Yesterday after work, I celebrated my good mood (and first pay cheque with my raise on it) by getting groceries. I bought a black canvas roll-along cart to bring my groceries home with at a Lebanese store on Bank Street. That in itself was wonderful. (I’d previously been stuffing groceries into a backpack and laundry bag, struggling along with another six bags in my hands.) With ease, I boarded the #4 bus back to the market.
I passed by the tea store on my way to my stifling hot, store-top apartment. I thought it might be a good place to check out, now that I’ve decided to bring my own tea for coffee breaks at work. So I put my iPod on pause (it didn’t feel right to listen to anything but jazz in a tea store, and it happened to be Rob Base in my ears). There were thousands of teas! I’m sure you’ve seen something like that before, but for a new-to-downtown Ottawa girl, it was beautiful. I ordered a bag of pear-vanilla cream tea, and just finished my first cup before writing this. It was a strong odour that made me think of sour apple Jolly Ranchers.
I came home, and stripped off my almost damp clothing as the temperature was hot now and I’d dressed for the cool morning. My roommate invited me to a patio with two of our high school friends for a drink. I can’t remember ever sitting out on a warm night drinking sangria with girlfriends before, as it’s only in the last 2 years I’ve been legal, so I mini-celebrated this first. We talked about summer plans, travels, boys and then made our way to Piccolo’s for gelato. I was already stuffed from my unhealthy dinner and the mozza sticks I’d just eaten, but the raspberry and chocolate-chocolate mix looked SO GOOD. We laughed some more as the gelato dripped down my fingers and we made fun of people who wear those ear-clip cell phones. (If you have so much to do that you can’t even hold the phone, you may be too busy, especially for this warm weather).
I know that unless you are a particularly interested voyeur of mine, this all may seem boring, like an end-of-day phone conversation had with my Mom. But when the work whistle blew and I was out in my city, with a little bit of money in my pocket, I was happy to celebrate. With tea, with sangria and gelato, and with girl friends.