Back to work

I was super happy to be back at work yesterday.  While I was gone things apparently fell to rack and ruin in the neckrub department. LTGW said, “We were lost without you so I went out and bought an Allegra” which turns out to be a weird back massager thingy.  Two bucks at the dollar store!  Who knew I was so easily replaced? Fortunately that little piece of wood doesn’t enter transactions in our sluggish, crabby and unsupportable ERP, which, so rumour has, will be replaced by SAP in a couple of years so I guess I needn’t worry about being replaced.  Chris liked his atheist greeting card. Patricia liked her pommeau – a Calvados/pear cider blend – and I suspect she’ll like it even better when she tries it.  Robof9 forgave me for not bringing him anything, and I only gave postcards to my other two teammates but AT LEAST it was someplace I’d actually been.

I continue to have issues with jet lag at odd times of the day, but I should be back in the rhythm of things more or less by Wednesday.

Katie was by and organized her stuff.  Then we all watched the last half of an HBO movie Iron Jawed Angels, which was about the fight for the vote for women in the US.  There was an incredible roster of talent and the script was pretty good, although tiresomely anachronistic in a couple of spots.  Hillary Swank was great.

It’s POURING.

I got a wonderful night’s sleep last night.  On Tammy’s recommendation I am taking glucosamine and it really does reduce inflammation in my back and hips.  While in Paris we were talking about her recent diagnosis of osteo arthritis and when I showed off the special noises both of my knees make these days she said I ought to get to a doctor.  Two days of glucosamine and the noise is much reduced, at least in my left knee.  I suspect that stumping down a hill in uncomfortable or non-orthotic shoes every morning is stressing the joints.  I wish I still lived close to Tom and Peggy – I’d probably be more inclined to swim.

Time for a quick hosing down and then out into this rain, which I now laugh at because I have a Goretex jacket from MEC.  Hey, at least I’m not likely to leave the damned thing on the bus, like my last umberella.

Christmas joke:

Ozzy Osbourne said, “Christmas is a time for remembering.  So that’s me ****ed!”

Coeur de Lion

On a day so blustery that it recalled the worst of Vancouver in December, with nasty horrid rain, we went to the Chateau Gaillard, what’s left of one of Richard Lionheart’s castles. 

It’s amazing, but after 10 minutes Tammy and I were only too happy to get the Peugeot down the 15 degree slope of the access road and into Les Andelys, one of the most delightful towns imaginable,  for a little bit of shopping and a meal of seafood salad and bifteck (18 Euros, cheapest meal you can imagine in this part of the world, and Marvellous).  We picked up some yummies for the morning, and some wrapping for my liquid gifts (which will have to be checked baggage, but c’est la vie).  Then some very very very interesting travel.  First a trip to the train station at St Pierre de Vauvray and god help me if I miss the 7:32.  Then an hour trip into Paris if nobody does anything stupid like strike.  Then hopping out at Gare St Lazare and grabbing a cab for a 60 Euro ride out to Roissy-Charles De Gaulle airport.  Then checking baggage, checking in (because it turns out I can’t print my boarding pass) and then hopefully not experiencing any difficulties with the return flight.  So there are potentially four places things can fuck up tomorrow, and I’m on a super tight timeline.

I have credit cards.  The way I figure it, the worst that can happen is I get stuck in Paris overnight;I may have to stay at the hotel at the airport.  Or maybe I’ll forget to composte my ticket and be grilled on some out of the way siding by the French transit police.

What’s all this about the Canadian government falling?  I understand  the Troughmaster General may prorogue Parliament sometime shortly.  I mean I hope Harper experiences a conversion to humanism on the road to Hull, but are we all ready for another freaking election?

I have more pictures of cats than anything else.  They really are adorable, and only one of them is tame enough to allow itself to be touched.

Scallops and scallions

We were informed that Le Neubourg had the best market in Normandy, or more properly, Eure, and by damn if it wasn’t true.  We will have lovely pictures when we finally get home.  We got a dozen freshly shucked scallops, scallions, lettuce, cress, grapefruit, a whole chicken and a snootful of ‘how the French really live’; for less than 30 Euros, which given that we had a 108 Euro meal last night at the mansion at the end of the lane kinda puts things in perspective.  The duck was amazing.

Driving in France is loads of fun.  I keep thinking of all the people I know who would love to be doing what I’m doing these days, tooling along country roads at 90K while sheep and goats and horses and cattle go about their business.  We got dreadfully close to two goats today.

 

I have very cute pictures of the feral cats.  There are apparently 18 but we’ve only seen seven.  Since I fed them the remains of my chicken lunch they’ve decided I’m a-okay.

I also have pictures of Connelles, the little town where we’re staying.  Hopefully we’ll get our cameras home in one piece.

Only one more full day and then…. back home.  It’s been a slice, but my own bed is calling me.  I’m not looking forward to 13 hours of being stuck in a plane and two hours on the ground in Toronto.

I really like the resort.

Here in Normandy

There are owls!  Yup, I had earplugs in last night so I didn’t hear them, but Tammy assures me they were hooting away. I have to feed coins into this thing to make it go, but by a special mercy of Providence it has an Anglo keyboard.  The one in Paris justabout slew me.

What to say?  All of France appears to be a particularly aesthetically pleasing method of passing along bacteria.  You greet SHOPKEEPERS with a handshake if you know them at all.  To secure the attention of the waiters, you sing out a particularly cheerful bonjour and then patienter.  But if I ever have any money, I’m going to ask the city of Paris to permit me to install a plaque on the sidewalk in front of the Trinite station which reads in French, on December 1 2008 a Canadian tourist witnessed a Parisien stoop and scoop AND put the deposit in the trash.  So it is possible for miracles to occur – I witnessed it from the window of the Cafe Rotunda.

French children are so well behaved that it’s ****ing scary. 

I highly recommend where we’re staying.  It has a laundry, pool, hot tub, nicely appointed kitchen, a view of the Seine, a view of a forest, and it’s on one of those freaking scary French roads which should be max 80k and of course the dear French folk think nothing of racing down it at night at speeds in excess of 100k, if the engine noise is anything to go by.

Tammy did the driving out of Rouen.  If we’d had the sense to video our trip out of Rouen we could probably make money out of it.  It’s a thousand year old town with streets and signage to match.  If I hadn’t gotten a young man at a gas station to go “Connelles? Oui, je connais Connelles.”  Then he told me to follow the signs for Vernon, which we did, past Igoville PSST LUDDITE THAT’S WHERE TRAIN PARADISE IS!!! and then we ended up on a freaking cowpath which turned out to be the right road after all.  Now today I get to drive, and what a bowl of joy that will be.  It’s a little gray diesel, standard, Peugeot.  But it’s peppy!  And it has a tach!

The library here has books in English, French, Russian, German, Hebrew and there’s even Joe Haldeman’s Forever War.  What more could a girl want?

Jon Lajoie live show

ScaryClown and I saw Jon Lajoie at The Plaza last night. The opening act was forgettable, but by the time Jon appeared the place was pretty much full. He did a lot more talking than singing, and didn’t end up doing more than four or five tunes. However, he did both “High As F***” and the “2 Girls, 1 Cup song”, so we were happy. The crowd clearly knew Jon from his videos, based on their reactions to videos shown on a big screen behind the stage. Some of those videos were new bits, including “How to get away with murdering a random street person.” Many in the crowd – including myself – sang along with our favourites. Overall, not a brilliant performance, but a lot of fun.

Brian Eno believes that singing is the key to a good life

From an interesting NPR article, here’s Brian Eno on singing as a path to happiness:

Singing aloud leaves you with a sense of levity and contentedness. And then there are what I would call “civilizational benefits.” When you sing with a group of people, you learn how to subsume yourself into a group consciousness because a capella singing is all about the immersion of the self into the community. That’s one of the great feelings — to stop being me for a little while and to become us. That way lies empathy, the great social virtue.

I am here and safe in Paris….

….and exsanguinating money like a drunken film star.  This keyboard is French; it is hard to convey how hard it is to type anything and make sense.  No USB cable so no pics.  Paris is a pretty overwhelming city but certain things about it just make loads of sense.  The legendary rudeness of Parisians is pretty much a thing of the past; everybody we have run into has either been super nice or just kinda clueless; hardly malicious.  I am taking daily notes and will provide more detail upon my return…. any blogging I do in the meantime will be cursory as it took me about twenty minutes just to type this!

Best …. line …. evar

So.  There is this filksong called The Mad Scientist’s Love Song which is performed by Lady Miss B and Dr. Filk.  In a startling development, they reversed roles and Dr. Filk got to be the charming assistant.

When I commented that I had never actually seen Dr. Filk in a dress before, this was the response from LMB (emphasis added by moi):

Subject: Re: Dr Filk’s ballgown

My favourite part was how he accessorized with big chunky biker boots.

Okay, no, my favourite part was him saying “Why, what would a day be like
 without a little public humiliation? I’ll probably never find out.”

I AM SO STEALING THAT LINE. 

I’m recovering today from walking all the way from King to Bloor last night.  Met Dave JD at Jump, walked about downtown for a while, ended up at C’est What, and I want to tell you ALL that I will die fulfilled and happy, because I HAVE HAD A BEER FLOAT.  Yes, the C’est What has Hazelnut Chocolate Bitter floats, with whipped cream and ice cream and a maraschino cherry.  Each mouthful had at least four flavours; the final top note of the hops in the Bitter danced on my palate for about 15 minutes before I regretfully had to wake up a bit with coffee and water.  PS, the meal at Jump was solid but there’s no ******* way it was worth $100 even with the alcohol.  Then we walked all the way up Yonge, deking into the Eaton Centre so I could see what it looked like tarted up for Xmas (worth seeing), and then coming back out of the PATH to view the ******* mess they made of the intersection of Dundas and Yonge. 

The entire downtown core is a mess of sodium vapour orange, metallic blue and piercing white LED lights festooned from every lamppost and filling every square; total Xmas yield = + 350 ugly points.  We continued up the street.  The Swiss Chalet I ate at multiple times a week when I was working at the Delta Chelsea is still there.  Many other landmarks are gone but plenty remain.  David’s is still on the corner of Yonge and Bloor with its array of expensive shoes; the Pilot is still there just off Yonge in Yorkville.  As is standard I did most of the talking; sometimes I wonder if Dave ever is thinking “When will she STFU?”  He deked into a CD joint and insisted on picking up a couple of Weakerthans CD’s so you may all be assured that Dave’s role in my life as somebody who forces me to refine my taste while I broaden my horizons continues.

We ended up at Flow for the last drink of the evening and after another fifteen minutes of aimlessly wandering around Yorkville while I critiqued the dresses in the window (Jesus, if I was a man I wouldn’t go near a woman dressed like that, I’d be afraid of getting caught on something, etc.) we decided that fun as it had been Dave had to go to work in the morning, so about 10:15 we packed it in; I came home by cab.

Vancouverites, listen up!  The cab driver ASKED ME IF HE COULD TAKE THE CALL when his cell phone rang.  I don’t know how often you take cabs (I gotsk no car, so I do a lot) but I nearly choked on my tongue when he said that.  I thanked him profusely and tipped him according to his deserts.  Speaking of which, prob’ly the funniest part of the evening was how animated Dave got when lecturing me (humourously, not pompously) about the importance of tipping.  The how, the why, the way it’s an inexpensive and effective way of spreading joy, the importance of not looking like a cheap bastard (I paraphrase).

I think I’m coming back in February.  There’s a play I want to see, and I like going to Toronto for Valentine’s day and hanging with friends – I had an AMAZING time the last time.  It’ll be a little awkward seeing as how I’ll just be back from Belize – current planning – who knows – but frankly now that I’ve figured out that I need to quit travelling on cheap airlines I think I’ll have a lot better time.

PS we leave for France soon.  Happy sigh!

At Tammy’s

Working backwards, I am ‘staying above the fray’ as Tammy and the exterminator battle with termites (this part of Toronto has them, and what can you do, eh?), I ate her goat cheese and garden picked oregano omelette (and it was nommy) with fruit and nut bread; I slept great, and in fact about two hours longer than I normally do; we had a very pleasant evening (she bought me Tuborg, the saintly creature, as she never has beer in the house); we figured out where I’ll be spending at least part of my restaurant money in Paris; I arranged to see Dave JD at Jump today around supper time (but nobody else in Toronto, I’ll make a special trip back for that) while Tammy’s at choir practice; I had a pleasant trip by transit from the airport (this being possible because I got to sit the whole way even though it was rush hour when I arrived) and then Tammy picked me up at Pape Station; I had a very pleasant flight because at the last minute I changed my seat selection from 34 row to 44 row (767-200, but Paul probably already knew that) so I had nobody sitting next to me fore. aft, port and starboard and I was close to an aisle and washroom AND I’d never been on an aircraft with functioning video-on-demand in the cheap seats, so I was actually SURPRISED when they called ‘we are starting our descent’; I got my money back from the WORST breakfast sandwich evar and by way of apology the server brought me a free bottle of water; Jeff very kindly dropped me off at the airport; I got a reasonable night’s sleep the night before.

Anyway, I’ll only be going near a computer or screen in the most minimal way for this time off, as it’s obvious my internet addiction is hijacking what’s left of my life, so if you don’t mind I’m off to abuse Pentium and George, two of the nicest and most sucky middle aged cats I’ve ever met, both of whom think I’m kinda keen.  George slept on my feet last night and emitted never a peep.  Happy sigh!  Also, and this if for Keith, Tammy of Surpassing Excellence has Alan Moore’s Lost Girls in hardcover… can such things be?  Who needs the internet?  PS it’s snowing…. that desultory November snow….