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?

Vancouver cherry blossoms

I stumbled upon these cherry trees on my way back to the office after a meeting this afternoon.

I had decided to do the environmentally responsible thing and take public transit instead of a cab. When I emerged from the grey, concrete bowels of the Burrard SkyTrain station, I could barely believe my eyes. The escalator rose up, up, up toward a fluffy pink sky.

I felt like I was being transported to another world. A soft, fluttery, floating dream world.

Luckily, I had my camera with me. I was only there for a few minutes but it was magical. Sigh.

Hey, America! Your Puritan roots are showing

I've been thinking about the Eliot Spitzer affair lately. Not his actual affair with that high-priced hooker. But the whole media firestorm surrounding the scandal.

No matter how hard I try, I just can't imagine something like this happening in Canada.

I mean, I can certainly imagine Canadian politicians getting down and dirty with interns and prostitutes. Marital infidelity among the political elite is probably just as common in Canada as it is in America. The only difference is we simply don't care.

Think about it. When was the last time we had a Canadian sex scandal? We don't do sex scandals in Canada (well, except for that Toronto cooking show host whose husband ran off with Tori Spelling).

Let's Canadianize the Eliot Spitzer affair for a moment. Let's pretend a Canadian premier was discovered spending thousands of dollars (of his own money) to do things (on his own time) with expensive call girls.

Would journalists in Canada report this story? Would there be a media firestorm? Would the premier buckle under pressure and resign?

While political sex scandals make Americans foam at the mouth with moral outrage, most Canadians would probably just shrug their shoulders.

We don't care if a premier cheats on his wife. Yes, it makes him sleazy and duplicitous. But if he's doing it in his private time and it's not interfering with his job, it doesn't really matter.

I don't understand why people down in the States are getting so worked up about Spitzer.

I also can't wrap my head around these American wives who stand up on stage to support their lying, cheating husbands. If I was married to Eliot Spitzer, I'd be too busy filing for divorce to be up on stage looking all sad and victimized beside the two-timing sleazebag.

Even more puzzling is David Paterson, the man stepping in to replace Spitzer as governor of New York. One day after being sworn in, the new governor felt compelled to tell the world that he and his wife both had extramarital affairs.

Wow, America. Has it really come to this?

Hipster heaven

I hung out on Commercial Drive this weekend. I don't normally spend a lot of time on the Drive but now that my sister lives there it looks like I'll be making the trek to East Vancouver more often.

This thought fills me with dread. It's not that I don't like Commercial Drive (what's not to like?). I just don't like the annoying hipsters and earnest do-gooders who hang out there.

The hipsters are easy to spot in their matching army jackets, Elvis Costello-style glasses, shoulder-strap messenger bags and old-school sneakers. They can be found having pretentious conversations about indie bands or foreign films in one of the many organic, fair-trade coffee shops that line the Drive.

They don't look like they’re having a lot of fun. Their sense of humour seems to revolve around being superior to the lowbrow masses. For example, if you showed up on the Drive wearing a Nickelback concert t-shirt, people would laugh appreciatively at your brilliant irony.

[If you showed up in Kitsilano wearing a Nickelback t-shirt, people would think you were a loser and shun you. If you showed up in Surrey wearing a Nickelback t-shirt, people would shove a beer funnel down your throat and slap a Nickelback CD on the stereo.]

Mixed among the hipsters on the Drive are the equally annoying earnest do-gooders. The earnest do-gooders love the Drive because of its reputation as a hotbed of political and social activism.

The Drive is undeniably progressive. It has car-free festivals, spoken-word performances, organic grocery stores, bicycle friendly roads, Cuban cafes, random street parties and a refreshing lack of big-box stores and restaurant chains.

All wonderful things but I could do without the bongo-playing, patchouli-wearing, dreadlock-loving space cadets the Drive tends to attract.

I always feel like an outsider on the Drive. I’m not cool enough to be a hipster (I like Top 40 music in an unironic way) and I'm not earnest enough to be a do-gooder (I refuse to give up long, hot showers for the sake of the planet).

Maybe I'll just make my sister hang out with me in my neighbourhood from now on. We can sit inside one of the many Starbucks that line West 4th Avenue and watch the bottle blondes in their lululemon pants, ugg boots and fur-lined hoodie bomber jackets go by.

Facebook fatigue

The honeymoon is over, the thrill is gone, the novelty has worn off. I'm so over Facebook.

Oh, sure. The Book was fun at first. The cyber stalker in me reveled in looking up (and being looked up by) old high school crushes. There was a certain perverse joy in finding out that most of my former flames were leading pretty boring lives.

I got caught up in the rush of joining random Facebook groups like the "I Will Go Slightly Out of my Way to Step on That Crunchy-looking Leaf" group and the "Just Because We're Both Gaijin Doesn't Mean We're Friends" group.

But, in the end, Facebook is just another distraction I don't need. There are too many applications, too many "friend" requests, too many people poking me (what's the point of all this cyber poking anyway?), too many people tagging me in unflattering photos, too much time spent untagging myself from said photos. Who needs it?

Now, before I leave The Book behind forever, I want to share a funny story about connecting with someone from my past on Facebook. Someone I haven't seen or talked to since he broke my heart in elementary school. Let's call him "Paul Gorma."

Paul Gorma and I go all the way back to junior kindergarten. Paul Gorma was the king of kindergarten. He was funny and cute and had a big gap between his front teeth and even bigger brown eyes. He was always getting into trouble but had a magical way of charming his way out of it.

I had a huge crush on Paul Gorma. In fact, I had such a big crush on Paul Gorma that I decided to name my teddy bear after him.

Each night I clutched his stuffed effigy close to my chest as I fell asleep. I loved Paul Gorma the bear and the boy equally.

Over time, my crush intensified and by Grade 2 I couldn't keep my feelings inside any longer. I wanted to let Paul Gorma know how I felt about him. Maybe he'd love me back! Maybe he'd kiss me behind the slide! Maybe we'd go out (and by "go out" I don't mean that we'd actually go anywhere. I mean maybe we'd kind of be boyfriend and girlfriend who'd maybe hang out during recess sometimes. Because that's how romance worked in elementary school).

So I decided to bring Paul Gorma (the bear, not the boy) to show-and-tell and introduce him to the entire class. I don't remember what I said exactly. But I do remember holding the bear up above my head and telling the class that his name was Paul Gorma and being shocked when all of the kids in the class (and even the teacher!) broke out into hysterical laughter. I wasn't trying to be funny.

Unfortunately, my grand gesture of love blew up in my face. Paul Gorma was downright mean about it. He told me I was stupid and that the bear was stupid and that he would never talk to me again.

Looking back on it now, I don't blame the poor kid for freaking out. I mean, a crazy stalker names her teddy bear after you? And announces it in front of the entire class? Run, kid, run! (I suppose it didn't help that I liked to come to school wearing yellow plastic sunglasses with the lenses poked out while pretending to be a British exchange student by the name of Kimberly Leblanc.)

At the time, I was crushed by Paul Gorma's harsh rejection. But I never thought to change the bear's name.

[Side note: The bear actually did undergo a temporary name change during my university years. I was dating a guy who went to high school with Paul Gorma. Seeing my bear for the first time, he asked what his name was. Thinking it might be kind of awkward to tell him the truth, I made up a new name on the spot. And, not being one who thinks very quickly on her feet, I told him the bear's name was "Um . . .Ted." After we broke up, the bear temporarily known as Ted went back to being Paul Gorma.]

I haven't seen or spoken to Paul Gorma since he shunned me in elementary school. I'm not going to spell it out in years, but let's just say that it's been a very long time.

Fast forward to 2007. A few months after joining Facebook, I got a friend request from none other than Paul Gorma. It was a strange feeling to see that name pop up in my inbox. It put me right back on the playground.

Now, after not having seen or spoken to each other in years and years and years, what do you think the very first thing he said to me was?

That's right. He asked me if I still had the teddy bear I named after him!

Oh, Facebook, thank you for that long, strange trip down memory lane. Everything has now come full circle.


"Paul Gorma" chills out on the balcony at the apartment we shared while living in Japan. Paul and I miss Japan a lot.

Slum bloglord

I've been neglecting this blog lately. I feel like a slum bloglord.

As much as I love blogging, it's not a particularly lucrative hobby (at least it's not for me. Some bloggers get advertising dollars and book deals. I'm not one of them).

So when a magazine calls up and offers $500 for an 850-word article, well, let's just say the writing that pays wins out over the writing that doesn't.

Anyway, that's it. I just thought I should drop in to explain my lengthy absence from this space. My article is due on Monday so my reign as a slum bloglord will end soon.

(Also, while I'm busy procrastinating, can I just say how excited I was when I googled "slum bloglord" and it returned zero hits? Have I just created a new term for people who neglect their blogs? I can't believe no one else has used this before.)

What's wrong with this picture?

Take a look at this construction project. Is there anything about it that strikes you as unusual? Because all I can see is a bland, boxy apartment building with an unattractive yellow brick front.

I didn't think there was anything all that special about it when I walked past it the other day. And then I took a closer look at the sign posted out front.


That's right. Starting at $1.25-million (what's it stopping at? $3-million? $4-million?). For an apartment. An apartment!

Everyone knows that Vancouver has the highest housing prices in the country. But this is ridiculous. How can anyone afford to buy a place here?

I certainly can't. Not on my salary.

Moving out to the suburbs is not an option. I refuse to spend a good part of my day commuting to work. It's just not worth it. I want to live in a neighbourhood where I can get everywhere I need to go on foot or by bike. But the only way I can afford to live close to downtown Vancouver is to rent.

I will never be able to afford to buy a home in Vancouver. Not when the average house price is nearing the $1-million mark.

Who are all of these people with their million dollar homes? And where did they get the money for the down payment? Do they supplement their income with a grow-op or a crystal-meth lab in the basement? Or are they simply up to their eyeballs in debt?

Something is seriously out of whack here.

Practice safe fruit

My friend Laura gave me a very useful birthday present last week.


Get your mind out of the gutter, people. It's not a sex toy. It's a banana protector!


According to the Banana Guard website, the device was created by three Vancouver ER doctors who were concerned about "the fruitless amount of banana trauma and abuse taking place in the world . . . You can now take your banana to work, school or play secure in the knowledge that no harm will come to it."

Yay! No more squashed bananas in my bag!

More adventures, please

I like to think of myself as an adventurous person. I love adventures.

I'm not talking about climbing Mount Everest or bushwhacking through the Amazon. I'm talking about the small things that thrill, amuse, entertain or challenge us on a daily basis.

Everything has the potential to be an adventure. Taking the bus can be adventure. Walking to work can be an adventure. Even counting ballots can be an adventure.

Of course, the best adventures are the ones that include trying something new for the first time. Last week I did two things I had never done before -- fly in a floatplane and attend a budget lock-up.

Both were pretty exciting experiences. When my boss told me she was sending me to Victoria for the release of the B.C. budget, I was happy about getting out of the office for a few days. But I wasn't happy about the fact that she was sending me there by floatplane.

Now, I hate boats and I hate small planes. Put the two of them together and you get my worst nightmare. I had visions of vomiting all over the cabin and crashing into the ocean.

This is Vancouver's floating "airport." The whole scene looks pretty sketchy to me.


But I'm pleased to report that I didn't get sick and that the plane didn't nosedive into the ocean. The scenery was spectacular. Check out my video!



I even got to sit right behind the pilot (I guess they're not worried about terrorists on floatplanes).


The budget lock-up was also a pretty awesome experience.

A lock-up is exactly what it sounds like -- prison. The lock-up allows journalists and stakeholders to look at the budget before it's officially released in the legislature. It gives journalists a chance to study the details and gives stakeholders a chance to generate an informed response before it's unleashed on the public.

But you pretty much have to sign away all of your personal liberties and freedoms for the privilege of getting a sneak peek at the budget. We had to sign a waiver that said we would not leak the details of the budget to the outside world.

Just like a real prison, they took away our cell phones and blackberries and put them into sealed plastic bags that were not returned to us until we were released.

Stripped of all contact with the outside world, we were then directed into a large, windowless room filled with tables and chairs where we spent the next five hours poring over the budget.


We were not allowed to leave the building. We were allowed to go to the bathroom but security guards followed us there. The provincial government also provided a buffet breakfast and lunch (the egg salad sandwiches were particularly delicious).

The only entertainment was when Finance Minister Carole Taylor came in the room to do a presentation on the budget and answer journalists' questions (can I just say that Ms. Taylor is one of the smartest, most passionate and most beautiful women in Canadian politics? She’s our Obama, and my newest non-sexual crush).

At about 1:00 p.m. the 70 journalists in the lock-up were allowed to cross the room and interview the stakeholders. It sounds civilized but it was actually extremely chaotic. It was like a feeding frenzy with journalists running around thrusting cameras and microphones in peoples' faces.

The chaos subsided after the journalists had their fill of quotes and sat down to write their stories. By 3:00 p.m., Carole Taylor was standing up in the legislature delivering the budget and the lock-up was lifted. The whole thing made me want to be a journalist again. I miss the adventures.

More adventures, please!

One of the worst movies I've seen in a long time

I was part of the National Post's Popcorn Panel this week. I was one of three "lucky" people asked to watch and then write about the movie Jumper.

Jumper was awful to watch but fun to write about. That Hayden Christensen sure knows how to bring the suck.

Here's an excerpt:

Not even the jumping, the plot device on which the entire film rests, is explained. But I sort of like the Zen quality that results. What is the plot? There is no plot, there is only right now. And right now Hayden Christensen is sunbathing on top of the Sphinx. Sweet.

You can read the rest of the review in today's National Post (and save yourself the cost of a movie ticket).

Samuel L. Jackson spends most of the movie trying to kill Hayden Christensen. But we're never really told why. (Jackson's white hair is another mystery.)

Adventures in online dating

I have a confession to make. I frequently cruise the "men seeking women" ads on craigslist. I have no intention of replying to any of the ads. It's strictly voyeuristic.

I do it because it makes me feel better about being single. It's proof that there are no decent single guys in Vancouver. And, secure in that knowledge, I can hole myself up in my apartment without feeling guilty about not putting myself out there.

First of all, half of the guys on craigslist are looking for Asian women (What's that all about? Aren't Asian women creeped out by white dudes who only want to date them because they're Asian? And what kind of guy only dates Asian women anyway?).

Second of all, almost all of the guys on craigslist are looking for women five to 10 years younger than they are. I don't get it. Why do they automatically rule out girls their own age or a little older? Why do women have no problem dating someone 10 years older but there are rarely any guys willing to do the same? What's that all about?

Of all the ads on craigslist, there is only one that intrigues me (emphasis is mine):

I am a 25 year old male looking for a dominant female in need of a boytoy. I am 6’1 195 lbs very fit and attractive. I want to have no control and be at the will of a dominant female. As your boytoy my services could include full sexual slavery or no sex at all. I could just be used for cooking cleaning and massaging ect. I am very clean and dont do drugs. I have always fantacized about this but never tried

What intrigues me about this ad is that I have a very similar fantasy. I have always fantasized about being free from domestic drudgery. I get absolutely no pleasure from grocery shopping, cleaning the bathroom, washing the dishes, doing laundry and sweeping the kitchen floor. I hate housework.

And now, here's this guy offering his services for free. Absolutely no strings attached. I wonder how this would work? Could I just give him my keys and tell him to clean my apartment and have dinner waiting for me by the time I get home from work?

Or would I have to supervise him and whip him and say things like, "Scrub the floor harder, you dirty boy!" And then he would whimper, "Yes, mistress." Because that would be weird.

I miss real winter

I love winter. Always have. Always will.

I'm talking about real winter, of course. Not this rainy, grey, wet non-season that passes for winter in Vancouver.

"At least you don't have to shovel rain," people here are fond of saying. What kind of consolation is that? I love shoveling snow. I would shovel snow all day if I could.

Vancouverites also like to compensate for their non-existent winter by bragging about how you can ski, golf and sail all on the same day. While this is technically true, I don't know anyone who actually does this.

I'd take a blizzard over rain any day. There is nothing more beautiful than snow. I love the way it softens edges and muffles sound. Real winter is supposed to be harsh, bleak and desolate. The colder it is, the happier I am. Maybe I have reverse seasonal affective disorder.

At least Vancouver is close to the mountains where, if you get up high enough, the rain is replaced by snow. Although, there's something unnatural about driving out of a city where the grass is green and arriving in a winter wonderland a mere 20 minutes later. Downtown Vancouver and Cypress Mountain are less than 15 kilometres apart but they feel like two different worlds.


So while it looks like spring from below, it looks like winter from above. Two seasons for the price of one. Weird, huh?


I took these photos last weekend. And while the scenery up on Cypress was spectacular, something about it just didn't feel authentic. It took me a while to figure out what the problem was . . . it wasn't cold enough.

I guess you can take the girl out of Ontario but you can't take the Ontario out of the girl. I miss real winter.

Freaks on the bus and parrots in the supermarket

I had a couple of "only in Vancouver" moments this week.

The first happened on the city's great traveling sideshow, where $2.50 gets you a front-row seat to the theatrics of some of Vancouver's most colourful characters (more commonly known as "the bus").

The following went down on the #4 bus heading south on Howe Street . . . in the middle of the afternoon on a weekday.

As I boarded the bus, I was greeted by a very drunk man hanging off the pole beside the driver. Even though the bus wasn't moving, he was having trouble keeping his balance. He lurched forward as I tried to squeeze past him. He smiled and mumbled something incoherent, spewing noxious booze fumes in my face. The man was hammered but harmless.

I sat near the back of the bus and watched as the drunk guy tried to strike up a conversation with the driver. I was too far back to hear what he was saying. About five minutes into the trip, the drunk guy decided he wanted to get off the bus and dinged the bell.

The driver stopped the bus and let him out the front door. Mistaking it for a proper stop, a guy standing in the stairwell at the back of the bus frantically tried to open the rear door. As the bus lurched forward, the guy at the back door started yelling because the driver hadn't let him off.

The driver yelled back, "It's not a stop!"

"You let the other guy off!" the bus rider said.

"He's drunk," the driver explained.

Instead of calming the man down, this sent him over the edge.

"THAT'S DISCRIMINATION!" he yelled.

The tone of his voice verged on rage.

"IF I'M DRUNK AND HOMELESS THEN I CAN GET OFF ANYWHERE I WANT!"

He looked around for support but everyone on the bus remained silent. No one would even make eye contact with the guy. He stood in the back stairwell cursing and ranting about discrimination against non-drunk, non-homeless people until the driver let him off at the next stop.

This week's second "only in Vancouver" moment happened at the Safeway on 4th yesterday morning.

There was a guy walking around the produce section, just going about his normal grocery shopping. There was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary about him . . . except for the large parrot sitting on his right shoulder.

The parrot was sitting on a navy blue towel the guy had draped over his shoulder so that the bird could crap whenever it liked.

I couldn't stop staring at him. No one else seemed fazed by the fact that there was a man walking around the grocery store with a dirty, shitty bird on his shoulder.

Only in Vancouver . . .