Jess Moves to Canada

How to Buy A New-To-You-Car

2010-02-21T17:51:00.003-05:00

In the most complicated way possible:

1. Complain about your previous vehicle for years. Spend time wishing it would actually CATCH ON FIRE, if at all possible. Let it go to the point your best friend gives that vehicle a silly but accurate nick name. Do this to the point that your significant other decides that a replacement would be the sort of gift that would put him into the husband hall of fame.

2. Have a number of somewhat costly repairs come up and be necessary, none of which are actually expensive enough to warrant replacement.

3. Resign yourself to driving "the Bucket" until the wheels literally fall off while you are driving it. This can, but does not have to be part of an overall attempt to stop complaining about stupid things.

4. Crash said car while out-of-town on a Saturday evening and do a really spectacular job of it, although do not injure yourself or others. (5pm on a Saturday is possibly the worst time to get into an auto accident, particularly if you are 300+ miles from people you know beyond their online handles.) If possible, be travelling with an animal to make obtaining alternate transportation and accommodation particularly convenient.

5. Discover that your insurance company has declared your previous car a "total loss incident." Find out that this isn't, as you had feared, the end of the world, and instead that they will handle this efficiently and seemingly with your best interests in mind.

6. Scrape self out of dead faint on floor due to #5.

7. Go into a tizzy of trying to figure out what the heck you want in a used car. Realize you have no freakin' clue and spend several days dithering about it. If possible, disagree with your significant other about what traits are important in a car. Also, call everyone you've ever met and survey your facebook and twitter peeps in an obscure way that leads to the response "go for the Kermit toaster!"

8. Find useful reference volume that provides some clarity, and helps communicate your values when it comes to a car with your significant other. Discover that such a volume costs only $11 and is in the magazine section of the bookstore.

9. steal underpants.

10. Due to work obligations, be forced to travel an insane distance before completing the process of buying a new car. No stress here.

11. Obtain new vehicle.

12. Profits.

(Pictures and more details as soon as I actually buy something.)

Gotta Share This!

2010-02-06T17:13:00.002-05:00

So on Friday, my favourite radio program addressed an important national (Canadian, that is) issue.

Not the prorogation of Parliament or the upcoming Olympics in Vancouver and surrounds, nor even the concern that there may not be enough snow at one of the Olympic venues. Nope. Not the unfortunate recent diagnosis of a leader of NDP, one of the opposition parties in Parliament with prostate cancer.

None of these were the super-important issue that Jian Ghomeshi addressed Friday on his program Q. Nope. It is the intense and significant issue of milk in bags as a point of nationalist pride.

I love this.

Should I Stay or Should I Go? (With Appologies to The Clash)

2010-02-01T13:54:00.000-05:00

I have a dilemma.

I have a completely adequate apartment. It is adequate in that it provides warmth, shelter from the elements, and a place to keep my stuff while, as George Carlin observed, I'm out getting more stuff. It has a kitchen and a washroom, so my biological needs are covered. It is a 20-30 minute walk to/from work and right on an easily accessible bus line to campus. My landlords are lovely people. They've walked my dog for me when I've been particularly stuck.

But... My upstairs neighbours walk around like elephants and seem to have shouting arguments every night just as I settle into bed. (At around midnight. I would understand if they were loud at 7pm and invest in earplugs rather than complain.) But those surprisingly obnoxious folks are graduating and moving at the end of the academic year. Also, it is strangely laid out and I'm responsible for my own snow removal. Finally, lovely as my landlords are, they are not professionals, which sometimes means I have to wait for them to have time to get things fixed.

On the other hand, moving sucks big time. I hate the upheaval it would cause in my life. Even looking for an apartment would be a major time suck that might just end in disappointment. Looking at the listings for available places, it seems as though my requirements might be a bit unreasonable: I'm looking within a particular geographic area, I need a bedroom big enough for a king sized bed, and my dog has to be able to live there too. I don't want to live in a basement.

The Clash had it right, "this indecision's bugging me."

Ontario-centric

2010-01-12T19:31:00.004-05:00

It was pointed out to me a while ago that I have a very limited notion of what Canada is: after all I've never been further east than Toronto, nor any further north, nor I have I been any further to the west than Sarnia (which is nothing at all like Narnia or Yarnia). And I will freely admit that my experience moving to Canada has been limited to moving to Southwestern Ontario.

I can further admit that my experience with living here has been pretty much limited to a fairly closed group of intellectual elites whose experiences have little to do with the vast majority of Canadians, Ontarians, or Londoners. This is, of course, probably somewhat true of my life in Nashville, as well, although that is more skewed toward a sub-culture of yarn-lovers than academics. I digress. The point here is this: in the United States, we tend to be aware of only a few parts of Canada: those that touch the U.S., those that appear on U.S. television (i.e. Vancouver, although we are sometimes led to believe it is some faceless U.S. city), Toronto, or places where the skiing is good (i.e. Banff). We tend to ignore the flat bits that provide most of our energy.

Of course we ignore the flat bits of the U.S. that provide most of our food, too. In politics, the middle section of the United States are often called "fly over" states.

I've been ruminating over this for a while. Several months, in fact.

I have recently discovered Project Runway: Canada, and it is fab.u.lous. But here's the thing. It isn't just we Americans who are Ontario-centric. Of the show's 14 contestants, fully half hail from Ontario. Of those 7, 4 are from Toronto, and I'm pretty sure that a couple of the others are from what could fairly be called "Toronto-adjacent," although my geography isn't strong enough to be sure.

My point is if I am guilty of Ontario-centrism, so is the vast majority of Canadian media. Furthermore, I had to call this blog something and "Jess Moves to Southwestern Ontario and Socializes with Elites" doesn't have quite the same ring as "Jess Moves to Canada." Understand that I have only one experience of moving to this vast and diverse country. Someone who moved to Manitoba to farm cattle would have a completely different experience of Canadian culture than I am having.

But making observations about culture is my job, and I'm going to continue to do it. (Seriously, this is what musicologists do. I can't really turn it off. It is a little obnoxious, sometimes.) Just because they don't sell milk in bags in British Columbia doesn't mean that some of the observations I have found about Canadians aren't true across the board, and as true for the dude who makes my coffee as it is for my students as it is for Elisha Cuthbert, Dave Foley or Jim Carey. But there are also other cultures I comment on: for example that of 19-year-olds and that of crabby, sarcastic academics, and that's because this blog is about Jess moving to Canada. I can only report and consider my own experiences, and I'm going to carry on with that.

New Year's Wishes

2010-01-04T10:49:00.003-05:00

I don't think New Year's Resolutions work. I've been a regular gym goer long enough to see what happens around Valentine's day: 6 weeks after they've been all excited about working out, getting into shape, whatever, over half of those enthusiastic people are no where to be seen.

I also found this year that I didn't really want stuff for Christmas. I have enough and my house is full. What I really wanted was to spend meaningful time with the people I care about. And I got that. Don't get me wrong, there is stuff I want or need in this world, but almost none of it would be rendered more meaningful because a friend or family member spent money on it.

So. For New Year's I have some wishes.

1. I am hoping for a sense of academic direction: lately I've felt a bit aimless and lost in my work. Now that I'm done with classes, I'm hoping that rather than becoming a slug person, watching Mad Men reruns, knitting, and eating pasta in my increasingly dirty apartment, I will instead get excited about my work again, and charge forward in a confident research direction.

2. I am hoping for the possibility of living in the same place as my husband.

3. I would like to spend more time with the people who are important to me.

4. It would be great if one of the multiple conferences I have sent abstracts to will say "yes, please come show us how smart you are."

5. I would like to be more goal directed in my fitness. Things sort of fell to bits after the race back in October, and I would like to get that back, without the burn out that I had in the highest mileage weeks before it. I would also like to have energy and fit better into my pants.

6. I would like to not feel guilty about knitting. Not guilty enough that I am able to start knitting with groups of knitters in London. That would be awesome.

Happy New Year's!

Private Holiday

2009-12-21T13:33:00.005-05:00

5 years ago, my mother passed away.

I post this sad fact not in an effort to extort sympathy from my readers, nor to explain why, if you saw me, I was subsisting largely on Egg Nog Lattes and Moose Munch.

I still miss her every single day.

It seemed cruel, then, that her passing coincided with what had always been one of my favourite times of year. Even when I remember that she was very, very sick, and even when I remember that if she had recovered from the direct cause of her passing, she probably wouldn't be with me now. It still seems unfair that Christmas carols make me cry.

Now, I try to remember that her passing coincided with another winter holiday: the winter solstice. Most precisely, the day after the solstice; the day when the light begins to return. Yesterday was the shortest day of the year, the darkest, longest night. Some traditions burn fires on this longest, darkest night to call the sun back, to serve as symbols of faith that the sun will return, warmth will be restored, and the wheel of the year will keep turning. And tomorrow, the daylight will last a bit longer. According to Weather Underground, 1 entire second more of daylight.

And it is in that one second, meagre though it is, that I find my hope, that I find cause of celebration. Because as sad that I am that Mom is gone, in that one extra second of light, I can find hope. That one second of hope leaves me just a little bit stronger for all of those seconds when there isn't much to be found.

Surprisingly Good Weekend

2009-12-13T17:52:00.005-05:00

So, remember how a while back, I predicted that my car was plotting something? I was right. I'm probably not psychic, but it is a nearly eight-year-old Saturn, and while Saturns are super cars, this particular one has over 144,000 miles on it, and so it is nearing the days when nothing more difficult that short trips should be asked of it. Friday, after packing up to go on a short trip out of town, loading the dog into the car, and setting off, it struck. Before I even made it out of London, smoke began pouring out of the hood. I said a few choice words, and then pulled over and called the auto club; upon peering into the engine compartment, I saw oil all over the place.

After the nice auto club man came and towed me to a service place, I, the dog and my overnight bags took a cab home, and I spent the next several hours fretting about what could be wrong with it, fearing that the call would come and would go something like this:

Service Advisor (SA): Well, ma'am, you aren't going to like this.

Me: More than I didn't like smoke pouring out of the hood? Are you sure?

SA: It needs a new fibity-widget, and that will cost $5,000 just for the part.

Me: Really?! But the car isn't worth that much. I could replace the engine with one from the scrapyard for that much! Hold on a second, I'm feeling a little woozy.

SA: So, should we go ahead with the repair, or would you like to talk to someone in sales?

My fretting, it turns out, was pointless, because the repair was surprisingly cheap-- a gasket related to the oil filter needed to be replaced, and the engine needed to be "shampooed." (Seriously... the air coming out of the vents now smells a bit like rug shampoo. Like I tell Sally all the time, I can't make this stuff up.) Whew. So after the cab ride to pick up the car, I was restored to my former level of mobility.

This morning, I talked to the Dear Husband using ooVoo for quite a while, which was very nice, as I think we are both getting quite lonely. We didn't talk about anything interesting or important, it is just nice to see him, even if it is only for a bit, and only over the webcam.

My goals for today went like this:

Grade 7 papers (I started this morning with 28 left to go... at 7/day they'll be done by the end of Tuesday, which is my deadline.)
Go to the library to return a book and pick up 3 more
Acquire provisions for and bake cupcakes
Outline a paper that is due in a week

So I took myself out for a waffle and eggs (yum!) and marked 2 papers over coffee, went to the library, where I became one of the only people on the planet to check out a play for the stage directions, then headed to the grocery store.

This is where my day really started to rock: I happened to look down as I passed a bargain bin of DVDs, and they had the 3rd season of Six Feet Under for $12.99. Even though it wasn't on my list, I had to. To add to the deal, the store was running a store-wide no tax promotion!

Now I'm making these cupcakes and they smell pretty amazing.

They don't look so shabby, either!

Stuff I Learned Today

2009-12-10T21:54:00.004-05:00

1. Irony is only ironic if everyone gets it. While this is a lesson that I learned in the course of reading dense literary/cultural theories of how we communicate in these post-modern times, it is also an important lesson for social networking.

2. Sometimes a day just has to be written off as a research loss. I had 0 attention span today. Indeed 0 seems a bit generous. It was so bad I was afraid I was sucking other people into my black hole of aimlessness.

3. Markers might make everything better. Okay, probably not, but I picked some up nonetheless. These.

4. Just because you get back on the horse doesn't mean it will be easy. Well, in this case, the treadmill. I ran for 1 minute out of every 5 for 30 minutes, and parts of me I forgot I had now hurt.

5. Cold weather is relative: last year we had -40 temps and it seemed unresonable. Today it was -9 C and I thought I might die. But last week it was nearly 10 C, so I feel like I have a valid excuse.

6. This would all seem easier if there was cake. But then, what wouldn't?

Weird Consequences

2009-12-08T11:33:00.004-05:00

So the bus drivers here in London have been on strike for over 3 weeks now. This has, on one hand, been a total pain in the rear. I like being able to walk to the nearest corner, flash a scrap of paper and my student I.D. and go where I need to.

Oh, sure, I love having a car, although I am terrified of what might go wrong next with my particular vehicle (it plots... I can tell that in the depths of its greasy soul it has something sinister in mind for my holiday travel). Even when there was bus service, there were certain trips I made by car because of the convenience/cost ratio. But, here in Ontario (and perhaps Canada at large), that ratio is different from what I am used to. Yesterday, when I was driving home, I saw gas at the low, low price of $ 0.96 / litre. That sounds low right? Down right.... 1990? Wrong. Time for some math:

1 gallon (U.S.) = 3.79 Litres
3.79L x .96 = $3.64 CDN / Gallon

Push that $3.64 CDN through a handy dandy currency converter and gas here is $3.46/ gallon in US dollars.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the average retail price of gas this week is $2.63 USD. In the closest state to Ontario listed on the site, New York, it is $2.85. When the bus was available,I bought very little gas here in Ontario. Last academic year, I took the bus everywhere but grocery shopping and I visited my parents in the US at least once a month, and bought gas there, for the most part. (Incidentally, my parents are fine and we're not fighting. They're just doing this and their empty house is only so interesting.)

Enter the bus strike, cunningly timed with a sprained ankle (which is recovering nicely, thank you for asking), and the onset of winter-ish weather and suddenly, I'm driving a lot more than I used to. After walking for a few days, I found that my poor ankle, even with a brace, wasn't up to the task. So I sucked it up, bought a parking permit and have re-entered the car commuter rat race.

On one hand, between the extra gas and the $30 CDN / month for my parking pass, I'm definitely spending more money. (I'm also regretting that moment in 2002, when I told the car dealer "this 4 cylinder doesn't have enough oomph... what about the V6?" My bad.) On the other hand, some of the little things that ultimately add up have been falling out of my life. Since the start of the strike, I've had coffee from Starbucks 3x: once on a very bad day from a drive through near the grocery store, once in Michigan for a place to sit and use WiFi, and once as incentive to give a friend a ride... and he bought the coffee. I've also been to the gym a few more times than I might otherwise have been, because I can park next to the rec centre and don't have to wrestle my gym bag on the bus. I don't go to coffee shops to sit and work as much anymore, because parking near some of my faves is a pain. I don't go out to bars or resturants because I don't want to get kicked out of the country over a DUI (or whatever they call it here) and I'm a lightweight, so one drink might do me in.

So this strike hasn't been a total loss for me. I guess the big question becomes will these changes stay in place after the strike ends and I surrender my parking permit. Will the consequence of the strike be a fitter and less caffeinated me? Or just a me who is more grateful for the bus that picks me, my big butt, and my latte up in front of Starbucks?

I do miss the knitting and judging people, though. My sock output has suffered.

I Am Thankful

2009-11-27T07:14:00.004-05:00

I've had writer's block, so I am going to try to write a list. That shouldn't be so hard.

I am thankful for the following:

1. Bulk Barn. This place is freaking awesome. Entry to follow, but in preview: they have an entire wall of stuff for decorating cookies! Also Swedish fish, which are, inexplicably, called Finnish fish. (As holiday baking approaches, I will devote a longer entry to the glories of the Bulk Barn. It is truly glorious.)

2. Free WiFi in the airport.

3. The flexibility to travel, despite it being a work day and having heaps of work to do. Sure, I have to write about Shostakovich while I'm visiting with family, but I can.

4. The sort of job where, when I can't find a way to solve a problem, no body gets hurt. Slightly annoyed I can deal with; I need to keep this in mind that the worst that happens if I don't do well, I might annoy or disappoint people who only matter a little to me.

5. Koigu Painter's Palette Premium Merino. I'm knitting a pair of the Nutkin socks and I'm loving them. I'm enthralled by them. I don't want to do anything else. As in, I don't want to do anything else to the point that this is my new diet plan. (Eventually there will be pictures of these.)

6. My health. I may be sidelined from running, but if that's the only sideline I'm on, I'm probably okay.

7. The health of the people I love.

8. Having people I love who support me on this insane adventure. I may occupy my apartment by myself, but I am not alone. I have wonderful friends in London, Nashville and everywhere, an amazing family, and a beautiful husband who may not always understand what I do but always thinks I'll be great at it.

One of my favourite meditations is a simple, but radical statement on gratitude:

"I am grateful for everything. I have everything I need."

I am and I do. In this upcoming season that so often seems more about gluttony and greed rather than goodwill and thanks, I'm going to sit with this mantra more.

Product v. Process

2009-11-08T12:55:00.004-05:00

So sometimes, this blog looks more like a weird hybrid of a knitting blog and a running blog, rather than anything to do with going to graduate school in Canada. There are people who do both better, I know. That said, both are a major part of what I do when I'm not face down in a pile of work with a ~~bottle of vodka~~ ~~glass of wine~~ pot of tea. (Or running was, before an unfortunate incident while trying to catch a bus left me with a sprained ankle.)

But there is something that binds together musicology, running, and knitting, and it is this: the idea that both involve processes that produce products, and one can focus on one or the other and can get more out of either the process of the activity or its product. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (aka the Yarn Harlot) has written about this a lot in regards to knitting, and has raised the good point that craft cannot be all about process:

"Imagine this: You and I are sitting together on a park bench, and we are having a lovely time, knitting and chatting, maybe we have coffee and some chocolate. It's lovely. I spread my knitting in progress out on my lap to admire it, you know, the way knitters do. . . Then, something catches my eye, and I lean forward to take a better look at the sweater and suddenly you can see what I see. There's a massive mistake. You inhale sharply; this is going to be bad. This is one of those ugly mistakes that can shorten a knitter's lifespan. You slowly look up at me, prepared to help me through this awful moment, and much to your surprise, I break out in an enormous smile of sheer joy and exclaim:

'Wow! Look at that! I made a huge mistake way back at the beginning of this sweater. Oh my gosh, it's enormous. No wonder the rest of the sweater looks so odd. My goodness, that mistake is as obvious as Cher naked at a convent, isn't it? How did I not see that? Well now. What a fabulous turn of events. I'll just have to rip this while thing out. Yup, every single stitch except for the cast-on edge is entirely unacceptable! Oh, but I'm so lucky! I'm glad that I got a chance to knit the whole thing before I noticed this. If I'd seen that mistake right away, then I wouldn't get the pleasure of knitting this practically twice! Oh happy, happy day.'

Having been the knitter who has mad a mistake of that magnitude, I think that if I ever heard a knitter say that, I'd either get up and move, consider talking about her in unflattering terms after she left, or, even though I'm a nonviolent person, I think I'd momentarily consider knocking her off the bench in an attempt to smack the stupid right off the poor unfortunate."
--Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, Free-Range Knitter, 107-8

Even the most devoted process person almost has to be, on some level, at least interested in the product, just as the most devoted product person has to be interested in the process, or they would just buy the stuff at the store.

That said, there are knitters who find their joy in having a big heap of finished objects that they use regularly, rather than on the hours of craft that goes into making them; there are runners whose only pleasure in running is in race times, personal records, and statistics; and there are researchers who measure their success in terms of books and articles published and presentations given. I am not one of these people. I might have a better relationship with time if I was one of these people: if I wasn't having so much fun doing the stuff, maybe I'd be more likely to finish it on time.

I enjoy running because I enjoy the journey: I enjoy watching the world around me, seeing places from a particular perspective, the feel of my body moving through space. It is like dancing, but rarely am I judged for my grace. I race, because the particular experience of racing gives is a different experience from that of just going for a run, not because official results impress me. I work as a musicologist because I love the part of it where I sit down with a heap of sources and actually find something interesting. I am less impressed by the actual act of sitting down and writing up my findings. That is, that part is like pulling teeth and must be surrounded by the perfect environment, or I will gladly clean the kitchen before I can even contemplate getting started with the real work in the other room (a room from which I cannot even see my dirty kitchen). I knit, in the full knowledge that socks are available for $5 for twenty pair at Wal-Mart and sweaters can be more efficiently acquired at the mall. I knit because I get a lot of personal satisfaction out of the act of playing with sticks and string. I teach because I like ~~the sound of my own voice~~ sharing what I know and seeing the moment when students "get it."

These processes would be pretty pointless if they didn't have some sort of product. I like my half marathon medal and my collection of racing t-shirts. Upon finishing my master's thesis, I printed it out and stood on it to see how much taller standing on 117 pages would make me. I wear or gift the things I knit, after taking pictures of them, and am proud of what I have made. (A sweater out of sock yarn is nothing to sneeze at.) The thing that keeps me coming back, however, isn't the ultimate product, however, it is the simple, everyday acts of which the accomplishments are built.

Things I've Learned

2009-10-26T18:19:00.002-04:00

I've been on this journey to the centre of Ontario for over a year now, and I've learned some stuff:

1. Polite is different from nice. How I didn't know this after living in Nashville for 12 years (where "ma'am"= "f*** off" in some circles), I'm not sure, but something about the fabled politeness of Canadians has brought this point home. Polite means acting appropriately in social situations and saying "thank you" and "pardon me." Nice is meaning it and not adding "f*** off" in your head at the end of it.

2. Public transit is for judging people. Sally and I listened to a conversation on the bus last week that was better than TV.

3. A "double double" is a coffee at Tim Horton's with 2 creams and 2 sugars. I don't care for sugared coffee, and I don't really care for the coffee at Tim's. (Please don't mention this to immigration. They might not let me back in the country next time I leave.)

4. Oprah is obnoxious no matter where you live. I mean, really.

5. Where punctuation goes in relation to quotation marks has nothing to do with the odd and obtuse differences between U.S. English, British English, and Canadian English. It is an issue of which style manual one uses.

6. A "puffio" is: a.) nothing like a panzerotti and b.) a deep-fried calzone. (This may be a Sarnia thing, though)

7. If you give a 17 year old an inch, you lose a mile. If you attempt to treat them like adults, they will fail to live up to expectations. If you treat them like the petulant children they are, they'll whine about that, too.

8. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. It also leads to undone household chores that require a tall person to accomplish. (Maybe this one is just me.)

9. Half-marathons are freakin' hard, but completely worth it.

10. Canada is, like, a completely different country. I'm getting used to it, though.

11. Never wear pretty shoes to walk the roughly 3km home, no matter how nice the day.

Jess Ran to Canada

2009-10-20T22:34:00.003-04:00

Wow. On Sunday, I managed my first half-marathon. I'm sure running purists would point out that at my pace, the term "run" might be an overstatement for what could best be described as a drunken-appearing lurch towards the finish line, but I traveled 13.1 miles on my own 2 feet, with nothing more than a handful of Cliff Shot blox and the knowledge that Sally had already travelled by the places I passed to keep me moving forward.

I ran the Detroit Free Press/ Flagstar bank half marathon, as did my bestest girlfriend, Sally. We both had great races, although hers was substantially faster than mine.

I did learn that those of us at the back of the pack are happy to laugh at ourselves. Somewhere between the 4th and 5th miles of the race, I stopped to use the washroom (it was on on the Canadian side of the river, totally correct term), and was waiting in the line for the ladies, making snarky little comments about how the men's line was shorter than the women's, when the husband of the woman in line behind me said that it was a single stall, no urinal, and we should go get in the men's line, so we did. In that line, some of the guys gave us a hard time, but it was faster. (And surprisingly tidy, all things considered.)

I did the work of training, and it paid off. I finished, although I was a bit crazy at the finish line: I might have accidentally proposed marriage to the volunteer who handed me a banana. But then Sally and I were reunited, had our picture taken, showered, and enjoyed some yummy pumpkin spice smoothies.

Turns Out Moms Everywhere Were Right

2009-09-25T11:01:00.004-04:00

"You don't know if you'll like it unless you try it."

How many of us have heard that? Of course, it was usually in regards to spinach or broccoli, both of which I actually quite like, and have since I was small.

I have always had a reaction to the idea of "hot" yoga. You know, the yoga in the room that very closely resembles an equatorial jungle in terms of temperature. I've always thought that it seemed like cheating, heating things up to eke out a bit of extra flexibility, and have always figured that the idea of "sweating out toxins" was a load of hooey. I had a yoga purist thought about it in which I thought any form of yoga that expected one to (gasp!) drink water during the practice couldn't be good; traditional teachings say that this is bad. Well, at the recommendation of several friends, I finally went.

Aside from being profoundly uncomfortable with the idea of appearing in public in only wearing a sport bra and shorts, it was a great experience. I felt great last night, and I feel better this morning. It was hot and sweaty and a bit strange, but what matters is that I feel more relaxed and open than I have in weeks. I feel cleaner and (I'm sure this is all in my head, I was only there for an hour) skinnier!

I tried it. I liked it. It seems to have relieved a lot of the stress my body has been under from all the running and the pesky life thing.

What should I try next that I always thought was stupid/ I didn't need in my life? Who knows, I might like it.

An Odd Position: On Being an Ex-Pat Americanist

2009-09-16T22:30:00.003-04:00

So, I've been in Canada for most of the past year. I like it here. Culture shock has largely worn off. I still think poutine sounds gross, but I'm okay with the fact that it exists. I appreciate the fact that having an advanced degree is a good thing and not a prohibitive factor for people planning on running for public office.

There are still things I find odd or inexplicable, but much in the same way that I found things in Nashville inexplicable by virtue of being a native of the North. I'm used to the occasional befuddlement, and it just a part of living somewhere other than where I was born.

What still absolutely discombobulates me, however, are certain issues around my professional life. As a musicologist, I generally work on North American music (my pop music interests include the Barenaked Ladies, and not just to sound more Canadian on my OGS and SSHRC applications, so I can claim the continent), and I tend to do it from the perspective of how music is a reflection of the culture that uses it or creates it. Here's where I get at a loss for words: any time I have to have an extended discussion of "Americanness" in one of my classes. After all, the vast majority of my professors, fellow students, and students I teach are not from the United States. So when they are talking about "Americanness" (by which I specifically mean "in regards to the United States of America"), they are doing it from the outsider's perspective.

This isn't a bad brain place to be in from a scholarly perspective: while I am too much of a post-modernist to really believe in absolute objectivity, I do think a certain degree of intellectual detachment leads to better work. At the same time, I always get caught up in the strangeness of my personal position in these discussions: on the one hand, I am more or less obligated to participate at the same level of abstraction as my colleagues. On the other, however, I have a huge string of attachments to the U.S. that they don't have, and I want to defend my home just by virtue of it being, well, home.

In a certain sense, this is like having or being a sibling: they can torment, mock, taunt, and tease, but will defend you against outside attack. I feel like I can criticize my country, its politics, its wars, its culture, but I get a trifle defensive when someone else does. This comes into play in these discussions of "Americanness," and I feel like I have to be almost continually vigilant about it.

In the end, I think this will make me a stronger musicologist, better able to articulate my positions, but at the moment, it stresses me out a bit.

Jess Moves Back to Canada

2009-09-04T11:38:00.003-04:00

In slow, easy steps:

1. Before the actual moving: I spent most of the last month of my summer vacation at Bliss Yarns, hoping that the lovely Dana would get confused and start giving me paychecks or at least would give me the employee discount on yarn. I also spent a fair amount of time at the Knaughty Knitter, down in the 'Boro.

Because Christmas knitting is well underway (at least in my head), I won't post any pictures of the heartbreakingly beautiful work I have been creating. (Sure, that's a good excuse, ya'll buy that, right?)

2. Packing up my crap. I don't have a photo of how ridiculous my car looked when packed, because frankly, I'm embarrassed. How much stuff do I really need? Yikes!

3. Driving to, oddly, South Haven, Michigan. My folks are on a crazy boat trip, chronicled at Osprey's Adventures, and they happened to be in South Haven, and a nice marina, when I was planning on driving North. I spent about 3 days with them, and they are having a great time, Riley is having a great time, and Calvin had a fantastic time on the boat. He also had a fantastic time escaping the boat, once he got used to it, although unlike his escape attempts in the past, these seemed mischief driven, and not actual attempts to escape into the wild to forage for junk food. One such escape attempt included him wandering down the dock, spotting my dad, and going to sit next to him.

4. Driving from South Haven to Sterling Heights. I stayed at the 'rents place for a couple of days, did some last minute "goin' back to Canada" shopping (I still can't find the tea I love the most in London, so I hit Whole Paycheck when I'm in the States), and had a lovely dinner with my grandparents.

5. The return to Canada, land of universal healthcare, gravy on french fries, and lunatics in the grocery store. (Although it turns out that the odd rudeness in the grocery store and Costco around here is not a generalized Canadianism, it is actually an odd localism. Nonetheless, a Saturday trip to Costco most closely resembles feeding time in the hyena exhibit at the zoo.)

6. Unpacking taking only a day or two, and then the settling in of odd boredom while waiting for classes to start. Work starts Tuesday. Which is good, because I've been looking around thinking "gosh, I've got the weekend, maybe I'll paint the apartment."

In the Middle of the Mud

2009-07-25T12:26:00.008-04:00

Lately, I've felt like I'm in the middle of the mud storm... as politicians in the United States fight back and forth about the possibility of a "government option" to somehow fix health care. The right has been continually saying that they don't want "Canadian-style" health care, and if the government interferes, it will lead to the terribly Canadian system be replicated here. They've even found a Canadian who agrees with them, and have been putting her on TV and in commercials. It seems, however, that there seem to be some inconsistencies in her story. But more concerning to me is the terribly offensive quotation I just read from Congressman Paul Broun, M.D., Republican of Georgia:

". . . and that's exactly what's going on in Canada and Great Brittan today. They don't have the appreciation of life, as we do in our society, apparently. And . . . a lot of people are gonna die this program of 'government option' is being touted as this panacea, the savior of allowing people to have quality health care at an affordable price -- is gonna kill people."

There are so many problems with this. I am not a politician or a physician, and I certainly don't have the intellectual equipment or time to refute the whole thing. However, it does merit a mention that the proposed reforms to the U.S. system bear only the most vague of resemblances to the U.K. or Canadian systems, which further, bear only the most vague of resemblances to each other.

But what really bothers me about this statement by Dr. Broun is that he seems to be seriously suggesting that Canadians and Britons do not value human life in the same way that people in the U.S. do. What does that even mean? Mothers and fathers in the U.K. love their children, children love their parents, people love their friends. Murder is punishable by life imprisonment, not rewarded. In Canada, old ladies get helped across the street, and in nearly a year here, I have yet to hear anyone shout, "hooray for no-seat-belt Friday!"

I am not, by the way, saying that the Canadian or British systems are perfect. They aren't. All three systems are imperfect and financially costly. Since the purpose of this blog isn't to beat politics into the ground, I'm not going to try to fix things, or say "yay Canadian Health care system," although I have had largely positive experiences. As a U.S. citizen in Canada, I can confidently say that neither side has a monopoly on screwing things up.

I think I will just end with a favourite hymn of mine, "This Is My Song" with words by Lloyd Stone:

This is my song, O God of all the nations,
a song of peace for lands afar and mine.
This is my home, the country where my heart is;
here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;
but other hearts in other lands are beating
with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine

My country's skies are bluer than the ocean,
And sunlight beams on clover leaf and pine.
But other lands have sunlight too and clover,
And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.
This is my song O God of all the nations,
A song of peace for their land and for mine.

(Generally sung to the tune of Jean Sibilus's Finlandia.)

Jess Runs to Canada

2009-07-14T15:16:00.002-04:00

So I have, like my pal Sally, registered for the Detroit Free Press Half Marathon. You start in Detroit, run across the bridge and back under the Detroit river in the tunnel, then finish. (I'm glossing over the agony that is actually 13.1 miles of running. I'm doing this on purpose.)

Training officially started for me this week. There may be a charity tie-in, watch this space.

The only problem thus far is that training (and ramping up to official training) has left me eating like a Hobbit. Seriously, second breakfast has become a way of life. I'll only be mad if I wind up either gaining weight or with hairy feet.

Happy Patriotic Week/ Joyeux Semaine Patriotique

2009-07-01T10:28:00.002-04:00

(Despite the bilingual nature of the title, don't for a moment expect me to actually post in French. My grasp of the French language is weak at best.)

Wednesday is Canada Day. On my recent trip to London, I happened to see to following product display in the grocery store:

All things outrageously Canadian... mostly featuring the omnipresent maple leaf.

Seriously... everything you could possibly need to throw a Canada BBQ, right there. Also some things you wouldn't think of, but holy cow, they've got them.

I mean, throw pillows. Really? Pot holders and flags and windsocks I get, but throw pillows? Really?

Also, the aprons were fantastic:
I mean the one with the maple leaf is fairly predictable, but the one on the left is fantastic. I recently read the suggestion that irony is a defining Canadian value, and there it is. Right there. I mean, if you meet a Canadian and they know you aren't Canadian, if you mention the word "eh" to them, they will carry on about how people from the States think they say it all the time, and that they really don't, that it is a sort of hick thing to say, and so on. And I'm not saying that the SuperStore isn't trying to sell to anyone who will pay for it, but come on. Celebrating your patriotism with a joke? I love these people. They love Canada, but they are also willing to laugh at themselves and the people (you know, Americans) who laugh at them. (Incidentally, they say it somewhat frequently. I actually rather appreciate it as a useful lingusitic device, however-- I know a lot of up-talkers and their use of "eh" helps me understand the difference between a declarative statement and a question. Not always, but sometimes.)

Of course, since I am spending this week in Nashville, I get the 4th of July, too. In the interests of cross-cultural fairness, I thought I would share the holiday display at a local grocery store:

And I went to a nice store, in a good part of town... and other than the red, white and blue plates and napkins, the sum total of US flag-themed merchandise was a few citronella
candles (sort of down there in the picture on the top, and the flag on the chair at the top there). The dominant feature of the display, though was the giant wall of beer. This sort of cracks me up.

One question though:

Since both are bank holidays, one in the country where I am, and one in the country where I work, should I just take two full days of doing almost nothing and blowing stuff up? If not, which should I celebrate?

I think to play it safe, I'm going to take it easy until Sunday.

Short Attention Span Monday

2009-06-15T13:31:00.007-04:00

So it has been a while, and I'm going to fly through some of what I've been up to since last I blogged.

Ironically, for a blog about moving to Canada, I haven't been there in over a month, and I'm mostly okay with that. I'm ready to feel more settled, but I sort of wonder if that has something to do with a lack of equanimity on my part rather than my somewhat scattered residences. I'm travelling again, and it is great to visit with family, but I just got settled in Nashville, and now I'm back in Michigan. I'm heading back to London for a few days at the end of the week, and then back to Nashville. I'm getting dizzy.

So, I've been knitting a lot. I'm nearly finished with the socks that I was working on when I did my knitting report last and started a sweater that was my gift from my Dear Husband (DH):

(Sock yarn named here) The sweater (bottom) is out of Knit Picks Kettle Dyed Essential Sock in the colourway "wine". It is a really pretty yarn, that I'm enjoying knitting on, a nice texture and springiness, and is knitting into a nice fabric. The sweater is Abotanicity from Knitty, and it will be super fun just as soon as I get past the ribbed upper section onto the lace skirt. The yarn was a gift for our 7th wedding anniversary, since wool is one of the traditional gifts, and DH (who is a very smart man) knew I would get more joy out of knitting a sweater than out of having a sweater.

We traveled to Michigan for my step-mother's re-retirement party. Now I'm hanging out here at their house, heading to London at the end of the week. On Saturday before the party, I ran a race, set a personal record (PR) for the 10 kilometer distance. I don't have great pictures of it (DH stayed in bed), but I did take one that might show something about how I apporach life/racing.

In the car, all the stuff I thought I needed to manage to run the thing:

Aside from my purse (necessary for the act of driving to the race, as it contains my wallet and ID stuff), there is my iPod (a 2nd generation nano), my hand-held water bottle, Body Glide, my RoadID, and the notebook I had written down where I was going. Also there, in the pocket of the water bottle, were some Sport Beans, for energy, since it takes me over an hour to run 10km, and I need some carbs if I'm going to make it.

And of course, my bright yellow race number.

Beyond this excitment, I've been doing very little. I've been meaning to do work-realted reading, but I just have low motivation.

On to knit some more. I'm so cool.

A Week In the Life

2009-05-27T09:07:00.002-04:00

So, last Wednesday, Sally and I left for the beach. We had a lovely time, it was windy, which made actually being on the sandy part of the beach a bit interesting and exfoliating, but in the water or on the deck was just fine. Sally hooped in the sand and I sat on the deck and read and knitted. It turns out you can knit this much sock in 4 days:

I cast on for this sock in the car on the way to the beach, and stopped knitting on it while we were there because I misplaced its mate, and need to make sure that the ankles are the same length before starting the heel flap.

Then it rained and we went shopping, and finally we left the beach just in time, since the waves had made their way under the cabin.

After heading back to Nashvegas, I hung out at home with the Beloved Husband and on Monday, a holiday here in the States and our 7th wedding anniversary, I ran a 5k that benefited the Nashville City Cemetery Association. Since my goal was to finish, I accomplished exactly what I set out to do.

Look, me at the start:

Kickin' it in what I like to call "tortoise style:"

Watchin' out for zombies:

And the finish:

Later, the Beloved Husband and I went out for a fun fish dinner, followed by ice cream.

Tuesday night included knitting, which was great, and I cast on a new sock.

Then I came home and the BH and I hung out with Mr. Calvin, who was doing his dangedest to be cute.

Now it is my birthday, and I'm another year older. Not sure about wiser, but older. I'll be inspecting for crow's feet later. There are movers, painters, and the bug spraying guy at our old house right now, getting it ready for potential renters.

I promised a knitting report...

2009-05-19T11:04:00.001-04:00

... but I realized that I've barely been knitting.

Oh, I finished a 2 row striped scarf. Mostly. The ends still need running in. Does that count? It took me 4 months to get it to this point. (Noro Kureyon, ball bands lost, colour ways uncertain)

I've been working on a sock out of Happy Choices yarn from Plymouth:

I wasn't sure about this knitting from a flat "scarf" onto a sock, but I have to admit, it's kind of convenient to carry around. But I'm not sure about the way the colours are working out. I can't decide, and the second sock will clearly be a fraternal twin of the first. I also can't decide how I feel about that. I mean, I'm not so put together that I need to have completely identical socks, but then again, I am so not put together at times that if my hand knit socks aren't fairly clearly matching, people might assume I'm even flakier than I actually am. As in flaky to the point of incompetence. And while I ride that line on occasion, I very rarely fall off into incompetence. I can get on board with looking like a distracted hippy. I'm not crazy about looking completely 'round the bend.

I'm working on an entrelac scarf for my Beloved Husband, but it isn't in Nashville with me at the moment, so no picture. Even though I love this yarn, its been boring me a bit, so its having a nap in the knitting basket at the moment.

I tried to start a lace stole, and it turned into a disaster. My brain is not recovered enough from my life to read charts yet. Lesson learned. Pretty alpaca-silk goes back in the stash for a bit.

I have a really lovely merino that I'm thinking about making a water bottle cozy out of. I'm tired of ruining my papers with a sweaty aluminum bottle. I'm also tired of seeing ugly carriers out of "recycled" sweaters. While I'm all for recycling, I'm not sure repurposing an ugly sweater for a practical use is worth it. (Yarn is Crystal Palace Yarns Merino Stripes 90% merino/10% acrylic, colour ways 24 and 69) If I make it work, I'll post pictures here and a pattern to Ravelry.

Freakin' awesome!

2009-04-28T22:07:00.002-04:00

That's all. Love it.

I'm Not Really a Student...

2009-04-24T11:37:00.001-04:00

... except to the people who hold my Federal Staford Loans.

What I mean is this: what I am doing now, being a Ph.D. student in the humanities is not being in school in the sense most people think. I mean, I go to classes and get academic credit for them, I write papers (lots of papers, lots of long tricky papers). But I haven't been to a kegger in over a decade and I no longer wear pyjamas or work out clothes to class.

I am in an apprenticeship phase of my career: I am expected to begin participating in my profession, but with guidance from those more experienced at it than I am, to keep me from making any serious mistakes/ faux pas. My coursework, which at the Ph.D. level really is minimal, is to, for the first few years, give my research a direction, but beyond that, my activities are the same as any other musicologist working in an academic setting: I research, I write up my research, I submit my research to conferences and journals, and I teach. I mark papers and have laughs with colleuges.

I am not a student: I am a musicologist. I'm not even a musicology student: I know this culture now, probably about as well as I ever will. The Master's degree is about inculturation. The Ph.D. is about getting down to work and joining the discourse in the field, a discourse I am starting to shape in some small way. In other fields, entry level jobs involve a lot of supervision, limited authority, and (in good jobs) mentoring. In this university professor gig, the difference is that one ends this entry-level stage with an extra set of initials after one's name.

I have had this realization because I am at the end of the semester. Three small tasks stand between me being entirely free of formal responsibilities until September. Itty bitty tasks. I should feel relieved. I should want to throw a kegger. Nope. Not this gal. I mean I'm glad to have my papers done, but there is still a whole lot of stuff to do. I'm going to have a bit of a lie-in tomorrow morning, maybe crack open a bottle of wine tonight, then back to work. After all, the Society for American Music is having its annual conference next March, and they are looking for papers for it. The deadline is 15 June. I have to get on that.

Unless I happen to owe you money from my undergraduate degree. Then I'm totally a student. Completely.

(Next time, the knitting report)

Completely Worn Out

2009-04-21T19:14:00.000-04:00

The end of the term draws near and I'm completely worn out.

I have run out of words. This isn't writer's block, its a complete emptiness at the well in my soul from which musicological discourse usually springs. I think I might be able to write a fantastic novel right now, but not the paper that I must needs finish by Friday. I think this may be tied to a virus, as Franklin has been enduring a similar block... maybe I caught it in the airport on my recent trip to Nashville? No one else here seems to have it, and I'm hoping it isn't catching because a few of my friends start their comprehensive exams in a week or two. I look all scholarly-- computer on lap, discarded Starbucks cup nearby, surrounded by books that make me look smart, but the words in them have stopped making sense. Actually, to be fair, they still make sense. They are not what is flawed. The words I type in the open document on the desktop of said computer are what have actually stopped making sense.

I'm going to try again for another hour. Then I'm going to knit. Or drink. Or have a good sleep. Or maybe all three.

That's Why I Live Here...

2009-04-02T12:38:00.000-04:00

At the halfway point of my run this morning, I had to stop and take a picture. The picture doesn't really do the day justice, but such is the nature of cell phone pictures.

After taking the picture, I went and ran down there by the river. It was lovely.

That's why I live here. There seems to be a consensus in London that almost everyone wants to live somewhere else, but it is actually a sort of pretty city. The greenway system along the Thames is great for running, biking, roller blading, or strolling. I'm not saying that Toronto doesn't have more going on or more cultural institutions or that it doesn't stink that downtown closes at 5pm, just that London isn't all bad.

I can't wait for the leaves on the trees to make an appearance.

What Happened to Spring?

2009-03-30T14:44:00.000-04:00

It snowed last night. !@#$ That's right. It is almost April and it snowed. My friends here assure me that this is perfectly normal and I seem to remember that my senior year of high school, it did snow on May 1st, but still. This light dusting of slushy snow seems like a personal affront.

I'm not even going to take a picture, I'm so disgusted. It seemed more reasonable last night, but I had drunk quite a bit of wine, and everything seemed more reasonable.

It might be my fault, though, I put my boots away in the closet. Clearly that bugged mother nature more than the clutter of my warm boots bugged me. Point taken. They'll be in the entry way until July.

The Desk Sock

2009-03-15T14:31:00.000-04:00

I am, my friends, an inventor.

I have invented a truly amazing study tool. At least for knitters. But if Raverly is any guide, there are a lot of graduate students who also knit.

I present to you, humble reader, the desk sock:

That's it, over on the right. It is a very simple concept, and I'm a bit stunned that I haven't come up with it before, but I'm a little slow. It is a basic sock, out of a lovely yarn, that lives on one's desk and is worked on while one accomplishes the endless reading that accompanies graduate education. I am working on a better system for holding books open, and one of these or one of these would probably help, but after one more chapter of the book on the desk, most of my reading will be photocopies or things I've printed from the internet, so no hurry. (It can totally wait for my birthday.) But the idea of the desk sock is this: because the sock (which should be out of particularly pleasant yarn-- this one is Noro Silk Garden Sock) is always at the desk, one will want to stay at the desk and continue reading. Because it is a basic sock pattern (no monkey business like cables or lace to keep track of), one can set it down mid-round to write down a note and then resume knitting and reading. Short of tea and washroom trips, I can stay at the desk with much more endurance than before because of this sock.

I fully expect royalties from the subsequent innovations of the desk scarf and desk sweater front and back, as they are clearly derrivitave of the desk sock.

(And if you can keep track of lace while reading complex literary theory, don't burst my wee bubble. I'm very proud of figuring this study tactic out, and my ego is a bit fragile lately.) (And no, I haven't decided exactly how to handle the heel in this idea.)

Long, slow march into May...

2009-03-13T18:44:00.000-04:00

There are only a few weeks left of classes, and I feel insufferably behind. I've been sick, I've travelled, but what it boils down to is that I am wiped out. Mostly mentally. That's what graduate school does.

Lately I'm reminded of a race I ran once in Percy Warner park in Nashville. It was a lovely 10k, and the first half (at least) was entirely up hill. The thing that made it so crushing to the brain was that the trail was winding. So I would get to what I thought was the top, and discover that there was still more up to go. When I bonked, I was fairly certain I was going to hit the sun. (I had some SportBeans and a gulp of water and shortly thereafter the downhill began. My brain started to work again.)

Today I bonked academically. I have any number of reasons, including overwork, pure exhaustion, the afore mentioned illness, student demands, but the point is, I couldn't do it anymore. I was working in my office, and after a brief internet break, I picked my book up to read again. I had to look at it for a full 30 seconds before I realized it was upside down. At which point, I did the academic equivalent of having some SportBeans and some water: I packed up and went to the yarn shop, where I bought a new bag (exactly the sort of messenger bag I've been looking for, and on sale) and a skein of entirely superflous sock yarn. (my only defence is: Noro was on sale. 20% off. As a knitter, I was obligated.)

In other news, I sat in the weirdest in-class discussion of my many years of education. (I am, after all, in about the 23rd grade now.) In the class I TA for, there topic of the lecture was reactions on the part of composers to the Great Depression. In particular, Aaron Copland was the topic at hand. They were talking about his Amercanist period, and the work Appalachian Spring (ignore cheesy powerpoint), and the question came up, "why is this American?" Since the only students who come to class on Fridays are the ones who actually care, and might have even done the homework, a really coherent and interesting discussion ensued. They were talking about the American idea of building things ourselves, and the vast open spaces of the American landscape, and ignoring the plight of native people in order to create a heroic narritive.

Then I remembered where I was, and the whole thing fell apart in my brain. My boss, leading the discussion, is a British woman, leading a bunch of Canadians in their quest to figure out and articulate "Americanness." And I had to sit there and listen. What a weird day. I'm going to spend my evening at home with a bottle of wine, perhaps a pizza, and my dog give my brain a rest, before trying to figure this stuff out tomorrow.

Why Not Wine, Indeed?

2009-03-02T10:57:00.000-05:00

So I lived in Tennessee for 12 years, and still am there pretty often. I still vote there, and I'll admit one of the things that confused me when I lived there was the fact that you can buy beer at the grocery store, but not wine.

Today, Red, White, and Food is asking bloggers to use their online space to bring attention to this issue.

I'll mention that I find I buy more alcohol when I have to make a special trip: when I'm in Nashville or London, and I go to a liquor store, I stock up because it is a special trip. When I'm in Michigan, I don't, because I pick up a bottle of wine when I buy my dinner supplies. I have to go to the grocery store next week, so if I need wine next week, well, it can be part of next week's trip.

So if you live in Tennessee, contact your legislator and let them know what you think about this. If you don't, go to Kroger and buy a bottle and raise a glass.

Fat Tuesday

2009-02-24T21:40:00.000-05:00

So I just found out that pancakes are a tradition on Shrove Tuesday. Seriously. I'm 30, and I'm just learning this. I was invited to a pancake supper tonight, and I figured it was just a pleasant way to spend a Tuesday evening. I had barely registered that it even was fat Tuesday. I'm a bit bummed that I missed my traditional paczki (pronounced poonch-key), but I did have a chocolate doughnut from Tim's to keep me awake in seminar today, so I think I did okay.

I thought the Pancake Day thing was just a wacky Canadianism, but no, not entirely. It is one of those endearing Britishisms that Canadians enjoy so well. Just to keep it Canadian, they do it with maple syrup. If only one could also play hockey.

Happy Pancake Day! Its like cake day, but in a pan.

A Challenge and a Shout Out

2009-02-17T15:38:00.000-05:00

So, after a perfectly romantic and fun weekend with my darling husband it Cincinnati, Ohio (as a new friend says, Ohio is for lovers), my car went kerflewy. (That's the technical term that the mechanic used.) I didn't make it to Nashville from Ohio. After having a meltdown over that, I (with the help of a handful of relatives and my husband) made a plan to get it fixed and get to Nashville.

It eventually worked, my car is well again. As well as it can be, anyhow. It is old. Old cars, like old people, creak, leak, and sometimes need special attention. It is harder to have patience for an old car than it is for an old person, as the car is unlikely to leave you an inheritance or have interesting stories to tell, but none the less, they do demand this level of attention. Lesson learned.

But I do have a huge shout out to make, and since this blog is my most public vehicle for doing such things, I'm going to do it. I broke down outside of Louisville, Kentucky, and had my car towed basically as close to Nashville as AAA would get it, also known as Bowling Green, Kentucky. The staff of the Saturn dealership there couldn't have been more helpful and kind. I sat there from around 1pm until after 5 with my dog, and when I mentioned that I hadn't eaten since breakfast, one of the sales guys lent me his demo car so Calvin and I could go get a meal at a drive through. They also went above and beyond to find an out of stock part so I could get back on the road last night. It was awesome. If you need to buy a car and are leaning toward a Saturn, look these guys up. They were great. And they're having a sale.

I have figured something out about myself. I can deal with almost anything, if I have a plan. If there isn't a plan, I freak the heck out, and the freak out is not necessarily in scale with whatever has happened. I have a very limited reserve of equanimity, I've found, and I think I need to work on that some, because I need to find ways to deal with the crap that happens in life in a way that allows me to function and make up a plan as I go along. I'm not sure how to do this: do I need therapy or yoga? Xanax or the Buddha? Or should I take up some sort of extreme sport or adventure racing that would put me in the situation of constantly having to adjust my plans based on the realities on the ground? This is something I have to work on, and hopefully I can find what I need to get to a place where I have a well of calm to draw on when things go kerflewy, because I doubt even if Ed McMahon shows up at my house tomorrow with a big check or a brand new car, that life won't continue to throw things at me that will make me want to freak out. I also think it might be possible that my base level of equanimity goes down when I'm not exercising regularly. So maybe step one is to start running again and step two... well, that I've got to work on.

I know this dude.

2009-02-11T20:30:00.000-05:00

Check it out! Haywood Banks wrote a song about my old friend:

Thanks to Sally for letting me know about this.

Gone Native

2009-01-30T18:28:00.000-05:00

So the weather here has been quite frightful. Cold, snowy, dreary. January into February in this part of the world.

But this morning, while getting ready to go out and take care of the dog, I heard on the radio that it was -6 degrees. I thought "huh, that's not so bad."

I'm starting to go native. If I start eating poutine, then I'll worry.

Fun on a Friday

2009-01-16T08:51:00.000-05:00

I took the 43 Things Personality Quiz and found out I'm a

Creative Spiritual Self-Knower

I'm not sure what this means, but it was a fun quiz and quick, too... and I don't think being a Creative Spiritual Self-Knower can be bad, right? I mean, it sounds sort of fun and like I might be wise. (Ha!)

On to work. With a broken foot.

Holiday Tradition

2008-12-28T22:26:00.000-05:00

When I was about 5, my grandparents moved to Florida. It was great to have relatives to visit down there (we lived in Michigan) but it was also difficult to not get to see them for the holidays. We visited when we could, and otherwise my mother and I sent packages.

The thing about those packages was that since Grandma and Grandpa had gotten rid of a bunch of stuff when they moved, they didn't really want more stuff that would just take up room in their house. I can't really blame them. So all year long, my mom and I would collect things to send them for Christmas, usually small things or consumable things. The one thing I really remember is stocking up on loose Earl Grey tea because back in the 1980s and 1990s, loose tea was hard to find, and Grandma preferred to make iced tea with loose tea over making it with tea bags. But there were other things, too.

As we found them, Mom and I would stash these little gifts around the house. We usually started each year with the best of intentions and declared one drawer or cabinet the gift spot where everything would go. By December, however, there were usually 1-4 gift spots. Many, many years, when we would assemble the Christmas box, we would miss a spot where gifts were stashed. Inevitably, we would discover this spot in January or February. Since we knew good and well we would loose track of this stuff before the next Christmas (or Grandpa's birthday in April or Grandma's in October), we would pack up the extra presents and send a Valentine's Day or St. Patrick's day present.

I have decided that this isn't a bad tradition-- to just send people you love gifts for either completely random days that aren't holidays or holidays that aren't traditionally gift giving holidays. This year, I have spotted my mother-in-law struggling with plantar fasciitis. I know it is terribly painful. I had a surgical procedure for it a few years ago. She has found one pair of shoes that are comfortable: a pair of flip-flops. Because the weather has gotten cold, she is wearing these shoes with socks, wadding them up to accomidate the shoe. So, as a random gift to her sometime in the spring, I am going to knit a heavily modified version of this pattern for her. That's right, socks that are already divided at the toes. Okay, so I hate provisional cast-ons, and I'm going to skip the colour work, and I'm going to avoid the seam on the ankle, but I am going to make her a pair of thong socks.

I think Mom would approve of this as a contiuation of our tradition of late holiday gifts.

One Semester Down

2008-12-15T12:43:00.002-05:00

... a bunch more to go.

So I've been in Canada since September. Wow. I haven't been drummed out for not using "U"s where I should and not understanding the metric system. (When I hear on the radio that it is going to be -2 and we'll be getting 4cm of snow, it takes a calculator and 15 minutes to figure out if I should stock up on food and potable water)

I thought I would perhaps sum this up in an entry of lists

Stuff I like about Canada:

Knitting. Seriously. Consider my post about the logic of knitting woolly things, but then also, there are tons of great knitters in Canada. London has a bit of a dearth, but I can change that, and I am thinking that I might take part of my spring break and do a knitting pilgrimage around Ontario.
Universal health coverage. Note that I might feel differently about it if my broken metatarsals don't heal properly and I have to wait 3-6 months to even see an orthopaedic surgeon, but for now, for me, its working.
A political system where the above and funding for the arts are just a given in the debates around public policy. It isn't a question of if these things are important or evidence of liberal insanity. They are assumed to be important. If someone questions this in public debate, there is hell to pay.
A political system with multiple mulligans built in. There is the exercise that was this fall's election, wherein the parliament wasn't working so parliament was dissolved and an election was held. Or the current weirdness wherein the Liberals and the National Democratic Party got together with the help of the Bloc Quebecois to attempt to become the ruling coalition in the parliament. I can't really explain it, but here's the best one I've found so far. In the U.S. if we elect asshats by accident, we're stuck with them for 2-6 years barring seriously illegal conduct.
Public transportation that works. And London Transit isn't even that great, according to my friends.
Beer. Canadians are a people who take their beer seriously, and I can appreciate that.

Stuff I find really funny about Canada, that Canadians think I'm weird for laughing at:

How much they love Canada. I'm not just talking about the flags and maple leafs everywhere, although I do find that funny. I'm also talking about the great love that Canadians have for all things Canadian. Indeed, if a Canadian likes something Canadian all she has to say to justify it is "but its Canadian," and I, frequently the lone American in the room, am left saying "but why does that make it good?" I love a band called the Winter Gloves that hail from Quebec, and I can explain that I like them because they've goot a good sound and occasionally cute lyrics. But in Canada, I don't need to use pesky logic. I'm allowed to love them just because they are Canadian.
Milk. I know I should let go of this, but how is it not funny when you can buy milk in bags, and sometimes that milk is called "homo milk." I know I'm immature, but it is really funny.
The names of the towns in the West. I only hear about these on the CBC, but there are some good ones. There are Moose Jaw, Mozart, and Old Wives Narrows in Saskatchewan, and Alberta has Medicine Hat.

Things that still confuse me a little:

There is a code at Tim Horton's that I don't understand. I've heard of this thing called a double double, but since they don't sell cheesebugers, I'm flummoxed. After five minutes of searching Wikapeida, I find that it is a coffee with 2 sugars and 2 creams, but yikes. Do I look like a looser for just asking for such a coffee by its long name?
The London municipal trash schedule. They come every 8 days, unless there is an intervening civic holiday or an arbitary gap. I just don't get it. They sent me a helpful wall calandar, but it still confuses the heck out of me.
Canadian politeness. I have found people in Ontario to be kind, polite and decent. As long as I know the rules. If you don't know the rules and screw up, you are a bad person. Now I have always had a theory that people in colder climates are meaner because of the cold... when its cold you can't waste time with niceities. Its the same reason we talk faster. But Canadians do it weird, because on the surface, they are super polite.
French in the grocery store. I GET IT. Canada is a bilingual country. There is a significant French speaking minority, even in Ontario. I'm just asking the stock people at my local A&P and Loblaws to please put things on shelves English side facing front or at least half and half. It took me way longer than is reasonable to figure out what the heck Gruau is. (Incidentally, it is oatmeal.)

So those are my lists on Canada so far.

Jess Encounters Socialized Medicine... And It Works!

2008-12-09T12:13:00.000-05:00

So I have hurt my poor foot. My right foot. I don't know how I did it. I went running on Friday, and by the evening, I was hobbling around uncomfortably. Sunday, I could barely sleep, it hurt so much.

I did what any good American would do when injured. I checked the internet. I either have a sprain of something in my foot or ankle, have ill-fitting shoes, have had a stroke, or have a stress fracture of one of my metatarsal bones. I'm betting on the sprain or stress fracture, myself. But because google and WebMD left me with such inconclusive answers, I decided to get a professional, in-person opinion about it.

This being Ontario, and there being a doctor shortage, I don't have a primary care doctor. I'm not even sure, quite frankly, how I would go about finding one. Student health here at the university, while good, are continually overbooked, so I decided to go to an urgent care clinic.

I get there, check in and show my health card. The triage nurse sends me down the hall for an x-ray, complete with directions referencing a Tim Horton's. (There really are Tims everywhere) I had my x-ray, waited for a few hours, and so a doctor, who looked like he was 15, but maybe I'm just old.

My x-ray showed nothing wrong with my foot. His exam didn't really show anything other than the fact that I am "neurologically intact" (he hasn't really met me, eh?). He told me that he would give me a referral to go see a sports medicine clinic if I was still hurting at the end of the week. I figured, in light of everything I hear on the radio here, that if I needed to see them, it would be spring before I got to see a doctor.

I was so wrong! I got a voice mail this morning (missed my phone ringing) saying that the sports medicine clinic got my refferal and have an appointment set for me at 10am tomorrow. Even though I'm not supposed to go until the end of the week, I'm going tomorrow.

Maybe I'll even be able to get the bone scan that would show if I have a stress fracture. Maybe this thing works.

Am I No Longer Quirky?

2008-11-25T12:46:00.000-05:00

Despite what you might think, I'm not going to go on about what I perceive as the idiosyncrasies of Canadian culture and how they make me feel more normal. There are many, but since I'm going to be here for four years, I feel the need to spread them out in the interest of good blogging. I'm just lookin' out for my readers, that's all. And anyway, since those oddities are general habit here, I'm thinking that even if I feel normal, I'm not.

In this case, I'm actually talking about knitting and running. The two never went together in my mind until today. I went out for a run this morning, and it was cold. It was below freezing, snowflakes were drifting slowly toward the earth. I wore appropriate gear-- gloves, tights, a jacket, a hat to keep my cute little ears warm. As I was getting dressed, I realized something: wearing a pair of my hand knit wool socks wouldn't be the worst idea ever. My feet wouldn't overheat in those socks going out for a run like they would of a month ago. Instead, they kept my feet warm.

But I've realized something: knitting warm, woolly socks in Nashville is something of an odd affectation. (Sorry, guys, but it kinda is. Not that I didn't love knitting socks there, too. Just hear me out.) You don't need them for most of the year. There is always that cold snap in January when they become useful, maybe if you spend a lot of time outdoors in the winter months, then maybe they are a necessity, but for most of us, they're nice, if a bit odd. It's kind of like wearing a beret; it works for some people, but it isn't normal and it isn't a necessity for daily life. But here, those socks have a purpose. They are here to keep my feet happy, warm, and (perhaps I'm being melodramatic) frostbite free. A well made pair of wool socks is worth their weight in, well, wool. The same goes for most of my knitting projects: I need hats, scarves, and mittens. (Lace shawls are another story, but I can't be entirely rational, my husband wouldn't recognize me.) I need something to keep my hands busy (protestant work ethic and ADHD + idle hands= trouble on a destructive scale). Therefore, knitting is not longer completely nutty.

When Life Gets Away From Me...

2008-11-17T11:27:00.001-05:00

I neglect my blog. Sad but true.

The past couple of weeks have been nutty. I had an odyssey of travel, because it turns out you can go home again, if they are holding an academic conference there. I went to the annual meeting of the American Musicological Society (which this year was a joint meeting with the Society for Music Theory), which was held in Nashville. It was outstanding but completely exhausting. In an attempt to save money, I decided not to take the shuttle to get my flight out of Toronto, but instead decided to take the train and then the bus to make it to the airport. Not worth the $30 I saved. Next time, I'm taking Robert Q. The end result is that I started a pair of socks on Thursday 6 November and finished them on Saturday, after reworking the toe (otherwise they would have been complete on Thursday). I was, however, able to spend time with my beloved husband, see my lovely city and my dear friends, go to church, and make it down to my favourite knitting store.

I've graded a huge stack of tests, and have another stack of papers to read. And, in about 12 days, I get to go home and spend a few days with my family in Nashville.

I've read recently that if you have a blog, you need to manage expectations; you should let your readers know how often you intend to post, and stick to it if at all possible. They are probably right. I'll be thinking about this in the days to come and letting ya'll know.

Change Is On Its Way

2008-11-05T00:05:00.000-05:00

I know it is no big surprise that I supported Obama in today's election. I'm listening to his victory speech right now, and I admire him. I admire his willingness to listen, his willingness to think.

I also have read what McCain said in his concession, and I admire his graciousness and humility.

In other news, my cousin appears to be winning her election for the Michigan House of Representatives. When we were kids, Jen always said that she would be president someday, and this seems like a good start.

The thing about this election is that after all of the ugliness, we need to find a way to talk to each other again. We need to find ways to disagree in thoughtful and well-reasoned ways. We need to respect each other above all. My first exposure to Barak Obama was not his address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, instead I hear about his 2006 Call to Renewal Keynote Address. He said, "... before I went to bed I said a prayer of my own. It's a prayer I think I share with a lot of Americans. A hope that we can live with one another in a way that reconciles the beliefs of each with the good of all. It's a prayer worth praying, and a conversation worth having in this country in the months and years to come." Two and a half years later, it is still a good prayer. It is a prayer of reconcilliation and of hope.

No really, it snowed!

2008-10-30T14:11:00.000-04:00

This is what it looked like outside of my house yesterday morning. I took this picture after falling and bruising my bum (stupid dog) on the back steps. I need boots.

Its supposed to get warm next week... just in time for me to go to Nashville for the AMS annual meeting.

Hopefully I can keep my butt over my feet until then. I would hate to need special assistance boarding the plane or getting around the conference. (Or to be on meds that would prevent me from enjoying the parties ;) )

In other news, I have started my Christmas knitting. There are the obligatory socks in progress, and I will most likely knit something cute for my niece and nephew (there's a pattern for a stuffed penguin that I've been eyeing for a while), and then there is my new passion for lace knitting. Its totally addictive. So, as a present for someone I have started the mystery object. I love it.
I know, right now it looks like a mystery lump of alpaca/merino blend, but trust me, it will be lovely.

In other news, I went for a run this morning. Ice and all. My beloved husband (who is visiting) suggested that I take my cell phone and my bus pass, which I did, in case I fell. While I was running, I realized something: I've become someone I used to make fun of. In my tights, hat and gloves, running down Wharncliffe, I realized that only a few years ago, if I had driven by a lunatic running in freezing temps, I would have chuckled to myself and said "its so not worth it." Now I'm that lunatic.

I also discovered something I forgot about running. It gives me energy. Instead of feeling like I need an afternoon nap, I feel like doing something else active today. Does a brewery tour count?

Holy Crap!

2008-10-28T20:31:00.000-04:00

Quick post from the Great White freakin' North.

It is snowing. Freakin' snowing. Now I grew up in Michigan, went to high school further north than here, but holy crap balls, its snowing before Halloween. If it had waited until Friday, I could deal. But it didn't. It isn't even Halloween, yet.

I'd take a picture, but its dark.

(It isn't sticking, but that's not the point. The point is that it's freakin' snow. Falling from the sky.)

There is Nothing More to Say About This Election...

2008-10-27T20:10:00.001-04:00

... because John Cleese has already said it. Sarah Palin scares the crap out of everybody.

While I never intended to make this blog political, I'm amazed that people are falling for the theatre of this election. I am stunned. Joe the Plumber, Tito the Builder, What's-her-face the Caterer; people fall for this. The big secret (that isn't really a secret if I know it) is that all of these people were invited to the rallies they are now known for and the candidates in question knew ahead of time pretty much what they were going to say. Tito showed up, according to the New York Times in his hard had and orange vest. That is pure theatre. This is an attempt on the part of the McCain campaign to make Sarah Palin and her millionaire boss appear more like ordinary people. This is theatre; Tom Stoppard couldn't have written it any better. Any attempt on the part of the democrats to use Joe the Plumber to make themselves appear ordinary is just as staged, just as theatrical. Barack Obama, too, is a millionaire, although not on the order that John McCain is. Every time you see one of these politicians do something in public, it is theatre. It is calculated. It is intentional. They know if you see the candidate in question eat barbecue with his sleeves rolled up, you're going to like him more. Don't fall for it. Pretty much as soon as you begin to think becoming President of the United States is something you could achieve and other people don't cart you off to the loony bin, you are no longer ordinary. You may still enjoy beer, but Joe Six Pack is no longer your drinking buddy, and hasn't been for a while.

I know college educated adults who fall for some of this stuff. If you want to vote for one candidate or the other because you think he has a better understanding of issues of policy, then go for it, but don't vote because you empathize with Tito the Builder or whatever. That would be like a victorious write-in campaign for Martin Sheen because we liked "The West Wing." I'm voting for the guy whose policies represent my values, having read platforms and listened to speeches, I know who that is.

Knitting Report

2008-10-20T15:46:00.000-04:00

Told ya'll I'd get to it.

(For all of my non-knitting readers, just look at the pretty pictures. They're really pretty, if I do say so myself)

For starters, I finally finished my Faina's Scarf! I then considered throwing a party. Instead, I went out and bought some baby shampoo (I'm too cheap to buy the nice wool wash), soaked it and pinned it to a guest bed at my parent's house. This has been said so many times it might be a little trite, but holy crap! blocking is magic. What was a skinny, twisty lump of alpaca now actually looks like lace. I love this scarf so much that I actually wore it today, despite the fact that it is almost 70 degrees Fahrenheit outside.
I am thrilled with it. The only 2 things I did differently from the pattern (on purpose, anyway) were to knit 5 repeats of the centre pattern instead of 4 as the pattern calls for and I have decided to omit the fringe.

Beyond that, I have been focusing largely on the knitting of socks. They are the perfect knitting for taking outside of the house. Small, fit in a bag I can attach to my belt or to my bag, and not terribly mentally taxing.
This is just a basic top down sock out of some yarn from my stash. It is pretty and simple. I have yet to cast on for the second sock, but will before Christmas, as it very likely to wind up as a gift for someone, if for no other reason than I made it a bit small for my own foot due to a bit of wishful thinking when deciding it was time to do the toe decreases. It actually got boring. Boring I say.

My new pair of socks is nearing completion, and are really lovely. Since the last one got boring, I decided to try something a little more challenging. I came up with a top down ribbed sock with some little psuedo-cables (no cable needles required).
I'm really proud of this, and it is keeping me pretty well entertained. I'll put how I did it into the notes about this project in Ravelry, eventually. I have the second sock almost to dividing for the heel flap. Also, I love this yarn. It is Dream in Color Smooshy. It is aptly named. It is stretchy and it is smooshy. It seems like it will be super resilliant and durable. I love it.

For those of you not so into the knitting:

Calvin and Riley. Completely exhausted after a day of wrestling and playing and patroling the yard. They're doing pretty much the same thing right now.

Greetings from Socialist Hell

2008-10-18T09:18:00.000-04:00

I've been crazy busy for the past 2 weeks and sick, so I haven't been able to post. I have plans for another post tomorrow, however, I read something in the Yarn Harlot's recent post about a series of mishaps at an airport that rang really true. (Well a couple of things. I HATE airports. Everything that happened to her could happen to me, except without ending as a funny blog entry. It would end with me curled up in my wee seat weeping.)

As she was in the US and has a Canadian flag somewhere on her luggage (as I think is required of all Canadian citizens outside the country), she was confronted by someone who thinks that this country is a "socialist hell." Here's what someone, I assume in the U.S., had to say about that in the comments:

"Your socialist hell sounds pretty nice to me, living in a pseudo-republic just this side of a theocracy."

As a U.S. citizen in this "socialist hell," I think Melody might have summed it up.

(I swear I'll get to the knitting report by Monday. Unless I drown in papers before then I swear it.)

In Which I am Not Entirely Alone

2008-10-05T00:37:00.000-04:00

After overcoming my loneliness through sheer force of will on Monday, I should never have fretted. Sally came to visit and saved me from boredom. We've been wildly roaming the streets of London. Canadians fear where ever we go.

Okay, so we're not that scary. But one girl did give Sally money as compensation for screaming in her ear. It was ostensibly to buy a shot, but we left the bar and got hot chocolate instead. As we got it a block away from the apartment, we did take them home and... er... amend them with ingredients from my larder, well stocked at the L.C.B.O. store.

Today we toured the Labatt's brewery, which was super fun, and we just did our crazy thing. Like we do everywhere. Sally always has the best ideas. Mostly. Well, maybe some of the time. Sally always has ideas. That sentence is 100% true. The idea to go to the brewery was outstanding. The tour ended with beer, and we had the tour guide who has gotten in trouble for giving out too much. Wow.

It has been outstanding having a real friend here. Someone who values me for more than my extensive knowledge of Charles Ives. She's not quite my dear husband, but she does snore a lot less. Or at least more quietly. Also, it is quite the change to be the interpreter of Canadian culture. Its not like I'm an expert, but I understand (at least a little) the goofy things these weirdos do.

Although, its homecoming at Western, and I have no idea why the drunk guys on the bus tonight were singing like German soccer hooligans. Seriously. Weird drunk freakin' Canucks.

Watch for the upcoming knitting report. Its getting to be perfect weather for handknits.

Just When I Was About to Give Up on Canada

2008-09-29T23:01:00.000-04:00

So it is not surprise to readers of this blog that I'm struggling a bit getting used to things. Much though I may joke about the milk in bags and meat in grams, I have been feeling a bit down and a bit lonely. I miss my husband and I miss my friends. Moving to a new country is hard, even if that country is, apparently, called the hat of the country you used to live in. (I found out tonight that people in Britain and Europe call Canada the U.S.A's hat-- there is something just great about that.)

To assuage my loneliness and to preempt my tendency to wallow in self pity, I made a new rule for myself starting this week: that every day, I have to spend 1-2 hours outside of the apartment, unrelated to work or school obligations. It can be to go shopping, it can be to knit, it can be to work out, it can be (as I did tonight) to relocate my studying from my sofa to a Coffee Culture. But I have to go out and be open to talking to new people.

So tonight, I was at Coffee Culture, drinking my coffee and reading Kant's The Critic of Judgement, I noticed a guy with a John McCain bobble head. Now I, in my liberal haze, assumed that anyone who would own such a thing would only have it in irony. This is sort of what it looked like, although it was of a younger McCain in a flight suit:
Yeah, pretty silly, right? The dude wasn't being ironic at all-- he loves McCain and he loves Bush. As opposite me politically as a guy can be, but he invited me over to the table where he and a fairly large group of guys were gathering after having a more organized discussion at the library across the street. So there were all sorts-- I was the only American, but not the only liberal. There was an older man who was wearing a button that said "Abolish Personal Property," and a bunch of other men. I met London's town crier, who also maintains a list of over 2000 people that he calls on their birthdays. I'm on his list now.

I got to talk to grown ups about something other than music or music faculty gossip for most of an hour. It was awesome. It was a free exchange of ideas, it was surprisingly like what I used to get out of knitting group. (I'm still trying to find the knitters in London. I've found the one yarn shop I visited dissapointing. Maybe I'll get to the other that's actually in town over the weekend with Sally.) They invited me to join their formal discussion next month (apparently they meet on the last Monday of the month to discuss philosophy and politics and whatever else they find interesting) and then the informal event (like what I crashed tonight) after.

So the act of faith that was leaving the house was rewarded. I'm not saying I have made friends, but I did get to spend the evening with people who saw me. And I feel more like I might belong here, in my own way.

Culture Shock Part II: Obtaining Provisions and Sustinence

2008-09-26T08:31:00.000-04:00

So the grocery store is weird. I always find them a little intimidating, but here, it seems particularly so. Things aren't what I expect them to be, and the there is the pesky metric system, and on top of everything is bilingual, and frequently this means one side of the package is in English and the other is in French, so if the box is turned to the French side, I don't always know what it is. 3 semesters of French at MTSU does not make me a competent grocery shopper when accounting for the possibility that a rouge Huguenot might be roaming my local grocery store.

Let's start in the dairy isle. They sell milk in bags here. Yes. In bags. Apparently the idea is that you put it into your own pitcher and recycle the bags. Every Canadian I've spoken to about this thinks it is the most logical thing ever. Every American I've talked to about this with thinks its the weirdest freakin' thing ever.

Also they have homo milk, and by that they mean homogenized milk, not milk for the gays. But Americans giggle, while the Canadians look at us like we're weird.

Secondly, things sold by weight are generally (but not always) sold in 100 gram units. Lets take the example of lunch meat. I know that 1 pound of sliced turkey is about a week of sandwiches for 1 person. This is about, according to my computer's unit converter tool, 450 grams. Since I don't bring my laptop to the grocery, and I have an abysmal memory, I don't always remember this. The particularly odd thing is that at the farmer's market, stuff is sold in pounds. Now I'm even more confused.

Finally, the cereal isle, which I don't always like in the best of US supermarkets, because it can be cognitively overwhelming. There are colors and ads and cartoon characters and whining children and competing health claims. It is sensory overload, pure and simple, something I'm overly prone to at the best of times. My problem with it here, in addition to all of that is that, I don't recognize very many of the cereals. I mean there are the typical kids brands, but I am trying to eat healthfully, and frankly, the only cereal I recognize is the raisin bran. Not that it is unhealthful, but maybe I'd like something different, too.

So I feel as though I have been left in a strange country unsure what I should/could/would like to eat. I'm seriously considering giving up and subsisting on wine, cheese and frozen pizzas.

The good news is that Costco is pretty much the same. My same membership even works. The bad news is that I have 36 rolls of "bath tissue" or "papier hygienique" that I do not know where to put.

And in all seriousness, I like my new home. I love discovering other cultures. But it can be thoroughly exhausting; I'm just glad I get to use my primary language.

Calvin Moves to Canada

2008-09-23T13:56:00.001-04:00

So, I'm in trouble. I told Mommy that I would do this over the weekend, but I was at Riley's house, and we were having too much fun for me to post to her blog. She's still been nice enough to put in some pictures and check my spelling.

(He's a smart dog, but the camera requires thumbs)

We live someplace else now. I liked our old house, because it had stairs and sunny spots, and Granny lived nearby, and I knew a bunch of the dogs in the neighborhood, and it was super fun. Now, we have another house, and Daddy isn't here, and that makes me sad. I think it makes Mommy sad too, so I keep looking for him, but I haven't found him yet. I hope he gets here soon.

Just like at our old house, I have my crate, and I sleep there, and that's where I hang out when Mommy goes away. I have my blankie, and it isn't bad, but I'm super happy when she comes home or gets up in the morning. I like my crate, but I like running around and playing better. So when we get up, we go for a walk, and our new neighborhood is pretty neat-- there are lots of squirrels, but I'm not allowed to chase them, and that's no fun. Last weekend, Riley and I caught one, and we were so proud of ourselves that we hid it and tried to play with again later.

When Mommy and I go walk, I get to explore and smell things and claim them as mine. We walk and we go to a big green space where there are people who sometimes pet me and other doggies who I get to meet, although since we are all on leashes, we don't really get to play. I'm hoping that we'll get to go somewhere where I can run around and wrestle with other dogs soon, and Mommy says that might happen this weekend. It is really fun, and if it isn't raining we walk all the way around.
Then, in the mornings, after we get home, we both eat. Mommy puts out my food before we go walking, but I wait, so I can eat at the same time she does. It only seems nice.
It takes her longer than in takes me, which I don't understand, because her bowl is smaller than mine.

Sometimes, after we eat, Mommy has to leave right away, and I go into my crate and she goes away. She doesn't go in the car like she used to, which is weird for me, but I think she likes that.

Sometimes, though, I have a very good day, and we get to sit together in the bed or on the couch for a little while. We do this at night, too, and this is my favorite. I love cuddling. It is super fun. Anytime I think Mommy is extra lonely, I cuddle even closer, since I think it makes her feel better.

Sometimes, we go to visit Riley and his people, and that's fun. They have a big yard, and he's super fun to play with, even though sometimes he tells me what to do.

I'll give the blog back to Mommy for next time.

Culture Shock

2008-09-16T18:47:00.001-04:00

So I've been in Canada for a few weeks now. I've decided that Canadians are a bit weird. I'm not sure I can explain it any better.

I'm sure a trained professional would call it culture shock and say that I'll move on and adjust to my new culture, but I'm going to go with Canadians are weird. Of course, I walked all over the planet today so I'm thoroughly exhausted, but in this single day, I have seen so many fashion faux pas that I can't even begin to cope with the rest of my day.

I didn't take any photos, because how can you do this without alerting the person that indeed you think they look like a complete fool.

The first thing (and this I've seen on many people, so no one individual is guilty of it) is leggings with a napkin-sized skirt over them. I'm sorry, but this just looks stupid. You might as well put a napkin on. Yikes. I mean, if you are a little kid and want to wear a skirt but also play on the monkey bars, maybe, but if you are a woman over the age of 18 (which I assume the violators I saw today were, as they were University students) don't wear this... if you wouldn't wear the skirt without leggings, don't wear it with them.

The second thing is the increasing prevalence of the leggings with a large top look. Maybe I'm against this because I did it the last time it rolled around, I'm not sure, but it makes you look like an ice cream cone, or an 80s pop star. Neither is aspirational, I assure you.

The final person I saw (and this was one specific person, I don't think this is a universal Canadian fashion-ism) was wearing green leggings and a snug t-shirt representing the band Death Cab for Cutie. No one's butt looks good in leggings. I think maybe she lost a bet with her roommates and was forced to leave the house looking like that.

There are other things that have me in the throes of culture shock. I'll blog about those later. Since I've been somewhat lax about my blogging, I've recruited a guest blogger for later in the week... please be kind, he doesn't spell well.

Anyway, it is time for me to make my dinner and pretend to do homework.

Knitters, knitters everywhere!

2008-09-09T12:51:00.000-04:00

This morning on the bus, it was too crowded to sit when I got on, and while I can ride a bus while standing and I can knit a sock while standing, I can't knit a sock while standing on the bus. All of those dire warnings about lost eyes and impalements would be the natural result of me attempting this. I do, however, carry my sock in progress on my bag in a pouch, as such:

because when I do get a seat I can get in about 20 minutes of knitting on the sock between home and work. It keeps me from mercilessly mocking the undergraduates in their $400+ sunglasses.

So after I crowded on the bus, I was standing in front of an older woman who flashed me her sweater and the pattern. She didn't say anything, but she pulled her needles and sweater-in-progress out, a lovely silk (I think, I thought it would be weird to touch it), and then she showed me her pattern. That was it. It was such an interesting knitterly moment. It was lovely.

So I'm Here

2008-09-04T10:26:00.000-04:00

So I made it to Canada. I've made it to my apartment (although it is still absolute chaos). Perhaps I have just relocated the chaos, I don't know. I've made it to campus, and it turns out that in a comforting moment of sameness, there are tools and hosers everywhere. The week of orientation for undergraduates is surpisingly consistent-- matching t-shirts, going everywhere in groups and so on.

I have conquered government officials-- at the Social Insurance Office (think social security, kids), Immigration, and Customs. I am also the owner of a shiny new cell phone and today I will get a bank account. Most importantly, I have found a shopping mall and a wal mart.

I have a bus pass and an office. The bus pass is useful. There is a bus stop near my house that is right in front of a Starbucks and then the one I get off at on the way home is in front of a McDonald's, so I think Canada (or at least London Transit) is conspiring to make me fat.

My beloved husband is still in Nashville, so I'm lonely. This weekend, however, I'll alleviate that some by picking up my dog, who has been staying at my dad's house. Pictures soon! (Once I find the darn cable).

Crazy days

2008-08-27T13:52:00.001-04:00

So wow... the move is imminent. In theory on Sunday, I will have my stuff in my new house. It may be absolute chaos, but I'll have stuff in the new house.

This is the front of my new house... we're renting the back half, but that means we'll be closer to the parking, for the occasions when I drive.

Our entrance looks like this:

I think this will be somewhere where we can be pretty happy for now. It is within walking distance of the Western campus, and it is near a bus stop.

It is also near some parks, which will help me get back into running and make Calvin a very happy dog. I think I've set my sights on an October 5k race, so watch this space, because I may be hitting up my friends and family for donations to a charity.

Today has already been a bit busy-- I had to take the dog to the vet so he could get his doggie passport. Okay, so it isn't a passport, but it is the document that shows that he is healthy enough to be allowed into Canada. He doesn't mind the vet. He likes the car ride, he likes getting to meet the people and other dogs in the office, but once they call us into the back, he realizes that STUFF HE DOESN'T LIKE happens there. The good news is that he's healthy as a horse... or at least a Calvin. On the way home from the vet, we stopped at Starbucks to go through the drive thru, because usually they give him treats, but this time she went above and beyond-- a kiddie sized cup with whipped cream and two dog bones in it... like a little doggie sundae. He loved it. I didn't have my camera with me but I'm not sure it would have been fast enough!

Last weekend I made a crazy road trip to find the above apartment. On Wednesday, I drove from Nashville to Detroit, then on Thursday I went over to London to see places and found the right place, and on Friday, I spent some time with my dad and step-mom (I even helped my step-mom and her friend make pickles. Wow, that's a crazy process), saw some friends, visited my grandpa in the hospital, and drove to Florence, Kentucky, where I spent the night. On Saturday, I drove the rest of the way home.

Some highlights of the trip:

So this is a sign in Kentucky. Its a little hard to see... its there in the background, but its hard to take a photo while driving (the whole pesky eyes on the road thing), but it says "HELL IS REAL." It was right before an exit with an adult bookstore. I've driven past this sign about 100 times, but every time, it and its partners (there are an assortment of similar billboards in this same area of Kentucky on I-65) surprise me. Maybe its just me, but I don't look to billboards for anything much except perhaps the next exit where I can find a big ass drink and a potty. Certainly not salvation. I don't think that is found on a roadside sign.

Another religious oddity. If you look carefully you see the gigantic Jesus rising up out of or sinking into the pond there. This is outside of Cincinnati, OH, and I cannot express how huge it is. The building in the background is a church, but it is the size of a small shopping mall. So, if Jesus is taller than the church, he's huge.

This is the view from the Blue Water Bridge while waiting to pass through customs to Canada. It was pretty but time consuming.

After my adventures in Canada, I stopped before crossing the bridge back to the U.S. in the lovely park on the Canadian side. It was nice just to sit and enjoy a pretty evening for a few minutes. It was completely worth it, and I swear I saw a dude resting in the driver's seat of his van with a cage full of birds in the passenger seat. He was talking to a group of bikers who were also hanging out. Wacky. My camera was pretty close to dead batteries, so I didn't get a photo.

Anyway, I need to pack until my head explodes. Wish me luck.

Knitters are Awesome!

2008-08-12T22:17:00.000-04:00

I went to my regular Tuesday knitting meet-up, which I thought would be a nice, relaxing break from the hectic-ness of moving. And it was. It was social and fun, and worth the drive.

What I didn't expect were presents. My friends gave me going away presents. I almost cried.

Janet gave me these:

They are outstanding-- warm, soft, and ideal for typing (in cold libraries, for example) and for walking the dog. I'm wearing them now, even though it isn't at all cold. I'm sure my wrists appreciate them, not matter what the temperature.

Paula gave me this:
A lovely case to keep my knitting needles warm in the London, ON winters. The picture doesn't even begin to do it justice. The exterior is lovely, the interior is corduroy, with slots for my needles, and a ribbon closure.

Here's the thing about hand made gifts (not that I have anything against the store bought)-- they represent an investment of time and thought. I don't want to get too sappy or sound too crazy, but these gifts are a small amount of these ladies lives that they gave to me. So, in a way, the photos don't do either of them justice; there is no way that a mere photo could capture that. I will be able to take small bits of my friends with me, even though I'm moving far away. Who knew that these items could warm the heart, too?

Absolutely Awesome Day!

2008-08-02T20:50:00.000-04:00

So this weekend is a sales tax holiday in Tennessee, so I decided to stock up on school supplies for the next four years. I bought a case of printer paper, a new planner, pens, highlighters, index cards, a bunch of really cool stuff. I also got to hang out with a friend of mine who has been super busy with her job lately, so, all told it was awesome! It was an eight hour adventure of school supplies, overpriced linens, and fantastic sodas.

First off, we went to Office Depot, where I stocked up on bunches of stuff. Then we went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond where I bought these fantastic things. I love them, because I can wear any earrings I want to, even though one of my lobes is stretched out.

Then, we went to T. J. Maxx, where I found this:

It had not price tag. Indeed no tags of any sort. For all I know, some wise soul packed for the day and accidentally left their lunch bag in the accessories section. But I picked it up, and looked for others in the store with tags. I didn't find them. So after looking at everything in the store except for the men's clothes and the kids clothes, we went to pay for what my friend had found that she needed, and I asked a busy looking dude at the customer service desk how much it was. I said "So, how much does this cost, because I could just make up a price, but I'm not sure you'd like that." He said, "well, what price would you make up?" I said "$5.00," to which the guy responded, "how about $4.00?" and printed a price tag. I was so proud of my deal, I promptly put the sack on my head and put the price tag on my shirt. When I got home, I checked it out online, and found the same lunch bag for between $15 and $25!!!! How awesome!

Now I'm home and enjoying my spoils, and a quiet night at home with my husband and my dog, playing WoW and watching TV. I might drink some wine, too.

What a great day!

Jess Blogs about Something Serious

2008-07-28T12:50:00.000-04:00

On Sunday morning, in Knoxville, TN, a man shot 9 people at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church. Two of the victims have died. When I heard about this shooting while driving to a friend's house yesterday, they did not mention the name of the church, just that there had been a shooting at a Knoxville church, and one man (at the time) had died. Last night, I got an e-mail from my church, First Unitarian Universalist Church of Nashville, letting us know that this had happened, and letting us know what resources are availible to us to deal with this tragedy.

This morning, a friend e-mailed me about this, and send me this news story from the local Nashville paper. The story was followed by discussion of the tragedy and the story itself. In the discussion, several things came up that saddened me greatly.

First off. Let us acknowledge the absolute tragedy of this shooting. The children of the congregation were presenting a play that they had worked very hard to present. Their parents, relatives, and members of the congregation just there to support them because they were members of the same church family, were all there out of love. These 200 people, including the 7 injured and 2 dead, were there only to be together as a church family and support the children and youth. My thoughts and prayers are with everyone injured, those who grieve, and I hope that the members and friends of the Tennessee Valley UU congregation can find peace and healing after this.

There is no reason for this, there is no why.

Despite what people have written on the internet, this is not the fault of Barak Obama or Ann Coulter. This is, like all of these mass shooting events, the product of a deranged mind that sought someone to blame for his problems, and felt that the solution to that problem could be obtained through violence.

I would, however, defend the TVUU congregation, and other UU churches as churches. They are places where people come together to worship and share fellowship together. We come together to celebrate our victories and mourn our losses. I'm not sure how that isn't a church. I don't think a shared creed is necessary to define a church. I think a church is like a family, and is defined by those who choose to participate in it. As Unitarian Universalists, we define our church family by the deeds we share, and our common principles. We elect inclusion, which is an incredibly high standard; our very principles tell us we must respect "the inherent worth and dignity" of even those who would call us names or harm us. At a time like this, when we might want to seek revenge, our principles call on us to seek justice and compassion. Religious liberalism is not easy; without the guidance of a creed or a single text, I personally find myself having to think about moral issues much more deeply and considering them in a different way, since it is up to my own moral sense.

May we all find peace and comfort.

I'm it....

2008-07-06T10:54:00.000-04:00

So I was recently tagged by my friend, Sally, to do this, so here goes.

1. What was I doing 10 years ago? July 11, 1998. I was working in a mall in suburban Detroit, selling furniture to spoiled rich people, mostly, waiting for summer to be over to go back to school. The upside was that I did get to meet a few of the Detroit Red Wings and their wives, and my favorite local TV reporter. I worked for Restoration Hardware, and I still love their stuff, even though I kind of hated working there.

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list for today? Empty the dishwasher, fold laundry, my knee exersizes, 30 minutes on the elliptical machine, and walk the silly dog.

3. Snacks I enjoy: I love cake. I can't get enough of the chocolate iced chocolate cake they have at Publix. I'm also a big fan of chips and salsa.

4. Things I would do if I was a Billionare: Find all of my old bosses and tell them what I really think. No, seriously, I think I would pay off my house, travel more, donate to charities more generously, get a motorcycle.

5. Places I have lived:
Sterling Heights, MI
Troy, MI
Interlochen, MI
(Yes, I went to boarding school. It was my idea, I wasn't sent there because I was "bad," I loved it. And it was way crappier when I was there)
Nashville, TN
Cheatham County, TN (outside of Kingston Springs)
Salzburg, Austria (I stayed and studied here. It was lovely, but weird. Perhaps I'll blog about that some other time.)
And (coming soon...) London, Ontario, Canada

I'm actually not going to tag another bloggers, but some of my favorite blogs are, of course, Sally's, the Yarn Harlot, The Penguin Chronicles, Baby Steps, and The Panopticon.

2008-07-01T17:41:00.000-04:00

So I have a new friend. She has purple hair, big ears at is about 7' tall. For a while, she carried around something called "the spiked club of the gorilla." My other new friend is an average height human female who runs around the countryside killing critters and beasts and other bad guys.

In case I have you thoroughly confused, I am talking about my new hobby, playing the game World of Warcraft. I currently have two characters, a Night Elf Druid and a Human Mage.

If that's geek to you, don't worry... this isn't going to be a super geeky blog. I promise. I'll keep the Warcraft talk to a minimum (like the running talk) and only to do it when it is interesting to people who weren't up until midnight last night running through Azeroth. (I blame that on my husband. Hoser.)

Since I have yet to figure certain things about the game out, I can't really provide screenshots, but I'll include some pics others have gotten from the game that I found online.

Night Elf Druids look a little like this:

Although mine has purple hair and wears more clothes. Not that's she's a prude, she just has different gear at the moment.

Generally Druids can heal, fight, and turn into kitty cats and bears to fight or run. Fun, right?

(Okay, maybe not, but it keeps me busy... look some people have drugs and gambling, I have WoW and fiber, cut me some slack.)

Here's what a Human Mage looks like.

Mine is currently dressed a bit more lady like, but again, just a matter of gear.

Mages can cast spells. No strategy, just zap, zap, zap.

So why do I bring this to my blog? Simple. I have found some ways I wish the real world was more like the World of Warcraft:

1.) Mages have a spell called "Sheep" (or Polymorph, but I'm going to say sheep). It works like this: if something is attacking you and you don't want to deal with it right now (i.e. you are being attacked by something else or you know its going to kick your booty and you want to run like heck), you cast this spell at it, and it turns your opponent into (you guessed it) a sheep. Now I love this spell for several reasons, but #1 I love wool, so I have a certain (theoretical) fondness for sheep and #2 what a fantastic thing to do to someone annoying you to tears. You need to shut someone up who keeps talking and won't leave you alone? SHEEP! You can't deal for another moment at a family gathering? SHEEP!

2.) There is a function, if you don't want friends or strangers to talk to you, called /dnd. It flags you as Do Not Disturb, and even, over your head (if the other player is setup this way), shows that you want to be left the heck alone. How great would that be on a bad day... a message to the whole world that says "don't f*** with me."

3.) The ability to run across continents, survive without food, and whisper to people in other dimensions.

4.) When you get injured, cursed or poisoned, it will display how long you have until you are recovered. Got a torn hamstring? 15 seconds. Spider bite? 5 seconds. I have torn meniscus right now, and my life would be easier if I could look it up and know I'd be back to normal in 6 days or 3 weeks or whatever.

5.) The ability to pack up my toys and go home if things aren't going well. While there are protocols for playing in a group, assuming you want to be invited back, much of the time in the game you are playing by yourself. If it starts to be too hard, too late, too unproductive, or too stupid, then you can find a place where your character is resting, log off and do something else for a while. Eventually you persevere and finish the thing (usually), but if you don't wanna you don't haveta. Ever! Wow... if I have a difficult client, I can't just pack up and leave. I have to go on. Sometimes there is something to be said for giving up.

I'll have more of these in the coming days and weeks, but that's a start.

Happy Canada Day! If you aren't a Yarn Harlot Fan, you should be, and her entry today was super! Makes me want to move to Canada even more.

Wow, this is hard!

2008-06-13T18:40:00.000-04:00

So on Monday, my husband and I journeyed to the Canadian consulate in downtown Detroit supposedly to apply for our visas. After an ordeal getting to the consulate, then waiting in a line, we finally got to the upstairs section of the consulate, where we were told that that we should just wait and apply when we cross the border. At least I know our paperwork is in order, but I still feel as though I wasted the morning running around downtown Detriot, when I could have been asleep.

Over the past couple of days, I went to London to look for housing, and I think I found a house that will be perfect at a good price. It actually has 3 bedrooms (one is super small), and hardwoods throughout. The larger bedroom will actually fit our king sized bed.
So... now the task of figuring out how to do first and last month's rent from a U.S. bank account into Canadian funds so I can not loose the place.

I have just realized how soon it will be August, and how soon it is that I'll be moving, and I'm starting to freak out. But what can I do?

Knit to stay calm. I'm going to go through a bunch of sock yarn. I'm going to start on some socks with this stuff as soon as I get home.

UPS Sucks!

2008-06-05T17:55:00.001-04:00

So I've had two packages delivered this week by amazon.com; they kindly split my order into two shipments, so I could get the pieces sooner without charging additional shipping. Both times, the idiot who delivers UPS to my neighborhood left the package outside my garage, which put them where I could have run them over with the car backing out of the garage and when I got home today, I had to get out of my car and retrieve the package before I pulled into the garage. Furthermore, it put the package about 2 feet away from the street and in full public view-- where it could have been run over by one of my neighbors or stolen. Now FedEx, DHL, and the United States Postal Service all manage to find my house and to find their way through the gate to the back door. UPS, on the other hand, has left packages at my neighbor's house on any number of occasions and now have pulled this crap.

When the first package was left outside of my garage on Tuesday, I called the 800 number. The lady on Tuesday was very nice, and then someone from our local center called me and said that it was a substitute driver and that this would never happen again, and that he would make a note in my file that packages were to be delivered to the back door and not left outside the garage. So I was enraged when I got home today and found the box outside the freakin' garage again. I called and got a guy who assured me that this time it would make a difference. So now in the next 45 minutes or so, I'm supposed to get a call back from the supervisor at my local center, who I am sure is the tool I talked to last time who will say the same thing he said last time.

What do you want to bet that this isn't the last time that this happens? Because I'm not hopeful.

Am I a Bad Person?

2008-05-30T21:57:00.000-04:00

Every morning, Calvin (the dog) and I go out for a walk so he can empty his bladder somewhere other than in the house. We walk the same route, and I throw away his poop at the same poop station every day. And many mornings, we both nearly get hit because some tool is going down the road, with a clearly posted limit of 30mph at around 50.

So this morning, the police were out doing a speed trap in the neighborhood, and as we walked by, there was someone pulled over looking very put out by the fact that she was getting a ticket. It made me happy.

Does that make me a bad person?

I don't think so.

Canada update: we leave in a week for Michigan to go to a wedding, then the following Monday, we're going to downtown Detroit so we can go to the consulate and apply for our temporary resident permits and probably have lunch in Greektown.

How Stupid Are We?

2008-05-27T19:10:00.000-04:00

So... this isn't related to anything I said I'd blog about, but I do have a short rant.

I just got home from the grocery store. And there with the booklets and magazines by the check out (you know, the Enquirer and the Star and 10 Easy Slow Cooker Meals, was a book called The Complete Idiot's Guide to Prayer.

Now I'm not the most religious person in the world, but here's the thing: most religious traditions make prayer pretty easy-- you say "hey, God...." and say what you think He (or She or It) needs to know about your life. And in those that make it more complicated... well, you're not going to get what you need to know from a Complete Idiot's Guide. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Meditation, I could get behind, but the scope of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Prayer just seems a bit broad. Furthermore, if I did think it was a good idea, I'm not sure it is a great thing to be marketing at Publix. Its not like getting more in touch with God (or the gods, or the Great Whomever) occurs to one in the same way that needing a pack of gum does.

Please understand that I'm not against prayer. I like it. I support people who do it. I'm just saying that the grocery store isn't, maybe, the place to learn it.

The adventure begins!

2008-05-19T15:21:00.000-04:00

So I'm starting a blog. Yep, yet another trend I said I'd never do, but here I am.

So here's my story... I'm moving to Canada in August to go to school. My dear husband will eventually follow, sooner rather than later, if I have anything to say about it. I like Canada, and London Ontario is really pretty. But I wanted to document the the process, and especially once I'm there and trying to settle in and whatnot, I want to be able to share it with my friends and family.

So thus, my blog is born.

The plan (as of now) is to apply for our temporary resident permits in Detroit around 9 June (we'll be there anyway for a wedding the weekend before), and then I'll go up to London to see if I can find us a place to live. Hopefully, shortly before then, I'll be able to get our current home on the market, but it seems as though the time keeps slipping away! Then in August, I move, and in September, I start school. I'm excited, and a bit terrified.

This blog will not just be about moving... I'm too scatterbrained for that. I'll also include my dog:
Here he is at Easter. He was not happy about the ears. I thought they were cute. He thought they were stupid.

He's going to Canada, too. I've explained it to him, but I don't think he really gets it.

I'll probably write about knitting:

(A pair of arm warmers I finished recently. I can't get both of them on and in the same picture. And this pic doesn't show off the detail. But trust me, they're fab.)

I might write about running, but not too much, because I know that one can only talk with other runners about running for about 30 minutes before it gets old, and non-runners have a lower tolerance than runners do.

So there it is.

In the words of Tim Gunn, then, "carry on."