not negative fifty
RAAAARRRRRRR that is the sound of my smashing down a wall, Kool-Aid Man style, in order to type up this word salad/neurotic garbage heap for you. (Yes, you!) The metaphorical wall was constructed of some stupid notion that conditions must be “perfect” in order for me to type any public-consumption journal entries. I don’t even know what that sort of “perfect” looked like, really. There may have been a cup of tea involved, the perfect mood (not too grumpy, not too cheerful), and a free afternoon. You know, all the things that never ever happen.
I went to Vancouver (the Canada version) for work, and you would think that a solo business trip would have resulted in several journal entries. However, the weather was so beautiful and the scenery so ridiculously lush that I spent most of my non-conference-session attending time recovering from the humanity hangover by walking walking walking walking. Incredibly long solo walks around the seawall and through Stanley Park, getting the Fitbit all excited that 30,000 steps/day is our new normal (it is not). This bit of Vancouver is perfection, and exactly how I like nature to be (read: tamed). I like my leafy primeval forests laced with sensible paved walking paths. I like my beaches to be viewed from a similar paved vantage point. I like benches every few hundred yards and reasonably clean public restrooms.
I kept thinking, in the manner of a cat with a newspaper, “I should be a retired multimillionaire in Vancouver someday.” I have a definite fantasy of an empty-nest waterview condominium from which LT and I go on daily bird-watching strolls, hand in old wrinkled hand, before the happy hour dinner special and half-price craft beers. Just have to work on the multimillionaire part.
Vancouver also has dispensaries, which come in handy no matter what your age or multimillionaire status. A friend and I visited one and became “members.” I couldn’t help but find it amusing that I filled out my membership application with a dry-erase marker on a laminated sheet. It’s almost as if the dispensary is not going to store any of my information on file! How odd! I am too old to smoke things anymore, so I bought a few three-dollar THC capsules which worked very nicely. On one of those occasions I walked a million seawall miles and did not feel like going back out for food, so I ordered a sandwich and a glass of wine from room service, and when the dude showed up he said, “Hello madam, room service” and then asked “May I enter the room?” and yeah, of course you can bro, I’m high as fuck and you have french fries! But then after I said yes I instantly worried that he was a vampire (you have to invite them in). (He wasn’t a vampire. Because that’s NOT A THING, you crazy stoned lady.)
I am glad to be home. This week is going to be a breakneck disaster, with multiple meetings to prepare for and phone calls (ACTUAL PHONE CALLS! AAAAIIIEEEEEE!) to make, so I am relishing this last day home with the cats. Nora is going through a (probably normal) teenage thing where she does not much want to be hugged or snuggled, so I stagger through the house like a Victorian ghost searching for things to cuddle, and the cats usually put up with it. I’m like a sad baby monkey on a wire mother. (N does still want foot or back rubs, so I guess that’s something.) (Sob.)
—mimi smartypants has great expectations.