Things I Did This Weekend

1) Completed my required prescription drugs. - You know how you get three trees' worth of paper warnings and side effects with your Rx? Well those nasty side effect don't usually apply to me and I rarely suffer from them. Until today. The evil pharmacist warned me that one of my prescriptions often causes a metal taste in your mouth. After three days - nothing. This morning, I woke up tasting so much metal in my mouth that I thought I might have sleepwalked my ass over to the Ritz Carlton being built on Wellington Street and gnawed my way through every single I-beam there. Even after being completely ridiculed for wearing braces not once, but twice, in my life (two years both times!), I have still never tasted this much metal in my mouth.

* If anyone knows how to rid my trap of this miserable chemical element taste, an email would be much appreciated.

2) Froze my ass off and woke up to shrill, grinding noise. - It's still snowing outside. I am going to have to dig my way outta here today and am none too happy about it. The first 27 times it snowed, I was completely enamored. Now? It could never snow again and I'd be a happy girl. Actually, snow is quite beautiful when it's falling and seems to silence the city in a way that it's not normally. However - if I go to sleep when snow's falling, I know I will in no way be getting a full night's sleep. This is because of the oft dreaded snow plough. Inevitably, at 3 or 4am, I am jolted awake by a noise not all that different than nails on a chalkboard. My window faces an NFL football-field-sized parking lot, so I get to hear the grinding of metal against concrete for no fewer than two hours every time it snows. So it goes. This morning, I had the pleasure of hearing him at 4:30am.

Look, I totally grok that he has to clear the snow. But is it really a requirement that it happen before the crack o'dawn? I mean, it's Sunday for Christ sake. The usually packed parking lot will nary be used today...well, at least not until after Noon. Honestly, my complaint isn't that the man is doing his job. It's simply the hour.

Please, Mr. Snow Clearing Man - get some sleep so I can too!

3) Passed this house. - Yes - those are actual plush toys glued and wrapped around this house on Bertmount Street in Leslieville. Apparently, they even change the toys out seasonally. Wow.

4) Ruined a perfectly good cheese grits casserole.

5) Did my very own science experiment. - As my blog name suggests, I am from Texas. This means that, until I moved to Canada, I had never experienced the extreme winter weather which I now get to grin and bear. It's been unusually cold over the past week (I know - that horse has been beaten) so I decided to see if water really would freeze solid if left outside on my balcony in -20C temps. Last night, I put out about 4 cups of water in a plastic jug and in a few minutes, after I peel myself out of bed and wrap my head eight times, I'll check the results.

Author's note: I finally made it outside and - brace yourself - total success! Frozen solid. Is anyone surprised? Nah, me either.

Next up for me: Nobel Prize for Science.

Saturday, January 17, 2009 8:30pm

Sunday, January 18, 2009 1:30pm