* this post started on Tuesday, December 28th.

I’m 37,000 feet above ground right now in an Airbus 333. As per the interior specifications card, there are 51 rows of seating on this plane; 37 seats in first class, 228 in economy – where I sit in the 42nd row; the seating arrangement is 2-4-2 in econ. I am part of the four grouping, but at the aisle, and the person in front of me doesn’t seem to want to recline which I am thoroughly enjoying because my tray table is down. My seat isn’t reclined either. The sky is dark because it’s about 7:30 PM EST. I never thought this until now, but it’s odd writing “the sky” while I’m actually flying up in it. If I refer to the sky, it’s usually as something I look up at, not out at. You know? Anyway… I’m on my way back to Vancouver from spending Christmas in Ottawa. This jaunt was a big deal for me because the last time I saw my family and friends at Christmas was 2006. I spent Christmas with them for 30 years before I moved, so to lose that makes holidays in Vancouver a little bittersweet. Curse all airlines for making Christmas-season flights upwards of $900. This year though, I must have been a really good girl because Santas (uncle Mark, Mum, Dad, Nana) got me a flight home collectively.

Shanny, my same-sex soul mate:

Is my nana a beauty, or what?

Shan’s little Noah

Averyyy

Self-timed family photo:

Chelsy and Riley-girl

Katie and Dylan baybee

Nom nom nom

Heeee

Miss this spot:

Check out Oscar at the NAC:

Miss the Parkway a lot:

Shoppingtimes with Kokomo:

I call this a ‘Yuck.’ It’s a Yam Duck!

Chez my brother and wife:

An aunt sandwiched between a niece and a nephew:

Sister and brother with cousin in order by height:

Mama:

It’s my Harley-inspired dad:

So, about this flight I’m on: Right now I am in an ideal position considering I’m 42 rows away from the front exit which means that disembarking is going to take a while but, I’ve got leg and laptop room and my crossword puzzles. It’s almost the best of all possible economy situations (where first class would mean fully reclining and having a nice, soft blankie, and my own little pod to sleep in) … except for the woman at the opposite end of my quad row. Between us is a young couple. I’ve got the girlfriend beside me and I’m pretty sure she drugged herself because she was literally asleep before the plane even left the ground. She’s got her boyfriend’s jacket draped over her and he tucks it in on the sides for her every time she shifts. They’re really sweet. Now, as for this woman at the end, she might also have drugged herself but I’m wondering if maybe hers were amphetamines? She’s watching something funny because every few minutes or so her shrill cackle breaks the silence and she rushes her body forward a bit, then bounces back and her gold bracelets collide with each other.

The problem with it being every few minutes is that I have just enough time to come down from being startled out of my pants only to have it re-occur. Cackle. Lunge. Crash. Clink clink clink. It feels like torture actually. It’s worse that the plane is dark because darkness makes people quieter, darkness is usually associated with rest, sleeping, whispers, nighttime.

With each obnoxious assault on my peace, I look over at her. But, she is not giving me the satisfaction of returning my eye contact so I can’t suggest she quiet down with my glare and hope that she snaps out of it. I’m not getting that satisfaction! It’s so startling that the young woman beside me actually jolts a bit in her sleep each time; like a cat.

It just happened again, this time I looked at the woman beside me, who looked at her boyfriend, who looked at me, then back at his girlfriend, then we all turned to the laughing woman who never looked at us. We all had a silent, telepathic, group commiseration and I do feel a bit better. Yes, we are being very passive aggressive in our approach right now and we have her on our hyper-radars. The girl friend is totally awake and she’s tense; I can feel it coming off her. The problem is none of us want to be the one to tell the woman. How do you tell someone who’s in the throes of laughter to clam it?

So now my mind wanders … Does she know we’re looking over at her and couldn’t care less? Maybe she’s developed a waking unconsciousness toward anything that goes on around her. Maybe she’s the type of person when even if someone did point it out to her, she’d just cackle it off and put her headphones back on. She’s failing on many levels and is a bad, bad, terrible person.

But look at her … laughing away so carefree. It is likely that no one will say anything. Maybe we’ll turn the volume up on our own headsets now. Or we’ll all just daydream her away. She’ll get off the plane, reminisce over the hilarious show she just watched, and how nice the flight was. Then she’ll board a plane again in the future, do the same thing, no one will tell her, and she’ll have wonderful happy airplane memories. The End.

I am admitedly very choked to the point of downright internal bitchiness which I am not proud of. The problem is I am a creature who functions best when my environment is set to levels Harmony and Tranquility. Shrill, spontaneous, loud noises actually rattle me both mentally and physically. It’s like I have shell shock only I don’t ever recall being surrounded by gunfire or any kind of cacophonies of the sort.

The thing is, this is just one of her isms. I mean, she can’t be purposefully scraping a rusty ice pick along the sensitive auditory canals of my ears. Her cackle just doesn’t work well with my own loud, spontaneous noise disorder.

Okay wait, it is also that if I do say something, she may respond less than agreeably to my suggestion then over-exaggerate her laughter because who the hell is this bitch telling me to laugh quieter? So, because I’m 37,000 feet in the air, trapped in a steel tube with no where else to go and I have no idea what kind of personality this woman has I’m going to have to ultimately let it be.

But man, do I ever wish her show would hurry up and end.

I’m going to go for a plane aisle walk. brb.

…

…

I just had a really interesting conversation with an 8″ tall man. Okay, maybe he was more like 6’4″ but when you’re 5’4″ it’s easy to misgauge. We met in the aisle toward the back where the flight attendants hang. It’s also where the bathroom is and what he was waiting for. I asked him what it’s like sitting in a plane being so long. Yes, I said long, yes I thought about it after it left my lips, but he handled it well and told me the key is the emergency exit row. Of course! Then he told me I was probably small enough to stretch out in the overhead compartments.

Phew, that walk really did me in. The Gravol and decongestant I took have kicked in now and I think I need to close my laptop and try to have a little snoozy-poo. I have no idea when I’ll go back to this post again because it will be around 9:30 PM PST by the time I get home which will feel like 12:30 AM EST so I certainly won’t be returning to this today in either PST or EST. So, I’m going to say good bye for now.

It’s the early evening of Saturday, January 15th. I went skiing with Mandy today. My skis were recently waxed and sharpened and were just incredible. The weather itself wasn’t very nice as dark clouds did loom over head and it eventually started to rain but the snow on the trails was so fluffy and fast. We found a couple treed runs that ran along the main drag, and had not been touched, so it felt like our own little side of the mountain.

Speaking of tree trails, I learned a new term today: Tree wells. Falling into a deep one means you have a mere 10% survival rate, on average.

© stevenspass.com

Basically, if you’re in an area where the trees are tall and the boughs rest upon the snow, then chances are there is a void of loose snow that surrounds the section of the tree trunk that is beneath the boughs. So, if you ski too close to the trees, or you lose control and hit one, you can fall into a tree well. Often it is the depth of the fall that will result in limbs being injured which contributes to the decrease in survival and  it can apparently be as quick as drowning to suffocate to death. There were two experiments conducted in the US and Canada where volunteers were placed in a tree well and 90% could not rescue themselves. This death is called Non-Avalanche Related Snow Immersion Death, or NARSID.

© dodgeridge.com

So ya, watch out for those whether snowmobiling, snowshoeing, skiing, walking, etc. Stay away from the boughs of the trees. Don’t let me catch you stuck in one or I’ll be really upset!

Okay, taking a T.O. right now, need to stretch my body before it seizes from skiing.

It’s Monday. I’m at work. My morning has been spent forcing emails upon someone who I’m fighting tooth and nail with over purchasing the skis he’s been saying he wants to purchase for the last three years. EBay link after EBay link, screaming deal after screaming deal, and nothing. I had to draw this release the frustration:

It’s been a busy week that felt long which is always the worst. The highlight of the week though was having someone’s blood dripping from their mouth onto my counter. Shortly thereafter I sent a love letter to Plexiglass inventor, Otto Röhm.

I experienced gastro euphoria for lunch on Thursday which could have very well redeemed my week because good food tends to fix everything. There are bright sides to working in the Downtown East Side and that’s being so close to Gastown. For my visiting readers from cities aplenty please forget not to experience Gastown if you’re in the neighbourhood. Then find The Black Frog and call me, damn it.

I overhauled my living room last weekend (which is really two weekends ago now, this has taken me that long to write). This will be my fifth arrangement since October 2007. I’m not sure how normal that is but normal doesn’t usually apply to me anyway so I’m not going to worry. 

I did acquire a new piece of furniture as well and that is a big, IKEA Billy shelving unit with glass doors that Gg handed down to yours truly. Ghetto me could never afford such a thing brand new so hookups are nice. Now that I think about it, this may have all started when I sold my IKEA Benno shelves on Craigslist. For approx 5 nights 140 DVDs and probably an equal amount of CDs were actually taking up space on my living room floor. If you know me then you know how devastating this disorganization was to me. At the same time, those who know me will also know that it makes perfect sense that I sell the shelves on a whim without any sort of plan regarding where the DVDs and CDs will go when the shelves are actually sold. I lament the disorganization I bring upon myself. Go figure.

So to recover from this not-very-well-thought-out situation that was my living room, I reorganized, shuffled, and rearranged my furniture just to prove something to myself. As a side note, I never feel wholeheartedly lonely because I seem to be perpetually in a state of autonomous interaction with my conflicting personality idiosyncrasies. In this case it was the impractical visionary vs the disciplinary and the end result, fittingly, was a living room I love and one that so far Cathy and Gg are not so fond of. It only makes perfect sense.

What do you make of it:

Here’s why I like it:

1. Previously my computer was against the wall behind where it is now. I faced … the wall. Again, for those who know me, they know I can’t face walls – especially in restaurants – and while also sitting at my computer desk. It’s not claustrophobia, it’s neurosis. 

2. I like feeling cozy and workstations are sometimes hard to make cozy. But tell me you wouldn’t curl up into a ball right on top of my desk now and fall asleep there.

3) I spend most of my reading, scheming, escaping, daydreaming, and playing crossword puzzles on that there sofa. There’s something very tranquil about lying down on it and having those wide open windows in front of me. Previously they were behind me and what kind of purpose does that serve? None other than to make me wonder what’s going on in the world. Pointless; I need to know everything at all times.

4) Other than three glasses of red wine, Gravol, or Coronation Street, there is not much else that turns my mind off other than flames from a fire with a flavouring of José Feliciano from the vinyl.

Oh come on, you appreciate the effect and secretly wish you were sitting in my living room too.

5) The wall that now stands to support my books, DVDs, and CDs is the only wall long enough to keep them together as a family. 

And with that I will not justify my logic any longer. You will either enjoy it, dislike it, or not really give a shit either way so there really isn’t much more to discuss. 

I’ve now been composing this post for two weeks and four days. My new year’s resolution really should have been to finish my blog posts in a reasonable time frame…

Last weekend Mandy bunny and I made a fairly spontaneous plan to go to Whistler. The last time I was there they had the peak express lift closed because it was miserable and torrential. But this time, although it wasn’t a clear day, the snow conditions were probably the best I’ve skied in my 22 years of skiing. It was abundant and frigging fast and this is perfection to me.

In the words of whistlerblackcomb.com: “Whistler’s Peak Express offers some of the planet’s most rugged high alpine.” Now tell me that doesn’t send a shiver down your spine in all the right ways. We reached the peak and were submerged in heavy clouds. It was blustery and dark making the ground impossible to decipher from the atmosphere. I’d be lying if I said we weren’t scared shitless and that’s simply because when you’re on a sharp decline and you can’t see even ten feet ahead of you, you’re pulling guts from areas other than the pit of your stomach. In fact we were stealing guts from each other. We swore the whole way down to the first ridge and upon survival we masochistically wanted to do it all over again just for the thrill of it.

Isn’t Mandy the cutest thing?

On one of our lift rides we started talking about what the hills in Ottawa were like. Myself, I learned to ski at Edelweiss in Gatineau. We thought of all our favourite hills and how sadly they pale in comparison to what we are so lucky to have here. Just to put it into perspective, I did some quick calculations and came up with this very roughly scaled example of how Edelweiss might compare to Whistler. Technically speaking, Whistler has a top elevation of 2,182 metres compared to Edelweiss’s 350 metres. 

I mean, check out this vista:

Whistler © Andrea C.

Oh, am I bragging? Sorryyy.

What else is new…

Oh yes, here’s the car that’s going to replace my Ford Fo’ once my lease is up. Thirteen more days to go, by the way, and my last car payment comes out. Then I will be car-payment free. Free! Fr.EE! F|r|e|E! f:r/EE!

Cute isn’t it? Rando found me this little gem and I couldn’t be happier. I introduce you to my 1991 Civic Si.

Okay I will leave you with some Sunday Jammin’ Music on… yes, Thursday. This one’s solid for jammin’. Thievery Corporation – Un Simple Histoire

Please also enjoy with me this incredibly sexy photo of Johnny Depp.

I have come to the end of a five day, long weekend, thanks to Easter and my gov’t jobby. I did a lot of what I like to do best, and that is Sweet F.A. I lay in bed Friday morning at the crack of my cats’ meows with a visualisation of a yellow house, a big old tree with a tire swing, and a noisy sky – it’s what I picture when I write this - and decided to begin painting it.

I did that for roughly four hours and may or may not have watched two Dirty Dancings in a row during this time. I finally stopped when I had a matte, pale, yellow house, with a plain grey roof, and a plain grey deck, and a stark, dark brown 2D tree ominously creeping up at the bottom right corner like a gnarled rake. At this point I became rather bored, and there wasn’t much more I could do while I waited for the house to dry. I really wanted to add some rusty, old shutters, and a creaky door, but alas, my time is as precious as the oil paint decides it to be.

I brought out another quarter-finished canvas of Gee’s cat, Whiskey, sitting in a windowsill. I stared at it for about 15 minutes, even stepping outside to look at it through my living room window from as much of a distance as possible, but by the time I came inside again, I forgot why I was outside in the first place primarily because of this condition, and then set forth in pursuit of clean dishes. The rest of my night would have looked really cool in time-lapse.

Saturday was half Sweet F.A., half party time – which is just the way I like to ease into any activity that involves leaving the confines of my cave. One step at a time, as the saying goes; I didn’t want to overstimulate my senses.

Saturday night I checked out The Market restobar in Vancouver’s newest, and tallest, sky-scraping hotel, The Shangri-La, with my friends MG and G. I stank of swank just setting foot in that place. It was fun to pretend. The theme of the hotel boasts Asian subtleties with earthy dessert-tones and hues (like caramel, espresso, milk chocolate), monstrous round pillars, ornate chandeliers, and a lot of granite. Otherwise known as I Am A Very Expensive Hotel.

We mosied over to The Alibi Room in Gastown apres ça and sat at solid wood picnic tables drinking beer and wine and talking about things I cannot mention in this post, sorry.

Come Sunday I was really only half-way into my long, long weekend and was feeling like a newly retired person already. I believe it was rainy and gross on this day and I remember this because I wanted to ski. Instead, I painted some more, made a huge mess of my place, brushed Marshall, and scolded Otis for attempting to eat Marshall. Met up with Quack at Starbuckle and may or may not have talked about 21st Century Woman-related things on a global scale. I also chilled with my beloved Katie later on that day; surfed the Net for a bit, then head on over to Tinseltown and saw One Week -which I highly recommend if you’d like to go through a metamorphosis of your life focus, and emerge roughly two hours later feeling like you need to latch onto a purpose and get that shit done like yesterday. In other words: Life is too unpredictable and short, so stop idling because it’s bad for your mental environment. It was also really nostalgic to see my home and native land portrayed with some beautiful country-side scenery. From TO to VAN … and everything in between.

Monday I tried to find people to beg to go skiing and couldn’t even find that let alone someone who would actually go. God, you’d think it was Easter or something. I painted some depth into the tree instead, then met up with Quack and Ciavarro and head into North Vancouver in search of Italian salted, deli meats. We found ourselves at The Quay munching on little Italian nibblies and I felt like I was at an outdoor family fiesta back in Montréal. I ended the day sitting down to paint and put on The Black Stallion then proceeded to bawl my eyes out so much that I couldn’t even see what I was painting.

Tuesday was another hot, sunny, and magnificent day. By this point I was falling into a depression due to the fact that I had four Grouse passes sitting on my mantle and the skiing season was quickly coming to an end. I met T for breakfast, then G  for lunch – where I was very late (due to construction) and I’m still very sorry (there was construction); then rolled into the afternoon with one mission and one mission alone on my frontal lobe: Must.Ski.Today.

And so I did. I resigned myself to the fact that no one would be able to go with me come hell or high water. So I packed up my gear, loaded it into my car, brought some driving music and head to Grouse forgetting nothing, and making no wrong turns. I had just enough change in my wallet to treat myself to rock star parking, nothing could really ruin my day. Not even the fact that the 100 capacity, red line gondola was under construction and the wait in the blue line was roughly 35 minutes. I made friends in line, got up to the hill, and skied for a good 4 hours. It occurred to me several times while on the chairlift with the sun hot against my back that I hadn’t engaged in conversation with anyone during several half-hour to hour-long increments. I was literally in a meditative state, submerged in nature. It was nice too because there was hardly anyone on the hill. I rode the chairlift several times by myself. I skied in silence. At one point I got to the peak of Grouse, just when the sun started to deepen in colour, and sat down on my skis staring out over Vancouver and the grandiose, infinite Pacific. For that moment in time I swear I felt the activity leave my mind and it felt still and free of all thought – it’s been a long time since I felt that.

Today is back at work, but it’s a three-day week ending in pay day. I can’t complain. It’s been a great five days and a new weekend is already so close, I can taste it.

Some girls have a weakness for purses and shoes. I indulge in ski gear. None of this was my intention, really. Actually wait, it was my intention – if it wasn’t then I’d not be in possession of these new … things.

My journey of adventurous spending started last year when I was in Comor Sports with my ski bunny and happened upon what, in my opinion, was Buddha in a ski jacket. It was an Orage (en français)  and the most profound and beautiful thing I had ever laid eyes on, it might as well have been the Wheel of Dharma. The problem? Attached to it was a price tag of a whopping five-hundred big ones. I gasped and demanded Mandy not let me try it on no matter how much of a screaming fight I put up. However, like all kids in a candy store I didn’t listen to neither her, nor myself and I slid my arms down the cool lining of the sleeves and they felt like silk sheets in a 5-star hotel. I zipped the jacket up and it hugged me in the kind of way I fantasize Christian Bale would in my wildest dreams. In other words, it was tight, and secure, and swallowed me whole.

Uh…

So anyway, much to my chagrin I felt my strength buckling as I once again demanded strength from Mandy but this time in the form of ‘by any means necessary’ … that if she saw that look on my face, that jacket reflecting in my pupils, that she was to immediately cease and desist all actions that were indicative of me acting in haste. That she was to be scrupulous for me. I told her that if I was displaying any indication of submission to the jacket that she was to drop kick me, pull it over my head, throw it in the air, and toss me out of the store.

I turned toward her, jacket on and I actually saw it reflecting in HER pupils. “DO NOT go to the mirror,” she ordered while trying to grab my arm. It was too late though and I shuffled as quickly as my little legs could carry me over to meet my reflection.

I could hear her running after me, “No, no, no!” She bellowed, “Don’t do it!” But it was too late. I was frozen, fixated on the way the jacket traced along my body and molded perfectly to my contours. Then the colours – chocolate brown, baby blue, beige, and white. “Oh fuck, Mandy…” “I think it was made for you, but I’ll kill you if you buy it.” We stood in the mirror conversing with each other’s reflections. I rationalised, she rebutted, we nearly fought, but in the end I triumphed and put the jacket onto the hanger with barely enough strength left to hang it back on the rack.

“It’ll be okay,” Mandy whispered. “You’ll be okay.” With that we left Comor.

I dreamed about that jacket for weeks. I checked for it on eBay almost every day. That damn thing was never anywhere … not anywhere EXCEPT at the store. Eventually, like all frivolous addictions to materialistic things the thought of it faded into a bittersweet memory and I went through winter with my existing jackets. Not too long after this, Mandy found me my dream skis on eBay and I got them for 1/4 of the MSP. They were also less than the price of my precious jacket and thus justified in my books! There was no way, no how I was going to do the BC hills on the same damn skis I used on the Ontario hills. What an insult that would be. So for the first time in my life I’m riding on skis that I imagine will be with me for years and years to come.

Wait, I have to scroll up to remind myself where I was going with this…

Oh yes, so anyway … recently I was taking part in one of my favourite pastimes of browsing through flyers and lo and motherfrigging behold there is my ex-lover … at a unfathomable 50% off! I called Comor immédiatement and sure enough all that was left was an XS and a S. “Oh god, put the small away right now! I’ll be there by 6PM. Put it under Andrea… please.” The associate laughed, kinda, and said it’d be waiting in the back for me.

I skip to my lou’d over to Comor at a brisk pace with a purpose and got there in under 30 minutes flat. The reunion was everything I expected it to be and my jacket hadn’t changed one bit. “Ooh, you’re so cute.” The associate remarked, and I said “I’m embarrassed, but thank you. I’m not usually this much of a loser.”

The transaction was over before you could say “As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where … where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border.”

This made me an instant three jacket girl, and I hung it proudly in my hall closet. To counteract this purchase, I have put my jackets up on Craigslist and have them basically sold, pending the prospective buyer trying them on for size.

Done. And done.

Next in the list is the beautiful boots I happened upon that were also, I might add, on sale just for yours truly. I had been wearing Rossignol Soft 3s for the last 4 or 5 years and although flexible and complementing of my skiing style, my toes were constantly crunched to the point where I would in fact wonder if they had actually died and fallen off inside my boots. This was less than satisfactory, in my opinion, but it has enabled me to practise my skiing skills in the untimely event that I do actually lose all my toes. On the other hand, the toes of the liners have been customized in such a way that I actually have ghettoes complete with the duct tape. Whatever eh?

So I came across some Salomon Mynx’ and I tell you, slipping into these puppies was like buttah. THESE are what ski boots are supposed to be like. The justification? Well I have my old boots sold, duct tape and all. Along with this purchase came a warm white Bula toque. Why? Well my ears would get cold in my other hat! I could not afford to lose my toes AND my earlobes. Jeesh.

Anyway, soon I’ll go down to just a one jacket, one pair of boots girl. I’ll be a 2 hat girl but this is no matter to me.

Thank you for your time.

I’m too …

… for my ski stuff.

But I just found out my bunny and I are getting season’s passes for skiing this year … AND we’re going helmet shopping!

In order to fully express my excitement I am paying a tribute to us with our most favourite skiing video diary, ever.

Mandy … this one’s for us! Ole!

Now back to regularly scheduled blogging…

Mandy, bunny, this post is for you – or for us to commemorate our first chairlift video debut ever. This weekend it will be even more fantastique. Put your pretty face on sugar, we’re making lotssss of movies.

J’aime skier particulièrement en mai.

I like to abbreviate.

My poor Mandy. She struggles with her assignment vs. going skiing with her ski bunny (that’s me by the way). Today, like last time, she was diligent and dedicated and told me she must finish her course before she even thought about skiing. Oh alright.

We did make the plan to head to Cypress – Our favourite local hill for afternoon skiing. I picked up Mandy, pretty as a peach in her makeup for the impending and inevitable photo shoot/video shoot that she’s learned to love. I knew she’d come around…

On the way to Cypress we picked up Russell. Russell is my ex-candidate whom I interviewed once for work. He’s a lovely British gentleman (I call him lovely because he likes that word) who likes to ski just as much as my bunny and I! So we took him on a little tour of the hills.

Unfortunately, due to poor planning on our part we got to Cypress, geared up, and marched our way to the hill just in time for the hills to be shut down. It was 4PM. Apparently we didn’t get the memo that Cypress closes early now that March Break is over. The guy shutting everything down wasn’t keen on giving us the keys so we could lock up when we were finished and that was OK. I guess…

Lucky for us, Mandy is up on the latest trends and used her pretty, girly Blackberry to see if Grouse was open and it was, and it was waiting for us according to Mandy. Needless to say we were très pleased. We were able to show Russell a good time after all.

We got to the hills and adopted a solo fellow from Finland on our first run. Jarno became our ski buddy as well .. we didn’t call him our “ski bunny” though, we weren’t sure if he’d be willing to accept that. No matter…

Today was one of those glorious days that I’ve come to love from living in this land. To be up there, above the clouds, and looking down on the city I call home. There was just something euphoric about it. And really, it’s made that much more incredible when the sky is just as beautiful, especially with … that sunset.

I love this place…

Some phots.:

I am Penelope’s company-keeper while her mummy gets ready

The three of us all smiles, just before we realised the hill behind us was fermé. Blasted.

That’s Jarno beside me; our adopted friend from Finland.

It’s become tradition that my Mandy and I record the hills we tackle. Behind my bunny is the 2x Black Diamond. The nasty mogul hill that we were ready to kill, then fell in love with once our knees
became numb to the pain. “Just close your eyes Mandy, and hope for the best.”

Aw. Me and my Mandy.

This is where I had to take a few awe-inspired breaths.

Imagine…

My Sunday started out in a lovely way. The sun seemed to squeeze through the clouds over my house for about half an hour and lit up my window frames with very pale yellow rays. The sounds of Stan Getz floated through my apartment and life seemed to be moving very slowly which is exactly the way I like my Sunday mornings to move.

Today was Mandy’s and my usual Ski Sunday. This time, however, dear Mandy made me wait 6 agonizing hours later than our usual 9AM ski time because someone had some course work to finish up.

Thankfully, my favourite Vancouver couple entertained me with a little hanging out time, a fun hike, and some really yummy chocolate chip cookies. They’re good to me. The friends I mean, not the chocolate chip cookies. Actually wait, you know … they’re both good to me. The hike, I should mention, was rather all-terrain, death-defying, and quite adventurous especially with Caesar – that handsome devil, he had the thickest pasties I’ve ever seen on a dog in a while, but he was so happy, protective and excited to lead the way, even if it meant climbing through the sticky mud.

After hike time, I head straight to pick up my trusty ski bunny. She was make-upped and looking super pretty, with tousled locks and lips as glossy as wet glass. She knows by now that any time spent with me means time spent with my digital camera so she presented herself accordingly.

I’m sure the tension is killing you because you know that today would have been my very first day on my new skis. It doesn’t really count that I wore them sleeping the last two nights in a row (serious?) – today was the real deal.

Unfortunately for our poor, delicate, girly faces, the hail storm at the top of Cypress was less than ideal. (Oh Mandy, your lips). I could probably compare it to the feeling of one-thousand safety pins being launched at your face at one time. Needless to say it was quite unpleasant and so bad that we actually skied straight down to the store to purchase some protection after the third run in tears and screaming for our mothers. Due to my face being in sensory overload I wasn’t able to fully appreciate my skis until run #4.

We purchased the protection, had a hot chocolate, and were back on the hills in full form. By this time, the snow had turned into the most graceful, fluffy, white blizzard. The hills were empty, and thick with blankets of snow .. no wait, comforters of snow; down-filled comforters of snow. It was the most beautiful thing next to Christian Bale I’ve ever seen …

Where was I?

My skis were truly a dream. Everything I hoped they’d be and more. They listened to me very well and didn’t fight back like my old helicopter wings would. They were so easy to control and before long we found our groove and I was as close to ecstasy as one could get outside in the snow.

Actually…

So I conclude my Sunday blog post, content, exhausted, and incredibly satisfied with a wonderful day.

I love Vancouver, I love my friends, and I love my skis.

Uno:

I have the spring cleaning bug and started with my purse this morning. I realized after the evacuation of its contents onto my coffee table that I have a very disorganized and nonsensical method of note keeping. I will admit that I do suffer from DITS (Deep In Thought Syndrome) throughout the day and sometimes something terribly important will come up, or be mentioned to me, and it must be taken note of. The issue lies in the fact that it is very rare that I ever have anything to note take on, so I usually rummage through my purse and person and write what I need to on whatever will accept my pen ink. This can include anything from coffee lids and hockey cards, to gum and band-aid wrappers.

See?

Due:

Mandy! Mandy appointed herself my official ski pimp and actually found me my dream skis on eBay. I could not be more elated or excited. They are the same skis as she has – Volkl Attiva AC3 (2007) and I must admit after testing hers down the slopes of Whistler I was borderline close to having an affair with them. I’d been searching high and low for the same pair but because they’re last year’s model it’s been tough. But Mandy pulled through and I’m extremely excited for our first rendez-vous.

Details:
“Introducing the Attiva AC3, a completely new all-conditions ski for expert women skiers, with a new 118-76-104 sidecut for the perfect blend of all-conditions performance. It features the new Attiva Motion iPT, Extended Double Grip construction, plus a new 20/20 wood core.”

Looky:

(ha : would you believe we’re in our 30s? must be the Ontario water)

I must say, what a rejuvenating day at Cypress. I have no injuries to report. Mind you, I was not flirting with the jumps like I thought I might. They called me but I passed them by and waved. I did the moguls though, and my knees and I had a bit of an argument afterward. I’m in an official fight with my shit skis. I don’t know what I was thinking when I got them .. wait a minute I probably wasn’t .. the things are long enough for a giraffe. Talk about 1980′s called, they want their skis back. Mandy’s skis are petite and fit for a little lady like myself. I want to carve and dominate the moguls, I want to carve sharp and tight. I just want to carve!

No matter though. I’m making the best of this predicament as the moments spent with my tree branches become more and more precariously unpredictable. This week my ski buddy and I may check out the deals on West 4th. I’m on a mission for good skis. In Ontario, it wasn’t as imperative, the hills were as good as my skis. But here, I’m no match for these mountains on my clumsy airplane wings.

The day was beyond perfection. The sun beat down on us all day long plugged brightly into an electric blue sky. No clouds just blue beyond.

I liked today because it was a “leisurely skiing day.” Neither of us were in a rush to beat it down to the bottom. In fact we spent quite a bit of time at the top of the mountain lying in the sun with the rest of the lazy skiers and snowboarders. We called today our 6-hour vacation for fifty-three dollars.

I had a bit of an issue once just after taking off on the chairlift. Someone did not read up on Chairlift Bar Etiquette and slammed it down onto my head. Mandy, my trusty body guard made some remark about “It’s always nice to have a warning.” and the couple instantly started up a conversation in a foreign language. I never …

I’m okay though. Thanks for asking.

This is short tonight for my bed calls to me right now. It’s been a busy weekend. Tiring, but oh so uplifting, beautiful, energizing, and just plain fantastic (oxymoron).