BC Ferries Announcement

Just what you don't want to hear at the beginning of your voyage in an accent that reminded me of my Grandfather from the Czech Republic:

We’re behind schedule due to mechanical malfunction which has been fixed for the moment.

It ended up being just fine, huge shout out to the staff for the humor under pressure and a safe voyage.

Consequences unforseen there may be

I don't think this is what they meant when they said you will have to battle your inner demons...

Adventures in healthcare

So I finally got set up so I can set an appointment to get my healthcare checkups and had to go through the standard questions.  Some of these I routinely struggle with on paper, but of course it was more comical trying to answer them out loud with an audience.

Assistant: Marital Status?

Me: Uh... What are the options?

Her: Married, Single, Divorced... *I glazed over* for some other options that definitely didn't apply...

Me: Siiiingle?

The other assistant laughed and said "You don't sound too sure about that!". I retorted that it was process of elimination and that answer was the closest ;)

Her: Race?

Me: White.

Surprised she looked up quickly, and I conceded... Well I'm not Black, I'm not Hispanic, I'm not Latino or any of the other minority groups, and it's probably under Caucasian... *restraining an eyeroll*

Unfortunately I forgot my friend's awesomest answer to this question: "Race? I am part of the HUMAN Race"

Her: Ethnicity?

Me: *looking truly confused* Canadian?

*laughter erupted and ensued*

Come on, how is that even a valid question anymore?!?! Seriously, I'm part British, Czech, and who knows what else coming out of the middle European countries that are all super close together and invaded each other frequently... and most of the people I know are of unknown mixed ethnicity for similar reasons. 

Even when you think you know, there's that person in the family that traces the tree back and goes "Hey did you guys know, we're part Scandinavian? Apparently four generations ago this guy got stranded when he was hired to invade and they couldn't pay the raiding party, so a bunch of them settled down and took local wives"

Hopefully with the advances that are being made in healthcare they'll figure out a better way to group people together rather than relying what we think we are.

Did you know that...

Apparently in America they've never heard of pencil crayons, they're called "coloured pencils"... sorry *ahem* "colored" (we don't use the Queen's English down here)... sometimes I'm not sure who's English we use...

I guess it makes about as much sense though... *shrugs*

She's not a friend of Spock

Standing in line for the washroom I overheard this Mom talking to her daughter...

"Don't do that, it makes me uncomfortable"

Wha??? Out of the corner of my eye I saw the little girl doing the split finger "Live long and prosper"

"I know, I see that you can do it, but Mommy can't do that... No, stop it I don't like that."

"It's fine that you can do it, just don't show me."

"Weekend" DIY projects

We are in the midst of working on a "minor" weekend deck project that went big.  In fact, we're took it into the next weekend.

We decided last weekend that we wanted to put up a trellis, like the one our cool neighbors have, but in wood because it just looks so much warmer.  Of course the fence we want to put it on top of isn't level... and it's a 12' gap where prefab trellis comes in 8' lengths, aaaand then we decided we should put in a shelf for planter boxes... yeah, you know how it goes ;)

Anyways we spent a good couple hours wandering around Home Depot figuring out what we were going to do, comparing prices, sorting through wood all the way down. to. the. bottom. to get pieces that weren't bent and warped and otherwise munched or weird, and gathering random other supplies...

Checked out and realized that at the end of the day the prefab trellis was going to cost pretty much the same as all the parts AND wouldn't require nearly as much monkeying around with. 

We turned around right there in the parking lot, and returned half the stuff we had just purchased, went back to the lumber section and sorted down. to. the. bottom. to get the two prettiest prefab trellisesss.  As an added bonus it also fit in the car better, and was easier to tie down ;)

Once home, we cut, dismantled and otherwise mangled the one prefab section into a beautifully framed shorter trellis... only to discover that we had done it to the wrong half. *facepalm*  Seriously I was so proud of us, it looks like it came like that! (For those of you doing the math in your head and thinking that shouldn't matter because we cut the one trellis in half... I lied. The space is actually 12' at the bottom and ~146" at the top - It's California! Things get shifted and re-settled regularly)  Annnnd of course, the way we did it meant that we couldn't just "undo" it and "do" it to the other one... yeah, we "did" it good.

Two "emergency skype" calls to my Engineer Dad later and we had a few different options... along with various notes of things to watch out for, things to remember, and things to be careful of... and most importantly, how to level the fence. 

Another trip to home depot for paint... a few jugglings of which pieces are going where, an evening of painting the various pieces, and we're just about ready to put it all together! *phew*

Because it's obviously not French...

The inquiring mind of my friend's daughter wants to know...

A1: "Mom, how come after they make an announcement in English they make it again in American?"

Mom: *closes eyes and smiles* "That's not American sweetie, that's Spanish..."

Pardon me sir, but do you have a bucket for my brains?

I made it to the bike store, mostly before it closed the other day...

I was casually chatting with the guy working in the store and offhandedly commented that it was great they were open till 7, when he said "No it's not. It's 7:20!" and proceeded to show me.

Boy did I feel silly, I'm really not sure where that time went... sheepishly I stopped thinking about it and just bought the damn helmet.

guy: "You riding that little BMX bike out there?"

me: "Yes, I think it's a little small for me, but I got a good deal on it at the swap meet!"

He gives me a semi-non believing inquisitive look...

me: "$35"

guy: "Damn girl! No wonder you ridin' BMX, I would be too!"

While paying for my purchase we continued to chit-chat and hearing a story about a girl who had recently been hit and cracked her skull without a helmet, which likely would have been a much less severe concussion with a helmet, re-affirmed the necessity of protecting my own bwains.

I am now the proud owner of helmet that costs almost as much as my bike... but that's not really important, because the contents it will be protecting are priceless.

The storm of the century!!!

At least that's what they were calling it. This post got a little lost, but it still makes me smile so I thought I would share it.

I mean seriously.

Yes, it's a decent storm... but if this is "The storm of the century", then we have at least one a year up in Canada *rolls eyes*

My favorite quote of the weekend was from the cashier at Target:

All friends online are all "Calm down California, it's just a little water..."

Some days...

When I asked someone if he was having fun yet. He responded:

Well... it starts with “F. U.”… but it doesn’t end with “N!”

Don't mind me, just living the fantasy

A friend of mine sent me this from some shop down near LA

Now I know everyone loves Canadians (how could you not ;) but I didn't realize there was such a need to *be* Canadian.

If being Canadian is one of your fantasies, we have a set of instructions you can follow.

DMV Question...

I'm practicing for the DMV written exam in California, which seems to be pretty much the same as BC. I was going through the sample questions when this little gem came up...

That's the correct answer indicated.

 Now I ask you, how do you know it's a crosswalk if it's unmarked?!?! *scratches head*

So much for using the bike lane, apparently it's also for parking.

Yes, spelling *is* important

Mom pointed this out last night in an extremely on-the-ball witty kind of way, and it made me laugh so hard, so I of course embellished it a little further for your viewing pleasure:

It has recently come to light that the American "Right to bear arms" may have been a misrepresentation due to a transcription error... and that in fact the original intent was that every citizen have the "Right to bare arms"

Sorry for any confusion this may have caused.

And elsewhere due to a translation error...

Multi-tasking mishap

Eating carrots, drinking tea and programming.

All very ninja-esque... until you reach into your tea cup for the next carrot.

Joke for the day

What do you call a fast moving chihuahua?

... a floor-pedo!

Do not park here...

You may never see your car again!

Sent... While running around ;)

It goes both ways ;)

We overheard this on the radio the other morning on our way into school, and it made me laugh so hard...

"Try as we might, we can't seem to keep Canadian culture from invading ours... Tonight, the Ducks play the Kings in a preseason game in the Honda center!"

Bet you didn't know... that Canadians don't even stand like Americans!?!

Last week, when I was introduced as being Canadian to one of the teachers at the little ninja's school... She said that she had seen me and thought that I didn't look American, that maybe I was European!

I held back the inappropriate response of "only in the bathroom" ;)

See, the joke is this: "If you're Canadian when you go into the bathroom, and American when you come out... what are you while you're in there?"

...

Are you ready? *grins* ... "You're-a-pee'n!"

Buahahahahaha!

Upon further reflection though, she wasn't really that far off, I am part British and part Czech... but totally Canadian ;)

 

Welcome to Canada ;)

Bear *snickers* in mind, that I was the very last one off our flight that landed just after midnight...

Canadian customs guy: "Are you bringing anything back with you?"

Me: "Just a couple of gifts..."

Him: "Like what?"

Me: "Ah... Superman underwear"

Him: "Sweet!"

Me: "Yeah!" :) "and um, I can't think of what else..."

Him: "That's okay, welcome home"

The Roadtrip - July 17th - Leg III

We discovered that Doug-Doug can calculate a route to somewhere along the way to your destination... like stopping for gas. This gas-station/casino set the precedent of finding places with funny names ;)

I guess this is how you leave your options open for when you find yourself wanting to sell something other than Burning Stoves...