Settling In, Anticipating Adventure

At long last, the cleaning and organizing of my bedroom has been completed. 4 donation bags, 5 garbage bags, and countless hours later, it is now very warm, and cozy and orderly, just the way I like it to be. This is why I have not posted in over a week -I apologize for my irregularity. It was worth it though, I won't lie. Nothing like straightening out all that outward chaos for the calming of inner mess. In a way it's like summer is only really starting now, even though we are half-way through.

I woke up early today and had slept quite badly last night due to bizarre lifeguarding dreams with loonies playing with children's lives -unsettling indeed. But then I had a lovely breakfast of homemade cheese straws and banana bread with Earl Grey tea. Oh, Beezys, did you know that in Swahili 'nbizi' means 'banana'? I learned that from my sister's boyfriend, who, incidentally, arrived yesterday to visit her for about a week or so, and has just spent the last few weeks between Tanzania, Kenya, England and Portugal (lucky dude right ;). Anyway, here I am typing away on my bed, with classical music playing in the background (like real classical music -Tchaikovsky, Bizet, Bach, Dvorak -none of that New Age stuff, although I do enjoy that as well oftentimes). I actually took my sweet time meticulously painting my toenails (yeah. really. but this is what it means to 'relax' right?), put on some of my brand new clothes and went for a walk before lunch, picking up my newly-hemmed, new pants from the dry cleaners (story of my shortness in life) on the way back home.

I also window-shopped online for a new laptop since mine is mid-death at present (constant, repeated crashing, but it still turns on -luckily sufficient warning that I have backed it up well). For a while I considered switching to a Mac, but then remembered how much I dislike the Apple interface. The new Dell Inspirons are beautiful though and you can get a 14' that weighs about 5 lbs -not light, but not too extremely heavy either. There's also the Dell XPS M1330 which is thinner and lighter, but with a 13-inch screen, which equals tiny keyboard, my fingers would get too squished. And the last thing a potential-future-surgeon needs is hand-tendinitis, right. Anyway, if you have any suggestions for me, please share!

Oh, so I forgot to mention a few things: firstly, I attended my first bachelorette party shortly after Independence Day (this is a shout-out to my US affiliations -what can I do, it's part of me now right, might as well embrace it for all the good I got out of it for 4 years!) and it was crazy fun! I will not go into details here, but will share what I thought was the ultimate highlight: making the bride-to-be wear a candy-bra gag-gift over her clothing, and then traipse around downtown Montreal, selling bites for $1 from the back, or for $2 from the front, raking in over $35, including donations from policemen and hot firemen (who, unfortunately, did not bite off any candy though, since they were in uniform) -not too shabby at all. And also, really not as shady as it sounds -the streets were packed with many other bachelorettes and bachelors to-be doing all kinds of crazy stuff, and there were like 10 of us girls to 'fend off' weirdos and get on our victims' case about 'the rules' (like hands behind your back when you bite, pay first, bite second, etc).

Also, August Rush is a fabulous movie -great music, Robin Williams, Felicity (Keri Russell) and and the "Coach" from Bend It Like Beckham (aka Henry VIII on "The Tudors", Jonathan Rhys Myers), some good acting on the part of the main kid, cheesy story, but the script is not half bad, and overall, highly, highly enjoyable! Also, The Jane Austen Book Club, is a sweet chick flick.

Oooh, Bach's Brandenburg Concerto -'love it (playing now, which means I have been updating you here for way too long!).

Tomorrow night (well, technically, very early Wednesday morning), Mum and I leave for Arizona (via Burlington, Chicago and LA... we will, inshallah, get there eventually though!) -so excited to visit the Grand Canyon, as well as Cathedral Rock in Sedona. The weather forecast has some rain with thunder, but hopefully that'll clear up by Thursday! My real, grand summer adventures are about to begin -what's not to look forward to, eh?