WTH?

I often have to stop and take pause in my life to wonder a really big question...... why me? Why does really random crap always happen to me? And it always seems to happen when I'm happy. Or at least at any time that I acknowledge I'm happy.

I woke up this past Friday morning happy. Not over the top happy, but happy. I had an awesome weekend planned, starting with dinner out in White Rock with my friend Jessica that night. So after work I hopped in the Subaru and head out to the North Shore to get Dog from daycare. I was at a red light on Great Northern Way, listening to my favorite tunes and thinking to myself "Damn, I'm happy". About five seconds after thinking this lovely thought, my gut wrenched and I got a feeling of doom like something bad was about to happen. Ugh......

I looked around trying to figure out what was wrong.... that's when I saw a skateboarder roaring down the road (he had the green light). I knew right away but had no time to react.... of course his light turns yellow and of course a very impatient man driving an Escalade jumped the light and didn't bother to check first to see if the intersection was clear..... BAM! Smoked the skaterboarder. He landed on the hood, hit the windshield then flew about ten feet. OH_MY_GOD. It was something that I didn't have to see. The worst part? Even though it was rush hour, even though about twenty cars were stopped at the red light, myself, a mini-van and cyclist were the only ones that stayed. I HATE VANCOUVER sometimes. I'm not sure of the condition of the skateboarder, but I hope he's doing ok. AND WEAR A HELMET FOR F*@K SAKE!!!!

A couple of weeks ago I was at my stove, lost in thought about happy I was, stirring some noodles and somehow had boiling hot water land on my belly. Unfortunately I was still wearing my running shirt made of fancy technical material which held the water pretty good. I had to peel it off my belly. Once again, I was thinking about how happy I am....

So I have to stop thinking that I'm happy for a bit and maybe just enjoy that feeling instead of really "acknowledging" it. I might get hit by a train or have a helicopter drop out of the sky and land on me if I do.

Being Happy

I like being happy. I much prefer to be happy over any other feeling. It's easier to be happy than not to be. So it's important to fill your days with at least one thing that makes you happy. A hot bubble bath. A glass of wine. A walk on a sunny Fall day. Seeing friends. You get my drift.

A friend of mine has recently become single as well, after her 11 year relationship came to an end at the end of August. I met Carmen through my friend Heather, a few years back. I would see Carmen at special functions Heather would be hosting, or on one of our girls night out dinners. We have always clicked so I was completely and totally delighted when she sent me an invite a few weeks back to a party she was having. I hadn't seen her in MONTHS so I was looking forward to reconnecting with her. Which we did! So this past Wednesday we had a date :)

I went over to her place armed with mussels to steam and scallops to sear. She was ready with the most delicious array of meats, cheese, olives and of course....... wine!!!!! It was such a great night. A night that I really needed to have. It was wonderful to speak to someone who knows exactly where I'm at and how I feel..... she's there too.

I was telling her how I like to do a minimum of one nice thing a day..... I told her about how I have dance parties with myself at home..... so that's what we did! I played my latest dance party songs and we danced around her living room with our wine and it was awesome!!!!

I left her place feeling really happy. More importantly, I'm still happy. A feeling in which I love..........

Friends

I think one of the most important parts of life are having friends. Friends make you laugh, support you, encourage you, frustrate you, inspire you. I'm extremely lucky to have the friends in my life that I do. Especially Christine. So this blog is about her.

I define a friend in this way: a friend is a person who will come over in the middle of the night and not only help get rid of the body, they would never speak of it again. No one fits this description better than my friend Christine. She is ultimately the one person I would take to a deserted island as we would not only survive way longer than we ought too, but we would have the most incredible journey that would be the most fun that anyone could ever have.

I love the fact that she is willing to do anything, and I mean anything, with me. Take our latest adventure in to pole dancing. I've really wanted to try pole dancing for quite sometime but this isn't something that you do alone. It's important to have a buddy to share this experience with. So of course the first person I thought of was Christine. And of course she was on board with this as well and I have to say.......we are having the time of our lives.

The Friday night before Halloween we attended a Halloween dance party at a firemans hall in Port Kells (sp?). Anyway, at some point during the evening, Christine, myself and her friend Ron went back to my car as they had a couple of beers stashed there (no, I was not drinking as I was driving). While the three of us were hanging out I played some of my favorite songs in which C and I danced and sang as loud as we possibly could too. Even Ron caught himself up in the moment. But the BEST was when I played Comfortably Numb by Scissor Sisters. C and I broke out in a random routine, a complete random routine for us, but to Ron... he had insisted that we had done that before. But we hadn't. That's just how intune we are. I swear I had more fun in the car with C and Ron then I did at the actual dance!!!

Besides having wonderful fun moments with C, the most random things you could possibly imagine also happen to us. Sometimes it's dangerous for us to hang out together!!!! The worst was my birthday camping trip a few years back. For my birthday, I had bought myself a roof rack for my VW Golf, Astro. I had decided for my birthday that C and I should go to Okanagan, camp and ride part of the KVR on my mountain bikes (yes, I have a few). So I packed up, threw the bikes on the car and went to pick up C from her work.

Things started off pretty well, until about 10 minutes into the trip. C knew of a shortcut that we could take to get to the highway. A shortcut that involved a tunnel......Yup, Astro got stuck halfway thru the tunnel thanks to the bikes on the roof. OMG we backed up traffic for a bit while we tried to navigate back out of the tunnel. After we got out we assessed the damage (I took part of the roof rack off...) and decided that it's probably best if we skipped the shortcut.

After a awhile we made it to the #1. It was just before Chilliwack when Astro suddenly stopped having power. She would stutter then get going again. It got pretty bad so we decided that we should spend the night at Cultus Lake that way we could head into the Canadian Tire in Chilliwack in the morning to fix the car. Easier said than done.

When you get to Cultus, there's a little hut that tells you where the campgrounds are (private and provincial). It's getting dark so we thought the best thing to do was ask the dude working there where the nearest campground was. The guy told us that we should try this one campground that was privately run. We pulled up to the hut for the private ground quite pleased with ourselves that we actually made it (Astro will only go to 3rd gear at this point). We hop out of the car and head over to the hut and a lovely lady greeted us. We asked for a spot and she looked at us and said "is it just you two?". We smiled and said yes. "We do not accept singles." C and I sort of looked at each other and said "What?"

"We don't accept singles. Only families. This is a quiet campground".

"Uh, it's 9pm, our car is broken, we just need to sleep somewhere close to Chilliwack".

"Sorry, we don't accept single campers" and slid the glass window shut and walked away.

C and I got back to the car and after a moment of silence I asked her if that really did happen and if we were just discriminated against because we were singles. She confirmed. I started Astro and we quietly drove away. 5K to be exact to the provincial campground where we found a spot, set up in the dark, had one caesar and then went to bed.

In the morning in took forever to get back to Chilliwack as Astro wouldn't get out of 1st gear. When we got to CDN Tire they informed us that there was nothing that they could do, I had to take the car to Chilliwack. OMG.........Long story short and a tow to Abbotsford, Matthew had so kindly lent us Yellow car. So C and I threw our gear into Yellow car and we were off again. However now it's 1pm on a Saturday afternoon....not much time to find a new campground..... we basically went to every campground, provincial and from my Camp Free BC book between Merritt, Kamloops and Cache Creek. All of which were full. By the time we hit Cache Creek it was 7 or 8pm. So we decided to just get a motel room. Well wouldn't you freakin' know it.......a motorcycle tour group were in town and took every last single room available in every motel in Cache Creek.

That being said, the lovely lady at the Sandman Inn felt bad for us and moved some people around in order to give us a room. (thank you!) After a weird dinner at the weird greek restaurant downstairs in the motel, we went back to the room, had a couple of drinks, played cards and fell asleep.

It was most certainly a birthday I'll never forget. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING worked out for us that weekend. But because I was C, it was one of the greatest, fun adventures!!!!!!

Passing of Time

My goodness, how the hell did it get to be over a month since my last blog entry?!!! A lot has happened in a month, more than I ever thought possible. But I'm at work currently and don't really have a lot of time to dive into a full blog, but I have to mention something......

LATE NIGHT ASHAMED EATERS

My building shares the same block as Wendy's. It's the furthest West drive-thru, it's open late and it has a huge parking lot (which some people think they can park in and go shopping across the street but you WILL get a ticket). The drive-thru is open until some ungodly hour, like 3 or 4am. However, it starts getting busy around 10pm. And there's something that I've noticed recently as I return back home from taking Sadie out on her last walk of the evening......

In front of my building, on any given night, you will find parked cars. However, they are not empty, there is always a person inside, behind the wheel, stuffing their faces with a burger or fries or both. And I know they shouldn't be doing it because they take a bite with their head down low, and seldom make eye contact but if they do, their eyes are always filled with guilt....shame......pleading me not to judge.

I find that sad that these single people need to eat their sinful delights parked in their car on a dark lit street....who at home is judging them? Who at home is making them feel bad for stuffing their face?

If you don't believe me, take a stroll on 8th Avenue between Cambie and Yukon and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about.........