Wine, Dreams and Fetishes

We were sitting around last night, drinking, as is our usual custom on a warm Saturday evening. This time it was a bottle of Italian Merlot, and it’s today I must curse what thinned out Sicilian blood I have flowing through my veins, because it leads me so deep into temptation that I suffer for it repeatedly. Word of advice: don’t drink a 1.5L bottle of wine just before bed. The resulting hangover is just brutal.

Also: don’t trust the Italians or their killer wine industry. Who needs weapons of war? If they want to invade, they can just send over a couple million cases, wait a night, and then waltz in and take what they want.

Because we were all liquoured up on the wine, we got to talking about dreams. Bro had a dream where he was at the grocery store with his 14 month old son – for some reason he dreams a LOT that they are at the grocery store – and the Nephew turned into a wheel of cheese, which Bro dropped and broke, thereby killing his wheel of cheese offspring. I’m not sure how the human mind works on a subconscious level, but it’s truly frightening to me, or at least his certainly is. Me, I dream a lot about work. Ugh. Still, it’s preferable to dreaming about killing my kid in a grocery store.

Speaking of the Nephew, he’s discovered his toes and everyone else’s toes and is quickly developing a foot fetish. This weirds me out because I have a foot fetish too, so now I’m starting to wonder if it’s genetic. Nephew likes the way the toes wiggle and can tickle but I’m prone to blowing the car’s hot air vents onto my sandal-clad feet when I drive, no matter what the temperature might be. Now that I’ve shared that with you all I expect no one will ever ask me for a ride ever again, and I don’t have to argue about the heat blasting in the middle of summer. Total win-win for me really.

I’ve also got a furniture fetish. In the past few years I’ve bought two complete bedroom outfits, two big screen TVs, dining table and chairs (which I’ve since given away), and coffee and end tables. I’m going to get my new rocker recliners and kitchen table and chairs this week coming, and because I’m completely insane, I’ve decided to buy 2 more sofas, another rocker recliner, a new desk, a TV stand, and a sofa table.

In my defense, I’d like to point out that part of this is the fault of the Montreal Canadiens organization. It seems they allow bar fridges and sofas to be manufactured with the team’s colours and logo now, and since I’m setting up a den in my new apartment I’ve decided to make it into a shrine of sorts.

When it’s all done I’ll either be lauded as a devoted fan, or locked away in an insane asylum. Either way I’ll be broke but I’ll have some peace and comfort and less fighting for the TV remote so I can watch the Habs play this coming season. I wonder if they’d help me out with the cost if I point out that I constantly pimp out the team by writing about it.

It does look like I’ll get my vacations to Newfoundland and Montreal despite the massive shopping spree. I’ve discovered the joys of budgeting and working overtime to get what I want. It’s right up there with having a loaded pistol pointed at my head in terms of motivation, but the alternative is to stay home and become an even bigger bitch because of the stress.

My stress issues for the past week, in no particular order:

1) Part of the triplex my Dad is renting burned down, so now he's driving down here at the end of September while repairs are being done so I don't have to go to Montreal to collect his car. While I'm glad he's not hurt and didn't really lose anything, this completely wiped out the vacation plans I had already in place.

2) I'm in the middle of moving, which I hate with the passion most people reserve for telephone solicitations. I don't have enough boxes, time or money to do this the way I want to, which is really not at all. Meanwhile, the new landlord is busy gutting the other half of this duplex, which is resulting in a lot of noise and mess. He'd damned well better wait until I get out of here on the 15th before he rips up the driveway.

3) I got attacked by a dog. The owner was a petite elderly lady who simply dropped the leash rather than get dragged down the hill by her oversized dog. I screamed - something I'm pretty sure I've never done before. I used to love dogs but I'd really be happy now if they were just wiped from the face of the planet entirely. Their dumb-assed owners can just go with them too. I didn't get bitten, but only because I fended it off successfully and she finally managed to call it to heel.

4) Canada Post Corporation tried to use an old transfer to switch me to a department where I'd essentially get no work. Right now I'm working full-time as a letter carrier so the financial hit would be massive. It was a clerical error on the part of the HR Department, but I was the one who almost paid for it. I had to have Boss Lady intervene on my behalf, so thank God for friends in high places. I promised her dinner, but she's trying to extort half of the money I'm going to make instead. Yeah, like THAT's going to happen.

5) My car currently has electrical problems, needs new tires, and a new motor and wiper arm for the back window. I figure it should run me about three grand, which is coincidentally about what I just spent on more furniture. My priorities are a little out of whack I guess.

I need vacation. I need some fun. And I need to win the damned lotto.