Weather Watch

Oh to be in England now that Summer's here......

Ride the skytrain into YVR

It's still a few weeks before the Canada Line opens its doors to the public, but here's a sneak preview of the ride into YVR Airport Station courtesy of the Buzzer Blog...

Public Services start by Labour Day.

The Day Player

My good friend, Helenna Santos, just premiered her pilot episode of her new web series:  The Day Player.

www.thedayplayer.com

I highly encourage you to visit her site.  The show is hilarious - especially for those in the acting trade.  Or even for those who aren't but want to see what life is like for those of us who choose this oh-so-rewarding life.  It's about a struggling actress who waitresses to supplement her income between her small roles. Which, to those who don't act, are called 'Day Players' because we only go to set for one day.

Lucky for me, my waitress days are behind me.  Not because I don't need to make an income but because I was a terrible, nay, horrible waitress.  I'll be honest.  I don't really like people.  I certainly don't like them enough to patch a grin on my face and serve them diet cokes and cheeseburgers.

I stared off quite good and friendly, and then something happened.  Something inside me started to die.  Something made me want to stab stupid people who can't order bread.

In once instance, the lady couldn't decide between brown bread or white bread.  While she thought about this decision that clearly was life or death, I started to sing the 'Final Jeopardy' theme song.  I didn't get a tip from her.

Another time, a lady asked me to 'turn down the frogs'. She was sitting on the patio above a pond in late spring.  The frogs were making tadpoles.  The ribbits were real.  She didn't believe me.  I told her she was a stupid cow.  

Once, someone was so grateful we had chicken soup that she declared 'oh thank god.  Thank GOD you have it'.  I looked at her and informed her that 50 000 people had just died in Asia's Tsunami but thank god we have chicken. Okay, I lied.  This story was actually from a retail store.  She was so freaking grateful that we still had a t-shirt.  But it didn't fit in with my waitress theme.

I broke dishes constantly, I spilled trays of food, but mostly I was simply rude to people.  Often to old people.  They don't tip anyways, and all they eat is a cup of soup.  And for that they click their fingers all the time. Plus they always want decaf coffee and a hot water with lemon.  So annoyingly high maintenance for so little.  And they are almost always grumpy first.

The worst customers?  Middle-aged women.  I am sorry to say this, but women of that age bracket are B*&#tches.  I rarely use that term but for this description there is no other word for it.  We don't know if it was seeing a pretty, younger girl that made them crabby as hell.  Or if they were menopausal.  Or if they were always that way.  Most of the women who came to our restaurant (at a golf club) looked as though they were permanently smelling poop or had something stuck up their rear end.  They always drank Sauvignon Blanc as well.  It's like the middle-aged woman drink of choice.  Sorry to my middle-aged readers! Not all of you are like this!  Only the one's who frequent the golf club restaurants!!

I got to give it to Ms. Santos.  She sure does capture the mindset of the customer and what the waitress wishes she could do to her.  And she always does it with a smile.

Blonde: To be or not to be dumb

I am an emcee this weekend for a wedding (which by the by, is WAY harder than being a bridesmaid!  I am already nervous, I have to pick out my own dress, and my job starts when the wine is served) and the bride gave me a book called 'The Wedding MC'.

In it, it says in order to have people like you and in order to poke fun at people in the wedding party, one must poke fun at oneself first.

So seeing as I spend much time criticizing others in this blog, perhaps it's time to shed light on some of my bigger dumb blonde follies:

1.  We had to take 'Theatre History' in University but it was stupidly scheduled at 10 am in our fourth and final year.  Okay, fine.  The normal world gets up for 9-5, but actors are not normal.  Especially those who are in shows in the evenings.  I was busy being Blanche DuBois every night until at least 11pm.  So not only was I not getting home until at least midnight, but I had to unwind from a three-hour performance which included a southern accent, bottle breaking, and being raped then going crazy.  Needless to say, I had trouble falling asleep.

So I often skipped the 10am theatre history class.

Luckily, my good friend T-dot was taking notes for me.  

I had all these notes regarding a famous playwright by the name of Goethe.  When I returned to class after the closing night, our teacher put a big 'GOETHE' on the blackboard.  But he kept talking about GERTA.  I was confused.  And not so subtly or quietly, I asked, in front of an ENTIRE classroom.  Who is Go - eh - the?  

The teacher was not impressed.  T-dot still goes on about it.

2.  I still have to make an 'L' shape with my hand when I am told to turn left.

3.  My friends and I just started a dog walking business.  I placed an ad on Craiglist. It reads:

Three lovely ladies will take care of your furry friend's needs.

Yup.  That's right.  Imagine our calls so far.

Do you like me more now that I have made fun of myself?

Doggie Treats

One would think I have two St. Bernard's or Golden Retrievers with the crazy things my dogs will eat.

Going on a walk is more like going on a 'what garbage can we eat today' adventure. It's disgusting.

In Brooklyn, people seem to think it's okay to drop their fried chicken bones on the street.  I can't tell you the amount of times I have had to wrestle a greasy chicken bone out of either of the boys' mouths.  No easy feat I tell you.  Mr. Mop may be 15 pounds but his jaw is like solid steel. 

They will eat anything.  Once Mop found a tea bag on the ground.  I looked down to see the 'Red Rose' label hanging out of his mouth. I told him to 'drop it' which he did, and then he proceeded to cough and spit tea leaves everywhere.  

Brooklyn once found a used condom.  Do people have no decency?

One day we were walking in Stanley Park when both my boys tore away to a large pile of horse poop.  I immediately ran after them yelling 'don't eat the poo! don't eat the poo!' while my friend little K and her dog laughed at us.  Brooklyn looked up at me, wagging his tail, with a lump of green horse dung hanging out of his mouth.  I washed their mouths out in the ocean and then gave them about 10 greenie toothbrushes each.

Yesterday, we were visiting my cousin's house.  Here is what Brooklyn found and tried to eat:

- a twist tie

- a butterfly key chain (one of the wings is still missing, I suspect I will see it resurface tomorrow)

- a box of matches

- ear drops (good thing he found them though)

- a slipper

- my flip flop (which he took out of the house and onto the lawn - all six of us spent about 10 minutes looking for my shoe)

- at least five sticks and a handful of leaves 

Mr. Mop loves to eat mussel shells as we walk on the seawall.  Crunch crunch crunch.  He also has an affinity to Starbucks.  If you put your Starbucks beverage down he will either attempt to drink it or pee on it (as he did to Little K's the other day). 

And yet neither of them like carrots.  You will eat horse poop and used condoms, but not carrots.  Weirdos.

The Bride's Last Stand

Another one bites the dust.  Getting married I mean.  And what does one do before one gets married?  Goes out for a night on the town, that's what.

Planning a stagette is quite an arduous process - I am fairly certain I sucked at the beginning.  My first wedding didn't have one (I don't think), and the second one was planned by the other bridesmaids (who did an amazing job), but by the third and fourth I think I got the hang of it.

To plan an amazing bachelorette party I like to think of themes that would incorporate what the bride loves or stands for.  One bride is a huge 80's fan who lived in Japan - so we made her wear a horrible 80's prom dress, served her sushi and took her to a karaoke bar.  Another wanted something quiet and subdued, so we planned a sleepover where we watched only Clive Owen movies (her alternate husband).  Then I copied that idea for another bride and had a pizza party with a Hello Kitty theme complete with a game of truth or dare. I even planned one in Cuba with a trip to a pirate bar that had stalagmites (the bride is a geologist).  

Anyways, planning a last party for your best friend is a delicate art of planning little details to surprise the bride all the while appeasing a group of women who can be a tad on the . . .  demanding side.  Everyone has an opinion.  Everyone wants to pay less or pay more.  Everyone should just shut up.

This weekend, the theme was 'Old Hollywood Glamour' at the horse races.  The maid-of-honor did an AMAZING job of making each girl a lovely fascinator (think Brits at the Royal Ascot or Carrie on her wedding day).  The MOH even got us a fortune teller to simulate the card reader in Portugal who told the bride she would find her groom in exactly a year (and she did!).

A group of girls dressed to the nines with birds on their heads surrounded by stags (clearly this is supposed to be a guy thing) equaled trouble.  The sad part is, I think my days of trouble are behind me.

I won't lie - I had quite a few years of debauchery and tomfoolery.  But from this weekend, I suspect that perhaps those days are long gone.  These are the signs:

#1 - The taste of alcohol makes me ill (this was a sign to my mother that she was pregnant with me.  But seeing as I am practically as celibate as Mother Theresa and I am not really expecting the second coming of Christ anytime soon, we can eliminate that as a possibility)

#2 - Wearing high heels all day made my feet hurt so bad I had to take my shoes off like a grandma - in the club.  I sterilized them with Mr. Clean later.  Also, I had to take an Advil for my sore hip and knee joints.  Sore hip and knee joints!  Clear sign I am not the girl who used to dance until the ugly lights were turned on!

#3 - When men approached me I got all nervous and stupid.  When they would try to be cool with a line like, 'Having fun tonight sexy?" I would smile and say, "Super thanks!" and walk away.  I think I used to just glare and roll my eyes.  Now I'm polite?

#4 - Dancing.  When I realize that I am simply bouncing my knees and shifting my shoulders  a la my mother dancing, I know I have become to old for the bar.  

#5 - When a girl wearing a crown congratulates the bride and then tells us it's her NINETEENTH birthday, it's time to go.  I actually said to her, 'You mean, you were born in 1990?????"  She giggled and said yes.  I nearly threw up.   I remember that year.  I remember the New Year's into that decade!  I was born two decades away from this kid! GAH!  When the freak did that happen?

Don't read into this and conclude that I am a tired old hag.  I'm only 29.  But I am a 29 year-old who at the end of the night made more sighs and gasps getting into my bed than Blanche Devereaux did in the entire series of Golden Girls.

Fears of vandalism on the ferry....

extract of an article from the "Flying Shingle" - 3 July 2009

If BC Ferries upgrades lounges and bathrooms on the Gabriola ferry, will they not just be destroyed by vandals?Committee member John Woods asked this question of BC Ferries (BCF) staff at the June 16 meeting of the Gabriola Ferry Advisory Committee (FAC).

Woods was alluding to an upcoming “mid-life refit” to the Quinsam, the ferry that services Gabriola Island, and the fact that the lounges and washrooms frequently suffer from vandalism. He said that the crew sometimes will deal with people who are vandalising the lounges and washrooms etc, and sometimes they don’t want to.

There needs to be a plan to prevent the damage, or if it can’t be prevented a plan is needed to make repairs as necessary, he said.Chris Frappell, marine superintendent for the Southern Islands (including the Gabriola route) said that generally passengers are respectful of upgraded lounges and that the public are usually less likely to do damage when their surroundings are in good shape. “If you give people good things they tend to feel that they want to look after them”, he said.

IslandBlog says : The main reason there is vandalism in Quinsam's passenger lounges is that there is no view from the car deck of what is happening in the lounges. BC Ferries should consider cutting windows into the bulkheads between the car deck and each of the passenger lounges, so that there is a clear view into each lounge. The mid-life refit provides the ideal opportunity for this.

Gabriola Transportation Alternatives Survey

This weekend the long-awaited Final Report has been issued following the survey undertaken in May/June for the Ferry Advisory Committee by Vancouver Island University.

The exceutive summary of the report reads:

In the Fall of 2008, the Gabriola Ferries Advisory Committee approached the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Vancouver Island University to conduct a survey to determine which transportation alternatives the residents of Gabriola Island wish to have investigated further.

BC Ferries contributed $5000 to cover hard costs of the survey process such as printing and mailing, and to pay for the costs of student labour. Faculty members from the Departments of Geography (Pam Shaw) and Sociology (Linda Derksen, Jerry Hinbest) donated their time, and a recent VIU graduate acted as the Project Coordinator (Katelin Bowes).

In mid-May 2009 we sent 548 surveys to a systematic random sample of households listed in the 2009 Gabriola Community Directory. At the end of May, postcards reminding respondents to return their surveys were sent to each household. Two hundred and ninety-two valid surveys were returned, resulting in an overall response rate of 53.3%. This response rate is high enough that survey results can be considered to be representative of the population of Gabriola, within a margin of error of approximately 6% (95% confidence limits).

Respondents‟ top priorities for further investigation are first, integration of the ferry with the regional transit system (61.3% agree), second, a larger ferry with greater capacity (49% agree/strongly agree); and third, no change – the ferry should continue to operate "as is‟ and "where is‟ (38%).

The majority of respondents, approximately 65% do not support further investigation into a fixed-link crossing (a bridge) of any kind. However, about 1/3 of respondents would like to see further investigation into either a no charge or toll bridge. Respondents are virtually unanimous in rejecting all options for further investigation into crossings of any kind to Duke Point.

Additionally, respondents do not wish to see further investigation into passenger only crossings (62.7% disagree); fewer crossings on the current route (75.7% disagree) or into smaller vessels (63.4% disagree).

Respondents to the survey were provided with many opportunities to write open-ended comments. The majority of respondents took advantage of this opportunity and provided very useful information which is integrated throughout the report.

A copy of the full report can be downloaded here

The Proposal

I think my favorite part of weddings is the proposal. Albeit, I am never at the actual proposal, but it's may favorite story.  Way funner than how the bride found her white shoes.  Or had them dyed.  Ick.

A friend from university got engaged this week, so of course I had to get her story.  It's pretty funny and it led me to think of many others in the same vein.

Her now fiance took her up to Whistler for their four-year anniversary.  At night, he asked her to go for a walk (so so so many proposals start this way) and she said she would rather just eat some chicken and go to bed (and so so so many proposals also start this way).  In fact, of all the men I know who asked their now-wives to 'go for a walk' got some sort of argument from the girls not to go for a walk.

One couldn't understand why he wanted to go for a walk now and was being pretty bitchy (her words) so insisted they take the garbage out first.    One was walking in a forest and losing her patience with her blundering fiance.  He stopped to 'tie his shoe' - ie. get on one knee - but she told him to catch up and kept going.  Apparently he just stayed there until she yelled at him, turned around, and then realized she was the idiot.  And another thought her fiance was a freak for wanting to go out into the sub-zero temperatures of the Canadian Rockies and almost didn't go.  Luckily she did.

Note to self:  if the Engineer ever asks me to go for a walk, GO!

Anyways, the fiance convinced my friend, M, to go for a starlit stroll.  She agreed on the condition they could stop at 7-11 and get candy first.  Fine.  They got candy.

He then insisted they sit on a bench to look at the stars.  She claimed it was wet and that Dancing with the Stars was on.  But she sat.  And proceeded to eat her fuzzy peaches and Swedish berries.

Her fiance kept starting a conversation, 'remember when we first met?'.  But M wasn't paying attention, she was sucking on a sour candy.  He started again.  This time she made fun of how he walked up to her and then brought up their first fight.  The fiance was getting a bit impatient and told her to 'shut up' and let him finish.

That's when she realized something was up.  She immediately freaked out and asked him if he was proposing.  M then patted him down for a ring, but didn't find anything.  He insisted he wasn't.  Relieved, she got up to leave, turned around, and there he was on one knee with the ring he was hiding.

Obviously she burst into tears and said yes.  Then she finished her bag of candy.

Congratulations M & T!!!

The Dog Park

I got kicked out of the dog park yesterday.

And when I say I, I really mean Brooklyn.  

And when I say kicked out, I really mean so embarrassed I had to make hasty escape never to return.

Hmmm, maybe I was a tad dramatic.

Anyhoo, the boys and I discovered a new dog park that is perfectly situated between my house and my gym.  The point being we spend an hour playing fetch (or other dog get Mop's ball and Mop sniffs a tree) and then the boys pass out in the car while I box for a half hour.  

Day one was fine.  Until the end.  The boys were having  a blast playing with an array of interesting terriers while I listened to their owners talked about auras and letting the past go as to move free into themselves (the park in on the east side of Rainy City - so the energy is a bit different.  ie. kooky).  When it was time to leave, Brooklyn decided to play his fun game of run away from me even though I have a treat (and this time I did!) but went too far when he ran into the road.  He thought this was a great place to run in circles and bark.  Then he chased his new schnauzer puppy friend McGregor up the street.  McGregor's ownner just stood their looking at me like a freak telling Brooklyn to 'shoo'.  Ummm, help me out buddy?  Like bend down and stop my idiot dog.

Okay fine. 

Day two, we got out of the car.  I kept both dogs on their leash.  Then we ran into McGregor again.  His dad asked me if we were better behaved today. I wanted to kick him.  At this point, Brooklyn tears away so fast I lose my hold on his leash.  He runs after a woman and her big black dog.  She turns around and starts yelling at me to get my dog away from her (I can see why, as her dog starts snarling at Brooklyn - sheesh, what a drag to have a grumpy dog).  Brooklyn is ignoring me, runs into the street again, denies my treats, and McGregor's dad shakes his head and walks away.    The lady with the black dog shook her fist at us.  I shook more than that back.

We will not be returning to hippy park. I don't think our auras meshed well.

So the boys and I will stick to Charleston Park.  If you are in Rainy City, this is the BEST off-leash park ever.  It has a waterfall.  Enough said. 

Sometimes I fear we will be kicked out of this place too.  After all, the other day Mr. Mop spent a good twenty minutes mounting another Jack Russell.  Luckily, all the dog owners thought this quite entertaining and hilarious.  Our auras are like-minded obviously.  That, or their dogs are just as nutty as mine.  

And by the way, Brooklyn came to me THREE times in Charleston.  Maybe the training is starting to kick in?  Or maybe he just went nutty at the hippy park with all the extra patchouli oil in the air.  Muhahahhahahaaa