The Wedding, as Tweeted by Me

I never would have thought I'd be on Twitter, much less tweeting about the royal wedding of Wills and Kate - but it was nice, given that I was at home with Jody on our couch, to feel like we weren't the only two people watching. I made tea, cucumber sandwiches, and curried egg sandwiches, and we toasted the couple.


 jzgarnett


Nearly missed the first glimpse of #KateMiddleton in her dress b/c Jody chose tonight to rip apart TV and other cables #royalwedding

In reply to my friend KF, who tweeted: Advanced Hair Pro William. Speak to Warney after,  Better a balding husband than one with big ears. #willsandkate

John Rutter has composed a song with lyrics from Psalms for the Westminster choir - what a lovely wedding gift

It's ok to transform your partner, but don't try to reform them - wise words. This address is very nice. # royalwedding


In reply to my friend KF, who tweeted: YEE. I heard the word YEE. And now doth. THIS WEDDING IS THE BEST. Thou! Oh man. THEE., Don't forget TROTH

What is up with Princess Beatrice's hat? #royalwedding

Now that's what I call a carriage #willsandkate #royalwedding

Waiting for the balcony kiss. It better not be on the cheek,#willsandkate

Two little kisses, and now the flypast. #royalwedding #willsandkate

#Aussie couple interviewed by ch 7 - he flubbed his words, "It's a once in a moment lifetime." #royalwedding #bloopers

Pearls and Productivity

If you're not in the loop, I am moving in a few weeks, and things are insanely busy. I don't have internet at the moment either, so my apologies for not posting. I do have one or two "blogging unplugged" entries I've been writing up by hand, and when I have more time I will be posting them.

Today was a mad rush to do many errands, and I felt like the fabled adult of Allie Brosh's world. (If you haven't discovered Hyperbole and a Half, do yourself a favour and click on over. She has a sense of humour that would be skewed if it weren't so bang-on, and she uses Paint and her imagination to charmingly, if strangely, illustrate her insights.)

So! I'm an adult!

• I went to the bank
• I opened a PO Box at the post office
• I paid bills
• I got a Medicare refund
• I did laundry in the hotel sink
• I picked up my new contacts
• I called about unlocking my phone

Except for the last thing, this was all done in the space of six hours - and I also met a friend for hot chocolate, got my brows done, remembered to feed myself lunch (kebab!) and walked all over downtown. I was doing so well, I decided that I deserved to do something I've been meaning to do for AGES. Though I've been in Sydney nearly two years, and have walked or bussed past the gorgeous restored building that houses Australia's premier pearl jewelers, I have never set foot inside Paspaley.

I wandered around and a nice sales lady came up to me and asked if I was having a browse. (For the record, I was wearing a nice Esprit dress and a scarf, so I didn't look like a backpacker who'd come to gawk.) I decided to go with the truth, and told her I'd been meaning to come by to see the beautiful building and their pearls for some time. She smiled and left me with a "Let me know if I can answer any questions," and I meandered through and looked at many cases of huge round pearls, some on strings and some as earrings, several with diamonds or other stones to set them off. Eventually I came upon a case with earrings set with diamonds, pearls and turquoise-coloured stones. They were sheer gorgeousness. The sales lady chose that moment to ask if I'd found a favourite yet. I pointed them out and she said the stones were topaz, and the metal platinum.

I looked around some more, wistfully, and once near the door (and the smaller, though no less stunning pieces) I said, "Well, maybe on my thirtieth..." and she said that was the year of the pearl. Then, noticing that I was the only 'customer' in the shop, she offered, "You can try those on if you like."

"Really?"

I can say quite honestly that I have never seen such beautiful pearls, and although they were weighty, the post and clasp design didn't drag at my lobes. They were just the right length, dangling down to my jawline, and so sparkly... sigh. They are valued at $22,800.

Yes, people. I got to model jewelry that's worth as much as a car. I then tried a simpler pair, worth a mere $5,000 - a single pearl dropped from a chain and two small diamond studs, and they were also quite lovely - with perfectly round pearls. Such extravagance. Such a fitting end to my last day in Sydney for who-knows-how-long. Such a dream, this life I'm living now...

Goodbye Vancouver 2010

I wasn't quite ready to say goodbye to the Olympics when I took down my medals table from this blog. So I leave you now with a thank-you note from NBC News anchor, Brian Williams.

After tonight’s broadcast and after looting our hotel mini-bars, we’re going to try to brave the blizzard and fly east to home and hearth, and to do laundry well into next week. Before we leave this thoroughly polite country, the polite thing to do is leave behind a thank-you note.
Thank you, Canada:
For being such good hosts.
For your unfailing courtesy.
For your (mostly) beautiful weather.
For scheduling no more than 60 percent of your float plane departures at the exact moment when I was trying to say something on television.
For not seeming to mind the occasional (or constant) good-natured mimicry of your accents.
For your unique TV commercials — for companies like Tim Hortons — which made us laugh and cry.
For securing this massive event without choking security, and without publicly displaying a single automatic weapon.
For having the best garment design and logo-wear of the games — you’ve made wearing your name a cool thing to do.
For the sportsmanship we saw most of your athletes display.
For not honking your horns. I didn’t hear one car horn in 15 days — which also means none of my fellow New Yorkers rented cars while visiting.
For making us aware of how many of you have been watching NBC all these years.
For having the good taste to have an anchorman named Brian Williams on your CTV network, who turns out to be such a nice guy.
For the body scans at the airport which make pat-downs and cavity searches unnecessary.
For designing those really cool LED Olympic rings in the harbor, which turned to gold when your athletes won one.
For always saying nice things about the United States…when you know we’re listening.
For sharing Joannie Rochette with us.
For reminding some of us we used to be a more civil society.
Mostly, for welcoming the world with such ease and making lasting friends with all of us.

– Brian Williams, NBC News

Olympic Heat

It is something else to be down under, watching Canucks giving their all on the climate-challenged slopes.

To help athletes see the course through fog, childish blue lines have been painted onto the crisp snow - and unfortunately, it's not the idyllic freshly fallen snow we could have hoped for. They've been trucking it in and shifting it all over Cypress Mountain, but the trees are strangely bare of the white stuff.

Rain has also been affecting the field of play. Eight thousand "standing room" tickets have been canceled, for fear that the onlookers will sink into the slush and mud at the bottom of the hill. It's been so bad, in fact, that US skier Hannah Kearney got a hole in her ski from a sharp rock protruding from underneath the thin coating of snow on the ground. But you know what? She still won the gold medal.

Canada has won TWO gold medals, as of Feburary 17th! And TWO silver medals, plus a bronze! We are rockin' it on home soil, but I'd be just as excited no matter where the Games were being held.
Results so far:

GOLD
Alexandre Bilodeau : Freestyle Skiing - Men's Moguls
Maelle Ricker : Snowboard - Ladies' Snowboard Cross

SILVER
Mike Robertson: Snowboard - Mens' Snowboard Cross
Jennifer Heil : Freestyle Skiing - Ladies' Moguls

BRONZE
Kristina Groves : Speed Skating - Ladies' 3000 m

I haven't been able to watch as much of the action as I'd like - work plus the time difference plus coverage that is, naturally, geared for an Aussie audience have made it difficult to plunk myself in front of the TV.

I did get to watch Bilodeau take the gold, live, and it was fantastic. I don't know how they could have judged it; the results were so close! There were two other Canadians not far from the podium, as well, and it made me so proud. I let out a whoop that I'm sure half our apartment building could hear.

GO CANADA GO!

2009: A Year of Blessings and Sorrow

2009 has been a rough year for many of us. As I headed back to work today, I didn't want my holiday to end, and I sent up a prayer that I could get through the day. And I did!

On the way home it occurred to me that things can seem easier to handle if we take them one day at a time – and even God took things one day at a time. I'm sure He could have built the entire universe in a day (nevermind how many hours a day really represented – that is an argument for another time and place) if He'd wanted to. Instead, each creation was given time and thought, and a day of its own to come into being. I hope that this year, I can remember that, and get through those difficult days one at a time.

I have been so thankful for the blessings God gave me in 2009. They seemed even more powerful in light of all that was happening in the world, and with my friends and family. For starters, neither Jody or I lost our jobs, and the move to Oz seems to have been well-timed, financially speaking. We have had no major health issues, the worst being Jody's illness post-India. The fires and floods throughout Australia, though devastating to thousands, haven't come near us or our extended family. The red dust storm did hit Sydney, but aside from an uneasy two days fighting my asthma, the worst we faced was multiple passes with a vacuum and dust cloth.

At last, I am beginning to feel at home here. My visa application is in. We found a small, friendly church to attend. When Jody's old ThinkPad gave out, we were able to buy him a MacPro, just in time for the FOSS4G conference. Keeping in touch with friends and family has been reasonably easy; we've received good and bad news swiftly and are rarely out out the loop – even our grandparents are sending us e-mail! My sister came to visit in March, and my parents over Christmas. There has been a lot of tea, and books, and snuggles, and many little packages in my mailbox to make me smile.

I've missed several weddings and newborns since we moved – none in my family, but it's been difficult not to be able to share in the joys of our friends. Graduations, theses, new jobs, new homes, new boyfriends and girlfriends.

My heart breaks for all the losses and rough patches I've witnessed this past year. Breakups, deteriorating health, deaths. Lost jobs, lost loves, lost babies. 2009 has not been kind, and I can only pray that this year will bring more happiness than sorrow.

If you see yourself in one of these lines, know I've been thinking of you, and wishing you good things in 2010.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Birthday cake is overrated. Tonight Jody served up pavlova with fruit, complete with two kiwi's peeled and carved into a "28" - because we had no candles. It was stupendous.





Wednesday at work, there was a treat for the office from our preferred bakery, and instead of choosing something chocolate, I opted for bannoffee pie. Oh, the tastiness. Whipped cream covered thick caramel and fresh banana, resting on a cookie base.

Noga deserves any accolades she gets, including this review.



Two years ago I was in such a different place... still in school, married only 6 months, living on Vancouver Island. As my birthday fell on the school reading break, I'd taken a friend up on an offer to go on a group cabin adventure on Pender Island. While we were there we had birthday pie! It was homemade locally, nothing at all like a grocery store pie - full of berries and just the right amount of sweetness. Yes, I think there is something to this idea of birthday pie.