From The Heart

Okay, so apparently, my last entry was cryptic and kinda misleading. I went back and re-read it, and it really is.

We had a good vacation.

We had a lot of fun with our friends from Victoria, who were kind enough to put us up in their houses and feed us DELICIOUS food.

I just, I just... I didn't want to make a big shopping list of all our activities, but I didn't know what else to write about it without going too far into detail about the personal lives of our friends. You guys hear personal details about my life here, because I choose to write and publish them. My friends didn't make that choice, and thusly deserve a measure of privacy, which is why I started using fake names when writing about our new friends here in Bridgetown. I still don't write very personal things about our friends here - for instance, if one of them had a set of "magic wishing nipples", would I blog about it? Well, apparently I might mention it, but you still don't know details and don't know who it is. We see or talk to our friends here almost every single day, but I'd say you guys have heard about less than ten percent of the interesting things that happen with them. In fact, there are a few people who we socialize with quite often who've never even been mentioned here. They didn't choose to have their lives published on the internet, so I try to keep a big privacy barrier there. There have been some pretty controversial things that have happened with our friends and family, but it wouldn't be nice for me to go writing about all the sensitive things going on in other peoples' lives here, so I don't.


I guess I screwed this thing up concerning our trip though. It was such a strange mix of emotions, going back to visit a place that we had loved living in, because we'd decided with a good deal of finality and surety that we didn't want to live there any more. This vacation was kind of handed to us by Mark's work, and before we knew it someone else had made the decision that we would be visiting Victoria again for the first time since we'd moved away.

When Mark told me that his work wanted to fly us out there, I was instantly stressed out. (You guys know how I get.) We didn't have a lot of notice, and there were contractors working on our house, racing the clock to get siding on before the weather turned too wintery. How would we deal with that if we were not here? As it was, we had to hand someone else an envelope with thousands of dollars in cash in it, and ask them to please inspect the new siding and give the money to the contractors when they were done (thank you Nay and Jay). Also, the sheer number of cats and dogs that now inhabit the house makes travelling more difficult. Minerva the kitten is finally weaned and big enough to manage by herself most of the time, but she's not big enough to be unsupervised in the house for nine days. Chani was kind enough to babysit her for us. Then there's the weather around these parts. As you already know, we ended up leaving for our trip by driving to the airport in a snow storm.

I am happy that Mark's work paid for us to go out to the west coast. It was nice of them to do and we had a lot of fun, but by dictating our travel details they took some of the control away from us, and that made travelling just a bit weird. I'm not used to 'business trips'.

Thus, it was a lot harder for me to write about than I thought it would be. When we were in Tofino, I just blathered on about the beaches and the weather and such. I went to write about the days we spent in Victoria with our friends and I. Couldn't. Do. It.


Victoria, we broke up with you. You're a nice city - it wasn't your fault. It was strange going out with you again last week. Yes, Nova Scotia treats us well. We're sorry you got custody of our friends, Victoria. Now, when we want to see them, there you are too, and it's a bit awkward. We miss them, Victoria. Be good to them.


So thank you Megan. You took time out of your hectic life to host us, and you don't have a spare bedroom so you gave up your living room so we could camp out at your house. You put up with me getting sick and being a zombie, and didn't even make fun of me too much for it. We like your new boyfriend and hope that all the huge plans you have for the next couple of years work out for you. You deserve it.


Thank you Kristina. You went with me to my favourite sushi dive, and mourned with me when I found out that the sunomono lady was no longer working there. You even became a spy and told me where she works now. You drove around downtown with me, and you hate driving as much as I do. You are cool.


Thank you Jeff. (Where's my magic trick??!) You are Mark's secret non-biological twin. You two think all the same insanely obscure thoughts, and like all the same insanely strange jokes. The one thing I hate about not living in Victoria is that we don't get to see you so often any more, and we've been apart so long that you think it might be possible that we don't have fun when we're with you.

We did.

I should have said so even if I didn't know how to say it. We hope you had fun too!