The curse of jetlag

My friend Shaw is here! Hoorah for Boston!

I picked her up from the airport on Saturday and we hung around the house in a generally jetlagged manner, finally giving in and retiring to bed at 10pm. Both of us then woke up at 5am and couldn't get back to sleep. And in the inevitable thinking-of-annoying-stuff-you-can't-do-anything-about that comes with insomnia, I spent two hours getting annoyed at people before finally giving in and getting up at 7am.

The subject of my inner annoyance at 5am? Boys and e-mails. Having got back to Canada on Thursday, I received an e-mail on Saturday from someone that I contacted at the beginning of January, when I had told them that I was coming over to England and asked if they wanted to meet up with me. The reply, sent two months later? "Let me know when you're in Leeds and we can meet up for lunch. It would be good to see you." Ok, so not only did it take exactly two months for the guy to reply to the e-mail, but he obviously didn't read my first e-mail properly when I said that I was leaving the country in early February and coming back in March. What is the point of having e-mail if you don't reply to your messages? And it obviously wasn't going to be that good to see me if he waited two months to reply to me.

Second case in point; someone I haven't seen for four years comes on messenger, with the comment, "Where on earth have you been?" On questioning, it transpires that he has been waiting for me to come and see him in London, and has been expecting me to turn up any day now. Did he reply to my e-mail asking whether it was ok for me to come and stay with him for a night? Did he bollocks. Apparently he just thought that somehow I would be able to work out his telephone number or address and just turn up at some point. I ask you.

I one had an e-mail drought from the guy I was in love with (and was kind of seeing in the usual boys-don't-want-commitment type way) for six months, I kid you not. I sent him an email one day and he didn't respond. After a few more days of non-contact, I logically sent him another e-mail, asking if everything was ok. More days went past, and another e-mail got sent out, this time a little more distressed. Eventually I just decided he didn't want to see me any more, and so the last e-mail was in the upset vein. When he finally bothered to get in contact with me, six months later (after he had no doubt been pursuing other avenues of adventure), he had a ready explanation for his lack of communication. "Well, at first I just didn't reply because I had other things to do, and then when you started getting upset, I didn't know what to say." I can't fathom the way men work with regard to e-mails!!! If someone e-mailed me and they were upset, I'd write back, so they didn't get more upset.... am I the illogical one, or is the other sex completely mad?

So anyway, after getting myself totally wound up at 5am and not being able to get back to sleep, Denise, Shaw and I drove down to Seattle for the day. As you do. The weather in Vancouver was ok, but Seattle promised to be sunny, and so we took a day trip there. The drive down took about 3 hours including getting across the border, and we got there at about lunchtime. We parked near the Space Needle and had a wander around, with some lunch, taking in some of the Music Experience Museum, the monorail, the shopping quarter, the dockside market, the arcade (where we reverted back to our youth and went on the Carousel - great fun!) and finally back to the Space Neede again, via some shops. The weather was fantastic, and most of the day was spent in T-shirts (and eating, since everything looked really nice). The plan was to drive back through Langley and go to the Olive Garden (I thought about you, Butterscotch) but we got lost trying to find the right turning, and ended up just coming back to Vancouver and getting food in Kerrisdale. Then we all crashed when we got back as we were so tired. And this morning, I woke up again at 5am and couldn't get back to sleep.....