She's Canadian, she won't mind Yesterday we had an ice storm here. It was supposed to be my day off, but my co-worker, who lives about half an hour away, said there was no way she could make it in, so they called me. Our district manager, thinking she was being funny, said to me “we figured, you’re Canadian, you won’t mind driving in this” I replied, “yeah well, there’s a big difference between snow and ice” there was the pregnant pause, and then “ok, well thanks for covering! You can have tomorrow off” click. Grrrrrrrrrrr >:-

So there I sat at work, while all the other businesses in the neighbourhood, including James at the pizza shop, lost their power, K-Mart somehow managed to dodge that ball, and we stayed open. Hmph. Brother-in-law Randy phoned me around 6:30 on my cell phone wondering where the heck James was. He’d been trying to call his cell phone and work phone but couldn’t reach him. James had called me earlier in the day saying his cell phone battery was dead, and the power was out at the pizza shop, so he borrowed a co-worker’s phone to call me. Randy and Mother-in-law were without electricity, (they live across the street from each other) with downed power lines, and M-i-l was at home with no heat. I got home not quite an hour later to tell James to go over there with our propane camp heater for her. Of course he invited her to stay at our house, we had power. She declined. She’d rather sit in the dark and cold alone than come over here with me and our dogs :rolleyes:

Anyhow, it’s a pretty picture out there this morning, with the ice melting and the fog rising up from the ground, as the temperature rises to about 5C. What’s that in farenheit? I have no idea, I’m too lazy to look it up :-p

I have a few Christmas cards to write today, and finish up some shopping. Mostly for essentials, like dog treats and canned goods, in case of emergency. James is a bit paranoid about the coming flu pandemic, and figures we need to stock enough food for a few weeks of hunkering down. At the very least, we should have some food around in case of future storms that knock out our power. Ours went out for a short while yesterday, but was restored by 6pm or so. Others in town weren’t so lucky. I wonder if James has power yet at the shop? I should call and find out, he may have today off as well!

OH OH OH! I also have to get to the post office to pick up my presents from Canada! The card was dropped off in our mail box on Wednesday, and I was going to pick it up yesterday, but ended up working. Its funny, on the card where it says “from sender” they wrote in “Canada”. It was very nice of the entire country to send us a package, now I have 33 million thank you cards to write! ;-) LOL.

I’ve been trying to keep an eye on the election news from home, and its looking as tho both the Liberals and Conservatives are not the country’s favourite choice, but they’ll probably “go with the devil they know” again. They seem to be about the same in the polls, depending which you look at and who has stuck their foot in their mouth last. Whichever way it goes, it’ll likely be another minority government, with another election in a year or so, for much the same reasons there’s an election now. Canada could turn out to be the next Italy, with elections every time the current head of government sneezes on the wrong person. I do hate to say it, what with all the controversy around Martin and his Liberals, but I do think they’re still the most likely to keep the country together, and to keep it Canadian. If you follow. Of course, I could be wrong, and the entire country could show up and vote NDP out of desperation, thinking no one else will, and then BAM! Jack Layton will be Prime Minister. Just like how Bob Rae became Premier of Ontario all those years ago. Everyone was so fed up with the provincial Conservatives and Liberals “let’s vote NDP for the helluvit” turned into Rae Days to cut costs in healthcare and public employees’ salaries. And we all know how that turned out! Well, those of us from Ontario anyhow.

The world is all just turvey topsy, and covered in ice. In the US, there’s the War On Christmas. The Christian conservatives are boycotting stores that don’t say “Merry Christmas” to their customers, and Bill O’Reilly says that anyone who is offended by the words Merry Christmas is retarded. Followed immediately by him saying he’s offended by the words Happy Holidays! Does he even pay attention to what he says?

A friend up in Marion who owns a book store painted her front window with the word “Coexist” in religious type symbols.

Some folks in town have looked at it and said “I can’t even figure out what it says”, another has telephoned her to request to be removed from her mailing list, because of what her window says. She’s even had a preacher on the sidewalk outside preaching about the evils of the Devil in Hell. I just can’t figure people out. What would Jesus say right now if he was here to see all of this? Would he sit right there with Bill O’Reilly and back him up on the boycott of “un-Christian” businesses? Or would he just shake his head and wonder where it all went wrong? *sigh*

On another note, I’ve been wondering about making a Yule log cake. I wonder if I could find a cake pan in the shape of a log, or if I could bake a cake batter on a cookie sheet with high sides, and then roll it with icing. I’m just not sure how adventurous I am, plus, I probably won’t have a lot of time to fuss. Or I may have all the time in the world. I’m not sure if I’ll have a job next week. There’s not a lot of people coming in to have pictures made now, so not enough to keep 2 photographers busy. I fully expect to be laid off. But then again, Dawn may quit and they may ask me to take over the studio. Which I will politely decline. Gods, I hate this job! I’ve already started looking for something else, and applied to an admin position I found at careerbuilder.com.

Or maybe I’ll just drive down to South Carolina, buy a lottery ticket and win that instead :-p  ¶ 10:48 AM