All's quiet on --SPLAT!

Last night I went to Trailer Park Bingo for the first time ever. A couple of friends of mine go almost every week. This week, Kate and I decided to go as well (she has been before).

I won a bingo! Very exciting. I had to roll a ring down the "Blingo" board to see what my prize would be.




There's loads of great and not-so-great prizes you can win. Old board games, VHS movies, tacky wall hangings, etc. Mostly, the prizes have the "kitsch that's kind of kitschy but is so ending up back at Goodwill" factor. But no. I don't win one of those. No way. Nothing quite so pedestrian for me.

Twice my Blingo ended up on "Mystery Box", but there weren't any boxes left. Then I ended up on "Nut", which is where you pick a number out of this large wooden nut, and then Flash Cadillac, the Bingo caller, matches up the number off his list of prizes. I won "PIE". Then, I had to pick out of a second, smaller nut, to see whom I would be pie-ing. The piece of paper said "EWE".

There's sheep at Trailer Park Bingo???

... ...

Aww, crap.



Yup, on my very first-ever Trailer Park Bingo, I managed to win, via a very circuitous, labyrinthine route, the prize of being pied in the face. C.P., one of the guys who works the bar, got to do the honours.

My post-pie reaction? "Mmm, tasty!" It was whipped cream and raspberry/strawberry drizzle. I am apparently lucky - one of the guys we were with, Alex, has been pied in the past, and his pie was alphagetti and grenadine. Kinda ick.

After helping me clean up, C.P. gave me a free beer and shots for my table.* I debated drinking them all myself, but I was nice, and shared with the 4 people I used to consider my friends.



For the record, whipped cream detritus makes your hair really crunchy and stiff. It also makes you smell nice, if a little flowery :)

* Alex also said he didn't get any free booze after being pied. So I win!

You Bought A Zoo! I Went Swimming!

When I moved to my new neighbourhood in October, my good friend Kate, who lives right near here, made me promise that we would go swimming on a regular basis at the newly-renovated community centre pool which is literally a 2-minute walk from my place (and about 7 minutes from her place). Absolutely, I said!

Well, as you can probably guess, what then ensued was a weeks-long-turned-months-long set of creative excuses, day after day, why one or the other of us couldn't go swimming the next day. As Kate said at one point, we're such hipsters we stopped swimming before we even started. Ha.

But now! We are swimming! Last Friday, we actually made it out. Kate went another time this week as well, and then we went again tonight. And while I don't remember swimming ever being this...EXHAUSTING...it's fun! Tonight after work, I bought swim goggles because I realized last week that I'm slightly panicked about putting my head in the water and not being able to see (I wear contacts so I have to close my eyes).* I'm used to snorkeling and scuba-diving, see, and a key feature of those activities is that YOU CAN SEE. That's kind of the point, actually. My new goggles rock! Though it turns out I am TERRIBLE at swimming. It's a lot of work when you don't have a BCD or flippers! I may look into remedial adult-swim classes later this winter. In the meantime, there's absolutely no shame in swimming with a flutterboard in the slow lane, right?


* Wearing contacts, which I only started doing just over a year ago, is a definite plus. One of the reasons I was always reluctant to go swimming in the past is that I couldn't find my way around. Swimming is no fun when you can't tell the swimmers from the sharks in the pool.**

** When I was a kid, I was convinced that if I took my eyes off the deep end, a shark would swim out of one of the water-exchange grills. This was particularly a danger at the pool at my grandmaman's old condo in Quebec City, which was kind of dark, shadowy and mysterious, at least to a 10-year-old.

Rion the Extra-Terrier

I leave my dog alone all day and when I get home, I can't find him because he's doing his best E.T. impression.*



But that's not the best shot from today. No, that prize goes to "Would someone get this frackin' paparazzi out of my face already!"



I love my dog :)
     


* All together now: "Ell-ee-ott. Owww."

Last night of vacation!

Tonight is my last night of vacation, and my best guy and I got all dolled up for a night out on the town!


After getting lost in the townhouse complex on Primrose, however, we decided to call it a night and head home.*

This morning, I busted Rion out of prison,** then we had a 2-hour nap,*** then we had pretzels for lunch and played on the computer all the rest of the afternoon. It's been an almost perfect last day of vacation.

I have Rion for at least the rest of the week, so we'll have to see what madcap adventures we can have over the next few days. At the very least, I'd like to get him hooked on Arrested Development.


* Getting lost on Primrose takes talent if you know what a short block this end of Primrose is.

** aka the kennel. Though I suspect he wouldn't have been sad if I hadn't come to get him, since he absolutely loves it there. And there are way more dogs at the kennel than there are at my house.

*** Actual length: 2 1/2 hours. It was the best decision I made all day.

Happy New Year 2012!

Visual representation of how I felt this morning when I woke up:



And further visual representation of the post-NYE morning (well, early afternoon) debauchery:

aka breakfast cereal and coffee with friends, complete with invitation to zombie movie marathon (alas, i did not make it)


Happy New Year 2012!
this is pixxiefish in the sea, making no promises for the year to come :)

What's she building in there?*

Recently spotted in my bedroom. What could it be???




Too small for a hat.




Too round for a pair of socks.




The stumpiest, most unattached gloves you ever did see?




A ball for the dog, perhaps?




Complete with oozing green stuff.






But yes, of course, it's another Elefante!

I made this one for my friends Rebecca and Jonathan's little girl, Jada. I love this yarn. It's self-striping sock yarn, so it looks more complicated than my last Elefante, but it wasn't. This one is smaller. The ears went on a little wonky, however, so it looks a bit more like a mouse with a very long nose than an elephant. But so easy! And so much fun to knit! I'm planning to make at least two more in the near future.

* With apologies to Tom Waits.

So this one time? In Vancouver?

I went to a conference in Prince George, B.C.,* near the end of June, and afterwards, spent a day and a half in Vancouver visiting with my good friend Donna.



I first met Donna 18 years ago when my family moved to Thornhill. We used to walk home from school together, about a 40-minute walk.** Donna and I have not lived in the same city for well over 12 years now - probably longer - so I only get to see her once or, if I'm lucky, twice a year. Not nearly enough.

Arriving late in Vancouver on a Friday night and then leaving just after lunch on Sunday afternoon means you call your visit "a day and a half in length", but it really is just one day. We had grand plans for our day together, the majority of which were quickly scuttled by car troubles. Doing the Grouse Grind*** had to give way to walking to the Canadian Tire to buy a new car battery and then walking back to Donna's place with the car battery in the baby stroller and the baby strapped to his mom.**** In the rain.

But we did get to chat till late together, and we did get to go for breakfast together (twice!), and we did get to wander the streets together, and we did get to generally hang out and catch up. Later on the Saturday, once the car problems were resolved, the sun was coming out so we drove out to West Vancouver to meet up with Donna's husband Matt once he got off work, and we walked the seawall.

That was the point when I remembered I had packed a camera:







I think something is wrong with my camera, however. Because other than the one I posted above, the only picture I got of my lovely hosts is of their backsides:



And despite him being one of my favourite babies of all time, I didn't manage to get a single photo of little Jacob, though I did manage to get no less than 5 - five! - shots of this little guy:



Neither as cute nor as cuddly, not by a long shot.

You can see the full set of West Vancouver seawall photos, including a surprise a little cuddlier than the giant slug, on my Flickr pages.


* It rained the entire time in PG. And my hotel was in the middle of nowhere. The conference was about copyright issues, so not very photographic. So I have no pictures of PG, other than my hotel room.

** We never walked to school together, just home. I think because I mostly would get a ride down with my dad in the mornings. There was also a school bus that I avoided like the plague - I think I took it to school about 3 times in one year.

*** I'm not saying we would have done the Grouse Grind, just that it quickly became not-an-option.

**** I got to pretend I had a child, as I pushed the stroller, albeit a child with wires and acid. LOL :)