Summer of Sarah: Rifflandia 2014

It’s come and gone! Rifflandia 2014 was a success!

Mimosas to kick off Rifflandia 2014

I was lucky enough to be able to get a full pass and we enjoyed lots of music, from the night stages (Market Square on Thursday night) to the park pass Fri-Sun. It was exhausting, but good. I mean, it only comes 1X a year so why not?

My friend came from Vancouver to the Saturday park show and I was so glad. She loves good music, as do I, so it’s always great to have her stay with us.

Standouts include Death Cab for Cutie. I can’t get enough of them live, ever. They are my favourite band, hands down. And, I learned recently that Chris Walla would be leaving DCFC, leaving a significant gap to be filled. So, we watched his last performance with the band, a bittersweet but solid closing.

My fav band

And you can check that out here

The others?

• Many to name: New Pornographers- ok but wanted more of their old stuff, and they played ALL their new stuff. Sigh!
• Dragonette- ok, a bit poppy for my liking.
• Airborne Toxic Event- GOOD. This is a solid band. Getting better all the time.
• Girl Talk- ok, not reaally my type of music but fun and upbeat. Can’t beat the spectacle of glitter/confetti/water guns/floating Earth ball/confetti balloons.
• Funk Hunters- good, but again not my type of music. Seems like there was a ton of electronic/dj/funk/dance/house this year and I’m not a fan.
• Serena Ryder- Excellent! Not loving her stuff on the radio, listen to her live. She belts it out!
• Zed’s Dead- ok, electronic dance-mix stuff. I don’t mind listening to some of it.
• Half Moon Run- you know, I thought I would like them more? I just…didn’t. I found their music really lacked a big ‘hook’ for me…It was kind of boring.

This year was a marked departure from last year’s Rifflandia, that featured a lot of big-name artists (Courtney Love, Wintersleep, Sloan, Death From Above 1979, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Stars, Mounties) to name a few…And I have to say I didn’t like it was much.

I will definitely go next year but maybe not the full pass.

How loud your heart beats: Tofino/Ucluelet

That’s right, jet-set me was off on another adventure this past weekend!

Florencia Bay

We went camping in Ucluelet (close to Tofino) and surfing and to the music festival Otalith. Jam-packed weekend, if I do say so myself!

I drove myself and a friend up on Friday, where we picked up the tix to Otalith and scoped out our camping situation. We decided to go see ‘Bear Mountain’ that night performing at the main stage in Ucluelet. It was chilly!! Summer in Tofino is like winter everywhere else, unfortunately.

The next morning we were up bright and early to go surfing. We rented our gear, loaded up the surfboards on my little Honda Fit and headed out to Long Beach. Surfing was great! I am reallllllly bad at it. I couldn’t get up at all, only managed a few times to really clamber on and try to stand. We surfed for hours too. My friends were pretty good at it, I was super jealous. I stopped surfing when I got ‘rocked’ ie- knocked head over heels into a wave twice and got clonked on the head HARD by my surfboard. OUCHHHHH and it happened twice, one right after another. ARGH.

Got water up my nose, and out my mouth. My sinuses cleared riiiight up. Haha.

We had to pack it in to return out surf boards by 4pm and get ready to go back to Otalith for some more music! A short (long) hot tub visit later, and a few drinks and we were ready to go. We caught the shuttle bus for the venue and enjoyed listening to Ages and Ages and Wake Owl (actually I really disliked Wake Owl) and the Allah-lahs (were okay…kind of boring). We cruised into town to grab dinner after Ages and Ages performed.

Otalith music festival

Dancing at the last act – Allah-lahs, a girl approached us and asked if we wanted to dance with her guy friend, she said it would ‘really make his day!’ if pretty girls danced with him. I was feeling pretty generous and laid-back so I was like sure, why not. We danced with Steve, her friend, and you know? He was a fine guy, nice and not a weirdo or a creeper. He seemed pretty shy but wasn’t grabby or strange or anything! Just seemed happy to say “hi” to some pretty girls and dance for a bit. On the way back, on the ‘party bus’ (shuttle) he high-fived me haha.

Fun times in Ucluelet

I was flirty (why not?) and when we left the bus I said ‘have a good night Steve’! and tapped the brim of his hat. My intentional flirting only extends so far, I guess. Hahah!

The next morning we headed out for a walk with some friends to the Pacific Coast Trail near the Black Rock Resort and then grabbed soup at a little bakery in Ucluelet (Zoe’s). Then we packed up the car and drove home- not without some peril, as I would soon find out…

Driving along the road back from Tofino is tricky. It is windy, twisty and I was tired. Near the river, a lot of people stop to take a break, and check it out. A car pulled out in front of us with NO room and NO warning. I was driving like 70 km/hr or so.

I SLAMMMED on the brakes and held the horn as hard as I could. It was like HOOOOOONNNNNKKKK.

The trailer behind us could barely brake in time. I could hear the brakes squealing. It was SO scary. There were horns and cars slamming on the brakes for awhile behind us. OH man.

Phew. A bit of adrenaline and a near-smushing to get the heart rate up. Yikes!

To cool down (actually to warm up) we cruised into Sproat Lake, put on our bikinis and chilled in the sun for an hour or so. It was soooo gorgeous. So hot. Such a nice end to a cool weekend- literally- it was clammy and wet and cold the whole wknd! Even though it didn’t rain once! Ha, so crazy.

So, that’s my weekend in a nutshell. A fun girl-power adventure!

Cool Rummings- Lesson update, and weekend plans!

So, Tuesday was our regularly scheduled lesson with Karen Brain. I was ready. Or so I thought…I’m usually ready to get my ass kicked around the ring by her, but I was feeling pretty tired by the time the lesson came around and my resolve started wilting…

But no matter! We did a lot of ‘controlled’ work, ie- controlling Oats’ every body movement, including bend and pace around a circle and over trot poles. Interestingly, once we were through the poles, Oats wants desperately to lift his head, and TANK off.

“Bend? How about FORWARD!” He said to me. “Wrong answer, but nice try. More bend, pretzel up, bend, curve, slower,” is what I said.

So, it was challenging. He looked like a giraffe. My arms felt so tired!

Oats protests bending at the canter

After each trot circle over the poles, we worked harder at maintaining more of a ‘shoulder-in’ bend. And we took the show on the road too- large around the whole ring. GOD that was tough- it was like left-right-left-right fall in-fall out, ARGH.

He was being kind of jerky about it, because it was challenging. That’s ok. I told Karen I felt like we didn’t have any real ‘good’ steps, and she said actually we did- but that this stuff is HARD for Oats. And did I feel tired? My arms ache? That means I was mentally present during the whole ride, and that is also a small ‘win’ for us. Building mental stamina and ‘staying present’ instead of drifting is something we really struggle with.

More cooperative over the poles

So, even if it feels ugly, hell, looks ugly, something good is happening.

Oh and my weekend update? Surfing in Tofino and quite possibly attending the Otalith music festival! Hells yeah! I leave tomorrow morning and won’t be back until Sunday. Looking forward to a fun weekend with friends, a mini University reunion of sorts. Love those guys.