While we were camping this past weekend we were given a copy of the Wabamun rules and warnings which included a note about wildlife to watch out for, emphasizing in particular "BEARS".

o_O

Well see, now we're just confused. Are these bears abnormal in some way? Are they actually ferocious man-eating bunnies that you like to pass off as bears? Or maybe park rangers dressed up in cheap bear suits in an effort to catch us off guard breaking the May Long liquor ban? They obviously pose a possible threat of some sort since you went out of your way to wield the PWR OF TEH CAPSLCK. Were the ambiguous air quotes really necessary? Now we can't tell whether it's a legitimate warning or an inside joke on behalf of the campground clerical staff that we're not in on. Or perhaps some idiots still do not understand that quotation marks ≠ emphasis.

I just finished My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult and I think it's the closest I've ever come to actually crying reading a book. The ending was... just... *anguished little noise* For fear of spoiling the story (which apparently I very often do unintentionally -- sorry!) you should just take me at my word when I say the book is amazingly good and you should all go read it now.

I started watching the first few episodes of Batman Beyond and it manages to fill the little empty hole that BtAS left after finishing off the final season. It's much darker than the original series... Watching the first episode suddenly makes the whole scene in Revenge of the Joker where Terry descends down into the graffitied Batcave so much more gut wrenching. D: Also, I don't know whether it's just because he's crotchety and old in this series or not, but Bruce is much more of a dick sometimes in BB. "Bring back the suit." "No!" *Beep* "GAAAA!" ^^; (Oh Batman, disgruntled and wrinkly as you may be, we still love you.)

On a reverse note, does anyone else cringe at how often Batman says "chum" in the older comics? I realize the character has changed a lot since over the years, but it's very... un-Batsy compared to today's modern Batman who's much more broody and much less... bromancey. Look at him, he smiling too much! It's unnerving. Like ol' Brucie's trying to throw you off and at any moment he's going to whirl around and punch you in the face when you're not expecting it. (Or rape you if you're Robin.)

"Come on, chum. Let's go home... and 'go to bed'." *Grins and swings off into the sunset.*

Suuure.

I really really did. And Ichiban. And beef noodle Hamburger Helper! Mmm... Don't get me wrong, the cruise ship had tons o' wonderful food (much more on that later) but at times I missed some of the do-it-yourself half-assed dinners we make at home. Call me a simple gal.

(I'm lazy and didn't want to re-write every bit of the cruise all over again, so for those who I emailed while away, you've already read most of what follows, except for the change of tense.)


Our cruise was awesome! The boat was FREAKING HUGE. D: Twelve or so decks, swimming pools, theaters, tons of restaurants and buffets, an arcade, shit loads of bars, a casino, shops, a mini basketball court, and... and... *sits there bewildered* It was a little jaw-dropping when you first walked on deck.

The only thing I would say I'd change for the next time if we ever go cruising would be to fork over the little extra money to get a room on the upper decks. Mason and I were on the very bottom left corner of the boat at the back, and while the room itself was pretty nice, you could hear all the ship engines and really feel the ship swaying at times that far down. Not too bad though.

My absolute favorite thing on the cruise was THE FOOD. OMG. *Drools* There was SO MUCH OF IT. And it was ALL FREE. X3 *Dies a little inside of happiness* Deck 9 of the ship was called the Lido Deck and it was pretty much just non-stop buffet -- every section you went to had a different sort of style or type of buffet (oriental, grille, grand buffet, deli, etc.) I spent a lot of time there. :B Chicken! Pizza! Ice cream! Chocolate cake! Pasta! They sort of changed the specifics of the buffets each day, but the basics were usually there all the time, and you could just go at pretty much any time of the day and grab whatever you wanted! *Happy flails!*

For dinner we usually went down for our nightly scheduled sitting at 8:15pm in the Platinum Dining Room restaurant which excitedly was ALSO FREE, only instead of buffet food it was like, amazing really expensive-like meals that I could never afford here at home. BUT IT WAS ALL FREEEEE! If I wanted three whole appetizers and two main courses, I just got them all! *Flails and sputters incoherently* It's a good thing I have a healthy metabolism or else I'd have come home a whale.

The day-by-day recap:

Friday was just a shit load of flying. Boooo. Though fortunately I took Gravol far enough in advance this time so I didn't feel sick at all for the flights. We got to Florida and got a hotel for the night. Very very tired.

Saturday we went to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things, then went off to the port to get on the ship. We spent a good amount of time exploring the boat, it was all a little sit-there-with-your-mouth-gaping at first.

Sunday, our first full day on the ship, we stopped at port in Nassau, Bahamas. Unfortunately, with it being Sunday most of the city was completely shut down for the Sabbath or what not. We turned left when we should have turned right and everything was closed and empty and very depressing so I got a little sad as we just walked around doing nothing. Then we figured out that as long as we stuck to the couple roads that the cruise map had on it, all the touristy shops were still open so the day took a positive turn~ That evening was the first Elegant Night on the ship, so all the guests got all gussied up in their formal wear which was so much fun, and we went for fancy dinner~

Monday was our first full day at sea. It was also Mason's birthday *BIRTHDAY LOVE!* so we got him a fancy cake delivered to the restaurant when we went for dinner. It was soooo relaxing~ Our basic itinerary for the trip so far at this point had been 1) sleep late, 2) get up and wander up to the buffet for breakfast, 3) wander around, read, watch a movie in our room, 4) nap nap nap with some lunch in between, 5) lounge, 6) wander up for dinner and then either 7) see what shows or entertainment is going on, or 8) go back to the room for some Doctor Who and go to bed. It was wonderfully lazy~

Tuesday we arrived at port in St. Thomas. We went into town with Mason's parents and shopped for the morning. (I scored a beautiful knock off Coach bag that I luuurve.) X3 Getting from the dock down into the city, we took a boat/ferry thing with a piratey flair, and on the way back they went around some of the islands and gave us a bit of tour which was pretty cool. We went back around noon for lunch (buy food at port? You mean pay money? PFFT.) and then went back to our room to nap and steal a few minutes of free internet from Mr. Huffman's wireless card while we were still close enough to land to write a quick email home. After dinner we went down to the Amber Palace theater and watched a pretty cool magic show.

(My only real sour spot up to this point had been that this was the one day we let the steward in while we were out to the clean the room, and when I got back after shopping there was no towel animal waiting for me! ;_; I was so excited for my towel animal! Mason's parent's got one every day and Tuesday was the one day I was going to get one and I didn't! *Mope mope mope* In desperate towel-y hope, I let them clean the room again the next day though while we were at the next port. If they didn't leave me a towel animal again I thought I may do something rash. *Flails pathetically and cries*)

Wednesday was St. Maarten and as we got into port we started off the day with some bad news and some good news. The bad news -- the weather was stupidly windy so the water was super choppy and therefor cloudy and not fishy-viewing-friendly. Color me very sad. :c The good news turned out to be that they refunded our tickets and we proceeded to have probably the best day in port we had through the trip~ The weather, despite being windy, was gorgeous. The town was beautiful, the shopping was great~ (I bought myself a very pretty jewely/flowery necklace.) Then we literally came out of a dark alley between shops and suddenly OMG BEACH! White sand, turquoise water, splishy splishy splashy! XD Nothing completes a Caribbean cruise than a day of frolicking on a Caribbean beach~ When we got back we finished off the evening with a really good comedy and magic act on the ship.

(OOH OOH and I got not just one, but TWO towel animal menageries on Wednesday! One and two! *Glee glee glee* The towel animal gods decided to make up for their lack of love earlier.)

Thursday was the beginning of our final two days at sea before we get back into port. We lounged all day -- slept, ate, watched movies, read, and ventured into the casino. I brought ten dollars to gamble with, but I'm not sure how much I actually lost or gained as when I sat down at a slot machine there turned out to be $20 worth of credits which I wasted no time in cashing out and fleeing away with my (only somewhat stolen) bucket full of shiny jingly quarters~ ¬_¬ Muh ha. We also had another elegant dressy night for supper.

Friday was another day of lounging. I don't remember exactly what we did this day, but it was very similar to Thursday in the sense that it involved a copious amount of free food and lazing around. I got a giant piece of chocolate cake and watched the Sex and the City movie in the afternoon~ We also all went down to the casino again and I spent probably a full hour huddled around the quarter-tossing game with Mason's mom and went through about $80+ of her gambling money trying to help her get the wad of cash to fall off the little ledge. LOL so much fun, we drew quite a crowd with all of our shouting and hollering.

Saturday... we leave the boat. *Sad face* We had a full day just killing time in Florida since we were paranoid about the possibility of missing our flight home so we scheduled it for the next day, but it turned out we were off the boat and set to go by 10 a.m., so after a thwarted attempt at trying to change our tickets last minute to leave that afternoon, Mason's parents used some of their timeshare points and booked us into a fancy resort suite for the one night. I spent a good couple of hours catching up on my much-missed interwebs (the resort BLOCKED Facebook though. What? Seriously? WTF.) and watched the last half of Titanic on TV (probably a good thing I watched it after the cruise and not before.)

And finally Sunday freakishly-early-in-the-bloody-morning we finally flew home. It was a very tiring and somewhat cranky day, so I was pretty happy to walk into my apartment. Not so happy to be greeted by the cold and snow, however. It's a pretty raw deal to leave for the Caribbean only to find out that the weather back at home is a balmy +7, and then have it plunge back to freezing when you walk off the plane back in Edmonton. I didn't bring my coat either. It was miserable scamper back through the parking lot with all our heavy bags.

As fun and awesome as the trip was and as sad to not have free food (paying for food sucks!) and warm weather anymore, I'm still always glad to go back home. I huggled my bunny who I missed very much *HEARTS* (millions of love-filled thanks to Chelle, Nickie, and Brock who took care of Toby while I was gone!) and mooned over my lovely computer and fast non-crashy non-Facebook-blocking internet.

Pictures to be posted on Facebook hopefully soon!

*Munches on her beloved Save-on-Foods crinkle fries and Swiss Chalet sauce* *JOYGASM* X3

"Year", I mean. Though I suppose both are valid when you look at it. Happy first blog post of 2009, et cetera, et cetera.

As of tonight I am officially a student of piano. It's very exciting~ My first lesson was this evening (which I arrived late for and feel very bad about... I need to remember to go into work early on Tuesdays so I can catch the earlier bus home and not have to run around with my head cut off...) and it was very enjoyable. I have lessons to learn and practice over the next week: key names and beats and notes and what not. In order to keep the proper finger and hand posture I also had to cut my nails, which is very sad ;_; *wiggles short, blunt digits* but I admit it definitely helped.

And so begins my only two realistic New Year resolutions:

1. Rock at piano. (And by that I mean do decently well at my beginner-level lessons.)
2. Keep the apartment in a permanent state of less-messy. (We're going to start doing the dishes every evening to prevent the towers of filth in the kitchen that have built up in the past. Next we will hopefully designate a weekly cleaning day for each room of the house.)

*Determined*

Only ten days until we leave for the Caribbean! X3

I'm a retard.

For the past couple weeks since we were hit with this cold snap, my car starter has been acting like an ass. Every day that it gets colder it gets harder to start my car with the remote, forcing me to actually stomp through the snow and wind outside to let it warm up, which obviously defeats the entire purpose of why I purchased the damn thing to begin with. When the first night of -20 hit, I made sure to plug in my car. It's been plugged in every night since then. Yet it wouldn't start. WHY OH WHY WOULDN'T THE CAR START? D:

The car was plugged in.

The car was plugged in.

Except... as it turns out and brilliantly pointed out by Mason yesterday... the cord wasn't plugged in to the power outlet.

=_=;

In less embarrassing news, we leave on our cruise in less than 25 days and I'm getting very excited!

Toby has shown himself to be a little Houdini in the making. This morning while I was getting ready for work and Toby was enjoying his morning exercise in his playpen, he leaped clear over the fence! I came into check on him after hearing a loud *THUMP!* and found him staring up at me innocently on the wrong side of the pen! So tricksy... Priority one tonight: increase the panel height. T_T

This past week I also introduced Toby to his first treat of vegetable~ I was so excited, I decided to start off with the classic carrot; I had my camera all ready to snap this bunny's-first Kodak moment... Only Toby refused to touch the carrot. Turns out he doesn't like them at all, or at the very least objects to the stereotype. Thankfully the next night we tried a bit of romaine lettuce and he happily chowed down on that~ *SO CUTE*



For anyone who doesn't know, I just came back from a vacation to B.C. with my sister to visit our brother and sister-in-law~ I don't really see any point in retailing every point of the holiday here since Chelle summarized it pretty well on her blog here; but a long story short, we had great fun times with the exception of the driving parts.

Mason and I went out to Jubilations with Dan and Ash last night to see Grey's House of Anatomy, and it was awesome. Probably up in my top list of Jubilation shows we've seen~ I probably didn't catch all the Grey's Anatomy inside jokes, but the actor who played House was spot-on! I practically wanted to run up and hug him while he beats me off with his cane as much as I want to corner Hugh Laurie himself. I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it~ Speaking of which, man do I want to see season three! >_< Someone needs to buy the DVD's so I can mooch off them to watch!

I'm thinking of maybe volunteering once a week at the new Edmonton SPCA on 137th Ave when they finish building it and get it opened, whether it be in the form of walking dogs or cleaning out cages. Would anyone else be interested?

Shiny #1) First off: Sex and the City. Fabulous. Exclamation point. I got to wear my new dress for the first time and my new heels for the second (and painful) time; we stopped at Moxies to eat before the show and it was packed with half of the female population of Northern Edmonton and St. Albert all going to see SatC. The movie itself -- I luuuurved it, it wrapped up the series so nicely and I spent the entire two and a half hours giggling and flailing and smiling and exclaiming "I love (insert every different character's name here at various points through the movie)." I may have to go see it again when I won't have to worry about fighting a tramp squad of bitchy girls for stealing our saved seats and want to kick them in the face with my high-heeled shoe.

Shiny #2) This was an exciting weekend for my hair in particular. I finally sucked it up and forked over the money for a hair straightener, and while I don't regret the purchase we have a little bit of a love-hate relationship that we're going to have to work on... If we can get past the whole "omg the evil fucker wants to scald my flesh off!" and assorted related stress that comes of that, then we should be in a happier place. It's not something I would do every morning (as much as I wish I had the patience to though, because it's nice to be rid of my accursed hair wave.) I also realized yesterday that my hair has finally grown long enough to put up! *GASP* Look! Ponytail! I suddenly have all these new choices of things I can do with my hair~

Shiny #3) Nickie got a CUTE DWARF BUNNY! :D He's tiny and black and furry and adorable, and I shall call him Frodo. When she texted me about it I flailed and squee-ed until we went over to see him, and then I vaguely remember an excess of gushing and more flailing. Game nights at Brock's are going to be an extra point of awesome now with a fuzzy animal to cuddle~ YAY FOR NICKIE'S BUNNY!

Shiny #4) I bought myself a Nintendo DS! And it's pink! :B Hee hee hee! I love it, I can finally play all the cute girly games that no one else wants to get, like Nintendogs, and Animal Crossing. I got an obscure little game called Cooking Mama and it's terrifying how addicted I am to it. (It also makes me unbelievably hungry and I occasionally have to stop and go make myself a late-night snack of pasta or something equally delicious so I can play again.)

Shiny #5) We finally got tickets booked for our Carnival cruise in January~! Seven days in the Eastern Caribbean, and the ship is completely decked out. It's going first class on the sea, baby -- it's going to be sweet~ *Can't wait*

I'm off to play more Cooking Mama now. *Skips off*