You guys are beyond lovely. You're more awesome than all the cupcakes and zombies and bacon in the world (although I've been told that burritos are the new bacon. Rest assured, you're better than all of those too).
Thank you.
My gift to you is to not predictably include a Dido or Alanis Morissette song in this post, rather to include one that is just simply fantastic that I hope you enjoy:
Have an amazing weekend, everyone!
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| My talent overfloweth with MS Paint. |
Just about every time I see someone I stop. I kind of got out of the habit in the last couple of years, moved to a big city and all that, my girlfriend wasn't too stoked on the practice. Then some shit happened to me that changed me and I am back to offering rides habitually. If you would indulge me, it is long story and has almost nothing to do with hitch hiking other than happening on a road.
This past year I have had 3 instances of car trouble. A blow out on a freeway, a bunch of blown fuses and an out of gas situation. All of them were while driving other people's cars which, for some reason, makes it worse on an emotional level. It makes it worse on a practical level as well, what with the fact that I carry things like a jack and extra fuses in my car, and know enough not to park, facing downhill, on a steep incline with less than a gallon of fuel.
Anyway, each of these times this shit happened I was DISGUSTED with how people would not bother to help me. I spent hours on the side of the freeway waiting, watching roadside assistance vehicles blow past me, for AAA to show. The 4 gas stations I asked for a gas can at told me that they couldn't loan them out "for my safety" but I could buy a really shitty 1-gallon one with no cap for $15. It was enough, each time, to make you say shit like "this country is going to hell in a handbasket."
But you know who came to my rescue all three times? Immigrants. Mexican immigrants. None of them spoke a lick of the language. But one of those dudes had a profound affect on me.
He was the guy that stopped to help me with a blow out with his whole family of 6 in tow. I was on the side of the road for close to 4 hours. Big jeep, blown rear tire, had a spare but no jack. I had signs in the windows of the car, big signs that said NEED A JACK and offered money. No dice. Right as I am about to give up and just hitch out there a van pulls over and dude bounds out. He sizes the situation up and calls for his youngest daughter who speaks english. He conveys through her that he has a jack but it is too small for the Jeep so we will need to brace it. He produces a saw from the van and cuts a log out of a downed tree on the side of the road. We rolled it over, put his jack on top, and bam, in business. I start taking the wheel off and, if you can believe it, I broke his tire iron. It was one of those collapsible ones and I wasn't careful and I snapped the head I needed clean off. Fuck.
No worries, he runs to the van, gives it to his wife and she is gone in a flash, down the road to buy a tire iron. She is back in 15 minutes, we finish the job with a little sweat and cussing (stupid log was starting to give), and I am a very happy man. We are both filthy and sweaty. The wife produces a large water jug for us to wash our hands in. I tried to put a 20 in the man's hand but he wouldn't take it so I instead gave it to his wife as quietly as I could. I thanked them up one side and down the other. I asked the little girl where they lived, thinking maybe I could send them a gift for being so awesome. She says they live in Mexico. They are here so mommy and daddy can pick peaches for the next few weeks. After that they are going to pick cherries then go back home. She asks if I have had lunch and when I told her no she gave me a tamale from their cooler, the best fucking tamale I have ever had.
So, to clarify, a family that is undoubtedly poorer than you, me, and just about everyone else on that stretch of road, working on a seasonal basis where time is money, took an hour or two out of their day to help some strange dude on the side of the road when people in tow trucks were just passing me by. Wow...
But we aren't done yet. I thank them again and walk back to my car and open the foil on the tamale cause I am starving at this point and what do I find inside? My fucking $20 bill! I whirl around and run up to the van and the guy rolls his window down. He sees the $20 in my hand and just shaking his head no like he won't take it. All I can think to say is "Por Favor, Por Favor, Por Favor" with my hands out. Dude just smiles, shakes his head and, with what looked like great concentration, tried his hardest to speak to me in English:
"Today you.... tomorrow me."
Rolled up his window, drove away, his daughter waving to me in the rear view. I sat in my car eating the best fucking tamale of all time and I just cried. Like a little girl. It has been a rough year and nothing has broke my way. This was so out of left field I just couldn't deal.
In the 5 months since I have changed a couple of tires, given a few rides to gas stations and, once, went 50 miles out of my way to get a girl to an airport. I won't accept money. Every time I tell them the same thing when we are through:
"Today you.... tomorrow me."
tl;dr: long rambling story about how the kindness of strangers, particularly folks from south of the border, forced me to be more helpful on the road and in life in general. I am sure it won't be as meaningful to anyone else but it was seriously the highlight of my 2010.
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| Queen For a Day! Image Souce: Blurtit.com |
I had a meeting yesterday with a web designer who wanted to bring me in to write some copy for his client. We naturally ended up chatting about what the client was like. She's thankfully a keeper (clear communicator, values your time, doesn't think anything comes for free), and was nothing like the client he had previously worked with. Nearly one hour and a major vent session later, I left, thankful that I hadn't come across the toad he had.
I can't remember if I posted this before, but it's worth posting again. If you're the kind of person who thinks you can haggle the invoice after you already agreed to the quote - even though you are actually happy with the work or product you received, please, please, please watch this. And after having watched it, if don't see the error of your ways? Please, please, please never contact me:
In other news, I met with some other people yesterday as well - the executive producers and writers of Being Erica! Jana Sinyor and Aaron Martin were good enough to let me barge in on their Season 4 planning (Eee!) and interview them for this blog. Expect to see that early next week!
Here's a totally-not-related-to-the-1950s kind of post, but with the experiment done, I'm allowed!
When it comes to raising awareness and funds for diseases, there appears to be two ways of going about it:
Muchos muchos love to any of you who do this. You are good.
Read more...
Ever since I did the 50s Housewife Experiment, I've been striving to make healthier and more conscious food choices. After having eaten the 1950s way for two weeks, I keep envisioning all the gelatin, canned vegetables and flour-drenched meat still globbing onto my colon like a bunch of skeevy remoras.
When my father-in-law passed away, all healthy intentions went out the door for a couple weeks and we lived off the goodness of others who brought trays of food over to my mother-in-law's house. People were so kind and generous that nearly every surface of the home had food on it.
As my brother-in-law cleverly observed, "nothing says 'sorry for your loss' like little triangle sandwiches and cubes of cheese."
Ha.
Anyway, when people pour their hearts into food for you during a difficult time like that, you don't stop and ask them if they know if the ham in those sandwiches were factory-farmed or if they could make that lasagna in a vegetarian version next time. No, you don't say that unless you're a sack of crap. Instead, you are so grateful and awed by their kindness that you take their gifts with wholehearted appreciation.
But we've been back home for a while and it's high time that we return to healthful, whole eating. I've been pretty good this week, but today is officially (or maybe not "officially", I have no idea. Do hippies ever fill in the paperwork to make things official?) Green Smoothie Day.
The concept is simple: Take some fruit, take some leafy greens, add a bit of water and blend. Add in extras to suit your taste. The result is a tasty and all-natural fibre, vitamin, mineral and water-rich drink that can easily replace one of your meals. You'll feel better, get loads of veg and fruit for a meal and maybe even drop a pound or two if you drink them consistently.
I've decided to join the BiG Green Smoothie 10-day Challenge and make smoothies a part of my day during that time. You can obviously just do it and not pay, but I'm kicking in $10 to the cause as all the money goes to help a cute girl's club in NY. Yay for being good at such an affordable rate.
In anticipation of Green Smoothie Day, I've 'been on' green smoothies for most of last week, experimenting with what I like best. My favourite green smoothie thus far is:
Semi-recently, I mentioned on the blog that I was expanding my writing services to include online dating profiles. I've actually been doing them for longer than that but really only got organized about it this spring.
Last week, I received this note from a former client I worked with in the fall. I'm such a dork, but this makes me feel so, so happy. I feel like some kind of "Love Doctor" TV character. Admittedly, it would be the most boring show ever if it didn't get any "TV wackiness" injected into it. Otherwise, it would look something like this:
* Scene 1: Jen sits in bed with her laptop.
* Scene 2: Jen gets up to use the washroom.
* Scene 3: Jen is back in bed, typing.
* Scene 4: Jen melts some cheese on a plate and eat it with a fondue fork.(TV AUDIENCE CHEERS)
* Scene 5: Jen is back on her laptop and attaches a Word doc to an e-mail.
* Scene 6: Jen zones out for a while.
* Scene 7: Jen considers having a shower. Jen rejects idea.
Where was I? Oh, right. SOMETHING ABOUT SOMEONE ELSE. Names have been edited for privacy.
Subject: Plans for June 2010?
Jen!
I'm sure - well - hope! - you remember me. In September, you helped me take my ho-hum Lavalife profile and turn it into a real representation of who I was and who I was looking for. It was great working with you and I knew right away the profile was perfect. You really nailed who I was, something I hadn't been able to do despite trying the online dating thing for a couple years.
Well, guess who's engaged? :) !! I proposed to Alice, who I met all of a week after posting perfected-by-Jen profile, two days ago. I can't thank you enough. Without your help, I don't think I would have stood out among everyone else and got my chance to get to know the greatest girl I've ever met.
Maybe it's weird to e-mail you, but I really felt like you should know because while the relationship is mine and Alice, you played a part in it getting started. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.
Ted
Today, Toronto is a living snow globe. Heaps of the white stuff have hit the city square in the crotch and everyone is in full-blown, keeled-over storytelling mode of their individual "survivor story" of how they made it to work.
"I had to shovel my pathway before I could leave! Yah, it was really bad!"
"What normally takes me 40 minutes took me 1.5 hours!"
"Geeez, look at my pant legs! Does anyone have a hair dryer?"
"We all had to huddle on the GO Train platform together for warmth!"
Even though I live mere minutes away from my office, I clearly can’t be left out and must rant a bit about my trek.
Torontonians, you have so much to learn about snow etiquette. In other areas of the country, where folks are much less a-holey and much more adaptive to weather conditions, there are certain rules that people abide by. They’re not posted anywhere and rarely spoken of, but we all just follow them for the betterment of humankind. Since so many people in this city have no concept of consideration for others, I’ll lay them out for you:
1. When there is a single-person path through the snow (a sidewalk full of snow, and a path that is just wide enough for one person to walk on it), you need to share. If there are two people walking toward each other, the nice thing to do is for each person to keep one foot on the path and put the other foot into the snow as you pass each other. That way, each person gets a bit of path, a bit of snow and we keep things equal. Toronto: You do not keep barreling down the path, assuming the other person will just dive out of your way like some kind of game of chicken. And if that person doesn’t immediately sacrifice themselves into a snow bank to make way for your precious self, you don’t smash up against them without a word of apology. You stupid, stupid pricks.
2. If you’re one of those dorks who uses an umbrella in the snow, LIFT or TURN the umbrella so that you don’t impale peoples’ faces with its little spokes. Do not treat your umbrella like one of those supped-up Roman chariots that takes out whatever and whoever is next to you.
3. People in cars: Get over yourselves. Think about it – you’re SITTING in a dry, warm vehicle listening to music and sipping your coffee. You can wait the whole three seconds for the people WALKING outside in the wet, cold, slippery weather to make it across the street. Glaring and huffing and puffing over this horrible inconvenience just proves that it’s not human blood that runs through your veins but the toilet flushings from a roadside cantina.
There are more, but I don’t want to overwhelm you, Hogtown. And for the wonderfully people of this city that already follow these rules: Thank you! (And what part of the country are your originally from?)
Meet Sidonie!
This is the little girl that I am sponsoring through the Foster Parent Plan. She is from Bangoue, Cameroon and is six years old.
Along with handing over my cash, I'm encouraged to write to her - which will be no easy task for me. How do you explain your job when you work is marketing cell phones? Your living arrangement when it's with a guy who's not your husband or brother or father or gay roommate? Your Saturdays when they're spent pole-dancing and watching Laguna Beach?
I'll need to come up with something wholesome and relatable, stat. But what?
Today is Good Friday, and even though I am not even remotely religious, I think it's as deserving an opportunity as any to think about others and do some good. Plus, there was a certain discussion on a certain internet chat board that I frequent that also got me all hot and bothered to donate to some charities.
This year, I'm getting a pimped-out return on my income taxes thanks to some mad RRSP contributions, yo. So, I'm going to put half of it back into RRSPs, spend a quarter of it on whatever I like, and the last quarter will be given to help others. This quarter is a big step up from what I normally donate but if I can manage it, why not?
I have decided to donate to The Foster Parents Plan and The Canadian Cancer Society but I have some room for one more. If you were me, what would you choose?
My name is Jen and I look like that picture at all times. I enjoy appetizers as entrees, fountains choreographed to music and television shows intended for teenage girls. Oh - and I really dislike it when people spell it "Jenn"; it's practically a phobia.
(the book)
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