Kieran and I have made the choice to forgo exchanging gifts on each other’s birthdays for a few years running now. We’ve chosen this for a few reasons, not the least of which is that we seem to have simply gotten past the point where we need to commemorate important days or events with stuff. Instead, we’ve gone for a nice dinner together or to dinner with friends. And while that’s always been perfectly nice, we had to admit it lacked a little…something. Romance? Specialness?
One problem is that going for dinner together or with friends is not especially unusual (probably not as unusual as it should be anyway), so it just didn’t feel special to do so on our birthday. Gifts, however unnecessary, are usually thoughtful and — regardless of whether it’s social conditioning to believe so — at least speak to something a little romantic as a result. So this year we found a way to make our birthdays special without making it about stuff: We picked the weekend that’s smack in the middle of our two birthdays and went away on a little getaway to Galiano Island. We rented a little cabin that was surrounded by trees and farmland and overlooked the sea. When we weren’t lolling about in front of the wood stove, we enjoyed hearty meals at the local pub and walks with the dogs (Oz was home from “college” for the weekend). In other words, we found just the thing.
For this is all I’ve been doing with my time, lo these many months. Tonight, the en suite bathroom.
Before
What you’re looking at: Well, not much. It is but a wee room that is rather tricky to photograph. Anyway, first allow me to draw your attention to that mirror/medicine cabinet combo…thing. That’s glued to the wall. Glued. Yes. We’ve also got going on:
a faintly musty, yet decent and sturdy vanity;
a deplorably chipped beige (BEIGE) sink with ugly faucet;
a surprisingly unstained counter top that is unfortunate only for its old skool “pork chop” that runs over the toilet;
a rather clunky, big ol’, water guzzling HOG of a 13L toilet that’s also a wee bit on the drippy side;
some actually rather lovely blue paint that had to go anyway as it matched too exactly our towels — but, really, we also wanted the colour to be the same as the bedroom; and
some truly hideous, asbestos-era linoleum that’s topped by three (3) different types of mismatched baseboards.
Oh, and you can’t tell, but the knobs on the vanity doors are a slightly weird size and somehow indescribably odd and ugly, even though they look like they should be cool and modern.
There are no “during” pictures because of the cramped quarters, but the during part did include me applying four (4) coats of paint. Not including the primer. All the other walls took two coats of paint, so this remains a mystery…our only going theory is that yellow paint just doesn’t cover blue paint all that well. My blood pressure is going up thinking about that, so moving on before the ranting overcomes me.
After
What you’re looking at: more Moonlit Yellow paint (four layers of it — ahem!); a proper medicine cabinet (switched out from the main bathroom, actually); a scoured, cleaned, and painted vanity (that has new contact paper on the inside too!), cured of its mustiness and affixed with appropriately sized knobs; the same counter top after undergoing a pork-chop-ectomy; a white sink also switched out from the main bathroom that is sans chips(ish) (I touched up the one chip that it had and you can’t see it at all!); a pretty, new water saving(!) faucet; and a bad ass (so to speak) new, water-saving(!), dual flush toilet. (You’re also looking at poor lighting due to the fact that one of the bulbs in the light fixture burnt out and we…just can’t right now. Too many balls in the air to attend to routine household maintenance, you know? Anyway.)
And in this picture, you can see a little more clearly my pride and joy:
The new tile! Tiling is the one renovation we didn’t take on ourselves because for the tiny amount of square footage we needed covered, hiring a professional was only marginally more expensive than doing it ourselves (once we factored in the cost of the tools we needed for the job). And with hiring someone, there was much less swearing and feeling put-upon, what with all the First World problems. The tile is accented by new baseboards. That all match.
Now to briefly switch gears, a wee glimpse of the living room — the merest hint of a preview — because you need to know that Kes and Logan are fully in love now. They’ve been flirting for years, but now it’s come down to openly snuggling and grooming each other’s faces.
Nermal usually sulks when they do this, as she is convinced that Logan is her nemesis. Nermal still gets tons of Kes cuddles, though; she just wants ALL the Kes cuddles. Here is Nermal, not sulking but demonstrating why we sometimes think she’s a spy from the cat home planet.
I am aware that this couldn’t possibly be as exciting for you as it is for me, but please bear with me anyway. Because it’s exciting! To have a home! That is not squalid and filthy and covered in grit, not to mention a home that doesn’t have a miter saw on the dining room table (or toilets in the dining room for that matter!).
Annnnnnd, I’ll stop there. Because I could go on all night about the hating and the hate with all the hating of living in a mess. Which is over. So it’s okay, self, shh, shh.
Tonight I have for you the master bedroom. Complete! Clean! Yellow! My favourite colour!
Let’s start with the before, shall we?
Before
What you’re looking at: a poorly lit shot of a very drab, grubby room. The poor lighting has something to do with the fact that there is no lighting. The walls are filthy beige — and by filthy I mean when I washed them down before painting them, they turned out to be an entirely lighter shade of beige — and a filthy beige carpet. There was also, for the record, no baseboards, no closet doors, and the door to the en suite bathroom had a sizable hole in it.
During
The first order of business was to remove the filth sponge carpet. And, dudes. Carpets are gross. There were PILES OF DIRT trapped under there (you can click here to see, if you want). I was truly horrified and have sworn that I will never have carpet again, if I can help it. Next up was painting the walls with fresh paint and — hey! — a colour. OTHER THAN BEIGE.
Then it was time for new flooring…
And then ceiling paint, and closet doors, and doors, and baseboards, and curtains and…voila! A MERE THREE AND A HALF MONTHS LATER…
After
And we have a beautiful new master bedroom! With lighting and colour and cleanliness. SWOON. Aside: See the bedside tables? They used to be green and last weekend I painted them white to match the bed frame. This was a task I put off for several months because I thought it would be fussy and annoying, but spray painting turns out to be quite the opposite of fussy (although, I’m afraid, extremely toxic). I put it off to the point of considering buying new bedside tables, which would have cost at least $100 instead of, like, uh, $5.
Here’s a less artful shot of the room from the other side, if only to demonstrate Kieran’s handy work in that we now have closet doors that, you know, exist and entry doors without holes punched in them. It also nicely shows off the colour of the paint (it’s called Moonlit Yellow, which is apt because it has a delicate silvery undertone to it). The paint! Which is yellow! My favourite! Did I mention that already?
Tomorrow: the en suite! But for now, bbs, I have a date with Harry Potter. Oh, did I tell you? We’re relaxing this week and not doing renos. We were both gravely run down. Besides, what’s left is so negligible, I won’t even bother boring you with it. But for this week we’re enjoying what is as good as done.
First to Nelson, BC for some camping and navel gazing…
Then to the Okanagan for some more camping and navel gazing…but with more wine.
There are still renovations to be done, but we are close. Thisclose. Pictures to follow shortly. And then we can speak of other things! That I’m doing! With my time! Or that you’re doing with your time! Really!
Go ahead and read Part 1 first, if you’re chronologically inclined.
I have been remiss in writing about 2008′s key shining moments. I would hate for 2009 to get underway without first paying proper homage to the best of 2008.
I met another blogger
Shannon! She came to visit me in Vancouver for a couple of days (her account is here). In the photo above, I’m about to take her on a three-hour walk. I like to treat all my guests to militant, relentless, boot-camp style tours of Vancouver! I’m not exactly sure how things got so far gone when we decided to go for a walk—we headed to Stanley Park and I just kind of…kept going. We did eventually make it to the Lost Lagoon (after we went fairly deep into the forest at which point I remembered out loud that once upon a time there had been an axe murderer lurking about said forest), where we spent a lengthy period of time cooing over the baby ducks and marvelling at the swans. (There are no pictures of the swans because I was scared of them. Really.)
After we finally made it back to my apartment, I procured some homemade wine and, keeping things classy, asked my guest to uncork it because I couldn’t do it myself.
We proceeded to enjoy an evening of food and drinks and spent a lot of time giggling and chatting and at some point I put on some sparkly shoes and we: went for dinner at a jazz club; had a B-List celebrity sighting (complete with possible working girl) (Shannon played it more cool than I did, as I literally pointed and brayed something along the lines of “Who? THAT GUY?!?”, while Shannon coolly pretended to go to the bathroom on a reconnaissance mission); had an interesting discussion about graphic novels that opened up a new chapter in Kieran’s life; and mostly just laughed and talked a lot. I’d never met a fellow blogger before, but the experience reinforced that kindred spirits have a way of finding one another, even over the impersonal Internet. Had we lived in the same country and gone to the same school, Shannon would have been the friend you sat on the kitchen counter with, chatting and swinging your feet and drinking hot chocolates.
I went to a glamorous yacht party in the Okanagan
This was a weekend-long event for our friends’ anniversary. The yacht party was preceded by a whirlwind weekend of drinking, laughing, going to the beach, swimming in the lake, lounging by the pool, and…actually mostly just laughing. The yacht party was simply a gorgeous cap to what was already a weekend full of hilarity and friendship.
It should be mentioned that I somewhat famously got spectacularly drunk at the party (everyone did, really) (it was one of those things where I happened to be with all my guys friends and they kept buying me drinks). Anyway, I thought the four-hour boat ride was actually taking us on a TOUR of the Okanagan and throughout the night would point at lights on the hilltops and say things like “Where do you think we are now? Vernon?” or “Hey I bet that’s Summerland!”, when in fact we were circling the harbour in Kelowna the whole time. So my friends had to keep saying “No, WE’RE STILL IN KELOWNA.” Still waiting to live that one down.
I went to a family reunion and hung out with my cousins
We ate. A lot. And drank a lot. And sat around in lawn chairs, reminiscing about all the other times we hung out and ate and drank a lot.
There was much cuteness to be witnessed with the wee ones of our clan:
Especially when my cousin Blair busted out the fireworks:
I took a road trip to Alberta for Thanksgiving
First stop was Calgary, where I did the Run for the Cure with my dear friend Karla. Unfortunately, neither of us thought to bring our cameras so we don’t have pictures of what turned out to be a great run for both of us. I’d never done a run before and Karla, ever the good friend, made it a whole lotta fun.
Next stop was Drumheller:
Where we finally got to see the amazing Tyrell Museum, a spot we’d planned on seeing when we biked across Canada but the wind had had different plans for us.
Then to Sedgewick to visit with Kieran’s dad, stepmother, and brother. Behold the DNA:
Then of course to Millet, where I indulged myself in taking pictures of my favourite subject, the farm:
In between indulging in Thanksgiving dinner and visiting with my parents and aunt and uncle, that is.
And, finally, we headed back west by way of Hinton, where, at long last, I got to meet my best friend’s baby:
In the days and hours leading up to our wedding, I felt alone. We were never together—you with your people and me with mine. There was so much to do, so many things to remember, and I was tired and needed peace and a moment to catch my breath, to think about what we were about to do. That moment just never came. Before I knew it, the days had somehow passed and I’d been buttoned into my dress and it was time to go. Someone rushed at me with lip gloss and someone else’s necklace was missing and one of the bridesmaids frantically blew on her fresh nail polish. It all blurred around me and I started trembling so violently it looked like the flowers would shake right out of my bouquet. There was music and faces turning to look at me and a hush and rustling papers and whispers.
And then. I was standing before you and my hand slipped into yours the way it always does and our fingers laced together and finally I could breathe because we were together again.
Don’t you forget sometimes? I know I do. I get bored and wrapped up in the mundane dread of getting by and I lose track of the fact that there’s a whole world of living and dying and being born going on around me. A whole world that’s heartbreakingly simple and profound. And, blessedly, sometimes unbearably adorable and fuzzy. Case in point:
Orphaned baby seagulls.
This little guy was found wandering into the parking garage of our building, while a group of our neighbours clustered around not knowing what to do and clutching at their hair every time a car roared up the ramp. (Lost baby seagulls, I have to say, might just be a perfect study in tenacious bravery and vulnerability, the way they try to find their way through a giant, noisy world with determined, tottering little steps.) Frantic phone calls to the SPCA were placed and met with placid advice to usher the baby to a quiet spot where his parents might be able to find and feed him. Such a spot is rather non-existent in our neighbourhood, save for the dog park, which seemed a decidedly bad idea. In the end, the baby was scooped up with a towel and gently plunked into a box. The baby cheeped his confusion and we all looked at each other with wide eyes. Now what?
A couple of people started to cry a little. I remembered something—a sanctuary for wild birds? something—I’d dealt with years ago when we found an injured crow. The box and its cheeping contents were thrust into my hands and, just like that, I had a baby seagull to take care of.
So. You live in a tiny apartment—with three cats, mind you—and you have a baby seagull, of all things, in your care. What to do? What to do? What to do?
I went upstairs with my baby seagull box and announced to Kieran that we have a problem. A frenzy of Googling commenced. Meanwhile, I discreetly sequestered the baby seagull in the bathroom before our dozing cats could get wind of the fact that there was a helpless baby bird in our house and that they may have to change their M.O. from “sloth” to “predator.”
There is, indeed, a Wildlife Rescue Centre (yay!) but they were closed for the evening (eek!). Much to our relief, they had instructions on their voicemail about what to do if you find a baby bird. However, these instructions to simply leave the baby be until morning came into direct conflict with the information we procured from a vet we spoke to over the phone who told us that baby birds need to be fed almost constantly or they’ll start to suffer and weaken. The words “humane euthanization” came up. (Noooooooo!)
Back to Google. Look! Another couple found a baby seagull and kept him on their balcony and co-parented him with the momma seagull. We moved the baby from the bathroom to the balcony, hoping his momma would hear him and come feed him.
We didn’t have any luck with this, although the fact that there were three cats all but flinging themselves against the glass may have had something to do with it. As it got darker, I remembered that there are often bald eagles circling high above our neighbourhood and it seemed that the bathroom was, in fact, the safest spot for our baby after all.
But what about the ominous “needs to be fed almost constantly” advice from the vet? Back to Google, which prescribed a diet of moistened, mashed up cat food. HA! We? Have cat food! If there’s one thing we have in this household, IT’S CAT FOOD. The baby responded to this smelly entree with unrestrained enthusiasm, so it seemed Google might be onto something.
At this point, the bebe also began to respond to me, making little cheeps and peeps when he heard my voice (“Hi, Food Lady. I’m here? In this box? Just in case, you know, you had something for me.”) In fact, he was so surprisingly clever and communicative that our nervousness about him quickly bloomed into sheer delight. By morning, after the clamour of finishing breakfast subsided into contentment, the baby was so eager to be friends with me that I caught trouble from Kieran when he heard us happily chattering away at each other. (Kieran and I were trying to be careful not to imprint the baby to humans. However, I think gulls might be far too clever in this regard, because he had our number almost immediately. He would hear us, politely ask to be let out of his box, and when we opened the lid, he’d slide down it and start chatting us up while pat-pat-patting around the bathroom tiles with his webbed feet.)
Cuteness of note in the above video: whenever he shakes his head, he almost loses his balance and has to rock back on his feet (widdle! webbed! feets!). You can also actually see how much he’s stuffed himself (see how his neck is all rounded?), which is part of the reason why he’s a little off balance. He’s also tired and dozy here, and you can tell by the subdued nature of his peeps and cheeps and the long blinks he can’t help but take once his belly is full. He fell asleep within about three seconds of being put back in his box. [Ed note: the lighting in our bathroom is really dim, hence the darkness of the video. Also? Yes. By the end I devolve into a very high-pitched, goo-goo-woogie-woogie voice that I reserve for fuzzy baby things.]
In the morning after breakfasts one and two, he was off to the Wildlife Rescue Centre, where he was placed in an enclosure with other orphaned gulls. He’s doing well (they gave us a case file so that we can check up on him!) and has already bonded with his other little buddies and will be released into the wild when he’s ready. As it turns out, the Wildlife Rescue folks were neither thrilled nor horrified about the cat food diet, and it seems he mightn’t have starved to death as the other vet had implied. In any case, here’s what they advise if you find a baby bird, which is common around this time of year. Kieran and I are going to thank the Centre with a small donation that we hope will cover some of the costs of taking care of our sweet little friend and by dropping off some of the items on their wish list—it just so happens we have some old towels and other household items we’re looking to get rid of.
And there you have it. One minute, seagulls are a boistrous background noise rising up from the sea wall and the next minute, I’m head over heels in love with one because he’s so tiny and brave and trusting and just so…open to accepting the bumbling efforts of a couple of clueless giants. That, and he was fuzzy. Very, very fuzzy.
Blue Yon Belly has moved on up to its own domain! I’ve wanted to make a move like this for quite some time and I’m rather excited about all the design potential I have with my new tools. So far, all the importing and exporting and getting things up and running took much (much, much) longer than I anticipated and, as a result, I have to settle for this simple nuts-and-bolts design for now. Because it turns out that even if you have in-suite laundry, the laundry still doesn’t do itself. I also started to get a little snakey last night because I tried to do everything at once, as I was determined that it shouldn’t take any longer than a few hours. Somehow I used this logic to trick myself into spending an entire day working on this and then went insane roughly around hour 10 of Web site upgrades when I couldn’t get my favicon to work. So, I’m forcing myself to back away for a couple of days because finally having control over the design of my blog is supposed to be fun, not self-inflicted torture. (Ah, perfectionism. It can turn any fun activity into an opportunity for self-flagellation.)
So, for now, there’s not a lot that’s new and exciting here except for a few new categories and a few old posts that I dusted off, mainly because they were photo-based and they fit nicely into the Photos category. Long-time readers will be happy to see that Drunken Jeci now has her own column (she’s bound to post new content sooner or later). And, because the domain and hosting were Christmas and birthday gifts from my husband, I’ve re-posted this little gem from our first anniversary. Because, you know, I love him.
I’ll leave you with these photos of the sunrise taken from our actual deluxe apartment in the sky. Something pretty to tide you over until I figure out how to make the blog itself pretty.
The view from the bedroom window:
And the view from the balcony:
It’s too pink isn’t it? The blog. TOO PINK. And why are some of the links invisible? Why are they also pink? Sigh. I’m so very weary of this fun blog redesign. See? I wasn’t supposed to be tinkering because I wouldn’t let it go last night and got all blustery. And yet here I am, tinkering myself to exhaustion. All but weeping over the pink. Well, it’s just gonna have to stay pink for now.
UPDATE: Simply couldn’t take the pink. But I’m done tinkering starting….nnnnnnoooooowwww.
Guess what turned up in an old SHOE BOX destined for recycling? My camera cord! (Which, I know, it’s actually a USB cord, but all I use it for is the camera. So.) It was really fun to see all the pictures I’ve taken and forgotten about in the last few months.
Some highlights:
A Japanese Maple in the rain, taken during our first few weeks back in Vancouver
Sunset, as seen from the woods out at the farm, taken during my trip home late last month
Me with my beautiful best friend, who is due any minute now. I love her. If her baby has red curls and freckles like her, my heart will absolutely burst.
