LoveHate

Three Things I Hate:

1. Leaf blowers. Seriously? There are 17 cherry blossoms on the ground so you’re going to pull out a giant machine, fill it with gas, strap it to your back and then deafen an entire street full of people? I would think carrying a machine that size on your back would be way more work than just taking out a broom and sweeping the street.

2. The dollar store on 6th street that also sells flowers and plants. On the sidewalk. Picture it: you’re walking along, singing your song and suddenly the sidewalk narrows. There are plants to the right of you and plants to the left. You are proceeding single file now, behind a long line of people. Then the line of people comes to a halt because Judy sees her favourite pepper plant is on sale. Squee! Let’s all stand here in the middle of the sidewalk because we can’t get around each other because there are too many goddamn flowers everywhere! The flowers and plants are like plaque on the artery that is the sidewalk. I am not begrudging Judy her pepper plant or Betty her red tulips, I LOVE tulips actually and plants too, I am not a plant hater, but the sidewalk needs to be wide enough for people to pass each other.

It’s not a market. It’s a dollar store. And this is a public thoroughfare. Get out of my road.

3. Hairy eyeball from drivers in school zones when you slow down to the school zone speed limit which, hi! news flash! is not 60, 80 or 100 KM/hr but in fact 30. I am going 30. It’s only for two blocks. If you were walking on 6th street past the dollar store with the flowers right now you would be going 0 KM/hr so be grateful. Yeah, you can wave at me all you want. I will call you names and hope you get a ticket.

Three things I love:

1. Public health. Again and again. We had Fresco immunized today and it was so nice, so much better than Dr. Incompetent. Plus, I got a bookmark that taught me the correct age for a booster seat. Trombone can sit in a booster seat now!

2. This girl I met yesterday at my writers’ group meeting said, “If you take your cupcake apart and put the bottom on top? You get an icing sandwich.”

Think about it. Now tell me you don’t want to go do that RIGHT NOW.

3. My wall calendar has no last week of April. It ended on April 24th. Right now, I am not here. I am either in the future or the past, I haven’t decided yet, but I am not on April 29th because I rely on my calendar – yes, a wall calendar, not an iPhone or an iPony or an iSsistant – to tell me what day it is. Every day this week I have scanned the calendar when I walk by and every day I do a double take because Today Doesn’t Exist and so is Totally Magic.

See?