Has anyone seen a Mr. T. Sumani?

Hi you have reached the Jayawi... residence sorry we missed your call...
That's what our answering machine message sounds like now, but after December 26 i was so flipping tempted to change it to:

"Hi Ammi and Thathi are fine and alive, the entire island of Sri Lanka isn't under water, Oliver's still eating house plants and yes aiya and I are not starving and have not killed each other yet. If you're calling for any of the above thanks for your concern but please don't leave a message after the beep. Have a great day!"

For those of you who did call, thanks for all your concern it was much appreciated. But i think even the sanest of people would go insane if they had to walk in every day and hear "You have 14 new messages." And i'm not the sanest. Well ammi and thathi are back and are no worse for their trip, maybe just a little bit heavier ;) Of course they brought back some wicked stuff for us, mainly in the area of Mammah's (my grandmother, thathi's mom) baked goods, art work (or ahhht as we prefer to call it) and my personal favourite, family heirlooms. They didn't come back with a whole whack load of stuff like they normally do, granted the situation in the country didn't exactly lend itself to the wild shopping sprees that my parents are usually wont to take part in. Nevertheless the tsunami hung over pretty much every aspect of their vacation although they weren't directly affected by it.

Here i could regale you with stories about friends dying, almost dying and devastation. But i'm not the BBC so i won't. Instead here's a cheesey joke that emobdies all things Sri Lankan. Aunty Shiromal (who owns the Jetwing travel group of hotels and has her own tsunami tragedy stories) related this to ammi and thathi over dinner one evening. A little bit of background for those of you who might not know, apparently some geographical centre or something in Hawaii knew that the tsunami was going to strike S. East Asia and were trying to figure out a way to inform the countries that would be effected.

Person from Hawaii: "Hi may i speak to the President please?"
Sri Lankan: "Sorry she can't come to the phone right now may i take a message?"
Person from Hawaii: "Listen, it's very urgent that someone knows that a tsunami is coming from Indonesia, will you be able to inform the proper people?"
Sri Lankan: "Sir I can assure you that it will be taken care of. How do you spell tsunami?"
Person from Hawaii: "T-S-U-N-A-M-I"
Sri Lankan: "Thanks for informing us."
A little while later
Sri Lankan (To President): Mrs. President, someone from Hawaii called to tell us that a Mr. T. Sumani was arriving from Indonesia today, I didn't want to bother you with it so i sent the driver and the car to the aiport with a sign "MR.T.SUMANI from INDONESIA" to pick him up, but so far no one's shown up.

Isn't that great? I probably got it wrong in the re-telling, but you get the idea :P

Guilty pleasures are embarassing, but so good at the same time...
Along with Maroon 5, salacious celebrity gossip also finds its way on my long list of guilty pleasures. But it's not often that celebrity gossip will get me thinking. You must admit that this is starting out to sound like an oxymoron, but hear me out! Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston are separated, big deal you say. (I immediately said that i hope Jen dies, Brad becomes a Christian, moves to Toronto and starts attending our local church. Therefore making him available, no strings attached. Don't scoff. It could happen!) What really gets my quince about the whole issue is that Jennifer Aniston is suddenly being demonized for not wanting to have children. What are we living in the Middle Ages people? So what if she wants to put her career first, she's made the responsible and honest choice. God only knows how horrible the lives of her children might be if she didn't put them first, at least she know where her priorities lie. So back off, even my best friend Oprah doesn't want to have kids for the same reason! But then again, Oprah's not married to Brad Pitt.

I will be accepting housewarming gifts in denominations of 10
Aiya got me a new wallet. A cute little Matt and Nat number. Although i'm not a vegan nor do i ever intend on becoming one, the wallet's pretty fly. Is it just me, or is getting a new wallet a lot like moving? I mean making that transfer of highly personal items from a space that you've long had and are totally used to, into this harsh new space which you need to get accustomed to. You know, trying to crack the code of the new snap button, and finding the rhythm of the zipper on the coin purse. And of course, getting used to looking into a new wallet that is devoid of any money will take a while to get used to. You can make your housewarming gifts payable to me.

Quips
Man, something about the holidays makes people say absurd things. Not that we don't say absurd things otherwise. It just seems like we say more stupidness after long periods of time away from work and school.

Me: SoOoOoOo who wants to come with me to the Netherlands this summer?! It'll be fun, we can go backpacking!!
Genis: Isn't the Netherlands in Ireland?

Labro: Yeah she's really butch
Me: So she's all ugly and mannish?
Labro: Not really, she's just butch
Me: I don't get it, how can she butch and not mannish and ugly?!
Labro: I can't explain it!
Philbert: She means she's a tomboy
Me: *GASP* if you call her 'Butch' and she's just a tomboy, what would you call ME, Emily?!
Everyone: *hysterical laughter*
Labro: uh...

Her: Seriously though, i have nothing to be jealous of. I mean. You saw her picture.
Me: You did NOT just say that.
Her: No. Wait! I didn't mean it like that!!

Ammi bought aiya and i these KICK ARSE Mont Blanc attache cases. Aiya got a tan leather one, and i got a black one. Trust me, we're just one trip away from Marks Work Wearhouse from looking like two pathetic grad students. (Although aiya looks more like one than i do, b/c he has the little plaid shirt, cord pants, boots and Columbia jacket, all we have to do is make him wear them all at once and get him some nice arcticware gloves!) This is a convo we had about the merits of carrying around said attache cases.
Me: Ammi, how come you and thathi didn't pick up attache cases for yourselves?
Aiya: Yeah ammi, they're perfect for dumping all your crap into! Especially when you go for meetings, then you won't have to lug around your papers.
Ammi: I don't need an attache case, i have an assistant

Aiya: I'm sorry we're not in the business of feeling sorry for people, we're in the business of exploiting them

Ahh, aiya you put it so well. Exploitation is the name of the game kids!

PS: Abs and Debs, i couldn't be MORE excited!