I made waffles from scratch this morning - when you beat the egg whites and fold them into the batter, it really makes the waffle much fluffier. My favourite part is blending in the vanilla extract. Its smell reminds me of baking lumpy, asymmetrical cookies as a kid and bright summer afternoons in my parents' kitchen.
After waffles, Shayne and I went to Queen Elizabeth Park with the intention of playing golf but couldn't due to poor employee scheduling. So we went to the conservatory where the greenhouse's humidity fogged up my glasses. We mimicked Rosie the African parrot by clicking our tongues and chirping. Large koi fish swam in the man-made streams.
After the conservatory, we walked aimlessly around the park admiring other people's dogs. A fellow, I do not remember his name, asked Shayne and I if we would be witnesses to a wedding. His wife, Karen, is a marriage commissioner, and she was marrying a couple, Wayne and Chun, right then and there. We agreed to help. All we had to do was watch Karen say a few phrases that Wayne and Chun repeated. Then Wayne and Chun signed the contract as the fellow took their picture, and then both Shayne and I signed the contract while having our picture taken. Then, as simple as a few minutes can be, Wayne and Chun were married. They thanked Shayne and I for our help; we congratulated them and wished them our best as we departed. It was only about twenty feet later that Shayne and I realized that we could run back to Karen and get married right then and there. We paused; our feet pegged to the earth. We were standing on a dirt path where turning left meant marriage and right meant to continue as we were; the words should have been carved on a wooden signpost pointing in each direction. And we kept repeating the question "Should we . . . ? Should we . . . ?" to each other, but we were unable to walk either way.
When rational thinking set in, Shayne said that we better keep walking. On another rational note: neither Shayne nor I want to be in a higher tax bracket at the moment.
So we came across a sandwich board that said "Open House: Curling" and decided to do that instead. Curling is actually quite challenging and kind of fun. George, one of the curling coaches, taught us how to throw, curl and slide - I kept loosing my balance and ending up on my ass. If I had more time, I would not mind taking up the sport - Shayne has grander dreams of learning how to curl and then challenging his adolescent nieces to a curling dual. Sounds like another kind of destiny.

Flux capacitor.

Big Sister in Mexico

Good to see Catherine is having fun, but hey! she's wearing my shirt!
:)

Minnekheda with Shayne

Walmart Is Selling My Boyfriend!

You can apparently buy him for only $8.80.

Last Day as a Receptionist

Today is my last day as a receptionist. I am moving on to Public Outreach as well as tutoring teenagers with autism. I don't like staying in one place for too long when it comes to doing the same things over and over. I need opportunity for growth and challenge. I have been here for over two years and so it's time to do something new.
My leaving may also mean that this is my last blog entry. I am generally not that big on the blog thing - it's useful for travelling abroad to show the people back home what you've been up to. Since my return from Australia - I have been blogging as a means to pass the time at work when there is nothing to do. We'll see.
I am a loyal person and so I am having a hard time saying good bye to a few people here who are really cool. I am also disappointed that there has not been any formal recognition of my time here - like a letter of appreciation from the boss (isn't that the average protocol?). Some people who have left this place have received a goodbye dinner - I don't want that but it is always nice to see that one's time was appreciated in some way. Maybe it's just another sign that it is better to leave this place and move forward.
It's hard to leave one employment that has grown to be comfortable and stable, and then go into the unknown. Today I am feeling some unexpectant anxiety. However, I figure nothing good, well except for rent, can come from staying in a lifeless, stagnant job - and that worst comes to worst, I have family and friends who I can depend on as I keep plugging away at university.
So tonight I will probably celebrate . . . in one form or another. Maybe now that I am not answering phones for a living, I will actually call up my friends and meet up - crazy notion eh?

I can't open jars . . .

Last night Shayne took me to Cliffhangers with his friends to teach me how to rockclimb. I have been wanting to learn for a few years now - ever since that time in Jervis Bay, Australia, when I tried to rappel off a cliff, froze with fear and turned to jello. Shayne had offered to take me many times before, but I always hesitated on going.
But the thing is, rockclimbing is so much fun! I was definately scared at first; I could not trust that the rope would hold me. I made it to the top of the easiest climb, the one adorned with a dinosaur head and colourful letters, looked down to see Shayne give me the thumbs up and heard him say "Good job sweetie . . . time to let go and come down." I just shook my head at him and thought to myself "There's no way I am letting go." He just laughed and kept coaxing me to let go.
As a kid I loved, well actually, even today I love climbing trees. I remember climbing to the top of large evergreens. My mom would be waiting at the bottom furiously telling me to climb down, and having realized I climbed too high like Tigger and Roo, I would shout back "I can't!"
At the climbing gym, I eventually did let go of the rope and tip-toed backwards down the wall retro-batman style. I did a couple more climbs after that and each time I got just as scared, especially as I neared the top and grew suspicious of the rope. Sometimes my arms shook either because of my fear or from my muscles giving out. At the same time, facing my fears is so much fun - all that adrenaline and suspense. I used to be scared of a lot of things and then I realized how boring it is to be scared all the time. Nothing changes. So I am definately going back to Cliffhangers and continue climbing.
I woke up this morning to find my forearms sore and that I could not grip the lids of jars tight enough to open them. No problem, I can live a day without jam.
Also, to my great surprise, I ran into Nick at the gym. Nick and I have been friends for years, but we live such different lives that I hardly get to see him and hang out. This past weekend he invited me to see the work less party's production of "The Church of Pointless Consumerism" which had all the charm of highschool performances and the buffoonery only a political musical can muster. The show ended with an "End of the World" party which included terrible wine, chatting with Nick and dancing with my homeboy Shayne!

A Stroll in the Snow

Yesterday Shayne and I walked from Gastown to East Vancouver for the Culture Crawl. The snow made the walk so beautiful that in the end I did not care much about the crawl - though it was fun going into strangers' homes and studios from the cold. One artist had a fire pit in his backyard; we lingered there and discussed boat-building for at least a good fifteen minutes. The artist built his own studio in his backyard - something I would love to build someday.
This summer I will have to take Shayne canoeing in False Creek with a six-pack of beer - or maybe a bottle of wine would be more romantic.
One park was lightly covered in snow. Shayne jumped onto the lawn and started shuffling his feet like an old woman until he had drawn a large heart with our initials in it. I think that was one of the sweetest things. It does not take much for me to have a great time when I am with Shayne because we both have great imaginations. And I think we both know that even though money pays the bills, it's not necessary for a good time.
I decided this morning that if we had known eachother in elementary school, I probably would have followed him everywhere and played with him everyday. He concluded that he probably would have rolled me into the mud - I would like to think that he would have rolled me in the mud affectionately! (sigh)

So Smitten!!!

This is Shayne.

Drool drool drool.

Zora Neale Hurston in a Jazz Club

I have been writing essays for the last couple of days - one on diverse perspectives in Feminist theory.
One of the theoriests quoted from Zora Neale Hurston's book How It Feels to Be Colored Me to illustrate a point in regard to multi-conscious identities, and Hurston's writing is so incredible I had to share it:

My pulse is throbbing like a war drum. I want to slaughter something - give me pain, give death to what, I do not know. But the piece ends. The men of the orchestra wipe their lips and rest their fingers. I creep back slowly to the veneer we call civilization with the last tone and find the white friend sitting motionless in his seat, smoking calmly.
"Good music they have here," he remarks, drumming the table with his fingertips.
Music. The great blobs of purple and red emotion have not touched him. He has only heard what I felt. He is far away and I see him but dimly across the ocean and the continent that have fallen between us. He is so pale with his whiteness then and I am so coloured.