So, I woke up today and spent it alone. I walked all over the city, did a little shopping, ate a little pizza, drank prosecco at lunch, staggered to a spa where I had a scheduled massage, possibly the best massage I've ever had by a guy named Carey (maybe the best massage I've ever had by any guy named anything), walked over to the Empress Hotel, elegantly and almost absurdly colonial, sat in the famous Bengal Lounge, ordered first a drink called the Empress 1908, consisting of Empress tea-infused vodka, lemon juice, simple syrup and egg white -- my god, it was good and totally not sweet but perfectly weird and tart. It came with a tiny little scone because of the tea thing, and I ordered a pint glass of tiger shrimp and cocktail sauce and then a beer! Oh, and the waiter brought me a finger bowl while I ate the shrimp. I finished at around 7:00 and since Javier couldn't meet me, I staggered home in the bright Victoria sunshine (it's the first day of sunshine and for these Victorian folks it was as if the heavens had opened and Jesus himself had descended such was their joy), and now I'm waiting for the sun to start going down which will be in another couple of hours (north country fair) so that I can walk over to the water and offer up my gratitude to the universe that made Heather McHugh for this week.
