some recent happenings

last wednesday i went to the pne for work. this year we were nearly scammed by the lady who parked us at her house. but we held firm. they do this thing where, on the street they agree to a price but once you're parked they ask for more. it happened to us last year too. the lady last year said she had no change. this year's lady tried to up the price five dollars. she was really insistant so finally theresa gave her a dollar in dimes and we headed over to the pne.

after getting our tickets and going through the turnstile, i asked eagerly for the hand stamp. "you get it when you leave." said the robot boy in monotone with dead eyes. i turned and saw the stamp guy and held out my hand. he wasn't ready for me, so i got a poorly done dry stamp. couldn't even read pne on it. same thing happened to theresa.

that's when we all went our seperate ways. i wasn't into the super dog show. i was into getting a bite to eat. i ended up chosing a buffalo burger at the kiwanis hut. i was waffling between emu and buffalo, but went with buffalo. it was alright. i ate it and my fries on the bench outside of the casino, facing the ctv news. afte a minute a man came and sat two of his developmentally delayed clients down beside me while he went to go get them some food. they each had these huge blow up hammers. me and the guy next to me chatted a little bit until i was done my burger and said good bye.

i went to go get on tv. this is a picture of colleen christie and dr. rhonda lowe. a good one hey? :) they were getting ready for dr. rhonda's segment about skin cancer. one of the behind the scenes guys asked the crowd not to wave at the camera because it was about cancer--not a jovial topic. anyways when the segment began, i saw myself on tv, clearly in the background between the two of them. mission accomplished.






the ferris wheel one of the scariest rides around for some people like myles watson.













the animal part wasn't as good this year. seemed emptier. there was no mooternity area or anything. but the chicks were still there, cute as ever, and the water buffalo and poor peter the great.




















this is where the twins love to get hot fudge sundaes with extra fudge. i resisted the temptation but took a picture of it, in remembrance of them.


















when i was a young teen at the fair with the fam, i paired off with layne. he made me go on a lot of the rides that i was terrified of. like the pirate ship, the enterprise (this one) and the smaller roller coaster. i was so scared but i had fun.

when i was a grown woman in her late 20s i was at the fair again with family and this time i went on this ride with amy. i squeezed her guts out and yelled my head off. by this time i realized what a fun release yelling is. it's like yelling releases the fear. bottling it up inside increases the terror ten fold. it works that way for me anyways.






the swings! i love the swings. the scariest part about the swings is fearing that your flip flop will go flying off in the middle of the ride.





















then i met up with theresa and peter. we went to the wheels of steel. it was pretty good but there was no steel ball with people riding in it this year. the quads were pretty boring and their antics pretty dumb, but the motor cross was great. theresa picked jeff but dumped him when she saw him without a helmet--then he became 'mullet guy'. i picked brad. we picked these guys purely on their outfits and were shameless about it. some of their jumps make my stomach flop and my breath to catch in my throat. theresa would say things like "ok, that is just not safe." "ya," i said "your mom wouldn't have let you do that."


when that was over we went to the show home. it was a beauty this year. wow. i didn't buy any tickets but i wished that someone would have bought one for me, like for a surprise or something. you know? anyways, i basically loved everything but the master bedroom. no actually i loved the master bedroom, i just didn't like the colour of the wood of the bed frame. this is something i would have lived with, however. on the bottom floor, just inside from the back deck, where there was a hot tub for karey when she comes to visit me, there was a sauna built right into the house. i opend the door to look inside and said "hey let's go in." so we all three of us did and we all sat down shoulder to shoulder. that's as much space as there was, not another person would have fit. it smelled wonderful, like cedar. i said "hey, close the door." and closed it myself. it was a glass door and we sat there like that for a while enjoying seeing the people as they passed and hearing their comments like, "hey there's people in there." (that was a common one) and "do they come with the place?". i waved at the kids who stared back at me. this part was the highlight of theresa's pne trip. eventually we came out and looked at the rest of the house and coveted it immensely. it came with kayaks too. and all sorts of sporty paraphanalia.

we spent our last minutes at the market. the same shammy guy that i swear has been there since i was teen was still there selling his shammies. there was a neat nail thing. it was metal and had all these nail art designs on it. i watched the lady paint nail polish on it, wipe away the excess, pick it up with a stamp thing and put it cleanly on a ladies nail. i wanted it done to me, but there were too many ladies there. so we stopped at another nail booth. this one was decidedly less classy. it was squeezable nail polish pens. we each got a nail done anyways. well not peter. he just waited patiently for us. the lady did a blue and yellow dot flower on my ring finger and coloured a white tip on top--added a french tip in an attempt for classiness. she went for theresa's ring finger and almost recoiled. her ring finger is bent because she broke it and the nail is a little wonky. she rejected it, which i couldn't believe, and did her pinky. later theresa said she gets that all the time when she gets manicures and stuff. because of our nail indulgence, we were late for our meeting at the statue and everyone was there waiting for us. and there was a general commotion as everyone told everyone what they bought and what they did. it was a fun night.

thursday was the day amy and andreas came to say good bye. i thought at first that they were coming on wednesday. i stayed up late on tuesday making amy cds, writing an emotional good bye letter and crying my eyes out. after getting all the pain of good bye out ahead of time, i felt a lot better on wedensday and thursday. on wednesday before work i made her a super ugly but fun cd holder out of my hot pink sweater that i haven't worn for over a year. i folded it in half and cut out the pockets and sewed it together with brown yarn. the cds burp out of the pockts and one out of the middle.

anyways they spent the morning with mom, and when i got off of work they came over to my place. this is amy curling her lip in disdain as andreas looks on, clearly besotted. haha. she's holding a mop handle. they were quite taken by all the mop handles we have here. "why do you have so many mop handles?" amy asked in wonder. "it's a perk. it comes with the place." i answered. we tried the foi gras together. we were nervous and a little scared. it turned out to be good though. we only had crackers to eat it with and apparently it's not a cracker thing. i found this when i looked it up. i found out too, that the foi gras i got was a whole liver in a jar.

after a while bethany and ben showed up. they had driven down on a whim to surprise amy. they had called me in the morning before i left for work and told me that they might. and they did. this is when real action took place with the mop handles. amy and bethany ganged up on andreas. i was very proud of them--they made up rules that garned them excessive points and andreas very little. i felt it was a page out of my own book, but didn't say anything. sarah will recognize this though. eventually and i do mean that it took a long time, bethany decided on eating donairs. meanwhile amy and andreas waffled about whether or not they really wanted one. just when everyone was about to leave, heather arrived back with elicia home from a month away in nz where she got engaged, little hussy. her car was completely dead and heather had taken mine to go pick her up. so anyways ben jumped her battery for her with my car and then she went in and heather drove her car around and we all walked in the damp evening to the donair shop. on the way amy and andreas agreed to get one since there was an atm right next door at the 7/11. and by the time they came in they weren't sharing any more. they were each getting one. smoulder eyes met us. ben got lamb and chicken and no sauces but hot sauce. i have learned that ben does not like condiments and find this very sad, especially when it comes to the donair, as the sauce is where it's at. when i was paying for mine, smouldy asked me how many sisters i had. "6." i said and smiled, adding "and 5 brothers."

when we got home we gave elicia her donair and made her tell us her getting engaged story. then we finally gave in to amy's pressuring to play slang teasers. ben fell asleep on the floor and bethany escorted him to my bed where he was the rest of the night.

some exerpts from our night. b and a were evil geniouses as usual.

dunghavenhooter:

andread put: a colletion of owl regurgitations

amy (who put the dunghavenhooter on the name line thus becoming dunghavenhooter): to dance near a dung heap while hooting generously.

bethany: boys with trumpet shaped lips

chase-me-charlie--

amy put: the term used for when a person is greeted with a charlie horuse when e xpecting a handshake.

feep--

bethany put: a sudden fear of touching one's bum to cold things

nomancy--

bethany: a beard papa in love
amy: a young man or woman who refuses romance. "no mancy for me." they are heard to say.

simity--
bethany: a particularly malleable and moist stomach.
amy: to plunge one's face into the soft depths of a bunny.

ok ok there's more genious but i'm going to stop there. i have to. it's almost time to get ready for my day.

eventually the time that we were all dreading came. amy and andreas left. me and bethany followed them down to their little red car stuffed to the hilt, putting off good bye to the very end. i hugged amy hard and long. then i said in her ear that i wasn't going to let go and it was with great reluctance that i released my iron grip. b and a embraced too, something they don't do often. then we hugged andreas too, then we group hugged again. then they got in their car and we waved good bye as they left.

friday night bethanyben and i went to eat at all indian sweets. as soon as ben heard the words "all you can eat buffet" he was with us all the way. bethany explained that ben has an inner need to visit buffets any time he comes to a big city. so ben got the buffet and bethany and i, the more discerning ones, ordered butter chicken, aloo gobi and shrimp curry, and four naan. oh it was soo good. ben kept filling up his huge silver plate with sauce compartments. at one point he came back with his used plate and muttered, "you're supposed to get a new one.." and went back to the buffet. meanwhile bethany and i stuffed ourselves.






this is her and our goods. she took a really gross picture of me which will ever stay unpublished.















haha.

that night while ben worked on elicia's car bethany and i watched penelope which i liked very much.








next morning bsquared returned. (they slept at mom and dad's). ben was eager to work on elicia's car. bethany helped me clean my rum. they spread goodness. we also ate frozen cherries and naturally did a frozen cherry photo shoot.


i love this one bethany took of me. the frosty cherry and all.













she thought i was taking a similar shot of her. but no. i was capturing her as a zombie holding a cherry.










this next series speaks for itself.


























































that afternoon heather and i went to lighthouse park. it was a beautiful day.



















we sat on the rocks and watched the waves and the boats and talked. i lay on my back with my camera bag as my pillow and felt at peace and content. i told heather that if i wasn't hungry (all i had eaten were the frozen cherries) i could stay there for a long long time. she agreed.









a cool piece of driftwood with a cool pattern on it.














my battered runner hanging over the precipice.














we both had buns.














this is my favourite shot of the day. isn't this arbutus beautiful? (but how dare wally etch his name in it!)

















i love slugs. i can't explain it. heather saw this slug first. it was in our path. with a burst of adrenalaine she yelled slug, and shoved me to the side. hahaha. ahh it was funny.

ok well i have to go get ready for work. it was a real treat actually being able to write in the morning. maybe i'll go to bed early every night!