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................