Sunday, February 25, 2007

break on through

it's official.

i have returned to the land of the living! last night i slept for 10 hours only waking up once at 4:30 AM. then when i woke up this morning, i turned on the radio and it was the stones' "beast of burden" which is one of my favourite songs. then 2 songs later, it was "rockin' in the free world". sweet. i have to admit, i really like the classic rock station most of the time. except for their morning show which is misogynist bullshit.

see? i'm back.

and a quick hi to all of the happy hales in slovenia!!!

gotta go attack the day (ok, who am i kidding - i'll be cleaning my devastated apartment for most of it...)

Saturday, February 24, 2007

what i've learned...

from watching crap movies and having fevers.

1) it is possible to wear the same clothes as clothes and pjs for 72 hours. it is also guaranteed that your landlord will drop by or at least stand outside of your place while you are walking around in your very special clothes. *groan*

2) the chronology of bridget jones 1 and bridget jones 2 is all wrong. bj2 starts with bridget in her xmas jumper that matches mark darcy's, and she says that they have been going out for 6 weeks. but at the end of bj1 they hook up after xmas - so mark darcy is supposed to go to new york, fly back and then they go to the turkey curry buffet before the end of the year? i know i'm not the best and the brightest when it comes to math, but i can figure that one out.

3) third times a charm with pirates of the caribbean, dead man's chest. if you watch it once with your eyes closed, and then watch it in the middle of the night when you can't sleep, i promise it will all come together if you watch it a third time after waking up in the morning. and it is still scary the third time - although it completely borrows from 20000 leagues under the sea which TERRIFIED me. davy jones playing at the organ... nemo anyone???

4) there is something seriously wrong with the idea of cars as anthropomorphized - ie. the piston cup in the disney movie, cars, where the cars in the competition are being watched by cars in the audience. sooooooo weird. what's also weird is that the romantic leads (aka a porsche and a hotrod) never kiss. what's terrifying about "cars" too is if you fall asleep and wake up to owen wilson as the lead character saying "ka-chow!" creep factor is through the roof.

5) german shepherds are cute, especially when they snuggle up with you and try to take care of you. what's not so cute about them is when they stand on your chest when you're already having wheezy problems. but while they're standing on your chest they're giving you the cutest doe eyes so maybe it all balances out.

6) and i still love the royal tenenbaums. i have watched it a gazillion times, and i will probably watch it a gazillion more but i love it. mmmm true love.

Friday, February 23, 2007

land o' chicken soup and crap movies

i went to a yoga class on wed night, and felt so shaky afterwards that i took a cab home. finished my swedish murder mystery about religious cults and then settled in for a feverish sleep complete with swedish murder mystery dreams. spent all yesterday in bed, and then had feverish dreams last night about top 40 stars since i had the radio on all night.

i have watched a lot of crap movies from the corner store since i couldn't walk all the way to the real video store. so far, i've watched intolerable cruelty, cars, fever pitch. fargo and now i'm deep into season one of buffy.

and now i've moved back into solid foods like bananas and stale brownies.
yay - i think i've sweated out most of whatever i had - i'm convinced it's japanese encephalitis, but i'll look into that.

Saturday, February 17, 2007

daniel cleaver is mine, all mine

um, is it wrong that i got a little excited by the fact that hugh grant is single again?
pipe dream anyone?
i am soooooo turning into one of those ladies who buys the "sexiest man alive" people magazine.

and in more celebrity gossip news- i am totally enthralled by britney spears' lack of hair. you know, i got a little disenchanted and grossed out about the whole anna nicole smith thing since that is truly tragic, and she's dead, but give me a britney spears meltdown anyday, complete with shaved head, and i am allllllll over it. tragic? yes. entertaining? hell ya.

(p.s. the next post will be all about social justice because i'm serious like that.)

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

guess my nationality

in honour of valentine's day, the bestest holiday in the world, i am going to post about my trip this weekend which has nothing at all to do with valentine's day. still, feel free to eat chocolate and cinnamon hearts until your tastebuds fall off.

this weekend julia, jason and i went to vernon, julia's homeland. we went to drop off the cats before mr. and mrs. payqueck saunter off to bangladesh in march. so we drove up on friday, stopped in chilliwack to see the greatest invention of all time...

and shove some doughnuts in our mouths before getting our snow tires retorqued. this is us at our dougnut stop:
x
then we blasted up the coquihalla in my pizza car and even got passed by a truck on the way up. we were just keepin' it real.... really real.... at about 55 km per hour at our lowest. maybe life is a little better, if not faster in an SUV. naaaaaahhhhh....

anyhoo, we made it to vernon blasting cat stevens ("c'mon ride the peace train!!!") and dragging along a caravan of folks who were regular commuters along the scary road between kamloops and vernon. we saw rod and jan and tried to integrate the kittens into hazel's empire. let's just say that hazel still has firm control of the upstairs, but zak and loki are quietly repatriating downstairs for themselves. at least, loki has repatriated the glass cabinet by sitting on the second shelf. anyhoo, we sat around, had a yummy dinner and went to sleep on friday night.

had a carefree morning on saturday and then off to silver star for most of the afternoon. we cross-country skied at sovereign lakes which was SO GREAT. i could finally almost reach my dream of being beckie scott on these trails and both julia and i regained our false confidence in our x-country skiing ability which had been shattered by cypress. i have to add some caveats now to my usual "i hate cross-country skiing" speech / harangue.
#1) i only hate cross-country skiing on hills that are supposed to be downhills (e.g. cypress). given a real cross-country ski trail, i happen to be quite competent and will enjoy myself very much.
#2) i also only hate cross-country skiing with goggles, hats and gloves. in high school, and growing up, i used to have to bundle up a lot before going which consequently made me a very sweaty mess - and a very sweaty mess with really foggy glasses. without all the gear, again, i am quite a happy camper. and i can also see properly which helps with the whole happiness thing.

here are the pics from our sunny day... warning: i like trees. and mom, don't worry, julia will post some pictures with me in them so you can stop the nagging voice from saying, "but where are you??"




that night we had a great dinner with julia's grandparents and her uncle ray and i got my very own jar of grandma's applesauce, which i have already finished. i actually finished it yesterday morning. yummers. then i slept like a baby, or a comatose patient in the room with no windows.

on sunday, jason and i drove back and left julia in vernon for another week. and now i will never drive my car again without a butt transplant since vernon is a little long for a three day journey.

thus ends my rant.
one note about the photos, though... god i miss the sun and summer. all of the photos i've posted on this thing so far feel and look like the dead of winter. maybe i will insert a photo of a papaya tree to try to spice it up with something tropical.


aaaah. much better.

Thursday, February 8, 2007

mo' lu



once i start i can't stop.

kind of like the isa photos.

thank god i'm going away tomorrow otherwise this ol' blog might get a little full. like "german shepherd with a little bit of collie" full.

just. two. more.

going up a yonder

well, to vernon. julia, jason and i are driving up in the corolli to see julia's folks and grandparents, and to do some boarding on the side.

on a sad note, mr. binkus and loki, julia and jason's cats, will be going too and shacking up with rod and jan while the two js go off to bangladesh in march.

and, although this blog is subtitled "the fabulous escapades of a girl and her mutt", here is another fabulous journey where lulu will not be joining me. she's moving two doors down to live with our great neighbour and her mutt and will have a fabulous adventure of her own tomorrow when she gets on an old school bus with some other puppies and goes hiking.

i love it! part of me really wants to stay and take pictures but the whole point is that i'm going away and so she goes on her fabulous adventure. but still, it's lubey's first day at school!!!! (plus the thought of a whole bunch of dogs in an old school bus is too funny). i wonder who will be the brainiac (not lulu) and who will be the stinky kid (possibly lulu) and who will be the kid who steals your lunch (definitely lulu).

so in honour of her big adventure to "yonder", here's a pic of my pretty girl. she doesn't really like to pose for photos, and anyway, she has the kind of beauty that moves. oh, ok, i'll post two... :)



talk to y'all on sunday night.
lots of love,
j. xo

Tuesday, February 6, 2007

can this be true, bibliophiles?

check this out.

www.books.google.com

thank you, new yorker, for alerting me to this wonderful brilliant new search engine. enter a title, phrase, anything! and it will find whatever book it's been in!

heaven, i tell you, heaven.
(and in definite close contention with mr. papaya pudding on the blissometer)

Saturday, February 3, 2007

some like it raw

oh my my.

i just came back from a hectic day of yoga, errands and then a raw food class at my yoga studio (ok, not my yoga studio, but the yoga studio that i go to). the yoga class this morning was amazing - tons of backbends which leave you loving the world and goofily grinning like a cheshire cat for the next hour or so.

then off to the vet to buy some raw-some food for my pup and then off to burnaby to pick up my (well, nan's) fully serviced singer sewing machine. and back to the yoga studio for the class which was..... AMAZING. we had carrot and coconut milk soup with chopped veggies, salad with orange juicy dressing, pasta made from raw zucchini, and then the piece de resistance, papaya pudding.

people, let me help you out here.... feeling blue? feeling great? it don't matter how you're feeling cuz once you slap a papaya and a couple of dollops of coconut oil in a blender, mix it up and shove it in your pie-hole, then you will feel enlightened, satisfied and most of all, blissed out.

come valentine's day, i think someone special will be receiving a valentine. that's right: mr. papaya pudding.
i love you. you're sweet. and you are so good to me (and for me). how did i live my life without you? yours, for eternity, jess xo

turn those blenders on people and make mr. papaya pudding the sexiest man alive for 2007.


now.

p.s. oh, and my grandma called and we had a great conversation. she's going to send me a manual on how to train my mutt. who at this moment is doing her creepy "paws on the sill staring" thing. off for walkies.

Thursday, February 1, 2007

by special request (for jill)

isa was out in the snow on sunday, too.
just like her auntie honkie. (aaaaaaaaaww)



her first snow angel!

full moon crazies

first of all, how is it thursday already?

secondly, beware the power of the full moon.... it can only bring intense cravings for red meat, a feeling of having drunk too much caffeine without drinking any (or at least just minimal amounts) and, of course, my period.

it's been a very weird week - very intense and very full. it feels like every day, i've been falling into bed and then getting up and running out the door. in between sleeping and waking, think very full days with many meetings topped with a day-long meeting today in a room with NO WINDOWS. that's right - NO WINDOWS and the walls are GREY. what the? who designed that building??? i have been in meetings in that room before for 3 hours at a time and left feeling slightly suicidal but today was too much. couple the grey walls/no windows thing with very intense people who demand answers in a really aggressive way at a meeting that you volunteered to attend to help them do their job, and what do you get? that's right... fun.

buuuuutttttttt i drove there! yay! i was really leary of joining the morning commute but i car-pooled with a friend so the hatred of being a single passenger vehicle was alleviated. and it was quite lovely and a trip that normally takes me 45 minutes with 2 buses and a train plus about 8 minutes of walking on either side was suddenly 20 minutes. i am on a very slippery slope.

and tonight was very romantic - a moonlit walk on the beach with lulu and jill and sebastien and reuben. the fog was sitting on english bay and the mountains and the cityscape were just poking out of it. reuben and lulu frolicked in the water and tried to eat the bones of a dead animal on the beach and jill, sebastien and i walked and talked. well, jill and i walked and talked and sebastien was carried along and slept.

sleeping sounds good right about now, but it's only 8:30. i'll go waste some time, and then, as Pepys always ended his diary entries (would he be a blogger?), to bed. how will i waste some time you ask? see above....