Saturday 29 December 2007

Images

My brain finds faces in almost all textured surfaces. Popcorn ceiling, marble floors or counters, the way a shirt is wrinkled, the way a blanket is kicked off to the side, the grain in wood, the freckles on my arms. My brain looks at these things and immediately finds the faces in them. If there just isn't a face to be found, then it finds something else. A fish, a tree, an arrow.

When I close my eyes, images flash across the inside of my eyelids. It's as though I am viewing a slide show of odd and irregular photographs. An old man with a beard in a rocking chair. A woman with long black hair, eyes open but lifeless at the bottom of a lake. A redhead in an apron and a gingham dress baking cookies in a 50's kitchen. Two young girls with bright smiles, arms thrown over each other shoulders in familiarity and conspiracy.

These pictures are still, the people are never moving. It really is as though they are someone's photographs in a slide show. They move towards me, slowly, growing bigger and clearer until they fade out and a new one fades in, smaller and further away. Some of them are disturbing, like the girl in the lake. but many of them are simply snapshots of someone's moment in time.

I can pay attention to the details in each picture. I am able to run my eyes across the image and look at different parts of it without it going away.

This doesn't happen every time I close my eyes. In fact, it doesn't even happen often. But when it does, I am always amazed. Where do these pictures come from? Is this my imagination conjuring up photos or is some deep recess of my brain showing me back images that it's been presented with in 33 years of life. Are these stills from movies I've seen, books I've read, photos I've looked through? Or is there more to it? Do other people experience this?

Wednesday 26 December 2007

Christmas Day

Simple and perfect. That was our Christmas this year.

Over the past couple of years we have started to tone down the whole gift giving thing. We all generally have everything we need and we shop for ourselves throughout the year. Nobody needs more 'stuff'.

Our Christmases have become more about the visits and the family than they are about the gifts. We still do the gifts, of course, but we set some pretty reasonable limits and get things for each other that are mostly practical. We also share lists with each other of what we'd like for Christmas and I have to say that we even dubbed this year "Operation get what you want (no surprises)", because we shopped with each other for some things and even bought them under each other's noses. I think out of all my presents this Christmas day, I only received 2 or 3 surprises. And I'm thrilled. It is so nice asking for what really want and then receiving exactly that.

Our morning started out at my mom and stepdad's. I got there at 10 and ST showed up at 10:30. We had tea and juice and listened to Christmas music and had a good visit before opening our gifts. We used to go crazy overboard with gift giving and the piles of presents would barely diminish after an hour of opening. It would be overwhelming and you'd have too much stuff to really appreciate what you got. Weeks later you would still have bags of gifts sitting in your apartment that you hadn't unpacked yet. It was just all too much.

This year it was perfect. We opened presents and passed things around to see up close what everyone else got. We read the children's book my sister bought for my mom. An enchanting and lovely story called Brave Irene, about a young girl delivering a dress that her mom made, to the Duchess through the snow and wind. We flipped through my new cookbook figuring out how to sneak pureed vegetables into every food possible. We calibrated our pedometers, laughed over an upside down page in a homemade calendar (oops), cheered over a paper shredder, moisturizer, a tide to go stick and our favourite tv shows on dvd. We hugged and shed a tear or two and sat down to a breakfast of poached eggs toast and bacon with our stepbrother who had just arrived.

After breakfast we sat admiring the tree, visiting and drinking our coffee and tea until it was time to go to grandpa's.

At my Grandpa's we visited and snacked on delicious food. Pickled asparagus, olives, nuts and bolts, and chocolates. We sat around in the living room with the fire burning and it felt so peaceful and nice. My other sister and her fiance arrived with his daughter and we had our gift exchange with them before dinner.

Dinner was great and we skipped dessert this year because we are always too full from dinner anyways to really enjoy anything else. We played a couple rounds of apples to apples, while people started to make their exits in small pairings...first my cousins, then LT and J-Dub, next my aunt and uncle and finally the rest of us.

We drove home singing along with a couple of Christmas carols on the radio until one came on that I couldn't stand and we remembered our gift from LT, a cd case full of mixed cd's she made us. Off go the carols and in goes Justin vs. Britney. We sang along and out came the cheesy dance moves.

All in all, a perfect Christmas day!

Monday 24 December 2007

Merry Christmas

Wishing you all love, peace, happiness and joy today, tomorrow and everyday!
xo
kt

Friday 21 December 2007

You're so money and you don't even know it!!

Vegas Baby!!!

I could write pages upon pages of our whole Vegas experience but I think for now I will just copy what I wrote in a little notebook while sitting at the California Pizza Kitchen in the Mirage casino at about 9:30 on Monday night. It was an account of our day so far.

Up at 9:30
bfast at the American Cafe. Omelette. Broke the creamer. Sussed out the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Shark Reef. Walked around pools and lagoon while drinking. Saw naked bum photoshoot, sat infront of elephant fountain. Won 15 bucks on slots. Met Sylvia for lunch at Burger Bar. Shared a kobe beef burger weighing in at $16.80 for just the burger. Half assed look through Urban Outfitters. Over to NYNY for coaster ride. Pounded a jager after to still my stomach and heart. Painful walk with drinks and new blister under toes. Back to room 30234. A rest and Blue Lagoon. Only 4pm. Took off shoes and socks to air out and rest dogs. Suited up and hit the gift shop for bevvies in lobby. Tram to Excalibur. Looked longingly at Oxygen bar, want to try. Will try later. Walked. Walked. Walked. Walked to MGM Grand and walked more to monorail. took monorail to Convention Center and a weird wait in an empty parking lot in a sketchy part of town. Shuttle to Wynn. Took pics of bathroom. Saw Spamalot. Giftstore called Buyalot, Bar called Drinkalot, food stand called Eatalot. Started to talk like this. JM had popcorn and beer in a plastic grail. Beer tasted horribly like plastic. I had beer/no grail. laughedalot, clappedalot, got showered by golden dotsalot. Walkedalot over to Mirage and ate @ CPK. Pizza mmmmm (the rest added later, back in room) After food, shopped @ Beatles store, walked to Harrah's and took monorail to MGM. Walked to NYNY, JM got ice cream. Walked to Excalibur and silently caught tram to our hotel. Pedometer reads 27 491 steps./ 12.92 miles. We're beat.


This next paragraph, I wrote on Tuesday night over time while at the Deli and then back in our hotel room at the end of the night. We were exhausted.

Up @ 9:30, watched a kid train for (and complete) a triathalon on mtv's made. Tram to Excalibur. Walked to MGM for the Grand Buffet. Blintzes, blueberry crepe, apple crepe, bread pudding, scrambled eggs, bacon, gnocchi, mac and cheese, broccolini. Walked to monorail and got off at Harrah's. Walked though and around Harrah's, Caesars Palace, The Forum Shops, Mirage, got heartbroken by LOVE cirque show not playing tonight, walked more through and around Treasure Island, Fashion Show Mall, cheap tix and the funny guy working there, The Venetian, drinking on the stairs in front of the canal, gondola ride inside and another funny guy singing to us. Ate a pretzel covered in rock salt and mustard. Walked to Paris, used bathrooms and took pics of lobby, crossed to Bellagio and watched awestruck at fountains, stayed for another show. Hallelujah and famous opera song by a tenor. Walked to Mirage - ate huge meal at Carnegie Deli. Sandwich the size of JM's head. Saw Mystere in awe. Giddy and tired walk/monorail/tram back to Mandalay Bay. Me -"I am so excited about drinking litres of water when we get back to our room." JM - "Me neither." Fits of giggles and tears. Bedtime pedometer 31 578 steps, 14.84 miles.

So that covers our 2 full days in Vegas. I will write another post covering our 2 half days in Vegas. We really crammed a lot into that little trip. I haven't even mentioned our night in Belligham yet!

Thursday 13 December 2007

Thank You

I actually wrote this about a week or so ago but held off posting it here until today.

I was in the shower this morning thinking about my last relationship and all the things about it. It has been years since we broke up and he is now married and, I hope, happy. He is a good guy and deserves to be happy...we all do. It wasn't a mutual breakup. I left him. I left him because I couldn't stay. I wasn't happy and I'd let it get too far to be able to fix it. I stayed unhappy silently for far too long. Nearly 6 months I'd say. 6 months of crying and dreading and feeling empty and lacking. 6 months without telling him that I was feeling this way. I kept thinking -Why can't he see it and figure it out and fix it?

It finally became so unbearable for me that I left. I broke up with him. I was sad for about 3 days and then I was done. I realized that I had mourned the loss of the relationship while I was still in it. He, on the other hand, was just beginning the mourning period.

So here I was, in the shower this morning, having an imaginary conversation with him. He was mad at me. He hadn't forgiven me for breaking up with him. And I smugly told him he should be thanking me. "For what?" was his angry reply. "Thanking you for what?""For letting you go. For letting you be free to find your wife. For whatever it is that you got from me. Learned from me. For all of that."

My next thought came straight out of left field (and from some other voice). "What do you have to thank him for?" I nearly shrugged it off but realized that maybe this is an important question. What did I have to thank him for?

Here is what I came up with.

I want to thank him for giving me the chance to learn what my weaknesses are. I want to thank him for giving me the opportunity to prove to myself how strong I really am. I want to thank him for being the best gift giver I have ever met. I want to thank him for giving me some pretty wonderful memories of our time together. And I want to thank him for caring about me and loving me as strongly as he did.

So thank you. Thank you very much for all of those things and more.

Monday 10 December 2007

Did I mention I'm a goof.

Driving down 25th with ST the other day, this was the conversation we had...

ST: "Hey, look! All of the houses on that side of the street get the sun and have green lawns and all the houses on this side of the street must not get the sun because they all have frosty lawns. Hmmm....that sounds like a porn star, doesn't it? Frosty Lawns."

KT: "Yeah, an old one."

Saturday 1 December 2007

Dreams and childhood memories

I watched a horror movie before I went to bed last night. Well, really, I just had it on while I was doing other things so I wasn't fully paying attention to it. Also, it was a movie I'd seen before so not all that scary or suspenseful. Despite all these things, I still had a bad dream this morning.

The dream started off with me as a kid going to a friends house for a slumber party. That in itself would pretty much be a bad dream for me. I had a lot of anxiety as a kid and I could not sleep over at anyone's house. I needed to be home in my house with my family. I remember very specifically a few planned sleepovers ending badly with me throwing up, shaking and crying until my mom came to get me. One time, my mom never even made it back out the door after dropping me off. I went into the basement and my best friend and three other friends of hers were dancing and laughing and I faked a smile and laugh and fake danced for a couple minutes. I somehow excused myself and ran back upstairs where my mom was still in the kitchen talking to my friend's mom. I don't quite remember how things went down here, but I left with my mom and without saying goodbye to my friend.

I have a handful of stories like that. Once I was playing over at a friends house with the intent of sleeping over. It was mid-afternoon and we were listening to the Beatles I Want To Hold Your Hand on her little record player. Every time the song ended we started it up again and swooned over Paul holding our hands. The anxiety creeped up on me and the moment my friend left me alone to go get us drinks or snacks or something out of the kitchen, I bolted. I just left. I ran home and my mom had to explain to her mom on the phone that I came home and wouldn't be going back. Her mom didn't want me playing with her anymore after that.

So for me, dreaming that I was a kid going to a slumber party isn't a fun thing. I got there and they had rented a horror movie. We were in a rec room and the floor was lined with sleeping bags and junk food. I put on a brave face and played it cool. Quickly though, things went downhill and somehow the other girls implanted under my skin a dozen or so hard little golf-ball sized plastic balls. I understood that this was likely going to kill me if I didn't get them out. The other girls were joking around and being idiots copycatting horror movies they'd seen and not taking it seriously. In front of me was a bottle of some blue Drano-like liquid with hypodermic needles beside it. The girls were laughing and poking each other with the needles. I was mad. I felt entirely pissed off at these complete buffoons and in my anger and fear, I joined in and filled the needles and started injecting them with Drano.

Next thing I know we are outside and trying to get to the hospital and this one girl is running across the street to a party where her boyfriend was. We are teenagers now and boys have become more important than living apparently. These two guys are trying to help us and I am trying to convey the seriousness of the situation. The other girls who have been injected are starting to believe me. They are sick and itchy and throwing up...we just can't get this one girl to come with us. the others start seizing up, collapsing and dying. We throw them in the back of this station wagon and drive off.

This is where I wake up.

I drift off to sleep again and dream of bricks of turkey meat with thin layers of skin on them that you have to peel back to get to the meat. I peel back the skin but then only pick at the meat, unable to actually eat it.

Oddly, that second dream seems to be having more of an effect on me than the first one in that I can't get the image of turkey bricks out of my head.

Ugh - turkey bricks. Gross

Friday 30 November 2007

United Hollywood

This is a cool video in support of the writers strike.

Sunday 25 November 2007

Groovy Dancing Girl

I really love this video. Once she gets going, you kinda can't take your eyes off her. I gotta learn these moves!

Thursday 22 November 2007

Believe

Who said that every wish would be heard and answered
When wished on the morning star?
Somebody thought of that, and someone believed it,
And look what it's done so far.
What's so amazing that keeps us stargazing
And what do we think we might see?
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection,
The lovers, the dreamers, and me.
~Kermit the Frog

Tuesday 20 November 2007

I heart the rain!

So it's not green, like I was hoping for, but I love it anyways. This is my new umbrella and it makes me very happy to be wandering out in the rain underneath it.


Sunday 18 November 2007

Sundays and scary movies

I love days off.
I should qualify that.
I love days off after working a full week and being busy. Whenever I have lots of days off in a row I get bored and depressed. As it stands though, I am working crazy hours and have grown to adore my weekends and Sundays especially.

I have been up for about 2 hours now and I am still in my pyjamas. I am sitting at my computer, sipping some lovely tea and I've been watching movie trailers on apple.com for the past hour as well as catching up on Wil Wheaton's blog and Prairie Ox's blog too. I am thinking about making some breakfast and having a shower. I might go to a movie with J and T this afternoon, but I haven't actually decided whether or not I'm going to go yet. They are going to see No Country For Old Men and I can't decide if it's too violent and scary for me or if I'll be alright.

I used to like violent and scary but the older I get the more squeamish I've become. I terrify quite easily now. Plus after seeing The Ring, which was the last scary movie I saw in the theater, and it scared the bejesus out of me, I just decided that my imagination is active enough without introducing horror to it as well. I can scare myself pretty easily without the added help of gory, suspenseful and chilling images. Last spring when T and I went to Van Dusen Gardens, I walked around imagining dead bodies and trees coming to life, oozing blood and trying to snare me with their branches.

I can't walk through a forest without scaring myself. Or drive down an empty highway at night without imagining something dreadful happening. I even picture finding dead bodies when I walk along the beach. I have seen too many horror movies as it stands.

But here's the thing. No Country For Old Men, is a Coen brothers film. I've enjoyed pretty much every Coen brothers movie I've seen. Fargo, The Big Lebowski, Raising Arizona, Oh Brother Where Art Thou. I can always shield my eyes when the violence starts up or gets to be too much. I am curious about it and the one review I read of it, the reviewer was pretty much drooling over how much he loved the film. You can read it here if you're curious.

I guess I've got about an hour before I have to decide. I'll let you know what I do.

Update
Well I went to the movie. I was actually alright. It was violent but not gory. It was suspenseful but not scary. I'm withholding any review because I still need to think about it. As of right now, I liked it, but didn't love it. There were certain things and scenes though, that I loved. Javier Bardem did an incredible job of playing one of the scariest characters on film, ever!

Thursday 15 November 2007

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Can you feel it? Smell it? Taste it? Sense it?
There are big changes brewing. It's in the air.

I used to hate change. Change was scary and different and awful. I'm still a little afraid of change but I am probably more afraid now of staying the same. Jack Canfield wrote about change and I really loved what he had to say about it. It was something about - change is going to happen no matter what, so you can either fight it, roll with it or create it yourself.

Most things that happen in your life, you either allow or create. That is also from the success principles but I can't remember who said it. I love this one too. It forces you to take responsibility for everything in your life. I'm sure I've written about this before but it's on my mind, so I'm writing it again.

Taking responsibility for everything in your life is a really empowering exercise. It helps you see that you have been and always are in control of your own circumstances. You are where you are in life because of the choices you have made. The choices YOU have made. If someone else made choices for you and you went along with them, then you CHOSE to go along with them.

Of course, things happen in life that blindside you, but you still get to choose how you react to them. Do you make the best out of bad situations? Look for the positive? See how there is no point in sweating the small stuff? Realize that getting mad about things you have no control over is a choice? Sadness, anger and fear are realities of life and we have to allow for them. We can let them be though, without giving in to them. Let them exist, let them be. Acknowledge and accept them and then let them go.

Let's say you're mad. You're pissed off, upset, angry, hurt, scared. What are you going to do about it? I'm not calling the feelings a choice. I'm saying that how you answer that question, what are you going to do about it? That's your choice.

I have been thinking about who I am and how I got to be where I am in life. I am currently the result of my past choices. It is always that way. We are always living a little bit behind our choices. When you make big changes, they take time to catch up with you. I started making big changes to become who I am today, nearly 4 years ago. I am becoming who I want to be and I am in the bubble of who I want to be, but there is room to move around in this bubble and I am still waiting for my current behavior to become my past behaviour so that it catches up to me and helps to shape the future me.

Well, that was thoroughly confusing.

Wednesday 14 November 2007

Sit here or sit there

I am trying out something new this Wednesday. Instead of leaving a million hours early for work I am going to leave just a couple hours early. So instead of sitting out in Abbotsford with nothing to do, I can be at home longer doing things...writing blog posts for example. Yeah, I'll have to sit in traffic but I'll have Jen and Joe on the radio to keep me company.

Tuesday 13 November 2007

What the...

So this is what Cooper looked like last night before I went to bed.


And then, this is what he looked like when I got up this morning.


He even looks so sad in this picture. Kinda like he knows that he got caught doing something he shouldn't have done and now he's going to be in trouble. I figure it's pollen from a lovely bouquet that ST brought me. He was prolly sniffing around the flowers and there you go.

Monday 12 November 2007

Chasing bubbles

Wedding on the way!

I have had to figure out new ways to type lately. Cooper has learned that there is the perfect amount of space between the keyboard and the edge of the desk for him to lie down. It blocks most of my view of the keyboard and restricts my arm movements as he likes to use my forearms as pillows or as blockers for the sunlight. He will press his face into my arm and sleep away. He is actually here right now. My right arm is supporting his tail and my left arm is blocking the light for him. He is purring away and I've got no heart for shooing him away.

On to other news though, my sister LT got engaged! She and Jdub had the two families over for dinner on Friday night and announced to all of us that they are engaged. Yay! We love Jdub and I'm pretty confident his family loves LT....who I guess will become Ldub soon.

They have planned everything already too, which is pretty fun. They will be getting married next July in a very small, intimate ceremony with immediate family and closest friends. It's perfect.

Weddings are one of those crazy, hard events to plan because how do you figure out who to invite. I have always known that I want to have a small wedding but how do you exclude people you love without hurting their feelings. I have a pretty big extended family and with my parents being divorced and remarried, it just gets bigger. If I invited my whole family, that would be 39 people. That's just my side and not including dates for the single people. I want my entire wedding to be a max of 50 people which would leave my fiance only 11 people to invite, except that I still haven't added my friends to that list of 39. So actually my husband doesn't get to have anyone there.

Two of my closest friends got married recently and I wasn't a part of either wedding. They both opted to keep it small and intimate and I didn't mind at all. I was just so happy for both of them and I got to see them after the fact and hug them and congratulate them. My other best friend has been engaged for a while and is feeling the pressure of planning a wedding and dreading the stress that it will entail. I'm all for small or eloping.

Friday 9 November 2007

Meg

I met Megan on the first day of school in my grade twelve year. I walked into my Tourism class and there was just one other person in the room. She was a lovely blond girl that I recognized from around the school.

The room was scattered with tables and each table sat 4 students. She was sitting alone at a table in the middle of the room, writing in her notebook. Because I recognized her and because she looked nice, I went and sat down directly beside her.

Here's is some information that would be helpful and interesting to know now. It was actually Meg's first day at this school. I was completely mistaken in thinking I recognized her. She'd only moved to town days earlier. She had moved from a small northern town and while she was wild, in the way that small town girls are, she was also shy and quiet and sweet.

Meanwhile, I was fully in my 'alternative' phase and was decked out in fishnets, army boots and a black leather jacket complete with safety pins, buttons and a small stuffed cow wearing the same leather jacket. My hair was long and black with bright red tips and my makeup was extreme. Black eyes and bright red lips.

What I learned later, was that she had been writing a letter to her best friend up in that small northern town and when I walked into the room, she glanced up at me and started writing about the 'real-life punk girl' who just walked into the room and "oh my god, she is sitting down right beside me!"

We didn't talk and probably only stole glances at each other out of the corners of our eyes. The rest of the students trickled in as well as the teacher and we got started. First things first we had to partner up and get to know the other person, after which we would introduce them to the rest of the class.

We turned to finally look directly at one another and shrugged and nodded an agreement to be partners.

We introduced ourselves to each other and she asked me if I liked The Doors. I didn't. Neither did she. It is the only question I can specifically remember but I am sure I learned about how she had recently moved here and where she was from and how she felt being here. I probably confessed to thinking I recognized her. At some point we brought up Saturday Night Live and that was it. These were the times of Chris Farley, Adam Sandler and David Spade. We had found our common ground.

After class, we would head in the same direction to the end of the hall. We would walk together and say goodbye as we parted at the stairwell. As the weeks went on, we would walk slower and linger longer at the stairs. We had so much to say to each other but we both felt shy about exchanging numbers and calling each other. Part of this had to do with the fact that she had told me that she didn't like talking on the phone. I couldn't call her after she told me that.

Eventually though, we did exchange numbers and began our friendship outside of school. Our closeness happened slowly but it grew steadily. By the end of the school year we were inseparable. We were know as one entity in our circle of friends KarliandMegan/MeganandKarli.

We spent hours talking on the phone only to hang up and get together for beef dips at Boston Pizza, shopping at Guildford, driving around and singing. We would drive out to Coquitlam and sing at the top of our lungs just for the sake of doing it. We went to parties. We took road trips. We picked out Emerson at the SPCA. We drove across the line for gas and Mexican food. We went to Las Vegas. We hung out nearly every Thursday at the Ozone and danced til 2 in the morning. On Mondays we would go to Red Robin and drink double margaritas and then walk around the mall until we sobered up. "BLTA - hold the t & a". We would play catch at the park. We went to drive ins, Palm Springs, Vernon, movies, concerts (Bryan Adams, Bon Jovi - lol), luvafair. We had our portrait taken together at Sears (that was one of the times we were wandering around to sober up).

We had a million and one inside jokes and laughed until our sides hurt. Her family, to this day calls me family and her mom has my grade 12 school picture in her laundry room...it ended up there one day (probably the day I gave it to Meg) and has stayed there ever since. Even through a move into the big city.

She was there for me through my first broken heart. She was there when my parents split up and there for me when my grandma died. She knows more about me and how I work than most other people in my life.

While we live in different cities now and have suffered the waves of growing up and growing apart at times...I believe that we have grown together and our friendship now is stronger than ever. I can't imagine my life without her. We fill in the gaps of each other's memories...she remembers things that we've done and things I've said that I have nearly no recollection of until she reminds me.

We still get together and laugh until our sides hurt, in fact we are spending the day together tomorrow and I, for one, can't wait.

Happy Birthday Meg,
I love you!
Kar kar

Wednesday 7 November 2007

Argh!

On Wednesdays, I work in Abbotsford at 7pm. To avoid rush hour traffic, I often leave quite early and make my way out there in steps. I'll lunch with friends in Burnaby, have coffee or dinner with dad in Langley, shop and/or run errands in Langley or Abbotsford.

Today I had nothing planned. No lunches, no coffees, no errands, no dinners, no plans. I even forgot to bring a book. Because I had no plans, it was hard for me to leave my cozy apartment. I left too late and got caught in traffic. It took me nearly an hour and half just to get to Langley. I grabbed a sub and drove to the college. I ate my lonely dinner while flipping through the newspaper and listening to talk radio in my car. I looked at my watch. Two and a half hours until class starts.

I started my car and drove to Superstore. I wandered around. I tried on some clothes and a pair of boots. I looked much more seriously at Christmas ornaments than I ever need to. I checked out every book they carried and most of the childrens toys and clothes too. I looked at my watch. An hour and fifteen minutes until class starts.

I got in my car and headed back over to the college, stopping on the way to fill up my gas tank. I parked and went up to the 2nd floor study area. I flipped through the newspaper again and did the crossword puzzle. I looked at my watch. Half an hour until class starts.

I stared at the ceiling, made some lists in my notebook and doodled some Cooptown ideas. I looked at my watch. 15 minutes until class starts. I felt exhausted.

I packed up my bag and headed down to the classroom to set up the chairs and get ready. I walked into the room and the student and my teamer were already there and set up. I sat down and my teamer turned to me and said, "There's a test and it's the whole class. Do you want to go home?"

5 minutes later I was back in my car (oooh was I sick of being in that car) and started the long, wet, dark drive home. I listened to good sing along music and made the most of it.

I left home at 2:30 and got home at 8:00. I can't think too deeply about it because it would make me crazy. I'm just glad that this isn't a typical experience for me. Ususally, if I'm going to be quite early, I bring books or homework or something to do. I generally don't even mind the drive but today was tough. I'm glad it's over.

Wine Drive

I meant to write yesterday. Actually, I meant to write Monday as well. Even Sunday for that matter.

Sunday was a big day for me. The charity event I had organized came to it's conclusion. This was the wine drive for Cancer. I had people donate a bottle of wine and 10 bucks. The money is going to the Canadian Cancer Society and the wine got raffled off amongst those who entered. I hosted an open house at my place on Sunday to thank everyone who entered and to do the draw. I had just a small group of people show up and we had a lovely time. I ended up with 70 bottles of wine and $810, which was 20 more bottles and 310 more dollars than I was aiming for. And it's not even officially done yet. I am still waiting for the money to come in from the 'satellite' draw my friends are doing at their work.

It felt good though, picking a goal, creating an event and following through to achieve my goal. This is new territory for me. I need to review the rest of my goals to keep them fresh in my mind and to start working on another one.

Saturday 3 November 2007

A day late, a buck short

Ok so I clearly didn't track down another computer. Oh, except wait, I did but I ended up reading someone else's blog and then having to get back to work.

I have spent a lot of time this week cleaning, getting my apartment ready for my open house tomorrow. It feels really good to have a clean living space. And I found two spiders, who had taken up residence in my home. They were medium sized and tucked into corners of my apt, so way less traumatizing than if they had been living in my bed or couch.

ST and I went to see Lars and The Real Girl last night and we both really loved it. It's the story of Lars, a lonely and delusional young man, who fashions an imaginary friendship with a doll he finds on the Internet. That's the premise of the movie but you wouldn't know from reading that that it's really heartwarming and beautiful story.

I threw an old pair of runners in the garbage yesterday and when I looked out my window about an hour ago, they were sitting on display on top on my dumpster. I guess shoes, even old ones are a hot commodity in the homeless world. There is something though that makes you feel a little violated to find out that someone has looked through your garbage and put it out on display. You start wondering about what else you threw away that someone maybe looked at. On the flip side, I am also finding it heartwarming that some dumpster diver found them and didn't want them but put them out to make it easier for other divers who might like to take them.

Alright, well, back to cleaning and food prep for tomorrow. I haven't had many people rsvp so I could end up having anywhere between 6 and 40 people here tomorrow and I should probably be prepared for either.

Friday 2 November 2007

Gotta go

I am on a computer at school that has a wonky keyboard. I have to make sure that I deliberately type every letter or else it might not show up. So please forgive the spelling mistakes. Really all they are is dropped letters.

I'll type a sentance without being careful so you can see what I mean.

The quk rown fx jumps over the lazy dog.

Ok on to real things now. Wait I'm getting kicked out of this lab. There is a class in here in 8 minutes. Will try to track down another computer...

Thursday 1 November 2007

take one down and pass it around...67 bottles of wine on the wall

I have 67 bottles of wine in my apartment right now. Actually, I have 67.5 but that .5 doesn't count toward the rest of them. That .5 is presently being enjoyed by me as I type this post!

Earlier this year I wrote out my goals. Following the Success Principles, I needed to come up with 90 goals. These were 90 things I wanted to do, be and have before I die. On that list, I wrote down that I wanted to give a million dollars away to charity. I didn't have any idea at the time how I was going to make that happen. I kept the goal in my focus though and on a Sunday in September, I woke up with an idea. I didn't need to do it on my own, I could raise the money for charity. And my first charity event would be a wine drive.

We had done a wine drive through my professional association about a year ago. The idea was that you donate a bottle of wine and some money. The money goes to charity and the wine gets raffled off. This seemed like a great idea to me and I set forth planning how to adapt it to my goals. I sent out my first email on September 23rd announcing my plan. My goal was to collect 50 bottles of wine and $500 for The Canadian Cancer Society.

I got an immediate response from about 25 people letting me know they'd like in and more replies came in over the next week and a half. I was worried at times that I wouldn't reach my goal of 50 and 500. There was no need to ever worry. I surpassed 50 at least a week ago and still have a few more bottles coming to me in the next couple of days.

A couple of friends of mine work together and decided to promote the event within their company as well. The deal we cut was that they would keep the wine they receive within their company to raffle off and give the money to me to add to my donation.

He forwarded me this email that went to his co-workers... (I took out the company name to protect any privacy)

Wine & Dime
In the Marketing & Creative Services Department of Company name we’re not only in the business of making great marketing campaigns but we also enjoy making dreams come true.
A close friend of ours has a dream of raising $1 Million dollars for charity before she dies. Although, she is fortunate to be very healthy and has many years ahead of her to achieve this goal, we thought we would do our part to help make this very selfless dream come true, because as Margaret Mead once said:
“A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

So here I am, 3 days away from the draw with 67 bottles of wine and a heart so full it might burst!

Wednesday 31 October 2007

Gigli was the most unbearable!

I just got home from attending a Worst Movie Ever Party.


The premise is that you bring a five minute clip from a bad movie. Everyone watches all the 5 minutes clips and then votes on the worst movie ever and you can't vote for your movie.


I brought two because I seriously couldn't decide between them and they let me play both. I ended up winning second and third place. Not too bad, if I say so myself.


First place winner was Black Sheep, a New Zealand horror flick about blood-thirsty sheep that terrorize the countryside. It was gory and stupid and totally worth winning the title of Worst Movie Ever. Although IMDb has given it 6.2 stars out of 10.

Here's the movie poster....

Next was a movie called Adam & Steve, that isn't actually terrible, but has a stellar 5 minutes at the beginning that are embarrassingly horrific and mesmerizing. It got a pretty big gross out reaction from the crowd and took home second place. IMDb gave Adam and Steve 5.7 stars out of 10.



Third place was a painful 5 minute ballad from The Pirate Movie (it's a musical) starring Kristy McNichol and Christopher Atkins. You could pick almost any 5 minutes from that movie and place in this contest. It's so terrible. IMDb gave this on 3.8 stars out of 10 and I think that might be generous.



Other contenders were Re-Animator (got my vote!) which IMDb oddly gives 7.2 stars. It was incredibly disturbing, The 5 minute clip we saw was a headless man groping a tied down naked girl while his head sat in a metal tray beside her leering at her. He then picked up his head and held it to her body to lick her. Ew!



White Chicks, which looked terrible but also slightly entertaining. 4.9 from IMDb
The Stepford Wives (remake) actually so bad it was hilarious. 5.1 from IMDb
Elephant Shoes, desperate to be indie and cool but just weird and annoying. 6.6 from IMDb
Gigli, Ben Affleck and J-Lo. This was the most painful and embarrassing one to sit through. An absolute mess. 2.3 stars. That was kind of IMDb to give it that much.



Honourable mention goes to Cabin Fever, which wasn't actually in the running but gets a shout out for being the inspiration behind this worst movie ever/halloween tradition that JDub and his friends started. We watched the worst (best) 5 minutes from that to start out the night. It got 5.3 from IMDb.



All in all, it was good fun and I've already picked out my movie for next year.

Friday 26 October 2007

Computer labs and b-ball

I am at work right now. I am sitting in a computer lab that I just discovered today and it's super nice. Someone told me that they are nearly brand new and they look pretty high tech. The monitors fold into the tops of the tables...tres cool.

It's very exciting to me though, because I get big long breaks on Fridays and I always want to check my email, write a post, surf the net and have never been able to figure how to do that here. I'm not a student so I don't get student numbers and passwords for getting online. I'm also not technically an employee so I don't have employee status and access to the web that way either. I'm the invisible interpreter who works without much of an identity.

I even asked at Student Services (which is where I might even pretend to have any territory while at work) if they could keep a bag for me for a couple of hours either behind their desk or in some other private or secure location. It was heavy and I didn't want to cart it all over the campus while I tried to track down a computer or for when I go get lunch...and I got shot down. Nope. I don't have an office, a locker, a cubicle or even a corner to call my own.

I must have looked...perplexed, annoyed, desperate (pick one) because the receptionist looked at me and said, "You're an interpreter, right?" I nodded and sagged further under my heavy load. "Well, then I guess I can do it. I will put in this office over here for you."

"Thanks so much. See you later." and I skipped lightly out of the office.

I am going to the basketball game tonight. It's an exhibition game between Seattle and (the Suns)? (I have no idea what I'm talking about) I feel a bit like a fraud though, since I don't really know anything about b-ball (except that cool people call it b-ball. Right? Right?)

JM and one of his friends bought tickets and then he got 2 more for free. So he is giving the extra tix to TT and I. I think it will be a lot of fun. LT and Jdub are also going to be there in a VIP box suite even, so hopefully we'll get to swing by and see them and get a glimpse of how the rich and/or lucky attend sporting events.

The only other time I've been to a basketball game is when the Grizzlies existed and my friend MR took me out for dinner and to a game for my birthday. We had a great time so I am anticipating another great time tonight. I think we'll be going for dinner and drinks first too so that will be fun.

I'll let y'all know how it goes.

Tuesday 23 October 2007

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun

The reception for Kathleen was yesterday. Her family and closest friends had a funeral service earlier in the morning and then the reception was in the afternoon and open to all her friends and friends of the families.

It was a tough day but good....as good as anything like that can ever be, I suppose. How do you call it anything but tough. There were a lot of people there. It was so nice to see how many people came to show their love and grief. Her husband gave a really beautiful speech that was short and sweet and perfect. It breaks my heart to think of him without her.

Hug and kiss your loved ones! Tell them you love them. Be kind and generous and loving. Life is short but sweet for certain.

Sunday 21 October 2007

School and life

I dropped out of school yesterday. I'm a drop out!

On Friday night, I was gathering all my things for school together into my book bag so that I wouldn't have to do it Saturday morning. I just felt off. I sat and stared at my book bag and started to think as hard as I possibly could about what the hell I was doing and what the hell I wanted to be doing. I closed my eyes and meditated on it.

With Kathleen dying this week, I got a big reminder of how short life is and I decided that since I already knew I wasn't continuing on to the next level, it was time to gracefully bow out. I could spend 3 hours on Saturday morning listening to an instructor read from a book or I could sleep in, have a good breakfast, and head out early to gather wine for the wine drive and see my friends.

I made my decision that I was not going and went to bed feeling a little nervous about it. I felt like it was the right decision. It was just exactly the opposite of what I normally think would be the 'right' decision. I skipped a lot in high school but in my adult life, I'm actually sickly responsible. I don't call in sick to work even when I am sick. I had to miss two days of work once when it snowed and I couldn't get to the college and I felt total guilt about it.

I woke up Saturday morning at 10am and I felt great. I felt well rested and relieved. I felt rebellious and exciting.


The guilt for dropping out early is somewhere lurking in the distance behind me and I am doing my best to keep it at bay. It's far enough away that I am hoping it will give up and slink away. Jack Canfield has taught me that I need to have these 'failure' experiences and that they are equally as important to my success as successes are.

I spent my Saturday collecting wine and spending time with my friends who were also Kathleen's family. It was an emotionally charged day and I was grateful to be there. I love my friends dearly and was glad that I could offer some kind of support even if it was just being there.

Friday 19 October 2007

Kathleen

My friend, Kathleen, died on Wednesday. She fought a very brave and strong battle against cancer but unfortunately, the cancer fought harder and meaner. She passed away peacefully at home with her loving husband. She was young and vibrant and I can hardly believe this really has happened.

Fire and Rain by James Taylor is one of my absolute favourite songs and I am going to post the lyrics here for Kathleen and for those who love her and miss her.


Just yesterday morning they let me know you were gone
Suzanne the plans they made put an end to you
I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song
I just can't remember who to send it to.


I've seen fire and I've seen rain
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I'd see you again.


Won't you look down upon me Jesus
You got help me make a stand
You just got to see me through another day
My body's achin' and my time is at hand
And I won't make it any other way.


Oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I'd see you again.


Been walkin' my mind to an easy time
My back turned towards the sun.
Lord knows when the cold wind blows
It'll turn your head around
Well, there's hours of time on the telephone line
To talk about things to come
Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground.


Oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain.
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I'd see you, baby, one more time again now
There's just a few things coming my way this time around now
Thought I'd see you, thought I'd see you
Fire and Rain

Saturday 13 October 2007

Bookkeeping

Saturday afternoon and I'm all over the place. I'm slightly ADHD right now as I am jumping between typing this post, tidying up my apartment and cooking some lunch. I would be much happier focusing on one thing but I am hungry so I need to make something. And what happens is that while my food is cooking I sit down to type and then when I get up to check on the food, I start cleaning. I think once I eat and have some food in me, I will be better at making a game plan and seeing one thing through before starting the next.

I had my class this morning and it was an interesting day for me. I had some insightful moments that are making me think that bookkeeping might not be my thing. Did I mention I'm not a numbers gal? I kinda didn't think that would matter though. Plus, I don't think I understood to what extent I'm not a numbers girl. I'm really not a numbers girl. As for thinking that it wouldn't matter, I kinda thought bookkeeping was all the pre-accounting stuff. I would just take all the receipts, invoices, cheques, account info and make lists and columns out of it. Put it all in the right place and let someone else do the numbers stuff.

Well, I wasn't entirely wrong. It is pre-accountingish and I mostly spend my time putting the right amount in the right column and making sure they add up properly. My problem is that I can't seem to get the actual numbers right. Instead of entering 2000, I write down 200. Instead of 675, I write down 765. Instead on 705, I write down 700. My brain mixes the numbers up. I think I have some form of numerical dyslexia.

So this could get in the way of me being a bookkeeper. It's just that bookkeeper is so fun to spell. Seriously though, I got to class today and compared homework with another student and I had made a few of those transposition errors. Everything adds up at the end so I don't recognize that I am doing this. I am getting the theory part of the class though. We had a quiz today on theory stuff and I got 19/20.

And by 19 out of 20 I mean, 18 out of 20, except that one of the questions was ambiguous and poorly written. It left some room for interpretation and I apparently chose a different one than the instructor did. I got the question right as I understood it and could argue my point and prove that I understood the theory so I count that one as right. The test wasn't for marks by the way, it was just for us to see where we are at.

The other question I got wrong was just a stupid question. It was a multiple choice question about computer accounting. We haven't even touched on computer software for accounting yet so don't ask us a question about it. The question was, "What can't a computer do?" With options for the answer including, post a transaction, update accounts, analyze transactions. I figure you need hands to post the information so a computer can't do that. I forgot that in accounting, the term 'posting' has an entirely different meaning. The right answer was analyze transactions. Ridiculous. Weren't computers invented to analyze information? So in my mind, I actually got 20/20.

As I sat through class, I started wondering what I was doing there. I wanted to be at home painting, or writing or drawing. Am I doing this for the wrong reasons? The explanation and answer of which, deserves it's own post entirely. (See! Post! Totally different meaning)

I flipped to the back of my workbook and wrote this, "I seem to be willing to give up a couple hours a day and my Saturday mornings to work on something that doesn't come naturally and isn't my dream. What if I committed that time to working toward something I already know I want and am afraid to go after?"

That in itself needs another post and a lot more self reflection.

So this is where I'm at now. I will finish this course and hopefully decide fairly quickly what I am going to do about continuing on, or jumping ship. I started this because I really thought that it would be exactly up my alley. But at some point my alley turns right and this program keeps going straight. There are parts of this that I am enjoying but if I can figure out what those parts are exactly and then find them in a different program with other things that I would also enjoy, I think I'd be so much happier.

It's like dating. You date someone to see if they are a good match for you. If they aren't, you take note of what worked or didn't work and try again with someone new who hopefully is a better match than the last. You keep learning what you like and don't like until you find the best match for you.

So that is what I am doing. Figuring out what I like and don't like so that I can make a better match for myself.

Breaking Twigs

This is my friend C, making his fiance M, laugh hysterically while he comes up with imaginative ways to break twigs. I love this video.

Wednesday 10 October 2007

Another bloody dentist appointment

Well, not literally bloody. Thankfully.

I have lost count of how many dentist appointments I have had since spring. I just know it is a lot. And I mean A LOT. I was back again today for what was suppose to be a simple, 10 minute appointment and my very last one until a cleaning in six months. It definitely was a simple 10 minute appointment but not for the right reasons.

I had an appointment last week to make molds of my teeth to fit me with a night guard. Today, I was going in to pick it up and make sure everything was good. Well, the nightguard was warped and didn't fit my teeth. My dentist, who I quite adore, turned and pretended to huck it out the window. It is for these types of things that I quite adore her. She also once fully jumped into the Superstar lunge (a la Molly Shannon as Mary Katherine Gallagher) and whisper shouted "Superstar". She is entertaining and lovely and if I had to spend a million hours at the dentist, I am glad it was with her.

So after she pretended to launch my faulty nightguard across 4th Avenue, she told me we'd have to redo the molds and get me back in a week. So one more appointment and then I truly should be done until March. It's been a long,tough haul but I am so glad to have it all done. And I am grateful for my new chompers.

Tuesday 9 October 2007

Thanksgiving

Another Thanksgiving weekend has come and gone. Now it is Tuesday and most people are back at work. Not me though. I somehow scored an extra day off and I am thrilled. I am spending my day today doing not too much of anything. Groceries, cleaning, blogging, cartooning, writing...I might go to a movie. I guess that isn't really 'not much of anything'. That actually sounds like a lot now that I write it out. How am I going to fit it all in today!?

I spent all my hours before dinner yesterday doing homework. Which means that I finished it...yay! That gives me the rest of the week before school on Saturday to read ahead so that I can follow along in class. I am definitely one of those people who does much better if I don't procrastinate. If I waited to do all of my homework the night before class....I wouldn't do it and then I'd skip class and then I'd be too embarrassed to go back the next week and so I'd never go back and then I'd be a drop out. This is actually how I failed grade 12. Seriously. I failed grade 12 out of embarrassment.

We had our Thanksgiving dinner at my dad's last night and it was really good. It was nice seeing everyone and we had fun. His wife is a great cook and there was so much yummy food. In addition to the turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes, she had cooked up lots of different veggies so we had our choice of parsnips, broccolini, brussel sprouts, yams, and green beans. I ate them all. At my grandpa's the night before, we actually forgot the veggie section of dinner so you could have turnips or....well that was it really. The turnips were delicious but that was it for veggie sides. I have a giant plate of leftovers that I will be eating soon for lunch.

My dad had a DVD to show us when we got out to his place yesterday. He had taken some of our old movies to be transferred from a reel to DVD. It was just about 5 minutes of footage. Mostly of my older sister L playing softball when she was about 10. It is pretty adorable. At the very end of the clip there is a bit of footage of my other sister S and me. S is running around trying to dodge the camera and I am trying to figure out how best to keep the camera on me. It's pretty cute. Hopefully I will get a copy of it soon.

I was also able to collect some wine and dollars over the weekend for my wine drive. So far so good. I think I might start making some rounds next weekend to collect from people. My goal is still $500 and 50 bottles of wine.

Sunday 7 October 2007

Umbrellas and boots

I should be doing homework right now. I didn't have school yesterday because of the long weekend which was great since Friday was JM's birthday and we were out late celebrating. I would have been in no shape for school Saturday morning. The best part about not having school this weekend though was that I got to cut my homework time in half for the week. Two weeks to do a week's worth of homework.

At least that was my plan.

I haven't opened my books since class last Saturday. So now I have to do a week's worth of homework in a week. Not so bad I know...it could be worse. I still have a week to do it and although I'm not likely to get much done today, I know I will over the next three days.

Instead of doing homework, I am listening to music and making a bunch of cd's. I have made about 3 for my Aunt S. and will likely make some for my sisters too. All I have on my rotation these days is the Once Soundtrack, the Across The Universe Soundtrack and a cd my friend C made for me.

It is the rainiest day today and I kinda love it. I can hear the rain pouring down outside and I keep getting up to go stare out the window at the puddles and people running by with their umbrellas. The umbrellas are usually black or some other dark or muted colour. On such a gloomy day, I would love to look out my window and see a rainbow of brilliantly coloured umbrellas. Brightly coloured brollys are hard to find though. I went shopping recently for a new umbrella. Green. Bright green. I want a bright emerald green umbrella. The only one I've ever found was a child's umbrella and far too tiny for me. Imagine how lovely it would be if you walked down the street on a rainy day and every umbrella you saw was a bright colour.

I did find some lovely bright gum boots though. Bright red with rainbows, clouds, hearts and lightning bolts on the sides of them. These might clash with my green umbrella when I finally find it but who cares. Clashing bright colours on a gloomy day is only all the more fun!

Here is a pic of my awesome rain boots!

Saturday 6 October 2007

September 24, 2007

This is belated post for my dear friend MC, who celebrated her birthday on Sept 24th. Happy belated birthday M. I am so happy to know you and am grateful to have you in my life. Plus you are painfully adorable.
Happy Birthday!

Sunday 30 September 2007

Life and prayer

I don't know how to start this post. I feel like there are so many things I can write about but I am struggling with how to write them or how much to say. They don't necessarily belong together in the same post either. I am going to try a stream of consciousness and then edit it for easier reading after I'm done.

JM and I went out to White Rock yesterday to visit a friend of ours who has cancer. She has bad cancer. Not that there's a good cancer but she has aggressive, ugly, mean cancer that she is bravely and strongly fighting. She is thankfully out of the hospital and at home with her husband. For reasons that I don't want to have to think of (and am blessed that I have that choice), she wasn't up for visitors yesterday.

I wasn't raised in a religious home and I never really learned how to pray in any traditional way. I now know that there isn't really a right or wrong way to pray. What I have found that works for me isn't words. Words don't bring me comfort. I don't seem to be able to connect with the words. What I like to do is visualize. I close my eyes and I picture the person, the thing, the place, the situation that I want to pray for. I can feel it in my whole body when I do that.

This is how I pray for K. I visualize her and I focus all of my love and energy on her. As I do that my focus will widen and include her husband, her home, her pets and parents, her sister, her in laws, her friends, her community and so on. It is much like a meditation and the longer I stay in it the more encompassing it gets. I have often ended with my perspective being from way up high and looking at the entire planet with my pinpoint of energy, faith and love still on the one thing I started with. I picture that I am a portal for God to flow his love, energy and faith through to what I am focused on.

I believe in miracles. I believe that miracles happen on a daily basis. I have experienced them and I have witnessed them and the more I am open to them existing, the more of them I am aware of. I have started studying The Course In Miracles and I love it. I haven't figured out how to explain what it is yet because it is new to me and I am new to it. I know it isn't a religion and that it doesn't promote organized faith. It is more of a book of spiritual guidance. It is personal and it makes a lot of sense to me.

I spent most of my life not having any kind of relationship with God. When I was 25, I filled out a values survey. It listed 25 values and asked you to put them in order with most important to you being #1 and least important to you being #25. A relationship with God was #25 on my list. Now a relationship with God is way (way) higher on my list. (I should do the exercise again to see where it lands now).

I was with some friends recently and started a sentence with "According to Jesus..." and we all started laughing because it was probably the first time in my life I had started a sentence with that and it sounded strange. They knew me when I was 25 and I would have tuned someone out who started a sentence that way.

My mom had made an excellent point recently (and I am paraphrasing here) it was that you can start a conversation about any number of uncomfortable topics with a group of people, and nothing makes them squirm more than talking about God. Bring up serial killers, child abuse, molestation, cancer, war, prostitution, drug use and most people will enjoy a spirited discussion/debate about it but bring up God and people get weird. Just an interesting point.

Anyways for those of you that pray and/or believe in miracles/God, please send some thoughts of love and prayer to K.
Thanks.
Health, happiness, peace and love to you all!

Wednesday 26 September 2007

Across the Universe

Sigh.

That was almost going to be my entire post. Just a sigh. What a great movie. What great music. What great actors. And how sexy is Jim Sturgess?! In case you don't know the answer to that one, it is VERY!

I am listening to the soundtrack as I write this and swooning all over again. Go see this movie and go buy the music. (I'm so bossy)

I wasn't really raised on the Beatles and didn't go through much of a Beatles phase when I was growing up. Turns out there are a lot (and I mean a lot) of Beatles songs I don't know and being introduced to them through a beautiful, powerful movie was such a great experience for me.

I want to go see this movie again. I want everyone to go see this movie.

Sunday 23 September 2007

Sleepy Sunday night

A whole day off has gone by and I have enjoyed pretty much every moment of it. I sent out a mass email earlier today about a charity event I am hosting. My goal is to raise $500 for the Canadian Cancer Society. I am pretty excited about this event too. I will write more about it as time goes on and let you know how it's going and if I am coming close to reaching my goal of $500.

I spent a lot of time today doing homework. I can't believe that I can now have conversations about things like Trial Balances, Revenue Recognition, Income Statements and T-Accounts. I never, ever, ever thought that this would be something that I would be getting an education in. I am finding it hard. This is a whole new way of thinking for me and it is backwards to how my brain thinks of things like debits and credits. Mostly I just sit and stare at a question before I start trying to work it out. My understanding comes s l o w l y. I am used to getting things fairly quickly, so I am finding this slow thing pretty frustrating.

Well, I am going to spend the next hour chilling out with Cooper before I head off to bed. I sure am sleepy!

Sunny Sunday morning

It is a really beautiful day today. My windows are wide open and there is a lovely cool breeze flowing through my apartment. I have thrown open all of my blinds and the sunlight is streaming in. I have had such a busy week that I am really enjoying just having this morning to relax, drink tea, write, tidy up and sit with Cooper.

I need to clean and do some homework, but I have devoted my morning to just enjoying some free time. Some me time.

I drank some yummy coconut tea, wrote some emails, read some Jack Canfield, did a 20 minute meditation and am now writing this post while listening to some lovely music.

I hope you all have wonderful Sundays planned out today.
peace and love
kt

Saturday 15 September 2007

My dad

My dad is a good guy. He's actually a great guy. He is kind and generous and open. He is funny and smart. He loves me very much and I really feel that from him. I love him very much too.

We have had our struggles and bumps in the road, some major and some minor but our relationship now is the best it has ever been. I am fully committed to having the best relationship possible with my dad forever more. I am very grateful for him.

On the eve of your birthday, dad, I want to say happy birthday and I love you.
kt

Happy Day!

I have run the gamut of positive emotions today. From just plain old feeling good to giddy, excited, happy, heart warmed, grateful, connected, loved, alive, enthusiastic, delighted, joyful.

The highlights...
*Starting school today. As a student. Every single semester I interpret a number of new classes and for the first time I will be able to get involved, ask questions, be a part of the class. I was lying in bed last night actually giggling to myself about how excited I am to be a student again. I got the textbook on Thursday for my class and Friday night I actually read the first chapter, answered the review questions and did the applied exercises. I'm a total keener.

In class today the instructor had us do some of those applied exercises and I actually smiled while doing them (again) in class. I am going to get an A+ in this course. After I write this post, I am actually going to complete my homework for next week and start the readings for my next class.

*Seeing Across The Universe. ahhhhhhhh. What a great, enjoyable movie. I spent two hours swooning and either near tears or broadly smiling.

*Coming home to a surprise gift and lovely letter in the mail. Who doesn't love personal mail? When I got home from the movie, I checked for mail. I reached into my mailbox and pulled out a handful of fliers and junk mail and this one special envelope. I didn't recognize the handwriting that spelled out my name and address so my eyes went to the return address. A smile spread across my face. Not only was I getting personal mail, but I was getting it from someone really fun who I wouldn't have expected to send me anything. I chucked the junk mail and smiled the whole way up to my apartment.

The short and sweet letter brought tears to my eyes. I know you read this, so thank you. Thank you very much.
I'm not sure if you have the corresponding info where you are but my particular faves so far are ... 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15 (this is as far as I've gotten so far, so pretty much all of it).

*Drinking a glass of good, cold white wine. I opened a bottle that I bought in the Okanagan and I am savouring every sip of it. It is crisp and fruity and so hitting the spot right now.

*Two phone calls. I talked to my lovely friend who has been away and it was nice to hear her voice and catch up a little bit. We will do much more catching up in person soon.

I made another call to an old friend who I had lost touch with. I didn't get him but I left a long and rambling message (in the the best quirky, funny ways possible) and I feel good about having made the call and having left the ridiculous message. We actually reconnected very briefly last weekend and I got his number telling him I'd call soon. I'm glad I did it.

It's a feel good day for me. I wish all of this feeling good on all of you too.
Peace and Love
kt

Saturday 8 September 2007

My first love

Facebook is a funny thing.

A while ago, my first (and favourite) boyfriend ever, found me on facebook and friend-requested me. He is married now and lives far far away. I hadn't had any contact with him in probably 15 years.

I accepted him as a friend and was directed to define 'how do you know this person' I hemmed and hawed over what to write. Facebook gives you some options...
'we worked together,
lived together,
went to school together,
met through a friend,
we hooked up.'
but none of them were ones I wanted to use. There is one option that I use regularly to describe how I know people and it is that 'we met randomly'. This gives you the ability to fill in how you met using your own words.

I left it blank and over the next few days, anytime I would sign into facebook, I would go to that step and start typing something in for how I knew him. It was never what I really wanted to say though and I always deleted it.

The problem was, that what I wanted to write was that he was my first and favourite boyfriend; that he really was my first love; that he was the person who I most regret treating the way I did. None of these things are problems on their own but coupled with the fact that he is married now, it seemed disrespectful and inappropriate for me to write any of those things.


I first saw J when I was 14 years old at the DMV. I was there with my mom and sister so that ST could get her learners permit. He was there too. I pointed him out to S and said "Check out that guy. He is so cute". Our small town didn't have it's own DMV so we had to drive to another city for one. It wasn't far away but it was the DMV for a huge area. This guy could have been from anywhere. ST looked over at him and said "Oh that's JG, He goes to our school. Actually, he's our paperboy."

The next day I looked for him at school but couldn't find him and so after school, I sat at the front window of our house waiting for him to deliver our paper. I hid behind the blinds when he rode up on his bike and tossed the paper on the front step. I watched him ride around the cul-de-sac delivering all our neighbour's papers too. Then he was gone. I spent the rest of the evening humming and dancing and daydreaming.

This became a regular afternoon activity for me, waiting at the window and dancing around after he left. I also tracked him down at school and was ready to smile at him if he ever looked my way.

As the days went by I got a bit bolder and bolder. I would 'happen' to be outside when he delivered the paper. I'd smile and I'm sure turn bright red and say hi. I'd have friends over after school and we'd be outside 'playing'. I'd take the dog out to play. He now recognized me at school and we'd smile and say hi in the hallways.

I started to get impatient and decided that I needed to do something big to jump us forward a bit. I started by baking him cookies. I got home from school one day with the great idea and got to work. I made peanut butter chocolate chip cookies without the chocolate chips and cleverly called them peanut butter chocolate chipless cookies. I put them in a paper bag, wrote what they were and something else (I can't remember what) on the bag and put them out on the doorstep. I went and sat in the front window and waited. He rode up and as he got closer he noticed them. He picked up the bag, read it, smiled, opened it, looked around, grabbed a cookie and took a bite. He rode around the rest of the cul-de-sac, delivering papers, with the open bag on his handlebars and ate the cookies.

After the cookie incident, we would stop and talk in the halls at school and when he delivered the paper. One day when he rode up on his bike, my friend C and I were outside with a tape recorder being goofs and taping ourselves singing and reading from an Archie comic. He rode up to deliver the paper and I don't quite remember how things went down but the end result was that after he left, C and I recorded ourselves on one side of the tape talking to him. We went up into my room and just talked about whatever. We described what my room looked like, we talked about movies and music and school things. When we were done, we got on our bikes and rode over to his house and left the tape on his doorstep.

The next day in school, he was wearing a really cool shirt and looking particularly good. We talked by his locker. He thanked me for the tape and said he really liked it. After school, he was later than usual delivering the paper so I wasn't at the window or outside when he came by. When I opened the front door later to get the paper, there was a tape on top of it. I ran upstairs to my room, closed the door behind me, put the tape in my 'stereo' and hit play. It was J and his friend talking. It followed the same idea as ours, they were in his room, describing it, talking about music, cars and wrestling. At some point his friend says I hope you noticed J's shirt today because he wore it just for you. To which I swooned, I'm sure.

I still have this tape. Somewhere. I haven't listened to it in probably 13 years. I'm not sure if I ever will again, but I like that I have it.

After the tape exchange we started dating. He'd deliver our paper with little notes written on the front page or hidden inside the paper. My dad would be reading the sports section and moan and hand me the page and there would be a talking bubble drawn coming out of some athlete's mouth and he'd be saying "Princess K is the greatest" or something like it. It was incredibly sweet and adorable.

School ended for the year and we spent most of the summer together. He'd be going to senior high the following year and I'd still be at the junior high, so we knew we wouldn't see each other as much in the fall. I went away mid-summer for a week with my family and then at the the end of summer he went away on a bike trip with his dad and brother. I missed him dearly for a couple of days but I was having a lot of fun with my girlfriends and I was becoming boy crazy. I was 14 and finally cute (I had spent much of my past 4 years looking like a boy) and now the boys were checking me out and I was checking them out.

By the time J got home from his bike trip my interest had waned. There were so many boys and so little time...I wanted to date them all. Instead of dealing with it in any mature way and breaking up with J, I just avoided him. I didn't know what else to do at the time and so I didn't take his calls and I stopped calling him. This actually became my break up technique for many of my teenage years and I'm not very proud of it. It was cruel but effective.

I bumped into J once, a couple years later. I was sitting at a bus stop and he skateboarded past. I called his name, he looked over and fell off his skateboard. He waited with me until the bus came and while we sat and talked, I still felt an affection for him. We talked on the phone once after that and got together to play tennis once after that. And that was it. He graduated high school with honours in math and a scholorship back east. He moved away and that was my last contact with him.

I think about him every once in a while. I think that I wish I had met him later in life. I have tried a couple times over the years to track him down, by googling his name, or on classmates.com, or facebook. I've always been curious about where he ended up and what he is doing with his life now. A few months ago, my sister called me and she had found him on classmates. He had pictures posted of himself and I was surprised to see that he was a man. In my mind he has stayed 16 forever.

Then a month or so ago I get a ding in my inbox and a subject line that says "JG added you as a friend on facebook". My heart may have stopped for a beat. Just from sheer surprise. I accepted and then was delivered the dilemma of "how do you know JG?"

I finally wrote "He was my paperboy when I was 14".
It was benign, it was respectful, it was the truth, and it didn't say anything that I really wanted it to say.

I sent him a message through facebook that only he would be able to read and I said...

"Hey J,

For the 'how do you know J part of facebook', I wanted to write that you were my first and favourite boyfriend and the one I most regret breaking up with the way I did. I have often thought that I wish I had met you in my 20's instead of when I was 14.

It seemed an inappropriate thing to announce publicly on facebook since you are married and so out of respect for both you and your wife I kept it much more benign with you being my paperboy.

I decided to let you know anyways because I wanted you to know that you have always held a special place in my heart.

I hope you are well and wish you the best!
K"

I sent that about 3 weeks ago. Yesterday, he replied.

"Hi!

Thanks for the interesting reply. I appreciate and respect your comments. Makes me a bit proud too. Thanks. Anyway, life can't be rewinded so don't let it linger in your mind causing unnecessary concern or distraction. I don't want you to think I was ignoring your kind and nice comment. It's nice to hear and know.
Bye for now,
J


And there you have it. There's our closure. He is still my facebook friend but I can't imagine that we will have any contact again. I got what I needed with letting him know that he meant something to me. I didn't need anything back but it made me happy that he replied anyways.

Thursday 6 September 2007

I'm exhausted

I have lost my good writing flow since my holidays. I was doing so well for awhile there, writing a couple times a week. I am even struggling with writing this post right now. I am beat. My body is aching and I just want to have a bath and go to bed. So this is going to be a short post.

Sadly, that might actually be all I have in me for this post.
yep, I think that's it.

I am booked solid tomorrow so Saturday, hopefully, I will sit down and write a decent post.
Hope everyone is doing well.

Saturday 1 September 2007

Tennis

I have somehow gotten hooked on watching the U.S Open. I had no idea that tennis could be such a fun and exciting sport to watch. Tennis to me, is such a satisfying sport to play. I love everything about it and yet I almost never play. I have a great racquet and pretty much every single one of my friends also likes to play, yet we never do. I think it's time to make it a goal to start playing tennis more often.

Go every six months!

Well, I have been home now from Peachland for nearly a week and I haven't written anything about anything. I think I am overdue to write.

While I was away, one of my teeth that my dentist had filled was giving me trouble. Actually two of them were giving me trouble, but definitely one more than the other. While one was getting better the other one seemed to be getting worse. It was my upper right wisdom tooth. I couldn't bite down on it so chewing on that side of my mouth was difficult and then it would just start to ache and the pain would spread into my jaw and up into my head. I was avoiding taking painkillers because I wanted to be able to drink so I was finding tricky ways to deal with the pain.

I found something that worked 90% of the time and it was the most fascinating trick I've ever done. It is from The Course in Miracles and while I haven't actually read or studied the Course yet, my mom has told me about this part of it. I don't quite understand it but I like it and it worked for me. The philosophy is that nothing is real. Your body, the furniture around you, everything really...none of it is real. (it's very matrixy). If your body isn't real then any pain you 'think' you feel isn't real either.

Like I said, I don't quite understand it but I like it so I tested it out. When my tooth started to ache I would say to myself, "This pain isn't real. I have no need for this pain." and seriously 9 times out of 10, the pain would be gone by the time I finished the sentence. I can't explain why it worked but it did. Maybe because I really believed it would work.

On the drive home from Peachland though, this trick wasn't working at all for me. No matter how hard I believed in it or how many times I repeated it, the pain wouldn't go away.

I had an appointment to see my dentist on Tuesday. I walked in and told my dentist to pull my wisdom tooth out. She did a few things to make sure I knew what I was talking about and then got down to business. The entire extraction took 30 seconds and then it was over. She plunked my tooth into a dixie cup and sat staring at it for as long as it took to pull out and then said "Well, that's one for science." Which is exactly where it is now. We donated it to the UBC dentistry department. She then proceeded to do a root canal on the other side of my mouth.

I have spent too much of August in a dentist's chair. I hadn't been in 12 years and I am catching up in the three weeks I've been off work. It turns out that 12 years of dentistry work in 3 weeks might be too much. But really, I am happy to have gotten it done and not have spread it out over a longer period of time. I still have one more appointment in three weeks. I would have gone sooner but we had to give time for the extraction site to heal, which it seems to be doing nicely.

I am committing now to going to the dentist every six months for the rest of my life. I'd like to have all my teeth forever and I'd like them to be strong and healthy. I never want to have spend another month making up for so much.

Sunday 26 August 2007

Coming home

It's 8:30am and I am in Peachland. The bathroom is occupied and I am far down the line for my turn in there. This is what happens when you get 7 people sharing a bathroom. I did get a minute in there to relieve my full bladder, which is why I am able to sit and type and not pace the floor in front of the washroom.

We are heading home today. It has been a brilliant trip and I am sorry it is coming to an end. I will have much to write about once I am home and have given Cooper enough attention to get me back in his good graces. We have had some fun adventures and too many laughs and giggles for me to remember what they were all even about. TT had me in stitches and tears last night. She was a one woman comedy show and I was doubled over and unable to breath at points.

Well, the bathroom isn't free yet but I should get packing and cleaning and the general helping out around here. I think the plan is to hit the road by noon and while I am sad the vacation is over, I am looking forward to sleeping in my own bed, showering in my own shower and giving Cooper a good cuddle.

Tuesday 21 August 2007

Superbad is Supergood

Tomorrow is the road trip and I am pretty excited about it. ST and I are going to be driving up with TT tomorrow in the early afternoon. JM and his girlfriend S, will be driving up not far behind us. LT and JDub are already up there. JM and TT's cousin from Australia and his wife will be in Vancouver and are going to drive up to be with us on Friday for the weekend. We will also hopefully get to see some friends from Calgary who are going to be in Penticton for Iron Man. I think we are going to have a great time.

I have been cleaning my place because it's always nice to come home to a clean, fresh apartment. It's funny that I'll spend more time cleaning for going away than I will if I were staying home. So far so good though. I should be able to spend the rest of my night tonight relaxing alone before the craziness of being around a group of people 24/7 for the next 5 days.

I am taking painkillers and antibiotics and have been told not to imbibe too much (or at all) so this could put a small damper on my winery tour. Either that or I spend the weekend being a bit loopy (call me Paula Abdul). I have been instructed to drink plenty (PLENTY) of water if I do drink any booze and to take probiotics as well to combat the negative aspects of antibiotics.

If you are wondering why I am taking painkillers and antibiotics, I will tell you. I spent many, many hours in a dentist chair last week and narrowly avoided a root canal. But since the appointment, I have had some pretty serious pain. There are actually a number of reasons I could be in pain but the most likely one seems to be that because the cavity was so deep, the nerve is irritated and inflamed. The antibiotics are preemptive in case she got to the cavity too late and the bacteria got into the root of my tooth. There you have my tooth woes.

Well, time for me to wash some dishes and take out the recycling. It's going to be lovely coming home to such a fresh and clean apartment! I will post from Peachland if I can!

Right, I almost forgot to reference the title of this post. I saw Superbad this weekend and I LOVED it. It really is Supergood!!

Saturday 18 August 2007

Playing with fire!

This is pretty much a picture post because I don't think I could describe this as well as I can document it with photos. As I wrote yesterday, my friend E and her fire dancing troop, The Cinderbellas threw a fire party on the beach last night. It was so much fun. The only thing missing from these pictures is the sound it makes. It is this crazy loud whooshing noise that is so cool to hear while you are watching.

These two ladies are using fire poi. It's fire on the end on a chain.


This is one of the Bellas eating fire with another dancer in the background.



Here are three Bellas, E is the one with her back to the camera. They are wearing fire fingers here. This is what E coaxed me into trying out by the end of the night. I practiced with glowing poi (no fire - just LED lights) and conked myself in the head twice. There was no way I was trying the fire poi.



Here is E again on the right. Her specialty and favourite thing is fire hooping.

E, fire hooping! It is brilliant to watch. Quite beautiful and fascinating.


I had to add this picture because E is fire hooping AROUND HER NECK! I would be bald if I tried this.

These just make such cool pictures. I actually took nearly 200 pictures of all the fire and glow activities and have done my best to narrow it down to a few of my favourites to post here.

This is just a brilliant picture. E, fire hooping again. I got close enough to her for this shot that I could feel the heat off the hoop.

Ok, so E did convince to to try on the fire fingers and so here is a blurry shot of me pretending to eat fire. As you can see I was only willing to get the flames this close to my face. I do have to say though that it was a fun, cool experience and I can see the appeal. It's kind of addictive. When my fire burned out, I was disappointed but not yet willing to try more difficult or scary equipment.

Here's a (slightly) clearer picture of me with my fiery fingers.



Me again with my fiery hand, coming at JM, who is taking the picture!


If you ever get the chance to go to a fire party and try something out, I highly recommend it. It's a cool experience!

Friday 17 August 2007

Painting and Peachland.

It's been too long since I last posted. I had a busy week and my down time was spent convalescing. Ok, I just really wanted to use that word but I looked it up and it's not entirely appropriate. No illnesses here just a lot of pain after spending hours upon hours in a dentist chair. I had no toothache before my appointment but now the whole right side of my mouth aches. I finally went back this morning and asked for a prescription for some painkillers. I am finally blissfully pain free for the first time this week. I have a stash of pills that should last me until next week should I need them.

I am painting my bathroom today. It's step one, in making my apartment look how I want it to look. I have this post open and have been taking quick breaks from cleaning out my bathroom and scrubbing the walls to check emails and write here. I am about to start taping everything up now. Hmmmm I should take some 'before' pictures.

My Bathroom is all taped and clean and empty and ready to paint. So of course I am taking another break to write another paragraph.

I am heading up to Peachland next week. This will be the 7th annual Peachland trip. It started in 2001 when JM, the sisters and I borrowed JM's mom's car (for the AC) and drove up to stay with JM and TT's aunt in Peachland. TT was living in Ireland at the time so she missed the first year but otherwise, she's been going up there with us ever since. Every year ends up being a bit different with a variety of people joining us up there. We've had Irish girls, Edmonton boys, high school friends, and a boyfriend all join us different years. This year it's the core group (JM, TT, LT, ST and me KT) as well as LT's boyfriend Jdub and JM's girlfriend S.

I have just finished painting the first layer of the corners, edges and around light switches etc. and I must say I'm not a fan of painting with a semigloss paint. I like a matte or an eggshell that goes on thick and solid. The first coat of semi gloss, thins out and looks terrible. But I am happy with the colour and I really do enjoy the process of painting a room. I have the Once soundtrack on and am in the zone. Of course, then I break and write a paragraph or two. I am going to chug some water and get back to it.

I have just finished the first coat and it is strange how a darker colour can make the room look bigger. The ceiling looks higher too. I am loving the colour so far but still need to do a second coat. I am hoping that I don't run out of paint. It kills the whole process if you have to run out and buy more paint. I'm a complete ragamuffin right now so don't really want to fix myself up to go out quite yet.

My friend E and her fire dancing friends are throwing a fun fire party tonight and that's where I'm going when I go out. Although, it is starting to rain right now and that could put a damper (quite literally!) on a fire party.

I was going to keep this post going until I finished my bathroom but I'm thinking I'll just put it up now and if I feel like continuing the painting commentary, I can start a new post.