Corner of Bourbon & Division

Well, yesterday was a mixed bag of clusterf*ck and just plain awesome. Let's try this in point form:

1- Shave To Save Wrap-Up

I had never been to Fairview Mall before (little did I realize that it was right near the Chapters in Pointe Claire: if I'd known that, I would have saved myself a lot of hassle), so I consulted Google Maps, which has never led me too far astray before. This goes to show that there is indeed a first time for everything.

Google Maps took me directly to the Beaconsfield Golf Club. This was not only singularly unhelpful, but also far away from where I wanted to go. I ended up driving around Pointe Claire Village in the dark at 05:30, swearing under my breath because there wasn't a single solitary soul to be seen anywhere. The only gas station I found was closed, so no way to ask for directions. I finally spotted a car with its hazard lights flashing in someone's driveway, and a woman came hurrying out of the house. I pulled over and hopped out, caught her before she could make a getaway, and asked for directions. The lady (whose name I never got) was super super nice and actually led me all the way to the mall! I thanked her profusely and went to the Shave to Save Wrap-Up bash.

The event itself was kind of anti-climactic. There was breakfast, the radio hosts chatted away into their microphones, more people got their heads shaved, I talked to some people I didn't know, and they gave a cheque for $436,000 to the Québec Breast Cancer Foundation. It was nice, but unremarkable except for the really big cheque. :)

2- Hallowe'en Prep

After the event, which lasted a full hour longer than I had anticipated, I rushed off to do grocery shopping and to buy a pumpkin.

Then I hit traffic.

Then I hit construction.

Then I hit the traffic trying to avoid the construction.

Then I hit more construction.

Then I hit more traffic trying to avoid yet more construction.

Then I hit traffic due to an accident on the 20.

I got home at noon, and spent the next hour flying around Montreal trying to get everything done. I had originally planned on being home by 10:00 to get things done. I managed to buy all my groceries and three pumpkins, but didn't get to Home Depot to buy Teflon plumbing tape. That'll go to next week, I guess.

I got called "sir" on two separate occasions, by service people who saw me from behind. I refrained from answering: "Thanks but that's not the gender with which I'm choosing to identify today!" I figured it wasn't the right day to be messing with people's minds. ;) They were very apologetic whenever I turned around: from the front I am very visibly female.

By 15:00 I had cleaned out all three pumpkins but was running horrendously late on everything else. I resigned myself to the thought that I wouldn't have time to cook the carrot soup and vegetarian lasagna that I had originally planned to make for when my guests arrived, and resolved to ask them if they would be okay with pizza.

BorderCrossing arrived at 16:00, dressed as a zombie! After I poured some squash soup into her (poor girl was so busy all day she'd forgotten to eat!) she gamely helped me with the rest of the Hallowe'en decorations while I carved the jack-o'-lanterns (one was a bat and the other was a typical scary face type of thing: I didn't think to take pictures, sorry) and pureed the third pumpkin to make pumpkin pie. BorderCrossing did a great job with orange and black balloons, yellow hazard tape, and glow-in-the-dark fake cobwebs with plastic spiders hanging off them. The place was suitably spooky by the time she was done, and fairly screamed "Hallowe'en."

The first trick-or-treater caught me unprepared at 17:00. I hadn't yet lit the candles in the jack-o'-lanterns, nor had I put candy in the big bowl. I am forever shamed. Nonetheless, I scrambled a bit and managed to provide candy for the little tyke.

3- Hallowe'en Proper

tcaptain and maya_banana landed on my doorstep at around 18:30, looking very snazzy in their top hat and blue wig (respectively).

Things were moderately under control by then, and the trick-or-treaters were arriving in regular bursts. There was one wee little boy dressed as a Mountie! So cute! I told him: "Maintain the right, young man!" and he waved. Did I mention cute?

tcaptain and maya_banana very nicely volunteered to go forth in search of pizza, leaving me to flap around the kitchen continuing to get stuff ready while BorderCrossing helped and tried to get me to not be quite as hysterical. She doesn't know me well enough yet to know that I find it physically impossible to *completely* relax when I'm hosting for anything more than one person. Two people makes it a party, and that means that I want everything to be just so, even when it isn't.

The pizza was delicious, and I had at least provided enough beverages for the evening. We had a great time hanging out, eating, and giving out candy to the trick-or-treaters, who were all unfailingly polite, as usual. Only one small boy, who was dropped off by car, didn't say "thank you" for his candy. One kid out of the whole night really isn't bad.

Memorable little kiddies:
- the girl dressed as Pippy Longstocking, who had braided her hair and threaded a thick wire through it so that her pigtails stuck out horizontally: very ingenious
- the teeny tiny Mountie mentioned earlier
- the little cowboy (about seven or eight) who was so shy he hid under his Stetson the whole time
- the sproglet in an indeterminate animal costume who beamed at me and said "Bye!" about eight times while never moving to go at all in spite of his mother's entreaties
- the vampire siblings, who giggled a whole lot when I teased the sister about not biting her brother

tcaptain and BorderCrossing made the unexpected discovery that they used to live about 15 minutes away from each other in Ontario in their youth. Their was much reminiscing about local landmarks and the like, which got very exuberant and was lovely to behold, if mostly incomprehensible to both maya_banana and me.

My Great Pumpkin Pie Experiment turned out pretty well. I used a recipe from allrecipes.com which called for vanilla ice cream to be used instead of whatever is normally used in pumpkin pie. It was good, but had a weird foamy texture that was reminiscent of quiche. Next time I may try to find a more traditional recipe. It was good, but not what I wanted to make.

maya_banana made my cats' night by fussing over them and offering tons of pats and scritches and love and overall attention. Gretzky, Pan-Pan and George all made fawning idiot of themselves. It was great.

luvenditti made an appearance about ten minutes (possibly less) after tcaptain and maya_banana had called it a night. She and BorderCrossing sat down and chatted and commiserated about their jobs in high schools ("I don't have a name at school. At school I'm 'But Miss!'") while I took the opportunity to tidy up the kitchen, which looked like a bomb had gone off in it. The good news is that the kitchen is now sparkly clean!

Of course after that the night was kind of short, as I had to be at work at 06:30 today. I left BorderCrossing half-asleep under a pile of cats (not her choice, I might add: the cats love her in spite of her best efforts) and hauled myself off to the bus stop in a timely fashion.

Work today was a giant clusterf*ck. If I have time tomorrow I shall post about it in a f-locked post. For now, my bed awaits, as I have work again tomorrow. Whee!

I got all my boxes unpacked today except one, which contains all my yarn. I count that as a success. My books are not sorted or properly put away, nor are my CDs, but I'm definitely one step closer, which is all to the good.

I rolled up all the money for my Shave to Save fundraiser, and meticulously copied out all the names of people who will be getting tax receipts for their donations. Tomorrow there will be a trip to the bank to deposit the money, and then another trip to the Québec Breast Cancer Foundation to give them a nice fat cheque.

I'm also going to the breakfast tomorrow hosted by Mix 96 at whatever that shopping mall is called in Pointe Claire (Fairview?), which starts stupidly early, but will force me to get an early start to my day, which is good. I have a TON of stuff to do tomorrow, including picking up and carving some jack-o'-lanterns

I did a load of laundry, and discovered that the cold water tap leaks. Gah. I tightened it as much as I could, and it still leaks. I'm going to pop over to Home Depot tomorrow (in my myriad amounts of spare time) and ask what I can do to fix this short of calling a plumber. I am all for letting the professionals do their thing, but I'm feeling a wee bit strapped for cash of late*, what with one thing and another.

I set up my second lamp, installed my mirror in the bathroom (which, strangely for Ikea, did not come with screws and such to attach it to the wall, which was most annoying) and made spaghetti sauce, which is currently simmering on the stove. I took out all the boxes but two to the shed, and will be bringing the other two shortly. I moved my table into the dining room, even though I haven't quite decided exactly where it's going to live until such time as I get a proper dining room set (see above: strapped for cash).

I also have to put away my clean clothes, as toughlovemuse and chibipunkdemon are coming to dinner. I rather hope the spaghetti sauce will be ready by the time they get here, but toughlovemuse has expressed an interest in heading to the Green Stop for dinner, which is also good, not expensive, and nearby.

I am really enjoying my days off at home. I'm getting stuff done and relaxing at the same time. Good stuff. :)





*I hasten to add that I am not hurting for money in any way. I just... don't want to spend any more than I already have on things that aren't, say, food or utilities.

Still sick. At least my throat doesn't hurt anymore. I am still attempting to drown this cold in liquids. Maybe extra alcohol tonight at Hurley's will help. ;) At the very least, I will be purchasing decongestants during my lunch break.

Today the plan is to pick up all the cans with the proceeds from my Shave to Save campaign, and the total will be tallied up tomorrow at some point and donated.

I am also getting Hallowe'en candy. Having been told in no uncertain terms that I suck for not giving out chocolate bars (love you guys: mwah!), I will be picking some up along with my "traditional" Hallowe'en candy as well. I still think it's unnatural and wrong, but there are enough people who think the opposite that I am willing to compromise. ;)

Pidgy is on his way to the SPCA, if he isn't there already. Godspeed, little guy: may you go swiftly to that great bronze statue in the sky, where there are no cats or falcons, the seeds flow without end, and the other pigeons are eternally randy.

Okay, time for work.

After a little initial nail-biting on my part, I am extremely pleased to announce that we have officially raised over $2,000 for the Mix 96 Shave to Save challenge!

Multiple exclamation marks FTW!!!

I'm not even counting the little collection tins in my current total. I am waiting to hear from the Breast Cancer Foundation about the tins, i.e. whether I'm allowed to open them to count whatever is in them toward my total or whether I have to hand them over sight unseen (which would kind of suck, since I think there's a lot of money in there). So until I find out, none of that money is being counted.

Anyway, WE DID IT!!!

Thank you so much to everyone who contribued their time and their money and their energy to helping me with this: it means more to me than you can imagine. It's thanks to all of you that this was all made possible. :)

So here is proof of my new 'do, as requested. Behind the cut, as always.

( Egads! Where did all of Phnee's hair go? )

I haven't posted about this in a couple of days.

The good news is that we are at a little over 75% of our goal! With yesterday's lunch-time fundraiser and a surprise cheque that came in the mail, the total is now $1,537. That means I have to raise $16 a day between now and October 31st.

The fundraiser at lunchtime went quite well. I raised nearly $300, which isn't bad at all. The main thing I discovered, however, is that police officers are cheap. It was quite striking: the smaller the salary, the higher the contribution, inevitably. I had one Staff Sergeant with whom I get along well categorically refuse to give money at all. I was a little disappointed by that. I mean, a salary which must be well into six figures, and he can't spare the price of a coffee?

The ones who ended up giving the most were the janitorial staff and the front desk commissioners. Some people walked by without even acknowledging I had spoken to them, which was a little insulting.

Luckily, by dint of getting $2 here and $5 there, we got a lot of money in. I was very lucky to have two members of the OCC join me about halfway through and hassle the people they knew to give me money. Also, before you think that I'm maligning all police officers equally, the NCO of the commercial fraud section not only stopped by my table to contribute, but also stayed a while and encouraged others to donate as well. So I got a good $25 just thanks to him. So hats off to him, though I won't be mentioning his name here for privacy's sake. :)






I've bought some permanent markers and some white poster board (or whatever it's called) and I'm going to make a "thermometer" to post at work to show the progress of the fundraiser. I'm hoping it'll serve as motivation to those who haven't donated yet.

My fundraiser is like the Energizer Bunny: still going and going.

The supervisor whose wife has breast cancer just gave me a sizeable cheque, and my mother also contributed last night when I visited.

So here we are, ever closer to the goal, and still 31 days to go!

I forgot to mention: thanks to very generous donations at Tarasmas, I am *almost* halfway to my goal!





If anyone else wants collection tins or pink ribbons, please feel free to ask me.

Also: spread the word! The more people donate, the better. We're halfway there, and October hasn't even started yet! This is not the time for complacency, however. It's time for action! (cue music) We're not there yet, and besides, $2,000 is a minimum, not a maximum. :)

G'night, folks. :)

Here is the photo that Public Relations took of me. It's about to be spread all around the RCMP. Yikes!

As toughlovemuse suggested, it features my silken locks. All 17 inches of 'em.

( Cut to spare your friends' page )

My direct supervisor is made of win.

He hasn't been back 24 hours from his business trip to Québec, and he's already taking my fundraising campaign nation-wide. The people from Public Relations have already been by to take my picture (funny how when *I* went by they patted me on the head and sent me on my way), and I'm going to be in the RCMP "news" and the online intraweb news thingy.

I am considerably more sanguine about my chances of raising $2,000 by the end of next month now. Between my awesome friends and my supervisor, as well as a couple of family connections, I think my odds have increased significantly.