Sometimes I forget to post

A short list of the things distracting me from posting:

1. The fact that there's a Kindle on order for me!
2. Choosing books that I want to get for my future Kindle.
2.a) Phone conversations with my father, as we analyze the Kindle and its new features at length. 
3. Finishing that book with the old-timey German printing (and converting -- ahem -- the entire book to pdf before I returned it to ILL). 
4. The book that Chris picked up at the bookstore this week.  I'm finding that I very much like the books that Chris picks out for me, particularly when they are whimsical, British, and found in the sci-fi section. 
5. Getting caught up on Season 4 of Burn Notice.  (Thanks to the burned DVD that my sister sent in the mail!)
6. Frustratingly bad football games on TV.
7. Getting our church moved into the nice new place!
8. Somewhat keeping our house in working order, while Chris had his first week of teaching.

Five small reflections on my week

These could have five small blog posts, but I kept procrastinating. And so you get them all at once.

One

We took the KitchenAid mixer to the repair guy today. We pulled up to a 1950s-or-earlier house, and went up to the little door under the carport. And I mean "little": it was probably only about five feet tall and we had to crouch to get into the shop; the door had a laminated sign, stuck on with thumbtacks. We were greeted by a grey-haired man and ushered into a low-ceilinged shop full of tools and little boxes with hand-written labels that said things like "ball bearings". The repair man (who calls himself "Tom," but is called "Tommy" by everyone I've met) was straightforward and helpful, and said that he'd phone first if it turned out to be an expensive part that needed replacing.

As we walked to the car, Chris said, "He was the friendliest of the hobbits." And then said that he would love to have a shop like that (albeit with higher ceilings).

Two

I went to a Christian-graduate-student small group this week, and there I met a fellow PhD student from my department, whom I'd never met before. And he's in his second year. Everyone was all, "Oh well of course you both probably know each other, considering the fact that you share an office..." I've heard his name before, and he knows a few of my friends, but I've somehow gone for a year and a half without meeting one of our PhDs. I should probably show up on campus a little more often.

(It was really funny, because we were all talking about how easy it is to become completely isolated on campus, and how most of us have only met people in our own department since we've moved here. But apparently I haven't even met everyone who shares my office!)

Three

I find myself fascinated by the Microsoft OneNote website, and all the information about the newest version of Office being released this year. I seriously love that program; I spend more time using it than I do Word, because it works as if I had a stack of notebooks for my research and my comps reading notes, but also all my recipes and notes-to-self, but searchable and not a complete mess (as my life was when I was relying on physical notebooks).

I find it strange that I am rhapsodizing about a Microsoft product, while all my friends and family seem to be going full-out Apple. (I was amused when I found a Lifehacker review saying the same thing, but in more detail.)

Four

I went a little overboard on the "but if we buy four it's cheaper!" school of grocery shopping today. Does anyone have a good recipe that calls for chickpeas? (Other than hummus? I already have a good one of those.) I find myself with five cans of chickpeas. And so very many cans of whole tomatoes.

Five

I went to a talk given by a huge name in my field (seriously: he changed everything). It's nice to find out that someone who is your hero is also a nice person. (I also found out from a friend that another Big Name has a "prickly" personality, and this I find funny.)

It was also good to take off the "Writing My Dissertation" cardigan and put on my "Going to a Conference" blazer, and think of myself as a little bit ambitious for a while. (And stop mentally putting the word "just" in front of my description of my research.)

The Tea Granny Guide - Updated with Pictures

These days, the West Coast's unrelenting cold and darkness has me consuming more and more tea. Tea, my SAD lamp and my rubber-soled slippers get me through the darkness that is January in Victoria. I thought I would share a few of my favourite tea-related things that have been making me smile this month:

1. My beloved Bodum Assam tea press. It sits next to me every day, while I'm sitting at my computer under the fluorescent lighting of my home office.

2. My newly beloved Bodum double-walled tumbler, a set of which Chris gave me for Christmas. These cups are huge (more latte-sized than teacup-sized), which is fine by me when I'm drinking Earl Grey by the pot, and it warms my hands without burning them. (Bonus: it looks like you're drinking iced tea, because you're drinking your tea out of a tumbler, which then tricks your brain into thinking that it's summertime.)

3. All those teas that I got from Murchies while Lynnie was visiting, which have been on regular rotation for the month so far: Green Mango (one of their new ones), Murchies Afternoon, and Earl Grey. (Their Earl Grey is the best I've ever had. Poor Ky and Lyn got to hear the lady at the shop and I have a long and animated conversation about the glories of their Earl Grey tea.)


4. Making the aforementioned Earl Grey tea and then bringing some to Chris in his new Memories of the Future mug (from Wil Wheaton's CafePress store), while announcing the words on the side of the mug: "Tea. Earl Grey. Hot." It makes Chris giddy, because he can pretend he's Jean-Luc Picard, and that cheers me up.


These things are keeping me sane, along with the fact that I'm reading Oliver Twist whenever I sit under my SAD lamp. (It's another way of tricking my brain: during my undergrad I only read Victorian novels during the summer. Oliver Twist + SAD lamp = my brain thinks it's summer outside.)

Today

Making me feel sluggish today: fourth straight day of clouds and rain.

Making me feel exhausted today: yoga class + my utter lack of leg muscles.

Making me feel like a cliché today: I had quiche with arugula for supper last night. And will do so again for lunch.

Making me feel accomplished this week: I had a very successful weekend of cooking and baking. The chocolate zucchini cake was perfect, and I will definitely use that recipe again. Christina's suggestion of using bacon fat on the turkey = delicious.

Keeping me entertained this week: comedic mysteries. Jasper Fforde, Castle (a newish show that has strong Remington Steele overtones? Yes please), and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

Making me feel frightened and outraged today: Russian historian arrested in clampdown on Stalin era (from the Guardian). (Seriously: read this article.)

Quick Saskatchewan (Somewhat) Randomness

• Hi guys.
  
• Yes, I've been home for nearly a week now, and yes I've been neglecting ye olde blog.
• I have one excuse: we left my laptop's power cord in Calgary. Laptop and cord will be happily reunited today.
• I've spent my week navigating the whole "Is this home? Or is the other place?" question.
• It particularly got interesting when we joined the sea of green jerseys at the Roughrider game last night. (I'm still getting my voice back.) And we were playing against BC. Boy, is here ever home.
• And yet I kind of felt like this prairie girl poseur, walking around with my SK plates and my Rider shirt, being all "Yes sir! I'm a permanent resident here! I don't live in Victoria!"
• Do you know what Chris and I've found strange? We've been noticing that Regina's becoming more multicultural than allegedly-cosmopolitan Victoria. Way less of a melting pot. Which is funny, considering the stereotypes.
  
• I went shopping for shorts. I've decided that, until styles for women's shorts change, I'm sticking to capris and skirts. (The long shorts taper in at the knees, which has the effect of "Hey guys! LOOK AT MY HIPS! LOOOOOK!" And we're not going to talk about Short-Shorts and the Pale-Skinned Woman.)
• I think I'm finally finished with Mall Stores Targeted at Girls Ten Years Younger Than Me. I went to a bunch of those before returning to my beloved Rickis. Would you believe that at Rickis I'm a size 6 and I'm a size 11 at Bluenotes? (And they only had one item of clothing in "size 11", and everything else was smaller?) Understatement of the year: the salesgirl at the latter store said, with a straight face, "Our clothes fit a little small."
• Can we please be rid of arbitrary numbering for women's clothing sizes?
  
• I helped make another wedding cake! It was pretty.
  
• And now I'd better get myself packed and on the road for North Battleford.
  

Five Days Without Update

The past few days, in bullet form:

• We pretty much replaced our wardrobes, thanks to birthday/Christmas money and Boxing Day. It's kind of exciting to own pants that fit and shirts that aren't t-shirts. This took up a surprisingly large part of the week.
  
• On Saturday we lost one of the best old ladies I've known. Anna, my friend Rebecca's grandmother, was one of the first people who really made us feel at home and like family in Victoria. And she was one of those people who held everyone else together, even though she was quite unwell for the whole time we've lived here. Her death was unsurprising, and yet hard. And it happened when most of our church people were away for Christmas, and so it fell on Chris and me to contact everyone. It's all still sinking in.
  
• It's crazy how busy the holidays are, even though we stayed in Victoria. Little Christmas Eve, and then Christmas Day, and then Boxing Day busyness, and then Anna stuff, and then a Hanukkah party, and then dinner with a family from Chris's school, and then New Year's Eve, and then Derek's birthday. Then Chris goes back to school.
  
• Not that I haven't spent all my spare time watching Food Network marathons.
  
• This is how scattered my brain is right now: I spent part of the day feeling draggy, and trying to figure out why I felt this underlying sadness. And then I remembered: oh right I lost a friend this week, one who figured pretty prominently in the last three years. Also, since all the snow melted, it's really dark outside and I can never handle that.
  
• You know, tonight was really nice. One of the teaching assistants from Chris's school, whose kids are also at the school, had Chris, Ariann, Derek and me over. I like collecting good people.
• Have I ended this on a positive enough note? I feel like there's been a melancholy/whiny edge to this blog lately.
  

Halloween in the Procrastination Household

• We're all in our Roughrider gear today after yesterday's last-minute win against the Argos. Huzzah! (Although sad for the other team.)
• How have I spent my day? Doing laundry and watching episodes of Man from U.N.C.L.E. I'm out of control with that show! It's just so delightful! Except that sometimes I get scared when they're in trouble and I have to pause the DVD for a while and do other things, like write a blog post. (Um, like right now.)
• Today Chris took dry ice to school for a Very Spooooky Science Class. It turns out that dry ice is cheap and easy to get in this city! We're thinking that we'll get some another time and make quick ice cream using dry ice and our KitchenAid, like I've seen done on Iron Chef America.
• Remember how sometimes we make candy on Halloween around here? I've decided that this year we're going to make taffy. We're going to have a taffy pull! Are you jealous?

Odds and Ends

Sorry that it's been so long since I've updated, guys! My brain's been eaten up with my dissertation's historiography, which has to be in by Wednesday. All of my thoughts are in small and scattered form and so you get a bulleted list:

• I think I actually like my research again. That's a good thing, you know.
• Do you know what makes me happier than happy? The Montreal/Calgary auditions episode of So You Think You Can Dance Canada. You Americans should be jealous. SYTYCD is sustaining me through this autumn.
  
• I also have become obsessed with goat cheese, particularly with chèvre. It makes me endlessly happy to eat little pinches of crumbly goat cheese off of the block. It's such an obsession that, when the over-saltiness of the frozen chicken breasts ruined my stuffed chicken breasts, I actually wrote a letter to Westfair Foods to complain. (In my defence, we'd been buying these same chicken breasts for years, and in the past month or so the chicken we've bought has been inedibly salty. Uh, gross. And when it makes me waste goat cheese...) Wow. That was a lot of writing about cheese right there.
  
• I got to see my great-aunt and great-uncle today; they're from the same farming community as my grandparents, and so having them here was a nice little bit of home today.
  
• On a less joyful note, if I see another attack ad for the Canadian election, I'm going to throw a shoe through the TV. What country have we become?
  

Stuff and Nonsense

• My brain's been all full of summer plans lately.
• This somehow feels wrong, even though we have less than two weeks until we leave for vacation, because the weather has been so wimpy that it doesn't feel like summer is coming.
• I kicked off my summer planning by booking a camp site for Chris, me, Meg, Karl, and baby Andrew, for our first night on the road. (We're only planning about 6-8 hours of driving per day, to make sure that we don't overdo the driving with the 5 month old baby.)
  
• I'm really excited about our camp site. It's a KOA, and it has wireless internet. At a camp site. Also: a swimming pool and mini golf.
• My other summer planning involves looking for apartments for some dear friends who are moving to this city in August. (Okay, just Ky of Amandolyn and Ky is moving out here.)
  
• Did I mention that Saskatchewanians are taking this city by force in August? It's going to be off the hook. There will be so many people from home here.
  
• Ky's flying out on Tuesday, so that we can find her an apartment. The only problem is that she sprained her ankle yesterday and now she's on crutches. Our original plan for this next week, aside from when we were looking at apartments, was going to involve a lot of walking and running. Now, we're going to watch movies.
  
• Also, the city is standing at a 0.3% vacancy rate. Good thing I'm looking for two apartments right now.
  
• In other news, have I mentioned that I'm going to miss my 10 year high school reunion? I just realised that I'd better e-mail the committee my regrets, since I had originally been all gung ho for helping them plan it. And then it turned out that my cousin is getting married up north that day. Cousin Angela trumps high school reunion any day.
  
• This will be the third Teen Girl Squad wedding. Ang is marrying a farmer who lives across the road from our grandparents. This will make it easy to go visit her.
  
• From now on, you all must make your life plans around my personal comfort while traveling. You've been forewarned.
  
• Yesterday we had a barbecue at Chris's school. They held a draw and I used Brandy's method of scrunching up the paper instead of folding it when you put it into the jar. I won a school t-shirt. Part of me felt a little guilty.
  
• Did I mention that summer vacation starts really soon? And that I don't have to spend the summer stressing about comps reading? I'm free! I'm spending the summer doing an hour of German a day, and figuring out dissertation details. It's like a happy dream.
  

Now that things are quiet

• My sister went home yesterday. We had a good week together.
  
• I bought a leather loveseat yesterday! (From usedvictoria.com) We went and brought it home, and then spent an hour figuring out how to get the futon into our narrow office/spare bedroom. But now we have a double bed (futon) in the spare room, rather than the wee single bed, and I have somewhere comfortable to sit in the living room.
• Except for the fact that we went from having a futon that sat four to a loveseat that seats two. It fits far better in our World's Tiniest Living Room, but we're going to have to figure out where to put others who come to visit us.
• Chris also convinced me that we had to go and upgrade our cellphones, because our three year contract is now up and we qualify for new free phones. We got the upgraded version of the phones we have (but now with cameras and music players, which is what Chris was so anxious for), but Bell has taken its sweet time switching over our phones. They still don't work. But I have a pink phone! (I confess.)
• I'm covered in painful bruises on my arms and legs because of falling while mini-golfing. Which is possibly dumber than the time I injured my neck while studying. My arms were so puffy, purple and throbby that I had to take Advil before I could play the piano in church.
• I love Murchies's No. 22 blend tea. I also love the fact that the new Murchies site gives you the history of the company and their tea blends. (One of their teas was commissioned by Queen Victoria!)
• I'm experimenting with cutting back on the SAD lamp, now that it's May. I'm making big plans of curling up in a sunbeam and reading a book, and seeing if that helps.
• But I've already had to drink an entire pot of tea, to stay functional.

Update: My pink phone now works! I called Bell and it turns out that the guys in the store programmed them wrong. (Hilariously, they programmed Chris's number in my pink phone.)

Final Count Down

To do this morning:

1. Make myself a solid breakfast: fried egg, toast, fruit, orange juice. Hm. I wonder if I can bring a snack with me, considering the fact that I always start feeling weak and hungry in the mid-afternoon.
2. Sit down and review the cards one more time.
3. One last time: quickly write out my titles from memory.
   
4. Make a sandwich and bring it with me. Bus to the university for noon, so that I have some time to look over the department laptops and choose one to use.
   
5. Don't forget to bring: big bottle of water, zip loc baggie with some small snack in it, pen and scrap paper, cash for a department t-shirt, iPod.
   

And then that's it. I'd better get things started and stop lolling around like this.

Confessions in Bullet Form

• I have finally succumbed to a cold. I obsessed through my whole trip to Saskatchewan, downing so many vitamins and Cold-FXs, and then I come down with something a full week after we fly home.
  
• This cold has caused me to set aside all reservations about the neti pot and to embrace it wholeheartedly. That thing makes my congestion goes away, and for that it's worth its weight in rubies.
  
• To make myself feel better about having to read all these books about the Holocaust while having a cold, I've been watching Comfort Food-equivalent TV and movies while I work.
• So far: Dreamgirls, Little Women and endless episodes of So You Think You Can Dance?
  
• I've watched the dance sequence where Neil and Sabra do the "power lunch" dance to "Sweet Dreams Are Made of These" about three times today. Okay, now make that four, since I had to sit and watch it when I found the YouTube video.
  
• I started watching Back To The Future but found that I was far too excited about the show to focus on book reviews.
• I also ate a lot of Jello. Jello is how I handle sad stuff. (I ate a bunch of Jello when I had to write a biographical sketch of Rudolph Höss, and the morning after my grandpa died.)
  
• I'm such a wimp about pulp in orange juice. Chris bought me "low pulp" orange juice instead of "pulp free." Normally I would hardly notice, but today the pulp was bothering my throat. And so I poured it through a fine-mesh strainer. That was my best idea I've had all day.
• Today I've been wandering the house in tight red sweatpants and a red long-sleeved t-shirt.
  
• When my landlady brought down the mail and saw me in the red outfit, she said that I was looking "much fatter than usual"* before I left for Christmas. At which point I had to confess that I actually weigh more now than I did then (as a result of Christmas). It's just that I'm wearing tight red clothes right now.
• On the weekend, at the tail end of my baking frenzy (too...tired...to...bake) but at the beginning of my cold-induced stupor, I tried to make honey bran muffins but forgot to add baking soda. They ended up like these little bran hockey pucks.
• Chris liked the taste of them and ate them anyway. But I should have told him more clearly that they were bran muffins. I thought that he had put them away, but it turned out that he had eaten thirteen of them, because: a.) they were so small (but concentrated!) that he didn't notice how many he ate, and b.) he felt sad for me that I messed up the muffins and wanted to show me that he liked them anyway. And so he ate thirteen. In one day. I will elaborate no further at this point.
• This is veering from "confessions" to "over-sharing." Again.
  

* Chris's response after she left: "Maybe something is lost in the translation."

Thinking ahead...

Today is as good a time as any to begin my birthday/Christmas wish list. It would be a pleasant distraction from the day that's ahead of me: I'm finishing up really unpleasant readings for today's back-to-back-to-back teaching day. I'm also gearing up to wheedle a prof into letting me not supervise his final, now that it turns out that the final has been moved from its original time. Moved to the (Saturday) evening of my birthday, ending fairly late at night, right before I have to catch the earliest ferry to Vancouver the next day. I don't have very many TA hours left for him anyway, and am trying to convince him that he would rather have me use those hours grading for him, considering the fact that he always ends up co-supervising finals anyway. (Seriously: he'll ask you to supervise the final and then decide to come and sit there as well. When I'm only given a certain number of hours to work for him, I can think of better uses for those three hours.) And so I'm kind of grumpy because that night is the only night when we can celebrate my birthday, and I already have invited people to fondue. I really, really don't want to have to cancel my own birthday party so that I can make sure that students don't cheat on a final.

But I digress. My distraction for today is to begin keeping a birthday/Christmas wish list. I have three entries to start with, and will add more to the list through the day, as I find the time and as more points occur to me:

• Something for me to transport my tea to school and keep it hot all day. I don't love my current travel mugs, and they're not watertight enough for me to keep them in my backpack. I love my big vacuum-sealed thermos, but it's far too big and ridiculous to bring to school on a regular basis. If I don't get anything like this for birthday/Christmas, then I'm buying this from the bookstore. (Or perhaps something like this from Starbucks.) (Update: The philosophy factory says that the Starbucks mug is a bad idea, especially for storing it in a backpack, and so I'll say that I want this. Realistically, I'd love this or maybe this. Because I love Bodum.)
  
• Help! on DVD
• Black knee-high boots, with a bit of a heel and enough room for my toes.
• Queen-sized sheets
• Socks. Seriously, I could use some socks. So could Chris. Update: Chris doesn't want socks, unless they're awesome. But he could use shoes.
• More updating: a laptop bag! Something that's not too bulky (and very much doesn't have to be leather), but that's cute of the messenger bag type, which can (safely) hold my (14") laptop, a couple of books, and my future thermos. (I'm thinking that I really do want the Thermos brand 500ml vacuum flask.) I'm thinking of something that looks like this or this.
  

Updatey Goodness

Update One: We still haven't heard anything back from Telus Mobility, even though they said that they'd have everything about the identity theft figured out within 48 hours. It's been more than that now, and so on Monday Chris is going to start calling them and pushing them to resolve this situation, so that there is no longer a collections agency thinking that we owe them money.

Update Two: But, on the up side, we have done a bunch of glorious shopping at Salvation Army and XS Cargo (liquidation sort of stuff). Today we picked up a third fondue pot, a 750-piece puzzle, a puzzle mat where you can roll up your puzzle pieces and store them away (!), Starfarers of Catan (for $9 at SV!), Chris's third telescope, and (the most exciting of all, for me) a 6.5QT oval-shaped programmable crock pot. Seriously, this is a big thing for me, because our current slow cooker is small and doesn't fit a roast in it. This one would fit a large chicken. And came with an insulated travel bag, which I suspect will end up being used to transport other kinds of dishes to potlucks. This is clearly the best day ever, unresolved identity theft notwithstanding.

Update Three: I've started wearing headbands. This is officially the first time I've done something different with my hair (other than "cutting it shorter" or "dyeing it red") since high school. I'll keep you updated on whether I become a new person, as a result of wearing a hairband. (It's kind of freaking my out that people can see my entire forehead. I have a large forehead.)

Update Four: Tangerine-flavoured Nestea sold in little skinny packets like they sell Crystal Lite, but sweetened with Splenda instead of aspertame? Best idea anyone's had in a while. I've been converted. (Next step: Field Berry flavour.)

Update Five: Also, Chris got a 3 million candlewatt flashlight at XS Cargo. Everyone should beware, considering the havoc that he wreaked with his old 1 million candlewatt flashlight. Because if anyone can wreak havoc with a flashlight, that would be Chris.

Update Six: Also, he managed to figure out where to buy hydrochloric acid without finding a way to have to get the school to purchase it for him. (He needs it by Monday, so that the grade 10 science class can blow up Pringles cans.) He got it from a pool supply store, where they sell it as muriatic acid (the historical name for HCl). The guy in the pool supply store didn't even know that it was actually hydrochloric acid, until Chris pointed it out on the label. Good thing that Chris learned that at a pool-care certification course, since that was probably way cheaper than going out and buying HCl from a chemical supplier. It frightened our friend Andrea that it's so cheap and easy to buy acids like that.

Update Seven: In other Chris news, he's really giddy because he realised that he's going to be able to go to the CFL's Western Final (provided that it's really Saskatchewan playing BC, which it almost definitely will be), since it'll be played in Vancouver! Meg and Karl will get to witness Chris paint himself green and refer to himself as both "the 13th man" and "the heart of a nation."

The jumbly thoughts in the head of an exam grader

• Is there some sort of conspiracy going on with my students this year, in which every time they forget the first name of a historical figure they just call him "William"? In previous years I think my students gave their historical figures the first name of "John." This year it's all "William," all the time.
• I wonder if it's the result of something in popular culture, like when all the history essays I marked during the escalation of the war in Iraq over-used the CNN word "embedded," and started bandying about the phrase "coalition forces" instead of "the Allies." (Trivia: a significant percentage of students writing about any historical war will refer to the perceived "good guys" as "the Allies".)
  
• You know, I miss ANTM's Victoria. I wish she hadn't gone crazy on Twiggy and made Tyra scared that she'd throw a shoe at her, because Victoria would have laughed out loud this week when Jay announced (waaaay too exuberantly) that the girls were going to pose as "High Fashion GARGOYLES!"
  
• I wonder if my usage of red pen (but it was the first pen I could find!) is going to give my students low self esteem.
• Can I manage to eat a bowl of cheddar-flavoured popcorn without getting orange fingerprints on these papers?
• I wish shoemakers still made square-toed dress shoes. I think my wide-toed feet will die dead if the narrow-toed shoe hegemony continues any longer.
  
• Note to self: get more people watching Chuck so that it isn't cruelly taken away from me mid-season.
• Are those cobwebs in the dining room window?
  
• Did I remember to eat lunch today?
  
• Are other people as distractable as I am when they're grading?
  

Saturday Morning Answer Time

Time: 9:32am

Location: On the black leather couch that we will be returning soon (goodbye comfy couch...welcome back ugly futon), surrounded by my clutter (baked spinach and artichoke dip and chips, cushions, some paperwork from the class I finished teaching, SAD lamp, oven mitts).

Looking at: the pink tulips on our kitchen table, and the strange antenna on top of our TV.

Wearing: green M*A*S*H t-shirt, green capris, white fleece zip-up bunnyhug, rubber-soled slippers, bobbly pigtails.

I have consumed: leftover spinach and artichoke dip with chips, toasted baguette, juice.

Units of tea consumed today: none yet, oddly enough. But that will be remedied soon.

Listening to: CBC Radio News playing in the other room.

Feeling: relaxed, a little tired (in spite of the fact that I've already used the SAD lamp and I've had more than enough sleep).

Planning: a day at the library, filling in some of the gaps in my reading before my next meeting.

Thinking about: an article in Chris's Popular Science that I just read. The reporter was driving a Smart Car across the US, getting people's responses to it, in anticipation of the car being sold in the United States. (That's so strange to me, because the Smart Car has become ubiquitous around here.) One man said that he spends $60 every three days on gas for his pick-up truck. That's so strange to me, considering the fact that we pay $40 every two weeks on gas for our Echo. And that's with the higher cost of gas here than in the US; there, we'd be paying $30 every two weeks. (And that's all stop-and-go city driving; we get way better mileage when we do some highway driving.) I've realised that I no longer can fathom the appeal of such gas-guzzling vehicles.

Also thinking about: how fun it is to say the word "bees" over and over.

Back to the office

I'm back to working from the PhD office. Last week I stayed home as much as possible, thanks to that terrible cold. (Both because I needed to rest, and so that I wasn't spreading the cold throughout the department.) Yesterday, I was still in that mode and so I tried to work from home. I managed to read the book I needed to read, but I also did the following:

1. Signed up for Facebook, and then looked up everyone I could think of. This took up much of my day.
2. Had one-person living room dance party to Thelma Houston's "Don't Leave Me This Way" (I was working my way through mix CDs made by Ky and Lyn, the champions of the mix CD, and the mix tape before that.) (Seriously: Ky's "Folk Til You Drop" series? Bueno.)
3. Washed tons of laundry. (Okay, it was probably good that I had some time to myself at home, at least for that reason.)
4. Talked on the phone a bunch.
5. Watched the Happy Days episode where Fonzie jumped the shark. For serious. (I realised that I'd never seen that specific episode before. I'd seen the episode before that, "Hollywood Part 2", which ends with Fonzie mid-air and Ralph Malph shouting "Look! A banana peel!" but I'd never seen this historic episode. It was also depressing to realise that this was the beginning of Season 5. Of 11 seasons. There were six more seasons after that point.

And so today I'm working from the office. Although I have the office to myself, which is trouble. Evidently. Considering the fact that I'm blogging right now.

Bringing Back an Old Stand-By

Time: 1:05pm

Location: PhD office

I am wearing: Burgundy zip-up bunnyhug sweater, purple polo shirt, brown dress pants, navy argyle knee socks, brown leather shoes.

I have consumed most recently: leftover farmer sausage (we found some at Superstore!), celery, apple, raisins. Lots of raisins.

And the tea of the day: Monkey King Jasmine.

I am listening to: Bongo drums being played somewhere outside. You heard me. Bongos. (Earlier, it was a trumpet.)

I am procrastinating from: Reading this book that I'm teaching tomorrow. I'm having a meeting to discuss it in twenty minutes.

High points of the day: Having the office to myself for most of the day, getting a good discussion going with my students, having tea with the department's other Germanist.

I am considering: Walking home from school today. It's a beautiful day.

Reservations about this plan: Is my backpack too heavy to do that? And I'm not wearing my runners, and so I have no arch support. While my back be in pain, as a result of this decision? Or will I feel better for having walked so much?

Making me smile: Flowering trees and bunnies hopping around outside my window.

Best parts of the new office: Window to the outside (where I can watch bunnies and flowering trees), and the adjoining common room (where I can sit down for tea with people).

I am feeling: Shockingly cheerful and optimistic.

Word of the day: bees. I like to say that word a lot. Especially when I'm cheerful. Bees. Bees. Bees. Say it with me!

My fears about the probable reader response: This overwhelming cheerfulness might alienate what readers I have. Except for Ariann. She's more cheerful than I am. At least I'm not talking about Hello Kitty.

No, I haven't spent my week watching Full House

Actually, I've hardly watched TV since Tuesday. I think the novelty wore off. Or I've being doing actual work. One of the two. But today I've been pretty lazy, so far. I had a migraine yesterday, and my neck's still pretty sore today. I'm worried that, if I try to play through the pain and go to the University, I'm going to have a replay of yesterday (the wooziness, the blurred vision...).

And so I've been catching up on Corner Gas on CTV Broadband and eating leftovers.

Some highlights from the past few days:

• The non-incomptent flood repair guys showed up and shampooed my carpets yesterday morning. I was still in my pyjamas when they arrived. As usual. They saw the shoddy work done by No-Nonsense Grandpa and Aspiring Musician and were really displeased. And so the main guy is going to come back in his spare time and fix everything they did wrong. I approve.
• I talked on the phone with my Daddy on Wednesday evening! He's in a regular ward now, and they're not in any rush to discharge him from the hospital, but he's progressing way more quickly than they expected. He can swallow! (They weren't sure if he wasn't going to be able to do that.) And he has his voice back! And his CO2 levels are good and low, and they don't have to have him on the ventilator much at all! And he's energetic like I haven't heard him in ages. I have my Papa back and I'm so glad. (Cute aside: Mom bought him an mp3 player, because he really really wanted one, and now he's having lots of fun playing with it.)
• The other Germanist in the department and I are going to hire my friend Kat as our German tutor for the spring and summer. We're making all the arrangements, and this is going to be way too fun.

I think that's most of everything that's new around here. I feel like I've been just going non-stop this week, and so I'm glad that I'm going to take things a little easier today. Maybe I'll check what's on TV, after I finish this last episode of Corner Gas.

Apple Juice and Cinnamon Hearts

Time: 12:37pm

Location: My desk, with the space heater at my feet.

My house: chaotic! The painter just finished, and so all the furniture's in the middle of the living room and bedroom, waiting for the paint to dry. Which is why I'm exiled in the office.

Current occupations: reading blogs, bidding on the instructions for a Cuisinart food processor (we got one for free, but the instructions are missing; I've downloaded the instructions to the modern equivalent, but there are some things about this one that I still don't understand). (And it's at $4, with an hour and a half left in the auction.) Thus, I'm obsessively hitting "refresh" on that auction. A lot.

I have consumed: Two slices of banana bread, leftover pizza, apple juice, cinnamon hearts, nacho chip crumbs.

I am procrastinating from: doing laundry, reading the rest of a book, e-mailing professors. Walking the rent cheque upstairs.

What I am itching to do: Get everything in my house into its rightful place! Absolutely everything. Just clean and organise and not stop until it's all back to normal. Maybe hang some white lights and figure out what to hang on my bedroom walls.

But: Waiting for paint to dry. Almost as tedious as the clichéd watching of it. Also, some things can't go back until the baseboards are put back.

More reasonable plans: I'll make a cup of tea.

Song inexplicably stuck in my head: "Alice the Camel" (you know: "So go, Alice, go boom boom boom.")