Shuffle Shuffle...

Ipod shuffle... it's too hot to do anything else... and it's a nice check in... also, any excuse to haul out the Ipod... haha. 

IF SOMEONE SAYS 'ARE YOU OKAY' YOU SAY?
The Picturebooks - On the Go

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?
Eddie Vedder - Long Nights

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
Dave Matthews Band - Crash Into Me

HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
Christina Aguilera - Keeps Gettin' Better

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
Rihanna - Breakin' Dishes

WHAT'S YOUR MOTTO? 
Decav 5 - Be About It

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
Neil Young - Helpless

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
Flogging Molly - If I Ever Leave This World Alive

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
Sense Field - Save Yourself (9.01 Version)

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Filter - Hey Man Nice Shot

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Danity Kane - Damaged 

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Coldplay ft. Jay-Z - Lost (Remix)

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
White Apple Tree - Handle With Care

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST??
Ohbijou - Wildfires

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR??
Queen/David Bowie - Under Pressure

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
The Midway State - Never Again

WHAT DO YOU WANT RIGHT NOW?
Sly & the Family Stone - Dance to the Music


Hmmm....

The Further Adventures Of...

Claude's last day before her last day... thanks to some tricky juggling (and taking a little advantage of flexibility at work... and Colin's 'try to be flexible and keep everyone happy' syndrome) I managed to wrangle a half day off. We headed up to the Van Dusen Botanical Gardens on Oak almost dying because it's SO HOT out.
Side note: Seriously... seriously! How is it so stupidly hot? I did not sign up for summer in Vancouver temperature +32 degrees everyday. Becky, you told me that it doesn't get hot in the summer?! Yarg. How does anyone survive this sort of thing without dying or becoming a mole person or consuming a ridiculous amount of ice cream? Maybe it's from summers spent in the mountains where it gets hot but not ever really over 20, which apparently is my melting point. Stupid body running hot all the time...
Anyway... back to it...
Van Dusen Botanical Gardens. Best name for a Botanical Garden. Ever. Of course it would be something like that... they were very impressive. An amazing amount of land considering it's in the middle of Vancouver. When you're walking around you can't hear the traffic, can't see anything but green, and, luckily for us, it was practically deserted. Oh, except the filming crew of the new movie Marmaduke. Pretty cool.
We're wandering along, see this kinda cool little path down through some bushes so we follow it along winding through the greenery. Suddenly, Claude gets excited and pulls something off a tree and shoves it at me. In her wonderfully straightforward way, she grins and answers my "Wha- What is this?" with "It's a berry. Eat it." and proceeds to pop a couple into her mouth. I squint up at the tree, down at what resembles a blackberry in my hand and up at her, happily munching away. Shrug. Pop it in my mouth. Deliciousness! Delectable! De-juicytastic! haha. So, we stand there for awhile picking a few more of, what turn out to be mulberries, and chow down. This is about the time we realize that we're in a garden. A botanical garden. The Van Dusen Botanical Garden. As in the "Don't Even Think Of Picking Any Of The Vegetation, Let Alone Eating It" Gardens. Oops. We try to wander off casually then Claude looks at me and starts laughing her ass off.
If you've never eaten or seen mulberries, here's a bit of education. This particular mulberry tree, the Black Mulberry, or Morus nigra, has dark fruit about two to three centimetres long. They are also very juicy, when ripe. Said juice can stain things like fingers, hands, and/or lips. Double oops. We spent the next five minutes or so frantically rubbing at our lips and whenever we came across a park employee or anyone really, we hid our hands.
The next step on our garden walk was the Meditation Garden - a gorgeous cool glade with a carpet of mossy green and stone benches. It was a welcome stop as it was so nice and cold!
After that, we checked out the vegetable patch - lettuce, carrots, cabbage, tomatoes, all sorts of stuff that made my thumb itch. I sort of wish I had a real garden outside but at the same time my little garden pots in the back are growing like crazy - I'm especially proud of Luke the Cuke who is flourishing on his bench and producing cucumbers like crazy. It's awesome! We checked out the maze (in which Claude rocked it and managed to get us to the monkey puzzle tree in the middle!), the giant sequoias, a floating bridge. There was even a section of Eastern North America vegetation, which made me feel a little at home after all. The afternoon was capped off with a couple gelatoes, of course.
This evening was spent at a dinner party for a friend, Sarah's, birthday. Her husband Eric made some yummy carrot cake and I attempted a new vegan recipe for brownies but definitely left them in too long so they were a bit crumbly.
I came home and planned to go to bed semi-early but then got a phone call from my friend Corey and got invited to the Burrard St. Bridge, where a group of people were painting the new bike lane with paint.
Eric lent me a messenger bag to carry all of my stuff and I was itching to try it out so I rode with Corey back to his place by Commercial Dr. and booked it home. 

Whew.

Photos to be uploaded tomorrow. For now...


Quote du jour: 

"If you have the creative urge, it isn't going to go away. But sometimes it takes a while before you accept the fact..."

Oh, and, as a bonus? Found a toonie on my ride home. Boo ya. 

Happy Exhaustion...

So, things have been going like crazy for the past while... 

Wednesday - Gastown Sprints! 

Headed down to Pub 340 - the sketchy sketch bar on the corner of Cambie and Hastings.... haha. Honestly, I was terrified. Not about the bar... the race... I mean, this is a race made primarily of messenger couriers. People who ride 9 hours a day... Moses, the coordinator, is trying to get others into it, like roadies and crit racers to expand it out but so far mostly couriers. So Claude writes my name down anyway... and despite me tending to be frightened of the unknown, it's really just that first point of unknown and then I tend to do alright. I mean, it's only about a 30 second sprint and everyone there is so hammered, they won't remember how you did anyway. Nor do they really care... 

It went well. Really well. I don't know how many girls usually go to these sorts of things - how many tend to race this sort of thing - but I think this time there were about eight. I'm sure they were missing a whole bunch because eight seems small. We raced a couple heats of four girls as qualifiers and it was quick and amazing. I got my bike set up, hopped on, waited for the countdown and gave'r. It's probably under 30 seconds but you get your legs going so fast that you barely get to that point of 'okay this hurts' when it's time to stop. I just don't feel like I have the cadence to do this sort of thing. Or at least that's how I felt going in. You just get to the point where you can no longer spin any faster. Which can be very frustrating if you're behind. Apparently, the first ten seconds is the crucial time. After that, you're just holding. So I guess as long as you get a good start, you'll be fine. 

Anyway, I went in, full tilt and, while trying not to feel egotistical it's a little thrilling to see, in huge letters on a big screen in total video game writing: "Linnaea Wins." Haha. 

After the heats of qualifiers, they cut down to head to head - just you and another person racing your brains out. Sudden death style. You get bumped, you don't race again. It was pretty sweet. The winner was Louise, who is apparently a super intense and awesome racer... she was pretty impressive. She and I were supposed to meet in the finals - her having the fastest time and I had the second fastest but the race brackets had a mistake so there we were in the semis. I felt like Roddick up against Federer. And we all know how that goes... Although these days there seems to be a chance of a comeback... Hmm...

Thursday - Arnie: "So, are you guys going to Martini's tonight?" Me (looking at Claude and getting a shrug in response): "Yeah, I guess so..."

Hung out with the bike boys and Claude over at Martini's, a restaurant/bar. Interesting conversation. Emerald City is never a disappointing drink... Afterwards I think I just jetted around town on my bike... a vague recollection of heading down to the Drive... perhaps to try and pick up a wooden salad bowl I had stashed at a friend's house. I really should start writing these things down sooner after I do them... shoot. 

Friday - James: "Polopolopolopolo*?!" Ha. 

So graceful and picturesque... and Danger Bay...

Headed down to Crab Beach after work to watch the couriers play polo. Got some sweet shots, laughed a lot, was a bit impressed. Got terrified because some of them are so bloody aggressive! And when you're fooling around on a bike, it can be sketchy. Ha. James and Claude both jumped into the games, which was very admirable. I wish I had the guts and the talent to do it but no dice... But then, I for sure have the 'oh god please don't die' feeling every time they almost crashed into each other. Felt a little motherly. :p "Honey! Not so close, not so close! Oh dear!"

The second part of the evening was spent watching and waiting for the couriers to do a race called The Alleydog. Essentially, there were checkpoints all around the city with different parts of a veggie dog - relish, mustard, dog, bun. You had to race around, get these things, bring the completed hotdog back to Crab Beach and stuff it in your mouth and first to down it was the winner. The interesting part was that first was first, second was second, I think third might have been third and the rest were just entertainment for everyone to watch you scarf down a hotdog as fast as humanely possible. And Claude wonders why I didn't want to do it?  Hmm... :p 

Kind of my favourite picture from this set... awesome.

Saturday - Me: "I don't even know where Spanish Banks is..." Kyle: "Me either." 

Got invited by Mike "The Basement Troll" Shellard down to Spanish Banks, which is at the end of the peninsula on the way to UBC. Very cool place. Hung out a bit after work to do a little work on the Green Machine. She's getting prettied up bit by bit - new cables, adjustments, new back tire to match the front but needs to be worn down and dirtied up like when you buy a new pair of running shoes... very nice. Next step? Replace the rusty headset to make sure my steering doesn't seize up or fall apart. I don't know which would be worse... Biked down to the beach with James and Kyle. I think we alternated between sprinting with/past each other and coasting/trackstanding. Also, am now starting to do the leg over the handlebars instead of back over the seat to get over the bike but I still feel like a bit of a poser doing so... so I try not to bust it out too much... even though I feel pretty cool (read: like a 'younger sister who's allowed to hang out with her older sister's friends' kind of feeling) doing it. Haha. Oh, but before we got there, we stopped in at Kyle's where his girlfriend (well, practically wife - they're now 'common law' haha) Sheena was hanging out and got to show off her new batch of tomatoes. So exciting. I'm psyched for her because I totally went through the same thing two months ago. She's taking over a space in the back garden and going to grow a huge crop of them. Exciiiiting!

Watched a beautiful sunset with Mike and his friends then headed back towards Kits Beach for a bit of sustenance at Vera's Burger Place, where apparently, "You can't beat Vera's meat." Go figure. Their description for the veggie burger was: "It's a veggie burger." Obviously not catering to that crowd... ha

After that we headed back up to pick up Sheena and go to their friends' place for a domino/Singapore Sling party. Pretty fun. I've never had a Singapore Sling but they were delicious! I ended up having to leave early because I was the only one working today. Bah. 

Kyle looks oh-so-not impressed, James slightly more impressed... haha

So now it's Sunday and I'm exhausted. I should go to bed so I can get up and run in the morning. Still waiting for my contacts to make it here from Ontario because I'm on my last pair and Dad shipped them a week ago. C'mon Canada Post! Oh, and picked my first cucumber off Luke the Cuke... it's going to be good in tomorrow's lunch... yummeh! 

Quotes du Jour: 

"If one speaks or acts with a cruel mind, misery follows, as the cart follows the horse...

if one speaks or acts with a pure mind, happiness follows, as a shadow follows its source..."

"Affection can withstand very severe storms of vigor, but no a long polar frost of indifference..."

Little Kindnesses

Here's a story... 

It's Monday and rainy so the Bike Doctor's pretty slow. Therefore, Claude and I get to take our lunches together, which is always nice... Having a little Claude/Linnaea time is key - always a good time, always hilarious, always comfy... I'm going to miss her terribly when she leaves (don't goooooooo! haha)... 

I packed some super salad from last night's dinner (so good) but Claude didn't have anything so we swung by a little cafe to pick up something for her to eat. A lot of shops were closed today, which was weird, which I feel may be some sort of Vancouver thing/conspiracy but not really the point here so I'll move on... 

We went to a little place called "Slickity Jim's Chat and Chew" and grabbed some food and then it started to rain so we set up shop in an entryway to eat, joking around that after I finished my salad, I could use the container to panhandle/scam money off people walking by. Probably would've been ruined by the fact that I had an Oat Fudge Square in a Starbucks' (sorry Chavez) bag sitting next to me for desert. And that we both are relatively clean looking and don't smell of garbage. 

I stashed my bike behind me so that it would be out of the rain because, well, who likes to ride back to work on a wet seat? Not this girl. Anyway, hear the door open behind us and my bike starts to tilt and make an attempt to crush me. Or so thought the guy opening the door. But, me with my last month and change of bike expertise, manage to snatch up the bike and sweep it around and down to the sidewalk so gracefully that I even impress myself. Ha. 

Okay, so maybe it was just a Catch and Move move. Sigh. 

Sometimes I wish my life were a little more expressive than reality. Or perhaps it is. I am living in Vancouver and getting (mostly) what I want as it comes... whiiiiine. Haha. 

Anyway, back to the entryway, the guy and lunch. He's kind of a grizzly mountain man-looking kind of guy with a jolly demeanour and maybe a little lacking in the hygiene department. He apologizes and jokes around with us, walks down the few steps to the street then turns and offers us fruit from a grocery bag. 

Now, what's your first reaction? Probably some sort of knee-jerk "Oh geez, not on your life. Never in a million years. Forget it. Food from a stranger... produce from a stranger... who's pulling it out with his bare hands. Eep." Well, put that away because you know what we did? Accepted a handful of delicious strawberries and grapes. Which tasted all the more better knowing that they came from a complete stranger who was just offering them out of the goodness of his heart. Because he came up on two cute girls sitting in the alcove of his entryway and decided that he was having a sweet day thanks to yummy fruit and wanted to share the wealth. Because there's nothing like getting a cute girl to smile. Or so I'm told... :p 

Or maybe I'll wake up tomorrow morning with some sort of disease. Or dead. But I doubt it. 

The day was topped off by a Monday Night at Martini's night and a chill hangout with the roomie, Michelle after. All in all an awesome day.

Sweet dreams. :)

Okay, Awesome...

Spent Canada Day over at the lovely Kia and Andrew's. Andrew's band, Van Driver (I think I remember their name as such...) played until too many complaints from the neighbours brought the cops down on us... at 9:30... weird. Hung out with the bike boys, who are fun as usual. 

In the prime of their set... awesome. 

August doing I don't even know what... 

August has a friend visiting from Germany, who was hilarious and reminded me of Cornelius, my TA/teammate back in the day at Carleton first year. So much fun. They're headed over to the island to do a bike trip out and about. I just hope he takes a ton of pictures and has a wicked time. Met Kia and Andrew's cats, Grace and Cooper, who I'm going to be cat sitting for the first week of August. It'll be sweet to be around animals again. I totally miss Sasha and Rosie, Tom and No Name. Furry creatures are definitely a must in life. 

Quick jump over to Canmore for a training camp/recharge and I'm back in Van City... getting off the plane and hopping into a taxi, I couldn't believe the comfy feeling of 'Hey, welcome back.' The city lights winked at me as we whizzed toward the Loft and I couldn't help but smile and wish I were out on my bike, feeling the wind on my face. Corny, I know, but that's the kind of quiet joy that I felt. Sigh. Haha. 

So, rewind a bit... My skier and I Margarita were invited to the National Team training camp in Canmore at the end of June/beginning of July. This was brought to my attention maybe a week and a half before. Very short notice. Luckily the Bike Doctor's pretty flexible with their slacker workers' workdays so I was able to take this opportunity. 

Also, getting to see the Big Bro and Chandra - bonus! 

My good friend and future co-friend in the writing world, Jesse Winter, showed up to pick me up from the airport - to whom I am totally grateful because the Airporter? Not as good of a time as driving down the highway with some sweet music and someone cool to talk to. 

Lunch was spent at Harvest where Jesse and I ran into the ol' gang from Thunder Bay's NTDC: Chris Butler, Pate Newmann, and Phil Wood. It was really nice to catch up with the gang. They're all living in Canmore now and obviously loving life, as one should. :) 

I met up with the gang at the Rocky Mountain Lodge - bringing back memories of Canmore Nationals when we sat in our rooms, cuddled under blankets and watching the digital thermometre on the sign hover around the race cut-off temperature. We 

had a nice chill afternoon then headed up to the Nordic Centre where the athletes did some biathlon drills and I went for a run. The trails up there are phenomenal. I don't know exactly how many k they have winding in and out of that place but they're awesome. Some are as wide as streets while others are single-track mountain bike trails. Definitely good times. 

Managed to track down my busy brother and find a place to crash for the weekend. Now, if you've never been into the inner sanctuary of Casa de Kersh/Crawf, or missed that episode of Cribs, well, you're definitely missing out. It is an amazing place. Even more wicked than the Kersh/Olacke. Just by a bit though. Haha. Sweet art, comfy couches, three levels, four bedroomed, nice kitchen... gorgeous. 

Friday was killer... three and a half hours of skate rollerskiing in the AM and two in the afternoon. I definitely went home and passed out cold into a nap after each. We also had a nice surprise of having a camera crew around working for the Discovery Channel... they interviewed some people, filmed some people shooting, it was great. 

Getting back into training was awesome. I definitely have been slack on the training aspects of life and I definitely thought it was costing me both mentally and physically, so getting a solid session with like-minded people and just being in the environment was so good for me. 

Friday night was spent in the company of another old friend, Andrew Wexler. I met Andrew last winter when he was up at Assiniboine guiding for the lodge. A very cool guy and a guide who gets to travel around the world - Peru, Tibet, etc. He's also a writer who's had a few articles published in a few magazines from his trips, which is so amazing. I'm 

very jealous. It was good to catch up with him and we attempted to watch a movie called Elegy. It's based on a book by Philip Roth and probably is a pretty cool movie except I couldn't seem to keep my mouth shut. I will have to rent it. And check out his books. 

Okay, so I have this thing where I hate reality TV. A couple years ago some friends got into this TV show called the Office... you may have heard of it. :p I vehemently refused to watch it as it is filmed in a reality TV sort of way. Dev and Chandra have the first four seasons on DVD and I decided, in my zonked out state, that, hey, why not? Could be fun. My first thought was "God, Michael Scot is the most annoying and the dumbest person on the planet. Jesus, why am I watching this?" And then I met Jim and Pam. Total, instant, love. They are so cute. Especially in the pre-relationship state. I love that tension feeling where you know they're both so in it but don't do anything about it... or can't. That tight feeling you get in your stomach. Mmm... haha. 

I asked for time off til Sunday because I wasn't sure when I was coming home so it was nice to have a Sunday off for a change. Didn't do a whole lot but enjoyed it nonetheless... Jumped on the Miele this morning and went for a dance on the pedals. Cruised down to Stanley Park to catch the second wave of Sunday trainers. Either I caught the slow wave or the Green Machine and I are just kickass, because we owned everyone on the loop. After that, I turned east and just kept going until I hit the sign for Burnaby. Oops. To finish the circuit, I headed down 49th to get back home, passing Langara College, where I'll be going to school in the fall. Rolling past, I got a little jolt of excitement. In a couple months, I'll be learning copy editing, research skills, and, the highest anticipated: photo journalism. Finally, someone to show me how to really take pictures instead of just the fooling around I do with the Niko. 

So, I'm starting to wonder whether there's something wrong with me or whether Claude has worn off on me a little too much. I'm addicted to hopping on my bike, heading downtown, and playing in traffic. This includes, but is not limited to: track standing at lights (trying to stay on the bike, on the pedals without touching down on the ground), or at least trying to; weaving through cars; beating said cars off the line at lights; weaving in and out of pedestrians; leaning on the side of someone's car so that you don't have to put a foot down (not quite brave enough for that one yet but...). Oh, also, the avoidance of getting doored is also key in the being awesome catagory... 

Michelle (new roomie #2) and I decided today was the day of a healthy start. Of real meals, of veggies, of something that did not list salt and/or sugar as one of the first five ingredients. We decided today was the day of the Epic Dinner. We headed down to Granville Island to hit up the Public Market where we went sort of crazy on the fruit and veg area. Awesome: 

We picked up some delicious raspberries and blueberries, tons of veggies, some sockeye salmon, and some baking ingredients... After sending out some invites, we settled down to make dinner. 

First was the dessert. Well, it was supposed to be white chocolate cheesecake but apparently grocery stores out here don't do white chocolate. All those yuppies like their chocolates dark for the anti-oxy-dants. Haha. So, we grabbed some milk chocolate and figured that would do. 

Michelle was totally grossed out when she had to separate the yolks from the whites 

because she hates eggs but loved melting the chocolate... We also learned conversions of grams to ounces to pounds, thanks to Michelle's Mom via cellphone in the grocery store dairy aisle.                     

Michelle... not so pumped... haha

Next was the salad. Super salad. Cabbage, celery, green beans, green onions, grated carrots, sunflower seeds, Michelle's Mom's super salad dressing. Delicious. 

Finally, salmon, straight up, plain, lemony. Barbequed. 

It was a great dinner - Claude, Chavez, and Cedric showed up, ate, and showered us with compliments of how awesome we are at cooking. Haha. 

Anyway, it's late. Very late. I should get to bed. Ciao for now! 

Quote of the Day: 

"Today be patient with yourself. You are in this world to learn, so start by learning to enjoy the process..." 

p.s. Check out both Pete Yorn and Regina Spektor's new CDs... so good.