King of the Broadcasters

Sometimes it's triply hard to make a living. Make that to the power of 1,000. 99% of the time my PGs (tourists) are wonderful, kind, aware, interesting and interested.

But the odd time, the very odd time, I realize I'm making barely 50c an hour for the time they suck out of me like this guy(TG)! TG booked in for 3 days and nights.

I am captive to his enchantment with his own company and his interesting self. He's a non-stop broadcaster. A braggadocio of the first order. From his family pictures lining the walls of some distant legislature to how wonderful a husband/father/son/advocate he's been since he was born. One night I had to leave my own house and go to the graveyard to commune with dead strangers as he had finally trampled all over my last remaining nerve ending.

I had to leave him in mid-flow in my living room last night when I felt a scream rush to my throat and only by a sheer act of will could I squelch it by running upstairs.

This morning, as he entered the dining room he started up again about me being his escort to his son's wedding (kill me now!) and then launched into how the Cree Nation honours him for all his work in the Cree Tribe. His solution (which is hugely successful, he remarked in passing) to tribal alcoholism: "Give the natives proper suits and employ them all in First Nations casinos and give them credit cards and then bingo! they'll have purchasing power and a fancy car. They'll stop drinking!" Can you count all the wrongs in that statement? Boy, I'd love to find me some Cree elders and have a chat about sainted TG and his final solution.

So I stood, pushed my chair in, went to the kitchen, cleaned up, then said abruptly as the verbal diarrhea poured all around me: "Look, I've work to do, phone calls to make, I'm going to my office now and need privacy."

He says, I kid you not: "Ah, don't leave me, I love our little chats, oh come on!".

I made it and closed the door with a firm thunk and leaned against it gnawing my own fist.

He leaves tomorrow morning.

Diversion & Distraction

A view of St. John's, capital city of Newfoundland & Labrador, taken a few days ago by moi.

A friend of over 40 years standing came and visited me for 6 days. Which accounts for my lack of attention to your blogs and to my own.

She couldn't have timed it better as it was her first visit here and I pulled out all the touristy stuff within easy reach. The weather was kind to us and the pace was leisurely. Art galleries, fossil sites (oldest fossils in the world), Signal Hill (see view up above)and Cape Spear - the most eastern point in North America, to name a few. And oh yes Thanksgiving dinner chez moi thrown in there too. We had long conversations into the small hours catching up on all the doings that phone-calling and emailing don't quite cover.

Now that she's gone I am taking the day off to regroup. My new grief counsellor phoned me and we had a lovely chat, he right away went into a recent grief process of his own which resulted also in physical health issues and he won me over. So my first F2F session is next Wednesday.

I can't thank everyone out there enough for all the support, both private and on comments, that has been offered so lovingly and with such compassion.

My sometimes difficult and challenging passages through life are rendered easier because of you, my web gang.

You are truly the family of my heart.

What I did on my Summer Vacation

Fort Amherst across from Signal Hill, St. John's, Newfoundland.

Thanks for all the good wishes on my previous post.

I had a lovely week off in spite of the weather that kept hissing and splatting and fogging. I took my friend around all the familiar (by now) tourist spots on the Avalon Peninsula once the sun struck which was far too rarely.

I note I've slid into 'creature of habit' status. I am still slightly discombulated from being forced out of my usual routine and with a friend I've never shared board with before so synching routines (downtime, uptime, shower/bath time, laundry facilities, food peculiarities, etc.)for a whole week knocks me right out of my comfort zone.

I realize it takes far more courage for a guest to travel a distance and land in the home of a person that up to now and over the many years has been a work, event and dinner companion, than to be the host of such a friend. Basically one is trapped. No car, no transit, totally reliant on the (hopefully) good nature of the chatelaine.

It all went rather well, I thought. Fresh routines were formed - for instance we watched a movie out of my vast collection every night before bedtime and we learned about each others' families of origin in all their uniqueness.

We are both great talkers and intensely curious about this planet we inhabit. And I learned much about her upbringing in Australia.

And I was absolutely thrilled that my whale buddies performed their show-off routines for her at Cape Spear. Thanks mates!