I saw JD!

Today I was walking up Church Street and JD Samson from Le Tigre walked right by me! Two inches away! Adrian told me to say hi but I was too shy, so instead I just whined for the next half hour about how I wished I had said hi and about how I didn’t have any damn batteries in my camera. Now I will cry myself to sleep over how I didn’t get my picture taken with JD Samson. Fun fact, though – JD Samson is so tiny! Even shorter than me!

(For those of you not familiar with JD Samson/Le Tigre, seeing JD Samson is basically the best thing ever for an electro-rock loving feminist. Squeeeeeee!)

Best outfit ever

Check out this new outfit I got tonight! I stopped in at Public Butter, a rad new-ish vintage store in Parkdale, just meaning to browse. But then I saw this outfit and I had to buy it. I had no choice:

You can’t really tell the best part from this picture. It’s shorts! YES! This is now the second one piece jumpsuit in my collection. The second best part is that it has a pocket! Woooo! Third best is the pattern, obviously.

What to do, what to do

Today as I rode my bike up to my school, I saw a woman standing, barely, beside the garbage can out front. It was one of those giant city-owned garbage cans (the ones Spiral Beach got in trouble for postering on), and she was standing on the side facing the street. There were only a few inches of sidewalk between the can and the street. She was hunched over and swaying. Occasionally she put her face down on the top of the garbage can. When she lifted her face, I saw that her eyes were rolling back in her head and she had something that was either blood or chocolate dripping out of her mouth. Numerous people walked by and looked at her and then looked away and kept walking.

I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t just walk by and leave her there. She was obviously strung out on some major drugs and looked like she had little idea about what was happening. I was afraid for her safety and worried about the baby inside her pregnant belly. I was hesitant about calling anyone – I really didn’t want her to get in trouble, I just wanted her to get some help. I knew she probably wouldn’t want to deal with the authorities who would inevitably show up. I couldn’t make up my mind so I went to the front desk of the school and told the faculty member sitting there that someone outside needed help. He called the emergency services.

As we waited for them to arrive, another student showed up to school and spoke to the woman. “Please don’t call,” she said. My heart broke and I felt awful. Was it my place to get involved? Should I have just left her alone? I know that it was better for her to get help than be left on the sidewalk like that, but I still felt guilty. I just hope that she got some help and compassion instead of getting in trouble or thrown back out on the street.

A dog with wheels for legs!

Please go here immediately. If you follow the link you will find pictures and a video of a tiny Maltese puppy who was born with no front legs and now has wheels to get around. It is the saddest/cutest/most triumphant thing you will ever see.

Hockey Night in Canada

The Globe and Mail has a great article about Dolores Claman, the woman who wrote the Hockey Night in Canada theme song. I’ve been meaning to write about this, but haven’t gotten around to it.

One of the things that has been driving me nuts about the whole thing is people calling Claman greedy. The article dissects that – she made $35,000-40,000 a year for the song from 1993 on. Before that she was getting less than $10,000 a year. It might sound like a lot for one song, but there are a lot worse songs out there making way more money. People whine about the price, then talk about how the song such an institution. If it’s so important, it’s worth the money.

Finally, the woman makes $500 per hockey game and people are up in arms. Sorry to break it to the whiners, but that’s NOT a lot of money at all, relative to any other show. Every single show on TV that licenses songs (which is 99% of them probably) pays that or more for each song in an episode. $500 is considered cheap to license a song. So while the CBC let the HNIC theme slip away because of the money, they’re probably paying more for every other show they create. EPIC FAIL.

Come to Gentleman Fest!

We’re having our first fundraiser for Ladyfest Toronto on June 23rd and you should come! Four great bands and possibly yours truly DJing. It’s at the Gladstone. There will be delicious baked treats for sale.

The latest in a series of unfortunate events

Many people who know me know about my notorious bad luck. I believe it was Wilbur who once uttered the phrase, “That’s such a Carly thing to happen. If I heard that happened, but I didn’t know to who, I would guess you.” Lately, it seems that it runs in my family. Here’s the rundown of the last month and a half or so:

-My mom and dad’s house got mould. They’ve had to live elsewhere while people bash out walls.

-My dad got pneumonia and went into the hospital two weeks ago. While he was there, he had surgery (for something unrelated). Hopefully, he’ll get to come home (well to their temporary home) on Tuesday.

-My sister had her wallet snatched by some jerk after giving him the bus tickets he asked for. Luckily, he ditched it when he realized there was no money it in, and a lady found it and contacted her.

-I had my near run-in with the car/streetcar on my bike.

Now, it turns out that not even the dog is immune. Last night she ran into the bushes at the cottage and emerged with porcupine quills embedded all over – her nose, her tongue, her paws. A 10 pm emergency trip to the vet and some anesthetic and she’s fine. But apparently it was a sad sight to behold.

Speaking of dogs, I’m off to Woofstock. YES!

I think your bruise was understated… it’s getting bluer

So here is what my leg looks like post-bike accident. It’s actually a bit better than it looked yesterday. Yesterday it looked like someone took a dark purple marker and drew big ovals on my leg.

I thought I would take a picture since some people have expressed curiosity in seeing it (probably just ’cause I whined about it so much) but I couldn’t show it in person without taking my pants off, and that’s not really appropriate school behaviour (unless you’re on the audio post couch apparently, ew). Plus, I’ve been thinking this blog is too much sea-of-text and not enough pictures. So here’s a nice one to start things off!

Results of yesterdays incident

The above is what appeared in a friend’s RSS reader. I think it’s a delightful and apt summation of what happened. I almost got hit! But I didn’t! I’m ok! Carly’s OK!

Though I do have a nasty clump of bruises on my leg that I didn’t notice until this morning. They’re pretty gross, but preferable to getting squished.

Today I almost got creamed by a car and streetcar

Today as I was leaving school I was grumbling about having to bike in the rain. I waved goodbye to everyone and one of my friends said, “Don’t get killed!”

Funny thing about that. As I approached the Dundas/Spadina intersection, I drove up the left side of the lane, beside cars that had their right turning blinkers on. I don’t really remember why, but suddenly it seemed like the first one was going to change its mind and go straight and cut me off. I got scared and my bike tire slipped on the streetcar tracks (there’s about a million at that intersection). I don’t really remember the exact chain of events but it went something like: my bike turned sideways in front of a car, I tried to jump off, the bike came about three centimetres from going under the oncoming streetcar with me still semi on it. Somehow I managed not to fall on the ground. I hit my leg on my bike and my bike fell on the ground but I hopped over and stayed upright.

It’s all pretty blurry. All of those things happened, but I’m not sure exactly how or in what order. I remember losing control of my bike and looking to see if I was going to get hit. I saw a white car coming towards me but I couldn’t really tell how fast or how far away it was (it must have been slow + not too close, because it managed to stop and not hit me). I know that the streetcar was a close call, but I didn’t even look to see how close the car was. I picked up my bike and my purse, which had fallen out of the basket, and started walking my bike across the intersection. Safely across to the sidewalk on the other side I stopped and looked back. I wondered if I should stop for a minute, but there wasn’t really any reason – no one had gotten hit, nothing bad had happened. At the intersection, it pretty much looked as if nothing had ever happened. The cars had all continued along on their merry way. No one had even asked if I was ok. (They did stare at me though! Thanks jerks!) For the record, I’m ok. I skinned my ankle a bit, but doesn’t count when the alternative was getting run over by a car.

Anyways, that was the single most terrifying thing that has ever happened to me. It’s pretty awful to know that you are heading for the path of a large vehicle, but can’t do anything about it. I remember wondering (in a split second kind of way) if I was going to stop sliding or get out of the way before anything hit me. When I stopped on the other side to rest, my legs were shaking. Not just trembling, but full-out jumping up and down uncontrollably. I called my mom and dad at the hospital and cried. I thought I was going to walk my bike home, but after a block of doing that I remembered how inefficient walking is. So I got back on my bike (and hopefully soon it will be the lovely Giant Cypress I had my eye on when I picked my bike up at Sweet Pete’s today). Mostly because I can’t afford the TTC’s exorbitant metropass prices.

I just won’t be biking in the rain anymore, ever.