Photo courtesy of www.vancouverspecial.com

When I first moved to Vancouver and heard the phrase “Vancouver Special,” I thought it was an ice cream sundae. You know, one with nuts and caramel and stuff. I imagined this sundae in my head a lot of the time.

But then I kept hearing people on the elevator be like, “Oh, did you hear Wanda paid $899,000 for a Vancouver Special?”

I figured, even if it had nuts and caramel, $899,000 was too much to pay for an ice cream sundae. It turns out the Vancouver Special is a house. And I LIVE IN ONE! It may have been one of those moments where I felt a little on the slow side. Okay, a lot on the slow side.

We all know that looking for apartments is an evil, evil chore. Unfortunately, I am also blessed with the fact that I am one of those people that constantly think “Oh, if I just see 27 more places, I’m going to find one that is perfect!”

My Vancouver special was number 42 on the list. I had called the landlord back about, oh, 6 seconds after he posted the ad at 7:45 in the morning (that’s right suckers, morning people win in the world of house hunting). I arranged to meet him there in 15 minutes. He was a sweet older Chinese man. Okay, so the place was a bit boxy at front, but I didn’t care. It had a yard. It had a damn pear tree. And it was a 2 bedroom. Massive. Huge! Well-priced! Minutes to the Skytrain.

Done and done. I did the deal right there, wrote my cheque and got the keys by 9 a.m. It was a pretty awesome day. But later, after I abandoned the ice cream sundae idea and found out that I lived in a house, fondly (or more like mockingly) nicknamed the “Vancouver Special” I started to feel like people started to judge me.

“Oh, you live on that street,” one of the men said at work. “You live in a Vancouver Special. NO WAY. That’s rich.”

Actually, it’s not. And boo to him. The whole point of the Vancouver Special was to act as an affordable home for working-class families. There are tons of them around. My entire street is basically the same house in a basic sense, with different fronts on them. Vancouver Specials “have been maligned for their monotonous, boxy shape and low-cost construction,” and described as “one of the city’s least respected buildings,” and an “architectural monstrosity.”

Well. That’s a bit harsh, I think.

I’m going to say after learning about all these attitude problems with the Vancouver Special and learning more and more about how much people hate them, I, of course, now love my Vancouver Special more and more every day.

There’s my lecture for the day. Love the Vancouver Special! Embrace its ugliness!

What matters is what you create inside your home. Who gives a crap if your house looks like a box?

P.S. My absolute favorite game as a kid was playing “house” inside a box. Obviously, I have been very adaptable about living in a real box.

–Edison

One armpit at a time.

Dear left armpit,

We need to talk. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time and I was never sure how to broach the subject. As I get older and become more experienced in such things, I’ve come to realize that being honest and direct is the best approach. I just hope you won’t hate me for what I have to say.

You small worse than right armpit. And it’s not just today; it’s every day.

I’m not bringing this up to attack you or to make you feel bad about yourself. I’m trying to put things on the table and make room for some honest conversation — real talk if you will.

So, what’s the deal? Do you have, ummm, I dunno, some issues? Like maybe substance abuse problems or an unhealthy relationship? Is this my fault? Do we need to be communicating better or have a little more “just for us” time? Have you been huffing (Although I can’t for the life of me figure out why that would make you stink)? Are you harboring an old burrito in your warm fold?

This isn’t about changing you, it’s about improving our live together.

With all my love and respect,

Laroo

I got called a liar about rat kings. If you don’t know what a rat king is, that is cool. Learn here.

I was telling boyfriend about rat kings and he cocked his head to the side, gave me the stare down, and said “That is totally made up. You dreamed that. I’m a scientist. I know these things.”

I said that since I was an over educated, under-employed journalist, I knew better. Especially about rats.

Finally, after having many arguments about rat kings, I got to meet boyfriend’s dad for the first (real) time. I muttered something about rat kings. Boyfriend called me a liar again. And then his Dad jumped in, and said, “THE BITCH IS RIGHT YO. RAT KINGS EXIST!!!!” Actually, he didn’t say it that way, but that is how I recount the story in my head. And then he spent 20 minutes telling us about rat kings.

You know how freaking great it is to win an argument about rat kings? And how boyfriend’s dad is automatically the coolest dude ever because 1. He knows everything about rat kings and 2. He proved that an over educated underemployed journalist can TRIUMPH in the world of rat knowledge.

RAT KINGS RULE!!!

Zombie Hands (I intentionally just put up their hands in case you're really freaked out by zombies too)

I’m afraid of zombies. I’ve always been a big fat baby when it comes to horror movies, but since I left “I Am Legend” after the first 30 minutes, I’ve been really kind of constantly freaked out about them. (OK, I know that those things aren’t exactly zombies, but they are kind of living-dead-zombie-like. And yes, I realize that I am totally establishing myself as the official whack-job of this blog, what with Facebook insecurities, psychosomatic gluten worries and now my waning on zombies.)  At any rate, they freak me out.

Luckily, my dad just sent me this great article called “7 Scientific Reasons a Zombie Outbreak Would Fail (Quickly)“. He probably did it because he thought it was funny. Little does he know his daughter cowers in her apartment at night afraid of zombies an co. At any rate, it is really calming, logical information about zombies and why they just won’t have a chance against us humans. If only someone would write about why those monsters from I Am Legend won’t get us. Please.

P.S. The article is also filled with other neat facts, like the fact that you’ll get a lot of hits if you search “zombie porn”. Who knew?

Me with my teeny tiny waist freaking out about gluten

A month or two ago I was on my way to meet one of my closest friends, K, on a train. You see, she lives in the Netherlands and I live in Germany and even though they don’t look very far away on a map, it kind of is. The plan was to meet on the train in Frankfurt and travel on together to southern Germany. I was totally psyched.

Anyhoo, being the great friend that I am, I had totally missed her birthday a few days before. So to try to make the world right again, I thought I would bring her a birthday surprise on the train. This was going to include two small bottles of bubbly, cake, a weird-ass homemade card, and some salad in case she hadn’t eaten and didn’t want to eat cupcakes and drink on an empty stomach.  The big day came and I bought cake at a swanky bakery.

So we get on the train and I whip out my super-surprise-prize and we’re so excited and it’s great and we’re laughing and we’re talking really loudly and we’re being really American and then . . . she announces she has gone totally gluten-free since we last saw each other. Your classic gluten story: girl meats bread, bread meats stomach, stomach goes haywire and makes girl gastro-intenstinally impaired. Oh horrid sadness.

So I had to eat the cake all by myself and it was awesome, some of the best cake I think I’ve ever had.

So cut to today. I’m looking for healthy baking recipes online, because I LOVE to bake and eat what I bake but don’t want to be a sugar-junkie-fatty, when I come across Dr. Mark Hyman’s article “Gluten: What you don’t know might kill you“. Dr. Hyman explains that undiagnosed celiac disease can increase one’s risk of heart attack and it or just a gluten sensitivity may be the cause of lot of common health ailments. These include “osteoporosis, irritable bowel disease, inflammatory bowel disease, anemia, cancer, fatigue, canker sores, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, and almost all other autoimmune diseases. Gluten is also linked to many psychiatric and neurological diseases, including anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, dementia,  migraines, epilepsy, and neuropathy.” OMG, so my dementia is finally explained.

But seriously. Sometimes my stomach hurts. I suffer from inexplicable aches and pains. I consider myself a somewhat lethargic person. I’ve struggled with anxiety and depression throughout my life. Gluten, is it you?

Probably not. But aren’t you just a little bit curious? Just an itsy bitsy little bit? ‘Cause I totally am. However, determining a gluten allergy or sensitivity involves not eating gluten for 2-4 weeks. As you can imagine, that could seriously hamper my style and would most definitely put a strain on my laziness factor. But, figuring out if you could be feeling way better and live healthier should be worth 2-4 weeks of my time, right?

I’m gonna go do some pushups and make myself feel healthy.

As I sit here, wracking my brain trying to figure out what to write, I decided to think about some other things that I am 1. Addicted to and 2. Really hate.

I came up with microwaves.

Why do you have to beep like 8 times to let me know that you’re done cooking? I have ears. I can hear. Why do you have to beep angrily when I don’t take the food out of the microwave fast enough? Look, I was making myself a gin and tonic, which is a whole lot more important than taking out some substandard tuna casserole that has cornflakes as a topping from the microwave, where you’ve likely already butchered it to death and left it in a glutinous mound. You’re like the nag that doesn’t know when to leave well enough alone.

Furthermore, WTF is with your defrost? I love it when I put a card sized piece of meat in there, hit defrost and then you cook the absolute shit out of half the meat while the other half is still frozen – like permafrost style. Are you high? Why do you do that?

Why do you make popcorn smell like used bandaids when you cook it? Why do you continue to reek for months at a time after I make ONE little mistake and overcook that turkey by 3 minutes. Why? Why do I keep thinking I can learn to cook eggs in the microwave and why do I keep blowing shit up in there? Why can’t I get it through my brain that you can’t put metal in the microwave?

And why, oh why, am I so addicted to you?

I, Laroo, am a Facebook addict and Facebook hater.

Part of it is that I can’t stop playing Scrabble. I don’t care that they call is “Lexulous”. It’s just Scrabble with 8 letters.

The other part of it is that I think I’m addicted to building bubbles of happiness around others. I look at their pictures and think of how happy and successful they are and how perfect their lives must be. Then I of course proceed to feel really bad about myself for quite some time. I know, I know, this is in no way logical or productive or good in any way. I know. And that’s why Facebook is a bastard, because it’s always there for me 24/7. Always there to feed my insecurity.

You might say that I shouldn’t place blame on others, that it is my fault. Yeah, I think you’re wrong.

We humans are slow beasts. We just think we’re smart.

Take me for example. I often think of myself of being of above-average intelligence. I think I have a good command of the English language, learn new skills quickly and have a good feeling for social situations (with the exception of that awkward reference I made to public works projects in Nazi Germany the other day). I have a meaningful and challenging job.

But I, like most people I know, am an idiot. A powerless idiot in the face of the all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant. Now whether it’s the all-you-can-eat sushi bar or the Ponderosa is neither here nor there. The principle remains the same: Pay a reasonable amount of money, eat a stupid amount of food. Gorge yourself.

Pay money to eat yourself sick.

But it’s not even the paying to stuff your face until you wheeze and lean on your neighbor part that has prompted this article. Oh no. It’s the repetition.

How many times have you been to an all-you-can-eat restaurant? Tell me the truth. You’ve been a bunch of times, haven’t you? Because the all-you-can-eat restaurant seems like a good idea again and again. And that’s what I think is so sad: the fact that we can’t remember that horrible feeling that you might just burst. We can’t remember that the food is never that good (I’m sorry Kohler Resort Christmas Buffet. I don’t mean you! Oh no, you’re different!)? We can’t remember that the servings at restaurants are usually so large that we get full before they are gone anyway.

In the time that it has taken me to write this post, my stomach has started to digest. I don’t feel so terribly full.

I’m starting to see the appeal of the all-you-can-eat buffet again.