See?

All four fishes are frozen and just staring at me.  So still that I managed to get a decent picture!

Or maybe this is just how creatures with no eyelids sleep.

I really should just go home already.  Or be salsa dancing. Meh!

Just ... a few more ... drawingss

*twitch*

Backwardmontonians?

Edmonton was recently rated the worst Canadian major city for women to live in.

Yikes!

I feel as if I am contained in a lovely little rose tinted bubble that shields me from this harsh statistic.  The engineering office I work in is not your typical Old Boys Club.  There are of course more men than women but I still feel like I can progress based on my own merit.  In my lucky little pocket of Edmonton, the older men I encounter at work are quite approachable and generous with their help and knowledge. Plus there are well-respected and extremely competent women to boot.  Boo-yah!

I've made a strange discovery.  While taking it easy on my body lately, I mistakenly assumed that less practices would mean more delicious home rest for me.  [INSERT GAME SHOW WRONG ANSWER BUZZER HERE] Nope.  It turns out when I remove dance, something else takes its place.  I now suspect I have workaholic tendencies.  At midnight last night I was still in the office, cleaning up schematics.  Even my fish were stopping and staring at me like "GO HOME SO THE LIGHTS CAN GO OFF AND WE CAN FINALLY SLEEP."  

You know it's bad when you leave work and get weirded out if it's still light outside. 

Fortunately neuromuscular therapy is a wondrous thing, and I am getting back into the dance grind, slowly but surely.  

Mind Farts
-The Grand Budapest Hotel = awesome movie.  awesome awesome awesome
-rice stir fry overdose over.  i'm back to sampling random ready-made stir fry sauces and seasonings when preparing work lunches
-seaweed in stir fry brown rice = divine
-new obsession: caramelized onion hummus.  Superstore makes a wicked Vidalia onion one
-randomly saw a Korean melodrama about a werewolf boy ... and enjoyed it!  even if it was a melodrama.  loved the awkward dinner scenes
-heard a fascinating talk on "fecal transfer" on CBC radio when i was driving home one night.  eat healthy person's poo = revolution?  this could be our future, if we can manage to make ingesting poo easier to stomach (haaaa pun intended).  pretty shiny pill form maybe?  this could solve allergies and weight gain!  even autism experiments were successful.  the potential is mind-boggling

R.I.P. Pasty Tail :(

The bamboo pruning and 50% water change yesterday was too much for you. I noticed your tail colour going away and your loner tendencies last night.

This morning I plan to bury you somewhere.  It seems more dignified than the toilet or the garbage.  

You were a cute and energetic little guy.  I'll miss you and I hope you are enjoying the fishbowl in the sky.

Update: after a mini ceremony outside in the office back parking lot, we buried Pasty Tail and paid our last respects.  Strange scenario when I got back: the 2 female and 2 male fish were acting extremely happy in the bowl. 

Maybe they weren't big fans of Pasty Tail.  Maybe Pasty Tail was a fifth wheel at their swingers party.

Late Night Office Friends.

Transformed my office bamboo plant (which has grown like crazy) into an aquarium:

I like it! It's calming to watch.

The fishes like it too. They are White Cloud Mountain minnows (of the golden variety) so they are supposed to be tough and hardy little things. Hope they stick around for a while!

Okay no more circuits! Time to make 10pm practice!

And Just Like That, We Could've Killed Someone.

On the way back from Calgary this afternoon, she wandered without a care right into our path on Highway 2 just north of Red Deer:

Thankfully the GM of our office, who was driving, was alert and had enough control to brake and swerve so that we didn't hit her.

Unfortunately, the truck behind us tried to brake and swerve too but hit us.  Fortunately, no one was seriously hurt.

What's really messed up: The woman just kept right on walking across the road, even after she caused an accident and even after I yelled at her to stop and come back.  

It was one of the weirdest and eeriest things I have ever seen in my life, someone not caring like that.  Maybe it was dementia or drunkenness or depression. She didn't do the drunken stumble though.  It was a creepily smooth, slow walk.  My memory tells me she is a woman in her 60s or 70s with bags and a water bottle filled with yellow liquid. Piss ... Liquor ... Who knows?  I just vividly remember her water bottle for some reason - maybe because water bottles are supposed to be filled with water and the yellow liquid looked out of place.

The police came right away and took her away after making sure that everyone was physically ok.

I was coming back from a women's forum luncheon filled with ideas and thoughts about women in the changing modern engineering workplace and now I have this seemingly crazy and suicidal elderly woman on my mind.

Salsa Swoon *Record Scratch* Bedtime? NOooooOOoooo

Successfully performed 3 times at a congress  AND got some intense and mind-blowing training from some brilliant minds :)  Calgary was a very good time.  

Some really cool photos popped up, especially of my routine with my salsa group (we did this crazy different routine - no prissy girly girls in this one!).  There's this one salsa styling hit that feels really good and a Calgary photographer (thanks Brian Abelson!) was able to capture the exact moment.  How awesome is this shot?

Video can be found here.

Forcing myself to go to bed early so I can go to a work event in Calgary (again!) and head out at 6AM from the office for the road trip. Nite-O!