Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
comments and stuff
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.
recharge
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…..
faltering
i know – i haven’t been posting much this week… it’s largely due to stress, but i am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and come this weekend should be pretty much smooth sailing for awhile. this doesn’t mean i don’t have lots to do (including preparations for my upcoming holiday to bella coola), but the really stressful stuff is quickly moving behind me (and i think the knot in my right shoulder has started to unwind a bit – it’s not nearly so movement constricting as it has been the past two days).
pictures from my housewarming party are online at the red cedar gallery under the tricklehouse warming album. check em out and i’ll hopefully post more tomorrow…. or on the weekend at the very least.
official summer
i’m having trouble focusing today, a bit tired after a few days of total exhaustion (some combination of too many weekends away, stress and a low-level cold i think) – which is making it difficult to string together enough words to make enough sentences for a blog post. but i will make a valiant effort as it has been 4 days since i last posted and that is quite simply not acceptable.
this weekend was my housewarming party, for which i have posted photos under the gallery tricklehouse warming on my photo site. i haven’t quite got around to labelling them yet, but they are almost all of the children who attended, so enamoured was i of having so many little people in my home for the weekend. overall, it was a fine party – about 20 people showed up from the city and the coast, and there was much feasting and drinking to welcome the new home into my life. i am really very grateful for the amazingness of the people in my world – there were all sorts of really cool folks at my house – and they all seemed to get along and have a good time. no weirdness – hallelujiah!
other than that, i took my car around to icbc and the auto-body shop yesterday and am now awaiting parts to get my vehicle fixed. at icbc, the estimator talked about writing it off – to which i reacted with horror – though in the end he agreed that my car (with its low mileage) probably has a lot of life left in it and so worked to estimate it at a cost they would cover.
on my way up to deal with icbc, i picked up a hitch-hiker on his way to sechelt, who told me the story of his horrendous industrial accident (forest industry) that had left him with half a hand and unable to work. by the time we got to town, he was crying and profusely thanking me for listening to his story – i got the sense that i often do when talking to people dealing with significant health/disability issues – that no one really listens to you once you lose the privilege of the able-bodied. fuck.
then, since i had 30 minutes to spare (i was early for the icbc appointment) i drove to porpoise bay to think about my hitch-hiker encounter and found a shady place by the sea to watch a flock of canada geese and their young-uns swimming out in the inlet. i realized that i have not been in the forest for many weeks, and right there committed to spending as much time as possible on the sunshine coast this summer. no more trips to vancouver island until the fall, no more weekends in the city… this summer is about swimming in the chapman creek pools and hiking the heather trails as much as is possible. of course, planned travels are still going ahead, but i have realized the need to nip the burn-out weekends in the bud before they become an out of control weed binding me up in travel that is not restorative.
i have another pseudo-date this evening with a guy who i met once a couple of years ago through another friend. he “chatted” me on the georgia straight dating site, and i immediately remembered him from going to dinner on the drive. i am not sure why i arranged this meeting other than as a distraction from a rather stressful appointment tomorrow morning. i don’t even know that this is a date, as we have pretty much just agreed to drink a six-pack on his porch – but seems like a fine way to kick off the official start of summer and make a fun re-acquaintance. i’m staying in town tonight at margot’s which will be the only night this week that i am crashing in the city… phew for that! i am really feeling the need for some home-time these days.
Red Cedar 