Get Lost

 I had an adventure this week in the city of Ottawa trying to get around on their bus system. Being a city I don't know at all, it proved to be a bit difficult.

I am going to preface this story by stating that in retrospect, trying my first bus outing here in a snow storm in the dark was probably not the best of plans... especially without a map. Lesson learned.

So I began my journey by heading onto the Ottawa transit site and using the directions to figure out which bus I needed to take to meet a friend downtown. I was doing well, copied down the details of the trip, but I have to say it is pretty ridiculous that the site verbally describes all of the details instead of showing you a map with the instructions... at the time I thought I would be fine, but knowing how visual I am with these kind of things, I should have seen the flaw in the plan.

I headed out the door, dressed very warm, directions and bus fare in hand, and proceeded to walk in the wrong direction, right away. Luckily, I ran into a very nice man who showed me the street I was trying to find. Okay, back on track. I got to the street and turned right, as per my instructions, and proceeded to head down the street, looking for the next one. After about five blocks I still hadn't seen the street name, so I started to get nervous. I asked one man on the street but he wasn't sure exactly where it was, and suggested I head into the hospital to ask. And so I did, and the nice man at the counter told me I had walked right by it.

I headed back from whence I came and realized that when my instructions had said "turn right" (via Ottawa transit site) they had meant walk across the street and follow the same street that has just turned into another name and veers slightly to the right. Maybe I should write for Ottawa transit ;)

Okay, back on track, I reached the intersection I was looking for, found a bus stop with the right bus number on it, and we were in business. I put on my ipod and listened to a little Hall and Oats for musical inspiration as I waited, and to keep my mind off of how cold it was getting. (I seem to have lost my cold temperature tolerance. Hopefully I get it back very soon.)

I had been waiting for about 15 minutes at this point, which is weird since the bus was due 10 minutes previous (said Ottawa transit.) I saw a few go by in the opposite direction and thought that maybe they would be looping around somewhere and end up here? Ten more minutes later along came a bus. I hopped on, and started looking for the stops I had listed to keep track of. After about 5 stops I realized that none of these stops were on my list... uh oh. I decided the best move would be to get off the bus while I tried to figure it out, so I hopped off.

I got out my list of directions and was trying to make sense of it when I saw a cab coming, completely copped out, and flagged it down.

Within about 30 seconds the cabbie could tell I wasn't from around here. I told him where I was headed and he asked if I was trying to take a bus? I told him I was. "Well, it's a good thing you didn't, because you were standing on the wrong side of the street." Yup. Good thing I got off of that bus.

My cabbie was super sweet and started to explain how Ottawa is laid out. He told me exactly what to say to a cabbie if I needed to take a cab home at some point, and which part of the city I was staying in, and then he played tour guide and showed me a few sites. So really, I paid for a cab ride and a tour all in one. Pretty good deal.

He found where I was headed, a little cupcake shop in the heart of the tourist district, and went on his way. I had a lovely little visit with a friend and then he walked me to a bus stop, pointed me in the right direction, told me where to get off and even gave me a bus ticket. Spoiled. I got on the bus feeling confident and relaxed and enjoyed the view.

About 20 minutes later I knew I was near the area I needed to get off, so I started to pay attention. I didn't hear the stop intersection I was waiting for, but I thought a few of the stops looked familiar, and then everything started to look the same. A couple of stops later I heard a stop name called that I remembered being further down the road from where I was, so I had gone too far. I pulled the chord for the next stop, and calmed down... until the bus veered down a winding street and turned around two corners onto what looked like a back lane, and finally stopped at the next stop. Shit.

If you haven't figured it out already, I am not the greatest at orienting myself in terms of directions. I am pretty sure I am geographically dyslexic. I got off of the bus and tried to run as quickly as I could back in the direction the bus had gone before I forgot which way it was. About half way there I reached an intersection and had no idea which way it was. I didn't want to stand around so I just picked one, and managed to find a way (miraculously) back to one of the streets I was looking for. I just had no idea which direction I should be heading to find the cross-street.

I started walking until I found someone waiting at a bus stop, but he didn't know either. I decided to keep going in the direction I was going and hopefully a land mark would tip me off. I suddenly remembered I had passed a hospital on the way there, and sure enough, in another block, there was that beautiful "H" sign pointing in the direction I was heading. Thank you!!! I had to walk another 5 blocks before I got to the stop I was supposed to get off at. I had really veered off of the path. In any case, I found it, refrained from kissing it as to not re-live any tongue-sticking christmas story plot lines, and from there it was a piece of cake.

It took me a little while to thaw, but the positive side? I was so exhausted I fell asleep the minute my head touched the pillow.

Whew. So, first thing on the to do list the next day? BUY A MAP!

Love and Kindness all.

Dear Someone: PART 2

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I am going to describe to you the most exciting moment of my week this week.

I should preface this by saying that it was not necessarily the most ENJOYABLE moment, although it was quite enjoyable, but I had quite a few lovely and enjoyable moments with friends and family over the holiday, so there is no way to choose the MOST enjoyable.

Anyway, the most EXCITING moment of my week was when I stopped back home and found a strange package in the mail.  It said “Molly’s Meats" as the return addy on the package, and it came from Glasgow.

I eagerly opened it up to find a book inside. A Children’s book. I didn’t look very much at the cover, but instead moved on to opening it and looking for a letter or evidence for who it could possibly be from. On the front page someone had written something At first glance I couldn’t figure out what it said, I saw it was addressed to me, and that at the bottom it said “What a Gorgeous letter” with the word gorgeous underlined. I was really confused.

I picked up the envelope again and scanned it. Glasgow. Then I looked at the cover of the book and realized that it was a book by Emma Thompson, it was her latest Nanny Mcfee book. Holy shit. It was from Emma Thompson.

I stood up and started to pace a little bit while I slowly FREAKED OUT. Then I sat back down to look at the book.

I opened the front cover again and deciphered what HER HANDWRITING had said:

"For (life adventurer) with loving and grateful thanks from your faithful
servant, Emma Thompson.
PS what a GORGEOUS letter"

As some of you may recall, I wrote my first fan letter ever to Emma Thompson back in November even though I didn’t really expect her to read it. I thought it would be worth it just to send out the positive energy of how much she means to me as a person and an artist.

It’s amazing to me that no matter how many famous people I meet, I will always feel like celebrities (especially really talented ones) are not real people. They are like fantastical fairy creatures that live in a far away land and do not come into contact with humans. Well folks, I have crossed the human/ fairy barrier and made contact!!!

I am so touched by the gesture. I am so happy she has read my words. It means so much to think that somehow I might have made her day just as she has made mine so many times.

I wanna write a whole bunch of letters now….

Love and Kindness all.

It's the little things

 It sure is a cliche to say that it is important to appreciate the little things, but I don't care! It is a valid statement, and the theme for this particular blog post.

I am home for Christmas, and with that comes a whole variety of emotions, as I'm sure EVERYONE can attest to. Every year, however, it is getting more and more difficult to ignore just how much everything keeps changing as I grow older. We have lost people I care about, pets I care about, traditions need to change, and sometimes we cannot all be together as we would like. The reality is that there is no possible way things can remain as they were when I was little, and for some reason I have pretty much accepted this in every other aspect of my life: except for Christmas.

However, this year I am irritated: I am sick of feeling sad for everything that is different, and everything that is not the way I would like it to be. I have decided that instead, I am going to think of all of the little things that I love about Christmas, and being home, and I am going to seek it all out, and enjoy every drop instead of focusing on the negative. Now don't get me wrong, I know it is important to feel sadness and loss and to morn changes, I just think there is a difference between morning and wallowing. I choose not to wallow.

I began my Christmas enjoyment journey with a trip to the good ol' Safeway down the street. I found myself buying an assortment of odd items that included: eggnog (of course), fruitcake (obviously with the marzipan icing, I don't even need to clarify that), a holiday tin with 3 types of popcorn inside (caramel, cheese, and butter flavors, which NEED to be mixed together when eating them), mandarin oranges, and assortment of flavored processed cheeses (in a little round box that I remember so clearly from my childhood.)

With all of my treats in front of me, my mom and I dug out a bunch of old christmas vhs tapes that we had recorded off of the television between around 1986 and 1989. We put on the lights on our traditional christmas ladder that started a long time ago when my mother had a ladder set up fixing a spot on the ceiling around Christmas time. She decided it would be a cool idea to put boards across the ladder, put presents on it and decorate it like a tree! It was the right shape after all!
Anyway, we started to go through the jems, with handfuls of popcorn, as we laughed at the ridiculous 80's commercials: my favorite part.

A few highlights included the mcdonalds commercial where Ronald is skating with a bunch of kids, and then one kid falls behind from the group and is sadly skating alone, with a cartoon deer and bunnies that look a little bit too much like Bambi characters- how Disney didn't catch that, I don't know... and then Ronald Mcdonald pops up from out of nowhere and spins the kid in a circle and puts him back in the group. Another goodie was a commercial for extra with the most amazing jingle that I'm sure you can all remember: "When you're chewing extra, that extra fresh flavor lasts an extra, extra, extra long time!" Also an oreo cookie Santa commercial, 7 up elves commercial, and a pound puppies add which is just so ridiculous, I just have to show it to y'all:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkjGHbAIIjE

Aside from the commercials, we found the velveteen rabbit, sesame street christmas special, rudolph the red nose raindeer, frosty the snowman, and one I had completely forgotten about: The glow friends christmas special. The glowworms and glowfriends had been a line of toys that my sisters and I were obsessed with, and we had loved the christmas special too, with the glow worms saving christmas by holding hands and glowing while singing a song about glowing in order to melt an ice cage that was keeping Santa hostage, set there by an older, skinny, malicious woman with a pet fox trying to ruin christmas. You know, the usual. It was a wonderful surprise.

 Next up I decided that I needed to visit the salisbury house, a tradition, and have the Classic egg Nip with the spicy mustard sauce that I have yet to find anywhere else. It was everything I remembered. Including a little heartburn later on. Totally worth it. I was even fortunate enough to have a red velvet cupcake later on at a potluck that my friend Andrew had made. Another lovely tradition of home!

Okay, so a LOT of my memories seem to include food. One thing, however, that I love from our holiday traditions is reading the night before christmas together, the night before christmas. My sister was away this year with her husband's family, so we wouldn't all be together to read it. Alright, it was sad, but as things have to move on, so do we. In fact, because of technology, adaptation is a piece of cake! Good ol' skype! We called her (a little earlier than usual, but that's okay) via skype, and my dad read us all the book together, as we unwrapped matching pajamas (my mom had sent my sister some, so we were able to open them together) flipping the pages, making the sound effects, and pointing out each of our favorite pictures. It was full of wonderful, cheesy goodness.

I am thankful this year for all of these little things and more. My family and my friends who have all had such an impact on my life at various times. I am a pretty lucky gal.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays everyone!!

Love and Kindness all.

Au Naturel

I like to think of myself as a fairly health-conscious, and environmentally conscious person, however, I find I very easily slip into behaviours that just make life in this society a little easier. I have tried many times to reuse plastic sandwich bags, rinse them out and not throw them away, but then I start to get lazy, and the majority of them do end up being thrown away. I am pretty ashamed at how my laziness is having an impact on the detriment of our future earth... I smell a new years resolution a-comin'!

Anyway, I am particularly thinking about one thing. Deodorant. I have been told many times, and read many studies about how horrible aluminum is for our bodies, and the links with breast cancer, and all the ugliness that they are, and I don't doubt it at all! I hate the idea of stopping myself from a natural practice of sweating, however, I hate the idea of smelling bad almost equally as much.

That said, it seems I go through cycles with this particular issue. It usually starts with me getting riled up about the cause and in a fit of passion I throw away my current antiperspirant. Next, I go to the health food store and buy a new kind of natural deodorant. Next, I try using said deodorant for a few days until I realize that it is not working as well as I would like. This is usually followed by me going back to the health food store, selecting a different brand and starting the cycle again. This could repeat again before I have an important day come up in my life, ie: a date, job interview, big audition... at which point I cave, run to the shoppers drug mart, buy an antiperspirant that is on sale and I smell daisy fresh.

The real truth, yes it is confession time: I am terrified of smelling bad. The idea of someone smelling my scent and being repelled by it is more than I can bare. I am almost obsessive about smelling good, to the point where I have to make sure I am wearing just a dab of a body shop spritz or cream before I leave the house, no matter where I am headed.

Now, this week, I had a new friend tell me about something quite intriguing. He swore by using baking soda as deodorant. He said that it kept the smell away really well and he didn't have to re-apply!

I was feeling adventurous, so I decided to give it a try!

I woke up in the morning, jumped in the shower, and then before I dried my hair, I patted my arm pits with just a tiny bit of water. It dried quicker than anticipated, so I had to wet them a little bit more. Then I dumped a little pile of baking soda in my hand and dabbed it on my arm pits as I had been instructed. All was dandy until I realized I was having a bit of a clumping happening in my left arm pit. Must have been too much water. I brushed it off, sprinkled a tiny bit of water and then brushed a fresh batch of soda on. Done.

The real test was after I arrived at rehearsal. I had to get off the streetcar sooner than usual, because I had to stop and mail a letter, so I had to speed walk quite a few blocks to get to there on time. When I arrived, I could feel a little bit of moistness happening in a the experimental areas. I took off my coat and not-even-a-little-subtle-y sniffed both sides. Surprisingly, all was well!! I didn't smell a thing.

We rehearsed for a few hours and then took a break, at which point I decided to assess the situation again: This time, there was a teeny bit of musk sneaking through. I held on for a minute, and told myself that it didn't matter. I could still make it through to lunch. It was at this point that I learned we were going to be doing a ton of movement work after the break.... then I caved. I grabbed a deodorant hidden in my backpack, and the experiment was done.

All in all I have to say I was pretty proud of myself. It was the first time in a while that a teeny smell didn't throw me over the edge. The truth is: There are just some times where you can't afford to smell bad. I think that is just a part of life.

So this is the agreement I have decided to make with myself: I will have two deodorants, and one rare antiperspirant. The two deodorants will be one natural, one not as much. I can therefore make my decision in the morning based on how much physical activity I will be doing, and for very special necessary occasions I can use the antiperspirant. But not all the time. Perhaps I will try the baking soda again with differing quantities.... maybe that would work...

Whew, I am glad I got that off of my chest. What an important topic this is in the grand scheme of things.

Happy sweating!

Love and kindness all.

Oh those little kidlets!

So I have been having difficulty finding something that I thought was "worthy" to write about, haha, which is just cruel to all of my activities that didn't make the cut. I've just started to get very particular, I suppose, and am looking for themes to write about. So, today's theme is: KIDS!

I had a day full of child-like inspiration today that all started on the streetcar. It started out pretty usual, I sat down, checked my phone 4 times, the usual. A few stops later two mothers and their 3 children (collectively) got on the streetcar and chose the seats directly next to me to sit in. They came in with a roar of jibber jabber, and I instantly felt my hand grab for my ipod in my pocket. Just as I did, however, I remembered that I had forgotten to charge it, and it would be of no use to me.

Now, depending on my mood, I would sometimes sit there in pain and anger for the ride, or get so fed up that I would fake the following scenario: I get up quickly and move to the doors further up front in the streetcar because I think I need to get off at the next stop and then just as I am stepping onto the step I am looking out the window and realize it's not the right one. I linger near for a stop and then sit down closer to where I am now standing, and further away from the noise. Whew. That's a lot of work just to move away from some noise.

Anyway, I was feeling rather chipper, and decided to take advantage of the situation, so instead of ignoring the chatter, I embraced it and became a nosey nancy. I started to listen in, and my god it was hilarious. I found out that a little girl and boy who were both 6 and a half and were sitting together were the reason why the two families became friends. They were sitting together and commenting on things they saw out the window. At first I thought it was a game where they had to name what they saw, and then I realized they were just verbalizing their observations for something to do, and I guess a way to connect... perhaps.

At the next stop quite a few people got on the streetcar and a woman sat directly in front of the two children on one of those sideways chairs, so she was directly in their view. She tried to look away and pretend she wasn't in the personal bubble of two children, but they did not. Right away they said hello, and the little girl asked her how she was. The lady smiled and said fine. She instantly came out of her ttc shell. Next the little girl (who seemed to be the more vocal of the couple) proceeded to tell her that she and Michael were best friends who had been best friends since Jr. kindergarten 2 years before, and they still go to school together, and that they are going to get married they have decided, (The little boy concurred) and they will have 2 kids, one boy and one girl. The lady smiled and laughed quietly at this. At this point one of the mothers peeked over to check in, and the woman recounted the tale she had just been told. They both laughed and the woman said "Well, that sounds like a plan. " "Yup" the little boy agreed. "Well, you better help with that too" she said addressing the little boy "Oh I know." He replied. "I'll have to kiss her." Amazing.

It will never stop amazing me how hilarious children are, and how constantly surprised I am by this. After this ride I went to see a children's show and was in the theatre with a lot of little ones who are always so involved verbally in live theatre. They were shouting, warning the characters of what they thought would happen, and laughing with no limits when they thought something was hilarious. It is the pure honesty and no social filters that will always continue to be funny for me. Anyone who has performed in children's theatre or worked with children can attest to their hilarity. It reminded me of when I had acted in a children's show and one of the characters came on wearing a moustache and out of nowhere one child stood up and shouted "He's wearing a moustache!" So simple, but something about the very obvious observation was too much for most of us to handle and we were all trying desperately to keep from breaking into laughter.

Later on I did some shopping and picked up a toy for a children's toy drive one of my co-workers is spearheading. I am quite picky with children's toys after working in a toy store for 6 years: It has to be durable (no cheap shit), last through many age groups and be versatile enough that it promotes uncensored creativity. What I mean by that is there are so many toys that promote creativity within a format (such as colouring in already drawn pictures) which is great, but I much prefer things that promote outside of the box (or lines in this instance) creativity. The toys where the child makes up all of the rules, and every games is different. No fancy stuff: The basics! Blocks! Lego! Paint! I ended up getting a foam alphabet block set where they can make blocks or a mat or spell out words... versatility! I'm sure my rules on toys will get more lax when/ if I actually have children of my own, but I can keep my idealistic views for now. :)

I continued my child-like afternoon by buying myself a little bag of cookies for a treat. They were quinoa cookies and were extremely healthy... and they were disgusting. I needed to buy a brownie to wash them down.

Love and kindness all.