Month: December 2005

There’s a show on HGTV that I’ve found myself strangely addicted to. Holmes on Homes is one of those shows that are incredibly helpful with making you educated about not only purchasing a home, but also improving your home. And now, I am totally scared of ever owning a house. I’d like to think that by watching Mike Holmes do his thing, I’m learning something. Still, this addiction that I have for this program can’t teach you everything there is to know about not getting screwed by contractors. There are sick and twisted people in this world that will take you for a ride, no matter how much you think you can trust them.

Then there’s that part of me that wants to be like Mike Holmes. More so, to do the type of work that he does. It just looks fun. Granted that it’s a lot of grueling work, but I’m sure I could learn the trade. However, I made tandoori chicken last night in the oven and now have this blister on the tip of my thumb from where I burned myself while taking the chicken out. When I look at this puss filled bump, I tend to wonder how I’d survive in that business after all the rest of the mishaps and ouch things that I’ve encountered in life. I even get hurt cooking.

Back home, there is nearly four inches of snow on the ground. That’s just over ten centimeters for all you metrics out there. In fact, I’m included in that group now. I’m hardly used to it yet. It’s really strange around here when it comes to snow though. Here on the west end, the climate is vastly different than it is just miles, or kilometers, inland. Now this is easily explained once you understand how close the ocean is in relation to downtown. That huge body of water out there maintains this comfortable, warm cloud of air around the area just around the inlet. Either go up in elevation slightly or head inland, even New Westminster, and there is the unusual amounts of snow that is more common to the area in January or February. It’s pretty when it snows around here, but that just makes the ground wet and doesn’t stick around very long.

The neatest thing did happen to me today on my nearly daily run. Albeit not the smartest thing, it still struck me. Cutting back through Stanley Park, this plump, grey squirrel popped out of nowhere and started bounding towards me. Like most small rodents, I thought it would trail off and move away from me. I had a horrible side ache and was walking at this point, but the squirrel angled towards me instead of away from me. I stopped, couched down, and stuck my hand out. Stupid move, I know, but this was too crazy. I knew it just wanted some food, and its nose touched the index finger on my right hand while checking me out for a snack. That was it. I turned and walked away, and it just turned to the pile of leaves near the walkway and forged for something to eat. I broke back into my stride and went home.

There are certain things in this world that shouldn’t have to be explained. Sharing the sidewalk has to be one of them. This is one overly huge issue I find myself consistently frustrated with while walking the streets of Vancouver. Yes, this is an incredibly friendly city when it comes to walking, biking, and even rollerblading. In fact, I was told that it’s quite common within the city for sidewalks to be constructed where paths have been worn into areas that are covered with grass. That could be city code, a low of some sort, or something I’m completely making up, but I swear I was told this. It’s great. It’s like I’m back in college, walking all over campus to get anywhere and everywhere. When you are a poor college student, that’s what you have to do. These days I seem to prefer walking.

However, when it comes to walking, there is this one issue that pains me to no end. It shouldn’t be that difficult to understand that one should share the sidewalk, no matter how many people are in your group. Some days are worse than others, and certain parts of town are more notorious than others. Regardless, five people walking side by side is a far too common thing to have coming at you as you are walking in the opposite direction. They see you. They make eye contact with you. You are not invisible. You are a living, breathing, walking human being coming right at this group of fellow pedestrians.

They don’t move a budge. They don’t let you go through or make an attempt to be polite by making some space on the sidewalk. They simply don’t share. Sometimes you have no choice but to step off the curb and let this mass of a sidewalk monster go by you. And then, you prepare for the next one, only to let your anger flare and prepare to drop your shoulder the next time it happens.

In a recent podcast that I started picking up on, the idea of what it’s like to be an american living in a foreign country was brought up. It’s a unique topic that requires a lot of careful consideration, and one that treads into territory that I often tend to publicly stray away from. It’s really hard to avoid though. While having dinner with a bunch of locals the other night, a group of them started to discuss the administration back in the states. It’s pretty safe to say that the current administration is less than favorable in this area, if not most of Canada.

The thing that struck me was the way that people apologized to me for saying the things that they were. This isn’t the first time that I’ve run into this either, but it is striking when it does happen. After all, I am from Iowa and I’m used to people bashing the state in which I grew up, but this is different. Granted that is the country of my birth and I harbor no ill feeling towards the place I call home, but this is politics. I come from a country full of dark spots in our history. There’s also a lot of good things too, and I’m not referring to the positive aspects of a capitalistic society. There’s a lot more, and I think probably some of the best of it can still be found in my hometown. At the same time, there’s a lot of bad elements too.

The most beautiful thing about the states is that I can publicly say that I agreed with a lot of the things these people were talking about.

It’s strange to sit here and write this with the sounds of seagulls so prevalent around me. I tend to wonder when this will become white noise to me. Or better yet, how yesterday it was windy, cold, and snowy with everyone buttoned up and staying as close to indoors as they possibly could. The only difference today was that there wasn’t any wind, a tiny bit of snow in the air, and the same temperature as it was yesterday. And yet, people were out in droves during my run this afternoon. Some restaurants even had tables and chairs sitting outside under the heat lamps. Most of that stems from the laws preventing smoking indoors, but that’s not the point.

It was actually quite pleasant out. About half a mile into my run, I realized that I even felt much warmer compared to yesterday, but the temp was exactly the same. Sure, you can blame the wind, but there is also a part of me that wonders about getting adapted to the surroundings. I still have a chill to the bone during the winter, but perhaps my time in Vancouver is finally letting me feel more apart of it rather than being the visitor that I have been. For crying out loud, I’m from Iowa. I can handle being cold. I’m just far from being completely used to the freaking large seagulls that sit in my pathway until I’m just a few feet, from stomping on them during my runs.

I just spoke to my father not very long ago. His voice was low and hoarse, most likely from the tubes they put into his air passages while he was under anesthetic. Luckily, he still has two kidneys. What is gone is the tumor that seemed to be camped out on his left side. The biopsy he had prior to today gave us the understanding that this isn’t anything too serious. The next step is for an examination via pathology. The doctor was quoted as saying that the material he removed looked to be more cyst-like and less of a cancerous make up, but visual diagnosis is far from an exact science until all the results are back.

I was so surprised to hear him on the other end of the line. I’m not all too sure that the conversation will be remembered. You could hear a hint of cloudiness is his sentences, but he was recalling the conversations we had last night. Obviously the drugs that make you completely unaware of doctors slicing you up and cutting chunks of matter out of your body do little in the way to affect the areas in your brain that are responsible for short term memory. For around five hours of being in surgery, that’s pretty damn remarkable.

The Cancuks did win last night. Rebecca didn’t win anything this week. It snowed quite a bit back in Iowa and made the drive down interesting. And for the most part, it’s a pretty nice day in Vancouver. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think he just had a bad cold.