donna's world

2007-08-12T20:30:00.000-07:00

summer in the city

2007-08-12T09:05:00.000-07:00

I've moved back into the apartment that I left 5 years ago when I started my journey - the apartment that I vowed I would never live in again! Amazing how one's perspective changes with travel. I find that I am happy here in the midst of this city, enjoying anew all the reasons why I originally bought this place.
It's wonderful to be in my own space, albeit only for the next several months till I sell the apartment. Also it was amazing to retrieve all my belongings from storage, where they had been for the past 5 years. Amazing, too, to discover that I had packed up and stored no less than 14 boxes of books! I wonder now what I must have been thinking, did I assume that after my travels I would settle back here once again?
And what about the boxes of cystal and china? I cannot imagine living a life where I could use these again. Accumulating worldly goods no longer has the same appeal for me, I have been content with my meager possessions and simpler life style of recent years.
My brothers do like to point out that, although I have remained fairly unencumbered, I do have stashes of clothes, pictures and books in all major centres: Largo Canyon, St. Andrews, Gibsons, Surrey and Ko Samui!

brothers 3 in Kelowna

2007-06-24T19:47:00.000-07:00

Another view of my 3 brothers..I wonder why Marty is always in the middle?

brothers

2007-06-24T17:52:00.001-07:00

The great thing about being back on the West Coast is that I can see all my brothers! Marty has arrived back after wintering on Ko Samui (he's the middle one above) Pat says he looks like George Bush, I'm not so sure. Wayne, the youngest on the right, lives here and Bob (on the left)lives in Kelowna. Last Friday we all spent the night at Wayne's and caught up on events over the past 6 months amidst copious amounts of red wine.
It has rained every day since I arrived back here in BC and today was no exception. I am cleaning the apartment that I've been renting for the past year and moving into my own Yaletown pad. Cleaning is not my favouritte pastime so I'm quite OK with the rain today. I'm certainly hoping for drier & sunnier weather in July so I can enjopy the rooftop deck.
The highlight of my day was a 3-way Google Talk session with Pat & Ra, altho' things did get a little confusing over the Elvis impersonators. Seems we three have all personally known Elvis impersonators: I had to be reminded that Andrea Appolloni, of Rome, was one. I wonder how come he sent Pat a demo and not me!!!!

finding my totem

2007-06-13T21:19:00.000-07:00

Three years ago on my annual trip to Largo Canyon, Pat and I had a long discussion on what my totem could be. I'd never felt any attraction or connection to any particular animal so choosing a totem proved to be quite difficult. I tried dreaming of an animal because often Native American Indians had their totems choose them in this fashion. Being a Native Canadian of the Mic Maw tribe of Newfoundland, I thought this would be the best way. Unfortunately, altho' I always have excellent adventuresome dreams whenever I'm in the Largo, this time no animals appeared to me.
Perhaps because she was tired of my constant whining about being totem-less, Pat suggested a "meer cat". (She, of course, is that excellent Jack Rabbit Woman!) I was totally unfamiliar with the meer cat and was actually unaware that they even existed so I proceeded to dismiss it as a possibility. As often happens with Pat's suggestions, I was unable to forget about it and even went so far as to research pictures of meer cats.
I've been using one as my avatar on Google Talk for awhile now. Recently, I came across this advertisement for Telecom Australia on UTube. After watching it, I am convinced that the meer cat must be my totem as I often find myself nodding off to sleep over dinner in exactly the same way, especially after a long work day at Largo Canyon!

meercat

2007-06-10T09:12:00.000-07:00

january in new brunswick (archived entry)

2007-06-08T18:21:00.000-07:00

January 25th It's so cold here in Eastern Canada. I'm in St. Andrews, New Brunswick for 6 weeks to visit my sisters. Mostly we stay in the house or bundle up & just run to the car & back to the house. Can't walk anywhere because is 40 below with wind chill factor. I tried to go out for a walk the other day but had to come home because my face was getting frostbitten and my legs were so cold in my cords that they were burning/tingling!

The picture shows the "sea mist" that occurs when the air is colder than the water of the Passmaquoddy Bay, off the North Atlantic Ocean. It is beautiful when it occurs but shows how very cold it is!

It's my birthday! Very strange to be amongst family for my birthday, am usually in Thailand at this time of year. Linda and Sandy invited some of my friends in for lunch & we had a super time...I made my own birthday cake (lemonade) as I wanted something fairly light & not too calorie-ridden.

Cold weather comfort food is the mainstay here but I've taken a membership at the local gym & am trying to workout every couple of days. I'm still following the program for walking the 10K Sun Run in Vancouver in April. It's a battle, though: home cooking (crab bisque, warm gingerbread with whipped cream, banana cream pies, garlic smashed mashed potatoes, moose chili, baked beans, etc.) VS exercise. You can imagine which is winning right now but I'm hopeful that I'll eventually emerge the victor.

low tide st. andrews wharf

2007-06-07T22:29:00.000-07:00

june in st. andrews

2007-06-07T19:16:00.001-07:00

Spent last ten days in NB visiting my sisters, Linda & Sandy. Weather was wet with occasional sunny breaks but that didn't lessen Linda's enthusiasm for shopping. I left there with 6 pairs of shoes and a complete summer wardrobe. Now I only have to find summer as it's wet in BC as well!
Highlights were a sunny afternoon spent in Catherine's garden drinking brandied coffees, nights at Sandy's lakeside cottage listening to the rain on the tin roof,
the nightly glasses of Merlot with Sandy after cleaning the laundromat and sitting in front of the video store, eating ice cream with my sisters.

a jeep experience

2007-05-18T21:25:00.000-07:00

May 15, NM: Driving someone else's jeep through Ice Canyon without headlights was an experience I have no wish to repeat! After our shift at the Roadhouse last Sunday, Pat announced that I had to drive her jeep home: 19 miles down the dirt road called the General American. I usually sleep all the way home! She would be driving the welding truck pulling a trailer load of hay bales for the horses.
Things were fine while we were on the highway but once we hit the rutted dirt road my bladder began to protest all the tea that I had drunk that day. As I wrenched the steering wheel from side to side to avoid the deepest potholes, slowing to first gear over the cattle guards, I kept telling myself that I could hold on till we hit the half-way mark at the pond. When I hit the horn repeatedly with no response from Pat except a speeding up in the fading light, I began to get really concerned. I had to drive faster & more aggressively than I really wanted to just to keep her dust in sight. I couldn't afford to lose sight of her as there are many forks in the road through the mesas and it's easy to get lost.
My bladder concerns were shortly forgotten as I realized that although I could turn the wipers and washer on, I couldn't find the headlight switch. My vision was fading with the daylight. Pat was continuing to drive fairly fast without headlights, I was sure that she was part owl. Just as I was about to stop because I could no longer safely drive in the twilight to keep up with her (or ignore my bladder issue), she pulled to the side of the road and ran over to the Jeep saying "I have no headlights, I've been driving as fast as I can to get home before dark but now I need you to drive first with your lights on to show me the way!" just as I was saying: "I have to go to the toilet and I can't find your headlight switch!"
Well, after answering nature's call and getting Pat to turn the Jeep's headlights on, we were off again with me in the lead, at a much slower pace needless to say. Just as I turned the corner into the steepest & most dangerous part of the drive, Ice Canyon, my headlights went out! I hit the brakes to a complete stop & they came on again! I started forward & they went off again. I felt like they were on an automatic flash mode, on and off every few seconds. Luckily there was moonlight & I could see the road fairly well when the light went out but then I would be momentarily blinded as they continued to flash on & off all the way down into the Largo and home. I could only see Pat's truck as a dark looming shape behind me.
As we hit the final turn into the school driveway, the back window & door opened on the Jeep & swung upwards & outwards respectively. I stopped the Jeep, turned off the engine & refused to drive it any further!

channeling Rita-Mae

2007-05-18T20:50:00.000-07:00

May 07, NM: John & Pat bought a cafe last year, The Navajo City Roadhouse, which is about 1&1/2 hour drive from here. Pat works there on Sundays & I go to help her & keep her company. When I was here last year and first worked at the cafe, I wrote on Pat's blog as Rita-Mae, the waitress with a heart of gold and a chest to carry it. So, I've felt like a Rita-Mae ever since.
I have worked as a waitress before, all during high school, & it quickly comes back. I'm a little slow on the cash register but all the customers (99.9% male) are very patient with me. I've had one proposal, not sure of what but he kept saying: "I'm single & I own my own house, a really nice house". He never actually asked me out on a date, sounded more like he was asking me to move in with him! Not sure what a date might comprise of as I live 30 miles off the main road down a bumpy,often impassable and always impossible, dirt road! Apparently single Caucasian women weighing less than 200 lbs are a rarity in these parts and clean ones without facial hair are even rarer.
We serve mostly New Mexican cuisine - everything with chiles on it. The NM State question is red or green, meaning how do you want your chile sauce? The special is a huge hamburger called the "Roadkill" and it takes a big man to order one & a bigger one to actually eat it. Our best seller is the take-out burrito with salsa sauce, I sell a lot of them at under $4.00 a piece. Everyone down here drinks gallons of iced tea with scoopfuls of sugar in their glasses. Very little coffee or hot tea!
The customers are oil field workers who spend all day in their truck driving from rig to rig to service them or they stay on-site for 10-14 hours at a time with no one else around so they really appreciate having someone to talk to. The shy ones are my favourite, they act like no one has ever been interested enough in them before to ask them what they are doing out there on the rig. They act all embarrassed and mumble their replies. But I love it here!

April in Largo Canyon

2007-05-15T20:17:00.001-07:00

April 07, NM: Back in the Largo again.... Weather hot and sunny, cold at night. Learning new skills like spreading compost over a 2500 sq' area, levelling it by pulling a section of chain link fence over it, seeding it by handfuls tossed into the wind, then covering seeds by pulling afore-mentioned fence piece again. Front area looks great & just as we finished seeding (after 3 days of moving compost and spreading with a rake), it rained. Perfect, we should have little green grass shoots coming up in a few days, if we can keep the donkeys off the area.
There is a mule here called Chester & he is quite ornery but incredibly clever-he opens the stall gates with his lips/nose/teeth and escapes, often taking the rest of the herd with him. Luckily the perimeter of the property is fenced. Chester has managed to escape his pen every day I've been here. Today I was able to close his gate behind him, keeping the rest inside as I was in the stalls mucking them out. Not as bad as it sounds, the horses and donkeys find me quite fascinating and it's more of a problem trying to work around them than anything else.
Paisley is not quite ready for me to practice riding on, so I've been practicing mounting and emergency dis-mounting and rein controls on a really sweet little Hinny (donkey mother,/horse father) named Cracker Jo. He is more my size as Paisley is so huge, I'd have to climb to the top rung of the fence to mount her and I'm sure I'd break a leg trying to dis-mount she's so far off the ground.
Sunday was my first stint as a waitress but as it was Easter Sunday there was very little custom. And everyone who did come in said: "Oh, You're the Canadian!" Guess it's good to be remembered. Getting used to "Yes, Ma'am" again.
Today weather is brisk with a totally wicked wind from the north running down the canyon...it's difficult to work outside but the sky is a brilliant blue with sunshine. I saw a blue heron at the pond yesterday, hoping it is nesting. The red-winged blackbirds aren't here, yet. The cowboy, Clay, has moved on to Arizona...guess there is some reason why his email address is "lostcowboy".