Category Archives: Things I Love Thursday

You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.
— Joseph Campbell

One of my very best friends sent me an email with this in the subject title last week and I’ve been reflecting on it since then. These last few months have found me more frustrated than usual. Instead of berating myself for the gap between what I wanted to accomplish by now and the stark reality, I’ve spent this past week thinking about what I have in my real, unimagined, living life. It’s not going the way I planned, but it’s the one I’ve got — and there are so many little things to love and give thanks for:

♥ The most beautiful wedding ceremony I attended this past weekend. There was so much love and happiness, just remembering it gives me more joy than I can express.

♥ Buffets. It’s been a while since I’ve gone to a full-scale buffet complete with appetizers, main courses and the most splendid spread of desserts I’ve yet seen. Mm, chocolate mousse and tarts…

♥ Basking in sunshine. I’ve been spending as much time as possible out-of-doors while the sun is here and the skies are clear. How I wish we had had more of this earlier!

♥ Oliver Jeffers’s guide on how to draw penguins.

♥ Meeting up with friends I haven’t been able to see in a few months, however briefly.

♥ Packages in the mail! Surprises are the best, but long-awaited books in my letterbox are almost as good.

♥ My favourite English in-love love song is definitely Ronan Keating’s cover of ‘When You Say Nothing At All’.

♥ I really like this picture (though I’ve no clue where it’s from) for perhaps obvious reasons:

Once in a while, I find myself thinking on the same theme from different angles over and over. This week, it’s all about the stars (interspersed with other things):

♥ Here’s a beautiful thought from Lawrence Krauss:

Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics. You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded. Because the elements, the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars. And the only way they could get into your body is if the stars were kind enough to explode. So forget Jesus. The stars died so you could be here today.

♥ I was catching the shuttle bus back home last Friday night and the very nice bus driver brought me all the way to the driveway of Marine Drive residence because they shut off Agronomy Road and Southwest Marine Drive is pitch black at night, what with no lamp-posts. How kind!

♥ How the stars shine, even through all the light pollution.

♥ The fascinating Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature by Janine Benyus, on learning from nature’s designs and implementing them in human ways. It’s a little dated in parts — it was published in 1997 — but I love the philosophy, her enthusiasm, and her beautiful, clear writing.

♥ The wonderful Pride Parade on Sunday and my new collection of party beads to remember it by.

♥ Thai green curry: my latest craving. I’ve literally been eating it everyday since Sunday, yet I’ve started dreaming about it anyway.

♥ My lovely friend who visited me yesterday while I was incapacitated.

♥ This cover of Coldplay’s ‘Yellow’ by Sara Bareilles — although I love the original best when I’m in an upbeat mood, this mellows me out on tired days:

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2Pqc_hpkJc]

First off: A very happy birthday to my two wonderful friends who were born on the same day today twenty-one years ago! May you both be as happy and healthy as anyone can wish.

I didn’t post last week because I was tired of the Blog Squad aggregate page cloning my posts, but it seems to be behaving now (fingers crossed this doesn’t jinx it). So my weekly collection of things I think are cool:

♥ One of my all-time favourite things about Translink is the Poetry in Transit project: short poems or extracts on the inside tops of busses, where the ads usually go. You can read all the current ones on the website, if you like; I haven’t, because I enjoy the occasional surprise of finding a new poem on the bus.

♥ The surprise fireworks display at Coal Harbour last Saturday — and the upcoming Celebration of Light this weekend! I’m planning on seeing all the fireworks this year; the competitors this year promise to be most excellent.

♥ One of my friends pointed out the magnificent-sounding interactive e-book by an ex-Pixar designer, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Morris Lessmore, available on the iPad. Check it out, read about it, or buy it for $4.99:

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/25833596]

 
♥ Another great link for anyone interested in animation is the Animator Letters Project, a website collecting letters from professional animators to aspiring ones.

♥ Seeing the utter joy on a friend’s face when you find a really good present for them.

♥ I’ve been listening over and over to Simple Plan’s ‘Jet Lag’ (featuring Natasha Bedingfield). (Apparently, there’s also a French version with Marie-Mai.)

♥ The knee-high child who ran up and hugged my leg (however mistakenly, thinking I was his mother) at the UBC Bookstore last Saturday.

♥ Most of all, I love Vancouver in all its glory rays:

Tumultuous week! Summer this year is not shaping up to be quite the golden age I was hoping for, but there are some shiny bits regardless. First off, this great quote:

‘The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of the human race than the discovery of a new star.’
– Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826), French lawyer and gourmet

So true, so very, very true — in my case, anyway. Other great things I love:

♥ People who feed me candy. I have a drawer in my office desk dedicated to stashing sweet gifts; it helps keep me from low blood sugar.

♥ Speaking of feeding candy, Cut the Rope is my new favourite game on the iPod Touch. (Also available for Androids.)

♥ Satisfying my mussels craving at Salade de Fruits on Tuesday. A giant pot of mussels and a massive pile of fries for $14. Yes, please!

♥ This has been the coolest Vancouver summer I’ve had in the last four years, what with the random rain and wild temperature fluctuations. It’s made me all the more appreciative of days when we do have high skies and relentless sunshine (and here’s a little wish for more).

♥ Spotting a raccoon in our backyard when I was dropping by briefly to pick up a charger. Not a common sight in urban Vancouver in the daytime!

♥ How long the long grass grows.

♥ Basking under the sun at the Stanley Live concerts last Saturday and playing an impromptu game of peekaboo with two laughing toddler girls who decided that was they wanted to do with my otherwise lazy form.

♥ I have literally thousands of images saved on my computer. I love pictures and quotes. Although I haven’t had time to collect any more lately, I still like to browse through what I have because sometimes, something like this is exactly what I need:

Happy Thursday and have a good weekend!

I’m writing this in a haze of sleep deprivation after realising that it’s Thursday today and I haven’t written my weekly love post. So, in the midst of my grogginess, I want to give thanks for:

♥ spending Canada Day with two really awesome girlfriends at the Steveston Salmon Festival, complete with freshly barbequed wild salmon, kettle corn, playing on the beach, bubble tea and a movie;

♥ strawberry-picking at W&A Farm in Richmond last Sunday: sweet, juicy red berries glowing under the dusk of green leaves;

♥ watching Jurassic Park at Stanley Park, courtesy of FreshAirCinema;

♥ the book sale at Vancouver Public Library which continues tomorrow — I picked up nine books at 75 cents a copy and only that many because my arms are weak and puny;

♥ takoyaki, takoyaki, takoyaki;

♥ sitting at the front of a train and watching the world hurtle towards you;

♥ how a sliver of white moon appears in the middle of an afternoon summer sky like another wisp of cloud; and,

♥ one of my favourite tunes to play in this season, a cover of Natsukage (Summer Lights) from AIR by someone with the original username of karimono (but who seems to have disappeared since):

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDhoa3aJCi0]