Get Me To the Church

I have two "Wendy" friends, Big Liver Girl and the Reverend Wendy. The Reverend Wendy really is an ordained Anglican minister, and is about as much fun as I think the Anglican church will allow. (Big Liver Girl Wendy is a licenced physiotherapist, so I pretty much have my physical and spiritual needs covered when it comes to my Wendys.) I'm Catholic, and Big Liver Girl is United, so and Anglican service was all new to us.

Big Liver Girl decided that it was time we went to see the Reverend Wendy preach, so we roused ourselves out of the house last Sunday, and drove up the road a bit to see her. She had no idea we were coming, so you should have seen her eyes sproing out of her head when she found us sitting in her church. (I should be so lucky as to get that sort of welcome everywhere.)

The Reverend Wendy's church is a lovely little jewel of a church; a hundred-and something- year-old stone and pine affair in the country, that smells exactly like a church should. It is smallish, with lots of stained glass windows, and it looks pretty much like I expect it looked when it was built.

It was the Rememberance Day ceremony, so we sang "God Save the Queen" and "Oh, Canada", and you could tell people really meant it. Actually, all the hymns were good...church is the only place I'm allowed to sing with the gusto I enjoy, and it pleases me mightily when I have good material.

It has come to my attention in the past that Big Liver Girl and I should NEVER, EVER find ourselves in situations where A) solemnity is important, and B) we should be quiet. We are masters of neither. I don't think we made it past the first reading before she whispered something in my ear that had me weeping with laughter and had the pew rattling off the floor. Seriously, she's a menace.

There was a teenage couple ahead of us that had us utterly enthralled. They must have started dating the night before, because he couldn't keep his hands off her, and she was very happy to let him. Big Liver Girl wondered aloud if they thought, perhaps, they were at a drive-in, rather than church on a Sunday morning. I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be allowed at a Catholic mass...man, I remember when it was a big deal to wear jeans to mass, let alone snuggle with your sweetie. And, also? they were drinking coffee. During the service. Those Anglicans are wild, I tell you.

After the ceremony, we went up to the hall, where they had lunch set out! It was fabulous! The Wendys and I sat and talked for while drinking coffee and eating some pretty wonderful carrot cake with cream cheese icing. It was marvelous.

I can't remember the last time I had that much fun at church. Sorry, Irish-Catholic ancestors.

Girl Time

On Saturday I went away to a cottage on Lake Huron with some girl friends for a night. (Some of them were the same crowd who went to Quebec with me a few weeks ago.) You could be forgiven for thinking that some of us rarely sleep in our own beds, but that's because I don't tell you about the mundane, usual routine most of us carry out, which includes a book, a bath and lights out by 10. We're wild, we are.

The Great Lakes are huge...no wonder the first white people to see them thought they'd reached the Pacific. I remember a friend of mine who grew up in Calgary marvelling at seeing Lake Huron for the first time; she said she'd never seen a lake where you can't see the other side before. It's a wonder that they ever warm up enough to swim in at all, let alone for the better part of three months. (I've never been to Lake Superior, but I hear that is always cold enough to re-arrange your anatomy, should you be so foolish to venture in.) The lake wasn't quite warm enough to swim in just yet, and the weather outside didn't encourage it either, but we did dip our toes in and walk along the beach barefoot at around sunset.

The weather wasn't great while we were there, windy and cold, but we enjoyed the respite from motherhood and responibilities nonetheless. (I particularly enjoyed sleeping in without having a persistent, determined cat trying to get me out of bed to get him tuna.) There was lots of food (LOTS!) and drink and plenty of talk and laughter. I tell you, these women will talk about anything.

I came home full and sated and ready to face my family again. I just love my friends.

And The Card Attached Would Say....

It's been another "treadmill week" here at Chez Loudshoes....I feel like I've been running very hard just to keep up. I've worked almost every night until 6:30 or 7, and there has been very little room for error. ("I can only sign your pizza lunch form if you slip it under the bathroom door.")

On Friday morning I don't have to be at work until 9:30, a precious half-hour later than usual. (But the toilet broke at work just before we left last night, so we had to stop off at the hardware store before we went in, resulting in a precious 15 minutes respite, instead of a half hour.) Usually I spend my time wisely on that morning, namely, logging onto Television Without Pity to see what everyone else thought of last night's "The Office", "30 Rock" and "Grey's Anatomy". Good times. But I cannot bypass checking my e-mail quickly, and also sneaking into Facebook to see if anyone wanted to talk to me since I went to bed 8 hours before.

This morning, as I was quickly skimmed through the status updates (because that is very important) I noticed that Big Liver Girl was kvelding that she had "made wickedly good lunches today" for herself and her four children. I was downcast, because I knew that my lunch today was going to consist of an All-Bran Bar, some past-it's-best-before-date yogurt and a banana deemed "too spotty" for consumption by the rest of my family. (Mostly this situation was due to the fact that I was surfing Facebook at 8 in the morning, instead of getting a better lunch together for myself.) I quickly fired off my own status update, specifically "Mrs. Loudshoes wishes Big Liver Girl had made her lunch today". And then I went off to fling some not-actually-ironed clothes on myself and slap on some makeup to make myself fit for meeting the public at work.

The Mister and I took off for the hardware store on our way to work to pick up the bit for the toilet. (Very important....9 staff, 40 clients, one bathroom. You do the math.)

When we got into work, the receptionist and the rest of the staff were all gathered around the front desk, because Big Liver Girl had dropped off a freshly hand-packed lunch for me. I nearly blacked out with delight. The rest of my co-workers were thrilled, jealous and entirely agog. It was marvelous. And it got even better when I opened the lunch....a mortadella sandwich on homemade bread, some cut-up veggies, an apple and a gingerale. Honestly, I couldn't have been more thrilled if it had been bacon-wrapped scallops and fiery pork.

Because a true friend, your best friend, knows the importance of having a lunch to look forward to. Big Liver Girl....thank you. Really.