Visitor # 100 surfed in today.
I've not been here much lately because I've:
A. been for the occasional bike ride
B. been at the beach
C. been to Kelowna with Mom. She had to have a cancer removed from her cheek. We thought "consultation with the plastic surgeon" meant we'd get to talk to him. After he'd been in the room a few minutes, Mom asked him if the procedure would be conducted under a general or a local anaesthetic. "Local," he said, turning around with a very large, very full syringe in his hand. I was out of there so fast!
In this picture, she's waiting to see the plastic surgeon.
And here's a picture of Mom with her compact, 3 hours post-op. She's seeing the oncologist. Guardedly good, I'd say, for a prognosis. (Okay, in fairness, she was NOT about to put on any powder; she just wanted to see if she looked as bad as she felt!)
PS Two weeks later, you can hardly tell anything was done!
D. enjoyed lots of company, often with barbecues and the occasional beer, or equivalent poison. It's summer, and it's the Kootenays!
For part of their honeymoon, my cousin Fred brought his new bride, Joanne, to one of his favourite places on the planet: the Kootenays. Everyone here loves Joanne, especially Fred. They're commuting between Nanaimo and Comox at the moment.
E. been helping out with the committee working on our 40th high school reunion (LV Rogers, Nelson, BC), coming up this weekend!
F. been making a guest book and another wee surprise book for Bronwyn & Gareth's wedding, also this weekend, but in Kelowna. They've asked me to read one of my poems at the reception, and I've put the poem into a wee book for them, but don't tell, it's supposed to be a surprise! I'll post more pictures of it after the event. This reading of one of my poems does help take the sting out of having to miss the Saturday dinner/dance and the Sunday morning pancake breakfast that the reunion offers. But I'll get to the wine and cheese on Friday night, plus a few of us are getting together for a—what else?—barbecue at a place two of the incoming rented on Lower Six Mile Road on Thursday.
Gareth is the most amazing cartoonist. Really. Check out his website. Hunt down the Perogy Cat. Go to the store, Legends Comics, 633 Johnson Street in Victoria. Read Magic Teeth Dailies. Pay attention.
And Bronwyn? Well, I've known her since 1983, when Jesse and I met her for the first time. Here's a picture of that auspicious occasion: Jesse, a few weeks shy of 2, regards Bronwyn who is, well, slightly older. Okay, about a year and a half older. She's my cousin Jim's daughter which makes us related somehow, but I can never remember how the first-cousin-once-removed vs second-cousin thing works. So I just call her my friend.
This is summer, so far, and it only became August today.
POETRY NEWS
Oh yeah! August. That reminds me, I'm doing the 3:15 Experiment (link at left, I haven't yet figured out how to insert into the body text) again: 1 down, 30 to go.
And I sent out poems to two different contests yesterday. I now have three modest manuscripts out there in the world of poets. I think it's because general submissions to lit mags don't normally have deadlines that I don't submit more. If there's no deadline, there's always time. If there's no deadline, I can make the piece better. But there is no way of knowing if, in fact, it IS any better, after you've tweaked it for the 19th time. Take that poem I'm reading for Bronwyn and Gareth, for example. Wrote it, oh, maybe about 10 years ago, give or take. Have given it a bit of attention in that time. But even as I was laying it out on the pictures, for the mini-book, I was changing things! There's a whole new line with "revolt" in it. What kind of a love poem is that now, I ask you? Back to my deadline fixation, I can't seem to trick myself into thinking there is one. I just ignore me.
Here endeth the poetry text, this is Purple Mountain Poetry, after all, I know, I know, how terribly original. But the first time I realized the mountains sometimes look purple, I wrote a poem about it. I was about 15.
G. Did I mention Dudley's been sick? Off his food. Temperature. Weight loss: .8 kg, which is about a pound and 3/4, not inconsiderable when you're only 4.8 kg to begin with. Unsuccessful attempts to bring up...something. I'm sayin' it's a big, big fur ball, but will anyone in officialdom agree? Not while there's bloodwork to be done. $200.47 later we don't know what was wrong, only that something was, and he appears to be better now. In this picture he's allowing himself to be used as scale for the wee book. He expects to be paid scale, too. At least, I expect he does.
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