Vancouver Vancouver Vancouver! Nowhere else on earth does Christmas sneak up on you as it does here. I've been so busy getting us ready for Christmas at the shop that I haven't had time to upload all of the photos I took of the snowstorm we had a couple of weeks ago. It felt so odd to have all of that Toronto weather here. It was that dry cold that hits your face like a million little needles......Oh how I miss Toronto!
I promise photo's sooooon, maybe even tomorrow.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Lark blog
I don't even know if anyone out there is reading these floating thoughts of mine, but I guess I write it to get it out of my head for the most part. Thanks for reading if you are.
Rain then sun and then some more rain. People shopping, window shopping or just dropping by to talk. Sell some jeans, smile at people sometimes they smile back....much of the time they just ignore me. Then it rains and sometimes the sun will come out.
The pre-teen ballerina's from the Goh Ballet come in to visit on occasion. They call me 'the nice lady' and they argue about who skips class the most.
There are the women with way more money than taste and of course the girls with more taste than money. As long as they are nice it doesn't really bother me either way...it's the ones without manners that get to me. My new technique is to simply walk away...even if they're still talking.
I wish it were ethical of me to write about some of the people that come into the shop. The people watching is great!
We've finally got our house brand in the store. There are still some tops to be delivered, but I will post some images of the Lark brand clothing tomorrow. I'm very excited about it, it's beautiful and it fits so well!
Spoke with my mom last night. As usual within the first five minutes she told me all about people I've never met nor care about.....sigh. One day she'll tell me about herself I know it. For now it's stories about her home stay students laced with inside jokes between her and her boyfriend that I don't understand. She loves me so I guess that's enough.
Sometimes my mother will tell me something about my father, usually in the moment it's just interesting...a curiosity, but then after a while I start to have some kind of feeling. It's usually a bad feeling; like after you eat an off muscle but you don't know it until you're doing a face plant into the toilet a few hours later cursing the chef and feeling like the ocean itself is coming out of your nose. For that reason I no longer eat muscles and I try to avoid all conversations about my father.
More confessions to be posted.
Love and many hugs
V.
Rain then sun and then some more rain. People shopping, window shopping or just dropping by to talk. Sell some jeans, smile at people sometimes they smile back....much of the time they just ignore me. Then it rains and sometimes the sun will come out.
The pre-teen ballerina's from the Goh Ballet come in to visit on occasion. They call me 'the nice lady' and they argue about who skips class the most.
There are the women with way more money than taste and of course the girls with more taste than money. As long as they are nice it doesn't really bother me either way...it's the ones without manners that get to me. My new technique is to simply walk away...even if they're still talking.
I wish it were ethical of me to write about some of the people that come into the shop. The people watching is great!
We've finally got our house brand in the store. There are still some tops to be delivered, but I will post some images of the Lark brand clothing tomorrow. I'm very excited about it, it's beautiful and it fits so well!
Spoke with my mom last night. As usual within the first five minutes she told me all about people I've never met nor care about.....sigh. One day she'll tell me about herself I know it. For now it's stories about her home stay students laced with inside jokes between her and her boyfriend that I don't understand. She loves me so I guess that's enough.
Sometimes my mother will tell me something about my father, usually in the moment it's just interesting...a curiosity, but then after a while I start to have some kind of feeling. It's usually a bad feeling; like after you eat an off muscle but you don't know it until you're doing a face plant into the toilet a few hours later cursing the chef and feeling like the ocean itself is coming out of your nose. For that reason I no longer eat muscles and I try to avoid all conversations about my father.
More confessions to be posted.
Love and many hugs
V.
Monday, October 16, 2006
That's love
Last night we ordered in sushi. I had a mind blip and only tipped the driver $3 measly ass dollars. First off I gave the restaurant the store address so he was confused and out in the rain across the street, second off he was in a cotton kimono and third it was pissing rain.
I felt SO bad about stiffing the guy, which was bad enough without the fact that it was raining. I kept seeing his face in my minds eye and feeling rotten about giving him such a poor tip. As we were eating our dinner I mentioned this a few times to Dane asking if it made me a horrible human being. Dane is honest so he said it was a pretty bad tip, but whatever. I stewed some more over it and then Dane, my knight in shining armor, decided to go up to the restaurant to give the driver a better tip despite my many protests. I didn't really want another thing to feel all guilt ridden about (thanks Mom!)
He drove to the restaurant, got the waitresses to break a $10 bill into two fives much to their confusion. They don't really speak English at this restaurant so they didn't understand why this guy was there trying to give them $5. Eventually he managed to get them to understand that it was for one of the drivers because his wife felt bad about giving him a bad tip.
I felt better about the delivery guy, but pretty bad about Dane being out in the rain over it all.
That is love my friends, when your sweetheart wants to take away your pangs of guilt and is willing to go out into the elements to do it.
I felt SO bad about stiffing the guy, which was bad enough without the fact that it was raining. I kept seeing his face in my minds eye and feeling rotten about giving him such a poor tip. As we were eating our dinner I mentioned this a few times to Dane asking if it made me a horrible human being. Dane is honest so he said it was a pretty bad tip, but whatever. I stewed some more over it and then Dane, my knight in shining armor, decided to go up to the restaurant to give the driver a better tip despite my many protests. I didn't really want another thing to feel all guilt ridden about (thanks Mom!)
He drove to the restaurant, got the waitresses to break a $10 bill into two fives much to their confusion. They don't really speak English at this restaurant so they didn't understand why this guy was there trying to give them $5. Eventually he managed to get them to understand that it was for one of the drivers because his wife felt bad about giving him a bad tip.
I felt better about the delivery guy, but pretty bad about Dane being out in the rain over it all.
That is love my friends, when your sweetheart wants to take away your pangs of guilt and is willing to go out into the elements to do it.
Saturday, October 07, 2006
8th Avenue
Rarely do my friends believe me when I tell them about the kinds of things that happen on 8th Avenue right out front of the store and beneath my apartment windows. Like the day I woke up and there was a Mariachi band playing bellow my living room window.
Vancouver has this reputation as being a pretty dull place. We have less festivals than any other Canadian city and every time we do get something kinda cool thing going it somehow gets shut down....I admit it...sometimes it's like a retirement village. There is one exception to this, and that is on 8th Avenue between Main St and the first parallel alley where there is some kind of bizzarro fault line in the earth where weird shit happens. It's not an orginized festival, but it's certainly a festive street.
Like yesterday when I was working, minding my own business chatting with a couple of friends and I look up and there's this guy unloading pig carcasses from his truck onto a dolly. It just seemed kinda out of place, what is usual in Kensingtom Market in Toronto is not so usual in this somewhat sterile and rule bound city. You just don't have chicken trucks driving by leaking chicken juice all over the road here like you do there.
So Dane figures it would make for a interesting picture, he ran out the door and found the guy in the alley behind the store and asks to take a photo, the guy says "You're not taking a photo of my pigs without me" and grabs a pig to pose for this photo (If you are sensitive to death don't scroll down!)
And that my friends is the way it goes on 8th Avenue.
Vancouver has this reputation as being a pretty dull place. We have less festivals than any other Canadian city and every time we do get something kinda cool thing going it somehow gets shut down....I admit it...sometimes it's like a retirement village. There is one exception to this, and that is on 8th Avenue between Main St and the first parallel alley where there is some kind of bizzarro fault line in the earth where weird shit happens. It's not an orginized festival, but it's certainly a festive street.
Like yesterday when I was working, minding my own business chatting with a couple of friends and I look up and there's this guy unloading pig carcasses from his truck onto a dolly. It just seemed kinda out of place, what is usual in Kensingtom Market in Toronto is not so usual in this somewhat sterile and rule bound city. You just don't have chicken trucks driving by leaking chicken juice all over the road here like you do there.
So Dane figures it would make for a interesting picture, he ran out the door and found the guy in the alley behind the store and asks to take a photo, the guy says "You're not taking a photo of my pigs without me" and grabs a pig to pose for this photo (If you are sensitive to death don't scroll down!)
And that my friends is the way it goes on 8th Avenue.
Friday, September 29, 2006
Sometimes
Sometimes we love people enough that we don't really need to understand them. Sometimes we love people that much but wish we could get inside of their heads just a little bit.
There is someone I love that lives in a bubble. I imagine her in a giant snowglobe protected from the outside air and weather. I just want to shake that snow globe so hard that she falls out and sees the world from outside of her perceptions. I want her to breathe the same air that I breathe, to see the same view that I see.
I imagine her in her snowglobe home doing things, making things in complete silence all around her. I imagine her gardening, cooking, cleaning, picking up new hobbies and occasionally having that globe shaken so hard that she loses her balance and doesn't know why.
When we talk I know she's got so much noise in her head that she can't hear me and no matter what I say it can't break through the din of her mind.
Mom, do you know that I can eat 2 pounds of blueberries an hour (based on having eaten 20 pounds in 10 hours) ? Do you know that I cry when I see elderly people alone? That I'm mad at you and dad for leaving both of your mothers behind the iron curtain to age alone? That I dated boys that were mean to me? That My favourite tea is Genmaicha and the smell of rosemary reminds me of you which is why it's my favourite herb to cook with?
I don't suppose that you do or ever will, but I still love you.
There is someone I love that lives in a bubble. I imagine her in a giant snowglobe protected from the outside air and weather. I just want to shake that snow globe so hard that she falls out and sees the world from outside of her perceptions. I want her to breathe the same air that I breathe, to see the same view that I see.
I imagine her in her snowglobe home doing things, making things in complete silence all around her. I imagine her gardening, cooking, cleaning, picking up new hobbies and occasionally having that globe shaken so hard that she loses her balance and doesn't know why.
When we talk I know she's got so much noise in her head that she can't hear me and no matter what I say it can't break through the din of her mind.
Mom, do you know that I can eat 2 pounds of blueberries an hour (based on having eaten 20 pounds in 10 hours) ? Do you know that I cry when I see elderly people alone? That I'm mad at you and dad for leaving both of your mothers behind the iron curtain to age alone? That I dated boys that were mean to me? That My favourite tea is Genmaicha and the smell of rosemary reminds me of you which is why it's my favourite herb to cook with?
I don't suppose that you do or ever will, but I still love you.
Sunday, September 24, 2006
construction
The city of Vancouver is determined to kill off small business in the Mount Pleasant area. There is city construction all around Main Broadway and they keep blocking the streets off at random intervals with no warning. I'm not totally sure why they don't just rip the roads up once, do all they have to do, repave the streets and leave rather than all of this willy nilly construction.
Last week they shut our street down for a couple of days to re-pave the alley right behind the store and I got some kinda cool pictures.
A couple of days ago there was one of those amazing Vancouver rainbows. I've never seen rainbows so beautiful before moving here.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Comment for Elaine
I left this comment for Elaine on her Trifective blog. Read her blog, it's good.
Sometimes I feel itchy from the inside out and I can't scratch the itch because it travels. I think that it's also known as feeling so tired you feel giddy.
Also, I do stand up comedy in my mind to try to get myself to fall asleep. You already know that Elaine and I feel it's time I come out with my little secret. I do stand up comedy when I'm trying to fall asleep. I have one problem though...I have never in the many years of doing this come up with a punch line.
Like for example today I turned on the tv and was 'shanghaied' by a very old episode of 90210. So tonight I'll be lying in bed making jokes up about the peach pit and Emily Valintine. Punchline anyone?
I know you Understand Elaine.
Sometimes I feel itchy from the inside out and I can't scratch the itch because it travels. I think that it's also known as feeling so tired you feel giddy.
Also, I do stand up comedy in my mind to try to get myself to fall asleep. You already know that Elaine and I feel it's time I come out with my little secret. I do stand up comedy when I'm trying to fall asleep. I have one problem though...I have never in the many years of doing this come up with a punch line.
Like for example today I turned on the tv and was 'shanghaied' by a very old episode of 90210. So tonight I'll be lying in bed making jokes up about the peach pit and Emily Valintine. Punchline anyone?
I know you Understand Elaine.
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