High Five to Highlights 2011.

Christmas lights and holiday cheer always make me reflect on what has happened in my life in the last year. Below is a list of my 2011 highlights, in no particular order.

New favourite Ray-Ban glasses: I can see now, especially when I'm driving. This definitely deserves to be a highlight.

Moved: I got a little chubbs off of Montreal bagels when I first moved here (still considered a highlight).

New car: This one is a highlight for the fact that I can get from point A to point B when I want to and I can bring Swagger along. That being said, my excitement may have been premature as naming the car Shi-Ra Princess of Power has been a bit of a letdown.

Became the proud new owner of my very own Selk-Bag: My boyfriend bought me one for my 4th Annual 26th Birthday in November (see photo below). I have been wanting one for two years now, and my wish finally came true! I know you want one.


Selk Bag for life.

New friends: They came with the new boyfriend and they're pretty nifty. I like them.

New man: Okay, so this one just fell out of the sky and I'm still asking myself how it all happened. Remember that Interweb Dating blog post that I wrote a while back? Turns out that OkCupid had it right for once. I have yet to write them a thank you letter....thank you OkCupid for your relentless matching suggestions and super advanced love algorithm system. My heart has grown three times its size since you dropped the tall handsome man into my lap.

Threw my first kegger: This kegger brought to an end a two week bender that I had been on before moving away from Toronto. It was a flurry of wine, beer, music, friends, packing tape and boxes, tears and laughter, people coming together, people moving apart...a lot can happen in two weeks! Those last days in Toronto were by far the best out of the 6 years I was there.

Attended what I'm sure is considered the best wedding, with the best bride and groom ever: Cheers to you both for throwing such a great wedding weekend jam-packed with everything from paddle-boarding to campfires to the most lovely wedding ceremony in the books. Thank goodness I was wearing giant sunglasses, I got emotional.

Attempted to watch LOTR outside on the back deck: This is a highlight simply for the attempt part. It all lasted about 25 minutes before our neighbours lawn mower turned on and the sunset made the TV screen into a mirror. My last roommate is brilliant, and we still praise her for the ingenuity and craftiness she showed on this particular day, but eventually we were watching ourselves getting grumpy and had to move it inside.

LOTR on the deck.

And last but not least, I managed to make it to New Orleans for the Railroad Revival Tour to see Mumford and Sons, and then I saw them again 6 months later: Oh yes my friends, I flew into 'Nawlins, met up with a friend a couple of days later, stayed in a crazy hostel, ate a shit-ton of seafood (didn't like seafood before New Orleans), and made some awesome friends. I bought a ridiculous pair of leggings with the words Hip Hop written in neon colours all over them, purchased some multi-coloured sunglasses and then watched the best concert of my life. I can't go into detail about this trip because it was too awesome to convey, but let's just say I had so much fun that I'm pretty sure Mumford is now following me and that's the reason I saw them again 6 months later in Montreal. It's true.

All in all, this has been one of my favourite years yet! I may still have time to add to this list with the last 12 days remaining of 2011. Ahhhhhh 2011, within your days and weeks and months I managed to find myself a mode of transportation, an appetite for seafood, my vision, a sleeping bag with built-in limbs, everlasting memories and true love.

2012 has big shoes to fill!

A Jerk, a Free Spirit and a Couple of Moochers.

Moving from one city to another can take up a lot of one's time. This blog post comes to you in a time of chaos and change...and some hilarity of course.

My moving plan: get up in the morning, pack up the 14 ' U-Haul, and drive from Toronto to Montreal. If you've read my previous blog posts you would know that I am by no means a seasoned driver. This being the case, it actually took 9 hours for me to get to Montreal, pit stops for eating and for walking the animals included.

When I was looking for a place to live in Montreal after having accepted my new job offer, I found a delightful ad on Craigslist for a 1 bedroom apartment up on the mountain. I couldn't get to Montreal to see it so I sent a friend in my stead and voila. I rented the apartment from a distance without having seen it. So...after a 9 hour drive in a U-Haul, I got to my street and started driving up the hill to my new place. Who knew it was on a damn cliff. The gas pedal was to the floor, I was sure we weren't going to make it to the top. The U-Haul was so heavy, jam packed with all my crap, and I was trying to conquer a ski slope. It was 11pm by the time we unloaded, safe and sound in my new place.

After getting settled in, I started to observe the stuff going on in my building on a cliff, listening to what people talked about, watched the way people acted and reacted, and tried to figure out what was going down in my new community. Well, it turns out there are some real crazies in my building, and it also turns out I live in the middle of nowhere...on a cliff in the forest.

These are the characters that I face on a daily basis:

We have the kindest soul who just wants to be loved and showered with recognition. She's in her 40's and she's a free spirit with nothing but good intentions, except I think she's bipolar. The first time I met her was at 6:00am when I was taking Swagger out for his morning walk. As I was going down to the lobby I could hear someone crying, and I mean pillow crying, bawling, crying her face off kind of crying. Lo and behold the lovely free spirit was leaning up against the wall with a party dress on. I slowly walked by and asked if she was okay, and she just looked at me and bawled even more and sobbed an inaudible 'yes'. I walked on. Next time I saw her was in the backyard, and she was probably the happiest person I have ever met. I'm a little afraid of her.

Then we have the grumpiest bugger you could ever imagine, who tries to recruit you to be on his side when you first move into the building. Oh yes, there are alliances in my building. This guy is probably in his 50's, and he HATES dogs. I feel it's important to mention that apartments on my street are sought after by people who own dogs. Every building on the street is dog friendly, and people move there so that they can have access to the mountain where off-leash dog walking is permitted. So this man hates dogs, and if he catches your dog off-leash in the massive backyard he calls the police. I've seen the cops at our building 3 times thus far, and I've been living there for a month and a half. So I'm falling asleep one fine summer evening, and my bedroom faces the backyard. I sleep with the windows opened for the summer breeze and for the peaceful sound of the leaves in the wind. I literally have a forest in my backyard. I was right on the point of being completely asleep when I heard a booming male voice yelling at the top of his lungs "I'll call the police if you let your damn dog off the leash! I'm calling the police!" The guy was sitting out in the backyard on his lawn chair, facing the apartment building, at 11:45pm, waiting for people to come outside with their dogs so that he could yell at them and call the police. Forget about the weirdness of that, what about the fact that he was sitting in the backyard in the pitch black facing the building? I now turn out my lights before getting into bed, that wasn't the last time I've seen him in the backyard after 11:00pm. The next time I saw him was at the BBQ in my backyard when I ran into the free spirit. He was sitting by himself across the yard, taking pictures of us with his phone. Oh, and he also takes pictures of dog poop. He's building a pretty strong case for the police.

After the weirdo jerk that sits in the backyard at night we have the old crotchety lady...the one that looks like she's going to break in half. This special lady walks through the backyard smoking a pack of cigarettes in an hour. She is thin and haggard, and tries to be super friendly. So friendly in fact that she came to my apartment door, knocked on it, and asked if I could give her some dog food. Lucky for me I had been warned by my normal neighbours about her habits as they had all been asked for dog food by her before. So, when she came to my door, I gave her some dog food (at least she actually has a dog, although I wouldn't have been surprised if she didn't) and I promptly told her it was the first and last time I would be giving her dog food as I couldn't afford to feed two dogs. She hasn't been back since, nor is she friendly with me anymore. I hope her dog is okay.

Last but not least we have the lovely elderly lady who has been in the building for many many years. She's so sweet and she calls me "the very nice girl". She shuffles along the hall in her knitted slippers, fully depending on her cane to get around. I just love her, but unfortunately I've started to avoid her because every time I see her she asks to use my phone. Apparently her Videotron isn't working and she has to call her nephew before he goes on vacation. She has said this line to me at least 4 times now, and it's always followed by "oh! You're the very nice girl down the hall!" When she uses my phone, she always calls a different person, a person that is not her nephew. I've inquired about the phone thing, and it has been confirmed to me that she does indeed have a functional phone of her own.

So this is what sometimes happens to me on an unlucky day, or as I now call it, an "entertaining day". I get up and sit on my balcony with Swagger for a morning coffee and I have a stare-off with the bastard dog-hater sitting in the backyard. Then I get ready and take Swagger for a walk only to be given the stink-eye by the old dog food lady who sits on the couch in the lobby early in the morning. She really doesn't like me anymore because I don't feed her dog. When I get outside, I'm greeted by the free spirit standing on the lawn in her bathrobe and head scarf admiring the morning sunrise and the amazingness of the moon that's still out from the night before. "Chelsea! Look at the moon and the sun! It's all so beautiful! I bet we were created by aliens, and I'm sure there's a portal nearby! It's so beautiful!". Okay...walk on, enjoy my time with Swagger, get home and make a quick dash upstairs so I don't bump into the old lady that eats up my phone minutes.

Can't we all just get along?

Seems a little strange, right? These people are NOT fictional, and I have not exaggerated any part of this. I moved in on July 8th, and I'm moving out on September 1st. Weird people and the fact that I live on a cliff have convinced me to move...again. 7 moves in 5 years, that has to be some kind of record. And you want to hear something really crazy? Yesterday my current landlord told me that there's a production company that wants to pay me $500 a day for two weeks to use my apartment to film a movie. They will pay to move all my stuff into storage, and they will also pay for a hotel for me for two weeks on top of the $500 a day. Unfortunately I had to remind my landlord that I am moving out in 6 days. There goes $7000. Lucky bugger that's moving into my place; he's delaying his move by 2 weeks, and he's getting the $7000. Little does he know that not one, but many nut cases live in the building!

Life. And so it goes.

Ode to Montreal.

Change is such a strange thing. I wake up in the morning with a feeling of nervous energy in my tummy, a tug at my heart, and a leap of excitement out of bed. It's like something big and beautiful is coming my way and when I finally reflect on what the feelings are, I remember that I'm leaving Toronto in 3 weeks, bound for the greener pastures of Montreal! I'm picking up my life, putting it in a box, and moving to a city that I adore. I'm driving a U-Haul there, with the cat and dog, and I can only hope that I make it in one piece.

It's time to get the real stuff started and I think my new beginning lies in the freshness of Montreal. For me, Montreal is a place where I feel wonderful wearing sparkles and where there's a twist of culture that simply doesn't exist in Toronto. It's a place where I can make friends on the street at 3am and a place where I can buy beer in a corner store (forget corner store, I get to say 'depanneur' or 'dep' again!) until 11pm. Montreal doesn't feel the need to nickname itself (just for the record, El Toro never took off in any way, shape or form). It's a place where I can find original and independent boutiques that don't charge a fortune just because they're unique. It's a city that doesn't muzzle their pitbulls and it's a place where I can actually get to work on time. That's right, it has a better transit system than the TTC.

Winter Wonderland

In Montreal it snows for real and people don't panic if it does so for over two hours: schools stay open and people go to work. Real ski hills surround the city and a gym membership doesn't cost an arm and a leg. In Montreal school is cheap and the croissants and bagels are heavenly: something that has been lacking in my diet for too long. There's something in the air in Montreal, something that makes me smile and gives me a spring in my step, even in 5 feet of snow.

I will miss Cherry beach, my friends and my family, but I'm finally free from trying to make my life work here. Toronto was a shaky stepping stone but I made it to the other side and off I go!

Au revoir!

Swagger vs. T-1000.

May 2-4 Saturday was like any other day, except for the fact that the infamous Apocalypse was to happen, but alas we were all fooled. Anyway, it was a beautiful sunny day that started out with a delicious breakfast on my deck, sun shining and birds chirping. Happy me.

After about 2 hours of lounging, my dog started getting ants in his pants, fidgety and grumpy...it was time to take him to the park for some good old tennis ball throwing.

For the past week and a half or so, my dog has had spring fever. The symptoms he's displaying are the following: not walking properly on the leash and being distracted by every flower, blade of grass, squirrel, bee...everything. He has cut me off twice now, sending me into a tizzy as I half trip/jump over him to avoid falling flat on my face. Also included in spring fever symptoms: excessive peeing on stuff outside. Because everything smells so yummy, Swagger wants to claim it for himself so he pees on it. He owns half the neighborhood...even the large concrete fountain in the community square at the end of my street. It's his. He also has heightened selective hearing, which is actually an ongoing occurrence throughout the year but spring time is extra special for him and he pays more attention to pebbles on the sidewalk than he does to me. Sometimes when I'm telling him something, like sit or heal, he does a fake yawn and pretends like he's tired and can't hear me. The last thing that Swagger's spring fever syndrome bring on is his high level of male dog displays. As in...his lipstick. Ew. He's just so damn happy with the weather that whenever he sits down, pop goes the weasel and there's the lipstick. In public too, like on street corners and in the subway. It's embarrassing and there's nothing I can do about it but walk on.

Yesterday was the first time his spring fever was truly at it's peak. We had been in the dog park for about half an hour when Peanuts came along and stole Swagger's heart. She's about half the size of Swagger and a real firecracker. They were running at full speed and all the humans were delighted at the exercise they were getting. Then they just kept on running...in a straight line towards the top of the park. I called out his name in a nonchalant way, usually he does a wide U-turn and comes back...but no. This time, he came to a screeching halt (as did Peanuts), turned and looked at me for about 5 seconds as I called his name, and then he bolted in the opposite direction alongside Peanuts. He ran for his life that little bugger did, across Logan Avenue and into the maze of streets they call Riverdale. I could hear car horns honking and people yelling. Peanuts' owner jumped up and started running as did I, in pursuit of our rogue dogs. I'm a jogger and not a runner but yesterday was different. I took off like the speed of light, left my flip flops in the dust and ran Terminator 2 style.

I ran up the hill, across the street and had people point me in the right direction. Peanuts' dad was far behind, so I was yelling for both  dogs, and just for the record, "Peanuts" sounds very close to penis when you're yelling it at the top of your lungs while running. I got to the point where I didn't know which direction they had gone, and the people on the sidewalks hadn't seen them. My heart exploded and the anxiety washed over me. I got tears in my eyes as images of the worst came to mind. All I could think of was the busy Danforth and how many cars there were up there. Peanuts' dad caught up to me and said something along the lines of "I don't know why your dog made Peanuts leave the park", and I almost poked his eyes out but there was no time for that.

I walked the streets of Riverdale for about 20 minutes when I heard the jingle of a dog collar. I looked up the street and there he was, my big sorry ass black dog walking at a slow pace towards me, his head hanging low and is tail down. He knew how much shit he was in, but I knew that this was no time for getting angry. It was too late though, he could sense my anxiety and anger and he turned around and started heading up the street again. Normally I wouldn't actually run after my dog in the hopes of catching him, but I broke into my T-1000 run again and I caught up to him (albeit he was a bit overheated and tired, a little slower than usual). I clipped on his leash and didn't say a word to him. We still had Peanuts to find. The humans split up to comb the streets, one with a dog the other still without.

I find human behavior to be ridiculous. I'm running around with Swagger like a headless chicken, asking people if they've seen a dog running through the streets off-leash. Do you know what every single response was? "What does it look like"? Does it matter what the hell the dog looks like!? It's running loose in your damn neighborhood...HAVE YOU SEEN AN OFF-LEASH DOG RUNNING AROUND OR NOT!? I have no time to waste, I need to know which way the dog went! It's a yes or no question, and then point me in the right direction you fools. One lady asked me what Peanuts looked like and when I took the time to give a brief description: "small and brown", she said "well, I did see a light creamy colored dog with no leash, but he was in the dog park when I was walking by". Thanks for the help lady.

Anyway, I never found Peanuts and I never reconnected with his owner. I went back to the dog park thinking that Peanuts may have gone back there, but she was nowhere to be seen, nor was her owner. I can only hope that he found her and that Swagger never meets Peanuts in the dog park again. I'm giving my dog the silent treatment, but he remembers yesterday like a fart in the wind. Dogs only really know right now, and at the moment he's snuggled up to me on this rainy Sunday, fast asleep, dreaming about God knows what.

Interweb Dating.

I never pictured myself as someone that would venture into online dating. In my mind the online dating world was instantly associated with crap like online predators, perverts, terrible and strange encounters etc. I always felt like I was cool enough, or hip enough, or outgoing enough to meet someone in a book store, a coffee shop or even while out on the town with friends. That cute romantic encounter  you wish to have as your own story: "oh, we made eye contact on the street and then he stopped me in my tracks and told me I couldn't go any further without at least considering having a coffee with him. Out of the blue, just like that! The rest is history!" Yeah...no.

Being out of a long term relationship now for nearly two years, I know it's not that easy especially in a city where, let's face it, isn't as friendly as some other city's: New York (I made 3 friends on the sidewalk in the first 2 hours of being there!), or even Paris for that matter. Agree or disagree, but the proof here is that almost every person I know in Toronto without a significant other is taking part in online dating because it's, and I quote, "too hard meeting someone in my every day life", "people aren't approachable", "the bar scene is for drinking and hanging with friends", and my personal favorite pulled straight from a Bay Street boy's profile: "I work hard and play hard, so I don't have time to meet people". Ugh. Anyway, all this to say that online dating has piqued my curiosity.

Messages come at you left right and centre, alerts of matches, chat requests, personality comparisons, a list of those who have viewed your profile...it's a whole other Facebook! I decided to go the 'free online dating' way, I figure that there are "normal" people on the free sites too, seeing as I'm there...no? Well, it turns out there is a very low ratio of what I would consider "normal" to "abnormal" people online.

At least three times a week I get a message in my dating inbox with the word "hi". That's it. Just "hi". Really though...are you expecting me to say "hi" back to you? What is it that you're doing? Waving to me through my dating inbox? "Hi". These messages, if you want to call them that, come from different people too so it's not like there's one "hi-guy" out there, they're all over the place. The last one I received, I simply responded with "bye" hoping that I wouldn't receive anything further from that particular user. I was wrong. I actually got a response to my "bye" saying "why"? Kill me now.

Then there are the RUDE messages that you receive. When you open up your dating inbox you close it with such haste that you nearly break your mouse because you feel like you've violated the internet space in reading such a message. I won't go into further details about this, all I can say is thank goodness for the blocking option.

Then there's the wordy guy, or the "question man" as I like to call him. I know this might be a violation of privacy, and I would hate it if this dude just happended upon my blog, but check this message out:

hello bella
hello what's up how are you and what are you doing tonight I honestly think you are very interesting and I honestly would like to know more about you and I am very interested in getting to know you alot better only if it is okay with you well I honestly would like to hear back from you soon okay bella

1.what is your favorite music

2.what is your favorite movie

3.what is your favorite thing to do on a first date

4.what is your favorite foods

5.do you have any siblings

6.do you have any tattoos

7.what is your background

8.what do you look for in a guy

9.what was your longest relationship

10.what is your favorite season

11.what is your favorite romance novel

12.what is your favorite animal

13.do you like cats

14.what is your favorite vacation place

15.where do you like to travel

16.would you like to talk on msn or would you like to text

17.do you have a blackberry

All in all, this message is completely overwhelming to say the least.
A) Bella? What the...that's not even my online name.
B) Honestly? Honestly. Honestly!
C) What really threw me off, and I mean made me laugh so hard that I almost had tea come out of my nose, was the question about the favorite romance novel. Enough said.

Although lots of junk comes through online dating sites, there are those rare moments where you virtually meet someone with a great sense of humour and a face that you think is pretty sweet. A first date comes along and you're full of nervous excitement mixed with the fear that you won't recognize the guy. Fortunately, I have yet to experience a bad first date. The two people I've actually met up with are wonderful and have become friends. Nothing more, but how fun is it to make new friends!? I'm willing and able to sift through the endless, shirtless, mirror self-portraits and find some genuine awesome guys out there.

Still waiting for a spark, but having fun in the meantime!

Not a Word of a Lie: I'm Lucky to Have Diabetes.

Okay. I know that title might sound a bit weird to some, but it's the truth. I actually feel LUCKY TO HAVE DIABETES, and here's why.

I just came back from a snowy weekend in Haliburton, Ontario, which I spent with 42 other people living with Type 1 diabetes. This is the third year I've attended the Winter Slipstream put together by a most awesome organization: Connected in Motion. Basically, Winter Slipstream is a weekend long bonanza filled with everything from an Inuit blanket toss to playing a life-sized Diabetes Cranium...Diabetium to be specific!

A few other things that went down this weekend: sleeping in bunk beds, reaching way down and pulling out my inner musician while sitting in a drumming circle, learning what not to do while belaying someone on a high ropes course (sorry for dropping you Mike, won't happen again!), testing my blood sugar while snowshoeing (using the glucometre in mouth technique, thanks Michelle!), waking up unnaturally early, lots of high fiving, a night ski across the lake (final destination: campfire and hot chocolate) and a discussion of diabetes topics that taught me a truck load of interesting tidbits. All of these moments are fresh in my mind and I'm still high off of the fun and physical activity. In the forefront of all these moments are the many people that I shared my time with.

I got to spend my weekend with some old friends that I've met through past Connected in Motion events, as well as some new people who came out to see what Winter Slipstream is all about. Every time I walk into a room filled with friends and strangers alike, all of them with Type 1 diabetes, there's something that happens that's really hard to describe. I feel a mixture of nervousness and apprehension, sandwiched between comfort and familiarity. I can feel my walls coming down and my guard wavering. People usually tend to retreat when this happens, but in my case it's a bit different.

Instead of the impulse to retreat, I can physically feel a burden being lifted off my shoulders and disappearing into thin air. All of these people, the one's that share the same full-time job that I have, make me feel like I'm me. Wholly and completely, diabetes and all. I have something in common with these people, something that those without diabetes couldn't ever possibly understand, no matter how much they may know about the disease. I felt like I could be entirely comfortable in my own skin, every second of every minute of every hour over the weekend because I knew that every other person there was dealing with a non-functioning pancreas. All of us were testing our blood sugars a billion times a day, constantly monitoring our food and trying to count carbs, thinking about how much insulin to take throughout a physically active weekend, dealing with lows and highs, and trying to keep our pumps and glocometres from freezing in the cold winter air!

Every time I take part in a Connected in Motion event, my positive attitude is fed to the point of self combustion. I get so excited and pumped up to live my life; the wheels turn in my head at exponential speeds and I want to experience anything and everything that I can. Connected in Motion inspires me to take part in my life and to be open and accepting of new experiences. It makes me want to be around healthy and happy people that are challenging themselves physically and mentally, pushing their limits and living on the edge of their comfort zones. I aspire to be one of those people and I truly believe that I'm on my way there...or maybe I've already arrived. With the help and support of these fantastic people who live their lives every day with diabetes, I'm aspiring to be the best version of me that there is. Winter Slipstream gives me the annual dose of motivation that I need to become a better person. Without diabetes I would be going through life on cruise control. With diabetes my life is infused with colourful people and I'm challenged to reach for the best parts of what life has to offer.