adventures in air-con

i traveled with my parents all over the greater surrey region (including south surrey and parts of langley/white rock) in search of a portable air-conditioner for my parents. traveled from big box store to big box store (all blessedly air-conditioned) only to find out that all air conditioning units & fans (of the non-ceiling fan variety) were sold out. everywhere. well, not true. at "canadian tire" they had a $10 "desk fan" that looked like it could cool one of my elbows. at most.

as a consequence of the trek through vast swathes of suburbia, i did get to check out the super duper crazy huge "wal-mart" in south surrey. it puts "target" on atlantic avenue to shame. the square footage of this "wal-mart" might actually rival that of rhode island. seriously. it's huge. you need homing devices just to find your way back to the entrance. "wal-mart", "home de(s)pot", "canadian tire", and all the other places we either went to check out (just cause we were in the 'hood -- which means we were a 20 minute drive away) or called were all out of stock on air-conditioners. nothing left. (my dad made me walk around the stores because he didn't think the salespeople working the department would really know if all of the units were gone!) "home depot" said they'd get another shipment in the following day, but couldn't say when they'd receive it (their last shipment of air-conditioners arrived at noon and sold out in an hour -- when did air conditioners in the lower mainland become as scarce as U2 tickets during the "achtung baby" tour? -- anyway, they advised us to call them at 6 AM (!!) and to be prepared to be there at 7 AM (!!) for an air conditioner. suffice it to say, we didn't call or show up. lucky, lucky -- the heat appears to be breaking or i'm just recalling the halcyon days of NYC and dealing.

as for "(500) days of summer" -- the movie is great! compelling characters, great narrative. but. the movie theatre lost power at the most critical point of the plot (where all the windows into the motivations and actions of the female lead were to be opened unto a sky of blue). and something was wrong with their generators. power was out not in the city, not on the street ... just the movie theatre. at first, they said it would be right on again, but after about 15 minutes of waiting around, they told us it's a no-go. all the movies for the rest of the night were canceled and we got free movie vouchers (only 1 apiece though). i'm surprisingly less upset about it today, now that i have had time to ruminate on what could possibly have been the end of the film. it's a choose-you-own-adventure in a way. maybe i'll drop all my films at 10-15 minutes before the end?

the last day.point.five has been awesome: hanging out with friends and doing normal friend-type things that people do when they live in the same city and aren't in town for a hot minute and proceeding to see 20 people in a 2- to 3-hour time slot.

i will write more on poland. and on the hague. maybe just highlights.

how about the first highlight being g.g. the super-cute & darlingly french-accented guy on whom i developed a 2.5 week crush, only to have all my hopes of even just friendship dashed by no response to email (i sent only 2 emails: one email, saying i'd email pictures and the other email actually attaching pictures). not even a thank-you. wtf!? comprenez-vous "douchedeluxebag"?

anyway. i got over that pretty fast. because. well, i had to. it's hard to keep a crush going (even for someone as wildly imaginative and deluded as me) in the absence of any further contact. but, as a word to my male-readers out there: do not spill your heart out to someone over a 10-day period, invite that person to visit you in your foreign country, insist that you will look that person up next time you are in their soon-to-be foreign home if you do not plan to have any other contact with said person. ever again. at all. at best, it's a misunderstanding. at worst, it's a damn lie. and i ask again: comprenez-vous "you suck"?

ok, yeah, so clearly i'm over it.

oh, another surrey moment to report: went to get a massage from a massage-therapist here that my mom has been to, who has (what i was lead to believe) a perfectly fine home-business. half-way through the massage, the massage therapist (an indian auntie -- this fact will be come relevant in about one second) asks me if i'm married (see, it's entirely relevant) and i say no. then i get myself into a conversation (i use that word loosely, more like a soliloquy with more and more hostile grunting in response from me) about marriage and partnership and child-bearing. i'm seriously starting to lose it. of course i am trapped under this persons deft (i have to admit, she did give me a pretty good massage) fingers, lying half-naked on her massage table.

my mom is sitting within hearing distance, but i think she might have dozed off. still i can't take the chance of using one of my usual responses, which is either (a) i am barren. i will never marry. who would want my useless womb?; or (b) i was married. to a tree. it didn't work out; or (c) my parents used up all their money on my brother's wedding and now i can't have one; or (d) my livestock dowry died (a variation on (c)). hearing any of those responses could have had a devastating effect on my mother, who (bless her heart) has not one mean bone in her body. (yep, i got them all -- hit the DNA jackpot!!)

ahhhhhhhhhrrrrrrrrrrghhhhhhhhhhh. anyway, i said & did nothing. once she realized that i was pissed off, she was trying to be all "live and let live about it", but in that judgey, unconvincing tone that meant that i was surely going to rot in the whatever-religion-she-was version of hell for all eternity for living my life in opposition to the laws of man and god and all things good and virtuous and wonderful.

as an aside: i was actually quite impressed by quickly she deduced that if i were born in october 1975, i'm 33 years old now.

good math skills. shitastic business acumen. even if my back falls off and my shoulders calcify, i will never go back to her.

over & out. for now.