AI sometimes live in two different worlds. This morning for example. CPI sent an article, one that traced the total lack of any work done at Little Mountain. It is a crying shame. Little Mountain is property in Vancouver owned by the Holburn group – it was supposedly to be developed providing social housing but nothing has been done for years and years and years. As usual CPI was funny.
She: Just to keep you updated. Do you think Holburn (Jonathan Cooper) could reference the Monty Python parrot sketch – “not dead, just resting”? I am not going to the demonstration.
Me: Oh my goodness you are funny. I do think Jonathan Cooper should give the Python sketch scene a try. It must be dreadfully embarrassing to be him – he does not really have any control. It seem that Joo Kim has deserted and vacated Vancouver and is instead concentrating on the home territory of Malaysia. Oh well, not my problem but thank you for keeping me updated. I do appreciate it. My Vancouver life seems like a bad dream, a nightmare. Life here is so much easier and gracious and fun.
Then this morning there was texting and a telephone call to Afghanistan of all places. At one point an argument ensued and I screamed in rage. But then we calmed down, I said I was sorry and we made a plan so that it would not happen again. Fights can be fine.
Me: Fights can be useful in a relationship. I do not recall ever fighting with my first husband. The marriage was dead – do not know when it died.
He: Well in the end we came to a compromise that we both are happy with.
Me: Yes – we both changed our position slightly to accommodate each other.
It is a cold and miserable day. There is no heat in my apartment – how jolly that is. Well thank God I am not still living in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Not freezing to death in California. I prefer the cold to the heat.
Yesterday turned into an absolutely amazing day – beginning with laziness beyond belief but then rallied to the occasion. Met an interesting woman who lives in this building, she is a lawyer. Then called a cab (Personal Driver has the day off) to go to Saks for a make over by my Instagram buddy Richard. He works for a French cosmetic company, Sisley. We had met at Nordstrom’s in Marin several months ago but we tracked one another on Instagram and when I absolutely NEEDED a make over I contacted him, learned when he was working and made an appointment. I needed a makeover because I was expecting one in London but did not get it – nor did I get the lesson on how to tie a head scarf in the Arab fashion. Personal Driver (aka Dubai Guy) is going to help me with that. My time at Saks was so convivial, so fun, so enjoyable and when it was all finished and I looked in the mirror.
Me: Who is that? That cannot be me? What an amazing artist you are! Look at those eyes.
He: It was you who provided the canvas.
People would stop and chat and I got three kisses from a man who owned a beauty salon near West Edmonton Mall in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada – ‘my Canadian city” It was improbable. I looked better than I have looked my whole life and it filled me with great joy, exuberance and glee. I accosted almost all of the shoppers that Black Friday. Exuberance has fantastic synonyms – ebullience buoyancy, cheerfulness, sunniness, breeziness, jauntiness, light-heartedness, high spirits, exhilaration, excitement, elation, exultation, euphoria, joy, joyfulness, cheeriness, gaiety, jubilation, sparkle, effervescence, vivacity, enthusiasm, irrepressibility, energy, animation, life, liveliness, vigour, zest; bubble, bounce, pep, zing, chirpiness ANTONYMS gloom. So I rushed about in downtown San Francisco full of animation, high spirts, excitement,, exultation and euphoria.
Me: Look at me. Look what a wonderful job my make up man at Saks Sisley did! Can you believe I am 76?
They: No way! You cannot be 76.
Me: Do you want to see my driver’s license?
I actually looked pretty, I do not consider myself pretty or beautiful although I was called that by the Sultan’s Aide at the Pestana Chelsea Bridge Hotel. So I absolutely had to spread the joy around so I went to the Rotanda Restaurant at the Neiman Marcus. It was an absolutely delightful experience. Seated at the bar enjoying Sancerre, popovers and salad and speaking to the most interesting people being served by the best bartenders in the City. I have found a new home. It is the picture of graciousness, it even outranks the Rex Whistler, my go to place in London. Grabbing a cab to go home proved difficult but two wonderful young women helped me. I think it was one of the best days of my life. I did not buy any Black Friday anything but did get a gift card to be use later. Of course I bought the make up. It is an investment for goodness sake!
Today a New Yorker article featured Margaret Atwood. She became my muse when I was learning to write. Lawyers write in third person passive and that had to be abandoned when I began writing short stories and for school. I admire the Canadian author greatly, She speaks of truth being stranger than fiction, a topic explored on this blog in the past. .
“If the election of Donald Trump were fiction, Atwood maintains, it would be too implausible to satisfy readers. “There are too many wild cards—you want me to believe that the F.B.I. stood up and said this, and that the guy over at WikiLeaks did that?” she said. “Fiction has to be something that people would actually believe. If you had published it last June, everybody would have said, ‘That is never going to happen.’ ” Atwood is a buoyant doomsayer” She attended the , remarking that her favourite sign was ps. Among the signs she saw that day, her favorite was one held by a woman close to her own age; it said, “i can’t believe i’m still holding this fucking sign.” Atwood remarked, “After sixty years, why are we doing this again? But, as you know, in any area of life, it’s push and pushback. We have had the pushback, and now we are going to have the push again.”
Accompanying this blog will be a few photographs of me in all of my glory. When you are hot, you are hot.
When you are not, you are not.
