You got maggots in my peanut butter! You got peanut butter in my maggots!

I’m having adventures in infestation!   I’ve had some moths fluttering around my kitchen lately, which I mostly ignored, because whatever, stupid moths.  Turns out moths come from maggots, and maggots make further moths.  I found this out when I opened up my peanut butter yesterday morning and found some lovely maggots, wriggling around.  Like, seriously, inside the peanut butter jar.  How did they even get in there?  Isn’t that airtight?  So I’ve thrown out basically all of my food that isn’t canned or inside the fridge.

On the plus side:

• My kitchen hasn’t been this clean since I moved in, because I cleaned like a fucking banshee last night.  A toothbrush and vinegar may have been involved.
• I got rid of a bunch of that food you have sitting around that you swear you’ll eat eventually but really will just take up space around forever.   So much cupboard space!
• Tomorrow is 10% off for students at the Superstore, which is totally useful to me right now!

So, thank you maggots for all the lovely things in my life.  Now, for the love of God, don’t come near my clothes.  You can have all the peanut butter in the world if you spare my dresses.

In other news entirely, AST offered me some tutoring work!  I knew that doing three weeks of unpaid, fulltime work would eventually lead to some form of a happy dance.  The happy dance of gainful employment!  Or at least less destitution!  It’s a pretty awesome dance, so it’s too bad you guys can’t see it.  I’m even wearing my harlot skirt today (above the knees!) so the Running Man is has that much more impact.

The case of the missing grappling class

Man, so grappling didn’t happen today because I couldn’t find it, or it was cancelled or something, I don’t know.  Man, I was all het up for some wrasslin’ and… nothing.  I got to what I think is the right place, and the door was locked and no one was there.  So I went to the mall instead, which is just such a pathetic use of frustrated grappling energy, one could weep.  I bought a $6.99 brush, because my old brush broke.  This means that, this summer, the grand total I’ve spent on my hair is: $6.99.  I am quite the catch, aren’t I?

Yesterday’s bootcamp was good times.  We spent the first half running laps through this residential area.  At one point a random guy asked me “Why are all you people running?” and I said “I don’t know, man, this guy’s making us.”  Then we started working out in a playground, and this little girl asked her mommy what the people were doing, and she was, like, “I-I don’t know, sweetie.  I couldn’t do that.”  So we’re scaring the locals, and that’s special.

A few of us decided to start a betting pool for bootcamp.  It’s usually a surprise where we’ll be, so we were betting on if we’d be at, say, a playground, or a park, or a hill.  The other bet was what body part would hurt most the next morning.  Shoulders and ass are out, because they’re too easy.  I took arms, and I think I won, because my arms certainly hurt.  Calves and abs are the big winners, because they can take a lot of punishment, but when they finally do hurt, holy crap holy crap holy crap.  I was trying to do odds, but I’m an idiot, so I was failing badly.

Oh yeah, I’ve completely forgotten about the lucid dreaming thing for weeks, so I guess that’s off.  Oh well!  I was starting to get edgy about all that permanent marker ink getting into my bloodstream.  Also, I was starting to dream about writing on my hand, which is just intensely self-defeating.

Potential new thing! Also: Kitties!

Oh man, do I have new thing to do: Grappling!  There’s a women’s-only grappling class on Sunday’s at noon, and I am so there, it’s like I’m already there (but I’m actually at the reference desk, pretending like I have any idea what grappling is).  Cynthia at bootcamp told me about it; apparently it’s half of what mixed martial arts is (the other half being kickboxing).

Today I went on my mid-morning cat walk and I totally found three cats.  That’s, like, a superfluence of cats.  I had two cats fighting over me at one point.  It was pretty flattering.

Bootcamp last night!  We ran up this fake plastic ladder that Gerald laid on the ground, then ran between the cones that he put down.  In various interesting and confusing ways, of course.  Usually I try to stay at the back of the line because I’m slow and crappy, but this time I actually tried to stay as close behind Suzanne (who’s really on the ball) as I possibly could so I could just mimic her.  It was just like a game a Simon Says.  “Suzanne is going in circles to the left, hey me too.  Oh, now she’s going to the right, oh I will too.  Suzanne’s hopping on her left foot, I will too.  Suzanne tripped over the cone… M-maybe I’ll skip that one.”  Don’t worry, though.  I tripped over the cones plenty of times on my own.

Today for lunch I made vegan tuna salad, which is like tuna salad but with chick peas!  Also, with curry powder and coriander for added Indian-tasticness.  Anyway, freaking delicious.  And so far away from me, right now.  I’m hungry, is what I’m saying.

Environmentally sound!

So, I was walking home from the grocery store last night with my little old lady trolley and some girl sarcastically yelled at me from her car window “SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT!”

As usual, you always think of the best comebacks, like, two minutes later.   What I should’ve yelled back at here was:

“I’m not saving the environment, I’m just POOR!  However, the contents of my trolley actually have no animal products, which numerous sources suggest reduces your carbon footprint.  To be honest, that’s not actually why I make vegan choices, but it’s a benefit nonetheless.  I’ve actually sort of lost track of why I buy vegan.  There are so many good reasons.  Health, maybe?  I’m really into health, lately.  If you read my blog, you’d know that.  Miss?

“Walking to the grocery store is also good for my health.  Did you see the hill I just walked up?  There were a lot of reasons to walk up that hill.  It was good for my health.  It was good for the environment.  I got to see various cats and pretty houses.  But most saliently is, as I said, that I’m motherfucking poor.

“Anyway, my point is you’re mean.  Please don’t yell at people from cars.  Love, Shannon.”

Maybe my problem is my regal bearing and impeccable taste?  When people see me, they figure, “Well, if she’s not rolling around town in a solid gold Maserati with diplomatic plates, it must be by choice.  She must be trying to save the environment.”

Piggy Life Lesson

I feel this is kosher because no one is talking to me.  And apparently I have been remiss in my updating duties, and I guess there are at least, like, two more of you reading this than I thought.  Rad-tacular.

Bootcamp on the Waterfront this week.  On Saturday we did wheelbarrows, which it turns out do not agree with me.  I have some fabulous new bruises.  This is important, because my old bruises were starting to fade, and what’s life without bootcamp bruises?  (It’s like I’m in an abusive relationship with my fitness regime.  Is there a helpline for this?)

Also on Saturday we did piggyback rides again and I think I did better than last month, but I did have a smaller partner.  The weird thing is, apparently there is some sort of art to being given a piggyback ride, and I wasn’t doing particularly well as the piggybackee.  Maybe it’s a practice-makes-perfect sort of thing, but how often do you practice this?  It’s only at the crucial moment, when you’re being saved from the fire or whatever, do you generally get a piggyback ride, and then usually it’s not the time to talk technique or etiquette.  So, I’m telling you guys now, so you know the proper way:

• Get high on your carrier’s hips.
• Lean forward.
• Squeeze tight with your thighs.

You’ll think you’re doing all these things enough, but you’re probably not, so do it more!  Really exaggerate!  My partner was a complete dream to carry, so this stuff must work.  So many life lessons I have for you people.

Shit on a shingle kinda day

Today is a day where I don’t feel like cooking, so I’m eating a delicious, nutritious meal of shit on a shingle.  You guys can thank my dad for that colourful name.  For years, I was perfectly happy calling it beans on toast, until one day he decided to correct me.

I finally got off my lazy butt and went to a fitness thing other than bootcamp!  And it only took the larger part of August!  Anyway, the thing was Fake Kickboxing.  It’s like kickboxing where you don’t actually get to hit anything.  I learnt that I listen to top-40 music so little that I cannot distinguish between a remix and a skipping cd.  I also learnt that working out is way more relaxing when Gerald isn’t encouraging (slash yelling at) me, but I get, like, way way less out of it.

I’ve made up my mind to make my suicidal Tuesdays this fall even more suicidal (suicidaller).  Smack dab in the middle of my nine hours of regular school classes (oh yes), I will be taking the beginner bellydancing class again.  My theory is that, by taking an hour in there to shake my booty and groove my thing, I will be reconnecting with my body and revitalizing my brain right at a crucial time during hours of sitting on my butt in class.  Solid theory… ?  Yeah, I hope.  That, or I’ll be dead by Marina’s class.  Would it be terrible rude, do you think, to keel over in class?

Pithy!

I thought of a great new pithy saying or whatever the fuck it is.  Schrodinger’s disaster.  I came up with it at work, because sure, it’s possible there’s a disaster waiting for me in my inbox, but until I check it’s only Schrodinger’s disaster.