Now with extra triumph!!!

My student loans came through today, so I paid for my tuition online, forgetting that that always takes a few business days and that tuition is due on Sunday (which, ftr, is an idiotic day to have anything due on), but instead of playing the Will My Online Payment Go Through In Time Game (which is equally, if not MORE fun, than its predecessor), I hoofed down to the school to see what my worst-case-scenario would be.

They honor tuition the day it's paid, regardless of when it comes in, so no fees for me. No being withdrawn from my classes. No frowny faces on my bank statements.

I will celebrate with cupcakes.

In which I am an ingrate.

So, sad face. We've been having this beautiful weather, and we have this deck and a couple of bottles of cheap wine and some frozen mango and I think a bag of chips somewhere and I'm not very busy because I only have the one class and papers are in the only vaguely forseeable future. But Joel's in the middle of finals and spends his days locked in a room at school with no windows.

So while I'm having a great time reading trashy fiction in the sun, it'd be nice if Joel could also be reading trashy fiction (or some serious, manly non-fiction) with me, but by the time he's done and able to spend time on the deck I'll be taking Vic Lit and Spanish, and you're all, That's not a big deal, that's, like, two classes, but what you don't realize is that it's a full semester of Spanish in 3 weeks which is like being KICKED IN THE TEETH WITH SPANISH!!!

So, boo. My life is awesome, but could be more awesome.

Triumph!!

It worked. The Recycling Snobs had no choice but to pick up our re-usables. I am filled with the thrill of victory.

Also, go here to hear me blather on about why, despite all its failings, Top Model = awesome.

This is a fun game.

Will the student loans come through before tuition is due?

The 'Yes, you get money' email came yesterday, tuition is due on Sunday. There are three more working days for all those dollars to filter through the red tape into my account.

*holds breath*

Another peep into my inbox.

Dear Landlords,

Please come back and install the blinds that you installed the supports for back in January, so that I can do my Yoga Booty Ballet (which is just as ridiculous as it sounds, but also surprisingly awesome) without the neighbors joining in.

Thx.

Raych


Dear Frozen Bananas,

I hope you are actually good for me, and not all just in my subconscious, because I have been eating a lot of you, and mostly dipped in chocolate. I suspect that there are more calories in you than you allege. I have been Yoga Balleting my Booty, so you watch yourselves.

Love,

Raych


Dear Sunny Deck,

Let's make out.

Love (even more than the bananas),

Raych


Dear Vanity Fair (the book, not the magazine),

You are long. I thought Edgar Sawtelle was long, but you do not seem to end. Also, due to all of your pages, you are heavy and difficult to read on the aforementioned deck. You require two hands to hold, hampering my ability to eat a frozen banana. If you could please conclude sometime in the next hundred or so pages, I would be much obliged.

With respect for your place in literary history, if not a lot of love,

Raych

Frozer

Joel and I recently acquired a half-sized deep freeze (thx, parents!!) and since I have all this space now, I've been experimenting with things that can and cannot be frozen (note: most everything can be frozen. The lone exception, I think, is booze. Anyway, the experiment has more to do with the relative deliciousness of frozen things to their pre-froze selves).

Things that are just as good after being frozen: meat.

Things that are better after being frozen: bananas, mangoes (eat while frozen or in the process of thawing. Do not thaw and then eat. That will be gross).

Things that are more gross almost to the point of being inedible after being frozen: potatoes, and I'm going to guess, apples.

Stay tuned, I'll be here all summer.

It's like a math problem, without any of the math.

We've embarked on a multi-week experiment, tentatively titled Getting the City to Pick Up Our Recycling, Since They're So Damned High-and-Mighty About Green Living.

A few weeks ago, we came home on recycling day to find our bins still heaped with soggy pizza boxes (ours) and free-range organic egg cartons (the troll in the basement's). There was one of those Things You're Doing Wrong notes, but it didn't make any sense, so I went online last week to see what was and wasn't allowed in the surprisingly strict Victoria recycling guidelines. Juice boxes and creamo cartons are, apparently, verboten. We took out all the contraband and even took a stab at sorting, but nothing doing.

The troll did a bit of recon last week (read: peeped in our neighbor's recycling to see how they do, and then spied on the recycling guys from the basement window) and figures that since the one guy gave the impression of being unable to lift our bin full of empty milk jugs and ketchup containers, that we should split up our goods into three bins instead of two. Because city workers are fragile types. The guys only come by every two weeks, so we'll have to sit on this idea for a while and try not to eat anything that comes in boxes or cans in the meantime.

If this fails, we have another idea or two up our sleeves, but it's tempting to just start hucking things in the garbage. I mean, I'm all for recycling with minimal effort, but if I'm blogging about this it means that I've had to put entirely too much thought into it.

The day of the mother!

Ok, because I start classes this week, I couldn't get out to the mainland to day to fete my mother like she deserves, and my parents are socially useless on Sundays anyways, so last Thursday, having lied to my mother about when classes actually start so that she wouldn't suspect nothing, I got up early and caught a myriad of buses and the ferry and was picked up by my dad and sister who had also lied to my mother about where they were going. Une surprise!!

But because mothers are busy people, most of the Great Mother's Day adventure involved me hanging out with boo, and watching Project Runway with mom when she had a minute.

Also, making my famous brownies-that-have-cookie-dough-in-them for her and then helping her eat them. In the process, boo and I discovered why we both have crop-circles-of-grease on so many of our shirts (this picture is poor proof, but they're there), and it has to do with using the torso as a third hand when putting the cap back on the Pam.



But the brownies. They were only supposed to be a small batch but then we figured we'd better use the bigger pan, since we were tossing all these cookies (HA! See what I did there?) into the batter, but then we ended up not having enough brownie to cover the cookie dough, so we made a second batch of brownie and schmeared that on too.
.

No pictures of the finished product, because we ate it. And then we went for a run. Behold the evidence! I'm putting my hand in what is not actually a pocket here, to emphasize the fact that WE ARE CLOTHING-TWINS!!!

By which I mean that mom and boo are clothing-twins, since I didn't bring any of my de-fatting gear and had to borrow mom's. Koala is in this picture to make us look thin. We ran around Deer Lake park, and the balance of power seems to have shifted so that instead of boo trying to keep up with me because I am the older sister, I was huffing and puffing to keep up with her, because I am the older sister.

.

And we watched a really depressing hockey game and half of the first season of Arrested Development and went shopping and I bought the same shirt in 3 different colors because they were on for cheap and went to go see a friend of boo's perform (boo did the artwork for her cd, and it's stellar, but I can't find it online anywhere) and watched some more Project Runway and then I came home.

.

The end.

.

Ed. The recipe for the brownies is as follows: Buy a bag of Chipits and make half of the chocolate chip cookie recipe on the back, because it really is the best one. Make your favorite brownie recipe, or whatever one you can find on the internet that has the word 'intense' or 'explosion' or 'best' in it. Grease a 13x9 pan, do not use your midriff to close the Pam because it will leave a crop-circle. Make blobs out of half of the cookie dough (mine were golf-ball-ish sized) and put those in the pan. Flood with brownie batter (if necessary, make more brownie batter). Make blobs of the rest of the cookie dough and put them on top, kind of trying to place them where there isn't already cookie dough beneath, but it doesn't really matter. Also, don't bother trying to smooth down the cookie lumps, everything will flat out in the oven. Cook for 40-ish minutes, or until toothpick inserted etc etc. Cool and eat.