Dee in New Zee

Cycling Article

2009-09-15T13:34:00.005-07:00

Last night I finished writing a small article for a workplace 'newspaper'. It's kind of like a small recap on all the fantastic people we met during our ride from San Francisco to Vancouver in the fall of 2007. Enjoy. * * * * *

My husband, Brian, and I like to think of ourselves simply as “those two people on bikes.” When we tell people that we rode 3500 kilometres in New Zealand followed immediately by a 2500-kilometre ride from San Francisco to Vancouver, BC as a reintroduction to North America, people usually say, “What? With all your stuff?... Why?” Good question.

Of all the memories from these trips by bike, the main themes seem to be these: amazing scenery, amazing food, and amazing people. And sometimes, all three together.

I have a wonderful example of this triad of perfection: Imagine the little, cute town of Mendocino, California. It’s a hot, sunny afternoon in early September. I’m perched next to the only grocery store in town. As I sit, patiently sipping on water, I see this small, older woman take a peek at me and the bikes before heading into the store. Five minutes later, she reappears, stops right beside me and says, “Do you have somewhere to stay tonight?” My mind quickly assesses the situation: she looks harmless, but she appears like she could own ten cats and live in a small, very dusty trailer. “Nope,” I respond. Within minutes, we had directions to her house a few kilometers outside of town.

Upon arriving at her homestead, my mind rekindled an old adage, “Never make assumptions, Dee.” As it turns out, this friendly eighty-year-old woman, Norma, lived in the not so small, or dusty, cottage she designed and built back in the sixties, which happened to be located on a set of high cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean. We parked the bikes, knocked on the door and were immediately invited to sit in the Adirondack chairs on the back deck, snack on corn chips, sip on a couple of ice-cold Coronas and watch the sun set over the ocean. Um.... yeah. Amazing food, amazing scenery, and, if you haven’t guessed already, Norma was an amazing woman.

Our time with Norma was extended to nearly three days of eating homemade apple pie (150% better than raw garlic and curdled milk), getting beaten badly at Boggle (she’s a pro and took no prisoners), making meals together, sipping local wine, and sharing stories about the most excellent strangers we had all been lucky to meet (she had some doozies).

Not all interactions on our journeys were quite so dream-like, but each one certainly added a tale to the spicy mixture of our trip. There was the tired, dirty, young fellow walking - yes, walking - from southern California north to Seattle along the coastal highway with which we shared some food and listened to his numerous stories of running out of water. There were Ed and Bobbie, who had a map on their kitchen wall highlighted with all their cycling trips over the past 40 years.

There was the couple on the Oregon coast that met us in a parking lot after their successful mushroom hunt. They gave us a bag full of chanterelle mushrooms to benefit our dinner that night. Mmm... There was the woman with the gnome garden in her front yard and a set of really cheap cabins for rent on the waterfront. Yikes.

There was Jason, the GIS student who plans to help us start up a bike shop/coffee shop/gallery/yoga studio someday. There were Alan and Donna, who pretty much forced us, and everyone who stays with them, to try on their Halloween costumes and photo-document the occasion.

And who could forget Max, whom we met in a state park campsite. Max and his cohort of hung over, hungry, exhausted, university-aged dudes were cycle touring the coast in the opposite direction we were in an attempt to delay re-entry into formalized education. The chances of meeting Max at this one particular place on the west coast of the States was rare, but the fact that we met Max that night and shared not only our dinner but also our plans for the rest of the year meant that he passed us his aunt and uncle’s phone number in Nelson, BC and said, “Call them when you get there. Tell them I sent you. They will invite you over for dinner.” A few months later, that they did. And, they ended up coming to our wedding the following summer.

Even when we aren’t cycle touring ourselves, we maintain the connection to this lifestyle and continue to build our ever-expanding community of lovely and inspiring strangers by hosting other cyclists when they pass through our area (we use www.warmshowers.org to let cyclists know where we are and how to get in touch with us – anyone can be a host).

Perhaps these stories may inspire you to hop on a bike just so you can meet people who invite you in for fresh, homemade pies, or in my husband’s case, a private plane flight across the prairies! One thing is for certain: no matter where we go or how long it takes us to get there, our love affair with cycle touring is centered around seeing beautiful places, eating delicious meals, and discovering new friends.

That’s why we ride.

I succumbed to "25 Things About Dee"

2009-02-17T16:09:00.003-08:00

Sometimes on email, or recently on Facebook, lists get sent around concerning things you might not know about the person who sent you the message. I kind of detest these things because usually they have stupid questions like, "What's your favourite colour?" or "Who do you think is most likely to respond back to you?" That's pathetic; however, I like it when the questions are inventive, or like in the most recent backlash of lists is Facebook's rampant "25 Things About Me" list, where you can make up your own list. Being a bit more of an outsideofthebox kind of gal, I got inspired by some other friends of mine who filled their list out with really interesting things about them, and so decided to write my own list of 25 Things About Dee: 1. I'd rather be naked than wear super-tight jeans. 2. I think I just got certified as a Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy Practitioner. 3. My logical mind comes from a strong line of mechanical Monties. 4. If I don't get outside at least once a day, I feel like I die just a little bit. 5. I frequent Steve-o-Reno's for a decaf coffee and a brownie more than I'd like to admit (but at least I bring my own stainless steel mug). 6. I've married a man who looks like my twin but with less hair. 7. I buy my husband children's books for presents so that we have a kick-ass library of fun kids books when we actually do pop out a little wee-kid one day. 8. Brian and I read these kids books together in bed before falling asleep. 9. I need twenty minutes of lounging in bed under the warm covers before I can even think about getting up. 10. My best friend, Sarah, has had that title since 1992. 11. I write Haiku's about bacon, and as birthday wishes for friends when I remember to. 12. I love the Halifax market on Saturday mornings between 8:00 and 9:00 AM, but if I get there later than that I definitely get 'market rage'. 13. I haven't owned a television in ten years. 14. If a television is on in a room, I cannot divert my eyes no matter how hard I try. 15. I am a photographer of nature, of small things, of people, and I used to sell my photos as greeting cards at the Halifax market back in 2004. 16. I love, LOVE movies. Good movies. 17. I got married in a park, with a keg of beer, a canoe, and 75 of our closest friends and family. 18. I secretly wish I could sing like Jen Grant. 19. Sometimes when I take other people's yoga classes, I get really resistant to their control over what I'm doing, so I do other things just to be doing something different. 20. I write about shit like #19 in my journal to try to understand the inner workings of Dee and how to grow into who I really am. 21. I say I hate lists like this, but I really like reading other people's answers. 22. My spare time is sucked up by jobs right now, and I can't wait to have more space to play, to paint, to run around, and do anything I desire. 23. I'm considering cropping my hair super short again because longer hair is too hard to manage, and I haven't used a hair dryer in three years, so I need my 'style' to be easy. 24. The food I buy and prepare now is completely different from what I ate ten years ago - I care about buying local, eating fresh food, and dropping the amount of flour and sugar and milk I ingest. I cook differently too, which is nice. 25. Sometimes I see myself in a window reflection and think, "Holy shit, I look really pretty today! Right on!"

Dee's Update to her Phoenix Rising Pals

2009-02-10T18:36:00.003-08:00

It's near the completion date for the 8-month yoga therapy course I've been working on through Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy. The group of us (approximately 30) about to finish have been sharing stories lately on email about how we're doing and what's been happening in our lives, in our practice. I thought I'd extend the sharing aspect of my email update here on my blog: My story, or update, appears to revolve around a little intention I wished for that seems to have come to fruition a little too strongly. Perhaps I don't need to ask for my wishes with the phrase "Pretty please with ice cream on top" added to the end (note to self). What did I ask for? Money. Er, well, more specifically, a job. A job that was more than a few hours a week so Brian and I could pay our mortgage and afford to eat sushi in a restaurant every once in a while. What did I get? Four jobs. Sheesh! Okay, now the next question is probably, "Why did you take all these jobs, Dee?" I ask myself that question a lot, and my answer comes from the fact that I was offered each job sequentially and these part-time jobs started to add up real nice resembling something like partitioned full-time work, and then in the end, after I had accepted these jobs, I got offered one more: a full-time job with Health Canada (a federal job with benefits that amount to more than just being able to eat sushi in a restaurant once in a while)... So, when you have four jobs, one of which is already a full-time job, and then you add Packet 4 to the mix, you get Productive Dee. I should actually rephrase that to, "PRODUCTIVE Dee." I told Karen that I have a new understanding of the phrase, "If you need something done, give it to a busy person." Now for a drum roll..... where's the drum roll? - oh yeah, this is email. [Insert drum roll here]: I'm almost done Packet 4. Yes, it's incredible, I know, but PRODUCTIVE Dee was pre-planning and basically gave'er (Canadian term for 'hauled ass', or 'worked really hard') in the two weeks prior to starting the fourth and full-time employment opportunity. It's surprising how many sessions I could squeeze into two weeks, and how many reports I could pump out. That makes the process sound rushed and potentially weak, but really, it was a great way to go very deeply and intensely into the process and I came out with some new awarenesses that I probably wouldn't have noticed if I had done these things in the slow, relaxed pace that I've been used to with my semi-retired style of living these past four years. The last question might be, "How long are you going to stretch yourself over these four jobs, Dee?" Not for long, that's for sure. I'm fully aware of the another well-known phrase, "Don't burn the candle at both ends." Each one of the part-time gigs drops off sometime within the next month or two, except teaching yoga and the full-time federal job. So, come April, I think I'll be in the position to offer some yoga therapy, take some time to enjoy my employment benefits, and go out for sushi lots. In the mean time, I find myself gliding along somewhat smoothly on my short-term heightened immune system - thanks equally to the stress of my situation and my yoga practice: paradoxical, and awesome. With love and warmth, Dee

It's just a parking spot, ladies. Sheesh!

2009-01-14T18:23:00.003-08:00

I have to go to bed. My eyes are killing me, and my belly is still trying to recover from the stress associated with witnessing two ladies fight over my parking spot at the grocery store today as I was trying to back out. It was nasty. Two ladies, two cars, pointed directly at each other, both waiting for the moment to pounce. I just wanted to get the hell out of there, but neither one of them would budge enough to let me out for fear of the other screeching in and stealing the golden spot. Aren't there other spots in the lot? Geeze. One actually got out of her car and came over to me yelling at me that the other lady had to move. I said, with a "Do-I-give-a-shit" look on my face, "Look lady, it isn't my problem. I just need you to move your car three feet back so I can get out." What a load of cah-phooie: sitting there waiting for what felt like a long time for one of these two ladies to release their grip and let me get out of the parking spot. The worst part about it was that the lady who came to my car window, who arrived 'in line' second, ended up getting the spot. Fairness would have let the other lady park her car there, but the freak with green eyeshadow, over-dyed hair, bad teeth and obnoxious anger busted in first. I should have driven my rusty old car right into her new Pontiac. Wouldn't have mattered to me... That would have made me laugh. I can see it now.... kind of like a "Fried Green Tomatoes" scenario.

I've been on the move!

2009-01-09T13:08:00.002-08:00

In filling out a security form for my new job at Health Canada, I discovered that I have lived in 15 different residences over the past 5 years. It makes me wonder how I remained so grounded throughout all that.... Oh yeah, reclined yoga postures, a small suitcase with few material items, and possibly lots of sleep. Thank goodness we're here in Halifax for the next two years. Whew! I can start doing standing postures again!!

New Year's Evening Crap-Shoot

2009-01-01T09:05:00.006-08:00

Last night was probably the most interesting and mobile New Year's Eve I've ever experienced, and had quite the Halifax flavour... To start, Party #1 was a lovely homemade pizza bash at our friend Lili's place. Near 10:00PM, we put on some White Stripes tunes to get us in the mood and off the couch, and then left for Party #2, which basically sucked. Upon entering the quiet-like, conversation-filled gathering, we turned down the lights, put on some disco music, stoked the fire, and then left for Party #3. People outside the door at Party #3 were saying it wasn't happening, so we dropped in, looked at the non-existent dance floor, and without taking our down jackets and toques off, left for Party #4. We all hopped back into Rusty, our trusty 1991 Ford Escort, with me being a sport and parking my butt in the trunk. Come on, this is Halifax after all. The arrival at Party #4 was approximately 8 minutes prior to the entry of 2009. We stood in the kitchen and decided that instead of taking our coats off, we'd melt the snow off our boots, do the countdown with a bunch of strangers, crack open the pink Baby Duck (oh dear god), light some streamers and then run out into the snowy streets. That's just what we did, narrowly missing the explosion of a big gingerbread house with an excess of firecrackers (oh how I wish that was our introduction to 2009!!) . The first moments of the new year were caught on video, as we ran around in the cold and danced with no music next to an empty, yellow school bus (sorry for the Maritimer accent, but I'd been hanging out with Louisa; it's bound to happen). The light rager of a party next to the school bus seemed enticing, and so became Party #5 for fifteen minutes of shaking our groove thang with strangers from NSCAD (Arts students). They know good music, and are in dire need of a heater. The remainder of our group made a collective decision to return to Party # 3 to see if it grew into something good, but first returned to Party #4 to gather our reusable grocery bags full of the gin and tonic we hadn't been drinking. On the deck on our way out, I spotted Matt Lordly in the window of yet another party happening next door, so I quickly popped into what I guess I could call Party #6 to get a hug and a promise of dinner soon. The return to Party #3 made it clear the night was over because the people we went back to see had already bit the dust, and so we took that as a sign to head on home to our warm and cozy beds. Goodbye 2008. Hello 2009. Update on the first day of 2009: I slept in until noon, which is not as active as my usual New Year's Day pattern of taking on the challenge of a hike or some other outdoor excursion. Instead, I'm happy to be listening to CBC Radio 3's best Canadian music of 2008, and watching the enormous blizzard outside from the warmth of our little condo (that which dos not require us to shovel snow). Brian's just made homemade cookies, and the coffee and Baileys is warming up my mug. I love you, 2009.

Advice Requested

2008-12-17T04:35:00.002-08:00

A good friend of mine wrote and asked for advice, or rather reassurance, about her progress, or lack thereof, with the Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy program we're both currently taking. It's an intense, time consuming, and life-encompassing journey added onto all the other stuff we seem to deem as important/stressful in our lives. I didn't write back right away, rather went to bed and thought about what I wanted to say that would be the most meaningful. Here's what I came up with this morning: Hi Lovely, At first, I thought about telling you hints and theories about how you might get back on that PRYT train once again. But then I thought, "Nah, that won't really be helpful; that's just my ego trying to fix your situation for you." Then I thought about telling you how I am experiencing something somewhat similar, but then I thought, "Nah, that won't really help you because it really isn't the same no matter how much I want to tell you that I haven't been devoting constant attention to this either." And then I thought about how life just tosses you these eggs and you feel you kind of have to catch them, even if they aren't the eggs you want to catch. I guess the hardest part is knowing that some of those eggs will fall to the ground and crack open and be lost (maybe become part of the earth again in compost style), but always know that more eggs will be tossed at you, always. And that you have a choice. So pick your eggs. Be okay with what you choose. And know that this whole process is something much deeper than everything and permeates into all of our egg-catching in some way (job, married life, fun times, sad times, etc.). So you're never really 'blowing it', we're always right here. Gawd-dammit, that was brilliant. If this is the result I'll get, I had better drink Bailey's in my coffee and not do yoga every morning! :)

Weather or not we like it...

2008-12-04T13:35:00.002-08:00

Yes, I'm going to do another small blurb about the weather, but this time I have my own photos. Within about a week we went from this: to this: All in all, we had a whopper of a storm, and then it all melted and we got rainbows. I could use a little more actual sunshine in my life right now, but I suppose that's what holidays to Florida are for, hey? (No, I'm not planning on going to Florida this winter, rather I'm taking excessive amounts of vitamin D as the el-cheap-o option).

OMG

2008-11-19T13:15:00.003-08:00

Apparently, in the land of text messaging, the letters strung together as 'OMG' means 'Oh my god!', or in other words, 'wow!' or 'goodness gracious!' or 'no way!', etc. depending on how old you are and where you live. Anyway, OMG came to my mind the entire bike ride home today. Wait a sec. Let's do a little recap before the story settles in. I'm in Halifax. That's in the northern hemisphere. It's technically 'winter' even though most people still call this 'fall', including the university folks who call this the 'Fall Semester' until Christmas. OMG, they are wrong. I think the term 'winter' comes at a point when it could snow. And if it could snow, and if it does snow, like it is right now, OMG, then it's technically winter. This is all a side point. Onto the real story: The bike ride home at dusk today was less than nice. First of all, I expected a head wind because I had a wicked-awesome tail wind going into town earlier in the afternoon. Turn around, and that's what you get. Sure, I can deal with a head wind; just buckle down and peddle as hard as you can until you get home. What I didn't expect was the little bits of ice pelting me in the face so hard that I was squinting/ducking away from the snow/ice because it was PAINFUL. Yeeouch.OMG. My face is still recovering now that I'm home. OMG. Oh, but wait, it gets better. So, my gloves were still soaked from the rainy, but speedy cruise down into town, and so on the way home the dampness in my gloves allowed for a greater freezing rate than normal for my fingers. Frozen fingers. "OMG, my fingers are freezing." I almost stopped. Almost. Twice. OMG. I'm putting on winter gloves next time I ride in this weather, that is for sure. And the whole thing, the icing on the cake, is that I was trying to ride fast into this blisteringly strong head wind, not only to get home faster, potentially, but also to try to heat up my core so the possibility of some blood flow to my fingers would be a little greater. In all this extra effort, my head and sinuses began to get clogged with mucous, and at one point I realized that not only did my loogie half stick to the side of my face on its way to the sidewalk, but snot was also dripping down from my nose and sticking to my lips and further down my chin and - OMG - I didn't even know it cuz my face was so cold. Great. I'm wondering if Brian and I should even bother with snow tires for the bikes and just say, "F*** IT" and take the bus. I may say that now, but wait a few days until it's a balmy 6 degrees and I'll be wearing shorts, OMG, just you wait.

I love Haikus

2008-11-14T17:07:00.002-08:00

I had a Haiku published in a provincial contest back in Grade 4, and I swear I've been hooked on Haikus ever since (hint: 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables). Here's my latest creation: Hmm... to be awake. What could that possibly mean? Notice Everything I also found one online the other day that resonated well within: Silence speaks volumes without uttering a word nothing is unsaid - James Traverse I can't remember the Haiku I wrote in Grade 4. I can only recall the first and last line: beautiful mountains until the clouds came Maybe I'll remember the middle line later, or maybe I'll make a new middle line...

Oh yeah, We Got Married!!

2008-10-04T13:49:00.003-07:00

The delay has been vast, however, the saying thus goes, "Better late than never." Yes, we got married this past summer. July 5th to be exact. Three days of camping, beer, wine, canoe rides, board games and an exchange of rings. It was so fun, so beautiful, and just, well, perfect. Here is a big mish-mash of photos I received from friends, and some I took as well... The coffee line-up in the AM:

It's two bucks, but worth so much more

2008-09-27T11:25:00.005-07:00

I went to Steve-o-Reno's Cafe this morning before heading down to the Halifax market, and while I was drinking my decaf americano and eating my little egg-muffin, I watched one of the cashiers/baristas. This woman was eccentric, a hipster, I guess (which is a term I learned of recently) with OLD-school glasses, tight black jeans, random hair, and a pair of 80's black leather boots. She eminated the essence of 'cool' and yet somehow compassion at the same time. When I finished my breakfast, I went up to this woman, and asked her for a favour: "Could you take this money and buy someone a coffee sometime? Someone who needs it, who deserves a treat?" She said, "Really? Yeah, sure, I'll totally do that! Wow, yeah. Thanks." I walked out of the cafe thinking how neat it is to give someone the opportunity to give to someone else. A pesimistic mind would begin to wonder if that woman would just pocket the money, but I honestly believe she'll use it as requested when the time is right. And even if she doesn't pass it along, it doesn't really matter.

The Act of Giving

2008-06-29T09:29:00.003-07:00

Last night, in a conversation with my brother Dave, I discovered a little deeper understanding of the act of giving. He told me he's having trouble coming up with something to give to me and Brian in honour of our wedding. In the past weeks, he's asked mom and my other brother, Greg, about possibilities for a gift. All he got were limitations of what not to give related to the amount of space Brian and I will have in our car during our move across Canada in the coming weeks. This probably left him even more empty in his bucket of creative ideas. So, he asked me directly for anything I think Brian and I would like from him. I thought about this for a bit, and the first thing that came into my mind was a painting (David is an extraordinary artist in many modalities). A painting is something small and light that could fit into those physical limitations of the space containing the lives of Brian and Dee in the coming weeks.... But then my focus on physical dimensions became much wider, encompassing an alternative form of gift giving. How about something non-material? Something that has an emotional tone, a meaningful act? A gift from the heart. The following morning, I was writing in my journal about this act of giving, and it became clear to me just how many different ways there are to give: giving some-'thing' to someone brings on a whole new meaning. You must excuse me for a second while I savour my new found sense of gift giving as it has exploded into an endless array of opportunities - those encompassing both material objects and things you can't touch or see. Really, it all stems from my intention as a gift-giver, and for me this means using less of my brain-power to figure out what to give someone, and just listening to a warmer, deeper, more caring sense of who I am to let a gift intention to arise. This lead me to the thought that it is the act of giving that is important - that which comes entirely from the giver in whatever way they know how - and not necessarily what you receive, as your gift is their act of giving. More simply put, the act is more important than the gift itself. So, I'm going to remember this and thank people honestly and openly for their act of giving, regardless of what it is they are passing into our hands, whether it's a set of beer glasses, money, a warm gesture of affection in person, and even the simplicity of their presence at our event. It all means the same, the act just comes out of people in different ways depending on where they are at, and how they want to show you they care. And for that, I am grateful. [To give you, the reader, a better understanding of why I may appear so 'earthy' or 'new-agey' about all this: I just returned from a week-long yoga therapy training course in Bristol, Vermont, and whenever I do intensives like this, I return with a deeper awareness of pretty much everything. It's wonderful for me to explore things in this light.]

Current Halifax Careers

2008-06-05T20:46:00.006-07:00

By typing the words "Halifax Job" into Google, 658,000 links will be at your fingertips. Some of these links are good, some are less than desirable. One site, I think I shall not name here, had a grand total of one job in the Halifax region. Guess what it's for?...... Yep, Exotic Dancers. Ha! "Dancers (M/F) always needed. If you got the right stuff we're always looking for fresh new faces. Be the life of the party, be sexy, travel and get well paid to do it. Remember, it's not rocket science but it pays like it. Posted: 6/6/2007 Expires: 12/31/2009" Now THAT is funny. I think I'll have to pass on the employment opportunity, even if I end up in circumstances where I'm unable to scrounge up enough money to buy soda crackers to sustain my life. My dancing isn't that good anyway.

Snotscreen

2008-06-01T19:26:00.002-07:00

Sunshine was abundant in the sky yesterday. Brian and I made good use of the swell weather and hopped on our bikes to ride out to Proctor and back - a round trip of about 70 km. It was a great ride because I felt so strong and FAST. Road bikes are not well known to me, but boy-oh-boy, I'm in L-O-V-E. I glide. I roll. I roar (in my heart). And apparently, I also wipe my nose on my arm. How do I know this last little fact? Well, it turns out that the sun was nice, but also so strong that my little skin cells got fried. And, at some point during our ride, or maybe even before the ride began, I brought my left forearm to my right nostril and dragged for approximately seven centimetres. The evidence is rather obvious, and slightly embarrassing. Who knew that snot could double as sunscreen? 'Snotscreen' should not be sold to the mainstream, but it should be divulged that in a pinch the gooey green stuff will do.

Visuddha - The Throat Chakra

2008-05-26T18:38:00.003-07:00

The throat chakra just came into my attention during the past few weeks – it told me to pay attention to it. My throat and voice have been “off” lately. It’s like I my voice was coming from a place three centimetres above the place that it should really come from (the vocal chords). And when I spoke, my words seemed of a higher pitch, a lesser power, and hard to force out – that’s totally it! it seems I was forcing my speech. I tried to lower the pitch of my voice, forcefully, but it didn't work. It’s like I could only speak in one manner and it inherently didn't feel right. But at the same time, I couldn't seem to change it to what would feel right (which is the deep, slow, open, honest, loud and vibrant yet soft and smooth voice that I get when I’m in a yoga retreat for more than a few days). I’ve experienced the normal speech that I know I want to have, and so realized that my current speech was tilted and altered in some way. I thought about this for about a week or more, trying to figure out why my speech was like this. It finally came to me – I’m not speaking my truth. There was something bothering me and I wasn’t voicing it: I have been wanting to talk to my current employer about the date I want to leave my job this summer, but also ask for a raise for the remainder of my time employed with him. I have never, ever asked for a raise because all of my jobs have been four months or less in duration, and at that time I never really thought about asking. For some reason, at this job I feel like I deserve more for the work that I do because I’m doing it full-hearted, with good intentions and I’m basically working really hard. So, after chickening out for a full week because it didn’t feel like the right time to ask (which is also, coincidentally, the time I started having more mucous and scratchiness in my throat area), I finally said to myself that I have to do this because it will honour myself. It will honour the good work that I feel I am doing. So, I walked into my employer’s office and informed him when I expected to leave Nelson after our wedding, and that I knew it was an odd request seeing as I’m leaving in a few months, but that I would like to have a raise. The best part of all this is that I don’t even care if I get a monetary raise or not; the fact that I honoured myself and asked for it is so rewarding for me. And, now that a week has passed since talking to my employer, my voice is a little lighter, a little softer, a little more together, and a hell of a lot less scratchy. I think there is much, much more to this adventure, and that further honesty to myself and honesty in speech can be my road to a lower, easy voice that says what I truly desire to say, and not small chit-chat just for the sake of making noise and filling in space.

The Beautiful Breath

2008-05-13T13:46:00.008-07:00

I'm reading "The Breathing Book" by Donna Farhi, and I have to tell you that if you have any interest in your breath and how you breathe, where you hold or resist your breathing, or what muscles and body areas move with natural breath, you should read this book. It's beautiful. The first chapter has a description of breath that is so wonderful, so clear and calm that I want to write it on the wall opposite my yoga mat using colourful jiffy markers: "The inhalation is born out of the stillness of the pause and the exhalation dissolves into it." Simple, but elegant and significant for me. Breathing is something that we all take for granted. Breathing just happens all the time automatically, sure, but our postures, emotional states, external environments and more all have an affect on how we breathe. I'm a rapid, shallow breather. I've known this for years, so I've been working on it with breathing exercises (there are some tremendous inquiries in Donna's book) and also by simply being aware of my breath, my posture, my stress during moments of my day. Take right now, for example. What's your breath like? Mine is a bit laboured and restricted because I've adopted an easier way to sit at my desk on my exercise ball (yep, the ones supposed to help you sit taller and get better core strength). My body is as smart as my brain, me thinks, because I've been finding myself stabilizing my body and therefore the ball with my heels jammed between the edge of the ball and the floor. I can then easily repeat the nasty pattern of hunching over the keyboard with my shoulders approaching my ears. It's funny how such a bad posture can be comfortable - for a while until your upper back feels like it needs to be peeled back like a banana. So, back to the breath. Hunched and crunched doesn't allow my breath to venture in and out very well or very deep. [Release heels from ball, sit up tall using my abdominal muscles, lower shoulders down]. What's the breath like now? Hmmm... funny how it comes and goes much smoother, and it is easy to breath in more air. I feel refreshed. I also feel like doing yoga instead of sitting here at the computer. "Hello yoga mat. I love you."

I think banana bread is my favourite

2008-05-03T16:39:00.004-07:00

My mom used to make banana bread when I was a kid, and it was always so moist, so chocolatey, and so super delicious that the entire loaf disintegrated within minutes of coming out of the oven. I've made banana bread more than any other loaf my entire life thus far, and I can't see that changing anytime soon, especially after consuming the ravishingly wonderful banana bread Brian just made this afternoon. Add some pecans, a little cinnamon, some all spice, a little love and there you have it: a perfect loaf of bad bananas gone ooooh-soooo-gooood. With all the baking going on in our kitchen today, you'd think it was a chilly winter Saturday. Alas, it is not. Even though white fluffy stuff fell from the cold skies mere weeks ago (two to be exact), I think I can officially declare it Spring! Yes, that's Spring with a capital 'S'! The cherry blossoms are finally out, I spotted tulips under the "Welcome to Nelson" sign today, and all our little seedlings have escaped the warmth and safety of their dirt cubicles and have ventured growth into the warm air in a gesture resembling an energetic and sweet yawn after a restful sleep. The cheering crowd ('crowd' meaning Brian and Dee) in the background can be heard softly yelling, "GO, SPINACH, GO!!! SO WE CAN EAT YOU!!!" At first, young spinach must have a level of understanding like a young puppy, where as long as you say it in a friendly, fun tone, they'll think it's nothin' but a good thing. Or maybe their lifelong, albeit short lifelong, desire is to be nourishment for the greater good, kind of like what people sometimes say about Christmas trees: it's their dream or destiny to get chopped down, stuffed in a small room, decorated like the village idiot, and then tossed out or burned within two weeks. I think I'd rather be reincarnated as a sprig of spinach....

San Fran to Van Recap, written in Brian's words

2008-05-03T09:50:00.002-07:00

Brian's been submitting articles to Edmonton's Vue Weekly for a while now, and his latest is about our cycling trip from San Francisco to Vancouver last fall. Two of the photos in the article are of me and more plainly, my backside. "Um, Brian, can you check with me first next time?" Here's the link to the article - it's a great read! http://www.vueweekly.com/article.php?id=8388

Two Dreams and a Road Trip

2008-04-22T19:27:00.005-07:00

I woke up this morning feeling like I'd been in a movie of dreams all night, but as soon as I poked my head out of the covers and saw the glorious sunshine painting signs of spring on the mountains across the lake, I knew I'd be okay. Dream 1: I was sitting in the corner of a room next to the fireplace in my parents' old, old house (from the mid-nineties), and I had a book in my hands. The rest of my family was there and they were all talking about having to get rid of things, and I said that I wanted to keep this book. It was a novel-sized book with about 1000 pages, and it had a white cover with gold lettering indicating it was a book about yoga. I opened the book and on the page were two pencil drawings of kitchen tables, both drawn by a young child. The caption in the book identified the drawing with a thicker tabletop meant that the child had issues with his/her father, and the other drawing with the thicker table legs meant that that child had issues with his/her mother.... I looked up and my mom said that she'd like to go back to school to be able to read this book. I replied, "You don't have to go back to school to read this book; you can just read it!" Dream 2: I was in a cafeteria or school like environment, but for adults and not children. I don't remember most of the details of this part of the dream except that I was weary of those around me, and then suddenly someone shot me just below my heart. I looked down and said in a calm and slightly perturbed voice, "Awe, man... I've been shot." No blood came out though. I lifted up my shirt and looked at the wound and it was more like I'd been jabbed in the ribs with a sharp stick, and a few days ago at that. I figured I should get some help, though, so I went out into the hallway which immediately turned into the inside of a commercial air plane. The steward was approaching me to check my ticket. I looked down at the ticket in my hands and it read, "Flight Happy". Flight Happy?? When I looked up and began to comment to the steward on my confusion of the flight description, I realized I was sitting among a plane full of yoga swamis wearing orange saris. I think I need some more time to try to analyze these two dreams, plus I want to put my next story on the blog before Reading Hour begins (a new and favourite habit at our home, where we read anything we want for a full hour each night). So, onto the Road Trip... My friend Mylene was supposed to fly from Castlegar to Calgary last Saturday, and then fly from Calgary to Florida on Sunday morning. Her plans got kah-putzed on Saturday morning when the fog was so low we could barely see the lake out our window. All flights from Castlegar were cancelled, as were all flights within a four-hour-drive radius of Nelson. How about the bus? Well, the only bus that left Nelson bound for Calgary would put Mylene in Calgary five hours after her flight to Florida had happily departed. Before I knew what I was saying I blurted, "How about we drive you to Calgary?" Within two hours we packed and began our 8-hour road trip to Cow Town. It was a fun drive, even though our CD player is broken and the only constantly changing local radio stations were CBC or Crappy Country. I ended up singing the Hari Om mantra in my head over and over again. It kept me in a peaceful state and passed the time better than my favourite Tom Petty album. One slightly archaic game was played and much enjoyed: Horse! How do you play horse, you ask? Well, anyone who has seen the New Zealand movie Eagle vs Shark knows that during any road trip, whenever you see a horse you yell "HORSE!" and everyone else in the car who missed it goes, "DOH! Good one!" There are no rewards, no points, no tallying, no winner. It's simply stupid and highly entertaining. Once in town, we safely stepped foot into the Fairmont Palliser. Yep, I know you're probably thinking, "Whoah, wait a minute here." Let me explain: Mylene's boyfriend, Scott, had arranged for Mylene to stay at the Fairmont Palliser before her flight to Florida, so when he heard Brian and I were driving Mylene all the way to Calgary, he graciously got us a room too. What a sweet way to end the day! The following morning, Brian and I read the paper wrapped in starched, white housecoats while eating breakfast in bed. No matter how fancy-shmancy that place is, I think I'd still rather be hanging out in our own bed, in my own pyjamas (my favourite red boxer shorts splattered with funky miniature Chinese take out boxes and chop sticks), and eating my famous poached eggs with fresh cilantro and homemade toasted bread. Later that day, still in Cow Town, I had my first successful Facebook face-to-face reunion. Deanna, who I knew in high school, now lives in Calgary, so Brian and I met her in a fun coffee shop for a lovely conversation about what's happened in the past thirteen years. THIRTEEN YEARS!!??! Hmm... Perspective has returned. The adventures continued as we drove to Banff to see my dear friend Hailey and her fun and ultra-cool Aunt Jane. The evening disappeared as we took a walk along the river and made a scrumptious meal. Before we knew it, morning arrived again and lit up the road all the way to Revelstoke. Even though this whole journey was unplanned, we were smart enough to bring our skis in case we passed through a ski town. But Revelstoke Mountain Resort had alternative plans for us. We did ski, but only for five runs because it was -18 degrees Celsius on the mountain top, and god-knows-how-cold with a wind chill. Brian's poor nose looked like it was ready to accept a small dose of frost bite, so we decided to completely cop out and kept driving all the way home to Nelson. We were home in time to make a delicious homemade meal for dinner and entertain ourselves during Reading Hour. Boy, have I got some stories to tell around the water cooler when I'm back at work tomorrow.

Pressure

2008-04-18T09:47:00.003-07:00

Today I have a headache. Tension and tightness surrounding the place where the tip of my spine meets my skull is dark purple, if you will, like that of a plum but without the sweetness. The uncomfortable stress makes me wish I had a USB outlet in the side of my ribs where I could plug in a high-tech gizmo that tells me exactly what is wrong: Error 243: Low sodium levels. Error 538: Replenish Vitamin D please. Error 429: Hydration problem. Drink more water. Error 291: Excessive exposure to radioactive energy. Stop working in front of a computer. Error 731: You haven't been doing much yoga lately; you need to relax. Dammit, what does that non-existent machine know, anyhow? So, after waking up feeling ill, I called work and told them I wouldn't be in today. The past two hours have been spent cuddling up to my pillow under the covers, trying to keep all the light out and trying to keep all the warmth in. The level of effectiveness of this treatment is not measurable at this point (i.e., headache still remains strong). I am aware that the benefits of laying low today may not be noticed until tomorrow or later, which is a much longer wait than, say, taking a pill to cure headaches, but sometimes I feel like I need to go through this kind of thing without altering my state in any way other than rest and tea and good thoughts. You could call me self-masochistic, but I like to call myself a naturalist. I am going to follow at least one piece of advice from my high-tech gizmo I've aptly named Howard the Health Checker, and I'm going to stop writing and turn off this computer.

I dunno why I swatted the fly...

2008-03-31T22:46:00.002-07:00

Mere minutes ago, I was laying on top of our bed reading a new novel that I'm really enjoying all about a woman's journey with her experience of the eventual disintegration of her mother's memory and abilities due to Alzheimer's disease. "The Glass Seed" by Eileen Pearkes. I'm off topic. Anyway, as I was peacefully reading my book, there was a fly buzzing about the place and landing on things stupidly, like the hot bulb of our bed lamp, and then fluttering and buzzing about more madly because of the self-induced burn marks on its wee-feet. I'm pretty good at ignoring noises while I read, especially if the book is interesting, but this fly kept making itself known in my immediate consciousness by landing on the pillow next to me, walking around, buzzing a bit, and then swooping off to do a second round of burn marks on the bulb, then returning for a pillow-walk by my head. By the fourth or fifth cycle, I had taken quite a notice to this little fly-disturber, and decided to take action. Not only did I hit the fly on our bed! but I used my new and autographed copy of 'The Glass Seed' to knock the fly senseless. I was impressed by the rapid 'Swap!' of the thick book that ultimately beat the fly to the race for freedom. Brian was less than impressed by my swatting action on none other than his side of the bed. Oopsies. Sorry, honey. Being a lazy git that I am sometimes (I was comfy on the bed in reading position), I told Brian I'd clean it up later, but "Don't let me forget". Sure enough, a few pages later in my book, I look up to a space on the bed with.... no fly. What the heck? I guess I must have knocked the sense out of it, but its sense came back with a vengeance and it took off to go for one more burn run and then landed on..... Brian's pillow. I couldn't do it. I wanted to, but I couldn't. So, I asked Brian to come and get it for fear my movement would make it take off for the hot bulb one more time. Brian shifted the fly onto a piece of paper and then moved the whole thing out of the bed area and then smacked it real good with Johnny's old license plate. That fly had no chance. Sorry, buddy. To make sure it was good and gone, Brian flicked it out onto the deck, where there are a few fresh centimetres of snow, surely a great place for a twice beat-up, burn-victim fly.

Asparagus Pee

2008-03-28T18:39:00.001-07:00

It is the time of spring, the time when the baby asparagus piles are so lovingly cheap at the grocery store (and yet the snow still falls - 20 fresh cm at Whitewater ski hill this morning). One of the things I love about Brian is all the neat bits I learn from him. For example, when we first ate asparagus together, he informed me of something called 'asparagus pee'. I had never heard of such a thing. He is, unfortunately or otherwise, plagued with 'asparagus pee' every time he eats the green goods. Basically, the next pee you have after eating asparagus is all smelly -- BUT, only if you have the asparagus gene. Huh? Yeah, so we looked it up on Wikipedia yesterday and here's what we read:

Asparagus and urine

Marcel Proust claimed that asparagus "...transforms my chamber-pot into a flask of perfume."

Some of the constituents of asparagus are metabolized and excreted in the urine, giving it a distinctive smell. This is due to various sulfur-containing degradation products (e.g. thiols and thioesters) and ammonia. Recent studies suggest that every individual produces the odorous compounds upon eating, but that only about 40% of individuals have the genes required to smell them.^[10]^[11] The speed of onset of urine smell is rapid, and has been estimated to occur within 15-30 minutes from ingestion.^[12]

I don't know who Marcel Proust is, but that's one heck of a quote. So lucky am I that I don't have the genes to smell the 'perfume' of asparagus pee. After reading this blurb, however, I am curious to eat asparagus and see if Brian can smell said 'perfume' from my pee. I'll let you know.

Pretty Pottery and Beth is Back on the Blog!

2008-03-27T20:49:00.004-07:00

So this past weekend was supposed to be the first weekend of spring, but alas, no. No spring for us. It snowed instead. The most gigantic flakes were dancing from the sky in swirls and rhythmic flops all day. Gorgeous, but it's supposed to be spring time!Along with the snow came an old friend! It's been just over a year since Brian and I last saw Beth, when we were in the airport in Nelson, New Zealand, seeing her off to Canada just before Brian and I started our bike tour of the south island. Now that we're all back in the northern hemisphere, Beth stayed with us for the weekend, where she was entertained by all the shops on Baker Street, a yoga therapy session with me, and meals a-la-New Zealand (not Kiwi meals, but meals that I made frequently for Beth and I on our travels there, like curry medley). I also broke out my yoga-conscious-cookies and Britt's recipe for guacamole: Beth and I also laughed about some of the more hilarious memories from our travels, such as the little girl with the cow's eyeball touching all our stuff, or the time I changed my maxi-pad on the beach (I don't think I included a description of that one on my blog, as it may have been a bit over the top for new readers of my travels, but in my defence there were no washrooms!). With all the food, yoga, and laughter, the weekend was over before we knew it. Thanks for coming out Beth!

* * * * *

Last night was the last night of my 12-week pottery class, whereby I got to replicate the timeless pottery scene from the movie Ghost. Well, not quite. Brian wasn't part of this class, sadly. However, my creative hands produced three mugs and five bowls. I am literally in love with my choice of glaze... I'm afraid I might just have a new hobby to add to the big list of things I love to do.

Greg & Johnny

2008-03-20T21:50:00.004-07:00

The first round of visitors during this month was my brother Greg and his friend Earladeen. After a monster of a drive (something that took 12 hours instead of 7, all due to other peoples' accidents, two flat tires, and 100 km of driving on three wheels and a rim - yeeeouch). Once they finally got here, we had a blast. Even Con (the owner of the house we're in) got in on some ping pong, but he used what he affectionately calls the 'Cave Man Bat' (a piece of driftwood) instead of a normal paddle. I tried the Cave Man Bat out for a spin, and it works pretty well, especially for the extended curve balls. Watch out for the splinters. In the short span of time Greg and Earladeen were with us, we managed to get into all sorts of trouble, including a full day of skiing at Whitewater. Greg, who was tired of his old school "Force 9" skis ended up trying out and buying a pair of demo skis (the 'Movement' skis on the far left in the photo below, newly named 'Gas' and 'Hole') It was a spectacular day to ski: soft snow, and plenty of sun. The weekend flew by, as did Greg's drive back home, in comparison to his drive up here! The following day, I made the final decision on what to do with my beloved Johnny, my 1981 Pontiac Grand LeMans (it used to be my Grandpa Johnny's car)...... Well, this photo shows all that's left of him:I ripped this label off his rear end just before the auto wreckers took him into their yard, for good. Johnny was such a great car. He sucked gas like it was coming straight from the bottomless pop fountain, but he kept me safe, he drove me all over Canada and back, and we were best of buddies for the past eight years (plus all the years I got rides in Johnny when I was a wee kid). Johnny, you rock, buddy. Here's to you chillin' out in Nelson for your remaining days until you get squished and become a small fragment of a new Volkswagon. "Kah-Chink!" [beer glass cheer].

Silken Laumann, Drunk Eddy, Aurora Borealis, and Finally a Job!

2008-03-11T10:11:00.005-07:00

Silken Laumann just looked directly into my eyes and smiled with a warmth and vulnerability I find hard to describe. Let me go backwards in time for a minute. I've travelled nearly two hours getting from downtown Vancouver to the airport via city bus. When I arrived at the door to the South Terminal (the little sister chucked on the far side of the Main Terminal), my tummy let me know it wanted something to chew on, so I walked the entire length of the terminal - a whopping 20 metres - and stood in line at the only cafe available. Five guys in coveralls were ahead of me in line, all joking and playing around like boys at summer camp. They were humorous and entertaining to witness. After just saying 'yes' to the second option of quiche (due to a lack of comprehension on my part of the waiter's thick accent), I took a seat and waited patiently for my quiche to come and tried not to eat my brownie first. This tall woman walked by and stood in line, looking back once in my general direction and I immediately recognized her as the rowing champion Silken Laumann. I've always been fond of her - she seems, from the times I'd seen her on T.V. (not that I watch T.V., right?), to be compassionate and very.... well, human. She seems like one of those 'celebrities' that doesn't like being put on a pedestal, but doesn't mind being considered an inspiration to others. And once I'd overheard that she ordered a double cheeseburger with fries, I almost ran up to hug her. Well, not really, but I was pretty happy to see that she's really just one of us, on her way from one place to the next, and her belly too told her it needed to munch on something. As she walked past me to find her own seat, she looked right into my eyes and held the stare for a moment or two longer than seemed normal, and I smiled and gave back to her what she was giving to me: a silent, warm 'hello' or acknowledgement. Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but this was my experience, my truth, and I find it so lovely to know that we are the same. After Silken found a seat, her double cheeseburger platter number was being called by the waiter, "Number 97. Number 97. Number 9--" Silken claimed ownership just as the five guys in coveralls said, "No, she's number 1!!" Silken gracefully said thank you and turned to her meal. As I ate the rest of my nondescript quiche, I imagined questions I would ask her if I had the gumption to interrupt her double cheeseburger, and all that came to mind was, "What's it like being normal?" I'm not entirely sure precisely what I meant by that, but it's just what came to mind...

* * * * *

Drunk Eddy and his buddies were sitting behind us at the Keg in Edmonton last weekend. We were taking out our friends Jamie, Stephanie, and their son Ethan for a fine ol' meal and putting the tab on our $100 gift card from Brian's Aunt Joan. During the course of our meal, the gang at the table behind us made a succession of noises including dropped glasses on the floor, knife jabbing into the table (eek!), a few swear words here and there, and over-the-top drunk-hugging of the poor waiter serving them. To be honest, their noises didn't really bother me much because I was concentrating on Jamie and Steph's stories, as well as trying to overcome a short burst of heartburn. Anyway, at the end of our meal, the waiter came to our table with our bill and said that the fellow behind us in the red ball cap, Eddy, felt that no one should have to put up with their nonsense during dinner out, so he put $50 toward our tab. That combined with the gift card meant that we left the Keg with $15.28 extra in our pocket, but we didn't get out totally scott free; Brian went to Eddy's table to say thanks, and Eddy grabbed Brian's hand and in an attempt to say something without slurring, he began to cough and sputter right onto Brian's death-gripped hand. "Uh... thanks."

* * * * *

The day after the Keg incident, Brian and I had the pleasure of introducing our mom's to each other in Thorsby, AB. On the drive through the country back to Edmonton, we stopped the car on a side road to get a better look at the glowing night sky. I've never seen aurora borealis like that before! Wow, the whole sky was dancing in green in a glorious show that seemed like it was just for us.

* * * * *

Now that Brian and I are back in Nelson, I'm about to start a new job. Yep, I got myself some work! Yippee! I'll be a lab technician for a wildlife genetics company in town. My first day is tomorrow, so I'll let you all know how it goes. I'm really excited.

The Arizona T.V. Survey Man

2008-02-25T19:39:00.003-08:00

I'm at Sarah's apartment, having just finished my dinner, which sounds more like a breakfast because I had a big bowl of granola, soy milk, yogurt, banana and pear. The phone rang mid-meal, and after I answered, "Hello, this is Sarah's Apartment" a voice came on the line, a familiar voice of a survey person trying to sound all cheery and enticing all at once to get your attention before you hang up on them. For some reason I stayed on line. This cheery fellow, with a southern style drawl, was doing a survey on television habits of Canadians. I started off with, "I don't watch T.V." "What? Really?.... You don't turn the T.V. on?" "No, I don't own a television." "What? Really?" "Nope." "Well, do you ever watch television outside of your home, like at a bar?" "Nope." "Don't you ever watch the news??" [The questions are being asked in an ever increasing I-can't-believe-what-I'm-hearing style.] "Nope." "Golly!!...... How do you live without the news!?!?" "I listen to the national radio, I read the paper, and I use the internet." "Wow. I've never.... You're the first person I've come across that doesn't watch T.V.!" "Really, where are you calling from?" "Arizona." "Hmm... I'm not so sure I'll be useful for your television habits survey." "Well, I can ask you the first three questions, but that's it, really. And, I already know the first two answers." "Okay, hit me." "Uh, well, do you have a subscription to satellite television?" "Nope." "Do you have a local cable subscription?" "Nope." "Please select which option fits the total income of your household: Under $50,000 per yea--" "Yep, that's me." (I didn't tell him I don't have a job either for fear of permanently damaging this poor guy.) "Well, okay, that's it. Thanks for being so pleasant, and you have yourself a lovely evening. And, I swear, as Chris Cotter, that I have never met anyone who doesn't watch T.V." [Again, for emphasis, this was said in the most countrified and sweet southern accent.] "Thanks, Chris, you have yourself a lovely evening too."

Celeste The Seagull

2008-02-23T22:16:00.003-08:00

My new favourite lunch spot is a secluded little rock in some of the last remaining trees along the shoreline in downtown Vancouver near the Plaza of Nations and GM Place. It's my oasis within the city, and today I was accompanied by a single seagull who I named Celeste. She is Celeste the Salivating Seagull. Yep, she was dripping saliva from the tip of her bill in anticipation of getting some of my curry for a snack. I told her to go away because she probably wouldn't enjoy curry poops. She wouldn't listen. She stayed put. Salivating. Sorry Celeste, I don't feed birds. The course is going well. Really well. I'm loving it, in fact. There's so much to say, but I can't put some of it into words, plus I'm ready pronto for a recouperating night's sleep, so I'll leave you with this instead: Sarah surprised me last night with tickets for Xavier Rudd! It was great. I danced my heart out.

Day Zero

2008-02-21T07:58:00.005-08:00

I'm in Vancouver to begin a ten-day course on Yoga Therapy. I woke up at 6:30 this morning, took a shower, did a neti cleanse (cleans out the nostrils), got dressed, made breakfast, made a lunch, took my vitamin pill, stepped out the door into the cool, crisp air, took out the small piece of paper with details for my course and realized that today is not the first day of my course, tomorrow is the first day of my course. Awe, heck. I could have slept in and taken it easy this morning, BUT I'm not too bruised by all this because it's absolutely lovely outside, so I'm going to take full advantage of this extra day and maybe go to Stanley Park or something.

Victoria, BC

2008-02-19T11:59:00.003-08:00

I'm sitting in the UVic Library, where Britt is upstairs reading articles and I've been writing for the past half hour all about how this library smells ("of dust, old paper, and kind of reminiscent of the smell of older people") and how my period cramps are like the ocean ("Waves of pain rolling in and out slower than ocean waves, but faster than the tide. The pain feels like my insides are being twisted like a dish rag rung out to remove all excess water. Then slowly the pain retreats, untwists, and relaxes to a release, a warmth, a lovely opening from a tight, dark place. At once my face relaxes, my body lets go, but the knowledge that the dish cloth will soon be twisted again resides in the back of my mind the instant I let go. And, as expected by pattern, the twisting gradually increases once again.") The cramps have eased, thankfully, and now I'm filling out online surveys for requests from Parks Canada and Dalhousie University. I figure it helps them, and by completing the survey I may get a $500 cheque in the mail if my name gets drawn (if I have absorbed anything from Brian I'm hoping I've gained some of his random luck by osmosis). It's gloriously sunny here in Victoria. There's no need to constantly wear a toque. And the buds are coming alive on the trees, assisted I'm sure by the sweet spring song of birds. It's lovely here. I've almost forgotten all the snow in Nelson, my down jacket, and the feeling of frozen boogers. I remember now why I loved living in Victoria. I spent five years here while I did my undergraduate degree at UVic. I was younger at the time, learning how to live without the constant support of my parents, but it was easy to be here. It feels safe to be here. The energy all around is upbeat, motivating, and warm. Part of my opinion on this, I'm sure, is biased because I'm staying with my good buddies Britt and Kip. They're like family, and I enjoy just being near them. The group of us are planning on having a bonfire on the beach tonight after our yoga class. This ought to be good. Then, I'll head back to Vancouver tomorrow in preparation for my Yoga Therapy course. I'll be near Commercial Drive for the next two weeks. You may see me chumming up to the Italians at the local coffee joint, or slurping up some gelato while standing on the street corner listening to some girl play the guitar. I'm looking forward to writing about my experiences while in Vancouver. It will be a different life for a short stint - life without Brian by my side, life within the heart of a BIG city, life with learning on my mind.

A tragic time...

2008-02-12T10:37:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, Brian and I attended my grandma's funeral in Chilliwack, BC. The funeral was beautiful; full of loving, warm energy. There were people there I hadn't seen in many, many years - so long in fact, that some distant relatives thought I was my mom (apparently, I look just like she did when she was my age). Everyone told fun stories of Grandma, and we even got to watch some old video footage from my grandpa's collection of family memories: a big stroodle-making session in Grandma's kitchen, and then the feast that followed. It was really great to see the family together and to reconnect with loved ones. At the same time of our celebration of Grandma Montie's life, however, my uncle on the other side of my family had become very ill, and by the end of the day, passed away. He just returned from a vivacious four-week vacation with his wife, my aunt, and my parents. He also just turned 65 last week. It was within three days that he felt ill and deteriorated to such a state that his body gave in. Uncle Bert. I can't really believe it. I don't know what else to say. It doesn't feel real at this point. Such a sudden thing.

Martha Montie 1913 - 2008

2008-01-26T12:40:00.000-08:00

Yesterday evening, my last remaining grandparent, Grandma Martha Montie, passed away. There is no doubt in my mind that she is in a better place now, free of her 94-year-old body and into her new, younger one, no doubt still wearing dresses with floral patterns and matching broaches. She was a woman of baking, a caring woman who always offered food to you when you appeared at her door, a woman with the biggest heart around. She was the best kind of grandma - the one that was big and soft to squeeze with many hugs, the one that took care of me when I was sick as a child, the one who made me homemade chicken noodle soup, the one who put an extra blanket on me when I was sleeping, the one who was quiet but with a sparkle in her eyes that no one could deny. She was a collector of salt and pepper shakers, of photographs of British Royalty and those of her grandchildren, of things pretty, of things old, of things new, and even the little candies given away with the bill at restaurants (she cleverly tucked these into her purse when she thought no one was looking, but I always saw her and smiled). She could make something crafty and beautiful out of scraps. She liked Bingo. She made the best perogies in the world - see for yourself: As I'm writing this, I'm listening to Jack Johnson's album, In Between Dreams, and the song "If I Could" brings to me thoughts of new life and passing... The lyrics below intertwine my thoughts of Grandma's death and how it seems appropriate that there are so many new babies being born into my friend circles right now giving life to death. And how I believe a piece of Grandma's soul now lives in all of us, so she will always be right here with me. Down the middle, drops one more grain of sand. They say that new life makes losing life easier to understand. Words are kind, they ease the mind. I miss my old friend. And though we gotta go, we'll keep a piece of your soul. One goes out, one comes in. Grandma Montie was warm and wonderful and loved very much, and she will be missed by her entire family.

if love was visible

2008-01-23T09:35:00.000-08:00

Jasmine, a lovely and amazingly beautiful friend, has been in a car accident in Halifax. To send my healing love her way, I've written a little poem for her, with no capital letters, just like her emails of witty prose..... if love was visible you'd be swarmed in luxurious red waves and swirls all the time but especially now. all i can do from this place far away is pretend like i am right beside you. i am here. i love you. and in that, add depth to the love surrounding you. swim freely in this warm energy lovely friend.

My muscles thank you, Brian

2008-01-19T16:41:00.000-08:00

For Christmas this year, Brian got me two gift certificates for massages from a local R.M.T, Michael Kirby. His office looks like a hippie yoga hang out - yes, I even spotted a big lava lamp in the corner, next to the incense. Michael's a real nice guy; very warm and light in his energy. When you think of a massage, most people think, "I can just lay there in bliss" and then suddenly the hour has flown by and you're booted out the door into the bitterness of the cold snow falling into your jacket as you try to zip up with jelly-hands. In actual fact, I think you can get a lot more out of a massage if you keep your mind in the present and work with it. Michael's only instruction for me at the beginning of my session was to keep with my breath; try to breath into the space he's working on and try to release and relax that space with every exhale. This is not a new concept for me as I do it all the time in my yoga practise, but to do this in a massage is such a treat! It's like getting an extra hour for free! and your breath can be as slow as the red bubbles in that lava lamp. Nothing was too painful, I never held my breath, and I found that time actually slowed down. It's like a meditation massage, I guess, except that your body is getting massaged, not your noggin. So, thank you, Brian, for such an amazing gift. It was lovely... and my muscles still feel all goopy.(Thanks to Woodlands Massage for the photo.)

The Gratitude Rock

2008-01-17T21:12:00.000-08:00

Today, I received a gift: a gratitude rock. It is to remain in my pocket, and each time I reach into my pocket and feel it, I'm supposed to think about things I'm grateful for. A client in the occupational rehab program gave this to me. He's a spiritual man, one with a brief history of harsh accidents causing his body to resemble that of one 50 years older. Today, he was in pain and I saw this and sat with him to let him talk it through. Later in the day, he pulled me aside and said he appreciates that I truly care, and is grateful that I'm there working with him and the other clients. He gave me his gratitude rock and told me how it works and said, "It's okay; I have another one I can use."That exchange really warmed my heart. There is true value to listening with compassion. Other clients in the program have also mentioned how they appreciate the personal interactions I give them and how it's nice just to talk, and be listened to. This is something I value too - and I feel it's an important and natural part of healing the body and mind. On a bigger level, volunteering for this rehab program has given me a purpose. I feel useful, helpful, and part of a process to help people be better, healthier, happier. This gives me a good feeling, and I really enjoy it. I'm getting as much out of the interactions as the clients get from me. This is a wonderful step in the right direction for me - something to focus on for the future. Even with all this goodness, sometimes I still feel a little low, a little tired, not altogether content. Will a paid job make this feeling dissolve? Essentially no, not necessarily. That's when I come back to the gratitude rock and think, "Man, I'm with Brian and we're in this beautiful area, we're eating well, paying the rent, and I have five days a week where I can concentrate on my yoga studies, keep looking for meaningful work, and enjoy being here. I'm so extremely lucky and I should be grateful for this time, these opportunities... And, in the end, good things will keep coming." I trust that.

The Frozen Car

2008-01-15T21:07:00.000-08:00

I just got back from an hour and a half yoga class in town. The class was great! My teacher focused on relaxing and opening the neck and shoulders, and it seemed like all the stress from the day melted onto my yoga mat. When I got back to my car and tried to enter, the keyhole wouldn't budge. It appears the sudden drop in temperature today created a bit of an extra lock on our car that prevents not only theives from entering, but also me! Rusty, The Frozen Car..... This could be construed as a chicken and egg situation: I was able to remain calm about the issue because I had just come from a long yoga class, but on the other hand, had I not gone to the yoga class, the car would have remained in the safety of our heated garage. Hmm... Anyway, with a clear and calm mind I figured the trunk lock must not be in the same situation, and low-and-behold it was not frozen. So, opening the hatch and crawling into the trunk probably looked just as funny as me crawling past all our recycling bins and up and over the two front seats. I laughed as I thought, "Well, it's a good thing I'm flexible from my yoga class" as I maneuvered my long legs over the gear shifter and under the steering wheel. I had to sit for ten minutes revving the engine a bit to heat up the inside of the car. It seems a bit of moisture (from our recycling?) was the cause for a thin layer of ice on the inside of all the windows. And, guess what? the windows were frozen shut too. Geeze Louise, who'd of thought getting home from yoga was going to be such a chore? I did manage to make it out of the parking lot, eventually, and about half way home, I tugged lightly on the door lock and - click! - left it unlocked so I could exit the car in a normal fashion once safely back in the warm and cozy garage. Anyone looking to buy me a stupid gift can take pleasure in sending me this:

How do you get bruises when curling?

2008-01-13T10:57:00.000-08:00

Falling on the ice, that's how. And, twice. Yeeeouch. That's enough reason to go out and get a proper pair of curling shoes instead of using my Keen's and a floppy strap-on slider.... Brian and I got curling brooms and cool-looking curling gloves for Christmas from my mom, so we decided to start going down to the curling club on Friday nights to be spares for the mixed league. Last Friday was our first attempt, and we were lucky enough to find a team in need of two people so Brian and I could play together. I, having taken curling lessons when I was eight years old and having spent copious hours watching The Scott Tournament of Hearts on T.V. with my mom, was the logical skip for our team. We started out pretty weak, giving the opposing team four points on the first end, and we - gulp - had the hammer. It was also during that first end that I appeared to have stepped on a banana peel and in classic fashion took my first tumble on the ice. Most of my body weight landed on my left buttocks and when I got up quickly (in an attempt to shake it off and make like it never happened), I saw stars in my eyes. "I'm okay, yup, I'm okay." During the second end, things didn't really get a whole lot better, except I didn't fall on the ice. The other team got another point, when, once again, sadly, we had the hammer. My excuse is that we were just warming up. And indeed we were! because in the next end we scored two! And then another point after that. It was then and there that I insisted we keep score on the board (I think the other team felt bad for us near the beginning and stopped counting). So, by the end of the fourth end, we were down by two points. The fifth end brought us two points. The sixth end brought our opponent one point, and another bail on the ice by yours truly (a woman in the next lane of ice, whose entire team were wearing cheesy housecoats, said that I am now an official member of her 'Team Fall'). I tripped over the black foot-placement things - is that the hack? - on my way to sweeping the opposing team's rock past the latter half of the rings. That fall hurt more than the first. I managed to whack my knee and my elbow, and some stars appeared one more time. Gawd, I felt like such a goober. "Yup, I'm okay, Yup." The seventh end brought us two more points - which meant we were winning by one! It was exciting! "We don't suck!" In the eighth end (the last end in the mixed league rules), our opponent had the hammer, and ended the game with one point making it a tie game. We suggested drawing to the button for a winner, but we then found out that on the major scoring for the season, a tie game means that each team gets one point. I'll take that point, thank you. After the game, we all went up to the seedy pub area upstairs. Why is it that in every single curling rink, there's a seedy little pub upstairs with dark walls, seventies wooden chairs, tables with notches, photos on the wall of silly curling folks dressed up as the opposite sex, and a small bar containing cheap liquor? I dunno why this is, but I love it. Our team for the evening did so well together that we've decided to enter the Valentine's Day bonspeil. Apparently, every year there's a dress up theme, and this year is "Celebrity Dead People". It may be easy to add an ice axe and some hiking boots and a climbing helmet to turn one of us into the recently deceased, Sir Edmund Hillary. In any case, I should really consider wearing a helmet when I curl to prevent brain damage when I fall. Sheesh. Two days later, I still feel like I've been hit by a zamboni...

Job Shadowing Uncle Ron

2008-01-07T19:56:00.000-08:00

No, I don't have a job yet - I'm just job shadowing for a few days at a rehab clinic. The folks we were working with today are pretty funny, especially this one big, fat guy named Doug. He tells jokes just like my Uncle Ron: bad, perhaps even worse, and usually quite racial. Here's the only partially-clean joke I can remember: A fairy god mother is hanging out in London, and stops for a rest by two statues. One's a female and the other a male. They are stuck in eternity staring at each other longingly. The fairy god mother waves her wand and -shwoom! - the statues come alive. She says to them, "I'm having a really good day, so I've brought you to life to do what you want for 30 minutes!" The statues are in disbelief, but race off into the bushes.... Funny sounds are made, rustling of bushes occurs, and 15 minutes later they emerge from the bushes to the astonishment of the fairy god mother who says, "You've still got 15 minutes left, don't you want to do that again?" The statues look at each other and one says, "Okay, this time I'll pin down the pigeon and you can shit on it's head." Uncle Ron, this one's on me.

Mosaic, anyone?

2007-12-20T11:01:00.001-08:00

If you have ever wanted to do a mosaic, but were too afraid of the complications of such a task, well, gosh darnit, I'm here to say, "It's easy as pie!" Well, maybe as easy as eating pie, not making pie, because I think making pie is kinda hard. Anyway... I had an idea to make a mosaic sign for my brother's hideyhole (the affectionate name for the place he sleeps). I bought some random tiles from the hardware store ($5.00 for nine tiles of 4" X 4"). We bought some pre-made tile grout ($8.00) because I didn't want to buy a 10 lb. bag of powder grout (I don't intend on doing that many mosaics). And, we asked the dudes in the back warehouse of the hardware store if they had any bits of wood that they were going to toss out (don't ask the lady at the front cash because she'll say they don't do that), and we got some free wood (10" X 2.5 ft.). Once we were home, I took the back end of an axe to bust up the tiles into appropriate sizes (ram down on the backside of the tiles so you don't chip the good side), placed all the tiles into the positions I thought most beautiful, then used regular school glue to stick all the tiles down. After the glue dries (30 minutes), put on some dish gloves, dunk your hand into the tile grout and work it into the grooves between the tiles. Scrape off all the excess and wait for it to dry (24 hours). Take a wet cloth to the tiles to get them all shiny again, and presto!! Mosaic sign extraordinaire! Now, where's that pie? I'd like some pie now.

Elf Yourself!

2007-12-19T14:42:00.000-08:00

I sent out some random email holiday cheer using the Elf Yourself site, but for those of you who missed out, I thought I'd put it on my blog because it'll bring a smile to your face, just like if you had a tummy full of turkey! http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1579882059 Thanks, Lynn, for giving me the idea with you and Lumay!!

Our first visitor!

2007-12-13T18:22:00.000-08:00

Just as I was wishing my brother, Greg, lived closer to me, he calls me up and says, "I'm coming up after work today!". I was excited all day in anticipation, and Brian's excitement was shown through the cinnamon buns he made, just for the occasion. We all had a great time during the quick visit weekend. We wandered around town, went to see a movie, had some great discussions, we made pizza... Discussions with Greg are usually pretty funny, mostly because of the one-liner's we come up with mid-story. Monties are known for a few things, firstly, we all talk with our hands: And secondly, most conversations are done while laying down, especially after dinner (notice the hand movement below, and please ignore the fact that I'm wrapped up nicely in the Ugly Blanket): The most exciting part about Greg's stay was the ping pong tournament. Brian beat Greg overall two games to one, but it was a battle! For anyone eager to play Greg in the future, here's a hint: he's quite fond of producing a ping pong spin in an attempt to sketch-out his opponent, however, it's not the spin that sketches us out, it's the fascinating form he displays while creating the spin. Greg's time here ended far too quickly, and then it was back to the usual. What's the usual, you ask? Hmm... Well, I look for work in the local papers, and on line (that takes about ten minutes, and then I kill another 45 minutes reading the rest of the paper). I do yoga (that takes 35 minutes to an hour). I work on my yoga teacher training studies (sometimes I do that for a few hours). I write in my journal (that can take five minutes up to an hour). I watch the geese making fun random tracks in the snow while eating worms (?) in our front yard (I usually get bored after about 7 minutes). I look out at the view to get inspired (it only takes a few seconds to get inspired, but I usually end up zoning out for nine minutes at least). I do a lot of drawing and colouring (sometimes that can soak up three hours or more, but my hand gets pretty tired and my left eye always gets bloodshot - colouring is harder and more stressful than it seems, just like crocheting). I make a lot of cookies (the process of making them takes about 45 minutes, and then about three seconds to eat one sample, or three). Other than that, I've been going into town for yoga classes and doing a bit of shopping for the Christmas gifts we're making this year. It's been fun, and I really enjoy the bike ride into town (that usually takes 26 minutes each way). Generally, I'm feeling quite creative in many ways and pretty chillaxed. I understand I'll have to shave off a bit of time from my desirable hobbies here and there once I get a job.... unless I get a job as a baker/yoga instructor/illustrator/editor...

Hazardous Hobbies

2007-12-05T20:06:00.001-08:00

TENSE! STRESSED!! EYES ARE TEARING!! TORSO IS FIXED! MUSCLES ACHE!!! Are these descriptors of your favourite hobby? No? Well, they happen to be mine. My favourite hobby isn't tackle football or a fast-paced game of ping pong (even though we have enjoyed a few games of the ol' pong here at the house we're sitting). No, my stressed out hobby is none other than crocheting. Yep, chrocheting (pronounced: kro-shae-ing). It requires the use of wool or yarn and a hook, whereby repeated knot-making produces pretty items like toques or scarves.The idealistic picture in your mind of a grandma sitting comfortably in a rocking chair knitting away in peace is a total farce. Maybe it takes sixty years before you get good at hiding the fact that crocheting is stressful. The hobby should have an exercise warning: "Check with your doctor before you begin any crochet regime." Really though, if I hooked myself up to a heart rate monitor, a blood pressure sensor and some EMG's (electromyography which measures muscle intensity) and started crocheting my latest project, my test results would lead one to think I were either just about to lose a $10,000 bet on a horse race, or that I was extremely constipated. It's not an easy sport. Yes, I just called crocheting a sport. If I want to live long and prosper, I should seriously think about starting to smoke pot and cease hazardous activities like crocheting.

White Stuff!

2007-11-27T11:56:00.000-08:00

Well, I may still have a biohazardous hankie, but it snowed last night!Well, it didn't snow as much as it did in the drawing on my desktop, but we did manage to get 15 cm or so. Hmm... it doesn't look like it from the photo from our living room... But Brian could make an accurate assessment from shovelling the white fluffy stuff on our driveway... We're hoping this dump, and the expected dump tonight will get Whitewater opening sooner rather than later. I'd love to jump back on my skis! I will, however, have to wait until my nose is no longer plum full of snot, and my hankie gets decontaminated.

Cartoon animals...

2007-11-25T16:36:00.000-08:00

I am on the search for cartoon animals right now - mainly because I got myself a doozie of a cold and I think cartoon animals are usually funny enough to cheer me and my used hankie up a bit. On my internet search I found this guy, Doug Savage, who draws daily chicken comics on his website called Savage Chickens. I found one comic that cheered me up, incidentally causing my hankie to have renewed faith in a severe reduction of my goobers:

William Shatner???

2007-11-21T19:57:00.000-08:00

I am consolidating the music of Brian with the music of Dee on our external hard drive. Upon a quick search of Brian's 3396 musical selections, I spot none other than William Shatner's album Has Been. Say WHAT?! I immediately questioned Brian regarding this odd choice, and he pointed me in the direction of his favourite song, "I Can't Get Behind That". I don't thing I can get behind listening to William Shatner - ahem, Captain Kurk - sing. It's just not right. Better things on the go include us moving into a house on the lake near Nelson, BC. It's a house-sitting gig, and it's fabulous. Anyone interested in our phone number and address so you can come visit and go skiing with us, just fire me an email and I'll give you the deets. In between Edmonton (my last blog entry) and the present, we drove the car (Brian's car, Rusty) to Calgary and Banff to visit family and friends. Congratulations to Chris (the bloke in the middle, above) for winning his first game of Siedler in my presence, and to Brian and to Chad (the bloke on the right end, above) for witnessing such an extraordinary event. A couple days later, we drove Rusty through three hours of snow, and three more hours of rain plus a ferry ride until we arrived in Nelson, BC. Within a day in Nelson, we secured a place to house sit for the winter, and before we knew it we were on the road again, but this time towards Chilliwack to see my family and friends once more and pick up all my loot, including my car, Johnny, who incidentally still works..... sort of. When we picked him up, he was pretty dirty, a little smelly inside (but from moisture, not dead mice, thankfully), and his right turn signal wouldn't work at all. By the next morning, and about 50 kilometres down the road, he warmed up a bit and the turn signal began working intermittently, and now that we're back in Nelson, his signals are working perfectly. I love you Johnny but you suck gas like a kid sucking on a Slurpee intending for hard core brain freeze. In fact, he sucks almost exactly twice as much as Rusty; we counted. Yeeouch. Anyone want to purchase a gas guzzling 1981 Pontiac Grande Lemans? He's real pretty and the engine is stellar. Any takers? Going backwards here for the last bit of this blog entry -- while in Vancouver, my brother ran the 10k UBC Fall Classic. I don't think Greg would classify himself as a runner (in fact, I think I overheard him say that he trained using his hiking boots only one week before the race, and then bought some running shoes two days before). His lack of proper preparation lead us to believe he would be sucking wind and may not even finish the race, but indeed Greg showed us all that procrastination doesn't always lead to disaster. Not only did he finish the race, but did it smiling, and in 52 minutes! I'll admit that some of Greg's success could be due to the fact that Brian decided to be Greg's 'Support Van' and ran with him keeping his mind on jokes instead of the pain. Check out Greg's super finish in the video:

The Finish Line

2007-11-06T17:43:00.000-08:00

Whoops. It's been almost a month since I last wrote this blog. Double whoopsies. Sorry folks! It's been a great month though - with finishing our cycle tour from San Francisco and meeting family and friends in both Chilliwack and Edmonton. I'll get to all that later on, but for now I'll fill you in on the rest of our cycle tour. Where were we?... Ah, yes. We arrived in Snohomish for the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. Mmmm... turkey. But first, Paella! Erling made us this beautiful and fishy (in a good way) rice dish on the barbeque. The entire experience was enhanced by the Heinekin beer keg in the fridge and two gin and tonics.Erling and Susan's house is just beautiful. Even in the darkness of night, it looks like a cute and warm haven -- and I'm surprised I got such a clear shot having been slightly on the tipsy side. The next morning, after a few absolutely stellar lattes handmade by Erling, we all went to the local community centre for a good-natured fun time where we all jumped off the diving board, dropped off the rope swing, belly flopped (only me and Brian it seems), did some laps, and sat in the sauna. By all, I mean myself, Brian, Britt, Kip, Bjorn, Nicole, Kristjan and Erling (which are basically all of Britt's family, except mom, Susan, was stuck at home cooking the turkey). Turkey dinner. I don't know quite what else to say other than it was deeeeeeelicious. There were plenty of laughs around the dinner table too. The viking approved: At one point during dinner, Brian was talking about meeting my family in a few short weeks, and he said, "It'll be great to meet Patty!".... Um, Brian, honey... my mom's name is Pam. Whoops. His unfortunate mistake got a lot of laughs though. I think the viking didn't approve on this one. The activities kept on rolling all weekend, with an impromptu family portrait session: ... and the best darned 'Talent Concert' I've ever been a part of. Everyone had to display their own slice of talent, and boy, we had some doozies! Nicole, Bjorn's sweet and naive-looking girlfriend, ended up bringing the show to an R-rated level by making a rather interesting looking napkin design:

Bjorn attempted to screech his way to a song on an out-of-tune violin also missing one string. The Broom Trick by yours truly - ask me to do it when you see me next time. The remaining talents consisted of a Haiku, an MC Hammer rap, Thread the Needle (Kip held on to one of his feet with one hand and put his other foot through the resulting hole), "Mountain Equipment Co-Op" belched in one go, and a rubber duck shoot down with a sucker gun. Needless to say, it was pretty funny.

The morning of our third day at Susan and Erling's place, we had to pack up all our gear once again and head out onto the road. It was kind of hard getting back on the bikes because the weekend seemed like we were home, at the end of our trip, back with one of our families enjoying each other and having loads of fun times. Back on the bikes, it was just the two of us, a bit of a head wind, and leftover turkey sandwiches (which coincidentally made up for the feeling of being alone and anonymous again). I should say that the feeling of being alone and anonymous is absolutely fantastic sometimes, especially at the beginning of a big trip, but near the end of a trip, all you desire, all you dream about is being in a place where there are many people around you who love you. And a big comfy couch sometimes gets in on that dream too.

Our ride turned out pretty perfectly that day we had turkey sandwiches because after six hours of riding, we hopped onto the Anacortes ferry with five minutes to spare. The boat took us to Orcas Island, where we stayed with our gracious Warm Showers host, John. We only spent a total of 15 hours on Orcas Island, and slept most of those hours, but it was fantastic, and we'd love to go back someday and visit John again - what an interesting guy, and what a beautiful house:

The following morning, Brian and I hopped on the bikes and made a B-Line to the ferry terminal to begin what would be known as the "Ferry Hopping Day". Our first ferry transported us from Orcas Island to Sydney, BC (near Victoria). This was our "Welcome back to Canada" moment. And that brought me back to my crapola experience trying to get into the states the month before (remember boarder crossing guard, Mr. Cocky-Pants-'Every-Canadian-Wants-To-Live-In-The-States'?). Well if you recall, Mr. Cocky-Pants, for short, resulted in me getting a piece of paper stapled into my passport that I had to submit upon my return to Canada on or before the date I told them I'd be back in Canada - what a freak show. Anyway, Brian and I were the first off the ferry in Sydney, and rode up to the Canadian border crossing guard, who, first of all, was more interested in the details of our cycling trip (great trip? weather? road conditions? etc.) than he was in our identification, of which he didn't even look at. It was all together too easy. So easy in fact, that we rode off in bliss of being back in Canada and having had no troubles at the border, that I completely forgot to hand in that crappy piece of paper stapled in my passport!! When we figured this out (ten minutes had passed), Brian headed for the grocery store and I rode back to the ferry terminal to the guard, and he said, "Oh, yeah, no problem! I didn't even look at your passports!"..... I love Canada.... So there, Mr. Cocky-Pants.

Our second ferry of the day took us from Sydney across the Straight of Georgia to Tswassen, south of Vancouver. We quickly hopped back onto ferry number three which took us back across the Straight of Georgia and north up to Nanaimo. Basically, we took three ferries to zigzag up the Straight in order to bypass the 100 kms of riding from Victoria to Nanaimo. The funny thing is that we could have ridden from Victoria to Nanaimo in one day, but we thought it would be nicer to take the ferries, plus, we had two big riding days ahead of us if we were to get to Tofino in time to meet up with my Banff buddies, Kimo, Eric and Chris.

And that we did! After a night in Nanaimo with my brother's friend, Buddy, Brian and I rode to Port Alberni (not a very nice place, really) and camped in the closed section of Sproat Lake Provincial Park Campground. Perhaps the bad karma of trying to skip out on paying for camping was repaid with torrential downpours most of the evening, and especially while we were trying to set up the tent -- everything was drenched inside and out. Blegth.

The rest of the ride to Tofino was better than expected. The road I remember is tight, full of potholes and usually had heavy traffic including big rigs. Lucky for us, most of the road has been repaved with excessively large shoulders, tourist 'off season' timing meant few big RV's, and to top it all off, the loggers were on strike, so no logging trucks! Yay!

It was a long ride to Tofino, but it was well worth the work! It was fantastic to see my great old buddies from Banff. I miss them so.... We were all camped just off the beach, and as luck of all greatest luck would have it - it was SUPER SUNNY! It must rain about 360 days a year in Tofino, but we were lucky to have amazingly stellar blue sky, and some super dooper Swiss cheese!

I love that photo above. Heh heh. This is the beach. So lovely:

This is me and Eric pretending to punch out Chris in the head with our shadows. We didn't really punch Chris. All six of us hopped into Kimo's little Honda Civic and drove to Chesterman's Beach for a sunset gala. It was so amazingly stunning, and lasted well over an hour. Oh, breathtaking. Fun sand designs: We did some tidal pool viewing: We looked at the shells: We looked at the star fish: We took self portraits: And we drank beer hidden in our mittens:

Man-oh-man, it was so great to spend that time in Tofino. Thanks to Kimo for planting the seed in my head the week before to see if Brian and I could ride up in time to meet up with them. SO FUN! And, sorry to Greg for thinking that it would be raining all weekend and therefore deciding not to come out and visit with us on his motorcycle, Maggie. Doh!

The ride back to Port Alberni was pretty good because we shaved off twenty kilometres by staying in Ucluelet the night before we departed (this was in order to fix the broken spoke on the back of Brian's bike which is a long, but good-ending story).

Port Alberni is..... well.... dirty.... kind of sketchy... and just plain ol' yucky. We didn't want to camp anywhere mainly because there wasn't anywhere to camp, so we stayed in a shady hotel where they apparently charged you if you used the kitchen in the room (how they would know, I'm not so sure) but we ended up only using the fridge to keep our soy milk cool for the cereal we ate for dinner -- yes, quality nourishment, I know, but we were lazy and couldn't decide what to make for dinner and cereal was better than our other two options, which were Kraft Dinner or Burger King. Good bye Port Alberni.

On route back to Nanaimo, we stopped in Coombs for a fancy cinnamon bun, yummy coffee, and a bin full of dark chocolate covered almonds (oh my god, so good). We wrote some postcards, some fancy Canadian postcards, displaying photos of famous Canadian singers like Anne Murray and Gordon Lightfoot. Oh yeah.

Back to Buddy and Liz's place in Nanaimo for a night of beating their asses at Pictionary. Sorry, Buddy, I had to say it.

The next day, we were back on the ferry from Nanaimo to Tswassen, and rode 40 kilometres in the rain along busy highways all the way to my brother Greg's place in Whiterock. Man, were we glad to be there. Not only to get out of the rain, but because Brian was going to meet the first member of my family! Awe, man, it was fun hanging out at Greg's place. We did typical Greg stuff. We played Tetrus (Greg thinks he's better than me, but I do pretty well considering I've never owned the game)...

We went to Dairy Queen and bought the biggest ice cream cake they had. It was $24.00 of ice cream, and worth every penny. Oh, yeah, and if you hadn't already guessed from the words on the cake, Brian and I are moving to Nelson, BC. From Nelson, NZ to Nelson, BC. Pretty fitting, I say.

Greg also showed us how to rally race fancy cars on his X Box. I love how all those watching and/or playing the game will move their heads in the direction the car should be going on the track. I found it quite entertaining being around these two guys shown below because it was almost like watching folks witnessing a tennis game, but with more variety, the occasional episode of cursing, and of course ice cream cake.

Greg had to work the next day, so Brian and I spent the entire day in our pyjamas watching all seven episodes of "The Long Way Round", eating three separate helpings of ice cream cake, and for lunch: a big box of Kraft Dinner, and for dinner: Wendy's. What a fantastic day off. This relaxed and high-caloric style of living at Greg's continued for three days before we headed off towards Chilliwack, our real final destination for our bike trip from San Francisco.

This is where my photos appeared to stop completely. We took some photos with Brian's camera, but I have no evidence of Brian meeting my parents at their store, the Montie Family Fun Day we had that weekend, the time spent sorting through all my boxes at my parent's place, the visiting we did with friends and family, the time I made a pie for Sarah with the Perky Nana chocolate bar embedded in her piece (long story), etc... It was fun and a relatively quick week, and before we knew it, we were on a plane to Edmonton to meet Brian's family.

Brian's mom met us at the airport with two bouquets of roses... So sweet. His mom is SO SWEET, and she bakes like a fiend. I've never had so many baked goods, homemade soups, fresh bread, and so on since I spent time at my grandma's place when I was little. Good thing my metabolism is still on fire...

Brian has spent a lot of time sorting through his things, and we've found some interesting articles of clothing - some real doozies! Like, for instance, his two toques we've been sporting since he found them. One is a Home Hardware toque, and the other is a classic John Deer toque!

The best thing by far has been the sharms he found. What is a sharms, you ask? Well, apparently it's a homemade knit article of "clothing" if you could call it that, which is supposed to be a shawl, but for your arms only. Huh? Yes, I know it sounds ridiculous, but it's true, and it's on display below with Brian and his mom:

The sharms thing could have been a deal breaker, but luckily Brian never actually paid good money for this thing, rather it was a gag gift he sought after at a Christmas party. The fact that he sought after the sharms is frightening, I know, but it can't be any worse than the ugly blanket, which, if you recall, he paid good money for. Goodness...

I got to meet the rest of Brian's family on the weekend, including Buckwheat, Brian's dog-in-law:

More pictures...

2007-11-06T17:41:00.000-08:00

Ooooh! I just found Brian's camera, and so will show a few pictures that we missed out on, with the most important being the first one! It's September 25th, 2007, at 10:36 AM, and we got our first dose of Dairy Queen Blizzards just across the Oregon border in Brookings! Eleven minutes later, they are gone! In Tofino, here's the gang: Eric, Jess, Kimo, me, and Chris.Once back in Chilliwack, I made some rice crispy squares to celebrate the occasion of our "Montie Family Fun Day" gathering. Waiting outside of Sarah's apartment, I appear quite normal: Once inside the apartment, however, I transform into something spectacular!

Here's the load of stuff I had to sort through in Chilliwack at my parent's place. Yeesh. At Rosemarie's place, we played with Brian's hats from Vietnam... And then we played with the toques... And then we helped clean out Argyle's fish tank... He looks sceptical. Down with the dirty water:

Clean and fresh new water... So clean it looks like he's swimming in the kitchen! Brian pulled out his old glasses for us: In Edmonton, we hung out with Jamie and Stephanie at the West Edmonton Mall. It was our intention to play a round of mini golf, but that was closed, so we went to the Galaxy Land (for rides), but that was closed too. In the photo below, it appears that Stephanie is the only one truly upset about our poor timing. Back in Thorsby, we set up the Christmas lights at Rosemarie's place. It was cold, the lights weren't behaving, and we were in the snow! The snow was the good part. That's pretty much it... We're still in Edmonton right now and will be heading to Calgary this weekend, and then off to Nelson to find a place to live for the winter.

Heaps of pictures...

2007-10-17T19:18:00.000-07:00

I originally started this blog entry when there was a turkey cooking in the oven causing Britt's parents' place in Snohomish to smell like heaven. My attempt to maintain a clear mind and stick to the task at hand was useless, and I ended up retreating to the kitchen rather quickly to eat pie and drink coffee on that late afternoon while basking in the luscious smell of that big turkey... So, now I come back to this blog entry: my attempt to catch up on photos and stories from our cycle tour from San Francisco to Vancouver. I believe I left off (regarding photos) at Norma's house in Mendocino, California. Goodness, that was ages ago! That was certainly the best and warmest unplanned adventure on our entire trip. Norma kicked our butts at Boggle. She's feisty and quite a smarty-pants Boggle player for being in her mid eighties. She told us her competitive side goes a bit far sometimes; she beats her seven-year-old grandson at the game and tells him the severe loss will make him stronger. Leaving Norma's place was difficult, especially with the weather forecast indicating a storm was coming down from Alaska and expected to hit us that afternoon. Well, the skies stayed clear that day, but the northerly winds picked up a notch or six, and blasted us backwards (almost). Just as I was about to give up for the day, the highway duck into the mountains and the wind disappeared and we rode up the biggest hill of our entire trip north (we could call it a mountain, as it has an altitude of 2700 feet). We camped overnight and the following day would prove to be our second biggest cycling distance day: nearly 83 miles from Legget to Ferndale. The last twelve miles were the worst with steep hills opening out to vast and flat farmland accommodating a pelting headwind. After arriving in the small, very touristy and character-ey (I know this isn't really a word) town, we ate at the local kids pizza joint while trying to find our supposed Warm Showers host - who ended up being a dud. I was so cold and tired and kah-putzed that Brian got us a room in a motel next to the pizza joint and we showered off the sweat and proverbial tears from the day and watched movies on television while laying in bed eating chocolate (that should be the definition of luxurious). Ferndale, you are not so bad: Instead of carrying around highway maps of California, Oregon, and Washington, we bought a cycle touring book which covered the route from Vancouver to Mexico (in that direction, which appears to be the desirable direction of travel). When touring, you want to keep everything as light as possible, unless something is a real treat and is considered exempt from the weight rule (for example, the big jar of strawberry freezer jam Susan gave us in Snohomish). So, when half of the touring book is not part of the route, it gets tossed. Do you know how much fun it is to tear pages out of a perfectly good, and relatively new, book? It's a pretty good time, and we adopted this habit every time we finished a section in the book, so page-by-page, the book disappeared and got lighter and lighter. It was cleansing and perhaps a bit too much fun. Don't worry, I don't plan on getting banned from public libraries anytime in the near future. The next day, we rode to a little university town called Arcata. There was a big party and market going on in the town centre for the weekend, which we opted out of in order to do much needed laundry and get some items for our bikes at the bike shop. We did, however, go to the market-mecca town square for coffee in the morning and were startled when we heard some loud cursing behind us and as I turned around to look what was going on, I saw a big garbage can full of brown beans spill off a trolley onto the pavement. Of course, I said, "Who spilled the beans?"; Brian grunted with disbelief more so at my cheeseball comment than at the loss of some darned good beans meant to be part of burritos for the market. Arcata was cool for two reasons. First, we met Jason, a Warm Shower host and GIS student, who plans to help us start a bike shop/coffee shop/gallery/yoga studio. The second reason belongs to the fact that the town has the most beautiful garbage cans I've ever seen: If you ever wonder what it's like to ride for five or six hours every day and don't want to try it out yourself, I'll give you an excerpt from one of the days we rode. At the beginning of the day, the butt feels pretty good, the legs may feel like lead but quickly change to the powerful and steady appendages you can depend on to get you from Point A to Point B. Usually, the mind is calm and meditative, especially in the morning, and then every once in a while attention is brought back to the present moment by a sore bum, dodging potholes, hunger in the tummy, or words from your touring buddy. After an hour or two, the mind wanders and goes from topics or thoughts of food to friends and family, experiences, comforting places, ideas of attractive things to do in the future, food, being in a car, the best way to design a new bike seat using pressure sensors and cycle ergometers and shaving off bits of foam, food, pets from the past, daydreams of impossible scenes, the best way to design numbness-free handle bars where pressure is equally displaced through molded gloves/handles allowing for finger sensitive shifting and where cold temperature is never an issue, and eventually, the mind always leads once more to food. But really, the time just seems to fly by as quickly as the scenery around us. Six hours and sixty miles will come and go and it feels like we've only been on the bikes for an hour. It's really great. We're in northern California at this point in the photo show. I can't remember the name of the park where the next few pictures are taken, and I tore out that page in the touring book a long time ago, so I can't look it up. Crap. It's nice to see people's adoration for each other displayed on fences. Brian and I thought it was likely too much effort: Upon arrival at the Elk Prairie Campground, Brian stretched and drank water while I sat at the picnic table drinking beer and eating cheese. The next morning we were treated to a foggy, but beautiful scene. Sheeeyah! We hit the Oregon border after eleven days of riding. I was appreciating the upgrades we did to my bike: a new, softer, less blister-inducing bike seat. And handle bar ends which were an attempt to prevent my hands from going numb all the time by allowing for multiple hand positions while riding. It kind of worked, but, especially in the hot shower at the end of the day, my elbows feel funny and my pinkie fingers and one half of both ring fingers go entirely numb. Just across the Oregon border, we stayed with Warm Showers hosts, Ed and Bobbie. They were fantastic, interesting and very outgoing! They also had a beautiful house with a big kitchen window overlooking a bird house with a microphone attached to the bottom leading to a speaker on the counter in the kitchen. How cool is that? In the dining area, they had two big maps on the wall with highlighted lines describing cycle trips Ed had done. We plan to post a big map on our kitchen wall - what a great way to get interesting conversation and wacky stories at the dinner table. The best part about Ed and Bobbie's place were the murals on the wall that a neighbor's daughter had painted for them. I want one of these for our house too. Within twenty minutes of leaving Ed's place, Brian and I spotted our first real Dairy Queen restaurant. It was 10:30 AM. It was open. Yes. Blizzards before lunch? You betcha. Leaving the town of Brookings with a sugar rush, we cycled under incredibly clear skies, but were pushed back incredibly hard with a severe head wind. At one point, I looked at my cycle computer as I was trying to cycle downhill and I was only going 3.5 mph. Ugh!! What a way to drop the fun out of cycling. But, we enjoyed a nice lunch hunched behind a road barrier at a pull-out and got to see this while we ate: Not too much further up the road from lunch, we opted to stop riding and find a place to stay for the night. Gold Beach is a small town on the water and had a Dairy Queen (good), and a cheap motel/cabin for $35 a night (damn good). The sunset that evening was a great addition to a crummy day of riding: We enjoyed the setting sun for a while on the expansive beach and decided to stay in Gold Beach one more day to rest and relax. Our day off included eating an entire package of bacon and two Dairy Queen Blizzards, watching movies and Corner Gas on television, and taking a few naps. It was bliss. The next day of riding, the wind settled down quite a bit and we saw the most beautiful coast line towards Port Orford most of the morning. That day, we pulled into Bandon, Oregon and found that free internet cafe. Sweet times. The next day, we rode through Charleston, famous for its clam diggers - not so famous for its population of apparent trailer trash who didn't appreciate cyclists and yelled at us "Get on the sidewalk!", AND, where the town has a big bridge a few kilometres long where cyclists are not allowed to ride. It was "against the law to mount bicycles on bridge". Later that day, the feeling was no better, even though we landed a good place to camp, because two old folks started preaching Jesus to us with his first sentence being, "I'm not religious, but..." and ended up trying to convince us that some story in the bible is correlated to Pythagoras's Rule which makes that bible story "prove itself!" And so, "The Creator is the only absolute." After the Jesus-totin' pair left to catch the five o'clock news on television, I farted and Brian sniffed and said, "That's the only absolute." Day 16 of our trip brought us through Florence, and to a bike shop to replace my chain and a small problem with my rear hub. While the bike was in the shop, we went out for lunch at a great little pub where I ordered a bottle of old fashioned root beer. I love root beer. The bad things we ingested that day: root beer (which isn't all that bad, right?), burgers and fries, Pumpkin Spiced Lattes at Starbucks (damn), a long john (ha!), and that's it. And nearing the end of our day, we bumped into two folks at the end of their hike, and they gave us a bag full of chantrell mushrooms to add to our dinner. Sweet! Then came the day from the bottom of the sewer.... It rained, and I mean it rained HARD all day long. The only saving grace of the day is that we had a sweet tailwind accompanying the storm which propelled us further than we anticipated, but not that far because of a number of flat tires. All the dirt, glass, staples, and other garbage was being washed to the sides of the highway, where we ride, and in the rain, within a time span of two hours, we had to fix flats on all three of Brian's tires and one of mine (the only tire that didn't flat out that day happened to flat out the next day). We blame Oregon's lack of street cleaning for the extensive flat tire saga. Goodness, it was wet. Once we finally arrived in Lincoln City, we stopped into a State Park and decided putting up the tent in a big puddle wasn't an option, so we stayed in one of the yurts! The next day we rode 77 miles into Manzanita, Oregon -- and there was little rain, thank gosh. But, the day was a bit longer than expected, and the ground was still pretty wet from the day before and the yurts were all full, so we spent a night in a cheesey hotel and watched movies all night. From Manzanita, we booked it to Cannon Beach in an hour to meet up with John, a friend of Brian's from Thorsby, AB and his family. We ate two meals at Mo's, the greasy restaurant next door to the hotel whose specialty was clam chowder. I admit, the chowder was pretty good. The hotel was sweet - and not that expensive; actually cheaper than the crummy place we stayed at in Manzanita. I love how we totally take over a hotel room - bikes, clothes hanging, sleeping bags drying, and us, usually in the bed watching movies on television. From Cannon Beach, we rode 73 miles into Washington and to South Bend (not a very nice place), but the motel we stayed at (yes, I know, another motel, but I had cramps and the weather was disastrous and the ride was hard, so we rewarded ourselves with another bed and - get this! - a Lazy-Boy! I slouched in the comfy chair consoling my uterus while watching Celebrity Poker Showdown on T.V. After a hard day of riding, we arrived at another Warm Showers place where the hosts, Alan and Donna, immediately told us we were to have burgers with them for dinner. Yum. The other great part about that place was the three eyeball headgear halloween costumes they had in our room. Below, I'm showing off the pencil in the eyeball. They also had a razor blade and a screw impaling the big eyeballs. Great stuff! The family ran a 10-km race with these 'helmets' on and landed their photo on the cover of a local paper. Our biggest day of riding was on Day 22, where we rode from Shelton to Snohomish, a mere 88.63 miles for that fancy turkey and the opportunity to hang out with super fun folks -- The Vegsunds. At the ferry in Kingston, I checked my trip odometer, and we'd ridden just over 1000 miles since San Francisco. A congratulatory pretzel was in order of our achievement up to this point... After falling off my bike (more from general stupor from extensive day of riding than anything else), we arrived at Susan and Erling's place just as darkness was surrounding us. Yay! We arrived for the weekend of fun... Hi Britt. Hi Kip... More photos to come, but I have to go eat ice cream cake with my brother now.

Return to Canada

2007-10-10T08:59:00.001-07:00

Twenty miles on the bike and three ferry rides later (all yesterday), we arrived in Nanaimo, BC. We're heading off this morning towards Tofino to surf, and hang out with my good buddies Eric, Kimo and Chris, and my brother Greg will be coming along too. It's going to be great! Brian and I are doing well, and our legs are still strong and willing to lug us and our stuff all over. Surf's up!

Our legs have done us well

2007-10-02T17:02:00.000-07:00

Essentially, we've been bookin' it. We're already in Cannon Beach, Oregon. We'll pass over the Oregon/Washington border tomorrow morning and then head up towards Seattle, hopefully reaching Snohomish area by the weekend. We have been so busy riding that we haven't done laundry since we crossed the California border into Oregon over a week ago. Our bicycles are the only things that don't smell. It's funny how you just don't smell yourself after a while... I'm not sure I like that kind of olfactory habituation, but it has worked pretty well for us up to today: Laundry Day. Other than smelly clothing, the riding has been great. We've been covering plenty of miles each day, and have had pretty good weather - oh, wait, no that's not right - the weather has been strange indeed. Sunburn weather with severe headwinds in the southern parts of Oregon, and then tailwinds from Bandon pushing us north (thank god) but accompanied by of plenty of rain. Two days ago, it poured (absolute downpour) all day long. We rode nearly fifty-five miles and had no dry spots with the exception of a stop at Starbucks (yeah, I know Starbucks is evil, but the pumpkin spice latte is really good). That day we also had three flat tires; all the nasty stuff on the roads washes down the shoulders, which is where we ride, if we fit. Brian had each of his three tires go out within two hours. We also pulled a staple and a piece of glass out of my tire. It wasn't a good day for repairs, but Brian did well putting patches on our tires under the safety of awnings and in workshops owned by singing welders (don't make fun of a big dude welding stuff while singing Beach Boys tunes at the top of his lungs). Well, we're off to have some clam chowder at Mo's next door. I'll 'cheers' with a tall cold one to clean laundry and passing the 800-mile mark.

Free Internet in Bandon, Oregon

2007-09-27T15:15:00.000-07:00

Whoah. FREE INTERNET in a cafe? That is definitely a first on our travels. And the coffee is good too! It feels like it has been weeks since I last wrote on this blog. I am finding it extremely difficult to get online - first because when we go through towns with internet cafes it's usually lunch time and I'd rather eat lots of food and have a comatose nap than spend an hour indoors on the computer. Secondly, when we stop for the evening it's usually at a hiker/biker campsite in a State Park, which are usually located nowhere near an internet cafe. Regardless, I'm taking advantage of this cafe, and the free usage of the internet to say that I'd rather go sit on the phat leather couch watching race car driving on the flat screen while sipping at my soy coffee than sit here on the computer too long. I'm sure you all understand. Next time we take a day off in a place with the internet, I'll post some cool pictures and tell you all the stories from the past week (Sneak Preview: Fun 'Warm Showers' folks, a new bike seat for my sore bum (but still no blisters), big and beautiful sandy beaches, strong headwinds causing us to ride 3.5 mph (ugh) downhill (double ugh), the cutest town called Ferndale, sketchy motels, and Dairy Queen blizzards in the morning...) Just before I go: we passed the 500 mile mark yesterday, so we're well on our way, and almost halfway done our trip. My thighs are monstrous. View Larger Map

A photo catch-up...

2007-09-18T13:12:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I put any photos on my blog, so I thought I'd put on a not-so-small collection of pics from the last days in NZ through my time in BC and on to the ride from San Francisco up the coast to today (and today is really great!). Back in New Zealand, I was caught fooling around on Layla's tricycle in the Glen:The last night for me in NZ, with Lisa: The only photo I took during my flights back to Canada was of Mt. Saint Helens in Washington, which is apparently still smoking: Over to Victoria for a sailing trip with Britt and Kipp (but no wind, so we didn't actually sail): Kip the local tree monkey: The Alpha Triad: Britt and Kip pretending to be deer so we could creep up closer to the real deer: Kip, the tree monkey doing more tree tricks: Back in Vancouver with Sarah; both of us wearing our Doers shirts (the Doers are a local band made up of friends of ours): Out for lunch with my entire family from my mom's side, I had the opportunity to draw on the table cloth, so I entertained my Uncle Bert with this attempt at recreating his normal backyard scenario: A long flight (described earlier in my blog) to San Francisco and a tour around town on our bikes led Brian and I to a burrito place, where Brian still tried to tell me that SF is the birth place of the burrito (he even tried to bet the ugly blanket on this when we were still in New Zealand, but we found out that he was only partially correct - it's the home of a certain kind of burrito, but not the original burrito -- does that mean that I get to burn half the blanket?): Look at the size of this thing!!!! The left overs were another entire meal! The Golden Gate Bridge: Marmalade, the cat, who lives at the house we stayed at in San Fran, and who apparently likes to rest on the dinner table: The KISS socks Sarah got for Brian as a gift (so awesome): Just as we are about to depart on our trip north on the bikes: The end of Cycling Day 1, we stayed in a town called Tomales. HOT TOMALES. Someone bought the old bank and now lives there and so changed the gold letters to say "NOT A BANK". We stayed overnight at the local elementary school, but were offered a place to stay by the neighbour, Dan, who said that we probably wouldn't get caught, but if we did, we could move into his backyard. He also had some good recommendations for local eats and treats as he sipped his Coors Light with a styrofoam outer cup to keep it Cool. The following morning, we went to the local bakery for coffee and a cinnamon bun, and met up with Dan and all the other locals chatting it up and drinking coffee out of their own mugs on a lovely Saturday morning: It was a fantastic ride down the road that morning, and became even more so when we saw a sign that said, "Salmon BBQ, Saturday, Sept 15, 11 AM to 6 PM, 2 miles ahead". It was 10:55 AM when we saw this sign, and it was probably 10:59 when we pulled up to the community BBQ with smiles abroad! That was the best salmon lunch I've ever had: The next night was spent in our tent at a regional campground for "hikers & bikers". It costs three dollars each to stay the night. Can't really beat that, eh? We were pretty happy to hear that there are campgrounds like this all the way up the coast. Sweeeeet. After dinner, Brian and I took a walk to the coast and got a few cool night shots with our red head lamp: The next day was a rest-ish day, so we only rode 20 miles instead of 45, and camped out in luxury style (for $19) with a deluxe picnic table including a cupboard at the end, a bathe-able river right below us, and a flat, not too hard place to pitch our tent. Oh, and BIG trees to shelter us from the wind. The afternoon was spent napping and letting Brian discover his adoration for "Easy Crossword Puzzles". This next one is the only photo I have of the road we have been riding the past four days. It's not a great photo, but when we see something really stellar, it's usually accompanied by extremely narrow road shoulders, a big American truck trying to pass us, and wind making the 'straight and narrow' impossible to achieve. So, this is our lunch spot where we sat on a remote UPS plastic pickup box on the side of the road eating pesto jack cheese and ryevita crackers: Once we arrived in Mendocino, we were supposed to stay with another Warm Showers website person, but they weren't home, however, in the mean time while I was waiting outside the grocery store, a lovely lady, Norma, invited us to stay with her for the next few days. She lives right on the ocean in a beautiful little beach cottage. It is her custom to invite people in to couch surf (she's even got a photo album full of evidence of folks sleeping on the couch/bed shown below): Upon arrival at Norma's place, -- wait, I must tell you that we'd ridden the longest day yet, which was 57 miles -- she planted us on comfy deck chairs overlooking the ocean and brought us two cold beers and some salty tortilla chips. This woman is a Goddess. Just as the sun was setting, we all walked out to the cliffs to enjoy the sunset as we munched on cheese and crackers and drank red wine. She made us a delicious chicken dinner and shared stories of her family and her own adventures (this woman has done some dandy things!). I caught a photo of Norma in her kitchen making us dinner. Isn't she cute? She insisted we stay another full day to rest and relax before heading on our way, and to clinch the deal, she promised to make us apple pie for dessert tonight. Twist, twist of the ol' Montie arm...

San Francisco!

2007-09-13T21:46:00.000-07:00

I almost didn't make it to San Francisco. The angry U.S. Customs officer at the Vancouver International Airport accused me of wanting to stay in the States illegally once I got to SF since I am currently unemployed and have no plane ticket back to Canada (I'm biking back, remember?). He asked me for evidence that I will be returning to Canada and all I could say was that "I have medical insurance for the 6-week bike trip, and six week's worth of biking clothes," and that's it. That wasn't good enough. "I am going back to Canada to my family when I'm done my trip." That wasn't good enough either. "I don't want to live in the States." Well, that got his goat. He replied in a nasty and rather cocky manner, "Oh, come on, ALL Canadians want to live in the States." Uh, buddy, I think your generalization has less credibility than my story, and it is advised that you should go stick your head in a toilet for being so rude and ignorant. Of course, I didn't actually say that, but I wished I had. He told me I am not allowed in the country and sent me to the Secondary Security Area, where after a twenty-minute wait I had a short interview with a rather nice U.S. Customs Officer who gave me a little pass stapled in my passport that requires me to be out of the country when I said I would be (October 31). All that mess with customs left mere minutes to get to the boarding area for my plane, which ended up sitting on the tarmac for nearly two hours before taking off towards SF. Once we got near the Bay area, the plane had to circle four times before gaining permission to land. Whew. I finally made it to SAN FRANCISCO!!, and just in time to meet Brian coming from a flight from Auckland. Boy, it was great to see him! We're staying in a house north of the Golden Gate Bridge owned by Mark and Anne (we found them on the www.warmshowers.com website where touring cyclists can stay with fellow cyclists while on the road). Yesterday, we took an extended cycle tour of the Golden Gate Bridge, and the downtown San Francisco area. I have photos, but I'll link them in later (sorry). It's beautiful, hilly, foggy, and HOT. Today, we got the bikes all ready for the big trip, and we'll set off into the sunrise tomorrow. Well, maybe not the sunrise, but we hope to be on the road early to get some riding done before the supposed winds come up. There may indeed be a reason most people ride north to south along this coast line; we hope not to discover that reason....... Am I jinxing our ride already?

Bicycle, Bus, Boat, or Motorcycle?

2007-09-09T09:35:00.001-07:00

All of the methods of transportation in the title have been used by me in the past week. Ferry rides to Vancouver Island, bike trip to Thetis Lake for a swim, sailing trip to Sydney Spit, dingy ride in Patches (the multiple-patched dingy) to see the psycho deer, a bus ride with a crossword puzzle book to Vancouver, a motorcycle ride to Horseshoe Bay, and a few plain ol' car rides tossed in there too (with the exception of the non-plain car ride where five of the family girls were stuck in a traffic jam in Romy's Echo on the highway for an hour, so we entertained ourselves - and many others - by dancing in our seats while listening to and singing along with ABBA cranking out of the speakers). It's been a great week, and it is really lovely to reconnect with friends and family.

The last 24 hours in NZ

2007-08-30T15:43:00.001-07:00

Man, how did this happen? How is it that it is time for me to go back to Canada?... "But I'm not finished yet." Finished what, I dunno, but I'm not done yet. So, I guess this means that should there be an opportunity to come back to NZ, I'd take it faster than you could say, "Whakatani" (pronounced Fah-kah-taan-ee). The next hours for me are to be spent in the sunshine, watching the ocean, drinking beers with friends at the Boat House (anyone in Nelson right now wanting to join in are invited to come and enjoy 5:30 onwards). After the beer wears off and one last sleep, I'll go to the Nelson Saturday Market in the morning and drink strong coffee and then all of a sudden I'll be on my 22-hour journey back to Vancouver. The next time I write on this blog, I'll probably be in the Wack at my parents' place all weirded out with people driving on the wrong side of the road and everyone I meet not having an accent. And of course, I'll be wishing I was still in New Zealand. -- hey, wait a minute! I am still in New Zealand! So, I'll get off this computer and get out and absorb as much as I can. Adios.

The Queen Charlotte Mountain Bike Trip

2007-08-28T18:00:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, my real 'last weekend' in New Zealand, we did a big mountain bike trip. Three days of riding and playing in the sun along the coastline in the Queen Charlotte Sounds on the top of NZ's South Island. It was fantastic. The Couger Line (a water taxi) took us and our gear and our bikes and our coffees for a long tour towards the end of the sounds and the beginning of the 77-km trail. This dog was enjoying the boat ride as well.

The beginning of the trail was on the jetty at Ship's Cove (flat riding) and then the dirt trail began (very steep riding uphill for a long time to the ridge line). We ended up pushing our bikes for the first half an hour before the actual riding began, but it was okay, because we only had day packs - all our heavy gear was transported by the water taxi to our day's end destination, the backpackers at Punga Cove.

Half way through the first day, we popped out of the native forest into a little community called Furneaux. I had a toilet stop, and the bikes got a rest too.

The first night was spent at Punga Cove. It's a wonderful, secluded spot capable of accommodating 80 or so people, but because it is off season we were the only four people there. It was fantastic!

I took some time to watch the stars while Brian braved the cold ocean. Yes, he went swimming by moonlight. He's been fairly consistent with his ability to swim in cold ocean waters lately. This time he wasn't naked, but it was dark so it wouldn't have mattered.

Day two was excellent riding with amazing views and stellar, hot weather (may I remind you that it's supposed to be winter here?).

The sounds here in NZ look like places I've been in the Gulf Islands, or further up the BC coast closer to Princess Royal Island.

The team of four: Dee, Nashi, Janie, and Brian.

Lunch breaks are so good, but don't sit too long or eat too much or else sleep is likely to take over and then it becomes impossible to jump back on the bike.

Da girlz.

Along the trail, we came across a lonely, crying lamb looking for its mum. Awe... Don't get eaten by the night monsters (wild boars).

The second night was spent at Portage Cove at another backpackers, where we met up with Dana and Lisa for beers and Mexican food a la Dee.

The following morning, I headed out just before the rest of the group to gain some time on the steep hill climb to the trail head. I made one wrong turn and ended up backtracking for a bit and missed the rest of my biking posse who scooted off thinking I was ahead of them. Long-story-short, they finally realized what was going on and Brian found me not too far behind them a few hours later, but my spirits were a bit shot because A) I was wondering all morning when they would figure out I was 'missing', B) I pushed my bike up a steep hill for an hour by myself, and C) when I got to the top of the hill, the downhill was too steep with tight switchbacks that I had to walk my bike all the way down (that was when the curse words were being tossed around concerning the lack of usefulness of my freaking bike). I felt unbalanced in my mind which lead to unbalanced behaviour on my bike, and with my exhaustion from the previous days of riding I found myself off-and-on-and-off-and-on my bike far too much for the level of difficulty of the trail. In the end, I made it and tried to enjoy the last part (the best part of the entire trail for riding).

By mid-afternoon, we found ourselves back on the water taxi (after Brian had another dip in the ocean, of course). And back towards home after three days of riding, of extreme sunshine and plenty of good times (with the exception of getting temporarily lost).

The Ugly Blanket Loses... Again.

2007-08-19T17:28:00.000-07:00

Last night, the windows in our bedroom were open and the lamp was on, which meant that insects of all sorts were attracted to the comforts of our little, warm, well-lit room. A big moth was fluttering about near the lamp, and I stated my fear in the moth sticking around all night and eating holes in my wool sweater. Brian guffawed at me and said that moths don't eat sweaters. I said "Yes they do", and asked for a friendly wager to see how strongly he felt that moths don't eat sweaters. We agreed that we would check Wikipedia the following day, and if moths eat sweaters, then we get to leave the ugly blanket behind here in New Zealand, and if moths don't actually eat sweaters, then I have to safely bring back the ugly blanket with me in my carry on luggage when I fly back to Canada. Upon a quick "moth eat wool" search on Wikipedia, it appears that the ugly blanket will remain in New Zealand for eternity. Brian, you should check your sources before making deals like that, especially when you love your barfy blanket so much. Oh, speaking of barf, I spoke to Sarah this morning on the phone and she said that my brother and her and a few other people were all having drinks last night and one of the conversation topics was "the times Dee barfed". Can you believe it? That's pretty cool. I immediately thought of the time I puked at Farmhouse Fun in the Maritimes - spaghetti and beer and Jägermeister don't mix well...

Wakapuaka Quiz Night!!

2007-08-19T15:45:00.000-07:00

For a good cause, we'd do almost anything, so it was pretty easy to say "You betcha!" to Wakapuaka Quiz Night, the local elementary school fundraiser. What better way to raise money than to offer parents a night without the kids, full of fun quiz challenges, and the opportunity to spend money getting drunk all in the name of a new playground. Brian and I came up with a Canadian-plus-one-Kiwi-plus-one-American team called the Spangled Maple Ferns. But our American friend couldn't make it, so we became just the Maple Ferns. The questions were kind of hard considering only one of us was from New Zealand, especially the "General Kiwi" category, which was intended to be the easy round. Difficulties went out the door when it came to the rounds involving audio clips from movies and music. Yes, we kicked butt at those rounds thanks to the countless hours we all spent watching television and listening to the radio when we were younger. I was pretty excited when they played the intro to The Muppet Show! Here's a short clip showing the excellency of our team knowledge of television theme songs:

The fun in poking fun at Brian for recognizing Roxette's Joyride was pretty priceless. He blamed that knowledge on his sister.

Here's another clip of us getting one of the audio answers correct.

Our knowledge of popular radio fare got us a whopping 7.5 out of 10, and a prize for having skunked the rest of the teams, none of whom scored higher than 2 on that category. That was our only glory moment of the night, and sadly not the TSN Turning Point (difficulties arose quickly again after the audio file competitions were complete).

One part of the competition had us put hands on the head for questions that were "True" and hands on the butt for questions that were "False". Hopefully that fully explains the following photo:

Cakes and treats were hand delivered to each team during the intermission. The girls ate chewy chocolate cake:

Ever seen a Smartie the diameter of a twoonie? It tasted twice as good.

In the end, everyone got a prize, but you got to select your prize in the order of winning teams. We came out 13th out of twenty teams. Not too bad of a result, but it meant that we had to wait our turn to go to the prize table until it was likely that all that was left were "Tampons and Marmite", as Dallen, our teammate, said.

Brian and I managed to score some entertaining books as prizes for the night. The Action Heroine's Handbook, which gives ladies-in-heroine-training some ideas as to "how to win a catfight, drink someone under the table, choke a man with your bare thighs, and dozens of other TV and movie skills."

The other book we won is an erotic bestseller about some teenage girl's diary... "A wisp of a book with a wallop of an impact" writes the New York Times. What's that supposed to mean? I don't think this will fit into my backpack when I go back to Canada....

Published Authors and Photographers once more!

2007-08-16T19:01:00.000-07:00

Vue Weekly has published an article that Brian and I co-wrote a few months ago (can you tell who wrote which parts?? I bet Sarah can). It's all about two trails we hiked on the South Island of New Zealand. The story would probably be a bit better with all the photos... however, they're only shown in the paper version (if you're lucky enough to live in or near Edmonton), and not online. Anyway, for a quick read, click on the link below:

FROM LUSH VALLEY TO ALPINE SADDLE, NEW ZEALAND TRAILS AMAZE HIKERS

Looking forward...

2007-08-14T18:34:00.000-07:00

I have to say that I'm really looking forward to returning to Canada - and that doesn't mean that I don't like it here in NZ (I love it and want to come back someday soon). In the past few weeks since Brian and I decided to head back home, I've been trying to appreciate and enjoy the little things and the big things that I love about Nelson, about New Zealand, about the people I know and love here... But at the same time, a little switch has been flicked to a new direction in my head and I find my thoughts turning towards the friends and family and scenery I love back home; it is subconscious mental preparation for another big change - another great change. This morning, I received a number of emails from amazing and beautiful friends of mine back in Canada, and we're all making plans to see each other in the beginning of September, and thinking forward to this time makes me really happy. I suppose noticing this shift, and really enjoying it makes the entire process all the more special.

I understand the lure of fishing... heh heh.

2007-08-14T17:12:00.000-07:00

Fishing is the answer to all problems. Bored? Go fishing. Hungry? Go fishing. Need some fresh air? Go fishing. It's perfect really. And each time you go fishing, there are three things you can always count on: 1) You will be cold. 2) There will be at least one moment of pure excitement (even if it's just a nibble on the line). 3) You are never guaranteed to catch anything. Ahhh, fishing always puts a smile on my face... once my face has thawed out from being cold, of course. And yesterday's fishing excursion was nothing short of my guaranteed list! We were cold (there was a southerly wind, which means cold wind in the southern hemisphere), there were exciting moments when the squid bait was being nibbled on by the blue cod below the water surface, and even better than expected - we caught a fish! Well, Craig caught a fish; a blue cod, at least three inches bigger than the limit. If you don't like photos of bloody fish, please skip by the following photo.

The entire fishing clan were excited to be in the boat - Brian, Craig, Alana (Hazel's cousin), myself, and wee-Colesy. We anticipate fights over who gets to drive the boat come time Colesy can make the appropriate verbal request... After displaying my abilities to gut and fillet a fish (thanks for those skills, Dad), we ate blue cod for dinner. Mmmmm-mmmmm.

Special thanks to Craig for taking us out on his boat! And we won't mention what day of the week it was.... Shhh.

Getting Into Bike Shape

2007-08-12T20:33:00.000-07:00

No, I don't want to be the shape of a bike, rather I want to be in biking shape so I can sit on a bike seat pedalling for five to seven hours without getting a blister on my ass, because I know how that feels and I don't like it. So getting into shape for the road means that I get to play on my bike (ahem, Brian's sweet bike) as much as possible for the next few weeks until Brian and I start bike-touring in San Francisco. I've been riding the 30 km into town and back when I go to work, and then on my days off I try to get out on the trails to beef up my mountain biking skills (this won't necessarily help with the Blister Prevention Program, but it is more fun than simply riding into town). This morning, Nashi and Jane and I rode up Kaka Road (yes, pronounced kah-kah), and when I say "up" I mean we rode up a very steep gravel road for an hour... and then along the trail following the ridge line towards Nelson.

Once we got through the gorse (gorse: pricky-thorny bush that grows infectiously on most mountains and makes the mountain bikers crazy with flat tires and intense scratch marks on bare legs and arms), we popped out onto the ridge line, and the views made up for the gorse issues.

The ride was certainly a great way to spend my morning - thanks Nashi for inviting me!

Now that I'm back home, I'm going through all of our things trying to make piles of stuff to sell on TradeMe (a New Zealand version of eBay). We're getting rid of loads of stuff like bike locks,

... and books,

... and anything else that won't fit in our packs or won't make the 20-kg weight restriction on the airplane. I'm going to be relentless in my sorting strategy. Relentless! I hope to bring back to Canada less than what I originally left with. That may indeed prove to be difficult when I want to bring back our coffee percolator....

Things never to say "No" to...

2007-08-08T20:31:00.000-07:00

When your good buddy (who happens to be named Craig) offers you FREE FOOD, FREE BEER, AND FREE TICKETS to a rugby game, you cannot say "No". When your honey offers you a fuzzy, fleece blanket to keep you warm while watching the game, you cannot say "No", except when the fuzzy, fleece blanket happens to be the one and only ugly blanket (Brian, you can have that one).

When your friends decide to get together one evening and make a plate full of sushi and warm bowls of miso soup, you cannot say "No" (even though that already happened two weeks ago in Wanaka).

When your friend dares you to eat a spoonful of wasabi, you cannot say "No" (especially when someone is armed and ready to capture the moment on the digital camera).

When your beautiful friend, Nashi, wants to go mountain bike riding, you cannot say "No".

When the bike wants to get downright dirty, you cannot say "No".

When riding in warm sunshine makes for two happy, muddy ladies, the sun cannot say "No".

When your fiance offers to go to work for you so you can bum out all day with Layla (my friend Nashi's daughter), you cannot say "No" (especially when Layla looks at you with that smile!). And finally, when Layla asks you to come down the slide with her, you simply cannot say "No" no matter how wet the slide is...

Whakariki Beach

2007-08-01T15:14:00.001-07:00

Brian and Dee had one day off together, so instead of going skiing again, they went to the beach! Golden Bay was our destination - north of Nelson, to the most northern part of NZ's south island, in fact. The ride up was fairly uneventful, with the exception of some sweet ipod tunage and a bit of crocheting in the passenger seat. Up past Fairwell Spit is a remote place called Whakariki Beach (Fah-kah-ree-kee)... I've been there before and it's beautiful, but Brian missed out by 6 km when he was up in that area on his bike. Doh! The sand was gorgeous, the waves crashing, and the sun was out, but it was c-o-l-d and pretty windy, so what did Brian do? He took off all his clothes and ran into the water. Yeah, "WHAT?!" I wasn't quite so brave, so I took the opportunity to photo document the whole thing:

I quite like this picture (that I had to modify, for obvious reasons):After Brian put his clothes back on and attempted to warm up, we strolled the beach for a bit trying to dodge the two elderly folks who had caught Brian with no clothes on. "Sorry elderly people, we didn't mean to scare you."

I could barely put my feet in the water, so I'm not entirely sure how Raynaud's-Syndrome-Brian managed his entire body... Brrr.

The lovely scarf Brian is wearing is a Dee Special. I finished it in the car on the way up to the beach. It's made out of possum fur and merino wool - the best combination for warmth and softness. Oooh, it's just yummy! The most excitement that afternoon wasn't actually Brian's skinny dip, rather helping out two German kids driving one of those holiday vans which happened to be very stuck in the ditch. They couldn't speak much English, but with the help of hand gestures, two locals, one weak chain and a decent amount of luck, we got it out of the ditch and back on the road. The best part was hearing the two kids saying, "Ah, Sheet, Sheet, Sheet" and then mixed in with "Sheiza" (spelling? I take that as the German form of 'shit').

Back on the road, we scarfed peanut butter sandwiches with apple slices (who'd have thought of having an apple sandwich? So awesome!), and headed back to Takaka and up to the Anahata Yoga Retreat where Brian got to experience 30 minutes of guided meditation, homemade soup, visits with the Swamis and Atmabhava and Zac, and then a Kirtan (getting 'giggy wid it' using the harmonium and bongo drums)... I want to take a drumming class sometime soon.

Clever advertising...

2007-08-01T15:11:00.000-07:00

Part of my job at Kathmandu is to draw up the white board sign that sits out by the front doors to attract the attention of those walking by. It's my favourite part of the job... My newest creation is Mr. K, or rather Mr. Konstipated. He's the new Kathmandu mascot (according to Dee). He first appeared as a snowman (typo: snotman, heh heh...) in the sign shown below. I quite like this one: And then Mr. K reappeared last week as a professional boxer:

Speaking of advertising.... I'm not condoning eating fast food, especially that of Burger King, however, it was about an hour after lunch the other day, and I was at work, still rather hungry and eager to get some grease. So, I walked in the rain two doors down to the newest restaurant in Nelson: the Burger King. The original plan was to get some fries, but when I saw the whole menu my stomach started to get all excited, so I ended up getting a Whopper Junior with cheese, a fries, and a Coke. It's probably been three years since I'd been to a Burger King, so I figured it would be okay to just test it out again to make sure it's still just as unhealthy as ever. -- No wait! I lied! I think I remember going to Burger King in New Plymouth with Beth last year... and, I believe I had Burger King twice when I was in Tokoroa with Hans and Elaine. Crap. So, I guess I am not as angelic when it comes to fast food as I had hoped. Oh well. Anyway, back to my story. So, I got my meal deal and returned to work to share the fries with my coworkers. With my vast experience with fast food (this is making me look worse and worse), I realized the true brilliance of the fry container design at Burger King. Normally, the pitiful amount fries in a small order fall over and come out of the envelope-like packaging (e.g., McDonald's) as soon as the cashier places them on the tray. The design of the bigger sizes of fry containers have that concave shape in the bottom of the thin cardboard packaging, which is great for maintaining an erect fry container on the tray while inhaling the rest of your dinner (and if you fold down that concave bit of an empty container, stick a crunchy, hard fry end-bit at the bottom and then squeeze the container back to its normal shape, the fry bit will fly across the restaurant - it's great fun; give it a go someday). However, when it comes to the laziest form of fast food (the drive through), the average fry containers become as useless as the small paper envelopes mentioned above, fries end up on the floor of your car, and then your car stinks like greasy fries for about three weeks (which can be good for some people, but I'm not a fan). Burger King here in New Zealand have struck it big! They made the fry container with the same concave shape at the bottom, but the rest of the container has a similar shape as the disposable drink cups, so the fry container will fit quite nicely in the cup holder of your car (most cars have at least eight cup holders nowadays, right?). There's even a little caution note at the base of the back of the fry container stating that "If you can read this then the container isn't in the cup holder properly." I'm trying to guess if that was put there to truly assist those who can't place cups in cup holders, or if it's there to get people to figure out that indeed this fry container will fit into your cup holder..... Regardless, I'm excited at the ergonomics of it all and secretly wish that I had a cup holder on my bicycle so I could go through the drive through too.

Toque'in it up

2007-07-29T21:40:00.001-07:00

Well, we've been busy bees the past few weeks. It all started with one wee-toque I made for a woman's newborn baby... Isn't the toque cute? The mom I made it for didn't sound all that impressed as she said, "Oh great, thanks." I almost yanked it out of her hands so I could give it to Craig and Hazel (who would LOVE it for baby Ryan), but the woman paid me for it, so I guess it's hers now.

Mountain Biking in Maitai Valley

2007-07-29T20:36:00.000-07:00

The fun just got started after the toque ordeal... Brian and I wanted to take our bikes out for a mountain bike ride so I could get used to single track trails and riding up steep hills again. But first, we stopped for a quick ride with the locals at the grocery store. The trails were awesome, and I felt more comfortable on the bike than I thought I would considering I had not ridden much since I fell off my bike and broke my elbow a few months back. Feeling rather stellar and overconfident, I told Brian to get a photo of me doing a pop-a-wheelie on my bike, but the picture looks like I am just pulling up the handle bars with one leg safe on the ground for stability. Oh well, next time I'll be more hard core.

After the failed attempt at a pop-a-wheelie, I told Brian to do a big burnout and I'd video record it on his camera. Well... here's how it turned out: Not quite the burn out that I anticipated, but I thought it was rather funny that he 'peeled out' and then stopped to look back at me as though he were saying, "Did you get it? Did you get it?!"

Wanaka Ski Trip

2007-07-29T20:30:00.000-07:00

Spontaneous? Sure, we're spontaneous! We were given three days notice of five glorious days off in a row from Kathmandu... What shall we do? Let's go skiing! Quickly and efficiently (efficient for us, anyway) we gathered the necessities into our car and drove 11.5 hours (the same distance that took us thirteen days to ride on our bicycles) to get to Wanaka. Our route took us down the west coast, the rainy, wet west coast. Near Greymouth, we saw a paper-boy driving his car and delivering papers out the rolled down window. Now, normally this wouldn't surprise me, but what made me stare was the fact that he was driving 110 kph down the highway in front of us delivering papers out the rolled down window, and did so pretty precisely without slowing down. His accuracy was supreme (most of the time). I was impressed. By the time dinner time had come and long since past, we found ourselves in Haast. Yucky, dirty, smelly Haast. I didn't like Haast the first time I was there with Beth. I didn't like Haast the second time I was there on our bikes with Brian. And, sure as heck, I didn't like Haast this time. Here's why: We decided to eat something at the local (the only) pub, if you could call it a pub - it was more like a hunter's meeting emporium with antlers hung on every possible stitch of wall/ceiling/floor space. Mental note: don't order Thai Curry Chicken from a place with antlers hung on the wall. It cost $23 for the Thai Curry Chicken dish, and it looked like it came out of a can and was heated in a microwave. I should have taken a photo of the monstrosity before us, but it grossed me out too much. We ate as much as we could shove down without getting ill, and then kept driving on our way towards Wanaka. Good riddance Haast!By the time we got to Wanaka, it was almost 10:00PM, and we were beat. Beat up with our lousy meal in Haast, and beat up with the rain and darkness and severely winding roads. It was our original plan to drive all the way to Queenstown that night and stay over with Perg and Christina, but once we arrived in Wanaka, the backseat of our car was looking mighty inviting. So that's what we did. We parked by the lake and folded the seats down and had a pretty sweet snooze all night. Come morning, we had a great view of the lake and the surrounding mountains warming up with the sunrise (of course all this became visible once the windows de-fogged). After the most amazing breakfast and coffee at the organic food store/cafe, Brian and I drove the rest of the way to Queenstown for a Fergburger (Canada needs a Fergburger - it's 162 times better than Burger King), and met up with Christina and Perg for a brief chat before heading back to Wanaka.

Once we were back in Wanaka, we stayed at Sandra's place (she's a Canadian nurse Brian and I bumped into at the grocery store in Oamaru when I broke my arm). She works part time in Oamaru, and part time at the ski hill near Wanaka called Treble Cone. We must do something special for Sandra because she let us stay at her place, she made us dinners, and gave us 50% off ski tickets. Sweeeet. We must also do something for Ed and Marion (friends of Brian's whom he met bike touring on the north island), because Ed gave us free ski rentals from the store he works at in Wanaka. Double sweeeeet. And lastly, we must thank Mylene (from Quebec) and Rusty (a native Kiwi) for driving us up to the ski hill on those nasty, steep and windy roads.

The three days of non-driving were fantastic. We had a big sushi feast one night; eight people ingested 22 homemade sushi rolls. Mmmm....

Left to Right: Brian, Rusty, Sandra, and me.

We played "Zilch" (a.k.a. "Ten Thousand"): a dice game where you roll six dice and the aim is to build up 10,000 points to win. If you don't roll a one or a five on your turn, you get zilch, hence the name of the game. Hard to explain, fun to play.

I was doing okay to start with, but soon thereafter we started to blame my bad luck on the curse of the couch. I got zilch so many times, I ended up with zero, zilch, nada.

Games aside, the skiing was pretty good. The snow wasn't as great as Lake Louise, and the hill consists of, well, pretty much fields and fields of moguls, but other than that - oh wait, the patches of bare rocks and grass, yes, but other than that it was great!

Most of our time on the hill was spent with Mylene and Rusty (the two boarders with dread locks in the photo below). It was fun to follow behind them and watch them do jumps and tricks. It made me want to start boarding...

The second day proved to be a blessing from the weather gods: sunny, warm, and super clear. You could see all the way to Wanaka from anywhere on the hill. It was easy to realize that we were skiing in New Zealand, and definitely not Canada (the lack of trees helped to differentiate as well).

Brian caught a video of Mylene snowboarding. She had done a wicked jump in the same spot ealier in the day (photo taken by Rusty):So we anticipated BIG AIR, but the jump in the video ended up being a wee-jump - I think because it was the end of the second day and our legs were getting very tuckered out.

Both Mylene and Rusty have dreadlocks, as I mentioned before. They looked pretty awesome standing side by side while cooking quesidillas and drinking beer. Mylene's dreads are seven years old! That's a lot of hair to carry around every day. They look awesome though. I love them, and secretly wish I had dreads like that too.

On our last morning, before we made the mad dash, 11.5-hour drive back home, we posed for one last photo with our gracious host, Sandra. The remainder of our day looked a lot like this:But we did manage to stop a few times for road-side pee breaks, water bottle refills, and the occasional scenic photo opportunity:I believe the photo below is one of the coolest and tripped-out photo I've ever taken. It is not a double exposure. It has not been altered. How did she do it???It's a photo of a window reflection (the mountains and sky) with the image looking into the window of a small church with rounded open door at the other end. Here's another picture taken from the same spot, but off to the side:

More photographic horsing around in the passenger seat of the car at night with a six second exposure at night:

The trip was exhausting, but oh-so worth it! Especially since Brian and I have decided that we won't be staying in New Zealand much longer. Yes, you heard it here first: we're heading back to Canada... soon. The tickets have just been booked.

The plan-o-action: I'll fly to Vancouver on September 1, and chill out with friends and the fam for a week before flying down to San Francisco, where I'll meet my dear Brian (who will be flying directly from NZ to San Fran). We'll hop back on our bicycles and ride up the coast - the California coast, the Oregon coast and the Washington coast, and then up and over to Victoria and then on to Chilliwack so Brian can meet my parents. I think the next blog address should be "San Fran To Van".

It will be extremely sad to leave New Zealand now, with all our friends, fun activities, and the coming of spring, but at the same time it feels right to go, to head onto another adventure and make our way back to Canada. It has been said to me before, "Leave the 'party' while it's going strong, and you'll have nothing but awesome and fun memories about the place." Regardless of this fact, and how true I know it is... it will be difficult to get on that plane...

If I could write my own prescriptions...

2007-07-19T22:54:00.000-07:00

If I could write my own prescriptions, I'd only charge a dollar (NZ).... I have to face the fact that every once in a while I get a wee-bladder infection. I get them, my mom gets them, and I'm sure Uncle Freddy gets them too. It's just part of life. You can drink all the cranberry juice you want, but the only way to get rid of the infection is a small dose of antibiotics. In Canada, I can go see my doctor and within minutes, I've got my prescription and off we go to fancy-free peeing. In New Zealand, however, it ain't so darned easy. Well, actually, it is easy, but it's terribly costly. After a quick pee in a cup, I was in the doctor's office waiting room twenty-seven times longer than it took for the doctor invite me into his office to say "Yup, it's a bladder infection. Here's your prescription." This whole process, which is not complex or time consuming, cost me $95.00 NZ. At least the ladies behind the counter were nice and chatty while they took my hard-earned money. Once I got to the chemist (a.k.a. pharmacy in Canada), it cost me $11.oo NZ to purchase five little pills guaranteed to produce fancy-free peeing. So, the grand total of $106.00 NZ was just enough to fit within the $100 CDN deductable on my travel health insurance. Hot damn.

Where's the camera when you need it?

2007-07-16T16:17:00.000-07:00

Of course, when faced with a sixty-year-old woman dressed in fishnet stockings, fire-engine red stiletto heels, a rather daring and see-through top ensemble, rather excessively extended fake eyelashes with sparkles, and ravishing red lipstick, one would love to take a portrait. And the desire to photograph such a person quadruples when you realize the woman lounging sexily on the Ches lounge before you is actually a man. You're probably wondering where I was in the sweet little town of Nelson to view such a display of utter awesomeness: where else could it be but the midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show! About twelve of us joined together wearing wigs, make-up and bras on the outside of our winter clothing to go and see the cult film in all its glory. Brian looked rather dashing in Hazel's pink and black lace bra (I especially liked the traditional striped sport socks filling the empty cups). The only problem of the evening was that I had terribly hard core period cramps that didn't respond much to heavy doses of Advil Liquid Gel Migraine pills or the warmth of a hot water bottle until right before we left to see the show. Ugh... The beginning of the movie was great with all the audience participation and such, but I found it hard to shake my groove thing to "It's a jump to the left! And then a step to the right-right-right-right! With your hands on your hips! You bring your knees in tight! But it's the pelvic thrust! That really drives you insane! Let's do the time warp again!!" You kind of have to be there to get it, but even with that I was getting a headache from the lousy recording sound excessively blaring out of the massive speakers positioned a mere six feet from my head. Brian and I decided to leave at the point in the movie where Dr. Frank-N-Furter serves Meatloaf for dinner (Meatloaf the singer). I think we timed it just right because that's where the movie takes a real turn and becomes even more strange than thought humanly possible, plus all the people watching are getting tired because it's 1:30 AM and they have been drinking excessively for about five hours or more and their costumes are likely becoming rather uncomfortable due to constriction in places I'd rather not mention.

Perogi Night exceeded all expectations!

2007-07-16T15:56:00.000-07:00

Speaking of weird movies, we watched The Trailer Park Boys movie at Perogi Night last week. I've never actually watched an entire episode of that show before. I remember seeing it on television when I lived in Halifax and I shut it off promptly due to excessive swearing and a less than desirable plot regarding drinking, growing pot, and stealing money. But at Perogi Night, surrounded by a room full of over-carbed perogi people ready to pass out from overeating, I actually quite enjoyed the free entertainment, and even caught myself laughing - a lot. Bubbles does have that certain kind of strange charm... It's certainly one of those films that you have to be in the right mood for, and I suppose the combination of being semi-comatose with the sleepy-giggles was perfect. Plus it was wonderfully reminiscent to see glimpses of downtown Halifax, and who couldn't love ugly, dumpy Sackville just north of Halifax? That place stinks. As for the perogies... Well, don't tell Martha Montie (my grandma), but these perogies were on par with hers. [Gasp!!]

Stacy and Andrew did a fine job creating PLENTY of these little doughey pleasures. And it looks like they had fun doing it too. Dallen made a big pot of homemade borsht which flavour was enhanced by the tea mugs it was served in (the kitchen at Andrew and Bella's lacks almost as many dishes as our house).

The cooking process was as serious as could be when dealing with hot butter and bacon. Bella put on her night vision perogi goggles for the task.

One of the guests of honour that night was a wee rat called Little One. Little One and Rat Bag are Andrew and Bella's pet rats. They are super, and friendly, and pee on you if they get too excited. I am sad to report that Perogi Night was the last time I saw Little One. She was put down last week because of a tumor on her belly. She will be dearly missed.

Ode to Little One:

Little One, you were the best.

For a rat, you passed the test.

Your family loved you, you could see.

Even though you liked to pee

On our clothes.

A new rat member of the family has now joined Rat Bag in her cage: a silvery white rat, whose name has not yet been determined. She's settling in well with Rat Bag, who has only bitten her twice.

A package from home...

2007-07-16T15:50:00.000-07:00

A package from home! A package from home!! Ooh boy! Dearest Mrs. Zurek (Brian's sweet mom) sent us a care package which arrived just yesterday. Inside we found homemade soap, chocolate bars from Poland, tea towels, hand-made dish cloths, and soup packages carrying the family name.I don't know how moms do it, but they always know things that they couldn't possibly know otherwise. For instance, how did Brian's mom know we only had one tea towel? Or that the sponge we currently use for washing dishes is getting raggy enough to toss out and we need a new one? The chocolate was easy - that's always required. But we are almost through using the last round of homemade soap sent over from Alberta.... Perfect timing and superb selection of care package loot. Thanks mom! (Love, Dee & Brian)

Prado Dutch Oven

2007-07-10T15:22:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday, a bunch of us girls went on a big winery tour in Blenhiem, on the east coast. First we drove to Picton to pick up Nick (Stacy's fun Aussie friend) from the ferry terminal. Hello's and welcome's done with, we scouted the teeny town for a cool coffee shop. My suggestion was the hip place with cool wooden seats (can't go wrong with a coffee shop with cool seats, or I'll also accept any coffee shop that's got "Coffee Shoppe" in the title). As we searched, we were passed by a bunch of school children tugging an army truck up the main street. Picton is weird, but this was definitely not expected. During our discussions, Nick gave us a great idea for our Stitch and Bitch: we can call it a Crafternoon so anyone who doesn't know how to crochet or knit can feel welcome by doing some paper mache or gluing random animal stickers to a large sheet of plywood. You know, crafty things. And whenever we say "crafternoon", we have to make these fun and stressful looking movements with our fingers as though we're repeatedly grabbing onto something the size of a hot cross bun. Stacy was determined to finish the scarf she has been knitting for weeks now, and did so during the drive through the mountains. How she didn't puke is beyond our comprehension. Here's the finished product:

On our way back to the car, I spotted this sign that makes it appear as if the local chicken joint has a transvestite rooster as their mascot. I told you Picton was weird.

Our posse for the day likely resembled some cold-climate gang because we were all dressed in jeans and our black puffy down jackets. Lisa donned the brown khaki pants (which I think made her the leader), but other than that, we probably looked a bit more ridiculous than scary.

We hopped into Dana's Toyota Prado, and headed for wine land: the Blenheim area has 50 different wineries within in a five-kilometre radius. Perfect for sampling the good stuff.

The first stop landed us some great wine samples, plus a free map of the wineries in the area, and the guy behind the counter was kind enough to circle for us the best wineries that were open that day, in addition to directions to a stone oven pizzeria and the local chocolate factory. This day was shaping up to be a good one!

Winery number two was pleasant. The wine was good. I bought a Pino Gris for Brian (who, by the way, was back in Nelson working his shift at Kathmandu - ouch).

I was the designated driver, so took small sips from everyone else's glasses... Dana and Stacy came up with some good descriptive words for the wines like "nutty" or "buttery smooth", which made them appear to be some kind of experts - but in reality, they are probably better experts regarding nutty smooth peanut butter.

My favourite hip shot of the day came from the third winery we attended. Sometimes not looking through the viewfinder creates magic (it's the spit bowl thingie):

After three wineries, we figured chocolate was in order, so we booked it over to the chocolate factory, which was identical to the chocolate factory Beth and I saw in Keri Keri on the north island months and months ago, and to be brutally honest, the chocolate wasn't that good back then either. We took some free samples and then snuck out without spending money on their overpriced, nowhere-near-Purdy's-quality chocolate.

We had to figure out something to do for a while because Nick's friend Alex was coming on the ferry to Picton later than expected. Pizza and beer seemed logical, so we found the stone oven pizzeria and planted ourselves down for almost three hours.

At one point, Nick discovered a cut on his hand and *poof!* the two health care workers in the group (both Lisa and Stacy) piped up and said, "I've got a band aid!"... They had the cutest little first aid kits in their hand bags. I feel a bit safer knowing that now.

One round of orders included the fanciest and prettiest coffee + Bailey's:

Then came the pizza. Oh boy, it was good, but oh dear oh dear, the middle one was ALL GARLIC and a few olives, three mushrooms, and a tad of cheese. Hello, I will be smelly.

Dessert came and went too quickly to be captured by my camera: Fudge brownie with raspberries and ice cream.

After the third hour struck, we figured we needed a change in venue, so we drove to the ferry terminal in Picton and came up with a number of strange yet fun things to do to keep occupied for about an hour. First up was a bathroom photo shoot of me and Stacy in our black puffies and jeans getup. Please note the ungodly colour of the soap on the wall (that's a pet peeve of mine - the chemicals can't be good for us all, and really, does bright pink soap make people more likely to wash their hands after a pee? I think not.).

The picture below shows the venue we had to deal with: pretty lame, pretty spacious, and was decorated with crap-blue carpet and an expensive pop machine.

A piggy back to get our creativity juices flowing:

A group shot in unique format:

Oh, here's the kicker: everyone doing floppy face shots. Shaking your head with your facial muscles relaxed and taking a picture at the most inopportune moments is always fun, with the exception of the guaranteed headache afterwards.

We got some videos of fun kicking games (wait for the video for explanation), and a relay race involving half-cartwheels, crab walking, and knee-knocker silly walks. The videos are on Stacy's camera. I'll try and put those on the blog soon. Before we knew it, the hour was up and Alex had arrived, and we could all go home.

Normally the story would end there, but I have to explain the title of this blog entry. I drove us all back to Nelson in Dana's Prado (it seats eight!), and on the way, I guess that garlic pizza worked its way through my system pretty quickly (I blame it on the relay race) and I let out a few of THE SMELLIEST and most raunchy farts I think have ever ventured out of my bottom. Being unfamiliar with the car, and driving down a windy mountain road, I couldn't find the automatic window button, so we all had to suffer in the Prado Dutch Oven. Plenty of "Ewe! Gross!" and "God, Dee!" and "It's a Toyota Dutch Oven!!" End of story.

Sudden Social Schedule

2007-07-04T15:18:00.001-07:00

Our social schedule has blown through the roof top this past week! For myself, it is commonly comfortable to sit at home reading novels and drinking tea and exchanging some laughter with Brian. However, last Thursday our social schedule started off with a bang! with our Spaghetti Night in NZ, which was awesome. Brian and I put tea light candles in jars along the dark steps up to our front door. The candles looked so beautiful... Once everyone arrived, we started cooking - and what a meal it was! Spaghetti noodles with two types of sauces to choose from: traditional tomato sauce or green-goopy looking pesto (it tasted better than it looked).

The funniest part about the whole night was the lack of dishes, or better said, the ingenious use of other non-traditional serving dishes. Sweet Bella ate her pasta out of a Pyrex measuring dish (I'm positive the handle was extra handy), and she was lucky enough to get a fork (I didn't get so lucky and ended up with only a spoon), and to top it all off, she got to cuddle into the one and only ugly blanket.

Two nights later, all the Canucks in Nelson celebrated an early Canada Day at Dallen and Ginnie's place (my boss at Kathmandu). The idea of the whole night was Canadian food, music, and the colour red. Dallen made some pretty stellar burgers on the ol' barbecue, and played some cd's including Tragically Hip, Moist, Barenaked Ladies, etc... It was kind of like a flashback from the late nineties, except for the fact that all the people at this party were in their thirties.

For some Canadian food, Brian and I brought two rather strange things: homemade brownies and homemade eggnog. We figured we'd go for something original that no one else was likely to bring. We were correct in our assumption. No one else brought homemade eggnog, that which actually tasted A) just like the eggnog you buy in the store, and B) pretty darned good. Call me naive, but I didn't know that one of the key ingredients in eggnog is raw eggs. Go figure. It's kinda gross to think about, so I try not to think about that when I'm drinking it. Few people at the party knew what eggnog was, at least the non-Canadian groupies anyway - I guess eggnog may not really be "Canadian", but it feels like winter here and I will always remember that winter + eggnog = good times. With a small cup of the nutmeggy sweet stuff left over, Brian and I took it home and had eggnog coffees the next morning (oh boy, so goood).

Other people brought chips and dips and vodka. Classic.

The lighting was very low, so I didn't capture many photos of the Canadians and our Kiwi friends in midst party-dom, but I did manage to score a good pic of (from left to right) Stacy, from Victoria, BC and Sarah, a native Kiwi.

Brian and I left a bit on the early side because we were both still trying to get rid of some nasty cold bug we caught the week before. The rest of the gang stayed up real late watching the Americas Cup sailing race.

The next evening, the whole gang went out to a pub called The Prince Albert, where the deal of the century was a three course beef roast special on for $13 a plate. Naturally, we couldn't say no, so we joined in and listened to a live jazz band while drinking locally brewed beer and eating tasty beef roast, slightly overcooked veggies and Yorkshire pudding that had an odd aftertaste similar to fish and chip batter (hmmmm.... wait a minute...). It was fun, but at the end we were ready to retire to bed and let our bellies digest all the food we jammed in.

Two more days of work later, a bunch of us girls had a girls night, where we ate pizza from Hell's Kitchen (pretty good pizza, and they have fun with their name in the phone book as it just says "HELL 0800-666-111"). We watched a chick-flic and ate chocolate covered almonds and drank Sarsaparilla (a.k.a. root beer).

And if that wasn't enough, tonight we are heading to Stacy's place for our second weekly Spaghetti Night in NZ, except this week we are calling it Perogie Night in NZ. I'm heading over later this afternoon to help Stacy make the perogies (I've got some Ukrainian perogie-making-skills in my blood), Brian and I are bringing homemade German bread, and Dallen is bringing his famous borscht. Goodness, this is going to be good. I don't know if I can handle all this social activity. I'm craving a good book, the ugly blanket (gasp!), and a warm mug of tea... But, heck, there's no way I'd miss out on homemade perogies.

Cable Bay Loop Diddy Loop

2007-06-27T16:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was outstanding... A sleep in, then coffee with Nashi, our upstairs neighbor, then homemade potato pancakes (!!!)... Following the pancakes (ooober good, thanks Brian), we put our bikes in the car and drove out to Cable Bay, a small community about 15 km from our neck of the woods, The Glen. We ditched the car at the ocean side parking lot (a gravel patch next to the beach), and rode our bikes back home along the road, making it past the sign that reads, "Soft Annie's Saddle, 90m" (which makes road signs in the Rockies at 1400m seem slightly less than ridiculous). Once we got home, we changed clothes and started hiking up the mountain trails from our place along the coastline and up the hills over to Cable Bay. It was SO BEAUTIFUL (as if capital letters actually indicate that it was so much better than "so beautiful"). First stop on the photo tour is a pic of The Glen, and our house being second from the left at the bottom corner. Pretty sweet, we think.

The day was gorgeous. A balmy 11 degrees Celsius, no wind, and no clouds in sight.

Part way through the hike, we stopped for a snack. I had the choice of a healthy apple or a rather unhealthy cookie, so I took four cookies.

Our fellow hikers were not human, they were sheep, cattle, and goats, with their main activity being eating the trail, not really hiking it.

As we approached Cable Bay along the ridge line, the coast was fantabulously gorgeous, made even more so by the golden colours painted from the setting sun.

What may appear as not so pretty were the many, many piles of poop we came across. One in particular made me question how much poop can a poop-cow poop if a poop-cow could poop poop. The answer lies in the next photo (keep in mind that I wear a size 11 shoe):

We also found many skid marks - no, not of that kind, rather real skid marks in the mud going down the steep hill towards the beach. The sheep must really be givin' er when they book it down hill:

The hike ended with a lovely golden-kissed view of Cable Bay (a place we'd like to kayak sometime soon):

... plus our car waiting to take us back home, and a sweet view of the sunset over the water:

So, all in all, a splendid outing for us yesterday. Today so far, however, brought clouds and cooler weather, 8 hours of work for Brian at Kathmandu, and a job interview for me at 2:00, and then spaghetti potluck party tonight! I've been gearing up for this for a week now, I hope at least a couple people show up...

Days off are as sweet as lollipops

2007-06-25T15:56:00.000-07:00

This is my first day off after six days of BIG ARSE SALE DAYS at the ol' gear store, and I have to say, I'm pooped. My intentions were to sleep in really late this morning and then wake myself up at 11:00 AM with a strong coffee, but my body woke up at 6:30 AM instead, and I drank a softer tea rather than the harsh coffee. So, the day hasn't gone quite as planned, but the idea of an unplanned day is so satisfying, isn't it? Except, I made a rather lengthy 'to do' list while eating eggs for breakfast and now I find myself trying to fit too many things into this supposedly unplanned day. How does that happen? But, the only real scheduled event is a hair cut at 2:30 this afternoon, and it should prove to be interesting because I don't have much hair to cut but I feel the need to clean the shag a smidgen because I have a job interview on Thursday(!) and I think I should look rather spiffy. The sales gig is probably going to end rather soon, so I figured I'd better find another way to support our necessity for nourishment (Hey Sarah, isn't this your favourite word? heh heh heh - she's going to peg me for that one). The job I'm hoping to land is for a Community Recreation Coordinator position at the local District Council. Wish me luck. I'm hoping that I won't have to resort to becoming a M.Sc. Barista at Starbucks. The things on my 'to do' list are rapidly decreasing; I've been rather quick and efficient this morning including washing our bed sheets and putting them out on the line. The only problem with the sheets now is whether they will dry when there is frost on the ground and a big block of ice in the bucket that used to have liquid in it yesterday. Me thinks no for the poor sheets, but the sun has just poked out over the mountain and hopefully will bring the air temperature up to a level just high enough to dry out all our laundry in time to put the sheets back on the bed and retire for the evening. Not having a clothes dryer is awesome. One last story before I go: Yesterday, Brian and I were rushing around in the morning in fear of being late for work. We hopped in the car and bolted down the country road at a rate I calculated to be fast enough to get us to work on time... when suddenly we had to slow down to a crawl because of a traffic jam - a cow traffic jam. About twenty soft, young cows were gallivanting along the pavement apparently looking for the hole in the fence that allowed them their so-called fifteen minutes of freedom. The cows, startled a bit by our oncoming car, began to run down the road in the same direction we wanted to go. So instead of being able to drive around the cows and move on, we had to follow them down the road for a while at a cow's running pace before I managed a bit of rally racing technique to dodge them safely and leave them in the dust, and make it to work right on time. You know, cows look really awkward when they run. It can't be good for the joints.

Am I going to hell?

2007-06-22T03:12:00.000-07:00

I'm fairly certain I'm going to retreat to a very hot place when I leave this world. Why? Well.... besides allowing one very ugly blanket to remain in our household (more on that in a minute), I sell stuff to people all day. Ugh, I'm a salesperson. And, well, I sold a $450 Gore-Tex jacket (that's the 50% off sale price) to an eighty-year-old woman whose sole purpose for choosing the jacket was because she liked the colour. The jacket is going to outlive her, no doubt, but she doesn't really need an expensive, purple, three-layered Gore-Tex jacket with pit-zips and a snow guard for the waist - not unless she's moving to Banff and picking up backcountry skiing as her other hobby next to lawn bowling. The only thing that makes this all okay is that she seemed happy with the jacket and will probably wear it and say to her friends, "Oooh, isn't the colour perfect to match my hair?" (and her hair was a tad on the purple side, as many older ladies manage to obtain, somehow). Well, if I'm going to hell, at least I won't be needing a Gore-Tex jacket.

And now onto the dreaded blanket that still lives.... My brother, Greg, who must be in Edmonton visiting our friends Russ and Tara, thought he would do a little fancy action on the computer and sent me this photo below. He wrote, "I've just bought a new Blankie - I found it at the Bo-Yah-Brian store."

I love it. See? Even on the blanket here, the moose is bigger.

Even though the blanket lives on, somehow we're managing to make new friends here in Nelson (we'll wait to see if they're keepers once they've been formally introduced to the blanket). This evening, we had a beer and some dinner with Lisa and Dana, from London, ON and Seattle, WA, respectively: two separate friends who came up to us randomly at Kathmandu over the past two days and gave us their phone numbers because... well, because they think we're cool? I dunno, but these gals are great. We've decided to meet up on a weekly basis to keep in touch and have some fun. A big group friends back in Halifax do a weekly stitch and bitch plus spaghetti potluck - it was on a Monday night, the same night as Hockey Night in Canada, so they called it, "Spaghetti Night in Canada". We're thinking of doing the same thing, but here in New Zealand, so we'll call it Spaghetti Night in New Zealand for now and change the name appropriately when we're good and roused up on wine and spaghetti next Thursday.

Until then, we'll be working our pants off at Kathmandu selling more outdoor goods to folks. "You must need a pair of gaitors for the office, right?... It's 50% off, how can it not be a good deal?... No, that doesn't look too tight on you [the person is sweating and obviously uncomfortable], but these pants are usually a small fit so perhaps one size up would work better... Hmm, yes, purple is indeed your colour... How about some merino boxer shorts for those cold nights?..." Actually, I got a pair of the merino boxers for the ladies and they rock. Okay, I'm not going to sell you stuff on this blog, so I'd better get to bed and prep for tomorrow's havock: the first weekend day of our big winter blowout sale. It's going to be cah-ray-zee.

The House Rocks

2007-06-18T18:48:00.001-07:00

The other night, when the whole moose versus horse thing came about, Brian and I were on our way to the pub to watch a rugby game with all our coworkers from Kathmandu. The world famous and number one All Blacks were playing Canada and the kiwi's thought the Canucks were going to get squashed. One guy put a $25,000 bet on a 71 score difference... Heh heh, the Canadians can give their knickers a yank when they need to: the final score was 64 to 13. That'll be $25,000 please. And as for our new place of establishment, we've really scored... BIG. It's awesome. Check out the sunset from the beach other night:

And here's the kitchen/livingroom/familyroom/dining room/entry way:

The next picture is the same as above but from a different angle making the place appear spacious and luxurious (oh, and note the posters on the wall - free decorations from work):

Here's the view from our deck, complete with blooming flowers in the winter (huh?) and the teeniest view of the ocean down the hill:

Our plant collection includes a basil plant, a mint plant, a corriander plant, and what used to have two flowers but now has one because we squashed it in the car on the way home plant:

So things are going well. Work is about to get insanely busy with the 50% off winter sale starting on Thursday (the reason we were hired, so we shouldn't complain). Today is our only day off this week, so we'll go for a hike later on to make the most of this sunny and stupendous day. And to top off the splendicity (is that a word?) of today, Brian made scones and they make our place smell like a bakery -- oh yummy yum yum.

The Horse Will Burn - er, the Sphynx Will Burn

2007-06-18T18:32:00.000-07:00

I laughed pretty hard at all the comments we got on our online battle of horse versus moose. There are an overwhelming number of votes in favour of the moose being bigger, with the exception of Brian's brother, Gerald, who must only be in agreement with Brian because he's a blood relative and hasn't yet seen the ugly blanket due to be burned should the moose win. I'm sure you've all been anxiously awaiting the revealing of the one and only blanket of wasted recycled pop cans. Well, here it is: Ugh... I'm embarrassed to put that photo on my blog, but yes, my future husband actually paid the equivalent of 40 minutes of his salary at Kathmandu for that rubbish blanket. And what's worse is that his efforts will be destroyed because I think he's lost our friendly little bet.

I think the blanket should burn, don't get me wrong, but I feel the need to ask you normal (somewhat normal) folks if you agree with me, or if you can find some reason to keep the blanket - or at least come up with a better use for it than proudly displayed across our couch or, heaven forbid, our bed.

Moose? Or Horse?

2007-06-16T21:41:00.000-07:00

Okay, so Brian and I were talking about how much damage would be done to our Corolla wagon if we hit a horse on the road versus a moose. We have a bet going about which animal is bigger, and would therefore do more damage - a moose or a horse? I think it's a moose, by far, and Brian seems convinced it's a horse (he can't be right, and no, Clydesdale's don't count). The conditions of the bet were that we take a poll of our friends at the pub and if the popular vote is that moose are bigger, then I get to watch Brian take a match to that silly and retched Sphinx fleece blanket he somehow managed to buy and bring to our lovely home . However, if Brian is right, and horses are in fact bigger than moose, then I agreed to get my photo taken (smiling and appearing to love the situation) while wrapped in the silly and retched blanket, and then post it on my blog as if I actually liked the UGLY blanket. Well, I guess that really doesn't do much now that I've blurted this out on my blog, but if he wins, which he won't, then I'll gladly do it for merely a few laughs... The commoners at the pub seemed to agree with me that Moose were indeed bigger, especially in height, but they weren't totally sure about the weight. Any thoughts?

Home Sweet Home!

2007-06-13T21:10:00.000-07:00

No more hostels, free-loading with friends (thanks Craig and Hazel), or elementary school yard camping... It's true, we found a place to live! It's a sweet little furnished pad overlooking a palm tree and the ocean in a small farm-like community called The Glen. It's absolutely perfect. Our first purchases for the new place include a tea pot for two bucks, and a pretty flower plant which cost three times as much as the tea pot. During our browsing at the Warehouse (kind of like Walmart, but with a ridiculously annoying catchphrase/jingle heard far too often), Brian also bought a new fleece blanket -- that I don't particularly think is very, well, cool, at all. I actually thought he was kidding when he put it in the shopping cart. He wasn't. There is no way to describe how hideous this thing is; I'll just have to take a picture of it and post it later. I should have a poll asking if anyone on god's green earth actually agrees with Brian on this one. This is almost a deal breaker - that's how bad it is. Anyway, we're off to clean the new place and make our first dinner. Hooray for the queen-size bed! And the flannel star sheets we just bought! WOo-hooo!

Beer and Pie Don't Mix

2007-06-10T19:08:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, Brian and I picked up some lard at the grocery store and tried our hands at making an apple pie. It isn't quite as easy as we thought it should be, and had we refrained from drinking Heinekin beer during the whole pie-making process, it may have come out fine. I think, though, that for every down point the beer brought us, Mr. Diamond's lyrics brought us back up to par... Neil belt out some great tunes for us on the ol' ghetto blaster in the kitchen. I think this photo on Neil's cover is a bit on the creepy side, but we'll let that slide because it is, after all, Neil Diamond.

For some strange reason our pie tastes better cold than it did right out of the oven... but at least it is quite edible, and we've feasted on it every day since we made it. We'll have another go of the whole pie-making process next week, pas de beer, and perhaps after consulting with my Uncle Bert on the perfect pastry recipe. That's guaranteed sweet golden results!

We won't be sharing our pies with our co-workers at Kathmandu until we do a better job of it, but perhaps we can share our banana muffins because boy-oh-boy those are taste-a-licious (thanks Brian)! By the way, the job selling gear and clothes is great. The people we work with are fantastic and fun, and we juggle hacky sacs at work. It's all in the name of customer entertainment and a bit of employee stress relief.

Today is our day off, so Brian and I are looking for a place to house sit or rent for the coming months. One of our coworkers, Stacy from Victoria, BC (woo-hoo!), is looking for a place as well, so we're starting our own family. We just need a pad to chill out after work and hold Stitch and Bitch parties where we gab while we knit and crochet. We've switched the name to 'Stitch and Ba-a-ah' for the sake of talking about our club in ear shot of customers. It's going to be good times multiplied by 2.3! Can't wait. We will also be looking for free furniture if anyone has anything useful for us....

And before I go, I wanted to share with you my new decorations on Brian's diary. I quite like it. He said he'll get used to it, but he really digs the "Books Are Stellar" part. Who wouldn't? I hope he doesn't get beaten up because of that...

Jobs for Two!

2007-06-04T17:25:00.001-07:00

Well, I've got less than six minutes to share the latest and greatest with you. Brian and I both had interviews at a coffee shop this morning to work at the local Kathmandu store in Nelson (an outdoor clothing and equipment store just like MEC but four times more expensive). Before letting Brian leave the interview, they told him that we should both show up at the store at 9:00AM on Thursday morning. Yep, WE'RE EMPLOYED! It must have been the apple pie story that really sealed the deal! I should show up on my first day with a warm apple pie. That'd go over well, for sure! Hmm... I wonder what the employee discounts are? Probably pretty sweet. One minute to go. Ahh!

Chicken Pox

2007-06-02T21:11:00.000-07:00

The following quotes are entirely made up, but the content is true. Dee: "So, Brian, besides getting officially engaged, what else did you get?" Brian: "Um... the chicken pox." Yes, the chicken pox: little itchy red marks spaced nicely apart on his body. Good thing I had the chicken pox when I was six. Instead of spreading chicken pox to the residents of Nelson, we rented a bunch of movies to get us by as we stay locked up in Craig and Hazel's house. Try this on for size - we got a movie rental deal that will swipe your socks off! Ten movies for ten days for ten bucks. That's one heck of a steal! Tonight's showing will be Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels at 7:35 PM in the living room; popcorn and beer will be free. We feel awfully bad about having a contagious agent in Craig and Hazel's house. Craig is coming back to Nelson for the next few days, and he can't even stay in his own home because it's too much of a risk spreading the pox to the rest of his family when he goes back to Wellington. Instead, he's going to stay with his uncle here in Nelson, and will likely be calling us on his cell phone to say a hearty hello when he's out on the open ocean fishing without us. Craig, you just remember the three good luck charms you had on the boat when we caught that 95-cm king fish! How do you go to job interviews when you have the chicken pox? I'm thinking you stay home and suggest a phone interview. Speaking of jobs, do you think you'd hire me at the Kathmandu store if my application form included the following? Reasons for seeking employment: To be brutally honest, I've run out of travelling funds, and after six months of tenting, food made in a single pot, and being completely exposed to the elements, I'm looking for a nice place to settle, a fun job for a few months, and my own oven so I can learn how to make apple pies... I'd hire anyone wanting to make apple pies. The last bike trip update.... Brian did a tally of the number of kilometres we rode, and the total comes to a whopping 1530 km. Nice. That's like riding from Edmonton to Chilliwack. Maybe we should do that when we get back to Canada.

Grape Fun!

2007-05-31T18:02:00.000-07:00

The other day, the neighbor came over to meet Brian and me, and she brought some fruit from her backyard: grapes from her vine and some feijoas (excerpt from Mirriam-Webster Online Dictionary: the green round or oval juicy fruit of a shrub or small tree (Feijoa sellowiana) of the myrtle family that is native to South America and is grown commercially especially in New Zealand; also : the tree or shrub). Feijoas are delicious... Anyway, back to my story. The neighbor came over with her lovely offering and told us we could borrow her bikes or ask her for advice any time. How sweet. Stuff like that never happens! The feijoas were super yummy and made our fruit salad this morning somethin' special. The grapes, however, were old and a bit gross, so we put them to good use: we had a grape shooting war off the deck into the backyard. Picture this (because I forgot to take a photo), a line of grapes about twenty long all perched on the deck railing, and then "Ready, Aim, FIRE!!!" as we pelted each grape out towards the clothes line as fast as our fore fingers could flick! It was fun. I hate to report that I actually drooled again today. I was smiling and laughing and making a lunch sandwich, leaning over the sandwich... yes, I drooled onto the open sandwich. Gross. I told Brian I'd eat that one and he could have the drool-free sandwich... The only reason I'm admitting to this yet again on my blog is because I think I've come up with a viable reason for the drool: my wisdom tooth is moving (I'm sure you remember that story), and so basically, you could say that I'm teething, right? Babies who are teething drool a lot, right? I think this explanation fits well, and I hope that once I get that tooth extracted, or it stops shifting around then the drooling will cease as well. Oh, let's hope.

Something So Right...

2007-05-30T21:03:00.000-07:00

You know when something feels so right, you just have to do it? I feel that way a lot: in small ways like when the big piece of carrot cake at the coffee shop is calling my name longingly, or in slightly bigger ways like when I put down some serious cash for my Nikon digital SLR last fall. And I have to say that coming to New Zealand always felt like the right thing to do - and it has been, for all kinds of reasons, but the biggest and best one has been meeting Brian. And since I met Brian, everything seems to feel so right between us, in the most loving and beautiful way. It's so strong, it is impossible to ignore. In this wonderful light, we've decided to honour our feelings with a commitment to us, to our fun and amazing journey together. We bought wedding rings from a lovely and warm man, Ranier Beneke, a local NZ artist in Dunedin, who made them especially for us. The beautiful rings came in the mail just yesterday:We're really excited. Really excited.

Choc Monty Cookies Are Actually Good

2007-05-28T18:59:00.000-07:00

Choc Monty Cookies are quite delicious, as a matter of fact. I was sceptical at first, because any box of cookies that costs $1.42 can't be that good, or at least they can't be that good for you. I indeed may come down with some incurable disease, or just suffer from a quick case of malnutrition from the ingestion of these chemically-produced cheap "biscuits" (as they call cookies here in NZ); however, they were tasty and crumbly and all... Buuuut, I don't think I'll buy them again. It was a good adventure though, and satisfied my curiosity. Brian and I both breezed through a few novels during our remaining days in Oamaru . The Jeeves book was entertaining, to say the least, and has started rather interesting banter in the comments section for my last blog entry. I also started a book on America by Bill Bryson, but I switched to a different book halfway through because it just sounded like he was complaining about everything (although I did catch myself laughing out loud a few times). And when we weren't glued to the pages, we walked down to the historical part of Oamaru where we found the New Zealand Malt Whiskey Company. Dad would be proud that we ventured inside, but he may not like to know that I didn't want to have a sample -- there's a really good excuse though: they weren't free samples. Well... you know. Plus it was before noon. Heck, that hasn't stopped me before, what am I saying? Down past the Whiskey joint, there was a store/gallery/music house. It was ultra weird, but in a good way. The place was huge, and full of stuff - mostly faces (paintings of faces, sculptures of faces, clothing with faces on them, etc.). The faces kind of creeped me out, to be honest, so we left after a quick browse. The whole historical street of Oamaru has buildings made from local white stone that is somewhat famous to the area. The buildings are beautiful, and most of them are getting restored to the condition of the one found in the photo below. It's really lovely to walk the streets in this sweet little town. Our time in Oamaru came to an end on Sunday, when we caught the bus (with our bikes) to Christchurch. After checking into a hostel, I took a nap (cuz I like naps, remember?), and when Brian returned a few hours later, he openly and loudly laughed at the huge wad of saliva on my pillowcase. Not only did he laugh at me, but he grabbed my camera and took some photo evidence of the non-desirable sight. After such a scene, I figured I had to put the photo on the blog. Warning: it looks rather gross. Yes, I admit it. I drool. Not only do I drool on pillow cases or the sleeve of my arm when I take naps, but I also drool when I knit (right, Tera?), I drool when I bend over to look at something on the ground, and sometimes I just drool for no reason. In fact, Brian again laughed heartily at me when we were in the grocery store a few days ago because not only did I somehow manage to drool onto my shirt for no apparent reason (I must have a rare condition whereby I produce excess saliva), but the resulting reaction to my own drool was a rather large snorting laugh. Yes, I also snort. Geeze, this isn't setting up a pretty picture for those of you how haven't met me in person, does it? Uh, let's move on to other stories. We spent the evening in Christchurch hanging out at a cheap beer/pizza place with Sandra (a girl from Jasper, AB) and her friend Josh, a funny guy with an out-of-control beard who grew up in Lake Stevens, WA (which is, oddly enough, where my friend Britt's parents live). Small world. The following day we took the next bus leg to Nelson, which took about six hours, a mere week and a half of riding days, should we have completed the journey on two wheels instead of four. We were welcomed back to Nelson with warm weather and the discovery of a full bottle of red wine in the trunk of our car (how we managed NOT to drink that before we left, no one will ever know). So, the sun set for the last time on Mongoose, the trusty and sturdy and slightly heavy bike I've been riding for the past two months, for about 1500 km or so. I am saddened to not be riding every day, but I find myself very happy to be back in Nelson for all the reasons I listed in my last blog entry, and also because it made both Brian and I have sweet memories of what it was like two months ago when were preparing to leave on this journey. We've come a long way and loved every second. PLUS, how could I not be happy when I am wearing my fancy dancing pants and not bike shorts or any other form of stretchy exercise material? So stellarly sweet. The bike trip may be over for now, but the time we have in NZ is far from finished, so the blog will continue. And I'm absolutely positive that I will still be able to find silly or crazy stuff to talk about, and, of course, there will always be photos to share.

Oamaru

2007-05-24T19:18:00.000-07:00

It's almost been one week since I fell off my bike, and my arm is healing nicely, but not as quickly as I had hoped (maybe leading to the conclusion that it is indeed broken?). The bruising is pretty extensive all around my elbow, and I still have mobility issues - but there have been dramatic improvements in my ability to tie my shoelaces and pull up my pants after a pee. In order to speed up my healing, I've been taking it easy. I've managed to soak in a two-hour nap each day so far (I love naps, and should really think about putting that back into my normal schedule). Brian has been taking extra good care of me keeping me well fed, well rested, and keeps my spirits up with warm smiles and chocolate covered almond treats. We've managed to score a 'holiday membership' at the local public library, where we go every day to read on the comfy seats and get new novels when the old ones are done. The ladies behind the counter know us well, and are always happy to ask how my arm is doing. Today, I'm reading a funny book called Very Good, Jeeves! by P.G. Wodehouse. It's a bunch of short stories where the main character, Bertie Wooster, a rich schmuck in London, gets into ridiculous predicaments and is repeatedly and miraculously saved my his savvy butler. The book makes me think of my brother, Greg -- I'm not sure why that is, but I think he'd enjoy the read. Since my injured appendage isn't anywhere near being able to grip a bicycle handlebar anytime soon, we've decided to end our bike trip for now, and take the bus back to Nelson. Yeah, I know, sad news. But, I have to say, I'm excited to get back to things that I miss. For example, wearing a pair of pants (I don't have any full leg coverings while on the bike, with the exception of my thermal underwear, which isn't quite suitable for all occasions, as you would suspect). What else do I miss? Well, it will be nice to know where we will be sleeping every night for the next week (and the additional bonus that it will be a real bed and not a make-shift bed on the grounds of an elementary school); it will be nice to know that other hostelers will not take your food out of the fridge; it will be nice to have pots and pans in a kitchen to experiment with; it will be nice to have access to a multitude of condiments to make those cooking experiments more tasty; it will be nice to -- eek -- have our car. Man, I totally forgot that we have a car. That's fantastic! Hmm... and I bet one of the first things we'll do besides remedy all of the above is go and rent a few movies and snuggle up on a couch and eat popcorn, just the two of us. Ahhh, this is going to be wonderful. And when my arm is healed, we'll have to get back on the bikes and do a few smaller trips from Nelson north and south to finish what we started.... That will be great.