canoe conversations

the french river

me: aren't you sad that this trip is over?
bob: yes, but i'm also tired of seeing fat men in motor boats.

me: (after riding the wake of a boat) i'm doing a little dance.
bob: it'd be better if you were topless, but i'll take it.

my view from lizard rock

lying on a hot rock after a cannonball into the lake on the last night of a much needed 5 day trip paddling the French River

bed conversations: the fear in change

me: i'm scared of moving away. what if...? what if...? what if...?
bob: that's allowed. if you're not afraid of life sometimes, you're not doing it right.

positive reinforcement

a sunny day in may...while passing through our soon to be new home town (then unknown, of course)

bob: ok. i changed my mind. i could do Smithers.
me: just like that?
b: just like that. fuck, i'd even take up golf if i golfed underneath those mountains.
m: ?!?!
b: ok, not really.

the truth about BP

devastating.

G20 ramblings take 1

this isn't meant to make light of the whole G20 shitfest--none of the police actions are excusable--but some "hmmmm" questions at the end (despite the sarcasm):

http://www.hipsterrunoff.com/2010/06/does-n-e-1-know-what-g20-protesters-are-even-protesting-seems-like-they-just-want-to-make-jpg-internet-memes.html

preoccupied with the police state in my city

http://torontoist.com/

first harvest

- swiss chard from the garden (nibbled on by those pesky raccoons...my bok choy is a lost cause, clearly it must have tasted better)...put on top of pizza last night


- purple thai basil, spicy globe basil, regular large leaf and columnar basil...made "4 basil pesto" to put on the pizza last night (blended with cashews, olive oil, lemon and lots of garlic...simple and delicious!)
- marjoram...currently hanging to dry
- greek & italian oregano...currently drying in bunches with a scent that continuously reminds me of my nonno
- peppermint & spearmint...froze, to be used later in something...strawberry ice treats perhaps?
- parsley...saved for a bean salad


- savoury & sage...using to make test boutonnieres for the wedding

saturday afternoon conversations with my man

while riding on king st...

me: i think i'm becoming a hippie and it's scaring me a bit
bob: why?
me: all this talk about needing to move away, alpaca farming, anti-capitalism...
bob: you're not a hippie. hippies think about it but don't do. instead they become yuppies.
me: are you saying they just give up?
bob: most of them probably don't realize that.
me: how can they not? it's so blatantly fucking obvious.
bob: but you don't see it from the inside...small changes, man...small changes.

he is the best. probably why i'm marrying him.
bob, thank you for continually increasing my awareness and reminding me to always question what's real.
xo.

the healthy infected

the last time we had an mrsa outbreak on the floor, i kept staying "i bet it's one of us spreading it".
people laughed: "nah, we're healthy, couldn't be".
but it persisted, despite isolation precautions.
we did point prevalence testing of our patients, and i kept saying "we should be swabbed too, staff should be a part of the point prevalence testing".
people laughed: "nah, we're not patients, we can't get swabbed, we're not patients, we're not allowed to get swabbed"
in 1999, the new england journal of medicine reported a nine-year-old boy in North Dakota whose lungs held unusually deep pockets of tubercule bacilli, infecting his family and fifty-six schoolmates while the boy himself appeared to be in perfect health.*
in 1996, the annals of internal medicine documented the post-surgical intensive care unit of a hospital where an outbreak of antibiotic-resistant staph infections was traced to colonies of Staphylococcus aureus deep in the sinuses of a seemingly healthy medical student.*
asymptomatic, infectious superspreaders.

==
*source: Rant: An oral biography of Buster Casey by Chuck Palahniuk

fake realities

i caught a glimpse of a future that's not me.
collagen lips and breast implants--a smoke and a cough that made me think of the sack of tanned skin that would be left when the insides turned to ash.
that shit doesn't matter, don't you see?
i saw a glimpse of the future i want--in a rural community, linking the gaps in isolation--with real communities and real families.
they need the hope to see that it's not better here on the other side--the side of consumerism and fake realities.
this is not real.

history repeats itself

at the show last night i felt like i had walked into a bret easton ellis novel.
all blow and shitty pop make for a complacent, dull and depressed nation where everyone looks alike--adrodgynous even...haven't we been through this before?
i hope i hear the sweet sounds of a musical revolution coming on...hell, i hope i smell the sweet scent of a societal revolution coming on, because let's face it, the music is only a reflection of the times...or is life imitating art? either way, financial depressions = mental depressions where everyone is comfortably numb.

not to say i didn't enjoy the show...a place to bury strangers was exceptionally good...again.

conversational "things my boyfriend says" side note during the big pink:

me: what's with the hands? (referring to a few die hard fans in the crowd doing this hallejulah shaking hand thing)
bob: i just thought it was that dude trying to throw the horns but failing.
me: no, no, look...there are a bunch of people doing it. it must mean something.
bob: i think it's just an epidemic of people who don't know how to rock.

at the movies

bob: i like this carpet
me: i think you've said that before
bob: good to know my taste is more consistent than my memory

pillow talk

me: sometimes there's so much running through my head i can't sleep
bob: yeah, that happens to me too. so i just speed it up until it's just white noise.

the epitome of spring

a walk around the lake with melting snow, muddy puddles, a dirty dog and a happy baby.


(isn't he a cutie?)


(isn't she a cutie?)

i swear i can see the edge of the world

standing on the edge of the spit, looking out over lake ontario, peeling off the winter layers, i swear i can see the edge of the world.
sometimes.

at the marlies game

me, after a couple of beers, making fun of the couple in front of us: that guy has not taken his arm from around that girl the whole game. how come you don't keep your arm around me for 2 hours? (insert snicker here--i was laying on the sarcasm pretty thick)

bob: that's usually reserved for couples who don't think they're equals in a relationship.

(and that's why i'm marrying him)

secret Olympic addictions

here i am, with my stomach in a knot for the men's short track speed skating, both Canadian brothers in the final.
speed skating? wtf?!
how did this happen?
what's next? ice "dancing"? (the Canadians are the favourites...)

~
In reality: maybe this is why I'm hooked? they say they lure "casual viewers" by putting sports like snowboarding at the beginning of the games...i think the crazy IOC tactics have worked on me. am i still a sucker if i know i'm being played?

winter games

while buying the Mario & Sonic winter olympics game for the wii...

me: for people who don't really watch the Olympics, here we are buying an Olympic game
bob: i watch the Olympics...i just don't invest myself in it emotionally.

~
In reality: Canada's 1st gold

non-wedding blog

i don't want this to become a wedding blog.
and until now i refrained from mentioning anything wedding-related on here.
except that this is (one of) my outlet(s) for talking things out of my head and so if this happens to be about *a* wedding, then it is what it is.

it started with wanting to throw a good party to celebrate our union.
that's all. nothing more, nothing less.
okay, maybe something more.
after over a decade of togetherness bob proposed.
needless to say i was a bit shocked (and in a hot air balloon over turkey so thankfully shocked enough to be frozen to the basket).
after years of talking about all the reasons we did not want to have a wedding (it wasn't the "getting married" part, because really, weren't we already? it was the "having a wedding" bit).
later that day we drank wine in bed in the middle of the afternoon, in our underwear, munching on pistachios, talking about how we ended up with this decision.
let's throw a great shindig with fantastic food, drink, family and friends, with a wedding thrown in for good measure, we said.
let's do a lot of it ourselves, we said.
let's keep it recycled and local, we said.
let's try and keep the budget down, but the good times up, we said.
let's try to keep it small, despite our huge families (one being Italian), we said.
let's come back here (to Turkey) to get hitched, we said.
no Italy! the Cinque Terre! we said.
or Algonquin Park, we said!
people who really want to be there will find a way, we said.
who is most important anyway? we asked.
our immediate families would find a way to be there, we said.
with idealistic dreams of fantasy wedding parties (probably from too much wine before dinner) we feel asleep for a nap. i remember waking up wondering whether i had just dreamed the better part of that morning.

upon returning to Canada, and our pact to let our families know the exciting news via postcards (which happened to arrive 2 weeks after our return, heh), dreams got shot out the window.
Turkey? Italy? too expensive for our family to travel to. too difficult for our sisters with their families and children. Algonquin Park? mum (mine) was adamant about "not camping". although we assured her she would not have to sleep in a tent on our wedding weekend, the other option was upscale resort.
beautiful, but too expensive. (and too dirty dancing-ish, in my opinion).

third best option: Toronto Island. yes!
perfect for us. very "us".
where we go to get out of the city and yet be in it at the same time.
we spend a lot of time out there in the summer, why not get hitched there?
still kicked up a bit of sand from mum, who is, i found out, not only adamant about not camping, but dislikes: rain, bugs, dirt, sand, cold...sky, sun, grass, generally anything to do with the outdoors, it seems.

regardless, it was a good compromise.
let's do it. but who do we invite? what's our budget?
and there it was, it had begun.
just as non-traditional as we had hoped and yet traditional planning with a traditional guest list.
we have too many invitees. but we can't cross any of them off.
family we know well, but don't see very often.
friends who we feel we need to invite, but really? how many of them are actually our friends? when we ask these friends to hang out or help us out, how many actually answer the call?

our catering budget has gone out the window.
ideas are being sacrificed.
i told bob i no longer wanted this wedding.
he said, i hear you. you don't want to get married.
but no, that's not it. not at all.
nothing would make me happier than marrying you.
my love, my soul mate, my best friend of more than 10 years!
i would be honoured to be your wife.
but the whole wedding bit? what were we thinking?