OK, my irrational guilt over the TV purchase has passed as quickly and mysteriously as it arrived, I think. I still will donate to my favourite charity as an attempt to throw something onto the positive side of the karmic scales, especially since my volunteer involvement ended with my move down here.
Now my free-floating anxiety is fixated on earthquakes. I'd think I was a patsy of the media, it being the anniversary of The Big One, but this has been a low-grade source of stress for me since we moved here. A life in Saskatchewan just doesn't prepare you for living through huge disasters (the Devine government aside *rimshot*).
And the more I read, the more worried I get. There is a simple solution to that, of course,* but I do want to be prepared.
Oh, I'm just a festering swamp of neuroses these days. Don't mind me. Honestly, everything's fine and we're lucky and happy to be here.
This weekend we're having a Ukrainian Easter buffet to introduce our friends here to the wonders of perogies, holuptsi, beetniks, cheese buns, babka, and horseradish eggs. This is turning out to be a fair amount of fiddly cooking. When I commented to R:tAG about how much of The Cuisine Of His People was little bits of things wrapped around other little bits of things, he screamed "Stop oppressing my culture, you ethnocentric bitch!" which had me rolling about laughing for a good long time. Ah, OOTS, you make everything better.
* "When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading." -Henny Youngman
Well.
You know, there *are* huge disasters 'back home' (the Devine guvviment aside). Once, we ran out of whipping cream at the store. That's a disaster. Another time, it rained on my birthday. Once there was this tornado (I read about that in a magazine), and another time, something flooded. Oh, and hail. There's hail. Sometimes, "they" let Jim Pankiw speak in public. That's a disaster (although, I don't know about "natural"). Oh, and Windy the Clown was allowed into elementary schools for at least five years, which is in istelf a disaster, but also the fallout from finding out he was molesting kids. Like you couldn't see *that* coming like a prairie dust storm on a sunny day.
Really, you already know all there is to know about earthquakes. Of course, the ubiquitous "duck and cover" (although it's quite a lot more difficult to cover oneself with a duck than one would at first imagine; particularly if said duck is still animate. Less surprising than one might imagine if one assumed that ducks have no sphincter control, though), and the standing in doorways. I'm sure the spiders you have in your house have manged to increase the structural integrity of your doorways. They're native to the area. They know about these things.
At least you didn't mention to R:tAG that the Cuisine of His People is mostly all beige. Although maybe you should, to see what else he can do to make you roll about laughing.
Anyway, we're in the midst of another huge disaster which never gets any media coverage : "In Which the Stuff What Bunged up the House in Winter is Tidied, Cleaned, and Disposed of in Spring". Nasty business.
Just so you feel more at ease, here's a bit of earthquake safety I've rarely seen in the pamphlets:
Never run out of a multi-story building immediately after a medium to big one. The chances of being crushed by the thing collapsing are apparently less than the chances of being sliced to ribbons by falling glass from the upper floors. A minute to let things settle should be enough.
However, it should be balanced with the old African miner's saying: When the roof talks, it's time to leave.
Quack baby.
You tell her RM! Our cuisine may be beige wrapped bits, but it's damn tasty!
ACS - I sent you an email, but it might be an old address. Check yahoo!
You tell her RM! Our cuisine may be beige wrapped bits, but it's damn tasty!
ACS - I sent you an email, but it might be an old address. Check yahoo!