bbbs' weddin day.

if i was doing what i otter, as raffi says, i would be going to bed right now. but what does raffi know? he wakes up in the morning at quarter to five and just can't wait to come alive.... etc. obviously a little unstable.

it's been a good weekend and i'm loath to return to the work week. if truth be told, that's one reason i don't want to go to bed. going to bed is one step closer to waking up and trudging to work. and then, well...working actually.

on friday i was sooooooooo hot that when i got home from work, i stripped off my jeans right away, slumped them over my computer chair for easy access, got out my two foot bath tubs and filled them both up with ice water. one was for the cats and i put it out on the balcony so they could drink it, play with the ice cubes--whatever. the other was for me and i put half a bath balm in it and half reclined on the couch doing crosswords with my feet in the icy water in my undies. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. it was soo soothing that despite the icy water i felt sleepy. so i tried to doze but i couldn't lay there in my underwear without wanting to put a blanket over myself, but then i was too hot, so i went to my room shut the cats out and opened my windows wide. i dozed pleasantly until a nearby buzzing awoke me. it took only seconds for me to realize that the buzzing was a bee. all i needed was a flick of an eyelid to assertain that information and i was in standing postion in lightning quick time. so i was banned from my room for the sake of a bee. bees bite. and they sting.

the sleepiness left me so i sat at the computer and began to read my old blog from the beginning. i'm like this. after a period of time i find my own old journals and blogs facinating. a good read. i like to remember how i was, what i thought, who i knew and what i did. it brings me back. i'm a sucker for nostalgia. i came across so much i had forgotten and i started to copy and paste excerpts to people. excerpts about them. i sent a LOT. it was fun for me. then karey called. she got the emails i sent her and we had some laughs about it.

karey and i were still chatting when elicia got home. i thought elicia's sister might be with her so i had a moment of alarm, being sans pantaloons and all, but elicia was alone. "gee laura, you don't live alone you know." she reminded me. "don't i know it." i replied. but i put on my pants. one cannot escape pant wearing forever.

we sent elena and scott to daiso and the night market. meanwhile i got a six inch sub. the guy at subway knows me. he also gave me an extra cookie once. he's the new azzim. he questioned the six inch choice. i practically never get the six inch to be fair, but to be fair i wasn't super hungry. new azzim neglected to cut my sub the old way but i decided to let it slide. we found out he was from vietnamn and he takes about a month off every year. after buying my roasted chicken sub with some lettuce, green pepper, onion, pickle, two tomatoes, south west sauce and honey mustard, (fyi) we drove a block up to dairy queen. i got a georgia mud fudge blizzard which has never let me down. elicia got a bland waffle crisp caramel one. blah.

we drove to the beach and parked at the mariatime museum without paying. the sun had just set and it was beautiful at the beach. there were big groups of people hanging out in the dusk under the trees and someone was playing a guitar and singing songs. elicia and i decided to start our own club. an artsy club. we'll meet at the beach after dark and we'll have a guitar too. and people will read a poem or a give a reading or play an instrument etc. the peramiters of the club kept growing. i could teach people rounds, i thought. what is it with our family and our love of rounds. i love a good round and i'm not ashamed of it.

so we walked around and talked and sat on this bench and looked out to sea and enjoyed the serenity, the collective community calm of the beach and then we left because like i said, i didn't pay for parking.

i wanted a movie so we stopped at roger's. elicia wanted to stay in the car but i said "no come in. pleaaaaaaaaaaaaaaase. pleaaaaaaaaaaaaaaase elica. pleaaaaaaaaaaaaase. pleaaaaaaaaaase elicia." until she gave in. shaggy was there and in prime condition. everywhere i turned there he was giving suggestions and explaining plots to somebody new. i avoided him. even if he was standing near me, i kept my eyes from his face like one glance would turn me to stone. but even this did not totally spare me. painted vail was briefly recommended to me at one point but i kept plot explanations to a minimum. another time i overheard him telling the whole story of this movie i saw with steve, in my head i think of it as a 'steve movie', to this captive audience couple. despite helpful shaggy i had a rare posative experience at rogers. there were numerous movies i wanted to see. rare right? so i picked holiday and rocky balboa. elicia told me holiday was pretty good. she said it had queen latifah in it and there were some spots to fast forward. haha. wrong movie leash, i said "oh yeah, that's last holiday." she recalled. the funny thing is there is absolutely no fast forward parts in last holiday.

back at the ranch elicia let me borrow her laptop to watch the movies on so elena and scott could sleep in peace in the living room. for some reason this was such a great experience for me. i turned off all the lights, stripped down to my under-roos, opened all the windows wide, plugged in some headphones, and lay on my back with the laptop resting on my stomach and my arms stretched up over my head where the cool breeze hit them. i loved it. it was dark and i was alone and up close with this movie and comfy and i dont' know it was intimate. and lovely. and when i laughed the laptop bobbed up and down. and if i looked up i could see the stars out my window. i watched holiday and liked it a lot of course. i like kate winslet so much. it was near three when i was done with the movie, special features and all. i packed up the 'puter and crept out in the hall to put it out on the shoes for elicia's easy access the next morning.

the phone woke me up around ten and when i say ten i mean somewhere in the hour of ten. ten something whatever that something may be, just to be clear.

i made a banana, berry, bran buds smoothie and brought the blender with me to the couch with a spoon and ate it while watching rocky balboa. i liked rocky balboa. i liked how lonely and sad he was without adrian and i liked some other things too.

heather, elicia and i went shopping at richmond centre. i bought some cheap t-shirts and a mango julius. heather tried on some different runners in some different stores. she was set on asics until she was introduced to this other kind that was really cushy. sounds like shockonay. you probably have heard of them hey katie? i convinced her to go to the running room. i told her to research her shoe.

we decided to have fish n' chips. we decided to have them at that neighbourhood place that is supposed to be so good. i keep wanting to call it king's table. that's a throwback from youth temple trip days. king's fare i think it's called. anyways that place is so dumpy. rickety mismatched tables, dusty brown lamps hanging from every possible ceiling space where there were no dried out and dying hanging plants and there were a lot of those. heather said sarita would have a heart attack if she saw those plants. despite the dive atmosphere we really liked it there. the guy was a real character, talked to everyone really earnestly about the halibut and the cod. there were regulars there and everyone seemed to know everyone and the fish n' chips were gooooood. and we wanted lemonade so the guy told us his secret. he gives you a bear mug full of ice with three pieces of squeezed lemon on it and you pour sprite over top. it was good and we were well pleased. the server girl overheard me talking about sports day (i was saying how that was the only day of the year i could wear shorts to school and how exciting that was for me) and she came over and started telling us all about her girl and sports day. anyways it was a homey, family run, neighbourhood dive with good food that we'd return to. i think fatima particularily should go there. the tartar sauce was very dill pickle and that equals good in my books.

elicia went to a concert and heather and i walked to rogers for another video. we were so full that it was hard to decide. maybe this makes sense to you, maybe it doesn't but nevertheless, it's the way it was. we finally decided on dream girls and then bought some chocolate bars at safeway. i got cadbury's peanutbutter. and on a whim i also got wonderbar. heather thought it was weird that i got two peanutbutter ones. one's chewy and one's hard i explained.

heather wanted to watch holiday and since i liked it, we watched it again. we watch dream girls tomorrow.

today after church heather and i made pita pizzas. with bbq chicken, mushrooms and zucchini. pretty tasty if i say so myself. heather also had some jello which was strangely refreshing in the oppressive heat. after dinner i lay down on heather's love seat and dozed off while she was reading out recipes to me from the rs cookbook. but it was a cat nap if truth be told. she was just settling down with a book to read when i woke up and so we walked down to the river park.

i hadn't been there since bethany's visit in the winter. in january. it was lush and green. there were wild flowers and the wintery bramble bushes that i took pictures of were now bushy over grown wild roses. there were lots of people with cute dogs there. heather and i sat on a bench on the board walk close to a blue heron and a duck. the sky darkened and the cottonwood trees blew their summer snow all over the park. it really looked like it was snowing against the dark grey/blue sky. i wished for the hundreth time that i had my camera. we talked and we watched the blue heron and the tug boats and the tin can boat and the dogs. it was nice.

on our way home it began to rain and we rejoiced in it. "it's like there's been a drought." i said to heather full of irony.