softly flowing, lightly blowing, quietly snowing

It's been snowing on and off today. The snow consists of tiny tiny flakes that are somewhat dry as it started coating downtown, which is a rare sight indeed. The incoming train had signal problems that originally would have delayed us 5-10 minutes but ended up being 25 minutes. It was nice to sit inside and look out over the water so I didn't mind.

What a contrast to yesterday when it was bright, sunny, and cold! I walked around Canada Place and saw so many birds coasting in the wind, including 3 ospreys!! I am pretty sure they weren't eagles. I don't know what sort of change is coming up for me but I guess I'll find out soon.

During both today and yesterday's lunches, I went out to do a bit of shopping. Blue Ruby never has sales but a lot of things were at least 20% off and up to 70% off. I found the silver earrings that I have been eyeing since the summer in the mall store but they were gone! So I headed quickly to Robson St. and couldn't find them either! I asked the sales girl and she knew what I was talking about and dug around. They had moved them to the clearance section and had piled them all together. So I bought two pairs instead of one. :) Great price as they were 50% off.

I also passed by Speedo and saw that everything in the store was 30% off the lowest ticketed price. Apparently, Speedo is closing their retail locations! :( This is where you can get the best selection of Speedo stuff at the best prices - when they keep discounting. I ended up buying a translucent blue silicone cap. What I didn't like was that a lot of accessories had sticker prices on top of old ones and I could see the original price - which happened to be 30% lower! So it was in fact, not really so much a sale because the sale price was the old original price! Sneaky. :( But I also tried on some 'yoga' suits - and bought a pair in merlot. Very pretty and they're like capris so perfect for tapping in. These were a good price because they were already marked down. I have been contemplating about buying the jacket but there are two styles - one is nice - full zipper but they only have it in M and XL, and I'd do best with a S. The other one is a tapered fit - very, very nice...but only a half-zipper and I found that you really couldn't wear very much underneath it because all your clothing would be lumpy. So I will think on it. I probably won't end up getting either since I hardly wear jackets like that out anywhere. I also keep hoping they will discount further - and I'm sure they will... but who knows when that will happen and if I wait too long, it may be sold out, or the store will have suddenly closed without warning... ah. This is what happens when you have money to spend! I ended up spending my whole lunch hour at Speedo today!

leftover snow

There's still some snow left but the sun is out so I don't know if it will snow any more today. My parents got back an hour ago and now mom's sleeping. Dad has to work this afternoon. I will take some time today to do a bit of reading up (I have 8 books on Vegas!) and some relaxing around the house since tomorrow's going to be a work day. I will be working every day this week except for Thursday, New Year's...however, I will be working on New Year's Eve - from 900-1500 at the firm, heading home, and then heading back out to work on the wild party boat from 1800-230. Won't be back til 3am so it will have been like working on the Thursday anyway. We'll see what the weather's like this week!

2 days too late

It snowed today. A lot though only a few centimetres stuck around. We missed a white Christmas by two days. I think we've had about 8 white Christmases in the last 58 years...

I went out to the library today to borrow some books on Vegas; it should be an awesome trip! I also went to the Dance Box to buy another pair of tap shoes as my other ones are just not so good anymore; the screw on my left tap keeps loosening every class so I bought a new style - Bloch shoes that are elasticized at the top (no laces) which I can just slip on. I was quite lucky - they only had the one pair (sample on the display rack) so I had to take that one. $106 at 25% off, it still cost me $90 including tax but these should be great for class. :)

My cousin Raymond organized a Christmas dinner at his house again - always the kind one to do the organizing for the bunch of us. Everyone was supposed to arrive at 4pm to work around my sister's schedule. We left shortly after 7pm so she could pack. Our parents were going to drive down to Seattle at 2 am to drop her off at the airport. I was going to stay home and sleep.

boxing day shopping

Two Christmas' ago, H. came to visit and he had never experienced boxing day shopping so we went to Robson. He couldn't believe that people lined up to get into stores! Well this year he didn't come to visit; mom said no one would be paying any attention to him since my sister was back. Btw, things between her and I have almost returned to normal - some bickering over stupid things. The only amusing thing was how she had picked up the habit of trashing everything - when she finished her bottle of gatorade and went to the kitchen garbage bin, my mom, dad, and I all started yelling at her. I guess when you live in the US for a long time, you become used to the wastage and lack of recycling.

Anyway, back to yesterday and today. Christmas day was fine with the sun shining brightly. I just don't get this weather. We opened our presents and mom was really touched by the Precious Moments figurine that my sister and I had got her. It was the one with the fortune ball with the quote "I see bright hope in your future." I liked it a lot myself but this is my mom's favourite doll. My sister thought I'd like her present, which I did, but unfortunately, she didn't know I already had it! She bought me the game Taboo. I got her a large tri-scented tea candle which she can take back with her which she seemed to like a lot. Dinner was out at Sun Sui Wah, so VERY un-Christmasy but since no one was willing to host this year (we did last year at our place with Judy's visit). Last year we had turkey from Quattro's and the works. Absolutely fabulous. This year, it was a crowded dinner table with tons of other people packed in the restaurant.

We had decided that there was no urge or need to go rushing around shopping so we just made a trip out to the local mall. I bought just a few things - a stocking that I had eyed last year but never purchased - one side says naughty and the other side says nice, the latest Cirque du Soleil DVD, Varekai, mostly funded by a gift certificate that I had, and Josh Groban's latest CD, Closer, which was on sale as a gimmick to get people into the store. It still felt like a pretty long day as we were gone from about 9am until 2pm. The sales were not as good as last year - things were going out on sale prior to Christmas and we weren't downtown. By the time I make it to work on Monday, many things will have already been picked over and there may not be much left but I suppose it is just as well since I own too many things as it is! I also am saving my shopping for Vegas. :)

xmas eve

I slept poorly again last night, waking up at 4am for about an hour and not falling asleep again until well past 5am. Thank goodness today is a short day; I get off at 1pm. Just the day before, I was so exhausted I didn't even realize that I hadn't taken my contacts out so I slept with my contacts. Talk about a nice way to wake up to dry dry eyes. Never will I do THAT again.

Today after work, dad picked me up to take me to see my godfather who is in the hospital right now. He fractured a lumbar and cannot move his leg. He is so thin - all bones... I was actually quite shocked. And he was even nice enough to ask about my trip to Cuba! Picked up mom from the Chinese medicine doctor and then picked up my sister after she met up with her friend and headed home. Crazy weather - more rain. Just like March or something.

I sit at home now waiting for mom to finish her physio appointment and then we are all heading over to the Keg for dinner since no one is doing anything on dad's side of the family this year. All over the stupid money. Ah well. I've had enough to eat. We figured though that since my sister is home that we should use up some of the gift certificates that we've gotten over the years from my uncle. Each Christmas for the last 3 or so, he's given my sister and I each a gift certificate to the Keg. We haven't used any so we've got a good meal coming.

vegas

I booked a trip to Vegas for the end of January! H. is coming to visit then and we decided to make a trip out of it. We're booked into Treasure Island. I figured Monte Carlo was nice but farther down the strip. After I booked, I wished I'd booked into the Aladdin as someone at work stayed there and said it was quite nice. I assumed it was the old Aladdin but this has been rebuilt and is now the newest on the Strip. Ah. And it was cheaper too but it's too late. Perhaps it's for the best; at the bottom of Aladdin is a shopping complex (largest on the Strip) with well over 130 shops! I have a soft spot for Treasure Island since I stayed there 10 years ago and I don't need to be let loose in the mall though you can bet I will make a trek over there.

No trip would be complete without a Cirque show. :) So I booked "O" at the Bellagio. The show tickets are released 3 months in advance and many of the main row seats are already sold out. Insane. And expensive too. We are in row C and it's $125US per person. I hope it's good! Seats are selling out fast - I checked after I booked and all the orchestra seats are gone...not sure how the process is done but even looking to the latest date available, none of the centre orchestra seats are free (and these cost $150US each!). Anyway, I phoned the toll-free line to book but the lady gave me even worse seats so I booked online.

exhaustion

My lack of sleep has been troublesome.

"we got him"

The biggest news since 9/11 I would say is probably the capture of Saddam Hussein on Sunday. My parents were out helping my grandparents move and I was surfing when I came across the breaking news headline on CNN. It was plastered on all the papers around the world, "We got him."

xmas party #3

The party at the Waterfront Hotel was elegant - same location as last year's formal but of course this year it was buffet for the staff. The only difference was they didn't hand out drink tickets this year (2 per person) because they made it open bar! Not that it matters since I don't drink. But anyway. I left around 10pm but was ready to go at 9 and had to wait for an associate to give me a ride. All in all, it was an ok night. I just couldn't get caught up in the whole party atmosphere. The students did a skit/parody on Law & Order which was quite well done - probably the second best of the 4 I've seen. The first one Survivor still gets my vote for being most original. Everyone else has copied it since.

As for working on the carol ship, it was actually nice working back on my little boat apart from slicing my finger early in the shift while cutting up limes. I had to work with a bartender that I worked with back in the summer - I always thought he was slimy and not trustworthy but what can you do? No big chocolate cake for me to take home this time. I took home some small dessert squares. Our route took us up Deep Cove and I was able this time to see all the other ships circling Canada Place as we got ready to leave in a parade. Houses along the shore were all lit up with lights and people were silhouetted against their living room windows. They were staring at us and their cameras flashed as they took pictures of us! It was quite neat. The party on the boat was actually a client of our firm but of course I didn't say anything! And the party started earlier - at 6:45 so we got back earlier - 10:45 and I was home by 12:30am, which was a nice bonus!

another year, another ornament

As they say, out with the old, and in with the new. It's been another year at the firm, so we all get another Christmas tree ornament. This year's 'solid pewter' memento is our logo flanked on both sides with a single red candle. Also in going with the theme, we may as well get rid of our old PM, Mr. Jean Chretien, and welcome in Mr. Paul Martin who took office today. Bye bye Chretien!!

It will be xmas party #3 this evening but thankfully it is downstairs in our building - connected through the walkway to the hotel. I will arrive just before dinner and skip all the chit-chat cocktail drinks and leave as soon as the student video is over. Party or not, this is still time with the firm and I've had enough for this year.

xmas party #2

My uncle invited me to his company's Christmas lunch so I took the afternoon off to go to Quattro's on 4th. It's supposed to be one of the finest Italian dining experiences one can have so how could I turn it down? :) It was about right during the week too as my energy has been feeling a bit low and I was bored at work. He picked me up at lunch and we headed over to the tiny restaurant. I hadn't realized how tiny it really was! It was similar in size to Star Anise, another fantastic restaurant.

Food was set out buffet style but there was everything imaginable and delicious! Prawns, crab cakes, smoked salmon wrapped around a fig, and salads as appetizers. The 'meat' of the meal consisted of the best-tasting lamb I've ever had, along with steak, 2 dishes of salmon, cornish-game hen, Italian sausage, and spicy spaghetti, lasagna and grilled vegetables. Dessert consisted of chocolate brownies, chocolate dipped biscotti, chocolate-chocolate biscotti, and tiramisu. All was fabulous. I had the biscotti in mocha. I was SO full and I had made sure I hadn't eaten too much meat! Delicious. Fantastic. And it was an open bar. I tried Mike's Hard Limonade - never seen this type before - we only sell lemonade and cranberry-ade on our ships. Wasn't too bad but probably still too much sugar after I ate the whole brownie plus 2 and a half biscotti!!

sugary breakfast

Our building hosts a "holiday cheer" each Christmas - normally a two hour extravaganza in the super lobby where one can indulge in biscotti and mince tarts, chocolate-covered strawberries (which go fast!), and eggnog lattes. One can even have a 'healthy' muffin accompanied with juice. Entertainers sing songs of the season and Santa sits in a corner ready to pose with you. Well this year is the first year they have moved the mid-morning feast to early morning. Usually, if you plan it well, you can make a go of a sugary lunch between 11 and 1... this year, it got moved to 8 and 10am. So I had an eggnog latte and picked up some chocolatey snacks to save for later. Good sugar kick start for the morning, I tell ya. Ironically, in the past, it usually fell on the same day as our Christmas floor lunch so that one would pick up some snacks on the way to the restaurant. However, this tradition has also been eliminated from the firm, which is just as well, since we all eat out way too much during the month of December. (It has been replaced by a floor pot-luck.)

balancing act

I truly feel like I am getting more of a balance in terms of a sedentary and active life - at least in terms of work. After sitting at a desk from 9-5, it's nice to be able to move around for my bar shifts, but it's almost to the extreme. I got suckered into doing another shift, if you can believe it! My boss asked if I'd want to do a shift on Saturday and I would have said no if 1) my friend was coming back from Seattle and we were going to spend the morning up at Grouse 2) it was a catering job. Well, none of those were met, so I said yes, I'll take the shift. It will be on my little boat but there's no way to tell whether the crowd will be generous or not. I have to remember though that it really isn't for the money!! This should be the last of my shifts...I really don't want to be addicted to tips - and it is easy to see how one can be.

As a side note - at the end of work today, my boss was standing at my desk and we were chatting and she asked sort of half-jokingly, "Do you want my job?" I replied, cheerfully "Sure! If you show me the ropes." and added that she's been here for so long. She answered that she couldn't be here forever.... are changes in the air as the reader had said?

waiting for tips

There are two meanings in my subject. Got them? I have a new respect for wait staff. It was raining when I went downtown but slowed to a trickle by the time I got to work so that was nice. If it's raining, it means I don't have to scraped frost off the windshield, and I don't have to worry about flipping out on the docks. Man. It was a huge party (120 pax) for a private company (Hazco, an environmental group I had never heard of) but were they cheap. They all had drink tickets and I only took two cash orders - one for 4 Russian whites where the guy gave me a $20 (drinks were $18). I think I made about $5 the whole night. Thank goodness the tips are split so I got more at the end of the night but this was still less than last week's and there were only 70 pax or so! Anyway, now I have an idea of what it would be like working as wait staff on a cruise line - except they get tipped. It was so much work and my back and feet were sore from standing all night. For some reason, I didn't even have a problem last week but this week, I really felt it. I can see how one might not do much sight-seeing on a cruise ship - I barely had time to see the carol ship parade - all I could see was the ship in front of us, and the one behind us. No time to stop and enjoy...of course not since I'm working. I was also quite speedy - some people said "wow that was fast" but still no tip or anything. What a night. They wouldn't even leave the ship even though we docked and had turned all the lights back on. We were back at 11 but I don't think they all left until around 11:30. I also washed enough bar glasses for a year. I got home slightly past 1am. I was thinking, there's no way I'm going to do another shift - especially catering, which I think is even more work with setting up the tables and getting all the food on board etc. No way - not at this pay. Not worth it and I got the experience I was after.

post xmas party #1

A lawyer offered her home to me so I could have a place to change my clothes but that meant leaving the office at 3:30...no problem with that! But I felt like I shouldn't for two reasons: 1) the other co-workers would still be at work and I'm leaving so I can attend a party that 2) they aren't invited to the party and I don't want to rub it in their face. So I hung out at the office and worked on some things until the last minute possible. It was also raining and I didn't want to trek out in the rain with all my jewelry and dress to the North Shore on public transit. So I changed around 6 pm, which was when the reception started. I took the underground to the Four Seasons so I didn't have to get wet, carefully hiding my crystal choker under my scarf; I stepped into the washroom when I arrived so I could put on my matching earrings. Dinner was supposed to start at 6:45 but of course it didn't start til after 7. I missed all the hors d'oeuvres they were serving (such as salmon caviar and mini dungeness crab cakes, smoked wild pacific salmon roulade, hand-foraged wild mushroom tart, winter truffle oil!!) but it meant skipping out on small talk so that was fine; besides, at these events, I tend to find myself more drawn to the food than the conversation. I was really not in a mood to party - it felt all so contrived and excessive, especially after Cuba.

The decor was stunning - each table had a block of ice with a plastic version of our logo embedded inside it; it was then lit up by a light on the table shining up into the ice. Cool but you couldn't see across the table to the other side. Ah well. The price one has to pay I suppose. The food was fabulous too with our 5 course meal consisting of:

Tossed green salad, late harvest Perth County apples,
crisp prosciutto, aged sherry vinaigrette
***
Seafood sausage, dill spaetzle, grain-mustard butter
***
Bison, port jus
Butternut squash and potato gratin
Carmelized carrots
***
Goat cheese, berry compote, maple drizzle
***
White-chocolate dome, ginger sorbet

Wines:
Sauvignon Blanc, Stoneleigh, New Zealand
Chardonnay, Louis Latour, France
Zinfandel, Sebastiani, California
Pinot Noir, Louis Latour, France

It was funny that a couple of lawyers at my table bit into the goat cheese thinking it was ice cream. You can imagine the registration in one's brain - you're anticipating sweet, and you get ... cheese. That was pretty funny. I really liked the ginger sorbet - normally I'm not one to eat sushi ginger but this ginger sorbet was unique. Quite cool. And the white-chocolate dome was mmmmm!!!

They showed a Christmas video put together by some of the partners. I then phoned up my dad who had offered so kindly to pick me up and waited around until he arrived, which was nearly 10:40pm. Then I got home and slept late.

xmas party #1

It's been already a pretty crazy week with the World Team Figure Skating Championships that happened on Wednesday and tonight is the formal (black tie) dinner at the Four Seasons. Let me backtrack a little first.

I have been really tired lately from a lack of sleep. I was still a little high from my bar shift and how well it went considering I was new at it all and didn't sleep well on Saturday night...then Sunday I was up early and went for dim sum with my grandparents so I was a little lightheaded from lack of sleep.

Skating: wow. That was pretty cool. I took my mom and we were the first to arrive at the box and there laid out on the table was a tray of sushi and large cocktail prawns and dipping sauce. I had bought dinner - salad rolls. Once others started arriving, I dug in. We also had hot food: beef kabobs, tempura-like prawns with a mango chutney sauce (the best!!), salmon, mashed potatos and asparagus, caesar salad, round beef medallion steaks and the liquor to go with it all! The show itself was great too but too many breaks in between as they were taping for the telecasting and it dragged the show out. We started late - 10 minutes past 7, and then it ran until after 11pm...we left before the medal ceremony but not before we found out Canada won. :) Kurt Browning was awesome even though he was skating on old skates because when he arrived, his luggage went on to Shanghai. Jamie Sale and David Pelletier were great as well. And they will be broadcasting it on tv this weekend. The other surprising thing was that one of the lawyers who left our firm showed up too - she's now seeing someone still at the firm. So it was nice seeing her.

So with this poor weather (rain and wind), I am not really in the mood to go to tonight's dinner but I had already said I was going and some people will expect to see me. I'll eat and leave as soon as possible as I have to work tomorrow too - it will be another bar shift but on the larger boat - the Britannia. There will be another bar server plus the bartender so that obviously means it will be quite busy. Good experience. I just hope it doesn't pour while I'm loading up on stock on the boat... Ah. I can already feel the stress of the season and it never used to bother me before. One other thing that is quite disturbing is that I almost feel like these dinners are overdone - ever since Cuba, I've been feeling like so many things are excessive. And the other thing that would make tonight even better? If I had a date. :)