Remember to not do your laundry. It's important.

Polar Express was indeed a good movie, just for the visuals alone. It's amazing how much more advanced the animation has become even since Toy Story, and in 3D it's pretty impressive to watch. Even if you think kid's movies are corny or you don't like Tom Hanks, the visuals are worth seeing. However, I remember liking the book a lot so there's nothing really wrong with the story, isn't there?

As far as restaurants go, the Water Street Cafe is one of my favourites. There are a lot of restaurants that I find somehow disappointing, either because the food sucks, or because the menu prices and descriptions make you expect larger portions than you get. Such things do not happen on Water Street. The food's always excellent and unlike some places, that doesn't break the bank.

I'd say the hilights were the rare ahi tuna in a sesame soy sauce, today's pasta of the day which had portabello mushrooms, grilled tomatoes and a blue cheese cream sauce and my desert, which was a flourless chocolate espresso cake with a black cherry sauce. Very rich. Almost couldn't finish it.

In spite of a nasty headache, I've been having a pretty good day.

My mom has eagerly been plotting unplugging the washer and dryer on January 1st so that no one will do any laundry on that day, because she gets weird about that sort of stuff, and though we are willing to accomodate her, some past tenants upstairs have been dumbasses who won't. However, dad did something completely unprecidented and told Zosie upstairs that mom's really superstitious and that if you do laundry on January the first she will kill.

And you know? They're good with that upstairs. You see, mom has never bothered to just tell the people that live upstairs that the world will end in fire and brimstone and Burberry if they do laundry on January 1. Instead, she just unplugs the appliances and pretends they're broken. I come by my weirdness naturally.

Parents' anniversary

It is my parents' anniversary today so I have a feeling I'll be out and about and not really blogging much. For the ammount that they spent on their wedding, they've got it down to just over 50 cents a year. Not bad, not bad.

Mom wants to go see the Polar Express in 3D at the IMAX and she calls the shots around here so we're going. I'll probably even have fun. We're going to the Water Street Cafe afterwards and I will most likely have the fish of the day, because it's always a surprise.

Seems to me I have a friend that wanted to do something with me tonight, but I won't be able to come because I'll be having dinner with my parents. She emailed me about this earlier, and I emailed back saying I couldn't come, but she probably hasn't checked her email at all. Then she'll be pissed off, which is stupid, really. I respond to people using the medium that they chose to contact me with. If you leave a message on my voicemail, I'll call you. If you email, I will email. It's not my fault if you emailed me and then don't check your email for a week.

Oh well, we'll cross this bridge when we come to it.

In the meantime, I wish I could weild an xacto knife half as well as this guy does.

Year in review

This would be about the time when I'm supposed to think of something thoughtful to say about the previous year. Seems to me that around this time last year I instead turned my thoughts to the future and made some predictions based upon previous experience, which turned out to be completely wrong because this year was unlike any other year.

Seems to me that at the beginning of this year, the vast majority of my friends were either living abroad, or other similarly inaccessable places, occupying vastly different timelines, so that I didn't see anything of anyone. I filled the void with extracurricular activities, because that's pretty much what you do and now I've got far too much to do, really.

I moved into the apartment where I live right now. I was impressed by the number of windows and I kind of still am. The jury's out at the moment on it. On the one hand, it's substantially closer to where I grew up, school and work. On the other, it allows one to all but retreat from the outside world, into the safety of 900 square feet of white carpet.

My spring semester wasn't stellar. I was stuck in a documentary research methods class that dragged everything else I did down and nearly drove me nuts. Then it was into summer where I actually worked for most of the summer for a change, because I ditched lifeguarding once and jumped blindly into office work.

So I managed to land myself a job in the federal government over the summer doing stuff that tons of adults get stuck doing for the rest of their lives, which soon had me all contemplative and such, wondering just what the hell I'll do with myself and came up blank. That makes me sad. But there's good news. At least I'll have a decent, stable job to get me through school. Well, maybe. Depends on the politicians.

I have a bad habit of glorifying things in my mind. I jumped back into rowing and somehow it just wasn't the same. Maybe it was just that everyone's new and I've lost my street cred, but I just felt like I was getting in the way all the time. Maybe it was just because I was coxing and I really suck at giving orders, but anxiety about coming to practice was keeping me up through the three hours I would normally sleep each night and in the end I have to conceed that I fooled myself once again. One thing I miss though is that I used to be in shape when I rowed and that felt good. I have yet to find something that really replaces that.

Speaking of glorifying things, I kept waiting for people to come back from wherever they happened to be so that we could go back to being friends and doing stuff together, then one-by-one people began to reenter my life. To my disappointment, I'd outgrown about half of them, which wasn't exactly a good thing, because the number I started with was pretty small. These things happen, I guess.

Good news was this past fall was my best ever semester at school. Yeah, I'm a geek and I'm over it. I'd like to think that I'm getting good at this school thing, because it sure beats working for a living.

Recently people have begun bugging me about the fact that I seem pretty unencumbered relationshipwise, pretty much all the time. To appease these people I propose that I should wear a large sticker across my forehead that says "Hi, my name is Erin. Fuck me." That is a new year's resolution. I'm such a fucking leper that I don't think I'll see much of a response.

But I'm not going to let peoples' criticism spoil what was otherwise a relatively good year. I credit one very good friend for preventing me from going completely insane through the simple act of talking to me every single day. Some days that would end up being the only conversation I'd have for the whole day. That in itself is quite the feat because I'm not always the easiest person to talk to. The man deserves a medal, I think.

That would be this year as it stands. Don't ask me about next year. I have no idea what it holds.

Chestnuts

It's time for me to say something because Peter wants novellas.

Apparently if you roast chestnuts over an open fire without first making a goodly sized gouge in them, they will explode. Luckily I never found this out the hard way because the beauty of language is that it allows other people to share these things with you. In this case, my friend's livingroom turned into a warzone so that mine never has to.

In spite of the song, I had never tried roasted chestnuts until last year, when suddenly we decided that we should try them, just to know what we were missing. Seems to me it was at the Stanley Park miniature train, where they decorate the forest around it with lights every year.

This is not one of those sentimental 'I went to the park with my parents and had roasted chestnuts for the first time' stories. No, it is a 'I was cracking open a nut when it exploded and a large, sharp piece of chestnut shell landed in my left eye' story.

Furthermore, it is a 'it was very dark and my mom didn't have her reading glasses on while she was trying to fish the damn thing out while we simultaneously shuffled down the line towards the train' story.

It is the sort of story where my dear mother, even though she can't see anything without her glasses holds a mini flashlight between her teeth, and gouges blindly at my eyeball with fingernails and kleenexes that may possibly have been previously used. Meanwhile, she's smacking me on the side of the head and telling me to shut up because I'm complaining that my eye hurts.

It is a story about the kindness of strangers, wonderful people who recognize the oddly comical and bizarre situation we are in and decide to lessen my misery by holding the flashlight steady enough for mom to fish the shell out. In which it takes several minutes for my vision to return to normal.

It is a story far too stupid, random and embarassing for me to even mention to you.

Tonight though, was not nearly as eventful, chestnutwise, though there were indeed chestnuts. After I finished work I met my family down at the Spaghetti Factory, from which we adventured down to the VanDusen Gardens to see the Christmas lights. Luminous.

Three things I learned today

A Uriah letter is one that contains good news, like a promotion or something that would be useful to the person whom it is commending, but at the same time, it is something that is not necessarily welcomed. Unwanted good news. Congratulations, your family just married you off, or you've ben promoted to a better job but you have to leave home tomorrow. Sometimes it's just bad news. Those sorts of letters that you would rather not know the contents of.

Youtube is accessable on government computers, at least it is in my office. Though in practice no one really bothers. I certainly don't.

Jethro Tull was actually a real guy before he ended up being a progressive rock band with a rather flamboyant flute-playing frontman. He was a British agriculturalist who is most noted for bringing the Industrial Revolution to the farm, and helping to provide the foundation for modern agriculture. He invented the seed drill and made modifications to many farm machines that are still used today.

My mom says that she's always impressed by how much I know. I'm tempted sometimes to think that she's the only one. These sorts of things only really interest me, anyways.

I'm going to be posting some older pictures that I've taken over the past year, but haven't made it to the internet yet. Who knows, maybe I'll even talk about them.

My faves

I did say I was going to show my favourites, didn't I? The photos of them aren't all that goood but here goes.



It is just not Christmas unless the little antique Santa is on the tree. He's very old and very small, so everyone has to pay extra attention to make sure he comes out of the box.



Me circa 1991. We used to have a family friend who did the craft fair circuit every year, and she specialized in painting pastoral scenes on old farm equipment and sawblades. Every year my parents would send her some pictures of my sister and I and then she'd paint them onto ornaments for us. That one is my favourite.



I think I could bore people for hours on ths subject so I'm just going to cut to the best one: the potato. It's not glittery or shiny or pretty in any way, whch may just be the reason why I like it so much. Maybe it's just that glass potatoes are such odd things to be hanging off a tree. I don't know. It's my favourite this year.

The haul

Thanks to Peter for sending me a card with polar bears on it. :)
And thanks to Kevin for the snow. :)

Other than that, I got an official Hon's House of Noodles apron, 250 gigs for my computer, some photopaper, a sweater, a set of glasses that look like mason jars, watercolour pencils and a kilo of truffles.

Oh, and the piece de resistance:



It's so fricken irreverent. I'm going to have to work on my toasting skills though.

My mom likes the skirt that we agonized over forever before buying, which was good, because it was expensive and we really liked it. It's always a tossup buying her clothes but she really needs some new stuff for work because a lot of her wardrobe looks very early 90s and is getting kind of threadbare.

Margaret

Went to see my other grandmother earlier this evening and she was in pretty good spirits. However, we arrived in the middle of a documentary about Bing Crosby's Christmas specials, so she mostly ignored us, occasionally clapping her hands whenever a little kid sang on the television and occasionally telling us exactly what was happening on the TV.

We spent most of our time instead talking to her roommate Margaret. Margaret is a really delightful woman. Somehow or other, the world just never ceases to delight her. The moment you walk in to the room, she has to tell you that you're absolutely goregous and then she'll find something about your outfit - your purse or your shoes, your coat or something you've got in your hair - and she'll chuckle and exclaim that it is absolutely wonderful.

She's got kind of a raspy whisper of a voice, like she's constantly lost it, and whenever she finds something that she thinks is particularly adorable, her face gets paralyzed in a sort of caricatured joy, while a bit of a raspy gasp escapes her. Then when she's finished with that, she'll tell you that something's just adorable or wonderful or something.

Then she'll tell you all about how her son brought her newest grandchild in to see her just the other day and it was the most adorable little child you've ever seen. She was only this big, she'll say with her hands out and then she'll show you pictures. Then she'll tell you about how she has such wonderful grandchildren, and then about how we're all sooo good to my grandmother and how lovely the flowers are that we brought in. She'll say that her husband was a great man when he was alive, and that Grandad must have been because Grandma thinks the world of him.

Then, because she's starting to lose her short-term memory, she will find something about your outfit - your purse or your shoes, your coat or something you've got in your hair - and she'll chuckle and exclaim that it is absolutely wonderful. She'll repeat practically everything she's already said to you a couple more times during the conversation.

My grandmother, when she's not absorbed by the television, is much the same way. I think the two are well matched. They both have such short short-term memories that they can keep each other amused for hours with the same stories repeated over and over.

Tree

So, for people who preach to each other about how religion is crap and such, we sure do Christmas in a big way. Which is to say, we don't do the Jesus thing, but we definitely do the tree and the presents. Those things never really had much to do with Jesus anyways.

My sister brought Hip Attachment over because his family does Christmas but they've never ever had a tree before. Soviet thing, I guess. I don't think he knew quite what he was getting into, really. Poor guy was quickly bored, and dropped one accidentaly, to have it explode into little shards across the floor. Thankfully not one of my favourites.

We've got 600ish ornaments, all glass, and some years they don't all fit on the tree. It's always a race to put up the best ornaments, because we all have a lot of favourites. I'll have to post pictures of my faves up here later. There are quite a few.

My mom said that the way the curtains were right now, that our big balls wouldn't fit up in the windows, but I proved her wrong. As far as I'm concerned, we absolutely have to put up the big glass balls in the window, just so we can shout out that we have the biggest balls of 'em all!

How to peel a potato

One of my coworkers sent this to me, and I must admit it is pretty cool, even though potatoes are white death and living with diabetics I pretty much don't eat them. Not to mention, I think mashed potatoes are disgusting.

I'm going to shut up before I'm burned as a heretic.

For the record, I tend not to peel vegetables at all. Most of the time I just give them a good hard scrubbing with a brush. You'd be surprised at how much of the nutritional value of foods is destroyed by peeling them. However, when I do peel things, I use a good sharp knife, peeling towards my thumb. Better control that way. Peeling away from yourself is for idiots because it's inefficient.

Who would have thought I had such a strong opinion about these things?