Canadian Lyndsay

Well Vegas was a ton of fun, but I was sooo ready to come home by the end of the week. Taking the red eye was definately an experience. I didn’t sleep on the plane, except for maybe 30 minutes, and I think it was 6:30 Winnipeg time by time I finally fell asleep. Then it took a good week to get back into my normal routine.

Things with work are going well, very positive which makes me very excited. I might even get to take a work-related trip to Calgary soon. Will post more on that when I know more.

My car finally sold. We found a buyer (I guess technically, the buyer found us) sometime in the beginning of November. They gave a deposit and promised the rest at the end of the month. Well, it’s now well into December, and I think we’re about to finalize things. The ownership has been signed and is en route to St. Catharines right now. Hopefully it’ll all be done by the end of the week.

I arrived in Las Vegas at 10 p.m. Sunday evening. After a quick trip through customs, I was at my hotel, the Las Vegas Renaissance, by 10:30. No one was around to hang out with, so I called it a night around 1 a.m., although my body thought it was 11 p.m.

Yesterday morning I got up around 7 local time. I went downstairs found a bagel and some milk and came upstairs to eat said bagel and use the milk on some cereal I’d brought with me.

Jessica and Sally arrived sometime around 10:30 and we came up to my room to hang out for a while. We had lunch at Bahama Breeze down the street. We got back just in time to grab the shuttle to the Sterling Club Spa for our appointments. What an amazing facility. This is a private club located in a Las Vegas residence where the suites sell for $1 million each. So imagine the swankiness. Sally and I left the spa at 5, but Jessica’s appointments were later and longer so we left her to her message and scrub.

Sally and I were going to head to the local mall, but as we left the hotel room, we ran into Joe – two doors down! So we hung out at the hotel bar until Jessica joined us. We were just about to leave for supper when we got word the David (Sally’s husband) and Craig had landed at the airport so we waited for them. We then heard that Rob had just landed, but since he was staying at the Hard Rock Cafe Hotel, we decided to have dinner there. By this time, mind you, it is 9:30 and I’m ready to call it a night just about. And had I known we were going to a Japanese restaurant, I probably would have. But the company and conversation was great, if not a little crazy. We stopped and had a drink at the Hard Rock Cafe bar and then decided to head home.

We stopped outside the Hard Rock Cafe to grab a cab, and a stretch limo was just sitting there, not sure what he was waiting for, but he said he’d take all six of us back to our hotel for $25. Can’t argue with that! So we hopped in and took off – until Craig realized he forgot his credit card at the bar and so we waited while he ran back in. We got back to the hotel at 1 a.m. and promptly konked right out.

Five and a half hours later, the alarm goes off and now I’m up, showered and ready to go. Thank goodness for continental breaky at the conference – I’m starving!

And that was Day One of Lyndsay’s trip to Las Vegas.

Right now I’m sitting in my hotel room waiting on the arrival of my friends who just called to say they’re at the airport. We’re going to have lunch and head off to the spa for an afternoon of relaxation! I can’t wait.

This week will be busy, lots to learn, people to see, work to do. I’m sure Friday night will be here before I know it. Which isn’t necessarily so bad, I miss Dave already and I’ve only been gone not even a full day.

Friday afternoon I hope to hit a local mall. Grab a couple Christmas gifts, make a stop at Victoria’s Secret – all the essentials.

The weather is beautiful, I cannot believe how clear it is!! What a strange skyline. I think I’d like to use the word “tacky”. But like nothing I’ve ever seen before. All I keep thinking about is how much I hope the Niagara Falls skyline doesn’t end up like this.

Sometimes, so many bad things happen at once, you have no choice but to look up at all the wonderful things that are in your life.

After Matthew’s death, losing my job, and my laptop hard drive dying, I was feeling pretty beaten down. All I could think about was “bad things come in threes.”

But what about “third time’s a charm”? Twelve years ago, less two days, the first traumatic event of my life occurs. There’s really only two ways to go when something like that happens – you either let it destroy you, or you accept that it happened, it can’t be changed, a look for what you can gain from the experience. So after that event, at 12 years old, I made a decision to make the most of even the most heartbreaking feelings. Move forward!

While I face falling apart, I am shocked and touched by generosity that seems to come out of the woodwork. How bad can things be when I have friends, colleagues, and even medical professionals who are making sacrifices for ME?? In the past couple of weeks, any tears I have shed have been from the realization that people care about me and want me to succeed.

And succeed I will! This morning I return from a meeting with my first client and I am thrilled and excited about the opportunity in front of me. I will require a lot of work, but I’m ready.

Now… to go to Vegas or not go to Vegas? That is the question…

I have countless memories from my six years with Matthew. There is absolutely zero possibility of narrowing it down to one, so I’ll share a few.

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For probably two years, Tuesday night was “our” night. I worked at Canadian Tire every Tuesday night, and Matthew had band practice with the Lincoln and Welland Regiment. After I finished work, I would drive to the armoury and hang out until practice was over. I would hang out with Matthew and the other band members (I fondly remember Ben, Tracy, Jack, Vic among others) while everyone cleaned up after practice. Then, every week, we would go to Pizza Hut. As it was often around 10, we were usually the only people there. We had the same waitress, her name escapes me right now, but her sister Sarah went to high school with us.

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The day Matthew gave me my promise ring was a Tuesday, in the Pizza Hut parking lot before we went in that evening. It was a week or two before I was going to go away to college.

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A couple weeks later, it was September 11, 2001. I don’t recall if Matthew was technically still with the army besides the band, but we were terrified he would be sent to fight a war. September 12, I could stand being away from him, so I drove all the way home so we could spend time together that evening. I remember we went to see The Muskateer at Famous Players at the Pen Centre.

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Prom was a great time. We only stayed for maybe after an hour because it was clear that the “popular” people were dominating this party. We left at about 8, and decided to hang out at his house. We had to stop at Walmart though, and I sent him inside to buy me a pair of track pants so I wouldn’t have to lounge around in my fancy red dress. We went home and laid around his basement for a few hours watching TV. That was the best way I could imagine spending prom.

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When he graduated from Customs College (as we fondly called it), myself and the girlfriends of two of his friends drove up to Rigeau, Quebec drove up for the ceremony. The six of us had a really great time. Matthew was so happy. He had hated being up there and the relief of being done made him ecstatic.

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Being out here in Winnipeg, I am feeling really out of touch and alone through this. I would love it if other people would post their memories here. Please pass the message along. There are so many people I’d like to reconnect with.

Lyndsay (Lynn)