this shit is bananas I remembered something this morning. You're not supposed to like your job for the first month. I was starting to get disillusioned with the whole thing all over again - you know, having a hard time getting motivated for the work day, and basically not caring about the job. But oh yeah, ALL JOBS SUCK at first. Especially when you don't know what your job is supposed to be and nobody is really telling you. My expectations were just too high, I suppose.

Something else I've determined is that some of my coughing is actually probably due to driving around in a vehicle sans "catalytic converter". That means that the bulk of nasty fumes produced by my engine are basically vented into the part of the car where the driver sits. Especially when I have the heat on. Since I did a fair amount of driving this weekend, I can smell lingering car fumes all the time. Yucky.

I want to go to Vancouver on November tenth or eleventh. Kris & Tannis, can I stay with you that weekend...?  | ¶ 3:28 p.m.

  trouble me on the days when you feel spent Report, in point form:

• I was pretty ill all last week. I've been trying to do more yoga to promote lots of deep breathing and hopefully clear the cold from my chest. I'm a yoga champ these days.
  
• Devin moved out tonight. This is a good thing, because my apartment is not meant for two, but me and Salsa will miss him, too. It will be good for him to have his own space again.
• I bought the coziest blanket today from Linens 'n' Things. It's super-soft.
• I got a parking ticket this morning for not having a properly displayed proof of payment on my dash. The weird part is that I totally had a proper ticket completely visible on my dash. I'm going to contest it. Impark is in my bad books right now.
• It was Pammy's birthday recently. We celebrated with some beer drinking and pumpkin wearing (you'll understand if you look at the pics).
• frou and I went to see In Her Shoes the other night. It was a really good movie.
• Fred's muffler issues are so bad that we are regularly triggering the car alarm of another car in my office parking garage, just by driving by with our rumbling. Eep.
  

  | ¶ 11:58 p.m.

  we’re not just making promises "Americans are tired of investigations and scandal, and the best way to get rid of them is to elect a new president who will bring a new administration, who will restore honor and dignity to the White House." [Then-Governor George Bush on CNN's "Burden of Proof," 9/15/00]

How's that going today, Georgie?

Cheney's top aide indicted in probe of CIA leak

Merry Fitzmas!  | ¶ 1:02 p.m.

  gonna close my eyes, gonna watch you go Here are pics from our hike on Sunday.  | ¶ 12:36 a.m.

  life goes easy on me most of the time When I was living in Mom & Dalt's basement, I would sometimes wake up early and tiptoe next door to Keri and Gina's place, knowing that with three young kids in the house, somebody would be awake. The door is usually unlocked, so I let myself in, and when I peak around the corner from the front door into the livingroom, there is usually at least one kid watching morning shows. Sometimes there's a Gina or a Keri there too, looking bleary-eyed and barely awake.

Sometimes I help get breakfast for the kids. Sometimes one of them is already eating and I join them at the table. Sometimes I snuggle up on the couch with one of them. Sometimes I steal coffee from the kitchen.

These days I don't get to visit so much, not living at the compound anymore, where you don't even need to get out of your pyjamas to go next door. But Sunday morning I was wide awake early and I felt like getting out, so I hopped in Fred and drove the three minutes over to the compound. Kyle and Ella were watching TV, but nobody else was up yet. Eventually Keri got up and started getting breakfast for everyone. I sat with the kids at the table and helped Ella peel an orange.

At one point she looked up and said to me, "Stace, my nose is running". It might sound strange, but coming from a two-and-a-half year-old, I found this observation rather endearing. It felt like Ella was seeing me as something of a substitute parent figure, which is really a nice feeling. I mean, hopefully she's not running around asking any old stranger to wipe her nose for her...(maybe she is...)

This touching moment resulted in me catching Ella's cold, though. Keri mentioned that she'd been up in the night because she was quite ill, and although she didn't seem too bad to me, she seems to have passed on her illness. So I'm all sniffly and sore throat-y now. No fun. Not when I'm trying to figure out our "accruals"; part of my job is to track department expenses. I'm all doped up on Motrin and Contact C.

I think the moral of the story is this: watch out for those runny-nosed kids, man. They're all precious and heartwarming, but you'll pay the price later...  | ¶ 4:54 p.m.

  those who run seem to have all the fun We hiked again today, me and deVaughan. In the mountains. It was a great day for a hike, and a nice challenging trail we chose. At first we were planning just to go to Bragg Creek, which is just west of Calgary and not quite into the mountains yet. But once we got there and purchased a trail map, we opted to drive another half-hour into Kananaskis Country and do a nice 8.8 km hike up to Nihahi Ridge. The hike was a solid 300 metre vertical climb, and my muscles were feeling it by the time we reached the summit. After seeing this dude's pics, we're kinda wishing we had kept going the last little bit along the actual ridge, but my legs just couldn't climb any more, and we still had to do the steep descent.

We did the picnic thing again, packing buns, smoked ham and swiss cheese to make sandwiches on the edge of the Little Elbow River before heading off on our hike. It was sunny and warm, with a temperature around 15 degrees, so we were actually a bit toasty in our jackets. It really is a satifying thing, to complete a challenging hike. All of your senses are stimulated by the spectacular Rocky Mountain beauty surrounding you - the crisp, clean pine smell, the cool alpine breeze, majestic mountain peaks, the overwhelming quiet pierced only by the chirping of birds, the scampering squirrels or rushing river. We even caught a glimpse of some deer on our way out.

I'm digging this hiking thing. Me and deVaughan are going to try and make a habit of it. Might have to get ourselves some snowshoes pretty soon, though.  | ¶ 9:55 p.m.

  Merci Leduc   | ¶ 2:16 p.m.

  I love it when you call my name Today's rule:

No washing of dishes in the morning.

It's Devin's turn to do dishes. And when I say "turn", I mean that I said to him, "you're allowed to wash dishes again". This morning I was rushing around getting ready for work, trying to leave a little earlier than I have been. My boss thinks I get to work at 8:00, I usually get in closer to 8:30 - shh, don't tell him...! But then I heard water running in the kitchen. Since Devin's been catching a ride with me downtown and then hopping the c-train from there, I was like, "dude, we're leaving in, like, ten minutes - don't be doing dishes now..."

There are actually a lot of rules at my house that poor Devin has to keep track of. Since I'm used to living alone and like things done MY way, I'm a bit of a tyrant with getting him to conform. He doesn't hate me yet, but I predict that the day will come.

Things are actually better than they were initially. I'm getting used to having someone around all the time. And now that he's gainfully employed, I don't have those moments of resentment that would hit me from time to time. Devin does go out of his way to be a good guest - he cleans, he cooks (awesome pasta sauce and fabulous apple pie), he spoils the cat.

And he doesn't complain about all the rules.
  | ¶ 3:01 p.m.

  maybe that's just your way of dealing with the pain Okay, okay, I'm starting to feel that I'm falling behind as a blogger. I'm not up here telling my stories so much these days. I was reading my archives this morning, the months of October and November from last year - I was in such a different place then. Going to school, being my own boss, feeling pretty damn alive. It was stressful, yeah. But oh-so-rewarding.

It's kinda felt like I've been going through a lot of transition since I got back to Calgary. The basement-living-law-firm-working life, then moving into a new place while work exploded. Mom's birthday bash, Kris and Tannis visiting, continuing to work at an unrealistic pace, Devin arriving, switching jobs, etcetera etcetera. A lot of change, and the sharing of my living space with someone who was basically a stranger to me all over again after our months apart.

The other thing is trying to know my audience. Since I have a lot more daily contact with certain family members and friends (and now, roommate) who are also my readers here, a person can sometimes feel over-exposed. A lot of my stories have already been told and I lose my ambition to get them published after telling them. And I have to say, real life is sometimes a lot less interesting than the student life I got to live last year. Unless I want to talk about work (which is often confidential) or the petty personal dramas from the office or my personal life, the things I actually spend my time doing are not so newsworthy.

I know I'll settle into my new job and things will be fine there, but this morning I was feeling pretty bummed about it. Coupled with the reading of my archives and remembering how it felt to go back to school, I got that urge again to go back. It's not that I want to avoid real life, but somebody once said you were supposed to find the thing that made you feel the most alive and find a way to make a living at it. More education couldn't hurt me. Why can't I just see where that path takes me?

Of course, I DO live in the real world - the one where I have thousands of dollars in student loan debt already. I used to jokingly ask whether I could issue debt securities like some of the companies that I've worked with, only instead of buying equipment, I would finance my education. People could buy Stacey bonds for $1,000 each and get re-imbursed at the maturity date in, say, ten years. I could be a good investment, you know...! Might be hard to find an underwriter for that deal, I suppose...

Plan B is the one where I resign myself to working for a while and getting back into a realistic financial position to do the school thing again. Not so much resignation that I wait for things to be just right, though. I proved to myself last year that I could get by on not very much money. Who needs STUFF, anyway? Time will continue to pass by whether I decide to take action or not. I gotta get my stories back.  | ¶ 10:12 p.m.

  you knocked me off my feet You know how when you start a new job and you don't know what you're doing, and nobody's giving you any training and you are sick of seeking out people to ask your stupid questions to, you just kinda hate it, and it's only the second week...?  | ¶ 10:55 a.m.

  I don't want to be selfish This made me laugh. It's a little video about the evils of the gigantic retailer - called "Big Box Mart" in this clip, but an obvious shot at Wal-Mart, the true evil global corporate citizen.

Recommended by someone over at dailykos.  | ¶ 12:23 p.m.

  and I believe in Peter Pan You know what kinda sucks? I thought I was going to get a paycheque from the new job this week (since that's what they told me), but it turns out that I didn't make it on to payroll. So there I was, happily spending and lending my last paycheque from last week, thinking I'd get a partial pay tomorrow. Eep, I'm not. I have to wait two more weeks.

That means another cash advance to cover my student loan and insurance payments. Nice work, Stace. Thank goodness I have credit.

You know what's good? At my new job I have a nice flat screen computer monitor. So it doesn't hurt my eyes to look at all day.

After having done a new yoga routine ("upper body yoga") and going for a long jog this week, I'm sleeping like a log. Morning seems to come a little too quickly. Of course, my alarm is going off earlier so I can drive to work at my new job for a slightly earlier start time than I used to have. And yeah, I'm driving. Since they offered me a parking spot in the building, I figured I'd give the rush-hour driving thing a try for a while. We'll see how that goes.  | ¶ 2:28 p.m.

  I know you feel the same way First day at the new shop today. It went reasonably well, except for the expected feeling-like-a-dumbass because I don't know anything about what I'm doing just yet. Luckily expectations are low at this point. I got a few instances of "hi, Dani" (froo's real-life name), so I had to clarify our clone-ness to people. Tomorrow there will be an announcement on "the wire" about me, the new hire, with froo mentioned in an attempt to minimize the confusion.

I was explaining to froo and deVaughan tonight that one thing about the new position that requires some adjustment is the level of autonomy I'll likely have. As a legal assistant in a law firm, your day consists of people handing you your assignments one after another, so although you might turn on your brain for brief periods of time, you pretty much have someone dictating your priorities to you. One lawyer I used to know theorized that legal assistants were often the type of people who wanted that kind of arrangement. Possibly. Honestly, for the first few days at this place I wouldn't mind have some specific tasks outlined for me, just so I get a feel for things. But not forever. Bob's got me trying to understand the department budget and coding invoices already. Not really my area of expertise thus far but I'll get there.

I came home un-stressed. I went jogging.  | ¶ 11:45 p.m.

  you know you're not a quick forgive Pics from the Rocky Mountain roadtrip! See?


You can watch the whole show here.  | ¶ 11:46 p.m.

  if you never try you'll never know We had a serious adventure day today, me and deVaughan. We started our roadtrip yesterday with a relaxed drive to Banff in my rented Pontiac Sunfire (it has a muffler and a CD player, two things noticeably absent in Fred these days). We did some exploring around town, ate and drank at the Rose and Crown, searched out an affordable hotel, and then crashed early. Today was a different story, though. We woke up early, enjoyed a nice breakfast at Melissa's, then headed out to the Sulphur Mountain gondola for a breathtaking ride to the top of the mountain. We had spectacular weather today for visiting a mountaintop, too. You could see for miles. Here we are, looking like dorks.


After our descent we stopped to take in Bow Falls, then found a reasonable picnic spot to make some sandwiches by the Bow River in Banff. After our lunch it was time to hit the highway for Lake Louise.

In Lake Louise I gave deVaughan a quick tour of the Chateau and we headed off to do a short hike. Even though I lived and worked in Lake Louise for an entire summer a few years back, I strangely did not try some of the best hiking around. The hike we did today was the "Fairview Lookout" hike that was about 1.2 km with a steep climb of over a hundred meters. It was a bit snowy and slippery on the trail in parts but you get to the lookout point above Lake Louise and it's totally worth the trip. The lake is a fabulous sparkling turquoise colour from up there. Gorgeous.

Next it was some canoeing on Lake Louise. It was damn chilly out there, but we were wearing our warm jackets and gloves, with life jackets over top, and got a solid upper-body workout paddling to the back of the lake. The water was as still as I've seen it and was smooth as glass today. The best part of this trip, though, was the moment when we were almost back to the dock and heard some rumbling in the distance. It sounded a lot like thunder so I sorta thought there was a storm a little ways off, but deVaughan and and I both turned around to look in the direction of the thundering and were just in time to see a massive avalanche of snow tumbling down the Victoria glacier at the back of the lake. It was absolutely amazing to witness.

You think this day is over...? Nope, we had more adventures in store.

After a quick stop in the village of Lake Louise, we got back on the highway (the 1A, a more scenic route than the Trans-Canada) heading back towards Banff. My plan was to get to Johnston Canyon, make more sandwiches, then evaluate whether we had time to do the hike there too. We decided we could make it at least to the "lower falls" and back before it started getting dark. After the relatively easy hike and the spectacular sites, though, we opted to continue to the "upper falls" as well. Wow, what a cool, cool canyon walk with some amazingly powerful waterfalls to take in. We took lots of pictures, so I'll share 'em once they're developed and posted on flickr.

It really was a great two-day getaway. I got to introduce deVaughan to the Rocky Mountains and even do some stuff that I'd never done before. Yesterday's relaxed pace was a nice way to begin - I kept saying, "I really feel like I'm on vacation". And today, with all the outdoor-goodness activity, was busy and fun. We hiked twice! We canoed! We saw a deer and a coyote! We had two picnics! We witnessed an avalanche! I'm SO ready for bed...  | ¶ 12:04 a.m.

  take a look at who I am We're going on a roadtrip! I reserved a rental car (don't want to push Fred on the highway) and we're driving to Banff today. I think we'll try and find a cheap motel in town there and tomorrow head a little further west to Lake Louise. Even though I lived there one summer, I didn't do much exploring, so I'm hoping to do a couple hikes (some nice easy ones).

You can entertain yourself with this while I'm gone.

Cats in sinks! That's Nacho and Salsa above. Nacho used to love to get in the bathroom sink and take a snooze. I had actually placed Salsa on top of him for this pic (that's when they were still very young, at our place in L'ville in 1995). Salsa's not so much of a sink sleeper.  | ¶ 12:39 p.m.

  we may not always agree on the little things Last night a bunch of us from my firm went to Ceili's for my going-away festivities. For a girl who's only been there five months, I was pleasantly surprised at the turnout. Boss came for a drink and is being very complimentary these days, offering to say nice things for me in the future if I wanted a reference. He's a real charmer when he wants to be. I should quit my job more often if it means people will gush about me. It was a fun evening.

As a result of the late night, though, today was a bit of a blur to me. I was suffering not so much from a hangover as just a lack of quality sleep. Luckily expectations aren't so high for job performance right now. I'm trying to get stuff cleaned up but there's just too many loose ends to reasonably tackle. So I'm not stressing about it.

Some people have said to me, "you must be getting excited" for the new job. But I wouldn't say that I'm really "excited" about it. It's more that I'm looking forward to a change of pace. And after hearing from Stacey and a friend of hers last night who have worked with my new boss in the past, "you're SO lucky; he's SUCH a nice guy", it kinda sounds like things will be fine at the new shop. We'll see.

What I am looking forward to is a nice 4-day Thanksgiving weekend. I will be enjoying turkey dinner with Keri and Gina and the kids on Sunday. Strangely, everybody else is leaving town this weekend. Mom, Dalt, froo and Jame are all headed to various destinations. I'm trying to plan some more tour-guiding activities for deVaughan and me (it's a surprise so I can't say what I'm planning), so it should be a fun weekend. I hope it doesn't snow!  | ¶ 11:51 p.m.

  didn't know I'd lose this much sleep "...high standards remain a constant on all her albums. This one's no exception." (Amazon review)

I love Miss Sara Evans. She is a solid country singer who keeps coming out with solid country albums. This one is called "Real Fine Place". I think it maybe has not been released in Canada yet, but I d/led it last night and quite love my initial listen thru it. Try it out.  | ¶ 12:51 a.m.

  heal these broken wings This fall has brought on some flashes of nostalgia for me. I finally had a school year at Bishop's last fall that made me want to go back. Why'd I have to go and graduate so fast this time around? So lately I've been living with an eye on Lennoxville, spying on the C5 crowd on the J9cam, reading everybody's blogs (if only people would BLOG more often...!), and remembering my time there with a lot of fondness.

Remember cute Bill...? Ah, cute Bill. The man who got me interested in politics classes. One thing I liked about Bill was how young he seemed. As in, he seemed older than my fellow students, but not as old as your typical prof, and since I was also older than the bulk of my classmates, he felt like a bit of a peer to me. The drawback was that I didn't look older than the kids, so Bill didn't recognize my obvious brilliance and maturity right away. Of course, cute Bill was married with a family in Magog, so he wasn't really noticing the hot women in his classes (right?).

I was doing a search for Bill on the internet tonight and discovered that he's been doing some writing this summer.

Globalization is not global. Instead, relatively equal participation in a globalized economic system is limited to a select few countries, and in a select few areas. Interdependence in economic affairs can only really be found in two regions - North America and Europe, with Japan added for good measure. Anyone not in that group may gain access from time to time, but on terms set by the club's members.

Yes, the man was cute, but he is also very smart. Maybe I'll go back to Lennoxville and take another one of his classes. Heh.  | ¶ 12:24 a.m.

  I am as constant as the northern star Fred got his brakes fixed for real last Friday. That last time I took him in (to Speedy) and they gave me that $983 estimate, I changed the plan and delayed the new brakes. So last week I headed back to my old neighbourhood garage (a Petro-Canada Certigard shop) where they were a little more reasonable about things. Fred still needs some work, but at least I've got safe brakes again.

That meant that my tour-guiding with deVaughan could be a little better over the weekend, since I'm not so hesitant to drive longer distances. We went for some nice long drives around the city - this city is pretty crazy for sprawl and I wanted him to get a sense just how big it spreads. So Friday we did a bit of a western loop. Out the Trans-Canada highway to the edge of town (Springbank, for those who know), then back into town on the Old Banff Coach Road, then down that big hill of Sarcee Trail. Some good views from up there.

Sunday we headed south. deVaughan had been asking where Spruce Meadows was, and it's just at the southern tip of the city, so we headed all the way down Crowchild, on Glenmore to 14th Street, then continued south on McLeod all the way to the 22X highway, where the Spruce Meadows exit is. Those neighbourhoods are all new to me, so we explored a bit through Somerset before getting back on McLeod, heading north to Anderson, then east over to the Deerfoot. deVaughan has family in Douglasdale and I knew that region was over there somewhere, and we stumbled upon it pretty quickly. The tricky part was getting out of the neighbourhood, after we'd stopped at Wendy's for lunch. I knew we were just off 130th Avenue south but I wasn't terribly sure where on the map that put us. So I stopped at London Drugs to consult a map. You know your city is changing fast when you gotta look at a map just to navigate within the city borders.

This week I have my livingroom back. deVaughan has taken a quick trip up to Edmonton (he's quite the adventurer) to do some visiting. A certain feline of mine is missing him (he spoils the cat a bit). It's been fun hanging out with deVaughan, but my place is only a one-bedroom and there's a reason I live alone. I've gotta squeeze all my underwear-poker-playing into three days this week. Heh.

This week is also my final week at the law firm. Tomorrow is my going-away "thing". I've been there a whole five months and I've got a lot of good-byes to say, don't you know. It's been strange since I gave my notice at work - I started feeling kinda disengaged and disconnected from it all pretty quickly. I mean, when you're running your butt off in the midst of the chaos you know it's rather foolish, but there's that certain adrenaline rush that feeds your ego and keeps you running. Once you've made that decision to leave it behind, you're less inclined to get worked up for it for even just a few more days. This is all a fancy way of saying I've kinda stopped caring. I mean, I'm showing up and doing some stuff, but I'm nowhere near as motivated as I was before. Maybe it's the burnout kicking in.

Speaking of burn, my legs are achy today too. I went for a short jog last night and then did some weights. That never fails to give my legs a workout. Better than the workout my wallet will be getting next month when Fred gets a new "catalytic converter". Apparently they're an expensive part of the exhaust system. $600-ish. Ouch.  | ¶ 10:18 p.m.

  baby be brave I learned something the other night. I think this is a lesson that boys learn when they're teenagers, but me, well, I didn't hang out with any girls who would towel-flick each other. On Friday a bunch of us had gone over to Pam & Tone-L's place for a change from the Bottoms Up scene. After a few drinks some silliness began. I come into the kitchen and the boys are whipping each other with a wet dishtowel. I think I kinda rolled my eyes at their whining about how it hurt. And something then possessed me to step up and voluntarily experience it for myself. Jason hit me ONCE on the back of my thigh. I did not react, but mostly because I was stunned at how much it stung. It took all my concentration to walk away calmly. When I went to the washroom to inspect the damage, though, I couldn't keep it to myself. I had an instantly-purple bruise, and even some bleeding, because he broke the skin. Man!

Later, deVaughan was like, "didn't you know how much that hurts?" And I was like, "NO! GIRLS DON'T DO THAT!"  | ¶ 1:18 p.m.

  I've got so much beauty around me I can't move A guy from our August rafting trip posted some of his pics recently. Below is one of me (I can tell by my shoes), floating down the Kicking Horse River. The water was super chilly, but the sun had been warming us most of the day and it was relaxing and fun just to float. This was of course the non-class-four-rapids section. I asked J.F., our cute guide, to let me know when there would be a relatively smooth section. Most people did not voluntarily get in the water that day. The icy temperature of the water as it splashed us was a pretty good deterrent. But we did have wetsuits on. And cool, cool helmets - as you can see. That was such a great day. I wish I could re-live it.

I've created a slideshow of our day over at flickr - you can find it here.  | ¶ 12:39 a.m.