I won't bore you all with the details, but suffice to say, it's work-related. That said, I cannot truly complain. Look at this view! These pics are to remind me that there are proverbial roses to stop and smell. Plenty of them.
I walked to the office from the ferry terminal yesterday morning, this time remembering to bring a water bottle. If I hadn't, I would've melted somewhere on the steep road leading up to the office, cos it was HOT -- dang hot! The iPod is a lifesaver, too, since it distracts me from the heat while I trudge up the hill... this time Jimi Hendrix's "Voodoo Child" in all its extended rock-out glory kept me company.
I nearly always take my camera with me everywhere I go, and there were clusters of daisies at the edge of somebody's driveway that begged to be captured on digi-image. But the direct heat was making them close up, and I felt a bit like a tresspasser, even though they were right beside the road and I was in full view of the house. Another time.
On the way back up the driveway to catch the ferry home, I had a nature moment, as the resident deer in this area seem unperturbed by human interlopers. This young buck didn't seem to mind having his picture taken. Aren't most "young bucks" this way? Rampant egos. :)
Speaking of Young Bucks... Back to Studs...
Last night I spoke to Erich, of Erich & Caroline's August Wedding, the wedding to which I was invited to bring a stud. Erich was following up on the wedding invitation, forgetting that the RSVP wasn't until August 7. So, I'm officially stalling.
"So, are you bringing a stud?" Erich asks, his voice expectant.
I hum and I haw. "Naw, I don't know of any to bring," I said, wracking my brain for friends or acquaintances of studly virtue.
"What about whathisname? The bodybuilder?" (For the record, he's not a bodybuilder, he's a guy with a corporate job that happens to love the gym.) Erich has been teasing me about this friend at every opportunity. One night in December I went out with Erich and his crowd to Elixir, the French bistro in the boutique Opus Hotel. This friend happened to be there that night, and when I mentioned to Erich that my friend was there, his inner prankster took hold and he followed my friend to the washroom and blurted out his name while they were next to each other at the urinals. Of course, my friend had no idea who Erich was, so you can imagine the reaction...
Erich was lucky he didn't get a lickin', put it that way. My friend has won bodybuilding competitions as an all-natural. But anyway, he's since moved to Toronto, so he's not a wedding standby unless I fly him out here. But that's not the point -- I don't want to make anyone feel like a wedding standby, or any kind of social event standby.
"There will be loads of single people at the wedding,"Erich said, rattling off names of people he knew who were single... AVAILABLE, as he puts it.
"Available! Makes it sound like we're talking about rental units!" I griped. Is that what humanity boils down to? Real estate? Argh! And the way Erich described some of his friends -- "Doug, yeah, he's single... and looking... so-and-so's single and looking, too..." -- brought to mind images of colonial-style hunting helmets and khakis.
"Erich, is this a wedding, or a safari?" I grumbled. "I can just see swarms of women clamoring over each other to grab Caroline's bouquet." I pointed Erich to my blog to show him that I have, indeed, taken this wedding thing seriously and am not just poking fun. I directed him to previous posts. "See? The stud thing went to tender, haha... actually, it went to a VOTE."
Erich seemed quite impressed with the comments. "Well, I bought a videocamera, so if you feel like taking some video..." -- ah, finally! Something sensible! I told him I would be perfectly happy taking photos of the guests or operating a videocamera, interviewing his drunken friends and making them tell embarrassing stories about him. "Plus," I said, "it would keep me from getting drunk from boredom and doing stupid things."
Actually, if I ever want to blackmail Erich, I've got plenty of embarrassing stories about him that I had best not start telling people in a drunken moment, so it's in his own best interests that I stay busy documenting the event, haha!
