I want to sneeze

So, I got my phone yesterday. It is identical to Megan's only in green, the ringtones are shit and I keep on forgetting that it's mine, but I suppose I'll get used to it eventually.

Today I got to hang out with Whitesailors, it being the beginning of another two weeks. In the morning I helped Matt and Ana teach them how to rig and storm-rig. At the Boathouse I ate a muffin and some hot chocolate with my sandwich, and hung out with Greg, Alec, Lexi and Rachel. Rachel and Brooke were both very excited when they finally remembered who I was. It took Brooke a while to remember my name, but she knew my email address, which I thought was kind of weird. In the afternoon I got to hang out in a boat with the three Asians, and because I am that nice, I let them speak as much Canto as they wanted. I was actually very impressed by how well they were all doing on their first day.

After sailing I hung out with my baby. His mom fed us, which was happy.

Bed now. I have had something other than my contact stuck in my eye all day and I want to get it out.

Oh, and my dear locker partner Jamie and his partner only received silver at the BC Sailing Championships last weekend because they didn't douse their spinnaker at the right moment. I want everyone to make fun of him.

Genghis Congo

Yesterday I spent all day with my baby. We watched Alice in Wonderland and Scooby Doo, and went on a quest to find honey bubble tea; we were quite successful. Later we made a trip to London Drugs because I was feeling all girly and needed chocolate and a magazine, then we ate our chocolate and read my magazine on the way to my house.

At my house we listened to foreign music and watched movies on Erin's laptop. Eventually we gave Mikhael a ride home, then locked the washrooms in the park and went to Meadowtown Centre to see Pirates of the Caribbean. I almost fell asleep multiple times because I was that tired.

I went straight to bed after I got home, hence the no blog post, but didn't fall asleep for about four hours because I was unable to have my shower at my regular time and therefore felt really unclean. Eventually I fell asleep, which was nice.

The first thing that I did this morning was have a shower, then I ate breakfast and now . . . I think I might be leaving soon to buy my new phone, but I'm not sure.

This post was utter boorish nonsense. Damn.

"Damn you and your cleavage!"

Today was quite enjoyable, even if I didn't get out on the water at all. In the morning we got into partners, I was with Mia because I haven't done anything with her all week, and we made up lesson plans and taught sailing theory to the rest of the class. Mia and I taught the points of sail, and it was decided that we were one of the best because we included aspects that appealed to three different types of learners, visual, auditory and kinesthetic, and we kept the lesson to under ten minutes.

The volunteers claimed first dibs on the drinks during the barbecue because last time there was practically nothing left when we got to the cooler. Afterwards we joined the Whitesailors on a scavenger hunt while the Juniors went on a treasure hunt. I didn't do much because I was a clue and because I knew most of the answers. My team won though, because Paula and I sent out the younger kids on our team to find stuff, so we found the most things, and because we had a lot of creative answers. One of the things was a rainbow, so we bought skittles. Another, a huge crab, but since all of the crabs in the inlet are tiny, we just said Matt on a bad day instead. One of the questions was Something Beautiful, and my team put me down. I had no say in this, but we got kudos from Jeremy who was giving out points because I feed him every barbecue day and because I had just given him a handful of skittles. We were also the first team finished.

We played field Capture the Flag after that, it was volunteers against Whitesailors, eight people to twenty, and we still won by having the most flags on our side by the end of the game. It's not that we're good, the Whitesailors just suck.

Came home and have done nothing ever since. The end.

Edit, 10:29 pm: There are now pictures in the post below.

Is she speaking English?

I don't know why I didn't update on Tuesday, so here it is:

I spent all day doing my Emergency First Aid and my CPR-C. I got to play with a manikin, whom I named George Petunia. Some guy named Tom was teaching us everything It was fun, but nothing new. Later I went to Haney Place and bought a new bikini top and picked out a new phone, identical to Megan's.

Yesterday was better. We spent the day swimming. In the morning Brent took us to his friend's beach, where we were going to practice shore rescues, but the tide was out too far and we couldn't run through mud, so we practiced in the water instead. We also had to practice putting our pfd's on in the water, which sucked because it meant that I had to put my head underwater, but I survived. We had to do everything fully clothed, but eventually Brent let us take our shoes and shirts off. We went back to the rowing dock and practiced our shore rescues there, which was disgusting because it is the dirtiest part of the inlet. We went back up to the Boathouse to eat lunch and found this:



Um, yeah. It kind of creeped us out a bit. We all took showers upstairs and rinsed off a bit, then we ate lunch near Pajo's.

After lunch we practiced our man overboard boat rescues in the zodiacs two-at-a-time, because we all got our PCOC's that morning. I was horrible, but Big Red is different from the other boats, so I probably would have had an easier time had I been in one of the twins. When we weren't "rescuing" the buoy person, we were swimming near the Bonnie Jean and trying to get the Whitesailors to come near so we could hang off the back of their boats.

After sailing I went to Paula's house and impressed everyone by knowing where everything was, because it is the same as Megan's. Paula's parents made me dinner and I helped Paula make a crust for a cheesecake that she was making for today. We left for the fireworks.

The fireworks were fun, though it is one of those "what happens at the fireworks, stay at the fireworks" evenings. Not many of us went, only Greg, Garrett, Falacci, Paula, Daniel and I. We got there around seven and all got free lanyards from Solo Mobile, and pins and tattoos from Rogers. We spent a nice three hours hanging out, then we watched the fireworks. They were okay, I've seen better and I don't think that Italy is going to win. We might go again next week.











I got a ride to Erin's apartment from Paula's parents, where I stayed the night.

This morning I slept in until seven-thirty, took a shower, then foraged until I found some lunch. Normally I would have just bought my lunch today, but we were going on a day sail.

It was quite fun. Paula and I decided to sail together, never having done so before. We had a new 420 with new sails, so we were the fastest double-handed boat on the water. Brent wanted to sail a Laser for a bit, so a couple people were shuffled around for about half an hour and I ended up in a zodiac practicing my driving. I am better right-handed.

We ate lunch in our boats and eventually sailed back. I got to skipper during most of the trip, except for when I was practicing my driving and when I was eating my lunch. I was going to let Paula dock because I don't trust myself enough, but my docking job was beautiful. We were the first to finish de-rigging.

We pulled the boats up and washed them, then went to the other end of the park where the Whitsailors were playing a game. Mikhael and I left eventually to buy cookies, then we went to the forest behind Mia's house, all nicely dressed up like a rabbit and a caterpillar. Mia and Alexis were hosting an un-birthday tea party, and there was lots of cake, tea and cookies to get fat on. There were ten of us there, Clockwise from me there was Mikhael, Mike, Alexis, Greg, Ellis, Mia, Paula, Falacci, Laura and I. We called people and yelled at Alec and Garrett for not coming. There was lots of rugby talk going on. Eventually we went inside, because we were going to watch Alice in Wonderland, but I had to leave, so I ate a piece of Paula's cheesecake and left to go meet my parents. I missed the movie, but that's okay, because Mikhael has promised that we will watch it at his house sometime.


My Baby the Bunny Rabbit

That's about it. I'm going to bed.

"What? You want to see what Jesus would look like if he was female?"

I spent all day doing theory. It was brutal. Even right now I am studying for my PCOC, but not very much, because most of it is common sense.

I know everybody taking the course, and I saw Daniel for the first time in two years. He's twelve, and taller than me now.

We watched a movie, the actual title being, "Stay In Your Boat And Don't Crash Into Things." We were also going to watch a video filled with boats blowing up, but Brent couldn't find it on the RPSA computer. When we turned around to watch the movie, nobody bothered to move, so we ended up like this:



We also got to play with construction paper and draw on each other:





And there was also this lovely diagram:



~

In other news, Mikhael came over for a while, then left. That is all.

I want a duck named Steve

Alright, let's start with Friday.

Friday was quite enjoyable. As always somebody made a remark about Mikhael, as they always do whenever he doesn't show up; this time it was Sterling who asked me if my hands were cold, because my boyfriend wasn't there to warm them up. We took the boats down, then sat around and talked until everybody came back from playing Capture the Flag. Mia and I helped Alexis get her earring out with the aid of two pairs of pliers:



See that look of intense concentration on my face.

The Whitesailors storm-rigged, then ate lunch. Max gave Michael and I a slurpee to share, which was nice of him, and when we were on the dock and the sailors were rigging, we sat in the shade with our backs against the shed and drank it. All afternoon we had a water fight, which I suppose made up for the fact that they were supposed to go for a day sail. There wasn't much wind anyways. The sailors even started pirating each other, splashing each other, capsizing boats, pushing each other into the water and pulling off each other's rudders, which Matt started. The juniors arrived on Lucy and were splashing people.

Everybody de-rigged and carried the boats up, and the instructors left to go camping for the weekend and I went to Erin's apartment and stayed the night. It was so hot there, I don't know how she can stand it all the time.

Saturday morning I got up early for a nice, easy six kilometer run to Old Orchard and back. It was nice and easy because my knee started hurting about a third of the way back. I really should leave my brace in my duffel bag. I had a shower and ate some breakfast, then went over to the Boathouse, as the Learn to Race people were having a mini-regatta over the weekend. We took the boats down, Salma and Red, the boat we borrowed from the rowers for our committee boat, and I "supervised" while everyone storm-rigged. Sterling came later with two new 420's that he towed from North Van, giving us six new boats rigged with old sails and two old boats rigged with new sails, just to make everything even.

Rob assigned teams during the skippers' meeting, four teams of four people, two in each boat. We went out and set up a trapezoid race course. Mia sat in the committee boat all day and started the races, and I got to sit with Rob in the coach boat as he gave advice to the racers. I really learned a lot, some of the tactics, and who on each team was stronger and who was weaker. Rob even wanted to put me in as a sub, but I declined because of my knee. Speaking of subs, everyone had Subway for lunch. There were thirteen races in all, twelve serious and one fun race where every team raced at the same time. The orange team one, which was the one with Alexis and Kim on it, but that was because they had the other Rob on their team, the one who has been on the Olympic sailing team.

Watching sailing races is really interesting because there is a lot of strategy involved. In team races especially, because it doesn't matter if you are first or second or third, but if the other boat on your team is fourth, you are going to lose, so you have to slow down the boats on the other team in order to give your team members a chance to pass another boat.

Eventually we came back to the dock, where it was a hell of a lot hotter than on the water. Everyone de-rigged and we pulled up the boats, washed them and made sure everything was organized and put away. Then we went over to the long picnic table for a barbecue. I left early because I wanted to go home and I wanted to visit Mikhael on my way home. Also Matouche had spilled Dr Pepper all over the shirt that Erin lent me, and energy drink was spilled on my duffel bag, nearly making me cry. Rob and Sterling were very sorry to see me go, apologizing for the fact that they had forgotten about my being a vegetarian. They offered to buy me something from Pajo's, but I declined. I never did get any dinner that night. I bussed to Michaels and spent an hour watching Iron Chef: Beef Battle, then I took the bus home and went to bed almost immediately. I volunteered for a total of ten hours. At home I found two new shirts that my mom had bought for me and, get this, a DISHWASHER. Yes, after nineteen months of washing dishes by hand, I once again have a machine that will do it for me. It made me happy.

This morning I got up nice and early to go to the Maple Ridge Fair. That stuff that I was doing a few days ago that I said I would explain on the weekend? I entered the Maple Ridge Fair. It took a lot of bull-shitting as well. We mis-read the booklet that gave all of the information and didn't know that we had to hand in our entry forms two weeks before handing our entries in. Luckily I am a good liar when I need to be, so I got my ring entered, as well as two entries for Erin. All of that bull-shitting paid off. We showed up today and found this:



I am going to show Imbeau when school starts again. Next year we are going to dive in head first and kick some ass. I want some of those Best In Show rosettes.

After that we went to see Measure for Measure at Bard on the Beach. The plot was quite dark and the costumes weren't that interesting, but I enjoyed it.

We walked to Granville Island and ate dinner. I hadn't been to the Island for over a year, so it was nice to visit again. When I was little I used to spend a lot of time there during the summer because my mom worked for Arts Umbrella. We browsed through art galleries like we always do, and bought fudge, like we always do. We stopped at Opus because Erin needed some stuff, and I bought the coolest journal ever, it's a mini necklace journal, but I bought the example, so it's full of little messages and scribbles. It was my purchase of the week for only two dollars. We didn't want to walk back to the van, so we Aquabussed it back. It was so windy out, I'd say at least nineteen knots.

That's about it. I'm not in a particularly good mood right now, so I'm going to bed.

I wore four layers of sunscreen today

I will talk about my day tomorrow; the internet at Erin's apartment is too slow to post anything substantial.

Tomorrow I am volunteering with the race team. They are providing the food.

Happy Sunshine Rainbow Ponies

I meant to post yesterday, but I forgot.

My July nineteenth started out somewhat uneventfully, with the exception of when we launched Patty; Brian offered to drive her over to the dock for us, but forgot to unhook the boat from the trailer, so when he put her into reverse and gunned it . . . My arms hurt for a while afterwards. We played a quick game of buggers, Max stepped on my broken toe and put all of his weight on it, but at least I stopped him from getting a try.

In the morning the Whitesailors did a lot of theory, and to make it more interesting, they had a fashion show. I wish I had brought my camera down to the gazebo with me. We storm-rigged, had a mini water fight, despite the water warning, and went back to the Boathouse to eat lunch.

My sandwich was a bit on the moldy side, so instead I ate some of Mia's lunch and bought a hot chocolate.

After lunch we went sailing, but there wasn't much in the way of wind. Mia and I hung out in Salma with Matt and splashed kids in 420's.

I can't remember what else I did.

This morning Garrett tried to pull a Brian, but he didn't. We played Capture the Flag, and between Mia, Garrett and I, we managed to win the game through, deceivement and our power as volunteers.

The Whitesailors did some theory that I didn't pay attention to, instead I skillfully duct taped my sandal together. The sailors went to the dock and storm-rigged, then they played the boat parts game. I'm surprised that I remember most of the more obscure boat parts; I even helped Max with which ones to say next, like chainplate and fairlead. One kid actually climbed up the mast to touch the spreaders, even though pointing at them would have sufficed.

We went back for lunch. My sandwich was moldy again, but Matt got me some free fries from Pajo's.

The afternoon was fun. It was very windy, I'd say about fifteen knots. It was just Matt and I in Salma for the majority of the afternoon, Matt not being allowed to take any students because Salma was missing her kill chord. Whenever a larger boat passed we rode the waves, and it was so much fun, almost as much fun as that day trip that I was volunteering with the week after I passed my Bronze IV two years ago. The last time we did it today we caught the lip of the wave and almost turtled. A lot of the Whitewailors (haha, Whitewailors) were complaining because they were going too fast and most didn't want to capsize. Babies. I got to direct them into the docks; it was their first time docking by themselves, and most did pretty good for their first time. I played Dock Nazi and ordered people around.

We pulled the boats up and I left soon after. Mikhael and I went to Maple Ridge where we pretended we were on a hill even though we were just on a grassy lot, and we rolled around for a while, then I saved Mikhael from walking into poles multiple times, including three times in quick succession. He only needed to save me twice. We arrived at my house and immediately ate rhubarb, because Mikhael had never tried it before. We hung out here because it was nice and cool inside, with all of the fans and the lack of heating and everything. After a few hours I walked Mikhael back to the bus station and we spent ten minutes rolling around on the grass again.

Went home, ate dinner, watched TV.

I'm tired.

"Well, I don't hear any screaming, so either they're having fun or they're dead."

This morning started out with my cats. I was innocently sitting on a chair reading and trying to warm myself up because I was freezing, and Lou walked across my lap a few times. Not to be outdone, Sally sat on my lap for a few minutes after Lou left, and when Lou walked across my knees to get to another chair, Sally smacked her. She left to get a snack and Lou came back for a belly rub. Sally jumped onto the chair beside us. I had been giving Lou her belly rub for a few minutes, when Sally started doing that thing that all cats do before they all throw up. I pushed Lou off of me and tried to get Sally to the kitchen, because the floor in there is the most forgiving. Failing at that because she is so fat, I tried to get her to keep her head over the blanket that she was sitting on. I started petting her, and all of a sudden she just stopped and started purring. I was quite shocked. I told her that it was a very low thing to do, then ignored her until I left for sailing.

My morning was fairly uneventful, with the exception being that my baby was there most of the day. We "played" some Capture the Flag, then Mia, Mikhael and I went to the ice cream shop, then back to the Boathouse, where Mia and I taught Mikhael some Whitesail theory. Mia went down with the Whitesailors to storm-rig, and I stayed up with Mikhael and taught him more theory. In half an hour he learned ten days worth of Whitesail theory, including wind direction, points of sail, the different types of boats, basic tacking and gybing, and knots.

After lunch Mikhael went to Denis's house for a while and everyone went down to the docks. Mia and I helped everyone launch, but were left behind on the docks, at the mercy of horny, slightly intoxicated men on giant yachts. They even told me how good I looked in a lifejacket. They picked up their friend from the rowing dock, then they left.

Eventually we were picked up by Matt and Jeremy, and we drove around for a while. It was very windy and the Whitesailors were doing very well for only their second day of sailing. Some kid had a "stomachache" and decided he didn't want to sail, was crying and everything, so Jimmy took him up to the Boathouse. It was the Sally thing all over again. We might have been more inclined to believe him had he not done the exact same thing yesterday. I don't think he's going to pass.

Later Mikhael and I bought sandwiches, then I went home. Did some other stuff, lied to some people, but I'll explain on the weekend.


~


And Mikhael, we have to talk less on the phone. My phone bill is through the roof and my mom is pissed.

19th Century Sex Lights

Yesterday my family went to Fraser Fest, and found absolutely nothing of interest. It all started off with me eating a muffin that was ginourmously huge, The obvious thing to do with such a large muffin was to fees some of it to the birds. Soon I had eight pigeons and two sparrows eating breakfast with me. I figured that if I had had another muffin and a bit of time, I could have trained them and re-enacted Alfred Hitchcock's, The Birds.

We then went on a paddlewheeler, but that was not exciting at all. I took bad pictures of Erin to make my life more interesting.

Not two hours after breakfast, we went for lunch at the Old Spaghetti Factory. I was quite full afterwards, and didn't eat for the rest of the day.

We went to Erin's apartment and made fun of her because she needed scissors to rip open plastic. I fell asleep on the couch for a while. My parents and I left eventually.

We stopped at Home Sense, because it sells useless shit that we like to laugh at. I bought a new skirt at Winners; it goes just past my knees, and is black with small pink polka dots. We also went to Jysk, and the singing pigs were still there.

Today I only spent about five hours at sailing. I was there in the morning, but some people were being assholes and I had already had a bad morning, and I had to leave anyways to go pay a library fine, so I left for the rest of the morning to cool down.

I came back just in time to meet up with Carly and her Juniors, then soon left with them to go eat lunch on the Bonnie Jean. They really didn't need me, as Jeremy and Jimmy were going with them as well, but Zoe, the only girl, wanted me to come too.

Falacci picked us up and took us to the docks, where we were supposed to be ing the boats with the Whitesailors, as it was their first day, but for some reason we didn't, probably because there were only four volunteers and seven boats. Mia and I were with Max in Patty, and Jimmy, Jeremy and Matt were in Salma. I love being in a boat with Max because he is such a crazy driver.

Mia and I helped the Whitesailors dock, and they were suprisingly fast at de-rigging. We had to de-step the mast of one of the boats because the forestay snapped. Max was upset because it was the second one in a week, and the masts were both practically brand new.

We took the Twins up and washed them, then Mikhael and I left for Denis's house to watch a season of Red Dwarf. I think we're doing it again tomorrow as well.

Tomorrow I must remember to fill in my volunteer hours; I forgot to do that today.

If you fuse Russian and Italian together, you get Chinese

Jeremy showed up today, I mean yesterday, probably because he knew that I had brought him food. In return, he cooked my food for me, along with one hundred hot dogs for other people. We were barbecuing on our shiny new Costco barbecue. In the morning the sailors wandered off to play capture the flag, and I played a twenty minute game of Cat's Cradle with Kayla, then taught her string games; I really had nothing better to do. While the Bronzesailors went for a boat ride, the Juniors hung out on the Bonny Jean and the Whitesailors played a game of soccer, the volunteers panicked because we were suffering from a lack of chairs, then I got bored of that and let Paula play with my hair for the next half hour. We had our barbecue, one kid who was about four feet tall drank six cans of pop and another of the same size drank four, then most people went upstairs to watch a movie. A bunch of us read about Jesus, just because we could. Alexis, Kim and I helped the rowers carry an eight up to the rowing compound because they were too tired to do it on their own. I almost fell asleep while watching Garfield, but was rudely disturbed by Falacci, who made me get up and help pull up the Twins. I wasn't much help at all, kind of disoriented, so I was given the task of stuffing rope into a bag, then Mia let me go back upstairs and sleep though the last ten minutes of the movie. Soon after I got mad at Mikhael because he didn't tell me that there were muffins at his house, and I ran around the concrete slab in front of the Boathouse muttering, "All I want is a fucking muffin. All I have wanted for the last two days is a fucking muffin. God dammit, I want a Fucking muffin!"

We soon left and went to Starbucks, but they didn't have any muffins. I ate a brownie and felt like a child again.

We bought onion rings on the way to the train station.

Mikhael got off at Coquitlam and I continued on to PoCo, and caught the C38 to Mia's house. John was on the C38, and just moved to Mia's street, so us and his mom and sister all crossed the street together, then John and I walked over to Mia's house. Mia and Michael were just leaving to go buy chips and pop, so we joined them, and afterwards John went home. Soon after we got back Alexis's mom and Greg's dad dropped them off and we walked back to Alexis's house because she had forgotten her food. He mom gave us a ride to a sushi place, and while she ordered sushi for us, we wandered over to the movie store, the one with the really hairy guy, though this time he had actually shaved and tied his hair back. We rented Gladiator and Hair, then went back to Mia's house and watched both of them. We now have a new goal, to spend all day dancing in a park, and randomly sneaking up behind parkbenches with people on them and breaking into song.

The best part of my day:

David: "I still recognize all of you."
Alexis: "Oh yeah? What are our names?"
David: "George . . . Paul . . . Emily . . . Paul . . . John."
Greg: "Damn, I wanted to be Ringo."
Me: "Well you can't. There can only be one Ringo."
Alexis: "Wait a minute, there was no Emily in The Beatles."
Mia, Greg, Michael, Mia's Dad, David and Michael's Mom, Me: "Um yeah, what the hell."
David: "Yes there is. She's the one in the base drum."

Good times. Mia's cat, the one that is greyer than the other one, is crazy.

Need sleep now.

Peu importe où le vent vous emporte, vous serez toujours chez vous

I spent all day with my baby today, and it was an amazing day. In the morning we hung out at his house, watching the Food Channel and cartoons, and getting fat by eating waffles. Eventually we left and public transited it to Vancouver, where we stopped at various skytrain stations to look at lost and founds. After Mikhael bought me the wrong type of coffee, then gave me a hug causing me to burn my tongue, we walked to Finch's, my favourite hole-in-the-wall, for lunch.

We sky trained it back to Science World and walked over the the pretty yellow and blue swirly tents, where we saw Varekai. Oh My God, it was fucking amazing. The costumes and the acrobatics... My favourite costume had to be the little sea urchins. They were so cute, and to make everything that much better, all of the Russians on the Russian swings were orange, just like my Russian baby.

I bought the official program. It's pretty.

I fell asleep on both the sky train and the B-Line to Port Moody. Mikhael and I bought chocolate and a slurpee at 7-11, then my parents gave him a ride home.

And as if my day couldn't get any better, my page-a-day calendar was actually vaguely funny today.


The Russians

HA!

Today was very wet. The Whitesailors went capsizing and Alexis, Kim and I got to help. It was quite cold, as it was raining, but for some reason I didn't feel it and offered my towel to anyone who needed it. We weren't on the dock for too long; eventually we went back to the Boathouse, where everyone went upstairs and had a nice, hot shower. I had a momentary bit of panic: I forgot that we were capsizing today and forgot to replenish the large pile of clothing in my bag, as it has been slowly depleting. Luckily I found everything I needed, and as soon as I got home later, washed all of my sailing clothing.

After washing and changing into dry clothes, everybody watched The Parent Trap. The volunteers quickly became bored, so we threw Isaac, Mia's rugby ball, around for a while, then went outside onto the balcony and played Ha. After The Parent Trap the instructors put on Pirates of the Caribbean for the Whitesailors and the rowers. Kayla and Garrett fought for ten minutes over who would sit next to me, Kayla because she loves me for some reason, and Garrett because he wanted to make Kayla mad. Eventually they settled down, and two minutes later all of the volunteers were called out to bring up the Twins, so poor Kayla fought Garrett in vain. Everybody was in a relatively good mood because Brent's truck was fixed, so it meant that we had to worry about one less boat to pull up. For some reason the trailers were very heavy today, probably because they were so wet.

The rest of my day was fairly uneventful. I got home and warmed myself up with scrambled eggs and a mug of hot chocolate with a shot of Baileys.

Tomorrow I am spending all day with my baby.

*mumbles incoherently*

I'm in such a bad mood.

Grrrr.

In other news, my baby brought me coffee and that was happy. We also went out for sushi.

In the morning after a rousing PFD game, everyone went sailing. The Bronzesailors were practicing rudderless, and while Ana read a book, I watched the sailors and told her who was doing well and who wasn't. Eventually she dropped me off on the dock to help people dock their boats, as the wind had died and the tide was out farther that I had ever remembered it. So many people got stuck, that when we got up to the Boathouse, we had a hose party, meaning I held a hose between my knees and ate a sandwich and everybody who had to walk in the mudflats washed their feet and legs off.

After lunch the sailors left to play Capture the Flag, and the volunteers pulled the twins up and washed them. Then we sat around and tried to stick ice down each other's shirts. Or maybe that came later. I don't remember. Eventually I left and Mikhael and I spent some quality time together in Maple Ridge, meaning we sat on a curb and listened to music for a while.

I'm finally finished Dame Edna's autobiography. If anybody wants to borrow it, they can, but I don't recommend it.

Why are there two anchors in the bathroom?

My day started off quite excitingly. The transmission on Brent's truck went, so we had to launch Big Red by hand. We attached the trailer to a dollie and carried it down to the launch, but as we were taking it down the ramp the handle of the dollie broke off and we had to chase after Big Red. That scared everyone involved shitless because if we had damaged Big Red or her trailer in any way, there would have been hell to pay. We launched the boats, took Big Red's trailer back up to the Boathouse, and told Brent the bad news about the dollie. The Sailors left, and a few of us stayed to work for Brent. We spent a while cleaning out the boat bay and washing the floor, then I spent the next five hours, give or take, and not including lunch, cleaning the concrete slab in front of the Boathouse and playing with grout. After that a bunch of us sat around and babysat a slightly hypothermic Bronzesailor and ate starbursts. Later we pulled up Big Red, took a lot of effort and Max's paycheck was on the line, but we did it.

I listened to Aerosmith while hosing down the concrete. I have decided that as soon as I find a decent mp3 player that I would actually pay money for, I am going to sell my iPod to Paula and buy it. Simple as that.

If I could go anywhere in the world...

Made jam for a while, then Mikhael came over for a couple hours. We ended up randomly wandering around Maple Ridge; because it was after four-thirty on a Sunday, that meant that there was nothing to do. Listened to Kaizers and ate onion rings, not in that order.

My Baby is taking me somewhere special on Thursday :)

Yum

Ha, hacked into my iPod software, the only thing I have to do now is figure out how to not let it put in a random selection of my music.

I spent some time at Mikhael's house yesterday, he gets the food channel and I don't. We watched Iron Chef: Sea Cucumber battle among other things. When I eventually went home, my parents told me that there was fish in the fridge for me, but I refused to eat it because there was a fin attached to it. I ate a couple pieces of grilled eggplant instead.

I have solitaire on my iPod? I was meant to find this.

Boo

Yesterday was our "day trip" meaning that we were supposed to sail to Barnet Beach eat lunch, and come back. Because of a rousing game of Capture the Flag and a lack of wind, everyone just made it to the candlestick and had a huge waterfight instead. The Capture the Flag game was instructors and volunteers against everyone else: the juniors, Whitesailors and Bronzesailors. This meant that I had to run more that I wanted to, with my toe and all, and between Mia, Michael an I, we managed to prevent anybody from the other team going near their side with the flag. My toe hurt quite a bit afterwards, and, to my annoyance, I discovered that one of my sandals was broken, even though I hadn't been wearing them during the game. Mia lent me her flip flops for the rest of the day. We went back to the Boathouse afterwards, and Rob asked the volunteers to load three optis and two lasers onto a trailer for him. We had to go down to the dock and paddle three optis over, load them onto dollys, carry them up to the Boathouse, and load them onto the the top of the trailer, this took a lot of effort and invention on our part, especially Paula and I, because we had to climb halfway up the trailer to be of any use. The lasers were much easier. After we helped Brent launch his laser, he was going sailing for the first time in a while. Ana picked us up in Big Red, and complained about there being too many people in the zodiac, so she dropped me into Lucy with Max. Max was very into the waterfight, zooming around and splashing the boats. Salma was especially funny, because he would chase it around, and Carly, Sam and Jimmy would use the Whitesailors' clothes and towels as protection from the water. After a while we stopped and everyone rafted up; we ate our lunches. All of the volunteers and Ana were envious of my lunch for some reason, apparently it looked really good to them. Max drove around a little more, splashing people, then stupid Tristan told him of my allergy and he made me switch with him. Bastard. I had already been splashed in the face twice and I was perfectly fine. Salma came up alongside Big Red and Carly, Sam and Jimmy passed us all of the Whitesailor's things, so we could attempt to dry them off. One of the Whitesailors, Emily, brought a book with her, stupid idea, and Ana started reading it,commenting on how dirty it was and reading out parts. You know those Gossip Girl books? So dirty. I can't believe a twelve year-old girl would be reading that crap. We helped all of the boats dock, Paula and I were directing them, and we helped the sailors pull them up because they were full of water and very heavy, then we watched them de rig; on Max's orders we are not allowed to help. Eventually we carried the boats up and washed them, then I left with Mia, Greg and Michael to Mia's house. Mia, Michael and I dressed up like pirates, then Greg, who had gone home, his dad picked us up and we went to Eagle Ridge theatre to watch Pirates of the Caribbean. Lots of other people came, Falacci, Paula, Garrett, Ana, Ana's boyfriend Dylan, Kyle, Kyle's girlfriend and Mikhael. Erin was supposed to come too, but my parents drive too slow, so by the time they got to the theatre, it was sold out. The three of them went to see Click instead. The movie was pretty good, big cliffie at the end. We gave Mikhael a ride home after.

~I met Harold for the first time last night. We joked about it at the time but now . . . I don't know, it feels weird. I hated that man. I still hate him.

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Nuxxy asked me what is on my iPod. All I can say is that I am glad that it used to belong to a guy, or else I wouldn't be able to stand the music. I still have to figure out how to hack into the software. There's actually a lot of stuff on here, like Deep Purple, The Doors, Queen, Led Zepplin, The Who and Van Halen.

I am watching Germany VS Portugal. If Germany doesn't win I will cry.

Fire-Retardant Pile Driver

I didn't do any sailing today. Instead I spent my morning with Greg and Paula reorganizing the boat bay and workbench, then sweeping the stairs, and partially cleaning the upstairs bathrooms and kitchen, things that I used to get paid to do, back in the day. After we were done that, Brent didn't have any more tasks for us, something unheard of with Brent, so we ate our lunches upstairs; Alexis joined us. Soon afterwards we migrated to Pajo's, then back again to the Boathouse. Alexis and Tristan left with the Whitesailors, and the three of us went upstairs with the Juniors to watch Finding Nemo. By then I was falling asleep, and after the movie we went out onto the balcony and joined Garrett and Falacci, and I had to hold onto the railing and wedge myself in between two people to keep myself from falling over. We went back downstairs and ate Garrett's fries, then Falacci, Sam, Paula and I, and later Greg, went upstairs again into the kitchen, went through all of the cupboards until we found the salt, and put salt into Max's four litres of iced tea. We were that bored. We went downstairs yet again, sat on Brent's truck,, and watched him pour cold water on his feet. He has twenty-three mosquito bites on his right foot alone. Eventually the sailors started arriving with the boats and we hosed them down and washed them. I soon left with Mikhael and we took the train and 701 to my house. My parents took us out for Chinese, then took Mikhael most of the way home. We stopped at London Drugs, where I bought a dock for my iPod. I have since partially charged it and seen what's on it; whomever owned it last had a pretty good taste in music. We stopped at Erin's apartment for dessert, a fruit flan with kiwis on it. I was upset. I ate a small piece of it anyways, and only had a very small reaction to it.

Tomorrow is our first day trip, provided it doesn't rain. Should be fun.

I think I sprained my toe today. Looks like I can't dance tomorrow.

"I'm the worst ducker in the word."

Oh my god, the Whilesailors love me. Like actually. I was put into a 420 with three of them, and I taught them how to tack, went over it, taught them tricks, made sure they all practiced and didn't let them stop until I was satisfied. Now they want me to be their Bronze IV instructor next year, and they wouldn't let Carly and Jimmy take me away in Patty. I don't know, maybe it was the fact that I can tie the sheetbend, bowline, reef, and every other knot they learned today behind my back, or that I tell them stories about my last five years of sailing that makes them like me so much. What is even more amazing is that I am enjoying myself. These sailors are anywhere between nine and thirteen and, although I like kids, I hate pre-teens. Most of these guys are good though, with the exception of the oldest, Kate, who is thirteen and one of the most annoying people I have ever met. Her mom wanted her to be put into Bronze IV, but I don't see her passing her White III. I'm finally starting to learn their names though. I knew a few of them beforehand, as the younger siblings of people who are wither taking their Bronze IV whom I took a course with, or as the younger siblings of volunteers. Anyways, I'm sure a few of them will be upset when I tell them that I'm not going to be there at all next Thursday. I'll make it up to them at the barbecue.

Apparently we're going to play the lifejacket game soon. I can't wait.

Um, it's called polygamy?

Today I helped Carly and the Whitesailors. This particular group of Whitesailors is pretty small because there is only one instructor, and most of them, very strangely, are somewhat well-behaved. We played the most boring game of capture the flag ever, the only thing interesting thing happening is that both Max and Matt launched themselves into prickle bushes at about the same time, but on opposite sides of the playing area and without knowing that the other was doing it. The only difference between them, is that with Max it was an accident, he was trying to catch Jimmy who had the flag (Megan knows Jimmy, we all went to LA together), and Matt did it on purpose. Nobody is quite sure why.

After the game we went back to the Boathouse and did some theory; Carly taught points of sail and the different types of boats. We played the boat game, and I got to jump and land stomach first on the ground pretending to be the hull of a boat about ten times in two minutes.

Storm-rigged, then ate lunch. Greg complained about us being near the Boathouse because he needed to wash the concrete in front of the building and the Whitesailors were eating lunch on it.
Went sailing after lunch. Unfortunately there was no wind until about half an hour before we told the sailors to head in, so we made them play ball tag. I hung out in Patty, one of the zodiacs, with Carly and Jimmy, and discussed how bad damage to a boat had to be before we told Brent, because we knew he would be mad if we told him that there had been a minor collision between two of the 420s and part of the hull was cracked on one of them, plus there was a large scratch on the side of the hull as well.

One of the Whitesailors, Kate, is pissing me off so much. I can't see her passing. Her sister is not much better. I guess it runs in the family.

Oh, and I'm probably going camping next weekend. Yay rugby.

"Dan hates me." "But Mia, you love riding Dan."

I'm not sure what I did yesterday. . . . IKEA. Love IKEA. I have a reading light again, yay. My daddy attacked me with a flyswatter.

Stayed the night at my sister's apartment.

I woke up early this morning, to go for a run. I don't like running after eight in the summer because it gets too hot out. At six-thirty however, it is just pleasantly warm and there is barely anybody on the trails. Afterwards I showered, changed and made myself some breakfast, then wandered over to the Boathouse for some sailing.

Sailing was lovely. In the morning Mia and I got to know the Bronze sailors, then I went on a quest to find my sandals and Mia's sunglasses, because a certain instructor named Matt had moved them, then helped people rig boats and sat in on some theory.

After a quick lunch, we actually went sailing. I spent the first half of the afternoon in Big Red with Ana, then I switched with Mia and became the extra weight for a couple really light people in a 420. The boy, Ian, he skippered the whole time, him and I talked the whole time. He goes to Moody Middle and lives in Anmore, so we know a lot of the same people. We headed in and I helped people de-rig, then in the shade of the shed, Alexis, Greg, Mia, Michael, Paula and I congregated and talked, then we wandered over to where Falacci was looking very bored and rejoiced in the fact that nobody mistook Paula and Falacci as sisters for the first time ever. We made the sailors take the boats up, then we washed and flushed them. After Max made up fill out our volunteer sheets, we ran away and bought slurpees, then I went back to my sister's apartment, made dinner and read part of Dame Edna's autobiography. Yes, after six months, I have finally taken it up again, and I am almost half way through. Remember all of those questions that were asked on the front inside flap? I have found the answers to most of them, and they aren't that exciting.

My face is so burnt right now. I need to find my bandana again.

Happy Canada Day

Yesterday I spent approximately five hours using public transit.

After watching the Germany vs . . . that other team . . . Argentina, I headed to Vancouver to have lunch with my mother, taking the 701, the 152 and the skytrain, two and a half hours of staring blankly out of windows and reading the 24 Hours that I found on the floor. I met up with my mother, and we spent another half hour taking various buses around Vancouver; part of Granville St was closed because of the construction for the Canada Line, so my mother was confused and it took us longer than it should have. We made a quick stop to Restoration Hardware, where my mother bought this bag (the one on the right). She wanted it in green or blue, but they only had tan left, so she took that. I immediately put my purse into it and carried it around for most of the rest of the day. We then went across the street and ate sushi and bubble tea; it was my mother's first time trying bubble tea and my first time eating a yam roll. We took the bus back to the AIBC, where we picked up my mother's Twinrex vaccination and my phone, it died on the way to Vancouver so I left it to charge during lunch. We took the train to Pitt Meadows Station, about a forty minute ride, and my mother got her vaccination, then we were picked up by my dad, and were almost all the way back to Port Moody when I realized where we were going. I got my parents to drop me off at Coquitlam Station, where I caught the next train to Maple Meadows, then the 701 to Haney Place; that took about an hour. I arrived home with a raging headache. I stayed up until my parents came home, though I don't remember why.

I slept in this morning, waking up half an hour after I was supposed to arrive at Mikhael's house. After a quick breakfast with my family, my sister was there as well, I left and went over to his house, where we watched soccer and cartoons. Later we went to Rocky Point and wandered around for a while, with milkshakes and later bubble tea. My parents arrived and Mikhael went home, and I spent the evening on my sister's laptop, for lack of something better to do. When the concert in the park was over later, I stood at the window and watched police arrest drunk people and listened to the shouts and the ambulance at the skate park. I thought only one person was stabbed. Turns out it was two. Finally everything quieted down, my sister came home from spending the evening with friends and my parents and I went home.

That is all. I am tired.