more lists

I am home with a cold/flu. More list for you today.
Cold related list.

Phone in to work sick
phone in sick guilt
aches
fever
kleenex
nasal spray
throat losanges
tea
petting the dog
more tea
bad daytime television
noisy neighbour
garbage truck
vaccum
dust
organizing bills
back to sleep
nap until 1pm
stay at home guilt
Advil
melted soy cheese and olive bread sandwich (openface)
vitamin c
green tea
email
sunning myself in the courtyard with a good book
chinese take away for dinner
more sleep.

little houses..on the hillside..little houses made of ticky tacky.....

I went to the calabria bakery the other day on my lunch break to pick up their yummy pizza bread and realized that I was close to the first house Stephen and I lived in when we first got together......so I drove by. Only to find the house gone....and a gardenless stuco palace in it's place. The new owners even went as far as to cement the front yard!! Can you imagine?
(go on outside kids...and play in the street on on the hot concrete...)

"Not another one!" I thought. This is one of the many homes I have lived in that have been wiped off the planet, but not from my memory.

I took a drive around the city at midnight (could not sleep) and disovered that the house on Nanaimo was also gone. As was the house in North Vancouver...WTF!!!!!

Ok, if anybody knows me, you know I live in a very nice place...it has always been this way. Usually a 50's bungalo or 1912 classic a-frame house. Heck, I even purchased a old-timer in calgary and gutted/reno'd it and put in marble, stainless....etc... so why were the homes I lived in being torn down? It is a Vancouver thing?

It actually made me a little sad - and still does as I type this blog.

Stephen and I met in that first house on Victoria an 35th. We lived with another couple....got our first dog there.....planted an amazing garden.......I nearly died in the bedroom with a twisted intestine / ...and now it is gone. gone.


The house we moved into in Edgemont when we first arrived back in Vancouver from 10 years in Calgary is gone......the owner let our lease run out...then removed the 200 foot cedar tree...and tore it down and built a HUGE 2 million dollar home. It was a really nice bungalo on the side of grouse mountain...hardwoods, stainless.... I don't understand it at all.

I fell as though all my memories were wiped out with the house being gone.....
the only thing that is good about it is that they did not put up a wallmart or McDonalds in their place.....

The Letter "V"

Instead of getting all musy and sappy on Valentines day (although I am at my very core a romantic.....) I thought I would make a list of all the words that start with "V" that I like.



Vulgar
Vanity
Vice
Vixen
Vicious
Voracious
Victorious
Victoria
Vancouver
Vexed
Vein
Violet
Vox

Negative / Positive

Hummm.......I seem to be generating a lot of negative ions lately...

Or it may be that time of year.  Everybody seems really defensive, irratable and in just a shit mood these days.

Solution???  We should all just tell eachother to "feck off" and have a good laugh, some wine/pints and be glad that we are young enough, good looking enough, and intersting enough to have friends to tell to feck off.

A friend of mine mentioned positivity the other evening....and I got to thinking.  How do you create a positive environmnet in a town that is soooo cynical and pissy most of the time?

Someone once said to me that if you stood on the sidewalk and cried all day, nobody would pay attention, but if you stood there and smiled all day, you had better belive that they will haul you away sooner rather than later.

He was right.  I have seen it happen.

Maybe I will make a list of good things that happened this week and not even think of all the caca stuff.

 - I got together with my friends on Monday night.

 - I did not get sprayed by the skunk that ran past me and Aspen this morning

-  I finangaled a raise at work

- I was told I "give good voice" over the phone (at work, but I will take what I can get)

- Was sent flowers by somebody - and I don't know who, but they got the flowers right

- new shoeeeesssss!

- Vegan chocolate cake....yummy!

- fresh sheets

- gin and tonic with lime

- meeting up with friends for a pint @ the pub tomorrow night

- olives....sooo many good olives at whole foods...tried lemon stuffed olives..yum.

- my dog woke me up with a cuddle this morning

- Pingu is coming home this week...yay kitty!

suds

Sunday night. What a great night for have a good dinner and kicking back with a good book, or with a good movie. For me, becuase I work at a nine - 5 job, Sunday evenings have always been very busy, and a little sad. Lunches to be made, clothing to be readied, and piles and piles of laundry to be done. I have always wondered what my friends do on a Sunday night..it is the one night of the week when I don't ever see them.

Speaking with friends today, I realized how lucky I am to have insuite laundry. Having a house, it was just a given that you would have a washer/dryer in your home. Always have. Did not realize that washing up on your own was a luxury. I guess that would make Sunday evening rather difficult then.

I was taken out for coffee and lunch by my old boyfriend in Victoria and he took me to Cafe Fantastico...which had a laundry mat attached to it. Really cool. His son's work is featured on the bathroom door - (outer not inside) and there are always really intersting works of art on the walls. This time it was dolls -= really cool juju type dolls. (Is juju a word? well it is now).

The laundrymat is a really cool gathering place - full of people who are hanging out waiting for laundry, reading, drinking realy yummy coffee. there was a real sence of community - not like where I am -= sitting isolated @ home alone . Sunday night. Doing laundry while I blogg.

Maybe I should throw out the machines and move to Victoria... hummmm.....I will have another espresso and ponder this.