Beige

The above title is the update on my current skin colour. I have been upgraded to two shade above white which, i believe puts be in the beige category. Still short of 'tan' but I'll take it.

This is the result of the past weekend, which I am still recovering from. Rotaryfest started on Thursday and went until Saturday. Wednesday night I moved all Playzone supplies (the area I organize) from the office to the trailer on the grounds. That took me until 10pm. THe next morning I was on the grounds by 7:15am setting up everything that needed setting up. There were 4 sharkfin banners, tables, chairs, tables to be papered, games, 4 large art stations run by the Rotary club and various small ones run by other organizations. The festival opens at noon every day. Thursday was high on the stress-o-meter. Some things were late, but, in the end, it all got set up.

Thursday was absolutely brutally hot. Almost no one came to the grounds during the middle of the day because of the heat. A little disappointing but not really in my control. Friday night we had a sudden freak rainstorm for 2 hours and had to first tarp all supplies and then reluctantly put them all back into the trailer. By the time the sun came out at 7pm it was too late to set up the playzone, having sent home all of the volunteers already.

Sarah P. visited this weekend. It was so good to see her. She also saved me from a lot of stress on the Saturday of the festival. Its the busiest day and our percentage of volunteer turn outs was not record breaking. She did a shift on t-shirt art, helped me with random jobs (like dumping bins of disgusting grey, paint-filled water into larger bins of gray, paint-filled water), and then pulled another shift at Giant Chess (just what its called)

I even found myself subbing. I hair wrapped for a while. I think the biggest perk of the whole job was the Razer cell phone they lent to me for the weekend. I really did feel cool answering it...after I stopped dropping it on the floor in places like Dollarama whenever it rang of course.

There is so much to report, I could go on forever. Sarah and I took sunday to chill and swam in lake superior in our clothes since we forgot bathing suits. I hadn't swam in jeans in a long time. Maybe i'll do it again. I realized too that I pretty much get the best of both worlds for beaches up here. They are everywhere, for one. And, although not quite as beautiful as tropical ones, i'm sure, they are entirely sand bottomed and don't have any of those pesky things like sharks, jelly fish, rocks or easily discernable pollution.

I now have four weeks (less one for overtime) with Rotary.

Didn't Happen

These are some of this things that didn't happen today. I was inspired by the endearing autisitic teen that is the narrator of "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time"

I didn't eat toast for breakfast (although I thought about it). Nor did I eat a banana. There weren't any stray cats in the room while I ate and I didn't trip while walking down the stairs to brush my teeth. I didn't steal my neighbour's corvette and drive to work in it. I didn't call in sick (although, again, i really really thought about it).

At work I didn't design a building, or tame a wild (honeymoon) stallion, or train for a marathon, or play risk or order in chinese.

It just always boggles my mind to think about all the things that didn't occur. Especially since maybe, when I was 7, if I hadn't dropped my Beauty and the Beast thermos and broke it making me late for school...who knows, maybe I would have done one of those things. Ok, well probably not, but the whole "butterfly flaps its wings" thing, weird.

Another thing I've been thinking about. I have been reading quite a bit about the English language. Right now its "Language Visible", a history of every letter of the alphabet. Fairly entertaining. But the more I read, the more I realize: The alphabet is not that suited to English. Our vowels take on so many sounds its often by memorization than phonetics that we learn to spell any of them.

We should have something like 45 letters instead of 26 for all of the sounds in English. We are more like Chinese in some ways since, with many words, its the shape or the word itself that signals its sound or meaning. Por ejemplo. In Spanish, every letter has its specific sound, even vowels. They rarely deviate. A word is pronounced just as it is written (or written just as pronounced). But, those poor people trying to learn english, try spelling 'cough' phonetically?

but, I ramble.