Missing easter bunnies, famous people and yikes, sometimes I dislike my mother

This post is going to be a mish mash of thoughts and goings-on in the past few days, starting with the build-up to easter. Victor and I had this plan to dye real hard boiled eggs for easter to avoid a chocolate binge. Mainly due to the fact that we both have a bit of an issue when chocolate is around and Bella seems to be catching on and being a good little chocoholic in the making. So we boiled some eggs on Friday in anticipation for a dye and decoration job on Saturday. We ended up doing the egg paint/decoration in a mad dash in the morning, then went out looking for an easter bunny for Bella to feast her eyes on. We had planned to go to a breakfast with bunny at our local community centre but found out it was sold out and that the easter bunny apparently wasn't coming anyways. Bella being none the wiser spent time at the playground instead. And Bella pulled out something new from her bag of tricks, she can now climb up to the slide and slide down all by herself. I was in mom awe.

Then Victor and I had a fun conversation on Sunday, we listed all the famous people we've seen in our lives. I reminisced to back in the old days when I used to go out after 9pm (regularly that is). I met Judd Nelson at the Cambie of all places. Judd of the Breakfast Club fame. A friend of mine called him over and he put his hand out to each one of us and said "Nice to meet you, I'm Judd". I really wanted to tell him that I wanted to french kiss him when I was 10 but I'm sure he hears that kind of thing all the time.

I also saw Ice T once while walking with a friend down Seymour. He was standing near a tree, with one of those nylon stockings covering his hair. We noticed that there was a guy to the left of us taking a pee in full view of our leering eyes. Everyone was deer in headlights. My friend, who was very Italian catholic said out loud "santa maria madre de dios" and made the cross sign. Both guys laughed and asked where we were going that night to which we both replied "home". I wasn't entirely positive that it was Ice T but low and behold, we heard that he was in town filming a movie shortly thereafter.

I also saw Hayden Christensen and Joshua Jackson standing on a street corner in London. I had just come out of a shoe store and was walking down a residential street and saw them both before me. I had my camera and thought "why not?" and walked up to them and asked for a picture. I was a bit more ballsy back then. They were both super nice and shared in my enthusiasm about being from Vancouver. They laughed at the fact that I still had a point and shoot film camera. I think I might have left them feeling a bit embarrassed...not by my camera but by my annoying fan-ness.

There are a few others but I think I'll leave it at that. I'm sure you'll really be interested in that fact that I met Mariah Carey's now husband.

Victor's famous people list involved soccer players only so it's not much to relay here.

I wanted to get to the fact that easter dinner was the pits this year. My mom thought it would be funny to be rude to me in front of her friends. She may have even said something which could be translated to "ugh, this girl never cares about anything". She completely disregarded my demand that Bella not eat any more candy. She also ordered my dad around like he's a little pup. He could care less and just goes with it, being almost 66 and used to it after 35 years. I guess I can never show her this blog now since I'm being so blunt but really, she really gets under my super thick skin. Sometimes I want to divorce her from my life but I know how good she is with Bella for the most part. And she is a good person inside, 60% of the time.

I really hope that when Bella is in her thirties, that she will enjoy spending time with me. I plan on doing the complete opposite of what my mother did in raising me and hopefully this will make all the difference.

Smile when you go over the bumps

I'm in the midst of creating a montage (or what my uncle keeps calling a "multimedia extravaganza") for my grandma's memorial. I've been scanning pictures and trying to find just the right music and transition sequence to make things just right. It's tough trying to capture someone's essence in pictures. But my grandma is a good subject because she was so true to her feelings and revealed a lot of herself in pictures, whether good or bad.

My grandma was a writer, painter and photographer without even realizing it. She was so talented but never really pursued her dreams until it was too late.

She always defined her career as the office manager at St. Mary's hospital in Sechelt. When I sat with her the day before her 93rd birthday, she grumbled about how the nursing home staff wanted to interview her regarding her life. She said "I really don't want to bore everyone". Or something to that effect. I ofcourse told her she was being ridiculous, but she just said "I worked at this very hospital...and I'm still here! How interesting is that?"

I can say with extreme certainty that her life was much more interesting than she let on.

Today, I came across this picture that she took:

She was an avid skier and grew up gliding down Hollyburn mountain. She skied until she was in her mid 70's if you can believe it. Her motto was "smile when you go over the bumps". Sort of a metaphor for life.

My grandma wasn't the kind of woman who loved to cook and clean. She was an adventurer. She travelled and met people from all over the world. She wanted to become a journalist when she was younger and was hired at the Vancouver Sun many years ago but turned it down after moving to Williams Lake to follow a man (an artist) she had fallen in love with (this being after she and my grandpa split up).

All her life is chronicled in a manuscript that sits in a trunk in our hallway. She attempted to have it published in her 80's, sending copies to editors and publishers...to no avail. I've yet to read it but have picked through many of her short stories, letters and various diaries that reveal a new layer on every page.

I am so proud to have had such a woman as a grandma and am so glad that she chronicled her life for me to see. Maybe not her intention but priceless nonetheless.

My grandpa and grandma. Speaking a thousand words.

Bummed

My bum feels totally violated. And no, not in that sense. Now let me tell you why:

I was on a packed skytrain on my way home from work and this guy behind me kept pressing his bum up against mine. I kept trying to move forward but he would just move back further. So I start pushing against him and he wouldn't budge. It was like he was enjoying it! This all started just before Main St. station and mine. I really couldn't tell if he was doing it just because he was squished and couldn't move...so as soon as I was able to turn around (I had three massive guys - completely unrelated to the bum guy - standing in front of me...I was essentially blocked in!) and check, I did. And he turned and looked at me so it was super awkward. When I looked back, it clearly looked like he had enough room to at least lean forward to avoid the bum rub. By that time, it was already my stop and I got off. I felt like I should have said something but I felt like I had nothing concrete to say other than "stop touching your bum to mine!".  I felt so violated by the whole exchange that I called Victor right away and told him I was going to shower when I got home! I shivered at the feeling of his bum against mine.

I guess, in our society, we are so used to having our personal space. And even on a packed skytrain, I think most people try their best to avoid completely invading someone else's space i.e. having the important body parts not touching. So it seemed completely obvious that this guy was really trying to invade my personal space and even violate it. I was totally bummed on the skytrain. And now I'm having a glass of wine in hope of that not ever happening again.

Victor, by the way, asked me if I want him to find this guy. Even though I was grossed out, I think it was innocuous enough to avoid my husband giving him the bum's rush :)

My favourite things:

Dew drops on cocktails and tanqueray sippins'. Hmmm...as cheezy as that was, I'm attempting to express my newly recovered joy of actually going out on a Saturday night. I've been out for drinks two weekends in a row and I'm diggin' it. Last night was drinks at Chill Winston, with Biiiictor and a couple of friends. Last weekend was a well-needed girls night (even though an early one!) with Rawbean. I think Linda's getting her groove back.

Other favourite things? Let's bullet this:

• Lazy sundays with good coffee and cute babies.
• A husband that loves to cook and clean up the kitchen.
• Brown paper packages tied up with string (I just had to because, well who doesn't?).
• Warm sun on your back while you read a good book.
• PVR'ed Bethenny, RHOC and Holmes Inspection.
• Breakfasts with eggs and potatoes.
• Walks to the park with crisp wind that settles.
• Watching Bella clap and "yay" the loudest in Sunday gymnastics.

And finally? The fact that all my favourite things are for the most part intangible.

To-do list obsession

I have to admit it. I'm an obsessive to-do list maker. I seem to have a to-do list a hundred pages long on a daily basis. I pepper my day with "I have to make sure I do this..." and "I better get this done today...". I write it all down in my day planner, on my blackberry, on receipts and scattered notebooks. It's "go for a run", "clean the bathroom", "read chapter 3 and finish two assignments", "order flowers for grandma's memorial", "get Bella's teary eye checked out", "buy milk". SEE? I'm so obsessed that I totally just to-do listed on my blog!

You know the truth behind my to-do lists? I never get anything done. I write it down to get it off my mind, then forget about it. My tasks go into the list abyss.

I'm not sure what I can do to fix this. Maybe I just need to do less rather than try to accomplish too much. Maybe I'll actually get things done if I stop loading up.

My mom has started taking a yoga and meditation class everyday and said to me "just breathe and slow down". Even though I rolled my eyes at that, I think that's going to be the first thing on my daily to-do list from now on.

Pig Roasts n' Cuddles

The past few weeks have been those kind of weeks where you write a post and then save it to finish later. Resulting in a backlog of unfinished posts which I have decided to post post-humously (fun pun?). So here goes:

This past weekend, we went to a big pig roast party. And what came out of the whole thing is that I decided to quit eating meat...well, I mean the non pesca variety of meat. So formally, I'm embarking on a new eating adventure which is extremely exciting. And which may also result in a less expensive grocery bill!

But my real point about the pig roast is that day-by-day, Bella just amazes me. She is the happiest, most vibrant little babes. Ofcourse any mother would say that but I am really in awe of her personality beginning to shine. She spent a fair amount of the night in the middle of a huddle of adults and became the entertainment. She danced for us, sang for us, did a lot of "how big is Bella"  and pretended to make tortillas (my mom can take credit for that one), which everyone got a kick out of.

Here she is gettin' super jiggy with it:

This mothering thing just gets better and better every day. And I'm not even complaining about being woken up at 6:30 EVERYDAY OF MY LIFE FOR THE NEXT I DON'T KNOW HOW MANY YEARS.

Truthfully, I would give up any amount of sleeping in for even just a day spent with Bella. Even though I caps'ed that sentence above, it's really not that bad.

Today, I woke up to hear B singing in her crib. I picked her up and we cuddled on the couch for a bit. And something about it just made me feel so darn happy. Cuddles tend to do that.