Diary #312

I’m not really very good at self-care; unless it’s something I need to do to maintain my looks for work, or something a loved one agitates me into, I have a tendency to ignore or downplay my own needs.  So it was really lovely to have several days last week in which I was able to relax and take care of Maggie a bit.  It’s absolutely true that all of them were work-related, but if that’s what I need to justify them to my inner nun, I’m not going to complain.  On Tuesday I had a little rejuvenation procedure I’ve been looking forward to for months (and theoretically, for over a year), and I was quite pleased with the results; I’ve got a follow-up the day after Lammas and I’m even more excited about that one.  Then on Wednesday, one of my favorite gentlemen took me to Victoria, BC for a couple of days; even though I had to be ready for pickup at the unholy hour of 6 AM, he didn’t care that I wore no makeup and we had breakfast on the boat.  I eventually woke up completely and stopped griping, and we went whale-watching in the afternoon; it was a lot of fun and we got to see four humpback whales cavorting around at the surface.  They were waving their pectoral fins, diving so we could see their tails and blowing frequently; one of them even breached so far out of the water he looked as though he was standing on his tail for a moment.  Our naturalist said she had never seen them so active; she seemed confused when I said that obviously the mermaids had told them I would be on the boat.  Anyhow, we had dinner at a lovely French restaurant, took it easy Thursday morning and then walked around Butchart Gardens for several hours in the afternoon, before dinner at a pub and the return boat to Seattle at 7.  All in all, it was quite a relaxing couple of days, though as a New Orleanian who lived in Oklahoma for almost a decade, it’s still very strange to me to be wearing a jacket in mid-June.