Let me tell you about my wonderful friend.

Here's Mel and me and her husband (fiancee at the time) Brent, all at my university graduation.

I made a joke on my blog comments page that wasn't nice to Mel, so with apologies to Tamie's penance post, here's my own penance post.

Mel, also known (to me) as Mellifluous, and Melly-Cat (Melly-cat, oh Melly-cat, what are they feeding you?) is my best friend in Canada. All my students in Korea hear about her so often that "My best friend in Canada Mel" has (along with "My best friend in Korea Matt") become my own personal sigh-inducing equivalent to American Pie's "This one time, at band camp. . . " line.

Mel is great! You can go to her interesting, thoughtful, more-frequently-updated-than-mine blog (link at the side of the page), and learn more about her if you like. Our friendship goes back to a Milton class where we seem to basically have sniffed each other out as fellow artists. (Mel corrected me when she read this, informing me that she sniffed me out as an artist; I just wanted attention. I'll pass that on to you, and let you judge for yourselves whether, from what you know of me, that might be true.) Since then, we've have some of the most amazing talks I've had in my life, some of the most ridiculous laughs, and borne with each other through various "I thought I'd hit bottom, but THAT'S when everything REALLY hit the fan" kinds of crises.

She's one of the best conversationalists I know, very articulate, even for a brunette, and in the top ten list of "nicest/coolest/kindest/most reassuring things anybody's ever said to me," she owns at least a third of the spots. For example. . .

(just kidding. Those are between me and her. I'm such a tease.)

She has a wonderful husband and two great kids I got to hang out with this July when I was back in Canada, and she's an awesome life-saving siren-wailing first-class cool-under-fire paramedic.

Plus, she's kickin' smart, but even though she's kickin' smart, she hates intellectual arrogance (thus keeping me in check).

She's also the one who teased me out of talking about music incessantly (you may all want to immediately hop over to her site to thank her personally).

My friend Mel. She's top-shelf.

love
Rob

Bubbles.

So this place next door to my school has a bubble machine they run from the balcony all day long.

It's fun to watch people walking by, suddenly startled by bubbles drifting into their paths, and then avoiding, or chasing, or popping, or swatting at them. (See the bubbles?)


When they touch the pavement, the bubbles usually pop, of course, as bubbles do.

But when it rains, and the pavement is wet, the bubbles stick in half-spheres, like bits of glow growing out of the pavement, on one of the busiest streets in Korea, and people walk by without even noticing them, and it makes me happy that such fascinating little things are all around me.



Most people don't even notice them, and, perversely, that makes me happy too, because if most people don't notice them, but they give me so much great joy when I spot them, it makes me think. How much of the wonderfullness (wonderfulousity?) in the world goes unnoticed -- is the difference between hating and enjoying, and immensely loving your life, just a matter of paying more attention to little wonders, and noting the little wonders for what they are? And if 99.9 % of the people don't notice these little bubble-globes, how many brilliant little scintillae am I also missing, because I haven't learned yet how to pay enough attention to them?

To paying more attention!
Have a vivid day.
Rob

Tamie wants me to post more often.

So this is for her.

Check out this excellent, thoughtful post I just read in one of my friends' blogs.

Among other things I did while sorting through all my stuff. . .

I also sifted through scads of old photo negatives, and got London Drugs to scan the best ones, the keepers, onto CD, so that I could preserve them in digital form.

Here are some of the best ones.

Matt's new haircut in Japan


Me with my favourite class ever -- from my first year in Korea.


Me in a field of dandelions.


Me in a tree in Stanley park.


I hid a camera in my sleeve, and took a picture with my university's president as I walked across the stage to receive my diploma, at my university graduation.


Kids playing at a palace on Korean Thanksgiving Day.


Dancing with an old lady. Full story here.


One silly Christmas: finishing a roll of film with mom, Deb and Dan.


At an airport in Ontario.


My second favourite picture of my mom and my nephew. (The favourite one wasn't in my pile of negatives. Dad has it somewhere.) I think this one really shows the special relationship my nephew and my mom had.


Hope those pictures made you happy!

love:
Rob

Look what I found!

Highway 22 in Alberta is also known, appropriately, as the Cowboy Trail.


Here are some pictures from google images. (See? Who needs a camera, really?)