After a good night's sleep

and a slow awakening in the sun, sipping coffee and eating breakfast in our tiny cabin,

watching the working boats coming and going, we finally headed out for the beach. Follow us...

It's just down these stairs.....Florencia Bay Beach. Initially we thought, due to the season, that we would be coming up here to do a little storm watching....watching the big waves crest, thunder on the shores and rocks. As beautiful as a stormy beach is, imagine our delight when we arrived at the beach during the most beautifully sunny, warm winter weekend.

WoooooooooooooooooooooooooHooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!

Aside from a few surfers and a couple of other beachcombers, the place was practically all ours!

I don't know how long we walked.

Hours upon hours.

Exploring.

Tickling sea anemone , feeling their sticky tentacles try to capture our fingers.

Braving the waves for photos in the tidal pools along the surf.

By the time we felt "done" being here, it was time to head back to the cabin to bbq up a beautiful rib-eye steak and grill some zucchini with truffle oil and quaff back some cold beer while listening to the sea lions bark and sing.

What a beautiful way to spend a day.

Thanks for coming along with us, but we're not sharing our rib-eye!

We still have a walk in the bog and Long Beach coming up so y'all better rest up.

bye now

Not many words....

but it is about time....we stopped at Little Qualicum Cheeseworks on the way to the "other" coast(funny, cuz we live on an island!)...they were having an open house to their new fruit winery and I am a sucker for blackberry wine. Theirs? YUMMY!!!!! Stop by and try some out. We also left with some raspberry wine and some blueberry....go figure. However, they don't have Rhubarb Wine, which is one of my very, very favorites...and I haven't found it up here at all.

Before we went to check in to our cabin, we stopped for a little walkabout. The sound of the surf breaking and breaking...it's beyond music. It is a time ago that Michael and I shared full of magic...the noise, the sound, that was the ever present backdrop to the time we fell in love together....

When we held no mortgage.....

and walked the sandy beaches every day, listening to the rolling waters....

when there were no hookers out our front window....

or drug dealers in our back alley.....

when we didn't have to REMEMBER how to breathe...we just breathed.

We live on an island. We can see the water from our window, but this is a different kind of coast. Coastal dwellers know what I mean when I say that....the personalities of the beaches, one harbour town compared to one surfer town....

This was our first walk, on our first day....a gorgeous rainforest on the coast...a straight line between sand and towering trees. Slightly surreal and completely gorgeous.

Then we went in to check in to our cabin....this is the view off the back deck. The sea lions were barking and singing to us...so much nicer than traffic and crackheads.

This was our cabin...tiny, yes, but it had everything we ever needed...and? In reality? Not very much smaller than the bungalo Michael and shared on South Padre Island. Truly. And quite a bit bigger than the VW bus....with hot running water and a tub on the deck overlooking the water.

So peaceful, listening to the sea lions, watching the light fade...no chores, no alarm to set....

and a little blackberry wine.

There's more....come back again?

But where, oh where, does it end?

We are home from the "other" coast....you know we live on an island, right? so saying home from the coast just doesn't really work out.....and? now? I work the rest of the week...just got called in, so, um...ya know....photos forthcoming....but don't hold your breath too long. i'll get around to it when I can. but it was sheer gorgeousness, so please come back.

it's just that something isn't the same....

I had a great time with Emily here...we had a great time, I laughed lots....lots of hugs and smiles and love and tenderness. I needed it, felt my heart break in a good way....we had good, great, grand times...and next weekend? Michael and I take off for the other coast of this island for some storm watching, some much needed time away together, some sweetness and some time dedicated to just each other..in a private little cabin by the water....and I am feeling better, I am. I can feel it, the lightening of something, the shifting....it's just that...I don't know what "normal" is supposed to feel like now. A wise woman I know said that our "normal" is going to be different now. So finding it may be the challenge. Anyhoo, I just wanted y'all know to know that I am, indeed, feeling a little stronger, a little more like myself(for whatever that's worth)....and I hope that my family, my friends, my true loves, are beginning to find their joys again, as well...finding the cadence of their breaths, their heartbeats, their loves, their lives, a new rhythm, their different normal.
I hope that we all feel the joy and pain.
And Remember.
I love you.
All.

What's better than a ride at Disneyland?

A ride on the U_Dog bus and walkies with Rob. Here, let me show you. WWWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Everybody outta the bus, now!

And they're off.....

Who's that good girl? NOT! My dog was rotten this day...don't let her cuteness or the fact that I dress her in pink fool you. She was not one of Charlie's Angels today...or my angel....or Rob's, for that matter. But you know what???? I know that about her. Eem-er is a dog with issues...with behaviours. There is no miracle cure. U-Dog has helped out tremendously.....

but when you "rescue" a dog(not that I did, I merely adopted a dog somebody else took a beating for! That's the guy who rescued her!), and they come with all this stuff you don't know about or how to address....it's not the end of the world. Find some help. Nothing worth anything happens overnight. Be HONEST with with your trainer. If you don't know what is what with your crazy canine, then say so. But if you do? It means ALL THE DIFFERENCE. If your trainer tells you HOW to do something, then do it. For real. That's what you're paying them for, after all. Isn't it?

Seven out of ten dogs(that's 70 percent!) are not with their original owners/adopters. 70 percent. Those are the ones still breathing air. Isn't that completely, irrationally insane? Sometimes? Shit happens. Dogs take off. They bark. They chew. They sometimes shit on the floor. They follow their noses, they can't think their way through a stressful situation, instinct takes over, previous crappy life bullshit confounds everything....and we(the large-brained humans) all have to take a step back...how do we cope?

Really, I hardly ever learn anything the first time around and my brain is way bigger than a beagle's. So folks, please!!!!

Take just a moment before you adopt that darling puppy. Can you devote 10 to 18 years? No matter what? If you "rescue" a dog.....er, what I truly mean is Adopt a dog from a rescue situation, are you willing to do the homework? If that dog comes with issues, and any reputable rescue organization SHOULD tell you.....are you willing, able to deal with it?

I surely had no clue...after raising and caring for my own first beloved beagle, and, finally, losing her, I surely had no clue about "rescue." All I knew is that I needed to love a dog...and go for walkies...and there is no dog for me, other than hounds....so...here is Eem-er. I am the larger brain...I asked for help and must accept it. Sometimes, even with all the best intentions, she is going to be a dog. Gosh darn it.

Look Up

Seriously, folks...I have been so glum lately that I annoy myself. It's just been kind of hellacious inside my head this winter. But just these past few days, I feel a bit of a lightening. I still have a hard time feigning "being fine" for eight and a half hours at work, but I don't have to worry about that today or tomorrow. Also, suddenly, I have a lot of things to look forward to...I have plans. Whoa. Emily is coming this weekend. Hooray! It's been so very too too very long since we have been together...we're gonna go to the Fox and Hound one night and feast. We're going to have a dinner here...we're gonna LAUGH! Then next weekend Michael is whisking me away to a private cabin in Ucluelet... I can't believe it. It's very romantic and exciting and just the slightest bit(alright hugely) suprising! But in a very good way. And my friend Michelle and I are trying to book a week here. Michael has been putting a little bit of all of my paychecks away in what he calls my "Fun Fund." It may have just enough to cover this trip...and I sure could use a dose of Fun... and Sun...so, yeah, why not? And then....there is this...so I will have to head over to Vancouver that weekend to meet Heidi and to see my friend's band. That's a lot of weekends to ask off for someone hired to work weekends but I am going to try hard to be everywhere I need to be this month and next... because you just gotta try, right?!?
And, on top of all that? Guess who's coming to Vancouver in May? Go on now, guess.
Oh, and!!!!
It's sunny today and I am going to go walk Eem-er at the beach right now!!! Woot woot!
k, so bye.

(S)he's got rhythm...

I have had Sebastion a good ten years now...(s)he travelled in the the VW from South Padre Island to Vancouver Island with Michael and I. He(or she) is a good little soul, but you'd think after ten years, I would know most of what there is to know about him(or her), other than gender. Aside from the clunking around the crabitat, climbing and bumping along the windowsills and countertops, etc, he (or she) had never made a sound. Didn't oooh and aaah at the Grand Canyon, was non-plussed by Zion, Monument Valley, Shiprock, the Oregon Coast or the Redwoods. Not a peep out of him(or her) crossing the border into a foreign country, has never thanked me for garlic smashed potatoes or a bite of chicken....but last week, Sebastion was
singing. It was amazing. Sang for hours...I figured, after 10 years, maybe he(or she) is lonely and calling out to find someone... so off to Petco and voila....another addition to the family. A week later, all seems well. Sebastion was entirely overzealous during the initial introductions, but has calmed right down. Thank goodness. Our new crabbie has remained healthy(they can stress and die easily) and so we have decided it might be alright to name it now...only I haven't thought of a name yet.
Any suggestions?