Dear Head: get ready for a toque. *Some Golden Advice*

As I sit in the mountains of BC on a quiet morning, I finally feel at peace. I think this is the calmest i've been in months, sharing a comfortable silence with my sisters man ( Who can make one helluva good cup of coffee) as we both tippy tap on our computers. I'm listening to some Ella Fitzgerald and checking some emails before I get back to my knitting.

Yesterday my sister (*The ever talented knitter) set me up to knit a toque. Up until now, I would consider myself a beginner knitter. Now i've known how to knit since I was a little kid actually. . . I might have been the first of the sisters learn actually. . . hmmm maybe... I remember learning in front of the T.V from my mothers mother while we watched her show on tv. "her show" is which ever soap opera was on at the time, generally 'all my children.' classic. I think my dad still has the hourglass shaped "scarf" I made him...

I digress.

well just because you used to be able to knit doesn't make you some expert, similar to ridding bike, once you remember it it isn't hard to pick up again. BUT...if you have forgotten then it becomes increasingly challenging to fix any errors. Yesterday, my 'toque' looked like a cat wretched on some needles. In knots and nice colours to be sure. but still. it was AWEFUL. once my sister got home from work, one look and she was busting a gutt laughing.

Yeah your gonna have to re-start

WHAT?! common this thing is a beauty!

are you kidding.

...yes?...

and with that she yanked on my needles and with a few quick tugs, my hot mess returned from whence it came and resumed its former shape as yarn.

After figuring out that instead of pearling a pearl-like stitch, I was in fact SUPER pearling. (ie- adding stitches every single time as well as the ones that were meant to be there) and actually counting how many of each stitch i was doing, I found myself with the beginin's of a little toque.

Yesterday was spent relaxing after my 11 hour bus ride. Woof.

Of course the bus trip went like most do, very full, too packed, I found by my side a chatty cathy and he and I talked for most of the ride. I shared snacks with the girl behind me. It turns out she was from O town originally, moved to mtl then to Vancity and is headed back to O town for christmas! talk about a loooong ride. We swapped seat partners and giggled and munched and tried and failed at sleeping. We even made playlists of music for eachother, awesome bus ride.

So as I sit here and relax, I will pause and wait until tomorrow to write about vancouver.

I'll leave you with a little nugget of wisdom I got from a guy on the bus.

(When discussing dressing comfortably and general bus life)

"Dont try and impress anyone on a bus. Even if you smell a little funky...You wanna look like the stabber; not the stab-E"

- a gentleman and a scholar.

Greasy cheeseburger stranger love.

It was those dumb brown eyes. looking up at you like "yeah. yeah I did. I took a dump right beside the mat that you specifically laid out for me to use." My room-mates Pug would look up at me and blink in that sort of weird cute pug face that melts your heart. Because everytime he did that it ment that you still had to pick up crap off the floor and clean it and thus to fail, became "shitting beside the mat" IE - "Aw nerds I forgot to pick up beer on the way home! I am just shitting beside the mat right now!"

Anyways - Thursday morning before my flight to Van, I was just shitting beside the mat.

I had a moment, standing on the bathroom floor, about to take a shower, standing still and looking at my reflextion and thinking that one little word that we all go to when we are truely and utterly ----ed. I need to be AT the airport in an hour, im not showered or packed, nor do I have a ride. F^@%.

To my surprise I returned to my room post shower and threw in a few last minute essentials into my case. Luckly it is Friday and I am not noticing anything huge that i've forgotten. Boyfriend is a hero and left work to drive me to the airport which was really wonderful of him and it was a breeze threw the airport security and what not. My dad has told me since I was born that i have some kind of inexplicable luck. or "horseshoes up the arse" he calls it.

Once past secruity, I was looking for a quick place to grab some grub without blowing my already minimal travel budget. turning away from Wolfgang Puck's restaurant I was greeted by Burger King. nethier options that I was particularily willing to entertain. Turning back into look for a menu at wolfgang pucks, I collided with another diner on his way in. We chuckled and apologized and schuffled sideways. "Whatddu think?" he asks me. "Meh, it seems ...okay"... I answered.

we chatted a little and decided that it would be a burger king kind of day. After waiting in line together, I found that my new friend was from Nanaimo BC and had been travelling from south africa through dubai for the past two days. I asked for the time and realized that I had to board in fifteen minutes! My new friend insisted on paying for my cheese burger. I looked at him and said "thank you friend. truly, it was so nice to meet you." and he looked at me and said "K, it was so nice to know you, if only for a minute. Merry Christmas and happy holidays!" and with that I clutched my cheeseburger and we parted ways with two huge smiles. Life feels good.

I told my lady the story when she picked me up from the airport "How do you always find them?! those nice people? they flock to you or something"

I think it might be karma again, last week I bought a stranger at my school a printing card cause he didnt have the cash and needed to print a project. karma is delicious <3

Okay Vancouver, here we are! show us what you got!

Katie Mai; Queen of the gingerbread rodeo

For years decorating gingerbread houses had been a tradition in my family. Every year my mother would go nutts making gingerbread house pieces from a stencil set she made and had the kids of our families and friends come over and make a house.

with an assortement of bon bons in bowls, dishes and cups - our houses looked like a comparable miniture Willy Wonka factories.

Eventually the kids would hit a peak and the delicate balances would tip from excited to sugar high and concentration was brought to a screetching halt once a roof slid off or a cookie broke.

Then it was the parents turn. Mum's took the cookies and laughed as they decorated and dad's suddenly became architechts, using tooth picks as supplies and playing with the consistancy of the icing to acheive better adhision.

times were simpler then.

my class made ginger bread houses for class last week and well just say. . . it wasn't my first rodeo. . .

after the making of the dough, rolling it out, cutting out peices, baking and shaping them to fit better together, we made our royal icing. Right away I knew that I had to play my cards right, these little cookie houses can get the best of you and knock the holly jolly out of some newbies. But I know the tricks.

Slowly I start construction by forming the front of my house to one of the side walls. while being a somewhat easy peice to put together, I took this time to re-enforce it and all its sides. this is to be my foundation. assembling the other side wall and back piece were the next challenges.

ppfffttt challenges for some. I sat patiently holding my four sides of my house while I let the Glue- ICING ... I mean icing ...set.

Rule #1 of gingerbread houses - be. patient.

Around me people were racing to finish first, in the blink of an eye the roofs were up before the walls were dry and just like that. . .

the walls started to fall. without fail, like i knew they would. shrieks and cries of horror and dismay errupted one by one as new home owners and builders begged for the use of an extra hand nearby or for a solution as to why there candycane mansions were all but ruins.

A girl beside me became enraged and slammed her fists into the table and smashed her house. the cookies didnt break but the house was ...well the house was a mound of icing and cookies.

pouting and angry she stared at the house. The house didn't take kindly to death glares and would prove to be a bother until its untimely demise. (*in the end the house was assaulted with fists full of rainbow nerds. If hippies and weirdoes lived in gingerbread houses, this would be the one. One giant candy acid trip with crazy windows with every wall slanted. Holding your breath just looking at it fearing that breathing would knock it down. Later it was infact, knocked down and ultimately thrown with passionate contempt, into the garbage. )

Across from me a young women said "well common now we just have to wait and let it dry" her house was drying fine but she was making one of the oldest mistakes in the book.

LOADING up the roof before it was even on the house. Peppermint bonbons side by side allllll over.

Lemmie tell you why this is a mistake.

1) its hard to keep candies nice when your hands are full of icing pushing all up on 'em.

2) your house cannot support this weight.

3) YOUR HOUSE CANNOT SUPPORT THIS WEIGHT.

sadly I watches as her wall too, collapsed with a sigh under the weight of the candied roof. she laughed in good spirits and I giggled too until I began to put my roof together. Although it wasn't candy heavy, it was. . . well. . . okay lets just say its good im not into archetecture, blue prints or house making of the real variety. . .

My roof fit the sides of my house fine but running ontop my roof, between the two pieces was a gap big enough for about the width of three pieces of licorice. Whats worse was how pourly my chimney was fitting ( or not fitting) on my roof (or pieces of a roof that let in alot of. . .well sky) knowing that this was going to be a big mark losing snafu, I took one of the extra strips i had cut and baked and placed it on top. (* i've learned that baking little ginger bread style band-aids will save your caboose when gingerbread housing) So with the roof sealed up, chimney (*or chimbley as I like to call them) hideously attached but stable, I looked at my house.

Rule #2 about ginger bread houses. - Beauty is always secondary to stability. Once a house is stable and sterdy, you can decorate the living baby cheese out of that tasty abode.

Rule #3 about ginger bread houses - Candy can hide all mistakes.

Looking at the chimney, I patched up the heinous gap where the roof didnt actually meet the chimney (...at all) with a peppermint yumyum and another on the back.

My decorating continued and the rest of my house was (in my opinion) innovative and what I could call "candy chic". this lil baby got me an A. queen of the gingerbread rodeo.

Bleh why am I so sick?!

Yesterday I felt really bad, walking out of the room to go to class i had on my chef pants, my jacket completely undone sunglasses on. I felt almost faded. eyed half closed even though it was past noon. fighting this wierd alergy/sickness thing that i've had for 90% of my time down here and my stomach is making some weeeeird noises. (*even now the next day im sitting in bed and cant breathe and my throat feels like its being ripped apart.)I guess thats what you get for only ingesting exclusively Coffee and Blue gatorade so far. Oh well off to chocolate class we go! Wheeeee! one of these days im gonna look back and think wow. what the F*&k was i doing to my body in my twenties.

Ah yes. a young broke sick culinary student. Livin the dream.

I will get better. i have to. yoga today - NO farting.