All Walks of Life

L-R: Eyrkah Badu, Geisha, Pharoah & Buddhist Monk.

Happy Halloween y'all! I'm just sitting by the door waiting for the trick or treaters to yell at my door. Whatever happened to ringing the doorbell and then yelling in my face? Oh well. It seems as though that as years pass by, the number of children who canvass for candy decrease. Are they all at the malls? What a pity if they are. I used to stay out as late as possible and wait until my pillowcase was unbearably heavy. I'm sure that most of you reading this can relate.

Being back in Canada to celebrate a holiday that isn't very popular outside of North America is exciting. Although, I must admit that the bar I attended last year in Cambodia was quite reminiscent of our traditions. It was much better than the lame ass "halloween" I spent with mostly British and European travellers the previous year in Malaysia (no offense, but you guys just don't aprreciate Halloween in the same way I do).

This year I attended a Halloween party with my new found friend Maribeth (aka Erykah Badu), the hosts went all out with decor and ghoulish treats. Good times, good times...

Bring on the cheer!

I don't care that Sears already has a decorated Christmas tree displayed in their window. I don't care that Ikea already has a variety of ornaments to be purchased. As a matter of fact, I'm revelling in the idea of Christmas this year. I'm quite excited! It seems like its been way too long since I've celebrated Christmas in Calgary. I've missed the commercialization of it, the non-stop music ringing in your ears, the buzz; hell, I've even missed the cold and the SNOW!

What's so wrong about people having some spirit two months before an over rated holiday? Bring on the cheer! Cheer brings about happiness and caring, cheer brings about smiles in strangers, cheer brings about the true meaning of Christmas.

Flight 141

I love airports. I find them very intriguing, especially when there's hardly anyone around. I picked my Mom up last night around midnight and all the businesses were closed and there were only a small selection of people hanging around waiting for friends to arrive.

The lights are dim and there's this sense of the unknown. You're in a place that's always so busy, crawling with all walks of life and so when there's no one there its quite odd and mysterious. Perhaps you'll see someone stretched out across three seats trying to catch some zzz's and you wonder what their story is. You see a brightly dressed ethnic lady with a bouquet of flowers and wonder who's arriving. Or maybe there's a young toddler running around with no supervision, excited to be free...

I wish I could spend more time at airports, too bad parking's so expensive.

Where?

I search and I search, nowhere to be found. Up the stairs, through the corridors, into mysterious doors. Predictable places, the unknown.

Frustration!

Sense of calm must persist... patience.

Where the hell?!?

Patience is so overated, frustration!

Look behind me, crank my neck, turn again, searching....

Damn it!

Obstacle....
dot, dot, dot . . .

I sit, I wait, I type.

Donate!

In response to Al's latest blog, I just got onto the worldvision website and donated a modest amount of money to disaster relief, particularly in Pakistan. It took a matter of maybe 2 minutes, type in your details, pull out the plastic, type away. I too encourage any of you reading this do the same. It doesn't have to be worldvision of course, I just choose them because they're a big organization that can probably do more help than little NGO's. I could be wrong. Anyway, put yourself in their shoes and then think to yourself if you can spare some money. Need I mention that I only work 16 hours/week?

What's money anyway? Saving lives, now that's important!

Cancer sucks.

This past Sunday I walked for the cure! More specifically breast cancer, this is now the second time this year that I've contributed to helping breast cancer (I volunteered for 'The weekend to end breast cancer' a while back). I don't really have any personal reasons for breast cancer specifically, other than the fact that Jeremy's mother passed away from it when he was a young boy. To be honest, this walk on Sunday I only joined because my friend was doing it with her co-workers and it was free for me to register. I didn't even run, I only walked 1 kilometer instead of running 5km, how shameful of me :-(

Coincidently as I walked with my "I'm running for..." pinned to my back that said Tita Connie (Jeremy's Mom) and Tita Noy, my dear aunt who has bone cancer and osteoporis laid in pain and agony in Maryland, USA. It was probably right around the exact same time while I was walking, she was waking up and trying to get out of bed in a hurry to go to Sunday morning mass and fell and broke both her hips. Obviously her bones are already quite weak and susceptible to injury, but hasn't she suffered enough?

Well, thankfully since then, she's already gone through surgery and has gotten her bones fused together and pulled through. She's going to be released from the hospital soon and will have to go through rehabilitation. I hope that she'll be okay.

For those of you out there that believe in God, please say a prayer for my Mom's sister. A lady I love dearly.