My parents are in Italy right now. Mom's always wanted to go to Europe. I guess she's deserved this little holiday, but I wish I could fast forward the next thirteen years, until I'm rich and famous and have a hotel in Paris and have to travel there regularly.

Until then, all I can do is blog, and try and figure out little life puzzles, such as:

How am I going to get rich and famous during the next thirteen years? And why does it have to be thirteen years?

Think about it. In thirteen years, I will be the ripe old age of thirty-five. Not so young to be called reckless, yet not so old to be called senile. Middle-aged. The prime of my life. Yadda yadda...

Let's say next year (2012-2013) I take off from school to work hard and make enough money for hair-styling-manicure-and-cosmetics school (because I want to be a hair stylist-manicurist-costmetic-artist). The fall of 2013, and perhaps the spring of 2014, I will busy myself at said school. By the time I finish there, I will be twenty-four going on twenty-five.

[I just realized, twenty-four was the limit I gave myself for marriage. If I am not married by the age of twenty-four, I will submit myself to the life of an old cat lady. But a rich old cat lady, remember?]

Now, we can look at my life after 2014 in two different ways: Miss Rich-and-Famous Jet-setter, or Mrs. Rich-and-Famous Jet-setter.

Miss Rich-and-Famous: From 2014 until I gain the required hours needed, I will work at small hair salons here and there (most likely in my own home town, where rent seems to be cheaper for some reason). Let us say I gain the hours I need to open up my own hair salon by, I suppose 2017. By then, I shall be twenty-eight. So far so good. I open up a hair salon, the motive and idea for which I shall keep secret in this blog. This hair salon becomes such a hit that I quickly make lots of money and fame. I invest in a growing hotel in Paris. End of story.

Now, for
Mrs. Rich-and-Famous: I start working at my home town hair salon to gain hours I need to open up my own business. In 2015 I meet a rich man, whose own business I haven't conjured up in my imagination yet. We get married in 2016 (I love quick romances).
[This is a little later than my twenty-four deadline, but I think a one year difference is of little importance]
With his steady income, we are certainly both well-off enough to travel to Paris every so often if we so desire. But I really want that business of mine. We buy a big house, I set up an area in which to open up my business, and we are now a two-income family. While our four or five children (which I shall have by the time I am thirty-five years old) are enjoying swimming lessons at home with Grandma and Grandpa, me and my wealthy husband shall parade around Paris to our heart's delight.

My family and friends gets free haircuts, giving my name fame throughout the land.


I don't seem to mind the Mrs. Rich-and-Famous so much.

We're not overpopulated

Do the math.

"I like old people"

Says my 71 year-old co-worker at the museum. I don't think he knows why I laugh every time he says that.

My job is a mixture of boring and exciting at the same time. All in all, I love it. If you ever get the chance to work at a small-town museum, go for it. It's an unforgettable experience, to be sure.

My musuem is run by seniors. Every year on Canada Day they have a huge open-house type thing, with the steamer, well-driller, thresher, and clay oven going all day long so people can see how things were done "in the old days". In preparation for that day, I got to know the old helpers quite well - they always came for coffee every day, at 10am and 3pm, sharp. The coffee always had to be made on time. And there had to be plenty of cookies, too.

The men sat at one end of the table, while the woman (and I) sat at the other. I had the advantage of being able to hear both ends of the conversation: the men would talk or argue over machinery, the DC Case, how to fix the well-driller, etc. The women would chat about their flowers, what they planned to do at the lake that weekend, their quilting projects, and whether it's worth buying a rechargable battery for their husbands' hearing aids.

In just two months, Monday till Friday, coffee time sometimes extending to over and hour and a half long, I've gained an extensive knowledge of all the above, as well as how to trap a mole, that banana goes quite nicely with rhubarb, that we need more dummies so we can show off all those old clothes in the storage room, that it's good for plants to pick off the dead flowers every once in awhile, that Mrs. So-and-so has bought a new condo and is moving in by the end of the month and must downsize a lot so she might need more than one garage sale, that people need to stop bringing in their mother's sewing machines or old type-writers because we have more than we can store, and that goes for old pump organs too, that that one brand of ant killer really does the trick, and apparently using seven-up in your pie crust in place of vinegar works just as good.

Things have slowed down a little, now that the Canada Day celebrations are over and the clean-up is almost done. I'm going to miss our frequent coffee-chats. But I'm sure they'll keep coming back every so often, if they think I should know that the rechargable battery in Mr. So-and-so's hearing aid was worth it.