Dear Sarah,

Stuart McLean asked me to drop you a line on his behalf to thank you for your letter and for your submission to the Vinyl Café Story Exchange. He was glad to hear that you enjoyed your first live Vinyl Café concert and tickled pink that you came to find him at the stage door. He's pretty confident that the police cruisers that you saw were not there to manage rowdy hoards of Vinyl Café fans...but you never know! By the way, Robert Munsch happens to be a friend of Stuart's too. I thought you might be interested to know that.

Thanks for the story about your dad. That is indeed inspiring. As you can imagine, we receive thousands of submissions for the story exchange so we can't guarantee that they will be read on air, but if we do decide to read yours we promise to let you know in advance.

All the best for the New Year.
Regards,
Louise Curtis
The Vinyl Café

I got that letter in the mail today, totally unexpected! What I didn't write about in my Holiday re-cap was that in late November I went to see the Vinyl Café live. It was a great show, and perfect for the Holidays. I won't go into much detail about how nerdy I was afterwards, but I did try to see him at the stage door (fail. There were two cop cars hanging out right in front of the door in the alley, and I didn't want to stand there like an idiot.), but I was inspired enough to write him a letter for their Story Exchange, and amongst other things, I wrote to him about how awesome I think it is that my dad started snowboarding at age 52, and has been pretty hardcore about it ever since (he's 60 now, and I'm pretty damn proud about it!)

It was a really nice thing to come home to - that letter. It was all personalized and everything. They actually read the story...and then replied uniquely! That's better than Santa Claus!

In other news - I'm going to make my first lasagne (from scratch - thanks mom) today, and I walked down Main street, where I purchased yarn for a friend's custom knitting order, and (something similar to) this:

It's a moustache cup! The insert at the top of the cup is to make sure that your moustache doesn't get full of tea! I bought it at a little antique shop on Main that also featured a "museum" of pictures, masks and oddities from the south pacific islands! A little quirky, but that's the way I roll.

Wedding Website

Me and M in Amsterdam in 2009

M was kind enough to create our wedding website a few weeks ago. He did most of the work (including adding the photos, and much of the colourful descriptions) and I'm very proud of it!

take a peek, if you like!

The (start of the) Update

Well hello there!

Long time no see!

So, where should I start? Though I haven't been blogging much, I've been journalling with some frequency. I'll have an account of many of my adventures within the last month or so.

December 2: waited outside of the CBC builing for three hours waiting for rush seats to see a taping of Jian Gomeshi's show "Q." And it was cold. But the company was pretty good! The show was plenty of fun, and Sarah MacLachlan was one of the guests. She played a couple of songs, including Adia. Musical Guest also was a great Vancouver band called Black Mountain After the show, I waited in the lobby with a few dozen other fans for the Jian meet-and-greet. Attempting to avoid the rush, I waited until most people had left to approach, and it turned out that I was the last person to meet Jian. I passed him my journal to sign in, and he mentioned that he loves writing in peoples' journals. cool. His inscription was:

dear Sarah Ball...
by hook or by crook
i ended up in your book.
Thank you for afforing me a spot.
Here's to wishing you magical days
Yours, Jian

And then by luck, I got to ride the elevator with Jian!

me and Jian in the elevator

I told my parents about the visit with Jian, and the elevator ride, my dad told me "you've got a knack for riding in elevators with CBC personalities! Do you remember riding the elevator at CBC Toronto with Wayne Rostad?" No, I actually didn't remember...until I spent some time jogging my memory from 15 years ago...Wayne hosted a show on CBC for 20 years called On the Road Again.

Wayne Rostad, mid-1990's

December 3rd: Went to the CBC Vancouver open house and food bank day. Swung by the CBC for a tour, and some more meet-and-greets!

I (very briefly) met George Strombolopoulos!



I missed pressing the "record" button on my phone, but before the video starts, the conversation went like this:

Sarah(from across a room while George was about to leave): George! Tell my mom "I love you!"
George crosses tent towards me
George: Hi mom! Where are you? Where are you? I miss you...
Sarah: She's in Kamloops...
video starts
George: In Kamloops? Oh no! I did a show there a while ago and I missed you? I'm sorry I missed you!
George blows my mom a kiss
Sarah has her day made. Awesome.

And then a few hours later, I met Peter Mansbridge, who apparently isnt' all that tech savy despite being Peter Mansbridge. I wrote his "teleprompt" for him (Merry Christmas J & S [my parents]) to say into my cameraphone, but somehow the video came out like this:




December 10th: my friends and I celebrated our friend C's birthday a week late. We made up for forgetting his birthday when I made him this cake:

(I know. It's effing awesome. And it was delicious.)

December 17th: Left Vancouver to drive to 108Mile House for a friend's wedding on the Greyhound bus. The trip was brutal because I'd been up till 3am the night before in an attempt to finish sewing my party dress for the occasion. I had a small mental breakdown because the silk was just not working for me, and I'd gotten into a rut where absolutely every seam I sewed had a mistake. Thankfully, M helped me out, and sewed the sash for me. Nice guy!

The wedding in 108n Mile house was held at The Hills Health Ranch. On a scale of 1-10, I'd give this place a 7. The setting was beautiful, the cabin we'd rented was cute and comfortable (and twice the size of our apartment), the Nordic Skiing was delicious, and the massage was heavenly, but the food was just o.k for the price we were paying, and I came down with Norwalk on the day we were leaving. I suppose the Norwalk thing wasn't their fault, but another wedding guest had come down with it two days earlier at the resort, and I wasn't happy with the ranch's response (essentially telling the girl that she couldn't cancel her spa appointments because nobody else was sick, and inferring that perhaps she was just hungover). And when I was sick too, I had M tell the front desk, but I severe doubts that the housekeeping staff would do anything different in their usual cleaning routine, despite the fact that I'm sure my Norwalk-y germs were all over everything in that cabin.

The wedding itself was plenty of fun. Pretty low-key and was fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants. But I liked it because it was proof that you don't have to micro-manage everything in order to throw a great party! Somehow, the lady bartender allowed one of the wedding guests ( a bartender in Kamloops) behind the bar, and few people had to pay for drinks at all! Even when someone threw down $30 for shots to the lady bartender, she poured 15 shots! Lots of people got crazy drunk. I didn't...which was probably a good idea, because the next morning was the morning I got sick. I won't go into that much because many of you are probably snacking while reading this (really long) blog post and I don't want to ruin your appetite.

That's about all the blog I've got in me for now. I've got plenty more to write about, but my friends are starting to feel like I'm ignoring them...Me and Sami Salo of the Vancouver Canucks. A bunch of the canucks visited the Children's Hospital where I work in mid December. I asked if Sami would pose as The Hulk, and then demo'd what I wanted, and instead he gave me this. Yeesh. I look meaner than he does in this picture....

inneresting...

Thought you'd like to know...

Since the start of my blog, I've have 1,017 page views (cool!). I've had just over 600 page views from Canadians (as expected), and over 200 views from Americans (not expected!) Who are these Americans scouring my idle musings? That's one quarter of my readers! There are also apparently a few people in Latvia and South America who've stumbled upon me...

Inneresting!

New Post

This post is just to let you know that I'm horribly sorry for not posting. I'm working nights this week, so I'll get you all nice and caught up on all of myadventures since November...

Happy New year!

"I Hope You Die and Get Raped in an Alley"

Sage words from a man I'd refused to buy an umbrella from "so [he] can buy some food since [his] stomach aches so bad coz [he hasn't] eaten and nobody cares" for $1.

I'd declined him politely, jokingly saying that I've already got an umbrella in my bag with me, but as I continued walking through an intersecation, I could hear him grumbling to himself before asking another unsuspecting couple. We ended up walking the same direction for about a block, at which time he unloaded the precious gem I wrote for a blog title today.

I generally do that kind of thing when homeless and street people ask me for money; smile and politely decline. I haven't got to the point yet where I'm jaded to them so I try to make myself feel better for not sharing my wealth by remembering that I'm a nurse who works with mental health kids and that I'm already doing my part to help vulnerable people. And the homeless people generally reply with the same smile-and-nod-but-try-to-make-you-feel-guilty-about-it look.

So I had a moment when he fired a pseudo-curse back at me. I thought "Well, jeeze. That wasn't a nice thing to say. Plus now I feel less comfortable walking around downtown alone tonight" (which is what I was doing). And then I realized that I'd hit the "no" wall. I'd told this guy NO. I meant it. And he got mad. AND his reply was certainly not one that was going to make me then want to give him something. I resolved that he was angry because he needs money not for food but for a fix of some sort and he's cranky because he's overdue. But it certainbly made me feel better about getting a bad response after I told someone no. Yay me! I'm still learning that trick. People can't always be told yes, so I can't expect that they're always going to be o.k. with being told no. And it's probably not personal. I just might get asked to Die.

Should I be ok with that?

Gosh, It's Nice Outside

Bonjour neige! Comment allez-vous? Je vous ai manque!

Snow just always feels more French. Something about snow hotels and Bonhomme de Neige/ Bonhomme Carnivale at Carnivale de Quebec maybe...?

But that doesn't much matter. Today, it's been snowing all over BC. Snow in Vancouver. Snow in Kamloops. Snow at Sun Peaks (fingers crossed!) for snowboarding tomorrow! Snow!

Sure, it's cold stuff and I harbour a deep hatred for all things that make me cold, but there's just something about snow that I like. I'm sure the same's for you too, reader. We have a love-hate relationship with it because it looks so nice, but it makes us lose control of our cars and drives our heating costs up....

I'm going to watch it fall while I make spaghetti and meatballs for my folks tonight. And then I'm going to help shovel it off of the driveway or else we won't be able to get out of the house tomorrow!

Lookin' good.


Update: Boy was that post cliche. I'm sure 1000 other bloggers wrote something similar. But I suppose I wasn't going to say that Snow can burn in hell....coz I guess it would never make it there (too hot, of course)

First City Snow!

Two days ago it snowed in Vancouver for this first time this year. It's the start of my first winter in the city! I'm really glad it snowed when it did...

Thursday at work was a really tough day. Of the 10 beds, 5 of the kids were under 1:1 supervision. 1:1 supervision means usually that they have a history of aggression or unsafe/unpredictable behaviour. Usually, we'll care for maybe 2 "1:1's" at a time. Having 5 is really unsual, and it ended up that way because a few children who were supposed to be safe during their stay ended up having aggressive meltdowns after being admitted.

So anyway, it was a day when kids were in and out of the seclusion room (or their bedroom, depending on whichever was closer) like it was a revolving door. At one point, the girl I was watching said "why are all the adults grabbing the kids all the time? It's like a jail!" I tried to keep in mind that her comprehension of the reasons why adults needed to hold kids and bring them to safe spaces was low, but it's really tough to hear. I just got really run down trying to be stoic and enforcing rules and being yelled at, and listening to kids crying (crying because they've been put in their room for hitting staff and being told they must complete a time-out), and feeling totally ineffective as a nurse and feeling like I just don't belong in that particluar workplace.

When I walked out the doors of the hospital after my 12 hour, gruelling shift was over, I started to cry. I'd been trying to keep things together for the sake of the team, so once I wasn't on the clock anymore, I just let it go. And it didn't help that I was being released to walk alone in the dark, in the pouring rain, to my bus stop a few blocks away.

But about half way to the bus stop, I realized that the rain wasn't as heavy anymore. Still as many drops, but...lighter. I looked towards the streetlamps and could see that much of the rain had turned to big, fat snowflakes. They were gorgeous. And they made me happy. I sat in a place on the bus so I could see the snow coming down in front of me. It wasn't much, but it really made

I was Thankful.

Meters and Meters

Today, I'm buying meters and meters of fabric!

I took the skytrain this morning to go to Fabricland to purchase a basic pattern, and then 13meters of broadcloth for sewing a demo wedding dress. Lots and lots of fabric! I can't wait to start sewing that one. The pattern isn't very difficult, but the hard part will be tailoring it to fit properly, and to make sure it's sturdy and supportive. I won't be describing the dress in too much detail because I know that M reads this blog and I don't want him knowing too much about it!

But, after coming back home and cleaning Jude's house, I have to trek out in the rain again to go to another fabric store. I'd bought a pattern for a dress/outfit to wear to a friend's wedding in December, and she wanted me to wear some sort of red to match M since he's a member of the wedding party. Anyway, Fabricland didn't have what I wanted, and Dressew will definitely have what I want. I'll be doing all of the buying today, and then maybe start on one of my three (I'm also making M an advent calendar made from fabric pouches that can be hung from the tree - or wherever) sewing projects tomorrow. So much crafting! yay!

I doubt sewing this wedding dress of mine will be an easy task, but I feel like if I start working on it now then I won't be stressed out about it later when it's crunch time. I (currently) ahve loads of time to work on it, and make mistakes, and tweak, and make it really, really good. I can't wait until it's done!

Days are Getting Darker

It's November, and the days are getting shorter.

In Vancouver, this also means that the days are getting greyer. yuck. I do miss the sunshine.

I wonder if this is why I'm more receptive to Christmas already? It's a little happy, sparkly thing amongst the grey, dark days. Plus, I've been thinking about Christmas for weeks while submitting vacation requests at work. Did I mention that I have to work Christmas Eve and Christmas Day? So I've been thinking about the Christmas tree M and I are going to get (most likely a short, fake one that won't be intrustive in our apartment, but that we can decorate with all of our accumulated ornaments), and today I've been designing (in my head) the advent calendar I'm going to sew for M. I may go to the fabric shop Dressew tomorrow to shop for this particular project. And Christmas baking, too! I'd like to do Gingerbread, of course, and peanut brittle! mmm.

Tonight, though, I'm making quiche (with real crust) for the first time. It smells gorgeous and I can't wait to eat it! Part of me thinks I should wait until M comes home from soccer to eat it, but the other part says I really, really want it. It'll be good. It even has spinach and onion and bacon and white cheddar and two slices of Swiss cheese on it!

Delish!