doing stuff January 22, 2007

I’ve been taking an unofficial poll of this winter’s windy season.

So far I have heard from close to a dozen people that this is the windiest winter they’ve seen in their 30, 20, 12, or 2 years in Rupert.

If you’re a north coast reader, feel free to add your opinion.  I use the word “opinion” because outside of trained meteorologists, aren’t weather recollections often based on something emotional rather than data-based.

The point to all this is that it is dark and nasty in the great outdoors.  Today I took a long walk and in no time my pants were sticking heavy and cold to my legs.  I was walking very quickly to get to a meeting (which I was already late for), and te house felt like it couldn’t be farther away.

The driving rain was enough to make me curse out loud on top of a particularly exposed hill.

I took shelter temporarily in the library and almost cried.  Seriously.

It took all of the gumption I had to carry on.

I would have taken a taxi had I finally made it to the bank machine to get some cash.

But no, there I was dragging my soppy self to a stranger’s house, half and hour late, and without two copper pennies to rub together.

The point to this story is that despite today’s meltdown at the corner of 6th and McBride, I’m trying new tricks to psychologically deal with dark, windy and rainy days and nights.

I finally enrolled in a yoga class to stretch the sedentary muscles and breathe out the doldrums.

But that’s just the start of my new fitness rigamorole.

Have also been bashing about the squash ball (and I do mean bashing) and cycling my thighs into oblivion at the gym.

And all I can say is it’s about time.

I’m not sure why I was so anxious about getting sweaty and sore.  But I’m glad I’ve finally jumped in rather than spending another weekend procrastinating while also feeling lethargic and increasingly soft.

There’s one incredibly motivating reason for the return to health and hotness: marriage.

I haven’t said “boo” about the upcoming nuptials on this here public diary.  For some reason it seemed cliche?

That’s not to say I haven’t been talking about the big news.  I’ve been gab, gab, gabbing about it non-stop.  Especially in my own noggin.

Here’s the story in a lovely, burnished, nutshell:  My tall, handsome treeplanting man got down on bended knee on our drive back to the Coast.  He asked for my hand as we walked across Tyee Lake in Smithers.  “Walked across” because the lake was frozen over, not because we are apostolic … though Craig could be mistaken for an angel.

So now, as though I’m a character in the Nutcracker Suite, I have visions of sugarplums dancing in my head.  And I also have long bouts of wakefulness as I allow myself to be sucked into the vortex of planning anxiety.

I vacillate wildly between being a surly teenager who doesn’t want to do the homework of making an event like this happen. to a pale shadow of Martha Stewart  thinking I really should get a binder to organize all those crucial details.

One word to the wise: if you think a wedding proposal is in the works, don’t rush to the store and buy a ton of wedding magazines.  Too many of those things at once will make you crazy! Especially when you read stories of a Vancouver couple renting a helicopter equipped with a 500 thousand dollar camera with which to take unobtrusive photographs of the event!

Or that other Vancouver couple who had all of their peonies flown in on a jet the morning of the wedding!

Gadzooks!

But outside of torrential weather and an overdose on wedding magazines, my life is tight, trim and sleepless!

-c

chinook day January 6, 2007

Here’s one heck of a good idea from the decades past: chinook day.

It was proposed 20 years ago as a tongue in cheek holiday.   A long weekend purely for the sake of easing the arduous stretch from Christmas until Easter.

What would Chinook Day celebrate or commemorate?

I don’t know.  Canuck things?

Perhaps more thought needs to be put into it before I get the petition circulating and book my flight to Ottawa to appear before cabinet. But I need a holiday to look forward to!

I feel I ought to January 4, 2007

Miserable weather has beset this land.

The merciless winds have torn sheds apart.  The wind even picked up my friend’s trampoline, hurtling it over the cliffside.

And the  rain.  The rain is the favourite sidekick of these devilish blows.  It only falls horizontally now making a great noise against the window.

Everything is wet and I have to wear my rubber boots more than I’d like.

However!  At this precise moment … seconds before we lose the “sun” for another day … there are three rips of pink along the steel grey horizon!

It’s like the sight of a stained glass window for the spiritually starved.

Hallelujah!

The post-holiday doldrums have me itching to get down to Vancouver.  I imagine it’s similarly grey there, but with so many diversions!

Paper shops, stalls that stack artichokes prettily, the aroma of coffee, crazy people.

And all this longing after such a jolly, good time in PG!

I tell you, my desires never cease.

carolina