28.12.02 ... greetings from Old Blighty

Getting here was not so much fun as we flew through New York a day after the big snow storm. All sorts of flights were backed up, so we left about 4 hours later than scheduled. Neither of us have seen so much mayhem at an airport before.

My favourite husband in the world broke the gift rule this year (again) and gave me a lovely little Minolta dImage X for Christmas, so I am wielding it with reckless abandon wherever we go. And happily enough, we just noticed that the PC we're using here at easyInternetCafe is equipped with a USB port for easy downloading, so watch this space for images of London. None today, we didn't buy enough time.   [ œ .. ]

26.12.02 ... happy trails

I'm not so sure if leaving for a trip on Boxing Day is such a good idea. I feel as though I neglected Christmas (no baking whatsoever this year! No chocolate chip meringues for my sister! No ginger snaps for my dad!), and planning for packing and the packing itself (two distinct activites for me, with many checklists involved) have been compressed into one three-hour mad scramble to get it all done and get some sleep before departure.

AEJ: we're going to be wiped when we get there.
MJ: that's OK, we're on holiday.
AEJ: yea, but I don't want to just sleep and waste any time. We've only got 10 days.
MJ: re-lax babe, we're young.

We're young, we're young, we're young, we're youn...

Will try and post from London, but frequency will be dependent upon our proximity to a library or internet cafe. Will do my best.   [ œ .. ]

25.12.02 ... 25 reasons why i like Christmas

25. Sitting on the couch in that turkey-induced drowsiness, napping, chatting, and generally basking in the glow of being surrounded by my favourite people in the whole world, feeling pretty lucky to be where I am.
    
24. One of my favourite Christmas memories: when we were kids, we sometimes used to go to church at midnight on the 24th. When we left the house, there would be a few presents under the tree, but when we got back, there would be many, many more. I still don't know how my parents did it.
    
23. A Charlie Brown Christmas.
    
22. Miracle on 34th Street.
    
21. A Wonderful Life.
    
20. In the library: all the kids have gone home and the bookstacks are mine, all mine, to stroll through and select my holiday reading. It feels like summer up there.
    
19. Two hour department Christmas lunches.
    
18. Happy Christmas (War is Over), by John Lennon.
    
17. Terry's Chocolate Orange.
    
16. Some days, you finish all your Christmas shopping in under an hour and have enough left-over paper from last year to wrap all your presents this year!
    
15. Christmas cards.
    
14. Pine cones.
    
13. Holly.
    
12. White rooftops.
    
11. Silver Tinsel.
    
10. Shortbread.
    
9. Spending many hours decorating my parents' tree in between multiple glasses of hot apple cider (or mulled wine), while listening to (and singing) carols.
   
8. Mulled wine.
   
7. Marzipan.
   
6. Little white lights.
   
5. Pine needles.
   
4. Red mittens.
   
3. Snow banks.
   
2. Clear blue skies.
   
1. Bright sunshine.

24.12.02 ... books, an annual index of

Number of books read in 2002: 44
Percentage of improvement over 2001: 50
Number read in worst month: 0 (March)
Number read in best month: 11 (July)
Average number read per month: 3.6
Average number read per week: 0.8
Number written by men: 28
Number written by women: 16
Number of works of fiction: 33
Number of works of non-fiction: 11
Number of titles liked: 31
Number of titles disliked: 8
Number of titles indifferent towards: 5
Number read on recommendation: 9
Percentage of recommendations liked: 75
Number of titles on to-read list: 102
Amount of reading to improve by in 2003: a lot   [ œ .. ]


... why i like Christmas reason #24

One of my favourite Christmas memories: when we were kids, we sometimes used to go to church at midnight on the 24th. When we left the house, there would be a few presents under the tree, but when we got back, there would be many, many more. I still don't know how my parents did it.   [ œ .. ]

23.12.02 ... for the restivus

That day of festive happenstance I gushed over was clearly a fluke. Ever since then, my cats have been tearing up the house, knocking over candles, nutcracker statues and our wee little tree. One evening last week, we came home from work to find the tree tipped over, and about half of its ornaments (approximately 4, it's a small tree) were strewn across the living room floor in tiny, sparkling shards of fine, sharp glass. Ditto on the following evening. So we've had to salvage what ornaments we could and pack the thing into our bedroom, which is far too small for such decorative trivialties, but at least we have one room in the apartment that looks remotely festive. The cats are obviously determined that we don't have Christmas, which has us thinking that they probably celebrate Festivus.   [ œ .. ]


... why i like Christmas reasons #21, #22 & #23

A Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, and A Charlie Brown Christmas.   [ œ .. ]

20.12.02 ... the teaching of fear

19.12.02 ... why i like Christmas reason #19

Two hour department Christmas lunches.   [ œ .. ]

18.12.02 ... why i like Christmas reason #18

Happy Christmas (War is Over), by John Lennon.   [ œ .. ]

17.12.02 ... why i like Christmas reason #17

Terry's Chocolate Orange.   [ œ .. ]


... free stuff

Get your holiday-themed gift tags here. That Leslie! Always thinking of the rest of us.   [ œ .. ]

16.12.02 ... not so special

If I was to start a "things i hate about Christmas" daily post, akin to the "why i like Christmas" posts, eggnog and Christmas TV specials (of the John Tesh, Sound of Music, and Kathy Lee ilk) would be on that list. I'm not going to start such posts, but I thought this ought to be said.   [ œ .. ]


... a good day, my guide to

All sorts of fortuitous coincidences and delightfully serendipitous events resulted in yesterday being the perfect pre-Christmas day. We started and finished our Christmas shopping in an hour, thanks to a fruitful brainstorming session in the car ride on the way to the mall, coupled with the luck of a fantastic parking spot and an alarming, but pleasing, dearth of parent-and-child shopping entourages. After the mall, we had a quiet dinner with Gayle and Dave and left with decorations, their three-foot tree, and our left-over wrapping paper and ribbons from last year. Once at home, I set up the tree and other festive bibelots, and set to work wrapping our small haul of Christmas presents, which, with a minor stroke of luck (and a lot of efficient use of paper), were all wrapped with said left-overs. And just as I was fastening the last ribbon to the last efficiently wrapped gift, I pulled the last of the tape out of the dispenser. To cap it all off, I woke up this morning, left the bedroom and entered the living room in trepidation, expecting to find the little tree on it's side, ornaments scattered variously under various pieces of furniture, and all the ribbons playfully separated from their respective gifts thanks to noctural feline activity, only to find that the tree stood perkily where I left it, and all the presents in its diminutive shadow remained where I had thoughtfully arranged them in that thoughtfully haphazard way we arrange gifts under a tree.

A day of festive happenstance, if I ever saw one.   [ œ .. ]


... why i like Christmas reason #16

Some days, you finish all your Christmas shopping in under an hour and have enough left-over paper from last year to wrap all your presents this year!   [ œ .. ]


... art on auction

31 wonderful things are being auctioned off for 10 exceptional causes. Perfect for this gift-giving time of year.

Update 16.12.02, 9am Bids out on this, this, this, and my absolute favourite: this.   [ œ .. ]

15.12.02 ... why i like Christmas reasons #14 and #15

Pine cones and Christmas cards.   [ œ .. ]


... chosen

Katy has made her picks and posted my film exchage images, so go have a look. Her 12 are here.   [ œ .. ]


... getting there

reading Ready, Steady, Go: the Smashing Rise and Giddy Fall of Swinging London, Shawn Levy listening Nuclear War, Yo La Tengo

Anyone interested in buying a house in Toronto over the next year really needs to talk to me. If you have about three weekday evening or weekend morning hours to spare, I have a workshop for you that will fill in all the information cracks and magically transform you into an informed house shopper. I know, amazing. The workshop is lead by a husband and wife team of real estate agents and we went in fully expecting the tough sell, but they kept it all very agent-unspecific (with the occasional self-reference, but what can you expect, they have to push for some return from the day to cover the water and cookies they generously provided). Have a look at their slightly tacky but quite informative website, and take the three hours to educate yourself.

I don't think I vented sufficiently about this when it happened, but I'm still bitter that I missed Noam Chomsky speak for the fourth time in my life a few weeks ago. The day the tickets were available for pick-up, I made it to the Student Centre nice and early, only to find a line-up of about 400 people long, for 300 tickets. Ditto for the 12pm and 3pm releases. Understandably, a person either needs to have many free hours of their life and no fulltime job OR a serious in with a Chomsky goupie (they do exist) to get into a lecture by this guy. Sadly, I satisfy neither condition.   [ œ .. ]

13.12.02 ... why i like Christmas reason #13

Holly.   [ œ .. ]

12.12.02 ... why i like Christmas reason #12

White rooftops.   [ œ .. ]

11.12.02 ... 20 for you

Try summing up your year in 20 words. It's not an easy thing to do, counting aside. I submitted mine after about 45 minutes of concentrated deliberation and backspacing.

I've plugged it before but I only just downloaded it and put it into action: snapGallery. A lovely little script for your images. If you like to mess around with JavaScript like I do, there is much fun to be had with this one. Look for all sorts of image galleries to be posted here thanks to snapGallery.   [ œ .. ]


... why i like Christmas reason #11

Silver Tinsel. The thin, stringy kind. It's also why my cats like Christmas reason #21.   [ œ .. ]

10.12.02 ... photo finish

Just posted the film exchange gallery "Ottawa by Katy". Some lovely images of our nation's capital, go have a look.
  [ œ .. ]


... why i like Christmas reason #10

Shortbread.   [ œ .. ]

9.12.02 ... What a clever bunch

We should all be blessed with such lovely and forthcoming readers. All were asked, and after a lapse of a mere 3 days, 15 souls had answered the call and now I have over 20 outstanding suggestions to choose from. Therefore, I have started reading for the trip early because there were too many groovy titles on the list and indecisive me couldn't choose. Michael and Andrea can expect to receive a picture of me and their delightful suggestion, London: the Biography (which IS out in paperback in Canada, wheee!), because this is the one that was selected for the actual trip. But don't let that stop you from suggesting any more. Maybe I'll compile an annotated bibliography and call it Books to Read Before and in London.   [ œ .. ]


... why i like Christmas reason #9

Spending many hours decorating my parents' tree in between multiple glasses of hot apple cider (or mulled wine), while listening to (and singing) carols.   [ œ .. ]

8.12.02 ... why i like Christmas reason #8

Mulled wine.   [ œ .. ]

7.12.02 ... why i like Christmas reason #7

Marzipan.   [ œ .. ]

6.12.02 ... what would you read?

Reading is important, but travel reading is crucial. What I read on a trip has a direct impact on my overall enjoyment of said trip and will be inextricably linked to the memories I return with. So I'm looking for suggestions on what I should take to London. A few requirements:

• Length: 16 hours in flying time plus 10 days there. I'll need 500 pages at the very least. Nothing like this.
• Fiction or non-fiction, I'm not particular.
• Vaguely related to England or London would be good. I use the term "vaguely related" loosely, but this book, for example, doesn't stand a chance.
• Travel-friendliness: I'm not big on luggage, so this book and this book were eliminated for this reason.

Leave a comment or send me a message (remember to removespamblock). All suggestions will be carefully considered, and if yours is selected, I will send you a picture of me and the book beside some fabulous London monument. You can't lose!   [ œ .. ]


... all this talk

Received and developed Katy's film exchange pictures and plans are afoot to scan them tonight while I watch The Leafs Game, which will hereafter be referred to as "The-Game-That-Everyone-Is-Talking-About-And-Expecting-Much-Violence-From-But-Will-Turn-Out-To-Be-Hugely-Anticlimactic-As-These-Games-Usually-Do".   [ œ .. ]


... free from fear

Today is the National Day of Rememberance & Action on Violence Against Women in Canada. In 1991, the House of Commons approved an act to commemorate the anniversary of the massacre at l'École Polytechnique in Montreal on December 6, 1989 that resulted in the death of 14 women, and to reflect on the broader issue of violence against women. Last year I attended a candlelight vigil at Philosopher's Walk at U of T; due to certain proximity issues, I won't be doing that this year, but I've found many other ways to mark the occasion.   [ œ .. ]


... why i like Christmas reasons #5 & #6

Pine needles and little white lights.   [ œ .. ]

4.12.02 ... why i like Christmas reason #4

Red mittens.   [ œ .. ]

3.12.02 ... you can put chocolate behind my door any day

I've never had an advent calendar. Ever. But now I do. Such tasty treats everyday. [via harrumph].   [ œ .. ]


... why i like Christmas reasons #1, #2 & #3

Bright sunshine, clear blue skies and snow banks.   [ œ .. ]

2.12.02 ... do you like my word

Learning a new word is fun, but also fun is remembering a word you used to know but forgot for lack of use. Arbalest is that word for me today. A pleasurable sound rolling off my tongue.   [ œ .. ]

1.12.02 ... Link and Think on World AIDS Day