Today was another day packed full of adventure, albeit with less unexpected dunkings (but quite a few expected ones.)

We got up bright & early (you know, like 11am), got some breakfast in the village, then headed up (sans dog — she slept all day in her crate, zonked from yesterdays adventures) to Pemberton to go horseback riding with Adventure Ranch. Absolutely gorgeous with the mountain vistas, narrow tree-lined trails, open meadows, gorgeous rivers, and a lovely break at a stunning beach (where several of the horses had fun splashing most splashily.) We even saw a bear swimming along the fast moving river — he looked like an oddly shaped log until he climbed out not that far from us. Luckily, he kept his distance. I’ve heard horses and bears aren’t the greatest combo.

We got back to the ranch, sore, dusty, reeking of horse, pleased as punch and ready for the next stop in our fun: Scandinave Spa.

It was amazing. They’ve got a really neat setup, it’s a series of hot tubs, cold pools, saunas, steam rooms & relaxation areas with hammocks, chairs, benches, etc. Their recommendation is that you spend 10-15 minutes in a hot tub, then as long as you can handle the cold pools, and then 10-15 minutes relaxing, repeat x3. It’s a “silent” spa, so they strongly dissuade any talking, and at first I was a little put off by that… but after 10 minutes in the eucalyptus sauna (they had eucalyptus scented water that you could pour over the rocks), I was totally relaxed, “in the zone”, and had no interest in talking… or listening. It was just awesome, if you’re ever looking for a “total relaxation” type afternoon, this is the place to get it. They do massages and other such spa-type activities as well, but the baths is really all we needed (although it was rather disconcerting to get back into our horsey-smelling clothes at the end of it.)

All in all? A stunningly fantastic weekend. Many thanks to my wonderful, wonderful Nick, and to the fabulous kdot who is the worst third wheel ever. As previously mentioned, her husband cas was supposed to come with us, but a bike injury left him home while we went out and had fun without him (awww… next time, cas!) So you know, you’d expect that having a random third person along would be terrible, and she wasn’t. Nick & I had plenty of cutesy sickening romantic moments without being disrupted, kdot was charming and fun and a fantastic travelling partner, she even cleaned up MY shit while I was getting food for the trip home so I wouldn’t die… really, how am I supposed to get good blog fodder out of that? Where are the tales of “And then she…”? How am I supposed to bitch and complain when she was such an excellent guest? Thanks a lot, kdot. I mean really.

Also, she is now the 4square mayor of my dads condo, which amuses me greatly.

So, I managed to score my Dad’s condo for the weekend, and a weekend was planned! Sadly, the day before we were supposed to leave… cas had a pretty nasty wipeout on his bike, and his doctor recommended staying home with his leg elevated. Crap. Rather than come with us, and be super depressed and bored every time we left to go do something Awesome, he decided to stay home and play video games. So… here we are!

Today, we went on a pretty awesome canoe trip. They shuttled us from Green Lake to Alta Lake, and we paddled back to Green Lake. You may recall our last canoe trip last year was just a few hours tooling around Green Lake. So, we thought we could upgrade things a little…

and holy crap! NARROW FREAKING RIVER! Canoes, especially the 3 person canoe we had, corner like particularly wallowing bathtubs. We hit a fast moving section, got a little turned around, and a kayaker came up. She had dumped herself, and for some IDIOTIC reason … decided it was a good idea to GRAB THE SIDE OF OUR CANOE to right herself.

Unsurprisingly, this poured us directly into the river. There was a moment of panic when the dog would NOT get out of the canoe, and tried to crawl under the seat — note the canoe was upside down or on its side at this point, and she still wanted to be in it. But we got her untangled pretty quickly, and all was fine — then it was just a matter of getting all of our gear, paddles, the canoe, and the dog to the shore. Luckily, it was just over waist deep at that point.

So, we had a nice little break. Good news: The things that could be water damaged were in a waterproof bag they’d given us — like Nick’s 12 hour old $2k camera. Phew. Sadly, our lunch, in a soft sided cooler, was not so lucky. Well, my bananas survived at least. And the diet coke. Can’t live without the diet coke.

Anyway, we got righted soon enough and after a break to dry off/wring out our shoes, we were off and running. Glad I wore my bathing suit underneath, I ended up shucking the shirt (and loading up on sunscreen) and dried quite quickly.

It was totally awesome. Dumbass kayaker, but whatever. Now we can say that we’ve had a good dump in the river, and it wasn’t our fault!

She really was particularly dumb, too. As we were trying to gather everything up, she kept trying to help. By getting her kayak in such a place that we couldn’t secure the canoe at all. No, please. Really. You’ve done enough. Also, your presence is making the scared dog even more scared. Justice had her lifejacket on too, but even so she was shivering like crazy as I carried her from the middle of the river to the edge. but that might be cuz it was cold, too. Once we got out, she went directly to one of her “I need to handle this!” coping mechanisms, and starting gnawing on a stick. Good dog.

We have a few battle wounds from our adventure. Kathryn has a set of scrapes on her shoulder from where Justice tried to go THROUGH her when the canoe went over, Nick has a nice branch scrape on the back of
his neck, and I’ve got a very pretty knot on my foot… but we couldn’t stop laughing about the absurdity of the situation, so all is good.

Pictures forthcoming — thankfully, the camera was kept bone dry. But I’ll upload those later when I’m not on a netbook with stolen wifi. (Stolen wifi tastes like candy!) Stolen wifi still tastes like candy, but now there are pictures!

A few weeks ago, Nick & I were trying to think of any current adult actor/actress who has successfully transitioned from child star to well adjusted adult star. Admittedly, you could argue that there are a lot of adult stars who aren’t well adjusted even if they weren’t child stars, but whatever.

The initial trigger was Christina Ricci. Sleepy Hollow was on, and I was wondering whatever happened to her, as she seems to have vanished off the face of the planet. (A quick look at Wikipedia shows that she has in fact been working… just not in anything I’ve heard of.) So I was trying to think of stars who are currently active and mainstream, who never went through a fucked up drug phase.

I came up with Wil Wheaton & Neil Patrick Harris. (And admittedly, Wil Wheaton is only “mainstream” right now if you’re an internet geek. Luckily, I am, so I’m counting it.) Drew Barrymore seems to have also managed to successfully transition, but only after spending her tweens coked out and hitting rehab at 13, so she’s off the list. (But hey, good for her — it’s hard to go from rehab at 13 to reasonably normal, well adjusted adult.)

I also thought of what Wil Wheaton & NPH have in common: Both of them vanished out of the public eye for most of their late 20s/early 30s. (Wil Wheaton was doing mostly voice work, and NPH was doing mostly musicals.) Either way, neither of them had nearly the fame & recognition they had in their teens and now.

So maybe that’s the key to avoiding train wrecks like Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears. I honestly feel bad for them — seriously, how can you possibly stay normal when there are people whos JOBS it is to follow you around for every stupid mundane thing you do? Seriously — this is a video of Lindsay Lohan buying pizza. SHOCKING NEWS: PIZZA IS TASTY.

And all I can say is: Jesus christ, that poor girl. Yeah, she’s totally fucked up. But cut her some slack — she’s been starring in feature films since she was 11, and was already a show biz veteran at that point. I don’t know how you do that and stay normal.

I suppose one thing they have going for them is that none of ‘em are half as fucked up as Mel Gibson. Score one for the ladies!

Yeah, I’m that kind of cool.

So last night, I brought home our new minivan, a 2001 Ford Windstar, in bright-effing-red of course. Aww yeah. Her name is Rebecca (but only if I never use the name around Nick).

She doesn’t look like this. Much.

Anyway, so we do this SCA thing, and in the summer we’re out to events almost every weekend with my poor little car is loaded to the rafters. And while she’s got a fair amount of storage space, considering the itsy-bitsyness of her… it’s just not enough. Especially for our form of “camping” which includes sleeping in something like this.

What it came down to … was more space.

So originally, we were looking to join the ranks of the station wagoneers. (Can I call them that? I’m going to call them that.) But when I mentioned this to my parents, they reminded me that they had a couple of extra vehicles lying around. My step-father, the worlds most fantastic mechanic (he fixes my vehicles, which makes him infinitely better than ANY OTHER MECHANIC EVER) likes to buy broken cars on Craigslist, fix them, and resell them at a profit. Or at least, that’s the idea. Thus far, it’s been more like “buy broken cars on Craigslist and alienate the neighbours by having no fewer than 4 cars, a camper trailer, and a bus in the driveway at any given time.” (You think I’m kidding — they actually have two buses, but the second one is stored offsite.)

So one of the vehicles Ken picked up was the aforementioned Rebecca the Red Van. She wasn’t running at the time, and I’m told that the problem was a rubber band. Well, a very specific, expensive rubber band, but a rubber band nevertheless. Which has, of course, been replaced, along with some other general “make her more awesome” type things (new tires!) and now Rebecca is stylin’.

Brought her home last night, and HOLY CRAP I’M SO TALL WOOO I COULD CRUSH YOU LIKE A BUG! A BUG!!! She also rides super smooth, and since my last … 4 vehicles, if you include the bikes, had a manual transmission, I tried very hard to stomp on the clutch and grasp uselessly for the stick shift. Right, minivan. Automatic. Ok.

So, got her home, and we decided to take the back row of seats out, and store it under our stairs. Holy CRAP there is a lot of space in there. Seriously, I could LIVE in this thing. And there’s definitely room for some good old fashioned minivan sex. The back windows are tinted VERY dark, so … aww yeah.

Other things that are awesome:
- SO MUCH SPACE. Seriously, I don’t know what I’m going to do with it all. Oh, fill it full of crap. Of course. (Kidding, honey!)

- Storage spots! Wow, I’ve got places to hide things that I didn’t know I needed. We hit up Safeway last night for our little “Stuff that lives in the van” kit, like sunscreen, bug spray, antihistamines, etc. This kit lives in the center console in the back seat (what would be the center row, if we hadn’t removed the back row.)

- Captains seats in the center row! Hence the center console there. Velly fancy. The dog will ride in style.

- Air conditioning! I haven’t had air conditioning in a vehicle I’ve owned since 2000, unless you count motorcycles. What? The air is perfectly well conditioned… and full of bugs.

- STEREO! My poor little car has no stereo. I’ve made do with shitty speakers plugged into my ipod, but now… now! Nick’s buying an ipod/car stereo hookup thingie today.

- Cigarette lighter plugs EVERYWHERE. We use these things a lot. We have a lot of devices that use them anyway, and an adapter to allow us to plug regular plugs into it. We can recharge our air pump with it, not to mention phones, ipods, etc. When the cigarette lighter in the car temporarily broke as we were driving out of town, we stopped in at my parents place to fix it rather than travel without it. I can think of 4 different plugs, and I haven’t even spent THAT much time crawling around it.

- Adjustable pedals. Hooray, I don’t have to sit so close to the steering wheel that the airbag will deploy directly into my nose!

- Did I mention how much space is in this thing? If it weren’t so nicely carpeted, I’d be expecting it to echo… echo… echo…

Things that need to be fixed:
- The hose for the windshield wiper fluid resevoir isn’t quite long enough, and doesn’t work. Oops. So if we get a bad bug splatter… well, get out and wash it off yourself. (Part of the car kit also includes: rags.)

- The gas indicator is inaccurate. To get it through aircare after replacing the battery, the van had to be … randomly driven around to get more data. So, Ken put $50 of gas in and drove around for a bit. That wasn’t enough. Mom then put $60 of gas in and drove more. (Finally went through and passed fine.) Except the gas indicator didn’t change throughout any of said gassing up. Hmm. Well, conveniently, I live next door to a gas station, so methinks we’ll just fill it up Every Time We Go Anywhere.

- I think the rear passenger door is wonky. I can’t open it from the inside, and the child locks aren’t on. Hmm. What is it with me and rear passenger doors?

- Generaly munge. Well, it is a 9 year old van, even if the last two years have been spent hanging out in my parents driveway. It’s got some … grime, to say the least. Must ungrime. Rebecca does not like grime.

Incidentally, this also means that within a few days, my little car will be for sale. I can’t afford to insure both of them for long, so the sooner I can get her out the door the better. I need to do a couple of little maintenance things (fix the spare tire, and maybe clean the two years worth of dust off the dash) but then she’s ready. Details for those interested (craigslist ad coming soon, once I wash her and get a picture):

’97 Chevrolet Cavalier, black, four door, manual transmission. No stereo or ABS. Engine runs great, no trouble whatsoever. Minor issue with the rear passenger door handle. E-brake doesn’t work (just park it in gear and no problem.) Second owner (first owner was a family member.) No accidents. Air Cared in March. 210,000km. Tires are a year old. Body is solid and in good shape, but rather unattractive (scratches, dings, etc) — she is 13 yrs old, after all. When I was 13, my body started going through some weird changes too. $500 firm. For the car, not my 13 yr old self. Note that similar cars go for $1000-2600 on Craigslist, but I got a good deal on it when I bought it and I’m passing that along. (Making a profit would seem weird.)

I should probably edit that before I put it on Craigslist. But honestly, that car has been SO little trouble it’s unreal. The only problems I’ve ever had with it (in the two years I’ve owned it) is that I’m apparently a nail magnet, which is why the tires are all new. Theoretically my curse with flat tires would not be transferred to the new owner, but just in case it is, it has a full size spare.

Wanna buy my car? You know you do!

However, unlike my younger, more materialistic years, I no longer enjoy buying useless shit that end up on a shelf or at the bottom of my closet. I still don’t have much interest in clothes. I have enough gadgets. So what’s a girl to do?

Well, this particular girl hasn’t had a haircut in a year and a half. You can tell, because the blonde streak in my hair is grown out about 6 inches. I think I’m done with blonde streaks. I like the blonde ends instead. Anyway, it came to me that a nice responsible way that I could treat myself would be to get that haircut I … well, really really need, to be honest.

So I wandered around downtown trying to find a salon that would take a walk in without having to wait hours and hours, and found myself at The Chop Shop on Granville St.

And there, I met Zach.

One of the reasons I haven’t had a hair cut in so long is that I find the process… boring. I don’t like most small talk, and it seems rude to sit and read. But Zach? Zach was totally awesome. Zach is from Melbourne, Australia. So, good start, I have an imaginary connection to Australia — Nick being Australian, and Justice being an Australian kelpie. What? It’s my connection, I’ll take it. Hey, it’s a non-dog fanatic who actually knew what a kelpie was. That’s a first. And, well, the accent is always nice. (Nick? Where the fuck is YOUR accent? I feel cheated.)

Anyway, Zach is in Canada for a couple of years with his friend Tom, and they’ve recently puchased a Land Boat, and have intentions to paint it with red & white stripes like a barbers pole, then hang out at parks, beaches, etc and cut hair out of it. I am SO into getting my hair cut on the beach.

That? That is effing AWESOME. Honestly, he was hilarious, witty, and totally fun.

They even have a website: Visit Barry Pimpin’ & the Cosmic Barbers. Follow it to find out where they’ll be next!

And? My hair looks great, too.

What? I’d make an awesome princess. Shut up.

Nick made it to round 4 of the coronet tournament. I think there were 6 or 7 rounds in total before the finals? Something like that. Regardless, he made it pretty far. The tournament was double elimination, so everybody makes it to round 2 at least. The way they set it up is that every round is a challenge round, so … the knights and other highly ranked people are challenged by the non-peers — including Nick, who’s order of precedence is “so far down he may as well be in the parking lot”. Of course, he always feels the need to challenge the best, or at least those he never fights, instead of those he knows he can beat. Honor before glory!

The two fights he lost were both to Sir Alden, who ended up winning the tournament overall. Can’t argue with those results. He defeated two skilled fighters as well, so… huzzah.

June Coronet, round two: Nick (aka, Steinarr) vs. Sir Abu:

Sunday was the Squires tournament. Nick is not a squire, but if you can get a knight to sponsor you for the day, you’re in. They do a big free for all where everybody eligible fights in a field (one on one fighting, just “hey, you wanna fight? Okay, let’s fight”), with a few knights smattered around in there, and the royals & other knights watching from the sidelines. (About 15 squires, and I think there were 4 or 5 knights in there with them.)

After two 15 minute rounds, the squires have a “squires choice” fighter who moves onto the invitational, and the knights & royals come up with 5 more. Nick was one of the ones chosen by the knights for the invitational, which is pretty nice. Won one fight, then lost to the queen (her husband won a Crown tournament to get her her title, and she’s a damn good fighter in her own right), and to a guy who’s been a squire for years — who he actually defeated in the Coronet tournament (payback is a bitch), and was out. The queen won the squires invitational, so again… darn good fighting, well done sweetheart.

It was a pretty good weekend. Our little sunshade out by the fighting fields was very popular, I had a platter of cheese & meat & crackers & strawberries out through most of the main tournament. Left for the finals, as I was asked to serve as retinue (a lady in waiting, basically) for the princess. Not a bad gig, all I really had to do was sit in the royals tent and watch from there, and follow the princess around in case she needed something — water, a message runner, or whatever. Not a huge responsibility and quite dull, but nice to be asked. At the very least, I had a good view of the finals from there. And I was out of the sun.

I successfully avoided sunburn, due to my awesome parasol that I carried pretty much everywhere. Thanks, Nick! I still miss my big floppy hat, but the parasol is an excellent backup, despite not being hands free.

And the drive home was quite pretty.

I’ve asked my doctor for a tubal for years between 22 & now (30). Couldn’t get one. And I’ll be up front: Yes, I’m actually considering changing my stance on childfree, maybe. Yes, it’s partially because my partner sorta,maybe,might want kids. One day. So it’s been shelved for now.

But if my doctor had gone ahead and listened to me? I’d have been fine with my decision — there are other options available if I absolutely HAD to have children. Personal responsibility is damn important to me, whether I’m 21, 31, 51, 91, whatever.

What REALLY kills me is that I know a woman who, at 24, had her second kid. One that she maybe wasn’t equipped for — the father of both of her children was in prison, they were no longer together, she was unemployed and unskilled. She was pretty irresponsible, a bit of a party girl, and now she had two kids to deal with. While she was getting her c-section, drugged to the gills and literally IN THE MIDST of having a baby, they convinced her to sign off on a tubal, and snipped her up while she was under the knife.

She regretted it pretty much the minute it was done. And that was … about 8 or 9 years ago. Said woman is now a nurse. Her kids are happy, healthy, smart — she’s done a damn good job raising them, especially considering her initial circumstances. She totally stepped up to the challenge.

And she? SHE is pissed that she got a tubal — and I think she has every right to be.

And what a fucking bizarre world it is when a doctor can pressure a young “white trash” mother into getting a tubal under duress, but won’t give one to responsible adults who’ve made a decision about their fertility.

Beyond that, the people I’ve known who were able to get tubals under 30 either had a debillitating illness (one that would affect their ability to give birth, but not negate it by any stretch — these women simply didn’t want children regardless of their bodies complaints.) I know one who had a kid, and was able to get it done — after rigorous questioning, like “What happens if your kid dies?” Newsflash: They’re not goldfish. You don’t just go get another one just because you accidentally forgot to feed this one, whoops. Still, counselling beforehand is a good idea… but then you accept their decision.

I didn’t know jack shit at 22, and I’m pretty sure I don’t know jack shit now either to be honest. But I’m still pretty capable of living with permanent decisions. We allow young women to get boob jobs, abortions, tattoos, and hey, babies — all things that PLENTY of people regret after it’s said and done. But we don’t allow them to get their tubes tied? Where’s the sense in that?

I don’t like to admit that I’m maybe changing my mind, because I feel like I dilute the arguments of the childfree. (Look! See! There’s someone who hit 30 and changed her mind! THAT COULD BE YOU!) Sure, it might be. And I always acknowledged that. I COULD change my mind.

But it’s still my call. If I’d had a tubal, that would have been my decision, and mine alone. If I regret it, fine, I regret it. I’ve read stats that say 30% of women under 30 who get tubals regret it. What about the other 70% who were perfectly happy with their choice? And when you read those stats — how many of them were coerced into it because they didn’t fit the doctors idea of what a young mother should be? I thought we got rid of eugenics.

What pisses me off is ANY woman being told that she doesn’t have the right to make decisions concerning her body. How is this any different from telling a woman she can’t have an abortion?

And it absolutely is a womans issue: Men have no problem getting vasectomies, pre-30, no kids, no illness. If men can get snipped, why can’t women?

Speaking of said responsibility: Come visit me at the HugABull Fundraising Flea Market tomorrow! 15% of my proceeds go directly to helping these dogs (and more!)

It’s a good cause. Come buy some soap!

And holy crap on toast. Sure, I think I shortened my lifespan by about 3 years just by stepping into the place, but wow is that ever tasty. I got some bad news recently, and was feeling a little down in the dumps, so I decided to treat myself. I got Smoked Montreal Meat poutine, and to REALLY cement the “I would like to feel better” I got a deep fried mars bar.

You know what? It worked. Well, temporarily, but holy crap. That is the tastiest damn thing in the world. I mean, you could deep fry a shoe and it would probably be pretty tasty, but deep fry my favoritist chocolate bar? And put a little whipped cream and strawberry sauce on it? WHERE DO I SIGN UP?

If you’ve never been, I highly recommend it. The poutine was pretty darn tasty, too.

I will have space invader soaps. And brain soaps. And pirate soaps. And proper non-silly soaps, too! And if I manage to get a free hour between now and then, I might even have some beeswax candles!

A portion of my proceeds go directly to HugABull, who just brought in 23 neglected dogs into their program. These guys need vet care and that don’t come cheap, come out and help support the adorable little buggers!