joyus and preshus' christmassy weekend in vancouver
preshus informed me that she would be coming to vancouver late thursday night. she said she'd be coming with ritchie rich the poor little rich boy. ok i said. ok.
friday was a day that i spent some time recuperating. it was my first day of christmas vacation. i spent time downloading dad's christmas present and generally lazing about. i felt well rested and re-centred when i left the house to go to lisa's party. lisa's party was partly my idea. then i realized that it would be on the same day as the branch christmas party which was not an optional opt out. i was going to go to lisa's after but when i found out that everyone was going over there right after work, i decided that going there first when there would be a higher degree of sobriety would be a better idea. so that's what i did. at first it was just me and dave m. and lisa. lisa gave me my present (dr. phil's love smarts book and some burt's bees products) and we talked while watching oprah. tanya arrived with her back pack on and she looked like she was in grade nine. she admitted that she worried that some teenagers were going to hit on her on the way over. a little while after that dave d. showed up. i was actually enjoying myself and i could have stayed longer, but my time was up, so i left amidst their pleas of "no! staaaaaaaaaaay." merry christmas i said. luckily knight street bridge wasn't so bad and i got home in enough time to get ready and drive me and heather and linda and the mashed potatoes to the church. sarita mashed the potatoes but said she had a 'headache' so she didn't come. the dinner was good. turkey and all that. mid way through the entertainment who should come waltzing across the gymn floor boots in hand but preshus herself. i was pleasantly surprised because i thought she wouldn't show up until after the dance had started and i was too tired for dance shenanagins. but there she was with her bulging bag, putting her boots back on. she said they were too noisy to walk across the gymn in. "so you just stopped and pulled up your pants and took them off?" i asked increduosly. apparently so. we sat for some of the songs and sang a carol and then i took preshus in to get some turkey. in the kitchen we found karey hiding out (she gets in foul tense moods during events. stress.) and chatting with none other than ritchie rich and ryan of the big translucent ears. ryan's ears were quite remarkable. they kept drawing my eyes towards them.
preshus did not indulge in actual turkey but she did eat some of the other trimmin's. we especially enjoyed our discovery of the orange cranberry cake witch was moist, tasty and which had streaks of cream cheese icing on top.
soon it was time for the dance and that was our cue to leave. karey begged me to stay a little while and so i stayed another five or ten and was about to leave when ritchie came and asked if we were staying for the dance. preshus and i looked at each other and i said "uh... no." so ritchie rich the poor little rich boy got out his pen and asked for our address and phone number. "umm.." i said realizing this was going to sound uncooperative, "i don't know my number." haha. and my cell was out of order too. i went over to get it from karey's cell phone (she doesn't know it either) president edgson had been listening and not knowing the context thought that they were trying to ask us out and that i was totally shooting them down. he was laughing about it and telling karey and telling other people about it when ryan and ritchie were still right there. i tried to explaing to him, but ah well. i wonder if that's why he asked me for ideas on how we can help the guys feel less intimidated to ask out the girls in my tithing settlement interview. haha. maybe. anyways preshus and i gathered up heather and linda and left.
back at home it wasn't long before we were beneath the poofy covers of my loving duvet and i was reading love smarts out loud to us. we enjoyed the self-help book antics. like how they spend a lot of time convincing you that you NEED the wisdom of that book and trying to tantalize you by dangling tidbits of future contents in front of your nose and how they bold and capatlize and enlarge the points they want you to pick out. it was during chapter 2 when we were picking out the CHARACTER OF HIM that we started to get sleepy. preshus was drifting off so i hopped out of bed, brushed my teeth, washed my face and climbed over her again to read my scriptures and then fall asleep myself.
the next morning preshus worked on a christmas project and i went for a run. it was my first run after a week of sickness and it was hard, but it felt good too. the ground was all frosty and it was so cold and crisp out. the sky was that wintry pale blue and as i ran past the park i smelled the unmistakable smell of freshly cut grass. it was unexpected but delicious.
preshus and i decided that of all options, we would like to spend the shopping day downtown on robson. it was a long but lovely shopping day. i brought along juicie orbs of refreshment (ie. spherical juice filled edibles) for us to indulge in whenever we needed. we sang along to the rankin sisters in the car on the way and parked at my usual garage. we took our time but still kept our objectives in mind. there were so many wonderful things to look at and decide on and enjoy together. everybody liked me because of my frog mittens. many a shop girl shyly or enviously told me they liked my 'gloves'. preshus looked her part in my white wintry hat given to me from speshul last year, and red plaid scarf also a gift from one speshul speshul. we stopped for treatsies at rocky mountain chocolates. with preshus with me, how could i not? she chose out two smooth minties and i chose a hedgehog and a marzipan. we gave each other bites. i mean it's not like we bit each other. that would be odd. we gave each other tastes of our chocolates. on our way in we saw byron the english performer. he had chains around him and he was in a straight jacket. he was pretty funny but hard to describe. we enjoyed him. preshus and i found some delightful gift items, were intermittently refreshed by the juicie orbs and the chocolates. we saw some other wow-chocolates but used cosiderable effort and tore ourselves away. when we were done and toting many a bag, we stopped for the piece duh resistance--the vendor hotdog. it was preshus' first vendor hotdog and she chose the veggie dog and i the european. we both got the fried onions and we shared a bottle of water. preshus kept saying that she just wanted a plain dog. that was before she saw all the fixin's. oh boy oh boy did she changer her tune then.
we took our dogs and headed over to byron from england's show in front of the art museum. we sat up on the stairs and watched. as we squeezed past the crowd and edged up the stairs byron said "hey, there's my dancing girls. hi girls. sorry about last night." he was now playing with fire. preshus and i enjoyed the geeky antics of the bespeckled volunteer. he couldn't get down on one knee like he was supposed to so he leaned over awkwardly and when he was trying to blow out his torch, he couldn't, so he tried waving it all over, which of course only made the flame brighter. when we were done our dogs we were going to head back to the car but we saw a group of missionaries across the street singing christmas carols. they didn't sound too good so preshus and i decided they needed our help. we crossed the street and joined them just in time to join in a really REALLY high version of the first noel. there was only one sister. next we sang far far away, and preshus and i must have dazzled them because they kept looking back at us in wonder, especially the little philipino sister in front of me. we both had colds so it wasn't that we were awesome. we did sing with gusto though, and the more we sang the more christmas spirit we felt. we sang a couple more and left and it was then that we decided to keep singing together as we walked the streets to the car. so we did. mostly people ignored us but one totally punked out youth (preshus saw him, i didn't) made a comment. "beautiful." he said. we were in high spirits and not at all depleted by a day of shopping and crowds.
after leaving downtown behind us, we made a quick trip to walmart, got some goods including but not limited to vanilla rapsberry yoghurt and headed home just in time to go to van dusen gardens for the festival of lights. we were to meet ritchie rich et al there. i was feeling tired and was dragging my feets, but picked them up and off we went. van dusen was beauteous. every path we took preshus would declare "i like this one." there were fish hibernating under the ice there were grapes/icicles/wisteria hanging from the trees, there were the big red balls there were candles in the trees... it was very nippy too. there was an interesting light's show. they blinked the christmas lights on and off to the music and changed the colours and stuff. that night i slept soundly. apparently my snoring was the unparalleled that night. dern rights.
next morning i got ready and went to children's hospital to play with angus so ruth could pay more attention to karelia who just had an 8 hour operation on her spine. angus has a full head of hair! he was pretty cute. he really liked preshus and kept asking her to play but she was a cold fish to him. she prefered to read a pre-teen novel in the library section of the playroom. later we stopped at home so i could eat a few dollups of yoghurt. i threw in a few toitles as well for good luck.
church was pretty good. it was the christmas sunday with lots of music and narration and singing. after church we went to barb's (ie. lump o' coal) and had some eats. then we headed back to church for the christmas music night thingy. we sat with jollee who just happened to be there with her in laws. michealah started her new mantra with me--a chorus of "vegetables!" it was an allright night, but i wasn't really impressed with anything and i was trying to stay awake, like i had been fighting to do all day. i kept seeng two of everyone.
when we got home preshus worked on her project and i watched family man with sarita. when i got up to go to bed, there was a bar of candy cane stuck to my undies. ??
next day was a long difficult run and vernie's funeral. it was a nice funeral. it made me think of gramma. we went to her grave after verna's grave side and brought her flowers from vernie's casket. "there's your sister's flowers" i told her. it was kind of funny because both dad and elaine thought that gram didn't have her headstone yet, but when we got to the spot there it was. norma was matter a fact about it. "oh, it's been here for months. we come up here every couple of weeks." we were glad because we knew gram would want her headstone before verna. pres. edgson spoke and he told some stories about vernie's and cliffie's romance and how gram galloped across "the plains of alberta" with vernie on the back with her suitcase hanging on for dear life when her and clifford eloped. the saddest thing was uncle clifford. he sobbed when he saw her and he said she was beautiful and then he said "more so than in life i think". not sure what that meant but it was cute. he just seems such a lonely solitary figure without his verna. i'm glad gram gets a christmas with verna though.
fred was giving everybody adjustments in the primary room after the funeral. he fixed my neck. it gave a mighty mighty crack! it hurt but it felt better if you know what i mean. if you don't, i do.
that night we (some ysa) sang carols to the old folks at a home. they were cute. we sang for what seemed like a long time. i started losing the ol' singing voice after a long version of hark the harold. the oldies liked to sing along. one guy in the front in a wheel chair asked karey when he was going to bed. " i don't know. but we're going at 7:30 maybe you can go to bed after that" she said.
friday was a day that i spent some time recuperating. it was my first day of christmas vacation. i spent time downloading dad's christmas present and generally lazing about. i felt well rested and re-centred when i left the house to go to lisa's party. lisa's party was partly my idea. then i realized that it would be on the same day as the branch christmas party which was not an optional opt out. i was going to go to lisa's after but when i found out that everyone was going over there right after work, i decided that going there first when there would be a higher degree of sobriety would be a better idea. so that's what i did. at first it was just me and dave m. and lisa. lisa gave me my present (dr. phil's love smarts book and some burt's bees products) and we talked while watching oprah. tanya arrived with her back pack on and she looked like she was in grade nine. she admitted that she worried that some teenagers were going to hit on her on the way over. a little while after that dave d. showed up. i was actually enjoying myself and i could have stayed longer, but my time was up, so i left amidst their pleas of "no! staaaaaaaaaaay." merry christmas i said. luckily knight street bridge wasn't so bad and i got home in enough time to get ready and drive me and heather and linda and the mashed potatoes to the church. sarita mashed the potatoes but said she had a 'headache' so she didn't come. the dinner was good. turkey and all that. mid way through the entertainment who should come waltzing across the gymn floor boots in hand but preshus herself. i was pleasantly surprised because i thought she wouldn't show up until after the dance had started and i was too tired for dance shenanagins. but there she was with her bulging bag, putting her boots back on. she said they were too noisy to walk across the gymn in. "so you just stopped and pulled up your pants and took them off?" i asked increduosly. apparently so. we sat for some of the songs and sang a carol and then i took preshus in to get some turkey. in the kitchen we found karey hiding out (she gets in foul tense moods during events. stress.) and chatting with none other than ritchie rich and ryan of the big translucent ears. ryan's ears were quite remarkable. they kept drawing my eyes towards them.
preshus did not indulge in actual turkey but she did eat some of the other trimmin's. we especially enjoyed our discovery of the orange cranberry cake witch was moist, tasty and which had streaks of cream cheese icing on top.
soon it was time for the dance and that was our cue to leave. karey begged me to stay a little while and so i stayed another five or ten and was about to leave when ritchie came and asked if we were staying for the dance. preshus and i looked at each other and i said "uh... no." so ritchie rich the poor little rich boy got out his pen and asked for our address and phone number. "umm.." i said realizing this was going to sound uncooperative, "i don't know my number." haha. and my cell was out of order too. i went over to get it from karey's cell phone (she doesn't know it either) president edgson had been listening and not knowing the context thought that they were trying to ask us out and that i was totally shooting them down. he was laughing about it and telling karey and telling other people about it when ryan and ritchie were still right there. i tried to explaing to him, but ah well. i wonder if that's why he asked me for ideas on how we can help the guys feel less intimidated to ask out the girls in my tithing settlement interview. haha. maybe. anyways preshus and i gathered up heather and linda and left.
back at home it wasn't long before we were beneath the poofy covers of my loving duvet and i was reading love smarts out loud to us. we enjoyed the self-help book antics. like how they spend a lot of time convincing you that you NEED the wisdom of that book and trying to tantalize you by dangling tidbits of future contents in front of your nose and how they bold and capatlize and enlarge the points they want you to pick out. it was during chapter 2 when we were picking out the CHARACTER OF HIM that we started to get sleepy. preshus was drifting off so i hopped out of bed, brushed my teeth, washed my face and climbed over her again to read my scriptures and then fall asleep myself.
the next morning preshus worked on a christmas project and i went for a run. it was my first run after a week of sickness and it was hard, but it felt good too. the ground was all frosty and it was so cold and crisp out. the sky was that wintry pale blue and as i ran past the park i smelled the unmistakable smell of freshly cut grass. it was unexpected but delicious.
preshus and i decided that of all options, we would like to spend the shopping day downtown on robson. it was a long but lovely shopping day. i brought along juicie orbs of refreshment (ie. spherical juice filled edibles) for us to indulge in whenever we needed. we sang along to the rankin sisters in the car on the way and parked at my usual garage. we took our time but still kept our objectives in mind. there were so many wonderful things to look at and decide on and enjoy together. everybody liked me because of my frog mittens. many a shop girl shyly or enviously told me they liked my 'gloves'. preshus looked her part in my white wintry hat given to me from speshul last year, and red plaid scarf also a gift from one speshul speshul. we stopped for treatsies at rocky mountain chocolates. with preshus with me, how could i not? she chose out two smooth minties and i chose a hedgehog and a marzipan. we gave each other bites. i mean it's not like we bit each other. that would be odd. we gave each other tastes of our chocolates. on our way in we saw byron the english performer. he had chains around him and he was in a straight jacket. he was pretty funny but hard to describe. we enjoyed him. preshus and i found some delightful gift items, were intermittently refreshed by the juicie orbs and the chocolates. we saw some other wow-chocolates but used cosiderable effort and tore ourselves away. when we were done and toting many a bag, we stopped for the piece duh resistance--the vendor hotdog. it was preshus' first vendor hotdog and she chose the veggie dog and i the european. we both got the fried onions and we shared a bottle of water. preshus kept saying that she just wanted a plain dog. that was before she saw all the fixin's. oh boy oh boy did she changer her tune then.
we took our dogs and headed over to byron from england's show in front of the art museum. we sat up on the stairs and watched. as we squeezed past the crowd and edged up the stairs byron said "hey, there's my dancing girls. hi girls. sorry about last night." he was now playing with fire. preshus and i enjoyed the geeky antics of the bespeckled volunteer. he couldn't get down on one knee like he was supposed to so he leaned over awkwardly and when he was trying to blow out his torch, he couldn't, so he tried waving it all over, which of course only made the flame brighter. when we were done our dogs we were going to head back to the car but we saw a group of missionaries across the street singing christmas carols. they didn't sound too good so preshus and i decided they needed our help. we crossed the street and joined them just in time to join in a really REALLY high version of the first noel. there was only one sister. next we sang far far away, and preshus and i must have dazzled them because they kept looking back at us in wonder, especially the little philipino sister in front of me. we both had colds so it wasn't that we were awesome. we did sing with gusto though, and the more we sang the more christmas spirit we felt. we sang a couple more and left and it was then that we decided to keep singing together as we walked the streets to the car. so we did. mostly people ignored us but one totally punked out youth (preshus saw him, i didn't) made a comment. "beautiful." he said. we were in high spirits and not at all depleted by a day of shopping and crowds.
after leaving downtown behind us, we made a quick trip to walmart, got some goods including but not limited to vanilla rapsberry yoghurt and headed home just in time to go to van dusen gardens for the festival of lights. we were to meet ritchie rich et al there. i was feeling tired and was dragging my feets, but picked them up and off we went. van dusen was beauteous. every path we took preshus would declare "i like this one." there were fish hibernating under the ice there were grapes/icicles/wisteria hanging from the trees, there were the big red balls there were candles in the trees... it was very nippy too. there was an interesting light's show. they blinked the christmas lights on and off to the music and changed the colours and stuff. that night i slept soundly. apparently my snoring was the unparalleled that night. dern rights.
next morning i got ready and went to children's hospital to play with angus so ruth could pay more attention to karelia who just had an 8 hour operation on her spine. angus has a full head of hair! he was pretty cute. he really liked preshus and kept asking her to play but she was a cold fish to him. she prefered to read a pre-teen novel in the library section of the playroom. later we stopped at home so i could eat a few dollups of yoghurt. i threw in a few toitles as well for good luck.
church was pretty good. it was the christmas sunday with lots of music and narration and singing. after church we went to barb's (ie. lump o' coal) and had some eats. then we headed back to church for the christmas music night thingy. we sat with jollee who just happened to be there with her in laws. michealah started her new mantra with me--a chorus of "vegetables!" it was an allright night, but i wasn't really impressed with anything and i was trying to stay awake, like i had been fighting to do all day. i kept seeng two of everyone.
when we got home preshus worked on her project and i watched family man with sarita. when i got up to go to bed, there was a bar of candy cane stuck to my undies. ??
next day was a long difficult run and vernie's funeral. it was a nice funeral. it made me think of gramma. we went to her grave after verna's grave side and brought her flowers from vernie's casket. "there's your sister's flowers" i told her. it was kind of funny because both dad and elaine thought that gram didn't have her headstone yet, but when we got to the spot there it was. norma was matter a fact about it. "oh, it's been here for months. we come up here every couple of weeks." we were glad because we knew gram would want her headstone before verna. pres. edgson spoke and he told some stories about vernie's and cliffie's romance and how gram galloped across "the plains of alberta" with vernie on the back with her suitcase hanging on for dear life when her and clifford eloped. the saddest thing was uncle clifford. he sobbed when he saw her and he said she was beautiful and then he said "more so than in life i think". not sure what that meant but it was cute. he just seems such a lonely solitary figure without his verna. i'm glad gram gets a christmas with verna though.
fred was giving everybody adjustments in the primary room after the funeral. he fixed my neck. it gave a mighty mighty crack! it hurt but it felt better if you know what i mean. if you don't, i do.
that night we (some ysa) sang carols to the old folks at a home. they were cute. we sang for what seemed like a long time. i started losing the ol' singing voice after a long version of hark the harold. the oldies liked to sing along. one guy in the front in a wheel chair asked karey when he was going to bed. " i don't know. but we're going at 7:30 maybe you can go to bed after that" she said.
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