A beautiful day, without a cloud

"Some try to paint away
All the colours of the rainbow.
Your smile lights up the way
Wake up, it's a beautiful day..."



Walking and biking to work has given me a great way to reset my morning. Take days like today: where I slept in, burnt part of my breakfast and generally started off on the wrong foot...but then, quick breakfast and I'm out the door, crossing the river and watching the mist on the surface of it. I walk along the riverbank path watching the sun rise over a field of wheat, with each grain head lighting up like a beacon as the light hits it. This morning the orange faded over the field and the clear blue sky brightened up, making the jet streams streak and gleam overhead in a cloudless sky.
As I walk I meet the "regulars"...all the others out on the path every morning with me. I smile and say good morning with genuine good wishes to the man with the happy dog (and of course happy dog), the old Austrian man with the white combover and thick accent, the man I call Pauley (he looks like like Pauley from the Sopranos, track suit and all), and the two older ladies who are often out watching the geese at the weir. Other joggers puff by...and slowly I calm down.
I count pelicans.
I watch gophers and critters scamper about...and suddenly I'm happy...it sneaks up on me and I'm singing along to whatever I'm listening to on my iPod and grinning.

This is my daily reboot.
I will greatly miss it when it gets too cold to do this. It really makes my day start off right...

Music to walk to work to: Orb - The Dream

Happiest Dog Ever

On my nice sunrisey full walk to work this AM I got to meet the happiest dog ever. His owner was running along and the dog kept running around him, dashing off, darting back, hopping after gophers, running up to me and hopping away, and running up to his owner here and there for a pat on the head or a "good dog".
It is true...you can learn a lot a bout a person by looking at their dog. Happy people = happy dog. Fit person = fit dog. These 2 were both. :)
It's good to be out for a bit in the mornings...the weather is still holding - it's been unseasonably warm lately and it's nice to get our little bit of summer. Better late than ever. I'll be helping run the CFCR pledge drive the next few weeks. Come on down and pledge to community radio. We're volunteer powered and donation driven...we offer programming in over 20 languages and play all genres of music. We have no agenda, other than playing home grown radio for the masses. We could use your help....:)

Off to the lab. Have a good day!

Open Letter to Microsoft

Dear sir/madam,

I just had Office 2007 installed on my work computer and I feel I must contact you to describe my consumer experience in 7 succinct words: What an utterly useless piece of sh*t.

You've made arbitrary, ridiculous and confusing menu alterations, created unhelpful menus and extended what were previously simple and logical processes. It's going to take me a whole day to get the menus set up and figure out where all the things got moved to that I use all the time. Where're the customizable toolbars? How do I find my statistical analysis and graphing options? I don't need pictures...I'm not 5...or mentally handicapped. Just give me a scalable functional program.

It's bad enough I HAVE to use your products and have to constantly upgrade to keep up with the times and software apps in this modern age. Could you at least make the software even slightly usable straight out of the box? I'm supposed to be the computer whiz around here and I'm having difficulty. Whatever posessed you to think these revisions were a good idea?

You sirs...you are wankers. Of the highest order.

Thanks for the headache,
Geo

Any rainbow I'll save for you, any colour that you like...all for you...

How's that for an obscure lyric reference? 10 points and a cookie if you know where it's from...

Colour Meme:

What's the first color you see in the morning?
The lime green of our bedroom walls and the white canopy draped over the posts.

What color are your eyes?
Hazel. Sometimes green, sometimes brown…depends on what I wear and my mood. Mood ring eyes

What color do you wear the most?
Hmmm…probably brown. Comfy and warm…

What color do you never wear?
I'm not a big fan of pastels. Blech. Pink is eternally cursed and white is a bad one too…it doesn’t stay white when I wear it...

What color do you wear when you want to feel sexy?
red or burgundy

What color gets you the most compliments?
red or burgundy…:)

What color is your lipstick?
Madam I do not know what you mean. What is this lip stick you speak of?

What color was your living room growing up?
cream with coffee coloured trim (my Mum’s words).

What color was your room growing up?
Grey wallpaper with black and white and burgundy splashes all over it.

What color are your sheets? Usually a sage green

What color was your favorite crayon as a child? orange!

What color is your car? screaming yellow.

What color was your prom dress?
No prom, but I suppose grad will do - it was a cream colour silk poof thing with little flowers all over the fabric. *cough* And yes I sewed it myself…hideous. Don't make a tomboy wear a dress, it will only end badly.To this day I am still annoyed I was not allowed to wear a tuxedo with skirt...

What's your favourite gemstone? Moonstone

What is your favorite flower? orchids are nice, and orange gerbers too- unusual shapes and bright colours

What color makes you happiest? Yellow…and bright lime green

What color depresses you? dark blue and grey

What colour calms you? deep purple


And then (cuz my coffee break is still not over...)
Ye Olde What Ye Are At Meme:
I haven't done this since (gasp) May...

Current clothes: Jeans, Kid Koala concert shirt, black jacket with rainbow sleeve stripes, running shoes, black specs and running shoes.

Current mood: Tired, but very happy as the weekend is here...

Current music: The new Moby album, and the Franz Ferdinand dub remix album of their Tonight album, Blood.

Current annoyance: Just how overall "rushed" and cluttered I feel right now...like I could jump right out of my own skin. It's been a busy fun summer, but I'm struggling at slowing down a bit...and just trying life out as is for a while. I'm looking froward to a weekend of relaxing...

Current thing: decluttering and renovations. Feels good. There's lots to do, as our house currently is in mid process so it looks worse rather than better...but I must remember in the end it will be infinitely better...if only in being able to find what I need instantly without a rousing hour long game of "find the thing"...

Current desktop picture: J in a canoe at sunset

Current book: In the midst of 2 books: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (love it-the zombies and odd violence make this book so much better...) and The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite (Fascinating book...lots of science and facts about our modern diet and our culture and how it is designed to rewire our brains for overeating...and how to circumvent this).

Current song in head: Ooh Yeah by Moby. Don't know why...haven't listened to that album in months. Don't even particularly like the song...just the "yeah" part at the opening keeps looping in my brain for some reason...a bit annoying really. I keft my iPod at home, so I'm tryign to find a CD for the lab to drive it out.

Current DVD in player: Season 1 of Doctor Who...forgot how good that show was.

Current refreshment: Coffee, with cream and sugar. Since it's a coffee break, who am I to argue?

Have a fine day. I'm off to the lab to play with some antibodies. Ta.

Happy kinda crazy

That last post started as a rant, but ended up more of a thought dump.
I just can't figure out how to deal with people when they get like that without feeling bad for them. And yet I wonder...maybe if someone told them off once in a while they'd get it...ah who knows.

At least tonight I get to go see my cute little twin cousins for the first time and eat cake and tea and visit with the family. The other family...without the crazies...well OK there's a few...they're just much more happy about their crazy is all :)

News Flash: I am not a saint

Last night I was confronted with just how simple it is to make yourself miserable. I went over to my brother's place for supper, but seeing as the power had gone out we went out for a bite to eat. His wife and I were going to go to the bellydance open house together after. At 7 the open house started, but we were late (grrr) and got there about 20 minutes after, due to traffic issues from there being no power and quite honestly, their dawdling. She even asked if I really wanted to go, and I was still polite, as it was nice of her to go with me and I was hoping she'd want to join with me, as she needs more physical activity in her life. I said she could drop me off if she wasn't interested...but she decided to come anyways. At the performance there were 30 minutes of the different styles they teach and then you could dance with them a bit for fun and sign up for classes. We missed the first performance and snuck in for the rest...They were very good.

I forget how much better shape I'm in now. As we went in the building door I just bounded up the 2 flights of stairs to the auditorium effortlessly (I was more than kinda excited)...and then sat and waited patiently for my sis in law to puff her way up them...very...slowly...and then slowly...slowly walk to the performance area...slowly. I go up and down 3 flights of stairs about 50 times a day at work...so it doesn't phase me. J's in good shape too, so I forgot to be slower...so I just waited patiently at the top of the stairs by the door...until she sarcastically said "oh go ahead don't worry about me" with a glare, as I waited patiently for her. Becoming more pissy I still waited and smiled. It's not my fault I'm in shape and I had no intention of making her feel bad. I wish I'd gone up slower.

After the performance she said she was content to watch a bit and said she wanted to leave in half an hour...so I danced for a bit and then waited in line for more class info. She stood back in the crowd. I ran into some girls from my old bellydance classes and had a nice talk with them while filling out the info forms in line. I'm not sure where I need to be level wise so I was told to just show up to the intermediate lesson and they'd redirect me to other classes if I needed to be moved up or down. Fair enough. I'm excited to get back at it...I missed it.

Towards the end of this my sis in law was standing by the door glaring at me and making wide overdone gestures with her arms to her watch and then pointing to the door with both arms... then crossing her arms and huffing... and repeating... A girl I was talking to actually looked shocked and said "um...I think you should go now...your friend really wants to leave". And so we did, before the time I was told I had, with me feeling guilty and slightly embarrassed, as she tends to do this a lot. She said her feet hurt from standing so much and she wanted to leave. I wanted to ask her why she just didn't come up and tell me, but I was worried I'd snark it out, so I just grabbed my bag and we left. There were chairs, but I guess sitting down wasn't an option (?)...in the end she didn't sign up for anything, as she said she couldn't take the classes if her feet hurt and she couldn't stand the whole time due to a ligament in her foot that bothers her sometimes...which is true, and it made me sort of sad for her...and that sent the anger away...
I hope I was nothing but polite and respectful, despite how irritated I had gotten at times. I'd been looking forward to this for a long time...it sort of sucked some of the fun from it. I get a lot of joy out of dancing...and through having her in my life I've also learned to let go of a lot of things that interfere with me enjoying myself in public. I find I'm just happier. Why focus on things that make yourself miserable? I can see in her what it can do to yourself to be miserable. I know others don't like being out of their comfort zone. Sometimes I don't either, but I couldn't help feeling annoyed, yet bad for being annoyed.
Which was in itself annoying...
I had a roommate in college for a while who was similar - lots of depression and medical issues...and she didn't just feel sorry for herself she wallowed in her pain. She wrapped it around her like a blanket...got lost in it. It sucked the positivity of you away just to hear her talk about it all...and yet you know that by being there to listen you were helping...sort of. In the end I couldn't help enough and ended up moving out, as her mood was affecting mine. It was poisoning me and I could still be her friend better without it eating at my soul...

This has reaffirmed to me how I need to relax right now. I need to be more patient and understanding of other people. I tend to do too much and have such little time for just myself that I find I can covet it and all it brings me...and get rather tetchy when things take away from it. It also was a reminder to me that we need to look after ourselves physically to allow us to enjoy our lives....how you, yes you, need to make an effort to exercise at least a little bit every day. The technical definition of being very out of shape is if you cannot go up 2 flights of stairs without being significantly winded. If you are severely winded by this or cannot stand for short periods without pain, well...you need to do more. Even if all you can do is walk around the block once. DO that. Then in a few weeks try 2 blocks. My sis-in law lives inside 300 odd pounds, has sleep apnea, joint and body pain and it has to be hard to live and move when you have that much holding you down. It would be hard to work at it with that much of a challenge to start with. But...but...I just think...man...how can you just let it go like that? To complain and complain but no change...there's got to be a way to change. The reason I changed my life and health was I realised I couldn't live the way I wanted to anymore. That my body was getting in the way of who I was and could be. It was hard but slowly, I've worked at it. I'm trying to be polite and supportive and encourage her to join things with me and do things so she can be more active and just out and comfortable in public...I'll keep trying. Really I will...and try to not get pissy on the way. My brother is a saint of patience. I often get mad at him for not challenging her to do more...but it's not my place. It's easy to be kind to those we love... My brother can be a saint...it would appear that I am not. I just feel bad about the whole thing...

The image above is of Saint Rafca...a Lebanese woman who had a rediculously hard life, but remained focused on positive things, charity, hope and teaching, even as her body failed her (she was a blind paralytic with a lot of chronic pain near the end of her life). Positive attitude of a kind that frightens me with it's radiance...

1 2 3 4

I do believe I'm revealing how much of a hermit I can be as far as not watching TV or listening to the radio, but I heard this song last week...and I love it...makes me grin and sing along. I just hunted it down to found out who it is...(and discovered how it's been out for ages and was quite popular, oh, 2 years ago...*cough*).
BUT, now I can listen to is whenever I please.

Oh well...better late than ever :)

Good Riddance

My old washer and dryer are gone.
Can I get a Woohoo?
Two poor guys came and took them away last night for someone to use. I felt bad for them - I know how heavy they are (we tried to be nice and carry them out to the yard for them. We only got them up about 4 steps and had to stop...heavy little things). I'm glad they're finally gone though...they've been lurking downstairs for about 6 months now...and now they have a new home. Good riddance to them...I kept saying I'd get rid of them and just never had the time. Thankfully someone can use them. Now our basement is back to normal size! Step 36 in the 80 zillion step plan to organise my home is now done.
Chicka ow.
I'm quite excited as tonight is an open house at the Oriental Dance Arts tribal bellydance school....I hope to take lessons there this fall. It's where my tribal teacher from last year goes and she recommended I go there too. They are having a performance and info session...hoping I can sign up and get started. This year I'm doing less lessons, but longer lessons with a more professional teacher, to try and focus on learning more and still having time in life for other things. I can't wait to get back to the belly dancing again...I missed it. My knee is back to normal (knock on wood) so Thundercats are go for all this.
Kewl.

Lost Cause

Feeling more than a bit moogy this morning...this song's been in my head this morning. A bit of my reflection of my mood I suppose...
Hope you all out there have a great day. I'll give myself a kick in the old ass and try to have one too. Deal? Deal.
OK then.

This little light of mine

Yesterday was a gorgeous day - sunny and warm.
J and I spent the day together relaxing and in the afternoon while out on a walk we popped by the library to see a very unusual exhibit: The Maitreya Project Heart Shrine Relic Tour.

Apparently, in the Buddhist tradition, their holy leaders are cremated after their deaths. Often in their ashes, there are small pearls and pebbles found - believed to be relics left behind by the leaders to encourage and remind those to come of goodness and kindness. I don't really buy into all of that, but I do like the idea of having physical reminders of the value of kindness and compassion. I like what they represent. These relics were on tour together for people to see for the first time in the history of the world...apparently up until this point they were in pagodas in shrines all over the world (largely India and Tibet) although once China invaded Tibet (yes invaded...that's a topic for another day) and kidnapped the Penchant Lama in the hopes of destroying the strength of the religion there in Tibet and China they destroyed a lot of monasteries and imprisoned a lot of the monks there, so that many of these relics were sold on the black market or hidden to be kept safe. Apparently this is the first time such a large collection has been on display to the general public.

The reason for it is to not only inspire people and raise awareness of the Buddhist tradition in the modern day, but there is a project underway called the Maitreya Heart Shrine, where a group of Buddhists are looking to build a large buddha shaped pagoda building in the heart of one of the worst areas of India. They hope that they can bring peace and prosperity to the area by having the relics there, and also by building a school and a hospital where the poorest of the poor can be educated and receive proper medical care. I'm not sure how I stand on the relics part, but I can get behind that...
We entered the area where the alter was set up and a kind monk gave us a tour. She told us about some of the leaders the artifacts came from and some of the circumstances in which they were found. The relics looked like shiny pearlized pebbles...there was a bit of information by the pebbles as to whom they came from. I admit to not really understanding most of it, and I'm rather skeptical, but in the end I did let the monk bless me. I cannot help but think the focused thoughts of good wishes on my behalf can be anything other than a good thing.

I'm always a bit overwhelmed when I see old old traditions in front of me. Canada is such a young country...we really don't' have any sort of ancient traditions to draw on...sure there is Christianity, but that's not quite the same thing... I try to keep an open mind and and see what I can learn from every belief system, and try and treat others how I would like to be treated. ("Be excellent to each other" and all that sort of thing... ) I try and be involved in local groups that do the same thing...like Station 20 west. Here in town we are working to build a community centre with a good grocery store, medical care, a library, low cost housing and other community building services in the poorest part of the city. When the PC government came in to power a year ago they removed the 8 million of funding promised to make it happen, but the city has banded together to try and still make this happen - because we need this. Whatever I've taken and left from the beliefs of the world, these words have always remained and resonated with with me: "What you have done to the least of these, you have done unto me".

I still believe firmly that if we are to survive as a society we have to work together to make sure that everyone has access to the basics health care, proper food and education...to make sure they understand that yes, they are valued and important and that they can be a part of our city with us. Community and dignity are fading away in the face of consumerism and greed and I think projects like Station 20 west and the Maitreya Project help remind people of their duty to each other.
Yes. duty.
I know we can't solve everything and help everyone...but there are ways every day that we can do things to help people less fortunate than us...hostels for abused women and children, food banks, medical clinics, lunch programs, low cost housing, shelters, rape crisis lines, sponsored activities for kids, community building events...these help us help each other. When we know our neighbors we cannot ignore them.

I guess, in the end, what I got out of yesterday was a potent reminder of how blessed I am. I mean, I have so much...I'm really lucky. I have so much more than what I need. This weekend I tried to do something...I managed to find someone to give my old washer and dryer to - I don't need it, and I'm certainly not going to try and make a profit off of it...I went on freecycle and found a single mom with kids who can use them. It seems right...as this is how a community works. We share. Some day I might need help...I like to hope that someone will return the favour. Call it karma... whatever. It matters to me...
I'm just rambling now, I know. It turns out that it all had a profound effect on me after all. Snuck up on me really...to remind me that I need to remember to look outside of myself and remember the needs of others as well as myself. To find my own little way to shine a light in the dark....

Squeeeee! Squeeee! For Mobeleeey!

Well then.
I have just purchased tickets to see Moby .

This is most excellent news.

I just found out about the concert a few minutes ago, but thanks to his consideration at coming on a weekend to a city near me and the wonders of the interweb I am pleased to say I can go...I've like Mr Mobley for a long long time, and he's on my list of people I want to see live...he ever so kindly makes all sorts of musics like ambient, rock and electronic...and all in a way I like...so me hee. Play will still be my favourite album of his...but I'm glad he has a new album out as it means I'll get to see him live.

A fine end to a day :)
I leave you with a favourite remix of mine that he did of the James Bond theme...