Burrito West Blog

It's been a strange winter in Vancouver. Multiple snowfalls! Temperatures below zero for multiple days! Weird. I finished work on Dec 16, stacked up some unused vacation days to spend the rest of the month relaxing.

Peter and I went to Whistler on Dec 16. Peter went boarding despite the fact that it was -16degC! That's like real Canadian winter cold. Two pairs of pants cold. It's been a long time since I've experienced that. Funny to think I spent the first 26 years of my life in places where that was normal in winter and now I'm quite ill-equipped to handle it.

I spent some time in Whistler's lovely library, happily tucked into an armchair by the fire with a hot chocolate and a view of some snowy woods. It took me a while to figure out that the library is by far the most relaxing place to hang out in Whistler. Also, free magazines to read.

I had a chance to meet up with an old friend (former varsity teammate) and meet her cute 1 year old son. Peter and I even managed to stay up late enough to go to the concert that brought us to Whistler in the first place - Willa. She's from Whistler and was doing a gig there. We lasted until 12:30am and then bailed - definitely feeling how much older we were than the partying young'uns. Was nice to enjoy some live music though.

I've since been puttering around the apartment doing the occasional productive thing (today I will wash the dishes!) but mostly binge watching netflix (The OA!),cuddling cats, crafting (beads!), going for walks. It's exactly what I wanted and it's lovely.

On Dec 20th I went out for dinner with some friends: a dinner I worked hard to schedule - everyone is so busy - and it was fabulous to get us all in one place. I was thinking back to how I met both these ladies, both are kind of funny stories. One is a weaver who had a blog I stumbled on whose work I fell in love with. I connected with her somehow - probably asked for local advice on learning to weave and she was kind enough to respond. Shortly after she started a yarn-dying company (which is doing very well now!) and I went to her studio for a knit night and we just kept meeting & enjoying each other's company. Helped that she was a ballroom dancer in university, so we unexpectedly had that in common! She even invited us to her lovely wedding to her great husband (some pretty amazing dancers on that wedding dance floor). She had also become friends with the other woman at dinner who I met separately. This second woman wrote a book on crochet (she's written several, actually) and had a book reading in a local yarn store. I went to the event with some crafting friends and we ended up chatting with her and inviting her to join us on one of our craft nights. And somehow we actually connected and turned that into a friendship.

They're both such wonderful, creative people. It's so interesting to me how tentative connections - meeting at a book reading, emailing someone because of their amazing blog, can turn into lasting friendships. They both have kids now, so scheduling this is hard, but we all agreed last night that we have to get together more frequently, so I'm going to follow up on that, even if it takes a doodle poll and 47 emails to lock in a date! One of the advantages of getting old - being able to look back at all the interesting and unlikely ways you've connected with the people who are your friends.