I took this snap as I walked to skytrain this morning:
Flower power!
It’s been so cold around these parts that most of the trees that line my route still stand bare, their flowers tucked away inside their warm and cozy buds.
I am missing the vibrant colours we on the West Coast are normally treated too at this time of year.
Cherry blossoms always remind me a bit of popcorn. One minute they are nothing more than little shells, rattling about in the spring time wind. Close your eyes, or turn your head but for a moment, and -POOF!
They have exploded into multi-textured, blush-toned brilliance.
They remind me of love.
They also remind me to keep the faith that one day we’ll have two days of consecutive sunshine.
(A girl can dream right?)
Today at lunch my great friend J asked me to accompany her to H&M because she needed to purchase some tank tops for a bachelorette party.
Never one to give up the opportunity to visit my “try don’t buy” Mecca, I readily agreed.
For those of you who are new to the blog, I love to do this thing where I go into stores and try on outfits that are modeled on the mannequins to see how well they translate to a real life body.
Some ridiculing is sometimes involved.
(H&M is also one of the most fun stores to do this in. Furthermore, it’s an extra bonus because I really like their men’s clothing and have been trying on more of their stuff in hopes of finding sweet new deals.)
Pretty much as soon as we entered the store, we honed in on what would be today’s outfit to highlight:
Lady bugs. On my shorts.
I mean, can you think of anything else that says SUMMER-BBQ-FUNTIME than these shorts?
I dare you to come up with something better!
Impossible. P.S. I am wearing a shirt I promise! It's the matching shirt (that goes with the shorts) but it's about three inches long.
But then, of course, I had to try on two other fashion concoctions to prove that I am 1.) not a total crap master (to both you, dear readers, and the sad faced girl working in the change room) and 2.) genuinely interested in some of the merchandise available for purchase at the store.
So in that aim, I put on this dress:
It was all yellow.
Which I would actually love if I wouldn’t be branded a hoyden extraordinaire (and maybe just general pervert) if I ever wore it outside of the confines of the dressing room – because take my word of it, the “dress” was darn short.
Cute as heck yes, but not enough to convince me that I’m ready for a rap sheet.
The second were these pants:
Ms. Men's Red Pants to you!
I love the colour and they were super comfortable, but the crotch was hanging perilously low. And like I said, I’m just not digging the debauched vibe.
All in all, I struck out.
After J bought her goods, we walked back to the office and the perma-drizzle clung to our coats and hung from our hair.
But the memory of this morning’s flowers remains. And if things get really bad, I’ll just try on some new shorts.
This weekend Mr. M and I trekked out to the Reifel Bird Sanctuary, for an afternoon of water fowl and barnyard owls.
A swimming hole.
(Unfortunately, sightings of our flexible-necked friends were few and far between.)
We did however, espy a few swallows, a couple of herons, many, MANY ducks (mallards and otherwise), and a crap load of other birds I don’t know the names of, because who the heck do I look like people?
Ranger Rick?
Yeesh.
(I kid, I kid. Except not at all about knowing anything about the different species of birds I encountered. About that I seriously do know squat.)
A little guy.
It was a truly gorgeous afternoon – blue skies, brilliant sunshine – although the wind was a little snappish; I could feel each gust of cold sea air nibbling at my ear lobes, nose, my fingertips, and toes.
I was super thankful for my last minute decision to bring my winter coat, but even with the extra layer, I walked around with my arms speckled with gooseflesh (how appropriate for the venue, no?) for the majority of the time we were there.
However, when you’re strolling around a nature reserve, surrounded by hilarious, chirping, feathered creatures, your “problems” are put into perspective pretty darn quickly.
I sometimes have a really hard time visiting places like this because I get so over wrought with need to SAVE ALL THE BIRDS the world over.
A little gal.
(This reaction is much the same to the one I wrote about last week. See: Ethel v. SPCA adoption website.)
It’s also intrinsically tied to the paralysis I undergo every time I take out my recycling and see, once again, that the tone deaf dirt bags that live in my complex have once again placed their recyclables in the bin, in a bloody plastic bag.
For serious, one day someone is going to find my body, dead, splayed about on the ground in front of the blue boxes, empty cans in hand. I will have passed over to the other side from a complete and utter rage out (combined with a complete lack of understanding) over why someone would do this.
I mean – HOW LAZY CAN YOU POSSIBLY BE THAT YOU CANNOT JUST EMPTY THE CANS OR BOTTLES FROM THE PLASTIC BAG INTO THE BLUE BOX?
Good grief.
Yesterday Mr. M found a broken toaster in the recycle bin.
A TOASTER! AND IT WAS IN A PLASTIC BAG!
Okay, I need to take it easy. My heart probably shouldn’t be pumping this fast.
Breathe in, breathe out.
Seriously though, what the heck is the point of “recycling” if you’re not going to do it right? Wouldn’t it actually be better if they just threw everything into the trash, because at least that way they wouldn’t be buggering it up for the rest of us that actually, you know, care?
I thought about these indolent bastards as I walked about the park (but just for a little while – I didn’t want to give them too much airtime, or the satisfaction of ruining my entire afternoon.)
But then I started to think about how if the people who already inhabit the earth don’t care, what kind of destruction will the planet oversee when we have an even greater population of (I’m afraid to even imagine) people who care even less?
And then I thought about how many species of birds will be around for my children? Or their children?
Will this amazing bird sanctuary be a moot point because we’ve annihilated everything that would be targeted to live and thrive within the reserve itself?
My heart grew heavier and heavier just thinking about it all.
But then M took my hand, and we say on a bench and ate some grapes, and I slowly started to feel better.
Heron.
This heaviness I felt was gradually offset by a new set of competing factors and thoughts – indeed it became harder and harder to imagine such a dark world, because everything and everyone I was encountering at the park was the complete antithesis of that humanity and ecological peril I was fearing.
There were so many families out together – parents, children, grandparents, babies – teaching, watching, talking, learning about the different plant life, the insects, and course all the birds – calling out to the chickadees, and marveling at the swooping, circling falcons, feeding the ducks, and laughing at the geese.
There were exchange students with guide books, young couples on early spring dates, long-time husband and wife duos, and bird watching aces with camera lenses the width of my living room.
A married duck duo.
There were so many people, out enjoying the sun, basking in the beauty of the day, the park, the birds – the earth.
That it gave me hope.
And continues to give me hope.
It gives me hope that the Reifel sanctuary will be here for years to come.
Dance!
And that out there people actually know how to properly dispose of toasters.
If you have a chance, please take a moment and visit their spots – there is some mighty cool stuff a-brewing around there parts. Ch-ch-check it!
So after I blushed a brilliant red and sputtered about like a tea pot filled past its brim, I got to thinking about what are some of the strange and wonderful things I could share about myself (that I haven’t already bared outright through Rant and Roll.)
In order to make sure I don’t have people running for the hills, I’ll space out the reveals over the course of a few posts.
Ms. PageMarker was kind enough to pass on the Kreative Blogger Award nom. Acceptance requires me to tell you seven tantalizing and tyrannical facts about me. Or was it exciting? I have a hard time keeping those straight.
Let’s jump right in:
1.) I can’t whistle. I had pretty insane jaw surgery when I was fifteen to fix my bite and I’ve never been able to pretend to be a bird or let hot dudes know that I think they’re smoking since.
Bird. Birdin.
2.) At night, I walk into doors and walls. This happens far too often for my own good. In my mind I’m incredibly stealthy because I think that I know the lay of the land inside and out, until of course I rip open the bridge of my nose on the thermostat. Then I’m just incredibly, irrationally angry.
3.) Two of my favourite authors are Henning Mankell and Haruki Murakami. They, in my humble opinion, are master storytellers.
A good long read. Wind up bird chronicle is still my fave though.
4.) My top five places to visit in the world are (in no particular order): Sweden, Japan, Vietnam, Costa Rica, and Iceland.
5.) If I ever get the chance to go to Baskin Robbins, (which sadly are highly endangered species in the Great White North) I’ll taste a new flavour, but I’ll always, always, order mint chocolate chip. In a sugar cone.
6.) I met Mr. M when I was eighteen, got engaged at twenty-two, married at twenty-three. If you had told me when I was sixteen that this would be the course of events, I probably would have told you to stop smoking the hard stuff. But now I wouldn’t change anything for double the world, or more.
A moment that lives in my heart.
7.) I get creeped out by some pretty weird stuff: soup skin, cloves stuck into an orange at christmas, really graphic medical drawings of lungs in science textbooks, bamboo shoots cut too close to the ground, the thought of eating a blackboard eraser, the sound of paper towel coming out of an old dispenser – THESE ALL GIVE ME THE HEEBIE JEEBIES.
Urg. I’ve crippled myself just typing that out.
Anywho, as those classic Warner Bros cartoons were wont to tell us:
I hereby nominate the following radsters for this award. I am very intrigued and excited to see what they may share with us all.
Love: It’s cheap as hell. For twenty-three bucks a month I feel as though my range to complain is quite, shall we say, limited.
Hate: Because it’s cheap as hell it’s a bit of a crap box. There is zero air circulation and the exposed pipes drip like dripping things (to the point where you start to think that you’re sweating more than you actually are.) I already sweat like a glass blower’s arse and because there is zero air flow, whenever I lift weights in front of the mirror I bloody-well fog up the part of glass in front of which I’m standing.
That this makes me feel sexy as all get out is an understatement.
And is also a lie.
Love: On days where I feel like the athlete of the century it has everything I need, especially if the weather happens to be total crap (like, say, how it has been for the past seven months.) I can run, bike, lift weights, use stability balls, etc. all under one (incredibly) leaky roof.
Hate: On days where I feel like anything but the athlete of the century, my gym taunts me like a school yard foe. I have to walk by it on my way home from transit, so if I ever decide that it’s not in my best interest to workout (despite having schlepped all my gear with me to work that day) I can feel its mocking stare as I scuttle by its front doors without actually going inside.
Love: The sense of accomplishment, fatigue (but the good kind), strength, and general bad-assery I get after finishing a workout. There are not too many things that feel quite as good as a monster training session, and the gym is obviously a well equipped place to provide this feeling.
Hate: The utter dejection, fatigue (the bad kind – the kind you get after a brain melting day at work), and overwhelming urge to go home, put on your pajamas and EAT ALL THE NUTELLA you feel before you start your workout. At said gym.
Love: Days where I have the whole place to myself and no one talks to me, drops their weights, or grunts/shrieks like an obnoxious fool.
Hate: The exact opposite of everything I just said. And no Mr. Pathological Liar – I don’t give a flying flashdance about your double PhD and MMA supremacy!
So there you have it. It’s a complex relationship, but one that I am in for the long haul.
Or at least until I move to a city where the climate hangs around 22 degrees (Celsius) all year round.
I’m a twenty-seven year old gal who’s had more teenagers (or those freshly out of their teens) ask her out in the past six years years than, well, the entire time I spent as a teenager.
Now, in the sake of full disclosure, I was a pretty unfortunate looking person for a good chunk of my adolescent years – but even after I got hot as hell, I was still the one making the first move at the beginning of my relationships.
(This, I’m sure, is because people were so amazed by my overall transformation, that they were unsure as to whether or not I was the same person they used to know.)
I kid.
Kind of.
For serious, had I not had ovaries the size of basketballs, I would still be languishing in a sea of unrequited crushes, being tossed about by white-capped waves of sexual frustration.
I was a champ at asking people out (the two times I did it.)
Now, since I wrote earlier this week about how a twenty year old boy asked me out on skytrain last Saturday night, I’ve had quite a few friends ask me what exactly it is that I am doing to have this be a semi-regular occurrence in my life.
I didn’t have a coherent, non-self-deprecating answer at the ready, so over the past few days I’ve given this query some thought, and think I may come up with a probable (but perhaps totally erroneous) hypothesis.
However, in the spirit of science, I’m forging ahead.
Ladies and gentleman, (but really ladies, because, well, I am one of you) may I present:
Top tips to get you asked out by teenagers*.
*or those in their early twenties.
1.) Ride public transit. Ride public transit all the live long day. Not once or twice a week – we’re talking multiple times a day here (and weekends too). Teenagers, for the most part, don’t have a ton of money, so if they need to go anywhere, they take the bus, or the skytrain, or subway, or streetcar, or what have you.
Duh, duh, duh, another rides the bus...
I ride transit all the damn time, so it’s inevitable that I’ll find myself sitting next to someone whom I could have babysat ten years ago, had I not instead chosen the high school career of Safeway cashier. And because of this inevitability, it is in fact unavoidable that at some point one of them will strike up a conversation with me, and before I know it – BAM!
They want to take you me out to coffee (at bloody 7:45 in the morning.)
2.) Wear quite a bit of colourful clothing. I notice more and more just how varied in hue and tone my wardrobe is compared to most of the other people who work down town. When I exit the train every morning, and the station is flooded by a stream of black, grey and brown, I am the bright red life boat, carried along by the push and pull of the tide.
1 coat, 2 coat, red coat...
I don’t necessary think that it’s my clothing per say that’s getting me asked out, but since I’m not afraid to experiment with, and wear a ton of colour – in addition to taking different risks with my outfits (wearing traditional mens clothing, and mixing formal with casual pieces) – my style seems to attract a younger demographic.
Teenagers in general like to make comment on my choice in clothing and, or colour palette.
Animal print and stripes.
Then they want to take me out to coffee to talk more about my fashion sense.
3.) Read science fiction and/or fantasy books. My only caveat being – please, please for the love of pete, read good science fiction and/ or fantasy. None of this Sword of Truth/Sword of Shannara bullshazzle.
That will get you disqualified right out of the gate.
(However you’ll gain ten points if you read your sci-fi books on the bus.)
But to get back on topic: teenagers always want to talk me up about the books that I’m reading, but particularly if they are of these two genres. They want to talk to me about A Song of Ice and Fire (even back before it got all HBO-ed and coolified); they want to talk to me about Terry Pratchett; they want to talk to me about Richard Matheson. (Okay, so that last one’s more horror that anything else, but we’ll have to let that slide.)
Even Mr. Penguin wants to talk about Game of Thrones.
They want to talk to me about books and then take me out to coffee to talk about books some more.
4.) Laugh to yourself. Whether you’re walking down the street, riding transit (seriously, RIDE IT!), sitting in a coffee shop, or waiting in line at the grocery store, be so completely lost in your own thoughts that you bust up your own gut like a busting thing.
I love to laugh. ALL THE TIME.
Older people will think your completely bonkers (and rightfully so) but teenagers want to know what’s so funny.
And they’ll want to take you out for coffee.
5.) Quote the crap out of movies and TV shows. I was on transit once (did I mention that you should probably ride transit?), talking on my mobile, TO MY HUSBAND when I said, “that’s, just like, uh, your opinion…man” and the fella sitting to my right, spoke up literally, the second that I hung up, wanting to talk more about the Big Lebowski (aka re-enact the whole movie for the remainder of our ride.)
And then he wanted to go to a coffee shop, to re-enact our re-enactment – just in case we missed a part!
Yowzers.
He was pretty surprised when I declined, citing the fact that I was, you know, a married woman.
Which brings me to my last point:
6.) Wear a wedding ring. First, teenagers don’t look for wedding rings, so they are basically a moot point. Second, the longer I remain married, the more teenagers ask me out. And third, most of the teenagers who’ve asked me out haven’t cared when I told them that I am forever removed from the dating scene.
Ring around the rosie...
They all want to convince me of the reasons why I should no longer be married.
Over coffee, of course.
So there you have it ladies – six, very simple tips on how to increase the number of your youthful suitors.
But, let me finish off by saying this. Don’t wait around for someone else to make the first move. If you like somebody, go-go-gopher it.
It’s always better to know, and heck, if they like you back? Well, there’s no better feeling in the world.
Rant and Roll 