You're on a bridge to nowhere and you're gettin' there fast/ put it in the past

My family has some sort of problem with planes.

I don't know what it is, but hardly a Bickbeck vacation has been had without plane troubles of some kind. I kid you not. When we wanted to go to Paris, the flight was canceled because of freezing rain. Luckily, the airline guy took pity on the mom with her two cute kids and gave us an extra day in Paris since we lost one, and I ended up being able to spend my birthday in Paris, which was nice... but still. It was touch and go for a while. I know, freezing rain is sometimes a problem when you leave for somewhere in the middle of November, and I wouldn't think much of it, were it an isolated event. There are other stories.

This year, when we were going to Cuba, we called the airport to check on our flight's status only to discover our flight had been canceled. Now this was only the flight to Toronto where we were to stay over night and then leave for Cuba in the morning. Now, this doesn't seem like such a bad thing, since there are flights to Toronto on the hour every hour all day from Ottawa until like 11pm, and we were leaving at 5. The problem was that this cancellation had been preceded by 3 days of terrible storms which left everyone flying anywhere in Eastern North America, and beyond, stranded for days. So every single seat on every single of those flights was booked. Every one. The standby fly list was a mile long. So we had to leave the next day (but that almost messed up too since the airline guy who rebooked us didn't press save or something and when we called back we discovered we had never booked a new flight. Fixed that in a hurry).

And now my poor father, who was to arrive last night here in Indy, after a week of stress and working overtime instead received a recorded call from the airline at 6am telling him: "Your flight has been affected due to .... cancellation." Now he is arriving today at about 2pm... right in the middle of the Brickyard 400, a huge car race of some kind that is happening right near the airport. As if Indianapolis' freeways aren't clogged enough normally.

I swear, it's a curse. I am the only one to break it, when I went to Indiana by myself a couple winters ago. I guess I'll fly alone from now on.

It was 100 degrees/ as we sat beneath the willow trees

It's really hot here, in Indianapolis. Much hotter than Ottawa. I could actually go swimming, and not freeze my ass off. Radical, I know.

Last night was so much fun. I went swing dancing with Nathan, Jonah, Saralyn (Jonah's girlfriend) and Amy. We went early for the lesson, so they taught us how to do all these fancy moves, like the inside and outside turns, as well as the man turn and the sweetheart. Let me tell you, swing dancing is not that hard. It's hard to get really really good and have it look way awesome and all, but to learn some stuff that looks neat and is fun and then get out on the floor and dance... not too hard at all. When Evan showed up, I managed to teach him some dancing in about 2 minutes (and this is Evan, Mr I do not dance).

Whenever we got tired we went into the diner. See, the place where the dancing is hosted is this old theater place that has been converted to a dance hall with tables and a dance floor in the balcony and some practice room where Nathan and I practiced some really nifty moves, like the pretzel.

After discovering Evan had never seen RENT! we made last-minute plans to bring him back home with us and watch it at 1 in the morning. I fell asleep on his shoulder a couple times, but on the whole, the time was much enjoyed by all.

This evening, after a "fun-filled" afternoon at grandma's residence* my Uncle Stan went out to dinner with all the nieces and nephews to Steak 'n' Shake and then to a movie. I love my Uncle Stan. First of all is the money. Money is the going thing here. Everyone is always trying to give one another money. Often it is put to us, the nieces and nephews, to pass on/accept/not accept the money. It's a little silly. The other thing with Uncle Stan is that everything is always political. For instance, he was driving us to dinner in the van, which is kind of old. We were discussing how it's missing a mirror and the window is totally jank and such, and Uncle Stan said "Wouldn't it be nice to be a republican and be able have something fixed when it breaks?" The right and the left are black and white to him. Always.

We saw Transformers, and before you roll your eyes or otherwise knock it, know it was so much fun. Because it was so funny, and then when it got scary or serious, they'd just mention the name of the robot -- Bumblebee -- and then we'd all laugh.

*we tried playing jenga, since she can't really so scrabble anymore. It went ok, but games are a little beyond her now.

Jenk, Jank, Janky

Family vacations are a funny thing. For instance, usually, they come at exactly the wrong time for me. This year is no exception, but last year is the example I will use in which I went away right at the time when my relationship was falling apart. Mike and I subsequently broke up.

The other thing about family vacations is that, as evidenced by popular belief, you have to spend it with you family. This is a problem. The only member of my family I really spend a ton of time with ever is my mom. My dad is always at work/napping/reading, but we still get some good hang out time. But not always, constantly, which is good. And with my sister and I, the less we hang out, the better we get along, it seems. But we're going to the same high school next year so we'll see how that goes...

Anyway, I have already moved on to phase 2 of my vacation, phase 1 not having been a huge success. Visiting my aunt and cousin was ok, but that house is a big box of drama ALL THE TIME. Very stressful, lots of crying. And today we drove to Indianapolis where I am now, sitting on the floor of my cousin Jonah's room (yess laptop) while he serenades me with Ben Folds songs on his guitar. I will go join in on this now.

I feel it all, I feel it all

And today, I feel my teeth with no braces. Oh yeah.

Pretty, no?

Montreal might eat its young but Montreal can't get us down

Last night at 9:15pm... do you know where you should have been? At the Final Fantasy concert at Bluesfest. Which was one of the (if not THE) most amazing concerts I've ever seen.

Here's some background. Final Fantasy is a one man band, basically. Owen Pallett is that one man. He plays violin, keyboard, and sings. Not all at once -- he's awesome, but no one is that awesome. He uses recording pedals. He lays down one harmony and then loops it and adds something on top of that... on and on. And then he opens his lovely mouth and sings. It's the kinda of music you just lose yourself in. The songs just get better and better as he builds them. He uses everything to its max. He drums on his violin to add percussion bits, he uses the back of his bow to create a new sound, he even yells into his violin, distorting his voice.

So basically, it was an amazing concert. The set list was perfect. He even played a Block Party song, and two encores that were the songs I still wanted to hear. One thing that I really liked was that his friend Steph ("WHO'S STEPH?" Owen: "Who's Steph? She's the one on stage who isn't me, I already explained this to you.") did really cool visuals. As they were setting up the stage (Kevin: "Quick! Take of pic of Owen's ass!") they put up a sheet and brought out an old school projector. The kind we use to take notes from at school. Steph turned this into the coolest visals. Layering images on top of each other, using textures, making these images come alive. It really added to the show, since Owen is only one guy with a violin, a keyboard and some stuff at his feet. He's smart that one. Puts on a great show.

After, he signed autographs. When the we heard that, Jake and I high-tailed it to the Compact Music tent where the signing was to be. Unfortunately, Hedley was still playing, which resulted in a lot of Owen fans yelling angrily and rolling their eyes, because Hedley was so bad, and the lead singer was incredibly obnoxious. I was pretty glad when it ended.

When I got to the front of the line, unfortunately my phone was too low in batteries for a picture! I was so so sad. Instead I hugged Owen. Best moment ever. The first time I saw him play, 2 years ago at Vinyl Cafe, I said "I love him! I just want to give him a big hug." and I got to. How lucky is that?

It's really too bad that he's gay. As Olivia said, all good violinists are.

I definitely thought I was a Ravenclaw since I go to Lisgar.

be sorted @ nimbo.net

Congratulations on making Gryffindor!
Basically, you're brave, daring, chivalrous, and pretty much.. an all around good person. Of course, some see you as a goodie-two-shoes. But hey, it's true! You're really good at winning, and normally always come out as the hero. Everybody likes you.. except, maybe, the Slytherins. You're too perfect. No, really.. You're too perfect. It's annoying to watch you win, repeatedly. Oh well. Be proud anyway.

Gryffindors to Remember:
Harry Potter
Ron Weasley
The whole Weasley family
Hermione Granger
Albus Dumbledore

My moon and me, not as good as we've been/ it's the dirtiest clean I know

Today I found the cure to my summer boredom/lack of motivation and it was a fridge. Actually, I was assigned the job of cleaning out the inside of my fridge (my mom bought me a lovely, sweatshop-free, black skirt in exchange for some hard labour).

It was a slow start. I've been putting it off and putting it off for about a week now. But today, overcome by boredom and a complete lack of motivation to leave my house to do anything else productive (prepare my proposal for Lisgarwrite, go for a walk) I finally gave in an bit the bullet.

I'm not going to lie. It was 3 hours of hard work. I had to empty each shelf of my fridge, pull the shelf out, put it in the soapy water in the sink, let it soak, clean it, put it back, reorganise the shelf, take everything out again and clean the walls... and repeat. Over and over.

But you know what? It gave me a goal. A purpose. No longer was I bored Evey, sitting on the couch watching bad, bad TV all day. I was Evey With A Purpose, and it felt good.

In other news, in a display of complete last minute-ness I have finally decided I need to see some of the bluesfest. I finally actually wrote down all the bands I was interested in seeing, and there were lots! I think I'm going to have to spend more money (sigh). Perhaps I will convince my parents to pay for the new bike.

This is a sequins kind of song

Since I am La Canadienne who Speaks, I figure I should educate all of you about Canada Day. Or, at least, my Canada Day.

Now, I am quite the patriotic Canadian. I like being a Canadian -- I think it's a great place to live. I mean, sure we have our problems, but over all, Canada is pretty nice. We're healthy, we have great music and we have some pretty nice vistas (well for now... let's get on that saving the environment deal, ok Canada?). I even like living in Ottawa. I like all the green everywhere (just look at our buildings.) and the people tend to be nice. Also, it is the capital, which means we have certain perks, like all the museums, the public servants and, or course, the NCC funded celebrations, certainly not the least of which is the Big Canada Day Bash.

Though I am proud to be a Canadian and all that, really... I am not one for the big, downtown Canada Day celebration. It's hot, it's crowded, and really, we're all there for the fireworks at 10pm, aren't we? So I usually just stake out the top of the Bank Street Bridge near my house at about 9:30pm, watch the fireworks from afar, and go home again to early bed, listening to neighbourhoods hooligans setting off backyard fireworks. It's tradition.

However, this year, things have been different lately. Going out is increasingly part of my life. I enjoy going out with friends. So this year, I decided I wanted to spend the day with some friends, and if that was downtown, then, I wanted to go downtown! Which is why, when Davis invited me along to Graham's house* for Canada Day celebrations, I was pretty excited.

We ended up having a really really great day. We wandered around for a few hours, met up with some other people, and then headed back to Graham's for a while. I was clearly exhausted and fell asleep on the couch while everyone played WWE video games. After Marroushe for dinner (Marroushe, Marroushe! Quite near the scotiabank!/ Marroushe, Marroushe! On Elgin South of Frank.) and a dance party, Kevin and I headed downtown to see Feist play on the Hill with plans to meet up with the rest of the group later at the ORC for fireworks and spiked slurpies. We met up with Bora and waited a couple hours for Feist, who ended up going on last before the fireworks. at 9:30 and she was AWESOME. As usual. Her new CD is all kinds of awesome. Since she was on so late (but so worth it) we ended up staying on the Hill instead of going to the ORC, which was ok.

I was let down a bit because I didn't spend as much time with friends and the view of the fireworks was actually not that great from the Hill. But after the fireworks, I just put on my music loud and walked/skipped/danced down the street to Graham's house. I biked home feeling on top of the world. It was just so amazing, the wind in my hair, singing music that makes me feel good and smiling at the world going past me. I don't know what it is about Canada Day... it's just something in the air.

Happy Canada Day everyone, eh?

*Graham is a really nice guy who also happens to be pretty "cool". I felt kinda special to be invited to his house.