Life – Page 21 – Rant and Roll

Oh the horror!

Hello you fab chaps!

Did any of you get up to anything for Halloween this weekend?

Now, I know that All Hallows Eve isn’t actually happening until this Thursday, but common practice dictates that if this spooky night falls on any day other than Friday or Saturday, you celebrate on the Saturday before.

So in this vein, Marc and I, along with our terrific friends, got together on the 26^th, donned our best fancy dress, and traipsed around New Westminster all night long.

It was a hilarious time and I finally, FINALLY, wore a different costume other than the one I’ve been sporting for the past eight years.

I tell ya, I really have got the market on 1920’s golfer cornered.

Cornered but good.

Marc, on the other hand, is an absolute costume maverick and has been putting together awesome showings since the first Halloween we spent together.

This year, he decided that he would dress as Chtulhu (that terrifying Lovelockian beast) and he sewed the majority of his costume from a child’s centipede costume.

WHAT A BOSS.

Check it out:

Now, I thought long and hard about what I would do for my costume.

A tiny little part of me always thinks that I should take advantage of (in the immortal words of Tina Fey) “a girl’s one night a year when she’s allowed to dress as slutty as she wants and no one can say anything about it.”

But this is never, ever going to happen, so I instead, I gravitate away from sexy and towards TERRIFYING.

Which is why I decided to dress like this:

And then proceeded to do this:

ACK.

Even just looking at these photos gives me the willies.

Have you all watched The Ring?

This movie scared me so badly that I had to sleep with my mum the night that I watched it in the theatre.

And I was seventeen years old!

For the entirety of Saturday night I couldn’t even look at myself in the bathroom mirror, for fear of my own reflection.

Also, I’ve learned that nothing beats running about in a dirty, ripped nighty on one of the coldest nights of the year.

Aaaannnddd…I’m not even sure if that is sarcasm or not.

But seriously, I had to wrap myself in a wool blanket each time we ventured outside.

Thank goodness I didn’t decide to go for full authenticity and forgo shoes for the evening.

THANK GOODNESS.

But Marc and I weren’t the only ones who put some sweet effort into our costumes – the rest of our group looked epically fantastic.

We had our Top Gear hunks:

And Sean and Ed from Sean of the Dead:

We spent the evening bar hoping around town, drinking sangria, and marvelling at all the other costumed fools and ghouls skulking about the night.

Highlights included a group rendition of The Monster Mash, a lindy-hop jam session between myself and Sean at the Heritage Grill, a late-night showing of Slither, and all the mini-chocolate bars you could possibly imagine.

This morning we all reconvened and enjoyed a late-afternoon lunch down at the Quay, marvelling at the amazing late-October sunshine in all of its glory.

We truly are incredibly lucky to live in such an amazing beautiful place.

And having the chance to run about together in costume isn’t anything to sniff about either.

(Although if you’re doing it in a nighty, I’d definitely recommend brining some tissues.)

Waking up to a sleepy sun

This morning I caught the sun before it went back to bed.

I often have the privilege of witnessing the early dawn sky.

Unfortunately, the reason that I am this lucky is because I struggle with anxiety, and the majority of the time it manifests itself in early morning heat attacks.

Seriously, it’s like my whole body is engulfed in flames.

Often times it’s very difficult to fall back asleep, so I instead just get up, and get a really early start to things.

So this morning, instead of subjecting Marc to my sauna-inspired tossing and turning, I slipped out of bed and tiptoed downstairs.

I sat quietly on the sofa, with a cup of coffee in one hand, and watched as the sun got up, stretched, and then lay back down to sleep, in (what I can only presume to be) its bed of rest, located just behind the Fraser River.

As someone who finds this sort of thing practically impossible (falling back asleep after getting up), I was more than a little jealous. If I only I could learn its secrets!

So knowing full well that there was no way I could possibly go back to bed (even if my life depended on it!), I decided instead to lace up my runners and go out for a fast 4.5km run.

I managed to complete my route in eighteen minutes, which is a good time for the number of hills that populate the course, and it made me think that maybe (just maybe!) I will be able to run a sub-40 10km at the Fall Classic on November 19^th.

The weather was just perfect – the air was cool, but not so much to make the insides of my ears burn, or make my lungs ache. A slight breeze to bring bounce to my ponytail and pink to my cheeks; fallen leaves crunchy underfoot, while the balding trees overhead presented a delirious kaleidoscope of greens, yellows, and browns.

I could smell the magic aroma of coffee and other miscellaneous breakfast delights, drifting from the different houses that mark my path to the park and back.

Sprinting the last four hundred, a lone tear slid from the corner of my left eye.

It’s funny.

I can’t for the life of me remember what I thought about while I ran.

I’m certain there must have been a few musings about Halloween, and the party Marc and I are attending tonight.

The lovely dinner we had with friends last night.

Michael Chabon’s latest novel, currently taking up real estate on my bedside table.

My stride length, and whether or not I was landing on the balls of my feet.

A series of short vignettes, starring a sleepy sunrise.

I remember when I was a little girl, I would always try and wake up as early as possible on the weekends, because Saturday and Sunday mornings were the only times my sisters and I were allowed to watch TV.

The earlier we woke, the more episodes of Inspector Gadget, or Rescue Rangers, or Duck Tales, we could watch.

I don’t know when exactly I stopped racing out of bed, and started sleeping in, but I feel as though I have now come full circle.

I am back to being that girl, that pre-sunrise child.

I just need to make sure this is due to my love of cartoons and not the heat of a worry that’s setting my alarm.

We like to camp it up

This Friday I went and watched Marc’s last soccer game of the season (he coaches the senior boys at his school) and for an hour and half I had the chance to enjoy the late October sunshine and cheer on the team.

Standing there, basking in that golden glow, all I wanted to do was pack a bag, grab our tent, and head off into the woods somewhere for a weekend of autumnal camping.

CAMPING. My love!

But boy did I ever used to loathe this pastime.

It’s true – I was definitely a late-bloomer when it came to my love of tent life. For many moons I openly rejected the idea of sleeping in a bag, eating with sporks, and wearing long-johns as pants.

I was firmly averse to forest-bound adventures.

And now?

NOW I ROCK A LONG-JOHN LIKE NO OTHER.

Camping as a kid just always seemed to conjure up images of frigid downpours, mouldy tents, leaky tarpaulins, awful food, soggy socks, and over-cramped quarters.

It was the worst.

Factor in that I was a bit of a prima donna, and you can imagine just how awful it was to have me hanging around whatever campsite my dad and sisters happened to be visiting.

As soon as I ate what little junk food we had managed to persuade my dad to purchase for us, I would settle into a deep, dark sulk that would last right up until the moment we pulled up stakes and headed back towards civilization.

I remember one trip with my dad and my little sister. One morning we woke up and I demanded that we go to White Spot for breakfast. I was adamant in my claim that I would not eat one more dry bunch of shredded wheat (you know the ones – they look like mini bales of hay) for my morning meal.

My dad, who remains until this day a truly passionate anti-White Spot kind of guy, tried his best at negotiation, and offered up this doozy:

“How about we go to a bed and breakfast, and see if we can pay for just the breakfast?”

I sat there, mortified.

JUST THE BREAKFAST!?

What kind of person would even think of such a thing?

I told him flat out that I would in no way partake in this ridiculous scam. If he even attempted such a charade I would hide in the backseat of the car.

Of course he called me on my bluff (either that or he just didn’t have any energy to deal with my drama queen behaviour).

So there I sat, trying my hardest to remain unseen as I peeked out of the car’s back window, watching as he and my little sister (whose sweater was so dirty that she was now wearing it inside out) rang the bell of the first bed and breakfast we had come across.

Seriously, they looked like they had just jumped off of a passing train car. All they were missing was the bandana tied to the end of a broom stick.

Hey buddy – can ya spare a dime?

Needless to say, they didn’t get the breakfast.

And we ended up eating at White Spot.

VICTORY!

After that, I really didn’t camp again for a long, long time. Not until I started dating Marc and he made it very clear that he loved spending time (sleeping time especially) in the great outdoors, and he very much wished to share this love with me.

I thought it was high-time to give ye olde tent extravaganza another try (it had been a good twelve years or so since my last camping trip), and I agreed to head to Harrison Hot Springs for a weekend.

The plan was to participate in a slow-food bike tour around Agassiz that morning, and the camp that evening.

It was going to be all fires, and hot chocolate, and sleeping bag snuggles.

Instead, we bicycled through a monsoon, Marc forgot the sleeping bags, and our air mattress leaked.

We spent the entire night shivering under our car’s emergency blanket, taking turns pumping up the mattress, and listening to the thunder storm wreak havoc on our surrounding environs.

But you know the craziest thing?

I actually loved it.

And to this day, we laugh just thinking about that weekend.

Since them, we’ve camped a number of times, all around BC and Oregon, and each trip has been absolutely fabulous.

I’m also happy to say that I no longer eat at White Spot.

And I’d probably still only eat the breakfast, if prefaced by “Bed and.”

Because you know what they say – some things will never change.

A tale to give you the jitters

Three days in a row last week I woke up at 4:30am.

This is never fun.

You see, I arrived back home from Halifax on Tuesday night, and after cramming my face full of delicious artisan cheese bread, lemon squares, pink lady apples, and coconut water, I fell into a sleep coma around 9:00pm.

Canada is known for many great things – healthcare, maple syrup, Rick Moranis – but ease of cross-country travel is definitely not one.

5000 km in a day will really leave you knackered.

It’s enough to make one dream of moving to Lichtenstein.

Anyway, back to that first night, despite heavy night sweats brought on by the whack-load of food I ate before bed (which normally tucker me out like crazy and bring on the second (sleep) wind like nothing else), I couldn’t get my snooze back on.

So as the clock quietly blinked four, I slipped out of bed, put on my sweat pants and a thick wool sweater, grabbed my water cup and tiptoed out of bed.

The kitten, unused to such early-morning activity, poked her little head out from behind her chair of rest and looked at my quizzically, as if to ask, “What’s up mum?”

I sat down in the darkened living room and watched a couple of episodes of 30Rock, sipping on a piping hot cup of coffee, as the kitten purred in my lap.

Then I did the exact same thing the next day.

And the next.

Jetlag is never fun, and after three days of interrupted sleep and early mornings, I crashed hard on Friday and slept straight for eleven hours.

Eleven hours!

And after a solid eight and a half last night, I finally feel as though I am back on an even keel, sleep-wise.

YAY!

Now, as mentioned in my previous post, there are a few things in my life I very much love, that maybe previously I definitely…didn’t love.

So, on the subject of jetlag, early mornings, and terrible sleeps, let us move onto thing #2 that I used to hate, but now adore – COFFEE.

I remember so perfectly the first time I ever tried a cup of joe.

I was eleven and it was at the TD Bank on 10^th and Alma in Vancouver. (That branch eventually moved to 10^th and Sasamat a couple of years later.)

I was there to open my first bank account because I had won $50 dollars for taking home the aggregate title in a highland dancing competition the week before.

Talk about a lucrative day of hoping about in a kilt, over swords and other Scottish battle detritus. Especially for the 12 and under set!

I was super stoked to be taking part in something so unbelievably grown-up (bank accounts were such a huge deal! I mean, you got debit card and everything!), that I figured what better way to celebrate my new found adulthood than by drinking my first cup of java?

So with little fanfare (but with many, many little butterflies flitting about in my stomach) I picked up one of those small, white Styrofoam cups and filled it full of steaming coffee. Then I dropped in a few sugar cubes, and added enough Coffeemate to make the colour of the liquid change to a milky, chocolate brown.

I thought it would taste like magic.

NOT LIKE THE BITTER ACID OF DEATH.

All I could think of is, “WHY WOULD ANYONE EVER DRINK THIS POISON?”

Seriously, this experience was enough to turn me off coffee for the next fourteen years.

Talk about trauma.

In high school, or university if I was ever with friends and they grabbed cappuccinos, I would drink hot chocolate or chai lattes.

Seattle trip! 028 — Definitely hot chocolate!

All throughout grad school I drank nothing but tea (heaps, and heaps of tea) to stay awake during my mad hours of studying, researching, and writing.

I even worked at two different coffee shops making AMAZING espresso drinks for two years, and yet never once managed to sample my wares.

(Well, that’s not entirely true – on my last day of work at Petit Ami Coffee, I tried a tiny sip of a mocha and then basically passed out from an overwhelming mouth sadness.)

It wasn’t until my first “office job” post grad-school that I started my long march down the dark, beautiful, and addictive bean juice path.

On my first day of work I was SUPER early and very nervous, so I figured I would stop at the Second Cup at the bottom of my office building and get something to drink.

I was just about to order a hot chocolate when my eye caught sight of a “vanilla bean latte” and I thought, “eh? Why not? Vanilla bean sounds like it might be alright.”

So I threw my inhibitions to the wind, ordered it up, and took a sip.

And you know what?

I still didn’t like it all that much.

But for some reason, I went back the next day and ordered the same thing.

And then the next.

I just kept doing it.

I know. WHAT A WEIRDO, right?

But, slowly and surely I started to like the stuff.

I started to look forward to my morning vanilla bean.

Nearly every day, for almost two and a half years, I bought that drink and on the weekends I made surgery, sweet café-au-laits.

And while I don’t work that job anymore, I still enjoy waking up every day knowing that before I start anything (big or small) I will get to warm myself over a milky, sweet cup of coffee.

Especially on mornings when I’m up at 4am.

And I have a kitten in my lap.

A change is gonna come

Isn’t it funny how we, as human beings, change?

Sometimes transformation happens quickly, and other times it is both painstakingly slow, and, well, just plain painstaking.

Sometimes changes happens and we aren’t even aware that it is happening.

Sometimes it happens because a judge has ordered it so (although hopefully not that often!) or because outside factors (non-court sanctioned of course) have come to dictate that the current path we happen to be travelling is no longer viable.

(Picture a giant Gandalf impersonater shouting, “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!” – or whichever knock-off literary reference you think most fitting.)

In the end, the result is the same: we as human beings change.

We grow.

We adapt.

We react.

I was thinking the other day about just how different my life is from this same time last year.

Sure, at the root of it all, many of the larger pieces that make me “me” are still the same: I am still with the love of my life, living in the same house, with the same mad cat.

But I have a different job, different friends (although I am lucky that many of the same old friends are still bopping about!); I am running more, and running faster.

I started comedy, and am having a harder time sticking to a regular blogging schedule despite the fact that I am trying to do more writing.

I play soccer.

Seriously.

I play soccer.

Now, for those of you who don’t know me – well, this is quite the departure from where I used to stand in terms of this sport.

I used to think it was pretty much the worst.

And now I absolutely love it.

IMG_20130901_160708 — I like to watch it too!

Please let me explain.

But before I do, I will present to you the formal title of a three-part rant:

Things I used to hate, but now I love: How I came around to soccer, coffee, and camping

Part 1 – Soccer.

Or “football” in the parlance of all you readers residing outside of North America.

(Funny side-note: I also used to hate watching our version of football until a few years ago, and now very much enjoy it.)

Sporting evolution! It happens!

Anywho, back to soccer.

Like 99.9% of West Coast kids, I played this sport as a youngster. This meant weekends spent driving around in the fall and winter rain, running up and down soggy pitches, and trying my darndest to keep away from any and all actual ball-related action.

I was terrified of the ever-clashing elbows and ankles and shins and knees, and preferred to steer clear of both my fellow teammates and adversaries alike.

However, I did really love running, so most of my time was spent sprinting from one end of the field to the other as far away from the scrum as I could non-conspicuously manage.

I distinctly remember overhearing one of my coaches remark to a parent, “Vanessa is fast – but doesn’t seem to do much else besides run.”

Too true sir.

So – not as inconspicuous as I had hoped.

After a couple of years of this charade, and hours spent toodling around on different rec teams, I threw in the proverbial soccer towel and concentrated on the sports I actually cared about – running, badminton, and volleyball.

Fast forward to 2003, when I met the man that I would eventually marry – a lovely fellow who absolutely loved soccer, having played it at a very high level all throughout high school and who still owns two pairs of cleats (best be prepared I am always told) to this day.

During our formal courtship, he inquired if I would ever had any interest in playing soccer with him.

I promptly responded no.

But my reasoning behind my decline was no longer my fear of getting of getting hurt, or receiving a rogue elbow to a lip.

It was everything to do with the fact that, at that point in my life, I couldn’t partake in non-regulated exercise. My eating disorder dictated everything in my life (including any and all physical activity) to such a degree, that anything outside of my normal “controlled” environment was enough to bring on a panic attack.

The few times that I did try and play, everything felt awkward and wrong.

It was almost as though I could feel my body rebelling the moment I walked onto the pitch.

My skin crawled, and my stomach cramped.

In the end I told Marc that I didn’t like playing, that I thought the sport was boring.

It didn’t help, I elaborated, that I wasn’t any good at it. If I couldn’t win at the game, I said, what was the point in playing?

I passed on years of Friday night soccer matches. I watched Marc would go off and play with friends, while I stayed at home.

After my health improved I still stayed away from the pitch, afraid that the ghosts of times past would come to haunt me, the second my foot made contact with the field, the ball.

That was until, at the end of this summer, when a friend (a new friend, but a fab friend) invited me to his birthday party, the first half of which was a pick-up game of soccer.

Amazingly enough, I knew that this situation was a no-brainer. I didn’t just want to go out and play that Friday night, I needed to.

And you know what?

Despite the fact that I was the only on there without soccer cleats AND was clocked in the eye with another good friend’s shoulder, I had an absolutely fabulous time.

Instead of feeling clammy and self-conscious, I felt exhilarated and at-ease.

I actually ran towards the ball.

And I have played at least one a week since.

Marc and I like to head to the many parks in our neighbourhood and practice passing, dribbling, and penalty kicks.

IMG_20130928_191607 — Blurry, but getting ready to kick some balls!

I have a sweet pair of cleats that make me feel like a superstar.

And heck, when I feel like it, for old time sake – I’ll go out and wind myself, sprinting the length of the field.

Again and again.

Because goodness knows, that never gets old.