I DID Go!

 Remember how I was all anxious about a five-hour drive in uncertain northern-ish Ontario weather? Part of my hesitation was that I had had BIG FEELINGS about people who had heedlessly traveled during an extreme weather warning a few days earlier and been stuck in their cars for up to 48 hours, while people STILL kept asking for updates on weather conditions for following days when they intended to travel on the Ontario Storm Facebook group - not people who were first responders or people who needed to get to work, just people who didn't want to change their plans. I really really did not want to put myself in the position of acting like people like them and being judged by people like me. 

Well, I very conscientiously stocked the car with water and snacks and candles and matches and blankets and coats and tall boats and mittens. And then naturally the drive was completely uneventful weather-wise. The visibility was slightly less-than-ideal for the last hour on Thursday BECAUSE THE SUN WAS TOO BRIGHT. 

So I had left super early because I had a dinner reservation for seven with my professor, but then the drive was totally normal so I was two and a half hours early, and Eve is really slammed right now with end-of-term stuff, but I went to her house and she brought her computer down to the living room and we hung out, and then one by one her lovely housemates started joining us and it was really nice. I went to get Wendy's for everyone who was home, and when I got back we realized Camille had been hiding in her attic room, but Wendy's had magically given us an extra hamburger so we gave it to her. Then Jayden came in having fallen off her bike, and there was a judicious mix of sympathy and 'why the eff were you biking, it's winter now', and she doesn't eat Wendy's anyway.

I had a wonderful dinner and conversation with my prof and went to my hotel. Matt always makes my reservation because he has a shit ton of hotel points, and then he makes sure to put my name on the reservation. Once when I went in ahead of him the man at the desk said I could check in anyway as long as I had I.D. with the same address on it, so this time he didn't bother/ forgot. It turned out that it was a bit of an issue, and the woman at the desk asked if I could give him a quick call which was an issue since he was in Shanghai. So then she just asked me his phone number and email and let me in anyway. Once I was in the room I texted him quickly that apparently we should keep doing it, and he called me because he was not, in fact, in Shanghai yet, but driving from Seattle to Vancouver (where he would catch his flight to Shanghai) and had just realized that he was about to be caught in traffic related to Taylor Swift's last concert in her tour. 

I got some sleep and then got up to drive the hour and a half to Zarah's. Matt had warned me not to get over-confident because she lives in the snow belt and the drive could be dicey. It was not. Clearly I was bullet-proof this week-end. 

I got to Zarah's house, which is old and beautiful and sparely decorated and full of soothing neutrals, and it's not something I'm able to achieve in my own living space, but it's so lovely to spend time in.

We generally hit the mall one day (principally for Lululemon for the boys) and then walk downtown for the cute little local stores the other day. 

The Menopause corner at Blueberry Moon

Then we find a Netflix series to binge (Man on the Inside, highly recommend), or a movie (Bros and Fortune Feimster's new Netflix comedy show - very funny), or do a puzzle (Artsy Cats - I was really bad this time, I just sat there staring at pieces and did about one-seventh while Zarah motored through the rest). We don't really drink, sometimes we do share a weed pen and then are shocked when one of us gets Covid and the other one doesn't (no one got Covid this time. I didn't even get sick after one kid coughed full in my face at the Scholastic Book Fair viewing time on Wednesday. See? Bulletproof). 

Also, she has a cat instead of a dog, so it's kind of a fun change of pace. Inej doesn't jump on my face demanding to be walked, but Lucy doesn't sit on my puzzle or interpose herself between me and my Ipad. The best part was when Zarah described how Inej demands to play hide and seek, then runs to the living room and 'hides' under the chair with her butt sticking out, and while she was telling this story THE CAT DID THE VERY THING she was describing. The stark reverse of when you say your cat or dog or kid does this hilarious thing and then the cat/dog/kid naturally refuses to do it ever.

I

I also volunteered to help her set up her tree, despite lacking any kind of skill or confidence in this area. I figured she'd know what to do and I would just be a second set of hands. This was not quite how it shook out. It was the same as our new tree - three pieces that theoretically snap together in less than five minutes. She put one piece in the stand, then tried to put the second piece into the first, but it wouldn't slide in. I said I thought she had put the middle piece in first because it was skinnier than the piece she had. So we switched them. But the second piece still woudn't go in. It seemed like every piece should have a pointed end and a round end, but the middle piece seemed to have two pointed ends.

We fretted. We fumed. I suggested that she phone a male friend, knowing that Eve would call this a betrayal of feminism. I would have called Matt but he was in Shanghai for real now. Maybe. We kept futilely jabbing the second piece at the first piece and then setting it down and being angry. I googled it and found one guy who said he was sure the shape of the pole had changed while it was in storage, which sounded extremely dumb and also very plausible. 

I asked about how it had been put together in the past and Zarah wielded the second piece again and said "just like THIS, when Alex does it it goes click click..." -- the second piece slides smoothly and fully into the first" -- "....click". We just stared at it for a second and then killed ourselves laughing. Alex is tall, so he probably had it aligned properly from above, and we are not, so we probably had it slightly crooked so it wouldn't go in. 

You know that quote about the definition of insanity being trying the same thing and expecting a different result? I try the same thing and get a different result often enough that either this quote is wrong or I am... actually insane? 

It was all perfectly perfect, and then the drive home was also fine, and then the next day my friend Kerry drove home from the same area and had to stop and de-ice every hour, so it was also remarkably fortunate. And then I came home and there were many, many fun plans in November and I was a little burned out and overwhelmed, and when I got home I was extremely tired but also happy and grateful that it all went well, and by comparison the Christmas stuff feels almost calm and relaxing (I'm sure that will wear off any minute). Matt flies back into Toronto on Friday evening and is going to hang with his brother until Monday so he can bring Eve home because her exams finish early this year (yay!). I need to start baking. I just took Lucy for a walk and we had two days of rain and now it's very cold and the rain is frozen and I had to inch down my street to avoid falling and cracking my head open. Hope I'm still bulletproof.