Douchebag trees and social rituals that require bending

I noticed this morning that one of the trees outside my apartment looks like it's giving me multiple middle fingers. I haven't decided if this is a personal insult or it's giving the neighbourhood the middle finger salute on my behalf, because it feels a sort of an asshole-ish kinship with me and this is our way of bonding. I prefer to believe the latter. However, on closer inspection it could be penises instead of middle fingers, in which case, I have a motherfucking porn tree and don't even tell me you're not jealous that nature decided to grace me with a tree full of dicks

Stupid technology. I tried to make this picture bigger but it keeps shrinking it back. Trust me, it looks like a middle finger/dick tree. Also, this tree is proof that Mother Nature is either a sarcastic bitch or a pervert. Or both.

In other news, I was texting with Rigger (aka my boyfriend, and I was too lazy to come up with a really good nickname for him, so his job description will have to do...he's currently building an oil refinery up north and rigging is what he does. Not clear on what exactly that is, but it involves massive tanks, pipes and scaffolding that he can plummet off of if he's not careful. Also, a big crane almost fell over a couple weeks ago which would have killed several people, after which he informed me this job is 100 times more dangerous than his old job, which thrills him a bit because he's an adrenaline junkie and makes me want to look up "crushing injuries" on Web MD, but I won't because WebMD is already  a major contributor to my Paranoia: Medical Department.) and I asked him if he had a chance to try out the golf simulator at camp yet (since these camps are generally in the middle of nowhere, the company Rigger works for provides shit like an winter outdoor skating rink, 2 gyms, a game room, private theater and a bunch of other cool stuff for these guys to do in their downtime, to ensure they don't get cabin fever and start running around with an
axe, chopping people's heads off. Or something like that)

So far it's been a no-go with the golf simulator partly because there's a big list to get on it, but mostly because there's a bit of a bowing non-compliance war going on. You see, the company he works for is Korean...I'll refer to them as Company X. Company X works for Company Y (also Korean) and Company Y owns the golf simulator. Apparently the younger Company Y  Korean employees are not bowing to the older Company X Korean employees, which is a big-time cultural offense.I asked Rigger if he bows at work and if he he gets a hall-pass if he does it wrong because he's not Korean. He told me Canadians aren't expected to bow, but he bows because it's respectful. But there's different types of bowing, depending on who you're bowing to and now I'm wondering if the Korean language lessons he's taking at camp include bowing lessons and maybe they should, because he wants to move up in the company, so he should probably become an expert on bowing since maybe it's kind of like French shrugging, which indicates a hundred different things depending on shoulder stance, lip-pursing and how high you can raise your eyebrows.

Conclusion: Bowing is fucking complicated. And my boyfriend cannot golf because some asshole won't bow correctly.

Got my zen back. Apparently it was in Tofino all this time.

I am way behind on the ABC's of Swearing Challenge ( shit, damn, fuck, douchenozzle) and I am totally out of the blog loop but I have a really good excuse. I was on a mini vacation, reconciling with an old flame and I'm happy to say the whole thing went awesome. He's made some huge, positive lifestyle changes and I'm ridiculously proud how far he's come. The only thing that sucks is that he works up north building an oil refinery and the shifts are looooong...long as in he had his 5 days out and now he won't be back out again until sometime in July. However, he's one of those insane people that thrives on busting his ass in a dangerous job in the middle of nowhere, living in camp keeps him out of trouble and, as much as I care for him, having some distance is not a bad thing for us at this point. Plus, we text back and forth throughout the day so we probably spend more time talking then if he was here.

Anyfuckingways, we spent our mini-holiday in Tofino, which is my favourite place in the world. It rained most of the time, but the suite we stayed in more than made up for the weather. It was pretty luxurious, with a fireplace, a king sized bed that was so comfy you didn't want to get up in the morning, heated floors,  a private hot tub on the deck and Chesterman Beach was just steps away.

Part of the view just off the deck, which I would never ever get tired of admiring

At sunset on Monday night, which was one of the very few times the sun came out. They don't call it The Wet Coast for nothing

We surfed (first time for me, and oh, did I suck at it and got totally beat up by the ocean. Plus I discovered it is not possible to look remotely good or breathe well in a wet suit, but the water is so fucking cold, it's a necessary evil. BUT, it was fun as hell and I can't wait to go again), we golfed (rained out on the 7th hole, which was not entirely bad because I was playing like a blind amputee), we ate (found the best fish tacos in the universe!), we shopped (Best find: this t-shirt for me...

Could I have found a more appropriate shirt for the ABC's of Swearing Challenge? Motherfucking doubtful.

...and this paper made of actual horseshit for Spielberg)

Why yes, I find poop humour just as amusing at 42 as I did when I was 8

Of course I smelled it to see if it really was odorless. Also, buying this made me feel like one of those Rainbow Warrior environmentalist people because recycling poop is hardcore

...and we walked the beach, wandered around town, had lots of naps and spent lots of time relaxing. It was fanfuckingtastic and I cannot wait to go back (which we plan on doing in July).

So The Flame is on his way back to The Great White North, Spielberg comes home tomorrow after school (yay,because I missed him!) and I get back into work mode tomorrow.

What's new with you guys?

Ask and ye shall receive

Yesterday I left a comment on a blog post about swearing and in my comment I stated I find religious rhetoric offensive. The blog author asked me to explain why people are offended by religious content and instead of clogging up his comment section with a long and wordy comment, I thought I'd write a post instead.

Let me be clear: I have absolutely nothing against faith, spirituality or personal belief systems. What pisses me off is religious dogma, hypocrisy and the self-righteous, closed-minded attitude that seems to go hand in hand with organized religion. Have your faith in whatever gives you strength and peace...but the minute you start preaching at me and trying to jam your own morals and belief down my throat? Hell, yes, I find that offensive.

Dogma is defined as an official system of tenets and principles concerning faith, morals, behaviour, etc. This doctrine is proclaimed to be unquestionably true...and the unquestionable truth is the part I have an issue with. Faith is defined as belief in something that is not based on proof, which is fine for the individual who has faith, be it faith in God, Allah, The Flying Spaghetti Monster or the deity of your choice. The thing is, not everyone believes in the same thing...and there is absolutely no proof or empirical evidence that any one belief system is right. The only way to find out if your unquestionable truth is actual fact is when you die...and since there is thus far no scientific method of communicated with the dead, the question of God and the afterlife will remain a mystery. So yes, I find it offensive when someone suggests to me I repent, ask forgiveness from a deity that is based on myth, not fact, and if I don't I'm going to end up in some horrible place that no one can prove exists, while the self-proclaimed righteous go on to flit amongst the clouds and play harps all day. Again, believe what you want...but until you can prove that your belief system is based on fact, you have no right to foist your morals on anyone else.

Let's discuss religious hypocrisy. I'm not even going to get into all the heinously fucked-up things that have happened throughout history in the name of religion, because they are legion and we'd be here for the next 10 years slogging through them. But the thing I find most hypocritical about religion is how things like the bible get all twisted around and cherry-picked to suit a particular argument. I'm sorry, but NO ONE in this day and age takes the bible absolutely literally. If they did, then you'd be walking around asking random people if they were adulterers and hucking rocks at them if they answered in the affirmative. Quote all the bible verses you want, but just remember your own glass house is going to get shattered, because if we were to take the bible literally then every single person on the planet is guilty of something, including the most pious of people. Hypocrisy of any kind is offensive. But hypocrisy that hides behind a book and twists words for the sole purpose of pointing fingers and acting as judge, jury and executioner, while sweeping it's own shitty behaviour under the religious rug? Is the worst kind of hypocrisy there is.

I love this, I really do. Judge and condemn by using scripture as your weapon and then have a most un-Christian-like comeback when your bible-quoting gets thrown in your face

This leads me to the self-righteous/close-mindedness part of the story. Having faith is one thing. Declarations like "God kills fags" isn't about being faithful to anything. It's hatred in the name of religious dogma that has been so twisted that it cannot even be recognized as anything remotely biblical. The Westboro Baptist Church may be an extreme example, but it's an interesting one. These asshole picket funerals and claim that soldiers killed in Afghanistan died because God is punishing America for what they claim is the abomination of homosexuality. The part I find morbidly fascinating is these people have convinced themselves they are doing God's work and will be rewarded for it in heaven. So the question is this: if they believe the bullshit they spew is all said and done in the name of God, how is that different than sitting in judgement of how anyone else lives? Sure, it's way more extreme and disgusting, but it all boils down to that pesky unquestioning truth thing. Therefore, if you're a Christian and you find the WBC and their dogma repellant, do you not think that maybe someone else might find your own dogma repellant as well? If you're convinced that the WBC is wrong, how can you be so convinced that your own personal beliefs are right for anyone else but you? That's a hugely egotistical assumption to make...and closing yourself off to any other possibilities except for the one's that are your personal unquestionable truth is your choice. But it's not mine. And I find it offensive that anyone else would want to chose my own unquestionable truth for me.

Ok, religious rant over...back to our regularly scheduled shenanigans

Oh....fuuuuuuuuuuuudge

Yesterday Spielberg and I found THE COOLEST store downtown. Can't remember what it's called but it's chock-full of awesome nostalgia items like that pink popcorn you get at the circus, Star Wars lunch boxes and KISS bobbleheads. It was like revisiting my childhood and I think Spielberg was getting embarassed because I kept squealing and shrieking "Ohmygod, look at that!!! I remember FunDip!!!. However, once I found The Item, I was not the only person having a fucking delight-induced stroke. Looky, looky what we found...

It's The Old Man from The Christmas Story. With his leg lamp. In bobblehead form. Holy fucking fartmonkeys, this is the best day EVER!

Fraa-geee-lay. That must be Italian

This was enough to make my day. But then the store owner made my fucking year by telling me not only did he fashion a leg lamp last Xmas for his window display that had many people crawling into the display to take a picture with The Holy Leg Lamp, but he's thinking of making leg lamps to sell with the bunch of extra manniquin legs he has in his basement (normally I would have questioned why anyone had a basement full of  fucking legs, but at that point I was beyond caring about potential serial killers with a leg fetish). I politely suggested he put me on a list of leg lamp buyers, telling him I'd be pleased to buy one. Except it was possibly more like I put him in a headlock and screamed "If you don't sell me a motherfucking leg lamp, I will die of sadness and come back to haunt the fuck out of you, so PLEASE put me at the top of the fucking leg lamp buyer list RIGHT FUCKING NOW!!!!!!"

I may have gotten a little excited there.

Word/Phrase of the day:

Furvert: a pervert with a fetish for furries (if you don't know what furries are, you really need to google it. Bring brain bleach.)

Farticles: the particles of fart that remain in the atmosphere after a fart has been released

I aspire to be a redneck Eh-hole

Once again it's that time of year when I really should be thinking about purchasing an air conditioner, but instead am looking at hot temperatures like a personal insult and challenge from Mother Nature. Last summer it was hotter than satan's asshole (temperature unverified, but it's fair to assume the devil's rectum would be pretty fucking warm) and my 4th floor apartment was a hellish sweatbox, so I swore that this would be the year I finally caved and bought an AC so Spielberg and I would not be reduced to taking turns trying to crawl into the freezer to escape the heat. I figured since it's only the beginning of May, I had at least another month or so until it got hot and stuffy enough in the apartment to bitch and moan and start a bunch of redneck DIY heat-busting projects until I got pissed off that none of them worked well enough and broke down and bought an AC. Nope. The bitching starts now. So perhaps I should get rednecking it up and get that out of the way to justify spending a couple hundred bucks when the DIY shit goes inevitably wrong.

Top 3 Redneck DIY ideas to keep cool in warm weather:

1) Tinfoil window treatments
Pros: Cheap, easy and only requires a couple rolls of tinfoil and tape. Shiny and futuristic-looking home decor. Completely blocks out all light (especially when you plaster all the edges with black electrical tape) and gives your bedroom a lovely cave-like quality

Cons: Looks like a growshow from the outside, leading to an urge to hang a sign outside your window stating "This is NOT a marijuana grow operation...I'm trying to keep the heat out because it's fucking HOT. Stop judging me, motherfuckers". Tinfoiling your windows is apparently against strata council rules in my building (probably because of the whole growshow-resemblance thing) and I'm assuming I'm on some kind of window-watchlist list because of last summer's TinfoilGate. Also, electrical tape melts when it's on a burning-hot tinfoiled window for 3 months and scraping it off is a giant pain in the ass

Verdict: Would totally do this today, but won't because I prefer not to get evicted

2) Wet sheets/icepacks/fan combo
Pros I have 6 fans, lots of sheets and unlimited ice and water, so this is totally doable. Great at night because I have a hard time sleeping unless my bedroom is the same temperature as a freezer and I can see my breath in the air it's so fucking cold. And I haven't even hit menopause yet

Cons: Too labour intensive because the water sprayer runs out of water, icepacks melt and fans set to jet engine speed dry everything out, and getting up to replenish ice, water and redampen sheets makes it into a stupid fucking ordeal

Verdict: Every summer this is my nighttime ritual. And every summer I swear I will not spend all next summer getting up at 1 in the morning for more ice/water. It's a vicious cycle

3) Redneck Air Conditioner:

A cooler/rubbermaid tub, a fan, a piece of pipe and  some frozen plastic water bottle and voila! Cool, cool air!

 Pros: Way cheaper than a store-bought AC. Supposedly easy to make. The satisfaction of feeling smug and clever as fuck for cooling it down redneck style

Cons: May be easy to make, but I am mentally disabled when it comes to anything remotely resembling a machine or any object that has to be put together. You know on pinterest all those cool diy things you see and then you try it and it's a catastrophic failure? That's sort of what I'm envisioning with this. If it's possible to fuck it up somehow, I will find a way. The cutting of the holes in the lid makes me nervous, due to several near-misses involving knives and/or saws, and water +electricity has some potential for an ER visit

Vedict: A DIY disaster waiting to happen. But maybe I can bribe Spielberg into doing it. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't miss a finger or be too bothered by an electrical shock if the tradeoff is a nice, cool apartment.

FYI: there are really no good swear words for the letter E. However, tomorrow is the letter F, which is ripe with  cursing potential

Word/phrase of the day:

Ex-hole: your asshole ex-husband, ex-boyfriend or just plain ex. a phrase used to refer to that person you used to date that you can't stand.

Ele-fucker: People who will push every elevator call button while waiting at a given landing in the hope of catching the first available ride. Invariably more than one car will stop at the same time, leaving those riders to wait the interminable ten to fifteen seconds it takes to resume their journey--often with a few seconds of eye contact with the offenders as icing on the cake.
 
Eh-hole:  Canadian asshole

Dildo, Newfoundland. Who the hell comes up with these names??

A couple things...

1) I just discover the weather app on my iphone and spent way too much time last night checking the weather in Moscow, Bali and Tuktoyuktuk (currently -22 C and probably not at the top of my vacation list). Much to my annoyance, this douchenozzle app won't recognize "The North Pole", "top of Mt Everest" or "Hell" (the one where all the damned live, not the one in Michigan. Although maybe it's the same place, but I doubt it because Hell, MI is currently 18 C and that doesn't seem eyeball-searingly hot enough) because none of those places are a city nor to they have a zipcode. For fucks sakes Yahoo Weather, how the hell am I supposed to plan an imaginary trek to the top of Mt Everest if I'm not sure how many pairs of thermal underwear I should pack??? Dickheads.

2) At the salon, I think we are slowly building into a turf war with our new and thank-fuck-they're-temporary neighbours. The Conservative Party (Canada's version of George Bush/Mittens Romney) has moved in across the parking lot until the election is over and we already hate them (ok, maybe hate is too strong a word...then again, they're politicians, so maybe not). Our first issue is with their stupid slogan, "I believe in BC", which as my boss pointed out, does that mean the entire province has been rendered imaginary?? I know that according to Ottawa, the West is the red-headed stepchild of the country, but now we apparently don't exist at all, except if Stephan Harper sprinkles his fairydust and has his right-wing minions chant "I DO believe in BC" 3 times so all of a sudden, poof...look at that, BC is not just a fairytale land where pot-growing hippies and logging companies who want to land-rape the forests co-exist in a somewhat uneasy existence. Tell me, how many millions did you douchecanoes spend to come up with the stupidest slogan in political history? Fuckwads.

Also, when I come over and politely ask you to move your stupid van that's parked in the middle of the parking lot which is blocking access not only to our business's parking, but also the entrance to the entire parking lot, do not impatiently tell me you planned on moving it in two minutes anyways. I may have just given you a frowning of a lifetime in response, but trust me, in my head I immediately starting plotting the downfall of your entire political party, starting with my creation of The Maple Syrup Party of Canada, whose political platform will be a 2-pronged approach: the demise of the blackmarket for maple syrup (I'm not kidding there really is a maple syrup blackmarket...google maple syrup theft ring and you'll see) and $1000000 fines and automatic jail time for people who park their cars like assholes. I'm pretty sure either one of these issues would win me an election, but both together is a guaranteed victory. So learn to park your fucking van in a fucking parking spot or feel my political wrath, you dumbass.

Word/phrase of the day: Dildo: not only a sex toy, but also a city in Newfoundland. And yes, it's in my weather app (2 C, mostly sunny)

Unorthodox parenting and some other bullshit

When I saw that today's theme for Thursday was unorthodox parenting, I was momentarily stumped trying to come up with something I consider unorthodox. Therein lies the issue...my parenting normal is likely someone else's "ohmyfuckinggod, she's raising her kid to be an anarchistic, heathen-y bastard". It's one of those things, to each his own. The core of my parenting belief is to raise a happy, open-minded, well-rounded kid...how you do that doesn't matter, as long as it works for your family. Some of the ways I suppose I parent in an unorthodox manner...

Religion: I'm not a fan of organized religion for many reasons, and half the time I'm not sure where my own spiritual beliefs reside, so I'm not about to decide for Spielberg what he should and should not believe. I want him to place his faith in whatever feels right to him, and to understand there's no one right way or one right thing to believe in. Doesn't matter to me if he's an atheist or Buddhist...as long as it makes him happy

Body Art: Spielberg really wants a tattoo and once he's 16, it's fine with me. We have discussed that a tattoo is permanent so he needs to choose his art wisely and not get something stupid he'll regret in 10 years. I've offered to pierce his ear on several occasions but he's totally yucked out over poking a hole in his body and says he'll never pierce any body part ever (irony alert: I used to do body piercing and still have several of my own, yet I have a kid who is Captain Conservative when it comes to body jewelery. How the fuck did that happen??)

Social Conscience: I think most everyone tries to raise their kid to have a social conscience, and to be aware of, and involved in their community, local and globally. I might be slightly unorthodox in the sense that I'm all for Spielberg questioning authority, making his voice heard and standing up for what he believes in, even if it has the potential to get him in shit on occasion. In 7th grade he and his friends started a petition at their elementary school, supporting gay marriage to send to our local MLA. This was not a school-sanctioned petition and they collected signatures on their lunch hour...the kids knew this petition had the potential to be controversial and were aware that they could have been asked to stop or gotten in trouble if someone complained or was offended. I asked Spielberg what he would have done in that case...his answer: wait until after school and collect signatures just off of school property, so they technically wouldn't be breaking the rules (clever thinking there, kiddo!).

He's also vehemently opposed to environmental damage caused by tar sands/frakking/corporate polluting, is outraged over Canada allowing China any sort of control to our natural gas pipelines, thinks everyone has the right to universal medical care and a good education, and the gaping chasm between the wealthy and the poor is bad for society as a whole . He's bitched-out that he's too young to vote in the election on May 14th and wants to lobby to have the voting age lowered to 16 because he thinks it's bullshit that he's not allowed to have an official political voice yet. Good thing the protests over clearcut logging in Clayquot Sound happened before he was born, otherwise I'm pretty sure he's be spending his weekends chained to a tree, blockading excavators and calling for bail money. All fine with me, as long as it's something he believes in.

So basically I'm raising a green Karl Marx. With less communism and more tattoos. Works for me :)

Today's ABC's of Swearing has been brought to you by the letter B
Today's inappropriate word or phrase:
Bitchtastic: a cross of sarcastically bitchy and fantastic

 Bonus phrase: Boner Shock: Expressions or actions performed that causes your boner to go into "shock" or go back into the flaccid stage; a sudden or immediate turn-off