Okay, now I’m hungry. Awesome.

In all fairness, it’s been a busy few weeks.

The Family Day long weekend was lovely and relaxing. I’d get up in the morning and change out of my night pajamas into day pajamas, and then spent the day knitting, watching TV, or going to the gym. It was the first Family Day I didn’t have to go into work because some major systems update/server migration absolutely needed to be done and since the library was closed, it was an ideal time. I’d also like to mention that both times I had to do this? Whatever we were doing ran into unexpected obstacles that required a tech who wasn’t in because it was a holiday [3. The official techs were located somewhere in the States, and I walked through it here in Ontario. The tech were usually someone over in the IT department who were smart enough to say "Hell to the no!" when I asked if they were going to be available. ]

Then there were the Olympics, of which I need to say no more. Y’all know how it turned out. I did participate in the Knitting Olympics and successfully finished a pair of mittens for my sister.

I lack just enough modesty to say these are pretty awesome, considering that I designed the pattern and knit them up in just 17 days. In retrospect though, because I can’t resist the urge to punish myself for my lack of modesty, I should have made the pattern on the back a mirror image on each mitten instead of the exact same pattern. Normally that’s not a problem because the motifs are symmetrical, but these are asymmetrical and should have been flipped between the two.

Last week I was in Toronto for a conference where I:

• Ran myself ragged for five days. Sit-down meals were a rare luxury, and food was mostly eaten on the fly. Fortunately, I seem to have made it through with no ill effects except for a desire to catch up on my sleep, while my boss is suffering through his annual post-conference cold.
• Sat through a session about programing with Perl, which is complete Greek to me. I compared it to looking at a lace chart which makes no sense at first, but once you know what all the symbols and lines mean, you know what to do. Actually writing and editing the code is like learning how to knit, and one day I will get there. [4. When I made this analogy to a group of the coders, they gave me blank looks, much like I assume I was giving them during the session. ]
• Had fly-by visits with three groups of friends, with whom there is almost no overlap. Julie, who also shared a room with me, knows some of my Sudbury friends, so I was able to combine some of those encounters.
• Didn’t get to the Mexican restaurant, which has been our conference tradition for the past few years. Instead, we went out for delicious Thai food, so I’m still happy.

I will begin the following post-conference story by telling you up front that my sister and her friends are fine, the place they are staying has very minimal, if any, damage, and she will be coming home sometime next week.

Saturday, the last day of the conference, my mother was supposed to come up and we were going to go for lunch before heading home. However, she hasn’t been feeling well, I was exhausted, and the weather was kind of craptacular. I called home to tell her not to bother coming in, as I would be heading out after the session I was presenting [5. Oh yeah, I also was a co-presenter in a session. ]

Mom: “I hadn’t planned on coming because I need to be here in case your sister calls.” (My youngest sister is on holidays in Chile with some friends and they were staying in some kind of conservation area.)
Me: “Why? What’s wrong”
Mom: “Have you seen the news?”
Me: (blood running cold) “No – what. happened?”
Mom: “There was an earthquake in Chile, between Santiago and where she is. It was bigger than the one in Haiti. We haven’t heard from her and we don’t know how to find out if she was okay.”

Everything after that was a bit fuzzy. I think I suggested she call the Red Cross, but I don’t remember what her response was. My mom sounded pretty calm even though I knew she wasn’t, and I managed to hold it together until I got off the phone and burst into tears in front of Julie, who then offered to go to breakfast with me instead of going to the plenary session like she had planned. I called my mom back and gave her my cell number, and told her to text me if she heard anything (fortunately, my sister had taught mom to text before she left.) During my session, I got a text from her telling me that they had heard from one of the other girls in the group, and that they were all okay, except the power had gone off. You can imagine how relieved we all are that they are okay, and that the greatest hardship they suffered was that they didn’t get to watch the gold medal hockey game Sunday night because they went to see the penguins. Yeah, I kind of hate her too.

When she gets home, we are confiscating her passport and not letting her leave the country until she is at least 40.

Anyways, day 9 was Friday. After spending the morning marveling over The Neph’s new tricks (sign language! walking! high fiving! peek-a-boo! reading, sort of!) we went to the beach. Ah, the beach. We didn’t stay for long because a certain short person (The Neph) was getting hungry. So we cut the visit short and vowed to go back later. Little did I know that would be the only time I’d make it there.

Otherwise, it was a low key day. It started raining and being miserable in the afternoon, so no more beach for us. At some point, my sisters pulled out Settlers of Catan (they’d each brought a game, plus Seafarers of Catan) and we started playing. Later, we called my cousin to come over and play, then more cousins, aunts and uncles dropped by, and we ended up teaching them how to play.

Saturday, day 10, dawned windy and overcast, and eventually rainy. It was the day of the big Larocque family reunion, where we were supposed to be competing on family teams. My sister had the bright idea to get us all matching t-shirts, and because we’re who we are, they all had skull and crossbones on the front and our crew position on the back [1]. Due to the rain, the games got cancelled which didn’t make me overly sad because it meant more time to visit with everyone I hadn’t seen in more than 7 years.

Sunday was all about being anti-social, the napping, and generally laying low. The rain continued to fall, the wind picked up significantly, and venturing outside was to risk immediate soaking. So, more Settlers, and early bedtime.

[1] My dad was Captain JC, my mom was First Mate, The Neph was Cabin Boy, and the rest of us were Crew.

Speaking of music, this weekend while I was shopping for an appropriate gift for my nephew’s pirate-themed birthtism [3],[4] I came across a display for the Rockabye Baby CDs. To save you the trouble of opening the link, it’s a series of CDs for children featuring lullabies versions of popular songs from bands you might not expect to have great bedtime-appropriate music. I bought The Beatles Rockabye Baby for the library, and the general consensus was that we were disappointed they chose songs that lent themselves well to lullabies in the first place. Where’s Lullaby Helter Skelter? Lullaby I Am The Walrus? Lullaby Lovely Rita? Sheesh!

I was going to write about how when I saw the Rockabye Baby versions of the music of The Cure, I almost choked on my coffee – seriously? Lullaby Cure songs? [5] Is that kind of… depressing? And then I was going to mention that if I were going to get one for The Neph, it was between this and Lullaby Led Zepplin.

However, then I looked at the complete list of bands they cover – Metallica? U2? The Pixies? Nine Inch Nails? Tool? The Ramones? Queens of the Stone Age? DUDE. I’m not sure whether to run out and buy them all for The Neph or despair that some of the most hardcore bands of our times have been turned into sleepy-time music for babies [6].

What do you think?

[1] Someday, I may enumerate the other four in my top 5 desert island CDs, and how I got almost everyone in my office at the time to write down their top 5 desert island CDs on post-it notes, which I stuck on my monitor. That I got into trouble for “wasting time” goes without saying, and is one of the top 10 reasons I left that place – having fun and doing team building was strictly verboten.
[2] Now, if I were doing taxes, chatting online with my sister and cousin, and sending a Facebook message to The Furious Redhead about my day and how I suck at everything, I’d be listening to Arcade Fire or The New Pornographers because THAT’S HOW I ROLL.
[3] I only found out at almost the last minute that there was a theme, and it was pirates. For a one-year old.
[4] This weekend was not only his first birthday but also his baptism. Hence, birthday + baptism = birthtism. Let it never be said that we’re not creative in this family.
[5] I am sort of tickled by the fact they’ve turned The Cure’s Lullaby into a lullaby. It’s so self-referential!
[6] It’s not listed, but Lullaby Henry Rollins can’t be far off.

I just spent the Christmas holiday at the home of my parents, mostly eating, sitting around and eating and oohing and awwing over the antics of my nephew [1]. It was a good visit, and everyone made out well in the gift department. The weather was distinctly un-winter like – up here, it’s well below zero, and there’s so much snow it’s getting out of control [2]. Down there? Barely any snow and hardly any need for mittens.

Today started out pretty ambitious – I got the house cleaned and washed a few floors [3]. Now I can barely gather up the ambition to waddle over to the couch to knit and watch TV.

Coming soon: the books of 2007! [4]

[1] He’s teething, which means there’s lots of funny faces and an ocean of drool.
[2] Last night, we got another 10cm. Insane!
[3] Blissful domesticity.
[4] I know I said I was going to do this a week or two ago, but I’m sort of glad I didn’t have a chance to. There was still plenty of year left for me to read a whole bunch more books, which is what I did over the holidays.

This is Carl James, my brand new nephew. He is adorable, isn’t he?

I owe you stuff. Like,

~ What I read in March. Hey, last month I was early, so if I’m a few days late this one it all balances out on the big karma scale.
~ Why I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook.
~ Where I was this weekend.

Well, I’ll answer the last one first. I went home for Easter to see the folks and the siblings and the cats. And maybe some green grass and buds on the trees; alas, they had as much snow there as there was in North Bay. Don’t colour me shocked about snow at this time of year – yes, it was unfortunate that it fell around this particular religious holiday when you would expect to see flowers blooming and grass growing and various animals frolicking. When my sister had her First Communion many moons ago, there was a freak snowfall – in mid-May. And from credible sources, I’ve heard tell of near-freezing temps in Timmins in July. A little snow early in April? Pshaw. I sneer at it.

(An aside – you know what I miss the most about Southern Ontario, besides jokes about Dunnville and Wainfleet? The fact that there are no less than fifteen classic rock stations, and that at any given moment, at least one of them is guaranteed to be playing Led Zeppelin. So! Awesome!)

Anyway, it was a great weekend of reading, watching hockey (we are die-hard Hab fans in our family) and curling, and, as the kids say, chillaxing. We also played a lot of Heroes of Might and Magic III, because we’re old school like that.

~ Last Thursday was the only day of the year where you could legitimately say, “Go Rebecca! It’s your birthday! We’re going to party like it’s your birthday!” and have it be accurate. For those of you keeping score at home, it’s the 31st time this has happened.

~ Most of the time I experiment with cooking, it turns out okay. Occasionally, it turns out badly. And on rare, shining occasions, it turns out better than expected, which was the case with the spinach sauce I made to go on some leftover penne noodles at the beginning of the month.

It’s a carton of baby spinach, tossed into the food processor and chopped until it’s all shredded into tiny little pieces. Then you make a white sauce (two tablespoons butter, two tablespoons flour, one cup of milk; melt the butter, stir in the flour until smooth, and then slowly add the milk in parts) and dump in the spinach. Pour on cooked noodles, stir, and serve. Tasty! And a pretty colour!

~ I’ve been experimenting with knitting multiple projects at the same time. Normally, it’s all I can do to finish one project, yet I’m finding I like having several things on the needles, so I can switch projects when I get bored. One of my recently completed projects is a tea cozy for my little teapot.

My teapot – it is both short and stout. And now it has a sweater!

~ This past weekend was my sister and b-i-l’s annual ball hockey tournament. At first, it looked like this would be the first year the weather wouldn’t co-operate and we’d have to play in the rain. In the end, we played in the mist [1] and the mud, and no one got injured. Also, a good time was had by all. My photos are here.

~ Had I more time, I’d post the playlist I listened to on the drive from here to Guelph and back. It’s dope, yo.

[1] Isn’t that a Sigourney Weaver movie – “Ball Hockey Players in the Mist”?

Today is the day I remember my Pepere, James Larocque, who fought in the Second World War. He never spoke about his experience, but he talked about some of it just before he passed away. He was stationed in London, which was difficult for him since he didn’t speak any English at the time. Eventually, he learned English, and was in fact engaged to an Englishwoman for a while. In the end, he couldn’t bring her back to Canada. The village he was from and where my Dad was born is in an isloated corner of Northeastern New Brunswick. It’s not so bad now, but sixty years ago it would have been much harder to travel there.

He didn’t say much about the fighting, except that he was at Normandy on D-Day, in the second wave. When they saw what was happening, they turned back.

To my Pepere and all the other vetrans of all the other wars – thank you.