Enter the Twilight

Live by a Luthiers-see sad people bring their broken stringed knicked gouged shattered guitars and violas and violins in to be brought back to glossy health

Chillin’ to some icy funky tunes today-a mix up a mash up why not skys the limit and it’s a beautiful day, dancin’ in my skivvies with the window wide because the breeze is cool and refreshing and I’ve sugar in my veins

Kicking through drifts of pink cherry petal snow

scenting the fragrance of  java and Jamaican pastries on the corner-love that deep saffron yellow, love that Dutch licorice just beyond, but don’t you think it’s time you sold wooden clogs instead of these new modern kind, which really just look like glorified refined white sucre crocs?

Today’s a dance swing round round round jump one two three why not

today everything is gilded in the first glimmerings of summer, scattered with silver eddies of rain and twisting bird song. Think I saw a finch with it’s rosy head. Saw a hummingbird again, little propeller wings just a whirl.

Friday : Eric and Leseen visited and we had a great dinner. They taught me to play Chinese Checkers. We drank way too much tea-we were all floating on it but hey, c’est la vie. They are definitely decent company.

…Then we decided, since it was late already, why bother sleeping, I mean, we had to be up at 530am anyway, to catch the bus to get the early ferry to the mainland.

We caught a few zzz’s on the ferry, and saturday,

…was spent moving through Vancouver with Dev’s family. Finally met his sister. Everyone was so loud and bright and cheerful, it was great fun to wander everywhere with them.

We saw the Olympic Torch (Extinguished, but still…) and took the sky train everywhere. Vancouver is VAST and so jam packed with people and buildings and industry. They have a beautiful and enormous harbour, with mountains fringing it. We took the seabus to North Vancouver, where they have this really intriguing hidden market on the quay. I think it would be a good place for my dad to sell his pots.

Caught the last ferry back to the island, caught the last bus home, totally crashed.

It was so great to get out and spend a day on the mainland, with everyone. I really enjoyed myself.  Really had a lot of fun.

Sunday: chillaxing. Slept in. Took it easy. One of the Tim Horton’s we frequent also now has a creamery. So we indulged in hot java and cold ice cream. The Cold Stone Creamery section had just opened-we were among the first customers. Dev had a cheesecake fantasy and I had choc cake batter and oreo ice cream. We were offered lids if we wanted it “to go”.

It has been a crazy month. As mentioned in an earlier post, Aaron and Christine came out to visit. It was a great weekend, filled with good food, great friends, and lots of laughs. We did a lot of wandering around Victoria, finding a great diner, a bakery, and some small out of the way bookstores. We saw Percy Jackson that weekend – a fantastic movie which I thoroughly enjoyed and recommend.

We also had the chance to test out a couple of new roleplaying systems: Elemental Axes and Burning Wheel. Eric and Aaron both ran a session for several of us. And it was good to get the dice on again. It has been far too long.

A few weeks later, Kate’s father came out to visit for a few days, with the majority of our stuff that was still sitting in Edmonton. Of course we are still in the process of sorting out everything. The living room/bar area is mostly set up now. We have our books out and sorted, the furniture where we want it, and everything else in the spare room. It is nice to finally get our stuff here – I didn’t realize how much I missed some of my things. We still have a bit of our stuff back in Alberta – but the big things are all here.

It really makes the place feel more like a home.

Here is one of the primal pigments :

Red.

red, conveying love and death and hate and war-

mix with any other colour to make warmer;

too much and you have a bloody mess.

a drop and it is eye-catching, heart catching

sustained and it burns as a candle, as a naked flame.

Passion burns too

ignites you as a phoenix

who flies away from the ashes.

Embers are red

flickering

banked with a high hot heat,

it keeps itself warm as the night cools around it.

Vermilion

Scarlet

A name, a shoe, a face, a kiss

an action that marks you forever.

Red Rage was there when you swung the axe

and cleaved her head

her life seeping over your hands;

it was present, screaming, at your birth

and mine,

It will linger uneasily around you when you die.

Red is everything

or nothing

like us

a wavelength in the spectrum.

Since moving to Victoria, we haven’t had the chance to have many visitors. This is of course understandable–the majority of our friend base is a whole province away. This was not really much of an issue, we lived with Andrew, and being the somewhat social creature that he is, we always had people around.

Since getting our own place however, we hadn’t had any visitors. Again this is understandable. With Christmas, our trip to Edmonton and our hectic schedule, we really hadn’t had the chance to have anyone over. Of course this week that all changed.

Last Sunday we had our friend Sharron come and visit us from the mainland. She had the honour of being our first guest in our place. It was nice to finally have someone over to see where we live, and after being Sharron’s first overnight guest, it was nice to have her as our first guest. She missed out on being the first overnight guest though.

That distinction will get to go to Aaron and Christine. They will be coming in to visit us tomorrow evening. I have been looking forward to this for a while. Always good to have one of your best friends to come and visit, especially when you don’t get to see them often. We have arranged a bit of a larger get together on Saturday as well. An excuse to be huge geeks of course, but hey, that also means that they get to be here for our first party-like gathering.

~Dusk||

Victoria is so warm that if you try to skate outdoors, you have to have fake ice. I don’t know whether that’s funny or sad. The rink was little, was ontop of the Mayfair roof, and they had strung white lights across the top, which I’m sure would have looked lovely in the night. The view wasn’t bad, the sunset was all golden and lovely and we rented skates and they had good music, but the ice just wasn’t there. Literally. They made the rink look like ice, but it was like skating on a white cutting board with grease for glide. Couldn’t turn very well, couldn’t get up any speed-well, I could but then I went to turn the curve and then I have no speed. I had fun anyway, but it was just so ridiculous in the end. I never realized how much easier real ice is to skate on, I was expecting a grip and a smooth glide that just wasn’t there. Dev did much better than me, gliding round and round and round, and we stayed as long as we could but I mean really, it was just so weird after all. I’m definitely going to find a better rink for us, and I can’t believe I’ll be asking “so, do you have REAL ice?” when I call to ask when they’re open for public skating.

Sunday we watched some of the Olympics, mostly the skating competitions, and some of the skiing ones too. I was glad I wasn’t working on Valentine’s Day, for once. We got to relax and just enjoy the day, which was a wonderful treat. We went for coffee and ice cream later, and had a nice little walk.I thought it was just perfect.

I think working retail On Valentine’s Day has made me bitter towards the day. People get so greedy and fussy and they’re SO unbelievably rude I feel like being bitchy back, but of course you can’t. You just have to suck it up while they get in your face about the things you haven’t got because they came too late, and gee, we sold out, big surprise. They always think you’re holding out on them, that you’ve got a lot more product hiding under the counter and they think you’re secretly laughing at them. People think Valentine’s Day is a test they have to pass, and everyone fusses that “he doesn’t love me enough because he didn’t give me a big enough gesture,” or ” is it too soon to say I love you?” I can’t stand the crap people buy for each other; in a desperate attempt to “prove their love” they fling cheap ugly toys and uncomfortable lingerie, too much chocolate and expensive wilting flowers at their loved ones. It isn’t thoughtful, it isn’t romantic; and the gestures are meaningless when you start sticking a price tag onto the things you buy to show how much your love is worth. Sometimes I wonder if my customers ever asked their lovers what kind of flowers they really like, what colour is their favourite, what would be romantic to them? Valentine’s Day heaps on the stress, and I have seen so many people the day after St Valentine’s Day in tears or bitterly disappointed because “he just didn’t get it RIGHT, you know” and “how could he not know meeeeeeee?” I think, is that all you are doing? Holding up a metre stick to measure how successful your relationship is? Do you guys actually talk to each other? Do you know your lover at all or are you just thinking this is where you SHOULD be, and if you’re not there, why not? Do you reserve all your romance and sense of fun for one day only in the year and ignore your lover for the rest of the time? And you wonder why you’re breaking down and getting frustrated. Get real.

My Valentine’s Day was great: I didn’t have to deal with egomaniacs or fat greedy women or thin belligerent women or angry venomous men or any of the other myriad of people who hate everything and take it out on the girl behind the counter. I spent the day with my lover and it was a lot of fun, and very stress-free.

Had a good weekend. It is always nice to have a lazy day off. We didn’t do anything really big for Valentine’s Day this year.  Not having the car up and running made it difficult to do much. Instead we sat around and watched the Olympics and went for coffee. It may not sound the most romantic way to spend Valentine’s, but being the first Sunday we have had off together since our trip to Edmonton, it was exactly what we needed.

I have the car back up and running though. It felt really good to get behind the wheel after just over a month of not being able to drive. I missed it.

The next few weekends are going to be rather busy. We have friends coming to visit the Island both this weekend and next. Sharron will be coming in from Vancouver on the 21st, with Aaron and Christine coming the weekend after. the weekends will obviously be filled with good times.

On the 21st we will be attempting to go and see the festivities for Chinese New Year. Even though the 14th was officially the start of the new year, The parade and such was moved to this coming Sunday because of Valentine’s. I have never really been to one of the lion’s dances so I am looking forward to seeing it.

~Dusk||

We managed to make it out to Edmonton after all for the week. And we have finally managed to catch up on some sleep. Friday ended up being a fairly hectic day as we rushed to get our things packed for the trip. No one knew that we were coming out save my brother and Aaron. Our parents reactions were priceless. I do love it when surprises work out as planned.

Saturday was a day for family. We spent the day with my mother, and the evening with Kate’s family. Both families ended up having big meals that day, so we were stuffed by the end of it. Exhausted and full, we came back to my mother’s place and tried to sleep.

Sunday was Aaron’s birthday. We went to dinner at Chianti’s, a wonderful Italian restaurant on Whyte. There were a lot of friends, and many we had not met before. It was a good night, nice to see everyone again.

Our week is still mostly up in the air. But sofar it is looking like good times.

Dusk//

Victoria did not put on any fireworks to celebrate the new year. It’s the capital of BC, and is a strong tourist spot, and you would think these things alone would prompt the city to put on a fireworks show for first night. The city said there was dwindling enthusiasm for fireworks on new years eve, but I don’t buy it. What about the families with young children and tourists from the states who come up here to visit their families over the winter holidays? Last year, in Edmonton, it was something like -40C, and yet there were people in Churchill Square, and hot chocolate vendors and people selling 2009 flashing glasses, and they still had a fireworks display and music. It is much much warmer than Edmonton here, so I find it a stretch to believe people don’t want to “stand around in the cold” to watch a fireworks show to ring in the new year. I think the city was just too apathetic. I think it was a bad decision to treat new year’s eve like just any other ordinary day, because it isn’t. It should be celebrated, people should make some effort and dress up and put on a fireworks display that everyone can enjoy. And if they feel there’s dwindling interest they should step up and promote it, put some fliers around like they did for Christmas. (The downtown core was offering free horse-drawn trolley rides and free street-car rides, and several pre-Christmas events, and they put out a brochure to advertise it.)

Dev and I dressed up anyway, and went down to the beach for a quiet wander. There was a group on the beach that had bought some fireworks, and they shot them over the water, so we did get to see some little festivities after all. Mostly they were the coloured single ball kind, but one they set off was a crackling zinging sparkling rain.

We also saw Seattle’s fireworks display too, across the water. (Pretty good display actually, in miniature above their city.)

Dev had his first smoke of the new year, and we came home and toasted it in with wine.

Not a bad start to bring in the new year, despite the city’s lack of joy and illuminations. I still get to say I was on a beach for New Year’s, not in freezing snowy minus forty.

First day of the new year started out clear and fresh and mild, a balmy 10 degrees. Went for a wander downtown, taking pictures, and it started to rain heavily, but that was ok. I saw some Morris Dancing at Bastion Square. It was colourful and musical and as well as the dancers there was a man dressed as a horse with flashing mirror eyes, and a man who looked like a holly bush slash mossy stone. It was a fun way to start the new year off, tho I hear they are supposed to wear clogs instead of normal shoes, and bells on their toes too.