the works

sitting out on my twinkly porch at the end of a summer's day, listening to a guy talking on his cell in mandarin or cantonese as he walks through the park.  through my bamboo blinds i can see that the half moon is up.

it's been an interesting day.  i fell asleep after church after munching a handful of almonds, but in a surprise move, i only slept 2 hours.  keeping it random folks. ala type one.   when i woke up i could hear downstairs dave droning on to his new roomie, who i fear is a bit of a vagabond.  dave has no concept that i can hear his conversations like he's sitting next to me.  they were getting all hyped up about the politcs of marajoowanna.  later when i stumbled groggily out to the porch, i was trying to ignore the cronies down on the lawn while looking ups some solar eclipse details on the world wide web.  but my ears twitched and began to burn when new cronie asked "who lives up there?"  "laura," says dave, "you know, the big fat lady?"  wuuuuuut i mouthed silently to myself.  #bigfatlady.  i mean i know i'm pretty fat these days but it's one thing to know it myself and another to hear yourself described as such.  and dave went on to say "oh laura's really sweet"  and "laura's really nice"  too late dave.  the sweetness ends here.  well probably not, because when you're sweet you're sweet, but still. i can't believe he said that.  i mean chubby lady with curly hair--that's better.  there's a milion better things than #bigfatlady.  he doesn't even know he hashtag labeled me.  

so then i began to worry that they would realize i was up here, the #bigoafs, and that would just be awkward, so i began working my way silently off my chair that creaks and the porch floor creaks, and i was managing it fine, until half way up i experienced a sudden paradigm shift.  whatever, i thought, why should i feel awkward that dave is an oaf? and i waltzed through the screen door without care of noise.  

yesterday when i was leaving downstairsoafdave asked me as he was passing me with 2 bags of groceries if i would park behind my other car (dead stella midnight) because sometimes he gets groceries and he likes to be able to drive all the way into the back yard.  ok.  so dave doesn't have a car.  no one does.  i'm the only one who has a car.... 2 cars, 1 dead and 1 barely alive.  i am not going to park all squished up because once in a blue moon you would like to drive into our yard downstairsdave.  but i just smiled and said "i'm leaving" and judy, who had driven mr.oafinpants to the the grocery store and parked behind me rushed to move her car.  pfffft.  #bigfatladyattitude

i was on my way to see #sarahlynnelizabethstratton, who was having a long wait at the ferry and invited me to join her.  well i wasn't doing anything at the time except for laying horizontally on my bed watching youtube videos of derrick jaxn relationship advice, so i got up put on some clothes, brushed my teeth and looked at my wild locks but didn't do much to them.  added a bit of mascara too, truth be told.

we went to saks fith avenue at the tssawwassen mall and like the last time we had both been there, which was christmas shopping, we were both drawn to the accessories area and spent most of our time there.  i found 5 sets of earrings that i could not live without.  i mean sarah was key in this and yet she pared her pile down neatly to one set of earrings.  

we didn't have much time for much else so we hightailed it out of there, touching and looking at various things as we walked out.

after i dropped sarah off at the ferries i drove back towards richmond feeling the hunger pangs bad.  it was after 12:30 and i had not eaten anything yet.  so i made the fateful decision to stop at mcdonald's drive through.  and that's when i made the even more fateful decision to get a large milkshake.  do you know how large a large is??  it's massive!  i never get a large and i was reminded of why not.  it's because, besides the gluttony point, which let's face it, is not the hugest concern for me, it takes up all the liquid reserves of you stomach.  there is literally not enough room for that much shake.  which isn't good because mcdonald's makes me thirsty and i couldn't drink much water for a long while after without feeling like throwing up.

i went home and suddenly it was 2.

my big plan for this weekend was to go to spanish banks and watch the fireworks from there, and have a bit of a beach day before that.  lately my saturdays have been horrendously lonely and boring.  i just can't wait for there to be people in my life for me to do things.  i need to just do things or i'll go insane, which some saturdays i feel like i am totally wacko just from a build up of loneliness and inertia.  i worry about the lonliness.  i keep hearing studies about how loneliness is so detrimental to your health, both mental and physical health.  and i keep hearing echos of uncle duncan saying at gramma b's funeral "i hope none of you experience terrible loneliness", or something like that.   and i don't want anyone to feel sorry for me.  i just want to figure this out.  and i want to deal with it.  and i want to learn what i'm supposed to learn.  and i want to #shakerattleandroll.

so around 5 i was all ready with my ginorma beach bag stuffed with goodies and i started my drive out to spanish banks.  i made it there in about 37 minutes thanks for caring.  and i quickly nabbed a parking spot.  then came the labourious sand walking and search for an empty log.  i found a good one next to a couple who had made a shelter with a blanket, some driftwood and their log.  as i set up my retro sleeping bag i knew that if i did not get liquids i would surely die.  so i abandoned all, took my cell and my debit card and trekked all the way back to the concession stand, bought two waters, and got two cups of ice all in a nice cardboard carrier.  

then i trekked back.

i sat on the log and poured water into the ice cups and drank it, on repeat until i drank a whole bottle and most of the second.  by that time my thirst was abated enough to allow me to lay on the retro sleeping bag, and read my 2012 blog book which i recently rediscovered, and eat ice chips.  so that's what i did.

time passed.

the tide was out coming in when i arrived and i decided to wait until it was in before i swam.

more time passed.

when the sun started getting low on the horizon i stopped reading to take some clicks without really moving from my spot.

this pic includes the sky which just looks delicious to me, and my next door log neighbours which were this big group/multi family.

 going the other direction you can see my other log neighbours had a propane tank for bbq and for a fire ring.  i ended up leaving my log closer to fire works time because they placed their camping chairs just so, in front of my view.  but that's ok because where i went was great and had a trusty log to use as a tripod, but i digress.  you can also see that there was a bride and groom photo shoot going on.  those photographers were also down by my fireworks photography spot later on.

 this is me.  my hair is ragamuffin and that's just the way it is.  i had these dark circles under my eyes too but i got rid of those via the magic of photoshop. but imagine them if you want to.

 just playing with solar flares, that's all.

 rock thrower

 then it was fireworks time.  part of me wanted to swim during the fire works but another part of me wanted to attempt to photograph them and that part won.  in the end i never swam the whole day.  actually i haven't yet gone swimming this whole summer.

i'm pretty pleased with myself.  this is just one of the maaaaany.  but i mean, one's enough.  next time i might find a different fireworks place for a different kind of shot.

after this i had the longest drive home ever because marine drive is closed and we all had to trail painfully single file down 41st and through kerrisdale.  ugh.