Shy’s Drive Thru post is right on but that’s pretty much why I avoid these Car line ups at Tim Hortons or whatever. Get off your butt, burn some calories, and then get your snack on. Drive Thru’s tend to take just as long or longer if there is more than 1 car in it. Drive Thru ABMS!!! Evil. At $1+ a litre I’m not doing any gas companies a favour by extra IDLING. Hell I may even try ALL the Vegan cleaning my friend uses. She mentioned that all of thes guys’ products have no PETROchemicals in them (all vegetable based). I used the dishwasher stuff and it’s better than the “real stuff’. Now mag is on the same page this week too GREEEN CLEAN. I’m sure this stuff costs a bit more but hell the less you feed the OIL monster the better… Scared enviro clean??? Whatever I’m switching to the new drug and cutting down the oil thing. Don’t know that I can kick 100% though…LoL

The other day, while caving and sucummbing to the evil luncheon-911 known more popularly as the Mc-drive-thru, I found myself lining up behind this woman and her passenger.

I sat there and waited. And while waiting, I watched as she opened her window to litter little bits and pieces of paper.

My pet peeve are people who litter. ESPECIALLY as she had a garbage can next to the passeger’s side of the car. How hard could it have been to ask the person sitting there to dispoase of the garbage in a more appropriate manner?

If THAT weren’t enough, after she grabbed her lunch, she proceeded forward but stopped so that I wasn’t able to pull up to the 2nd window. I waited a little thinking maybe she was just checking to see if there were any traffic coming her way. Fair enough.. it’s a busy parking lot so it’s always possible.

But then… she continued to just idle there. Chatting away with her friend and not doing much else.

So I gave a quit and short honk to let her know that she was obstrucing traffic.

She looked in her rear view mirror and then…

Continued idling that damn car of hers.

Part of me wanted to get out just so I could ask her what the hell she was doing… and in the process, pick up the litter so I could give it back to her.

However, I stopped and thought to myself, “Wait a sec… what kind of person might I be dealing with? Seriously… how insane must she be to just not care if she is blocking the traffic of said Mc D’s drive thru? And then just continue sitting there after the next customer honks at her to edge up a least a two feet?”

I decided to not do anything. I sat there and wait. Afterall, the world is filled with crazy people. I didn’t need to meet people like that anytime soon.

Do you remember when they had us stop the singing of O Canada in school? I don’t think as a kid I gave it much thought, it just stopped and then we just had the song playing over the speakers in our school without singing. Does anyone have any memories of that?

What brought this on was my thinking about how school children in the US are brought up young to pledge allegiance to the Flag, which to most embodies the pres and the country usually. I was imagining how weird that is, I guess though that girl and boy scouts pledge to the queen. (or so I heard) Have you ever had to mouth allegiance like that day after day?

Wow the wind was whistling this morning. It was blowing my windchimes… which are indoors, and my window was closed. I guess it makes its way in through any little crack it can find. During the winter, I shove my curtains up close to the window to keep out drafts.

Oh the things we get used to! I take the 25 Don Mills bus north when I need to get to Eglinton, Lawrence etc. I come out of my building and look to see if I notice any buses approaching. I live on two different routes so the bus could be either the 100 Flemingdon Park or the 25 Don Mills.

Now, the 100 Flemingdon consists of all ‘new’ buses, (those with blue lights near the bright orange lettered-route information display) and the 25 were all older, regular buses. I don’t know when the switch happened but last night I saw a bus approach with blue lights and so I sat back down on the bench and kept reading. Too late I saw the number ’25’ receding in the distance.

I suppose that teaches me to not let myself be so accustomed to something that I stop looking!

I have new plastic! Thanks to some inspiration from Shy (seems to be a lot of inspiration happening in this blog lately), I took my daughter to the local library yesterday after school. We left with brand new library cards. She thinks it’s like a credit card. I think it’s better because there isn’t a bill.

I haven’t had a library card since…they were paper. Guess that probably means that it’s been a very long time indeed. I must agree with Shy that we certainly have a wonderful library system in this city. Our local library has a great section for children – kiddy computers with educational games, a well-stocked book section with comfy armchairs just perfect for curling up with a good book. I love If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. *I’ve been a stay-at-home mom for too long*. My daughter was thrilled to take 5 books home yesterday. They also have a nice selection of kid’s DVDs that we’ll be browsing through more thoroughly next visit.

It was decadent to sit down with an armful of the latest issues of Martha Stewart Living, Home, Harper’s Bazaar and Flare (for Canadian content). I’ll be saving a nice chunk of cash by reading them there. And I won’t have old magazines sitting around gathering dust. Thank goodness.

This nerd even went online last night to request holds be placed on a few books I’ve been meaning to read for a very long time. Is that sexy or what! Ha! It’s a whole new rediscovery this business of being at the library. And it’s all high-tech now. Remember when books had pockets with card inserts that the librarian stamped the due date onto? I’ve said too much – now I’m dating myself.

On that note, I’ll be doing a lot less rambling and a lot more reading…for free!

I guess my hopes were a bit high. Yes I saw the Leafs lose to BUFFALO!!! Glad I didn’t drop the $100 for such Exhibiton play. The Leafs aren’t quite a “team” yet. The highlight though was the shoot out. The game was almost a blow out but for the pre-season, regardless of score, they have 5 min of penalty shots. VERY COOL. After 20+ shots on goal a chip in the great goal tending from both sides appeared. DOMI scored the only goal! Yeah Leafs! At least they won the shoot out…

So this city has gone condo crazy. They’re popping up eyesores all over the GTA like zits on a teenage kid. Average prices of these moronic places are ridiculous nearing close to half a million dollars. What’s more is maintenance fees rise on what seems to be a quarterly basis now. Most people living in these condo’s are barely making their mortgage payments and on top of that have maintenance to worry about which can some times be as high as their rent.

Lorraine’s previous post inspired me enough to write this up finally.
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I moved into my apartment about 3 years ago. I decided to find a local family doctor, rather than drive an hour to see my old one, where my parents live. Okay. So I make appointments with her, and so forth. Last time I tried to, they said they couldn’t make an appointment, because she is only doing walk-in work at that clinic for the next little while, I think they said a month. So I just walked in with no appointment and saw a random doctor.

So do I really have a “family doctor” if she won’t take appointments? Have I been punk’d by the Ontario health care system? I heard of people not being able to find a family doctor but I never thought it would happen to me. Wait! Where’s my extra health care tax thingy going? Hmph!

Lemme tell you what I don’t understand.

My apartment building doesn’t require a key to get from the parking garage to the elevator. It requires a key to get from the elevator to the parking garage, the same one you use to open the garage door to drive your car in. Okay. That is weird; I would expect it to be the other way around, so that it’s the building that is secure from people coming in, instead of the parking garage being secure from people trying to go out. Fine.

Tonight, at about 12:30, ie half past midnight, I go from my car to the elevator, and when I open the door it hits a suitcase, frightening the life out of me. A family is waiting, with a large suitcase, to get into the parking garage. Am I missing something here? If they have a car, surely they have the entrance key? Guess not. I hope they didn’t miss their flight or anything waiting for me to happen along. This has happened before, people asking me to let them into the parking garage so they can access their car.

What else happens, is when I am driving my car in, some person will sneak in on foot, behind me, walking into the parking garage, instead of going in the front door. Yes, I feel secure. I wrote a letter to the building manager about it when I moved in cause I didn’t feel right about it. From time to time I still see people do this. I wonder if the family doesn’t have enough lobby entrance keys, so some family members enter through the parking garage car door.

Am I missing something? Is this normal apartment building stuff?