fajrdrako | Monday... (Reply)

I woke up this morning with a sense of joy, my apartment was so beautiful and clean. It was like waking up in a 5-star hotel - and it was my own home.

At lunchtime I had an excellent walk with Lisa, who was feeling the need for some outdoor activity after having been indoors for most of the past week. We went down to the paths behind Parliament Hill, enjoying the peace and beauty. I took two pictures:

We sat on a bench to unwrap our mutual birthday presents - both late, but no less exciting for it. We almost always give each other books. I gave her:

Travel Yoga by Darrin Zeer
A Journey of Days: Relearning Life's Lessons on the Camino de Santiago by Guy Thatcher; I spent part of the morning finishing reading that, and loved it. Plan to talk about it more here.
Glitter Baby by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

She gave me two mysteries by Canadian writers:

Arctic Blue Death by R.J. Harlick (a Meg Harris mystery)
Ptarmageddon by Karen Dudley (a Robyn Devara Mystery)

...Both of which look like my kind of books. I particularly loved the opening to Ptarmageddon:

Whenever I read a novel - one that really captures my interest - I find myself speeding through the pages. Sprinting past each cluter of black markings. Past each line and paragraph and chapter. They say it's the journey that matters, not the destination. But I've bever been about to read a book like that.

I don't work. Or clean. I forget to eat. I'm completely caught up in the real emotions of fictitious lives. Too eager to reach the end of the story, too impatient to find out what happens to the characters.

Lisa and I had a good talk while we walked. She confirmed something I'd been thinking about.... Yes, reassurance is wonderful, as is encouragement.

After meeting

maaseru for lunch at Sushi 88 on Somerset Street¹, and then we trekked out to Barrhaven to check out Indigo Books - a bookstore in the Ottawa area that we'd never been to. We had to fix that state of affairs. And did. I expected it to be like just another Chapters, and was pleased to see it wasn't.

I met Diane for supper. I talked about her a few days ago as my oldest friend, though I hadn't seen her for a while. We had a lovely time talking about family and events in our lives over the past eight months or so. We ate at Sweet Basil on Bank Street. Gorgeous decor, but I didn't like the food much: I'm oversensitive to certain spices, and everything was a little too hot for me. My mouth broke out in sores. Ugh.

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¹ I had unagi, which I'd been craving ever since reading about Guy Thatcher eating eels in Spain.