Larocque and Roll

Rebecca, use your words! July 17, 2008

Ugh. Okay. Another month long break.

Tuesday at work I was trying to write up a draft of a document for a community group based on notes I’d made at a meeting the previous week. I realized that I’m terrible at writing up persuasive arguments because my first tendency is to huff and roll my eyes, and tell you to just agree with me already because of course I’m right and everything I’m telling you is the way IT SHOULD BE DONE. After my little ego fit, I calmed down, finished the draft and sent it off, thinking, “Boy, I should have given myself another day on that so the rest of the arguments would have time to formulate.” Nope.

I don’t know where I’m going with that story. Sorry.

So, what have I been up to? Well, there was that shiny new toy I bought, Ivor [1]. (I barely use the cell phone I have, so why would I want to shell out for an iPhone?)

Then Julie came for what had to be the most uneventful visit ever. To wit: Friday night we sat around in the dark and talked about work because we were too full from supper to bother putting the lights on. Saturday we watched a torrential downpour gradually flood the intersection down the street. That kind of uneventful. Plans to go to the beach were discussed and discarded in favour of naps, reading and watching movies (and knitting). [2]

Also in the past month, I saw a couple of movies. Get Smart was cute and funny, like a hamster, with about as much substance. Wanted was badass, and I spent a good ten minutes playing the “Hey! It’s That Guy!” game with myself before I realized that it was That Guy From The Russian Horror Movie. Kung Fu Panda was amusing, but I will never be able to hear David Cross’s voice and not think “it’s Tobias Funke!” Hellboy II was mixed - loved, loved, loved the creatures and effects, thought the story lacked something. Like a plot. But ass was kicked, bad guys were dispatched, and what more could you ask of Ron Perlman, I mean really? He is made of awesome.

And next week I’m on vacation. Not just the home-for-a-few-days kind, but the kind where I actually get on a plane and leave the province. I KNOW! Scary! For part of it, I’m returning to the scene of many of my best crimes, Halifax, where I haven’t been in almost seven years. I am so stoked about it. From there, it’s on to the Big Larocque Clan Gathering (BLCG), where there will be much merriment, laughter, and the traditional running of the lobsters. Apparently there are to be organized games, and my sister has gone about getting our family t-shirts with pirate logos and our names on the back (to identify our family “team” from the other 10 family “teams”). Woo?

1. Worry not - Gretchen is going to a good home with my sister.
2. I was going to make up a story about a visiting rugby team and our adventures, but obviously that would be even too far fetched for me to come up with.

Testing July 10, 2008

Okay, so I’m just trying this out to see if it works. If this were an actual post, there would be actual content. And be 100% sarcasam free!

Why coffee at 9:30pm is a bad thing June 11, 2008

All afternoon, I had a craving for chocolate chip cookies. Not just any chocolate chip cookies - the ones I get at the coffee shop where I get my Wednesday lattes [1]. By the time I’d closed up the department and everything was shut down, I decided that, what the hell, I was going for it. However, not only did I come out with two lovely chocolate chip cookies, I also came out with a coffee - and not a decaf.

Now, here it is almost 11pm, and I’m just slightly wired. Which is the story of my week - stress and running on caffeine. I had an awesome [2] work-related stress dream the other night where I finished doing up the work schedule for the next few weeks and then someone asked if I’d remembered to add the new employee in my department to it. “Of course,” I replied, knowing that I’d spent so much time making sure that everything was in order. “No, not her - the other [woman with same name].” At which point I realized that not only was I not in my library, I didn’t know half the people waiting to look at the schedule, meaning that the schedule I’d been slaving over was completely wrong.

Sunday night I dreamed that I was smoking two cigarettes at once. Just so you know, I don’t smoke, nor have I ever been a smoker [3]. I think it’s a sign I need to chill out.

[1] On Wednesday, I go into work in the afternoon and stay late, so I usually pick up a latte on my way in. It’s become a ritual, and something to which I look forward.
[2] And by “awesome” I mean “nightmare.”
[3] I have smoked cigars on a couple of occasions. That can be chalked up to two things: grad school and the awesome cigar bar in Halifax.

Sunday is my funday June 1, 2008

Normally, around this time of month, I’d be posting my May reads. However, I’ve missplaced my book notebook - it’s not in either of the two places I usually leave it and I can’t find the stack of books I know I did read. It’s been one of those months - not just from a job-stress perspective - where nothing seemed to stick. I usually have a pretty good idea what I read by remembering plots (”Okay, first there was the one about the viscount’s mistaken identity, then the road trip, then the alien invasion, zombies, and then the romantic “comedy” about dog grooming”) and can figure out titles from there. This month? I think there was something about a prom, maybe some more Navy SEALS, and possibly a bodice-ripper, but I can’t remember. Damn.

For now, I’ll leave you with this meme from Amanda. The bold ones I’ve read, the underlined ones I read for school, and the italicized ones are those I started and didn’t finish.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise)
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces (three times!)
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

Excuses are for the weak May 4, 2008

I sat down to write about my April reads, and then realized it’s going to take longer than I thought, given that it’s almost 11pm, and I need to hit the hay half an hour ago. See, this week is all about travelling hither and yon [1] and while the vast majority of the packing got done this morning (yay me for being on top of that for once!) I had a few things in the laundry which need to be ironed. And guess what I haven’t done yet? Yeah. Maybe I’ll just shove it the suitcase and use the iron in the hotel room. That works for me.

I will give you a teaser though: in the first two weeks, I read four books. In the second two weeks, I read nine books (…really!) [2]. In the last week, I read one more and finished my book club book, which was a total drag.

Also of interest - I broke down and bought the Flight of the Conchords CD today, and it was totally worth it. And I met with some friends for coffee this afternoon, and three of us had knitting with us. The elderly couple at the table next to us were gobsmacked that us youngin’s was knittin’. Erin and I were working on socks, and Rosemary was working on a sweater.

Okay, must go locate blouse. And iron. And board.

[1] And I don’t know what the weather is like in either place, which made packing a bitch.
[2] Part of the reason I can’t do this tonight is that I have much to say about them, and it’s going to have to wait.

Shucks March 27, 2008

See what I did there? Disappeared for almost a month without updating? It’s not intentional because I did have several ideas during that time, but never got around to writing them down. And now I’m writing the second lamest blog cliche [1] - blogging about why I didn’t blog. I’m so hip it hurts.

In a nutshell, here’s what’s been going on:

~ I went to see the movie “Jumper” I can think of worse ways to spend 90 minutes than drooling over Hayden Christensen, but man - the ending made not a lick of sense. It was so abrupt and open-ended, I felt like I’d missed something. Even movies where you already know there’s going to be a sequel give you some kind of closure.

~ I got sick. Not really really sick, and not with something that I can say with any degree of certainty what it was. It wasn’t a cold, it wasn’t a flu, it wasn’t bronchitis or pneumonia. Rather, it was a combo of all of them, combined with what I like to call Super Drag Ass. Oh, and PMS cramps - there’s no illness so bad that it can’t be made worse with the addition of gut-clenching pain. Joy. Lacking a better description, I began calling it The Malaise - treatment includes copious amounts of ginger ale, several episodes of “Crossing Jordan” and a complete disregard for personal hygiene.

~ I made several playlists for a friend and liked them so much I’ve been listening to them constantly. (Really, if I’d been lacking something to post about, I should have thrown one of them up and let you bask in the awesomeness of my ability to put together a well-crafted playlist.)

~ On my real birthday, I went winery hopping with my sister and cousin. Vineland Estates had the best selection of regular and reserve wines [2], while Malivoire had a smaller selection of uniformly terrific wines [3]. Angel’s Gate was a bit disappointing [4], and Cellar Bench was notable for their selection of ice wines [5].

~ After months and months of threatening to do it, I finally purchased the complete series of “Queer as Folk (US)” and the first four seasons of “The L Word” for the library. It’s taken that long to work up the guts to do it, because I know it’s going to be controversial, and that there will be complaints from some people in the community (my boss and the other managers have been supportive, as have the rest of the crew in the knitting guild).

To wrap up: if anything interesting happens between now and next time, I will write about it this time instead of making vague promises to myself and then getting on with my life.

[1] First lamest blog cliche: blogging about your blog.
[2] I love love love their Dry and Semi-Dry Rieslings, and also got a bottle of their Elevation Cabernet Merlot and their Sauvignon Blanc.
[3] Their Gewurtztraminer is fab, and I came home with bottles of their Chardonnay Musque and the Moira Vineyard Chardonnay.
[4] Have you ever heard the Monty Python wine sketch? At one point, I described a particularly nasty red as having a “bouquet like an aborigine’s armpit” and meant it.
[5] From there, I got a bottle of maple syrup (from a local sugar bush) ice wine.

Not my birthday March 6, 2008

In the last few years, I’ve been lucky enough to have the day off on my birthday - in most cases, it’s just the way things worked out. I’d spend the day living a lifestyle I could become very accustomed to [1] and enjoying the peace and quiet. [2]

This year… not so much. My birthday falls smack dab in the middle of the Easter Weekend, and if I wasn’t going home to visit the whole fam-damily, I’d be working. Bummer. Plus, the day off closest to my birthday will be spent travelling home [3].

That left today to do all my traditional birthday things, so here I am, in my pjs with a stack of books beside me. I’m boiling water for coffee, and there’s a small container of artichoke and asiago cheese dip in the fridge. Later, there will be apple crisp with cranberries and quite possibly whipped cream. Maybe a pot of chai to round out the afternoon.

Everything at work is getting busier and busier, so I’m just going to take the day to unwind and relax.

[1] Reading all day and eating whatever the hell I wanted.
[2] A few months ago, I was trying to figure out how old I’d be on this birthday, and promptly had a mini-panic attack. I’m almost 32? When did this come to pass? Wasn’t I just 29 last week, or something like that?
[3] Yes, there are Sundays, but Sundays are for laundry and groceries and housework. And there is a Saturday between now and then, but I’m going out of town that day.

Is this too white trash for you? February 28, 2008

This, ladies and gentlemen, represents what I hate the most about being single and living alone: when something breaks, I have to fix it. I’m the only one who can deal with it, whether I fix it myself or seek out someone to fix it for me (even if it means calling my dad, who lives over 500km away, and whining, “Daaaaad, can’t you come up this weekend and fiiiiiix it for meeeeeee?”) [1] The backstory to this picture goes something like this:

A few weekends ago, Denise and Denephew came up (along with her friend Lisa and her daughter), and noticed the toilet was leaking. None of us could figure out exactly what was wrong, so we put a container under the most likely spot. Later in the weekend, my brother-in-law established that the water was leaking from around one of the bolts which holds the tank to the seat. The solution was simple: drain the tank, and seal the bolt with some kind of waterproof silicone caulking. In the meantime, with the use of containers (and a few rags), the leak was manageable.

Later that week, the leaking appeared to stop. There was no more water in the container, so I assumed whatever was wrong had fixed itself [2]. Friday morning, the day my cousin was to arrive, I was sitting at the table in the kitchen eating breakfast, when I heard a dripping noise. Looking up, I could see the bulge in the ceiling where the water was collecting, and the spot where it was actively leaking through. Got that cleaned up, called my dad (”Daaaaaaaaaad! Heeeeeelp!”) and he explained that the bolt would probably have to be replaced. A little while later he called back and said I shouldn’t do it myself and should seek out a professional since there were so many ways it could go wrong (a few of which I found out myself, but I’m getting to that…)

The visit with my cousin was fabulous in all senses of the word [3], but part of me spent the weekend fretting about the leak, which was being contained with rags around the base of the toilet. Sunday afternoon, after I dropped him at the bus station, I went to Canadian Tire to see if I could get replacement bolts.

(An aside: whenever I go to Canadian Tire/Home Depot/Home Hardware/etc. for a specific purpose, I feel helpless, defensive, and inadequate. Twice, I approached a salesperson to ask for help and had them walk past me to help someone else, usually a man, in coveralls and work clothes who looked like they already knew what they were doing.)

After wandering around for a while, I found the necessary hardware. I should have taken them home and left it at that, but I was bound and determined to get the damn thing fixed. I figured out how to drain the tank and shut off the water source (go me!) and had a go at getting the bolts out. No dice - the washer at the bottom of the bolt was so badly corroded I couldn’t really get it loose. However, I did manage to get it loose enough that it was no longer tight to the base, and there was considerable wiggle room. It was also at this point that I accidentally knocked over the lid of the tank, which was leaning against the wall, and watched it shatter into four pieces. [4]

The toilet wasn’t unusable at this point - if I wanted to flush, I just needed to put a couple of buckets of water into the tank. In fact, it reminded me a lot of when I was younger and living at home in the country, where we were on a cistern - when the power went out, we couldn’t flush the toilet because the water pump didn’t work, so we would use the same bucket solution.

Fortunately, when I was asking the Exec Assistant at work if she could recommend a good plumber, she told me not to worry and called her husband to come fix it; which he did, and now it works again. Except for the lid, which I need to figure out how to replace.

Back to what I was saying at the beginning - I would dearly love to have someone around the house to hand this whole situation over to fix. I can fix a lot of things on my own, but major repairs (like this) just bring up all these feelings of helplessness and inadequacy. I know I should be proud of the fact I don’t have to rely on someone else for shelter and security, but there are certainly times it would be nice to have someone to do the things that I can’t do.

[1] He’s retired now, so I labour under the delusion that he’ll drop everything and rush up to lend a hand. So fa, it hasn’t happened yet.
[2] I live in a world completely undisturbed by reality, and I’ll thank you to indulge my little fantasies!
[3] And we were even sober for some of the time!
[4] It was just the icing on what had been a spectacularly bad week - with a few bright spots - so my descent into despair and hopelessness was a short one.

I’m not internationally known, but I’m known throughout the microphone February 10, 2008

Last week, it was my distinct pleasure to spend it in Toronto surrounded by friends, colleagues, and other fellow librarians. There were lots of interesting sessions, and tons of things to do when you weren’t in session. My week went something like this:

Tuesday:
Up at 4:30am to catch the bus to TO. Normally, I’d take the train, but the train doesn’t get there until 7pm, IF it runs on time. Getting up at an ungodly hour to take the bus means I get into the city by early afternoon, leaving me enough time to do some sightseeing and shopping. Which I did - I walked up Spadina to Queen West, and hit Americo Yarns. Then I wandered into Kensington Market, went to Lettuce Knit for yarn and help [1]. I also found a cool artist’s market, and bought a print for in my living room [3]. Caught the subway back to the hotel, ditched my purchases, and set off to Jorge’s. I finally got to meet Mrs. Jorge and Olivia, both of whom are adorable. Quite possibly the funniest line of the evening was when Jorge described Olivia’s reaction to the vacuum cleaner: “She went all Leonidas on it.”

Wednesday:
An all-day pre-conference session. More people than had signed up were there, so we were pretty packed in. There were a few people I knew from other meetings, Facebook (Hi Joanna!), or through other friends (Hey Debra!) Met some new friends for drinks and dessert, and then hit the opening reception to find Karen and Steve [4]. Also ran into a couple of librarians from up this way (Hi Leslie, Shelly and Rebecca!) and Jennifer, who was making the big move to Montreal and wouldn’t be convening my session [5].

Thursday:
First official day of the conference! We [6] started it by heading out to our traditional conference breakfast spot for our traditional conference breakfast, which consists of waffles/crepes with fruit and chocolate and/or whipped cream. Delightful! Then onto the first session of the day, which was about getting and using user feedback. Then onto the session I was convening on open source software in the developing world, and a stint in the AskOn booth after that [7]. Finally, I met up with a bunch of other librarians to go see a taping of The Hour. I could spend a great deal of time talking about how cool it was; instead, I’ll give you these pics:

Friday:
Seriously, it’s kind of a blur, it was that busy. However, I do remember the most important part of the day - going out for dinner! The same group of usual suspects went to the Mexican restaurant Karen, Steve and I found last year. We were worried that it wouldn’t be as good as we remembered, but that fear was completely unfounded - not only was the food as spectacular as we remembered, this year they had a mariachi band! Afterwards we hit the Indigo flagship store, then headed home.

Saturday:
Checkout! Fortunately, I do it early enough to avoid the crush. Then off to a session, and then to my presentation. There’s not much to tell about it, at least not much that wouldn’t bore most people to tears at this point [8]. Except to say that it went well, and I didn’t make any egregious mistakes. Walked down to meet my mom and sister for lunch, and then headed back home with them - hell, I’d come that far, I might as well take a day or two to visit the folks. Had a great supper, and polished off many bottles of wine with my sister and cousin while playing Settlers of Catan, at least until I started falling asleep at the table and my b-i-l took over for me.

Sunday:
A big family outing to celebrate my dad’s birthday and retirement. The neph was adorable, and flirted with all the waitresses. Then home for more Settlers of Catan, and sitting around watching some football game. Are they still playing at this time of year?

Monday:
Home again, this time by train. Again, slept most of the way.

So, there you have it - my week down in the T-dot. It was fun, and I’m already looking forward to next year.

[1] I started knitting a sock on the bus when I wasn’t sleeping [2]. At some point, a whole lot of stitches fell off the needle and started unraveling. The kind and friendly woman there picked them back up and put them on the needle for me.
[2] Which was most of the time.
[3] Once I get a frame for it.
[4] Or as I started calling them, The Nickel City Posse.
[5] Yeah - I was also presenting at the conference. More on that later.
[6] By “we”, I mean Karen, Steve, Joanne (from TBay) and her sister Cathy who’s also a librarian.
[7] I’m one of the friendly AskOn operators, by the way.
[8] Maybe some other day.

Still loosing… January 23, 2008

So! You’d think that I’d be more excited about telling you the results of the biggest looser at work challenge - and you’d be right. What I didn’t have a lot of last week was time, and by Thursday I decided to just wait until this week to tell you how the second weigh-in went, since it would probably be as good or better than week one.

Not so!

At our second weigh-in, I was the second biggest looser, having lost a whopping 4.5 pounds in the first week, just from walking, changing my eating habits from good to great, and Wii-boxing [1]. So I took it up a notch and tried to do even better the second week.

I went to my weigh-in all excited - this would be the week I’d loose way more, right? I’d done so much better this week, right? Wrong! For reasons related to biology [2] I didn’t loose anything this week. On the bright side, I didn’t gain any, either.

I am expecting great things at weigh-in on Monday, because the biggest looser this week was the same woman as last week, and I’m not at all competitive. Nooooo sirree - not even a little.

[1] In the training section, I’ve managed to knock down 34 punching bags in one event. Go me!
[2] Stupid PMS!