en route

i'm at the ferry terminal and i have an hour and a half wait.  i got here early because i was completely loaded and ready to go and nothing to do!  what kind of weird alternative world is this?  don't get used to it.

i worked hard all day yesterday to get a lot ready for my departure today.  saturday is a special day--the day we get ready for sunday--you know, that kind of thing.  but i didn't take it so far as mom who starts on friday to get ready for sunday.  i'm not on her level yet. let's not jork around--i probably never will be.  speaking of mom, she was impressed  that part of my preparations for leaving on vacation was sweeping and mopping.  "i don't think i have ever mopped before leaving on a camping trip." she mused.  "you probably didn't have someone coming into your house to take care of your puke-prone cat" i said.  auntie heather agreed that having someone visit your house is a great motivator for cleaning. 

i had to go to abby to get my vinyl foamie back from mom.  when i got there mom, heather and dennis were puttering around the garden and dad was inside snoozin.  dad told me that they brought my dinner outside but they did not.  mom gave me caesar salad with blueberries in it as my starter, followed up by some salmon and potato salad.  auntie heather brought me a handful of raspberries from the garden to add to my last bite of the already radical, blurred lines, edgy caesar salad.  

dennis came in, leaving clomps of grass down the hall and mom promptly blamed heather for it who sweetly mused about not realizing she had done it.  then heather couldn't find her phone so mom called it, causing dennis, who was sitting on it, alarm about a missed call.  the comedy continued as i listened to mom explain to heather what texting was.  i really enjoyed that.  mom is doing quite well with technology in comparison to her peers.  i remember teaching her how to use a mouse.  she's come a long way. way to go mom!  give yourself a pat on the back and self high-five.  i asked if duncan was the most technilogical of all the siblings and heather said her and duncan email each other.  mom looked at heather and touched her knee and said "well aren't you cool!" it was funny.

i took the elderlies on an adventure to see neowise.  neowise is the comet that's been visible in the july sky.  katie has seen it a bunch of times and that's not fair.  we all piled in to heather and dennis' van and i drove us to macdonald park, which is a dark sky park in abbotsford.  we got there just around sunset.  there's a little arm of the fraser running along side the park and the mosquitoes were THICK.  mom reassured me that she was bringing bug spray.  and she did.  the tiniest little squirt bottle.  "i could use up this whole thing just on me" i said, greedily grabbing it and giving myself a deet shower.  heather and dennis are anti bug spray.  i'm very very VERY pro bug spray.  mosquitoes were dive bombing me while i was applying. it was a very desperate situation.  mom complained that i used it all.  i gave her and heather my essential oil bug off. haha.  i had a lot of flesh to protect ok.  as it was, i think one of them bit me right in my left sweet cheek through my shorts.  how they dare?!  

there were some people already there when we arrived and people kept arriving all night.  dad stayed in the car and mom got dennis to move it closer to the picnic table where we had situated ourselves.  the way dennis parked really bugged heather.  she kept trying to get him to fix it but dennis remained firm.  she even tried a little crook of her finger beckoning him over.  "sit down and be normal." was dennis' response.  heather confessed that this was only too normal for her, and we all know that this is very true.

the comet was supposed to appear right 3 fists under the big dipper in the northwest above the horizon.  unlucky for us, there was a little mountain right in front of us to the north.  i decided to go up to higher ground.  heather came with me.  we met a couple who had set up there.  they had a big but short telescope that looked like it was mounted on the side with a giant 80's car phone.  the guy said he wasn't sure if the mountain would block us but according to his 'mapping it out' , the comet should appear just over a little dip in the ridge of the mountain. 

we went back and reported.

when it got dark enough to see a few stars i put my camera on my tripod and set up station up on higher ground not far from the telescope couple.  i was right by the stop sign right as you enter the park and was gratified to become the source of information for many people "well that couple over there with the telescope told me it is going to appear right over the dip in the mountain there..." is a sentence i said quite often.

mom came up to see me once, and so did dennis another time, but otherwise the elderlies stayed down at the picnic table.  eventually i got tired of standing and sat in the grass by the sign.  no one could see the comet and most people left.  that's when the van of old folks pulled up to pick me up.  katie told me by text that she saw it but it was really dim that night.  

on the drive back heather fed us popcorn, bananas and oat cookies stuffed with dates.

back at mom and dad's i got the foamie i had come for, popped it in my car and was about to leave when i reached for my phone to text katie first.  but i couldn't find my phone.  maybe it fell out in heather and dennis' van, i thought, so i went in to get their keys.  heather followed me out and so did mom.  mom was calling my phone to help me find it by sound--and someone answered it. |"do you have my daughter's phone?" says mom.  some people at the dark sky park had heard it ringing and picked it up right by the sign where i had been sitting. 

they were leaving and heading to langley and agreed to meet me at the gas station across from the tim hortons at the clearbrook exit.  mom was going to come with me so i would have a phone to contact the good samaritan phone people in case we missed each other.  she just had to go in and check on dad...the time ticked on and i felt like i should go, so i just left mom in the lurch and took off with her phone.  sure enough just as i pulled into the tim hortons, a car pulled into the gas station.  when i pulled up to them, i realized it was my friends with the telescope.  they said it was so lucky that they heard the phone because they were just leaving when it rang.  

hamduillah--thanks God, as my friends the muslims say.

so then i returned mom's phone and drove home.  i didn't get home until 1:30 am. what an adventure and excitement for these days of corona.

and now i'm on the ferry and heading to pender for more adventures!

ps. i just want to confess that when i was loading the car up i put on the little grey back pack that i got from the conference in norway.  i am using it for all my books, journals, and laptop.  anyways the straps were too tight and when i got to the car...i couldn't get it off!  lol. what a predicament.  i even contemplated knocking on my neighbour's door and asking them for help.  but finally after some wriggling and contorting i managed to loosen the straps and get it off.