The Nutcracker

As a kid, Christmas is kind of a big deal. It's a time where you do things the exact same way you did them the year previously, because that's tradition, and tradition brings back good memories. Or, as in the case of bad memories, laughter that comes much, much later.

One of my all time favorite Christmas time memory is the time my Grandma took the granddaughters to the ballet. She had organized a special night for us girls to watch The Nutcracker in Vancouver.

side note: Grandma will be known as 'Grams' from now on, cause Grandma and Grandpa get cool nicknames that make no sense but everyone calls them that anyway.

The granddaughters at this point in life consisted of my two sisters Ashley and Shannon and our cousin Kate. Kate lived in Nanaimo, and if you've read previous posts you know by now I lived in Whistler, and Gram lived in Osoyoos but somehow our family had arranged it so we met in Vancouver for a special evening.
Actually we probably met in Horseshoe Bay at the designated meet up point and Gram probably suffered through Vancouver traffic to get us to the hotel safely while the four of us jibber jabbered in the back seats.
The hotel!! We stayed in a hotel! This didn't happen a lot and I believe this began my infatuation with nice hotel rooms, ones with pretty views and nice bedspreads, and free stationary and random extra chairs situated throughout the room.
I don't remember the hotel we stayed in but I remember a part of the view was the Woodwards W rotating on top of a building and been kind of mesmerized by that and wondering why someone would put a W on top of a building and not another letter.

So we're staying in the city, it's Christmas time, and when you're little,everything seems huge. So a big sparkly city with sparkly decorations...my mind was blown.
I remember walking by The Hudson's Bay store with the big windows decorated with tinsel, and white fluff and fake snow and colors and lights and shapes of all sizes and Christmas music, and giant department stores and lots of people. Gift wrapped presents under giant shiny trees, nice store people giving out candy, people lined up for photos with Santa. It was as if we were in a movie. Oh it was just so great to clamor from window to window, never knowing what the next one would look like, but being amazed by each one all the same and pointing out our favorite parts. I don't remember letting go of Gram's hand but I'm sure we gave her a start with the four of us wandering off in separate directions all the time.

That night we got ready in the hotel room for the ballet. We might have ordered room service, I may have made that up. We got to wear pretty dresses, at this point I think we all believed we were princesses and our carriage was waiting to take us to the ball.
The Nutcracker ballet was amazing. I think. I might have fallen asleep at some point, it had been a very long day and as all girls know playing princess can be very tiring. I remember not really understanding the story so much, I mean there were mice, and mouse kings, and did they eat the gingerbread men? And I thought nutcrackers cracked nuts, what do they have to do with sugarplums and giant men dressed as creepy wolves, but the music was pretty and the ballerinas were lovely.
After the ballet Gram probably scooped us all up and poured us into bed... it was like that scene out of 'Annie' when she goes to the movies and Daddy Warbucks tucks her into bed after a magical evening. And this time every year when I see an ad for The Nutcracker or hear the music there's a part of me that gets transported back to the ballet and the pretty dresses and the time our Grams took us to the big city and ballet. After all, Christmas time is a time for nostalgia, family, and memories. And bright sparkly lights :)

What you need to know

My wrapping is not a reflection on how I feel about you. I love you very much, it just doesn't come across in the way I wrap presents. Each year, every Christmas, every birthday I think I've reached a new low in my abilities until the next time I'm surrounded by discarded and unusable wrapping paper. My sister Ashley loves wrapping presents, she loves the bows and ribbons of it all, she does such a good job all the time, it must drive her nuts how badly I do it. I don't even bother with bows and when people make the pretty ribbon go all curly I stand slack jawed in awe. I usually start off nicely, but then I get bored real quick and the nog needs to be tended to. I put a lot of thought into the present itself, not a heck of a lot into the wrapping.

 Here's how it goes with the first present
 1) Neatly cut paper.
2) Measure precisely.
3) Carefully tuck and fold ends flat.
4) Never use more than 5 strips of tape. Stand in awe of your beautiful work.

Next present

1) Cut paper. Doesn't matter if parts tear or if it's even, those bits get hidden anyways right?
2)  Basically smoosh all the end paper bits down in to a ball. Use both hands.
3) straddle present between legs.
4) hold scissors in mouth.
5) use both hands to get a strip of tape long enough to wrap around both ends.
6) Spit out scissors.
Stand in awe at the horror you have created.
Repeat until wrapping is done or you run out of paper, or can't find the scissors cause you wrapped em by accident.
That's how it's done. And remember, I love you.

My attempt at a food blog I guess??

I like cooking. I don't know if I love it- no okay I do, I love cooking. There. I said it.
I love cooking, I really love baking, and I really extra love eating the food that I have made. I haven't yet had a cooking disaster happen to me luckily. I assume if I am cooking for myself and it doesn't work out I'd just order pizza. And if I was cooking for others and it didn't work out we'd order pizza! And if the people I'm cooking for aren't okay with that then I'm not okay with them and they can go hunt and gather for themselves.
The great thing about cooking is that you feel like you are doing something good for yourself. Even if it's a seven cheese macaroni, at least you made it, and you had a hand in what was put in. I'm generally pretty lenient with recipes as well, most of the time I don't use them. I just buy ingredients I think would go well together and I put em in a pot. This summer I had a pretty great little garden turnout so I made a roasted carrot and brie soup with the carrots I'd grown, and it was okay, not great or mind blowing but OK.  I am a huge fan of pasta so the tomatoes I'd grown were roasted in this dish I sort of kind of made up and also stole/borrowed parts of from step mom Diane (thanks!) Here goes:
Roast cherry tomatoes, garlic, red peppers.
Caramelize onions, add some sun dried tomatoes, and artichoke hearts, maybe mushrooms if you feel like it?
Sprinkle of chili flakes
Boil water, add any kind of pasta you like till it's done how you like it.
Mix that all in the pot (do I need to tell you to drain the pasta water? Please tell me I don't ) Toss everything together
Grab a plate, pile it with pasta, dump/sprinkle some Parmesan on it and you're done! Don't forget the wine.

Sleeping in is not an option.



click on picture for life size replica of the Snooze Button 3000

Introducing the Snooze Button 3000! So life like, because it is!!! No more annoying battery operated alarm clocks/radios!!!!

The Brody Line of the Snooze Button 3000 quietly lets you know when it's time to get up. And when I mean quietly, I mean repeatedly. And when I say get up, I mean he's ready to be fed.
The Snooze Button 3000 will first awake you by knocking important shit off your nightstand. This could include your glasses, your iPhone, and even a full glass of water!! Simply push the SB3000 away and dip back into a semi- slumber for approximately 9 minutes. After that time, you'll feel the SB3000 give you a gentle, yet jolting tap,tap,tap against your right nostril. Certain SB's come with a extended sharp claw that has the possibility of piercing your nose. This may result in eye watering. If you so desire to sleep a little longer, firmly shove the 3000 off the bed and unintelligibly mumble. Doggedly pursue another 8 minutes of sleep.

Other features of the Son of a Bitch 3000 include more persistent levels of the face-paw, along with  stepping on your eyeball, knocking more shit off shelves, playing a loud, solitary game of plug hockey in the bathtub, stepping on your full bladder in juuusssttt the right spot, as well as aggressive meowing, cold wet nose kisses against your eyelids, scratching of furniture/ your bare arms and general cat a-holeness.

The Snooze Button 3000!!! You'll never be late for work again!

*don't forget to feed the cat on the way out. Otherwise you may not be let back in.

Dear diary, or The perils of journaling.

I was aware of them. I knew they were there. Every time I walked by my closet I'd cast a wayward eye towards the box. Like a boogie man hiding in there, a boogie man who knew all my dirty little secrets.

My journals. Back in the day of the teenager I kept journals/diaries/memory keepers whatever you call them religiously. Every day I would write down very important things that happened that particular day.

Things that clearly needed to be written down, to be preserved in a diary for all of time.
 Things such as:
-sometime in 1998: Saw Aidan. We're so perfect for each other obviously. But I just don't know.(30 yr old me thinks "who the hell is Aidan??")
-Met Shannon for coffee at Second Cup. Sat in hand chairs. It was raining. (Also, not written, but I know I had a latte.)
-Had too many blueberry teas Keg size at Brandy's Drunk as fuck. Ashley and I picked up more booze. Man were we wasted. Stopped in at Moe Joe's and we didn't have to pay for anything. Puked all day today. (all very messy writing)

Speaking of messy writing, holy crap, I clearly was not about to win any penmanship awards. All the way through reading these I'm squinting and holding paper up to the light to see if I can get a better look at the words that I wrote that were oh so important back then. Does that say "been or bees? Or even bins? If it's bees, what happened, why'd I need to write about them? Was I stung by one and some hot guy saved me??? A lot of entries are about a boy passing through the course of my day and something insignificant happened and I was clearly compelled to write about it. Some I still think about to this day without having to read the books: From New Years 1998: Ran into Phil- he grabbed my hand through the crowd and kissed it and then gave me a huge hug. Best thing ever. (I stand by this statement)
Other things were less so:  From 2002: Shane came in to the cafe today. He bought a turkey sandwich.
Seriously. I felt like I needed to write down every detail. I was so obsessed with memories. Which is why I have 12 journals spanning over a decade interspersed with pictures of Leonardo Dicaprio, Brad Pitt, Ilia Kulik(figure skater) Tobey Maguire (totally still relevant)  Johnny Depp and oh ya, more DiCaprio pictures.
Some entries are darker than others, some trail off midway through, most of the books aren't completed as I'd have been given a new one for birthday/Christmas/Tuesday that I would start. Some have some incredibly deep thoughts and poems that make me wonder how a 16 yr old can have a thought that deep and profound and whether or not that still happens or if people just use Twitter as their journals, except instead of taping a picture of Leo they just tweet Bieber directly. Is Facebook the new diary? Yes I think so, in some ways. Some of my journals are interspersed with grocery lists, future names of kids lists, days worked, CDs owned, needs/wants lists. Some are just: 2am. BESTTIMEEVEROMGICANTBELIEVETHATHAPPENED.
Omg. what happened??? says 2011 me. Who was I with? Is there photographic evidence of this occurrence???? Which leads to a thorough digging out of old photo albums and attempting to find said night. Luckily flipping through an album is much more enjoyable and hilarious which is why I got distracted writing this blog. Because for the number of journals I have, I pretty much have a matching set of albums.Which is kind of  awesome. It's not as bad as the next generation will be with the plethora of digital photos and the facebookyness of it all but my photos are pretty great. It makes me glad I have the journals, and the photos to remind me of people and stories I've forgotten, people that aren't here anymore, people I'm still in touch with but need to make more of an effort with, and stories that were important to the younger version of Dawn and who she was. It certainly puts things in perspective. Me tripping in front of some dude in 2002 would convinced me the world might as well end. 9 years later I have a more 'keep calm and carry on' attitude and a better sense of humor. If I tripped now I'd want a video of it so I could laugh at myself.
Because let's be honest. That would be pretty funny.

On Camping.

There seems to have been more of an urge to camp this year more than previous years. I'm not sure why I got an overwhelming sense to squat (in all senses of the word) in the woods but so far I've successfully managed two separate camp outings and may have a third on the horizon.

As a child, 'going camping' in our family meant Dad running around the night before packing the car, Mom staying out of the way until needed, and us kids standing around wondering why camping equaled building character and why Dad was talking to himself about packing the orange cooler juuusst so. It also meant getting up VERY early; early enough for Mom to mutter "7am is too fucking early to start building character".
Imagine, if you will, a blue Dodge Aries, mid '80's. Previously mentioned in a blog : The Giant Yellow Canoe tied on top of the car. Bikes strapped to the back, 3 kids stuffed in the back seat, a dog called Buffy somewhere amongst the orange cooler, the big old green tent from the Army (which had approximately 317 separate poles) and all manner of other shit necessary to feed and entertain five people for a number of days. Dad would drive all day (All Day.) to find the perfect spot, near a lake that I'm supposed to remember the name of, and we'd set up the tent and have just a splendid time I'm sure, if I actually remembered any of it. The fact that the car ride remains seared into my memory concerns me.

Camping with my sister last month was much simpler except for the fact we couldn't find any marshmallows that weren't a giant family sized bag or coconut/strawberry flavored. By the time we had driven all over Sechelt and settled for a bag of mini ones, and gotten back to the site we were so stressed and fed up that we fixed ourselves a gin and tonic ASAP. Which makes me wonder how our parents did it at all. Or why. Why would they put themselves thru the stress of packing, driving, setting up with children who have to stop and pee slash throw-up every two seconds, or demand that we stop the car immediately and proceed no further until we dig the red blanket with elephants on it from the bottom of the back of the piled high car thankyouverymuch. (All me. I was a really pleasant child, I swear)

Camping as a grown up is in fact much more pleasant- as long as you have nice neighbours. If you happen to get a site next to yours (such as Site 34, our neighbours in Port Renfrew last week) that contains some obnoxious people who are genuinely bad eggs who are loud and stupid on purpose it won't ruin your weekend, but it will give you a topic of conversation. You will immediately appreciate how nice you are, and your friends will appear extra lovely and helpful compared to these folks. And you'll have a comparison for the following years when you meet more people like this:
"Man, that person was really obnoxious."
"Site 34 obnoxious or less so? Did he play rave music till 3am? Have a rap battle with his friends? Pee on or near your tent? Get up at 6am and complain loudly about how cold it is on the ocean without a sweater?"
People like this need to not go camping near me. I want to listen to the sound of the ocean in the morning, not Troubled Tommy whining loudly about how hard his life is. I'd rather listen to Chippy the chipmunk or the friggin crows cawing than that. We did have a pretty great time, even if our neighbours threatened to start a forest fire.

I guess in the end I'm glad I had all those lovely camping experiences as a child because I've learned what to do and how not to act.

Back to camping with small children-the other thing you have to worry about is the dangers. The very real dangers of your child a) screaming incessantly b) refusing to have any fun whatsoever c) getting up to pee in the middle of the night and getting lost and wandering through the campsite screaming "MOM??? DAD????? MOMMMY??? I CAN'T FIIINND YOU."

Once again. All me. Good thing I've learned how to camp properly and built all that character.

Aforementioned green tent, but with Vdub van that preceded the Dodge.

A Game, A Riot, A Death, A Birth

I want to believe we're better than that.
I want to assume we know better. That we've learned, that we've watched in reruns what happened in '94 and thought ' we've come farther.'

It's not true.
My team lost. The better team won, I'll admit that, that Tim Thomas was a wall, that the 30 odd average shots per game we did get on net did not go in, the ones that did go in were all kind of empty netters....as exhilarating as they were, we beat Thomas just 8 times.
I'll admit all of that, just as I'll admit 'there is always next year.'
Ya but...
We had this year!!! This year was awesome!! President's Trophy, Jennings Trophy, First in the league, Stanley Cup Finals (holyshit) etc etc! SO AWESOME!
But we were one game short. We needed to win 4 games and we won 3. And that's okay, someone had to lose and I can say that and watch Chara toss Stanley around like a piece of tin foil and I'm kind of happy for the Canadians on the team that won and I can watch their stupid parade and feel sick inside. Some say ' it's just hockey' - well it is to some but to others it's the difference between a good day and a bad day, and it's your every topic of conversation, thought, dreams. When your team wins, it's the greatest feeling in the world. When it loses, you think 'we'll get em next time'

There is no next time in  Game 7 Stanley Cup Final. I've never known such agony and stomach churning nervousness before last Wednesday ( I did watch in '94- but I was 14, I had other teenage-parent's divorcing- related issues)

But as an invested Canucks fan-this year, when my team lost, I cried. I drank some tequila with my sister and then walked home and watched history rear it's ugly head on national television. At some points I couldn't distinguish if they were showing live footage, or 1994 tape. The only thing that distinguished them were the blue and white jerseys.
And there was a lot of them and that's what upsets me the most. I think in '94 the colors of the Canucks were still black and orange, so it blended in a bit more than the blue, white and green of today. Today's jerseys stand out a lot better, for the worse. Seeing thousands of Kesler/Burrows/Sedin/Bieksa jerseys turn over cars and light shit on fire reflects badly on the Canucks fans wearing the same jerseys and not rioting.
I want to believe the police chief who said they were anarchists and thugs. I want to believe that the people in Canucks jerseys weren't true fans. The only thing I could think of when they showed people jumping on top of cars and hollering? You know those apes that thump their chest and howl when they accomplish ape stuff? Ya, that's what happened in Vancouver Wednesday night- it was either a zombie apocalypse or monkeys thumping their chest. So shameful, so disgusting, so disgraceful.

Not so to the people who took their time and money to go downtown the next morning and help clean up- kudos to you, thanks to whomever organized that. AMAZING!!! Those people should be given the order of Canada or a free parking sticker or something- such ownership and love and respect for their fellow citizens, and their cops (who did everything they could without actually drawing their guns-so eff you to whoever says they could have done more)
It took one person to light something on fire, knock some newstand over, or throw bottles at a giant screen, before everyone else got involved. It's the mob mentality.
That same mentality can be attributed to the clean up efforts the next day. It took one person to say " Hey, this is not my Vancouver" and others to agree and follow. And that's how Vancouver got cleaned up yesterday, alongside city workers and shop owners, people did their part .It took one person to write a message on a piece of plywood saying ' I'm sorry'  and hundreds followed.
It took one person to do that a couple of years ago- Terry Fox. He said he couldn't stand watching kids in the cancer unit die of a curable disease and he vowed to help. And he did. His parent's started a charity in his name and it's raised millions of dollars- around the world.
Betty Fox, mother of Terry, died today.
Betty Fox was....Terry. And vice versa.I think we all know what that means. There isn't much more I can say about that woman that we haven't seen in footage of Terry running, suffering,waving and smiling across Canada and haven't seen in Rollie and Terry's siblings as they help to spread Terry's marathon of hope across the country, the world.
Today was also the day my ex roomie had a baby- a bunch of labour hours later and a text from the new Dad ("Holy Crap! What an adventure!") and the circle is complete.

And that's all you need to know. It's smiles from here on in, cause life goes on, hockey games are played, riots are cleaned up and the true nature of people are shown, good or bad. Let's make sure the good outshines the bad- it's more fun that way.