Monthly Archives: December 2002

Weirdly enough, I’m still in a really good mood. It’s been like this for weeks. Every day, I go outside, and I want to dance my way down the sidewalk. I’m in love with everyone and everything around me. It’s fucking awesome. I’m much less bitter about stuff, and I’m not dwelling on anger or pain like I was a month ago. It’s like I managed to talk myself out of manic-depression for a few weeks. I so hope this lasts for awhile. I like feeling happy. Even if I feel like I should be cynical for cynicism’s sake.

Stolen from cracksmurf
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I’m out in Oak Bay, yet again, home for a couple days before heading back to the mainland for New Year’s. Am currently at cracksmurf’s house, because my house is infested with TEENAGERS. Damn kids.

Just got home from a Grand Tour of the Pacific Northwest, where me and Graham and V-Wall schleppedto Seattle to retrieve Shelly, and then came back via Vancouver. I dropped the AUSers off enroute in, and then went back to Fairview with Shelly so we could watch Sex and the City while putting on makeup so we could go COUGIN’ IT UP at the club.

Today was a blur of shopping, sushi and more schlepping, as Shelly, my new quad- mate and I all hit downtown, a Fox Force Three of five-ten girls. Shelly and I wrapped it up and headed to the boat, where Neil retrieved us, in a great display of reliability.

Then, finding myself in Oak Bay, yet again, and it being far, FAR too cold to go out there and pace the ocean, I opted instead for association with Graham. I’ll get in some quality pace time tomorrow. I’m already bored of this place, and want to go home to UBC.

Long version, with more details, tomorrow from my laptop, which I cannot post from, because the cable modem is in a room infested with teenagers. G’night everybody!

Time to get it together and flee the Island for a day. I’m picking up Shelly in exactly 12 hours. Going to pick up Zippy at Tsawassen and drive to Sea-Tac later today, and spend tomorrow in Vancouver, shopping during the day and ripping it up in the evening…because Vancouver has the best shopping north of San Francisco. Then it’s back to the Island Sunday morning. Going to be a bit of a long roundtrip…but should be very well worth it.

Mike once asked if my parents found me on a beach, because he thought I was part seal after watching me eat sashimi.

Photos of Oak Bay Born Actual Seals, and one human who also eats sashimi like one.

Riley the Crackhound Golden Retriever just sneaked into the kitchen and ate a quarter of a chocolate cake, and a half can of cranberry jelly, which is when he broke the dish and got caught. My fault for leaving the door open. Dammit.

Pictures to come…courtesy of Graham…but I just got home from a long walk around Oak Bay, which ended down at the Sealand site so he could get some pictures of the harbour seals that live there, subsisting entirely on chunks of frozen herring which the gift shop there sells for tourists to feed the seals. There were four plump, shiny seals down there, all jumping for fish, elongating themselves from their usual state as lumps of blubber into lean(er) jumping machines. By the time we left, there were a dozen people, some visitors, some locals, all gathered around, phographing and videotaping the animals.

Went to Boxing Day sales this morning, briefly. I got a pair of decent Bluenotes jeans for $24…that would have been $30US in Seattle…but that’s it. The sales are half-assed, at best, and the mall is half empty for Boxing Day…and it just looks like recession out there. I think I’ll wait to shop until I get back to Vancouver. This is just depressing.

Now I’m going to go take a nap. Take that, sleep patterns!

In an act of derring-do, cracksmurf and his sister and one of her friends and me all broke past the Tweed Curtain to get slurpees at the Macs on Cook Street an hour ago. Hey, escaping Oak Bay isn’t ever easy.

I was totally going stir crazy tonight, too. Mom and I were supposed to go to Two Towers, but we waited too long for Monica to get downstairs and sing carols, and then no one wanted to sing carols anymore, and then it was too late to go. So we watched the Sex and the City DVDs that Monica and I got for Xmas, and called it a night. (Monica got Season One; I got Season Three. All three of us love that show.)

Now, if I can get past the kids in the hot tub out back, I may go pace by the ocean for a bit. I’ve missed it.

Best Xmas present: it stopped raining for awhile.

Happy Xmas, y’all. We DO celebrate it in my family…in fact, my Jewish mother LOVES Christmas because she never had it as a kid (she didn’t get much of a Hannukah either, I don’t think…Mom didn’t grow up all suburban like we have). And Dad, being British, has always had the traditional Christmas, with the Christmas Eve dinner and caroling and the Christmas morning oranges and chocolates in our stockings, fire in the fireplace, opening presents one at a time…traditions that my family still follows.

To that we’ve added Mom’s touches: the traditional Christmas Morning Coffee With Eggnog Because No One Cares About Presents Until We Get Coffee, and the traditional Christmas morning breakfast: lox and bagels with cream cheese.

It was also Dad’s birthday yesterday, so Mom combines Christmas Eve with Dad’s Birthday Celebration, as she has for years. She made his favorite roast beef, and served birthday cake. We try to make a fuss over Dad for his birthday, because he always got shafted as a kid. Monica and I try to get him separate Christmas and birthday presents as well.

In more recent years, I’ve realized how lucky I am to come home to a nice, family, Oak Bay Christmas. To be able to sit down with both parents and my sister for a morning and open presents together, as we have for the past two decades, is something I’m grateful for, something I’m fortunate to have. This is why I come home for Christmas every year, because it means so much to all of us to spend a day together like this.

Or rather, a morning, until we all go our separate ways.

Anyways, Mom bought me dishes and Dad gave me a cream-colored cashmere scarf (from WJ Wilson, no less…I bet Monica helped him pick it out) and Monica got me Season 3 of Sex and the City, so it was a good Christmas all around. I’m happy to be here. Now, if I can just get outside before the rain starts again…