A Winner Announced (Plus a Story for the Weekend)

by Camille Posted on May 30, 2008

I was supposed to announce the winner of this week’s contest yesterday. As it turns out, all blogging duties get put on the proverbial back burner when one is preparing for Girls’ Camp.

That “one” would be me and L. We’re doing a spoof on the BBC television programme “How Clean is Your House”, which is ironic, because…well…you figure out the irony.

So I will take a moment to announce the winner now:

I liked that Joel wrote, “Men in Need of Camille’s Honest Everyday Ramblings,” but it didn’t make me laugh hard enough. Honourable Mention, Joel.

I also liked SparklieSunshine‘s clever and extended definition of “Mincher,” but alas, I needed more of a laugh. Honourable Mention, and nice to meet you, SparklieSunshine.

The real winner of the contest would have been my anonymous friend–who could have won by sheer volume of votes alone–but the contest did require a blog link. So though I appreciate your input, I’m sorry to say that you didn’t win. [Same goes for you, RatalieNose!]

And so, partly by default and partly by sheer humour, the winner of the word verification contest is…

…Loralee! Her comment was just the sort of absurdity I needed this week. Check it out in Tuesday’s comment list. Loralee, send me an email with your address [and don’t forget to include the retailer of your choice], and I’ll get the $25.00 gift card in the mail next week.

As soon as I get back from Girls’ Camp. If I get back from camp, that is.

Thank you to everyone for your entries, and welcome to anyone new who’s stopping by. I wish I could give you a better welcoming, but I’m heading out of town this weekend (to Girls’ Camp, in case you didn’t pick up on that already). I’ll be back by Tuesday, posting updates on the hilarity of my weekend, to be sure.

But before I leave, here’s a story for the weekend:

I pulled into my local QT to fuel up Tamra Camry before tomorrow’s long drive to Girls’ Camp. Lindsey, my partner in Girls’ Camp Crime, was sitting shotgun, and thank heavens. Just as I was about to open my car door, Lindsey shouted, “Camille! Is that Leroy* and Ken*?”

I looked, and it was indeed Leroy and Ken. They were parked in front of the doors to QT, leaning against the vehicle that Lindsey had so shrewdly identified. Leroy was my summertime boy a few years ago, and Ken is his partner in crime. Things with Leroy ended rather abruptly that summer when I packed up my belongings and moved to Canada. And we haven’t really talked since.

This is because I avoid Leroy at all costs. I have a deeply entrenched fear of all things awkward, you see, and I just have a feeling that any conversation I could possibly have with Leroy would be immensely awkward.

On account of me being married now [to a Canadian I met the summer after I left Leroy to move to Canada].

On top of which, it’s no secret that since getting married, I’ve really let myself go:


And while it’s fine and dandy to hear the advice, “Camille, you should really exercise. And get your hair fixed,” there’s not really anything I could do about it right there in the QT parking lot.

So instead, without a second thought, I started Tamra Camry, threw her into drive, and–as inconspicuously as possible–squealed out to the next closest QT.

And Lindsey didn’t even question my decision–we’re one like that.

*Names changed for privacy (and prideful) purposes.

Posted in fiascos, giveaways, oh brother what next, what I'm about | 14 Comments

{What I Really Need Is a Chicken Wing and a Good Hair Cut}

by Camille Posted on May 28, 2008

In most cases, I jump on any bandwagon that looks like fun; in today’s case (i.e. The Case of Typing “(Your Name) Needs” Into the Google Search Bar and Hitting Enter), I’m really glad I did. Because evidently…

-Camille needs bodyguards because too many people hate her.
-Camille needs men.
-Camille needs issues addressed on the level of feelings.
-Camille needs to change her horizons.
-Camille needs to negotiate with the manager to get an EDIFACT order process.
-Camille needs to get a backbone.


{How about a chicken bone and a good cut ‘n colour?? That’s what I say.}

-Camille needs a duck to keep her company.
-Camille needs an experienced dog owner that is willing to work with her and train her with consistency.
-Camille needs to watch his words (“Camille” can be a man’s name in French, you know–it’s pronounced “Camee”).
-Camille needs a little more Prozac™, and…
-Camille needs an ice water enema administered with a 3″ fire hose fitted with a wide-angle nozzle [goodness gracious–Poor Other Camille!].

Try it–it’s fun. It’s like cracking open a whole bunch of fortune cookies all at once.

Also, you have until 10 p.m. tonight to enter yesterday’s contest. Winners of the $25.00 gift card will be announced Thursday morning.

Posted in blogger finger, thisandthat | 9 Comments

I’ve Got $25 That Say You Can’t Make Me Laugh

by Camille Posted on May 27, 2008
**UPDATE: Thank you for all the entries thus far. Keep them coming! This contest will run until Wednesday night, May 28 2008 at 10 p.m. Arizona time.**

Is it just me, or are these things getting harder?





I am always trying to comment on blogs, and I have to go through two or three of these “guess what letters these are” games. Only they aren’t the kind of games that are fun–they’re the kind that make me want to throw away my laptop and forget technology ever existed. And I swear, they’re getting harder. Maybe I just have poor vision, but I really struggle with these things. I can’t even tell “i” from “j” half the time. They remind me of the eye exam place, and I hate eye exams–they stress me out:

“Ummm…P! No, F! No…argh…” [By the way–the last eye exam I took was for immigration purposes a few weeks ago, and Poor Kyle did NOT help me cheat. He did NOT shake his head when I called an “F” a “P,” and he did NOT subtly nod when I correctly identified an “O.” He did no such thing.]

Anyway, I read a blog some time ago whose author held a contest for the most clever made-up definition of one of these “words.” (As a side note, you may or may not know that about 50% of all bloggers use these types of word identification applications to ensure their readers are not robots or aliens or something called a phish. But now you know for sure. I myself simply choose to trust that the 100 people in the world who read Archives of Our Lives are, in fact, human.)

So of course I entered, because I’m always entering blog giveaways (and consequently always reeling from the sting of failure when I am not givenaway anything). And I always secretly figured I would hold the same sort of contest. So I’ve been “collecting” some examples over the past few months, and today I decided to post the giveaway.

Rules and Regulations:

1. For any of the pictured word-identification sets, think of a clever could-be definition. Or, for sets that don’t seem like word, make up an acronym with the random letters. Good luck–some of them look like they make use of the dollar sign. I’m very interested to see how you might incorporate the dollar sign into an acronym.

2. There is no limit to the amount of times you may enter. I know I personally get funnier later in the day, when the reality of getting out of bed is far behind me. So go ahead! Feel free to enter two, three, or 20 times. But do remember that this competition is based solely on cleverness and wit.

3. Link to my blog in a post on your blog. I know this rule makes a lot of people (ahem. Kayleen) uncomfortable, but if you don’t do it, you don’t get to win. You can still enter, of course, because I love a good laugh. But you won’t win. You might come close, but you won’t win.

The prize is a $25.00 gift card to the retail location of the winner’s choice (i.e. Border’s.com, Amazon.com, BurgerKing.com, or even QT. Whatever tickles your fancy.)

Also, I may or may not give away a second gift card at random, so even if you don’t have a blog to use for linking purposes, you may as well still enter.

*Special thanks to Poor Kyle, who knows nothing of this recent family expenditure. He’s a real gem. [I love you, dear.]*

Posted in blogger finger, giveaways | 45 Comments

Let Me Tell You About the Time I Faced Death in a Pristine Bathroom

by Camille Posted on May 26, 2008

Ah, yes. I’m back.

I’m happy to say that my meeting with “The Yates Family” went splendidly. I met Joel, Aimee, and their two sweet kids–and not one of them tried to kill me!

Getting to the meeting was a bit of a trial, though. I almost died of my own accord. Here’s what happened:

I was just sitting around at my sister’s house, contemplating how that might be my last day on Earth, and out of nowhere, I got a bloody nose. Now, I’ve had bloody noses before, and I know they don’t usually start “out of nowhere.” Usually, they start out of “I was just sitting there picking my nose like my life depended on it,” but this time, I really wasn’t picking my nose. (I would admit it if I was.)

So anyway…there I was, minding my own business, when suddenly I feel a trickle of liquid inching its way down my left nostril toward my lip. Assuming it was snot, I reached up to wipe it with my bare hand (because I’m so dignified like that), and saw immediately that it was…the dreaded “B” word: blood.

And if my bloody nose was trickling at first, by the time I had a strip of toilet paper ready to shove up there (to curb the flow), it was a torrential downpour. I couldn’t prepare wads of TP fast enough. I’ve never seen blood like that. It was coming so fast that it had time to drip all the way down my chin before I could get a new wad of paper in its place.

Of course, you know my history with blood: my history with blood is bad. Very, very bad. And seeing it in this…free-flowing state…it was pretty scary. I positioned myself in front of the bathroom mirror, because somehow, despite my aversion to blood, I can’t resist an occasional bit of gore and macabre. And since I knew I was going to die, I figured I might as well watch my own undoing. How many people can say they get to do that?

Before long, the gush started on down my throat, where I promptly spit it out into the bathroom sink. But evidently if you’re bending over to spit out mouthfuls of blood, you aren’t in a good position to be stopping the problem…because a few moments later, my right nostril also started bleeding. I have had my fair share of bloody noses in my life…but never out of both nostrils at the same time.

It was at this point that I realised I could do nothing to save myself. Crying out in despair (amidst spitting up entire mouthfuls of blood [into Adell’s once-pristine bathroom sink {which was at this point virtually covered in my blood}]), I stood there shaking, waiting to die. Because I was dying–I had already lost more than enough blood for a hundred blood work tests, and I was dying from the loss.

My first thought in the face of the trial was, “I have Alberta Health Care, but I don’t think I have travel insurance down here. Only USAA, and that’s just for Tamra Camry. So if, after I die, Adell finds me and calls 911 and they try and revive me at the hospital, it will cost Poor Kyle thousands.”

My second thought was, “And then he’ll remarry, that uncaring man. How dare he remind me of such a thing, on my deathbed??”

And my third thought was, “I made such a fuss about ‘Joel and Aimee Yates’ that they’ll think I’ve chickened out when I don’t show up. My final day alive, and I can’t even go out looking like a brave sort of girl.”

And then the black–the dark, unanswered black that had been lingering in the periphery of my mind through the whole ordeal–closed in and overtook.

…Okay, not really. I didn’t pass out or die, thanks to some quick thinking by my sister who normally would have freaked out more than me in such a situation. I did, however, cough up a few clots the size of egg yolks (I know. Go throw up now, at the thought) and ruin a couple of towels. But in the end, it stopped.

And I made lunch with the Yates family, who, by allowing me to live, earned the right to have the quotation marks dropped. They’re legit. And very nice.

I didn’t take pictures, though. I brought my camera, even took it into the restaurant, but I was too chicken. I thought if I suggested it they’d think I was weird…

…too much loss of blood, I guess.

Posted in oh brother what next | 8 Comments

If I Die Today, I Hope at Least I Get Salsa as My Last Meal

by Camille Posted on May 23, 2008

I have heard of some people reading my blog, who live in constant fear that they will make me angry and I will in turn blog about them. Like I’m some sort of holy terror who could wreak havoc upon their lives at any given moment. I don’t know what gave them that idea…

And for one family, that nightmare has become a reality.

Okay, not really. Nobody’s made me angry, and I’m not trying to settle any scores–just cover all my bases. But I do want to publicly announce that Friday May 23, 2008, at 12:30 p.m., I am meeting “Aimee and Joel Yates” at Rosa’s on Mesa Drive and University in Mesa, Arizona.

I use quotation marks around “Aimee and Joel Yates” because, according to friends and family (only one friend and one family member), these people will kill me, and kill me good.

The alleged “Yates” family consists of a mom, a dad, and two children. Natives of Arizona, but immigrants to the mid-west, I immediately trusted this family when I read their blog. Perhaps it was because I was flattered that perfect strangers found my blog, and even better: found me funny. Or maybe I immediately trusted them because of their angelic-looking son with bright, colourful blueberry eyes. At any rate, I have been reading their blog for the past several months, and they mine; I feel like I know them.

So when they realised we would each, respectively, be visiting our native land of AZ this week, I was thrilled and flattered to be invited to meet them for lunch.

Not giving it another thought (aside for the niggling worry that I will somehow stick my foot in my mouth and act like the terrible social idiot I am [which isn’t exactly an unwarranted fear, might I add]), I agreed to the rendezvous.

And now, according to one friend and one sister, I am walking straight into a trap of certain death and despair.

“You could be kidnapped.”

“You could be attacked.”

“You could be blankety-blankety blanketed.”

Good heavens, I never thought of that. But…they “Yateses” seem so nice! Surely they are legit–I mean, they have their own blog. With pictures. And kids. And one of them attended a high school right around the corner from mine–and it wasn’t even Mountain View! Surely they’re good people. Right?

“Anyone can start a blog.”

“Anyone can kidnap children and post photos on a fake blog.”

“Anyone can claim to attend a high school right around the corner from yours.”

Oh.

Well, I still think they seem nice, and plus–plus! they think I’m funny. So they must be good people.

Therefore, I am indeed going to meet them at 12:30 at Rosa’s on Mesa Drive and University, and if I don’t publish an update post tomorrow night, you’ll know I’ve been horribly mauled–killed, even–by this fraudulent family.

…At least my last meal will have been Rosa’s chips and tomatillo salsa. If I go out, I’m goin’ out in the very thralls of joy.

*p.s. Aimee and Joel, please don’t kill me tomorrow–I’m so looking forward to meeting you and enjoying Rosa’s tomatillo salsa. Dying would put a real damper on my day.*

Posted in what I'm about | 19 Comments

Tamra Camry Drives From Canada to Arizona and Lives to Tell the Tale.

by Camille Posted on May 22, 2008

Tamra Camry would like to announce that she is back in Arizona.

She left Canada on a whim Tuesday at 4 p.m. She drove. She drove and she drove and she drove. She didn’t get tired, not once (okay…maybe she got tired once. Or twice.). She kept going, for nine whole hours, all by herself, because she’s a trucker–er…a sedan-er.


Finally she stopped at a motel in Pocatello, ID. She only slept for four hours, though, because Pocatello, ID is eight hours closer to Arizona than Mayberry, Canada. So Tamra Camry started driving again at 7:00 a.m. Wednesday. She drove. She drove and she drove and she drove.

She stopped. She stopped for a snack of regular unleaded for $3.79 a gallon. She blanched. At $3.79 a gallon, she ought to have been sipping the liquid gold, not guzzling it. She assuaged her guilt by reminding herself that she was an Asian import, and thus far superior to every other car on the road. Except the Mini Cooper (because what car wouldn’t rather be British than Asian?).

{Photo swiped from here, because Tamra Camry doesn’t know any Mini Coopers in real life.}

She drove more, occupying her thoughts with an audiobook on her iPod, and getting lost despite the “help” of her GPS (who she secretly thought was trying to sabotage her. Sneaky traitor.).

And finally, 23 hours after leaving Mayberry, Tamra Camry rolled into the Granny’s driveway. She’s happy to be in Arizona. She likes driving on asphalt that doesn’t have a layer of snow or ice covering it. She likes knowing she can drive through any drive-through she wants–Super Burrito, Sonic: America’s Drive Through™, Pete’s Fish & Chips… She likes being back in the land where she was born and raised (or at least raised, anyway).

She is happy to be home.

The only thing she’s sad about is that, in driving, she missed both Tuesday and Wednesday episodes of the season finale of American Idol, and wonders if anyone she knows in Arizona Tivoed them?

Posted in the great state of AZ | 7 Comments

{I Fancy Myself a Gardener}

by Camille Posted on May 21, 2008

I’ve got a strawberry, see?


It’s not quite ripe yet, but I’m very hopeful. Isn’t it beautiful?

But it’s very small–about the size of a pea. Here are a few photos for perspective of its scale:



Thus, it is with sweet yet sorrowful emotions that I leave for Arizona this week: sweet because I’ve missed home and family so much, yet sorrowful with the knowledge that I will be absent for this little strawberry’s entire life cycle–I’ll be gone for several weeks, naturally. One doesn’t drive 24 hours (all by oneself!) only to turn right around and drive back. If only I didn’t have to abandon my tender transplants…

…This only confirms that I would make a terrible mother–I’d probably be the kind to give birth to the little thing, and then turn around and frolic my days away at Disneyland or something, leaving Poor Kyle to figure out parenting all by his lonesome.

Poor little strawberry. I hope my husband can find it in his heart to water our garden in my absence.

Posted in Canada, photos, the great state of AZ | 7 Comments