Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Jon's first fish

As it turns out, Jon had never been fishing before we took him out for May Long Weekend to Lac Le Jeune with my Uncle and his friend. 


My uncle was so good at talking like a dentist through the gear, tying a fly on, how many colours to let out and the whole bit. I might even say he enjoyed teaching someone who was so eager to learn. So we fished. And fished. 

My uncle caught one small one we kept, and we had a couple bites, but nothing to write home about. 

On our way back to the boat launch, Jon decides he has to pee, and declined my uncles offer of the "pee bucket". "Well you better not pee on the side of my boat!" He says. So for Jon to lean out far enough, I held the back of his belt loop so he didn't fall in. Then my Uncles teasing about having his worm out as bait, and they're bantering away when all of a sudden, my Uncles friends line zings. For anyone who's heard this sound, it's exhilarating. What timing though, everyone jumping around in the 12 foot boat at the same time! 

So my Uncle's friend grabs the rod, sets the hook and everyone else starts reeling their lines in so they don't cross. Except that they did. The fish is jumping away in the background while Jon's hanging out the side of the boat trying to untangle the lines. That's when my Uncle says, "once in a while, we still managed to catch the fish before when this has happened.." and I'm thinking, "not a single chance in the world.." when Jon starts saying he can still feel the fish on the line! So he starts pulling the line in by hand! 

And I grab the net, and can you beleive we netted that bugger? 


We called it a combined effort. Although I was sad Jon didn't catch his own fish, not even when I sent him out the next day without me, he caught something all fisherman love more than a big fish. 

An awesome story.

Sunday, May 28, 2017

Opportunity spoiled

I feel very lucky in my life, for so many reasons. I've been told recently that it's got nothing to do with luck, that I've built a life full of happiness and love, but I can't take that much credit. I love Mascoting, and all the opportunities I've gotten to do it. That came about by happenstance mostly, and just by emailing saying I'm enthusiastic. 


I love Acro Yoga, Erin and Jim at Centered Within Yoga are just amazing people, and I feel so close to them and Theresa. I met them all last Ocotober at the Yoga retreat I went on, but it took my until May to muster the courage and time to do it. It enriches my life in so many ways. 


Dodgeball. Judo. Riding my bike to Harrison last month. Aquasize. I was driving from Jon's to Yoga the other morning, and a favourite song of mine came on the radio. I felt so overwhelmed with happiness that I got goosebumps. I wish this for everyone, even the people I don't nessesrily like. Be #goosebumphappy! 

Thursday, May 18, 2017

Poor Beasty

Sometimes I get these overly romanticized ideas, like when a coworkers cat passed away and I couldn't find a cat frame I liked, I decided to make one. And wouldn't that be so charming since I own a cat, if it had real cat paw prints on it? As it turns out, not quite...

I got everything ready and prepped before hand, but it didn't help. She started crying, an awful horrible cry like I was killing her! So naturally I started crying too. It was very traumatic and pathetic. And then we got too much paint, and it was hard to clean off. She jumped down at one point, and started leaving black paw prints all over my house, so I started screaming, which of course made her run faster. The paw prints on the floor actually topped the ones on the frame. 


So then I had to wash her paw in the sink. Under the tap. With running water. She was not impressedipoo. She kept licking her paw, I was worried even though the bottle said "non-toxic" that maybe there was something in it that would be harmful to her. I was worried, but not enough to spend another $70 cad  calling pet poison control.  


Other than being mad at me for two days, she ended up being just fine. Consider this lesson learned.
 

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

Surfed

I've never been afraid of water, or waves, but the situation at Tofino's Long Beach was still intimidating. It's on the West Coast of Vancouver Island, and it's open ocean. I'd never seen a sandy beach so vast, but I don't do a lot of travelling. Maybe Ireland will have some big beaches in September when I go. 


Anyhow, with the full body wet suit, the board bonncing on my head, I trekked to the water, and felt genuine hesitation to getting in there with the huge waves. 


That photo doesn't quite capture it, I was trying not to let the dogs playing bowl me over. The only information I had to go on was a YouTube video I watched, and Serena doing demonstrations in her pjs that morning during breakfast. 


"You didn't get lessons" they said? Thats just not the Markham way...


So off we went. Getting past where the waves break was challenging. The board had to be facing forward, and the tip pointed up. (Does this sound dirty to you as well?) I had salt water in my eyes, in my nose. Sometime I'd hit a wave the wrong way and my brain would be jostled enough I'd have to regroup for a minute. 

At first I was all worried about my board when we'd get tossled. It was on my credit card after all, but I got over that real quick. "Where's my board?" *KONK* ah, smashed me in the head, there it is. *YANK* ah, almost dislocated my ankle, there it is. You're on your own board, every man for themselves...

First question everyone asks, "did you stand up?" Absolutely not. I was lucky to have the board facing the right way, and in close proximity to me when Serena yelled at me that a decent wave was coming. The bacholorette got up on her board before I'd even passed the break the first time by the way. 

I managed to ride a couple waves, probably by sheer accident or coincidence, on my tummy. I had at 'er for a good while, then I passed out on the beach, the first time with the board still attached to my foot. 


It was a good first experience, glad I did it. I was going to say I wouldn't get so excited to do it again, but when I told Jon, he got excited about trying it. Sometimes one of us gets excited enough for both. 
 

Monday, May 15, 2017

Missed connection

I was in a chocolate store in the ferry terminal, and a guy walked up beside me asking what a Nanaimo bar is. Funny, because we were in Nanaimo, and he had an accent that suggested he wasn't from around here. You're going to ask me where it sounded like it was from, and I'll have to admit that despite finding accents adoringly attractive, I can never pin point where one is from. Maybe New Zealand? Anyhow, buddy goes to pay for his chocolate, and he's a little short. Like small change short. So I butted in and offered to pay for the whole thing. He tried to give me the change he had, but I refused. He offered to buy me a coffee, but I said, "No, it's a good deed! You can't give me something in return!" So fast forward to when my crowd is choking down on burgers and poutine an hour later on the ferry, and there he is offering to buy me coffee again, points to a side of seating area. I joked that it'd have been a cute story of a first encounter had I been single. I did look around for him, because of course I write a blog, and it could have been a good story. We found him once, but he was sleeping. I'd hate to have woken him up. Or worse, woken up some stranger that turned out not to be him. Maybe I could have asked him where his accent was from. Maybe I could have explained random acts of kindness like paying for the guy behind you in the Timmies line up. We'll never know...

Friday, May 12, 2017

Frap fumble

I have a coworker who's not Canadian born, and sometimes we have what I like to call, a cultural fumble. Sometimes they're ugly, like mistaking "executioner" instead of "executor" in the worst case possible. But yesterday it was funny. 

She rushed over to Starbucks for their happy hour to get me a Smurf frappacino. Didn't sound so crazy, they just had a Unicorn Frap, and there's a new animated smurf movie just out. But when she walked in with it, it wasn't blue. 


Blatant diregard if you're making a SMURF Frap and it's NOT BLUE. And then I read the label. S'mores! I started laughing and couldn't stop. But if you didn't grow up here, roasting marshmallows over the fire, you'd never know the gooey mess that is a s'more. And I was laughing too hard, I could barely get the words out, "...chocolate, graham cracker...MARSHMALLOW!!" It was a cute moment. 


 

Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Armless


I love this photo. I got this poster in high school, I've had it up most places I've lived, it's now stuck up on my wall.

I'm a little embarrassed to admit, I just noticed they photoshopped her left arm out of the picture. 

Now that you've gone back to take a peek, you see I'm correct. At the angle her left shoulder is at, it's impossible for her arm to be anywhere but directly behind their kiss. Which it is not. 

I get that the kiss is a pretty important part of the picture, but enough to cut off her arm? Quite the sacrifice, earned my respect.