2005-02-10 - 9:45 p.m.

>Us Against The Furniture

I'm taking up tennis -
Bee and I went and bought rackets and balls and made our way down to the James Bay tennis courts. We swallowed our pride upon seeing that there were various 30-something people wearing white shorts and visors, unpacking their rackets from fancy padded cases with a multitude of zippered pockets. Bee was nice enough to give me the shadier side (it was hot out today!) which also happened to be the side that allowed my out-of-bounds shots to generally bounce harmlessly against the fence instead of into the adjacent court. So far, we are playing tennis with hackysack rules. Points are communal and scored for every hit that keeps the ball in play. This seems to engender a cooperative rather than competitive feel, I think. Us against the ball. Or physics, maybe.

This is pretty accurate depiction of what I did and wore today. Not pictured is the tennis ball flying past unhindered.

my future b-in-law is a poker kingpin -
The fiance of one of my sisters is making money hand over fist playing online poker without ever having put in any money other than that which he had already won. Apparently this is quite the pastime. It seems pretty fishy to me, like it's a next-generation pyramid scheme or something. I am so suspicious of free money. If I was suddenly handed cash on the street for answering a question like on Oblivious ("the game show you don't even know you're on" (tm)) I would probably be one of those stupid people who refuse to take it. I can't stand monetary considerations. Taxes bore me silly. I leave bills unpaid despite having the money to pay them because I simply can't bring myself to care about money. It feels funny being so dependent on an artificial construct, you know, the fact that much of the premature dying in the world happens in the name of symbolic strips of paper seems... beyond the pale.

New sweater. With the pleasingly contrary combination of orange and green.

i bought ten books: including john irving and some stephen king and amy tan -
I realized after spending 37 dollars on books at Value Village that I had bought eight books that were made into popular movies... and two little-known science fiction novels. It is always a nice feeling when you have a buffer of books that keep you from running out of good things to read. Magazine subscriptions are also helpful.

I asked the oracle Fotoshoppe to show me what the future holds for me, and this was my answer.

possible upcoming IKEA trip -
I came across a certain swedish furniture catalogue the other day and found that Bee had made little sticky tabs for dozens of pages marking possible furniture combinations. There is this bus that takes you from Victoria onto the ferry and onward to the ginormous Richmond IKEA and back again by evening. It is $35 and the store will take that same amount off a $250 purchase if you show your bus ticket. For Christmas, Bee got a bit of money to replace some of our decrepit hand-me-down furniture. The old stuff is heading off to the Sally-Ann. We are headed to Richmond (that's in the Greater Vancouver Area, not in Virginia).

i am spending money like i have some
Well, this working one less day a week hasn't curbed my (our) maniacal spending habits. Which is as it should be! Right?