When I get sick I am a pretty big baby combine that with seasonal allergies and night time barfing and things have been fantastic!

Boooo last Friday I had to cancel therapy re: being sick, no girl time re: being sick and I had only been looking forward to that for WEEKS! Adam is sick as well so we’ve been passing this shit back and forth and at first I wasn’t snotty I just felt EXTRA balloon migraine head with MILD head cold, NOW I’m getting full head cold and snotty. YAY! I’ve been having really awesome night sweats as well and I haven’t been forgetting to take my crazy people tits and so therefore I can not pin point a reason other than being SICK.

In other news, The Greeper has a new place that she likes to sleep. Pretty exciting shit eh? I know, I thought so too until it turned out she’s serious and has taken over half the spot I sleep in. She has of course had other phases, other places she goes back to. The fashion box, the tent, I’m sure she will get bored of sleeping right below BUT almost ON my pillow soon.

Our camera is not back from being fixed yet so we had to buy a back up one. We couldn’t delay the monkeys any more due to lack of photos, but at the same time we HAVE to be able to take photos of our product. This issue of course led us into a discussion of other things that could happen to slow us down, when we are just about done with a lot of the start up necessities and can now work on picking up our production pace. I mentioned that there would come a time that we’d make a monkey, look at it, hate it or it would not meet our quality standards and we’d have to start over. Really, did I say that out loud? Because it happened the monkey after I said it! YAY! We have informed the buyer, I figure honesty is best, there is only two of us and both of us had a hand in it sucking so we’ve had to start over. Now we have a physically challenged monkey in our apartment, at least Dr. Vegas finally has a monkey that isn’t going anywhere to play with mostly because it is blind and can’t speak. Once that red thread goes on for the mouth the suckers don’t shut up. Banana this, poo in your face that.

My Dad is supposed to be dropping two boxes of stuff off to Adam and I on Saturday, some of my stuff, some stuff they are giving us, some stuff that has been in the family forever that I am taking because I’m the last member of our family and I don’t want it leaving the family till I die I guess. Small problem though, my Dad and I got into one of our infamous fights today. Oh how I love them. Always in regards to the exact same issue(s) hidden by topics seemingly cloaked in difference that spread years, weeks, months some just days - we some how manage to piss each other off regularly even when not in big fights. My mom is going to be all upset now and that’ll be my entire fault too, I’m sure. Super awesome, we both resort to behavior befitting that of two year olds and just generally spin in circles for a while. Fun times. We have worked hard on things as a family but my Dad and I, man we’ll just always scrap, sadly that is just how we are, we can’t seem to communicate in any sort of healthy way. Wonder how many more phases this move to Bali holds in store for us.

Just finished my fifth book of the year leaving me three behind my minimum quota for 2008, I will get off my ass and post on them soon. This year has been good so far aside from The Time Travelers Wife. EWWWW.

So I will go BULLETS on you.

• Every single time one of us sits at the computer Gus jumps straight onto a lap she has her head buried in my arm right now. She is the most adorably cute annoying cat in the world.

• Adam hurt himself at work and has been off here and there and so I’ve had to carry some heavy shit and;

1. it made me wonder how the hell I was ever as independent as I was
2. someone held the back door to the apartment building open for me, I made it all the way up the stairs to my floor and swung the door open so I could let it hit me in the back to go through but I didn’t move far enough over and the door knob NAILED me so hard that it happened on Monday and I still have pain shooting in a couple of directions and a massive LUMP.

• COMING SOON!!! HUGE and I mean HUGE MOOOOO-VIE post. While we make monkeys we watch movies, mostly movies we’ve seen or I watch them twice or vise versa, some will be old and some will be new movies. I feel that my one liner-ish reviews are generally better than if I go all out anyway.

• Speaking of movies, and forgive me as I’ll probably repeat some of this somewhere down the road but I FINALLY got my hands on a copy of Into the Wild BUT now I’m afraid to watch it, WHY? Because see, I read the book in April 2005 [NERD ALERT/reminder: I date all of my books when I finish them] I have also read most of Jon Krakauer’s other books. The book Into the Wild is a 199 pages, with epilogue 203. I had this funny feeling having just watched two movies of perfect length so I looked at Into the Wild and saw that it is 143 minutes. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I’m now convinced that Krakauer and Penn are conspiring against all of man kind, how the HECK does a 199 page book become a 143 minute movie? Krakauer wrote Into the Wild before he became known for being an arrogant thinks he knows it all, extremely repetitive journalist [NOT SAYING HE HASN’T BEEN THROUGH A LOT re: Everest] but seriously is half this fucking movie going to be Penn and Krakauer masturbating their egos and Krakauer getting us back for writing such a short book in comparison? I guess I’ll see once I watch it.

• Also coming soon a very personal review of Dry, Augusten Burroughs, [who has a new book out on April 29 YAY!] and I wasn’t planning on reviewing it at all but I have a few things to say about The Last Days of Socrates, Plato. Once I start talking about the damn Socrates I can’t shut up now, I feel similar to how I felt after I read 1984.

• OUR CAMERA IS BROKEN!!!!!! On one hand I feel really lame getting so upset over a materialistic possession but our camera is not just a play toy for us anymore we NEED it for our business so we are pretty stressed about it or rather I am, Adam doesn’t really stress much about anything in life. I have a couple tricks up my sleeve to hopefully get some photos of two monkeys that will be done this weekend and HOPEFULLY by the time the Jedi one is done THAT IS RIGHT A JEDI ONE, the camera will be fixed. I don’t pray but if you do please say a prayer for our new business. All start ups have glitches. We’ve officially hit a glitch.

• I finally had the pleasure of meeting Raul over the last weekend at Tanya’s housewarming party. I am like the last blogger in Vancouver to meet him I think. He was everything he has been talked up to be and more! I was the one at the party with the sippy cup. I had every intention of joining y’all at Every Third Tuesday this month because the Hamburgler [Monica Hamburg] was the speaker, I call her a friend, she doesn’t read my blog, that is cool man, but she is rad, I heard she did a great job, sorry I missed it, been taking care of my dear husband yo.

• We now have our FOURTH coffee pot in less than two years. The first one I broke in a tantrum of mass destruction, although I was not TRYING to break the coffee pot I just forcefully put it under the tap and knocked it into something. THEN Sarah and Jack bought us a rad coffee pot for a wedding gift [can’t find the post re: FUCKED archives] but even though we know at least four other couples/people who have that coffee pot and they ALL still have it ours broke!! WOOOOOOOOOOO! RIGHT after the warranty was done, probably the day after. I then bought a $24.99 twelve cup coffee pot, cheapest one I could find. Last week the heating plate went on it. Adam likes burnt coffee I blame him. SO I bought YET another coffee pot, and this one makes loud noises and I want to throw it out the window and I don’t have the box to take it back because I am a recycling freak and actually get excited about the amount of things I have to recycle and FUCK now I have to wait out this shit coffee pot, watch it last ten years, seriously.

Ps. Dr. Vegas is always a mentor to the Sock Monkeys, he always gives em’ some advice before they leave our infantry but this particular monkey the Dr. really took to. They had a pretty awesome jam session before he departed, Vegas has already shown off his guitar though so he took it off for the photo.

Just over a month ago now Jack Smynde sent me a link to Threadless it was a very specific link to a ‘sock battle’ t-shirt. I HAD TO HAVE IT!!!!!! I also ordered one for Adam he is wearing his RIGHT NOW as well. I’m trying to talk him into wearing them out to a party like say next weekend just once at the same time, one time NERD ALERT, but I think it would be adorable and then NEVER AGAIN!

The shirts took a while to arrive but it was worth the wait. I LOVE IT. The moment I laid eyes on it I thought TROGDOR MEETS THE SOCK MONKEY MAY HE BURNINATE HIM! [respectfully] And the fact that the sock Trogdoresque puppet is NOT ONLY spitting fire but that the monkey is shooting back at him with SEWING NEEDLES. GENIUS.

This Threadless online t-shirt site could very well end up being the last place I ever by a t-shirt from. Granted we did order two more t-shirts recently from T-Shirthell but it was really hard to choose given the content of them but we finally found two awesome ones, and we thank sister uno for them.

Here is a medley of shots of me in the t-shirt because I needed to take one for the Threadless website and well who the hell wouldn’t want to show off a t-shirt this cool?

I have a list of ideas for blog posts that I think will be good blog posts if I write them and I was even starting to write posts and store them but that never lasts long, I get all concentrated on lots and lots of different things and unless I write every single little thing down like POST EVER DAY on every day of my day book I won’t do it, and even if it makes it in the day book something that doesn’t HAVE to be done, something that is a want to do, may or may not get done that day.

I’m trying to avoid starting any paragraphs with ‘SO’ right now it is fun.

We have been very busy. I almost wish they did, but businesses do not start themselves. What business? THE MONKEY BUSINESS!! Even without the site up [you are still more than welcome to keep doing as you have, contacting us over facebook or through our contact page here] they are selling nicely through word of mouth.

They do take longer than they used to having added in the ‘accessories’ [headphones, guitars, basses, swords, hockey sticks, hockey helmets etc] and the option of having your sock monkey personalized with other wonderful things such as tattoos or iron on patches, the only patches we are offering are Canadian flags at present unless we happen to see a patch that matches a request. Basically we can’t guarantee patches but if Adam can draw it, he can tattoo it on your monkey. Having recently ordered three pre-made t-shirts online at the beginning of March and the fact that they JUST arrived today has me pretty confident that our monkeys will still all be made and leave in an extremely reasonable amount of time being that they are 100% hand made and our production speed with only increase as we get better.

Although I have registered the company and many of you being part of our open Facebook group and some of you having been invited to the new Flickr group, [to obtain or request an invite you must have a monkey made by us] we aren’t going to announce the official name until we are ready to launch the site and at least have buttons and stickers. There will be a mass mailing to people out of the region who can’t make our launch party so they still receive that which will eventually come standard with the monkeys The stickers are mainly for the reusable bags that the local monkeys will depart us in but ones that are mailed just get a box but will be sent the sticker, a button and our business cards we also haven’t made yet. Our logo is seriously awesome and has been seen by a select few people but has received a great response and we are really excited about unveiling it all.

I always thought I’d own my own used book store but we own a business none the less and it feels seriously awesome. Business Woman I am and Housewife Extraordinaire. Life is good. Even if it is, “painful and real” at times.

We are about to throw ourselves into a whole new batch of sold monkeys one with a Hello Kitty guitar. OH YAY!

Here are some of the Sock Monkeys who have moved into new infantries.

Owner Phaedra Monkey on left

Owner Tiana Baby Sock Monkey, w/traditional ‘MA’ tattoo

Photo © Traisas Rock N’ Roll Sock Monkey, has anarchy tattoo on back

Owner Jennie Hockey Sock Monkey, with Canadian flag iron on patch on back

The Amazing Adventures of Corinna and Adam Part One

And on an added note, at this time last year a visit had just ended with someone who I’d have to say we both now consider one of our very best friends, C.J Hixon. The one year of our ‘meeting anniversary’ was none other than March 26, 2007 extremely easy to remember, Adam and I married on the 26^th of a month. You need only look at the picture that he used to link my blog to know that he has been here since the beginning and the three of us getting to know each other across the pond and hanging out over here on this here ocean front city of Vancouver last year holds a few of my dearest memories to date. The last year continuing our friendship and watching it grow has been beyond fun. Much love to you C.J!

Last week things started to have a feeling of normalcy around here. FEELS like I’m back to my regular old depressed self. She’s cool, majority of the people I know can handle me in this state. It is no wonder that Tori Amos and her music always bring me so much solace during shit times, after I finish reading The Last Days of Socrates, Plato I am going to read Tori Amos Piece by Piece, Tori Amos and Ann Powers. I picked up a hard cover on blow out for five dollars. I can’t even tell you how happy finding hard cover books I want for five dollars in perfect shape makes me. And it is still an early enough printing that the book itself is still grooved like honeycomb.

I went out on Thursday for a friend’s birthday and I bowled! No photos though, Adam’s pictures thankfully did not turn out. Thank you very much to my Bowl for Big Brothers sponsors: readers and friends of Gus Greeper put me in second place behind Tod Maffin for most amount raised, you all helped me raise $296.00 respectfully and I greatly appreciate it!

We had to leave said birthday celebrations early because my energy level was beyond low and although dinner was awesome it wasn’t enough to keep me energized very long and also with all the great people to talk with I faded out pretty fast. At dinner it was OFFICIALLY decided that I am no longer allowed at any parties without a sippy cup because I am a Hand Talker Extraordinaire aka spilly drinker. This came about only after Kimli had already spilled a full glass of water onto Adam’s crotch [hehe that was so funny] and my cat like reflexes had caught at least four or five ‘almost spills’ from my flailing talker hands, hence past parties came up where really I haven’t necessarily spilt anything, but I did almost break or did break my toe, so we came to a general consensus. I want an extremely childish one with a neck strap on it etc. It will debut at Netchick’s House Warming. Hopefully I will have gained some weight back by then and not hate cameras.

My therapist mentioned on Friday that he didn’t think I was any smaller than I had been back in 2003 when I started to see him, I was a serious wreck back then, so I had to explain to him that yes he was right it was simply the lack of muscle mass that was making it so obvious because in 2003 I was still in stellar shape.

I have taken my nerd-dum to new heights and am now sporting FLARE on my purse. This is a very out of the box thing for me to do so we will see how long it lasts. I do enjoy the extra feelings of nerdiness it gives me though.

Last week was also a killer week for mail and I’m going to show it off!

Jennie Roth sent me these seriously kick ass slippers. I’m going to hang them above my makeshift monkey making area, these mailed before I had my not so fun break down and therefore arrived just in time to help cheer me up! Thanks again Jennie me lovez them.

I normally do not post any of my correspondence because there are many many people I have met online not to mention my ‘in person’ friends - I LOVE TO SEND AND RECEIVE MAIL - I send mail to and they send me mail. This card was too cute not to post to my flickr because it made my day and made me laugh laugh laugh and then laugh some more.

And I was also in complete shock when the post woman left a package at my door which I opened to find this fantastic painting of myself to myself from the seriously awesome Tiana aka Sassy Red Head, the original photo is here.

My friends and their thoughtfulness never ever cease to amaze me. Thanks again so much!

Last week was a seriously huge week for Adam and me. We were both completely absorbed in ourselves, I a bit too much.

We had the absolute pleasure of selling our very first Sock Monkey to Phaedra, the ‘official’ site where they will be available is not finished yet, just email us through the contact page if you want details on obtaining one. We have now sold two monkeys.

Phaedra’s Monkey who she has named Bobby has already been out on the town ripping it up. Here he is hanging out with Marc Emery. Oh, I know one of OUR Monkeys is hanging with Mr. Emery, CRAZY!!!. ROCK ON BOBBY!! The Monkeys we make for people never cease to make us proud.

Photo © Phaedra on Flickr

Looks like Bobby will be joining us bowling as well, and the Bollwitt’s [R and J] have a Monkey and we have the original Dr. Vegas so who knows what sort of monkey business will take place. Naked bowling as per Keira’s comment and Monkeys? I’d say sponsor us or I mean me. [Please]

My Parents also dropped the HUGE news on us that they are moving to Asia, Bali to be exact. Everything is happening extremely fast right now. They put their house on the market last week and it is sold already. Adam and I are currently in negotiations with them over what we can have, buy, lease, and/or ship of theirs. Right now we are very concentrated on the Yamaha piano that I played growing up and some other stuff. It’ll be interesting I don’t think we can fit the piano in here Adam says we can and he wants it really really bad. I think our land lord is going to kill us but oh well we only like her 50% of the time anyway.

The kicker the hugest news of all is that my parents are I kid you not, flying us out once a year. Did I mention they were moving to Bali? They are having a house built for retirement and of course once the insanity of knowing we get to go to BALI ONCE A YEAR wears off [if it does] I wonder what phases I’m going to go through with this? I’ve already mentioned to my shrink that I feel like I am losing my ‘Northern Roots’. He said that is normal but it is just starting to bother me. There was a big deciding factor in their decision to go so far away that did consider us, but I’m choosing to keep it private at this time.

That news combined with the sock monkeys starting to sell has us both really excited and really busy. The possibilities feel endless right now.

Last night Adam and I were treated by the Bollwitts, Rebecca and John were supposed to attend the Tori Amos concert at The Orpheum but due to Rebecca’s lovely sister celebrating her dirty thirty birthday they were unable to attend.

Happy Birthday Jenny!

Somehow the tickets ended up in our hands and excitement on my part does not even cut it. I hardly had time to let it sink in that we were going and we were out the door. Once, back in 1997 I had tickets to one of her concerts here and ended up going up North to see my parents instead; they had just moved to Prince George that must have had something to do with why I didn’t go and didn’t even sell the tickets, it is one of those memories that I hated because I just never thought I’d get to see her. [as known my headaches make me very picky with my concert choices]

Did I have a headache last night? YES. Did I care? NO. Do I have an after concert headache today? YES. Do I care? NO.

For years I have had to listen to other people’s stories of Tori and her piano bench and regurgitate it in many music conversations whilst admitting I had never really seen her live. That was hadn’t seen her live until last night.

I’d actually never been to a concert with a costume change. Adam said Paula Abdul changed outfits after every two songs. He saw her with Color Me Badd, it was his first concert he went with both his sisters, the Spellbound tour.

Don’t be jealous.

Tori puts on a performance that is so much more than you envision, so much more than you expect even though expectation on anything is silly. I could have sat there and listened to her piano playing alone, the fantastic lyrics and distinct and angelic voice is a bonus, throw in her stage performance, watching her play a piano and a keyboard at the same time, and you’ve got a concert to remember. It was worth the wait, thanks again, Mr. and Mrs. Bollwitt.

I know there are better photos on my phone but I have no idea how to get them off and emailing them to myself is not working. I think I need a memory card or something I am so technology illiterate I almost feel not nerdy enough and it hurts sometimes.

Because my back was out over the weekend and I wasn’t blogging there were two things of note that I did not get to make mention of, Rebecca aka Miss604 celebrated her four year blogging anniversary and changed her blog design and it looks all new and fresh. Congratulations Rebecca, I look forward to many more years of not only your blogging but continuing to get to know yourself and John, it has been a pleasure thus far.

On Sunday, Blogger Buddy and girlfriend Keira whom I met through Rebecca, celebrated a birthday and she is a pretty rad girl that Keira-Anne so I thought I’d mention it and wish her a Happy Belated Birthday!

Yesterday a trade was also completed, an over the border trade with an American, named Jennie Roth, I met her at Johnny America’s birthday party, although we weren’t able to stay long that night and it sucked because cool new people like Jennie were there. We exchanged a toque for a sock monkey pillow, because she saw it and thought of me, YES that is right a SOCK MONKEY PILLOW, check it, some people are so thoughtful it kills me.

Ps. Miss604 is having a Blogiversary Contest:

BLOG/POST about Miss604.com and you could WIN: TWO tickets to see the Vancouver Giants in action and TWO full-day passes (including rental) for Mount Seymour this season.

More details at Miss604.com. Having won her last contest I am staying out of this one but maybe I will see if Adam wants to enter.

happy new year to you all!

let me introduce you to the happy adoptees and adoptors.

[b](THE) Vern Stanley[/b], he now resides with Geezer and Maja in Austraila. word has it he is fitting in extremely well and loves the ladies, the wild life and booze.

[b]Ramona[/b], or Mona for short has an adorable Sassy playmate in Scotland.

[b]Sonny Tang[/b] humps cats while Sarah Laughs.

[b]Mr. B. Wilbur Mint[/b], takes refuge with Glenn my friend from grade school who has a penchant for sock monkeys.

blogger turned buddy Paul from Ajax adopted a very special and talented monkey [b]Radclife[/b].

[b]Bruno Mandeville[/b] is a construction worker residing with a man named Devo.

[b]SPOCKETTE[/b] the ONE i call spockette decided she wanted her monkey to be named spockette as well. please do not confuse this monkey spockette with my human girlfriend spockette. a photo of her (my girlfriend) will be unveiled soon as she has also accepted my request that she be my maid of honour!

[b]Saltine Peppard[/b] went to my girlfriend Tricia someone whose friendship i value likely way more than she could know.

i wanted to call this monkey Bruno but we had already named a monkey Bruno. adam named him Chow Meinus. he sits proudly in my tattoo by chad’s work area. i told chad of the name issue, he said he would call him [b]Bruno Chow Meinus[/b]. SWEET. this monkey is almost an ape. we don’t know how it happened but it MAY have something to do with his four arms.

[b]Hank Prosciutto[/b] was adopted by my great friend and new friend to adam, Greenly. we met in the 12th grade over a spock bookmarker. this vulcan is undercover, hence the name hank prosciutto. and i can’t believe we just gave up his cover.

[b]Onya Klinger[/b] this monkey is fucking hot, this monkey is a whore if this monkey isn’t next to you, it’s on-ya.

i�ll admit i got totally carried away promising monkeys this year and we still have some left to make.

the monkey migration season has come to an end. during the remainder of the year, travel is expensive for the animals as each transfer must be made independently through the ‘ebay’ travel agency. if you are awaiting the arrival of a monkey that has not arrived yet, it will. some of this year’s class were caught with a controlled substance and will be released to you pending successful parole hearings.

more info on the ‘monkey’ travel agency will follow in due time.