Marty carved us a jack-o-lantern last night! It was our first carved pumpkin as a couple, my first pumpkin since… Grade 9?, and Marty’s first pumpkin in about a decade. (We’re so hip to Halloween this year, it hurts! So what if it’s already November?)

Check it out!

Marty even wore orange for the occasion!

Alas, given the wimpy state of my wimpy-ass arms, Marty was left to do all of the carving himself.

It's a jack-o-lantern!!

Our new evening lamp (until it gets all smooshy and gross). I love it!!

Ah, Victoria…

I’m continually amazed by this city. There is always something going on (surprisingly more so than in a bigger city like Calgary), and there are always more reasons to be(come) enamoured with it! Take this past weekend, for instance. Full confession: I have never been much of a Halloween person. For one thing, I abhor being scared. Absolutely hate it. And another thing: while I admire elaborate and clever costumes on other people, I just don’t have the motivation to invest a lot of time into dressing up myself. Because of this, I have a disappointing history of wearing supremely lame Halloween costumes, up until the point where I decided to just screw it and not dress up at all. Halloween just isn’t my thing.

That said, this weekend I was excited to discover a number of reasons to actually start liking Halloween in Victoria.

Reason #1: The Annual Zombie March

Friendly neighbourhood zombie man

There were, in fact, two different zombie marches this weekend, but the organizers of the real march were quick to point out that their tradition had been co-opted (and corrupted) by the Olympic protesters the night before. (So sad, that protest.) The actual zombie march in Victoria is what you would expect from a city like this: fun for the whole family, non-violent and non-disruptive, and more funny than spooky. We had a blast watching hundreds of moaning undeads take to the streets and slowly make their way to the legislature building (not to protest of course- just to wrap things up.)

Brains....

Brains!

There were bride and groom zombies, golfer zombies, flight attendant zombies, Little Red Riding Hood zombies, pop and tot zombies, Jesus zombies, and just regular zombies. The police, bless their smaller city job descriptions, drove behind the march slowly in their van and occasionally used the megaphone to deadpan: “Zombies. Please stay on the sidewalks”, much to the delight of law-abiding zombies everywhere. What a great event!

BRAINS!!

Reason #2: The Oak Bay Bonfire!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: There ain’t no party like an Oak Bay party. Seriously. As lame as some of the events are (Tea Party, anyone?), they really bring the community together and tug at my smaller-municipality heart strings. The bonfire was no exception.

Prepared and maintained by the good people at the Oak Bay Fire Department (who apparently have nothing better to do on Halloween night, especially with the Zombie March having already finished for the day, le sigh) the bonfire is effin’ huge!!! When we walked by the bonfire pit, pre-torched, we couldn’t believe how many pallets were there for the burning. Sanctioned burning!! It was like walking around a semi truck full of wood. It was GIANT!

Now, imagine all of this BURNING!

At first, everyone was crowded near the front to see the bonfire begin, but once that thing was burning, man– we all cleared the hell back. I thought my eyeballs were going to melt right out. Plus, there were 25+km/hour winds, making for some sketchy sparks headed in the direction of nearby homes. All in all, though: IT WAS AWESOME. Hooray for Oak Bay.

Face... melting. I actually had to take off my glasses, lest the protective (and expensive) lens coating get ruined. It's OK, though-- despite my shortfalls in seeing things at a distance, I could still make out that EFFIN' HUGE BONFIRE!!

A truly huge bonfire. Burn, baby, burn!

So yes, my faith in Halloween has been restored. I might even attempt to dress up next year (as a zombie!!). But we’ll see… In the meantime, I just can’t wait to see what shenanigans our city cooks up for our entertainment pleasure next!

 

We started our Harbour whirlwind in mid-April.  It is now late October.

Six months have passed.

Those were six lo-o-o-ong months of eating mostly take out food. (I don’t think I can eat another edamame tacone from Red Fish Blue Fish. Ever again. What a shame.) Before the Harbour era, we were horrified with ourselves for indulging in what we called “Sushi Fridays”; a once-a-week treat to some cucumber rolls after work (ooooh- so badass! Clearly, we were eating the devil’s fruit right out of the palm of his hand.) Little did we know then that we would hardly even get one home cooked meal a week during our summer at the Harbour. Seriously– when the Harbour came a-calling, the Healthy Eating wagon bolted fast, and we fell off of it hard. It was bad. Super bad…

Not to mention we didn’t exercise at all during that time period (dodgy box lifting techniques aside). Judging by how my clothes fit then and now, I went from being moderately buff to being rather… Buddha-esque. Ahem. And yet… no closer to enlightenment. This is not good news!!

I was dreading taking my measurements again and stepping on the scale. (Disclaimer: I do not base my sense of self-worth on my measurements or my weight, but I generally prefer to feel good in my skin, which usually means eating well and engaging in physical activity. Let’s be honest here.) I knew I had made some, ahem, gains since the last time I checked things out, and I wasn’t exactly looking forward to the verdict.

Sure enough, I put on a few pounds as well as a few inches over the summer months (8 lbs and a combined 3 inches). The pounds don’t bother me at all (because I usually weigh even more when I am uber-muscular, and let’s face it, I thought a summer of chipotle mayonnaise was going to have more of an impact), but the overall feelings of lethargy, sluggishness, and being squeezed into my outfits are more than disconcerting. Something has to give.

And so I’ll be embarking on the long and slow road back to well-being. This time around, I’ve decided to proceed with caution. (As opposed to my usual plan of cracking the whip, cutting out everything bad all at once, getting cranky, abandoning plans, and inevitably returning to my slovenly (slothenly?)  ways.) No, no. This time, I’m going to start out by adding in ‘good’ things until the ‘bad’ things have no choice but to be dropped from my lifestyle. (E.g. I’ll incorporate my herbal teas again until there’s no room left for my sugar-with-coffee-and-cream. And gradually, the steamed kale– which I love and actually miss terribly– will overtake the starchy vegetables and hopefully the cheese, too. Go, Team Kale!)

I don’t think it will be a particularly easy or pleasant process at first (especially because my body thinks it’s a bear during autumn and consequently insists on turning up the heat and packing on the pounds!), but in the long run, it will all be worth it. Any suggestions?

Recently, Jabba posted a mini photo diary of a regular, unassuming day and suggested that we do the same! God knows I am not a professional (or even remotely good) photographer, but it was a lot of fun snapping shots from dawn to dusk and assembling them here for your viewing pleasure. (My retinas!) Without further adieu:

October 22, 2009

Just like any other weekday morning, I start my day off by waking up painfully early (by my standards), showering, and seeing how the internet is doing:

Image shown in actual crappy lighting-- we have the nastiest chandelier in our apartment 'common space'.

I rummage through my assortment of eyeglass accessories and choose a clip to match my planned outfit for the day.

Even though the woman at the glasses store told me disdainfully that it was "totally 80s" to match my glasses to my outfits, I do it whenever I can. Hey, I was born in the 80s. It's all good.

I eat a wholesome breakfast of oatmeal with dried cranberries and freshly ground flax seeds. This is pretty much what I eat for breakfast every day, except I switch up the fruits every now and then.

Once again, image shown in actual crappy lighting. Bonus random fact: my best friend and I purchased matching sets of this Ikea cutlery set when we were about 18 years old. We put them in respective hope chests and saved them to use "when we got married". I am not kidding. I can assure you, Marty is touched and loves our $1 forks and knives.

I live close enough to work to walk each day. On the way, I pass by these mysterious Ladies of the Evening mannequins. If living in Oak Bay means I should go to bed decked out in a cotton nightgown and my Lawrence of Arabia head scarf, I suppose I’ll never quite fit in.

She's thinking snobby thoughts about my Keen shoes, I just know it.

I carry my work clothes with me in a backpack, so they don’t get dirty or wet en route. I definitely look like a typical UVic student on my daily commute, with my MEC backpack, puffy autumn vest and ubiquitous Keen shoes.

The entrance to my workplace. Don’t worry, it only looks like I work in a high security prison.

My office space, with bonus Emergency Preparedness sign in window!

Notice hard hat and neon Fire Marshall vest.

To the outside world, I'm all "Everything is OK", but on the inside... I'm crying out for help

In a bathroom with horrifically crappy lighting, I change from my UVic student disguise into my semi-professional work attire. Today, I am wearing tall boots (which I love).

Unbelievably crappy lighting.

After a strenuous morning of work, I make it a habit to go to a little café for lunch. I eat wholesome food and read for a precious half hour every weekday afternoon.

Today, I indulge in vegetarian chili and savour the book "Frida".

After lunch: more work. This part of my job is about as fun as it looks (i.e. the best part of this task is using the highlighter.)

On my way home, I am undercover again in my UVic student attire. Leaves are falling!

I notice with fake surprise that the price of gas has gone up almost 6 cents a litre since the morning. This always seems to happen right before the weekend. (Not like it matters to me, because I don’t even drive. And not like it matters to our cool van, either, because it runs on diesel and the price of diesel hardly ever changes.) I just take notice of the price increase and shake a silent fist of rage at The Man.

Finally, I see the Oak Bay sign and know that I am nearly Home Safe. Nothing bad ever happens behind the magical Oak Bay shield, am I right or am I right?

In Oak Bay, land of the wealthy 65+ crowd, it is considered a ‘hike’ to walk 10 minutes to the library or to the local seniors’ centre. That’s why they have the little men with walking sticks in the pictures.

I love it!

Once inside the safety of my apartment, I start preparing dinner.

Despite visual evidence to the contrary, I am not whipping up a wholesome dinner of Yellow Dye #5.

Tonight, I make a quick veggie stir fry and serve it over brown rice with turmeric, cumin, cloves, and cardamon.

Floral dish set courtesy of my grandmother who couldn't resist purchasing 6 bowls for every relative in our huge family. They were only 50 cents each!

After dinner, we decide to tackle the task of organizing our Harbour rubbermaids for winter storage.

Then we settle down, catch a few hockey highlights, and enjoy a movie.

I challenge thee to post your own photo diary! Do it, and let us all know about it by posting a link in the comments! GO!

I’m so proud of Marty, it’s sick!

Seriously, when I think of how far we have come together since he first stepped out as a full-time artist, it blows my mind. It has not always been an easy path, that’s for sure, but when I see his smiling face beaming out of swanky publications like this one, I totally feel like we have arrived.

Marty was one of 11 local artists chosen to represent key issues in this year's Vital Signs Report. Isn't this a great photo of him?

And we have arrived! Just you wait– soon, I’ll be basking in the warm glow of Marty’s accolades and riding comfortably on the coattails of his success. (I’m picturing lazy days at beach studios and fruity drinks with umbrellas in them.) He totally deserves it, and so do I!

I’m having one of those mornings where I can’t decide if I’m actually sick, or if I’m about to be sick, or if my mind and body are just collaborating to make me think I’m sick so I’ll take a day off and read in bed all day…

I was feeling under the weather last night (tired and groggy) and a big part of me just wants to stay home and rest today. Alas, another part of me says Buck up, pony and reminds me of all the things that need to get done at work today:

1. Fire drill (where I am sadly, and nerdily, one of the First Aid attendants and a Fire Marshall. This means I need to wear one of those fluorescent vests and neon hard hats while sweeping everyone else out of the building during our fake fire. I was legitimately out of commission with a back injury during our last– and only– fire drill to date, so I should probably be there today to learn those neon-tinted Fire Marshall ropes…)

2. Training and more training. Data entry. Ugh. I worry if I stay home today that the show will go on without me (as it must), but that everyone will mess up their lines and possibly even perform the wrong show altogether without my superior instructions and guidance there. Ha. I’m trying to be more accepting and blasé about mistakes this year (because a. people are people and b. last year, I was a horrid banshee-woman who became all consumed with ‘fixing things’ and wasn’t really fun to be around), but old habits are dying hard.  And it is people’s money we’re talking about here. (Totally justifies my being a horrid banshee-woman, yes?) In any case, a lot of training needs to get done today.

3. ….. (I guess that’s about all that needs to get done at work today.)

Obviously, if I were truly sick enough to stay home from work today, I probably wouldn’t be at the computer engaging in such fruitless debate with myself. (Most likely, my eyes would be too sensitive to stare at a screen in the first place.) It’s decided then: to work I go. Ugh. I must just have a nasty case of the Mondays.

Sometimes I feel totally out of my league in a big city. I grew up in Calgary, which is sort of big but not really big, and I left it right around the time the population surged to 1 million. We came to Victoria right afterward, which has what– 350 thousand people? (ish?) In any case, it’s less than half the size of Calgary, and everything here seems to close between 6 and 9 pm. We are all in bed at a reasonable hour and have plenty of time to catch Jeopardy on TV, because honestly– the only other thing that’s available to do after 9 pm is go to Starbucks. That’s it.

Well, we went undercover to a Big City this past weekend. We had a (crazy and totally insane) concert to see on Saturday night, but we also got the opportunity to take in some of the other Big City sights while we were there.

The always incredible Gogol Bordello-- backdrop shown blurry and out of focus because a) we could not sit still the whole show (or sit at all, for that matter) and b) because our camera sucks ass at taking photos in low lighting

During our visit to the Big City, I was struck by the remarkable efficiency of the transit system, the plethora of glass and skyscrapers, the 24-hour restaurants and cafés, and the utterly filthy sidewalks. (They weren’t filthy in the sense of being littered with garbage, either– instead, they all appeared to be crusted over with spit, snot, and other questionable fluids. They were nasty. I felt sorry for my shoes, having to touch them at all.)

Being undercover in a Big City where nobody expected to see us or knew who we were, we decided to indulge in all sorts of touristy activities. We rode a glass elevator to the top of a very tall building and made ourselves dizzy looking down.

On the way up! A surefire way to confirm that we do NOT want to live in a penthouse suite EVER. Neither of us could handle those dizzying heights.

We window shopped in glitzy stores and felt painfully under-dressed. (Note to self for future reference: Keen shoes are a dead giveaway that we live on the island. Dead giveaway!!) We walked and walked and walked and walked, taking photos and stealing occasional secret glances at our map, lest we give away our status as non-locals and get mugged or something. (As if it wasn’t already obvious to the homeboys.) We even took a Spooky Halloween-themed train ride, which probably wins the award for the Most Random Thing We’ve Ever Done Together. It was fun. For real.

A super-flash photo of us on the Spooky Train Ride. The flash alone makes us look spooked already, no? WE ARE TERRIFIED!!

“]

Insert spooky, low-budget Halloween soundtrack here

We stayed in a typical downtown, Big City hotel– if by ‘typical’ we mean that our room was right on top of a nightclub and that our bed was literally shaking with the pumping bass until 3 am. (Both nights– it was terrible.) It should have been a sign to make other reservations when we opened our room door and our bed was RIGHT THERE. (Seriously– there was about 1 inch of clearance between our bed and the path of the door.) But overall, we had so much to do all day that there wasn’t a lot of time to spend in our deafening hotel room with the bed right beside the door.

Note to the designer of this downtown hotel: perhaps outward-swinging doors would make the room seem more spacious? At least the bedding was clean and plush.

My favourite sign of our whole trip was the one in the title of this post: “Underwear and guns are not refundable or exchangeable”. I wanted to take a picture of it, but the mere mention of the word ‘gun’ made me afraid of the sales clerk, so I decided against it. Only in the Big City can you find a store that sells both underwear and guns! (Not army underwear, either– actual frilly, girly underwear. And guns!)

Last night marked the return of my special ‘tendonitis-B-gone’ forearm baths. Sigh… It’s not even Canadian Thanksgiving yet, and already my tendons are giving me grief! (And so soon after my ‘kumbaya, let’s all be thankful to be working!’ post, too. Ay ay ay… That’ll teach me not to be thankful! Tsk.)

I have had difficulties with bilateral tendonitis for the past few years, but the symptoms always seem to become more problematic around October or (god willing) November. It all started way back when I was transcribing my interviews for my Masters thesis (so. much. typing!), and since then, it has returned every time things go snaky with data entry at my workplace. The symptoms start with a telltale aching in my forearms and then progress to stiffening and sometimes (but less often) tingling. Luckily, I am in the clear as far as carpal tunnel syndrome goes, but still– having tendonitis is no walk in the park. Especially for a person like myself, who occasionally indulges in things like knitting and blogging and such.

When I first noticed the tendonitis, I had Marty give my forearms fairly deep massages. It felt really good at the time, but now I find all that pushing and pressing to be too traumatic for my wimpy little arms. So I turned to acupuncture instead. Acupuncture feels great on my arms and hands (so great!), but it’s hard to maintain that feeling of greatness after 8 hours of typing and data entry at work every day. Something’s gotta give. I tried physio for a while too but quit after a few appointments, mostly because they involved deep massage and ultrasound, which just weren’t doing it for me. (My forearms= weak and wimpy. They simply cannot handle all that pressing and fussing!)

Marty, bless his former-competitive-athlete self, suggested a regimen of alternating hot and cold baths for my forearms. No, he’s not my doctor and no, he really has no authority or qualifications whatsoever when it comes to dishing out medical advice (aside from being a highly competitive athlete back in the day), but I trust him and I tried the baths just to see. The first time around (this was last year), the hot baths felt wonderful but the cold baths felt terrible. I hate being cold in general and I totally resented having to subject myself to cold baths to treat a condition I already felt huge resentment for. I did 5 sets of alternating hot and cold submersions, with each ‘bath’ lasting 30 seconds before switching. I would just start to enjoy the warm bath before I’d have to switch into the cold bath again, and then the cold bath would seem to stretch on for forever, and so on and so forth x 5. I didn’t like it. My arms: so delicate AND high maintenance to boot!

Over time and with practice, though, I have come to really enjoy the alternating baths (even the cold ones!), because they feel like a stimulating massage from the inside. The baths seem to get the blood flowing in my forearms again, in a way that doesn’t bruise, damage, or otherwise crush my fragile threads-for-tendons. I still resent having tendonitis in the first place, but the alternating baths are almost like having a mini-spa treatment in the comfort of my own tiny-apartment-with-only-one-kitchen-sink. After I complete the bath regimen, I gently rub a bit of almond oil mixed with peppermint essential oil onto my forearms (just to keep those juices flowing!), put on my sexy athletic-mesh splints, and call it a glamorous evening!

I am so painfully cool sometimes.

Regular readers and people who know me in real life will know that I sometimes complain about my job (especially when said job contributes to– or even causes?– my Evil Tendonitis). However, what I’m finally coming to realize is that the work I do now is actually preparing me for whatever work I end up doing next. (I am nothing if not a slow learner.) In other words, I truly need this job and everything this job teaches me!

I have learned so many things at this particular job that I couldn’t have learned otherwise, unless of course I enrolled in some accounting-esque courses at university or college (and we all know how likely that is to happen: Not at all likely. Even still.) Besides, ‘if you can’t say anything nice’ about your job… just shut the eff up, right?

I can’t claim to be an accounting whiz, and I’m definitely not qualified to be the Director of Finance for any major organization, but when I compare what I know about finance now to what I knew before… there is no comparison. I knew nothing before. At all. And I thought I liked it that way.

I have been in my “Accounting” position at work for just over a year and a half, and during that time:

- I have learned how to create, edit, and actually use spreadsheets (including formulae!) This is a huge deal to me, because I was convinced that I hated spreadsheets (and math in general), but I actually have a keen appreciation for their value now. I even caught myself groaning out loud the other day when somebody sent me a MS Word Table instead of a proper Excel spreadsheet. (And yes, it was a geeky groan indeed!) MS Word?! Ah, nuts!

- I have mastered the number pad on the keyboard and on an adding machine. This might not seem like a big deal to anybody else except dorky ol’ me, but being able to punch in numbers with relative ease and not having to look down at the keyboard makes my life so much easier. (Not to mention, it makes me feel more ‘legit’ in my department when I can make the adding machine whir in a calculation frenzy. I am such a nerd!)

- I have started to understand budgets and bank reconciliations, beyond the everyday “I have budgeted x amount of dollars to spend on food this week” sense. Period.

- I have learned the importance– nay, necessity– of a paper trail.

- I have gained a sense of confidence (and even comfort) around numbers and money now, where before I felt insecure and overwhelmed. Having any sort of responsibility for people’s financial details would have given me a panic attack before, but now I know from experience that people and other businesses can trust me to do things correctly with their money. Be not afraid.

- I have been supported by a wonderful supervisor, who has literally taken me under her knowledgeable wing and patiently taught me everything I know. I could never have applied for this type of job off the street (not like I would have wanted to, but that’s another story). My supervisor is making sure that I have decent transferable skills when (not if) I eventually take flight.

- I have made a decent number of contacts in Victoria’s finance/HR  world. Despite its small size, my workplace has a pretty significant reach in the city. And even though I haven’t actually taken advantage of any connections just yet, I’m assuming that my web of contacts will come in handy at some point in the future. From what I hear, it’s all about who you know in Victoria… It’s a small city, that’s for sure.

- I have been able to live comfortably in this beautiful city, pay my rent and buy my groceries, get a decent amount of holiday time every year, and honestly? I have no reason to complain. Remind me of that the next time my tendonitis flares up, OK?

Recipe for a great day:

1. Sunshine

2. Marty + Me

Please ignore my chipmunk cheeks. Since when did I get the mumps?

3. Whales!

Humpback whale!

The same humpback whale!

4. Everything for free!

We had a great time whale watching yesterday. Neither of us had ever seen a humpback whale before, and the one that we saw yesterday played near our boat for over a half hour! Of course, it’s brutally hard to photograph whales, unless you’re ‘whale watching’ through a camera view finder the whole time, but I think Marty captured some pretty decent shots! We were even close enough to smell its (salty, nasty) breath!

Now I’m just trying to get over the low-grade infection I’ve been dealing with for the past week. Every day, I’m convinced that the nagging swelling in my throat is going to erupt into a full-blown cold/flu, but I’m still at the nagging swelling stage. The thing is, I need to either get really sick now or in a week from now (or never, that would also work), because we’ve got a concert to attend this weekend that will require lots of jumping and hollering along to the lyrics. I can’t afford to be sick on Saturday, so I either need to be totally over this or still at the nagging swelling stage by the time this weekend rolls around. (Dear Universe: Please also send me a puppy and a pony. Love, Dana L.)