Pumpkin's Meme - Who are you?

   Pumpkin is Dawn's daughter. She has really taken to this meme thing, and enjoys creating her own memes and reading other people's responses to them. Can it be very long before she gets her very own, real life blog?

   Here is Pumpkin's 'who are you?' meme:

1.   What is your name? Mr. Crankypants.

2.   How old are you? Old enough to know better than to answer that question honestly. OK, for the next two and a half weeks I remain 'the answer.' After that, I will no longer be 'the answer.' That's all I'm sayin'.

3.   Where are you from? According to the current literature, Mars. More locally, I grew up in the little town of Maple, Ontario, which has now been absorbed by the City of Vaughan.

4.   Do you smoke? No, but from time to time I have been know to be "smokin'!"

5.   Do you drink? Yes, moderately and responsibly.

6.   Do you have a family?  Please explain, if yes. Gots me a partial wife, and big ol' son.

7.   What are your hobbies? Writing in my blog, annoying people, curling, and listening to music. OK, so those first two are really the same.

8.   What is your favorite ice cream? I am an equal opportunity ice cream consumer. I do not discriminate against any particular flavour of ice cream...except strawberry. Also, many of the somewhat more bland flavours can easily be improved by the addition of syrup. Chocolate, caramel, or my favourite, Pure Maple Syrup. You'll never eat vanilla naked again. Well, maybe you will but...never mind.

9.   What is your favorite animal? Shadow. Wait, didn't I answer some of these questions before? Hmmm, in perusing that link, I see that I answered some of these questions before differently. Oh well, I guess there's a lesson in that to be had.

10.  Do you wear glasses? Yes.

11.  What nationality are your ancestors from? My ancestors were from the UK; specifically England and Scotland. Which really means that I'm probably part French, part Danish, part German, part Italian, and part woad smeared pagan. Or something.

12.  What color is your hair? Brown. Mostly.

13.  What are you wearing now? Jeans and at-shirt. Yeah, well, there's some socks and undies in there, too.

14.  What is your favorite color? Again, I must profess to the great Canadian trait of inclusionism. I like colours. We have painted rooms in our house green, light blue, dark blue, terra cotta, brown, butter yellow, pink. No, those are all different rooms, not the same one at the same time. Whaddaya think I am, nutso, or something?

15.  What teacher do you remember most from your childhood? I remember many of my teachers fondly. I was lucky to attend an excellent elementary school. I guess I would have to say that my favourite was my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Thomas.

16.  What are your pets and their names? We have a dog named Shadow, a cat named Lady, a part time cat named Pixie, and an aquarium containing a variety of nameless fish.

17.  What is your favorite food? Boy, oh boy, you like to come up with tough ones, don't you Pumpkin? I like food. lots and lots of food. I love to prepare and cook it as much as I like to eat it. When I was your age, the meal I always looked forward to was spaghetti and meatballs. Today, I enjoy trying as many different foods as I can. I am currently enjoying Thai style dishes, and we go out for sushi quite often.

18.  What is your job? Right this instant my job is taking care of my wife as she recuperates from surgery. But I am usually a stockboy at the local Kwik-E-Mart.

   There you have it, Pumpkin. Do you know more about me now?

Tags: memes, pumpkin

And then there was one...

   Thank you everyone for your comments and well wishes. Here is the e-mail I sent out to Pat's contact list this evening:

   Pat has asked that I communicate to you that she is fine, and resting comforta-, well, maybe not comfortably yet, but she is resting. The surgery went well. Both surgeries went well. There were no complications or unexpected surprises. Pat's kidney was described by the surgical team as a "good" kidney. Based upon their tone and demeanour, I took this to be high praise. It was apparently hale and hearty, and started working almost immediately upon being implanted in her brother.
   While the long road still stretches before Frank, Pat's part of the journey has reached a rest stop. She will be home by the weekend, and you will no doubt be hearing from her personally very shortly afterwards. Thank you all very much for your concern and well wishes over the past several weeks.

 

Regards,

 

Paul

   An excellent ending to a long and nerve-wracking day, I must say. I was delighted to come home tonight and see so many comments offering positive thoughts in response to my last entry. And while I do not subscribe to the efficacy of prayers, I do appreciate those that were extended to us. If they mean something to you, then it means something to me that you offered them.

   Oh, and I found my bucket.

Tags: bucket

...where's the confounded [bucket]?

   I can't find my bucket, and I'm frustrated. OK, truth be told, I'm mostly frustrated by the helplessness I feel as my wife lays on the operating table, and I sit here at home waiting.

   Yeah, I kind sprang that on you of a sudden, didn't I? I first alluded to it way back here, but haven't really talked about it at all since. See, my wife is donating a kidney to her brother. You know, because his don't work anymore. And today's the day. And she left the house at five o'clock this morning, and I stayed home to get Matthew off to school, and take care of other mundane tasks while she lies under the knife for almost five hours. And I'm trying to keep myself busy, and I can't find my freaking bucket.

   Also, I have a picture to attach to this entry, and I can't upload it to my ftp space. It's one of those oh-so-cute LOLcat things, except this one has a walrus. But you'll just have to imagine it, because my 30 day free trial of WS_ftp has expired, and I uninstalled SmartFTP, and AOL's web based file manager doesn't work any more. Yeah, extra frustration I don't need, OK?
   Oh, yeah...and I never did anything about moving to an alternate image hosting service, did I? So it's mostly my fault.

(edited 2/18/08: Luk, I uploaded a pikcher)

Really, it'd all be much better if I could just find my bucket.

   I have this water softener. It's really old. I got it second hand, for free, so it doesn't owe me anything. I just can't afford to replace it right now. It works fine except for one thing. It refuses to backfill the salt resevoir. I've taken the head in to be serviced several times, and they keep telling me there's nothing wrong with it. And yet...it refuses to backfill the salt resevoir. It softens the water quite effectively as long as I remember to dump a bucket of water into it once a day.

You see my problem.

   It was there yesterday. I used it yesterday. And the day before. Today I can't findit. It's probably right there, under my nose, but I just can't see it due to my...uh...distracted state. I'll probably trip over it tomorrow.

   As you can surmise, it has been rather hectic around here lately, what with Christmas, and lots of working, and a sudden, dangerous decline in kidney function. They called us just before Christmas and said, "January third is the date of the surgery." Then they proceeded to send the wife in for all sorts of new tests, many of which they were completely unable to get results for in the time available. So it was postponed until today.
   I'm going to head down to the hospital later today, after the surgery is done, and she's in recovery. I'd ask you to keep your fingers crossed for Pat and her brother, but that would every bit as superstitious as praying, so don't worry about it. I'll let you know how things turn out.

Stupid bucket!

Tags: bucket