Hunters & Gatherers

Life was exceedingly dull throughout October and most of November (of course, that’s in comparison to my September and, well, everyone else’s lives.) I divided my time between three different kinds of work: working out, homework, and work-work at my two jobs. My life suuuucks. Feel sorry for me! Okay, whatever – you likely don’t/won’t. Though I seriously worked for 20-day stretches at a time, I suppose I did that to myself. ANYWAY – onwards and upwards.

In November every year, our department does a professional development getaway into Vancouver and it’s pretty much THE event of the year. You can read about our past adventures here, here, here, and here. I’m sure you didn’t click on any of those so…yeah, I did that coding for nothing. This year, we headed to the same hotel as last year, The Listel on Robson Street. I did manage to score a slightly better room though…







Too bad I’m only going to spend about one hour of non-sleeping time in here. Boo. As soon as we checked in, it was time to head down for lunch and our first (and only) session of the day.


Brenda (second from right) is EATING! Grrraaaaggghh!


Cold lady food with a swimming pool of dreshingu.


Lady-sized dessert. Do you see a theme emerging?

Our first session involved organizing our online document filing systemmmzzzzzzzzzzz. Actually, it’s not so bad since I’m kind of nerdy and like organizing.



The second part of the session involved a scavenger hunt - I’D BETTER WIN! I hate putting effort into things that don’t work out in my best interest. Well, on scavenger hunts anyway. I was paired with my co-workers Blanca and Mark and under my superb leadership, we stormed the downtown core. I was like a woman possessed with acquiring items like a box of crayons from Red Robin, a catalogue from Pandora jewellery, and a business card from the coffee shop inside the HSBC building. And as for our efforts…well…what do you think happened? We won, of course.

Then came time to shop! Brenda and I headed out before dinner to spend the hard-earned money we made from working at this difficult job. And you would be proud – all I ended up buying was mascara! Ok fine, it was Chanel mascara, but let’s celebrate the victories people. Dinner was at the Fairmont at my favourite haunt, Griffins.





Why is it my favourite? Why, their all-you-can-eat dessert buffet with every meal, of course!



Our table was taking ages to be ready, so they offered us free wine…and kept it flowing. Before I knew it, I had drank four glasses…




Of course, I sat at the head of the table because…then I can shout down the length of the table. But I wouldn’t do that because that’s rude.




Blanca telling one of her killer stories. One year, she told us one about a male stripper who gave someone scabies.





The party began to break up shortly after 9 and I didn’t mind because the party for me would continue, just down the street. I headed over to the Cactus Club Café to meet up with my old pally B-Mal and two companions, all of whom had little porno ‘staches for Movember. We moved the party from there a little further down the street to the Elephant and Castle (at this rate, we will be in the water shortly.) I had some cocktail drink (the count was now up to five) and the dudes had this ridiculously massive bread pudding that kind of made me want to chuck. What? I’m still full from all-you-can-eat-dessert buffet, mmkay? After that party wound down (we all gotta work in the AM), we parted ways and I made my way down the deserted Robson street in the rain alone. Cue violin.



That night was a bit of a struggle since I think the alcohol was speaking to me in a language I don’t want to understand. No no, I didn’t throw up or anything (I’m sure your are like, THANKS! right about now) but like that Christmas so many years ago, I got this weird sleep nausea. No more drinking for me!

The morning’s session involved more discussion of filing and by lunch we had called it a day. BRING ON THE WEEKEND! But I’m going to spend it here…and I’m meeting up with Djds in an hour…(to be continued…oooo)