Machu Picchu

Finally, after an oftentimes gruelling 4 day hike - Machu Picchu!

We woke up at 4am on August 22nd and ate a light breakfast which our fantastic porters had prepared at 4:30. Thirty minutes later, we walked the 50 metres from our camp site in the dark to queue at the entrance of the final checkpoint of our hike which did not open until 5:30.

The reason for our early morning start was to get to Machu Picchu in time to pick up a permit to hike up to Huayna Picchu, the ruins atop the mountain that overlooks Machu Picchu. The permits were limited to 400 a day and given out on a first-come-first-served basis so we had to hustle.

It was an eerie hour of hiking in the dark before the sun slowly began to rise, clearing out the misty clouds. I reached the Sun Gate after climbing the "Oh my god" stairs, so-called because they were crazy steep and crazy high - so steep and so high that you have to literally climb them. The view that eventually greeted me was worth it though:

If you look really closely, you can see the profile of the alpha-llama just to the left of the building against the blue sky:


I'm amazed that these delicate flowers were hardy enough to grow out of the walls of the ruin:

Towards Huanya Picchu, which I thought ill-advised while hiking up since it was freaky-steep and narrow - oh, and you go down the same way you came up!

The crazy steps - "Oh my God!" part deux

The view of Machu Picchu from Huanya Picchu

Paradise Orchids on the way down....

We rode a bus down this windy pseudo-two lane road down to Aguas Calientes below, where we caught the train that would take us back to Ollantaytambo.

It was while leaving Machu Picchu that we heard there was a forest fire along the Inca Trail, the same trail we had been hiking the last few days! So not only did I dodge an earthquake - I missed a forest fire too!

Ceviche and other yummy goodness...

What's a vacation without food? I must confess that I had very low expectations when it came to food in Peru, mainly due to ignorance on my part. I hadn't done any research prior to going, and this article hadn't yet been published so I didn't know for example that ceviche (which I have always enjoyed save for the short period of time when I was allergic to sashimi) originated in Peru.

Our first meal in Peru was lunch at Cebicheria La Mar, the same restaurant mentioned in the article and it was out of this world. I must admit that while the rest of our meals were pretty good, they paled a bit in comparison to this first introduction to Peruvian fare.

Feast your eyes on the yummy goodness at La Mar:

Ceviche, seafood briefly "cooked" in lime juice and monster kernels of corn

A seafood appetizer sampler to rival any of the fancy-schmancy dining establishment in Toronto

Grilled Swordfish with wasabi mashed potatoes

A tuna steak that was perfectly seared

Grilled octopus

Seafood soup, another Peruvian specialty

The dinner that followed was at Jose Antonio, "the Best Typical Peruvian Food Restaurant in Lima...specializing in regional Peruvian cuisine "Criollo", authentically prepared from ancient recipes dating back to Pre-hispanic times."

A sampling of the appetizers, including marinated beef hearts on a skewer, which was surprisingly tender

Chuleta Acaramelada, fried cutlet pork coated with caramel, served with rice and sweet potato (cooked with orange juice in the oven) - this had to be eaten quick because as the caramel cooled, it hardened and became rather difficult to cut with the knife

We now leave Lima to venture to the next and final stop on our culinary journey - Cuzco, where we had the chance to try another Peruvian specialty....roasted guinea pig! wL and RC were rather keen on trying it so we had two of these at our table. I had a little bit to taste and can't say that I enjoyed it very much. Whether it was due to the actual guinea pig meat or the herbs and spices they used to prepare it I don't know, but I could have done without trying it.

This is my "safe" choice for dinner - chicken and beef hearts grilled on a skewer (the hearts were better in Lima...):

Ahhh....and now, the fantastical passionfruit cheesecake at Cafe Dos X 3, that was raved about in wL's Lonely Planet. Soooooo good!

Finally, our last meal in Cuzco was at Ciccolina's, a Spanish tapas restaurant in the San Blas neighbourhood. We ordered a few chef's choice tapas platters to start and supplemented with additional tapas as needed - these, along with a bottle of Carmen Sauvignon Blanc only cost us 45 Soles each - which worked out to be about $15!

I was out for dinner last night with S&W at a Peruvian restaurant in town and the fare was a pale imitation of what I was lucky enough to taste on my trip. At least I've got the pictures to remind me...

Running, running

I went running with wL after work today and it was my best time ever - 5K in 28:16! I shaved another half minute off my time, but it didn't feel like it while I was running. It felt more laboured because I ran the last 3K with a stitch, and trailed farther behind wL then I ever have for a longer period of time...we started off running at a quicker pace then usual, and I was hungry to boot since we didn't head out until 6:30 so that might have contributed to the cramps too. Ah well.

He's leaving for a two-week trip Saturday so I don't know what I'm going to do. I lack the motivation to get my ass out the door once I'm home - and like I said before, he's a much better runner than I am so he makes me better in turn. I'll try to keep it up at the gym, at least on weeknights since it's too dark for me to feel safe running out on my own after work. Let's see if I can pick up the pace in the time he's gone...

Meanwhile...No Doubt's Running...one of my favourite songs...


...and perhaps appropriate on some level because I think I might like wL as more than a friend but can't be sure. That's all for now.

I'm paying for it now...

My skin has gone berserk.

I have the occasional hormonal blemish, but this situation is clearly not hormonal so I'm trying to figure out why. Could it be all the wine that I drank this past weekend? There was R's birthday get-together Friday night...and then the bottle of Wildass on Saturday.

Or is it that I haven't been taking the vitamins and supplements in the last, oh, month or so that my mom tells me I should because they help keep my skin clear and bright? I never really believed her but took them anyway because she's my mother and it's the path of least resistance and now I'm finding out the hard way that they really did work to clarify my skin and keep my body's engines running smooth?!

It could also be stress from work - I've put the job search on hold at least until my bonus is paid out next February. I figure I've already stayed this long, what's a few more months; the bonus has always been rich relatively speaking and I've no reason to believe that this year will prove otherwise; and finally, I'll need the money since I'll be moving next year. Anyway, I'm actually very busy at work with a couple of big, fairly high-profile projects on the go at once which I've sort of taken the lead on and it's causing me a fair level of stress because I feel a touch overwhelmed. I've even taken to bringing work home to do, which I've done only a handful of times in the 3 years that I've worked at TLG. I suppose this is payback for having spent much of the last year sitting on my ass at work surfing the net because there was so little to keep me busy. sigh.

So adorable...

I met N's new baby girl M today and she is the sweetest, tiny little thing. Her skin was so soft and her feet and hands so small! And N, who gave birth 2 weeks ago doesn't look like she was pregnant at all, except for the bigger boobs. :)

It's lovely to see N&G as parents. I've always considered them as the ideal for a marriage - granted, I don't have very many close married friends, but they were high school sweethearts and managed to grow together rather than apart. And while their relationship has had its challenges, they've managed to work things out rather than give up at the first sign of trouble, which says a lot in this age of disposable everything.

After spending a couple hours cooing over M, wL and I went for another run. I managed to shave another 15 seconds off my time by coming in at 28 min and 45 sec. AND! I was able to run with greater ease today - it didn't seem like I had to work as hard to keep up with wL, even though I did trail him by about 50 metres consistently in the last couple kilometres, I didn't feel the hint of a stitch until about 3km in and even then, I was able to breathe through it.

We're hoping to schedule in another run during the week if the weather's good - the forecast calls for rain Mon/Tues and I don't run in the rain - and then I'm on my own for a couple weeks because he's off on a trip to the Middle East, spending 16 days on a tour covering Israel, Jordan and Egypt. :(

Drunk on Wildass Red

It's Saturday night and I'm drunk on Wildass Red 2004 - a fine, easy-to-drink "big, bold, and beautiful" vintage made of "Cabernet/Merlot with a hint of Gamay to keep it real!"

I started the day off with a 5k run with wL, and I must admit that the brisk, cool air this morning made me question whether it was a good idea to run at all. Turns out it was a great idea because I shaved another minute off my run-time - 5K in 29 minutes, baby! We've a date to do it again tomorrow afternoon - perhaps I'll improve my time a bit more... :)

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful...I got home after my run...read the paper...ate lunch...headed to mandarin class...grocery shopped...then proceeded to get drunk on a whole bottle of Wildass Red with dinner.

Aside from sharing my drunkeness, I have a condo status update, as I stopped by yesterday after work. There's just one more floor to go and they should be adding the "precast concrete panels and floor to ceiling glass" exterior!

View from the west

View from the east

While I wait for that to come around, my hunt for furnishings continues...I found the latest candidate at BLVD Interiors on Queen West - by day, it masquarades as a sleek, armless sofa that's surprisingly comfortable:

And by night, it's a cool sofa-bed that's bigger than a single but smaller than a double:

I wish my condo would just hurry up and be built already because just as I begin to think I've decided on what I'd like in my space, I see something else that changes my mind...like the armless sofa-bed above. I thought initially that a sectional like this would be a great idea, and then I thought no, perhaps a sofa like this - both of which, you may notice, are tufted variations with arms. But now that I've seen this sofa-bed, I'm thinking armless may be the way to go, particularly as this is so much more practical since this would double as a guest bed - it's affordable, and it's also so much more stylish than a futon! Anyway...I'm sure I'll change my mind again as I visit more furniture stores...but for now, this and the sectional are tops on my list.

Oh! I also stopped off at John Fluevog and tried both pairs of boots that I've been coveting. While the brown boots looked fantastic on, they were a workout-and-a-half to put on and take off, so I'm rather disappointed to say the least - I don't know about you, but I don't have a footman in my non-existant entourage so boots that require help to remove are a no-no. The bad-ass black boots looked pretty damn good too and were soooo much easier to put on and take off that I think I may just buy them after all at the LA Fluevog store. We shall see...if they're in store then they were meant to be mine...otherwise, there are other boots to be worn.

I must now take my drunk ass to bed...I've plans for dim sum with my family in the morning before meeting my friend N's new baby girl M, who looks like her daddy G. :)

Girls' long weekend redux!

I just got off the phone from booking my flight to LA in November!!! Girls' long weekend redux! Yay!

I'm visiting my best girl W and we're going to shop and eat and shop some more! And speaking of shopping...I already started with 4 cashmere(!!) sweaters from J. Crew! I took advantage of the free shipping offer that expired yesterday and had my goodies shipped to W so as to save on the duty. Ah well...waiting a month to caress their softness is a small price to pay...and considering all the money I'll probably be spending, I've got to save where I can. ;)

I plan, therfore I am

My red leather Kate Spade agenda is, sadly, looking rather worn, so I'm thinking it may be time to get a new one...this Louis Vuitton Monogram Vernis planner in Amarante, which is a fantastic deep burgundy colour might be just what I need:

Thanksgiving weekend round-up

It's Thanksgiving in Canada so hurray for long weekends! It turned out to be a pretty busy one too.

I got my haircut Saturday morning at my usual salon, although my stylist S is still on mat leave. After the unsatsifactory cut I got last May, I decided to give P a try and she was pretty good, although not S. I asked how S was doing and when she would be back - apparently the plan is to come back on a part-time basis in January, but P suspects that she won't come back at all since she'd be commuting from Oakville with the baby at home. This makes me sad, and causes me some distress because while I love S, I'm not prepared to trek out to Oakville to get my haircut if that's how things play out. Bloor West Village is as far west as I am willing to go.

So what'd I do this time? P lopped off about 4 inches to clean up the mess from my last cut and I got me some bangs that I'm not sure about since I'm not used to having hair on my forehead. My hair grows out so fast anyway that it'll only be a pain in the butt for about a month and then it'll be long enought to tuck safely behind my air.

I spent some QT with my brother in the afternoon picking out fabric for some custom made dress shirts by Hong Kong tailor Maxwell's Clothiers and then spent the evening having dinner with wL at Embrujo Flamenco on the Danforth, a great tapas restaurant that has live flamenco performances nightly. The food was great and it just so happened that Canadian rapper turned actor Wes Williams, better known as Maestro Fresh Wes of "Let Your Backbone Slide" fame was dining at the next table with his wife. Anyway, no story here except that he seemed like a really nice guy at the restaurant.

I spent yesterday with a couple classmates from my mandarin class hiking at Hilton Falls. It was a foggy, gray day and thanks to the storm from the day before, much of the leaves had fallen to the ground. There was some nice colour to be found - although not as much of the brilliant reds and oranges as I would have liked. Plus, I got bitten by a mosquito and it is soooo itchy!

After a late lunch, I met up with S&W and we headed on over to G.H. Johnson to check out some furnishings - they'd just moved into their new apartment the day before and needed to find some more storage in the way of night tables and dressers. I found a couple things I liked, including this sectional, although I'm not sure about the leather:

I also really like this sofa, which has great a mid-century vibe to it:

Of the two, the contempory look of the sectional better suits my loft space. The sofa will look out-of-place if set in my living area with its 10' walls and exposed concrete ceilings. We finished off the night with Indian at Tabla, so my craving for butter chicken and na'an is sated until the next one hits.

Which brings us to today. I went for a 5K run with wL this morning and thanks to him, ran my fastest 5K to date, finishing in about 30 minutes. I think we're going to try to run together more often, which is good for me since he's a better runner than I am and therefore challenges me to do better.

It was humid and so warm today that we actually set a new record for October 8th by hitting 31C today. All I know is that it was enough to send me to bed for a couple hours in the afternoon before getting up to make dinner. In lieu of the usual roasted turkey that my mother makes, I made herb and garlic-crusted beef tenderloin and paired it with a pea risotto - both super-easy to make and very yummy to eat - since my brother complained that turkey's too dry. I disagree, but he's usually so low-maintenance and "whatever" that the odd time he makes a request, we try to accomodate him.

That's it then. I was going to post my Peru pictures but it's just too darn warm, so warm that it makes me sleepy so I'm not going to fight it any longer...

Itchy, itchy itch

I've got my eye on a couple pairs of boots at John Fluevog - namely this one here, which I think would look really cute with skirts (plus the button details are purple!):

And this one here, which reads tougher than I'm accustomed to:

I've been holding back because I'm not ready to give up on summer yet - besides which, I'm trying to be fiscally responsible. But I want them.

And I don't know what prompted this, but just for kicks, I decided to change the settings on the website to see what the prices would be in USD, since I default Canadian. And you know what? They're about 25% more expensive here than they are in the US - and John Fluevog is Canadian!

The clamour over price disparities between products sold in the U.S. versus the exact same products sold in Canada has been increasing ever since the Canadian dollar started showing strength against the U.S. dollar. The price of books is a perfect example of the longstanding disparity - the American list price for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is $35.99 compared to the Canadian list price of $45. The exchange rate this summer was in the mid-90 cent range - so if I had driven to Buffalo to buy the book, I'd have paid the equivalent of about C$38 once the exchange rate is taken into account. How is that fair?

Now consider the price of cars - according to this article, the 2007 Honda Accord Sedan starts at C$25,090 in Canada while it costs US$20,360 in the U.S., and the higher end Cadillac Escalade EXT starts at C$71,730 while it sells for US$55,045 south of the border. Crazy, non?

Some Canadians are so pissed off that a $2 billion class action lawsuit was recently filed in the Ontario Supreme Court against the Canadian and U.S. divisions of General Motors, Honda, Nissan and Chrysler alleging that they conspired to artificially maintain car prices in Canada and inhibited cross-border vehicle shopping fuelled by a rising loonie.

So what's my point? Well. I'm not so pissed off that I'm going to sue anybody, but I am thinking more and more that a shopping trip south is in my future. To that end, I fired off an email to my best girl in LA to find out what her plans were in the next month or two. We last got together for a girls' weekend in NYC in November, where as usual, we were each other's shopping good luck charms. Coincidentally, she's got the itch for some retail therapy too, so we'll see what's what...depending on how you look at it, this could be really good...or really bad... :)

I knew why he called

My friend J, who rarely calls, left me a voicemail around 7:30pm. I was surprised to see his number in my missed call list and when I stopped to wonder why he called, I thought to myself...mmm...maybe he's calling to tell me he's engaged.

I called him back about 15 minutes ago and lo and behold, I was right. He's engaged. To a girl that I don't like. Which doesn't matter because he's the one in the relationship with her. The problem is that from early conversations, it seemed like he was settling.

So I asked him how he knew she was the one, a question I often ask of the engaged - and after trying to give me the usual "you just know" bullshit which I didn't accept, he proceeded to give me, in his words, a clinical answer, which included the comparison to one's checklist of qualities in an ideal mate, agreement in fundamental values, and something about not having to feel like you had to talk yourself into the proposal and having no doubts.

He sounded happy and I'm glad for him. But I still don't like her - and it's not because I want him for myself.

Friendships are not transitive.

Perfect weather for a run

The weather was perfect in Toronto yesterday for me and the other 30,000 or so runners who participated in the Run for the Cure which raised about $5 million here. The event raised $26.5 million and saw 170,000 participants run in locations across the country.

10 o'clock in the morning and this is where I was at near the start on the corner of Queen and University:

The masses behind me...

...and in front.

I made the mistake of not bringing my headphones with me, so I ran without music...which was bad because I got bored. The first kilometre was alright, but the second and third were awful since I stopped and walked several times. I was determined to run the last 2 kilometres though, and it turned out to be a lot easier than I thought it would be, perhaps because I knew the end was near. All in all, it took me 37:09 to run the route...which is about my usual pace. I'm going to do better next time.

Post-run mingling in Nathan Phillips Square

Nuit Blanche

I spent a few hours Saturday night wandering along Queen West, otherwise known as "Zone C" of Nuit Blanche - a free festival of independent art and performances that took over parts of the city. I had the run the next day so wasn't so ambitious as to think I could hit up all 3 zones like some people, but kudos to them for trying.

There was some good, some not so good, and some...interesting. Here's a bit of what I saw:

A collection of wings made out of onion skin - one of my favourites:

From the website:

From sunset at 7:03 pm on Saturday, September 29, to sunrise at 7:14 am on Sunday, September 30, 2007, Toronto will be bustling with activity as thousands experience a full night of contemporary art and performance in three zones across the city. After a stunning and triumphant launch in September 2006, the widespread appeal for Scotiabank Nuit Blanche to return in 2007 was overwhelming. On May 10, 2007, Toronto Mayor David Miller officially announced that Scotiabank Nuit Blanche had become an annual signature event for the City of Toronto, and he invited everyone to rediscover Toronto through this free, all-night celebration of contemporary art.

Run for the Cure

I'm participating in the Run for the Cure this Sunday to help raise money for breast cancer research.

I joined a team started by a friend of a friend, who's mother had breast cancer but is thankfully now in remission. It's been a long, long time since I've raised money for anything and thanks to the friends, family and colleagues who have sponsored me, I surpassed my initial fundraising goal.

If you're interested in making a donation, please click here. And if you'd like to do a little something everyday, please click here to help fund free mammograms.

Thank you.

Amber glow

I was in the family room after dinner watching some TV when I noticed this bright glow outside. I couldn't resist taking a picture to share as the dusk sky is rarely this lovely:

Destiny...

I met my friend, E, after work tonight. She plotted out my Chinese astrological chart and explained it to me. And can I just say that I'm more than a little bit spooked by what she told me.

The chart is based on date and time of birth, so everyone's will be unique, and it's mapped out in 12 boxes that form a rectangle, like this:

Each box relates to a different aspect, e.g. career, money, parents, marriage, children, friendship, etc., and depending on your birthday, the position of these aspects will change. Each box is also populated by different stars that will exert influence on that aspect and when you read the chart, you have to consider the aspect diagonal to it since the stars in that aspect may mitigate or intensify the other - so if the stars in aspect 2 are negative, their impact may be mitigated by really positive stars in aspect 8. All of this sounds similar to having one's astrological chart done according to one's zodiac sign, right?

The key difference here, however, is that each box has numbers in it which correspond to an age...so the chart sort of reads like a road map for one's life - which, if "accurate" can be pretty spooky if you believe in that kind of thing. This being the case, E started off by asking me a few questions - the first of which was whether anything significant had happened to me when I was about 10. And the answer is that about a month before I turned 10, my father died, which was confirmed by the age 9 which fell in my parents' aspect - signifying, in this case, a seperation. The next significant age was 22 - the year I graduated university.*

We spent 2.5 hours talking about my chart and it is spooky how much of my past it reveals - E asked me when I came to Canada, but I was born here, so upon further probing, she asked if we moved when I was 15...and we didn't. The only thing I could think of was my mother's business moving from Toronto to Scarborough...I couldn't be certain about the timing...I knew it happened when I was in high school, so I put in a call to my mother, who confirmed it. And then there was what E could see about my siblings - I have a younger brother and sister so am the oldest. E said that usually, the oldest child is born early in the day, yet I was born in the afternoon, so I would be an exception. So she looked at my chart and said that there should have been more children - so I asked my mother when I got home, and there was another child after my brother, and my mother chose not to have it because my father was already sick with cancer at the time. How crazy is that? It can't be mere coincidence, can it?

I've always been interested in having my fortune read and I've been spooked in the past before given the fairly consistent readings of my past by 3 different people...so to have what could be the road map to my life before me is kinda freaky, if any of this is to be believed.

Where love and marriage are concerned, I'm destined to marry later in life - if later means 36 - which is no different from what I've been told in the past - to a man of stocky build, with thick eyebrows and big eyes, and I will have my first child a year after. In the near-term, this year will be rather blah - which is how I've been feeling - but things will pick up next year and I should be on track to become a millionare by the time I'm 38. Luckily for me, I've got a fantastic star in my wealth aspect, so I should retire by the time I'm 56 - which begs the question - how am I going to make my millions??

Is any of this to be believed? I suppose time will tell....

* Until 2004, Ontario was the only province in Canada that required students to complete a 5th year of high school, otherwise known as the Ontario Academic Credit year.

My first rose sauce! With Lobster!

I made my very own version of this lobster penne in a rose sauce for dinner tonight and it was FAN-tastic! I don't usually watch Chef at Home since I find the host a bit annoying, but the lobster caught my eye while channel surfing and I've been wanting to try it ever since.

My version didn't have onions because I was too lazy to chop them, nor the bay leaves because I didn't think we had any in the house, and I didn't simmer the sauce for 1.5 hours because I was too hungry and impatient. Oh, I also used a lobster tail only and added de-shelled shrimps to the sauce at the end...SO yummy!

Flying high!

The Canadian dollar was at par today for the first time in 31 years and I wanna go shopping! Except that I don't NEED anything!!

WC says I should shop online and save myself the drive across the border to Buffalo...so I've been browsing Anthropoligie and J. Crew for the last little while, daydreaming of another cute skirt...and more cashmere....

Better late than never

I am a bad friend. My best girl's birthday was over a month ago and I've only just finished making her gift:

Ocean blue chalcedony, brushed sterling silver and freshwater pearl choker

My only excuse is that she was on vacation in Japan on her birthday and within a week of her leaving, I myself was in Peru...and then when we were all back in Toronto again, I just procrastinated partly because I wasn't sure how I was going to design it. But also because I am a bad friend.

I will see her this Friday for dinner so she'll finally get her gift...I hope she likes it.

No more excuses

I know I've been saying this off-and-on the last year but I really need to get serious about looking for a new job because this current one isn't making me happy.

I've been feeling increasingly dissatisfied with work and it's only gotten worse upon my return from Peru - and yes, I haven't been back that long. I knew before I left that there would be changes upon my return - aside from heading back to work in a new office building in downtown Toronto, I'd probably find out who my new manager was with the restructuring in our group, and with that news, I'd see a change in my mandate. This has all come to pass and it's only in the last week that I've come to realize what the change in my mandate would mean, and I don't really like it. Granted, I should probably give it a chance...but the regime hasn't changed at the top, so why prolong the inevitable?

But what would that new job be - this has been my excuse for dragging my feet the last year. I wasn't sure what I was looking for...I'm still not completely sure...but I'm going to make a real effort in finding out what that is and that means getting off my ass and actively searching and applying. No more excuses.

Skinny jeans and other good news

Just the other day, I thought I'd try on my skinny jeans...you know, just for fun, since I had noticed that my capris weren't fitting as snug as I remembered...so I opened my closet and took my skinny jeans off the hanger. With trepidation, I pulled them on, and 'lo and behold, they fit! So then I decided I would try my skinnier skinny jeans...the jeans that I haven't worn in about 4(!!) years. And you know what? They fit too!!!!!! How happy was I to be able to fasten all the buttons of my dark-wash Mavis? I guess all my running and the hike along the Inca Trail has paid off! :)

The other news is that I dropped by my condo before heading to S&W's for dinner tonight and they're now working on the 8th floor! Two more floors to go!! The original occupancy date for my unit was supposed to have been this coming Tuesday, the 18th...it's now been pushed to May and I'm very hopeful with the progress-to-date that it shan't be delayed any further. Keeping my fingers crossed....

Another year older...

Today is my 31st birthday and it was a pretty good day. I looked cute - I wore the transitional skirt I bought last month with a brown v-neck T and my brown wedge heels that have a velvet flower motif - and it was a good hair day, although I had a few break-outs thanks to my facial from Saturday night.

The commute to work was not so good though - our offices moved from midtown to downtown while I was away on vacation so what used to be a 20-35 minute drive to work depending on the traffic is now a 25-35 minute drive to the subway parking lot, followed by a 10 minute walk to the station and about an hour's ride on the train to my office, which is, thankfully, right upstairs from my stop. That's right folks - my commute has tripled and while I was actually looking forward to the commute initially because I had time again to read the morning paper, I am now officially over it and it is the bane of my existence.

Anyway. I got into work around 9am and about 15 minutes in, my group gathered round me for a "meeting" at which time they presented me with my birthday gift - a gift bag full of fun (and purple!) dollar store finds - de rigeur on my team. I then checked my email and was greeted with, among other messages, a lovely e-card from my cousin, A, in London. We had made a date earlier in the week for a long chat Sunday afternoon, but her friend arrived unexpectedly for a visit from Amsterdam so she called me earlier that morning to tell me. We talked for a few minutes and she never fails to crack me up - "We don't want to draw attention to getting older, but we'll be hot when we're 60 so it doesn't matter anyway."

I was all set to have a very low-key birthday this year when my friend J, who I've grown apart from the last couple years, called me out-of-the-blue last week to ask if I had any plans to celebrate my birthday. He wanted to take me out for a drink, and then took it upon himself to co-ordinate with everyone else - which is extraordinary since it's usually my job to get everyone together.

In hindsight, I suspect it's because his girlfriend was still abroad - we, the friends, don't like her, the girlfriend, very much. She's...different...and when he's with her, he's different. So we all got together for dinner and drinks at The Rushton last Friday and it was fun. J was very much like the old J that we knew and loved, and R brought his new girl out for us to meet. She seemed super-sweet and friendly and we all liked her...so it got me thinking why none of us seemed to like V, J's girl very much, when we've all liked R's last two girlfriends...could it be because J settled? There's much back story here that I shan't get into, but I suspect that has a lot to do with it. He mentioned that he's shopping for a ring so he's well on his way to following his lifescript.

He drove me to my car afterwards and we sort of talked about it...we're nowhere near as close as we used to be and I wonder if he's making a mistake because I never imagined him with someone like her - that is, someone I didn't like - but he seems content in his relationship and who am I to question him now when I haven't been present in his life, nor he in mine the last few years?

I'm usually hit by a bout of the birthday blues in the weeks leading up to today because I take stock and reflect on my life to date...I wonder about the choices I've made and where I'm headed...and this year, the blues haven't been so blue.

When I think about it, I've had a full year, despite the ups and downs: I'd like to think that I'm more accepting about the things I can't change and I'm learning to let go because sometimes it hurts to hold on. I'm fortunate and grateful for the family and friends in my life, and I value the experiences they have brought to me - like hiking the Inca Trail and camping for the first time ever. Who would've thunk that that would ever happen? I'll leave the self-reflection at that...and turn now, to one of my favourite subjects - FOOD!

It's been my wish the last few years to have dinner at home. My mom and Uncle N. are great cooks and they never fail to serve up a fantastic seafood feast on my birthday. On tonight's menu was Vancouver crab, clams, oysters, prawns, fish, chicken, and one of my favourite soups, literally called "monk jumps over the wall" in Cantonese, because the story goes that the vegetarian monk was so tempted by the lovely aroma of the soup that he jumped over the wall to taste it. My mom's version of this soup had chicken, pork, conpoy, shark fin, dates, shitake mushroom, conch and ginseng. And damn was dinner ever good!

My mother asks if I'd like to invite friends over to join us, but I always decline because there is no need for my friends to see me eat like a savage. My sister and I are big on crab and when we're all together for dinner, we're usually the last ones at the table, sucking out the last bit of crab meat. My brother's too lazy and impatient for crab but he gave good game tonight - "I don't want you to have all the crab." Isn't he such a sweeite? I wasn't completely savage today though - while my left hand was greasy with crab sauce, my right hand held my chopsticks, which is quite the improvement from my experience last year. So while I may not necessarily be wiser with age, I'm at least a neater eater.

Condo status update

It's been a while since I've posted about my condo and that's because the live update is no more - the structure-in-progress is now taller than the surrouding buildings so the camera is rather pointless. I've been stopping by occasionally in person and am happy to report that last I checked, they were working on the 7th floor - that means 3 more floors to go and they can begin work on the "exterior facade composed of precast concrete panels and floor-to-ceiling glass."

This is the beginnings of my floor, taken on August 4:

And here it is with some walls up on August 12:

Finally, this is the 8th floor, taken on August 31:

And the lovely hibiscus blooms in the park across the street:

My apologies...

First off, my bad for not posting pictures from my trip as originally promised. The only excuse I have is that I haven't gotten all my pictures in order, i.e. I'm waiting for wL to compile everyone's photos onto a CD so that I have pictures from all 4 days of the Inca Trail hike accounted for. The reason I don't is because I didn't have a spare battery for my camera and I didn't want to run out of juice part-way through the hike and be without a camera when I arrived at Machu Picchu so I didn't start taking pictures until day 3, and the scenery from days 1 and 2 are pretty amazing.

Anyway, I've been back from Peru 2 weeks now and aside from a nagging sense of restlessness that is due in part to my usual bout of moody blues in the weeks leading up to my birthday, I'm just about over the need for a vacation from my vacation - although the retail therapy over the last few days might also have something to do with that!

This is what I mean when I say I needed a vacation from my vacation:


That my friends, is the dresser in my bedroom. As you can see, just about every inch of its surface is covered with stuff. To be honest, it was like that before I left, but I had every intention of sorting through it when I got back. Except that I didn't. I only added to it with the bottle of water I got on the plane (it's been sitting there for the last 2 weeks, unmoved), an empty bag of Chicha Morada candies that I should really toss, and more mail and papers. I'll get to this eyesore eventually...like maybe tomorrow...or not...

On a more happy note, here's the sassy little black dress I bought on sale at Club Monaco yesterday:

It's cotton so rather wrinkly from the shopping bag but it's really comfortable and the empire-waist is super-forgiving. I also bought a couple of fall sweaters that were on promotion at the Gap, and picked up my complimentary birthday gift from Kiehl's, which was one of the main reasons for being on Queen West in the first place.

This morning, I dragged myself out of bed only to dilly-dally for an hour and a half before going on a 5K run because I felt guilty after having pigged out at dinner last night. I then got ready for the first day of mandarin class and as I was walking to the parking meter, a nice lady who was leaving kindly offered to give me her paid ticket, saving me $4 in the process. How lovely!

I also shopped after class - but for more practical things, like new running shoes that were also on sale, and exactly the same as the pair they're meant to replace; hair colour to cover my grays (and there are many as I found my first when I was about 12); nail polish; facial scrub; ketchup chips; and a tube of La Roche-Posay Active C eye gel which the cosmetician at Shopper's had recommended because the skin around my eyes looks thin and that's one of the first signs of aging(!!!) I promptly called my aesthetician when I got home and arranged to meet her after dinner for a facial. I'm in for some more pampering tomorrow as I've a 1.5 hour massage booked in the afternoon.

I know. I lead a tough life.

P.S. Sorry too, for the many run-on sentences that litter this post.