Finally! On several levels.

Hi! It's me! I know, it hardly counts as NoBloPoMo if all I'm doing is scrawling a quick 'nothing to say.' But today I bring things to say!!! With pictures!!

Ok, so. Who has ghey bangs? It's me! I have ghey bangs! Also boo does. See? See how awful our bangs are, and how sloppy and blah our hair colors are? I know. How do we even go out in public?



Here we are trying to take a serious picture, and looking terribly tired. Do you see? Seriousness = bag-face.




Ok, so! New hair colors!! And I know, we bought the same color. But different brands! We're trying.

Also, somebunny needs a shower!

Ok, so! New bangs! New hair-ends! Healthiness and bounce!!!!

Huzzah for sister-days!

Rain check?

Ok, I know, worst NaNoBloPo ever, but I do have stories for you. UnFORtunately, Joel and I just watched some spin-off of Get Smart that wasn't actually Get Smart like we thought it was, and now I'm going asleep. Toots.

Last-minute post!

Shhhh, it is late and I am the sleepy.

Schnuggles!

Dear live continuous stream of baby puppies,

Why are the puppies always sleeping? I would like to watch them romp. Please install a Facebookian 'poking' application, so that I can poke one of the puppies. Perhaps all of the puppies.

Sincerely,

Waster McTime

Time for some sleuthing!

I forgot to mention that my last post was my 500th. Woooo, 500 posts! 501!! Yeahh!

Ok, so there's a mystery, and it's quite late and I've had a bit of wine so it's possible that it's no mystery at all, BUT! I made potatoes with tuna and cheese for supper, and as I'm leaving I'm all, Joel, can you clean this up (meaning 'put it in the fridge so we can eat it again tomorrow'). I just got home...the potatoes aren't on the counter where I left them, but they aren't in the fridge either (we have a small, emptyish fridge, so I'd see them). They aren't in our tiny freezer, nor accidentally in the cupboard.

WHERE ARE THE POTATOES?

Joel is sleeping, and I'm obvs not going to wake him up to ask him such a dumb question, but I've looked ALL over the kitchen, AND the living room, AND snuck a peek in the bedroom just in case he took them in there to finish them off and forgot to bring the pan back out.

Ghosts have eaten our potatoes. I was going to have them for lunch tomorrow. Ghosts have some answering to do.

Candy = brain rot

Whew! I almost forgot! Blogging everyday is hard, y'all! But you wouldn't blame me, right, if I told you I just got home from school? Just now? It was a long day. These group projects are killing me.

In other news, Obama is president! So sad that his grandma died yesterday, but at least we can all heave a sigh of relief that this'll never happen. Now we can all laugh freely, instead of laughing uneasily while we voodoo her behind closed doors.

I et halloween candy for supper. I need to start swimming MORE laps. Did I mention that I bought a swim cap, and that I look like a purple-headed tadpole? Also, that I left my bathing suit top at the pool today? Hawhoops.

Oh, nope. I found it. It schwas in the wash.

Dear Raych, you are not making any sense.

Well you weren't at school all day, doing word-math! So give a girl a break, no?

It is time to find some salty.

It is time for function to triumph over form

Dear Girls Wearing Tights Under Your Short-Shorts,

I know. Every time I talk about how tights aren't pants and how you can't wear them as such, I mention both 'under skirts' and 'under shorts IF YOU NEED TO' as ways you can wear them. However, you no longer need to. I don't know how to convey this to you. We are no longer in the 'Let's still pretend it's summer' segment of fall. We have entered into the rainy-ass almost-winter portion, and it is cold. It is damp.

I KNOW! This means that all other legs are covered up, and your legs are getting all the leg-ttention. Bully for you. But you could just, I don't know, wear a pair of really tight pants, couldn't you? Even leggings would be better than this.

Sincerely, The Girl in Gumboots. No, the other one. Not the designer expensive gumboots, the ones from Superstore. Little-boys section.

It's the days after Halloween that make me fatter

Fun-sized chocolate bars are the snooze-button of the candy world. Are you going to sleep for another hour? Hells no! But I will sleep for these tiny, bite-sized, individually-wrapped seven minutes. And then these. And then these.

I kind of appreciate all the individual environmentally-havocal wrapping, though, because that way there's no lying to yourself. When you wake up in the morning and there're 19 tiny OHenry wrappers next to your pillow, you know what you did.

NaBloPoMo

Hey kids! As per usual, it's the day after Halloween and I'm doing this thing again where you have to listen to me talk every day for all of November. I know, fun!

Be prepared, though, for a lot of nothing. Today, par example, we'll be talking about persimmons!

So, all of a sudden last fall I'm allergic to apples and can't eat them anymore, because they give me the death. Frown. Since then, I've been looking for a new grab-and-go fruit with little success.

Oranges: peeling them is work, and then your hands are sticky.

Grapefruits: ditts.

Bananas: WILL bruise in your bag, no matter how careful you are.

Seasonal berries: are seasonal. Also, easily mashed.

Melon: requires pre-thinking and cutting.

H'anyvays, today I grabbed a persimmon or two from my happy Asian food mart. Persimmons are tasty! Who knew! And if you get the ones that look like tiny squashed pumpkins (why does all fall produce look the same?) then you don't even have to peel them!

I know that, like berries, they also are seasonal, and that in a few weeks I'll be back to my bruised bananas and my sticky grapefruits, but for now (provided they aren't some secret apple-kin and I don't get sick in the next hour), I'll be chucking a persimmon in the old backpack for mid-class snackerings. Zoot zoot!

I'm such a Suzie Homemaker

I need to have some babies so that they can grow up and go to kindergarten and have Halloween parties so I that can make apple-pie mummies for them.

Also punkins and ghosts.

Alas. I will have to eat these by my lonesome.

A little lexical switcheroo

It has come to my attention that the phrases 'douche-bag' and 'ass hat,' while inherently amusing, have become so overused that they have ceased to mean anything at all.

I move that, in order to preserve some very fine phraseology while introducing a bit of novelty, that we switch to 'douche-hat' and 'assbag.' 'Douche-hat' is a little awkward when spoken aloud, but 'assbag' makes up for it both in roll-off-the-tonguery and in visual image hilarity.

Anyone second the motion?

Because somethings are too funny not to share

H'ok, so for each of my classes we have an online discussion board. For two classes, the online discussion makes up part of our participation. The one that doesn't give us marks is, sadly, the most active of all the boards (although most of the post are some poorly-spelled variant of 'I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO THE ASSIGNMENT PLS HELP!! [more sadly, a large majority of those posts are mine]). Alas.

H'anyvays, for my one linguistics class, we're all talking about the midterm and about linguisticky things, and then this one girl posts:

hi.i came across some religious languages...the archaic ones..thats used when writing holy books such as bible and ramayan...

andi was also watching this television series FRIENDS (the best comedy series ever :-D).........one of the characters in friends studies dianosaurs..

this brought a question into my head - why arent dinosaurs mentioned in the holy books?....they do mention evolution and othet animals...why not dinosaurs?...

To which: many things. How exactly did you 'come across' these archaic languages? Did you spontaneously learn them? Find them in the gutter? Inquiring minds...

Also, 'this television series' you speak of sounds dull. Who wants to watch a man study dianosaurs?

Also, in which holy book is evolution mentioned? The Origin of Man, in its original Sanskrit?

And then some guy is all, Man wrote the holy books and probably had not yet discovered dinosaurs by the time he did so, and then there's a bunch of other jibber-jabber and our prof comes on and seizes on some linguistic matter mentioned in passing and tries to steer the conversation thataway.

So then this same girl opens up a new discussion topic and is all:

hey....what do you guys think about UFO"S and aliens?....

are they realy out there?.....has anyone experience anything relating to aliens ;-p.........?....i hope not...

but britain just released some secret files about alien sighting experience by different people including a pilot who reported he almost crashed into something ......too big to be flying and was too fast.......

what do we ordinary people think? ( and the spelling of people is funny isnt it)...

...? WTF? Secret files? And how big is 'too big to be flying'? Because space ships are, you know, big (side note: Paris Hilton is being sent into space I'm not even lying).

I wish I had some witty commentary on the state of our children, and how the internet is making us all dumber, but I really just wanted to give everyone a good laugh. Come, join me in the anonymous mockery!

Shameless self-promotion.

My new article is up at Back of the Book. I, uh...I give Britney Spears props. My seventeen-year-old self is spinning in its flannel-clad grave.

It must be mid-October.

I am the Duchess of MS Paint.

CLRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

The internet is full of people doing things together. Losing weight together, reading books together, getting shit done in their houses together. Tackle it Tuesday is a blogging kick in the pants for people who need to get off their asses and clean the garage or fix a pair of pants. I don't usually do it because I like wallowing in my own filth.

Then! CLR comes along and is all, We'll give some free CLR to your readers as long as they use it to clean something. Me, I'm all for free internet junk, AND my house is a disaster.

My plan was to let the kitchen get rully dirty before playing along, but instead I had midterms. Hey presto, dirty kitchen.

I know, right? I won't give you any close-ups because let's face it, kitchens are disgusting. Just imagine crusted sauce and dried cheese and and smears of nast. I will show you this:

My sink! The deepest sink in the world! The problem with deep sinks is that they hide all your dirty dishes, so you're lulled into this false sense of good-housekeepery. You finally get around to washing a thing or two, and you're there for hours. Also, deep sinks = mucho stooping. Who knew.

H'anyvays, I cleaned my sink with my regular generic-brand-with-bleach:

And then again with CLR Kitchen and Bathroom:

Ok, so it's not the blood of virgins, but it did a decent job. Half of that is missing paint anyways. CLR smells better than the death-bleach smell, and I wish I'd had it when we were moving out of Dave and Shari's and trying to get the soap scum off the shower by sheer force of will.

And the kitchen?

Ta-ta!!!!

Revel in it, folks. Luxuriate in my clean kitchen. This won't happen again until we move.

Obama roll

Ok, if I lived in the States, not only would I vote Obama, but I'd run around in the streets telling other people why they should vote Obama. I don't think I've ever felt this strongly about an election; I sure didn't about the recent Canadian one.

Political views aside, this me laugh so hard I almost cried. If you don't have 1:30 to spare, skip ahead to :40. You will positively die.

Also, who has this kind of time?

Things that I suck at, Vol. 278

If I've blogged about this before, you can skip to 'So today,' and if you're boo, you can skip the whole thing because I texted you in real-time.

Ok, so sometimes I suck at running errands. Most of the time, I am an errand champion. I take the bus and I have to haul everything around on my back, so I excel at plotting out my errand points from least-heavy/likely-to-go-bad to most-etc. Also, I like to streamline things so that I'm getting off and on the bus the fewest amount of times.

A couple of weeks ago, I head out erranding on a Monday. Wheee to the library! Except that the library isn't open on Mondays. Very well, whee to the bulk foods store! Except, also not open on Mondays. Errand fail.

A week or so later, I head up to the used book store which claims to buy used books, and I get there all, Hey, you guys buy books?

The lady behind the counter: 'Yes.'

Me: '...Want some books?'

Lady: 'No.'

Me: '...?'

Lady: 'We don't buy books on Tuesdays.'

????

So today, I'm going to take 2 buses to the library, and then one bus back to Dunbar where I have to get off anyways and switch buses, so while I'm off, I'm going to hit the bulk foods store, and then zip all the way down to Zellers for cans/boxes/snacks, and then the produce store (which will be awkward, because I will be full of cans/boxes/snacks as well as bulk food products and books, but it's either that or head to Zellers all bulky with produce, which is less forgiving) where I will also buy milk because milk! So heavy!

Except that when I get to the library at 9:30, it doesn't open until 10. I text boo all 'schnoo schnoo schnooo,' drop off my books, and head to the bulk foods store. I'd been counting on picking up some books since I finished the one I was on this morning, and now have nothing to do on the bus but try and avoid that guy's eye. H'anyvays, I get off at Dunbar and head to the bulk foods store...also not open until 10. Parallel lives, the bulk foods and library. While I'm staring at the store hours and growling, my bus to Zellers goes whizzing by.

Now, even if I go all the way to Zellers and the produce store, I'll still only have finished half my errands, and I'll have to spend the whole bus ride bookless. Also, I will have to wait for a bus. Sometimes, you just cut your losses, head to the IGA for cereal and milk, and walk home.

Boobie bake-off

Ok, so we've gotten to the point as a species where, if you've got boobers, you're almost guarunteed boober-cancer. So in an effort to save the ta-tas, the intarnets have introduced the Boobie Bake-off, wherein people bake (pink) things, other people pay to vote on them, and cancer loses.

SO! I made Mint-chocolate Mammograms. Deliciousness for all.

For the cookies:

1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cup flour
1/3 cup cocoa
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 or 2 eggs, beaten

Preheat oven to 350/180. Grease large cookie sheet.
Combine flour and cocoa. Cut in butter until fine. Stir in sugar.
Add enough beaten egg to form a soft dough. Roll to 1/8" and cut into rounds.





Bake about 15 minutes or until...they are still dark brown. Cool on wire rack.





For the frosting (this gets much less scientific):

A blob of butter, like, 2 golf-ball sized.
Powdered sugar...maybe a cup.
An eensy bit of milk or cream or half-and-half, whatever liquid dairy you have on hand.
Pink food coloring
Mint extract

Beaterize all the above. If too thick, add more milk. If too thin, add more sugar. I like it good and stiff for these, so that you can pile it on thick.



Blob frosting onto cookie.

Smoosh other cookie onto first (that's the 'mammogram' part).

Chuck into fridge until later so that frosting is less gishy.

Later, melt some chocolate - chocolate chips, chocolate bars, whatever - in the microwave until runny. Don't burn it.

Dip half of cookie into chocolate. Place on waxed/parchment paper and let set.

Eat and share with friends!

I am in a rut

All I have done for the last month, ALL I HAVE DONE! Is go to the doctor and phone Rogers.

So, I had to go to the doctor a few weeks ago for reasons that are personal and gross and which I will not share here. And then, remember when I rolled my ankle? I didn't go to the doctor then, because a rolled ankle isn't a big deal (even though it STILL HASN'T HEALED, FOUR WEEKS LATER!!!!!!), but then all of a sudden on Thursday the ball of my other foot is swollen, and then all of a sudden on Friday, the top of my foot directly above the ball is bruised, and that might be a big deal.

It isn't. But I had to go to the doctor to find that out.

Ok, and then also, this is the phone I've been using for the last five years.

It is compact and unbreakable and it wouldn't die. For five years, nothing I could do would make it die, and then it died, and besides, I really should start paying for my own phone. So waaaay back in September, Joel phoned Rogers and told them he wanted to cancel his plan, and then when they threw themselves prostate at his feet, he outlined all of the things that we would need in order to stay. Like new phones. For free.

A week later, this sweet baby came in the mail!

SO PINK!!! But Joel's didn't come, and my number had to be switched over besides, so we both phoned Rogers for our respective reasons, and then sat down to wait. Some days later, Joel's phone still hadn't come, and my number still hadn't been switched over, so we both phoned Rogers again. Joel's phone came, and my number switched, but hello! Our voicemails weren't working! So we both phoned Rogers again. The next day, my texting wasn't working, so I phoned Rogers again!!!

It's now been three whole days since I last phoned Rogers. I could sometimes kiss them for how helpful and eager and useful they are, but I hope to not phone them again for at least a month. Two would be nice. I went to the doctor today, and Joel is going later on this week (did I mention that all he has done for the last month is go to the doctor and phone Rogers? We live parallel, rutty lives), and then hopefully we will live lives of health for a good chunk of time.

I am internet-famous.

Yes, awesome. After years of being able to google my maiden name and find myself all over the place, I was pretty pissed to see how many Rachel Kruegers were out there. Finally, I show up on the first google page again.

Also, have I mentioned that I write the culture column here?

Things that make me feel old:

As I reach my twenty-six-and-a-halfth year, there are a handful of things around that are making me feel geriatric.

The cold. When did winters get to be so damned cold?

Teenagers. Especially ones in college. That were born in the nineties.

The fact that people who were born in the nineties are now in college.

My ankle. Remember how, when you were young, you'd hurt yourself and then a few days later, you'd be all, Oh! That scab has fallen off/bruise has gone away/bone has healed. Rad. So, last weekend (two full weeks after I rolled my ankle in the first place), I looked down and was all, Huh. Ankle is still fat. So I've been icing and elevating the hell out of it, and taking ibuprofen like candy (my stomach lining feels like crepe paper), and now you can sort of see the bump where my ankle-bone is. And I can almost sit cross-legged.

On the other hand, at least I'm younger than:

- Barbie,

- the Air Force,

- minute-rice,

- Pop-Tarts,

- Medicare,

- the CIA,

- the Pentagon,

- the Slinky,

- Sweet-n-Low,

- breast implants,

- the UN,

- Velcro,

- Alaska, and

- Spaghetti-O's.

And not everyone can say that.

When I have a midterm coming up and so everything everyone else does makes me crazy

Sometimes, the one side of people's phone conversations that I can hear makes me want to smack them.

Like the other day: 'Black....No, black....A black one....black....yes.....no, black....a black one...black.'

And then today: 'Where are you....in the SUB?.....Are you going to stay there?.....Are you....Are you going to stay there?....Are you going to stay there?.....Huh?'

Like, do you have the world's worst phone connection? Ever? Huh? What? Go outside and you can hear better.

I'm such a crank.

Eyeballs!

I have a HUGE midterm tomorrow and no time to study this evening, so I definitely shouldn't be doing this. But I'm kind of good at it (I KNOW!) and it's more fun than phonetic theory.

Some people....

I'm on the bus today going to the library (this always dilemmas me because I have to take 2 buses to get there, each one for maybe three minutes, and I always feel so dumb getting off RIGHT AFTER I've gotten on, but it would take over half an hour to walk there and it's all uphill. Such is life) and this woman who gets on at the same stop as me is all, Can you open a window? to me, and then to this other lady, You need to open a window. We need some air. And in my mind I'm thinking, Why don't you open your own damn window? The bus is totally un-full, and there are many windows you could open besides this one I'm sitting next to.

But it's one of the new buses and they have wacky windows and I don't know how to open it, and I'm only on the bus for a few minutes besides (see above), so eventually I'm all, Sorry, can't do it. And I sit down and wait the two seconds til we're at my stop and then I get off. This woman gets off at the same stop as me, which means that either the airless bus was killing her, or that she needed those windows open for all three minutes she was bussing.

H'ANYvays, so I'm trucking along and I hear, Excuse me! I turn, and it's this same lady. Where did you get your haircut! she says, but it's not like, Heyyyyyyyyyyyyy, nice hair! Where did you get it cut? It's more like, Where's the friggin cash register in this store! Like that. Also, I feel I need to add that I don't have a particularly great haircut right now. In fact, I have a fairly awful haircut that has grown out into a reasonable cut. Also, it was pulled back and therefore not visible.

In, uhhhhh, in Abbotsford, I say. So not here, she says. Uh....no. Abbotsford is neither here in Vancouver nor here on this street.

This appears to be all she wants from me, and she strides off, presumably in search of someone else with hair to ask where they got it cut. At least now she has fresh air.

It's that time again!! Where I remember to blog!

So, today in belly dancing (did I mention that I'm taking belly dancing? I am. It's hard) we practiced flexing first our top-ab muscles, and then our mid-ab muscles, and then our bottom-ab muscles. Some things in life are difficult.

Also, the ankle is healing nicely. It's only a little bit fat and a little bit green.

This weekend was mad busy. Boo and Darren joined me and Joel in attending Matt's concert, because he is a rock star. We are all glaringly old, and going out to a bar at 11:00 made us feel quite put-upon, but the band rocked hard and nobody fainted. Joel performed in an a capella choir for a memorial service the med students put on for the people who willingly sign their corpses over to be dismembered by over-achieving 22-year-olds. We went to a Stephen Pinker lecture which was hilarious and who, if you ever get a chance, I recommend you go see. I flexed all of my ab muscles separately (see above).

Also, I have had a raging head cold and my soft palate feels like sand. I eat nothing but grapefruits and soup all day long. We only have 5 mugs, and all I want to do all day is drink hot things, and the LAST thing I want to do is wash a mug, so I've designated them as tea-mug, straight-up-coffee-mug, sweet-powdered-coffee-mug, hot-water-by-itself-mug, and Neo-Citran-mug. Now I don't wash nothing.

Last night I had a Neo-Citran before bed and then a pile of bizarre dreams, most of which I can't remember. I do remember getting my new cell phone in the mail, and it being the size of a tv remote. If this happens, I will smash something. Also, I will start vending my prescient dreams.

I've got a bit of a cankle.

One of my feets needs to go on a diet.









So, I'm a crappy runner and need to stop sucking at things. Yesterday I'm running in the park, and I come around this corner at high speeds because it's my favorite part of the trail and it comes just after my least favorite part of the trail, and also because it means I'm halfway home. So I'm gunning it around this corner and I roll my ankle on a rock.



It hurts for a second and I say a few swears, but I'm really far from home and sweaty and it's cold out, and after I walk on it a few minutes, it seems fine and I'm able to run home on it. It's a little swollen by the time I get home, but I have things to do. I figure my boots will help support it for the day by, I don't know, crushing it from all sides, or something.



So I go and meet Joel at school and we have a study date with some of his med-buddies, and after a few hours I realize that no blood is getting to my one foot. So we're in there studying and I've got my one boot unzipped all the way down, looking like a tool.

Finally, I leave to go home, and as I come out of the building I see the bus. All this sitting and not moving has stiffened my ankle up so that I can hardly put weight on it, but the buses only run every half hour on Saturdays, and it's cold. So I gimp-run until I get close enough to see that it isn't my bus at all.

I go run some errands because we haven't got any food in the house, and by the time I get home I'm hobbling under the weight of my backpack, my laptop, my groceries, and my ridiculously oversized purse. I finally get around to stripping off my boots, and my ankle is swollen to thrice it's natural size.



The bruising is already halfway to awesome.

You HAVE to be nice to me today

I have a sticker that says so. And this isn't like the time I made them give me a 'Be nice to me - I gave blood today' sticker even though I fainted after the pricking so that I could stick it on my bio final and get an extra 2%. I actually GAVE BLOOD!

Ok, well, 2/3 of a bag. And then the blood stopped coming out and they readjusted the needle and I went a little grey and they cut me off.

But 2/3 of a bag! We're calling this a triumph. Not, like, a mighty triumph, but one that deserves cookies and juice.

Tis better to give, etc.

So, remember how blood does not seem like it's in me to give AT ALL? Because I faint? Before they start vampiring my arm?

So, Joel and I are going to go give blood tomorrow afternoon, and upon weighing the pros and cons of telling them that I'm a fainter (Pro: they will keep an eye on me. Con: to make sure I don't hook myself up to a bag, because there is no way they will let me donate) I have decided to just follow the advice of the last kind nurse to put cold cloths on my forehead and wrists.

So I'm eating big meals tonight and tomorrow lunch, drinking tons of water, and plan on shotgunning a juice right before I go in, and avoiding coffee. I'm also doing my usual iron-doping (red meat and spinach!! Also, but less interestingly, oatmeal). My mom can't give blood because of low iron levels. My sister likewise cannot give blood because she is, like me, a fainter (caveat: she managed to fill a bag before going under).

I'm confident that this time, THIS TIME, I will make it past the finger-pricking. Whether or not I make it to the arm-sticking is a different story. I'll let you know how things go.

I am TRYING to build up your self-esteem

Re: crossword puzzles


Joel:...I just wish I were better at them.

Me: You're quite good at them.

Joel: I'm awful at them.

Me: You're surprisingly good for a science major.

Joel:...That's like saying, For a guy in a wheelchair, you do a surprisingly good pole vault.

A day in which I get drunk on things that are not booze

Ok, it might be because I'm drunk on the whales we saw on the ferry (ok, not...the whales weren't on the ferry. We were on the ferry, and we looked off the ferry into the water, and there were whales), and it might be because I'm drunk on the sunshine, and it might be because I'm drunk on THE PLACE IN WHICH WE ARE GOING TO LIVE COME JANUARY WHICH HAS A DISHWASHER AND A PLUM TREE IN THE BACKYARD!!!!!, but Victoria is just about the prettiest little city I think I've ever seen. And I've been to Europe.

Ok, so Joel and I went to Vic today to check out a place for next semester, and we left the house at 8:15 and got to the place at 1:15, because that's what happens when you have no car. You take the bus, and then you take the other bus, and then you take the other bus and then the ferry. And then the bus, and then the bus, and then you walk a bit. And then later you do it all backwards to come home.

H'anyvays, the place is gorgeous and we have a BBQ on the deck (we have a deck!) and a washer and dryer and a dishwasher and a full-sized fridge with an actual, seperate freezer on the top of it (not a shoe-box inside the fridge which less freezes things and more just keeps them very cold, which, ps, is the suck) and TWO bedrooms (and one of those bedrooms has double doors which lead to our deck!!!!!!!eleventy-one!!) and a dining room that is not just the kitchen in disguise and a place to hang our coats when we come in the door and AND!!! After showing us around the place, our landlords tossed us in the car and drove us around Victoria (...the grocery store is here, we really like this deli, the UVic campus is here, this is a nice bit of beach that we've found, etc.) and then went and got a ladder and picked all the plums out of the tree that I couldn't reach with my short arms. I think I'm in love with them.

Also, we rode in a double-decker bus. Victoria is so quaint.

Also, it is the home of solar-panelled trash compactors I'm not even joking we saw this at a bus stop. Quaint.

The more you know.

So, I signed up for yoga this semester because I have tons of free time right now, and better to spend it stretching and breathing than enjoying our new-found tv channels.

So for lunch today, I'm all, I'll have some cottage cheese with cut-up fruit and some granola in it, because that seems suitably yoga-ish.

High-fiber, high-gassss-making lunches are not yoga-friendly.

Some fotoes to lighten up your Monday morning

In the absence of anything really interesting to say (classes are going well, we are unpacked, I made sourdough but didn't let it rise long enough or cook long enough, so it is both dense and raw-ish), I would like to share with you some pictures.

This is Estella, my lovely lady-skeleton. I bought her in Mexico and she survived the trip home. All of her fingers broke off, and I had to glue them back on one by one. She's missing a thumb in this picture because I didn't find it until an hour or so later. She is the very picture of elegance.

This is my greatest space-saving solution yet. It is a placemat. It is also where I hang my earrings. Martha Stewart is my bitch.My foot-thong tan makes it look like my feetses' underwears are showing.

The enormous landlord-cat only comes by when Joel's not home, so I have to take pictures to prove that the cat is (surprisingly often) in our suite. Please to compare cat-size to laptop-size. Cat is a great big one.

As an aside, I would like to thank frozen plums for not giving me raging diarrhea like fresh ones do. Why is that, do you think?

And then there were cats.

Ok, so there was this enormous cat in Mexico that Joel totally loved, so you can imagine how stoked he was when we got to our new place in Vancouver only to find that the cat had followed us there (this giant fatty is exactly what our landlords' cat looks like). He's left the cat-door between our two places unlocked since we moved in so that the cat could come in if it liked.

This afternoon, while Joel was gone, the cat stopped by for a little visit. Joel was crushed to have missed it.

Now, at the risk of becoming that lady who only talks about her cats, please go watch this video. I'm serious. If you do nothing else for me as long as you live, watch this, at least until about the 25-second mark. I promise, you will die.

Another in a long line of sum-ups

Whew, jeez. Long time to talk, and stuff. And there have been so many things this week that I've been all, I should blog that! But then I forget.

Like how the first week of med school is all scavenger hunts and group-charades and wine-and-cheese parties and then wham-o! On Friday you cut up bodies. Real ones. That used to be people.

Or how there are trails all through the UBC endowment lands that I've been jogging, and how there are also creeks all through said lands which means there are dozens of wooden bridges, and how someone needs to lay down some chicken wire on those bridges so they aren't quite so slick in the rain. I mean, I know, chicken wire is uggers, and when it's not raining the bridges are totally functional on their own, but as that French-Canadian fellow said to Robyn when she neglected to bring her rain gear to work based on the slim promise of a sunny morning, This is Vancouver.

And also how, often when I am jogging with my headphones in, and some song will start up that has talking at the beginning but I'll just hear voices in my ear and think someone is right behind me and scream! Except that two days ago I was jogging, and I heard a voice in my ear and thought it was just pre-song chatter but then something pulled up on my right and THERE IS A MAN ON A BIKE! And I screamed and he apologized, all, I've been trying to get your attention so I wouldn't scare you when I biked past you, and I'm all out of breath and adrenaline-sick because ack!

And how Joel and I watched the entire fourth season of 24 yesterday. We started at 5:00 am and went hard straight through and finished before 11:00 pm.

And how our tuition is due on Wednesday and our student loans should come through any second now...but maybe not before Wednesday, in which case...

That's all for now, kiddies. I'll try not to be so absent in the future.

Moving is deathness

Ok, so I'm unpacking today, and it's taking me ALL day because I have a severe case of the dawdle and also because Joel's in school so I'm the only one to make all the executive decisions (like where the hell do I put all this junk?). And I start to run out of steam at around 5:00, and alls that's left to do is find homes for all the miscellanea and stack all the boxes and vacuum up all the leaves that I tracked in earlier and I finally get it all done and everything put away and the house looks awesome and liveable and then hrack! There's a box under the tv. And not even, like, this is a box of dishes I must put away or this is a box of clothes I must hang up, but this is the last-ditch box that we flung everything into that wouldn't fit anywhere else, viz. this box is full of agony. I almost cried.



And now, apropos of nothing, I had no cat allergies in Mexico but had TERRIBLE cat allergies previous, so we're conducting an experiment wherein we unlock the little cat door that leads to our suite and let the comically-oversized grey cat (if he so chooses) to come into our home, and then we see if I am miserable. Maybe I am only allergic to Canadian cats.



H'adios, kids.

Reading is crazy!!

If I had the balls to wear a t-shirt with swears on it, and if I hadn't already worked through my lifetime quota of ill-fitting-but-hilarious shirts, I would rock this for sure.

Also, we have moved! Huzzah! Escuse while I unpack ALL DAY!!!

She sums up!!

Hello friends! I know, this is the least busy I will every be IN LIFE, and yet I refuse to blog. But this is me blogging.

Hrrrum....we've been staying at mine and Joel's parents' places alternately, and while I'm eternally grateful to them for housing us and feeding us and giving us somewhere to plunk our suitcases, I will be SO EXCITED to have my own space in which to make a mess and hang clothes up and rummage through the cupboards. You know how it is.

We've spent much of the past six days getting fatter, as both our sets of parents feed us very well and I have taken up excessive baking. Behold my strawberry tartlets!

Behold my black-and-blueberry pie!

Behold my sugar cookies!

Behold my bavarian cream eclairs!!!!!

Due to the fattening, we've also been going for jogs. The other day I stopped to pet this old eastern European lady's dog, and we chatted, and I mentioned how cute her dog was. 'He ees too feht!' she replied, and then thwacking him in the belly with one of her canes, 'Hey, fehtty? Ve'll shlim you down.' You and me both, puppy.

In our spare time, Joel's been playing Call of Duty and I've been plowing through my pile of books. Also, we bought this beautiful clay orb for my mother from Mexico, but when we got back, oh no! Orb is in pieces!!!

Joel likes puzzles, and I like fixing things, so we sat down with a tube of Krazy Glue and set to. I think I lasted half an hour. Joel, on the other hand, is a spatial genius.

Joel starts school on Monday, and I start school a week from. Oh yes, school! So, long story short my transcripts were delayed and didn't get to UBC in time and my application was cancelled, and I had to write a Letter of Appeal and wheeeeeeeee! They let me in! But by then all the awesome classes were taken, so I'm taking....history, or something. Who knows.

Dog days

Unlike in Thailand, where the streets are clogged with stray dogs, the streets of Mexico are clogged with owned dogs. Everyone has, like, six dogs, and they all run wild and mangy. But at least they are loved, so I guess it's a step up. Behold, my friends, the dogs of Mexico.

This is Babs, Greg and Alyson's dog. She is quite earnestly cute, if a bit snobby and cat-like in behavior. Also, she has epilepsy.

This is Chico. Chico is the most nervous dog I know, except maybe Dag (who has less cause, really), and also he hates me. This is maybe because I chomp him.

This is Banana. Banana is hilariously long in the body, and also exceptionally round. This is because she is terribly spoiled and will only eat wet cat food. She is my favorite dog.

These are tiny puppies from the pet store. I palmed their heads.

This is Dag, and these are his ribs.

Dag only comes by the house for a meal every few days, and he won't eat if you're watching him. He won't even come in the house unless you round up the cats and lock them in the bedroom.

This is Perro. He is a dog from one of the housebuilds, and is almost certainly diseased, but he is also desperately cute. I lasted three days before I petted him, and I didn't tell Joel. He has paint on his forehead, but it's not from me.

Also, we arrived home safe and sound.

Technology!!

I KNOW!! TWO POSTS IN LESS THAN 12 HOURS!!! I've returned to civilization.

Not only am I blogging in my pyjamas, but last night I showered without leaving the house!! (Have I not talked about our showering situation? Maybe four days after we moved into Gord and Carols [where there was no functioning shower, and if you wanted to take a bath you had to put a bucket under the faucet because it dripped and ignore the hoards of spiders living in the wall next to you] a guy came by to install a shower, which will be awesome for Gord and Carol when they get back, but which effectively negated our chances of ever bathing again!! So for two weeks we'd walk 15 minutes to the base to shower, or we'd head to the beach, or we'd stink. The day we left, the shower was sufficiently finished for a farewell bathing.) Also, I showered for a long time because there is no chance of us running out of water or propane!! Also, when I pee I can throw my toilet paper in the toilet and flush it, and I don't need to put on flip flops to get to the bathroom in the middle of the night!!! Excitement!!!

We fly out this afternoon. Fabulousment.

Mom, this one's for you.

Joel and I are in San Diego hitting the outlet malls HARD (3 pairs of shoes for $25!!! Five shirts and a pair of shorts for a total of $35!!!) before coming home.

.

Also, we met Genghis Khan Ghengis Kahn Gengeese Kaaaaaaaaaan an Asian.

I've become that lady who talks about her cats all the time

Ok, so, remember how we're babysitting some kittens? They're kind of cats now, all big and junk. Anyway, we've been letting them get away with stuff that we know Gord and Carol wouldn't have, and some nights ago (please Gord and Carol never read this) we left our bedroom door open and let them sleep in the bed with us. By which I mean that we let the girl-cat sleep in the bed with us and let the boy-cat step on my neck and meow at me all night, the little asshole. I didn't get more than two disjointed hours of sleep that night, but I was too tired and irritated to just chuck the cats outside and lock the door.

H'anyvays, since then, whenever the boy-cat was sleeping I'd come over and shake him awake, or poke him in the neck, or make loud noises. How do you like it, cat? Also, I would make a point of telling girl-cat (also known as 'Throat-beard') quite loudly how much my favorite she was, and how much more I liked her than boy-cat (really only known as 'Boy-cat').

Except then a few days ago, boy-cat ran away. He's always the first one in our room in the morning as soon as we open the door, and he'll be all up in our space, stepping on our books and kneading any exposed skin, but then one morning he wasn't there. That evening when we got home from the house-build, he continued to not be there, and the following morning he remained not-there. Which, kind of I'd be fine with, except that he isn't our cat. So we hunted all over the house in case he got himself locked in a cupboard and then died, or passed out from all the dog food he's been eating (seriously, this cat is such a douche. That food isn't yours!!), but there were no cat-corpses.

Yesterday morning, I got up to let Throat-beard in with us, because she'll come nestle down in between us and purr hard without trying to eat our bookmarks or our fingers or anything, and not five minutes later, boy-cat hopped up on the bed! He was dusty and exhausted (he slept the whole day) and had acquired this habit of sitting on my shoulder and rubbing his face hard against my cheek (which is actually kind of endearing), and besides all that, WHERE WERE YOU?? Oh, if cat's could talk.

I suspect him of having been off sowing his wild oats, and also getting lost because he's a bit stupid. Also, I suspect that girl-cat may soon get pregnant, and also that the babies will have extra tails and very low IQ scores. You know what I mean.

blogger needs a punch in the face.

I was going to post a photo of Joel quite precariously close to a wild dolphin, but blogger is again being a douche. Check Facebook for dolphin awesomeness.

The dolphin encounter resulted from our frequent beachings. Alyson's awesome parents are down here doing a house-build, and Tom likes to get cracking early (like, 8:30) and knock off after lunch to hit the beach for the rest of the day. Surprisingly, we're actually ahead of where we were this time last house-build, and we've painted the entire interior (which was tedious and sweaty until they cut out some windows, at which point it was simply tedious). The house is a lovely lavender. I will have photos.

Last night we went to the campos, which is where the field workers and their enormous families live. Children are treasured immensely in Mexico, which is awesome, but they're treasured to the point where everyone wants to have as many as they can, regardless of whether they can feed and clothe them or not (hint: most of them can't). It's sad and sort of angryifying to see so many ragged children running around when, dude, just have fewer of them. You'll still be a field worker living in a plastic-bag-house, but at least your child will have pants.

I am le starved. I am getting le fat because we eat lunch at the house-builds (today? Deep fried fish-tacos!!) and supper at the base (yesterday? Greasy-good enchiladas!!). We come home a week tomorrow. I am both excited and sad.

Volcanos!!!

Pre-blog essplanation: I had photos for all these things, but blogger is being a douche. Said photos should be up on Facebook soonly, but I don't have time to rewrite this post. Is ok.

Ok, so very quickly because supper is shortly, we went camping under a volcano on Friday. The road was mad sandy and only one of our vehicles had 4-wheel drive, so the other one got stuck. Often.



I did many dangerous things on that trip, including eat fresh mussels...



feed my finger to a sea anemone...



and try to hike the volcano in flip flops. I made it halfway before the smooth, steep rock face covered in loose gravel sent me back. Joel survived, but barely.



There are no good pictures of the crater, or whatever the top scoopy bit of a defunct volcano is called, but we climbed down in it and there was (oddly) a cool draft coming from what should be red hot magma. Huh.



On Sunday we went to Ensenada and did the touristy thing, like check out the giant golden heads. Also, I bought a poncho. Please don't judge me.



Hrmmmmm, I need to go upload photos onto Facebook. Adios.

Reverse tubal ligations for everyone!!!

Joel and I got to observe a surgery!!! Check it out, we are doctors!!

I didn't bring my camera into surgery, don't be gross. Also, in interest of not being gross, I will try to avoid going into detail. Also, Joel looks like Sub-Zero, no?

Ok, so the local poor-people hospital let us come in and watch a woman get her tubes untied (apparently a lot of Mexican women will do this because their husbands will leave them and they'll get new ones, and the new ones will want children). Joel's not technically in med school yet, and I'll never be in med school, but this bothers no one. The doctors were super jolly and the nurse brought us a stool we could stand on so we could see things, and the surgeons would hold up inside-bits and explain what they were doing and then Joel would get off the stool and I would get on and they'd explain again. Nice people.

I was kind of nervous, because you're never sure what you'll do when you're watching a human being be carved up like so much meatloaf. But lo and behold! Surgery is interesting! And fun!

When they first cut her open, they stuffed all these hand-towels into her abdominal cavity, to staunch the bleeding I assume. I'd totally forgotten about them, and then all of a sudden at the end they're pulling out towel after towel, like some sort of magic trick. But a creepy, bloody one.

Afterwards, the one surgeon was all, That was a pretty quiet surgery. You all should be in here when we're doing a C-section! There's people running everywhere and blood all over the place and then all of a sudden we pull out a baby!!

I think I'll spare you everything else (shall we say that fatty tissue is nasty, and leave it at that?). We plan on heading back for more (come on C-section!!) if we get the chance. Vive los countries without rules and/or privacy issues!!

Please excuse us now while we go camp under some volcanos.

There's things need a-fixin

I know! It has been four whole days! But we have been muy ocupado, which is to say, very busy.

So. There's this family, see, the Manzanos. And there's eleven children who are Manzano-born, and then five more that are Manzano-adopted, and then no one's quite sure how many more that just sort of live there with them. And there's always visitors.

Needless to say, the Manzanos have no money and their house(s, since one does not house 20+ people in a singe house even here in Mexico) are falling apart. So all this week Joel and I have been heading over there to do stuff around the house(s). Our main project has been the clotheslines because when you're housing 20+ people, there is muchas laundry and electricity here is like myrrh. So they had these three nasty clotheslines, and they were way high up (Mexican ladies are short) and had wires jutting out of them and were suspended over quite a bit of dirt and some grass.

The original plan was to tighten up and lower the ones currently in place, add two more, and put a giant sandbox below the lines so that when the clothes fell, they'd fall in sand (which can be easily brushed off) and not in dirt (which can't). So we spent a whole day flattening the area, digging out the grass, and breaking Hannah's van (sorry, Hannah). The next day, the plan changed from 'build giant sandbox' to 'plant grass,' but grass seeds don't work in Mexico unless you can babysit them, and who has time for that when you have 20+ children?

It had taken several backbreaking hours to remove all the grass, and took several more backbreaking hours to remove a bunch more grass from elsewhere in the yard and replant it where there had previously been grass. I took before-and-after pictures, but I'm not on my laptop and also the end product was le hideous. Perhaps I'll show you later.

Working at the Manzanos is awesome because there's always tons of food, and always tons of people. Awesome people. We like to throw lavish DDR parties at Gord and Carol's, because we feel like we should represent them in their absence, and yesterday the older Manzano girls not only brought snacks, but cleaned up after the snacks and left my horrid, fly-ridden kitchen cleaner than they'd found it. Also, they are good at games, and for these reason, we love them and will happily glue their front door together for them.

Today we didn't work at the Manzanos for reasons that involve LOTS OF BLOOD!! Excitement? Return tomorrow for moooooooooooore! (*spoiler* Joel and I still have all of our blood.)