Happy Birthday Megan

Today Meg is 13, and we are with Joe’s sister Kelly (and the very gracious Dave and Camille) in Cape Breton. Megan’s going to spend the day cavorting in the ocean, playing dressup with her cousins Savannah and Kamilah, and enjoying the company of Asha, thier friend from London. Meg will also dedicate about 7 hours of this day to jumping on the trampoline and all of this will be done (possibly including the cavorting in the ocean) wearing a new poncho. (I finished fringing the poncho at 2am. My previous positive feelings about fringe are now largely neutral, with tendencies toward complete hatred). Meg loves it (the fringe is, apparently, the best part.) Meg is a funny, witty kid, and she hates a lot of stuff. Meg only has big feelings. I’ve never asked her for her opinion and gotten a neutral one. Meg either loves something more than life itself and would die to defend and protect it, or she hates it…and would rather die a death of a thousand paper cuts to avoid it. This intense personality has made being her mother a bit of an, er…engaging process, and it’s been a pleasure this last year to watch Meg grow into herself, and begin to possess wonderful qualities like patience, reflection and the gracefulness that comes with learning to keep your trap shut some of the time. I enjoy her a very great deal, and I’d fringe a thousand ponchos for her.
We left Newfoundland behind yesterday, crossing the Cabot strait on the “Caribou”. The Caribou is a big ship. The biggest I’ve ever been on, and I was a little nervous. This nervousness was compounded by this little old guy who I now believe was tormenting me for fun. Every time I looked out the window at this huge expanse of water this old guy looked at me, looked at the sea and said “Now, now…gonna be some weather”. This scared the crap out of me. Once you’ve caught on to what Newfoundlanders call “Weather”, it isn’t much of a leap to figure that you are about 14 minutes away from a hurricane, a Wall of Water and a sinking ship. (This gave Joe reason #17 to laugh his arse off. I have been very slow to learn that frightening people from “away” is a provincial pastime.)
I am so close to Baadeck yarns that I can smell it. Ken arrives tonight with the bikes, and we take the ferry to PEI tomorrow and begin the bike ride part of our vacation, camping and cycling our way across the province, so Baadeck may have to wait until I return to Cape Breton in a week.