The Last 2 Minutes: An Unexpected Trip to Ottawa in 31 Short Hours

It really was a jaw-dropping sense of I can do this that flooded my whole body just over a week ago. 
I got an email saying that my upcoming Wednesday class was going to be pretty bare-bones, so I didn't really have to be there. I had nothing happening on Tuesday... Could it happen? I think my heartbeat actually sped up as I contemplated flying to Ottawa to be part of the Ottawa International Animation Festival with my partner, to pitch our animated show, The Adventures of Little Ali Fox at the Pitch This! competition. He'd bought his ticket weeks ago, knowing that I couldn't come because of work. 
I checked available flights. They were expensive, but still available. I emailed my boss and impatiently waited for her response. 
The next day (finally!) it came, while I was at work. I could go! I bought the plane tickets on my phone, on a break, and then I waited impatiently (again) until the moment where I could call my boyfriend and say "So guess what..." 

And off to Ottawa we went. On borrowed money, on stolen time, we got on a plane on Tuesday afternoon and-

But wait. First of all, you've got to know that Jay's and my time-management styles are... pretty different. I like to get to airports EARLY...

Or wait. Back it up a few hours earlier, when we realized that neither of us had printed out the "pitch bible" we were supposed to bring with us to show to all those animation executives we'd be pitching to. And it was 1:30pm. And our flight was at 4:15. And we had No. Fucking. Printer. Paper. 

So instead of getting happily tanked at the airport waiting for our flight to be called, I'm rushing down the street to the little printing shop on Commercial Drive, grinding my teeth while an Italian grandmother mulls over the cost of getting a book printed. Finally I thrust the memory stick into the printer's hand and seethe visibly until the data on that stick is returned to me in printed form. I meet Jay outside Shoppers at 2:30 and we take transit to the airport. By the time we're through security it's after 3:30 and our flight is just boarding. 

Thank god for credit cards (gone are the days of free airline meals, unless you're on a long-haul flight I guess). Thank god for being on a fairly new airplane that has Westjet Connect so we can watch movies and even get on the internet for a while. Thank god for earplugs so I can turn those movies up LOUD and block out the noise of: 
The toddler in front of me
The toddler behind me
The 4-month-old baby beside me and
The small dogs in carry-on bags across the aisle from me (I am not even kidding.)
Actually, it was in all honesty not as bad as it sounds. Everyone was trying to be good, even the toddlers. Mostly. There was zero turbulence. Jay was 5 rows back but we waved and smiled every once in a while. The flight was shorter than advertised. 
So we tumble off the plane at ten to midnight and Jay actually finds us a bus that's still running (yay OC Transit!) so we save tons of money taking public transit into town. And as we near our stop, we see an appealing pub that begs to be visited and lo! They are still serving food at 12:30am, so it's double Jamesons and platters of brown, deep-fried things for us. And so to bed. 

But it's Wednesday where we really excel, because I don't think two humans have ever crammed quite so much into one day ever before. 
We manage to get to the Chateau Laurier and transfer the correct slide show presentation for our pitch two minutes before the cut-off time. 
We visit the Byward Market and nervously sip coffees.
We meet the man who mentored us over the past month as we prepared our pitch. Hi Phil! 

Getting ready to pitch our show.

We do a few final run-throughs of our pitch and then... the fastest ten minutes ever fly by as we do our presentation in front of 4 executives from various companies. It goes really well. 
We spend a relaxed 40 minutes exploring and having lunch, and a fraught 20 minutes where I run to buy more memory sticks for Jay to give out to other execs he's pitching our show to, and Jay gives up on me and heads back to the hotel and I catch up with him, furious and sweaty, to thrust the memory sticks into his hands minutes before his first pitch appointment. 
I go for a 6k run that takes me to the Rideau Canal, which is rich with childhood memories for me, and then over a bridge into Quebec and back over another bridge and back to the hotel to meet Jay. (Due to the last-minute nature of 
my trip I didn't actually buy a pass to the festival, and so it fell to Jay to do all the Fast-Track pitching events, which is basically like speed dating except instead of trying to sell yourself you're trying to sell your show. He did marvelously.) 

Rideau Canal! Home of many happy childhood adventures! 

Giant soup-contemplating pigeons in Quebec. 

My first-ever multi-provincial run! 

Some more decidedly odd public art. 

I meet up with Jay and we decide to rent bikes and ride down the canal to rent some kind of boat. We rent bikes two minutes before the place closes for the day (are you sensing a theme here?). This is magical. Ottawa is surprisingly warm, and very beautiful.We actually find a place that lets you keep boats out until 7:30 pm (which is nuts, because it is fully dark at 7:30 pm), so I persuade Jay that we need to rent stand-up paddleboards. It is now around 5:45. We spend a beautiful hour splashing around on Dow's Lake and the Rideau Canal before getting back on our bikes and going to a nice waterside restaurant where I am so tired that I start to weep gently into my meal, but it is nonetheless very nice. 
And so back to our pension, where we have to sneak our rental bikes into our room because we are keeping them overnight and there is NO WAY we are risking locking them up outside. And 6 hours of sleep. And then I kiss my lover at a bus stop at 5:20am and fly back home. 

Ottawa was amazing. I would actually love to go back there as a tourist. Jay has been hard at work schmoozing and pitching back at the festival, and although we did not win Pitch This! we have made some really great connections there, and learned that our little project has a lot of potential. Apparently it is a pretty big deal that we were one of ten semi-finalists there; we were so green that we didn't even know what a big deal it was until we got there. 
Even though we had some tense moments, Jay and I were in heaven the whole time we were there. It's the first time we've ever really had anything even remotely resembling a holiday, and we made the absolute most of our 31 hours together. It was very hard for me to unwind myself from his arms and get on a bus to the airport on Thursday, let me tell you. 

Now it's all a little bit like a dream. We'll see where things go from here with our show, but it's far from over. In fact, I think the adventure's really just beginning. 

Christmas Week

I am typing this in Kelowna, as Christmas Week continues. (Really, it's not just a day is it? Unless you have to work, Christmas stretches on until the New Year's Eve hangover subsides.) 

We go for walks: Dad, Louise and I. Or just Dad and I if Lou is working. We take our cameras-

Dad is trying to forgive me the unpardonable sin of now using a Nikon- and we try and find colour in this monochrome landscape. Nothing is browner than Kelowna in early winter. 

Grey skies, snow-skiffed mountains, steely lake.

We bond through eating, wine and photography. It's what we do together, not what we say. 

I flew up here on the night of Christmas Day, a short, smooth flight. Cheaper than the bus. Up here I am a kid: sleeping, snacking, watching movies and reading. Waiting for news, waiting for the next job, always waiting. Soon I'll fly home and take down the Christmas tree and life in 2014 will begin. What will it bring? What will I bring to it? But for now I am grateful to be a kid, to travel from one parent's to another and be loved and taken care of. I am old enough to know that it can't last forever. 

Pretty as a Picture

Holy cow! I have a new camera y'all, and it's fantastic. 
My lovely mother came over to visit me in Victoria and we were discussing cameras (because Victoria is a very photogenic city) and Christmas and before you know it we were at London Drugs and...

Here's what it looks like.  Isn't it pretty? I know it's girly, but I love that it's red.

I wish I'd had it in Hawaii, because some of my pictures from there look a little washed-out. I don't think that's going to be a problem with this camera. You can expect to see a lot more pictures on this site from now on. Photography is one of those hobbies that waxes and wanes with me. Sometimes I take a lot of pictures, sometimes not so many. But I always come back to it. Having this camera, I think that I'll be coming back to it more often than ever.

Plus it has a Selective Colour feature which I think I'm going to be using quite a lot. 

So Victoria was amazing. I LOVE it when I have fears or low expectations about a job and then that job just comes along and blows me out of the water because it's so wonderful. You'd think I'd be more trusting by now but no, I still have The Fear before a lot of my gigs. To be fair though, I had The Fear this time because I felt like I was unprepared and under-practiced. But I came through. It wasn't my best-ever accordion playing, but I sounded good in the ensemble. And it re-confirmed for me that sometimes you don't have to be technically the best player in the room, it's also so much about getting along with everyone that makes you the right person for the job and I really fit in. This show was staged so that all the musicians were also participants in the play (to call us actors would be going a bit far since we only had a couple of lines each, but we were integrated into the show rather than lurking in an orchestra pit) and I was the only musician in the band that had experience being ONstage as opposed to being in the pit.  And I just clicked with everyone.  I kept hearing "We LOVED having you here!" from people. Sometimes repeatedly. So clearly I was doing something right. I came home today feeling as though the last 3 weeks- Hawaii to Victoria- have been a whirlwind adventure: new friends, new experiences, and LOTS of great memories. 

This photo was actually taken with my old camera, which actually did serve me pretty well for a cheap point-and-shoot. 

 Joy, indeed. 

December Walk

It's amazing how few walks I've been on this year. School and work will do that to you, I guess. Last year I was short on employment and new to this neighbourhood, so I did quite a lot of exploring. Not so much this year. However, I was getting a bit stir-crazy after being sidelined with the flu for the last 5 days. It wasn't raining and I needed a change of scene.
I did what I often do in my 'hood: I headed north.  There is a park with a spectacular northern view of the water. But there's also a cool sneak-peak view of water and port in this direction (west-ish).

 A beautiful hospice sits in the centre of this park, which is a little unusual, but there's plenty of room for park, hospice, playground, daycare to rub shoulders. If I was on the way out, I wouldn't mind spending my last days at this hospice, overlooking the north shore. However, even though flu can make you feel like death, I'm not ready to turn up my toes quite yet. Look, I don't even look too awful in this shot! The flu must be subsiding!

 There are little parks inserted all the way along Wall Street, so passers-by can hang over the fence and gulp down views like this:

 How considerate, and what great city planning. In one of the mini-parks, there's a bridge, so you could conceivably walk across the train tracks and down to the water. But although it's inviting, there's also a sign that forbids actual use of the bridge unless you're a "Port Pass" holder. It's my major beef with this part of the waterfront: the Port of Vancouver doesn't like trespassers, so most of the waterfront has a very "look but don't touch" quality, which is too bad. If they weren't so uptight, you could get a lot closer to the water, and cycle or walk from New Brighton Park all the way to downtown.

Don't cross this bridge when you come to it!

 It was kind of a short walk. because I'm still easily tired. Honestly, I feel like such a wimp right now! Sore back, sore foot, fluish...  (I'm being proactive though- weekly acupuncture and a trip to my GP tomorrow.) On my way home, I glanced down the street at the water and noticed this lovely view:

The setting sun making the sides of these tankers glow!

Then I continued home, along one special street that always goes crazy with the Christmas decorations. There was no Goaltending Owl of Christmas this year, and that's a little sad. But there were already some very creative decorations:

And now I'm back at home, with my Charlie Brown Christmas tree glowing gently in the corner of the sitting room.

It's so adorable. And it gives me candy canes!

northern life.

The thing is, I'm not actually very far north at all. But this town is high up, compared to Vancouver. So it gets snow. And temperatures in the minus region of the thermometer. And that great dry cold that is so much more invigorating than Vancouver's sulky, rainy plus-10 days.
So here I am, midway through my week here, and it's been great. Back home there are worries. Like: how much money am I going to earn in the next few months? Can I go to school in the fall, or will my summer job be too long, and if so, what can I do about it? Stuff like that. But this small town has been a nice, wintery break from some of those worries, and a great chance to catch up with some friends. I've pretty much seen everyone I wanted to see, too. Not to mention the fact that I'm catching up on 37 years' worth of winter sports in one week: I've been snowmobiling, snowshoeing and today I went skiing (cross-country, not downhill. That's still a closed book to me). Venessa and the baby went into town to do some errands, so the dog and I walked across the road into the Meadows, I stepped into a pair of skis for the first time in about 10 years, and off we went for two hours. I did pretty well, too. In fact, I had grand ambitions to go back out this afternoon, but by the time I got back home, I was EXHAUSTED. Good thing I turned around on the trail when I did. I made myself a giant, healthy lunch and now I have a date with the couch for a while.
But the best winter sport I've tried so far? DOGSLEDDING. On Monday, Venessa & I went to Danny and Lorraine's place out in the hills behind town (off Hardscrabble Road, which is the best road name ever) and spent a day with this amazing couple and their 30 sled dogs. The most excitable, strong, friendly, curious and LOUD dogs I've ever met! We got to take out a team of 8 dogs while the other 22 or so bayed in excitement as we left and Danny & Lorraine kept a watchful eye on us (and their 8 furry babies) from a snowmobile. Venessa drove the sled out to the meadows while I sat on it, took pictures and acted as ballast. Then I drove them back home. Beautiful, exhilarating, snowy, cold, addicting. Then Venessa drove us back to her place on her snowmobile, a little faster than we'd driven on the way out. And I screamed like a little girl every time she opened up the throttle.

It's a Vinyl World

Yeah, yeah, Happy 2012 and all that. Now. LOOK AT THIS!!!

For some reason, I've been itching to buy- and listen to- records. I missed the slight hiss and pop, the album art, even the skips and jumps. This has been an on-and-off yearning for a while, but while I was at the Culture Crawl last month, I saw a suitcase record player in someone's studio, and I was hooked. No complicated (and expensive) hi-fi system. No external speakers. Just a small, funky unit, minimum dollars, and I could start buying used records and become an audio nerd!
Well, after much online research, and then after traipsing around downtown today, I ended up with this little guy for all of SIXTY DOLLARS. And no, it's not as retro cool as the suitcase turntable I originally wanted, but let me repeat, it was SIXTY DOLLARS. And I got it from the drugstore two blocks from where I live. Not only does it play vinyl, it also rips it to MP3 format (so I don't have to haul the turntable or the records up north with me this summer). AND there's a CD player, an FM radio, a headphone jack and USB and memory card ports. I think I'm in love. Right now I'm listening to Duke Ellington's Concert of Sacred Music while I blog. Heaven.
Of course, it wouldn't have been smart to buy a record player and then have no records to actually play, right? Right. So I stocked up while I was visiting Dad in Kelowna. Well, 'stocked up' may be an exaggeration. I bought 6 records.

As well as the aforementioned Duke Ellington album (featuring the Duke himself), we have:
The Police, "Syncronicity" (an absolute '80s classic, in my opinion)
Alberta Hunter, "Amtrak Blues" (this was a shot in the dark. She's great. Now I know)
Baaba Maal & Mansour Seck, "Djam Leelii" (I LOVE jangly, hypnotic, repetitive African pop music!)
Stan Rodgers, "Turnaround" (...and I love Stan. He's a Canadian troubadour, and he died way too early)
and...
a Smithsonian Folkways recording of someone reading the poems of Robert Service. (Two words: Gold Rush)
So while I don't have too many albums yet, I think there's enough variety to keep me going for a while.

January 2nd-
New Year's Day was on a Sunday this year, which means that today (Monday) has still seemed part of the holiday limbo, the last holdout before all the stores reopen and everything gets back to dull, rainy, winter-in-Vancouver normal. The lights are coming down. Soon my little tree will get tossed in the dumpster and Christmas will officially be over. I didn't want to mess around though; I wanted to at least start the new year on a high note, so I've been making lists and crossing off 'To-Do's' as I get through them:
Study for Learner's License
Tally receipts for 2010 & 2011
Apply for a recording grant
Exercise
It helps that I can now listen to music (records! radio! hee hee!) while I apply for grants and get my tax stuff ready.
The year is young, but so far I've been a good girl.

Seasonal Sum-up

Journey Mama wrote a post in bullet points today, and I am shamelessly going to steal this idea, since I don't have a long story to tell you today, just a few shorter ones...

* I realize that I haven't said anything here about how awesome my job is right now. And sadly, it's almost over. Three more days of caroling and then of course, we're done, because Christmas will be upon us. Getting paid to sing is like getting paid to breathe, for me. I'm always kind of quiet before the first gig, letting the chatter of the others wash over me in the car as we drive to the gig. And then we sing, and the loveliness of the harmonies washes over the four of us, and over the people watching, and it's a kind of Christmas-y magic. We've had some great moments, like when a guy spontaneously bought us cookies while we were caroling outside a mall. And a young skater kid watched us all through "Silent Night" and then told us how his Socials teacher had been telling his class about the German & English soldiers who sang together on a Christmas Eve during the first world war. Lots and lots of happy old folks at the seniors residences which are our bread-and-butter gigs. Hitting that perfect, sweet high note at the beginning of a carol and hearing the room fall silent. Balm to the soul, as they say.

* While it's true that Christmas is not the easiest time to be alone, I have been so lucky to stay nice and busy with work, and to have some wonderful friends to see. Yesterday I went skating with my friend Galia, her husband and their two kids, whom I have doted on since they were born. And then I partied with my five wacky friends from C-Level, which is the purely-for-fun a capella singing group I'm in. We drank copious amounts of alcohol, talked about sex, watched "The New Girl" and tried to stumble drunkenly through our favorite Christmas carols. And I've been connecting with other friends as well recently, both in person and online. And although I joke a lot about my eccentric rathole apartment, I actually love it, AND my roomies. Feeling very lucky and loved right now, in general.

* Gonna spend Christmas Eve with Mom and bro and some assorted friends and family here in Vancouver, then bus up to Kelowna to see my dad right after Christmas. Not having any upcoming work (arrrrgh) means I don't have to rush back for anything. Poor mom's in the thick of rehearsals right now, but she's determined to hold this Christmas Eve dinner. We'll all eat way too much, of course, and I'll probably sleep over at her place and lie around digesting on the 25th.

* Only four months and change until I'm back in Barkerville! Hard to believe, and it'll go so fast. I want to take a career exploration course (there are some free ones available) in the new year, and also get my driver's license at long last! I really hope some interesting work comes along, but I hope that I can use this time to create some new opportunities for myself as well. I wouldn't say no to a date, either, before I'm back in the northern wastelands where the men are few, and far-between, and just plain odd. But I'm not holding my breath on that score.

And finally...
This is a time of huge confusion and change and scariness; not just for me, but all over the damn place right now. So when life is getting me down, I just look at this photo, and it makes me smile.

"I am the Goaltending Owl of Christmas!!!"
Merry Merry. Happy Happy. May your days be merry and bright, as the song says. Drink and eat and have fun with whoever you spend your holidays with.
Much love.

community.

Oh man, I was so lost, this week.
This virus came from nowhere and BAM! I was sick, and tired, and so, so low.
"Depression" is such a weighty word, but I could feel it knocking on my doors. I could feel my eyes stretched wide with sadness, with not letting tears fall. I would be walking down my wonderful street, and I could feel my face contorted in a sad, furious mask.
No one left emails. No one called.
I felt invisible. I felt like no one would ever love me again, and that all my friends had forgotten about me.

Yesterday I was raw. I saw the sun was shining so brightly outside, and I decided to walk a long, long way to meet a friend. The walk was longer than I expected, but it was very sunny. Along the way, I took some pictures. My mind was still spinning in a sad, repetitive cycle, but I could feel the sun, and the warmth of the day, and at least some of that got through.

Then I met a friend for lunch and had another walk. It was hard to feel so bad when the weather was doing this, and I was here:


By the time I went caroling last night, I was exhausted. Too much walking and the sad feelings were still there. So I went skating afterwards. Skating on top of a mountain. There were even reindeer up there!


I skated around and around (it's all I can do; I can't do fancy tricks or even stop very well, but by god I can skate in a circle), and after half an hour I was pretty much cured. Skating meditation. The bad thoughts had receded. Even though I lost my cel phone up there I was not reduced to a sniveling mess. And today I woke up and felt so much better inside my head, even though it was rainy and damp and I had to go caroling outside at a mall.
And then I came home and sang MORE carols with a bunch of friends and heard from some other ones online and felt less alone and much more loved.
It's hard, you know? I feel like a wimp saying this and I know there are so many larger problems all around and people suffering and I GET that, I really do, but this is my problem right now. You create this life with someone, you build a family. And then one of you might tear it down and you have to build something entirely new. Where there was once always someone there, for better or for worse, now there are holes. And sometimes you feel as though you might just fall right through one of those holes and there would be no one there to catch you.
So this is what I would say, in the end: I want to be brave enough to pick up the phone more, to make more plans with people I don't know well but want to get to know better. Even just send some encouraging online notes.
I want to be the kind of friend who's there to catch you, if you feel like you're falling. And I want to be caught, too.

New 'Hood

Why I love this place: the Cariboo Gold Quartz Mine

I have been avoiding the big city (Quesnel) on my days off, and the last couple of weeks found me at Bowron Lake with family and friends, sunning and swimming. This week I was determined to relax right at home; no cars, no travels, no companions, just me and the town of Wells. If it was rainy, I'd sleep and read. If it was nice, I'd head up Cow Mountain to the Cariboo Gold Quartz Mine.
It was sunny.

First, I walked up Lowhee Road, which I'd never done before. Barkerville Gold Mines has some buildings up there, so I didn't go too far, since this is an active gold mine, and gold miners are rather possessive about their property. However, I did stumble upon their top-secret stash of gold! You think they'd be a bit more clever about hiding it...

I crossed the creek, spotting a gold panner along the way (I also gave him a wide berth, since gold-panners are also possessive about their spots and I didn't want him to think I was horning in on his 'claim'.)

And off to the old mine. My fascination with this place is only equaled by my fear of bears, so I am always a little antsy here. Plus, there's something so spooky about old buildings. Spooky, but wonderful.

My favorite building up here.

One day I hope to come here with someone who knows the history of this gold mine, and can tell me what everything is. At a guess, this is an elevator, which either took men down, or gold up. Dunno. The whole side of the building has peeled away, so if you can scootch under some branches which block the trail, you are in like Flynn, and you can explore to your heart's content.


Barkerville Gold Mines is working up on this mountain, so who knows how long this old stuff will remain before it's knocked down to make way for a new mine working? This building has been gutted, probably by heavy snows, but the ground around it is covered in core samples.

My second favorite place: a short walk to a gaping mine shaft.

If you head right, you will be standing on top of a huge tailings pile, where you can survey your domain. Look down, and there is a tangle of machinery which always reminds me of the ghastly Ironworks building in Stephen King's book "IT". As far as I know, Fred Wells' mine was a safe, good place to work, not a haunted kill-site, but the rusty scraps of god-knows-what always give me a bit of a chill.

Speaking of chill, you can feel the mine's cold breath as you approach this shaft. Just a few feet in, the floor is covered in ice.

*A disclaimer: I am far too smart (and too chicken) to enter a mine shaft. AND YOU SHOULD BE TOO! Anyone who goes into a mine shaft is an effin' idiot, and deserves whatever happens to them.*

And down a creepy little path to some more buildings. The Dark Lord apparently reigns here.


There are bits of machinery lying around- who knows what they used to do? Well, someone probably does know. That someone, however, is not me.


Finally I'd had enough of overgrown ruins. The beach on Jack o' Clubs Lake is glorious: strange-coloured sand, shrubs, and stunning views.


I also took a path along the lake for a while. There were claims staked all the way along it.

After messing about on the beach for a bit, I decided to walk over to the highway and the visitors' centre, but the only way there was either through a vile bog, or a wade in the lake, so I chose the latter (although I experimented with the bog first...)

It had been almost a 2-hour hike at this point. I slogged home, wet to the thighs from the chilly lake, and devoured my very late lunch with a huge appetite.

When it comes to silver, I am the proverbial magpie. And while rings can be annoying and bracelets dangle from my freakishly small wrists, a good necklace makes me salivate. So I am very happy because today I can wear my new necklace (if I ever get dressed, that is)!!! And my funky new camera strap from Chicago should be coming any day now (she wrote hopefully). And to celebrate, J and I took to the streets (well, just the one street actually) and I continued adding to my newest photo series: neon signs of Commercial Drive.

I find that all too often these years, Christmas rushes past me without my getting a chance to properly acknowledge it. And I love Christmas. Not all the aspects of it, but a lot of it: Carols (but don't get me started on any songs written after about 1906- they don't count), the excitement of children, sparkley decorations, shopping... there's a lot to love. This year I'm determined not to let Christmas get away without enjoying some of the hokey pleasures that make it delightful. So the other day, I decorated our apartment with shiny blue disco balls, silver snowflakes, and lights. All while listening to King's College choir. And it was great. Christmas will be a nice contrast to the show I'm rehearsing, which is all about killing. And more killing. And the resultant misery. I'm having such a great time so far, and rehearsals are going really well. But it's nice to poke my head out from the tragedy of Medea and her doomed family and remember that my favorite holiday is fast approaching...