bonjour quebec...a bientot, cuba!

with the onset of the nice weather, we're weighing our options for our summer vacation. we normally take two consecutive weeks off, but with my added position at work, i only have two (separate) weeks all summer that i am physically not required to be at work.

this limits what we are going to do. we were originally thinking about going to cuba, but now we are thinking we should wait until winter to do that - since i will be teaching less next year, it will be easier for me to vacate during the school year - i'm pretty sure that wasn't the proper use of the verb "vacate", but oh well. it should be used as such.

it looks like we will be going to quebec, spending most of our time in QC, but spending a few days with our dear friend, amelie. this excites me, because i rarely see amelie (usually twice a year - once when we go there, and once when she comes here)...AND i always find great clothing buys in quebec! something about the european sizes that make things fit me better. and i am fully aware that it's my mind playing trickts on me, but the clothes in le chateau seem to be so much better than in boring ontario.

as for the all-inclusive resort with the umbrella drinks and salsa lessons - i'll see YOU in december!

best man-zilla much?

so i played for the wedding today. the bride was actually pretty nice/relaxed when i finally met her in person. the best man, however, looked like he was recently in a bar fight, with the wounds on his face nicely scabbing over, drink in hand.

luckily it didn't rain, but it was very cold so my fingers had a hard time working...i managed. while i was finishing up my prelude songs, i overheard the minister being told that the bride was ready. i looked to the spot where the bride and bridesmaids were supposed to be waiting, but didn't see them. i tentatively kept playing the prelude music, watching for the girls...then scarface (the best man) said loudly, "EXCUSE ME" and gave me a dirty look. so i started to play canon in D, which is what the girls were supposed to walk down to. i was finished page one when i still didn't see any sign of the girls. i played canon in D a total of 4 times, as well as repeating several parts AND making stuff up. it's a good thing the whole song is based on one chord progression, it makes it easier to improvise. then when the signing of the registry came, i started playing, and one of the bridesmaids swung around as if i wasn't supposed to be playing, gave me a dirty look, then realized i was supposed to be playing and looked away.

i saw the best man after the ceremony. instead of apologizing for telling me to play the processional prematurely, he just glared at me again.

that's a total of three dirty looks today. doesn't look like i'll be getting any referrals from this wedding...

bride-zilla much?

i'm playing in a wedding this weekend.

my first impression of the bride was not the best. in our first conversation, she kept telling me how her fiance doesn't do anything to help and that she's working 16 hour days then has to plan a wedding on top of that. she said she comes home, and her fiance has done nothing, but he keeps saying he wants to help but doesn't follow through. she said her cell phone bill would be through the roof because she's on it all the time, planning the wedding and that she can't trust her fiance to do anything anyways because he would probably mess up the centrepieces and don't even talk to her about the flowers (aha! the truth comes out, the bride's a control freak!) i weakly suggested that she maybe make her fiance could pay for her cell phone bill, to make up for all the work she's doing...i just didn't know what to say and i didn't want her to keep yelling at me about it...she proceeded to tell me that as soon as she could, she took control of the finances, and if he needs money, he has to ASK her. *insert the diagonal finger snapping thing that black girls sometimes do* (i don't think sheena is black, but it just seemed to fit)

she actually said to me accusingly, "you're one of the lucky ones, you don't have to DO anything!" uh - did you want me to play for your wedding or not? and as your piano player, that doesn't make me your wedding planner or minion or jellyfish-of-a-fiance, so OF COURSE I'M NOT DOING ANYTHING.

oh, and the topper? there is no piano/keyboard at the golf course where she's getting married. did she think about that before hiring a pianist 2 weeks before the big day? nope, luckily i thought to ask or i would have been playing air piano, and canon in D isn't quite the same when played on the air piano.

sigh.

re: desire

i don't like change. i have never changed my hair colour. i hesitate to change my hair style, which is why it has stayed pretty much the same for 4 years. i don't like to change the furniture around. i rarely change passwords, pin numbers or my "secret" question answer.

so i don't like when my tv shows have to change. i don't want george to go. i don't want addison to go. i feel like everyone is meshing nicely, with storylines weaving together, in and out, and now it's all going to change. oh, and i CERTAINLY don't want addison's new pilot to be apart of my tv show! fine, she has a new show. fine, take her away. FINE, take piz away from veronica mars (awww, piz). but don't take away my hour with my friends at seattle grace. sure, they're going to make it a 2 hour episode...but i'm sure a large part of it will be dedicated to ADDISON and her new SHOW. grr. maybe callie should go with addison, things clearly aren't going well for her in seattle. oh, the sadness i feel for callie. at least she was wearing make-up this episode, she looked kind of really scary without it last week.

i really, really want to see an unrealistic, happy relationship between mer and der...they had so many pitfalls in the past, they deserve happiness. but, as per the formula, now that meredith and derek are on a rocky path, burktina can be happy for an instant. i guess i'll give them that.

i enjoyed the double (sometimes triple?) entendres in this episode. and in the end, when the board of directors dude was alone, it really made it clear that cheating = bad. which is a good message, i was starting to get worried there would be an adultery epidemic in the states because they kept making cheating look good. you know how silly americans can be.

i'm still giggling over the "VIP-ness/VI-penis" comment! and i've never had red velvet cake before. i feel like i'm missing out.

that's all.

time for a nap

my accompanying madness is over. many memories of my own experience competing in music festivals came flooding back. the students that i accompanied all did well and i scoped out some great adjudicators that i may recommend for the festival that we run at my school.

and the piano department concert was a great success - we were completely sold out, and some people even had to stand! ticket sales were going well, but standing room only attendance at these concerts is rare. my performance went pretty well, my first one in a long time.

i am accompanying a wedding next weekend, but after that i'm pretty much free!

hello, my name is miko and i'm an eyeshadow-a-holic...

my newest obsession is eyeshadow. it's addicting! you buy one colour, then suddenly you want to buy more. it's bad. i'm trying to resist though...i'm not as bad as some people i know.

while perusing the different colours available to me, i noticed the humour in the names of eyeshadow colours. some are appropriate, like:
plum dressing
beautiful iris
fresh water
sumputous olive
espresso

but other names turn me off of it, no matter what the colour actually is. for example:
smut
humid
mulch
llama (don't they spit?)
bitter

and other ones that just make me giggle:
ploof! (the ! is actually part of the name. phloof!)
zonk bleu! (ditto!)
aquadisiac
da bling
sweet lust
knight divine
parfait amour (yes, i'll take two)

i wonder if i can get a job naming eyeshadows. i could resurrect "chinese chicken ball sauce red" from grade 11 chemistry class! i wonder if i would get benefits...

congratulations!

belated congratulations to my kindergarten kindred spirit, hayley who gave birth to a baby girl, aven lily morgan, precisely one week ago. i was close to winning the baby pool too!

sorry this post took so long, things have been tooooo busy! hayley, i'm sure you can relate, but in a different kind of way. i will miss seeing your cute outfits, maybe you should keep posting weekly pictures on your blog so i don't go into withdrawal...

note to self...don't be crazy...

i have been keeping busy accompanying students for local music festivals. i am playing for 9 classes in a span of 2 weeks (this week that just finished and next week). this does not include rehearsals; by the end of next week, i will have attended 10 rehearsals. i am also playing in a wedding in a couple weeks. all this on top of working my regular job AND organizing and practicing for a piano teacher concert at my school on april 21. it was a bad idea to schedule the teacher concert in april...duly noted for next year.

puppy love

one of my students in grade 6 at school has a sporadic boyfriend. her mom told me all about the drama, and how she and this boy are friends, and start to date,...then they fight, break up, ignore each other, become friends, start to date again...then have another fight, break up, ignore each other, become friends, and date again. it's a vicious circle, really.

this student, who is quirky and always says what's on her mind, told me that she made up words to one of the songs that she's learning. i didn't want to embarass her by staring at the words, so i can't remember them verbatim, but it went a little like this:

"i wanna c u
c u you everrrry-day
cuz i ♥ u
ALLLLLLRIIIIGHT!"

there was more, but my memory is failing me. it actually goes really well with the melody, so i was impressed. and needless to say, i think things are going well for the happy couple. for now.

on an enstr egg hunt...

one time kris and i were going through some of my old elementary school things, and we came across a story that i wrote in grade 1 about the easter bunny. for some reason though, i thought "easter" was pronounced/spelled "enstr"...i'm not really sure how this came about and why no one corrected me?! maybe i was that girl in grade 1 who couldn't pronounce easter and everyone still laughs about it behind my back today.

anyway, i went searching for cheap enstr chocolate today. it's surprising how fast it sells! i was looking for the mini cadbury cream eggs because i prefer them over the big ones...they're easier to eat and i always feel a little gluttonous eating an entire regular-sized cream egg. i have tried cutting it in half and only eating half, but then the other half just sits and taunts me. and the mini ones are just so cute. at the store, there were no mini cream eggs to be found however...not even big cream eggs, just the ghetto enstr chocolate that no one wants. there was a shopping cart full of it, and being the trooper that i am, i dug to the bottom and ta-da, i found a package of 3 (big) cream eggs for $1! celebration!

i will savour them since they will probably be my last...until next enstr, that is.

include this in your song, alanis!

murphy's law states that when one gets a new car, something will hit it, scratch it, scrape it or dent it.

this happened the first time kris bought the civic - shortly after he got it, someone dinged it with their door. this time, someone misjudged the size of their car and rubbed against our rear fender when our car was parked. we weren't there to witness this deflowering, but the offender left a note for us. that was nice. the foot-long scrape on the side of our brand new car? not so nice.

we're actually surprised that it took 4 days for this to happen...it's amazing that we weren't hit by someone coming out of the dealership parking lot...or while we were still at the dealership...

so the bulk of the day today was spent visiting with the nice people at the collision reporting centre. and repeating our story about 5 times to 5 different people. you'd think they would be able to make their system more efficient so that you can tell one person, they can enter it into the computer, and wham, bam, thank you ma'am, you're done. but no, we told the story 5 times. we were surprised when the last person we talked to said we could go since photos had been taken, when we didn't see anyone take photos. we went to our car, and there was the sticker that they put on dents saying it was reported to the police which means someone was there. so very stealth of them! this leads me to believe that they ask you your story 5 times to see if they can catch you in a lie. that's even more stealth than seth cohen stealth!

i'm considering naming the car midge since she looks all butchy and beat up now, just like scout did around christmas time. we'll see if the name sticks...

oh, and if you're wondering, the remedy for sadness over a scratched up car? new eyeshadow, of course! yay, eyeshadow!

surrounded by idiots, part ii

i think it's very sad that my post about beingsurrounded by idiots has now become a series. i much prefer my "people who look like people" series.

so i try to take out the garbage today. in a condo, "taking out the garbage" consists of walking out about 10 footsteps down the hallway and throwing it down the chute. this is why i like condo living.

however, some idiot tried to put a way-too-big garbage bag down the chute. this chute only works for small- to medium-sized garbage bags. it does not work for ridiculously-obese-containing-three-weeks-of-garbage garbage bags. this person not only tried to stuff said bag into the chute, but upon realizing that it was too big, just pushed it in as far as s/he could, and left it. so now it's stuck. do this person SERIOUSLY think it will go down the chute itself? or perhaps s/he's waiting for the garbage to decompose, thereby shrinking the mass of refuse, so maybe in 25 years, it will go down by itself?

i wonder if it's our smoky neighbours...

bah!

the eighth wonder of the world

we got frostys (frosties?) from wendy's today. we got straws with it so opted to drink it rather than spoon it. this is the first time i've ever done this with a frosty, and it actually affected the taste. it reminded me of pretend whipped cream or the icing on store-bought cakes. some people like these things, but i don't; they waken my gag reflex. blech. how can something that tastes so good taste so bad? it's not like the components of the frosty itself have changed, just the method of ingestion. this phenomenon should be the eighth wonder of the world.

lesson learned. never again will i drink a frosty.

honda family

our accord has been giving us some problems as of late. we were going to trade it in in july, but since we had to replace a bunch of things in it now, we figured we would just get the new car now. it's a good thing too, i just barely qualified for the graduate rebate - had we waited until july, it would have been too late.

after much deliberation, we decided on the acura TSX - this means we are still a honda family. we got a great deal on it, and i somehow got roped into teaching a free lesson to the salesman's son?! but, on a plus side, he left us a bottle of wine in the glove compartment when we picked it up today. oh, and another plus? we have a pretty car that talks to us!

we have to come up with a name for the car. i am tossing around a few ideas but nothing concrete yet.

oh, and i'll post a picture once i take one. kris wouldn't let me take the camera to the dealership...such a wet blanket...