New knitting project

Almost two weeks ago I started a new knitting project, a sleevless turtleneck found on Page 54 of The Purl Stitch by Sally Melville. I am making it in a brick red Mission Falls 1824 wool. It has been going well since it’s only stocking stitch, but it needs some decreases and increases to shape the body, and I have been having some problems with that. Mainly with the increases, not that I can’t make them, it’s just that it has been difficult to see in which row I increased, so I did it wrong and counted 2 rows instead of 4 and when I had the final number of stitches it was too short. And since it is going to be two parts alike I want to follow the directions exactly (so that both parts match). So I had to rip about 25 rows to go back to the beginning of the increases. Also, when I changed yarns I had some problems and I had to rip it also. In total I’ve ripped it about 4 times already! Oh, well. I’ll see how it turns out and will post a picture soon.

Converted

So I finally converted. I just downloaded FireFox and it’s now my default browser.

School fires

Because of a previous entry, some of my readers have asked just how many school fires I have started. I have to confess that I started two school fires, BUT, I took care of both, they were “accidents” (if you can call being stupid an accident).

The first school fire:

It was the winter of 1990, I was in school in Lausanne, Institution Chateau Mont Choisi, and we were preparing to go home for Christmas. I remember all my suitcases were packed because I was leaving the next day or so. There was some two or three day old snow on the balcony. My friend Heidi had come to my room to say hi and we decided that it would be a great idea to use the hairspray to light a torch. You know, this totally stupid thing when you spray and light it up with a match. Well, we were doing that and we were all clapping and celebrating this “daring” feat. After a couple of minutes we ran out of hairspray and the next best thing we could find was a can of air freshener. Oh, but air freshener back in 1990 had this “innovative” feature where it didn’t spray straight, somehow it sprayed in the shape of a bubble. Heidi gave me the air freshener so that I could light it up, but when I lit up the “spray” the fire took the shape of a bubble and I burned my hand. I dropped the can but the lever was stuck and it kept spraying, so the fire wasn’t extinguished and now that the can was on the floor, the carpet was catching fire. It was too big for us to step on it and as Murphy’s Law dictates, we had no water or anything liquid nearby, we thought the best thing would be to drop some snow on the fire we had on the carpet. It wasn’t that easy to open the frozen door, but when we did we found that the snow had become hard so we couldn’t even grab it without an icepick. Finally someone went to the stairs and got the fire extinguisher. Needless to say, our parents were billed for the carpet repairs.

The second school fire:

I was in university and part of the student council, we had our own little “office” where the main thing we did was smoke (tobacco!). This was 1993 before the non-smoking days, we could smoke almost anywhere we pleased. The room had just been painted white, it was bright and shiny. There was a waste paper basket and even if we were university kids we didn’t think much, I guess. So we just dropped the cigarette stubsin the waste paper basket. Yep, a big fire, right by the white wall. Someone was drinking some Gatorade so we tried to pour it in the fire, we missed by about a foot! Finally someone went and got the fire extinguisher. The wall right by the basket was all smoked. We had to paint it again ourselves!

Those are the two school fires I’ve started, it’s not that scary, is it?

Reconnecting with old friends

I know that some people have been performing Internet searches for Institution Chateau Mont Choisi at Lausanne. I would like to reconnect with some of the girls that were in school with me, back in 1990, especially my fellow boarders at Le Bercail (that was the name of the house we lived in, since we were over 18 we had less restrictions than other girls who lived at Wellingtonia, the Chateau or the other house, the Rosemont, where the dining room was).

I’d like to post their names but I don’t think I should, because of privacy issues, so I’ll just write their first name:

Marcela, from Cali, Colombia (haven’t seen her since December 1990, when I left the school)

Veronica, from Cali, Colombia (haven’t seen her since December 1990, when I left the school)

Carmen, from Mexico City (last I knew she had moved to Monterrey and was studying at ITESM, this was probably in 1992)

Gretta, from Sweden (she was something like the housemaster at the Bercail) (haven’t seen her since December 1990)

Ana Paola, from Sao Paolo, Brazil (haven’t seen her since December 1990)

Victoria, from England (haven’t seen her since December 1990)

Penny, from Venezuela (haven’t seen her since December 1990)

Pili, from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (haven’t seen her since December 1990 I saw her at Maribel’s wedding in 1992 or 1993, December)

Montse, from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic ((haven’t seen her since December 1990 I saw her at Maribel’s wedding in 1992 or 1993, December)

Alice from Puebla, Mexico (I actually have her email address, the last time I saw her was in 2001, I think, and I also know she had a baby about 2 years ago)

Mariana and Ana (they were sisters and Mariana was one of my best friends, I know her last name and she is from Mexico City so I can probably find her easily just looking for her parents’ number)

Maribel from Mexico City (OK, I have been in touch with her, I went to her wedding and I met her twin girls, but haven’t known much about her since 2001 or so)

Marina from Mexico City (she is the one who told me that she had been to Lausanne recently -and for recently I mean probably 1998- and had seen the Chateau in very bad shape. I know she got married because my mother saw the pictures in the newspaper)

The big problem is that I have moved around so much that I have lost track of almost everyone, and it’s difficult to track me even if you google my complete name (which almost no one knows). It would be nice to know what happened to all these girls.

So everyone if you know anyone that was at Chateau Mont Choisi in 1990, tell them to check out if they are on this list, (and remember, they probably know me as Lolina, or Maria Dolores).

Day to day life at Chateau Mont Choisi

My school, Institution Chateau Mont Choisi, was an exclusive school for young ladies. Some girls were doing actual high-school studies, but I had already finished and I was just doing the language and arts thing.

I was the only one at the whole school who already had studied some Italian (the language you dirty minds, not an Italian guy-person). So I had private lessons, everyone else took the beginners course, I took the intermediates. That was good because I could advance at my own pace and practice a lot of conversation with the teacher. Later during the school year we made a trip to Milan, and of course we took the first-class train (and this is the one and only time I have taken first-class anything, I always fly/drive/ride on coach). It was 1990 and the World Cup (Italy 1990) had just taken place the previous summer.

The school-day started at 7:30 AM with breakfast and, me being me, I seldom woke up and made it. This is where I started not having breakfast, a practise that I still follow (I rather sleep 10 more minutes than eat, plus, I’m usually nauseous and grossed out first thing in the morning). I had 4 hours of French lessons, and then lunch at 1:00. Then we had some more classes (I don’t even remember what). Some girls were training for a UK diploma in secretarial studies or something, and I enrolled in the bookkeeping classes. I really didn’t even know what bookkeeping was, but all my friends were taking it. There was tea at about 4:30 and at 7:00 we had dinner. Of course at about 9:30 we ALWAYS, and I mean always, ordered pizza. That’s where I became a fan of the ham and mushroom pizza. Sometimes we worked out in front of the TV with the Jane Fonda video (my readers have to remember that this was 1990, the Jane Fonda video was THE workout video). We usually went out on the town. The place to be was a disco called Arthur’s. The one in Lausanne was small, the big one was in Geneva, and a couple of times we took the train to Geneva, danced all night and then came back in the 6:00 AM train. Oh those were the days when I could dance all night.

More to come….. soon.

CBC Toronto – Women hurt in downtown shootings

OK, this is quite scary. If you see the map, I live 3 blocks from there. I walk RIGHT THERE more than 4 times a week and at around that time, or even later. Why would someone just drive by and shoot at random? These things I don’t understand, this is Canada, this isn’t supossed to be happening. OK, OK, excuse me about the rant, but I am really concerned about this.

CBC Toronto – Women hurt in downtown shootings

UPDATE: Gary has an interesting and insightful entry about this same issue.

Nutrition

Last week I got the Canada’s Food Guide to Eating Healthy from Health Canada with the nutritional “pyramid” (it’s not represented as a pyramid but as a rainbow). So we have to eat between 8 and 10 servings of fruit and vegetables a day (nothing that I didn’t know before, it’s just that I don’t do it), so I’ve been trying to increase my veggie intake and eat a bit less meat and fats (I know I can’t quit chicken wings cold-turkey, but least I’m trying to be healthy). I have a couple of questions, maybe my 3 readers can help me figure this out:

Do olives count as vegetables?



If I drink apple juice (pasteurized) am I drinking a serving of fruit?



V8 bottles say each of them contains a serving of veggies, is this true?

What about sun-dried tomatoes, are they a vegetable?



This is so confusing!

Early workout

So this morning I was woken up by an early phone call (before 7:00 AM). It was Mark, asking if we were going to work-out before work. How could I say no? I was up anyway. He still was dubious but I said that he better go since I had woken up thanks to him.

We will try to do this at least 3 times a week, but it will have to be at least 15 minutes earlier or I won’t be able to make it to work at 9:00. We’ll see how it turns out.

305-375-6263, a mystery!

So this post was originally titled “National Car Rental sucks” but I changed it because of the mystery of the whole situation:

I cannot believe that I just got a call on my cell phone from “National Reservations”, it was a recording, not even a real person. Do they know that I HAD TO PAY for that stupid call? Of course I hung up, but just for picking up I am charged (yes, I do not have free evenings, I only have a pre-paid card for my cellphone, I seldom use it). Well, I rented a car with National on my trip to Montreal and I might have given them my cellphone number, I didn’t know I would be put on a list. The call came from 305-375-6263. Apparently that number is in Florida. Does anyone know who or where I can call to complain about this? I don’t want to be paying for calls on my cellphone for stupid telemarketing things. Any help would be appreciated.

And yes, I will never rent from National Car Rental again, they didn’t even give me my Air Miles (I got my Air Miles statement and those miles weren’t there, that’s the only reason I chose them and not any other car rental company, they’re all the same anyway, and my employer was paying for it). National Car Rental sucks, big time.

UPDATE: So I just called 305-375-6263 (after I pressed *67, of course, I’m not going to give them my phone number) and got a recording that said something like: “if you are returning a phone call that was sent from 305-375-6263 you received this call in error. We apologize for any inconvenience and we are working with the local carrier to determine why you received this phone call, again we apologize for the inconvenience”, that was pretty much what the message said.

UPDATED UPDATE: OK, so I also called National Car Rental’s Customer Service number and said that I had just received a call from them. The person was nice and apologized and said that they did not have any promotion, that they don’t need to do that. So, if it’s true maybe it doesn’t suck that much, but hey, they didn’t give me my Air Miles anyway, so they suck a little.

More: I just “reversed looked” that 305 375 6263 number and here’s what I got:

The phone number “(305) 375-6263” is a Miami, FL based phone number and the

registered carrier is Bellsouth Telecomm Inc Dba Southern Bell Tel & Tel.

However, due to number portability, some numbers have been transferred to a new

service provider other than the registered carrier.

I still think it is too much of a coincidence that I just rented a car with National while I was in Montreal (that’s why I gave them my cellphone, I think), and now I’m getting these calls.

So any ideas, my dear readers?

Blackout

A water pipe burst with the cold and a Hydro transformer was flooded. To prevent a major short circuit they had to cut off all power in the Bay and Dundas area. Eaton Centre was closed for the day, along with The Bay, Ryerson and other buildings in the area. Even my office building was all dark. Oh, too bad it was a Sunday so I didn’t miss any work, I’m sure it will be fixed by tomorrow, dammit!

UPDATE from thestar.com

A broken water main caused a power outage in the city’s downtown core

today, prompting the closure of stores and tourist attractions and leaving some

residents without power for nearly 12 hours.

…

Power began to be

restored just before 7 p.m.

Dammit, dammit, dammit!

Meanwhile, I froze my arse waiting for 25 minutes in the corner of Queen and Spadina for the Queen Streetcar, and I had the chance to see that most Spadina Streetcars were turning on King, people were waiting for the one which would take them to Union Station and there was about 1 in 10 that went all the way to Union, why does the TTC change its routes unexpectedly like this, and is there a way to let people know what is working and what is not working? I heard people in the streetcar asking the drivers if the subway was open (because of the power outage) and they could not tell. They have a walkie talkie, why don’t they inform people (apparently the subway WAS open, but people didn’t know).

Lastly, I didn’t think I would say this living downtown in the largest city in the country, but: I could really use some snowshoes!