In Which I Deke ... A Lot
(Woah, Blogger looks crazy. Okay. Going to take a little for me to get used to this.)
Saturday it was raining. Raining, raining, raining. Raining so hard that it took me about an hour to drive from my apartment to Sarah's (though that could also be due to the backup caused by someone putting a bloody big crane right in the middle of Bloor Street). Raining hard enough that I thought despairing thoughts at my windshield wipers. But I had no choice but to drive--we had a BBQ to go to! Or, rather, a gathering of people from Julie's newsgroup that might have been a BBQ had the weather been nice and had anyone actually had a BBQ. Though the rain nicely quit shortly after we left Toronto, heading for Kitchener, that didn't mean that the trip was uneventful. Sarah's written a pretty good description of our
creative dekeing, as we took to calling it, so I won't re-write it all. I will add that the streets in Kitchener are officially crazy; there was one sign that literally showed a road doing a curly-cue (which we had to take, of course) that caused me to cry aloud, "It does
what?!" Also, I tried to deke into a church parking lot before the Midas/driveway incident. In my defense, I've never pretended to have a good sense of direction. And hey, we got there in the end. I prefer to think of these things as adventures rather than anything frustrating. It's easier (and more enjoyable) that way.
The non-BBQ was a whole lot of fun. The four hours that we were there seemed to absolutely vanish. I was shocked that not only was it time to go home but that it was almost dark. (Luckily, it was a whole lot easier driving home than it was driving there. Small mercies.) It's only in the last while that I've started to really get to know people from the newsgroup, but I'm really glad that I have. This is a really fun group of people--conversations are never dull. There were a few times that I had trouble catching my breath I was laughing so hard.
I thanked Erin at the end of the gathering for helping to give me a social life, though really I should thank the newsgroup at large. Thanks to them, and to Julie, I know what I'm doing this coming Saturday...
Sunday, of course, was Mother's Day, and I spent it most appropriately at New House with my mother and my Oma. And a whole lot of other family, too, of course. In typical Sumner-Smith fashion, this family get-together meant that it was time to build something: a deck! So, in addition to playing with my cousins, helping in the kitchen, and building and continuing to find wood for a rather large fire, I found myself with drill in hand helping install decking. (And cursing my sad and sorry lack of upper-arm strength.)
All this driving has been hard on my wallet, though. Gas prices are unbelievable; when I went to fill up Siro, I paid 85.3 per litre, and it's only gone up since then. Needless to say, I didn't fill the tank. Oh paycheque, where art thou?
In work-related news, I now have company in my big office/storage space three days a week. We were able to chat a bit when we were both bored, so that was a nice change. But there's nothing like having someone else physically there in the room to make me aware of what I'm doing, how I'm acting, especially when I'd just been getting used to and/or comfortable with being in that space. In the morning I had a report to write, which was fine (I like having something concrete to work on every now and again) but in the afternoon my work was almost entirely mental, as I attempted to figure out the structure of a project that has far too many factors that need to be taken into account. And I realized that to all outward appearances I was pretty much spending a lot of time looking out the window, looking at the wall, staring blankly at my computer screen, fiddling with my fingers and listening to Haggis with my headphones. (The latter being something I started today to help me think; no one's told me that I can't listen to Haggis--or anything else--so until I'm told otherwise...) But then I can always blame some strange behaviour on being a creative type and all. Don't hire a writer as a writer and then expect a nice, organized office assistant, right?
And speaking of work, I'm going to wrap this up because I have to get to bed in the not so distant future and would really like to get some "Ohntai" rewrites done before I have to fall into bed. And I'll have a moment of silence to remember The Daily Show, which I've heard still comes on TV though it seems I shall never see it again. I'd also like to eat some pie.
