in the shadow of thy wing
i've had 8 hours of sleep but i want more. my eyes are demanding more this very minute. but i refuse.
i went to the relief society women's retreat in squamish. (i say squamish like dad would 'squameesh'). i took barb and gabby with me in my car. these are some moments i would like to remember:
1.) gabby breaking into kaisha's house by way of the patio chair to the elictrical box to the balcony and through the window. she let us in and i brought her shoes, which she had left by the patio chair where i was also stationed in the event that she should need a boost or some sort of aid. barb stayed by the car and said "i'm having nothing to do with this." that was until she let us in and barb showed us where kaisha's tent was stowed in the laundry room. we were just grabbing it from the shelf when kaisha's downstairs neighbour popped his head in to say he was just doing a rinse. he didn't seem phased to see three strange girls in the house and we just smiled in acknowledgement to him and barb and i left with the tent and gabby locked the door behind us and started coming out the way she came in, when i saw her stocking feet and remembered her shoes. "your shoes!" i yelled. gabby with one leg over the balcony replied "they're where i left them." "no i brought them in for you." i felt sheepish and me and barb laughed. so gabby went back in through the window, down the stairs, put on her shoes and came back out the window, leg over balcony, hanging from balcony and just about to jump when she shrieked "ahhh my shirt! her shirt and underthings were hooked on a planter hook, so she swung with one arm to untangle (we all later agreed that if something happened due to the hooking incident we could have sued) and then jumped safely to the ground. this whole process was because kaisha promised us her 10 man tent. i could have borrowed karey or elicia's tents but i was greedy for the space that a 10 man tent could give 3 girls. we stowed the tent and took off for squameesh.
2. we pulled up to the church in squameesh and ladies were milling about in the parking lot eating barbequed chicken and greek pasta salad, and spinach salad with pecans, they were in canvas camping chairs all over the church lawn in different groups talking and laughing and there were tents and campers everywhere. wheemen of all ages were to be seen from the 18s to the 80s and much in between. we pulled up and grabbed a styro plate. right away gab was talking to all the ladies she knew. barb and i were more focused on the food. tammy who used to be a wright was serving the bbq chicken with a lady from the spanish ward. they were both very concerned that the chicken be cooked through and poked and sawed at the pieces many times before doling them out. tammy always seemed very earnest and serious every time i saw her. her face reminded me a lot of vicki.
3. we put up our tent in a nice flat space right off the big open space where the wide circle of canvas chairs were. it turned out to be a very stinky moldy tent. gabby was dizgusted with the state that it was put away in. "you should never put away a wet tent". barb and i had seen jocelyn in the food line and invited her to tent with us. susan paulsen was a package deal with jocelyn so she and her airmattress came along too.
4. sister reney's talk. we three lay down or sat crosslegged in the middle of the circle, near the the citronella candle, which gabby and jocelyn (who made 4) kept dipping their hands into and eventually covered all of our hands in the oily wax. sister reney encouraged us to take notes so i got my scripture notebook/journal and did so. she told us to write down very quickly the first 3 people we thought of when we thought of who gives us sunshine in our lives. then we had to write about the specific ways in which we personally scatter sunshine in other people's lives. these were good enough exercises but my favourite was when she asked us to write ourselves a letter from heavenly father. then she only gave us like one minute, but i kept writing. it was a healing thing for me. there are some things that i am longing to hear from him and then there are things i never thought he would say to me and until i came at it from his possible perspective.
5. campfire singing. good times. they had a very good compilation of girlscamp type songs and rounds and lots and lots of good time songs. sometimes i could only hear the enthusiastic singing of gab and i who knew most of the songs and helped sister bateman who was leading start off, but i did see people from the outskirts moving their lips so i know they were singing too. my favourite is singing rounds. i love it, and i don't know why. probably because it's such a family thing. we sang lillies of the valley, and rose rose rose rose and fires burning and i taught them the Lord is our shepherd. by the end there was brother and sister burgess, us, a group of old ladies and another five sisters behind us. then we ate burnt smores burnt on the bbq.
6. we watched the work and the glory movie in their tiny three row chapel. i was very emotional and cried quite a bit. other ladies were playing phase ten in the hall or just sitting and chatting and laughing, barb joined a group playing rook in the parking lot, and then there were the ladies who never left the circle and sat out there talking and looking at the stars. it was almost one when the movie finished and we got our pjs on and brushed our teeth in the bathroom. even the men's bathroom was labeled "women's". brother burgess stood otuside with his toothbrush and asked rosemary what he should do because there were women in the men's washroom. she said he should just go in because they were just brushing their teeth and he looked at her and said "are you sure?" and she checked and i said "you could just brush your teeth in the fountain. see?" but he didn't notice me talking because i was behind him and he was distracted with the figuring out of his problem. "i guess i could just go in the bushes..." but barb said to him "you could do it in the kitchen." "in the kitchen??" "ya, in the sink." "you want me to go in the sink??" he seemed incredulous and this confused us. finally the light dawned "ohhh. you mean brush my teeth." he said. then we all laughed.
7. barb, gabby and i talked for a while in our tent but then jocelyn and susan came in and barb and gabby drifted off to sleep. susan asked us what movies she should see with the guy she's dating who hasn't really seen any movies for six or seven years. that got us talking about movies and jocelyn who seemed to have a lot of energy, kept talking to me. meanwhile i was exhausted but happy and ready to rest, but they way she talks is so funny and enjoyable to me. a mix of earnestness, and flakiness with a very different life perspective. it made me laugh for example when she suggested an animated movie to susan and susan said she wanted a grown up movie and jocelyn said "ok, well just so you know, some people don't consider animated to be children's." ha ha ha. she just said it so earnestly. i started to laugh. of course her husband is an animator. so anyways jocelyn and i discussed things until i finally had to say "i'm going to sleep now." because i could tell by the energy in her voice that she wasn't going to stop talking. "oh." she said. then after a pause "do you know what time it is?" "it was one o'clock a long time ago," i said. she sighed. i could just tell that she was wide awake and didn't know what she was going to do now. thankfully i knew exactly what to do.
8. gabby walked around camp at 6:30 playing the day dawn is breaking (because i told her dad used to sing that to wake us up and girl's camp) on her flute to wake the people up for the early morning hike. yeah right i said in my head and went back to sleep. it seemed like a few minutes later when gabby stuck her head in the tent and chirrped that we should get up for the devotional. we were slow to comply. since our tent was on the outskirts of the circle we just listened from our beds. sister walker spoke about light in decorating and light in our lives. we sang when we shouldn't have and it was my fault.
9. there were pancakes and quesadillas for breakfast. the quesadillas made by the spanish branch ladies of course, were so good and so satisfying. sister castillo was one of the quesadilla makers. i told her they were good. emilce was not there.
10. i went to the batik workshop. it's really cool. i made something cool. i might give it to mom for her birthday. i had fun batiking. you draw a pattern on your piece of cloth and then you put wax on it and then you dye the cloth and then you iron the wax off. i did a tree of life type thing. i like it. i liked just doing it. something soul satisfying. i didn't go to any other workshope because batiking took so long.
11. the other lady guest speaker from calgary. she was very good as well. i dozed during parts of her talk, just from sheer tiredness not from boredom of any kind. but i was uplifted by her talk and felt like crying many times.
12. we ate a lunch of pita sandwiches and took down our tents and drove up to alice lake and went swimming with the burnaby moms. we saw scott there with a date. he gave me a drink of ice cold water of which i was very grateful. barb and i felt iffy about if we wanted to swim (gab stayed and slept in the car) but then we came across the burnaby moms and we decided to join them. jenny friesen had lots of energy and did cannon balls and dives from the raft. i stayed in the water perferring not to lay on the raft with most of the other ladies. but then some of us led by jenny and sierra (another enthusiastic lady) swam out into the middle area of the lake, tred water for a while, and swam back. randy's sister was there. she looks like him but cute. she didn't have a swim suit (like some others) so swam in her clothes. the difference was she didn't have anything to change into or a towel. i bought a popsicle from the icecream man. he seemed insulted when i asked what his cheapest thing was but i only had a dollar fifty one. we were happy that we decided to swim. after a good swim you're left with that nice feeling on your skin, and you start to feel comfortably sleepy. this wasn't as appreciated with me since i was driving but i sang songs to keep myself chipper.
barb came with me to my house and me and her and karey and pete went to the richmond night market. it was mostly full of junk, but i found a nice sikh man selling interesting and quality jewlery. i was looking for amber earrings and he pointed out some studs that he had. i want the dangly kind, i said, and he insisted that he had some and made his wife look and she looked and looked and then her frantically looked and i said you know it's alright i might not even buy them when i see them, and he was insistant and said he needed them for other custamers as well. finally i had to go, but i felt bad for him that he couldn't find them. when i left he said come back and i'll show them to you. ok i said. i bought takoyaki (octapus balls) and a bubble tea. it wasn't the best bubble tea in the world. there were lots of interesting foods to be had. we dropped pete off and convinced barb to sleep over. she got her stuff and we eventually started watching overboard but karey and i were mostly in dep sleeps so at 12"30 i got up and said i'm going to bed, and karey used that as her cue as well. apparently barb tried to watch but woke up at five in the morning not sure when she went to sleep. and that is the end of this very long entry which took 2 hours to write.
i went to the relief society women's retreat in squamish. (i say squamish like dad would 'squameesh'). i took barb and gabby with me in my car. these are some moments i would like to remember:
1.) gabby breaking into kaisha's house by way of the patio chair to the elictrical box to the balcony and through the window. she let us in and i brought her shoes, which she had left by the patio chair where i was also stationed in the event that she should need a boost or some sort of aid. barb stayed by the car and said "i'm having nothing to do with this." that was until she let us in and barb showed us where kaisha's tent was stowed in the laundry room. we were just grabbing it from the shelf when kaisha's downstairs neighbour popped his head in to say he was just doing a rinse. he didn't seem phased to see three strange girls in the house and we just smiled in acknowledgement to him and barb and i left with the tent and gabby locked the door behind us and started coming out the way she came in, when i saw her stocking feet and remembered her shoes. "your shoes!" i yelled. gabby with one leg over the balcony replied "they're where i left them." "no i brought them in for you." i felt sheepish and me and barb laughed. so gabby went back in through the window, down the stairs, put on her shoes and came back out the window, leg over balcony, hanging from balcony and just about to jump when she shrieked "ahhh my shirt! her shirt and underthings were hooked on a planter hook, so she swung with one arm to untangle (we all later agreed that if something happened due to the hooking incident we could have sued) and then jumped safely to the ground. this whole process was because kaisha promised us her 10 man tent. i could have borrowed karey or elicia's tents but i was greedy for the space that a 10 man tent could give 3 girls. we stowed the tent and took off for squameesh.
2. we pulled up to the church in squameesh and ladies were milling about in the parking lot eating barbequed chicken and greek pasta salad, and spinach salad with pecans, they were in canvas camping chairs all over the church lawn in different groups talking and laughing and there were tents and campers everywhere. wheemen of all ages were to be seen from the 18s to the 80s and much in between. we pulled up and grabbed a styro plate. right away gab was talking to all the ladies she knew. barb and i were more focused on the food. tammy who used to be a wright was serving the bbq chicken with a lady from the spanish ward. they were both very concerned that the chicken be cooked through and poked and sawed at the pieces many times before doling them out. tammy always seemed very earnest and serious every time i saw her. her face reminded me a lot of vicki.
3. we put up our tent in a nice flat space right off the big open space where the wide circle of canvas chairs were. it turned out to be a very stinky moldy tent. gabby was dizgusted with the state that it was put away in. "you should never put away a wet tent". barb and i had seen jocelyn in the food line and invited her to tent with us. susan paulsen was a package deal with jocelyn so she and her airmattress came along too.
4. sister reney's talk. we three lay down or sat crosslegged in the middle of the circle, near the the citronella candle, which gabby and jocelyn (who made 4) kept dipping their hands into and eventually covered all of our hands in the oily wax. sister reney encouraged us to take notes so i got my scripture notebook/journal and did so. she told us to write down very quickly the first 3 people we thought of when we thought of who gives us sunshine in our lives. then we had to write about the specific ways in which we personally scatter sunshine in other people's lives. these were good enough exercises but my favourite was when she asked us to write ourselves a letter from heavenly father. then she only gave us like one minute, but i kept writing. it was a healing thing for me. there are some things that i am longing to hear from him and then there are things i never thought he would say to me and until i came at it from his possible perspective.
5. campfire singing. good times. they had a very good compilation of girlscamp type songs and rounds and lots and lots of good time songs. sometimes i could only hear the enthusiastic singing of gab and i who knew most of the songs and helped sister bateman who was leading start off, but i did see people from the outskirts moving their lips so i know they were singing too. my favourite is singing rounds. i love it, and i don't know why. probably because it's such a family thing. we sang lillies of the valley, and rose rose rose rose and fires burning and i taught them the Lord is our shepherd. by the end there was brother and sister burgess, us, a group of old ladies and another five sisters behind us. then we ate burnt smores burnt on the bbq.
6. we watched the work and the glory movie in their tiny three row chapel. i was very emotional and cried quite a bit. other ladies were playing phase ten in the hall or just sitting and chatting and laughing, barb joined a group playing rook in the parking lot, and then there were the ladies who never left the circle and sat out there talking and looking at the stars. it was almost one when the movie finished and we got our pjs on and brushed our teeth in the bathroom. even the men's bathroom was labeled "women's". brother burgess stood otuside with his toothbrush and asked rosemary what he should do because there were women in the men's washroom. she said he should just go in because they were just brushing their teeth and he looked at her and said "are you sure?" and she checked and i said "you could just brush your teeth in the fountain. see?" but he didn't notice me talking because i was behind him and he was distracted with the figuring out of his problem. "i guess i could just go in the bushes..." but barb said to him "you could do it in the kitchen." "in the kitchen??" "ya, in the sink." "you want me to go in the sink??" he seemed incredulous and this confused us. finally the light dawned "ohhh. you mean brush my teeth." he said. then we all laughed.
7. barb, gabby and i talked for a while in our tent but then jocelyn and susan came in and barb and gabby drifted off to sleep. susan asked us what movies she should see with the guy she's dating who hasn't really seen any movies for six or seven years. that got us talking about movies and jocelyn who seemed to have a lot of energy, kept talking to me. meanwhile i was exhausted but happy and ready to rest, but they way she talks is so funny and enjoyable to me. a mix of earnestness, and flakiness with a very different life perspective. it made me laugh for example when she suggested an animated movie to susan and susan said she wanted a grown up movie and jocelyn said "ok, well just so you know, some people don't consider animated to be children's." ha ha ha. she just said it so earnestly. i started to laugh. of course her husband is an animator. so anyways jocelyn and i discussed things until i finally had to say "i'm going to sleep now." because i could tell by the energy in her voice that she wasn't going to stop talking. "oh." she said. then after a pause "do you know what time it is?" "it was one o'clock a long time ago," i said. she sighed. i could just tell that she was wide awake and didn't know what she was going to do now. thankfully i knew exactly what to do.
8. gabby walked around camp at 6:30 playing the day dawn is breaking (because i told her dad used to sing that to wake us up and girl's camp) on her flute to wake the people up for the early morning hike. yeah right i said in my head and went back to sleep. it seemed like a few minutes later when gabby stuck her head in the tent and chirrped that we should get up for the devotional. we were slow to comply. since our tent was on the outskirts of the circle we just listened from our beds. sister walker spoke about light in decorating and light in our lives. we sang when we shouldn't have and it was my fault.
9. there were pancakes and quesadillas for breakfast. the quesadillas made by the spanish branch ladies of course, were so good and so satisfying. sister castillo was one of the quesadilla makers. i told her they were good. emilce was not there.
10. i went to the batik workshop. it's really cool. i made something cool. i might give it to mom for her birthday. i had fun batiking. you draw a pattern on your piece of cloth and then you put wax on it and then you dye the cloth and then you iron the wax off. i did a tree of life type thing. i like it. i liked just doing it. something soul satisfying. i didn't go to any other workshope because batiking took so long.
11. the other lady guest speaker from calgary. she was very good as well. i dozed during parts of her talk, just from sheer tiredness not from boredom of any kind. but i was uplifted by her talk and felt like crying many times.
12. we ate a lunch of pita sandwiches and took down our tents and drove up to alice lake and went swimming with the burnaby moms. we saw scott there with a date. he gave me a drink of ice cold water of which i was very grateful. barb and i felt iffy about if we wanted to swim (gab stayed and slept in the car) but then we came across the burnaby moms and we decided to join them. jenny friesen had lots of energy and did cannon balls and dives from the raft. i stayed in the water perferring not to lay on the raft with most of the other ladies. but then some of us led by jenny and sierra (another enthusiastic lady) swam out into the middle area of the lake, tred water for a while, and swam back. randy's sister was there. she looks like him but cute. she didn't have a swim suit (like some others) so swam in her clothes. the difference was she didn't have anything to change into or a towel. i bought a popsicle from the icecream man. he seemed insulted when i asked what his cheapest thing was but i only had a dollar fifty one. we were happy that we decided to swim. after a good swim you're left with that nice feeling on your skin, and you start to feel comfortably sleepy. this wasn't as appreciated with me since i was driving but i sang songs to keep myself chipper.
barb came with me to my house and me and her and karey and pete went to the richmond night market. it was mostly full of junk, but i found a nice sikh man selling interesting and quality jewlery. i was looking for amber earrings and he pointed out some studs that he had. i want the dangly kind, i said, and he insisted that he had some and made his wife look and she looked and looked and then her frantically looked and i said you know it's alright i might not even buy them when i see them, and he was insistant and said he needed them for other custamers as well. finally i had to go, but i felt bad for him that he couldn't find them. when i left he said come back and i'll show them to you. ok i said. i bought takoyaki (octapus balls) and a bubble tea. it wasn't the best bubble tea in the world. there were lots of interesting foods to be had. we dropped pete off and convinced barb to sleep over. she got her stuff and we eventually started watching overboard but karey and i were mostly in dep sleeps so at 12"30 i got up and said i'm going to bed, and karey used that as her cue as well. apparently barb tried to watch but woke up at five in the morning not sure when she went to sleep. and that is the end of this very long entry which took 2 hours to write.
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