have you ever had one of those weekends where it felt like you did a lot and were really busy, but when you’re sitting around on monday morning thinking back on it all you realize you really ddn’t get much of anything accomplished? yeah, me too.
considering the way i was feeling on friday, i’m surprised i did anything but stay at home in my skiing polar bear pajamas watching episodes of men in trees all weekend. instead, i made myself get out and do stuff. i’m not sure if it helped, but at least i got some fresh air.
friday night, i met up with some vandigicammers after work for a walk around coal harbour and then lots and lots and lots of sushi at tanpopo. i still think the only thing which made me decide to go after the icky day i was having was how excited leah sounded on the phone when i called her to give her information on where to meet up with everyone. it was a good time. met a couple new members and got to talk to a few not-so-new members a little more.
oh, and we saw jimmy pattison get off his yacht with stedman, oprah winfrey’s beau, of all people. i hope the picture i took of them turns out.
saturday morning, i dragged my butt out of bed and took the car down to the mechanic. while waiting for my bus home, i took a wander around the lynn creek park area just down the street from the shop. i’d brought my holga along for world toy camera day and took a couple of shots. just as i was finishing up, an older man walked down the trail towards me. when he saw me with my camera, he stopped and made a comment about how it was very dark where i had been aiming and it seemed a strange place to take a photo. this got us talking and we ended up walking the entire way to the bus stop together, chatting about photography, his daughter, his 38-year career and how he lost an eye to a pencil when he was nine years old.
strange encounters with strangers would continue to be a theme for the rest of the weekend.
after getting home & finally getting some coffee injested and killing some time, i picked up the phone to call christopher. when he answered, he said he’d just pushed the button to call me. i love it when that happens, don’t you? later that day, the same thing would happen when i picked up the phone to call the mechanic and it rang while i was looking up the number.
my mechanics are so good to me. they spent about 45 minutes earlier in the week trying to jimmy the turn signal socket so that it would stop cutting out intermittantly and didn’t charge for it. when i took it in with a big list of things for them to do, i thought for sure i’d have a hugeass bill when i went to pick it up, but it turned out to be about $200 less than i had been bracing myself for. see? this is why you build loyalty with businesses, you absolutely get repaid.
later that afternoon, while at the raven pub in deep cove for lunch, we witnessed an example of why you shouldn’t let people with anger management issues drink alcohol. a trio of people sat in the booth next to us, bringing their food and drinks down from upstairs. the couple were cute: he would put a piece of pizza on a plate, cut a bite with his knife and fork and then feed it to his girlfriend. their friend would snatch a piece from the plate and stuff half of it in his face and then open-mouth chew it while trying to talk. then he’d take a drink from his glass, but mostly miss, leaving beverage trickling down his face. then he’d be real classy and wipe his mouth on the inside of his sleeve.
i tried very hard to not get caught looking at him. you could just tell he was a surly drunk and i had a sense there was the potential for violence. i envisioned a bad 80’s tv-movie scene in which he catches me looking at him, gets offended and then threatens me which would then cause christopher to have to defend both my honour and my pretty, white skin. that wouldn’t have ended very well, so i tried hard to be discrete. it didn’t take long, but he spilled his drink, whether accidentally or on purpose i couldn’t guess, but it pissed him off so much he threw his glass across the room and then got up and stomped out. his friends quickly got up, the girl following and the guy going to the bar to either settle up or apologize, i’d guess.
the rest of the day was really quiet compared to that, but sunday… sunday kept the theme alive.