January
... a birthday kidnapping, a wedding sari, a reunion in California, and my first car accident...
What a blur. Classes started January 3rd, and I'm taking two Archaeology courses: Human Origins and Ancient Egypt & Africa, plus Geography: Human Geography. Had to totally switch gears from last semester -- I have exams coming out of my ears, and very few papers. My first semester was all about papers, and I only had final exams. Two months into the current semester, I've come to the conclusion that I am extremely allergic to studying, but I'm hoping to cure myself soon before I break out in an incurable rash.
Had this mad idea to take Eliza on a seafood restaurant crawl for her birthday, and kidnap her so she didn't know where we were going until we arrived. Two Vancouver police officers arrived on the scene in Yaletown to find four adults climbing out of a Volkswagen cabriolet, one female in a blindfold. Very suspicious indeed. No arrests were made, however, after suspects questioned ("It's her birthday!" seemed to be an adequate explanation).
Yes, that's a sari I'm wearing to my cousin Mario's wedding. Very comfortable and very versatile! I also wore it to my company Christmas party. No one batted an eyelash at a Filipina wearing a sari at Christmastime to the swanky Waterfront Hotel, which to me is very heartening because it means Canada is on its way to becoming the cultural mosaic it purports to be.
Mario and Roula's wedding was, in a word, an absolute delight! (OK, that's two words.) From the Greek Orthodox ceremony to the lovely reception at Seasons in Queen Elizabeth Park, high above the city lights of Vancouver, the newlyweds shone like glitterati. I've been to weddings where the groom nearly fainted and the bride couldn't stop crying, but Mario and Roula looked so relaxed and happy you would have thought they'd done this a thousand times before. If this were the wedding Olympics, I'd give 'em a 6.0 for presentation (no French judge here).
You'll need to download Shockwave Flash to view this if you don't already have it, but here's a PhotoJam I created of the happy occasion:
http://www3.telus.net/gailedwin/Rulli/
OK, so I made up this little statistic, but I would not be the least bit surprised if there were vehicles registered to dogs. My last major impression of L.A. was getting all my hair (voluntarily) sheared off by an overzealous Cuban hairdresser in Venice Beach, so I'd forgotten how much the automobile is King in La-La Land. Driving around, it feels like one continuous stretch of freeway broken only by the mountains to the east and the ocean to the west. But, I digress -- the purpose of this visit on the weekend of January 25-27th was to visit my friends.
I stayed in Sherman Oaks with good chum and fellow high-school alum Lisa, who's taking Fashion Design at nearby FIDM (Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising). The big reunion, however, took place further south in Huntington Beach on Sunday.
Some background info:
At the end of 1990 I was a Kermit-green 18 years of age and working at Banff Rocky Mountain Resort's sports facilities when I met these two nutters from California, Eric and Rob. In the middle of what was soon to become one of the harshest winters in Banff's history, Eric from L.A. and Rob from Sacramento showed up and settled into a house on the main strip that had no central heating and a landlady named Suki who regaled me with stories from her stint as a bathroom attendant in Italy. Believe me, it was still an upgrade from living in staff accommodation, so I moved in, too! There was also later another housemate, Noel, from Nova Scotia, who thought nothing of answering the door in his underwear and was obviously unfazed by temperatures of -50C (with or without the wind chill factor, it's enough to crack ski boots). That winter for Rob and Eric was legendary. It is just like a fishing story -- the recalled temperatures keep dropping as the years go by. What I can remember distinctly is that Rob and Eric bought space heaters for their rooms, while I toughed it out and slept under the weight of no less than 7 wool blankets. (As a footnote, the house was condemned by the Health Authority and we had to move, but it turned out the town wanted the land to build a clinic. When I last visited Banff in September 2000, the lot was still empty.)
Fast forward from that crazy winter to the next time I see Rob and Eric together, less than one year later, at the end of 1991, as I am about to head off to Australia with a freshly-purchased airline ticket but no itinerary past the next day. Eric and Rob are living in a house in Redondo Beach, along with an aspiring actor named Craig who is Axel Rose's (of Guns 'N' Roses) personal assistant, regaling to their then-girlfriends Jamie and Marlene -- and all other captive audiences -- stories of braving the relentless Arctic Canadian winter...
Fast forward more than 10 years to January 2002: 3 weddings and 4 kids later, Eric, Jamie, Rob (and, later, Marlene) and I are sitting around Eric and Jamie's kitchen, eating brunch and marvelling at the flight of time. Rob and Marlene's two kids are already in primary school, and Eric and Jamie also have a couple of wee ones. Those Banff days seem like lightyears in the past, but that Sunday when I rang Eric's doorbell and the two nutters answered the door, it was like entering a time warp -- they looked (ostensibly) exactly the same! Eric and Rob turn 40 this year and say they will write their memoirs. I'm going to read the chapter on "the winter in Banff" with great interest to see how cold it *really* was.
Oh, and I mentioned a car accident, didn't I? Thankfully, I lived to tell the tale. It's a doozy (the story, although the accident itself was a Miracle on Ice, and not the hockey kind). Ask me sometime, and I'll tell you. It is much more entertaining with animated speech and wild gesturing.
February
This is when self-imposed exile began. By the end of January I already had two tests, one of them a major exam. Classes hadn't even been underway a whole month! I started planning a trip to Europe as a little reward for my efforts, and was occasionally driven to distraction trying to find affordable car rental in Switzerland.
I did venture out of my cage to see an opening of an exhibit at the Vancouver Art Gallery entitled "Experiments in Cyborg Culture". Another highlight was to get my TV working just in time to catch the gold medal women's hockey game between the U.S. and Canada. The day the NHL men play with as much verve as the Canadian women during that match is the day I'll start paying those exorbitant NHL ticket prices. It was strangely anti-climactic (for me, anyway) when the Canadian men beat the U.S. men a few days later for the gold medal, because I was so swept away by the women's match. Especially when the only female hockey coach on the international roster, Montreal RCMP officer Daniele Savageau, who is always unflinchingly calm under pressure, started tearing up during the national anthem. Every time I saw that scene replayed, I choked up!
Cheryl says both Melissa and Michael, who will be 2 in September, watched the Salt Lake City Olympics with great interest, particularly the luge and skeleton, which they mimicked using their portable slide. Maddie, who is on her way to
5 months of protection from her toddler siblings, is still too young to appreciate sport. Melissa, who will turn 3 in July and is talking up a storm, watched the gold medal men's hockey game with me on the 23rd. During the hockey game Melissa turned to me wide-eyed and pointed at the TV screen, incredulously:
"Hey! He PUSHED him! That's NOT NICE!"
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