Americanuck

It’s been a day of running around and preparation for the journey to Vegas (baby!) You know the usual picking up of last minute items, dropping the furry kids off at ‘camp’ and ferrying the Boy to and from work. Oh yeah and the cleaning of the house.

See, I’m of a mind that you can’t leave a messy house when you go away on vacation. What if something happens and someone has to enter the place, you know a pipe or something. I don’t want anyone to think we’re messy! We’re not messy, just sometimes chaotic but I’d rather people think Martha Stewart lives here. It’s just a thing.

TIRED from cleaning! (drama queen)

Tom EXHAUSTED from cleaning! (Drama King)

To top it off along with the usual pick 100 items of clothing and slowly pare it down to ten days worth of clothing on a six day trip like usual, I was on the hunt for an elusive pair of capri pants. Worse, they are my FAVOURITE pair of capri pants. I went on a ‘purge’ a few months back but I knew those hadn’t been donated to good will. I mean seriously I have enough clothes to dress three of me really, but I had to have THOSE capris. Hummm but then again I don’t have enough pants, I have enough TOPS to clothe three people… Anyway as per usual they were in the last place I looked. Which come to think of it is one of the stupidest sayings, because obviously one stops looking when one finds what they are looking for.

Oh yeah and I picked up some of that foot lube I heard about. I will let you know if it actually works or if I just bought into the marketing like a dumb-ass.

A while back I bought a new suitcase because Tom stole, I mean borrowed my bigger one and I was stuck with two smaller ones the last trip we took which was hell to maneuver. I bought a pink one, which makes it highly unlikely that it will be stolen, I mean borrowed in the future by any Males in this household. I though it looked a touch big in the store compared to my old one. Turns out its Suitcasezilla. I’m thinking it may be a challenge moving around the airport with this puppy, but whatever, its got more room in it for the booty I plan on bringing back. I’m hitting up Ross in Vegas to feed my ever so starving clothes monkey once again.

“Suitcasezilla”

Now I’m enjoying a nice glass of wine and blogging while Tom packs his suitcase and drinks HIS wine.

See you next Saturday!

Along with showing other bits of skin summer means bare feet and skimpy shoes. To me it also means a whole LOTTA pain.

I have, I believe, the most sensitive skin on the planet. I use scent-free laundry detergent and have many times put up with an outbreak of hives when I’ve used the lovingly purchased drugstore Mother’s day bath beads from my Boys. I mean come on, I get rashes from adhesive and lord have mercy I’m glad condoms are out of my life now cos boy howdy, nothing like a ‘down there’ rash from a latex allergy!

Anyways, yeah you got my point, sensitive skin.

With these bazillion degree temps we’ve been having, there is no such thing as socks and shoes it’s all about bare feet and sandals and for me it’s all about blisters.

I had been doing pretty good wearing some of my more comfy slides and sandals. You know, the type that have the softer lambskin type leather straps which are supposed to be gentle on your feet. Sure, if you don’t do a lot of walking, just the commuter type. Walk to car, drive to train, ride train, walk to office, (walking to printer,bathroom,coffee machine) walk to local food place (more printer,bathroom,coffee machine), walk to train, walk to car, drive home, plant ass.

The problems started with my walkabout with Sean on the weekend. My favourite slides gave me two small but rather painful blisters on the top of my left foot. Generally if I’m going to have a blister on the top of my feet, for some reason it’s my left. If its a blister on my heel it’s usually my right. I’m thinking this means my right foot is fatter and shorter because it stays put side to side but rubs up and down…

I thought I was being smart and took my suede shoes that are kind of moccasin-like on my trip to wear for the actual walking/airport deal and a pair of airsole sandals for the meeting which were kind of funky. I wasn’t planning on doing a lot of walking at the meeting so I figured it would be ok. Well, the sandals gave me three new blisters on my left foot, this time by my toes and the moccasins? Yeah, a blister on my right heel. One of those real DEEP kind in the tougher part of my heel. YUCK and OW!

I guess it’s my fault for going barefoot in them, but seriously who wants to wear anything on their feet when it’s hot??

So I’ve been looking on the ‘net for suggestions on what to do about sore feet and blisters. Its a comfort to know I’m not alone with this malady, because there are plenty of women suffering for the love of sandals, but the suggestions have been all over the map. The most intriguing one has been the suggestion of foot lube which kind of sounds like it’s for a whole other purpose, not to mention kink, but ok then.

Supposedly this stuff when rubbed on your feet will prevent the chaffing/rubbing that causes those nasty blisters to form. I’m thinking now about how if I were to rub lube all over my feet, how I will keep from slipping out of my slides/sandals? No blisters, but one heck of a twisted and or broken ankle in my future? I’m seriously intrigued enough to try and find the stuff though, especially before we head to Vegas this weekend and all the walking THAT will entail.

Another suggestion was moleskin applied to the offending part of the shoe, but wouldn’t that just give a different surface for your heel to rub on? A moleskin one? When I read the package it suggests putting some around the area, actually on your skin but not on the blister, ahh.. hmm wonder if the adhesive will give me a rash? Yeah so I bought some anyway, I’m such an advertising whore. I’ve got millions of different mascaras to prove that I’m a marketers wet dream.

Wow am I ever glad to be home and man I am ass-tired. I put in a couple of hours working from my home office but I don’t think my brain ever got out of first gear.

After a nap I’m still dragging, but I’m hoping that second wind doesn’t kick in so I’m good and tired tonight.

During break from the meeting Linda and I took a walk-about and took some pictures of downtown. As we only had about 15 minutes we didn’t get to go far or see that much which is too bad. Toronto is a pretty nice city, although my heart belongs to Vancouver. In my mind it’s way nicer here even if we don’t have as many towers…

The plan was right after the meeting to head to the airport and home (yay!)

What we had to look forward to however, along with the three hour time difference was after sitting in an all day working session; an hour or so cab ride, two hours in an airport THEN a 4.5 hour flight home. Severe numb-bum occurred somewhere over Saskatchewan. Then a severe case of the fidgets. I felt like running up and down the aisles screaming “LET ME OUT, LET ME OUT, LET ME OUT!” but that would have just got me restrained, and well, arrested.

I have to say, I wish Air Canada would invest in a new pre and post flight soundtrack. I think it’s the same five Motown hits they play every single time on repeat. Since yesterday I’ve been haunted by the song “Sugar Pie Honey Bunch” the lyrics running through my mind over and over. MAKE IT STOP!

Here is the rest of Toronto trip photoset on flickr!

I added pics to illustrate my previous post as I just got them off my camera =)

So glad to be home, I missed my family sooo much!

Through the magic of in-room high speed internet and my laptop I’m coming to you now from the desk in my hotel room at the The Grand Hotel in Toronto. I have to say the service has been great and the rooms are really quite nice. They are suites so you have a sitting area with a TV should you be so inclined and another TV in the bedroom area.

The bathrooms are nice, it has a little kitchen area with a stove and dishes and stuff, though I don’t think there is any pots in there. You’d probably have to buy some if you were going to fully use this place but I’m thinking it doesn’t get used much other than the fridge… and as mentioned before, there is high-speed Internet which makes sense if they are going to cater to the business traveler.

Fear of flying aside the flight was smooth and uneventful as any good flight should be. The thing I find utterly amazing is nowadays on Air Canada, and maybe other airlines, you need to pay extra for food. At least it isn’t the normal ‘airline’ fare it’s Swiss Chalet or Subway food, along with some heated up entrees from President Choice (can we say eww?). But whatever, still not worth shelling out good money for.

Linda picked me up this morning and we made excellent time to the airport traveling Mach-3 (heehee) and we decided to grab a nice sit-down breakfast before the flight. That along with some snacks got us through the flight.

The flight seemed especially long and both of us were feeling quite antsy towards the end. There was a pretty bad movie for in-flight entertainment…16 Blocks a Bruce Willis movie that I don’t even recall seeing any promos for. Wonder if it was straight to DVD? Anyway it pretty much sucked, but it killed some time.

Pearson airport just keeps getting bigger and bigger! It took a few minutes to figure out where we needed to go to get to the ground transportation. We took a look at the limo line (limos run pretty close to the flat taxi rate into downtown T.O.) but the taxi line was shorter (BECAUSE the rates are so close) so we just decided to grab a cab. Of course the cab was not air-conditioned so we were a tad windblown by the time we got to our hotel. On the plus side, the cabbie knew his way around town. I’ve experience the other type and I hate being at the mercy of a cabbie who’s “lost” ie running up the fare. I guess the flat rate discourages any wayward leanings one may have.

We were both pretty wiped after traveling so we both took a half hour or so to relax in our respective rooms and then met for dinner. We decided to just hit the restaurant in the lobby which was pretty good. We both had an appetizer and had pasta for our main course. My appetizer was a Caesar salad. I have to say this is the very first Caesar salad where the salad came as what looks like a bunch of romaine lettuce hacked in half and put in a plate of dressing with croutons and what appears to be a hunk of fried parm cheese on the side. It was good mind you, but it was weird having to do all the work to cut it up. Must be some kind of nouveau restaurant thing? I dunno, I guess I’m just simple folk who’s used to my salad being all cut up like. The pasta was good, I’m so stinking of garlic right now, it’s probably a good thing I’m by myself!

After a good dinner and lots of laughs we decided to explore the hotel and some of the amenities. They have a roof-top garden with a jacuzzi and a pool that looked really impressive on Travelocity. The roof-top area was amazing and wow what gorgeous views of the city! We took a bunch of pictures up there and then headed down to the pool. The pool is a LOT smaller than it appears in the photos on the travel site, but that’s par for the course I guess. It was nice though, if not over chlorinated. The smell drove me out after taking a few snapshots. I’m sure the two couples in the pool were wondering what these two weird women were doing taking pictures, but whatever. Like we’re going to see THEM again!?

So now I’m alone in my room and missing my wonderful Husband immensely!! I always hate being away from him. Sappy huh? But it’s very true. I also miss my Boys. I always feel lost when they aren’t around.

Our meeting starts at 9:00, though we’re supposed to be there for 8:30 for breakfast and I guess to mix a bit.

I’m tired, yet not tired as back home it’s only 7:30 even though the clock shining behind me says 10:30. I think my body and mind thinks it’s somewhere in the middle.

Here’s hoping I sleep well, I don’t tend to in strange beds.

Pictures to come when I get home. *Edit* pictures have been added

Sean and I attempted to do a photo walk this afternoon. I say attempted for a couple of reasons. One, he didn’t charge his batteries before we left (they were last charged over a week ago) and two, because if was so M.F.ing hot out there we probably lasted just over an hour and a half. I mean seriously it had to be close to 100 degrees out our way and NO breeze what-so-ever. Crazy! It would have been a lot more fun to go to a park or a beach but good luck getting a parking spot that late in the day in mid-summer so we stuck with the ‘hood. That and he still wouldn’t have had charged batteries had we made it to a park…

I think the hardest thing to deal with weather-wise is it has been going from a nice mild 70’s to the 90’s from week to week, I mean come on Mother Nature, what about the 80’s? I LIKE the 80’s! Both Sean and I were wearing dark colours too. Ummm hello! Durrrrr.

(I felt like these M&Ms melting on the sidewalk)

Mmmm blackberries!

Truly though, there wasn’t much to photograph around here unless you went for foliage in the school grounds, or macro on the flowers/ground. It’s a fairly urban area which is great for shopping and restaurants, but not so good for nature. We used to live a reasonable distance to a city park AND the local school grounds had open fields and there was plenty of nature around.

Sean takes a pic of me mid-sentence.. nice

We grabbed sandwiches for dinner as it’s just me and the Boys tonight and stopped by the corner store to get slurpies. About halfway through mine I remembered how much I hate sugar in drinks (Diet Coke all the way baby) and then ended up drinking about five glasses of water to compensate for the over sweet taste. This is five glasses of water over and above what I’ve already drunk today (before and after the walk) which is about another 7. Thing is, I’ve barely peed so I obviously needed it.

I love the Sean is still cool about hanging out with his old Mom. I’m going to enjoy every second of that.