No longer do I have to awkwardly change the subject when questioned. No longer do I have to hide the fact that something just wasn’t quite right.

Happy almost birthday to me!

Previously (love costs quite a bit, actually)

I think I may have to break up with my boyfriend.

It’s not that he’s not a great guy, he is. And it’s not that I don’t love him, I do. He’s very sweet and he treats me well. He gets along great with my friends, and even my cats cuddle up to him. The problem is nothing as simple as any of these things.

The problem is that he keeps introducing me to very expensive sports.

First there was the snowboarding. It all started with a base layer and boots that he slipped under the Christmas tree. He had an extra pair of snowpants and gloves that I could use, and he managed to borrow an extra board from a friend, so with the winter stuff I already had, all I had to do was buy the snowboard bindings and pay for the cost of the lift tickets at the ski hill. While not cheap, it wasn’t so bad. Then the snowboard broke, the snowpants weren’t so waterproof anymore, I whacked my head (requiring the purchase of a helmet), and all of a sudden I’ve spent $650 bucks, and that’s not counting the lift passes two or three times a week.

Then there was the kayaking.

Now truthfully, I started taking kayaking lessons because another friend didn’t want to take them alone and it sounded somewhat fun. But I had no real intentions of making it anything other than a casual sport.

But, conveniently, the boyfriend also happens to kayak. And again, he played it out as if it wouldn’t cost me too much. He wants a new kayak this season, so when he got his new one, I could use his old one. Until then, I could borrow or rent the kayak and other equipment if I needed it.

The problem is, kayaks are all slightly different. Taken separately, these differences seem small and subtle, but when added all together, they make quite a huge difference, especially when you are hanging upside down underwater, trying to flip yourself back upright before you drown¹. So while I was perfectly content using the variety of beat up equipment for my weekly lessons under the watchful eyes of the lifeguards in the somewhat calm pool, when it comes down to the ability to breathe while rushing down a turbulant river, I’m kind of leaning towards knowing the equipment. And since he has already started planning kayaking trips for us for the summer, it sort of makes me want to get a kayak of my own that I can use and get use to before getting out into the rumbling water. Which introduces the second problem: kayaks are expensive little hunks of plastic. I could redo my kitchen for the price of a kayak (keep in mind, I do have a small kitchen, but they are still expensive little things). Add on top of that the cost of the paddle, skirt, life jacket, helmet (yet another sport where I can whack my head. Yay.) and all of a sudden my already thin bank balance is looking rather starved.

Of course, none of this will be a problem if I just broke up with the man. But I just can’t do that.

¹ Which I managed to do by myself for the first time last night. Quite exciting.

Previously (um … yeah …)

Every afternoon, I take a mini-break from work and walk to the Tim Horton’s next door for a medium¹ decaf tea, triple sugar. Every afternoon, pretty much without fail. And a few mornings too. Always medium. Always decaf tea. Always triple sugar. So what if I’m predictable and they get to know my order? It’s kind of nice to walk in and have someone just say “Your tea?”. It makes you feel all cosy and warm inside (much like the tea does).

Or at least it makes you feel all cosy and warm when they actually get it right. When they get it wrong, it’s a slightly different story.

Large? Milk?? No sugar?!? Well, at least she got the tea part right …

But twice in recent trips, one of the servers has taken some “liberties” with my order, causing me to break out of my nice MDTTS pattern. I’m still not convinced as to whether she genuinely has me confused with someone else (I do occasionally get mistaken for one or two other people at work-the blonde thing strikes again) or if it is some weird passive-aggressive move on her part. And how is it that she has gotten my tea order wrong both times, but she never fails to remember the other order perfectly (large black coffee)? The two orders always go together, sometimes the tea is rhymed off first, sometimes the coffee, but the end result is always a tea that is sweetened just right and a naked cuppa joe.

I obviously have to start wearing my sugarfiend t-shirt a little more often.

¹In the beginning I used to get a large, because it was a all-sizes-one-price dealy, but then they decided to start charging² for water and since I can get water for free at work, I now get a medium and then just add more hot water when I get to work. Or not, if I am lazy.

²Okay, so maybe it’s not the additional water that bumps up the price, but you can’t honestly tell me that the extra square inch of paper required for the larger cup can cost that much money. So I choose to believe that water is at a premium these days. It *must* have something special in it. After all, what else would explain the frequent appearance of kittens with extra toes in this area?

³Okay, so it’s also not the tea I really make the trip for, it’s the company. But can you blame me?

Previously (better than twinkie)

You may be asking yourself: What would make Tracy post after so many months? What would be so important as to bring her out of her accidentally-imposed hiatus to pick up the laptop and plunk down some words? ¹

Well, it turns out that I just needed a (figurative) kick in the pants. I decided that in the interest of fairness, I would offer my version of the incident.

So there I was on Tuesday, standing in the kitchenette at work, patiently minding my own business, when my co-worker turns around and calls me … cupcake. Now I know that I have the blond thing going for me, and I realize that we work in a fairly open/friendly environment (in fact, it strikes me now that I may have been called cupcake before by yet another coworker), but it did catch me somewhat off guard. After all, I was just standing there innocently, waiting to wash something in the sink. I was tempted to make a joke about “Should I be telling your wife about this?” but left it alone, not sure how it would go over (although I was pretty sure he would think it was funny, since we have never worked directly with each other, I wasn’t 100% sure and decided not to risk it). Of course I still couldn’t resist relaying the story to C during our afternoon coffee date, since he does work with/near the aforementioned wife. And he, of course, could not resist relaying the story to the wife. 🙂

And while my coworker *says* that there was a cupcake on the counter behind me and that he was merely referring to this sugary confection, let me ask you this: do you normally talk to your food? Or a better question, since the cupcake in question did not belong to him but to another coworker: do you normally talk to other people’s food?

I rest my case.

As a side note, when I went to log into Blogger tonight I actually couldn’t remember my username. I went through four usernames and several minutes of staring at the screen before finally remembering it. For a brief second I was a little panicked as I don’t have it written down anywhere. That’ll learn me.

¹Some of you may be asking yourself: How come *my* nagging didn’t prompt her to post?!? Luck of the draw my friends, luck of the draw.

Previously (the saga continues)