Eliza was SO excited — she’d been waiting for this day for more than five years: we went shopping together!
2003
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Shopping With Eliza
December 19, 2003 by Gail
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The Beautifuls
December 18, 2003 by Gail
curls by ConairThe Beautifuls [*see this post for some background info*] — Sergio, Eliza, Kristin, and myself — gathered at Eliza’s after we ate our fill at Bistro Sakana. There we joined the other Beautifuls — Eliza’s cats Ebi and Tako — and I proceeded to try out a set of hot rollers I just bought at Shoppers Drug Mart. I haven’t bought hair products like this since I was a teenager, but I thought I would try and do something a bit different this year with my hair. Sergio made me do this shameless product promotion! Whaddya think this is, the Price is Right??
Beautiful Ebi
Eliza the pr0n starMeanwhile, Eliza tried on Kristin’s wig and Serg watched TV. A nice relaxing evening with friends…
Posted in Friends, Gail at Large | 1 Comment
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Time to End the Film-Watching Drought
December 16, 2003 by Gail
Saw Les Invasions barbares, or The Barbarian Invasions by Quebec filmmaker Denys Arcand. It is apparently a sequel to his 1986 piece, Le Declin de l’empire americain, or Decline of the American Empire, which I haven’t seen but will now.
I wasn’t blown away by the film, but its depiction of the last days of a dying man is much more palatable than anything you’ll get from Hollywood. I’m not sure what I was expecting, maybe darker themes and shocking revelations (a la Celebration), but I certainly wasn’t expecting it to be as funny as it was… the son, played by Stéphane Rousseau, reminded me so much of Guy Pierce. I was surprised to see Mitsou Gelinas in it, too — remember her piece of fluff pop song “Bye Bye Mon Cowboy” from the 80′s??? Unless you’re Canadian and at least in your late 20′s, you won’t have a clue who I’m talking about.
My favourite character in Invasions was easily Marie-Josee Croze, who won a Best Actress Award at Cannes for her portrayal of the junkie daughter of one of Remy’s mistresses. Marie-Josee Croze left an imprint on me as the main character in the 2000 film Maelstrom.
Posted in Reel + Screen, Videoclips | 1 Comment
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Day of the Cursed Speech
December 16, 2003 by Gail
Talk about an exercise in frustration. It was as if all the technical glitches at work started at the stroke of midnight, as the weekend morphed into the week again! Isn’t there a Murphy’s Law for that??
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Sunday: No Rest for the Wicked
December 15, 2003 by Gail
Look what Sergio made us for Christmas! Matching “Suck Me Beautiful” T-shirts!
OK, I really should explain the story behind this… it goes back exactly four years, when Sergio was still living in Vancouver and working at the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel front desk. It was Saturday afternoon, and Sergio had four hours off, so he booked one of the hotel rooms and invited Eliza and me over for a matinee and some afternoon imbibing, since there were leftovers from a Christmas party in the hotel. (I dug up the photo from that afternoon’s silliness.)Sergio thought he’d requested the film American Beauty in the hotel room, but instead we ended up with American Pie. If you’ve either seen or even heard of them, you’ll know they are completely different movies!! We ended up watching all of American Pie because it was so over-the-top dumb, and there was one line in it that really cracked us up: Chris Klein wooing college girl Tara Reid with the fine line, “Suck me, beautiful…”, to which she bursts out laughing. Anyway, that line stuck with us and became our regular greeting to each other, which got us a lot of weird looks as you can imagine.
Fast forward a few months to March 2000 in Portland. Sergio, Eliza and I drove down there one crazy weekend, and on the way to the airport we’d picked up this guy who was sitting on a bench at the bus stop with a snowboard. I was driving my Volvo wagon, so we offered him a lift to the train station. He got in, thanked us, and said, “Hey, you guys are beautiful!” To which we turned and looked at each other, and said, “We know…” Maybe someone even said, “How did you guess?” — he must’ve thought we were all either extremely egotistical or just weird.Fast forward again a few months to the summer of 2000. I was walking north on Burrard Street towards Robson, and on the sidewalk in front of the Sutton Place Hotel was Chris Klein, signing autographs! I thought, “What a coincidence! Here’s the original ‘Suck Me Beautiful’ guy!” I was really tempted to speak to him, but what to say? “Oh, I thought I’d introduce myself to you since you started something that is now out of control”?? So, while I was considering what to do, I walked behind him as he walked to the corner of Burrard and Robson. The light was changing, and I was only a few inches away from him… hmmmm…. we crossed Burrard and it occurred to me that he must be SO SICK of that whole “Suck Me Beautiful” thing… after all, he didn’t write it, he just uttered it in a movie. So what did I do? I just called Eliza to tell her that I was a couple of inches away from Mr. Suck Me Beautiful himself, and I didn’t say it!! Eliza, who was in IKEA with her aunt, couldn’t believe it!
So, anyway, that’s the story behind the t-shirts. Not exactly a short tale, but a real conversation-starter, that’s for sure. Serg, who is in town visiting from Ottawa for Christmas, presented us with the t-shirts as we were having dim sum at Kirin in City Square, and people gave us odd looks as we held up our t-shirts for the photo-op.
Vancouver Aquarium
After dim sum, Sergio and I went to the Vancouver Aquarium to find Nemo. Or at least Allan, Michael and Madeleine. I was surprised to find out it was Sergio’s first time to the Aquarium!
Nemo?
We did find Nemo, as you can see. I haven’t seen the film, but Alvin bought it for the kids, so they’ve seen it a thousand times already and I can watch it with them whenever. At the Aquarium they had clownfish in the kids’ area and did little educational puppet shows and such, which Michael had plenty of attention span for, but not Maddy. Allan had to run around after her, while Michael was enraptured.
Sergio and I were supposed to meet Eliza and Kristin at Bistro Sakana, but it was closed, so we ended up at Samurai instead. There, we met up with Matt, a Global Freeloader from Australia who got in touch with me months ago to mention that he would be in Vancouver to attend his best mate’s wedding up at Whistler. He was spending a few months in the area, so I suggested that we meet up first and see how things go. I think he got more than he bargained for in meeting the three of us instead of just me! We headed over to my place so he could check things out himself, and Eliza could get some ferry tickets and sign the company Christmas cards. On the way back up the hill on Thurlow Street, we saw something rather bizarre in a window of a condo:
Wha?This looks, yes, like a mannequin with a sort of Santa suit! That, with the flamingoes in the foreground, made for an odd photo.
(top) This martini is called “Curious George” and of course has creme des bananes in it.
(bottom) Matt and Sergio looking romantic! Ha!It’s Matt’s first week in Vancouver — his first week ever outside of his own country — and he’s already got a ton of stories about things that have happened to him! He’s staying with a guy on Nicola Street who just happens to know everyone in the entire city, so that has a lot to do with it. Matt never had a martini before, so when we were informed that on Sunday at Jupiters all martinis were $5, we were like kids in the candy shop.
Needless to say, a late night for Sergio and me…
Posted in Food + Drink, Friends, The Ms | 1 Comment
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Saturday: Trying to Wind Down
December 14, 2003 by Gail
Woke up looking like hell [must've been the combination of red wine, copious amounts of Ghirardelli chocolate, then a bag of salt and vinegar Ruffles potato chips], but otherwise a pleasant day… I think it was the chips that took us over the edge. We’re getting old! ha!
Finally saw the Billy Wilder movie The Apartment (1960) on DVD with Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine. Hilarious. Wish movies were more like this nowadays. Jack Lemmon’s great, I was quite sad when he passed, also Walter Matthau.
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Friday: The End of a Mind-Bender of a Week
December 13, 2003 by Gail
Tough, tough day at the hospital. I won’t even get into it here… every time I try to describe the afternoon, I get worked up.
he’s trying to psyche me out
“I beat Gail! I beat Gail!”
Then I got beaten at Scrabble by Adrian! It took him more than a year and a half, but he finally did it. He didn’t do a “happy dance” (as he calls it), but he did ring a friend at 2 o’clock in the morning when we finished our Scrabble game, to spread the news that he did actually beat me. 6 measly points! But Adrian was ahead the whole game from the first word, so if I’d pulled past him with his victory in sight, he would’ve been pretty choked… I don’t know when the “rematch” will be, since he moved to Toronto a few months ago, and visits back here are short.Posted in Friends | No Comments
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Exams are Over!
December 11, 2003 by Gail
Yesterday:
Felt totally inhuman yesterday. Too many all-nighters. I’m over 30 now, so maybe I shouldn’t be expecting my body to handle this kind of schedule without a lot of resistance. [It's not like I'm trying to make some kind of Guinness World Book record... I'm not doing this because I want to!] Fell asleep on the floor last night trying to speed-read. But, I managed to write the psych exam yesterday along with Kinesiology students at noon, got it over with, and felt some relief riding home.
Got call from Cheryl that her appointment at BC Women’s was finished, so I phoned CAN while I was on transit to see if I could locate a car anywhere close by. It was already 3pm, and rush hour traffic had begun. Cars available for the rest of the evening were hard to come by, but the guy did manage to find a brand-new car at Cambie & 17th, not too far away from BC Women’s Hospital, so I got off the bus to see if I could catch a Cambie Street bus…
Eliza phoned me at the same time to mention the BC Ferries were on full (illegal) strike, because we were supposed to go to the office today. Fortunately (for me) the strike was on, so I didn’t have to go in. Eliza was near downtown, so she kindly gave me a lift to the CAN car, and I hopped in and drove to the hospital to pick up Cheryl, who accompanied me to Surrey Memorial Hospital to see my mum. She was heavily sedated, but I tried to impress upon her how important this meeting is with the lawyer tomorrow.
After taking Cheryl home, Allan arrived soon after, so we fed the kids and I sent them off for a quick errand while I bathed the kiddies. This girl named Tammy showed up at the door, and I very nearly didn’t recognize her… we went to the same high school. Apparently she’s helping them do laundry… I invited her to stick around until they came back. Told her the good news — that Cheryl had a very positive set of results from the ultrasound, and if her appointment on Dec 24 goes well, she won’t have to be admitted to hospital until maybe January. Which is great news since being confined to hospital in Vancouver meant she wouldn’t be able to see Allan or the kids until the weekends. The only person living anywhere near BC Women’s Hospital is me, and I told Cheryl she would be totally sick of seeing me after the first month!
Both babies are alive and growing, and exceeding the expectations of the doctors at BCWH. The twins are already named: Meagan Joy and Maribeth (Mary-Beth?) Jolie. This is in keeping with the initials of the other three kids: Melissa Jean, Michael James, and Madeleine Jane. [Eliza thinks since I'm the hands-on auntie that I should have a namesake, too! I told her my chances would be better if my name started with the letter M.]
Today:
Today I spoke to another lawyer (a longtime friend of my “new cousin-in-law” Mike) who gave me some free counsel on my current situation. I was, just before, speaking to the lawyer I retained on my mother’s behalf, and he’d asked me to contact the ICBC rep who told me about the witnesses… at that time, I’d only been able to leave a voicemail, but she did phone back this afternoon, and we had a lengthy conversation… there was no tone of hostility, and I never mentioned lawyers or gave her the impression anyone but myself was dealing with the claim, but I did ask her a lot of questions to which she was reticent to answer. I figured that might happen. The Insurance Corporation of BC is, at bottom, an insurance company whose mandate is NOT to pay you unless they absolutely have to. My lawyer says he’s been working on ICBC cases for 20 years, and I could tell from the tone in his voice how he felt about them.
This is all getting increasingly complicated, and from time to time I feel like I’m getting in over my head. But as they say, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger… it’s been a rather steep learning curve, since I’ve never been injured or in a collision with another car (I’ve only hit deer and barriers on the I-5 during snowstorms!), so my knowledge of hospitals and lawyers and government benefits and insurance companies and other red-tape systems has suddenly climbed exponentially. If I ever get into an accident, I will be MUCH more prepared than I was before I embarked on any of this.
A little advice for anyone reading this post:
Make sure you fill out the Emergency Contacts section of your daytimer or anything else you carry around with you. If you live alone, this is especially important (yeah, this includes me), and it shouldn’t be a person who is likely to be in a vehicle with you… No one will know you’ve been in accident until you are missed from work or an appointment. If it’s the weekend, it may be a long time before your situation is made known to the people important to you.
Posted in Family, Student Life | 1 Comment
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Sometimes Things Get Worse Before They Get Better
December 9, 2003 by Gail
Or, at least that’s what I’m telling myself right now. Wrote another exam today, and was pressed for time as I was so busy studying on the Skytrain that I missed my connecting station and ended up going all the way around the Millennium Line Loop to SFU via Coquitlam. I wrote my CMS exam along with SA316, and the exam supervisor told me I couldn’t have the full two hours. I was speedwriting.
Got home and was feeling a bit better as the law firm called to say that they would like to schedule a meeting for Friday. I have to meet them at the hospital at 2pm. Moments later I got a call from ICBC, saying that they have two witnesses who report that my mother ran the red light. I’m still in a bit of shock right now. This changes everything.
I am just inches away from buying a plane ticket to some unknown destination right now… I want to boycott Christmas altogether… if even the tacky ubiquitous Christmas muzak can’t make me feel like it’s the Christmas season, I might as well be somewhere else with Buddhists and other non-believers.
Posted in Family, Student Life | No Comments
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One Exam Down, Two to Go
December 9, 2003 by Gail
Pulled another all-nighter — surprise surprise — and wrote the Sociology exam this morning. Had an hour’s kip before fetching the co-op car at 7:30am. This is my fourth co-op vehicle and so far it’s my favourite: 2003 Toyota Hybrid Prius. It’s a bit different to drive, but not in a bad way, just a little different from driving a regular car. The best thing about it is that when it’s running on electricity, which it does around the city and up hills, it’s totally quiet. I love it. The only thing, you have to make sure the pedestrians know you’re there, because they can’t hear the engine.
After the exam, I picked up voicemail and returned a call from the law firm I contacted on Saturday. I told Kirk I would fax him details about the accident and any pertinent information, so I should hear back from him tomorrow. I feel ready to hand over the whole situation to a lawyer, I’ve done all that I can do.
Posted in Chez Gail (Vancouver), Family, Student Life | 2 Comments
