Warning: Rocky Road Ahead

Oh boy. So for all of you who are counting down the days until my wedding (what, you mean you're not?) we're sitting at 26 big sleeps.

This would be totally fine and dandy, except that my lovely place of work has thrown me some big curveballs for my last three weeks in the office, and I'm feeling a bit wracked. When I started working here, they told me summers are slow. They lied.

At home, the ranunculus are still pathetic and the RSVP cards have slowed to a dry trickle. The only things left to do are the really heinous things like moving furniture around and buying stuff, and fixing up our house a bit so more than 2 people can use it.

This is all to say that the blog will likewise be a bit patchy for the next while. If I seem unfocused, it's symptomatic of a greater mass confusion - my only hope is to keep hanging on, keep my head above the water and keep breathing. In a month this will all be over, and you will undoubtedly be able to enjoy more frequent postings as well as wedding photos.

In other news, I went to Newfoundland last week and had a real blast. I love that place. I love pointing out how different it is there when I get home, like "did you know that in Newfoundland, it's peak whale season right now? Did you know that in Newfoundland, they call small towns 'outports'? Did you know that in Newfoundland, the gardens are all about 2 weeks behind gardens here, yet the Queen Anne's Lace is already in full bloom?"

I went down there for some meetings and to witness the opening of The Rooms. It was fantastic, though I didn't know that the opening ceremonies were outdoors and I ended up with a real Rudolph nose. You could see the pattern of my hairstyle burned onto my forehead. Anyway, I am over that, but I am still excited to have met Rick Mercer in person. I am a real fan. Not in a have-posters-on-my-bedroom-wall-know-his-entire-personal-history kind of way, but I think he's a terrific Canadian and I'm proud that his brand of smart humour is popular across this country. He's like our version of Jon Stewart, for those of you south of the border who don't know of him. I've linked to his very own blogger blog at the side of this page.

Anyway, while there I went hiking around Signal Hill, which was amazing. If I lived in St. John's I'd do that every day and my gluteous maximi would be minimized. (For those of you who don't speak latin, that means I'd have a tiny ass). But in all seriousness, the landscape at Signal Hill alone is breathtaking - the water was a Caribbean blue, and the vegetation is so interesting that I was a total geek and took plant pictures. Unfortunately my camera isn't the greatest and they didn't really turn out. Some lovely soul in St. John's has taken the time to label the plants on Signal Hill with plant tags and latin names which, as a plant-nerd tourist, I very much appreciated.

The next day we took a quick drive up to Cape Spear and saw some whales. Again, I didn't get any satisfying whale pictures. They weren't exactly cooperating - most of the time all I saw were spurts of mist from their blowholes. I don't even know which kind of whales we were seeing, all I know is that I was cold and my lunch wasn't agreeing with me. Then we drove to the airport and I came home, many hours and half a bottle of Pepto Bismol later, to the stinking heat of Ottawa. It was 7 in St. John's when I left, and about 30 in Ottawa when I landed. How is a girl to dress?

Anyway, I went, I cooled down, I met Rick Mercer, I provided the people of Newfoundland with some comedic relief after realizing that I'd packed one high-heeled shoe for a black-tie gala (here's a plug for Gallery Shoes in downtown St. John's - they've got beautiful stuff and friendly staff who don't laugh too hard at people like me), and I saw some great short plants and some whales. Now I gots to get through the next few weeks, and then go and get myself married. No sweat.