::alio!::

"you'd betta . . ."

Sometimes I feel like I have a miniature Aretha Franklin floating just above and behind my shoulder.

This afternoon as I left the office I could hear her and her tiny gospel choir singing the bridge to "Think:"

"FREEDOMMM! [Freedom]"

"FREEDOMMM! [Freedom]"

"FREEDOMMM! OHHHH FREEEEEDOMMMM!"

I did a dance once I was safely ensconced in the elevator after my successful escape.

NO WORK FOR FIVE DAYS.

SEE ya!

new tricks for an old dog

Tomorrow we're heading up to Lake St. Peter (Me, Andy, Cara, Will, Matt, Greg, and Travis) for the long weekend. I hope everyone has a fun C-Day while we're gone. I love getting out of the city. It's the largest party in the country, and the third-largest party in the world (some kind of holiday in Kuala Lumpur and New Year's Eve in Times Square beat it out for first and second place), so it's a little overwhelming at times. My brother is also coming and having a party at my house, and bringing his psychotic girlfriend with him. And one of his ex-girlfriends. So I'm glad I'm missing the fiasco-to-be.

It will be very relaxing and lovely.

Anyway,

So I'm teaching myself how to run.

Don't laugh - I'm serious.

See, I haven't actually RUN since I was about 7 or 8. I loved track and field, and I was a pretty good sprinter. I was chubby, though, and so didn't have the stamina for long distance.

But then I started getting all these knee injuries, and we went to the doctor and found out that I had a moderate case of patello-femoral syndrome, coupled with the fact that I'm hypertensive, which means that my knees actually bend backwards quite a bit. So this opened me up to a lot of knee pain, and the doctor recommended that I stop doing activities that involve high-impact, like running.

So for years I've lived with this. I get knee pain when I walk up a lot of stairs, when it's humid, when I accidentally let my knee lock in a backwards position . . . but it's something I'm used to.

I also have asthma, and in past years it's gotten worse, so running outside in the smog has been pretty much out of the question. I can do lots of low-impact cardio indoors, like hockey and whatnot, but running was never really an option.

Until about now.

You know that I like to go for early morning walks. I love walking. Walking is the time I have that's just for me, where I can think about anything I want, because I don't actually HAVE to think about anything at all. Walking is also the way that I lost 35 pounds and am my current shape. My legs are solid muscle and I'm quite pleased with them.

But walking isn't giving me the health benefits that I was used to. You can only walk so fast, and it's not getting my heartrate up or my breathing going or anything anymore, no matter how fast I do it.

So running, I suppose, is the next option. But I have to start slow, because I have never run as an adult, and my body is an entirely different shape than it used to be when I was 8 (like now I have to strap down some boobs before I go out).

I started running on Monday. I only made it 2.5 times around this track near my house before I had to stop. It wasn't my legs, or even my heart rate - they were fine. It was my lungs that stopped me. They sucked in the heat, the humidity, and the smog, and simply closed up. I was bent double for five minutes before I could cough out enough phlegm to draw a full breath. Yuck. So that was disappointing.

I gave myself a break on Tuesday because my left knee (always the worst of the two) was KILLING me. I bought myself a brace for it, one that actually fits me, and prepared again today. This morning, I took a few puffs of my new puffer prescription, and slid on my new brace. I made it 5 times around the track before I got tired and stopped. I plan to add a lap every day I run. I will learn to do it properly, and I will become fit while I do it.

I'll always love walking. Walking is my meditation. But running is more my quest.

The big 3-3-0

This is my three hundred and thirtieth entry.

Big whoopdee-doo.

I'm bored. Today is boring. Yesterday was boring. Tomorrow will likely be boring. I have only a three-day work week until camping, and then only a four-day work week after camping, but it's hellish nonetheless. Especially as I'll be meeting with my financial adviser and my academic supervisors next week and then the week after that I will be officially telling the Wayner that I'm quitting August 31.

I just can't wait for camping at Lake St. Peter. This weekend will be a nice buffer to convince me why it is that I'm leaving my job. And when the Pie and I go to Samuel de Champlain in August it will confirm for me that I did the right thing.

I mean, when else do you have no schedule whatsoever and you can spend the day worrying about only a handful of things, like,

Will it rain?
Should we start dinner before or after our game of water frisbee?
How early is too early to have a beer?

I plan to bring a million trashy romance novels with me. I have long since learned that it is impossible for me to read intelligent literature while camping, because I get interrupted every thirty seconds or so. Trash works best. And I can share it around, because it's only 50 cents a book, and we can use it for fuel when we're done. Tada.

Better get back to worky now.

She's GONE!

The drone princess has left.

Without saying THANK YOU once, I might add. Not even as she was chauffeured to rural Ontario to see the place where her family first came to Canada (she was bored and whiny before they even got there, even though this trip was made at her insistence). AND NOT EVEN AS MY FATHER DROPPED HER OFF AT THE AIRPORT!

Shameful.

On the other hand, I had a fantastic and romantic weekend with Mr. Pie. I love dates.

And my space bar on my external keyboard has a very stiff pressy thing. Any ideas about how to rectify it? It's rather hard to get a space at all sometimes, and then others, not so hard. It would be fine if it were consistent . . .

Good night!

heyyyy . . . switch!

Aaaand we're back. Betcha didn't even notice I was gone, didja? My domain name has been renewed, thanks to Chel. She will be transferring the contents to her own management as of today. It's the first step in the right direction, I think. As much as I am the coolest person in the world with my old-school html-age, I'm getting rather tired of it, seeing as I've had a rocking design for over two years just waiting to go up. In fact, it's been so long since the design was up that I have made some drastic changes to it about five or so times. Now we just need to put it in a format that Chel can read so she can work her webby brilliance. I did it in Microsoft Publisher, because it's a program I know well, and which is very good for delineating page-sized presentations and manipulating blocks of colour and shapes. But Chel doesn't have it, and I'm not proficient enough at photoshop to transfer it over. Plus, I now have a Mac, and so don't have either of these programs any more. Cait found a good download for it, but is having trouble uploading it for Chel's use. So things are a little further delayed. I'm in no rush.

Every day this week has felt like FRIDAY. Except for yesterday, Wednesday, which felt like Thursday. I'm also having hard core computer problems with my shitbox million year old PC (how come everyone else has a new computer and a flat screen monitor that WORKS, save me?), which has essentially resulted in me not being able to use any of the programs that are absolutely essential to me working here. I've been trying my best to solve the problems through internet forums and whatnot, but the problem is a little complex and all the forum stuff is in jargon way too thick for me to understand. So I have given up. I can still take dictation and type letters and check my personal email, so life isn't completely messed up.

I think another reason why every day feels like Friday is that we have a ten-year-old staying with us for the week. She is the daughter of some friends of my parents from BC, and the sister of their goddaughter. She randomly decided she would be coming to visit us, and so here she is, a ten-year-old staying with four adults. The problem is her manners.

The day after she got in, which was the night of the show, my dad took her grocery shopping for every conceivable thing she would want to eat. I mean, there is food in my house that I've never even heard of before. My dad even MAKES her a sandwich out of said things, precisely to her specifications. He BRINGS it to her where we're sitting in the basement. She takes one bite. She looks at me. She asks, "what BRAND of cream cheese is this?" I shrug. I have no idea. She wrinkles her nose and doesn't touch the rest of the sandwich. She seems to subsist solely on Pepsi and popsicles, the refuse of which she leaves everywhere in the house.

It's the delicate little nose wrinkle I hate the most. Anything she doesn't like is treated with silence and the wrinkle (which looks identical to the one her mother does). Anything she does like is taken completely for granted. Example (and this is just the most recent of many): last night I took her to see Over the Hedge. I bought her popcorn. We went out afterwards to get ice cream. She sat silently through the movie, didn't talk about it afterwards, save to ask me inane questions about my purse (?), and not once did she say "please" or "thank you." Sheri, my coworker, has a daugher who is now 4, but she said that as soon as she could string together a sentence, she was minding her p's and q's.

My parents are not particularly enamoured with her either. My mother has cancelled all her physiotherapy appointments this week and my father has taken the time off work so they can entertain her by taking her on trips, to museums, out to lunch, to our family cottage, etc. So I think they would appreciate it more if perhaps she was even slightly appreciative of this whole endeavor that she orchestrated?

I have honestly never met a child who frustrates me this much. And I admit here that I feel towards children of that sort of age the same way I feel towards disgruntled cats - I tend to avoid them. Most of them, though, I can have a decent, even fun time with, should I be so inclined. I can usually answer all million and four questions they fire at me. This one? Not so much. Her questions are - for lack of a better word - silly. I get up to go to the bathroom when we're watching a movie. "Where are you going?" "To the bathroom." "Oh. Why?" WHY? And I swear she has an attention span of four seconds. If I return from the bathroom, she'll ask me where I was, and why I went there. (This bathroom incident never occurred, BTW, it was a little more complicated involving dinner, but the situation and responses were the same, so you get the idea).

And she has a huge crush on me so she follows me everywhere. She even gets up early so she can watch me while I scarf down my breakfast and read the paper (she won't make her own breakfast, even though my father has shown her where everything is). She even walks into my bedroom uninvited. While the door is closed. Now, my entire family knows that my bedroom is my refuge from everything. If the door is shut you only bother me if it's really important and UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES do you enter unless instructed to do so. I am rather fond of my alone time. I'm going to have to start locking my door.

Anyway, enough bitching about a ten-year-old child. It's really not worth me worrying about. She's only here until Sunday. Nice to get it out there, though.

*CRACK*

Oh my. That thunderstorm last night not only took the temperature down about ten degrees, but it also took down a tree at the end of my block, which subsequently took down a few power lines as well. So I was rerouted by some firemen on my way to the game. If I hadn't been, I wouldn't have discovered what it's like to actually drive ON a rainbow. Not towards one. Not under one. ON ONE. It was neat. There were actually two by the time I got on the Queensway, and I was so excited I had to call Andy and tell him, although I haven't mastered talking on the phone and driving at the same time, so I ended up getting off at Kent accidentally, two exits early.

The game itself? A disappointment, surely. The Cup does belong in Canada. You can't deny that. But there were several deserving players on the Carolina team who earned their time to shine (Brind'Amour, Cole, Staal, Commodore . . .). All Canadians, I might add. So it was a little irritating to listen to the drunken louts insulting the television in voices made harsh by alcohol. It was also irritating that the service in this place was so poor (we got ignored) and that the A/C was CRANKED. I was shivering by the end. But what can you do? It's only a game after all, and I'm glad it's over. I can finally go to bed at a decent hour.

INTERESTING

So I appear to have discovered that my Mac has a built-in SSH program, similar to PuTTY, where I can *SUPPOSEDLY* update. So this is my test. Only problem is that, because it's a Mac, the Backspace key works like a delete key and confuses me, and because I'm in a linux-like program, I can't use anything to the right of the Enter key. Alas. It's a little frustrating.

In any case, here I am, posting from my new computer. Interesting.

My mother's art show is winding down on the floor below me. It hasn't been as successful as most, but today is hot and muggy and people don't really seem to be out very much. But she's pulled in about $500 (I know because I'm holding it), and I think everyone else here did relatively well. Not too many people bought stuff from the lady I was representing today, but they all took cards, which I think is a good thing. In any case, I'm very tired and my feet hurt, as I was standing all day.

And that's really all I have to say - this was more an experiment than anything else, and I should get back to the show. Watching the game tonight at the Oak with a few peeps. Should be fun. GO OILERS!

shad

The phone will not stop ringing at the office. This is the first period of relative calm I've had since I got here over an hour ago. My desk is awash in a sea of paper, and I fully expect to be interrupted any minute with another telephone call.

But it's good to be busy.

In other news, I know it makes me a lame Canadian, but I did enjoy today's Questionable Content, purely because big shot American cartoonist decided to mention our widdle country. I always get a kick out of stuff like that. Although it makes me nervous that he's figured out our secret strategy . . .

It's also shadfly season in the Village. We're very close to the Ottawa River here, and I guess the shadflies think this is close enough when they travel away from the water to moult or mate or die or whatever it is they do. I remember this from my grandmother's cottage on the Ottawa River, back when I was a child. The shadflies would simply attach themselves to any vertical surface, so basically, the walls, windows, and screens outside the house, and then one day only their skins would be left. Very interesting process. Because they attached themselves to the screens at my grandmother's cottage, the skin's legs would get stuck in the holes of the screen and the skins would stick around for a while before they eventually fell off or disintegrated. Here, there are no screens, so every day there less and less of them as the skins lose their grip on whatever surface they're attached to. But you should have seen it yesterday! There were literally THOUSANDS of shadflies attached to every single building in the village. It looked like we'd been infested with some kind of locust plague. Neat stuff.

bzzzzzzzz

I picked two huge bouquets of flowers last night and put them in my room. they look very nice. However, I was awakened at 5 this morning, not by my alarm clock, telling me it was time for my walk, but by a huge fly. We get a lot of flies in my house because we leave the back door open in the summer. They filter through the house and inevitably end up slamming themselves against my windows at the opposite end from their point of entry. This fly was one of those huge black ones, nearly the size of a bee. It was buzzing around my flowers, so at first that's what I thought it was. But I guess pollen and flies don't go together very well, or, perhaps, they go together too well, because this fly was BUZZED. WIRED, even. Its flight pattern was erratic and high speed, and it never landed for more than a second, so I couldn't kill it. I eventually opened my bedroom door and it freaked out and left.

Then I went back to bed. So much for the walk today.

My new computer, by the way, is beautiful, but my old router, unfortunately, is shitty, so I can do everything but access the internet, which kind of sucks. But that's fixable. My brother is going to split with me on the cost of a new one. And I'm seriously impressed with this Microsoft Office for Mac that I paid $300 for. I got the Student and Teacher version, which actually has MORE features than the professional version (at least, more features that I actually use), and I'm excited to get started on my thesis with this baby.

But thinking of the thesis makes me worried. Because yes, there has been no word. I'm going to send another fax every two weeks until the end of the summer, and then Karen and Brian and I are going to instigate a new plan of attack - once we figure out what that is. I'm not giving up on this. I've worked too hard and too long on it to throw it away for some crappy library research credit. Yah Boo Sucks to your ass-mar, baby.

I'm actually more worried about August than September. August is when I tell my boss that I'm quitting, and I brace myself for the fallout of that. And then? Unemployment. A loan from the bank. Freedom?

I worry, though, that once I quit my job, I'll have no focus for all my anger and I'll discover that it's actually a whole bunch of other things that make me feel the way I do, and that won't be helpful at all. I'll be at a loss as to protocol and I'll founder.

ugh

There were two Lost Posts while Magpie was down. I posted them in MT instead, so you'll see them when the new design is up, which, unfortunately, has no definite date at the moment. Chel and I are still trying to work out some software issues, hopefully with the help of Cait. So basically, it'll be up when it's up. Be calm. And stop asking me about it.

Yesterday started badly. I got big shit from my boss TWICE before 9:00 AM. Then he just annoyed me for the rest of the day. Then I got my Bell bill (my second one, mind you), and it was for nearly $300! APPARENTLY, I spent a few hours on my mobile browser, or however much amount of time it takes to rack up $184 worth of charges. Firstly, let me establish that computers are for internet. Phones are for talking to people. I think I've used my mobile browser maybe three times since I got it, only for a few minutes each time, and I have only once downloaded anything - it was Bejeweled. Secondly, there is no way to ACCIDENTALLY be on the internet on my phone. You have to go through two menus and press another button before you're in. And when you press the end button, it disconnects after a while, and when you press the end button again to clear the menu, it disconnects immediately. And I talked to Andy about how maybe I was online while I was playing Bejeweled, but he says that you download those, and then that's it.

I've just had a thought, though. Chel, what if when you're emailing my phone from your computer? Would that count?

Anyway, I'm going to call them in an hour or so. We shall see how that goes.

The only plus to yesterday is that I was able to begin tracking my Mac shipment. The computer left Shanghai and made it to Anchorage yesterday. The other hardware is in Toronto, and the software I got yesterday. I hope to get the hardware today.

Other than that, today has started poorly as well.

To begin, I went to the grocery store to pick up my lunch so I wouldn't have to walk there in the possible thunderstorm we are supposed to have. But for some reason, grocery stores, while they are open, have NO FOOD available, not even bread, at 8:15 AM. Odd.

As I was walking along Richmond, I approached s minor intersection where some schmo was trying to turn right. He was watching the traffic, and not glancing to his right to check pedestrian traffic, like most normal people do. I knew he didn't see me, so I was being cautious. I hesitated, but his car stopped its creep forward when a slew of cars passed on Richmond. This was my chance. I went. Right when I was directly in front of his car, the schmo, while still looking right, and not in the direction that his 1.5 tonne vehicle was headed, decided now would be a good chance to go. He was a foot from me when he finally saw me, and about 6 inches from me when he finally stopped. He put his hand up to his mouth in a rather comical OOPS expression. I glared at him as he CASUALLY apologized for nearly hitting me (because he didn't SEE me - just what happened the LAST time I got hit), and I yelled at him, "watch where you're GOING!" (you know, as opposed to somewhere the fuck else as you're manipulating an enormous metal car around). Then he said, "no problem!" waved cheerily at me and drove off. Are you kidding me? I hate people.

Then I get to work and my boss has turned my desk into Ground Zero. We plowed through it in five minutes and then he finally left, but he keeps calling me to annoy me every five minutes, while he rambles on about something he wants me to do, without actually explaining it, of course) and then hangs up, only to call me again five minutes later (perhaps that's an exaggeration, but still).

This is why I have a tendency to shower after work when I'm here for a full day. It's more a therapeutic and symbolic cleansing than anything else (I have the actual wash-me shower in the morning). Not only is the dirt and grime of the day stuck to you in the afternoon, but you also have all that negative energy around you. My hair and face, to me, always feel the dirtiest at the end of the day, but I think it's more from the barrage of interactions aimed at my brain than anything else. If my skin didn't filter some of it out, I'd go mad.

So I shower at the end of the day. I usually wash my hair, but I often don't bother with soap or anything else (because I'm not actually dirty). It's just my way of putting a symbolic divide between home and work. I sluice the day's troubles down the drain and emerge refreshed and renewed. And it only works perfectly as a ritual if I'm at home. In a shower, you are naked and enclosed, with your back to everything else. It's a very vulnerable position. At home, however, you feel fully safe being so vulnerable. Perhaps that's why I never feel as clean when I shower in someone else's bathroom. Doesn't have the same kind of energy, I guess.

Er, I think that's my story.

Waiting . . .

So.

All my stuff has been shipped.

In three separate orders.

Yesterday and this morning.

My software should arrive this afternoon. It came from somewhere in Canada.

My hardware accessories should arrive tomorrow or the next day. They came from somewhere in the States and are now in Toronto.

My laptop was shipped this morning from Shanghai. One would assume that means that it would take some time to arrive here. However, it is going through FedEx IP Direct, whatever that is. I checked the Time-in-Transit stuff and it said the package would only be in transit for one day. When Apple told me it would take 8-12. So I don't know who to believe.

And that's my story.

early morning reflections

Today is D-Day: the day that Canadian soldiers stormed the beaches at Normandy, and, while other groups fled, or retreated, or were killed, held their positions at Juno Beach. This is the day that Canadian soldiers are credited with making the first step towards winning the War.

On the fiftieth anniversary of D-Day, I watched my brother on national television, playing his bagpipes on those same beaches.

Today is also an ominous day: 6-6-6. A woman in England who is a big fan of the movie, The Omen, is apparently supposed to give birth today. She has been pleading with hospital officials to give her an inducement so that her child won't be born under the sign of the devil, but the hospital has refused.

My boss has been questioning some people in Cornwall recently. These are the religious fanatics I told you about a few months ago. Anyway, their biggest schtick is Doomsday and all that. I wonder if my boss will ask them if they think the world is going to end today?

Some yahoos in my neighbourhood were yelling up a storm on Sunday night, so I didn't go for my walk yesterday morning - I was just too tired. And then my grandmother took my family to the Keg last night, so it was rough getting up this morning, but I did it. The dessert was fantastic, but I haven't eaten that much meat in a long time, and I feel very fat right now.

Such a nice morning, though! The first song that came on my iPod was an accoustic song: Razor by the Foo Fighters. It's funny, but it's been on my iPod (and on my computer) for months and I've never heard it until this morning. It definitely sounds like a morning song, especially as the lyrics begin, "Wake up it's time, We need to find another place to hide . . ."

I spent the walk marvelling at the beauty of the day (and I'm not going to wax poetic here - it was truly lovely). There was a slight and cool breeze, and the rising sun lengthened all the shadows and played off the dew in the fields. Everywhere there was birdsong and through the Farm was the smell of freshly turned earth, and growing young plants. It smelled like summer. I wish I had brought my camera to capture that light. Perhaps tomorrow I will forego my water bottle in order to do so.

I've begun to recognize certain people on my walk, now that I've been doing it for a little while. My favourite is the old guy who is going in the opposite direction to me when I'm on my way back, and then passes me going the same way a little later on. He always says good morning.

I also spent the walk trying to fit together the details of this dream I had.

I was going to France. By myself. I am not sure what the reason was, but I think it was something to do with a conference or something. But then Sam and Jay, and Lisa, decided they were coming with me (these two groups of people don't even know each other). But they booked their tickets after I did, so they sat in a different section of the plane, which had seats arranged facing each other, like the ones in trains.

It was only after we'd arrived in France and I was waiting in the airport for them to get off the plane, being harassed by tourists of every description (although all of them were wearing army jackets with the Canadian flag sewn on the arm), that I realized Sam and Jay and Lisa were sitting just one row over from me. I felt miffed.

Then suddenly I switched to being late for work, so I was rushing. I marched down into the Village and as I approached the office, I looked at my watch to see how late I was going to be. Turns out it was six o'clock in the morning. I had arrived two and a half hours early. For some reason, I decided that it wasn't worth going home, so I wandered down the main drag and went into this grocery store (which was in the same place as the gas station actually is). But it was more like a 24h Shoppers Drugmart. Except that it wasn't open. Except that I could browse the aisles. I just couldn't buy anything. So I began my search for this thing. I know it was tiny, and that it was used in the kitchen, and that it was made of glass, but I didn't know what it looked like or what it was, or where to find it. I just knew it was not to be found there.

I left this store to head to Bloblaws (which is right next to the gas station in the Village) to look there, but ended up going to the Pie's parents' place, which was right in between the two stores (odd, I know). Except it wasn't his place at all. It was all odd rectangular rooms that led no where and looked like they had just been emptied. The pie's room didn't have anything in it save a pile of sheets. Pie was rushing around, doing last minute packing, because he and Seal (yes, the singer) were going on a trip. Seal was hanging around, getting in my way, and every so often he would give me a suspicious stare. Pie's mother was trying to help me find whatever it was that I was looking for, because the storage cupboards were the only things that weren't empty. But it was like it was Pie's mother from when she was my age or younger. She was short and tiny and very young. Very pretty. And then Pie had to leave, but he didn't want to kiss me goodbye in front of his mother and Seal, so he just hugged me from behind as I searched for my thing in a closet. And then I woke up.

Before I go, I would like to pose the question: What the SHIT happened to Edmonton last night? I was very sleepy from all the meat, so I went to bed early, but when I turned off the television, it was 3-0 for Edmonton with 4 minutes left in the second. Then I wake up this morning and it was 5-4 for Carolina and ROLOSON is out for the SEASON? I can hear the death knells ringing now for the Canadian dream . . .

dawn of a new era in ultramegacoolness

IT IS MINE!

Or it will be in a few weeks when it's shipped.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

perspectives

One of the fields that I pass every morning on the Farm is nearly completely covered in dandelions, which have, by now, all gone to seed. It looks like the field has been snowed under with cotton balls.

I remember a similar field by Sullivan's Pond in Dartmouth. When I was very small, my mother would walk me to school in the mornings, and then come and walk me home in the afternoon, taking my dog, Mandy, along for the exercise. When the field by the war memorial cenotaph was like this, Mandy and I would run through it, spreading the floating seeds high into the sky, caught on the ever present wind that comes with living by the ocean. It's a good memory.

Lisa and I went out for dinner with Greg and the Pie after their softball game (which they lost, but through no fault of their own). Greg and I started reminiscing about life in Dartmouth - he's also a Navy brat. The Pie and Lisa began to accuse us of slagging off Ottawa - just because we remembered that it snowed more in Dartmouth than here, that it wasn't as cold, and that it was always windy.

Don't get me wrong - I like living in Ottawa. My extended family is here, my mother is from here, all my friends are here, and my future is here. But I do have a special place in my heart for the city in which I was born and raised. I still have friends there, and going back is like coming home. I have lived in a couple of places before coming to Ottawa, and each place was different and lovely in its own way. Each place had its problems, too. Ottawa has some things about it that I hate, I will admit. But in the whole scheme of things, it's not a bad place to be. I could definitely see myself raising my family here, and I can't say that about every place I've been.

There were some people at this table who were born in Ottawa and had never lived anywhere else. And that's fine, too. But only Greg seemed to agree with me that you couldn't really get a perspective on what Ottawa is like to live in unless you've lived somewhere else. It's like the Fish not knowing what water was until the Fisherman took him out of it. It's just a different perspective, is all.

Other than that, things have been entertaining. As I mentioned, Lisa is home for a little while before she heads to Portland to start her new job, breaking stuff. So we're trying to pack as many hijinks into this time as possible. We shall see how well that works out.