Hello hello! We’re back after a long weekend hiatus that just wasn’t long enough.
It all flies by so fast when it’s just two days split off into snatches of family time, recovery time, walking, talking, eating and trying to catch up on six months of absence.
We’re such a large family that it’s pretty rare that we all get together at once, weddings have been the only occasions thus far. We were close this weekend though, missing only the two mens, my dad and brother.
I won’t recap the events of the weekend, they’re too ordinary to describe (besides the tidbits here and there that ended up on twitter). It’s just an indescribably good feeling to sink into your family for a weekend. The familiar banter, the comfort. I needed it.
And now I sit here, unpacking from Victoria, packing for Toronto. I leave tomorrow on a horrendously early flight that I haven’t told Adam he’s driving me to the airport for.
Why Toronto? I have a friend named Kris (hi Kris!) who I’ve known since tenth grade when we were two beautiful, naive 15 year old girls. She is incredibly optimistic, happy and has a kick-ass laugh that is absolutely irresistible.
Four of us used to do annual girls weekends, over time four turned to three then three turned to none as we tried to find mutually agreeable times for four women living all across Canada, juggling jobs, husbands, dogs and the other accoutrements of adult life. Kris and I were lamenting this sad fact when I remarked that for me, time off wasn’t the issue, “I have a shitload of vacations days banked from outreach work, my conference in Ottawa etc.” I said, “But it’s ridiculous that the cost of flying to Toronto from Vancouver is on par with flying to Germany.” (Seriously, GERMANY! I call shenanigans!!) and then Kris was all ” I am the opposite, I have a shit ton of air miles, but no time to use them.”
And then she put two and two together (she is smart with numbers like that) and thought BOOM! Why don’t I use my miles to rescue Madeleine from the backwater hell she’s living in, and fly her to the bustling metropolis of Toronto which she used to call home?
And I was like, YES Kris! Why DON’T you! The weekend was born.
And in what I am now accepting as irrefutable proof that the universe truly approves and even encourages my my embarrassing fangirl crush, the weekend we randomly selected in September turned out to be smack bad in the middle of TIFF.
As in, the Toronto International Film Festival.
As in, the same place that THIS DUDE has a movie premiering.
Oh MY! Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Well, Kris was. This girl was ON IT. She booked us a day of fun, including but not limited to, manicures and pedicures, getting our hair and makeup did and a one hour photo session.
Guys, GLAMOUR PHOTOS! Sweet Jesus.
After all of the excitement of the day, and after all of the nail painting and make-upping and hair doing (not to mention the endorsement of the universe) I really don’t see how the evening can avoid coming to its natural conclusion- my glorious conquest of Mr Gosling himself.
(Hey people yelling at me that I’m married, DUH. Also, don’t worry about it! Ryan’s on my Freebie Five along with Neville Longbottom and three others I haven’t even thought about because after THAT, above, and sweet Neville, there’s no one who can hold a candle to the real life hottie I’m married to, currently sitting on the couch in his boxers, eating peanut butter straight from the jar)
So. To say that I am excited is the understatement of the year.
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