It isn't right, it isn't fair, there was no parking anywhere. . . .

November 19, 2010


Saturday morning.

8.10.

For me, that's sleeping in.

I would still be in bed, now, had it not been for Cry Baby Pants.

AKA Frankie.

Whining, crying, yipping, all because he wanted me awake and up and moving.

Whether I wanted to be or not.

And I didn't.

Believe me.




It's now 4.49 and I am just getting back to my computer.

"How come?" you ask.

Emily

And Frederic Chopin.

Because school projects due Monday trump blogging on Saturday.

Apparently.

However, as I didn't emerge from my bedroom until 1.30, she had already laid claim to my laptop, and she was working on school work, I didn't feel I was in the position to pull rank and tell her to get off my computer.

If I'm not working, I find myself discombobulated.

Disoriented

Unsure of what to do with myself.

Keith was working on colouring for his Forensic Anthropology class, Stephen, who is also feeling miserable, was attempting to hold back the mating of the dust bunnies and vacuum.  I am having a problem with my right ear, leaving me physically off balance, so I was of no use to anyone.

Keep your comments to yourselves, thank you very much.

Stephen directed me to the livingroom.

Said I should sit on the loveseat, drink my tea and watch television.

Watch television.

I cannot remember the last time I watched tv on a Saturday afternoon.

I'm usually working, getting groceries, running errands, anything but watching tv.

I don't even know what's on tv on Saturday afternoon.

I do now.

Nothing.

But I am in such a sick induced haze I just sat there in my pj's having finally gotten my zebra striped bottoms from the laundry, remote in one hand, red tea in the other like a lazy couch potato.

Bons bons and a soap opera, and I would have been a cliche.

I watched the last hour of Rush Hour 2.

The beginning of Beverly Hills Cop III.

I then channel surfed until I came to something I had never seen before.

Parking Wars.

I thought Billy the Exterminator was pushing the limits of believability.

And while I do enjoy it, and see many similarities between my self and Billy's mother, Don-eh, I do find myself feeling guilty about watching it.

I know that just by watching, I am facilitating negative stereotypes about people from Louisiana.

It's even worse when I do my Don-eh impression.

I am fully aware of the fact that there is nothing to be gained from watching this program, except unwanted pounds.

But for some reason I am drawn to it like a moth to a flame.

However, Parking Wars is a low I just cannot allow myself to sink to.

People getting upset over parking tickets they received because they didn't have the common sense to read the signs.

Or that their cars were towed because they didn't have the common sense to not park them in alleys, and the nerve of the parking authority to want money.

I had a run in with a parking authority last spring.

In Brantford, Ontario.

While we were attending the Qualitative Analysis Conference.

When the sign says two hour maximum in Brantford, that is what they mean.

I was more embarrased than outraged.

Paying the $30.00 parking ticket wasn't a problem.

Finding the small, obscure parking authority in the midst of one of the craziest parking garages I have ever seen outside a major metropolis. . .

. . .that was a problem.

Brantford isn't that big.  But for some reason they have a parking garage that rivals Jim Henson's Labryinth.

And believe me, there was so King of the Elves David Bowie in the middle waiting for me.

Of to the side of this maze of concrete twists and turns, there is a little shack like thingy.

But this wasn't where we paid our ticket. 

That would be too simple.

We had to then find our way into a building that was actually attached to the labryinth, until we were able to locate someone who was willing to take our money for a parking ticket.

Honestly, you'd think that if Brantford wanted their money, they'd made it a hell of a lot easier for people to give it to them.

I did contemplate not paying the ticket.

I won't lie about it.  As it happened, however, we were driving a rental car, and I knew in future we would want to rent another car, like when we head back to Brantford in May for another Qualitative conference. It seemed to me, then, that paying the ticket was in our best interest. 

It took us another 30 minutes to find our way back to our hotel.

I expect to be addled when driving in Montreal.

But Brantford, Ontario?????




In spite of being sick and unfit for public consumption, I am going to dinner tonight.

Swiss Chalet. 

Hoping against a hope that a new cast of characters will eliminate the possibility of a repeat of our last trip to Swiss Chalet. 

There are lots of other places we could go, however, Swiss Chalet had items on the menu I can actually eat.

And afford.

It isn't that we're feeling flush, or have won the lottery.

My dear friend Joshie is in town until tomorrow morning and this is the only opportunity I'll have to see him before he leaves tomorrow morning.

He was my research assistant/TA for two years.

After grad school, he went to India.

I haven't seem him for a while.

So since I am not allowed to go to the nursing home for fear of being escorted out by nurses wearing Hazmat suits, I am taking my sick self out to see Joshie.

Only someone of Joshie's calibre and importance in our lives could drag me out when I feel like this.

And the idea of getting a meal I don't have to cook.

A meal I wouldn't make at home, cause that is the number one Dawne rule of eating out.

Never order something you can make yourself at home.

Otherwise, what's the fun of going out for dinner?

If tomorrow there is a mass outbreak of whatever I have, I'll take responsibility for it.

But right now, chicken is calling my name.

Joshie is waiting to hug me.

And I am too weak to resist.



Title Lyric: The Parking Ticket from Buffy the Vampire Slayer