I should have danced all night.

"You guys! Three boxes... can't you slow down?" ~ Lidia, re: the "Files to Fix" boxes

About 3 weeks ago I was asked "What is Lana without dance?" and almost burst out crying. Because the answer is: I don't know, and I don't feel like a dancer right now. I haven't been to a swing event for a really long time, and that wasn't even my scene. When's the last time I ballroomed?

Instead of obsessing about the latest assignment at the bus station last night, I danced. And I felt happy. I guess that's my motivation: Once I'm done these courses, I can finally go back.

Hey yo, Da-Deo!

"Mayo is good for you. It creates blubber so you can surive a swim in the ocean." Though Jaclyn might be right, I still decide to pass -- even with ketchup on the side, I'm pretty sure the sweet potato fries (a Dadeo's speciality) and potato mash will create enough blubber if I decide to take that swim.

We ogled the hot waiters, wondered aloud what would be a musical "classic" 20 years from now (Will the Top 4os endure?), ate too much starch and still went on to share a slice of coconut cream pie. Meanwhile, the large front window framing our little party showed us the changing weather, a sampler of all of Edmonton's seasons (some snow, some sun, some rain...) one after another and sometimes together. We capped off the night with a walk (or more like a roll) down Whyte, checking for new graffiti.

Was really glad to catch Jaclyn before she left. She's off to Sooke, BC with Krista and Trish. Catherine's decided to stay for now and her dad will be around until they sell the house. It's strange to think they won't be around any more... but they've said I should visit.

It felt great to spend time with Catherine and Jaclyn. I had laughed, and realised it's been a long while since I'd really laughed. Scary how one could lose something like that and not even know... The next little while will be tough. I'm conscious of it now, so I will try to smile more. Some things that will help to remind me:

- Noun: A person's place for things - A Catherine pick - while too far away to actually visit (and no time anyway), has a great motto, some pretty pictures, and plenty of enthusiam and delight online

- Toast Terrier (left) - what I discovered/created, inadvertently, while eating breakfast the other day (eating and paying attention can equal good... as I type and chew...)

The CRA (tax) guy on the line was stumped too. I had finally got over my fear of asking (and being told I obviously needed to study more), and contacted CGA, who then referred me to the CRA hotline. The tax guy and I go over various sections of the ITA and interpretation bulletins, and I feel a little better - not closer to the answer, but at least feeling it wasn't such an easy question to start with.

It's snowed during the week. Temperatures, normal of +15 C, hover close to zero.

Alone in the Churchill Station, waiting for train I saw what looked like a lock of black hair. Turns out they were twisted stringy feathers, I suspect, from a black feather of a boa. Following the trail, I'm lead to see parts of the station I don't normally see. Sunday mornings are so quiet. CBC tells me, however, there is sleet and swine flu from Mexico -- Not quiet at all.

Waiting Room

"You're always so negative!" What? I simply said there are no guarantees that I wouldn't be single again one day even if I did married right now, and then I'd be alone anyway... shouldn't have I at least have my own life figured out before I start thinking about trying to take care of a husband and family?


These operating waiting rooms have become places to dread. I mostly think Mom will be fine (she's in for her other eye and the first went well, though there is still a little bit anxiety), so it's the conversations that bother me. Old gripes about Aunt Linda resurface, and invariable "Another year and another year passes, you're not getting any younger", followed by the "You have no time to play - work, school... everything should be taking a back seat, " and "When you're old you'll see, how lonely you'll be with no one beside you."


ARGH! Does it not occur to her that I worry about these things already? Parts of me wanted to laugh, just so I wouldn't cry. So I end up being argumentative: Aren't you the more negative, thinking I could never be happy if I don't find someone right now?


Instead of answering she told me I shouldn't go for someone too bright, because I'm too soft and I'll always live under their thumb. "Is that how you chose Dad, then? You were the most beautiful woman in the village, there must have been lots of marriage proposals." "I was young and didn't know anything..." "And yet", I countered, "That ended up being o.k." She reveals that back then people were young, didn't know much, didn't expect much...

I also learned that while weddings happened, studio wedding photos and to be posing in them in a wedding dress was something quite lavish (her photos have long been lost to moisture and immigration).

When the doctor takes her I feel a welcome quiet in my ears, but of course that doesn't completely translate to quiet in my head. I know she just wants me to be happy and it doesn't occur to her that a mail order husband from China, however vetted and approved, probably won't cut it. I know, I am just much trouble.

Surprise! Michael and Kirsten both came to visit me at the Kingsway Hangar for the Raise a Reader booksale! Unfortunately, their plan to steal me away for lunch would have completely counteracted the whole volunteering aspect of me being there.

Though I would have liked to leave. I wish I was in a better mood, but I couldn't get myself out of it. Being cashier is frustrating. I was aching only a couple of hours into my shift and, while doing basic math wasn't a problem, it was hard to get a hang of using the machine which had pre-coded buttons. I guess it was a blessing then that the organiser wasn't going to use the register numbers because he knew it wasn't reliable (*cringe in lack of cash control*).

The sale itself was also disappointing when the last year's had left me in so much awe. There were few books, and it seemed few people. Granted, if one were to do a cost analysis, the event itself might have made more money than last year due to in reduced storage and transportation costs...

Anyway, the more important part - money was raised for a good cause. And I got to be semi-guilt-free away from work and study.

Not going blind just yet

It's been almost a week of wanting to claw out my eyes, and wearing my glasses only seemed to make seeing more difficult. I went to the optometrist. It turns out it was about time for another check up anyway.

I've been to Dr. D since I was a kid and while my file was closed for a time, he still remembered me, that I was taking accounting, and that I had allergies... right. Rather than worrying and panicking I should have just realised: It is allergy season, again. We chat about what's been going on. He still makes an annual trip to Africa to do some volunteer work, and eventhough the tools in the office look the same, they've been updated regularly.

He sends me away, saying my eyes are overall still healthy. Eyedrops that are too expensive were prescribed along with new eyeglasses (I'm a little more near-sighted than before).

With off-the-shelf eyedrops (containing my friend antihistamine) and a little piece of mind, I'm back at work. Let's see if I can get through another box before I have to go.

The Forgotten Province

Lana: You know, the one between Saskatchewan and Ontario? Where Winnipeg is?
Mom & Dad: Isn't that Ontario?


Like how sometimes I'm could be wandering downtown and a whole section of it has disappeared from my brain (extremely scary), my parents' Canada does not include Manitoba (only, I guess, I know something's missing, whereas they don't). I figured the Chinese news, that which tells them about all the bad things happening in Canada and brings them to a panic, gives the weather forecast for various cities would have a map at some time showing this elusive province. It turns out it doesn't. The internet doesn't easily give one either - not one with the name "Manitoba" in Chinese, so I can actually reference it...

Oh, well, it's not like I have Nunavut down pat in my memory. And all I know of China really is that it looks a rooster.

Back to work.

12!

After weeks of planning, we celebrated Celina's a dozen years, by going bowling again. This time it didn't snow and the pick-ups and drop-offs were a cinch. Somewhat awkward, however, was that Theresa decided to invite MSG.

The Gateway Entertainment Centre (a.k.a Gateway Lanes), did another great job (though they did mess up the billing again), by providing us the Jungle Room with plenty of balloons. Auntie Lana might have mentioned that with enough balloons Kevin might float...

Bowling itself was chaotic as ever. The two assigned lanes were split between the girls and the boys. The heaviest bowling balls were favoured. Theresa and Carl's camcorder was commandeered to make a bowling movie (filled with commentary). The preteen bodies were energy incarnate, buzzing even when sitting, and rarely sitting at all. And this was before we fed them pizza and ice cream cake!

Once it was over and everyone sent home, I lingered with Celina at her place. Everyone else had other things to do. She was happy to recount and show me her birthday loot and explained the storyline of her favourite manga to date: Bleach.

It worked out nicely that we had lunch together on Easter Monday. Dad took them out for the "the lunch of champions", and joined them before heading out to work. I wasn't sure if my gift would be well received --turns out Choco Cat might almost be as good as Hello Kitty.

English Hits to Clean and Enrich

"He found he could no longer recall whether people had candles in their heads or not. He knew that there was a world of difference between these two notions: one was sane and the other was not, but he could not for the life of him remember which was which."

~ Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

There was a lot of cleaning. I don't think my room has been so neat and dust free in months, and it a "treat" for having finished the latest assignment, and procrastination from further studying. I leaned on the bed to just "rest my eyes", and listened to more Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. The story had started off with a bang (hours of listening ago), and I was caught up in the alternate history of C19 England where magic that had once existed and faded to a theoretical hobby, was to rise again in practical form through the two title characters.

Their friendship and rivalry was wrapped up in the war (campaigns against the French) and the fairy world (and what it meant for England). The story also studied relationships of class and race... and with a bit of romance thrown in too! Certainly the footnotes were a little confusing to understand from the audio book, but definitely set a rich stage where such a history existed and was documented.

Entranced as I was, I didn't notice the two tiny army-crawling figures that creeped up on me: BOO! I shrieked; the kids laughed hysterically.


At work: Further enrichment. Eva has left for sick leave. To lighten the mood for me, Boss Michael hands me his iPod and tells me to listen to The Ricky Gervais Guide to the Arts. It is a bit surreal as I giggled to the British accents (naturally funny?) and contemplated (half agreed)with host and guests that "We should make all movies with muppets to improve them"- it had worked for Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol...

It's like clockwork: Every 30 minutes the doctor wheels a bed into the operating room, and a new bed and patient comes from another set of doors to join the queue. Another doctor monitors temperature and pulse, and administers anesthetics.


The beds are set in two rows along the walls. For the most part, each one holds a small Asian lady needing cataract surgery. Between the beds are chairs for someone like me, the interpreter, the moral support, family.


Mom is cold as she lay waiting her turn. I move blankets around, and she disapproves that I've dressed down ("Who will see me?" Oh, right, cute doctors). Mom tells me she wouldn't have to worry about me if I were married. (I think I would be worried about me if I was married right now.) It occurred to me that if I didn't exist, she would have less to worry about (not that she would worry less).

Once Mom's in operating room, I turned my attention to the Asian ladies in the other beds. I figured they must be about the same age as Mom (based on wrinkles). Most were Chinese (from the interactions with their interpreters). But unlike Mom, they must have been fairly wealthy or at least fashionable in their youth. How I know: They have tattooed eyebrows. The procedure of waxing or plucking off one's eyebrows and then tattooing them in still exists (along with other makeup tattoos), but I think it was particularly popular "back in the day" (the 70s?). This is one type of tattoo I'm definitely not interested in.

In possibly 15 minutes Mom was wheeled to another waiting area, finally able to break fast and drink some water. It had gone well. We'll repeat with the other eye in two weeks time. The regiment of eyedrops, sunglasses, and protective coverings (an eye mask, rather than a patch) are to continue.
At home Dad makes a pirate joke. I didn't think there would be the same stereotype. I'm still not sure though if Chris's suggestion (get her a parrot toy) would have made it through translation.

one Dim too much Sum

Saturday


"You're not wearing that, are you? You look fat." I know Mom's words weren't meant to be mean; They were born from her worries that I'll grow old alone. That potential future is hard to deny, based on results thus far. Whatever I was doing, wasn't working, so I give in to Mom's method this time (even though I was stressed out and grumpy). I change. And then I go to Dim Sum with Theresa, Gwen, and Mystery Single Guy (MSG).


We have the meal. MSG turned out to be... o.k. I had instantly felt sorry for him as Gwen and Theresa dominated the conversation with twitterings about girly things. It was obvious that neither he nor I were interested. I now half wonder if this was brilliant strategy to get MSG and myself to think of other topics (the alternative was to listen to more talk about designer handbags).


It felt like a really long lunch. Afterwards, I gladly headed back to the office.



Sunday

"I've never met a dumpling I didn't like." Nick's obsession with Dim Sum meant that since he was in town, I go again, (it seems a bit excessive), but thankfully to a different place. The food was good, but it was slightly tainted with a gulp of vinegar. Or in English: Green-eyed monster ridiculousness. Nick was in town staying with Jen. Even though there's nothing there any more, still... like I said ridiculousness.


Again I find partial refuge in work. CBC's Concerts on Demand kept parts of my brain occupied as I do more Enrichment. I was pleasantly surprised to find Sarah Slean part of the JUNO 2009 Songwriters' Circle. She tells the audience the story that goes with her song "Looking for Someone". I listened; I got a little hopeful. I worked. It got dark. I went home.

Koshashin

It started with a photo album.

As Arlene Hall told it, a wedding present from her husband over 40 years ago, a small photo album of Japanese photos she had lingered over in an antique store, purchased in one grand gesture -- they only had several dollars to their name at the time -- was what started her collection of C19 Japanese photographs. According to the Art Gallery of Alberta, The Hall Collection is one of the largest such collections in the world.

Arlene Hall continued her walk-through tour of the show (230 from her collection). She pointed to photos with "foxing" (brown spotting possibly from mould or fungus growth or other chemical reactions to the photo) and "ghosting" (images that were smudged or seemed superimposed on others because during the required exposure time, 3 minutes in older processes, subjects moved).

Glass negatives could be used to make black and white prints over and over again, but through handling the glass would chip away at the edges. This was not necessarily a problem - one simply would make a smaller (and smaller) print. Photos made from the same negative were displayed together demonstrating just what a different painter / colourist would do.

Arlene Hall would tell me more, and I would read more (...wet processes, silver emulsions, albumin paper...) until it became clear: photography was a huge feat of alchemy. It didn't surprise me then when she puzzled that she didn't have many photos of snow. First it probably wasn't so popular (by the 1860s almost all prints were of a commercial nature, and as such photo subjects conformed to what tourists expected -- "Geishas"); and second, wouldn't the cold mess up the necessary chemical reactions?

The tour ended. Left to my own devices, I gravitated to the photo of girl in a green kimono standing next to a brilliant white long-tailed chicken pheasant displayed on a tall stand (the caption indicated this was the work of 100 years of selective breeding), the Smiling Geisha (it was unusual to see a smile - a real geisha?), and the post runners and others with tattoos (Arlene Hall had also recounted going to specialists to determine if tattoos in the photos belonged to the subject or were added by the painter / colourists to make the prints more saleable).

I had been mostly oblivous to the people around me (Japanese dignitaries had been introduced at some point, official photographers stalked), but the couple caught my eye. She, Asian, grey-haired, in a light green pantsuit, and so tiny, reached, stretched to look into the stereoscope that was mounted to the wall. He, also Asian and grey-haired, in a dark suit, also slight, lifted her up by her waist so she could see. I wish I had my camera.

So very glad I had not stayed to work late.

Chez David Revisited

Another blurry weekend: There was class (where find I am even more abstract random than before), and I remember leaving the office Saturday before Earth Hour (it didn't seem right exactly to keep the computer on, even if I was making good progress in work and assignments), not much else.


Monday's Movie Night was Phantom of the Opera. I decided to join the sing-a-long, having finally decided to give up on the assignment. Erik handed me a mask and I gladly sat down to watch (and sing). I didn't think the movie images could ever compare to those in my head from countless listens to the Broadway recordings, but I was pleasantly surprised.


Also a nice surprise was David's invite to dinner to see his new place. Since the move he's painted, pulled out the carpet and put in hardwood. The owl air freshener and golden wallpaper remained. It looked great. I heard more stories of renovations (tiles falling off the bathroom wall, hardwood flooring that snapped into place) and definitely got a bout of house envy. I really like this place.

A 78 record player sat in what was the middle of the living room made me think of Uncle Ray and his gramophone. It played music as David cooked. I introduce a secret ingredient from my bag - a green D'Anjou pear; he gamely added it to his stirfry of chicken, garlic, carrots, and peppers. From the freezer of wonders (I had glimpsed it the contents from the move) he pulled out a bag of orange coloured frozen stuff. Was this something that involved fake cheese? What else could have the same colour?! He made me guess. And then I get it: yams!

We didn't get to the promised frozen chocolate cake. But I did get to see his photos from Maui (he has an awesome eye for detail), and I found out he'll be, in the summer, an Imagineer!

I left David's thinking about how much I liked his place and the area. The bus stop was so close and the buses in the area were so frequent, that it didn't seem to matter that it had begun to snow.