Almost year end ...

23 December - Despite having to shake off a slight hangover from last night's white wine I was in a tremendously good mood in the morning. Perhaps it had to do with the warm (well, warm for a Canadian winter) weather and lack of rain, maybe it was because I knew I was only going to have a half day today or maybe it was because I didn't have to listen to Jason's tinny clock radio blaring out CBC Radio while I was trying to enjoy my breakfast - in any event, I felt that things were going good. I even broke out into the few verses that I could remember of 'oh, what a beautiful morning' on my pre-dawn commute into town. Once I got into town it kept on getting better. I met up with Dimitr and we had a coffee and a chat before I headed off for a few SHTs to start the day. I had a very pleasant ride over to the side (not overtly profitable but physicallynot exhausting) before I headed back into town where I managed to score a Renaissance cookie at the seaplane port. It had been cool and cloudy, perfect weather for riding and as we came to oneish and it really slackened off I thought it would be a good time to call it a day. Nay, I could call it a perfect day. A few of the other bikers were let off early due to the lack of work but I was kept on. This was fine, at first. It did put a bit of a dent in our plans to have a nice work lunch together. I know we work on commission but I would have been very happy to leave any time after noon - this feelingwas incresed noticably when the heavens finally broke open - it wasn't a heavy rain but enough to annoy. I'd been in such a good mood for the whole of the day that I tried to force myself to stay that way despite circumstances dragging me into a black pit of despair. I had a rictus Joker grin plastered on my faced but the wet reallystarted to annoy me - however, it wasn't too long before it was all over. and it was quiet enough for us to really not stress about the work at all. There was a contiually changing cluster of couriers sitting around the hangout at 885 cheerfuly bitching about the lack of work and not very subtly passing around joints and alcoholic drinks (it turns out that a lot of them had been drinking and getting high all day, you could really see it it in their wild eyes and jittery dispositions). The few of us who were still working until the end all went out for a very average hamburger and a few beers at the Lions pub near the waterfront and we also inadverently came upon a fiendishly clever scam for getting free food at restaurants. Dimiri ordered the chili and upon being presented with it realised that t had the flesh of our mamallian brethren contained within it. We explained to our server our issue and she was very understanding, offering to replace it at no charge. As she went to remove the offending meal from our table Dimitri stopped her, saying, 'Are you just going to throw it out then?' - Yes, 'Well, why don't we keep it, then?' - he was so nonchalant about the whole thing that the server just let us keep it - so, a free meal for the entire table. Now, we have to work out how we can use this knowledge to help us with world domination ....