Springtime with my folks

I spent this weekend with my parents, which is always nice.

Capsule post, Autumn 2012

Hrm. So.

Any of you who are familiar with my blog know that I tend to go quiet for a while and then catch up, during which time I just don't write anything at all or I write a bunch of stuff but leave it in draft purgatory. Well, the past few months has been no different - many things have been afoot, so this has had to take a back burner to the rest of life.

Let me just give you a quick rundown...

St Catharines – wut up wit dat?

Okay, so I want to know exactly WHAT they are putting in the water in St Catharines. 

What a great, exhausting weekend!

Started with a tiny bit of a downer – my brothers were both playing together downtown, I had wanted to go but in the end I had to work much later than expected and just couldn’t do it, so I had to pass.

But pretty much everything else was awesome!

What an excellent/dramatic weekend!

Clothes Horse
by Wastedpapiers

It began with a closet-dive — yes, I’ve decided it’s time to do a purge. I know it’s been time for a purge for a long time, but it I am both a packrat and a clotheshorse, and the two together? Well, dangerous combination. So that means I need a good solid chunk of uninterrupted time. Pulled clothes out and did laundry for two or three hours actually, pretty good. Went to bed well-rested.

Long weekend merriment!

Happy Day-After-Canada Day everyone! Did you all have a great weekend? I did!

Looking back on 2011

Happy new year everyone! I hope you all had a great night last night. I know I did — they say the way you spend your New Year’s Eve is the way you’ll spend your year, and if that’s true I think I’m going to have an awesome one, surrounded by good food, yummy drinks, great friends (new and old) and glittery nail polish *grin*

So let’s see, what kind of a year was 2011... 

Best day ever?

Maybe.

Friday I took the Casino bus into Niagara Falls to visit my folks. Dad met me at the casino, we went to the all-you-can-eat buffet (where I proceeded to drip several kinds of sauce onto my favourite green shirt) and then to the slots.

Hotness, the Dentist and Rugsucker Kolodny

Been pretty busy lately - darts is done for the season (I wasn't fabulous, but I held my own), T and I are caught up watching modern Dr Who (new series premieres at Easter, are you ready?), and the weather's been too beautiful to ignore!

Been busy. Here, catch up.

Oops, sorry folks, got caught up doing stuff! What, you ask? Well sit down, this could take a while...

2010: The Death List

Okay, so we’re not wishing these people would die, these are merely predictions for the coming year. Believe me, I’d be heartbroken over the deaths of a number of people on this list. But not all of them!

To be honest, we do this ever year on New Year’s Eve or thereabouts, but we always forget to write them down. Not this time!

A new year... a new decade...

...a new Doctor! But I'm not watching that until Sunday, so no discussing it...

Anyway, my New Year's Eve was great, up in KW again at J*&P&A's house, generating new Jersey Shore names for us all (I'm apparently H-Cat) and playing Wii Sport Resort (I'm getting one soon, maybe today). And also discussing our favourite albums of the last decade.

So my life is suddenly quite hectic.

This week I have limited access to my own bathroom, while the office tears out my old tub and bathroom flooring and replaces them (the water damage caused by tubliners must be seen to be believed, don’t be sucked in by the hype folks!). For me, showers are for getting clean and baths are for relaxing – and then you have a shower after to be clean. It’s killing me to be stuck with only baths for the whole week. But at least I don’t have the worry in the back of my head that the floor is going to finally collapse. Anyway, as a result my home is an even worse disaster area than usual, tarps down and plaster dust in everything. Can’t wait until this is done.

Weekend hijinks in Niagara

So my Dad’s turning 70 this week! I can’t come home on his birthday, so I took last Friday off and had a long weekend instead. So this week was pretty busy – see, I wanted to finish that scrapbook I was working on (I’d decided to give it to him) so every free moment was spent doing that. And I finished it! And it looks pretty awesome, I must say. He and Mum are both really happy with it.

No excuse

Yep, I have no excuse. I’ve been lax in my posting. You’d think nothing ever happens to me, wouldn’t you? And yet I’m always busy and always exhausted. It’s my own fault of course, mostly.

So what’s been going on since May? Lessee...

I’m Jack Benny’s age

While I was home over the holidays Mum took delight in telling me I’d be Jack Benny’s age on my birthday this year. Funnier than the comment, though, was her delight in sharing it with me – and, to be honest, every time I think of it I smile, so that’s all good.

Okay, so let’s do this in order or I’ll get emotional.

Eastery goodness

I have lots of chocolate running through my system. Still. Not a bad thing you know.

Anyway.

My Easter visit with my parents was really good, lots of not doing anything, which is what vacations are really about. Dad got the knitting machine working again and I found instructions online for it, we went bowling (I beat my Dad at one game too - granted, it was a bad game for him...), bought a few cheap DVDs - Undercover Brother, The Astronaut's Wife and Johnny English - oh, and Dad gave me Narnia!


Mum also gave me a ring that she bought a few years ago, it's really beautiful and very shiny.

Yeah, it's all shiny actually.

Kids These Days

So when did I get so old?

I'm visiting my parents this weekend, so I took the Niagara Falls train after work yesterday. Going through Hamilton our car was hit not once, not twice, but THREE times by kids throwing stuff at the train. The second hit shattered one of the windows. Luckily they're double-paned windows with about four inches between the panes, and the glass is safety glass, but come on.

All I could think was I hope they catch those little buggers. Because kids think they can get away with anything. Why? Because that's what we teach them.

In February some kids threw a brick off an overpass for fun - the driver of the car it hit has to undergo reconstructive surgery now, and would have died if her brother hadn't been in the car to take over the wheel when the chunk of concrete came through the window and opened up her face. As far as I know they've never caught the person who did this - and if they do, if the person's a 'young offender', they'll get off with a warning or a slap on the wrist.

We're taught, on a daily basis, that someone else is always to blame for the things we do. Are you overweight? Don't exercise or start eating right, just sue McDonald's. Does your kid start fights? Must be the other kid's fault.

And why are they suddenly smoking? I mean, my parents have an excuse, they didn't know it was bad for them. They can blame the tobacco companies for misleading them. But now? Come on, in Kindergarten they showed us the pix of the healthy lung and the smoker's lung, and that's all it took. (The picture I attached here is, of course, of a smoker's lung - wouldn't that image be enough?) Kids now are growing up knowing you will DIE, your will get emphysema and cancer and all kinds of stuff, and they do it anyway. Then they get sick and want to SUE.

Me, I know there are things that are my own fault. I can complain about McDonald's being full of junk, but I'm the one who goes there, they don't chase me down.

Gah, I feel so old.

Later

My Dad found my old Knit Magic machine in the basement (like the picture, but with no yarn, or tension adjuster). Of course it never worked when I got it (hand-me-down from cousins I think) but I couldn't part with it. And it won't work now of course, it's really stiff. But I want to take it apart and see how it works. Maybe I can fix it, then if I need to do anything in a tube I can just crank the wheel and presto! Maybe I'll feel less old playing with this plastic toy!

I know I can get the equivalent now, relatively cheaply, but it's just that I want to make this one work...

To Lunch or Not To Lunch?

I had a meeting over lunch hour on Friday. Lunch meetings suck, did you know that? Really. Not that I don't like having food with a meeting if it's over lunch hour - it's just that, for me, the important part of Lunch Break is the Break part, I like to get away for an hour and not think about work. I can stay super late if I get a break in the middle.

So anyway, I spent lastnight setting up my flickr account (there's a link on the right side of the blog) and semi-populating it. Apparently there's a limit to how many you can upload in any given month so I've only put up a few things really. Also spent some time populating my iPhoto and organizing it - I had NO IDEA I had so many photos on The Metatron™! Took forever - but it was good, I forgot I had lots of those shots.

So today my recent ex-roomie came over for a visit with his boyfriend, I was so happy to see them! I told the girls at work that I'll probably see more of J now that he doesn't live here, and it's already true *grin*.

Went for Dim Sum with a bunch of folks, only two of which I knew, but that was really nice actually, I liked everyone a lot and, even though I didn't eat too much, I liked what we had for the most part, so all good there.

And since I have no self-control, I went up to Futureshop and bought Space: Above And Beyond! Well, that's a lie really - it finally came out in the fall and I've put it off buying it until now, so maybe I am learning some restraint...

Later
I've spent the evening listening to The Ceremony Of Innocence, the interactive CD-ROM of the first three of Nick Bantock's correspondence books. Not actually playing it, mind, as I need Classic to play it, but listening to the individual entries from Griffin and Sabine. I've been going through withdrawl for a while for it actually, I think it might be four or five years since I've gone back to it.

Aaaah, it was wonderful. Really, Paul McGann and Isabella Rossellini are two of my favourite ever people, and I could listen to Paul's voice for eternity (you all know my opinion of the man, right?). But it really makes me realize that I just don't write like I once aspired to.

I once wrote letters that were long and effusive, I had a journal to keep track of who I sent letters to and when, so I wouldn't keep telling them the same things over and over again, and I was known for it. And now? E-mail. And it's never anything exciting either. In my defence I have to say that the last missives I sent off either never arrived at their destinations or were diverted for months before finally finding their homes (which makes me quite upset and frustrated with Canada Post, to be honest).

I'm not sure what I should do about this. *sigh*

A weekend in Kitchener

Yes, I was in Kitchener again this weekend. To be honest it's been a little while so no problem. It was Skinner's birthday so I knitted him a great scarf that ended up looking like a giant tiger, it was fantastic and I now have orders *grin* - spent that evening with his family, eating Trini food and playing crowfoot dominos until wee Aaron decided it was time to go - pretty long time actually!

Got lots of visiting in with other friends too, what with the brunching at Oscar's and the hottubbing at Shawn's. Yes, hottubbing outside in the snow, it was great!

Latest money hemmorage: a new suit and dresspants for work. Boring? Maybe, but I like 'em.

Still no iMac *sob* Meanwhile, attempting to back stuff up off the current tower is becoming excruciating, it keeps crashing on me! Oooh, you know it's bad when your Mac crashes...