MINAKI MAGIC: A love letter to the woods and my friends

May Long has come and gone and the ladies knocked another one out of the park. Knowing it was going to be a long ass day on Friday after work (but all worth it to wake up on the lake) we booked it out of the city at exactly 5:30pm, and hit the road headed to Minaki.

A lake of childhood dreams for me, we got on the water just after 8 and it was so sticky hot that we knew we were in a race to our site before the skies opened above us and let down a world of hurt, or thundershowers - call it what you will.

Minus the inhaling of several hundred bugs between the five of us, we made it to the portage before dark and practically lept across the water to our site where we set up and settled in before the on-again-off-again downpour. 

The next three days are a blur of hilarious outbursts, falling out of chairs, cooking meals over fires, drinking semi-cooled beverages and telling stories of the past, the present and the future.

For me, being in the woods is one of the best things you can do for your heart, mind and body. With not clocks to guide you, you sleep, eat and drink when your body tells you to. You absorb so much fresh air you can’t possibly be sad and you are so much yourself - just you, not your clothes, or your reflection in the mirror, or the compliment you got or didn’t get, or the anxiety you felt - you’re just you.

There is absolutely nothing that tops it for me. 

And to share it with my near and dear - well, I hope that everyone has something that makes them as happy as camping makes me - and I hope you decide to share it with someone you love. Because it makes it SO much better.

Thanks to my girls for letting me indulge in my love - and for loving it just as much! And if you didn’t make it this year…just know, that you were missed! 

30-year-olds need jeans too

It’s been a really long time since I posted anything and that is my bad. I’ve let life get in the way of my last form of totally honest and creative expression of just being Alisha. 

Which leads me to the idea behind this post…

I’m turning 30 this summer and while I’m not all that bent out of shape about it (yet - I reserve the right to lose it later on) I can certainly see that things are beginning to take a totally different shape. 

By that I mean a lot of things. 

Mentally, my mind set has changed. Physically, my body has changed. Emotionally, my heart has changed. There is a lot of life happening around me these days and mine seems to be on a very fast train to wherever this mysterious next stop is. While change has always freaked me out in the past - this rapid paced switcheroo seems to be making me smile a lot. 

Is it just me or are those “it gets better” commercials starting to resonante in my head whether they actually apply to me or not? Because it is getting better.

So even though my mom never told me about turning 30, and last month I had to hand over hundreds of dollars of jeans to her because I’m actually straight up a different shape (a sexier one says my BF) - I am looking forward to what might be around the next corner. In fact, I have started running around corners rather than tip toeing up to them and peeking around them first to see if I need to turn back.

So hooray to 30. Hooray to change and new jeans. And hooray to my mom for making it look so easy that she forgot to tell me about it. (But seriously - a little heads up on the next BIG corner would be appreciated). 

A BLOWFISH OOZED BABY JUICES ON MY BACK

….and I only cried a little. 

The thing that is so terrible about coming home from beautiful sunny holiday’s is the coming home part. I had actually started to SO enjoy myself in Manzanillo that for a brief moment I forgot I had a job and a family and a mortgage. 

Sitting on your ass for days at a time, might not be that different from my everyday life working in front of a computer (anyway you look at it I will likely be gaining extra width to my bottom), but when it’s so hot and sunny you have to keep asking if your skin is literally on fire because you can’t open your eyes long enough to look down - it’s just better. 

This year’s trip my girlfriends and I escaped the heat of the day with a short snorkling trip to Elephants Rock. We saw coral, and trumpet fish, this strange dark fish that had the face of a dog and a row of bottom teeth any orthodontist would be proud of. I held a spider fish, and a blowfish - before it started leaking and was so rudely placed on my back by our faithful guide ‘Cowboy’ and tried to molest me (the blowfish, not the guide…he was more into my girlfriend), and we saw a sea urchin dance. 

Now that I’m home, and back in the cold, itching and scratching at my dry skin which longs for the pool, I can’t help but think…if I had a blowfish’s baby - what would it look like? (Insert joke about the movie Splice, starring Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley, that gave me terrible nightmares in Mexico here) 

1 note 

Arrived at #TEDxManitoba with my bestie @VGHFoundation. Whoop Whoop!

Arrived at #TEDxManitoba with my bestie @VGHFoundation. Whoop Whoop!

*

JD pulls out some sweet karaoke skills last weekend at The Legion. Check out the pre-performance interview. 

*If you want to see live video of JD’s rendition of Sweet Caroline, leave a comment below, maybe we can convince him?

6 notes 

There’s no appropriate way to say this…

 I just bought a slow cooker. It’s family sized and I am in love with it. My first meal was a chili that my boyfriend and I decided to take on and invite my best bud and bro over for. The BF is a fan of spice, while I am definitely not - in fact I fear and hate it all at the same time.

Let me just say that chili making with your BF is adorable. So adorable that it will make you want to vomit and do something inappropriate and not cute at all. 

So post chopping, seasoning, and stirring I decided to add some spice of my own variety to the evening. In awesome girlfriend talk that means we went to the bedroom. Since I’m totally respectful and decent, I will leave that part of the story there.

Laying in bed later I felt a sort of unusual burning (yes, there) and I thought: That’s unusual. Since my BF didn’t have this same burning, I made a trip to the loo and started what I can only describe as a private water splashing remedy. 

“Hey Babe, when we were…”

“Yeah, I don’t think I washed my hands after cutting up the jalapeno’s”

“Right. Perfect.”

“This will be funny later.”

And so, I guess it turned out he was right. And my fear of spice continues. 

8 notes 

I feel like a house, and you look like a pervert.
Favourite quote of Movember. Great cause - glad the moustaches are outta here.

*

TANNER TITTIES AND THE ‘GETTING TO KNOW YOU’ STAGE

When you commit to a joke, you have to ride it out, no matter where the pieces end up laying. 

Faking a Tanner Glass boob signature was easy. Remembering it was there after a night of spicy food, wine, what’s more gross?: poo vs. snot debates and awkward couch seating arrangements and an Irish comedian, was impossible. 

Needless to say, what I thought could either go the way of jealousy or disbelief at my slutty-ness, turned into, well, a turn on. Somehow I always forget the ‘boy factor’ of life. Being that they could pretty much be in any situation, and still be wondering how it’s erotic. 

I did come clean that it was a fake in the end, but my man friend didn’t get it. Or didn’t think it was funny. Or didn’t care. I guess that one goes into the “jokes for and by Alisha” category. 

What’s the difference between a farrari and a boner….? I don’t have a farrari
This is a text I got last Sunday afternoon from a boy I met at a bar a while back, and was feeling vulnerable enough to give my number to. This reminds me of two things: 1) Boys are so dumb sometimes and 2) Poor spelling is an epidemic (and it’s also a little unattractive, frankly). 

1 note 

There will always be vomit

“So, I know we’ve only been seeing each other for a few weeks - and I really like you - but on a scale of one to ten, ten being you never want to see me again: How do you feel about me vomiting right now”

That pretty much sets the tone of my quiet Friday night at home last weekend. 

Try as we do to control every little aspect of our lives, there is always going to be vomit. It’s just something you can’t seem to get around, no matter how many cherry flavoured Gravol tablets we try to chew before the saliva starts to fill our mouths and we know it’s time. 

And the truth is - the real part of life is often the best part, and sometimes the funniest.

While I don’t recommend throwing up on a date, it’s not the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, and definitely not the worst place I’ve ever thrown up in my 29 years.

The fog of sexy mystique may disappear for the evening - but if there is a next time, chances are your mystique is stronger than you think it is. 

4 notes