Thursday was beautiful weather. The lake was wavy but disorganized so I only did 5km on the lake and then another 2k on the river in the dark. It's okay though. Since there's nobody else out there, I don't have to worry about getting clocked by a rower.

Friday was another nice day but no paddling - we were having a party for Cat. All those guys live in the east end so it was at a Jack Astor's by the Town Centre. I went straight from work and did some shopping in the mall before heading back to the bar to meet up with everyone. I haven't been to the Town Centre in ages - I guess it hasn't changed much over the years except for population. It was PACKED - at 5:00pm on a friday - that's pretty crazy. The party for Cat was good - a lot of people came out to congratulate him on his move to SAP-HR.



When I got home much later, there was a missed delivery notice in my mailbox - shipment of books from Australia. Yahoo! I picked them up at Turtle creek post office on Saturday. Chris' Alphabet Surf has arrived and all autographed by Chris. It's very cool. Maybe your child will get one for Christmas.
Speaking of Chris and Emily - they're expecting TWINS! Em posted this amazing ultrasound of them on fb.



Saturday, it was raining but mild so I put in 10km , coming in just before the temp dropped - just a couple of degrees but that's enough to make it...less pleasant. When I got home, I cranked up the fireplace and made a pot of tea. Laurie dropped off some products for me to try but the rest of the afternoon was spent curled up on the couch with a glass of red wine and a book. Ahh, I love my life!
On Sunday I took my dad a Tim Horton's coffee and honey cruller. He's not supposed to have either but what's the point. Really. I was oging to save it for after his breakfast but he wouldn't eat. It didn't take long to understand that he wanted the donut and not the cold scrambled eggs and watery oatmeal. I hit Chapters on the way home and picked up Crow Lake for the book club and The Master and Margarita for myself. Supposed to be one of the most important works of fiction for our generation.
I was hoping to get down to MEC to buy a drysuit to keep paddling but I completely forgot about the Santa Claus Parade. There was also a Raptor's game on at 12:30 so there was NO WAY I was driving into the city! After running some errands and doing some housework, I tried to settle in front of the fire for some more lazy reading but it never really happened. Ryan was finally coming to get his piano out of the basement and I had promised beer and pizza for the buddies who were coming to help him. He called around 4:00 to let me know what time they'd be arriving and I realized I hadn't picked up the beer. I had to get to the beer store before 5:00 (I didn't actually know it was even open on Sundays).
Ryan, Derek, Jared and Steve came over and had no trouble getting the apartment grand out of the basement and into the rental truck.
My stupid iPhone has been giving me the usual "Call Failed" problem - it lets me dial a number and stays connected just long enough for me to say hello and then it fails. Ryan gave me a couple of things to try and it seems okay now but there's definitely something wrong. We just can't determine if it's the SIM card or the network. Now Ryan says I have the 4000 series SIM but maybe I should have 4000 series, 2nd generation. We're going to look into it tomorrow.
Later, when I checked my fb, there was a wall post from Matt. They had done a downwinder out on the ocean - 5 metre swells.
He wrote, "today it was an onshore/slight cross wind, so the faces aren't really clean enough to surf. Wes just got a new boat though, he was lacking for a couple weeks, so we should be making it out a little more often for the next bit. But yes... past 5 days... perhaps sickest in history... pictures to come..."
I'll definitely post those when they come!