Highlights of the past few days:

Friday: I went to an easter potluck at my sister's house. I unknowingly ate lamb (I thought it was beef). After flirting with the idea of vegetarianism for some time now, the thought of eating a little fluffy white lamb was enough to convince me to stop eating meat. This decision was also aided by my vegetarian cousin April, who was the one to point out I was eating lamb and who then proceeded to share in great detail her experience of once working on a lamb farm in Australia. Without prompting she shared much more than I wanted or needed to hear.

Saturday: trip to the bird sanctuary. More pictures forthcoming.

Sunday: It was a very warm day so I set out for the Starbucks about 5 blocks away sans my van. Along the way we had to pass by the relatively new casino on the native reservation that borders my neighbourhood. And long story short I ended up there. I put $20 in a machine because it had goldfish and I thought they were cute. And I left with $87. I got a lot of weird looks. I guess the patrons of the Gray Eagle Casino are not used to seeing somebody gamble with a mouth stick. Sigh. It probably would have bothered me a lot more but I was too busy drinking a giant fish bowl sized frozen strawberry margarita to care if anybody was staring. Well I guess its more correct to say worries over that declined in proportion to my consumption of the margarita. Then, after doing so well for 2 full days of being meat free, I fell off the bandwagon when I impulsively ordered an "Indian taco" in the casino's cafe (I skipped the easter buffet, which was what those with me had). This consisted of buffalo chili on top of a piece of bannock. And while I am not sure, I think this is the very first time I have ever eaten buffalo. So much for vegetarianism. However later I was struck with guilt thinking about how much I admired and was captivated by all the buffalo roaming around freely in Elk Island national park last fall. So this had some echos of the lamb incident.

Monday: I went to a Gordon Lightfoot concert. In a somewhat serendipitous chain of events, two days after I heard The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and wondered why I never bothered to listen to Gordon Lightfoot's music much before, I found out he was coming to Calgary. This was about 3 weeks ago maybe a bit longer. In between obtaining tickets and last night's show, I had given my ticket away suddenly remembering the fiasco of the Barenaked Ladies concert last year and my vow to never attend another concert. Thankfully the person I gave the tickets to understands me better than I realized and took the offered ticket only to humour me. He left it stuck to my fridge with a magnet on the assumption I would change my mind. At first this outraged me and I was determined to give the ticket to somebody else. But sanity prevailed and I went and had a good time. My grandmother (a few weeks shy of her 84th birthday) also came, which was great. It was a very nice show. I might write a few more thoughts on it when I have some time. In the meantime here are a few videos because I have had his songs in my head all day. An older video and a newer one.

It's been a busy few days. From one extreme to another, today I haven't accomplished one single thing.