The Petition

Cocaine Princess here.

This past week has been very relaxing and peaceful which is a nice change of pace for me. In the previous weeks there was so much going on I didn’t know whether I was coming or going. During my chaotic days in the back of my head I’m always thinking when I finally do have some spare time I’ll catch up on all the things I didn’t have time for and had fallen behind on. So this week that’s all I did, play catch up and of course I made sure I had time to do some of the few essential things like shopping and getting a mani/pedi.

As each day goes by the weather conditions improve. The other day I went into the backyard. I wasn’t able to before because the grass was still mucky. In the left hand corner I noticed a variety of items wedged in the bushes; a child size running shoe, a badminton racket, a child size hockey stick, a football and a Frisbee. I was acquainted with the fatal Frisbee; it was identical to the one I was hit in the head with last spring. I knew right away everything belonged to my next door neighbours’ children. Before the snow fell the items weren’t there which only means they must have been playing with them at some point in the winter. Why? I have no idea unless they came up with a new game called, ‘let’s see how many things we can throw over the fence.’ I collected the things and headed on over next door only to be welcomed by the hideous creature with four legs. I was better off tossing the items back over into their yard. The creature had grown during the cold months and now comes up to my waist. I managed to steer clear of the revolting looking thing all winter long but now that spring has sprung it’s a sure bet I’ll be seeing more of it.

After returning everything I was coming down the driveway and when I approached the sidewalk who did I have the fortunate pleasure of running into? Poodle Lady, someone else I had managed to avoid seeing all winter. Poodle Lady was dressed in an orange chenille jogging suit, had a shimmering coloured visor on her head and in her arms her precious poodle that she calls her Baby who also was clothed in orange.

Usually if I can’t stand someone I just ignore them but I had literally come face to face with her and being the well-mannered and civil person that I am I said in a friendly voice,

'Hello how are you?’

The most obvious reply from a person would be, 'fine thank you. And yourself?' After first giving me a head to toe look which for some reason she does to everybody before she begins talking to them, replied with,

'Where's your elder?’

When she spoke I noticed a smudge of lipstick on her two front teeth.

'My elder?'

I knew of course she was referring to my sister. No one had ever referred to her as my elder. I tried diverting my eyes away from her lipstick stained teeth but it was just one of those things you couldn't stop gawking at. It was such a distraction.

'Yes your elder.’

'You mean my sister.’

'Why do you need to know?' I asked

'There’s something I need to discuss with her,' she answered.

'She's at work.'

Poodle Lady pulled out and believe it or not an orange piece of paper from her bag.

'I need her to sign this petition and you too.'

Good God not another one of her silly petitions I said to myself. I have lost count how many petitions this woman has started but I do know the exact number of petitions that have been successful. Zilch. Now what was she campaigning for? Getting the citizens to wear orange on Wednesdays?
To my disbelief it wasn't. Her latest crusade- to prohibit religious soliciting in our vicinity. Our area is visited by the Jehovah Witness not once a week but every day. They haven't had much luck in recruiting anybody and I don't think they will.

'Just don't answer your door,' I suggested. 'I don't.'

By accident I once did. I thought it was Domino's delivery because 30 minutes earlier I placed an order and so thinking my Chicago deep dish pizza had arrived I opened the door without first checking the security camera. Instead there were two women wearing long navy blue belted coats and both holding a briefcase and pamphlets in their hands. Unless Domino’s decided to change their driver’s uniforms and were now delivering pizza in a briefcase I knew precisely who they were. I'm an extremely open minded person and I truly respect everyone's opinions and beliefs but, I really don't like receiving or listening to lectures in particular when that someone is lecturing me how if I don't devote my entire life to Christ and repent my sins I won't be spared from the devil's wrath. Oh yeah I guess I should explain, prior to them warning me that I’m basically damned for Hell if I don’t take their advice they were giving me a rundown of signs that the Apocalypse was nearing. I interrupted them saying I had dinner in the oven and if I didn't take it out it would burn and I had a load of laundry in the washing machine. Now that was a sentence I thought would never ever come out of my mouth so you can imagine what a hard time I had keeping a straight face. Poodle Lady continued.

‘You think I haven’t tried that? They keep on ringing the bell. Ding dong ding dong. I even posted a sign. They don't give up.’

Some of the locals, us included put up a sign near the front door that reads NO RELIGIOUS SOLICITING. It's of no use.

'Tell your elder to sign this, you as well to exclude them from our area.’

'I'm going to be honest, I don’t feel too comfortable signing it.

I’m just going to go with my preferred method, not answering

the door.

Not that I cared but after informing Poodle Lady I wasn’t going to support her cause she gave me a strange and eerie look.

‘Then tell your elder she has to.’

‘I’m not telling her anything. What I will do is inform her about your petition.’

As much as I wanted the conversation to be over and done with I was interested in knowing how many autographs she had gathered.

One. Her own. And she had been pounding the pavement for nearly an hour.

Hell’s Kitchen

The challenge this week was to make a creative dish out of king crab. Each team had 44 minutes to prepare their dish and then they were to choose the best one for the Chef to taste. The red team picked Andrea and the Blue team picked Ben. Ramsay was impressed with neither and then called Paula and Danny. He was very impressed with both their dishes and had a hard time picking the winner. In the end he selected Danny. The blue teams reward was an outing in Santa Monica. The red team’s punishment was to clean both dorms and then cook and clean all the crabs.

For dinner service each team was to create a menu; 3 appetizers, 3 dinners and 3 desserts. Each patron had a choice of picking from the red or blue menu. One customer ordered the beef from the red team but had the head waiter return it back to the kitchen because she complained it tasted like cardboard. After the kitchen corrected the mistake she was still unhappy and this time she decided to take it upon herself and complain in person. To get Ramsay’s attention she whistled at him. Oh boy. I haven’t been watching Ramsay for that long but I do know that is a big no-no! Ramsay answered back with this, ‘I’m not your F- dog. You look like a dog.’ And to even further humiliate her he told her to F- off. Wow even I felt the woman’s humiliation. I don’t know what she was thinking or why she thought she could get away with whistling at him. Like every week there was trouble and setbacks in the kitchen. Gordon tasted Ben’s soup and then spit it out because it was cold and Carol had tremendous difficulty with her potatoes. The kitchen had problems after problems and Chef Hot Head was so fed up he shut it down. The winning team was based on customer comment cards. The red team had won. Ramsay appointed Danny to elect one person to be on the chopping block. I had a feeling it would be Ben. It was but Ramsay wanted to hear from both Ben and Robert why they deserved to stay on. I was convinced it was going to be Ben’s last night. So who did Ramsay tell to hang up their jacket? In a surprising twist he chose Carol from the red team. Why? He accused her of team mate sabotage.

My loyal and dear readers it’s finally F-R-I-D-A-Y.

Whatever your plans are have an awesome weekend.-x

XOXOXOXO,

Cocaine Princess