On Point at The Point

My home office faces a grove of oak trees. The leaves have all turned brown. Most have fallen. There is one tree that stubbornly refuses to go naked even if it means being clothed in old shriveled up brown leaves. That is how it will be till spring. I know. I have watched this for several years now. Somehow, sometime, ever so gradually that I don't exactly know how, the old shriveled up brown leaves are replaced by fresh new young green sprouts. Note to self: this spring, watch to see where the shriveled up old brown leaves go.

Came home from The Point with time to spare before the appointed --- or should that be the annointed --- hour of 4 o'clock. The Point is that curious bit of terra firma situated at the tip of a peninsula in the southwest corner of British Columbia which is Canada. But The Point is the United States. Tantamount to something like the 49th parallel running across the tip of your finger, right about where the finger nail begins. Its actual name is Point Roberts, but if you are in the know, you call it "The Point." It is a charming piece of real estate cut off from the rest of the US. The only way you can reach is via a Canada, or by boat.

There is little on The Point save cottages hidden away in darkened forests or basking in the sunlight on cleared land often populated by a grazing horse or two. Cottages give way to more substantial homes closer to the ocean, but they are still just summer homes for someone. Everything that is on The Point is there with the neighboring Canadians in mind. Gas is always cheaper than at home no matter where the Canadian dollar may be and the prices are showin in litres, not gallons. There is a big marina, filled to capacity with Canadian owned boats. Orchards, long abandoned and overgrown, still bear fruit, be it apple or pear but forget about picking any unless you live on The Point or have a friend who does. Bringing apples across the border is a no no.

The US Post Office and package receiving outlets do a brisk business. Canadians in direct marketing find that fulfillment of orders for the US is both cheaper and faster when sent from here. There are no less than three such outlets, and I believe a fourth has just opened up. There is a well hidden restaurant by the sea, a cafeteria by the marina, and a higgledy piggledy place called the Capanna Cafe. It is from the Capanna Cafe that I returned this afternoon after whiling away a pleasent two hours and then some with a friend. The menu is mostly soup, pannini sandwiches and quiches. There are salads as well. The coffee is good for drinking on its own, or for dunking yummy biscotti. Its home cooking at its best.

Should you ever be in these neck of the woods, I recommend that you take a little bit of time and visit The Point. Its buccolic rural charm is relaxing and a throw back to a time when life was lived in the moment, devoid of the umbilical high tech chord so many of us seem to be attached to today. Oh, while there, be sure to stop in at the Capanna. You'll be glad you did.

First Four O'Clock Thursday

This is most interesting ... it is the first Four O'Clock Thursday, an appointment I set with self, to ruminate on the state of affairs: mine, the world's, the neighbor's, maybe just the weather. I stood myself up! Yup! I had another appointment that pre-empted this one.

Before I get too far ahead of myself, let me explain how Four O'Clock Thursdays came to be. I belong a Master Mind Group --- we meet by phone each Tuesday. Somehow the subject of negativity came up. One of our members, a wise man and a leader said something to the effect that we should not dwell on the negative; that is, not to avoid its presence but to simply have little to do with it. His suggestion was that we should set aside an hour or so each week and that that is the hour we should devote to having it out with ourselves, with our negative talk. Allow yourself to be as negative as you want and thrash it all out. With such an appointment, everytime you have a niggling negativity creeping up your spine, just tell yourself that it will have to wait till the appointed hour of the week and then go about your day, secure in the knowldege that you will give this negative thought its due attention. Why not make it four o'clock on a Thursday, he said ... and then when four o'clock Thursday arrives, and you are not in a bad mood, well then you've blown it for the week, and will now have to re-schedule.

We all laughed. What an idea! We talked about that famous book, Tuesdays with Morrie . Well one thing led to another and that is how I decided to start a blog about Four O'Clock Thursday ... but with a difference, its not a bitch session with self, but an hour devoted to mental meandering, and to see where that meandering will take me.

So, today, I stood myself up. As I began to say at the beginning, another appointment pre-empted this one. A business appointment, a rather important one, and so I had to weigh the matter and decided that just as with the first option of a "negative hour" being blown because you felt good... well, so too, this appointment with self will now have to wait till next Thursday.

The appointment? Yes. It was good. It was productive. We sealed the deal. What's good for the bottom line, is also good for self.

Till next Thursday!
Recommended Reading:
Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson