hero rola. hero risa.

ps. at the beginning instead of the end: this is my tomato asiago tart with carmalized onions that i told you about.












yesterday was a beautiful fall day. i was feeling weak from the ravages of my cold, but i was also feeling like leaving the house might be a nice thing to do. so elicia and i went for a walk on the dike. just happened to be elicia's first time. i love the fall. the fall rocks. we had a nice walk and looked at birds in our binoculars. the snow geese were there in big loud (i was going to say loud, noisy. um redundant) raucous (heehee) flocks by the thousands. mallards, herons, eagles, hawks, red winged blackbirds. oh yeah we saw them all.


this is us with the marsh behind us and the sun shining over our shoulders. note the beach wood. note that my hand is almost AMY SIZE.








here with the ditch that the ducks like behind us and the autumn tree standing over us and the sun shining on our faces.










i told elicia to take a pic of this dandylion and she did a great job. it looks so perfect and i love the colours and the translucency of the stem.














i took this one. it's a little more rough and wild.














elicia took this of the sunset. if you look you can see some far off herons gliding in the dusky mauve.








we walked back to the car feeling satisfied. the sun had set and it was getting cold fast. both of us were waiting for our paychecks to come on monday. elicia especially didn't have very much groceries. but she found a gift-c. for 25 bucks for earls and asked me if i wanted to come. i wasn't about to turn that down let me tell you. we decided to get appatizers, more specifically the 'group grab'. elicia was a little sheepish about the title, but i was all yah! group grab! awesome! so we drove to the richmond earls from the dike. it was busy and so we opted for the lounge rather than wait for the table. elicia said she felt a little out of place. i hadn't noticed anything. i looked around "it's all guys" she said. well it was a hockey night in canada night and we got there just in time for the national anthem. there was a really big screen. it was fun. we didn't mind hanging with the guys in the lounge watching the big screen and eating the appys. our group grab (that comes on a three tiered tower) consisted of hot wings, chili chicken and calamari. i ate a chicken wing first. big mistake. i forgot because it's been so long, that when i'm having the asthma type deep hacking coughs that shake my frame and make me dizzy, just breathing in spice will cause me to violently cough and cough with tears pouring down my face, my throat constricted tightly. well i had a nice reminder because that is exactly what happened. luckily it was loud in there but still it was embarrassing. there is no way to save face. there is no way to look dignified or even pretty. you're no where near pretty. it's ugly. pure ugliness. and it doesn't stop. it goes on and i'm holding a cup waiting for when i can breath and stop convulsing with coughs to drink something. after that was finally over and i wiped away all the tears, i shakily ate some calamari and didn't come back to the wings for a while. when i did, there was no breathing in of the spices let me tell you.

during dinner i told elicia about the transvestite i saw at a fireside. i was describing him/her when elicia suddenly realized who it was. "laura! i know who that is! she's not a transvestite!" hahaha we had a good laugh over that. but she really looks like one and she has a deep manly voice. i'm still not sure. we told heather today and she right away knew who we were talking about and said she's wondered herself. still once in a while elicia will say "i can't believe you thought she was a transvestite!" and we'll start laughing again.

after earls we scrounged all the rest of our change and i mean change, and got two sundaes from the golden arches. it was a fun night.

this morning i had the same lesson fears and dilemas that i have every week. i felt unprepared and like i was in some sort of a zombie state when i was trying to put it all together. finally i just thought, 'heavenly father will make some sort of sence of all this" and i had to leave it. (i had to leave it because it was time for church) but i was still scared and i got fear shivers every time i thought about it during sacrament meeting. but as soon as i stood up and opened my mouth somehow a lesson came out. i had so much more prepared and so much more in depth of some things, but my class was full of comments today, mostly a good thing, and i never got to it. hardly any of it. i had these wonderful scriptures to back things up that came to me as i was preparing but i didn't share any of that. that was my own little treat i guess. i like making those connections. you know when you're thinking of a principle and asking yourself questions about it and then a scripture pops into your head and you look it up and it makes you think of more things and more scriptures and so on. well i like it. anyways i know my teaching can be sloppy and disorganized and not as thourough and deep and profound as it could be, but i think i actually had fun teaching today. that's something. and i like my class, which is a long haul from the first days when i felt combative over their stony silences and feared the weird comments. do you wonder how long this will go on? do you wonder how many sundays you'll have to read about the exact same teaching epiphanies?(i like this spelling) maybe forever. i apparently need to learn the same lesson every single time.

i feel so good after i teach too. for one, i hopefully have been feeling the spirit, for two, it's such a relief that it's over and that nothing totally disasterous happened and for three, it makes me love the people and everyone seems good and kind and i feel good and kind towards everyone. and the rest of the day i ride the after teaching high. i think just releasing all that pent up tension is bound to send someone flying. like a slingshot.

i got home and naturally took a photo shoot using my cell phone with davethebedsidebear.





but first i thought about it.














then i was like yo, me and dave man! (dave looks fearful here)













now he's just stunned.













now he's like "what? what's she doing??? is she going to do something to me? i hate not knowing" .... or he could be like a shy "hi." or he could be giving the curious eye like "i wonder who's out there?" you're looking at him and maybe he's looking at you.









archie, once named bear (in a previous life so to speak) felt jealous so i took a pic of him too. isn't he the cutest cat? he's so perfectly cute. actually he isn't jealous. he's hungry and he's getting impatient with my photo-shooting-type-of-ignoring-his-demands








and here izzy is a a deer caught in the headlights. i was going to say a dear caught in the headlights. such a double entendre!