Must try this...

There is a waffle iron in the cupboard that hasn't seen the light of day in a very long time.

Sometimes you feel...

... like a nut... sometimes you don't...
 

(The jingle just popped into my head for a title as I'm quite sure I already had a post called "Sometimes".)

You're welcome.

Liked it in high school, still do, for all its earworm-worthiness.

 

Couple that I might have added? Al Pacino in "Scent of  Woman" and the security guard in "Nothing to Lose". Oh.... and almost forgot... this...

Time flies...

On this day in the year 2000...

... by this time...

... mom had already been taken to emergency for the last time.

I just realized that, looking at the clock.

Awakening or death...

Milestone....

... and I missed it...

Well, that was supposed to be all she wrote... I kind of had a thought in mind that I would end this blog on the day when no one stopped by to visit, whether it be a visit by choice or completely at random. That day happened yesterday, December 5, 2014. After 1,735 days of this blog being in existence, with 55,000 or so views during that time frame, there were zero (0) pageviews yesterday, according to the internal Blogger stats. This has never happened before. Interestingly enough, according to Sitemeter, there were no views on December 4th or 5th, not even me. However, StatCounter indicates there were four visits on December 4th and three visits on December 5th, all showing up as Googlebot, with duration of three of these being 30 minutes 13 sec, 22 minutes 39 sec and 49 minutes 33 sec. Upon further review, these were archived posts from 2012 to 2013, 2011 to 2012 and 2010 to 2011 respectively. What is the big Google machine up to? I have no clue.

***

 

My head hurts. My head has been hurting a lot lately during and after work, even heading into the weekend. I have been made to feel small and incapable. I feel deflated and defeated. If it was a job that I completely sucked at, I might not feel as bad. I need to change something in my life, and yet again, "life" means "job". That's just the way it goes. It seems though, that the decision has already been made for me, and I will need to look for something new very soon. The strange thing is, thinking on that whole idea that life turns in seven year cycles, it is coming close to that time... I just wish I knew what to do this time.

You never know...

 

Goosebumps....

 

Great song from back then... (Always good to sing along to...) Kind of hard listening to this at first, but at some point... goosebumps...

Reunion...

I'm glad I came across this, as I've seen the short version a few times. It's always nice to have a more complete picture... Well worth a watch.

dolphin giggles

Pretty cool. But not quite as cool as this...

One Tin Soldier

As I have mentioned many a time before, music and food play a big part in my memories, when there is not much else that seems to remain in the memory bank. This song, I remember from when I was a little kid, but I don't think I knew it was a Canadian band that sang it until it came up a few days ago. I do remember that I liked it, and, for some reason, I still do.

 

Always been rather fond of...

...percussion...

A guy and a pink what?

A pink tutu...

An American's take...

...on what is and will be a sad day in Canadian history. He was an unarmed soldier, guarding the tomb of the unknown soldier at the National War Memorial.

 

Lest ye forget...

Lest ye forget.

 

The land of 3am...

 

"I feel like a wet noodle blowing in the wind on a rainy day."

I came up with that a short time ago this fine morning, upon travelling to the land of 3am not sleeping, funked up thoughts. It has been a while since I have visited there and shared what I found.

I don't know

.... what I'm doing. No clue whatsoever.

One day of the year....

when it is acceptable for me to have my photograph taken...

 

Not done yet...

Rather strange that I thought of this today, which is exactly six months to the day since last time:

US (36)

  (New York (2)

  Texas (3)

  Colorado

  Cali (8)

  Arizona

  New Hampshire

  Virginia (2)

  Indiana (2)

  Ohio (4)

  Washington

  Georgia

  Illinois

  Missouri

  Pennsylvania

  Nebraska

  Wisconsin

  Florida

  North Carolina

  Louisiana

  Massachusetts

  Kansas)

Australia (1)

Poland (1)

Czech Republic (5)

***
And even though we are no longer directly involved... aren't we?

Sad days...

... indeed...

(More here.)

Are you?

Had saved that a couple weeks ago for one of those nights, but as I sat here in the kitchen just now after enjoying leftover turkey dinner, alone in a quiet house, this came to mind...

From one of my faves.

***

Happy Thanksgiving.

 

I have become...

...one of those people who post cat videos... instead of typing actual blog posts... 
 

A beautiful relationship...

I may have been mistaken...

 

27 years ago I heard a song for the first time, and in that very moment I thought to myself "this is it", the be all and end all of songs. There would never be another song quite like this. There may have been others that have hit me in a similar fashion since then, but with my dwindling memory, that is the one which remains most embedded. The past decade in the music industry has not yielded a great deal to draw me in, as there didn't seem to be much character in the offering. Then this song, in all its bare simplicity came along to prove me wrong.

So as I yet struggle to find meaning, to find purpose, to find a place where I do not feel the life being sucked right out of me, I suppose this song's evocative nature came to my attention in a timely manner. And on that note, if you have taken the time to read this far, take a stroll through the blog as it lays dying. Say something. Where you are from or something.

Poof...

I fell through the cracks of my own life. The fractured shell can either hold together or disintegrate. Exist or disappear. There is no living here. Another day, another night. In that murky darkness before dawn is when those fractures come to light. And so I write.

That is all.

 

Maybe I will some day...

even though it hasn't spoken to me in a really long time...

Because...

I need to quiet the silence in between...

Thank what?

 

Thank you fruit flies, for initiating a conversation about manure and maggots.

 

Yes, it was an actual conversation.

 

And no, it was not the strangest conversation I've had. 

 

Losing...

Made to feel small by someone else's words at work this morning. Feeling terribly small now. Trying to find meaning in life by playing Tetris and speeding up the blocks. Losing.

*****
 

Mom would have been 79 years old today. She's been gone almost 14 years now. I am not one to ponder what her advice or thoughts would be on matters, but today it crossed my mind. I wonder what she would have to say about all this.

*****

Tetris is my metaphor for life. The blocks continue to fall, but leaving too many empty spaces. Now they are speeding up, falling at a faster rate, leaving even more empty and I'm running out of time to make something fit so I can keep going before the game ends.

Why yes, yes it was...

That was quite a departure. But sometimes, just sometimes, things bother me long enough to say something, without explanation. Such was the case with the previous post.

I have no idea what I'm doing here (life) or here (blog). It is funny to think now, that I used to feel a need to blog. Yes... a need. I could be sleep deprived, wide awake in the dark, or sleepy as heck with my head flopping and eyes glazing over, but I would make myself type. Now, this is like the quiet place where I come just to say... I am still here.

War is not the solution...

 

Peace Activists and Human Rights Activists, all well and good on this soft, cushy side of the world. We've heard it all before... "Peace now!" "Why can't there be peace?" ... and "War is not the solution." We've been down this road before. Perhaps war is not the solution, but sometimes... it is the only answer. You can't just sign a Facebook petition to stop an Islamic fundamentalist from beheading someone. You can't simply sign a petition and force someone to cease being a religious extremist. How can you find peace with a man or woman veiled in the guise of religious freedom... a religion not tempered by logic... a religion that has not changed nor evolved in over a thousand years... a religion oftentimes fueled by hatred...

Article

And no... we aren't starting a war... The jihadists already did, and they will again, Allah willing, God forbid.
 

The 25th

Happy birthday Tommy.

The Ice Bucket Challenge

Have been seeing these videos posted all over Facebook, to raise awareness of ALS, a debilitating neurological disease, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Finally came across this one. If you want to know what it's about..

(YouTube Views as of August 17, 2014, 8:28pm - 828)

The cast

I don't think it matters this time if the movie sucks.

(Was never much of a Stallone fan, but I think I like him a bit more now.)

Oh... and even if it does suck, I'll probably enjoy it...
 

Nanu Nanu

It has been 33 days since my last blogpost. Greetings and goodbyes seem to be the order of life...

 

Back in April I got to meet my new nephew for the first time. That was a treat... a joy really.

 

A few months ago, Dad lost his younger brother, then shortly after that, his older brother who was a whopping 90 years old, then his girl friend, who had just turned 90 in April, followed by one of the long tine neighbour fellows. Within the past three weeks, the dads of two of my brother's old school buddies passed away. One of these friends passed away 4 years ago at the age of 44. I feel detached. I feel sad. It is not a sadness for personal loss, but perhaps simply for life itself.

And now for a laugh...



I know I will die wishing that I had done more with the life I was given.

A sense of humour...

is key...

I came across a couple videos the other day... For lack of a better adjective, he is adorable...
 

 

(A sense of humour with beautiful eyes, which I may have mentioned before, is even better.)

So does a sense of humour win out over looks? When I was considerably younger, this wasn't necessarily the case, as evidenced by an interest in Tom Cruise at the very beginning of his career. This got me to thinking... At my age now, with whom would I rather sit on a couch and have a conversation? Tom Cruise or a guy that makes you laugh...

 

 

Funny thing is that I've never watched "The Family Guy" or "Ted", but I had started a post a few months ago about some upcoming movies that caught my attention, which included this. 

Nothing and everything...

The title of this post is the answer to the question, "What does this have to do with me?"

(YouTube views 63,136.)

"Since when does a terror organization get a voice and a seat in the United Nations?"

 

"Instead of choosing life, they celebrate death. A culture that celebrates martyrdom and murder is a culture that will always be at war with itself and with its neighbours."

 

You know, it is strange how things go full circle. Even though I have no specific memories from certain times in my life, I do know that a thirteen year old girl in Canada who watched the news over three decades ago would not be surprised by this.

Because Canada

This is from a few years ago and I may have posted it before, but...

Happy Canada Day

 

This is just... (Episode #2)

Further to Episode #1...

YouTube link.(Views 307,491)

Because I said so...

(Because someone on Facebook posted it.)

What if...

that natural human thirst for knowledge is what fuels you, and your mind absorbs and accumulates a myriad of information about a variety of subjects, none of which pertain to each other nor serve a purpose in your existence? What if that natural human thirst for knowledge doesn't exist in you, and your mind filters and discards any information accumulated over time which does not pertain to your existence? What if you end out your days sitting alone in a dark room and you realize that it didn't matter ... at all.

What if that one thing that makes you want to reach out and hold on, wasn't meant for you?

One of those kinds of times, not quite like this... maybe a touch of that...

Gratuitous

cat video...

Isn't it funny...

 ... how some things seem to align...

 

 

(Three quotes via Facebook that I had saved on a couple different days last week, but didn't realize the connection between them until just now.)

Doldrums...

.... for lack of a better word.

Oh ... wait...

Silent, still, stagnant, stale, stifling, shrivelling...

It is at times like this that you truly feel how insignificant and small that you are. I almost couldn't breathe.

Sometimes I have the sneaking suspicion that...

Waitaminute...

 

When I first saw this, I thought to myself... "Yes"... 

 

 

Now that I have it sitting here to post on the blog, it got me to thinking... It was in the Facebook feed, but I didn't post it there, I saved it for the blog. Why? Because I've never MET anyone who "gets" me, and this was probably one of the reasons that I decided to start a blog in the first place. This thought then prompted me to search the archives for posts pertaining to "fitting in". I went down the list, reading a few, and then... this... I was a bit taken aback, and it elicited a rather unexpected emotional response. My memory continues to fail, and I had forgotten that I had shared something of such a personal nature here. To blog or not to blog, herein lies the answer.

I find that as I get older...

Shouldn't it have been the other way around?

This is just...

 

I have watched this several times and I am amazed by the actions of this cat. From running out to bowl the dog over, chasing it way, coming back to check on the boy, and then turning her head to make sure that he is following.

When did that happen?

... Ass wrinkles...

Say what?

Good night moon...

shining bright tonight...

Happy Day

... all you mothers...

If you say so...

 

Right now, at 5am on a Sunday morning, I'd settle for a few hours of sleep. (And... I'm really, really hungry...)

It's a nice thought...

... too...

 

I don't know. I've taken quite a few in the last seven years. But then again, I don't believe in perfect, so it's all good I guess.

 

Oh... and... good lord... I'm so sorry about what came to mind...  

 

Friday Night Fun: Violence

Not a huge fan of violence for entertainment, although I used to be when I was younger. That being said, I can so appreciate this...

It had come up in Facebook tonight, so I went tracking back a bit further in YouTube such that what today came up as a "Bohemian" Kick Boxer seems to have originally been a "Bolivian"... When I first saw it in FB, I was thinking... what the heck is a Bohemian Kick Boxer?

A goal or a dream?

 

 

Another milestone happened some time today. I passed the 50,000 Pageviews mark. That may not seem that big of a number, however to me it is huge. That being said, I didn't create this thing with any goal in mind, nor to amass a readership. I knew what I didn't want to do here, but I ended up unwittingly heading down that road regardless. Now, sitting here tonight, all I can say is that I think it would be nice if one day someone stumbles upon this blog and finds something they can relate to on some level, and maybe make them laugh or cry or say "Hmmmmm....".

 

Much like the blog, I have never had a goal in life either, which is quite sad if you think about it. At this juncture, the closest I can come to having one would be:

 

 

And on that note, what came to mind just now is so not my theme song ...

 

Oh... and this is post 1640, which just seems like a nice number to take note of.

So...

... and as such, any way you look at it, my life is full, even if it is empty.

Because I can...

 

To honour the fallen since last time

U.S. (11)

   Texas

   South Carolina

   Rhode Island

   Minnesota

   Kentucky (3)

   Florida

   Oregon

   California

   North Carolina 

U.K. (6)

Australia (1)

It's kind of like ...

 

Further to this...

What kind of sammich I wonder...

 

I haven't done one of these for a really long time, so I decided to re-do the one on the sidebar "What Kind of Pie are You?" and I know I got a different result this time. (Cherry Pie) I went on to do about four or five more, including this one:

You Are a Turkey Sandwich

Conservative and a bit shy, you tend to stick with what you know and trust. You are very introverted, and you prefer to blend in whenever possible. Though you may be hard to know well, anyone who does know you considers you a true friend. Your best friend: The Ham Sandwich Your mortal enemy: The Tuna Fish Sandwich

What Kind of Sandwich Are You?

That made me chuckle... Would my reader(s) be a best friend or mortal enemy I wonder...

 

One more: "What spice is your soul?" (Sage)

"A stranger falling out of the blue"

From one of my "go to" movies. If you have a tough time watching romantic comedies, try this one out. It's... charming...

Happy Easter...

Bunny hugs...

from here.

"well... with the way you behave..."

This falls into the "never too late" category, however, it does inspire the "better sooner than later" aspect of life, I'd say.

Dream on...

...yeah...

69 years ago...

Sometimes people need to be reminded ...
 

Rediscovery...

Yesterday I rediscovered why I did not like seafood when I was a little kid.

One word....

Anchovies.

I've never had them before. 

It doesn't matter how thin you slice them or how much you smother them in salt and spicy Korean goodness. It doesn't matter. It is that distinct, intense, fishness that threw me off then, and anchovies are... well... the epitome of fishness.

The funny thing is that I remember liking the taste of dried squid. It came in a small plastic candy-sized bag. It was salty, but not too salty, a little bit chewy, and rather stringy. But... it wasn't too... fishy, for lack of a better word. This was brought back to mind yesterday as well. The nice Korean lady who owns the Japanese restaurant always gives us extra things to try, like homemade Kimchi, sliced sesame fishcake things, and variety of sweet-savoury smelly Korean pickles. One of the first small dishes she brought out was... squid... Like the dried squid I remember, soaked in a sweet and salty sauce... and it was good. The second dish was the aforementioned anchovies, a little deceiving as it looked almost the same. Gah!

Sand in my eyes...

... and I wasn't the only one...

(I cannot blame Metallica for this one... Well... maybe I could...)

Gifts

 

I met my new nephew for the first time yesterday. He is almost nine months old. It has been a long time since I have been that kind of happy holding a baby.

***

I received a treasure last night. Some personal belongings and family pictures which I did not know existed. She had even kept a couple notes that I had written her when I was a kid. With those notes, was... a Christmas card... that she had written to me before she died, but had not sent. There was also a card with a message from another aunt who I have not seen in probably over ten years now. Gifts. Gifts with tears.

***

So tonight, again, questioning my existence, I reflect on these gifts, and wrote this.

Black and white pictures

Memories hidden away

Trickling from a box

Who are these people

Trapped in time and tucked away

Waiting to be found

Vaguely familiar

Yet images of strangers

Perhaps I know them

Is that my mother

I do not recognize her

From a time long past

I want to know them

What place in our family

Fading history

cki7Apr2014

Apparently...

... I used to do this...

Picture a little kid not even as tall as the kitchen counter, with arms outstretched... saying...  
 

A moment...

 

Today I had a moment where it felt as though I was separated from my brain. I was walking home on the old highway, crossing a side street, when I caught myself in that moment where my brain was completely empty of thought. In the split second following, I realized that I could have absentmindedly walked the wrong way. It has happened before, but it is a whole other situation when it happens as you are standing alone in the kitchen compared to walking along a busy stretch of road. I would like to think that I would have the wherewithal to catch myself before doing something so uncharacter-istically brainless, but it makes me wonder.

 

I miss my cat...

(via a blogger buddy on FB)

A couple seconds more and...

I almost forgot about this...

 

On Saturday, I decided to splurge on pizza. It was just a personal size, but instead of my cheap standard "just cheese", I went with the new Nacho flavour with a thin crust. But pizza is not what this is about. I ordered it by phone, looked at the clock and figured I would leave at 7:05. I ran about a minute or two over, so I walked rather briskly up the street towards the pizza establishment. As I was hurrying along, I heard a small "splat"... and stopped in my tracks to see that the "splat" was bird poop hitting the ground a few inches in front of me. I felt my hair to make sure that none had made contact and breathed a sigh of relief. If I had been but a second or two earlier, that would have landed square on my head instead of on the ground before my foot.

 

Fast forward to today when I was putting on the same boots, when I got outside into the sunlight, I noticed something white on the toe of my right boot. I tried to scrape it off with the other boot, but it did not want to budge. Yes, that's how close it had been.

I'd have to agree...

(via "Running to Nowhere")

Um...

 

Heck, I went so far outside my comfort zone that "awkward and uncomfortable" became my new normal.

Happy Birthday

To  my favourite Irishman with whom I share a birthday.

Face the music...

I fear that this emptiness will never be filled and that it will remain a cold, dark void until I die. The interests and miscellaneous activities that used to fill the time and space of my life are no longer, and thus the void expands. Of course there is yet a faint glimmer of hope, the possibility that something exists, but it is a vague thought, abstract and distant.

I wrote that last night.

What gives rise to such thoughts yet again? Two things... That damn glimmer of hope is one of them. The other?  A situation which makes me question my abilities, feeds the feeling of inadequacy, and at the end of the day makes me feel like crap. 

This morning I felt torn. I still do. I have a day off from work. I always go in to do a little extra work on my day off. I'm being eaten away by the nibbling dread.  

Movie Madness Quote #2

 

"Waiter, there is too much pepper on my paprikash. But, I would be proud to partake of your pecan pie."

 

Friday fun...

 

If this doesn't make you smile at some point, there's something wrong...

(Views 1,081,535)

Crack open your cookie...

 

"Things may seem much worse than they are."

 

"Travel is in your future."

 

"Love isn't what makes the world go round, it is what makes the trip worthwhile."

(From www.horoscope.com's "Fortune Cookie")

 

Midweek Movie Quote #1

 

“What if someone you never met, someone you never saw, someone you never knew, was the only someone for you?”
 

An Irish Blessing...

 

Happy St. Patrick's Day 
 

And then...

... this came up in the FB feed today...

 

which is pretty funny considering what I wrote yesterday...

Accidental necessity...

I came up with that term the other day when at a loss for figuring out the reason why certain things happen in our lives, and how we meet people by way of what seems to be a completely random sequence of events and choices. If we hadn't turned down that road instead of the other, or if we had continued on the straight path ahead of us. If we hadn't clicked that link or the next. If we hadn't walked through that doorway and said hello into the unknown void. If I hadn't? I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be pondering this very thing.

 

I fear though, that this journey will have no bearing on the outcome of my life. That it was a waste of time. That it was a series of random events and choices that changed the way I was, the way I perceived things and the way I felt about things, but it will not change my life. Would that it were the impetus for change, remains to be seen, however I highly doubt that it will be.

 

In scrutinizing my life right now, I find that I am still just going through the motions of living, that I am in fact, simply existing. I dread going to bed at night because I must face the next day. I dread getting up in the morning because I know that I must face my inadequacies, each and every day that follows. There is no dream for the future, there is no hope for something more. It just... is... And that has to be enough. The funny thing is... that if I hadn't taken this unexpected detour, I would have come to this conclusion much sooner. This little journey has afforded me the opportunity to get a glimpse of what I missed out on in not living life the way humans are meant to.  

 

Twas five years ago today...

.... that I began my journey here, so today would be my 4th blogiversary. I think when I marked the occasion in previous years, I noted the "years ago" incorrectly. Oh well... I still can't quite believe I'm still here, especially taking into consideration that I have nothing left to offer.

Heart of darkness...

 

(Via Facebook)

 

 

It has been a while since I went "there", but... since that came up tonight, I decided to search the blog for some of my darkness. I typed the word "cold" into the search box... This is just a bit of what I found...

 

Exile

Forgotten

Cold Hand

Broken

Silent Voices

Blank Slate

The Quiet One 

Completely utterly lost...

A childhood memory...

Done

Time

The Unforgiving Stone

Illumination

 

That is all.

Still life...

Further to this ...

(... taken this morning... still holding its beauty...)

In like a lion...

 

The end of February was beautiful and sunny...

 

March however was a different story. Fourteen inches of snow in two days, it lived up to its fierce reputation.

(Same tree as the first image.)

 

Today, the third day, we are already in meltdown. Huge piles of snow and miniature lakes adorn the streets. Shoveling snow this morning, clearing the corner drains this afternoon, and digging out a lady's car that had been snowed under and plowed in, took two pairs of snowboots, two jackets, two pairs of gloves, one pair of mittens and three pairs of socks out of commission just today. By late afternoon the snow was a little bit heavier (understatement) than normal (but not quite as much as last year) and as such I used some muscles that weren't quite used to such usage. Although I was soaked to the bone twice and a half, and said unused muscles rather tight, oddly enough it was both tiring and somewhat invigorating. I am glad that I didn't catch a chill, and am thankful that I didn't blow my back out again as I did a few years ago.

Nope...

Shopkeeper: Can I help you?

Customer:   I'm going to buy myself something because
                  I didn't get anything for Valentine's Day.

Shopkeeper: You don't have a boyfriend yet?

***

 

***

 

 ***

alone

...and my world is empty and full
with nothing and one,
everything
lost in the silence of words said,
unspoken
of treasured time, forgotten space
and the tears that fall
one cannot see who makes them
holds still the heart
which feels such warmth
lays down cold in the dark...

cki2014
(It has been a while since the words have fallen this freely.)

Happy Valentine's Day

I could have authored this...

(Image via Facebook)

Just curious...

 

Hadn't been to check one of the site tracking devices for a while. The Sitemeter one doesn't pick up as much as the one I checked, but interestingly enough, the latter showed on a particular day that 16 of 20 page visits were from Facebook... a Facebook bot... not Googlebot, a Facebook bot...

And today in the Blogger Stats, there were six (6) uniform page visits, as shown below:

I am starting to wonder if any human beings visit here, and if they do, are they just passing through by accident or do they even "stop in" for a while. Wish I could track human visits, maybe do a sound off or something, like name your province in Canada, your state in the U.S. or just your country. Just curious.