Red Cedar

no to walmart and yes to same-sex marriage. huh, how long before the us starts bombing canada?

seriously though, these two news items were good to wake up to this morning, like maybe it is possible for things to change in a positive direction rather than always spiralling negatively towards war and the human/nature destroying path we seem hell-bent on. even just to be a little bit freer seems an enormous leap in contrast to what is going on elsewhere in the world… but of course, it is never enough and real change moves along slower than a banana slug in the late spring sun.

i accidentally ended up working from home today due to a mistake at the autobody shop where i took my car to be fixed. they had told me it would be ready to pick up at 8 and i was planning on hopping the 8:30 ferry, but when i got there they still needed to clean it up and told me to come back in 1/2 hour… so i made the executive decision to skip my morning meeting and work from home instead (there really wasn’t much of a choice at that point). it’s been good so far, the meeting i skipped would have been a waste of time, and instead i’ve gotten caught up on some emails, and edited some web graphics that have been needing my attention for awhile. generally when i work from home, i end up answering all the email that just sits there the rest of the time because i have this unbroken time to think through the answers i have to give. it’s nice for a change to get up at a reasonable hour (6:30 as opposed to 5:15) and feel like i’ve gotten a decent sleep and a relaxed environment to work in… in a little while i will walk to the post box and see if the new lenses i ordered for my digital camera have arrived yet….

this sucks…. as much as i enjoy comments and trackbacks from friends (and strangers) i am going to have to turn commenting and trackbacks off on my blog for the timebeing. not only am i being spammed to death with the trackbacks currently, but the spammers trackbacks are seriously fucking with my stats and that drives me crazy. anyhow, i’m going to shut down all interactivity until they go away and leave me alone – in the meantime, please email me your comments (those of you who know me, have the email address) and i will post them if you have something to say on one of my posts.

sorry about this, but you know these capitalist bastards always out to ruin everything.

after the weekend-breather, i am feeling a lot more unpressurized than i was at the end of last week. the knot in my shoulder is gone, the vague headachey feeling seems to have receded, and the world does not seem nearly such a threatening place today. i managed a nice balance of social time, alone time, and household chore time over the weekend to feel not only a bit fresher, but also ready for the days of commuting and working to come. i can’t remember the last time i felt quite this solid, probably it was before i moved because since then it has been non-stop travelling, visitors and other stuff.

so yes, this weekend i:

• attended a houseparty at my friend david’s on friday night;
• stayed home playing my guitar, talking to a friend online, sewing, reading and watching episodes of six feet under on my computer on saturday; and
• went on a group hike up around a proposed cut-block at the end of crow lake road on sunday before returning to david’s for chai on my way home.

i did take a bunch of pictures on the hike, but then forgot to unload them from the camera to share today. i am hoping i have a couple nice macro-shots in there, and am thinking of starting a new gallery of forest-shots on my online gallery as each forest trip usually produces one or two nice images.

the cool thing about the group hike was that is was lead by rick o’neil who is a local nature photographer and he does these hikes once a month on sundays to introduce people to their landbase as well as talk about what the corporations have planned. i have been meaning to go on his mycological walks since i came to the coast, and now i have met him (at david’s party on friday which is how i knew about sunday’s walk), i will definitely join in on the fall mushroom walks. he is a wealth of information about the area, and takes beautiful photographs as well.

so yes, the next two weekends are similiarly non-booked for me, i may go on another group or solo hike this weekend once i get my car out of the body-shop and before i take it to a mechanic for a pre-roadtrip tuneup, and then i will be leaving for bella coola on the 15th with meg o.

our plan is to drive there and ferry back, so this morning i put in my submission to reserve our ticket home from bella coola to ocean falls (stopping at ports in between along the way). i have heard that ferry route is beautiful and i believe it, knowing a little bit about the breathtakingness of the northern end of the island and the broughten archipelago. so yes, only three weeks until holidays and some major stress out of the way. phew…..