The Last Few Moments of Repose

It's going to be a slightly chaotic few weeks for the House of Science and its inhabitants. I took the Man of Science to the airport today so he could fly to Halifax for a business trip. He returns later in the week just as I am departing for Chicago for the BlogHer conference. In between now and my departure, I have my regular work, plus a live, on air vegetarian cooking demo for Roger's Daytime (I know. It's insane.) a night out in Wakefield to see The Hidden Cameras with Adam and Megan and Michael, plus my training shift at the Shepherds of Good Hope where I'm going to be doing some volunteer cooking for the next six months. When I return from Chicago, the Man of Science is off again for another business trip!

Good thing this past weekend had a great balance of productivity and relaxation. The MoS and I went out for dinner and drinks on Friday night, then last night Megan and I tried out the new all-you-can-eat sushi place on Somerset (Saturday nights are too expensive! If you want to go, go during the week and it will be more cost-effective) and then went for beer and Lady Gossip Time at Raw Sugar, which was fantastic. I've been a bit of a hermit lately, what with my spell of crappy luck (headaches, car accidents, general mopeyness) and I think I really needed a few nights out with good people to get me back to my normal self. I'm feeling calm and happy again. Hooray!

J.

Count Me In

Rock 'n roll, roller derby, Ellen Page, Kristen Wiig, and a coming of age plot about a teenage misfit?

YES!

J.

Garden Update: Week 8

Holy crap! The garden is getting very dramatic. Some stuff has died, some stuff got eaten by critters, and some stuff has grown gigantically huge and is flowering all over the place!

Remember three weeks ago when Plot #2 had some medium sized zucchini and squash plants?



As of this week, we're edging into "Feed Me, Seymour" territory.



And my little tomato plants that eight weeks ago were less than a foot high each? They now come to boob height:



And the eggplant, zucchini, and tomatoes all have blossoms on them:







Excellent! I can't wait for the harvest.

Besides gazing slightly suspiciously at my gigantic plants, I have been trying to get back in the swing of things after a couple weeks of car accident related craziness, head colds, lady problems, and general chaos. I took the day off today because last week I started feel like I was slowly going crazy and like time was racing by me at an annoying rate. My boss, who is excellent, encouraged me to take today off and to plan an actual whole! week! off! in August, pointing out that I can always clock overtime to make up for used vacation days if I end up with not enough for our maybe-trip in the winter. So having today off allowed me to get my life back on track (our grocery situation was slightly dire) and having the week off to look forward to is making everything seem less stressful and gloomy. A week to read books and write fiction and hang out in the hammock. I am excited.

More later about the excellence of Neko Case's show at Bluesfest last night.

J.

Perhaps Only As Funny To Children Raised Overseas

After many years of passive interest (read: kind of enjoying it when various boyfriends suggested watching it) The Family Guy finally made me laugh really, really hard with this scene.

Stewie's European See & say


J.

vacation... all I ever wanted... vacation.... have to get away

It's not even really the getting away that I'm craving. More like the not having to go to work. I can't take any time off this summer because now there's a chance that we might be going away for a week in December and I need to save my holidays for that as-yet-mythical possibility. Which will be awesome. In December. However, the not-taking-time-off thing isn't so hot right now. Especially during a rainy week like this when I could be sleeping late and writing fiction in coffee shops all day. Or burning my way through the small stack of books on my nightstand. Or slowly plodding through the new Michel Rabagliati book that hasn't been translated into English yet. I would do it, people. I would read FRENCH if I had a holiday.

The Man of Science is not a languid holiday kind of guy. "I could take a week off," he said the other night, "But I'd get bored. What would I do with all that free time?"

We are clearly very different people. Unfortunately he's the one with all the excess vacation days.

J.

Gone Swimming

So this past week went like this: Normal Day, Normal Day, Shit-Show that is Canada Day in our downtown neighbourhood, Migraine, Car Accident.

Not too great. Anyway, we survived everything, including the car accident which was very minor and not my fault so my insurance will cover all the repairs to my lovely, almost new car. But I am now fairly worn out and wanting to lie low and enjoy the weekend. I went to get my hair done today (back to brown! I just couldn't make it as a redhead, I'm afraid!) and when I got back the Man of Science and I took the dogs for a big long walk by the river. They all ran around a lot and went swimming. It was good exercise for us all.











J.

It is the Man of Science's birthday today. There were burritos, and cake, and presents (opened last night so it could be done in a leisurely manner) and wine, and me emptying the dishwasher (usually his job) because no one should have to clean anything up on their birthday.

Here are five excellent things about The Man of Science, in honour of his birthday.

1. He has a policy that he doesn't complain about food if someone else cooks it for him. This leads to me never really worrying if he'll like something or not. And he pretty much likes everything anyway.

2. He calls me upstairs to look at my dog if she's sleeping in a particularly ridiculous position.

3. He always finds the important stuff that I lose around our house.

4. He can do things like build fences and fix plumbing just from reading instructions from a book or on the internet. And he fixes/builds things carefully so they don't break.

5. Sometimes, in the morning when he's getting dressed for work, he sings that "My Humps" song to the dogs.

Happy Birthday, Man of Science. Let's have some cheesecake.*

J.

*I mean it. There's cheesecake. That wasn't a cheeky euphemism.