This just in

I am an idiot.


~g. mango hereby grounds herself for life

Leaving the bathroom door open

This whole week I have been home alone. The Intern is off trekking across Canada for her vacation, and the aquatic animals experiment left no survivors all of our pets have gone on to be with the Lord. This is the longest time I've stayed alone in this ghetto house, in my ghetto hood.

Usually I hate being here alone for more than a couple of days. But I'm enjoying it quite a bit this time around. I am so productive, and efficient! And full of initiative and independence!

And I can play my music really loud. And walk around naked.

But let's be honest, I do those last two even when I'm not home alone.


Soul Train won't even know what hit them!

~kindly pass g. mango that dutch

Back

I flew in to Vancouver just in time to hurl my tired self into an afternoon of meetings. Well, not meetings, but workshop-type sessions. Where you have to think, and use your imagination, and write stuff down, and do other things that made me remember why I am so terrifically happy that I am no longer in school.

Sick.

Needless to say, I'm glad that's over.

And also, glad to be back refreshed and revived after two full weeks of Toronto-y goodness.

~g. mango don't know much about history

My airline brings all the boys to the yard

My flight back to Vancouver got cancelled yesterday, so I am basking in the beauteous glow of the Centre of the Universe until Monday.

First they gave me good food, a movie, and a whole row all to myself. Now they extend my trip back home and give me $100 for the inconvenience of hanging with my homies for another two whole days. I have never been so happy with an airline in my entire life.

~g. mango would teach you, but she'd have to charge

Toronto the Hood

Since last we spoke I've gone out to ice cream three times, had apple pie twice, gone out to lunch three times, dinner twice, coffee twice, and had two afternoon naps.

I am going to be so fat when I get back to Vancouver.

But that's a small price to pay to be able to spend quality time with good friends.

~ does g. mango look fat in this dress?

Toronto the Good

Oh, Toronto how I've missed you. It is so good to wake up everyday and know that my day will be full of encounters with the people I love in the city I love. Though I've spent much of my time trying to find solace from the stifling Tdot heat and humidity, I've ventured out from the cool security of the basement and done downtown, Bloor, Yonge, Kensignton Market, and Scarlem.

And more importantly, I've danced in the kitchen with my sisters. And had lunch with Mango Mom. And listened to four hours of advice from my Grandmother. And talked relationships with a good friend over ice cream. And finally learned how to cook a good steak. And went to a picnic. And after years of doing the same for her, been chauffeured all over the city by my newly-licensed Mini Mango sister. And spent lots of time with the wonderful Torontonians that I love. And laughed until I've cried. Twice.

This is the best vacation ever! And there's still a week of it left.


~come on in and throw it up, this is how g. mango rocks it in the Tdot

Home sweet Home

In other news, I am back in Toronto on a working vacation. Happily, I'm doing an equal amount of working and vacationing.

I love this city.

~g. mango was so totally walking down Yonge Street on a Friday

Tofino in Words

It has been weeks since I was in Tofino, but if I close my eyes it all comes back.

I am standing on the shore of the wild Pacific, in pure awe. This is my first encounter with an unrestricted Northern Ocean. The first time that I've seen it without Vancouver Island between us to smooth down our rough edges.

I can only hear one or two sounds at a time. This is sensory overload at its most pleasurable. The water out at sea is roaring like a lion. The waves are crashing like an entire ensemble of percussion instruments. The water in the small streams that run off the ocean into the black rocks on the shore is coursing like blood through the veins. The wind is a wolf in the trees. Rain is tapping out a million different rhythms: one on the hood of my jacket, another on the trees that I'm sheltering myself under, another on the rocks below this cliff, another on the water just ahead.

We are so close to the Ocean that the rain seems like it should taste like salt. But it doesn't. It's not until the wind picks up from the West that I taste the Ocean on my lips. I drink it in. The Pacific tastes so much cooler than the Atlantic.

My eyes are drawn to the origin of the spray. It is impossible to describe the colour of the waves. A precious stone should be named after this colour, or it after a precious stone. I would like to freeze this aquatic beauty and take it home with me. Unfortunately I have to content myself with seeing these waves here and now.

Theirs is a purposeful collision; a graceful yet violent dance. They rise thirty, no, forty feet into the air and dash themselves against giant, black rocks. Ebony on Charcoal and as big as houses. The kind of rock you build a house upon. But as purposeful as the waves come in to court their sedimentary friends, they are dragged back to a Cobalt and Navy sea. The once powerful force recoils, a clenched fist releasing fluid fingers that claw at the rocks.

The camera is glued to my hand. My brain is turning over phrases and words that refuse to make sentences. I am caught between experiencing the glory before me, and wishing I had the talent to capture this moment forever. On film, on canvas, in print.

It was so real. So real that I longed to recreate it, and knew I never could.

~g. mango stands in awe