insert witty title here

I've spent the past two days moving.

I don't know how many times I've moved since I was requested to move out at 17 - it has to be at least forty. I remember living in Montreal and moving across town by metro. Now that was a pain in the ass.

When I phoned them last week, the telephone company said I can expect a hookup on August 1st. Why it takes them two weeks to flip a switch is a mystery to me but as Lily Tomlin used to say in her telephone operator skit on Laugh-in: "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company."

I did manage to get my daughter's birthday presents yesterday: the board game "Clue" (Simpsons edition, complete with poisoned donut); a sculpture-thingie with five blue dolphins on it (she likes dolphins and I'm not complaining because it's her first step away from the Cult of Barbie); and two books: ("It's Great to be Eight" - a collection of short stories about 8-year-olds) and "I forget the exact title" but it's a book detailing a whole bunch of DIY crafts and projects with a female focus (and it's not about how to string beads together or how to make an ink stamp out of a frigging potato - there's stuff involving real tools).

Her birthday is at the end of this week so if anyone has a constructive, last-minute suggestion for something else to get her, feel free to drop me a line.