It's been a long time. I'm so sorry, but I think you'll get it when you read this. There were friends and family to tell first, not to mention the fact that I was just so busy for the last three weeks. I did write, but I couldn't post until now. Here's a selection of posts I wrote but didn't publish right away:

may 1st, 2011
this feels almost entirely too easy.
it's so weird to be back here, because time is doing that stretchy-slidey elastic band thing and it could almost be that i've never been away; there was no ghost train or pumpkin patch or 'brief encounter'. when you have different jobs throughout the year you remember things in terms of work. this was the month i did so-and-so, that was the christmas i went here...
well, this is my third time here, and it's starting to feel like a second home. i got here friday night, stayed up late in a frenzy of unpacking, did the same yesterday. there are only two of us in the house so far; the others arrive in a few weeks. it gives us the chance to settle in, clean, stake out our territory and make things the way we like them to be. i am very lucky in my roommate (the only newbie this year); he likes things tidy (so do i) and so we cleaned and organized things together and this shabby Panabode-style wood house has never looked so tidy or felt so much like a home in my memory. last year it looked like a frat-house most of the time. i think i tackled so many years' worth of cobwebs yesterday that the house realized i was a friend and has made brendan and i welcome here. i felt kind of silly, but i even 'smudged' the house yesterday with some sage i found in the living room. so many years of people staying here, happy and sad, getting along and fighting... it just felt like the right thing to do. i sheepishly admitted this to brendan and he said he agreed.
today was mayday, and glorious sunshine to go with it. such a funny contrast to the deep snow which is still piled everywhere; they had a long, snowy winter here this year. brendan and i hiked through the meadows, on snowmobile trails that were still firm enough to hold us, and also on ski trails where the snow was starting to get so rotten that we sunk in up to our hips every other step. quite a workout! we were out for at least an hour and my face is red from the sun. i hadn't thought i'd need sunscreen quite so early, was more worried about whether i'd brought enough warm clothes!
speaking of bringing things... although i had to pay quite a bit to ship five boxes of stuff up here, it was worth it. my little bedroom is cozy and homey, and as the house fills up with two more people, if i need to retreat to my room i will feel happy there among my things. not that i need to retreat right now. my roomie is 10 years younger than me, and very happy to be here. i was afraid he might be a bit too much of a 'keener', but his enthusiasm is contagious, and after the boys and their distinct lack of enthusiasm last year, this is great. to have already done a hike, on our 2nd day here, is wonderful. we seem, so far, to be able to strike a nice balance between talking up a storm and being silent, between hanging out and giving each other space. as i said, i feel very lucky.
today was so beautiful that this afternoon we even got our bikes out for a quick ride to upper wells (it was a quest for junk food, very necessary after all our exertions!). to be able to cycle, on roads which were clear and dry, but surrounded by many feet of snow... was not something i'd ever experienced before. now the sky has clouded up and our rehearsals begin tomorrow, so i'm glad we snatched the chance to get outdoors while the going was good.
i am keeping my fingers crossed that our phone will soon be working. the people at telus seem to have a hard time setting up phone service for residents of wells and every year there is a weeping and a gnashing of teeth before phone service is hooked up. they promised me 'today', but it's 5:30 and still no dial tone. my sweetie's going to get one more night-time call from the gas station phone box, i guess.


may 8, 2011
i feel such a weird mixture of lucky and unlucky at the end of this first week that i don't really know where to begin. 'begin at the beginning, go on until you reach the end and then stop' is a quote that popped up in a novel i was reading, so here goes...
it's the evening of the first day of rehearsal, last monday. i get several facebook messages from j: 'call me'. so i do. our phone line isn't functioning yet so i call him from the public phone outside the whitecaps motel. i'm worried that his mom has fallen ill, or that he's had some kind of health scare, but the news he has is about me: my biopsy results have come back positive for cervical cancer. i'm reeling, trying to keep it together and take it in while standing outside at a public phone. needless to say, i can't and i start crying but i'm still trying to keep some kind of control, since i'm not in private (although at least wells isn't a high-traffic area, at least not at this time of year). j's obviously in shock as well. anyway, we talk it through as best we can and then i have to go and break it to amy & richard at theatre royal, after the first day of rehearsal, that i may have to leave, that i may not be able to finish my contract here, that i may not even get to really start it. and they are shocked too, and supportive.
and so the week goes by in a flurry of rehearsals interspersed with phone calls to places and departments i never wanted to have to speak to : gyno-oncology, cancer agency, hospital, not to mention family and a few calls a day to j for moral support and updates (at least we have a functional phone at the panabode now, so no more weepy public phone calls after that first night). i learn a few things: first, that things tend to move quickly when you have anything to do with the dreaded 'c-word', and so i have an mri scan scheduled for this tuesday, and the cancer agency has even managed to get that done in prince george so that i don't have to come all the way home to vancouver. i will miss one day of work, the theatre will cancel one show this week, and then i can keep working up here until i fly back home.

Friday May 20th, 2011
How did it get to be almost 2 weeks since that last blog entry? How did I get to be sitting at the kitchen table in a log house, typing at 10pm while the final addition to our household bakes late-night Peanut Butter Whoopee Pies?
We are four now. Me, Maya, Robert and Brendan. Three of us worked here last year, and the new guy is fitting in just fine. Maya showed up tonight and immediately started baking, which is how she settles in. This is a quirk I can live with very easily, although my waistline may not thank her. The Panabode, our house, is cozy and friendly. I think it responds to the love we're showing it, shaking off years of casual neglect; well maybe not shaking it all off, but looking brighter and nicer than it ever looked last year. Not just a place to live, not just a party shack, but a home for 4 very different people who will hopefully be able to get along for the next 4 months.
Not that I'll be here for the next few weeks, unfortunately. My schedule next week is as follows: Do shows all weekend, fly back to Vancouver on Monday night, have a consultation Tuesday morning, have surgery on Friday. And then.... we'll see. I'm raring to get back up here and keep working, but I'm terrified that my body won't be a resilient as I want it to be. And it's a bitter pill to swallow, this knowing that I won't be able to bike or run or fling myself around the stage as i've been doing these last few weeks.


So do you see? I'm typing this back at my home in Vancouver, and the last few weeks feel like a dream; did I really get all the way up north, start doing a show, and then find out that I have cancer and have to fly home for surgery? How could I not be in shock?
I go into VGH early Friday morning for a hysterectomy. A what?! I'm 36 years old, for godsake. I can run, I've biked 15km a day for the last week, I feel healthy as a horse. My spirits for the last few weeks have fizzed like sodapop as I made new friends, learned new songs, tried on costumes and re-entered 1869. Now suddenly I'm a cancer patient. In a few days I will be sore and tired, fuzzy-headed on painkillers. I wasn't ready to come home. I am so afraid they'll forget abut me up there, that the wound made by my absence will heal seamlessly and if I'm lucky enough to go back (which I won't know until after surgery), they won't care.
I miss my life before cancer. I know how lucky I am, but I'm still angry and scared.

Happy Pie

Ah, Spring! When we celebrate the birth of so many new creatures by... eating them. Yum.

The weather is still unseasonably cold, but the sun actually comes out for a few hours these days, and my third (and last, please god) virus seems to be gone. I even went back to the gym today, the first time in almost a month. Good thing, because I leave town in less than two weeks. Two weeks: time's flying by. I can't believe it.

Anyway, J and I had a really annoying meal last night; you know the kind- we went to our local Mexican restaurant and had a totally indifferent meal. Nothing was bad enough to complain about (except the lack of Guacamole on my plate, which the waitress claimed they had run out of- at a Mexican restaurant! On a Friday! until I saw some sitting on J's plate and then she stammered "well, he got the last bit".) It was just a truly bland meal- nothing had any flavour to it, and it wasn't even particularly cheap, to compensate. So today I swore I'd make up for last night's blah experience with a little home cookin', and...

I finally made something from a recipe I found in Saveur Magazine, which is sort of like National Geographic, but with recipes. This is an Easter Lamb Pie, from Sicily. Your basic meat pie, but with a twist: the 'pastry' is yeasted, and is really more like a bread than an actual pastry.
You start out by making the 'pastry'. It's like bread- you use yeast- but also like pastry- you use shortening. Is there anything in the world whiter than shortening? It's the purest white I know.


Then, while the dough is rising, you combine chopped up lamb with herbs and garlic. Lots of garlic.

This should really be done the night before, so that the flavours can marinate the lamb, but that's not essential, unless your Sicilian grandma is around to kick your butt.
Your boyfriend might mock your attempts to make meat pie and document it. Ignore him. Or get your revenge by including his picture in this blog.


But he won't turn up his nose at the finished result. Infact, he'll even help you decorate it:


Baaaaah! Happy Spring, everyone.

Coffee Shop

Last year, I had a few... issues. Basically, I felt like I'd painted myself into a corner. The really bad thing about that is, you can get so panicky about the situation that you can't see a way out. Some people get really depressed about this. I don't think I was depressed. Let's just say I had some angst. Maybe some Weltschmerz. Ennui? Anyway, whatever it was, I felt crappy enough that I wanted to talk to someone. So a wise friend told me about Family Services; I called them up and they put me through the intake procedure and said it might take a 3-4 months for someone to become available.
Actually, I think it was only two months. If that. Someone became available, and every few weeks I'd get on a bus headed south a few blocks and blurt out some of my problems to a lovely lady who had no ties to my life and who listened non-judgementally and sympathetically to my woes for half an hour. Sometimes I'd laugh; sometimes I snorfled my way through a few Kleenex, but it felt necessary for a while, anyway. I think on some level I was hoping that I'd have a momentous breakthrough- you know the ones where the light goes on above the patient's head and they cry: aha! I'm like this because of that! And they cry it all out for awhile and then... no more problem.
*Spoiler alert: that never happened to me.
Actually I still struggle with many of the same issues I had last year: poverty, instability, self-doubt. I know that I will have to work on those things for a long time. Maybe I'm still in a bit of a corner; it's just that it's not a bad corner to be in most of the time. There are friends and family in my corner with me. I have a window there, and most of the time I remember that if I want to walk out of there I may get some paint on my shoes but I probably won't die. Hell, we're all in some kind of corner, aren't we?
Anyway, one of the most therapeutic things about going to counselling was this place:

Most times I'd get off the bus and I'd be early for my session (because punctuality is NOT one of my issues), so I'd go to this coffee shop.
There's a lot of wood there. A pleasant view of the neighbourhood. Food that's actually made there, instead of being trucked in from some mass-producing bakery of blah.
Lots of times I'd take a tea along with me to Family Services, and it would sit with me through the next half hour, along with the kind lady who was listening to my problems.
When the sessions were over (I think the deal was a dozen, and I spread 'em out over four or five months), I wasn't magically 'cured'. My counsellor was sympathetic, but not much of a one for coming up with actual gameplans. But I'd talked out some of my troubles and I headed off to Barkerville and a much-needed injection of work and confidence. And I didn't have any need to be up in that neighbourhood anymore, so I didn't get to visit the coffee shop anymore.
Yesterday I passed through that neighbourhood on the way home from a rehearsal, and went back to the coffee shop for a snack. It was a good time to be there; not too busy, no lineup. They've expanded a bit, which is good, because they get pretty busy sometimes. I had a dark, strong Americano and a lemon tart.

A little boy saw me fiddling with my iPod and said "Do you have any games on there?" I admitted that I did. "Can I see?" he asked, and so I ended up letting him play a few rounds of Angry Birds while his father got him a snack. He was probably around four; still young enough to be totally trusting and careless of Stranger Danger. He leaned against me while he commandeered my iPod and I was happy to let him.
I could probably wrap this story up neatly by contrasting me in my dark times last year (unhappy, uncertain of everything) with this happy, confident little kid, but that feels a bit cheap. I will say that it was good to be back at this coffee shop, which is a special one in a town filled with far too many cookie-cutter coffee shops. It was good to have much longer hair and fewer pounds on me than last year. It was nice to feel the sun trying to poke through the clouds that have been too present lately. It felt really nice to be headed home and not to a counselling session.

We fled south last weekend, tired of the ever-present rain and grey skies of Vancouver. I don't know if it's been a particularly grey winter this year, but it sure as hell feels like it. However, we should have known that if you're fleeing bad weather, don't stay in the Pacific Northwest:

Portland was just as grey, just as cold, and even more windy than V-town. However, it had a few things going for it: it wasn't home, so it had the novelty factor going for it, its downtown is very easy to walk around, and in spite of the grey skies, it's a lovely town with a million restaurants. What could be better?
(An aside, if you'll indulge me: why does Portland have much, much, MUCH cooler movie theatres than Vancouver? Are we really so lame, so apathetic, that we let stupid chains like Cineplex take over all our theatres? Well yes, sadly, we are. When we were in the Land of the Free, we went to a fabulous place called the Living Room Theatres... it was a bar, a restaurant, and several tiny, comfy movie theatres. We lazed in fabulous chairs, alcoholic beverages in hand, and enjoyed a lovely movie experience. And this seemed to be the norm down there rather than the exception. Vancouver NEEDS this.)

We walked miles (we took the train down, so we kinda had to. But I love walking, and J was pretty game). When it got really gross out, we retreated to cool indoor places like OMSI, the huge science centre/planetarium/Omnimax/submarine on the other side of the river. We spent a day scoping out the shops (and bought multi-tools at REI, the US equivalent of MEC). We strolled from one restaurant to the next until our stomachs protested. We relaxed in our beautiful downtown hotel. All in all, it was a delightful 4 days.

Now we're back, and my stomach tells me I should go back on my no-wheat, no-dairy no-fun diet immediately. With costume fittings for my summer job looming, I have to agree. Here's something that fits the bill, although it's unlikely that I'll lose any weight eating it. I justify this breakfast by saying that there was a bag of fingerling potatoes sprouting in a cupboard, and I had to use them up. But really, it's just a way of making my holiday seem as if it's not quite over yet.

Salmon Hash
I had a version of this at the Benson Hotel in Portland. The salmon was pale, smoked and mixed right in with the wonderful, slightly too greasy potatoes. My version uses Indian Candy (because that was what was in the fridge), and my potatoes didn't really "hash". It was still really good, though. (And no wheat or dairy to be found!)

Chop some onions, garlic, and whatever herbs you may want to throw in (I had cilantro, so that's what I used).


Toss it in a pan with some olive oil, and stir until the onions are translucent.



Meanwhile, boil some potatoes.


When the potatoes are soft, add them to the pan, along with some more olive oil, salt and pepper (I like Fleur de Sel better than table salt), and maybe a couple of mushrooms.
Let it all cook until the potatoes are getting crispy on the outside. Then add the salmon and some of the herbs.


Finally, slide a poached or fried egg onto the top, and garnish with more salt, more pepper, and the rest of those herbs. Take it to the table and break the egg yolk so that it covers the hash with warm yellow yolk. Bon Appetit!

Oh man, isn't "I should..." a daunting way to start a sentence?
I SHOULD be doing something constructive, like cleaning my apartment.
I SHOULD go outside and buy food to eat tonight.
I SHOULD stop staring at my computer screen all day.
I SHOULD spend some time with friends before I go away for five months.

Thing is, it's raining out there. AGAIN. Shopping for food means I have to get wet. I'm starting to feel a bit like a cat about getting wet because it has happened so much this winter. And I was supposed to see a friend today but she texted me to warn me that both her kids have colds and I was like no way. Sorry, but I've been sick for weeks, now. First I was just snotty and then I was getting better and then I was hammered by some kind of virus that left me feverish and achey and snotty and cough-y and I'm only just getting over that. I can't go to the gym because I'm still too tired and sick. So, no. Can't risk it.
I know, I know. Soon I'll be living in a locked, darkened room, never venturing outside (too many germs) and peeing into milk bottles whilst wearing kleenex boxes on my feet. But although it's still wet and cold out, things are actually looking up... See the following items for proof:

J and I are heading to Portland next weekend! On the train! We did this because a) it's not much of a holiday if J has to drive for hours and b) It's a train! Trains are awesome! I can't wait to step onto it (at 6:30 am, ouch) and plunk down into our Business Class seats and chillax for eight hours.

The Redboot Quartet played at The Blushing Frugal Bride's wedding last Friday night, which was lovely. Even though I was still pretty sick (and had had only 2 hours of sleep, thanks to the fact that I was looking after my brother's bed-hogging dog), I managed to have a great time. I danced for a while and I'm pretty sure I even laughed a lot. That may not sound like much, but after a couple weeks of illness-induced depression, where I was bursting into tears after doing simple tasks like grocery shopping, laughing feels really good.

Plus, I lost so much weight on the no-dairy, no-wheat no-fun diet (coupled with a few days of being too stuffed-up to taste anything and therefore not eating anything) that I was able to wear my extremely form-fitting blue Cheongsam dress with silver flowers, which I haven't been able to squeeze into for lo these many years. One may question why I was wearing a very Chinese dress to a Ukrainian-Irish wedding, but the answer is simple: because I COULD.

So you see: thinner, healthier happier, gigging, imminent travel... Life is actually pretty good. Just keep your viruses and your rain away from me. I'd like to laugh again sometime this year, 'kay?

Oh my.
It's been a while, hasn't it? And I can't write lots now, because it's 1am and I needneedNEED to go to bed. But I feel compelled to post a quick update here...

I have a cold which is turning into a chesty infection-y thing right now. So does J. So we stumble through our work days like tired little zombies, not really getting anything like the maximum enjoyment out of life. But in a week and a half we're supposed to be heading to Portland for a quick vacay before I leave town. Oh, and it's raining every. freaking. day. here in Lotusland. Which I suppose is our penalty for not having long snowy winters, but please. I would rather have those any day. This rain is killing me slowly. I spent the day at my new job clad in a hat, fingerless gloves and a woolly cardigan, and I was STILL cold.

My naturopath put me on a healthy diet which prevents me from eating wheat, soy, dairy, sugar, corn and eggs. Okay, I cheated on the sugar a bit, because I'm still drinking. The first week, I thought I would lose my mind but now I kind of like it. I've lost some weight, too. Oh, and I'm working out 2-3 times a week and loving it! I never thought that would be possible.

I'm leaving for Barkerville in a month-and-a-half. I can't believe it's coming up so soon. And I'll be up there almost five months this time.

Sorry for the boring update, but I'm tired. More (and better written) updates soon...

How Iron Maiden Taught Me a Lesson.

Last night we caught a very fun and inspiring documentary on the Sundance Channel. "Flight 666" is about Iron Maiden, and an epic tour they did a few years ago, covering countries and continents in just a few months. Not only were they flying huge distances between shows, but their lead singer, Bruce Dickinson, was also piloting the huge jet that took them there. Unlike the recent documentary about Metallica, in which the band had to enter group therapy because they were at each other's throats, "Flight 666" is incredibly sweet. This real-life Spinal Tap may sing about the Devil, but on their time off they visit tourist sites together, bring their teenaged kids on the road, and even... golf (they have Iron Maiden golf bags for heaven's sake!). The scene that really made me smile was one where they're somewhere in Mexico, visiting a Mayan ruin. They all go down into the tunnels beneath one of the temples and you're thinking okay, this is where they get all satanic and sacrifice a goat or something. In the underground dark, the drummer cups a candle in his hands and... makes a wish for his friends' health and happiness. When you see footage of them on stage in front of thousands of writhing fans, their delight in what they're doing shines through in their huge grins.
I ran into an acquaintance a while ago, a musician I respect. He was making a living playing in a band with some other aging rock stars, members of a fairly high-profile Canadian group. "They all need lawyers to talk to each other," he said. "When they need to make a decision everyone has to vote and argue and it takes forever."
I thought of that group as I was watching the Maiden documentary. How some cling stubbornly to one way of life because it is lucrative, or because it is the only way they know, even though it brings them pain and puts them into conflict with people they once liked. And how other people can be following the exact same way of life, and still be doing it with joy and enthusiasm. If I have one wish for 2011 it is that I have the courage to let go of things that are not working and also the courage to keep putting the effort into things that do work.