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ShinyHappy - Thoughts for March 16th - 31st
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03/31/05 Spring has sprung, dammit!
It was another lovely day outside. It was overcast, but still warm and pleasant and good for being out of the apartment. I had to go out this afternoon and while I did take the bus to get where I was going, I decided that walking home would be a good thing to do. So I did. About ten minutes from home it started raining, but it was friendly spring rain, the kind that reminds you that it's nice outside and reassures you that sleet is but a distant memory. Then tonight on the phone mom again reassured me that it's only a tease and the weather is going to go back to horrible in just a little while. I love my mom.
When I got back to our building our super was talking to the Great Dane lady in the doorway, and she had her goofy Great Dane with her. I smiled at everyone (including the dog because I smile at dogs) and buzzed myself in. As I was standing at my door unlocking it the Great Dane lady came in and as they passed me the Great Dane stuck its Great Dane nose right in my butt crack. Just casually and neighbourly-like. It's a friendly dog-thing to do, you know. As a human I found it startling and invasive, but I got over it. The Great Dane lady either didn't notice or simply condones her dog doing that sort of thing to people she doesn't know.
Before I went out today, actually, I got a package in the mail. I'd just had my shower and was wearing pajamas with a wild head of wet hair and no makeup when the buzzer buzzed. I'd also just noticed a mail truck out the window so figured that it was for me. It was. I answered the door in my state of disarray and recieved a giant flat package from the grinning mail guy. It was from Jerome, and inside I found an amusing book called Going, Going, Gone! that is basically a book you do activies in until it's finished, at which point there are no pages left and you make a craft out of the bookbinding wire and make a time capsule using the covers. So, the book disappears. Very neat.
There was another part to this package. Betsy sent me a pair of hairsticks that apparently she and Jerome think are classy and beautiful (and don't look like sex toys at all), according to the enclosed card. With them comes the expectation that I will take pictures of myself wearing them. So, without further ado, here are the classy and beautiful sticks in my hair. Aren't they lovely? Don't you wish you had a pair? I know you do. Thank you, Jerome! Thank you, Betsy!
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03/30/05 I chose not to run around naked on the farm.
I had an unexpectedly nice day today. Not that I expected today to suck rocks or anything, but I was pleasantly surprised by the niceness of it. Andrew had an appointment this morning, and when he came back he told me that he had to go out to the Experimental Farm and he wanted me to go too. So, I got ready to go and we headed out there.
We weren't going there to do the whole 'experience', as it were. Andrew wanted to look at the architecture of some of the buildings for one of his classes, so we basically went for a leisurely walk all over the grounds. It was a gorgeous day outside and I didn't have to wear my winter coat or anything. Well, I did wear something. I was fully clothed, but I wore a fleece hoodie coat instead of my big brown jacket. It looks as though that jacket is now going into storage.
We walked clear across the farm and over to Carleton where Andrew showed me around Dunton Tower a little bit. We looked at his office and the classroom where most of his classes are held. I was impressed with the view from his classroom, actually, on the twelfth floor. It's a gorgeous view, and you can see way over to Lansdowne Park and the Glebe Community Centre. Well, only part of the Glebe Community Centre, but enough to make me happy. After this we went and caught a bus back to the Glebe.
While we were on the bus I saw the best thing ever. You know how people will write snotty things in the dirt on vehicles with their fingers, like, "Clean me," or "If you can read this, your car is too dirty?" Well, I saw a van that had, "I wish my girlfriend was this dirty," written on it. Tee hee hee. I pointed it out to Andrew and the first thing he said was, "That's going in your blog, isn't it?" Ah, he knows me so well.
Then we came home and ordered pizza and snuggled on the sofa and watched Lost, since it's finally running new episodes again. What a great show. I was upset, though, because it was all about one of my favourite characters and the bad stuff that's happened to him. I'm so manipulated by these things. Sigh.
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03/29/05 I can't think of a good nickname for the basket.
Anyone anxiously wondering will be relieved to know that our laundry basket has been returned to us. On his way out the door to head to the school today Andrew ran into our superintendent out in the foyer. He mentioned to him that someone had stolen our laundry basket the night before, and the super said that he'd seen a laundry basket down in the laundry room this morning. He said he'd get it for us, since Andrew was on his way out the door. Later while I was in the shower he buzzed us, so when I got out I heard a message from him telling us that he was Publisher's Clearing House and we'd just won one hundred thousand dollars. What a comedian. After I was dressed I opened up the door and our basket was leaning against the doorframe. It still could have been stolen, you know, but at least it's home again where it belongs.
Over the last year Andrew has been checking out lots of mashups online. What are mashups, you may ask? They're cool. A mashup is two songs that are edited together in a clever way so that you can still hear both songs quite clearly but they make something completely new. Sometimes even more than two songs are used, although I think the best ones use just a couple of songs. If you're at all interested in checking out mashups for yourself, look at Go Home Productions, LenLowLand Music, IDC Music or Party Ben. My favourite mashup of all time combines Jenny On The Block and Wonderful Christmastime. I don't like either of these songs on their own, but somehow when you put them together they're fun!
Now, I have to rant a little bit about tonight's double episode whammy of The Amazing Race, so if you've taped it to watch later you should skip the next couple of paragraphs, O.K.?
Now, I'm a huge fan of Rob and Amber, seeing as how I loved Rob so much on Survivor and have loved him like crazy on TAR ... up until tonight. Tonight he pulled a couple of jerk moves that made me very sad. I don't know if it's the pressure and stress getting to him or what, but he wasn't the heart-of-gold evil genius that I've come to know and love. He was just another smarmy guy making selfish decisions. One of the teams had all their money and posessions taken away from them as a penalty for coming in last on a non-elimination round, and Rob refused to give them even a tiny bit of money, when all the other teams but one did so. Then, another team actually got into a car accident and instead of stopping to see if they were O.K., he and Amber just drove on past. I'm so disappointed in them. :( The team that I hate the most right now stopped and made sure everyone was O.K., and in that moment I had to admit that they had more compassion than Rob. Sigh.
(Skip this one too if you don't want to be spoilered!) I'm happy, though, because another team that I hated got beaten to the finish line by mere seconds! The guys that were in the car accident beat them in a footrace to the mat (that's total TAR lingo, too) and I was yelling at the TV and everything. Even Phil had tears in his eyes, man. I love me that Phil.
O.K., I'm done. No more TV talk tonight.
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03/28/05 Now I have to go make me a big ol' shank.
Don't you hate it when you've been intending to make fun of someone for a while but you keep forgetting? Me too!
So, we were at Colin and Jen's place the other night watching a movie with them and Dan and May. We all had various beverages and were watching the movie quite happily (and some of us tipsily). I happened to glance over at Andrew and witnessed him seemingly tossing a glass of port all over himself. According to him it was an accident, and he just demonstrated the physics of it for me (although he got really mad when I laughed so hard I cried). The story does seem to indicate that the port would have ended up on me if he hadn't tried to stop it from tipping, thereby sloshing port all over his absorbent wool sweater, so I'm happy. Tee hee.
I find it particularly funny because approximately a year ago I spilled Passover wine on myself in almost exactly the same manner, and have no clue how it really happened. If you check back to my April 13th entry of last year I did the same thing, but also got the wine on Dan and May's sofa. That was the day that I dumped an entire Coke on the floor at McDonald's, too. See, Jen? I drop lots of stuff.
I'm very angry tonight because some dick-headed, jerkweed dipwad stole one of our laundry baskets from the laundry room downstairs. I hate you, laundry basket stealer! My rage is disproportionate to your crime and I will cut you! Now we only have one small, wimpy laundry basket and will have to go buy more. I'm usually very trusting and leave them down there while the laundry is going, whereas Andrew is not so trusting and brings them upstairs. Tonight was the one time he left a basket down there and it got nicked.
At least we'll get new laundry baskets, and this time buy two big ones so that our total laundry basket needs will be met.
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03/27/05 Mosaic moose balls are just wrong.
Today we got to see Noah! Well, I got to see more of him than Andrew did, but we both saw him so it counts. Dan called this morning to suggest we all go to the Museum of Nature so that Noah could have a place to run around and be entertained. It turned out that Andrew had to work on a school project with a classmate for a while during the afternoon, but I was free to go with the friends to the place, so I did.
It ended up being a mid-to-late afternoon type event. The weather outside was freakishly lovely today and the funky aromas of moist decay are dying down a bit, I believe. The museum is quite near to us so the walk was pleasant and fun. I hadn't been there since I was just a kid. At the time I'm not sure what I thought when I looked at all those stuffed wolves and bison and birds and other creatures. Today, though, I thought, "Wow. Look at all those poor dead animals." Yep. That's a buncha dead animals. It was interesting, though, and I enjoyed much of it. Even the placid, unmoving bullfrog that was actually alive, even though he pretended he wasn't.
May, Jen and I made a trip down to the picnic room in the basement where we bought refreshing beverages and chatted for a bit. Colin warned us that the basement would feel like a place that we weren't allowed to be in and he was quite correct. Apparently we were, and a good time was had by all. On the way out of the museum Jen pointed out the anatomically correct moose mosaic on the floor, which I was scandalized by. Personally, I think that's a feature that could have been left out of the moose mosaic with no loss of artistry whatsoever. But, hey. I'm not an art critic in real life.
And little Mr. Noahpants is a talking, running, tripping, smiling machine! He talks. A lot. He ran around the museum hollering, "Buttons! TV!" There are little TV thingies set into some of the displays where you press a button to see a little information short. Noah was so thrilled by them. He said many other things, like 'elephant' and 'open' and 'more', but major conversation is not yet his forte. Andrew met up with us on the walk back home and we decided to accompany everyone back as far as Colin and Jen's place just for the sheer pleasure of walking in beautiful weather with such lovely company. When we arrived Dan and May left Noah outside with us while they grabbed some stuff from the apartment.
So, Andrew wrangled Noah for a bit while Jen and I watched. We watched as Noah zoomed along the sidewalk in the exuberant manner of a toddler who is nearing two years old. We watched as he ran along the dry portion of the sidewalk, running ever closer to a muddy patch. I knew what would happen. And it happened. We watched as he ran strong and tall until he reached the muddy patch, and when he got to it we watched as he did the patented toddler flop onto the ground that happens when maximum velocity has been reached and the feet just can't sustain it any longer. His toddler knees were thoroughly muddied, but he was unfazed.
Dan, May and Colin returned and we took our leave of our friends, who were heading over to Colin's parents' place for Easter dinner. Dan and May are heading back to Toronto tomorrow and we will miss them, but we'll be seeing them again soon. Just because I say so.
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The weather in Ottawa is becoming spring-like, finally. Andrew warned me that when Ottawa snow begins to melt there wafts forth a distinctive aroma, and he was not wrong. It's ... bad. I've lived in snowy cities all my life, but for some reason the scent is all kinds of bad here. Perhaps it's because I've been conditioned by Andrew to think that way, but whatever the reason, the layers of dog poo and refuse are warming up and damply steaming in the sun. Stinkily. Andrew also says it doesn't last long, thankfully, so perhaps the rotting fish aroma of the park beside our building will dissipate quickly.
Dan and May and Noah are in town. I was mightily looking forward to seeing them. My only poutiness is rooted in the fact that we've only had a five-second glimpse of Noah, right before he had to go to bed on Friday. Apparently he's talking a lot now, so I'm hoping to hear some wordiness from him before he goes back to Toronto on Monday.
We've had good times hanging out with our friends and eating delicious food this weekend. We went to The Clocktower with Colin and Jen last night. I'd never been, and ended up having a fantastic meal of maple glazed pork loin roast. Then tonight Andrew's parents took us out to New Mee Fung for pho, and after that Andrew and I headed back to Colin and Jen's place where they were finishing up Dan's Chez Jen dinner. We partook in his chosen dessert of crepes Bella Della, which were delicious. Well, Andrew didn't partake seeing as how the crepes were eggy and all. Jen is really a fantastic cook. I'm so impressed by her ability to learn a new recipe and make it perfectly the day of the meal. Go, Jen!
Oh, one of Jen's fishstick hairsticks broke. Apparently she dropped it, but since I also drop everything I own all the time I'm not going to make any jokes about clumsiness or her apparent carelessness with things of beauty and value (tee hee). The bead decoration came off the top, so I fixed it for her and also gave her a second pair of sticks so she'd have backup sticks. Jen will be my hairstick tester, and get free sticks for testing their durability and strength.
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I've been thinking about my health recently because most of the time it's just not great. I've been trying to make some improvements, but slowly. Trying to change everything all at once doesn't usually work for me, since I've done drastic diet changes in the past and haven't had much success, getting tired of a new, involved regime in time. I've lately managed to wean myself entirely off of Coca Cola, which is a difficult process and I did it slowly too, but the caffeine withdrawl headaches were a bear. I've done it before, but now that I'm thirty I have to get truly serious about this stuff. Diabetes runs in the family and I don't want to get it anytime soon.
I've wondered on and off for years now if an anti-yeast diet would help me with some of the chronic problems I have, like headaches and fatigue. When I looked up yeast problems, however, it seems that they cover almost any conceivable illness and symptom out there. Including diabetes. Anyhow, the upshot of an anti-yeast diet is that it is certainly one that is compatible with trying to avoid diabetes. The negative is that it cuts out a lot of things I like, such as; anything breadlike, fruit juices (except for home-squeezed), dairy products, alcohol, olives, mustard, bacon, peanuts and peanut products, cereal, et cetera. Sugar goes without saying (even though I said it).
It's something to think about. It's the definition of a drastic diet change.
I've endured a lot of teasing about my fixation on good hair grooming, but I must share a link to this guy's site on flat-top crewcuts. I think that the flat-top crewcut is a mighty fine haircut, but this guy really loves him some flat-top crewcuts. Enough to link to every single flat-top crewcut in the world! Go. Enjoy. Learn.
On Survivor the other night one of the reward challenges involved the winners getting to go and swim in Jellyfish Lake, a lake full of jellyfish that don't sting. The winners snorkeled around among all these thousands and thousands of jellyfish, and I said to Andrew that I'd be afraid I was hurting them, since the swimmers unavoidably brushed up against them and bumped into them as they swam. I found the thought of being surrounded by them almost creepy. This was reinforced when I read this excerpt from the website: "It is like swimming through a cloud of pulsating alien hearts, slimy, soft and delicate."
Ew.
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03/23/05 The little-ass birds sing the pretty-ass songs.
I forgot to put in a funny link yesterday. Well, part of the story is pretty sad, but the result is definite humourous weirdness in the form of a Satanic Turtle. Yes, the world is an odd, odd place. Snakes are too obvious now, so Satan's using turtles for his evil works instead. Scary.
Andrew says it's all craziness and much like the Grilled Cheese Virgin Mary. I tend to agree.
In other fire news (which will make sense to you if you clicked on the turtle link), there was a bad one on Bank street today not far up the road from us. We took a walk past it on our way to Hartman's later in the day to buy groceries. It was a big one that gutted the entire upstairs of the building it was in, and it was even more collapsed and awful looking than the picture in the article. It was weird to see practically all of a room burned out and fallen away, but the kitchen sink and cupboards and water heater sitting out in the open air in plain view, the dishrack and other kitchen stuff still intact. Creepy. As far as we know nobody died, so that's good, but the businesses and homes are destroyed.
Anyhow, I don't have a whole lot else to report. We're looking forward to seeing Dan and May this weekend, of course, and I'm looking forward to getting my hairstick blanks soon so I can go on another crafts binge. Lately I've had a very sore back and it doesn't seem to be going away quickly like I hoped it would, so I should probably see a doctor about it soon if it keeps lingering. It's a muscular thing that has cropped up before, usually when I'm stressed, and I want it gone by the time I get around to sitting at a table doing artsy stuff!
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Today was Alannah's birthday! Happy birthday, La! I called her this evening to wish her a happy birthday and shouted it in her ear when she picked up the phone. She just said, "That's all?" It seems that other people had sung to her when they called, so I burst forth into the Happy Birthday Song so as not to be outdone by people like Grandma and La's friend Christine. I think I really made it my own, too. Alannah sounded impressed. Or something. Anyhow, it was all crazy-sounding at her place what with the cake being cut and served so I let her go back to the partying.
Also, I jokingly told her that I picked out the jewelry I'd gotten her as a gift because it was slutty, and she then informed me that she'd let Skotia (who is turning nine this month) wear some of it to school today. Good thing I was just joking! Heh. Heh.
Tonight we watched The Amazing Race, as we always do on Tuesdays. It was a pretty good episode, taking place in Argentina. What really impressed me, though, were the horses that they rode on during a Gaucho challenge. I kept telling Andrew that I was dying to know what kind of horses they were using, since I didn't think I'd seen horses like them before. I did a little research and I'm now positive that they were Criollo horses. I'm not sure what it was that made me so fascinated with them. They seemed like fast, sassy little things. One horse was totally unimpressed with the contestant riding him and made her fall off two or three times. Hee. I've never actually fallen off a horse in my life, you know. I expect to at some point.
Anyhow, not much else is going on around here. Andrew taught his second class at Algonquin today and it apparently went very well, so I guess I should stop being so nervous for him every time. Also, I got some funky hair things in the mail this week and I'll post pictures of them when we get some camera batteries. They're too interesting not to share.
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03/20/05 Thash right. I'm drunked.
We made it to Kingston! Yay! We left on Friday evening and drove there, ending up at my mom's place. Alannah, Skotia and Sehrin all have March birthdays so Andrew and I had to do a little shopping trip for gifts before we went, but we made good time and didn't get into town too late. I ended up getting Skotia a funky pink purse that I wanted to keep, and La and Mimi seemed to also lust for it. Hey, Bentley's, everyone. You can get it in baby blue, too.
Saturday we went out for lunch with my mom and visited Alannah at her work, where she made it so that Andrew got steak quesadillas instead of chicken when they're not even on the menu. Go, La! I had yummy little potstickers and doggie-bagged three of them, but they unfortunately got left overnight in my mom's car along with the massive second piece of fish that Mom couldn't finish. Ah, well. Somehow Andrew's guardian train-related-events angel worked it so that our visit to Kingston coincided with a train show so he went off to look at train stuff while Mom and I went to Michael's so I could see if they carried hairstick blanks.
They didn't. The saleslady that I asked looked very confused, then called another saleslady over to ask her about it. They both suggested popsicle sticks, which is so dumb I have trouble getting myself to even believe they're both capable of holding down jobs. They then both suggested the wooden dowels that Michael's carries, which I expected they would. They then made a big production of writing down my request, informing me that when people ask for things they don't carry, they write it down. I'm not sure what happens after that, but at least I know it's been noted.
Saturday evening we all zoomed over to Alannah's place for a big huge meal of Chinese food. I got to see Mimi who seems much improved, at least to the point where she could hang out with us and eat a truckload of egg rolls. I had brought Halo's old trackball toy to give to either Alannh or Mimi for their cats. I figured whichever cat liked it best could keep it, but Koal (Alannah's cat) tried it first and liked it a lot, so Mimi got the cat ravioli and the fur mice for her cat, Reese. I gave Mom Halo's old scratching post for Mang and Keller, but neither of them even touched it that I saw, so I'm not sure how well it's going to go over.
Mimi and July went home sometime after eight, and Mom did too, leaving Alannah, me and Andrew to watch Four Weddings And A Funeral which was on television as part of a 'Mad About Hugh' film festival or something. When it ended there was a half-hour long show about the top ten wedding movies of all time (or the last fifteen years or so, anyhow). This gave Andrew the evil idea of making Colin and Jen watch all those movies with us to get them in the wedding spirit. I'm not sure it would work, seeing as how the number one movie was Four Weddings And A Funeral and the message at the end of that one is that getting married isn't a requirement for happiness.
Today we had to leave Kingston. I got to see Mimi and July one more time, then Andrew and I headed back for Ottawa, where my lovely Chez Jen dinner awaited. We went over to Jen and Colin's very soon after getting home. Jen offered to serve us drinks and told me she had the makings for a Long Island Iced Tea, one of my favourite drinks. I took her up on it and she went off to make it. She brought it back to me, and I took a sip. That first sip sent me off into a drunken stupor from which I have yet to recover. Read the recipe I linked to there. Substitute 'ounce' for 'part'. It was actually quite good, but since it was a bit too strong for me we ended up diluting it with more Coke, after which it went down nice and easy. Mmmm. Jen mixes a mean drink.
The dinner was excellent. Delicious. Perfect. The roast beef was beautifully done, all pink and juicy and flavourful. The yorkshire pudding was light and crisp and heavenly. The maple carrots were so incredible that I could have eaten just those and been satisfied. The roasted potatoes were also amazing and I loved them. Thank you, Jen! I'm so impressed with your culinary skills.
So, that's about it for this weekend, I guess. I'm looking forward to next weekend. May and Dan are coming to town with Noah, who I'm sure will be so much bigger and talkier than the last time we saw him.
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03/16/05 Overuse of italics? Check.
Well, I'm not in Kingston yet. The final plan is that we're going there on Friday together and we'll both stay the weekend, coming back to Ottawa on Sunday. I like this plan just as well since it means I don't have to be away from Andrew for days. So, as we ended up not doing the traveling thing today we were free to get together with Colin and Jen. We'd been invited to a get-together at their place tonight since Jen's brother is in town and I'd never had the pleasure of meeting him before.
Colin and Jen called at around 7:00 to suggest that they meet me and Andrew for some supper at The Works before the get-together. This was cool with us. We always like going to The Works for freaky burgers. So we went and discovered that there was going to be quite a wait, as the place was (as it usually is) packed. We waited, though. Colin was not to be denied a freaky burger.
When we were finally seated our waiter came over and when I tried to order my burger immediately confused me by making some sort of joke about how people ask for one thing on the menu but point to a completely other spot on the page. I was so confused! I decided to go for the Big Macintosh, which is a burger with apple slices and jarlsberg cheese. I asked for cheddar instead of jarlsberg, since I'm not a swiss fan and I was informed by the cheese experts that jarlsberg is a swiss. That was simple enough, although I also asked for my burger to be as undercooked as possible because I'm a raving carnivore that likes her meat bloody.
Andrew had the Field of Dreams burger, which he's had before and of course has mushrooms. Colin went for the Diamondhead again, admitting that when he finds something he likes at a restaurant he often ends up ordering it every time he goes. I'm worried about that, since The Works has so many freaky burgers to choose from that there have to be some that are better than the Diamondhead and Colin might never know. Jen went with one that had avocado on it and it was the first on the menu, but I don't recall the name at all.
When our burgers arrived I discovered that instead of giving me the Big Macintosh they'd given me a Big Ben, which had yummy-looking smoked meat but was not what I ordered. I sat and nibbled on my sweet potato strings while everyone else chowed down. My proper order came very quickly so I wasn't in a bad place about it or anything. Until I tried to eat my yummy burger and discovered that this burger had no cohesion whatsoever. It flapped wildly as I tried to eat it, apple slices and lettuce sliding and slipping out, the bun fanning away, the meat escaping out the back. All was disarray until I wrapped my napkin around the whole thing and subdued it that way. I think next time I'll go with a different burger, even though it was very tasty.
Andrew had to run back to the apartment for something, and Jen took off to their apartment with Trevor and his girlfriend, who had arrived during the latter part of our meal. This left me and Colin to deal with the bills. We left to pick up Andrew, and I decided to get Andrew to buzz us in instead of me hunting through my purse for my keys. I confidently dialed our buzz code and was shocked when a woman's voice answered! Shocked, I tell you. It appears that I dialed the wrong buzz code. Silly me. I was so flustered and embarassed by this that I did go to the trouble of digging out my keys in the end anyhow.
The visit at Colin and Jen's place was nice, if short. They were going to watch Galaxy Quest, but since we've seen it and Andrew still has lots of schoolwork to do we took a miss and came home. Not until after we'd been made to listen to at least three songs from William Shatner's latest cd, which turned out to be quite entertaining.
In all we had a very nice night, and I'm quite glad that we got to spend some time with our friends. On Sunday we will be coming back from Kingston to have my Christmas gift dinner at Chez Jen, which I'm all kinds of excited about. Roast beef, gravy and Yorkshire pudding! Woo hoo!
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