Alright... I had made a point of avoiding this news story, because I knew it would aggravate me, but it seems as though it has become unavoidable for me.   

Here goes: 

Raise your hand if you've heard about the "kid" who got mauled to death by a tiger at the San Francisco Zoo.  They're writing newspaper articles about this in China for god's sakes, of course you've heard about it.

Okay, some things have got to be said about this.  

What happened was tragic, but I can't believe people think that this comes as any surprise.  Three men all over the age of 16, two able to vote, one old enough to drink, decided it would be a fun idea to dangle their legs over the fence that separates humans from the tigers (for a very good reason I might add).  Surprise of all surprises, the tiger didn't care for dinner being dangled in front of her so tauntingly and decided that enough was enough; she was hungry!  

I'm not in any way shape or form saying that the men deserved to be attacked, and one subsequently die, because of their actions- but the fact of the matter is, actions have consequences.  It's basic physics.  Action equals reaction.  Tigers are carnivorous, humans are made of meat.  This is why there are 12 1/2 foot high walls and thirty foot long moats separating meat (us) from meat eating animals (tigers).  

The tigers was fulfilling her biological imperative, and because three people decided to be jerks, she's now dead and a young man's life was so very tragically taken from him on a day when he should have been surrounded by family and love. 

I've been wanting to write a blog entry going on about how great it was to see my friend Warren Flandez last night, and just go on and on about how talented and brilliant he is as a performer and how great he is as a friend.  I wanted to write about how on the band, backup singers, and dancers were.  I wanted to be able to write a review in such a way that you, the reader, would be able to visualize the show as though you were there yourself.  

I can't.  

Everything I've come up with so far totally falls short.  

Warren and his band put on a great show.  There were so many times when I would just close my eyes and take it all in.  Yeah I know it seems a little cheesy and a lot fan girly, but I'm telling you, this kid's got it.  He sings with such soul and passion that it hits you in the heart.  

He has this ballad "You Were My Life" that yanks on your heart strings.  He wrote it in honour of his recently deceased grandmother, and knowing that now, and seeing him sing it live last night made me wish that I had known him back then so that maybe I would have had a chance to meet her.  He sounds pained and angry that God dared to take his grandmother away, begging heaven to just wait one more day. 

He sang a duet with Jena Fair titled "So Ungrateful" (I think) that I'm hoping and praying is going to be on his upcoming album, Mayfield Park as it is one of the best duets I've heard in many years. 

Often it seemed as though I was watching Brian McKnight, Luther Vandross, Babyface or Al Green.  He's able to honour all the legends in such a dignified way; not by copying their style, but by admiring their individual greatness and drawing his own strengths from their influence.  

As I write this I'm getting frustrated because I know I'm not doing Warren, his band or their songs justice.  I honestly don't think anyone will get it until they hear the songs and watch Warren live.  I didn't even fully get it until last night, and I was already a big fan to begin with.  

Go to his website, listen to some of his songs, and when he comes your way to do a show, go see it- I promise you, you won't be let down.  


PS:  His crew rocked too! 

(Mind the fuzziness, it was a camera phone)

 

So Cow and I took The Boy out to his first ever hockey game.  We also had my sister come with, which was pretty sweet as it was her first ever game too.  We had suite tickets, yaaay catered game!  
It was rather awesome, all of Cow's female coworkers that were there gushed over The Boy the whole time- allowing Cow, Sister and I ample opportunity to watch the sweetness on the ice.  I was hoping to get The Boy a little baby jersey, but that stuff's $115 yo!  He can buy one himself when he's older.  I'll get him a car seat instead.  Sure he won't be fashionable, but he'll be, you know, alive.

Also, on the way to the game, someone referred to The Boy's stroller as the "man pram".  I think I shall use this term from here on out.  
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Planning on doig mega baking for xmas.  More on that later.

Yesterday I was watching The Hour- a show on CBC that I really enjoy and don't often have an opportunity to watch what with the Daily Show and Colbert Report being aired at the same time- as one of my favourite performers was a guest that night.   It was so interesting to see him as he is now when the last time I saw him in the public eye he was about 50 lbs lighter and looked like he was carrying a lot of disdain for the world.  He now looks like a grown man who is happy and comfortable with himself.  

After the initial shock (okay, the shock lasted a good hour or two), I realized that I was really happy to see how he is now.  I know that I don't know this person outside of his music really, or have any sort of emotional investment in his own happiness, but it was still nice to see.  It's like when you're in highschool and you have this peripheral knowledge of a classmate of yours who was always a bit of a loser, but almost everyone around him knew the awesome potential he possessed but hadn't yet tapped into.  Then you come back to school for your 10 year reunion, and see that he's now running some Fortune 500 company, and you just can't help but feel some sense of pride, even though you really had nothing to do with his success.  Does that make sense at all?   That's sort of how I feel right now.  

Seeing him on the show prompted me to check out his blog where I discovered that, lo!  He's on Facebook!  Did I just think "Oh that's cool" and leave it at that?  Hell's no I didn't!   I did what any self respecting fan girl would do and added him to my friends list and then sent him a message gushing over his awesometasticalness.  

That's right.  I rock.. and so does he.

 

Okay, so I've been wanting to rage about this for a few days now.  

When you are an able bodied person (READ: there's nothing physically preventing you from performing basic tasks like walking up a flight of stairs) waiting for an elevator and you see a person who is also waiting for the same exact elevator who is in a wheelchair, has walking aids like a cane or crutches, is elderly,  or is pushing a stroller what is your first instinct?  

If your first instinct is "I'd better get on that elevator fast before the people who are actually in need of the elevator get on!" then you fail at life.  

The reason I say this is because one day, not too long ago, after a long day of already being pretty pissed off about a few other unrelated issues I encountered several failures at life.  I'm standing amongst a throng of people waiting for one of the smallest, stinkiest elevators put on God's (not so) green Earth when I observe that in front of me is a gentleman in a motorized wheelchair, and behind me is an elderly woman with a walker.   All around us were several 20something year old gidgets ALSO waiting for the elevator.  When the doors open and the elevator clears, these gidgets enter en masse.  One cut off the person in the wheelchair, and the rest left no room for either myself (pushing my kid around in his stroller) or the woman behind me with the walker.  Incredulously, I watch as the doors slide closed but not before I was snapped out of my shock, and stuck my hand out, preventing the door from closing all the way.  

"NO!" I shout.  "Why don't every single one of you who don't actually need the elevator get out right now, and allow room for the woman with the walker who actually needs the elevator.  There's not a single thing preventing you from actually walking up the stairs, so hop to it!"   Somewhere behind me, a sufficiently contrite gentleman cries out, "She's right!  I don't know about the rest of you lazy asses, but I'm taking the stairs."  

Everyone trudges out of the elevator thus allowing the opportunity for the woman with the walker to get in.  There was no room for me at this juncture, but I was fine with waiting (I wasn't done giving a couple of people the stink eye who just went back into the elevator lineup).  Social justice prevails. 

Why am I making such a deal about this  elevator?  Why am I not going to another elevator?  Well, it so happens that this is the only way for those of us who don't have the ability to walk up the stairs for whatever reason to get to the SkyTrain (a monorail of sorts if you will) platform.  For me, this is the easiest way to get home from that particular location.  Were I not impeded by the stroller, I would have taken the several other options available to anyone else to get on the train platform, but this was not the case.  Not only that, there are always signs that clearly state something along the lines of "give priority to seniors or persons with disabilities" and I'm just sick to death of people who don't take the time to pay attention to these sorts of signs.  

Bah.

So everyone's hardcore into this blogging thing.. maybe it's time I join the club (at least for today) and do a blog as well. I got nothing better to do at work right now. I mean, it's not like they actually EXPECT me to work today :P

Since deciding to move back to Vancouver, everything seems to be falling into place so very nicely. I haven't had any serious moments of depression, I'm working at two jobs that I totally love, I'm touching base with a lot of old friends, and making a lot of new ones, spending lots of time with my family, developing my relationship with Jeff, who's awesome; it's all great. With the expection of missing my friends/family in Cache Creek/Ashcroft, and most of all missing Lu, nothing could be better. So why am I not content?

Because it's all seeming too easy. Yes, last year was rather tumultuous, with the accident, Jordan, and not working; perhaps the gods have decided that I'm due for a good year. So far though, it's the best year I've had (sure it's not all coming up roses).  

Basically, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.  

I wonder if perhaps the shoe is starting to slip a bit today.

Yesterday, Ingo called to say hi to my mom and me.   Ordinarily it would barely register on my radar.  However, it was a local call.  Mass panic ensued.  Called my mom, she boogied on home ASAP, we got Louis and the police on the phone, the former ready to come pick me up and hide me at his place or at a family friend's house, the latter working on tracking the number.  Save for the accident, I don't recall ever being so terrified.  I felt absolutely paralyzed.  It's an experience I don't care to ever repeat.  Once Mom got home, she decided the best thing to do right off the bat is determine where he is, so she called his number.  Sure enough, he answers.  Turns out his called was just routed through to a Vancouver land line.  My god was that scary!!!  I felt so out of sorts all night after that.  Kept myself super busy at Haedy's wedding.  People thought I was just being really nice and helpful, but I couldn't tell them that I needed to keep moving.  

So while all that was happening, Jeff was online with me.  After a while, I couldn't keep up the conversation anymore, and had to leave rather abruptly, and didn't get a chance to come back online afterwards to let him know what was going on.  He, naturally quite concerned, sends my mom an email (not knowing if they did in fact wind up stashing me somewhere else) asking her what was going on, and expressed his love and concern for myself and for my family.  My mom responds with a brief email letting him know that everything's ok, and thanking him for his concern.  He somehow manages to find fault in how she responded, and was all emo-boy when I was chatting with him during my lunch hour.  After a while I'd had enough, because, quite frankly he ruined my lunch.  I told him to stop copping an attitude with me, and if he really was upset with my mother about her response, that he should talk to my mother about it, rather than getting all pissy with me.  Jeff apologized profusely, but that's pretty much where it's been left.

This is perhaps the first time I've had serious doubts about my relationship with Jeff, and I don't really know how I feel about this.  If it were anyone else, I'd just say "fuck this" and be out of there, however, it's Jeff.  I love him so much, and I want to have a life with him; I'm not ready to call it quits just yet, but yeah, I'm concerned.  I'm currently attempting to draft an email to send to him letting him know that I want to work this out, but that I'm having some serious concerns.  

So once again, I'm at a loss.. am I wrong to see parallels between he and my father?  Or will I be seeing parallels with all men I get involved with?

birthday June 23rd

EVENTS

1812 - War of 1812: Great Britain had revoked the restrictions on American commerce, thus eliminating one of the chief reasons for going to war.

1972 - Watergate Scandal: U.S. President Richard M. Nixon and White House chief of staff H. R. Haldeman are taped talking about using the Central Intelligence Agency to obstruct the Federal Bureau of Investigation's investigation into the Watergate break-ins.

1991 - Sonic the Hedgehog, one of the most popular video game characters in history, makes his debut in his self-titled video game.


BIRTHS

1957 - Frances McDormand, American actress


1964 - Jos Wedon, American producer, director, and screenwriter

DEATH

79 - Vespasian, roman Emporer




DUDE!!! SONIC!!!

i have no idea what's going on.. what i'm supposed to do.. or how i'm supposed to do it.