Gifties from yonder.

Ok so, I've had the flu, which is unpleasant.  Also a lot of things due this week, which is worse.  But I handed my thesis in today after trimming 260 words off to get it below the word count (which was difficult.  I needed all those words).  So that's good.

Also, when I am too sick to leave the house, no one gets the mail which means MUCH MAIL when I am well again (I am mostly well.  I had things to hand in, which is why I showered and dressed and went to class), including a PACKAGE from PRAGUE!

I had planned on doing a whole photo-spread of the gifties but then Joel put his tie clip away somewhere and I packed the Christmas ornament from Bethlehem (!) into our Christmas stuff without thinking and then we ate the Lion bar even though I still feel seedy, but LOOKIT.  Earrings!

They look like spines.  Or ribs.  They feed into my love of the skeletal, anyway(which reminds me that this is the year I need to find Sam Skellington a pair of bunny ears for Easter.  He has the exact wrong head size for everything).

Thanks, Mike and Leah!  You'll have to come over for goulash when you get home, and then translate the instructions on the back of the goulash packages, because I don't speak Czech.

My Christmas present.

Slightly belated, but also just in time.

This'll be the year.

I am six degrees from done. My degree! Oh, unintentional puns.

I am working on a CanLit paper that is due tomorrow.

I have a critique due Tuesday.

My thesis final draft is due on Friday.

My theory term paper is due on the 8th.

My thesis defense is on the 13th.

My CanLit final is on the 20th.

At that point, you may feel free to stick a fork in me.

If I don't blog today then I will be stuck in that post-sad-news blogging gulf and there is no easy way out of there.  We are all very sad over here.  Grandma had an excellent last run and, as Katie pointed out, at least there were hot wings.

It's hard to be so far from my family right now.  My sister is trying to move into her new house and prepare for her new puppy, and I am trying to work on two assignments due early this week, and we are all trying to deal with what it means to not have Grandma with us now and not think ahead to the next family gathering when she isn't somewhere slipping morsels to Koala.

Look at those two comrades.

So here we are, in this new space where Grandma's not sick anymore but she's not here either, and we have to figure out how this works.

Thanks for your nice words, friends.

I don't really have anything to add to this:

http://rebekahjoyplett.blogspot.com/2011/03/international-womens-day.html

I flossed yesterday, like that's going to do any good.

We are not dentist-goers, my family.  We avoid the dentist with vigor and guile.  But my UVic dental coverage (such as it is) runs out at the end of April, so I'm going for a check-up and power-wash clean today.

The dental history form is embarassing.  When was your last check-up?  Prior to 2007, but more specifically than that I can't say.  How often do you floss?  Never.  Does food get stuck between the gaps in your teeth?  All the damn time.

I have been dreading this for days.

Today has been springy, please send more of the same.

Many things are good.

I handed in the first draft of my theory paper yesterday, so now I don't have to think about it for a week.

My second reader got back to me (via my supervisor, who I emailed slightly panicked yesterday morning) and has no suggestions for revision (what? and also woot.) so now I don't have to think about my thesis until I go defend it in two weeks.  I will probably still poke at it, taking semi-colons out and putting them back in, but I don't have to.

Grandma is still hanging in there, so I might get to see her again in a week and a half when I go see my sister's new house and new puppy AIEEEE PUPPIES!

Joel is on-call tonight, which is bad, but it means I will have popcorn and cake for dinner, which is good.

I had blocked today off to revise my thesis, but since such revisions are deemed unnecessary (eeee!) and since it is sunny like the springtime I concocted some downtown errands and then ran them.

Downtown Victoria is very pretty all the time, but it is absurdly pretty in the sunshine because then the enormous tulips don't seem quite as ludicrous.

It was, importantly, sunny and warm.  I wore a light coat.  Unzipped.  No scarf, no boots, almost no leggings (but in the end, leggings, because downtown is plagued by shady bits [as in sunless and cold, not as in dodgy]).

Many much more of this, thanks.

I am fretting the littlest bit.

Did I mention that my thesis is due Friday?  (I know I did.  My tenterhooks are on tenterhooks about this.)

I haven't gotten it back from the second reader yet.  I emailed her today.  She's part of my reviewing panel as well, but there are few ways to say Are you done yet? without sounding at least a little antagonizing.

The end of the semester is temporally so near (less than three weeks!) but still so far away in terms of shittogetdone.

A more difficult new trick.

Ok so sometimes to soothe myself I go for runs and sometimes I bake tasty treats and overall it evens out.  (Right?)

I bought a bag of Meyer lemons the other day because they were beautiful

but now I'm all, Lemons, hey?  So today I made a graham cracker crust (i.e. crust for lazy people)

some lemon curd (photo omitted due to partial botching and general unattractiveness) and merangue.  Meringue?  Merannnng?  Egg whites.

My first ever one (two) of these.  Since Joel and I like treats even when there are no guests, I'm an old hand at making full-dessert portions into half-dessert portions (ok, this is technically 2/3 of a pie, but we will each only be eating one of them, so we're each only eating 1/3 of a pie, savvy?).

I couldn't get the egg whites as stiff as I wanted (I blame the supermoon) and I may later wish I had cooked them longer.  But for now they sit on the counter and taunt and wait until after dinner.  I'll let you know how it turns out.

Updated: 6:45 pm

The lemon was only botched for attractiveness, not for deliciousness, so that's fine.  It did switch places with the crust (for which I also blame the supermoon) so I would probably balls up and make a real crust next time.  The mer...the egg whites were perfect though.



At least I got the difficult bit right.  The other bits I can do better next time.

Thanks for nothing, supermoon.

In which things get way better at the end.

Let it be taken as axiomatic that I hate running.  Let it further be stated, however, that I hate writing this paper orders of magnitude more than I hate running, and that rather than work on it I went for a run IN THE SUNSHINE with stupid Ke$ha blaring at me (seriously, sometimes that girl sounds so disaffected I want to smack her).

But this paper.  It is taking forever because I have to think everything through three times before I put it down, and then have to follow it immediately with some sort of That is not to say that the patriarchial hegemonic discourse etc.  It will be half paper and half me covering my ass.

In other, cheerier news, someone I know met their puppy-to-be today, and in exactly two weeks *I* will meet that puppy, and I will snuggle its face with my face.

I am drowning my stress in chocolate chips from the bag.

My thesis final draft is due in a week (we think.  There's some ambiguity, but we're pretty sure it's due next Friday) and hasn't come back from my second reader yet.  I have two papers and a quiz and a reader response due next week, which I need to get done NOW because WHO KNOWS HOW MUCH REVISION YE OLDE THESIS WILL NEED?  Potentially 'lots.'  Hopefully 'little.'  All fairy godmothers summoned for 'none.'

I'm hoping it has taken her this long to read because a.) she is busy, b.) she forgot to read it, c.) she forgot that she hasn't returned it to me, and not d.) she had to go buy a new carton of red pens for all the red-penning she is doing.

I will be less stressed out when it goes in for its final mark-up, because at that point there's nothing I can do for it (until the defense, at which point I will be stressing out all over again and frantically searching out my most sweat-proof shirts).

So here I am on a Friday afternoon chewing my nails and researching a paper on the rights of critical authority, i.e. can white people write critically and theoretically about works by people of color.  This is a subject I know ZERO THINGS about and about which I am frantically trying to educate myself, and I am sure to accidentally say some racist things because if my Canadian Lit class has taught me one thing, it's that I'm incapable of speaking with complete discretion, please stop shouting at me, girl in the back row, I am trying.

Time to go Read More Things in an attempt to not put my foot in it.

Joel and I will be wandering off later in search of green beer.

In the meantime, Sam Skellington would like to wish you a happy St Paddy's.

He is looking quite rakish, I think he has been tippling early.

On Sunday we went out to the mainland to see Grandma.  She's in hospice, and had overheard someone in another room talking about a party and thought it was for her.  Are you throwing me a party? she asks and my aunt is all...Yes?  Good, she says.  Make sure there are hot wings.  I will have hot wings at my party.  Also, I will need someone to do my hair and nails.  I can do my own lipstick.

So we throw her a party and there are hot wings. 

Tell Matt to bring his guitar, she says.  He can play me that song he knows I like.

So Matt brings his guitar, and Jordan brings his sax, and someone finds a keyboard in another room and drags it over, and Grandma muses about how, when she was young, her family gatherings always had music.  Me and Bekah look at each other like, Ours too.

Sandy tells the story of how she almost burned down the house, and James tells the story of how he almost burned down the house, and then we talk about all the trees dad has fallen out of.  Grandma dozes, or looks to be dozing, but just when you think she's out of it she opens an eye to tell you how it actually happened.

Dad brings her a cupcake cake and she blows out all the candles.  No boyfriends.

When it's time to go home, the people-mover-crane puts her back in her bed, and we all crawl onto it to say goodbye.

I was talking to Robyn later and Robyn says she looks ill, but not sad, which is spot-on, and for this we are very grateful.

After we move, and then move again, I'm getting All New Things.

Our can-opener doesn't work.  Or, it works, but badly and only at a certain angle and most often not even then.  I no longer enjoy opening cans (unless they are of whoop-ass, obviously) and avoid any meal with beans.  I miss you, beans.

Our microwave also does not work.  More specifically, the START button only works if you do a very specific dance and offer up a sacrifice, and since I am fresh out of virgins or unicorns I had to melt butter for brownies in a pan the other day like a chump.

I have gone on at length about how our car cannot be unlocked from the driver's side, but now it also smokes from the console sometimes.  Sporadic testing has not been able to determine whether this is related to using the heater.

All the padding came out of one of the handles of my errands-running-bag, and now that handle slices my shoulder-top.

But my body is humming away like gangbusters, so I think I'm good.

Slowest movie-watchers ever.

Remember how we have Netflix now?  We are early sleepers so it usually takes us two nights (or more) to get through a movie.  We've been watching the Rocky films because I haven't seen them, and they are surprisingly funny and fairly sweet.  I misted up at the end of Rocky II.  Also, each Rocky contains at least two training montages and one airing of 'Eye of the Tiger' or a reasonable facimile.  I like.

We just finished the one where he fights the Russian automaton.  I especially enjoyed the bit where they're holding a press conference and the automanton's younger brother with make-up wife is all, You think that we are so evil and you are so good, that we are so vicious and you are somehow so virtuous, and Joel and I are like, Yes, that is an apt description of the American mentality.  How astute, Rocky IV.  But somehow this very sensible observation just feeds the Russians are eeeeevil maw.  The following training montage shows the Russian training with Science (there are graphs and hilarious, Shopping-Network-esque workout machines, and things that go Bleep bloop!) and Rocky chopping logs and hauling sleds of rock over snowy terrain as if to say They may be kicking our asses technologically, but we have, you know, heart.  USA! USA! USA!

Last night we finished Diary of a Wimpy Kid and watched a documentary on Tool/A Perfect Circle/Pucifer front man Maynard James Keenan who apparently owns and operates a vineyard and winery in Arizona now.  I couldn't tell if he was making fun of the documentary format, or making fun of me for caring what a rock star does in his spare time, or making fun of rock stars or oinologists or himself or whatever but there are ironic, jokey bits that suggest he is making fun of someone.  Something is not being taken entirely seriously here, and it's unnerving not to be able to nail it down.

On the other hand, I would like to fondle a large batch of grapes now.

Movie-ing on!

This is sort of a rock and a hot-plate.

If you go clothes-shopping when you have bread-body and don't like your face, you won't buy anything because nothing will look good on you. 

However. 

If you go clothes-shopping when you are feeling fit about yourself and you like your hair and your face is fine too, you will think everything looks good on you and you will accidentally buy too many coats because it is spring and they are all on sale.  It is not until you get home that you will wonder whether they will still look good on you when you no longer like your hair.

He is trying to fatten me up. Little does he know I had cake while he was gone.

Joel brought me a present.

We had Jelly Bellys at our wedding, you may recall.

I am trying not to eat them for dinner.

Pucker up, loves.

My girlfriend Alicia is in town from the mainland this weekend so last night she and Fritha and I went to Pagliacci's (I had the tortellini and, of course, the bread) and this morning we ran a 5k (just over 25 minutes, which means that if I can run a little faster and sustain the pace I can do a 10k in less than 50).

There are no pictures, since we were too busy eating in the first case and too busy running in the second.  Instead, here's a picture of the strawberries I bought at Costco yesterday, one of which would like to kiss you.

Two posts in one day! I clearly have homework I'm not doing.

Shannon and I went to Costco.  The joke about Costco is that you end up buying a 4-gallon jar of mustard you didn't need.  This is both hilarious and only a joke because who buys the 4-gallon jar of mustard?  Why do they sell the 4-gallon jar of mustard?

The five-litre jug of olive oil, on the other hand...

Garlic clove both for scale and companionship.

My ancestresses would be proud.

Did I mention that I made gnocci one time?  How could I not have mentioned it, it took like half the day.

I made butternut squash gnocci one time, and it took, like, half the day but it also made a million so I threw half-a-million into the freezer and the other day we had gnocci and all I had to do was boil water.

Have I indeed shot the sherrif?

Fashion question for you, my little peas and carrots.  How do we feel about superfluous belts?

I have come tardily to the Belt Train but I have come with vigor (and belts).  I love the shit out of the belt-at-natural-waist but regard it as not entirely superfluous since it serves the dual purpose of breaking up a shirt and of saying see how skinny I am right here.  Comme ça.

But the hip-belt-that-is-not-through-my-belt-loops literally does nothing outside of  making me feel like a gunslinger.

*pow pow*

I like it, me.  I have a fondness for gunslingers.  But I religiously matched my slouch socks to my oversized t-shirt for all of 7th grade, so my fashion choices haven't always been winners.

What think ye?  Viable alternative to being pinched at the waist (where I least like to be pinched)?  Or too gunslingery (is there such a thing? *pow*)?

Needless to say, the snow has melted.

I went for a run today because I just remembered that I'd signed up for a 5k with some girlfriends this Sunday (remembering that I'd signed up and then going for a run is the reason I sign up for 5ks in the first place) and it was actually hot out.  Gloves were a bad choice, and I had to stop and peel off my outermost layer or risk overheating (nipping into a side-street first, obviously.  Taking off clothing on a busy street is the most honk-inducing thing you can do).

I know I blather on about the weather quite a bit this time of year, but SPRING! IS! COMING!  I can't help but hail it.  I love summer for its shorts and bare feet and beaches and sunscreen and I love spring for the anticipation of those things.  It's like the build-up to Christmas.  The sun comes out and suddenly everyone is smiling and strangers high-five you on the street.  This spring in particular I will be graduating and entering the final year of my 20s and going to New York and I am on TENTERHOOKS about it all.  I am trying not to rush this, then, the first day with my naked shoulders out in the sun.

I don't want to like it but, so help me, I do.

In the hour or so of the day that I spend specifically not doing homework (I mean, I spend more than that in a day eating or sleeping.  I mean the time where I should be doing homework and am not, or think I'm doing homework and am not, or sat down to do homework and am not.  Savvy?) I was alerted by Katie the Interrobanger to Ke$ha's new video, which I find unsettlingly entertaining.

The song itself lacks Ke$ha's usual earworminess but the video kicks off with the girl explaining to two people with unicorn heads how she was elected to congress (So I said, Bear?  You have zero seconds to put on some pants and apologize to the president.) and then she eats some Meunster and dances with James van der Beek, who is the subject of my favorite emotimage

emoticons are insufficient for my online emotion-expressing needs

and then they shoot at each other with rainbow-guns.  THERE ARE PUNS!  It is silly but it is delightfully silly and I dig it.  You have won this round, dollar-sign.