Jacquie Phelan's Weblog

Perfect ending to a great day.

First: the Pentlands “FIve Peaks” tour, with Jac Strachan, Chris Marquis, Colin Shearer, and a new face: “Sanny” from Glasgow. His accent is vastly more desirable to imitate than the Edinburgh one, and I learned a few Weegie pronunciations, foul terms and even learned that the best thing you can tell a Glaswegian is: ‘you’re not from Ediburgh, are you?’… is this like the San Francisco /L.A. grooviness rivalry?

The ride lasted maybe 5 hrs from door-to-door. We rode to and fro (rather than driving). That alone should qualify us for some kind of karmic status, if not outright “carbon credits” (term frequently used by nonironic travel writers unwilling to put aside their Live In An Airplane style).

Jac and Chris left earlyish because of tea with Dad or something leaving me to contend with two very spirited racers. But no, they are Scots and perfect gentlemen…Colin and Sanny were also splendid tour guides, instinctively waiting for al old bat to pick the flowers, take the picture, generally catch up, etc….I was entertained by watching them surge ahead, playing with one another (climbing impossible steeps and swooping elegantly down the other side).. .At one point I could hear them singing …I was too far away to recognize what, but that is one of my definitions of a friend: someone you spontaneously sing with…. I would include pix but am going to have to wait til I learn how again.

Home to a bath before hitting the movies one more time, again a PACKED HOUSE to see Roam and Seasons, both by the Canadian film crew called the Collective. Each was a well-made tone/motion poem that puts the viewer in the saddle for much of the movie…Naturally when it was over I had to pretend I was trials rider Ryan Leech at all the stop signs…

Birthday dinner for a new friend, Heidi Kuehne, who has had three careers to my one…including professional musician. We played a bit of banjo, I got to meet a dozen of her friends including one, Helen who flew out from the States..whew… another definition: a friend is someone you will endure a flight for. After that, it was well nigh midnight, when the start gun went off for the Moonwalk… I encountered them near Rose Street, just behind Prince’s Street. A special lane was cordoned off.

I pulled out the banjo and begain to play. It is not every day you see Edinburgh’s streets teeming with a two hour-to-flow past river of 25, 000 women…some racing, most walking . All in darling, hilarious, tender bras heavily decorated with flowers, feathers, and that old standby favorite, a pair of pink applique’d hands, like the dress Barbara Streisand wore to the Academy awards in the 1960’s..many had plastic bags at the ready, tucked in behind like a bustle…others wore theirs, saran-wrapped sisters beaming and not just a few thanking me even though I was thanking them myself, for taking the trouble.

I am going out on a limb and guessing they guessed that my pink glasses were about B.C…(they’re not, but I have made it through BC well enough, no thanks to Nissan, who is sponsoring this huge event and doubtless getting a healthy tax reduction for it, oh my does this sound ungrateful? Sorry…it’s just that the irony/pathos is a little too great. If you want to know why  I despair about Nissan’s title sponsorship of this important feel-good event, please see this book: Pink Ribbons, Inc.: Breast Cancer and the Politics of Philanthropy. (Essay abstract)

Suitably spent, I tumbled into bed at three thirty.

~ by jacquiephelan on June 15, 2008.

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Tags: Edinburgh