fatfairies

...the fragrance of Tangelos. For some reason I could sit and smell Tangelos for hours and never tire of the fragrance.

K...This was a FaceBook thing that I was tagged with by a great friend of mine. I'm not one to usually go for meme-type things...but yesterday, while I was waiting for Ron to pick me up, I thought why not? These came very easily and felt somewhat cathartic to get out. So here they are...clean and simple:

25 Things about me that you may or may not know...

1. I get goosebumps When a musical chord resolves.
2. I can't eat citrus without a major fanfare. The pith makes me barf.
3. I remember my dreams.
4. I love the tropics.
5. I love gardening.
6. My baby toe is the size of most people's big toe (thanks Suzanne for bringing feet into the picture)
7. I've had breast cancer and am convinced that the doctor sewed my nipple back on upside-down.
8. I hate clowns.
9. I despise monkeys.
10. I am terrified of basements.
11. I can't sleep in a pitch black room.
12. I still enjoy Saturday morning cartoons whilst eating sugared cereal.
13. I am not afraid of death (despite #14).
14. If I get out of bed in the middle of the night I still freak out that there is 'something' (read:monster) under the bed that will reach out, grab my ankles, pull me under the bed and eat me.
15. I have no fear of turning 40.
16. I hated being a teenager.
17. With the exception of making some great friends, if I could wipe out everything in the 5 years I was at high school I wouldn't hesitate to do so.
18. I love living beside the ocean.
19. I love the sound of crickets and tree frogs at night.
20. I love disco music.
21. I'm not a fan of organized religion.
22. I enjoy making people laugh.
23. I LOVE Bird's English Custard.
24. I love to sing...and especially when the lyrics are naughty...and if they aren't then I love making them naughty.
25. I love having 'moments' when everything aligns and the universe is right. Doesn't happen that often...but when it does it's sure bliss.

If drivers weren't bad enough in this city, cyclists sometimes take the cake. We're heading to work this morning and a cyclist jumps into the center lane in front of my car to avoid the traffic in the curbside HOV lane making a right-hand turn. No signal...nothing. He just swerves into my lane and not to one side either. He pretty much takes up the entire lane. So I pass him and gave him as wide a berth that I could given that there was traffic on my left. We drive a Toyota Matrix...so it's not the widest vehicle on the road to begin with. After 4 lights, the cyclist comes up to me and knocks on my window once I had stopped at the light. He starts to tell me that I should give him far greater space in the future and that I passed him too closely. So I tell him that I gave him a wide berth and that he didn't indicate and he swerved into my lane. He then says that he couldn't signal as he was holding onto his handlebars. He then starts to get all self righteous and go off saying that cars (in general) need to pay closer attention to cyclists and that they have every right to be on the road as other vehicles. I rolled up my window, as the light had turned green, and proceeded on my way...only to see him flipping the bird at me. The interesting thing is that at the next light I watch him dart across traffic (where there was a no turn sign) and start to cycle on the sidewalk.

In an unrelated incident, we were driving off the Granville Bridge the other evening and 2 cyclists were side-by-side in one of the lanes totally holding up regular traffic as they were chatting. Bike couriers...Corporate Express. If you live in Vancouver you know that the Corporate Express bike couriers are the biggest pain in the butt as they will run you down on the sidewalk, swerve all over traffic, dart across lanes, flip the bird at anyone for any reason, and are just plain idiots.

These instances are minor in comparison to watching everyday cyclists breeze through stop signs, never indicate, cycle on sidewalks, not wear helmets, no lights, no bells...and get hostile if you honk at them if they are in the middle of the road and not paying attention. I consider myself to be a relatively patient driver and pay a decent amount of heed to both other vehicles AND cyclists. But at what point should a line in the sand be drawn and have standard road rules apply to cyclists? The City of Vancouver wants dedicated bike lanes on bridges and concessions made so that there are more bicycles on the road and less cars and trucks. Until someone starts enforcing the law towards cyclists I say to hell with them. Abide by the same rules that most of us adhere to and then we'll talk about special lanes and preferential treatment.

To the cyclist brazen enough to engage me in conversation this morning I say to you: "Take the bus. You shouldn't be on the road!"

With all of the snow that Vancouver received over the last couple of weeks, I remain amused that although we had more snow than Ottawa over the same period, we had hummingbirds. That's right HUMMINGBIRDS. We made sure that we kept the feeder free of snow and put a spotlight under the feeder so that the syrup wouldn't freeze. We brought the feeder in each night, and back out again in the morning. Sure enough, we had hummingbird sightings every day...sometimes multiple birds (we counted 4 at once)...but usually one at a time. It's the oddest thing to see hummingbirds in the snow. It's a funny paradox that my brain had a hard time making sense of.

Now it's raining. I really don't mind the rain. I kept my mouth shut about the snow over the holidays with the promise that I wouldn't say anything bad about it until after New Years. Now that it's after New Years...all bets are off. Freaking snow....it can go NOW!

Quite a few people have complained about home owners not shoveling walkways and sidewalks. Although I find it irritating having to clamber over 3' berms of snow here and there...I don't really mind it. Behnsen loves it and to watch him jumping through the snow is always a laugh. We shoveled our sidewalks...and both of our neighbours' sidewalks....multiple times...sometimes multiple times a day. Not an issue as we had the snow shovels to do it and it was a relatively quick thing to do. The relief with the onslaught of rain is at least the people who don't know how to drive (in general...let alone in snow) do a marginally better job in rain...and those of us having to avoid these people can swerve out of their way a bit better when the roads are clear but wet. Interestingly...the people that can't drive (in snow or rain...or in general) are the EXACT SAME PEOPLE who don't shovel their sidewalks. Funny that.

Oh yeah...and I shaved my head. I was complaining about my scalp being itchy and hating my hair in general. I have really fine hair and it feels like I have fiberglass on my scalp most of the time. For the last 14+ years, I was under the belief that I was not to shave my head and that I looked like a Nazi when I did. So I haven't shaved my head in 14+ years. Last week, as I was complaining about my hair and wanting to shave it, Ron asked why I didn't just go and shave my head. Um....because you said I looked like a Nazi? No no...he says...it's only when I shave my head AND and facial hair that I look like a Nazi. Do you mean to tell me that I have been suffering with a painful scalp for the last 14+ years based on a belief that he hated the look? He tells me that it's always been an issue of the combination head and face that he didn't like. Sweet MOTHER OF GOD! Right then.....2 minutes later I have the clippers out and voila! No more hair. I love it!!!!! No more pain...no more itching...I've been able to regulate my body temperature better...sleeping better. Fantastic. My office has been amused with the transformation...but have mentioned that my eyes are so expressive and that's all people see now. My baby blues. Me thinks I shall be hair-free for a while. 14 years! 14 YEARS!!! OIE!

K...What's up with people who have their MP3 players cranked to MegaLoud with ill-fitting earphones thereby forcing everyone to be subjected to their music, knowing full well that everyone can hear what they are listening to as they are looking around (but not catching anyone's eye) and everyone else in the elevator is glaring at them? I suppose it wouldn't be too bad if the music choice was a nice one. But generally it's the thumpy-thumpy screaming stuff...and it's distorted through bad earphones, the wearer's ears and mops of over-processed hair!!!
What I wouldn't give for a large pair of scissors!!!

Hearing someone slowly whistle Jesus Christ Superstar in the stairwell of my office building from what sounded like 20 stories down. Makes for very strange acoustics.

There is nothing worse than bad customer service. Being an avid gardener, I look forward to bulb catalogs arriving in the mail in the early spring, placing my orders, and waiting with anticipation for delivery. So it was with great anticipation that I ordered from Brecks Bulbs this spring. The items that they offered looked fantastic and the prices were reasonable. So in the order went in March. Then I waited.

I waited until at least the end of May to receive my order...longer than most other catalogue places. But I had faith that the order was going to surpass my expectations.

I could not have been more wrong.

Here's the letter that I sent them on June 24:
---------------
Dear Brecks,
It is with great regret that I email you today. Being an avid gardener I was waiting with anticipation for my order to arrive this spring. When it did, I was less than pleased with the quality and size of the plants and bulbs that you sent.

The "Lily Tree Collection" that you so wonderfully advertised in your catalogue, arrived looking like someone had stepped on the bulbs. They were almost flat. The size of the bulbs measured out at only 2" in diameter and I certainly thought that they were going to be larger based on the catalogue pictures and description. However, I planted them as soon as I received them and I hoped for the best. I have to report that as of this afternoon when I didn't see any growth, I dug them up and all 4 had rotted.

The 'Blue Star' Dahlia arrived and it was a single tuber with no growth end. Typically when I buy Dahlias, there are usually 2 or 3 tubers attached to a growing end. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. What I received looked like a tuber had been removed from a clump and placed into a bag with some moss. Again, I planted it and hoped for the best. Sadly, it too didn't make it…although I certainly don't think it had a fighting chance to begin with.

Being an Iris fan, I was also really looking forward to the Irises that I ordered. The Louisiana Iris 'Bold Pretender' arrived looking like a mangled collection of dead leaves. I have certainly seen Irises come that way before, so I wasn't too concerned when I planted it as the tuber felt relatively firm. There wasn't a stitch of green to be seen, and hindsight being 20/20, that should have been a clue that I was going to be disappointed yet again. True to form, there has been no growth to date, no green has appeared, and no new roots have made an appearance. I think it's safe to say that it too has died. The Iris 'Rikugi Sakura', on the other hand, did have a bit of green and has since produced a rather week leaf. But I am not giving up on it and have hopes that it will survive. It's worth mentioning however, that the size of the tuber was close to being the smallest that I have ever seen for an Iris. Had I seen it in a garden shop I certainly wouldn't have bought it and would have chosen something a little more healthy.

On the subject of plants that did survive, I can safely say that the Amethyst Astilbe has made it and is doing fine. Although you will have to forgive me when I say that I am concerned that the colour will not be the amethyst that I saw in the catalogue. But it hasn't flowered yet, so it too gets the benefit of the doubt.

The largest disappointment was with the Phlox that I ordered. I have never, in my considerable years of gardening, seen such small, mangled and unhealthy divisions. Both the 'Tenor' and the 'Blue Boy' were no bigger than a Loonie and arrived in a wet bag of moss and were entirely black. There were no growing parts and no healthy roots to be seen on either one of the two of each types I ordered. I did plant them into small pots and gave trying to grow them a try, but the completely rotted away in a matter of a single week. When I checked this morning there was nothing left in the pots other than soil.

To say that I am disappointed would be an understatement. I honestly had high hopes that the order that I placed with you would have produced plants and bulbs that were of a caliber an order of magnitude better than what I received.

I am saddened that this is the first time I have ever asked for a refund on a plant order. So it is with a heavy heart I kindly ask that my order be refunded. If you must subtract the price of the Astilbe and the one Iris I will understand. My order number was XXXXXXXXRAP. My address information is as follows:

(Blah blah blah)

I sincerely apologize for having to send this note to you and I hope that this matter is investigated on your end as my thoughts are that your quality control took a holiday on the day my order was processed.

Sincerely,

(Signature)

---------------

This was sent via regular post as well as email. I figured that someone would look at it and deal with it accordingly.

Again....couldn't have been more wrong.

It's now August 23rd and I have heard nary a word. Nothing. Zip. Nadda. So I decide to give them a call. They have an 800 number and I had the time. So armed with my invoice in hand I dial the number.

Brecks: Brecks Bulbs
Me: Good morning. Could I speak with someone in customer service?
Brecks: What can I help you with?
Me: The order that I recieved in May was somewhat unsatisfactory. I sent a letter and an email on June 24th and I haven't heard back from your organization.
Brecks (sounding terse): What's your invoice number?
Me: I take it that's the number in the top right hand corner of the pink slip? (It's just a floating number on the page)
Brecks (sounding annoyed): The number beneath where it says invoice number.
Me (choosing not to loose my patience): XXXXXXXX
Brecks: We haven't received a letter from you.
Me: Well it was sent via both email and regular post on June 24.
Brecks (sounding increasingly annoyed): Well we didn't get it. What was wrong with the order?
Me: Nothing grew from what you sent.
Brecks: What do you mean "nothing grew"?
Me: Nothing grew. The lily tree collection looked like someone stepped on it, the Phlox was dead on arrival, the Irises......
Brecks (cutting me off mid sentence): Why didn't you call us?
Me: I assumed that when it says in all of your material that one can contact you via post, email or phone call...that 2 out of the three would have resulted in something happening.
Brecks (sounding really annoyed): Well you should have called. What do you want us to do.
Me (Tired of being treated like crap over the phone): Just refund the order please.
Brecks: Fine. We'll refund you the order minus the shipping cost.

Then he hung up on me.

So...a word to the wise. Do NOT order from Brecks Bulbs. Their inventory is beneath sub-standard and their customer service is beyond pathetic. My Mother in Ontario had an almost exact experience with them and has also vowed never to deal with them again.

I won't hazard a guess to say what their problem is...but you would have thought that being in the gardening business would have instilled a bit of patience, humility, humor and charm. Most gardeners come by these characteristics after spending a bit of time in their gardens. Clearly Brecks Bulbs didn't go down that garden path...as it were.

Now...if you are into ordering bulbs and the like for your garden and you are looking for a great company to order from...go with Botanus (http://www.botanus.com/). Fantastic company. Their catalogs are a treat for the eyes, their stock is EXACTLY how it's described...or better, their prices are really, really good, the orders arrive with plenty of time for the plants to get established and bloom, and my contact with them always leaves me with a smile. They know how do do the whole bulb catalogue/online sales/customer service thing RIGHT.

Brecks Bulbs...you could learn a thing or two (or a thousand) from them. Take my advice: If you are that miserable doing what you do...do something else. Clearly being in the industry you are in isn't doing you any favors.

Three little letters that (for the most part) annoy me terribly. BMI, for those not in the know, stand for Body Mass Index. In my opinion this is the bullshit scale for measuring one's fat ratio based on measured weight and a person's height. It doesn't take large bones into account and would happily have me at 170 lbs in order to register as "healthy".

In the early 90's I tried to lose weight and I'm not particularly proud of the methods that I employed. During this time the lowest weight that I attained was 180 lbs. At that weight you could easily count my ribs, I had a concave cavity where my stomach was, my hips jutted out and you could clearly see the bones, and I had to sit on a pillow as I had literally no fat on my butt and it hurt to sit down. I could easily fit into a 28" pant and a medium sized shirt. At 5'10.5", 180 lbs made me look gaunt and unwell. Granted that had there been some muscle tone involved in the process of losing weight, I'm certain that I wouldn't have looked as badly as I did. Nonetheless, I weighed 180 lbs which, according to the BMI, still had me at "slightly overweight". I honestly don't think that I could weigh 170.

Flash forward...

Last Christmas I made the mistake of stepping on the bathroom scales and having a little melt down. I weighed 338 lbs. 338!!!!!!! Now I could go on about the reasons why there was a significant weight gain over the last couple of years...but at the root of it all is that I over eat. Here's the funny thing in all of this. I've been a vegan for the last 6 years...and a gluten-free one at that. One would have thought that with the cutting out of red meat and wheat, oats, barely and other glutenous items that weight loss would have been easy. Sadly this wasn't the case. Given that I am not the biggest exerciser in the world (alright I really don't exercise at all) and that if you aren't careful a vegan diet is so carb-heavy it isn't funny, weight gain is an inevitability.

The weight gain was a steady one. I didn't pack it all on at once. A few pounds here and there (more here than there) and no concrete way to lose. So it came on quite unnoticed. To be fair, being diagnosed with Celiacs, compounded with the desire to become vegan, makes the choice of food an experiment at best. Luckily, Celiacs has become more widely known and there are new products that come out all the time. Sadly, they too are carb heavy, albeit delicious. So when premium gluten-free soy ice cream made it's debut, you would find me quite happily downing an entire carton in one sitting. Don't get me started about the lemon wafer cookies.

So the Christmas freak-out got me thinking. It was time to lose some weight. I did a rather exhaustive search on methods and techniques. Some were extraordinarily expensive, some cheap, some hard, some easy. I ran the gamut from weight loss surgery, to joining a gym, to trying the blood-type diet, to pills. In the end, I listened to my conscious. I'm not motivated by others and I abhor the thought of working out in a gym or being yelled at by a trainer. If I had any chance of success I would need to do this by myself, for myself.

In my search I saw quite a few sites that promoted the counting of calories. I thought that it would be a good start in my attempt by getting a gauge of what I was consuming. That way, I thought, I would have a better understanding of how much I was eating and what the overall caloric intake was. So I searched a little more and came across a calorie counting site that not only helped you to count calories, but enabled you to input your physical effort for the day and end up with a good idea of what the balance was in terms of what you consumed balanced with what energy you output. For those interested, the site is Calorie Count (http://caloriecount.about.com/).

Every day I would enter in what I ate and what I did physically, and would end up with a letter grade for the day. Day after day I entered in my numbers and I started to get a good picture of what I was consuming. I then started to fiddle with the numbers in terms of eating a little less of one thing or another and seeing what the overall result would be. The numbers moved all over the place. I personally found this rather interesting. Then I started to substitute some of the regular food that made up my diet with other choices. Again, the numbers fluctuated. Although this may sound trite, I never made the connection between calories and weight. I always made the assumption that it was the weight of the food that affected your weight. So if you ate heavy things you would gain weight. So a tub of ice cream, when melted, didn't weigh as much as, say, a whackload of vegetables. That was my initial reasoning. It occurred to me that calories were like BBQ briquettes. One or two wouldn't sustain a fire for long, that you needed a bunch of them to cook anything. But that the tub of ice cream was the equivalent of 30 briquettes and a whackload of vegetables was the equivalent of 5 briquettes. The analogy continues in that your body can't use all 30 briquettes at once and what it doesn't use it stores. It started to make sense. A whackload of vegetables filled me up for longer than the tub of ice cream. So I substituted one for the other. The end result was that I started to lose weight.

Every day made for more decisions. Do I have the sushi...or the salad. Do I have the chocolate or 5 apples. Going with the apples meant that I only ate 1 and it filled my craving quite nicely...for way less calories.

Admittedly it's been a long slog, but I'm proud of myself in that I've kept up my calorie counting since December and I haven't stopped. For the most part it's been relatively easy going. There have been the times that I don't count the occasional piece of chocolate...but I'm totally fine with that. The other, more visible results, have been even easier to deal with. I'm down to 254 lbs (loss of 84 lbs) and I haven't starved myself in the process. I have another 30 lbs to go and I'm hoping that I'll reach that goal by this Christmas.

This post was titled BMI for a reason.

This morning, for a lark, I thought I would see what my BMI was. As I've mentioned, I don't place too much importance on this rating scale. Given that when I first started to log my calories the site automatically gives you a BMI and it was QUITE disheartening to see that I was rated as MORBIDLY OBESE. At the time I shook my head and rolled my eyes. I never saw myself as being morbidly obese. Overweight yes...morbidly obese....no. However, I didn't let that stop me from starting down this little path of weight loss enlightenment. This morning's revelation was that the BMI calculator showed that I was no longer morbidly obese...I was simply "severely overweight". And really, I couldn't be more pleased.

Now...where's that chocolate?

Man I’m annoyed with the City of Vancouver Dog Pound…as well as the BC SPCA! Seriously annoyed.

Here’s the deal…

Last night when we got home, leashed B up for his walk, and started to head down the street, out of a hedge pops out an unleashed Pomeranian. We rounded the corner of our street to see where the owners of this dog were only to find that there was nobody around. It was then made clear that this little guy was on his own, probably escaped from a backyard or had made an escape unnoticed through a door. We remember seeing a couple walking a Pomeranian around the neighbourhood, but we couldn’t think of where this couple lived, or even if this was this dog. Ron picks the little guy up to see if he had a tag but he only had a collar. We knocked on our neighbour’s door to see if they knew where this dog had come from and they had no idea. We borrowed a leash from them and set out to knock on a few doors to see if we could find the owners or, at the very least, someone who might know where he lived. After knocking on several doors and coming up empty handed we were left with no other option than to call the city pound and/or the BC SPCA.

We looked up the BC SPCA number and called them first only to be told in the recording that they were only open until 5:30 and to call the city pound. Not particularly helpful…but then again I wasn’t expecting much. Remind me to write about how I feel about the SPCA in Vancouver and what I think of their employees. Just a hint….disgusted is the most often term I use. But I digress.
So we look up the number for the city pound and give them a call. The phone rings once and immediately goes to a message saying that all the operators are busy and to wait for the next available operator. Fine…standard practice. We took this opportunity to check for a tattoo and feel around for a microchip, more to satisfy our curiosity other than anything else. The poor guy was getting a little anxious and barking up a storm. We gave him some water and a piece or two of kibble, which he greedily ate, but didn’t stop barking. I thought that the barking might be a good thing as it might be heard by his frantically looking parents and alert them to his location. We stay outside with him while we’re on the phone in case his parents are searching the neighbourhood. If it was my dog I would be FRANTIC and looking everywhere. Given that it was a Pomeranian, we figured that he didn’t travel too far. This was clearly a loved pet and member of someone’s family. He was groomed and had his nails trimmed not too long ago. He also hadn’t been fixed…which is a personal annoyance of mine as I find unfixed male dogs to be aggressively dominant…even the smaller dogs. We had to put B inside as he was starting to get molested by the little ball of fluff.

So on the phone we wait….and wait….and wait….and wait….and wait…….

20 minutes…

30 minutes…

40 minutes…

I grabbed a cell phone and called the number to see if perhaps our other call might have fallen into a waiting line limbo. Nope. Same message and holding pattern. I went onto the city website and looked for an alternate number. I couldn’t see anything but I found an email address and wrote a short note in the hopes that someone would be online and might read the email before the call was answered.

50 minutes…

1 hour…

1 hour 10 minutes…

We decided that it would be faster to drive the dog across town instead of waiting for the call to be answered. So Ron puts the dog into the truck and heads off to the pound. The website said that they were open and taking calls until 11pm…so we figured that at least someone would be there to receive this dog. The alternative would have been to simply let the dog go and wipe our hands of the situation. However, we are pet and animal lovers and always default to the philosophy of “If it was my missing pet, what would I want to have had done?”

1 hour 20 minutes…

1 hour 30 minutes. I hang up the phone in disgust.

Ron calls me 25 minutes later saying that he’s dropped the dog off at the pound and was not at all impressed. Apparently there were several pound employees milling about the office chatting with each other. Not a single person was on the phone. While he was there, one of the employees took a personal call lasting 5 minutes. But that was it. The parking stalls had the enforcement vehicles parked in them and overall appearances had the place not looking busy at all.
Given that I had sent an email, I thought that perhaps I would have received a reply or a call during the time the email was sent. Nope. Nothing. As of this morning there was still no reply to my email and no call from them.

This is what licensing fees go towards. It pays for people to stand around and chit chat. It pays for people to do nothing. It certainly doesn’t cover people to be on the phone taking calls. It does pay for the line on their website indicating that there is a higher than normal amount of lost or missing dogs. But it doesn’t cover the rational that if there is a higher than normal amount of missing or lost dogs, that they should have more people working to aid in the overflow.

My annoyance is not just leveled at the city pound either. It’s leveled towards the owners of this poor lost dog that, from my perspective, didn’t do a thing to look for a missing family member. We talked with 15-20 people and knocked on just as many doors to try to locate the owners. Being outside with a barking dog for over an hour should have gained some attention and perhaps have the effect of being heard by franticly searching parents. Nope.

So to the City of Vancouver Dog Pound I say this: Try doing some work. Try picking up the phone. Try reading some work-related emails. You failed us last night. You are now in the same category as the BC SPCA and I will refer to your services as I do with the SPCA. I am disgusted.

To the City of Vancouver I say this: Your difficult to navigate through, and poorly constructed website is down. It has been for well over 2 hours. Maybe the site is run by employees that staff the city pound. God only knows when it’ll be back up again.

Disgusted and annoyed.

...but I just noticed that I remove stickers from apples and put them on my fingernails like Lee Press-Ons. And I don't think this is an isolated incident either.
K....FUN!

So....
As I'm standing outside of the Choices Market with Behnsen waiting for Ron, who was inside picking a few things up for dinner, a woman and her son exit the market and head off to their vehicle. The little boy couldn't have been any older than about 5 with fiery red hair and a great big smile. As they walk towards Behnsen and I, the following occurs:

Little Boy: (exclaiming loudly) OH.........MY...........GOD!!!!!!!! Mummy...look at the Sheepdog!
Mother: (glancing over at Behnsen)Come on. We don't like dogs.
Little Boy: YOU may not like dogs...but I sure do!
Little Boy: (looking straight at me) She's crazy! (...and rolls his eyes)

The two of them keep walking by with the boy looking back at Behnsen with a HUGE smile on his face.

I almost died laughing. I couldn't believe how articulate this little boy was. His comedic timing was perfect and his delivery was sublime. The mother was one of those rushed, fake leopard print jacket wearing types with over-processed fake blond hair, big earings and the wrong colored lipstick. They drove off in a BMW SUV.

So very amusing!

As we drove home yesterday evening, there is a stretch of Angus between 33rd and 41st that normally has a number of cars parked on both sides of the street. Often this will lead to some form of congestion. Typically, though, most drivers observe the right of way and will wait patiently for the person driving through before proceeding themselves. Then there are the times that one will be driving through and someone in the opposite direction doesn't let you through the congested area before proceeding themselves. This can sometimes make for a harrowing experience with the fear that some part of the vehicle you're driving will connect with the other vehicle. This type of thing tends to happen quite a bit, but for the most part one continues on and just shakes ones head in disbelief.

Last night, as we were driving through this congested area, a silver Toyota Tercel screams towards us without waiting and tries to make it's way through beside us and the parked cars. This really annoyed me so I honked at the other vehicle, as if to say "You idiot! I had the right of way!". So we continue on to 41st to wait to cross and I look out of the rear view mirror to see the Tercel backing up, making a turn and come screaming up behind us with the horn blaring. I see that it's a woman in her late 50's with the look of fury on her face. She's motioning all over the place with her hands and I roll down the window to hear what she has to say. Keep in mind that we were both in our vehicles and remained so. I can hear her screaming using a tone of someone who is about to lose the plot. She's screaming "You had lots of room ASS**LE!", "DON'T F**KING HONK AT ME!!!", "YOU F**KING ASS**LE!!!", "F**K F**K F**K F**K F**K F**K!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" and more. The tone and pitch of her voice kept escalating to an almost fevered pitch. I leaned out of the car and said "Learn about the right of way Lady!" and she pulls up beside us on the passengers side and I can still hear her screaming at the top of her lungs. Ron rolls down his window and yells something along the lines of "Are you CRAZY?" and I see a clearing in traffic so I proceed through the intersection and I watch her take of down 41st still screaming.

Interestingly this isn't the first time with this particular driver on this stretch of road. Late last year the same thing happened just before 33rd and Angus and again I honked at the oncoming vehicle. We came to the stop sign at 33rd and I could see the other vehicle speeding up behind us in reverse. I didn't bother waiting and as the way was clear, I continued on. I could swear it was the same driver.

This all really rattled me. I know I wasn't in the wrong. I didn't go off on her, and yet here she was screaming obscenities at me/us at the top of her lungs for an infraction that was of her making. Thinking about it now, I honestly think that there is something mentally wrong with this woman and given what just happened in Langley with road rage, I hope that she doesn't go off on the wrong person and ends up being a statistic. The added disbelief is that we are in a full sized truck, we are two large, burly men with a big dog in the backseat with his head hanging out of the window. She was driving a small Tercel, by herself and she's going to come after us and confront us for something that she was in the wrong for? That's unbelievably stupid if you ask me. Had we been anyone else, I doubt that she would have come out of this altercation unscathed.

You'll bet that I'll be keeping my eyes open for her from now on and I'll take down her license plate to forward on to the police. She shouldn't be operating a vehicle in her state of mind...or lack thereof.

Given the driving that I have done in my life, I can honestly say that Vancouver has some of the worst drivers and driving habits in any city that I've driven in. It's even scary to be a pedestrian in this city without having the thought that someone is going to drive up onto the sidewalk and hit you...controlled or uncontrolled. It's one of the reasons why I don't cycle, and it's one of the reasons why I feel that Vancouver routinely shows it's ugly side.

To that woman driving the Tercel, I hope you have enough common sense not to drive like an idiot in my vicinity. I can promise that it won't get ugly, but that I will do everything in my power to make sure that the authorities are involved and that your irrational, poorly-judged behavior is removed from our streets.

We made a trip to VanDusen (all of a 5 minute drive) on Sunday before the rain and the cold. It was lovely to walk around as there were hardly any people about and spring really has started up. We took a bunch of pics which you can see here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/59055961@N00/, that is, if you are so inclined.
Just a few degrees warmer and I'll be starting to put Dahlias into the ground. Yay!

We keep driving by my favorite corner in the spring without our camera. But we remembered to put it into the truck yesterday and we were finally able to stop and take some pics of the crazy crucus lawn. I tip my hat to whoever spent the time putting all of these bulbs in. The task must have been back breaking...but the results are fantastic. There were several other people who had stopped with their cameras.
Click on 'em to make 'em bigger.
            

I honestly think this is one of the nicest street corners in Vancouver in the spring. Lovely.

The latest thought that I am trying to wrap my head around is this:

Why am I only happy with an absolute outcome when I think in shades of gray?

I was thinking about this the other day and it was really a light bulb moment for me. When in a conversation/situation that affects me, I only seem to be happy when there is an absolute outcome. It's either right or wrong. Black or white. Yet, when I think about things and apply some form of reasoning to a question or situation, I always think in varying shades of gray and am not happy when there is only an absolute solution that can be applied. In general conversations, I always take note of all sides and usually add them into a conversation so that most of the topical angles are covered. However, when a situation applies to me specifically, I am annoyed to no end when there isn't a concise and definitive answer or solution. It doesn't usually matter if the outcome is positive or negative. It just has to be one way or the other and not nebulous. My hopes in trying to reason this out is that I want to be able to let things go (mentally) and not bottle emotions or over think conversations/situations and get myself all worked up. I tend to "dwell" and relive and rethink them over and over again, usually to my own detriment. As my Brother and Sister are fond of saying, I neither forgive nor forget. I've always hated that label, mostly because it's true and I wish it weren't so.

This one really has me thinking.

Just wanted to share.

Although Vancouver has resident Robins, it tends to be a true sign of Spring when they start to sing like crazy. This morning was the first time this year that I heard the familiar sounds of a Robin at 7am. Add to that the crocuses (not crocci according to Wikipedia) and the snowdrops and me thinks Spring is here.
Yay!

It really only takes a moment in warmer than freezing weather, to make me want to be back out in the garden planting stuff and generally getting my hands dirty. Given that it's only the first week in February, things are already starting to poke out of the ground. The Winter Aconite is almost an inch out, the Sarcococca is in full bloom and making our front entrance a delight to walk through, the white Forsythia is in bud and should be blooming soon, the Camellias are in bud and Snowdrops dot the garden. We lucked out snow-wise in that we really didn't get any at all. Our neighbourhood is green. Had we still been in Coquitlam, we'd be up to our armpits in snow. We've already made stops at the garden stores...and not come out empty handed.
Spring...don't forsake me and change your mind about arriving early.

The whole sneezing, alternating runny nose/congestion, headache in your teeth thing is so unpleasant. Please make it go away NOW!!!!
Thanks.

To the driver of the white Dodge Caravan, BC license plate 408 ANS, you, sir, are a complete and utter fucktard that has no business being on the road. I am not one to drop to a level that would make anger management therapists cry, but seriously you drive like an asshole. The only thing preventing me from falling to a level that I don't want to be on, is that it's 8:32 in the morning and I have the whole day in front of me. What is getting me by, is the thought of you tied to a train track with an oncomming train in site, a crate of lit dynamite firmly lodged up your ass where it can't be removed, and being used as target practice for novice sword and chainsaw jugglers. Driving an inch away from my bumper, trying to swerve around me in an intersection more than 5 times in 5 separate intersections, trying to drive down the parking lane to get around the other 500 people who are going in the same direction, running 3 yellows and 3 reds only to end up an inch away from my bumper for 20 solid minutes of what I can only describe as "fun" (as it's snowed last night and what with the standard lack of driving skills in Vancouver to begin with, traffic was on the slow and cautious side).
I really hope you have a swell day and that you don't have your tires slashed, your windows smashed in and a series of expletives carved in the bodywork with terms that would make even the most well seasoned teacher cry...as I know where you parked. Thank you for raising my blood pressure and giving me a headache so early in the morning.
ASS!