Bleh!!

I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and i'm going to be happy in it.
-Groucho Marx-

I've been in a bit of a funk this past week. My 29th Birthday is fast approaching which I am certainly less than thrilled about, however i'm not sure that's the problem. It's more of an uncertainty with my future that is gnawing at my soul.

My usual demeanor and the way i present myself is staggering at best. I hadn't noticed it myself until the woman who works in the cafeteria across the street mentioned it to me. It was a place I had not even been to in well over a month. On this particular day i wandered over for some breakfast, placed my order and she stared at me "What's wrong Hun?" "Nothing" I replied "Why?" She commented that i was not my usual chipper self and continued to stare at me with concern in her eyes. I shrugged it off to the early hour, smiled and wished her a good day. Crap, even virtual strangers are noticing. So I decided to write down some of the things that I enjoy, if nothing else, they will put a smile on my face.

*I am truly captivated by long summer days. I adore the feel of the bright warm sun shining down upon me, the smell of fresh cut grass and blooming flowers. My Aunt loved to garden and when such days appear, I am thankful to be alive and a witness to such beauty, one she can no longer see and I appreciate my life.

*Underwater is where i feel most at ease and free. The silence is almost deafening. A certain peacefulness envelops me and i haven't a care in the world.

*I love to sit in my backyard with a cup of tea, great book in my hand and watch the sun set. There is nothing more delightful.

*I live for warm summer nights, the soft grass on my back, gazing up at the stars as the crickets sing. The realization that the world is so much bigger than each and every one of us. We seem so small and inconsequential in these moments.

Life can be overwhelming and painful at times, but it's these simple moments that bring a smile to my face and I appreciate one more day. Groucho had a point...tomorrow has not yet arrived, I might as well enjoy today.

Marty finally won!!!

Woo Hoo!!! Big shout out to Martin Scorsese. I've been waiting years for this moment (much like i'm sure he has). I'm a bit of an Oscar nerd, i've been faithfully watching the show for years and years and years.

Highlights for me this year included:

The two winners who put their Oscar on the floor in order to read their acceptance speech. Who does that???? It's the highest honour an actor is given and bam, they place it on the dirty floor.

There was Milena Canonero's speech in which she pats the Oscar, her ring dings off of it and she says "In one way i wanted this doll and in another i was frightened." This doll????

Davis Gussenheim won for An Inconvenient Truth and would not let go of Al Gore's arm. He also kept staring at Al in a creepy way and thanking him. Bizzare....

And lastly, Ennio Morricone was awarded an honorary Oscar.....he looked less than thrilled, almost bored when they were showing film clips, though when Clint Eastwood tried to hand him his Oscar he kept bowing down as if he was soooo thankful. His speech was in Italian, and it was priceless to see the looks on the actors faces as he was speaking......lots of furrowed brows and WTF is he saying looks. Hilarious.

There were a few films i had not heard of that i am now interested in seeing. Mainly Documentaries:

Recycled Life

The dramatic and touching story of thousands of adults, children, and generations of families who have been living and working in the largest and most toxic landfill in Central America, the Guatemala City Garbage Dump, over the last sixty years.

The Blood of Yingzhou District
A year in the life of children in the Province of Anhui in China, who have lost their parents to AIDS. Traditional obligations to family and village collide with terror of the disease.

On a completely unrelated note, i found this cartoon the other day, it made me giggle, but sadly it is how i have been feeling as of late. A lot of thinking, where am i going, what am i doing, what have I done ........

Enough Already!!

Quel Surprise......it snowed......AGAIN!!!!

Has anyone decided to give up anything for Lent?? If so do tell. I was looking through my closets last night, and i know that i wear A LOT of black....but it's almost ridiculous when you actually step back and take a look. I see about ten items that are not black. Jeez!!!

That pink fluffy garment on the right is my comfy housecoat!!!
Oh look, that one still has the tag on it!!!

Maybe i should give up wearing black for Lent!!! Have a great weekend everyone!!

New Year's Resolution #1.....Check

I had a very productive weekend. Tokyo Tintin had an Ethnic Dress-up Party, which sounds rather inappropriate but it was anything but. I wore my Complet i had made in Africa for the 1st time since returning.
On Saturday after celebrating Chinese New Year and stuffing ourselves silly with Dim Sum, Jennifer and I drove a few hours North for some downhill skiing and shenanigans. I was quite surprised at how well i did considering i have not been skiing in 15 years. We started out on the super small bunny hill, then tried a green circle, eventually making our way up to a blue square. I wiped out once, but it was nothing exciting, my body didn't bend in strange directions, nor did i lose my skis. I would have given it a 2 out of 10. (I "borrowed" the below photo from someone's website) We didn't bring my camera out on the slopes for fear it would get lost or crushed. We had a lot of fun and would definately like to go again.

The real fun however began when we tried to drive to our accomodations. You see, i'm not at all familiar with the area and lucky for us there was a blizzard and of course our route took us through rolling, pitch black, dirt roads which were covered in snow. Seriously it looked like we were driving between glaciers at one point the snow was piled so high. The below photo is the view i saw while driving. Needless to say it took an hour longer than it should have as visibility was zero and we arrived at our destination around 2am.

We finally got settled, had some tea and were able to relax. Just before bed we went outside for a moment ; we did not wear jackets, or gloves or anything that would be appropriate for the weather as we were just going to be a minute or two. We turned around to go back inside only to find the door had automatically locked behind us. We joked about dying from vicious animal attacks versus hypothermia and were able to get back into the place about 30 minutes later, but seriously it was extremely scary, very dark and desolate (in the middle of a forest), very cold and of course still snowing.

The comedy of errors continued into the next morning as we were leaving. The driveway had been ploughed however the snow had drifted so much that my car became lodged in the snow. After about 30 minutes of pushing and shovelling, we were finally on our way home.

As we drove off Jennifer pointed out that it's fortunate we each have a really good sense of humour...i definately have to agree with her on that one, there was nothing we could do but laugh about it.

So much snow....

So i called in "exhausted" to work on Monday and stayed home. I should have taken the day off anyway as travelling can be tiring, but whatever i just used sick time rather than a vacation day and it was all good.


Unfortunatley the weather around here has been atrocious at best. We've had quite the snow storm over these past few days and around 40-50cm have fallen. I was an hour late on my first day back to work, only to be sent home 2 hours later because of the shoddy weather. I have yet to go back, so i've had this crazy long vacation. ROCK ON!!!

After almost 2 days of being housebound i braved the storm and went shopping for ski pants and green tea lattes. You see as per my New Years Resolution (to "be a doer") i've decided to go skiing this weekend (if my back cooperates with me) and thought it best to be prepared. They were on sale too $100 off so that was sweet. The storm seems to be slowly fading away, which means back to the grind for me tomorrow. As you can see from the photo below it did leave quite the mess and it's cold as hell minus 30 with the windchill...yikes!!

Home "Sweet" Home

I'm far too exhausted to write anything worthwhile at the moment. I do however take back my laughter at the weather back home. Karma played a trick on me and snow fell in London for the 1st time in like 7 years. It only lasted one day, but it snowed nonetheless, after such lovely sunny weather.

I've put some photos into an album (London & Paris 2007) and have posted a few of my favorites below:
This is Sly in her cute dress from Camden Market


Apparently Parisian's love eggs on everything. This is LD's burger. They also put shredded carrots and a hardboiled egg on my veggie sandwich.

Paris is so incredibly beautiful. Can you imagine passing this building everyday on your way to work? It's gorgeous...

and these stairs, how can a set of stairs look so beautiful?

I'm a huge Van Gogh fan and this is the place in which he grew up, very cool.

I also appreciate sculptures and this was by far my favorite one in the Louvre.

and a statue in Pere Lachaise...

LD, Jen & I infront of Notre Dame


Anyway, check out the photo album for a few more pictures. I'll do a proper post in a few days, i'm just a bit tired at the moment.

Bon Soir

Quick little update. This French keyboard is rather hard to type with.

We are having a fantastic time. The weather has been great, London was around 10 degrees and sunny everyday. Currently we are in Paris and its a bit colder here and overcast; but whatever; we're in Paris!!! We went to Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower; The Lourvre; Arc and of course shopping on the Champs Elysee. We also had a great dinner there Ces't Bon!!!!

Tommorrow we are going to the cemetary and perhaps to the catacombs. Thanks to Dawn we are staying near the 'Erotic' area; down the street from the Moulin Rouge and the 'Sexadrome'

Sarah took us to this crazy enormous market in Camden, it was amazing, very unique swag. We also went to this great club that had an 'are you feeling gloomy' night. They played everything we love::::::The Cure; Depheche Mode; Smiths; Joy Division......LOVED IT!!!!

We head back to see Sarah tomorrow. im looking forward to good times and lots more shopping; though i'm positive my feet are ready to fall off from the amount of walking we have done thus far::::no joke :)

Hopefully PX will make it down to London on Friday night for a few pints on our last night in the city. Hope everyone is well!!!!