Adieu, Santa Monica

So I am back in the Palm Dessert. Sigh. My parents are excited - "It's much more laid back and casual here!" "...and easier to drive!" - but I'm forlorn: I think I could live quite happily in [parts] of L.A.. I can't imagine I would be able to ever afford to live in Santa Monica or Venice, but a girl can dream. And dream I will.

But, for now, reality. I promised you gazpatcho and gazpatcho I shall deliver.

I stumbled across the recipe on Pink Parsley, a favourite blog of the PBRunner, and, with the help of my uncle and my mother's amazing Vitamix blender (but, as she would say, you can't describe it as a blender - it's a class of its own. Seriously, if I kept the thing running longer, it would cook the gazpatcho into tomato soup...).

The recipe was followed exactly, save the addition of cilantro, which my uncle insisted upon.

 So after letting it sit for a day - to better let the flavours mingle - we had it for lunch with some beautiful sandwiches.

And, lovely as this soup may look, it was fated for the garbarator. The red onion I had used, which I vaguely recall my mother exclaiming upon purchase "God that's a big red onion - you probably don't want to use all of that..." was overpowering. And red onion is a taste I have very gradually warmed up to, so having strong and acidic red onion flavour dominating was truly disappointing. Hopefully Chopper didn't make my mistake...
 
On a more inquisitive and excitingly sartorial note, I'd love some feedback for a look I rocked my last night out in L.A., to the very posh Boa Steakhouse on the Santa Monica waterfront.

Jean Jacket Colin's | Top Free People | Skort Free People | Purse George Gina & Lucy | Belt Wilfred

 The top and shorts were L.A. acquisitions, and when we bought them, my mum assured the girl at the register "Don't worry, she's not going to wear them together." Oh - but she did. Not my dream way of rocking the skort - I am thinking some bad ass boots or rock-n-roll heels, like these from Sam Edelman (drooldrooldrool), plus a white sleeveless dress shirt in a drapey, transparent fabric, with either a leather vest or a structured overlong blazer. That said, is this really too much animal print?? How would you rock those shorts, and should I be afraid to show my face at boa on our return trip next week?

Let us not say good bye, but, as the French have it, Adieu, Santa Monica

Rollin' in the Hollywood Hills

I write this blog post from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science's Cecil B. De Mille Reading Room. That's the Academy. Of little golden Oscars fame.

And clearly I am using my time judiciously.

I jest - this is my second day here, and I just finished flipping through handwritten post cards by Salka Viertel and Fritz Lang; an ode to Katharine Hepburn by Marlene Dietrich and the original Paramount pressbooks for Sunset Boulevard and Double Indemnity.

My thesis is cooler than your thesis - all I'm saying.

The AMPAS library and staff has been so hugely helpful, if only for making me feel like a slightly more legitimate scholar/person. AFI, tragically, was less so, but it did give me a chance to do at least a little bit of shopping while I'm here in LA (I am dreaming up a myriad of ways to style the leopard print romper-style short shorts I just acquired - I am thinking Doc Martens are in my future..)

AND - exciting news : this girl got herself a new camera. Or rather, begged and pleaded until her merciful and beneficent parents bought her one. And a nice one. I owe them eternally. So here are the results of my playing with my new Canon G12 and proof that it isn't all work and no play in LA (such fun with rhyme!)

every trip to the Venice boardwalk requires a photo of an oldschool VW van

So hopefully there will be more to come, and I will share with you soon the delayed results of my photogenic but horrific adventures in gazpatcho making. Sorry Chop - your incredulity may have paid off this time. Teaser: beware excessive red onion.

Hit a Snake

IN YOUR CAR???

No - in the game of snakes-and-ladders-to-adulthood that is my life.

I left my passport on the plane yesterday.

That one at 87. That's the one I've hit.

I had learned to crack an egg with one hand, I responsibly books vet appointments, I do daily yoga and weekly laundry; I finished a chapter of my thesis last week; I handled my previous two travelling debacles with grace and stride; I go to bed by 10:00 and wake up at 5:50; I can make risotto.  

But. this. trumps. all.

Sheer forgetful idiocy with possibly the most important document a person can have.

I did somehow manage to make it to Palm Springs in the end (I left it in the seat pocket in front of me during my Montreal-San Francisco flight, from where on I just used my driver's license), though my bags are stuck in limbo in SanFran. And furthermore, I did all of this under the foolish delusion that one can look stylish while travelling; I wore my Stewart Weitzman wedges, which not only shortened my strides rather obnoxiously, but provided a hilarious contrast with the yowling creature I had in tow who peed all over herself (AGAIN!) before we had even checked in. It doesn't matter what you look like when you smell like cat piss. 

But apparently I don't need my passport to get back into Canada since I am driving - just my birth certificate and government i.d. And my bags - they are a 1 hour flight away, so I am not too bent out of shape. And She Ra is languidly making herself queen of this castle.

Thank you yoga instilled yen.

Speaking of, I meant to post, while in the flury of election fever, about my yoga class last Monday evening that was taught by Tracy from Moksha Yoga Halifax! I had been debating going to a second yoga class that day - I hadn't really done much that day, but I wanted to get a good night's sleep, and I had been up at 6:00 that morning to already go to a yoga class. After I finished waffling, I knew I would be much happier if I did go, and was I ever right. If you have never had the pleasure of practising at the Moksha studio in Halifax, you do not know the most lovely and warm-hearted woman in the world, Miss Tracy Duru. Her Moksha bio reads "When you meet Tracy she’ll offer you a smile to warm your heart and lighten your day. She loves what she does and you can tell. She shines." Well, it's true. And I am not always one who "takes yoga into your life," though I increasingly try to be seeing someone like Tracy who actually just always makes me happy to interact with. After the class, in which I just reflected back her amazing energy, pushing myself in postures in ways I never had, but with a newfound strength and groundedness, we hugged it out tons. There is just something so beautiful to me about this kind of love and trust that can be fostered in the yoga community. Tracy is leaving MYH soon, however, and opening her own studio in St. Catherine's Ontario, where she will do absolutely amazing. Much love and luck to her in her new endeavour.

Send some good karma my way, faithful readers - I think I need it.

Last Leg of Unsanctioned Four Week Vacation

So today Kathy departs for Fredericton while I prepare my giddy ass for a week-long visit to Halifax.

You, Kathy! I like you!

It was awesome having Kathy here. I miss the feeling of always having a close friend so close at hand. Not to hate on my Montreal friends, because they rock, but we all just always have so much of our own stuff going on. What can I say? I'm very co-dependent.



So, getting to have one of my absolute besties nesting with me in Montreal for five days, getting to meet her boyfriend, go shopping and become obsessed with Criminal Minds has been an absolute treat. Not to mention I have been missing her like fucking crazy.

Now I am in the airport, about to fly out to Halifax. And I am so freaking excited. Truro Sevens Rugby tournament is my rugby event of the year. I can't imagine my year without it; I seriously start looking forward to it once the fall season is over, and basically all of first semester for the past 5 years has been devoted to prepping for it. Less this year. Shamefully less. Not looking forward to that first godawful hit. But I am looking forward to seeing all my Halifax peeps who I love and miss. Chopper is picking me up at the airport (in exchange for me not mocking his PT Cruiser...this is a huge sacrifice on my part), I'm staying at Genny's and then...the BARN! Brace yourselves. Shit is about to get all kinds of real.


On a completely related note: I have done no work in 4 weeks.

Thesis, shmesis.

Chilly California Toes

This will not be a post full of beautiful, braggarty photos from Belize. I am waiting to compile a master compilation album, and am waiting on my mum's photos. It will come though. And you will feel jealous.

This trip was lovely, once I finally got there. I didn't get my bag until 3 days before I left, but the joy of travelling in a laid back town which only within the last 3 years paved it's 3 roads, is that you don't need much.

I am finding myself very reluctant to return to reality. I have grown very jealous of my parent's lifestyle of near-retirement, in my dad's case, and stay-at-home motherhood sans children, in my mum's. They have responsibilities, certainly, and they manage to keep themselves really busy. But they also spend months on end in California, broken up with jaunts to Belize and Peru. And the idea of returning to the cold of Montreal where I will be camping out in the library until I finish my thesis (I'm feeling so behind! I'm delaying the panic attack for the flight from Denver to Montreal...), where it is still frigidly cold, where I need to wear makeup and do my hair and exercise if I want to be seen in public, where I have to wake up and live as dictated to by multiple alarms in my cell phone, and where I don't have random strangers blessing me and telling me how good I look on the street. Ugh.

California is a good transition though. It is much colder than Belize - a cloudy 20 degrees - I need to mark all the papers that I swore I was going to do while in Belize (what was I thinking?), I am transitioning rather enthusiastically into boho-chic California beachwear, my phone, which the hotel I left it at kindly mailed here, woke me up this morning, and only women in their 50s have told me I'm pretty since I got here. So, I am being brought back down to reality. Kind of...

Today will be a mix of trying to catch some rays while also marking 19 papers. Yesterday was shopping. Details to come soon.

I missed you, internet friends.

"I Spoke Too Soon," or "The Horrifying Things That Happened Trying to Get to Belize"

From the mundane annoyances to the "Heads will fucking roll! Greyhound bus style" (and, to be clear, this I actually did text...back when I had a phone...more on that later...)

Wednesday Evening - my parents inform me that, to be safe, I really need to leave for the airport no later than 3:30, which really conflicted with the 2 hour wax I had booked for 2:15. Hard choice...

Friday, 3:40 - I managed to reorganize my appointments and make it out of the house in time to prove how sage my parents are: a huge traffic jam on the highway to the airport had some people stuck in traffic for 2 hours. My cabbie managed to cut that time in half by cutting through residential areas, though this left with me with the distinct impression that I was being abducted

Friday, 9:00 - Captain announces that we are going to be getting into DC a little later than scheduled: my 40 minute connection time has been cut down to 10 minutes by his estimated arrival time...

Friday, 9:50 - Emerge into the Washington airport. Flight departs in 5 minutes. It's in another terminal. I sprint in the hopes that they are holding it for me

Friday, 10:05 -They weren't. Go get in line at United's customer service behind 12 other people.

Friday, 10:30 - My flights for the next day are rearranged - I wont make my original flight to Belize, but there is one leaving that afternoon and I am booked on that instead, getting me in 4 hours later than originally. But no, because it was Air Canada's fuck up, they couldn't issue me a hotel voucher. Go back to the other terminal.

Friday, 11:00 - There are 30 other stranded people in front of me in line.

Friday, 11:20 - A stroke of luck! I get the last voucher for a Sheraton hotel room.

Saturday, 6:20 - I wisely opted to take the 6:30, rather than the 7:00 am shuttle that had been my original plan. Call Cam to make sure he'll make his flight.

Saturday, 6:45 - Wait in line line at United to get my boarding passes and check that my bag will be on the plane. I'm told that I have actually been switched to fly out on Continental, and need to go to the other end of the check-in to get my boarding pass there. And no, they can't access Air Canada's database to see where my bag is.

Saturday 7:05 - Have my boarding passes, but my flight boards in 40 minutes and I still need to go through security and change terminals. The line at security takes forever. I get chosen for the naked scanner. I leave a water bottle in my purse which requires my carry-ons to be thoroughly checked.

Saturday, 7:15 - on the train to my terminal. Where's my phone?

Saturday, 7:18 - sitting on the shuttle, it would seem.

Saturday, 7:30 - the lady at Dunkin Donuts will not give me cash back for my food voucher (which I only use 6 of 15 dollars) in the form of 2$ worth of quarters, which I need as the pay phones will not accept Canadian quarters (which are equivalent currency!!!!)

Saturday, 8:10 - Check at the flight desk. No, my checked baggage is not on the plane yet. But she's sure it will be fine. There's nothing I can do.

Saturday, 8:15 - on the plane, and you need to pay to watch anything on the TVs during a 3.5 hour flight

Saturday, 8:30 - flight is delayed. Possible engine trouble...

Saturday, 8:40 - I check to see if the delay will affect my connection. Departing Houston at 9:20? How many time zones over is Houston from D.C.?

Saturday, 8:43 - Dig out old itinerary. One time zone between Houston and D.C... 3.5 hour flight...

Saturday, 8:44 - Holy fuck - they checked me in on my originally flight out of Houston which, even without the engines falling the shambles, I would never have been able to make...

Saturday, 9:00 - I choose to ignore this for 15 minutes because, really, fuck, what's the point. But at length I inform a flight attendant. "What were they thinking?? Give me a second..."

Saturday, 9:03 - I can get off the plane now, but they have sorted out the mechanical difficulties and are about to close the doors. I'll stay...

Saturday, 9:15 - extreme winds have closed all but one runway, and there are some emergency landings that need to take place before we can take off

Saturday, 9:35 - emergency landing is in, "but there are 15 or 16 aircrafts before us, so we will be on the ground for a while..."

Saturday, 10:05 - survived the turbulence - now to enjoy my middle seat between two well-sized middle aged me who both like using 2 arm rests.

Saturday, 12:10 (Houston) - put on standby for the flight I should have been checked in on this morning...

Saturday, 1:30 - name called! Thank God! I literally scream that as I run up. One sec, the girl tells me, and goes and talks to a couple who said they would volunteer to depart at a later date. There is room for both of them on the flight, but if they opt to give it up to me, they forfeit the 600$ voucher they were promised for volunteering. Not a chance. "I'm sorry, no room on here for you"

Saturday, 2:00 - I am going to San Salvador tonight, over nighting there, and flying to Belize tomorrow morning. I just need to recheck my bag.

Saturday, 2:30 - bag is in Washington. It will get into Belize 2 hours after I do tomorrow

Saturday, 3:15 - I desperately search for replacement footwear - It was knee-high rain boot appropriate weather in Montreal! The only place available is a Crocs stand. My feet continue to sweat away in my Hunters... 

La Belle Belize

I made it. To the airport.

All of my scrambling and freaking out led to survival.

Assignment in, legs waxed, fingers and toes painted, apartment clean and full of cat food.

I ate all the perishable food in my fridge, including an entire red pepper, 4 slices of turkey breast, a glass of milk, and, the charming final touch, a 2"x2" cube of cheddar cheese as I passed through customs [I thought they may accuse me of smuggling something illicit into the US in my sketchy nibbled, poorly/excessively saran wrapped cheddar cube].


I smothered She Ra in unwanted kisses and assured her someone would come by to feed her.

I wisely disposed of an empty milk carton on my way out.

Ambergris Caye, here I come.

Counting the Hours

I have become scary anal retentive this week friends. I leave for Belize on Friday night. I cannot wait. That said, I have become dangerously focused on all of the things I need to get done between now and then.

I think it all started with a truly alarming dream I had. I was lying on my yoga mat in savasana, when the person behind me stretched their arms up and started touching my shoulders with their green manicured fingers. In alarm, my dream self turned to see my German friend Madeleine - who, by the way, does not wear skirts and is physically incapable of walking in heels, let alone apt to paint her nails - who commented on how hairy I was (which is something much more along the lines of the Madeleine I know and love): "How could you go on vacation like dis?" And, alarmed, I looked down and my under arms and legs were forests of hair and I realized "I went on vacation without getting waxed!" I know that right about now, my diligent reader, you are rolling your eyes at my nightmare. But it was bizarre, because then, seated on my yoga mat I tried to think "how could I have missed my appointment before leaving?" and the dreaming became somewhat lucid, as I realized I couldn't have. Boom, woke up. Or so I thought. And the parts of the dream that had convinced me I must have been dreaming, not remembering my flight, for instance, I was suddenly doing. But I hadn't waxed! I went through about 4 of these dreams within dreams where I futilely tried to get my bod waxed in time for the beach. I think Christopher Nolan was going to do that, but Inception went in another direction, so as to better utilize a suddenly hot Joseph Gordon-Levit.

More of my dreams are Joseph Gordon-Levit sans Inception, not the reverse

So, I don't know if it is out of a legitimate fear that I could possibly forget my appointment to have all tropic-inappropriate hair removed or not, but I have governed every minute of my week. I have never been quite this obsessive in so many different facets of my life. I am taking care of household business (read: eating all the perishables in my fridge), getting ahead on my work, yoga daily, prepping my base tan, eating well, fulfilling TA responsibilities. Before bed every night I have been redrawing a To Do list for my week, and mapping out my hour-to-hour plan for the next day.

Do I need help?

Nope, because I'm going to Belize.