We went bowling on Friday night, kind of randomly. Dario & Gina invited us out. Off to Revs Bowling in Burnaby, the old 10 pin staple.

I kind of find it surprising how busy it is in there every time I go there. Lots of parties and stagettes. People in costumes, people having fun.

We bowled 3 games for $20 which was pretty good, but it was about the only good thing we were about to encounter.

Revs has a rule that if you want to drink booze while you bowl then you have to buy food. Its actually a law or a by-law or something. Dosen’t really bother me, I like munching on stuff and their platters to share aren’texpensive. So we flag down a waitress, the one and only waitress working the entire bowling alley and order a pitcher of beer. We ask if we have to order food as well and she says we are supposed to but she doesn’t care, so we don’t. It took half an hour for her to finally bring us said pitcher. The old ‘sorry, the Keg was being changed’ excuse was given to us. The boys were not impressed but at least they had their beer.

The pitcher went down quick, so another one was in order. I suggested trying our luck at the bar so Dario headed over. 15 minutes later he comes back pissed off and beerless. There was a group of guys standing at the front of the line ordering shot after shot and the bartender only seemed concerned with them. The line up didn’t more for 15 minutes and the bartender didn’t seem to care. Thank you, Revs, for your wonderful service. Dario was about to have a rage attack on someone.

So, we tried our luck with the waitress again. Chad finally found her and ordered another pitcher. We finished up our second game and the pitcher still hadn’t shown up. Now Dario was ready to kill someone. Halfway through game number 3 we decided if this waitress ever did show up we would not accept the beer, given the fact that we had waited another 30 minutes. We bowled and nothing came.  No beer at all. No waitress. NOTHING. Are you kidding me? The real kicker was that all the groups around us were ordering beers and shots and food and they got everything they ordered right away. Us, we got shit. Maybe it was because we ordered pitchers, or maybe its because Revs has the worst service ever.

Personally, I could care less about beer, but when you are trying to have a good time with boys who put way too much importance on beer and then end up in a piss poor mood when they don’t get beer, you get frustrated.

The good thing was that I won. I won all three games. Yea, that’s right, apparently I rule at bowling. 5 pin not so much, but 10 pin is where I excel. I took this photo as a tribute to my Nonno, who loves to pose for pictures like this. That’s right, I am a WINNER.

This is what a winner looks like from behind.

Today was not a good day for me.

I was consumed with this overwhelming feeling that I was the only one with this unbelievably large pile of work and stress on my desk. Everyone else in the office has gone on their Christmas Holidays or completed their ‘Christmas rush’ tasks, and here I am, with 20 styles that need their trims ordered and 10 styles waiting to have their final costings done.

My job consists of juggling lots of plates at one time. For the most part I am pretty good and it and enjoy the variety it provides me, but every so often, all the plates become too much and I feel like I’m going to collapse under the weight of it all.

It also doesn’t help when the contractors email you info at the last minute and tell you they need your half of the work done the next day. I’m really sorry, but I don’t just sit here on my butt waiting for you to give me work.

My days are meticulously planned out.

Things keep getting pushed back, and I hate having things pushed back. I just want to finish them and shelve them and not have them carry over each day.

Thus is the life I  guess.

Everything I attempted to finish today was halted by road blocks, which then made it seem like I got nothing done all day. It was so frustrating. Missing button prices, fabric that wasn’t logged in, retails I couldn’t find. Nothing seemed to work out.

While I take pride in the insane amount of stuff I can get done in one day, I think I also need to realize that there are going to be times when I can’t make everyone happy, and I can’t, physically, get it all done in one day. Today was one of those days. Actually, this week is going to be one of those weeks.

I need to order trims. I need to put the contractors on hold.

My brain never stops working.

Well, that was interesting.

I know I bring it on myself 95% of the time. I’m Italian, I’m loud, I’m passionate, and I need to vocalize everything that pisses me off. Yes, I may use my heritage as a crutch, but try and prove me wrong. Being Italian and the way I act basically go hand in hand.

Work this week has been very interesting. I spent all day Tuesday working on a project. I wasn’t 100% satisfied with the way it turned out, but the way I looked at it was, ‘we are half way through the season, lets use this as a trial run’. As I began to finish it off Wednesday morning I got a phone call telling me that I needed to re-due the whole thing. I was not impressed. Enter extreme bad mood Danielle. Not feeling well and realizing you are going to be behind another day in your work is not a good combination. What I found amusing was that the person who wanted me to re-due the whole project didn’t come to work that day. Probably better for the both of us, but I’d like to imagine she did so as to avoid my wrath. Sad but true. My co-workers know not to piss me off too much! Anyways, the project looks 100 times better and is now 100 times more useful. I am now 3 days behind in all my work, but really, I’m just glad it was done the right way. I only wish the instructions for the project were communicated better to me before I started, not when I was almost done. None the less, all worked out for the better.

The only other really looming thing at work has to do with me telling the truth. Who knew that could get you into trouble! I’m not actually in trouble, it’s just the person in question is now giving me attitude for telling it like it is and putting them in the hot seat. Here’s a thought, don’t be rude and lie and you won’t have everyone mad at you.

But I digress…

On to more positive things about life.

Tonight we are having a PJ party on the couch. No Internets, no blogs, no ironing, no cleaning, no computer games. Just blankets and pillows and fire and wine and hopefully some snow falling outside. I can literally sit and watch the snow fall outside my window of hours. As long as I don’t have to drive anywhere, I love it.

A man left a message on the answering machine Tuesday night calling Chad – the Strata Council President – with some questions from potential clients of his wanting to buy one of the apartments for sale. He main questions were about the occupancy by-law in the building that states for a 1 bedroom apartment 2 people are permitted to live there and a 2 bedroom apartment permits 3 people. On and on and on he kept asking Chad the same questions over the phone about how strict they were about the by-law and what the penalties would be if the broke the by-law.

Last night the man called again asking if he could meet with Chad in person to discuss the by-law. He asked him very specific questions about how much of a penalty they would have to pay if they broke the by-law, what the legal ramifications would be if 3 people lived in a 1 bedroom apartment, and how the other tenants would react to this. Again and again Chad explained to him and the family that the strata is very strict with the bi-law and makes no exceptions and that a penalty will have to be paid every month for the duration of their stay.

Why was the man asking so specifically about the by-law and the penalties involved? Because his clients plan on purchasing the apartment and moving their family of 3 in there completely disregarding the by-law with plans just to pay the penalties and pretend nothing is wrong.

This will now be the 3rd family in the building doing this.

Family 1 was previously hording their child and parents in a 2 bedroom apartment. The parents finally moved out but then the couple – full well knowing the by-law – decided to have another child. How did the family resolve this by-law issue? They wrote a letter to Strata indicating that the father had in fact ‘moved out of the building and is living with a friend’ while the mother, child, and new born live in the apartment therefore, not breaking the by-laws. Yes, because that is believable when we see him walking down the hallways every day.

Family 2 moved in as just two people but proceeded to have a baby, and then invited their mother to stay with them all in their little 1 bedroom apartment even though letters were sent out during the pregnancy warning the family of the by-law. They as well have chosen to ignore it.

Now we will have Family 3 who are completely disregarding the by-law even BEFORE they move it.

There is nothing the frustrates me more then people who just do what they want and don’t care. If Chad wasn’t the President I probably wouldn’t even know about these issues or even care for that matter,  but that fact is that I have to hear about them everyday. There is always SOMEONE complaining about these family and wanting Chad and the strata to do more and more. You have no idea how much of Chads time is spent dealing with stupid people who live in this building. It is SO frustrating and stressful and no one seems to care that they are wasting his time by being completely asshats. I don’t know how many time I have literally burst into tears over frustration about all of this. You know, because this year hasn’t been stressful enough we have to go and add people who are heartless to the list.

And now, another family, who knows full well that they are breaking the rules, is planing to move right in, and a shit storm will then ensue, and WE will be the ones who have to deal with it.

I know this is probably going to make me sound racist but I realized last night that all 3 of these families are of the same race and it really does make me wonder. As much as I try to keep an open mind and know that not everyone who belongs to a specific group is the same,  situations like this that continue to occur just get me down and cause my mind to close.

Never again will we live in an apartment building or have anything to do with a Strata.

We got to the Mountain Shadow at about 5:30 last night, an hour and half before the game. What we didn’t factor in was that it was also Student Night, Wing Night, & Happy Hour. What did this mean? All the good seats were already taken or reserved. Dammit. We found a booth in the newer section of the pub and held that, but Chad was not satisfied, so he over took another table as well. Shortly after ordering beers Marlee showed up and one by one everyone arrived. The boys stole chairs and crowded around the table and the girls sat comfortably in the booth.

We attempted to order some dinner in the middle of the first period but the wait staff was on crack the whole night. It took forever for drinks and even long for food. It wasn’t until the 3rd period that we finally ate. My chicken wrap was surprisingly good, while Chads potato skins actually looked like someone had thrown them in the garbage and someone else picked them up and put them on a plate. Marlee’s peppers actually had mold on them. They were so understaffed that our food probably sat in the kitchen for an hour waiting to be picked up. It was ridiculous. No one came to clear our plates or glasses so we had a pile of garbage at the end of the table. By the end of the night we were all pissed off with the shitty service and shitty food. Both Chad and I felt gross for the rest of the evening. We pretty much made a packed that we weren’t going to go there to watch any more hockey games this season and definitely wouldn’t go there again for food.

As well, because we had waited so long for our dinners to arrive all we could do was drink what was in front of us which meant that me + 2 pints + no food = falling asleep in the corner by 9:30. We left right after the game finished, because seriously there was no point hanging around any longer, and I basically feel asleep the minute my head hit the pillow. Out like a light.

Oh and not to mention that there was a 30 second delay on the TVs upstairs so instead of watching the game it was more about listening to the downstairs crowd react. They told us when the goals were before we saw them. Craptastic.

The only thing that saved the evening was the company and conversation. We ended up getting into a huge conversation about Cancer of all things, talking about Marlee’s friend Jon, what I have to go through, and about other people we know who’ve gone through it. It was then that we found out Sonia’s boyfriend Darren has survived Cancer twice having it both in his brain and his neck. With hearing all the things he had to go through was really inspirational and very interesting. Because of going through 2 rounds of treatments for his two different Cancers his thyroid was destroyed, so like me, he has to be on medication for life.

Its interesting that we got onto that topic of conversation yesterday because yesterday was the first day since I heard the diagnosis that I started to really worry about the surgery. After I came to the realization about what was going to happen to me I put the thought out of my mind and basically have been living in ‘denial’ about it, just trying not to think about. After looking at the calendar yesterday and realizing how close we are getting to the beginning of May I started to panic. The thought of going through that whole process again is too much for me to stomach.

Whats more interesting is that when we got home last night there was a message on the answering machine from the surgeons office asking me to call them back. Its like I subconsciouslyknew all day that it would be soon and then I got home and there it was. I was quietly freaking out inside all night and when I finally had the chance to call them back this morning I was more then disappointed.

The lady who answered the phone was the moron secretary (though I feel bad calling her that now because she was very sweet to me the last time I was in there). I told her my name and she asked what I was waiting to hear back for. I told her about the surgery and proceeded to look for the information. Well apparently the competent secretary does all the bookings and she wasn’t in today and moron secretary couldn’t find the information she had so I have to phone back on Monday to find out when my surgery is. Really now. If this time is anything like last time it means that they are phoning me to give me a weeks notice, which means if I have to call them on Monday I will basically be getting a few days notice. GREAT! Am really not impressed at the moment.

So now I sit and wait some more even though I am this close to knowing the date and attempting to figure out my schedule. I wish people weren’t so incompetent.

PS. I only took 4 pictures last night because everyone was all over the place and I fell asleep.