Larocque and Roll

Short stuff March 31, 2005

Brief posty goodness:

There was a thunderstorm here this morning. It wasn’t very long, but it did cause a radical change in the air pressure. And we all know what that means, don’t we? Headache. I went back to bed, slept for an hour, and went in slightly late this morning. No biggie. It’s gone now. I did try and write another review this morning, but I couldn’t look directly at the monitor because it hurt my eyes, so I need to edit it (again) before I post it.

I burned my knuckle making soup tonight. Pretty sure it was the steam, but I may have accidentally whacked it on the side of the pot. It still hurts a little, but the soup was really good. (It’s leftover-veggies-and-gravy-and-turkey-from-Easter-dinner soup.)

Books update March 29, 2005

For all of you reading this through Bloglines* or other news aggregators, or for those of you playing along at home who wandered off in search of tea while I was writing about something that was of no interest to you, like curling or knitting or my idea of a perfect, yet totally geeky birthday, and started thinking about what else you could do in the kitchen while you were there and missed the saga of my “Books I’ve Read” site - to update with Blogger or not to update with Blogger?

*whew* That was a long sentence.

Anyhoo, I’ve taken decisive action while putting off working on my taxes or anything else productive. I got rid of the Blogger version because it was too much aggravation, and have gone back to the good ‘ol plain HTML version.

But now that I think about it, how will you know when I’ve updated it, or posted a new review? Maybe I should have done like Julie and made a blog for my books**.

Nah. You can just come here and check it occasionally. They’re personal reflections on the stuff I’ve been reading, and I don’t mind sharing it with y’all.

Right! Where was I? Updates! Yes, I finally got around to posting an “About” blurb, and several more reviews. I’m up to mid-February now, and will be posting March’s list sometime after Friday. The total number of books I’ve read or listened to so far is 26. Plus! I made a button for it an put it on the right, below the TSF button. Easy to find, easy to click on!

I didn’t do any reading tonight - I watched Scrubs and The Office (US) instead. Tomorrow night is Lost and Godiva’s, the new show on Bravo! about a restaurant in Vancouver.

*All 8 of you. No, wait - 7 of you. I’m the 8th. Yes, I subscribe to my own feed. How else would I know if the feed is actually working, or that I’ve spelled something simple like “is” as “os”?
** Note to Julie: I like the title! Please post a review soon!

Post-Easter post March 28, 2005

Blogger’s acting weird tonight. Please, please Blogger - let me post this!

For the second time in a week, I’ve abandoned posting for a few days. This time it was because every free second this past weekend was spoken for. It’s all a colourful blur now, so let’s just leave it at it was busy. It was great seeing everyone again since it had been SO LONG since we’d all been together last. I freely admit I was having one of those emotional rollercoaster-y PMS moods - I don’t get them all the time; mostly it’s just cramps - so if I bitched at anyone this weekend, I’m sorry. You probably deserved it, but I shouldn’t have said it out loud (I kid! I kid!) Headway was made on my costume for the recital, and I borrowed Denise’s sewing machine to finish it. I got more sequins at Len’s Mills for cheap (like, fifty cents a metre!) and two balls of yarn, which brings the total number of balls of Paton’s Divine I have to six. Which is almost enough to do something with.

I don’t have much energy tonight. We lost at curling, even though I threw a couple of sweet shots. I’ve done some unpacking - the perishables went in the fridge as soon as I got home, and the laundry if in the basket. The rest can wait until tomorrow. The only thing keeping me up right now is half a peanut butter and jam sandwich, and it’s telling me that it’s feeling neglected. I guess I’ll finish it and go to bed.

Hobby updates March 23, 2005

Curling
As I mentioned earlier this morning, we won this week. Last week, we played our former teammates and tied, thanks to a spectacular fourth end when we scored five points. Rock on (heh heh)! The week before that, we also won. It sucks that we’ve finally gelled as a team so close to the end. However, I’ve earned the nickname “Parking Lot” because my “burners” (heavy weight rocks) tend to really move. In fact, I took out rocks on the sheet beside us one night because the collision produced such a chain reaction, one of the rocks took off in a completely random direction. Hilarious!

Bellydancing
As I also mentioned briefly this morning, I’m in a recital in May. Half of me is totally digging it - it’s like being eight years old all over again, and getting ready for your first ballet recital. Except when you’re eight, you don’t need a gold-covered bra or ankle-length skirt you’re certain you’re going to trip on at some point during the show. Where was I? Right - it should be fun. I need to make most of my costume, but I don’t have fabric for the skirt yet. I’m debating on what colour to make it - my main veil is red, but since half the class has a red or reddish veil, I may make an orange one. My scarves are red and white, and I think I’ll be wearing the red one. Right now, I’m leaning towards a black skirt with orange accents, but possibly an orange skirt. Maybe white. Meh - I’ll decide this weekend.

Knitting
Sadly, not much to report on this front. I’ve finished one of Dad’s socks and have started the second one. The mitten I frogged still isn’t finished because. . . well, I’ve been lazy. And I’m not sure where it is. I don’t want to start anything until I’ve finished the sock, but I plan on making a sweater with the Patton’s Up Country when I’m finished.

Books I’ve Read
I haven’t tried playing around with the Blogger version of the Books I’ve Read site because it causes me much frustration. But I’ve posted the backup file, and I’m up to the beginning of February now. I should post my email addy over there in case you want to comment on anything.

Back to the salt mines…

Have you ever had one of those days where it seems like seven or eight projects creep up on you and jump out from behind your desk at the same time. You’d think you’d notice them because that many of them make a lot of noise - there’s always one that can’t help snickering, or the one that steps on a twig, making an ominous snapping noise which always alerts the other party to their presence. Oh, you can’t forget the clueless one - there’s one in every group - who asks “What are we supposed to be doing again?” while the others try and shut it up.

Anyways. Today at work was a lot like that. I think it was worse because I didn’t think about work at all yesterday, and now the chickens have come home to roost, so to speak. I didn’t have the luxury of putting it out of my mind and going back to my book or my knitting because it was sitting there on my desk. All seven or eight of the projects. And– DAMN IT! One of them just knocked over my water! And there’s another one taking off with my favourite pen. GET BACK HERE, YOU LITTLE RUNT!

Update from the Birthday Girl

Thanks to everyone who emailed me and called me yesterday! I officially turned 29 at sometime around 2pm yesterday afternoon.

I haven’t posted about the festivities yet, so I’ll start with the weekend. Sunday morning I went to my first group rehearsal for the dance recital in May. Afterwards, I went home and had a nap and overslept, meaning I had to rush to shower and change in order to pick up Karen. The two of us plus Jenny went to see Hotel Rwanda at the cheap movie theater downtown which is also showing arthouse films a couple of days a week (can I tell you how irritated I am that I’m missing Sideways next week?) It was a powerful movie, one that left all three of us with a lot of questions and topics for discussion afterwards. And nightmares.

We tried to go to three restaurants for supper - Cafe Korea, the Mexican restaurant by the Farmer’s Market, and 100 Georges - but they were all closed. In the end, we went to Montana’s, which was pretty deserted but our waitress was lots of fun, except when I had to wear the antlers while they sang the birthday song.

Monday - boring. We did win at curling, so “woo-hoo!” to us
Yesterday was glorious. The sun was shining and it was lovely outside; my birthday gift to y’all! I spent the day alternately reading and doing stuff in the kitchen, which was exactly what I wanted to do. I finished three books, made strawberry mango sherbert, and shortcakes, and went for a walk. Very relaxing, all in all.

Now I’m back to work for two days, and then off for Easter. Ahhh…..

Anticipation March 17, 2005

In Canada, we have this unofficial holiday to celebrate Heritage Day. The reason it’s not official yet is because a date has never been set. So, what happens is that every employer sets it differently - in my organization, our Heritage Day is taken on our birthday. Since my birthday is next Tuesday, I get the day off. (And since Friday is Good Friday, it’s going to be a short week for me. W00t!)

Anyways, I’ve been trying to find an appropriate way to spend the day. I knew it would involve a lot of “it’s all about me”-type activities, but that’s as far as it got. On Tuesday this week, I got a notice from Chapters that a book I’d preordered just after Christmas was on its way to me - a whole week before the official release date! Tonight I picked it up and did a little happy dance because I know what I’m going to do on my birthday - re-read Liquor and read Prime!

I haven’t been this excited about spending a whole day reading for a while now. The last time was a few years back when I read Tanya Huff’s Keeper Chronicles - Summon the Keeper, The Second Summoning, and Long Hot Summoning. I’d ordered all three at the same time, along with a couple of other items. Inexplicably - and this is what I dislike about Chapters, that they send your order in chunks as soon as it’s available instead of waiting until everything is ready - they sent me the first and third book in the first parcel. I think it took me an afternoon to read the first one, and I was hooked. Unfortunately, it took a few weeks until I got the second book.

Because I wanted to savor the experience, I waited until the weekend to read the last two books. I remember I did all of the housework and other weekend-type stuff on Friday night so I wouldn’t be distracted. All week, I’d take the second book off the shelf and read a page or two, and then quickly shove it back so I wouldn’t be tempted to finish reading it while standing there. I read the second book on the Saturday and the third book on the Sunday. And oh, what a fabulous weekend it was!

(Since then, I’ll always associate those books with foggy summer weekends, Sam Roberts’ We Were Born in a Flame, and Funky Monkeys - a banana, a scoop of vanilla ice cream, a cup of milk, and liberal amounts of Bailey’s.)

So, you now know what I’ll be doing on Tuesday. I’ll also be eating popcorn* and mangoes** and drinking coffee***. I may also indulge in chocolate-dipped strawberries****, if I can find a basket of berries that doesn’t look too scuzzy.

*Not a secret code for delicious chocolate truffles rolled in cocoa powder.
**Not a secret code for double-chocolate chip cookies.
***Not a secret code for espresso with whipped cream.
****Not secret code for chocolate-dipped strawberries. Oh, wait. Yes it is.

For Pender, and anyone else who likes Llamas

Check this out.

(Oh, and we were playing ball hockey. Great fun, especially in about a foot of snow.)

Kiss me, I’m full of blarney!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all!

I did wear green to work today, as did Karen and my manager. Everyone else forgot (heh heh heh). But there was no green beer today, or cabbage and corned beef. My mom used to make a boiled dinner with cabbage, potato, turnip, carrot, and some kind of meat product (was it ham?) It was yucky, so I didn’t really eat much when she made it.

Tuesday, sweet Tuesday. March 15, 2005

The visit with my sisters and parents on the weekend was great. I enjoyed the trip, and I’m looking forward to going home in two weeks for Easter.

My new printer is finally hooked up, and it works wonderfully. It’s nice to have a printer that works at long last.

I’ve got about a dozen things I still want to work on online, so I’m going to leave you with the top 15 most played songs on my iTunes. (A few weeks back, when I did the hard drive format, I did away with the four or five different audio programs I was using, and switched over completely to iTunes. So far, I’m quite happy with it.)

1. The Littlest Birds - the Be Good Tanyas (32)
2. Sad Eyes - Liam Titcomb (27)
3. Take Me Out (Live) - Scissor Sisters (25)
4. Accidentally in Love - Counting Crows (24)
5. No One Takes Your Freedom - DJ Earworm (24)
6. Trouble - Pink (24)
7. Alert Status Red - Matthew Good (22)
8. Filthy/Gorgeous - Scissor Sisters (22)
9. Mr. Brightside - The Killers (21)
10. God is a DJ - Pink (19)
11. Watch Your Money - Waking Eyes (17)
12. In A World Called catastrophe - Matthew Good (16)
13. Booty Call - G. Love (15)
14. Maggie May - Rod Stewart (14)
15. Debonair - The Afghan Whigs (13)

I’ll reset the counter and see how things look in another couple of months.