life, the universe, and donna

So, here’s a thing about me: I don’t like the taste of mint very much. I’ve tried mojitos a few times in Vancouver, with some trepidation, and without fail they were all terrible.

I went to Cuba. To an all-inclusive, no less. It seems weird to go to Cuba and not have a mojito, so I figured I’d try one.

It. Was. Amazing!

So it seems that I like mojitos after all, they just have to be made right. And I drank enough of them (and paid attention!) that I think I can do this. I need to go shopping… and I need to grow some mint.

I got home, walked into the kitchen, and ordered a mojito. Nothing happened. Damn.

Anyway, so Cuba! Right, Dan & I just spent a week in Cuba and it was simply wonderful. So as not to completely bore the fuck out of you, I’m going to write a bit about it, but in little bursts here and there. Come to think of it, this might actually be worse as I’ll keep jamming it in everyones faces until I’m tired of talking about it.

Which may NEVER HAPPEN, because CUBA.

So, I’ve actually been wanting to go to Cuba for years. To the point where my ex & I had a running joke about going. For Christmas one year, we even got each other (different) Cuban guidebooks. Obviously, that didn’t pan out (neither did the relationship) but I still wanted to go to Cuba.

So… Dan & I started talking about taking a vacation, other than little bits & pieces of “get out of town” things that we’ve done locally. My last “go far away from home” trip was to Zimbabwe in 2007. His last real vacation was to Israel in 2001. Well. This needs to be rectified, obviously. So when I got my part time status at work last November, and got to actually sign up for vacation time, we both thought Cuba sounded like a fantastic idea.

And we were right!

We started planning it for real a few months ago. As it turned out, Kimli & co went to Cuba last year, and so I asked her about the resort she stayed in. She recommended Breezes Jibacoa, and after googling the heck out of it, it sounded pretty good to us. 14+, all inclusive, and closer to Havana than most of the resorts in Varadero.

So my original intention was to do a lot of solo trips, but when we had our orientation… well, as much as I hate to be the “look at things from the bus” type of tourist, the three excursions we booked actually covered all the bases. Also used up our excursion budget, so that made it fairly easy. The trips we booked were:

Thursday: A day out on a catamaran, with a chance to swim with dolphins, do some open water snorkelling, and then finish off the day with a late lunch & swimming at Cayo Blanco before heading back to Varadero (and then bus back to our resort.)

Friday: Varadero tour. This was the only one I was a little disappointed with, as it was very much a “look out the window at things, then stop at a few places to wander around for ten minutes”. However, we had a few hours of free time in the afternoon to wander around downtown Varadero which was loads of fun, and we met a great couple from the UK who were in Cuba for their honeymoon, and we ended up hanging out with them for a good portion of the rest of the trip. (Yay, we made friends!)

Monday: Havana. After Friday, I was a little concerned this was going to be another “look out the window at things” tour. And it had a bit of that, but we had a lot more time out and about. We visited Old Havana, a rum museum, the Capitol building, lunch at a lovely restaurant in New Havana, and the highlight of the trip for me, a tour through a cigar factory.

I’ll go into more detail about those later. For now, here’s what I saw every time I opened the curtains in our room:

So I’ve been experimenting a lot more with this whole “being a girl” thing, but the inherent laziness and enjoying sleep means that I look for shortcuts.

My entire morning routine (which, when I work nights, is a “mid-afternoon routine”, but who’s counting?) takes an hour. I refuse to let it take longer than that, unless I spend half an hour dicking around on Twitter. Admittedly, this does including dicking around on twitter for ten minutes or so. But it also includes taking the dog out for her morning pee, and 5 minutes of arguing with the cat. (What? She’s mouthy.)

Getting this routine down has taken some practice — I used to be a 15-minutes-including-shower kind of girl, but that was considerably was easier when I had a shaved head. I now have longish hair and bangs, so my old method of “run a comb through it and leave it alone” now makes my hair turn into a limp frizzy mess. The bangs look like utter crap unless I blowdry them.

So here’s my quick & dirty method for not spending ages blowdrying my hair. It may only work for people with my hair, as it’s quite fine. I put whatever hair goo in my hair that I’m using these days, then blowdry the bangs & my roots taking no more than 3 or 4 minutes. Then I get dressed, take the dog out, have a Discussion with the cat, and by the time I come back the rest of it has usually mostly dried — enough so that I can give it a quick 30 seconds just to grab the last few damp strands, slap some anti-frizz smoothing stuff on it, and voila! Hair that is almost totally dry (and straight!) with virtually no effort and doesn’t look like I stuck my finger in a light socket.

I wish I’d known this trick in high school. I might not have looked like this when I was 15. Or this… good lord.

Other time saving tips include: have an awesome boyfriend who makes you breakfast almost every time you have a morning shift. Also, have a dog who pees the second she hits the grass when you get outside and won’t destroy the house if she hasn’t had a long walk in the morning. Just sayin’. You could probably save more time if you didn’t have a cat who’s sole goal in life is to cover you in gray fuzz every morning, but I can’t quite figure that one out yet.

So. What are YOUR “save time without sacrificing final look” tips?

In other news: I spent $140 on makeup today. Seriously, does anybody remember me 6 years ago? Hee. I actually only spent $40, as I had an awesome gift card from Christmas that I hadn’t used yet. In my continued attempts to be Pretty (note: makeup not actually required, I just like to accentuate and decorate. And doodle all over my face.) I bought my very first bronzer. Next step: Figure out how to wear it without looking like Snooki. Important step.

I also discovered that MAC has these nifty customizable eye shadow kits where you can pick the colors you want, and voila: custom palette. Sure, I could just buy two separate pots, but I like having matched colors that I know go well together (because someone helped me pick them. What? I’m not good at this stuff. Yet.) What it comes down to is that I really like sets, and they didn’t have any with the colors I was looking for, so I made my own. Yay, set!

Who knew that this stuff was so much fun?

I still refuse to wear mascara under most circumstances. Like, if I’m wearing my glasses. Who wants eyelashes that bump against your glasses? Fuck that shit.

So someone asked on Reddit about any good stories about getting “the talk” from their parents. I don’t actually recall any of the actual “ha ha, babies come from the vagina” discussions — although I do remember asking what a period was after reading Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret. Ooh, and what it meant when boys “got hard” after reading Then Again, Maybe I Won’t. Thank you, Judy Blume, for prompting all sorts of interesting conversations. Although I tell you, reading all about periods when you haven’t the SLIGHTEST IDEA what a period is is weeeeird. Especially when it’s rather dated and they talk about belts and hooks. Belts and hooks? Man, this shit is voodoo.

Unfortunately, once I actually hit puberty and was DEALING with all of this stuff, my willingness to talk about anything to do with sex completely stopped. Way to go, teenage brain. I really wish I knew how cool my mother was about that sort of thing, but I was just entirely too horrified by the idea of talking to my mother about sex.

I remember two instances specifically: Once, I was about 15 and not fully “active”, but was definitely experimenting (yay, blowjobs are fun!) She trapped me in the car and asked me if I was having orgasms. Because orgasms are awesome. But can be difficult — lots of girls don’t know how to have orgasms. Especially if their boyfriends are also 15 and inexperienced.

And if I didn’t feel like having sex, I didn’t have to — mutual masturbation is a great way to be intimate with your partner without having full on intercourse. Admittedly, great advice, but JESUS CHRIST MOM I DON’T CARE IF WE’RE GOING 80KPH I WANT OUT OF THIS CAR IMMEDIATELY YES WHATEVER ORGASMS WOO. (Sadly, I wish I’d paid attention — no, I was most certainly NOT having orgasms. Not for another 6 years. Sigh.)

The second was about a year later. I was 16, and dating a guy entirely too old for me. Mom was a bus driver at the time — this is relevant to the story.

So, despite having terrible taste in boyfriends way too old for me, I was at least smart enough to go on the pill, but again with the horror of actually telling my mother, so I just made the appointment myself and the boyfriend drove me. He was way too embarrassed to actually come in with me, so he waited outside in his truck. (Ha ha, that’ll teach you!)

Unexpectedly, he hears a “knock knock knock” on his window, and holy shit, it’s MY MOTHER. She smiles at him, and says “So… is she in there for what I think she is?” he stutters out some “uh I don’t know I just drove” bullshit excuse, to which my mother lets him know that she was not in fact born yesterday, and to pass on the message that “she knows”.

As it turns out, across the street from my doctors office was where the bus she was driving that day had break time, she happened to glance across the street and see him parked there. In front of my doctors office. I ABSOLUTELY DID NOT believe him. Seriously, what are the chances? No way. No fucking way.

…and then he described her sunglasses…

This was the mid-90s, and my mother wore a pair of particularly great bright blue sunglasses that would have been a bit more trendy in the 80s. There was no way my boyfriend would have ever seen her sunglasses before. And they were WAY too unique to be a guess.

OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK.

She didn’t get home until about 7 that night. I was shitting bricks for about 4 hours. I was entirely certain that I was going to be locked up for the rest of my natural born life or possibly shot on sight.

As it turns out, my mother was STILL way cooler than I ever gave her credit for, and all she did when she got home from work that night was to laugh hysterically at my complete and utter traumatized horror that MOM KNEW. Admittedly, she DID word her message in a way to put All The Fear into me, but it seems that my mother was a master troll even in ’96…

So, Christmas? Yeah, that happened.

It’s been a supremely awesome month. I sold a metric shit ton of soap at Blim on the 18th, which was a great re-introduction to the fun of making All The Soap Ever. I also sold a ton of soap to friends & family, who have given me wonderful feedback. Hooray, my soap is popular!

Now, to get back on this stained glass thing…

Christmas was awesome. Dan & I stayed at my parents place on Christmas Eve so that for the first time in yeeeears, I got to have a Christmas morning with my family. Which was a blast, even though I’d already gotten my main gift from my parents — my new bike, Natasha Pistachio, who I plan on taking out for a ride today.

I was also utterly astonished when I opened Dan’s gift and found a painting by an excellent artist friend of ours, of me. Bret tells the story better, so I’ll leave that up to him.

I also managed to succeed at Christmas. I have this thing where I LOVE buying gifts, and attempt to take pride in thoughtful gifts, but am not nearly as creative as I’d like to be and end up failing miserably. Add to it that Dan tends to just go out and buy something if he wants it. Argh. He claimed that he’d dropped all sorts of hints as to things that he might like, but LIKE I PICK UP ON SUBTLE. He had also mentioned a gift someone had given him in the past that *I* thought was SUPER thoughtful, but he was less impressed with. OH GOD THE PRESSURE IS ON.

I managed to do okay: I got him a kindle, which he hasn’t actually put down since he got it, and one of Bret’s paintings (see link above for full story.) SUCCESS! Of course, his birthday is in a few months and now that I’ve had a success with Christmas, I somehow have to duplicate it… ack.

Much food was eaten, my dog was only a LITTLE idiotic (we have a theory that she’s anti-beard), and we trundled off home to proceed to suffer from the WORST PLAGUE EVER. It was so bad I actually took a day off work — my second since I started working at this company, the first one being when I sprained my ankle and knew the ER trip would make me miss the start of my shift. Damn.

So New Years: So I’ve gone to the same awesome house party for … what, 6 years? 7? More? I have no idea. And the original plan was to go to the party. But as it got closer and closer to the 31st, I found that I didn’t really have an interest. I haven’t kept in close contact with most of the people I would see there, and while they’re utterly fantastic people, I find that I’m going in a different direction… and so in the last couple of days before New Years, we asked kdot & cas if they wanted to come over for an evening of boardgames and sparkles instead. (My shirt provided all of the sparkles, but everybody else took some home. As did the dog, the couch, and the carpet. Ah, sparkles, the herpes of craft supplies.)

I can’t decide if I’m getting boring or if my priorities are shifting. Possibly both, but I had a fantastic night and wouldn’t have had it any other way. Also, I got to be a werewolf, which was great. Am sad not to see all the Awesome People, but I had the New Years I wanted — even if it was a WEE bit different than last years.

Last year was such an interesting thing. It started off with me still being utterly miserable… but fuck that shit. I got better. I never would have expected how MUCH better! Hooray, better!

Next: We’re going to Cuba in April. I’m super stoked. I have the vacation time booked off and everything. Our savings account is growing steadily, and soon I’ll be out buying a bathing suit that actually fits. Excited? Yes, excited. This year is going to be great.

Back in the day, I worked for Telus. I started in April 2001, and was caught in the mass layoffs of September 2002 with 6500 other happy little Telus employees. They paid me a great deal of severance to go away, especially considering that I had only worked there for a year and a half… so I happily went away, and never looked back.

Most of the time that I worked at Telus, I lived by myself in a cute little basement suite in north Burnaby. It wasn’t much — standard basement suite fare, low ceilings, odd layout, back door entrance. But it had insuite laundry, and who cares about low ceilings? I’m short. I referred to it as the Hobbit Hole.

I lived there for about a year and a half, moving to Yaletown about a month before the layoffs came down. Oops. Anyway, life moved on from there and I didn’t think much about it. My next job was at a small software company in Vancouver, where I worked twice — first from March 2003-July 2005, then from March 2007-September 2010.

My employer was a guy named Dave, who’s pretty awesome. So a few months ago, I got an email from a slightly confused Dave asking if I had any idea why he would have received mail for me from Standard Life at his new house. Perhaps the office manager updated an address wrong? Except they did nothing with Standard Life, so … huh. Wtf.

So he sends me the address.

And it’s The Hobbit Hole.

He’s living in the upstairs portion (he’s got 4 kids, so y’know, a 600sqft 1 bdrm isn’t going to cut it) but still. What are the odds?

So I finally picked up this letter from him a few months ago, and I assumed it had something to do with my pension… or something. I figured there might be a few hundred in it because I really didn’t work there very long, but whatever. Not really a big deal.

This morning I was trying to file some things and get my desk more in order, and I came across the letter from Standard Life. So I called in with a bit of a sheepish “I have no idea what I have with you… help?”

And I was right, it’s my Telus pension that was converted to an RSP after I left. And … wtf. There’s over $4000 in it.

So, sweet. I’ve got my address updated, they now know that I really do exist, the account is no longer abandoned, and they’re mailing me information for how to see what I’ve got, and I’m reasonably certain once I get login access, I’m cashing that puppy out and paying off one of my credit cards. Yay, found money!