Do You Know The Muffin Man???

12 January - Set my alarm reasonably early this morning and I very reasonably slept right through it. It was raining pretty miserably today so I suppose that's one advantage of not being able to work. Last night's boredom did have one drawback, it spurred me into doing some work on my room with a pretty gung-ho tidy up and I even did some basic decorating, which almost cheered me up. One wall is now dedicated to maps. It's a pity I threw most of the ones that I gathered in the various cities I travelled through but i've got my battered old Vancouver map up there with one of Hanoi and a 3D map of Phnom Penh (it sounds a lot better than it really is - I was very disappointed when I opened up the 3D map for the first time and was not confronted with a laser hologram of the city or a pop-up of all the major sites but merely an isometric view with a couple of buildings drawn in). There's also the map of Vancouver drawn on a Swiss Deli brown paper bag that one of my co-workers very helpfullydrew for me before I left Sydney (it was rather strange how well informed he was). Today's mission was to finally see ScienceWorld, the fun filled playhouse that teaches you all about the wonders of science. The Bibliotheque I went to in Paris was incredible and this was like that, only much, much lamer (and with a lot more anklebiters around). There were a few interesting exhibits but the other kids wouldn't let me play and all of the fun physical things required two sturdy hands (although I did hoist mysself up half a metre with one hand and a pulley system). Still, another thing ticked off. Wandered into downtown wit the intent of picking up my cheque from one of the other couriers but by the time they arrived I was already home. Did meet up with most of my copworkers and a few other couriers, all expressing sympathy for my plight. It's not terribly busy at the moment so I think most of my co-workers ar quite happy with me being off for a while longer. Also met the muffin man, an old gentleman named Herb who brings in sunshine muffins for the couriers every Thursday. At first he eqyed me warily asking if I was a courier but upon hearing my tale of woe he gladly pressed one into my inured hand. He runs a prayer group somewhere downtown and they pray for the whole of Vancouver (i think it needs a lot of prayers myself) and him and his wife used to bring coffee and muffins for the meet. Somewhere along the line, about 12 year ago, his wife thought it would be nice to give the leftovers to the hungry couiers on dunsmuir st and so began a tradition which continued on since then. His wife is now gone but a friend of hers bakes them exclusively for the couriers and every thursday he brings a bag of them in for us. Very sympathetic about my injury, maybe his prayers will help. Visited loreia down at her puband had an overpriced beer befpore getting saturated on the way home. Well, at least I got out of thhouse. Also watched Wedding crashers in the evening which was very amusing - bit of a fantasy land premise but very OTT opening scene and Vince Vaughn's energetic performance was hilarious - tthree stars.