No simple thing...

I have to say that this weekend has been quite an emotional one. Thursday was the release of the Final Turn of the Purgatory's second chronicle. Friday saw the final Purgatory game which was another moving evening(though I want to kill my cobbler). Saturday was a nice break, but then there was Ian and Val's BBQ on Sunday evening. Seriously, so damned emotional, even though much was kept inside. It's almost bloody painful to know it will be six months before we get back into the game and seeing all those familiar faces again.

And then something inside turned in one of my last conversations of Sunday evening. People were saying how sad they felt and how they will miss each other in the intervening months off and another spoke up and said it didn't have to end. All we needed to do was make an effort to see each other outside of Purgatory. We just had to pick up the phone or email each other and just make some plans. It was a simple solution. And it made all the difference.

And when I think on it, feeling this way tells me that though I do not spend a lot of time with the people I have come to know over the last ten months, they have made a significant place in my life that I have come to cherish. And I can smile through the wistfulness of this seeming ending and know I have a good thing in those friends and the experiences we have had together, and will again.

....

Now, if the Purgatory site would just come back up so I could start one of those emails.

In dreams...

I've kinda been hooked on peaches lately.

Sobey's has these huge perfect peaches and they smell so bloody great. They aren't quite ripe yet. Transport them that way and they ripen just in time to get to your fridge. Unless you pick them when they are first put out on display. Then, not so much.

But leave them on your sill for a couple of days and...

... oh.

About Phish. And other things I learned this weekend.

I survived Alford Lake and the Outdoor Women's Seminar! (I should have bought the t-shirt).

What a bagdriven week(end). I went into work last Wednesday and didn't come home till late Sunday night. At about 11am on Wednesday my boss and I departed for the Alford Lake Women's Seminar. This seminar was a four day affair where approximately 140 women and about 50 support staff and volunteer instructors come and camp out in tent's, RV's or cabins for the weekend and experience the outdoors. There were seminars on archery, boat safety licencing, firearms safety, building walking sticks, chainsaw basics, fly tying, fly fishing, shotgun, map and compass, surviving the extremes, outdoor cooking, using a GPS, digital cameras, do's and don'ts of what to eat and not eat in the bush, trailering, and wildlife identification and utilization. There were also evening activities like building an Inukshuk(that was cool), rock painting(also cool with some really great imaginative people). In all the weekend was a complete success. Any glitches were easily solved. After all the bloody administrative work we did leading up to the seminar, being there was almost a blessed release. I wasn't required to do much of anything work related accept take as many sessions as I could. To round out my experence so I'll be better informed when the 2006 OWS comes around. I really had a good time and learned alot. I got my boating licence which is sweet. The best session though was Surviving the Extremes. I learned how to build a fire in three minutes with nothing but three matches and a few twigs. The real challenge there was that it had been raining off and on for the previous day so any of the obvious firestarting materials I could find in the bush were pretty wet. Also, for the first 3 nights at about 10:30pm we walked down the road away from camp in the pitch black and did some stargazing. This was exceptionally fine as on Sunday at about 3am it was the peak of the Perseids meteor shower. It rained all Saturday night(the fourth night) though. Thurs and Fri night were clear though and we saw some spectacular meteors and even the Northern Lights on Friday's viewing!
The worst part was all the mosquitos. Well, that and I didn't have any proper camping clothes. So the bugspray I had went on my 'not camping' clothes as well as any exposed skin. My washer has been going non-stop today. Bleh. Really, it wasn't so bad though. Besides the off and on rainshowers, I did get to sleep in a cabin(I opted for hard quarters), the food was all catered, and if you got up at 6am there wasn't a long lineup for the showers. So yeah, we were kinda roughing it....and kinda not. Heh. Sunday came however and so did the end of the seminar. It was kind of poignant really. I met alot of really nice people there, a few I even exchanged contact information with. As I watched everyone saying good-bye I realized that no matter how tired I was, I was going to miss this. It felt like we were ending a really great *long* running production and we were not going to see any of these new friends we made again. Or at least another year.

I was given the day off today to recoup which I must say has been lovely. I needed it because I also had to pick up my son from the airport Sunday night. So I didn't actually get home until almost 11pm lastnight. He had also made previous arrangements to have a friend over as a welcome home party lastnight. Then, today another two of his friends came over to visit, one of which is now staying over till Thursday afternoon. This friend is visiting from BC for the week. It's all good though I guess as on Thursday, Friday and Saturday night they(my son and his friend) will be staying together in a hotel with the friend's parents for the friend's sister's wedding. Yay!

One last thing. I discovered two new bands this weekend who's music is pretty great. The first has two members who are the son's of my boss. The two brothers were jamming on accoustical guitars with a couple others in the mess hall the first night there and their sound was absolute bliss. Their band is called the Nonrabbits.....eheh, yeah that's what I was thinking. In anycase, they are a jam band and play some funky bluesy music among other things. They have performed in concert, and are in the process of publishing some of their works. The other is a jam band called Phish. I've been listening to these guys all night tonight and they aren't bad. Relaxing. So far my favorite song is one called Prince Caspian. One of the son's was playing it(a brilliant 17yr old musician) on Weds night and I asked who played/wrote it. He said it was by a band called Phish. Absolutely fine song. I also love the lyrics for Billy Breathes too, though I haven't heard the song yet. Love that Breaks all Lines is sounding pretty fine too. I'm redoubling my efforts to practice my accoustical guitar playing. I very much want to make music like that .

So that's what I've been up to. 5 days 4 nights at camp making some great memories with some great people, promoting a greater collective awareness of the outdoors and all it's inherent wonders. A job with perks. I like.

G'knight.

Bruises

Work's been kinda tough lately. We've put on 2 Youth Camps and are currently preparing an Outdoor Women's Seminar this coming weekend. I generally love these kinds of outdoor events. Problem is, I have never been on the 'organization from scratch' side of the registration table. It is alot of bloody hard and complicated work! I mean, try organizing 150 women into 91 sessons, and accomodations over 4 days. And I really wish I knew what the end result was supposed to look like so I could have taylored my registration spreadsheet to keep the workload to a minimum. As a result we are scrambling, big time. It's getting done, but we're putting in some really long hours to manhandle it into something clean enough to work with. A friend recently told me that mistakes lead to wisdom. It's a nice thought. And I'll know better next time eh?

On another note. We went to a staff meeting in Calgary over the weekend. After the meeting, which was out at the Calgary AHEIA Firearms Centre, we got to do some Trap shooting. Now, I have shot both smallbore and fullbore, in competition even. I've also fired a shotgun before too, just never at a moving target. But I tell you it was bloody great! I couldn't stop grinning. I hit quite a few clay targets, missed almost as many, what a blast. I put almost 60 rounds downrange in a two hour period. So fun. Yesterday and today I've been paying the price though. It's been years since I shot anything and my shoulders(yes both) have been screaming. Apparently holding a gun in a standing shooting stance over a couple hours being repeatedly butted in the right shoulder will do a number on you. Even if you are having a good time. Yep. They've been screaming..but it's one of those sorta good hurts, like a stretchy sorness you get from working out too hard. I can't wait to go again.