my trip to robin's:
first of all, all the passengers boarding in edmonton had their carry-on baggage searched and were scanned with a metal detector. hmm. must be new policies because of recent... you know.

i got to red deer at 5, but robin was not at the bus station to pick me up. that was because i had told him i was arriving at 7. oops. i called him and he drove over, and since i was feeling so exhausted i asked if we could go somewhere that i could eat steak to get some energy (robin is a vegetarian, and i don't even like cooking meat in my own house because of the smell, so i thought we should not cook at his house). it was a good good talk with lots of stories. i remembered that i had been extra cautious the summer that we hung out, because he is so so so rad and i really just needed him as a friend that summer, so i guess we weren't as close in reality as i thought we were in my head. but our conversation seemed to put our relationship into where my head had thought it had been anyway, so that was good. we came back to his house and just talked and talked and talked for hours. i told him it was nice hanging out with him because it felt like hanging out by myself. i think he was a little offended at first, but i meant that it was just so comfortable and easy and not stressful, and i didn't feel like i needed to entertain or be entertained. i could just be. and it was nice.

the next morning, i worked on sewing wallets for the royal bison, and robin worked on some stuff for his show on his computer. i had to mostly stay bundled up in a nest of 3 or 4 blankets because robin's basement suite cave is so effing cold. robin is into a lot of different podcasts, so we listened to some neat ones called "stuff you should know." later in the day, we visited robin's show at the art gallery, visited the museum (which has cree syllabics on a lot of its aboriginal sections! and a really incredible, long, carved narwhal tusk!), visited robin's office and studio at red deer college, got booster juices and some chocolate, and went to see "doubt" at the theatres. robin made me try his favourite movie snack, which is smarties sprinkled into popcorn. it was good, but i don't think i will become my favourite any time soon. afterwards we came home and drowsily watched "zoolander" on t.v., and then went to sleep.

on sunday i crafted some more, and robin worked on the recipe book for his show. i was wanting some tea, so i asked robin if red deer had a good earth café. they did! so we went there for lunch, and then walked around the mall for a bit. then we just came back to his house and did some more low-key hanging out until it was time for me to catch the bus.

i sure like robin a lot. i had such an amazing time with him the summer we were both up north, and now i am kicking myself for not making more of an effort to hang out with him since then. but it is okay. our friendship can handle it. but i really hope we will live in the same postal district again one day.

the bus ride home was kind of annoying, because the girl in front of me kept her little overhead light on even though she was sleeping. it didn't bother her, but it glared right into my eyes. when i got back into edmonton, the mother of one of the guys i tutor picked me up from the bus stop and drove me to their place, where i tutored cree for an hour. they also supplied some pizza and dessert from boston pizza for me and him, which was super nice. she drove me home and i fell asleep pretty quickly.