Tagged!

I don't normally do Internet blog memes, but it's Christmas and I'm home alone--not quite in the Macaulay Culkin way, but I'm working on booby trapping the whole house just for kicks.

Every paying employment I've had thus far in life:

1. Vienna Sausages at the CNE food building. I was 15 and it was my first job, slinging wieners and veal schnitzel while soaked up to my elbows in sauerkraut. The cash till never had enough pennies.

2. Shawarma's King, Eaton Centre. My first mall job, and the start of my journey up the echelons of the EC levels. I didn't even know what a shawarma was when I started working here. Hell, I couldn't tell you where Lebanon was. (Still can't). I worked weekends for a whole year while in high school. Middle Eastern cuisine is now a staple in my fast food diet.

3. Foot Locker, Eaton Centre. I met the manager while she was getting a chicken shawarma sandwich. She invited me to drop off a resume. I did. I got the job. It was my first foray into retail and a terrifying two-year eye opener as one of the youngest and most innocent and unworldly (read: naive) workers at the tender age of 16. I credit my ability to swear out loud to the fine people at FL.

4. The Gap, Eaton Centre. It was only a three-month stint, but some of the nicest retail jockeys I ever met worked there. I got a tonne of goodbye cards when I left. I also spent more than half my cumulative paycheck on clothes "for work." I used to be a size 2 when I worked there. Now, not so much.

5. Indigo, Eaton Centre. By this point, I'd worked on EVERY GODDAMNED LEVEL OF THE EATON CENTRE, and was ecstatic there was a fancy-schmancy booktarium opening up. A month after it opened, I met John, right in the magazine section by the big sale table I was reorganizing. I do believe it was love at first sight. Best moment: reshelving the sex books with John for two hours. Eight years later, his ring is on my finger. I might add, he proposed to me outside of the food building at the CNE. (Full circle yay!)

6. Kumon Math and English. A friend asked me to fill in for her as a tutor, so I went and dealt with snot-nosed brats who often pointed out my sharp tooth (my left incisor is crooked and turned sideways so it looks like a fang.) I told the kids, "All the better to eat you with, my dear." I lasted all of three months.

7. Men's Divorce Clinic. Another friend asked if I was interested, and I was. But I didn't wake up in time for the interview--damn alarm clock had the volume turned down. This probably should have been a hint from the Divine Ones that it wasn't meant to be. I didn't get the position I applied for, but they did ask me to do some research for them. It was boring and tedious and I wasn't happy. I left a few months into it.

8. The Merril Collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy. A friend got me in to work as a page at this fabulous closed stacks collection. It remains one of my fave places I ever worked, second only to my current job. I have, in fact, touched a book signed by Aldous Huxley, a first edition (or was it second?) of Bram Stoker's Dracula, and seen and read some awesome work. Best memory: meeting Neil Gaiman, who read from American Gods and was a terrific speaker.

9. Post CityMagazines. My first real full-time job out of school. I worked as a Sales Coordinator and eventually moved into production and being the boss's gopher. I bought him camping plates and pilgrim hats at his request. Regardless of the mind-boggling tasks I was assigned, I learned a whole lot, made some wonderful friends and developed love-hate relationships with the whole business. Especially the boss. *Shakes my fist at Lorne in case he's reading this*

10. IT World Canada. This job was balls. It killed my spirit and sank me into a deep depression from which I didn't emerge for months. But I did learn a lot. And my manager was the most fantastic, caring lady I have ever known.

11. Freelancing for iBegin Toronto. This Internet directory needed people to fill in reviews. It was just a way to earn some grocery money while I was in between jobs.

12. Harlequin Enterprises. I have arrived. I love my job. I love the company. I wake up eager to get to my desk every day. I never stop marveling at what I get paid to do--i.e. sit around and read and edit romance novels all day. I've been inspired to pursue my own writing career through this company. One day, I might actually be able to add "award-winning novelist" to this list....

I tag Danielle and Alex. Because I don't read that many other blogs.

Thoughts for Food....

Important wisdom I need to pass on about the things in your pantry:

1. Triscuits that are a month past their Best Before date are not tasty, no matter how hungry you are and no matter what you put on them.

2. Bananas and Pepsi don't mix.

3. Bread feet (or heels, as everyone else calls them, though why that is I have no idea since they're obviously the ends of bread, not the just-before-end of a loaf) can, in fact, be eaten. As long as they're toasted and slathered in Nutella. El-la. El-la. Eh, eh, eh....slathered in Nu-tel-la... (Rihanna, I expect a royalty out of this....)

4. Just because the pasta bugs haven't gotten to it yet, doesn't mean it's a good idea to eat it.

5. That half-empty jar of instant coffee crystals someone gave you three years ago...? Face it, you'll never drink the stuff. You don't even like REAL coffee.

6. Potatoes aren't like diamonds. They don't keep forever. And in this case, growth is not a good thing.

7. The powdery dregs of 6-month-old cereal are not part of a balanced breakfast.

HOLY WTFERY. I CAN'T TELL YOU HOW MAD THIS MAKES ME....

WARNING: RANT AHEAD.

Okay, WTF is this????

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?cl=7515797

And in case that link doesn't work:
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/2421486

NBC.com posted this stupid piece of shit on Yahoo! reporting on how the rising prices of gasoline are affecting Americans' way of life...so much so, apparently, that NBC is reporting they are picking gas over food.

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

Now, I try not to stand on my soap box if I can help it, because, inevitably, someone will throw something at my head and call me a sanctimonious hypocrite since I live in North America (Canada) and must, therefore, somehow be living the same lifestyle I am criticizing. Let me go on to say I do not own a car; I also live in a big city, and bring my own reusable bags to the grocery store. I eat meat, and exhale carbon dioxide. And true, sometimes, I like to buy shoes I'll only wear twice...so maybe I'm not the paragon of virtue worthy of ranting....

But I digress. And this report still makes me mad.

Roughly, the story is this: coverage of rising gas prices has elicited e-mails from dumbshit viewers who are angry about the things they have to give up so they can fill their SUVs and pickup trucks.

"You can imagine the sacrifices Americans are having to make to afford gas at that price," says the reporter, who leads with an interview from November 2007 with one man who claims he has had to cut down on the number of times he takes his family to church services--at a church 35 to 40 miles away--because of the rise in fuel prices. The reporter's summation was that rising gas prices had affected his family's relationship with God.

Okay, 1) what the hell is he doing driving 40 miles to church? I am sure you can find a place of worship much closer. God won't punish you for it. And there is nothing wrong with taking the bus!

2) If your faith is being affected by something as worldly and mundane as gas prices, you need to revisit your religion and ask yourself what the real deal is, because as forgiving as deities are, I'm pretty sure "I'm too cheap to pray and believe at home" is not an excuse.

The most ironic things about this one interview? The man is driving an SUV.

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

But the WTFery doesn't end there:

"I have had to cut back on after-school activities because I cannot afford to take them or pay for the activities anymore," writes V. Smith.

Now, this may not be a case of dumbshitedness on behalf of a viewer--I blame an utter lack of context for this quote if it has been misinterpreted by the reporter, who seemed to go out of her way to not ask any questions or do any interviews.

In fact, extracurricular activities do cost money sometimes...and time and gas, both of which are in short supply and high in cost for the modern American these days.

But doesn't that just point to the fact that the education system and the government is failing to provide enough funding and resources to schools so that children can expand their life experiences in simple things like soccer games, field trips, art classes and music lessons? What happened to giving our kids the best start in life?

The report gets even better...

"Some people even say that they are changing their diets, cutting down on costly prescription drugs, or walking instead of driving to their local grocery store. All in hopes of saving money on gasoline."

1) Changing their diets, huh? You mean, no more scarfing down Big Macs from the drive-thru every night? Dude, what does a change in diet even mean? Are they changing for the better? Eating more fruits and veggies, say? Or are they being forced to eat more fast food? Or are they eating their own kin now? This is just bad reporting--a non sequitur, at best.

2) Cutting down on prescription drugs: I'm sure someone more educated than I could go on about how a complete and utter lack of national health care has basically generated this problem. But I'm not that smart. I am, however, just perceptive enough to see gas prices are not the reason why prescription drugs are expensive: it's the pharmaceutical companies who make the prices for life-saving drugs stupidly high. I might also add that choosing to fill up your car's gas tank over, say, getting your next hit of insulin to control your diabetes...probably a bad choice to make.

3) Walking to your local grocery store? THE HORROR!!! How else will I get to show off my phallic status symbol, if not to the SUV-driving soccer moms who can barely afford to take their kids to practice?

But let's move on from this WTFery, shall we?

"It's a burden for many of families, but especially for the little ones...."

OH, WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!

"...As Barabara Hatfield writes: 'It's not fair to have to tell your children that we have to eat a much smaller meal this evening or skip breakfast because we had to buy gas.'"

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?
Seriously. SERIOUSLY???
"Sorry, Billy, no second helping for you--Mommy needs to drive to work."
Lady, your priorities are totally messed up. LET YOUR KIDS EAT. What does an apple cost these days? Certainly not $4.00 a gallon.

Okay, just to be fair and not some liberal elitist neophyte pundit who obviously doesn't know what she's talking about and knows nothing about the working class, maybe this woman is in dire straits: maybe she can't get to her job because she lives on the outskirts of town and makes less than minimum wage. Maybe she drives a cab for a living. Maybe public transit is so bad, only the truly desperate would use it. Maybe everyone she knows hates her and won't let her carpool. Maybe her bicycle got stolen. Maybe her EV1 was taken away. Who knows?

What I'm winding down to is that all of this is a part of a larger systemic problem rooted in the American standard-of-living mindset:

Big houses. Big cars. Sprawling suburban residential neighborhoods that are not pedestrian friendly, include no local small businesses to supplement regular household necessities, thus making a car not a luxury, but a necessity unto itself.

People, this is wrong.

It's not a crime to not own a car, or live in denser cities, or have jobs and places of recreation you can walk to. It's not a crime to want to have a lifestyle that doesn't include driving everywhere you go; or even driving a smaller, more efficient and, dare I say, eco-friendly alternative energy vehicles.

What is a crime is thinking we have some god-given right to have everything we have without sacrificing something. And I'm not just talking about the out-of-pocket costs that make us decide to buy KD for dinner instead of fresh vegetables to make a salad because KD fills you up better and is a cheaper deal than perishable foods. There are economic, political and environmental costs. Costs that, though they may not seem evident at first, will come to kick you hard in the ass, and even harder in the wallet at a later date.

Now ask yourself: What are the REAL sacrifices Americans are making so they can afford gas?


Disclaimer: this is not a reflection of my views on all Americans--just the stupid ones. I might add there are plenty of equally stupid Canadians and others around the world.