On Holiday

Sometimes it is ever so nice to be on Holiday and get paid for it. Well, technically I did work today, if you call driving a city bus filled with the Swiss sludge curling paralympic team members wherever they need to go, work, then yes I worked. But in the down time as they practiced I was able to catch up in my journal and write a letter to my missionary brother. I drove around with my co-driver, Yvonne. She's probably late sixties and has sparkly silver hair that she covers with a rain bonnet on rainy days especially like today. I love old lady bus drivers.

I love Olympic cheer.

I love the smiling faces at the front desk as I walk through the sliding glass doors at ground floor.

I love the slish of the Holiday Inn hotel key card to let me in my room.

I love the fresh towel refill and cleaned bathroom.

I love how they fold the tail of the toilet paper twice to make a tip.

I love the new linens, even if I have to untuck three sides of the bed just to get in.

I love how much room I have and that I'm not paying for it.

It is a tad lonely, but I'm super content. In a state of peaceful happiness. My life sure is looking up, right at the stars. I'm out of debt, I'm going to Alaska for the summer, I will get a new car and will soon finish school. I like being single but I'm ready whenever God is to get me a husband. :) But life is sunny, my eyes are bright, my heart is free, I'm skipping down a yellow brick road with bare feet and whatever happens, I'm ready. And for now I'm great.

something. anything

"..so quiet I hear the Willows weepin," -Chic Gamine, Sunny Sunday


I have to put something on here. Not for you, for me. Just need to.

But I've got nothing on my mind. So, I've opened up this blogger post box and we're about to see what comes out. It's 9:30 AM

Somewhere, I've lost a friend.
Well, I know where she is
But contact has come to an end.

At first it was only his
Life I had to take myself out
Of; I wasn't expecting this.

I don't seek pity or mean to pout
I'm just somewhat confused.
She knew me before his route

Crossed over ours and fused
A relationship with her, then me.
In time, he and I were bruised.

But I figured what had been would be
Still, with her, a solid friendship
And here pierces the mystery.

Maybe I let a wrong word slip,
Or someone said something misleading
About me, which caused a rip

In her judgement and reading
Of my otherwise sincere and
Honest heart, now bleeding.

Because it hurts more to be banned
Without even knowing why
Than be released from the hand

That held my heart and my
Everything. Because lovers come,
Move everything around, pass by

And go, but friends offer some
Stability, some orientation,
A sort of pathway home

When the journey's expiration
Is far from a familiar place;
Likewise giving explanation

From a familiar face
When something isn't right.
Friends don't just erase

Years of memories in one night.
It must have been something bad
That I don't know I did, in her sight,

And it makes me really sad.


And now it's 10:30 AM. I talked on the phone with a fellow bus driver, David, for 16:26, so this poem, if you will call it that, took no longer than it did to lose a friend...

What else can I say? Whatever it is will best be in haiku form, I'm sure.


The bus company
Working the Olympic games:
Gold medal failure


It has been two weeks
Breathing through a mucous straw
Not enjoyable


Sun, unearth desire
Winter stills the bravery
Evaporation


Haiku is harder
Than I was hoping right now
Too bright out to sleep


Well, maybe this is better than nothing. It's 11:13 AM.

Randomblings: from the heart

I wrote this Saturday Feb 27. I had a rough sort of day and the following streamed from my fingers. I started a short story for February, but have not finished it. Busy month. And a shorter month. Maybe I'll finish it pretty soon. But for now, this:


I feel. I am a woman and I have feelings. I use them honestly. When I don’t feel something, I don’t portray it; when I feel something I’ll let you know. Only excepting when I just can’t, because some feelings just can’t be told. Sometimes even letters can’t be formed from the debris of words certain explosive feelings leave behind. Then is when you just sweep it all up and make a deposit in the dumpster.

But right now, I’ll say a few words. Men are idiots. Women should forever be exalted for letting men into their lives. Men don’t deserve a good woman but oh how they need one. And just one. Once she has agreed to be his, he should remember—always remember—how useless he is without her and cherish and respect and adore and honor and pamper and waste away his life trying to make something of his own through hers. A man whose life is not given to one good woman will waste all the good he’s got and be good for nothing. Okay, not nothing, but close.

Guys generally like sports. They like to run into each other charging at full speed. They like to hit and throw and toss and kick assorted athletic balls. They like to win and get whatever they want, get a prize.

Women are not prizes, but are to be prized. They aren’t trophies to display, but treasures to bury deep in the heart. What man wasn’t born with and what he won’t ever find elsewhere in the world is contained in one word: woman. She is the goal. She will cheer for his success as long as she’s the goal.

What’s in it for him? Did you really ask that? You did if you’re a man.

Why does any athlete train, sweat, tear his muscles to make them stronger, push, bleed, break and fight for the sport? He has a goal, he wants to win. I thought that was clear enough already, but I’ll say it differently.

She is the goal, she is the success, having her = to win; she makes the effort worth it, she makes his life have full worth. Anything else he aims for, he may achieve; but until he wrestles the bitter game of love, he will not know the sweetness of losing his life to win a woman.

It just makes me so sad when he loses sight that there’s nothing grander than one good woman; when he submits to the steroidal impulse to get a quick woman, any woman; women, women. It makes me sad, too, the quick women that submit.

I’m tired and I just don’t want to write a short story that I haven’t thought up yet. I’m deflated because the world doesn’t value the ultimate team of a good man and a good woman; the Olympic possibilities of golden years, with silver hair and bronzed skin, together to the end.

Men, go for the heart of gold, the one you’ll earn only through losing yourself to win that woman.

My Nose

I'm drinking warm water that soaked some peppermint leaves in it for about ten minutes (I would have just said peppermint tea, but then y'all might think whatever it is you think, so I specified) pondering my luck of going one and a half months without getting sick, when whamo, the sniffles. Don't you agree that it's the worst thing to wake up in the night to escapee snot tickling down your nostril, the one you haven't been able to breathe out of since you turned your head onto that side? In my frantic ear-plugged, half-sleep, eye-closed reach for the roll of toilet paper, I knocked the tissues under the bed. I rummaged and found them again, unrolled, tore and twisted a wad into my nostril and flopped my listless head back onto the pillow. Leaving the tissue as was prevented any further worrying and snot dripping. So, turns out, I slept well. All eight hours. Except, my roommate did wake up three hours before me and that woke me up ever so slightly -- enough to actually feel self-conscious about the paper plug in my nostril so I snuck it from my nose when hopefully she wasn't looking. Not sure what I did with it after that...

I love breathing from both nostrils. It feels more correct, filling both lungs evenly. Normally when I sleep, I nostril breathe, I don't snore, basically you'd sometimes wonder if I was actually breathing I sleep so quietly. When I'm sick my nose habitually nose breathes still, until that becomes too laborious and I switch to mouth. I hate it. I am convinced it makes me more sick since it dries out my throat and allows all sorts of airborne hitchhikers to get right where they need to go, and bust. Yes, I hate it when I have to breathe through my mouth when I sleep. Mouths should stay closed except for eating, laughing, cleaning and saying intelligent or witty things. Oh, and kissing. Kissing is definitely on the list.

When I get that nice clogged feeling at the back of my nose, my brain always suggests and encourages that I move it from there, into my mouth and then onto the ground, into the sink, wherever is appropriate for the time. My brain is kind for the constant motivation, but when it comes down to it.,..I just can't obey. I can't voluntarily hock a loogie. Which is to say, in a word I'm sure how to spell, spit. Yeah, I just can't get it from point A to point B, only point C: swallowing. Only sometimes my body decides to bypass the informing part and just takes care of the A to B reflex for me. I appreciate when that happens. I know it's gross. But, you read the title of this post. You could have stopped then.

What else about my nose? I rather like it. It's pretty average and fits nicely on my face, below my eyes and above my lips. When I smile it spreads out a bit. Some times more than other times it seems. At times it looks like it grew overnight and those days are always self-conscious ones. But anyway, I was really only writing until this tea was gone, so that I wouldn't have to drink it cold.

Current conditions: both nostrils are clear, north and south bound. But, I don't think it's going to last very long. Forecast shows there will be a nap and the build up of mucous will probably start shifting from side to side. But for now, the mouth is pepperminty fresh, and we really do need that nap so the immune system can do some clean up while the body's at rest. This report brought to you by the cranberry and pomegranate Emergen-C packet consumed earlier. Emergen-C, when you can't get from A to B, try C.

:)

More Things About Canada and Stuff...

I haven't gone to any Olympic events or met any athletes, but I have watched stuff on T.V. I haven't gone skiing or snowboarding, even though this is skier and snowboarder paradise. I don't know how to do either and I don't want to spend all my money just learning how to (and being maimed in the process).

I made an american flag out of towels I bought from WalMart. It's pretty....it's an honorable mention. I'll have pics soon. The pics were taken with another's camera, so I don't have them. It was a fun craft, Mom you will be so proud.

Oh! I wrote a poem. I think I like it... I'll post it soon.

Driving down the highway one morning I saw a friendly red truck driving in front of me. I don't remember most of the drive because I was imagining all the fun I could imagine happening around a truck like that. It was a coca cola truck, with painted fizz bubbles in the finish. It had two empty spaces that looked like they were reserved for coke vending machines. Maybe it was on its way to get more beverage to share with the thirsty world. It had large, animated everything it seemed. It just looked like a play truck that was actual size and functional. Eventually we came to a red light and I passed by it going in the lane to turn right. First thing I noticed was a steady stream of brown liquid pouring from the side of the truck. Hmm, I thought. Then I noticed the giant unfriendly tow-truck the poor red coca cola truck was hoisted on to. Poor bleeding Coca Cola truck, I thought. And it made me thirsty.

I have to go. I'm going to Squamish! I'll hopefully have pictures next time!

Take That, Back

Here I stand triumphantly, if still in excruciating pain, because I got out of the top bunk and walked to and from the bathroom and didn’t fall. Funny the things we take for granted when we’re healthy.

Things that should be painless that I took for granted before this week:
Sitting
Walking
Bending
Crouching
Lifting
Leaning
Twisting
Getting up
Lying down
Stretching
Standing
Laughing
Reaching
Moving

I think I really must have done something awful to my back and no matter what I do to take it easy, it’s just getting worse. So, is it my bed? Is it bus driving? I think these were harmless before, but after mysteriously tweaking my back they serve as contributing villains in the conspiracy of bringing me down. But, this seems to be all I talk about lately. Talking, typing and thinking are about all I can do now.


There are always as many sides to a story as there are characters in it, plus one: God’s version.

Let’s say there’s a girl. What she knows is that she’s in a lot of pain and can hardly move. She sees that she’s in a country with laws partially foreign to her own and is unsure of what help she can turn to, or if she could afford it. She thinks to herself, “I’m not sure I can take much more of this.”

God sees all this and most likely wants to relieve the pain the girl feels. He knows He can work miracles and relieve all pain. The girl also knows this and carefully maneuvers her body to the floor, curling into a kneeling position.

“God,” she confides, “I understand that with mortality comes pain. I’m not sure what I even did to cause this back pain and so I’m not sure what will help it go away. I feel like I need this pain to go away. But if for some reason I need to bear this pain for now, I can accept that. I do need to work while I’m here in Canada and I’m not really functional with this pain at the moment. I really believe in miracles. I know that the Priesthood power provides for all manner of healing and I would like a blessing. I believe in the healing power of Jesus Christ.”
As is expected, God listens. He registers her faith and assesses the situation in its entirety. He can see all that. He can see everything. He is pleased to have the invitation to help a daughter in need and as always will do all He can and wills.

The girl lies back down, heating pad softly warming the aching joints. With hope she presses play to start the movie The Testaments on her laptop. The gentle music soothes her tender faith and the beautiful images remind her of the power of her precious Savior. How she does love Him.

Farthest from her mind are the pieces of paper hanging on the dorm container entry doors “This is a female dormitory. No males allowed.” Zach, a thoughtful Priesthood holder is on his way, and faith is gearing up for any possible miracles. A light knock at the door is answered, “Come in.”

Zach slowly opens the door and when he sees only the girl he suggests that he’ll wait until her roommate comes back. A very gentlemanly thing to do. Meanwhile, a girl down the hall ingests authority to enforce the rule previously mentioned, written on a paper, hanging on the wall. At the same time, roommate and another male friend and Zach enter the room together, with a little red tray of food for the immobile girl.

Zach proceeds, anointing the girl’s head with consecrated oil for the blessing of sick and afflicted bodies. The very moment he places his hands again on the girl’s head to give a blessing, another knock on the door is heard. Roommate answers the door and the girl down the hall presents her recruited voice: a bold lady with hair as strong as her will to enforce.

Without any attempt to understand the situation she demands that the males vacate the dormitory. The friend nearest the door slips out right away, hoping that his departure would be satisfactory and that Zach would go unnoticed. But roommate opens the door wide enough for Zach also to be seen. She commands that he leave as well.

Unable to move and filled with pain and emotion, the girl explains, “Excuse me, ma’am, my back–“ Strong Hair interrupts. “Whatever you’re doing can be done somewhere else, you cannot be in here.”

Then tears unhelpfully intrude. “I cannot move,” the girl says, “what he is about to do is sacred and—“

“You need to leave.” Hmm, she thinks we didn’t hear that the first time she said it, perhaps.

“What if I leave in two minutes,” suggest Zach very innocently.

“What if you leave now,” miss sassy pants continues. “When you signed up to live here you agreed to obey the rules, no males allowed.”

Loss of cordial patience, check. “Actually, I did not agree to that rule. But if you want to go tell on me that I’m breaking rules, go right ahead.”

Huffy exit of strong-hair lady, tattletale girl in tow, charging for rule police back up.

Finally, a moment of…relative peace. The girl was crying, already repenting for being short with the short-sighted woman, hoping that the Spirit wasn’t too far from her flustered heart.

Zach, the poor brave fellow, blesses the girl, nervous hands on her head.

God, the wonderful, kind Father, blesses the girl, masterful hands on her back.

Immediately the girl feels a loosening of cramped and tightened muscles. Still teary and a bit flustered she doesn’t mention it as Zach leaves, but she feels it. There is still pain, but she is mobile. On the floor she does a few tender stretches, and roommate fetches their clean laundry.

Another knock on the door. Roommate answers once again, this time to two males with authorization to be in the female dormitory. The girl on the floor notes how their position and official jackets qualify them to make exceptions to posted rules. The brutes’ hearts soften as they view the red-eyed girl on the floor and they ask what the trouble was. Roommate explains about a blessing and apologizes for being short with the woman informant.

The burlier of the two males proceeds to offer possible home remedies, suggesting this and that, as if there had been no disturbance, no reason for tattletales to come running. They radio for a female first aid attendant and when she arrives, the security squad leaves.

What God saw surely must have been entertaining. Indeed, being able to look on the heart should give His view a very well-rounded show.

He watches the girl’s heart swell with gratitude as she maneuvers with ease to the bathroom—a trip that took a full five tender minutes previously now only took two. The gratitude swells even to her lips and the joy of a miracle leaps from her lips in form of a laugh. But, she counsels herself, take it easy. She smiles and smiles.

The Priesthood power, the girl thinks later, is of the most precious gifts God has given to man. Well, perhaps it is the all-encompassing gift God has ever given. The creation of this world, the atonement of His Son, the current open from Heaven to man through the Holy Ghost: these all involve Priesthood power and have been given to undeserving man. A portion of this power is allotted to worthy men on this earth, to bless and brighten lives of everyone around them. What an honor, to hold a bit of God’s power. What a blessing on earth.

The girl remembers how two certain men wearing security jackets entered the building because their authority trumped the rules. She thinks how interesting it is that a single man, draped in invisible power with authority issued from God, broke rules to administer to one in need. His authority was not visible, but it was even more than kings, magistrates, emperors or crowns can command.

And that power of God connected to a sick daughter’s pain and relieved it, and continues to heal her. No other reflective-jacketed man or first aid attendant could have brought that healing. Whatever must be healed by faith happens through invisible power. A servant of God wears his faith in his actions and can be called in as a first-response authority. God be thanked for restored powers on earth.

Back vs Stomach

This morning I had the 0715 shift report time. The cafeteria opens at...earlier than 700, so I was able to go in and get a mixture of oats and yogurt and a couple muffins for the road. Oh, and rice krispies. So, I take my little red tray of food and decide to just stay on the bottom floor of the cafeteria instead of ascending to the second floor this morning, to save time and energy, and pain in my back. I tenderly lower my body at a table by my lonesome and I'm facing an older gentleman who is sitting, faced to my left. I chomp away diligently at my morning meal and don't think of much. I think of how I really love 'yoats' and how my back is quite tender and just try not to move more than my mouth. I hear the older gentleman make a coughing noise. No big deal.

A man and woman enter with their little red trays and set them down, a seat away and across from the left-facing gentleman in the orange toque. The man and woman left their trays to go get some jam and in the mean time, the orange-tipped man continued his hacking until he turned quickly and vomited in the trash can gratefully right behind him...ungratefully directly in my view. I think I paused...every muscle below my forehead and above my belly button, deciding what to decide to do about my current predicament, as he continued vomiting a few more times. As my eyes were in a moment of indecision, they continued witnessing his convulsing heaves. I peeled my eyes away and cast them toward my own food.

Here was the moment where I had to mediate between back and stomach.

"Ow," said my stomach.

"Ow, don't even think about it," said my back.

Why move seats when I was almost done eating just to get up, move, sit again, finish and then get up again, move again, etc. It was just too much to bear. My stomach was quickly disciplined and I let my back be the victor.

The other man came back and witnessed some of the vomiting and looked at me. I'm not sure what my face told him, but he kept looking at the vomiter, his food and myself, and it made me laugh. Not out loud, but enough to comminucate that I too was undone. but I also felt bad for the guy! It's no fun to vomit. And why oh why was he still stuffing froot loops and yogurt into his stomach if it was rejecting the thrown-out waffle being finely coated in syrupy vomit?

I don't know. I commanded my stomach to finish the yoats and I took my muffins, my red tray and my back out of the dining area.

Well, lessoned learned: go upstairs to eat.

Days Off

Besides the broken back, the nothing but good times continue. There are just so many things to tell about!

I got paid! That's always reassuring, that I'm not actually being mistaken as a volunteer. We all wondered about monetary materialization for a while. My fears are gone, and so should be yours...

My face wash smells like Sprite. Here in Canadia boonies I think of Sprite more than I have in my whole life. And that leads me to think of Italian sodas that my family makes now and again and it makes me miss those occasions. Hey out there, family that rarely reads my blog. Love you guys!

So, in the week of Feb 1-6 I only worked two days. So, with four days off in a row, Seth, Merilee and myself went to Victoria Island. It took a two hour bus ride connected to a 15 minute sky train to a 1 hour wait to a 45 minute bus ride to another hour and a half wait to the hour and a half ferry ride to another hour bus ride just to freaking get there... So that you don't have to think about how long that was, I'll just tell you this: we started at 9am in Whistler and arrived in Victoria Island at 6:30pm. All that transport was very tiring.

So first thing we did was call Dispatch to tell them we would be needing an extra day in order to see anything at all, since at that moment in time we had only that day and the next off. It would be horrifically unhelpful to just go home the next day at 10am. They told us we could have another day. Yay! So, we checked in to our hostel, added an extra night, and dropped off our crap to go to dinner.

We walked for many blocks to an Indian restaurant. It was pretty good. We got food and ate it. Then we left after we paid for it. Pretty basic.

We went around the town a bit then, looking for ice cream mostly, but seeing many other things in the mean time. Like buildings, stores in them, windows in the front of them, and whales and totems and eagles, oh my! on the street. Finally we slipped into a conviently placed store filled with all the junk one needs at 9pm or later and got a little tub of vanilla brownie fudge ice cream and three spoons. We went back to our hostel, ate it, played some pool, did some yoga while I wasn't the one playing pool, and THEN we went to bed. The room was awesome! Well, it was a room. With a bunk bed, a mirror, a small desk and a chair. But the ceiling was like twenty feet up. Two more bunks could have easily made their way up there. But as it was was sufficient for sleeping, which we did.

Then we went to breakfast in the AM at a place called the Sour Pickle. It was yumesome! No, didn't have any pickles, sour or otherwise, and yes, it was the typical breakfast all day place, our order taken by an asian lady that we couldn't understand who kept coming back to ask, "is anything all right?", another asian-looking man taking off an apron and going out the front door, either to smoke or get more ingredients for his kitchen...it was the beeest. Really. I do recommend it.

Then off we walked for many many many blocks. Many. We saw the world's tallest totem pole with a living, sitting eagle on its top. We saw a beach with an ocean attached to it. We saw many rocks worth picking up to admire on the beach. We got more ice cream and that was enough to fill our ice cream quota for the week really. Those fast food ice creams go right through me usually. Yeah, I don't like to hear about it either. Okay, so we kept walking. Oh, we walked through a park! Beacon something park. Lovely place. Did you know there are black squirrels? There are. Did you know there's a peacock in Beacon park? Birds just don't even know how beautiful they are, don't you think?

Ah shoot, I have to finish this post now. Okay...we had a lovely day, rewound that hectic travelog, made it home for prison dinner and slept. I woke for the 0415 shift the next morning. Yay. 12 hour shifts are the most delicious. Oh yeah, so just in case you didn't know, I'm driving motor coach buses up here in Whistler Canada, transporting the security personnel to and from venues where they can protect people. It can get super boring, but it's beautiful around here. I haven't fallen alseep at the wheel yet. So...more later. Cheers!

January's Short Story

Actually, I had the idea for this story and it just kept coming out until 10 thousand and a half words were burnt onto the page. I wrote it in probably eight hours...it just came. I loved it. I hope you can read it all, because you need to start somewhere. I'm going to have eleven more. Hopefully I can keep them shorter, but I think this story needed everything I put in it. Pretty much. But I appreciate your fresh (soon-to-be wet) eyes, so you can drop off your comments. If you're anonymous, however, I think you should say something productive if anything at all. Just sayin. I appreciate encouragement and constructive criticism as much as the next writer. Maybe even more than the next writer. We don't know who he/she is, anyway, so it's hard to tell.

The short stories that I write this year will be on a separate blog. They're too long to post in with the Dramastic writings, and I don't want those delicate and sometimes petite writings to be interrupted by visually intimidating, lengthy posts like Heather's Heart. Heather's Heart is a work of fiction. It is not about my life. I hope it doesn't happen in my life. But many characters are inspired by people very close to me, though I do not intend that these similarities are necessarily reflective of my perceptions of these people. I fictionized many things. But I also felt many real things as I wrote it and it comes direct to you from my tiniest heart fibers... Hope you enjoy. Cheers!

Little Pieces of Canada

I notice as I drive up and back the same 15 minute stretch of highway 99 twenty times a day, that I wave at all other motor coach and bus drivers. It has become so second-nature that I sometimes catch my hand waving at anything that looks big or has clearance lights on it...
Like Hostess truck drivers, for example, or pick up drivers. Even when I was getting a miracle ride home from church today I kept my hand from lifting as every great motor coach sailed by.

I know the road so well that I can practically sleep and drive. But I don't. The coaches seem to get as bored as I sometimes, driving along, they themselves having memorized the route. Only now and again will the routine be broken up by a slow tractor in the way...or a female flagger in a neon yellow reflective jumpsuit...or a snowboarder racing across the road as only a snowboarder can in stiff snowboarding boots...but not by any animals yet. I haven't even seen a piece of road kill here in Canada. They take cleanliness very seriously.

But when I walked out of the metro on Friday when I went down to Vancouver to send off a mitigation letter to plead for innocence in regard to my logbook infraction on day one, I saw a man sitting on the rain-wet ground. His hair was the same color as his face, as his jacket, as his hands, as his sign, that said, "Anything will help." Anything, really? I could think of a few things that might not...but anyway, I thought of one that could have. "I have an apple," I offered. He opened his mouth and I knew.

"I'd take it, but I don't have teeth to eat it!" He smiled. His look was as vacant as his gums. He had laughed about it, but really. That's sad! Can't even eat an apple for how life has neglected his mouth. Wow.

Today I made it to church. A little 5-member branch in Squamish, BC. Today there were about 15 or more people, though, for all the visitors. I brought two others with me, Merilee and Seth, our curious friend. It was a much less dramatic journey to get there this week. We got dropped out of the bus right off the highway (basically tucked and rolled) and then from there it was just a mile walk in a mildly misty air. It was pleasant. And on the way, there was a sign about how to care for your dog on its leash and its poop, and underneath the human part there was this for the dogs:

Dogs: Woof Woof, Bark Bark. (Good Dog).

I laughed and laughed and made Merilee take a picture of it. So she made me get in the picture and I'm sure that looked marvelous...but it was a funny moment. I'll hopefully get that picture soon.

OH! We've walked around the Whistler town a couple times. We hit up the sweet library (that's now closed for the Olympics...and there's a secondary school that's going to close for the whole Olympics, can you believe that?), we strolled the whole area that's marked on the cartoon map as "stroll area" and looked at all the over-priced stores. We walked through one Olympic store that has awesome cool Olympic everything that I can't afford. We walked through the movie theater which really has a speak-easy feel to it. We found a MARVELOUS candy store called The Great Glass Elevator Candy Store. YUM I found a piece of heaven in Whistler. And we got icecream that was delish and not as expensive as the other place that has a great, actual-size COW made of...ceramic? who knows what. But whatever they made it out of must have been expensive, or why else would one scoop of icecream cost $4.95? That's not right. They had creative t-shirts, too. Like "The Jonas Brudders" and "Dairy Potter" etc. Maybe if they laid off the gimmicks people would actually buy their ice cream! cuz it wouldn't cost an arm and an udder.

We saw a lot of people running around in short shorts and long socks with Australian flags for capes. It was Aussi day! That was all we saw, though. That and a whole heap of snow boarders and skiers. Oh, I bought some mittens. They're red and white with little Canada flags on them and Whistler on the wrist. Cute and cuddly, that's what they are.

Okay, that's all that's come to mind here as I sit down. And I'm about to run out of battery. So no pics with this post. But soon!