Burrito West Blog

History

2012-01-30T07:43:00.000-08:00

Time for another photo from the massive scanning project.

Here's one of Peter and I when we were very young... this is 1998 according to the photo - I recognize it as Christmas at Peter's aunt's place.

Peter and I met Sept of 1996, started hanging out the summer of 1997 (we weren't dating because I 'wasn't his type'), and figure our anniversary of when we started dating (i.e. Peter admitted we were dating) to be August of 1997. So this was probably the first year I went to spend Christmas with his family - which... 1998 seems early for that, but I'm old and my memory is going, so it could have been 98. In any case, I post this in memory of Peter's aunt, who passed away this month from cancer. She was a lovely person and always made me feel very welcome at their family Christmas celebrations.

Storytelling

2012-01-28T17:38:00.001-08:00

I took Peter out on a date to another storytelling night. We love it and I noticed quite a few couples this time around, so I'm thinking it's actually a popular date activity. Alcohol + cookies + music + entertaining stories by interesting people does make for a wonderful way to pass a Friday night. (It doesn't hurt that I bump into my friends there and get to chat.)

We started by meeting in the new Terra Bread cafe nearby - which was packed. Lovely space, right on the seawall - I will definitely be visiting their patio in the summer!

This edition of Rain City Chronicles was in partnership with the City as part of its work to develop a Food Strategy to plan how Vancouver will increase access to and opportunities for local food, among other things.

I'm kind of proud because I played a small part in setting the City on this path of partnering with great events that bring the community together in a fun way to talk and share their stories on a particular topic. The Pecha Kucha I helped organize was the City's first foray into that kind of partnership and it seems to be part of the regular arsenal of public engagement now, which is awesome!

This version of Rain City Chronicles was held in the Salt Building at the Olympic Village. This is a fabulous old building that was beautifully restored as part of the development. It's a piece of the industrial heritage of the site. The ultimate plan is for it to become part brew-pub, part something else - it should be the heart of the community - being in the middle and fronting onto the lovely plaza. I can't believe it isn't a brew pub yet - it would be a FANTASTIC place.

Anyway - I love the Salt Building, I love Rain City Chronicles, and I love to support the City in creative engagement techniques, so I bought tickets for this event ages ago. And it was lovely. The storytellers were fabulous - the best one being an older French lady who started by saying she wasn't really a storyteller and then proceeded to be the most entertaining person of the evening. I believe they were recording this event, so hopefully I'll be able to link you to a podcast version of the evening at some point.

After the event, Peter and strolled around the Village a bit, even though it was freezing cold. It's lovely to see at night. A perfect Friday night.

Package stalking

2012-01-21T16:10:00.000-08:00

Sometimes having tracking info for a package you're waiting for is annoying. Like when you watch it go from Alaska to Tennessee.... which meant it went right over its destination and will take several days to make its way back here. That's frustrating.

I took the new camera to work last week to try and test it out a bit (hard to test it at home since it's dark). You can enjoy my view from work with me now:

Random List

2012-01-18T08:09:00.001-08:00

1. I think I'm mostly better. The coughing fits have been reduced to a regular cough. But I do feel like someone kicked me in the ribs recently, which is weird. I don't recall sustaining any rib-related injuries. Also, I go to bed at 10pm and get up at 7:30 and am still exhausted, I'm blaming that on lingering illness. But all, in all, better, I'd say. Yay!

2. More Argentine tango last night at our private lesson. Peter had an epiphany and said "oh, I have to not think about what I'm doing and think about just her" which was the most lovely thing I've heard in 3 years of dancing. :) It's the realization that it's not about doing a particular movement as much as it is him doing what it takes to get me to do what he wants/needs. Guys have a hard job in dancing - they have to think about the step we're going to do, plan ahead, navigate the dance floor, do the step themselves, and make sure they're getting the girl to do the right thing (without pushing, but with a proper lead). Peter is constantly amazed by how little movement on his part it requires to get his partner to take a step (has to be the right movement!). It is part of the magic of dance - with a small twist of the hips he can make me pivot, with a shift in weight he can make me take a step; it really doesn't take much. In other dances there are patterns, so when the lead starts something I recognize, I can do it on my own for the next few steps, which means he can slack off on leading me because I know what to do. In Argentine tango - I have no idea what is coming from one step to the next, so I have to wait for the lead - which means, he HAS to lead me properly. It's a wonderful challenge. So be very impressed if you ever see people doing Argentine tango!

3. Work is crazy busy. It stresses me out because I worry I'm being spread too thin to do a good job. I hate not doing a good job.

4. It snowed in Vancouver and is -4 today (-10 with windchill). This is VERY cold for us. I realized yesterday, when preparing to walk to work, that I no longer have proper winter boots. I guess that makes me a true Vancouverite - I'm completely unprepared for real winter weather.

Cat Interlude

2012-01-16T17:17:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to get a photograph of this for years. This is one of Bernoulli's favorite places to hang out - scarfed over someone's shoulders. He'll lay up there and purr for a very long time, until your neck gives out under his 15lb weight. But he's super soft and warm and it's quite nice, really.

Also - these are photos from my new camera (the one I won!). A Nikon Coolpix L120. So far, I'm liking it - especially since it seems to take good pictures in low light, which we have a lot of here in Vancouver in winter. The 20x optical zoom is also pretty special. :)

Argentine Tango Inspiration

2012-01-15T15:35:00.002-08:00

In dance Peter and I are still working on Foxtrot. That's one beast of a dance to learn, fyi. But we're starting to get it, which is awesome. We've also been dabbling a bit in Argentine Tango, which is the ultimate dance for lead-follow because there isn't really any pattern, it's all freestyle and if you don't have a good lead-follow relationship, it's just not going to work, at all. really, not at all.

In our early days of dance we looked at videos of real dancers, to see what all this stuff was supposed to look like, and we came across this terrible-quality video of an amazing, magical tango. At the time we didn't realize it was Argentine Tango, but it was always, in our minds, the perfect example of the kind of dance we were interested in: it's not flashy with big moves, it's just technically amazing and showcases such a perfect conversation between two dance partners. I find it mezmerizing.

Not to dimish the lead - but I think the magic here is on Natacha Poberaj's part. Watch her footwork, it's perfect. You don't even need to know anything about dance to appreciate the precision with which she moves.

Here's another, better quality video of another routine that's a bit flashier, but still has the same qualities.

Obviously Peter and I aren't here yet, but we're having a lot of fun on the road.

I miss breathing

2012-01-11T17:44:00.000-08:00

Whatever bug I had on Boxing Day, that mostly went away, seems to have come back. Most annoying is the dry, hacking cough that makes me miss taking deep, uninterrupted breaths. Ah breathing, how I took you for granted!

I've been working from home to avoid spewing germs all over my poor co-workers. Working from home is nice in that I have the company of cats, but weird in that it makes me feel like a hermit since I sit at my desk all day and don't leave the apartment until after dark, if at all.

Enough complaining. To amuse you all while I suffer another coughing fit - I'm posting more photos from my past. One is me as a young'un - look how innocent I appear!

In the second one I'm slaughtering a poor girl in a fencing tournament in Wisconsin. For some reason I have 21 photos of me fencing this girl (and no photos of me fencing others, but I swear, I had matches with grownups too). Good for her for taking up a sport that's not common among girls her age, but I was way more experienced and did her in pretty quickly from what I recall. I love how enthralled the scorekeeper lady is by my fencing talents.

I miss fencing. Not as much as I currently miss breathing, but close.

Old Photos

2012-01-07T19:41:00.000-08:00

Peter and I bought a scanner off craigslist so we could... well, scan stuff, obviously. We got a high resolution photo scanner so we can archive our photos properly. I've started what will be a very loooong task of scanning our 2 boxes of print photos (and culling them as I go).

I'm finding some funny stuff - evidence of some very bad hair and fashion choices in my past. Growing up in the 80s makes it hard to look back without cringing. Anyway, my photo collection starts in university really, when I moved out of home, but there was one little pile of random photos from my childhood, including this one of my sister and I enjoying popsicles in the park... I'm pretty sure I remember that balloon sweater. It's these old photos that are most interesting to me, partly because my childhood photo albums have been lost, so these random photos are all I've got, and partly because I have so few memories of my childhood. I don't remember much pre jr. high, to be honest. I remember general impression, bits and pieces... but it seems like I should remember more, that most people remember more. In any case, it makes looking at photos interesting - I get to study them for evidence of who I was at the time. Looking at photos of me in high school is just painful, however, I remember all that just fine, thanks!

You'll notice I'm not posting any awkward photos here for your amusement... because I'm not looking to share that with the information superhighway. That information will stay safely tucked away on my hard drive.

Winning is good

2012-01-03T22:23:00.001-08:00

Dudes, I won another contest!!! I almost feel bad for winning so many good contests, like I'm hogging them or something. You all should start entering, really!

This one was for a London Drugs prize pack that includes an iPod dock stereo, a Nikon digital camera (21x optical zoom baby!), perfume, and strangely, an indoor/outdoor surveillance camera (with night vision capabilities?). Cool!!! When the prize arrives, it's going to be like a late christmas!

Usually I just win books, dvds, or tickets to movies - these wins I don't even mention here. But every now and then, a big prize arrives, and it's pretty fun. Seriously, go put your name in the draw for some stuff. Your best odds are with your local entertainment newspaper - they get tons of tickets to local shows to give away, you're bound to win a night out eventually.

I feel like I've won in another way - since Peter and I made a reservation on Thursday to go to the Cellar Jazz club to see Ali Milner, my newest favorite singer, live! I think it's going to be lovely - a small venue, a fabulous talent, a night out with my Peter - great way to start 2012.

Yarn!

2011-12-28T19:13:00.001-08:00

Rather than whine about being sick, how about some photos of my kool-aid yarn dyeing experiment? This is grape and cherry, and just for the record, you need a fair bit of kool-aid to dye this much yarn (8 packs of cherry, 10 of grape)!

Still, I'm pleased - nice vibrant colours. I have more of this yarn to dye, but I think I'll wait until I start a project and see how much I need of what colour.

Sickly

2011-12-28T12:24:00.003-08:00

So being sick when there isn't anyone at home to dote on you (or help clean up the disaster state you make of the apartment), isn't awesome. And this is a weird flu (I'm assuming flu) - started with a sore neck and mild cough but I felt fine otherwise. Then 8 hours after that I was on the couch trying not to move my head. The muscle ache is really annoying! Well, it's all annoying.

Can you tell I don't get sick much? How do people do this? It sucks. All the parents with kids that have a revolving door for illnesses, I don't know how you survive.

Anyway, I'm better enough now that I can at least watch movies.

Lovely christmas

2011-12-26T01:57:00.000-08:00

Hope everyone had a lovely holiday!

I have been well taken care of by my friends over the past few days, and have spent many wonderful evenings in great company, for which I am very very grateful!

Testing - 1, 2, 3 - is this thing on?

2011-12-25T16:29:00.001-08:00

Testing the new blog format....

Okay - I've had the urge to wipe out my website for a while, thought I'd just leave up the blog and simplify. Will take some getting used to, this new blog template. Needs customization, that's for sure. For example, this font feels huge to me, does it look huge to you?

2011-12-23T11:37:00.003-08:00

Results of the test dyeing with Kool-aid.... one yarn took the colour really well, the others had mixed results (means some synthetic fibres). very interesting & super easy.

Now to try the trickier bit where I try to dye a large quantity of yarn and get it to all come out the same colour....

2011-12-22T11:02:00.002-08:00

So the downside to having a smoking hot young dance instructor teach your cha-cha group class? She can move her body in amazing ways that just... aren't replicable by mere mortals! She's amazing and makes it look so effortless. Makes you realize how much more there is to learn. Partly inspiring, partly crushing. ;)
[This is not my instructor, but it's a great example of the kind of cha cha my instructor does.]

Tonight I'm off to my first Hanukkah party ever! I vaguely recall playing with dreidels in school once as we learned about various non-christmas holidays, but that's about all the experience I have with Hanukkah.

2011-12-21T18:18:00.004-08:00

In honour of the season, I hereby post this photo of Bernoulli as a kitten, inside our christmas tree. He took one look at the tree and ran straight up it, it was priceless.

I dropped Peter off at the airport today, which was weird. I've got plans for the next few days, to ensure I leave the house and don't turn into a hermit, starting with some dance classes tonight.

On my way home from the airport, I picked up some Kool-aid, because apparently it's good for dyeing yarn with (doesn't that make you want to go drink some? ugh), and I've got way too much white yarn. So, we'll be trying some yarn dyeing this weekend, hopefully!

2011-12-19T22:21:00.000-08:00

Today was my last day of work for 2011! Yay!

Peter and have an inherent incompatibility when it comes to the holidays (I say holidays rather than christmas because I'm not into the christ and figure I'm doing the pagan/secular version). Anyway, the problem is this: Peter prefers to ignore the holidays right until the last minute, and then have a big day and enjoy the week or two after. I feel very strongly that once the holiday is over, it's over - and trying to celebrate it after the fact is just... weird, and I can't do it. Things are made worse this year by the fact that Peter is going to Poland with his family for Christmas (they're catholic so it's capital 'C', full meal deal Christmas), and he'll be crazy busy with work right until he leaves. He's thinking we can celebrate when he gets back, but - see point above about how that doesn't work for me. So that's kind of a drag, but, you can't have everything!

Anyway, I'll be on my own for the holidays, which will be an interesting experiment. My friends have been fabulous and I have offers to join several family dinners, so I'm pretty sure I can keep myself occupied. We'll see how it goes!

Unrelated and random: I've never purchased a set of towels in my life. I went away to university with 1 towel, then my mom bought me a set, then Peter and I combined our university-era towel collections, then we got hand me downs from Peter's family when we moved to Vancouver. So we have a hodge-podge of rather old towels (many of which are pink even though I hate pink). Out of the blue the other day, Peter and I bought a set of fabulous bamboo-cotton towels at a mad discount. Seriously, they're awesome. I'm very much looking forward to dropping off our very old towels at the animal shelter and never seeing them again.

Sometimes it's good to spend money on yourself.

2011-12-14T17:39:00.000-08:00

We've been participating in an extra dance class every week for the past few weeks at our studio. It's the owner of the studio teaching a special salsa course. I love salsa and the owner of the studio both, so this is pretty fantastic. It means that our weekly schedule is Tuesdays: private lesson & studio party, Wednesdays: 2 group classes, Thursdays: special salsa group class. This means I miss a lot of time cuddling with cats and crafting in my cozy apartment and I instead spend a lot of time at the dance studio. But I feel like we've been dancing long enough that we're at a point where it's super fun. It was always fun, but in the early days that fun would be laced with
frustration at not being able to do more, or follow stuff, or turn correctly. Now, I feel like my base is solid enough that I can really enjoy myself in any situation; I'm picking up new things faster, I'm
starting to spin properly, I can follow better, etc. It's fun!

This post is neither here nor there but to share my happiness with dancing. And to say that learning new skills is awesome - especially if you stick with it long enough to get good. We've still got loads to
learn and improve, don't get me wrong, but we're having fun.

Now I just need to travel back in time to the 40s/50's when supper clubs with proper dancing still existed.

2011-12-11T14:25:00.001-08:00

I've been in the process of becoming a volunteer at the Vancouver SPCA for... a while now. I think a combination of them being buried in applications and changing their protocols meant they stopped taking any new volunteers for a while. Anyway, slowly I'm getting through the steps (workshops, training, criminal record check). Today was another day. I got home from the shelter and smothered my cats with love. It kills me to see those cats in cages. This will be the first shelter I've ever volunteered in where some cats are in cages all day long. All the other shelters I've volunteered at had the cats in communal rooms where they could run around (maybe putting the cats in cages for the night shift when no one is around). So this will be different. Also, the poor SPCA is in an old old building. I'm surprised they aren't fundraising for a replacement facility, they sure could use it. But I guess they need all their fundraising just to operate what they've got. So really, they need a wealthy person to donate a new facility for them!

Now I'm home and have Bernoulli on my lap; he's purring and wonderfully warm and soft. If only I could rescue them all.

2011-12-06T17:03:00.000-08:00

Random.
Things that may be confusing to people who do not live in Vancouver:

these are all different places:
West End - this is a neighbourhood (area) near downtown Vancouver
West Vancouver - this is a different municipality than Vancouver (as are the City of North Vancouver, and the District of North Vancouver)
West side of Vancouver - this is a general geographic area in Vancouver that includes neighbourhoods like West Point Grey

2011-12-05T19:44:00.001-08:00

Busy weekend! I went out to a lovely dinner on Saturday with some ladies from the dance studio - part of a civilized stagette for one of them. Then we went to a club on Granville St. Yup, a club. Stood in line, got ID'd by the bouncer, the whole deal. Had drinks spilled on me, got bounced around on the dance floor (and off the dance floor) by the MOB because it was insanely crowded. It was fun in a hilarious kind of way. At least the club we went to had a full range of people - from teeny-boppers up through adults - some of the girls even had pants on. (The current trend among the youth today is to not wear pants while clubbing - they go out in a shirt and call it a dress.)

I got home from the club at 3:30am. Took a nap, then headed out at 8:30 to do a day long craft fair. The craft fair was fabulous and I sold a pile of stuff, which is always satisfying. After the fair I was off to dinner with more lovely friends. Fortunately for me, and my desire to sleep, this group of friends did not desire to go clubbing. :)

Anyway - I recommend all the people in their 30s go clubbing every now and then - I think it gets more hilarious as you get older... it's just, kind of silly really.

2011-11-18T12:51:00.001-08:00

Did I just make a bunch of necklaces?

Yes, I did indeed!

Details on the craft blog!

2011-11-14T15:16:00.001-08:00

A week or two ago I took Peter out on a date. By 'date' I mean, I bought tickets to an event and made him go with me. Fortunately, he's a good sport for blindly going to events he knows nothing about (me, not so much). The event was Raincity Chronicles. I went because one of my new favorite musicians was going to be there: Jill Barber, and because it is described as a night of storytelling - which sounded great to me.

It was a sold out show (they always are, apparently). And it was lovely. There was a lineup of storytellers who each got on stage and told a tale - the theme this time was Duty Calls (venue was the Legion Hall). There was something very simple and fantastic about it - regular people getting up and telling very entertaining and/or touching stories from their lives, interspersed with lovely songs from Jill Barber. Oh, and beer. And home-baked cookies. And, we ran into two friends of mine, which doesn't surprise me at all - this is totally the kind of event my friends would love just as much as I do. Bumping into friends is awesome.

I kind of wish Raincity Chronicles offered an annual pass, since I plan to go to all their shows from now on. Peter enjoyed it too, though it turns out he was quite skeptical when I told him it would be 'a night of storytelling'. So it pays to go to events that sound weird, you never know what you might discover! (Raincity Chronicles is working to get podcasts of their shows up - you can find the first one here!)

2011-11-12T10:47:00.001-08:00

I wonder what it's like to live in a place with medieval, windy streets and historic architecture everywhere. I wonder if you get used to it and stop finding it charming and just find it annoying (you probably dream of straight streets).

And where do they put all the modern infrastructure of today? Phone lines? Cable lines? Separated storm water and sewer pipes. Our engineers like roads to be at least, oh, 20m wide so they can fit in all the under-street utilities in separate areas... then I arrive in Europe to these narrow streets and life seems to carry on.

2011-11-06T15:42:00.002-08:00

Edited a few more Latvia photos... am missing Riga, which seems weird. Maybe I miss being a lady of leisure.

2011-11-04T12:32:00.002-07:00

On Tuesday, I got to go do another photoshoot with cats.... except this time it was mostly KITTENS!

It's been a long time since I've been around kittens, and having seven 5-week old ones running around was seriously cute overload. It was awesome.

And, Ben took more fabulous photos! Don't these photos make you want to adopt them all? I think Ben and I both want to quit our jobs and photograph cats full time.

All these cats are available for adoption from HomeFinders Animal Rescue!

2011-11-01T22:09:00.001-07:00

Today at work I got to go tour a recycling sorting facility! No, really, this is cool.

Since I've been doing stuff on waste diversion at work, I jumped at the chance to go on the tour and see how this stuff gets done in the real world. The guys in the Solid Waste department seemed somewhat surprised that I wanted to go, but it was neat, I'm glad I did. It's a new, state of the art automated sorting system. So all your recyclable containers that go in your blue bin go to a facility like this (or maybe one less fancy and less automated), and somehow the stuff all gets separated. It's quite the operation. It involves magnets, air density separators, optical scanners, and a whole lot of conveyor belts.

And it forces me to tell you three things:

1. Do not. ever. put plastic bags in your recycling bin. ever. I know it's convenient to put your containers in a bag and then toss them in the bin with the bag, but don't do it. really. seriously. They muck up ALL the machinery. There aren't words to convey what an immense headache they cause. There's no easy way to separate them out and they just get everywhere. Aside from actually gumming up the machinery, they contaminate the separated materials which makes it hard to market the recyclables. And if no one wants the recyclables, then it didn't do much good for you to recycle it, the city to pick it up, and the facility to try to separate it. All that effort wasted because of some stupid plastic bag. (you should be using reusable shopping bags anyhow, then you won't have this issue at all!)

So really, seriously: no plastic bags. Please.

2. Make a point of buying products with post-consumer recycled content. Please. It doesn't do a lot of good to recycle your used stuff if you don't help create a market for the material! Do you buy paper towels with post-consumer recycled content? Did you know you can buy paper towels made of 100% post-consumer recycled content and it's just as good as stuff made from virgin forests that were cut down to make your disposable wipes? Why do we allow forests to be cut down when we could be reusing our own materials?! This drives me bonkers. There shouldn't even be any paper towel on the shelf made from anything other than post-consumer materials. Ditto for toilet paper and aluminum foil and many many other products. Please take the time to seek out these products. I understand the markets for recyclable materials tanked a few years ago, meaning it's hard to find anyone who wants to buy the material (and the ones that do pay very little). Some (most?) of the materials get shipped overseas - which has a ridiculous carbon footprint and is silly because clearly we use enough material our own selves to eat up all the recyclables.

3. Please rinse out your containers. Have some pity on the facilities that store, sort, and process your materials.

Sorry for the PSA - but it's so easy for people to avoid thinking about this stuff, and it's rather important! In any case, yay for recycling! Let's do more and do better!

2011-10-23T12:56:00.001-07:00

I may have won another contest recently.

It may have been for more craft supplies.

You'll have to go to the craft blog to find out.

http://baremaked.blogspot.com/2011/10/winning.html

2011-10-21T18:50:00.001-07:00

Since I can't foster or adopt any more animals, I've been trying to think of other ways I can help animal rescue groups with their work. One way was roping my friend and talented photographer into the pet portrait business. And by business, I mean he does it for free. He seems to be enjoying it too, which is great and I'm gleefully working to book us more photo shoots with other rescue groups (I'm the helper - I wiggle the cat toys/treats). He's also offering to do personal pet portraits for people in exchange for a promise of a donation to the BC SPCA - which is AWESOME*.

Anyway, that's one thing. The other thing I'm also excited about because it's going so much better than I hoped. My team at work moved into new offices recently, on the 7th floor. The nearest food is down in the cafeteria in the basement or across the street in the mall. So if you need a snack, it's easily a 10-15 minute journey to get it. And people in my office are BUSY. So busy that they may not be able to squeeze in a 15 min break, no matter how much they've got the munchies. Sometimes you want a snack but don't want to break out of the mental space you're in by going on a journey.

So I cribbed an idea I saw in another office I work in - a snack basket for charity. I supply snack items, charge higher than retail prices and all the profits go to charity. My co-workers get snacks close at hand, and we raise money for good causes! The basket is located in a locked file cabinet where anyone can access it and it operates on the honour system. In the first month of operation, the basket made $40 in profit!! It's not a huge number but for an office as small as ours, it's a lot! And it's money that will go to charity that otherwise wouldn't have - and no one felt like they were hit up for charitable donations, they bought stuff they wanted to buy anyway.

The only complaint I've had is that I've made it too easy and convenient to get chocolate bars! (I have healthier options in there too but we all go for the chocolate bars.) My plan is to let a few months of profit stack up and then donate to Katie's Place Animal Shelter, then the next few months of profit will go to another animal rescue, etc.

I'm super happy to have found a few ways to help, though I still wish I could do more. To be honest, I wish I could be a foster home for kittens... *sigh* adorable, little rascally kittens who just need a home for a few months. Maybe one day.

*If anyone in Vancouver wants to book him for a portrait, send me an email and I'll put you in touch. You should totally do this. One friend is booking him for a sneak photo shoot of someone else's dog as a Christmas present for them; money to charity + christmas present = double win.

2011-10-18T21:53:00.002-07:00

One of the side effects of being a sustainability nut, especially one who researches/talks about waste diversion and recycling stuff much of the day, is that it's kind of hard to get rid of stuff. Like, you can't just toss stuff out. It's more like trips to the recycling depot and the computer reuse place and the charity shops. It's not hard work, just more time-consuming than a trip to the dumpster in the alley.

Peter and I booked off part of Saturday to make a bunch of these trips which were long overdue and at each stop we practically high fived each other with the excitement of finally being rid of STUFF, stuff that's been sitting around waiting for us to deal with it for ages. Dropped off a computer and some laptops at the place that wipes and rebuilds them to be used by those in need? SWEET. Trip to the thrift shop to unload some clothes and other miscellaneous stuff: AWESOME. Trip to the cleaners with the pillows and bedding and drycleaning: FANTASTIC.

In the end, it didn't actually take us that long at all - we should have done it months ago. And it felt good to know that none of the stuff is headed to the landfill. Even the one item we put next to our dumpster got taken away by someone within 5 minutes (which is why we put it next to, rather than in the dumpster).

Let this be your PSA to make the effort to recycle/donate your unwanted goods, since throwing our stuff in a hole in the ground and burying it, is not really dealing with our waste in a very responsible manner.

2011-10-09T12:48:00.002-07:00

One of the other benefits to having fantastic urban plazas all over the place is that it makes for great places for festivals and markets.

It so happened that the day Peter and I flew out of Riga, we went for one last walk around Old Town and discovered a large carrot festival going on - complete with a huge market. There was live music, carrot sculptures, beer gardens, food (including spiral potatoes on a stick), bunnies and goats for the kids to pet.

It was generally pretty awesome. These photos show one plaza where the live music and beer was. The potato spiral was very tasty. There was a whole other square with the enormous market and another music stage.

A video for you - keep your eye out for the dancing carrot!

2011-10-06T07:59:00.001-07:00

Tired of Riga photos yet?

Hope not, since I'm having great fun going through them and pulling out one at a time to share.

This one is a view from up top of the church tower which shows the many elements of old European city centres that I love (and am sad that can't be built into modern cities). Like - covered markets, beer gardens/cafes, narrow windy streets that lead to surprises, beautifully restored buildings. Streets for people instead of cars (cars are allowed, but the street isn't designed for them and if feels more comfortable as a result). I love that medieval builders didn't seem to care about straight lines - buildings curve and angle strangely for no apparent reason.

I spent a fair bit of time in Riga just sitting in public spaces. That's my favorite thing to do when I travel (at home too, but our public spaces aren't as nice). I took this video from my spot on a bench in a lovely park, happened to catch a bunch of segway riders. Live music was an accordion player and a trumpet player just on the other side of the bridge, it was quite lovely. I get wistful just watching the video. Wish I could be a lady of leisure!

2011-10-04T22:39:00.000-07:00

Riga has some amazing amazing architecture. Particularly if you're into Art Nouveau style architecture, which you should be because it's stunning and such a contrast to the way we design buildings today. Riga has more buildings of this style than anywhere in Europe. I'm a sucker for this stuff, which may explain why I've fallen in love with Riga so quickly.

Also - it's easy to love a place when you can sit in a cafe, have some cake and look at this charming streetscape (a pub and a bakery, what more do you need?):

2011-10-03T08:17:00.002-07:00

One of my favorite photos of Riga - old crumbly building, cobblestone street, and a cat stalking pigeons.

2011-09-28T21:20:00.002-07:00

Today I went to a taco place at lunch with my co-workers (chicken taco with mole sauce, hello delish!) and I paused for a moment to give thanks for the fact that the place had jugs of FREE WATER sitting out for customers. I nearly wept.

I love water. I rarely drink pop, never drink coffee, don't see the point of tea (flavoured hot water?), and don't do alcohol - so travel to Europe is always a drag when it comes time to order a beverage. I just want tap water. Free tap water. But that's not an option, so I can either order still water - which could be some stupid thing imported from far away, or a pop. I usually go for pop (if I'm going to pay, I at least want some sugar). Meanwhile, while I'm paying $2+ for my tiny glass of pop, Peter ends up with, like a 1L beer for less. So irritating. So I am generally always thirsty while in Europe.

After work I had time to grab a quick bite at a cafe near the dance studio and I asked for a glass of water and they didn't think anything of it and gave me a mug full of cold water. Blessed free tap water, I love you.

Is it wrong that this is one of the things I love most about being home? Knowing I can get tap water wherever I go? I'm a simple girl.

2011-09-26T11:39:00.000-07:00

Funny how one can love travel and being someplace new and interesting and still be so happy to get home! We arrived home at 2am this morning after a long haul: Riga Latvia - Warsaw Poland - Toronto - Vancouver. That's a lot of time in airplanes and a lot of time changes, which really screws up your body clock! But I've had time to sleep and cuddle cats, so I'm feeling semi-human again.

I totally fell in love with Riga, thought it was fabulous. It's historical and still in the process of figuring itself out, but it's a real city - not just a tourist enclave, which was lovely.

2011-09-22T00:01:00.001-07:00

Yesterday one of Peter's business contacts took the day off to tour us around some sights. We went about 45minutes outside of Riga and visited a modest palace, a ruined&partially restored castle, and a seriously posh palace. It was a whirlwind, but fun!

When Peter and I got back to the city, we headed out in search of supper. On the way we ran into three tiny kittens playing with each other (all rough and tumble) in the cobblestone street. I stopped and nearly died of cute overload. Eventually someone came by and scared the kittens away (all the cats here appear to be feral which means I don't get to pet them: sad face). We went into a random basement pub for supper - where we were the only customers (it's off season here now). The people who work at the bar had their friends over and they set up a projector to watch the Latvia-Russia hockey game. We told them to turn up the sound, because we're Canadian and love hockey (we like to support stereotypes wherever we go). We watched a bit of hockey - noticing that Baltic players seem less interested in physically pummeling each other, which was nice.

Eventually we had to leave to go to our next destination - a folk club that supposedly has folk dancing every wednesday night. And it DID. It was AWESOME. The bar was another basement bar (and I mean basement of a 150+ year old building) and it was full of people, mostly young'uns. And they were FOLK DANCING to live music. They were weren't performing in costume, they were just youth having fun by FOLK DANCING in a bar - hanging out with friends, dancing, drinking beer. It was the awesomest thing I've seen in a long long time. I totally want to start a Latvian folk dancing club in some bar in Vancouver. It just looked like so much fun. It's sad that our culture's version of dancing is mimed sex on a dance floor of a dark club with music so loud you can't possibly communicate with anyone. In contrast - this was energetic, fun, funny, you could still converse, meet up with friends, etc. Seriously, it looked like a ton of fun. *sigh* So jealous of the Latvian Folk Dancing Club members.

We eventually left the folk dancing club - and as we did it struck me as funny that after much training, Peter and I know 8 different dances and somehow found our way to a place doing a type of dancing we don't know. As we wandered back to our hotel through the Old Town, we came across a cello player set up in a square playing beautiful classical music. Just as one would expect in Europe.

Kittens on cobblestone streets, folk dancing hipsters, cello players in the plaza.... I love Europe.

UPDATE - I found some videos on youtube of the folk club we went to so you can get a bit of an idea of the awesome:

2011-09-19T23:09:00.001-07:00

Riga, Old Town

So, Latvia isawesome. Took us three flights and about 18 hours to get here, atwhich point we no longer felt human. I can't imagine what it'slike to travel from Canada to Australia. Anyway, we arrived on.time, which I find remarkable.

We're staying inthe Old Town part of Riga because it's fantastic and historical and full ofpublic squares.

Reason#1 Riga is awesome: it's in Europe, meaning my sister can fly fromLondon to meet me for pretty cheap! She actually arrived a fewhours before us, and it's been nice catching up and exploringtogether.

Riga: pro-cat sort of town

Reason #2 Riga isawesome: cats. There appear to be loads of stray cats here - probablytolerated because they help control the rodent problems (we saw a catwith a mouse in his mouth). Any place that has cute cats roaming around isok in my book. I'm easy to please.

Reason #3 Riga isawesome: we caught a train and 30 min later were in a great seasidetown. Lovely beach, cool wooden buildings (some falling down,some immaculately restored), more stray cats.

Jurmala Beach, outside Riga

2011-09-13T08:35:00.005-07:00

Lily pads with actual lilies

Beaver Lake

Peter in the woods

Peter and I went exploring in Stanley Park one weekend recently - a chance to walk through the forests without having to go out of town. There are still trails in the park we've never walked, so I thought it was high time we fixed that.

It doesn't hurt that there is a lovely pub in the park with the best patio in the City (because there are no roads anywhere nearby and you overlook a beautifully manicured garden), in case you need refreshments.

View of the seawall from under a bridge

2011-09-12T21:43:00.004-07:00

I am ridiculously excited. I just spent my evening helping wrangle cats and kittens (SOCUTE!) for my super talented photographer friend, Ben Johnson* to take photos of. This is my way of helping a local animal rescue organization, by roping my very talented friends into helping. He took some beautiful photos (in very challenging lighting) of some skittish cats (cats are not co-operative models generally, just fyi, especially recently feral cats). This animal rescue (HomeFinders - soon to have a website, as soon as I finish making it) has no shelter and relies on people finding their animals online. I think having beautiful profile photos in the online listings will help them stand out in the crowd and hopefully get adopted quickly!

I can't wait to get the photos from him - I'll be sure to post some for you. My favorite part was the 3 grey kittens at once, and of course the tiny, lanky black kitten Hank (love). *sigh* I need a bigger apartment so I can become a fully crazy cat lady.

*see his photos of his cats (and chickens) as examples of his talent. His cats are hilarious. I'm not sure which is my fave - this one of his cat in a tree, or this one of his cat flying.

Update - PHOTOS! Isn't Ben good??

2011-09-09T14:07:00.001-07:00

Just in case anyone was wondering, I had no idea there had been an earthquake nearby until I read it online. It was off Vancouver Island, so pretty far away still. But I will double check my earthquake kit tonight to make sure it's loaded up and the food hasn't expired.

2011-09-06T17:04:00.000-07:00

It's the first day of school!! This doesn't actually impact me at all, except some bus routes will be fuller now. But boy do I remember the first day of school. I've got 20 years of school under my belt so the simultaneous feelings of 'yay, fresh start' and 'scary new' will always be associated with September. Also, new notebooks and pencils.

As a younger sister I remember watching my sister go off to school and I was so jealous! She got homework! I wanted homework! So when I finally, finally got to go off to primary class, I came home after the first day absolutely devestated. They didn't assign any homework! All that waiting, I was so disappointed. I think I thought I would learn to read novels on day one. School was magical like that. I'm pretty sure Mom spoke with my teacher because eventually she started giving me homework. I recall very clearly that that is how I learned to spell cookie - and look how well that has served me in life! Thank you Mrs. McDonald. I pretty quickly learned that homework was not something you needed to ask for for long, but I was always pretty much a nerd. Though I definitely wasn't asking for homework by the time I hit university!

In any case - hope the first day of school went well for everyone!

2011-09-01T21:53:00.001-07:00

So I was thinking about dancing the other day. I do that a lot, since we dance kind of a lot. (Apparently I also blog about dance a lot.)

I actually started by thinking about yoga, which I only do once a week but love. We have a great lunch time yoga program at work and the Monday instructor is fabulous. I struggle in yoga (like most people) to get my brain to shut up. This is also why I love yoga, because I am able (eventually) to quiet that constantly running inner monologue - the one they say is part and parcel of us being a sentient species but that can get annoying at times. It occurred to me that dancing is the other time I can quiet the hamster wheel in my brain. As a follower in dance, especially when dancing something you don't know or with someone way more advanced, to succeed, you must stop thinking about the dance and think about the moment - it's the ultimate way to practice 'being in the moment'. You have to constantly stand at the ready to receive signals on what will happen next. They are usually subtle signals and if your mind wanders, you may miss them.

I spend most of my time not in the moment. My job is usually about the exact opposite - planning for the future, spending a LOT of time thinking about the future and the impacts of our present decisions on the future. So I'm discovering that I really value activities that quiet my mind and let me just enjoy the NOW. Who knew that such a physical activity like dance could be so much like meditation? Quiet the mind and work the body, not a bad way to spend an evening.

2011-08-28T20:05:00.000-07:00

We went to a Vancouver Canadians baseball game today. I'd post a photo but it was waaaaaay to hot to think about taking out my camera. Here are some photos you can enjoy instead. Even though we were seated under the stadium awning, we were full on in the sun with no breeze at all the whole time. I think it was 47 degrees C. That's my estimate. I nearly died. I love baseball games, but not when I'm literally feeling sweat dripping down my body. That's not the mental image you wanted, I know, but I have to convey to you somehow how very very hot it was. It was so hot I forgot the rules of baseball. I forgot which team was ours. I forgot that having a rootbeer float, even if the money is for charity, is a bad bad idea.

And we lost.

But I still love baseball, especially when tickets are $12.50.

2011-08-26T21:20:00.000-07:00

charity:water always launches a special campaign for September (the anniversary of when they started). These campaigns always come with beautiful videos and graphics and will make you feel all inspired at the amazing things that can be accomplished in a short time. I love Septembers now.

The 2011 September Campaign. Our 5-year-anniversary video from charity: water on Vimeo.

2011-08-23T22:34:00.000-07:00

This is a really interesting article about something called decision fatigue. I'll wager a bet that everyone has experienced this problem before. Given the huge number of decisions we all make in a given day, it's no wonder I end up standing in the grocery store at the end of the day holding cookies and chips instead of real food. Clearly I've just run out of good decision-making juice!

2011-08-21T19:59:00.001-07:00

Saturday I made a trip out to a place I've been wanting to visit for a few months now. It's an all-volunteer run cat shelter called Katie's Place. What started as a small venture by half a dozen animal lovers to care for some homeless cats in a barn has turned into an amazing facility caring for over 100 cats. All on volunteer time and donations.

The shelter is set up like Best Friends - divided into 8 or so common rooms that house about 10 cats each, and all of them have access to spacious outdoor enclosures. I'm always happy to see shelters where the animals are not in cages. The rooms are built with ledges and cubbies and shelves all over the place so the cats can each find their own little hideouts. Most of them were laying in the sunny porch, even though it was 30deg out!

I spent two hours there, hanging out with cats and chatting with volunteers and a few potential adopters (yay!).

I didn't fall in love until the very end when I met two twin petite all back cats that turned out to be a mother-daughter pair (the mother only 5 months older than the daughter). They're so tiny and adorable and I wanted to bring them home.

I normally do okay at shelters. I mean, I want to take everyone home, but I'm pretty good about not falling in love with anyone in particular. But these two little gals were so sweet and tiny (I'm a sucker for a tiny cat) and friendly! I haven't been able to stop thinking about them. We can't adopt them - two cats in a small apartment is definitely the limit... but I've been trying to think of someone I know who needs cats (that way I can visit them frequently). So far, no luck. I often think that if Peter and I ever get a larger apartment to live in, it will be for cats.

Hopefully I'll get out to visit them next month, get my fix that way!

2011-08-20T08:46:00.002-07:00

You may recall that back in December and February I hassled you all to donate to my Charity:water campaign. Thanks to everyone who did because we collected $1000 together: yay! In about a year, we'll get GPS coordinates and some details on the well that money helped to build.

I'm still head over heels in love with Charity:water and so I check their blog regularly and follow them on Twitter. That's how I found out about Rachel - a little girl who gave up her 9th birthday to raise money for Charity:water.

She fell short of her $300 goal by $80 but vowed to do it again for her 10th birthday. Except that she died in a car crash on the highway a little after her birthday. A far too common occurrence, really. (35,000 people die every year in car crashes in the US) Her family decided to re-open her Charity:water campaign to accept donations in her memory. And people donated. A lot. And news coverage started and it went viral, in the best possible way. Her campaign is now at $1,193,109 and climbing. That will provide clean water to 59,655 people who desperately need it. That will radically change lives for so many people, it's almost hard to comprehend.

It's been wonderful to watch - what amazing things can happen when a whole lot of people each contribute a little. It's a little ray of awesome in a world of strife and struggle. Charity:water is planning to take Rachel's mom on a tour next year to see some of the villages where Rachel's wells end up getting built, to see first hand the effect of her daughter's legacy. I imagine that'll be pretty life-changing.

Here's the link if you want to keep an eye on Rachel's campaign and see how high it goes: http://mycharitywater.org/rachels9thbirthday

2011-08-19T07:50:00.004-07:00

Holy cow, how have I not mentioned to all you fine people that my sister has started a fabulous blog!

She lives in London (England, not Ontario) and her blog is about her experiences with both England and Canada and tips on moving and living abroad.

I'm waiting for the post that explains why banks don't install way more ATMs, because every single one I saw in London had a queue. Also, I can't wait to see how they're going to cram all those visitors in for the Olympics, London appeared totally full to me. :)

Anyway - go check it out!

2011-08-17T12:16:00.003-07:00

Did you know that black cats are the least likely to be adopted at shelters?

Poor, beautiful black kitties. All because our culture has some superstitions about black cats and bad luck/witches, or because black cats just aren't as visually attention-grabbing.

Some friends of mine went to the shelter to get a new cat a few months ago, after their very elderly cat passed away. I lobbied hard for them to get two cats (success!) and then told them they should really consider black cats as they are so often overlooked because of stupid superstitions. Sadly, they did not get any black cats. On the other hand - Suzy took in two black kittens that needed a home, so she's a hero to me (especially since they've proven to be naughty kittens on occasion).

We had a black cat growing up and she was fabulous, and our current handsome devil, Bernoulli, is pretty confident he's the best looking thing in our apartment and I can't argue with him on that, except to point out that Kitty is pretty easy on the eyes too.

Anyway - this a just a note to make you all aware that black cats are AWESOME. They have a wonderful, mysterious beauty and every now and then they do the stretch that makes them look like a Halloween decor item, which I think is a bonus.

Next time you or a friend go to adopt a cat, make a point of finding a black cat - they don't deserve to be overlooked and the shelter people will LOVE you. I guarantee you there will be plenty of black cats to choose from, sadly. But if you don't make a point of it, you'll probably get distracted by some redhead or tabby - they're so showy.

I'm reminded of this because Best Friends Animal Society is trying to increase adoptions of black cats with a Back in Black event and 50% off adoption fees for black cats at participating shelters. Maybe something our local shelter should consider!

2011-08-14T10:51:00.005-07:00

Peter and I had cable tv for a while there (got a super discounted package such that it was cheaper to have internet+tv than just internet). I just cancelled it last week and feel much better now that it's gone. It's too easy to waste time that way.

Possibly related - Peter and I went out into nature yesterday. We went for a hike to Levitt Lake up by Squamish. Our guidebook was funny and the directions were kind of spotty (also, it dates from 1998 we discovered afterwards, which pre-dates our move to Vancouver), but we found the lake! It was pretty, but without a good place to hang out and relax so we didn't stay very long. Instead we had a snack, enjoyed the view, and then hiked out and went to the pub by the Squamish River (which is stunning). That's my kind of nature - viewed from a patio with a nice seat and food. The most amusing part of the trip was driving the car-share vehicle - a Smart Car - up the rutted logging road to the trail head. At one point we pulled over to let some SUVs and pickup trucks by.... they thought we were pretty funny but the Smart Car made it, so I think we win.

Like all hikes, I ended up with a headache after, which is awfully annoying. I should just take some excedrin before I even get to the trail really. Next time I'll try that.

When we got home we grabbed our books, I grabbed my knitting and we went to the park across the street, spread out a blanket and napped/read/knit in some nice dappled sun. Great way to recover from a more strenuous nature excursion.

2011-08-09T22:47:00.001-07:00

Something is wrong with our cable box so I go to log on to my online account for support and when I log in it says "Something is wrong." They really hit the nail on the head there. I find that very amusing.

2011-08-02T07:52:00.004-07:00

Have I mentioned how much I love the summer dance series going on at Robson Square? It's pretty fabulous. Friday nights are for ballroom/latin and Sunday afternoon is salsa. This used to go on every year but has been put on hold for a few years while they renovate Robson Square - but it's back - yay!

The ice rink surface is nice and slippery, great for turns. The organizers play some good tunes, and loads of people turn out to dance. It's fun!

This was one of the things I kind of daydreamed about when we started dancing - being able to walk around a city, stop in a public square and do a few dances and then continue on. Something about dancing out in the open air just seems right.

There are dancers of all skill levels and it's neat just to spend some time people watching there. The only thing lacking really, is a gelato place nearby. :)

2011-07-31T10:35:00.004-07:00

Last night I had dinner with some classmates from my aerospace engineering undergrad - we were all on the 4th year project satellite team (as opposed to the aircraft team). It was really cool to see them again - bit of a mini-reunion, including Peter who knew some of them too. There was an option to do a 16 month internship between 3rd and 4th year so about half the people you'd be with in 4th year weren't the people you'd gone through classes with the previous 3 years, they'd be people from the year ahead returning from internships. I didn't do the internship, but Peter did, which caused the people we knew to be mixed (Peter had been 2 years ahead of me), which turns out to be kind of nifty now.

I recall being told, when I was interviewing with professors for acceptance into the internship program, that I should be open to aircraft-related jobs because the reality was there weren't a lot of opportunities in the space-side of aerospace. He actually told me I should switch my studies too. I didn't. I even went so far as to turn down an internship at Rolls Royce because I wasn't interested in aircraft engines (and the previous intern said they had re-organized the company parking lot as one of their tasks and I figured I had better ways to spend 16 months - like finishing my degree).

Anyway - point is that despite how hard it is to work in the space industry - many of my classmates from the satellite project are doing it! So, there's a lesson in sticking to your dream, despite what people may tell you about the impracticality of it. Whether or not the dream turns out to be as awesome as you imagined it is another story entirely. Let's just say it's good to be nimble and open to new dreams. :)

Also - it's wonderful to discover that all these good people I knew from school are still good people. One of them just moved to Vancouver and that makes me happy. It's always good to increase the number of good people in your life. And in the small world category, one of my friends from undergrad is engaged to someone who grew up near Peter and was a year behind him in the same high school.

2011-07-29T14:46:00.003-07:00

I had a funny idea the other day while walking down Granville St. Granville is the entertainment district for Vancouver - it's where most of the theatres and nightclubs and bars are. At night, when we leave the dance studio, we get to see the spectacle that is nightlife for young folks. (That'll make you feel old - when you wonder why so many women are walking around on 5" heels with no pants on. Back in my day, we wore pants to clubs.)

Anyway - it got me thinking - all these ladies look exactly the same, or they're trying VERY hard to all look the same. Tottering on shoes that are so impractical as to be comical, wearing small, tight dresses - same hair, same makeup. The sameness of it all is kind of depressing.

The funny idea was - since so many people are so influenced by the popular idea of beauty/style, what if we, as a society/species, were unable to communicate preferences on beauty/style? What if there was something in our brain structure that made us literally unable to communicate on the subject? Imagine everyone having to go out into the world wearing/styled just the way they liked, without referring to some pop culture 'norm'? Would we try to detect trends through observation and copy, without communicating, or would we just not think of it as something that mattered? Would the idea of trying to all mimic one idea of the perfect image of beauty be alien and silly to us?

Clearly I've been watching too much Fringe lately.

2011-07-24T19:55:00.001-07:00

One of the hard parts of being a crafting nut is accommodating all the crafting supplies. It was all very manageable when all I did was beadwork, but then came sewing and crochet and then.... weaving. I blame the weaving entirely on Felicia of SweetGeorgia Yarns who blogs about her weaving adventures and who has an incredible sense of colour and style. She made me see that weaving could be bold and colorful and modern (example). So I got a small floor loom about 2 years ago.

Only problem was that I live in a 600sqft apartment with my husband-like-person and two cats. And my husband-like-person often has a mountain bike in our apartment. So we just don't have a lot of space. And with my other 48 hobbies, I wasn't spending much time weaving. So, since it took up the most space and was used the least out of all my crafting supplies, I decided that the floor loom should find a new home. The happy part is that it went to a lovely lady who is very excited about learning to weave and she loved it on first sight - so it's in a happy home and will help launch someone's weaving adventure.

I figure I'll find myself another little floor loom one day, maybe if we ever move into a 2bedroom apartment. Until then, I'll just have to distract myself with one of my 12 works-in-progress. And maybe I'll have to spend some time in SweetGeorgia's weaving studio. :)

2011-07-19T22:35:00.002-07:00

I really wish I could post that the infrequency of my posts is due to the fact that it's summer and I'm too busy being outside to sit at the computer and write blog posts but that would be a lie. because it is clearly not summer here in Vancouver (or anywhere else it seems, based on twitter - except Minneapolis where it's 36deg apparently). I'm just busy with dance (dance events on tuesdays & wednesdays at our studio and fridays & sundays at Robson Square), getting going in my new job, reading a lot, and occasionally getting out with friends.

We did go to an awesome wedding on the weekend with a reception at the top of Grouse Mountain which was cool even though it was totally cloudy and we couldn't enjoy the view. We met some lovely new people, which is always a perk when nice people get married (nice people tend to know other nice people).

Now that we've replaced our old broken monitor, I may even be able to post some photos of stuff! Maybe a cat photo or two? That's what the internet is for, right? ;)

2011-07-10T11:03:00.002-07:00

I had to work yesterday, which is a kind of unfortunate way to start a weekend. Especially a warm, sunny weekend. But the event went well, so that's good. Afterwards Peter and I dropped off our computer monitor to be repaired and then headed out to Ladner to the cutest berry farm ever (Emma Lea Farm). It has a little barn where you can get ice cream and milkshake and smoothies made with super fresh fruit. so good. We picked a pile of strawberries which I'm in the process of freezing for our future smoothie enjoyment. So, despite the working, it was a fabulous day! Really just wishing we could have a proper old school summer vacation - 2 solid months off - enough time to maybe even get bored!

2011-07-07T22:06:00.002-07:00

It's been just over a year now since I got my Kobo ereader and I'm just as in love with it as ever. I carry it with me most of the time and have read more books in the past 6 months than I normally read in a year. I'm reading a lot more classics too (I love old books). See my reading list in the sidebar at right.

Now I have a bit of a first-world problem on my hands. Kobo recently released a new version of their ereader - the Kobo Touch. Yes, a touch-screen version with better screen resolution and faster page turns. The advantage of the touchscreen is mostly in the ease of navigating the menu structure - i.e. searching for books on your Kobo, buying new books online via your Kobo, sorting your books into categories, etc - all things that cannot be done on my original Kobo with only has a few buttons to interface with.

I'm not normally one of those people who has to have the latest and greatest (my phone, for example is a Palm Pre - not the Palm Pre+ or the Palm Pre2, I'm two phones out of date), but this Kobo Touch is awfully tempting. My original-version Kobo still works perfectly fine, and if no Kobo Touch had ever been invented, I'd happily continue using it.... but now that I know there's a touch version out there I can't stop thinking about it.

I'd pretty much decided I wouldn't get it.... and then I won a $100 chapters gift card. Hmmm. Still, it seems silly to upgrade to a new device when my existing device is perfectly fine. Right? I should spend my gift card on books to load up on my old Kobo, right?

Like I said, first world problem.

2011-07-04T07:54:00.004-07:00

I'm in denial about the fact that the long weekend is over.

Peter and I went out to the Starlight Casino dinner & dance on thursday night, which was fantastic. It was mostly salsa but with a little bit of chacha and swing thrown in (even 1 waltz). Peter's recovering from a back injury so we took it easy. Peter asked the professional instructor to dance with me so I ended up doing a salsa on the dance floor alone with the instructor at one point. I would have been really nervous about that except I was too busy trying to follow his advanced moves! It was a great start to the long weekend.

Friday we spent some time down at the Canada Day festivities - there were TONS of people out. We saw a new (to us) group called Chic Gamine who were pretty talented. Then stayed for the Irish Descendants who were FANTASTIC. The Vancouver crowd was a little too chill for them (not nearly enough people clapping along or dancing), but they did their best for us anyway. We sat on the patio of an Irish pub enjoying the mountain view and some live fiddle music. All in all it was a proper east-coast Canada Day really.

Saturday we headed out to the suburbs. We borrowed Peter's parents' house while they were away to host a bbq for peter's friends, including a couple with a new 1 month old baby (so wee!). They came and hung out for a hour or two, which was very nice. They were tired but seemed pleased to be out of the house. The other advantage of going to a house in the burbs - I did 3 loads of laundry and didn't have to hunt around for the proper coins to feed the machine. (That's probably our biggest annoyance with our current apartment, no in-unit washer or dryer.) Weirdly, however, Peter's parents don't have a clothesline in their yard. That's weird, isn't it? To machine dry everything when you don't have to? It's harder on your clothes and your energy bill.

Sunday was all about dance again - two dance classes at the studio and we stopped by the sunday afternoon salsa at Robson Square which we will be going on all summer. It's just how salsa should be - outside on a sunny day in a public square! We didn't stay long this time because Peter's back needed a break, but we'll be there next week hopefully!

I slept in every day until at least 9 and stayed up nice and late too. Finished a good book and started another. Watched some movies. Ate a lot of ice cream. Cuddled a lot of cats. It was a good weekend. Every weekend should be a sunny long weekend. I feel we've all earned it.

2011-06-26T10:00:00.004-07:00

In honour of the fact that several of my friends have recently had babies, I've realized I should take more time to appreciate my life. So yesterday I slept in until 10, spent most of the day cuddling cats and reading or knitting while watching movies, had cookies for lunch, enjoyed an evening with my Peter where we did nothing in particular, and stayed up late reading a good book.

Being in my 30s now means I have to revisit my no-kids stance every now and then to make sure I didn't just make a hasty decision when I was 12. Fortunately for me, the older I get, the more I'm comforted by the thought that the no-kids option is right for me*. I recognize that I'm the minority on that one, and so I don't talk about it much - people get really touchy when you make a decision to go against the social norm, they take it as a judgement on their life choice even though it's not. Other people choose kids and are clearly very happy with that life, I choose no kids and so far that's leading to happiness in my life so everyone wins - yay! (I get this with marriage too - it's a minefield when people ask why Peter and I aren't married, because my reasons can be taken as judgements no matter what I say.)

Peter and I are off to spend the day together - visiting MakerFaire the the Latin festival (salsa dancing!). Hope everyone else is enjoying the start of summer too!

*a footnote to say this doesn't mean I dislike kids or that I don't want any in my life - I just don't want to take on being a full time parent. But friends' kids, nieces/nephews, etc - bring them on.

2011-06-19T22:16:00.004-07:00

New

Starting in July I'll be transitioning to a new role at the City - back over in Sustainability. I had such a grand time there last year when they borrowed me and an opportunity to go back came up so I applied and got the job! I feel bad about leaving my team (the timing is bad) and not seeing our project through (I really like to finish things), but they're wonderful people so they're excited for me even though it means headaches for them at a busy time.

My new job is a totally new position, so it'll take some time to really get it all sussed out but it should be very much about making good things happen, and helping other departments at the city reach their sustainability targets. I really loved working with people from all over the city, so I'm very much looking forward to delving into my new role.

I don't write about work much on here - and will continue to keep it that way - so if you want more than vague details about what I will soon be doing for a living, just shoot me an email. But in a nutshell: yay! Should be an interesting summer!

2011-06-19T10:10:00.004-07:00

Yesterday was my favorite event of the year - Swap-o-rama-rama!

This is my fourth year helping out, this time as the volunteer coordinator. I'm happy to use my time to help, I think this event is fantastic.

It's part giant clothing swap and part crafty/diy party. You bring your unwanted clothes, pay a small admission fee, and you get to hunt through the piles and take as much as you want. Then there are sewing stations and screen printing stations where you can experiment with refashioning your new finds to make them better. People are a lot more open to experimenting on clothes they just found and didn't have to pay for, so there's usually some fun stuff going on in the crafting rooms.

Spool of Thread, Vancouver's sewing lounge, was running the sewing room, and they were getting people who had never sewn before to work some magic on their new clothing finds.

It's really fantastic to see people willing to give something new a try.

I got lucky with a crew of fabulous volunteers who signed up to help and were willing to do whatever needed to be done. Great volunteers make everything super easy for me.

The event went really well. I was busy, but still managed to find some great new clothes, as always. I hope everyone else refreshed their wardrobes too. :)

And, at the end, all the leftover clothes get donated to charity so it's a win-win-win situation.

2011-06-16T20:27:00.002-07:00

Poor Vancouver - we all woke up this morning pretty heartbroken, and not because of the hockey game, but because a small group of terrible people broke our city and make us look awful in the eyes of the world.

This girl's blog sums up how I feel about the whole thing.

2011-06-06T22:02:00.002-07:00

I have a question for the parents out there.

I'm wondering how often your friends should bug you to do stuff? I struggle to find a happy balance between not wanting to bother people who are obviously very busy, but also wanting to see them (and not exclude them from the fun).

As an example, I've got one set of friends who, after their 2nd kid came, dropped off the face of the planet. It's going on a year and a half since I've seen them (we live in the same city). I've sent repeated happy 'how are you? let's hang out' emails letting them know we'd love to see them and will do whatever is easiest for them (go to their place for a visit, go out, meet in a park with the kids, take the kids for ice cream) and still I get nothin'.

Generally speaking, when people give me the cold shoulder, I back off and figure they just don't want to hang out with me. I don't want to give up on my friends who become parents because I figure the cold shoulder is probably unintentional... but seriously, after a year and a half, what am I supposed to think? If in that amount of time they can't make an effort to find a way to meet for coffee then I have to conclude that my friendship isn't terribly valuable, right?

I have some friends who are fantastic and after having kids make sure to come out to the gatherings/girls nights out/whatever and I really appreciate how hard that is for them - but they say they really value the time away from the kids too, so everyone wins, yay! But other folks, after having kids, literally disappear, never to be seen again. Which makes me sad. So what's the best way to reach out to parents?

Any advice on how persistent to be is welcome. I'm very capable of being persistent and emailing repeatedly, even calling, but I really hate to bother people who are perhaps trying to politely tell me to buzz off by not replying.

2011-06-05T11:38:00.000-07:00

I don't know if you heard, but the Canucks won Game 2 of the Stanley Cup last night. You might have heard the City of Vancouver screaming and partying ? Seriously, the City celebrated in a major way - thousands of people in the streets, high fiving and being very happy. (They won it with a goal 11 seconds into overtime.)

It makes one wonder what'll happen if Vancouver wins the Stanley Cup - if winning game 2 causes such joy! I'm looking forward to finding out! I do love it when the Canucks score a goal - we actually mute our tv and listen to the city scream and cheer. It's hilarious and awesome.

From a planning perspective - it's interesting to think about how events like these really show where the heart of a city is. Where do the people gather? What streets do you close down? Where do you set up the large outdoor screens for people to watch? Do you have public space appropriate for celebrations? Fortunately for us, the Olympics made Vancouver face all these questions and figure all this stuff out. I think the Olympics also taught us how to have street parties. And we're all really good at giving strangers high fives when prompted. So, I think we're ready for the Canucks to win the cup.

One photo showing a small portion of the crowd out on Granville St after the Game 2 win: http://www.flickr.com/photos/59173294@N08/5798471753/in/photostream (photo by Vancouver Police Department - who are doing a great job letting people have fun and keeping things safe.)

2011-05-28T12:57:00.007-07:00

Peter and I took two days off, made a super long weekend for ourselves and headed down to Portland, OR. We took the train, because trains are so civilized and relaxing. Slow, but civilized and relaxing.

Portland is such a neat town. It's so similiar to vancouver in values and attitude but so different in execution/results. It's wonderful to spend time there and see another way things can be done. It's very comparable to Vancouver in population but so different in feel. We don't have the same affinity for Seattle - it doesn't seem to match us in the same way that Portland does. Portland feels like an alternate universe version of Vancouver, that's the best way to explain it.

The thing I love about Portland most is that their streets are quiet. You can stroll along vibrant shopping streets on their VERY wide sidewalks and there's so little traffic, you can actually carry on a conversation. In Vancouver, all our shopping streets are also our main thoroughfares (the downside of not having highways - all our traffic is on our shopping streets), and they are LOUD. What I would give for a quiet shopping street in Vancouver. (We have lots of quiet streets - they're just all residential.)

Portland, being more affordable generally, has loads of independent businesses - interesting little niche shops (an entire store selling nothing but spices, for example). In Vancouver, if you aren't a chain, you can't afford the rents, so start-up businesses are less common, especially in the core. That's sad.

We had a lovely time. Visited a small distillery, walked around a lot. Peter had a lot of microbrew beers. (BC/Vancouver could use some relaxed liquor/distilling laws.) We went to a cuban salsa club! We loaded up on books at the insane Powells Books - an enormous bookstore that sells a mix of new and used books. And we met some school chums of mine in a neat Thai place for dinner. It's very good to get away every now and then, and it's very handy to have an alternate universe version of your hometown to go to.

2011-05-19T07:53:00.003-07:00

Last night a friend of Peter's offered us tickets to a show. We said yes, with no idea who we were going to see.

Turned out to be Jill Barber and Micheal Kaeshammer. Jill Barber I'd heard of because some friends had mentioned trying to go to see her show a while back, possibly also because she's originally from Halifax. Micheal Kaeshammer, I hadn't heard of. Turns out Peter's friend had gone to high school with him.

Turns out both the artists and their bands are insanely talented. Makes me sad that 'artists' like Britney can fill a stadium, while people don't seem to appreciate the incredible skills of actual artists like these folks nearly as much. Woe to popular culture.

We had a fabulous time, even though we were out way past our bed time. We're always meaning to get out to more live music shows and I think last night really made us want to make that happen - what a lovely treat to walk into a theatre with no idea what you're in for and be exposed to these talented folks. I'm embedding some youtube videos so you can see who these great performers are, though they're both better live, I think. Both have a playfulness that is fun to watch. Kaeshammer really seems to enjoy the jazz improvisational stuff and it was entertaining to watch him and his band play around with music and what their instruments are capable of.

In conclusion: it's really good to get out and see some live music every now and then!

2011-05-18T07:46:00.003-07:00

The good news is that Tuesday night parties have returned at our dance studio. Yay! So much better than Friday night parties where I'm all tired from a week of working. The bad news is that my Wednesday morning headaches have also returned. There's something so demoralizing about waking up with a headache - it's like you don't even get a chance to start your day and have it deteriorate, it just starts off sucking immediately. And you still have to get out of bed and go about things. This is the side of being a grownup that I dislike. On the upside, I may get some cookies on my way to work to make up for it, just because I can.

Random item: one of the blogs I read recently posted about these sheets. Yes, sheets. I admit that I love a good set of sheets... and yet, I've never really had super nice sheets. I look at the expensive high thread count sheets in stores and I wonder if they're actually so much better as to warrant the high price and I just can't buy them because I have no reason to believe they're really any better. But these sheets - described as being the thick, crisp sheets like from olden years.... that sounds promising, sounds like the sheets you get in a fancy hotel room. It is crazy to consider spending that much money on a set of sheets? It seems crazy.

2011-05-16T07:55:00.003-07:00

The Canucks won the first game of their conference (if they win this series, they're in the Cup playoffs), which is very nice (and also a relief - I find playoffs stressful).

I missed the start of the game because I was at a friend's baby shower, meeting all sorts of lovely people. I got to deliver my handmade gift, which was great because it's not often that a handmade gift for a baby is ready in time for the shower! This time it was a crochet baby blanket - details are over on my craft blog or my ravelry page.

Peter and I booked train tickets for a long weekend down in Portland OR, just because we need to get away and some relaxing time on a train sounds perfect. And Portland is like the Vancouver alternative - very similar in attitude, but different in approach to things, so it's a cool place to hang out. We used one of those "name your price" websites for a hotel room and snagged the Hilton downtown for a steal. That's where we stayed last time we visited Portland, so it's becoming our hotel in town, which is funny, because it's posher than our usual kind of place. The moral of the story is, don't be afraid to lowball on those sites - you never know!

2011-05-09T22:39:00.003-07:00

Things that have been keeping me busy:

- Canucks playoff hockey. They just made it through to the next round, for the first time in 17 years! I'm totally a bandwagon fan - I only get excited when the stakes are high. It's been a stressful series so far, so I'm glad for a few days off. I do love how the whole city seems to get energized by the playoff run - and I really love the noise that erupts downtown when they win (honking, cheering, etc).

- the foxtrot. Peter and I have been really struggling to make progress with the new, floaty version of the foxtrot (it's SO similar to waltz). We've made a point of practicing more over the past week so that when we go in for our private lesson tomorrow we can learn new stuff, instead of being re-taught the same thing over and over. Fingers crossed that we've imprinted the new foxtrot on our brains.

- reading. Have I mentioned lately that I love my Kobo ereader? LOVE IT. I almost always have it with me, and it's loaded with a whole pile of books (mostly classics). Recently I won an advance copy of a new book, The Blue Light Project, and it was very weird to be reading a print book again - so bulky and heavy! But at least the battery never died. Speaking of reading, I do keep my list of books read each year in the sidebar here (on the right), but I also use http://www.goodreads.com/ where I can make reviews/comments etc, read reviews, and see what my friends are reading and liking. It's a nice tool. If you're on there, let me know!

Random - someone tell my dad that I bought an LED lightbulb the other day in Canadian Tire. He was going on a year or so ago about why we don't have LED lightbulbs since they're so much more efficient... apparently they figured out the kinks and you can get them now. They're pricy though (I got one on super sale with a BC Hydro rebate), and last for ~20 years, so when you move, you'll have to remember to take your bulbs with you, I guess!

2011-05-01T21:16:00.003-07:00

Finally - several days of sunshine in a row! It's been fabulous here. Today Peter and I went for a walk (as did everyone else in the City, apparently), got some ice cream and sat by the water for a spell. It was so lovely to be outside and warm!

Monday is election day. I hope everyone goes and exercises their right to vote - given all the unrest in the world, people fighting for the chance to choose their leaders, would be pretty terrible if we didn't appreciate our opportunity to do so.

I'm so keen to vote that I voted in the advance poll in April (shorter lines, generally). I've voted in every election since I was old enough; I feel I'm quite good at it actually. ;)

Here's the link to find your polling station.

In much more frivolous news- Peter and I have a whole new living room setup, including new (to us) couches. We're getting rid of our old couch on Monday. It's been quite the craigslist dance and jigsaw puzzle (there are currently 3 couches in our tiny apt living room, plus a floor loom), but we're getting closer to the living room we want.

This is the first time we've ever picked out our own furniture - we've always inherited it prior to this... a byproduct of always being temporary residents of a place, I suppose. The beauty of craigslist, especially in Vancouver, where people move in/out frequently, is that you can always find good stuff for a deal. (Also, thank goodness for the carshare - I don't know how we'd move all these couches around otherwise!)

I'm being a bit of a tease, since I won't have photos for a while, but I'm excited about new living arrangements, so I had to share. I do have this photo of Kitty on one of the new couches, to tide you over. :)

2011-04-25T09:51:00.001-07:00

Energy.

I don't drive anymore so I rarely notice gas prices. I did finally notice the other day that gas prices are kind of high.... which always makes me think - since we're headed for a future where cheap energy is no more, what are all the people who live high-energy-consumption lives doing to prepare? I get the distinct impression that most people aren't doing anything. Am I wrong? Seems like people keep buying overly-large houses far away from everything which means the cost to heat their home and get to/from anything is just going to continue to increase.

I live downtown because I love it, and I definitely get that this is not the life for everyone. Peter and I made a conscious decision to live in a tiny apartment so we could be in a location that suits our lifestyle - we'd rather be in a shoebox within walking/transit distance of everything than a mansion far far away. We are perhaps on one extreme of the spectrum - for North America at least - I get that. But another reason, besides lifestyle, that we choose to live this way is because our carbon footprint is smaller as a result. Our apartment uses way less energy than a stand alone home. We physically have less stuff (it takes energy to make stuff). We walk and transit pretty much everywhere.

Still, I worry that everyone else is still living their life as though oil and gas will continue to be cheap forever and I really wonder what will happen when it isn't? And why are we so terrible, as a species, at planning ahead for these things? Is it really that extreme to relocate to a home that is served by transit? Or to put some money into making your home more energy efficient?

What are we going to do as a country when people can no longer afford to live in the energy-hog suburbs we've spent the last 50 years building as fast as we could?

Read Short Related Article. And longer related article.

2011-04-20T18:49:00.002-07:00

Peter is away on a mountain biking trip (in Moab, UT which is apparently THE place to go to mountain bike (aside from, you know, where we live)), so I'm on my own this week which simultaneously sucks and is awesome.

Peter and I have been together long enough now that it's very strange when he's not here, my brain is in a perpetual low grade state of confusion. The problem is compounded by the fact that I use his absence as an opportunity to indulge in watching things he may not find very interesting. These are often sad things, which doesn't help with my state of mind, but I seem to do this repeatedly.

This time around it was the mini-series version BBC did a few years ago of Tess of the D'Urbervilles based on the Thomas Hardy novel. I've read most of Thomas Hardy's stuff, and it's amazing storytelling.... but pretty consistently heart-wrenchingly sad. And Tess is probably the most wrenching tale of them all. The mini series, like all BBC productions lately, was fantastic.

I would welcome any suggestions for uplifting, funny things I should watch this weekend to counteract the gloomy feeling left over from Mr. Hardy.

Other BBC productions that are awesome: the Jane Eyre mini-series (my favorite Jane Eyre adaptation ever), the new Doctor Who series, the new Sherlock Holmes series, and of course, the bbc mini series version of Pride and Prejudice.

2011-04-16T09:56:00.003-07:00

I try not to get political on my blog, because discussions of politics and religion get people all riled up. But with the election looming in Canada, I'm quite worried about things here.

With our screwed up electoral system we've been governed for 5 years by a party that had the support of only ~34% of the country*. And that party has done scary stuff (from a fundamental eroding democracy point of view especially).

I assume everyone has seen the website that went viral last week: www.shitharperdid.com ? It points out, in a humourous way, some of the crazy stuff that has gone on - stuff that may sound like boring procedural parliamentary stuff in the news, but is in fact Harper giving the finger to our democratic system and to the public that elected him (except we didn't really - see point about dysfunctional electoral system above). This comic covers even more of the stuff that Harper has done, and seeing it all in one place should really scare you.

The question is - who are the people voting Conservative? And how can they in the light of that information? I know there are ideological differences between people who vote conservative and liberal (little letters) - but don't we all want to prevent having a government that runs roughshod over the very principles of democracy? It's like when I lived in the US and under the guise of patriotism and security, Bush stripped away some of the basic, fundamental rights of citizens - rights that were pretty much the foundation of the country.... and people just let him, in fact, they re-elected him!

I feel like we're in the same place - how can a Prime Minister be found in contempt of Parliament be re-elected? What message does that send him? "Go ahead, ignore all the rules of democracy, continue to do everything in secrecy, no need to inform us the public about anything." WHY would we do this? And the scary question - how far does Harper have to go in violating our democracy before Conservative voters (and party members) decide he's gone too far? I'm scared that they're all okay with this stuff.

Anyway - here's a site if you want to look up what happened in your riding in the 2008 election, it might help you decide who to vote for if your concern is to present the strongest front against a Conservative candidate.

If any Conservative voters want to visit www.shitharperdid.com and then weigh in and tell me how they can support Harper, I will honestly listen with open ears, though my head may explode afterwards.

In any case, I do hope everyone votes on May 2nd. As screwed up as our system is - at least we get to vote. People elsewhere in the world are currently dying trying to get that right, after all.

Tomorrow the blog will return to photos of cute cats and random craft projects, I promise.

(* also have to mention that our screwed up electoral system means that while 1million people voted for Green party candidates, they elected no one and have no representation, while 1.3million people voted Bloc and got FORTY-NINE seats in Parliament. That makes me angry. It should make you angry too if you believe government should represent the people. Join the people at Fair Vote Canada who are pushing for electoral reform.)

2011-04-15T10:57:00.002-07:00

Last night Peter and I went out to a casino in New Westminster. Seems out of character for us, doesn't it? Yeah, we skipped the slots and went to the Redbar Lounge where there was a dinner + salsa dancing event. Buffet dinner and dancing for $18? I'm in! Turns out there is a cute lounge there - exactly the kind of old-school set up I've been yearning for - with booths that overlook the dance floor and stage.

We got there a bit late, getting a bit lost on the suburban highways, but still made it in time to nab the last table and get some grub. The food wasn't anything fancy but it was good and there was chocolate cake for dessert, so what more do you need, really?

There were two dance instructors who did a short performance of some salsa and bachata, then gave lessons in merengue and salsa, then it was open dancing. Peter and I had fun - it wasn't crowded at all (salsa dance floors are often packed) and they mixed in some chacha, swing, merengue with the salsa (I get bored fast if we do just salsa).

Apparently it's a new thing the Lounge is trying - Thursday night dinner + dance (with lessons). Next week is swing dancing. I'm pretty sure we'll be back there again at some point! It's always nice to find new dancing venues - even if they are annoyingly located far away. Even better if they include all you can eat chocolate cake.

2011-04-12T07:48:00.003-07:00

Peter and I got to spend the weekend in Whistler with friends (including their super cute baby). It was a lovely trip. On Sunday we toured the Pemberton Distillery, one of the new artisan distilleries in BC (there are 6 now, apparently). It was very neat to see their operation, and to compare it to Ironworks in Nova Scotia. The interesting thing about distilleries, to me, is that their stills are beautiful. Hand-hammered copper! It's nice to see that some craftsmanship still exists and is appreciated in the industrial world. Also, it looks like something out of a steampunk/scifi movie set.

2011-04-02T12:59:00.004-07:00

I recently spent a fair bit of my free time rabidly reading through this blog's archives from the very start. It's by a young woman in New York City who decides to become a foster mom. She's not religious and she's not poor and doing it for the money (two common reasons people are foster parents), she did it because she wanted to help. She signed up, got trained, got licensed and submitted herself to the crazy horrors of the US foster care system (seriously, it's pretty nutz). Over two years, she cared for two crack babies and one little toddler who recently got reunited with her birth mom after a year with Rebecca (the blog author).

The blog is incredible - reading about the system, the kids, the moms, and Rebecca sticking it out through the craziness (including drug testing), falling in love with a little girl, and then sending the little girl 'home' to a very uncertain future. It's heartbreaking and inspiring and funny. [The urbanist in me finds it fascinating to read her stories regarding having a kid in a car-free, high density urban setting.]

It's got me thinking about her main idea - that if more educated, stable people were involved in the lives of foster kids, maybe they could make a difference. Especially if these people only took a small number of foster kids - and remained available for those kids whenever they got bounced back into the system. Rather than a kid having 12 different foster homes in his/her life, what if s/he always went back to the same one? That certainly seems like a great idea. (It also seems like the foster system is too dysfunctional to allow that to happen.)

Which made me think of another idea which is definitely all theory and would never happen in actuality. But, imagine if a portion of the resourced/stable population of our country decided not to have kids but instead to help out kids that already exist in the world and desperately need support? I feel like everyone is so busy with their kids and work and everything else, that, as a society, no one has time to do all the other stuff and we leave it to under-resourced staff and non profit groups. By 'other stuff' I mean - the community-building, civic engagement, foster parenting, volunteering, etc.

Clearly, societally we're willing to dedicate a lot of time and effort and resources towards kids, which is awesome... except rather than expend the energy on the kids that exist, we keep making more so that the demand always exceeds our supply.

I guess I just wish that more people would consider a path in live that doesn't involve producing genetic offspring. Could be adoption, could be fostering, could be volunteering with Big Brothers & Sisters, or something not-kid related at all.

Wouldn't we be a bit more robust as a society if more of us dedicated some attention and efforts to all these things that we just don't have time for anymore?

I hesitate to post this blog entry, since suggesting that not having kids can be a good idea makes some parents very upset/defensive. I'm not saying no one should have kids, I'm saying it's kind of too bad that EVERYONE has them and collectively we have no energy left for other things.

That said - reading Rebecca's blog goes to show how incredibly hard being a foster parent is, and I think it takes an exceptional person to sign up for that kind of experience.

2011-03-25T08:05:00.006-07:00

Lately I've been watching season 1 of Downton Abbey, a British production set in 1912 (& onwards) that follows the gentry and their servants in a big fancy estate. The show is fantastic and I'm really enjoying following a show set in this period, as so few are. What a ripe era - the Titanic, WWI, women's suffrage, the introduction of the motorcar, the telephone, etc.

And, oh my, the costumes!

I'm glad I don't have to wear a corset, don't get me wrong, and I love pants, but wow did they dress incredibly in that era. Apparently, this is the most expensive English tv series ever made and one look at the setting and the costumes and the vintage cars and you can easily believe it.

2011-03-21T08:11:00.000-07:00

Random factoid for the day. I learned the word "censure" from Pride and Prejudice. "I deserve neither such praise nor such censure."

I don't find a lot of opportunities to use it, but I like knowing it. Thanks Elizabeth Bennett (and Jane Austen).

2011-03-16T19:36:00.002-07:00

With the disaster in Japan on everyone's minds, I can tell you people in Vancouver are giving some thought to earthquake-preparedness finally. It's a bit of a silver lining in all the terribleness, that it's making folks in BC think about what we will do when our big earthquake hits. Fortunately for us in Vancouver, we're not at risk of tsunami, which seems to be what caused most of the damage in Japan. Though on the flip side, our airport is about 10cm above sea level in an area that expected to basically liquify (everyone assumes that Richmond will be underwater completely, given the city was built on a flood plain of a river delta next to the ocean - so, don't move to Richmond), which seems like a problem when it comes to getting relief supplies to/from Vancouver. I'm not sure what the plan is to deal with that, perhaps bring everything in by float plane?

Anyway, Peter and I have had our disaster kit packed and ready for a few years now, though this does remind me to go replace some of the foodstuffs and maybe add to our water supply. Funny how easily we as humans can forget/ignore the dangerous conditions we live in, when we see no signs of it in our day-to-day life. Kind of like how we fail to change our behaviours to try to avert climate change feedback loops.

2011-03-13T22:37:00.003-07:00

Not much going on to post about - but I've edited some more Cuba photos and found a few more favorites including one of sneakers over a powerline, which is apparently a global phenomenon (love the textures in that one), and one of a woman in the ocean which I feel should be a Bacardi ad or something.... [click to see bigger versions]

2011-03-06T10:02:00.012-08:00

I think this may be my favorite pictures of all the ones I've taken, ever (click to see bigger version). I have a thing for windows/doors, crumbling ruins, old architecture - this one has it all. This is a building across the street from El Capitolio (see below) - the old government building. In any other city, this place would be restored to luxury and used as a vacation home by someone stupidly wealthy who stops by once a year. Instead, it's crumbling, but lived in by actual people. [The rest of my Cuba photos can be found HERE]

2011-03-01T20:53:00.006-08:00

Peter and I spent the last week in Varadero Cuba, which is technically in Cuba but is full of Canadians in reality.

Still, Canadians are nice, and the beach was lovely and the weather perfect (sunny, 30deg, nice breeze) and Peter and I really needed a week to sit and read and familiarize ourselves with the sun again.

Also, I finally got to swim in the ocean and it was pretty awesome.

The all-inclusive resort thing was strange, convenient in some ways (no cleaning up!), annoying in others (can only eat at set meal times - what if you have a cookie craving at 11pm?!). Our hotel was lovely, with a beautiful atrium full of hanging vines, we never had to wait in line for anything, and I saw virtually no bugs at all.

Yay! What more can you ask for? Maybe some spices in the food, but I'd been warned that the food was bland, and if that's the biggest complaint then you're doing okay.

We did do a bus tour thing into Havana which was our first time on a bus tour. It was strange to pull up to tourist spots in a shiny new enormous bus, troupe off with all the other Canadians, take photos, and then all get back on the bus and head to the next spot. We did walk around old Havana for a bit which was very nice and we met a lovely couple from BC that we got to know over the day and evening.

But Cuba is weird. There's two Cubas really - one where people live in crumbling buildings with questionable infrastructure/services and one with fancy restaurants that charge North American prices for things - and these two Cubas coexist side by side. It's just weird. So you sit in your cafe and drink your $4 mohito, served by a fancy waiter, and someone is standing at their balcony on the crumbling building across the street, hanging their laundry or just watching all the tourists.

I wonder how Cubans really feel about tourists. It's great that old Havana is being restored, but if none of the people that live there can afford any of the shops/cafes.... what's the point?

Deep thoughts aside, it was a wonderful relaxing trip. We didn't get to do much salsa, but got a few semi-private lessons (because no one else showed up for salsa class). We did dance a chacha at the a la carte restaurant when the band came by our table. Everyone was very excited about it and the staff all complimented us, I think it may have been the first time they ever saw Canadians dance in Cuba. :)

Here is Peter pushing me into the water at the end of the day because he's a boy and that's what they do:

More photos are on the flickr account (warning: heavy on the architecture), as I get around to uploading them.

A Birthday with Opera

2011-02-16T08:29:00.002-08:00

I had a lovely birthday last weekend. It was nice to have it fall on a Saturday. It was very nice of the City of Vancouver to put on a party for me, closing streets and having concerts is a wonderful birthday present. They even lit the Olympic flame for me! Pretty awesome. I slept in until a ridiculous hour, covered in cats, then woke up to find Peter had made pancakes and bacon. Eventually we left the house to check out the street party, enjoyed a Bhangra band for a bit, watched some street hockey on Granville, then headed to the Pan Pacific hotel restaurant for dinner. It was their "Opera Buffet", which is a spread of lovely food (the lamb was pretty amazing) enjoyed while four opera singers entertain you. They even sang my absolute favourite piece of music in the whole world, the Flower Duet from Lakme - so lovely, I was in heaven! Having opera singers sing Happy Birthday to you will sort of spoil you for all future versions of the song, however.

It was a lovely day followed by a lovely birthday brunch with friends the next day. But the absolute best part of my birthday was the fact that it put my Charity:water fundraising campaign up over $1000!! I never imagined I'd raise that much money and I'm very very happy! I survived without the presents and am thrilled that the money that would have been spent on stuff will instead be spent to bring people clean drinking water which will save lives. How awesome is that? Thanks to everyone who contributed!

I really encourage everyone to give up their birthday/christmas/anniversary even for just one year and ask for donations to a charity instead - imagine the impact we could all make! It makes getting older pretty awesome.

2011-02-07T21:27:00.003-08:00

It's kind of funny that we ended up at the Snowball Classic DanceSport BC competition last night. Right before I was at our Cuban Salsa class (Peter skipped, being sickly). I find our salsa classes so infuriating, they actually make me kind of angry. I really have been spoiled by our regular studio - they have given a lot of thought to HOW to teach dance, whereas the salsa classes just tend to show you a move and are like "do this". Uh huh. Could we get more specific on the "this" you're referring to? I mean, seriously. This current salsa class seems to be teaching the leads a few moves and the followers nothing. I just get two hours to blindly follow my partners. Dudes, I could do that at a salsa club, I don't need to pay for it.

To contrast - at our regular studio, they have things called "school figures" which are particular dance steps that they test you on and you have to be able to dance them alone, with no partner. This means you have to actually know the step (including how much to rotate). As a follower, it's easy sometimes to not think about it and just.... follow. There was one tango figure which had three rotations/direction changes in it - that school figure took forever for me to learn because I wasn't used to thinking about how much I rotate (I rotate however much my partner rotates me). But our studio makes sure I know it. I can't pass to the next level without showing I know the school figures. Meanwhile, in the salsa class, I couldn't show you any of the steps if my life depended on it, because I'm not being taught them!! I want to be taught them, but that's just not how the class is run. I tend to leave the class very frustrated and annoyed.

So the moral of the story is, if you're thinking of learning to dance - seriously find a good studio and instructors that don't just know how to dance but know how to TEACH dance.... because those are totally different things.

We'll survive the salsa - only one more class to go, then we'll get to dance for real in Cuba. Oh, did I mention we're going to Cuba at the end of February? My first time anywhere tropical!!

2011-02-06T23:23:00.004-08:00

Dude, we just got back from an evening of ballroom dance competition (watching, I mean - we're not crazy) and it was nutz. Seriously, these people are intense and amazing.

The outfits are over the top, the dance moves are insane fast, it's all just very impressive to see in person.

A few photos, to try and give a sample of the colours and sparkle and speed. More later, if I find any that are not blurry.

(First photo is the under 21 Standard finalists - that means waltz, foxtrot, paso doble, etc., they were particularly colourful.)

Can software be inspiring?

2011-02-04T17:58:00.004-08:00

I'm not a resolution-making kind of person - I think it's silly for today-me to make committments that tomorrow-me or next-month-me might want no part of. But I usually start out the year with some general ideas of things I might try to do differently. It's a subtle difference, but one that means I don't feel like a failure when I don't get around to it or I change my mind. :)

This year my thought was to spend less time crafting and to give writing a try again. I used to write all the time, but I hit a wall on a big project and really got stalled. Then I just couldn't find any inspiration for new projects, and even when I set aside time to write, I wouldn't get anywhere. I lost my mojo. So, I moved on to other things - there are fifty million different things to do in life, after all!

Last year I started to think that perhaps I was using too much of my creative energy on my crafting - and I generally had the feeling that crafting was taking over my life more than was perhaps appropriate. This led to two thoughts - 1) that I might try in 2011 to craft less and see if my writing inspiration would return, and 2) that I should probably let go of my floor loom. Of all my crafts, weaving is probably my least favourite (I still like it, but it's at the bottom of a fairly long list)... and it takes up a disproportionate amount of space in our tiny apartment.

I figured I'd tackle item 1 first, since letting go of craft supplies goes against my nature and will be very hard. And item 1 has been going very well! The thing that really got me started with writing again has been a bit of software. One of the reasons I hit a wall in my massive project was because I had plot issues, but the story was so long it was hard to get a handle on it and how to fix it. So this year I googled around for writing software and discovered Scrivener - which used to exist only for Macs, but they've got a beta version for Windows now. I downloaded it, watched the tutorial, and started to think my dreams had come true.

This software is all about organizing (and editing) your writing (fiction or non) - it lets you see just your outline, or your synopsis, or chapter, or scene or the whole thing - whatever you need to see. It's all there, in one file, but you can control what level you're looking at. I imported my massive project and started breaking it down into sections and scenes - that alone helped me understand my plot issues better. Then I started putting in placeholder scenes in the outline, things I needed to fix up the plot - that became much easier when I could see the whole thing and easily rearrange things. I even did the hard thing - deleted scenes that didn't serve the plot. I started to feel organized and on top of things!

I know I sound like a total shill for this software, but it has jump-started my writing again, and on a project I thought was a total lost cause. I still have a loooooooong way to go, but I can see a route to the end, whereas before I was lost, and it's totally thanks to the software. This software would be brilliant for school writing or freelance writing since it can store all your research for easy access and reference. Seriously awesome.

It's been good to be back at it.

Now, anyone in the market for a lovely apartment-sized floor loom?

2011-01-29T20:06:00.002-08:00

I started reading a fantastic set of books recently, just by happy accident. The first one was made into a mediocre movie a few years ago and I thought the book might be decently amusing so I started it. Then I turned into Gollum, over in the corner with my ereader, calling it "my precious" and refusing to engage in normal social activity until I was done the first book. I held out for a few hours before starting the second book, which I just finished.

It's not like these are literary masterpieces... it's just that something about the author's style clicks with me so perfectly that the books are like drugs. It's a bit of sci-fi, a bit of darkness, a bit of mystery and action, good characters.... just a good mix. There's something magical about discovering a new author that clicks with your brain so well! Fingers crossed that other stuff by him is just as good, because I'm going to be jonesing for a fix pretty soon.

[The books are 'Jumper' and 'Reflex' by Steven Gould]

2011-01-22T10:42:00.002-08:00

Today I'm sharing with you a photo of my office building.

I work in a falling down industrial/office building that the City owns a block away from City Hall (right next to the shiny new Canada Line station). One day it will fall down or be torn down and the City will build an expanded City Hall campus (currently the City rents office space in several different buildings because staff long outgrew the original heritage building and 1960s bunker expansion. However, no politician yet wants to take on the task of saying "I'm going to build a new City Hall with taxpayer money" even though the city could build extra space to rent out and probably do quite well on the deal because they own the entire city block.

Anyway. Since there are no plans to do anything, this building (and several others) just sit there being maintained but certainly not improved. I used to be in the twin building next door - perhaps you recall my indoor fountain feature (also known as a recurring roof leak)? I try to look on the bright side. One being that when architects and others come to our offices they certainly lose any illusion that all city bureaucrats sit in plush, fancy offices. The other being that falling down office buildings usually have cheap rent - so our ugly buildings probably provide cheap office space to non-profits that are happy to be in a good location. Even if the tile on the floor is hilariously ugly (and probably asbestos-containing, which is okay as long as you don't chop them up and inhale them, which I'm careful not to do).

The funny part isn't really captured in this photo because this section of hallway appears to be a multi-coloured pattern made intentionally. Around the corner it gets all patchy - you'll find sections of green, some random beige, then a section of yellow. It's... surprising.

2011-01-21T08:31:00.000-08:00

Sorry if the Best Friends posts were a little gushy, and heavy on the cat love. I usually try to hide my crazy cat lady side, but sometimes it can't be controlled.

Let's get back to fitness, shall we? Because I know the world is dying to know how it's going. Tuesday at lunch I had a session with a personal trainer (freebie at my gym), that was good, I picked up some new exercises. But I think I'll continue on my own for now. Wednesday I hit two dance classes (tango, merengue). Thursday we had 2 private lessons (salsa, ballroom) and I went to the gym at lunch. Tonight is a dance class and dance party. Saturday I will sleep and become familiar with my couch again before the 2 hour salsa class on Sunday. I'm glad for dance - it's a much more entertaining way to get some exercise in than going to the gym.

And yesterday, despite craving cupcakes terribly, I stuck to snacks like yogurt and carrots (which do not satisfy a cupcake craving, fyi). I think the eating healthier thing is harder than the exercise thing.

Best Friends Day 3 - More Cats

2011-01-17T22:05:00.022-08:00

The 3rd and last part of my Best Friends trip story is long overdue!

Grab a coffee, this is a long one.

The third day of volunteering I returned to Cat World while Kim went off to meet some bunnies. This time around I went to Benton's House where special needs cats live. This building is where you really get to understand what kind of place Best Friends is. They don't just save cats, they save cats that other places think are unadoptable. Blind or incontinent or missing limbs - the Best Friends attitude is that these animals deserve love and a happy home just as much as other cats. They take these cats and give them incredible care and medical treatment and love - for life. They work to find homes for them, but if that doesn't happen, the cats get to live out their lives in comfort at Best Friends, doted on by staff and volunteers.

Walking into Benton's House in the morning was a change after the immaculate Casa de Calmar - because the incontinent cats at Benton's make a bit of a mess overnight. So, like Calmar, every day the entire place gets scrubbed down. I rolled up my sleeves and joined in scrubbing and mopping, but not until after I met some of the lobby cats and fell in love.

Particularly with Tumbles (photo at left, which doesn't show how tiny he is) - because I'm a sucker for all black cats (which are usually the last to get adopted at shelters because of all the silly superstitions around them). Tumbles has cerebellar hypoplasia which is a neurological disorder that means he doesn't walk straight (like Roxy in Calmar) - except Tumbles has a pretty severe case and spends a lot of time in padded areas to keep him safe. He's ADORABLE. I put my hand out to let him sniff me and because his head kind of trembles he ended up nose-bopping me in an attempt to sniff me. *LOVE* I played with him for a bit and tried not to think about how easy it would be to sneak such a small little thing onto a plane. I will be extremely jealous of whomever gets to adopt this fellow.

In addition to Tumbles there's Brooke, a gorgeous kitten with paralyzed back legs. We played for a bit too and she didn't seem to care about her back legs - she got around when she needed to. It's hard not to feel sorry for these creatures at first - because you imagine all they're missing - but they don't know they're missing anything and usually they're just playful scamps like the other cats! The good news about Brooke, besides the fact that was just adopted(!), is that the vet team has been working with her and think she may regain some use of her legs!

While at Benton's House I saw the caregivers give meds, bathe cats, manually express bladders, and clean a lot. This extraordinary level of care is just an ordinary day for them. It's hard to find words to express what a wonderful place it is. Animals that so many other places would have discarded or put down as worthless are so loved and doted on at Best Friends it literally gives you hope for the future somehow. That maybe humans, as a species, are not as terrible as the nightly news can make us seem.

I did get some time to cuddle at Benton's House - including two cats at once because Jamie decided she could squeeze on my lap even though Bob, a sizeable boy, was already there. And she was right (photo to left).

Peepers came by for a visit and it actually took me forever to realize that Peepers is blind - she really moves around as though she can see, it's amazing. (Peepers has been adopted!)

Apparently I have a thing for blind cats, because I was also smitten with Miss Dot who is mostly blind - and has permanently dilated pupils so she looks at you with these HUGE wide eyes and your heart just melts (see photo at left).

Kim and I met up at the fantastic cafeteria for lunch to swap tales. A lovely older lady asked if she could join us and we welcomed her. She introduced herself as Charity, one of the founding members of Best Friends. We were later joined by Gregory, another founder and we had a fantastic lunch talking about Best Friends and what had brought us there and what our impressions were, etc. They told us about their vision for the place and a bit about how it started. It was a wonderful experience.

The next day, Kim and I both bought copies of the book "Best Friends, The True Story of the World's Most Beloved Animal Sanctuary" (I read most of it in one night), and reading the story, it somehow all made sense - both the experience we'd had at the sanctuary and the lunch with the founders. These are just good people. Good on a level that we don't experience in our day to day life. They set out to do good, to devote their lives to doing good, they found their outlet with saving animals and they approached it with honesty and hard work and continue to do so. It was inspiring to be in a place that was so infused with goodness, that's the only way I can explain it.

I returned to Benton's House for the afternoon shift and when the day was nearing its end, I asked the caregivers who most needed to go on a sleepover and they suggested Blackjack, who I hadn't met yet. But he's a black cat so I was guaranteed to love him; it didn't hurt that he was adorable.

We took him to our cottage for the night. Turns out he's quite the character - he desperately wants to be on your shoulders nuzzling your ear and kneading your neck. Seriously, it's his life goal to do that (see photo of him trying to get to Kim's neck and her preventing him. she's so mean). We had a good time with him, especially in the morning when I woke up to find a cat nuzzling my ear (for the record, that tickles) and massaging my head.

I fell in love with at least half of the cats at Benton's - they're so unique and special and.... lucky to have landed at Best Friends where they get such a standard of care - you just want to hug them all and tell them how very fortunate and loved they are. It really is a magical place, in a very down to earth kind of way.

Best Friends just posted a video about Benton's House - which features Tumbles a few times - check it out:

Seriously - go donate a few dollars to your local animal shelter if you can, or to Best Friends (if you donate $25+ you get a subscription to their seriously awesome magazine) - these places deserve all the support they can get to do the incredible work they do.

I suspect that when the time comes to adopt another cat, I'll be looking for a senior black cat that is blind, has cerebellar hypoplasia and is FIV+, thanks to my days at Best Friends.

Special thanks to Kim for being so enthusiastic about the trip when I suggested it, making it a great time, and for being just as floored as I was about how magical a place it was!

I'll end with a few photos of the scenery - Kim and I visited Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park after our volunteering was done (and Vegas, but that's another story). There are more photos on my flickr account.

(Bryce Canyon panorama - click to see big version)

(left, Zion National Park; right Bryce Canyon, photos by Kim Werker)

2011-01-16T12:57:00.003-08:00

Photo at left - random photo from my trip that I feel sums up Vegas.

I think Mom has correctly diagnosed me with "exertion headaches" which are apparently common amongst migraine sufferers (uh, yay?). So the plan is to ease up even further on the cardio and gradually work my way up to my already not-strenuous half hour workout. I probably did shock my system by not working out for several months and then hitting it with a 30min cardio session twice a week. I also got some tablets that you add to your water bottle to turn your water into a sugar-free electrolyte replacement beverage, because I figure it's still good to replenish my electrolytes. So on Friday I spent more time on weights (my butt really really hurts today) and did 20min on the treadmill at the slowest pace I could that was above walking and replenished my electrolytes. And no headache (one was thinking about cropping up, but didn't). So fingers crossed for no more exertion headaches.

Adding to my list of physical activities - Peter and I will be starting a new dance class today, a 5 week long cuban salsa intensive. Two hours every Sunday we'll be learning cuban salsa moves. I expect there will be a lot of sweat. I feel like my salsa is very upright and ballroom-y right now so I'm hoping this instructor can make us more relaxed and club-style. Also, it will be interesting to see the difference between cuban salsa and LA salsa.

In crafty news - over the holidays I completed my weaving project... details are over on the craft blog.

2011-01-11T19:18:00.002-08:00

I went to the gym today according to schedule (yesterday was yoga, I love my lunch hour yoga). So, I'm sticking to the exercise plan. And I'm eating far fewer cookies. There's one snag in this whole scheme however, which is the fact that I tend to get headaches after a cardio workout. I try not to go too hard, especially at lunchtime, and yet I have still ended up with a post workout headache half the time. Anyone got any ideas on how to prevent this? I'm only on the treadmill for 30min (~2.4miles), so I'm hardly 'overdoing' it, so why does my body turn on me? Is this a sign that I should resume couch-sitting and cookie-eating?

Do Good

2011-01-08T14:52:00.005-08:00

For me 2010 marked the year where I decided I needed to start being an agent for good in the world, outside my own life. I've got it pretty good, time to start using more of my energy and resources and skills to improve things for others.

Hence my charity:water campaign (I'm still taking donations!). I also filled out my application to volunteer at the BCSPCA (just before they stopped taking applications because they're flooded with them) because I've volunteered at animal shelters in the past and loved it. And the trip to Best Friends - which was totally selfish. I mean - we did volunteer, but it's such an incredible experience to be there that you can't really view it as work.

This year I'm continuing with charity:water by giving up my birthday for them. And I hope to get set up with the BCSPCA to help them out with something every week. And I've got a few more ideas up my sleeve - involving crafting even!

Imagine if everyone decided to make more of an effort to help others this year - how powerful would that be? That's my pollyanna thought for 2011.

To help you get on the band wagon with helping others - I'm listing some ideas below, some are super easy and I hope you'll do them, others are more of a commitment but are worth considering - since studies show that volunteering makes people happier!

Easy ways to make a difference in the world:

- donate blood. It's easy and really important.

- give up your birthday/anniversary and ask for donations to your favorite charity instead. The charity probably needs the money more than you need more stuff, and I'm betting the charity will do more impressive things with it. For example - $20 to charity:water provides clean water to a person for 20 years, whereas it only buys me a couple balls of fancy yarn. :)

- consider rescuing a pet from an animal shelter. Got room for one more cat? Sure you do! All you people with houses (rather than apts) - you have to carry an extra burden since so many apartment dwellers are prohibited from sharing their home with pets. You get to save an animal's life and have it love you and cover you in fur. Win-win. If you can't adopt - try to talk your friends into it. Whatever you do - don't let anyone you know buy an animal or they'll be supporting the terrible conditions in puppy mills (unless they buy from a reputable breeder that they've visited personally to see how the animals are treated - and even still, they should adopt not buy).

- donate pet food to your local animal shelter or food bank. Part of helping shelters means keeping animals in the homes they've got already and during tough economic times that can be as easy as helping provide pet food to get someone through a rough patch.

- most shelters have wish lists of other items they need - see if there's anything you can help with (sometimes it's as simple as dropping off old towels you've been meaning to get rid of for ages). Here's the Vancouver Shelter wish list, as an example.

- register as a bone marrow/stem cell donor. It's unlikely that you'll be called on to donate but if you are - you'll really be making a difference!

- check to make sure you and your family members are registered as organ donors.

- become and advocate for something - find your cause and find a way to contribute. Write letters to your city council/provincial govt/federal govt about something that matters to you.

- donate items to a charity thrift shop (include some good stuff), also: shop in the charity thrift shops!

- offer to shovel the walk of an elderly neighbour whenever it snows. (My jr. high school organized this once, they got a list of seniors in need and recruited nearby students to go shovel their walks for them for free whenever it snowed - brilliant idea. I shoveled the walk of a lovely older lady and she gave me cookies = awesome.)

- got special skills? Consider offering them to a charity. i.e. a professional photographer could take fabulous photos of animals in shelters - better photos online might lead to adoptions, or will give the agency great photos to use in their promo materials. Are you a handyman? Charities always have little (or big) jobs that need to be done that get overlooked. Give them a call and offer your services. Or look online - one example is Craft Hope - a website that organizes crafting for charities.

2011-01-06T18:47:00.003-08:00

Today I went to the gym for the 2nd time in a week. I know, right? This sudden burst of gym going during my lunch hour has put me in league with all the new years resolution peoples but I'm doing it anyway. And the gym isn't actually mobbed like I thought it would be. In fact, I've been able to snag one of the 30min treadmills both times (the other treadmills are limited to 18min which seems useless for anything other than a warm up).

In any case, my goal is to hit the gym twice a week, plus yoga on mondays, plus dance twice a week until march - then I'm allowed to re-evaluate.

2011-01-04T08:30:00.000-08:00

For those interested in crafty content - you should swing over to my craft blog where I wrote all about my first project on my screenprinting machine!

2011-01-03T11:43:00.004-08:00

Happy New Year!

Our new year's eve was interesting in that we stayed home and made nachos and watched the original Tron (which neither of us had ever seen). The reason we stayed home was because the lovely house party we were to go to got cancelled because the hosts got THE call about adopting a baby!! They have only been waiting a few months but got a call on Dec 30th about a baby that had been born on Christmas day. They spent new years eve in the hospital with him and took him home on Jan 1st! Best reason to cancel a party ever! Also - can you imagine becoming parents with only 2 days notice?

I'm super excited for them, and can't help but think that there are some interesting benefits to adopting that I hadn't thought of before - like the fact that both of the new parents are equal partners in this - compared to a birth situation where the mom goes through nine months and intense labour and the guy just supports/observes. In adoption, both of them are in the same situation, no one has any bonding advantage. And, since the mom isn't breastfeeding - they can equally split the burden of feeding through night/day. It just generally seems more balanced and fair.

Here's a photo of me and the little guy - I think this is the newest person I've ever held, he was conveniently small and sleepy.

Fingers crossed for them that the 30 day period the birth mom has to change her mind passes quickly and in 6 months their application to adopt is approved!

Vacations are good

2010-12-30T11:16:00.010-08:00

One of the hard parts about living downtown this time of year is that every time I leave the apartment (admittedly not often) I pass by tons of stores that are having crazy sales.

I know I can get women's clothing for dirt cheap right now - sale racks are "an additional 50 - 75% off" in most stores. But I'm trying to cut down on consumerism - especially buying new stuff that was mass manufactured to be worn for a season and discarded. So, inspired by a friend who mentioned some thrift store shopping success, I went to the thrift store and got myself a vintage wool pencil skirt that fits like a glove and a lovely silk tank top that will be fantastic if the sun ever returns to Vancouver.

I got a few wardrobe items, fed my desire to shop, got to feel good that I'm helping reuse clothing, and my money went to charity. Yay!

I've been slacking on posting photos of the holiday decor this year. Mostly because I'm lazy. I wish my digital camera had a "send to computer" button on it. That's right - taking out the memory card and sticking it in my computer has become too much work. I've been spoiled by my smartphone which can take photos and post them directly to the internets.

Anyway - we did decorate a bit and here's some proof. I love having a mantle in our apartment, it makes decorating at christmastime so easy and fun! New this year are the stockings which I love. We got a cut tree this year (potted was too expensive), but it's in shadow now so no photos for you, but it is lovely I promise.

In conclusion, here is a photo of the cats because, it's always good to put more cute on the internet and because they are rarely this close to each other - it was a christmas present to me, I think. Thanks cats!

2010-12-27T11:15:00.003-08:00

I just crawled out of bed, out from underneath our feather duvet and two cats. That was tough. Now I'm sitting at the desk with two cats.

Peter and I just finished 3 days of family events. We had a nice time, but dude, that's a lot of family - especially considering none of it is mine! The only downside was the occasional lifestyle lecture (kids, religion, home ownership).

I'm pleased to have more donations to add to my charity:water fundraiser, and I received a few little gifts too. Honestly - I don't feel like I missed out at all and I can't wait to upload the moolah to the fundraising page and see the new total! I rather enjoyed the less-commercial focus of Christmas that resulted from this.

I'm off to go out into the world - picking up a new pair of glasses! Then some knitting, I think. ;)