Month: May 2012

At the speed of light

Do you remember that Madonna song – Ray of Light? You know, from the 90s?

It had the lyrics:

Faster than the speeding light she’s flying
Trying to remember where it all began –

Now, normally I’m not one to go around quoting the Big M, but this – this pretty much sums up my life at the moment.

(Except I’m pretty sure the girl she’s singing about is happy about her ride, whereas I am blinkin’ excited to get the heck get off mine.)

I’m feeling overwhelmed and exhausted and completely creatively zonked.

I am also pretty sure that I am now part human, part almond butter, because that stuff has become my life force extraordinaire over the past few weeks. I’ve been eating it like a eating thing.

(And yet somehow I’m still as white as I ever was. What a raw deal!)

Yeesh.

Add in the fact that M and I are still trying to complete our compulsory Tough Mudder training, and I’m basically a walking zombie that has been shot with insane amounts of adrenaline and caffeine to keep her momentum going.

Thank goodness for all my amazing co-workers – J, L, A and S – seriously, these ladies are pretty much the coolest dudettes a girl could ever ask for.

(If it wasn’t for them I would probably have taken off for the wilds of the BC forests long, long ago.)

And there are lights at the end of this bleak-sauce tunnel! Like I said, after this week I will be down one major project (and only have to deal with the tail end of another.)

In other thank-goodness-this-alone-is-keeping-me-semi-sane news, M and I are putting the finishing touches on our travel plans for the end of June. We will be heading down the Oregon Coast for some sweet, sweet anniversary camping times, and going to see Henry V at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland.

This will be my state of mind once I am on vacation.

We are more than a little excited.

We are the most excited.

(It seems as though I cannot write too much more on the subject because when I get this excited I waste much of my precious energy resources on being excited, and not, you know, on other more pressing – but nowhere nearly as brilliant – ventures.)

So what’s shaking in your neck of the woods friends?  And how do you deal with insane work commitments?  Your tips and tricks are always appreciated around these parts.

p.s. I’m sorry I’ve been such a crap blogger-gal, not visiting your rad spaces and responding to comments. I’ll be much better in the next couple of weeks once I am human again.

On a hot tin roof

Hello humans.

This is Nymeria writing to you today. My servant, or “Ethel” as she asks you to call her, is otherwise indisposed this afternoon, and as such is unable to write her usual Monday post.

Are any of you familiar with the term brain melt?

Symptoms associated with this affliction often include stress, loss of sleep, fits of unstoppable laughter, and a much hindered ability to just roll with life’s little punches. I’m sure she is exhibiting a myriad of other signs, but my vocabulary is limited, and my aggressive cuddling regime has already calmed many of them.

So don’t fret too much.

I’ve seen her like get like this many times before in the time that we’ve shared a home together, and I’m happy to report that she has always managed to recover – and quickly at that.

(Also, let’s hope that she remembers to feed me on time tonight. Last night she was late by at least six minutes! It if hadn’t been for my continuous, obnoxious mewling at the food cupboard door, I’m not sure if it would have ever happened.)

Anyway, that’s neither here nor there.

Things should be back to their regularly scheduled program soon enough.

Now if you excuse me, there is a chair I need fur up.

The sight of hair-free upholstery unnerves me. 

Come on baby, strut your stuff

It was the Hyack festival and parade today in New West.

After completing our morning training session, M and I sat out on sixth street and enjoyed the sights and sounds of the different cultural and community groups that are alive and kicking in our little city.

I really love going to parades, but for some reason I always have a really hard time not crying while I watch all the different floats and parties go by.

(I understand that this is really strange.)

I’m not sure exactly what it is, and like I said, I am the first to confirm just how weird this affliction of mine may be – it’s just that every time I find myself lining a parade route – BAM!

Like clockwork, I choke right up.

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I cannot ever see a procession of elderly war veterans without getting a huge lump in my throat.

I immediately start to think of my granddad, and that folks, that  just destroys me.

So you can imagine I was working extra hard to keep it together when these dudes walked by today:

I also have a HUGE thing for pipe bands, so the fact that I was treated to three different groups over the course of two hours – cor. I was happy as little Scottish clam.

No.1

No. 2

No. 3

Although, I have to say, nothing brings on the waterworks like the bagpipes.

I was a highland dancer for many, many years and nothing stirs my soul quite like ye olde cornemuse.

But I digress.

My favourite group was the Bangladeshi society who carried these absolutely beautiful bird puppets in their procession.

Check it:

I also met this guy:

The weather around these parts of late has been completely off the charts. I really, really hope it stays like this for a very long while.

All day today M and I bopped about our neighbourhood – walks down to the Quay for french fries (me) and beef brisket sandwiches (him); sushi down at the old Met hotel; wine and the NYT crossword out on our balcony; training runs in the park.

Oh, OH! I also bought a long (a little past knee length on me) forest green pleated skirt – actually, it is a skirt with a sheer pleated overlay – and believe me when I say that it is darling and a half.

I will wear it to work on Monday and be sure to take a snap to show off it’s gorgeosity (yes, I did make up that word, but I love it so moving on.)

I have been really quite stressed at work for the last little bit, and one giant project (it has been in the works since the beginning of February) is finally coming to a head at the end of next week. I cannot even begin to communicate how happy I will be to have closure on that part of my work year.

Today was a really nice way of putting my job on the back burner, if but for a little while. Though I cannot wait for the day when it will not even be on the stove (July baby, you are not coming quick enough!)

I hope you all have had a terrific first half of your weekend.

And that your stove tops remain clear of any employment related activities.

It’s all okay in the UK

To round out a week full of travel-centric blog posts, I would like to share with you all a brief snap shot of Mr. M’s and my first few days in the magical city of Brum.

We lived in Birmingham for four months in 2009. I was on research leave for my MA, and M, being a Swiss citizen, was working as a language teacher at a community school, teaching ESL to young Afghani asylum seekers.

Here is a journal entry I wrote at 12:55 am because I couldn’t sleep due to my excitement yes, but also because I had an irrational fear that my landlady’s estranged husband (who also lived in the house) would murder us in our sleep:

I cannot even begin to communicate the hilarity that is M’s and my life here in Birmingham. We are enamoured with the city and its many eccentric but loveable inhabitants, impressed with its Balti and other culinary delights, frustrated with our “washing machine”, flabbergasted at the extremely cheap grocery prices, and proud of the fact that we turned an absolute dive into something that vaguely resembles a home.

Home sweet Brummy home!

Our travel to the city was a gong show and a half, what with the airline deciding to add stops in both Calgary and Dublin at the last minute, and then charging most passengers between four and nine hundred dollars at check-in because their luggage was overweight.

There was more than a little anger brewing at the Fly Globe Span counters (worst airline in the world – copyright 2009)  let me tell you. Luckily, I am a neurotic and anxiety-ridden individual and had already checked the allowances online, so we were in the clear.

Once we arrived in London we decided to take the bus to B town (or Brum, or Birmingham if you’re not into the whole Brevity thing) and not the train, which was a HUGE mistake, albeit much cheaper than the alternative.

The ride ended up taking about four and a half bloody hours.

I spent the time dozing under a pile of jackets because the air conditioning was set to arctic chill MAX, and I apparently have ZERO ability to cope with the cold, while M befriended a six hundred year old man who somehow didn’t succumb to the drop in temperature and die in his seat.

(I should have asked what his secret was.)

Anywho, we managed to finally get to our hotel (the glorious Etap Hotel, that may or may not moonlight as an elderly homosexual pick up joint) and fall into bed.

The next day we set out in search of a place to live and a cell phone plan. Once this (the plan) was procured, we needed to get our Canadian phone unlocked, which led to our first introduction to the Birmingham market, which we LOVE. We’re sure it’s the place where we’ll get most of our fruit and veg and any odd bits that we need.

Market! Well, just down the hill at least.

We then set off for the library in hopes of getting internet access to only learn that THERE IS ABSOLUTELY ZERO FREE WIRELESS IN ENGLAND SERIOUSLY THE INTERNET IS NO WHERE TO BE FOUND.

Why no internet UK? 

Eventually we managed to find a connection and slowly began to contact potential landlords.

M was a bit flabbergasted when it came to actually talking to people on the phone and he kept telling me (while the person was still on the line, yammering away), “I can’t understand anything these people are saying!”

The Brummy accent folks, is truly something to behold.

When one woman asked him if he was a student he responded with “okay” to which she just said “okay?”

Believe me when I say the laugh attack that I had been suppressing since our arrival in the city was unleashed with full force.

The first guy we met was a complete jerk. He showed up twenty-five minutes late, did not say hello, and then mumbled that it was “six months minimum” before just walking back up to his car!

What an arsehole.

After this encounter, we were lucky enough to meet Sue – our now landlord. (Though we did have to walk over 10km in order to get to her place.)

No word of a lie though, the place was a total crap box when we arrived. However, we’ve cleaned like maniacs, and M has put up a ton of paintings that Sue gave us, a coat and towel rack, the bed has new bedding ,and we’ve been given a small tv with tons of vhs tapes.

After a day committed to making our home, well, livable, we bussed to Moseley – a very radtastic area of the city – for dinner and drinks. Once again I was reminded about how much I still hate beer, but seriously the chips here are MAGNIFICENT.

Curry and chips!

Also, this is completely off topic, but if one more person calls me “love” I am seriously going to have to have a sit down, because it DESTROYS me.

Further, I have also now come to realize that “You okay?” doesn’t mean “Are you damaged?” but is more of an expression of helpfulness. This is very good to know because people say this to me A LOT.

Man. This is going to be quite an adventure.

I cannot wait to see where we’ll end up.

Canadian content

Hey beauty cats.

So I realized (aka it was pointed out to me) that I never revealed what it was I bought M for his birthday – especially after all that badgering he managed to withstand leading up to the day.

We ended up having a rocking shindig for him on Sunday night, filled with food, friends, drink, games and general merriment.

(If ever in the future you attend a party at our place I can promise you two things: 1. there will be a TON of tasty eats to be had, because we have the  most fab, most culinary bad-ass friends you can imagine and 2. you will be forced to play the Name Game, because, well, that’s what we do at parties, okay?)

Earlier on in the day, I presented him with this:

The flowers, I should point out, were given to him by our brilliant friend Ms. M, whom, I am so excited to say, has just returned to the West Coast after spending a year and a half in Australia on a working holiday.

She is pretty much the best ever folks.

EVER.

Anywho, Mr. M loves Canadian history – Farley Mowatt, White Fang, North of 60, Pierre Burton – you name it.

So when I saw this hand written, hand illustrated book, I knew I needed to get it for him.

I also fell head over heels in love with his card.

It’s a mouse! Dressed in Elizabethan garb! HOLY MOLY!

Love it.

It’s funny, I don’t think I subscribe to a specific form of nationalism (goodness, I have a hard time using that word in a non-pejorative sense), but sometimes I dig being Canadian so much I feel a little funny.

(Which only serves to make me feel ever MORE Canadian because I understand this as me feeling bad for being too “into” my country. Someone get me a double-double and some timbits STAT.)

I mean, I’ve read enough literature on the invention of borders and passports, and the evolution of national languages and mythology to be wary of buying too much into these institutions and systems.

Heck, I wrote my master’s thesis on Canadian and British immigration policies post-1945.

However, I feel as though this perspective gives me enough wiggle room to take to heart some quintessential Canadiana, while still remaining critical of these norms on a larger scale.

It’s all about balance right?

When we were living in the UK, our flatmate S (we lived in an absolutely bat crap CRAZY old mansion that had been converted into nine apartments and we were living in 300 square feet of madness) asked if we could put together a slide show of some Canadian vistas, because he had always been attracted to our country’s wildnerness.

So over dinner the next night (we had a sweet system in place where one out of three couples that made up our group would cook, so all six of us could rotate cooking and washing duties) M and I shared as many photos of our travels across Canada as possible.

Here are three snaps from the original presentation:

Lunenberg, Nova Scotia.

While I may live on the West Coast (and love it here), much of my heart belongs in the East.

The Maritimes are so beautiful I do not know where to begin to describe them.

Nova Scotia’s beauty is stark, cut out of wild, tempestuous seas, multi-coloured fishing villages, fiddle-driven ceilidhs, and the effervescent, endearing (and enduring) spirit of some of the nicest people you will ever meet.

Lunenberg is situated on the province’s South Shore (seriously, GO THERE) and is located on a peninsula at the western side of Mahone Bay (again, GO THERE). The town is approximately 90 kilometres southwest of Halifax (when you go to Lunenberg, you will fly into this city. STAY THERE for a few days at the very least.)

No more caps, I promise.

North Vancouver/Pender Harbour, BC.

M and I do quite a bit of hiking.

Seriously, in the summer months, gives us our hikers, a mountain, some food and water (and also sunscreen because goodness knows if you’ve seen my skin you’ll understand that I am in fact a vampire) and we are happy.

Two gorgeous trails for views of a lifetime are Mt. Daniel on the Sunshine Coast (GO THERE NOW – sorry!) and Lighthouse park on the North Shore.

Soon, my darlings, it will also be camping weather, and you know what that means…

Onwards!

Whistler, BC.

M is a journeyman carpenter. Five years ago he worked on the Olympic ski jump in the Callaghan Valley (GO THERE) and he took this pic just as the weather began to turn, heading in the tail end of autumn.

All of the pictures he took from his time on the job site are pretty darn spectacular, however there is something about this one that just leaves me with goosebumps, all up and down my arms.

He did also manage to take a few snaps of bears.

And boy do I ever love me a pic of a black bear scouring the grass for some tasty wild flowers to munch, munch away on.

And speaking of which, I’m off to procure some grub myself.

So I ask you friends, what places would you like to share with the world from your own backyard? I’d love to know, even if it’s thousands of miles away from your actual home.