Excerpts from the Peanut Gallery: June 2005

Breaking news

Well, I always thought this was coming, it wasn't a question of will it happen? but WHEN? you can't have that many runs a day and not up your risk factor. Living 10 minutes from the tsawwassen Ferry terminals, and spending many a summer going and coming between Qwanoes on the island, i have waited my ENTIRE 21 years for a ferry to crash, and today, ladies and gents, it did.
i hate to be one of those people who says "i told you so..."
Fortunately as far as the newscasters can tell, no one is hurt, so i can take this moment of guilt-free snorting at the fact that that thing glided so gracefully like nothing but a ferry could into some of the nicests yachts in van... oh there are gonna be some cranky west-van millionares tonight.

In other news:
Backstreet boys were on Ellen this morning. I have to say, it was so good to see some old friends! Kevin was tickling the ivories- I always knew i liked ol' bushy brows... the only one who can do something other than crinkle and contort his face while belting out BAYYYYYYYYY- BEEEEEE like they're expierencing rather unmentionably difficult constipation.
AJ was lookin' half decent, but you know i can really see the maturity coming out, i think it was cuz he was wearing a hat. You know, it takes a lot of confidence to pull off a good hat.
And of course there was brian, oh sweet hearthrob who never comes to the front. You know what, you just do what you feel is best- because you, brian, can do NO wrong.
Howie: When did he start being normal looking?? When did he get quasi-cute!? Of all the guys he definately is the most improved, mad props How!
Nick on the other hand, honey, you couldnt pull it off then and you never will. The kneeling position with a pained expression is just so ridiculous. lets just get that straight and we will all have a better time.

So to recap: BC ferry crashes into Sewell's Marina and the BSB makes a comeback. THose who come out on top as most improved: Howie and AJ. THose not: Nick, Nick Nick....oh dear, Nick...!

Alright, check above for some pics of the grad dinner party on tuesday night. We took the seens to Macaroni grill in a STRETCH SUV LIMO. Hoary cow! those things are frickin huge, i couldnt believe. it was a good time, yep it was. congrats to those finally getting out of High school!

Lenny Kravitz on lead guitar in an east hastings soup kitchen

So tonight i ventured to a place i go to little in a city i love the most. I went on a reconnaisance mission for our college group which is trying to get plugged into a downtown ministry. So with three others i went to potter's house, store-front church on east hastings. It aint pretty, thats for sure, and when we entered i had this mentality of making sure i steered clear of most of the first people i encountered, because, well lets be serious, you know very well why, and its not one of my finer moments.
However there were several things that struck me tonight. As i sat in an extremely uncomfortable pew listening to a pastor from some nice suburban clean big church, not unlike my own, preach after the horde of teens sat down after singing God of wonders in an assortment of keys, i thought "none of these people are listening, they are here to get food, they are surely not listening, por ejemplo, this woman to my right, she is asleep, so she is most certainly not listening." There was even a man four or five rows ahead who was talking the entire way through the preacher's talk, rambling on the things that drunks with ADD do. One woman, who appeared as odd as he did, came over cuffed him on the top of his head then handed him an empty plastic bag, as if that would keep him occupied. The man in the row behind all this spent the sermon fingering the sleeve of the man who was chaperoning the suburban youth group, and at one point, tried to see if there was anything in the back pocket of his jeans. he made a terrible pickpocket, the chaperone noticed and looked at him half out of amazement and half out of indignation.
But then i noticed something else. THe preacher had sat down again and the horde of youths were back at the front singing in multiple keys with their youth leader on lead guitar. the youth leader, incidentally looked exactly like Lenny Kravitz, although shorter than what i imagine Lenny to be, but maybe its only cuz Lenny used to always be with Nicole Kidman and i imagine her to be very tall, but then again Tom Cruise isnt and she never really towered over him so what is to say any of them are that tall anyway? But i digress... Anyways i noticed while the singing was going on, that several of the ones who had been rocking back and forth, muttering to themselves and clutching tattered grimy backpacks with their worldly goods in them the entire sermon were now standing with their arms raised to God in worship. The man in front of me who had sat motionless the entire time, with greasy unwashed uncut hair that hung limp to his shoulders had fished through his bag and produced an old Bible and was reading through Acts.
Who do i think i am?
I assumed that these people were so changed, so messed up by the drugs, alcohol and mental disabilities that there was no way they were there for a meaningful church experience.

the very BEST of intentions

Intentions: we all got them, we all love them, we all get reved up about them and raring to go, they are those year-round new year's resolutions, but how often do we actually keep them? an Insider's story:

Exhibit A: i decided before school ended for the semester that i would spend an hour a day either journalling or blogging... i think we can see the testimony of that wild success on this very webpage... Anyway i even went so far as to tell someone so that they would keep me accountable. Unfortunately i told my friend who just three days previous has sat around with me mouthing off about the lame trinity keener journal assignments they were making everyone do in the leadership training sessions. Ok, so that one is out.

Exhibit B: spring cleaning. The date is June 21st. It is now officially summer- enough said.

Exhibit C: Hike-mania. for this one i think the intentions might actually come into fruition, this is just an example of slightly unrealistic intentions which will have to be modified though not entirely abandoned. you see Rachel and Jenn and i decided that we would become the hiking crew this summer, however due to time restraints, scheduling difficulty and highly uncooperative vancouver weather and the sudden- although-not-entirely-unexpected- loss of one of the members of our adventure team. She answered a different adventure call, the call of small children on camp outs with sunburns and who came to camp last year and had a counselor who let them stay up late and who, as they often like to remind her at dinner time, invariably prefer chicken to whatever is being served. That's alright, we will regain said team member in due time, although the vital window of opportunity of summer weather will be shut by the time we are all reunited once again making it difficult to reach the summit before the winter storms arrive. Therefore, are we going to fulfill our intention of hiking multiple times a week? lets not get ahead of ourselves. however will one or another or both of the remaining members venture out into the glorious unknown at some point or another? You betcha. how do i know this intention will work out in the end? pls view proofs that it is well on its way below in the recent photo postings to see our hike to Cypress a week or two ago.

Point of personal priviledge: I thought the word fruitition was well placed in the last paragraph.

Exhibit D: I had intended four topics but i seem to have forgotten the last and really, the whole point i was making with this blog- but i suppose that in itself is it, isnt it? so i am gonna wrap it up with this: to all who made summer's resolutions, dont bother aiming for the stars. Low-hanging branches on the other hand are within your grasp and, if you are hiking, if you dont grab them, they will probably swing back and smack you- so watch out.
go out there and get 'em tiger!

Our fearless guide, Rachel the sherpa leads us on

Jenn and i take a scary ride to cypress- surprised am i that we made it to the mountain, let alone climb it!

step one: conquor mountain, step two: strick a jazzy pose on snowy peak

its for stuff like this that i live here

so pitty!

stars in the eyes...

so lets just back up a few photos and take note of the apple pie that susan and i were enjoying at white rock beach. It was no extraordinary pie in and of its own merit, in fact, it was one of the poorer apple pies i had had in my life time (apologies to the chef... but grandma just can't be beaten that easy you know, aint no love for the haterz..) However the source of the pie deserves to be recognised, because i find it funny. See Susan paterson, who recently returned from the far off sands of Sveden (hurrah the peasants rejoice at her jubilant return!), lives in a really trashy neighbourhood, you know the type, where the streets are lined with huge oak trees giving shady on a sunny day (and its always so DARN sunny). And the houses are all big and have lucious gardens and there is a Range Rover and a beamer parked in front- one of those scary neighbourhoods. the type of neighbourhood that has antique 1920's houses that are featured in calendars and house and garden magazines. The type that hollywood chooses to shoot movies in. OOOH! THAT type of neighbourhood!! well see there was a movie being filmed about three houses down from sus, and so the catering truck was using her sidewalk to park its delights. It is through this circumstance that i found out just why it costs millions of dollars for a movie to be produced. See the caterers pretty much wooed local residents after banging up their cars and telling their guests to not park any where within a 10 mile radius of the houses, they wooed them with food, all sorts of food and food that was offered from 7am to late late into the night. Hence the pie. When susan and i walked into her kitchen, it was sitting there on the counter, covered in an oat-sugar topping... glass pie plate and all, the presentation was really quite lovely. The caterers gave it to sus's momma and we promptly took it far far away (white rock) and devoured it- most of the pie did NOT make it all the way to WR though....
Anyways this was all funny to me becuase this week, my own family who lives in a similarly trashy, albeit newer more suburban (!) neighbourhood, received a notice of filming this week and i do believe the very same trucks appeared down my street. welcome to hollywood north, where all the extras and local townsfolk seem ..sorta overweight...