A Llama in the Lobby

In December 2006 I was heading to work for the provincial government. I ran to the Belmont Building, where my work place was and turned the corner into the building… whereupon I found myself making eye contact with a llama as part of a Christmas display. I don’t mean a model llama; I was looking at a real llama standing in for the Three Wise Men’s camels.  My mind immediately switched into the headspace it gets into when I really need to figure things out logically: Am I in fact looking at a llama? Yes, that does appear to be the case. Do I have my camera with me? Yes. Good. I took some photos and headed to work, now in a very strange headspace.

A Quick Kitty Christmas Anecdote

Last week I bought a friend’s cat a couple of Christmas presents. One was a set of three balls with bells inside, the other was a ball with a feather on one end and a rope on the other. The former intrigued the cat but the other really got its attention. My friend removed the packaging and the cat started having a grand old time playing with his new toy.

In the other room the TV was playing a commercial.  In the commercial someone belched.  Upon hearing the belch the cat stopped and looked up as if to think “What was that all about?" and then he resumed playing with his new toy.

Christmas 2011

Here’s how I spent this Christmas:

·         Took photos of the downtown area around sunrise

·         Talked to my dad on Skype

·         Talked to a friend on the phone

·         More photos of downtown

·         Unwrapped presents

·         Photos not just of downtown but heading north to Hillside and back; got caught in the pouring rain near the end

·         Met up with a friend who only had a short time to meet

·         Cashier at Burger King cut into short time to meet by messing up the order thus requiring lots of time to be spent cancelling the order and putting in the new one

·         Walked with friend to Christmas tree display at the Empress; really packed

·         Went through photos for uploading to Flickr

·         More downtown photos

·         Planned trip to Vancouver for Tuesday or Wednesday; Translink website stalled quite a bit

·         Went to McDonald’s for dinner; their sign said they closed at 6 so arrived at 5:48; they were already closed; passed on Burger King due to the earlier service issues

·         Went to Dynasty Restaurant in Chinatown instead; there was a bit of a line to get in but an acquaintance offered to share his table, which speeded things up a bit.

·         Went home and found my last TransLink searches were still running uncompleted; finished travel planning

·         Did a bit more photo work

·         Watched The Losers on blu-ray

Christmas 2010

Here’s what I wrote to friends about last year’s Christmas, with minor tweaking:

* Wandered down Victoria taking pictures, noting the lack of street cleaning apparently due to the holiday; more cars than I expected
* During this time I realized I had forgotten to buy groceries and had breakfast at McDonald's, noting the 6:30 closing time
* Also during this time I bought a couple of DVDs at the new 7-11 at Douglas and Humboldt
* Unwrapped presents and found I had gotten a record number of gift certificates
* Wandered around downtown some more to take more pics and see if certain places were open, including Wellburn's (no)
* Tried finding a couple store hours online and found I had a computer virus
* Walked to Quadra Village to see if Fairway or Rogers were open (no)
* From there walked to the shopping area across from Hillside to get to a quieter area of town and see if that area's McDonald's, Dairy Queen, or Blockbuster were open
* Only Blockbuster was open; they had a buy 2 get 1 free deal but only saw 2 that I wanted so left empty handed [note: they later closed down even before the Canada-wide closures]
* Got a small pizza from the downtown Domino's
* Chatted online with a friend while eating the pizza and watched Bad Santa with the Commentary on
* Found a bedbug on me
* Went back to the McDonald's at 6:03 and found it now closed at 6
* Went to Chinatown and found a place that was open (Don Mee I think) but there was a half hour plus wait to be seated. A few other places were closed
* Found a Korean place that was open and had seating but wasn't that familiar with Korean food and with the day I was having decided not to experiment [I later went there with a friend; it was okay but a bit pricey]
* Finally arrived at 7-11 by my place which was selling hot dogs for 99c each. Good enough; bought 3
* On my way home near the main entrance some guy kept repeating, "I f---ing hate Christmas!" Decided to play it safe and use the other entrance
* Ate dinner and did up plans for a Tuesday Vancouver trip
* Wrote another chapter of my novel
* Fell asleep trying to watch a horror movie

Last Year’s Christmas Wishes

Here’s what I wrote on homemade Christmas cards last year (I didn’t make homemade Christmas cards this year due to printer issues and depression).

[OUTER TEXT]

MERRY CHRISTMAS,

[recipient]

There is truly no time like Christmas, (except the Xmas stuff on sale before Nov. 1; that’s very much like Halloween).  Family reunions happen (decades old buttons get pushed), people give each other gifts (running over pedestrians to get a hot item that will soon be old news), classic tunes get played (over and over again), classic specials appear on TV (most were never that good the first time around), Christmas trees get decorated (some kill real trees, knowing they’ll be vacuuming hidden pine needles forever), homeless people get special dinners (then get ignored the rest of the year), stores get energized (claustrophobia and long line-ups cocktail), leading to one magical day of peace and joy!

[INNER TEXT]

(the calm before the chaos that is Boxing Week, starting the very next day)

Ah well, have a wonderful Christmas anyway!

From,

Andy