Unattended children will be given espresso and a free puppy.

Missy came to visit us and she brought me flowers and peach jam, and she took me surfing in Tofino! She gave me a much-needed escape. We had all sorts of fun. We went to a wine and cheese party on the beach with some of her PRBI friends. I was shocked to find that people from Vancouver moved to Sexmith (Northern Alberta) to go to Bible college! Those people were fun. The sun had already set by the time we got to the party, so I will not be able to recognize anybody from that night if I ever run into them in Vancouver. I might recognize their voices. The wine Missy brought was the best: a Spanish red wine by Borsao, Campo de Borja. It was like tasting a five act play. Hopefully she'll get to have some someday. We also visited a wonderful couple in Victoria. We made pizza together. The ferry ride to Victoria was beautiful. Did you know that there are giant octopi in those waters? They can get up to 600 lbs! They can be the size of 16 grown men! They change color when they're angry.

The road to Tofino is so curvy that I got a little motion sick near the end of it. Four to five hours of the twisties. We weren't able to get a camping spot or a hotel, so we slept in the car. The next morning, I got to use a public washroom in the park that had a stainless steel toilet seat. That will wake a person up in the morning! We went to Surf Sister and they took us out to a private beach for our surfing lesson. I wondered how many people had peed in my wetsuit. Hopefully none.

Surfing was so much fun! I had never been in the waves of the ocean before. A person needs a lot of upper body strength to surf because you have to push yourself up with your arms to get standing. My arms are skinny. I thought I would be better at surfing than I was, but I still had fun. I will try it again. Jason and I are planning to go for our 8th anniversary next summer. We'll do push-ups for 6 months before, and make reservations to camp, and reservations for the ferry, and bring Gravol. Also, we'll take lessons from Pacific Surf School because they let you use the equipment all day after the lesson. Tofino is now experiencing a water shortage, and restaurants have to close for the long weekend.

For our anniversary on Monday, we went to Milestones on Denman, which overlooks English Bay. We watched the sun set over the water. It was beautiful, pink and orange. We went to see Little Miss Sunshine, a movie we had been wanting to see for a while. (You're terrible, Muriel.) A dysfunctional family takes a long road trip in an old VW. That's an "adventure" we can relate to, unfortunately. The movie was very funny. It reminded me of the dry, awkward, uncomfortable British humour like The Office and Little Britain a little bit. I was giggling quietly at the beginning of the movie because no one in the theatre was laughing. I wanted to yell, "You can laugh, it's funny!" They caught on, eventually.

Last night we went to Granville Island so Jason could by animation supplies for school. I ate at "Indian Comfort Food." I like all of the words in that title. It was so good. Jason's first homework assignment is to bake a cube of Super Sculpty in our oven. Today he learned how to log on and create a new folder on a network (a little elementary for the advanced ninja webmaster that he is). I imagine he will be challenged soon. Yesterday he drew for six hours!

Well, the hunt for piano students and a job continues fruitlessly. I wish I knew how I'll be earning a living here. Hopefully I'll get more calls once school starts.

Friends in Vancouver

Friday night we went to see Snakes on a Plane with Burt and his Chinese gang. It was a good bad movie. Now I have the Cobra Starship (WARNING: Coarse language and general cheesiness) song in my head. Maybe I should dye my hair blond (again).

Saturday we were invited to a BBQ at Kelly and Kim's place. We had a great time talking about TV and movies. Kelly is attending Vancouver Film School and is going to be a director. No small feat. She challenges me to rethink some of my assumptions about how my life will unfold.

My former piano teacher, Willa Meyers, was in town to babysit for her daughter, Chloe Meyers and her husband, Alexander Weimann while they played concerts in Festival Vancouver. I attended on of their concerts, Bach's German Influences, which was for two violins and continuo. Alex's harpsichord solo, the Krieger Passacaglia in D minor, was thrilling! Does anyone fancy a double trill? How about a killer virtuoso left hand passage echoed by the right hand? Biber's Sonata ("Representativa") in A Major was a humorous, virtuosic piece. Most of the movements imitated bird song. The finale, the Goldberg Sonata in C Major, was drop-dead gorgeous. It was one of those moments where the world disappears, and all that remains is beauty and enchantment.

We all entered to win the door prize at intermission which was "a CD." Just before the draw, the festival director announced that the prize would be Alex's most recent CD. Gord Meyers won. Yes, Alex's father-in-law won the CD! Willa passed it on to me, so now I'm the winner.

Everyone went out to the campus pub after the concert. Chloe provided me with a different point of view on teaching in students' homes. She made lasting emotional bonds with the families of her students by being invited into their homes and being a regular part of family life. I had never thought of it that way; I had only seen the negative aspect of being stuck in traffic and wasting time. (I'm a pessimistic optimist.) Now that I don't have a piano at home, I will have to be a traveling teacher, which is apparently huge here in Vancouver. There is also a nice piano studio I can rent for one day a week if I get enough students.

Missy is coming for a visit this week! That is a fantastic incentive for me to unpack more boxes.

P.S. Phone and email are working now.

A good place to die

We had to leave our car in Kamloops to get repaired after it overheated. It was ready to be picked up on Thursday, so we tossed a coin to see who would take the bus to Kamloops. I lost the toss. Twice.

After a long bus ride, I arrived in Kamloops on Friday afternoon. I walked to the shop, which was much farther than it looked on the map, but at least it was all downhill. I got there around 4:40, and Axel took me on a test drive to show me what our "new" 116,000k engine could do. I was impressed. I paid the (huge) bill and drove away. I realized that the radio wasn't working properly, neither was the speedometer or the air conditioning. I took the car back to the shop, but it was 5:15 on a Friday, so the place was deserted. I decided to spend the night in Kamloops because I thought there might be something wrong with the battery or the alternator. The car died in the hotel parking lot (a good place to die).

Saturday morning, Axel looked under the hood and discovered that the alternator had not been hooked up to the battery! He said, "Now that is where the dog was buried." (A German phrase?) That little mistake cost me a night in a hotel and a lot of stress! On the way back home from Kamloops, old problems with the car resurfaced around Hope. We hoped that replacing the engine and distributor would fix that.

The movers wrecked our couch. The legs cannot be attached and it is very dirty. They also scratched the hell out of our hardwood TV stand. We are missing three shelves, one table leg, and a hamper full of some of our favourite clothes. Basically, we paid the moving company a lot of money to lie to us and wreck our stuff.

At least our kitchen has a dishwasher.

Someday I would like to explore the Othello Tunnels near Hope with my husband.

I stepped on my glasses

"Trampled glasses" can be added to the list of things that went wrong/expensive things that broke. One arm got drastically bent. When I took the glasses in to get fixed, the "technician" bent the good arm to match the bad arm! They were later adjusted, but they're wonky now.

We went to Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby last night, and I had a great time. It was very funny movie. It kept me entertained for the entire 105 minutes. No thinking required. Gary Cole was hilarious as Ricky Bobby's dad.

I read an interesting article on Cognitive Daily this morning. There are two audio clips of Ave Maria to listen to. In the second clip, I thought a contemporary composer decided to play around with the familiar melody, and the new harmonies reminded me of Satie's Gymnopedies. I kind of liked it.

Here's something really creepy. Jason thought he was reading a comic book when he read that article (of course, everything you read on the internet is true). If a spontaneously formed neural network of cultured rat neurons were to compose, would the music be bitonal?

Grizzly and Benson

My dad has an American Eskimo dog named Grizzly. No, grizzly bears aren't white, but that's the name of the dog. He's a good dog... for the most part. We had a fight once, so I completely ignored him for a few days, and then he pooped on my bed. I guess he thought that would get my attention.

Now my dad is taking care of his one-year-old stepgrandson, Benson. Grizzly helps. He sleeps under Benson's crib, and checks on him by standing on his hind legs and walking around the crib. Dad didn't need to buy a baby monitor because Grizzly notifies everyone when Benson wakes up. If Dad & Dolores are outside during Benson's afternoon nap, Grizzly will scratch at the patio door once Benson is awake.

Benson is sure cute! He is so fast! He runs around like a little speed demon. He has a cute, crooked eyebrow & he doesn't cry unless something is really wrong. He's a tough kid. He's teething right now, and I saw him touch his cheek and tears welled up in his eyes, but he didn't cry. I am lucky to have two little nephews who are about a month apart in age. They're both cuties! Too bad I moved so far away from them. I'll have to collect air miles like mad!

Benson

Noah

I Hate Moving!

Everyone knows that moving is a stressful event. Our move sucked. I'm sorry to use the vernacular, but it totally sucked!

Things that went WRONG:

• When the movers showed up, they had a totally different contract than the one we had previously agreed upon. I had to fight tooth and nail to get the original agreement. Both the manager of the company and the driver are mad at me.
• We cleaned the apartment from top to bottom like we were "required" to do. Apparently, no one cleans their apartment when they vacate, so we did all of that work for nothing. Terrace Towers has a cleaning lady to do that.
• Our car overheated badly. (So there, Mark.) We had to spend the night in Kamloops and leave the car at the repair shop there. We had to rent a car to get to Vancouver with all of our stuff.
• Shaw hooked up our phone, but they weren't able to actually get it working. We have to make all of our long-distance calls on our cell phones instead of having unlimited long distance on our land line.
  
• Movers should be here today, but I think it's unlikely that they will be on time. They have had 21 complaints through the Better Business Bureau in the past 36 months.

Things that were good:

• Axel (Kamloops VW repair shop) is quite the character. He really cheered us up. He was very helpful and he's going to fix our car using used parts to keep the cost down. We need a new engine and catalytic converter (expensive!).
• We got a deal on the car rental, so it cost us less than two Greyhound bus tickets.
• Our building manager is sympathetic and helpful. She reminds me of my Auntie Bev, so I like her a lot.
• We watched fireworks over English Bay last night. The Czech Republic's fireworks display was choreographed to jazz. (Nice.) Mexico will have their show on Saturday. It's an international fireworks competition right in our new backyard!

I would have liked to post a picture of the sun setting on the beach, but, like most of our stuff, the memory stick adapter is packed away in some box in the mover's truck. Jason took some beautiful pictures.

I guess our building manager summed it up best when she said, "It's terrible that happened, but you're moving to paradise."