on the 19th or so i FINALLY finished working on natasha's dress. i started it in february and despite some minor glitches (ie. the wedding getting called off), natasha and i both managed to pull our way through our agreement (my dressmaking in exchange for a painting by her). so, i threw the dress in the washer and dryer (which i knew was safe, because i had washed the fabric before i cut out the pattern) to get out some water spots from the iron... and it came out totally ruined. faaack. there were dark spots EVERYWHERE, as if someone had splattered hot butter or something all over the dress. not very flattering. definitely unwearable. so i e-mailed natasha to tell her what had happened. she was very gracious, but that still didn't stop me from bawling (and THAT was probably aided by my PMSing). since the dress was ruined, i decided to try whatever i could to get the stains out, because i really had nothing to lose. my first few tries (handwashing with no soap, machine washing with detergent) didn't work, but i eventually tried some of the "oxi-clean: baby" that was left over in the trailer from the girls last year... and it seemed to work. so after about 8 rounds of handscrubbing the dress with oxi-clean and throwing it in the dryer (WITHOUT a dryer sheet, which appears to have been the problem), the dress is finally wearable. good lord. i hope natasha loves it. she asked me to put pockets onto it, because we both love them on dresses, and i think they make the dress 10 times more adorable. hopefully she will post a picture of herself wearing it when she picks it up (oh, natasha: i left it at nathan's because i won't see you when you get back). and i am looking forward to getting the painting she's making for me. woo!

i had three days off (tuesday-thursday) last week. this is what i did:

monday night after work i drove to my parents', where they made me supper. then my dad and i took his truck into town and we parked at the hospital, where we visited my kind-of grandma doris. then we got the bikes out of the truck and biked around vermilion. i've never really realized how awesomely flat ALL of vermilion is. i don't like hills. they are okay to go down but coming up is just too much hassle. we also stopped in and visited my grandma and gido, who are pretty much the cutest couple of all time. i came home and talked to natasha on skype, and worked on sewing a wallet. i'm convinced that boys will have crushes on me if i make them crafts. this hypothesis has yet to be proven true.

on tuesday i drove to edmonton. i walked to the u of a from my sisters' condo, and spent a few hours photocopying/printing stuff, seeing if i could get my moccasins fixed (i can't), and meeting with professors regarding my grad school application. then i went for a chocolate cupcake with strawberry icing at flirt, and later i met jessica at her house. we had tea and one of our typical chats, which usually leaves me feeling like bursting with love and shouting about it from the rooftops. that day was no exception. i walked her across the high level so she could go see landon's show at the hydeaway, and i walked back to whyte to meet erica at dadeo for vanilla cokes. unfortunately, she forgot about me. ha/boo. i got myself a vanilla bean hot chocolate and walked back to the condo.

on wednesday i tutored cree for an hour, and then went to whyte, where i bought an adorable jumpsuit at nokomis. it's cuter than it seems in this picture. i hope. i bought some cupcakes for myself and bri, and later in the evening i went to her house and we ate them and then went to the phoenix range. she shot a revolver, which is sooo her style. i shot a 9 mm. i like the revolver more, but i picked the 9 mm because it seems lighter, and my arms get so sore from being tense and holding the guns up. after that we stopped by some pool place to see patrick, and then went back to bri's to talk for a bit. bethany also showed up, holding postcards that i had sent the two of them a few days earlier. it was nice to see both girls and talk to them. i don't get to do that as much as i would like. they also both made fun of the topless jeep i was driving (which belongs to my dad, but emily has been using it for the summer. however, she took my car to calgary for warped tour, because jeeps are bitches to drive on the highway). i'm just glad natasha wasn't around, because i'm sure she would have scorned me ten times as much. little do you all know that i've been driving jeeps and pickups since high school. my family didn't even own a car until i was in grade 11 or so. anyway, before i went home, i bought this cardigan (in paprika/brown) to go with my jumpsuit. i am hoping the ensemble can pass as "business casual" in d.c., because i don't have many clothes that are business casual and that's what i'm expected to wear. gah. levi called when i got back and we had a nice talk and then i went to bed.


friday started out badly. first i ripped the crotch seam in my new jumpsuit. i was squatting next to my backpack and it tore. eff. i have never thought of myself as a crotch-seam-splitter. i guess i am. then my button fell off my wallet. then i went to go start the jeep and found that i had forgotten to turn the lights of the night before, and the battery was dead. faaack. alyssa graciously drove me to whyte, where i met shannon at café mosaics for breakfast. i don't really like many breakfast foods, but man, their granola/fruit/yogurt is INCREDIBLE. after that, i took my car in to get an oil change, and was told there was a mouse nest under my hood and that i needed a new filter or something. meh. it was only $20, so i wasn't too upset. then erica and i met for lunch at dadeo, and had a fantastic and fun time. erica is super creative and very bright, and i love love love hearing her talk about art. she is just so good at what she does, and very thoughtful about what she's doing. i'll be staying with her when i'm in halifax in september, and i can't wait.

!!!

august 2nd:
caitlan's mom drove us to north vancouver, where we caught a bus for deep cove. we went canoeing for 3 hours. i liked riding the wakes of passing motorboats and seeing purple starfish and being in the sun. i like that we are comfortable with long periods of not talking to each other, but just being around each other. or even asking for space when we need it, and not being offended by the request. we had some gelato and then bussed back home for a nap. we watched "persepolis" at caitlan's, which was maybe a little too intense for me to absorb in my exhausted state, but it was nevertheless visually and conceptually intriguing. in the evening, caitlan's whole family (parents, sister, grandmother) and i went to go watch her brother perform at an improv show somewhere downtown-ish. i usually don't like improv much, but this show was actually pretty funny. i liked listening to caitlan laugh at her brother in parts where no one else was laughing. they are twins and they have a neat relationship. afterwards, caitlan's dad drove us home. on the way, we stopped at a gelato place that has 300 flavours! i got some green apple sorbetto. caitlan got apple cinnamon gelato because all the cinnamon gelato was too frozen or something.

august 1st:
caitlan and i got up early and went to the farmers' market in east vancouver. that was when i started feeling really sick with my cold, so i wasn't in the mood to buy and carry around fruits and vegetables. on the skytrain afterwards, this funny group of, like, spanish soccer players or something got on the train and before, during, and after their ride, they continued singing this cute little high-energy song all together (with drums and tambourines and i think maybe even maracas or something). it was kind of indescribable. caitlan used some good words to describe the mash up of genres, but i can't remember them now. it kind of sounded like this. all you really need to know is it was cute and made us smile.

we took the seabus to north vancouver, and found a great little place to make our own fruit salad at lonsdale quay. strawberries! raspberries! pomegranate! watermelon! grapes! oranges! blueberries! pineapple! after that we took a bus to lynn canyon to go swimming. the water was a little too cold for us to swim in though, so we mostly just waded around for a bit. caitlan went to sit down on some rocks and a mid-30s man standing near me started talking to me. the rocks were too slippery for me to get away quickly without risking falling into the cold water, so i was obliged to converse with him. it was standard, unmemorable small talk, but what WAS memorable was this: as we were talking, i ducked my hands under the water and squirted some water through them (a "water clam," or "water lamb," as you may refer to it) just in front of me. i did it subconsciously, mostly because i like how it feels and i do it whenever i am in water. the guy was apparently amazed, and asked how i did it. i tried to explain it, and he was sort of able to do it. i guess he felt inspired, though, because he proceeded to encourage me to try to make a loon sound by blowing on my folded hands. i tried numerous times but couldn't do it, which i suppose gave him the authority to take my wrists in his hands and blow on my thumbs, thus making the sought-after loon sound. eek. i washed my hands in the river and tried again myself, but when i still couldn't do it, he took my wrists again and blew. what!? also, during this whole conversation he was playfully splashing me. don't splash me! you are a stranger and it is cold! then he said, "i have to swim over there" and started swimming away, splashing me a lot with his legs in the process. i'm not sure if it was flirting or he is just a poor swimmer, but i took the opportunity to carefully traverse the slippery rocks away. success. since the water was so cold, caitlan and i decided to scramble around the mountain a bit barefeet and in our bathing suits. that is one of my all-time most favourite things to do, so i'm glad we got to do it, even just for a little while. we walked back up the canyon and bussed back to lonsdale quay. we had some more fruit salad and some cookies, and then went to a theatre and watched "ice age III: dawn of the dinosaurs" in 3D. we hadn't meant to watch it in 3D, but at that time that was all that was showing. it definitely wasn't as good as the other ice age movies, but it was still cute.

after the movie, we to a park just west of lonsdale quay so we could rest. i was feeling pretty garbagey because of my cold by this time. later we went back to the market and ate some delicious indian food, and i had a tea to help me feel better. it didn't help. we went back to the park to wait for caitlan's boyfriend cam, and as i laid out my hammock on the ground, some photographer man snapped a shot and then asked us if he could take a few more for a tourism magazine he was contracted to do photos for. we said okay. i felt a little foolish doing the same thing over and over, but i will be glad to have the pictures of the two of us when he e-mails them to us. cam showed up soon after, and he and caitlan played guitar and violin, respectively. man oh man. the music they were making was so beautiful i felt like crying. seriously. i hope that if i end up moving to vancouver for school, i can have many more moments like that, listening to caitlan and some other interesting people make music in a park on a hot day as the sun is going down. i usually don't like that shit. but caitlan is not usual.

just as we were feeling ready to catch the seabus (which was operating on a half hour schedule rather than a 15 minute one, due to mechanical problems), the photographer man came back and asked us if we'd be willing to wait around for another 15 minutes for this one photo he had been waiting all night to take. caitlan declined, saying that if we missed this seabus, we'd have to wait another half hour, and we were too tired to do that. he said that this shot was the most important one of the contract, and was to be put on the front page of the tourism magazine he was working for, and said that he'd drive us back to burnaby if we'd stay. since it's a 1-1.5 hour transit ride back to caitlan's, we couldn't decline. it actually wasn't too bad. the only time i like having my picture taken is when someone tells me exactly what to do. that way, if i look bad, it's their fault and not mine. he told us exactly where and how to stand, and which way to look and all that. phew. i like being told what to do. he showed us what it looked like afterwards and i liked the picture. i will be glad to have a copy of that one too, but apparently we will have to wait for it until after the magazine has been published. he drove us home and we were not murdered or followed or anything like that, so it was a good deal despite our teachings to never go for rides with strangers.

july 31st:
robin and i had a nice and quiet morning together. around 11 we went to pick up a boy named matthew, who had been one of the participants in robin's month-long project. we dropped matthew off at the airport and then went for lunch at "the foundation" on main. then we went for cupcakes with robin's other project participant erin, and then picked up all of erin's baggage from her apartment and drove her to the airport. then robin and i went to granville island once again. sometime in between all that we also went to the regional assembly of text, which is kind of a dream come true. in the afternoon, we went back to the theatre and watched the rest of "(500) days of summer." i liked it. we went back to robin's afterward so i could pack, and when i was ready, he drove me to the skytrain station. we stopped for pizza first, and then had a nice hug goodbye. that boy.

i took the train to production way station, where caitlan met me. we walked quietly back to her house. i was feeling very tired so we went to sleep right away (it was around 10:00). since it has been so hot in vancouver (like, between 28 and 35 degrees), we slept out on her back deck under an arbor of grape vines. awesome.

dear nathan: don't read this and the next couple of posts. i just mailed you some letters and have one more to send, and they talk about all the stuff i blogged about. so don't read these posts yet or the letters will be redundant.

july 30th:
my mom drove me to the airport at 9:00 so i could catch my flight to vancouver at 10:15. i got stopped at the screening place, i think probably because of the epi-pen i had in my carry-on (i try not to fly with checked baggage whenever possible). i guess the lady who found my epi-pen was in training, because some other lady stood over her and for 15 minutes made the first lady unroll and re-roll every single article of clothing i had in that bag. gah. i wouldn't have minded so much, except for the fact that the lady checking my stuff didn't change her latex gloves before she touched all my stuff, which meant that she transferred everybody else's germs on to me. which may explain why most of my trip was plagued by a bad cold. yeesh.

i took a couple busses from the airport to UBC. i spent my first hour or so on campus at the Museum of Anthropology, taking a few guided tours and crushing on bill reid. at 2:00, i met with an advisor from UBC's anthro department regarding their master's program in museum studies. after that, i met with a professor who i hope will be my advisor if i am accepted into the program for september 2010. it looks like a really incredible program. most of the classes are held at the Museum of Anthropology. the museum itself seems to be really cutting-edge (that sounds so lame, but i can't think of a better word to use) in terms of classifications, physical/figurative repatriation, bi-cultural education, and making the collections accessible to the public for research. woo. cross your fingers that i get in. i'll be applying in january.

after my meetings, i bummed around the museum a bit more until robin picked me up at 5:00. he was in vancouver doing an art project, which i wrote about in an earlier post. we went to granville island and ate a little bit (iced tea, donut, fruit salad, couscous...) and then went to a cute stationery store. then we went to a theatre to see "(500) days of summer." unfortunately, 45 minutes through the movie, the power went off, so we were all issued free passes for another day and sent back out into the un-air-conditioned streets. robin and i went to uncle fatih's for cheap, delicious pizza, and then we went home. robin graciously allowed me to sleep in the bed, which meant that he had to sleep out on the couch in the living room with the noisy kittens. thanks, friend.

july 29th:
i left work a few hours early and drove to vermilion. my mom made me some hamburgers and then she drove me to edmonton. i met up with nathan and we went longboarding along the north side of the river valley. strangely, i had never been along most of those paths, much less longboarded them, but it was AWESOME. nothing compared to calgary, but still better than the little saskatchewan drive runs i had been stuck with before. it was sunny and beautiful and most of the pavement was smooth and nathan was fun and it made me wish i was in the city for the summer.

after that, i met jessy at the second cup on 106th and whyte, and we talked for a bit and then walked to her house. we had a nice nice talk. later on claire came by with an abundance of gifts from shanghai, including a book on crafts to make for babies, some adorable mini cupcake wrappers, a pad of message notes, and a mechanical pencil that has, "On system, on the wings of the wind. The bird flew high in the sky." it was good to see them both. claire and i rode the bus and LRT back across the river together. i like spending time with my introverted friends. i like mass transit. i like the two together. i walked back to my sisters' condo and went to bed.

highlights from the week of july 23rd to 29th:
-vermilion fair: eating mini donuts with my dad, swooning over my magician crush who was performing at the grandstand (seriously, if you don't like magic, you have no soul), visiting my grandparents, eating baby potatoes from my parents' garden, watching "becoming jane" with my mom (i still hate jane austen), eating at a&w with my parents
-writing and mailing letters to two crafty girls in washington who i am hoping to become friends with
-having a 2-hour skype conversation with nathan
-working on the illustrations for my cree books. they are going soooo slowly, but i like them.
-watching "the boy in the striped pyjamas" and "night at the museum" (the latter with my coworkers, before i was interrupted by mad cramps)