They say that it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all but in this day and age of on-line friendships and romances, the saying should be amended. For is it still better to have loved and lost if you never really knew the person, if you’d never seen them or held their hand. Is it still better to love a shadow.

Bert thinks not. Bert who loved a shadow and then lost it. Bert who dreamed of how the blue leather would shimmer, Bert who dreamed of the close-close embrace of moulded fiberglass, Bert who dreamed of connecting the pieces of the puzzle, the blades and the boots, to form a work of art.

The blades now lie alone at home, and they will continue to do so for many more months. For, you see, Berts love, Berts promised ones have been cancelled.

His foot molds have been unceremoniously returned to him like a love trinket thrown in his face. And his skates, his poor skates have been snuffed out of existence before they were even allowed to exist.

Beware all you who love a shadow, for shadows are delicate things, wont to dissapear beneath the slightest of cloud-and they will leave you without even the smallest comfort of the memory of their touch.

On Sunday we went to Deep Cove Daze (note the very clever word play days-daze). Anyway Deep Cove Daze was originally started by a bunch of hippies but it has transformed into something slightly different (not much mind you). Some highlights include:

1. The rock band who played very loudly and rather well…for ten year olds

2. The kids kayak race…in kayaks made in an hour from cardboard and a roll of packing tape

3. The sole thong-wearing bather…who kept grabbing her arse cheeks to jiggle and adjust them

4. The fact that our dog actually had the guts to wade in the ocean…a half hour after she was chased out of my brothers house by a two pound kitten.

5. The vendors selling tiny $5 bags of ‘health food peanuts’ next to the guy selling giant $3 smokies - I’m proud to say that Deep Covers were buying the latter in droves, and the former not at all. 

What a Daze!  

I don’t usually blog on the weekends, but this Saturday is different. I am back home in Deep Cove enjoying sun in Vancouver and a very quiet morning borne from the apparent immunity of everyone else to jet lag.

Ok, granted only Bert and I actually travelled but when everyone went toddling off to bed last night at 1:30 I knew, I just knew that I would be up bright and early despite my deepest wishes.

And so at 7am I finally conceeded defeat and rolled out of bed. I enjoyed my tea on the deck over-looking the trees and the water, I walked the dog through the woods and watched her revel in the lack of broken bottles, sketchy cast off rags and dead vermin, I checked my email…twice cause you totally don’t know who might be sending you an email between 8am and 8:05am PST on a Saturday (in this case, the answer is, nobody).

And now I’m bored. There are apparently donuts for breakfast but I can’t find them and no one who might know their where abouts is showing any signs of wakefulness.

Oh where have all the donuts gone?

Last night I was rushing up the street on my way home from work and someone was handing out free stuff. Without looking at what it was I grabbed one because hey, it’s free and last time it was yogurt.

After j-walking across the street I looked down to see what I had and it was a trial pack of Nicorette which led me to question a few things:

1. How many people walking up the street are actually smokers who are considering quitting?
2. Isn’t Nicorette addictive, in which case are they really allowed to hand out free samples?
3. Was I witness to some terrible back-room partnership between the makers of Nicorette and Philipp-Morris? Is this some sort of scheme to get us all addicted to cigarettes now? Like drug dealers who hand out the first hit for free?

Anyway, I ditched my free sample in a pile neatly stacked on a wall. There was no way I was going to chance this freebe, it had the feel of a razor-blade laced Halloween apple.

When I was 12, when all of my other friends (although I didn’t have many at that age) were shopping for ‘graduation-dance’ clothes, I was spending an inordinate amount of time in changing rooms crying.

Why so glum, you may wonder - and indeed you should be wondering because that is exactly the purpose of this post.

I wasn’t always of average height for my age. I was crying in the changing rooms because it didn’t matter how many neon bracelets I would wear, the winnie-the-pooh dress didn’t look cool. Neither did the snow white dress, or the poofy white flower girl dress, or, for that matter anything frilly and pink.

When I was 12 I was shorter than most of the grade 1 kids in my school. I was still wearing size 6 clothes and I could identify my classroom by the mini-desk from the junior school in the corner.

These days there are a whole slew of ‘fashion’ clothes available for little kids - which freaks me out by the way, a five year old should not be wearing a sequined tank top and mini-skirt. Anyway, back when I was growing up, the only thing that kids six and under (or sized six or under) could wear were little kid clothes…and so I did.
I like to blame my lack of friends (see first sentence) on my Disney adorned sweat pants and I had pretty much resigned myself to a life of loneliness when, low and behold, the summer after grade seven ended I grew. By August I had pretty much reached that ever elusive averageness of height. I could finally wear age appropriate clothes.

Then I started grade 8 at a private school and spent the rest of my high school years wearing a school uniform. The exact same one as the six year olds.