A jamming party

Okay, I know this was a few days ago, but I figure it's time to talk about it.  (i.e., i have some time to kill)

 

So it's Wednesday (or was), and we were ready to host the party.  I had gone out to buy the last few items for the party.  We needed some (dipping) pretzels, mix, cups and plates, cheese...  People were told to come by anytime after 7, but we figured most weren't going to be there until after the piping gig at the Gardens, which would be like 8 or so.  Doug wasn't even going to come by with his food until 7ish.

 

6:30 the first arrives.  And this is a funny story.  Mandy's been having a 'fun' time with the Future Shop recently, and ... well, without getting into it all, I'll just say he was supposed to come to our house at 5... so when the door buzzed for 6:30 I figured it was the FS guy... so I buzz the person in and say "MANDY, FS GUY'S HERE" so she rushes over and it turns out it's Mark.  Which is kinda funny, 'cuz Mark USED to work for FS.  And we knew he was coming to the party, just we didn't expect him... ah, it was funny.

 

After that, people slowly start to come in... Doug brings his laundry basket (of food).  He did a great job too!  2 kinds of sushi, wings, nuts and bolts, and some sort of mini bruschetta thingies.  yummm...

 

Pretty soon the whole party's in full swing.  Something like 23 people apparently.  We really had 'em all crammed in.

• Me


• Mandy


• Doug


• Mark


• Kelly


• Kristine


• Greg


• Justin


• Karen


• Rayanne


• Robin


• Lindsay


• Brian


• Brandy


• Eilidh


• Trish


• Christopher


• Cindy


• Kris


• Kate


• Ann


• Scott


• Jarron


• Rory

So a far amount of us just all bunched in together.  It was a godo time... a few bottle caps placed in precarious places.  A little perturbing that there was some plotting against my personal property.  That's very off-putting to be honest.  Especialy when my wife was asked to be recruited.  Anyways, I'll try not to dwell on it.

What I will dwell on is the total lack of the dress code.  We had said this was to be a Christmas themed party.  It was my idea to put the attire on the bill.  I had even gone out and picked up a sweater, some boxers and a tie, plus I had some stupid elf hats from earlier.  I think only Mandy wore something.  There were some talk of socks and maybe a green or red shirt spattered into the crowd, but that's about it.

All in all, it was still a good night.  I printed some Christmas cards with Trish's reindeer pose.  The food was a big hit, and it got pretty noisy... nothing loud, just the typical cocktail party din of voices.  I'll have to go and put some pics online at some point.  Didn't take too many, but enough.  There's a video of it... maybe I'll start that youtube account yet.

later

(now onto the New Year's preparation)

CHRISTMAS

OH, man, how I love Christmas time.  Nothing to do but sleep in and stuff.  And this year, not being in retail REALLY helped with me being able to enjoy it truly.  In fact I had all my shopping done WAY early.

Plus there's been like a ton of parties.  My staff party, Mandy's staff party, Trish's party, Heather's party, and we're even having a party on Wednesday.  Then there's Jarron's new year's party, and Ray's holding a Hawaiian themed one as well.

And there's been tons of food so far.  And even more to come.  I feel like a bear just getting to hibernate.  Doesn't help that I really am sleeping like 11 hours a night.  I love being able to sleep in.  Don't know how I'll adjust to going back to work.

So, how was your Christmas?

After watching movies for a couple of days in class I was ready to be gone.  Too bad Trish had her party during the week, so I couldn't cut loose, or stay late.  At Heather's we enjoyed ourselves, I had brought Icewine, and Heather can't apparently tell the difference between it and rye.  And I got to plant a few bottle caps in her house (I hope that wasn't Cassius' stocking I put it in).  Let's see if she finds them all.  There was at least... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8... we'll go with 8 bottle caps.  It was a good night, I got to say "do it" a bunch of times, and I think we invented new hand signals... or at least reinforced a few we had already made up.

What else new is there?  We went to see the all-time Christmas classic "Rocky Balboa".  It's no "Snakes on a Plane" but it was surprisingly not horrible.

That was when Chris gave us his gift.  And then we went the next day to exchange gifts with Mandy's family.

The next day was Christmas and Mandy didn't believe I had really gotten her a guitar. But she seems to like it.  And it was then that we found out that Christ had given us some sausage... I hope it's still ok after being under the tree for almost 24 hours.    Thanks Chris!

I got a new watch and a new crib board, and a great new Toolbox.  But it isn't about what I got, it's more about who I got to spend my time with.  And I really enjoyed spending time with my family and friends.

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS everybody

 

Now, to clean this place up while Mandy's gone off to find the Boxing Day deals.  Party's only a day away now, are you ready?

MUFFIN PUPPET

Right, how can i forget?

 

I have a new nickname...  After watching THE BEST EPISODE of The Office, I watched Scrubs.  Andthere was a muffin that told people to do something.  He did this buy saying "do it... DO IT!"  Turns out the muffin was a puppet...

 

and because I apparently say that alot, Eilidh has concurred that "muffin puppet" should be my new nickname.

 

or, as mandy says "MP"

 

I can live with MP

 

-ryan (aka "MP")

Let's see if I can't get you caught up

So where to begin?

Let's start with the weekend.  Eilidh had finished her exams and decided it was time to celebrate.  So we went to T&A's.  Which was fortuitous as Peter was having his staff party there as well.  Which was funny, 'cuz when we got there, one of his staff was just falling all over the place.  Not exactly cool, but she's 65.

So how did the rest of the night go?  Well when you cram as many people into my Aztek as you can (thanks Mandy for driving), things have got to get better.  Well, Trever had a humongous amount of cleavage that night.  Enough that stopped Pete mid sentence to throw coins and cherries in there.  It led to a lot of "inappropriate touching" (new sign language).  It was a great night.  I mean when you get to watch Xmen at Deb's until 4am, how could it not!?

 

What else... Shopping is officially now done.  I'd like to talk about it, but there are people who may read this who it would affect.

 

Staff party at the Country Club was good last night.  Unlike Mandy's staff party, this one had really good food.  We really enjoyed ourselves. 

 

Then I had to do the banking thing, and track how much in debt I was.  The odd thing was I found a charge from Sears for like $3... and I haven't shopped there in forever.  So I had to talk with Mandy for a while and she didn't know either.  So, this led to a call to TD... and the guy figured it might be some sort of fraud thing, so I should go and get a new card and redo all this banking stuf.  I said I would, and it was at that point I realized what it was (parts from the arts dept).  So I realize I'm now getting old... I'll apologize now people!

 

What next?  Trish's party.  We had a nice time.  Trish had Rum balls and peanut butter balls, and wine jelly...  I brought Cadbury chocolates.  And Brandy force fed them to me, so who can argue with that!

 

Well that's about it... my calss is still annoying.  I made one kid write his test in class... he pouted forever about it.  Should be good to read his test now.  Without the EA to give him answers should affect his mark.

 

Just 2 more days of watching movies until the christmas Break... and with my shopping done, and no retail job to force me to work... I can just sleep and sleep and sleep... should be awesome.  I may not write for a while.  I have 1 more party this week, 1 social next, our party after that, and then 2 New Year's parties.  Wish me luck.

Man, my class is getting on my nerves...

So, yeah, as much as I'm enjoying sitting back this past week while my student teacher takes on the class... I'm really finding them annoying.  Nobody's paying attention.  Even the kid in the 90s is doing the "oh really?" thing (imagine a really sarcastic voice).

Today, i had to kick out a student (again) and sent him to the office.  He comes back 30minutes later only to start a fight with another kid... just brutal.  One kid came back today after "I didn't feel like coming to school"-syndrome and expects to get all caught up and fix any zeroes.  Too bad... so sad.

 

I just find them so annoying.

 

Know what else I find annoying?  Registering pipebands.  Man, you would think it was pretty easy.  No way... and the worst part is we're up in the middle of nowhere here in terms of 'regions' or 'zoning', so we're pretty much screwed.  As soon as you ask one association their immediate reply is "why?"  And that's IF I get a reply from them.  Just brutal.

 

But at least some of the competition set is coming through now... we're meeting with Graham before band to give it a try and see what can happen.  Wish me luck.

 

ps - 6 school days until vacation.

Hospitals are nothing like they show on Scrubs

So I guess I should explain my last MSN name before I get more inquiries.  I had named it soemthign along the lines "birthday surgery", and when I woke up this morning I had like 4 messages asking if I was ok, or if I needed anything...

 

So le tme clarify:  MY DAD had the birthday surgery (actually the day after his birthday).

 

He was suposed to get one of those spinal taps (heh... still have to see that movie) but instead they gave him general anesthesia.  When we picked him up from the hospital he looked groggy.  And was walking VERY gingerly.  But we got him home and set him up on the couch to relax.  I figured I could head home at that point.

 

About 1 hour later or so I get a phone call from my mom saying "your dad's passed out and I can't wake him."  I seriously thought I was going to get a speeding ticket getting to my parent's house!  When I got there he was laying on the ground, eyes barely open (but thankfully he was awake).  We let him lay on the ground for some time so he could regain his strength.  He had had a hernia repair operation so his abdominal muscles were just sore.  even getting him to sit up caused him to flex those muscles and just brought horrible pain. [i had gotten him a birthday card, and in it, i said "i hope this doesn't mean you can't carry the canoe next summer!"]

 

Finally we were able to get him into the pullout couch in the back room.  By this time he was needing to just retch and the pain was huge and he just kept shivering.  We wanted to give him something for his nausea but we weren't sure if we could, so mom called the Telehealth number and they said "GET HIM TO A HOSPITAL NOW - WE'RE CALLING YOU AN AMBULANCE!"

 

So we followed dad in to the hospital and spent over 5 hours there just ... waiting ... and waiting ... and waiting.  Slowly dad started to look better.  They had soem gravol in teh IV and he got a T3 just before we left.  So by the time we were leaving he was JUST starting to talk with some real volume.  Oh, and the doctors decided he should stay the night.

 

Staying at a hospital is hard.  Especially all the waiting.  I was going stir crazy.  I had to walk around.  And i was hungry.  SO i journeyed off for an ATM.  Found one that was broken (yet it still made sounds), then finally found one that worked, but printed nothing... it gave me the money and then said "PLEASE WAIT" for at least 10 minutes.  Eventually I went to the Tim Horton's to get something to eat (I'm dying for a chunky chicken salad sandwhich)... only to find out it's a Robin's.  Not being used to Robin's menu I couldn't find their sandwhiches and so I just get a muffin.  That's when i see the sandwhich menu on the FAR side of the counter.  grr... When I get back mom mentions she hadn't had any supper either so I offer to go back and get her something.  I go back and order a HAM, TURKEY & BACON sub.  Now it doesn't say anything about "OR" so I assumed it was all 3.  Nope... when we got back to the room, it only had bacon.  So I'm guessing the little 8 year old who made it is just that dumb.

 

The funny part of the evening was when I called mandy and told her where I was she said "oh, and go see Nanny... she's there too"  So I was able to drop in and see her nanny for a bit.  She had been there since 10am.  (it was roughly 7pm  when we got there).  I also ran into Regan in the waiting room.  So the whole event turned a bit social here and there.

 

So my evening I decided was nothing like an episode of Scrubs.  I got to see a severely drunk teen... an orderly who recognized me from grade school (don't remember her tho') and a nurse who recognized me from highschool (tho' i only barely knew her brother).  weird.

 

Dad should be coming home soon... I should be ready in case they need me.  Mom woke me up finally by 10 and she said dad was better and was eating, so he was about ready to come home.  I was barely awake and said "if you NEED me I'll go" and mom said she didn't need me, so she went on her own.  I feel horrible about that.  I shoulda gone.  Oh, well...

 

l8r all...

birthday surgery / AGM / stolen donuts / AST over / I've got a student teacher...

So how the past has been... I haven't updated in a while.

 

What have you missed? 

 

Well, the AST is finally over with.    And to be honest I'm kinda sad.  For those few kids who actually got something out of it, they made it worth while.  Some of the others...  well here's an example.

For the last day I decided to buy the kids donuts.    I brought the tray out from the car and as I was bringing it out, some other kids saw it ... one of which is in my science class... and he's annoying.  I've kicked him out of the AST class.  Anyways, he starts trailing me asking for his donut.  Then when there's a fraction of a second I'm not 'aware' he jumps and grabs the box and RUNS.  I mean... really, who would do soemthing like that?  I was easily able to intercept him, and I backed him against the wall [not THREW HIM INTO THE LOCKERS as some of the kids have said and told him that he had crossed a line he should not have crossed, and to 'get the hell out of my sight'  I was PISSED. 

But it's over with now, so ... i don't have to worry anymore about it.  I've filled all the final paper work... all there is now is to get paid.  Hopefully it's a reasonable sum... and not $10/hr like Nick was saying... that would suck. 

 

So, after the last day of the ASTS, the next day in class my new student teacher starts teachign.  And none too soon, as I was running out of the info for which I knew about weather (really, I know nothing about air fronts).  And he did a really good job.  A good way of engaging the kids and then trying to throw a few different things at them.  A little lesson, a work sheet, another little lesson, then some drawing ... it was good.  So it should be very interesting how the class goes for the next few days for him.

 

The extra hard part is there's a ton of drama going on right now.  This girl's been crying non-stop for like 4 days now.  And all her friends are rallying around her, and it's tricky.  Nobody want sto fill me in [and really i probably DON"T want to know], which means I can't do anything.  But at the same time I'm letting them kinda slide... "we need to go to the office" "can we go to the bathroom with her"... so we tend to miss a bunch of them fromt he class for a bunch of time.... and now I'm feeling like the uncaring bastard because I want to put an end to it 'cuz it's interfering with the class.

 

And now... the AGM... well, as it happens I get re-voted as co-PM with Rory.  Other than that not much was really accomplished... it was a typical AGM.   Everybody has an opinion, ... and nobody's really aligns with anybody else's.  So... it's just sort of frustrating sitting there during it.  I did a crossword. 

But there's still a good possibility of next year being a good piping year.  February's a go... May might be as well.  A new form of celtic bash might be unveiled and the St. Patty's day bash as always is in the works.

 

The last thing I'll mention is that today [officially yesterday] is my dad's birthday.    He's getting old... in fact for his birthday he's having surgery.  Well it's not really for his birthdya, it's the day after.  I didn't geet him his birthday gift 'cuz i thought it'd be better to get him the gift in the hospital...   but then again I'm not even sure if he's gonna be in the hospital long.  Maybe I can call or something.  [i'm a great son]

why my name is mud

Why I am my wife's bitch...

-by Ryan Moore

 

So, if you've noticed my MSN name lately, it's "MUD."  And this is not some sort of acronym or anything.  I'm literally mud right now in the eyes of my wife.  You've heard the expression "man, my name is mud unless I get those reports done on time."  That pretty much sums it up.  Let me try to explain the how and the why of it.

 

So Friday Jarron really wanted to get together and have a 'get together,' something relaxed, and what not as he was dog sitting this weekend.  I made plans to get there around 9, I even msg'd Jarron to see what time he wanted people over.  Regan calls around 8pm to say "get over here soon and we can start partyign it up."  That's when I see the msg Jarron sent back "we're goign to go party PA style."  Apparently "PA style" means going bar to bar.

 

So when I get to Jarron's we settle on taking a cab to the first bar (Mad House) and hang out there for a bit.  Seeing as we didn't really run into people we knew, we headed off from there to Lot 66 (which was a cold walk I'll tell you).  Apparently Stef (Regan's friend) knew the manager of the bar.  There was a birthday party going on there, and therew as this big card where pepole signed.  Jarron had to sign it.  At this point, Brandy and Eilidh met up with us and joined in the foray about PA side.

The 3rd bar was going to be Wiseguys, but it looked more like a club... and there was a line up, so we passed it by.  Kept heading on and ended up at T&A's.  I really like this place.  Always a good atmosphere, and never TOO crazy.  We met up with Karen, Julie and Kari.  Kari asked me to go talk to Mr. Caccamo about the "hallowe'en penis victim" for her.  I don't know if I really should... but it sounds fun.  After that we decided to move along to the last bar of the night (Jack's).

 

Jack's wasn't all that exciting (except for 2 rounds of foosball).  After that we decided to head on out... walking up the street Brandy was having trouble walking, so I carried her for a bit (she didn't like that).  Not sure what to do now, we decided to go on into Wiseguys (there was no lineup anymore).  This wasn't a great idea... i don't like clubs.  I don't dance, and I'm never dressed properly.  Not that I care what the skanks in those bars think anymore... just you feel out of place.  Plus, I ran into an ex-student of mine... very awkward.  Well, what was more awkward was Brandy getting really smashed and throwing up on the floor.  Less awkward was getting Eilidh to watch the lesbians behind us on the dance floor and get her to tell me when they make out so I can look.  heh  - tho' I think it was probably awkward for E to do so.

 

After we took Brandy out of the bar (just ahead of the bouncers) we decided to cab it back to Jarron's.  At Jarron's we took care of Brandy and put her into a bed, then played a few games of pool.  That always is fun... nto that I ever get good at pool... just it's fun.  Especially when you unexpectedly make the shot you wanted to.  After a few games Jarron convinced me to take a few minutes rest on his couch.  Probably a good idea not to drive so tired at 5am or so.

 

Now this is where I become mud...

 

I wake up at about 6:40... I wasn't sure o fth etime as Jarron's clocks that I saw didn't quite agree with each other.  Then I looked for my phone: it had an alarm to wake me at the proper time, plus it could tell me the appropriate time, and let me know if my wife had called.  It took me a while to find it... had to find Jarron's phone so that I could call it and locate it.  Turns out that the clocks were accurate.  So I called home.  I had promised Mandy I would be home for 6:30 so she could get to work on time.  No answer at home, so I just DRIVE.  Drive much faster than I should have.  I'm home by 7:15.  She has already left.  I decide to call her work... decide against it... I dont' want to get her in trouble by making personal calls etc... She leaves me a txt msg on my phone "...your extremely PISSED OFF wife..." so I decide not to call her work.  That would only exacerbate the problem.

 

So I sorta put it off for a while.  I had some other work to do for the day... and just didn't call her.  Figured that I would be the last person she wanted to talk to.  Turns out that that wasn't a good idea.  She was concerned... wanted to make sure I wasn't dead from last night or something.  So now I'm doubly in trouble.  [can't win for losing, eh?]

 

Later on in the day after we are on talking terms, she mentions a craft fair.  I wasn't quite sure where she was going with this, but then mentions "oh, you're coming... after all, you are my bitch now!"

 

So there you have it... I have become my wife's bitch.  I think it's starting to lessen... but despite how angry she was with me, the worse is how I feel myself.  I really hate to let people down.  I can't wait until I can make that time machine and go back in time and fix these stupid mistakes I keep making.

 

I've thought about trying to buy my way out of it, but that usually makes things 2x as worse as it was before.  So I need to do something else... any suggestions?