Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

I know I shouldn’t judge others, but it’s bad enough smoking around infants, but smoking when you’re pregnant? I thought people had stopped doing that ages ago… I suppose the CNE attracts dregs of society, but I’d have thought that people who can’t control their smoking even during pregnancy would at least try and hide it in some sort of shame, rather than flaunting it so publicly. We also saw someone with a nearly naked newborn getting badly sunburned in the brutal heat of the afternoon, soemthing that with the wrong sort of luck could have fatal repercussions…

In classier news, this customized Jeep Scrambler belongs to someone that works for the TTC at Dundas West station… I suspect it’s still a work in progress. Pretty interesting although not really what I’m into, and not the sort of work you normally see on a Jeep.

I was talking to a friend recently about my memoir, and I told him that I had a few stories that included him that I wanted to get his approval on. He said, “I hope you’re not going to write anything bad about me!”, and you know, to my surprise quite a few people have said the same thing to me. It’s funny, because as I told him, I have no intention of writing anything bad about anyone. I see people all the time, especially in this age of the internet where people think they can say the most miserable horrible things without consequence, writing endless negativity about their own lives and projecting it out at everyone around them and I think to myself how sad in must be to live in such a bubble of anger and hatred. The reason that I’m not writing anything bad about anyone is that this is simply not how I want to live my life, it’s not how I want others to remember my life, and it’s certainly not how I want to remember my life. I want whatever legacy I leave to be uplifting and a thing of joy and light.

The weather was nice today, so we spent part of the afternoon at the public pool, which was relatively warm and incredibly full. No surprise I suppose since this is the third last day, and the last weekday, that the pool will be open for. We also took a long walk through the forest, where the two pictures below were taken, as well as many other adventures while jets from the airshow occasionally roared over our heads in formation streaming smoke across the sky. Tomorrow we’re off to the CNE with out of town friends who are visiting — it’ll be Nefarious’s third time this year, but only my first.

PS. I was excited to see my truck get a mention on BBG.

From Kahlil Gibrain’s “The Prophet”, a beautiful book

And a youth said, Speak to us of Friendship.
And he answered, saying:
Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
And he is your board and your fireside.
For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.

When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the “nay” in your own mind, nor do you withhold the “ay.”
And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart;
For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed.
When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.

And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.
For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.

And let your best be for your friend.
If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.
For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?
Seek him always with hours to live.
For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.