Well, Monday was productive but not in the Blog sense. I always like Monday mornings, but yesterday I woke up in an especially good mood for some reason. Sent Rachel off to take her math exam then got my housework and the laundry done.

Took the satellite dish down off my balcony. Seems it's against the apartment rules to have it attached to the large piece of free standing concrete on the balcony, although the fact that they drilled a hole through the wall into my dining room to run the cable through was not an issue. Go figure. I am now the proud owner of digital cable. It's not much different, except I don't lose the signal every time the wind blows. I must say, I'm not much on satellite after having used it.

I watched the end of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, which was on one of the movie networks and basically was lazy after that. I have seen the first two Harry Potter movies, but haven't read the books. Rachel has done both and has read the books up to the most recent. We're going to see the third movie, but Rachel worries that it will leave out too much of the important background stuff that was in the third book, Harry's parents' history etc. If anyone has seen the movie and read the book, could you let me know if this is true? I want to start reading the books, but won't read the third one if it's too far off the movie. I find that the movie disappoints me if I do that. Bridget Jones Diary was on later and I can never see that too often. Couches can be so comfortable.

Rachel tells me that the sign outside where the City of London Gordon Ave make work project says it should be done in the spring (2005) so I guess we have that mess to look forward to all summer, fall and winter. Wouldn't be so bad, but the sulphur smell at night is a little much sometimes.

So I'm rethinking the Marketing thing. I was walking to work the other day and thinking (as usual) that if I was to leave the job I'm at and anyone asked what I would like to be remembered for, for me it wouldn't be stats, or how many times I received awards, it would be that I had helped people understand and learn things that they didn't know before. I remember when I was about 11 or 12, my grandmother had neighbors/friends across the street who had a down's syndrome child. Now you have to remember that this was when it was first becoming acceptable to allow these children to have a more normal mainstream kind of life. Unfortunately, this girl's parents were the same age as my grandparents and to them, it was unacceptable to allow Trish to go to any kind of classes where she could socialized. Sad to say, it was still considered, in their eyes, a failure and I'm not sure if it was an embarrassment issue or a protection one, but either way up to this point, Trish was only allowed to be with her family. If guests came over, she was sent to her room with a colouring book and crayons. If I remember correctly, she was 30 at the time. Anyway, my grandmother convinced them that it would be a good thing to let me go over and help with Trish, to teach her the alphabet and numbers. I loved it. It was such a natural thing for me and something that I have always been drawn to. Not to train people, but to actually teach them and help to make them understand how to do something and why they're doing it, not to make them understand that they have to do it. So I spent yesterday looking for the Bachelor of Education program at local Universities. It may very well be something that is too late to start and/or out of my financial reach at this point, but I won't know if I don't at least try. If nothing else, I'm going to look into volunteering. I'd like to get into a program that teaches computers to beginners. I have an endless supply of patience when it comes to these kind of things and the look on someone's face when it finally comes together and all makes sense is worth it to me.

The other site where I have become a frequent flyer is Ebay. I am fascinated by it and can certainly understand how people get hooked on it. It's like no one bids for something until the last 2 minutes of the auction and then it's just a question of who has the faster connection and can type the fastest. Some of the items though... Check this one out: http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=67726&item=4905410478&rd=1 How can anyone expect someone to pay that kind of money over the internet? Then there are the ones with the reserve. What is the sense of the auction format if you already have the price set? People don't seem to bid for those. Most of the time, once you add shipping and the conversion of the currency, you could buy the item from a local store cheaper and have it immediately. I like watching the ones with no reserve. It's nice to see people get a bargain once in a while.

I think I am going to get the orange monster(Leroy)declawed. I've never had a cat declawed before because I've always felt it was unfair to them. If they get out and have to defend themselves, you have taken away their natural weapons. Now that we're on the seventh floor, the only thing that those weapons are being used for is to try to tunnel under doors and climbing the patio door screen, both of which are not encouraged but done anyway. So I think it's time to tame the lion a little. He has been banned from being on the balcony on his own, since finding a way to launch himself from the floor to the balcony wall, the one that the satellite is not allowed to be anchored to. It's about two inches wide and seven floors up and there he perches, surveying his kingdom and giving me heart palpitations. Karen told me that when she had her cat done, it healed rather quickly, so hopefully this same will apply to Leroy. I know he'll play the sympathy card more than once.

A quiz for you. It's the colour quiz and scarily, it was pretty accurate for me. Give it a try.

Anyway, I guess that's all for now. I really should be doing something productive...