Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts

Saturday, April 6, 2013

F is for Friendship


By far the most popular vote for the letter F among my Facebook friends was Friends.  But I’m lumping in family along with that.  I will also attempt to work in:  farming, foresight, fudge, France, fresh food, freak show, fe fi fo fum, fantabulous and my freakin’ hilarious son-in-law’s response, jambalaya. 

Now where do I begin…? 

I think I will begin with the very first friends that I can remember.  The first’s name was (and I presume still is) Bernie and he lived two doors down from us when I was a preschooler in Calgary.  That is, unfortunately, all I can remember about him.  I haven’t seen or heard from him since I was five and my family moved to Chilliwack.  There was another boy, who lived between Bernie and I, but I cannot recall his name.  My only memory of him is that he used to whisper to his mother’s bum when he wanted something.  I do remember playing with these two boys, particularly when their mothers babysat me, and I often wonder what ever became of them.  I think of them still, though, as friends, for there is no other way to think of them.  In spite of my vague memories and total loss of contact, they remain special to me somehow.

Since then I’ve had lots of friends.  People have come and gone in my life, as people are wont to do.  There have been many!  I estimate the number of people that I’ve personally met to be roughly 12,000.  These include friends, teachers, customers, clients, colleagues, co-workers, passing acquaintances, servers, service providers, family members, bosses, friends and relatives of all of the above.  Some of them are farmers.  Some of them have been to France (and want to go again).  I’ve shared fudge and fresh food with some of them.  Some of them are freakin’ hilarious and a few have been real freak shows.  Some of them have amazing foresight.  Some of them don’t know their alphabets very well – could be due to too much spicy jambalaya having affected their brains, but I’m not sure.  Many of them are simply fantabulous!

Wouldn’t it be cool to gather all the people you’ve ever met together in one big friend reunion?  Imagine all the thousands of people you’ve met together in one place…  Yeah, maybe not.  The reception line would be a killer!   And the embarrassment of all the forgotten names would just be too much.  And what if the freak shows showed up?  Oh, well.  For a second there, it was a grand idea. 

Friends are precious.   And I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the friends who so amazingly stepped up over the past few days to vote for my daughter’s art work in the Fairies and Fantasy Art Awards Contest (if you haven’t voted for Alison Spokes yet, please do:  http://selinafenech.com/2013/2013-art-awards-round-one-voting/)  So many people shared this link and asked their friends to vote, collectively raising Alison into the top five.  Whoot!  (She so deserves to win this.)  This was testimony to the miracle of friendship, the wonder of friendship and the beauty of friendship.  Thank you all for your amazing support!

Well, it’s time to get my day started here.  Fe fi fo fum, I hear the call of the vac-u-um.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

D is for D'Arcy


To help me meet the A to Z Challenge I’m getting input from my friends on Facebook.  Suggestions for this post included:  donuts, dunno, doin’ it right, Derek (whom I don’t really know, but am still looking forward to seeing photos of his dream home someday), doh, crayons (which I cannot explain) and D’Arcy.  While I could probably say a lot about some of the suggestions, I was most inspired by D’Arcy, for D’Arcy is a most inspiring woman. 


I met D’Arcy in high school, grade 11 specifically, when she transferred to Sardis Secondary and we found ourselves in Journalism class together.  Our teacher’s name was Mennow Weins, but we called him Trout.  I’m relatively sure that was D’Arcy’s idea; I was far too conservative to have dared.  And while D’Arcy may beg to differ, I’m sticking to that story.


We became quite good friends, quite quickly.  She fascinated me.  While we waited for class to start, she would play her guitar, picking out Johnny Cash tunes, somehow making them cool.  I can’t listen to Ring of Fire without thinking of D’Arcy.  And smiling.

Perhaps that song was somewhat prophetic.  Today, some years after capturing my heart with her friendship, D’Arcy became a fireman… uh woman… uh person.  She’s also a paramedic (I think).  She zooms around in an ambulance and saves lives, so call her what you will, she’s definitely a hero… heroin?  Okay, let’s just say that D’Arcy rocks!


Our lives have taken us in different directions.  D’Arcy remained in Columbia Valley where she married the love of her life and with him raised four children.  She graduated from Mom to Nana (extraordinaire!) a few years ago and has three adorable grandchildren.  And she remains one of the dearest, most precious friends I have ever had the privilege to know.

            She also makes a damn fine pirate!