It's been an eventful weekend. I decided this summer I was going to go trail riding at The Ranch, and finally I booked a two-hour advanced ride for this past Friday evening. It was a perfect day, and the ride was idyllic, a challenging but beautiful meander through fields, woods, steep river banks, and the riverbed. To make it more exciting, my horse, Cisco, a flea-bitten grey, suddenly decided to throw a little bucking fit for no apparent reason. I've sat a lot of bucking in my day, but my seat isn't what it used to be, and this was completely unexpected. I went flying and hit my bum, then my (thankfully, helmeted) head. After lying still to assess the damage I realized that a) I was in one piece and b) I'd kept hold of the reins, something I was inordinately proud of. The guide offered to switch horses with me, which turned out to my advantage. His horse, a big Appaloosa, had much smoother gaits than Cisco and was calmer, so the ride ended peacefully with a magnificent moon rising over the cool summer twilight. Apart from a fair amount of soreness (much of which is simply due to not having ridden regularly in ten years), some scrapes and bruises, I'm fine.

However, my brain was perhaps rattled more than I realized, because after being kindly given a ride to the bus stop I simply got on the first bus that appeared. The driver turned out to be a horse person, so we chatted happily for several moments before I suddenly saw a sign for Hamilton. I live in Toronto. I pointed this out to the bus driver, who said "Oh! I wondered why you were going to Hamilton when you told me you lived in Toronto." There was nothing for it at that point but to keep going, so she took me into Hamilton and told the next driver for Toronto to allow me on without paying extra fare. She was really a very nice person.

While waiting for the bus in Hamilton, a young Philipina girl with a suitcase came and sat next to me. We started talking, and before long she was pouring out her story. She'd left a nannying job in Hong Kong because she heard Canada would allow her to sponsor her family, but she'd ended up imprisoned by an abusive employer who threatened her and took her money and her belongings. One night she managed to sneak to her employers' computer while they were downstairs and send a quick email to a friend. The friend contacted the police, and eventually she was rescued and taken to a shelter. Now she was headed to Toronto to find another job. She was a Christian, and her faith and hope in God remained strong despite what she'd been through. She encouraged and challenged me, and I was able to help her find her way from the bus to the train and then to the subway in Toronto. Perhaps she was the entire reason I'd taken the wrong bus...God has reasons for such twists and turns in our lives.

Most of the rest of the weekend was taken up with entertaining three visiting French girls. One is staying for a semester at the University of Toronto, the other two are friends who'd come along to see her settled in. They were beautiful people, and it was a lovely reminder of how deep and immediate our fellowship in Christ is even with Christians we've never met from the other side of the world. I've experienced it many times with Christians from many different parts of the globe, and it's always wonderful.

But it's very late, and I'm up too late as usual. Tomorrow's another day, and another recreation day as our church is going to the beach. One of these days I'll actually get some work done...

The first bleat of my alarm snatched me out of sleep at 6:30 Saturday morning. I hastily switched it off and jumped out of bed. After dithering a bit about what to wear, I dressed, grabbed my bags, ate a quick breakfast, and set out. It was still dark and cold. Walking the block from my house to the subway station, I was glad I'd worn my woolly hat.

The train rushed in just as I entered the platform. There were more people on board than I expected for such an early hour, scattered loosely about the car, many dozing. I thought of that saying, "The city never sleeps."

At my station, I came out into the cold blue city, emerging slowly from the dawn. The grey buildings were almost at one with the grey-blue sky. The hot dog-stand man was asleep, just a slumped-over hood behind the ketchup and mustard pumps. I was in plenty of time to buy my ticket and board the coach. I hesitated about whether to go and buy a coffee or to wait inside, and decided against both.

There was already a longish queue at the boarding platform; more people than I thought take the New York bus in the early hours of the weekend. A Pakistani family collected behind me, jabbering animatedly, I gathered, over whether this was their bus.

As I stood waiting, I decided to knit. I pulled my yarn and needles from the bag and began fruitlessly hunting for the pattern. Drat, I realized, I left it at home. Oh well, I think I remember enough of it to keep me going for a while.

Then, a much more horrifying realization hit. I had forgotten my passport and my permanent resident card. I stood uselessly in line for another moment. There was no way to retrieve them in time; the bus was boarding in fifteen minutes. Conceding defeat, I left the queue and went back inside. Without those documents, I'd simply be turned back at the border. Even if the Americans let me in, the Canadians wouldn't on my return.

A ticket agent informed me that the next bus was leaving at 10 and arriving at 3, too late to make it for my sister's bridal shower/going away party. After a disappointed phone call to my other sister, who'd been scheduled to pick me up, I explained my predicament to another agent. He mumbled something that I gathered meant they couldn't refund my ticket, but could cancel the transaction. Somebody else would have to do it, who was now on break. As I waited for him to return, I weighed my options. Probably the only way I could get there in time was a car rental. If I left at 10, I'd arrive by 2, just in time for the party. In any case, I'd have to go home first to pick up my documents.

As I walked back across the parking lot from the subway station to my house, a feeble but warm light from the east touched the tops of the buildings, promising a golden day. A rich carpet of amber-gold leaves covered my neighbours' path thickly. Back inside, I booted up my computer and searched for car rentals, only to be confronted with the notice, "International car rentals require a 24-hour advance reservation period."

So that was that. I was stuck in Toronto. Maybe I'd go back to sleep.

Just then, a friend struck up an IM conversation. "I'm not working this weekend, so I'll be able to go to church tomorrow."

"So will I :(," I responded.

"Why the frown?"

I explained my situation.

"You can borrow my car," he immediately responded. "Hold on, just let me ask my wife."

A moment later he was back with the news that it was fine with her. Half an hour later he was at my door with the car, and at 10:00 I was on the road. Four hours of a beautiful autumnal drive later, I walked into my parents' house precisely on time to confront some very surprised relatives.

It was a nice weekend with family, and I got to see my brand-new nephew, only 6 days old. But that's a story for another time. In the meantime, I do wonder if I'll ever grow out of being so absentminded...

So, this week I'm going back to New England for ten days.

It's a bit of a funny feeling. It's been ten months since I moved back to Canada. I don't know how it will feel to go back.

Yesterday I was talking on the phone to the woman whose home I lived in when I first moved to New Hampshire. It seems like only yesterday, though it was over three years ago, that I got her and her family's names by email and tried to imagine what it would be like living in this strange place, on a farm, with these people I'd never met.

Now it's three years later. I'm back where I started, in Canada. In Toronto. And yet I'm not. I'm a completely different person than when I left for New Hampshire. Much of that is due to the things that happened there. It was a difficult time of my life, one that I wouldn't want to repeat. It's had some good results, that I wouldn't want to erase.

So, it will be interesting to go back. I find sometimes you can't understand your time in a place until you do. I'm wondering what I'll find out this time.

I went back to the States this weekend for my sister's wedding shower. Wedding showers are normally something I loathe and despise and avoid like the plague, but this is my sister. So I went, enjoyed the short time I got to hang out with her around the shower, and enjoyed the shower for her sake. Particularly because I got to be the photographer and not take part in the games. There's nothing wrong with wedding showers per se, it's just "too much estrogen in one room", as I like to say.

I also got some exciting photos of dead fish. Very exciting photos of dead fish. We went for a walk along a pier on the lake and it was scattered with small, dead, dried and/or bloated, blackened dead fish. We were puzzled. We were mystified. We were mildly horrified. But, it made for a great photographic subject. I shall post the best one or two on Flickr for you to...enjoy.

And lest this post be simply frivolous, I add that I read a book this weekend that I believe everyone should read. OK, that's a sweeping statement, but I believe it.

I started out by reading Boundaries in Dating by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend. I don't date, but it is applicable to any romantic relationship, with principles also applicable to any relationship, period. I found myself wanting to read their seminal work, Boundaries. Voila, my wish was granted this weekend as my sister lent me her copy. I finished it on the bus on the way home, and let me say, it is revolutionary. It will change the way you think, the way you view life, and the way you view relationships. I feel I have grown about ten feet tall from it, and I will be recommending it to many people. I also hope to review it in detail here someday, once my first loanee friend finishes it. Summary: get it, read it.

Travel by Greyhound has consistently provided me some of the most unique experiences of a lifetime. My catalog of bizarre bus trips is long and varied, and I don't think I've ever had a two-way journey in which at least one of the legs wasn't overly complicated and odd.

Yesterday was no exception. It began when my sisters and I arrived at the bus terminal in Rochester, NY, for my journey to Toronto. An SUV marked US Border Patrol was parked outside the station, and as we sat inside waiting, two border control officers walked in, resplendent in army green suits and intimidating sunglasses. When the time came to board the bus, I was one of the last because of saying goodbye to my sisters. When I finally tried to board, a Border Patrol officer was blocking the aisle. "You'll have to wait," he barked, and when I said "OK" and stepped back, he clarified: "No, outside."

I disembarked and joined a group consisting of the jocular driver, a baggage handler, and a smoking black-clad Goth girl with a Jersey accent and shaved and tattooed eyebrows that arched in a bold blue swoop across her forehead. As we waited, one of the border patrol officers escorted a dreadlocked guy off the bus and made him retrieve his baggage: for whatever reason, he wasn't going to be allowed to continue his journey.