From The Heart

Okay, so apparently, my last entry was cryptic and kinda misleading. I went back and re-read it, and it really is.

We had a good vacation.

We had a lot of fun with our friends from Victoria, who were kind enough to put us up in their houses and feed us DELICIOUS food.

I just, I just... I didn't want to make a big shopping list of all our activities, but I didn't know what else to write about it without going too far into detail about the personal lives of our friends. You guys hear personal details about my life here, because I choose to write and publish them. My friends didn't make that choice, and thusly deserve a measure of privacy, which is why I started using fake names when writing about our new friends here in Bridgetown. I still don't write very personal things about our friends here - for instance, if one of them had a set of "magic wishing nipples", would I blog about it? Well, apparently I might mention it, but you still don't know details and don't know who it is. We see or talk to our friends here almost every single day, but I'd say you guys have heard about less than ten percent of the interesting things that happen with them. In fact, there are a few people who we socialize with quite often who've never even been mentioned here. They didn't choose to have their lives published on the internet, so I try to keep a big privacy barrier there. There have been some pretty controversial things that have happened with our friends and family, but it wouldn't be nice for me to go writing about all the sensitive things going on in other peoples' lives here, so I don't.


I guess I screwed this thing up concerning our trip though. It was such a strange mix of emotions, going back to visit a place that we had loved living in, because we'd decided with a good deal of finality and surety that we didn't want to live there any more. This vacation was kind of handed to us by Mark's work, and before we knew it someone else had made the decision that we would be visiting Victoria again for the first time since we'd moved away.

When Mark told me that his work wanted to fly us out there, I was instantly stressed out. (You guys know how I get.) We didn't have a lot of notice, and there were contractors working on our house, racing the clock to get siding on before the weather turned too wintery. How would we deal with that if we were not here? As it was, we had to hand someone else an envelope with thousands of dollars in cash in it, and ask them to please inspect the new siding and give the money to the contractors when they were done (thank you Nay and Jay). Also, the sheer number of cats and dogs that now inhabit the house makes travelling more difficult. Minerva the kitten is finally weaned and big enough to manage by herself most of the time, but she's not big enough to be unsupervised in the house for nine days. Chani was kind enough to babysit her for us. Then there's the weather around these parts. As you already know, we ended up leaving for our trip by driving to the airport in a snow storm.

I am happy that Mark's work paid for us to go out to the west coast. It was nice of them to do and we had a lot of fun, but by dictating our travel details they took some of the control away from us, and that made travelling just a bit weird. I'm not used to 'business trips'.

Thus, it was a lot harder for me to write about than I thought it would be. When we were in Tofino, I just blathered on about the beaches and the weather and such. I went to write about the days we spent in Victoria with our friends and I. Couldn't. Do. It.


Victoria, we broke up with you. You're a nice city - it wasn't your fault. It was strange going out with you again last week. Yes, Nova Scotia treats us well. We're sorry you got custody of our friends, Victoria. Now, when we want to see them, there you are too, and it's a bit awkward. We miss them, Victoria. Be good to them.


So thank you Megan. You took time out of your hectic life to host us, and you don't have a spare bedroom so you gave up your living room so we could camp out at your house. You put up with me getting sick and being a zombie, and didn't even make fun of me too much for it. We like your new boyfriend and hope that all the huge plans you have for the next couple of years work out for you. You deserve it.


Thank you Kristina. You went with me to my favourite sushi dive, and mourned with me when I found out that the sunomono lady was no longer working there. You even became a spy and told me where she works now. You drove around downtown with me, and you hate driving as much as I do. You are cool.


Thank you Jeff. (Where's my magic trick??!) You are Mark's secret non-biological twin. You two think all the same insanely obscure thoughts, and like all the same insanely strange jokes. The one thing I hate about not living in Victoria is that we don't get to see you so often any more, and we've been apart so long that you think it might be possible that we don't have fun when we're with you.

We did.

I should have said so even if I didn't know how to say it. We hope you had fun too!

Not My Style (of dog!)

Well we had a great time in Tofino and headed down to Victoria for another few days of vacation before flying back to Halifax.

And, try as I might, I haven't been able to expand on that sentence all week.


You guys want a synopsis of our vacation? We went to BLANK restaurants, the weather was BLANK, and we saw all our old friends BLANK, BLANK and BLANK.


Y'know? As much fun as all that stuff was (and it really was), I think it makes for boring reading.


So...

We came back to this little pile of rags.


He's the latest foster dog, Remi.

He arrived a few days before we were set to leave on our trip. A new group we are fostering for, Tiny Paws, asked if we could take a ten-week-old Shih Tzu / Lhasa Apso cross in. Those of you who know me well know that this is not my favourite kinda dog. Little wussy puppies? With buggly eyes and smooshy noses? And prissy little haircuts with bows on top of their heads? Uhh, no. I HAVE met Shih Tzus I like before. Precisely three, and two were owned by the same people (must have been how they were raised).

So very smugly, I told the rescue group "oh we'd LOVE to help you out, but you see, we're leaving town for nine days, otherwise we could do it, but oh well" and I thought that was the end of the story. Didn't the sneaky people ask Nay and Jay if they would babysit the puppy for us while we were gone! And they AGREED!

So we're stuck with a puppy who jumps on Oliver's head and makes him growl, and pees on the carpet, and runs directly at your feet while you're walking so you either fall down or step on the dog and break it's spine. To add insult to injury, EVERYONE ELSE LOVES HIM. We go out walking and all our neighbours coo and go on. The contractors who are working on our siding all smile when we walk past with him, and say "he's some cute!"

I just don't get it. Yeah, he's a puppy, and some people go in for puppies, but he's just so bleh.

The good news is, he has an adoption pending. His new family can't adopt him for another week or so, but they are coming to meet him tomorrow. We will smile politely when they say how cute his brown-streaked tear-stained face is.

Tofino to Victoria

We spent a few beautiful days in Tofino. The weather was as nice as I've ever seen it there, which means it only hailed once for five minutes, and it only rained a leetle teensy bit each day.


I spent the time quietly, wandering the beaches and going to bed early. Mark? Mark got drunk off Tequila with his co-workers and spent the final full day with "self-inflicted flu".


The rest of the time I think he had as much fun as I did.




After the first night, we had all moved to a quiet lodge on the Middle Beach Resort property. There was a beautiful staircase leading from the deck of the lodge directly to the tidal pools below.


That staircase was one of my favourite parts of the area - the thought of it was just so comforting to me; I don't know why.

This was the view from our room at the lodge:


We left Tofino this morning and had a leisurely drive back to Victoria, where we met up with Megan and promptly went out for sushi. I have to make myself sick of sushi before we leave so that I don't crave it for a while when we get back to Nova Scotia.

I'm going to go to work with Megan tomorrow and walk dogs - should be fun.

Chillin' at Middle Beach

The nerd conference is ramping up into high gear. We spent the first day here in Tofino helping Mark’s boss prepare everything, and now every employee and a number of selected clients have arrived and we have taken up residence in a secluded lodge at the Middle Beach Resort.

It’s a strange mix of computer talk, real estate talk, poker, and drinking. There’s lots of free time to lounge around or walk on the beach though, so apart from some internet connectivity problems it’s all very pleasant here.


Mark's co-worker's 16 year old daughter Haley has set up her room as a refuge from nerd talk. There's an open invitation to all the non-nerd girls to crash there when we have to get away - she even made a sign. It says "Princess Room - Girls only. Males will be shot if caught entering room."


The weather has been surprisingly pleasant and we've had a few long and relaxing walks on the beaches already. We discovered some great tidal pools so I'll have to take my camera down there later.


For now, though, it's time to call our friends who are taking care of our dogs, and then go laze around somewhere.

Montreal to Tofino

We've arrived in Tofino at last!


So we finally got out of Montreal on a plane that was about two thirds empty. Despite the plethora of empty seats, the airline in it's wisdom seated Mark and I four seats apart from each other.

I moved.

We hadn't sat next to each other on the earlier flight either, and it turned out that the next flight, out of Toronto, had us sitting half a plane apart too. I guess Air Canada really wanted to make sure we didn't have any fun at all for the whole day.

We made it to Victoria, BC just after 11pm. We had been awake for 22 hours and travelling for 20 at that point. We DID get our rental car as Mark the optimist had predicted we would, and drove straight to our hotel and crashed in the comfy bed for a few hours.

When we arose early the next (that same?) morning, we found that someone had crashed into a couple of cars in the hotel parking lot. Really hammered 'em. Thankfully, our rental car was unscathed. We wandered to the hotel's restaurant for breakfast only to hear the continuous wail of police sirens. I thought it was a bit of an extreme response for a hit-and-run, but then our waitress noticed flashes of light in the building next door. There were reports of an explosion, and a million old people started streaming out of the building. We all watched the action as we ate our breakfast. It was bizarre. The lack of sleep and jet lag made it seem even more fun.

We set out on the final leg of our trip to Tofino in the rental car. Of course, the weather remained uncooperative. We drove through Victoria in a torrential downpour and started up the Malahat Mountain where the rain abruptly turned into a thick, slushy snow.

Yes, more snow.

Thankfully, the famously treacherous and unpredictable Alberni Pass on the way to Tofino was clear, and the winding drive through the mountain range was as beautiful as I've ever seen it.

We're in Tofino now. The sun is shining and I can hear the crash of the waves as I type. We are being put up in an amazing resort and treated to high-end Tofino dining, and Mark's work is footing the tab for, well, absolutely everything.

Tofino is spectacularly gorgeous as always - here's our room:


and here's the view from our balcony:


I'm starting to feel better about being here, but I do still miss my dogs. Thankfully, we've been invited to our friend Megan's house once we get back to Victoria, so I'll be able to cuddle with the world's best Pit Bull and other assorted dogs, since I can't cuddle with my own guys yet.

It's time to go walking on the beach now. Later y'all.

En Route

We're in Montreal.

Stuck.


Wouldn’t you know it; we took a flight out of Halifax to go (ultimately) to Tofino, and drove into a snowstorm on our way to the airport. My mom called my cell phone in a panic when we were ten minutes from the airport but even with the snow flying the roads were pretty good. So… no need for panic, mom.


We got to the airport and the flights were a huge mess though. I’m pretty sure our flight was one of the first ones out since the snow had started early that morning, and we didn’t leave until about 1pm – an hour after our scheduled departure time.

Now, it’s not always fun to get from one end of this country to the other. We missed our next connecting flight out of Montreal, so they put us on a later flight.

Five hours later. Here we are still.


We’ve wandered from one end of the building to the other, drooled at overpriced sushi kiosks, argued with Air Canada agents over meal vouchers (verdict: they are jerks), tried to find free internet (verdict: $10 price tag means no internet for us), and tried to re-work our rental car reservation on the other end (verdict: Mark thinks we’ll be able to get a car and I think they will be closed by the time we get there).

I’m sitting now, waiting for the time to pass and listening to Montreal business people talk about boring things on their cell phones. Soon it will be time to buy a muffin.

After this, it’s off to Toronto where we wait for another ridiculous amount of time before boarding yet another flight that finally takes us to Victoria, where we may or may not find our rental car waiting for us in the dead of the night.

The thing is, I don’t really want to go any more. I’d kinda like to see Tofino again and walk on the quiet sandy beaches surrounded by lush rainforest trees, and I want to see all our Victoria friends, but this day is no fun and will be very long before it’s over, and I’m sure I’ll get Swine Flu on one of these flights. My bag has already been sneezed on.

I miss my dogs.