an open letter to the demon which possessed my alarm clock last night:

dear sir/madame;

while your attempts to scare the living daylights out of me did not go unrewarded, i must admit i found your efforts a touch juvenile and a little uncreative. the rapid passage of time (first in the 'zero' hour, then through all 24) did, briefly, cause me to ponder the brevity of my existence upon this mortal coil. as i watched time fly past, i did stop to think about whether or not i am living my life to it's fullest, or if i am merely "passing time", as it were.

however, this was just a momentary lapse: after a few heart-in-the-throat moments, i simply unplugged the clock, chucked it in the trash, and headed to london drugs to buy a new one. better luck next time.

yours in perpetuity,
raspberry sundae.

i don't wanna grow up, i'm a toys r us kid...

so tomorrow i head back to work. i must admit that the prospects fill me with dread. "don't worry," a friend said to me this evening. "after ten minutes, it'll be like you had never left." this would be what i am afraid of.

i had an amazing weekend. lemon came for a visit, and to celebrate mike b's 31st birthday. we had a bbq last night, and drank copious amounts of vodka. i must admit that, at first, i was very reluctant to go. i'm fighting a killer sinus cold, and was just exhausted after battling us fourth of july traffic on my way to seattle and back for the second time in a week. however, mr. married assigned lemon the dubious duty of making sure that i had a good time, and she took her responsiblities to heart. a grandly successful venture, my sweet. today, though, was better than last night - we all headed off to provence for chocolate croissants (ok that was just me. they actually ate healthy food. though mike had steak, which befuddles me). then we toddled off to granville island to spend the afternoon poking around.

part of the melancholy i have been feeling stems from the fact that most of the people i know are in these totally solid partnerships. i went for dinner with ms stacylicious and her lovely fiancee on friday to celebrate their engagement; my sister and i drove to seattle to pick up her long-term boyfriend; i spend a wonderful evening and a day with a friend and her partner... i was noticing these feelings again today as i wandered around granville island. so much of the way that i express love is with food. surrounded by all those beautiful ingredients, all i could think about was selecting delicacies and taking them home to prepare, while sitting and talking with someone and drinking a glass of wine in a sunny kitchen. i have this great mental picture, but just don't have the ability to bring it about, you know?

how could i ever have believed that i hate mondays?

i'm sitting here in a tank top and boxers, with a belly full of cereal and fresh berries, drinking coffee. i've read "my" blogs, scanned the headlines in the newspaper to see if there was any dramatic changes that would change my decision of for whom to vote and am now sitting at my desk gazing out at a sunny morning. aside from the strongish suspicion that i may have to very soon lose my breakfast, all is right with the world.

a couple of posts ago, a thoughtful reader posted this comment:

"Ms. Sundae, don't know if it's quite what you'd be looking for, but I thought of you when I read it, so thought I'd better pass it along -- check out page 57 of this week's Georgia Straight..."

so pg. 57 of this week's straight has a few things i'm interested in: an article on new orleans, several cheap travel offers, an opportunity to fine tune my oracle skills (the database, unfortunately, not the fortune telling) and a chance to win a $1000 scholarship to a culinary arts school down on main. there's an open house on the 7th - i think i may go...

i heart summer

so here i am, day three into my vacation, and loving every second of it. mike b and i drove to seattle to pick my sister up yesterday (my sister jet-sets for a living. she stays home for her vacations) and i not only managed to successfully navigate seattle effortlessly (mike b is a superlative co-pilot), but on the way home also managed to choose a border guard who was so laid back that he didn't even look at our id. and her having been out of the country for six months. i was quite tickled by my luck.

friday i joined maktaaq for some international cuisine at one of my fave spots down on main street. (by the by, lime, i took her to the same place that you and i went - was just as good, but i was sorely tempted to try "the best cocktail in the world". good for me, though, i refrained). we had some good girl gossip (the three g's - so much more important than the three r's), and spoke of crushes on unavailable people, hiking and other fun topics...

speaking of g.g.g., i'm really happy to have my sister home again. we've always been really close, so these last years of her living elsewhere have been tough. what i was noticing today, and is really quite funny, is that we pack totaly 'typical' sister stuff into the first couple of days she's home - meaning, she goes through her stuff and hands over the stuff that i would have stolen if we'd been living in the same place, and i do the same. so i've come out of it with some new shoes, and some new clothes, and vice versa. i also presented her with the pink hello kitty flip flops that i picked up for her last week, much to her delight.

i'm still having some trouble with the food thing - had a nasty (though in retrospect quite comical) experience yesterday in the pike place market. i found myself urgently needing to throw up my lunch, so booked it to the nearest public washroom. i've never tossed in a public place without being drunk, which offers you some, um, more liberal standards in your choice of commode. by which i mean that you are a little less cautious about allowing any part of your body to come in contact with any fixture in the commode. yesterday, however, i was hovering over the toilet desperately trying to balance without touching anything, and simultaneously keep all of my lunch within the bowl. the stalls in the pike place market have those little half doors - i imagine that any number of people looked over the door and saw me there, precariously poised over the toilet in a most compromising position. at the time, quite traumatizing. as i think back on it, rather comical... so if you were there around 1pm yesterday, giggling at the spectacle, hi, that was me :)

i don't wanna holiday in the sun...

I wanna go to the new Belsen
I wanna see some history
'cause now t got a reasonable economy


Oh now I got a reason...
and l'm still waiting
Now I got a reason
to be waiting
the Berlin wall

In sensurround sound in a two inch wall
well I was waiting for the communist call
I didn't ask for sunshine
and I got world war three
I'm looking over the wall
and they're looking at me

Oh now l got a reason...
and I'm still waiting
Now I got a reason
to be waiting
the Berlin wall

They're staring all night
and they're staring all day.
l had no reason to be here at all.
But now I got a reason it's no real reason
And I'm waiting at Berlin wall
I gotta go over the Berlin wall.
I don't understand it... (etc.)

claustrophobia there's too much paranoia
there's too many closets
I went in before
And now I got a reason
it's no real reason to be waiting
the Berlin wall

I gotta go over the wall,
I don't understand this bit at all... (etc.)

Please don't be waiting for me.

how cool are the sex pistols? i mean, in the grand scheme of things... i'm really superstitious about road trips - i have to start them off with a new cd. so last summer, for one of the kiddo's track meets, we were heading off to the interior and i picked up a cd copy of "never mind the bollocks..". i had owned it on tape, but never on disc, and he'd never really heard much (well aside from a mixed cd where i put the transplants' diamonds and guns back to back with 'holidays in the sun' cause the openings are the same). we rocked out to the sex pistols as we drove down the #1. it's really funny that he listens to lots of the same music that i listened to when i was his age... come to think of it, the next road trip after that was the time i introduced him to ministry, to which he was an instant convert. a couple of months later he was listening to them in his room, and a few of his friends were over. i was in the bathroom next door, and i heard one of his friends ask "doesn't this music bother your mom?" to which he replied "bother her? she introduced me to it!" funny, huh?

so here i am on my vacation, drinking my first coffee in a week and a half (i am typing at 2x normal speed, at least) wearing my jammies and pondering what to do with my week, or at least my day. i'm still doing this allergy diet, so my 'out for lunch with myself' choices are limited, but i think some serious thrift store shopping is in order. i asked calvy if he wanted to join me, but he didn't seem too interested. sooo off i go by myself. really, i am ok with that. plus, the caffeine in my sistem is making me VIBRATE... so i don't know how much company i would be.

maktaaq has invited me to go see british comedy at a japanese restaurant this evening. i must admit, i am fascinated by that concept. i love contrasts, and there seems to be few things as dissimliar as british and japanese culture. so i believe i shall break out of my hermit-like existance and join her.

ah well, i'm off for a shower. don't want to waste any of my vacation days, you know....

i bloody well HATE canned peaches

ok so i'm heading into day four of the crazy elimination diet that my allergist gave me when i had all of my weird food intolerances diagnosed. basically i am existing on a diet of tuna, rice, spinach, yams, canned peaches, sparkling water and applesauce - with the odd french fry thrown in for good luck. i have lost four pounds since monday. i'm over the caffeine withdrawl, but the lack of food thing is killing me. i'm hungry constantly. i really can't eat enough of this food, and this morning i found myself nearly gagging while trying to swallow the canned peaches i was having for breakfast. i was doing that thing where you take food into your mouth, chew on it, and take another bite. eventually you realize you havent' been swallowing, just storing it in a cheek. the timeless dilemma which arises? spit or swallow....

that's awfully whiny... sorry bout that.

fun things have happened, though, too. got my haircut today, and had a WHOlE bunch more blonde put in 'cause it's summer. and i have bought two new pairs of shoes in the last couple of days - a super fun pair of pink quilted satin flip flops and a pair of black slides with pink heart cut outs and kitten heels... very saucy if i do say so...

this all seems rather superficial, but i have been hesitant to write stuff too personal to me lately, cause of the whole nasty anonymous commenter (not you kindly anon. thanks for the tip). but now this is cemented by the fact that moxeedelic has taken her blog down due to a comment she had - apparently, someone from her work discovered it and now everyone has been reading... so she removed it. it's an interesting conundrum. you publish things to the internet with the expectation that people are going to read them, but at the same time, not using your own name sort of should provide you with some armour against people whom you *don't* want to know who you are, you know? there is enough stuff within my journal that, if you knew me, you could fully put two and two together. but, at the same time, i've become quite guarded in what i publish, so that doesn't really matter much anymore.

what, then, is the point? i have found myself less willing to write since i started censoring myself. mind you, this hesitance has also coincided with some poor health and some weird personal issues.. so maybe i'll snap out of it.

to blog, or not to blog

that is the question. i'm still all swirly in my head and in my belly. indeed, the belly swirly has gotten severe enough that i can only eat toast, fruit, rice, tuna, and (for some reason) chocolate without tossing my lunch. quite literally - i've shocked and dismayed several of my coworkers in the last little bit by doing a mad dash from the table after finishing my meal.

mr married has been feeding me bits and pieces of fruit and hovering about worriedly. i actually fessed up to him about why the food / allergy / pukey thing is kind of serious with me... how it becomes totally connected to my food rules and compounds the anxiety creating a vicious cycle in with the anxiety causes the puking and the puking is the reason behind the anxiety until, after a while, i'm kind of afraid to eat anything at all. and, since that's getting to be the point i am at now.. i have decided to start my allergy diet tomorrow - welcome to a world of a coffee and chocolate and all fun things food related deprived raspberry sundae. i feel for my coworkers come 9am tomorrow morning.

so i went out and stocked up on canned peaches, unsweetened apple sauce, white rice, spinach, cranberry sauce (that's a bit of a cheat, but my god how dull can life get) and sparkling water. i am also allowed cranberry juice, but after the last elimination diet, and the copious amounts of cranberry juice consumed, i make a sour sort of face just *thinking* about the stuff. so just sparkling water for a week. i'm trying to remember what the heck else i ate while i was on this thing. maybe i'll call my allergist and get them to fax me over a copy tomorrow. wouldn't want to miss out on an all-important type of edible. trust me, variety is everything.

anyhoo, if you happen to run into me in the next couple of days and i am lethargic/grumpy/sleepy or all of the above, please do forgive me. it's the diet and i don't mean it at all....

rs

R	Rounded
A	Appealing
S	Slippery
P	Popular
B	Bold
E	Explosive
R	Relaxing
R	Rare
Y	Young
S	Sexy
U	Unreal
N	Noisy
D	Dirty
A	Appealing
E	Excellent

Name / Username:

Name Acronym Generator
From Go-Quiz.com

open apology

this is an open apology to those people in my life who i tend to shut out when i'm going through a bad patch. you know who you are...

just cause i am hiding or pretending like stuff's ok doesn't mean i don't love you or want you in my life. it just means that i am going through shit and i don't know how to cope with it any other way except ignore it and everyone and hope that it goes away. i refuse to talk about it, and the only way around it is to get in my face and find me at my most vulnerable and that is not easy. you could ask stacylicious how long it takes to get me to unturtle and to stop running, but she's not here right now, she's far away. and no,i'm not going to call her.

yes i am hiding. yes my life sucks right now. no i won't open up. no i can't talk about it. yes trying to make me might make me run away farther and faster. HOWEVER i do love to know that you are there, and i do KNOW you are there. and that means everything in the world to me, believe it or not.

so, thank you, and i am sorry for not being here, and not being the best friend i can be right now. it won't last, and raspberry sundae will be back up to her usual antics. that is a promise.

where does the time go?

ah raspberry, where have you been? and yes, by the way, my name *is* raspberry. it may not be the name my parents gave me, but that doesn't make it any less my name.

work, ladies and gentlemen, sucks. sucks ass. sucks royally. sucks the big one. any other variation on this theme are welcome at this juncture. i have adopted a 'put my head down, do my job, don't talk to anyone' approach to the day to day. not the best way to deal with life, but it seemed successful today. that is, until my two favourite ops gentlemen took me out for sushi in sympathy. then i perked up, but immediately returned to my spreadsheet slave state upon re-entering the building. it's hard, though, cause it's not me. i'm social - i fill the candy bowl - i'm friendly - i get people to do things for me cause i go speak with them and ask them face to face to do them... fuck.

last nite i actually investigated some entry level cooking school type situations. if i could save $3500 for tuition, i could become a basic patisserie chef. that, i believe, i would enjoy. then, of course, i'd have to move on to a higher end type school situation. or would i? hmm this deserves more pondering.

thank god *somebody* cleared that up!

You're a Spirograph!! You're pretty tripped out,
even though you've been known to be a bit
boring at times. You manage to serve your
purpose in life while expending hardly any
effort (and are probably stoned to the gills
all the while).


What childhood toy from the 80s are you?

live from victoria, it's saturday night

well, actually, saturday morning. but what the heck.

here i am in the lovely home of mox & mutt... this time, i'm happy to say, i'm not projectile vomitting. needless to say, i avoided having curried tofu for dinner.

i had a really nice time with my sister and brother yesterday evening.. my sis showed us around her boat (in my head her voice is saying "IT'S A SHIP". i know it's a ship, i just like calling it a boat), and we had some dinner and then i hooked up with moxeedelic for a few drinks. i wasn't in the mood to get crazy (saving that for tonite), so we went downtown just to have a drink or two and play it by ear...

we were standing in a line outside a club, and i'm in the middle of very animatedly describing the behemoth of a boat that my sister works on, when i get the sense that i'm being watched. i peek over my shoulder to either a)include whomever is staring in the conversation they are so interested in or b)poke someone's eye out when i realize that the person beside me is someone from WAY back in my past, whom i haven't seen in years. i was delighted, to say the least...

when i was younger (20-21), i had this fairly big, tight crew of friends who did tonnes of stuff together.. we all drifted apart, as will happen. this fellow was one of the best friends of 'the one that got away', whom i have referred to more than once in these pages. so, we were always pretty tight - i was one of the girls they looked after, totally respected etc. so, anyway, a few years after the lost one and i had split up, and he was off living elsewhere, this guy and i ran into each other again. we ended up having a brief summer fling, which ended sort of abruptly because, quite frankly, this guy was an ass. he basically flipped me over and started seeing someone else without even talking to me about it. i was pretty hurt by it, but i figured whatever, it was a summer fling, i got over it.

he's all married now, living here in town, pretty happy. as we were catching up, he was telling me about all the people we used to be connected to... i think that i am the last one who isn't married/solidly connected in a major long term relationship. i sort of jokingly expressed some dismay over this (i'm not that broken up over it, just bemused, really) and he said to me "i think guys are afraid of you". to which i laughed... he followed up with an explanation of how he knew when he was with me that he could have fallen really hard for me, and it was totally the wrong time, and so he was an asshole cause he had to get away. he said that i scare guys cause they know that with me they'd be lost... i'm not sure how much of this i buy... but it was nice to hear. also, i'm glad that he apologized to me.. the fact that, 5-6 years later, it is something he still thinks about, means that he's not really the cad he appeared to be at that time.

boys sure are weird.

ah well, i'm off to get ready and spend some serious girl time with ms. moxee. have a lovely saturday, all....

mmmcakemmmm

i made someone's day today... a woman i work with is *extremely* lactose intolerant, and never gets to eat cake, cause there is always dairy... so, me being me, volunteered to bring the birthday cake for our 'kid's birthday party theme' monthly potluck. i brought two - a chocolate with chocolate creamcheese icing and strawberries for the 'real' folks, and a vegan chocolate cake topped with a non-dairy strawberry creamcheese icing for her and i to try. it was actually super good, cause i used papaya puree for the liquid, so was really moist. she was delighted.. i gave her a couple of extra pieces to take home with her, and she was really happy cause she never gets to eat things like that; come to think of it, neither do i that often. was a good feeling...

on a less fun note... the kiddo left a middle-of-a-panic attack voicemail on my mobile this afternoon. he had gone to visit a friend in the hospital, and freaked out about being there. his message basically relayed how he didn't feel any better, how his meds weren't working, and that he was going to check himself in to the ward. so i got the message (was in meetings all day) and called him back - needless to say how upset i was... he had calmed down a bit by then, but i think he is seriously thinking about going back in. mr. married talked to me till i calmed down, then made me leave work (i am so unassertive when i am upset... i was prepared to go back to my meeting, convinced that there was no way i would be allowed to leave. completely ridiculous - my company is totally supportive of family needs). he "volunteered" to go tell my supervisor himself, if necessary, and gave me five minutes to leave the building.

mike b said some lovely things to me just now: "you are not a fuck up, Calvies gonna have hard things too, just like you and me, and its not gonna be your fault. I've seen you with him, you work hard, you set good boundaries, you listen and talk. Unfortunately some of this is gonna be beyond your control - and that does suck, but it doesn't mean you fucked up" He's a nice boy... i miss him a bunch.

which of the seven deadly sins are you?

You are Lust!
Sexy!! But they say that theres such a thing as too
much of a good thing. You have sex on the
brain, and it doesn't stay just there for long.
Passionate, Fiery - and most certainly
confident. You're a fun loving, spontaneous
person who is always up for a laugh. People
however, have trouble keeping up with you.
You're sex crazy, and perhaps need to tone it
down a bit! learn a little self control!
But, Hey, Congratulations on being the Sexiest Red
Hot deadly sin out of all the 7...


?? Which Of The Seven Deadly Sins Are You ??

mmm sundaes are for baking

i'm in a baking kind of mood, fo sho y'all. today i believe i shall create double chocolate cherry expresso muffins. i may also begin the cake baking spectacular - we are having our departmental potluck on wednesday, and the theme is "kid's birthday party" (don't go there, it wasn't my idea). i have volunteered to bring the cake. i am actually going to make two cakes: one vegan and one not. there is a girl in the department who is highly lactose intolerant, so i am going to make my little no eggs, no dairy chocolate cake, and experiment with a some dairy free cream cheese for the icing. i think, though, for the actual *birthday* cake, i'm going to do a multi layered chocolate and fruit sort of experience. i wish i had a webcam... i could do a little amateur gourmet sort of experience. acutally, now that i think about it, i may attempt some peanut butter cookies, as well. mmmm baking. why aren't i as big as a house? i have no idea, but two other people have asked that same question of me in the last month...

speaking of food, the next time you hear me say that having pizza for dinner would be a great idea, slap me, ok? you have my permission. for the second weekend in a row, i have attempted to have pizza (i really really really like pizza). for the second weekend in a row, i have puked my guts out almost immediately afterwards. so... since i know myself and i know that it will sound like a good idea (probably next weekend, even) just stop me before i place the order. please? for me? thanks.

mike b and i watched 'love, actually' last night. i really enjoyed it - laughed out loud on a couple of occasions. mike b was more restrained in his enjoyment, but i believe he liked it as well. um... i was going to say some stuff here about love etc, but really, i just want to go buy dried cherries so i can make muffins.

how hot is freddie ljungberg?

bronte parte deux (trois? neuf? cinqante?)

i've been struggling over what to write today, for some reason. i think that i'm feeling really disconnected from myself these past couple of weeks, and so there's all sorts of turgid thought and emotion roiling around in my head, but very little of it is making it to the surface. so, forgive me gentle readers.. i know not what i do.

i think that i need to go travel for a bit.. i need to fill my tank with gas and drive for about 3 hours, stop at a cool spot, get a room overlooking some water within walking distance of a good cafe that opens early, pull out my book and settle in for about a week. then, when i come out on the other side, i'll have a bit of clarity over who i am and where i want to be right now. that or i'll be so content that i'll just never leave - i'll get a job at the little cafe making muffins, soup and cinammon buns and be delighted my new small town life.

is it a bad thing that, really, all i want is a job where i bake and make soup for people in a small spot with tonnes of characters to talk to? where i can play cool music and have great magazines left about, where people come to hang out and have a good meal, where teenagers dressed in black come to scribble in their notebooks, drink espresso and chew on black painted fingernails?

mr. married looked at me over lunch in the cafeteria yesterday and said "you are so not right for this place... you are good at your job because, honestly, i think you would be good at anything you tried, but this isn't for you. you are going to quit, unless there is a major change in the structure of your department - it's just a matter of time." smart man, is mr. married. now i just have to find an alternative plan.

slow movement

this morning, while sitting on my deck in the sunshine, eating a home-baked chocolate croissant and sipping a large mug of cafe au lait, i perused a column in the vancouver sun about the slow living movement. this is a phenomenon that rose up out of the french-invented, italian driven food movement that focuses on in-season, locally available fresh ingredients and drinking lots of red wine (see, at this point moxee's today post for an interesting comment on the economics of food. actually, if you see the sidebar for the social issues research centre, there's a good article available for reading. but i digress). anyhoo. this whole thing made me stop and think about my lifestyle. i do work very hard during the week - i work long hours and my days are pretty packed with stress and activity. but my weekends are markedly different. the biggest decision i made this weekend was whether or not to buy bake-at-home chocolate croissants or purchase them prebaked for ease of consumption. i wandered in the sunshine, hit up my favourite vancouver grocery spots, drank iced tea and sunned myself in my bikini, spent time with my mom, and talked with friends. granted, my room is a mess, and i should have tidied. but really, on days this gorgeous, who cares?

part of this indulgence comes from, of course, the fact that my time is *really* my own. i have no partner nagging me to do chores or run errands. i can take as much time perusing baked goods at my favourite bakery as i want. my son spent most of the weekend with friends - we touched base yesterday to go to the beach to sit in the sun and eat greasy beach food stand burgers chat about life, and watch the bikini girls go by.

the downside to this is that i tend to go a little stir crazy when left to my own thoughts too much. i get lost inside my head and have trouble shaking the introspection. also, on saturday evening when the sun came out, all i really wanted to do was pack up the car and have an impromputu camping trip. this, however, is not much fun on your own.

i think that, as i get older, i'm going to become more and more comfortable living in my own skin, and being by myself. this is, in part, one of the reasons that i figure if i don't meet someone amazing in the next couple of years and "settle down" so to speak, it's never going to happen. which, given the past weekend, is a double edged sword. i've been kind of lonely, but at the same time, it's good for my soul.

pensive sundae

i was reading this and started to think about what certain songs remind me of... i just happened upon this post very shortly after someone told me that they would never be able to hear jane's addiction without thinking of me. it's super interesting to me how certain smells and sounds can tie you to a moment in time, or to a person, or to an emotion. for example, the gypsy kings will always make me a) hungry and b) think of a former boyfriend, who was the head chef in a tapas restaurant. when i hear them,i'm suddenly transported back to his restaurant, at the table in the back where i always sat, dipping crusty bread in roasted red pepper soup and drinking wine. loreena mckennitt and chet baker take me back to the bookstore i worked at; to summer saturday afternoons when the boss wasn't around and we were busy hanging with the customers planning our night out. there is a massive attack song that is forever owned by psychojeremy - but makes me think of him in a good way, believe it or not. the sound of rain on the roof of a car makes me think of camping: of lying in my sleeping bag listening to the drops of water hitting the thin ceiling above me, knowing that half of everything i own will be damp in the morning. woodsmoke is fall: warm sweaters and going back to school. roast beef and apple pie are sundays in my mom's kitchen.

are these normal things for most people? i guess the woodsmoke one for sure is... what else?

quiz du dae

I'm getting there. I don't suck, but I've got a ways to go.


how much of a militant feminist are you? my assessment:

"Not too bad, but you can do better. Keep working on it- maybe try kicking a few guys wherever you want to, then start lighting them on fire. Slow and steady wins the race, okay? You've got a long way to go, but I think you'll survive."