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November 28, 2008

Window to my Day

- Now THIS is a window! Yes?
Okay - here's me coming clean. I am doing so much writing off the blog that my enthusiasm, inspiration for this writing has, as you can tell by reading, subsided significantly. I am about to resort to detailing my day. How to drive away the audience of what, 10 regular visitors? Hope you've had your coffee. Warning: Not exactly riveting! I spared the details on brushing my teeth.

8:00 am: Eyes open. Freezing as usual. Check the ceiling for spiders. None. Look in the mirror. Whoa. Really time to dye the hair but I can't. I don't want the dye going down the drain, into the septic, leaching into ground water. Ecology over beauty.

9:30 am: Tour of ArtSpring by the Artistic Director. Get to go to where the audience can't see. Hear all sorts of interesting things about the building's design and modifications that had to be made because architects think of their creation, not necessarily of practicality. I get this tour because I have volunteered to be an usher. Who knew being an usher came with such responsibility. Other woman on the tour seems quite rigid. Can't stand that everyone on Salt Spring comes late to everything. She's sick of the excuse, "But it's Salt Spring!" Seinfeld's Soup Nazi dances across my mind.

11:30 am: Coffee at Barb's Buns. Must get my ginger twist fix. Sitting there and in walks the owner of the hotel I wrote the Green feature on. He's a lawyer. I spoke to him on the phone. The farm manager who I spent most of the time interviewing for the feature introduces me. He shakes my hand, opens his briefcase, whips out a copy of my article from at least 3 weeks ago now and says, he carries it around with him. He's going to have it laminated when they get a farm stand (to sell fruit from). I have to admit that it made me smile.

12:00 pm: Run back into George, the artistic director. We get into a discussion about writing reviews because someone took offence to one of his.
12:15 pm: Following the discussion I end up buying the book that had caused said discussion; a book that had been published here on island. A poetry book. He introduces me to his wife who works in Salt Spring Books.

12:30 pm: I call Peggy. We discuss all myriad of things.

1:00 pm: Meesh calls. We discuss her ongoing saga of waiting and waiting to be approved to work for the U.S. Consulate. She might as well be in Guantanamo Bay. She's in limbo. She did pass the criminal record's check. Now, they're waiting on her medical. We discuss her trip to Ottawa next week and how her mother has already booked her into three soirees with the Finnish Consulate, the Japanese Consulate and one other. I say she should really be getting at least $1,000 a day for being that kind of escort service. I tell her how to say some things in Finnish (having been there when I was 19) because we all know how important it is to impress the Finns she says, sarcastically. A la hupputa! (inside joke).

2:00 pm: Finally take my coat off. Make some soup. Build a fire. That was backwards. Should have built the fire, made some soup, then took the coat off.

2:30: Convince Visa that I want to cancel my balance protection. What do I care if I die or get cancer and I owe a ton of money? Someone else can deal with that reality if it happens I say. Suddenly, instantaneously they can lower the price of the balance protection. How friggin convenient. Just like that. Maybe you only need coverage for a few things - "like if you get sick" they say. Who are these people really? They have a direct link to the mafia I think. Vermins!

2:45: Call BCAA: I realize I have tenant insurance, except it's covering me for living in an apartment I know longer live in on Robson Street. Must correct that.

3:00 pm: Talk to Gail, Driftwood Editor, about tommorrow night's concert and dinner at Cafe El Zocalo with my band group. We're going en masse to see the classical concert at ArtSpring because we are the "farm team" and this - this concert group -Bandamonium - is what we are aspiring to, working towards. How many years will that take I think to myself?

4:00 pm: Lise calls. Work talk. Baby talk. Pre-Natal talk. Born again christian annoyance talk.
Does everybody have to talk to me within a span of 3 hours?

5:00 pm: Get told via e-mail I got the job I interviewed for on Wednesday - 4.5 hours a day, 4 days a week until June. 10-3pm. A maternity leave replacement. YEAAA! It's perfect. Will still give me enough time to do writing because I MUST not lose sight of why I came here. But, I'm very, very happy about getting this job. And, it has been such a long time since I have said that! Years.

6:00 pm: Make dinner - omelette and sausage. (I think of Meesh's blog and feel ashamed of my creation) There will be no photos! No photos allowed!

7:30 pm: Head over to Mahon Hall. There's a fundraiser for a village in Lesotho and a woman I met previously, Andrea, and her family have been going there to work/live for months at a time. Saltspring residents raised enough money to build a school with 8 classrooms. (This is related to the next post I will write).

There's a band from Scotland - Shooglenifty playing. This is an all-ages dance. No alcohol. Coffee. Tea. Juice. Pumpkin pie. Brownies. Baclava. All manner of individuals are present. Children in kilts. Men with beards. Men with long hair. Women in those peasant skirts. Conservative looking people. I meet a newcomer from kamloops named Wendy. I put her number into my cell phone.
The music starts. People are like molecules being heated. They're bouncing. Faster now. I have my cowboy boots on (because I haven't taken them off since I got here). I decide they must come off if I'm to dance.
I take them off. I start dancing. The celtic connection between the music and my genes is irresistable!
10:30 pm: Enough.I'm tired. I've had my fun fix for the evening.
11:45 pm:Bed time. Pull the portable heater into the room.
Lift my pillows. Inspect for spiders.
All clear!
Great day!






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