Well, I made it through another week. And all the presents are wrapped, the cookies are baked, Mr. Turkey is thawing nicely in the fridge, having been sitting in the freezer since the middle of November as we weren't sure of the reliability of the food mail... We even got squash and yams from foodmail, for casserole, and I have all the ingredients for trifle except the sponge cake, and I'm off in search of that shortly.
Last night we made our usual garish Christmas cookies; blue snowmen, green stars, yellow and red Santas, etc. Molasses cookies have been made, and we have nuts and chocolate. My dad sent us Christmas crackers, as he felt we wouldn't be able to find good ones up here and he was right. We're all set.
We only got invited to two parties, one at work and one at a friend's house, we skipped the work one because of an emergency at the health center and we skipped the friend's one because we were just too tired. The Cubs Christmas party was very low-key and fun, and no-one asked me to bake for a school party. All of the things that I associate with Christmas in the city; crowded malls with Christmas hype, 'open houses' and the elaborate parties of various children's and adult's social groups, Christmas muzak everywhere, people giving us poinsettias and stuff from Starbucks, being asked to swap cookies, my parents showing up on Christmas Day with the contents of a decent-sized liquor store, all of that is non-existent here. Which has meant that I can concentrate on doing only the things that my family wants. And I'm really enjoying it. I have none of the dread that I usually feel at this time of year. We were talking about it this morning, and it's a bit like going back twenty or thirty years in time, to how I remember Christmas when I was a kid. Tomorrow we can have our dinner, and then play poker or StockTicker all evening.
Merry Christmas everyone!
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Sunday, December 18, 2005
About halfway down this page is a link to a song my friend Carley has recorded. I like it. Unfortunately there's no picture...
This week I am trying to tie up loose ends. Got my Nunavut driver's license, as my BC one expired on my birthday. This was a fun process, the man doing it printed it up first with a misspelling in my name. I also called the bank to explain why my account was overdrawn: when I left Nanaimo there was no money in it, and they keep taking off service fees but I can't deposit any money as there's only a different bank's machine up here. They were very understanding, and suggested some ways I could remedy this situation. Today I'm going to write some letters and get some tax documents ready to send out. Although I don't have nearly the number of responsibilities up here, no volunteer stuff, no university courses, I seem to have almost lost the ability to get things done... In the evenings, if I don't have to go anywhere, I just read or surf, and go to bed early. We were in bed last night by 9:30, and as we were lying there Miguel said to me, "Didn't we used to stay up on Saturday nights and watch Saturday Night Live until 1:30 in the morning..." However, we were both awake before seven this morning, drinking coffee and talking about things in general.
As I was walking to work the other day, people were buzzing by on snowmobiles, and it occurred to me that I've stopped thinking of that as strange. We went to the Christmas concert at school on Wednesday, and Miguel mentioned afterwards that it surprised him to see that Rachel was the only white kid in her class... Although, with her dark straight hair she doesn't look really out of place.
A movie we were told to watch, The Snow Walker, was on yesterday, so we watched it. If you get a chance, it's a good movie and it was filmed not far from here, so you can see not only what the terrain looks like, but the skills the Inuit have.
Books I'm currently reading:
Anger-Free, by W. Doyle Gentry. An interesting thing: "The intensity of a hangover after an evening of drinking may to a large extent reflect how angry the person was while drinking" (p. 132).
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time: A Novel, by Mark Haddon. There's a good review here
It Takes A Village and other lessons children teach us, by Hillary Rodham Clinton. This probably wouldn't have been my choice, but the librarian had put it on one side for me (before he got hauled off to jail for trying to strangle his son. or so I heard. I have yet to establish the truth of this)
This week I am trying to tie up loose ends. Got my Nunavut driver's license, as my BC one expired on my birthday. This was a fun process, the man doing it printed it up first with a misspelling in my name. I also called the bank to explain why my account was overdrawn: when I left Nanaimo there was no money in it, and they keep taking off service fees but I can't deposit any money as there's only a different bank's machine up here. They were very understanding, and suggested some ways I could remedy this situation. Today I'm going to write some letters and get some tax documents ready to send out. Although I don't have nearly the number of responsibilities up here, no volunteer stuff, no university courses, I seem to have almost lost the ability to get things done... In the evenings, if I don't have to go anywhere, I just read or surf, and go to bed early. We were in bed last night by 9:30, and as we were lying there Miguel said to me, "Didn't we used to stay up on Saturday nights and watch Saturday Night Live until 1:30 in the morning..." However, we were both awake before seven this morning, drinking coffee and talking about things in general.
As I was walking to work the other day, people were buzzing by on snowmobiles, and it occurred to me that I've stopped thinking of that as strange. We went to the Christmas concert at school on Wednesday, and Miguel mentioned afterwards that it surprised him to see that Rachel was the only white kid in her class... Although, with her dark straight hair she doesn't look really out of place.
A movie we were told to watch, The Snow Walker, was on yesterday, so we watched it. If you get a chance, it's a good movie and it was filmed not far from here, so you can see not only what the terrain looks like, but the skills the Inuit have.
Books I'm currently reading:
Anger-Free, by W. Doyle Gentry. An interesting thing: "The intensity of a hangover after an evening of drinking may to a large extent reflect how angry the person was while drinking" (p. 132).
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time: A Novel, by Mark Haddon. There's a good review here
It Takes A Village and other lessons children teach us, by Hillary Rodham Clinton. This probably wouldn't have been my choice, but the librarian had put it on one side for me (before he got hauled off to jail for trying to strangle his son. or so I heard. I have yet to establish the truth of this)