Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Way better than with fish.

Tonight I am going to a Japanese-movie-and-sushi night, so I made candy sushi to bring along.


Adorablemente, no?  Some california rolls?



Some nigiri?



You like a bite?


Monday, July 19, 2010

If you have need of a thing, that thing exists in the Universe for you

This post references my boobers several times.  Fair warning.

I have two halter-style dresses that I love being in and that pack incredibly small and so I want to take them traveling with me, but I don't have a good halter-style bra, PLUS I don't really want to be bringing more bras with me.  So I've been hunting all over for a bathing suit top that will match these brown bottoms I have AND double as a suitable bra, thereby killing two traveling stones.

I have two brown-themed bathing suit tops, but one has insanely thick straps and is all Hey you!  She's wearing a bathing suit under here!  It is fantastic for swimming laps because the thick straps keep my girls in order, but lousy as a bra-double.  My other brown-themed top only has the one layer, and I like to have something a little thicker in the nippular region if I'm going anywhere except my patio.

I combed The Garage and Urban Planet and Dynamite because did I mention I only want to spend, like, $15?  I am stricken with poverty, y'all.  But mid-summer in real life = early fall in clothing stores, so all's that's left on the bathing suit racks is the dregs.  I'm totally fine with dregs as long as they are brown-themed and have skinny straps, but alas.

After two hours of mall-trawling and accidentally buying a coat (I am hopeless in the face of Urban Planet's cheap, adorable coats.  Even in the middle of July) I remembered I'd forgotten to eat lunch and was immediately hungry and cranky.  I had an hour yet til my coffee date but headed there early to grab something in the way of a brownie.

On the way there I passed Flavor, which is where I'd bought one of the dresses in question and which I was pretty sure carried bathing suits.  This post clearly needs a photo at this point.


Cute dress, right?  Flavor is full of cute dresses.  Also, the bra-kini is a thing that exists, and Flavor has them, and they had the last brown one in my size for $15.  It's a bikini top that is also a bra.  It is exactly the thing that I needed.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Just checking in before I check out

Many exciting things happened today vis a vis children and bikes (like how Kate and I were spelling each other off doing laps with The Child For Whom I Am Primarily Responsible because it is sweaty work running next to a biking child but then they brought out The Child's bike from home which is EXCITING FOR HER but terrifying for those of us who have gotten used to having a don't-tip bar to grab when she's tipping, so Kate and I flanked her and we ran in a flying V, which was excellent for safety purposes but terrible for spelling-off purposes and I sweated much) but I spent the afternoon at the beach and then I had book club (not my shouty book club or my really exclusive med-wives book club but the other one) and now I am a sleepy puppy.


I am totally reading The Graduate and it is salacious and great.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

It was a good day.

The Child For Whom I Am Predominately Responsible got up on a two-wheeler today (and stayed up) and I almost cried and her mom almost cried and The Child almost cried and the camp director did not almost cry because he is Very Serious but he smiled and we high-fived everyone within arm's reach and then went outside and I ran alongside her and her two wheels until we were both profusely sweated.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

In which I learn a new trick.

I have driven across town and back THRICE now so I'm getting happily comfortable with the route and have avoided hitting several cyclists which has done wonders for my confidence so that I can finally drive with the radio on and not feel like I'm going to die and WHY HAS NO ONE TOLD ME ABOUT CAR SINGING!?!?!  Singing with the radio when you are the only one in the car is the best of best things.

Monday, July 12, 2010

The purpose of this post is mostly to complain about how sore my calves are.

They are sore.

So, I'm working at Lose the Training Wheels this week, which is a daycamp to teach kids with special needs how to ride a two-wheeler bike, which is IRONIC because I am crap at riding two-wheeler bikes, but the only skills required for the helping of these kids is that I run alongside them on their modified bikes with my hand hoving by the do-not-tip handle, and shout encouragement at them.

Ok so there's three rounds of kids in a morning, and the first round I am a floater, which means I sit on the sidelines with other floaters and laugh because there's this one kid who is fast and he is giving his runner a run for his money, and there's this other kid who is literally distracted by the air.  So he's looking every which way and almost tips every second second and his runner has her hand on the do-not-tip handle more or less all the time.

And then the second round I get a little girl who is little and seven and really very small and also fast.  She is....I don't even know why she's at this camp.  We'll have her on two wheels by Wednesday.  ANYways, she's fast and intent on passing everyone and really good at not shouting SEE YA LATER at them after I tell her that probably hurts their feelings and also very agile and an excellent passer.  Also, fast.  So I chase her with my legs for 75 minutes and then I go have some juice and she goes home.

And the third round I'm technically a floater again but this is the 'challenge' round, full of the kids who bolt and the kids who have seizures and one girl can't keep her eyes on the prize (where 'the prize' is 'the area in front of her') so I run backwards in front of her, calling her name and asking her how many fingers I'm holding up and doing anything I can to get her in the habit of looking frontwards.

Backwards is harder than forwards, and we have come full-circle to my calves and why they ache.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Bing me.

We've been living here for a year and a half and our yard is not enormous but somehow I never noticed that WE! HAVE! a CHERRY! TREE!

And not even a shitty, non-producing cherry tree like the one at my parents' house that would squeeze out four cherries per year and we would fight over them even though they were bitter as hale.  This cherry tree has, you know, cherries.


And they are delicious.


AND, since the basement troll is awol (Have I mentioned that?  That he's scarpered and we're stuck watering the lawn until either he comes back or it becomes clear he's not coming back soon and our landlords hire someone else to water the lawn?) I don't feel bad about harvesting them ALL for my own personal snacking purposes.


Fruit scoot riot, here I come.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Victoria is The Wild.

Joel goes out to bbq some burgers and there's a DEER on our lawn, and the deer sees Joel and is all, I'mma get outta here!  And I see the deer and am all, I'mma get a blurry picture of that deer getting outta here!


So the deer gets outta here, but then he must have cycled back because I go out later to chat with Joel about the burgers (they have a wedge of herbed butter in the middle.  Gross, and also, awesome) and the deer lunges out from behind us and goes jaunting across the driveway.


And then waits for traffic to lull before crossing the street.

Tuesday, July 06, 2010

In which driving has its drawbacks

I am the most independent thing that ever went to the doctor.  Yesterday I drove myself to the GP, which takes a third of the time that bussing-and-then-walking-or-waiting-for-the-irregular-and-infrequent-6C-bus, and then today I drove myself to the optholomologologist to see what was wrong with my wretched, blood-shot eyes (answer: Who knows!?  Sure not him!  Take some eye-drop samples.) but to do his eyeball-looking he had to dilate my pupils, leaving me with enormous, moon-baby eyes.

Guys, moon-baby eyes SHUT when they are in the sun.  You CANNOT DRIVE with your moon-baby eyes shut.  You have to walk around the mall in sunglasses, keeping clear of large windows (which, it's a mall.  It is made of large windows) for HOURS.  Also, you cannot buy anything because they also numbed your corneas (so they could POKE THEM [!!!]) and you're having trouble getting your eyes to work in partners so you can see what you're not buying.  Also, you cannot read.

I didn't have my camera handy (alas) so I can't share the moon-baby eyes with you, only the coming-down-from-the-moon-baby eyes (i.e. once I could drive).  They are still having trouble playing nicely together..

Monday, July 05, 2010

Old friend, new again.

My baby laptop!  It is returned to my hands, with its brain washed and its bits re-installed.  Getting a new laptop, or an old one re-jiggered, is like going on a first date.  Google becomes very solicitious.  Do you want me to remember this password?  How about this one?  Should I stop asking?  Will you have the chicken or the fish?

Saturday, July 03, 2010

A diary of treats

After three weeks of meat and meat-based products in Terrace, I wanted to eat nothing but rubbish and produce.  So for the ride home Tina packed us some snacks, and I stopped by Liquidation World for a selection of off-batch treats.  Like Cheecha Krackles.


The were not...I have eaten worse things.  8:00 am - Leave Terrace.  9:00 am - bust open Cheecha Krackles.


10:30 - Reese Peanut Butter Crunch bar, which is not exactly off-batch but which is a Thing I Have Not Eaten and Which Is Cheap At the LW.


11:30 - feeling pleasantly rubbishy in the stomach, decide to break out some of Tina's snacks.  Tina has a habit of packing off-batch vegetables, and these cucumbers look the worse for wear.


eat an apple instead, regret choice of jean shpants.  It is hot on my side of the car.


1:30 - flagging a bit, have just passed through Prince George.  Break out some Master Cafe to perk up the early afternoon.


2:30 - change into shorts (finally).  Feeling the need for sustainance, pull out cheese-and-pepperoni combo.  Is that cheese moldy?


Nay!  It is jalapenized.  Potentially delicious, definitely tastes like Liquidation World.


4:00 - still so far from home.  Pull out some of Tina's muffins for the stretch.  They taste like Health.


6:00 - sad-looking giant Twix bar.  It is hella hot in the car.  Sorry, little Twix.


7:30 - egads this is a long drive.  Also, straight-up bar of nougat?  Delicious.


9:00 - pull into Chilliwack, have enormous salad with perfectly reasonable amount of meat.

10:00 - leave Chilliwack for Burnaby.

10:30 - get stuck in traffic.  Have been in car for 13 1/2 hours, feel pranked by the Universe.

11:45 - roll into Burnaby and straight into bed.