Early April, just past Easter. It was a decent weekend, lots of pink and white tulips, chocolate bunnies and yellow daffodils, hilarity, language, strawberries, cake, booze, all the good stuff.

The snow’s practically gone, the tulips have lovely green shoots, and I’ve new Wellingtons so I don’t need to fear the mud.

And I made epic coffee yesterday.

In Vancouver and back out again, watched Jeremy and M walk down the aisle, took photos of flashing fast fish, sharks, dolphins, glow-in-the-dark anemones, sea turtles, belugas, quick-silver otters, urchins with black mohawks and glowing eyes at the Vancouver Aquarium, ate salmon on the first of the new year, played with and swam with and took pictures of children who did not belong to me, ate pretzels and oohed and awed over all the pretty lights. Loved the chill in the air, the dampness was just right, all the little things, and loved seeing and visiting all the people, oh would you know.

Would have stayed longer if I could have. It was worth it to go.

Decent kickoff to the new year.

Now, lost in music, I must go.

Bunch of us saw C. Molineaux at the Comedy Factory-of the three acts, I found his the most hilarious. He teased without crossing the line, he interacted cheekily with the crowd, and he had a good patter.

The main act I thought was a “bit been there done that,” and the first guy I can’t even remember his name, he was nothing special…good thing he went first then.

Lighting the tree in the Square today, and I get to watch it away from the wind. They promised fireworks, and no doubt there will be rousing music and hot things to drink or dance around.

Cheese is the world’s most stolen food, after alcohol and razor blade, according to one article.

I can just envision the romance: the large bell wine glasses, the stolen booze chilling in an ice bucket as the lovers gaze over the city and scenery from the peak of a lush hill, as evening drops and the sky turns carnival colours, and he slices open the round of brie with the stolen razor blades, and then they feed each other nibbles of cheese, clink glasses and taste stolen red wine.

Or maybe the razor blades were to shave off the beard (him) and leg hair (her) to get ready for the date of stolen pleasures on top of the hill.

Bold Day Today. It should be worked into a movie set (slasher horror, of course, because of all the mist swirling around,) or it should be made into fashion. The latest Fall Collection inspired by Fall. It would be a novel twist on an old theme.

The Corn Maze was a lot of fun. Devon, Elsie, Rod, Nathan and Alex, and I all went to the maze, and got happily lost in it. There were numbered signposts that we had to find to help us navigate through, and then we each had different quizzes. How you answered the questions decided which direction you went next. Mostly lefts. Then some rights. Then Devon and I got separated from the rest of them, found number 5, and waited…and waited…for the others to join us. Somehow they went from 4 to 9 instead of 5 and then out.  I thought about using the GPS, but thought it might direct us to cross the sea as the easiest way out, like that time we were trying to find the Merrydale Cidery. Night was falling and I was only_innocently_thinking of film sets that involved vast acres of corn. We found a bridge, and saw The Way Out, and made a run for it before the screaming youths throwing their glowsticks up in the air could capture us and drag us away into the maize.

We all purloined a fire that wouldn’t start right away, because Rod threw damp corn stalks on the embers and we only had thick logs of wood instead of useful kindling. Although Elsie did eventually get some magazine pages from Rod’s truck, to help the fire along, and that paper for some reason burned blue and green, rather like what salt-crusted driftwood can do when you build a bonfire at the beach.

It was chilly, mizzling with rain but not enough to turn the hard packed dirt to muddy mire, but we fortified ourselves with weak, terrible coffee. It was hot at least. We finished with hot apple cider, coffees, and hot chocolates variously, and a merry blaze. Threw a roll of kitchen roll (paper towel) onto the fire, but the sparks were a little worrying, because the paper was light, and created big floaty sparks that drifted slowly in the wind…towards the dry dry tall corn maize.  But it was damp enough nothing lit, and errant sparks were stamped out quickly anyway.

There was also a petting zoo and barn, and some fun set dressing to take your photos at, on, or around. I loved the giant haybales, and I wanted to play, but I’d loaded my arms with useless pink umbrella, coffee, and camera, so I just took pictures of Devon on the haybales instead.

It was a fabulous chilly evening, and the corn maze and company made it all so much more awesome.

Playing with Prisms…long dangly, sparkly, clear cut glass necklace on soft grey suede. Sad when the sun fades.

It’s my lot in life to love too deep, to fall too hard, and cry too long, to pick myself up and try to fly again too quickly, choking back life as if I am afraid it will drain away.

There were impressive Northern Lights Friday darkest, not the most epic I have seen, but they were quick, and green and purple and white, and I called my father, who was muddy with clay, my mother, who was sleeping, and my sister who wasn’t there and couldn’t be bothered, to come and share the night with me, D and D’s mum, her friend, and N, and N’s girlfriend, A.

Earliest I have ever seen them, 1^st week of September.

Tried a fresh fig for the very 1^st time-sweet, juicy, light, almost like jam inside. Coworker brought them in, like mangoes, in a crate, and it was succulent, and very delicious. You bite them through the skin and eat them like a plum.

I have recently enjoyed fresh squeezed lemonade with real mint, and today I fancied a Raspberry Dark Chocolate Latte. I bought it on a whim, and enjoyed it against a backdrop of jazz and height, clicking like tiles and glass against the lazy morning sun. I went wandering on my lunchbreak and took pictures of golden leaves and black berries, and it looked like I was taking a picture of a forgotten corner of a castle, framed by Fall.

…There is a Saturday Night Lake in Jasper, and I think it should be glitzier than it is; it has a lot of pop culture to live up to.

In no particular order, this summer, so far, we have visited:

Jasper, where there were goats, a shallow, sandy, warm beach, and a new totem-pole in town.

Drumheller, where we found Devon has an era, he’s just that awesome; we saw a dinosaur fossil so old it was leaking oil, and I bought a mug that vaguely looks like an oval dinosaur egg, and outside we saw a cloud dinosaurs eating the sun; and I tried to take a decent picture of the badlands landscape. Need to look for Clive there, when we go again.

Calgary, for the Stampede, fireworks, friends and family, bright sun, and carnival rides.

Edmonton, for the play she wrote for the Fringe, the sustainival, where Carnival Rides run on veg oil, and where we visited Telus World of Science, the Royal Alberta Musee, and we have yet to visit the IMAX

Pigeon Lake, before the blue-green algae took over.

Kamloops, but I didn’t see the Ogopogo, even though we were almost in the Okanogan. Love the feel of Kamloops, feels like it is built for tourists, and it’s easy to find the essentials-Tim Horton’s and gas.

Dragonfruit

Starfruit

Ugli

Sweetie

Pommello

Breadfruit

Cherimoya

Durian

Jackfruit

Guava

Loganberry

Persimmon

Quince

Satsuma

Tamarillo

Strawberry!

Convoy into the darkness, we look like lost stars searching for a home. The city is a field of fallen space debris, comets mixed with twinkling, jewels, hiding all the tiny messy cogs that make it tick.We go over the hill and the world is swallowed in musical velvet black.

Lost friends and too much water, I’m insisting on exhaustion and a little anarchy, and no I’m not resigned to this.

Where do I throw the bottle once I’ve tucked the message in?

Things I miss from Victoria:

1. Better sushi.

2. Fresher fruits and veg.

3. The sea, the sand, the ships, the beaches, the ocean, the mountain views…

4. The hills for walking and biking. Biking on flat ground is bloody boring.

5. The friends I made there.

6. The flowers everywhere. Profusions and profusions of.

7. People actually talk to you in pleasant fashion.

8. Close to everywhere. What a novel concept.

9. The Tim Horton’s we frequented. They had great staff and fab ice cream too, if we ever got bored of coffee. The Fifth Street Bistro. Quadra Village. Great area.

10. Rain in the winter instead of snow. It snowed for 1/2 a second and everyone rushed to the windows going “REALLY??!!??!? WHERE???????”

11. Lovely warm moist air. My hair got shiny and grew like a weed.

12. There was always, always somewhere to go for an interesting wander or scenic drive.

13. Noodlebox.

…

and what I don’t miss so much:

1. If I want to go somewhere I can just go, I am not stuck on an island.

2. Edmonton has very distinct seasons.

3. It’s easy to get lost in Edmonton.

4. The Edmonton Fringe is better than the one in Victoria…even tho it’s actually not as great as it could be. There’s no ska fest here, but there is Shakespeare in the Park.

5. I can skate on REAL, actual ice here instead of a Teflon cutting board.