Summertime

It’s summer.  I feel like a hen on the ‘Boneless Chicken Ranch’.  The little structure I had in my life has been removed.  Now I must make my own strings and pull them if I’m going to get up in the morning.  This is not a complaint, merely an observation.  In fact it’s a luxury being able to lie in bed and toy with the idea of never getting up.  But it’s perverse the way the mind works against the body’s best interests.  I have a walk in the neighborhood that I have taken many times and love.  I go quickly up 39^th Ave. to the top and down around along a country road where the crowing of roosters reminds me of Mexico.  I do stretches in the shade of a tree and amble back down 30^th Ave. looking at gardens.  Today when I got home from that walk, I drove to Bella Vista Orchard and bought some perfectly ripe peaches.  I ate one with granola for breakfast.  It was so luscious it almost burst of its own volition out of its thin peachy skin.  And yet when I wakened at about seven, I didn’t leap up eager to go.  My mind pushed hard against all the pleasant memories of that walk and tried to convince me to roll over, curl up in a new position and sleep.  It almost succeeded. 

Jessica, my new Korean friend, and I have decided not to meet again until September.  My student at Immigrant Services is going to continue to work towards a separation from her husband.  Her daughter came with her to class yesterday. I introduced them to the social worker who will help with the divorce proceedings by putting her in touch with lawyers, etc.  We decided not to have any more English classes until September.  So I’m a bike, a hike and 7 sleeps away from summer holidays in the east.  Life’s mostly a holiday now, so I should probably say, ‘changing the venue of the summer holidays.’ 

I’m looking forward to hearing about Jay’s holiday on Jeju Island.  He phoned from there one glorious morning, but I wasn’t in to hear the details.  Next week at this time I’ll be driving to Kelowna to spend the afternoon and have dinner with Bert and Peg and Rob and Joanna.  Bert will drive me to the airport, and I’ll catch the 8:30pm flight to Calgary.

I bought the ticket with Air Miles.  It’s a red-eye, arriving in London, Ontario at about 6:30am, 3:30am Vernon time.  That’s 7:30pm Incheon time. 

View from the top of Dewdrop Mountain, looking back at Kamloops and the still swollen Thompson River.  The haze is from fires in the Kelowna area, not Russia and Colorado this time.

Heading back down

A Mariposa Lily, the first I've seen and a rather rare flower in this area.