{Virtual Coffee}

Good-bye May, hello Tuesday - it's time for Virtual Coffee. If we were meeting for coffee today I would say I was greeted early this morning by some more trash can art.

If we were meeting for coffee today we might be meeting in "real time" because I headed off to meet my friend, Tammy, this morning at our favourite haunt for a "real" cappuccino and chocolate/cranberry muffin. If we were meeting for coffee today we would sit on a terrace because as of yesterday, it has been summer here. Glorious, sun drenched days. Ahhhh. I really come alive in the heat, this is MY season. I would admit that I'm not sure what's the heat and what might be hot flashes since it's been so very long since I've had sweaty feet.

If we were meeting for coffee today I would tell you that I have been running around getting so much done this week. I attribute that partly to hanging out with some ambitious people. I'm not sure what rubs off on me around busy people, but I often come home and get moving. Riley and I went up to the cottage on Sunday to take the annual assessment. And I'm happy to report that over the winter there was minimal mouse penetration. But there was and is more woodpecker penetration as they peck away at the wooden part of my house. We said hello to the lake and hello to the deer head hanging over our mantle.

I cleaned the place from top to bottom and now I feel ready to start inhabiting it once black fly season calms down. If we were meeting for coffee today I would tell you that I was grateful for Sunday being a rainy day because it kept those nasty biters down to a bare minimum. Despite the rains we still took a nature walk.

I could tell you about how incredibly soggy everything was and how incredibly green. But I couldn't begin to tell you how it all smelled with the new growth oozing life and making pure oxygen.

We were done by early afternoon so we stopped at our favourite greasy spoon for lunch on the way back to the city.

There is a certain je ne sais quoi about Claudette's french fries. I could tell you about some of the characters that are regulars there and how it has become a summer ritual for my sister and I to get a paper bag of fries and smother them with vinegar and salt. But I wouldn't be able to tell you how our hair and clothes smell once we leave the place.

If we were meeting for coffee today I would tell you where else I headed this morning. It's not a big secret but part of my past before I adopted this virtual personality was a marriage that sadly ended, acknowledging the vow 'until death do we part'. I had felt a calling to this place for a few weeks now and today brought with it the opportunity for a few more hours in a row than I usually have in any given day.

I sat on this bench for a good while (it always makes me smile to know one of my favourite writers is just a few 'doors' down)

and quietly asked why I needed to be here and I waited. I listened deeply with all that is me. I don't really know why I needed to go but I was grateful for the solitude and the meditative space. There are things that pass in our lives that we never fully get over but we keep moving forward because that is all we really can do.

If we were meeting for coffee today I would slip into the conversation that this past week I have bought two Christmas presents. Which is early, even for me, as I usually start in July.

If we were meeting for coffee today I would tell you how inspired I was by this post by Melody at the Brave Girls Club and how she is unplugging from Facebook for 90 days. I would admit that I find social media leaking my precious time away in sneaky ways. And I would point the finger at Facebook as my biggest sprung leak but honestly I would know that it is all my fault and that it is one of my strange and powerful addictions.

If we were meeting for coffee today I would tell you today is a day for drying sheets on the line

and for planting the last bits of my garden like the heavenly blue morning glory

and some lavender. I would tell you that on admiring a neighbour's overgrown patch of lavender, I was told that my own lavender - the one I have to replant every year - does so poorly because my soil is too rich. So I am planting this bunch in the Space Where Nothing Will Grow and I'm hoping that whatever has cursed this patch of ground will be food for my lavender.

And then we would go over to Amy's at Lucky Number 13 and convince her that it really is Tuesday after all.