Fireworks

Wednesday was the hottest day so far - according to the weather people, the heat wave would slowly abate after that (although I didn't feel appreciably cooler on Thursday). On Wed. I mostly loafed around conserving energy.

About 5 pm Jordan, Kerri, and the kids came by, and we sat in the basement to have a drink. Then we all piled in their van, and went down to Kits beach. We were very lucky to get a parking spot right in the park - a nice young man was leaving as we drove in AND gave us his parking tag, good until 2 am!

We walked up Yew Street checking out the restaurants, and settled on a fish place, only to find that our server was Shira, my nephew Morgan's partner! We had a delicious dinner and a beer, then went down to the beach and established our little spot with chairs, blankets, beach toys, and hot kids. All of us except Jordan went in the water, which was refreshing and not too cold.

The sunset was pink and impressive without gaudiness, although it seemed to take a long time to get dark. It was entertaining to watch people as the beach filled up with a fireworks crowd. I provided some entertainment myself, no doubt, as when I went to the women's washroom to pee and change from my bathing suit, I found I had forgotten my shorts and, rather than walk all the way back to the blanket and then have to wait in line again, I chose to walk back wearing my t-shirt and blue underpants. I told myself that since the underpants covered as much as my bathing suit bottom, it really didn't matter, but I did notice a few people looking at me oddly!

JR came on his motorcycle and used his cell phone to call and locate me, so he was in time for the fireworks, which came on as advertised, at 10 pm. The country was England, so the music Jords found on the radio started with God Save the Queen. The fireworks were exciting and fun. I have always loved them, and am incapable of being critical - they were bright, and colourful, and big and star-shaped and saucer-shaped, and so on....I just enjoyed them all, and have no idea how they rated against the previous 2 fireworks displays.

Of course it took us quite a while to get through the traffic and home (JR made better time on his motorcycle, and was there to help us unload the folding chairs), but it was still worth it. For me, it meant that I got to see the fireworks with such ease, with the kids, so it was great. Otherwise, with JR's lukewarm attitude to them, and the inconvenience of the traffic, we would not have gone.

Dancing naked

Today I read a book called 'Dancing Naked at the Edge of Dawn'. It is one of the best books I have ever read. I found the story fascinating - one of those 'I-couldn't-put-it-down' books - and very well written. I really did not know what was going to happen, and because of the level of the prose, enjoyed the journey of finding out.

Most importantly, it spoke to me in a personal, direct way that few books do, as much as I enjoy reading them. All through the narrative there were times when I had a gasp of recognition, a sense of familiarity with the heroine's thoughts and actions that was so comforting yet very revealing to me.

The story is, simply, of a woman whose husband cheats on her, and what she does with her life from that point on. The description of how she feels when her whole world shifts is so real, and her painful, step-by-step recovery is so sympathetically drawn, as are the female friends who support her.

It is a wonderful rallying cry for women to be strong and independent, a message that I think we need constant reminding about, or at least some of us do....

I was only a few pages into the book when I was planning to buy it for all my women friends and relatives for Christmas, an indication of my opinion of the book, although not perhaps a very practical one.

And part of the attraction is that one of the locations for her story is in Mexico, in the Mayan Peninsula, an area that I love deeply. The woman, Meg, ends up with a house in Mexico, on the water, and of course that is one of my deepest-held dreams, to be on the water in Mexico.....

The book is 'Dancing Naked at the Edge of Dawn' and the author is Kris Radish.

From the bestselling author of The Elegant Gathering of White Snows comes a poignant, outrageous, refreshingly liberating story about one woman whose life takes an unexpected turn…

Meg Fratano has just witnessed the unthinkable: her husband of twenty-seven years making love to another woman. In her bed. And all Meg wanted to do was watch. Quietly, secretly, watch. Then she realized her life would never be the same.

Meg isn’t sure what she wants, but she knows it’s not what she had. After almost three decades of marriage and two children, she has finally awakened to how unhappy she is.

Now, with the help of friends old and new, and even her teenage daughter—a former brat who has blossomed into a startlingly wise young woman—Meg just might break through the chains of everyone’s expectations for her and find the strength to take the first step on her own path. To strip away a lifetime of inhibitions. To dance naked at the edge of dawn…

Don't sweat the small stuff

The usual response to 'Don't sweat the small stuff' is 'It's all small stuff' but I have a new one: 'Can't stop sweating'!

I am not bearing up well in this humid heat. I have waves of sweat dampening my clothes and making me feel in turns heavy-headed and faint. I am crabby and tired and feeling rather desperate because I am so hot.

We came back from a movie to a very hot house, much hotter than outdoors at 9:35 p.m. JR and I ended up disagreeing because he has the fans blowing out the windows, whereas I like them blowing on me to dry the moisture on my skin (I got tired of saying 'sweat'.) While I have no doubt it's useful to have the fans blowing outside, I really suffer without the fan's drying properties on my wet self.....We both came down here to the basement, and I was seriously considering sleeping down here, but now that I've sat here 10 minutes, I am liquid again so I guess this is no improvement.

Ironically, we decided to go to a movie because movie theatres are air-conditioned, and ended up at the Dunbar only to discover that it had air-conditioning only in the lobby. Half-way through Harry Potter, which is over 2 hours long, I was bathed in sweat and feeling itchy again.

The movie itself was great fun....Focused a lot on the boy-girl aspect of things, since the main characters are all now 16 or 17 years old, but there were lots of magic tricks and wand-wavings too, and of course, this is the one where Dumbledore gets killed right at the end....The last book in the series will be 2 movies, as it is so long and covers so much. When all of the Harry Potter movies are out, I think it would be fun to buy the dvd set.

Spent some time today organizing things for my trip to the Island, reading the list sent by the kayak tour people and making a pile of things in my office to be packed. It is extremely difficult to be thinking about wet gear and things to keep me warm in the campsite at night, when I am fainting from 29 degrees of heat - I have to keep reminding myself that the weather could change between now and Saturday, when we actually embark on the kayak weekend!

Talked to Elsa and arranged to pick her up at McDonald's in Ladner, so we can load her stuff into my car easily, and then hit the ferry. I made reservations for both ways, even though Duke Point is not usually that busy, as it means one less thing to worry about on the trip. I am looking forward to this adventure, and it is very neat that Nikki is coming too - I think it's the first time she's done something like this, although she is an experienced kayaker.

I told Elsa that I haven't yet used my new kayak, and that I was hoping she would go kayaking with me in August. I have yet to carry my kayak by myself or attach it to my car; I have been waiting for JR's help. But Sunday is his only day off, and the last 3 Sundays were spent with him looking at houses with Mits and Pete, and then helping Jordan and Kerri with their flooring - there has been no time to help me play with my new toy.

Most of today I spent reading. I started a new book last night, and then read all of it today. It was an amazing book, one of the best I have ever read. I am still absorbing it, and very, very sorry it is finished....

Hot enough to melt chocolate

Today was a scorcher. I can take fairly hot weather, but when humidity is part of the mix, I start to lose it. There are people who love the heat, and seem always to be cool even in the face of high humidity, and then there are those like me: liquid and uncomfortable and looking frazzled.

The only way I can cope with the 29 degrees in the house (and whatever the humidity is) is to have a fan blowing directly on me. Right now I am sitting in the living room with the front door open and the fan blowing straight at me, grateful that I don't have to share it with anyone - I mean, really, the oscillating mode means the fan moves away from me for 5 seconds and right now, it's all about me!!

Ironically, it is cool at work, where I'm not. I talked today to someone from the office, and she was mentioning that it was fine there, thanks to the air conditioning. But I am still grateful to be on hols, heat wave and all.

Mits and Pete were here for dinner. I cooked the potatoes for the salad in the morning, made a green salad, and let JR do the barbie. I wasn't up for any other cooking. After we had been visiting in the living room for a while, with the fan keeping us slightly less than boiling, I decided that we could have some chocolate truffles as a treat. I searched them out in the cupboard and was opening the new bag when I realized that I could squeeze it, which definitely wasn't right. Sure enough, when I opened the bag I discovered that the individual truffles, which are little individual mounds about half an inch in size, had all melded together! When I tried to take one out of the bag, my fingers met in the middle - it was like trying to eat cream cheese with your fingers ;-).

So I have come to the conclusion that a heat wave is good for the diet, if not for the exercise program: the only food one feels like eating is salads, and the most appreciated drink is water!!

The mind-body connection

Exploring spirituality and the inner self has been of interest to me for the last several years, although I didn't really do anything until I took a meditation class in the fall two years ago. I enjoyed it very much, and for over a year had a 6-day-a-week meditation practice, starting each day with a 30 minute session. But this year, especially when I was going to boot camp at 6:30 a.m., I let the practice fade away. Now I am exposed to meditation again, at least in small bits, through yoga class, and I am considering starting up a practice again. Not sure how, though, because I am challenged enough just getting up in time to go to yoga (and work, when I have to ;-).

After my breakfast this morning, I went shopping at Costco, and bought myself several books, including one on the Buddhist philosophy by the Dalai Lama - a person I admire very much. I haven't started reading it yet, as I am re-reading parts of an excellent book by Dr. Gabor Mate called 'When the Body Says No'. It is fascinating! It is about the mind-body connection and how people with serious diseases like cancer and multiple sclerosis, etc. have in common chronic stress - whether acknowledged or unrecognized.

I have read the whole book, but now I am reading parts again and highlighting them. Mate is talking about pyschoneuroimmunoendocrinology - the mind-body connection - I first read about in Candace Pert's book 'Molecules of Emotion', which Mate quotes from. There is a lot of science now to prove that illness and disease occur at multiple levels in our bodies and that they relate to emotions, even at the cellular level.

Dr. Mate's theme is that serious diseases like cancer are related to suppressed anger and other strong but unarticulated emotions. Most of the examples in the book are anecdotes from his medical practice, but he describes a lot of research backing up what he says. Psychological tests administered to people waiting for results of cancer tests accurately identified the people whose medical tests would, after the fact, come back positive for cancer. Their personalities as defined in the psychological tests showed them to be suffering from chronic, long-term stress.

I have read the book thinking of the people I know who have, or have died from, cancer....and it all fits. The last chapter gives qualities to cultivate to avoid becoming ill.... I totally recommend the book!

Happy House News!

We just got a phone call from Mits saying that she and Pete have had their offer on the cute house in Burnaby accepted! They are, of course, very excited....Mits is sure she will feel terrified later, but right now, they're ecstatic!

The house is one block into Burnaby, i.e. a block east of Boundary. It's too bad it doesn't have a Vancouver address, but it seems to be good value otherwise. We saw it yesterday with the kids, and it was beautifully done up on the main floor. The basement is a shared laundry area, and then a suite that they can rent to a student, and it is nicely finished. But upstairs the owners have taken great pains to make the most of a very small top floor. The front door enters directly into the living-dining room from a high outside staircase and open landing. The living rm to the left of the front door is very small, with room for a couch and a chair and a tv - but what more do they need? The dining room, to the right, was open and bright, and enhanced by a giant mirror that really made the whole area seem bigger. Plus there is a huge view looking south, as the house is on a hill.

The kitchen has been redone and is very modern, with an island in the middle where guests can sit. There is a small bedroom off the kitchen, then the master bedroom, complete with sliding door to a ground-level deck, is behind the kitchen. The bathroom is tucked around behind the spare bedroom, by the back door. You have to go out the back door and around to get to the basement and the laundry, but that is not too much of an impediment. There is a nice back yard with a giant cherry tree, and an old but serviceable garage and a lovely clump of trees for privacy at the back.

So Mits and Pete are very happy, and I am happy for them - such excitement! They will have the house inspected and then the deal will go through, and they will move at the end of August.

I am very happy for them!

Sunday together

Sunday is so important to me, because it's the only day JR and I have together. That doesn't mean that we don't do things separately if that's how it works out, but Sunday is our day.

We had an excellent one, in spite of the fact that Angus and Natalie and Andre are in TO so unavailable (we do enjoy our breakfasts of blinis and Scrabble, and we look forward to when they are back from visiting family.) After a very leisurely morning, we rode on our motorcycles out to White Rock and visited Jordan and Kerri at their new townhouse. They have bought in Alderwood, in White Rock, and are uber thrilled with their new home.

They have a townhouse with a spacious main floor, a completely finished basement, and an upstairs that has 3 bedrooms, already painted. Kerri's parents were there, helping with the taping and painting and removal of nasty carpeting upstairs. In the main floor there was already laminate; they are planning on putting laminate in the upstairs too (Jordan has already ripped out the carpet). I am going next weekend to help with the laying of the laminate; we are all prepared to follow Liam's instructions, as he laid a laminate floor when he bought his apartment on Howe Street some years ago.

It was so much fun having the 'tour' of the place and listening to what they are planning. The layout is super - the kids can play downstairs, plus Jordan will have an office/studio there; the main floor has lots of room for dining and living room plus the kitchen is super, with new appliances and a nook for the 'family computer'.

And the upstairs, they had already painted Julian's room a very neat green (to be accented by red and black, Jules' colour of choice) and Mackenzie's room in pink.

For me, the neatest thing of all was that Jordan several times likened the layout and the style of the townhouse to the one we lived in all the time the kids were in school, in White Rock. From what he was saying, he had fond memories of our home then - he considered it a good thing that his new house was similar to our old one - and I was so happy that he remembered the old one fondly. It was the home we had when Mike and I separated, and I was a single, money-strapped, edgy mum.

We spent about an hour looking at their new home, listening to their plans, and just visiting. I am very happy for them! And I'll be back next weekend to help....

Then we got on our bikes and rode to Boundary Road, in East Van/Burnaby, grabbed an undelicious snack at McDonald's, and then met Mits and Pete (and Aiko and Jenn) at the house that the kids are looking at. Very cute house, very nicely detailed so that you had to look closely to see the flaws, but John is very good at that and highlighted a few things for them to consider. All in all, a sweet house and I could see them getting a real kick out of it. But - oh my goodness! The kids had several stories of houses sold in the last week where people paid waaay beyond the asking price just to secure the house. This is a scary trend, going back to a year ago, and makes it so much a seller's market!

We finished off at Safeway buying a few grocs, then grabbed a snack at the house and went downtown to see 'Up' - another PIXAR movie that was very enjoyable.

You can't go back, but you can see the photos

Just finished reviewing all the photos on Facebook in Gwen's space. She was my mother-in-law for 14 years, and died in May. My ex, Michael, has posted a series of photos of Gwen and her family, organized into decades beginning with the 40's. Most of the old ones I had never seen, as they were the property of Gwen and Bob, but the 70's and 80's had some with me in them - Seventies clothes and all - that were familiar scenes but which I had never seen.

It's quite weird to go back in time like that. Bittersweet, really, because the pictures are of a marriage gone - Mike and I split in the 80's. And yet, there is so much shared history, plus the kids, plus the parents....It is sad that things don't work out some times.

My latest new project

I have a new project - another blog. I decided to create a blog that would deal with one topic only - my efforts to reconstruct myself by increasing fitness and reducing weight.

I got the idea a month or so ago to spend my holiday 'staycation' doing all the things that I talk about doing but never quite get around to, or I start, but I don't follow through. I have 3 weeks, and I think that is enough time to get some new habits start to feel like old habits. Because this is a staycation, I am not running off to a fat farm or a 2-week retreat in the Sierras (although it would be nice), I am doing things at home. But that just makes sense, anyway, because my intention is to start something that I can continue once I am back at work.

Today I am in that wonderful space of all-my-holidays-are-in-front-of-me, so I feel confident and empowered. I got off to a pretty good start, even cleaning my office so I wouldn't feel cluttered. I have planned an approach, rather than creating a rigid schedule, although I have some things scheduled too: on the August 1st weekend I am going kayaking with Elsa, and on the following weekend I am doing a 2-day yoga retreat on Galiano. I chose to do this because I want to set my intention for continuing yoga once my holidays are over, and I think the retreat will do that while also nurturing my spiritual side.

The blog, BeeFreeThree, is to help me be accountable. I want to document how I do, so that I can reward my successes and, perhaps, understand my failures. Going public, at least in theory (I don't have any readers ;-) expands the accountability. Plus I need practice writing, and I might get an article out of this. I am very interested in exploring issues of health and fitness and diet for women over 60 years of age, and this is a highly personal, and certainly meaningful to me, way of doing that.

I am looking forward to the journey!