HELLO? Is this thing on??

I'm alive and I saw Mexico!

2010-04-19T21:10:00.002-07:00

And my Mom and I approve.

slinking back in quietly

2008-11-19T16:48:00.003-08:00

Okay.
Update on the sadly M.I.A. Tai.

I'm alive. I successfully moved. I'm still in Victoria.

I cut my hair. Short.

I am still working at the same place I was before AND I can still walk to work from my new place.

Uh...that's it, really. There's been no explosions, crashing trees or car chases since you last heard from me. And we all know how unusual THAT is!

And I'm wishing you all VERY well!

Moving.

2008-09-23T19:55:00.004-07:00

Again.

Yep, that's me. On the move.

This is the third time in 3 years. I hope I don't need to move again. It's not that I mind, exactly. But that unsettled feeling of "I hope I like where I'm going to live" I could live without.

When I moved to Victoria from Vancouver, I got rid of most of my stuff, so now I'm having to restock.

It's interesting to discover that my taste has changed quite a bit.

While furniture of pine and particle board used to be okay, I've discovered that I want antiques and solid wood furnishings. (Not to mention, a lovely 'chair-and-a-half'.)

So now I'm 'antiquing' (which I don't believe is a word) and scouring auctions. And it's working! I've found some very nice pieces (you see??? I'm using the word 'pieces' to describe furniture. The world may be coming to an end.)

Here's a good example. My Dad recently gave me a lovely end table. It's very nice.
As the picture (which isn't identical, but close enough) shows, it's a nice little table.

It's a Duncan Phyfe. Which is good. So maybe I inherit my furniture taste from my Dad. I don't know. All I know is, my new place is a hodge-podge right now. And I haven't even moved into it yet!

Books!

2008-09-23T19:10:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Kimber for the new (and lovely) bookshelf widget off the left!

Quick, get one of your own!

No one expected the comfy chair.

2008-09-05T21:18:00.004-07:00

In preparation for my move, I bought myself a VERY comfy reading chair.

It's a 'chair and a half', and it's snuggle level is an 11 on a scale of 1-5.

I may never leave it.

The depth! The breadth! The sheer cushiness!

If I had but one wish, it would be that everyone had a chair this cozy along with all the books they could read to sustain them for all their days.

That and room (chair?) service.

Bad bad blogger.

2008-07-24T21:39:00.010-07:00

Well, it's true. I've been quite recalcitrant as of late. I don't have anything to excuse my behaviour either.

Though I'll try.

I'm going to be moving, so that's taking up some time.
Going through my old books and thinning them out. It's surprising how many books I've accumulated over the years. Books I don't read or use for reference any more. Books I read once and rolled my eyes at and set aside still clog my shelves (and the countless boxes) and I wonder why I've bothered carting them around all these years.

I do re-read books. In fact, most of the books I really cherish I've read at least a dozen times over the years and I never tire of them. Very often I'll be perusing my shelves and think, "It's been over a year since I read that...." and down it comes, off from the bookcase to snuggle in my lap for another go 'round.

It's the books I won't read again that I've been lugging about. I recently took a box in to the local second hand bookstore and they actually gave me fifty dollars for all those old books that didn't merit a second glance.

Now that's a good deal.

Of course, I probably spent over $150 dollars accumulating them over the years, but it's still a profit. For years I've had them, using them if I needed them, (and it's been years since I did) so I had my monies worth.

At least, that's what I'm telling myself.

And it's such a freeing feeling. Those things that I thought I needed to be tied to for all those years no longer weigh me down, no longer demand my attention though I'm hard pressed now to say why they ought to have in the first place.

~Whew~

I've never been a pack rat. In fact, striving against it has always been very important to me. That being said, I still have many near and dear things that I'll never give away for love or money.

My sword, for one.
Though it's not really mine, I'm merely holding it for someone 'til they collect it.
And Ted E. Bear. He's been around since time immemorial and he will remain that way if I have anything to do with it.

So there are things I will never part with. (Except when they molder...like that crow's wing I had. It moldered. To dust. Sorry Spider, I held on to it as long as I could!)

So that's it, so far. Moving and clearing.
But I'm still HERE.
As far as that goes.

Until I start moldering.

I'm having too much fun to blog!

2008-06-26T16:55:00.006-07:00

I AM around...but I've had no urge to blog about anything of late.
Certainly, I have had (more than) my fair share of fun and amazing experiences that are blog worthy. Also some crappy things that could be complained about.
And definitely some strange things, too. My life wouldn't truly belong to me unless something strange was going on.

Oh! And I'm another year older! Say hello to 36!

So there you have it. I'm having a fun and interesting life and as a result, I'm too tired to blog about it.

Take care all! I'm reading you!

Here in spirit.

2008-05-27T18:23:00.004-07:00

I AM still around, but my blogging time has been dramatically curtailed as of late. (They actually want me to work at work. Go figure!)

So know that I'm popping in on occasion and forgive me for my absence!

(The handsome beast to the right is Bentley, he is sorely missed.)

Hey, four-eyes!

2008-05-20T20:10:00.005-07:00

I've been wearing glasses since I was 8. And believe me, I've heard just about every derogatory remark ever know to man and pissy grade three's you could ever hope to hear.

About 7 years ago I went to see if I could have laser eye surgery to once and for all have my eyes corrected.

"Your cornea is too thin. Wait a few years, the technology is always improving."

So it was with bated breath that I went to my preliminary exam for laser surgery last week. "Your cornea's too thin. Your prescription is too high. Wait a few years. The...."

Yeah yeah yeah. Heard it before.

Oh, and Doctor? Your technology is no match for how fast my eyes are deteriorating.

So. That's it. I'm not going to bother again. After the eye doctor suggested I apply to have lens replacement surgery I walked out thinking, "Nah. I'll just have to be sexy in my specs. I think I can do that."

But I'd be lying if I told you I was wasn't terribly disappointed. Because I was. I just wanted a chance. An option. An opportunity to have this magical treatment that would allow me to see.

And when I finally stumbled outside into the light, I must admit, I wept inwardly for a moment at not having the choice.

And then I had to feel my way into a store to have the shopkeeper dial whatshisface's number to come pick me up.

Those dilating eye drops are murder.

Pictures from the weekend.

2008-05-12T09:06:00.008-07:00

Plenty of flowers this Mother's Day weekend!

My Mom and I spent the day wandering on trails and enjoying the intermittent sunshine.

The large splintered tree blocking the path didn't come any where near my car! It was a good day.

And speaking of books.

2008-05-01T19:51:00.006-07:00

Here's a list of books I've read in April. Just in case anyone was wondering what I do with my time.

"Brother Cadfael's Penance" ~ Ellis Peters

"The Blind Watchmaker" ~ Richard Dawkins

"Affinity" ~ Sara Waters

"Stolen" ~ Kelly Armstrong

"Alchemy and Alchemists" ~ Sean Martin

"Children of Kali" ~ Kevin Rushby

"Pilgrim" ~ Timothy Findley This is by far one of my favorite books.

"Industrial Magic" ~ Kelly Armstrong

"Madame de Pompadour" ~ Nancy Mitford

"Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason" ~ Helen Fielding

"Friend of My Youth" ~ Alice Munro

"Gutenberg: How One Man Remade the World With Words" ~ John Man

"Haunted" ~ Kelly Armstrong All of these Kelly Armstrong titles are about supernatural women; vampires, werewolves etc; set for the most part in the present day. The stories are good and the plot races along but all of her main characters are identical. Kind of a pity, because otherwise I recommend them.

"The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime" ~ Miles Harvey

"Touching the Void" ~ Joe Simpson Joe Simpson suffered a nearly fatal fall while climbing in the Peruvian Andes. I've read this book several times and it has never failed to have a chilling impact.

Books are important.

2008-04-29T20:21:00.003-07:00

"For him that steals, or borrows and returns not, a book from its owner, let it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him. Let him be struck with palsy, and all his members blasted. Let him languish in pain crying aloud for mercy, and let there be no surcease to his agony till he sing in dissolution. Let bookworms gnaw at his entrails in token of the Worm that dieth not. And when at last he goes to his final punishment, let the flames of Hell consume him for ever."

~an inscription at the library of the San Pedro monastery in Barcelona.

That about sums it up. The bit about the bookworms is particularly pointed.

Crazy. Not stupid.

2008-04-23T09:57:00.007-07:00

Whenever I mention to someone that I'm not scared of anything, I invariably get the same response. "You'd be scared if someone had a gun to your head, or if a large truck was racing uncontrollably toward you."

Well. Yes.
I would be afraid. I'm crazy, not stupid.

What I mean is, I don't have any irrational fears.

Rats? Mice? No problem. I once walked out of my apartment building to come face to face with a large rat sitting on the handrail. We stared at each other for a moment and then each of moved calmly on. Also? Pol and I had pet mice for a while. Wen, Mousameeque, Turbo and Torque. Very sweet they were. Especially Mousameeque.

Snakes? Nope. Held many a snake in my time, including a few very large constrictor's (Thanks pseudo-Alice Cooper! The best thing about your show was the snake. Remember that one, Spider?)

Um...bats? Well, I've never really seen them but at a distance and I admired their long, swoopy (it is SO a word!) flight around the lamp posts on their hunt for dinner. Nothing scary about that.

Heights? I went up the CN Tower once, in Toronto. They have a glass floor inset that I strode across. Other people would stand at the very edges looking down, clutching their significant others trembling and looking pale. I don't think my walking across it made them feel any better.

Enclosed spaces. I haven't really ever been 'trapped' in an enclosed space, and I doubt it would be fun. But I've been in a cave or two, and wiggled through cracks and crevices enough times to know that it doesn't bother me.

What other irrational fears are out there? Spiders? Ha! I pulled on a shirt once and stood brushing my hair in a mirror when a large fat spider crawled out of the shirt and up my neck. It surprised me, that's true, but after a momentary pause, I scooped him/her gently up and deposited it outside. Can't blame me for the rain!

Planes are a big fear for many. But I've been really fortunate to fly quite a bit, and have, in fact, flown both a plane and a helicopter myself (wheeeee!) and found it exhilarating.

Oh, I almost forgot about needles! Nope, not scared of them either and I have the tattoos to prove it.

So that's me.
Of course, being 'fearless' isn't always what it's cracked up to be. I seem to missing the instinctual 'voice of reason' that keeps others safe.

I have often put myself in questionable situations because I wasn't afraid. Walking alone along deserted streets late at night through bad parts of town, accepting 'candy from strangers', riding on motorcycles with people I don't know, and generally careening through life without much of a thought for danger. (Come to think of it, on several of those occasions I had friends with me. I don't recall them putting a halt to my activities. Kimber! Spider! What happened to my exterior "voices of reason"?
I rather suspect they came along to pick up the body parts and prepare a feasible story for my Mom.)

It's amazing that I'm still here, whole and sane (don't laugh!) and un-traumatized.

How 'bout you?

I posted a picture of a wee rabbit 'cus I figured no one would appreciate large pictures of snakes, rats and big needles. I like you guys too much to want to scare you away!

Seriously...why.

2008-04-20T09:51:00.010-07:00

My landlord owns both the house I live in and my neighbours house. Occasionally, he shows up to talk with the neighbours.

Do you see all that space behind the little pick up truck? Yeah, there's room for him to park his car there.

But he didn't.

Instead, he opted to drive his car up on our lawns and park. When he was done conducting his business, he proceed to drive across both lawns to get back on the road.

And I was worried about getting the lawn mowed.

But you know what they say about older men driving fancy cars, don't you?

They have very small....IQ's.

The 'Eyes' have it.

2008-04-15T11:17:00.004-07:00

After all these years of wearing glasses or contacts, I'm seriously considering eye surgery to correct my (extreme) myopia.
I looked into it years ago, but the technology wasn't up to the challenge so I wasn't considered a good candidate.
I've recently booked an appointment for the preliminary exams with the hope that I may be, now. Still, it's a huge cost, and technically, it's rather unnecessary...I can make do with contacts and glasses for the rest of my life, but it would be such a treat not to have to worry about them any longer.
(And the costs for those add up over the years!)

My eyesight has steadily declined over the years since I was eight years old. In fact, I rather believed I'd be blind by the time I was 25 but fortunately, that wasn't the case. (Though I have to say, my prescription now is way beyond the 'norm'. I think most people with myopia have approximately -1.5 to - 4 on average and anything above that is high. I'm at -9.5 in one eye and -10 in the other. And that was from an eye exam 3 years ago. I'll bet it's even worse, now.)

I'm not nervous at all about the actual surgery, things like that don't bother me. It's the cost! It's a rather substantial amount...when all is said and done it'll be just over $3000 (this, of course, includes hotel accommodation, travel expenses and the like. The initial exam is done in Victoria but the surgery is done in Vancouver.)

Well, we'll 'see' how it goes. It may be that I'm not a candidate at all; there are some clinics that can't accommodate that degree of myopia. It won't bother me if it can't be done, then I won't have to agonize over spending that much money.
But one day, I'd really like to be able to open my eyes in the morning and just see.

New word!

2008-04-10T09:50:00.006-07:00

"AWKWEIRD"

You can use it for describing how you feel when you've just tripped into a large open pit that is guaranteed to make everyone involved feel 'awkweird'.

For instance:

You go out to a great get-together for a co-worker on Friday night. Monday morning you run into the one person in the office who was specifically NOT invited * forget, and then proceed to blab away about how much fun it was and what a great restaurant you dined at.

Your faux pas is made blindingly clear by the blank and stunned look on the person's face and the flat, "Oh. That sounds nice."

This moment is followed closely by you stuttering "Uh, well, it was really nothing much. Just spur of the moment. Really. Kinda lame. Uh."

Say it with me, "AWKWEIRD!" **

* Yes, I work in an environment where some people are excluded from group 'after work' occasions. I don't like it so much, but there you go.

All the office politics were in place before I ever arrived and I try to keep my head down and not get involved. But I guess I am involved.

It rather sounds like I'm trying to excuse myself here from rather bad behaviour, doesn't it. I suppose I am.

I kind of understand WHY she's not invited, she's not very well liked in general though I have nothing against her personally.

Perhaps I should just decline going to those parties from now on. It might assuage my guilt.

** No, fortunately, it wasn't me. One of the 'invited' guests accidentally mentioned it to the uninvited co-worker. I felt bad for her. For both of them, as a matter of fact.

2 + 2 = ?

2008-04-07T08:31:00.005-07:00

I placed my lunch order.

"That's $10.00, please."

I handed her a twenty.

She paused.

Opened the till.

Pulled out a calculator (!).

Discreetly tapped in the (complicated!?) sums.

Consulted with the other staff member.

"So you give her $10 dollars back." The reply came.

Hesitatingly she handed me a ten and looked at me quickly to ensure she hadn't made an error.

Is it just me? Was that not bizarre?
I swear, I'm getting less and less patient with things like that.
It was all I could do not to cock an eyebrow at her and inquire how grade two was working out.

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

2008-04-02T14:56:00.008-07:00

Open Letter To Kansas School Board

I am writing you with much concern after having read of your hearing to decide whether the alternative theory of Intelligent Design should be taught along with the theory of Evolution. I think we can all agree that it is important for students to hear multiple viewpoints so they can choose for themselves the theory that makes the most sense to them. I am concerned, however, that students will only hear one theory of Intelligent Design.

Let us remember that there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design. I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel. We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him.

It is for this reason that I’m writing you today, to formally request that this alternative theory be taught in your schools, along with the other two theories. In fact, I will go so far as to say, if you do not agree to do this, we will be forced to proceed with legal action. I’m sure you see where we are coming from. If the Intelligent Design theory is not based on faith, but instead another scientific theory, as is claimed, then you must also allow our theory to be taught, as it is also based on science, not on faith.

Some find that hard to believe, so it may be helpful to tell you a little more about our beliefs. We have evidence that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe.

None of us, of course, were around to see it, but we have written accounts of it. We have several lengthy volumes explaining all details of His power. Also, you may be surprised to hear that there are over 10 million of us, and growing. We tend to be very secretive, as many people claim our beliefs are not substantiated by observable evidence. What these people don’t understand is that He built the world to make us think the earth is older than it really is.

For example, a scientist may perform a carbon-dating process on an artifact. He finds that approximately 75% of the Carbon-14 has decayed by electron emission to Nitrogen-14, and infers that this artifact is approximately 10,000 years old, as the half-life of Carbon-14 appears to be 5,730 years. But what our scientist does not realize is that every time he makes a measurement, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is there changing the results with His Noodly Appendage.

We have numerous texts that describe in detail how this can be possible and the reasons why He does this. He is of course invisible and can pass through normal matter with ease.

I’m sure you now realize how important it is that your students are taught this alternate theory. It is absolutely imperative that they realize that observable evidence is at the discretion of a Flying Spaghetti Monster. Furthermore, it is disrespectful to teach our beliefs without wearing His chosen outfit, which of course is full pirate regalia.

I cannot stress the importance of this enough, and unfortunately cannot describe in detail why this must be done as I fear this letter is already becoming too long. The concise explanation is that He becomes angry if we don’t.
You may be interested to know that global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of Pirates since the 1800s. For your interest, I have included a graph of the approximate number of pirates versus the average global temperature over the last 200 years. As you can see, there is a statistically significant inverse relationship between pirates and global temperature.

In conclusion, thank you for taking the time to hear our views and beliefs. I hope I was able to convey the importance of teaching this theory to your students. We will of course be able to train the teachers in this alternate theory. I am eagerly awaiting your response, and hope dearly that no legal action will need to be taken.

I think we can all look forward to the time when these three theories are given equal time in our science classrooms across the country, and eventually the world; One third time for Intelligent Design, one third time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, and one third time for logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence.

Sincerely Yours,

Bobby Henderson, concerned citizen.
P.S. I have included an artistic drawing of Him creating a mountain, trees, and a midget. Remember, we are all His creatures.

Victoria Parliament at night.

2008-03-30T09:41:00.002-07:00

Blog lazy. And Flying Spaghetti Monsters.

2008-03-27T08:20:00.006-07:00

Well, it's not really laziness. I just don't have anything of import to say. The flowers are blooming (though it remains cold), my car is waiting to be fixed from the last insult, work is work.

I'm looking at hiring someone to mow the yard as I don't own a lawnmower nor do I plan to purchase one anytime soon.
Truth be told, I don't mind mowing the lawn, but one day down the road I'll be moving into an apartment or suite, and then what will I do with a mower?
It seems to make more sense to hire someone who owns one in the meantime. And besides, I rather like the idea of having a 'gardener'.

I've been thinking about religion lately.
It's enough to say that I'm not religious and I'm finding myself less and less able to tolerate religious ideals dictating world policy. And they do.
Pat Condell really lets loose on this topic, and I find myself nodding and agreeing as he speaks his mind. I don't know his background or his education level, but I find that he puts very succinctly (and more than a little cynically) my general thoughts on the subject.

Any of his YouTube posts are great, there's something to offend every religious belief equally.

Hooray!

2008-03-20T14:48:00.005-07:00

Hello, Spring. I am SO glad to see you. This winter has really been a bear. Your fresh face is a delight. Stick around, you're always welcome here!

*The photo is of a small corner in Spider's garden...I had to use it, it's just so beautiful! I'm willing to bet she won't mind.*

Fritz.

2008-03-17T08:54:00.004-07:00

As in, "My home computer is on the fritz." Where that saying came from I'm not sure, but there you have it.

It's screen is dismally black, forcing me to blog from work. Guess I'll have to tote it into the nearest repair shop and hope that they can easily remedy the problem for a very small charge.

It's not so bad, blogging from work (though my boss may have a different opinion), but my Thursday night "World of Warcraft" stint may suffer if I can't get this fixed in time!
(Yes. I am an online computer 'gamer'. My nerd quotient is hereby raised exponentially.)

Oh! And have a great St. Patrick's Day!

Yes! Another meme!

2008-03-07T16:19:00.011-08:00

What is your idea of perfect happiness? Sitting in a busy, warm restaurant with a glass of good wine with my best friends for company waiting for a perfect meal.

What is your greatest fear? My greatest fear? I'm not sure. I suppose it being kidnapped and killed. It would seem to me that being vanished from friends and family leaving them to their fears and sadness would be terrible.

Which historical figure do you most identify with? The women who stepped out of their pre-assigned roles and strode forth to say, "If a man can do it, so can I." And then proceeded to do just that.

Which living person do you most admire? I admire people that go out of their way to help others, no matter the cost. And there are so many of them.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? My insistence that things be fair and equal. It just can't always be, and I get really upset by it. I don't enjoy that about myself. Logically I can get past it, but emotionally I can't and I end up in ball of anger and frustration and sadness all at the same time. Ugh.

What is the trait you most deplore in others? Unfairness. (See? I can't escape it!)

What is your greatest extravagance? World travel.

What is your favorite journey? The night train ride across Europe. Leaving a country speaking one language and waking up having to speak a different one was amazing to me.

What do you consider the most overrated virtue? I haven't ever spent any time considering this, so I don't have an answer. Although the phrase, "Patience is a virture" gets on my nerves on occasion. But that's not really the same thing, is it.

On what occasion do you lie? To preserve feelings.

What do you dislike most about your appearance? My hair, but it's a minor angst that can be easily resolved at a salon!

Which living person do you most despise? I despise people who use others to forward their own agenda regardless of damages or pain. Many world leaders might fall into this category, but it's certainly not confined to them.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse? "Oh! I just read something about that!"

What is your greatest regret? That there was nothing I could do but stand by and watch while some of my friends deteriorated into homelessness and isolation.

What or who is the greatest love of your life? Bentley.

Which talent would you most like to have? I think I'd like to be able to play a multitude of instruments with some talent. And again, there's something that's doable!

What is your current state of mind? Relieved.

If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be? It's cohesiveness.

What do you consider your greatest achievement? Having discerned at a very young age who my true friends were and held on to them tightly throughout my life.

If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be? Oh, I don't know. A Ferrari? In Germany. With easy access to the Autobahn.

If you could choose what to come back as, what would it be? I'd come back as a well loved, much coddled cat.

What is your most treasured possession? The relationship I have with my Mom.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? Working at a crisis centre, I hear so many examples. I have a tremendous sympathy for those who live with mental health issues that don't allow for them to ever experience relief from it...it often leads to homelessness (in the more extreme cases) and alienation from the very people that can help. And so many just fall through the cracks and, because of their affliction, are unable to help themselves.

Where would you like to live? Italy or France.

What is your favorite occupation? Reading.

What is your most marked characteristic? That I read. All the time.

What are the qualities you most like in a man? The ability to sympathize with others.

What are the qualities you most like in a woman? A wicked sense of humour.

What do you most value in your friends? Everything. But mostly their steadfastness.

Who are your favorite writers? Oh boy. There are SO many. K. Bannerman springs to mind. Simon Winchester. Robertson Davies. Ellis Peters. Alice Munro. Carol Shields. The person who writes out my paycheck is one of my favorite, too!

Who is your favorite hero of fiction? Brother Cadfael at the moment.

Who are your heroes in real life? My mom.

What are your favorite names? Some of these questions are so thought provoking and others are so...not.

What is it that you most dislike? Rudeness. Unfairness. Selfishness. Schnitzel.

How would you like to die? Quickly, with a great peace in my heart knowing I lived well.

What is your motto? "Don't let fear or common sense stop you!"

I don't know who painted that picture, but I love it!

Can you see the light?

2008-03-03T08:32:00.018-08:00

In 1995, I was dating the bass guitarist for the Canadian based "Jeff Healey Band". I went to Toronto to visit Joe, and ended up spending lots of time with Jeff as well.

That was the same summer they opened for the Rolling Stones benefit concert at RPM, and as a result, I ended spending lots of time with Mick and Keith, too.

Jeff was always extremely welcoming. I was included in all the band activities, and he had Joe and I over for dinner several times. I was introduced to all his cats (he had 3) and he always made sure I was comfortable and happy. I was at the photo shoot for the album they put out that year (it's the picture in the corner) and attended a variety of band functions always feeling like an honoured guest.

The Jeff Healey Band was the recipient of Juno awards, Grammy nominations and chart topping singles, yet I don't recall Jeff ever talking about them. Everything Jeff did was focused on music and people and enjoying both, he never seemed to be concerned about the fame.

He was funny and irreverent, crass and thoughtful.

He loved Baby Duck, that cheap Canadian champagne that is more sugar than alcohol. He used to tease me by ordering it in fine restaurants or calling out for it in the middle of a set. "Tai, bring on the Baby Duck!"

I recall threading our way through a hotel lounge once, Jeff and Joe on each arm. Despite being blind, Jeff dragged us through the cluttered reception area never once bumping into a single chair or coffee table and calling back for us to hurry up.

A few years later, I saw Jeff playing trumpet for his other band, "The Jazz Wizards". He loved everything about jazz, and had a radio show on the CBC where he got to talk about his love for this music (and his amazing collection of jazz records) to his hearts content.

He died yesterday, from cancer. He was only 41. His wife and children remain, as well as his musical mark on the world.

I needed that!

2008-02-25T20:37:00.004-08:00

Josie, you just made my day. Thanks so much!

"Tai's blog really raises the values as far as good writing and subject matter. She raises the bar, and when I started reading her blog, I wanted to emulate her standards. I don't think I have ever seen Tai post a "tacky" blog post, even when her car was hit by a tree (yes...) she kept her cool."

If you haven't already rushed over to visit Josie, I think you should. There's just something about her misnamed 'boring little blog' that shines out with a splendid humour. That, and a very astute view of the world makes her blog one of the ones I read every day (and if I'm lucky, sometimes she posts twice!)
And boy, can she paint!

I've just had it up to here.

2008-02-21T08:11:00.003-08:00

I was sitting in my living room last night when I heard a tremendous BANG.
I looked out my living room window and there was the neighbour, firmly backed into the front of my car.
My car alarm blared and sounded...my car had been hit. Again.

So can anyone tell me which god I might need to make a sacrifice too? And what, exactly, would suffice? A new tire, burnt over a sacred flame? Perhaps a fresh can of oil, tipped gently into the gutter whilst murmuring fevered words of prayer? Would sacrificing a perfectly good air filter release me from this wretched curse?

The universe hates my car.

My car and other people: A rant.

2008-02-17T14:42:00.016-08:00

Every time I go out to my car, I see another dent or another scrape.

It's true that it's an older car, but it's a cute little sports car. It's not invisible. And it's not okay to hit my car and then drive away.
But nonetheless, time after time, my car gets hit.

What's wrong with people!?!

Example one:
All of my friends were sitting out one hot night having a gelato when I saw a man pull in front of my car to (attempt) to parallel park.

"Watch this." I said, pointing down the street.
"What?" Jeff asked.

"That guy's going to hit my car."
Sure enough, he backed right into it. Hard. Spider jumped up to run down there, but I stopped her, "Let's see if he leaves a note."

Of course he didn't. He didn't even pretend too. He inspected HIS rear bumper for damage and then turned to walk away. At that point, both Spider and I jumped up.

"Hey!" I yelled at him.

"What?" He replied.

"You just hit my car."

"No."

"Don't lie about it! My friends and I all just watched you nail it." I indicated my table of irritated looking friends who were staring at him fiercely.

"It's not that bad." He said.

"That's not really the point, is it. You hit my car, looked at your own damned bumper and you weren't even going to have the decency to leave a note, were you?" It wasn't really a question.
He looked nervously at Spider, who had whipped out her camera and was taking pictures of the incident.

"I'd like your insurance information and your licence." I said.

He looked cross and rummaged around in his glove compartment.
"You'll be hearing from ICBC. And next time you hit someone's car, do the right thing and leave a note."

Of course, there was very little damage, but the nonchalance he displayed just sent me through the roof. I never did call ICBC. But I liked to think he worried about it for a long time afterwards. (Yeah. Right.)

Example two:
I was actually sitting in my car when the person next to me opened their car door so hard it actually rocked my car when it hit. I honked my horn only to be rewarded with blank and glazed-over expressions by the lot of them.

I got out of my car, walked around to the front passenger side door to have a look at the inch and a half long gouge in the side of my car from the impact. "You just put this gash in my car." I pointed at the obvious damage.

"Oh."
"Sorry."

They were elderly and enfeebled. So I took pity on them and didn't persue the matter. But it astounded me that they couldn't be bothered to even look at the damage. Nope, they all just stared at me from inside their car.

Might have been the froth forming at the corners of my mouth that concerned them.

Another example?
No problem.

I was walking back towards my car one fine spring day and there, again, the person parked in front of me backed right up into my car. Watched him do it.
I ran up to the car and banged on the passenger side window. The girl passenger rolled down her window and looked fearful.

"Hey!" I yelled at the driver, "You just banged into my car!"

"Oh. Sorry."

"That's it?" I fumed. "Sorry? You weren't even going to leave a note, were you. F*uck. Just get the f*ck out of here." I don't generally curse at strangers. But when they are so obviously disinterested in their effect on me and my property, I tend to get upset.

Where am I going with this?

Well, again, today. I go back to my car and notice a fresh streak of blue paint gracing my left front bumper.

No note.
Of course.

And while I can't say I'm surprised, I sure am pissed off.

Do you think we're supposed to be up here?

2008-02-11T15:28:00.000-08:00

When we were about 20, Kimber and I ventured to Vancouver on the B.C. Ferries.

Making our way around to the front of the ferry along the outside deck, we noted a metal girder running 'round the bow just above our heads.

(I suspect it was for the window washers to stand on and not nosy twenty year old women to clamber on).
Of course, it needed to be inspected. Always interested in climbing on things, I managed to hoist myself up and turned to aid Kimber.
Standing like odd mast heads at the front of the ferry, we turned around and discovered we could also peer in the large dark windows behind us. Imagine how surprised we were when we peeked through and saw a tall, slim man in a tidy blue jacket and hat standing there looking back at us.

His beard trimmed to an inch of it's life and his bearing was royal.
He had Captain written all over him.

We cringed down, but too late. He had seen us. And then he beckoned to us.
Oh no! Images of short planks and bloody thirsty sharks swimming in wait rushed through my head.
I'm not sure what Kimber was thinking, but I suspect it may have sounded something like, "My Dad's going to KILL me!"
We slithered off the metal girder and slunk around the side and looked up the long stairs to what we now realized was the ferry 'command centre'. The captain stood at the top of the stairs looking down on us. Waiting for us. A cat'o'nine tails at the ready.

Up the long stairs we climbed, whispering to each other if it wasn't too late to run away.

"Hi! I'm Captain Rush. So you want to see what the captain's station looks like? Come on in!" He grinned, ushering in the dark room.
"Here's the radar, and at night all of these lights get turned off. And over here is my chair. What do you think?"

"Uh. It's. Really. Interesting." I stammered.
Kimber nodded and looked bewildered as I felt.
Truth?

I hardly remember anything about the inside of the captain's room...I was so surprised not to get into trouble that all I recall is the darkness of the room, the glow of the radar and the Captain beaming at us.
We scurried out of there right quick, shouting 'Thank you's!" over our shoulders, than fell into a fit of giggles as soon as we rounded the corner.

Honestly, if I got into trouble more often, I wouldn't do those kinds of things!

Who needs enemies?

2008-02-08T08:23:00.000-08:00

I awoke this morning feeling ill used and terribly sad.
When I reflected back on the night, I realized that every single dream I had had involved someone criticizing me, or making fun of me and generally questioning my right to be on the planet.
I was reduced to running to my room and sobbing wildly.
One of the dream people even made fun of me for not having any clothes from Costco. (!)

How bloody depressing.

I much prefer the dreams I have that see me eating people after wrecking unbelievable amounts of gory carnage in Safeway.

*sigh* Think I'll go out back and eat worms.

Shame.

2008-02-05T08:16:00.000-08:00

I've been reading a report put out by the Vancouver Police department about homelessness, mental health issues and addictions.
It's a vicious triumvirate that, when allowed to flourish, is almost impossible to escape from.

Back in the late 80's and through the 90's, the BC government decided to deinstitutionalize a few thousand people and shut down Riverview, an institution built in 1915 to house and care for the mentally ill and developmentally disabled.

The plan was to create several smaller facilities.
Of course, that never happened.

The government quite literally released these troubled people out onto the street without first creating safety nets (or even shoring up the ones that existed) for those who would find themselves out in the wide world, some for the first time in their lives.

Having mental health issues, many of these people were unable to find or keep employment, leading them to dependence on that same government to aid them financially.

The welfare system allows people a monthly starvation payment of just over $800 a month these days; it's barely enough to secure a decent roof over ones head let alone pay for food and (often expensive) medications that so many of them need to remain stable.

Next stop on the way down the pit? Cheap housing. Where do you find that? Vancouver's Eastside, a notoriously evil neighbourhood that's more destitute and drug ridden than anywhere in North America.

It's where Willy Pickton hand-picked his multiple victims.

Next? Well, many people who are mentally ill often lack skills to make and maintain safe friendships, and often have strained relationships with their families due to the difficulty of caring for someone who may not be able to care back. It's a tremendous support system that most people take for granted and when it's not in place or available, has real ramifications on those that lack it.
So who comes to their 'aid' when these people end up in the wasteland of poverty and inadequate housing?

The predators. Drug dealers and pimps are very eager to make a quick buck off of people in such a vulnerable state. Many people who are seriously mentally ill find they are not able to afford their prescribed medications (or are simply not capable of continuing their treatment on their own) and turn to 'self-medicating' with (initially) cheaper street drugs and take comfort in the company of their new 'best friend'.

It's estimated that 50% of homeless people suffer from both mental health issues and drug addictions. Many facilities designed to assist those most in need refuse to aid them unless they are drug free.

Vicious, no?

I read somewhere that a society can be judged by how it treats it's weakest members.
If that is true, then it can be said that Canada is a deplorable country, allowing it's most vulnerable to perish in the streets, either by drugs, suicide or at the hands of predators.

It's all about MEME!

2008-01-29T17:21:00.000-08:00

Two names you go by ~ Tai and Laurie. Tai (pronounced 'TAY') has been my name since I was about 12. It's really lucky when you get to pick your own name and it sticks.
Laurie is my other name.
Tai might be considered my alter ego. It's always Tai who gets the speeding tickets and in trouble with 'the man'.
Laurie's the one who goes to work everyday and brings home the bacon. Looking closely at this arrangement, one would suspect Laurie would get tired of having to pay for all those speeding tickets. But there ARE benefits. Tai gets free trips, new cars and adventures that could never happen to anyone else, and naturally, Laurie gets to go along for the ride.

Two things you are wearing right now ~ Two pairs of socks. One pair black, the other, white. It is VERY cold in my house.

Two things you would want (or have) in a relationship ~ Free trips. New cars. I'm kidding. Mischief and laughter.

Two of your favorite things to do ~ Reading and dining out. They go remarkably well together.

Two things you want very badly at the moment ~ An open ended plane ticket and enough money to travel in style. It's not too much to ask!

Two pets you had/have ~ Bentley. My gorgeous old gentleman cat. I still miss him. And Wen. Pol and I decided to have pet mice, so we each got one. Wen, and Doubt. But Doubt was a bit vicious and liked to bite, so we traded her in for Mousameeque (my own spelling...I wonder if Pol spelled her name the same way!).

Two people you think will fill this out ~ Who ever would like too! Mostly everyone already has done this...I'm so behind.

Two things that you did last night ~ Went for dinner with a friend of mine and ate oysters, both raw AND cooked and read a travel book.

Two things you ate today ~ Bacon. (The bacon Laurie brings home!) And a fruit muffin for breakfast.

Two things you’re doing tomorrow ~ ooooh, I'm going to WORK! And then I'm going to do my volunteer shift at the local crisis centre.

Two longest car rides ~ From Courtenay to Lake Tahoe in a truck. I would climb through tiny window to get to the back of the truck at 80 mph just to feel the Nevada sunshine on my face. Now THAT was fun. And from Banff, Alberta back to Courtenay.

Two favorite holidays ~ Halloween and...and...I guess I don't really get a kick out of holidays, but I sure do like the time off!

Two favorite beverages ~ Wine. Red AND white.

Two people no longer alive who you’d like to talk to ~ Well, I'd like to talk to my Grandmother again. We got along very well, but we never really 'talked'. She was very 'old school' and I don't think she thought an 18 year old kid was really set for conversation. I'd also like to talk with Richard Feynman. He was a quantum physicist and Noble prize winner. His books are so filled with life and laughter it seems to me that he would be a truly amazing person to sit and speak too.

In a strip club.

Drinking pop.

'Cus that's what he liked to do.

*The pictures are from Spider, Pol, Jeff (our personal photographer and Spider's dear husband) and my trip to Italy last year. The first and last picture are from the Cinque Terre and the mask in the centre I found in Venice.

In the first picture, I ordered to much food. The last picture is the 3 of us hiking the Cinque Terre trail between villages.

Wash your own cups.

2008-01-22T08:34:00.000-08:00

"I'm going to ask you a question." She wandered over to my desk. "Just out of morbid curiousity, do you have to wash the doctors' and executives' cups?"

"No, not here." I replied, "But I've had to do things like that other places."

"Well, I think I came up with a good plan. I washed the floor with an old rag and then used that to clean out her cup. Guess that'll be the end of that!"

She did WHAT?!? Was she serious? I couldn't quite tell, but she seemed a little too pleased with herself.

She didn't say she was thinking about doing that, or thought it might be funy, oh no.

That sentence definately spoken in a past tense sort of way.

Several thoughts popped into my head after that bizarre converstion.

Like, why would she tell me that?

And why not just tell the woman, who's cup she soiled, that it wasn't her job to clean cups? Or perhaps put a sign up at the sink for people to wash their own used mugs?

And how would the woman whose cup was treated so poorly KNOW that had occured unless the dirty swill was left in the cup?

That kind of thing could go on for years, if left unchecked. What next? A quick rinse in the toilet?

Talk about passive aggressive.

Handmade.

2008-01-13T13:16:00.000-08:00

There's something really lovely about a friend who is coming to visit you for a weekend. There's even something better when she says, "And I'm bringing a little present for you, too."

Let me give you some history. Spidergirl (and Kimber and Pol, of course!) and I have been friends since we were 11.

When I was about 12 I discovered, sadly, that my profession of choice was no longer a viable option in this day and age.
Instead, I would have to get a regular kind of job. A kind of job that didn't highlight cutlass and pistol proficiencies in it's requirements. And pillaging was certainly no longer a sought after 'skill set' on the modern 9-5 market.

Yeah, I wanted to be a pirate.
Never mind that I couldn't abide 'roughing' it. Never mind I didn't know how to operate a flintlock or batten a hatch. Ignore the fact I couldn't swim.
I was willing to learn. And I never get sea sick.

So fast forward 24 years to this weekend, when Spider came to visit with a present.

You know, this present was spectacular. It was a handmade representation (complete with gold glitter and button Kraken eyes) of me and my age old dream.

But it wasn't just the present, you know, that made me cry when I received it. There was this whole other feeling that struck me. It was the idea that my dear friend truly knows me. Knows me that well (and still loves me!).
That my friend remembered and wanted to celebrate that 12 year old kid who never got to be a pirate.
And she's not the only one!
Last year Pol surprised me, too.

She said she saw this and HAD to buy it, 'cus it reminded her of me.

How'd I get so lucky?

Whew!

2007-12-28T08:38:00.000-08:00

Well, I barely made it through this Christmas in one piece. I've had better ones, and I've had worse ones, but this one was a real mixed bag.
But I shan't waste valuable time complaining.

Let it be said, however, that I may take a wee break from blogging for now, just to settle my head and soul.
I'll always read all your wonderful blogs, and leave pithy (I hope) little comments to let you know I'm hanging about.

All the best to everyone over the remainder of the holidays! And the very best to all in the New Year.

Whimsical Wednesday.

2007-12-19T21:51:00.000-08:00

Okay. I just made up 'Whimsical Wednesday'. And there's no guarantee that it'll happen every Wednesday.

In fact, it won't happen next Wednesday at all, what with it being Christmas and all.

But that's the whimsy part. It's when the whimsy strikes. And it may not be on Wednesday's either.

Just so we're all clear on this from the get go.

I'm reading one of my favorite authors at the moment, Robertson Davies. He was Canadian. But now he is dead. Which makes me sad because that means there will be no more of his wonderful books to read.

What I'm currently reading was written in the late forties and early fifties under the nom de plume, Samuel Marchbanks, who is a decided curmudgeon.

I wanted to share.

*Of Lumpism*

"I became involved in an argument about modern painting, a subject upon which I am spectacularly ill-informed; however, many of my friends can become heated, and even violent on the subject and I enjoy their wrangles. In a modest way, I am an artist myself, and I have some sympathy with Abstractionists, although I have gone beyond them in my own approach to art.

I am a Lumpist.

Two or three decades ago, is was quite fashionable to be a Cubist, and to draw everything in cubes; then there was a revolt by the Vorticists who drew everything in whirls; we now have the Abstractionists who paint everything in a very abstracted manner. But my own small works (done on my telephone pad) are composed of carefully shaded, strangely shaped lumps, with traces of Cubism, Vorticism and Abstraction in them for those who possess the seeing eye.

As a Lumpist, I stand alone."

From:

The Papers of Samuel Marchbanks

1947

The Three Musicians

Picasso

1921

Something for nothing.

2007-12-14T14:31:00.000-08:00

The other day I went for dinner with a friend of mine.

She had gone to the washroom when the waitress walked by with a tray of fresh oysters to give to the man sitting behind me.

Leaning back in my chair, I asked him if he knew if they were still serving them. I had thought service had ended at 6:00 and it was just after that.

"They were serving them an hour ago when I ordered them." He replied, sourly.

I laughed, "You would have had a feast faster if you had run down to the beach and picked them yourself!"

"I'll try that next time." He chuckled.

My friend returned to the table and we began discussing dinner options. I mentioned to her that I would have liked some oysters, but they had stopped serving them.

Just as we concluded making our selections, the man behind me walked over with his plate of oysters, 4 left, and presented them to me. He said, "You might as well have these ones, they've brought my entree now and there's no room on my table."

Those oysters were delicious!

My friend laughed at me the rest of the evening. "This kind of thing happens to you all the time, doesn't it."

She's right. It does.

But I figure something has to make up for the tree on the car last month.

Nothin' new.

2007-12-11T17:03:00.000-08:00

Nothing of interest to expound upon here, my friends!
Just a note to say, "Hello!"

Strange memories.

2007-11-30T09:53:00.000-08:00

Many years ago, I worked as a florist.
I designed many arrangements and as a bonus, I got to deliver them as well.

On one occasion, I was to deliver a 'Get Well' bouquet.
The house I pulled up in front of was old and odd and ramshackle. The yard had grown wild and was swallowing the house.

I climbed the rickety stairs, not sure what I was going to find, but the golden eyed cats that followed felt reassuring to me.

The door opened to an equally untamed looking old man. He had the look more of absent-minded untidy bachelor than anything else.
Looking surprised to see me, he graciously took the bouquet, explaining sotto voce that the flowers must be for his wife, Jenny, who was lying in the other room.

I commented on the beautiful cats that had gathered around his feet. By this time 4 of the sleek black beasts had emerged from the shadows and were lolling about.

"Ah!" He sounded excited. "Do you know what kind of cats they are?"
I shook my head.
"These are the beautiful Bombay cats, breed for their golden eyes. My wife loves them, and they're very gentle. Do you like cats? Do you have a minute?"

I said yes to both questions.

He vanished back into the dark house and re-emerged a moment later with a beautiful book about cats, to which he had already turned to the pages on the Bombays.

I don't remember much about the actual words he spoke, or the information he imparted. But I remember clearly the excitement and enjoyment he obviously was experiencing at sharing his love and knowledge with someone.

Eventually I had to leave. Work has a way of interfering in real life.

A month later the flower shop received an order for an 'In Sympathy' bouquet. I piled it into the van, checked the address and off I went.

It wasn't till I was almost in front of that same house that I realized what had happened.

Jenny must have died from her illness.
I felt so sad and sick.

The cats didn't come out from their shadows and no one answered the door.

I had to leave the bouquet on the front step.

I'll always wonder about that man.
How he coped.
If he coped.

I'll never forget how happy he was to share something of himself that day, though his wife must have surely been very ill at that point.

I wished that he had been home so I could have expressed my sorrow, patted the cats, said something. Thanked him.

And he's stayed in my memory all these years. Him, his 'beautiful Bombay cats' and his wife Jenny, to whom I delivered flowers to twice, but who I never, ever saw.

A Vase of Flowers
Paul Gaugin
1896

On announcing what's better left unsaid.

2007-11-23T10:16:00.001-08:00

This morning I saw a parked 1996 black Pontiac Sunfire with an air-freshener that read as follows:

"I ♥ my penis".

For once, I'm at a loss to describe accurately my series of thoughts on that statement. But I do have a series of questions regarding this bold announcement.

First. Why!?! WHY did this person find it necessary to relay this information to the world?

Second. Is penis some new 'werd' for something else? Am I so non courant that there's some other meaning for this word that I'm not aware of? Is this person (and honestly, it's uncertain if they be male or female) making a reference to some new thing?

and

Third. Does displaying this...this...this reference of self-adoration expected to bring in exclamations of congratulations? Because I'm telling ya, my response is to steer clear and shoot disgusted looks at the owner. Among other things.

That's all.

I remain perplexed and more than a little grossed out.

All's quiet over here.

2007-11-19T10:03:00.000-08:00

After the drama of last weekend, I'm pleased to say that this week and end has been quiet. No trees falling, no crushed cars and no interviews.
Peace has returned.

Due to last weeks incident, I have been reflecting on my car luck ("carma"?). Out of 5 cars I've owned, all but one has suffered the slings and arrows.
One of my vehicles (an older Honda Prelude) was stolen 2 twice and broken into more times than I can count.
Some desperate person even peeled the passenger door away from the frame of the poor car to get in late one night.
All that effort for an ashtray. It was never recovered.

My current car also suffered. It, too, was stolen twice. The second time I actually heard it being stolen as I lay in my bed.
I had arrived home around 11:00pm and snuggled into my bed 20 minutes later preparing to sleep. I was surprised when I heard a car start up...sounded just like mine with that give-away fan belt screech.
"That's my car!" I thought. "No. That's silly. Must be another car with that same ailment."
"No. That really IS my car!"

I jumped out of bed, pulled on some shoes and went racing downstairs prepared to do battle. In retrospect, that was a bad idea but I didn't stop to think about it at the time. Someone was stealing MY car!

And...my car was gone.
The next day, I saw my upstairs neighbour and told him what had happened.
"Oh no." He said. "I saw your car peel out of the parking lot and thought it was you. I actually had to step out of the way so the car could get by. I couldn't see in!"

The same car also suffered from being rear-ended by a police officer. As it was pouring rain at the time (it was truly torrential) he opted not to get out of his vehicle, and instead I was forced to stand shivering in the rain in order to get his insurance/license information. And then he tried to blame me for stopping too short.
I mentioned that the large van pulling out in front of me rather forced my hand, but he remained unamused and appeared rather annoyed during the whole exchange.

So there you have it.

This may explain why I was able to take the car crushing tree of last week so calmly.
It's not like it's the first time something like that has happened!

Perhaps the Universe, in an effort to make up for it's past indiscretions and to balance things out a little, may consider presenting me with a new car? Preferably in silver? With the initials BMW emblazoned on the grill?
You know, the pendulum has to swing the other way too, sometimes!

It started out to be such a nice weekend.

2007-11-12T20:38:00.000-08:00

My long weekend started out like any other. I traveled to the lovely town of Courtenay, BC where my friends and family reside. I had a great time with my Mom and Dad and Kimber and Spider Girl.

Then we went for a trip through an unusual art display born from George Sawchuck's imagination and created entirely by him, a few wooded acres and his chainsaw. It stood complete with 'shrunken heads' hanging from trees and wooden salmon floating in ponds.

And then?

And then a tree fell on my car.

And then the television crews showed up. (Two of them, as a matter of fact! Not to mention the newspaper reporter.)

The first windstorm of 2007 downed a huge tree that just happened to fall directly on to my car. (Well, truth be told, it's Whatshisface's car, but nonetheless.)

I had awoken to a cacophonous crash, then SpiderGirl shouting "TAI! TAI!! TAI!!!!!!!!!" I thought a tree had fallen through her house where I was a guest. But no.

It was a great huge tree falling across my car, instead.

I have to say, it's not the most pleasant way to wake up!

After much fussing and calls to the police, Hydro came and cut the offending tree away, leaving my car dented, damaged and ill equipped for travel.

The train seemed like a good idea, so I popped in to the train station to see if I could book a ticket for Tuesday afternoon. What providence! There was Ian from 'Or so I thought' and his lovely wife Wendy. Wendy, too, had to get back to Victoria and was catching the train.

After some discussion, my Mom and Dad decided to drive me the 300km (200+miles) from Courtenay to Victoria to ensure I got to work bright and early Tuesday morning. (Gee, thanks Mom and Dad.)

Once I returned home, my neighbour rushed over, "Was that YOU on t.v.? I just saw! Are you okay?"

I logged in to check my blog, and I saw that dear Josie from 'C'est La Vie' had sent a comment, "Were you just on tv??"

It seems I've had my 15 minutes of fame, and I didn't even get to see it! We have no cable, you see.

I hope my hair looked ok, I mean, it was pretty windy out. (Heh!)

GMO's.

2007-11-08T11:55:00.000-08:00

I had a huge long post about genetically modified organisms, 'pharming', and 'frankenfood' that I wanted to put up...but it's vanished most unexpectedly. (Lucky for you!)

Besides, my ignorance about biotechnology is vast and far reaching, and I would hate to demonstrate it in front of all of you fine people (I say that like I've never let it happen before!).

But hear me out here...there's one thing about GMO's that makes me nervous.

It makes me nervous that there isn't any labelling to tell me what I'm putting in my mouth. Shouldn't there at least be a label which would allow me to make an 'informed' purchase?

It's argued that even before Gregor Mendel we've been dabbling in genetics; we've always adjusted our food to better suit us so what's the problem with it now?

Well, I supposed that's true. To a degree.

But somehow I don't believe that Mendel foresaw us splicing fish gene's into soybeans. Or being able to create a 'suicide seed' that allows only one harvest with no viable seed for next year. (Which is certainly an effective way of cornering the market! Patent your hi-tech seed. Buy all other non-engineered competing seed companies. Make your seed 'terminate' after a single harvest. Et voila! A monopoly.)

And it's not to say that I would instantly argue that biotech is going to destroy our planet and gobble itself into nothing due to sheer greed.

I won't instantly argue that, but truth be told, I'm baffled as to how to truly educated myself on this subject.

Everyone involved in this has diametrically opposed views, and most of what's written about it scans more like propaganda than intelligent argument.

So I don't know.

What do you think?

Meme!

2007-11-01T09:56:00.000-07:00

1. Name one person who made you laugh last night? Whathisface! He always makes me laugh.

2. What were you doing at 0800? Work! Work! Work!

3. What were you doing 30 minutes ago? Work! Work! Work! (Okay, I lie. I was blogging.)

4. What happened to you in 2006? I quit my job and moved to a new city. How's that?

5. What was the last thing you said out loud? "Rhonda? Heloise? Miranda? Patricia?"

6. How many beverages did you have today? One cup of tea and one cup of apple juice and one cup of water.

7. What color is your hairbrush? Black and hairy.

8. What was the last thing you paid for? I was supposed to pay for that?

9.Where were you last night? Completely secured behind double locked doors. At home. Honest!

10. What color is your front door? White. And brown. I have two front doors. (see how nicely that ties into question # 9?)

11. Where do you keep your change? My change exists in my mind, waiting for the right moment to emerge, a butterfly from a shriveled cocoon. Did I misunderstand the question?

12. What’s the weather like today? Not raining. When you live in a 'rain-forest' there are only two types of weather. Raining and Not Raining. So it's fabulous today!

13. What’s the best ice-cream flavor? I once had Gorgonzola and pear flavored ice-cream. That rocked. Otherwise? Meh.

14. What excites you? Buckling into my seat on the plane, hearing the engines roar, and knowing that I'm about to embark on a grand adventure. This was Kimber's answer, but it was so good that I just had to use it. Thanks Kimber!

15. Do you want to cut your hair? Why, does it look that bad?

16. Are you over the age of 25? Yes, by a whole crazy decade!

17. Do you talk a lot? Me? Talk a lot? Like go on and on to anyone about anything? Or does this refer to blathering at strangers in line ups, or chatting with employees over the phone? Nah. Can hardly get a word out of me.

18. Do you watch the O.C.? The what? The Ocean Cartographer? The Other Chowder? The Ornery Child? These questions are tough.

19. Do you know anyone named Steven? Yes! And...what? That's it? Checking up on me, eh?

20. Do you make up your own words? Are you referring to portmanteaus? Well, why didn't you just say so? I don't make up words, but I spell real ones wrong often enough to have them become words in their own right. 'Stuipd' comes to mind.

21. Are you a jealous person? No way!

22. Name a friend whose name starts with the letter ‘A’. No. I won't do it.

23. Name a friend whose name starts with the letter ‘K’. Sure is a lot of concern around the letters my friends names begin with. Must be some kind of psychosis.

24. Who’s the first person on your received call list? Eh?

25. What does the last text message you received say? What's that? Text message you say?

26. Do you chew on your straw? Nope. Hay, but never straw.

27. Do you have curly hair? Nope.

28. Where’s the next place you’re going to? I think I'm going to hop on a plane and head to Phoenix one of these days! I'd like to see a desert.

29. Who’s the rudest person in your life? There once was an evil bosslady name Agnes. She had bloody claws and flaming nostrils and could swallow a person's self esteem whole. And she was also very rude.

30. What was the last thing you ate? A Quaker Honey and Oats bar. Mmmmm.

31. Will you get married in the future? Yup.

32. What’s the best movie you’ve seen in the past 2 weeks? I just watched "Shallow Grave" last night, it was so sinister. Just great!

33. Is there anyone you like right now? What a weird question! There are so many people that I like right now. Is this question supposed to be directed to a person who normally hates the world or something?

34. When was the last time you did the dishes? Sunday? Monday? Hard to say, I try to block those incidences from my mind!

35. Are you currently depressed? Ha!

36. Did you cry today? No, why? Going to prescribe something?

37. Why did you answer and post this? 'Cus Kimber told me too! And besides, it's kinda fun!

2007-10-31T09:23:00.001-07:00

Happy Hallowe'en my ghoulish friends. Don't worry 'bout the things that go 'bump' in the night...it's probably just me running into the furniture!

(Now there's a scary thought!)

5x5

2007-10-24T10:21:00.000-07:00

Five smells I love ~

1) The heavy, heady smell of rich earth after a summer rain.

2) The smell of wood smoke hanging over the valley of my old hometown. I always try to get back there for that in the fall. So bad for the environment, so delicious for my nose.

3) Oven roasted chicken.

4) Freesia and jasmine. But only the flowers. In my opinion, the perfumes just don't do the flowers justice.

5) Freshly laundered bed sheets. Just the smell of clean. I remember the smell of the sheets as they came off the outside line, but I haven't had that pleasure for such a long time.

Five sights I love ~

1) A new country, waiting to be explored.

2) My mom's smile.

3) A stack of new books, each more interesting looking than the last.

4) Distant blue mountains sparkling with fresh snow in the early morning sun.

5) Whatshisface in a tux.

Five tastes that I love ~

1) A thick, smelly blue cheese topped with a slice of kiwi and paired with a decadent red wine.

2) True French onion soup. Such a simple thing, but the depth of flavour that can be achieved with so few ingredients is amazing.

3) Taco del Mar's burrito's. Don't ask me why, I don't know. But sometimes they are the only thing that will do. It's a shame, because the nearest shop is a 3 hour drive north. Can't do THAT everyday! Which may explain the impact of the craving.

4) A hot cup of tea after a grueling day. Many years ago, after wandering the length and breadth of Ireland trying to find a place to lay our weary heads, Spider Girl and I found a place to stay. The kind man, after hearing our tale of woe, prepared us a cup of tea and some biscuits. That single, simple cup of tea almost had me bursting into tears, it was so welcoming and comforting.

5) A tiny piece of chocolate covered ginger. I'm not really a chocolate fan, but that combination does something for me. And as I have it so rarely (once a year, if that) that it takes on mystical properties!

Five sounds I love ~

1) My favorite sound occurred only in the winter when I was young, and I never hear it anymore. Early in the morning, when you know it had snowed piles, the sound of the snowplow chuffing away on the street outside my window let me know that others were out there, working to make my way safe. That seemed to me, burrowed deep in my warm blankets, the sweetest sound.

2) Sarah Vaughn singing "They Can't Take That Away". You can hear her smile as she sings. It's a sweet sad song. (LOL! It's playing on the radio station right now! Lucky me!)

3) The sound of all my friends in conversation around a delicious dinner.

4) A sax, a cello, a piano and drums. The gentle clap and low murmur of an appreciative audience. Wine glasses clinking. Call it a jazz club.

5) Silence. A deep, complete, make-you-hold-your-breath kind of nothing sound.

Five things I love to touch ~

1) Running my fingers backwards through my old cat Bentley's fur. He's gone now, but I'll never forget.

2) The feel of clean sheets in a newly made bed as I slid into sleep.

3) My steering wheel in the left hand and the stick shift in the right.

4) The keyboard under my fingers as a story spins itself out. It used to be the feeling of my favorite pen and crisp white paper...and that certainly still has it's place, but technology marches on, and I like how the keys feel smooth and firm under my finger tips.

5) My 'snooze' button.

2007-10-22T11:33:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about hummingbirds as of late. In fact, since Ian wrote a piece about birds recently, I can't get them out of my mind!

Yesterday evening, I saw 4 or 5 racing around, sipping what must be the very last bit of nectar just as autumn starts giving way to winter. They must be getting cold, and they must certainly be planning their southern get aways. Now's the time, little birds. Get while the getting is good!

Here's something I know about hummingbirds. You can almost tame them. And you can train them. And they aren't all that shy or timid at all.

The house that I grew up in is an old house. It has a huge kitchen, which is accessed by a windowed-in porch. My dad has always hung out bird feeders for as long as I can remember. Winter had peanut butter and seeds for the birds staying behind, and summer saw bright red sugar water to attract the hummingbirds. We could sit at our kitchen window and watch the little birds whip around in frenzied activity. Sometimes up to 10 or more would be hovering around our feeder, waiting for their opportunity. Sparring and showing off.

My dad decided one day to try an experiment. He would slowly move the feeder through the porch window until it was hanging from the inside kitchen window. Success! After a day or two, the hummingbirds would fly through the open porch window, through the porch and feed at the second, interior window.

Embolden by this success, dad decided to put the feeder on the kitchen table itself. It was snugged up against the window, so it wasn't too much further for them to go. We could sit (very still) at the table and have the hummingbirds feed while we sat there. Amazing!

Not one too let an opportunity like this to pass him by, my dad decided to step the experiment up a notch. Let's have the hummingbirds fly through the two sets of open windows; through the porch across the kitchen to the stove where the new spot for dinner was...wait for it! The FRYING PAN!

Yes, that's right. Placed on the stove, in a frying pan, sat the feeder. And wouldn't you know it, within an hour of the new placement, the little blighters were cheerfully sipping the sweetness from the feeder in the frying pan. They even used the rim as their perch to let dinner settle between sips.

My dad. He's got a lot of time on his hands.

I must then follow this up by saying that, as clever as the little birds are, they would occasionally get lost trying to get back outside. This meant we had to catch them and usher them out. I remember a hummingbird stabbing away at the living room ceiling looking for escape. I've held many hummingbirds now. So small and furiously fluttering.

My Dad would sometimes mark them (with a safe non-toxic food dye, of course) on their chest to see which ones came back.

They all did. Despite the ignominy of the frying pan.

And I shall wear purple.

2007-10-17T20:07:00.000-07:00

A woman came into where I work today, a beautiful young woman. Some how the topic of ageing came up and she expressed her great fear of turning 32 (!).

She then went on to say that she had great anxiety around turning 30 as well, and she didn't know how she was going to make it.

Now, I guess I sort of underst...nah, scratch that. I don't get it at all. I'm a firm believer that you are as old as you feel, and frankly, I'm about 24. But a smarter, better, more ME 24. And I'm certainly more capable now than I ever was back then.

Without age you would never learn anything new.

You would remain not only in the same state physically (ok, maybe THAT'S not such a bad thing, though I believe I'm actually getting cuter with age) but you would stay in the same place intellectually and emotionally. And how backwards would that be?

Every time a new challenge came up, you would never be able to say to yourself, "Gee, I remember being in a similar position once years ago and I totally screwed it up. Let's try the other way this time."

You'd never learn anything of import, never experience anything new or learn to enjoy what was put in front of you. Your experiences would stay the same and you would learn nothing or very little from them because you wouldn't be able to put them all into perspective.

And with age (hopefully) comes a fuller understanding of the world and your place in it. Of course, I can only speak for myself I suppose. But it really seems to me that it's only getting better as I go.

And not to ever learn anything new. What a tragedy.

So I'm all for getting older.

At least till my knees give out.

I'm so lucky.

2007-10-10T16:52:00.000-07:00

Wolfgrrrl and I playing with scarves. (Safer than knives!)

Me, Blackcrag and Spider Girl on a beautiful beach in front of a roaring bonfire just a few short weeks ago.

And Pol, me and Spider Girl...squished together in a booth on a lunch time romp.

My friends.

I am a lucky girl.

It makes you think.

2007-10-04T09:12:00.001-07:00

Since I was young, I've been fascinated with the functioning of the brain.

A book I read (I wish I could remember what it was called. I remember what the cover looked like. It was a very thick book, black with a drawn picture of synapses firing in reds, blues and yellows. I think it was simply called "The Brain". But that was a looong time ago!) at the age of 12 was instrumental in establishing a life long interest in the research, study, history and bizarre occurrences that happen within the hard casing of our skulls.

What really struck me at that age was how strange it was; such a contradiction/complication of the brain having written a book about itself in an effort to understand it's own workings. It seemed as peculiar to me as the liver involving itself in a conversation about it's functionality. And yet it's somehow enchanting.

Over the years, I've read many books about congenital brain problems (autism, savants) and about the difficulties that can arise after the brain suffers a traumatic incident (strokes, blows to the head). The most fascinating incidences, to me, are the ones that people can suffer after a serious accident or injury.
My own brain stumbles in trying to understand how cherished memories become non-existent, or how a man could forget how to read, yet still be able to write.

A book I've been reading recently (Jay Ingram's "The Burning House: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Brain") looks at a variety of brain injuries, and one of the most interesting/disturbing ones is the damage some people suffer after strokes.

One chapter explores an issue called 'neglect'.
The premise being that some people who suffer a stroke become unable to 'sense' the left side of the world. They 'neglect' it. A clock as viewed by a neglect patient may only have numbers from 12 to 6, the others are either simply don't exist or are all squished onto the right side of the clock face. When asked to pinpoint a dot on the centre of a horizontal line, inevitably it's placed far to right side.

The most dramatic examples are of those who are unable to even identify their own left body parts. When asked to identify their left leg, they are unable. When shown their own left hand they sometimes react with confusion, wondering whose hand it is. They are sometimes unwilling to believe it truly is theirs, even when told so.

This in itself is interesting, but what REALLY gets my neurons firing is the fact that these patients, while 'fine' in every other way, also don't seem to recognize that they even have this problem.
In fact, one of the 'symptoms' of this particular disorder seems to be a complete disinterest in it. Pointing out to some patients that they used to be aware of the left side brings about no reaction. Just doesn't seem to matter.

Now. Why would that be? When you have a broken leg, you understand that at one point your leg was whole.
Other head injuries causing blurred vision or memory loss is understood to (generally) be temporary and is worked towards recovery by the patient. Not so neglect patients. Interestingly, this issue doesn't really seemed to be explored in anything I've read, or if it is, it is seen only as a cursory problem to the 'larger' issue of the stroke/neglect itself.

Something else that draws me to this is type of 'medicine' is that so much brain knowledge is gained from patients who are awake and alert while their brains are literally being picked.
The brain itself doesn't have pain receptors, so once the skull is breached (using, what I hope is a powerful local anaesthetic), a patient is able to answer questions put to them by the surgeon and, I suppose, anyone else who's standing around wanting to know what's going on 'in there'.

So much of what we 'know' about the brain comes from those whose injuries have taken so much from them.
We certainly owe them our thanks.

And, while I'm on the topic, I think I'd like to recommend Oliver Sacks as a great author, if this subject interests you.
He, of "Awakenings" fame, has written many many books on neurology and brain science. I've found that he writes very clearly and allows for the average layperson to enjoy his books without dumbing them down.

So that's what gets my brain going!
I can feel new neural pathways being forged by the second.

Hey, I gotta job for ya.

2007-09-25T16:39:00.001-07:00

A few years ago I worked in a warehousing facility in Richmond, BC.

It was a big place. Almost 200, 000 square feet of space. We shipped and received fridges, stoves, washing machines, inflatable husbands* and numerous other products and oddities. (What the knitted breast cups * were for was anyone's guess!)

I pushed paper. A little here, a little there. And I had the pleasure of speaking to the irrate customers whose shipments got lost somewhere between the Strait of Malacca (can you say 'pirates') and the Port of Vancouver.

It was a stressful kind of job. It always amazed me the fuss some people would make when their shipment of 'bangle toys'* failed to show up, or their load of 'plastic ster hop'* was damaged. Some of them couldn't have been any more stressed out than if it had been a new heart for their Grandmother's transplant that had gone astray.

One day my boss came to me and said, "C'mon, I've got a job for you. Can you drive standard?"

Can I drive standard!?! You bet I can. With glee. With joy. But I didn't say that. I just said, "Yup."

Turns out, we had also started shipping exotic cars. (No, not illegally! I made sure that all the paperwork for customs was in order, that was the other part of my job. I didn't make friends with all the gun-toting agents 'cus I was scammer!)

Ferrari's, BMW's, Porsches and lovely Lamborghini's.

And my job? My job was to drive those beautiful gleaming cars through the tightly packed warehouse and into a space so small that the mirrors on the cars had to be bent inwards so they didn't scrap off.

Yeah, I drove them into the containers.And then?

Then I had to get out of those cars. Somehow.

Occasionally I could squeeze out the door (after a piece of cardboard had been slipped between the door and the edge of the container) but most times? Most times saw me slithering head first over the back seats and through the trunk. Much to the amusement of my boss and the warehouse employees. I had to kick of my shoes before I even got in the vehicle. Didn't need my 3 inches heels gouging unsightly holes in the buttery leather.

On one occasion, I had to clamber onto the rear bumper of a Navigator, over the roof and then inch along the window frame in my socked feet (thankfully the window was down) to get to the front of the vehicle to unhook the battery. Then I had to turn around and reverse the order to get out.

Containers are really tight spaces when you cram a Lincoln SUV in there.

Once, two BMW's were being shipped over from Germany. These two cars had been shipped over for a commercial so no one was allowed to see them as they weren't 'on the market' in Canada at that time. They were wrapped fender to fender in white plastic, with only a tiny hole opened on the driver's side to see through.

They even flew two men over from Germany to oversee the off loading. I thought they were going to flip when my boss brought me out and said, "She'll be offloading them."

"Ja? SHE vill do dis??" They gruffed unhappily.

Oh yeah.

Offloaded both of them and loaded them straight into a covered truck for them to drive away on their super secret project.

I considered it a perk of the job.

And why did I get to do it?

'Cus everyone else was too scared. Scared they'd hit something, scared they'd scratch the paint, scared of being in the container.

Or they were too big. Crawling out through a car trunk requires a smallish person. Which I was. At the time. Heh.

Lucky for me, I'm not scared of anything.

Besides.

They had plenty of insurance.

*yes, those were real 'things' we shipped.

Kept safe.

2007-09-17T17:18:00.000-07:00

My pack was at my feet and I was happily reading, whiling away the time in a tiny semi-abandoned train station on the border of Hungary and Croatia.

A loud male voice startled me out of my book; when I looked up a uniformed man was staring down at me.

Seemed to me he wanted to see my ticket or maybe my passport. I produced both quickly. It was, after all, about 10 days after the attacks on New York, so it seemed to me that the extra precautions were understandable.

He looked quickly at both, then spoke to me in a rattle of Hungarian. My last name is Hungarian so I suppose he was hoping that I would understand.

Not a word registered.

He sat down beside me.

Slowly slowly we started communicating. Mostly by me drawing in my notebook. A really poor map of my travels to date seemed to interest him, as well as my hand drawn map of North America in which I had pin pointed where I lived. Then suddenly he spoke again and finished his sentence with a loud, "BOOM!"

He grabbed my book and drew out the Twin Towers and airplanes and looked expectantly at me. "Boom!" He repeated.

I could only shake my head and look sad, but that seemed to satisfy him.

Around this time I was starting to get hungry (hungry in Hungary!), so I motioned eating and drinking. He understood.
Picking up my bag, he motioned for me to follow him. Out into the dark and deserted night we went.

On the other side of this little train station was a wee cafe. He bought me a sandwich and a beer and kept me company as I ate.

Another security guard had come up and they had a quick conversation, presumably about me from the glances, and satisfied, the other fellow moved on.

Before I was done my repast though, a small knot of old men who had been sitting in the corner smoking and drinking motioned 'my' guard over to their table. There was lots of loud words exchanged and much gesticulating.

The guard came back to me hurriedly and picked up my pack and hustled me out of there very quickly.

Back to my wooden bench, pack at my feet.

This guard continued to sit with me the entire time I waited for my train that night. He helped me with my pack when the train arrived, spoke to the porter on my behalf, helped me on the train and got me settled in.

There was a mix up with my ticket, seems I hadn't paid enough to get to Venice, but my guard helped me straighten it out with a minimum fuss and cost.

I rode the night train through Croatia and Slovenia. Every few hours guards armed with machine guns would yell and bang on the doors. "Passporto! Passporto!".

Until I returned from my trip I didn't understand why I was removed from that smoky little cafe so quickly.

Then a friend, a recent immigrant from Croatia, explained that a single woman, alone in a dark cafe must be up to no good. The old men were suspicious of me and wanted me out of their cafe.

Humph.

In retrospect, my travel tale could have ended very differently and much less pleasantly. My 'guard' may not have been legitimate. Being robbed by a uniformed 'official' is a tale that many travellers have told. That and worse.

To be honest, I hadn't considered that possibility until just now. Hmmm. Seems fortune was with me that night!

Thanks LGS, you inspired me with your own travel tale!

(oh, and unfortunately that picture isn't mine. But it IS a Hungarian train station!)

Just another day in Victoria, BC.

2007-09-11T18:24:00.000-07:00

Gargoyles...not just in Paris anymore! This fellow was frowning down from an old bank building.

The view from the inner harbour in Victoria. This is the view from very near the famous "Empress Hotel".

The view from the Malahat. This is from the very top of the Malahat...driven to travel from Victoria to places north on Vancouver Island. In this case, it was for me to get to Nanaimo to visit my darling friends!

Oh look! Me fixing my car!

Ah, Darth Fiddler. Every city needs one.

A Dragon in silhouette.

And tonight...Weird AL!!
I'm so excited. Hope he does "White and Nerdy". I'm thinking about making that my personal theme song!

Hell.

2007-09-04T19:24:00.001-07:00

I just read a book that described exactly what resides in my most horrific nightmares.

Alexia sine agraphia: the inability to recognize the printed word.

Howard Engels' book, "The Man Who Forgot How to Read", is a short memoir with a view into a published authors trip into a very dark world.

One morning he discovered that, due to an unnoticed stroke in the night, he was no longer able to recognize words.
He describes that mornings Globe and Mail looking as though it had been translated into Serbo-Croatian.

A self described 'omnivorous' reader.
Unable to read.
Interestingly, he retained the ability to write.
But he couldn't read his own words either.

Now, I recognize that in the larger scheme of things, simply not being able to read isn't truly 'the end'.
But for me it would be close.

I recommend this book.
Though Engel is a cheery, 'make the best of it' sort of fellow, you can't help but feel his constant sliver of fear that he may have read his last word.

Perfect.

2007-09-01T09:11:00.000-07:00

This is my favorite time of day and my very favorite part of the week.

It's the Saturday morning of a l-o-o-o-ng weekends.

The sun is (trying) to shine, I've got a fresh cup of coffee in front of me and several interesting books waiting to be read.

And that's not to mention a Fall Fair to attend and a few local farmers markets as well...3 glorious days stretch ahead, filled with possibility.

Does it get any better than this?

I hope everyone has such a wonderful time ahead of them!

"...the Iraq, everywhere like, such as."

2007-08-29T16:42:00.001-07:00

Geez, I almost feel sorry for her.

"Friends".

2007-08-15T16:38:00.000-07:00

Facebook.
You either love it or you hate it, I've heard it said.

Having an available 'database' to which you can voluntarily add all your vital (and not so vital) statistics seems a pretty good idea.
You can find people, people can find you.
Your 'profile' can outline everything about you, or very little, depending on how you feel.
Social status and general interests to education, work experience and sexual orientation.

I do have an account, but I can't say I love Facebook.

On the one hand, it is nice to be able to find people who you've 'lost touch' with over the years for one reason or another.
I found one of my old roommates from years ago (or rather, she found me) and I was happy to have some other old friends who had gotten lost in the shuffle find their way back into my life.
But other people have tracked me down as well, and I'm not always so pleased about that.
For instance, an old boyfriend of mine contacted me through this network recently.

What I can't figure out is why.
We didn't part particularly amicably.
Also? It was almost 17 years ago that we dated.
I only reflected on him occasionally over the years, and that was to chastise myself for being such a fool.

So why did HE feel the need to look me up? Why did he need to contact me? And, even stranger, to contact Whatsisface and say to him, "I'm Tai's ex-boyfriend. I don't mean any harm."

Maybe he remembers that 3 months of our lives differently from me, after all 17 years have elapsed. Hmm, nah, it ended poorly. Surely he didn't forget that!

Other people, too, have contacted me and I find their interest in writing to me just as odd.
People I never spoke to in school are sending me 'friend requests'.
Others with whom I had but a passing acquaintance (as in, 'I passed them in the hall at school') seem eager to share with me their life stories.
I don't get it! It baffles me.

Some folks are left in the past for good reason, and I'd rather like them to stay there, thanks very much.
Surely others would like me to stay in their past, too, and I will happily stay there.
Far be it for me to intrude on their present lives, especially if I barely knew them then, and don't know them at all now.
(Though if everyone thought like me, Facebook would surely be a flop instead of the amazing success it is.)
Could just be I'm a misanthrope.

But the more I think about it, the more I wonder if my distaste for the whole thing is derived from my feeling that I haven't really done all that much to tell anyone about.
No cure for cancer, no space walks and no lotto wins here.

My life HAS been interesting and wonderful in it's own way, but it seems odd to me to pull out these individual incidences and dog and pony them for people who I probably wouldn't recognize in the street.
Seems too much an accounting of my life for people that I don't know.

And, it seems like way too much obligation to me.
When these veritable strangers contact me, my inner 'nice girl' requires that I politely accept their 'friend request' and say 'yes'. But all I really want to do is holler "NONONO, I don't want to be your friend. I wasn't then and I don't want to be now."
They tell me about their children, and enquire about mine (I don't have any), tell me about their camping trip (I don't like camping) and ask if I'll join a group (no) they've set up.
I'm a wretch and I don't care.

So I think I'm going to take myself off Facebook.
I just can't handle any more "friends".

Overheard in the Police Station. *

2007-08-01T18:13:00.000-07:00

Police Officer (PO): "Hi, can I help you?"

Older man (OM) with a soft English accent: "Well, it's a bit silly I suppose. Sorry to trouble you. I've come in because of my wife, you see. She asked me to come down else she won't be able to sleep."

PO: "Yes? What can we do?"

OM: "It's about that boy in the paper this morning. The boy they found? The murder?"

PO: "Yes?"

OM: "Well, it's just that my son has been missing for a few months now. My wife sent me down to see if it...if this might be him."

PO: "What is your sons name, sir?"

OM: "Dale M-."

PO: "Let me check for you."

OM: "Thank you. My wife just gets so worried. She wanted me to ask."

PO: "Well, sir, that's not the name of the man we found."

OM: "Oh. Well, that's a relief. My wife will feel better about that. Of course, it's terribly hard on her, you see. He's been missing for some time and you always have to wonder.

PO: "I understand, sir. Is there anything else we can do for you?"

OM: "Oh no. That's just fine. Sorry to hear about that other boy though. Blow to his parents."

PO: "Yes sir."

OM: "Right, I'll be off. Won't take up any more of your time."

*I was there to fill out an application for a criminal record check for some volunteer work I'm doing.

Bits from the Island

2007-07-25T17:20:00.000-07:00

I've been working and working and moving and cleaning and volunteering and tidying and weeding.

Whew.

I'm beat.

My job started on Monday. It's a short walk from our new place which is wonderful, but OH the filing!

Oddly, I don't mind filing. There's something to be said for a job that allows you to put pieces of paper into alphabetical order and see a sort of accomplishment at the end.

My co-workers gasp at the tremendous piles of paper in front of me (stuff going back 4 years!) and wonder at how I keep my sanity. "Oh, you must be so bored, poor thing!" I nod and smile, back bent to my task.

What they don't know is that I actually like it.

They don't understand that the repetitive task allows me time to think my own thoughts and escape in to my own worlds. Of which there are a great many marvelous and varied creations to keep me occupied.

In other news.
Our neighbours mowed our lawn the other day, which was nice of them.
It was looking rather weed infested (honestly? I don't think there ARE any bits of grass in that poor lawn. I suspect it's 50% dandelion, 30% morning glory and 20% rock) and nasty. And with no trees or plant (besides a rather ill looking Chestnut tree growing much too close to the house) it's in definite need of some tender loving care.

I'm really enjoying this new house of ours, despite the lawn. The kitchen is taking some getting used to as the stove and the fridge are in a different room from the sink and counter space. Odd, no?
But interesting and lovely.

Anything else?
Nope. Not at the moment!
Hope all is well everywhere else!

Meme time!

2007-07-13T12:26:00.000-07:00

Big Brother decided I didn't have enough to do in my day what with moving and trying to find a new job, so he tagged me. That's okay, a little aided procrastination never hurt anyone!
Good vibrations...I need to formulate a list of 5 things that take me to my happy place.
It's tough!
So many things give me pleasure.

Well, here's 5. But believe me, they are just the top of a very long list.

Driving. Driving is one of my ways of sorting my head out, clearing out the cobwebs and letting go of problems that have been plaguing me.
When I drive, all my attention is on the road, on surrounding traffic and on the scenes flying. It's about being in the 'now'.
I drive standard, and shifting through the gears on a stretch of open road, windows wide open and music playing wipes away anything that was cause for concern very quickly.
And speaking of music...

Jazz. I love jazz.
I love old jazz. I adore live jazz and new jazz and funky jazz and soulful jazz. It's the music that so easily reflects my moods. How to describe my love of it. Words seem inadequate. Jazz can make me joyful and then break my heart. It kept me company when I was alone and it weaves it's happy magic when I'm with friends. It's a language I understand.

Books. Ah, books. A day without reading is time without oxygen. It's that important to me.

Friends. I'm one of the luckiest people I know when it comes to friends.
I have had my closest friends by my side since I was 11 years old. Nothing in my life is true or real until they know about it. The bad things in my life were eased and softened by my friendships. They give what they have freely and expect nothing in return.
I can't say enough about how my life is made so much better by those 3 being in it.

My mom. I just love spending time with my mom.
I've written about how important she is to me before, so those of you who have read my blog will know.
I want to write about her, but what comes out seems to me be too saccharine. And while she is very sweet, she's also very strong and independent.
She's pulled our family through some incredibly hard times and been through some things that might make other people crumble, yet she retains a warmth and genuine concern for others happiness.
My mom is my reminder that you can go through hell and still be able to love unconditionally. (Damn, this was supposed to make me HAPPY, not make me cry!!)

The Union Club.

2007-07-09T22:19:00.000-07:00

This evening I spent some time at the club Whatshisface and I recently joined.

It's one of those elite and snotty clubs that boasts memberships of political representatives and parliamentary movers and shakers.

It was 'Ladies Night' this evening.

An evening not as risque as the title might imply.

No, nothing lascivious going on. It is simply a weekly occasion for the wives of the elect to sit together and play bridge in the 'Card Room' or have a cocktail on the patio overlooking the harbour.

The only "Chip 'n' Dales" I saw were the desks.

And anyway, they wouldn't have made it past the doormen. Dress code in effect. Sparkly thongs are NOT approved.

The 'Reading Room' is one of the largest and most well appointed rooms I've ever seen dedicated to the sublime art of reading alone. Elegant leather couches, giant palms and a collection of daily newspapers from around the world all centered around a grand fireplace.

My dinner guest was a lovely woman. Someone I don't really know all that well, but would like too know better. Being relatively new to a city, finding companionable people is pretty important.

Boy, does she know how to swear.

I have to admit that I've been know to cuss. (Hey, you. Stop rolling your eyes!)

However, when I'm in a place that is designed to hold elderly women and their old friends, I try really hard to 'fit in'. To belong.

To not scare anyone.

And speaking of being scared, I have to admit I found the place intimidating at first. Lots of liveried help. Obsequiousness seemed to be a job requirement.

Takes some getting used to.

But part of me felt like I was being a snot because I looked around guiltily every time she cursed though the rest of me thought, "What the hell do I care?"

So what is the point of this post?

Well, mostly it's to say that I had a nice time, not sure if I fit in and I feel bad that I care how my friend expressed herself.

And boy-howdy, good thing there weren't any strippers. It might have become truly rowdy...some of those ladies were hitting the tea pretty hard.

Theft 101

2007-07-06T17:27:00.000-07:00

Along with everything else going on in my life, I'm moving! Not far (a mere 3 blocks) but into an abode that is charming and old and unique and completely renovated.

Spider Girl took some pictures last weekend, for which I'm grateful, as I took pictures too but I seem to have lost the cord to my camera and so can't post them.

Thus the title.

I'm stealing the pictures she took and posted on her blog and directly applying them to mine. Seems fair, no? Her pics, my house?

And anyway, I served her a bbq'd steak to die for last weekend so it's entirely fair, right!?

(Right?)

The house was built in 1914 and, as of late, was vastly abused by the onslaught of tenants that just didn't give a damn.

The bathroom was demolished (completely unusable I've heard), the rooms had been spray paint 'tagged' and the yard was a catastrophe (still kinda is, but I'm working on that!).

Since we've started moving in, all the neighbours have poked their heads out their doors and cautiously asked, "Are you moving in? How many of you are there?"

The look of relief on their faces is interesting and disturbing all at the same time.

I mean, how bad could it have been?

Well, if the mail is any indication, there have been a multitude of folks coming and going. Ben Fudge, for instance.

He was sent mail to our new house.

And Guangdao Yang too.

Not to mention a whole host of others.

I cordially put "MOVED" on the mail and dump it back in the mailbox.

Hope they get it.

So, anyway.

New house.

Hope the ghosts are friendly!

Canada Day, minus the Mountie.

2007-06-30T12:20:00.001-07:00

Hey world, we're 140 years old now!

Just babies in the whole scheme of world history.

We didn't spare any time selling out the rights of our precious 'mountie' image to Disneyland, however.

Unfortunately, I can't find any information on the innernets, but I know it to be true.

Why would we do this?

I have no idea.

If anyone can explain this to me, I'd be thankful.

BUT, I still love my country.

Happy Canada Day everyone!

Venice ti amo molto molto!

2007-06-13T08:46:00.000-07:00

What can I possibly say about Venice that hasn't been said in a dozen better ways? Well, not much, except that I really really love it.

So, without further ado, I present for your viewing pleasure: Venice!

“If you read a lot, nothing is as great as you've imagined. Venice is -- Venice is better.”
~Fran Lebowitz

“Venice is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs in one go.” ~Truman Capote

"Though there are some disagreeable things in Venice there is nothing so disagreeable as the visitors." ~Henry James

Streets flooded. Please advise. ~Robert Benchley, telegram from Venice to his editor

"Prosecco! Ti amo molto molto! Heywaitaminute...that's the bottom of my glass!" ~Tai

(Spider and Jeff took some of these pictures, too. I felt secure in the knowledge they would want me to use them, as they are splendid!)

Among the ruins of Ostia and one lone Bernini Angel.

2007-06-06T10:04:00.000-07:00

This is a detail from the face blocks at Ostia Antica (you can see in the last post that I'm casually leaning against them. I really did enjoy my time there!)Interestingly, it reminded me of another place I hold fond in my memory.

And it was, oddly enough, Blarney Castle in Ireland.

Beautiful Blarney Castle, where Spider Girl and I roamed free in '99. Climbing trees, scrambling through dark under tunnels deep below the walls and scaling the ruins of the castle itself, free from red velvet ropes and warnings not to touch. (Also very free from handrails and other safety features that are so predominant in other places more concerned about litigation!)
(Pssst, I didn't take that picture. It's from Wikipedia. It was "Taken by Valdoria august 2006").

Most other countries (it seems to me) have their history and precious artifacts tied up, nailed down and encased in plastic only available from viewing at a great distance.

Not so Ireland, and not so Italy!

No, my experience with both countries was a general welcoming to experience first hand the art and architecture. (Lounging was obviously encouraged as seen by the strategic placement of low lying walls, placed most advantageously for weary Canadians.)

It said to me, "Here. Here is how we lived. What we walked upon and the things we saw. It's been here for hundreds of years before you arrived and will be for many more centuries after you pass."

That being said, I understand the necessity of 'protecting' things from humanity.

We'd be fools to allow all our precious objects exposure to the elements and religious dictate (witness the loss of many fine genitals to mallets, chisels and fig leaves), but sometimes history really needs to be touched to be understood. (And no! I'm not referring to the aforementioned lost genitals!)

So I'm really grateful to Italy for allowing it's history to absorbed in a more visceral manner.

And I'm really thankful to Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) for carving the angels on the Ponte Sant'Angelo! My friends may laugh, but I've been crushing on Bernini since my last trip to Rome, and this trip just reinforced it.

We even made the trip to the church Santa Maria Maggiore to see his extremely modest tomb. In fact, it was so modest it was no more than a 'step up' to the main alter.

As that area was under some kind of restoration all I could do was wave and say 'thanks' to the man who took Baroque art and architecture to such marvelous heights in Rome.

(I didn't take that picture either. I couldn't even get near it! Thanks to mcsmith.blogs for this one!)

Returned!

2007-06-03T19:36:00.000-07:00

Oh yes, I'm BACK! And I'm TIRED!
We travelled in Italy for three sublime weeks.
Rome, Venice, Stresa, Cinque Terre, Florence, Siena and back to Rome for a final week where Spider, Jeff and I rented an apartment.

I wrote this post last night whilst still very tired so I thought I'd come back and fill in some gaps:
Spider Girl, her husband Jeff and Pol' and I all decided several years ago that we should go travelling together. We decided this was the year.
Pol had to leave after week two from Firenze (Florence), but the remaining three of us went on to spend a day in Siena and then on to a week in Rome in our very own apartment.

There are SO many pictures to choose from I can hardly decide on which to post.

I was thinking of doing a post for each city/town we spent time in...maybe I'll do that.

So to begin.

2 days in Rome and Ostia Antica *:

This is first picture is a detail from the fountain in the Piazza della Rotonda (outside the Pantheon)

And this one is me and one of the three 'faces' on display at Ostia Antica. I loved Ostia Antica. You could climb on the old walls and race around really exploring the grounds close up and personal. Though, truth be told, there wasn't much 'racing' going on as it was hot. Damn hot.

And the next two are from the forum. Blue sky, ancient marble and poppies.

Thanks to Spider for this picture, it's beautiful!

There will be more to come, I promise! But right now jet-lag has me cornered and cowering sleepily in a corner (yes, jet-lag. Still. But I think the cold I caught just before we left might have something to do with it as well.)

*Ostia Antica stood as a major port town for Rome from about the 3rd century BC. It was even larger than Pompei; about 3 times the size at one point. But times changed, of course and the Tiber began to silt up making it's use less reliable. By the 9th century Ostia was almost completely abandoned. Then came the tourists!

Oh, here's an interesting fact: The Leaning Tower of Pisa (never did see that, though we were at the train station in Pisa for about an hour!) was entirely built of material originally belonging to Ostia.

If you go out in the woods today.

2007-05-07T08:22:00.000-07:00

My dad and I went for a walk in the forest behind his house yesterday. We found a beleaguered old bridge, a lake and some very large trees.
It was a nice dose of 'wild' before a very civilized journey to Italy tomorrow.

To the opera we went.

2007-05-01T17:22:00.000-07:00

Saturday saw WhatsHisFace and I going to the opera for Mozart's "Don Giovanni".

I really enjoy this particular opera. It is dark and morally pointed, yet contains some true moments of puckish humour to lighten it.
Opera Buffo, I believe, is the original description given a few hundred years ago to describe it.

I'll not get into the story here, suffice to say Pacific Opera Victoria did a splendid job of presenting this particular opera.
Their production was visually beautiful (taking place in a large 'grand hall' of an obviously splendid mansion) and thrilling to the ear. The principles were talented and delightful.

Was there anything to complain about?
Fortunately, the opera company itself is above reproach.

Some of those in the audience, however, coulda used some edu-ma-catin'.
Honestly.
Wrinkled shorts coupled with socks and sandals? To the OPERA!?

Simply Scandalous!

Far be it for me to suggest that white tie and tails are required (although it's a lovely holdover) but a tuxedo, and at the very least a suit, should be de rigeur, no?

As WhatsHisFace points out, it seems improper to show up looking less well dressed than the help.
And it certainly doesn't do the fine production any compliment to appear as if one was expecting hot dogs and a baseball game instead of a demonstration of months of practice and talent.

Am I being too fussy?
Well, maybe.
But socks and sandals?

The peasants are revolting.

Dreams to comfort?

2007-04-25T18:26:00.000-07:00

The heron stood, waiting.
My camera clicked softly but I still worried that the sound might disturb his hunt, might draw attention to me.

Minutes passed slowly, and with every click I held my breath.
The heron ignored me and I took a series of stills.

Finished, my partner and I moved away from the shallow pond and further down the trail through the woods.

Then I could hear it in the background, against the silence of the trees.
Yapping. Barking.

There they were, the two of them. Emerging between the thin trunks.
Wolves. Threatening. Circling.

Standing up full I growled and lunged at them.
I knew this trick.
Stand up and reverse the threat.
Gnash teeth and bare fangs.
That stopped them for a moment.
My partner stood by me, unsure what was required.

Looking around I found a long log I might use against them. Picking it up I hefted it in my hands.
It was light and rotted through.
But it would have to do.

Turning and swinging, I hit the the closest one square in the head, breaking the rotted stick but sending him scurrying away.
The second didn't seem daunted.
I had to find another weapon.

An antler. It was blood damp from the felt sloughed off.

I swung at the last wolf. And swung again.
This didn't make sense.
I should be striking it every time. The distance between us was less than a foot.
Then I figured it out.
This was a ghost!

This wolf was a ghost.
It had incited the other true wolf into trying to attack us. That's why all my blows fell false. That's why I couldn't understand why a wolf was attacking me.
Wolves don't attack their own kind.

Realizing this, I just turned and walked away.
It faded into the back ground, no longer believed in.

My dreams just get curiouser and curiouser.

You wanna see my WHAT!?!

2007-04-19T14:44:00.000-07:00

"I'd like to buy this lottery ticket, please."

"Can I see some picture i.d.?"

"Oh no, I don't have any i.d. on me. I left it at home. I'm almost 35 years old, honest! "

"Sorry! Come back when you have it."

I so do NOT look like I'm 19, or even under 25 for that matter. What gives?
Must be the zit on my chin.

Conversation.

2007-04-16T20:13:00.000-07:00

As I exited the grocery store the automatic door hesitated so long I almost walked straight into it.

"This door is a little slow on the uptake." I commented over my shoulder to the two employees who almost ran into me when the door had neglected to react quickly enough.

"It does that to me, too. I think I don't have a soul." The taller man said.

I laughed. "Yes, that's definitely MY problem."

But where's MY little black dress?!?

2007-04-05T20:47:00.000-07:00

I've been looking for clothes to take travelling as of late, and have felt less than encouraged by the racks in the malls.
In fact, I'm this close to spinning around in the aisles a la fetal position chewing on my own hair.

Are there no reasonable travel clothes(I'm not talking kahki's here, I want casually comfortable, yet sylish clothes) that will be able to see me walk for miles and miles around Italy and then still be comfortable going to a decent restuarant the same evening?

My friends and I are going to be doing a LOT of walking. But I don't necessarily want to look like the stereo-typical backpacker (which is what I am) when I'm out.
Italy is the centre of fashion, the 'bella figura' is very important.

Love my jeans, and they will be accompanying me (even though every single guide book counsels against them, I don't care. I've always taken my jeans with me on all my travels and I've always been glad I did), but I want something OTHER than jeans to take, as well.

Ah yes, the little black dress.

I can't FIND one. Or, more to the point, I can't find one that will look good on me and that I want to pay actual cash money for.

To long. To short. To revealing. To dumpy. Won't look good unless I'm wearing heels. Don't want to wear heels as they are too inconvenient and impractical to pack around for a single 'special' occasion.
Ugh.

Don't the stores sell anything between 'whore' and 'gramma' any more?

We may never know.

Where are the zombies when you need them?

2007-03-31T19:00:00.000-07:00

Sweetbreads.
Also known as the 'ultimate organ meat'.
Also?
Offal.

In preparation for my upcoming trip to Italy, I'm researching a variety of regional specialties to try while I'm gadding about.

Many of the varied areas have special cheeses and breads, or delicious fish dishes (and, mmm, wine) that they hold as their gifts to the world.

Not Rome, though.

In Rome, it's offal.
And I'm just not sure how I feel about this.

I like to think that I shouldn't be squeamish about eating things like brains, pancreas and the innocent sounding thymus gland.
Curiosity about these dishes makes me want to try them, but part of me is already making it's feelings know.
My stomach doesn't seem to care, it's my own brains which are causing the ruckus.

Considering that I like to partake in a plate of liver and onions (and the occasionally kidney has been known to pass these lips) one could argue that I shouldn't have any problem savouring a bit of pan fried brain.
But even casually disguised behind a delicious sounding 'smoked maple-buttermilk puree', I'll know it's still brains.

I know I will have to try them.

I mean, if Anthony Bourdain (my culinary hero) can eat freshly chopped off seal face, surely I can indulge in some delicately cooked, tender morsels of sweetbreads. No?

Hope it's not (oh, forgive me) awful.

Excerpt from: 'The Nasty Bits' - Anthony Bourdain

(If I may just interject here? This following passage is very...uh...juicy. May I suggest NOT eating while reading the following passage? Just, you know, in case.)

I WENT SEAL HUNTING yesterday.
At eight a.m., swaddled in caribou, I climbed into a canoe and headed out onto the freezing waters of the Hudson Bay with my Inuit guides and a camera crew.
By three p.m., I was sitting cross-legged on a plastic-covered kitchen floor listening to Charlie, my host, his family, and a few tribal elders giggling with joy as they sliced and tore into a seal carcass, the raw meat, blubber, and brains of our just-killed catch. Grandma squealed with delight as Charlie cracked open the seal's skull, revealing its brains -- quickly digging into the goo with her fingers. Junior sliced dutifully at a kidney. Mom generously slit open one of the eyeballs (the best part) and showed me how to suck out the interior as if working on an oversize Concord grape.
From all sides, happy family members were busily dissecting the seal from different angles, each pausing intermittently to gobble a particularly tasty morsel. Soon, everyone's faces and hands were smeared with blood. The room was filled with smiles and good cheer in spite of the Night of the Living Dead overtones and the blood (lots of it) running across the plastic.
A Bonanza rerun played silently on the TV set in the normal-looking family room adjacent as Mom cut off a piece of snout and whisker, instructing me to hold it by the thick, strawlike follicles and then suck and gnaw on the tiny kernel of pink buried in the leatherlike flesh. After a thorough sampling of raw seal brain, liver, kidney, rib section, and blubber, an elder crawled across the floor and retrieved a platter of frozen blackberries. She generously rolled a fistful of them around in the wet interior of the carcass, glazing them with blood and fat, before offering them to me. They were delicious.
Words fail me. Again and again.
Or maybe it's me that fails the English language. My depiction of the day's rather extraordinary events is workmanlike enough, I guess…but, typically, I fall short. How to describe the feeling of closeness and intimacy in that otherwise ordinary-looking kitchen? The way the fifteen-year-old daughter and her eighty-five-year-old grandmother faced each other, nearly nose to nose, and began "throat singing," first warming up with simultaneous grunts and rapid breathing patterns, then singing, the tones and words coming from somewhere independent of their mouths, from somewhere…else?
The sheer, unselfconscious glee (and pride) with which they tore apart that seal -- how do I make that beautiful? The sight of Charlie, blood spread all across his face, dripping off his chin…Grandma, her legs splayed, rocking, rocking a crescent-shaped chopper across blubber, peeling off strips of black seal meat…How do I make them as sympathetic, as beautiful, in words as they were in reality?
"Without the seal, we would not be here," said Charlie. "We would not be alive." A true enough statement, but not an explanation. You'd have to have felt the cold up there, have seen it, hundreds and hundreds of miles without a single tree. You'd have to have gone out with Charlie, as I had, out onto that freezing bay, a body of water nearly the size of an ocean, watched him walk across a thin, tilting layer of ice to drag the seal back to the canoe. Heard, as we did, the resigned calls from other hunters over Charlie's radio, stuck out in a blizzard for the night, realizing they would have no shelter and no fire.
You'd have to have been in that room.

From The Nasty Bits. Copyright (c) 2006 by Anthony Bourdain. Reprinted by permission of Bloomsbury USA.

Top Picture: Sweetbreads with smoked maple-buttermilk puree, smoked grapes, marjoram, caper-mustard chips and ground espresso. (But it's still a bit of brain.)

My favorite things (Part I *)

2007-03-27T22:57:00.000-07:00

My blog has been a bit drab these days.

I thought ('cus it takes the pressure off having to really THINK) that I would present a few of my favorite things:

So here it goes!

I love fresh green peas.

Those sweet little morsels of green just waiting to be heated up and given a gentle bath in butter and lovingly sprinkled with salt and pepper.

Heck, even frozen green peas are fine as long as they retain that delightfully green explosion of sweet and fresh when they meet your teeth.

Nothing says spring quite like that.

(I know that some of you are wincing and recoiling, but I'm not talking about the mush of canned peas! Heaven forbid!! No, no! I speak of garden fresh succulence.

The essence of summer and forbidden garden raids.
Any other pea is to be shunned and reviled. Even in England where 'mushy peas' are proudly displayed on restaurant menus. Run.)

NEXT!

Unexpected people.
I've lived in this little city for almost half a year and haven't 'run into' anyone.

Then today?
They're popping out of the wood work.

First, a fellow pool player who used to live in my 'hood in Vancouver came up to me. "Excuse me, do you have an older sister who lives in Vancouver?"

It was pool playing Bob!
A quick chat about new times and old, then off he went; I'm sure both of us wondering if the old place still really existed anywhere but our memories.

Then?

My best friends younger brothers' wife (Hi Kira!)

I was dreaming near the broccoli when a voice announced itself.
My brain wasn't working exactly and it took me a moment to place her.
Ah! Kira!

So sorry I didn't have more time, but really...it was delightful to run into someone that I KNEW.
Someone I've had dinner with and whose in-laws I've known since time immemorial.
That's one of my favorite things.

Fleetwood Mac. Rumours. It makes me happy, it makes me weep. It's a beautiful and heart wrenching album.

My mom.

Of course.

It's as though I can't quite get enough of her.

She's happy and sweet and boy oh boy...I love that she knows how to curse.

If you were to work with her, you would find each of your birthdays replete with flower tributes and balloons and cake.

Her mission is to make people happy.
And she succeeds.

She makes people happy like no one else I know

Wow.

I just realized something.

There are so many things that I have in my life that make me happy.

My fabulous friends and What's-His-Face.

The fact that I can sit on a computer and tell all of you about all of my joys.

Oh!
My dinner tonight!

That made me happy. (Food seems to be a major part of my happiness!)
It consisted of a moist and flavourful pork chop, baby potatoes (whole heartily recommended by the green grocer), and (of course) crisp green peas. I can't think of anything else that might have been required.

Except a glass of white wine. Wine...which was wonderful!

Oh! More music.

I choose Jack Johnson.

One of my favorite albums today is his "In Between Dreams".

It's simple, happy music.

No complications and no issues; just easy melodies and light lyrics.

It's been called 'pap' and that's true.

I'm okay with that.

As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing that makes a sunny day a little brighter then the sweet, lilting lyrics of "Better Together".

Sometimes it's nice to have simple music to act as a background to new tulips and fresh mown grass...and that's how his music sounds to me.

So many things make me happy.

I have such a good life...and my joy is found in relatively 'minor' things.

Good food, good music, a happy home life and dear friends

I am rich beyond imagination.

I wish all of you the best of meals and the happiest of memories; including the ones that have yet to transpire.

*Yes. So that means that there will be a "Part II" Happy things. You keep your fingers crossed and so will I!

Blog-block.

2007-03-25T17:11:00.000-07:00

This damned block has got to give at some point....right?

It's been said that a writer...ahem.

That is, a "Writer" ought to write some everyday just to keep the machine oiled.

I've heard that. So...does this bit of dribble count?

Well, here's a lovely picture instead. It's Dante's Dream. By Rosetti.

"It represents the episode in the 'Vita Nuova' when Dante dreams of seeing Beatrice in death. Dante is led to Beatrice by the winged figure of Love, dressed in red, wearing the scallop shell of a pilgrim. Love carries a branch of apple-blossom, a spring flower and a symbol of unconsummated love, plucked before it comes to fruit. Poppies, the flower of sleep or death, litter the floor. The veil is laden with may-blossom, perhaps alluding to the season of Beatrice's death (June 9). A view of Florence is seen in the background."

I didn't need to hear that.

2007-03-21T14:24:00.000-07:00

We all do it, to some degree or other.
It's so EASY to do.
To judge someone.
To take a look at their exterior presentation and base our reaction, decision, judgement on that alone.

The other day while at the gym a young woman well she wasn't that young came in strutted in did a turn about the gym and then left thank goodness she left, I wouldn't want to have to stare at THAT all day

She was not very tall, and she had a rather stocky build with tits pushed up high enough to rest her chin on She was wearing a smallish gray sports bra and black tracks pants on which the waistband had been rolled down so that we could witness for ourselves the fact that she had a pubic bone and a butt crack

And she had a tan! All of her was the same gleaming brown, top to toe guess she's some one's idea of beautiful but she looks rather harsh maybe she didn't look at herself in the mirror before she left maybe she's trolling for something I think her pants are going to fall off

AND ON AND ON that nasty little voice in my head kept spewing ugly thoughts until I almost had to literally cry, "Cut it out!"
When did I become so judgemental and catty?
This is NOT the person I want to be.

Blargh.
So I'm trying to curb that.
It's not easy though.
I see the world through my perceptions, misconceptions and beliefs. The way I do things is the best way. It's difficult to view something that is alien to my strongly-held notions and be able see it as 'okay' and 'acceptable'.

I thought maybe thinking to myself, "What an interesting way to dress", or "That's a unique approach to manners" might help, but those are still judgements, aren't they?
So how to get around that.

Perhaps simply ignoring things that don't fit my beliefs is the way to approach the situation?
Whatever works I suppose.
I just want that horrid, judgemental voice to stop whispering in my ear because sooner or later it turns it's baleful proclamations on me and and I don't fare any better.

How it looks from here.

2007-03-15T15:54:00.000-07:00

I've been travelling up and down Vancouver Island for the last week, visiting friends, hanging out with my mom, hunting ghosts and wolves and taking pictures along the way.
I'd been away from this place for such a long time; I'm really trying to reacquaint myself with every nook and cranny again.

It's so beautiful here.

Here's a collection of pictures from this week...and it may just be a built in excuse as to why I haven't been a diligent blogger as of late!

So, without further ado, may I introduce my much loved mom, and my much loved island.

This is the view from atop the 'Malahat'. The drive from Victoria to head north requires traversing a precariously perched highway. It's a tight cornered and sharp curved road, but the view from the top on a clear day is worth the white knuckles.

And, of course, my dear mom.

And the camillia's are out, spreading their pink blossoms everywhere.

This dark and brooding picture is from the opposite end of the island, closest to Washington State. (In fact, I think you can SEE Washington from there on the horizon. Or maybe that's Japan.)
This picture is the furthest point of Vancouver Island, the very southern tip looking across the gray expanse.

This is a...daffodil? I'd never seen one quite like it. In fact, it's the only one I've seen like it.

So once the Malahat is conquered and you continue driving north, Qualicum Beach is eventually reached. Between the blue and the green and the snow sits a lovely little town where everyone drives under 50km (realllly slow) but it's okay because the view is sublime.

The last photo looking out from Willow's Beach in Victoria. This was taken earlier this month.

In the immortal words of Dorothy, "There's no place like home!"

Overheard.

2007-03-08T17:26:00.000-08:00

"Hey Aaron, what's your girlfriends last name?"

"MacLeod."

"Oh. Is she immortal?"

"Dunno, I haven't tried to cut off her head."

Still here!

2007-03-06T13:14:00.000-08:00

While it may appear that I've fallen off the edge of the earth, in truth, I'm still firmly planted here.
Gravity has a way of doing that.

Since my job ended, it's as if I don't have time to blog any more. Interestingly, I did most of my blogging at work!

So, there you have it. I'm still out and about, still plugging along.

Oh! Good news!

My money (which had been depleted from my bank account by persons unknown) is going to be restored to me!
I guess they finally concluded that I didn't orchestrate this theft myself and after a further investigation (they weren't going to refund my money until I shed a few tears) they did find that my debit card had been compromised some where along the way.

I'm so glad...and I guess it shows that...that...I'm not sure. Shows that the 'system' works? Nah, that's not quite what I mean.
Shows that being a good person will eventually see positive results? Nope, that's definitely not it.
Well, anyway.
My faith in something is restored.

The answers to all your questions. (Sort of.)

2007-02-26T13:47:00.000-08:00

"Mind your P's and Q's!" Gnightgirl, that must have been a VERY bad date! My handy, dandy little book offered no explanation. But I did find all of this information:

The date of the coinage of mind your Ps and Qs is uncertain. The OED used to print a citation from 1779 but, as they have now withdrawn it from the online version of the dictionary, presumably they consider it unreliable.
So, the meaning, spelling and coinage of the phrase are all debatable.
Now we come to what is really uncertain - the derivation.
Nevertheless, it is one of those phrases that people know the origin of. When pressed all that really means is that the person they heard explain the origin had made a random choice from the list of proposed derivations below.
As no one knows the origin I'll just list those suggestions - mind your ps and qs derives from one of these:

- Mind your pints and quarts. This is suggested as deriving from the practise of chalking up a tally of drinks in English pubs (on the slate). Publicans had to make sure to mark up the quart drinks as distinct from the pint drinks. This is a favourite of folk-etymology. It is scuppered somewhat by the fact that drinks were rarely sold in quarts in English pubs.

- Advice to printer’s apprentices to avoid confusing the backward-facing metal type lowercase Ps and Qs. I've never heard any suggestion that printer should mind their Ds and Bs though and that has the benefit of rhyming which would have made it a more attractive slogan.

- Mind your pea (jacket) and queue (wig). Pea jackets were short, rough woollen overcoats, commonly worn by sailors in the 18th century. Perruques were full wigs worn by fashionable gentlemen. It is difficult to imagine who might be seen wearing both a pea jacket and a perruque.

- Mind your pieds (feet) and queues (wigs). This is suggested to have been an instruction given by French dancing masters to their charges. This has the benefit of placing the perruque in the right context - so long as we accept the phrase as being originally French. There's no reason to suppose it is from France and no version of the phrase exists in French.

- It is advice to children learning to write to take care not to mix up the lower-case letters p and q.

- It derived as reminder to children to be polite. This is supposed to be as a form of 'mind your pleases and thank-yous' - 'mind you pleases and kyous'. Pretty far-fetched that one.

"For Pete's sake!" Kimber, I think that everyone else is right about this, Pete is just a poor sod (well, maybe it's supposed to be St. Peter) whose name is evoked for no other reason than to avoid taking the 'Lords' name in vain. And my book contained no information about it. Which we shall see is a continuing theme in this post!

"Fill your boots." Ms. Eigler, this book just continues to disappoint! I did find this rather revolting little suggestion, however: I read one reference which suggested that the phrase originated with the English Cavaliers, who wore thigh-high riding boots. When drinking, rather than stepping outside to relieve himself, a Cavalier apparently had the option of doing so into his boots. Thus, "filling his boots" meant he could drink all he wanted without leaving the table. Gross, but is it true?

"It's a load of cod's wallop." I've heard this one before, LGS, and was wondering about it myself. But guess what, my amazing tome of information didn't have a word on this phrase either. But what I found was:
Entry revised for OED Online
codswallop
DRAFT REVISION Jan. 2006
slang.
Also cod's wallop. Origin unknown.It is often suggested that this word is from British soft drinks manufacturer, who patented several designs for mineral water bottles in the 1870s Codd + WALLOP n. (see sense 4c at that entry), and that it was originally used by beer drinkers as a derogatory term for soft drink. However, no evidence has been found for early use of the word in this sense, and derivation from the surname is not supported by early spellings.

"Bread and pull it." Blackcrag...I have to tell you, that sounds rather more crude than I can imagine your mother using! But then, I do have a knack of twisting things. Anyway, my perpetually useless little book didn't say a word about it, but I did look around a bit and found this conversation online:
Posted by Smokey Stover on June 02, 2004
In Reply to: Re: Bread and Pull it posted by ESC on June 02, 2004
: : My father, a man of Kent, used to use the phrase 'Bread and pull it' when asked what was for dinner/tea, whatever. Has anyone heard this phrase or know it's origin? Should the 'pull it' bit perhaps be 'poulet'? and if so, why bread and chicken?

: I'm from the U.S. and haven't heard that phrase. But my guess is that it was a joke. You may wish for bread and poulet for dinner. But all you get is bread and "pull it." As in pull off another hunk of bread.

Kentish folkways are out of my line, but it seems reasonable for a man talking about food to say "Bread and pullet." In the U.K., as in the U.S., a pullet is a young hen, and is usually considered quite edible, properly prepared. SS

"Now put that in your pipe and smoke it." Josie, I laughed when I read that! My grandma used to say that all the time, all the while looking very pleased with herself. You're right, it was a conversation stopper!
And guess what.
Nothing in the book. And nothing really anywhere. I mean, lots of places online had what it meant (not that it's difficult to figure out) but I couldn't find anywhere that explained where the phrase came from. If anyone knows....?

Here's a few that ARE in the book (which has sunk considerably in my estimation since I started this little project):

"Peeping Tom" Why do we call a person who makes a practice of peeping a "peeping Tom"? It's because the tailor who tried to get a look at Lady Godiva as she rode naked through the streets was named Tom. Though this particular Tom was struck blind.

"Hoodlum" How did ruffians come to be called 'hoodlums'? It's all due to illegible handwriting. In an attempt to coin a name for a San Francisco gang, a reporter took the name of the gang-leader, Muldoon, and reversed it making "Noodlum." The typesetter couldn't read his writing and set it up as "Hoodlum".

"Cheshire Cat" Where did we get the expression "grin like a Cheshire cat"? From Ireland. Cheeses once sold in Cheshire County, Ireland were molded to look like cats - and these "cheese cats" had very broad grins.

Ah, just the look I was booking for!

2007-02-21T20:15:00.000-08:00

I have a new book in my possession.

"Why Do We Say It? - The Stories Behind the Words, Expressions and Cliches We Use."

The title is long. The book is...a bit odd.

BUT, it does have some very interesting information to dispense.

For instance:

Why is the center spot of a target called a "bulls-eye"? Aboard sailing ship, a 'bulls-eye' is an oval wooden block without a sheave but with a groove around it for the band and a hole in the center through which a small line may be drawn. A target with a center spot looks something like this block and the block looks something like an actual bull's eye-whence the name.

How did the word "lump" get into the expression "if you don't like it, you can lump it"? * A person's face will often look "lumpy" after crying. So to "lump it" is to sulk or look sulky-and the phrase "like it or lump it" means "like it or sulk".

Why do we say an apologetic person "eats humble pie"? Because of a pun. The entrails of deer ** are called 'umbles' and at one time these 'umbles' were made into a pie which the servants and huntsmen of a lord ate-while the lord and his guests ate the carcass. So a person who humbled himself was said to "eat humble pie".

Okay...one more!

What is the origin of the expression "I've got the willies"? The term comes from "wiffle-woffles." "Wiffle-woffles" are "collie-woffles" or "collie-wobbles." If your stomach is upset, you have the "colic" and it seems to "wobble". ***

This book has some strange reasoning in it, but it IS occasionally informative.

If anyone has any queries of their own, line them up in the comments for me and I'll see if the amazing "book of cliches" has an answer for you. Which I will turn in to my next post!

Because I am lacking in new and exciting post ideas and need help.

Seriously. I need help. ****

* Hmm. Yes, I do believe I heard my mom say that to me once or twice. It's nice to know that it really DID mean something after all.

(I mean, I could figure out, "You're cruising for a bruising", all by myself.)

** Wow, deer entrails again! ('Cus it it takes GUTS to make this blog what it is.)

*** Uh...no, I can't say I really get this explanation! But it's got to do with GUTS and that's enough for me!

****Have I mentioned needing help?

Life in a small town.

2007-02-16T08:37:00.000-08:00

Remember that night we all snuck out?

Was it summer?

It might have been, I don't remember being cold.

Out into the night we went, out into the forest.
Up the old dark dirt road for no better reason than because.
I couldn't see a thing! Our steps were slow and cautious, and the rocks glinted; a fraction of a moon to show the way.

Off in the dim woods to the side of the path; a rustling sound.

It's a dog! "It's Jeremy!"

The happy mutt who shared so many of my paper delivery mornings found me again in the middle of the night and joined us for this dark trek.

Soon though, fretting over twisted ankles and worrying about angry parents we turned back down the path. Now we had to make our way down to 'civilization'.

That was just as difficult as forward progress.
Loose rocks, slippery slopes and Jeremy bounding under our feet made the return trip even more difficult.
As we made our way back to hard concrete and streetlights, we past a horrible stench buried deep in the woods.

We scampered past quickly. Fetid and disgusting weren't what we had planned on.

I idly wondered where the dog was as we emerged from the dark, when he bounded ahead of us making his presence known; a coiling stretch of something following behind him in a long line.
"What does he have?"

"I think...I think...oh my god!! That's intestine!!"

Sure enough, Jeremy the good dog was skipping along ahead of us with 2o feet of gut and entrails straggling behind him.
"That must of been that smell! Someone must of dressed a deer and left the guts there."

So we followed the bloody dog prints home that midnight.
The next day there will be gore and entrails all over our small town, and only we would know why.

Ripped off.

2007-02-12T17:29:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a lovely day. A long walk, a good lunch and a good dinner planned out.

Everything was proceeding nicely.

I bought a bottle of wine for dinner, and was id'd (carded) by the teller (at almost 35 I got ID'D!! If that isn't enough to make my month!) and then on to make purchases for dinner.

But...my bank card wasn't working at the debit machine at the cash register (it happens), so I went to the on site bank machine to withdrawal enough to cover my groceries.

"Insufficient funds." What ominous words.

I left the store, embarrassed and confused. I'm a little less than perfect in my account keeping, but I KNEW that something was dramatically wrong.

When I got home, I logged into my bank account online, only to discover...all of my money was missing.

In a single withdrawal from an undefined ABM machine, hundreds and hundreds of my hard earned dollars were stolen.

This morning at the bank they said it would take at least a month for the investigation to be concluded, and at that point they would be able to make the decision to refund my money. Or not.

I'm lucky. I didn't have three hungry children waiting for me at home to bring back dinner. There was only me and I have plenty of food, gas and everything else to suffice 'til pay day.

This theft left me annoyed and inconvenienced, but it could have left someone else in very dire straits indeed.

But I guess the people who do such things aren't thinking about anyone but themselves.

Narcissism 101

2007-02-10T18:51:00.000-08:00

I blame it all on Spider Girl.
She said, "When we're old, we'll be happy to see good photographs of ourselves."
(Well, it's not exactly a direct quote, but it'll suffice!)

So here's lookin' at me!

Just a foggy day in Courtenay, BC. Eagle and fish skeleton included.

2007-02-07T20:19:00.000-08:00

Ghoti is the new fish.

2007-02-04T11:38:00.000-08:00

Ghoti = fish

laugh = f
women = i
fiction = sh

How is ANYONE supposed to figure this stuff out!?!

English is a hard language to learn! It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, really, when you pick it apart.
I've been speaking it, reading it and mangling it for my entire life. And it shows! I've always sufferd from 'bad' spelling.
But I kwestcheeon whethur my spelling is baad or just individualistik.

Wind wind wound wound pear pair pare tear tear tare were where wear read read

fawggy day

i before e except after c...and except in neighbour and weigh.
That's just great. The logic astounds.
Who made up these rules, anyway?

I read somewhere (perhaps Bill Bryson's "Mother Tongue") that many of the spelling decisions (desishuns) we make these days were merely put in place by some guy who preferred words to look a certain way (weigh, whey).
Take fulfill, for instance.
It's not FULLFILL, the second 'L' has been dropped. Why? 'Cus some guy deesided it luked better that way.
I give up.
If it whernt four spell chek, it's possibell that my posts wood be unreedible.

Ore allmost.
Becuz alltho thee spelling apeers hard on thee aye, it m(aches) cents.

We have so many rules and exceptions to the rooelles that English as it stands should not be the most spoken langwage in the world, it should be the leest.
Japanese has no exepshuns.
Maybee wee shud lern it, insted.

Arigato for yore thyme.

Revisiting Weird.

2007-01-30T17:43:00.000-08:00

My friend Ian from 'Or So I Thought' tagged me with a list to do.

Those of you have read my blog for a while know that I did a blog dedicated to the fact that I'm NOT weird.

Well.

I'm re-thinking that.

So here's something weird.

1) My family had no phone while I was a child/teenager. How is it possible that I survived, you may be asking yourself. Sheer luck. Mind, that wasn't exactly something that I did that was/is strange. But it sure explains a lot of things about me, now doesn't it!

Here's two things that are weird about me (though I prefer 'quirky') and they both pertain to my car.

2) I have both a mini-disco ball AND a skull and crossbones air freshener hanging from my rear view mirror.

Here is the pictorial evidence:

I can explain the skull and crossbones. I can't explain the disco ball.

3) I have a menagerie of small rubber animals also in my car. This study in wildlife (picture shown) includes 3 tiger cubs (1 is missing from the picture at this time due to the fact that I had it on my person and was carrying it around. Because I am 7.) a bat and a lizard. And there used to be a playmobile vampire in there too. Oh. And a very small rock.

Okay. So I'm half way there.

Uh.

4) I can eat the same thing for breakfast for weeks, nay, months without tiring of it. Recently it 's been an English muffin with a scrape of peanut butter and a banana. And a cup of tea. Of course.

5) I like transformers. Because I am still 7. Again, I have pictorial evidence of a mangled transformer that I bought for myself and then failed to correctly 'transform'. Please say hello to 'Snarl' the two headed, pigeon toed autobot.

Don't laugh. He's sensitive.

AND! At last!

6) whew! I didn't think I'd make it this far. But I have to tell you, I'm really scraping the bottom of the barrel here.

How bout this.

I've met many very famous people over the years and I don't have a single autograph to show for it.

I won't ask for one.

In fact, I generally introduce myself and ask them their name. Just to see what kind of reaction I'll get.

Interestingly, none of them ever rolled their eyes and asked me what rock I just emerged from under.

And that's my list. I'm tagging Spider Girl, Kimber and Pol. If they include their friendship with me as one of their 'weird' things, I'd be flattered. (I think.)

Pardon me while I lose my mind.

2007-01-25T13:03:00.000-08:00

I went for a half an hour walk at lunch at came back to work a whole different person.

Seriously.

I have no clue who I am.

What an indescribable feeling; there's a dream-like quality to my life at this moment that I just can't quite bring into focus.

The edges are blurry and uncertain.

Frankly, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if I suddenly found myself on a ocean bound frigate, astride a great black horse galloping around the deck.

I would, of course, still be answering a phone trying to explain to someone named Pete that the door into summer doesn't really exist.

Oops! Where was I.

Right.

For one thing, this job I find myself at perplexes me.

How the hell did I get here?

It feels like an older woman named Hazel or Sally or perhaps Mavis should be sitting where I'm sitting, looking at the bright yellow tulips and occasionally staring at the computer screen with a slightly concerned look on her kindly face.

I am sure I don't know how I got here in her place.

Must be a mistake in human resources or something.

I'll have to look into that.

It's as if the last thing I remember was doing a brake stand at the local gas station in my old Charger when I was 17, then suddenly being woken up to life as an adult in an adult job doing adult things.

Paying car insurance, eating healthy foods...saving for the 'future'.

Exercising regularly.

Uh-oh.

I didn't suddenly just 'grow up' did I?

I thought that this was supposed to be gradual thing! I wanted to have time to get used to the idea.

Nobody mentioned to me that my 'adulthood' would occur at 12:38pm on a Thursday in late January!

What a surreal feeling!

Well, perhaps I'll wake up now and find myself 17 years old, wondering where my life is going to take me.

On the other hand, it could just be the fresh air going to my head.

Also?

During my sleep hazed morning today, I accidentally slid my work pants on without undoing them first.

Drycleaner must have stretched them out.

Tsk tsk.

Guess I'll have to speak to him about that!

Snowdrops!

2007-01-24T13:31:00.000-08:00

I could smell it in the air today...spring!

As early as it is, the scent of warm earth was wafting about on the breeze today.

And my snowdrops have emerged!

Hard to imagine how such a delicate flower finds the strength to emerge in the middle of winter, but they do, and boy-howdy am I ever glad for it.

To my mind, they're the harbingers of a new season, even if it does mean another 3 months of slogging rain.

Camille's Restaurant - Victoria

2007-01-22T11:30:00.000-08:00

This is what I had for dinner on Saturday!

Lemon, ginger and prawn bisque - thick, rich delicately flavored with an intriguing heat to it...there was a oil drizzled over which was the source of the heat but I forgot to ask exactly what it was

Warm duck confit salad (baby organic greens, sweet peppers, mandarins, sesame citrus vinaigrette - I LOVE duck. And I love it in tender little slices dressed with citrus and nestled on fresh greens

Rack of venison with a Sambaar spice rub, red wine jus, curried potato and spinach ragout, orange mint and mango relish. - This was by far one of the best pieces of meat that I have had. I hate to get all cliche about it, but it simply melted in the mouth. The spice added a depth of flavour without overwhelming the meat, and the meat was cooked as per the chef's recommendation...rare

Cheese plate - Natural Pastures Comox Camembert, Blue D'Auvergne, Parmigianno Reggiano, dried fruit brioche (balsamic vinegar reduction) - What a nice 'in-between dish', just a few bitefuls of very good cheese. The Blue D'Auvergne was wonderful; creamy and pungent. The flavour just filled the mouth, but didn't demolish the palate in the way that a too heavy blue can do

Burnt honey ice cream served with tulle cookies and fresh fruit - This was an interesting ice cream. It wasn't served 'freezing', so the layers of flavour really had a chance to show off. The honey was predominant, but underneath was a carmel taste (the 'burnt' aspect) I don't love ice cream, but it was a small portion and so unusually flavoured that I ate it all up happily

Each dish was paired with a wine from British Columbia, except for the port with dessert, which was Australian (and it was fabulous!).

What a great way to experience a new restaurant at it's finest.
By selecting the 'tasting menu', you hand over your heart (and paycheck sometimes!) to the chef and let him feed you.
At a great restaurant like Camille's, you're guaranteed to eat well and for a long time. WhatHisFace and I sat at dinner for two and a half hours of relaxed, delicious luxury.
Worth every penny.

One of the other nice things about this restaurant is the fact that they are seasonally inspired; the waiter said that their menu changes as much as once a week, as well.
I really can't wait to see what their spring offerings entail!

(And by spring I shall have saved enough money to go back!)

Heavy shoes.

2007-01-18T10:20:00.000-08:00

This going to the gym regularly (and right now, vying for precious gym equipment...what a bunch of treadmill vultures we are at this time of the year!) and eating healthy, nutritious foods in correctly sized portions certainly has it's draw backs.

One of these drawbacks is that I haven't lost a single pound.
Not a one.
In fact, I seem to be gaining them willy-nilly! ('Willy-nilly'. If anyone can tell me where that little phrase derives from I'd be mightily impressed!)

Squinting at the scale out of one eye and hoping that the last 8 is actually a 1 doesn't seem to be working very well for me at all.
Even subtracting the required 10* lbs** to allow for clothing weight doesn't seem to help in the way I wish it would, and I doubt very much that the gym would encourage me to strip down to get a more accurate reading.
(I don't own a bathroom scale. It saves scads of money. Just think of all the money I've saved by not having to continually repair the bathroom window each time I fling the scale through it! Always thinking ahead, I am.)

Anyway, this is annoying and distressful and counter productive and makes me want to throw my hands up in despair but I can't because my arms are sooo stiff and sore from lifting the heavy heavy weights eleventy times in a row.

Also?
My clothes no longer fit me properly. Skirts threaten to slip off...jeans hang in unattractive sags.
Bloody hell! I can't afford a new wardrobe!
(Guess I should have thought of this little side affect before I let Spider Girl drag me to the gym that gray day last November.)

So to sum up:
- I continue to weigh the same, if not more, despite frequent excursions to the torture cham...gym. To the gym.
- Am now financially strapped due to new clothing purchases to fit a body that, while it hasn't lost any weight, seems to be going through some sort of unorganized metamorphosis.

Great.

Oh! And I thought quitting smoking was a good idea too, until I learned that people who smoke are less susceptible to Parkinson's. What if I get Parkinson's!?! Gosh, then I'll regret quitting smoking, won't I!
(Funny, I was never that concerned about Parkinson's before.)

So this is how my future looks, huh?
I'll be this weight forever, dressed in ill-fitting clothes 'cus I can't afford to buy new ones AND I'll be shaking uncontrollably.

And I signed UP for this?

Actually, I don't recall signing anything...not even a waiver. (Really, a gym should make you sign a waiver. They're so susceptible to litigation, don't you think? In fact, I think I feel a definate but undefined training injury caused by facility carelessness coming on right. now.)

I guess I could lapse back into sloth and corpulence. (mmm, corpulence)
But the last drawback of all this damned exercising is that part of me actually feels good about doing it.

Bring on the endorphins...I'm gonna need 'em!

*It is 10lbs, right?
I've been sorely tempted to allow for 12 or even 15lbs as I believe that my running shoes are tragically heavy.

**Yes. I use pounds, despite living in a metric country. I also use inches, feet and miles. Buck the system, I say!

Ah. Sweet, sweet dreams.

2007-01-15T09:42:00.000-08:00

My subconscious self certainly likes to mess with my mind.

Here, for instance, is a little message whispered into my ear during a battle * scene from my dreams last night:

"Better to go quickly than to die slowly in some friends bathroom."

Great.

Thanks, brain, for that warm and delightful thought delivered to me as I slumbered.
I surely needed to be reminded not to die in any of my friends' bathrooms, and instead ought to try opting for a quick death.
On a battlefield, say.

Nice.

*In truth, it was more of a skirmish than a full-blown battle.
We were preparing for a siege when the first wave of invaders hit.
Some of the enemy managed to make it through our first line of defense...squeezing through as our huge metal gates crashed shut.
It was at this point, with enemy forces rounding the corner, that the man in charge bellowed, "Ah, I can feel it in my gut this is the right thing." Then he dropped his voice to a whisper as he leaned toward my ear, "Better to go quickly...."

"Gosh, I'm SO glad to talk to you!"

2007-01-09T14:39:00.000-08:00

In the course of my work day today, I just happened to speak to someone that I haven't talked to for years.

She and her friends been my (and my friends) mortal enemies since elementary school.
The constant humiliation only ceased, I suspect, because grade 12 came and went and they no longer had easy access to us due to life moving on.

And of course, life did move on.

I left and moved far away for years; my other friends married and moved and grew up and matured as we are all want to do.

And then today:

"Hi. This is Tai calling from MenWearingTies Inc. I'm trying to get some information on community plans, is there anything available?" I asked.

"Sure, I can e-mail you the updated version if you like, what's your e-mail address?" She replied.

"It's Tai (insert last name here)@MenWearingTies.com" I answered.

"Did you go to (insert name of small town where we grew up)?" I can hear her sound surprised at the other end of the line.

"Yes. Is this Becky Smith?" I sort of knew that she worked where I was calling, but I didn't at all suspect that I would have to talk with her.

So, the surprise 're-union' concluded with a 5 minute catch up on the last 15 years of our lives and a sweet, "Take care" at the end of the conversation.

It just gives me the willies.

I'm all for moving on and growing up and getting better with age, but some of the stuff from back then feels less than 'resolved'.
The fakeness of the congenial inquiries bothered me.
We didn't like each other back then, and in between now and then there has been no occasion where we re-connected on a friendly level. *

I felt deceitful and disconnected as I chatted with her.
I can still feel my own sticky smile pulling uncomfortably back from my teeth while listening to her speak about the home she and her husband had built.

I wonder if she was sneering and laughing at me from the other end of the phone line.

Probably not.

But 12 year old Tai still cringes at the thought.

* I had to come back and add something, lest I be misunderstood.
I don't dislike who she is today, I don't even know her.
But truth be told though, I think that even should the opportunity arise, I wouldn't want to engage her (or any of them) in friendship as adults.
The old playing ground is too uneven and sullied.

Forgive and forget, certainly.
But that doesn't mean I have to play with them any more.

Books and birds and time for more coffee.

2007-01-01T19:20:00.000-08:00

I've been a slightly less than proficient blogger these past days, and for that I do apologize.

Hopefully, I have a valid set of excuses...the least of which isn't my reading list.

I have (and I truly mean this literally) a stack up to my kneecaps of books that are just demanding my attention.
Shall I list them?
Oh, alright...just because you asked!

"The Flamingo's Smile: Reflections in Natural History" - Stephen Jay Gould

"War" - Gwynne Dyer (I'm right in the middle of this book and I'm finding it very well written and very interesting. Mr. Dyer doesn't seem to be overly fond of war, nor does he argue against it; instead, he offers an intriguing history of why war exists today in the manner that it does.)

"Night Watch" - Sergei Lukyanenko

"Guns, Germs, and Steel" - Jared Diamond (I read one of his other books, "Collapse", and it was riveting. He has an ability to take a subject and paint it in such a manner that even the layperson can relate to and understand the concepts and principles in an informed and intelligent manner.)

"The Kingdom of the Cults" - Walter Martin

"Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths" - Karen Armstrong

"Time Lord" - Clark Blaise (This looks very intriguing! All about a Candian who came up with the concept of universal time zones back in 1884.)

"The Perfect Heresy" - Stephen O'Shea

"Dinosaur in a Haystack" - Stephen Jay Gould

"Steal This Book" - Abbie Hoffman (I read this when I was about 16. I probably shouldn't have. I suspect it's worth reading again just because I am twice that age now!)

"A Short History of Nearly Everything" - Bill Bryson (Bill Bryson. What can one say. He's funny, entertaining, intelligent, substantial and informed. He writes great books.)

"Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology" - Kenneth L. Feder

"The Head of God: The Lost Treasures of the Templars" - Keith Laidler

"House of Stairs" - William Sleator (This is another book I read when I was in my mid-teens. I remember it as being rather 'anti-teen'. While the premise is not really plausible, it seemed terribly disturbing given how I felt about adults at the time!)

"On the Take: Crime, Corruption and Greed in the Mulroney Years" - Stevie Cameron (Who doesn't love a little Canadian muckraking now and then!)

Most of these books I borrowed from my dad.
He has a huge and varied collection of books; I rather suspect that he would like me to read them all in one go!

When I visit, we sit and talk for hours over several cups of (very) strong coffee and watch the Chickadees and Stellar Jays at his bird feeder vying for the peanut butter he's scraped into the cut away bottom of a milk container.

As the afternoon/evening winds on, and the more topics we discuss, the bigger the stack of reference books grows in front of me.

In the end, I generally have 20 or more books to choose from and I must restrain myself.
My car can only sustain so much extra weight, and hardcover books are very heavy.

These kind of afternoons are good.
The last time I was there, the snow was drifting down past the kitchen window; I could hear the church bells ringing from a few blocks away, all clouded and dense sounding because of the heavy snow dampening the air.

My dad turned the front burner of the stove on and stood warming his hands as we discussed modern political agendas and viewed pictures of the skulls of caribou, moose and deer whose antlers clashed together in an unrelenting tangle until death.

Whatever our discusion, there are books to be had. I think we each find comfort in the conversation and the fact that we have our books to back us up and fortify us.

So that's where I am.
My stack of books calls.

Just a few short months away.

2006-12-27T21:20:00.000-08:00

I love this time of year.
Not for the presents or the holiday 'cheer', but because I know that from now on, each day will stretch out just a little bit further and the light will last a little bit longer.

Soon spring will arrive and the flowers will come out of the dark, cold earth.

Hurry, Spring, I miss you!

(Oh, and while I'm here, I do hope everyone had a delightful holiday, no matter what the occasion!)

On storms and small rocks.

2006-12-19T18:51:00.000-08:00

I went for a drive around the extreme southern coast of Vancouver Island yesterday...it was such a bright and sunny Sunday that I couldn't resist going through a tank of gas.

I stopped at a number of places along the way.
One of the first places I stopped was at Whiffen Spit near the very famous Sooke Harbour House (which I'm to lazy to link to). It's considered a prime international destination (EnRoute voted it the best 'country inn' in the world this year) due in large part to both it's specatular views, as well as it's food offerings.

I continued further along the tip of the Island and went into a lovely meadery along the way. Called the "Tugwell Creek Meadery", it's a lovely 'vinyard' specializing in honey and fruit based wines. They are very good and rather unusual.

I found this gargoyle nestled in the garden at the front gate.

And they had a Medieval declaration on how to care for bees posted by the wine cellar:

"Thou must not be given to surfeiting and drunkenesse."

I think I've got the surfeiting under control, anyway!

But as lovely as this adventure was, it was amazing and scary to see the evidence of the beating the south coast and Vancouver Island took in the aftermath of the recent storms that crashed through here.
It was a mess all along the road; huge trees the size of vehicles smashed down, homes crushed and telephones lines down everywhere.

I saw at least 7 crews working (on a Sunday!) to try to restore power and clear lines. I think it's lucky no one was killed by this storm, by the looks of it.

Comments anyone?

2006-12-15T16:41:00.000-08:00

I suspect I'm not alone in this, but I'd like to add my complaint.

There are so many blogs I can't leave comments on! I've tried several times a day over several days with no luck.

Believe me...I've got things to say; I just don't seem to be able to!

Anyone else have this problem? Is there anything I can do or is it simply a 'blogger issue' that has yet to be resolved?

----------------

In other news, I have a new job!
Since moving to Victoria, I've been looking and looking and wasn't having much luck until now.
My new job is a block from my home and pays more for less work hours than my last job. Not to bad!
What will I be doing?
Well. Uh. I'll be...and then, um.

Yeah.

Not sure.

Executive assistant for a bunch of managers for the Ministry of Health by the sounds of it. Possibly making travel arrangements?
It's all a little vague.
BUT it's only for two months.
And that it's with the government means I'll have my foot in the door for other (hopefully!) cushy government jobs in the future.
As long as, you know, I don't burn the place down trying to make coffee or something.

I start Monday. And I'm rather nervous. But I'm sure I'll be fine. After all, I don't have a clue what I'm doing!

What's WRONG with me?!?

2006-12-09T16:45:00.000-08:00

Weird things. A list of them.
But...what?

If I suffered from OCD, I could put something interesting down like, "count how many starlings (and only starlings) on my way home from the corner store" or "twist my left pinky 11 times when starting the laundry".
But I don't have even the slightest trace of OCD.

I don't care which way the toilet paper faces, and I'm not particular about how many wipes it takes to dry a bowl as opposed to a plate.

I don't NEED my clothes to be hung in a certain way, or my shoes to be pointing out.

I'm starting to wonder if I'm normal. I mean, everyone else has endearing little quirks that they need to see them through the day.

What do I do that could be contrived of as 'weird'.

The only thing that may qualify (and it's not something that I 'do' exactly), are my dreams.

Sounds pretty normal, yes? Everyone dreams.
But I defy anyone to hear any one of my dreams and find any kind of normalcy amongst them.

Full-blown, techni-colour 'lights-sounds-smells' dramas of epic proportions.

I've woken myself up during a particularly loud AC/DC contest.
I believe the contender playing 'Hells Bells' won, but as I said it woke me up.

I have dreams in which I die, only to be propped up in front of a mirror to watch myself decay; flying dreams and lucid dreams.
Dreams that spread themselves out over several days in the telling. Did I mention I can smell in my dreams, too?

I realize that everyone dreams, but I seriously think that my dreams can be easily defined as 'weird', even by weird dream standards.

What else?

I don't like cold leftovers but I hardly think that counts.

I always condition my hair after I shampoo. Definitely not weird.

Even when I smoked, I didn't have any habits like turning the first cigarette upside down and smoking it last for luck or tapping my cigarette a required number of times before lighting it.

Perhaps being an RPG'er might be constituted as strange in some circles, but the crowd I run with are all gamers, so it's normal/expected. It's nothing I can include in a list of "6 weird things about me".

Maybe I could include that I don't love shopping. That might just be a weird thing.

I was SURE I would have lots of things to make up a list with. With bowed head I must admit defeat.
Guess I'm not as weird as I once prided myself.
What a shame!
All these years I thought I was strange and it turns out that I'm really very normal.
How strange!

How December 6th looks in Victoria, BC

2006-12-06T17:48:00.000-08:00

I walked all over Victoria today, enjoying the sunshine and balmy weather.

It's such a beautiful city, and Victoria loves to play up it's British heritage by keeping a close eye on how buildings downtown are renovated and maintained.
I read in a travel book once that Victoria is more English than England...and even if that isn't true, there is certainly effort made towards that claim!

Victoria's a really visually interesting city; it's range of architecture and style is wide and colourful.
I love these buildings...such bright colours are a boon to downtown design. Quite a lot of the buildings that comprise the core of Victoria are painted cheerfully. (But with complimentary colours of course. Needn't have anything clashing!)

Of course, here's a Public House, "The Penny Farthing". Doesn't get more English than that, I suspect!

I put this tree picture in just because the seed pods looked so soft and furry. I don't know what kind of tree it is, but the white fluff stood out so clearly against the black of the branch and the blue of the sky it simply had to be photographed.

Victoria was also a very important Chinese immigration point at the turn of the century and even further back.

It's now a large and vibrant Asian community that remains a valuable part of this city.

The 'Chinatown' stands side by side the beautiful old cathedrals and nestles comfortably amongst the the tartan shops and Irish pubs.

For a small city, Victoria certainly has a variety of cultural influence.

I'm ALIVE!

2006-12-05T10:58:00.000-08:00

Hi all...sorry 'bout the blogfree week I've had.
I blame the 'flu entirely.

I'm just about fully recovered, and with a little bit of luck, will have an interesting and informative post for you kind readers in the next day or two.

And if I don't, I feel confident that someone else will!

The sniggering is NOT becoming.

2006-11-27T16:36:00.000-08:00

Over here in Victoria, we pride ourselves on the fact that we have the mildest climate and recieve the most sunshine in Canada.

Sometimes (and I'll grant this is rather mean), we like to call people who live in other, colder parts of Canada and casually mention that our daffodils have been out for about a week already.
In February.

We're a cruel bunch.

However, we too suffer at the hand of fate; 'lo...we received our first snowfall of the year.