Twilas and Tribulations.

I got a kitten. Her name is Twila-Bisous. I’ve been hesitant to post a blog about her because I didn’t want to go nuts on a kitten blog only to completely lose patience with her and sell her to what ever the kitten equivalent to a glue factory is (Chinese Food restaurant??). We’ve worked through our major issues and a few minor remain; but I can’t help it, I like this little monster.

She’s still causing me pain, I don’t want to get her de-clawed but she’s like Edward Scissor hands, a young Wolverine, or a completely mental koala bear. Two weeks ago (actually, the same night as the Butt Cookies incident) I was elbows deep in cookie dough and she decided to climb up my bare leg (I was in shorts) to get a better look at what was happening on the counter. She hung on to my thigh with nothing but nails and determination. I couldn’t hit her because I was covered in dough, so I was just wildly shaking one leg while shrieking. The screaming scared her, so she held on tighter. 15 long seconds later my wild leg shaking finally sent her flying across the kitchen floor. I sat and cried, she sat and cried. But then we talked it out.

The first few days where I was leaving her alone, I felt so bad that she was by herself so I totally over did it on cat toys. Naturally, she’d much rather play with the garbage than the toy itself. I should have learned from my dad. My mom and dad have two cats (Lala and Lee) or Staple Remover and Hole Punch (a story for another time). But my Dad doesn’t believe in spending money on toys for them so he makes his own cat toys. Apparently the big winner in Chateau Ott is the toy called “Facecloth on a string”. I don’t even think I need to explain what that is.

So no more cat toys for Twila-Bisous. She has enough fun in my closet. Last Thursday I came home and wasn’t greeted at the door. I looked around and went to my bedroom to find her tangled in 9 coat hangers in my closet (hanging in the closet). Every appendage was in a different hanger. I had to remove all 9 hangers (clothing intact) and peel them off of her one by one. She hadn’t eaten any of her food, so I actually think she was up there for hours.

We’re making this work. We have tender moments, like when she’s tired and sleeps on my shoulder, or when I found her asleep in my backpack, or when I thought that she had drank the bleach in my bathroom that I had left open for 2 minutes and I went around the house screaming for her thinking that I poisoned a kitten and that she was vomiting fire somewhere and I was going to have to keep her in my freezer until spring came and the ground thawed and everyone would think I was a horrible person, BUT she was actually under my couch playing with a twist tie the whole time. That was a nice moment.

I might post some Twila related pictures but then cut me off. It's bad enough that I have a kitten, I don't want to be the crazy blogging cat lady.

Butt I followed the recipe!

Last night, I was cozy and warm at home when I decided that a good use of my time would involve making pink heart-shaped cookies for my staff meeting the next day. I carefully made a whole pan of 48 (the cookie cutter was small); perfectly shaped little love cookies to celebrate, oh, the end of January.

I checked on the cookies half way through and I was not met by a pan of hearts. All of the dough merged together, but not in a perfect giant cookie. Instead, the curvatures of the hearts were all still there but the point at the bottom was not.

In case I haven’t described this properly, I had myself a giant pan of 48 perfectly sculpted butts. Pink butts no less. Rashy pink butts in fact because the food colouring was stronger in some areas than others.

I just laughed. Laughed at the thought of serving giant eczemaed butt cookies to my coworkers—and then I told them about this at the staff meeting. The response was “I still would have eaten the butt cookies.”

I will know for next time.

My Family does the Tim Ho's Drive-Thru

Every time I go through the Tim Horton’s drive thru with my father, he pulls up to the garbage can (before the “order here” box) and begins to place his order. Then we all laugh and yell “Daaaad, that’s the GARBAGE can!” And then my then my dad says “Ohh! Ha. Whoops, why do they make those things look so similar???” We finally make it to the ordering box and the conversation usually ends up in some variation of this:

Tim Horton’s Staff: Welcome to Tim Horton’s, can I take your order?
Dad: Uh, hi. I’d like a large bagel please.
THS: Sir, we don’t have large bagels. They only come in one size.
Dad: I’m pretty sure you had them the last time I was here.
THS: Sir, we’ve never had "large" bagels.
Dad: Oh, maybe I’m thinking about the small bagels then.
THS: We only have one size.
Dad: Okay, I’ll take one of those tiny bagels then.
THS: The bagels aren’t tiny sir, they’re a regular bagel size.
Dad: Ohhh I see. Could I have a timbit bagel then?
THS: We don’t have those sir. Only regular bagels.
Dad: I’m pretty sure you had them the last-
THS: Sir, we have timbit donuts. We do NOT have bagels timbits.
Dad: Well then what do you do with the middle of the bagel?
THS: I - I don’t know Sir.
Dad: Okay, okay. I’ll just have an extra small coffee please.

I will never get tired of this.

Nat Goes Flat

I have moved. I feel like I never really unpacked from my last adventure because I had a strong feeling that my next step would be somewhere that required luggage. Sure enough, I’ve been dropped in Saskatchewan in a wonderful (and tiny) little community. Major changes have come with this move, I am living on my own but this time in a considerably larger abode compared to Chateau Shoebox. Unlike C.S. though, my new place is unfurnished -- which I kind of like. The rooms are spacious. I can cartwheel just about everywhere. I officially now have a bed, a kitchen table (with chairs), a couch, and a filing cabinet.

I’ve also bought a car. This is my first vehicle unless you count "The Covered Wagon" in University (named that because it had all of the qualities of a covered wagon: no air conditioning, no radio, no power windows, and a family of pilgrims living in the back). I have the most adorable black Yaris hatchback named Yimmy (the picture in this post was taken while driving Yimmy).

Yims and I get along well. I drive and sing at the top of my lungs -- he waits patiently for me when I leave him outside of the Great Canadian Superstore for an hour (that store is AMAZING).

The weather here is not nearly as cold as I had thought, but it will get colder. Cars here come with a block heater and parking spaces all have little outlets to plug into on the “cold nights”. If you don’t plug your car in, the oil turns to Jell-O and your car will explode (or something like that). To brace for the winter, I even bought a jacket that definitely belongs to the parka family; maybe a first cousin to a full blown parka. I’ve always felt that if I wear anything that doesn’t explicitly define my waist, I might as well wear a refrigerator with a hole drilled in the top. My pride lost the battle and I now trudge along in what my mom refers to as a particularly “cute refrigerator”.

Finally, to my shock and horror, for my whole life I’ve been pronouncing “Saskatchewan” incorrectly. It’s not four syllables. It’s more like three and a half. It’s actually pronounced “Sask-at-chwin” not “Sask-atch-ooo-wan” like I’ve said it all my life… It reminds me of when I was in grade four and I unknowingly pronounced “Decimal” as “Destimal” for the whole year but my teacher never corrected me. Then I went into grade five and my new teacher thought I was retarded.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

"The Natterhorn: A Broad Abroad" in it's current state, is retiring. But, where one adventure chapter closes, another one opens. The new and not so improved (well, I resolve to start editing more rigorously but the passive voice will likely stay) shall be launched shortly. "The Natterhorn: Nat goes Flat"

A birthday poem for Nadia

Somewhere across the ocean,
My blue eyed friend is far away,
Making everyone around her smile
Even though today is HER birthday.

She comes from Poschiavo,
Among the fresh cheese and cow herds.
She sings along to Hebrew pop music,
Even pretends to know the words.

Swiss Italian, French-Canadian,
A real chameleon that way,
She waved at me 600 feet in the air,
And makes a kick-butt crème brulee. (it was actually Tiramisu, but that doesn't rhyme)

She’s fluent in French and Italian,
We needed her in Rome.
Her English is AMAZING,
Despite asking Yaron to “Ride her home”.

Nadia loves with all of her heart.
Has more care for the world than Bono,
She does everything with a passion for life,
Watch out, because sometimes she has mono.

Nadia is my partner in crime,
Swiping cookies and croissants for our snack.
Shocking the streets of Prague with our glasses,
We stole flowers, at night, from Pearl Du Lac.

She’s a colourful adventurer
And can make any garden grow.
But if you keep her up in the middle of the night
"... Monsieur, Tournez-VOUS!.. Ehn... Must sleep…Arghy... Meh.. BOH!!”

She’ll always be my life-long friend
She’s our sweet Italian cannoli,
The happiest birthday to someone truly deserving,
The one and only: Nadia Gianoli.

***please note that I have taken a certain liberty in assuming that Gianoli and Cannoli rhyme. If this is not true, I blame my online Italian rhyming dictionary.

Greece monkeys

More Greece pictures to come.

This is a real Greek salad.

Natalonious

Last weekend (yes, Im only getting around to writing about it now) Aaron and I met Kara in Athens. We arrived in Athens at 2:30 in the morning and decided the airport was too noisy to sleep in, so we took a bus to the center of town and slept on park benches outside of the parliament buildings. I actually fell asleep and dreamt, until I was woken up because the sprinkler system turned on. I had a brief moment of panic thinking “Where am I? Am I homeless?” Which ironically, I am homeless at the moment (I moved out of my apartment last week). We made our way to the Acropolis and watched the sunrise; it really wasn’t as magical as one might think (primarily because I was butt-tired and couldn’t find a coffee shop). We met up with Kara at the entrance to the Acropolis as it opened first thing in the morning which was brilliant because it was a bearable temperature. It was incredible to walk through the Acropolis and see the Parthenon, the Nike temple, and, uh, the other stuff (did you hear that? That was the collective sigh of all of my art and history teachers). As always, it’s really difficult to summarize the whole trip, so I’ll pick out some memorable moments.

We took a boat to the island of Hydra. It was an amazing place; everything is blue and white, and there are mules everywhere. We ate lunch beside the water, slept on the beach, drank “Freddicinos’, swam in the salt water, and didn’t get heat stroke. We took a tiny boat back to the other side of the island where an old Greek man looked at Kara and I and said something and laughed. I said “I don’t understand Greek” and the old woman beside him said “He said you look like lobsters without claws”; which I found hurtful, mostly because it reminded me of how much I wish I had claws. On the way back to Athens, the waters were really rough and it may have been the worst hour and a half of my life. I was one of probably 50 people who had to employ the use of the “Eurofast Sick bags” and kindly, Aaron slept (or pretended to sleep) through my whole episode of “Greek Salad Returneth”. It was pretty embarrassing but fortunately the crew member who was assigned to hand out barf bags in our aisle put his hand on my shoulder and said “It’s okay, this happens all the time.”…. Gross.

Greece really is everything I imagined. Kara and I decided that if we had to describe it in one word, it would be “Sweaty”. If we had two words to describe it, the next would be “Brunette” (It’s amazing how in such hot weather there’s just sea of brown heads. The heat of Greece also managed to reawaken the remnants of all of my misguided childhood perms but luckily, that made me fit in more into the Greek culture.) The third word would be “Magical”. I’m not sure why I’d ever be in a situation where I’d need to limit my adjectives like that, but it can be helpful to collect your thoughts sometimes. I will most certainly return to Greece one day.