Socially Speaking (30 Shades of Christmas – 7)

“It’s not what you do that is important; it’s the lies you have to tell!”

Krissie Kringle

You know you have hit rock bottom when you have to create your own quote to open a delicate subject!

One of my least favourite questions is: “What do you do for a living?” How on earth am I supposed to answer that one? I lie!

I’ll spare you the details but before World War I, I answered:

-         Husband hunter.  Oups it reminds me I have to go check my traps.

-         Child Bearer, but I’m between jobs right now!

-         Nothing! but my husband has a farm, Mr OldMcDonald do you know him?

-         One depressing time, I just said grave digger, boy did the room become quiet real fast!

During WW II, I decided to be cute and gave a lot of details… “I work at Big Bang Bomb factory. John my boyfriend has been deployed over-sea, when he returns we will get married.”

I got a speedy course in lying right there and then; “My cousin Rachel also work for Big Bang, she never mentioned you!” said the social butterfly lady.

“I never mentioned her either, is there more wine?” trying-to-change-the-subject me answered.

“As far as I know, John has been wounded and is back at his parents’ house, haven’t you gone to see him?” persisting-lie-detector asked.

“Did you hear John? I said Jon!” Apology-sounding me said.

“Jon is not from around here. Sorry, I have to go to the ladies room, where is it?” Hoping it’s an out house and I can get away me answered.

“It’s the door on your left; I also need to go to powder my nose…” Can’t-get-rid-of-her answered.

When we entered the bathroom, I had a plan. I’ll sit on the toilet, make a lot of noise and wait for the powder nosier to be gone, and then just climb out the window.

I am not an engineer but when we entered the room, I knew my plan had failed. There was NO window!

Why can I be so stealthy for one night of the year and so visible the rest of the time?

Don’t worry there was a plan B. I told her: “Oh my gosh, I just remembered I forgot to put the safety cap on the last bomb I assembled, I have to go…”

“Wait, wait” I heard behind me.   

What I learned about lying is that you don’t give specific, you shut your mouth as soon as possible and you always know where the exits are.

With age comes wisdom. Sometimes I just reverse the question and aggressively ask: “What do YOU do for a living?” It put the person on the defensive and it deflects the conversation to them.

My latest answer is I’m unemployed and live under a bridge.

“Which bridge?” You-may-not-ask.

To be continued…

Action – CUT (30 Shades of Christmas – 6)

Last night I watched TV.  People think I’m really busy with getting every thing in order for the big night but, they are wrong! I have a team of dwarf that do the work and they don’t even get paid for it. I know you call them elves but if we want to be politically correct we should all call them height challenged persons.

As I mentioned those helpers get no salary, no marginal benefit, they bring their own lunch; they don’t even take smoke break. They do take bathroom break, but let me tell you, it is very short -I’ve been told. LOL 

Did you notice how much earlier in the season they start showing Christmas movie on TV? It’s not even December and you can watch Christmas movies on over 25 channels, well, that is if you have Satellite TV, and if you don’t, bite me! Give it another century and they will start showing Christmas movie in July!

Thanks to youtube for this blurry screen shot of phony Santa

Last night “Miracle on 34th Street” was playing. I still remember the first time I saw it, it was in 1947, it was in black and white playing in theatres all over. Sitting there with my popcorn, I had tears in my eyes; I was laughing so much. You should have seen the people around; they were eating the script faster than I could eat my popcorn!

Come on now, it’s call d-e-l-u-s-i-o-n-a-l, you folks know better by now. Spoiler alert if you haven’t seen the movie you might want to skip the next paragraph.

It’s about the “real“ Santa, who is an old white beard schmuck who is being sued. His defence is that he is “real“. Of course there is a 6 years old girl named Susan Walker that sides with him and get her Mom to fall in love with the attorney. BALONEY! For one thing, that Santa pees standing up. Also you might not know this but more often than not I have been the source of disputes which result in divorces. I can’t recall the number of times a man would ask for a new set of golf clubs for Christmas and I would bring him a belt buckle instead. The spouse would get blamed for the oversight and voila that’s when a lawyer might get called.

One last thing, if I can help it I stay away from New-York! So there you have it, the movie is fictional at best and I was not even close to New-york in 1947, I was taking a stress relief vacation in Hawaii!

If you haven't seen it, here is a trailer: Miracle on 34th Street - Trailer

To be continued…

Christmas Past (30 Shades of Christmas – 5)

If you subscribe to the North Pole Times you might have already read about the following story in the newspaper; but let me tell you the whole story of what really happened to me last Christmas.

It was a really cold night, I was on my delivery job *wink* *wink*, I was late to start with and I didn’t have time for supper. In several of the houses on my route, I did eat all the cookies, the carrots, the peanuts but after a while, you just can’t stuff your face with this junk anymore.

I remember clearly one specific house; it was in a condo complex.  All houses look a like but that one, as soon I entered it smelled like Bob BBQ and Chicken located in East Pole, where they deliver to all poles. (I know it’s terrible to have to do product placements but I need a new pair of shoes.)

Because of the turkey aroma my stomach went into over-drive, if there had been someone in the house, they would have heard the noise it was making. Lucky for me, no one was there, were they gone to Midnight mass or somewhere else, I didn’t care, the turkey was there, slowly cooking in their oven.

I couldn’t help myself; I had to see the beautiful bird in all its glory. I opened the oven door and there it was its skin a nice golden colour and so crispy, I swear it said: “Take me, take me”.

I reasoned that if I took only one little bite, the owner would blame the dog and there would be no consequences. Gently, I carved a minuscule piece which strangely enough, filled my whole mouth. It was like having an orgasm; like I must have a G spot in my throat!

Oh Oh Oh I completely lost control, I stuffed my face faster than the turkey must have been.

Afterward, looking at the damages, I felt really guilty. Realizing what I had done, I started to cry a river of tears for this majestic, admirable, splendid bird who gave its life to feed this family.

The guilt was so overwhelming that the next day; I joined the F.A.T. group short for “Free All Turkeys”. I attended a demonstration, and in honour of my victim, I went bare breasts, well they were not completely bare, I basted them first.   

 

I got arrested by Officer Malone from the SPPD (South Pole Police Department), He asked me: “Mam what is your name and current address?”

I can’t just tell him I’m Santa Claus and I live at the North Pole, so I acted crazy and told him: “Aunt Bertha, is that you?”

You should have seen the look on his face! Priceless!

I added: “Can you make sure the potatoes don’t touch my steak.”

He called his supervisor and they drove me to Ginger Bread Mad House, it's a mental institution.  It was only for evaluation, mind you.

I spent 2 weeks there, never giving up any personal information. One good thing about the experience is that it was the best time of my life! I was fed 3 meals a day, someone was cleaning up my room, making my bed, I didn’t even need to go to the TV room as they were pushing me in a wheel chair. Every 4 hours, they gave me one of those little yellow pills; I don’t know if I can find them on the street, but boys did they make me feel good!

Every good thing has to come to an end and they kicked me out, I tried to resist, I told them: “It’s insane, you can’t just kick me out, I haven’t told anyone about my parents yet! Can I have a doggy bag for the leftover pills?” 

To be continued…

Sex, drugs and Christmas music (30 Shades of Christmas – 4)

Last night, I walked in a store, a liquor store! STOP judging me, where do you think I get my eggnogs, I also need a few bottles of Tequila for some mixes!

There was music playing:

I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus
Underneath the mistletoe last night
She didn't see me down the stairs to have a peek
She thought that I was tucked up in my Bedroom fast asleep

It seems to be innocent enough but if you ever witness such an event, GET OUT OF THE HOUSE RIGHT AWAY, don’t look back, run as far and as fast as your legs allow you; it will not be me!

I don’t swing for that team, I am hetero. Kissing other women is just not something I do, no matter how many eggnogs I’ve had. It would be like throwing up in my mouth kind of sensation.

Now boys and girls I think it’s a good time to have the ‘sex talk’. No one ever associate my services with me being serviced… I’m only super human and I also have need.

You know I give a lot, while every one is in a festive mood. I’m out there in the cold all night working on deliveries. Do I get anything in return? NO! No one ever brings me a gift. OK there are cookies and milk, but let me tell you, I can go to Costco and get fresher cookies than the stale ones that have been sitting out all evening, the ones that do survive the family pets. But I still can’t tell if any of them have been licked, chewed, or played with.

As a woman, when I’m off duty, I don’t mind a little roll in the hay. Not the Reindeer hay LOL! I don’t have one of those things that a lot of women own… pleeeease don’t have a twisted mind, I’m not talking about toys, I’m talking about a husband.

So once in a while I go to a bar, meet someone with big feet and voila, we go to the nearest Motel.

The day after, we congratulate each other for a job well done, exchange phony phone number, take two aspirins and never see each other again. Darn I still have this song in my head…

Then, I saw Mommy tickle Santa Claus
Underneath his beard so snowy white.
Oh, what a laugh it would have been,
If Daddy had only seen
Mommy kissing Santa Claus last night!

To be continued…

Letter to Santa (30 Shades of Christmas – 3)

Surprisingly enough, I don’t get much mail. It might be because in order to protect my identity I don’t give my address but this year I did receive this letter:

Dear Santa,

I have been good all ear, it was not easi as I have friands from a bad nightbourghood who try to have me geting in trouble. Just so you know my friands they are: Thom, Mary, Jill, Lucy and Carl.

I wish my mom would conseedered being my referance but she de-climed at the momant.

Four your convenience, I have included a pot-stage paid envelop with my address already fill. 

Luc

P.S. My sister is a pain in my you-know-where

I was so touched and moved by Luc that I replied:

Dear Luc,

How in hell did you get my address? Does one or both of your parent work at the FBI, CIA or at the Income tax Agency?

I thank you for the prepaid envelop it was really considerate of you but I am suspicious that you might have ‘borrowed’ one envelop from your parent’s office.

The few times I did receive letters from kids they included a drawing. I looked in yours and couldn’t find one, did you send one? Maybe you decided not to bother with it, I’m glad you didn’t because, honestly, my fridge is stainless steel and I only stick things of value on it. Your drawing would only have been useful for lighting up my stove!

Thanks for tattle telling on your friends, to be fair, I’m sending them a copy of your letter with my response. I would recommend you stay away from dark corners during recess! LOL

Your sister is only 3 months old, wait a few more years and you will learn what a pain in I-know-where she can be.  For now, stop complaining!

I didn’t know what to get you for Christmas; I was hesitating between a motorcycle and the latest Nintendo with all the current games. But your letter inspired me; you will get a dictionary (oups sorry it was meant to be a surprise)!

Yours truly,

Santa

P.S. Next year don’t trouble yourself with writing again, I am moving away and can’t give you my new address.

P.P.S. It’s a good thing that your mom wasn’t your reference; she is on my naughty list!

To be continued…

 

Misconceptions (30 Shades of Christmas – 2)

By now you must have figured out who I really am; but in case you have doubts, I am the one you probably call Santa Claus! Well, as you might have noticed there are a lot of misconceptions out there. At this time, I won’t start pointing fingers at any one in particular, but let me assure you that:

They better watch out
They better not cry
Better not pout
I'm telling you why

My lawyer is coming to town

O! They better watch out!

  

One of the most important facts every one ALWAYS has wrong is they think I’m a man!  I’m a girl for crying out loud! Since the turn of the century, there have been numerous overweight imposters; all named Nick and they’ve all been taking credit for what I do.

Are you in shock? You want proof? Well, let me tell you, I don’t have the ’’equipment’’, I can’t pee standing up, periods. I don’t have a beard, maybe a little hair under the nose once in a while, but when I shave my legs, I also take care of my upper lip. 

However, I don’t wear makeup, you could say I like being ’’au naturel’’, but the main reason; I don't know how and I wouldn’t want to scare the kids. 

 If you look in my purse, you might find some cookie crumbs but you’ll also find Tampons! If you follow me on my big day, you will also notice, I don’t parallel park and when I get lost, I’m not shy about asking for directions!

One more thing worth mentioning, I don’t wear red, according to some personal development courses I attended I’m a winter so it’s not even in my pallet. I wear pink or black, nothing else. Those pseudo Santa can just take their red suit and shove it… into the chimneys!

Have you seen the Macy’s Christmas parade last weekend? If you knew me, you would know I hate crowds, you would NEVER catch me in any parade, no matter how much money they would offer me!

What’s with all those Santas asking kids what they want, WHO is the adult here? I know from personal experience it doesn’t mater what precious gift you had to fight traffic and a mob to acquire it. It will end up in the same pile of garbage in an overflowing land fill somewhere near you. If you really want to give kids something useful, just give them a check, they can invest it in their education. My job would be so much easier!

Ho ho ho tell Bob Santa what you want for Christmas, hurry up I'm getting paid by heads count

To be continued...

30 Shades of Christmas - 1

For the next month, my blog will consist of a fictional story I’m writing.  I will post a page per day. The main target audience are my two daughters, but if you enjoy a little off the normal path story, you are welcome to read. Any comments are always welcome. Enjoy!

  

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

Ho Ho Ho!  Were any of you concerned? It’s not even night time; it’s not even close to Christmas!  I’m sorry if you got the wrong idea, but if you keep reading you will discover that I had to develop a different sense of humor to face this time of the year.

My names is Krissie, Krissie Kringle. I don’t know how old I am; I never had a birth certificate. I’m from a small place way up north called North Pole. If you look it up on a map, it’s in Vermont. But I should tell you right away, it’s not on any map.  Aside from me and an abandoned company, there is nothing else there.

Growing up, I attended a small school in the next town; amusing enough it’s called South Pole. Growing up in North Pole was not the most positive experience in my life and what made it worst was being named Krissie Kringle!  The kids were picking on me. I remember when I was in 2nd grade in Mrs Rudolf’s class, while at recess one of the little pests called me: “Satan Claus!”, all the other nitwits followed his lead and kept yelling: “Satan Claus! Satan Claus!” At the end of recess, Mrs Rudolf was red faced and told everyone it was not nice to pick on someone and that I had a special gift.

During the next lesson, I didn’t listen; I was just too busy writing the names of all my class mates, this was the beginning of my naughty list.

Today’s kids are so lucky; they have buses to get to and from school. In my days, I had to take the sleigh for the long journey.  After a while I discovered so many shortcuts that I could reach any destination in no time. I was so fast that on occasion, I didn’t even leave any mark on the snow, it almost appeared as if I was flying; but seriously folks, on earth there is that pesky law called gravity!

When it was really cold, I would arrive home to freshly baked cookies my mother had baked; I can tell you that after a ride in the cold, cookies and a glass of milk were really hitting the spot! 

To be continued...

Stressing out in Hudson

As part of our retirement plan, in the spring of 2012, we sold our home in Gatineau without an agent. We got the price we wanted and didn’t need to give someone else a big chunk of it in commission. The market was not that good but we must have been lucky! At one point we had 2 acceptable offers on our house. We didn’t stress much about it, as long as you don’t become emotionally involved and you remind yourself that it is a transaction, it’s a walk in the park; just be careful about the snakes out there!

Our home in Hudson has been on sale since January 2014, we felt that since we couldn’t enjoy it because of health issues we were dealing with, we could easily part with a place we had never slept in. One of the big plus for us, while it was for sale was that from time to time we had an agent walking through the house. We priced the house where we were not loosing money but we were not making any profit either (considering we were paying the condo fees all along).

At one of the first meeting we had with our agent and park manager Rosemary during our vacation in Hudson, she told us about a couple who visited our house twice, 2 weeks before we came. It showed they were interested but were considering 2 houses. She tried to get hold of them before we came down to see if they had made up their mind but they were not getting back to her.

We didn’t worry about it; we had a lot of work and had no time to waste in “what if”.

By the time Halloween was upon us, we had spent a little over a week in our home and had one week left. We had furnished the house, fixed the air unit, bought a washer/dryer, a dishwasher and a good comfortable mattress for our bedroom. We had been busy!

Rosemary sent us an email saying the couple she had mentioned previously wanted to come back and visit our house again. If we agreed, they would come at 2:00 PM Saturday. We told her to go ahead; we would be out of the house.

Saturday was a nice day and we left before lunch, we went to our favourite beach and enjoyed the free time. Around 4:30 PM, we came back to our home but the potential buyers were still in there (they were 2 hours late), so we went to the club house and played pool. After a while we heard Rosemary coming in the club house with the couple, she was showing them the accommodations. She saw us in the back room so she didn’t bring them there. She freed herself a few minutes to tell they were making an offer!

Once they went to the office and I had won the pool game, we returned home. Around 7:00 PM, Rosemary came to our home with an offer.  Of course it was less than what we were asking for but still a good price if it had not been for the fact that we had just spent so much on the house and furniture.  Had it arrived 2 weeks earlier, we would have accepted it!

Sunday morning we decided to counter-offer telling Rosemary this was a firm offer, we would not take a penny less and to consider it a final offer! Our counter offer was only $ 2,000 more than the offered price; it would cover some of our expenses but by no means would it cover the whole thing. In one hand we didn’t think this couple was responsible for our expenses but on the other hand if they had not delayed their decision, we would not be in this limbo.

Rosemary said the couple were happy to see that we didn’t counter-offer by a huge amount and they thought we were reasonable.

The time was getting short for us; we were leaving that Friday morning.  By late Monday, the couple came back and said they accepted our offer however they wanted us to pay the sales tax! This “offer” meant $ 210 less than their original offer!

Our stress meter was getting in the red zone! I told Rosemary NO! I was thinking this pretty much was the last we’d hear of this couple, but on Wednesday they came back with the idea that they accepted our offer and would rent from us until their financing was in place! NO! If you ever find yourself in this situation, don’t allow any one to move in.  You will either never see your money or they are going to pick on every little thing they can find to get you to lower your price in order to pay for their own house improvement.

By that time I just didn’t trust them at all, but it is not an emotional transaction.  If they buy, we have a day and a half to get things in order for the sale, and I will not need to come back down from Canada to pickup our personal stuff.  However I can’t afford the time to deal with them anymore, so I told the agent to get back to them and tell them our price was firm and I wanted them to give us a $ 500 non-refundable deposit on the home.  As for the home inspection they wanted, no problem, have it done the same day. The way I saw it is if they really wanted the house, they would have a $ 500 stake in it which would make it harder for them to change their mind and would reassure us.

They said Yes but asked that the home inspection be done on the following day and we agreed. So on our last full day in Hudson, we were expecting to see the home inspector. Our house is a pre-fab so there is no issues with the house, I’m confident that the house is sold. We started packing while going through every thing we had, selecting what to bring back, what to throw away, what to bring to charity, etc.  The first thing I did in the morning was to go buy some more boxes to bring back most of our stuff we brought down from Canada and some we had just bought. The house is a mess because we are getting ready for our trip back the next day.

At 09:00 am I went to the office to see Rosemary and thank her for her help. She has been an angel since Christiane’s cancer and we appreciate her. The first thing she told me: “Richard you might not be happy… they cancelled their offer!” Darn! I knew it, I knew I couldn’t trust them. I hurried back to Christiane and we went back to unpacking and getting the house nice and ready for our next vacation.

I am positive the couple knew we were there for a short time and tried to take advantage of us with delaying tactics. This strategy could work on motivated sellers but we didn’t need to sell the house.  It would have been good to sell but we are getting closer to reaping the benefits of owning it. It messed up our last week in Hudson.  The house is still for sale at a new price which includes the furniture.  If it sells we will go back and pack and if it doesn’t, we are going back in January and then next fall we will be there for 6 months.    

IKEA in Tampa

I’m still posting about our vacation in Hudson FL. I have mentioned we were really stressed out during our holiday but I haven’t touched the stress’ source yet. I’m keeping it for the last post of the series.

We had 3 weeks of vacation as Christiane is still getting treated for cancer and the treatment is administered on Mondays, every 3 weeks.  Aside from the travel time, our time in our home in Hudson was 15 days total. It was really short for what we had to do.

The house has been sitting empty for a year and a half; no furniture, no household goods. There is a fridge, stove and dishwasher but that’s it. It was so easy keeping track of the inventory :)

On our first day, priority number one was to get a bed and a couple of living room chairs or a sofa. If we had had time we could have run around and check Kijij or Greg’s list, shopped at used store or attended estates sale, but we didn’t have this time luxury so our plan was to go to IKEA and get most of our furniture. 

The chair, it came in 8 components!

 Because of the traffic, IKEA Tampa is about an hour and a half from our home, ONE way! The very first day we drove there, spent many hours going around and writing down aisles and bin numbers where we would pickup the furniture we selected. Our preliminary list of furniture to buy included a sofa-bed for the visitors, living room chairs, dining room set and a bed for us.

You might wonder why we were buying a sofa-bed for our visitors in our first run to the store. Well, at our daughter Caroline’s condo, we have the same Ikea sofa-bed and it is very comfortable.  We spent a good part of last winter on it so we know. The sofa-bed’s is made of two parts, the frame and the mattress and until we had time to shop for a mattress for our bed, we were planning on using this one.

The sofa-bed in the guess bedroom (don't tell but there is things hidden under the blanket)

 When we finally made it to the cash register, it seems to me that we had half the store with us! We had 3 full carts of boxes. Between the 2 of us, pushing 3 carts with heavy boxes was not a ride in the park! A good thing we had previously emptied the truck, we were loading it again.

By the time we got back home, it was getting late in the afternoon. We unloaded the truck and started to assemble our living room chairs, foot rests and tables. Once they were done, we closed the furniture assembling factory and went to Walmart to get some food for our next breakfast. We did more than stop at the food section; we also went and got a TV.

Our first evening in our home, we sat in our new chairs with a glass of wine, turned on the TV and watched a couple episodes of a TV series we had brought with us: “Friday Night Light”. We had set the mattress on the living room floor as it was not as warm as the bedroom. Let me tell you after 2 days on the road and one day of shopping, sleeping was not a problem!

The main bedroom

Engineer at work!

 The next day we were up early.  After breakfast in our home, Chirstiane did some cleaning and started to unpack the boxes, putting things away while I attacked the assembling of the bedroom furniture. It’s a bed with drawers underneath. By the time I had successfully accomplished this task, we had empty carton boxes all over, both from the furniture and the unpacking of our boxes.

On our park, there is a garbage dumpster for paper and cardboard, when I arrive to dump the first run, it was empty. After we had finished assembling the furniture the dumpster was full! Talking about garbage, this is the ‘spot’ to meet every one in the park (let’s call it the retiree’s water cooler station). I was never sure how long I would be gone; I was meeting our neighbors and could never tell how much time I would be chatting, all names are already forgotten, I will have to spend more time by the dumpster next time we are down in Hudson!  

Look at that even had time to put up a painting

  

When we were almost done with the assembly line, we were looking at what we had and noticed we were missing the visitor’s sofa-bed frame, oh no did we forget it at IKEA. Christiane started to check our receipts and we were relieved to find out we did not pay for it, we simply forgot to buy it! Easier to buy one than trying to prove that we forgot it at the loading section but it also meant we had to go back to IKEA in the near future.

We had been looking at TV stands at Walmart.  Hey, we had a TV but having it sitting on cardboard boxes was not the long term plan and even though it didn’t attenuate the quality of the image we needed a TV stand. So, on our second trip to IKEA, we wrote down all the aisles and bins numbers for the new items we selected and headed to the pickup section and started filling up a cart with more boxes. If you have never shopped at IKEA, you might not know that most of the time when you buy an item, its components might be located in different areas. Our TV stand is such an item. One of the components was not available. We could see it on a pallet in the overhead bin but you can’t get to those. We asked one of the employee and they can’t get to it during business hour; something to do with insurance. So, our choices were to put back all the components for the TV stand and get another model or come back after business hours and they would have brought down the component for us, or come back later… grrrrr We decided to stick with our choices and come back at a later time (not the same day) for the last piece of this IKEA puzzle.

There is 5 components still missing

On our third trip, we finally got every thing. Our TV is now so glad of its standing! We also took the opportunity to go to the beach and we even found our way to Costco and had a meal at Five Guys.  

This is NOT what was stressful!

She had to get deeper than I

Even the truck need time off!