My trip to Calgary was fabulous. A little too much caffeine and too little sleep, but really great. Watched a movie with a friend on Friday night when I got there. We watched Good Will Hunting. It always makes me cry at the, "It's not your fault," scene. Was up until 4 a.m. and then up on Saturday when my brother called. [Sidenote: My roommate was entertained by the fact that my brother called Saskatoon to get my friend's phone number and then later in the day, my friend called Saskatoon to get my brother's phone number.]

It was the day of my nephew's birthday party. I have never had so much fun at the Chuck E. Cheese turned Fun Tycoon place for any of my niece's parties. I think it was because there were way less people around. I got tokens and ran around with my niece playing all kinds of games. Watched my nephew being chased around my brother's legs by a cousin with a present. My nephew is so shy and I just thought it was so adorable.

And I think I made it into my nephew's good books this weekend. He didn't get upset when his parents left him with me. He let me carry him to the house from the car without any fuss. And even when he woke up from his nap, I could see that he wasn't going to be upset that I was the only adult in the house - no parents to be seen. Some of that might have been the Harry Potter game I'd got him for his birthday. Of course, it could just be that he's grown out of his having to have his parents cuddle him when he wakes up, but I'd prefer to think that Auntie became cool. My supporting evidence is that later that night, he asked me to help him with his new video game rather than his dad. Heh. Victory!!

After a day of fun and excitement with birthdays and all, I went to visit a friend that I love spending time with and her new baby. I don't think that we know each other really well yet, but she's someone that I respect and admire greatly. [Just had an epiphany about why I enjoy spending time with certain people - sharing a basic belief system. Duh! This is one of those things that I knew, but had forgotten. Maybe now that I've written it down, I might remember.] Now, I'm squeamish about most babies. Sometimes I'm polite and make appropriate comments about how cute the baby is but let my body language speak volumes, "Don't you dare give me that baby to hold!" I apologize if I'm offending anyone, but babies usually just make me cringe. There are notable exceptions such as my niece and nephew. Love them to bits and would walk to the ends of the earth for them. As babies, they still made me a bit uncomfortable and I was willing to get over it for the sake of my love for them. And little baby Z who I adore for other reasons. And then there was my friend's baby in Calgary. Honestly, I've never felt that okay with a baby before. I took one look at her and just wanted to be near her. Her crying and fussing didn't even want to make me give her back to her mother. She just had gas so she wasn't making strange at me. Can't explain it. Anyway, her mother and I spent an evening talking about spiritual stuff that not a lot of people like to talk about with me. I'm real touchy-feely about it all and most people aren't so I try to respect that. Some tall guy told me that once and it has never left me.

Then I made a silly decision to go to a friend's house to watch a movie because I was too tired and should have just gone back to my brother's to sleep. My niece was precious in the morning waking me up. I had left instructions that my nephew and niece could wake me at 7. On my niece's third trip downstairs at 7:45, I let her know that I was indeed somewhat awake. I just wanted to be able to spend more time with them. So it took me forever to get upstairs where I promptly laid down on the couch again. The kids crawled on me like I was a jungle gym and then I started waking up and being all goofy. It was a ton of fun. My nephew is the cutest thing when he's saying goodbye. I laughed really hard. He was playing his game and when told I was leaving, just gave a loud, "Bye!" and continued his game. No distractions, not really caring that I'm leaving. He's always done this and it's just so honest that it's wonderful. Of course, his parents always convince to give me a hug and kiss goodbye. My niece and I are a bit closer and I get big hugs from her. I can't believe she's 7 already.

Breakfast with my two other Calgary friends started off with a lot of traffic and parking monkey business which made me very cranky since I was running on very little sleep. I say them and they were excitedly waving and I was mumbling to myself walking down Stephen Avenue Mall, "Not happy. Really not happy." I saw them and gave hugs and immediately apologized as I knew I needed to rant. Grrrr... One of my friends interrupted my just barely getting started rant with, "I love your hair. You look really good." I've never been deflated so quickly and entirely in my life. I was on top of the world. There may have been other factors in the radical mood swing, but dang, I don't care. That was a fabulous turn of events. I was feeling great after that and flirted with our waiter at the diner horribly. There was no intent behind it, as I'd barely noticed what he looked like. I was just having fun and would have acted the same way to a waitress. Anyone, it was a short time together, but really great. We talked and laughed and it was good.

And then there was Sunday afternoon. Shopping!! I got lots of things. I got some orange Swiss Army luggage for 70% off and a new wallet as my old one died the week before. And I got the third season of Six Feet Under which I shouldn't have, but couldn't help myself. And I got the movie Jawbreaker, which is no Heathers, but still damn funny. And I got a headlight for my car which I fixed in the parking lot of Hy's Steakhouse in downtown Calgary. And the greatest new alarm clock that I'm hoping lasts as long as its predecessor. It's very fancy and I could go on for a while about how neat I think it is. And in fact, I did go on about it at length at work on Monday.

And after a 7 hour drive home to Saskatoon arriving at midnight, I went to my boyfriend's game because I really wanted to see him and see how his event went. And I wanted to see the people from Edmonton as well because they are a lot of fun. But mostly my boyfriend. Sleep finally came at 3:30.

And the whole weekend was exhausting and wonderful and reminded me of how lucky I am to have such great friends and family.