Harder on my feet than walking 60km!

Walking to and from downtown, salsa dancing on Friday and then dancing the night away on high-heels on Saturday = feet hurting more on Sunday than they did after the long walk last weekend. I swear!

It was however a lot of fun to dance and hang around with Raf, Jamie, as well as new and old salsa friends. Although Saturday wasn't about salsa, you can still dance to hip-hop and pull some ochos :-) Bonus points for those of you who know what ochos are!!

Only one weekend left before school starts...


Always a good time going out dancing!

First long Sunday run in a while... very slow

It didn't help that the temperature was quite high, even early in the morning. In the shade, I was doing OK, but as soon as I hit the sunny areas, I had to slow down.

It was a beautiful run though. And memorable. Shortly after I ran under the Burrard bridge, going towards Kits beach, I saw a bald eagle attacking a crow. I know there's a nest in the area, you often hear screeching. I guess the crow had been a pest and was flying too close to the nest. It didn't take long for the eagle to kill the crow, but not before the bugger cried for help. In a few seconds, the eagle was swarmed by an flock of crows. Then, I felt something fly right above me, another eagle, this one all black. I'm thinking that must be the baby, he doesn't have his white head yet. All this was happening only a few feet away from me, as I stopped running to admire the beautiful bald eagles. The eagle eventually flew away with his kill, surrounded by very noisy and angry crows.

Oh, and on the way back, I saw two seals pop their heads out of the water in the harbor.

Who needs the Discovery channel when you live in Vancouver!

I spent a few hours this afternoon at the outdoors salsa event, at Robson Square. It was great, in the shade, with a bit of a breeze, it only got really hot after dancing a few quick-paced songs. Great idea, free salsa in the downtown core on Sunday afternoons!


Sunset

My feet hurt!

This was my first night dancing in my brand new salsa shoes. I guess it will take a few more hours before they are nicely broken into. And a few more hours before they become much less slippery, because right now, I can't say that I'm totally in control. The shoes are great for spins though and getting me used to dance on the ball of my foot, not on the entire foot (that's usually what happens when you dance on flat shoes).

It's really hot in Vancouver these days, it's like someone turned on the summer switch all of a sudden. No complaining though, it's so nice to finally see a bit of sun, pull out the sandals, and leave the jacket at home. And the umbrella :-)

No news on the work front, I think it will take a while before I hear a final decision concerning the job switch. In the mean time, this gives me lots of time to wrap up my current tasks, which is not a bad thing. I don't really want to do two jobs at once.

I'm looking forward to the long weekend. I'm starting early, as I'm moving to another area in the building and have to be all packed by noon on Friday. I guess this gives me the afternoon off, as I can't really do any work without my computer. And Monday is off for Victoria day. I'm staying in town, so far I only have plans for salsa on Friday and helping Lara with some shopping on Saturday, and I'm happy with the light schedule. Might actually spend some time relaxing ;)

Sunny weekend on the West Coast

It took a while before we had any preview of spring, but this weekend was simply beautiful. A bit windy and cool on Saturday, but today was amazing. I went for a long run this morning, 16km, it felt great, I paced myself nicely and tried my new inhaler. I can't say I saw any major difference, if only for the fact that I had this funny taste in my mouth (bitter, like medication ;)).

I had a pleasant weekend. On Saturday, I went to get a hair cut and highlights, just in time for the sunny days. Then, I did a bit of shopping because gorgeous hair deserves a nice outfit. I bought a skirt, a tank top, and a 3/4 top that ties in the front. I also bought a pair of white sandals with interchangeable flowers on them. You can pick the flower to match your outfit, how neat is that? And they are really comfy. Then, I had a nap, I was tired after going to bed late on Friday (I had dinner and watched a movie with my friend Craig). I needed to be rested to go out later.

Saturday night, Lara and I ate dinner at Bridges on Granville Island, yummy food and a beautiful view of the waterfront. Raf gave us a call and asked if we were doing anything later. We told him to meet us for drinks at Sandbar, also on Granville Island. At Sandbar, we had a blast watching the cougars hound the young men in the place (cougars are older women hanging around in bars, not dressing up their age, and hunting for young men). Needless to say that a few of the predators had their eyes on Raf, he's such a cutie. Then, whenever the DJ was playing half decent music (which was not often, unfortunately), we started dancing, sometimes even salsa dancing on music that wasn't salsa at all. Raf took several pictures of the evening, they should be on his blog sometime tomorrow.

Today, well, there was running. Then, a call to bro and sis, to catch up on the latest news. Then, I did a bit of cleaning at home, my place was such a mess, and also cleaned my balcony. The white banister was more green than white and needed a good wash. The flower boxes had more brown than green, I took out all the dead plants and will buy new plants for the summer next weekend. I also called mom, because today is mother's day :-) Wish I could be at dinner with the family, that's for sure...

Am I a believer? (part 2)

Nope. At least, not when it comes to the efficiency of this homeopathic cough liquid I just tried. It did numb my throat for 45 minutes to an hour after trying the rapid fire technique, but I think that's probably the result of a 20% alcohol content more than anything else. Yeah, maybe I'll start sipping brandy to soothe my throat, maybe I can get drunk enough to sleep through the night...

Basically, this has been a pretty boring and uneventful week, mainly due to the fact that I slept very little and did not work out at all, making me a little more crabby than usual. I still managed to make it to salsa level 3 on Wednesday. I'm really excited about this new course, the teacher is a lot better than the teacher from level 2, and we're learning three new moves per night! I'm going to start looking for a pair of dance shoes soon, as we're getting into a lot of spins. You need proper shoes for spins. Weeee!

Is it Friday? It should be Friday!

I can't believe how busy I've been lately. Good busy, once again, but busy nonetheless. I just came back from two hours of salsa, the first hour being the lesson and the second, the practice session. Raf and I had fun, we tried different combinations, different movement sequences (well, he tried, 'cause I just try to keep up and follow properly). We're going to continue the classes into level 3, where things get serious and they teach you really interesting moves.

Last night, I went to the opera with my colleague Soraiya, to see Faust. It was great, a bit morbid but then again Faust is no comedy. Good thing for the dialog showing up in English on top of the stage, because I couldn't follow the story just by listening to the singers, even if the original dialog was in French. Well, some did pronounce a bit better than others :-)

And to top it all, I'm back on a pretty busy running schedule, in preparation for the half marathon on June 25. I kept up the running after the half in February, but not at the intensity I need to prepare for a race. Which is normal. But now, time is not on my side and two months is just enough to prepare and build up to the 21km distance once again.

Combine consistently busy days at work with busy evenings with more workouts and you get one tired Melissa. Where's my bed?

Especially tonight... I was up early this morning to do my fit test. After ten sessions with the personal trainer, it was time to see some results. I'm pretty happy with the progression. I lost 3% of body fat mass and gained quite a bit in lean mass (muscle). My chest, back and legs are all stronger. I'm not smaller or lighter, but I do feel that my resistance has increased. The training sessions were a good investment. I'm not going to sign up for another ten, but I will sign up for bootcamp sessions at lunch time. Bootcamp is a good full-body workout that keeps your cardio pumping for an hour. I know I wouldn't push myself that hard, so having someone push for me will help keep the pressure on my workouts.

OK, off to bed now. Mmmm... bed...

Well-deserved long weekend

It's Thursday night and I feel like I've filled the past few days with many initiatives, concerns, and activities. I'm happy to sleep in a bit tomorrow.

The week at work has been busy. I'm trying to see if I can redefine my role to make it more interesting for me to remain with the company for a little longer. It's a real challenge, but in a strangely rewarding way. I think a few teams are interested in keeping me around, everyone of them with different ideas, goals, and offers. What I'm not sure at this point is who will decide. Will it be strongly hinted where I should focus my attention, or will I be presented with a choice. I expect the next few weeks to bring answers.

Then, in addition to the mysteries at work, I've been dealing with Strata business, pushing forward to replace our existing management company. I think we're getting close, but nothing is decided quickly when a Strata is involved. This weekend I have to prepare a letter to invite the owners to a Special General Meeting, where we will decide to go ahead with the change or not. Council does not have the authority to make this decision. I'm hoping to have this business addressed before I return to school in September, as I will not be able to devote any attention to much else besides work and studies.

I've also spent a few busy evenings. On Tuesday, I had a lovely dinner with Gerri and Lara. Gerri was telling us about her recent trip to Thailand and Lara saying how much she misses Charles. We had a tasty Indian meal, all vegetarian, with a wonderful home-made daal. On Wednesday, I went for another level 2 salsa class. With my Friday class, I have the option of also attending Wednesday classes for free. The opportunity of getting more practice in was more than welcome. The open session afterwards gave me the chance to dance with some very talented leads. I think I'm slowly getting the gist of following, at least when the signals are clear. It actually requires to completely let go of your thoughts, to only keep moving, 1,2,3... 5,6,7... I'm really enjoying these classes!

And tonight, a Council meeting with yet another property manager. After I phoned the general manager of our current company, I think he fired our existing property manager and then sent us a brand-new hire. Poor guy, we were discussing leaving the company and he was just starting his first day! We told him not to take it personally.

Now, I'm off to bed. I have lots of stuff to do this weekend, my taxes, more resume work, Strata letters... Lara and I are renting a car and driving to Whistler on Saturday. Unfortunately, the weather looks pretty disappointing for the long weekend. Cold, rain, wind. Maybe a good idea to spend most of it on paperwork.

What a great week!

The great thing about having visitors is that you get to play tourist and visit all kinds of fun places. This week has definitely not been an exception.

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves and recap the past few days. We've been to the Van Dusen Botanical Garden and Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden, all over downtown, to the Capilano suspension bridge and Longsdale Quay market, to Granville Island, and to the Bloedel Conservatory at Queen Elizabeth Park.

Last night, we had a lovely dinner with my former colleague Anna, James and James from the military, Catherine who is a colleague of Annie in BC. Then, a bunch of us took off to salsa to do a little dancing... Hola Chiquitas!


Mel, Lara and Annie at salsa

Let the sun shine

Wow! What a wonderful weekend this was!

Two sunny and warm(ish) days, three dinners with friends, lots of fresh air... A girl can't ask for much more.

Friday night was the dinner at Libby and Dan's, which I described in a previous post. It was so much fun! Then, on Saturday, I had an early meeting with the Strata council and a woman who could potentially become our new property manager. We have to get rid of the current company, it's unacceptable how little service we get from them. Then, I did a bit of cleaning, had lunch, and was about to go out for a long walk with my camera, but the batteries died after two pictures and I had to return home to see if I could get any replacements. While I was home, Raf called and asked if I was doing anything Saturday night. I didn't have any plans, so we decided on dinner and a movie. I was in a mood to cook and offered to make dinner instead of us going out. Now I needed groceries, both for Saturday and Sunday night, so instead of pursuing the photo-safari, I opted for a trip to IGA.

I made a stir-fry with turkey and chicked sausages, and it turned out really well. Raf was hungry, he had gone for a long run in the morning and built up quite the appetite. After dinner, we took the bus back to his place to take Macie for a short walk (Macie is Raf's puppie Beagle, she's a real cutie) and headed out to the movie theatre to see Syriana. It's a good movie, very dark, and a bit depressing when you relate what they show to reality (and realize that the worst parts are true).

On Sunday, again, the sun was shining outside. I woke up somewhat early and went for a short run after breakfast. This is the first time I ran without my jacket, it was even warm when I was facing the sun! Nice. I came back home for lunch and headed out again, this time with charged batteries in my camera. I walked around the seawall for two hours, soaking in the afternoon. You can see some of the pictures here. Pretty incredible if you think that we woke up to snow on Friday morning (actual snow on the ground, something quite unusual in Vancouver in March). Everyone was out enjoying the weather.

Then, I returned home, read a bit and then started preparing dinner for Charles and Lara. I made a beef stew on egg noddles, something meaty as Charles had requested. We had such a great dinner, wonderful food, good wine, that we forgot entirely about his promise to teach me the secrets to attracting men. Let's say that we had more important things to talk about. I'll miss Charles while he is away, but I'm sure he'll be back in no time.


Goodbye Charles, see you in six months!

Dance like you mean it...

It's all about the music baby.

This post from my friend Raf made me laugh. Because honestly, if I had to dance on hip-hop, I would be the 30-year old he's referring to (well, without the mom part). See, I couldn't dance on hip-hop because I don't get the music. And that's what dancing is all about.

Now here's the kicker: that's not how they teach you how to dance. Learning to listen to music is not what people will pay money for, they will pay to learn moves. And they stand in front of a patient teacher and learn moves. Then starts the music... and the carnage.

I've seen it in dance classes, I've seen it at the gym. My gym has aerobics salsa and aerobics belly dancing classes on Thursdays. Sometimes, I happen to be at the gym when the classes are held and, not knowing anything about belly dancing, I won't comment on that one. However, way to make salsa the most annoying dance in the world. Ripping salsa apart to leave a few easily repeatable movements means none of the sensuality of the dance is maintained. At least the music was good, but nobody seemed to really enjoy it. They were making sure they were doing the moves right.

Raf saves himself a rebuke for the 30-year-old-women-dancing hip-hop comment by being a salsa lover first, and then a salsa dancer. When there's salsa playing, he can't stop moving. That's why it's a pleasure going to salsa nights with him. (I know he reads the blog, hi Raf!)

Pop culture blind spots

I was listening to DNTO (Definitely Not the Opera) on CBC yesterday and they were interviewing people about their pop culture blind spots. You know, the events/shows/books/music everyone seems to talk about and that you haven't heard/read or picked up. Here are my pop culture blind spots:

• Although I read lots, I've never read any of the Harry Potter books. I have seen two of the movies though.
• I've never watched a single episode of American or Canadian Idol (or the Quebec version, Star Académie).
• I don't do text messages. The cell phone interface was never meant to write anything, even keying in people's names when I save their phone number is brutal, why would I want to write someone when I can use the same device to call them.
• I've never seen a Monty Python show. People keep on quoting skits at work and I am clueless about what they are referring to.

What are your pop culture blind spots?

We are now one week past the half marathon and I still haven't gone out for a run. I'm taking this resting thing seriously :-) No worries, I plan to return to a regular working schedule this week, but I did enjoy being lazy for a few days.

On Friday, I did go out for a few hours of salsa dancing again. Unfortunately, the place was packed beyond what is reasonable, and after getting elbowed and haired (whacked across the face by someone spinning a full head of hair), I thought I had had enough of it and left around 11:30.

On Saturday morning, I had a meeting at the bank for an RRSP loan. With the contracting work I did between the two jobs, I wanted to max out my contributions. Then, I did some shopping, mostly house stuff and basics, cleaned the condo a bit, had a nap, and prepared myself for a concert in the evening. Annie's work, Les Jeunesses Musicales du Canada, was sending three very talented musicians all the way to Vancouver, there was no way I was going to miss the performance. And I also knew the clarinet player, Jean-Francois Normand, very well.

The concert was great, although there weren't that many of us in attendance. It was held at the Centre Culturel Francophone de Vancouver, a center I didn't know even existed and is located only a few minutes away from my place. Maybe the venue had to do with the poor showing, it's not a very known place. After the concert, we went out for a few drinks. It was fun to spend the entire evening chatting in French!

Today, I could've spent the entire day in my pajamas, if it wasn't for the fact that I was missing some food essentials. It was cold and rainy outside, unfortunately for Jean-Francois who probably wanted to visit Stanley Park this morning. I hope he went out anyways, the park is definitely worth the trouble.

The Olympics are now over and I haven't watched a single event. If I had TV, I would have probably watched a few hours here and there. We even had it on at work, in the family room. I always read about the results in the evening, on news web sites, but none of the short clips I could see included anything but stills with some voice-over, which is not very exciting.

Salsa

When I first moved to Vancouver, I took some salsa lessons. I always had a great time dancing and I love the music. Yesterday, my friend Rafael, who used to work with me but changed jobs recently, asked me to join him and a few friends to a salsa night at the Law Courts (yes, the Vancouver Law Courts have a large dance floor on the 4th floor... don't ask).

I had such a great time! I'll definitely go back, I might even take a few more lessons to help me remember the moves and spins. I also enjoyed watching some of the more advanced dancers struttin' their stuff... good dancers make it look so easy and sexy!