Wild Wimmin

I went out for a drink with the wimmin this afternoon.  We actually call it golfing because our watering hole of choice is the lounge at one of the local golf courses.

We are group of women (duh) who used to all work together about ten years ago.  We’ve all gone our separate ways now, but we still really enjoy one another’s company and try to get together once or twice every month.  Our ages range from 28 (our newest “member”) up to 65.  We’ve seen each other through deaths, marriage breakups, custody battles, new relationships, children moving out, children getting married, issues with grandchildren, car accidents, health crises…and we still laugh and, of course, drink.

We have an annual weekend away in the spring, too.  Since we’ve always gone to Whistler, we christened that trip the “Wild Wimmin’s Whistler Weekend” and we became the “wimmin”.  

Our latest venture, which I will take humble credit for, is Unbook Club.  You know how book clubs have become so very popular over the last few years?  Well, some of us were formerly in the same book club, which had been started by another work colleague about ten years ago now.  Book clubs, like everything else, have a shelf life, and a couple of us decided that the expiry date had passed for us and so quit that club.  I missed some of those wimmin, and wanted to get together more often with them and a few additional kindred spirits.  So I invented Unbook Club, which is basically another excuse to get together, laugh, share stories, eat, drink, and perhaps most importantly, NOT read books (though most of us, me included, do read voraciously.  I don’t always like to be told what to read or that I have to discuss it later, but I can do this with the best of them if required).    

So we were sitting there today, deciding upon the date of our next meeting.  She who hosts is supposed to choose but this month’s host just couldn’t make up her mind, so I did it for her – and I prefer weekend nights so I don’t have to worry about possible ill effects from one too many glasses of wine.  We also started discussing next years Wild Wimmin’s Weekend, thinking that maybe, after five or six years, we could go somewhere other than Whistler.  We tossed around a few ideas, but basically, for many reasons, the choice came down to either Whistler again or Paris.

I know what my vote will be.

iPod, youPod

I  think I have a new favourite toy:  my pretty pink iPod.  I’ve spent a great deal of time the past two days getting familiar with its functions and learning how to download and manage music, playlists, etc.  As DD says, “Welcome to the 21st century, Mom.  What took you so long?”

She’s right.  And I have no defense.  I am one of those people who can spend entire days without turning on the stereo (though I do like to wake up and fall asleep to talk radio and I always have music blasting in the car – when I HAVE a car).  I never used to be like that.  I think it’s a phenomenon that dates back seven years or so – possibly back to when the Ex and I split up (he got custody of the good stereo and I got the little ghetto blaster that I still have).

Actually, now that I think of it, I never even owned a walkman or discman back in the 80’s.  Listening to my own private music has obviously never appealed to me…till now.  This iPod invention is pretty damn cool! As most other inhabitants of first-world countries on this planet already know, it’s super-easy to find and download your favourite tunes, or to transfer them from CDs.  I quite enjoy creating playlists, I’ve realized, and it’s great fun to go on a walk in time to music I have chosen, tiny pink iPod tucked in my pocket.  I can also almost completely forget how uncomfortable the earbuds are (is it just me and my microscopic ears, or do they irritate inside everybody’s ears??).  

I do have to remember to not sing along so loudly, however.

Technophile

So I broke down and spent the money.  On a laptop.  And an iPod.  Money that was actually earmarked for – oh, things like my line of credit or my upcoming car rental.  I’m justifying the expenditure to myself with the fact that my old computer had been crashing a lot recently, and also that my new car will have a built-in iPod adapter thingy which will enable me to snap it in its dedicated pouch, attach it to its dedicated outlet, then use the stereo controls to run it instead of the clickwheel (which I haven’t yet mastered anyway).

However, another factor in my decision to buy now rather than later was that DD informed me that Apple currently has a deal on whereby if you purchase both an Apple computer and either an iPod Nano or iTouch with the educational discount, you send in proof of purchase and Apple sends you a cheque that covers the cost of the iPod.  Basically, buy a computer and get a free iPod.  Good deal, I thought, and since I’m a teacher, I do qualify for the 100$ educational discount.  I can’t lose, I figured!

Except, I sort-of did.  I didn’t read the fine print.  I bought my new technology at a store that doesn’t offer an educational discount and therefore isn’t eligible for the free iPod deal.  I did get almost 250$ worth of free stuff from the store, though, in place of the discount:  a power bar, a memory card reader, a USB port hub, and an external hard drive.  None of which I really need (although DD quickly snapped up the external hard drive) or were considering buying in the future.  The bottom line is that I spent almost 300$ more than I would have if I’d gone to an Authorized Apple Retail Or Campus Outlet Store, but I got almost 250$ worth of computery items that I didn’t really want, so my net loss is 50$.  Note to self:  read the WHOLE rebate form next time.

Anyway, DD’s new(ish) boyfriend is a self-proclaimed computer geek and actually is a computer tech support guy, so he helped me set up my new toy on our wireless network and also did stuff so that I can access my email easier and not have to go through the web site.  It took him all of two minutes, grumbling all the while that he is emphatically NOT a Mac guy, that he really didn’t understand all this Mac stuff and wasn’t too sure what he was doing.  Yeah, right.  Even DD was rolling her eyes.  But as I say, he was done in about two minutes, then he smiled beatifically at me and asked, “Is that it?  Anything else you need?”

I asked him for a ride to the Skytrain station.

Black cars look better in the shade

I have been without a car for almost a month now. This is because I totaled my brand new car only two months after I took delivery of it. How lame is that??? I waited nine weeks for its arrival. then I drove it for eight. There is something not-quite-right about this scenario. 
 
But I’m managing. I live across the street from a shopping mall and just up the street from two more, so I can walk almost everywhere I need to go: grocery store, drugstore, doctor, hairdresser, liquor store, bank (well, the ATM at least), two pubs, four Starbucks outlets, several restaurants. Where I can’t walk is to the library or to get my nails done. Which means I have to wangle rides from friends to go to those places. That’s a bit embarrassing, particularly the nails: “Um…could you maybe give me a lift on Tuesday?” “Sure. Where to?” “Um…my nail lady’s house. I have a standing appointment every third Tuesday.”  
 
I’m a teacher, so of course I haven’t had to go to work this month. But school re-opens on September 2, so I will have to get a car then. I really couldn’t walk to work (although one of my colleagues a few years ago lived nearby and he often rode his bicycle to work). I do have one current colleague who lives not too far from me, and although I’ve driven him to and from work many times in the past few years so he certainly owes me, I couldn’t ever adapt to the school hours he likes to keep. He likes to arrive between 7 and 7:30 a.m. and leave by 3 p.m. I once arrived at 7 a.m. Once. In 28 years of teaching. So really, that is not an option. 
 
I’ll be renting a car starting on September 1. I’ve learned that there is quite a range in monthly rental fees depending upon the company. I’ve also learned that it will be cheaper for me to keep the insurance I already have (for a car that I no longer own and no longer exists) rather than purchase insurance from the rental company. I’ve actuallly done the math (shocking, I know. I’m definitely NOT a math person.) and if I keep my current insurance going, it’s about 160$ a month, whereas the rental company will charge at least 500$ a month. Not hard to decide what to do there, is it? 
 
The irony is that I do have an insurance package that supposedly pays for a rental car. The catch is that this is only in effect till: a) repairs are completed on my car, b) 500$ maximum in rental fees is reached, or c) the insurance company pays me out if my car is written off. C) applies in my case, so although I paid a bit more originally for this package, I cannot benefit from it now when I actually need a car. And that’s one of the ways insurance companies make their money. 
 
My new car should be here at the end of October, if all goes according to plan. That’s ten weeks from now. Maybe I can drive this one longer than eight.  
 
 

Pink ramblings

I quite like the colour pink. I’ve liked it forever, except for a few early adolescent years when mauve was my fave. That ended when I was getting new carpet in my bedroom when I was fifteen and I requested that it be mauve. I’m not sure if my parents had hearing problems or were simply oblivious to my wishes (as I recall, they DID ask), but I ended up with orange carpet. Orange shag carpet. Can you imagine??? I mean, it was the seventies, true, but orange shag carpet??? I didn’t talk to them for weeks. I had to live with that carpet for two years till my dad constructed a bigger bedroom with an ensuite bathroom for me in the basement and I moved down there.

Then it was back to pink for my favourite colour.

I think pink flamingoes are pretty neat birds too. There’s a photo of me (in a photo album somewhere) taken near the entrance to the San Diego Zoo in about 1983. I’m wearing a pink patterned button-up shirt – almost Hawaiian in style, but not as baggy, as I recall. I’ve got on a bright pink gauzy, floaty, knee-length skirt into which the shirt is tucked. I’ve got off-white wedge sandals on. I’ve got my hair permed out to THERE. I’m wearing mirrored sunglasses (gag). I’m also balancing on one leg and standing in front of the flamingo pool. I am with my people, apparently.

When I took DD to France in the summer of 2002, the only thing she requested was to go horseback riding in the Camargue, which is a swampy nature preserve in the South of France. It’s famous for its wild horses and – wait for it – flamingoes. It’s also a tourist mecca and that summer it was very hot. We showed up in the town of Stes-Maries-de-la-Mer in jeans, ready to ride. We were told that it was too hot at 11 a.m. to take the horses out, even on the beach, but it would be cooler at 5 p.m. so we could ride then. We wasted a whole, extremely hot day in a small tourist resort, wandering around in jeans and probably leaving trails of sweat wherever we went. I remember doing a lot of people watching that day, wondering if we were the only jeans-clad dorks who had no idea that Stes-Maries-de-la-Mer was a quaint little hot spot for tourists, between a river and the Mediterranean. Yes, I discovered, we were.

She and I did have a nice lunch, though. I had shrimp (more pink), but forgot that in France, they are served with their heads on. I couldn’t look at them! DD had to rip the heads off for me. Flash back seventeen years to a European trip with the Ex, where he had to do the very same thing when I ordered a shrimp dinner in Marseille. It seems that my memory has been failing for a very long time, that forgetfulness isn’t a recent phenomenon.

DD and I did eventually have our horseback ride, by the way. We didn’t get very close to the flamingoes, but we did see them, both walking around on the beach and in flight over the ocean. They were very pink. I understand that this is because they eat pink food, like shrimp. I suppose flamingoes don’t mind looking at or eating shrimp that still have their heads on.