commas and ampersands

And we're off!

The trailer was packed up yesterday, and I had everything down in the car by 8:30 last night, which was great. I had the end of the evening to spend on the phone with Colin and just chill on the couch. (My bed is gone, so I slept on the couch, which is fortunately not going anywhere.)

The place looks oddly half-empty. I mean, my room is totally cleared out and the living room has half the furniture gone, but the dishwasher is still full and there's stuff in the kitchen, but not nearly as much as usual. It's odd to move out without having to do the whole "get the place to the completely clean bare bones so the landlord can inspect it" thing.

In any case, I'm hoping to make the trip in two days. We usually do it in two (a 15-hour and a 9-hour) when there are two of us driving; I'm hoping to split it more evenly and do two 14-ish-hour days on the road, giving myself lots of time for stretch breaks and so on. The upside to getting awful gas mileage while pulling the trailer is that it forces me to stop for gas about twice as often as I would on a road trip without it. We discovered that it's about 3 1/2 tanks of gas from Calgary to L.A. with no trailer, and about 6 tanks with the trailer. Icky.

So anyway... I have to stop at the U-Haul dealer to drop off the dolly, and then I'm on the road. That'll take me about 20 minutes out of my way, but I should be going for real by about 8:00.

I'll post tonight from somewhere in Idaho!

I'm supposed to be working on my thesis database, but I'd rather be doing anything but. It's not that I mind the research, because that's interesting. It's the data entry into Access that's dragging me down. I know it's the best way to keep everything straight, because otherwise, I'll never remember what belongs where, but still... I'd rather have a photographic memory and not have to document everything. ;)

Man, this Starbucks is freezing. I should really go home, where I can control the A/C.

(And now, I'm home.)

The internet here is being ridiculously slow tonight. Just sayin'.

I don't think I've mentioned it here yet, but I plowed through Chuck in the past couple of weeks. I've been busy with so much other stuff, and yet I kept going, and I watched both seasons within about a week and a half. It's one of those shows that I've now caught up to and I actually miss. I haven't felt the need to rewatch episodes or random scenes from week to week with any show for a while, but I've been doing that with this one since I finished it. Colin hasn't seen it, so I've already told him that this will be added to our "must-buy" list. He'll like it, and I'll gladly rewatch it with him.

We have so much TV on DVD to get through, though. There are at least 5 shows that we need to watch all or part of (or have a season of and need to watch to see if we want to watch more). That's definitely where more of our entertainment budget has been going lately. We both used to buy a lot more movies (especially him), but in the past year or so, most of what we've purchased has been TV. Somehow, it just seems like a better value to get 14 hours of viewing for not much more money than a movie's 2 hours. Also, we love having the excuse of working through a show to spend a quiet night at home. We get so busy that when we do have time to spend 3 or 4 hours in front of the TV, watching a few episodes of whatever show we're working through, we love it.

Not that we don't watch movies, because sometimes that's just what we're in the mood for, but for whatever reason, it's been more about TV lately--but we so rarely watch TV live that it's all about the TV on DVD.

I don't have a desk right now, and I haven't had one while I've lived here, but when we have our own place and I have a desk again, I've found the one I want. I really like the IKEA Mikael desk, either regular or corner, depending on the configuration of the room. Sunday after church, I had lunch at IKEA and spent some time wandering around. Bad idea when I'm packing and putting things in storage. Heh. There are always too many things that I want.

New blog entry up at the other blog. As an artist evaluating your work, whose opinions matter most?

Four more days until I leave. Fortunately, there's not too much left to do around here. I'll have enough to keep me busy for the next couple of days, but I shouldn't be too overwhelmed and stressed out. And then, I have next week off, since I'd planned to start work a week later when we were hoping to take next week as a vacation week. Hopefully I can get together with a few friends and get some errands done--maybe even take care of transferring over my license, the car registration and insurance, and my health care right away. We'll see.

And... it's bedtime.

I have a BBQ with the Coffeehouse committee this afternoon, and I don't really want to go. I have to, though; I'm leading the meeting portion of the afternoon. Sigh. I have so much to get done this week. Makes me glad that I got a majority of my packing done last week, since my schedule was somehow lighter.

Really, I only have two major things left: Portfolio Review on Monday, and my Independent Study documentation, due next Tuesday. I'm on the planning committee for Portfolio Review, so I have things to take care of with that, and then I have to put together my own portfolio. I've been mostly concentrating on my website, which is just about ready to go, so that's fine, but I need to put together a powerpoint version of my resume/portfolio/profile. I'll have some binders out (how exciting; you can see how I organize my binder!), and I'll put out posters and programs, but my primary focus is getting something together that I can distribute (a website) and that represents the shows I've done.

It's hard for producers to do this kind of review, because we don't have the physical work to show. Designers can set up a model or a mannequin, and their work can be presented in its own right. A stage manager or production manager's binder says a lot about their work, and while it may not be as pretty or as interesting as a designer's table, to the right person, it speaks volumes.

My portfolio, though, depends on other people's work. If you take a look at my online portfolio, you'll see that it's comprised of a lot of things that other people have done. Other directors' stagings. Other actors onstage. Other designers' designs. Other graphic designers' posters.

However, all of that is important to convey the scope of the shows and the style of work that I do. I need to present all of that (with credit, of course) so that people can see that the Passion Play, which I production managed, involved over 100 cast, was seen by 10,000 audience members, and had a several-acre stage. I need to show what the shows at CalArts look like, what kind of aesthetic was developed. And, in a way, that's best seen on a screen. I'm not trying to appropriate anyone else's work as my own, and I'm not trying to show their models or the specific details of their work. I'm explaining my place in the big picture, and the big picture involves a lot of people's work.

So, all that to say that it works best as a digital portfolio, and I have to make a powerpoint presentation to have looping at my station all day.

And then... thesis work. Mostly it's just making sure that all the documentation of what I've done this semester is up-to-date. I need to make sure the company database has all the information I currently have in it, and I need to finish a summary of all the reading I've been doing this semester. Oh, and interview questions. I need to at least draft some questions that I want to use when I'm doing interviews this summer.

And, of course, there's all kinds of little stuff; the flotsam and jetsam of the end of the year. Signatures that I have to track down, paperwork to submit, grant money to spend, receipts to submit, things to get ready for fall, all-school cleanup on Tuesday, work (at both jobs), internship details to hammer out, a second summer job to line up, etc, etc, etc.

Not to mention the five or so blog entries that are running around my head, threatening to disappear and be forgotten if I don't write them really, really soon.

Yeah, I'm really glad I did that packing last week.

It's amazing how indecisive I become when faced with the fact that I have to decide what I'll need in the next three weeks and pack the rest. Am I going to need those hair products, or can I start packing up my bathroom now? Which jeans will I be in the mood to wear, and what shoes will go with them?

Then, of course, there's the process of deciding what I'll need in the next year and packing it separately from the things I don't need to access before at least next year.

And finally, there's the division of things that I'll need to have access to over the summer and things that I'll need in the fall (or potentially things that I'll need after December but before... whenever it is that I unpack everything else, which is still an unknown date) but can stay packed for the next four months.

Everything that can go in the trailer for the next while is packed in boxes sealed with yellow tape. Everything that needs to go into a house is in boxes sealed with blue tape. The blue tape boxes will be opened in waves, since I won't need them all at the same time, but I do need them all to be accessible.

Sigh. No wonder I'm tired.

But the U-Haul is booked (and I'm still grumbling at the fact that it's 3 times more expensive for a one-way move from here to Calgary than it is from Calgary to here) and I've got 13 packed boxes stacked in the living room, so... I'm on my way? I guess.

Mariah's out of town for the week, and by the time she gets back, she'll come back to an apartment full of boxes. Poor girl.

Side note: This is why I tend to procrastinate packing. Once you start, the house is never clean. There's just no way to tidy up and have the place look nice when there are boxes (and half-packed boxes, and stacks of stuff to go into boxes) everywhere.

Anyway.

I was looking for someplace with free wi-fi that's open 24 hours. None of the Starbucks in the area are, but I'm wondering if Denny's has wi-fi. It's attached to a Best Western; maybe it has hotel wireless, even if the restaurant itself doesn't. It's not that I need it to be working all night, but the Starbucks that close at 11:30 or 12 aren't open quite late enough. Tonight, I ended up at a Starbucks that was open until 11:30 (after getting there at about 9:45), and then came home to keep working here, but sometimes a change of scenery is nice.

( Apartment picspam! )

Ah, sigh. It seems like I'm almost always complaining about fighting with cardboard boxes. I'm really hoping I stay here for a good long while, though. This is a nice apartment, Mariah seems like she'll be a good roommate, and I'm ready to not pack again for a very long time.

The road trip was relatively uneventful, in the best way possible. We got started a little later than we'd wanted to on Friday morning, but other than that, there weren't too many delays. The border crossing went smoothly, although it took about an hour, mostly because there was a long line of cars, so it took a good half-hour to get to the station, and then we had to go inside to process the paperwork to import the car. Everything was incredibly smooth, though--there was no problem bringing my trailer full of stuff across the border, and the car was fine, too, so we were through there pretty quickly, relatively speaking.

We got to Salt Lake City at around 1 a.m., but the second day of driving was a little bit shorter, so we didn't have to leave until around 9, and everything was a little more relaxed. We stopped for lunch in Vegas, and had a couple of hours to walk around there, although not enough time to do much besides eat.

Oh, side note: I so know that I'm dating a choir director--there were a few hours of the road trip that were a flashback to my childhood, listening to Christmas music in August, when my dad was getting the Christmas cantata ready. We spent a few hours with the temperature reading 110 degrees Fahrenheit listening to Christmas music and narrowing Colin's list down from 24 songs to 12 for the cantata.

Anyway, we got to LA at around 9 or so on Saturday night, but it took us a while to find a cheap motel, mostly because we were looking in the wrong places near my apartment. I'd pre-booked the hostel in Salt Lake, but hadn't booked anything for Saturday night, but eventually, we found something. Sunday, again, was a lazy morning--we didn't leave the motel until check-out at 11, and then we went to Denny's for breakfast before heading over and unloading.

The unloading went relatively quickly--Melissa, the girl who moved out, was moving her stuff yesterday, too, so there were a lot of people and a lot of boxes, but we managed. We did a little searching on craigslist and found a set of tables and a couple of chairs, went and picked that up, did a Target run, and started unpacking a few things--mostly dishes, running them all through the dishwasher while we did other stuff.

Today, we spent the morning driving around--dropping off the U-Haul, driving to the school and around that area, looking for a car wash, going to the cell phone store, and going grocery shopping, and then I've spent all afternoon unpacking. It's getting there--I'm actually very close to being finished. The kitchen is done, and my bedroom is close... there are a few things that I don't need, so they'll go down into the storage unit, and once those are all gone, it'll look less cluttered and I can get the last few things done.

I was complaining a little bit about how much I hate having boxes around, and how I just want to get rid of them as soon as possible, and Colin came into the bedroom and looked around at how much stuff was actually unpacked and put away already, and his comment was, "Good lord--it's only been one day!"

But yeah. We're getting there. Tomorrow, we have to go back to Verizon to finish setting up the phone--getting my new number and adding Colin to my plan... the phone bill will be much cheaper if we've got a family share plan and our calls to each other are free! Orientation starts tomorrow, too, but fortunately, I don't think I've got to be there until 11:30 or so, so it won't be a super rushed morning. Sometime this week, we've got to get the emissions test done on the car, I've got to take my driver's test, we need to register the car, we've got to go to the bank, and I'm probably forgetting a thousand other little things.

The goal is to have everything finished by Friday, though. Saturday is Colin's birthday, so we want to just sit around the apartment, watch movies, and do nothing. Mariah's out of town at a wedding, so we're just going to relax and take it easy. Between now and then, though, there's more than plenty to do.

Right now, though, I'm finished unpacking for the day. Colin's making supper, and we're going to eat a late supper in front of the TV and then go to bed.

Eep. The car and trailer are packed, I bought road trip snacks this afternoon, the paperwork is as complete as it can be before we hit the border, and all I've got left to do is say goodbye to a few more people. Crazy.

Well, I can check the most important thing off my to-do list: Find a place to live. Yay!

The apartment that I've been waiting to hear about for a few days is for sure a go, so that's a huge relief. I found the place through craigslist, and Mariah and I have been emailing all week, just kind of feeling out whether we'd be good roommates. A couple of days ago, I got an email saying that she really wanted to give me the room, but the only thing holding her back was the fact that her current roommate hasn't found a place for Sept 1 yet, so if she didn't find one, the room wouldn't be available until Oct 1.

Last night, she called me, saying that she really wanted to make sure I got the place, even if her roommate didn't find a place right away. She didn't want to find someone else, she wanted to be able to give me a definite answer, and we both think we'd live together well, so she suggested that if her roommate doesn't find a place until October, I can pay a reduced rent and sleep in the living room for the first month. I'm fine with that. I like the sound of her apartment (and the pictures I've seen), she seems like she'll be a good roommate, and I really, really don't want to start the apartment search all over again.

So, it's a 2-bed, 2-bath place in Van Nuys, which is about 30-40 minutes from school, with a good-sized bedroom, lots of closet space, and a washer and dryer in the apartment.

I'm okay with the commute (it's no longer than it takes to drive to work now--in fact, if it's less than an hour, it's shorter), and I'm hoping that it'll open up some more options for work, since I can get an off-campus work-study job, and being closer to LA would be a benefit there, if I want to teach classes or work in a theatre company's office or something like that. Plus, it's a bit less suburban than the area that the school's in, which I like, too.

Besides that, I got a few more things checked off the list yesterday... I got a little more work done in the trailer, cleaned up the stuff that's going to be given away or thrown away, and discovered that not only was my social security card in my parents' safety deposit box, but so were both birth certificates, which I thought I'd lost. Duh. I'm not quite sure when they ended up back there (I could have sworn I still had them!), but at least they're not gone. I'm thinking that we need to get a safety deposit box of our own, just to safeguard against stupid moments like that. ;)

So it's getting there. The big details are taken care of now; it's more the smaller things, and if they don't all get done right now, it's not the end of the world. Some of them can wait a little while. Things like buying a car and finding a house? Those can't wait.

There are a few more things that I realized I have to add to the to-do list, like fixing my coffee table (which is also a storage chest), which had a few too many heavy boxes of books piled onto it while in the storage trailer. It just came apart at the joints, so it should be easy to fix, but that means taking everything out of it, fixing it, and then repacking it.

Things are getting done. And if Colin manages to leave work before 9 tonight, we'll go to a free drive-in double feature.

Tonight, I'm going out for coffee with my friend Melissa, whom I haven't seen since we graduated from high school, 7 years ago. A couple of months ago, we found each other on Facebook and have been talking a bit on there, and I'm pretty excited to see her! (Gotta love Facebook...) Actually, when I moved to Strathmore and started school there in grade 2, she was one of the first friends I made, and we were friends of varying degrees of closeness over the years. She's married now and has a little boy (named Jacob, actually), and she'll be in town visiting her parents, so we're getting together this evening... it'll be good to see her again before I move.

Funny how leaving makes me nostalgic for spending time with people I haven't seen in years--some, I haven't even seen since I moved back from New York, and yet I have this incredible desire to hang out with them now.

It's not that I didn't want to hang out with them; I think it's just that moving like this--relocating like this--instills a sense of urgency in it. There are people that I've been meaning to go for coffee with for ages, and it hasn't worked out, so even though I may not have seen them in a year or more, it doesn't mean that I haven't wanted to. And, in Melissa's case, it's great timing, as much as anything else.

I'm trying to do as many coffees this week as I can, while Colin's working nights. So, last night I had coffee with Heather and it was Janna's birthday; tonight, I'm going out with Melissa; Monday, I think I'm getting together with Alison, another friend from high school; Tuesday, Kat and I are having a girls' night; Wednesday, I'm going for coffee with my high school French teacher... and beyond that, I don't know. Still, I know that there are people I want to see, and this is a good time to do it (and it keeps me distracted from the packing that I should be doing, too!).

And on a completely different note, two days until the breast cancer walk. I'm going to be a mess all weekend. I cry just watching the promotional video and reading the profile pages of breast cancer survivors who are walking. I'm anticipating needing a lot of kleenex, especially during the opening and closing ceremonies of the walk, but even along the way, there are stories of people coming out to meet and cheer on the walkers, and those can be just as emotional as the ceremonies themselves.

I'll write more about that later, though...

Ah, my Stampeding is done for 2007. Sigh. Colin and I went again last night after work, and had a bit more time than we did on Tuesday, although it would have been nice to have an entire day on the grounds. More rides, more time with the exhibition stuff, but oh well. We still had fun, and we got down to the grounds twice, so that adds up to almost a whole day, doesn't it?

The goal of last night was to make sure we ate lots of classic Stampede food. So, we got the jumbo hot dogs in Weadickville, fresh squeezed lemonade, mini donuts, cotton candy, sno-cones, and deep fried Coke. Which was actually not bad. I wouldn't have wanted a whole one to myself, and I wouldn't want it more than about once a year, but it was pretty good. Unfortunately, we forgot the camera, so there is no documentation of the deep fried Coke. It was really funny-looking, too--squiggles of some sort of dough that obviously had Coke syrup as a main ingredient, and then deep fried. I said it looked like calamari; Colin said it tasted like ginger beef. Without the ginger. Or the beef. There was a lot of food that we didn't get around to, but we got a pretty decent sampling. ;)

Anyway... we we went to the Round-Up Centre and wandered the exhibition stuff for a while, then we watched the Superdogs, and then we had tickets to the chucks and the grandstand show, which was fun, although our seats were way off on the side, so we saw most of the show in our peripheral vision or on the screens. I've never done rush seating for the show, but Colin has, and apparently, that's usually better seating than what we paid for, just because it's more central. We weren't too high up, so if our seats had been a bit more in the middle, it would have been perfect.

After the show, we half-heartedly hit the midway, but it was too late to go on many rides before they closed, and neither one of us was in much of a "let's hit every ride in the park" mood. We went on the ferris wheel, but that was about it--we tried to get the skyride, just for tradition's sake, but they shut the line down just as we were walking up to it. Ah well...

I didn't get to a breakfast this year, but I think this was the first time in probably 12 years or so that I was at both the grounds and the parade in the same year, and it was definitely the first time in years and years that I'd gone to the grandstand show. I'm really glad we had the chance to do it all this year. First of all, it was such a big part of both our childhoods that it's cool to do Stampede together. Second, who knows when we'll be in Calgary for Stampede again. It might happen soon, but depending on work schedules and how things go in the next few years, it might not. We just don't know, so it was really important to me that we get in there this year and do as much as we could. And we did. And now I'm kind of sad that it's over.

Anyway, a few pictures that have nothing to do with Stampede, but they're cute anyway:

( Picspam! )

And now, I've got to actually get myself in gear and get out the door--I'm driving up to Edmonton this afternoon, spending the night at murphy987's house, and then driving straight from there to Drumheller tomorrow afternoon for the last performance of the Passion Play, and meeting Colin, his mom (and hopefully dad), and my parents there. Colin, his mom, and I are all in the choir, and my parents are coming to see the show, and then we'll probably all go out for dinner afterwards--and hopefully his dad will decide to go along... first of all, so that we can all go out for dinner, and also, so that Colin can drive back with me instead of driving with his mom. Lots of driving. Which I really don't mind--I love driving and road trips, but I'm not entirely in the mood to do 8 hours of driving by myself in the next two days.

Heh. Can you tell I'm procrastinating? The more I talk about driving the more I'm not getting in the shower (to wash off all the blue raspberry sno-cone that I spilled all over myself last night...) and getting ready to go.

Okay--I'm off. To do what, I'm not sure, but I'm off. Heh.

Huh. So this is what semi-productivity feels like. I'd kind of forgotten about that, what with having random jobs to do at my last placement and all that. Today, though, I've spent almost all day researching various things, and I feel like I've gotten a lot done, but in some ways, I don't feel like I've gotten anywhere with it. Mostly because I'm trying to get things like student loans and bank accounts sorted out, and I'm starting to look at more of the details about an apartment and car and stuff. Right now, the most frustrating part is that we don't have a U.S. address yet, so there's a lot of information and/or quotes that I can't get online. I've spent half the afternoon on the phone to various CSRs, trying to get as much information as I can.

At least all the people I talked to today were as helpful as they could be, and some of them even gave me answers that I've been trying to track down for the past several weeks, so I'm happy about that. I didn't get any bad reps; I've just had bad luck trying to do certain things online because of the address issue.

Heh. My mom's got my car today, and she's picking my brother up from school right now. Well, I just got a phone call. "Hey, Alida, is it okay with you if I drive your car?" I can almost guess the conversation preceding that phone call word for word, culminating in, "It's not my car; you ask Alida if you can drive her car." Ah, teenage boys.

I'm all moved in, and pretty much unpacked. Fastest moving day ever, and it even included a meeting and a pizza break.

This morning, I had the first production team meeting for the Easter show at church, so I dragged myself out of bed and got over to the church for that, which went really well, so yay. I think that this show will be a good one.

Then, I went to pick up pink_hammer (who so graciously gave up a day of her vacation to help me move!), and we went back to my apartment, along with Scott, Heather, Colin, Aaron, Kat, and my dad, and we got all my stuff packed into 4 vehicles (Colin's truck, my dad's truck, Scott's van, and my car) in about 2 1/2 hours.

We all (minus Aaron and Kat) drove out to my parents' farm, where I directed traffic while everyone unloaded--which, yes, was necessary, since half my stuff was being put into storage and half into the house, and none of it was really packed well (since I started packing as of... oh, yesterday). Then, pizza. Actually, we all hung out in my parents' kitchen for a few hours--Scott and Heather left after about two hours, and Colin and pink_hammer hung out for another hour and a half or so, which was lots of fun, and then Colin drove Pink back to her hotel so I wouldn't have to make the extra trip.

And then... I unpacked. I actually got pretty much all of it done. There are a few things that need to go into storage now--I didn't actually pack my clothes; I just took the dresser drawers out and brought them. I'm using a different dresser here, though, so now the drawers have to go into my parents' storage facility with the rest of my stuff. Little things like that. But really, I'm pretty impressed with how quickly it went. Lots of help...well, helps. I've moved on my own (with just help for the big stuff that I can't physically do alone) too many times, and it's such a pain to make multiple trips with one vehicle, moving everything in and out on my own. This was so much easier and a lot more fun, too.

At least, it was for me. I know moving is never "fun," but hopefully it wasn't so awful that it was unmanageable.

And that was my day. That, and watching Friday's Ellen with my dad, putting it in slow-mo every time it got somewhere that our row could even remotely be seen. Heh. That was entertaining.

I've got wireless here, though, which is great. My parents had dial-up forever, but they just got high-speed within the past year, so I can at least hook up my wireless router. My dad just got a new laptop, too, so he's just figuring out the whole wireless thing, so he's pretty excited for it.

I need a new computer, though. Mine is crap. It's getting so old, and it's wearing out. Aaron had one at work that he could get me a great deal on, but I couldn't come up with the money overnight (literally), and it was a special that his manager was holding, so no go this time. They get a lot come through, though, so he always keeps an eye out for me, and once I can actually afford it, I'll let him know. Until then, I'll suffer with this one.

In any case, I'm tired, and it's an early morning tomorrow.

One of these days, I'll post about my trip. Life hasn't calmed down in the few days since I got back, though, and I've had no chance! It should be easier now, though. Monday at the latest, I'll get something out.

Well, since I'm not asleep anyway, I may as well post something I've been meaning to post for quite a while.  Pictures!  Mostly of the new apartment.

Bah.  Boards are down.

And I'm kind of sick of being surrounded by weddings, engagements, and other such couple-y things.  But my dress is purty, even if I hate the fact that I need to lose 30 lbs.  It sucks to be in weddings when I'm not at my ideal weight, because that means that my flab ends up in people's pictures, permanently.

Although I've decided that I prefer the way I gain weight to the way my sister does.  She's quite petite, and she gains weight in her stomach--she gets a really pudgy little belly--and in her face.  I get it all over, and keep my proportions pretty much the same. My boobs, waist, thighs, and hips all get bigger.  I'd rather not gain weight at all, but at least I still look proportionate.

But my room is unpacked, and the rest of the house is almost clean, and I may even be able to finish it before the rehearsal tomorrow.  Woohoo!

Ummm... I need to leave in a few minutes to go meet my grandma and aunt at the airport.  I don't really need to go, since I'm not actually picking them up, but I should.  But I'm so tired; I don't want to drive 1/2 hour to the airport, and then turn around and come back.

And I've got thoughts to post on Veronica Mars, but I'm kind of just watching and enjoying my own analysis (with the occasional email to jeeperstseepers) for now.  I'll get more into things with season 3, I think, but right now, I don't want to be spoiled at all, so I'm staying away from anything except the episode recaps.  Other than that, I'm keeping myself pretty isolated when it comes to the show.

So when the forums are down, it's as much work to stay updated with lj entries as it is to keep up with the forums!

The boxes are subsiding--at least, the full ones.  My roommates' empty boxes are all still in the house, because neither of them has a vehicle to take it out to the recycling depot, so guess what we're using the truck for before I give it back!  I'll take pictures at some point, too, because there are a lot of boxes.  A lot.

My sister's shower is tonight, so I'm relaxing in the lull before I have to run to Superstore and get the punch fixings, and then head to the church to decorate and get it set up.  The day isn't going too badly in terms of time and being rushed, though, so that's nice.  The thing I think I'm looking forward to most is the fact that I get to see all the (female) family friends all in one go.

I'm really good about hijacking my family's celebrations.  When I moved to New York, we threw my dad a 50th birthday party a few days before I left, so it kind of doubled as a good-bye party for me.  And now, the shower is 4 days after I got back, so it's a good way to see people that I wouldn't see all in one place.

So, I emailed my BIL-to-be with some questions for a Newlyweds Game kind of thing, and he just sent the answers back to me... and some of them are really random.  For instance:  "What Christmas present do you most wish Esther [my sister] would give you?"  His answer?  "Give me rather than get for me?  Hmmm... one of my fantasies."

Such a boy.

In other news, my niece has pooped on me twice and spit up on me twice.  She's making up for the fact that I missed the first month of her life.  And man, that girl can fart.  For someone so tiny, there's a lot of gas in there!  I'm sure you all needed to know that.

My nephew is playing strange, which makes me sad--I don't think he totally remembers me, either; plus, his world just got turned upside down with the addition of a new baby.

And you know, I just realized that this blog was supposed to be more of a TV/movies/media blog, but I haven't written about anything even remotely related to that for quite a while.  Blame it on the fact that I haven't watched TV in a few weeks.

Oh!  I did set up my TV and VCR, and hit play on the video that's been sitting in the VCR for the past year (because it was packed in storage), and the first thing on the tape was W Network's rerun of Say Goodnight, Gracie, from last summer's syndicated reruns.  That amused me.

I'm here!  It's been a busy day, hence the lack of updates and/or online presence at all, but I finally have a few minutes, and a wireless connection, sitting in my car waiting to meet up with my mom and sister to switch vehicles.  I feel very Veronica Mars, sitting in my car with my laptop open, although I'm not doing anything nearly as cool and surreptious as she does.

Security was actually not bad at all--I got to the airport at 5 for an 8:20 flight, and was through security by 6, so I had plenty of time to kill.  The first flight was incredibly long--5 hours felt longer than it should have, for some reason.  Then there was a 45 minute layover in Vegas, and then the second flight, which was only 2 1/4 hours, went by a lot more quickly, because I was sleeping--I had an empty seat beside me, so there was way more room to spread out.

Got to my parents' house at 5:30 a.m., went to bed for about 2 1/2 hours, then got up and had a hair appointment.  My sister got gift certificates for cuts/highlights for her bridesmaids, so she and I went and got that done... and let me tell you, it's kind of dramatic.  I'll have to post pictures later.  :o)

The rest of the afternoon... I went to my new house and saw it, dropped off a couple of suitcases, figured out where I'm going, and now I'm waiting to switch vehicles, and then I'll go to Kat and Aaron's house to see the new baby!  And the rest of the family, too, of course.  No movie night tonight, which disappointed Aaron greatly, but I've had no sleep, and I'm driving home with my mom, so I've kinda got to stick to her schedule, more or less.  Depending on how tired I am, I'll try to get some more time online, catch up on the G2M2, etc.

It feels very surreal.  In some ways, it's like I never left, and in other ways, it feels like I'm just here on vacation, like it's been the past few times I've been here.  Except for the whole "I've got a new house and I've got job interviews" thing, I feel like I could be leaving after the wedding, and it's a little weird that that's completely not the case at all.  For all that, though, I'm expecting things to be exactly like they were a year ago, and it's strange to drive down roads that have had major construction, and aren't the same anymore, and to know that I can't drop in on the same people at work in the same places.  Life changes, and it's weird to come back and in some ways, pick up exactly where I left off, and in other ways, start over.

Or maybe I just need sleep.

One last entry from New York.  Man, this is weird.

I'll do a voice post from the airport, once I'm through security.  Hopefully I won't have any more crazy stories (a la the box incident) to tell...

I went to Strand last night to buy my airplane book, instead of getting it at an airport bookstore.  Because... come on.  It's Strand Books, and if you're ever in New York and don't go, you'll never forgive yourself.

I think that's it.  More later.

Last night, kimbowarhola and I had to break into my house, because I forgot my keys.

So I hoisted her up to a window, and she couldn't quite jimmy out the screen, so we had to cut a small hole in the screen so she could reach to the inside and undo the latch.  (And it was kind of scary how easy it was to break in!)

That screen is now being switched with one in an upstairs window.

And then, after all that, there was a box.

It was quite the adventurous evening, to say the least.

Best Second-Last-Night-In-New-York that I could have imagined.

Well, it's been the Great GGMM (G2M2) Meet Day, and I just finished coffee with jeeperstseepers a couple of hours ago.  So much fun--even though we forgot to do voice posts while we were hanging out!





And I know that there are positives to going back to Calgary, and there are a lot of things that I'm going to get to do, and people that I'll get to see, that aren't in New York, but try telling that to my heart when it's aching from saying goodbye.  I'll guarantee that it's not going to listen--right now, it's far more focused on the "I'm losing" than the "I'm gaining."

So now I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to pack. It's crazy, but at least I know far enough in advance that I can plan around it. Dude, lip gloss is banned? BOOKS?! On some international flights, which shouldn't affect me, I know, but still. Oy.

I was planning to still take the same amount of carryon luggage, but I was going to just be extra vigilant in packing them, but maybe it's not worth it. Maybe I should check both bags--see what it would cost to check an extra piece of luggage--and just carry my laptop bag on the plane with me. Good grief. At least I'm not flying to or from Britain.

I finished season 1 of Veronica Mars. Yeah... I'm hooked.

I don't think I like the bottled Starbucks Frappuccinos. They're too sweet for me--I like the "normal" ones, especially with an extra shot of espresso, but somehow, the bottled ones just don't do it for me.