5 days in retail

   I've been working at the yoga studio for eight months and it’s been great. Monotonous, repetitive, tedious but great.

Bored but happy.

   I was making the province-approved minimum wage at half the hours an adult works per week. The job was cushy but following the imposed budget was not.

   Broke and boozeless, I applied to dozens of jobs online but it seems my on-paper skills are worth nothing and all I've got on my side is the keen ability to shmooze.

   In a fit of desperation and/or mania, I applied to a Canadian outlet retail store that caters to vapid young adult women and really young mothers and their kids. It's like someone invented everything I can't stand and made me sell clothes to it. Banter and jocularity are not appreciated like they are in more laid-back workplaces.

   My first shift was a four-hour shift and I came home and cried. No, I almost made it home; I sobbed on my way home without any sense of dignity or self-awareness. And, because they don't let you wear supportive (read: ugly) shoes at this store my feet were giant stumps of elephant-man pain from supporting my dumb body-weight in flats.

   An nonagenarian-lady came in to shop for shoes on my fourth day. Old ladies love me and I was thrilled to talk to someone whose physical age is so close to my emotional age. I enthusiastically began to help her in her search for a pair of shoes

   She later yelled at me for having red hair.

   While shopping, practice common sense (sēnsus commūnis) and courtesy (kur-tuh-see). Retail people are supposed to help you find stuff and with product knowledge but not be your servant. Put things back where you found them, mind your offspring, and use your god damn manners.

Also, don't switch tags to get a deal. Which decade do you live in where everything isn't catalogued on a computer?

   On my fifth and final day, I entered the sales floor with a quiet peace in my heart. I robotically unpacked pashminas with a dreamy (some might say creepy) smile on my face. I was kneeling to reach the bottom scarf-hangers when the assistant manager came over to tell me not to sit while working. She was tapping her toes and had her arms folded and looked the way humans look when they're assholey. I was too far-gone to care.

and I waited. My lunch break came at 2:30pm and I left. I walked home, turned off my cell phone, took off my work clothes, put on my pajamas, and never went back.

Like an adult.

October 27 & 28 Review

    I was sick this past weekend. I reached out for support and was offered every home-remedy ranging from rest and tea to Nyquil and beer. I decided to beat the shit out of the sickness with the unbridled power of yoga:

    Regular bodily functions are a terrible thing to have in spandex among ten fit strangers; gassiness, coughing, and having an unstoppable itch are all natural things that are amplified in a quiet and zen room. Having a case of plugged-sinuses made me feel incredibly self-conscious and justifiably gross:

  

   After sleevin' it for the rest of the class, I was relieved to unwind in the least judgemental place on Earth — the city bus.

   A year ago, my friend taught me how to crochet. I vaguely remember her becoming frustrated with my slow learning progress and threatening me with physical violence. She can't hold a candle to this crochet-shaming bus-monster:

   This lady noticed my craft and confided that she too knows how to crochet.

   “Do you know how to make a chain?” she asked sweetly/menacingly.

   “I think so,” said I with trust and foolishness.

   “Here,” she said while taking my yarn and stick away from me.

  I didn't realise I had been crocheting all wrong. This is how I crochet:

when I should be crocheting like:

   There's this hand-contortion that you're supposed to do to make the process look effortless. It's something like:

and I just couldn't get my hand to stay folded in that position. If left unsupervised, the hand would unfurl and go back to groping and mishandling the yarn.

   The lady kept taking the crochet from me to demonstrate. Each time, she would walk me through the steps, hand the yarn back, and look around the bus to make eye contact with someone so she could shrug and shake her head like “Can you believe this girl?”

can you believe she actually said that?

  But really, the lady was incredibly adorable during the entire bus ride and, as a bonus, we used the impromptu lesson to ignore the drunk, dishevelled vagrant who was yelling to us.

July 21 & 22

   The unexpected summer-hiatus is finally over. We missed some good times: the HOPE Volleyball Event, the Muslim Festival, and BluesFest. Also, the giveaway has been pushed back a bit. Let's put that behind us and focus on the future. 

   Ottawa This Weekend; July 21 & 22 is as below.

Saturday

Yoga on the Beach!

The Sierra Club (a non-governmental organization dedicated to protecting the environment) is hosting this outdoor yoga event. Bring a towel and lots of water.

Hopefully they don't mean doing yoga on the actual beach because the creative opportunities for harbouring sand in your clothes are endless. How uncomfortable.

Britannia Beach, 2805 Carling Avenue. Suggested donation $5.00. 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. 613-241-4611

All Weekend

The Dark Knight Rises 

   This event isn't exclusively Ottawa but it's still going to be pretty amazing.

   So, Batman's blue because it's been almost eight years that he's been scrutinized for being a vigilante. Then, Catwoman and Bane show up and they're causing problems and stuff and who do you think the city will need to save them, hmm? HMM?!

   I'm so afraid for Batman; Bane's sleep apnoea masks gives me fear-nausea. 

 

   Pro-tip: It's almost three hours long so don't bring your kids. Everyone will hate you.  

Various theatres,  various times. Contact information  

Ottawa Turkish Festival

   In the description it says you can participate in activities for children which hopefully means doing kid-stuff without the children. There's going to be art, dancing, gourmet food, authentic demonstrations and performances, and the opportunity to learn more about the Turkish culture!

Confederation Park, at Elgin and Laurier West. 5 p.m. Friday, 3 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. Saturday. 613-228-1616

www.ottawaturkishfestival.com

Mosaika: Canada Through the Eyes of its People

   The light show is truly awesome. The effects make it look like the bricks in the building are moving. That's amazing! In past years, they forgot to include hockey-related stories but this year now features hockey content. Score! Next year: Tim Hortons content?

Parliament Hill, 1 Wellington Street. FREE. Starts at 10 p.m. all of July (cancelled during poor weather) 30 minute run-time.
http://www.canadascapital.gc.ca/celebrate/mosaika

   Did you know that tickling ivory doesn't just mean getting to third base with a white girl?

    It also refers to playing the piano! Even though piano keys are now mostly made out of synthetic material there was a time when opulent pianos were finished with ivory, or elephant-tusk, keys.

   In 1989, the international ban on trading ivory was meant to save the million-or-so elephants left in Africa. Twenty-three years later, there are less than half that many left and the rate of poaching is still increasing.

   Lady elephants have noticed our blood-lusty fondness for their teeth and are selecting small-tusked mates accordingly. They are purposefully breeding out large-tusked elephants to thwart their biggest threat: asshole poachers.

   How clever! Elephants are taking the evolution-bull by the horns and refusing to bone it!

  Fact. Fun!

please email RA Centre event's Manager Shelley: scarbonetto@racentre.com Politely ask to have the circus cancelled.