counting sheep.

i can't sleep.

this is weird for me. i can ALWAYS sleep. i mean, i am definitely a night owl, but usually when i finally hit the pillow, i am asleep almost instantaneously. the culprit for me is usually that i had a late night latte or that i am really stressed about something that i have little control over. but tonight it is neither.

my mind is just racing like crazy. i have loads of time before i need to be ready to go to mexico, and i am off to the cottage tomorrow for a lazy few days by the lake. i don't think i am overly stressed or anxious about the move (maybe slightly, but nothing all-encompassing), but i think a few things hit me unexpectedly as i lay trying to fall asleep.

i was being fairly nonchalant about some things i have to do before i leave when i was on the phone with my mom today. this particularly flippant attitude achieves many things at the same time: it keeps me grounded and less stressed, and it doesn't worry my mother. however, she got kind of annoyed with me, and then said, "you know, moving to mexico is kind of a big deal". i obviously KNOW it is a big deal, but i have been trying to avoid the thought because i knew it would just stress me out. (hence the nonchalant part)

but now i am a bit worried. i have a long to-do list of errands i have to accomplish before i leave, which had not bothered me, until now. now, all i can picture as i lie here trying to fall asleep is one of those long long long rolls of receipt tape getting filled with an even longer list of thing i have forgotten. the perils of your own brain.

moreover, i had visions of this summer being THE summer where i would finally accomplish all those things that i have wanted to do for years and have never had time. you know what i mean: things like labelling your pictures, writing to great uncle so and so, re-organizing the filing cabinet, re-connecting with old friends, learning to golf and sorting through your sock and underwear drawer. so far, i have gotten a great start on all these projects (still haven't gotten to the sock and underwear drawer), but i am quickly running out of time! and it is bothering me that i only have four weeks before i leave and i won't finish my 'never had time to do' list. sigh. why is it that 'to do' lists are neverending? and who even has a 'never had time to do' list? i'm so weird.

so... having this conflicted attitude about knowing a fairly dramatic change is coming, but trying to remain fairly grounded and relaxed about it AND worrying that i won't have enough time to finish all my 'never had time to do' list are the culprits for keeping me up tonight.

in other news:

it was my parents 31st wedding anniversary today, and to celebrate, i cooked them a mexican fiesta feast. i have always told my parents that i was a decent cook, but they had never actually experienced it in person! with a little help from allrecipes.com, i created a delicious salsa (cut up one avocado, one mango, one small red onion, some peppers... hot if you like, some coriander and mix together with the juice from a lime) for an appetizer (with tostitos) and made my first attempt at enchiladas. great success with the enchiladas! i had absolutely NO idea how they would turn out, but they were a hit. cooking a meal is significantly cheaper than going out for one, and we got to lounge around with wine and eat outside in the backyard. talk about the whole enchilada.

i'll be off to the lake for a week tomorrow morning. no internet access so things here will be relatively quiet! hopefully the fresh air and waterskiing will melt these 'to do' and 'never had time to do' lists from my brain. i just re-read that and sound like such a nerd.

nite.

i can't get enough satisfaction.

for those of you who didn't know, i have decided to take a few weeks off this summer. if you took a look at my bank acount you would probably call me crazy (are you noticing a repeating pattern here?), but i made the executive decision that i needed the time to organize my pack-rat life and get ready for mexico. plus, i wanted to have ample time to spend with my friends and family.

in all this time off, i have been getting a lot of things accomplished that i have wanted to do for awhile and i am absolutely loving the feeling of satisfaction. i'm not talking about feeling joy or happiness, but being purely satisfied. getting satisfaction, for me, is more internal than anything. i can get it from weird things that no one else would even consider. there's the obvious contentment you get when you print off an essay or walk out of an exam, but i have a few other less-common moments to add.

here's my ongoing list of things that give me pure (family-rated, or course) satisfaction:

-reading a magazing cover to cover, particularly in style and national geographic
-walking on a moving sidewalk. each step is so productive!
-throwing something out or giving something away that i am done with
-finishing a box of minute rice, or some other food product that takes ages to use up; and putting the box in recycling
-using a pen until it runs out, particularly inky ones
-when i pack light for a trip
-going a full day without biting my nails!
-and of course, finishing a whole 'to do' list... as rarely as it occurs!

southern ontario tour 2007.

my friend diane from teacher's college decided to get married in windsor, two weeks ago, so i figured it was worth turning the trip into a full-blown roadtrip. ottawa to windsor (in a shitty old taurus) takes about eight hours, so why not break up the journey and see some friends at the same time?

first leg: i drove from ottawa to woodstock in just over five hours, beating a violent rain storm that hit just as i arrived. i met up with dean, who is a high school teacher that i will be working with in monterrey. we waited out the rain and headed to his cottage on long point for the evening. my first cottage-ing of the summer!

second leg: met up with brooke in woodstock and we carpooled to windsor. we did not leave as much time as we should have, and ended up getting stuck at a railway crossing for over TWENTY minutes waiting for a sssssslow freight train to pass by. poor planning on our part, but we weren't changed and we weren't ready to go! so, we changed in the car at the railway crossing. classy. we arrived at the church in the nick of time and got to watch diane (who looked absolutely radiant) walk down the aisle. the reception was a rockin' party and we all had an amazing time.

the best date ever! brooke and i:



the four of us, together again! jackie, diane, brooke, me:



third leg: drove back to woodstock to get my car, and then navigated to kitchener to visit recently engaged rachel and marc and their sweet little dog indie. even stacey came to join us for a drink! it was SO nice to re-connect with them, and to reminisce about high school. funny enough, all three of us have become teachers! i will definitely have to spend more time staying in touch with them.

fourth leg: drove the 30 seconds to cambridge and stayed the evening with my granny. she has a lovely apartment with an incredible view of the sunset and we had great fun telling stories. she always give me all the low-down. for a woman in her mid-80s, she is still sharp as a tack!

fifth leg: drove to burlington to see the other side of my family, and to drop off some stuff with my brother, who will be living in burlington for the summer. the highlight was definitely visiting haley, rachel and nigel (my cousin's kids)... made me temporarily want to have some kids! not to worry, it passed fairly quickly.

sixth leg: sped (not literally!) through toronto and made it to kingston for my dentist appointment and some errands i needed to run at the university.

seventh leg: home! and time to sleep.

namaste.

this evening, katie and i decided to meet up for a yoga class at a great studio downtown called rama lotus. i haven't been particularly stressed (being on vacation and all...) but i am always up for some serious stretching and bending my body into pretzel-like formations.

it is incredible how unflexible we become as adults. i remember when i took a jazz class as a kid, i won a chocolate bar for holding the splits for over 30 seconds. now i can barely kick my leg above my hip! some of the yoga poses are inhuman. why is it necessary to have our toes touch the floor above our heads? will this help me on my journey to a centred and balanced life?

when we first began, our instructor told us to remove all thoughts from our heads and focus solely on our breathing. go ahead, give it a try right now! it is almost impossible to take away all the thoughts from your consciousness. even thinking about not thinking becomes a thought in itself. however, as hokey as this all sounds, i find a lot of validity to what they are saying. if you think of a yoga pose as a metaphor for life, perhaps opening up our physical selves can lead to opening ourselves up mentally and emotionally. ridding any and all thoughts is an incredibly cleansing experience - one that you don't realize you have succeeded at until the moment has passed. the best part of each yoga class is certainly the last ten minutes, the relaxation session in corpse pose. now, this is a pose that i can hold. in fact, i'm always afraid i'll fall asleep!

they say experts can hold some yoga poses for up to two hours. for a thinker, that is a lot of time not to think.

on the subject of opening up, my dad has been in the media a bit this week on the subject of the anglican church and whether or not they will be blessing same sex unions. this week, national synod is meeting in winnipeg to make a decision on the stance of the anglican church. now; i am not particularly religious, but i do understand that this is a touchy subject for many people. i am so proud of my dad for a) having a particularly liberal opinion and having the guts to share it with his congregation but b) discussing the issue on national tv without preaching his own personal opinion and focusing more on how the church can move forward into the future (in the case of either decision) without having these opposing opinions ruin the community.

way to go, dad.

new york minute.

"think of a city and what comes to mind? it's streets. if a city's streets look interesting, the city looks interesting; if they look dull, the city look dull."
-jane jacobs

you can describe a city in the same way that you can describe a wine. like a full-bodied red, the cities that i have fallen for have depth, a robust flavour and a unique complexity to them that make them one of a kind. in nyc, its charm lies in its streets and its neighbourhoods. the best way to see the city is certainly by walking. but what strikes me every time in nyc is that in a minute, so much happens. a minute seems longer in new york, more sights are passed, more sounds fill the air, more attacks on my senses. whether i'm touring the tacky lights of times square, the quaint houses in greenwich village or the ritzy stores in soho i fall a little bit more in love with new york every time i go.

i know that my mom loves new york even more than i do, so i knew she would not be a tough sell when i suggested a girls weekend in late may. alyssa titus was also in (especially when we were able to pick the weekend after she finished her first year med school exams!), and we easily convinced her mom, ellen to come along. the four of us get along famously, and we had always wanted to take a trip together to take our female bonding beyond the scope of ahmic lake. the four of us out for dinner in greenwich village:


mom and i flew in bright and early thursday morning and immediately took a cab to our cute hotel in the theatre district. we are both go-go-go in nyc because we both have so much that we want to see, so we did not waste any time getting a move on. we wandered down 42nd street to the united nations, got a guided tour of the building and had an extensive history lesson. our tour guide was this cute little man who spoke as quiet as a mouse, but he answered all of my 'dumb' questions and i left feeling much more aware and curious to learn more. my mom's best lesson was that there are now just a few more than 80 member nations... (192 to be exact!) we continued wandering around the grounds because i wanted to catch all of the sights that were used for one of my favourite movies, the interpreter. a view of the flags, in alphabetical order:


the rest of thursday was filled with lounging in parks, exploring the new york library, stumbling upon the chaos in grand central station and staying off grass that was 'recovering from a major trauma'. we had tickets on our first night to a broadway play called inherit the wind , which was christopher plummer and brian dennehy at their finest. both were clearly veteran actors who effortlessly became the characters they were portraying. the premise of the play surrounds a teacher who has been convicted of breaking the law for teaching darwin's theory of evolution rather than creationism in a small town bible thumping community in the 1920s. the highlight was having the opportunity to switch seats and move to a seat on-stage as a member of the jury! very cool the be able to see christopher plummer spit as he talks and be a part of the action while still being an observer.

alyssa and ellen were meant to arrive on thursday evening but due to some flight cancellations ended up sleeping/resting in the toronto airport and arriving mid-morning on friday. aside from mom being kept up half the night with thoughts of all the the things that could have happened to them (plane crash, kidnapped by aliens and so on), i was slept right through! when they finally did arrive, we power-walked a zillion blocks down to greenwich village for our 'food and culture tour', which was worth every penny! we collected tidbits of celebrity gossip, got delicious samplings from incredible restaurants, shops and bakeries and even got a bit of the history of the neighbourhood. i LOVED it. and now we have a list of restaurants to try out on future visits! alyss and i in one of the courtyards in greenwich village:


we ventured over to a park in greenwich for a little break from all of our snacking before heading down to ground zero and the small chapel that houses a touching memorial. next alyss and i decided we needed some shopping to boost our energy levels and explored the heaven-on-earth that is century 21! holy all designer clothing at discount prices! needless to say, we were feeling much more energized for our dinner back in greenwich. the mom's called it a night, but alyss and i went out to a wine bar recommended by our neighbour. unfortunately the mello atmosphere put alyssa to sleep shortly after ordering a full bottle of wine so we did not tear up the nightlife like we had hoped! we were both happy to see our beds when we crawled in shortly after two am...

saturday was an unfortunate day. somehow i contracted a 24-hour bug and ended up having a vomit-fest all over manhattan. i was devastated! initially, i trucked along, ducking into back alleys to leave my dna when i needed to. but when we arrived in soho and i was completely unable to enjoy the shopping extravaganza, i realized i needed to lie down. conveniently, we could not find a park ANYWHERE. finally (what felt like months) my mom and ellen found a dodgy little park with homeless people sleeping and drug dealers smoking. i was so sick that i didn't even care! i fell asleep on a bench next to my mom in minutes... my mom wanted to avoid my being robbed, so she sat by me as ellen and alyssa ventured off to find katz's deli. after an hour, i decided i was good-to-go for the tenement museum in the lower east side. but it was hot, and i could barely stand up, so they eventually forced me to go back to the hotel. after a few 'there is no way i am going to be able to sleep while you guys are off enjoying nyc', i think i fell asleep in about five seconds flat. when they returned a few hours later, i was a new person! bubbly, energized and no longer wanting to die, i was able to attend our entertainment for the evening, the color purple . being a distinct racial minority in the audience was a refreshing experience, and the music was outstanding. and i didn't even have to leave to continue the vomit tour! the girls in the powder room at the color purple:


sunday was another mom and me day. alyssa and ellen really wanted to go to central park and the museum of modern art, but i really wanted to go back to soho now that i had rejoined the world. in the usual fashion, mom and i dominated our time, shopping our brains out (victoria secret anyone?), having a quick glass of wine over lunch and still having time to make our third (count 'em!) broadway show. this time, we went for a lighthearted fun show with legally blonde ! mostly tweens were in the audience but the songs were fun and kitschy and i caught myself saying omigod in the airport on the way home. (don't tell anyone!)

the weekend was short but stellar. it was some much needed girl's time, retail therapy and city hustle and bustle. i am trying to convince my mom to turn new york weekends into a yearly tradition! unlikely but i'll let you know how it goes....

mom and i in front the un: