Eid Mubarak!

There is a significant Muslim contingent in the office. Which has resulted in desserts in the lunchroom to celebrate the end of Ramadan - no more fasting!

The evil stomach issues have settled down quite a bit, so my attempts at stress reduction have been fruitful. 

More free time has resulted in being able to care for Hachi and also being able to take the time to think over life in general and what I want to do with things like my womanhood. It's kind of like I just woke up and realized I'm in my thirties.  Even though I feel the same if not more energy compared to my twenties - I just don't do as many careless things. Yay for frontal lobe development!

Pleasantly, Smilingly, Nonapologetically.

So I didn't get a call about my blood and poo samples and after a couple of weeks I went to go see my doctor (turns out you can't just call and get results over the phone).

Nothing.

No parasites (thank the Lord!).  No parasite eggs.  No parasite cysts.  No E.coli.  No salmonella.  No pathogenic bacteria.

Nothing!

My levels are all healthy.

And I'm *still* having stomach episodes.  As recently as a couple of days ago.

Mention of this strange situation to friends has led me to the conclusion that this is very possibly the result of stress.  I know it's not like I'm openly freaking out and getting anxiety attacks or anything, but my stomach is definitely trying to tell me something.  Consciously I feel fine, but my autonomic nervous system debates that.

So I had to slice off something in my life - the salsa team.  It made the most sense, considering my ankle is not getting better and gets quite angry at high-heeled shoes these days.  Even just normal dress-up non-dancing ones.  Not okay.  Salsa dancing is wonderful, but even more so is being pain-free and stomach-strong.  At least I had a blast at the Las Vegas Salsa Congress with them.  My last congress as part of that team.

It's quite the change, but it will allow other things into my life.  I can still be physical without jumping around in heels.  Pilates, kettlebells, yoga of many forms ... I'll never run out.  Plus I'm still going to stay with the Afro-Cuban team (barefoot activity = strong feet). It's all gotta be trial and error.  And if my body keeps acting up, then I'll just have to re-evaluate my life and slice off more "stress" and add in more "happy."

Like finally going to the magical Okanagan for a best friend's baby shower (just moments before this pic, I was spewing my guts out at the beach washroom - eep).  Kudos to my lipstick for staying on.

Wineries are so soothing.  Why didn't I do them more when I used to live in the Okanagan?  I've never bought so much wine at once.  I'm really digging the fruit ("fruit" meaning non-grape) wines - I bought crab apple (white) and cherry (red) along with the more traditional stuff.

Or enjoying more social non-dance events like the first ever Diner en Blanc in Edmonton.  With my beautiful harem. 

  It rained like mad, but we survived the wet chill and enjoyed all the elegance.

And of course, hanging with Hachi :)

And being able to work late without having to rush to practices.
And just having the time to dream and think.

R.I.P. flight MH17 passengers :(

Soy Filipina.

Mexican ruins?  Yes please!  Chichen Itza is amazing.

As a Canadian, it's kind of silly that it took me this long to finally visit a country that really isn't that far. Thanks to a wedding invite, I was finally able to go.

Just like Puerto Rico, Cuba and even Miami, locals initially thought I was a Spanish speaker.  My go-to reply: "Soy Filipina.  Sorry!"

I unfortunately also may have brought back some type of bug with me.  Been having on and off stomach problems for over a whole month now :(  And I never get stomach problems this bad (or this long), especially after going vegan!  Had to go give some -ahem- samples to be tested.  A gross but very fascinating thing to do (t'was my first time).

A volatile stomach coupled with dance injury has made it a tad frustrating to keep up with my full schedule. I wonder if this is a sign for me to slow my roll a bit.

Another sign - I impulsively adopted a dog.  He kind of fell into my lap.  My coworker found him while camping (strangely enough, I was supposed to be on this camping trip but was performing at the International Saskatoon Congress instead).  A beautiful black dog came out of nowhere and started following the camping group.  My coworker tried nearby campers to see if anyone owned the dog, but no luck.  Tried contacting nearby shelters - no luck.  Tried posting online notices - no luck. Meanwhile, I kept tabs on the story of the abandoned forest dog.

A vet checkup revealed that the dog needs neutering and pulling of some damaged teeth.  After a couple of weeks of fostering, my coworker concluded that despite being a forest dog, the black dog is very friendly and gentle.  He does not chew on furniture or shoes.  He does not bark (hello, condo living!).  He is pretty much house trained aside from the handful of times he likes to mark his territory (neutering should fix this).

Upon finding out the dog would be taken to the SPCA if no one wanted him, I don't know what happened to me.  It was a little like watching myself in a movie.  Something in me woke up, and I couldn't stop myself from taking my sister to meet the black dog.  No turning back there.  Of course we fell in love with the sweetest mix of rottweiler, border collie and german shepherd.   Took him home that very night!

Say hi to Hachi, my first rescue dog :)

A bundle of love that still doesn't bark but does strange stray dog things like
-ignore chew toys and rawhide treats
-ignore dog beds
-be absolutely petrified of baths
-bolt for rabbits and cats (nope, not ready for off-leash yet!)

I'm away for work in Vancouver and I'm so grateful that I have willing hands to help take care of Hachi.

Oh dear. The stomach is acting up again. On the bright side, I'm enjoying this magical place of beach and mountains and made it through a long day of work without stomach episodes.  Let's hope tomorrow is similar!  I never know when a stomach episode is gonna hit nowadays.

Vancouver is so very beautiful.  I can totally see myself walking Hachi by the beach or taking a future mini-me to the aquarium (heck, I'm still a kid at the aquarium).  Or just relaxing with fresh juice at a 24-hour vegetarian restaurant.  I love that there's still so much to do even after working late.  And the weather has been amazing these past couple of days!

Now to go weather the storm in my stomach.  Hopefully a comfy hotel bed and ginger ale do the trick.        

Enough.

Shameful, but I only read up on the Nigerian schoolgirl mass kidnapping just now. NEARLY A MONTH AFTER. If it was a wealthier, whiter country you can bet the media wouldn't have been this delayed.  It's sad but true ... and I believe things will change but it just seems so damn slow compared to other things like smartphone releases.

The anger I feel at tragedies like this makes me think of when I first started reading Anne Rice's vampire books when I was a preteen.  There is this one vampire, the oldest and the root of all vampires.  Akasha.  She is an ancient Egyptian queen who awakes from her deep sleep into modern day life.  Upon seeing how messed up and chauvinistic the world still is, she goes a bit berserk and starts her master plan to kill off the majority of the world's human men and make up a matriarchal new world order.  Think Dexter, but a beautiful Egyptian neofeminist version on steroids.  The modern vampires of course try to stop her and keep her from this massacring half of the world.

It would be badass if Akasha was unleashed on the Boko Haram. Just saying.

Lunch Admiration of Pioneers.

This resonates with me so very much:

I do not wish for the life my father left behind, but I know that some spirit forged in that particular adversity made me possible. -Andrew Solomon

I'm reading Far From the Tree right during lunch and I just had to note that.  This book after reading the whole A Series of Unfortunate Events series is quite the fluctuation but I love both authors all the same.  They both hit with a melancholy that is also somehow light and funny.

After seeing a recent facebook pic posted by my aunt, I would like to once more openly admire my 92-year-old grandma (elegant woman below in scarf).  Those are some good genes! :)  My aunt on the far left and my aunt on the far right also look decades younger than they actually are (but I won't be rude and give their ages away - it's different for my grandma because she has hit the magical ninety-year milestone).  The woman in the middle (beside my grandma) is one of my grandma's greatest closest friends :) 

 

Okay, back to the grind!

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