Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Happy 141 birthday Canada!

It has been a few days since I blogged last time. It's not that I had nothing to say--I was so exhausted that I could not bring myself to stay up and type. Besides, my fingers and hands hurt so much that I'm not sure if typing would have been possible even if I could stay awake long enough. What happened is: last Friday we got delivered 2 square yards of top soil and a six-square-yards large container for gardening. It was for Maggie's front yard gardening project. We spent the whole weekend digging up the dirt from the front yard. The problem was that the container and top soil were behind the house. We had to lug a plastic box which we loaded with excavated dirt the length of the house to the container. The dirt consisted mainly of clay soil, rocks and bricks. Each load weighed about 50 kg. Both Maggie and me had very sore backs by the end of each day. On Sunday, finally, the digging was over. We filled the six-square-yard container to the brim. Of course, it's simple math: 2 square yards of the top soil wasn't enough to fill the excavated garden, but it was enough to plant several plants and keep them in place. After more than 12 hours of work on Sunday we couldn't wait to crawl to bed and get some rest. Alas, we must have been drained beyond exhaustion, because neither one of us could fall asleep.

Sore and tired we went to work on Monday. It was a workday enveloped in haze of half-dream. I only remember being very slow and agitated with the smallest things. Since the whole gardening thing isn't done yet, we went to order more soil, which is supposed to be delivered on Wednesday.

Today, after full 12 hours of well deserved sleep, we woke up to Canada Day, which is a national holiday. The country we chose to call home is 141 year old. After the late breakfast we jumped into the car and went to Kingston, which was once upon a time the capital of Canada, to see the celebration. It was pretty lame, with a band playing in the port in front of the town hall and a few Canadians, dressed in red and white with maple leafs everywhere rocking in the rhythm and singing out of tune (along with the band which was also out of tune). The pleasant surprise was a band called "OKA" from Australia, which performed pop using some native instruments. I will try to upload the video of them later this week.

We were back home in time for fireworks. I had to alter my running route, because the people blocked a few intersections to launch their rockets and firecrackers. It was a fantastic feeling, running in the dark with all the fiery flowers exploding in the air around me. It almost felt like the neighborhood celebrated my run! Yeah, right! I wished I could have shared that moment with Maggie, but she opted to stay at home, tired from the trip.

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