Tonight was the 40th anniversary meeting of my Toastmasters club. Last night, around 10pm, I began to think that I should go to the meeting. In fact, I felt that my place was at the meeting.
This morning, around 8am, I pretty much decided I would go. The problem was that I was more than 2 hours away, in Pictou County. Despite the cost of gas, and the long drive, I drove to Halifax around 10:45 this morning, arriving here just before 1pm. I showered, because I had been at the cottage for 4 days and hadn't in all that time, and picked out my Johnny Cash outfit (black shirts, black pants, black shoes) to wear to the meeting. I found time to wash my dishes, meaning that the dishes would not come to life and threaten the populace of Halifax. You may recall that I have that fear.
I cooked and ate an early supper before leaving the house at 4:30. I got a nice parking space downtown, ran a quick errand, grabbed some better shoes to wear to the meeting from my work and got to the meeting place around 5:30.
We had a special guest speaker tonight. It was a fellow who had been a member in the 1980's until the early 1990's: Member of Parliament Geoff Regan. He spoke about how he became interested in politics, how Toastmasters had helped him prepare for a public life, and how it had even helped him when he had addressed the United Nations in 2004. He was generous with his time, witty, urbane, and entertaining. A wonderful time. The icing on the cake (which we also had) was how we had inducted three new members tonight. Mr. Regan (he asked me to call him Geoff, so I will refer to him that way from now on) spoke directly to them about how TM had helped him and would help them to, if they gave it a chance. What an ambassador for Toastmasters!!
After the meeting, I returned to my work to drop off my TM binder and checked my facebook on my BlackBerry. Dawn Sloane, the local Halifax councillor, was having a meet and greet at a local magazine store called Paperchase. I am frightened of an employee of that store as he looks like the Predator, but I took a chance that he might not be there and went anyway. As luck would have it, that scary young man wasn't on duty.
I hung out with Dawn and her friend Johnathan. I asked Dawn to speak with Patricia at the cottage and she did. Around 9, we left together, where I ended up at her place in an effort to decide where to place more of her election signs. My out-of-province readers may not know that municipal elections are this Saturday in Nova Scotia. I spent the next 90 minutes or so helping them put up signs around her district before coming back here and writing for a spell.
I woke up this morning in Pictou County, not having yet decided to return to the city for the day. I had no idea that this day would be so long, and be so rich with incident. I wish every day could be like this. I wish I had manned up a bit more and remained out tonight, helping Dawn and Johnathan erect signs under cover of darkness.
I'll return to the cottage sometime on Thursday morning. Need sleep now.
Bevboy
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