Tuesday, May 25, 2004
______________________________________________________________________________
Three-day Weekend
Considering that I'm not working, a long weekend really shouldn't be of any particular importance to me. But this one was just amazing. Thank you
Queen Victoria (it was her birthday).
So Saturday was the
pre-release tournament for Magic: the Gathering which wasn't so much fun as it was productive for me. I think I'm going to be okay for my mid-term because of it. Then Sunday was a nice and lazy day. Due to the fact that I had to go off
Atkins to eat chicken porridge because of my stomach bug, I have to go back on Induction to get back on it. Jim figured that this was a good time to have pizza and beer and doughnuts and ice-cream just because he would have to go back on Induction with me anyway. So we had one hell of a barbeque at the beach with his dad. There was potato salad (I make a mean potato salad and if you think you will be seeing the recipe here any time soon, think again) fresh wild sockeye salmon with tartar sauce and chinese bakery buns with butter...all sorts of good stuff.
Sunday was also supposed to be the day we were cleaning up just because Jim's dad was coming over after the barbeque to watch
Big Fish. It was more of a day to find excuses not to do stuff around the house, which was fine by me. We got some things done and managed to re-locate the mess to the bedroom, the door to which was kept closed (therefore the mess was entirely hidden...) so all in all it wasn't too bad. Big Fish is a pretty good movie. The stories in the movie were just quaint, enjoyable stories but visually it was so stunning. The images presented on screen were rich and vibrant, I just couldn't look away. I could watch it again and again just to look at the movie. I don't think it was received well by critics but I have to disagree. I guess the stories -could- have been a little more profound/artsy but I don't think that was the point of the movie at all. I wonder what kind of nightmares
Tim Burton has with the kind of vision that he's got.
Monday was the best day of the whole weekend though. Jim's dad has these awesome kayaks. They aren't made of fiber glass like those hard, candy coloured things that tourists rent in Malaysia. They are flexible so they undulate when they go over a wave and they can be dismantled and fitted into a backpack if ever you wanted to take it somewhere exotic to paddle. Not to mention that the seat in the kayak us a sling seat that's slightly inflated so it's confortable as hell. He's also got a sail that he can attach to either of them so he would paddle into the wind and just spend hours cruising back and enjoying the scenery. We didn't use the sails but Jim and I both got to use his dad's kayaks. Jim's dad rented a kayak from
EcoMarine in Granville island (one of those candy coloured hard-shell ones) and we launched from a little dock there. Granville island is really an islet so we had nice sheltered, calm water to paddle in. I was in the
Kahuna and Jim took the
K1. The Kahuna is two feet shorter than the K1 and it felt like it was almost made for me, it was so easy to handle. Plus, both boats have rudders which makes it so much easier to turn than having to paddle hard on one side.
When we docked Jim's dad had to paddle back to EcoMarine to return his rental and Jim and I thought that we would be able to load up the car while he was doing that. When Jim's dad was taking the keys out of his pocket to hand it to us on land though, he dropped it into the water. The water wasn't very deep but it was very green and while I could've probably swum to the bottom, I would not have been able to see anything once I was there. The water was also really really gross anyway. The thing was that there were keys on that key-chain that would have just been a bitch to replace. Like the security deposit key from the bank or the key to his tool box at work. So Jim got a long pole with a hook at the end from the boat shed nearby and started trolling at the places where we thought the keys had dropped. It really was a shot in the dark because we couldn't see the bottom and in the shock that ensued after we realised that the keys might've been lost for good none of us had the presence of mind to remember where the keys were dropped. At least we knew that because the water was so calm that the keys would have dropped straight down. Jim managed to hook alot of things from the bottom of the water but not the keys. His dad came back from EcoMarine with a magnet on a string. The both of them tried tossing it over the area where the keys could be but with no success.
When it comes to kayak days I'm not much help. I don't know how to pack the boats/prepare them for storage and I'm not strong enough to be very useful in loading the boats onto the car/carrying equipment. So I suggested that Jim and his dad go ahead and load the car and I would troll for the keys. Both Jim and his dad keep spare keys in their wallets in case they do anything stupid with the keys that they keep on their keychain. You know, like drop them in the water or something. For a while I was doing what they did, only with the pole so that I could control where the magnet was. I hooked the string on the hook and was moving it around the area that I thought the keys had dropped. I got a few things. Scrap metal, batteries, hair pins. This was getting ridiculous and we were all getting hungry. So I closed my eyes, held the scene clearly in my mind of where I was standing, where Jim was and where his dad was in the kayak in my mind and tossed the magnet. Just then Jim and his dad were coming back down to the dock so I turned around to look at them. I didn't even see where the magnet fell, but when I pulled it up again, the keys were attached to it. It was really unbelievable. There are things that your subconcious knows better than your concious if only you let it take control. I've always been a firm believer of that and this incident has just reinforced this thinking.
After kayaking we went to
Burgoo for a lunch/dinner meal. It's such an awesome restaurant and we just kicked back and had the best food in the world. We were all ravenous because it took a good long time to find the keys and we only had time to have breakfast (two chinese buns with butter each) before we went out. We ate on the patio and the weather could not have been better. Such a beautiful day, I can't wait to do it again. It's back to the workweek now and I have to putter about and get things done. Like the dishes from the picnic, or folding laundry. Not to mention that I have to study for tomorrow's mid-term, read another
John Bellairs book and prepare for my interview tomrrow. I've landed and interview with
1800-GOT-JUNK which is the fastest growing company in N. America and the biggest trash removal service. I'm going to be a
Customer Service Representative at their call centre which is nicely located at the mouth of Granville Island. This would be an awesome job to land!
posted by Joie! at
8:57 a.m.
______________________________________________________________________________
