I didn't actually expect to go swimming...

Here I was, stumbling around the long forgotten MJ ning (does anyone else wish April was a year round thing?) when I saw a blog post which lead me to a blog post which has prompted me to write a story today. The deadline is Monday, so if you two have time and want to participate, you can do that. My story:

I didn't actually expect to go swimming, which is why my swimsuit is in my underwear drawer 3359 kilometres away, and I am standing here, naked. Fortunately, I am the type of person who doesn't let a distant bathing suit keep her from living her life. No, I'm the type of person to make lemonade out of her lemons, or in this case, go naked.

Skinny dipping has always seemed like one of those priceless life experiences that everyone must submit to once. In my imagination, it seemed so freeing and incredible, but in reality it's freezing and incredibly awkward.

Here I am, standing at the side of this monstrous body of water, with my body screaming at me not to jump, and my cousin, Kaitlin, screaming at me to stop being such a wimp. I try to avoid being a wimp, if possible, and so I jumped.

The water is every bit as cold as I'd thought, and possibly colder. I was already in and there was no point ruining my life experience just because of a little jaw chattering. I swam.

There something magical about swimming in a lake at twilight, especially if you don't have clothes on. I really recommend it. After a while I stopped feeling the cold, and I know that's usually a sign to get out of the water before you unknowingly die of hypothermia, but I kept swimming.

I saw an otter floating along a little way away from me and at that moment I felt just as I'd imagined: free and part of the water. Sure, that otter could probably swim faster than me, but I was here, in the half light, in my most natural of all states, floating along with the current of the water and everything else that called this lake home. I'm not thinking about yesterday, or even tomorrow. I am alive in the present. This is life.

That was weird...

That statement applies to many things, actually. First, that Blogger apparently thinks that hitting "enter" at the beginning of a post means to POST absolutely nothing. So disregard that little thing. Second weird thing: Off! bug spray does not work AT ALL. (selectively. It may not, and it may not. This was a "may not" time.) It is cold and unnecessarily sticky. Also, there's some kind of difference between "unscented" and "fragrance-free" Would someone like to explain this?

Thanks to the so called "insect repellent" (when I am annoyed with things I overuse "finger quotes" to imply things are not what they say they are.) I currently have 8 mosquito bites. Acquired after being outside for approximately 20 minutes outside. (and liberally applying repellent, as directed.) These 20 minutes were spent WAITING for the fireworks to begin. (my house is nicely very close to a golf course, which is good for the viewing of fireworks.) 2 minutes after coming inside after concluding that the fireworks were canceled due to clouds and earlier crappy weather (Notice how it ALWAYS rains on days when clear skies are a must? This July has been freakishly cold and rainy. I guess that's better than record breaking HEAT. Reverse global warming FTW! What was I talking about before?)do the fireworks start. The "real" ones. The big ones, not the test ones or whatever.
So, at this point, everyone does NOT want to be further eaten to death by mosquitoes.

But we will still have to LISTEN to them until 2:00 am

August 6th.

Alex, are fireworks shot off for Canada Day? If not, consider yourself lucky. Because all the geniuses here buy enough fireworks for 3 years while they are on sale. Possibly more even AFTER the 4th. So they continue to shoot them off at odd hours of the night months after the real holiday. But enough about that. On to the questions!

Alex: I've only had about 4 occasions to go to a Starbucks. (mostly just dragged there with friends who are coffee addicts.) My first time there, there was this bit of conversation:

Me: "Soooo... ummm... I want a small iced coffee thing. With, ummm, chocolate. And whipped cream."

Barista (that's what they call them, right?): *Pause* *look that says, "stupid n00b. Quit wasting my time."* You mean TALL???

(how the heck did TALL come to mean SMALL??? Explain please.)

Me: Yeah, whatever that is. *to my friend* Please just order for me. PLEASE. Me no speaky the Starbucks lingo.

I haven't gone back there on my own since. That is not to say I don't like a good iced coffee. Whatever flavorings it contains. Carmel, mocha, vanilla, whatever. There's a little coffee kiosk-thing INSIDE my library. Books and coffee. And cookies. It's awesome. It's called St. Rogers' Pastisserie or something French. And it's run by nuns. Real nuns. In full nun garb. (There's a name for their black head coverings and such. I'm not religious enough to know that.)

Vita: What counts as an "unconventional" way? I'm assuming the "conventional" way is to press your ear against a wall and have fun decifiering the words. Should I ever need to eavesdrop... (which, ahem, I have NEVER, ever done) I pretend to sleep. I'm good at pretend-sleeping, though sometimes it seems very suspicious to be sleeping in the middle of the day. On the ground. Then it just looks like you're passed out. Which is bad.

My question: Ummmmm... what do you want your last words to be? (ugh, more about death, but seriously, unless you die a mime, you'll have to die. Before you die, you'll have said SOMETHING. Doesn't matter how long the period of time is between words said and death. Just as long as they're the ABSOLUTE LAST words you ever say.)

no, i'm not on drugs (really)

Occasionally I have these weird, brief moments where I suddenly feel as though I'm in a dream. It's a bit like the sensation you get when you stand up too fast and all the blood rushes to your head, except I don't feel faint, I just feel slightly misplaced. Everybody's conversations are slightly echoey, but I can still understand them; I feel a bit unsteady, but I can still walk; and I momentarily can't quite grasp the concept of reality.
Apparently my best friend experiences these too, and I'm wondering if you guys know what I'm talking about? It's weird.

Naturally, this leads me to wonder how I would know if I was living in a dream. Everything certainly seems real, and I don't think my imagination is expansive enough to think of, well, everything all on its own, but how do I know that I'm not really locked up in a padded room right now, muttering to myself? If we were living in the Matrix, how would we know? Seriously.

Now, on to Starbucks...
Yes! I do go there fairly regularly. I know, I know, there's all this business about supporting local coffee shops and such, but it really does taste good. However, I love Caribou Coffee more (I don't know if you guys have heard of it; I'm not sure how big the chain is... I think it's pretty big, though). It tastes even better than Starbucks. Still, the closest CC to me is a stand in a mall, and I don't really feel like going to the mall just to drink coffee, so... I go to Starbucks. :)
My favorite (hot) drink is definitely a (tall) café mocha. Yum. My favorite cold drink is probably an... iced café mocha! Because I'm so daring and spontaneous! But I am also a fan of frappachinos; I also love vanilla bean, and I love strawberries and cream for the first half of it (and then I start to get sick of it). I am working on expanding my Starbucks horizons, though, so I'm planning on ordering something new the next time I go there.
Wow, that was an unnecessarily long response. Also, I'm pretty sure I misspelled "unnecessarily," but I don't feel like checking that. Oh well.

I was going to ask you the generic question of what you're doing for July 4th, but then I realized that you, Alex, most likely do not celebrate it! :D So instead, I ask: What is the best unconventional way to eavesdrop on a conversation?

(I'm not using your answers for my own use, by the way... I'm just curious. No, really.)

abstinence (from meat)

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but here I will again, I'm a vegetarian. Partially. I'm a pretty bad one, and that used to bother me, but I'm okay with it now. Basically I just don't eat red meat. I eat turkey on special occasions and chicken every so often (I love Chinese and Japanese chicken), so I guess I'm in the middle of vegetarian to meat eater scale. Don't even talk to me about veganism. Depriving yourself of cheese, milk, butter and all else that makes life worth living? INSANITY!

I'm a vegetarian for a few reasons and the list changes when I get new reasons (such as when I watched Hank of the vlogbrothers talk about how meat isn't very environmentally friendly):

1. At first I just wanted to try it out, see if I could survive without hamburgers. But after a while you adjust to it and you can't imagine eating meat again. It's been about three years on and off (more on than off).

2. I don't really like meat that much, I mean I like it, but I don't LOVE it. Not as much as I love cheese. Even so, it's hard to give up meat. When I started, I'll see my family eating bacon and burgers and I'd wonder why I wasn't eating it too. Then I'd feel guilty for sneaking a piece of bacon onto my plate and eating it. It felt like cheating. But I don't feel guilty anymore. It's a choice that I make, and if I want to make exceptions, I'm allowed to do that. Now when I eat meat it's not as delicious as I remember. For instance, a few months ago I had a hot dog to commemorate my great Aunt Jenny (it was her favourite food) and I decided that I was okay living without hot dogs.

3. Being a vegetarian is more healthy.

4. It's more environmentally friendly.

5. Animal rights. I'm not saying it's evil to eat a cow's butt and I don't look down on people who do (eat cow butt, I mean)--people have been eating animals for a really long time--I'm saying that I disagree with injecting baby pigs with hormones so that they mature faster, while living in disgusting, extremely cramped stalls, before being slaughtered. I disagree with feeding a cow hormones so that it produces more milk and then exploiting that. I understand that people have to eat, but I don't think we have to be so greedy and horrible about it. What's wrong with letting a cow outside before you eat it?

Being a part-vegetarian can be frustrating. It's really annoying when say, you're a volunteer at an event for Canada Day and afterwards when you head to the hospitality tent to get your complimentary meal there are no vegetarian options. So I got to eat a bun. That was my dinner, a plain hamburger bun.

I'm pleased to say that more fast food establishments are starting to serve veggie burgers. The only option you have at McDonald's is a chicken casaer salad with no chicken, but there are places such as Triple-O and Fatburger that are open minded enough to think of vegetarians.

My mother has an aversion to Fatburger. I can say that I've never actually been there, but I do know they have a veggie burger on their menu, so I respect them. She says that she won't eat at any place that has the word 'fat' in the name. My response to this is that at least Fatburger is open enough to admit that there is fat in their food as opposed to masquerading as a happy little farm, where you can get 'service with a smile'.

I have a good question this time. Are you a customer of Starbucks? If so, what is your favourite summer drink? Or winter drink? What do you drink...?

I will answer this one because I'm just that thoughtful. If I want something hot, I get a London Fog, which is an Earl Grey tea latte thing. London Fog is so delicious. Cold drink-wise I go with ice coffee. And if I want a Frappechino I'll either get a Chai Creme or a Vanilla Bean. Yum.