Snoopin' Sherman wants a battle? She'll get a WAR!!!!

So the wine glass is still sitting on our kitchen counter. Brian and I have been discussing the many ways that we could return the glass to our snoopin' landlord but we've finally determined that we would return the wine glass to her cleaning lady while she is away on her trip to Oklahoma City for a yacht race (She leaves tomorrow -- woo hoo!).

But there was more drama that took place yesterday.

While I was out at lunch with my girlfriends An and Andreanne, Brian came home to give Snoop dogg the rent. According to a primary resource, Snoop doggydog had the AUDACITY to comment on how I was a total lazy bum all day yesterday! Seriously lady???? I'm not denying that I had a late start (I didn't end up leaving the house 'til 2pm) but who cares? And how the hell does she know what I'm doing downstairs? I could be writing a masterpiece thesis on the cure for ovarian cancer for all she knows! I could understand how she might have made it her business to check on the status and condition of the basement suite since she has a vested interest in the property but what I DO IN MY FREE TIME IS REALLY NONE OF HER BUSINESS. Now I have to worry about looking productive on top of being impeccably clean? No way, jose. The only thing that's keeping me from going upstairs and shoving the wine glass in Snoopy's face is the fact that she ships out tomorrow and won't be back for a week. I'm sure I'll be more calm by the time she gets back but GAWD is it ever annoying to know that this lady is all up in my bizzzz.

Ah. Woooooooooosahhhh.

Anyways. Back to other more pertinent things in my life. I skipped the gym yesterday to meet up with some friends as mentioned but I did manage to squeeze in a 2 mile walk which is better than nothing. The night before, Brian and I had racked a whopping 7 mile walk that left my legs feeling a bit jello-y towards the end but I was glad to be moving more after a week's worth of driving down the coast. This morning I got up and attended the 10:30 Zumba class at Steve Nash Fitness World and did 45 minutes of light weight lifting afterwards. As usual the 1 mile trek back home was the most grueling. It just is so painful after an intense workout, plus I don't think I had managed to stretch effectively because my thighs and calves started to seriously tense up with shooting pain halfway up the hill. But I gimped it back home and now I'm considering having some cereal for lunch.

This past weekend was chock full of last minute events. On Saturday night, we were invited out to a Brazilian house party with Sean. From how people described it to me, I imagined a house full of native Brazilians with Brazilian food and music blasting from every corner. I was only slightly disappointed to find that the party was just a typical 200 person slosh fest with a live DJ that played mainstream jams. But it was still fun. Brian ended up running into a high school friend who is actually best friends with his brother-in-law's brother. Small world, eh? The party was almost shut down by a policeman who had arrived because a neighbor had called complaining about the noise. But the popo man was surprisingly nice. My only interactions with police officers has been horrible. I don't know if it's an American cop thing or not but god, they are frikkin' dicks down in the states. This officer was so polite and understanding and joked with the host of the party. I'm seriously starting to like Canada more and more. Anyways, we ended up partying til 3 am, went for after party pizza and finally came home and crashed around 4 am. The next morning we scrambled to get ourselves to An's Scarpie brunch (Brian's friends from his master's program at UBC) which was dee. Licious. We had waffles, fruits galore, spanakopitas, spring rolls, homemade ice cream, and fresh bread. I had three platefuls. The rest of the day was spent soaking up some of the radiant sun down at David Lam Park in Vancouver and getting a Korean dinner at the West End. Perfect perfect day.

Here's a pic of the fabulous weather we've been having and the Korean dinner gang:

Luvlay.

Good lookin' group!

Tomorrow I'll be viewing the Georgia Rosewood Hotel's ballroom and I'm expecting good things! Updates and pics to follow!

Snoopin' Shermans

Had a fabulous weekend which I will tell you about in another post when I return from the gym but first I must tell you of a slight dilemma Brian and I have been having.

Brian and I came home last night a little after 11pm last night and the first thing that catches my eye is a cup on the table that I had never seen before. I turn to Brian and ask him "Where did that cup come from?" and he answers "It's probably yours from this morning when you didn't put your drink away as usual."

"But Brian, I don't drink wine."

So Brian finally starts to REALLY look at the cup and realizes that it's not ours and it's filled halfway with white wine. It was placed on the table as if someone had come in, sat down, and had a glass of wine while we were away.

Weird? Yes. But not really.  I am almost certain that it is Brian's landlord who comes down to "check on the place" and I have a feeling that she does it quite often.

Now Brian's landlord is a lovely Brazilian Jewish lady who loves having people over and is constantly treating us to tea and snacks and such. She's in her 70's, a widow, and magnificently rich. She's still very much healthy and active in her daily life. Oftentimes she is away visiting family and friends (She just came back from a month in Europe) but when she's home I get the sense that she's quite lonely. I have coaxed Brian on three occasions to stop by and say hello which Brian accurately predicted would turn into multiple hour long visitation sessions. Even when I tell her that we really need to go and just wanted to ask her how her garden was doing, she somehow convinces us to come in, sit, have a bite of her delicious macaroni and cheese she had just baked. I had borrowed a few books from her before Brian and I had left for our roadtrip and I decided to return them to her on Saturday morning. Brian and I had planned an afternoon of running errands such as grocery shopping and going to the bank before it closed so I figured we had a legitimate way of excusing ourselves quickly. But no. We found ourselves visiting for 3 hours. She had just baked a lunch which we had to sample. Her two granddaughters were over so we had to come in and meet them. To make a long story short, I ended up babysitting and entertaining two very sweet but wild girls (One was an ear biter who tormented Brian quite a bit) while Brian weeded our landlord's 25 feet long flower bed. Yes. Scammed again. Bank closed and groceries were postponed.

Getting back to the main issue -- I had a hunch that our landlord was checking on our place because she would make comments such as "Is the furniture arrangement not suitable downstairs? You guys can move things around down there, just make sure you don't move the bookshelf or the dining set." This being said conveniently after Brian had rearranged the coffee table and sofa seats in order to accommodate more space for when my mother was in town. Or she would say "I think I'm going to have you guys bring up my crystal wine glass set upstairs. They're getting dusty since you guys aren't using them. You only use the water glasses and mugs, right?" Or the most obvious comment being "Brian is so neat and tidy, but you Gina, I don't think so much. Brian is usually so meticulous about the cleanliness of his suite."

Honestly, how could she know all of this when she has never been invited down?!?! And yesterday's piece of evidence just reaffirmed all my suspicions: We're living under a serious Snoopin' Sherman.

I guess it's not really that bad. Brian was just a little more than concerned since we had left the place in disarray that morning so the wine drinker would have witnessed all the clothes on the floor and dirty dishes in the sink. Of course, Brian looked at me accusingly when he said "This place is USUALLY pretty clean and I had just cleaned the place yesterday." I can admit it. I'm not the cleanest person in the world. I have trouble "seeing the mess" that Brian sees but that's why today's mission includes me cleaning up the place before I head over to the gym. I've gotten a bit paranoid about the landlord's sneaky visits and so I'm going to try to have our suite in decent shape before I step out. We exit the suite through the side door but we have to walk around to the front of the house so our landlord can see when we come and go.

It's kind of annoying to know that uninvited guests are coming down for freelance tours of your place while you're away but we've got nothing to hide and maybe once I convince her that there really is nothing to worry about down in our suite, she won't have to snoop anymore! I'm going to convince her with impeccable cleanliness!

So the dilemma is, how the hell am I gonna get our landlord's wine glass back to her without it being totally awkward and obvious about how we know she's been asnoopin'?!?!?!!?!