Saturday, December 31, 2005

Home again!

Yes indeed, it is 4:43am on new Year's Eve and I'm still awake. I got home around 12:30 and shot the shit with Jenn for a while before she went to bed and I got into the shower. The thing about my grandparents' house is that they just have a hand-held shower head in the bathtub and that's a big pain because in order to rinse out your hair really well you need to use both hands and holding the sprayer makes that difficult for those of us with only 2 hands and no opposable thumbs on our feet. My point is, home = good.

The bus ride was sooooo long - about 15 hours total - but it was alright. I had a single-serving friend from St. Stephen, NB to Moncton, a dude who told me a bunch of crazy drunken stories. Then after that I needed rest and quiet time and the person who sat next to me had headphones on so it worked out perfectly...like the universe was conspiring to make the trip as painless as possible. But I really need to get some sleep now, the problem is I have to wait for my hair to dry so that I don't sleep on it and make it go..you know...all funny. And my shiitake log will be occupying the bathtub for 24 hours, starting after jenn's morning shower, so I need it to look good at least until that's all done.

Hair=almost dry. Nighty-night.

Sunday, December 25, 2005

First, let me say...

...happy holidays, whatever you celebrate. I come from a Christmas family myself, but I'm also a Solstice girl. Less pressure and materialism, and no I'm not opposed to people singing religious Christmas carols or putting up creches - although from the conversation around here you'd swear that every non-conservative had that as their hidden agenda, the "War on Christmas" and all that - but why not be a little more inclusive, y'know? Who does it hurt? I read in the paper here the other day that a bunch of Republican supporters threw out their cards from the president because he went with the "Happy Holidays" instead of "merry Christmas" message on the inside. And yet it's the liberals (small-l)who are intolerant...figure that one out. Anyway.

We had a nice Christmas here - great food, lots of laughter - I can't complain. And some members of my family have just amazing taste in gifts. I got a Betty Boop calendar from my aunt Dottie, an alarm clock/radio that can wake you up to the sound of the ocean/rain/rainforest/etc from Dad, and a shiitake log from my cousin Emily. that's right. A log on which you grow shiitake mushrooms. My Em does all her Christmas shopping at Red Envelope and picks out the neatest stuff.

I made Portobello Wellington for dinner and it was sooo good. I'm still stuffed nearly 6 hours later. Oh and I sprained the middle finger on my left hand catching a football.

Adam had Christmas dinner with my Mom's side of the family - all 31 relatives and significant others who currently happen to be in Nova Scotia - and Mom says he handled it pretty well. I'll have to do something nice for him when I get back! Until then, he has Mom's fudge and cookies.

Anyway enjoy yourselves, folks, and I'll be home soon enough. Julie: see my response to your last comment!

Saturday, December 24, 2005

I belong in London - Julie, you should take me!

You Belong in London

A little old fashioned, and a little modern.
A little traditional, and a little bit punk rock.
A unique woman like you needs a city that offers everything.
No wonder you and London will get along so well.


Y'all should see the tree here. It's a retailer's wet dream.

Friday, December 23, 2005

The rest of the family arrives today, which I'm loking forward to as it will shake up the routine around here and hopefully cheer Dad up. He's been keeping to himself a lot since we got here, and my social skills are not evolved to the level where I can easily engage people in conversation on uncomfortable issues. It's also scary to me, being at the point in my life where I'm working towards having some kind of stability in my life, to see that that stability is far from guaranteed - even brains and a great sense of humour can't keep it at bay.

Intestingly, I just finished reading The Alchemist which is a lovely book about finding one's destiny and knowing when to rest and when to act or change. Alhough I found the story itself male-centric, the message was universal, at least to anyone who believes in unknown forces outside themself that act upon their lives. It fits very well with my pantheism and I've started looking at the events around me in a different way because of it.

Unfortunately, I've almost blown through all of my reading for this trip and i need to take a trip to a bookstore soon to restock. I think I'll pick up something by Garcia Marquez since I've been dying to read some of his work ever since my Spanish prof Florencia made such a big deal about him this semester.

I now have plans for New Years: I'm going to see Joel Plaskett with Jenny (not the roommate, a different Jenny) at the Marquee. She's a great concert buddy, as I learned when we went to see Hawksley during the Halifax Pop Explosion. I miss everybody in Halifax and I'll for sure be making some phone calls once I get back.

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Apparently

...it's evil for the Democrats to attach anti-torture legislation to a military spending bill but perfectly respectable for the Republicans to attach legislation allowing drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge to one - and shameful, at that, for the Democrats to filibuster said bill due to their opposition to the ANWR stuff tagged onto it.

At least, that's what I got from my good buddy Rush on his radio show today...

If there is a God, she's testing me.

Article

Monday, December 19, 2005

On the door of a State Farm office in Portland:

"Unaccompanied children will be given an espresso and a free puppy."

On a radio ad for a fur store:

"Life's to short to go without a mink!"

I feel like I'm in a foreign country...oh wait.

Sunday, December 18, 2005

So far, no Fox News...

...but left-wing news is always welcome. Hipster in Training is way ahead of the game with the article on how polar bears are drowning because of climate change so thanks for that!

Well after a looong bus ride I got to sleep in this morning for a good long time and then go shopping for fun hippie food. Clif and Luna bars are deliciously cheap here, and I found soy chorizo sausage and vegan hemp brownie mix (any more hippie and it'd be illegal). Then my great aunt and uncle came over and reminisced for a few hours and talked politics a bit - mostly bashing Hilary Clinton so I easily exempted myself from the conversation by appealing to my Canadian-ness.

My grandfather spent about an hour tonight telling me stories from his time in the army, which is intersting because he never used to talk about it much - to anybody, apparently - but the stories are coming more and more often these days. Maybe his health scare earlier this year made him decide to tell his stories while he still can.

Anyway, it's off to bed with me...I'm going shopping at 11 tomorrow.

Friday, December 16, 2005

Finished my last essay this morning. It's just so wonderful to have the weight of the semester lifted off my shoulders, even for a little while. Adam made me scrambled tofu for breakfast and we watched the end of The Bird Cage. I ran all over Sackville this afternoon and now I'm procrastinating the dishes. Seriously, this place is a fucking mess, what with me writing exams and Jenn working 48+ hour weeks. But, well...the water's too hot. And...I have to...let it cool down...

It's not as if I didn't have anything to do...I have to pack and make my lunch (and dinner and snacks) for the bus ride tomorrow, and I have two Christmas parties I'm supposed to go to. So often I'd go about all that stuff just because I said I would, but right now I really need some Me Time. The weather out there is miserable and Metro Transit is being slow and wanker-y so I might decide to socialize later or I might just stay in and pack, clean and read a book. Over the next two weeks I'll probably come to miss my friends but why force myself now to do things I don't want to do? I'm on vacation, fools!

Monday, December 12, 2005

I'm frustrated with the lack of updating and commening that is going on in my blog universe. Don't you people realize that this is an important source of procrastination for me? Especially those who are DONE THE SEMESTER - you know who you are. Update! Daily! I demand it...

One more exam and that &!#@~ paper left to do.

Saturday, December 10, 2005



Oh, for a stiff drink. That one there is compliments of Natalie Dee, by the way. She rocks.

So Jenn has bought some space-age water fountain drinking dome thingy for the cat. Problem is, he doesn't seem to have any interest in it...she swears he was all over it before. I say she's a crazy person. Over and out.

Thursday, December 08, 2005

On art appreciation and the horrors of studentdom

Ok first of all, a curse on my computer, or on blogger, or on whatever is preventing my fantoga picture from uploading.

So, I definitely modeled nude today. It was so cool, I sat around and got a picture painted of me and drank tea and ate oranges and then after three hours I got paid good money for it all.

The funniest thing is that most women would freak out if they came home and their husband was hanging out with a naked twenty-something. His wife, on the other hand, came into the studio to chat, critiqued the painting, complimented my figure and tried to feed me cookies. I love this job!

Now I'm home and trying to get into the mood to study. It's not happening...I just can't wait for this semester to be over. Then I can relax and watch lots of Fox News. On second thought...

Sunday, December 04, 2005

In precisely two weeks I will have finished the semester and be in Maine - not just regular Maine, but the Fox News capitol of Maine. So between 17 and 30 December, if anyone would like to email me or post anything left-wing or Stephen Harper's newest ludicrous comment, that would be warmly welcomed.

Speaking of Harper, interesting news item from a few days ago...one of his election platforms is to roll back the GST. Apparently it's a brilliant campaign strategy. Economists are appalled: cutting down a consumption-based tax aparently is bad for the economy, instead they should apparently be lowering income taxes to encourage people to earn more. I'm ambivalent about this point (let it be known that I consider conventional economics to be pretty idiotic in general - I'm more of a Genuine Progress Index kind of girl), and in fact surprised that Harper would be intorducing such a seemingly left-wing measure. Regressive taxes like the GST hit lower-income earners harder than higher-income ones, as opposed to progressive taxes like income tax which is more equitable. However, the ecologist in mke is saying "NO! Don't make mindless consumption cheaper!" Anyway Dave mentioned something that I never thought of before: the opinion that resource-consuming goods should be taxed but services shouldn't. I think that would be a good happy medium for my sensibilities: lower the (regressive) tax on services, which don't inherently involve ripping resources out of the planet, and keep the tax on resource consumption. It's not perfect, obviously, but what is? Besides Better Pecan Tofutti, that is. MMMMM...

OK, papers to write now about Aboriginal political representation in Canada, and effective family planning provision worldwide.