Archives for August 2006

Loosely structured Thursday Thirteen (16)

1. I was going to write a venomous Thursday 13 about our border, but I’m just too tired. I have to get up early this morning to go to a Hindu Wedding at 10:30 a.m.
2. My husband is going to be playing music after the ceremony with a band. One of the musicians is Ravi Shankar’s grandson, so it should be very interesting. Oh, and Chris came home from practicing on Wednesday night with his outfit. I can’t remember the formal name but it’s a tunic and loose cotton pants. Kinda looks like Pajamas. I took a picture with him dressed in it and I’m sure I’ll have more from the wedding and the mini-concert.
3. On Friday there is another wedding for the couple. This one will be a catholic ceremony followed by a reception. It’s at a normal time thankfully, but it’s still an odd day.
4. Then, this weekend we have a festival here in Toronto called “The Taste of the Danforth”. Since we live nearby, I’d like to try to get there once or twice. There are bandstands with musicians, lots of great food and drink and about a million happy people wandering around. Oh and it’s also walking distance too.
5. The reason why I was going to write a venomous post about our boarder is because she’s still driving me nuts! Thankfully, she’s decided to go back home to Korea on August 25th. Whether she goes back to Korea or not she’s definitely going to be out of our house on that day. I’ve had enough.
6. Two weeks ago she accidentally knocked over a water glass in her room. She used half a box of tissues to clean up the spill. She told me about it that day, but I had forgotten about it later that evening when she called me up because her computer wouldn’t turn on. I finally got it started after unplugging it and resetting it, but it simply wouldn’t start up when I tried at the beginning.
7. Then, this past Sunday she told us that her keyboard hasn’t been working for oh, four or five days. Hmmm how about since last Saturday when you spilled water all over it? She offered to replace it, but said it in a way that, to us, seemed like she was hoping we’d say it was ok and that we’d replace it. Uh huh, ’cause by this time I’d realized why the computer wouldn’t start the weekend before. She’s lucky she didn’t have to replace the whole computer.
8. Now I know accidents happen, but why didn’t she tell us about the keyboard sooner. She just seems so sneaky.
9. Last night we found a broken ceramic plate on the stove. I’m forgetting what they are called … you know, the kind of thing that you place a hot dish or hot pot on when you don’t want to ruin a table because the dish is so warm. Yeah, whatever that’s called. Well, we had this on our stove in an area that never has any heat, but it’s ceramic, it’s heat resistant. She must have dropped it or placed it over a burner that was turned on, because it had all these tiny cracks all over it, but two whole pieces had broken off and were lying on the stove when we found it. I asked her on Wednesday evening if she dropped it or turned the heat on under it and she said no. I guess we must have gremlins in the house then ’cause neither Chris nor I broke it.
10. Chris spent all day Wednesday with the groom “to be” practicing music. The bride to be wasn’t amused and ended up doing a lot of the final preparations for the wedding on her own. So I ended up going over to her home Wednesday evening to calm her down. Man was she angry and frustrated. It seems that her Maid of Honor hasn’t been of any use to her and she felt that everything was going wrong. I did the ” it’s your day, and only you and him matter tomorrow” speech and that made her feel somewhat better.
11. When I left the house my boarder and I had just finished dinner. Actually she was still eating. When I came back home at midnight she’d just left her dishes- some still with food on them on the table and the counter in the kitchen. She doesn’t have to do her dishes, but we’ve asked her to at least rinse them after she’s used them. So I had a mess to clean up at midnight.
12. I also discovered that she drank my coke that I had tucked in the back of the fridge near the eggs. We’ve been limiting the supply of pop in the house because she’s been drinking more than the two of us combined. She pays room and board – but that doesn’t include snacks, and I think 4 or 5 soft drinks falls in to the snack category doesn’t it? She can buy her own if she wants to drink that much. I shouldn’t have to hide our food and drink now should I? We’ve told her what she can and can’t have, and what she can and can’t use, but she doesn’t listen.
13. She’d made her own sandwich for her lunch tomorrow. Yeah she’s back to sandwiches again … so much for the sushi that we purchased all the supplies for, for her. Sigh … Curious me … I was wondering how she found my coke since it was near the eggs at the back. Ah ha we’d only had two eggs left and now we only had only one. So she used an egg. Her sandwich is in a baggie in the fridge and when I took a better look at it I could see that she’d fried and egg for it. How does fried egg, ham and uh cucumber sound for a sandwich? Whatever floats your boat.
14. Now, a week ago I’d asked her to stop using my good frying pan because she kept using a metal spoon in it and she’d scratched the coated surface. It’s from a very expensive set that was a wedding gift and well, if someones going to ruin it it’d better be me. So we actually went out and bought her her own pan to use for cooking. It’s quite nice, a good quality stir fry pan, so she can cook her fried rice, eggs or whatever she wants in it.
15. Did she use the new pan when she cooked the egg? Nope! I found the pan that I’d asked her NOT to use, not very well cleaned, in the cupboard. So that means that she left her dirty food filled dishes on the table and counter but cooked an egg and cleaned (sorta) the pan and put it away. Weird … Why wash one thing and not even scrape the food off the others? I’d only do that if I was being sneaky … and to me that was sneaky. My good pans are now hidden.
16. The last one is the best of course. As soon as we came in the door at midnight she started telling me how expensive her flight to Korea was going to be, but that she’d found a good price on the internet. Could she use OUR credit card to buy her ticket? My jaw hit the floor, she’d been talking all along like she had a credit card. I don’t feel comfortable with that at all … I believe she was trying to tell me that she would give us cash for the use of our card, but I still don’t like that, not after all that’s been going on, and not when I’d assumed by many other things she’s said over the last few months that she had her own card. Trying to think quickly because she’d shocked me with her boldness I told her our card was maxed out. She was upset then- like we owed this to her? and was saying “Oh what am I going to do?”. Now, she’s been talking to her mom every day on the phone, so I asked if her parents have a credit card and why not use it. No … I want to use my Canadian money. Well then why don’t you just transfer your Canadian money to your parents so they can apply that to their credit card when they pay for the ticket. No can do- Korean money is worth less. I don’t get that. Yes there is a difference in the exchange rate but money is money and if it’s transferred it should end up being the correct amount in Korean funds. I think 90 cents Canadian is equal to 1000 Korean dollars.

I’m just fed up with her. I feel like she’s being sneaky and as a result we actually have to hide things in our own home to keep them away from her. I can’t wait for her to be GONE!

So I did write about the boarder after all. Please feel free to put in as many nasty words as you can think of where they seem appropriate. I took the venom out of the post. But not out of my mind. I’ve only told you the tip of the iceberg parts of this story. It’s just horrendous living with this #$#%$$^%^% . I have the nastiest words of all floating in my head about once every minute, every day. Words I never use because I think they are totally disgusting- but they are in my head and totally directed at her these days. It’s going to be nice to be away from her, here and there over the next few days, but then I’ll also be worried about what she’s doing in my home. Can’t win.