Everett and I made peroghies with Karen and her sister-in-law yesterday. My sister, rolling dough on the countertop, looked over at us busily pinching dough at the kitchen table and said “It’s not hard to tell who the real Ukrainian is.” Sharon was leaving us in the dust, pathetic pedeha pinchers we.

We layered the peroghies between wax paper on cookie sheets to freeze, cleaned up our mess, and went to Grandma's. She was laying on the couch with game shows on TV, so we watched a couple with her, then switched the channel so we could catch Coronation Street before bolting for home to meet Emil's bus.

This morning I bagged the peroghies up and stuck them back in the deep freeze, except for one bag. I sent it and a loaf of raisin-rye bread along with Manful. He was headed for the city to drop off beef for my friend and have lunch with his baby boy, who has flown in from Calgary for the weekend.

Everett insisted on boiling some up for his lunch, but was immediately in tears when he tasted them because he does not like the cottage cheese in them. Oops. Looks like we'll be back at it again next week, but with a filling he can stomach.

Meanwhile, the 22 dozen little dumplings will not be wasted.

Manful left before 8 o'clock this morning and every time I walk past the bathroom downstairs I smell his aftershave, and smile.

A couple in town waited four years for him to do their basement. The wife said “We don’t mind waiting, for the best.”

I have found a long-lost friend!

Last May I dreamed of a friend I'd lost track of. We'd been pals when we were in our teens.

I considered writing his name on a piece of paper, tucking it into the corner of the bathroom mirror so that I’d see it each day, and seeing if he or his whereabouts might manifest. This would have been a simple enough bit of magic to attempt, but I never did, not even to test and disprove it in my semi-sceptical way.

Last week a high school acquaintance invited me to the city, where a mutual friend from Edmonton is coming on business this weekend. My presence was to be a surprise.

I was reminded of my old buddy who used to live in the same city, and wondered if I'd ever see him again.

When I phoned yesterday and told our little party planner that I wouldn’t make it, she spilled the beans.

“Do you remember G.P.?” she asked me.

“Sure,” I said. “I didn’t know you knew him.”

“I didn’t,” she said, “back then. But he’s my next-door neighbour, and when I mentioned what school I went to, he asked if I knew you.”

Her heinous plan was to have him saunter over and surprise me.

I’d have been surprised, all right, and in a good way.

In the midst of happiness, disappointment. Thrilling surprises are few and far between.