I’ve been eating spaghetti. Yes, I know it’s something like 34 degrees outside; I felt like making spaghetti. I’ve had two big bowls now, which is stunning in and of itself – when it’s hot, I don’t eat. (You all wanted to know the secret of my elfin physique – ta-da!)

And, I have just caught myself picking the mushrooms out of my nice chunky homemade sauce.

This is how I know I’m done. I begin picking the mushrooms out of their hidey-holes – under waves of pasta, coyly cowering behind meat, peeking out from under an onion. When the mushrooms are all gone, then there’s just no point in continuing.

Yes, I made sauce, and had spaghetti, and I caught myself enjoying the whole process. I just don’t get it: if I have to cook for my significant other, I feel as if I have been forced to. If I’m home alone, pretending that once again I am mistress of my own flat, I adore preparing food.

Living alone means the dishes in the sink are yours, the towels on the floor are yours, the cat hair on the carpet is sort of yours by extension. When you live with someone else, these things become issues. You try to keep up your end of the bargain, and feel resentful if you think the other partner doesn’t take them as seriously as you do.

I like being on my own. I enjoy pretending the apartment is all mine. Mind you, significant others are useful for those times where you feel limp and lifeless and someone needs to do the dishes or bring you a cup of tea or help paint a room. Still haven’t managed to train my cats to do things like that yet.

I will now draw a nice cool bath. I received some very nice bath salts as a gift this weekend, and I intend to take advantage of them!

Just when you think you’re on top of things, the sky falls. Sheesh.

I really, really, hate money. I also hate the fact that even though we try our best, sacrifice a lot, and break our backs to be responsible and upstanding citizens, life still jacknifes around and slaps us. I hate the fact that even though we care and we try, other people who don’t care and don’t try live lives of ease, and have the good luck that seems to avoid us like the plague.

Grr.

On the other hand, a friend came over today to sketch me. We’ve known one another since our first year of high school, and she’s definitely my oldest friend. We even roomed together for a year. We have a tendency to weave in and out of one another’s life; a couple of years of being close, a year or so of doing our own thing, a slow amalgamation of lives again…

I sat for two hours while she took different angles, used different media and light, and we talked about everything under the sun: what was new in our lives, what was going wrong, the lessons we’ve learned. The nice thing about friends like this is you can pick up right where you left off – no awkward re-integration, just jumping right into the deep personal stuff that you used to talk about sprawled across each other’s beds years ago, with a glass of wine, late at night.

We tend to forget how similarly we react to life, and how good we are for one another. We really should get together more often. And yet, I wonder – if we did, would things be the same? Would they be as easy? Or would there be all the little things that trip you up, the familiarity-breeding-contempt issue?

So she got work done, I got to sit and do nothing (what a novelty!), and we both downloaded and got to relax. We encouraged one another regarding our artistic pursuits. We shared secrets that even our significant others don’t know. And apart from re-discovering how much we enjoy one another’s company, we also agreed to do another girls’ night like we used to do. We’re currently trying to figure out where we can go to cause as much trouble as possible.

So I was reading Ceri’s wail about summers in Montreal, and I got all homesick too. Then I had the brilliant idea of the two of us being homesick together.

So Ceri’s coming over! Yay! We will lounge in front of fans, moan about the seashore being too far away, eat cool salad and runny Brie and, in general, be transplanted Maritimers. This is good, because after the intense weekend, and the news about the Megan-dog, and the heat, I’d be useless today anyway. Writing? Ha. Reading? I can’t get into anything for some reason. Going for a walk? Are you insane? It was 28 degrees at 9:45 AM.

I forgot to mention that when I came home from Pennsylvania, my cats had apparently been on a Virginia Woolf reading binge, because I found my entire Woolf collection on the floor, along with a Tad Williams book and Patricia C Wrede’s Enchanted Forest Chronicles.

Why, when it is so damned hot outside, does my tea reach a temperature of “stone cold” all the quicker?

As if I hadn�t already learned this year that life is a cycle and things come and go, our family dog has just been diagnosed with cancer of the spleen with internal bleeding. I called my parents right away when the e-mail landed in my inbox this morning. Poor Megan; she�s always had a delicate digestion, and we�ve always known something was wrong, but these x-rays have finally proved it. She�s eleven, and still puppyish, and a goofball; she loves car rides and going to market and new people; but she has her days where she�s listless and has no appetite. Mum and Dad are taking her round on her daily walk this morning, then they�re going to the vet to say goodbye.

I hate not being able to say goodbye to my family pets in person. Our thirteen year old grey kitty Bo�sun had lung cancer and was put down not too long ago as well, and it ate away at me that I couldn�t stroke her and kiss her one last time. Now Megan the Wonder Dog will be missing the next time I go home as well. I know it�s life, and I know that out of death comes life, and I know that death is not final for any kind of energy; my issue is with the difficulty of closure when you lose someone you love unexpectedly. At nineteen one of my best friends died in his sleep of an undetected brain aneurysm, and apart from trying to make head or tails of the death of a young man in excellent health with a promising future, I struggled with the fact that I hadn�t said goodbye to him. Two nights before he died we had been at a birthday party, and when I left he was engrossed in a conversation, so I didn�t want to intrude to tell him I was leaving. I have always regretted that decision, and it became an obsessive thought in the weeks that followed his death: not only had I not said goodbye to him that night, I hadn�t been able to bid him farewell before his death, either, like everyone else. As a result, I always track down my parent�s pets when I depart to give each of them a kiss and a cuddle, because I never know when I might return to an empty chair instead of a warm cat, a quiet front hallway instead of a dog going insane with joy because I�ve walked through that door.

I told my mother to give the Megatronic Dog a kiss and a pat from me this morning. I�ll say goodbye in my own way tonight. She�s been a good friend, lots of fun, and good for my parents as well since they no longer have a child in the house; she will be missed. After her walk and her car ride today, she will have an endless supply of Snausages and rawhide bones with nary an upset tummy to be seen, many geese to chase, and she will duel and dance with the sprinklers of the Summerlands.

So long! Away we go, on the road again�

Well, actually we�re on the way to bed, so we can rest up to be on the road again at three AM.

The weather for our camping weekend in Pennsylvania looks glorious � sunny to partly cloudy, with temperatures in the high twenties and night-time temperatures of mid- to low-teens. Perfect.

Alas, my lap-top has no battery, so I cannot blog whilst away. You will all just have to do without me till Monday afternoon. Which reminds me � I�d better pack a notebook and some pens so that I can work on the Great Canadian Novel, should the whim seize me.

Ciao!