Along the Merry Way....

Last year at this time, my former fiancé and I had recently gone separate ways. Feeling pretty grief-stricken, I decided to do something constructive: Operation Spread the Love . I made valentines and gave them out to strangers - street bums, lonely-looking people, and anyone who appeared sad in downtown Ottawa. It was so much fun, that I decided to do it all over again here in the new and lovely city of Victoria on Valentine’s Day this year. It's a lot easier on the laid-back West Coast! I gave out almost two dozen of them within a very short time, and people glowed and laughed and thanked me! One lady was a bit defensive at first, thinking I was targeting only lonely-looking people, but she thawed a bit when I said they were for anyone! Another couple chased me down afterwards and asked me why ? So I explained that it was a tradition to Spread the Love a little bit. Another ricketty old man, sitting alone, was really happy to get one, but only after I assured him that there was...

I was walking down the street today and hit a wall of perfume! Flowers! Growing on February 1st :) It made me love you even more, Victoria :) Actually, they started blooming on January 1st, to be more precise. You know it's Victoria when......double decker buses drop you off closer to your home just because...it's closer to your house. Flowers bloom almost all year round. You can look at the mountains of Washington across the strait and clamber onto a tall ship if they invite you on board. People play keyboard in the park or double-bass on the beach just for kicks. There is always someone more oddly dressed than you. Elizabethan homes with stained glass windows! Veggie gardens and obssessive-composting everywhere. Little mountains poke up throughout the city, shaking off the homes near the top, hard-core rock-climbers and joggers still clinging to the top. You can sit by the ocean and have a chat with an inquisitive harbor seal. It's the abode of healthy neo-hippies...