Dispatches from a happy Hullian

Woo! Two kids with a pediatrician! It's like we have universal health care for kids or something in Quebec.

Also, I managed to beat the top-ranked player at Scrabble yesterday — most memorable plays were "WEES" (I wasn't sure it took an "S") and "MATUREd" across a triple and emptying my rack.

ETA: Our dishwasher is also working thanks to some help from dianora, and I replaced our toilet flapper (I think the term "univesal flapper" has a nice ring to it). Yay, fixed things!

I'm writing from the couch with Pixel the Relatively New Cat lying on my legs. She's kind of the Ernie to Noisette's Bert: sociable, talkative, stripey and drives Noisette a little crazy. They're getting along a bit better than they did at first, though.

I'm in my second week of a two-week vacation: Elizabeth's music school shuts down for two weeks in the summer, and my projects are all long-term enough that two weeks in the summer without me won't kill them, so we co-ordinated. Happily, Kaleioscope Gathering was also on, and so we hopped on our (fully-loaded with panniers and a trailer full of gear) bikes and went out to Planatagenet or thereabouts to camp under soft pines, participate in a communal camp kitchen, learn about partner yoga, thai massage, herbs, relationships, vocal techniques and esoteric stuff, hang out with fun pagans and pagan-friendly people, acquire a thumb piano, and attract most of the security on duty to our campsite — with rumours of chocolate fondue. Like teinm_laida was reporting, people there for the most part have their guard down and are their genuine, enjoyably weird selves.

The garden is doing really, really well. The exciting bits lately are red Russian kale coming up where the spinach was, and a zucchini patch that wants to take over the world. Also of note are the beginnings of a blackberry patch behind the compost!

I commented with "words" over at stateofwonder's journal, and she gave me five words to riff on:

( biking • Quebec • Scrabble • Mathematics/Statistics • home cooking )

Well, it seems that this time last year is still on the first page of my Livejournal — I guess I'm a little uncommunicative on here. I hope a few more meaty updates will be in the near future, as well as the traditional good/blah table for all your point-form needs…

Sunday, I did a little housecleaning in the vermicomposter. It's amazing how easy it is to chase worms into a little squirming ball with some sunlight and steal their compost. The ecosystem in there seems to be working great!

I'm feeling a little slow and drifty these days. I'm sure I'll be back at my usual required frantic productivity soon.

I lost a Scrabble game by one point to diatribein tonight.

My recently-repaired camera is hard at work, however:

( video from Elizabeth's regular Dépanneur show )

Mondays, 7 PM, Café Dépanneur (206 Bernard O.)!

Things seem to be working in the getting-me-paid department. I have a loan to call in a chunk of that I still don't know about, but I think the paperwork's all done and settled for everything else on my plate. Things should all be caught up by mid-February (well, chances are I'll still have some chunks to go on the loan-which-won't-die, but everything will be rolling along).

Scrabble yesterday was a bit of a flop... things were slow in coming together with bookings and materials, so we pretty much called it off (but hung around the site to see if anyone turned up)... another contributing factor was that it turns out we were in competition with a literacy conference over at UdeM, so they were probably drawing the literacy crowd as well as not coming down to play with us. More communication next time.

Candide last night at Pollack hall with rottenfruit was fun, we were whacked over the head with symbolism and general ribald humour. Voltaire and Bernstein's work was done well by Opera McGill. Go see it if it might be your cup of tea.

Today, people from the CBC and some of our partner organizations came by work for a quick look at us all. I hope they liked it — it felt kind of rushed, though.

So, we've been spending a lot of time talking about organizational changes and learner retention.

But, we've been eating well, getting to know our counterparts in other cities and...

( it's not all serious stuff... )

Moving day today, grammargirl in, my sister out...

Yesterday, went to the monthly Scrabble thing organized by feygele and vierge_en_trop, had fun, learned an anagram game with tiles and took down the mighty feygele in one-on-one in a very slow, gridlocked match (after getting destroyed by a 7-letter play on his last turn in a four-way game).

After that, scarfed some supper and headed over to Azin's flat for a belated birthday incident. Met some neat people, talked, wandered the roofs of most of the block and took some photos (to come, maybe). Good conversation, good cookies (courtesy of emjayne and Provigo) and an interesting bathroom guard duty moment.

Had a potluck last night, filled the kitchen up just about brimming. Good food, nice people, not entirely a high-school reunion, but CVR people are so much more likely to turn up, creatures of habit that they are. Running a potluck when there’s one spot on the couch where I’d really like to be all night is a bit of a different experience... but I had fun and did get a little time to relax in addition to being the food and traffic maestro. Fiona and Anna were there and seem to get along well with everyone... and cooking ahead of time with them was lots of fun.

Before that, I had some good consult-and-catch-up time with one of the cooler professors in Communications (and that’s a strong compliment given the general quality level)... helped beat iPhoto backups into submission, did Carbon Copy on the hard drive, made Academy Awards winner picks (Go Johnny Depp and Pirates of the Carribbean, go Pearl Earring!)... all in all a good afternoon.

The night before was meetup night, wherein I was rather late, dinner and photography with Fiona and her friend Anna-from-Edmonton having taken a little longer than expected (but having been wonderfully fun)... but arriving, I had the chance to hang out with some old and new people... got faces associated with usernames, caught up, chatted, tried out the Amazing Plutonium Apple Muffin... a good time was had by me, and I think by all.

I was in a good mood at meetup parly due to a doctor’s appointment wherein I found out that my twice-dislocated shoulder was in good enough shape yet that 6 weeks of being extra-nice to it would probably suffice (as opposed to drugs, surgery or a goofy looking brace). Yay for flexibility!

Another reason which may have contributed to my good mood was a two-day visit home... barely won a game of Scrabble, snapped some photos of the family, set up the new used computer, ate some good food and saw my Dad’s going-away present from the nurses at the Royal Vic -- a dictionary, a “Waldo” bear (homemade) with red striped cap and sweater, plus glasses, a matching outfit for Dad, some milk cartons with “Have you seen this doctor” panels in the public service area... it was my first time back in over a month, it was a good thing. Saw _Hilary and Jackie_ on video too... difficult but good.

So, that’s the news from Lake Wobegon...