Bringing Eve Home Finale and Okay Then Where AM I?

 Elisabeth and someone else that I can't remember both said I am not in their spam folder and yet I have ABSOLUTELY written comments on their recent posts and it looked like they posted and then they were not there so I am having an existential crisis in the most literal sense right now. I guess I'll save every comment to a document, because I feel like an idiot typing it all over again when it disappears. 

We were hoping to be headed home by noon on Wednesday. This did not happen. I didn't really think it would. Of course, Matt also had told himself that we were going to get everything in the rented van. When we were finally ready to go, Matt said (as if he was making a big surprising confession) "I'm not sure how we would have gotten anything like close to all your stuff home if we hadn't gotten the storage locker" and Eve was like "GIRL WE KNOW". 

So we drove around doing one last load and I was basically looking out the van window and sighing and looking around the house and sighing and being melancholy (yeah I know, I wasn't even the one moving, AND she's coming back in the fall, but STILL.)

The girls had an arts and science society poster with a McMaster Engineering hat for Mera on their fridge





Eve found her Schrodinger's Cat and Box socks while she was packing and put them on and Lauren said "oh my god, your socks have MOVING BOXES on them".







Just before we left, Eve really wanted to pop a confetti balloon. This is hilarious because she says she is always the one telling people not to throw a frisbee inside the house or whatever, but she'd been driving everyone crazy trying to pop Mera's balloons all week.









So then they popped all the confetti balloons, because it was the last day of April.





And then we hit the road.

Bringing Eve Home Part 2 and I Am Stuck in Everyone's Spam Folders

 For some reason it seems like I'm having a harder time than usual commenting on people's blogs and having the comment disappear - the ether? The spam folder? Dunno. Just don't think I'm ignoring you, because like Julie, I might have six comment stuck in your spam folder.

So Tuesday morning we drove down to Eve's place (we stay at a hotel on 'the mountain' (Hamilton escarpment) - when I was at Mac if we wanted to go to a mall or movie on The Mountain we had to take a bus and it took an hour and a half. Driving time from the hotel to Eve's house? 13 minutes). She had packed some stuff but her bed was covered with clothes and makeup and other things, so we loaded some bins and furniture into the van to drive to the storage place in Dundas, about twenty minutes away.

The storage place lady was really nice. There were Skittles and Starburst candies in a tray on the counter, and Eve pretended to steal some even though they were free (she was having a very anxious day).

The instructions for getting to our locker were very slightly complicated, just enough that it took us a few tries to get it right, which of course was hilarious.

Creepy murder storage locker family selfie:

Look! House number and (randomly assigned) locker number!

We had to go to Canadian Tire to get a lock. It had gotten crazy windy, and as we were leaving Canadian Tire a gust of wind smacked us (and swept some dirt from plant pots against my bare shins) so hard I yelped. 

We went back to the house. Matt had to go do a call. Eve said she wanted me to go away so she could organize the stuff on her bed. I had to push gently because at this point 'organizing' really meant 'packing', and there was going to be no perfect way to do that. I just started packing stuff while asking her what went together, and by the time the bed was cleared off she felt much better and apologized and said she was just overwhelmed, which was completely understandable. 

Matt came back and we dismantled the bed and got the mattress out and on the van roof. With the wind the way it was we were a bit afraid we would create a flying projectile, which resulted in Matt way over-securing it and being annoyed at how long it took to get back off.

After we dropped the second load at the storage locker, Matt and I went back to the hotel, he did a work call and I showered and changed, and we went back and pickup up Eve to have dinner with Jean, my professor who is now her professor. I forgot to take a picture, but we had a really nice dinner - Jean had been bummed that Eve was not going to be back in Hamilton for at least a year and now was very happy to hear she'd be back in the fall.

We went back to the house so I could give all the girls the t-shirts I had had made. A lot of the parties they went to were themed - bring and dress like your favourite stuffie, Bridgerton (they dressed up and took jello shots out of tiny teacups, don't @ me about the sex stuff, it's university, I'm sure somebody was getting railed) etc. One was Costco-themed, and Zoe made them these labels, with references pertinent to everyone in the house and the Arts and Science program in general:

I thought they were perfect, and I have a local woman who is amazing at putting pretty much anything on a t-shirt.

The results were gratifying.

Nearly done!

Bringing Eve Home Part 1

So in the lead-up to moving out of the house, the girls had to do some stuff to commemorate their three years together. 

They went to Build-a-Bear and built stuffies that were all named Newton (their street).

They put little bags inside the bears that said 57 Newton. Eve and Zoe put a little bit of crumbled brick in so there was literally a little piece of the house.

She says she can feel the little bag inside her bear's butt and it makes it feel like he might be smuggling cocaine. Still cute!

Camille, the sweetest purest soul, studying with her bear.

They were six arts and science students graduating this year, and one engineer who has one year left. One night after the rest of them had all gone to bed, Mera the engineer put balloons up and made them all cupcakes.

We left Ottawa after work Monday and I had slept like crap and was feeling really rough. We took the nice back road route instead of the highway and after we talked for a bit I had a really nice nap. We stopped at McDonalds for a romantic late lunch, and got into Hamilton in the early evening. We saw Eve briefly and then went to the hotel to have an early night before all the heavy lifting. 

I can't remember how much I've said here about what was happening for Eve next year, but things have been kind of up in the air. She interviewed for masters programs at Mac - one lab wanted her but she didn't think it was a good fit, one said she was amazing but they couldn't make an offer for a few months, and she finally decided that nothing was better than the lab she's in now, where she did her undergrad thesis - she loves the prof that heads the lab and the atmosphere. Unfortunately Dr. Hynes was on sabbatical for next year. So she interviewed for a position at McGill where the prof kind of jerked her around - set up the interview for a masters position than confessed she didn't have the funding for a grad student, but said she could offer her a position as a lab tech. So Eve wrapped her head around that and thought it might be cool to get some lab experience and live in Montreal for a year. Then the prof said she actually didn't have funding for that either (frown emoji, head exploding emoji, angry emoji). So she interviewed for another lab tech position at a Montreal university, and they said she was great and then ghosted her.

So we said fine! Come home! Do whatever and then start your masters with Hynes next year (He had said that if he was staying he would have absolutely offered her a position). 

THEN three days before we went down to move her, she texted that Hynes had cancelled his sabbatical and said she could start her masters this fall, and she was sort of thrown because this was already a season of upheaval, but she was going to do it. 

Hynes has five kids. This was our text (I was in the hairdressing chair).

PREGNANT. (Biology professor. Obvious joke).

So this was a huge plot twist, but auspicious timing, because this meant we could get a storage locker and put a bunch of her stuff there since she'll be back in four months. (Matt had rented a minivan and thought we were going to get all her stuff home in it. Eve and I knew this was delusional but we just figured we'd just let him realize the natural consequences of his actions.

Also, it was election day on Monday, so we Matt and I had voted in advance polls and Eve had voted on campus and Angus had voted by mail, and we were all on edge because for anyone who doesn't follow Canadian politics, we had a Trump-lite leader who was basically assured a victory until a few months ago when Trudeau stepped down and Mark Carney came in as Liberal leader and suddenly the forecast was very different, but I was afraid to hope. 

Eve told us Zoe had friends coming over to watch the election night coverage, which of course we thought was awesome.

This was the associated drinking game (don't tell me the young people aren't engaged), which was even awesomer. 

When I went to bed they were saying the Liberals would win, but couldn't tell if it would be a majority or minority (it was a minority by an annoyingly small number of seats). I literally woke up at four a.m. to check my phone and see that Pierre Poilievre (the classless, slimy, fascist, voted-against-abortion-rights posed-for-selfies-with-the-trucker-convoy never-had-a-real-job Trump Lite conservative leader) DID lose his seat. Pop the bubbles!

Hey! Hi

 In the last couple weeks we moved Eve out of her student house and home, went to Charlotte and Atlanta, and had my sister and brother-in-law here for the long weekend. Somewhere in there I got a cold, probably from Eve, which she said was pretty mild, and I guess it has been, but it has also hung on for-freaking-ever, and Sunday I had such an apocalyptic headache I almost woke Matt up to take me to the hospital because I thought something was surely about to burst.

Anyway. A lot of good stuff has happened and also I am exhausted (as I would be from traveling and peopling anyway) and possibly now have a sinus infection and haven't blogged for (counts on fingers) FIFTEEN DAYS. Which at least allowed Swistle to find the Spinach Cheese Square recipe, so, silver linings.

The going to the U.S. thing is pinging around in my head a lot. I posted one picture of Angus and Eve together without saying where it was, which feels dishonest, and now I think I should probably/maybe confess on Facebook so people can unfriend me if they feel they must. Some people are resolutely not going at all for the next three and a half years, and they go often so I know it's a sacrifice, which I respect. Some people have very self-righteously declared that they won't be going 'even though they have close family and friends there', when I know for a fact they have rarely, if ever, crossed the border, so that feels a little more performative, but still fair. 

It would be a sacrifice to only see Angus once a year when he can come home at Christmas. A sacrifice, as it turns out, that I am not willing to make. He's my kid. Who knows how much time we have left? (I made this argument to a friend on messenger and she pointed out that she had not said anything remotely critical, and I said "I know, I'm having a fight with myself") Did I leverage a massive amount of white privilege? Yes I did. I am not proud, and yet I can't quite regret it either. Goddammit, having principles is difficult. 

Monday was a holiday, so I have no new Aurora news to report. I will post a few pictures of Downton Abbey text exchanges I have had with people who watched years ago and still good-humouredly put up with me live-texting my watch. Also I often text the wrong person because ADHD brain, so that's always fun for them.

Also, the scene that was made for our family: