What a great weekend.

Friday: Took the evening bus into Toronto. I hopped onto the Queen Streetcar and headed East to Rick's house. When I arrived, Spaceballs was just starting on his TV and Indian curry was imminent. Curry and cult-flicks go very well together. I don't think I've ever had delivery Indian food, either, so that was a fun change. I played Fable for an hour and then headed for bed. Rick joined me and together we conked out in under five minutes. Fridays nights are pretty boring for us. *laugh* Unfortunately, Rick's clicking and tooth-grinding woke me up repeatedly and even shoving him didn't work. I considered moving to the couch, but that's not so bright an idea when the alarm clocks are in his room and I have to get up for work.

Saturday: I worked at the ROM, of course, and had the coveted position of being principle Breaks-person. Hurray ! I like this position because you get to move around, you have a little responsibility, and generally, it speeds up the day. As it turned out, things have picked up a bit on the weekends now and most of the cashes were busy throughout the day. I went for lunch with Cheryl, something we don't get to do much of anymore, and because it was so bloody gorgeous out, we ate our crepes while sitting on a bench in Philosophers' Walk behind the museum. There was a little girl who was vigourously feeding the pigeons and a very ballsy sparrow (he even landed on Cheryl's shoe). She had no concept of invading our space in order to give muffin crumbs to the birds and we enjoyed her presence. She was a refreshing change from the stuffiness of the Rotunda.

After work, I zipped back to Rick's where I took a wee nap, had some greasy wonton soup and then dressed for Alana's birthday party. She lives in the same warehouse studio complex that Nicole lives at, in my old neighbourhood. I so enjoy that complex. I'd love to get a space in it. Her party involved a lot of alcoholic options and some very delicious dips. Good conversation was had and Rick ended up being quite social. I met her cats, Po and Twig (aka. Mr. Plumpers), and generally had a nice time. Rick and I left around quarter past eleven and came to the realisation that we're old now. I can't remember the last time I left a party before midnight. Man.

Sunday: We had the plan to visit a local school's haunted house and despite the weather being typical of mid-autumn - cool and drizzly - we headed out. This after a somewhat tasty breakfast at Rick's local greasy spoon. It's the kind of diner that has been around for ever. The tables and chairs are probably thirty years old, the chairs at any rate, and everyone knows everyone. It's the kind of place where a young middle-class family is enjoying brunch at one table while the mother breast-feeds, a working-class couple discuss the stupidity of the pit-bull ban at the table beside us, students fill another table, and an older married couple sit together by the window, each reading their own sections of the paper and not talking. Anyway, back to the haunted house.

Pape Avenue PS runs a hanted house for Hallowe'en where they have activities, food, raffles draws, and whatnot, and of course, the haunted house. For four bucks, we figured we'd go check it out and see what it was like. It was definitely worth four bucks. It was really well done, right down to a freaky hag eating rubber snakes, freaky low ceilings in pitch blackness, a creepy mime, and lots of great sets. It was peopled with students from the school, faculty (I think) and other parental types, and we left it with big smiles on our faces. I got some good jumps when things startled me, and I especially liked the girl portraying the mime - she was five feet nothing in height and followed Rick all over.

When we got home, I got to play a lot more of Fable, which is perfectly alright by me, because it seems Greyhound has stopped running the late afternoon/evening buses to Peterborough. I had a lot of time to kill before the midnight bus. It was really nice to do nothing all day, let me tell you. A welcome reward before I have to start working again, today.

Three years and a day. That is how long I've been keeping this journal. When I started, way back in October of 2001, I thought it would be temporary, something to fill the gap while I was busy learning computer animation and not having time to email everyone directly. The world was beginning to adjust to the "new normal" (I still hate that expression) after the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001. I was working at Heretic, which had, at the time, a storefront on Queen Street West. I was living with Justin in my favourite apartment on Manning Avenue (with crazy Adeleina my landlady just downstairs, "I tell you, no boys !"). Willi had been with me for under a year. Rick had been with me for a year and a half. Al and Carrie weren't married yet, my mother was still working, and I thought I was going to be a computer animator for film or games.

I still have Willi. I still have Rick. I've lost touch with Justin. We're only days from the US election. Al and Carrie have been married a year and a half. Tanya's next in line for matrimony. I'm fairly certain I'll never work in film or games and I'm MUCH happier with my life now. Happy Anniversary, Meanderings !

In other news:

I've spent forty minutes or so, earlier tonight, researching spiders with my mother. You see, it's not just at the ROM where I'm called upon to answer questions about things I know little about, it is from near family, too. Over Thanksgiving, our friend Jean (who is something of a surrogate grandma), gave me a spider she'd trapped some time earlier. Unfortunately, it had been starving in a pill bottle for a while and was quite shell shocked when she gave it to me, but the idea was that I should look at it and tell her what kind of spider it was. I, being arachnaphobic, handed it immediately to my mother and off we went with our little friend. I promised Jean that I'd either determine what it was for her (the internet is a wonderful thing) or take it to the ROM to an entymologist.

Now, there was NO WAY IN HELL that I was taking it in the car and then in on a bus to Toronto to have anyone look at it. Mom and I did some preliminary research back at our cottage that last night - she has books about everything up there - and came away with some possible species. The thing is, the book was some forty years old and most of the pictures were illustrations or black and white photos. I needed some colour happening for me. Also, not all of the illustrations showed the spiders from all angles, and that meant uncertainty. We released the poor thing the following day having, at the very least, determined that although it was a large variety of something, it was nothing to be frightened of.

A few days after having come back to the Petes, I did some internet research and narrowed my possibilities down to three, though I was leaning much more heavily to two of them. I decided it was probably some sort of orbweaver at the very least. Tonight, Mom asked me if I'd ever found out what kind of spider it was and I updated her. We came upstairs to check out some sites and my favourite one was down, http://www.whatsthatbug.com . Poop. The Internet is vast and far-reaching, but most of the links we called up came close, but no cigar. Then I had a brainwave. I have them sometimes. I recalled that a long while back, I'd had a dream about a spider and ended up looking for it on the 'net. I remembered that I'd posted a link in this very journal about it. And what do you know, but that very page provided me with an answer ! We found an a spider almost identical to the one at the cottage. It was an Araneas orb-weaver. This was one of the two possibilities I'd highlighted in my notes.

I am most proud of my Internet research skills. Really, I do rock. Good thing, too, since I have to make use of them over the following week. This reading week is NO slack week. Phew. I'll have as much work to do as if it were any other week, only no classes to get in the way.

I had forgotten what it's like to live from project to project. I have trouble thinking more than a few days ahead because I have so many school assignments due. For instance, when I'd presented my project on Thursday, I started to think about my assignment due on Friday (yesterday). Now I'm thinking about the project due on Monday. Happily, there's not much that I need to do for that one, so I'm able to think ahead to Tuesday's report. That's a bit of a biggie. I'll spend most of tomorrow working on it. After Tuesday, I get to think about the next project due on Friday. If you ask me to hang out, get together, or anything, I usually can't say whether I can or not. If I forget my agenda, like I did this weekend, nevermind, I can't make any plans at all since they have to be worked around my projects.

It was nice to be at my cottage for four days over Thanksgiving, but to be quite honest, it already seems like an eternity ago. The weather wasn't terrific, but neither was it bad. It got progressively cooler each day and night and by Sunday, we had the stove going all day long. That wood stove keeps the cottage nice and toasty and fills the air with the wonderful scent of woodsmoke. Combine that with the smell of roasting turkey and mulling cider and it's olfactory heaven ! Of course, we left Chester behind with a babysitter and neither Mom nor I felt much guilt about that. The girls behaved very well and enjoyed having doors opened and closed at most hours. Melody divided her time between Mom and me, while Willi slept with me exclusively. Willi and I took a little walk together - it's very cute the way she does that. She rarely lets me get more than twenty feet away when we go walking and she talks to me regularly as we explore. When Mom and I took a long walk down the road, we had to make sure Willi was distracted with something else or she would come along and we don't want her near the road.

Speaking of roads, I do have a bit of bad news. The highway that so long ago was intended to serve Mirabel Airport from Montreal (a useless airport) is finally going through. We've been saved for twenty years from its arrival. Mirabel failed to generate much traffic and money has been tight for make-work projects. Now, however, as Mont Tremblant is built up and built up, the powers that be want to put a direct route from Ottawa to Tremblant and therefore they're extending Highway 50, stalled for a decade or more, through our hills. So, now it's really happening. We'll hear it, of course, but not as badly as it could have been. Once, it had been planned to go in just below our camp, but now it'll be nearly a mile down the road. They plan to build an over pass for our road so we won't need a service road to get down to the old highway, which is good, but the construction will be awful. As I understand it, the road is slated to go in in 2007 or 2008. Here's hoping that there are further delays.

Another week of class down - two more to go until Reading Week. Gone are the days when a week off from class meant slack time. Looking at my planner for the coming weeks, it only gets worse from then on in. As it stands, I'm already taking about 10 hours of homework with me to the cottage. This is one of the few times I've ever wanted to have a computer up there. I took one, once, and tried to write my 'novel' but there are just so many other things to do... This time I have no choice. The work has to get done. And, the day after I come back, I have to do a presentation. Hee. Yikes.

We all got our marks for the first group assignment. My group did very well, scoring 86.4%, which is not to be sneezed at. With two marks of four back from my first class, I'm running about 89%. Hopefully, that can be upped. I really want to do well. Really well. This is kind of exciting, since previously, I didn't care so long as I didn't utterly disgrace myself.

Yesterday, before going to class, I did something I haven't done in about two years; horseback riding. I went for a lesson with Kerri, rode a nice gelding named Kid, and realised that I am totally out of shape. At least out of riding shape. My body was willing and remembered what to do, but my muscles simply couldn't maintain it. I'm so weak ! Also, since I've put on weight without riding at the same time, I hadn't adapted to it and found myself terribly off balance. By the end of the ride, I'd regained some balance, but it was sooooo uncomfortable. I've pretty well committed to at least one lesson a week - I need it. I would like to be in good enough shape that following school and internship, I can spend a week riding with Christopher Todd. I mean to take him up on his invitation and if I can do it, I'd like to so sometime before I embark on my career.

Needless to say, I'm bloody sore today, and I'll be extra stiff tonight after the drive out to the cottage. We're leaving Chester behind - I can't recall if I mentioned in this journal that he'd come back, but he has. Friends of ours used the cottage for a week halfway through September and started calling him as soon as they got there. He turned up on their second day, dishevilled, skinny, and exhausted. Anyway, we're leaving him in the Petes where he can be babysat and we don't have to worry that he'll end up lost again. We'll take the girls, Melody and Willi, since they pretty well stay close to home and Melody needs meds every day. Despite the homework and shorter days, I'm looking forward to the cottage so much. It'll be a bit chilly in the outhouse in October and swimming will be pretty much out of the question, but there will be walks to take and books to read and, generally, it will be good. I really need this break from class.

Have a happy and safe Thanksgiving (Columbas Day, if you're in the States).

There is something incredibly satisfying about finishing a paper. Unfortunately, tonight I get to have that feeling twice, which means the usual collapse at the end of one is followed... by another. I'm having a difficult time embracing the bigger (and unfinished) of the two. I've been working on it for a week now and was granted the blessing of an extension, but it's due tomorrow and it still isn't finished. I have a low-grade migraine - I've been getting a lot of them lately and I fear that I'm going to have to get a new prescription for the heavier hitting drugs if the Advil stops working. That's a topic for another night. Now, I'm just concerned I get this paper done. So why am I writing in my weblog? Well, I never said I could do it without procrastinating, did I? Actually, part of the reason I'm writing here instead of in Microsoft Word is just to get the juices flowing and hopefully allow myself the time for a 'eureka' moment.

Maybe I should take a bath.

Other than working and writing papers over the last few days, I've also been watching Mt. St. Helens like a vulture watches a kill site. I'm waiting. I'm hoping to catch something exciting on the volcano cam. Yes, they have a webcam directed at the mountain and it updates every five minutes. Four days ago, there was a little steam and some yellow-tinged gas and for a few hours all was calm. Then it started to rumble again and has been letting off steam and a bit of ash at irregular intervals. Now, after not having checked the cam for a day and a half, there's a dome in the centre of the crater. A lava dome, I guess. For those of you who don't know what that is, here's the lay person's description. Basically, the volcano sealed itself after its last erruption, lava hardening in the crater when it stopped spewing. Now, the gases given off by magma (lava while it's in the earth) are building up, forcing the seal to bend. Something like a rock pimple, the dome can do either two things. One, the gases can escape from a side vent or slowly and the event will be minor or, two, it can rupture the dome and blow its top. You see, despite bending as it is, that dome is made of rock and rock can only bend so much. "Booma booma !" as they say.

Naturally, I hope for the latter because I'm a weirdo who gets a high from geologic and climatic events. It could be worse, I could get my highs from drugs. I'd love to go on a storm chasing holiday, but with real scientists, like a grad student would. Research is cool, see? Anyway, Mt. St. Helens is exciting because it is active and close, at least psychologically speaking; it's on the same continent as me, unlike, say, Etna or Mauna Loa. One day, I'm going to climb an active volcano and peer down inside its crater and marvel at the heat radiating up through the special protective soles of my shoes.

But, today is not that day. Today is for finishing papers. The Advil is starting to take effect and the juices are flowing. Flowing like lava.

In the great, grand scheme of things, I'm pretty insignificant, but working register four at the ROM really makes me feel it. I'm all the way at the back. No one looks down here at me, or hears me when I'm calling for the next in line. On the other hand, it's a very pleasant, stress-free post. Good thing I'm wearing my awesome harlequin socks. I bought them last night, the two last pairs of them at this neat store on Queen Street that specialises in accessorising feet. They're both red and yellow diamonds, but one has blue and the other has black. They're super funky and they actually make it most of the way to my knees. Wow.

In other news, I spent the last half hour discussing museum policies and principles with a co-worker. She's one of the recent hires and I really like her. She did the Arts Education Masters programme at Concordia with a special focus on museums - you can see how we have stuff to talk about. We had a rather animated conversation about what the ROM should be, and more generally the purpose of museums. We argued a bit about how to make Thorsell's ideas into something workable, and basically, we're on the same page, but our approaches differ a bit. We should probably get a drink and discuss it properly when we're not interrupted by patrons, in the place we're discussing. I shall email her and invite her out. Hurray for thinking !

I'm going to walk down to the bus terminal tonight, stopping somewhere cheap for dinner. My bus is at 7:30 since I will miss the 5pm. Annoying, but there's nothing for it. It will give me a bit more time to work on my projects, I suppose. I'll pop into the Pearls exhibit again to further develop my ideas and then I will be all set to write my review tomorrow. Tonight is for finishing my paper (if I can) that was extended to Tuesday.