experiments in calligraphy

with the set of brushes I got for Christmas

Hi, my name is Kate, and I'm a chocoholic.

Yeah, the universe is making this giving up chocolate thing very difficult.

So far in the last week I've been offered: chocolate bars (including the world's largest dark-chocolate-and-almond one brought back from YK by my new boss) chocolate chip cookies, chocolate chip cake (this one was HARD to resist) double chocolate cookies from a bake sale... and I'm sure some I've forgotten.

I really like chocolate. The hardest thing about the period of time when I wasn't eating any animal products was the lack of chocolate... and cheese. I like the way chocolate takes so long to eat, how it coats the inside of my mouth with soft sweetness, and the afterbite of the cocoa before the next creamy bite.

I'm not really helping myself, here. I should just go to bed. I just wanted you all to know that I really am making a sacrifice. A significant self-denial. I was thinking I might start stockpiling all the chocolate that's offered to me and then eat it all at once in a huge chocolatic binge when Easter comes but I suspect that's not the point either. oh well.

Random stuff

"One Breath" in the second season of the X-Files

"We Were So Far Away" - an exhibition featuring eight Inuit Residential School Survivors.

Through a glass darkly

"Physicists looking for gravitational waves may have discovered instead the noise of space time breaking down into individual grains; these quantum convulsions, said one physicist, would confirm the theory that the universe is a blurry holographic projection of a distant two dimensional plane." -- Harper's, March 2009.

And then there's this.

remember you are dust

and to dust you shall return...

that's the recitation when the officiant (today it was me) puts the cross of ashes on the foreheads of those in attendance at the Ash Wednesday service. It was interesting. we lit lots of candles, and everybody had a reading, and we were relatively penitent. other than Kirsten's horror when she thought I was going to put ashes in her hair.

I'm giving up chocolate for Lent. Sigh. I may have to stockpile mini eggs and spend
Easter eating nothing but them. I know, that's not the idea.

Books

I always tell the kids not to lend out a book unless you are prepared to not get it back. And it's funny, because I've started to think of books as sort of fluid, I buy them, people give them to me, I give them to other people, sometimes they come back, sometimes they don't. I went to a rummage sale last spring, before Ben and Christy were leaving (perhaps you'll remember the wedding on top of Mount Pelly?) and I bought a couple of books. One of which I read and then it was lying about when my friend Karen came over. She saw it and said, "Oh, I've lost my copy of that, and I haven't read it yet." I said, "Did you lend it to Christy?" She replied that she may have done. I gave her the book. A week or so later, I was at Patti's and saw a Minette Walters on the floor that I haven't read. I asked to borrow it. When I brought it back, Patti looked at it in confusion and said, "Actually I don't know that that was my book in the first place." Last time I was at her house, it had moved to a shelf. Hopefully its owner feels the same way we do.

If you haven't yet, read Three Cups of Tea. It's not at all related to the Five People you Meet in Heaven stuff, like I thought...

ash wednesday

So next week I've agreed to lead an Ash Wednesday service at church. The start of Lent. Last year I gave up cream and sugar in my coffee, and I didn't start having it again, afterwards. Not sure what I'm going to give up this year. Bathing, perhaps?

Also we had a vestry meeting at church and they elected me secretary. Which is actually kind of cool because it means I get the key to the church mailbox and I can read all the mail first.

Rachel and I are planning our trip to Hawaii.

God loves me

we said, can we get that in writing?
hate American Idol. hate it.

blizzard!

in the middle of the night

Miguel asked me what I'd been doing, while I couldn't sleep. I told him I'd been thinking about being dead. He was a bit alarmed, and asked me if there was anything I'd like to talk about, but there isn't, really.

There's something about the prevalence of darkness that makes my thoughts slower, and closer to something eternal. Add to that the usual clarity that comes with lack of food, and it's been a bit surreal lately. When I say I'm thinking about being dead, it's more that I'm thinking about all the things that no-one will ever be able to understand, the things that have been in front of me but I can't put into words.

Like how the light used to fall, in the alley behind the coffee shop, when I still smoked, and I snuck out to have a cigarette in the late afternoon. And I wished I was at home with my kids rather than making muffins, because time was passing in their lives and I was missing it.

I guess partly because Kirsten's leaving home soon, my thoughts are backward rather than forward. I don't have to think as much about work (I say that, but I woke up this morning at six o'clock remembering a firearms prohibition I forgot to enter) and in some ways I'm trying to make sense of the past so I can move on. Is that possible? I think I'm probably about half way through things now, and although at times I think I haven't accomplished anything, I also want to remind myself that I've had such a varied and interesting life in many ways.

la la la

Just to add to the fun of court week, which this was, I got the virulent stomach flu that has been terrorizing the town. Monday at midnight I was very sorry that I had eaten a full dinner at 5pm, and by 3 am I was wishing for a speedy death. I haven't eaten a meal since, I've been drinking tea and juice and yogurt Tubes and hoping that this will keep me alive for a while longer. Unfortunately it's hard to sleep on an empty stomach. Food just still smells so terrible I can't see putting it in my mouth...

another day

Rachel and I went swimming today, while the others did yet more shopping. Nice warm pool, and not too many people. We also went out for dinner at Red Lobster and that was also lovely. lots of yummy seafood. Tomorrow it's back to Edmonton but I did manage to find an 8 am service, so I'll be going to that.

Dad had his knee operation yesterday, and all went well. He's recovering, although he's still in a lot of pain.

shopping

well, the girls got to do some shopping this afternoon at Chinook. I actually found a daybooK in the style I like at Chapters so the hunt is over for this year. I also bought a beautiful amethyst ring with the money Grannie left me.

we're heading back to Edmonton on Sunday, but I'm hoping to go to church here on Sunday morning, if there's an early service, not sure where yet. we don't get to have Communion ever at home, because we're only lay leaders, and I miss it.

so many people here...

taking Luci to the Lake

tomorrow we're skiing. yay!

inertia

recently I've been thinking about inertia and how it relates to the can of rice pudding in my kitchen windowsill

Rachel went out trick-or-treating and one of the houses she went to gave her a glass, an actual honest-to-goodness drinking glass and a can of rice pudding

the rice pudding can has a deep dent in it. I don't know if we'll ever be able to bring ourselves to eat the contents

but it sits, upside down in the kitchen windowsill, in amongst a piece of rose quartz, a jar of chopsticks, an eggcup shaped like a burro with a basket, a plastic frog, a potato that looks like a person, two soysauce dishes, an empty sherry bottle, a small jar of oregano that I grew this summer, two stained glass things that need hanging up, and the phone

chances are that the phone will get put away, eventually. the rest of the collection will probably stay there unless it's perishable (like the potato) until I move it somewhere else

there are only so many places to be. this is as good as any.

Christmas at my grandpa's house

Just for fun, here's a few of the songs my grandpa would play at full volume on Christmas Day...

Whoa.

Just, whoa. Nobody was hurt... Media were calling again today.

music for cooking

This weekend's music for working in the kitchen - KLF - The White Room,
from a CD I finally found at Alibris.

Also this I made Lobster Thermidor for a dinner party and went to a karaoke party. Which was heavy on the Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline. Lots of fun.

lemon loafing

I made lemon loaf this evening. The teenagers have descended on it. Ian is on his third piece. I thought Miguel was asleep, but when I yelled, "lemon loaf's done" he responded.

Finished a project at work this evening, and sent it off. I'm sure they will send more but it's a good feeling at the moment. The house is sort of clean, we've got the Christmas decorating started - well, we've brought the decorations up. They're awaiting general inspiration.

The dog is not feeling well. He barfed his supper all over Kirsten while we were in the middle of watching Wall-E last evening. Then he shivered and smacked his lips all night. Not sure what that's about. He's currently cleaning up lemon loaf crumbs from the kitchen floor and contemplating whether he'll get in trouble if he starts on the crumbs on the counter (and yes, I do know what he's thinking, he's not the brightest animal). So he can't be that ill.

The Hamlet Council voted for an alcohol ban at Christmas this year - which should make life a bit quieter over the holiday, if it goes the same as the last time they had a ban.

home alone

As I took today off, because we're leaving this afternoon, I have the whole house to myself for the morning. Admittedly, I did go to work at my usual time to make sure that everything was ok - my boss walked in about ten minutes later and said, "What are you doing here?" and I said, "I'm leaving, really." He answered the phone at one point, while I was rummaging through things on my desk, and told the person on the other end that I was "away for the weekend". And by nine o'clock I was back here.

Amazingly everything was pretty much ok. The last time I tried to leave on holiday, back in March, I was still at work twenty minutes before my plane was due to leave and I almost missed my ride to the airport.

So I made some tea, put CBC 2 on, and I've been puttering about peacefully, made some rice krispie squares for the bake sale this afternoon, tidied up, had a nice long shower. The dog is sleeping and ignoring me. The phone doesn't ring. I've still got time to pack and run some little errands before everyone comes home for lunch. This free morning is almost as much of a treat as going off to Yellowknife will be...