2007 February Vancouver just to get away

School breaks are a time for recharging my batteries from uni work. It's exhausting for me to wrok through my summers but I'm sure it will all pay off once graduation time comes. I was lucky to have Granny staying in Europe and Marcus and Erin in Vancouver. This way I always had a place to go and release my daily commitments.

Since I enjoyed staying with Marcus and Erin two years ago, I asked them if I could come to visit them once more in Van city. The environment there was chill and relaxing. Erin and I would go for runs and go shopping when she wasn't working. Marcus was super busy with school so he prepared me that time was limited for him. I didn't mind as long as I was welcomed. I enjoyed time alone as it gave me time to think and process my accomplishments and life directions.

(This trip was almost 5 years ago from when I'm writing this story, so I don't quite remember what we ended up doing during my week's visit. I do remember the painting incidence.)

Erin has told me about a debate over painting the kitchen which concluded in Marcus agreeing to Erin painting it green. I told her, let's get it done. So we started to work. Once we purchased the paint we were deep involved in moving furniture and the rest. There was on very important thing in the way of the wall we wanted to paint. A fish-tank. Since we used to have a tank when I was very little, I told Erin to trust me with the moving process. I did what I remembered from seeing Mom cleaning the tank. I grabbed a bucket, put some water into it, and scooped the fish our. Then I emptied the tank water into another bucket and moved the empty tank. Easy !

Erin and I painted for about 4-5 hours and we were almost finished!

Then, Marcus enters the kitchen, coming straight from school. He looked surprised. And then, a little more upset then we have hoped. At first he only just said, why we did this. Erin and I felt the tension but we didn't really know why. It turns out that Marcus was more upset over the fish-tank then the actual painting. He explained what he was upset over.

I felt terrible. (definitely reminded me of being little and ruining something that was his)

Oh well. We both apologized. I left the two of them feeling extremely guilty.

Later that week, Marcus told me that most of his fish died, and they also happen to move into the apartment across theirs. Which meant, Erin and Marcus had to repaint the calming green kitchen into a white one just like it was before.

Since then I have stayed away from offering much help when it comes to house renovations. Just in case :-)

But babysitting I'm excited about !!!!

(written Jan 27, 2012)

R :-)