April 22, 2003

My moods are so fickle. Maybe it's just the changing of the seasons. Maybe I need to get out more.

Can't do anything about the first, but the second is within my power: yesterday I took the car and went to the Village. That would be Bloor West Village, the stretch of Bloor street between Runnymede and Jane. At the western edge of that is The Coffee Tree, which is not only Toronto's First On-Site Roastery, but the only place I will buy coffee beans, except in the direst of emergencies. And at the eastern end of the Village is Groom's Pet Store, where I go to buy their personally-mixed blends of budgie seed, of treat feed, and thrillingly long, lush branches of millet seed, which is like catnip for the birdies.

I was just parking the car on Runnymede, getting something out of the passenger side, with my sarong-draped bum sticking out the door, when a very very very old man stopped to flirt at me. I mean, maybe he was actually hitting on me, but he was so twinkly and European that I'd rather give him the benefit of the doubt.

"You dress beautifully!" he beamed. "I would love you!" And I smiled a thanks, cast a glance at my wedding rings and feigned humourous disappointment- "oh, sorry, too late!" He laughed, and toddled off with both canes.

Then I called home and told Rob, who was delighted on my behalf. "Hope I'm like that when I get to be that age," he said later. Doin' what he can, stayin' in the game. Making eyes at the ladieeeees.

I bought fresh flowers yesterday, at the shop that was always my favourite when we lived close by. Out here in the near-'burbs, there aren't any little corner florists. No little corners, for that matter.

I chose a small mixed bouquet of roses on sale, near fully opened, big creamy blush ones, and some deep reds, a single deep yellow. And to go with that, a little sheaf of fresh tulips, satiny candy-pink and white striped. Tulips are one of those flowers that keep on looking good as they age, right up until when the petals suddenly drop off.

For some reason I am minded of Paige's observation of the serene agelessness of Japanese people: "they look 20 until they're 70, and then suddenly look 100," she once opined. Whereas most of us Caucasian folk get boringly wrinkled, pore-ridden, and saggy at a more-or-less constant rate.

My last stop of the afternoon was at a big-box hardware stores with the garden centre tacked on the side. I had firmly resolved to just look, not buy. For one thing, even though Easter weekend was lush and sunny, it was just a big tease, the season's too young for gardening. And for another thing, Rob is almost as fired up as I am about the whole yard & garden action, so it might be nice to, I don't know, let him have a say in the final product?

My first impression of looking at the dispirited plant offerings, was that I will probably forgo buying power tools at plant nurseries, and by the same token will not be purchasing my garden seedlings at a hardware store. Everything there looked kind of "rode hard and put away wet", to mix in one of my favourite outrageous analogies ever.

That was yesterday. I felt pretty damn good.

Today, not so much. I slept badly, dreamt badly, and my mood never picked up. In fact, I felt Uncool in the extreme, like I will never again have a close female friend to hang out and laugh with, like the cool kids don't wanna play with me.

As unproductive a mood as this undeniably is, it refused to be shaken. Maybe this wasn't the best day, then, to drop by a Winners looking for a nice black shirt for the concert, or perhaps a great party outfit. I tried on 10 different garments and nothing was right. I must have a strange shape, or at least a non-commercial compliant one. If something fit through the bust, the armholes were all droopy- if the hips proved adequate, the shoulders were alarmingly huge. Wah.

So I called my friend Emma in Ottawa, who took time out of her busy corporate day to have a little chat.

And later this afternoon, I got an email from her, which listed all the reasons (and she had quite a few) why I Might Be Cool.

I've been online since 1996. Have recieved literally thousands of emails in all that time, and most of them aren't spam. But this is quite possibly the sweetest thing anyone has ever sent me.

You won't be surprised that my eyes got a little misty reading it. Because it's not whether I might be *cough* Cool that's the issue here.

It's having friends like Emma for the best and most timely virtual hugs ever.

After printing out her lovely sentiment, I went to check the other mail (hard copy, postage stamps, useless coupons and such) while Rob started supper. And serendipity grinned- Emma's wedding invitation has arrived!

She's getting married in July. She's making her own wedding dress, and I will make the Renaissance-shaped corset to go underneath.

We have another wedding, too- Rob's best man is finally getting around to marrying his high-school sweetheart (they've been, uh, "dating" for something like 15 years) and Rob will don his kilt again to be his best man. And they've asked me to sing at the wedding. Maybe it will be the Robbie Burns song My Love is like a Red, Red Rose, which is appropriate for Scots-attired gentlemen, and for which I already have a nice vocal arrangement- having sung it when Mats and Marina got married, a few years back.

It's a strange thing, but I've never been a bridesmaid. My only shot at a wedding party was being the bride. And I didn't make my girls wear fluffy pastel prom dresses with butt bows, and we never did the bachelorette thing, and- unless memory fails me- they were not press-ganged into looking at flowers, wedding dresses, invitations, or halls.

Did I miss out or something? Probably not. Everything was near to perfect as we could have hoped.