My partner in crime, love, housing and life recently bought me a little treat. A way to say, ‘hey you had a tough week, now look for another job and eat cake’.

(There are good, delicious reasons I’m marrying him!)

And at about 10am the next day I decided to take him up on his offer and took a break from doing up yet another resume and  got out the wee bomb of a cake.

Notice my resume in the background with a very peculiar screen saver...that's Sean Connery from the movie Zardoz.

Note: sean connery's crotch and the chocolate cake, mhm, can mean only one thing: it's monday morning resume blitz time.

I won’t  lie. I ate that cake up in about 3 minutes and felt special to boot. I think I even got that resume finished by noon.  So no matter what your doctor or diabetes chart tells ya, sometimes a little something baked can pack some power.

Just take artist Allison Chamber’s Monster Cookie series.  Her cookies in the likeness of Canadian politicians are delicious and will move you to protest, write a letter or heck, send Harper or Campbell one of her cookies as a treat.

I can’t be the only wannabe do-gooder eating sugar at 10am.

And as a part of Mouth 2 Mouth’s Baking and Politics show, we got to interview Allison Chambers about where her cookies have been and where they just may go.

Eat up, er, listen up, either way it tastes good!

 

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Radha’s Vegan Bake Sale for Haiti was delicious and spiritually nutritious. A combo the yoga & eatery seems to serve up on a regular basis.

I ordered the soup. That's oregano oil on top, mmmm.

It was my first time in the space and it was packed. I’m not sure if it was because it was a special occasion but the feel in the room was exactly what I first came to Vancouver for: possibility and warmth mixed with a devilish sense of fun and irreverence.

A piano player sat down next to our table and made what looked like a very charming (aka old) piano sing like it was Etta James and Ray Charles.

Now, I have to be honest, I didn’t want to get  my hopes up for the baked goods. I mean the night felt incredible enough as is but I was to become shocked by my own shortcomings when I tasted what must be love in a paper baking cup.

the cupcake that can change the world

This cupcake was so moist and sweet and like a first kiss with a new boyfriend that I had to loosen my scarf.  You see, I love baking and a few years back dabbled in veganism (I’m vegetarian now) and I can remember my partner liking everything I made except baking:  brownies: dry and crumbly; cookies: tasted like bran flakes with honey, carob soy chocolate banana pie: tasted like fake chocolate pudding with fruit. The only thing I could get some praise for was apple crisp and yah, that’s delicious, but c’mon, it’s apple crisp. It’s almost so good for you it could be breakfast and where’s the treat in that?

Our table had a cupcake, square, and three cookies to choose from.

Out of a yummy assortment of baked goods, our table voted the vanilla cupcake with the coconut icing the best treat we have tasted in a long time. Not just out of the goodies present, but out of all goodies ever made by people. (Who knows what cats can come up with).

Although hard, I will stop talking about the vanilla cupcake that I’m sure Zeus would have included in his clay colliseum in Clash of the Titans and get to the money part. Bongo roll… a preliminary estimate of the vegan bakesale profits was a cool $3000 and with government matching could jump to six grand. That total is from vegan rice krispie squares, vegan cookies and vegan cake alone. Wow! And no apple crisp in sight.

But by far the sweetest treat of the night came from one woman and her guitar.

So many cute vegan-friendly people were sitting on the floor holding hands while Frazey Ford sang to us in a voice that could chill a ghost and warm a soul.

I couldn’t believe I was eating soup and cookies while she sang just a few feet in front of me!

Yup, lately I almost forgot the original reasons I wanted to come to Vancouver -but when Frazey Ford sang and joked about being a product of dysfunctional hippy parents, they all came flowing back, one sweet reason at a time.

February 4th, be a part of it!

It’s incredible how many people are coming together to raise money for Haiti. Events such as Radha’s Vegan Bake Sale with Musical Performance by Frazey Ford to Ben Harper auctioning off a White Fender Strat to local elementary, middle and high school kids throwing their energies together and pulling off well over $100 000 worth of hard earned funds for the cause.

CBC, CTV and Global’s 3-network -fundraising-bonanza raised 16 million dollars which will be government-matched and text donations have brought in over $120 000 and counting, with the average text worth 5 bucks.

Even more staggering than the outpouring of help and funds in such a short period of time is the shock of the Earthquake itself. Why Haiti? Why again?

What is incredible is the amount of people who are not letting their coats get snagged on the Why and are already out the door figuring out the How. Take Team Jericho for instance. Six young BC Sikhs are in Haiti helping to serve thousands of daily meals and are blogging about their experiences. These teams of relief workers are the second phase of what the Sikh community has done so far in the face of this sudden tragedy. The first thing was to raise $1.5 million dollars in a week. (And implement a successful toy and school supplies drive).

Another incredible thing is how on the micro-local level, from your neighbour to the person you see on the bus everyday, people are talking about Haiti- about how they can help – not just about how terrible the situation is. That’s a big shift to go from feeling stunned still to feeling like we can do something. Whether that is a bake or craft sale, donating blood or supplies, supporting relief workers, and sending cash to government-matching organizations like the Red Cross.

It’s an incredible time for this city, for better or worse, we are about to host the Olympics – an event that brings together the very ideals of  discipline, strength and unity. I’m so happy to be hearing as much about Haiti as I am about the games.

Vancouver has a lot of problems but two of them aren’t apathy or lack of heart.

1. Great hair will get you far.

2. Being able to laugh at yourself will get you farther.

Conan O’Brien’s final Tonight Show felt so real, I thought I was up there  with Dawn swaying to all the guitars while hugging my belly. (Except my belly is full of popcorn rather than baby, but same visual effect, really).

If Conan O’Brien shoots  from a 7-11 parking lot, I’d watch. If he shoots a show on YouTube, I’d watch. I think most of us would. Because not only can he make us laugh, he’s just gotten so close to our hearts that we didn’t notice our left ventrical is really a tall, lanky, Irish guy making sure the blood gets through.  He calls himself a comedian and we call him awesome.

During the last segment of his last show Conan’s addressed the audience, “especially to the young people watching” and said a few things I really want to post here:

“Please don’t be cynical. I hate cyncism. It is my least favourite quality. It doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get but if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen. I’m telling you, amazing things will happen. It’s just true.”

Thank you, Conan and I’m sure we will see you revolutionizing TV soon no matter where you air from.

Before you do anything today -brush your teeth, say hello to a loved one or pet, put on pants- go to this website:

http://www.petittrianon.ca

It showcases the work of local artist Allison Chambers.

And in case you’ve already got your pants on and said hello to people then worry not, I’ll wow your eyes with a few pictures from her website.

Yah, these amazing images are cakes. Cakes! And on this week’s M2M on CJSF 90.1fm Sarah Hyde and I will be talking to Allison about cookies, specifically political ones.  Tune in Thursday from 3-4.

Wesley Salter (left) and Kevan Funk (right)

A few months ago I got had the fine chance to meet  up with independent filmmaker Kevan Funk.  What an incredible force he is.  Mixing humility and talent with an unswerving arty vision that’ll get ya in the heart plus the gut.

And he can do that all on 47 bucks.

I was expecting to interview Kevan Funk for 20 minutes or so and ended up asking questions for over an hour. We aired an excerpted version of that interview on Christmas Eve on Mouth2Mouth on CJSF 90.1fm.  But I wanted to get  more of the interview out there because, well, I left it feeling changed.

And that’s exactly how I hope to leave every movie I go see. (Changed for the better that is…I’m still angry about seeing The Village in 2004).

But back to Kevan Funk.  Two things struck me right away about him: he is talented and real.

His grasp of reality and art left my fantasies of winning a karoke Dolly Parton competition while sharing a keyboard with Stevie Wonder wriggling on the floor. He made real life sound beautiful, intriguing, heart breaking and worthwhile.

I guess it is. (Pause the Dolly solo…)

So in the interview, Kevan talks about making films in Vancouver and how various limitations can actually help fuel some creative leaps and bounds.  We talk about his short  film Weight which was an official selection of the 2009 Vancouver International Film Festival and is currently an official selection of San Francisco’s Indie Film Festival.

Still image from Kevan Funk's film, Weight

We talk about what inspires him and what gets him out of his head.

If you believe in film, humility, art, possibility and making a budget  stretch far enough to make a fantastic film than you’re going to want to listen to this.

And of course I had to take a cheap shot and ask about his favourite film.

 

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I stopped by the Carnegie Centre Saturday afternoon to ask MP Libby Davies a few questions for an upcoming M2M show.  Davies was on day 6 of a planned hunger strike organized by The Impact on Community Coalition. Today she passed the wooden spoon along to the 56th Vancouver participant in this stunning protest.

The whole point of getting  key people to go hungry for a week is to bring attention to how much Vancouverites and Canadians care about homelessness and want political action to eradicate it. A National Housing Strategy for one. Compassion and understanding for another.

I haven’t gone longer than 6 hours without eating in my entire life and I have never been forced to sleep outside.

I’ll think about that the next time I pass someone with a cardboard sign outside of Shoppers.  Even just to acknowledge their/our plight.

Here’s an excerpt from the interview with MP Libby Davies. You can hear the full interview in an upcoming M2M show on CJSF 90.1fm.

 

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Keeping up with Jordan is tough.

Not only are Jordan’s legs twice the length of mine but his lungs seem like huge clean vessels of sparkling pink, just pumping away,  shooting oxygen to every cell of his lean, tall body. While training together sometimes I feel like  a broken-down cranky donkey running next to a stallion, a  young buck ready to burst forward with so much speed that he doesn’t even need wings to become a pegasus. He already is.

And that’s with a 15 year old pair of sneakers.

Which is both dumb and incredible.

Now don’t get me wrong, Jordan is working hard, he’s sweating just as much as me, (and he’s getting new sneakers when he gets paid). The difference is, he’s enjoying himself right from the get-go. And after a few months of walk/jogging, I’m just starting to experience the idea of enjoying myself  and that’s only in moments and definitely not every time I run.

But holy holy when I think I have one of those moments.  Something great happens. My mind recedes back into my skin and my skin feels like it could move forever.  I hope to get enough of those moments to motivate me to keep puttering along. 42 km is a long way.

Here’s a few more things that keep us going:

We’ve raised $2562.28 so far!

Yay!

And we’re at 19% of raising our goal of $13 000 for Arthritis Research and the Marathon in Athens, Greece!

Woohoo!

And we get to see dogs while we run.  And the ocean and the mountains and… and you can come along with me. Here’s a little video  taken by Jordan while I’m catching my breath during a run.

 

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Sarah Hyde and I talked miracles on Mouth2Mouth on CJSF 90.1fm before the holidays and we swapped air time over what it meant to be good after the holidays.

So for your pleasure and ease, I’ve posted both shows below.

And while listening or not, you can ask yourself this:

What would I rather most in my life- a miracle or feeling like a better person?

Because maybe you can have both.

(I’d rather a visit from Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and a hot caramel soy sundae … but that’s not in the shows).

Enjoy!

 

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