Day: January 15, 2010

Katie has safely arrived in Sammitch, I mean Saanich.

Girl howdoo, but there are a lot of goofy loan names from First Nations languages.  They started out as whatever they were, poetic or prosaic or the sound of the sea slapping fish-weirs, but the transition to English was painful and lingering.

Anyway, I conferred briefly with my mother and raised a hosannah that a) Katie’s helping look after her great granny b) she’s going to get paid to do it and c) she’s going to be a busy lassie and in no good position to repine on any other matters and d) sober second consideration yielded the nugget that what I had slotted in here was ill-tempered and prurient, always a lovely, somehow quite regressive, almost, you know, Republican combination, so I’m passing on this next line.  TLDR = Me happy.

I made stir fried noodles with thinly sliced very well aged steak, quartered mushroms, two onions, bean sprouts, the leftover sausage patties from brekky, celery, fresh green beans, soy sauce, peanut oil and the merest hint of Madras style curry powder.  Jeff devoured it/them with what appeared to be intense happiness, and his happiness was improved upon learning that there were turnovers in the house.  Store bought, it’s true. We watched Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.  I really liked it, but honestly, Joe (Jude Law) should have punched Polly (Gwyneth Paltrow) MUCH earlier in the proceedings.  Gal’s a safety hazard, and no Einstein neither…

Paul and I conferred briefly today about vegetables.  He has a darling, nicely cultivated plot in the back yard at his rental which he apparently will be allowed to plant this year.  We shall see.  I am thinking pole beans and raspberry canes here.  Rather than plant a lot of stuff, a lot of one or two stuffs instead.

Heavy sigh, happy sigh

So the heavy sigh is for missing posting yesterday, but I got called into work.  The great thing about temping is that you get to see what other places to work really look like.

This place had:

  • decent coffee
  • an infestation of mechanical engineers about six deep
  • it’s own ERP
  • a decent fast restaurant in the basement
  • one bus ride from here
  • less than twenty minutes from here
  • walking distance from here in a pinch or bad weather
  • interesting, worthwhile work
  • and the job is currently available

The heavy sigh is because I won’t get it, but gosh it was pleasant working there and I would have had loads of fun teasing elderly engineers.  I would have also got to watch the Skytrain go by all day long, which doesn’t hurt my feelings.

BEST LINE OF THE DAY.  One of the engineers, responding to something a contractor was saying in a conference call, and sounding, how shall I put it, mildly exasperated, said, “You are confusing expediency with practicality“, which caused me to SWOON.

Then I came home after a satisfying day, smiling in the rain and clutching my signed sheet, which I still haven’t faxed, and found my brother had just got home.  He said, “I got ya a present, I hope you like it.”

Well, it was from that batch of slides that Loki processed from 35 millimeter to digital, the slides from when we were, like, 9 months old and 2 and a half, respectively, and Jeff’d had it blown up to half poster size (with Blossom Su of course, the framing magician of pictures, art and media, she wot did the Inuit hunters).  Of all of the pictures in that batch, it was the one I wanted.  Both of us look incredibly goofy, and nothing much has changed.  I could hardly be more pleased.

A thoroughly satisfactory day.

Today, dentition maintenance at noon.  Dafter Katie (that’s daughter written US Revolutionary War style) is going to Victoria to be a prop and stay to her grandmother (and, if I may be so bold as to say it, to get the hell out of Dodge the week before her -hopefully- last legal encounter with her ex boyfriend.)

Also today I have to phone my old employer and work some contacts.  I am so ready to go back to work it’s ridiculous.  And to think, a couple of weeks ago, I thought I had forgotten how.  I am anticipating work – but things are, apparently, not very rosy at the old place and I have had two different engineers tell me not to come back, although I suspect both of them have ulterior motives.  Maybe it IS time for me to move on, can’t step in the same stream twice, harrumph harrumph.