Pink-Spider.net

This is toast of awesome.

All you need is a bit of butter, some sugar and some cinnamon (cinnamon sugar actually tastes better than just plain cinnamon).

After you toast your bread to perfection, add a thin layer of butter, sprinkle on a bit of sugar, and top it off with the cinnamon.

Oh yes. It’s wonderful.

I remember when I was a kid and my mum used to make it for me, but she’d cut the toast into little strips… ahh… those were the days.

It also goes very nicely with a nice hot cup of Earl Grey tea. But then again, I’d say that about pretty much everything.

Every year in the city I’m from in Canada, they have these Trillium Awards that are given out to recognize people who have worked hard to make their landscaping attractive.

I didn’t know much about it, so I looked it up online, and I guess there are four categories, which includes residential houses.

The point?

Well, feeling proud of the work they had done, my mum decided to nominate their garden (at the house). She’s a bit embarrassed to say that she actually went through nominating them, and doesn’t want to seem like she’s tooting her own horn, but she saw the application form and figured, why not.

When I was back in Canada last week, we got a letter in the mail saying that they had made it into the top 60 out of more than 300 entrants!
Both of my parents were pretty happy, and they therefore were invited to a banquet in September where they’ll announce the winners.

The final judging happened over two weeks… so, we’ll see what the results end up being!

I don’t know if it was just the front yard or the back, but here’s a photo I took of the front yard before we headed out to the airport…

Best of luck, Mom and Dad!

Again, it’s been almost a month since I last posted.

August flew by. Actually, the whole summer has really just flown by.
I can’t believe how ridiculously busy I’ve been. With work, friends… life.

I went back to Canada last week for the week, which really, was too short. It’s hard to live at home again after living by myself, but a week hardly gives me any time to adjust to anything. Everyone wants to do something, and I want to give everyone a bit of my time, but it’s near impossible in only six or so days. I feel bad for not having been able to spend as much time with my parents as well.

The house was super empty without Watson there. It’s actually really hard to be there alone without him. I kept thinking I heard his little feet or his heavy sighs when got all comfy in a warm patch of sunlight on the carpet.

But yeah, it was a decent visit. I saw most of my family on Monday because they came to my parent’s house for dinner. My cousin Tyler couldn’t come which sucked because he’s the one I’m closest to, but I talk to him on MSN on a regular basis anyways. We were celebrating some birthdays, including my Uncle’s, Grammy’s and mine. So, Grammy made her special red cake… yet she forgot to put sugar in the icing.

Yeah.
The ‘icing’ was basically butter.
We had cake with thick layers of butter.

Tuesday I did some shopping with my mum, and went to the race track (horses) with my mother and Grammy. My mother and I came out up thirty cents.
… yeah. I bet on horses based on their cuteness. It doesn’t work out so well.

Wednesday was dinner with Kat, Melinda and Jenn, and then to the drive-in. Thursday I hung out with Kat, and then we headed over in the WORST RAIN STORM EVER to the theatre to see a movie. Seriously though. It was like someone was standing on top of the car pouring buckets down the windshield.

Friday morning my dad came to me and said he wanted to ‘burn a CD’.
I asked him what kind of music he wanted on it, and he just kept telling me he wanted to ‘burn a CD’. Eventually I learned that he wanted to make a CD with a demo of his voice so he could try to get some voice work. My dad has a really cool voice, so I think he actually stands a chance to be able to do that. I showed him how to record himself and burn a CD… so we’ll see how that goes.

The rest of Friday was insanely busy. First, I headed over to the campground. It was good to be back there, in a strange way. I saw all my old friends, I answered the phone, talked with my former boss and the family (who really, I feel are like my own), and went down to chat with this one couple that’s come camping with us for years. Then I went to dinner with my piano teacher. She’s pretty awesome, and we went to dinner, then back to her house to let the dog out for a bit, and then went to get ice cream. It was nice to catch up with her.

Annnd from there, I headed back to the campground for a good old fashioned campfire. It was really awesome and I’m glad that my friends were able to do it. We had spider hotdogs, roasted marshmallows and of course, Jenn’s infamous s’mores. Talk about nostalgia.

Saturday, Kat and I headed up to Toronto to hang out with Tony, who I hadn’t seen for years. We did some shopping, went on a wild goose chase for these ridiculous hamsters (don’t ask), and ate dinner at a former TA’s restaurant. It was a nice day, despite the hordes of Justin Bieber fans that crowded the train. No. I’m not even joking. It was insane. And there was a lot of glitter.

Sunday… I headed back home. Nearly missed my flight to Nagoya, but ended up making it safe and sound.

And… that’s my week in Canada.

I’m going to try to blog more…. so we’ll see if anything else pops up here tonight, haha.

… that one of my biggest problems is instead of waiting for things to develop on their own or going with my own feelings, I freak out, try to rush everything and ask everyone and their mother to do the thinking for me.

Okay, so maybe it’s not QUITE that bad.
And I DO think hearing different opinions is important…

But I’ve realized that lately instead of following my gut, I ask everyone else how I should feel or what I should think.

And instead of relaxing and enjoying what I have, I freak out and start to create problems where really no problems exist.

So…

I’m going to take a deep breath.
And enjoy the rest of the summer.

So, Hitomi and I often go to the same Starbucks.

It has a lovely large window, which we try to grab a seat at, where you can people watch.

For a couple of months now, there’s been this older man that comes in when we’re there. At first, we just figured he was a regular. He always has earbuds in, and speaks randomly…. for a while we thought he was on the phone, but it’s apparent now he’s actually just crazy.

Sometimes he speaks in English, too.
Just random words though, mostly.

Well, we figured he was just a regular. He always rides up, parks his bike, comes in and orders. The one day, we were there on a Saturday night instead of our normal Sunday or Monday night. As he drove past the window, he spotted us, stopped and came in. Sitting behind us.

We’re not sure if it was a coincidence or not, but things have gotten… stranger.

Last night we met up and went to dinner, heading to Starbucks after.
We were just hanging out talking, when he came in.

He stands behind Hitomi (not like directly, but close enough) and just screams some random … shit. I dunno if he screamed jibberish, English or Japanese… but it was like, wtf. The people next to us turned around and looked at him. He kept looking at us. We ignored it.

It was really comical in a way, and we couldn’t help but laugh.

On his way out, he did the same thing.
O_O

I have no idea what to make of this, haha.
He also always wears the same hat and jacket.

He seems harmless, but… who does that?

Well, we made it to Tokyo!

Last night, Hitomi and I hopped on the night bus in Nagoya to head to Tokyo.

The poor guy doing the announcements on the bus had an awful time telling the time… I don’t think he got it right the first time any of the times he said it, haha. The bus ride was all around pretty good. No smelly people or people who snored too loudly.

We made it to Shinjuku at about 5:30am. YES. BRIGHT AND EARLY!
From there, we took the subway to Shibuya and then a taxi to Kim’s humble abode which we have kidnapped for the time being.

So we made it to Kim’s apartment complex… and since we don’t have the fancy electronic key… thing, we have to use a regular metal key. Meaning we had to use a different entrance than the one Kat and I had used before when we stayed.

Although Kim drew us a lovely map… we had some difficulty figuring out where the hell to go. We thought we were supposed to go into the parking lot, but there was this chain there, blocking the way. And a security camera.

After circling the building a couple of times, we saw some people hopping over the chain and figured well if they can do it, we can too. So we got into the parking lot… and to these metal doors that Kim had mentioned… but when we tried putting the key into the lock, it wouldn’t go. We tried all the doors we could find, but no luck.

We walked around the parking lot a few times (it’s not that big, but we had no idea where to go), I called Kim, but then hung up when we saw a man coming down to the rubbish closet…

THAT WAS OUR CHANCE. We snuck into the complex behind the man and just as we did, Kim called with further instructions. It seems like we were at the right place….

We found his apartment, and it was then we realized that we had been trying the wrong key the entire time. Yes. A good 20 minutes wasted in the disgusting humidity because we’re too dumb to check to make sure we’re using the right key.

AWESOME.

Well, at least it was an adventure and the security people have something to watch.

So lately, I’ve been feeling like I should blog more.

I mean, I don’t have an overly exciting life, but it’s kind of nice to have a record of stuff. I also thought maybe I should blog more…. thoughts? Opinions, or what not. And someday, maybe I can write a book.

Okay, maybe not really.

Although I really would like to write that book about the campground…. someday.
It really would be a top seller. How can you not love campground stories?!

Anyways, when Hitomi and I were hanging out at the fountain near Oasis the other night, we decided that the name for my hypothetical autobiography will be….

Your name is Adrienne…. why you no speak French!?

in tribute to all of the French Canadian campers that said that to me over the years.

Of course you have to read it with an angry French Canadian accent, or it really just doesn’t have the same effect.

And yes, to all of those campers, I realize that my name is French (although, some other sources suggest it’s actually originally from Latin). But it’s not like telling me that my name is French is going to magically make me fluent, so I feel like your point is kind of … well, moot.

I never wrote about Guam.

Mostly because things have been… well, hectic. To say the least.

Guam was awesome. Nice, warm, sunny. We only had rain on one day (which was our last day, and we therefore spent it shopping).

We went snorkeling, relaxed with smoothies and ice cream by the beach, did a bit of hiking (I’m using the term hiking very loosely here) and saw some waterfalls, went to a fruit farm and learned about coconuts and all sorts of fruits…

It was just a really nice, refreshing vacation.

And on the plus side, I didn’t get a sunburn.

AMAZING.
I know.

No it really is, haha. My pale skin burns so easily. Although, I was using SPF50.

I took some photos. Sean took photos. Eri took photos.
I’ll upload them when I have a chance to sit down and just resize and whatever.

Yeah.
Things have really been that busy.