life, the universe, and donna

I feel a bit like rambling. So I will.

Good news: I no longer feel like someone’s been punching me repeatedly in the kidneys. This is good, as by Friday I was convinced I’d be in the hospital by Sunday. And while the pain kept up pretty darn good for a few days, it conveniently never got any WORSE, and finally started to fade. Phew.

I am no longer terrified to pee due to the incredible pain in the hoohoo. Now it’s merely mildly uncomfortable, and getting better.

As evidenced by the drunken post (and series of drunken twitters) on Friday night, I had a pretty bloody awful Friday night, which continues to cause me a fair amount of distress, but isn’t really for public consumption. What it comes down to that I really, really need to stop thinking and dwelling, which is sort of like saying “don’t think about pink elephants” with how effective it is.

I’m not as funny when I’m drunk as I think I am.

Saturday night, I volunteered for the Parade of Lost Souls. It was a combination of “holy crap, this is dull” and “hey, this is pretty fun!” I was stationed at Charles and the alley just east of Commercial from 5pm to 11pm.

I learnt that many drivers are right crabby about losing their ability to drive on Commercial. There was one guy that I felt bad for at first until he got belligerent with me over it — he’d dropped his wife off to run into a store, planned on circling the block for fifteen minutes or so, and then picking her up. Except, as he was circling the block, all the roads were closed off. Lucky me, he wound up at my barricade.

After arguing with me a bit, he parked (illegally in an alley, but away from my barricade, so I don’t care) and went off to find his wife, who also chewed me out for daring to close off Commercial. I mentioned that all local residents had been notified weeks prior, and if you don’t live in the neighbourhood, why would you expect to be notified? Would you like to know that a street in Surrey is closed because you might happen by at some point? Not to mention, yelling at a volunteer for something she has no control over? Kind of dumb. But hey, if it makes you feel better about having to walk half a block, fill yer boots.

Later on, before anything had officially started, but after the streets had started to fill up more, I was talking to someone else (I spent far more time giving information about the parade than actually blocking any cars) a woman in a car full of furniture shoots by the other side of my barricade where huh, I didn’t think she could actually fit.

I run after her and stop her, and tell her rather incredulously (since she just blew past my barricade without a second thought despite the very obvious thousands of people blocking the street ahead) that the street is closed and she can’t go through there. “But I need to get across Commercial.” Well lady, the road is open at Venables or First Ave. Take your pick. “But I need to go right across.” Uh… how exactly do you propose getting through the throngs of people? I mean, I know your car could probably take it, but … do you really want to be up on vehicular manslaughter charges? There’s police everywhere! Although on the upside, the ambulance was right there.

I didn’t bother mentioning that if she needs to go “just across” that she’s in for a nasty surprise — the streets were closed far more on the west side of Commercial than the east side that I was on.

A fairly large group, complete with about 6 kids under the age of 3 made the mistake of parking in the alley. Sure enough, they were towed. When they eventually came back, one of the gentlemen in the group (who was dressed as a rather excellently done Heath Ledger-style Joker) asked if I’d been here all night. Yep. Were any cars towed? Yep. Oh… shit. One of the mothers starts panicking that the cars have all the car seats, and how are they going to get home? (I pegged them as suburbanites in town just for the parade.) Finally, about two hours later, they come back with the cars retrieved from lockup. Felt kind of bad for them — one of the babies looked like he was about 3 months old, and was pretty crabby by then, and the toddlers weren’t much more pleasant — but still, park in an alley marked very obviously as “no stopping” and what do you expect?

Why so serious? Oh, because you’re stranded in Vancouver.

That said, the neighbours around my barricade were absolutely fantastic. I had three offers of a warm beverage, one of which I finally accepted — had a great cup of hot chocolate from a woman living across from where I was stationed all night (I gave her one of my homemade beeswax candles as a thank you). One neighbour even asked if I needed to use the bathroom. I was very, very touched, and it’s things like this why I absolutely love Commercial Drive. One guy walking by offered me water, then said “All I have is water and booze… hey, want some booze?” Hee.

My barricade got very popular around 8:30, when the three giant “Vassilisa” puppets (the parade ran through an old Ukrainian folk story about a girl named Vassilisa going through a variety of stages — so, three 12 foot tall Vassilisa’s for the different stages she goes through) were scheduled to have break time there. Awesome! Even better, that meant that some lawn chairs were left behind after they went off for the finale, so I was able to sit down and snuggle into my cloak for the last 2 hours of my shift.

And yeah, I sucked out on my costume. Actually, it’s pretty cool — I wore one of the norse viking dresses (not this one, but one very similar) I picked up at the set sale on Friday, including one of Nick’s leather belts, a dagger (sheathed, but very sharp), a leather pouch (containing cell phone, keys, cash), the cloak I sewed for going up to Clinton in August, and a lantern with a few of my beeswax candles in it. This had the benefit of being very warm, which was good, because it was damn cold out especially by 11pm.

I say “sucked out” because while it looked pretty damn good, well, I didn’t exactly buy it as a Halloween style costume and really wanted to come up with something awesome for that. I still haven’t, so may have to stick with the Norse thing. That said, I had quite a few people ask to take my picture (including a couple of cute girls who wanted to pose with me — why yes, ladies, come under my cloak with me…) so it couldn’t have been that bad.

And warm. Most important part. Very warm.

Anyway. It was fun. I have some pictures (and a fun video of Dark Vassilisa chasing an innocent parade-goer, who shrieked appropriately at the sight of the giant puppet coming after her) which I’ll post eventually, and overall… it was an excellent night, with a few stretches of “holy crap, I’m bored to tears” interspersed.

I think I’m done rambling now, so rather than coming up with some clever and witty way of ending the post, I’ll just click publish instead. *click*