heads up!

the following is not an exaggeration. it is a very real account of something that happened to me this morning. it sounds so unreal and made up that i am almost reluctant to write about it. i tried to re-tell it to my sister when i met her tonight and she almost didn't believe me!

so i don't know if i've written on here about how many times in my life i have been shat on... literally, by various birds. mostly of the gull variety. this morning, i was rushing to work - i have about a 15-20 minute walk to the west end of liberty village. as i rounded the southeast corner of wellington and strachan, where the homeless shelter is (see above image i found on flickr, around the end of where the pig truck is passing by. ignore the accident) something fell out of the sky and barely missed me. it landed with a reverberating thud at my feet. i mean, it was so close to me, that i felt it whoosh past my face, and the force of it as it hit the ground. it was a sandwich. a bun which split in two with ham in it. just like that... SPLAT. half of the bun went one way, and the other went another way.

'oh my god,' i said out loud. i glanced up at the pink building and didn't see any open windows and i could've sworn it came from above my head. i turned around and there was some guy coming out of the shelter. he seemed a little aloof, and besides, the sandwich didn't attack me from the side. it came from the sky.

now i'm wondering where the hell the ham sandwich came from, and who would want to waste it like that!?

it's been a hard couple of weeks, reasons for which i won't get into. this week, i finally felt like i was able to get back on track. the longer day didn't hurt either. fridays are always good because i know i get to meet up with friends after work catch up on our week. one thing that i've been glued to is twitter feeds. i signed up for an account a year and a half ago to do some work research. now it's all the rage. i'm "following" my favourite news outlets using the twhirl app on my desktop. i get instant tweets from cbc news, cbc radio, spacing magazine, the mayor, etc, and various friends.

last week, i baked some cookies for my co-workers, and two of them thanked me over twitter. they also commented that i should "tweet" more than i do. my occasional tweets over the lifespan of my account amounted to under ten at the time, whereas my friend rob had like 1,500 tweets. jc told me that i was a "lurker" by being non-active and reading other feeds. i've been making an effort to undo my lurking status. i'll keep you informed.

cbc news twittered this about 9 hours ago canadians glued to YouTube. of course they are, i sure as hell am! where else can i find old episodes of my favourite tv ontario kids shows, or learn to fix my leaky toilet valve. yes, i used youtube on the weekend so i could figure out how to fix my toilet tank problems. i thought i'd solved it, but it's still a problem. any closet plumbers out there?

here's a completely unrelated story. thursday morning i was late for work. luckily i pulled on my sorels because of the cold because when i stepped outside it was snowing. it was quite pretty and i was enjoying the solitude (of being late). i waited for a train to cross at the tracks on strachan, and after i crossed them, i completely forgot about the huge puddle in the pothole that i'd been side stepping for the last month. except that day, it had been covered by a fresh dusting of snow... oh and it had frozen into black ice. i completely wiped out, legs in the air, as car after car drove past me. when i tried to right myself up, i slipped onto my back again. all i have to say is thank god i had my laptop wrapped around the back of my waste. that laptop shell and bag really helped to break my fall, and it still works fine! i had a small bump and bruise on my elbow, but otherwise, i didn't feel any aches until the next morning. and really, how lucky was i that the train had just passed, and there was no ice on the tracks? thank you buddha!

(above is a picture of the aforementioned track, however, the incident happened on the other side of the street. this picture also illustrated how i've felt lately, but i am better now)