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 :)