I’m sitting at the kitchen table of my favourite place in the world. My family’s ocean front cabin.  Due to life’s intensity of this summer, I haven’t been here since February. I’ve missed it. I walk in the front door and instantly I feel more relaxed.
I was invited out by one of my friends tonight, and I was a bit hedgy about what I was doing.  After the frustrations of earlier this week, I really needed a break and let him know that: that I wasn’t upset with him, but that I was frustrated with others and needed space, that I wanted the freedom to be away from local people.  Fortunately, he mentioned that he had no plans to go to this weekend’s Seattle Blues Party.  And it’s not that I don’t want my local friends to have fun, or to enjoy Seattle Blues, but I just need space for now from the social dynamics of the scene.  I don’t plan on dancing – at the local dances – until after my San Francisco trip.  I’ll have a great night regardless if there are 0 or 50 local dancers down for the party.  But the space is a good thing.  Hopefully it’ll help put me into a better mindset so that I can go forward.
Getting here was an adventure. After work I listened to the border wait times I decided to hold off going until later evening. I’m glad I did, the wait was only 25 min at around 8:30pm, compared with 2 hours earlier. I must get a Nexus pass.
The border guard, though, was tired and grumpy. I tried to be nice, but it seems that the same answers I’ve been giving for the last 16 years to go to the same place, annoyed him. But he let me through after 7 or 8 questions – including what I do for a living. The polar opposite to 2 weeks ago: one question, “where are you going?” to which I replied with a cute smile “Swing Dancing in Seattle”. Tonight’s border guard was not flirt-able, however.  So I got through, bought groceries and supplies for my weekend of delight and then started a movie while waiting for the ferry.
The ferry arrives and I try to start my car. The battery was dead. I don’t know what I had on that did it, but such it was. I had visions of trying to find someone to jumpstart my car. The very last car to load was going to stop, but just as they were pulling up beside me, one of the guys running the ferry came up and jumpstarted my car for me. I hope it’ll start tomorrow.
The rest of this weekend will include shopping, some blues dancing perhaps, blackberry picking and blackberry jam making.
But for now, this relaxing weekend of delight begins with me staying up much later than is good to watch a movie. So I will sleep and rest for a delightful day of picking blackberries and making blackberry jam.  Oh, and maybe running, if my knee decides to stop twinging…