Saturday, May 15, 2010

I've always depended on the kindness of strangers

I've returned to the land of my youth for the weekend. I'm hoping to do a number of things for the wedding this weekend, eat some raw fish, and maybe squeeze in a visit to my parents and their cats. I'm also going to get to see the newly minted offspring of good friends, which should make for a good night.

We went out to the pseudo-British pub last night, which was very exciting, as the pub here serves my beloved Strongbow Cider on tap, which is not the case in my northern town. (And no, northern pub, Great Rock Cider is not the same thing at all.) It was a good night: I got to sit in the middle of thebench, which meant that I was perpetually between two conversations; the most memorable thing I was caught between was the esthetics of zombie narratives on one side, and Canadian politics on the other.

One of the friends that we went out with last night is someone I've known for nearly ten years now, and he is one of the last people in the world with whom I maintain a pen and paper correspondence. (Which reminds me, I owe him a letter.) One of the things that I like about his letters (aside from the part where he actually writes to me and has beautiful handwriting) is that he always seals his letters with sealing wax and his monogram. Last time I was home, I had mentioned to him that I wanted to use a seal on our wedding invitations, but that I'd had a difficult time finding a seal that I liked, since I am keeping my last name, thus preventing the use of a monogram. (And let's face it, a lot of the love or wedding themed seals are pretty tacky.) At the pub, R presented me with a gift: he'd found a Clan Gordon seal for me, and purchased a bag of wax for me to use as well. It was such an unexpected and thoughtful gift that I had a hard time expressing how I felt about it at the time. I can't wait to get home and start stamping with it.

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