shiz.ca

You Sir, ...

... are a professional. Or are supposed to be a professional. Having your dress shirt unbuttoned halfway down your skinny-ass chest is NOT PROFESSIONAL.

Also, it is gross. It might be forgiveable if you were a sexy hunk, but I've seen strands of spaghetti sexier and hunkier than you.

That is all.

Moon Child

Gather 'round darlings, for it is story time. True story time.

This morning when i went for a run (ie - "jogging" slower than most people walk), I saw the moon, big and full and placed "just-so" in the sky abve the Burrard Street Bridge. And I remembered a story. All the names have been changed.

My best friend all through high school was Kelly Reid. We did everything together. Near the end of our grade 11 year (aside, in Canada we tend to say "Grade eleven" whereas Americans tend to say "Eleventh grade." Subtle differences), Kelly's family (she had two younger brothers) decided that they would like to adopt a little girl. From Russia.

They had had a few friends do this already. They knew it could be tough and there might be red tape and that it might be long and/or difficult, and they knew that no two foreign adoptions out of Russia were the same. But they had two plusses in their favour: Friends who had already adopted out of a St. Petersberg orphanage had taken photographs of many of the children there, and although they weren't certain, they had a slight "feeling" about one girl, 5-year old Hannah. The other plus was that other friends and former neighbors, the Crawford family, were living in St. Petersberg, having moved there as Christian missionaries. The Crawford family hosted them during their stay and also acted on their behalf through a power-of-attorney form when the Reids had to go home (the entire process did end up taking about a year).

The Canadian requirements for foreign adoption were met in a couple of weeks. So Mr. & Mrs. Reid went to St. Petersberg, and unlike some of their friends, were told upon arrival that they would not be allowed to visit any orphanages before choosing a child's name to adopt from a list. A list! Typed, no pictures. They picked the girl they had had an interest in, Hannah, having never met her, though friends had given a good report from what they had seen.

Later they met Hannah and all of the children in the orphanage. They were told not to hang out with any children in particular; it was important not to get any of their hopes up, especially so soon in the process. The Reids came and visited with all of the children. When they left, Hannah went to a worker and asked, "Is that going to be my new mummy & daddy?"

Mr. Reid stayed a month, and Mrs. Reid stayed a few months longer, but soon she had to go. Before she left she told Hannah that they were trying to adopt her, that they had three other children who wanted to love her, and asked if Hannah would like to come and live with them. Hannah was upset at first to hear about the other children, so she sulked. The following day, just before Mrs. Reid had to catch her flight, she stopped again to see Hannah. Mrs. Reid gave her a gold necklace and started to cry. Hannah had still been sulking. She said, "I love you," weeping. Hannah took her would-be mother's face in her little five-year-old hands, lifted it, and in perfect English said, "I love you."

It took quite a while, the entire decision ended up depending on a lawyer who was away on vacation. Finally the deal was sealed. Mrs. Reid and their youngest son went to pick Hannah up and bring her home.

In the weeks that followed, Kelly had time to take Hannah out to the beach for some new-sister bonding time. When they got there the moon was bright and big and full in the sky. Hannah, now six, looked at the moon, pointed, spoke & stared. Then it dawned on Kelly:

Hannah had never seen the moon.

She was six years old and had never seen the moon. She didn't know what it was. Kelly had the unique opportunity to show her new sister the moon and teach her the word for it. She was astonished.

One or two nights later, the Reid family went together to the park. Again the moon was in the sky. Hannah wrinkled her face quizzically and said, "Moon?" Pause. "Moon?" She had thought that, because she had only ever seen the moon at the beach, the moon was a fixture of the beach. They had to explain to her that yes, that was the moon, too.

Hannah is now in her teens. She must be 17 by now. I barely know her because I moved away after high school, which is when they brought her home. She is definately a happy part of the family, was a flower girl in Kelly's wedding, and I'm certain that none of the Reids could ever imagine what life would have been like without her.

I've always been keen to the idea of foreign adoption. I've always wanted to do it. And some children are really rescued, more so than we could ever think. Friends of the Reids adopted a child that, because she was born prematurely -- and only for that reason -- was labelled "mentally retarded." When they brought her home some of the top specialists in Canada confirmed that to label that child as retarded was, in essence, utter bullshit. She was in perfect health. In Russia, she would have grown up to be a beggar.

So who knows if I'll be one of the ones to have a foreign-born child. Who knows what good things are in store for us all? We shall wait and see, and be content with the way the seasons unfold.

I HAVE to Brag ...

My blog-friend Zoot IS THE COOLEST MOM IN THE WHOLE WORLD. I mean, just read that last paragraph. What little boy ever gets a mom as cool as that?

Zoot, I want to be like you when I am a mom. You must give me coolness lessons. Or bottle the cool and sell me some.

The Baby's Back Good/Bad List

The great news is that David came back from camp. The good news is that he came back alive. The not-great news is that he came home sick. AGAIN. Alwaaaays with the sick. Camps make him sick. For some reason being around 100 to 400 snotty-nosed eight to twelve year olds doesn't bode well with his immune system. He washes his hands, but I bet even a bleach bath every two hours would not prevent the onslaught of kid germs ever-so-eager to eat him alive.

Camp always makes David sick. So does Saskatoon. Sorry Saskatoon, you've been outed. You can't expect me to keep quiet when you made my finacé SICK AS A DOG a scant two days from our wedding. And the only people good to him while he travelled home deathly ill were the nice people at WestJet. No one, not even the people who passed by him lying on the floor of the John G. Diefenbaker Airport men's room when he was obviously not well at all offered to help or asked him if he was all right, and I take particular exception to that because, as a diabetic, David's condition might have gotten VERY serious. Shame on all of you.

Anyhow, where was I? Yes. Sick. David gets sick when he travels, and if he's going to a camp or to Saskatoon it's pretty much a sure thing.

Now, all of us hate for our loved ones to be ill, and to be ill when they travel. For instance, a year ago when the big New York City blackout occurred, David was in Gander. Where is Gander? Why it's way the heck in the middle of nowhere, that nowhere being on the Eastern side of the blackout and -- you guessed it -- thusly affected by it. It took David a couple of days to get home, and he was SICK. He got the last hotel room in all of Gander, and he was SICK. He was so late to his next gig (a camp, at which he would also get sick), that it ended up having to be cancelled which is just as well because he was SICK. I of course felt awful for him, and he was stuck in freaking Gander and there was nothing I could do about it.

Air Canada was nice enough to give all its travellers double aeroplan points for that weekend, though. But that is not the point. The point is that it sucked. That is was camp, so David was sick, and here we are again, doing the recovery-from-camp thing AGAIN, when it seems like we just nursed him through something. Dang the resilience of kid and Saskatoon germs!

I had decided after a recent sick-trip to make a sick kit for him when he travels, and now more than ever I am determined to put it together before he travels again. Here is what I'm thinking of as far as the contents:

Decongestant
Advil
Tylenol
Earplugs
Sleeping pills
Ginger (natural) Gravol
Cough Syrup
Sugar-Free Lozenges
Antihistamine
Red Wine
Echinacea
Vitamin C
Multi-Vitamins
Antibiotic Ointment
Band-Aids
Tums
Kleenex
Card that reads "UPGRADE TO 1ST CLASS WHENEVER POSSIBLE"

What am I missing, lads and lasses?

Dear Friend,

I know that I never call you anymore. I never visit or send you an e-mail. But I've thought of a fantastic way to tell you that I care.

I send you e-mail forwards.

I know I send you a lot of e-mail forwards, and never contact you in any other way, ever. To some that may look inconsiderate, but that is simply untrue. It means that I do care, and care very much. When I send you an e-mail forward, it means that I am thinking about you. For that second when I wanted you to hear about the one-armed baby who everyone thought wouldn't amount to anything and who grew up to be a rocket scientist, I was thinking of you. In that moment when the prayers for the angels to guide us along all the days of our lives came through your inbox, it was because I was thinking oh-so-fondly about you. When I passed along the opportunity to get rich via Bill Gates' generosity, it was because I was THINKING ABOUT YOU.

Sure, I was thinking about ttcrazycat96@yahoo.com, nonukes1001@greenpeace.org, and sillygirl99@hotmail.com in addition to you, but that does not mean that I was not thinking about you and sending on the love I have in my heart to you when I passed along the warning that you should always carry pepper spray and look out for weird men in dark corners, especially at night. I send these things because I care.

Some people may argue that I really send you incessant e-mail forwards because I feel guilty for never writing you or contacting you in any other way, that I do it to appease my conscience over having lost touch with you completely. I mean, I have not bothered to write you so much as a sentence, not even something along the lines of "I'm thinking about you" for a good four years at least, and maybe some people, insecure people, perhaps, might feel an overwhelming sense of guilt about that, but not me. I know that our relationship is secure, because every time you open one of those forwards it tugs on your heartstrings just to know that at 17:47:32 EST, just before I clicked the "send" button, I scrolled down a list of names of people I have completely lost touch with, selected your name, and added you to the e-mail recipients for the world's best chicken pot-pie recipe, ever. If that doesn't warm your heart, I'm not sure what possibly could.

I am so glad that you appreciate reading my forwards. You like hearing about the girl who felt the arms of Jesus around her when she was sick, and you like to hear about the drive-by victim who said he was allergic to bullets. When I tell you that Krispy Kreme has a 20% off coupon at budgetcoupons.com, you are glad. You know that all these warm fuzzy feelings are from me. You know that I care. I care SO MUCH that I click once on your eddress, and again on the send button, which is at least 3 whole seconds out of my very busy schedule that I take to go out of my way, and why? For you. Because I care so damn much about you.

Now, if you care about someone, forward them this message so that they, too, will realize just how much it is that you care.

Lesson #3 from Mr. Shiz's Dad

Sometimes I do this, I share my sweet Daddy's wisdom to all of you on the internet.

Today's lesson is: be prepared.

My Daddy called me yesterday ALL EXCITED. Twice, leaving messages both times. I called him twice, too, and got him on the second try. It was a serious game of phone tag. The emergency? He wants to know if I might be willing and available to help him with a bookseller's conference for his hobby business. I'd drive him and the stock to the conference, and work for a few days for him, for what he feels is a nice fee. And it is a nice fee considering that I'd only have to take one vacation day, not to mention that he's my dad and I'd probably have done it for nothing. Or well, gas and food money, something like that. When is this conference? Mid-to-late July, 2005.

The conference is NEXT JULY.

He's thinking ahead, that man. Thinking ahead.

I told him that it might just work out, but that I'd have to tell him closer to the time of the event itself. If not, I'm sure he could find a hungry college student eager for a few bucks.

That, friends, is my dad. He did not at that time, however, read to me out of the telephone book.

Power to the People

Okay, I was going to post yesterday. But I didn't.

Here is some random factiodness from last night:

I blew a fuse last night. Literally, a fuse in our apartment. It has turned cool enough to want a wee bit of heat at night, and our boiler is experiencing repairs, i.e. it is not working, so I plugged in two different space heaters last night and cranked them up to New Delhi on the Hottest, Most Hell-Like Day of the Year. Actually they don't go that high. One goes up to Five Feet Away from the Toaster while the other, more powerful one goes up to Calgary on a Summer's Day. Cool, eh?

I plugged them each into outlets in separate rooms, but when you live in a 550 square foot apartment, "separate rooms" means what "You are standing on my toe" means in an actual house. So they were on the same fuse, and blew it.

We have a tech-box thingy under the Apple Power Mac G5 that says "Energizer" on it, and that box likes to beep when the power goes out. I did not know if this was important. To be safe, I hoped to plug it in on the other side of the apartment (Which again, in a real house would be the equivalent of "What the hell are you doing in my bed?"), and of course I had problems with that because the Energizer box wanted a grounded outlet and all of my extension cords are lame-ass two-prongers.

In the course of two hours, I:

• Ran up and down stairs twice, trying to find our landlord, who I couldn't remember if he lived in 302 or 402, knocking on both doors and not getting a response at either, even though there was music on at 402. I knocked on that door four times.

• Used my cell to call our landlord, leaving him a message, but calling at least another two times to see if he was home yet.

• Called my husband twice while he was probably talking about Jesus Christ to ten year olds at camp, leaving him two messages, in the first wanting advice, and in the second saying that I was a genius at plugging in stuff. He only got the second.

• Managed to string four power bars together and move furniture to create a straight path of the shortest route possible to a working outlet, thereby plugging in the blue Energizer box.

• Was able to plug in the cordless phone, which as anyone with a cordless knows, would not work without power.

• Discovered that the blue beepy Energizer box, which beeps incessantly much like the Energizer Bunny, by the way, was unimportant, and all I had to do was switch it off.

• Lit about fifteen candles.

• Ate a fudge pop.

• and finally, I was home when very cool landlord Vince came to replace the fuse. Everything was working again, even our network, although said network still did not want to connect to anything outside of our own home.

So as you can see, it was a nice night all around. My husband called later, confused, and I gave him a jumbled response that probably sounded like the text of this post run though a blender: "Fudge Energizer Christ phone Vince beep cord you off me fuse door home okay power furniture cool fine space heater bunny blue candles." I think I was a little wound up.

Sorry hon.

Finally I went to bed. I had been instant messaging and doing a major house clean when all this happened, so with the house clean mess in addition to moved furniture & power boxes everywhere the apartment does not look right. It looks a bit sickly. It will be easy to fix with time but is sickly nonetheless, and I left it that way as I went to bed, musing about all the trouble this whole ordeal turned out to be.

Soon I buy fuses. And I'll remember to use the two different circuits for high-powered items like the heaters. I slept without the heaters, and was cold. I didn't sleep well. Tonight I'll use at least one. Brrrrrrrr.

Itch Bitch

My eyelids are scabby. The eyelids that were itchy, and then puffy, red & painful, are now scabby with dry skin. And still itchy.

This happened another time recently, and not nearly as badly. I think I'm reacting to my mascara. I've used it for years, but I think that either my body has developed a new sensitivity to it or the formula has changed. I say I think it's my mascara because the itchiness begins by my lashes, but soon my whole eyelid is itchy, itchy, itchy. Needless to say, I haven't worn any eye makeup since the onset of this episode, yet I am still itchy. Less itchy, but itchy.

Have any of you been to New Zealand? Lately I've been itching to go (Ha, ha). Looking it up on the web, it is so tantalizing with it's beauty and tranquility. If I, along with the dashing Mr. Shiz, ever get the opportunity to visit New Zealand, where should we go? Man, it looks like it could be a lot of fun. And don't tell Mr. Shiz, but it looks like a place I could live -- not forever, but for a while. You are all sworn to secrecy.

That and England. I'd love to live there for a year or so, just because it would be fun, because I've never been off the continent, and because I think I'd have a fabulous time. Where's the money fairy when I really need it?

I have another demon mutant alien mosquito bite, again on my right elbow, which is now bathing in the camphor fumes of Band-Aid Brand's anti-itch gel. Yay for camphor! Yay for Band-Aid Brand.

I'm tired. Sleepy. I've been sleepy all week. I've been in bed for 8+ hours almost every night, yet still I am sleepy. It's only one more day until the weekend, when I can sleep in, or failing that (or perhaps in addition to it), one day until I can take an afternoon nap. I even took an after-work nap one day, and I still do not feel caught up.

I have a feeling that I know the answer to the sleepiness and that the answer is exercise. I'm most likely tired because I do not get enough exercise. It's cooler today -- 24C/75F -- so I may go for a jog after dinner.

Then I'll perhaps pop in the Malkovich/Sinise Of Mice & Men I've been meaning to watch for a long, long time.

Ten points to anyone who knows where my post title is from. Ten points! And I'm keeping track.

Things I LOVE about my husband:

He would never do this. That is, he would never put on a tutu with polka dotted tights and jump into an Olympic swimming pool DURING AN OLYMPIC EVENT, yelling "I love you!"

If he did, I'd most certainly shout back, "Get help!"

Gah. What an asso. How completely inappropriate. And a Canadian, too. Embarrassing.

Or ... oooh. It turns out he might have been selling something.

Weird.

Ah, a little more clarity from the CBC.

There are some things, tutu-man, that do NOT impress a woman.

Beware the Puffy

My eyes are itchy and puffy and hurty and red. I look like a college girl after her first frat-boy kegger. My eyes have been itchy lately and last night and this morning is particularly bad. I've wondered if it were topical (i.e. a reaction to makeup, etc.) or some sort of seasonal allergy. I don't know, but now I am puffy and red and puffy, puffy, puffy. Feels weird to open my eyes.

Wah.

Painters? In the mailroom? Is this the Twilight Zone?

There were just painters in my mailroom. Three of them, talking to the painting co-ordinating guy. PAINTERS!

Have I mentioned that I have been trying for TWO YEARS to have our God-awful mailroom painted? Have I? Have I mentioned the frustration? The nights spent weeping over it? The afternoons of tears? The times I was told, "Yes! We're going to paint your God-awful mailroom this year!" only to be followed months later by, "Sorry! There isn't enough money in the budget for that!"

Have I mentioned the gashes in the walls? The dirt? The large patches where old masking tape has peeled up seven layers of white paint? The eerie, institutional green glow on the dirty-white walls from the flourescent lighting? That nothing ever, ever, ever gets done around here without a committee and a few years' waiting?

They did tell me, the powers that be, that the mailroom would be painted this year. They say that every year, maybe only because my husband has machetes. And even though I've been told to contact the paint co-ordinator guy for information, I STILL did not believe that the mailroom was going to be painted. In a way I still don't, even though there were painters, three blessed holy painters in my mailroom this morning, looking at the GOD-FORSAKEN ORANGE SHELVES. Still, I'm having trouble believing it.

Why does my skepticism persist? For one thing, I'm typing this on an IBM netstation. Of course you've never heard of it; it's not even a PC. It's a little device that connects me to the (Windows-based) network. I have no control over preferences; I cannot adjust the volume or change the wallpaper on my own "computer." And the computer people cheaped out when they bought licenses; sometimes when I try to log on it tells me there are too many people on already, and that I have to WAIT for someone else to get off before I can do any work, access any of my files, or access my e-mail, HAHAHAHAHA!

I say that I am skeptical because the receptionist and I suggested to our boss, the head of administration, that the area outside the front-drive fire hydrant be painted red and declared a no-parking/fire zone OVER A YEAR AGO. We kept having to ask people to move their cars away from the hydrant because people always parked there, and we were fire wardens, dang-it! We weren't going to put up with that. Finally I got wise and called somebody in the safety department myself.

Things happen slowly around here. Money funds the science and pays the salaries, but rarely is priority put on anything that will improve administrative efficiency or (God forbid) make anything, anything look nice around here. Believe me when I say that our website looks like a kindergartener designed it, even though we have upwards of $32 million in our annual operating budget. Believe me when I tell you that my cubicle is blue with a black & pink desk and a green chair, with more of those spanky flourecent lights above. Believe me when I tell you there is a particle-board shelf in the mailroom is too small and has a gash in it and will not be replaced for oh, five years, but only after appropriate nagging.

I tried the "squeaky wheel gets the grease" approach about my computer a year and a bit ago. It didn't work. I was more of a nuisance, it seems. I was trying to point out that my computer does not cut and paste in most programs, that the version of Word I have decides to magically reformat any text one tries to put onto a label, and that the netstation magically bumps me off every so often. But, no. Money goes to research. Money goes to salaries. Money does not make anything pretty. I work in a 1960s building made of green corrugated steel. There is not a lovely thing in sight.

(Well, save the photograph of my husband and hero, David, on my desk. That's good to look at. He's a good-looking guy and his smile is rich with happy secrets. Thanks, Babe.)

I talked to the painting co-ordinator guy just now. TWO WEEKS. They will paint my precious mailroom in TWO WEEKS!

If it isn't done in six months I may be disappionted.

Who's Whining Now?

There are people in the Netherlands who want to ban the word "thin" from the dictionary.

People, you can't just make the dictionary editors scratch a word out because someone uses it in a way that offends you. Grow up. It's a word. You can't make "thin" not a word. People will still use it. And what about our pop culture and clichés? What would "Into thin air" become? Or "The Thin Man"? Or "Thinsulate"?

Good grief. Why are people such wussy crybabies? If every innocent, amoral word that could possibly offend people was struck from our languages we'd have nothing left but gerrunds and grunts. And then SOMEONE would get offended at a grunt, and then we wouldn't even be able to use THOSE anymore.

Besides, if were going to ban words, why would we begin with thin? Does the sentence, "You're so thin" really drive skinny people to emotional distress? Perhaps they need therapy, not to be giving us language lessons.

Look, everyone gets called names that are derogatory or untrue. Are we going to take the word DOUCHEBAG out of the dictionary because it sounds so much like my last name to playground kids? No, because that is stupid. The word will still be in use, in spite of what the "official" dictionary says. Then what? language police? Arresting us for using the word "thin" in a public place? Journalists who would go to jail repeatedly for the cause? People saying, "Hell no, we won't go!" thrown into a paddy wagon and driven to the precinct?

I don't think I'm making a very coherent argument; the idea sounds like madness to me, someone who loves language. I'm a writer, for crying out loud. We already have illiterates putting commas and apostrophes into God-awful places, and writing downright rotten prose that is still SOMEHOW getting published; must we also contend with special-interest groups who want to ban free speech because their members have thin skins and an overactive sense of justice?

Really, thin-protest people, there are far more helpful things you could jump on the bandwagon for. Environment? Non-Violence? Neglected children? Be a whiner for someone who doesn't have a voice, for someone who really needs it, not just for yourselves and your overstuffed egos.

Camp Wonderfulness

Well, chicas and muchachos, I'm back to work and all is swimming along nicely because my replacement did a grand job. Woo-hoo! Cheers for the replacement!

I am sad to be back, though, since camp was SO MUCH FUN I did not want to return. The accomodations at this camp are lodge-style and David & I had a private room. With an ensuite. Woo-hoo! Hey, if you're gonna be with one hundred eight to twelve year olds for a week, that is definately the way to go.

Basically I hung out with the campers and staff, who welcomed me like family (a good family, not a disfunctional one). I sung in the worship services every morning and evening which was a very cool and yes, thrilling experience, especially watching the kids sing and dance from that view. It's so cool! The guys and girls were all such sweethearts and I wanted to personally adopt all of them, but especially ones where we may have discovered that their home life was kind of uncool. Come! Let me love you, sweet children of the night!

And okay, no song and/or "prayer" should begin with "Thank you brown cow for the chocolate milk," because that song is bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.

Really it was so wonderful, and I got to be in the worship band with my husband and watch him speak with grace and ease at 10 different chapel services. How does one keep the attention of an eight-year old for ten talks, some (though not all) as long as half an hour? Because he's a genius, a sheer genius. He is very, VERY good at what he does. The kids were captivated, encouraged and touched. And THAT totally rocked.

I can't WAIT for next year. Perhaps I'll actually have the courage to be a counsellor. I would LOVE it, just gotta plan at least one more day off at the end for recuperation.

Okay, one of the most fun parts of camp was when the staff went in on an elaborate gag where we pretended that one of the most beloved counsellor's son's teddy bear (that the counsellor had been sleeping with that week) was kidnapped and being held for the ransom of candy, of which the same counsellor had brought twenty pounds. It was such a blast to write ransom notes and take photos of the teddy bear bound and gagged and display and/or read them to the campers at chapel, but our counsellor-victim was such a good (ham) actor that some of the girls got quite upset about it and were crying and writing him notes of consolation, which I think is funny because I'm pretty sure that even at eight years' old I'd have been able to tell it was a counsellor gag/skit thingy (The second photo of the hoax showed a photoshopped teddy that was missing an arm in response to the ransomers' demands not being met). Sure I'd have tried to figure it out, but I don't think I'd have been upset about it.

It turns out that teddy was behind the whole thing, wanting candy for himself and confessing to everything in the end. Believe me, it was FUNNY!

Thus concludes the Camp Evergreen summary. You may talk amongst yourselves.

Watch your balls

Really, because squirrels are stealing them en masse:

Hilarious. I wonder why they do it?

Ha, ha ...

I went with Kim to a pre-wedding reception a week ago. At the wedding the following day one of the girls we'd met said something to Kim along the lines of, "So, your friend couldn't make it?"

Yes, dears: she thought we were together. In spite of my wedding ring and all. I may have short hair, and I did wear dress pants to the reception (but so did the bride!), but I like to think this girl's misunderstanding is not based on some obvious lesbian-type mannerisms. I have a pretty good feeling my husband would not find me quite so attractive if I was like that.

I LIKE BOYS! In particular, I really like this one.

Kim likes boys, too, by the way. We both thought it was kinda funny.

I'm HOOOME!

I'm back. Back from camp, back from Chilliwack, and back from 100 eight to twelve year olds shouting a whole lot. And I loved it. I absolutely loved it.

There will be much blogging about the past two weeks: Camp, Kim's visit; my new favourite book; David's Great Career News; the embarrassing thing I did (I am a TOOL); and a visit with friends Brook & Jeni. And we're going for SUSHI tonight! Can it get any better than this? Apparently not, since work is on the Monday horizon.

Alas and such, folks, I am too tired, even after a 2.5 hour nap, to blog with length or enthusiasm. I just wanted to say that I am home, I am tired, I am well, and I am storing up blog posts like you would not believe. Ciao, friends, until later.

What a Wonderful Weekend

Ah, all you blog neighbors, I am so relaxed. It is wonderful.

Kim is here this weekend and we are having a great time. We drove to Seattle and picked up my husband at the airport, drove to Pike Place and had dinner - ah! - on a veranda overlooking the closed market, the seaside and the neon lights. We ate Spanish cuisine at the Copacabana where I had my first ever dish of yummy-yummy-yummy Paella (PIE-ay-ah). Mmm, mmm, mmm!

Saturday was for lounging, shopping, attending a lovely pre-wedding soirée for Kim's friends Jordana & Daniel, coming home to the beautiful fireworks, then wine, cheese and conversation, and finally going to bed and sleeping in late.

I'm loving this weekend. I can hear cheers from the 26th annual Vancouver gay pride parade a block over, which does indeed sound festive, but I'm taking it easy today and watching a parade would take far too much effort.