It's June 18 and still hot and dry in the Okanagan. This morning I was awake at 5:30. I knew I wouldn't get back to sleep so packed a breakfast, put the kayak in the car and drove to Swan Lake. That is I got a few blocks down 27th Street when I remembered that I had left the muffins in the toaster. As breakfast was supposed to be coffee and muffins, I had to turn around and get them. Then I sped down Highway 97, missing the turn for the Swan Lake launch spot. Another turn around and I was finally where I wanted to be. I was a bit clumsy inflating the kayak and beginning to think I should have rolled over and got a bit more sleep. But by 6:45 I was paddling through the tall reeds near the shore and happy to be where I was. Although old age sometimes mutes pleasure with undeniable little physical irritations, in this case a worry about where I would pee if I had to. But most of the time if I know there's no place I somehow don't have to. And that was the case this morning. I paddled to the north end of the lake through tall reeds and groups of geese and ducks and even three loons. A few herons stretched overhead and even the sound of the traffic on 97 didn't detract much from the experience of being out on the lake in the early morning. When I got to the place where the lake narrows and flows to a small dam, I drifted and had breakfast. A muskrat swam out of the reeds and in front of me before dipping under and out of sight. Some mother ducks quacked and splashed ahead in an effort to distract my attention from their broods, but the best at avoiding my view was a duckling who flattened itself among a mass of drifting bits of reed and didn't move until l was well past it. Then it took off flapping at quite a speed. 

It's Wednesday, June 19, 2019, and as I sit in the car at 10:05 after waiting 25 minutes for friends I thought I was supposed to meet for a bike ride at 9:40 but just discovered by phoning Miriam I was actually supposed to meet at 10:40, 

I want to put this in writing, "I am an ass."

If there's a wrong way of doing something, I'll do it. I've lived alone long enough now to admit that my mother and Jim were not exaggerating when the former called me 'wrong way Corrigan' or 'the captain of the awkward squad,' and the latter either laughed or flew into a rage when I made one of my blunders. However I remember making my dad laugh when I just shrugged once and said, "Sometimes you're lucky."  And maybe this time I am because it's pouring rain now and I'm warm and dry in the car waiting. Maybe the ride will be cancelled; although, people in the Okanagan don't know much about all day downpours, so I'm expecting not. 

And it wasn't. I'm home now after a great bike ride along the Rail Trail to O'Rourke's Peak Cellars in Lake Country. It rained buckets while we had lunch but only a bit as we rode home. Mary was the only one to get really soaked as we biked on a path close to a road and a truck revved through a puddle just as she was passing and drenched her. 

13 women who rode evokes to a winery

Riding home wearing rain gear

The new bell Priscilla gave me and Priscilla herself on the ride home