what a weekend

with weekends like the past two i have had in calgary, i could be convinced never to leave the city.

my weekend started a little early with a shopping trip that ended with new sweaters, a dress i can wear to a stampede festivity this july, tights that remind me eerily of my figure skating days, new fashionable belts, a few little things for my future niece, and a feather for my hair.

i got to try out the new kol3 in kensington for vietnamese crepes and iced coffees with a good friend i met through my current job.  and we followed it up with a cold beer at molly malone's to continue our conversation about all things relationships, career directions, house shopping, women's rights, office gossip...  not sure that we solved the world's problems, but we certainly had a great time catching up.

saturday morning was chillier than i had hoped, with spring shyly poking its head around the corner this past week, so after running back into my house to add a layer, i headed out for a lovely morning run.  even though there was some pesky ice on the pathways, i had a great run paired with non-stop chatting with a dear friend facing some pretty daunting challenges at the moment.  more listening than talking on my part, but that was just fine.

i headed out to my neighbourhood pub on saturday evening with a new chum from work to see a local band play.  the band was pretty medium, but the company and laughs were pretty awesome.  getting a taxi home at the end of the night when the snow started falling, not so awesome.

and today, a day of phone calls and catching up with friends far away and family nearby was followed by some comfort cooking.  after stirring and stirring and adding and adding liquid, i created a most delicious risotto paired with homemade pesto that i whipped up in my food processor (without cutting my finger this time).  i needed some time in the kitchen to relax and forget momentarily about the state of the world, which was weighing heavily on my shoulders after following the stories of cote d'ivoire, japan, libya, yemen, bahrain, and haiti on twitter and the news this past week.  sometimes having a constant stream of information can work against your sanity and sense of contentment and if there is a silver lining in this cloud it is that i am getting better at recognising when that is happening to me so i can take a step back.  and that is what i did tonight with fantastic results and a lot of leftovers!

the need for distance and perspective is at the heart of my intentions in giving up impatience for lent.  it has been a good practice thus far and i have not only recognised when i begin to get antsy or worrisome about my future, but have reminded myself not to allow that anxiety to creep in and that if i really want to worry, i can do it in a few short weeks.  reshaping my thinking around my future and how i can get so anxious about it has also helped me appreciate what i do have.  the grass might be greener for me elsewhere, but it is pretty damn green where i am right now as well.  and having a weekend full of pretty wonderful friends is part of that.

paraphrased, slightly

me: i really need to start putting a full 40 hours of work in each week.

friend with great sensibility: oh no! all you must do is figure out what output people at work expect from a 40 hour work week.

me: oh yes, then do just that.

fwgs: no, you just slightly exceed that amount of work and everyone is wildly impressed, it is about outputs, not inputs!

me: of course!

preoccupied with sickness

i should be writing about how AMAZING my sister's wedding was, how she looked like a princess in her dress, how much fun we had throughout the whole day, and how happy i am that everything worked out perfectly to result in the best wedding ever.

or i could be writing about how excited i am to be going to the caribbean tomorrow to lay on a beach, drink cold beer, and read books all day.

but instead, i am on day three of a sickness that is taking over my life at the moment. fever, congestion, shivers, clammy, achey, coughs, and general ickiness. blah.

soapbox, perhaps

because you cannot turn your head without hearing or reading about the ECONOMIC DOWNTURN, i have a little something (else) to say about it too. i had coffee with my top colombian chum yesterday and he made a really good point, one that i think we often forget. he said, and i have to agree with him, that these types of crises are commonplace in so many other countries, especially in latin america. there have been economic crises, recoveries, absolute meltdowns, among other daily struggles in so many other parts of the world. people living through such things have learned to become industrious, resourceful, and hopeful in light of so-called impending doom.

and people from those countries, including colombia, are now living and working and prospering in canada. it is my prediction that it is these communities that will weather this economic storm better than anyone else and may come out the winners in the us, the uk, and canada. he also used an ever favourite english expression to recommend that canadians should just 'chill out.'

similarly, i am not so sure why canadians are up in arms about obama's economic stimulus package that includes a 'buy american' clause. how on earth can canadians say that these are unlawful protectionist policies that break trade law? we would do the exact same thing, international protocol or not. remember that little problem with the beef years ago? same thing. we rallied around our beef industry and insisted on exclusively buying canadian beef and gave all those who didn't the evil stink eye. and i think that that was an appropriate response, just as americans trying to save their own mortgages is the right response for them. now, it is our dorky pm's job to play the game, be diplomatic, and represent canadian interests. and stay away from vests of any persuasion.

and you knew it was coming, everyone is going to have something to say about the woman who just gave birth to octuplets in california. my first instinct is to think this is a product of a private health care system that would allow someone to pay for fertility treatment even though they already had 6 children and that i cannot understand a mother choosing to put 8 lives in danger rather than reducing the number of fetuses early on. but as one doctor put it, his job is not to police births, but to provide information and education to parents. and we would all be in serious trouble if our doctors were allowed to police our behaviour, yet i think in an environment where we enjoy the benefits of public health care, the burden those babies will put on our health care system may change that thinking. a little Handmaid's Tale-esque, but it does make me think.

luckily for me, i am not raising 14 children so i won't need to think about it for too long and get back to organising my daytimer to fit all my commitments and engagements in while enjoying this great weather with a run tonight!

relaxashon

(april 28, 2008)

i have been missing in action since i arrived in south africa over a week ago, but i am sure you will forgive me as i don’t think i have relaxed like this since last summer. i have seen and done so much and thought many times, ‘oh, i should write about that,’ but then life got in the way and i would end up playing scrabble with a soldier, sharing a bottle of wine with new friends, eating meat, or been touring around and to be honest, was much happier than sitting in front of my laptop.

to be brief, i have, in the past week or so:

• had a love actually-style, moderately obnoxious, very affectionate airport reunion
• gone to an old car show, drank beer, and admired old south african men’s bellies (and they are a sight to behold)
• roadtripped to the drakensberg mountains, which although i mocked, are a stunning range
• hiked up to the top of a mini mountain, where we enjoyed beer and pretzels
• kicked some irish south african butt at scrabble
• found my new favourite south african coffee shop that reminds just enough of starbies, t ho’s, and second cup
• consumed more chips than i have in the past year
• ran for half an hour in the hilliest place ever
• fought off a group of would-be muggers (not so much fought off as stood sort of clueless as you-know-who yelled and made a fuss so we could leave with all our bits)
• toured battlefields of the boer war where i hiked through cow poo and long grasses for love
• frozen my buns off and bought sheep skin slippers that are delicious
• burnt my face and shoulders in the african sun
• climbed up the voortrekker monument in pretoria and admired it in all its afrikaner-ness
• poked not-so-nice fun at someone’s newfound fear of heights
• overheard the delicious english
• laughed a lot and made myself at home with the fam

and now i am off for more south african roadtrips, food, wine, and company!

home sweet nairobi

i have been rather introspective since returning from the uk. as i had expected, it was a whirlwind trip and made me want to have a week of relaxation and rejuvenation, but that will come when i arrive in mombasa to spend christmas on the beach with a good book and ample amount of sun screen (i have the application of sunscreen down to a fine art, with the careful placement of both spfs 15 and 30 for an even colour and uv protection).

the trip was great and as is my custom when i am left with less than half an hour in a work day to fit in a blog post, here is a list of highlights:

- my family surprising me with my sister and not my step-dad at the arrivals gate at heathrow (watch Love Actually, it really is true)
- taking my sister out for her first meal of indian food for her birthday
- the phenomenal amount of people in the streets of london
- watching my mom behave like a moth to a flame whenever she saw a marks & spencer store
- the sunny weather (some days)
- visiting with my mom, my dad, my sister, my nana, and my aunty
- going to a village pub to eat roast beast
- being stopped by the vice-chancellor on my way across the stage for a chat about my degree and my dissertation topic (which i nearly forgot and stared blankly for only a few seconds before coming up with something that resembled research title)
- laughing with my dissertation supervisor
- introducing an unsuspecting greek man to mistletoe (at the insistence of my mom!)
- lots of pints (and some half pints)
- wrapped christmas presents to open
- my first stocking out of a suitcase
- english breakfasts
- new boots for everyone!
- bargaining for handbags in london, i almost used my new head wobble thing
- riding the tube, riding the tube, and riding the tube some more
- listening to the opera singers/pizza cooks at harrods
- a home cooked meal
- snowy balls
- trapped wind
- pink cakes
- skating in greenwich
- roasted chestnuts
- the savoy christmas tree and starbucks lattes
- a heathrow farewell (watch Love Actually!)
- a pick up call to my new favourite taxi driver peter
- 18 degree weather at 11:00pm and the end of the rainy season

revisiting elements of my past whilst in the uk made me think about my future. i am not as sure as i was a few weeks ago what that entails. gotta either get back to living in the moment or making plans. i have mastered both at different times in my life, i suppose it really just depends on where i feel most comfortable now.

but i am done in neither england nor kenya, those are certainties.

lazy days of summer

i had a massage today and it ranks among the best massages i have ever had. but one problem - it made me so relaxed that i didn't feel like doing much the rest of they day. so i have read a few pages of an article and watched the england/sweden game of the world cup, picked my sister up from work, cut some beans for dinner, and made some tea. and that would really be the extent of my day, how sad.

snowflakes - no two are alike

it snowed today. and it has managed to stay on the ground for at least an hour now, which is creating quite the atmosphere around campus. there are snowmen being built, snowball fights along the walkways, and my lecturer even stopped the class today to throw a snowball at a student. what was funnier was when the student threw it back and we saw the quick reflexes of our lecturer. a classmate was deciding if she should leave because it was staying on the ground and she didn't want to drive home in it. and this is how snowy it is now, an hour later...

it reminds me of last year when we went toboganning with the south african and mozambicans we were living with in lacombe, what a great memory of feeling just like a kid again. this past week has been a hard one for me and i really wouldn't mind feeling like a kid again.

i accidently misheard 'lancaster' as 'lung cancer' yesterday and it is becoming to feel a bit like that - suffocating. so i am happy that i am leaving for a weekend, this evening i am off to leeds which will hopefully be rejuvenating and relaxing. i suppose any contained area gets stuffy every now and again.

but i should count myself lucky because yesterday i was able to go to the lake district and have breakfast and a rather frigid boat trip around the lake. quite a beautiful area. but the 'vegetarian breakfast' didn't have anything on anything nellie's could whip up with a nice refillable coffee.

so what are the thoughts on harper having to stand up to klein publicly? i hope that he prevents privatised health care, the thought just scares me. but that might be a trade off for cooperation with bush on this missile defense thing, which i am also not particularly crazy about. not sure which would be worse just yet. but i am following it on my morning viewings of the national, which i watch just to get my peter mansbridge fix.

i am all about compromise these days. we've been talking a lot about it in my conflict resolution courses and i have to say that compromise is something i am trying to get better at it but sometimes it is still quite difficult. i have to pretend to be a tamil tiger for an upcoming lecture where we will have to negotiate in a role play situation (oh my, even the words 'role play' give me shivers) and today we sat and listened to a sri lankan in our course tell us more about the finer details of a rather complicated conflict, but i am learning how evasive the concept of compromise can be so i am trying to my best to realise it in my own life.

well the sun has returned and soon there will be no snow left for a spontaneous snow angel, but it was nice while it lasted.