I rented and watched the movie Magnolia this weekend. The rain of frogs therein came as a surprise (I don't get out much) and considering how much I liked the movie, I think it's interesting that it coincides with the title of this venue.

It is snowing here. Yesterday I got all the way to Burnaby before they announced that SFU was closed, about 10 am. So, I turned around and came home again. Since the skytrain was abysmally slow due to the "extreme snow conditions" (ya gotta love Vancouver, they had barely a half inch) it took me 9 hours to do the round trip, and I never even made it to campus. I was boarding the last bus, ten minutes away from the school, and the bus driver told us that the school was closing and that if we stayed on the bus and went up to SFU they couldn't guarantee that the buses would still be running to bring us back down.

We have a fair amount of snow here in Nanaimo, about two feet fell in all, and it's piled up all over the place like Edmonton (although not as much as Lake Louise) the mall was open today but hardly anyone came.

I'm going to be in Victoria this weekend, at William Head Institution (minimum security) as a volunteer for an Alternatives to Violence workshop. I think I mentioned I was there before Christmas for a Restorative Justice symposium. The only thing I'm nervous about is the bit where I have to go in by myself and give up all my valuables, etc. I've met a few of the people I'll be working with and they seem very kind.

On New Year's Day we pooled all our money and went skiing. Which was awesome, as always. Ian proved his usual daredevil self, falling off the chairlift, crashing into the platter lift building, having a spectacular charliebrown style wipeout and losing skis, coat, mitts, scarf, poles etc. I met him halfway downhill after this particular one, and he was carrying all his equipment and looking very vacant. He claimed to be walking back to the top. Kirsten whined a lot. She's gained some weight, due to her eating habits and her general fitness level being low. Rachel we left at my mother's. She's still a bit mad at me for this, as my mother organized the life out of her for the day...

Today I managed a rare day off. So, at 6 pm, I am still sitting in my pajamas, drinking the sherry my mother left at Christmas and listening to The Police, with the dogs. The others have all gone to gramma's.