thank you for smoking...not

there is talk about making apartment buildings smoke-free. this would be fantastic since we have two nicotine chimneys for neighbours.

it's one thing to smoke in your own unit and give yourself lung cancer. it's another thing to subject your neighbours to the smell of stale smoke in the hallway. and yet another thing to smoke inside when you have access to a covered balcony.

that's not all. their smoking is so intense, we can sometimes smell it in our suite. and they aren't even our direct neighbours, they live two suites down from us.

i'm told there are condos that don't allow you to have pets. seriously, you can't have a nice, well-behaved cat, but you're allowed to spread cancer to strangers through second-hand smoke diffusing through their home??


so everytime we smell smoke in the hallway, kris and i have a script, which we recite loudly:

both: *sniff...sniff*
miko: "smells like..."
kris: "cigarettes!"
both: "UGH!!"

i wonder if they will ever get the hint. it's doubtful. these are the neighbours that directly ignored us when we said hi when we first moved in. not only are they smelly and inconsiderate, they're mean.

green miko

in trying to do our part for the environment, we bought some reuseable grocery bags. they're so cute and they are 5 for $5! what a steal!

the design makes me wish i wasn't allergic to kiwi fruit:



then i remembered how kiwi fruit makes the inside of my ears itchy and i don't feel so bad.

people who look like people, part vi

my two subjects this time around are both named taylor. i didn't actually clue into this resemblance until today. i had a crush on taylor hanson in high school and helps explain why i have a currently have a crush on taylor kitsch.

who is taylor kitsch, you say? why, i'm glad you asked! he plays tim riggins on friday night lights:




compare to taylor hanson, from the mmm-boppin' boy band from the '90s, hanson:




you may remember taylor hanson better in this picture:



*giggles like a school girl*

re: my favourite mistake

i really think this episode should have been called "operation: be kind, rewind"...haha! it's funny how you don't think about certain things and then suddenly it's brought up and you realize how old you really are. like, kids now have no idea what "be kind, rewind" means because you don't have to rewind dvds. just like kids don't know that oprah used to be a trashy talk show. or that icq came before MSN and was way cooler. i could go on...

the big question - will george and izzie be able to keep the secret? my humble opinion? of course not! this is tv. why would they even bother bringing up the secret if they weren't going to keep it? too bad that george will be dead once his father-in-law finds out what he did. i will miss george when he's dead.

i can't remember if i blogged about this before, but i hate that grey's makes adultery seem okay...even glorifies it...why can't they make relationships happen between single people? i guess there is less drama in that kind of relationship.

this episode was kind of the quiet side...i guess that's okay, not everything can be thunderbolts-and-lightening-very-very-frightening-me all the time, right? they did tie up some loose ends, like the apparent time warp from the episode where meredith died, burktina's argument so now they're happy again (they'll probably call off the engagement next week though), the interview for chief...

speaking of which, i'm not really enjoying that storyline. why would sloan get a leg up? even if he had a fantastic interview, why was he interviewing in the first place? he makes his interns fetch him coffee and dry-cleaning. can you imagine what he would do if he was in charge of the hospital?! and he just stole bailey's words. stupid sloan.

and finally. i absolutely love the chemistry that mer and der have. it's just so...lovey-dovey. i can't believe they aren't in love in real life. and i can't believe more tabloids aren't writing stories about how they're not in love in real life. the hovering? and the look they shared when meredith made dead mommy proud? so cute. derek seems to be getting a white stripe of hair, making him look a little skunky. that's okay. he can be my skunk.

i'm surrounded by idiots (present company excluded)

a few weekends ago, kris and i drove to work separately but came home at the same time. we discovered someone was parked in our very expensive extended parking spot. we think the owner of this car decided to take our spot because he didn't want to dish out the extra cash for the parking spot that would fit two cars. he parked at the very end of our spot so even if we wanted to park one of our cars and block him in, we couldn't. i will call this "perp" mr. impala to help with the telling of this story. mr. impala could be a female, but it's just easier to assume he's male.

he was left nasty notes from the concierge desk and he eventually moved. then we started looking for mr. impala's car (coincidentally - it's an impala!) in the garage to see if he is a building resident. he is indeed - he parked in the visitor parking everyday. then due to our complaints, the building management company made an announcement, saying that all cars in the visitor parking will be tagged/towed unless they are signed in the parking log.

suddenly mr. impala doesn't have anywhere to park. he knows our spot is taken, so he parks in the spot next to ours, which we know does not belong to him.

this guy is an idiot. okay. it's one thing to steal someone's parking spot. it's another to choose the best spots in the garage possible. did he even try to steal the spot that is in the back corner, furthest from the entrance? noooh, he goes straight for the money spots. if you're going to steal something, you should at least be smart about it.

and then there's a stop sign at the end of our street. someone keeps running over it?! this is the third time it's been run over since the stop sign's birth date of december 2006. each time, the city would replace it with a new stop sign, but this time, they just re-erected the old sign. so it's all crumpled with tire treads on it, but i guess they couldn't afford to keep replacing it with a new one. because someone keeps running over it. you know, the next time i'm bored and thinking of something to do, i think i'll run over a stop sign. anyone want to come with? this idiot is probably mr. impala.

regardless...i rest my case. surrounded by idiots!

frizzy miko

i bought "frizz-ease" shampoo by john frieda. it's supposed to reduce frizz which is what i look for in a shampoo (cue to miko pictures circa 1991-1998).

i had high expectations for this shampoo. this probably led to its demise, since i was terribly disappointed by it's performance. it made my hair frizzy! i would flat-iron my hair because it was so pouffy after blow-drying it, and it would be less pouffy, but still frizzy. and the colour of my hair was really flat, kind of a mouse-y dark brown. it's amazing how much shampoo can affect the look of your hair. so i've switched to bed head's "self-absorbed" shampoo. it's wonderful! it smells like orange sherbet...i have to restrain from eating it and best of all, it works great.

so...anyone want a "de-frizzing" shampoo?

bribery schmribery

i have accepted a new position at work. this position will allow me to work more days while retaining some of my students. this means i will no longer be home at 10pm on weeknights, but more like 6pm. yay!

since i'm reducing teaching, i have to let some students go for september. this was a hard decision since i love my students. i teach two brothers and they belong to the group of the students that will be displaced. they brought me a necklace from the dominican. it's not really anything i would wear, but the sentiment is so sweet. then the boys' mom said "see, i don't see anyone else bringing you jewellery, you should really keep us as students...what else would you like, we can bring that for you next week!" ulterior motives, i see.

this reduction in teaching could turn into a lucrative industry...hmmm...i should start telling students that i'm taking bribes. "a new car? oh no, you shouldn't have!"

another poo incident

this really needs to stop...

so when we're not home, we leave scout in our bedroom. we started doing this when she started drinking the christmas tree water, but we have continued to do this once christmas was over (it has since resulted in fewer pawprints on the counter and pulled threads on our rug). there is a door leading from our bedroom to the bathroom - kind of like an ensuite, but not really since it's the only bathroom we have. we always keep this open while scout is locked in the bedroom in case she needs to use her literbox, which is in the bathroom.

you can see where this going.

we accidentally closed the bathroom door open today. we weren't even gone a long time, but we came home and realized we left the door shut. no big deal, scout seemed fine...happy and cute as always.

sometimes i just throw myself on the bed upon returning home because i'm apparently addicted to sleeping. it's a good thing i didn't do this today because scout left us a present. a very big present that matched the chocolate brown colour of our duvet cover perfectly. and this gift didn't smell like chocolate, i can tell you that.

i am so serious about my blogging that i now wish i had taken a picture of the pile of poo on our bed for your enjoyment...but at the time, i was more disgusted and wanting to get the poo as far away from my sleeping quarters as possible. it's probably better this way - i am guessing a picture of a pile of brown poo on my poo brown duvet cover on my poo brown blog wouldn't be as interesting for people as i think it would be.

the good thing is that the poo was exactly in the middle of the bed. this means that scout doesn't blame one of us for leaving the door closed. although i do think she likes me better, so technically she should have pooed more on kris' side of the bed. i'll talk to her about that for next time, if there is a next time...i hope there won't be a next time...

re: scars and souvenirs

oh no.

there goes the last platonic relationship in the hospital. that is, unless addison and bailey decide to become lesbians.

izzie and george. george and izzie. george sticking two feet and a knee in his mouth by using izzie's supermodel looks to explain why she could never be into him. as he was saying it, i was thinking in my head that the guy has a point, not even realizing the insinuation until callie's face fell. insecure callie. poor callie.

what is UP with george and his inappropriate liaisons?! he sleeps with olivia. contracts syphillis. sleeps with meredith. contracts a broken heart and a broken friendship for a while. sleeps with izzie. contracts...a divorce?! meredith is always touted as the one who makes bad decisions, but i think george takes the cake here.

and roger rees, aka robin colcord as dr. colin marlow? talk about a blast from the past. he has gotten really old-looking since the days he was on cheers. i guess that was a long time ago. his OR scrubs were hilarious - so symbolic with the evil black, but where did those come from? every other visiting doctor person has normal coloured scrubs...this guy whips out the could-be-on-a-zero-dark-commercial black scrubs. he reminded me of general zod from superman 2:



everytime he was on the screen i giggled and wondered if laser beams were going to shoot out of his eyes.

burktina. burke had a very valid point...when he was shot and it was unsure whether he would be able to operate again, i wondered if cristina would stay with him at all. what happens when he no longer has anything to teach her? will she leave him too, like she left general zod? (giggle)

i really liked this episode...the bomb episode where meredith almost died or the drowning episode where meredith almost died was exciting and suspenseful, but i prefer these kinds of episodes. good character development, some nice side stories and the required thematic thread running throughout.

now i await the writer's blog...

the grape-gobblin' goblin

we were at a fruit store, standing in line to pay.

as we were waiting, i noticed there was a girl ahead of us...she was holding a big bag of grapes. she was taking out grapes and eating them nonchalently. she was young and i didn't want to assume the worst of this criminalette...so i thought that she just didn't know that the grapes were priced by weight, and by her eating them, she is essentially stealing. but she was at least 17 years old, definitely old enough to know better. and she started being more suspicious; she started kind of ducking behind the person in front of her...dipping her hand into her bag and taking out many grapes at once instead of just one at a time...then shoving the grapes in her mouth while looking around to see if anyone was watching her. she might as well have walked into a bank wearing a black and white striped jumpsuit and a mask, clutching a canvas bag with a dollar sign on it in her grubby little hands.

seriously...who does that?! i wasn't going to confront the grape-gobblin' goblin because we all know how dangerous fruit-filchers are. so instead i bought grapes myself. because she was doing a really good job of making them look delectable. mmm...grapes.