I love Vancouver when it snows. I miss the snow. I miss not seeing pavement except on the highway until March. I miss the smell it brings to the air and I even miss the glisten it gives to my peachy fuss face.

It was cold last night, really cold [for Vancouver] and I was shivering waiting for a cab that took over twenty-five minutes to arrive and I KNEW we’d dropped below minus two. So I told Adam that if all went well it would snow down town over night. BECAUSE I KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT SNOW. I obviously don’t or I’d have Tamara Taggart’s job. But I do feel very comfortable in making fun of Vancouver when it snows and to be honest I look forward to it. It is a time I get to tell stories that aren’t even exaggerated about my driving skills because snow in Vancouver means one thing and one thing only to anyone who drives and many who don’t drive: Chaos. Complete and utter Chaos and it only takes a centimeter.

It slays me that people don’t realize how similar it is to driving in heavy rain. But ‘road sense’ is few and far between in this city.

I also find myself very irritated by people who use umbrellas when it snows. Those are for RAIN. I know that umbrellas are designed as devices to keep any kind of PRECIPITATION or sunlight off of you and therefore I shouldn’t really have a problem with it but I do and that is that. To me it is a faux pas wear a bloody toque. Winter is sexy, don’t mess it up with a stupid FALL umbrella.

The snow is one of the only things that truly makes me feel connected to my roots, my Northern roots. Not to mention I can’t stop picturing this massive snow storm from when I was a kid still in Ontario mind you living in Thorold and we had to dig the side door to our house out, and there are pictures somewhere at my parents house and the snow is WAY taller than moi. You see THAT warrants a school closure. The kids here get so spoiled when it comes to snow days, I don’t remember there being many snow days from where I served my primitive years.

Well, screw this because it has already stopped snowing so I am going to play Guitar Hero before I have to get ready for work.

SLOW DOWN, drive safely.

When I was a kid and we lived in Smithers we only had two TV channels and so somehow I talked my parents into getting me a Nintendo. Until I moved out to Vancouver at nineteen I hadn’t upgraded, I only ever owned Mario one and three and I had Duck Hunt. Duck Hunt ruled that gun was so kickass. My girlfriend, Rhonda, who lived in Kitimat at the time had upgraded her Nintendo so I would play hers. It is rather surprising how much we got to see each other when I was still in Smithers, it is considerably further from Terrace where we ended up moving. Terrace and Kitimat are around 65km apart so once I was sixteen and had my license, until Rhonda graduated and moved away for college we saw one another almost every weekend or the memories are so good it feels that way.

If memory serves I bought a Playstation when I was twenty-one. I always LOVED Oddworld and had both games. Then in 2002 [at twenty-five] with my Christmas bonus I bought a PS2. I really had no choice. At the time I was friends with a group of four plus guys hanging out in a ‘guy’ apartment doing nothing but drinking, smoking pot and kicking the shit out of each other on Virtua Fighter [for example] and I was the only girl gamer so it was hold your own or get the fuck out and I of course held my own and decided it was high time I upgraded my own gaming hardware. It was a good investment anyway because this also gave me a DVD player.

*free tip for the single ladies*

Even if you hate gaming buy a PS2 they are ridiculously cheap now because the PS3 and new Xbox whatever is out and it will get you a man. Guys would go mental when they would see I had a playstation before I met Adam but also including Adam. I used to constantly joke that I had to hide the thing, it was almost as bad as guys trying to get in my pants. Guys like girls who have gaming systems. Accept it.

And so one day I’m talking to my buddy on IM and he is dating this rad girl and he says, he says AND SHE EVEN HAS AN XBOX. HA! I responded with: That is PROOF guys would have TOTALLY said that about me. I know they did I didn’t really need the proof but it is more cool that through meeting my buddies girlfriend I have now gained a new gaming girlfriend as well which brings me up to THREE girlfriends that game. Rhonda, Iris Eggwhites and Spockette.

Guitar Hero Three - Legends of Rock did NOT come out last Sunday as scheduled and has been pushed back to THIS Sunday. Ok, I seriously thought Adam was going to cry when it didn’t come out last weekend. If it is not in our hands THIS SUNDAY I can see some major flipping out happening. BUT wait didn’t you say THIS was Guitar Hero Three? When my friends ask me that I explain it in these terms: You know how after Sarah McLachlan released Fumbling Towards Ecstasy she started to release albums like Rarities, B-Sides & Other Shit Stuff in between pretty much every full length album release, almost like she is insecure and afraid her listeners won’t be there after her breaks which pisses me off because I will always love her and still bought all those in between albums, that is what Guitar Hero is doing. The Encore 80’s game is SHIT. If I was not ADDICTED to the point of needing an intervention to GH 1 and 2 because I am so close to finishing Expert level on both games we’d have gone back to Tiger Woods PGA 2007 till GH 3 came out.

So, with all that said, Rhonda gets here in a few hours, she normally brings games for the PS2, [she owns more than one gaming system] we’ll be going to Walmart as I have been letting EVERYTHING run out because Rhonda is a Walmart addict and I don’t know we just go to Walmart and we make crafts - must be the years and years in Scouts or some shit but we ALWAYS do crafts. Anyone new here can check out other visits with Rhonda here, here and here and this post has us as teens so we look SUPER hot.

I wouldn’t call it a problem at all but all the sheets on my bed must match. At all times. There are almost no exceptions, except cat barf, if cat barf leads to sheets not matching it is ONLY because there is no change for laundry. This is for sure my parents fault, they gave me my first duvet and matching sheet set and cover the first Christmas that we were up north, from that day forward my bed has seen many a sheet set, MANY. In four years and one month Adam has already been a party to five different sets and he only had a hand in picking one and a half. Right now we are switching back and forth between brown and black and brown and yellow. The yellow sheet set is left over from the last cover that is not in the rotation. What does this all mean? Nothing really. I just like sheet sets and this post will contain photos of our sheet set, the one that Adam had the hand in picking. I compromised on pillows, we only have four.

You see, Gus is lazy as cats are and there are days when I have made the entire bed with Gus still on it and it cracks me up every time I actually do it and she doesn’t jump off the bed with all the pulling and tucking and folding and it has to be PERFECT! GET YOUR PAW PRINTS OFF MY BED. I’m not that bad, but maybe I am I fluff it constantly. I have considered filming it, I know exciting, but for serious it is adorable when it happens. And then there are the days when the wee Greeper won’t move.

I got the bottom all straight and dragged her around, Adam uses more covers than me because he is bigger.

You can see the protest in her eyes. But I put the pillows on giving her some time to get off the bed because she is obviously situated in such a way that I can not make it around her.

Ugh. She was NOT moving. Sigh. I had to lift her off. OF COURSE she meowed like a baby.

Gus is back, in her happy place, probably thinking about having claws again to rip my face off with and how no matter what she will sleep in that exact spot at 4am.

WHAT A POSER. She must be trying out for Canada’s Next Top Cat.

I don�t really understand why there are still crosswalks. Maybe in small towns like where I�m from it is cool to wave and shit after making someone stop for you with no red light to coax them. One crosswalk by this McDonalds I go to when I feel like eating the real 5 star expensive shit reminds me of some sick game. Because I�m a narcissist if there is a crosswalk I will walk out into it. I don�t even always look both ways I just EXPECT the driver to see me and follow the rules of the road and stop. In this day and age these are very unfortunate expectations and I am going to get myself killed. Walking around with me in a crosswalk area [the whole city] is like walking around with a 5 year old. I�ve had so many shirts ruined from people grabbing my back so I don�t get killed I may as well just wear a string bikini and take advantage of the topless laws that people thought were cool for about a day.

Crosswalks help people hold on to nostalgia, give a metropolitan city a feeling of the olden days a feeling I can�t let go of and risk my life for. I�ll look both ways when I jaywalk but I feed into the sick game of beating the car through the cross walk. I also love swearing kicking and yelling at people who almost run me over. Throwing my hands up, making a scene pointing to the crosswalk lines. But they gotta go before I die they have to.

Drivers in Vancouver have enough trouble stopping at red lights and hit people everyday. I wonder if I�d feel guiltier hitting someone blowing a red or blowing a crosswalk. I got rid of my car years ago but I learned to drive in the north in every �northern� condition you can imagine and my father is in a job where growing up I HAD to be good driver or it would A. get back to him FAST and B. I�d make him look bad. I gotta tell you about this one time it was awesome but not but totally awesome.

Terrace has a one lane bridge right�I graduated high school there [I mention this only because I mention three separate northern towns on here a lot and I can imagine it gets kind of confusing if you are regular reader or not whatever I�m just trying to be considerate] when I graded we had a two lane bridge it had been there I think maybe ten years I remember part of the time we lived in Smithers that Terrace still only had the one bridge or maybe it was when we lived in Surrey and my Dad was traveling down there. [the two towns are about two hours apart and I lived in both for almost the same time each] Anyways now you can use both. I was parked waiting to head across and there was one car in front of me. On the out of town side the first car is always completely flat and then from the second car up there is a gradual increase in non flatness. I have always driven standard. Automatics are for pussies although I would buy one living in the city and have never had a problem admitting I�m a pussy anyway. So I have one foot on the clutch and my other foot on the break and I illegally turn back to grab something from my back seat. When I turn back around there is a woman not even a scary one knocking on my window. I roll it down and she tells me I rear ended her. OK. I was 18, I didn�t care at all I knew I hadn�t done anything it didn�t even register with me and I didn�t tell my Dad. I have had only two speeding tickets in my life and having to tell my Dad was scary like being scared is times ten. I didn�t think it was necessary to tell him which means it was nothing.

I�m at work one day and my Dad calls me he asks me �were you in an accident at the bridge on such and such yadda yadda� I�m all snotty teenager �umm no like I think I�d of like told you like holy look where you work OH YEAH WAIT A MINUTE� so I tell him what happened. I have never had a very good memory but still. I get off the phone and less than five minutes later the lady walks in and says something to the affect of she just reported what happened and I�m sorry but my back and neck really hurt and you did rear end me excreta while I stare blankly at her without missing a beat and quickly explain that I KNOW my dad works there he JUST called and although because it involves me he can�t handle it as my DAD he of course called and asked me about it.

JAW smashed into the floor too bad about her face.

The people came and looked at my car they measured my seat belt my bumper proving right then and there not only was I not lying but there had been no impact period. But then she actually had the balls to sue me I don�t know if she just thought my Dad working there superseded the law so he could some how get me out of doing NOTHING but talk about moron you�ve already been caught and then you sue me? Turned out she�d been ripping this company off on other claims and mine was not the only one but you�d think when not only do you get caught but you get caught because you �fake hit� someone who�s father works at the company you�d get your head out of your ass but nope. Needless to say she lost I still have all the paper work from being served although I was not there I had already moved out by this time and it was for some ridiculous amount too. I was really pissed though holy I could not believe that she had backed her car up to make it look like I had hit her and was suing ME. I should have been suing HER.

I basically learned that asshole con artists live in small towns too and that being sued is fun only if you know you are going to win.

I have this silly memory of the very first time I went home after I moved out. My parents still lived in Terrace for a while after I moved to Vancouver. I don�t even think I had lived in Vancouver that long in fact I was probably living in Dirty Burn [Burnaby, a suburb]. I know it was also the Thanksgiving long weekend though because John Denver died that weekend and it was really fucking trippy to all three of us that I just happened to be home when the artist that I had grown up listening to, saw live at three with Gordon Lightfoot at Canada�s Wonder Land and as an adult still love like he is still here had died and we just happened to be together when it happened, when he crashed his plane. Most people have no idea how much that man did for music and tried to do for music for the protection of freedom of speech for artists.

My Dad and I had this tradition that faded in and out depending on my age that we always went to movies together. The movie theatre in Terrace is the worst theater in the entire world. Ok fine so your feet stick to the floor but fuck it�s the seats, the worst seats EVER. I have no idea what movie it was but it was like less than a half and hour till it started and I was getting nervous and feeling anxiety and I was like Dad we gotta go man we gotta go we are going to be late what are you doing lets GO!!! He swiftly reminded me we were on northern time and we left five minutes before the movie started and made it on time drove there and everything didn�t even miss the previews. I bet you it is the Terrace movie theatre that is responsible for my having to have ass surgery.

When I moved out to Vancouver in 1996 I was nineteen years old, naive, unaware, unaffected and completely oblivious to what was really going on in the world outside of my ignorant bubble.

I moved here with a man of Yugoslavian decent, the majority of his family resided in Belgrade, Serbia. I knew there had been a war but at the time I was too self-centred and un-educated to have realized much more.

Shortly after settling into big city life a request came from *Jeff’s mother to go visit a family that had recently escaped from Serbia and were living in the lower mainland.

Jeff had told me countless stories. Before we left Terrace he had spent a month in Belgrade. This was after Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia had signed the Dayton Peace Accord to end the war in Bosnia- but us all, as fellow beings know- well before there was any actual resolve in the regions.

We went to visit the family, two parents living in a tiny two bedroom apartment with two kids. They had almost nothing, I remember they were so happy and thankful to merely see us I had an instant anxiety attack, I didn’t know what to expect, didn’t in truth understand why we were there and what his mother expected from us. Why would these people want to visit with a nineteen and twenty year old?

I knew that it was Jeff’s grandparents that had done whatever was necessary to get this family out and although it was very painful for Jeff’s mother, his relatives had decided to stay, despite their daughters endless pleas for them to leave.

We only visited this family once. Mine and Jeff’s relationship ended, he returned to Terrace and I went on to surviving with my own version of nothing.

A few years a go I took an interest in Africa. I feel very strongly that no matter what your financial situation we should all support causes and organizations that mean something to us. The Terry Fox Foundation, The WWF and the continent of Africa are the places where I concentrate any support I can offer.

It wasn’t until I took an interest in Africa, reading about Somalia, Rwanda, learning about what was really happening over in these countries, that I realized right in front of my face a family, a man I loved at the time had been and was dealing with a massacre of their own people, members of his family had been forced to toss bodies into mass graves and I somehow had no idea just how severe the situation was.

The realizations came in a flood, he had shown me books made to document the massacres, stuff you don’t see on the news, and I held stories in the back of my head but nothing that I wanted to think about. When the cloud of ignorance cleared I felt like I had missed an amazing opportunity to have learned from this family and to have done a fuck lot more than visiting them ONCE. I know I did learn from them but I realized the lessons years too late.
—
There is a genocide taking place right now as I type these words in the African country Sudan if you don’t already know the main area is called Darfur.
I’m no preacher, I’m no expert. But this is not America’s problem, it is not Canada’s problem it is the world’s problem. After WW II, after Yugoslavia, after Rwanda how in the 21st century can we allow this to continue to happen? Over 400,000 women, children and men have already been slaughtered. This is a genocide we can stop.
Every single one of us has the power to do something no matter how big no matter how small.
This weekend ALL OVER THE WORLD there are groups getting together in support of stopping the war in Sudan.
Here is how I’m participating: End A War [this is just one of many organizations with plans for this weekeknd]

*name changed

I regress

The week before Christmas my Dad got thrown from a horse he was training for the neighbors. Upon landing my Dad found himself with four broken ribs. The hospital did not have a room for him; he spent three and a half days in emergency. NICE. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. Due to various other serious health issues already present they could not allow him to go home - not to mention living so far out in the bushes. Although I am very glad they kept him there I can’t imagine how insane of an experience the emergency room would have been for that many days.

YOU may be asking yourself - aren’t things with your family in the shitter?

Through two years of pain, tears, break downs, spazz outs, threats and hard work we are a bona fide family again. It took my father and me until last Thursday to spend close to four, if not more, hours talking out the past. [I arrived on the Saturday] My father and I are very stubborn but I think he finally understands where I’ve been coming from. I know there is a part of him that hates that it all happened the way it did, but I hate it too.
All that matters is that the three of us have been heard and that I feel that I can have an honest relationship with them, trust them and go back to sharing my life with them. We still disagree on things from the past and have different memories of how things were but we seem to be able to agree to disagree. And leave it at that.
I never wanted or asked my parents to change, I accept that they will still do some of the same shit that pisses me off to no end AND vice versa. but I realize this is family, and not everyone has the chance to work it out and keep it real. I am very thankful for that.
I did however want them to acknowledge my experience of what it was like growing up with them. I feel I have gotten that and even before I went up I had started to move on and look forward to the future.

I still plan on being brutally honest when writing about my past experiences and what it was like to grow up feeling as neglected as I felt, but I will not blame. And I also understand some things better now and am able to see them from a different perspective.
They still don’t change the ending.
They’ve learned, I’ve learned but there are still experiences and stories that for me need to be told. Would I have a therapist and a Category called ‘assholes’ and another one called ‘depression’ if there were none to be told. [I think not]

All of a sudden ABC was posting

I had this rad as shit post planned for my escape to the north and in escape I mean - FROM THE FUCKING RAIN - when my site went DOWN for like 24 hours. It sucked; I was scared and felt naked.
I also felt guilty because I KNEW I was not going to able to visit blogs up there, nor had I mentioned ABC4 was added as a PERMANENT user on gus greeper.

My ticket was booked within the week I was leaving — I have a post coming SOON on an appointment for something I HAD to make but was holding off making because I knew even though they had denied my immediate request to come and help out that they would eventually cave and fly me up.

By cave I mean:

• With this appointment I had to make - I’d been putting it off and they knew it
• I won’t even be looking for work IF I look at all until March
• I agreed with my father that with them so far out in the bush by choice my mother has to be able to handle all the chores that are required when you live in the sticks.
• It made sense to go help when he was beginning to feel better
• I knew my mom would need a break
• I knew we all needed to be together

My arrival I never thought I would ever hear these words come out of my mouth - but I actually said I was hockey’d out when I got off the plane and heard we were heading almost straight to a Prince George Cougars (WHL) game. The saving grace was seeing BRENT SUTTER [the coach for our World Juniors, he has won us the gold TWO years in a row] he got a standing ovation before they even officially announced him. Oddly, his WHL team is in last place. The Cougars ate his team for dinner and everyone was happy.

I don’t think I was actually ‘hockey�d out’ and I do feel it uncontrollably necessary to defend that insane and NOT AT ALL Canadian statement. [I’m lucky no one rushed me off to the hospital to ensure I hadn�’t seriously lost my mind to the point of no return - those words will never leave my mouth again I swear to the Gods of Hockey]
I had simply been SPOILED by the Juniors and watching the Canucks lose what felt like a million games in a row - - but see! it all came at once. Juniors on one channel, NHL on another, go to a live game, win the gold medal, get off the plane, go to another game, and see Brent Sutter in person. Could I BE anymore hard done by?

FYI:

When it comes to the WHL I do not follow it closely, I’m a self proclaimed bandwagon Cougars fan. I have been to one WHL game in Vancouver and The (vancouver) Giants actually played the Cougars. I cheered so loud I AM WITHOUT doubt LUCKY I didn’t get my ass kicked, any harder than I fear getting it kicked when I wear my Leafs Jersey to Canucks games.
The Cougars beat The Giants this did not help my case at all and I fled.

I saw two games while up there and the Cougars won both. [the parents have seasons tickets] There is NOT A DOUBT in my mind that I bring that team good luck. I expect to be hired on as some kind of goddess of the ice mascot extremely soon. If the offers DO NOT start pouring in I WILL cry. [the ugly cry]

The work

This is my favourite photo taken because:

• I have seriously HOT sun glasses on
• There is fresh snow to plough and I KNEW because of the first day I ploughed the driveway that I was going to have SO MUCH FUN
• AS IF I wore a hard hat but I thought it would make the photo cooler

Except for the photos of me cleaning my Dad’s fish tank where I got covered in fish shit and hated it, the photos and commentary presented by ABC4 in my absence covers the hardest of the work.

Some unexpected Drama

Mrs E.

oh what you thought she couldn’t get to me up north? SO DID I.

Mrs E. enters the apartment twice.
Adam explains to me over communication device that he has been leaving a special light on for Gus. On two separate days he came home and the light was OFF.

FUCKINGBITCHCUNTFACEWANTTOKILLHERDEADZOMEBIESHOULDEATHERBRAINS

Adam goes next door and tells her to STAY THE FUCK OUT. I call the building manager and politely but STERNLY say: “she enters again we are calling the police”.
He hopes it won’t come to that. We do too.
We were already being moved but now I just want out NOW.

FUCKINGBITCHCUNTFACEWANTTOKILLHERDEADZOMEBIESHOULDEATHERBRAINS

I arrived back in Vancouver and it was STILL raining. The first person I saw was Mrs. E but honestly I had too good of a time and was way too excited to see Gus after sleeping with fatso Bear for a week to really give a shit.

adam got his hands on a display frame from the demolition site of a restaurant type place and made me a tribute to my scans. holy shit i was FLOORED and flattered and i feel so special. the back does not even come off the thing and he couldn’t find any scotch tape and used band-aids, it is hanging in the bedroom. ABC4 is the BEST MAN IN THE WHOLE UNIVERSE.
i did say i would never post my bare breasts on my own site. seeing as every person who enters the apartment will now see my breasts [whether invited or not invited you cunty bitch mrs. e] i’m posting it. man.

i decided due to this tribute that i would do a new one. it has been a while. and what better thing to scan than my new belt buckle!!!! [the ninja will be on a break for a while]

basically, you can take the girl out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the girl. this is also a good indication of stories from the north to come.
i have never actually lived IN prince george but i have been going there since i was very young. i’m ACTUALLY from approximately 1000 kilometres further north and from two separate very small towns. even my closest friends in the city get blank looks on their faces for a few seconds when i ask them if they know which of the three towns i graduated high school in. most people just assume i’m from prince george. i did spend many a year growing up in the country doing similar work to the work i was doing over the last ten days so when i saw this belt buckle i knew i had to have it. i found it in the airport. it was meant to be, they were regularly thirty something dollars and i paid $14.06.

i’m going to catch up on your blogs now hopefully this ties you over until i’m done and can write you stories from the snowy north.
thanks for sticking around while i was away!

right now i am feeling excited like i get excited in the lineup at Star Tours.

this being a sequel, i thot it appropriate to make this episode a little darker.
the part of “shelley duvall” will be played by corinnagusgreeper.
bear is also featured as “the stain”.
now let’s pull the pin!

i hold the north in my hand. my power is boundless. i must travel…

yet, as i depart, i feel eyes on me. i must go now.

the speed is now my focus. i no longer exist outside it.

it is not my mind that betrays me, but my instincts. i feel the eyes.

i am vulnerable. i am too far to return…

i remember…. .. …. ..

they remember.. …… …. . . . .. . ::: ….. .

destiny darkens the room … . they descend….

the wood deals back the anguish…..

…and the stain…

this post has been brought to you by carnivores.

greetings from the control room.
as will become aparent in the following photage, mrs. corinnagusgreeper is taking care of business in Prince George. due to completely nepotistic reasons, i, abc4, am second in command. gus’s role is effectively ceremonial, and frankly, her typing skills are lacking. so by divine ordinance, here is a preview of the new “Travel PGBC” brochure… .. . .

that was a cold ride yo.

hello friends, come observe our wood wailing!

take that you! never mess with the liscumbs!

i am going to personally wail on all of you. do you believe me?

it does not matter, i will show you! stay off my property!!!

now go, and tell all of your wooden freinds that they are not welcome here.
you didn’t think we had a giant bunny either, but we do. and as for the carrot, well, there arent any brains on it because the giant bunny is hygenic like that.

and so on and so forth.

don’t worry, she’ll be back before i disgrace myself.