Evening stroll along the Victoria Promenade

After a very awesome thunder and lightening storm that sent lashing rain down for a few hours I took Laz out for an evening stroll along the Victoria Promenade.

Met a lovely man Mike from Lebanon whose walking partners left him talking with us because his friend said "Mike loves to talk more than he loves to walk" but Mike was such a lovely man who talked about moving from Lebanon to Canada 5 years ago with his "arranged marriage" wife, who would leave him if she was not dependent on him because I may think he is nice but he is not always nice to live with.

He said there is a lot of suffering in marriage and it is better to have a dog like Laz because "he will always be loyal to you and never leave you and imagine a country where it is legal to let your wife marry other men as well. You are better off with a dog"

When he came to Canada he was lonely, life was very different here and Canadians were very polite and friendly but they did not understand how different it was for him, nor did he have any friends to understand his suffering.

OMG I wanted to just take him home with me and let him pour his heart at to me.

But I couldn't so I just stood there and listened and he said "you think everything I say is wonderful I will keep talking to you".

I learned about Israel being Palestine before it was Israel and that Trump was neither good nor bad because he is not a dictator and congress was the one running the show and that he was just a very intelligent businessman who understood how to run America like a business. I don't get involved in politics so I just let him talk.

Arranged marriages were a good idea when women had to be dependent on men but now his daughter is 36 and is educated and can support herself she wants to marry for love and she hasn't met anyone so she will probably be alone for the rest of her life.

He said I should just arrange my children's marriages and pick out someone for them like I picked out my wonderful dog. He really seemed to like my dog.

Laz of course was just laying there chilling...even though I was not the one talking this time we were clearly going to be there for awhile cause I had my "standing here for awhile energy on" and he and I have our own language anyway.

I learned that it was not bad or rude of Trump to not look out for and wait for the Queen because she was the Queen of England but because he was a guest in her country and as a woman who was of age it was the polite and proper thing to do.

I learned a lot more too...mostly about love, change and suffering and again about how great a dog is at the end of the day and that when he goes back to Lebanon in a month he will probably 90% not stay there to live because everything is different now that he is a Canadian and knows about life here and Lebanon is not his home anymore.

His friends wandered back and met him and I gave him such a big hug and thanked him for sharing so much with me because I learned so much and then he reached out and hugged me again and he looked...happy.