Have we talked about my yellow boots yet?

I have a fairly virulent strain of ebay fever, and I've been going cold turkey since we booked our tickets to New York because I need that money to eat while I am there.  But boo sent me a link to a locket a few weeks back all, If I had money I'd buy this.  And then while I was already on there checking out the locket, I poked around and found a pair of yellow boots.  For $18.

Dude.  The mennonite in me will not let me not buy a pair of $18 boots.  I was winging it with the sizing, and crossing fingers with regard to the quality, but for that few dollars I figure it was worth the risk.

Except then I had to wait, y'all.  For weeks (ok, like, two weeks).  But last Tuesday they showed up at my door and lawdamercy, do I love them.

The soles are like crepe paper and the construction is a little dodgy.  I don't see them holding up to more than a year of my super-aggressive walking.  But for that year, I will feel like a sunny little elf-pirate.  Ahoy.

So that's heartening.

Did I mention we went to see Grandma on Sunday?  We went to see Grandma on Sunday and she looked amazing.  Not even 'amazing for a woman in her 80s who has cancer,' but animal-print-velour-sweater-wearing, be-lipsticked and coiffed amazing.  She's back in her apartment now, receiving visitors and phone calls from overseas and eating garlic sausage with impunity, because who's going to gainsay her now?  She's presiding like a queen over her court and loving the shit out of it.

Keep on keeping on, Grandma. 

I know we all dressed like this in the 80s, but I was younger then.

It's times like these, when I've taken off my dress and put on a t-shirt, but neglected to swap my leggings for something more closely resembling pants, that I cross my fingers against any unexpected visitors.

New! York! City!

We have plane tickets and I just now this second confirmed our hostel booking!  We are actually going to go to New York now.  I mean, not now now.  We're not going now, more like the actually is now.  Oh English, sometimes you are so pokey.

The use for which it was intended.

After using my creme brulee torch to toast marshmallows, crisp the top of a shepherd's pie, and melt some recalcitrant nacho cheese, I finally turned it to its proper use.

En flambe!

That's before I got better at evening out the sugar.  But I was too busy eating the second one to take photos.

Baking soda fixes everything.

Stand back, everybody.  I'm going to do science.

I have this ring from years back that I lost in the bottom of a thing and when I found it again it was all tarnished.

I kept it, because why not, and the other day the internet is all Here's how you fix tarnished silver without actually doing any, you know, polishing.  Put strip of tinfoil in sink.  Fill sink with some hot water.  Mix in a tablespoon of baking soda and one of salt for every 4 cups or so of water.  Put in silver and leave it for, oh, like a minute.  Or longer, whatever.  It's not like you're doing anything.

Hey presto.  Alchemy.

Bakestravaganza

Last year Joel's class held a silent auction to raise money to help offset the costs of their rural rotations.  I auctioned off three batches of cookies, which were purchased by my favorite of Joel's instructors.  She finally got around to choosing her three batches and I finally got around to making them.  Even though Christmas is over and done, she still wanted ginger snaps

and I know that you are all Ugh, ginger snaps because ginger snaps contain both ginger and molasses, both of which are gross.  But these are Robyn's mother-in-law's ginger snaps and they are AMAZING and I have never not made myself sick on them.  Moving on.

She also wanted fudge puddles, which are those cookie cups I made that time with Robyn, but filled with fudge instead of Easter.  They are deadly delicious on their own

and then you add fudge.

Seriously, make these cookie cups and then put something in them.  ANYthing.  Recipe in that link up yonder.

And also I made brownies but forgot to photograph them before I'd packaged everything up and sent it off.

Presume that they looked like brownies, and that they were great.  And also that I ate those leftover edges afterwards.  ALSO, did I mention that my mother-in-law made me an apron for Christmas?  And that it is darling? 

I just want to prance around in it and bake coffee cakes.

I am back now.

Ok here's the thing: I haven't been here because my grandmother is very sick and I don't really want to talk about it to the internet but at the same time I don't want to be on here NOT talking about it like it's not happening, because that's sort of all I'm thinking about all the time right now.  Revising thesis proposal, thinking about grandma.  Walking up Mt Doug with Joel, thinking about grandma.  And then today I was baking up a storm and thinking about grandma and I spilled some molasses on the floor and SAW IT SPILL and did nothing about it and now there is (are?) molasses everywhere and I realized that I wanted to tell you about my molasses misadventure and that I've missed you, corner-of-the-internet-that-is-not-my-book-blog. 

So.  I am here thinking about my grandma and maybe tomorrow I will tell you why I dirtied every spatula in my house today.

Necessary expenditures.

I have demonstrated in the past my facility with buying things.  I am a skilled spender of moneys.  But there is the odd psychological corner where I'm almost incapable of parting with dollars, no matter how urgent the need.  Like for sweatpants, say.

Joel had to buy me a new pair last Christmas to replace those treasures, which were given to me by an old roommate in 2001 who had in turn gotten them from a thrift shop.  They were many hands old.  I had to wear them over shorts to maintain any mystery.

Since I married Joel I've stopped buying gym shoes from Payless and wearing them for years (and, oddly, my knees have much improved) but I hold out on other gym strip items until the last second.  These shorts I accidentally stole from a different old roommate (sorry, Chels) and wore into the ground.

I bought new shorts for $12 and they shrunk IMMEDIATELY but I refuse to stop wearing them or to buy new ones because I'd rather expose my upper-upper-thighs to the world than spend another $12 on something like gym shorts.

Yesterday Joel and I took our annual trip to the Boxing-Week mall to spend our Christmas cheques.  Joel only clothes-shops once a year, so he has to get a new EVERYTHING, but I only spent $14 because I am going to New York in May (you may recall).  I did buy a new $5 yellow tank, because $5 yellow tanks are my go-to layering option, and also my jogging garment of choice.  Every year the new $5 yellow tank becomes my layering-tank, and the old layering-tank replaces the jogging-tank, which gets turfed for indecent exposure and loss of attractive mustardyness.  Behold.

It looks like a detergent commercial.

The caloric consumption continues apace.

Homemade hot cocoa, with homemade marshmallows.

Toasted.

The food-torch is earning its keep with a vengeance.

Excuse my radio silence.

I have been in Chilliwack, doing Chilliwackean things like snuggling puppies and going for a jog along the Vedder River and watching BALD EAGLES FIGHT EACH OTHER IN THE AIR.  Chilliwack is The Wilds.

Also, I was given a créme broulee torch for Christmas and have been using it to light candles. 

This is why I can't have nice things.

Robson Square!

So tall!

So full of bodies!

So festive!

Winter Solstice Lantern Festival!

Lanterny!

Ethereal!

Full of hippies playing wooden tubas.

It's Christmas time!

The chocolate flows like water.

We went to the German Christmas market.

There were bratwursts.

And Santa.

And (obviously) giraffes.

Best Christmas ever already.

We have stepped into the holiday whirlwind and there is a great deal of bacon involved.  Also, we went to a wedding last night and I met the Colonel.

Miles to go before I sleep, and all that.

My last exam is tonight at 7 (I know, right?) but I still owe Joel a birthday dinner from last January so we're going out at 4, which means that I have just under eight hours to study and pack for the mainland.  After the exam we're going out for drinks and tomorrow we catch an early ferry to make a wedding on the mainland.  I like to give myself lots of time between THINGS in case something goes wrong, so I am feeling distinctly itchy about all these back-to-back time-sensitive activities.

I've been reading theory for the last two days, and saved all the easy ones for this morning so I could whiz through them, which means I'm reading an overwhelming pile of feminist and post-colonial theory.  Everyone is so angry, but at least they refrain from saying things like 'the center is not the center' and 'a superabundance of supplementarity,' so I can deal with a little rage.

There are many things yet to do, and I don't think I will feel settled until we get to the wedding tomorrow.  Preferably on time.

It never ends. Except that, on Friday, it will end.

I am done a final, and it was the most poorly-constructed final of my life.  I will go on a bit of a tear after the grades are in and I am no longer secretly afraid that my prof will find me shooting my mouth off over here (he seems like the type).  Let's just say that I think I pulled it out.

Upon completion of which, I received my final paper back and phew.  My cleverly-arranged nonsense had all the appearance of scholarship.  And you're all, Raych, you are being modest.  But nay.  If I were to give you this paper to read, the academically-minded among you would be all, But this is just a series of digressions on Jane Austen, loosely tacked to Northanger Abbey!  And I would be all, *nods smugly*

I am trying to resist the siren song of literally everything that is not my theory final, but my theory final looms large.  I have just over two days.  Come here, Saussure, and I will read you.

Last Weekend, in Bullets

To save time:

• I thought boo and I were frugal fiends because we found dresses for $16.50 until I found this gal and her dress-a-day-for-a-dollar.  Now I want to go buy up some muumuus and snip them into summer frocks.
• Boo and I bought the same dress for $16.50.  Also we bought the same ruffled tank.  Eventually our entire wardrobes will be doppelgangers.
• I want to make out with Vancouver Public Transit and its many, largely punctual buses.
• I held a Baby Byrd.  Also, Momma Byrd looks amazing.

• We went to boo's in-laws' for her birthday dinner, and there were more dessert options than dinner eats.
• I have a Chinese cousin now.

• Also, unless you are the wedding photographer, taking photos at a wedding is an exercise in your camera's weaknesses.  On the other hand...
• Something about a camera flash makes everyone's hair look shiny and healthy, when we know otherwise.

• Everyone is so good to me.  Thanks for chauffeuring my car-less ass all over town, boo and Darren and mom and dad (and, when I got back to the island, Joel).

Back to the grindstone, nose.

I am just going to rest for a minute.

I finished my annotated bibliography and handed it in and then met with my supervisor and then finished my paper and handed that in and then ran an errand and then ran a more different errand and soon I have to go wrassle some munchkins and then have snacks and wine with the girls until I tap out because I am exhausted and I think I've been accidentally hot-boxing myself with a Glade candle and it has made me ill.