I've told every little star, why haven't I told you?

Not that it would appear any different to the blogsphere, but I will be away for weekend. I am taking my tired self up to a cottage for three days where I will see if I can enjoy the company of dear friends, swim away stress and hopefully, desperately, catch up on my sleep.

I hold a candle of hope that upon my return my world will come back to a place where I'm not racing to keep up with it and maybe, just maybe, I'll have time to write for my blog and keep the world (all 12 of you) in the loop.

Today's sing-a-long song: "I've told every little star" by Linda Scott

HRH

Ring-a-ding-ding

M and I got our wedding rings this weekend. It was really interesting to be part of the ring selection process. When we got engaged, he did all the choosing (based on some pretty specific hints I'd dropped over the years) and all I had to do was stand there, say yes and marvel at what he'd created. This time I actually had to try things on and make choices. Such hard work!

We'd been trying to find a Saturday afternoon to get out to the jeweler's for a couple of months at least. Things kept coming up and getting in the way. Finally we found a Saturday that worked. We got to the jeweler's and had to wait behind a guy who was throwing down about seven grand for a diamond engagement ring. A guy who wasn't totally sure that she was going to say yes. Like damn. I have to confess that I sat there feeling a little smug. Not only was I a sure yes for M, but I also don't like diamonds. He lucked out if I don't say so myself.

Anyway, dude bought his ring and I sat there feeling really anxious for him. But I got over that pretty quickly as it came time for us to sift through all the options and bring forth our own design ideas. We like to come off like we're modern and hip, but deep down, we're awfully conservative and traditional.

My engagement ring is an adaptation on the Tiffany Lucida mount, so I knew that my wedding ring was going to have the same rounded shape to the edge of the band. I'd been toying with the idea of having it inset with a row of round cut sapphires, but looking at it with the ring it was going to be overkill and ultimately detract from the stone in the engagement ring. In the end my choice ended up being really easy. A Tiffany-style band with stones or without.

One thing that M has always maintained being important to him is that the rings match as much as they can. I asked the jeweler about it and in her experience about 95 per cent of the time wedding rings don't match which I actually found surprising. My engagement ring has a really high setting, so I can easily wear it with my wedding band, which has always been my intention. That meant that there was no way that my ring was going to be the same width as M's.

So a lot of the choice came down to M. Would he choose something ornate, what kind of metal would he choose? Well, like me he chose the classic Tiffany band. Even though my ring is half the width of M's, it's exactly the same ring. The conservative, traditional rings. Yay for matching.

HRH

A near-life experience?

Last night I came a lot closer than anyone should to an 18-wheeler while driving home. I can make all kinds of excuses about being overtired or too cavalier with my Gardinder Expressway on-ramps, but the bottom line is that I was dumb about it and I nearly got M and I killed. A collision was avoided (not because I did the right thing and accelerated, but did the panic thing and hit the brakes and just got lucky) and no one was hurt, but I'd be a liar if I didn't confess that I'm a little shaken.

I feel strange today. I feel really fortunate that it turned out the way it did and at the same time I'm berating myself for being careless in the way that only a person who was lucky enough to avoid the accident can. I'm not traumatized and I'll be fine behind the wheel again, but I did wear my Birkenstocks to work today, because life is too short to wear uncomfortable shoes every day.

And maybe my experience wasn't a dire enough brush with death, but Tyler Durden totally lied. Breakfast the day after you face the idea of your own mortality and escape is not the best breakfast you've ever had.

HRH

Goooal!

OH the world cup is such fun. I enjoy watching sports. I'm a lot like my father in that respect, though neither of us watch golf, a true credit to our taste. And like almost everyone else in Toronto, I've gotten into soccer/football madness. And I have to say that I kind of enjoy it.

I work with and know a lot of people who are immigrants or first generation Canadians so the cup provides them with an opportunity to talk about where they're from. Maybe it's a holdover from living overseas, but I love hearing those stories. Also it's fascinating to see people all over the city crowd in front of TVs in store fronts and in bars and actually talk to eachother. That doesn't happen so much in Toronto. And not to sound all "Somewhere out there" but the idea that billions of people around the world are doing the same thing at the same time, it's really cool.

While there is no Canadian team for me to cheer for, I have opted to cheer for my future husband's native land. There isn't a Czech part of town, but you do see the flags every so often. I've tried to lobby Matej for a Czech flag for us, but apparently he has even more taste to his credit than I do. We settled on a smaller sticker of the Czech crest for the car.

Not that it helped them win today, but hopefully with Italy and the USA coming to a draw the door is still open to the next round.

HRH

It's something

You know you're burnt out when getting validation from the nice lady at the passport office on your perfect passport application makes you feel really good about yourself. On the bright side, I will soon have a passport that is machine readable, thereby saving me having to go through a "prove you're Canadian" quiz every time I pass through the US. Sometimes I don't even think the customs people know the answers to the questions they're asking me, and as if knowing that Ottawa is the capital of Canada proves that I'm a citizen. It means I know how to use a map. Go Homeland!

Today's sing-a-long song: "Borderline" by Madonna

HRH

Chew me up and spit me out... I still hold my shape

Oh it's not good when you actually start deriving comfort from that "Bad Day" song. But yesterday really was a bad day. When no matter what amount of effort I put forth, I could not negotiate the right outcome.

Work was just big bad thing after small, tedious and annoying bad thing. I learned that what makes a scar a scar is the fact that you can't make it go away (unless you happen to be part of a clinical trial in India taking low doses of medication usually used to control epilepsy and migraines. I'm not) and that you should never try on a bikini when you're bloated and need to use the washroom. The results aren't going to be anything but sorrow and self-loathing.

I couldn't even self-medicate the enourmous stress and annoyance the day produced by shopping it away, as all the stores were filled to the brim with crap (just as well really as trying to fix a bad day with shopping leads to a really bad day when the bill arrives). Is it further proof of the suckage of this week that now that I have the figure that I want, that all that can be found in stores is the ever so unflattering Hobo chic look?

Even when I picked up sushi for dinner last night, thinking that a comforting treat would brighten the world, the heavens opened up and drenched me on the walk home and the sushi gave me heart burn. I couldn't even keep my eyes open long enough last night to see Miami blow a great lead and lose the first game of the finals (Just so you all know, we're cheering for Miami. No debates).

And it seems that the stench of yesterday has stuck with me. My shoe broke on the way out the door for as I tried to make it to a 7 a.m. shoot that the photographer forgot about. Awesome.

Who needs a drink.

Today's sing-a-long song: "Bad Day" by Daniel Powter

HRH

In case you were confused

You take this:



And you put it together with this:



You get this:



Ahhh.

HRH

The hellmouth has begun its semi-annual percolation. Usually, it blows around May.

I'm overstating. It' just that spring and early summer are usually busy in such an unfun way. Which is a real shame because it's such a nice time of year.

In spite of the fact that I marvel that I have time enough to wash and dry my hair some days, I did manage to finish putting in the patio garden today. It's stopped raining long enough for me to get outside and enjoy a moment in my oasis on top of the world.

Which I will do now. But I just wanted to stop in and say Hi.

HRH