Wednesday, March 24, 2010 – 12:23am – La-Z-Boy Lane, Burnaby, BC
Here I go again, trying to remember the events of the past several weeks in an effort to catch up my journal to what’s been going on.
Last Tuesday, Laina and I went to a Paralympic Sledge Hockey game at UBC. It was interesting, but I honestly was a bit fixated on looking at the players, some of which had no legs at all, or only partial legs, but all of them skated around on these neat little sleds, using short hockey sticks as poles to push themselves around the ice. We saw the USA team versus Japan and the USA team routed them – final score 7-0. It was neat to take part in some of the Games, but certainly didn’t have the excitement factor I’m sure the Olympic events would have had.
Wednesday, I went to meet this girl (Marta) from the Superdyke web site at Station Square Pub. I had to work, so I came home, went for a jog with my new Nike+ Sportband – which is, for the record, the coolest gadget ever! I changed and grabbed a quick bite to eat before heading over to Station Square Pub. On the way there, she called to tell me she was running late and was downtown walking around with a friend. I asked if she was going to take the SkyTrain in and she said, “Fuck no! I don’t do public transit! I can afford my own car, so fuck it – I’m drivin’!” I was like….ummm…O…K. Already, I was getting the idea that this was going to be a disaster. I invited Jackie and Mario to come meet us there and thank God they showed up! I arrived and Marta showed up, I asked her if she wanted a beer and she hemmed and hawed and was like, “Well, I try to watch my calories.” and I said “I know what you mean…” and she said “No, REALLY. I used to be almost 400lbs.” I said, “Wow! How’d you go from that to the size you are now?” and she told me she spent like 5-6 hours a day at the gym for 9-10 months. She also told me something about having injured her leg and being in the hospital and getting a blood clot that traveled up to her lung and that the lung is supposedly more or less useless. Um, again, O…K. Weirder still? She’s a smoker. So, I dunno if she’s a pathological liar or what. It was St. Patrick’s Day and there was a guy that worked at the pub who was giving away stuff. He was a heavier guy and not very attractive. Marta was all pseudo-flirting with him, trying to get him to give her stuff and she gave him an exaggerated kiss on the cheek. *eyeroll* At any rate, I couldn’t wait to get the fuck out of there. Jackie and Mario definitely provided a buffer and I was glad when 9:00pm rolled around and I announced that I was going to head out. Jackie and Mario came over and we had a beer and talked about what a wingnut the chick was.
Me, Laina and Soo met up at the Cecil downtown on Friday night. It was total boresville! Never been to a strip club where no one seems to tip the dancers at all. It was more like a snobby New York nightclub that just happened to have naked women cavorting on the stage. We only stayed about an hour and left. Soo wanted us to go with her and some of her friends who joined us to Odyssey, but I had to get up early to go on my snowshoeing trek, so we passed and headed back to my house.
I got up early on Saturday morning and Laina was sweet enough to get up and drive me down to Burnaby City Hall to meet up with the people for the snowshoeing outing. It turned out only to be 4 people, plus our guide since it had been rescheduled from the previous Saturday due to avalanche risks. Our guide’s name was Luke and he was a really nice guy. The other three people were all Chinese, and one was an older guy that I was surprised could keep up with the rest of us. We got to Mt. Seymour around 9:30am and headed out onto the trail. It was a pretty challenging path, as there was a lot of uphill spots that were pretty gruelling. It was such beautiful scenery and the weather was perfect. It was warm enough to only wear my grey, quilted North Face jacket and my ski pants. I wore my Keen Dakota winter boots and they were awesome for the trip. My feet were comfortable the whole day, even though we ended up walking probably between 4-5 miles total. We got up to the summit of Dog Mountain and it was a breathtaking view. We sat up there for about half an hour to have lunch and I had to find a place to pee because there were no facilities whatsoever up there. It was definitely a first – squatting in knee-deep snow and trying to pee. hahaha I took a bunch of photos and we headed off for our trek back. We ended up taking a different trail once we got to 1st Lake than the one we took in. It was a lot steeper and we ended up on the Mt. Seymour trail that runs alongside the big ski run coming down towards the parking lot. My left knee was bugging me on the way down the last hill, feeling like it was going to lock up on me, but I made it down OK. I was really proud of myself for making it without being too tired or anything. It felt really good to have gotten out and done something active and adventurous that I’d wanted to do for a long time. We got back on the bus and headed back to Burnaby. I thanked Luke – who was a great guide and I talked to him almost the entire time we were out – and gave him a $10 bill when I got off the bus. Laina picked me up a few minutes after the bus dropped us off and I took some nice photos of the daffodils and cherry blossoms at City Hall while I was waiting.
We went to IHOP to get something to eat and then back to my house for me to change clothes so we could go look at a car she was interested in buying.
Once again, I’m writing this quite a few days after the fact, so I can’t recall what we did on Sunday or the next couple of days after that. I know that we’ve had really nice weekends together over the last little while. A nice combination of doing stuff and relaxing, most of which is very pleasant.
Right now, I’m watching the documentary called Monarchy: The Royal Family at Work. It’s very interesting to learn about the queen. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have been born into something like that and bear that obligation – and so gracefully – your entire life when you didn’t choose it to begin with. It will be a sad day when Queen Elizabeth II dies, as there will likely not be another queen in our lifetime.
Have more entries to make, hopefully before I forget all that stuff, too! lol