Updates

I did have something to write here last week, but it obviously wasn’t that important because it completely escapes me now. Instead I’ll just give you a general update as to the state of things right now. Anything, really, to put space between the top of the page and that angry rant in the previous post. Anger, sarcasm, and spleen are all useful things when venting, but ultimately they are poisonous, and although I am still fervent about the points I made, I’d like to bump the whole thing a little further down the list. So, I begin:

1. I’m having that age old problem with Time. I’d really like the current Time to speed up so we could get to the weekend a little faster. But then of course, once at the weekend, I’d prefer it if Time would let off a little speed and proceed at a leisurely, even imperceptible, pace through the holidays. Essentially, it’s like I want to accelerate towards a stop light.

2. I spent all day yesterday in what someone with less strength of character than I might call an agony of back pain. I, however, will simply say that I was in a great amount of discomfort – especially at 4:30 am Tuesday, when I woke up suddenly and found I could not move anything from the waist up because of the searing pain. This of course intensified my problem re: update 1.

3. I finished my Christmas shopping on Friday, December 14th, which I think might be a record for me. I am also nearly finished my crafting – in large part due to the fact that I spent most of yesterday lying on my back staring up at knitting needles.

4. On Saturday I stood in my kitchen in my red apron and made 6 different kinds of Christmas cookies. My freezer is now at capacity. I asked TM later that day if I could have another suitcase entirely for cookies. He apparently has no issue with this as he intends to consume most of my product. I have been assured by various people that bringing boxes of cookies to Ontario with me in my suitcase is not insane. I am suspicious that these people are a) smiling and nodding at me, or b) intent on cookie consumption themselves. Tonight I am making lemon squares.

5. Today my office Secret Santa left a collection of cookie cutters on my desk. They are too late! However, since the cookie cutters are transportation-themed, it is unlikely they would have fit in with my stars, stockings and polar bears.
The back of the package advises me: “Use this cookie cutter to make pastry cut-outs to decorate the pie. Place cutter over the rolled-out dough, press slightly to cut out shapes, and attach to pie crust. Great for schools, teachers, daycares.”
Unfortunately, I have none of these things. Nor do I know to which pie they are referring. So I can not decorate it. Thankfully however, I do have a TM at home, and there is definitely a rocket-ship-shaped cookie cutter that will be very appreciated chez nous. I will store it with the dinosaur-shaped ones.

An Open Letter to Queen's University

I think it’s time we got something straight between us: I don’t like you, and you need to stop harassing me. I owe you no debts, no library fees, no final assignments, and no loyalty – it’s over. In fact, the only support I still harbour for any of your number is for those you won’t support yourself. Your overworked, underpaid employees who are running your institution, and who are regularly discriminated against because they may not hold the level of education boasted by your graduates. And yes, you know exactly who I’m talking about. I was a Film Studies student.

My choice to go to Queen’s was never based on your ridiculously exaggerated academic reputation. I was happily never aware of it until I arrived, and was subsequently repulsed by Upper Years’ claims of being “the best!” I was never taken in. I came to you as to a film for which I had not seen the preview. If I had I might have skipped the show. As it is, and as you are hopefully understanding, my final review is not good.

Please do not mistake me, that review in no way encompasses the friends I made in Kingston, or the faculty and staff of the Film Studies department, of which I am grateful to have been a part. In fact, I believe I ended up in the only department in which I could sanely have survived four years with you. No, when I express my displeasure, I exclude those things for which you can not take credit. I refuse to believe that the experiences of making friends, or taking classes with professors I enjoyed, were things that I could not have benefited from at other institutions. What you unfortunately can, and should take credit for is the elitist, holier-than-thou attitude that you encourage in those students who are gormless enough to buy into it; the gross mismanagement of the horrifying amounts of money that your alumni (I can only imagine, given your aggressive campaigns to get me to do likewise) are bullied into donating; and the bureaucracy so single-mindedly bent on the institution’s outward appearance that it conveniently disregards the Old Boys’ Club that’s running it behind the scenes.

Sadly, I have very little hope of you doing any of that. Certainly, until you do, I’d like very little more to do with you. Any contract I had with you, and any contact that needed to persist, I feel ended with my formal graduation in the Spring. Yet, you refuse to take the hint. So let me be perfectly clear: Don’t send me your magazines, don’t spam my inbox, and absolutely do not ask me for money. I am done paying you for what you do. Stop trying to track me down. And stop calling my mother.

At peace with the Christmas spirit

"What? You’re posting… again?"

Yes here I am folks, on a mini-roll. Don’t worry, it won’t last long. In three weeks (THREE WEEKS!) we’ll be happily holidaying and I will probably lapse in my dedications once again. *sigh* My current bout of creativity is attributable to the following happy coincidence: a) December is downtime in the land of lungs. b) After spending the last three weeks in that horrible state of semi-illness, I felt full of energy this past weekend for the first time in what seems like ages. c) It’s Christmas! I love Christmas.

I never really meant to love Christmas. Loving Christmas is my Mom’s job, and she does it better than anyone I know – to the point that, given the chance, she would probably beat out even the most zealous big box store in the race to Start Playing Incessant Christmas Carols First! In our teenage years, my brother and I instituted the “no Christmas music until December 1st” rule (to which I stick resolutely to this day), in an attempt to stave off Mom’s invasion of the CD player with the likes of Elvis’s Blue Christmas album – possibly the worst Christmas album ever produced (and the inspiration for Christmas Music Rule #2). In fact, during our teens, my brother and I developed towards the holiday that sort of disparaging nonchalance that adolescents invariably seem to adopt for anything that their parents enjoy. (phew! sorry that was an awkward sentence, are you still with me?) I even tried to make the transition to Solstice celebrations, if only for a pagan excuse to continue (secretly!) enjoying the festivities, and to further my resistance of becoming exactly like my mother.

By the time I got to University however, distance, soul-searching, freedom from the harsh judgments of high school, and a raging biological imperative brought me to the following conclusions: 1) My Mom is a pretty cool person, (Christmas album collection aside) and so if I do end up being exactly like her, that’s just one more check in the cool column for population Earth. 2) Christmas is awesome. Whatever religion lays claim to it, it is fun, and happy, and charmingly ritualistic. It has a warm, calming effect on me, even if I’m running around like a crazy person, and I, as you all know, am a fan of things that can calm me down. (Hell, I’m marrying one!) If I give into my genes, and become completely Christmas obsessed for the extent of the Yuletide, it’s only once a year, and I am still okay with myself.

So when my mother asks me on the phone if I played Christmas music on Saturday (December 1st), I can say without hesitation or embarrassment that I sure did, but that since I only had my downloaded iTunes Christmas music, I’ll be needing some copies out of her collection and WILL EXPECT THEM IN THE MAIL (hee hee). She then tells me that she is going to buy the Sarah MacLachlan Christmas album, and I say, but Mom, you already have that one. She laughs, and repeats this to my father. In the background, I can hear him start to giggle – a little hysterically.

Fa La La La La

This weekend, in Vancouver, it snowed. And then it snowed some more. And then some more. And then a little more, just for good measure – just to be sure that all the native Vancouverites everywhere were completely and utterly bamboozled.

Meanwhile, in a cozy apartment on the 16^th floor of a downtown high-rise* two little Ontarions far away from home jumped up and down with glee at the sight of the flakes, the size of golf balls, that were cascading out of the sky, and laughed as they listened to the silly British Columbians trying to get their cars out of parking spots in the alley below.**

This city, in the snow, is a bit hopeless. Nevertheless, it was snowing, it was December 1^st, and it was time to get Christmassing, so out they went. Into the stores and markets they ventured, for presents, decorations, books and food. They emerged, 5 hours later, with boughs of holly and fir, and their pride and joy, a little 3’ Christmas tree in a giant pot – a live but reusable Christmas tree, which now sits on their kitchen table so it can look out the window and twinkle its lights at all the other windows in all the other high-rises.

~~~

The snow this weekend, coinciding with the beginning of December, felt a little like a gift. A little bit of white Christmas before the rain set in again. It’s pouring and grey out there again today, but in three weeks we’ll be in Ontario for the holidays, and the past two days were a welcome preview.

* (meaning a Vancouver high-rise, which is not actually that high…)

** (In Ontario, you see, driving schools put a lot of emphasis on winter driving skills, how to turn into skids, and so on. Vancouver driving schools, on the other hand, seem to put a lot more general emphasis on prayer, foul language, and dumb luck. So, the 6-inch layer of snow covering the ground by Saturday afternoon was quite beyond most car owners out here, not to mention public transit.)