Resident...Residence....Residency.....

One of the guys I work with is from South Africa.  To give you a bit of background - he moved here with his wife a couple years ago.  They live downtown Vancouver very close to where I am.  I haven't been over, but apparently they have a really nice one bedroom apartment on the 18th floor with a gorgeous view of the ocean. 

Sadly, but for excellent reason, they have to move out of that apartment so have been looking at apartments - 2 bedrooms...(so there is 1 for the baby!)

Anyhow, on Friday morning a whole gaggle of us from worked walked down to the Starbucks to get coffees and on the way back he announced quite proudly, "I forgot to tell you guys, but we are celebrating because my wife and I got our permanent residency!"

Everyone smiled, and said, 'hey congrats', 'that's exciting', etc.

I said, 'So where is it?'

He said, "What?"

I said, "Your place - where are you going to live?  Where is your new apartment - your permanent resi...den..ce....uh...den-cEEEEE...oh.....uh...never...mind......"

As soon as I said it, I knew.  In my defense I've lived in one country all my life - a permanent residence, means you stopped renting and took out a mortgage....but it was too late.

The whole gaggle enjoyed a nice long chuckle at my expense!


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Life on the Coast

Can I tell you about my Wednesday?

 

After work, I went to the beach with a friend.

We had a bottle of wine and a couple sandwiches - a picnic on the beach!  It was nice.

 

THEN...

 

the sun set and it was amazing - the colours of the sky reflecting off the water...so pretty....

 

THEN...

 

everyone else on the beach left because the sunset was over.  But we didn't rush, just kinda hung out a bit talking.  It was right about when we were thinking, 'well maybe we should go...' that a blue heron came to the edge of the water, about ten feet from us timidly dipping it's feet in the water.

 

I'm sitting there thinking, 'And this is just a regular wednesday night...I have to go to work tomorrow....'

 

It's nuts.

Sometimes I forget I'm not on vacation.

 

 

 

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One thing, and one thing only.

My office lacks one thing:

A beer cart that plays the ice cream truck song.


happy friday!

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Yesterday at lunch....

Tanya: "Hey, want a carrot?"

Joaquin: "No thanks.  I don't believe in vegetables."

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What's the weather now?

Every morning I check the weather app on my phone so I can dress appropriately - scarf, no scarf; mittens, no mittens; sunglasses, no sunglasses; etc.  For the past couple weeks, I check the weather, dress appropriately then walk outside only to find it is a lot nicer than I expected.

My phone says minus 12, feels like minus 18 - so I touque it.  Get outside and people are wearing shorts.  Now the weather in Calgary changes fast.  People joke that it changes every 10 minutes.  But even if that weren't an exaggeration - it doesn't take me ten minutes to lock my door and walk down two flights of stairs.  Yet, every day lately, without fail, by the time I put my mittens on and get out the door, the weather has gone from mitten-weather, to non-mitten-weather.

Again this morning.  Yesterday was nice out, today it said coldish, so I dressed for coldish - got outside....oh crumb!  I'm hot.  And not in the 'check me out, I'm beautiful' kind of way.  I'm sweating hot.

So I'm at work and someone says - oh it's supposed to be nice this weekend - plus ten.  And I think, this guy's on crack.  My phone said around the 0 mark, with snow.  So okay for end of february, but no plus ten....

I pulled out my phone and tuned into the weather network just to show him how wrong he was.  And in big bright letters it read - 5 day forecast - -1; 0; -1; -6, -11

I had done it - proved him wrong!  He agreed that what I said was just what the forecast read, but then ever so graciously pointed out that above the forecast, in big bright letters, it also read "Saskatoon"...


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So far so fast

Do you think that five years ago Mark Zuckerberg for a single second imagined this would be in the international news, “The continuation of the conflict between the different political forces and their difference over how the country should be run could lead to the collapse of the state and threaten future generations,” el-Sissi said in an address to military academy cadets.  His comments were posted on the armed forces’ official Facebook page.”

https://www.facebook.com/Egyptian.Armed.Forces

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12/12/12/12

I bought a condo...
 

I take possession at 12pm 12/12/12....
 

So, I guess the Mayans called it...the day Tanya Kostichuk makes a commitment the world will end.

 

 

 

 

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