5 days in retail

   I've been working at the yoga studio for eight months and it’s been great. Monotonous, repetitive, tedious but great.

Bored but happy.

   I was making the province-approved minimum wage at half the hours an adult works per week. The job was cushy but following the imposed budget was not.

   Broke and boozeless, I applied to dozens of jobs online but it seems my on-paper skills are worth nothing and all I've got on my side is the keen ability to shmooze.

   In a fit of desperation and/or mania, I applied to a Canadian outlet retail store that caters to vapid young adult women and really young mothers and their kids. It's like someone invented everything I can't stand and made me sell clothes to it. Banter and jocularity are not appreciated like they are in more laid-back workplaces.

   My first shift was a four-hour shift and I came home and cried. No, I almost made it home; I sobbed on my way home without any sense of dignity or self-awareness. And, because they don't let you wear supportive (read: ugly) shoes at this store my feet were giant stumps of elephant-man pain from supporting my dumb body-weight in flats.

   An nonagenarian-lady came in to shop for shoes on my fourth day. Old ladies love me and I was thrilled to talk to someone whose physical age is so close to my emotional age. I enthusiastically began to help her in her search for a pair of shoes

   She later yelled at me for having red hair.

   While shopping, practice common sense (sēnsus commūnis) and courtesy (kur-tuh-see). Retail people are supposed to help you find stuff and with product knowledge but not be your servant. Put things back where you found them, mind your offspring, and use your god damn manners.

Also, don't switch tags to get a deal. Which decade do you live in where everything isn't catalogued on a computer?

   On my fifth and final day, I entered the sales floor with a quiet peace in my heart. I robotically unpacked pashminas with a dreamy (some might say creepy) smile on my face. I was kneeling to reach the bottom scarf-hangers when the assistant manager came over to tell me not to sit while working. She was tapping her toes and had her arms folded and looked the way humans look when they're assholey. I was too far-gone to care.

and I waited. My lunch break came at 2:30pm and I left. I walked home, turned off my cell phone, took off my work clothes, put on my pajamas, and never went back.

Like an adult.

February - New Beginnings

   Hello there faithful Ottawa This Weekend readers. It's been awhile, eh? Where have you been getting your weekend news? You've been over at Apartment 613, haven't you? HAVEN'T YOU? It's been three months since the last post; who could blame you for straying?

   The past 91 days haven't even been particularly busy.

   In early December, I worked at a car dealership for seven days calling customers to let them know that their vehicle had been recalled:

   For seven days.

   By day three, I would sit down to make these calls, affix the incredibly sexy and not humiliating at all headset to my face-head area, and think of all the different ways I could get out of working for them:

   On a Tuesday, I called my representative and said I wouldn't be returning to that job and that I was sorry for being such a flake; good luck in the future, lady.

   I spent 45 minutes on the phone trying to explain why I didn't want to work there anymore. The list of reasons included:

• “it's making me sad”
• “I feel empty when I'm there”
• “I think I'm incapable of doing the job correctly”
• “my heart hurts when I think about going back”

  

... to my employment-representative. I'm an idiot.

   The good thing I did take away from my time there is some solid information about the man who hit me in the ass with his car in 2011 (just kidding, if that's illegal).

Around the same time, a wish of mine came true: 

   #TeamMiggie is together at last. Here's a post from PugBurger about her introduction/dynamic. She sleeps next to me now which is HEART EXPLODINGLY nice. 

   Biggie hates her guts :

   To fill my weekends and to leave this fur-covered hell I call a home I've started working at a yoga centre. I love it there. Beautiful people in yoga pants, walking around without shoes on, and (as with any customer service job) there's always a handful of weirdos — it's pretty perfect.

   However, it is a part-time gig so I've been begging different retail places and restaurants to give me a job to no avail. I don't know why the retail stores are being so uppity (I'm a motherfucking customer service guru) but I feel like the restaurants can just tell that I'm a taste-testing plate-dropper. How do they know? I can't promise that I won't steal someone's french-fry but I can promise to try really hard not to drop anything. Restaurants aren't in the game of chances, are they?

   So I've been Googling how to sell worn-underwear online. It seems the worn-underwear game is for people who don't quit their steady employment because their hearts hurt from lack of job-love.

It's a cold, competitive scene in the underthings-selling game; you really have to have a mind for marketing — plus, I call them 'underthings'.

   This has all lead me back to Ottawa This Weekend. I love it here and I've been feeling guilty about my lack of diligence in updating. Ottawa This Weekend is going to be done a little differently from now on, though. The general talk-around-town is that, with the exception of my father/number 1 fan (who lives 500 km outside of Ottawa), nobody likes to read about the upcoming events. Even though they're hilarious and I put a lot of consideration and time into how best you'd like to read about upcoming events, you ungrateful pack of swines, they are tedious and not nearly as much fun to write as the reviews. Ottawa This Weekend will, from now on, be stories, reviews, and memories from around Ottawa (and maybe a few that aren't about/from Ottawa at all). I'm super excited about it, you're super excited about it, and I'm sorry, Dad.

October 27 & 28 Review

    I was sick this past weekend. I reached out for support and was offered every home-remedy ranging from rest and tea to Nyquil and beer. I decided to beat the shit out of the sickness with the unbridled power of yoga:

    Regular bodily functions are a terrible thing to have in spandex among ten fit strangers; gassiness, coughing, and having an unstoppable itch are all natural things that are amplified in a quiet and zen room. Having a case of plugged-sinuses made me feel incredibly self-conscious and justifiably gross:

  

   After sleevin' it for the rest of the class, I was relieved to unwind in the least judgemental place on Earth — the city bus.

   A year ago, my friend taught me how to crochet. I vaguely remember her becoming frustrated with my slow learning progress and threatening me with physical violence. She can't hold a candle to this crochet-shaming bus-monster:

   This lady noticed my craft and confided that she too knows how to crochet.

   “Do you know how to make a chain?” she asked sweetly/menacingly.

   “I think so,” said I with trust and foolishness.

   “Here,” she said while taking my yarn and stick away from me.

  I didn't realise I had been crocheting all wrong. This is how I crochet:

when I should be crocheting like:

   There's this hand-contortion that you're supposed to do to make the process look effortless. It's something like:

and I just couldn't get my hand to stay folded in that position. If left unsupervised, the hand would unfurl and go back to groping and mishandling the yarn.

   The lady kept taking the crochet from me to demonstrate. Each time, she would walk me through the steps, hand the yarn back, and look around the bus to make eye contact with someone so she could shrug and shake her head like “Can you believe this girl?”

can you believe she actually said that?

  But really, the lady was incredibly adorable during the entire bus ride and, as a bonus, we used the impromptu lesson to ignore the drunk, dishevelled vagrant who was yelling to us.

Oct 20/21 Review / A Cat.

   

   This weekend I met up with a friend from college to wander around the city to see what we could see. 

   We went down to the Market where something NFL themed was going on. We watched children pathetically throw footballs through tires and they were awful at it.

   

   I looked for the giant pumpkin but didn't see it which means it clearly wasn't big enough.

   Another thing that's happening is that my friend, Dustin, is moving Out West to be a cowboy or an oil tycoon or a Chinese immigrant or something. In doing so, he's leaving behind this wittle orange kitty, Minnie.

    Minnie is a furry little beer-swilling dumpling of complicated emotions. She is definitely on the spectrum. She avoids eye contact, doesn't want to sustain a cuddle, and is incredibly non-verbal. Also, it's probably unrelated but she might also have a mild case of micrognathia.

    Right now, she's living with Dustin's roommates and is reportedly happy. However, the big move Out West presents a need for Minnie to have a home with regular and present guardians and maybe a friend to hang out with...

I propose:

 

   His name is Biggie and her name is Minnie. It's fate.

    They've met tons of times and it always goes really well.

    They're like a fuzzier and more idiotic version of Milo and Otis. Who in their right mind would pass up that opportunity for a pairing?

  Fools would.

  It's true that Dustin has already raised a cat with my friend Jessica and so has hastily decided that she would be a good choice to take care of Minnie. 

 

  I want to destroy her.

  Jess is awesome but I will besmirch her character and throw her under every bus until that cat is mine.

  I've already started spreading little white lies around the cat-community to undermine her capabilities as a suitable cat-owner:

   “I once saw her pull on her cat's tail for no reason.”

   “She drove her last cat to the brink of cat-madness.”

and

   “She once strangled a cat.”

the cat community is also the knitting community

   The whole project is incredibly time-consuming. 

#TeamMiggie

   

October 20 & 21

I went to visit a friend in the Big Smoke this weekend and she finally put my OTW illustrative talents to practical use:

Even those porcelain owls are like, "Whaat?"

The line forms over in the Contact tab, people.

Saturday

Ottawa Valley Crafts and Collectibles Show

   What is it about this season that brings out the inner DIYer, crafter, and baker in everyone? Even the completely incompetent dip their toes in the domestic trades once the leaves turn a little burnt umberish. Pinterest is a mess right now.
   I made pom-poms for the dog's collar on Thanksgiving. Pom-poms. Why?

   So here's another craft show. There's free admission (a rarity) and free parking (a Nessie!).

   Expect hand-crafted items, home decor, culinary giftware, hand knits, vintage collectibles, y mucho más!

Library and Archives Canada, 395 Wellington Street. 9am-5pm. Free Admission, Free Parking.

http://ovccshow.com/

Oktoberfest — ByWard Market

   “Another Oktoberfest?” say you? This one is different, damn it. So different that someone who has already been to one might be compelled to go again.

   Face painting, barrel racing, The Leiderhosers, and a giant pumpkin.

   Many ByWard Market businesses are participating by serving Oktoberfest-themed dishes and drinks, hosting contests, and doing giveaways!

   The official beer tent is at the Cabin on York.

ByWard Market, 55 ByWard Market Square. 11am-4pm. 613-562-3325.

http://www.byward-market.com/en/events/oktoberfest.htm

Sunday

Pugs for Adoption

   This is just a shameless plug for an organisation that re-homes pugs who don't have families. Pugs love getting touched by people so you should do your part and go down to the market to pet a few of these guys. 

   Donations are probably most appreciated.

Brewers Park Farmer's Market, Bronson Avenue South of Riverside Avenue. 10am-4pm.

http://undermywingpugrescue.com/

All Weekend

Antiquing at The Fieldhouse

   Antique furniture, handbags that you've only seen on Keeping Up With The Kardashians, amazing jewellery, vintage fashion... it's a rich hipster's dream. Probably everything is going to be beautiful. Is all that beauty worth paying 10 dollars to see it?

   Yes.

The Fieldhouse at Carleton University, Bronson Avenue And Sunnyside. Fri 5pm-9pm, Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 10am-4pm. $10.

http://www.asinter.com/