Trixie Whirlwind

She's come and she's gone and, as cheesy as it sounds, the house seems quieter and smaller and lonelier. Diana's on a massive cleaning spree which helps but I miss her already. It felt so right having her here with me and I wish we could have kept her.

For those of you out of the loop, my bestest buddy Alyssa from Wildfire came out to visit for a week, starting last Wednesday and ending today. It was busy and chaotic and crazy and so much fun. A recap, as much for me as for anyone else. Pictures to follow...

Wednesday: Diana and I picked Alyssa up from the airport. Much crying, much hugging. All sorts of happiness. We stopped by Bioware to visit Marc on the way home and Future Shop to buy a cable for the DVD player, lovingly donated to us by my favourite Rabbit. After much sitting around catching up, and a nap, we had dinner (that's right, I cooked!) took the bus to Whyte and saw a wierd movie called 'Free Zone.' Ice cream, walked home and to sleep.

Thursday: Alyssa and I tried to take the bus to Star & Eric's - we failed. Stupid Millwoods. After being rescued, we hung out with the babies for a while and then took Aria and Kessie to a movie. We didn't actually care what we saw, we just wanted to be in the air-conditioned building. It was blessedly cool. We ended up seeing 'Take the Lead' with Antonio Banderas and it made me want to dance again. Sigh. Thursday night was geeks at Jekyll's and then home to sleep.

Friday: Shopping with Myrna and Davyd and wandering the Ave, though that was cut kind of short by massive amounts of pain in my knee. Home again, home again for lounging, reading, etc. And then a piratical adventure in costume to City Center to see the new Pirates of the Carribean. Dressing up is fun. Dressing up your friends is more fun :)

Saturday: Knights of the Northern Realm tournament and feast - see previous comments about playing dress-up. Due to unforseen breakups, the dress I was planning on wearing was no longer available, so I ended up borrowing my mother's wedding dress. Wierd but very very pretty. It was so bloody hot that I wonder how people survived wearing that kind of clothing all the time. But other than sunburns it was good fun and it was neat to watch the knights bashing eachother with swords and falling off the quintain jousting horse. Oh, and one of the knights looked like Mr. Tumnus with lovely long hair. He was very pretty but it turns out I know his mother so that was wierd. The feast in the evening was awkward and hard but fun too. I got to dance and to teach medieval dances which was really nice and it was cool to see all the pretty costumes. Feeling like I had to watch out for my sister was wierd though that one's my fault alone. I can't help but worry about her. And I got a lot of less than positive responses as the ex of the Knight. But I'm glad I went, truly. I think I would have regretted it a lot more if I had chickened out.

Sunday: SLEEP!! Alyssa and I slept way in and finally dragged ourselves out of bed to go help kidnap Mike L for his birthday and take him to the Waterpark. Unfortunatly, Alyssa didn't mention that she didn't like waterslides until we were there, but she and I still had a blast in the kiddie pool. Cake followed with Mike's family where, in a Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon way, his mother and I know a lot of the same people. The world is too small sometimes. We went out for a late dinner with Marc and Diana afterwards to Dadeo's and then rented movies. Whee! As a note, 'The Upside of Anger' is not a comedy. It was misfiled there but it was not a particularily funny movie. Ah well. You win some, you lose some.

Monday: Back to West Ed to see the stuff other than the Waterpark. We wandered, ate, saw the sea lions, took pictures, and generally had a good time. Sadly while we were there it started raining, unbeknownst to us, and getting out to the buses after was a wet affair. We met up with Hoffman for coffee and then visited my bookstore where Alyssa was bought the happy sounding book, 'Veronika Decides to Die.' It was good to talk to Jen and hear about all the crazyness that has happened while I've been away but it was hard not to reshelve books and shuffle things and generally clean and tidy. I think I definatley take after Dad in that workaholic way. Monday night we watched the new 'Pride and Prejudice' with the very pretty Keira Knightley and Myrna came by to pin the hem for my dress. I am sooo excited for Saturday!!

Tuesday: Another day of sleeping in after staying up too late talking. We headed out to the Park and hung out with my sister and Victor at my parent's house for a while, which was fun. We wandered around the acreage taking pictures and I remembered how pretty it was there and how much I love that property. I can't imagine my parents ever moving away from there. Then we went into the Park to visit with Alyssa's aunt and uncle and their three HUGE dogs. Scary scary big dogs. But I was brave and even pet them. But they were scary. Just for the record. And then back to the parent's for dinner with the familia and birthday cake for Colette. I forget how overwhelming my family can be until I introduce someone new to them. I felt bad for Alyssa but I'm glad she got to meet them all. And lastly we headed over to Davyd & Myrna's for girl's night. Which turned out to be rather low-key and was mostly just us sitting around watching 'Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants' (the ultimate girl's night movie) and chatting. But suprisingly, we got an April which was fun as none of us had really seen her since Christmas. All the girls agreed that we should keep Alyssa here :)

Wednesday: I let Alyssa sleep in a bit this morning while I got up and burned all of our photos onto a cd to take home and made breakfast (yea, I cooked again!!). My mum picked us up and drove us out to the airport where there was much crying, much hugging and much less happiness. I knew she was only here for a week, I knew she had to go home but that didn't make it any easier. I watched until I couldn't see her anymore and then came home. And here I am. Missing her desperately but so happy that she came.

A final thought and then I'm off to try and make the rest of my day vaguely productive. Alyssa and I talked a lot while she was here and one of the things I came to realize was how lucky I was to have the friends and the family that I do. The people here, the people in my life, are different than any other type of person I've ever met. We joke a lot that our group is made of broken people, but I think that is true in a way that is unique and necessary. Each of us is coming from a different background with different kinds of scars - drugs, divorce, abuse, neglect, poverty, self-esteem issues - and so when we say, "I understand," we mean it. We may not each know the particulars of every situation but as a group we can handle anything. So it doesn't matter who you are, you are always welcome in our hearts. I feel blessed to have friends that I know will come running when I need them, and I feel like my life is more complete knowing that I have people who will call on me for help. I have strong opinions, strong convictions and a stronger self-esteem because of the strength of the people around me.

People wanted to protect themselves from those they did not know. Others were different; they talked different languages and worse different clothes. Many people did not want them living close to them, just because of these difference. And yet, they were people, were they not? They thought the same way, and had the same hopes as anybody else did. They were our brothers and sisters, whichever way you looked at it, and you could not turn a brother or sister away.
-Alexander McCall Smith (The Full Cupboard of Life)