Falling

"Go ahead.  Fall down.  The world looks different from the ground." - Oprah Winfrey

If there is a proverbial wall, it came in the form of the sidewalk at Front and Simcoe which I hit with full force yesterday.  I am a bit tired.  Our English guests have been with us for almost two weeks now.  Jon moved in early last week for what may be the summer and Courtney paid us a visit.  They are all certainly welcome here but the house is in chaos and I'm not so much used to the frenzy anymore.  Feeding and cleaning up after six, and sometimes seven people, has worn me out.  Merv left on Monday for the balance of the week so I'm doing it on my own.  I'm a bit old for so many eighteen hour days in a row.

Yesterday Emma's cousin Lena visited from Tennessee.  Lena used to live in Toronto and she arranged for Emma and Neil to have a tour of the CBC where she worked for many years.  Touring a broadcast studio is a bit old hat for me having been an executive in the broadcast business in my previous life.  But I did want to meet Lena and I was trying to be a good sport.  After the tour we headed along Front street for lunch.  It was a beautiful bright day.  Unfortunately I haven't been able to quite adjust to having a veil over my left eye and it is impairing my depth perception particularly in bright light.  I missed seeing the lip on the pavement and went crashing down.  Somehow I managed to bring Lena down too and she fell on top of my chest with a thud.

A skinned knee, bruised leg, skinned hand, skinned and bruised forearm and extremely sore ribs are my souvenirs this morning.  I think I'll live but my pride did not survive.  At least Lena wasn't hurt.

It has been a full couple of weeks.  We took Emma and Neil to Niagara last week.  Cath and Stan hosted us at their lake house as well.  We did A Taste of Italy on Sunday as well as the Distillery District.

The book I have a little piece of, Contagious Optimism, was released on Saturday.  It was exciting but my enthusiasm was tempered by the fact that I haven't held the book in my hand yet.  It won't be on the store shelves in Canada for a couple more weeks.  I downloaded it to my e-reader and ordered copies on-line but they have yet to arrive.  I'm expecting them today.  Though my part of the book was small, it feels good to be part of a group that is trying to promote positive forward thinking.  I'd like to think my story will inspire a few people who are facing difficult times.  If you are interested Contagious Optimism can be ordered from amazon.ca, amazon.com, chapters.com or downloaded from kobo.com.  In a couple of weeks you can buy it at Chapters, Indigo or Coles.