We’ve done four already, but now we’re steady

Today was a crummy day.  Today was the kind of day people who are afraid to move to the Pacific Northwest cite as their primary excuse: gray, gloomy, slow.  Today feels unsorted, as if it’s been wearing mismatched socks and just ran out of coffee.  Today stubbed its big toe on the kitchen stool, then forgot to pack a cookie in its lunchbox.  Today accidentally ran into and practically knocked over an old lady on the crosswalk.  I’m not the type of girl to use the word crummy, mainly because I don’t live in the Andy Griffith Show, but today was totally, totally crummy.

It wasn’t supposed to be crummy.  Today I was meant to have coffee with one friend, dinner with another.  Today I was meant to wear pajamas all morning, to play with a baby, to eat a homemade chocolate chip cookie for breakfast.  Well, I did do those things, but today didn’t right itself until an old friend showed up unexpectedly.  I was in the Capers, buying produce with Matti when I heard him in the store.  Crooning, or was it cawing, but still, so distinct, and it was, the way things are only in movies, perfectly timed.  The voice went like this,

Singing in the sunshine, laughing in the rain
Hitting on the moonshine, rocking in the grain

I know what you’re thinking, Robert Plant is not your old friend, Mandy.  You do not know him personally, nor do you really have any intimate connection with him, artistically or otherwise. And sure, you have a point.  But in that moment, standing there beside the overpriced organic swiss chard, it was just right.

Singing to an ocean, I can hear the ocean’s roar
Play for free, play for me and play a whole lot more, more!

Don’t you hear it?  His voice scratching against the back of his throat, his lungs, expanding, forcing the lyrics out, nearly raw?  Roaring like the ocean before a storm?  I know a warm cup of chamomile and a good book are supposed to turn a bad Sunday right side up but I am here to tell you that sometimes that just doesn’t do the trick.  Sometimes, baby Lucy’s thighs, in all their glorious chubbiness, don’t pull the heartstrings into tune. Sometimes today needs to rock; today needs big hair, skin tight stonewashed jeans, and an unbuttoned belly shirt that was perhaps borrowed from a ten year old girl.  Top that off with some chest wax and a gold chain and, well, things are starting to look up. Admit it: sometimes, you need to rock.

(link)

I like everything about this video: the roaring crowd at Madison Square Garden, Page’s bling, and Plant–the way his pants looks airbrushed on (particularly from the “front row” camera angle); the way he air guitars on the mic cord; the way he wails “so good” at the end because it really is so good; but mostly I just love the sound of his voice, like ripping a piece of silk: gauzy and immodest and totally subversive.  Forgive me, but I have to say it: Rock. On.

A note to sticklers/die hards:  I don’t intend to defame Plant by suggesting he waxed his chest, maybe it was just that way, naturally hairless, pasty, gaunt…  But, you know, you totally know, he was never able to button that shirt.

dust off your wellies

Can one make a home in Vancouver and not, at some point, do some serious meditation on precipitation, most particularly the rain?

Of course this is a rhetorical question.  My rubber boots were in fact dusty when I dragged them out of the closet this morning, but, by the time I got to the office (I haven’t spent a Friday morning in my office in months now) the rain and I had reached an agreement.  I will suit up–boots, rain coat, cardigan–step out, and embrace this sloshy respite from the sun, in exchange for watered tomatoes, clean sidewalks, and a few days of bicycle riding and rock climbing next week.  After all, no one will be making the drive to Squamish this weekend anyway.

The rain does induce a pleasant kind of coziness that makes snuggling up on the couch with a hefty stack of final exams just a little bit easier.  Claire explains it well.

My favorite rainy day Vancouver activity? A trip to Go Fish for tuna-nori tacones:

(grilled ahi, nori, cabbage, tomatoes, wasabi mayo and just a sprig of cilantro, all wrapped up–so sweet and hot and fishy)

For some reason, the marina is at its loveliest under gray skies.

The stegosaurus is nicely camouflaged in the herb garden.

This is Justin’s photo from the spring, me opening wide for a bite coconut curry fish soup.  Note Salmon tacone and wasabi cole slaw in foreground. yum!