Dear Residents of Central and Southern California…
As a conscious citizen of the Northland, I would formally like to alert you of Prop 10478347, also known as Use It Or Lose It: The Appreciation of Livable Winter Weather Act.
This is what it looks like in much of the northern part of your great country right now:
This photo was snapped by government spies last week in San Jose, California:
Why I don’t take vacations
Being that I am a person of extremes, vacations rarely do me any good in the long run. Working vacations are fabulous. Vacation vacations are not.
Working vacations, if done right, generally combine a perfect balance of work and play, creating a healthy balance of reality; just in a different setting. For me, this is how I live my life at home, just magnified and more intense. The result? Little to no readjustment, but much refreshment.
Vacation vacations, if done right, generally involve a entire process of forgetting reality all together and just “relaxing”—and while that sounds ridiculously tempting, it’s generally a “putting off”, “delaying”, or “running away from” of your problems, i.e., reality. The result? A painful readjustment process in the face of sharp, rude reality when you get home. And sand in your suitcase.
Tight squeeze, cool breeze, now you’ve got the shiveries!
“And where are you from?”
“Vancouver, BC… in Canada”
“Oh, Canada! This must be warm for you.”
“Well actually…”
Very encouraging
As we were driving to Salt Lake City, somewhere between Eastern and Western Oregon on either the I-82 E or the I-84 E (too specific, I know), we ran into a particular stretch of consecutive highway exits with the most bizarre (not to mention, creepy) names.
First there was the exit to Coffin Road. Next came Poverty Flat. Following that, Old Emmigrant Road. But my personal favorite? The exit to Deadman’s Pass with the gigantic sign next to it saying—and I kid you not—”DRIVE SAFELY!”
Just one of the many reasons I love road trips: you never know what you’ll see.
Toto, I don’t think we’re in Vancouver anymore
At a KFC drive thru around 8pm somewhere in eastern Oregon:
“Welcome to KFC, what can I get for you tonight?”
“Can I have a veggie chicken burger?”
“A what?”
“Veggie chicken burger?”
“You mean the ten piece?”
“No, the VEGGIE. CHICKEN. BURGER.”
“The ten piece, right?”
“NO. It’s a burger with a vegetarian chicken patty in it..”
“Do you want thighs or strips?”
“I want the VEGETARIAN. CHICKEN. BURGER.”
(A lady, presumably his supervisor, comes on)
“How can I help you, madam?”
“Do you have the vegetarian chicken burger?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Click.
Unsure of whether or not the lady in the talking box at KFC actually hung up on us, we drive forward to the window, hoping that maybe they can understand us a bit better if we talk to them face to face, and here is what happens:
“So you wanted the 10 piece, right?”
“Umm, no. We wanted the vegetarian chicken burger.”
“Thighs or strips?”
“No no no—its a BURGER made with a vegetarian imitation chicken patty… It’s not actually meat. They sell them in Canada…”
(Guy looks utterly confused, like, vege-whaaaat?)
“Let me… go ask my manager.”
“Yeah, I don’t think we have those things here.”
Lucky in cards, unlucky in love
Over this past summer, I probably played more card games with more people than anything else. It was a fun thing to do when you’re out in the middle of nowhere with no internet, no phone, no city life to speak of and surrounded by a ton of friends.
So we played. We played President, Egyptian Rat Screw, five more rounds of Egyptian Rat Screw, and then more President. It was that or hiking, and as I learned on the last Saturday afternoon of my middle-of-nowhere adventure, hiking is not among my strongest talents.
Setting: Subway - 3490 Kingsway in Burnaby, around 7pm, Saturday October 25th.
You: Henry, from Czech Republic, white iPhone, bacon and chicken sub on whole wheat bread with ranch dressing, no olives. Lives just off Kingsway. Party Saturday night. The lady behind the counter said I was pretty and you agreed. You told her you were too shy to ask me my name, so I told you instead.
Me: Chanel, half Fijian, quarter French, quarter British, no iPhone present, veggie sub on whole wheat, Italian dressing, with olives. Lives by Killarney. Was heading to North Vancouver.
They say strangers are friends you just haven’t met yet. Hi. :)
Rocks turn to sand, hearts can change hands
Come with me, my love
To the sea, the sea of loveCat power - Sea of love
There is a bottle sitting on my bathroom counter right now as I type this, and somewhere between the product description and the recommended usage is a fun fact. “Time is fun when you’re having flies”, it says; and if I could choose one sentence to describe my summer, that one would probably be it.
These last couple months have been amazing and different and somehow groundbreaking, or as groundbreaking as you can be when you only ever take things in small doses. I saw friends I hadn’t seen in many years. I traveled. I hiked up a mountain. I saw a shooting star. I got a tan line. I bought two pairs of nine west heels at $20 each. I never once stepped on a plane.
The obligatory “going on vacation, wish you were coming!” post
Today I leave for Hope, British Columbia to attend a 10 day conference in the middle of nowhere. I’ve been going since I was three and unlike all my other trips, this one is uniquely different in the way that it is the closest I ever come to camping. Or the wilderness. Or a combination of both.
(Of course, I’m staying in a trailer, not a tent, and I’ll probably bring those hot pair of heels I picked up in California, but the lack of a hotel, city and internet and the possibility of bears and mountain lions makes this trip camping in the wilderness, Chanel-style.)
Despite the obvious setbacks of being in a location where there is no internet, I am terribly excited about leaving. We’re even bringing the boat up, and while I can assure you there will be no waketubing, I will sit on the bow, dangle my feet in the water and try not to tan. And it will be lovely.
Have double the fun for me, internet!
Welcome to the US and A, y’all!
I love America.
I’m not even sure if I can correctly articulate how much I adore American culture, but I suspect it’s because the US is so different from Canada. Everything is so surreal. They’re all so “GOD BLESS AMERICA!”, “SUPPORT OUR TROOPS!” and “WE LOVE TACO BELL!” … Just like in the movies or on CNN. (The different between the two, by the way? Not much.)
I know most people either have no opinion or a very strong opinion on America and American things, but I can’t help but fuss and giggle over nearly everything American. Like their accents. And their restaurants. And their food. And George W. Bush. I may not agree with everything, but it’s America. And being Canadian, you can’t help but marvel at how oddly different everything is.
Sort of like yesterday, when I asked the gas station attendant how to get back on the highway. After using the word “highway” to refer to the freeway (or is it interstate?) at least ten times in the span of about two minutes, he finally snapped:
“It’s the FREEWAY, ma’am. FREEWAY.”
My apologies. Back at home they call them big roads HIGHWAYS.
