Never again, The Bay. Never again.

First off, how great is that pic? Wish I could say I took it, but I didn't.

A couple of days ago, I found myself at the Bay in Yorkdale to purchase a gift for a bridal shower that I was going to attend later that day.  Since my days are pretty scheduled now that I'm a mom, I made sure to call in advance, and put the items on hold so that they wouldn't be snatched up by someone else before I got there.  I had everything figured out to minimize the amount of time I would need to spend in the store with my almost-one-year-old, who was having a bad day.  What I failed to take into consideration was the complete and utter ineptitude of each and every single staff member working there.  "Working," is rather an exaggeration, really.  More like "staring vacantly into space while striving to answer my questions using vaguely comprehensible speech".  If that's working, then they were working really, really hard.  My friend pointed out that The Bay seems to be trying to spruce up its image lately, what with "The Room" downtown and the coolification of "the blanket" that everyone can identify, but nobody actually owns... and yet walking through the Yorkdale store is like walking around in "Today's Special".  In fact, Jeff would have definitely been more helpful, and he's a mannequin.  Speaking of mannequins, I could have propped one up at the checkout counter and ventriloquized the entire (absurdly long and slow) interaction, and it might just have worked out.  It would have made it a lot more enjoyable for me, so maybe next time! No.  Never again, the Bay.  Never again.

Your love keeps lifting me

The first (and one of the only) lines in a new Chemical Brothers song that's awoken a musical obsession in me similar to the kind that used to swallow me up in high school.  It's been a while since a simple piece of music (really - it's surprisingly simple) has been able to instantly peel through my layers and end up where important things go.  So refreshing to know that I'm still vulnerable to this kind of bliss.

So long sushi?

Last night, Dave proclaimed that he would never eat fish ever again.  I've heard him say it before, but I think there was something about David Suzuki's somber voice on last night's episode of The Nature of Things that must have really affected him.  I'd be lying if I said it didn't affect me too... I just think my attachment to sushi is far greater than Dave's is, and the idea of completely cutting all fish out of my diet scares the bejesus out of me.  I love my sushi.  I mean, I really LOVE it.  My 9-month pregnancy-induced sushi hiatus was very difficult for me, and I'd rather not put myself through that again.  I will admit, however, that with every mention of the dying ocean and the possibility that 40 years from now not a single fish will be left in the vast, vast sea, and the fact that this would gradually and irreversably destroy pretty much all life on earth, I get one step closer to becoming a seafood-shunning activist.  If you really think about it, maybe it makes perfect sense that human beings ought to keep their fishing nets the hell out of the ocean.  It really is akin to taking our big blind hands and reaching deep into something that we know very little about, only to steal massive fistfuls of delicious things that may or may not disappear forever and change the face of the earth before we've even had our fill.  We're not a part of that ecosystem, so why do we eat from it? On the other hand, are we even a part of our own ecosystem anymore (besides being a menace to it)? It's really starting to seem that vegetarianism might be in the cards for me one day soon...