Burrito West Blog

Peter is out of town so I went to dance class without him today. Since we moved up to the Bronze II level, we've been able to go to Bronze II group classes which are amazing! They're actually working on serious technique - it's challenging and I love it. Today I had an hour of swing dance and an hour of waltz and there was a lot of sweat, but it was excellent.

I also shipped out an etsy order and picked up apples from the farmers market, so I feel like I've been very productive for a Saturday and can now sit and craft for several hours until it's time to bake the ponderosa* cake I bought ingredients for. I love weekends.

*Is ponderosa cake just a Vancouver/BC thing? All the recipes I find for it are UBC-related, which makes me think its local, but it can't be, can it? It's heavenly. Seriously. Basically bananna bread with chocolate, but more cake-y.

Yay for finishing baby gifts for people! Finishing projects is so satisfying!

Latest - 1 baby hat with an awesome button made from wood waste, and 1 round ripple baby blanket.

Bring on the babies. Actually, don't, I'm still way way behind!

Did I ever mention that I finally finished my last weaving project? The one I took off the loom months and months ago? Yeah.

Took forever to get that last step done because the only way I know to finish a scarf is with fringe but I really didn't want fringe on this one. I finally took a day and sorted it out and am pleased with the finished product. I'm listing it in my etsy shop though because I just really really do not need another scarf. Really do not. Our apartment is too small for me to have an enormous scarf collection. It will be listed tomorrow, in case anyone is itching to do some shopping.

Last night Peter and I went to the taping of CBC Radio Book Club where Douglas Coupland was the guest. He's a super interesting guy - has a very unique outlook on the world. He's a writer and artist. You probably know him for Generation X or Microserfs or JPod but he also recently had some of his artwork unveiled at a new waterfront park in Toronto. It was really neat to go to the CBC building, to experience the taping process, to see people geek out at seeing/meeting someone they're all fangirly for, hear him get all philosophical and funny about things. Great way to spend an evening!

Tonight Peter and I had our Bronze 1 level dance exam. We passed with flying colours. It's very nice having someone tell you you're awesome. So we're officially Bronze 2 level dancers now which means we can take new group classes. One of these days I really will get our instructor to set up a camera and get some clips of us waltzing or something to share with the world. In the meantime, just imagine awesome dancing.

I started in my new position on Monday and I'm loving it. It's good to be busy again, everyone is super nice, and it's my job to get geeky about all the sustainability initiatives in the City.... which I would have done anyway! My new office is located in the main City Hall building, which I love - I get to go into the beautiful 1930s heritage lobby every day, I feel very lucky.

Also, next week I get fitted for my Olympic Host City Team uniform. I still don't know what I'll be doing during the Olympics, but it'll be an adventure, that's for sure!

Oh, and we fitted out our loft bed with some support slats from Ikea (I heart you Ikea) and now I'm sleeping like a log. Getting up and down is still kind of a hassle but we'll work it out.

Great Big Sea concerts are the best thing ever. Always so happy and energetic and upbeat and.... I don't know, wholesome, I guess. It's very refreshing. I always end up grinning like an idiot the whole time. It's fantastic. Those guys have been playing together for 17 years and clearly LOVE what they do. It's hilarious. I highly recommend catching them live if you're at all interested in their music.

That said, the concert on Friday night was without a doubt the most subdued GBS audience I've ever been part of. Even up front (we abandoned our seats to go up to where people were more excited and dancing). Weird. Hopefully Vancouver redeemed itself at the Saturday night show.

Saturday started with our private dance lesson. Our instructor is preparing us for the test to move on to the next level: bronze 2; we're looking forward to that. There's a wonderful point in dance, pretty early on, when you understand the basics well enough, that something magical can happen when you're a girl dancing with a very very advanced guy. This happened on Tuesday night when the owner of the studio asked me to dance a waltz during the party. I entered this zen like state where I just paid attention to the timing and the rise and fall of the waltz step and then, rather than thinking of the steps (since he was leading me through steps I had never seen before), I just focused on following him. It's hard to explain but if you can get into the right space mentally/physically then you find yourself gliding across the dance floor as though you knew wtf you were doing - while dancing very advanced steps/figures you've never done before. It's just an amazing experience! Peter and I have been rocking our foxtrot and tango lately too. Dance is just awesome. Everyone should go find a studio and sign up for lessons right away.

Saturday afternoon Peter and I went to a bunch of Fringe Festival shows, including a Punk harpist in a cathedral (she did some Avril Lavigne and Metallica covers) - she was pretty awesome. Also caught a one man play and a stand up comic. Had supper on Granville Island and took the little Aquabus home. It was a good day.

When we got home we started assembling the loft bed we bought. I had this grand vision of creating storage space under our bed to resolve the fact that we live in a tiny apartment with 1 closet. We really needed just a bit more storage space and I figured elevating our bed would do it (since we have high ceilings). I found a solid wood custom made loft bed on craigslist which had the bed platform sitting on a dresser and shelves. It wasn't as high as a standard loft bed, which is just what I wanted. It fit nicely into our tiny bedroom but once you stacked our mattress on top, it was kind of high. Higher than we wanted. As as we were assembling it, we couldn't help but notice that the cross supports for the bed platform weren't as strong as they could be. We tried it out last night and neither of us could sleep up there. Not sure if it was some weird reaction to being up high, lack of confidence in the structural integrity, the squeaking of the wood, or just insomnia but at 3am we ended up pulling the mattress down and sleeping on the living room floor.

You know how sometimes reality doesn't measure up to the vision in your head? That's what this is for me right now. Peter is optimistic we can make it work. I'm so disappointed that my grand vision has turned into a boondoggle that I kind of just want to get rid of it and pretend this all never happened. The other option is to borrow some tools and hack a foot or two off the whole thing so it's lower to the ground. We're far to busy to do such a thing this month though, so it'll be an interesting few weeks - we may be camping in our living room!

Dude, I just woke up with a headache. But don't be alarmed because this happens every month and I can tell you now, it'll last for 2 days and it'll suck because I can't just stay in bed, I have to be a functional human. I feel I need to share that bit of my suffering with the world at large.

Also, it's bad timing because the next week is crazy busy. Here's why:

1) Tonight: Great Big Sea concert!!

2) Tomorrow: Dance lesson, fringe festival concert (punk harp), fringe festival play (I won 2 passes to the Fringe Festival) .

3) Sunday - a friend is doing a spoken word performance at a local club; very cool.

4) Monday: I start a new job! It's a temporary appointment to the Sustainability Group at the City. I'm very excited!

5) Tuesday: Dance from 7- 10pm, like normal.

6) Wednesday: Go to Douglas Coupland reading/ Q&A at CBC Radio studio ! (I won passes to this also.) Fringe Festival play (until midnight - eek!).

7) Thursday: sleep

8) Friday: Crafty gathering at my place

9) Saturday: Friend's birthday gathering in Gastown.

10) Sunday: Clothing swap, Fringe Festival play.

Since I normally only go out 1 or 2 nights a week (I really really like staying at home and doing my own thing), this is insanity. And it co-insides with starting my new job, where I anticipate being VERY busy.

Should be fun!! Also - I really recommend entering online contests to win passes to stuff - apparently no one enters them in Vancouver so I win everything. I feel a little guilty. Seriously, track down your local newspaper (especially the free entertainment papers, they always have tickets to things to give away), and find the contests. Easy to enter and good odds of winning. Then you get free entertainment. Yeeha!

Peter and I went to the PNE (Pacific National Exhibition) on Friday. My first time going - saw some pretty cute farm animals, ate a deep fried mars bar, saw people in glittery vests doing line dancing.... it was.... an experience. We also hit Playland and while I love the roller coasters, I dragged Peter all around the park looking for my favorite ride of all carnival rides... the Tilt a Whirl. I wasn't sure it would be there but it was! Tucked away in the corner, hidden under a tent, the glorious, awesome Tilt a whirl. And it was just as fun as I remember, sends me into fits of giggles. If I were stupidly rich and needed something to spend my money on, I would totally put a Tilt-a-Whirl in my backyard. Now if only they had a Gravitron around here.

I remember when I first discovered Lush. It wasn't available in my town so I had to hunt it out whenever I was traveling. I loved their stuff, the unusual scents, the amazing handmade products (this was before the handmade movement busted out, now it's wonderfully easy to find local handmade soaps). I recall walking down the street in Glasgow, Scotland on vacation and stopping, sniffing, and saying to Peter - "there's a Lush nearby", we turned the corner and there it was! It can be overwhelming, walking into a Lush store (in an olfactory sense), it's not for everyone but I still love it.

I have some of their dusting powders but don't use them much because they come in these odd shaker cans and I never could get used to the idea of shaking dusting powder on me like salt. I hunted around sporadically for a nice dusting powder puff. I knew they existed, Mom had one for her Chanel powder, a nice big one in a lovely container - I'm sure I didn't make that up. But I couldn't find anything, even online! Crazy!






I finally got tired of lamenting the lack of puff available for purchase and grabbed some scrap materials I had handy and made one for myself - this is the joy of being a crafter, after all, being able to just make whatever you need! It's just a random bit of faux fur, cotton fabric, ribbon, and batting sewn into a rectangle. So easy, should have done it ages ago. Now I just need a nice container. In the meantime, I can shake the powder on my poof and apply it with dignity.

Whew, that's a relief. Crisis averted.