And Some More Pictures....

Lake Louise Pictures

As promised, here are some pictures taken at Lake Louise last weekend. From the pictures you should be able to see how I spent a lot of my time!!

Yummy Indian Food

Saturday night a bunch of us went over to Sean's parents place for homemade Indian food! All I can say is "yummy, yummy, yummy". Unfortunately, I can't remember the names of most of it (let alone the correct spelling), but we had come beef curry, a potato and cauliflower dish, a spicy chicken dish, dal (I think that's the name of it), samosas (one of my fav foods ever), various chutneys, naan bread (yumm) and a really good deep fried one that started with a "P" - S n' N help me out here. Then we had Indian sweets for desert (including gelabis - excuse the spelling).





It was great food and great company. Sean's parents started cooking for this on Wednesday - can you imagine! I think there was 10 of us in total so that is a lot of cooking! They gave me a dish of leftovers which my brother ate half of when I got home and I have to admit that I ate the remaining half for breakfast this morning! It was too good! Thanks S n' N!!

Nunsense

The other evening I joined Pingcat at Stage West to see Nunsense. Nunsense is a musical comedy and really it is so so so so funny! I laughed from beginning to end. The premise of the story is that these five nuns are putting on a variety show in the local high school to try and raise money. Now, the reason they need to raise money is to bury a few nuns from their convent. The convent's chef (Sister Julia, Child of God is her name!) made soup and some fifty or so nuns died after eating it. The five remaining nuns came up with enough money to bury all but a few of these nuns (they would have had enough but Mother Superior bought a plasma tv). Until they come up with the money, these last few dead nuns are in the freezer awaiting burial!

Anyway, it was really a great show and I would highly recommend that anyone who can see it - should. I hadn't been to stage west in a couple of years and I can't remember the show I saw there before. Also, the dinner part of the dinner theater was quite good. I'm always a fan of dinners that I don't have to cook!

A big thank you to Pingcat for taking me as her guest!

Going Snowboarding!

So tomorrow I am going to make the big leap and head out to Lake Louise for my very first time! I used to ski when I was younger back in New Brunswick, but our ski hills are not much in comparison to the Rockies! I've gone to C.O.P several times now and think that I can handle the easier runs on the mountain. I heard that Louise is a good place for snowboarders whereas some of the other hills are better for skiers.

I'm going with my friend Allison. She's never been there before either. I'm very excited, but also a little bit nervous - I guess just not knowing quite what to expect. I've looked up the website and it is just amazing how many runs there are; there are 139 of them according to the site! I plan to stick to the green ones!! I remember my crazy brother saying that he went on a black diamond the first time he went down. I'm not sure that we really share the same genetics sometimes because I won't be doing that!! I certainly can't afford to hurt myself! I also want to take my camera to get some good pictures, but am afraid that when (not if) I fall I will break it. I haven't quite decided about that yet. Maybe I will take a little back pack and keep it in a locker for the day and get some shots from the lodge. There, I think I just solved my own problem! I will certainly post some.


.....In other news..... I guess I kind of had a crappy weekend. I hate to bitch, but I went out for St. Patrick's day and had a not so nice experience and came home early. I spent the rest of the night feeling like shit and today was much of the same. I think I've worked myself out of the pouting now, but still need to work through being pissed off!! C'est la vie right. Some people are just not nice sometimes. So, I am really looking forward to the fresh mountain air tomorrow to help clear my stress.

International Women's Day 2007

Did you know that apparently today is International Women's Day 2007? I didn't know that until just a few minutes ago. It was started by the UN. Now, I also looked up to see if there is such a thing as an International Men's Day and did not find anything official; I did, however, find a site where one could sign a petition to the UN requesting, that in honor of equal rights, there should also be an International Men's Day.

Now, I can't say that I'm one to go off about men vs. women because I think it is silly. We are simply a different gender. Nothing wrong with different anything. I do, however, love being a woman and all that goes with it.

What does get me going however is when we see/hear of crimes against women which are going on worldwide every single minute of every single day. Really, what gets me is crimes against humans because along with women around the world, millions suffer at the hands of others because of their race, their age, their religion (or lack thereof), their body type, their economic status, their job, their lack of a job, their language, their illness or handicap, their politics, where they were born, where they grew up, and the list could go on forever.

All over the world humans are being cruel to humans and just because it is not ME suffering at someone's hands does not mean that I don't have a responsibility to stand up against it . I will always love what Elie Wiesel said,

"one person of integrity can make a difference, a difference of life and death. As long as one dissident is in prison, our freedom will not be true. As long as one child is hungry, our life will be filled with anguish and shame. What all these victims need above all is to know that they are not alone; that we are not forgetting them, that when their voices are stifled we shall lend them ours, that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs."

So this is why I think that International Women's Day deserves it's place in the calendar because it means that on one day of the year there is cause to stop and take a look at the world and investigate, recognize and protest against the horrific acts from which women around the world still suffer every single day.

I am so thankful that I live in a place such as Canada and am surrounded by people who love me and treat me - a woman - with respect. My heart goes out to those who are not so fortunate and my pen speaks of my protest of crimes against women who suffer, and in hopes that those who have won their freedom and rights might never lose them.

Busy Week

It's been a busy week at work - well more like a busy 11 days at work. I was in Medicine Hat a couple of times; the second time there I didn't even fly - just waited at the hotel for a flight to go. I guess we were waiting to pick up some rig guys but they got the dril bit stuck in the hole and were working to get that out. We were waiting for them to tell us to come and get them. I waited in a hotel from Saturday to Monday. I guess they didn't get the drill bit unstuck because we never went and got them all weekend! Luckily I had bought a really good book to read because there wasn't much else to do while I waited as I had no wheels. I actually read a 700 page book from Saturday afternoon to Monday!! It was called Labyrinth by Kate Moss (and no, not the model) if anyone is looking for a good book!

I also did a rig charter last week where both of us up front were women! Imagine, eight rig guys in the back with two female pilots - I knew we would get comments!! Sure enough - they went on and on about the flight and how it was the best flight they'd ever been on and they never want to fly with men again, oh how our landings were the best ever, and so on. One fellow decided that my fellow pilot was certainly to be his future wife!! It was funny!

Last night I went to see Pan Labyrinth with my gal pal Athenia. Despite it being a bit of a fairy tale, it is certainly not a movie for kids. There were a few very gory, graphic scenes. Shocking really - I guess because it is unexpected. It was a spanish movie with english subtitles about a young girl who goes with her pregnant mother to stay with her new step father where he is at work as a captain in the military. He is an evil, violent man. She finds a labyrinth nearby and after some exploration is given some tasks to complete before the next full moon in order to prove that she is in fact the princess of the underworld. Anyway, it was quite good. I like those types of movies where there is some fantasy type stuff in it. I always liked movies like Legend (with a young Tom Cruise), Labyrinth (with David Bowie) and others like Indiana Jones.

In other exciting news - today I bought a slow cooker. I've been finding lately that I'm eating like shit because I don't feel like cooking for just myself after a long day at work. Also, I end up buying groceries and then going to Medicine Hat for a few days so waste so much of it. So, I decided to try this method. I'll put some stuff in the pot in the morning and when I get home it will be ready to eat. I think it will be a much healthier strategy than the crap you end up eating when you are too tired/lazy to cook for one person.

Ohhhhh, I also bought new windshield wipers for my car. Mine are nearly falling apart so they are overdue!! So, that's it - I'm off to install wipers!