boxing week

1. Christmas was, as always, great fun. I don't have the energy at the moment to write out a long list of goodies, but I have knitting things and a sun lamp (not for tanning) and La Senza gift cards and much clothing (thank goodness, I was seriously starting to run out of clothes in a bad way) and a shiny, shiny black iPod. Mmmmm.
iPod.

2. The Bartons came to visit, which was fun; we don't see the family much except for Corey, who has been here the past couple of Christmases as his family lives in far-off Ontario. This time Corey could only stop in for a couple of minutes on his way to work, but Mr. and Mrs. and Whitney and Mr. Whitney (Scott) stayed overnight. Kyle is apparently too cool for us and stayed in Halifax, but sent us a cake that didn't actually have eggshells in it, but we will pretend it did for Corey's sake. :)

3. I spent today with Julia at the bowling alley, keeping her company and catching up on things that go on that don't make the LiveJournal. Her military things are finally falling into place and she should be on her way to being an accounting clerk and then a public relations officer very soon; the red tape is all but conquered. We went to McD's for supper, which is always a poor choice for the stomach and karma but still fun as a treat, and watched small children skate down the lanes in bowling shoes.

4. When I got home Dad and I walked the dogs; tonight is Samson's last night here, as his real family will be home tomorrow. I'm sure he'll be glad to see them, but I can't help but wonder how he will react to the people food and canned dog food and being allowed to be on the couch being cut off. Oh, and the walks.

5. And then we played a few rounds of Crazy Eights, which I lost, solidly, every time. Usually by about fifty points. That's alright; the fun of the game isn't so much the winning or losing, but the sticking two's and jack's to the person to your left and watching their I'm-so-winning snicker fail. Wahaha. We also learned the basics of another game so we can play with Sean and Scott when they're here, as it works best with six.

6. Speaking of Sean, he's coming up tomorrow, which will be fun. I'm sure he'll get bored in my little town before we leave to go back, but we've been talking about having him come up here to visit for years now, so it's about time. At very least we can go to Frenchies, no?

above thy deep and dreamless sheep

Midnight mass is one of those traditions that marks Christmas as a special occasion in the church, too, not just society as a whole, and I was looking forward to it because we have a new priest who is, apparently, into all those trappings of Catholicism that most churches seem to forgo in the interest of money, time, modernism, and, I suppose, asthma (incense). I'm happy to report it was everything I was hoping for.
There were bells during prayers, there were vigil candles and big clouds of incense, and the alter servers have new vestments. There was singing, both in the forms of hymns (many!) and my favourite, sung prayers. And there was Latin, not just the snatches of gloria-in-excelsis-deo or even just the Christmas traditional Adeste Fideles (which reads, amazingly, like an exercise in the subjunctive, with the hortatory "O come let us adore him", "Venientes adoremus") but an honest Latin chant, to open Mass. The lights out, the altar servers leading the priest in a cloud of incense, and the unheard-of luxury of a good, male voice, steadily and with feeling, singing. I couldn't pick out more than just snatches of "laudemus", "adoremus te", and other usual church Latin bits, but for a few minutes you could see two thousand years of tradition.
Of course there was the usual going-to-church silliness, too: seeing people we haven't seen, except in church or maybe at the mall, since high school; amusing typos in the Christmas song lyrics (O Little Town of Bethlehem has both occurrences of "sleep" replaced with "sheep", which almost killed me). But I think the most memorable bit of the evening is seeing Mass done by someone who really loves, not just the community of the church, but also its history.

christmas eve

1. Finally more or less ready for Christmas... not that, you know, I could have cut it much closer. I still have knitting to do, but there you go.

2. Today was a pretty quiet day; I finished reading It, by Stephen King, and went up to the mall to have a coffee with Michelle on her break at the jewelry store. She's done pretty well up there; she's made over $200 in commission to date, plus her hourly wages and other assorted bonus things.
Later I helped Mom get food ready for tomorrow. It got to the point a few years ago that we started having to keep a lot of holiday food outside, as the refrigerator just can't handle the holidays. It used to be a few things in the barbecue, but when we acquired a garage it turned into a big cold storage room for Christmastime - except for this year and last year, when it's just been too warm. Cramming all that food in the fridge is an interesting experience, but at least we're only really cooking for the five of us at the moment. The past few years we've had more to store, as we usually have guests at Christmas.

3. Time to get ready for midnight mass; Merry Christmas, everyone, and have a wonderful evening and day tomorrow.

let it rain, let it rain, let it rain

1. If only it was a few degrees colder, it might actually look Christmassy out there, instead of sort of like March. I'm hopeful, though. Something tells me there will be a massive snowstorm on the 29th.

2. A quiet night watching Michelle play Super Mario 3 and getting some more knitting done. This morning I needed to get a new circular needle and put some money in the bank, so I went to the mall; it's still so busy!
Oh, and also last night - I made some catnip stuffed toys for a kitty named Corona - they're shaped (very, very vaguely) like lime wedges. Lollerskates all around.

3. This afternoon: knitting and probably some House, or possiblyFirefly. Somehow I'll triumph.

4. I wish I had more news, but it's fairly sedate around here.

traveling

1. A busy couple of days, mainly of traveling. Sean and I spent a frantic morning finishing cleaning the apartment and readying the cats for a lonely week and a half and then ran out to the bus, stopping on the way to bring Nick the key. Surprisingly, he was already awake and dealing with a large parcel of Christmas presents (he's not going home this year, making him an ideal kittysitter).
The bus was... well, it sure was the bus, alright. There were a few people who had been making the journey together all the way from Toronto and were loudly complaining about the seats, the footrests, the distance between the seats, and the general boring and bumpy nature of the Maritimes; one woman in particular was just plain loud. It was only an hour, though, and I slept for a while and got more knitting done. (Christmas knitting: about 1/4 done. Shoot me now.)
In Saint John, Sean's mom met us at the station and after a brief excursion to pick up the other car from the shop and drop it off at his dad's shoe workshop, we went to his house in St George. The afternoon was a restful sort of lounging time, knitting and chatting and playing with the cat (Oliver) and dog (Bailey). Though my camera is out of batteries I took pictures of them the last time I went:



























2. After a delicious supper (curry with string beans and eggs and rice and steamed asparagus) we watched a few episodes of Battlestar Galactica from Season One; Sean's parents are still working their way through Season One and it's really strange to look back and see where the characters were then as opposed to where they are now (or actually a month ago, because we're weeks behind).

3. Today: a very early morning and a ferry ride. Well, early to me; I haven't seen 7 o'clock except for work purposes in a very long time. The ferry was a blur of waking up every twenty minutes and falling back asleep, stretched out across two of the oh-so-comfortable plywood armchairs.

4. Lunch was an amazing salad at Pasta Jax with Mom, in Middleton, and then we rushed out to a bank appointment to discuss what to do with my oodles and oodles of phat archaeology cash (answer: pay off your student debt, silly) and to see Michelle at her jewelry store. We also stopped in at the house and saw Dad and Grandpa and the insane pair of black dogs. At this point we're just sitting around waiting for supper; I'm checking up on my various things and trying to get used to seeing two Mollies instead of one. Despite the subtle differences (Sampson is taller, longer, and skinnier with a longer face) they're close enough that it makes me look twice.

5. Happy 24th Birthday to Nick; one year closer to dead, and, as I keep reminding him, he'll be celebrating his 25th in Korea, so he'd better live this one up as best he can (oh, and feed the cats).

preparing to go home

1. Another day of fun and excitement preparing for Christmas. Today is wrapping, packing, cleaning, and freaking out day (not necessarily in that order); travel plans were also finalized, as much as they are going to be, I suppose. It will be nice to be home and settled, as things are looking interesting:


Projections for this year's Christmas season predict twice the Mollie and twice the hilarity. If so, this would far outstrip all previous records.

2. Work today was rather dull, aside from seeing Shasta, who gave me a hug, a Christmas card, and a paycheck. I updated the NBCC site and played with graphics for a while. Pretty tame, but there you have it.

3. Dinner last night - of course, I overcooked the veggies. Oh well. It was at least edible. I'm considering banning myself from touching the stove, or at least the oven.

4. A NEW SEASON OF ROME ON JANUARY 14 WHAT WHAT? Sign me up.

5. Terrariums (terraria?) are the coolest things ever. (via apartment therapy)



6. Okay, I'm pretty tired and hungry, so I'm going to eat some food and probably knit.

let's play "time to embarrass Sean"

1. Another day of shopping and seeing people. Danielle stopped by this morning to say hello, as did Chris; this afternoon, I went around downtown admiring store displays and picking up a couple of things I've been meaning to get to. The storekeeps downtown are noticeably more cheerful than the mall folk, who are downright snarly at this point.

2. Last night while painting, Sean noticed that his acrylics seemed to be slipping off of the canvas, which is kind of inconvenient, so I stopped in at the art store to ask about gesso (a primer for acrylics). The woman at the store is always very friendly, and gave me some advice; it turns out the paint is the likely culprit, not the canvas, as it comes with gesso already applied. She asked if I painted and I said no, it's about my roommate, he stopped in yesterday, he has a big tattoo on his head, you might remember him?
"My goodness, I love that guy!" she said, and dropped her voice conspiratorially low. "Let me just sneak into the office and see if there are any bottles of molding paste that have been played with."
And lo and behold, she came back with an additive for the paint that will help it along, for free because it had been opened at some point, and then gushed for a bit about how sweet and chivalrous Sean is, and said to say hello to him. I haven't seen him yet, as he was out when I came home, so I'm putting this here before he can tell me not to. Ha!

3. This evening Nick is coming by for tourtiere and roasted vegetables (I think). The last time I tried the roasted vegetables thing the sweet potatoes absolutely refused to cook through, so I've skipped them, and I forgot all about peppers while at the store, so it's really just portobello mushroom caps and zucchini and pearl onions with fresh pepper and organic olive oil, but I'm excited nonetheless. With tourtiere and mushroom gravy (I can throw some finely chopped bellos in that too, I think) it will be pretty good.

4. Christmas knitting is becoming dire. Less blogging, more knitting!

another year, another blog

And here I am again, with a new blog, a new address, a new roommate (well, a recycled roommate), a new cat (and the old one too!), and probably the same things to say. I do like the format I used on my old msn blog, so I believe I'll start with that and see how it goes.

1. Today Sean and I spent the morning waving our hands about Christmas shopping and present-making and travel plans, and the afternoon getting supplies and a small amount of shopping done. After having done reconnaissance on Saturday (a stupid day to shop in this season) it was a pretty basic operation, but it was still almost seven when we got home, with a side trip to the Chinese grocery for a few random items (soy sauce, noodles, a can of quail eggs for Sean's dad's stocking...).

2. This evening is knitting and listening to Brave New World on audiobook, unabridged, while Sean paints. It's rather nice, but I'm worried about the amount of knitting I appear to have gotten myself into. Still, what would Christmas be if there were no panicked, last minute projects?

3. The most terrifying moment of today: Parallax, aforementioned new cat, was in Sean's room sneaking around. We try to keep his door shut because Binnie the rat lives in there, and I'm concerned that the cats might take a swipe at her, though they haven't ever tried, that we know of.
Until tonight, likely. I'm not sure who snapped first, but we heard a terrified scream in the room, and then two very, very frightened cats flew around the apartment for a few seconds. Parallax tore out of Sean's room and ran into a table, Tonks flew out of my room and across my feet with all her claws out, managing to slash up both my little toes and getting blood all over the floor, and Sean jumped up and went to check on Binnie.
Binnie, for her part, was fine, and if a rat could grin she was grinning. Parallax went and hid in the bathroom, and Tonks hid in my room. This is not the first time our cats have been pwned by the rat, but the loss of dignity must be pretty hard to take for the girls.

4. This blog is awesome. Today alone it's led to me to here and here (the latter link is a really amazing art installation




which makes me want to go to Europe for some reason.)