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An old and good friend is in town with a colleague. So they met us at The Auld Spot on Danforth and we had a nice meal and talk. Eventually my brother showed up as well. Everyone seems to have a lot of interesting experiences to share.
The Auld Spot is named after a pig or a breed of pigs. The front of the pub looked like this last summer but there’s a new, roll-up front now.
In the BookCrossing community. SH’s brother Matt died in the early hours of March 10 of Wegener’s granulomatosis,* an auto-immune disease that struck out of the blue. It might have been triggered by a streptococcus infection. He was only 29 years old.
(*an uncommon disorder characterized by inflammation and degeneration of small blood vessels. The disease usually occurs in mid-adult life. Almost any organ may be affected, but most often the diseased vessels are in the respiratory tract, kidneys, and spleen.}
Last night I went to Rob’s birthday party. The house was packed with well-wishers, the food was lavish, the booze and chip-dip flowed, and the presents were funny, thoughtful, and useful. The big TV screen showed wedding pictures and, later, pictures of Europe. It was a great party.
Here’s LotStreetWiz with our friends’ cat Harley saying hello.
Yesterday we got up in Savannah, Georgia, and went to bed in Wilmington, North Carolina. We drove up the scenic highways near the coast.
At one point we made a detour into a wildlife area in a swamp. We saw great white heron or great egret, great blue heron, and possibly a glossy ibis. Where there weren’t too many black vultures, we saw crows. The crows seem to avoid the larger scavengers.
We’re staying with friends on the outskirts of Wilmington. One of my best friends from twenty years ago, a restless soul, has alighted here for the moment. To my dismay, she’s avoiding surgery by treating melanoma with naturopathic and homeopathic remedies.
My friend is giving up her two cats because she doesn’t think she can take proper care of them when she comes out of the hospital.
They are two spayed females:
Both are healthy, friendly, and well-behaved.
I’m finished up my friend’s laundry and dropped it off at her apartment tonight.
Then I went for Pilates. All those tiny little movements: arch the back from the inside of the spine, stretch the ribs down to the hips, breath this way and that, pull the hip crests together, point the sit-bones to the back wall, lift one hand or foot without changing the position of the rest of the body or hiking up the shoulder-blades or tensing the jaw or forgetting to breathe or slacking off the core muscles… I like it.
We’re going away tomorrow. I am more or less packed, but still need to put together a selection of shoes and gadgets.
The team of helpers, especially the rest of the team, has been cleaning my friend’s apartment. Instead of buying a new couch, we raised the old couch to a comfortable level using rectangular ceramic tubing.
I also dropped off some freshly laundered clothing and left a book for her.
I dropped off some finished laundry and a mirror for my friend. I re-organized part of the closet to save space. I emptied a tall bookshelf that has to be moved away from a heater. It’s only been there two or three years. I moved some shelves from in front of a chest of drawers so that she could get at the winter scarves and hats in the latter — and found my missing keys, which had fallen between the two pieces of furniture.
Too busy to blog, in fact.
Tuesday night I was too tired and depressed after visiting my friend to go to the STC meeting; which is just as well because it didn’t happen.
On Wednesday, my friend called me before 8:00 a.m. to tell me about another tote or suitcase she didn’t want lost in her mess. I made a note of it. I ran errands. I waited to hear the interview results. I moved the laundry along. (It’s infinite.) I made a long list of ileo-safe foods. My friend’s “helper team:” of friends had a conference call to plan. She has a one-page list of all the things that she wants us to do to get her apartment ready for her to come home. We agreed to meet there on Thursday. I picked up her keys to make copies and measured the furniture that needs to be replaced.
Wednesday night was a Pilates lesson.
Thursday I had a second interview with my prospective client. Then I walked up to visit my friend in hospital as she was anxious that she might be moved and wanted to measure the heights of various objects in her room right now. I rushed home, had a snack, and got the keys copied and labelled them. Then I met the others at her apartment. We sorted out her clothes to find the dirty ones (ALL of them, it seems). I checked her voice mail and saved the messages. We worked for about three hours to clear away some of the mess (putting clothes into closets, recycling expired flyers). Each of us took two large bags home for washing. I also identified some clothes that she’ll never get into again, which are candidates for the thrift stores. Life was complicated by my losing the car key somewhere between the car and the apartment; the other helpers gave me a lift home. Finally, I helped another friend to study for an important test–she picked me up and I was able to unlock the car with spare keys. We had a good time studying and I met her two cats.
Friday it was swimming practice at 7:00 a.m., driving LotStreetWiz to work, and visiting my friend at hospital. I figure if the clothes are smaller than a certain size, we can get rid of them. However, she wants to make the decisions. Then I went home to do more laundry and check the STC job bank e-mail & listings. I combined trips, driving to Welland and checking my dad’s house, and meeting his friends to give them an update, then driving back to Hamilton to pick up Andie and take her back to Toronto.
Saturday it was more clothes-sorting, trying to rescue my friend’s cats, checking the STC job bank e-mail & listings, and doing laundry. I sorted all our sheets to find single sheets for my friend’s prospective new bed. I took the sheets to her apartment. On the home front, one of our kittens, I presume, brought in a very flat, dried-out squirrel carcase. In the evening I took Andie contra dancing and we had about three hours of that. ( See Toronto Country Dancers for location and times.)
This morning (Sunday), one or both of the kittens brought in a pigeon; we don’t know if they killed it or found it.
We all went to a swimming lesson. We came home for lunch and to keep moving the laundry along, including my friend’s dirty clothes. LotStreetWiz is helping Andie to shop and driving her back to Hamilton. I’m *ahem* doing dishes and more laundry.
