Longest run since May 2008

10-kilometre run. With doggies. Pouring rain. Total joy. 49:49.

mailing it in

A good friend of mine celebrated her birthday last week (Happy Birthday, cexylizziepants!), and I procrastinated in getting a gift in the mail for her. She's currently living in another province, one that is home to two NHL teams. Her birthday was on Thursday, and I had assumed that a birthday parcel would take 2-3 days to get to her, so if I put it in the mail on Tuesday there was a chance it'd get to her right on her birthday. However, after getting the opinions of a few other people, I became a little nervous. One person said two weeks, another said about a week, and another said 4-5 business days. Ugh. At the post office on Tuesday I considered my options that were given by the worker and went with the cheapest option which she said had a chance of getting there by Friday. The gifts weren't time-sensitive, and it wouldn't be the first time in the history of the world that a birthday gift sent by mail arrived after the fact. Would it? Doubt it.

The shipment even came with a tracking number, which was exciting for me. Only the second time in my life I've had a chance to track something. Coincidentally, the first time was waiting for an online order to arrive - an online order that was a wedding gift earlier this year for this same birthday girl! My first check of the tracking number showed me that the parcel had arrived at the post office in Coquitlam. Um, right.... I was there for that. The next check showed that the parcel had arrived at the facility in Richmond! It was about to take flight! Before I could check again, on Thursday my birthday friend thanked me on MSN Messenger! At first I wasn't sure it had, based on her first comment. We had joked about us giving her a car - a blue car - as a gift, and in the parcel I included a small blue car toy from a collection of similar cars we had here. So when the first thing she wrote was 'thanks for the blue car', I wasn't sure if she had received the package or if she was pretending we actually got her a real blue car. Turns out the parcel had indeed arrived right on her birthday! Approximately 48 hours after I handed over the parcel to Canada Post in Coquitlam, it arrived in Calgary! (Alberta: home to the Calgary Flames and the Edmonton Oilers.) I had tricked her into believing that we weren't getting her anything for her birthday, so its arrival was a surprise. Plus, she says that it was the only thing that arrived by mail that day - no bills, no nothing, just our birthday parcel. Cool.

Yesterday she told me a very cool story about the car (there were other parts to the parcel, I'm just not sharing), but I'd have to get her permission before I can tell it. If she gives permission, this post shall be edited soon to add her exact text from yesterday's chat.

It's now a day later and permission has been granted! Sort of. I can share regardless. My friend took a two-day weekend course right after the arrival of the birthday parcel. The course focused on psychic development and they were asked to bring a small item on Sundays. So BW took the blue car. All the items were put into a bag and each person chose one of the items randomly from the bag. Then each person gave a reading of the item they had chosen, with no knowledge of who brought the item. According to BW, the girl who did her reading said that the moment she started to read it, she got an image of a small boy, playing with the car.

Then,

• she got the impression that it actually belongs to an older person, and it represents a car that they want
• and that it was a gift
• ok wait, she wrote down her impressions, so let me write them for u
• small boy....son, brother.... husband, father
• favorite color - blue, chosen for the color
• treasured favorite toy or treasured car owned by an older version of the small boy
• given to the person for safe keeping, and a strong loving relationship
• brings lots of joy to the beholder
• and she was so bang on about everything
• and she was so HAPPY, when she gave the reading
• because she could feel the energy from the car
• and when she found out it was mine, rushed over to give me a huge hug
• and whole class loved it
• i think mine was the best reading!

a fine time up the Grind

I got home about 45 minutes ago after getting up bright and early for a jaunt up the Grouse Grind. I know what you're thinking: a jaunt? Really? Dictionary.com defines jaunt as "a short journey, esp. one taken for pleasure" - surely you don't find a rainy early-Saturday hike up a mountain pleasurable. And that's where you're wrong. I find it highly pleasurable and don't do it enough. Rain or no rain, I like hiking. It would've been nice to have had the dogs trekking along with me, but, alas, they are not allowed on that trail.

After meeting my friend KB at the base of the trail just before 8 a.m., I pushed the buttons on my watch that make the numbers rise and up we went. However, KB was under the weather and that made for slow progress early on. We took a few breaks as he tried to fight through the queasiness, but just past the 1/4 mark, he decided that he better not risk anything more severe and opted to turn and return to the bottom. I was feeling pretty good, very good actually, and continued with the wet ascent. From that point on, I managed to summit without taking another break. I was feeling very, very good. So good, in fact, that I'm thinking of going for a one-hour run* with the dogs after publishing this post (which will be roughly two hours after reaching the Grind's peak).

Here's a brief summary of today's Grind time:

45:00 - KB turns around a little past the 1/4 mark.
53:00 - I pass the 2/4 mark.
1:07:00 - I pass the 3/4 mark.
1:18:00 - I summit.

I am pretty sure that the cost of the gondola ride down was $5 the last time I was there, and so was surprised to learn that the cost today was $10. If it wasn't for the rain I would've kept my money and hiked back down, but since I didn't want to risk a slip on wet wood, onto the gondola ten bucks lighter I went. On drier days it'll be hike up, hike down, fo' sho'.

Of note, I was back in the car at 9:55 a.m. and at 10:30 a.m. I was turning the car off in our driveway - pretty quick, eh? Especially considering I didn't have the carpool lane option on the highway. And now, I runnnn. C'mere doggies..

[* The run - one of my best in a long time - was actually completed in a time of 47:12. Today has been a very good day. Now to get stuff done at home with playoff baseball and regular-season hockey (including the Canucks' first game of the season!) playing on the television in the background.]

'are we family' or what?

It almost went on the book, until I remembered.

A finale of two to bid you adieu: 1) it might be late, but it won't be early, and
2) lonely like the tightrope walker, hitchhiker, long-distance runner