a dilly of a doozy

i got up just before 7 this morning and without much ado i set about cleaning.  my kitchen table had my life piled on and around it in stacks.  there were a few dishes and the floors were atrocious.  as i cleaned i listened to the mormon channel.  i confess that i listen to it all the time.  i felt such satisfaction wiping grime off my cupboards and floors.

after a couple of hours of cleaning i lay across my bed on my stomach as i am apt to do, and read in my swedish book of mormon.  i have been finding such joy in studying the book of mormon lately.  i love to immerse myself in it and it makes me so happy and grateful.  i read aloud and archie thinks i'm reading love letters to him.  no matter whether i am at the table, on the couch or on my bed, archie hunts me down the moment i begin to read.  he purrs as he walks across the pages, or stands with his front paws squarely on the book.  i gently nudge him off and wiggle away from him and he persistently edges closer, determined to eclipse the book, nudging my hands and head butting me.  i stop to give him some attention and then go on reading.  today i had to sheild my scriptures by hulking over them, both hands on my face and elbows on the bed.  archie peered over and under and could not make it through, and so eventually gave up.  and i was left with ammon and king lamoni.

after that it was time to pick up my new boy.  after a barren time in the respite world, i have been given a new boy to work with and today was our first day.  i had been plenty warned that my boy had a very low attention span, so i had a bunch of different options ready.  i knew he liked dinosaurs because he just happens to know one dinosaur for every letter of the alphabet, so i figured he might like the beatty biodiversity museum at ubc.  they have lots of cool stuff there and i happen to know they even have a room in the back were you can get hands on with stuff.  when heather and i went, they had bird feathers and beaks and talons and stuff that you could look at under microscope and cool things like that.  anywho that was an option, as well as fun4kidz at aberdeen mall, and then maybe making some green slime or playdough at my house (thus the early am. cleaning).

as i walked from the parking lot to his apartment door i head the boy call out "hi laura!", so i knew he was excited and raring to go.  he nixed the fun4kidz right away but was super duper into the museum, so that's what we decided to do.  i was below a quarter of a tank so i stopped at a gas station to put a teensy bit of gas in the tank (pay day's on monday, you dig?).  well ya.  my car would not start after my measly 5 bucks of gas was pumped into her bowels.  nonononono.  not now.  not here.  not today!  she didn't make a noise, but the windshield wipers and windows worked.  so i called the boy's mom and told her what had happened.  i told her we would just go to my house (a 15 min or so walk from there) and then we got out and the boy asked the gas station guys to push my car to a parking spot for us, which they did very kindly.  then we began to walk in the rain.

i knew the boy was prone to melt downs on occassion so i tried to keep him busy. we played eye spy while we waited to cross the road.  then after a couple of steps and a "ohhhhh!  how long is this going to take??" we raced to a landmark down the road.  then we skipped. then we shuffled sideways.  then we were pooped.  just then my friend rob from work honked from across the road "do you need a ride?" he called to me out his window.  "yeah!" i said with relief.  so the boy and i ran across the street and climbed in.  the first thing out of the boys mouth "can you take us to the museum?"  i had to explain to the boy that rob was not our personal taxi.  when the boy realized that we were not in fact going to the biodiversity museum, the boy proceeded to have a melt down. he didn't want to go to my house.  he hated my house.  he was never going to my house... etc.  i validated him.  i told him i knew he must be disappointed because he was so excited to go to the museum.  "yah" he wailed, big tears rolling down his cheeks.  i reminded him that we could still go another day.  that's when he said "waiting is f---ed up!"  rob guffawed but i elbowed him.  in the end i gave him two choices, come to my house or go home.  he chose my house.  rob helped by loaning me some bongo drums and a keyboard.  but the boy had the most fun with my cats.  we fed them and brushed them and we made a box house for them.  "what else do cats like to do?" he asked me.  "ummm... sleep." i said.  so everything turned out ok.  we took a taxi back to his place and while we waited for it we played the animal game--thanks elciahelenadirjkemariahackjohncey for that one.  he was totes into it.  and when i called good bye to him, he had to run and give me a hug, which is a good sign right?

well i started writing this on september 28th and today is october 7th. just sayin.  i walked home from the boy's house, stopping at the sev. for batteries and a cup-o-candies.  i was totally soaked when i got home and the cup-o-candies was no more.  it rained so. hard.  it looked like sheets of rain.  dad came and got me and we went to the chevron on blundell and no. 3 road and dad scraped all the corrosion off of my battery cable.  what do you know, it worked!  free and simple--what a treat!  however the next day after church it didn't start and dad came that night, in the poring rain, of course, and worked on the other battery cable.  did not work like a charm.  did not work at all.

i rode my bike to work that morning and mei lin and tony came to look at it monday night.  mei lin and i sat in the car and talked about languages like folkanese, (i know that's not how you spell it), mandarin and cantonese etc.  tony figured out it was the starter because when he knocked it, it started.  he said he would figure out how much a started costed and let me know.  as they drove me home we talked about their daughter monica who was away in the east at anne of green gable's school, queens.  i asked how she was doing and mei lin said "great! even better than we thought!" she said it with such relief and happiness that i knew she had her mother's worries.  but tony was all "i never worried mommi." .  he always calls her mommi and it's cute.

i rode my bike to work monday, tuesday, and wednesday.  i think it rained all of those days.   the truth is my bike is a danger to ride on the driest of days but in the rain the brakes hardly work.  a couple of times i just had to jump off, because i was not stopping in time.  i found myself almost slamming into a bus which was taking a very slow turn in front of me, for example.  so i began to slow down way way before any intersection.

tony fixed my car wednesday night.  he worked on it for free.  i just have to pay for parts.  i'm really blessed to have such good and kind and generous people in my life and i know it.

maybe you want me to stop here.  that's enough, you may think, this has got to stop.  well i'm sorry to tell you that there is more.  in other words suckitupbuttercup.

this weekend i spent in squameesh with heather.  it's a general conference weekend tradition.  i got there friday night and met her new frisky, big-boned, buddies.  so full of pep!  reminded me of my fat furries when they were young.  we chitchatted and spent a lot of time thinking up names for her husky fellahs.  one is big and the other is more, shall we say, streamlined.  i said she should call them 'bustah' and 'rhymes' or, and this one was my fave, 'biggie' and 'small'.  she said she didn't like rap so she wasn't going to name them after rappers.  then she said 'peace owt l-town' and pounded her chest with her fist then raised it in the air.  'fa shizzle, ma izzle.', i responded.  ok, so actually biggie was totally a gus to her.  gus-gus.  that was settled....i think.  small might be named sam. sam-sam. maybe.  maybe not.  

next morning we were both awake at a time of day that starts with the number 6.  this was not right, nor just, and yet it happened to us.  i eventually got up and did some t-tapp and heather made us some delcious cottage cheese, apple pancakes.  yum.  she had a whole spread of pancakes, syrups, spreads, ginger marmelade, fruits, and special fruit juices. as per traditon i sat on the big chair with the ottoman and h had the couch.  we watched conference.  wasn't it so great?  elder holland's talk was probably my very favourite.  i love so many people who live with mental illnesses, it just spoke right to my heart and i wanted to shout "yes!  YES", but instead i sniffled and wept and may or may not have had an ugly cry burgeoning in my throat.

between sessions we went to the pet store and i got dry food for my furries and h bought her huskies halter(tops (jk))s so she could take them outside.  yes she is the type who takes feline friends out on excursions.  what of it?  on the way home h drove down this pretty wooded road lined with fall trees that ended up by the uni.  i saw a path off to the side and asked h about it.  after the sessions we decided to go for a walk there.  before we left we were all sluggish and yawnie but it did not take long to feel exhilerated by the beauty of outside, and fresh air added heather, which sent me on a whole huge tangent of how good the out of doors smells and how i love it when my clothes smell like outside and how once i was putting on my cycling gear and fearing that it would stink terribly and was pleasantly surprised by the gorgeous perfume of out side.  the forest was a wonderland as forests are.  deep and green and quiet with accents of that marigold orange from young maple saplings here and there.  forests hold so many magical secrets and wells of wisdom, don't they?  well don't they?

this tree that grew straight up and then way way above us, inexplicably curved into the horizontal plane, first inspired me to take out my camera.  from that point on we made very slow progress from then on.  heather is very good about it.  this makes us good nature partners.

we veered off the road and took the mountain bike path through the woods. heather found herself a walking stick and found great pleasure in it.  

a bower of mossy arches caught my eye.

i thought these maple leaves looked like lace.

at first i knelt on the forest floor and then somehow i was laying on the softest bed of moss.  it was so comfy i could have stayed right there forever, but heather mentioned something about cougar sighting and that was the dose or reality i needed.  but while i was there i took these.

i got heather to take my pic.  moss beds need documentation.

then i took my own pic.

we came out into a sparser wood...

 and didn't know which way to go, despite a kindly mountain biker and his map, so we went back the way we came.  by this time heather had given me a stick as well and i appreciated it.  a couple of times i stumbled and i would have biffed it if not for my trusty stick.  one time i turned my foot in a weird and painful way that sent arcs of pain all throughout my arch and it was only the stick that kept me upright.  thanks trusty stick-friend!

the next day was sunday.  this was my last orange segment.  ignore my thumb nail.  i said IGNORE IT. 

 then me and the bigboned fisky funnies had some camera time.  this is gusgus.  he pounces on paper balls thrown into pillows.  he pounces with abandon.

this might be samsam.  he's a bit more shy, but he loves to play.  especially with the blue mouse with glowing eyes that makes freaky mouse noises, dangling on the end of a wand.  they go craycray for that. samsam likes this tent.

the boyz.

after i took this i put the camera down in front of gus and he sat there a little alarmed raised a ginger paw, and then batted it hard and jumped back.  hahaha.

i'm going to bed now.  but first i have to say that heather made me an awesome 39 and a half birthday tart.  oatmeal crust, goatcheese and blue berry 'swirl', not to mention a butternut squarsh black bean lasagna.  hello.  we also gorged on conference candies.  my teeth actually hurt.  for reals man.

bye man.