1. Cried. Quite a bit actually. This, however, is not too big of a deal. I cry quite a lot, and can be set off at a moment’s notice due to, well, pretty much anything. From the overly banal (X-Files episode), to the adorable animal (please see below video), to the familial. It probably wouldn’t be much of a Christmas without a few tears shed, for either good or bad.
Heck, it’s tradition.
2. Went for a run. This is also becoming a bit of a Christmas tradition. I like to venture out in the early morning, when the
Awesome socks is the new awesome sauce.
rest of the world is still snuggled up in their beds (dreaming of sugar plums, or little toy drums). Irrespective, M and I bundled up to face the freezing winds, and gray-tinged skies, and ran laps around Queen’s park, which was dark, and slick, and yet beautiful and magical in all of its festive splendor.
You always feel as though a special kinship ties you to all the other early morning runners, and although you may share but a simple head nod, it’s enough to make your blood run a little warmer, and strides stretch a little longer.
Ready to rock. I mean rant. I mean RUN!
M also bought me some super sweet running socks that I was eager to try out (they were tucked neatly into my stocking with some great books and chocolate). He gets exasperated (and rightly so) with my inability to keep my socks with their rightful pair, so each set he gave me was colour coded a different colour, to insure that they (as pairs) have a long shelf (erm…drawer) life together.
They were ridiculously comfortable and made for a brilliant run. To paraphrase F. Gump, they were “magic socks.”
3. Bought a real tree. As I wrote before, this was the first year that M and I celebrated Christmas in our home together, so it was very exciting that we were able to purchase a beautiful little pine that has been quite the dazzling addition to our humble abode – whether it be its excellent aromas, or how much colourful decor it adds to our living room.
The Royal Tannenbaum
It’s was also great fun to decorate it with our mishmash of different ornaments that we have collected over the years. We are sent new ones every year from the East Coast and we have also been lucky enough to have been gifted ones from M’s parents.
My mother has also begun the tradition of sending us a stocking every year in our gift package. It’s fantastic! Currently, for a household of two adults and one kitty we have five stockings.
Outrageous.
We’re hoping that as the years press on, Santa just becomes more and more confused, forcing him to fill them all lest he
Gingerbread lane.
leave someone out.
Just don’t tell him.
No doubt I’ve probably just bought myself a first class ticked to the naughty list. Alas, it’ll just give me another reason to cry.
Do you have a place that you like to visit, because no matter what may have happened in your life (or may be happening) – as soon as you get there, you suddenly feel better?
You feel healthier? You feel whole?
I have such a place.
This past Friday night, M and I adventured up to the Sunshine Coast where his parent’s have a brilliant little getaway that they very generously let us make use of for the weekend.
I will never tire of this view for as long as I live.
This place is amazing for many reasons.
From the spectacular view of the waterfront, to the epic record collection, to the amazingly comfortable beds, to the new wood burning stove – it really is a piece of heaven.
I feel the earth move...SING IT CAROLE!
I’m not sure how many times M and I have visited this unique and beautiful spot, but I can without hesitation say that each stay has, and forever will, occupy a special place in my heart.
Before I regale you with some of the finer (re: hilarious) moments of our brief, just-passed sojourn, here are three snapshots of past-times spent at this haven of dreams.
1.Sepetember 2003. M and I have been dating for approximately two months and I am completely head-over-heels in love with him. I am in first year at UBC and he is in third, and one day while we’re eating breakfast at my dorm’s cafeteria, he asks me if I would like to go away with him at the end of the month.
Yes, I tell him. Unequivocally, without question, YES.
My heart practically implodes in my chest upon hearing that my father is willing to let me borrow his car for the weekend. My excitement knows no bounds.
We arrive early the Saturday morning because M ends up having to work at the movie theatre that Friday night. I am too restless to fall back asleep once we arrive, so after the inaugural tour we make peanut butter and jam sandwiches with thick slices of French bread and head down to the dock to suntan and “study.”
After lunch, we take the canoe out for a long afternoon paddle. I marvel at how quickly our boat is skimming along – that is, of course, until I take a brief rest and realize we haven’t slowed down at all.
M just laughs at me. I laugh too.
The weather is so hot I want to take off my clothes and dive right into the water. Instead, I dip my fingers into blue-green depths one at a time, and let the droplets run down my forearms and drip off of my elbows.
That night, against our better judgement, we light a fire and roast ourselves silly as we eat our dinner and grow tipsy off of red wine and Cat Stevens.
I remember thinking how I never wanted our dance to end.
…
2. New Years, 2006. M and I invite eight of our closest friends up to the Coast for a New Years raclette feast. We eat (what seems like) pounds of the delicious Swiss cheese, drink good wine, and laugh ourselves crazy playing charades, dancing to Boney M, and lighting sparklers and banging on all the pots and pans we can find when the hour strikes twelve.
HAPPY NEW YEAR YOU CRAZY LOONS!
The next day we set out for a brisk, first-day-of-the-new-year-hike, letting the gale-force winds blow right through us – it sends the last year packing, and makes sure we are fresh and clean for all that awaits us in the coming months.
As we round the corner at the end of the trail, the winds are so strong that my ear muffs are blown from my head, and the only thing that saves them from an ocean swim is the lone, bare-faced tree, clinging for dear life on the cliff edge, twenty meters on my right.
M gallantly saves them, but in the process, almost gives up his place on earth in exchange.
Next time, I tell him, just let them go.
When we arrive back at the house, the power goes out. We spend the rest of the evening cooking chilli and garlic bread on the wood burning stove, and playing balderdash by candlelight.
I know I still have abdominal muscles from laughing so hard that night – believe me, they’re in there somewhere, I just need to find them.
3. August 2010. Having defended my master’s thesis in May of that year, for the first time in (what seems like) my entire life, I am not stressing over, or thinking about school.
Mother Nature’s summer-stat has been set on full blast, and every day looks like a photo-still from a Richard Attenborough documentary. Everything looks as though it has been kissed by magic.
My swimming hole.
Each morning I wake up and run a 10km loop that winds from the house to the local provincial park and back. Each morning upon my return I race down to the dock where I strip down to my underwear before jumping into the drink for a refreshing post-run swim.
I am sure the neighbours think I’m bloody bonkers, but I don’t care.
I feel light. I feel fabulous.
I feel love.
…
When we arrived at the house on Friday night, the place was pretty darn freezing. No word of a lie, I am fairly sure that I lost the feeling in the bottoms of my feet within the first fifteen minutes of our arrival.
PJs + sweats + winter coat + tea + fire = defrosted me
Thank goodness I am married to a mountain man who managed to quickly get a roaring fire going – but for a little lass such as I, with very poor circulation, I was hard pressed to get out of my winter coat until the place reached sauna status.
After that though, I was fine. After that I was on fire!
Over the weekend, in preparation for Christmas, M and I decided that we would whip ourselves up in a baking tizzy. Initially it was pretty difficult deciding on what we wanted to accomplish, but eventually we managed to cull the original list of must-dos down to three choice items: cheese sticks, sugar cookies (reprised from my culinary adventure from the other night) and cinnamon stars.
Cheeeeeeeeezzzzeeee sticks! So good!
The cheese sticks and the sugar cookies were by far the more successful undertakings. I not sure how many of those cheesy delights I’ve scarfed down since M removed them from the oven – but it’s safe to say that we will definitely be making a few more trays of those before the holiday season is over.
Also, I think I will just become a sugar cookie making machine, in so far as they are super easy to make and way fun to decorate.
At first M and I were all, “ERM..?” because he inadvertently purchased the neon food colouring, but we’ve come to understand that if psychedelic Santa doesn’t say HO HO HO, that we don’t know what does.
(Don’t tell us.)
All the colours that you had on your snowsuit in the 80s!
The cinnamon stars weren’t so much a failure as they were a reinterpretation of the definition of star. (I mean, cupcakes aren’t too far off, right?)
Yes. I am drinking prosecco out of a Swiss anniversary brandy snifter. There’s no shame here!
…
We topped off the night with a sunset down at the dock, stellar homemade pasta, and a crisp prosecco that danced on our tongues, although our feet did the actually jigging as we boogied down to Rod Stewart, Neil Diamond and the Rolling Stones.
Seriously, guys, if you start us up – if you start us up, we’ll never stop.
Seeing as though I got my rant on yesterday (and get it on did I ever), I am trying to look at the bright side of things on this rainy December day.
I feel really fortunate to have so many solid individuals in my life whom I can count on to comfort (or at least abide) me when I am at my utmost dejected. Without them, I would probably slink off the forest and live out my days in obscurity, becoming feral and losing my ability to speak and maintain healthy (if any) human relationships. I would either end up in the National Enquirer, or have Jodi Foster play me in some Oscar-winning biopic, scored by Howard Shore.
Like my blood pressure, the sun will rise again...
So thank you my friends. Thank you for your support and for helping me rebuild my humpty-dumpty confidence in humanity (or at least chose to stay in society for a little while longer.)
(Man, speaking of that nursery rhyme – what the heck were all the King’s horses going to accomplish? THEY ARE HORSES. If anything, they were probably responsible for further smashing up Mr. Egg Wall-sitter’s remains.)
Anywho, yesterday night I met up with my Little Sister (I’ve worked with Big Sisters for the past three years) and hanging out with that little firecracker of genius was exactly what I needed to regroup and refocus.
Working with my Little has been life changing in many different ways, and knowing that as much as she has transformed my life, I have had a positive impact on hers, is something I very much cherish. When I am overwhelmed to the point of tears by what I see to be insurmountable, soul-crushing obstacles, I have to remember that little by little, constructive actions are capable of chipping away at the our society’s monolithic, and firmly-rooted ills.
So remember kids: Only you can prevent further reinforcement of institutionalized, overarching destructive norms!
That, and you know, forest fires.
As they say, baby steps.
Either way, today I am focusing on the positive!
Case in point, a couple of nights ago I was invited to a friend’s house to bake sugar cookies and watch The Muppet
Rolling pins are good for getting out stress.
Christmas Carol. It was a gas and a half: munching on junk food, laughing at Gonzo (playing Charles Dickens, of course), loving Michael Caine as Scrooge, sharing the bizarre and equally funny parts of our day.
Sometimes you cannot get any better than that.
Of course, our first batch of cookies wasn’t hugely successful. We tried to fit two sheets on one rack at the same time. It wasn’t until I started to see smoke seeping out from the top of the door that we decided we might have to exercise some restraint and only do one batch at a time.
I would be lying if I said we didn't eat quite a few of these anyway...
(This worked to varying degrees, as the more we talked – and the more we laughed – the harder it seemed to be to actually make sure we timed the baking process properly.)
Now, I am not by nature a very visually artistic individual, but years of dedication to cookie decoration has left me with a particular prowess in this department that I am not afraid to talk up.
Oh what fun!
Back home in Halifax my mother goes absolutely bonkers in the kitchen every Christmas, whipping up batches of (sometimes) up to two hundred ginger bread men. I will spend hours hunched over the kitchen table, painstakingly decorating cookie after cookie, to the point where it is almost a little heartbreaking to watch people cart them off, or even worse, scarf them down without properly admiring their long-endured edible beautification process!
Yeah. That’s definitely a little sad on my part.
But I don’t care! Love live the cookie decorator! PEACE, LAND, BREAD!
Erm…
Nom nom - WAIT! Tell me how pretty they are!
I mean: ICING, SPRINKLES, SMARTIES!
I hope you all have a wonderful, rage-out-free weekend.
And if not, I’ll do my darndest to put you back together again.
What, pray tell, is the difference between “very black” and “classic black” in terms of mascara?
Or equally confounding, in life?
Won't somebody please think of the children!?
I mean, there can’t actually be a discernible distinction between the two – can there?
From what I remember of Art 8, (and there really isn’t much) black isn’t even a colour, so there can’t be all that much variation in terms of its presentation (or interpretation).
Right?
Of course this conundrum doesn’t even begin to scrape the surface of the impossible and completely insufferable colour coding on the (seemingly) millions of packaged eyelash-extending products available for purchase at your friendly neighborhood drug and/or department store.
The amount of merchandise on display is overwhelming to the point of paralysis.
Seriously, what is this? Bill’s Candy Shop? I mean, a company (that shall remain nameless) actually markets a product called “blackest-black”.
Those twisted bastards.
To be fair, I totally get why they do it. They’re just trying to make as much money as they possibly can, through their totally warped and markedly transparent manipulation of the otherwise blissfully unassuming masses, and yet I still want to scream: HELLO COMPANY EXECS! WE ALL SEE WHAT YOU’RE DOING HERE AND WE KNOW ITS ALL ABOUT STUFFING THOSE GIANT ALREADY FIT-TO-BURSTING MONEY BAGS OF YOURS!
Also, if we are going to venture into this totally inane, waste-of-time-marketing-territory couldn’t we get a little creative? Where is my “the-Grinch’s-heart-pre-Cindy-Lou-Who-black,” or “black-hole-before-you-knew-anything-about-physics-black,” or “everyone-knows-you-look-skinnier-in-black-black”?
No?
Well, give me time. I’m working on it.
In the interim, I can’t bring myself to buy any other brand than this one pictured below:
This colour scheme is pretty darn 80s.
It’s still the cheapest product available that (in my opinion) provides the best results. Yet, I’m worried. The price has been steadily rising and I’m afraid that its affordability may be heading the way of the dodo.
So, in the near future, should you see a woman stockpiling Greatlash mascara with an almost deranged fervor, don’t fret – I’m just saving up in preparation for the zombie apocalypse. Because if there is one thing I’ve learned from the Resident Evil franchise, (and I’ve learned a lot), it’s that the hotter I look, the more proficient I will be at kicking major flesh-eating, walking-dead butt.
So boy do I plan to look SMOKING.
…
Another point I feel as though I must touch on today is a bit of a post-script to my post from Monday, in which I mercilessly lampooned Forever Twenty-One’s horrifying fashions and equally disastrous window display.
Not to be outdone, it seems as though Holt Renfrew has thrown its hat into the ring in order to compete for the “erm…right…okay…” prize of the year.
Exhibit A:
No Bessie! Not on the Chanel!
Yeah, I’m pretty sure the last time I checked, right below “buy couture clothing” on my bucket list DOES NOT READ “bottle feed baby cow.”
In fact, the more I think about it, those two enterprises done in tandem just seem downright counter-intuitive.
(I’ll let you guys guess which of those two is actually on my bucket list. Please, be nice.)
Also, I cannot help but think of all the individuals of Swiss heritage I know, and how hard they would laugh at this display – not so much in a “hah! What a novel idea for a high-end department store to employ over the holidays,” but more of a “hah! Canadians are such silly, simple creatures. Please pass the gruyere.”
SQUAWK!
The other displays are equally alarming: bird people playing tin-can telephone? French maids wearing lace corsets over Victorian-style blouses?
Voulez-vous acheter des vetements vraiments cher? EH?
Didn’t anyone ever teach the store’s head display designer the dangers of mixed metaphors?
Can they even read?
(I kid. I kid.)
(Maybe.)
I worry that someone could end up with a bad case of mistaken (or even lost) identity from simply setting foot in the store! Though to be fair, something tells me they are more likely to suffer from massive hemorrhaging of sweet cash dollars that anything else.
But I digress.
I also shouldn’t lie and say that I don’t desperately want those birds chilling out on the teeter-totter. These awesome dudes were what definitely caught my eye in the first place:
Come on Jim! Left, left, left, right, left!
(Though the Swiss-miss Vogue cover shoot was a close second.)
They would make an excellent addition to my office, any day of the year.
…
Finally, yesterday my excellent friend A accompanied me to the Hyatt over lunch where we perused some of the stellar gingerbread creations currently on display in the hotel’s lobby.
It’s really quite amazing to behold how creative people can be in terms of the tasty treat! These people aren’t just culinary masters – they are bloody architects to boot!
Now, if I can just find a way to make this one life size I’ll be set.
Our house! In the middle of the farm!
Even more so if those Holt Renfrew birds want to join me.
I used to be really good at getting all of my holiday to-dos done well before the stress and just general madness of the December month consumed not only me, but all of my loved ones.
I was a planning, shopping, and wrapping force to be reckoned with – my plans were executed with such precision I felt as though I could have established my own holiday-planner guild – apprentices and all.
Mostly I was imagining living in a Terry Pratchett novel, but you know, I’ll take when I can get.
However, for the last few years this once-strength of mine has waned; more and more I leave things- once easily accomplished errands – to the last minute.
I am unsure of what evil force is at play here (perhaps some deranged woman obsessed with her own reflection has sent a metaphorical huntsmen to rid me not of my beauty (HAH!) but of my festive organization skills) – yet somehow I don’t think this tale achieves quite the same level of drama as the original.
Either way, it is a dangerous line to walk, what with the majority of my family living over one thousand miles away and Canada Post being notoriously unreliable, especially anytime after the first of December.
It’s imperative that I get their gifts in the mail – STAT. And with less than three weeks left before the grand opening (of presents) I was starting to feel the anxiety of not having anything prepared.
To combat my ever rising sense of dread, last Friday I decided that it was high time to get my rear in gear, and trekked out after work, armed to the teeth with a razor sharp resolve.
The effort alone nearly destroyed me.
Good grief.
M was supposed to meet me downtown after my two hour head start. He was going to help me fill in any gaps in gifts for people, while at the same time we could enjoy the festive decorations of the downtown core.
(Side note: after spending Christmas in the UK, I cannot help but feel as though our streets are pretty darn bare and wish that our cities would take part in similar spectacular and magical light displays. But like I said, I take what I can get.)
Anyways, I gave him a call and promptly told him not to bother coming all the way downtown but that seeing as though he was already on transit, I would meet him halfway at Metrotown.
And that friends, is where I saw these:
Fashion is just so draining…I need a nap. Good thing I have this jaunty cap.
Oh. My. Goodness. Gracious.
Forever Twenty-One is so awesome for so many (facetious) reasons, it actually boggles the mind.
M won’t even go into the store because he says that the combination of the loud, crap music, crowds of overzealous teenage girls and just general gaudiness brings on the mother of all panic attacks.
I don’t doubt it. You should have seen him in Primark.
I thought he was going to pass out.
But seriously, who styled these mannequins? Who got home after the most hard core yoga session of all time as thought, “holy crow, the body can move in the most peculiar of ways! Let’s make sure we highlight this interesting factoid in our next window display – it may even move the attention away from how absolutely insane looking ourclothing is.”
I was in a giggle fit for the rest of the night just thinking about it, but ever more so after M pointed out that two of the mannequins look like they are casually trying to give birth.
I’m…so…exhausted…but…so… glamorous….
“What am I up to you ask? Oh, you know, not much…just heading into my twelfth straight hour of labour, but sheesh – don’t I look stylin?”
No lady. You look stone cold CRAZY.
I also don’t know exactly what to do with these boots:
LAUGH IT UP FUZZBALL
I mean, how many wookies needed to die to create this abomination?
M has been playing a ton of Skyrim of late and he says that they look like something his character would don before going into battle against a dragon.
Erm. Yeah…
If that doesn’t signal cool, hip and fashion forward, than slap my face and call me T’analia.
(Don’t do that.)
Heck, I know I don’t go anywhere these days without my leather jerkin and long sword. But that’s only because I haven’t yet figured out how to properly style my battle ax.
Anyway, I couldn’t stop myself form posing like this for the next two days, just because the idea of them kept cracking me up.
I’m just waiting for Ford Models to phone.
From now on, anytime I am a waiting in a line I am going to stand in this position, because I’m pretty sure people will either think that 1) something is wrong with me, or that 2) I am very, very desperate. Either way, I am sure to guarantee that I am served first.
Or you know, I’ll end up committed.
Is it a price I’m willing to pay? I’m not sure – yet.
Knowing that I may never have to lay eyes on another Forever Twenty-One floral patterned unitard or pair of hotpink hammer pants, may just tip the scales.
We’ll just have to wait and see.
Oh, and all you folks living across Canada, waiting for your Christmas gifts? You now know what what’s heading your way.
Rant and Roll 