www.meggomyeggo.com

If by chance I’m actually in your reader, you can update the feed to this new one.

Ah new fresh excitement yay.

It’s possible that I just never noticed this but I do believe that they’ve installed hand sanitizer in my office building since the whole swine flu deal-e-o. On the first floor between two elevators.

Way to take action!

But this place is really mellow. And the head count was down quite a bit from the trip we made there in February. It was a sunny day and really hard to leave a city we could bike around and enjoy cherry blossoms in but, once we were up there, the bright sun blazing off white snow and crisp clear views of mountains so far around made it all worth it.

The highlight for me was a friend we made while stopping for a snack:

I know, it’s pretty easy to make a gray jay friend, but this is my first and it made me feel so good and warm inside to have a creature so bold hanging around. I think it liked my ski instructor a lot (I like him to :”) ).

The not so great highlight but good lesson was the large blister that shortly became a hole in my left heel. The blister tape was forgotten and I learned about sock liners but…it was too late. Never again.

Have you ever made s’mores without the open fire? It’s very posssible, there are instructions on the graham cracker box to do so but…still. Over the weekend both the weather and my schedule were not conducive to a bonfire on the beach or sitting around a coal BBQ. Not to say it wasn’t a highly enjoyable weekend and I didn’t get my BBQ fill.

But roasting marshmallows over the mini Coleman gas BBQ? (Coal BBQs are acceptable as it brings back childhood memories.) The spirit was not there and honestly, my spirit for food in general has been waning with this project. Over the weekend I stopped looking forward to the Raspberry Bombe, Filet Mignon, and Lemon Meringue Pie that were to be celebrated this week. I did make rice pudding on Saturday but couldn’t bring myself to draw the frozen custard. So I’m wrapping the project up, ditching the schedule of occasion and from here on I will celebrate the desserts and food I want to when I want to. Of course if you’re ever in the mood to celebrate a specific food day, I would be an enthusiastic participant :)

I don’t know anything about tequila except that it’s more than the burning liquid people shoot back with salt and lime. This tequila is sweet and citrus-y. I love holding it under my nose.

Gregor’s take: “It’s nice…I’m enjoying this. Very nice aftertaste too. Delicate aroma.” (swishing around mouth a bit) “Powerful reaction. I dunno. It taste like any other spirits you know. When it hits your tongue your throat you have that kind of breathtaking moment. Soft and subtle aftertaste….man you type fast.”

It being such a beautiful day, I packed a lunch and went to the beach. The sand was cold under my bum and the book I was reading was quite pessimistic, it tasted quite off under the blue sky. My mind wandered. I thought about my life in 5 years and whether or not it will involve sufficient daylight and time for strolls.

Yes, I wrote a complaint letter the other week. It contained bits like “incurring serious injuries” and “not at an adequate level of safety”. Besides there being an issue that needed to be addressed on behalf of many people, it was really good personal experience writing the letter – wanting to make a point that is taken seriously with action not defense. I could further develop this skill by writing another letter, maybe this time to Translink about bus drivers that talk on the mobile while driving. Really?!

But there are other forms of writing that need exercise and I am in wonder over what an art it is – not literature writing art but the technique needed to craft documentation and correspondence and so on. To have a purpose and something specific that you want to change inside the reader as he/she goes from beginning to (you hope) the end.

Yesterday I was surprised to find a card addressed to me in the mail. By the names and address on the envelope, I guessed who it was from (a couple I only met once) and what it likely was about (coming to my home on Halloween, when I first met them) quickly and my social behaviour assumptions had me thinking it was a thank you card but even then, I was in disbelief that people would send a thank you card after coming over once and thought there might be something else to it. Did they forget something? Did they have a question? Was it a general invitation to some event?

No it was just a thank you card. A beautiful design on the front, blank inside save for two entries, four sentences each, written in different coloured inks. They thanked me for having them over, for the good time, made a joke in references to an event during that evening, and the no obligations request for me to let them host me sometime. So cool and graceful. I felt happy and connected – and I didn’t think it was weird and this is good to know because…
…now is a time for me to connect with people I don’t know well and to stay in touch with those I have gotten to know. Though I often hesitate to communicate because I worry about the burden of my words. Do they have the time? Can they spare the distraction? Are they emotionally available? And so on…

Task: Make a list of all the people I want to contact about something but am avoiding. Then contact them.

Geez….I even hesitated to write that last line.

I wish people who complained would at least include a picture of what they think the mascots should look like.

And I also think that they scream Vancouver. Although I am mixed on the use of mythical creatures important to a culture that only seems to be shown in the light when mascots, souvenirs, and other things representing what is “uniquely Canadian” are needed.

The jog was hard. My body was not feeling with it. I remembered my old dog Robyn and how she would only go for walks with my mother. If anyone else tried to take her that person would get 20 feet from the house and then Robyn would stop, sit, and go no further. That’s what my legs felt like and I think that in some way, it had to do with the sliver. I was not in much pain, only some discomfort, but mentally all my energy was being poured in a thin stream focusing on that one point at the bottom of my foot.

I made it back and felt happy that although it was a sluggish jog, at least I got out there. I went into the bathroom, undressed, turned on the water, and stepped one still kind of moisturized foot into the tub then SLIP! That foot and the foot outside the tub both slid and I crashed down, knocking over bottles of shampoo and conditioner, catching my self with the heel of one hand, my left rib cage, and the left side of my face.

I got up and took a deep breath. Then I cried. Not for a long time but just, a 5 second cry to release a little ball of emotion that had been shaken up. I thought, I don’t want to hurt anything. If I injured myself and couldn’t run and couldn’t practice karate – what would make me happy? It was such a scary thought and then I was further shocked by the realization of how much these things mattered to me. It’s a good thing, to have something in your life that you hold dear, but there was another half to that realization – that I haven’t felt very strongly about things dear to me in a long time. At least not explicitly, openly, in a way that I am actually living it. To protect myself? Yes…probably. If nothing is dear than you can handle losing it. But…those are some murky, gray waters to swim in. Not so much swim, maybe float, face up to avoid facing what you have gotten yourself into.

How will this experience change? What is my “for now on I shall always do/be _______”? I don’t know yet. It could be a lesson that started with a sliver or it could be karma for the 25 cent chocolate I “bought” at the Dan-d-Pak Mart but on looking at my receipt later in the evening, had not been charged for it. Should I go back and give them the 25 cents and (probably I should) what do I tell them? “Don’t worry, it gave me a sliver.”

…

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Just a reminder to myself of the weird ways in which we reveal private information to strangers.

I also think about how sometimes we say things like this within earshot of strangers because we are really itching to say it to a lot of people but know not to blab in a close circle of friends. Well, except to that one person on the other line.