Dispatches from a happy Hullian

On August 2 at 8:52 PM, Vivien Kaye Hortop came into the world at the Gatineau hospital. She is small but fierce: 2120 grams and was 47 cm long at birth, she arrived with a yell and set to feeding quickly thereafter. Vivien and Elizabeth are still at the hospital for observation of Vivien, but mother and daughter are in fine shape and we hope to have everyone back home in the days to come.

We are grateful to the midwives at the Maison de naissance de l'Outaouais and the nurses and doctors on the third floor at the Gatineau hospital, whose expertise and kindness have been invaluable in the past days and months. We are also grateful to Marna Nightingale for taking Oscar on short notice during the birth and taking care of him for considerably longer than she may have had in mind at the outset while the situation evolved.

I defended today, and have to fix some grammar, and switch the words "left" and "right" in a bunch of places in my thesis. Aside from that, I am done my schooling for some time to come.

It feels awesome.

More after I get some sleep.

So, my birthday was last week… thanks to everyone for the wishes, gifts and good food! It fell in the last throes of thesis this year, so I've been working into the late evening a lot, and trekking back to Montreal every week or two, but I still found time to celebrate.

The actual night-of, Ellie made sponge cake and ordered pizza, and we washed the two down (in the conventional order) with red wine my parents had brought to the housewarming. I think we've found the universal Good Cheap Local Pizza Joint, analogous to Mory's in Verdun: Pizza Maisonneuve, on Papineau near Maisonneuve. They flyer a little too much, and the place feels like an oven and looks held together with packing tape when you come in to pick up your pizza, but the pizzas themselves are excellent: thick crust, good sauce and lots of cheese. The Top Secret Sewing Project she'd been working on for my birthday turned out to be a very dapper vest, which she accompanied by a nice, texture-y dress shirt that fits quite well (rare in a day where normal shirts are too short and "big and tall" stores may include "just big" but seldom include "just tall."

Monday night, after a thesis meeting and a little wandering, Ellie and I proceeded back to Ormstown (where I took the wheel of my mum's car from the bus to home, which stressed her out quite a bit), and then we feasted on home-made lamb vindaloo, pullao, chickpea curry and basmati rice, with beer and followed by very rich chocolate mousse cake. My sister found a Fin du Monde and apple jelly, and my folks got me a floor pump for my bike and a paper shredder (not just for privacy, but also because both the worms and the rats like shredded paper bedding).

A good time was had, and we were all completely stuffed.

Came through Montreal the following day, caught up with my brother, talked geekiness, watched Doctor Who, swung through the office to grab a book and some knickknacks of mine, accompanied Ellie on a postering run for her new CD (in select stores and for sale online now!) and came back on the train.

The thesis is almost done, I've done a preliminary copy edit for the 98% that is written, and now I'm polishing off the straggling 2% or so. Tomorrow, my two volunteer copy editors and I will go over the manuscript, then Friday I hand it in at the thesis office. Defence soon after that, then any required modifications and I'm done, and able to arrive at StatCan unencumbered by studenthood. Woot.

(years in review in general)

1. What did you do in 2006 that you'd never done before?
Participated in an impeachment vote. Tripped a Hep C alarm. Moved in with a significant other.

( Year in 38 more questions. )

If I were hungry, and if I had a stack of hubs and a power bar...

I've been tweaking this cookie recipe for a couple of rounds, and it's ready to be released into the wild: starting from basic egg/peanut butter/sugar chocolate chip cookies, I kept adding stuff and tweaking the recipe:

Highbrow chocolate/peanut butter cookies

Preheat oven to 375°

( Prepare with the finest ingredients... )

Consume with suitably fancy milk or coffee while discussing highbrow things.

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In other news after promising an important "truc de coloc", I pulled out a recently-acquired copy of Chez Geek, and hilarity ensued (with the excuse that the geek quotient was going to be on the rise in our place, now that everyone living here or slated to live here knows the difference between a saving throw and an ability check, sometimes in multiple languages...)

Things are going pretty well over here. Lots going on as usual, but most of it's pretty good.

Yesterday was beautiful with good food and good company, including a circuitous wander down from my place to Verdun, some garage sale goodies, ice cream, enjoying the city flora, fun conversation, deep conversation, good food, some Red Dwarf, and even a little housework and lining up work. The good day more or less continues unabated today.

The world is as it should be, more or less.

Yippee for more userpics!

Watch out for the toast icon soon.

I explained a notation I think is cool today. With coloured pens, tracing paper and wild arm movements. And am getting paid for this.

Finished my rat-sitting and moved everything back home... this week is UdeM break and Concordia back in session, hence my second "light" week (wherein regularly scheduled classes make way for everything else). My UdeM combinatorics prof urged us to enjoy this week, and I'll do my best. I'm looking forward to being reunited with rottenfruit, a "hot date" with vierge_en_trop, payday, Carlo's cooking on Thursday at Mother Hubbard's, the return of my regular yoga instructor from vacation...

It shouldn't be too hard to enjoy this week.

Like much of LJLand, my comment notification e-mails are hit-and-miss, but I'm watching my recent posts' comment counts. Nonetheless, my direct e-mail is more reliable if you want to get my attention fast.</maintenance>

I'm kind of floating above the bits and pieces I have left to do this term... I guess if I put in a few hours each day, they'll be in good shape for the due dates, or at least the last crunch will be less crunchy. I'm a little stressed, but perhaps a bit too happy to care.

Packed books for a really interesting professor this morning, who dresses as casually as my dad (which is pretty casually), eats vegetarian at the Potato and bikes 8km to work most days. Fortunately he's just moving to the new, unified math offices downtown, although I'm sure he could retire if he wanted to. I should poke my head by his (new) office again.

I actually dreamed about packing books last night before getting up and going to pack books.

I don't know if this is going to be a brilliant semester, and I should be worrying about money and grades and stuff, but I'm surrounded by good people, learning interesting stuff and eating pretty well. All good things. This weekend should be nice, with geekery, music and food. And some measure theory and programming, if I know what's good for me.

Went out for supper with a longtime friend of my dad's last night, had some really fancy French food. I think I could do that again sometime... or even just go for a sumptuous dessert and coffee...

Had a good day of propagandizing for Peer Support and Frontier... I think the word's pretty much out now, but one more week of Frontier tabling to go, and Peer Support keeps its mezzainine presence going pretty much all year. If you're at SGW between 11 and 1, stop by and say hi sometime. I'll give you a mint, even.

It's possible that (work permitting), Elizabeth will be travelling out to my cousin's place on Monday with me and my folks for Thanksgiving. Word has it all three of us siblings are planning to bring significant others: it'll be nice and crowded if that happens!

I've got plans for Saturday and you all should too: