I'm weak in the knees for you, but I'll stand if you want me to I was looking for something fun to do the other night when I stumbled on a concert posting for Kyle Riabko. This was the super-skinny 16-year-old froo and I saw open for Edie Brickell in Seattle on our "30th birthday roadtrip extravaganza". He blew us away then with his obvious talent and stage presence, so I was curious how he's evolved these last 3 years of his teenage life.



Well he played at Barrymore's, an old-school music theatre here in Ottawa with staggered viewing levels and gigantic framed mirrors on the walls. He was the opener for another Canadian, the 23-year-old Serena Ryder, who I had not heard of before, but have since acquired many of her songs and have started to love, too. This girl can sing! Anyway, Kyle was as talented as I remember (a sample for you in the clip above), even though his set seemed pretty short (only five or six songs), and miss Serena was quite amazing to watch also. There's not much better in life than good live music. My new favourite songs are two of hers called "Weak in the Knees" and "My Heart Cries For You". Here's a clip from one of her encores.

  | ¶ 9:04 p.m.

  best notify my next of kin, this wheel shall explode As you probably know by now, my friend Persuade is from Trinidad. In the years that I've known her, she's mentioned Carnival a few times and I got the idea this was a big deal in her homeland. But she never actually went home for the party, so I didn't hear all that much about it. That is, until this year. While froo and I were soaking up rays in Cancun, Persuade was discovering the wonder of Red Bull in the streets of her hometown(!).

So now I'm all up to speed with the expensive costumes, the joining of a "band", the playing (i.e. dancing) in the streets all day long, the late-night dirty party called J'ouvert (you get covered in paint and such; see Persuade in this shot), and even some of the history of these events, such as the Canboulay Riots.

Carnival was brought to Spanish Trinidad by French planters in the 1770s. The British authorities disapproved of the festival because of its bacchanalian overtones but the festival was popular with the bulk of the free population on the island.

The festival was transformed when the island's slaves were freed in 1834 as a consequence of the passage of the Abolition Act by the British parliament in 1833. The emancipated slaves first celebrated their freedom on August 1, the anniversary of their emancipation but soon participated in Carnival instead.

As part of this transformation, they started carrying burning sugar canes or "cannes brulees" which was soon called canboulay. The carnival soon featured ribald dancing by men and women in masks.

It's been good for Persuade to experience Carnival again. Her life in Trinidad is comprised of a lot of good memories of Carnival, and having put that on a back burner while she's lived in Canada has gnawed at her every year. Check out the rest of her photos here.  | ¶ 7:17 p.m.

  you never believed me when I told you that I was so young only yesterday These guys were roaming around near the beach at Playa del Carmen where froo and I stopped for lunch. I'm glad they didn't stop at our table, though, 'cause it gets tedious having to tip every Mexican who thinks he's doing you a favour. Okay, okay, it was froo doing the tipping (starving student, remember?), but you know what I mean.



When she pans over our food it reminds me of a terrible story she told me about the last time she was in Cancun. After ordering soup and being a delivered a bowl of liquid, froo took a hearty bite of what turned out to be hot sauce. Poor mouth-on-fire froo! I have to admit, though, that story makes me laugh.  | ¶ 3:14 p.m.

  what's simple is true froo and I have posted our trip photos here and here. I will post more videos later, but for now, you can see a cool dolphin-jumping one here.

The trip started out as quite a blur of activity. I was very pressed for time, trying to get my school work done, and not really having time for things like sleeping and laundering. froo had her own issues getting out of Calgary, with a flight that had to turn around over Saskatchewan after one of the plane's engines died. She was forced to spend an entire day in the airport waiting for her re-scheduled flight to Montreal, which was also delayed.

Devin and I had driven to Montreal, I checked into the motel, and we had some time to kill so we found a nice Irish pub near the University of Montreal (a very french part of town). We enjoyed some good pub snacks and pints before heading to the airport to pick up froo. Alas, we were still too early (at 12:45 at night!), and had to wait for another hour before she was due to arrive. We took turns dozing.

Finally, we were settled in for a brief sleep at our motel and Devin was back on the road to Ottawa. Nobody slept much or remembers much of that night or morning... We were shuttled back to the airport in the wee hours, there was some snacking, some haggling with Air Canada ("how do you intend to get back into Canada without a passport?" Jebus, with my other proof of citizenship, mebbe..?), and then I was falling over in my seat half a dozen times before we even took off. We both got a bit of sleep on the flight, thank goodness.

Cancun: HOT and sunny. 32 degrees or so when we landed. Espectacular. Hotel: also fabulous. So big and so many mouths to feed that the buffet had to have a lot of selection. I ate lots of salmon and seafood. They even had a well-equipped gym and I managed to get three workouts in. Gotta maintain the bikini bod!

But the weather didn't remain as great as we would have liked. We had those nice first two days, but then we had cloudy days and some pretty chilly (for Mexico) evenings. After our shopping adventure in the town of Playa del Carmen on Friday, we went out on two organized events on the weekend. On Saturday we took a ride on a catamaran up the coast for some snorkeling and then Sunday was spent at Xel-ha.

We were freezing our bikini-wearing butts off on the catamaran. The whole group was doing their best to bundle up in towels; my strategy was to stay low and avoid the wind, so I sat on the floor, not on the seating provided. We were all so chilly we couldn't imagine voluntarily going into the water by the time we got to the coral reef. But once the boat stopped moving we warmed up and since that was the whole point of the outing, we donned our gear and got in the water. I had some trouble getting the breathing-through-the-mouthpiece figured out, but eventually sorted myself out and enjoyed the sights. It wasn't the most professionally-organized tour I've been on, however, and I think there were lots of people not so pleased with the customer service provided by this rinky-dink operation.

So when we woke up super-early for our 7:30 pick-up for the Xel-ha trip, we were dismayed to see the weather looking a lot like that of the day prior. On this tour, one of the first things your guide does at the park is take you to get snorkeling gear so you avoid the line-ups later in the day, but froo and I opted to risk it and headed off to find something warm and caffeinated to drink. We were pretty sure this day was going to be a write-off given the gusty winds, cloudy skies, and not-so-hot temperature. We found ourselves a quiet spot on the water, put on all the layers we'd brought, and sat down in an attempt to find "inner warmth and outer peace". Eventually the sun peaked out and the day warmed up, so we headed off to participate in some activities. We biked, we floated on tubes down the river, we had a nice lunch (more seafood for me), we watched the dolphins perform, we trekked out to the beach and soaked up the sun, we kayaked on the "Black Lagoon". We did not snorkel, however. It turned out to be a good day indeed.

Monday and Tuesday both started out cloudy but cleared up, so we made the best of it and did some poolside tanning. froo managed to get a little crispy the last day, not realizing the UV rays were getting her pretty good through the clouds.

And that about covers it. It was a relaxing and refreshing getaway in a lovely part of Mexico. And now my head is peeling. That part-line is so hard to protect!  | ¶ 6:26 p.m.

  ..and home again We're back. Stories after I rest up.
  | ¶ 11:49 p.m.

  wait for it, wait for it hola from Playa del Carmen! The forecast was calling for rain today so froo and I decided to hop in a cab and ride down the road to the town for some browsing and site-seeing. It is not actually raining, but it{s a tad cloudy, so it{s a good day to walk around instead of sun-soaking. (I cannot figure out this spanish keyboard, so forgive my lack of apostrophes today.)

The report: our resort is "espectacular" - truly the nicest one either of us has stayed in before. The food is very good, the pools are great, the grounds of the resort are beautiful and sprawling (it{s tiring walking all over, so they have a golf-cart shuttle service). The hotel room has a mini-bar with cold beverages that gets re-filled for free every other day - which is good in Mexico when you can{t drink the tap water. Tomorrow we will take a boat ride to Isla Mujeres.

I will have lots of good pictures and videos to show later, but for now I{m off to continue shopping. These Mexicans are pretty sure they have exactly what I need (mass-produced necklaces and bracelets exactly the same as the last guy{s shop). They seriously think you have money to just throw away here - I want to tell them I{m just a starving student..!  | ¶ 3:53 p.m.

  I've been chasing the life I'm dreaming I may have overestimated my ability to get all this done. I was up late and early getting my assignment done for this morning, but the fatigue and distraction of last-minute packing thoughts have conspired to keep me from focussing on the texts I need to read for my afternoon midterm exam. I suspect that winging it on European Integration issues might be rather challenging, but I'll do my best. Two more hours to try to absorb more material.

Then it's off to Mexico, so you might not hear from me much for the next week, although I anticipate being able to locate some internet at some point. Hasta la playa! ("see you at the beach" ?)  | ¶ 12:36 p.m.

  all at once the crowd begins to sing Yesterday Devin and I bought some used skates from Play It Again Sports and headed out on the Rideau Canal to test our shaky feet. It's impressive how many people get out there on that 7 kilometre stretch - lots and lots of folks. But the city knows how to make it appealing with several places along the route where you can stop and warm yourself by a fire or order a "beaver tail" (fried dough and sugar) and hot chocolate or coffee.

Ottawa can be a very windy town, and lately that means there's a brutal wind chill. Skating on the canal was decent except for some random gusts. It's been years since I've skated, so I didn't want to try anything crazy, but I managed okay other than one hard fall on my right butt and right elbow. Ouch.

Here's a tiny glimpse.

  | ¶ 3:12 p.m.

  I'm no angel, but does that mean that I won't fly I'm a little under the gun right now. I've got my suitcase on the floor and I've made a preliminary packing list for the Cancun trip. I've got texts and research papers spread out beside the bed for my policy assignment due Tuesday. Oh, and I better dig out the readings for my European Integration midterm that is also on Tuesday. froo arrives Tuesday evening, we're driving to Montreal, enjoying a night at an airport motel, and will be up bright and early ("at least three hours prior to departure" - for an 8:40 AM flight) to make the trip to Mexico. I figure I'll just wear my bikini under my clothes to my Tuesday midterm and then I won't have to worry about being ready.  | ¶ 2:21 p.m.

  I will be the sun again I'd been craving Vietnamese food recently - Devin and I haven't scoped out any good restaurants in Ottawa yet - so when Mark suggested Ha Long Bay for lunch on Monday in Calgary, I was pleased. They do a good lunch business there, with about six inches between tables and people solidly jammed in. The number 44 was good to me, and Mark and I had a chance to get caught up. Even though Passport Canada says they don't recognize his "superior qualifications", I suspect he's ahead of the pack. That's why they let him sign the passport applications of even punks like me.

So I won't have my new passport on time for my trip to Cancun next week, but the government website indicates that I don't need one to get into Mexico, so I'll have to go with that. If froo wasn't travelling with me, I could use hers. I just hope they let this pair of dorks into the country!  | ¶ 11:59 p.m.

  sun is in the sky, oh why oh why would I wanna be anywhere else I jogged a total of 42.5 kilometres in the month of January, typically 3.2k per session.  | ¶ 3:43 p.m.

  white lines on your mind, keep it steady I've been reading a book by the author who wrote The Prince of Tides, which was made into one of my favourite films. This book is called Beach Music, and I'm just in awe of how Mister Conroy puts together sentences and paragraphs. For example:

I tried to observe how the low country worked on Leah's imagination. Since she was new to the territory, I wondered if the lowlands would strike the same notes of authentic magic in her as it had in me. I doubted it had the power to refashion a girl who had grown up subject to the fabulous riot and confusion of Rome, but I had not reckoned with Waterford's quiet stamina of insinuation, the muscular allure of spartina and azalea, storax and redbud. The town took you prisoner and never once considered amnesty or early parole. I witnessed the process as Waterford began to lay its delicate fingerprints on Leah, and I hoped it would place its fingers on her heart and not her throat.

That's what I read before bedtime, and it rivets me, because he's a truly great storyteller. During the day, however, I try to engage myself in the thought-provoking works of public policy theorists for my "Canadian Public Policy" class. Here's is an excerpt from that:

The debate about the merits of various network typologies continues, as do problems with operationalizing existing categories of networks. Identifying the type of network in place is often difficult and there is arguably too much discretion left to the analyst in terms of putting a label to a network. Nevertheless, delineating the salient dimensions on which policy communities/networks differ appears necessary if these concepts are to take us beyond a description of different sectoral patterns of interaction across public and private actors to an account of how the latter shape policy developments, including policy change. If policy networks are to serve as an independent variable, they must, after all, vary on some theoretically significant dimensions.

I used to think that policy analysis was a fascinating field, but it's so DRY and abstract that I'm having trouble even getting through a small amount of the readings. Alas, I have an assignment due next week so I'm forced to struggle through it.

Wish me luck as I try to identify the policy community of Stevie's Accountability Act.  | ¶ 11:51 a.m.

  I like to hear you laughing We had a family dinner on Saturday, a combination "Christmas do-over" and Happy Birthday to Ella. Here is a glimpse.



It was a whirlwind trip but it was good to see everybody again - gotta love the Air Canada flight pass. Part of the reason for the big dinner and it being a "do-over" was that froo and I noticed something lacking from our Christmas pics last December. The gay paper hats that are part of our family tradition were missing! Mom forgot them and nobody even noticed, so we declared that a new turkey had to be cooked and we would get it right this time.

Well, you might say that we didn't quite get it right. The hats were left to the last minute, and really, who's selling Christmas paraphernalia in February anyway? So they were MIA yet again, but Caia (the family artist) and Mom settled in with some tin foil and fancy jewels and proceeded to make everybody a beautiful Christmas crown. You can see all of use wearing them in my pics and in this video.



We're good cooks in this family so dinner was fabulous yet again. Keri made some awesome pie, and of course there was chocolate cake for the birthday girl. Mashed potatoes, turkey, cranberry stuffing, potatoes and turnips, broccoli, gravy, cheese sauce - all the requisite elements were perfect.  | ¶ 5:45 p.m.

  put my head in your lap, the world will go away I made a mistake this morning. When Devin dropped me at the airport I was stressed 'cause I was cutting it close to my departure time, and I accidentally grabbed both sets of apartment keys from the car. Imagine my distress when I discover this only as I'm about to clear the security line and don't really have time to turn around and deposit the keys with some airport official. Luckily it all worked out in the end, but Devin had a bit of a stressful morning himself before finally retrieving his keys. And I had a helpless feeling all through my four-hour flight. Eep.

In happier news, I got to meet the super-cute kittie Shiny today. When froo came to pick me up from the airport in Calgary she brought her new companion, who maybe wasn't quite as excited about the outing as we would have liked (i.e. she was pretty scared by all the noise). It was fun to hang out with a tiny fuzzy kitten though - she's quite adorable in all her baby-ness.  | ¶ 11:57 p.m.

  I think she's a genius Shiny's so tiny, she can probably take a bath in her bowl!
  | ¶ 12:22 p.m.

  so much more to know, so much more to go I've been watching the the TV series "The L Word" recently - all three and a half seasons. I just got so caught up in the characters and stories that it felt like an unfinished movie just waiting to be watched. If you haven't heard of this show, it's probably because it's not quite of the liberal mainstream variety. It's a solid show with amazing writing and characters, but it's about a group of lesbian women friends and the people in their lives. It's set in West Hollywood but filmed mostly in Vancouver, and is on the Showtime network (ironically that page is not viewable unless you're in the U.S.). Also, it stars some recognizable actors like Jennifer Beals (she was the star of Flashdance, one of my father's favourite movies, way back in the day), and now, in its fourth season, it's attracing guest stars such as Cybill Shepherd and Marlee Maitlin.

So if you're religious and/or conservative and/or not a fan of the gay lifestyle, this show is obviously not for you, but personally I find it to be not just a fascinating glimpse into a unique sub-culture of society, but just a really honest show about people and relationships. The show has apparently generated huge buzz and critical acclaim - this piece of trivia gives you an idea how much of an impression it has made: The show was renewed for a second season one day after the pilot episode aired and it was renewed for a third season before the second season even began airing.

It tackles issues not only surrounding sexual orientation, but gender identity, breast cancer, ugly break-ups and forgiveness, parental relationships, child-rearing, art and censorship, literary struggles, and mostly friendship. There are men in the show (and not everybody is gay), so it's not anti-male. I have noticed, too, that they've toned down some of the nudity and sexual content in recent episodes - I can only guess that it's because they're getting so much attention they want to make the show accessible to a wider audience.

This show is definitely not for my parents.  | ¶ 11:25 a.m.

  yet still you get my attention I have an interview this afternoon for a one-month temp job. I find it a little amusing that they're interviewing multiple candidates for the position, given that it's such a fixed, short term, and that it's basically a junior administrative position. Oh, and I'm supposed wear a full suit. The client has a clear corporate culture and has a specific type of candidate in mind for the position. Jeebus. Should be interesting.

In other news, the woman who made the request to get my government clearance done must have clicked the wrong button. There are different levels of clearance, but "Secret Two" is very high up there, and unless the government is expecting me to run the country or wants to send me on missions of international espionage, I can't imagine why they'd want me to complete such an in-depth background check. I was a little stunned when the online form started asking me for the names, current addresses and places of employment of all my immediate relatives, including "half" and "step" relations. For an only child this might not be such a momentous task, but for me, that means documenting the details for ELEVEN other people. Yikes. (Don't worry, family, I haven't given the government your information.)

I really don't feel like jogging right now. But I will. Argh.  | ¶ 9:41 a.m.