And everything will work out fine.

I’ve always described myself as a very visual person. But this morning, while peeling a clementine, I realized that I’m really a tactile person.

And really, how could I have been so in the dark about my tactile tendencies?

I touch everything when I’m shopping. When I was a kid I used to drive my mom crazy touching all the clothing in stores, especially silk and satin (fabrics which really gross out my mom for some reason). I’m still the same today. Chris and I’ll be walking along in the mall when suddenly he realizes he’s walking alone. Then he’ll usually hear a high-pitched “Ooooo!” sound behind him, just to turn around and find me petting old-lady clothes. True stories.

I also get a really strange sense of satisfaction out of peeling things. Many different things. Some aren’t so bad – like clementines. I like it when a clementine is so easy to peel that you’re able to remove its whole peel in one piece or motion. Ahh… life’s little pleasures. Another category of things I like peeling are protective stickers. You know, like the ones that come on your new cell phone’s screen or on mirrors when you buy them. I love those. I die inside every time someone peels one off in front of me. I could never deliberately buy a screen protector for any of my gadgets because I just want to peel them off. Just last week, Chris had to reprimand me for peeling the protective coating off the PayPass machine at the Time Hortons down the road from our house. Well if you think I have issues now, wait ’til you hear about the other thing I like to pick: scabs. Yup, I’m a scab picker. Not only do I compulsively peel my own scabs, I am also completely willing to pick the scabs of others. Needless to say this has lead to many simple lesions such a mosquito bites to get blown out of proportions and lead to permanent scarring (is that redundant?) when really, if I had just shown some scab-picking restraint, it wouldn’t have left a scar. I’m pretty gross.

I wonder if there is a philia associated with my extreme tactile tendencies? My google-fu is failing me.

I think I have it.

Do you remember in elementary and middle school, those kids whose moms would bake cupcakes for Hallowe’en, Valentine’s Day, Easter, and whatever other holiday was deemed important in your community (or by the kid in question’s mom)? Well my mom was one of those moms. For me it just wasn’t Hallowe’en in elementary school unless the whole class sat together in a circle on the classroom floor in their costumes made of aluminum paper-covered boxes or bought at K-Mart and ate a huge container of crafty cupcakes that my my mom had brought in. Then all my classmates would come up to me and say how good of a baker my mom was and how lucky I was.

For me, it all started in grade 12 when I decided that I was going to bake and decorate sugar cookies as Xmas presents to my high school friends. From that day on, time (like last Xmas when there was just no time for my sugar cookie-making ritual), money (I was pretty broke at certain points of my university career) and oven access (all I had was a toaster oven in residence in 2002) permitting, I’ve always baked cookies and made cupcakes for special occasions. I don’t know why I do it. To me it’s not really an option – it’s just kind of what I do. Although I’m starting to think that it’s something I caught from my mom.

So as I finish up this blog post because my Valentine’s Day 2009 cupcakes should be about cooled enough to frost and decorate by now, I will leave you with some pictures of some of my creations for the past few years. Here’s to hoping that one of your coworkers has the holiday baking gene too! Happy Valentine’s Day!

Starting this week, Chris and I are members of the gym in my work complex. We’ve both been so busy in the last three months that we didn’t really get a chance to exercise all that much, and as a result of that our pants are incredibly tight. Since we can’t really afford new pants and don’t really want these extra uninvited love handles to stick around – we both signed up. After all, it’s not like we couldn’t afford the $10 a month fee. If you think about it, it’s cheaper than buying new pants. Heh.

I’m going to be starting to run again since my ankle is pretty much fully functional again from last May’s pothole of death ankle-spraining incident. Just to make sure I don’t overdo it, I’ll be starting Cool Running’ Couch-to-5K program from the beginning again. I’m a little paranoid when it comes to running and cardiovascular activity in general because I have a heart murmur. So I figure it’s just safer to start slow and work my way up at a gradual pace. I did the Couch-to-5K thing when I started running last March and it worked well for me. By starting it this week, I should be good to run a full 5K around mid-April. By then hopefully I’ll be able to run outside – which is what I really enjoy.

The gym also has various other instruments of torture such as a rowing machine, elliptical trainers and all sorts of scary weight machines. I might venture off the treadmill and try some of them eventually. Have any of you ever used any good training programs for any of those machines? I’d like to try them, especially the weight machines, but I really don’t know where to start.

The gym doesn’t seem to be that busy at all. Chris and I will mostly be going at night and on weekends and I think most of the other members go during the day or immediately after work. There’s a big user-controlled sound system in the gym which we have full control over when we’re there alone. I want to start burning CDs of non-sucking workout music. The only really good non-sucking workout song I know is The New Workout Plan by Kanye West (how à propos) and the only band I can think of right now that might be a possible candidate is MGMT. I really need suggestions on good workout music. Please fire them away! The only condition I have is no Ace of Base-type stuff.

See you at the gym!

Oh hi, it’s so nice of me to join you. Seriously, though, hi, and yes, I’m still alive and well. I blame my prolonged blogging absence on: last few weeks at my old job/packing/moving/unpacking/getting settled in a new city/starting my new job/the holidays/still unpacking… and the list could go on and on. But I’m just making excuses. I’m a bad blogger – that’s all.

Chris and I are still getting settled in our new life in Fredericton. Things are going well. Kind of slow, but well. I’m very neutral about Fredericton as a city so far. I don’t love it – I don’t hate it. I like it fine. I’m finding that I like it more and more with every week that passes by, so I suppose that’s a good thing. It’s probably because with every week that passes, we are also staring to do more “normal people things”, you know, like grocery shopping and going out as opposed to staying in, unpacking and cleaning.

Well I would hate to bore you with the minute details of the last few months of my life – so for the sake of brevity, let me give you a summary of December and January complete with visual aids.

End of November/Early December – Holy bejesus we’re moving!
This is pretty much just one giant blur in my mind. Things started getting finalized for my deployment to my new job, I went down to Fredericton for three days to visit my new workplace and look at some apartments, we let go of our place in Ottawa, started packing, started telling everybody about our move… Basically I got very little sleep and stressed a whole lot. We also started not buying anymore fresh food and surviving solely on leftovers and mystery cupboard food. That’s never a good thing.

Some pictures:

Some tidbits from Twitter:
“we’re moving so we need to get rid of all our food” shitty meal #37: shake and bake mystery freezer chicken with rice and broccoli 8:36 PM Nov 27th, 2008
project management as applied to moving our asses across the country: not so fun, ackshully. 11:49 AM Dec 2nd, 2008
just opened my own NB Power account. I feel all East Coaster-like. 2:10 PM Dec 4th, 2008

Mid-December – Goodbye Ottawa – cram our lives in a UHaul truck – Hello Fredericton
This part was definitely the hardest. Especially the “Goodbye Ottawa” part (and because of that I don’t know how to make my summary brief). Despite what some of you might think, we did not leave Ottawa because we didn’t like it there. In fact, I loved living Ottawa and still miss it very much every day. The last few days at my old job were tough. I miss my Ottawa coworkers everyday still. On our last Thursday in Ottawa Chris and I had a going-away supper/drinks at the Clocktower Brew Pub in the Glebe. So many of our friends came out – they braved the cold, the traffic and the bus strike to come say goodbye and it was so heartwarming. I’m still very emotional about it all as I’m writing this over a month later. The following three days were spent as follows: Friday was my last day at work, after work we picked up the UHaul. Saturday we finished packing our boxes and packed the truck late into the night. I can’t go any further without giving another huge thanks to our friends Josh and Jen for helping us pack the truck and countless boxes of miscellaneous junk on our last day in Ottawa – we would have been so screwed without them. Chris’ dad flew up to Ottawa on Saturday to help us drive the UHaul down to New Brunswick on Sunday. Sunday morning we left Ottawa and got to our new home in Fredericton late into the evening. We ate Greco and passed out. On Monday we got the keys to our new house and met up with my parents who helped us unload the truck (unloading is so much easier than packing!). They took us shopping and bought Chris and I our Xmas present – a washer, a dryer and a new mattress for our bed. Good times! The parents left that evening and Chris and I were left alone in our new mess in our new house in our new city in our new province.

Some pictures:

Some tidbits from Twitter:
going away party tonight with our friends. So sad to be leaving the last 6 years of our lives behind. I’m going to miss everyone so much :( 6:32 PM Dec 11th, 2008
packing: the final frontier. OMG moving in December sucks, guys. 8:22 PM Dec 12th, 2008
goodbye Ottawa, it was a fun six years. 11:09 AM Dec 14th, 2008
I’m so excited about my new washer and dryer it should probably be illegal. I can finally stop hoarding loonies after 6 years of doing so! 12:44 AM Dec 16th, 2008

Rest of December + the Holidays

Our first few weeks in Fredericton were quite uneventful. We unpacked, cleaned, did our Xmas shopping, explored the city a bit (which consisted of going to Kent Building Supplies and Canadian Tire a million times). I started my new job on the 22nd – but only worked for a day and a half before I was off for the holidays. We traveled up to Northern New Brunswick for Xmas with our families which was lovely as always (and, as always, we were way too spoiled). I got together with my favourite group of girlfriends for a lovely evening of food, wine and karaoke (unplanned – but definitely amazing). We came back to Fredericton because I worked on the 29th. Chris’ family came down to stay with up for New Year’s Eve/Day which was a lot of fun.

Some pictures:

Some tidbits from Twitter:
every morning it feels weird when I wake up and realize that I live in New Brunswick again. 1:36 PM Dec 18th, 2008
attempting to finish my Xmas shopping this afternoon. OMG if I ever move across the country around Xmas time ever again shoot me. 12:13 PM Dec 21st, 2008
hanging out with my mom :) 3:15 PM Dec 26th, 2008
good night and good food with good friends. I love my ladyfriends! 2:06 AM Dec 27th, 2008

January – present
After the holidays is when I really got to get into the groove of things at my new job (because, let’s face it, starting a new job on December 22 is not exactly ideal). I absolutely love my new job and my new coworkers, and I’m not just saying that because they know I have a blog, hahah. I never really felt that there was an adjustment period in my new functions. I mean, the work is different but the pace picked up quickly enough that I didn’t really didn’t have time to dwell on the fact that I was thrown into a new work environment. It’s nice! I’m learning lots and loving every minute of it. My department is pretty cool in terms of technologies and new media: we have webmail access, remote desktop access and social media sites are unrestricted at work. Oh yeah, and we also have a water cooler that has a boiling water tap – how’s that for fancy? Everything else in my life is also starting to fall into place. We’re nearly completely unpacked by now. And I’ve finally started to be able to establish some sort of a weekday routine (I’m a creature of habit), you know, stuff like grocery shopping and exercising and Battlestar Galactica. Heh. We’re slowly resurfacing and it feels nice.

Some pictures:

Some tidbits from Twitter:
going to get my New Brunswick car plates. Goodbye AYJN 864. 10:41 AM Jan 3rd
drinking tea. They just put in one of those water coolers with a boiling water tap in the hallway. It’s pretty amazing! 2:10 PM Jan 9th
going to Bathurst for work later this week – hah! 1:28 PM Jan 12th
trying out Fredericton Greek take-out. I’m skeptical, but hopeful. I miss Greek on Wheels :( 7:19 PM Jan 16th

Well there you have it. For a self-proclaimed no-nonsense concise writer I think I deserve a big FAIL for this blog post. Ah well. Now you’re all caught up with my goings-on.

I’m incredibly happy to report that I saw my favourite dog person in Centretown this morning at the corner of Dundonald Park speaking to a lady I know from my housing complex (she owns two wiener dogs!). From afar it looked like just any normal morning chat, but as I got closer, I noticed something protruding from his jacket. What exactly was it?

A tiny nine week old sweater-clad Boston Terrier puppy named Izzy that promptly greeted me with puppy kisses on the nose.

I am so happy for him right now. I don’t think I’ve stopped smiling since 8:15 this morning!

A lot of you who follow my Twitter or see me in real life already know about this, but Chris and I have some pretty big news: we’re (finally) moving! Now this isn’t just any small in-town move, we’re moving from Ottawa, Ontario to Fredericton, New Brunswick.

As many of you know, Chris and I both grew up in New Brunswick. I grew up in Bathurst (Beresford to be more precise) and he grew up in Miramichi (Napan to be more precise). Over the last few years we’ve been realizing that as much as we love Ottawa and the life we’ve made here, we miss our families and friends in New Brunswick too much to justify staying here. We both feel that we’ve moved out, done our thing, seen another place, but now it’s time to go back. (I swear I’m not being paid by Shawn Graham to say this stuff!)

I’ve been looking for a job in the Maritimes since about July now. Last month I got a call from a manager in Fredericton saying she was interested in speaking with me. We spoke a few times, I met with her National Capital Region counterpart here in Ottawa, I flew down last week to meet with the team in Fredericton, and now they’re in the process of deploying me out to their department’s regional communications office in Fredericton! So as of December 22, I will be transferring departments and classification group. My new job title will be Communications Officer, Web and New Media and I will be working for the Department of Natural Resources Canada. I’m really excited about this new job, and I’m not just saying that because I was pretty much ready to accept any position in order to move, I’m actually really excited about the work I’ll be doing there – it sounds interesting and challenging and everybody on the team seems really excited about new media and Web 2.0 and how we can use it to better communicate with Canadian citizens as a government department.

Chris and I found a new house in Fredericton which we will be renting as of December 15th. The place is gorgeous and really big. The final details of the moving dates are still not completely finalized, but we will definitely be on our way to Fredericton in roughly two weeks.

Two weeks… that leaves me very little time to say goodbye to my life in Ottawa as I’ve known it for the past six years and all the wonderful friends I’ve made here. The next two weeks will more than likely be a whirlwind for Chris and me, but I hope nevertheless that we can squeeze in enough time to say goodbye to everyone and close this chapter of our lives on a positive note.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt this much excitement and sadness all at once.

Scene: Fiveish years ago, Chris and I sitting on the couch (which, I think you should all know, was fished out a dumpster by my then-roommate Tyler) in my old apartment on Donald street (represent!) watching the first season of the hit TV series 24, discussing how we would never live to see the day that an African-American would become the President of the United States of America.

Scene: Two nights ago, our living room, watching Barack Obama’s acceptance speech on the CBC, Halloween candy wrappers on my coffee table, pug in my lap, jaw dropped, e-mail in my inbox from Chris saying “PRESIDENT PALMER!”.

As a Canadian, I feel very conflicted about American politics and the interest it garners in the Great White North. In a time where voter apathy is at an all-time high in Canada, it kind of kills me to see so many people who were very apathetic just a little less than a month ago about our own election be so excited about the American election. Sure, I won’t deny that Tuesday night was a momentous and inspiring occasion and should have been watched by all, but if you’re going to get so enthralled about politics, why not do it in your own country? You know, where you actually get a chance to have your say and where the decisions made actually directly have an impact on your life. I’m not saying that Barack Obama being elected President will not affect anyone but Americans – I’m sure it will have a positive worldwide effect, but I just can’t wrap my head around the fact that 15% of Canadians would rather vote in the U.S. election than in our own, I mean… really?

I guess what we need in Canada is an agent of change and a charismatic leader who can inspire us all. We need a “celebrity” candidate to flick on disinterested voters’ democracy switch (mine is broken and can’t be turned off – ask Chris!). We need a Trudeau (well I know we actually have one, but he still needs some work) or even, to a certain extent, another Chrétien (he wasn’t much to look at, but you have to admit he really was interesting, well, I guess anyone is interesting compared to the current android residing at 24 Sussex). We need someone to come in and shake things up and make Canadian politics interesting again for everyone. Of course those of us who find Canadian politics super interesting already will probably explode of political nerdery overload if this happens, but it’s a sacrifice I’m wiling to make in the name of Canadian democracy.

Any ideas on who should be the Canadian Obama? All that comes to mind right now for me is Tom Green, which is so, so, very wrong on so many levels.

I’m pretty sure you don’t have to be a pug expert to know that pugs are, well, how do I say… Not the most, erm, athletic dogs? When I first got Abby and researched all there is to know about pugs, I quickly learned that they do not swim, they sink. Most people actually recommend life jackets for pugs. Every other dog I had ever owned or been around didn’t particularly like water so I just figured my pug wouldn’t either so I wouldn’t need to get a a stupid dog life jacket or anything, no biggie, right? Wrong. Abby loves to swim, and you know what? She’s actually pretty darn good at it! Now keep in mind that I said good, not graceful, not skilled, just good.

And now, as promised, video proof of Abby’s water frolickings last month at the Erwins’ cottage in Muskoka.

Well there you have it folks, a swimming pug. *shakes head*

My fellow Canucks, on this fine election day, I hope that you are as excited as I am about exercising your privilege to vote, and if you’re not, shame on you (really – I don’t kid when it comes to democracy!). Here are a few reasons why I think you should be excited and proud about voting today, in no particular order:

- You actually live in a country with a stable form of government in which you can have your say. And to the people who feel that democracy isn’t fair in Canada and that none of the parties represent your views, I say spoil your ballot. Sure, Elections Canada will tell you it’s illegal and that they discourage it, but if enough people are dissatisfied and do the same as you, I can tell you it won’t be long before the results of the elections are called into question and the way in which we elect our Members of Parliament is revisited.
- If you’re a woman, you owe your privilege to vote to the suffragettes.
- Voting is sexy.
- By voting you make sure that the government is not elected solely by senior citizens, who always vote in frighteningly high numbers. They even get dressed up to vote (I plan on voting in jogging pants tonight)!
- I will think less of you if you don’t vote (seriously… aren’t you like, totally concerned about what I think of you?). Where are all of your WWVT bracelets (What would Véronique think)?
- The act of voting itself is pretty darn exciting (ok maybe I’m alone on this one). I mean, you get to visit your local church basement/community center and line up with a little piece of paper, maybe finally talk to that neighbour you’ve been stalking for over two years.

- 3 words and an acronym: CBC election night coverage.
- 3 words and an acronym again: Peter Mansbridge in HD.
- If you don’t vote, you can’t complain about the government. Four years (well, it technically should be four years) without complaining about the government in power? That’s a long time… think about it! I won’t even let you complain about how loud John Baird is!
- Get some exercise! For the Debbie Downers who will tell me that traffic accidents are always higher on election days, I say walk to your polling station and get some exercise!

Well as much as I wish I could, I can’t make you go vote today. But please do? Merci!

Amidst all of this electoral hoopla, I just wanted to take a minute out of my busy lunch hour yogurt eating and lolcat browsing schedule to write about something which never ceases to baffle me: the varying meanings and connotations people on different degrees of the political spectrum attribute to words such as liberal and conservative. Please note that for the purpose of this blog entry, we are strictly speaking small-l liberal and small-c conservative.

For starters, some very basic definitions, brought to you by dictionary.com.
liberal: favourable to progress or reform
conservative: disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change

Now to me, a democratic socialist and owner of shirts such as this one, it’s not very hard to pick out which one of these two concepts is “right” and which one is “wrong”. I mean… seriously? Limiting change? Restoring tradition? Who in their right (pun very much intended) mind would ever want to be attributed the label “conservative”? To me the term carries so many negative connotations it’s almost like the equivalent of being called a caveman.

I’ve been called a conservative once in my life and I remember the moment vividly to this day. When I was in first year university, I worked at La Vie en Rose, a lingerie boutique in the Rideau Centre. One weekday afternoon I was working alone with my manager and she asked me to dress up one of our mannequin busts with some new merchandise we had just received. As it was my first time doing this (I didn’t work there for very long), I was really careful in selecting the garments and making sure the size was just right. When I was done my manager came over to check on my work. As we were standing there admiring the lacy bra on the fake plastic bust I immediately blurted out “Oh no, we can see nipples! I’ll get a chiffon robe to cover it up!” (don’t ask – the plastic busts had nipple shapes), to which she replied “God, you’re so conservative, just let it be!”. Now I’m a person who’s pretty hard to insult or offend, but I was immediately so insulted when she called me a conservative. I wished I could have taken back my words so much. To this day I still beat myself up over the fact that my retail job manager five years ago thought I was a prude. Geez.

So the other day Chris and I were in the car and I told him how I couldn’t fathom anyone not being insulted if they were called a conservative. He then pointed out the fact that the opposite is true for people who are actually conservative. I had never really thought of that, because to me, being left-leaning is not a conscious decision, it’s a matter of knowing with every fibre of my being that what I believe in is simply right (well, left). But thinking about it, I guess I can easily imagine Lowell Green turning into The Hulk at even the simple idea of being called a liberal.

Ah well, to each his own.