Zumba

I was re-reading old posts today, when I came across this one (go read this now, I'll wait) which was about me worrying about snow when moving to a new city for school.  I never did fall, exactly, but I did have numerous slippy moments.  One of which was because I slipped on the ruts of frozen slush on the sidewalk on my way to a night class and did something to my knee (I have figured out since that I dislocated my patella).  I didn't hit my knee, my foot just twisted enough to pop things out.  Stuck halfway between class and home with a knee that felt locked in a weird place, I started to panic.  How do I move?  How do I get help? Why did I not bring my phone?  I eventually shook my leg enough that things went back into place and hobbled the rest of the way to class, where I arrived late to the glare of my prof.  I hobbled around for the rest of the week.

I dislocated my knee-cap thrice more over the next year.  Once while trying to catch the Baz, and my mom pulled on my ankle a bit and everything popped back into place.  And I mean popped!  It looked like the two bones for my lower leg separated a bit and then sproinged back together.  Seriously cool!!  The next time was my first week at a new job, I was putting my things away in my cupboard and turned without moving my feet.  My new co-worker held my ankle while I rolled back in my chair.  POP!

Then one day, I had a really bad time at work.  I had to take off for a walking "coffee break" before I hit someone or started crying.  I called my brother to see if I could talk it out with him at lunch and an hour later he was making me a sandwich while I cried.  One of his suggestions for getting rid of the punchy feeling was to "Go to the gym, do some kick-boxing class or something".

That night I decided to finally try out a Zumba class.  Things were good during the warm up, but then there were a lot of step turns.  In running shoes. On rubber floors.  My knee half-popped out, but went back in, so I continued, being careful to make sure my knee went with my feet.  Then I got into it again and was just trying to keep up with the steps and not get hit by flailing arms, and I forgot about my knee. CRUNCH.

This did not really feel the same as the last times.  I hobbled to the back and tried to figure out what to do.  This was only my third time at this gym, so I didn't know any of the people or the trainers.  A few people asked if I was ok, but only in passing.  I figured I was going to have to leave the building anyway, so I had to make my way back downstairs to the locker room.  Some lovely ladies finally helped me in the locker room, but my knee was not budging and would not straighten all the way.  They took me out into the weight room so that a big personal trainer with an expensive prosthetic leg could see if he could help.  Nothing doing, so he offered to accompany me to the hospital.  The other ladies assured me he was a good guy, and so did the guy at the front desk.

So, with a few twenties from petty cash, we were off to the hospital in a cab (well, I had forgotten my phone again, so we made a quick stop where I was living, told my landlady I was off to the hospital, and grabbed my phone!).  I was texting my friend and my brother on the way, the only friends I had in town.  My friend was away, and her husband would have come if it was a super emergency, but I told him I was ok enough he didn't need to come sit in emerg all night, so it was just me and the personal trainer.

Apparently, when someone arrives at the hospital with you, they no longer question if the person is related or not, because that personal trainer came with me everywhere  (I really hope they would have questioned his being there if I had had to take off any clothes). He came in with me to examination, where my months un-shaven legs were examined by a young male doctor, and then back out to the waiting room to wait for x-rays.

My brother had still not answered my texts, and I didn't want this poor nice guy to wait around all evening with me, so I called my brother.  We had a very confusing conversation where I told him five times what had happened.  I couldn't tell if he was doing his usual teasing thing or not.  He eventually told me he had already been asleep for two hours and wasn't awake yet (it was only 9pm at this point), but said that he was coming and that mother would kill him if he didn't come to help me.

He arrived when I was in x-ray, and later told my parents that he did not think it was at all a good omen that the man who said he had been taking care of his sister did not even possess the knee that she had busted.  The personal trainer waited until I got out of x-ray (prob to make sure it really was my brother), and then went home.  When I finally saw the doctors again, one of them was the doctor I had been seeing at a clinic downtown for a sinus infection.  They were immediately very disappointed that my knee was no longer dislocated, I think they were really excited about getting to pop it back in.

Their disappointment made me feel like I had wasted their time and I was so embarrassed.  But then I remembered that my knee still hurt a lot, still wouldn't go straight, and still felt like it was in the wrong place.  They said that it had gone back, but I had probably hurt ligaments or something, so I at least left there with a tensor bandage wrapped around it and an appointment at the fracture clinic.

My brother got me home and I spent the next day, Friday, home from work trying to get comfortable and going up and down the stairs on my bum to get to the washroom or go lie down.  Saturday, my brother and his girlfriend drove home with me for family dinner and my mom got to baby me. I selected a cane with an antler handle from the family supply.  Sunday, my friends took me out for dim sum and then we went for a walk on the lakeshore.  I pushed the baby stroller so that I would have a walker.

The next time I saw my brother's girlfriend, she said that she had been down on the lakeshore one day and was watching people while waiting for the streetcar.  She saw a woman hobbling slowly while pushing a baby carriage and wondered what her story was.  Then she looked closer and realized she knew that lady and exactly what her story was!

I spent the next month trying to use public transit with a busted knee and a cane.  I did physio twice a week and did all my exercises every day and was pretty much back to normal by the end of the month. I used the cane for weeks after I actually needed it to walk so that people would have a visual clue that I needed a seat on transit.  There were still enough rides home where I ended up hanging from the bar in the middle on the train standing on one foot while perfectly able people sat with their eyes closed so they could be selfish on their way home.

I haven't had a dislocated knee since, knock on wood, but I do have good and bad knee days.  It was really just a matter of time before I hurt my knee badly, so I am glad I was in a place where I could at least get help safely.

The thing that still irks me though, is that I left my water bottle behind in the Zumba room.

I really liked that water bottle.

Evolution of a quilt

I thought I would show you the making of a quilt from start to finish now that the quilt in question had finally made it to its new home.  This is the most thoroughly documented quilt I have made so far because I was making it for my brother for Christmas and various people had opinions in the matter, plus I really couldn't remember the exact shade(s) of green of his furniture.  This was almost a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth, but I made it work.

I had sent out an email at the beginning of November to ask what my family wanted for Christmas as I had not yet heard anything.  My brother said he wanted a quilt.  I replied that only people with weddings get bed-sized quilts, but I would consider replacing the awful baby blanket he was currently using as a couch throw.  This was acceptable, and I was given a vague colour scheme of "I don't know, red and gold?"

I decided on this pattern of quarter-square triangles from Quilty magazine because it looked fast and easy, and pulled fabric from my stash that I felt would work.  I had a bit of gold-ish fabric, but no red.  And the majority of the fabrics I pulled happened to be on the teal/blue/green side (i like to use fabric that reflects a persons interests, and there was no way i was going to leave out the vikings and their maps for a guy who reads fantasy novels!) I found one piece of red, but it just didn't look right, so I took it off to the first meeting of the Modern Quilting group from guild, and asked for some help from the ladies there.  They helped me narrow things down, and then my friend MC helped me by giving me a few pieces from her stash for the cause.  In the final cut, the red was gone, and MC had given me the crucial piece of fabric, blue and gold dots, that brought the very weird colour scheme together.

This is the initial pull of fabric after we narrowed it down at modern quilt group. The red sort of works, but MC and I decided that if I used it, that would be the only colour you would see.  I also left out the grey chevron because it wasn't the same scale as the other prints and would have drawn your eye as much as the red would.  

Once I picked the fabric, I dove right in, cutting two 11 1/2" squares from each coloured fabric (the pattern calls for 13 1/2", but i knew i wouldn't have enough fabric for that) and matched one square with a square of the solid white (Kona Snow) and the other with a printed white fabric.  This worked for awhile until it became evident that I really didn't have that much white.  It was left over from another project and in my head it was almost a meter.  It was more like 18 inches.  I got as many squares as possible cut, then started trying to cut half and quarter square triangles out of the rest to piece things together.  When I pieced things together, it became evident that my spacial reasoning is of the " believe it when I see it" variety, I really should have experimented beforehand with how to orient the directional prints.  Thank goodness I always tried to pair a directional print with an allover print, or I would have had bears and Vikings on their sides!  I am very pleased to say that everybody's head is the right way up!

As you can see from this layout of the blocks on my design-floor (ahem), I found a lovely grey-blue solid leftover from another project to make up the difference.  I really like the result, I think I like it better than my original plan for all white.  But there was still a lot of creative cutting, and I had to make sure in my final layout that there were no pieces with biased edges on the perimeter of the quilt or there may have been some stretching out of square. 

Sewing the blocks together was another challenge because of all the points that needed to match up!  I used a lot of pins and made sure I matched seems as much as possible.  They are all matched well enough that you would have to get right up-close and personal with the quilt in order to tell if they are off, which is good enough for me!

I took the finished top with me to the Fabricland and found this great argyle flannel on sale for the backing.  Even with  a colour-catcher in the wash with it, it still dyed the agitator blue!  

I quilted it in white thread a quarter inch in either side of each seam line.  There were a few catches in the front where perpendicular quilting lines met, but they evened out with the diagonal quilting lines, and you can't even tell that there might have been an issued at all now that it is all washed and crinkled!  This was the most quilting I have ever done on a quilt before, so it was nice to see it work out so well in the end.

And here it is, installed in its new home!  The hand-printed pillow my mom got him goes really well with all the animal faces in Sarah Watts Menagerie fabric.  I am so happy the colours in the quilt go so well with his furniture and his posters!  I am glad I left out the red, it would not have been the right shade with that deep orange in the poster.  

It is really obvious in this picture that I did not leave out red entirely.  There is one little piece of white fabric with a red design on it in the quilt (in person it looks red, not pink).  When I ran really low on bits of grey and white, I found this little scrap in my scrap box already cut in a triangle!  It was fate!  So I snuck in one little tiny piece!  It goes really well with the sails on the Viking ships.

He really liked his quilt and the fabric choices I had made.  He even remembered that I had made him some boxers out of the gecko fabric back in high school!  ( yes I hang onto good fabric scraps for a long time!).   So nice to have your work loved!

'Tis the Season

The thing about the TBay is that we are rather isolated.  It is more than an eight hour drive east or west to get the the next big city, and the one to the west is in a different province.  We're it.  No passenger trains come through here, and it is actually cheaper to take a plane down to southern Ontario than it is to take the bus.  That means we are often the final stop for people in need of more services than they can get in outlying areas.  This is most obvious at Christmastime.

My department at work collects toys, clothes and food, basically a family's entire Christmas, each year for a family assigned by CAS or another local family organization.  Last year we had a family of eleven, this year we had a family of six.   We also collect toys and food for the local women's shelter.  

At the quilt guild, we contribute to the local Christmas toy drive by making quilts for teddy bears.  At one of the hockey games in November, spectators throw stuffed animals on the ice for the toy drive.  The guild gets the toys, and we each take home a few and make them a little quilt

This year I made two quilts, one for a moose and one for a teddy.  It is a fun way to test out a technique or use up quilt blocks you have lying around.  

Mr. Moose's quilt was an original design inspired by this quilt and using fabric that a friend had given me from her mother's stash as well as some bits from my own.

Teddy's quilt was made from some blocks my friend received in an exchange but did not use in the final quilt she made.  And I could tell why, I had to restitch so many seams and make sure that I caught any potential weak spots with my quilting.  Be forewarned when joining any kind of bee or quilting exchange, the skill and technique of some people is not what you might desire!  In the end, I was able to make it a sturdy, sparkly pink, quilt.  The sashing and borders are made from Mirror Ball Dot fabric from Michael Miller, and they add just a bit of shiny sparkle.  I showed it to my mom's little neighbour on Skype one night, and the quilt was heartily approved of by a very Fancy Nancy little girl!

Here is the news article about our teddy bear quilt donation.  

Summer in the North

So, while I wait for the slowest doctor in town, I thought I would give y'all an update on the world up here in North Ontario.  

I have now lived up here through two very different summers.  The first year was so hot I came home and stripped to my underwear and sat in front of the fan as soon as I got home.  It was over 30C every day from June into September and I had no a/c.  I was so grateful that I had a cousin with a camp on Lake Superior only an hour and a half away, I was there every weekend.  The best was getting to have a four legged friend to explore with and getting to know my cousins better.  The worst was that I discovered that blackflies and I are not friends and suffered through a week-long swollen ankle.  

This summer was cold and wet, raining almost every day.  I think I only wore shorts about three times.  It also was really bad for bugs because it never got hot enough.  The garden was really slow too, hard to grow with hardly any sun and 5C temps.

It warmed up by the end of the summer and we got about two weeks of hot weather, so a few things grew.  The nice thing was that the blueberry season was extended into September.

I had the camp to myself a few times, so The Baz got to come out with me and take advantage of the screened in gazebo to have a lovely large area outside to run around in.

I gotta say, the North Shore of Lake Superior is a beautiful place the spend the summer.

Quilt Show 2013

This past April my local quilt guild held their quilt show, which they hold every other year.  It is not a juried show, so if you want to submit a quilt, you can.  There were prizes for the "best" of each category as judged by those attending the show.

I imagine most of the women take their time over the two years between shows to create their masterpieces.

I submitted my form saying that I was going to make three quilts in February.  I hadn't made any of these proposed quilts yet.

I didn't think this was a problem until I told people and they all looked at me with their mouths open.  This should have been a good indication to me that I had a few frazzled months ahead of me!

The first quilt I made was "Herd of Turtles in a Mudstorm"which is my Dad's favourite saying.  I had designed the quilt myself because I wanted to make a patchwork block that looked like a turtle, and I found this variation on the traditional quilt block "Drunkard's Path", but couldn't find a pattern for it.  I designed the quilt after only ever having made one other quilt in a beginner class.  I bought the fabric bac when I was living in Victoria and started cutting out the pieces and sewing them together when I worked as a nanny for my cousin's son.  So i really just had half of the turtles left to make when I got back to it five years later!

I had planned on getting it quilted professionally, but then the girl who was going to quilt it ended up having knee surgery.  So with two weeks left before the show, I basted and quilted it at work one weekend because I don't have enough floor space at my apartment.  It was only the second thing I had ever quilted.

This is the best picture I could get, but you get the idea.  Its twin bed sized, and just perfect for my Dad's nap blanket.  He loves it, even if it is six years late!

The second quilt I made was one that I had been wanting to try for awhile, Anna Maria Horner's pattern, Feather Bed Quilt.  I am glad I kept to the baby quilt size to try it out, because it was pretty fiddly, but I still want to make it in a bed quilt size some day.  I still have a few feather pieces to give me a head start on the next quilt.  It was a good thing I had extras, because those two half feathers were not in the pattern, but it just looked weird and lopsided without them.  I used all my pretty fabrics that had birds on them, so called it "Birds of a Feather".

The background fabric is a really bright blue, that apparently doesn't photograph very well, but really makes the feathers pop.  At the show, it was hung right under a spot light, so all you could really see of the quilt were the quilting lines.  Oh well!  This is now finally winging its way across the country to a sweet wee girl, and will hopefully get there before her first birthday!  I am so late with these things!

The final quilt I made for the show was a little wall hanging made using Elizabeth Hartman's Barn Bats Block Tutorial.  I thought it made such a cute Halloween decoration that wasn't too country kitchen looking like most seasonal wall hangings, and I even remembered to hang it this year!  I got to use up lots of little pieces of black, orange and yellow fabrics left over from other projects, but I did order one little piece of fabric, a test swatch, with the Batman symbol on it from Spoonflower.  It was just big enough to cut my pieces from.  I called the quilt "Black Night".

It was a lot of fun to be a part of the show, and I got a lot of complements on my quilts, especially my turtle quilt, some of the ladies still talk about it.  It was also nice to be able to help out with the show as a volunteer, it was a great way to get to know some of the ladies in the guild better.  

Hello, hello again!

Heya!  C and The Baz here again!  Did you miss us?

Who knows how long I'll last this time with the posting, but I will make an attempt to keep this going!

So, a bit of an update:

Moved to the TBay, started my job, have awesome co-workers, like my job, all is well!

In an effort to meet people and get involved in stuff, I joined the local quilt guild.  At the first meeting, the past president grabbed me at coffee time and told me I was going to meet the other young people!  So, I met M and T and had instant friends!  We do a lot of quilting, we actually get together sometimes and sew all weekend at M's place.  My kitchen table is almost never used for food because it is always covered in a project I am sewing.  

Since I have made so many things in the last year, I thought it was time to share them with somebody!

Warning: since creative crafty stuff has become a big part of what I do again, this blog is gonna turn pretty crafty, as you can see, even The Baz is in on the action!  

Hang onto your hats!  It's about to get all warm and cozy in here with a whole bunch of quilt rundowns!

Gassy Matters

So, I am sure that the best way to start driving a new car is to start off on a 1,500 km trip three days after you've bought it.  I would recommend it to anyone!  Just a few pointers though...

1. You should probably read your manual and be sure you know how to do all the things you will need to do, like turn on the windshield wipers, or the high beams, before you are trying to figure this out while going 110k/h on windy roads.

2. Figure out if everything works properly.  Finding out how to work the windshield washer fluid sprayers at 100k/h is exciting, but it would be more of a triumph if the fluid actually hit the driver's side of the windshield.  And even better if you had tried this when the first or second bug hit, and not after the 300th when you really can't see much.

3. Remember that you are now the sole owner/driver for the car and are therefore responsible for all its fueling needs.  This is the most important point.  A 1,500 km trip through Northern Ontario is not the time to play free and easy with the gas gauge =cough, cough=

So, here are a few fueling related stories from my trip to the TBay (which I made it to safely yesterday evening):

- The Fuel Door:
First time I stop for gas, press the fuel door opener and walk around the car to discover the door still closed.  Repeat 4 times. Try to stick fingers in to pry it open. Try to stick keys in to pry it open.  Nothing.  Figure, well I should have enough to make it to my cousin's house, I was just stopping to fill up at a good price.  Keep driving.  Make it to cousin's house and then have a good look at the problem.  The fuel door was wedged up under the opening in the side panel.  I pushed it down until there was room for a key to go in then pried it open the rest of the way and bent the hinge so it would open again.  Has been working fine since!  You can stop cringing now!

- Parry Sound to Wawa:
Now, I had been planning on stopping for the night in Sault Ste Marie, but when I got there, it was only 3pm, and I knew it was only about 3 more hours to Wawa, so why stop now?  On my way out the other side of town, I vaguely thought, maybe I should get gas?  But I had just one tick less than half a tank, and that had gotten me this far, and I didn't have the same distance to go, so I should be fine.  Let it be known, ALWAYS GET GAS IN SAULT STE MARIE!!!!  There is a Provincial Park between the Sault and Wawa, and therefore no gas stations.  While discovering how your car warns you about low fuel is kind of neat, it is not so cool when you are passing a sign that says "Wawa 40 kms".  So, do you want to know how far my new car can go on 1 tank of gas at approx 100k/h?  Googlemaps tells me it was 686kms, the last 15-10kms I am sure was just on fumes.

-Husky Gas Stations:
Today, I headed out to another cousin's camp about an hour away and realized I would need gas in order to get back home again (see, I am learning fuel forethought!).  So I stopped in the village near their camp for gas at the Husky station.  Forgive my ignorance, for we have no Husky stations in my part of Ontario, but apparently, they are sneaky buggers and I will not go there again unless absolutely forced.  There was one price for "Regular" gas on the sign, but when I got to the pump, I discovered there was actually only one choice for gas, "Premium".  They didn't even have buttons for the other grades on their pumps!  So when I thought I was going to pay "140.1", I was actually paying "149.9!!!!!!"  I only got $35 worth which brought me back up to half a tank.

So, see?  I am learning my fuel savvy!  Slowly but surely.  Nothing like jumping in at the deep end of car ownership!

Journey North

Though I would dust off the ol' blog because ....  dudes!!!!   Guess what?  I am totally a grown-up now!  (Can't you tell? ;P)

That is right!  C and the Baz are starting a brand new adventure!

In The North this time.

With a real full-time permanent job for me, and no more early morning bananas for the Baz (ha ha).

The interview and job offer and need to start soon have all happened so fast that I haven't had time to really think about it, which is good, because I am moving to a new city where I barely know anyone and it takes two days to drive back to my parent's house!

Here is what has happened since my last contract ended on April 30

-May 1st fly up to The North for interview and tour of city with new boss
-May 2nd interview, then fly home
-May 4th fly to Victoria
-May 5th H&C get hitched!  Yay!
-May 8th find out I have job.  While riding on the city bus in Victoria.
-May 9th fly home
-May 11th test drive cars
-May 14th buy first car ever!!!!!!!!  2010 Nissan Sentra, very cool.
-May 17th pack up car and start driving North.

I am stopping to visit family and friends along to way and should arrive in The North by Sunday night.

Then I start work on Tuesday morning.  Gah!

The Baz did not come with me on this trip because there was no room for her in the car (let me tell you, it is very full!), and I have to look for an apartment when I get up there and she isn't allowed to stay with me in the motel.  She will enjoy her last month as the only "kid" at home with my parents, getting her early morning bananas (eww! so gross!) and evening cuddles until Ma and Pa bring her up when they visit in July.

So I will be all alone for the next two legs of my journey to The North.

Another 15 hours of driving left, in a new car, when I have only ever driven a max of 4 hours in a stretch.  

Nothing could possibly go wrong!

This morning

This morning I checked my emails and webcomics with a baby wrapped around my leg.

This warm, beautiful, chubby munchkin had rolled over in his sleep when I took over his mama's place on the couch while she had her shower, and had flopped his leg over my thigh and curled right in.

We stayed like that for more than an hour, sitting peacefully, he, snoring and snuffling, me, stroking his fuzzy wee head while I surfed the net and then the new IKEA catalogue.  It was such a lovely, soothing feeling, this enforced quiet contemplation.

Unfortunately, it couldn't last.  I had to pee, and monsieur burped and decided another bottle was in order.  I mean, it had been an hour since the last one, was I trying to starve him?

But once that bottle was done, we went right back to our snuggle, him sleeping in my arms this time, and me just contemplating the wonderful little being lying across my belly, marveling at the glorious rolls and creases and chubby cheeks that have come about so recently, and wondering what the future holds for this fabulous little godson of mine. thankful that I am close enough and have the time now to see him so often and help his mama out as much as I can, wishing I could do more. thankful for the glimpses of what the future holds for me and my yet unknown babies.  thankful that his mama and I found our way, finally, to being such good friends.  thankful I came home to them yesterday to celebrate getting my first real job with baby cuddles and cooking.

Thankful his mama came home this morning before that diaper change.

Thankful that I was the one she called when he finally rolled over all on his own after I had left this afternoon.

Sucked in

I got sucked into the most terrifying tv show this morning.

So terrifying that I had to change the channel at some parts.

So terrifying that I am pretty sure there is still half a bowl of Life cereal on the bookshelf by the TV.

Apparently terrifying does not go with breakfast.


What show was this you ask?

It was an episode of Dr. Who with David Tennant as the Doctor.

I believe the episode was called "Blink".

I am not an avid watcher of the new Dr. Who series, but I did watch all of the old ones when they were played, often in black and white, on YTV when I was little.  My brother and I had definitely perfected saying "Exterminate!" like a Dalek, and I wanted my own K-9.  If I do watch the new series, I like David Tennant as the Doctor the best, but I have only seen three or four episodes max.  The episodes I have seen still had large elements of cheese to them, especially in set design or monster creation, which allowed you to separate yourself from the story a bit.

This one has stone angel statues that look like any garden statue (except when you finally see their faces, those still have a lot of cheese).  Stone angels that move when you aren't looking.  This is the stuff of my nightmares!

What is weird is that I thought the show would be scary right from the beginning,  the girl jumps a fence and breaks into a scary old house for crying out loud.  recipe for scary!  And yet I kept watching...

but then I saw that the girl was played by Carey Mulligan, an actress that has been in a lot of things I have wanted to see lately, and then she finds a note of the wall from the Doctor, and I figured, "Oh, its Dr. Who, it won't be too scary...."  So I kept watching.  And then it got scarier and scarier, but by that time I had to know how it would end.

And the whole time I was thinking, "Oh my god!  When did Dr. Who get so scary?!!!"

My mom came home and found me with both feet up on the chair, knees under my chin, with a death grip on the arms of the chair.

In the end, it was a really well done episode, I was really impressed actually...



I just don't know if I will sleep tonight.

The Last

I think I am cursed.

I have a habit of only having a romantic encounter* with a guy a few days before I leave a place forever.  Which, in my academic career, has been quite a few places.

The first guy was also my first kiss.  It was an Indian guy, S, who lived at my student house in London, England.  We all went places together, and somehow he usually ended up walking next to me on our way to where we were going.  Then the night that my cousin arrived, the night before I left London on a trip with her, we all went out to a club. I really wanted to dance, and no one would dance with me, so I went to get a drink and saw one of the guys suggesting to S that he ask me.  So I danced with S, and he kissed me, and then we ended up kissing for the next few hours on the dance floor, and home in the cab, and then when we got to my floor, I chickened out, said "Goodnight!" and ran to my room.  I still remember the look of shocked disappointment on his face.  Poor guy, I was pleased with how the night had gone!  My cousin told me recently that she figured something had happened because I was spacing out on cloud nine for the next few days!

Second guy was in Victoria.  He was a friend of one of the girls I worked with and we hung out as a group for most of the summer.  One time friends of theirs from home were visiting and they had a tradition of cooking breakfast at someone's house the next morning, so I got invited to K's house.  I ended up being the first one there and helped make breakfast.  I got some pointed questions of where I had slept the night before from his visiting friends.  After most of the people had gone, he and I and one of his friends hung out for most of the afternoon and he introduced me to a whole bunch of new music.  I  sent him a message on Facebook that night that when he had time, I would love to hang out with him again.  A few weeks later we went to see a Rodin exhibit at the art gallery.  Which turned into talking for a few hours in the gallery's garden, then dinner, then coffee, then going to see the movie "Once".  Then the car mysteriously pointed its way to his house... and I went home the next morning.  No sex was had people, I am not that kind of girl.  He drove me to the airport a week later and then he drove to Newfoundland to do a masters before I came back to Victoria three weeks later.   It might have been, but never got a chance.

The encounters have gotten decidedly less romantic since then.

Third guy was from my first masters that I met again in an elevator in Ottawa on my co-op for this masters.  We exchanged emails and I did not hear from him again until the week before I left.  He claims he lost my email until then.  Anyway, we ended up having a coffee break together at work and had a really great chat.  The coffee break was about an hour longer than it should have been!  It might have turned into something if we had more time, but I left three days later.

And this brings me to guy #4.  Nothing romantic about this one at all.  The guy is in two of my classes, and we have not had anything to do with each other until we happened to sit next to each other last week and helped each other with our websites.  Our program had a prom last night and he and his friend followed our group to the next club.  They were both after a girl in our group.  When it became obvious that he was getting nowhere with that girl, he came over to dance with me.  We were not so much dancing together as occasionally doing the same stupid moves.  I went to sit with the rest of my friends and he came and sat down occasionally, but my friend's boyfriend gave him a look, and he would go off again.  Somehow we all ended up leaving together and when I was having trouble walking he swooped in to hold my hand.  Then while my friends were ordering sandwiches at Subway, he asked me if it would be appropriate to ask me to go home with him.  I said no.  He took the next cab out of there.  I regretted it a little because I had to hobble back to my friend's hotel room to get my flat shoes with no one to hold onto.  I am not sure what is going to happen on Tuesday when I have two classes with him.  Hopefully we can go back to politely ignoring each other!

I just don't understand though, is it something about "The End" that makes guys bolder?  Or is it something about me that makes guys wait until the very last second?  Am I that intimidating?

Once or twice I would be ok with, but four times?!!  Geez!  Some cruel joke the universe is playing on me!  This last one especially, its like the universe suddenly realized I was about to leave here in a week and threw whoever was closest at me without really thinking about it, "Oh sh*t!  C's leaving in a week! Uh... he'll do!  =toss="

As soon as I am living in some place for longer than 4 months at a time, I am going to say "screw you!" to the universe and do something about this dating thing, but until then, I shake my fist at you universe!



*I wrote "asked out" first and then realized that in most cases I was not formally asked out at all!

Weird Kid

So, I was a very imaginative child.  I would spend hours by myself, telling myself a story.  Often these stories got wildly out of hand, and ended in some horrible, macabre, gory way.

Seriously people, I once started singing a version of "On Top of Spaghetti" to myself that somehow ended in the battlefield massacre of millions of puppies!

I have no idea why my imagination was so messed up from such an early age (ahem, watching Star Wars when I was three, ahem), but it was, and it usually ended up with me in tears over the horrors that had befallen my characters, and running to mom, until I realized she just didn't understand.

I have no idea how my mother put up with it.

Scene: Kitchen, mid 1980s, mom making dinner.

Mom: So nice to have the kids playing quietly in their rooms.  Kids, wash your hands! Soups on!
A: Yay Dinner!
C: =SOB= bwaaaaaaa!  =SOB=
Mom: C!  What wrong sweetie?
C: The kitty di-i-ed-d =SOB= bwaaaaaaaa!
Mom: What kitty died?  Where? A?  What did you do to your sister?
A: Nothing!
C: The kitty with the candle =hic= he ... he ... went up the stairs ... and the door wouldn't open ... and...and he ...he di-i-i-ed =SOB!=
Mom: What kitty?
C: The one on my wall =sniffle=
Mom: What kit-...?  You mean the one on the tapestry? The one your Aunt made?  On the wall above your desk?
C: un hun
Mom: The kitty on your tapestry died...
C: un hun
Mom: How...?
C: I was telling myself a s-story and the kitty died at the end...
Mom: Wh-  ?........ I am sorry honey, that is very sad.  Why didn't you tell yourself a happier story?
C: =confused stare=   =uh oh! abort! Mom doesn't understand that stories go where they want, say no more, just start eating=
Mom: ...Well ... um ... eat up...?

As an adult looking back now, you can totally tell that she was thinking something along the lines of "WTF!!!! This kid is totally batsh*t crazy!!!!"  or whatever the polite way of saying that in the 1980s would have been.  Everytime my family didn't understand why I had done something, I just clammed up and wouldn't say any more.  I had obviously miscalculated my observations of humanity somewhere and done it wrong if they didn't understand and therefore had brought shame upon myself.

Like I said: Weird Kid!

P.S.
Mom's line to explain to my brother why we were treated differently in terms of punishments and things when we were growing up is:

"Well, I could reason with you!  There was absolutely no reasoning with her!"

Time for bed

Just spent a minute scratching at a spot on my "p" key.

It would not come off.

Then I looked closer.

It was a tiny * in the bottom corner of the key.

Its supposed to be there.

Huh.

Directed Dreaming

Early this morning I started to dream about finding a kitten in the dumpster behind my building, but since I was almost awake, my thinking brain took over and started presenting too many options for where the dream could go.

Like choose-your-own-adventure on speed.

There was no choice about bringing the kitten inside, it is winter.  Then the dream suddenly produced posters proclaiming "Found Cat".  But thinking brain took over and said that would take too much time, we needed to wash the kitty first.  It was found amongst garbage after all.

Then the options: Which sink, kitchen? bathroom? bathtub?; What kind of soap, shampoo? liquid handsoap? dish soap? bar soap?; Does the kitty have fleas?  Would a rinse with tea-tree oil and water get rid of them?  In what ratios? Would it be safe for the kitty?  Do I have anything else in the house that would get rid of fleas?

Then the rest of the dilemma: Am I keeping the kitty?  What about Baz? A kitten should really meet Baz when it is a kitten, not once it gets established, but Baz is not here, she is at mom and dads.  Do I want to spend money on litter and food if I am not keeping it?  Should I call my cousin and ask to borrow some from her cat?  Where will this kitty be contained?  The bathroom is awful small to keep it in when I am not here.

Am I keeping the kitty?  Am I not? Who will I give it to? How will I find it a good home? Where? When? Why? How? -


So I woke up.  Far too many decisions for first thing in the morning.

What could have been a wonderful dream that I would have woken up from feeling wistful about the day in the future when I can have a kitty of my own, turned into a logistical nightmare that I woke up feeling very frustrated from.



Thanks a lot thinking brain.

Outside

Outside it is -11C and snowing

There is something moving in the tree across the parking lot.

I have been staring at it for awhile trying to figure what it is.

It is moving back and forth, maybe a squirrel?

but it seems to be black and white, so.... woodpecker? in the snow? do they do that?

chat on facebook with my friend in Costa Rica (I think). She is telling me about the monkeys and parrots outside her window.  I tell her about my mysterious animal...

... right when I figure out that my "animal" is in fact,

a shoe.

her comment?  "Oh, those rare and endangered shoes!"

I have now been teased from the jungle.

Hello Again!

Heya everyone,

Sorry about that, stepped out for awhile, but I think I am back now.  Not quite sure of course.  In any case, enjoy the new look, very fitting, I thought, for a library science degree!

So, things I did while I was away:

• finished a summer semester of school which was mostly about children's librarianship
• got only two co-op interviews and thankfully was offered a position at Library and Archives Canada
• moved to Ottawa for four months for said position
• had an awesome roommate (the best ever!) and a terrible landlady (just par for the course)
• had a great job at LAC and learned a lot.  Especially how to work with archivists, we are a weird lot
• Saw one best friend for a few hours on Christmas Eve, and another for an overnight in T.O.  both visits were way too short.  We need to live closer!
• moved back to London into a one bedroom apartment I am subletting from a friend who was lucky enough to get an extension on her co-op
• started my last semester of my MLIS with 2 archives courses, web design, and the dreaded management!

I cannot wait to be done this degree!  I am ready to be a grown-up with a proper job, having enough money to actually feed and clothe myself and have some fun too!  I look forward to weekends and evenings that do not have any schoolwork looming overhead!  Maybe live in a city long enough to know where I am going and how to get there!  Live in a place where Baz can live with me again!  Own a car, a house, ... a baby carriage?

I really hate this feeling of waiting for my life to begin.

I know that finishing this degree won't magically make all this happen, but it will at least get rid of that "stalled in neutral" feeling  (that is probably a bad analogy since I only drive automatic)

At the moment I would just settle for having a reason to not still be in my pyjams at 4pm on a Saturday.

Finally!

I am finally in all the courses I want to be in!

It involved attending 8 classes last week, but it was worth it in the end, but very nerve wracking, especially when the add/drop form that I filled out on Thursday night did not actually register my course changes until this morning at 10am.  I feel sorry for the poor secretary who got all those panicked emails on Friday!

I did not get into the archives conservation and preservation class, but I am ok with that.  I attended the first class and discovered that if I actually wanted to do conservation I would have to do a years apprenticeship anyway.  If I can't get into the class next time around, I am sure practical workshops will be just as useful.

I was worried about getting into digital libraries class, and while discussing this with a colleague, I remembered that I was 4th on the waiting list for Folktales as well, so I attended that class the next day.  The prof said she was fine with having extra people in the class, so I went to our departmental library to email the secretary to let me into the class.  There I discovered an email that said that I was enrolled in digital libraries!

So now, instead of not having enough courses, I had too many and had to choose one to drop!  My friends convinced me to drop our last required course, Management, because it is compressed this summer, and therefore much more work, and it is a course that will be offered every semester, unlike the others.  

So this summer, I have three storytime classes, intro to archives, and digital libraries.

Can we say "Summer or fun"?!!!!!!!

The algorithm

There is an algorithm that chooses classes for you in my program.

You choose your top 7 classes and rank them, and then the algorithm puts you in those classes if your ranking holds up to the number of people wanting to get into the class.

Of the 7 classes I gave it, it gave me 2.  That, plus my required course meant I was enrolled in 3 courses instead of 5.

I am on the waiting list for my other classes, which means that this week I am attending 6 classes in an attempt to get into at least one of the classes I wanted.  Why?  Because all of the courses I am remotely interested in are wait listed.  Even my reserves that I did not put in my 7. I found another class to enroll in provisionally, so I am currently enrolled in 4 classes.  That class is turning out to be very interesting, so that is ok.

Now, I am ok with just having 4 classes this semester, but it means that I will likely have to come back to make up an extra semester at some point.

What I am mad about is that they claim that there is no order to how people get into classes, it is all based on this magic algorithm.

Now, if that was the case, how did I end up being 4th on the waiting list for 3 of my five waitlisted classes?

Need to go back to bed

I just bought a box of salad greens.

I put them in the fridge.

As I was closing the fridge, I saw a box of salad greens and thought, "Oh damn, we already had a box!"

Then I realized I was looking at the box I had just bought.

Two Weeks of Dog

I am puppy-ed out!  I love dogs, and they pretty much like me, but I haven't lived with one for almost 4 years now since our dear baby bumpkins passed away, so it is nice to be home in a puppy-free environment for a few days.

I am just not used to the constant movement and need to entertain them or they will chew/do something they shouldn't.  I am kind of worn out!

Don't get me wrong, they are all lovely dog-cousins with their own little personalities and hilarious phobias and bad habits, I am just not used to them, and they are not used to me, so they were in constant states of "oh my god! the new person is still here!  she might pet me!  she might throw something for me!  does she taste different this morning?"  It is nice to get my fix once in awhile, but I sure hope my cousins don't have to deal with the hyperactiveness on a daily basis, cause it is very tiring.

I was glad to be heading back home to a quiet uneventful house.

Until we came in the door to two de-leafed flowers with their pots knocked over, and a little bunny looking guilty right in the middle of it, but not wanting to run away because the leaves were too tasty.

Is there any pet who leaves the houseplants alone?