more than happy to answer any of her questions.

After I finished my sandwich, I went and waited for the bus again. While I was waiting ,a cute French women, who must have been in her 60s, chatted with me. She told me how every year she goes to the CBC Boutique to buys pens to give to volunteers, raffles at the seniors residence and give them to the sick that she goes and visits. While chatting with her, she told me all these stories about when she went to visit the sick (I wish I could tell you where this was, but I can’t remember). She told me that one time there was this man, his was very sick, and told her that all he wanted as her to sing an Italian song to her. She only knew one Italian song, so she sang that one to him. She told him in advance “I’m sorry if I don’t pronounce all the words correctly.” He said “That’s fine, I would love to listen to an Italian song.” So she sang it to him, she said that  she sang it the best that she could. There were tears in his eyes.

After waiting another 20 minutes for the bus, I decided to say goodbye to the women and decided to walk to Rideau St. Since the Rideau St. bus stop is normally quite busy, so I went to the one on Elgin St. While waiting, I could hear a small Aboriginal pow-pow and Bag Pipes being played in front of the Ottawa Jazz Festival. Another 15 minutes waiting for the bus goes by and another women, maybe early 30s, asks me if the #14 has already gone by. I said no, but that I was waiting for another bus. We stood there talking about how it felt so long to wait for the bus today.

While chatting a bee flew on my gym bag. If you know me, you’ll know that i hate bees. I do. They scare me so much. You know when you see a girl, running around in circles, with her hands in the air and you’re trying to figure out why? That’s me trying to get away from a bee. So of course just when the bus comes, the bee flies on my bag. The women beside me asks me if I’m okay, I said not, I’m afraid of bees. She shooed the bee away for me and gave me my bag. That was probably one of the nicest things that a stranger has done for me. I told her thank you a million times, I hope she knows that I really meant it. If it wasn’t for her, I probably would have waited for the bee to get off my bag and take the next bus.

Today has been pretty fun so far. I can’t say that I feel all that alone with all these chatty strangers talking to me today. I feel pretty lucky.

For the rest of the day.. I plan to go to a thrift store and then maybe head downtown in the market to try out A. and I’s new camera some more.

Hope you are enjoying the sunshine.

- J.

Weekend for One

I am sitting in my pajamas as I am writing this. Today until Sunday, I am off from work. I am also going to be having a weekend alone with my. self. It’s kind of fun sometimes to be by yourself and other times its good to do things with friends.

I am trying to find things to do this weekend. Things that I know I would have to drag A. to go and that I wouldn’t mind going myself. One idea was to visit Little Ray’s Reptile Zoo. After I saw the pictures in the gallery, I’ve decided that this is a place to visit not to go alone.

Today, since I’m a little disorganized about my day off, I may just go to the gym and then return my shoes and head over to A.’s work to go to Dunrobin for dinner.

Tomorrow, I have no idea. I’ve considered taking a bus tour to Montreal or the states for a shopping trip, but no one leaves this weekend. Does any one have a good ideas of things to do in Ottawa alone? Any good movies, theater being played this weekend? Please keep in mind that I do not have a car and will be having to take the bus were every I go. Are there any good thrift stores around town other than the now overpriced VV Boutique?

- J.

Musical Meme

… Knitnut has tagged me in a Muscial Meme.. and because bunnies are cute, I’m going to do it.

These are the instructions: List seven songs you are into right now. It doesn’t matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring/summer. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they’re listening to.

1. The Beatles - Strawberry Fields Forever

2. Lynard Synard - Free Bird

3. Estelle - American Boy

4. Madonna and JT - 4 Minutes

5. The Beatles - All together now

6. The Beatles - I get by with a little help

7. Kanye West - Stronger

Sort of an odd mix, but they are the songs that I could listen too over and over and over right now.

Now it’s my turn to tag:

Chantal (Two Hands Full)

S (Put a lid on)

Single she wrote (http://boyfriendsgonebad.com/)

Larry O’Brien (Mayor Larry’s Blog)

Mel (Her Real World)

April (Adorn Inc.)

Carrie (Carrie in the City)

Everyone doesn’t have to do it, but it would be fun if you did.

Have a good day!

- J.

Question to the fitness guru’s

When your muscles are sore and I mean really sore. Is it still a good idea to workout that area?

Like after taking Body Pump for the first time in a while and your whole body aches. Should you still try and do Body Pump again or wait a couple of days?

- J.