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Gold at Last

Since 1993, I've been a big fan of figure skating. I always watched before then, but that was the year that made me as big a fan as I am now. I used to watch skating with my grandmother when I was a kid. In January of 1993 Canadian Nationals came to Hamilton, and mom got us tickets. She told me later that she had planned to get tickets for my grandmother to come with us too, but she died in October of 1992, and therefore couldn't quite make it. So, the two of us went. There were a couple of days that she couldn't go so my aunt Carol came with me. And it was fun.

It was a post Olympic year, which usually means it's going to be dull. Everyone will have gone professional since they'd already had their shot at the Olympics, but for some reason the IOC decided that instead of holding both the winter and summer Olympics in the same year they were going to stagger them, which meant it was going to be only two more years till the next ones, which was tempting for a lot of skaters. So they stuck around. Which meant instead of having nobody to watch, there was the big showdown between Kurt Browning and Elvis Stojko. There was a showdown between Karen Preston and Josee Chouinard, and there was Isabelle Brasseur and Lloyd Eisler in the pairs. The dance competition was the only one that seemed like it might be boring. Really, there were no jumps, there were no spins...what on earth would be interesting about it? Plus, there wasn't anyone that was good enough to win medals anywhere, so I was least interested in that.

As expected the mens competition was absolutely fantastic. During the short program, both Elvis and Kurt made the same mistake. It was bizarre actually, both of them in the same spot on the ice doing the same element had exactly the same mistake. So, nobody was too far ahead to be caught. The long program was fantastic, Kurt had his best program ever and skated it brilliantly, he even did a quad which at the time seemed like a huge deal. And he won. And I was thrilled. I've always loved Kurt Browning, ever since I saw him skate at the Olympics in Calgary and he used the Pee Wee Herman music for his short program. Anyway, I was thrilled, and later that year Kurt and Elvis went off to worlds and won the gold and silver medals respectively. The ladies were a bit crap, but then...that's to be expected with Canadian women. Then Josee came to the ice to skate, and she landed 7 triple jumps and was absolutely amazing. The crowd was on it's feet ages before she was finished and afterwards she promptly burst into tears and collapsed into her mothers arms. It was wonderful. Pairs...well, I don't remember much about the pairs, though Isabelle & Lloyd had this gorgeous program that was a complete departure for them. And they also went on to win gold at worlds that year.

I don't remember much about the Original Dance at Candians that year. I remember that I really liked Jacqueline Petr & Mark Janoschak, mostly because they'd been working with Toller Cranston and were the strangest things I'd ever seen. It was all about the voids even then. ;) But then these kids came on the ice and skated their Free Dance...and they won. It seemed like nobody had ever heard of them before, Shae-Lynn was only 16 years old. But that year they won the first of their 10 Canadian National titles.

Since then there has been a lot of controversy about them. And I feel bad because of that. To start with there was the rumour that they'd told the CFSA that they would leave Canada and skate for a different country. That was a sore spot then becuase they'd already lost one team to France. So the rumours were that they'd basically bullied their way into a National Title. I don't think that's what happened at all, the rumour has been denied by all parties involved on several occasions, but still people bring it up even now 10 years later. Then, somehow they became the poster children for a judging scandal which supposedly happened in 1998 at the Olympics in Nagano, Japan. The rumour is that they were told ahead of time that they'd finish 4th there, which ultimately they did. The media got wind of this and blew everything out of proportion and they ended up looking like the bad guys. They did complain, but they did not want it to go on for nearly as long as it has. Even now it's still mentioned, and we're told how they were robbed at the Olympics in 1998. When I look at the Olympics now that I know more about skating, and without the commentators planting ideas in my head I can see quite clearly that they didn't deserve a medal that year. Their program was good, but the others were better. That's all there is to it.

They were also going through a bad time with their coach. It wasn't exactly obvious to people, but she let them go to the Olympics skating a compulsary dance (which is sort of like a figure in singles skating), with the wrong steps. As far as I'm concerned, if you're an elite level coach, you should know damn well what the steps are to compulsary dances and you should make sure your skaters are skating them they way they're supposed to be. After all, that's why they get paid thousands of dollars a year, isn't it?

Then there were injury problems in 1999 and 2000. They had a crappy year in 99 and were extremely lucky that they weren't dropped down below the team that was nipping at their heels. It came out at the end of that season that Shae-Lynn needed to have knee surgery. Which she did in the off season, the next year was equally terrible and they actually stopped skating mid-season so Shae could have the other knee looked after. Basically they've had a tough time of it.

As a skating fan it's sort of tough to be a Bourne & Kraatz fan. I know that sounds absolutely ridiculous if you don't follow figure skating, but it's true. They are hated in Europe, they're actually one of those teams that people say "I almost hate them because their fans are so annoying.". It's bizarre. There are a few rational fans out there. I consider myself to be one of them, and have been told by people that it's true. But generally the fans are absolutely blind to the fact that there could possibly be a problem with their skating, and that anyone is actually better than them. All of this stuff I've mentioned is the reason why I thought they'd never, ever win a gold medal at the World Championships.

Last night, they did just that. It was amazing. They've gone past the coaching problems by changing coaches...twice since 1998. And the new coaches have been absolutely fantastic for them. Their current coach was actually an associate of their coach from last season, but he broke out on his own this year and they went with him and it seems to be the best thing they've ever done. They were brilliant this year. Personally, I didn't really like their free dance, but I thought the original dance was fantastic. But they won. Finally. When I saw that last night, I was an absolute wreck. I know, it sounds silly, but it's like they're actually people I know. I've been watching them for so long it's like they're friends. I don't know them, I've met them a handful of times, but that's about it. But last night I was sitting in front of the TV with tears streaming down my face because I was so thrilled for them. It's made even more sweet by the fact that they'd announced that this would be it for them. They're done, its now time to join the professional tours, and say goodbye to judges forever. I can't imagine a nicer way to make an exit.

Not a lot new

When asked this week what was new, the only thing I could talk about was my parents various ailments. It's occured to me that I'm extremely boring and that I've been watching entirely too much CNN for my own good. I was telling someone else that I was feeling strangely down this week, that there wasn't an obvious reason for it, and that it was bothering me that I was feeling so blah for absolutely no reason. That's actually when the suggestion that I was watching too much war coverage was made, till then I hadn't even considered that it would be an issue.

Earlier I mentioned my parents various ailments. On Friday my father was at work, putting in some overtime because they're incredibly busy right now, and there was an accident. I called him in the morning after I had my ultrasound, and he was fine. Apparently an hour later there was some sort of accident. He was wiring something, and because he wanted to save some time, he didn't turn the machine off. Stupid right? Yes. A fireball came out and burned his hand. So, he's off work on workers compensation. Thus far he's had to go to the hospital every day to have the bandages changed, and to have therapy on the hand. Last I heard though, they thought that he wasn't going to have to have surgery, also, they were hoping to cut the visits back to every other day rather than every day. I don't know how things went today, I'll find out tomorrow when I call him.

My mother has thrown her back out. She was walking down the stairs the other day and the cat got under her feet so to avoid stepping on her she moved quickly and wrenched her back. Luckily she didn't fall down the stairs, I imagine that would have yielded a result much worse than what did happen. However, she's in incredible amounts of pain and spend most of the weekend hopped up on my fathers pain pills. Oh, I forgot to mention, he stayed with us last weekend because my brother was away for the weekend and there wasn't anyone there to look after him.

So, the weekend was fun. We had a fantastic dinner on Saturday night, which immediately sent me into spasms of pain. I figured it was probably the mashed potatoes and my mom figured it may have been the gravy. So the next night when we had leftovers, I skipped the gravy and still had pain. Therefore...we assumed it was the potatoes. As it turns out, someone who had gallbladder problems told me today that it was probably the broccoli. And here I thought vegetables were supposed to be good for you!

Ouch

For quite a while now I've been having problems eating. It started before Christmas, mid-November I think. At the time I figured it was stress related, after all it was Christmas, and it was fairly busy. And then there was a rather stressful situation at work as well, and I just figured all of that was contributing to it. Plus, over Christmas everything was fine, I could eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. But the problem came back not too long afterwards.

The problem is basically that I'll start to eat and then feel incredibly sick. Either like I'm going to be sick, or my stomach will sieze up and be incredibly painful after I've finished eating. Which prevents me from eating much of anything at all. It's not very pleasant.

Between Christmas and now we discovered that a medical clinic not too far from here was accepting new patients, and since we haven't been exactly happy with the doctor we had, we decided to go for it and make the switch. Because of this, I haven't wanted to talk to the old doctor about this, because I didn't want to get into the middle of anything and then have to start all over again once I'd switched.

Monday was the first appointment with the new doctor, so I mentioned the problems I was having to her. She asked a bunch of questions and then said that she thought there may be something wrong with my gallbladder. So, then she had me lie down on the table and she poked and prodded at my stomach and there was incredible pain, which lingered for most of the day. So, she figures I may have gallstones, and wrote up an order for an ultrasound, which I will have Friday morning.

I'm not sure what will happen if it turns out that I actually do have gallstones or if I've got an infection or whatever. We didn't discuss that at all, she just said have the ultrasound then call and make an appointment to come in and find out the results, they usually take a week or two to get here. So, after the ultrasound I'll call and make another appointment, and then we'll see.

Shopaholic Takes Toronto

I mentioned the other day that I was going into Toronto on Thursday night to meet Sophie Kinsella, who is the author of one of my favourite series of books. Not the most favourite, but I've enjoyed the books and reccomend them to people quite often. My friend Tara, from the bookstore came with me, and we meant to have a camera so we could document the trip, but forgot to bring one. As we were waiting in line though, we decided it must be documented and so I was deserted in line as Tara went to find somewhere to buy a disposable camera. Thus, the quality of the photos is a bit off, those disposable things don't produce the best photos when used inside, but still...better than nothing.

For me anyway, the day crawled by, for some reason whenever I'm looking forward to something, time crawls by. It didn't help that we spent the day prepping for inventory. Which basically meant checking every book in the store for a price, and then spining them all so it was obvious what was on the shelf. Boooring, plus, it made the store look like shit, which isn't such an issue I suppose, but still, we spend the majority of our time making sure it looks good, so when it doesn't it bothers me, a lot. Eventually it got close to time to leave, Tara showed up, and then Barbara who was there to relieve me, arrived early and said "GO!". I really like her. ;) So off we went.

The previous night I was meant to find directions to the store, via mapquest or something similar, and print them off so we'd know exactly where we were going. For some reason, I ended up not doing that. I don't remember what I was doing that had me distracted, but something sure did, and I forgot. It wasn't a huge deal since Tara had looked on a map the previous day to find directions, but I always feel better if I've got an actual map in front of me when I'm driving. But seriously, how lost can you get when your ultimate destination is on Yonge Street? Anyway, the directions we had were to go on the 401, get off at Yorkdale, drive down Allen road till we got to Eglinton and then go across to Yonge. I don't think Allen road has an exit off the 401, or if it does, we missed it entirely. But, not to worry, like I said, we were going to Yonge Street and that does have an exit.

My cousin once mentioned to me that if he got out of the city before 6:00pm on a Friday night his drive to the cottage went much faster than if he was detained because before 6:00pm you've got both lanes free to drive on, after 6:00pm people are allowed to park on the side of the road, therefore you lose that lane. He wasn't kidding. Though, people drive in that lane anyway, which means that they're half in that lane and half in the other lane. Much to Tara's amusement I talked to the drivers around me the entire time we were driving down Yonge Street. I even had someone cut me off at one point. For some reason he decided that even though I was driving straight and had the right of way that he'd turn left in front of me, thankfully at the time I was driving slowly, but I almost had a heart attack. Tara'd just finished complimenting me on how well I drove, and then this! Actually, at that point we were on the highway, I do drive well on the highway, you have to if you're going to drive on the 400 on a Friday night during the summer. The city I don't do quite as well.

At any rate, eventually we arrived and found a parking garage that we could park in. I wasn't quite sure about leaving my car outside on the street. In fact, I wasn't entirely sure about leaving my car at all, but oddly enough I didn't think they'd like it if I just drove it inside. So, we parked the car and then tried to find the way out of the garage. I don't think it should have been nearly as difficult as it was, but, it probably took us 15 minutes.

I can't even estimate how many people were there, I've never been good like that, but also they had the line winding all over the place, so it was a little difficult to judge, but I'd say there must have been at least a couple of hundred there, perhaps more. We waited in line for about 3 hours. At one point someone who I assumed to be some sort of manager (because he wasn't wearing a uniform) came wandering by and said that Sophie had said she'd sign till her hand was too sore to sign any more. Which gave hope to those of us at the back of the line. And we were, at the very back of the line. In fact, there were only two people behind us. Because I had to work till 6pm we didn't get there till almost 8pm, so we'd missed the discussion and Q&A period. Which is too bad, I'd have liked to see it.

Someone came around with ballots to fill out, which was really a survey on the event. The question that made me laugh was "What was your favourite part of the event?" Since I hadn't even met Sophie yet all I could say was "The fabulous people we met in line." Though, that's not what I said. I mentioned how helpful I thought all the staff were (they were, far more helpful and knowledgeable than the ones at the local Indigo), and something else, but I can't remember what it was now. And still we stood in line. Eventually when I got close enough to see, I realized that they had a gate sort of thing set up and a security guard was letting people through but only a few at a time. It was then I realized how crazy it was to be standing in line to get a book autographed, but...it was too late at that point to do anything but keep standing in line :)

As I mentioned we stood in line for ages, and therefore ended up talking to the people around us in line. The girl in front of us in line was funny. She was a big fan, had all of the books with her from home and brought her camera so that the last picture on the film could be of her and Sophie, that way she'd be able to make Sophie her bookmark. It was sort of funny, and the girl was very nice though, she seemed a bit vague to me. The girls behind us were quite funny though, and we swapped book reccomendations for most of the time.

So eventually after talking books for hours, and then discussing jobs, and then where we live, etc.. We got to the gate by the security guy, of course, because we were the last people in line, we didn't have to stop at the gate, the security guy let us all through at once, so over we went to the next place to stand in line, which was directly behind the table they had Sophie set up at. I made a comment at that point, that even though there were still the same amount of people in front of me in line I felt like I was so much closer than I was before, to which someone in front of me turned around and said 'well, you are closer.' I just love a smartass, don't you? Especially one that wasn't invited to the conversation.

At this point we noticed two things. One because we work in a bookstore, the other because we're girls.

Am I the only one that finds it incredibly disturbing that someone thought it was smart to merchandise this book with a bunch of kids games? I don't think it shouldn't be sold by any stretch of the imagination, I just wonder who thought a book on Erotic Art fit into a display that contains Mr. Potato Head, Trouble and Junior Pictionary.

Also, Sophie was wearing the.best.shoes.ever.

So, finally we get to the front of the line and get to meet Sophie. I brought my copy of Shopaholic Ties the Knot, which is actually the British version, so she commented on that. I told her because I couldn't wait for it to be released in North America, I'd ordered it from Amazon UK. And said that I'd already ordered her next one the same way. She was surprised and said 'you've already got my new book?', I'd have to be a super woman to do that, because it hasn't even been released in the UK yet. :)

Tara said to her that we were hoping that when she comes back to promote the next book that she'd come to our store and do an autographing, at which point one of 'her people' said, well you'll have to sell more Sophie books than any other Coles store to accomplish that. At that point I started talking to someone who I thought at the time must be a publisher representative, but have since revised that, I figure he was probably a publicist or an agent or something. He mentioned that there was going to be another staff incentive contest in April. Last year when Shopaholic Takes Manhattan was released, every time a staff member sold one of the books they filled out a ballet which then were sent to head office. At that point they were tossed together and a winner was chosen. The prize was a shopping spree in Manhattan, which was rather appropriate. He mentioned the prize this time, but I forget what it's going to be.

We mentioned to him that whenever we're having a slow day we grab a pile of her books and hand sell them from the cash desk, and that whenever anyone asks for suggestions, that's what we offer up. He looked at me for a moment, and then said, come with me, I'm going to tell you a secret. It turns out that Sophie Kinsella's name is not Sophie Kinsella. Her name is in fact Madeleine Wickham. And she's written 7 books. Sophie is her middle name, and Kinsella is her mothers maiden name. And, I now have 7 more books to read!

I'm going to meet Sophie!

Last night I was aimlessly wandering around the internet looking at things I haven't looked at in quite a while. When I have some time I generally look around at book sites. Last night it wasn't publishers or authors, it was just bookseller sites.

While visiting the Barnes & Noble website I came across something that I find terribly amusing. It may change, but still as of today you'll find that the number 1 book on their bestsellers list is Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix. I suppose what amuses me most about this is that the book hasn't been released yet. Obviously they're pre-selling it, and it makes sense that it is outselling books that are actually available to be shipped right away, it's just something that's struck me as funny.

After discovering that Barnes & Noble is selling a non-exsistant book, I went to the Indigo website. I'm not entirely sure why, but I tend to go there once a day just to see what sort of sales they've got on. Not because I'm particularly interested, but people sometimes ask me about them, and it's nice to know what they're talking about. Because the website is a completely different arm of the company, they offer different sales than we do at the stores. We're generally not notified about them, so looking every now and again to see is helpful. At least, I find it to be.

At Christmas time I was having a terrible time sleeping. Either I'd not be able to sleep because I'd have terrible heartburn, or I'd be awake because my back was killing me. One of those nights I came downstairs and was looking around, and ended up at the Indigo website, and found that in the bottom right hand corner of the main page they listed some upcoming events. I personally think this is a brilliant idea, and I often wonder why my manager doesn't take advantage of that nifty little advertising tool. Yesterday when I was surfing, I noticed under the In Store Events heading a listing that says Sophie Kinsella.

I love Sophie Kinsella's writing. She's written three books thus far, Confessions of a Shopaholic, Shopaholic Takes Manhattan, and Shopaholic Ties the Knot. There's a fourth book coming, which has nothing to do with the other series, called Can You Keep A Secret?. I'm so impatient that I've ordered this from Amazon UK, so that I don't have to wait six months more to read it. Yes, it's slightly crazy to do that, but what can I say? I'm a fan.

My friend Tara is going to come with me to the book signing tomorrow. She's also a fan. We're both incredibly excited about going. I'm not entirely sure why, I don't normally get too excited about things like this, but it just seems like it's going to be incredibly fun. I can't wait! Details to follow (probably).

Shop till You Drop

Today was shopping day! I love to shop, when I've got money to spend anyway. Today wasn't so bad. Hooray for the new job. :)

A few weeks ago I lost my watch. I have no idea where it went, but one minute I had my watch, the next I didn't. It's in the house somewhere, I just have no idea where. It's very sad. I've been wandering around with absolutely no conception of what the time was for a few weeks now. I tried to buy a watch last weekend but couldn't find anything I liked, but today I did get one. It's strange how lost I feel without a watch. I rarely look at it when I've got one on, but when I don't have one, I'm constantly looking to see what time it is. What's up with that?

Also, my favourite pair of pants are worn out. I bought them a couple of years ago to wear to work at the drug company, they're just basic black pants, but I really like the way they feel, they're nice and soft and just extremely comfortable. However, they've started to wear through. It's very sad. Plus, the store where I bought them doesn't make pants like that anymore. I've looked on a number of occasions, and no luck. So, today was a quest to find some new pants which I can wear to work. I really wanted black ones to replace the ones that aren't any good anymore, but instead ended up with gray. Which means, eventually I'm still going to need some black pants, but I figure for now I should be able to deal with the ones I've already got, which aren't nearly as nice as my favourite ones. I know this all sounds completely ridiculous, but they were just fantastic pants.

And on top of those wonderful things for me...it's my grandfather's birthday this week. Which means we had to come up with something. Mom had an idea. My grandfather has often been heard to say the following. "No, I didn't go to see The Queen when she was in Hamilton. I didn't even go to see Meg Ryan when she was there." So, yeah, he's a Meg Ryan fan. Therefore, this year, he's going to receive a Meg Ryan movie pack. There are snacks to eat while watching, and several of Meg's movies. He'll love it. Here's hoping Flora likes Meg Ryan too.

Bye Bye Purple

The purple is gone.

Recently I've re-designed a couple of things. First Four Corners, which we completely moved away from ezboard to something which will hopefully perform a little better (so far it has been). Second, Mike asked me to design him something for his journal. I suppose eventually he'll use it...or not. In both cases I was hoping to be able to use yellow. Brynn told me absolutely not, Mike said "Yellow? That's not blue."

So, now this one is yellow. The purple was nice, but I got tired of it awfully quickly. I'm sure the yellow will suffer a similar fate, but for now, doesn't it look like spring?

Further to my news about Brantford yesterday, it seems as though my mother has decided against that. Hooray!

A Rare Weekend Off

I have the weekend off. To most people that's routine and not anything to remark about at all. I work every Sunday. The last time I had a Sunday off it was August. So it's something to get excited about. Sad, isn't it?

When I discovered that I had two days off in a row I tried to figure out something to do. I wanted to go somewhere, but couldn't think of anywhere to go. I could have gone up north, but it's too cold and snowy for that. Then, I thought briefly about going to Ottawa to visit my aunt & uncle. However, she just had surgery, so that wasn't a good idea. I briefly tossed around the idea of going to Chicago to see my aunt there, but realized that it'd be incredibly stupid to go for what would basically amount to a few hours visit. Then, I thought about maybe going into Toronto overnight and staying there, going to the museum, or to a show or something.

In case you hadn't figured it out. I stayed home.

Today my mom decided we should go to look at houses. While she doesn't want to move, it's probably going to come to that, so she's been looking for somewhere else to go for a while. Not seriously, but looking to see what's out there. So, today we went to Brantford. Which is about 45 minutes from here. It's not that far away, and I have a friend that lives there. But it's going to add an hour and a half to each of our days commuting that far. But, Brantford is a nice town. And the houses we saw are gorgeous.

We decided we should look at some resale houses as well, so next Saturday we're going back. Looking at houses is kind of fun actually. And next weekend I'm going to watch the clock a bit better so I know exactly how long the drive takes.