Remember when you asked me not to blog about this?
You know you’ve reached a certain point in your career as a pseudo-blogger when your friends start asking you not to blog about certain things:
The tail-end of a lengthy discussion on those who live life superficially vs. those who don’t (also known as CHANEL, YOU THINK TOO MUCH):
The Friend says: (10:37:11 PM)
You drive me crazyThe Friend says: (10:37:20 PM)
And this is just MSNThe Friend says: (10:37:30 PM)
… Please don’t write a blog on this :P
With more and more of my offline friends, family and acquaintances finding this website (which, admittedly, isn’t hard; all you need to do is google me), the subject of my online writings have never come up more often. Specifically, the question of “You’re not going to blog about this, are you?”
To those offline friends, family and acquaintances, and maybe our mailman: I am on the hunt for my next project and new material. Lock your doors. Maybe even close your windows. But be especially careful what you say or do around me, because you never know—it might just end up on here.
More comic relief from my brother
Talking about a piece of gum that dropped on the floor:
“I’m going to go wash this.”
“Don’t wash it! It will only turn sticky.”
“I washed a cookie I dropped on the floor once…”
“Denzil, washing doesn’t help everything.”
“I know… that’s why I don’t take baths anymore.”
It’s moments like these that make me proud to have him as a brother
9:30 pm, over instant noodles I just cooked for the two of us:
Me: “Denzil… Do you ever wish your butt was bigger?”
My brother: “Do you ever wish your butt was *smaller*?”
History repeats itself
I cooked a fabulous vegetarian lasagna the other night. The family loved it and I was thrilled. Still giddy from the success of my latest experimental dish, I was idly cleaning the kitchen when my mother walks in and drops the scariest. comment. ever.
“You know, lasagna was always my signature dish.”
“Oh my god, DON’T SAY THAT.”
#1 most terrifying thing about getting older?
WHEN YOU REALIZE YOU’RE TURNING INTO YOUR MOTHER.
Well then, this explains everything!
From the Vancouver Sun’s article on the Top 100 surnames in the Lower Mainland:
#77 - Wood (664 entries)
An English and Scottish last name, Wood almost always denotes someone who lived in the woods, or who worked as a woodcutter or forester. However, a secondary origin for the name Wood is a nickname for a crazy or violent person, an interpretation derived from the Middle English word ‘wod’, meaning mad or frenzied.
Not looking to be e-famous
My father, on sharing his personal information on the internet:
“You better not be posting anything about me on your website.”
“Just tell ‘them’ your dad passed away or something.”
The war on pseudo moths, Part III
Last night, a mosquito took advantage of me in my sleep.
He (because I unconsciously associate despised insects to the male gender) no doubt watched me sleep before deciding to strike—and just shortly before 3am, strike he did. Three times on my back and once on my cheek in fact. Bastard? I think so. Your sucker needle in my cheek was uncalled for.
In other fluttery creature news, my brother has found a new hobby: scaring living daylights out of me. It all started one sunny day not too long ago when we were out in the yard. I was taking pictures for layout ideas (incidentally, the header image of this layout was taken in this shoot) and he was… doing something else.
I should halt the progression of this tale to inform you that my fear strong dislike of moths is not limited to the ugly brown variety. As far as I’m concerned, anything even slightly resembling the moth is a moth. This, naturally, includes butterflies. They might be prettier than their night flying relatives, but they’re just as scary. And dangerous. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.
So I’m minding my own business, looking through the lens of my camera and happily clicking away when I spot a white butterfly coming straight for me. Purely by natural instinct, I scream and duck. My brother laughs at my behavior. “You’re afraid of BUTTERFLIES?” He asked in tone only a younger brother can use when he has seen his older, fully grown sister duck and scream from something an mere two inches big.
I shoot him a nasty glare, but shake it off and go back to photographing things. Not too long after, I feel a fluttery sensation on my bare shoulder.
A fluttery sensation.
There is only one thing I associate to fluttery, and it starts with a big, ugly, brown ‘m’. This is not good.
Naturally, I let out a blood curling scream, jump to the side and turn around accusingly. I was ready to beat that butterfly into oblivion for using me as a landing pad, so imagine my surprise (and rapidly increasing anger) when the “butterfly” in question is actually a bamboo leaf being held by my treacherous brother, his face displaying a huge grin that suggested he found the whole situation amusing.
I was sorely tempted to sock him one.
You see, I have a very sensitive back. I’ve never had a back massage that didn’t cause me pure anguish. When people touch my back unnecessarily—particularly my spine—I get all skirmish and highly sensitized. The idea of something as disgusting and foul as a moth landing on my bare back is utterly revolting.
Of course, now that my brother has discovered this, he has been pseudo-moth attacking me at every given opportunity, and dammit to all, I can’t help but scream every single time. After having my room taken over by moths last summer and being attacked by several others a year later I am prepared for anything. The prospect that a seemingly innocent light fluttery sensation on my bare shoulder could, in fact, be a five inch month waiting to suck out my soul is not all that far fetched to me.
In other news, I’m buying an IKEA mosquito net canopy to go over my bed as soon as the workers at the closest IKEA decide to end their strike and go back to work. I’m done with being molested in my sleep or getting up at ungodly hours of the night to kick moths out of my room in fear of accidentally swallowing them or something.
So moths? Bring it, bitches.
(Just wait until I get the mosquito net first)
Things my mother says, and why it’s all my fault
My mother is an amazing person. She’s smart, talented, highly independent, very sociable, driven, hardworking and very funny when she wants to be, among many other things. This coming from her daughter is saying a lot, because c’mon—I have to deal with her when she’s worked three night shifts in a row and literally hasn’t slept since. If anyone has seen the good, bad and the sheer awful and can still think know she’s amazing, it’s me. Plus, she’s my mother - Of course she’s going to be amazing. People can’t live within the same house as me and not be transformed by my sheer awesomeness!
She’s all that and more, so naturally it totally baffles me (or used to, anyway) how she can be so smart and yet say the stupidest things ever—at the same time. I say ‘used to’ because I now firmly believe that her moments of stupidity are a direct result of me, as a fetus, snacking on her then-brilliant brain.
Taken from a radio interview with Dr. Louann Brizendine, author of national bestseller “The Female Brain“… and I quote:
Q: Now, I saw you quoted in the New York Times, speaking of pregnancy, that the female brain shrinks about eight percent during pregnancy? And doesn’t return back to its normal size until about six months after delivery?
A: Yes, Debbie, that’s a surprising study that uh has found eight percent shrinkage, even after you account for any increased water weight. And scientists don’t know really why that happens, except that the female brain is doing all kinds of rewiring during that period, to get the mom ready to do maternal behavior. And also remember, the fetus is more like a parasite, and [that] it gets fed whatever it wants, and lots and lots of lipids and special fats exist inside the brain cells, and some scientists speculate that the fetus is sort of snacking on the mother’s brain.
I know that when my mother reads this, she is going to be happy. Because it’s all my fault. She will find some way to translate that into “everything that goes wrong with me is ALL. HER. FAULT!” I think her brain will erroneously translate that quote because as a fetus, I probably ate the part of her brain labeled “REASONABLE THINKING” and in turn, all the excess oxygen started flowing to the part of her brain labeled “DENIAL - IT’S STILL JUST A RIVER IN EGYPT NO MATTER YOU SAY”. I know, I’m a genius. They should make me the brain doctor.
But back to my mother. I have one “outrightly stupid things my mother says because I ate her brain cells as a baby” moment to share, and even though it’s more attributed to a lack of sleep on her part rather than a strange appetite I had as a fetus, I will still share it. It took place yesterday afternoon while my brother and I were discussing (read: betting) who we thought would die in the last Harry Potter book…
I will mention one spoiler in the following conversation below, so if you don’t want to find out anything about the latest Harry Potter book I suggest you lock yourself in a dark cave off the coast of god-knows-where and subject yourself to several years of dedicated reading (the time it takes the average person to get through 759 pages of Harry Potter) before you submerge yourself in a world where you can’t watch TV, surf the internet, read the newspaper or talk to your dog without hearing about Harry Potter.
Denzil: I can’t believe Harry doesn’t die. I WANTED HARRY TO DIE, DAMMIT.
Me: How do you know Harry doesn’t die?
Denzil: I scanned through the ending. It said something about “Harry’s children”.
Me: … Harry’s CHILDREN?!
Mom: … Harry gives birth?!
I’m sorry mom. I guess I ate the part of your brain labeled “FACT OR FICTION?” too.
The cookie got it right
As some of you know, I have been utterly overspread lately. Not that i’m complaining, but the last couple days have been non-stop 9 to 12 hours of my required active presence: Weddings, wedding parties, lunch invitations, family get-togethers, work meetings, order entries to be processed, a huge CMS transfer for our website (not this one) that is still in dire need of tweaking, emails to send out, calls to return, people wanting information, teachers needing to hear from me—all in all, just too much to do.
So when my father told me the family was going out to the lake with the boat for a couple days, I immediately said no. In fact, I believe my exact sleep-induced words were, “I have work to do”. But as the morning progressed and sleep departed me, I soon realized how much I needed a little getaway and at what perfect timing it did come.
Our first stop was Cultus Lake. This lake is located about 30-ish minutes off the Hwy 1, officially located in city of Chilliwack, British Columbia. For those of you who have no idea where Chilliwack is or what it is like, allow me to enlighten you: it smells like cows and looks like the country. Not exactly my kind of city.
Don’t get me wrong though—Cultus Lake is a cute place. There are ice cream shacks all over the place and people wander around in their swimsuits. It has a very relaxing atmosphere (I mean, where are they going to go anyway?) and since I have been told that the nature of a vacation is to relax, this was definitely the place for me to be.
So shortly upon arrival, we got in line (yes, in line—Have I mentioned how popular Cultus Lake is?) to launch our boat. Things are going great, lovely, peachy, and most importantly: normal. We launch. Things don’t go exactly according to plan at first (translation: the motor dies in the middle of the lake—there was a loose cord we later found) but everything is going well. We speed along the waters. Great. And then…
Dad kills the engine (on purpose this time) and walks to the back of the boat. He throws over the waketube we brought with us. He says we should try it out. The country air must have gotten to my head and dazed my perception of danger, death and being eaten by giant lakefish because I agree excitedly. Oh, Chanel.
I tried WAKETUBING. (Click for picture)
Need I say more? Those who know me should know how this is so uncharacteristically like me. Getting on a boat that doesn’t hold 500+ people and 300 cars was a step for me. Getting on a floation device that holds ONE, being pulled at high speeds and risking the change of flipping over and plunging to my sad, sad, death was a HUGE step for me.
[Just in case you’re wondering, I did survive waketubing. Somehow the device managed to stay right-side-up the entire time and I did not join my worse nightmares (also known as “big, ugly fish”) fifty million feet below.]
The rest of the trip was less ground breaking. My cell phone died somewhere between Harrison and Hope, and having no internet access besides brief five minutes in the hotel lobby to transfer money between accounts (something i’d forgotten to do before I had left), I was pretty much left without any way to contact the life i’d left behind in Vancouver. And you know what? It was fabulous. No calls. No texts. No emails. No things to do. No people needing things done, or needing to talk to me. No work. No school. No nothing, just me, my family, my dog, our boat, great food and lots of lakes.
Towards the closing of our trip we stopped to eat at chinese restaurant in Hope, B.C. The food was great, but the reason I even mention it is because of the fortune cookie I got after my meal. The cookie actually had two fortunes for me, and they said…
“Now is the time to try something new”
(waketubing)
“You deserve to have a good time after a hard day’s work”
(this mini trip)
Granted, I read my fortune after both had come true.. but fulfil my fortune? That I did!
Dog caught eating carrot
VANCOUVER, BC—The local dog community is left speachless over the sudden arrest of a Mr. Winkey Wood.
Wood, former head of the K-dog mafia, was caught red-pawed today at approximately 13:30 after he stole multiple carrots from his homestay family’s kitchen and proceeded to eat them in their living room, right on the family’s persian carpet.
“I don’t know where I raised him wrong!” Wood’s mother said in a tearful interview with Modern Dog. “He was always so into meat! Why CARROTS? Where did I go wrong?! Next thing you know he’ll be calling me from prison and telling me he’s GAY!”
“It was quite a sight” Admits the daughter. “He never showed any signs of a vegetable addiction.”
Exclusive to chanelwood.com, we managed to get the official mugshot from Wood’s booking officer “Atos”, a giant Schnauzer. Wood (pictured right) had a solemn look on his face as he was carted off to the slammer.
“Strange little thing,” The booking officer said when asked about Wood. “Didn’t say much, only whined like a little girl.”
Speaking of girls, Wood’s long-time love interest, a pretty West Highland Terrier, was available for comment. “What kind of respectable dog eats carrots? Not just eat, but I saw the humans luring him in with fresh carrots—and he came.” She said, appalled. “I’ve never seen something so shocking before. Don’t rabbits eat carrots?”
Upon hearing the Terrier’s comment, Wood’s mother promptly burst into tears. She is currently at VGH where officials there say she is suffering from a mental breakdown.
Wood was not available for comment.
