'blind' date

It's been a wet and dreary week. I had been hoping ot attend the PNE fair but the weather has just not cooperated. Went on the 'blind' date after work on Wednesday. It was blind from his perspective since I had his photo but he didn't have mine. I saw him drive right by my building and I ended up running to catch up with his car. He couldn't tell which building was mine as I had pointed out the two blue ones. Anyway, he picked me up and we went to the Stone Grill restaurant after I went to the Salon to pay back some money I owed, only to find out the salon was closed! I found out later that the clients had cancelled so the stylist had gone home early!! He didn't have my number so he couldn't contact me.

Stone Grill was an interesting experience. They have these hot heated 'stones' (400 degrees) and your food comes and you cook it on the rock yourself. So if you have a chunck of sea bass (as I did), you slice and cook your way through the meal. It's supposed to be healthier due to no added oils etc. and also fresher since you are cooking each piece at different times instead of all at once. Interesting but a tad concerning as their were quite a few small flies around. Not sure why. We had a good chat and stayed til 9:15 or so before he drove me home. We were talking about meeting again. My concern was his age. 10 years is a big gap. I think he may have a lot more life experience than me and it may affect things in the future but we'll see.

dancing the night away

After work on Friday, I went to the night market with the folks, including my grandparents. My grandfather was really reluctant to go - torn between going and being seen in a wheelchair. He has his pride but it was evident that there was no way he would be able to walk the market so he put up with it. Not surprisingly, the first place he wanted to go was to the food stalls. We spent a good 45 minutes there before we were finally able to move onto the rest of the stalls. It was a lovely evening weatherwise - sunny and warm. Luckily we did it before the rains hit.

I went to fix my poor hair yesterday morning. Got it re-coloured to the darkest brown with a touch of plum red so that there's a light shine. I really needed it. Then had my hair evened out to take out the asymmetry as my sister said it was getting to be bad. The stylist actually told me that I could have gone for 2 more months if I wanted to. I kept debating with myself and figured that since I was already there that I would just get it done. He cut just a little bit and blew it into a funky style. Quite a pricey cut for what was actually done but anyway. I have to go back next week and give him the rest of the money since I didn't have enough cash on me. It started pouring rain as soon as I arrived at the salon and it wasn't much better when I left. However, I did make it home in one piece, had dinner, changed and went swing dancing with my sister.

She knew a bunch of people there as she's gone many times before the past few years. I didn't know anyone except for who she introduced me to. The guys didn't dance so great - the ones that did, didn't ask me...they kept asking my sister. Hard to dance and look too enthusiastic when all you are doing is the triple-step all night long. In summertime, the genders are reversed - way more guys than girls so there was no shortage in dance partners. There were a shortage in good dance partners though. My sister introduced me to a few guys and then I got asked by the same few to dance. One of them seemed interested in more than that and kept chatting with me but he was so young! I guess I looked young because of my haircut or something...he asked me out for coffee and I sort of hemmed a bit. He even said he'd drive me home after coffee (after work). I said it was too far. Anyway, nice guy but, too young. Gave him my email so we'll see if he writes. I think I'm going to have to keep making excuses...

hidden secrets

I'm almost embarrassed to admit it but one of my friends said she had been on this online dating service and had met a few people that way. So I signed up out of curiousity and left it untouched. I got an email a few days ago saying that they hadn't seen me and were offering me some free credits so I logged back on. I filled out my profile and then boom. Got tons of smiles and requests for chat. It was odd. And all this without a photo. I always fear that people I am talking to are actually people I know. Well, it was bound to happen. I got a smile from a guy...from WORK. So of course I've ignored him. It's been interesting so far. Especially since our internet crashed for 2 days at home...

to be a kid again

It's been a pretty hectic time now that my sister is back for a few days. I have barely had time to catch up with her - when I get home from work, she's on her way out to meet up with friends. Fortunately, I had won a pair of passes to Playland, our poor city's version of Disneyland, so we had a day of sun and fun. I have to admit that I feel like after zipping that I have conquered my fear of heights somewhat and had no problem jumping onto the hellevator. Apart from being extremely hot, and the occasional dizziness, it was a blast. My favourite ride is still the wave swinger, and the enterprise. They had a new ride this year, the crazy beach party, which is similar to the pirate boat but you sit in a circle facing inwards and they add a spin to it as you swing high so you get a cool cool feeling in the pit of your stomach. We rode it 3 times and had to watch as one woman got booted from the ride because she was too large. It was embarassing for her as all the head pieces on all the other 39 riders had to pop up to release her. Luckily, it meant my sister and I made it onto the ride as they only had one seat and the guy had miscounted. Now there were two so we squeezed on.

We shared an elephant's ear and then made our way over to the gas station for a slurpee before our parents picked us up and we headed over to my cousin's for a bbq. He had one just for my sister - he is an awesome cool guy! Good good food and I came home tired and happy from a great day.

get away

Ah. What a weekend it was. It started off super busy at work on Friday. Even though I had taken the day off, I was still there and working. How's that for working OT and not being paid? I don't think my boss can say anything to that. I didn't go in to work to prove it to her - it would have happened even if the incident with her had not happened. So after morning tea, I took off with a few of the students and we headed up to Whistler. Unfortunately, it was raining like it hadn't rained in days. (In fact, apparently we received half the usual total amount of rain for August on Friday.) I was just hoping the weather would clear up for the weekend.

We stopped in Squamish at a pub for lunch and waited for the other students to catch up. Some were pretty slow and we didn't eat until after 1pm. I had a wild game burger (venison, bison, and musk ox - which many of the other guys were trying to decide which to have without seeing that it was a combination of all 3...I will admit I did that too) and the yam fries which were fabulous. Best yam fries ever. Another girl got the fries and I got the salad and then we split the two so we had a mix of both. Worked out well and I ended up eating only a salad for dinner since I was so stuffed.

Our condo at Stoney Creek was great - we had two suites. I took the bunk bed in the smaller place which we had designated the quiet house. The larger place had 3 bedrooms (1 king, 1 queen, and 2 singles) and a hot tub on the patio. We hung out in the house for a bit and hopped into the hot tub while we waited for the rain to stop. Some people took naps.

We ventured out to the Village around 8 and stopped at a tapas place where they wined and dined for a bit before we headed over to Garfinkel's night club. One of the girls had said that Whistler had 10 guys to every girl. It was almost completely the flipside when we arrived in the club - so disappointing to see a pitiful 5 guys while 30 or 40 girls hung around. The place eventually picked up around midnight but by then I was ready to go to bed with a headache and ringing ears.

Zipping. I woke up early the next day and went with C., the only person who would go zipping. In fact, he was the one who organized the ziptrek. We went to grab a quick bite to eat and then strapped on our gear before doing the lines. The first line was pretty straightforward that I swung my arms out to fly. The ride was over too soon and then we were off to the temperate rain forest and whizzed over Fitzsimmons Creek on a 600 m line above the raging water. The worst part for me was stepping off. Once I had done so, I was fine. I even filmed the longest portion of the ride and everyone attempted to do the last zipline backwards and upside down!

Drama in the House. A bit annoying. I hadn't realized how there were a couple of people who didn't get along and had no idea how bad it really got until K. refused to go to dinner that night. I spent the afternoon wandering the Village alone. It was almost 2 hours before I returned to the house and saw the drama unfold a bit. I watched while a bunch of them rolled some weed before we headed off to dinner; the day had shifted from cloudy to sunny and the weather looked even better for the final day.

Games. After dinner at Caramba's (a restaurant I am not a major fan of) we headed back to play games. I watched the gang set up for poker and then while A. moved to make room for someone else, he plunked his chair and all 300 lbs of him on my toes! I squawked in pain. He didn't even realize what was the deal and finally got up. The others were just in shock and asked if I was ok. I said I thought so - I needed ice though. So someone went and grabbed me some and I sat crouched on the floor, not wanting to move while I iced my toes. E. asked me how many toes and I said I had no idea. Eventually I got up and sat down to watch them play poker...to find out everyone was keeping their plays/bets. When people flipped their cards, we saw that everyone had high cards - 10s, jacks, queens, and kings! We thought maybe the two decks got mixed in somehow but then realized that D. had bought the wrong deck of cards!! He had paid for Euchre cards - all high cards. He had thought the decks were expensive ($10 each) but figured that it was Whistler. We all had a good laugh before playing Scruples instead. I went to bed around 1.

Last Day. We woke up and cleaned up the places and checked out. Then drove to park our cars and had brunch at another pub before we trekked out to Lost Lake for a day in the sun. I didn't swim because I didn't relish the prospect of driving home wet. Thank goodness I was able to leave with D. instead of A. D. wanted to leave around 1:30 but we wound up leaving at 2 because we had to swap bags in the cars. I got dropped off around 6pm after stopping and dropping off two others. Good times. Many memories!

confrontation

It has been the strangest week at work so far. Everyone in the department has been in a bad mood and the boss isn't any exception. I am going up to Whistler on the student retreat - so I dreaded having to tell my boss where. Knowing from past experience, she likes to ask me every time I take a day off what I am doing. This time I was semi-prepared. She asked if I was doing another show and I said no. I just mentioned casually that the students invited me along. Her reaction wasn't what I expected - she was very surprised and happy, "Great! That's wonderful!" and later she asked why I didn't sound excited. I didn't reply that it was because I thought if I was excited that I would be rubbing it in her face. I also thought she would have told me not to go because it wasn't 'professional'. I had already been given a talking to earlier today. I had worked straight through lunch and said I'd take a longer one tomorrow before she replied that we were 'profesisonals' and expected to work overtime without pay. What's THAT supposed to mean? She then brought up the fact that I did OT copying work and I replied nonchalantly, "Oh. I thought you knew about that." She didn't. I didn't tell her. But then who would she have gotten the info. from? In any case, she asked why I did it...for the money? I said, yeah, and that it was convenient because I was already at the office. I didn't bother going into the other job I worked at. She then said I could do OT on this job, just that I wouldn't be paid for it. And what was that supposed to mean? She then said that my co-worker would be all alone on Friday. I said it was ok - I had mentioned it to her and she seemed fine. The boss then decides to work on Friday. I said she could switch - and come in on Friday instead of Thursday, since she's only working 3 days. She said she didn't mind coming in both days - that she could do with the extra money. Ok. I'm really not sure what's going on here. It's ok for her to make money but not me? There is some strange hypocrisy going on. I can't wait til Friday.

24

20 wildfires started yesterday. It rained today - first time in 24 days.

fire in the sky

Yesterday I met up with one of the students at the firm for a shopping jaunt down 4th. Another friend of mine had told me of a new shop that carried Camper shoes and I wanted to check it out as she had bought a pair and showed them off to me the week before. It was another hot and sunny day. Went downtown and parked my car and ran into my boss who almost didn't recognize me. It was my hair. He hadn't seen me since last summer so it's been a while. We chatted a bit and then I took the bus down to 4th. Checked out the shop - and even made the poor sales guy go into the back to pull out their newest shipment of Camper shoes that had arrived but were not even priced yet! I tried on a really cute pair - with monkeys embroidered on them but couldn't quite part with the pricetag of $198...so I told him I'd think about it. Especially since it was a final sale or store credit! (That I don't understand as the shoes are at regular price...)

Went back downtown and had a quick bite before we met up with T's boyfriend and we ended up walking down Robson as the bus completely broke down and we were all told to get off. By the time there was a bus on Robson, we were almost all the way down to Denman anyway so we just kept walking. We split up and I headed to work. The casual fireworks cruise had 85 pax and it was a pretty quiet night on the Yalis. We departed at 9 and arrived back slightly after 11pm after watching a spectacular show put on by Sweden - their first competition here. The moon was massive and yellow - like one could just pick it out of the sky. In fact, I originally thought it could have been the sun except for the fact that the sky was velvety black! I got home around 12:30 - not too bad.

Got woken up this morning with a call from H. He had called me last night but I was at work. He told me his 82 year old grandmother had a stroke and was in hospital. He was pretty upset. I told him not to worry- that he couldn't do anything about it - but it was precisely that which he agreed with me on.