Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Does anyone know 7500 songs?

Hope everyone had a fabulous Christmas! I’m still staring at my new ipod, which is staring back at me from its original packaging. I love the fact that I got an ipod for Christmas, but I’m not too keen on the instruction booklet that comes with it, which by the way is much bigger than the ipod. This thing has the potential to play back 7,500 songs. To put 7500 songs on my ipod, I’ll have some serious decisions to make. What about song number 7501? The Ozark Mountain Daredevils are just not good enough to be on my ipod? And what about songs that I really really love, like ‘Born to Run’. With the capacity to hold 7500 songs, seems a shame to have ‘Born to Run’ on there just once. I think I’ll make it every eighth song.

I was hoping that no chocolate would make it into the house over the holidays, because I can’t sleep when I know we have chocolate. But Rob got one of those giant Toblerone chocolate bars in his ‘stocking’, and he did just as I asked, he hid it from me. As I write this, Rob is off to work, and I’m alone in the house with a hidden Toblerone chocolate bar. Well, me and the three dogs. But they don’t care about Toblerone because they all got Pup-eroni and Schnausages for Christmas. If I don’t look for the Toblerone, the thought of it consumes me. If I look for and find the Toblerone, I will consume it. Great. What a dilemma. And I have so many other things I have to do today.

I am s-o-o excited about Bob Fm’s big announcement, that we are now the world’s only PET FRIENDLY radio station!!! This means great things for pets, pet owners and pet lovers in the Ottawa area! You’ll see our BOB FM ‘Pet Mobile’ on the roads very soon, dishing out doggie treats and fresh water and other goodies. We have also aligned ourselves with the Ottawa Humane Society and the Canadian Guide Dogs for the Blind, and we are committed to helping these important organizations with fundraising initiatives! Be sure to click on the ‘pet friendly’ icon on our website www.939bobfm.com, for tons of pet information, tips, and photos! Send us a photo of your dog, your cat, your snake, your budgie, join the club! And be sure to turn BOB FM way up before you leave the house. Your pets are less likely to eat your shoes while they’re listening to BOB FM.

Just before Christmas, I made some dog cookies (the recipe is in the previous blog post) and I brought some to work. After actually getting JR to eat one, I had three dog cookies left in a zip loc bag on my desk. I share an office with Lowell Green and Steve Madely. Steve Madely never eats food on my desk, but Lowell Green does. The next day I came back to the office to find that one of my dog cookies was missing. I’m pretty sure Lowell Green ate it. The good news, is that Lowell will probably stop stealing my food. The bad news, is that Lowell must think I’m the worst baker on the face of the earth.

What are your plans for New Year’s Eve? Getting all dressed up and going out for a big night on the town? Staying in and having friends and family over? Hope you enjoy the evening, and that at the stroke of midnight, the person closest to you is not your drunk uncle.

Happy new year!

Monday, December 19, 2005

Wake me up when its Christmas

The only Christmas presents I have left to buy, are the gifts for the dogs. And this year, it looks like my dogs are getting some good old fashioned home baking. Thank you to Patsy, who sent along this recipe for dog cookies. Mix 1 ¼ cups of water with same amount of peanut butter. In another bowl combine 2 cups whole wheat flour, one cup all purpose flour, and 1 ¼ tsp of baking powder. Mix the wet stuff with the dry stuff, roll it out, cut with a cookie cutter, and bake at 400 for 15 minutes. That’s it!! I probably should use a cookie cutter shaped like a bone, because everyone knows that dogs insist on all baked goods being shaped like a bone. But the only cookie cutter I have is shaped like a shamrock. Don’t think my dogs will mind if Christmas has a bit of a St Pattys Day theme. One final note about this recipe: if you notice, there’s nothing in the ingredients that we don’t eat ourselves. I’m wondering if I should make an extra batch for co-workers…………just kidding. I’ve been saving a fruitcake for them.

I saw a Christmas tree driving down the road the other day. I estimate it was about 14 feet long. The tree was strapped to the top of a Smart Car. For that one trip, I’ll bet that Smart Car felt like it was in the big leagues.

Have you seen the movie King Kong? The critics seem to love it but it didn’t exactly come out of the starting gate with a huge tally at the box office. At three hours ‘plus’, I wonder if that has something to do with it. When you figure in the time it took after arriving at the theatre, waiting in line to get your ticket, waiting in line to buy your popcorn, waiting in line to be searched for a recording device, then to watch the 22 minutes of commercials and trailers, you’ve already invested an hour and the movie hasn’t even started yet. No wonder we end up with numb bum.

It was quite the experience last week at the Bon Jovi concert in Montreal. I found myself standing about 8 feet away from Heather Locklear. Heather, of course, is married to Bon Jovi guitar player Richie Sambora. I asked her to sign my concert ticket stub, which she did quite kindly. When she handed it back to me, I dropped it and it fell behind a speaker. Heather Locklear bent down and fished my newly signed ticket stub from behind a speaker, then handed it to me once again. All this happened during ‘Living on a Prayer’. I didn’t feel too badly, as I’m sure she’s seen that song performed before.

I have a friend who has a one year old daughter, and an eight year old daughter. And another friend with a six year old daughter. I gave the kids their Christmas gifts the other day, for the six year old and the eight year old, I bought them each a singing gingerbread man. For the one year old, I found a cute fuzzy snowman. A day later, the Moms thanked me very much for the gifts. As it turned out, I had given the one year old a cute fuzzy snowman wine bottle cover. And for the other two kids, the gingerbread man sings, yes he does. He sings at the top of his lungs, as a matter of fact. And here’s what he sings about: how much he likes to run down the street with no clothes on. He’s naked, he loves it, and don’t anybody try to catch him.
Next year everyone’s getting a gift certificate.

Sunday, December 11, 2005

Fruitcake! Food or Science Project

Artificial Christmas tree versus real tree? The debate has been going on as long as……..hmm.. I dunno. When was the first artificial tree invented? And was it the same person who invented artificial flowers and artificial grass? I have an artificial Christmas tree. Its quite a sad tree. I somehow misplaced all my ornaments just before Christmas last year, then at a Christmas party I won an ornament. It was a huge orange goldfish Christmas ornament. So, last year my Christmas tree consisted of one hanging fish. This year, its not going to be too hard to top that.

Most of my friends go out and get a real Christmas tree. They love the pine smell. I read that the most popular size for a real pine Christmas tree this year, is fourteen feet. Wow! That’s a tall tree. Probably being scooped up by all those people buying loft condo’s with high ceilings. Anyway, I have a question about these trees. Chopped down, tied up and tossed onto a gas station parking lot, these 14 foot pine trees cost about $50 - $60. This past summer, I went tree shopping. I needed two pine trees about 10 feet tall for my cottage. Two living trees, of course. For that size, they cost about $450 each. So…..lets see….a chopped down 14 foot pine tree is $50….. a living 10 foot pine tree is $450. Wonder if I can convince any of these Christmas tree farms to let me get my Christmas tree in May. I’ll bring my own shovel.

I was offered my first 2005 Christmas season piece of fruitcake the other day. Of course I politely said ‘no thank you’, because I despise fruitcake. I won’t eat anything that can actually out-live me.

Have you been to a re-gift party yet? These are getting increasingly popular. Instead of going out and spending tons of cash on something that someone doesn’t need, you simply go to your garage or basement and choose something that someone doesn’t need. Then you wrap it in pretty Christmas paper. Since everyone at the re-gift party has done the same thing, there is absolutely no shame. My friend recently went to a Christmas re-gift party but took it one step further. She gave me her re-gift because she thought I would love it. I am now the proud owner of a huge ceramic garden ornament, multi-colored, the theme being a family of turtles climbing up a wall. Who knew turtles could climb?

There’s a new dog food product, I won’t say the brand name, but basically its ‘dog food gravy’. You buy it in a bottle, and you pour it onto your dog’s bowl of dry dog food. I decided to buy a bottle and try it out. After I poured the gravy onto their crunchy kibble, my dogs ate their dinner in about 10 seconds. I swear I even heard them say ‘mmmmm’’ while they were wolfing down their new gravy-topped dinner. Apparently, dogs love gravy. I also know for a fact that dogs love cheese. Dog poutine! That’s it!!! I’m going to invent dog poutine. It’s a surefire winner. You heard it here first.

Monday, December 05, 2005

Say....Do you Work Here Often?

I bought my husband a Christmas present the other day, and I still haven’t given it to him! This is a record for me. Traditionally, if I find the perfect Christmas gift for my husband, it doesn’t matter if its November 14th or December 5th, I give it to him that night, the minute he gets home from work. Because I can’t wait for anything that has the potential of being good. Part of the reason that I have yet to give this gift to my better half, is because I’ve hidden it so well, I don’t know where it is. Too bad its not a gift of food, because my dogs would definitely have found it by now.

Its office Christmas party season! Don’t you just love stories about office Christmas parties? If you have any you’d like to share, please e-mail me back and I’ll post them here. Who doesn’t love a good office Christmas party story ….like the one that involved Todd in accounting and Michelle from marketing, some mistle-toe, too much rum and egg nog, and a photocopy machine.

Congratulations to everyone who participated in the 580 CFRA Christmas Cheer Broadcast on the weekend, and to everyone who donated for a total of $127,000 –plus to provide needy families with holiday food hampers. JR and I were happy to be part of CFRA’s 55th annual Christmas Cheer broadcast. Growing up in Ottawa, this has been a tradition that I look forward to each year. I apologize to all the guests who shared my chair throughout the day, and I hope my coffee spill dried up eventually.

It seems these days that you can’t pick up a national newspaper without reading some columnist’s opinion about our beloved Ottawa Senators. More and more writers are daring to say that this year’s Ottawa Senators are perhaps the finest hockey team of all time. That includes any team that’s ever played in the NHL, and any team that’s ever played in the Olympics. Wow. I hope this doesn’t jinx anything. I’m a little leary about big wide sweeping statements like the ones these columnists are making…’Best hockey team ever assembled’…because I’m afraid of the ‘jinx factor’. That being said, I can’t wait for the Stanley Cup parade down Bank Street. Can you buy ticker tape on e-Bay? Oops. I take that back. Can I take that back?

Thank you to the hundreds of people who did the same thing I did. We all got completely, 100 percent, sucked in by an internet hoax. It came to me by e-mail last week, a litter of golden retriever puppies who needed homes right away – OR ELSE! I responded to the email right away, gave my phone number, said I would come over and get the puppies right now, blah blah……only to find out, this was a hoax that has traveled through cyberspace since the fall of 2002! My sincere thanks to everyone who called the ‘Morning After on Bob FM’ to tell me that they had responded to this email too…even forwarding it to every animal lover they knew. Thank goodness I’m not the only one who once believed a friend who told me ‘you know, the word ‘gullible’ is NOT in the dictionary!