july 11, 2002.

Really fun night with the Avalanches last night. (They're not married, but they have been together for awhile. Maybe I should call her Little Miss Landslide, just to keep everything clear.) I always got the sense that I should be closer friends with Mr. Avalanche, but for some reason (or more likely, a series of tiny unimportant reasons) we never quite got it together. Tried a couple of months ago, but it never got off the ground. Yesterday came together thusly:

I was walking down Main Street, happy in a mindless sort of way, when I noticed that a local boutique was selling some of their stock on the street. I like this store, but it's always way too expensive to shop there...I'm just not in a 60-dollar-blouse income bracket, at least not yet. The chance to buy one at 25% off was more than I could withstand. Little Miss Avalanche works in this store, so when I came in to try it on she grabbed some pants for me (it's harder to judge a blouse when you're standing in it, 8-hole boots & underwear). As I bought the blouse (it's reversible!) we chatted. She expressed surprise that we were still in town and I wrote down our number. Later that afternoon I got a call from Mr. A, who apparently has been about as bored as I. A meeting was arranged after the Boy got home from work. And so it begun...

There's not a lot of specific things to say about the night. We ate pistachio nuts & drank green tea. We told stories and played percussion toys and laughed a lot. It was gorgeous & easy; it was Dirk's definition of stupid time, the kind of time that leads to friends rather than acquaintances. I'm really glad they agreed to have dinner with us on Friday.

It appears that the dishes will go undone another night, for we have another playdate this evening. This is so insane...

This afternoon I went down the hill for mail & garbage bags. I ended up buying grapes, pistachio nuts, corn, limes & mushrooms as well. On the way up the hill I stopped in at the Brown House for a few seconds off my feet. I first woke up Miri (uh oh!) with my entrance, & then we sat around eating & talking about girlie stuff. She made miso soup for the two of us and it was absolutely delicious and inspiring. Today I am a happy veggie girl.

Everytime I look at the cat, I drown in a wave of pity for the poor beast. In three days we tranquillize her, stuff her in a carrier and send her to live with the Boy's mother for the next month. She has been so very happy here, so calm and gentle, that it hurts me to think of her impending confusion. Since she can't know what's ahead, I'm suffering for her.

I had a really weird dream last night wherein I was standing around, smoking in front of a club much like the one in Montreal with Jesse (who was also a 16-year-old Mr. Shoreleave) and a number of other familiar faces. The thing was, they were all naked except for me, and I was trying very hard to remember the etiquette for standing around smoking with a herd of nude friends. I think I'd decided to ignore it when I woke up. Although I do remember that people wanted to hug me and I was a little put off by that. What to do when a naked friend hugs you? Will I ever find out? Do I want to?

Friday (part 1)

(from the road journal)

Day 2.

Very cold night. We hit the sack around 9:30, figuring that since we'd be working till 1 am tonight, we might as well sleep with the sun. We lay down the Boy's old holey sleeping bag & put the new bag on top to cover us. I wore pink -johns, socks, jeans, t-shirt & a black hoodie pulled up over my head. Even so, the cold woke me several times. We kept slipping down the slope in the night, bunching up @ the back of the tent. The forecast for this weekend said 14-22° every day. If that was 14° I'll eat the Boy's Tilley.

We woke up @ 8:30, but after a visit to the washroom (Boy) and a granola bar (me) we went right back to sleep. It was just too cold & damp to do otherwise. For awhile I wondered if I'd ever leave the sleeping bag. But eventually we got up, visited the flush toilets & went into town for hamburger buns. Everything is still fun. This is a totally different adventure from last time. We have no idea what Tenty will stand up to. But at least we're not sleeping in the van.

[Brief pause in the official narrative for three spirited games of Fluxx. As of this telling, we appear to be tied at a game each, as the Boy disputes my second victory. I told him that if he didn't stop calling me a cheater, he'd have to sleep in Mustang Scotty. He became much more polite after that.}

3:25

All hail Tenty! Our home is a frigging miracle of engineering skill. You would not believe how flimsy she seemed yesterday evening when we got to our cold, foggy, tilty site. This afternoon she's already withstood 2 short sharp rainbursts of terrifying intensity as well as a constant strong easterly wind that regularly threatens to flatten the western side against the floor. I love our Tent.