Transitioning

SERIOUS BLOG AHEAD! (and then some pictures.) The second quarter of 2012 was a period of immense change for me – a conscious uncoupling (thanks Gwyneth), a new job, a move to Vancouver and also some hats.



My awesome old buddy Jen (aka Djds) was there with me through it all, making sure I wouldn’t go nuts with selfies and whatnot. You never know what might happen in a tumultuous time.




Quality time at Iona Beach.


Morning, wood.



Pictures are greater than a sum of their parts…like one of our now-empty townhouse, minutes before I handed the keys off, alone, as we both headed off in different directions (literally.) SYMBOLISM, Y’ALL.


Good memories.

Two weeks later, I said goodbye the job I toiled in for six years.


Campus life is so pretty.




I sure do miss having a proper office.

And so in May I started work near Vancouver, and in June, I moved. I was in heaven those first weeks.






Pub trivia at The Cove. Classic.


My new workplace, hell-y one. That’s not a pun. (It’s reality.)

Discovered the hipness of Railtown.




As Jen says, “chix”.


DJ Baby Bok-Choy? A mobile DJ. Only in Vancouver.






(Admittedly, this is not in Vancouver. But I couldn’t not include it.)





Janelle turned a year older and we went on a mini-vacation to Seattle…to be continued.

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Hack-ey

Immediately after arriving home from Calgary, the playoffs began, the PRESIDENT'S TROPHY WINNERS (2X BABY!) started their epic failure of a playoff run. I wanted to take part because I like to throw money at the NHL(?). Having a friend who worked at StubHub and her specific offer one Wednesday possessed me and my good ol' buddy Jen to shell out the coin to attend a home playoff game. Dragged her to the pre-skate too. She had no idea.



We hit the jackpot big time when we ended up near MARK DONNELLY! Hermagersh. Jen didn't know who we was at first and then she wanted a picture together. What a poser.




We may live forever.

The seats were SICK. We could smell the B.O. from our chairs.



The atmosphere was INTENSE until they started losing. Bad. Then everyone left and we had our whole section almost to ourselves. Kind of embarrassing to be a fan with those people on those nights.



That was the beginning of an epic near-sweep by the Kings. Wah!


Like a train wreck.

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The New Moda

As Jean and I are wont to do, we took advantage of a Travelzoo deal and booked another overnight in Vancouver. My goal was to eventually visit every “cool” (read: expensive-ish) hotel in Vancouver and while that probably won’t happen while looking on Travelzoo, I can check another off the list with our visit to the Moda Hotel. Girls weekend, whaaaaaat.


SEND OUT THE WELCOME PARTY!




Mmmm, pillow.

We started the visit off right with a trip to the Canucks store at Rogers Arena, to pick up my fixed-up jersey (way to sew a patch on crooked, Reebok). Oddly, they hadn’t fixed it, so they gave me a different one. Once back at the hotel, I tried the new one on and the crest was all lumpy, so we went back again and I rifled through the racks myself to find the perfect jersey. I don’t spend $120 for a lumpy shirt, so I wasn’t too concerned about crazy-anal I must have looked.



Of course, it being March and all, the city was beginning to feel like spring (and it being 2012, using Hipstamatic was still cool.)







Of course, we stopped by the grocery store to pick up some essentials:

(Royale is kind of a big deal in the TP world, so…)

We knew the hotel was kind of hip because they have very clean/coherent graffiti on either side of the building. No big deal.



We spent the afternoon in Yaletown, so upon recommendation of a greasy-spoon type restaurant nearby, we had dinner at PHAT (which just sounded like “FAT”, when the shopgirl recommended it. Think about it – a restaurant called “FAT”. Would you go?)


Whatever the restaurant is called (be it “FAT” or whatever), you can’t go wrong with garlic French fries and a hot dog.


It was hockey night, which meant that I forced Jean to watch a game with me. She was instead interested in sleeping (or at least trying to.) Until I invented…THE PILLOW-COPTER. It is just how it sounds – assault with a pillow in each hand, arms above your head in a circling motion. There are sadly no photos of this because I had a pillow in each hand.




Those hipstamatic filters are really something else.



For brunch the following morning (yeah, that was it – hockey and then bed), we decided to get cultural. Obvio, Vancouver is a ramen mecca (at least, in comparison with many other Canadian cities), so we decided to try Ramen Santouka.




(Had enough of the blurry hipstamatic photos yet?)
Verdict: It was aiet. Broth was very rich, but the noodles just didn’t capture me. And naruto (swirly thing fish cake) always tastes like the ocean to me.

After ramen-ing, we headed over to Gastown because we are out-of-towners and this is what we do. We had coffee at Trees Organic on Water Street and talked about how we both hoped to live in Vancouver and what the future was going to look like. Generation of dreamers – they ain’t kdding.







After buying some amazing candles at Nouvelle Nouvelle (GET THOSE TALL VANILLA SEA MONSTER CANDLES BACK IN STOCK!), we headed for home. Little did I know that in three short months, I would be moving right into the neighbourhood….

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Lappy Dance

My real birthday arrived with significantly less than a bang. However, by the end of the day I would be buzzing like a cuckoo bird! Here’s the scoop.

After going to work for a couple hours (where the main task was supressing my excitement), I cut out at lunch and headed into Surrey where I leapt onto the Skytrain for my journey to the NHL. HEART OF A CANUCK indeed. I’m getting ahead of myself. First, I met with Jen for some pre-game snacks at Pivo Public House.



Jen is one of my oldest friends…on earth. So there’s a lot of history there. And so, she made me this:








LMAO. For the unfamiliar…the first bunch were Brad Renfro (Brenfro), Kevin Bacon (kembkn), and Mike Herrera (no nickname.) The second was Maxim Lapierre (Lappy.) The sad creature in the last photo is Justin Bieber’s head on Ryan Kesler’s body. BOOOOOOOOOO. None of that, please. Of any kind. BEST CARD EVER. I was so embarrassed I couldn’t even hold it up in the restaurant.

Eventually Jen and I bid adieu and I met up with Marty in front of Rogers Arena. I was frothing at the mouth outside the club gate doors the second they started allowing people inside. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT.

Oh ps – in case you didn’t know by now, Marty’s birthday gift was Canuck tickets (my idea.) Row 6, baby. I die!!






Here’s Dale Weise. Who, you ask? Exactly. He’s a sometimes-fourth-liner who likes to bask in the glory of being the first Canuck everyone sees when they walk into the arena.



I waited at the glass with baited breath for the warm-up to start. I was soon surrounded by small children, all in $100 jerseys, discussing how they are going to go about getting a warm-up puck today. These kids are 20 years ahead of me in the hockey department.



Once they started tossing out the pucks, I knew it had to be getting close. The child pool around me began to swell.











At one point, I was on the big screen with Henrik Sedin. It was pretty rad. The children became rangy, hitting the glass and yelling at the top of their lungs to try and get the attention of their favorite player. It was like I was surrounded by a group of misbehaving monkeys. I was a little embarrassed for myself being lumped in with this motley crew. And then Lappy (#40) skated by.


Not perfect lighting, but the man in the foreground is the same one in my birthday card – the one that wasn’t Ryan Kesler’s body.



















Well, wasn’t that fun? Eventually the real game began and I had to mosey my way over to my actual seat. Although I feel like I already got my money’s worth…




Lu, doing what I call his “gorilla pose”.




Scrappy Lappy.


See Marty? They are fist-bumping!









So, in the end, we creamed those stinky Minnesota Wild. Lu notched his first shutout of the year and we scored four goals. Sounds like a dang-near perfect birthday gift to me.





That would be the last (also, first) time I’d see Lappy single…he suddenly felt the need to get engaged three days after this. Wahh, my life.

I’d like to conclude the birthday blogs with this picture of me drinking chai out of the smallest cup on earth during my birthday celebrations with my aunt. I’m old now! Small portions only!

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