Away for a bit

I've been procrastinating, about writing this post. But now I'm down to the wire so here goes.

I'm going away for the weekend to a famous (locally) la-di-dah resort. It's going to be very expensive and I am going to be sharing a cabin with five other women, most of whom I don't know. It could be a total disaster. On the other hand, I would never book myself into an expensive famous resort on my own and it could be quite luxurious. Spa, sauna, pool, ocean beach, entertainment, the whole nine yards. All meals included. And, if things go south, there are lots of oceanside woodland trails to escape to.

I was invited to go by a friend who wants to celebrate her birthday in a big way. It's not even a decadal or semi-decadal birthday, she just wants to do it. This friend is bigger than life: loud, overwhelming, kind of full of herself. When I've told people what I'm doing this weekend the reaction is almost universal: Wow it would be great to go to that resort, but with M? For three days in a cabin together? Wow. To her credit she also has a heart of gold. Everyone agrees on that. Just a little hard to take in large doses. And with CFS, just a little bit harder. But, I'd never be going otherwise and you gotta take advantage of opportunities when they arise, right? 

We are leaving tomorrow morning and today is a busy day of tying up loose ends before I can go. Not fun.

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So we had an atmospheric river—the In new weather phenomenon—followed by a significant dump of snow. They said "flurries" but this was definitely not flurries. We actually got off light though, Cape Breton and western Newfoundland were hit hardest with lots of washed out roads. Fortunately no loss of life that I've heard of. Watching the satellite views before it actually hit was interesting, our east coast atmospheric river actually originated in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, just like the ones that hit Canada's west coast. Ours headed more south, snuck across the continent along the US-Mexico border with little or no precipitation to speak of, then once it reached the Atlantic it loaded up, veered northward and dumped on us. The fun new weather event.

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I have a birdfeeder on my back deck this year that the blue jays have staked out as their personal feeder. During a major storm it has the advantage of being under a roof. The jays are messy eaters, they guzzle beaksful of seeds to fill their gizzards and in the process spill lots of seeds on the ground. In this case, on a tabletop below the feeder. So in warmer weather the squirrels come to clean up, and the mourning doves. The doves have figured out the jays' eating habits so they follow the jays around because the doves can't manage the feeder, they have to scavenge below it.

During the storm a lone dove arrived in company with a jay, but the jay left shortly after. So the dove waited. No more jays came, the dove kept waiting. It was getting dark out and my kitchen light was on so the dove could see me. He didn't fly away when I aimed my camera at him, he kept waiting. But the jays were gone for the day, eventually the dove had to leave too. I felt sorry for him.