So for the last year, I’ve been talking about this little walk I was going on. And by “little walk” I mean “60km over two days”.

So, as I’ve mentioned a million times, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer last year. That’s been documented enough elsewhere, so I won’t go into that, but what it comes down to was that cancer makes you feel ridiculously helpless. There’s stuff that doctors can do, and stuff that the cancer patient can do, and there’s fuck all that an adult daughter who lives over an hour away by transit, and I don’t do helpless well.

Last year, I volunteered for The Weekend To End Women’s Cancers, and it was a pretty amazing event. I’m not the most Everybody Hold Hands kind of girl, but it was pretty great to see over a thousand women crossing the finish line after walking sixty kilometers.

So I signed up.

As a pretty awesome aside, a few months ago I apparently inspired Dan enough to walk with me. Which is also amazing. Not only would I have someone to walk with, to hold my hand, and to kick my ass into getting to the next checkpoint, but he’s also on the line for $2000. I’m only taking a LITTLE credit for what he raises, but between the two of us, we’ve raised well over $5000. That’s fantastic.

So for the last year, I’ve been fundraising, on & off. My goal was $3000, but I didn’t honestly expect to make that — as long as I got the $2000 minimum to walk, I would be pretty pleased.

Total raised: $3360. That? That’s frigging awesome.

A thousand of it was from my parents (and they gave another thousand toward Dan’s total) but still. I’m a little verklempt at the generosity of my friends, coworkers, family, and everybody who donated. A small call out of awesome is required:

Huge, huge thanks to: Vince, Chris & Kathryn, Adrienne, Steve, Tod, Robin, Uncle George & Auntie Ingrid, Angela, Ryan, Kim, Jenn, Shelley, Markus & Brigette, Betty, Jag, Tom, Gennie, Nick, Doris, Grandma, Riann, Tapestry, Gill, Ange, Kathryn, Lori, plus everybody who gave me cash that went in as a lump sum. You guys are all absolutely amazing, and there’s no way I could have done this without you. No, literally, they won’t let me walk without raising the money…

And honestly, when it got really hard and I didn’t really want to continue on, that’s what kept me going. Well, that and Dan — I couldn’t let him win. But mostly I just couldn’t let down everybody who donated.

I mean, there’s no actual connection between walking 60km and cancer research. It’s a gimmick, I know that, but this goes back to the feeling helpless thing. I felt like I finally found SOMETHING I could do to help, and part of what made me keep putting one extremely blistered foot in front of the other was the insane thought that if I failed, and Mom got sick again, then it was my fault because I couldn’t finish.

Look, when you’re on kilometer 48 or so and you have a blister the size of your thumb on your heel, you get some crazy ideas.

So the walk itself: Honestly, it was both easier and harder than I expected. Day one started off pretty fantastic. We live in an absolutely gorgeous city.

I was really hoping to be able to track where the walk went, but there were so many twists & turns and by the time I was done I was so tired I couldn’t remember where I was RIGHT THEN, nevermind where I’d been 4 hours ago. But I have a basic overview.

The walk started from UBC Thunderbird Arena, and we walked all through Point Grey, marvelling at the utterly gorgeous homes along the way. Our first pit stop was at Volunteer Park in Point Grey, and by the time we got there I had to pee so badly that it was starting to seem like a good idea to go knock on one of the multi-million dollar homes to use their bathrooms. Or just pee in a bush. Whatever. Surely nobody in Point Grey would mind if I peed in their rhododendrons?

Glad I waited — honestly, that might have been one of the nicest porta-potty experiences of my life. One of the sponsors was Royale, who provided all of the paper products for The Weekend. I think we had nicer toilet paper there than we do at home. I am a HUGE fan of wiping my ass with kittens. Thanks, Royale!

After that particular observation, we met up with Chris, who was there cheering his mother & cousin on their walk (his Mom’s fourth go at it!) That was awesome and fun, and after a quick photo op and water refill, we were on our way to wander along Kits Beach, through Vanier Park, and then over the Burrard Street Bridge to head into the West End.

Amusingly, but not surprisingly since they’re the title sponsor (I can’t even begin to imagine how much money they put toward this event) our route took us past what seemed like every Shoppers Drug Mart in the city. Which suited me fine, as they sell the type of knee brace I prefer, and my knee was starting to ache a bit. Not great when you’re only a quarter through your 36k walk. So we stopped in at the one on Davie St, grabbed my knee brace, and continued on along Denman, into Coal Harbour, and then for lunch on the seawall.

I really appreciate what good care they take of us. Lunch was a tasty quinoa salad with chicken and a cookie, and all of it was super tasty.

From there, we headed on back toward Downtown, hit Granville Street, then down Georgia to Library Square, and eventually over the Cambie Street Bridge, to a rest point by VGH. This was around where it started getting hard.

Honestly, other than my knee acting up, the first 20-25km weren’t a big deal. And I wasn’t really expecting it to be — I do regularly walk 10-15km with no problem. I’m a transit user and I have a dog. I walk a LOT. And so… I kind of slacked on training. The main problem was that June, July & August was when I planned on doing most of my training, and that’s when life got chaotic. We were short staffed at work, so I was working a LOT. Dan & I decided to move in together, and that … well, that pretty much took up all of my time when I wasn’t working.

To add to that, I have really oddly shaped feet. They’re tiny for one — my nine year old sister has essentially the same size feet as me, maybe a half size off. But my feet are super wide in the “front”, and super narrow in the heel. I have duck feet. I also have feet that are INCREDIBLY hard to find shoes that fit.

So, to say that I am well versed in blisters is an understatement. I’ve had two pairs of shoes EVER that didn’t give me blisters immediately: My hiking boots that I bought from MEC and wore all over Africa (which do now give me blisters, but because I had to get them repaired, and the shitty repair job made a ridge where there was no ridge.) And my running shoes.

That lasted until about 25km in on Saturday. Damn. Blisters.

By the time we’d finished the walk (having wandered all through Shaughnessy, down to King Ed, through the Dunbar area, and then finally into Pacific Spirit Park and back to UBC) I had some pretty significant blisters. 4 in total, two on the outsides of my heels, and two on the insides of my … hmm, what’s that part of your foot called? Well, what would be the palm if it was a hand. I dunno. Near the toes, but not actually toes. The ones on my heels were the worst — they were honestly thumb sized, half under callus and half not. And puffy as hell.

But a little foot pain couldn’t begin to diminish the utter joy & relief I felt at walking 36km. We started at about 8:30, and hit the finish line at almost exactly 5. There were some breaks, pit stops, lunches, etc in there, but 4.8km/h isn’t terrible. Heck, I’m usually slower than that when I walk with Justice, but she likes to stop & sniff. I did very little stopping & sniffing.

The walk wasn’t even done yet — we still had to get home. The bus loop was two blocks away, too. Stupid bus loop. Thankfully I got a seat, as I was fully ready to inform the first happy little university student there that I had just walked THIRTY SIX kilometers for cancer, please for the love of god let me have a seat. Please.

Went home, and pretty much immediately passed out.

Woke up around midnight, walked the dog (augh, sorry puppy! Honestly, she didn’t even ask to go out until then.) And was so nauseated I could barely stand up. My head was pounding, I felt feverish, and then there was that damn nausea. Managed to get some food in me (thanks to Dan for making me… hmm, I have no idea what I ate, I just know there was something. Pasta, I think.) and then hit the Gravol hard, and went back to bed around 2, so that we could be up at 5:30.

Here’s where I screwed up a little: So, we both moved at the beginning of the month, and didn’t quite get our addresses updated fast enough. I missed mine by a day. Oops. But, no problem — the people at The Weekend said they’d just leave a new package for us to pick up there. But when we got there, no package. We still got registered, but didn’t get the full “here’s what’s happening” deal that everybody else got, including maps, properly printed badges, and I assume, schedules. So we had no idea that on Sunday, the start time was 7am, not 8am like it had been on Sunday.

To add to that: We missed our bus. Oops. Sunday morning service being what it is, the next bus was going to have us there later than I wanted. So we grabbed a Car2Go car and drove down to King Edward, meeting up with the 25 we had originally wanted to catch. Parked a few blocks ahead of it, and hopped on, arriving at UBC at 7:35.

Except… what the heck? Why is there a slow stream of women in pink already heading out? We grab a nearby crew member and ask what time things got started.

“7am!”

…oh fucking hell.

On the upside, it looks like we weren’t the only slackers by a long shot, as there was still a steady stream of walkers heading out. And it was kind of nice to not be all bunched up at the beginning like we’d been on Saturday.

So off we went, and sweet jesus it was a more painful experience than Saturday. The nausea that had horrified me in the middle of the night had faded. Thankfully, as I was just about in tears that if I still felt that terrible, there was no way I was going to be able to get TO the event, nevermind walk it. And amazingly, I wasn’t nearly as stiff & sore as I was expecting. But the blisters were agonizing. By 5km, I was limping pretty badly, and at the third pit stop I had to stop and do some more blister care. I’d already drained one in the morning, but had to get a lancet from the medical tent and drain the other one. I then pretty much solidly wrapped my feet in moleskin and gel bandaids (god, I love those gel bandaids) and hobbled off. I was also switching my kneebrace back and forth at every pit stop or two, just to give my knees a break.

This sounds like I was particularly whiny, but … okay, I was a little. It really wasn’t the intention, I was going for more of a “state of the union” update. Honestly, if it had just been the walking and the knee pain, I could handle that. I’m used to that. Muscle aches are a pain (har har) but they’re acceptable. The blister pain, on the other hand, was getting hard to deal with. My feet simply didn’t want to keep taking steps because every time shot a little more “aunnaghjshs!” through them.

On the upside, by lunch, I think they’d given up. They pretty much went “Fine, you’re ignoring our pain signals? Fuck you, this is on you then.” Walking got a bit easier then. I didn’t so much switch out my bandages as add a few more, and it seemed to work fairly well.

I livetweeted the entire walk, for the entertainment of my followers, and because Mom was reading along from home, and hell — I’m doing this for her, and she was enjoying the updates. I know my Sunday updates were a bit more bitter than Saturdays, especially when Chris let me know there was no shame in being swept up to the next pit stop. (They had crew members responsible for “sweeping” to make sure nobody got left behind.)

And I know there isn’t, but … god damnit, I WANTED TO DO THIS SO BADLY. I am only 31, there is no bloody reason I shouldn’t be able to go and walk sixty km just for fun. I know I’m not in the best shape, but I’m in pretty reasonable shape and seriously. It’s just walking, right?

Ok, ok, so I should have trained more.

I realized that my sense of scale for what is “walkable” is totally skewed. At the lunch break on Sunday, the marker said there was only 10km left. Only 10? ONLY TEN? TEN IS NOTHING! I CAN DO TEN ON MY HEAD! THAT MEANS I’VE ALREADY DONE FIFTY FUCKING KILOMETERS!

I was SO excited to see that, and knew I’d made it.

As an aside: I’m a little nervous about going back to work. Part of my job is giving directions and helping people figure out if something is walkable for them. “Oh, it’s only 8km from the bus stop, that’s no problem.” “Eight KM? I don’t think I can walk that far…” “Pfft, slacker, I saw women going through chemo walk 60km this weekend. YOU CAN WALK EIGHT!” “Miss, I’m 85 and have a walker…” “LAZY!”

Ok, right, walkable is usually considered a half km. Got it.

Anyway. It was still hard. I am so thankful that Dan was there, he honestly did keep me going. I couldn’t let him win! He’s got a much higher pain tolerance than me under the best of circumstances, and well, has never had a blister before. Ever. I think I hated him a little for that. But he made me laugh when I wanted to sit down and never move again, he didn’t care when I was whiny, and he supported me and took care of me for the entire walk — EVEN THOUGH HE WAS DOING THE SAME WALK — and for that I cannot thank him enough.

When we hit the last pit stop, I was exuberant. I was also in so much pain that my speed dropped to a snail crawl. My mom called me to say she was on her way into the city when we were only a km away — she was at Granville & 41. I was a little nervous that we were going to beat her there — I REALLY wanted Mom to be there when I finished — but then I realized that at the pace I was going? Hah, no, she was going to beat me there easily. Mom & Carol Ann met us at the last turn down to the finish line, and walked in with us.

Chris took a picture of us crossing the finish line — look at mister casual, hands in pockets there. “Oh, this? Yeah, I was just out for a 24km morning stroll… with my whiny-ass girlfriend.”

I was extremely jazzed, and in so much pain I could barely move. Headed straight to the medical tent. Didn’t really have to do too much — my self care was pretty good (yay, I DO know what I’m doing!) but I wanted to clean them up and get new bandages. The moleskin I had with me was way too thick and wouldn’t wrap around my heels. So we got me cleaned up & rebandaged and sent on my way. “Did you bring sandals?” No, because there’s no pair of sandals in the world that doesn’t hurt my feet like hell. I’ll just go barefoot, thanks.

We finished around 2pm, and I didn’t want to wait an hour and a half for the closing ceremonies when I could instead have booze much faster (they did have wine & beer sponsors, but wine gives me migraines, and beer isn’t my preferred drink) so we ended up hitting the Chill Winston in Gastown, where Dan & I got reasonably sloshed on a measly two drinks. Exercise is fun! (Well, I was reasonably sloshed, Dan was slightly tipsy.)

And it was goooood.

After Mom & Carol Ann got to look at our pretty new (still disasterous) apartment, they headed back to the suburban wilds, and Dan & I passed out pretty much immediately. Woke up around 10, walked the dog again (ow, ow, ow) and went back to sleep until 5:30 the next morning.

Amazingly, while I was pretty stiff when I woke up, it went away quite fast. The only lingering pain is my feet, and even those are holding up pretty well (as long as you don’t bump them directly like I seem to do EVERY THIRTY FUCKING SECONDS. WHY ARE THERE SO MANY THINGS TO ACCIDENTALLY KICK IN THE WORLD?) We both had yesterday off (Dan has a throat infection, and took the day off to avoid giving it to anyone else.) and even managed to move some furniture around so that our livingroom doesn’t look like a storage locker.

Overall… it was an amazing experience. I’m so glad I could be a part of it. Overall, the weekend raised over 2 million, and has raised over 20 million dollars since it started. That’s absolutely incredible. I’m proud of me, and I’m proud of Dan, and I’m proud of every single walker, and I’m proud of everyone who donated, and every person who was being walked “in honor of”. Too many people had “In Memory Of” shirts, and this really, really helps.

And that’s something I’m proud to be a part of.

So this? This is the wonderful woman that I’m walking for in August. No hardship, she’s put up with me for 31 years so far, the LEAST I can do is walk a measly 60k for her.

Want to Donate? Please do!

The background: In February of 2010, my mother found a lump and went to her doctor about it. Since approximately 95% of lumps are nothing, they weren’t very concerned. Well, crap – it’s cancer. Well, okay. 95% of breast cancers have a 10 year survival rate. Nope, instead Mom has Triple Negative breast cancer, meaning that unlike most breast cancers, it has no hormone receptors and the usual treatment doesn’t work. Triple negative breast cancer has a 55% 10 year survival rate, or 75% with chemo & radiation. Only ~20% of breast cancers are triple negative, and mostly affect younger Hispanic & Black women. Mom, being 50+ and white, managed to really hit the probability jackpot. Woo-freaking-hoo.

So, after being diagnosed in May 2010, Mom had a mastectomy within a month, and then started on chemo in the summer. Her last round of chemo was in October of 2010, just before Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving, she found herself very ill and unable to eat, and later took a trip to the ER. Unfortunately, they wrote off her symptoms as a side effect of the chemo, and sent her home despite her soaring blood pressure. A trip to her regular doctor the next day was also useless. Finally, a full four days after her original symptoms, she was finally admitted to the ER and it was discovered she had a serious intestinal blockage. While we’re still not sure exactly what caused it, it only makes sense that it would be a side effect of the chemo.

Mom spent almost a month in the hospital in October, most of those unable to eat anything. (Incidentally, be careful what you wish for: Mom had mused that it would be nice to lose some weight. Being stuck in the hospital with a tube up your nose is not a recommended weight loss method.) After over a week of attempting to remove the blockage manually, they decided to do some exploratory surgery and ended up having to remove roughly six feet of necrotic bowel. While the human body comes out of the box with about 25 feet, one does not prefer to lose these things. Turns out your body is SUPPOSED to have all that extra bowel. Try to hang onto yours, hey?

Then, to add to all of this, Mom still had 6 weeks of radiation to look forward to. It seems that the margins weren’t QUITE large enough from the mastectomy she’d had in June, and so they wanted to blast her with some radiation just to make sure it was all gone. So, for those playing at home, this has so far meant:

Surgery -> Chemo -> Hospital -> More Surgery -> Radiation -> Long Recovery.

Fuck cancer? Fuck cancer doesn’t even BEGIN to explain how I feel.

But yes, fuck cancer regardless.

Anyway. Mom’s doing pretty well. Her digestive system is starting to get back to normal. She’s starting to get her energy back, but still tires out pretty easily. But she’s getting better.

Here’s why research is vitally important: Ten years ago, this type of cancer was virtually unknown. Mom would have been treated in the usual manner that does absolutely nothing for her type of cancer, and her survival chances would have been tenuous at best. Thanks to ongoing research, she’s doing great. As you can imagine, this is so very, very important to me – and to all women. And to anyone who has ever met a woman.

Fundraising: I’ve been slacking a bit, with this whole new job (which isn’t all that new anymore) and new home (which is only slightly less new) and new boyfriend (okay, he’s still pretty new) but even then, I’m up to $1200, plus another $100 in cash donations I haven’t submitted yet. Hooray! But, time to get off my ass and get this show on the road. I’m going to be doing some crafty fundraiser type things, so stay tuned for that. At the moment, I still have Breast Cancer soaps (pink soaps with pink ribbons embossed in them) available for $5/bar, 100% of the proceeds going toward my fundraising. Currently, I have one type – enriched with Moroccan clay and scented with Oatmeal, Milk & Honey fragrance, and smells super yummy. I have a new batch of Breast Cancer soaps in mind, but haven’t settled on a scent yet… possibly Earl Grey (bergamot & vanilla). I like tea. So does Mom. It seems appropriate.

I’m also planning on making up some bath salt mixes. These will be a collection of salts & herbs & essential oils that will make your bath oh so yummy. Let me know if you have any requests. They also make nice gifts. Stay tuned.

Note that any purchase over $10 will come with a tax writeoff receipt. Score.

Haven’t donated? Donated already, and want a tax receipt for 2011 too? You can do so here.

Want to buy some Breast Cancer soap? If you’re local, leave a comment and we can arrange a meetup. Not local? You can send a Paypal payment to paypal@arwen.org in $5 increments, plus $5 for shipping. (For more than 4 bars, contact me ahead of time, the shipping costs go up a bit.) As mentioned, right now I just have the Oatmeal, Milk & Honey scented soaps, but will soon have a few more varieties available. All soaps will be pink! (Colored naturally with mica or oxides or clays.)

So, now? Thanks to surgery, chemo, & radiation, Mom currently has no evidence of this dreaded disease but is still recovering from the harsh treatments required to conquer this virulent type of breast cancer. While the odds of this type of cancer returning are greater than other types of breast cancer, with the right money, research can perhaps offer more hope to my mom and other women diagnosed with breast cancer in whatever form it takes. My mother considers herself very lucky to be living in the lower mainland where the BC Cancer Agency is consistently making great strides breast cancer treatment.

It’s good stuff. Before fundraisers like The Weekend came about, breast cancer research in BC got a measly $200,000. Since The Weekend started in 2004, they’ve raised over $16 million from this one event alone. That? That’s amazing. Please help out.

Because my mother worked odd hours, I stayed with my grandmother a lot. Since she quit driving the year I was born, transit was her main mode of transportation as well. We’d catch the bus in downtown Cloverdale, near where Nana lived before she moved in with us, and take it all the way out to Guildford Mall. I remember learning a fair amount of transit etiquette from her, like the fact that if the bus was full, I wasn’t allowed my own seat and had to sit on her lap. I remember being quite bitter about that, damnit. I wanted a seat! She also would refuse to use the courtesy seats, even when she was well into her late 70s, because “those were for people who really needed them.” To this day, I’m uncomfortable sitting in the courtesy seats, even if there’s nobody else who needs them.

When I was 10, we moved halfway through the schoolyear, but just a couple of km away from our old house. Instead of switching schools, I was put on the 320 heading to my old school in Cloverdale, which conveniently picked up half a block from my house and dropped me off right in front of my school. I was a rather nerdy child, but I got a little bit of street cred for being the kid who took public transit to school.

(Picture is unrelated.)

Like most other Cloverdale kids, I went for my drivers license when I hit 16 (although lost interest over an ugly winter, and didn’t actually get my license until I was 17. My interest was renewed when my grandmother bought me a car so I could chauffeur her around.) Transit service in Cloverdale was worse then than it is now, and we didn’t live particularly close to any route. A car was necessary. (Heck, it still is. Although with the opening of the new pedestrian bridge over the ravine by my parents house, the 502 is at a lot more accessible.) So, I had cars throughout my late teens & early 20s, including when I lived in Victoria, although commuted by transit most of the time (or at least halfway, driving to park & rides.) But… I moved to Yaletown when I was 22, and realized I didn’t need a car. (Although I did have a motorcycle, but that was for fun.) So I got rid of my truck, and was pretty happy living car-free by choice. And did so until I was 28, when I moved back in with my parents for a few months and discovered again the horrors of living in Cloverdale without a car. (That pedestrian bridge just opened up a few months ago, so getting to transit required at least a 15-20 minute walk… when I already had an hour and a half commute once I got to a bus. Bah. Do-able, but not if I could avoid it.)

Nick & I always had a car. I still had my crappy little Cavalier when I moved in with him, and it became extremely convenient for SCA activities – when you are lugging 60+lbs of armor, having a vehicle is super convenient. We eventually upgraded to a minivan, which made SCA traveling infinitely more convenient. Still, I hated using a vehicle when I didn’t have to. It rarely occurred to me to drive to work even if it would have been convenient for after-work activities, and Nick & I would usually disagree over how we wanted to get downtown for Adventure – he wanted to drive (and pay through the nose for parking) I always preferred just hopping on the bus and not worrying about parking and the whole omg wtf I have a VEHICLE nonsense. And we’d invariably end up standing in the cold for half an hour, but still. Nick & I had different ideas of “convenience”.

Having left the van to Nick (well, because he bought it) I was quite pleased to go car free again. I like taking transit. Case in point: On Monday, I had a day of Adventure. I had one time sensitive errand to run – I had to pick up my replacement Kindle from the UPS by the airport, and the only bus (the C90 Sea Island North!) that gets me to the UPS parking lot runs twice a day, an hour apart. Missing it meant about a 3km walk from Templeton Station on the Canada Line. Which I did on the way back, since my 10 minute stop in at UPS meant that waiting I’d be waiting 50 minutes for the bus to take me back. Naaaah. I walked and I took some nice pictures on the way back.

I started off by having brunch with Dan, and then hopping on the #7 into Vancouver. Dropped Dan off at work, then had some time to kill before I had to hop on the Canada Line to get to Bridgeport Station for that C90. So since Dan works near Waterfront Station, I decided to hop on the Seabus and zip over to Lonsdale Quay, take some pictures and kick around for half an hour, then head back and whip out to Richmond.

Honestly, sometimes Transit impresses the hell out of me. My day was East Vancouver -> Downtown -> North Vancouver -> Downtown -> Richmond -> Downtown -> East Van. And if I’d been paying more attention to the time and not dicking around on the drive, I’d have then gone out to Surrey by Skytrain to go to fight practice, but I wasn’t paying attention and ended up grabbing a co-op car. Oops. (But that wasn’t a transit fail, that was my own “Err… what do you mean I have to be somewhere in half an hour, and I’m still half an hour away from home?”)

And the cool thing? Assuming I didn’t already have a free three zone pass through work, I could have done that entire days travel for $9 for a daypass. Seriously, how awesome is that? NINE DOLLARS. It would have cost me more than that in gas to do that trip, nevermind all of the parking fees, etc. Sure it’d be faster, but I’d be stuck in a car and not taking Awesome Pictures. (Although I’d miss that 3km walk from the UPS back to Templeton Station, too. But hey, I got to see a new skytrain station. And take more pictures.)

I dunno. I love transit. I think it’s effing cool that I can do all of this travel without really thinking about it. I wish I could explain why I like it so much more than driving. It just feels so much easier than driving. I’d rather read, play games on my iPhone, or look out the window any day of the week than drive and stare at Other Drivers. It really hit home later that night when I had to grab the co-op car and head out to Surrey, while I was skipping through radio stations desperately wishing I was on a bus where I could just read my book.

Anyway. I find buses lend themselves a lot more to Adventure, and I love Adventure. I like the car co-op because I admit, sometimes it’s supremely inconvenient not to have a car. I have a dog who is too big (and neurotic) for transit. Sometimes, I buy large things that I don’t want to take on the bus. Sometimes I travel to places that are not serviced by transit.

But most of the time? Bus, please. It’s inconvenient, the weather is hell, and I’ve spent more times cursing buses for not showing up than I can think of, but … I still don’t have any interest in owning a car for as long as I live in Vancouver.

Things that are awesome? Dan’s a transit junkie, too. This pleases me.

Weeks ago, I heard about the Bootlegger’s Ball, put on by one of my favorite local attractions, the Vancouver Police Museum. This is a pretty awesome place in general, putting on a fantastic Sins of the City walking tour around the Downtown Eastside, super awesome looking “Forensics for Adults” classes (which I haven’t taken yet and SO WANT TO), and operating the museum itself out of the old City Morgue. Seriously, if you have the slightest interest in Vancouver history, this place is an absolute must see. Even if you don’t, screw it, go anyway.

So when I heard that they were putting on a prohibition/20s themed party… well, hell YES I was planning on going. Assuming I wasn’t working.

I couldn’t buy my tickets until this week, as I had to make sure I had the night off. Once I got my schedule, it seemed that I did! Hooray for me! Dan has been crazy sick all week and wasn’t sure if he was going to go or not. So rather than fly solo, I asked the wonderful kdot if she’d come with me – being the awesomest, I believe her response was high pitched squeals I could hear all the way from Mt Pleasant.

I was a wee bit lazy with my outfit. 20s themed? Well, whatever. I had a brand new peach corset with white antique looking lace I’d picked up on Ebay. It was originally intended for steampunk, but I decided to put it into service for my “flapper” outfit. Combined with a long black skirt, a white feather boa, and a fancy headdress I made from some elastic trim, a peach colored appliqué, and a long white ostrich feather. Oooh, and stockings with a seam up the back. Ah, stockings with seams, so cute. Pinned my hair up, stuck it all together, put on some crazy heavy eyeliner, and voila. One pseudo, totally inauthentic flapper outfit. Whatever, I looked cute, and if I was adjusted properly, I had nice cleavage too.

Dan decided that plague or not, he was going to come too, so after medicating him rather heavily, we headed off to pick up the lovely kdot (who did her hair up to look AMAZING – so jealous of her mad skill) and then … to the ball! Because I am the queen of last minute, I may have been sewing my headdress on the bus to kdot’s place. Oy.

The ball was fantastic. Right from when we hopped out of the cab at the Biltmore, it felt “period”, with an antique police car parked in front, and plenty of suited gangsters wandering around. Not everybody was in costume, but there was a heavy presence of feathers and fringe. Inside was even better, with fantastic live entertainment… from vaudevillian singers, performers, and can can dancers… to a raid by the morality police (it turns out, they can be bought off by pretty girls in sequins, booze, and a fiver)… to an excellent performance by The Creaking Planks, complete with an accordion player/lead singer. I may have even danced. To a song made popular by The Count from Sesame Street. What? I like memes.

Not only did I get to spend the evening with my absolutely fantastic (albeit high as a kite, yay cold meds!) boyfriend and my effing sexy date kdot, I also spent much time socializing with the delightfully hilarious Kimli and her bukkake necklace (bukkake > cherries), and finally got to meet the lovely StacieBee with whom I have been chatting on Twitter for ages. Both ladies have lovely cleavage, thank you very much. And an evening wouldn’t be complete without some time spent in a bathtub with some gin.

The gin was flowing (Hendricks was a sponsor, and holy crap that’s some good gin. I love me my Bombay Sapphire, but Hendricks? Hendricks is just niiice.) and I may have had a few. I am a huge fan of gin & tonics. So tasty. Even in a tub.

Many pictures were taken, both by all of us with our iPhones (nerrrrds!) and some pros they had wandering around. With my corset & my hair up, the tattoo on my upper back was on display (very pleased!) and I had it shot by one of the roving photographers who called it “a photographers dream”. Well, that’s why I got it of course. (Er, well, no, but hey, bonus.)

They also had a silent auction. I bid on a couple of items – a gift basket of Police Museum swag, which I was quickly outbid on. I also bid on two tickets to Grouse Mountain, because I’ve been wanting to head up for ages, and if I can get them a little cheaper than face value… well, score, right? I actually have no idea if I won that one or not, as the last time I checked it I was the high bidder, but I hadn’t checked for the last hour of the night.

There were lots of other awesome prizes, but the two that were stunningly amazing were:
- A ride for two people on the VPD police boat around the harbor. C’mon, are you kidding me? That’s awesome.
- A tour for four of the VPD Tactical Training Centre, including a chance to shoot off some rounds. Tactical. Training. Centre. Translation: The effing SWAT team. How cool is that? Well, I’ll tell you in a while how cool that is after I’ve done it… because Dan won the auction. I won’t say how much it went for, but let’s just say that Dan spent most of the evening babysitting his bid. SO crazy excited about this. I’ve been shooting once before, at the indoor range in Port Coquitlam, and I loved it. I GET TO SHOOT WITH THE SWAT TEAM. Yay!

Excited? Me? Yes. Very.

Only downside to the evening was my 7:30 work shift the next morning. I went to sleep around 1:30am. To get to work on time, I had to be up at 5am to have enough time to walk the dog, finish trying to scrub the rest of the eyeliner off my face (only semi successful, sadly), come up with some sort of lunch, and then walk 8 blocks to the effing bus stop. All I can say is: Thank god for the 24 hour McDonalds at Grandview & Renfrew, where I could kill 40 minutes waiting for the first train to come by. McDonalds coffee? Not so bad. Skytrain naps? Totally awesome.

SLEEPY DONNA IS SLEEPY.

Anyway, so because of this, I’m much more up to date on (the usually boring) current events, like the current issues with polygamy in Bountiful, and currently the concept of whether or not polygamy is constitutional is being debated. The latest addition is evidence that young girls were smuggled across the border to marry polygamists in the US.

I admit, I haven’t read a TON about it, but I simply can’t understand why this is an issue for polygamy, and not an issue for say, child abuse, human trafficking, slavery, and sexual abuse.

The articles usually say something like this:

Parties in favour of scrapping the polygamy law argued at trial that those laws were sufficient to deal with the problem.

“This evidence and the picture it paints demonstrates really eloquently why that just isn’t so,” said Jones.

…no, it means that what we have in place to prevent child abuse, human trafficking, slavery & sexual abuse are NOT sufficient. Not that we need to prosecute for polygamy too.

Confession: I’m not a fan of polygamy, personally. I know full well it doesn’t work for me, but if other people want to have consensual, adult polygamous relationships, who am I to judge? Yes, clearly I have a HUGE issue with elderly men marrying multiple 13 yr old girls. I also have a problem with elderly men marrying ONE 13 yr old girl. This isn’t about polygamy, it’s about pedophilia.

What am I missing? Because I honestly don’t get the debate about polygamy in this case. Shouldn’t they be working on, say, stopping child abuse and giving the women of Bountiful options & education so they can choose to leave, not just banning polygamy in general? I’m so confused.

So, Vancouver doesn’t deal with snow well. Several reasons:

One, we’re a hilly, hilly place. I don’t know if you noticed those big mountainy things over there, but it turns out that even being at the bottom of the mountains means that we’re still up & down all over the place. I don’t envy cyclists in this city in the best of weather, there are hills like gangbusters. But hey, water over there, mountains over here, strangely enough there’s going to be some elevation changes in the stuff in between. When you make hills slippery, it becomes harder to get up and down them in a controlled manner. swoosh!

Two: We get snow once or twice a year. Now, people who bitch and moan every time it snows because OMG it never snows in Vancouver! are also very, very annoying. Yes, it snows in Vancouver. Virtually every year. For a few days, then it stops. Shut up already. But regardless, we only get a few days of snow in a year, do ou really want to city cut funding to awesome things like arts and social housing so that we have an amazing response to snow for TWO OR THREE DAYS A YEAR?

Yes, Toronto has a much better response to snow than we do. Absolutely true. Georgia’s is worse, by the way. Although Vancouver has way more Toronto transplants than Atlantians…

Quite frankly, I’d rather have a few shitty days a year than cut funding elsewhere. Even if it makes my job harder. Now shut up and if possible, stay home for one or two days a year when the weather sucks ass.

Anyway, it’s an annoying commute, but I rarely get those 6:30 shifts, so I don’t mind it too much.

Except for the problem that 5am is not my smart time.

So I got on the bus, and there were a few other bleary eyed commuters with me. But by the time I got to Nanaimo Station, it was just me and the driver. For most of the ride, I’d been reading the last of “Pillars of the Earth”, but for the last few minutes I grabbed my iPhone to check my email, etc.

Then I got off the bus.

Ten minutes later or so, I started digging in my purse for my kindle. Except… odd. Where is it? Oh shit, no really, WHERE IS IT?

I realize that it must have slid off my lap when I pulled out my iPhone, and therefore I’d left it on the bus. Fucking. Hell. I raced back down to the bus loop, but too late: The bus had left to go back in the other direction. Aaaargh.

When I got to work, I asked my work leader to check the reports that come in from drivers to see if anyone had reported it — more expensive/important items are generally supposed to be logged, but it’s not really on par with things like vital medication, house keys, or travel documents which are what is usually considered “important”. But nothing. Crap. CRAP!

So, I emailed lost property with more details than even remotely necessary, but bloody hell. MY KINDLE! After work, called to confirm they had everything, but no it hadn’t been turned in yet. (Takes a day or two for lost property to make it to the office anyway, so not unexpected.)

I had hopes, though. I was the only person on the bus when I got off. Drivers often do a quick check of the bus at the end of the line. And sure enough, I was woken up bright & early this morning (ok, 10am, shut up) by Lost Prperty calling back and saying yes! They did in fact have my kindle!

Hooray me! I trundled off to the Lost Property office at Stadium station only to find Alicia, one of the clerks in my office who also does relief in Lost Property. She handed off my kindle to me, and I was a happy camper. An embarassed idiot camper, but a happy one nonetheless. SO pleased!

Before people start judging: This was planned long prior to the “Ok, Nick & I need to stop hanging out” decision, I already had the time booked off work, and for reasons I’ll mention later, it was super important for me to be there.

Anyway, so Richard, Nick, Euan & I loaded up the van and headed down to the border. We arrived at the hotel pretty early, and even managed to get some socializing in on Friday night. Saturday morning found us at the event bright and early. Nick & Richard both did very well in the tournament, Nick going 12 wins/8 losses, and Richard going 15/5. Nicely done! I had an excellent time running around like a maniac keeping them both hydrated and taken care of, attempting to record (with the slowmo camera) every fight I could, and even managing to socialize a bit in the process.

This may have been responsible for my knees completely giving out last night. I had trouble with my knees a lot last summer & fall, and it finally occured to me what was responsible. So Ursulmas takes place in an extremely large show barn with cement floors, and packed dirt over said cement floors. The packed dirt wasn’t any better than the cement floors, and with the amount of running around I did… yeah, no surprise. It also occured to me that my knees haven’t bothered me in … about 3 months or so. You know, around the time I moved out of Nick’s place… with the cement floors? I swear, I think a lightbulb actually appeared over my head.

Saturday night included more socializing, including complaints to the hotel lobby about the racket we were making. Oops. I didn’t stay up too late, although I was greatly amused to wake up at around 3am, glance over at the other bed and see Richard passed out face down fully dressed. How is that comfortable?

Saturday morning found us back at the fair for another tournament… and for one more little extra bit of fun (and the main reason I came, aside from “awesome weekend with people I care about at an event I enjoy”): Nick received a fabulous new squires belt from Viscount Sir Ieuan Gower. (Pic from Euan, who had a better view than me — I was behind Nick with Argyle, Nick’s new squire brother — and who wasn’t more than a little verklempt about the whole matter. Pardon me a moment, speak amongst yourselves…)

No matter what problems we’ve had… I love Nick dearly, I’m intensely proud of the hard work he’s put into his fighting, and I think he’s found a great fit with Ieuan (who’s a pretty awesome guy himself). And quite frankly, I’ve worked damn hard to help Nick out with that. Nick started heavy fighting seriously around the same time that he & I got together, so I’ve been a part of this right from the beginning. No matter what’s going on with me & Nick, I would have been devastated to have missed this. He (and Richard, among others) are still my SCA family, and I’m not giving that up. I love taking care of my boys, and until I strap on my own armor (NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN) their wins are my wins.

As an aside: huge thanks to both Richard & Nick for making me feel appreciated for my efforts, too. I do it because I love it, but the appreciation makes it worth it. I totally wrecked my knee for them, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. (Justice might not feel the same way when it takes me a few days to get back to our marathon walks. Walking a whopping 6 blocks home from dropping off the van tonight proved impossible — I took the bus. I am a pansy. Also, it seems like a bad idea to be forced to sit down incapacitated in the middle of East Vancouver…)

There were a couple of injuries: Along with my screwed up knee, I may have accidently punched Nick in his already badly sprained finger while trying to help him lace his boots… which he couldn’t do because of his badly sprained finger… oops. My bad. He also took a nasty shield hook on the fingernail. Nick managed some self surgery to relieve the pressure (no, I don’t want that needle back), but I suspect he’s going to lose the nail.

Anyway. It was a fantastic weekend. It was awesome to hang out with Nick in a drama free fashion, and yes I’m going back to “limited contact” since this seems to be working for us pretty well for now. But I have lots of hope that future events will go as smoothly, and I am cautiously optimistic that I’m not going to lose the stuff that I love the most about the SCA.

But overall? I think this smile sums it up:

…but hell, I’d tell her about most of it anyway, so why not?

But, since my calendar isn’t actually intended for anyone other than me to know what the heck I’m up to, sometimes it’s some form of shorthand. More often than not, when I have plans to hang out with someone, I just stick their name in there. But, for Mom’s sake, I do occasionally put in something a little more interesting.

For example, on Monday I’m hanging out with a friend who, when speaking about him to people who don’t know him, I refer to as simply “the lawyer”. Names are so overdone.

Anyway, so normally I would enter plans with him into my calendar simply as “the lawyer”. I decided to go one better, for my audience of one:

Of course, I amused myself enough that I am also sharing it with the readers of this site. So now it’s got an audience of 5!