Category: To whom it may concern

Tracing one warm line through a land so wild and savage

Eggs? Check.

Bacon? Check.

Toast? Check.

Let’s get this Friday Fry-Up on the stove!

And so it begins anew.

The Canadian government has recently announced that a new research project has been commissioned to search for the ships of the ill-fated Franklin exhibition.

As you may or may not know, The HMS Erebus and HMS Terror set out from England in 1845 with the express intent of finding the ever elusive Northwest Passage. Instead, only one year later, Franklin and his men found themselves trapped in the ice. Some died, and some – in an aim to escape a similar fate – set out on foot to try and find a way out of that frozen, desolate Arctic hell.

Only the never made it out – alive or dead.

It was pretty much – poof!

And they were never heard from again.

Okay. I know this was a terrible thing to happen and everything – but what the dickens were they thinking naming their two ships The Terror and The Erebus!?

Talk about starting out on the wrong foot.

If you’re going to take on what is, for all intents and purposes, a suicide mission, wouldn’t you want to bring some levity to the whole situation by naming your boat something like – oh I don’t know, The Unicorn? Or how about The Heat Wave?

It’s called the power of positive thinking here people.

I mean jeeze – Erebus literally represented the personification of DARKNESS. That is some bleak sauce, emo crap right there.

Anywho, one of the greatest things to come out of this (evidently enduring) tragedy is this amazing, song sung by Stan Rogers:

This man is a friggin’ Canadian legend, whose songs regularly move me to tears. There is something just so simple and yet resonating about his tunes  – and I don’t know if I think this way because of my East Coast roots, but even M himself is quick to state that he thinks Stan is easily the voice of Canada.

If you don’t know this man CHECK HIM OUT. Also read The Terror by Dan Simmons. Neither of these works of art will disappoint, I promise.

You got to put one foot in front of the other.

I recently signed up to run the Surrey International Half-marathon, taking place at the end of September. This will be my first half of the year, but I’m feeling really great about it.

My goal is to complete the course in one hour, thirty minutes (or less). My currently personal best is 1:38, but I think I’m in much better shape now than when I ran that previous race.

After 1:38 – feeling pretty good!

At least I think I am in better shape. I could show up that Sunday and end up running a heck of a lot slower than I expect – but I really hope this doesn’t end up being the case. Eight minutes is quite a lot of time to shave off, but I’m certain it’s doable.

And if not, I’ll have a taxi cab at the ready.

I kid, I kid.

It’ll be a bus.

Also, this will be my first race without the use of headphones. This for some reason fills me with zero trepidation, and it is this lack of trepidation that is giving me trepidation.

I will update you on my progress the closer I get to the race.

And my trepidation.

I’m all booked up.

Of late I’ve been on a crazy reading tear – for the past couple of months I’ve been blowing through two (and sometimes more) books a week like some crazed literary fiend.

It’s like an insatiable hunger. I look forward to taking skytrain in the mornings and when I get off work; I can’t wait to get in from my runs, shower and curl up on the couch; I sneak moments in the morning when I’m getting ready for the day; every night I read until I can barely keep my eyelash tips up and book spines straight.

At the moment I’m finishing up Lev Grossman’s The Magician King (await a blog post on this series in probably the next week) and can’t wait to dive into the next story.

80 pages to go!

Do you beauty cats have any good recommendations? What are you up to for the weekend?

Let’s find the hand of Franklin

reaching for the Beaufort Sea;

Tracing one warm line through a land so wild and savage

And make a Northwest Passage to the sea.

Dress me – I’m your mannequin

Well kids – another day, another dollar.

Yesterday I skipped about downtown on my lunch, eager as I was to stretch my legs and prance about in my pretty purple dress.

PURPLE DRESS!

I wandered about Club Monaco for a bit, admiring all the beautiful pieces that have recently arrived in anticipation for autumn’s arrival.

(I also cowered in disbelief to see that the store would still charge forty-nine dollars for a tank-top at that tail end of summer – at sixty percent off at that! I couldn’t help but wonder who was buying them when they were still listed at full price?)

Anyways, as I drifted about the mall, I realized it had been ever so long since I last tried on insane mannequin outfits at H&M – mostly because they have been selling such stellar stuff of late, and I just haven’t had the heart to mock a store that has blessed me with such abominably cute outfits.

Even Mr. M the other day conceded that his views on this clothing conglomerate had changed. And I quote:

“I want to hate H&M so much, but I can’t, because every I like pretty much every single thing you own from the store.”

And they say chivalry is dead!

Anywho, today I WAS in the mood for a good game of grotesque dress-up, so I ventured into the store with the express intention of finding the absolute fugliest pieces I could find and snapping snaps for all of you, dear readers, to see.

This ended up being much harder than I initially expected.

You see I was immediately drawn to this insane mess of a dress:

What the what…!?!?

But you know what? I just didn’t have the heart to try it on. First of all, it felt like a cross between a bathroom shower mat and those thick wool sweaters that are of the express domain of Independent Swedish film makers and skiing instructors from the late 1970s.

Plus, it cost eighty bucks! My whole system went into revolt just thinking about this and there was no way I wanted this dress anywhere near my body.

I did, however, manage to find all the appropriate pieces to scrape this outfit together:

Erm, I have a couple of questions about this.

WHAT IS THIS MADNESS?

And, like, do any chicks out there actually do the shirtless + suit jacket combo? I mean, other than those who are paid extravagant fees to march down a runway looking equal parts pissed off and nihilistic?

And would anyone in their right mind wear this combination with shorts?

If you would and you are out there reading this, please contact me because I want to interview you on my next radio show happening next month. No joke at all, and no mocking either – I want to pick your brain and learn your secrets. E-mail me!

I actually don’t mind either the shorts or the jacket as separates, but together I felt as though I left the house with only a portion of my originally intended outfit on my body. Like I had been told that I only had thirty second to vacate the premises before it was blown to smithereens and this was the best I could do while still keeping myself alive.

The next two ensembles I tried on were what I like to call the “Chatalaine editorials circa 1993 – beach house chic!”

No. 1:

Claaaaaammmm diiiigggeeerrssss

This cardigan would be tolerable if it had a giant fake A (or some other letter) to connote a varsity sports team of which I’m not actually a member but would make me feel collegiate nevertheless.

No. 2:

Caaaabllleee knnniiiittt.

I cannot tell a lie, I kind of want this sweater, but only if it comes with a pipe and a large, red, velvet wing-backed chair.

Although something tells me that I’m not going to be picking all that up for $29.95.

A girl can dream though, can she not?

For afterall, we are the stuff that dreams are made on.

Except that first dress of course.

Because that friends – that is most definitely a nightmare.

When I lost my mind

Three crazy things I have done in my life:

1.)  Taped down my breasts when getting ready for my first high profile job interview.

With packing tape.

This decision was made after spending a good portion of an hour scrutinizing my outfit in front of the bathroom mirror and working it into my mind that my blouse wasn’t fitting quite right.  In my nervous-to-the-point-of-madness state, I came to the conclusion that my only option was to take out the tape and strap down my chest.

For the entire two hour meeting I couldn’t quite breathe properly and I kind of “crunched” each time I shifted in my seat. (For a couple of days afterwards I became paranoid about irregular hair growth after having literally waxed my chest during the ordeal of removing the tape – luckily this worry never came to fruition.)

And would you believe it, I got the job.

2.)  Flooded my mother’s kitchen.

It was the summer of 2005. I was living in Halifax and working two jobs – on the weekend I was a barista at a coffee shop, and every night (save Sunday and Monday) I worked the front of house at a downtown bar.

I absolutely loved my places of employment and my schedule was great (other than then working a double shift every Saturday.)

However, for two weeks in August the whole thing kind of blew up in my face, when I ended up covering one of my fellow employee’s weekday shifts at the coffee shop, while still working at the bar. (Of course this just so happened to overlap with the jazz festival of which my bar was a venue – which meant that instead of working four hours a night at the bar, I was working seven or eight.)

This meant that for fourteen days I was operating on about four, maybe max five hours of sleep a night, and was tired all the live long day.

But all in all it didn’t really matter, because as I said – I bloody well loved my jobs.

Anywho, one day before heading to the bar I decided that if I wasn’t going to nap I was going to clean the hous – laundry, dishes, vacuum, windows – you named it, I was going to take care of it.

Unfortunately, my plan of filling up the kitchen sink while I ran upstairs to start the washing machine went awry as soon as I forgot all about the sink and started stripping the beds and cleaning the washroom.

By the time I remembered it was too late – rivers of water were pouring into the heating vents and making their way into the living room.

I panicked. I grabbed the (kitty hair saturated) blankets that we kept on the couches to keep the cats from scratching at the upholstery and threw them onto the floor, before racing to the basement to see if any of the water had leaked down that far. Luckily it hadn’t.

Then I called a cab because there was no way I was going to make it to work on time if I were to walk. When the taxi pulled up front, I was in such a tizzy that I jumped into the front seat without thinking.

I can’t really describe how awkward it was to ride up front with that cabby except to say that I felt as though my dad was driving me to school.

Only I had to pay him.

3.)  Drank a bottle of seven dollar wine out of a booster juice cup.

My advice kids? DON’T DO THIS.

Even if it’s your last day of undergrad, and you’re totally stoked about starting grad school, and getting married later on that same summer; even if you’ve just aced your last classes, and you think you’re an invincible evil genius; and especially if you don’t drink, like, EVER, but you think it’ll be absolutely hilarious to get smashed out of your face with two of your best friends just this once.

Seriously. Just say no.

Because you’ll drink that wine, and then run about campus like the silly twenty-two year old that you are, and you’ll meet Nardwuar the Human Serviette and tell him about how watching him do the Hip Flip with Paul Martin is one of the highlights of your life, what with being the Canadian politico nerd that you are.

(This will impress no one, least of all Nardwuar who will just think you drunk and insane.)

And then at 4 o’clock in the afternoon you’ll phone your fiancée as ask him to come pick you up and take you to Dairy Queen where you’ll order two servings of popcorn shrimp, but only eat the shrimp and not the French fries because you’re trying  to be healthy.

And if you still do this? Be sure to drink those two liters of water he gives you before you pass out at seven o’clock that evening.

It will save your life and allow you to blog about it years, and years later.

One fish, two fish

Dudes!

FISHING.

Holy mother of pearl.

M and I just returned from a three day salmon-catching extravaganza in the Barclay Sound with my father, and Mr. DM – alias Fish Whisperer extraordinaire.

Now, I don’t know if any of you cats have ever gone fishing before, but believe me when I saw that I was incredibly out of my element the entire time I found myself at sea.

This doesn’t mean I necessarily stunk up the boat or anything (both in my fishing skills or otherwise) – in fact, I’d like to think that I actually did quite well for a first timer – it’s just that sitting in a boat for long periods of time, at all hours of the day, in all kinds of weather isn’t exactly on par with my day job.

This is how I imagined the weekend would play itself out:

Arrive.

Hang out in a ridiculously beautiful area of Vancouver Island (please see photographic evidence of this very-true fact):

Fish for a couple of hours.

Arrive back at gorgeous hang-out spot.

Eat dinner.

Bed.

Oh brother was I ever off. First, I was ill-prepared, both mentally and clothing-wise for the length of time we would be on the water when we arrived on Friday afternoon.

We arrived at Port Alberni around 12:30, and after dropping our gear off at Green Cove (where we would be staying) we set out to begin hunting for the elusive salmon around 2 o’clock. If you had told me that we would be spending the next seven hours on a boat I would have thought you were kidding me.

SEVEN HOURS!

Good thing I was hanging out with folks that I happen to like. Like A LOT.

And when I say that Don (the Fish Whisperer) is one of the coolest, most skilled guys I have ever met IT IS NO LIE.

The guy is like a ninja on the water! First he sets everything up, then as soon as a rod gets a bite, he is on it like a fat kid on a smartie – turning off the outboard motor, reeling in the other reel, handing off the rod to whomever was next for a chance at the catch – and it all happens so fast if you blinked you might miss all the action.

All in all I had seven tries at the reel, and I caught six fish – three Coho and three Spring (although one of the Springs was just a baby so we had to throw it back.)

I also learned quite a bit. So in no particular order, here are some things I discovered about salmon fishing:

1.)    Get prepared to spend a heck of a lot of time in that boat. As I referenced above, we were on the water for most of the day (something I had not expected) so dress warmly, because I can’t imagine anything worse than freezing your butt off on the high seas, while praying for a fish to chomp down on that anchovy. When you are warm and cozy wearing ten thousand layers of clothing nothing will be able to dampen your spirits! (See below photo for clues on what to wear to ensure your warmth.)

2.)    If you are girl make sure you are okay with peeing in a bucket. I am very okay with peeing in a bucket so this was no problem. In fact, I felt as though it was pretty high falluting to have such amenities on board! I had full-on expected to be dangling off the edge of the boat, or running into the woods on either side of the inlet every time nature called.

3.)    Get ready for some early mornings. On Saturday when the alarm went off at 4:45am the first two thoughts to enter my mind were: “No. I REFUSE.” Luckily after laying in bed for a few more minutes, listening to the strains of Jimmy Buffet’s XFM radio station (pretty much the best music out there for early morning wake-ups) I began to get pretty jazzed up about the start of the day. Oh yeah, drinking nineteen cups of coffee probably also helped.

4.)    WATCH YOUR ROD TIP NOT THE SALMON. ALSO, KEEP THAT SUCKER AS HIGH AS YOU CAN GET IT.

5.)    Coho salmon jump like Van bloody Halen.

6.)    Fish are also strong! Those babies can get pretty big, and goodness knows they put up one hell of a fight as you try to reel them in. My dad actually did one of those classic falls when a fish pulled him off of his feet – otherwise known as “The Goofy.” It was insane! The best part of the whole thing? He still managed to get the fish into the boat. BOSS.

7.)    The yummiest dinner ever? Garlic bread topped with fresh crab. ZOMG TASTE EXPLOSION.

8.)    Learn how to keep a strong tack. Don’t know what that means? Neither did I! It means trying to keep the boat moving in the straightest line as possible so the bait isn’t zigzagging all over the place. This can been pretty difficult depending on the currents, wave size, and the number of other boats that happen to populate that same area. But do it right and you will feel very, very happy, as will your fellow shipmates.

9.)    A really fun game to play while your biding your time between bites is the alphabet game – try to think of words that begin with the letters A – Z for different categories. A few groups M and I went through included European cities, American cities, and professional hockey players (double the points if you can think of someone that shares the same letter for both their first and last name.)

All it all it was really a tremendous weekend. I learned a lot, and like I said, experienced something new and totally outside of my every day routine.

I also had to laugh when a high school kid hit on me in the lineup for coffee when we were hanging out at the ferry terminal on the way home. I looked like an absolute hot mess so tack (har har) that on to my previous list of tips on how to get yourself asked out by the youngsters.

And there’s nothing fishy about that.

Bits and bites

Beginning.

This is a very true story about a magic worm.  His name was Wimmiin.

One day he fell into a toilet and drowned.  Being magic, he thought he would be able to swim, unlike most worms.

He was wrong.

He just drowned.

Middle.

I slept in my bed last night. 

It was good. 

After my conversation with you I went for a long jog along the track.  Then I came home and went to my haircut and colour.  My hair is now very black. 

This could be good or black. 

I will wear my hair to the airport when I come to meet you. 

What colors of paint did you choose?  And did the blueberries go down well with the water, on the sand?  I find nothing tastes as good as oranges at half time, so I do not fully appreciate your blueberries.   I probably missed the first five minutes of our conversation this morning as my mind was not yet awake, but oh it is so nice to start the day off by having a nice chat with you. 

I have also started a story for you:

Once upon a time, a gargoyle found himself made flesh and pale in the rocky world. I will finish it for you when we go away; when we lie in that warm place.

I’ll whisper in the shell of your ear the sussurus of a life – like a river bed, like a whirlwind. 

End.

Semi-reclined, this skin sobbing salt water
Arid air agitated and abrasive against
that tallowy tan

Thirsty

For fabulous dusk’s cool silence and,
Her thirty billion twinkling eyes

In a dream you waited to drink.
In that heat you shuddered
(alone and uncovered)
In my dream you rose up, and met me
Waiting, and impatient, at Gobi

…