Ok With The Rain

About three weeks ago now. Kelly and I went out for dinner and yet again, for what I think was the 3^rd time in just a few days, there was “Keith incident”

I’ve spoken about this before, but if you haven’t been following along, read this post first.

As we sat quietly enjoying a very tasty dinner in a little neighbourhood family run restaurant, two little old ladies shuffled past us as they made there way to the door. The second one paused a few steps past us, turned back and looked at me for a moment. She pointed and said “Keith right?”  We both couldn’t help but laugh, and so as to not make her feel bad I quickly explained that I get that all the time and that’s why we are laughing and no, I am not Keith. She said sorry and started to walk away, but as I said, she was older and not too quick on her feet. I saw a golden opportunity.

“Excuse me, miss.” She turned back. “Just who IS this Keith fella?” I explained how I get confused for him all the time and that I have never met him nor do I even know who he is.

Since older ladies are generally kind and prone to enjoy talking, I got the full scoop on the ol’ Keithmeister.

She told me that he DOES look like me.(remains to be seen) That we have similar hair.(what? He hasn’t changed it since the 80’s either?) She believes we have similar wheelchairs (I knew it) and most incredibly, we grew up just several blocks from each other. (how do I not know this guy?)

You see, Keith was her neighbour when he was just a kid. She told me how he used to crawl around on the lawn and what a nice kid he was. She told me where he works, confirming the bit of info I already had. And the golden nugget of info, she told me Keith’s last name!!

What do I do with this new information? I mean, really, I have enough now to either steal his identity or hire a hit man, or maybe both. (That’s a joke for those that have been following along, don’t call the police)  I’ve thought about just going to his office and explaining all of this and maybe we have a few chuckles and then I can put it to rest. I’ve thought about having some of my buddies at work sneak up on him and take a picture and then we can see if I really resemble him. My buddies seemed to think that all these ideas are somewhat psycho-stalker type stuff.  But remember, these are the same people who claim that I have to kill him or he will kill me. So who’s the real nut case? Don’t answer that.

 

Almost a month ago now, we had a most wonderful visit from Lynn and her husband Fred. Fred is Kelly’s cousin, removed a few times or something like that. They connected while doing some genealogy research. Through Lynn’s blog, we all became friends. Lynn was my inspiration to start blogging in the first place. Until then I had been a guest writer on Kelly’s blog. When Lynn started her own, I figured if she could do it, so could I. Little did I know that Lynn has the energy of ten men, and would soon have 42 blogs going simultaneously with videos and animation and astrophysics research papers. Ok, maybe I am exaggerating, but her drive to learn and her ability to dig into new hobbies is inspiring. Having both of them stop by and spend some time with us while on their cross country vacation was very special indeed. We only got to spend one day with them,  and I wish I had given more thought as to what to show them in this city of ours, but honestly it was wonderful just to sit and talk. They are both warm and friendly and Fred is a wonderful singer and guitar player. I really enjoyed listening and watching him play, trying to pick up as much as I could, watching how his fingers moved on the strings.  I don’t have the lungs for singing much, but I sure hope that I can learn to play half as well as he can. Maybe by the time me and Kelly are able to plan our cross country trip, we’ll be able to stop by to see them, and I can show Fred what I’ve learned.

I love being outdoors. It’s very hard for me to sit inside on a nice sunny day, as evidenced by my lack of blogging lately. I just want to be outside. Work keeps me pretty busy this time of year, and any spare time I have I like to spend on walking trails, under some trees or even near a beach. A few weeks ago, Kelly and I went to one of our favourite spots. She was having a bad day and I thought it might just cheer us both up to get outdoors on what was then a beautiful sunny day. Well, we got to the park and it started to rain, just a little at first, but just as we made it under the canopy, it really started to come down. And it didn’t let up much for hours. So we stayed. We had the place to ourselves, and we had a blast. Kelly blogged about it as well, but I wanted to help you see how hard it was raining. These are videos I took with my camera, I forgot I had them. Here’s a video of the rain from the canopy.

And this is a very short video or rain with a bit of hail.

I know they are short videos, but I when I watch them, I still get that feeling I had that day under the canopy. Feeling like I was all alone in the world with Kelly, as though there was nobody for miles. A feeling of being somewhat trapped, with no easy way out, and being absolutely and completely ok with that.