06 Sep 2010
by Lauriein Life
Funny how just a few days of cooler weather make it feel like summer is over. I used to love autumn: the sunny but crisp days with the sky a special deeper blue than any other season. But now it spells the eminent end of motorcycle season and the darker days of winter. Last winter was (un-medicated) difficult to get through: it was a dank, rainy winter. I’ve been good and stayed on medication since January and I hope this year will be better.
Few people I’m friends with “get” the whole motorcycle thing. It’s hard to have something that is such an important part of me misunderstood or dismissed by my friends and family.
We have this week off work and we were hoping to do a couple of day trips on our bikes if the weather cooperates. It just seems like a month or so ago that we took the bikes out of storage, and we only have about a month or two (maximum) before it’s storage time again.
I’m feeling very down and sad about the death of Shoya Tomizawa. It feels weird, because I didn’t know him, but I can’t explain it: I feel awful about his loss and for the riders that were involved in the accident.
08 Aug 2010
by Lauriein Cow & Toaster
It was a rainy afternoon spent fruitlessly in search of music not available in “regular” music stores. (Yes, I’m old-school and still buy CDs, and I don’t have an iPod or iPhone, and thus I’m excluded from the wonders that is the iTunes store.)
Apparently I’m not not hip enough to fit in and buy some music; I think they could smell the suburbs on me. Outside the store that the 80′s forgot – unlike most of their staff I lived through that decade – I found myself in a sea of yummy mummies. Not adorned in Coach accessories or Lululemon attire I stood put from the pack in my MEC jacket and non-designer jeans.
Headed over to Voltage, and like every other store in Vancouver that I like, it’s closing. Sadly, I turned to Paul and said “everything I like disappears”. He relied that he wasn’t going anywhere.
I replied that one day he would die. Nice of me, eh? Unless I turned him into an android after death, but then he might turn into a cylon, and again, I’d be alone and he’d be hell-bent on wiping out the human race.
05 Jul 2010
by Lauriein Cow & Toaster, Life, Motorcycles
I’ve been unusually busy for the past six weeks; this is the first weekend in four weeks that I haven’t had something to do. I spend the work weeks in between feeling slightly dazed and a little shell-shocked, but it was good.
It started with the Advanced Rider School through Pacific Riding School; I wrote about that over at 604 Ninja, so go read it there. The next weekend we did our first Pitt Meadows track day (which I haven’t written about, but will after this). The weekend after that we did the Bikers for Burns ride from Vancouver to Harrison. On Canada Day we watched round five of WMRC at Mission Raceway (I hadn’t been there since 1998 or 1999 and my memories of it are a little sketchy, probably due to the amount of alcohol consumed afterwards.)
In a weird coincidence (or is it reverse-stalking, we never did figure that out, or who exactly is the reverse-stalker…) one of the instructors from PRS/ARS was at the track day and the burns ride, and invited us to visit his pit at Mission. It’s odd when you bump into someone who has the same sense of humour as us; to outsiders I’m sure we looked pretty ridiculous, but it was fun.
Along with all of that I’ve had plenty to deal with at work, a wedding to attend, and a niece due to be born any day.
28 Apr 2010
by Lauriein Cow & Toaster, Work
Last night I went of a brief stream-of-consciousness rant about why I should be the one who gets the super awesome helmet design (that I really, really want), not Paul. Even though Paul was only teasing me I just lost it and went crazy. I blame it on stress. It’s always the stress.
I’m really looking forward to my new job. I will be the Practice Manager of another veterinary hospital. This hospital is actively trying to grow their business and develop their employees. They have a business coach who is also going to mentor me. Part of the plan is for me to finally start working towards becoming a Certified Veterinary Practice Manager. My new boss (the veterinarian) and I seem to get along very well; we seem to be fairly alike. They’re very excited about having me too…I just hope I can live up to their expectations.
Because this job is in the opposite direction of where I work now (the clinic I work at now is in Ladner, the new one is out in the Fraser Valley) I won’t be able to carpool with Paul anymore (he works in Richmond), so for the most part I’m going to be riding my motorcycle to work every day. The route is longer by distance, but a little shorter time-wise.
I’m getting impatient to start this new chapter.
25 Apr 2010
by Lauriein Housekeeping, Life, Work
I feel so guilty for neglecting this blog and any readers I may (still) have.
Life has been exciting since I last posted: we took our motorcycles out of storage – just in time for the weather to turn inconsistent again.
Oh, and I got a new job.
I haven’t started yet; I start on May 17th. I will be the Practice Manager of a veterinary hospital in the Fraser Valley. I think it’s going to be an amazing opportunity for me and I can’t quite believe that it’s happening. It’s similar to the job I do now, but I will have much more responsibility and more ability to be hands-on with the business.
It wasn’t an easy decision to make, though. Where I work now has it’s downsides and a lot of negativity but I do care very much about everyone. It was incredibly hard to give notice to my boss (I gave eight weeks) and even harder to tell the staff. We’re all shell-shocked about it.
Life has changed a lot, yet stayed the same.
I am making a commitment to post here more often. I have a lot of stuff floating around in my head these days.
28 Feb 2010
by Lauriein Cow & Toaster, February 2010 "Ties", Life, NaBloPoMo
When Vancouver put up a bid for the 2010 Games I was against the idea. When it was announced that Vancouver won the bid to hold the games I heard a huge roar in downtown Vancouver, and a co worker and I turned to each other and moaned “nooooo!” I voted no in the Vancouver Olympic plebiscite (we lived in East Vancouver at that time).
I thought that all of the money being poured into the games should have been used for other things (like helping the Downtown East Side, paying for more doctors, etc.) but I realized that the Olympic money wouldn’t have been available for these things. I know that the games are going to end up costing the city, province, and country a lot of money, and I am worried about what’s going to happen with city employee’s contracts.
But you know what, it was a great time. Corny as it is, I feel so much pride for our country and our athletes. I feel proud of the athletes from around the world who overcame huge obstacles and put in countless hours of training to just be here.
I’ve never seen as many smiling faces as I did last Saturday when Paul, Dale and I went to wander around Vancouver. It felt great to give in and enjoy the experience.
Yes, it’s true that the hockey games were pretty much the big deal for most people, and I doubt the mood tonight would be as happy if we didn’t win. Maybe it was bread and circuses. But goddamn it, for a few days we were united for a common purpose and celebrated something greater than ourselves.
It’s not over yet. The paralympics start in just over a week and those athletes are heroes. Those men and women are brave, and have more guts than I can imagine. I wish they got more recognition, because they truly deserve it.
27 Feb 2010
by Lauriein Life, Me, me, me
There is something in the works that I’m very excited about, but I don’t want to say anything about it yet because it’s not a given that it will happen. But I’m pretty optimistic that it will. My fingers are crossed!
11 Feb 2010
by Lauriein February 2010 "Ties", Life, NaBloPoMo
Dear universe,
I’ve been kind of kicked when I’ve been down this week. Not sure if you’re to blame for it, or if it’s just the way things worked out. But I must confess, your latest message has be a little confused.
Is this a “help me help you” type thing? A “don’t say I never do anything for you”? A sign saying “THIS IS A SIGN – DO IT”?
I know that somethings your messages are a little unclear or mixed. It’s okay, everyone’s communication skills could use a little work. Would it be too much to ask you to use some sky writing or a neon sign?
Am I tempting your friend fate to jump in here? Or your best pal Murphy who practices law?
Universe, can you please just say what you mean, and mean what you say?
KTHX, toast.
02 Feb 2010
by Lauriein Life, Me, me, me
On Monday I was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder. The weekend was Fun Times, let me tell you. I had my first ever panic attacks and a complete breakdown of epic proportions.
My anxiety is centered around my job (oh, surprise!) but has crept out and coloured nearly everything, to the point that I am not able to make a decision about anything without agonizing over it.
So I’m left now contemplating a lot of things. I’m trying to be gentle on myself for this first little bit, but there are some big questions that need to be answered.
04 Jan 2010
by Lauriein Life, Me, me, me, Work
For the past week or so I have been having a really hard time getting to sleep at a reasonable hour. I’m pretty sure it had a lot to do with being off work; it didn’t matter if I went to bed late because I could sleep in.
As it got closer to return to work time I started trying to get myself back on track as far as going to bed and falling asleep at a normal time. Instead I found that it was taking me longer and longer to fall asleep and even when I got to sleep I’d only stay sleeping for anywhere between ten minutes and two hours.
So I was pretty much RAGE-Y!Zombie at work today. Well, work was an absolute joke of a gong show, but I’m not ever going to talk about that.
When I did finally fall asleep sometime after 5:00am I had a bizarre dream where I was in a classroom talking to different versions of myself.
Tonight I’m going to have a hot bath, take some melatonin (even though it did jack for me last night), dab on some TKO and hopefully get some restful, restorative sleep tonight.
I hope this doesn’t become a trend.
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