Thursday.

Things that suck: Mum leaving today.

Things that don’t suck: a surprise week of Summer (16+ degrees!), moving to the middle of the city – we now live opposite H&M (kind of dangerous considering how much our stuff has multiplied over the last 6 months) and TV on the internet.

The ‘don’t sucks’ win!

I have blog-block.

That sounds kinda gross.

Anyway, I open the WordPress screen and watch the little cursor just blinking at me, waiting for me to write something and it is too much pressure.

If I didn’t have a severe case of writers block (to go with my rib-like tumour), I would write about the fact it is getting cold in Vancouver and that trees are starting to lose their leaves. I would also write about the fact that I am in the process of packing up the apartment, and I have this habit of keeping random crap like birthday cards and back issues of magazines and throwing out important stuff like credit card information and (almost) our passports.

It is bittersweet leaving our apartment. It was our first real home in Vancouver, and there are a lot of memories held in these four (very close together) walls. I can’t believe we have been here for 8 months! Having said that, a move will be good to shake things up a bit, to keep things interesting for our last few months here. Our new apartment is on Granville St, in Downtown Vancouver and closer to Gastown than Yaletown (turns out we are more Gastown people than Yaletown people – that is like comparing Fremantle to Subiaco). We are on the 16th floor and have mountain views. Plus the move will great for the blog – I will have a whole new neighbourhood to photograph. I know, you are all barely containing your excitement.

Well, what do you know – this kind of resembles a blog post! Anyway, I am going to leave you with this (if you haven’t already seen it – it is doing the rounds)…Enjoy!

A few thoughts. Wouldn’t want to over extend myself.

Life has picked up speed lately and we are hurtling along the tracks. I sit down to write and I have too many words and ideas spinning around my head, and I am not fast enough to hold onto one. It isn’t just like that for the blog – it took Mum and I 30 minutes to decide what we would have for dinner last night. No comment thanks Dad.

So instead, you get this:

Excited about: Moving to our new apartment next week!

Sad about: Joel heading away for work next week. Vancouver has made me co-dependent.

Reading: ‘This Is Where I Leave You’ – Jonathon Tropper

Listening To: Portishead & Gorillaz.

Watching: Eat Pray Love with Mum.

Eating: Way too many brownies from YaYa’s across the street from work.

Drinking: Sangria. And wine. Always wine.

Loving: The arrival of Fall. Mum being here. Being curled up on the couch with a blanket and a book, listening to the rain outside.

And the hypochondriac of the year award goes to…

…*drumroll please*…me! Dad, I truly am your daughter.

About a week ago, I was stretching in my chair at work and had my hand near the bottom of my ribcage, and felt a lump. A lump I had never felt before. I panicked and immediately felt faint (yes, I actually sat at work with my head in my lap trying not to pass out). I came home and told Joel about my “tumour”, and he looked at me like he normally does when I declare I am going to die. This happens often enough that he has a look – quite a good one actually. That didn’t stop me and I have been waxing lyrical about my impending death for the last few days.

That takes me to tonight, when I thought I should probably check the other side to see if I had a lump there too. I did. So then I thought I should check and see how big my tumour was. Turns out it is roughly the same size as you would expect a lower rib to be. Funny that.

So, on Wednesday I discovered my lowest rib (after 25 years) and promptly decided it was a tumour. My name is Hana and I am a hypochondriac. May we never speak of this again.

Note: If I die next week of a rare rib-like tumour, Joel – you may have my worldly possessions. Enjoy my new jacket.

Steamworks, soup and hydrangeas.

Mum’s first weekend back in Vancouver was a combination of the above, and was lovely.

Fish soup at Granville Island markets.

Autumn is almost upon us.

Steamworks Brewery for dinner (soon to be our new local when we move at the end of the month – more on that later).

I have my Mum back!

A hydrangea to brighten up Mum’s apartment.

Otis of Yaletown

Just checking in quickly to introduce you to Otis – the reason for Joel’s recent British Bulldog obsession. Isn’t he pretty?

(photo taken by Dave)

 In other news, check out the puddles. Rain here all week folks – bye bye Summer!

I have my Mum back!

For two whole weeks. Posting may be sporadic.

I am not this obnoxious all the time, I promise.

Planning is underway for our next holiday, which will be a San Francisco/San Diego trip and will probably involve another road trip (from San Francisco to San Diego, funnily enough). Any suggestions as to what we need to explore/see in these two places? Jess, Alex – I am looking at you guys…

We also have our Christmas vacation booked – a week in the snow just outside of Banff. Plus we are thisclose to booking our flights home (via New York, London, Ireland and Manchester).

Yeah, so this is kind of a gloaty post. Feel free to punch me next time you see me…after I have had the best 6 months ever! Ok, stopping now. Sorry.

An afternoon at the CFL.

The CFL, for the uneducated, is the Canadian Football League. See, this blog can be educational as well as wildy amusing.

My work gave me some free tickets to the BC Lions vs the Toronto Argonauts, so we invited a couple of friends and headed down through the impressively dodgy East Hastings (remind me to post about East Hastings one day – it is like a scene from Night of the Living Dead) to Empire Field.

Cheerleaders! And a marching band! CFL staples.

The players running out of this giant, inflatable, orange lion. There were fireworks. It was impressive.

And we’re off!

$7 beer in plastic cups – sport would not be sport without it.

The obligatory “we were at the football” shot.

And we won! Go the Lions!

To Maggie.

In very sad news, our family cat Maggie passed away this weekend. Dave wrote this lovely eulogy, which I thought was too sweet not to share. Most humans don’t get eulogies like this! It is epic.

11 September 2010
Nine years ago criminals masquerading as an avenging god rained bodies, glass, concrete and ash on the streets of Manhattan; our thoughts today are with the victims, and with those who rescued and comforted the few survivors and continue to work today.

Today was all the sadder for us, as we lost our family cat Maggie. Fifteen years ago a kitten appeared in the front garden at 19 Zamia Road, Gooseberry Hill. The  Parkinson family took her in, named her after Maggie Simpson, the famous cartoon character, and they loved and cared for each other for the rest of her life. Maggie suffered immunisations, sterilisation, worming, and being chased up various trees by Charlie, the “other” family cat, who she taunted through a window as he languished outdoors to where he was banished after a series of errors with personal hygiene.

Maggie moved to 5 Hugh Street Guildford with Jenny, Hana, Jack and Sam; a sociable soul, she shared her food with Chops and his brother from across the road, and with a hungry bilby which lived, for a short while, under their next home at 9 Ethel Street, Guildford. She loved snoozing in secret cubbies on the shelves behind the  books, was disgusted by the slugs which raided her supper dish in the kitchen, but didn’t seem to mind the mice. For a while her “second home” was 5 Ethel Street with Sue and Jon when all at No.9 were out.

Maggie was always up for a nap on anyone’s bed at night and a cuddle any time of day, and was constantly there when Jenny felt ill during chemotherapy in 2007. She was a fierce defender of territory and, despite her prowess with mice, spectacularly fast, as the surprised cat over the road discovered one evening as we gazed  admiringly from the front veranda.

When it became clear that you had run out of lives, Maggie, we would have loved to have brought you home to say goodbye among familiar sounds and faces, but we  were twelve thousand miles and three weeks apart, and had to make a hated choice.

When we awoke after a restless night agonising on our choice, it was raining in  Altrincham, and as if on cue, a melancholy bell at old St Margaret’s tolled a solitary knell. This morning Jack and Sam, who toiled so hard trying to save you, laid you in your final resting place in the garden you loved. We’ve marked the place with the stone you knew, from another beloved garden you never saw in Didsbury, the Marie-Louise Garden.

Maggie, you were the greatest and always will be, and we will always be grateful you came by and stayed with us all for a while.