T-Minus 19 days

View from my balcony at night

Yeah.  19 work days left (I'm pretty confident; though my count has been off before).  Wow.  For the first time since I was like thirteen years old I won't be going to school or working... or both.
I must say I did have some good times when I was in Grade 9 and had to be at school the next day and the woman that I was babysitting for waltzed in an hour or more after I had told her I needed to be home.
Or perhaps the time when I was biking to my dish washing/kitchen prep job at Pollyanna's English Tea Shoppe in White Rock and the servers (all very attractive girls who were forced to wear aprons and bonnets to maintain the merry facade) thought it would be hilarious to hide a chubby fifteen year old's bike and say that they thought it might've been stolen.  That was so hilarious, especially given the fact that I was regaled to the kitchen as I was deemed to hideous to don a jolly pink bonnet and serve the aged and decrepit in person, and that I had to bike to and from this minimum wage paying job to begin with.
But to this day I can peel and chop carrots and potatoes like a demon.
I must, however, doff my cap to the parents of the two girls that I was in charge of over a summer (while still being fourteen or fifteen, as I had to shepard them around on bicycle).  For whatever ridiculous stipend it was that they paid me I seem to recall doing laundry, washing walls, cycling to and from work and then cycling them to and from their swimming classes, and prepping dinner.
My first real job at Casula, however, was good.  Man.  I'm still friends with my boss from that job, and we go for dinner from time to time.  She and the owner comped us a cottage for a weekend at one of their new developments in Kelowna.  There's also a movie theatre there, and so they commandeered it and the four of us watched "Crazy Heart" and drank wine in an otherwise private cinema.

View from my balcony at night

Pro Organics was next.  I met Michael and Big D there and we're all still hanging around.  It was a springboard to DSL which was bought out by Maersk and it got real toxic real fast and I left.  After the head  office came in and cleaned house they asked me to come back, which was nice.  I'm still in touch with my boss from that job who keeps on trying to recruit me, but the job is in Richmond so that's too far for me, or I would.
But no, I had moved on to Responsetek by this point which was good because I was able to finish off my Associate's Degree while I worked for them on a part time basis.  It was a great job and I would have loved to stay but the economy wasn't kind to anyone in 2009, let alone tech companies that were VC funded.
So I ended up where I am today, thinking it was a temporary, stop gap measure.  Hilariously, I have been at my current job longer than any job to date.
Basically I'm just trying to justify the fact that I'm taking an unpaid year from work.
Does this set Michael and I back financially?
Yes.
Does what I will not be making and saving in the next have a serious financial impact on our retirement, when you consider how savings compound year after year?
Yes.
Is that aggravated by the fact that I will be burning through cash like it's the thing to do this year thanks to a whopping condo assessment and all my travel plans?
Um, fuck yes.
Is the groundwork laid for me to take a year off without falling too far behind financially?
Also yes.
Is there a possibility that I could contract a serious illness (be stung by a scorpion), get creamed on my daily commute (die in a motorcycle accident), get hit by a car on one of my runs (have my limbs blown off at a random sporting event)?
Yeah.
So after my mom and I tour Europe for three weeks this summer, I'll be meeting up with Michael in Paris, after which we'll move to Burgundy to do a multi day bike tour of the region.  Naturally after this, we'll find our way to Bruges (because if I can't get to Shinjuku, I want to make it to Bruges thanks to "Lost in Translation" and "In Bruges") and then maybe one other major city before we fly out.
Oh, but before that?  I've got Portland this weekend with R, and then Michael and I are doing a bike race (okay: he is doing a bike race and I am cycling around with a basket with a dog and baguette in it) in Penticton.
Also: yes.