Free chocolate (and other sweet stories)

When I first started this blog, I never imagined that it would inspire complete strangers to send me free stuff.

Who knew that writing about my favourite food (chocolate, wine and Grape-Nuts) would lead to freebies being delivered to my door? You guys are awesome!

Over the years, all sorts of unsolicited packages have arrived in the mail -- from Tim Hortons' gift certificates to juice-box size wine to Grape-Nuts.

Well, I finally hit the motherload last week when a giant cardboard box filled with Dove chocolate was sent to my office. Some clever marketer correctly identified me as a chocolate lover, sent me a whole bunch of the stuff and asked me to spread the word online. How did they know I would totally sell out for chocolate?


I'm a bit of a chocolate snob (I prefer dark chocolate with a high cocoa content as opposed to the sugary stuff) so I gave almost all of it away to my co-workers.

The free chocolate was a huge hit at the office. It disappeared in about five minutes but the fun lasted all day. I unintentionally stirred up a bit of water-cooler gossip when I sent out an email to staff encouraging them to help themselves to the several pounds of chocolate I had dumped on the lunchroom table. Just for fun, I also wrote that it was sent to me by a secret admirer.

The funny thing is that people actually took me seriously. Everyone wanted to know who my mystery suitor was. One guy even stopped by my desk to give me a high-five.

"Whatever you’re doing, keep it up!"

Is this what married people think single life is all about? That we are constantly being wooed and pursued? I didn't have the heart to tell them the chocolate wasn't from a boyfriend-to-be but from a marketing company. Sigh.

Anyway, all of this free stuff has got me thinking. Maybe I should set my sights higher. Chocolate is good but (attention Canon marketers!) a new camera would be better!

On hiatus

Vancouver only gets six weeks of good weather each year and I fully intend to enjoy this sunny streak while it lasts. Less blogging. More swimming.

Stillness, solitude and swarms of mosquitoes

I'm back from my trip to Bowron Lake Provincial Park. It was remote, rugged and spectacularly scenic.

Five friends and I spent eight days paddling 10 lakes around the world-famous Bowron canoe circuit. The circuit includes lakes, rivers and portages totaling 116 km. We paddled an average of 15 km per day and set up camp at a different lake each night.


It was a blissfully simple existence. No cell phones, no laptops, no electricity, no running water, no contact with the outside world. It was completely silent, except for the call of the loons, the crackling of the fire and the howling of the wolves.


Of course, it's easy to romanticize the experience as I sit here writing about it in my warm, dry, mosquito-free apartment.

It wasn't all rainbows and snowcapped mountains. My tent leaked and I spent a few rainy mornings waking up to find my mattress and sleeping bag floating in a puddle of water. The trip started off cold and ended blisteringly hot. We spent the first half of the trip fighting off hypothermia and the second half worrying about sunstroke.

The mosquitoes were the worst part. They were so bad that we spent almost all of our time at the campsites hiding inside our tents. It wasn't exactly the kind of vacation where you could lounge on the beach reading a book. Unless you covered every inch of your body in deet first.

As for the fishing, it's a good thing we packed enough food for eight days because if we had relied on fish for dinner, we would have starved.

We ended up buying fishing rods and licenses on the drive up to Bowron Lake. After we bought our licenses, we asked the woman working at the shop if she also sold guidebooks on how to fish. She seemed amused by the stupidity of our question and gave us a look that said, "You city slickers should have figured that out before you bought a license."

Unfortunately, since none of us had much experience with fishing, we couldn't figure out how to put the line on the spool. And because the area was so remote, we didn't see any other people until the fourth day of the trip. Luckily, the first person we spotted was a serious angler from California who helped us put the rods together and gave us some tips on how to fish.

Thanks to his tips, we caught three weeds and one log. We didn't catch one single fish. Unless you count the dead fish that got tangled up in our line.

Overall, it was an amazing wilderness experience. We saw more moose than people.


We paddled through rapids and portaged around waterfalls.



I swam in every single lake we camped at, no matter how cold. Plus, swimming in the lake was one of the only ways to escape the mosquitoes. Everyone else thought the lakes were too cold so I mostly swam alone.


These are just a small sample of my photos. The rest are on my flickr page, which you can view here.

Gone fishing

Most people use the expression "gone fishing" to let people know they're on vacation, even when their vacation involves no fishing whatsoever.

Not me! I'm on vacation and I'm going fishing. Or, more accurately, I'm going to attempt to go fishing.

I'm heading out on a 10-day canoe trip through the Bowron lakes chain in northern B.C. It should be a fun trip, especially considering:

1. I can't remember the last time I paddled a canoe.

2. I lack this thing scientists call "upper body strength."

3. I suffer from extreme seasickness.

4. I haven't gone fishing since I was a teenager (and by "fishing" I mean "casting the line, hooking a fish, reeling it in and then handing the rod over to my dad because I am way too squeamish to touch a slimy, flopping, gasping fish.")

My goal for the trip is to catch a fish, clean it and cook it all by myself. I have no idea how to do this. I don't even own a fishing rod. Does clubbing a fish over the head with a canoe paddle count as fishing?

I also have no idea what to do with the fish after I've caught it. Although, I think I may have dissected a fish in high school biology class (or was it a fetal pig?).

But how hard can it be? I mean, cavemen were cleaning and cooking fish millions of years ago and they weren't the brightest people on the planet. Surely, I'm smarter than a caveman.

Maybe I can just hack some chunks out of the raw fish and call it sushi.

Speaking of sushi, regular readers of this blog may remember my Japanese friend Sachi. We played on the same volleyball team, went on a bunch of epic bike rides and generally just hung out all the time when I was living in Japan.

She's coming to Vancouver to visit me on the same day I get back from the canoeing trip. I'm taking the week off work to play tourist with her. I just hope I'm not too malnourished from the lack of fish.

Anyway, sitting in front of the computer is cutting into my vacation time so I'm going to end this post right here. Blogging will resume in about three weeks. Until then . . .

Real men like cats

I was flipping through a friend's copy of Feline Wellness magazine the other day when I made a startling discovery.

Sandwiched between a story about the latest trends in kitty bling (apparently "collar jewelry" is all the rage) and a quiz to "test your cat's Personality IQ" (don't ask) was an article about a new dating website for cat lovers.


According to the website, PURRsonals.com is a place "where cat lovers meet and share their passion for cats."

Laugh if you like. But it's no weirder than any other niche dating site (take, for example, Jedi Dating or Daily Diapers).

I like cats and I like guys who like cats. So I'm kind of tempted to post a profile on the site. There's only one small problem: I don't actually have a cat of my own.

I'm worried this would stir up controversy in the online cat community. I don't want to be responsible for turning PURRsonals.com into another JDate.com (which was a site created to bring Jewish singles together and is now overrun by non-Jews).

But I can't help it if I'm attracted to men who like cats. Men who like cats tend to be secure, independent, a little eccentric, quiet, kind and sensitive.

At the same time, I have to wonder what kind of guy would post a personal ad on a dating site for cat lovers. Liking cats is one thing but liking them so much that you only want to date crazy cat ladies to the exclusion of all others is another thing altogether.

I'm not sure that's not a place I want to go.

Bizarre behaviour at the Vancouver Aquatic Centre

I don't know what it is about the Vancouver Aquatic Centre but the place is a magnet for freaks and weirdos.*

I've witnessed some pretty bizarre behaviour at the Aquatic Centre over the years -- stuff so strange I couldn't make it up if I tried.

And so, in honour of the characters who bring a splash of colour to the pool, I decided to write a tribute to some of my favourite patrons. (I've written about Perry and Vaseline Lady before but the rest are new.)

Perry

I first met Perry at the Vancouver Aquatic Centre's "prison gym" about four years ago. Perry was a heavy-drinking, chain-smoking, overweight, ex-Olympic rower (or so he claimed) from Romania.

He told me the only reason he went to the gym was because he was trying to kill himself. Literally. He ate deep-fried food, binged on booze and smoked two packs a day. And then he'd come to the gym and bench-press twice his weight in the hopes of having a heart attack.

He was tired of living and wanted to die but was too afraid to commit suicide in a more traditional manner. Perry was fixated on having a heart attack and dropping dead in the gym.

He seemed disappointed to find himself still alive after every punishing workout. It may sound depressing but Perry was actually pretty light-hearted about his death mission.

I think he may have accomplished his goal because I haven't seen him in a while.

Vaseline Lady

Of all the wacky characters at the Vancouver Aquatic Centre, Vaseline Lady is by far the wackiest. We call her Vaseline Lady because she coats herself in the stuff before she goes for a swim.

Her routine in the women's change room is fascinating to watch. First, she sets down a gigantic tub of Vaseline on the ledge in front of the mirror. Then she takes off all her clothes and scoops out baseball-sized gobs of Vaseline, which she smears on every inch of her body. (I overheard her telling someone she does this to protect her skin from the chlorine.)

Once she is coated in enough layers of grease to withstand a nuclear fallout, she puts on her swimsuit and heads out to the pool, leaving a trail of slime in her wake. I have twice slipped off toilet seats she sat on. I have cracked my hand against the wall after it skidded off the soap dispenser she touched. I have slid on the pool deck she walked on.

If her skin really is that sensitive to chlorine, why swim at all? But perhaps that's too logical a question for someone so illogical. [I'm not even going to get into the fact that I have also seen her eating sandwiches in the shower. Eating in the shower is weird enough but eating things in the shower that are going to get soggy is mind-boggling.]

I'm not the only one who has grumbled to the lifeguards about Vaseline Lady. Apparently, so many people complained that the lifeguards banned her from the pool.

Naked Reader

I've never seen the Naked Reader with my own eyes. But at least three male friends of mine assure me he is a regular fixture in the men's change room.

He strips off all his clothes until he is completely naked and then sits down on a bench where the other men are changing and reads a book. He doesn't swim. He doesn't shower. He doesn't sit in the hot tub. He just sits naked in the men's change room pretending to read a book for hours at a time.

The Breastfeeder

I'm all in favour of breastfeeding. It's a natural and normal part of motherhood. But breastfeeding a six-year-old boy? That's creepy and weird (and, in my opinion, borders on child abuse).

There's a woman who frequents the Aquatic Centre with her six-year-old son. She brags to all of the other moms in the change room that she still breastfeeds the boy, who has long blonde hair that looks like it has never seen a pair of scissors. (This kid is going to need some serious therapy some day.)

The Breastfeeder says it's a "bonding" experience and that all mothers should breastfeed their children as long as possible. And while there is nothing funny about the Breastfeeder herself, watching the other mothers squirm when she tries to convert them is amusing.

Sorry, lady, but when your kid is old enough to carry on a conversation, then he's not a baby and you shouldn't feed him like one.

Shower Spitter

The thing about public pools is that the showers are public too. A lot of people conveniently forget this fact and act as if they were showering in the privacy of their own home.

For some reason, I always end up in the stall next to the Shower Spitter. I don't know if this woman has got some sort of phlegm issue but she spends her entire 10-minute shower hacking up a lung. She may be a tiny little grandmother but the woman horks like man.

She hacks up these great gobs of phlegm and spits them on the floor -- the communal shower floor. Mere inches away from my feet.

As a passive-aggressive, non-confrontational kind of person, I make all kinds of gagging noises and comments about how nasty her behaviour is while standing in the next stall (I just don't do it loudly enough for her to hear it).

Modest Martha

Not everyone is comfortable wearing a bathing suit in public. There's nothing wrong with covering up if you're insecure about your body. But there is one woman at the Aquatic Centre who takes modesty to an extreme.

The woman remains fully clothed while she swims. But instead of wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt and yoga pants, she wears her business suit in the pool. We're talking black blazer, white dress shirt, black skirt, stockings, string of pearls. The works. She pretty much looks like she walked straight out of the office and into the pool.

Which is probably why the first time she wore her business suit in the pool, one of the lifeguards mistook her for a drowning victim and jumped in to save her. But instead of being grateful, she got angry after the lifeguard tried to tell her that wearing all that heavy clothing was a safety hazard. She threatened to sue if they didn't let her in the pool with her "modesty outfit."

The lifeguards backed down and you can see her regularly swimming in the public lanes. Pearls and all.

Chains of Oppression

There is a man who frequents the Vancouver Aquatic Centre who looks like the ghost of Jacob Marley. He drapes himself in flowing robes and long, heavy chains, which drag on the floor behind him.

Someone once asked him what the chains were all about and he said they symbolized oppression. I'm not sure what kind of oppression he is representing. But he is clearly committed to the cause, whatever it may be.

My male friends tell me that watching him get undressed in the change room is like watching an illusionist escape from a locked box. As he wriggles his way out of the chains, they drop to the floor one-by-one with a loud clunk.

Then he gathers up all of the chains (with much jingling and jangling) and stuffs them in a locker. He then locks the locker (full of locks and chains) and goes for a swim.

Lounge Lizards

What would a public pool be without perverts? The Vancouver Aquatic Centre has more than its fair share of peeping Toms. In fact, the pool practically lays out the welcome mat for dirty old men.

The Aquatic Centre has several lounge-style lawn chairs on the pool deck. They are the sort of chairs you might find on a cruise ship or a rooftop patio. Why the Aquatic Centre found it necessary to equip an indoor pool with sunbathing chairs is beyond me.

These chairs are almost exclusively occupied by sleazy old men who do nothing but watch the girls go by. The chairs are conveniently located just outside the women's change room so if you want to exit or enter the pool, you have to endure being looked up and down by the Lounge Lizards first.

Just like the Naked Reader, none of these men ever swim in the pool or use the hot tub. They simply sprawl out on the lawn chairs and watch the swimmers go by.


* For the record, the description "freaks and weirdos" is not meant to be derogatory. This post was written with love. Vancouver would be a pretty boring place without all of the colourful characters who call this city home.

Out of commission

Sorry for the lack of blog posts lately. I'm recovering from oral surgery and it's taking a lot longer to return to normal than I expected. Plus, it's kind of hard to think clearly when you're doped up on painkillers.

It was supposed to be a simple surgery but it turned into an epic production. I had to be put under so the surgeon could remove two adult teeth that had never come down. The teeth needed to be taken out so that there would be room to put in implants when my baby teeth fall out (yes, that's right. I still have two baby teeth. You want to talk about being immune to aging? Peter Pan has got nothing on me).

But when the surgeon opened me up, he couldn't tell tooth from bone and spent the next three hours cutting my teeth into little pieces to extract them from the jawbone. To make matters worse, I kept waking up from the anesthetic.

They told me I woke up several times during the surgery but I only remember waking up once. I wasn't fully awake, though. Everything was very foggy. I felt like I was underwater. I remember hearing the drill. I remember moaning. I remember hearing the doctor say something about giving me morphine and I felt him stick a needle in my mouth. I remember hearing the drill again. I tried to open my eyes to let them know I was still awake but I couldn't move. And then I slipped back into unconsciousness.

You might think it would be horrifying to wake up in the middle of surgery. But it wasn't. I was so out of it that while I was aware of what was happening, I didn't care. I simply didn't care. And I say this as someone who suffers from extreme dental anxiety.

It was kind of like waking up from a dream and then falling back asleep again. I don't know what kind of drugs they were giving me but whatever they were, they were very, very good.

Anyway, it's been a week since the surgery and the pain is finally starting to ease off. That's not to say I'm no longer in pain. Everything still hurts, just not as much. My mouth is still too sore to chew and I've been on a diet of soups and smoothies for the past seven days.

On the upside, I can fit into my skinny jeans and my puffy lips make me look like Julia Roberts. And it's always better to lose teeth as an adult rather than as a child because you get treats like valium and morphine instead of a lousy quarter from the Tooth Fairy.

I've been off work all week and have been doing nothing but lying on the couch watching movies. So I thought I would post some mini movie reviews up on my blog until I'm off the pain pills and can think clearly again.

Lars and the Real Girl: Very good. A little precious but not overly so. Didn't think the community's acceptance of Lars' mental illness and his plastic girlfriend was very realistic but was touched by the movie nevertheless. (Although am not entirely sure if warm, fuzzy feeling was due to the movie or the percocet.)

Let's All Hate Toronto: I watched this one twice. But only because I fell asleep the first time. I liked the concept of a traveling "Toronto Appreciation Day" but the execution was a little flat. It wasn't as funny as it could have been. Needed Rick Mercer in the lead role.

Onibaba: Weird, old Japanese movie. It was kind of annoying and boring at first. Started getting into it towards the end of the movie. Overall, pretty good (again, that may be the percocet talking).

Suicide Club: Another weird Japanese movie. Thought it was going to be a thought-provoking film on Japan's high suicide rate but turned out to be a violent slasher film with lots of blood and gore. Plot seemed to be missing but strangely entertaining.

Extras (Season 1 & 2): Brilliant. Is it just me or is Ricky Gervais playing the exact same character on Extras that he played on the Office? It's like watching a show about David Brent after he quits Wernham Hogg and decides to become an extra. It's still awesome, though.

27 Dresses: Horrible. I love bad chick flicks but this was just bad. Follows every romantic comedy formula but without any laughs along the way. Thought I would be able to relate since I am always a bridesmaid, never a bride. But main character got married in the end. Stupid Hollywood ending. How about a movie where the girl never gets the guy and ends up alone for the rest of her life?

Tsotsi: Very good. Depressing, though. Alternated between emphasizing with Tsotsi and wanting to smack him upside the head.

How She Move: You can't ever go wrong with a movie about a girl who dances her way out of poverty. It's been done before but it never gets old. Bonus points for being set and filmed in Toronto. Minus points for reshooting the movie and removing the references to Toronto.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: Also very good. Very bleak but not overly so. Enjoyed the sarcastic humour. Felt like a baby for whining about tooth pain.

Souvenir of Canada: Excellent. Had feelings of national pride while watching this. Canada is a good country and Douglas Coupland is a fine ambassador.

Sex and the City: I have free tickets to see this at 9:30 tomorrow morning. Should be fun.

And on that note, I'm heading back to the couch for more movies. Hope to be back to my normal blogging self within a week or two. Until then . . .

The great dog experiment

If a dog is a man's best friend, does that mean a dog is a woman's best friend when it comes to meeting a man?

I decided to put this question to the test.

I'm not sure if this is exactly what my friend Annelle had in mind when she asked me to dog sit for the week. But I figured since I have to walk the dog every day, why not turn it into a social experiment?

I want to find out if having a dog by your side makes a difference when it comes to meeting men. In theory, it seems like a no-brainer. A dog is a natural icebreaker. You can easily strike up a conversation with its owner. Just pet the dog, ask its name and go from there.

All I had to do was put my four-legged wingman on a leash and let him work his magic. Over the past few days, Dougall and I have logged half a dozen hours walking up and down Main Street, across Queen Elizabeth Park, through the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood and over every patch of grass in between.

Dougall has attracted lots of attention. But not the kind I was hoping for. Women and children can't resist cooing over him. Unfortunately, the number of men who have stopped to pet him remains at zero.

It's not for lack of trying. I think Dougall knows I'm using him as a babe magnet and he is doing his part to hook me up. On one walk, he pretended to chase a squirrel down a driveway where a hot, shirtless guy was washing his car.

On another walk, a cute guy was sitting at a bus stop with bags of groceries at his feet. As we passed by, Dougall stopped and stuck his head deep into one of the bags as if it were his own personal feed sack.

But the bus stop boy seemed annoyed, rather than charmed, by Dougall's deviousness.

The experiment is failing. Judging by the amount of women who stop to pat Dougall's head, using a dog to meet people would be a great idea for a guy. It just doesn't seem to work in reverse.

Almost summer

Kits Pool opens in three days! This is almost as exciting as the time I won $20 playing nickel slots in Las Vegas.

I can't wait to come home after a long day at work and walk across the street in a bathrobe and flip-flops for a relaxing dip in the pool. (Only in Vancouver can you get away with wearing a bathrobe in public.)

For those of you who don't live here, there are 10 things you need to know about Kits Pool:

1. It's the longest pool in Canada (at 137 metres long, it's almost three times the size of an Olympic pool).

2. It's filled with salt water (so you feel like you're swimming in the ocean but without the risk of accidentally swallowing gross floating things).

3. It's heated (but not too warm because the large volume of water means there is less urine per cubic metre).

4. The pool bottom is painted white (which turns the water an unbelievably brilliant shade of blue).

5. The pool is right on the beach (with unobstructed views of the North Shore mountains, the Pacific Ocean and the city skyline).

6. There is plenty of eye candy (you can always find hard-bodied triathletes posing on the pool deck).

7. It's open late (so you can watch the sun set on the Pacific Ocean while you swim).

8. It's open early (so you can watch the sun rise over the city while you swim, although I've never actually done this nor do I ever plan to).

9. People in Vancouver are wimps (so when it's cold and rainy, you will get the entire pool to yourself).

10. The pool is directly across the street from my new apartment (post-swim party at my place!).

I've been watching the staff clean and fill the pool over the past few weeks. I took these pictures on the weekend and it looks like everything is good to go for the big opening on Saturday.

Summer is almost here.

A photo that needs no caption

I felt a little pervy about pulling out my camera and taking this picture. But then I figured if it was okay for these showboaters to sunbathe on a public stage, then it was okay for me to take their picture and post it on the internet.

I mean, if you're going to lounge around half-naked on an amphitheatre stage, you're going to get an audience.

Oh, Kitsilano. Never a dull moment.

Where else can you find skinny white people with dreadlocks playing hackeysack, girls with fake boobs carrying yoga mats, shirtless guys reenacting the beach volleyball scene from Top Gun, stoners sitting on benches smoking pot, bleached blondes wearing oversized sunglasses and shrink-wrapped outfits, and, of course, showboaters sunbathing on a public stage?

Douglas Coupland described the neighbourhood best when he wrote that Kits is "where all those beautiful, athletic, fun-loving, Jeep-driving beer drinkers" from the beer commercials live.

"Kits is so perky it almost begs the question, 'Does it have a dark side to it?' The answer to this may well be no, which in itself is a kind of darkness."

Tomoko

I had always assumed that when people talked about making big plans and radical life changes that they never really meant it.

It's one thing to talk about wanting to shake things up. It's quite another to actually do it.

When I was living in Japan, I became friends with a young Japanese teacher who worked at the same junior high school I did. Tomoko was one of the few teachers who spoke her mind and whose emotions always bubbled close to the surface.

She loved her students but she hated her job. I found her weeping in the staffroom more than once.

The first time Tomoko burst into tears at work, some of the teachers got angry. When it happened a second time, they started to give her the cold shoulder.

To me, she just seemed like a normal 29-year-old stuck in a career she didn't enjoy.

In a way, we were both outsiders and I think that's what drew us together as friends. We started hanging out together after school and on weekends.

Tomoko was refreshingly open and honest. While most of the other teachers kept me in the dark about what was really going on at school, I could always count on Tomoko to give me the dirt. She told me about the kid who got suspended for biting a teacher, the kid who got busted for shoplifting hair spray and the teacher who was on the brink of divorce thanks to a pachinko addiction.


Tomoko was one of the most openly subversive Japanese people I'd ever met. She didn't like Japan, she didn't like the cultural emphasis on hard work and long hours, she didn't like her job, she didn't like Japanese men.

It's not that she was a negative person. She just felt like she wasn't living the kind of life she wanted to lead.

"I'm sick of Japan," she'd say. "I want to go to Canada."

She wanted to quit her job, move to Canada, work in a sushi restaurant, study English and date a Canadian man. Before I left Japan, she told me was going to apply for a one-year working visa.

I knew she was serious about wanting to come to Canada but I didn't think she'd actually do anything about it. It's not an easy thing to trade comfort and familiarity for risk and uncertainty. It takes a lot of courage to change.

So imagine my surprise when an email from Tomoko popped up in my inbox last month saying she had quit her job and booked a plane ticket to Vancouver. She had already lined up a host family, an English school and a possible job. And she was arriving at the end of April.

Talk about guts!

Tomoko has been in Vancouver for about two weeks now. Having her here is both weird and wonderful. It's weird because the context of our friendship has been reversed. Now she's the one adapting to life in a foreign country and I'm the one stuck in a career path I'm not sure I want to be on.

Having her here is wonderful because it's a reminder that my time in Japan isn't just a collection of photographs and memories that will fade over time. I made real friendships with people who will continue to be a part of my life for years to come.

Big pimpin'

For reasons unknown to me, the lovely Rebecca of Miss 604 fame chose to profile me as part of her series on Vancouver bloggers.

My interview is now up on her website. Rebecca is kind of a big deal in the B.C. blogosphere so I was surprised when she contacted me to see if I would mind answering a few questions.

It's almost as surreal as the time a National Post reporter phoned to interview me about my butt.

Around the world in 18 months

After months of procrastinating, I finally got around to sorting, culling and organizing photos of my recent round-the-world adventures.

Japan, Borneo, Korea, China, Mongolia, Siberia, Russia, France, Tofino, Indonesia. The best of the bunch are now up on my flickr page.

They were all taken with a cheap, pocket-sized camera so if you're looking for National Geographic quality photos, you'd better look elsewhere.

Of the hundreds of photos I took during my travels, my dad liked this series from a Shanghai train tunnel the best. I don't know if that was a testament to my poor photographic skills or a reflection of his blood alcohol level at the time.

[Interesting fact: My dad was so inspired by these photos that he wants to start a campaign to install similar lights in the TTC subway tunnels. He's trying to figure out how to mobilize the Laser Floyd crowd.]

Does this bike make my butt look big?

Math has never been my strong suit. In high school, I failed math twice and had to suffer the indignity of going to night school in order to make it up. I swore I would never touch another calculator again.

And while geometry, trigonometry and figuring out the tip are still way over my head, I at least thought I had the basics down.

But I now find myself stumped by a simple case of addition and subtraction.

The problem starts with the following real-world equation:

cookies + inactivity = big butt

I'm no scientist but I've read enough women's magazines to know that this formula is bulletproof.

Using deductive reasoning, the inverse conclusion must also be true:

carrots + cycling = tight ass

Taking it one step further, you might hypothesize that the amount of kilometres ridden would be in indirect proportion to the circumference of the booty. The more kilometers ridden, the smaller the butt area, right?

Well, something's not adding up. The more kilometers I put on my bike, the bigger my behind gets. And not in a good way.

Remember when I had the third biggest butt on the internet? Well, this time it's no joke.

Here's where the math gets confusing.

I have put 9,236 km on my commuter bike.


I have put 4,632 km on my racing bike.


9,236 km + 4,632 km = 13,868 km (thank you, built-in computer calculator)

I have ridden a whopping 13, 868 km over a four-year period. This is the equivalent of cycling clear across Canada -- two times over. It's farther than riding the entire length of Africa, from Cairo to Cape Town. It's five times the distance between Vancouver and Whitehorse. And yet, my bubble butt is as jiggly as jello.

After all I do for Mother Nature the least that ungrateful bitch could do is reward me with some buns of steel.

- - -

Speaking of tight asses, my friend Don took it upon himself to post an unsolicited personal ad for me on his blog. The response has been underwhelming.

Rude people suck

There are few people I hate more than rude people. Rude people suck.

I witnessed a disgusting display of rudeness at London Drugs the other day. The woman in line ahead of me was being unnecessarily obnoxious toward the girl behind the photo counter.

It wasn't hard to overhear what she was saying since the woman was practically yelling at the poor girl. From what I could tell, the woman was dropping off a bunch of film but didn't seem to understand that she could choose a time to come back and pick her photos up.

The London Drugs girl was trying to explain that the store normally develops photos in under an hour but they were a bit backed up so if the woman picked a time later in the afternoon, they'd be sure to have her photos ready and waiting for her by then.

The woman wasn't following so the girl explained it to her over and over again in a calm, cool and collected manner.

The woman still wasn't getting it and her agitation was increasing. Trying to be helpful, the London Drugs girl asked, "So what time would you like me to put down?"

"I DON'T CARE!" the woman exploded. "JUST PUT A TIME ON IT AND I WON'T COME BEFORE THEN."

"Okay, then, three o'clock," the girl said. "And how many rolls of film are you dropping off?"

To me, this seemed like a reasonable question.

But to Ms. Rude Bitch, this was the stupidest question anyone had ever asked another human being anywhere on the planet.

"I don't know," she said in a voice dripping with irritation. "I HAVE TO COUNT THEM FIRST."

She then hauled her faux-glamorous handbag with rhinestone detailing onto the counter and dumped out 20 rolls of film.

"I want every single negative developed," she demanded. "Every. Single. Negative. I don't want you people deciding for me. I want every single negative developed. Do you understand? Every. Single. Negative."

The girl behind the counter remained unruffled. I, on the other hand, was boiling with rage. My eyes were shooting daggers into the back of the woman's thick skull.

I don't care what kind of shit you're going through, nothing gives you the right to treat another human being that way. I'm not saying people should walk around with big Pollyanna smiles plastered to their faces. That would be idiotic. But there's no reason you can't treat people with a little respect.

What happened to "please" and "thank you?" (Wow. Did I really just write that? I am such an old lady. I like cats, coupons and good manners.)

And while we're on the topic of rudeness, can I just say how irritating it is when people go through the line-up at the grocery store blabbing away on their cell phones without even pausing to acknowledge the cashier?

I've seen this happen so many times. They don't say "hello." They don't say "thank you." They just keep talking away on their cell phones while the cashier bags their groceries and rings up the final total. They even fish out their wallet and pay without a break in the conversation.

If I was a cashier, I wouldn't even start swiping the customer's groceries until they got off the phone. Seriously. I would stand there with my arms folded across my chest, staring them down until they hung up the phone. Perhaps this is why I do not work in customer service.

One more example of rude behaviour that drives me crazy? Celebrities who wear sunglasses during interviews. What the hell is that all about?

If I was a TV journalist sitting down to interview P. Diddy or Bono or pretty much anyone out there, I would ask them to remove their sunglasses first. If you're not willing to make eye contact with me or the audience, I'm not interested in interviewing you. Only assholes wear sunglasses indoors (obviously, blind people or migraine sufferers or people with eye infections are exempt from this generalization).

Rude people suck.

Romantically challenged

I have been single for a very long time. I would rather not be single but I'm having a tough time overcoming the following barriers:

1. I am attracted to gay men. I don't intentionally seek them out. It just happens that most of the guys I like turn out to be gay. It's gotten so bad that my gay friends use me as a human gayometer. Whenever a cute new guy joins the swim team, everyone comes running to me to find out if he's gay or straight: "If Sarah likes him, then you know he's gay." Seriously. Whatever the opposite of gaydar is, that's what I have. Perhaps I'd be better off presuming all men are gay until proven straight.

2. I am picky. I'm like a female Jerry Seinfeld. You know, the way Jerry finds something wrong with every woman he dates in order to break up with them: man hands, low talker, bad laugher. I have the same problem. I recently went out with someone who was textbook perfect. Gorgeous, smart and sexy as hell. His downfall? He agreed with everything I said. And I mean everything. It was like he had no opinions of his own. I would make stuff up just to test him ("Man, I love that new Nickelback song, don't you?"). I tried so hard to like him but I just couldn't get past how much of a wet noodle he was. Sometimes I'm not sure if I'm picky or just completely neurotic.

3. I don't like dating. I don't want to go out on lots of dates with lots of guys. It's like an endless stream of job interviews. The whole thing is totally unnatural and unbearably painful. You have to sell yourself. You have to be all charming and clever and perky and interesting. And while you're trying to dazzle your date with all of your wonderfulness, you also have to size him up at the same time. Is he boyfriend material? Is he the one? Is he seriously trying to pass himself off as 30 when he is clearly a decade older? Bleh. Who needs all that nonsense? After a long, stressful day at work, the last thing I want to do is go on a date with some random stranger. Besides, I like spending time alone (which is a whole other problem).

4. I live in Vancouver. My love life has disappeared ever since I moved to Vancouver. Coincidence? I think not. Let's review the evidence, shall we? In Toronto, I got hit on all the time (okay, so I was a teenager in a Catholic schoolgirl uniform but that's not the point). In Ottawa, I had more boyfriends than I knew what to do with. In Saint John, I was in a serious relationship a few months after moving there. In Vancouver, I may as well be dead for all the male attention I get here. Sorry, Vancouver. It's not me. It's you. Every time I leave this city, I have no problem meeting men (well, except for when I went to Japan. Now that was a dry spell).

5. I get all shy and awkward when I meet a guy I like. However, this is not such a big hurdle because: a) I don't meet guys I like very often (see barrier #2) and, b) they usually turn out to be gay anyway (see barrier #1).

It's frustrating because I truly believe I’m a great catch. If I were I guy, I would totally date me.

I hate making the first move but if the guys in Vancouver aren't going to come to me, well then I'm going to come to them. That's my bold new approach. Well, for now anyway.

I got a chance to try out my take-charge attitude at a press conference two weeks ago. I had my eye on the cute guy working the audio feed. I had met him at a press conference in the past but was too chicken to give him my number.

This time I wasn't going to waste the opportunity. So I walked over to where he was standing and chatted him up for a bit. He was just as funny and charming as he was the first time I met him.

But what really sealed the deal was when he started talking about his cat. There is nothing sexier than a man who likes cats.

I was completely charmed by the way he was going on and on about his cat.

And so I did something totally out of character. Something so bold and brazen I can hardly believe I actually went through with it . . . I gave him my business card.

[Interesting fact: The last time I gave a cute guy my business card, he turned out to be gay.]

Unfortunately, I wasn't very smooth about it. I had to screw up the courage to make the first move for a good 20 minutes. I was distracted the entire press conference thinking about how I would go about giving him my business card. The longer I thought about it, the more nervous I got. By the time the press conference was over, my heart was pounding and my hands were shaking.

I waited until he was packing up his equipment and was about to leave. I walked over to where he was standing, thrust my card in his hand and said:

"Here's my business card. For . . . whatever."

And then I ran away.

I know, I know. It was totally lame and ambiguous but that's not the point. I rarely do this sort of thing and I felt so proud of myself for taking a risk and putting myself out there.

Of course, he never did call or email me. With my track record, he’s probably gay anyway.

What am I doing wrong?

Painfully beautiful

It's not hyperbole to say that cherry blossoms are painfully beautiful. Looking at them makes my head hurt.

I don't think my brain is wired to process this much beauty. It's not enough that Vancouver put snow-capped mountains, forest-filtered air and sandy beaches at my doorstep. They just had to throw cherry blossoms into the mix too. Ouch. My eyes.

Unfortunately, there's no way to avoid a beauty-induced headache these days. Cherry blossoms are everywhere. You can't walk more than 50 feet without passing a cherry tree in full bloom.

I can't even walk out my front door without being bombarded by cherry blossoms. I took these pictures in the park across the street from my apartment. I lasted only 20 minutes before I had to retreat back inside. Any longer and my head would have exploded.

Something tells me it's going to be a long time before this couch finds a new home

Someone dumped this couch in the alley behind my apartment more than two weeks ago.

No one has touched it since then.

I don't know if that's because of the hideous orange and brown floral pattern or because of the helpful note its former owner tucked between the cushions.

Missing Grape-Nuts found

Less than 24 hours after I wrote about the case of the missing Grape-Nuts, a mysterious stranger delivered 10 boxes of the crunchy little nuggets to my door. Thank you anonymous benefactor!


The surprise delivery happened this morning. I was at work, sitting at my desk when the receptionist called.

Receptionist: "Um . . . did you order a shipment of Grape-Nuts?"

Me: "What?!?!"

Receptionist: "I just got a delivery of Grape-Nuts with your name on it."

Me: "Are you kidding me? Is this a joke?"

Receptionist: "No. Did you order these Grape-Nuts?"

Me: "No! Hang on. I’ll be right there."

And there sitting on the receptionist's desk was a huge container full of boxes and boxes and boxes of Grape-Nuts. It was like manna from heaven.

She explained that they had been dropped off by Stong's Market but with no note and no name attached. It was clearly the work of a great humanitarian or a Grape-Nuts PR person.

Either way, I've got enough Grape-Nuts to last the rest of the year. So, thank you (whoever you are).

The case of the missing Grape-Nuts

I've been jonesing for a Grape-Nuts fix for almost two years now.

I was deprived of my favourite cereal when I was living in Japan (the closest thing to Western-style cereal in my local grocery store was a cardboard-like Corn Flakes knockoff and a vomit-inducing Bran Flakes impostor).

I couldn't wait to dig into a bowl of Grape-Nuts when I returned to Canada. But since I've been back, I can't find them anywhere. Grape-Nuts have mysteriously disappeared from the shelves.

At first I thought that maybe they were just sold out (a logical conclusion because who doesn't love Grape-Nuts?).

And so I waited (and waited and waited) for Safeway to restock the cereal aisle. A month went by. Two months went by. Six months later and still no sign of the crunchy little nuggets.

Something didn't add up. I decided to go deep undercover to crack the case of the missing Grape-Nuts.

The first weapon in every modern detective's arsenal is Google. So I Googled everything I could think of: "Grape-Nuts discontinued," "Grape-nuts grain shortage," "Grape-Nuts fan club," "Grape-Nuts factory infested by mice," "Grape-Nuts Safeway where are they?"

Every link led to a dead end.

Having gotten nowhere on the internet, I decided to take my sleuthing to the scene of the crime. Disguising myself as a shopper, I roamed the aisles of Safeway looking for an appropriate employee to interrogate.

I didn't want to waste my time questioning the teenage stock boys. They were too green to know what was going on. The girls behind the cash probably had the inside scoop but were too rushed to talk about it. I needed someone older. Someone experienced. Someone who'd been around Safeway for a while and knew what was really going on.

I found my informer in the frozen food aisle. He was older and working alone. Judging by his vest, white button-down shirt and nicely pressed slacks, he may have even been a manager.

Now, I'd been casing the joint for the past six months and knew full well that there were no Grape-Nuts to be found. So I had to draw on my Grade 9 drama skills in order to play the part of an innocent customer.

"Excuse me," I said. "Can you tell me where the Grape-Nuts are?"

"We don’t have any," he said.

I asked him if he knew when the next shipment was coming in.

Probably never, was his cryptic reply.

Jackpot! My suspicions were confirmed. I knew I there was more to this case than a simple supply and demand story. (I credit my finely tuned detective skills to a childhood spend reading Nancy Drew mysteries.)

I asked him why I would never be able to buy Grape-Nuts again. He gave me a long, complicated answer about nasty politics and bad blood between Safeway and Kraft.

He explained that big companies like Kraft look at shelf space as prime real estate for advertising. If Grape-Nuts aren't flying out of the store, then Kraft doesn't want to pay the shelf fees for a product that's not bringing in a lot of money. So Safeway decided to pull Grape-Nuts from the store because they were taking up valuable shelf space. Or something like that. (He was speaking really quickly and I wasn't taking notes. I had no idea there was so much drama in the food industry.)

So that part of the mystery is solved. Only one question remains: how am I going to get my Grape-Nuts fix now?