People (and squirrels!) Are Interesting - New Year's Edition

Happy New Year!

After all of the holiday festivities, and the notable absence of any sort of routine, our little family has settled back into our "regularly scheduled programming", and with our routine back in place... here come your regularly scheduled late night blog posts!  After a particularly successful bedtime for the kids, and a wicked awesome 3 hour nap on the couch (go me!), I am wide awake and and giddy from watching Josh Groban sing Kanye West tweets (you should check it out - hilarity!).

So... what to do with my giddy self?  Share with you the latest batch of interesting people, I say!

• Sir Swears-a-Lot:  I've got to start off with this weirdsmobile who was in the lobby of my doctor's office while I was getting my kids dressed to go back outside to the car.  This guy was standing there screaming into his cell phone a string of profanities that would make the dad from "A Christmas Story" blush!  He was using some seriously offensive words over and over and over.  Poor Kaycie looked dumbfounded.  I would have said something about his language in front of my kids except he was so angry that I was a little scared that it might escalate things.  When he was all done, he walks over to me and whispers: "My apologies for all of the cursing in front of your little ones."   What?!?!  He had the presence of mind to apologize for the f-bombs, but not to just stop the spectacle all together?!  All I could do was just look at him with this blank stare on my face.  And... he whispered his apology?  Like he didn't want to disturb anyone with his contrition?  People are so weird.

• Dapper Dan:  We were on our way to our friends' house for a visit and when we stopped at an intersection to wait for the light to turn, my husband and I both got a kick out of what we saw.  Standing at the corner was a big group of ragtag teenagers with their baggy pants and their oversized hip-hop coats, a bunch of people bundled up for the cold weather, and one young man wearing only his pristine full-on white suit with a brilliant red tie and some seriously nice shoes.  No coat, no hat, no mitts.  Just the suit... and he looked ridiculously awesome!

• The Bird Feeder Gang:  I saw three ladies at the mall sitting on a bench sharing a gigantic bag of sunflower seeds - in the shell.  And what do you think they were doing with the shells once they'd chewed the seeds out of them?  Dropping them in a huge pile on the floor in front of them - like a pile so big it had a little peak to it!  I was seriously grossed out - kind of wish I'd had the nerve to say something to them.

• Turkey Vulture Squirrel:  I will concede that the squirrel who hangs out in our backyard that I am about to describe is not a "person", but I really think this squirrel has earned a spot on this list... because he certainly is interesting.  Last winter, my daughter and I saw this squirrel jumping around in our backyard maple tree with a quarter of a large pizza in his mouth.  That might not sound so amazing, but if you think about it, a quarter of a pizza is pretty big compared to a squirrel!  And this squirrel was doing some serious acrobatics with this chunk of food hanging out of his mouth! Anyway, I'm not sure if this is the same squirrel from last winter (how long do squirrels live?), but for fun, let's say it is.  Kaycie and I saw our scavenging friend a couple days before Christmas sitting in our tree in the backyard with an entire double spread piece of newspaper hanging out of his mouth.  Then I noticed that the paper was getting smaller and smaller.  It was then that I realized this squirrel was actually trying to eat an entire sheet of newsprint!  And I'm telling you... this little sucker almost accomplished his goal!  I wish I got a better picture of this, but we did manage to grab a couple of snapshots of him on our fence on the way out of our yard... presumably off to find a stick or something to jam the rest of the weekend edition down to join the pizza!

"Arts & Entertainment.... nom, nom, nom, nom!"

We believe he may have been eyeballing the potential getaway vehicle in the neighbouring yard.

So there you have it... my latest batch of interesting people (and squirrels!).  Stay tuned for more... I'm telling you, there is no shortage of strangeness out there!

People Are Interesting

I remember my grade 12 English teacher observing that I liked to people watch.  It's true... I think I could probably occupy myself just about anywhere as long as there was a steady supply of people to spy on.

So, I've been toying with the idea of having one day a week in my blog dedicated to the interesting people I see on my travels.  I run across so many weird and wacky humans while I'm out there doing my thing, and I think it will be kind of cool to document what I've seen so I don't forget!

So, without further ado, here is my list for this week of the interesting and giggle-inducing people I've stumbled across:

1.  I saw a young woman walking across a parking lot the other day who was just plastered in make up... tonnes of foundation, glaringly silvery eyeshadow, eyebrows that had been tweezed like crazy and then drawn back on with some sort of intensely black marker, hair completely sculpted, super dark lip liner and super light lipstick.  The part that made me giggle was that I looked behind her and saw that she was walking out of our local Beauty Supply Warehouse.  I just love stuff like that!

2.  A very nice older woman at the grocery store helped me navigate my stroller through a narrow aisle.  When I looked up to say thank you, I saw that she had a pierced lip with a hoop ring and a cross dangling from it.  I have never seen anything like that before!  It was so weird... especially considering this woman had to be at least 70 years old.  There has got to be a story there.

3.  Again, someone helping me with my stroller.  A man who was probably 50 years old, perfectly dressed in a tailored business suit, trenchcoat, shiny shoes, and a snazzy briefcase helped to make sure my poor baby didn't get squashed by the elevator doors.  When I looked up to thank him, I saw that he was wearing the most bizarre hat!  It was a "poor boy" style cap that had a Minute Maid logo on it and it was soooo tattered and thread bare.  I could just tell that this was his go-to hat and he wore it every day.  What a contrast to the rest of him!

4.  Parking lot hippies!  This made my day.  I was parking at the lot near my doctor's office and when I pulled up to the ticket dispensing machine, this couple in a VW van who literally had John Lennon glasses and headbands called out to me, waving a parking ticket in the air.  They told me that they had been waiting for someone to come and park because their ticket didn't expire until 6pm and they wanted to do someone a favour by passing it along.  I was, of course, completely happy about this turn of events, and thanked them profusely.  As they drove away, the woman shouted out the window, "Pay it forward, my friend... pay it forward!".  The neat part was that when we went to leave after seeing the doctor, my daughter said, "Mommy, we need to give our ticket to the next person!"  And, so we did!  We made their day, too!

So, what I've learned this week is that strange people are generally polite if you go by my sample group.  I've also learned that I spend a lot of time looking down.  Every time I look up, there is a dramatic reveal of something!  I think I will make a concerted effort to look up while I'm wandering about from now on.  :-)

I think that's about it for this week.  This big world is just full of characters, though, so we'll see what next week turns up!