8.00 am:
Sitting in at my home office desk, waiting for Stephen to get himself ready to leave for work, while Em sits nervously beside me anticipating the reception of her report card.
THE report card.
The one that determines whether or not math is on board for summer school.
Or if she is free to spend her summer working to pay off her car repair bills.
One of those choosing between the lesser of two evils moments.
Yesterday's Simply for Life weigh in wasn't as traumatic as it could have been.
In spite of my eat-out-fest of this past weekend, I still managed to lose a pound.
Not my most stellar moment, but better than gaining.
More importantly, Stephen returned to SFL.
(I just noticed that I typed DFL. I fixed it and then thought, hmmmm. . .Dawne for Life?)
He had been going, but his commitment to the early morning weigh-ins, 9.45 am, was less than it should have been.
But something has happened to kickstart a newfound interest, a stronger commitment to getting healthy, and there he was sitting beside me yesterday, ready to renew his vows to a healthier, happier Stephen.
Sometimes these meetings are challenging, not just because of the weight issues, but also because my counsellor calls me on my shit.
In particular, that gardening, while a healthy activity, does not necessarily replace yoga and that a healthy lifestyle would include both.
Because yoga is good for the body and the mind.
The thing is, I want to be outside, not inside.
So it would appear that I will be doing yoga in the backyard.
Our neighbours already think I'm a nut bag, so what's a little more evidence.
I wonder if Stephen would come out with me?
What's the temp in hell again? Enough for it to freeze over?
A nice thing about students is that even after they graduate and move on to the next stages of their lives, they sometimes come back.
And take you out for lunch.
This was yesterday's other happy event.
The first being Stephen's return to SFL.
Both young women are now RCMP officers, one out west and the other in a neighbouring province.
We talked about their adventures, domestic violence calls; hitting dead, frozen elk on the highways out west; the trials and tribulations of hitting deer in the back woods of Atlantic Canada; paper work. . . .
All while we munched on club wraps with soup or salad.
Nary a french fry to abscond.
Which was probably a good thing because if I only lose a pound a week, it's gonna take me another two years to reach my goal weight.
Em worked last evening from 5.00-8.00
Mer and Keith started sometime around 5.00, and didn't end until much later.
After depositing all my little chicks at the mall so they could subordinate their labour to Empire Theaters, Stephen and I headed downtown with the camera.
You know where this is going.
Most people travel all over the world to visit new and exciting places.
I wanted to wander through downtown Fredericton as I would in a city I wasn't familiar with.
And doing so revealed things we had never seen before.
In spite of living here.
Most of our downtown travels are for specific purposes.
Fixed engagements with fixed times, meaning we actually don't take the time to look at what is going on around us.
In fairness, when you're trying to navigate your mother's wheelchair, with your mother in it, through the streets of downtown anywhere, taking the time to look at what is going on around you can be a little challenging.
Same can be said for trying to subtly meander with Frankie and Tikka.
One behaves as if he is constantly on alert for the next apocalypse, while the other goes where ever the hell she wants regardless of whether or not you actually want her to.
And with the kids?
Um.
Mer is busy checking herself out in every shop window she comes across, Keith is trying to prevent her from making a public spectacle of herself, and Em is usually bending my ear with tales of teenage trauma.
Although Em and I are planning a walk downtown tomorrow afternoon with both our cameras.
Em has the most phenomenal eye for pictures.
She has taken some of the most beautiful pictures I've ever seen.
I'm hoping she can show me how she looks at things.
So I can take stunning pictures, too.
And then we're going to see The Green Lantern 3D.
Payment for dragging her all over downtown to show me how to take pictures.
10.30 am:
So, with the camera, comfy shoes, $20.00 for dinner in case we found ourselves hungry, we started off on our shutterbug adventure.
One of the facets of Fredericton I love is the abundance of old, unique houses.
When I've been to other cities, like Montreal and Toronto, I don't see these kinds of old homes.
And this is just a small, small sampling. There are so many houses in the downtown area that scream, "There isn't another house like me anywhere!"
Of course, whether I'm technically allowed to take pictures of them is another story.
In fact, I really didn't think too much about if I should be taking pictures or not until I took this one:
I just thought it was cool that I was almost at eye level with a traffic light.
Usually they're a lot higher of the ground than I am.
Another element of Fredericton I quite enjoy is the old train bridge.
It's no longer used for trains.
But, it is a walking bridge that connects the South side of Fredericton with the North side.
All year long people walk and bike across the bridge.
Last evening was the annual prom for Fredericton High School, and dotted along the bridge's landscape were parties of parents, other family members and friends posing on the bridge for prom pictures.
Young women in dresses that cost more than my wedding standing proudly beside their male companions bedecked in rented tuxedo's and looking as if they wanted to be anywhere but where they were.
I didn't think I should take pictures of them.
Besides, Em will be experiencing the prom-madness next year and I can wait until then thank you very much.
The bridge:
South to North
And North to South
And of course, the glorious looking St. John River:
The tall spire in the distance is part of the lovely Christ Church Cathedral:
Stephen, when the kids were younger, had them convinced that the ghost of some woman connected to the church haunted the church grounds in the evening.
He told them this during an evening walk, in the dark.
Em wouldn't go near the grounds of the church for years after that.
I should have given him a boot in the ass for scaring her like that, but my feet don't seem to carry the same impact as his:
Thankfully, he's never felt the urge to kick me in the ass.
At least as far as I know.
And of course, there were the requisite flower and trees pictures.
Again, I don't know if I had the "right" to take these pictures, but no one came out and stopped me:
Amid the flowers I came across an arbour. Now I want one.
Finally, things I found interesting. And that was all the reason I needed to take them.
Below is the Fredericton Peace Pole. It's just before you walk onto the train bridge on the south side.
Imagine all the things you see when you look at what is familiar.
And Em passed everything, including math.
No summer school.
Just working to pay back the man. . . .
. . .who, in this case, is me.
Title Lyric: Hey by Rooney
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