I should be doing the dishes. M has gone to Ben's, and the kids are pretending to clean the playroom.

I had a good day at work, today, mostly because at 10:30 one of my customers brought me sushi, and the mall closed early at 5 for New Year's Eve.

I guess I have to think of the word for 2003, now. I don't know. 2002 was freedom... that went well, don't you think? I think perhaps... Equanimity. It's my year, too, year of the Sheep.

Well, it went. Everyone ate, and now they've all gone to bed.

No, seriously, not a bad year this year. Apart from Jazz eating an entire Terry's Chocolate Orange and being heartily sick on the deck, and Rachel getting her sticky little head thingy stuck to the ceiling, no major crises. Tomorrow I have to go and do boxing day at the mall which should be an adventure, and at the moment I don't want to go to bed because I've eaten too much and I'm sure I'll have bad dreams...

when I say a big yam, I mean a really big yam. Every year at Christmas the grocery store fetches out all the decent-sized yams they've been hoarding in the back, and sells them for 49 c a pound. Seriously, they are the size of small chickens. A meal all in themselves. Who needs turkey when the yams are this big. And I have a beautiful butternut squash, and fresh brussels sprouts, I'm feeling quite pleased with myself. My father is bringing the turkey, I figure if he wants to roast birds he can knock himself out...

All this month I've been selling change to the couple running a kitchen implement stall just down the way from me at the mall, and today they brought me a present: red and green dyed popcorn kernels in a plastic bottle with a ribbon round it. It popped up real nice but the kids were disappointed that it was only the hulls that were dyed. We ate it, anyway, but now I'm wondering if I'll glow in the dark from so much dye.

Things that have so far been good about Christmas:

it's a small list, granted

teaching Ian the words to O Holy Night and singing it with him
gin (warms the cockles of your heart, whatever the hell that means)
a big batch of molasses raisin cookies in the cookie jar
the mall's closed until boxing day

that's about it. tomorrow I'm cooking a big yam for Christmas dinner. and making trifle. and probably dodging the missiles launched by my mother.

sometimes I think being an orphan is underrated.

Oh, ho ho, what a joy it is to work in retail at Christmas time.

Can you feel the sarcasm?

Sometimes I forget that although I want to move beyond little kid things, Rachel isn't quite ready. I took her to the mall today, because she came the other day and said, I want to go see Santa, and although the other two proclaim their non-belief loudly I guess they haven't convinced Rachie.

When we got there, there was a miniature ride-on railway, and it turned out that she wanted a ride on it. I said, without much heat, "Are you sure?" and the next thing I know I've paid two dollars and she's riding on the engine, ringing the bell, and there's another girl about the same size as her sitting in one of the carriages. The train probably would have seated about ten kids, but as there were only the two of them the operator (I think) gave them an extra long ride, and when she got off he told us there was going to be a puppet show, and of course, we had to go and see it.

It was actually quite a good puppet show, as these things go, and didn't turn religious until the last minute or two, and Rachel was totally into it, clapping on cue and shouting things and generally having a good time. Kirsten and Ian at that age wouldn't have been, they've always wanted to be more grown-up than they are. Funny how these things work.

Next was Santa. She hugged him and told him she wanted a skateboard. He, amazingly, told her he didn't think that would be such a good idea. We've been telling her that for ages, and have got her a gameboy. (which she also wanted)

Then she did her Christmas shopping. She bought everyone a stuffed bear, each one wearing a different colored sequin shirt. The cashier laughed when she said, "I'm done my Christmas shopping now."

On the walk home, she said to me, "I think his beard was sewn on." Maybe next year she won't want to go, but I'm glad that I managed to find time to do it with her this year....

It's raining, maliciously and unrelentingly. On the floor in the coffee shop, while I'm waiting for the bus, there's a piece of paper that I want to pick up and read, but don't. My mother phones with her annual list of what she wants me to buy. I dutifully write it down. Then she tells me all the same stories she told me yesterday when she called. Now I don't point that out any more, I figure if it makes her happy to tell them again, who am I to be a killjoy. She's been drinking, I can tell, she says she misses me. My mother only loves me when she's drunk. For a while. Then comes the stage where we're all being nasty, or so we're told. She asks me for the eighth time when my last exam is. "I've had it already, it was on Tuesday."

Those of our readers currently in Australia should know that they are always welcome here, at any time, for any length of time, and for any reason with no questions asked. Just thought I'd throw that in, in case decisions are getting made.

more of this... bizarreness

just think of how much could be accomplished with this energy... snowmen?

The dogs have discovered the joy of shelling and eating walnuts on my livingroom floor... M managed to cover the whole house in pine needles when bringing in the Christmas tree he got from the grocery store. I'm feeling strange again at the moment. My left hand has apparently left town for Christmas, and this afternoon I managed to fall down the stairs. Also I'm losing words again. I hate that. The ones my brain supplies to fill in the blanks are invariably wrong. And I don't realize it's happening, and get cranky when everyone falls about laughing. They're getting used to it, though.

At the grocery store, they have a young man outside guarding the Christmas trees. He told us politely that we needed to go inside and pay for a tree, then come back out and pick one. Inside, the cashier said, "We had to post someone outside because people were just helping themselves to the trees and not paying for them." Yup, that's the Christmas spirit for you.

If you ever read my diaryland ramblings, you'll perhaps recall that I don't really like Christmas. Every year I feel myself getting more and more intolerant towards the whole thing. I've mused in the past that it's something to do with working retail and being tired of everyone looking to shop themselves into a coma... I don't have anything against Christmas itself, I just hate all the fuss. It seems a recipe for disaster, so much anticipation. I think I'm against the preparations rather than the day itself.

Apparently my purchase in Vancouver (The Eminem Show) has confirmed me as the world's most bizarre mother in the eyes of my 11 year old daughter. "Did you buy it?" she asks, with horror in her voice, "None of my friends listen to him, Mum, he's a... disgrace." "I think he's funny," I reply, but she says, "I'm really worried about you..."

"somebody you'd give a lung to be..." --Eminem (I like the image of giving a lung, for some reason.)

Exam written. Successfully, I think. Choose three essay questions out of five and I'd anticipated three quite nicely. Good when that happens. Then a nice quiet journey in the dark and rain of Vancouver, and I'm home again with no need to study hard again until finals next time. I picked up my new course materials for the distance education for January, and looked it over on the ferry. Looks interesting. Going to bed now. Sweet dreams. :)

jodi, the other day, was talking about how sick-making it is when grownups talk gibberish to babies. At the risk of sounding smug, I never did. Never referred to myself in the third person. Never called anything a ba-ba or a soo-soo or a wee-wee. In consequence, I ended up with three kids who were interesting to talk to by the age of four. I remember a long and involved discussion about the meaning of life, and the possibility of reincarnation, with Kirsten before she hit kindergarten. We took Ian to a store one time and the cashier tried to talk to him in that saccharine silly voice, and he turned to me and said, "Why is she talking to me like that?" Luckily she was too busy cooing to hear.

On the flipside of this, though, is that my kids are always incensed when adults don't treat them the same way we do: like adults. Kirsten is having a hard time in school this year because she's got a girly-girl teacher who likes their art projects to be childish. Kirsten doesn't have the slightest interest in gluing rocks onto a paper plate to make a river bed for paper salmon. At the moment, she's feigning sickness to get out of something, I'm not sure what. I haven't asked. I figure, if she feels she doesn't need to be there, she's probably right....

tomorrow, my last final exam. I've studied too much, I think, I've been dreaming about court cases. R. v. Delgamuukw, and the impossibility of provinces extinguishing aboriginal title... wheeeee. The trip to Burnaby's a bit silly, bus to the ferry terminal, ferry to the Mainland, bus to downtown, skytrain to Production Way, bus to SFU... write exam, do trip in reverse. I managed the whole thing coming back on Friday in 3 1/2 hours... I reached Granville station downtown at 6:04, and the only bus that gets to the 7 pm ferry leaves at 6:06 from out front of the Hudson's Bay, so I had to run up four flights of stairs, and arrived breathless just in time to board the bus. Then the bus dropped me off outside the ferry terminal at 6:49, and they stop selling tickets at 6:50 -- they actually closed the door to the passenger walk-ons behind me. Since the exam I'm writing tomorrow isn't finished until 6:30, I'm thinking it won't work....

currently on the floor in my living room: three chewed bones, one purple bandanna, one blue scarf, one chewed bottle cap, three drawings by Rachel, approximately 76 pieces of lego, four pages of notes on the Inuit, one Harry Potter birthday napkin, one spaceman helmet, one electronic guitar tuner, one green balloon.

I'm studying, dammit. housekeeping can be someone else's problem...

wrote my final yesterday in the course I've been complaining about. never did get the midterm back.... one final left, on Tuesday. This afternoon I'm reviewing Conflict of Interest guidelines (and falling asleep, hence the catalogue of things on the floor...)

top of Ian's Christmas wish list: Snow.

little old man comes up to me today, says, "Do you have a good memory?"
I reply, "Sometimes, why?"
"Well, maybe you can tell me," he says, "have I already bought a ticket this week?"

the thing that sucks about distance education: I've written two papers and one exam for a particular course. I received one paper back, with a mark of 13/15 but no comments. I still haven't got back either the midterm or the second paper. And on Friday, I have to go and write the final. If I were inclined to worry, now would be the time. However, with acceptance already arranged to the school of criminology, it doesn't matter much now, since this is not a criminology course I'm referring to.

Good King Wenceslas is being practiced on the clarinet in the background. The kitchen's full of dishes and I still have two chapters to read tonight, according to my happy little study timetable. In fifteen minutes, I have to go fetch Rachel from Brownies........

They didn't turn the player piano on until the afternoon today... for which I am truly thankful.

I won the grand sum of $10.36. which means I haven't actually made a profit yet :)

Today (I suspect the universe of getting me back for complaining about the Christmas Muzak) the mall staff came and parked a player piano three feet from my booth and now it's happily playing Christmas music to itself at full volume, making it hard to think, let alone serve customers. It's like being stuck in a giant music box...

Although I approached it with very little hope of obtaining courses, the registration went well today. The end result is one distance education criminology and another one that will entail me going to SFU on Tuesdays from Jan -March. Should be interesting

Today I had one of those days when I wish the public would just go away and leave me in peace. and I ate all my wine gums by so I was without snacks.

I bet on some more hockey games... I think I have the hang of it now, so I should stop. (but I want to win one...)

just for fun, and since I have to explain to people how to do it and my knowledge was a little lacking, I've been betting on sports. I'm like a bookie... I haven't won a single thing, yet, I picked three hockey teams to tie the other day and none of them did, except Anaheim who I wasn't betting on. So the next day I bet on two football teams, got them both right, bet that Anaheim would win in the hockey since I figured, hey, they tied, they'll be psyched up to win and damn if they didn't go and tie again! The deal with the oddset is that you have to get all three right, though. I even picked the winner in the Grey Cup, despite the fact I didn't know even who was involved until I got the little brochure thing that comes with sportsaction......

Papers are all done. I finished the last one this afternoon, but it doesn't have to be mailed until Wednesday, so I've got time to play with it. Now I just have finals, but not until December 6th. (Although that's not terribly far away, now). Ian's birthday party went well, his little friends had a good time, cake and balloons and M took them to play lazer tag at the arcade, then back here to play video games. 9 yr old boys never change... When one of the boys' mothers came to pick him up, she said that his birthday will be soon, too, so I guess Ian'll get to go to that. I worry a bit about his social life, he's kind of a serious boy, and not much into sports except his beloved karate. But the boys he had here today seem to be a good fit for him, both quiet and very well-mannered. One of them has been living with his mother for the last few years, in Japan, and so I guess he's a bit of a misfit too.

here I am, writing a paper on family law. today was very busy at work. yesterday not so much, so I amused myself eating pistachios and making origami penguins. then shooting them with elastic bands. also calculating that on average they play Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer every forty-seven minutes on the *)^%$$ muzak. argh. tomorrow is Ian's birthday party...

today they started playing the Christmas muzak at the mall................

procrastination time again. I'm supposed to be writing a paper on euthanasia and public policy dilemmas. I have this one and then two more due on the 27th and that's all the work for the term. Then two finals the first week and a half of December. So far my marks have been better than I hoped. I figured it'd be harder after having been out of school for ten+ years.

My mother-in-law tells me I'm middle-aged. ? Who decides these things? My parents have bought a new modular home and had it moved to a spot about 30 minutes away. My mum's retiring in June, so as to have more time to do the important things (ie drink) and my dad's pension has kicked in as he's 65 now. He's enjoying the bit where the government deposits money in his bank account at regular intervals. The house purchase has required him to come and stay here with us three times in the last little while, and we've had fun. He was even here on Ian's birthday.

what I do with my days:
Watch little old ladies rummage through their handbags for their bingo tickets.
Discuss with little old men where they are going to take me on holiday when they win big.
Tell people how to get to a. the washroom or b. Walmart.
Tell people how to play the Super 7.
Watch belly buttons go by. No-one wears shirts that cover, anymore.
Listen to the piped music. Including, today, You Light Up My Life. Ack.
Get blamed when people don't win. A number of bus drivers are threatening to run me over if they see me in the street.
Try not to need to go to the bathroom. (Can't leave unless I find a guard to watch the till, can't leave to find a guard, you get the idea.)
Tear apart lottery tickets. This is fun.
Tear up lottery tickets that are done. Ditto.
Roll up coins that the little old ladies found in the bottom of their capacious handbags.
Contemplate shooting passers-by with stray elastic bands.
Explain that, no, I really can't tell in advance whether it's going to be a winning ticket..............

good things today:
not being sick any more (had a sinus thing, ick)
juicy fruit red gum
sunshine after a week of fog
another paper back, another nice mark
10 million dollars on the Super 7 on Friday (everybody wants a ticket)
meeting a few friendly folk, including a namesake
pumpkins and spiders and webs and gravestones in my front yard... floodlights, too. we rock.
dog snuggles in the morning

So I'm back at work. I'm now the lottery lady. Different bus ride to work, same length but in the opposite direction, different bus driver, although my old downtown bus driver comes by my new workplace every day, and we greet each other. There are fewer strange people on this bus, too. No toque people. (have you ever noticed that truly strange folk always wear woolly hats, even in August? And they talk to themselves. Or you, if you happen to catch their eye)

My first real day went quite smoothly. And my new employee showed up for work on time, and is working at this moment. My territory manager visited me, and turned out to be a sweet lady, with no affectations, we got on just fine. She told me I don't have to do half the things the person who trained me showed me, so that should make my life easier. And I had some good chats with customers, always my favorite thing. A couple of old guys told me they'd be back to 'take care of me' if they won the 10 million on the 6/49 tonight. I'll be like Anna Nicole Smith, yeah...

From one end of things to the other, today. Spent some of the morning helping Rachel's class read. "Stella is our new dog. When we say sit, Stella rolls over..." then from there I went to the library to research the Nisga'a (original residents of the Nass Valley, on the British Columbia North Coast) and their aboriginal title legal battles. I got a bit sidetracked reading missionary accounts from the 1890's, funny stuff, the reverend guys complaining about the "manners" of the Nisga'a and the Tsimshian. No idea that the Nisga'a probably thought these white folk were just plain crazy, always wanting to talk about the bible... At one point, the reverend is talking to a chief, and he tells him that the bible speaks against adultery and theft and drunkenness, and the chief says, "So why are you white folk always bringing rum to sell to us?" The reverend did not record his own answer...

this morning in the mail, four of my termpapers returned... I got 2 A's and 2 A+'s... lost some marks for punctuation :)

I have errands to run today, and I don't have to work again until next Wednesday. The guy whose lottery store it is right now was trying to get me to work a few more days for "training" but I said, no, I didn't think I needed them, thank-you. I've broken a tooth and need a dentist appointment, which is already made for next Monday... I know that he was just hoping for a bit more free labour. And I feel a bit mean in refusing, but I'm getting over it.

just for fun, a portion of the email my brother sent in response to my comment about the bed...

"...OH MY GOD. Yup it's comfy, and we got it for 2000 and it was regular 3000, but we are paying over two year so it feels cheap. Yah right. ANyway, it is a damn fine bed. So incredibly comfortable when you get into it it grips you around the body and holds on, and the covers just pad around the edges and boom, you're both sound asleep and warm, something to do with a layer of wool?..."

Unfortunately the apartment said bed resides in had spraying cats as former residents... nothing like the smell of boy-cat urine... hold on, I missed an inch of carpet.

Today and yesterday I worked at the candle store. Not much doing, really, everyone was off scoffing turkey. So I worked on my paper on sentencing patterns... as in jail, not as in grammar :)

More training. With real people this time. Made a few mistakes, but overall it went pretty well. I'm happy that I will be working alone again, and it doesn't look like anyone will object if I bring my books and study a bit... Papers are snowballing right now, one due on Wednesday but I've been trying hard to get it done early as there's another one due on the 21st and then 4 more before the end of November. Then finals. The end of my first term!

If my little brother happens to be reading this, all I can say is the bed better be damn comfy if you paid that much for it...

The kids are jumping down the stairs onto a large beanbag their gramma gave them yesterday. I threatened to take them to the kid pound earlier and put them up for adoption, when I was trying to work on my paper and they kept coming and bouncing around and making silly noises. The topic was the competing meanings of the word "possession" in a parental child abduction case, and I was beginning to think that I should just write "oh, to hell with it, just let the father have them, you silly woman"....

So. An innocuous little piece of news, the Queen dropping the puck at the hockey game on Sunday night.

Well. I had to go to lottery training in Richmond on Monday morning 8:30 am, and the logistics of trying to get from Horseshoe Bay to Richmond in 25 minutes after taking the first ferry in the morning weren't good so I decided to stay overnight in Vancouver. Picked a hotel, went to check in. Funny thing, though, it said it was close to the Greyhound station and it most positively wasn't. Quite a little hike, in fact. Across the bridge and everything.

I checked in and ate supper, and then went to watch tv. The hockey game finished, and some lunatic with a set of bagpipes started skirling and wailing in the parking lot outside GM Place, and I swear he knew maybe two songs, one of them that Scotch Porridge Oats thing and the other I can't place but I know I've heard it before. I looked out the window but I couldn't really see anything, and damn if the guy didn't keep playing those same two songs over and over until almost midnight.

When quiet seemed to be restored, or at least as much as it ever is in downtown Vancouver, I went to bed but I couldn't really sleep. So I lay and watched the headlights make patterns on the ceiling for a while, and I think I finally drifted off. Must've been about 1 am or so, the fire alarm went off. Just like when I used to live in residence at the UofA, that incessant ring. I got out of bed and wandered around a bit, wishing it would stop, but it didn't. So I put my pants on and stuck my head out into the hallway. An assortment of really big men were also poking their heads out of all the other doorways. Hockey players? Maybe. I wouldn't know. So we milled around for a bit, wondering what to do, and eventually one of them said, "stairs, maybe?" and we all started down. When my feet hit the concrete, I realized that I'd forgotten my shoes and my wallet. If we ended up outside all night, it'd be not much fun....

We didn't, though, they turned it off eventually, and the firetrucks came, loudly singing in the night and I think it was about 2:30 I got back to sleep again. Things were further complicated in the morning by the fact that the alarm clock given in the room didn't work, and I had to take a hugely expensive cab to Richmond....

today I'm doing Charter of Rights and its interpretation by the courts. (the reasonableness yardstick. It's reasonable for a person to be patted down before boarding an airplane. It's not reasonable for the police to do a body cavity search on a routine traffic stop. Get out of the car, honey.)

I also went downtown and conducted most of my business, and asked Serra if she'd like to come and work with me again. So all is underway.

The dogs are drinking my coffee.

woohoo. fell asleep reading about CSIS today... then the dogs started barking at the mailman. they're good for keeping me studying, if it looks like I haven't moved in a while they'll sometimes come and gratuitously lick my face. Ya still alive? Good.

The phone calls have commenced for my new venture. I love this phase... more than anything, I think, the gearing up of a new business. Last time, with the coffee shop, I was frightened too, wondering if I could pull it off by myself (literally alone, and I lived in a campground for three weeks, slept in my car until the house was vacated by the last owners) but this time I know I can, and there shouldn't be any surprises. Business licence, phone, insurance, bank account, gonna do all that tomorrow. I didn't realize until today that I missed all that. The details. About a month ago, I was downtown and saw one of my old customers, and he said, "what are you going to do next?" and I mumbled something non-committal and he said, "You'll be running something else, pretty soon, I bet."

hey, look, puppies!

So. I got the job with the lottery corp. Very cool. Now I can quit whining about being out of work. I start on the 23rd, which gives me three weeks to put as much of these correspondence courses in as possible. so what am I doing? eating chocolate and surfing the net... also the police organization I volunteered for called me back today, so all in all pretty good. and my little brother in Australia called too. He's seen koala bears. He's moving to Melbourne. (are these facts related? maybe. he seems quite worried that koala bears may choose to drop on him and rip all his skin off. he's heard that's what they do...)

the second job interview was kinda strange. Young man wants: accounting / web design / content management / complete knowledge of aromatherapy / phone answering / e-mail processing / graphic design / bottling of product / shipping... part-time, 12 dollars an hour. What this tells me is that he's too cheap to pay an accountant or a web-designer, or to hire someone full time and / or take the time to train anyone. He asked me if I knew anything about aromatherapy, and I said I had sold products at the candle shop but that was as far as my knowledge went. He was pretty serious, and I don't think he appreciated the fact that I was relaxed... When I was leaving he said he thought he would have to do more interviews, which I took to mean that since it was 5pm Friday he had done interviews all day and hadn't found anyone with the skill set required... I can do the web stuff, although not to a professional standard, and I can do the accounting, which is what he advertised for.

But then when I got home there was a message on my machine to call the last set of folks I left a resume with, so either the odds are getting better, or people are getting desperate.

Eventually... something will click. Also I guess I'm not desperate yet myself, as I've been picking up a few days at the candle shop. I thought the interview with the lottery folks went well, but I think I'll just wait and see what happens.

today I went downtown to mail a paper, and stopped in to visit Randall, who told me on Wednesday when I was working at the candle shop that he had a new cash register that his momma-in-law had given him, and that she had programmed it for her winery (wish my mominlaw had a winery!) and so when he tried to ring up hair products (he's a hairdresser) he ended up with Merlots and Chardonnays. so I reprogrammed it for him, so it adds tax and doesn't do anything alcoholic, and he was so grateful he gave me a bag of hair products, including some radical stuff that makes my hair (naturally I washed it when I got home) have these amazing highlights and be all smooth and straight. I always wondered why salons charged so much for their stuff, now I know. cos it actually works. Kirsten when she got home headed straight for the shower too, she's got a mop of frizzy hair and despairs some mornings.

Then I went to the first job interview, with my nice new hair, and it was fun. I guess cos I don't care whether they give it to me at this point... so I was relaxed. They are going to say yes or no by Wednesday. One more interview today, but I don't have to leave for it right yet.

termpaper count this week: three down, two to go. for monday. and it's nasty to be up so late and have to drink decaf. last night my dad was here and I had a cup of tea with him at 9:30, then I couldn't sleep. And now tomorrow I have TWO job interviews (serves me right for complaining that I send out resumes and no-one calls...) the second one is with an aromatherapy company that sells stuff on the net, might be a bit of fun.

I have a job interview on Friday, but not for the sausage-selling job, one with the lottery corporation. In ambivalent news, M has gone back to work for the poster child for financial mis-management.

I'm revising papers today, got one back, a preliminary assignment that doesn't count for anything but I didn't like the mark I would've got if it had counted for something... if you see what I mean. I knew after I sent it off that I'd used a glaringly wrong fact, I misunderstood something I read and then quoted it, duh. When the teacher phoned me to introduce himself I told him that I'd sent the paper off and then wished I hadn't. too late, of course. So I'm vowing to check all my facts scrupulously...

the tragically hip... a good time was had by all... especially those of us in the orchestra seats :) much much more than in the show I saw in GM Place it was apparent that not only does Gordon Downie work seamlessly with the band, he also controls the audience. He did an amazing thing with the last verse of At The Hundredth Meridian, sang the first few verses really straight through with most of the crowd singing along, then improvised for a while in the middle, kept sounding like he was going to do the last verse but didn't. (If I die of vanity, promise me, promise me, they bury me someplace I don't want to be, you'll dig me up and transport me, unceremoniously, away from the swollen city breeze, the garbage bag trees, whispers of disease and the acts of enormity, and lower me slowly and sadly and properly, get Ry Cooder to sing my eulogy...) Somehow when he started finally singing the last verse, he was going too fast, daring the audience to keep up, and then when he got to the last word, he stopped short, "sing my..." and the crowd was left to shout "eulogy" without him. Like a massive performance art pun... At times, and I've noticed this before, at the other show I managed to see and on the live album, he changes words, but not just names of towns, all sorts of words and the combinations are surprising. If the audience is singing along and getting out of hand, he starts speeding up and slowing down, or just repeating the same word over and over, so they can't keep up and are forced to just let him get on with it. It's like you're not just seeing a concert, there's a communication thing going on. Everyone's there for the music, everyone's in the music, part of Gord's little world for a while. It's a strange world, too. He lies on the floor, he makes awkward gestures and faces, he dances in ways that invite comparison (like... Mr. Rogers watching pornography, but that's ok) I could see a lot more, and the sound was clearer, with it being in the theatre, and while it wasn't quite as loud as the arena, it was still well worth the money. At GM Place I had my back against a cement wall and I stood on my chair, but the echo from the wall was right in my ear and I was deaf for a week. I woke up this morning with the tail-end of Grace, too reverberating in my head and a killer nicotine withdrawal from all the smoke, and had to fight the urge to smoke all day, but I don't mind. And despite all predictions to the contrary, I didn't get mugged or even so much as looked at sideways walking around Vancouver at 1 in the morning to get back to Mum and Dad's.

And I went to SFU and there were some grownups there, and I'm going to get a nice lot of credit for all the first-year type courses I took in my first degree, so real soon I'll be able to take 300/400 level courses. All in all a pretty productive day. Spent the afternoon in the SFU library, looking up stuff, which was fun too.

I'll be back on Saturday. behave yourselves...

what the previous link goes to show, in Canadian terms, is that we passed a Charter of Rights in 1982 and are therefore 20 years ahead of Europe... and a good hundred years behind the US, but still...

interesting reading, maybe. or maybe I'm just reading toooo much law and should be put to sleep humanely and buried in a tuna can. if I had a nickel for everyone who's said to me in the last month (since I've been babbling about legal stuff) "you should be a lawyer"... I'd be able to afford law school :)

from the "this is where I came in" file: Dorfy the dwarf hamster has succumbed to the enormous growth on his stomach and needs to be buried today. I've wrapped him up all nice in a tuna can with electrical tape, and Kirsten says he looks like he'd be good for hockey. No respect for the dead...

I told Ian I was applying for a job selling sausages, and he said, "I don't want my mom to be a meat jockey".

I'm off to Vancouver today, tomorrow I have to go to the library at SFU, see an advisor (oh yay) and the Tragically Hip.

my old wrist brace finally gave up the ghost, hit London Drugs for a new brace, makes my arm feel better but still no typing with my left hand... compromise is type with right and work left shift key with left thumb as hand lies happily beside keyboard. Can't put the papers off any more, gonna be a long day... also, still no job... good afternoon, would you like to hire a one-handed typist?

today, in my mystery ailment, I can't use my left hand... typing's slow, needless to say. and I have papers to write...

164. 5:44 Isn't Nine Minutes After Anything
this was on a list of things said in casual conversation that sound like country song titles, and then I looked at the time, and hey, it's almost 5:44. I don't know if this means anything. Except of course that I've lost the page I was looking at, so I can't send anyone there to look...

first day of Brownies, today. The suspense is killing the smallest member of the family

So last night, after being in the library with constitutional law, I went and found Sunnie, and we went for beer. I do this very rarely, I think I've had maybe six beers since... Christmas... We drank in the pub for a while, then I missed my bus, and then we went to get food.
Tomorrow I have to go out and do some real looking for a job. I was waiting until the kids were back in school. The lazy way, sending out resumes, just isn't working right now. I asked around yesterday and heard of a few places that might be looking without advertising, so I'm gonna go see them tomorrow. Wish me luck...

tonight, it's judicial review. And a paper on same. I'm reading the Supreme Court's website. Needs a few muppets to liven it up.

Today, I have the flu. That my dear boy brought home from school with him. And I knew, when I spent the day cleaning up after barfing boy, that the next day... he goes back to school, and I take over in the barfing department. Ow. Yow. woof.

anyway. the neurologist says: I don't know what's wrong with you. He asks me, "what do you think it is?" Who makes the big bucks here, doc? So, it's official. He gets another consultation fee, but hey, sorry, DON'T know what's wrong. Do I sound bitter? I'm sorry. I'm trying to be Positive...

with my new resolve to be positive, here are:

ten things I like....

1. dogs. they are the only beings that can find an hour of fun in an empty marshmallow bag
2. classical music. because it goes on and on with no words
3. yams. with sugar and soy sauce and rice. sticky goodness.
4. small people. who go off to school and yell, "love you Mom."
5. my cow pajamas. that I can wear all day now that I'm not really working.
6. e-mail. which means I can talk to my little brother on the other side of the earth.
7. swollen members. just because
8. 9 days til the tragically hip!!!!
9. early mornings in the tomato patch. also pumpkins. my sincere pumpkin patch.
10. being alive :)

I feel better tonight. I got an e-mail from one of my teachers, and it was friendly. I was feeling that the overall tone of the letters I had received from the university was impersonal, and thinking that perhaps I had made a mistake. Now it's ok. I'm writing this paper for a human being to mark. If there is a drawback to distance education this is it...

Earlier on this year, in the pages of a diary I decided to go back to school. So here I am, writing a term paper, and starting a new thing. (A whole lot of writing is getting done, I also phoned my pa, who is busy getting ready to move, and engaged him in a half-hour discussion about his new linoleum and countertops, he's having a house built and these topics are generally good for quite a long phone call). Anyway.

I'm also sprouting lentils this week, and preparing to make something with the masses of apples I find in my backyard.

I went to apply for a job today. Another longterm project. I showed up at the store, as requested, and the woman flipped through my resume so fast she couldn't have read a thing on it except perhaps my name. Then she went on for a few minutes in confusing detail about how they were moving the store but not until October 15th, and needed someone for their new store, even though the ad said "start immediately". Once or twice I opened my mouth to say something, but this was not to be. I'm thinking I won't get the job.

now