So remember this post about the absolutely adorable little felted animals? I check her out once in a while to see what she's got available. Today I actually noticed that she sells other places, too, so I checked out those sites as well. And on her personal website, she has a gallery of past work that blows all the other stuff out of the water. Do yourself a favour and embiggen the pics to get the full effect, and alternate views. Blown away, I tell ya!
]]>I think I've already covered things like awkward spellings that turn your meaning completely around, the silliness of not including pictures, and the silliness of including pictures but they're only of the hallway or the outside of the building. We now have the "all too honest ad". This little blurb was at the bottom of the apartment description, before pictures:
]]>Note:
- sink in kitchen and bathtub are very worn (not pretty!), but taps, are new
- bathroom small, but good water pressure for shower
- no on site laundry (laundromat about 6 blocks away)
- stove is old and small, but fully functional
Oh wait, that's a different story.
On Friday after work, I stopped on the way home to pick up a few things. After I finished, I went out to wait for my bus. Standing there reading a magazine, I can see/tell that there's someone just behind my right shoulder. Kinda close, but it is a busy bus stop, after all. Next thing I know, this person has moved more to the front and says that he knows me. He had to say it twice because I didn't realize he was talking to me. I looked up and told him he was mistaken. He was sure he wasn't. I keep trying to go back to reading my magazine, because not only is he mistaken, but I'm not one for small talk, especially with a complete stranger. I also figure there may be a bit of embarrassment involved - you know, when you mistake a person for someone else and end up feeling like a doofus? I thought I'd spare him.
Well, buddy keeps talking to me, but to be honest, I can barely understand a word he's saying. He's got a heavy accent on top of speaking with marbles in his mouth (I'm pretty good with languages and recognizing accents - the best I can guess in this case is something African). I sort of look over now and then and give a little half-smile-leave-me-alone look, trying to keep reading my magazine. It comes out that he knows what bus stop I get off at in the morning, so I figure that fine, he just recognizes me from the bus - happens easily enough. However, then he asks what bus I'm waiting for. At one point he asks me my name, which I told him, stupidly. I never know what to say when I'm caught offguard with something like that. Anyway, this went on for about five minutes. He finally wishes me a good day and walks off - as in away from the bus stop - as in "hey buddy, weren't you waiting for a bus, too?". Huh. He does eventually come back. I see him walk in front of me, but don't look up (I was reading the magazine and recognized his coat as it went through my line of vision) and luckily he didn't try to chat again.
I don't give any of this another thought all weekend. Why should I? Stuff like this happens and I'm just not the type to strike up a conversation with a stranger for no good reason. I guess that's where shyness gets mistaken for haughtiness or bitchiness. Oh well, such is life.
Cut to me getting off the bus this morning, walking forward a few feet to where I jaywalk cross the street to my building. There is always a raft of people crossing from the bus stop. From a little behind and to my right, I hear someone say good morning. Now I know I was the only person there at that moment so I knew it was directed to me. I have no idea how the person got to that side of me without me knowing, because of snow banks, etc, but there he was. Again caught offguard, I just say hello and start across the street. He keeps up with me and tries to talk to me. Again, I'm having a hard time understanding him so I just keep going. At the other side, he finally speaks clearly enough and I realize he's asking if we can talk for a few minutes. Looking at my watch, I tell him that I'm already running a few minutes late (complete bull, btw) and I pick up the pace a bit. Well, so does he.
As I reach the revolving door, I get in and start pushing the door, not too fast, as is normal when there is someone behind me because I don't want to smack anyone with the door. Well, as I push, I feel a little resistance anyway so I know I've snagged him with the door. I turn back and mutter that I'm sorry, and he's right in the same freaking stall (is that what they're called) with me!! WTF? These are not large door stalls. And even if they were, since when would you get into the same stall unless you were, I don't know, bosom buddies or married or something. WTF?? Pace gets picked up even more and I dig out my wallet to get some change for my morning cinnamon thingy at the coffee shop. As I reach the door, he speaks my name rather loudly (compared to his normal speech). I stop and turn to him and he asks me for my phone number! Ummm, no that's okay, I really don't think so. I even had to repeat myself, then just turned and went into the shop. I was only there maybe 45 seconds (grabbed cinnamon thingy, gave change to girl, left) and I saw him at the far end of the hallway, exiting the building. So he doesn't even work in the complex.
So anyway, I was a little freaked out by the time I got upstairs to the office. I told Sortaboss about it all and he thought it was odd, too. When I left tonight, he says to call him from the busstop if buddy is there. I'm sure the guy is harmless, but it was just weird. I've had similar things happen to me in the past, but none have freaked me like this one did and I don't know why.
End of story. On a different note, Edgar seemed very sad when I got home tonight. Even when I was giving him his traditional "Honey, I'm home" belly rub, he just gave off sad vibes. Made me sad, too. I'm sure he'll be fine once I make supper and he smells (and begs for) chicken.
]]>What do you bring most to a friendship?
the chocolate
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from meg illustrations:
to use my letter opener to get at some still-itchy parts on my back from my burns (that's BURNS, cranky)?
]]>I came home from work early yesterday and had the pleasure <cough> of catching the Dr. Phil show. Why I didn't turn the television off is beyond me, but that's all in the past now. It was actually a rather interesting show. They were discussing the pressure that certain people feel to have cosmetic surgery. There were Asians who were told by their families that they should get their eyes worked on so they appeared more Causasian/Western (otherwise, they were said to seem uglier, less intelligent, less entertaining, etc). There was a guy of Italian descent who, at 23, was determined to get a nose job. Personally, I think he looked just fine, and they showed how he was the spitting image of his maternal grandfather. The poor guy has been teased his whole life about his nose, even by the very family who is aghast that he wants to change it - they joked even as they were on the show, oblivious to the fact that the guy wasn't so much as cracking a smile (apparently he wants work on his chin, too, but they only concentrated on his nose since that is the stereotypical feature he wanted to get rid of). Here are two pics of him, taken from Dr. Phil's website:
Since this season of Dancing With The Stars started, there has been a lot of talk about Priscilla Presley and how mangled she now looks due to cosmetic surgery. In the past few days, it's come out that she was one of the victims of some scam artist who was injecting, not something "better than Botox", as he claimed, but low-grade silicone, similar to the type used in auto work, into his patients. None of the stories I saw mentioned if she had tried to have it fixed, but since the botch job was done in 2003, I can only assume she's had more work since then. It's so sad to see a beautiful woman get work done and go from this:
to this:
Besides, that stuff isn't permanent, so I really find it hard to believe that she hasn't run into another crappy surgeon who has now done even more damage to her face. On DWTS a week or so ago, during the pre-dance practice clip, any time she laughed or smiled (read: tried to laugh or smile), PP was constantly either dipping her head so that her hair partially obscured her face or bringing her hand up to her mouth. And in this week's episode, when she did that scary playmate-as-lioness crawl toward the camera, I couldn't help but think of the doyenne of bad cosmetic surgery, Jocelyn Wildenstein:
I swear PP (or at least her doctor) is using JW as a reference point when he's performing PP's surgery. For those of you who have never heard of or seen JW before, here is what she looked like before asking her surgeon to make her look like the big cats her estranged husband loved so much, so that she could win him back (there are various versions of the story - I'm going with the one I've heard most often):
For the final word, I leave you with Henry Rollins, in an open letter to another cosmetic surgery disaster, Carrot Top:
Started checking out some Sinfest comic strips after seeing one over at Fatcat's (I love how the artist puts a little blurb above her name in each strip). There are tons of archives, but I did go through some of the most recent strips and came across a series featuring a kitty and his love of a shoe. Here are two from the series: