Adventures with Swedish furniture

I went to IKEA with my parents today. It was a spur of the moment thing (my mother asked me if I was interested at the gym this morning) and I went along because I wanted one of those "thingys" that hangs over the couch armrest with pouches to put your remotes and TV guide in. My parents have one, my sister has one, I felt I should join the clan.

Anyway, my mother printed out the directions from the internet. I should have known this would not work the same way it does for other people, but whatever. We hit the road and were doing fine until a road we were looking for turned out to be for bicycles only. Er ... okay. So we drive around a bit. Eventually, after a few U-turns and some guess work, we got there.

We went straight to the restaurant because, let's face it, that's the best part of a day at IKEA. We all got Swedish meatballs and fries and devoured the lot. It was great.

Then we headed into the actual store. I can't tell you a lot about it as there was so much to see that I got a bit of an information overload but it was a good bit of fun. We had a laugh at some of the interiors and tested pretty much every couch and seat (I tried out a few beds as well). I saw a lot of shelf possibilities that I would like to use in my living room. I didn't get any yet (wouldn't have fit in the car and I hadn't measured anything) but I have loads of ideas now.

While we were walking around the accessory area I bought myself a lovely oven dish (hey, I may use it someday) and I remembered that the clock in my bathroom needed replacing. I also bought a new pillow as mine is fairly well shot.

My parents bought new wine goblets, pillows, a pan set that was on sale, a TV cabinet for the TV in the attic - yes, the TV in the attic - and some cutting boards. All in all, I think we were there for two, maybe three hours and we walked forever. My feet even hurt at the end of it all!

Luckily the drive home was easier than the drive in and I was dropped off at home where the cats were waiting for me and I told them all about my lovely day. And that's when I realized that I hadn't bought the remote control thingy.

Typical.

:)

Bodyguard to the Famous

I used to buy nearly every tabloid going. Mostly so I could roll my eyes at the "says a source close to the troubled couple" and other such delightfully vague "facts". Oh, and I wanted to see celeb cellulite and make-up free faces so that my own imperfections looked trivial by comparison.

I realize fully that my purchase fed the monster that occasionally made me say "Why can't they just leave him/her/them alone?!" Enough already.

I clearly remember my turning point. It was the death of that lovely talent Heath Ledger. Every. Single. Publication. Going. wanted it to be suicide . Every last one was chomping at the bit to be the one to publish the juiciest, dirtiest detail surrounding his passing. They were all too eager to kick the corpse and feed like vultures on the remains. The front pages alone were enough to make you sick.

So I stopped buying every last one of them. Their hurried amendments after the official coroner's report and sickening tributes to his genius couldn't lure me back.

None of this stopped my passing interest in celebrity goings-on, however. And there are a few things I'd like to say about that.

Firstly, my interest in famous people comes from a shared experience angle (and a slight envy of whatever talent they may - or may not - have). Not that I am sharing the experience with them but that most of their experiences are so endearingly human. The DUI, the drunken party, the break-up, the infidelity, the kids, the hair cuts, the clothes - we've seen it all around us in "normal" friends and neighbours and, like the orange dimpled bottoms, it's comforting to know that, underneath the designer clothes, they are just as fallible as we are.

Of course, the majority of readers expects their celeb of choice/obsession to be better than your average human. God-like, if you will. Not so for me. I like when they have mayonnaise down their fronts and frown lines from squinting into the sun, slack-jawed. I like when they trip in public. I get annoyed at the fact that so many people demand public apologies for any indiscretion made by a celeb. Piss off. What did they do to you, personally? Besides slip off the pedestal you put them on, that is.

Having said all of that, I do realize that we've taken our invasion of celebrity privacy way too far. I have shaken my head many a time, muttering about the media being a large part of the problem. All too ready to build a star up so that they can tear them down with that much more efficiency. Most celebs wouldn't fall so deep into the hole if the media hadn't built them up so high in the first place.

Has that inspired me to bodyguard a celeb's right to privacy, though? Oh hell no. I don't get the people that do, to be honest. What drives the "leave Britney alone!!" types? I find them just as creepy as the ones digging through the trash and scrap-booking every magazine article. "It's none of our business", "They have a right to a private life". Of course they do and, to me this is obvious, the largest, possibly most important part of their life is private. I highly doubt they are sitting there waiting for their stalwart bulldog fans to champion their interests. There's a whole different type of mania that drives some people to rush to a celeb's aid. Hero complex rather than hero worship? Will Celeb X see me telling everyone to leave them alone and feel they can trust me? Wouldn't surprise me in the least if that was the train of thought. By the way, are Britney Spears and Chris Cocker BFFs now? Hmm? Didn't think so.

I find the most endearing part of celebrities to be their humanity. Therefore I simply cannot pretend they don't have it. I promise not to go rooting through their trash or driving by their homes, but I refuse to lose interest. After all, where would they be if all of their fans lost interest?

xxx

Confrontational Unemployment

If you don't count the summer vacation, I have been unemployed for three weeks now. Officially, I have been unemployed for 5½ weeks.

Without the stress and, honestly, distraction of work I have had some time to self-reflect. Not all discoveries have been surprising. For example: I already knew that I love sleeping in. It's not even really sleeping anymore after a certain point. I just like staying in bed. With a book, with a puzzle book or some music - bliss. Without the obligation of work, I could easily spend every day in my pyjamas. But I already knew that from years of school vacations. Give me a week off and, if someone else doesn't plan something for me to do, I will spend that week in bed.

Another thing I already knew about myself was that I can become easily obsessed with things. When something catches my interest, I don't go with it, I take it everywhere. Guys, cigarettes, bands, TV shows, puzzle books, alcohol - I've clocked my fair share of Obsess Much (OM) time with all of them. And some of them still get more than their fair amount of attention from me. This character trait has become evident again in my frequent visits to the gym.

At first I went to the gym a few times a week in order to get my money's worth out of my gym subscription. No point in having one if I never went, right? Now, without a job to distract me, it's become pretty much the only thing I actually do. So I go 5-6 times a week. Sometimes twice a day. The death blow in this case was getting "a chart". A list of weight machines and cardio exercises to do two or three times a week to improve my condition and strength. Fair enough, I hear you think, what's the problem? The problem is that the results can be measured. And some of them don't even have a six week waiting time! I can see results right there on the screen of the cardio machines! Like rowing. My first time on the rowing machine I was "racing" my mother on the machine next to me. I wanted to complete the 2000m faster than she did. And I did. I finished in 10 minutes and 35 seconds, she finished in 10 minutes and 55 seconds. I wanted to do even better than that. So today, I wasn't racing my mother anymore, I was racing myself and my "old" time. I wanted to get in under 10 minutes. I felt like I was going to either throw up or die at one point but I made it in 9:59.8 and the feeling of satisfaction was tremendous.

I already know that I will want to do it faster than that next time. And I might even nearly kill myself in the attempt. Gradual improvements, my ass. Leaps and bounds is what I am after.

Anyone who knows me knows that I can be obsessive. They also know I would rather be lazy than tired so this whole gym thing is kind of a surprise. What gives with the health stuff all of a sudden? I have no answer. Maybe I will contemplate that later on.

I am getting a bit worried, though. Nothing major as I am still blissfully stress-free, but there are a few doubts creeping in here and there. While I am sometimes a bit bored without a job, I am still not really in a hurry to find a new one. All this fabulous free time is too precious a commodity at the moment. But ... what if I grow to really like not having to work? What if I turn into one of those people who just can't rejoin the work force?

On the other hand, I can feel myself getting twitchy and will want to do something other than read books and go to the gym at some point. The problem there is that I still don't know what I want to do. So far my best plan is to find some part-time temp job somewhere to at least give me a purpose a few days a week. Hardly a fitting occupation for someone who prides herself on her intellect.

*le sigh*

I know what my interests are and I know what my degree is in and they, sadly, don't correlate at the moment. Brilliantly, I can't even think of another degree to go for to get closer to my interests.

And so, I wait. Surely the answers and solutions will fall into my lap sooner or later. Right?

-----

"People are always saying you should be yourself, like yourself is this definite thing, like a toaster. Like you know what it is even. But every so often I'll have, like, a moment, where just being myself in my life right where I am is, like, enough."

Angela Chase, My So-Called Life

Pub Quiz - Test Your General Knowledge

Last night I went to Flanagan's Irish Pub's Murphy's Pub Quiz. Wow, that's a lot of apostrophes!

We came in 6th out of 14 teams. Not fantastic but not too shabby, either.

Here are some of the questions we got. Stars indicate questions we got right. Two stars mean I was the one that provided the correct answer. :)

1. Who is the frontman of the band Black Sabbath? **
2. How long is the term of a French president? *
3. What two sports are governed by the WPBSA?
4. In which city is the Palais de Luxembourg?
5. Who introduced the H and A line in the 1950s?
6. What does a vinometer measure in wine?
7. Which film role won two Oscars? (I still think my answer was good)
8. Who performed the theme song for the movie Top Gun? **
9. Which country did the word Christmas come from?
10. Which instrument, found left of the conductor, traditionally leads the orchestra?
11. What is Friday in French? **
12. Which TV show had the band Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem? **
13. Which film sees John Cleese as a manic school teacher obsessed with time? *
14. When China became a republic in 1912, which dynasty was overthrown: the Manchu, the Ming or the Tang? **
15. How many countries does the Amazon river flow through? *
16. Which European capital is on the Manzanares river?
17. Which animated TV series has a robot named Bender? **
18. Which Parisian orientation point is a war monument with 282 steps?
19. England had beheading, France had the guillotine, what did Spain have?
20. In Priscilla, Queen of the Desert - what is Priscilla? (I got this right, I even wrote it down and then it got changed)
21. What comes after 1 BC? *
22. In the biographical movie Lady Sings the Blues, which jazz singer's life was portrayed by Diana Ross?
23. For what crime was Al Capone eventually jailed? *
24. In WWII, who was the feared Nazi leader of the SS?
25. A dabloon is originally from what country?
26. What Greek word means "we can act anything?" *
27. Which city are the Academy Awards held in? **
28. What independant state was formed after the war between India and Pakistan?
29. Which sport's name is derived from the French word meaning crooked stick and is played 10 aside by men and 12 aside by women? **
30. In medieval France a woman had to run down the street naked chasing a chicken as punishment for what crime? *

The picture round was a collection of 10 celebrities who's pictures were shown in negative. We could have had all of them right except we didn't write down Renée Zellweger, even though we did think it might be her.

The music round consisted of Eurovision Song Festival songs. "All we had to do" was write down what country it was from. Embarrassingly, we even managed to get 4 right out of ten. The winning team had 7 right. Ew.

It was a fun night, though. I forgot how much fun a pub quiz could be.

PS: Answers to quiz questions in the comments. I may even get around to letting you know what the official answers were! ;)