2010 August 06 | dinner with Julie

Archive for August 6th, 2010

Five.

Help, I’ve fallen (behind) and I can’t catch up.

I’ve slid a little further than usual this time-I feel like a large dog (perhaps an abnormally huge shar pei?) going at breakneck speed across a linoleum floor, attempting to turn the corner on a dime and instead sliding sideways, jowls flapping, legs scrambling futilely to get a grip and go the other direction but instead being completely ineffective (but nonetheless exhausting) and letting me slam into the wall. It has been fun – mostly – but yikes, I’m tired.

We arrived home from Vancouver late last night, went straight across to say happy birthday to my 20 year old (!) nephew and eat cake, then came home to prep for a taped show I had to do today and set my alarm for 4:30 (!!) to get up and go cover traffic on the morning show. Since leaving work this afternoon it has been all party planning all the time because tomorrow – in approximately 16 hours – is W’s fifth birthday party. We have a chocolate cake baked downstairs with elaborate plans (and specific instructions) to turn it into a dragon that breathes lava balls using only icing and candies. No pressure.

Yes-W turned five on Wednesday. He’s all mature now, and has decided to graduate from chocolate ice cream to far more sophisticated strawberry. Here’s where I’ll pick up where I left off writing in Vancouver… If you get disoriented, lose all sense of time and aren’t sure what I’m talking about, we’ll be right on the same page.

Ready to jump into the DeLorean? Let’s go.

I’ll preface the news of our ultra-fab digs at the Met in downtown Vancouver with a report of our five-hour wait at the ferry terminal yesterday, having consciously planned to beat the long-weekend rush by waiting to leave Tofino until Tuesday (HA) and having, as usual, rushed to get everything packed/cleaned/remade to get out the door in order to make the ferry (did I mention HA?), having almost run out of gas on the windy, shoulderless road to Port Alberni (where there is a Tim’s!) and having arrived in Nanaimo just after noon. Not only did we miss the 12:15, the 12:50 was full and we didn’t make it onto the 3:10 by THREE CARS (was it the Tim’s? The roadside pee in the bushes?) and had to wait on the hot tarmac for the 4:40, which was delayed due to “extreme heavy traffic”. We left Tofino at 9:20 and didn’t get off the ferry until after 7pm. (Actual distance between Tofino and Vancouver: 201 km or 125 miles.)

We amused ourselves in the (HOT) car by playing with PhotoBooth on my laptop. It started innocently enough with the photo up top. Then it deteriorated to this:

By the time we missed the third ferry, we looked something like this:

First world problems, I know. I just wanted to provide ballast to the fact that the pendulum swung over and we are now in a schwanky hotel room – no, suite – at the Met in downtown Vancouver, wearing thick white robes, sleeping in the most divine king-sized bed (aren’t sheets and pillows the true marker of a great hotel? They don’t get any better than this) and this morning we ate eggs Benedict on cornbread with roasted plum tomatoes for breakfast, after an amuse-bouche of teeny pancakes with plum compote and a teeny BELCH – bacon, egg, lettuce and cheese – sandwich.

W ate Fruit Loops naked. He turned five today. We suspected we’d be on the road at some point this week, and so thought we’d do something special, since in recent months he has taken to asking at random if we can just stay in a hotel tonight mom? One with a swimming pool? No – one with two swimming pools – one big one and one small hot one? If he asks this in public I tell him to finish his Perrier and we’ll discuss it in the Jag (which, by the way, this hotel has for anyone who needs a ride to their morning meeting – anyone need to meet for coffee in downtown Vancouver tomorrow?). He discovered he loves hotels last year when we stayed a night in Banff – the same night he discovered he actually isn’t terrified of swimming pools. I thought maybe we’d stay in Vancouver a couple nights and take him to the aquarium and sleep in a hotel with a swimming pool. What better way to ring out the fifth year of your life, and welcome the sixth?