Tropical vacations that will never be

After planning and talking and getting excited about our trip to whichever cheap, all-inclusive resort we could find, my tropical vacation with Meg has been cancelled.  After finding out yesterday (10 days before we were supposed to leave) that Meg can’t go, I’m left me scrambling to try and salvage the time I’ve booked off and the money I’ve saved to go away.  New York?  I could, but a week would be too much on my own.  LA?  Mexico?  A week in a tropical location on my own will be too depressing.  But, when all else fails, good old dependable Montreal is always there to catch me when I fall.  After getting some indication from my lovely Montreal friends that it would be okay for me to spring a visit on them at such short notice, I booked a flight to Frenchtown.  Westjet is having a seat sale, so I managed to get a one-way ticket for $99 plus tax, which is the cheapest I’ve ever seen it advertised for.  I’ve sent an email to my cousin in Toronto, so I may make a trip over to Toronto as well to visit her, if that works out.  As much as Porter is a bitch for people who actually live in Toronto (as they fly out of the Toronto Islands and disrupt daily life for the convenience of business people), it’s cheap like borscht.  Maybe I can swing a day trip to Quebec City?  Rent a car and drive to New York City for a night?  Who knows.  I’ll figure something out.  I have to be in Vancouver on July 26th to start the Simon Fraser book editing course I’m taking, but the week leading up to that is wide open.  As much as I know I likely won’t do anything ‘crazy’, I like the feeling of freedom to do whatever I want, while actually having the money to do it.

I may not be spending my 28th birthday on a sunny beach, revelling in the fact that I am now benefiting from the years of busting my ass in school to get a good job and finally having money in the bank, but I’ll be spending it with some of the best people I’ve met in a city that has a piece of my heart.

Chillin’ with Raekwon

On Friday night I invited a few friends over for drinks and apps before we all headed down to Blush to see Raekwon perform.  Mine and Meghan’s goal of getting our photo taken with every member of Wu Tang is slowly on its way to fruition.

After a few drinks (or, you know, a bottle of vodka, however you want to say it) and stuffing our faces with appetizers care of Brianne and my last minute trip to the grocery store, we headed out on foot.  There was a bit of a line up when we got there, so we missed a bit of the opening acts, although I’m not sure it really made a difference because I couldn’t even tell you who they were.  The bar was packed, so we found a spot next to the stage and waited for them to bring out the man of the hour.  It may have been because of the crowd (pushing and shoving their arms through the crowd to try and get a photo), or because of all the booze, but after about 20 minutes Meghan and I left for the patio and ended up wandering around there and behind the crowd that had formed around the stage.  It was a good show – I had fun listening – but I couldn’t even list one of Raekwon’s songs, so it wasn’t like I was singing along to all of the lyrics.  Immediately after he finished, Meghan’s sister and brother-in-law left, and only myself, Meg, and Brianne were left.  We hung around downstairs as the crowd slowly dispursed, and at some point Meghan managed to get a wrist band to go upstairs to the VIP to meet the man.  Standing at the bottom of the stairs, Meghan was about to go up and I said something to the effect of “well I need to go up there too” and the security guard blocking the stairs said, as if he could care less who went up there, “ya go ahead.”

We got upstairs and someone ushered us over to Raekwon so we could awkwardly gather around him while someone took our photo.

As you can tell, the man was sweaty.  We just sort of stood around and he asked us some questions (of which I have little to no memory) and then asked me how old I was.  Before I could respond, he said “What are you, 31?”.  Jesus Christ.  Fucking Raekwon.  I did not hide my disappointment: “What the fuck, Raekwon?! I’m 27!”  Friggin’ guy.  Anyway, so after that we went back downstairs and after scanning the remaining crowd to determine that they were all, in fact, douchebags and groupies, I made my plea to the ladies for us to leave.  Meghan wanted to dance, Brianne was content in laughing at her, but I felt the overwhelming desire to get the fuck out of there.  As we were standing there, one of Raekwon’s ‘handlers’ came up to me and said “(Muffled) wants to meet you.”  I rudely responded “What?” and he repeated himself – Raekwon wants to meet me.  I said “Oh ya, I’ve already met him” and he looked at me like I had recently had a lobotomy, and then asked if I didn’t want to go back to the hotel and party with them.  Hell no.  I pointed at Meg and Brianne and he responded “ya, bring your girls.”  I relayed this to Meghan and Bri, apparently mocking the guy while he was standing right behind me.  Meghan was all for it, so we went back upstairs.  When we got up there, Raekwon waved me over and said something to the effect of “so my friend got you to come back up here” and then proceeded to ask me questions like “do you listen to this kind of music?” and others along the theme of ‘you-are-so-white’.  I scoffed and said that we had seen GZA a few months ago and that the show was pretty good.  More photos were taken at this point, just cause we could.  Brianne told Raekwon how tiny we thought his feet looked (it’s a wonder he can hold himself upright, he has tiny ass feet!), and got a photo comparing his to her size-three feet.

At this point they were all leaving for the hotel, and I was wholly uninterested in going.  I had no intention of fucking anyone, and didn’t want to end up in a situation where that was assumed of me.  You know – getting girls to go back to your hotel with you?  That’s not an environment for an old white lady with a man at home.  Anyway, Meghan made a fairly strong argument “when are we ever going to get the chance to party with Raekwon again?!” so I turned to Brianne, the Voice of Reason (being sober and level-headed), for her thoughts.  “We should probably go with them.”  So it was settled.  While Meghan and Brianne were getting their jackets, I was waiting in the VIP doorway, chatting away with the Wu Tang alum, while the rest of the entourage and the chicks they had convinced to have sex with them were all piling into the limo that was waiting out front.  In a moment of complete embarrassment (only in retrospect, though), I yelled down the hall to Meghan and Brianne as they came with their jackets “yah, just talking to Raekwon, no big deal, whatever, just hanging out with Raekwon.”  I thought I was being funny at the time, but thinking back I must have looked like a fucking jackass.  Whatever.

So we got into a shiny black limo and made our way to the Fairmont (one of Winnipeg’s few fancy hotels).  The first room we went into was just two beds and a tv (what you would expect of a hotel room), so we left there and went with the DJ and promoter to another room that had a couch, desk, and murphy bed (which we immediately pulled out and laughed at).  The next few hours were spent smoking the DJ’s weed, laughing about pretty much everything, and essentially just hanging out on the couch.  It was awesome.  Plus that DJ’s weed was really good.  Brianne had mentioned early in the night that she used to live in England, so the running joke was to call eachother “bloody wankas” and “cunts” – the best moment being when Brianne was explaining the British use of the word “cunt” and one of the guys in the entourage walked in asking for a condom (”I’mma bust in her face” – real classy, you fucking jackass).  He was a huge douche, so Bri didn’t miss a beat, pointed to him and said “this guy right here, he’s a classic cunt.”  Awesome.

We left when the guy whose room we were in wanted to go to bed, and instead of going to another room, we went downstairs so Meghan could have a smoke.  We decided at that point just to leave (I was convinced they’d hardly notice we had left).  While we were standing outside trying to figure out what to do (or trying to convince Meghan it was time to go, being that it was 4:00 am), a dude in a suit came up and asked for a smoke and started talking to us.  He was a weird guy, and kind of a dick, first lying about his father being dead to garner sympathy, I guess, and then writing down what we were saying on a little notepad he had.  He was a tool.

We left in a cab and headed back to my place.  I fell asleep around 5:00 am, only to be woken up four hours later by my brother who was to drive us to the lake Saturday morning.  Needless to say, I had a rough Saturday.

All in all, though, an amazing night.  I haven’t laughed that much or mocked that mercilessly in ages.  The next show that’s coming to Winnipeg is Busta Rhymes, and you better believe I’m going to groupie it up for that shit and add another celebrity photo to my collection.

Oh Canada (Day)

After starting my day off with a little home organization and a run, I was feeling pretty good about myself.  The weather was gorgeous and I felt happy to be able to spend time outside instead of at a computer desk.  But then, while I was on my run, I lost my house key.  Add in an extra hour and a half of retracing my steps, to no avail, and another half hour waiting for my parents to come with the spare keys and let me in, and my morning was shot.  I did some backyard yoga while I waited for my parents to bail me out, though, which was lovely, and when they did arrive, they not only let me in to my house, but they brought me an amp and two speakers, mowed my lawn, and fixed my gate.  Excellent.  Apparently I should get locked out of the house more often.

After showering and getting dressed, I walked over to April’s house and we made our way down to the annual Osborne Street Festival.  Always fun, and always packed with drunken, sunburned people, we had a good time.  Highlights included the reptile “garden” (a trailer filled with glass tanks of snakes and lizards) at which you could have your photo taken with a huge albino python of some kind; Emma’s Michael Jackson impression; checking out the inside of a fire truck; and the people watching…oh the people watching.  Five beers and half a plate of nachos later, and I was ready to pack it in.  I couldn’t be bothered to stay for the fireworks, so I took a cue from Meghan’s daughter (”Mom, I have daycare in the morning!”) and left around 10:30pm to go home and watch Arrested Development on the couch before passing out in my freshly cleaned sheets.

I love sunny days.

Edumacated

I attended the graduation of my friend and “wifey,” Meghan, today.  After the two hour ceremony in what happened to be my family’s church (and the diplomas presented by, oddly enough, my mother’s cousin), I was standing outside with Meghan, her family, and her daughter, Emma.  Emma, who’s six, was talking about the birthday party for the friend that lives next door that she’s going to tonight:

Emma: Mom, are you coming to the birthday party, too?

Meghan: No, but I’m taking you there and picking you up.

Emma: That’s okay, if I get too messed up I can just walk home.

Like mother, like daughter.  Ha!  What a card that kid is.

What a Nerd

I’m not usually inclined to post stuff like this, but I found this speech so charming and funny that I had to share.  It’s 14 minutes long, but worth it.

John Hodgman Roasts Obama at the Radio & TV Correspondents’ Dinner:

Victory!

We’re all moved in, with the amazing help of our friends and family.  Schlepping two couches, a bed, many book shelves and tables up a precarious fire escape never would have happened if Matt and I were left to our own devices.  Well, maybe it would have, but we’d still be somewhere on that fire escape trying not to be crushed by our couch.

Thank fuck it’s over.  Now for the unpacking.  The sweet, sweet unpacking.

Crossing my fingers that Smokey hasn’t scratched the shit out of the new paint job by the time we get home.

I’m hot!

All of a sudden, it’s summer.  The weather went from fluctuating between a teasing +17 to a horrific +8 and now every day it seems to be at least +25 or more.  Which is great, don’t get me wrong, but my body is not ready for this – I wasn’t prepared! – and sitting inside all day is killing me.  I’ve taken the day off today to pack, and our apartment is like a fucking sauna.  I feel like Mr. Rogers drunk.

This Old House

I used to watch “This Old House” with my Dad when I was a kid, and loved seeing Bob Vila turn disasters into dreams in such a seamless, seemingly effortless fashion (and in 22 minutes!). This is no Bob Vila project extraordinaire, but the first stages of the renovations to the new house are almost complete.  There is still a lot left to be done, but after painting every day after work and on the weekends, we’ve made some serious progress.  My parents bought this house, which is across from my old high school (Go Panthers!), to accommodate both Fernwood and a living space for Matt and I.  Matt and I truly lucked out in this situation as the living space is 2000 square feet and our rent is only going up another $200 from the bug-infested, ramshackled gong show of an apartment that we live in now.

The only major renovations needed to the living space are a few new windows, new kitchen counters, and a new bathroom vanity that our contractor is going to build for us.  The rest was simply cleaning and painting.  And by ’simply’ I mean ‘painstakingly’ because this place was a fucking pit when we got possession.  Picture this, if you will: a two-storey house in which four dudes lived that was not once cleaned or vacuumed, had been outfitted with apparently the Pentagon’s security system, and had been used for the sole purpose of watching hockey games and what appears to have been spraying grease on the ceiling of every room.  Awesome for a frat party, not so hot for when you want to take a shower without getting salmonella.

We cleaned our hearts out for a few days, and set to paint every single surface in the place.  The bathroom, in particular, was a nightmare.  My Dad took the task of ripping out the old shower insert and replacing the damp giprock behind it.  He referred to entering that tub or using the toilet as “taking your life in your own hands.”  I don’t understand how a person could get naked and then step into that tub to have a shower – it was covered in what can only be described as a mixture of blood, diarrhea, and rust.  Sexy!

The whole place was painted “apartment white” – you know, that creamy, off-white colour that you can buy in huge vats for the price of a happy meal?  So we changed that mighty quick.  Here are some before shots:

The kitchen – main floor

The dining room – main floor – complete with the outline left after I ripped off the foam-mounted Monet poster that was stapled to the wall.

The pink bathroom – second floor

You can’t have a pink bathroom without a pink toilet now, can you?

The living room – second floor

Another view of the living room from the master bedroom – that door is a fire escape with such serious security bars we refer to it as “Cell Block D”

The bedroom, complete with GIANT CLOSET

In addition to the bathroom, living room, and master bedroom, the second floor also has two smaller bedrooms – one of which will be the office, and other the “guest room” (read: empty room because we have no furniture).  We’ve painted each room a different colour, and while we tried not to move into crazy territory with our colour choices (and tried to avoid drab country), there are a few that we weren’t super pleased with.  The guest room, for one, turned out to be a much darker shade of blue that we had expected.  The living room turned out to be much more purple than plum, unfortunately.  But, we’re so painted out that we’re not prepared for any do-overs, so we’re just going to move our stuff in and make it work.  Purple living room be damned.

The carpets are going to be cleaned on Thursday, and Matt and I are going to move in Sunday and Monday (with the help of his friends, thank god).  The windows, countertops, and bathroom likely won’t get started until sometime in July, given that this is apparently home reno ‘busy season’, but hopefully at that point I’ll be on a beach in the Dominican and it will all be done by the time I get back.

But our work doesn’t end at the living space.  We’re praying that the woman occupying the business unit in the front moves before her lease is up at the end of February, and that we can get the cleaning, painting, and wall-removing on that place done in a timely enough fashion that we avoid complete exhaustion.  This is the first time since we got cable that I cannot even stand the sight of Mike Holmes.  Bob Vila, though, I’ll never tire of.

Fun with makeup

I really enjoy makeup.  I don’t wear a lot of it anymore, but I love experimenting with it on a night out and I’ve got enough MAC eyeshadow to sink a ship.  I used to be a huge fan of wearing bright, crazy colours (during my younger days I was known to wear red MAC pigment on my eyes) – and I still am a fan of those colours, but now that I’m working in an office that has essentially zero walk-in traffic, I don’t have the energy to make myself up just for the Purolator guy.  Working with my father has meant that my appearance has become incredibly low-key.  Case in point: right now I’m wearing tights with paint all over them and I haven’t washed my hair in three days.  But, by counteracting that with some mascara and blush, it all evens out, right?

At any rate, while I like makeup (and I still buy a lot of it, even if I don’t wear it that often), I’m no makeup artist, and I often have a hard time doing anything that requires a steady hand (or being able to draw a straight line).  Putting on eyeliner has become easier over the years, but still takes me forever and a handful of Q-tips to clean up the mess I inevitably make all over my eyelids.  I’ve checked out some of the “How To” videos on Youtube, but some of them show women applying pounds of makeup that results in a racoon-esque look that I’m just not into.  Enter MAC tutorials.  Dallas pointed me to these in a recent blog post and I just spent the morning watching all of them.  While the smokey eye dude goes way too fast for me and the model ends up looking kind of like she was punched in the eyes, there are helpful tips to take from all of the videos.

Maybe if you take the blindfold off it’d be easier?

In particular, the Perfect Red Lip tutorial – who knew you are supposed to apply foundation to your lips first?  I know I had a hell of a time applying Dallas’ new red MAC lipstick in the bathroom of the Hotel de la Montagne after a few drinks and some encouragement during our Mad Men party (by the end of the night ever woman at the party was wearing Dallas’ lipstick), though that could have been partly due to the gin.  At any rate, these videos are helpful and if they make me look less like a preschooler has drawn on my face, then they’re worth something.

The Canadian Cities Tour

Hoooo doggy.  I’ve been recently enjoying the travel-related benefits of my job, having returned last week from a two week jaunt to Montreal, Ottawa, and Halifax.  It was fun, tiring, boring, exciting, and refreshing.  Now I’m back, I’m starting to slip back into my regular routine, and I’m writing this from work when I should probably be reading manuscripts (as I said, back to the regular routine).

Montreal was, as per usual, fantastic.  I stayed with both Karen and Dallas & Brian, as Karen left for Winnipeg (just my luck) two days after I arrived.  We spent the weekend catching up, doing yoga, dressing up for our Mad Men-themed party, sitting in the park, and destroying painfully douchey dudes at pub trivia.  It was all kinds of fun.

The Mad Men party was Dallas’ idea, as her birthday was a week earlier and, let’s be honest, everyone likes a theme party.  We dressed up in our gear and headed to Hotel de le Montagne, which boasts a classy lobby and lounge area, complete with cougars and creepy old dudes.  From there (drinks were $7.50 each, which didn’t really jive with the 50s/60s era theme we had going) we went to Copacabana, which is essentially a room with tables and chairs and beer.  The wall is painted with palm trees and a beach scene, which apparently justifies the name.  After many a beer and drunken laugh at the Copa, we headed to the Main for some late night poutine (or “poots” as Mark would call it).  I had potatoe latka-related chest pains after scarfing my latkas like the world was ending.  That beer sure makes a person lose any sense of control.

Peter informed us after the fact that our Mad Men party quite closely followed with what White People Like:

When you say the words “we should have a Mad Men party,” white people will immediately latch onto the idea and begin planning. By the end of the day, they will have picked proper attire and emailed you a drink and hors d’oeuvre menu. In the days and weeks leading up to the party white people will be thinking of clever ways to make it more authentic.

We’re so white.

Ottawa and Halifax were work trips, and both had their good times and their very trying times.  The Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences was held at Carleton University this year, so I got on a bus for Ottawa on Tuesday morning and headed to Carleton to work at Fernwood Books’ display at the Congress Book Fair.  This year was a particularly sucessful year for us – especially in comparison to last year’s coma-inducing Book Fair at UBC in Vancouver.  While I enjoyed working at the Book Fair and the opportunity to check out one of Brian’s presentations, my five days in Ottawa were spent in an exhausted haze, after what felt like a month of drinking beer and eating bad food in Montreal.  The fact that it rained every single goddamn day in Ottawa didn’t help, nor did Ottawa’s air of boredom (is it just me or is that place a yawnfest?).  I did get to spend some time with a friend that I went to the U of Manitoba with – who’s now doing his PhD at Carleton.  That was certainly the highlight of the Ottawa leg: we went to a pub/restaurant that had live music – two men on pianos and one on a bass, who were taking requests.  “Piano Man” was requested about five times.  Outside of selling books at the Book Fair, I was able to walk around and check out some of the other booths, and picked up Shuck, a novel by my friend Mark’s partner Daniel.  I read it in two days, as it was not only incredibly engaging, but extrememly well written and funny.  You should check it out here.

Due to some poor flight plans, I flew home on Saturday night and spent approximately 18 hours in Winnipeg before flying to Halifax on Sunday afternoon.  With the stop over in Toronto, the trip to Halifax took a whopping seven hours – and my Dad and I arrived in the Halifax airport to find that a fire alarm had permanently sealed the doors to the baggage area, thus forcing us to wait for almost an hour for our bags to come out on that little conveyor belt that I’m always so worried I’m going to get my fingers caught in.  The Fernwood office is just outside of Halifax, in Black Point, so we rented a car and headed out into the rainy night for Bev and Errol’s house.  After careening down some particularly terrifying windy roads in the dark with the rain pouring down on us, we made it to the house and to bed by about 1:30 a.m.  The next two days were spent meeting – which was beneficial for a number of reasons, one of which being that I hadn’t actually met half of the Nova Scotia office staff until then.  The office is in what is essentially cottage country, which made for some beautiful walks and views:

We went into Halifax on the second night for dinner, and stopped at Peggy’s Cove on the way in so I could be a tourist and take lighthouse photos.  It was truly gorgeous, and the feeling of salt in my hair from being so close to the ocean was refreshing.

We left Halifax on Tuesday evening, and I got back to Winnipeg around 11:30 p.m.  With Thursday and Friday spent manning (womaning?) a book display at the University of Winnipeg, and the weekend spent working on the new house, it’s taken a while to feel like I’m back to my normal schtick and not running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off.  For now, I’m in Winnipeg, and focusing on Matt and my upcoming move, after which I will be planning a trip to an as yet unknown tropical destination, and a week in Vancouver for a book editing workshop.  Winnipeg hasn’t even had a sign of summer yet and it feels like these supposed “summer” months are already booked up.  Somewhere in there I need to get back into some sort of guilt-induced running and exercise regimen, and try not to guzzle beer whenever acceptable. Two weeks away from home and I’m a complete disaster.  Crossing my fingers that after the rest of the summer’s events I don’t end up developing a split personality or subscribing to Scientology.  Sweet Xenu.