I finally finished my tuberculosis round of testing yesterday. It is required for volunteering at St. Michael’s Hospital because being there puts you in contact with a lot of vulnerable people and you don’t want to infect them, in case you carry the virus. I am proud to announce that I passed all the tests. I have never been in contact with TB. Now I just have to go during the week and read the manual and I can start my volunteering. I signed up for a year and will probably start on February 28, my mom will be here from February 12 to 22, and I will be moving. As soon as I am installed in my new condo I’ll start going on weekends. I’d rather do Saturdays, but I don’t know if they’re going to tell me to go on Sundays instead.

I just came back from the Quail and Firkin, it’s Clara’s (2) birthday and we went for a couple of pitchers (we’ve upgraded from a couple of pints to a couple of pitchers).

I’m doing the Firkin rounds, since I went to the Flatiron yesterday. I finally signed up for Players Plus on NTN. So I’m officially PUMA!!! Now I gotta start to work on my score.

Beverlee sent me an email with a great story for our little writing project, it’s gonna be so cool and exciting, I can’t wait (OK, maybe I can wait, just because I’m so busy with work).

So we lost power for about 1.5 hours. My boss was downstairs, I was in the 25th floor, and neither of us could do any work, of course. The funnies thing was that the speaker here in the building announced that it would take from 5 to 8 hours to restore power, so we were about to go home at about 12:15 when the power came back on. The funny thing is that half of the people in the floor had already left. So I stayed at work and I am watching a blizzard develop in front of my eyes, that’s what you get when you have a floor to ceiling window. But don’t you worry, my readers and fans, I am well protected and my house is just like a block from the subway, so I’ll be all right.

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Yes ladies and gentlemen there is a lot of snow. It’s the worst snowstorm since 5 years ago when Mayor Mel called the military to save Toronto from being buried in snow.

My neurosis is just reaching the limit. Last week I couldn’t sleep all night because I thought I had lost my brand new toque and was up just trying to think where I could have left it. I had a meeting at a clients’ Monday night (7:30 at night, that’s the hours these people make me work), so I thought maybe I had left it there, or maybe I had dropped it in the subway. So I was thinking (all this at about 4:00 o’clock in the morning, that’s my usual insomnia hour) that I should probably go get another hat, but I’m saying to myself, “what if they’re sold out?” (they were really really cheap at American Eagle). So all this trivial thinking leads me to 6:00 am when of course it’s almost time to wake up. As soon as I got to work I found my toque nicely folded on top of the table!

Last night I could not sleep because Luke told me that my ex-boyfriend had seen me at Indigo (during the whole Teawna throwing-up ordeal) and hadn’t said hi. This shouldn’t worry me since he is an EX-BOYFRIEND, and as my sister says “why do you worry who says hi and who doesn’t, it’s their problem”. And I know she’s right, but again neurotic me can only think what could have happened (well, whatever, it’s not as if I had a lot of time with my friend getting sick in the store and everything).

So of course, after these insomnia nights when it’s time to get up I just can’t move. Sometimes I even feel sick (last Thursday I was nauseous since the minute I woke up and it lasted for hours). But, the deal here is that I am the only employee in my company, so if I do not go to work, no one will get the things done, and we usually have a lot of things going for clients.

By the way, about Teawna’s situation last night. Before going to The Bay we had been to Shoppers Drug Mart and we had both had our blood pressure measured with that machine they have there. First she had no vital signs (she was that bad even an hour before her breakdown, ha ha), so she had it done again. She had blood pressure even lower than mine, which is quite a deal because I usually have very low blood pressure. So I was thinking (during my sleepless hours last night, of course) that maybe she wasn’t well since earlier. I just hope she feels better because we had been planning on going for drinks tonight, but we might just have to postpone it.

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I went to the Miss Universe Canada pageant yesterday. We were originally going to go for the whole weekend, but we ended up just going on Sunday.

Charlene came and picked me up when I had just been out of the shower, so she had to wait like 20 minutes in the car for me to be ready (I know I shouldn’t take that long but I had to blowdry my hair or I could risk dying of neumonia).

We got to Casinorama and I was impressed, it is huge. We saw part of the rehearsal and then went up and got ready for the pageant.

I have to report that Alan Thicke is not as exciting as I thought. He has a little bit of an attitude, though he is a great entertainer.

The winner’s name is Venessa, and she is from Waterdown (here is an article about her).

The show got a little bit longer than expected, and the Coronation Ball was at about 11:00. I got to meet Amelia Vega, the current Miss Universe, she is just so nice, she is beautiful and has an amazing personality.

We had a nice trip.

I just got home. I went shopping with Teawna at Eaton Centre, we went to The Bay and to Benetton, and finally got to Indigo (I had to buy a book for my Book Club), but by then she wasn’t feeling very well, she was nauseous. So we went upstairs and got a Diet Coke for her. She sat on one of the reading couches and I sat on the floor by her when suddenly she asks me where the washroom is (of course me being me I totally knew where the washroom was), she stands up and goes running. Comes back all pale. She got sick in there. Meanwhile I was sitting there just taking care of our shopping bags and deciding which decor magazine I’m going to buy (for ideas for my new condo). She comes back and suddenly grabs her things and says “I am leaving right now before I faint”. She rushes down the stairs, I’m running after her, just throw the magazine I was going to buy and get out of there behind her. Finally we get a cab at Yonge Street (in the middle of a snowstorm) and took her home. I hope she is OK. Meanwhile, I am not even in the mood to have any dinner. It’s too late and I feel a little nauseous myself after this little adventure.

Every Friday there is a man that plays Celtic music with a small guitar-style instrument at Woodbine Station. He is always very smiley and his music is lively. I appreciate how he makes my Friday commute more pleasant. It’s funny, about a year and a half ago I went with Cora and Rob to The Duke of Argyle because they are big fans of Celtic music (I know, weird. They even sing-along!). Anyway, there was this live band playing and the musician from Woodbine Station was playing on it. What a coincidence.

I went to the Flatiron Pub last night after my volunteer orientation session at St. Michael’s Hospital. I always have a good time playing NTN and drinking beer but this time I had a blast. Sometimes I am the only one playing or I don’t know who else is playing. This time there were like 5 people all sitting at the bar competing. I won one of the games, which was really exciting, and stayed there until around midnight. Wednesday is garbage night, but when I got home the garbage truck had already come and I had missed it. Now it’s going to be one more week with my garbage at home, unbelievable. I had such a good time that I don’t mind.

Oh I get it. Apparently Amelia Vega IS from the Dominican Republic (she is so pretty, and only 18!). What’s going to happen in Ecuador is the next Miss Universe Pageant in Quito.

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