The cold has seeped in. It lives in my walls and on my floors. Everything I touch is icy, making the heating of my small apartment difficult. I’m tempted to open the windows so the warmer air from outside can come inside and warm me up. It is a strange feeling: I wake up cold, when I get out of the shower I’m cold, when I’m getting dressed I’m cold making me believe that the outside temperature must be colder but when I step outside it is warm. I’m almost always overdressed: Dark winter coat, boots, long black skirts. Meanwhile, everyone else has made the transition into pre-spring apparel: lighter jackets, non-winter footwear, colored pants or skirts. I have even seen a couple of guys wearing knee-long shorts!

I dare not dig into my spring chest yet for ‘tis the season to be jolly sick. Sneezing, coughing and teary eyes are the norm this time of year and so far I have managed to keep the ugly bug away.

I will still put the heating on in my car and in my apartment, I will still wear warm clothes and I shall still blow-dry my hair after I shower.

Oh pretty flowers, where are you? Do you not scare the cold away with your soft and colorful petals? Does the snow not melt away upon your perfumed presence? Please show yourself soon for I do long for longer, warmer days.

I’ve had enough with Tim Hortons! I have been a faithful and pitiful customer ever since I started working here, almost 4 years, and this year I have not won not even one single cookie in their Roll up the Rim to Win contest! Every morning I wake up and debate: Should I make my own coffee and be alert by the time I get to work or should I have one made for me in a disposable cup and only become alert at around 11 am? Ever since their contest began I’ve been opting for being served and paying 1.35. And for what? For the off chance that I could get lucky and win a lousy cookie? See, this is the problem with me, I know why this contest exists: to make customers buy more coffee, believing that they could win the Camry Hybrid car and yet I’ve been a total fool for it. The worst part is that I don’t consider myself lucky enough to win one of the cars, nor even lucky enough to win 1000$ cash and truth be told I don’t even expect to win the iPod. All I basically want is a free darn cookie or coffee. Something that says: hey, thanks for being a customer. Something to boost my morale. But this year has been disappointing. And I believe that Tim Hortons has lost a customer today. Oh I realize my business wasn’t sending the CEO to Bermuda in February or anything; I’m just a little ant in their ant hole after all. It’s the principle of it. My that sounds stupid. I don’t care, I am defying social convention. Take that Tim Horton!

I called an aunt that lives in the US last night. I had learned that she had cancer and was therefore going to be operated. I just called to see how she was and to say hi. The last time we had been in contact was more than 10 years ago when my brother got married. She is my father’s sister and unfortunately we have kind of lost contact. Well, she tells me she is doing ok but that she will have to go through chemotherapy. She later informed my brother that one of our cousin’s son had been killed in an accident in El Salvador. He was only 21 years old, going to university. It’s a stupid cliché but it seems to mirror my life this week. Bad things come in 3s. First my grandma dies, the last one I had, then one of my aunts has cancer and is going to have to go through chemo and one of my cousin-nephews dies!

What a lousy week I’ve had!

My pastor based his sermon on Matthew 20:29-34 Sunday. The last words of this passage filled my eyes with hot tears as we all read it. Something along the lines of: Jesus had compassion for them and healed them. My tears were tears of comfort, of deep feeling, of a good emotion, maybe not of joy but of goodness and knowing that no matter how bad things get, Jesus loves me. Although I feel overwhelmingly alone in my apartment on the weekends and may verge near depression sometimes, I just have to recall that I am not alone, that Jesus loves me. Even though I sin and let God down, I know that He still loves me although I know full well that I can and most probably will be punished. He surely does pull out of the deep holes I dig myself into. Best part: He doesn’t judge me, just keeps on loving me.

How great You are God!

I don’t remember her from my childhood years. I only remember her from when I met her again in my early 20s. She was preoccupied about money all the time even though she had money saved and I knew she didn’t like me much in the beginning but I think near the end she had warmed up to me a bit. I didn’t really blame her, we were practically strangers when I went to live with her nearly 10 years ago. The grandmother instinct was extinct where I was concerned. She has suffered from Alzheimer’s / senility  / dementia for a couple of years now and she is breathing her last.  Because of her disease she has treated my mother abominably but my mother still stood by her. Even when one of her brothers kicked her out of her house she didn’t hate any of them. The house belongs to my mother and 3 of her sisters only, the brother having already gotten the inheritance from grandpa and the other sister having gotten a piece of land as well. But along came a brother to tell her another brother would be taking care of grandma now and that it was best she didn’t live in her own house anymore.

My mother has informed her siblings that grandma is in her deathbed and they don’t seem to care. I couldn’t believe this! They’re just waiting for her to die to visit her. What kind of stupid logic is that? When someone tells you one of your loved ones is about to die you don’t wait for them to die and just show up at the funeral! You go see them one last time alive!! But then again, I am speaking about people who have money to travel anywhere but to see their dear old mother. Some of them have not gone see grandma in many years. I bet they just show up to claim their part of the inheritance. Disgusting, I can’t believe I’m related to these people.

My feelings have been divided between hatred and pity regarding all of these people I’m unfortunate to call family.

I had the weirdest dream the other night. My room mate was having affair after affair, totally living a double life. She was even having an affair with one of my brothers! She knew how to dance salsa and wore skimpy clothes and lots of make up. When I woke up I felt disturbed. Even more disturbing was the nagging feeling that my room mate didn’t represent her at all but rather myself. Interesting, somewhere deep in my subconscious I see myself having affair after affair, dancing salsa and wearing loads of make up. It’s ok, that’s what the subconscious is for, to “defouler”. It’s a French thing. But seriously, I won’t freak out over it because it’s fine that in my dreams I reflect my inner deeper even darker desires. The one that does kinda freak me out is the affair with my brother but I can rationalize it by saying that Sunday my brother came to see me and I hadn’t seen my brother in my apartment in a very long time so my mind kind of snagged on that one. Yes, that’s it.

I like remembering and writing down dreams. They prove to reveal such interesting things I didn’t know about myself. For instance, the salsa part. I don’t like salsa, but hey, there you go, maybe deep inside I do.

Wait, it could just be 2 people trying to keep warm on a wintry night for all we know but oh how the mind races to keep up with the imaginations of someone that has read way too many romance novels (BTW, having read more than 1 will constitute you as one).

oldest embrace

On other news, me too I want Anna Nicole’s baby! Only if she come with the whole package though. Hehe.

Pathetic though, to have so many men all of a sudden interested in performing DNA tests to prove they’re the father. I mean, give me a break, could their avarice be more plain?  It’s quite disgusting. It’d serve them right if Anna Nicole left the money to charity and have her daughter be taken care of by a caring relative. I’d like to see if they’d be willing to fight for paternity then. Most men I know fight NOT to be the proven father of one night stands or ex-girlfriends’ babies. They’d rather she do the “sensible” thing to their pocket and abort.

There was an abortion in my family long ago and I still think about it. She came to me telling me she didn’t know what to do and I didn’t do anything. I didn’t try to convince the father nor the mother to keep the baby. It still bothers me. I still think about the baby that could have been, what he/she would look like. *sigh*

I don’t get how a woman could do it, I know it would kill me, I know I wouldn’t be able to do it. What I do admire are the women who have the babies after a rape. I don’t know what I would do in such a case myself but to all of those women who keep and raise those babies, hats off.

My brother picked her up on Saturday morning. All day Saturday was spent removing the canine smell that seemed to permeate everything in my apartment. At around 6pm I was so tired I decided I couldn’t go to church nor cook my own dinner. I ordered out but when the doorbell rang I couldn’t get off the couch, my back was killing me! The old injury resurfaces. I took a nice long hot shower and it seemed to help but by Sunday morning I couldn’t get out of bed. I seemed to be doing everything in exaggerated slow motion and it would make me laugh. I didn’t have breakfast and yet I was ½ hour late to church! For crying out loud!

Afterwards I headed over to my brother’s to watch the Superbowl. Yes, I watch sports, but only when it’s a very big important event. Also, there was going to be pupusas (can you say MMMMM!) and I was going to see an old friend. So all in all it was a good Sunday.

It’s Tuesday and my back is still hurting. I’m pharming up and I don’t like it.

On the good side, my apartment doesn’t smell like Pichu at all, thank goodness.

I miss her though, she was amusing.

Oh yeah, I got a cute jewellery wooden box from Cuba for my troubles.

Got a call last Thursday night from my brother, he wants a favor. To pet sit his pincher for a week while he and the family head out south to Cuba. Sure I say. She’s a very hyper little thing, wants attention and wants to play and eat ALL the time. While I lay on the couch on my side she is sleeping on the my other side. She smells mildly of Doritos (can someone say cheese?) and is afraid of my roommate.

All in all it’s fun having her around, it’s been about 4-5 years since my dog died but they are very different. They both bark at weird sounds but my dog used to bark at other dogs on the tv while this one ignores them. My dog used to be petrified of the dead battery warning from my cell phone while this one is terrified of my answering machine. My dog used to come when I patted the floor, this one responds to the clicking of my fingers. This dog can eat French fries without ketchup (shh, let’s not tell my brother about her extra feedings or he’ll hang me) while my dog would be insulted and wouldn’t even smell the French fries if they didn’t have ketchup on it. But one this is the same, if you’re not home for a long period of time they will poop and pee in your house. Gross, this is why I don’t want a dog anymore.

H A P P Y   N E W   Y E A R ! ! !