froo's new couch (by froo) I went to IKEA and bought the Ekeskog. I rented a van to bring it home.

Here's my new couch:



Here's me chillin' on the couch:



And the waiting continues...

Update!!

  | ¶ 2:53 p.m.

  it must be for something more than vanity I was early for work today because I took Fred into the shop this morning and caught the bus from Centre Street North. I proceeded to run my ass off in the office because we've got a LOT of stuff going on. Yesterday I didn't even take a lunch break. The good news is that Client A is closed. That's the private placement I'm investing in. We'll issue a press release announcing the closing tomorrow probably. Also today are the shareholder meetings to get approval on the amalgamation of Client B and Client C. We'll issue a press release shortly on that one too. It's all very exciting, don't you know.

So Fred's getting new brakes today. It's Phase II of car repairs. Phase III will be the muffler issue - it's getting pretty rumbly. Since today is payday, I'm getting stuff done. In addition to repairs, I got my car re-registered. But with an outstanding parking ticket and the fee to change my address on my driver's license, the grand total was $130. Ouch.

It seems that I have lots of expenses lately, so this paycheque will be gone pretty quickly. It kinda sucks when you have to keep dishing out cash for stuff like damage deposits and car repairs and insurance premiums. Since I had 10 hours of overtime this month, my cheque was pretty generous. But yesterday I learned a good reason not to work late. When they're calling for "evening showers" and you don't bring your umbrella (or even a jacket!), well, you're going to get wet. The walk from the train to my apartment is short, but I managed to get drenched. Good times, man.  | ¶ 1:39 p.m.

  sing for the laughter, sing for the tear Today was froo's moving day. I planned ahead and had two naps (one Friday, one yesterday) in addition to doing some conditioning (I went jogging yesterday morning) and getting lots of rest (i.e. my weekend has been pretty lame).

I got up early this morning to drive out to the U-haul in the northeast with Jame and Keri to get ourselves a truck. We loaded it up at froo's, drove over and picked up Gina, then headed to the new condo for some serious stair-climbing. Other than the heavy awkward items, the four flights of stairs weren't as bad as we were anticipating. Mom & Dalt and the kids met us with sandwich fixings afterwards, so we got some much needed nourishment - and we even had a champagne toast to froo's new place. Welcome to condohood!

I'm trying to alter my diet a bit. No, I'm not on a diet. I just want to modify some of my protein sources. Instead of animal protein, I'm going to do some research and experimentation with some vegetable protein. Twice this weekend I was informed that vegetable protein is an "incomplete" protein - something about combining it with rice to make it complete...? So tonight when I picked up my fresh fruit for the week, I also threw in some red lentils and some baby lima beans. And brown rice, which is apparently a lot better for you than the bleached white stuff. Now I just gotta figure out how to prepare this stuff in appetizing meals.

One animal protein I probably won't be trying to avoid as much as beef and chicken is fish. I think we still get enough good stuff from fishies to keep on eating it. I picked up some salmon tonight. My not-so-secret ingredient these days in a lot of my rice and vegetable dishes (or, even eggs or potatoes) is savory. I'm loving the taste of this herb - not the powdered form, but the chopped, bigger pieces. Dee-lish. Tonight I'm cooking brown rice, red peppers, snow peas, mushrooms and fish.

I acquired a futon today. Since I'm the likely host for Kris when he arrives on Wednesday, I figured I would take it off froo's hands. She was planning to sell it soon anyway. To Devin. So now when people arrive they've got a place sleep. Stacey's bed & breakfast is open for business! (you might have to make your own breakfast, though - this girl's gotta get ready for work!)  | ¶ 12:24 a.m.

  high hopes we had for the future There are a couple good pieces in the New York Times today. The first one, Memo to U.S.: Pay Attention to Canada addresses a bit about the issues concerning the softwood lumber dispute, which he points out, "garner front-page play in the Canadian papers and no play at all in the American papers". He goes on to discuss the oil deposits in northern Alberta, how there is likely to be a better supply here than in Saudi Arabia. And notes that Vice President Dick Cheney is supposed to

...visit the oil sands next month. Memo to Mr. Cheney: Can you settle the softwood lumber dispute while you're there? With all that oil, do we really want Canada mad at us?

He's got a good point.

Maureen Dowd writes an excellent opinion piece about the Iraq debacle and Shrub's continued oblivion to the growing anxiety of the American people about "staying the course", comparing the sentiment to 1968.

The No. 1 music video requested on MTV is Green Day's antiwar song, "Wake Me Up When September Ends," about the pain of soldiers and their families. On Sunday, Joan Baez sang peace anthems at Camp Casey, including "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" The N.F.L. did not cancel its sponsorship of the Rolling Stones tour, even though the band has a new song critical of Mr. Bush and the war.

You might need to register to read these stories. Try bugmenot for login help.  | ¶ 12:56 p.m.

  I used to think I knew what I was waiting for Last night we all gathered at the family compound for a birthday barbeque. Steaks and chicken. Caia helped:

This weekend there will be more family endeavours. froo is moving into her new condo (4th floor! no elevator!) so we're gathering Sunday morning to get her stuff transported. With so many Ryans around things should move fairly quickly.

The countdown is on to Mom's party next weekend, too. Kris arrives Wednesday and we'll have our follow-up family meeting to see how all the plans are progressing. Personally I have a lot to do still. Decorations. Punch. Baking of cheesecakes. I'm sorta waiting 'til payday on Tuesday to tackle my stuff. Next week is going to be a hellish work week for me, too, so I'm going to be a little frenzied, I think.

I've started out my weekend with post-work nap. On a Friday! I'm good to go now.  | ¶ 12:52 a.m.

  you can climb a ladder up to the sun Yesterday was the beginning of "birthday season" in my family. Out of seven people in our original group, five of them have birthdays in a one-month span. My father turned 62 yesterday (Happy Birthday!). Jamie turns 29 today (Happy Birthday!). Next up is Kris on September 6th, but since Mom's turning the big 60 this year, we're actually having her party on September 3 to take advantage of the long weekend for out-of-town guests. We'll likely celebrate Kris' that weekend too (since he'll be here visiting from Vancouver). Then it's Keri on the 11th. And Mom's actual birthday on the 21st of September finishes off birthday season. Yikes.

froo and I generously chose to be born in April so as not to make birthday season even more stressful. Very nice of us, no? And Keri and Gina have followed our example and had their children in January, February and March. Good planning.  | ¶ 11:21 a.m.

  one day I’ll no longer do you wrong Recently a mama bear was killed by a train around the Banff area. She had three babies (not sure how old) who are now orphaned. Yesterday froo was doing a company-sponsored team-building hike at Johnston Canyon and they saw the cubs playing in a field on the way home. She claims that this is a picture of them, so we'll just have to take her word for it.

  | ¶ 3:00 p.m.

  when the truth came out were you the last to know I'm going to be very broke soon. But hopefully it's all for long-term gain. You see, in the securities law business, we help our clients, both private and public companies, raise money by issuing securities. We're about to do that "bought deal" I mentioned in an earlier post, and it's a pretty sweet deal for those who can get in on it. Often they let the senior lawyers on the deals on the "president's list", but Boss is being generous and sharing the opportunity with a couple other lawyers and even a couple legal assistants (like me!). So I get to buy 1,000 class A shares for $1.90 each.

The key in this case is that the company's shares are currently trading around $3.00 on the TSX Venture Exchange. So it's kinda like instant profit, except for one small matter of a mandatory hold period. I have to hold them for four months. And then, if the shares keep going up, or even just retain their current price (no reason to expect they won't - it's an oil company and this is Alberta) I'm set to make a good profit. The tough part is coming up with the $1,900 right now. I don't have that kind of money just lying around, so I'm planning to take a big Visa cash advance and hopefully borrow a couple hundred from a generous family member (still waiting to hear). I'll be pinching my pennies for the next several months while I pay back the Visa people. Eep.

The other night Stacey told some other lawyers that I actually do the work of a junior lawyer on her deals. I draft agreements and circulars reasonably well, so I'm a little more than just a document editor. That was nice to hear, except I joked that she better not tell me that or I might have to ask for a raise...! Junior lawyers make a little more than I do at this point. For now I'll just keep working as much $30/hour overtime as I can handle. That should help with the Visa bill.  | ¶ 12:39 a.m.

  where have all the cowboys gone We're having a party!

But you're not all invited. Not unless you know my mom. Didn't froo do an excellent job on the invitations?  | ¶ 1:11 p.m.

  maybe you'll get what you wanted; maybe you'll stumble upon it At school this year Scott (fellow thirty-year-old) was my link to non-student world (he was still a student, of course). Obviously, as you get older and have had more life experiences, it's a little harder to relate to those younger folks. We would share a couple of bottles of wine and sometimes we would get into discussions with those same younger folks about what that subtle ingredient was that made them seem so young to us. I mean, it's not like they have less intelligence or anything. But a couple times it was volunteered that whatever naïveté or ignorance they had, they were fine with keeping it, if it meant sticking to their ideals and maintaining their enthusiasm and innocence. I think everybody looks at the generation ahead of them and gets scared, because they see a certain reserved demeanour as boring and resigned, or as having given up the fight or something.

That can definitely happen. It's easy to let life beat you down. But one thing I've learned is that life is cyclical. You really do gotta endure some tough stuff in order to get round to the better times. Not only that, but you're likely to appreciate both the good and bad more once you see what they can teach you. Life doesn't usually turn out the way you think it's going to, and that's something you can only learn by going through it.

I think one mistake that some people make, though, is mistaking pragmatism for cynicism or callousness. Throughout your life, the more you experience something, the less intense your reaction will likely be to it. I think somebody who doesn't become somewhat subdued in their reactions to something they've seen over and over again might be considered rather dumb. Isn't it just a psychological adaptation to be less reactionary in the face of conflict, disapppointment, or even good fortune? We have more controlled reactions, because we know that we all have our moments in the sun. And we all have our letdowns. But choosing to intensify them by fixating on them doesn't help anyone cope. Life keeps moving on.

I'm not less human because I don't like drama or the crazy ups and downs that I experienced when I was younger. I'm probably a little dumb for being less pragmatic about beer, however.  | ¶ 12:03 a.m.

  was it loneliness that brought you here Man. What a sad mess I am. It's one of the hottest days of summer and I'm sneezing and sniffling and coughing with a cold. froo, Jame and I spent four hours simmering in the sun rafting down the Bow River this afternoon. Now my apartment is so stifling that I'm forced to strip down, yet with this sore throat, all I want to do is eat some hot soup. Yesterday I had tomato soup for breakfast. Then twice later on. Sheesh.

My Sunday evenings are typically used to get ready for the week - I've almost got a routine. Get groceries, do dishes, cook food to re-heat for lunches, prepare fruit for morning shakes. The fruit-shake thing is something I started when I was living in Mom's basement - she had bought Dalt a nice blender and we experimented with different recipes. When I moved here, she bought me a blender so I could continue our healthy habit. I use orange juice, lemon juice, fresh strawberries, fresh raspberries, fresh blueberries, bananas and yogurt. This week I picked up some fresh peaches, too, so I'm going to try slicing those up and see how that works. I've never been great at incorporating fruit into my diet, so I feel tremendously healthy these days [other than this avian flu problem, obvious]. Yay, me.

It's nice to have another taste of summer in Calgary; they tend to come to an end so early. Rafting was quite relaxing today; the water level is getting lower, so it's easy to spot most of the big rocks way ahead of time, so we didn't have to paddle all that much. And I only had to get out and drag us through a shallow section once (ouch. hurts the feet.). The water was typically chilly, but I swam for a few minutes to cool off near the end. I always miss a couple spots on my body when applying sunscreen, so I've got a few red patches on my back tonight. Add heatstroke to the bird flu and what do ya got?  | ¶ 10:12 p.m.

  and I will try to fix you I've been recommending it to everybody, but I better announce it here: if you haven't got the new Coldplay album yet, go get it. Okay, maybe you're not a Coldplay fan, but I wasn't the biggest fan either until I d/led a bunch of the songs from X&Y, and now I totally love them. I might even dish out the cash for the real disc.

Get it!  | ¶ 1:22 a.m.

  lights down, you up and die froo sent me this link for Rick Mercer's blog. Rick Mercer is awesome. His blog is quite funny, as you'd expect.

When it comes to photos Michaëlle Jean is just downright way better looking and more interesting than Stephen Harper, no matter what character from the Village people he happens to be dressed as.

[Stephen Harper tried to dress like a cowboy during the Stampede here in Calgary. It was kinda funny.]  | ¶ 4:00 p.m.

  I will wait for no one but you Despite spending countless hours washing my hands yesterday to prevent the spread of the avian bird flu, I think I'm sick. I actually blame this stupid weather we've been having lately. It's so cold and wet that I've been able to see my breath every day on the way to work. Now it's finally warming up for the weekend, but I mostly feel like staying home with some hot soup. froo wants to go rafting, though, so we probably will. Gotta take advantage of these dying days of the Calgary summer.  | ¶ 10:59 a.m.

  and it's me who is my enemy "We thought this guy was hot until we found out he works at Safeway."

...that's what a co-worker said to me the other day when she appeared in a Calgary Sun photo with other guests of the Mynt. Classic.

I have tried to keep my mind engaged during the workday by reading good magazines on my lunch breaks. I'll often pick up the Economist, but the New Yorker is also a good read. I just finished reading a really interesting article today about the current application of leeches in modern medicine. Did you know that they are only the second living organism to be approved by the FDA as a medical device? Any guesses what the other might be?

Okay, okay, I'll tell you. Maggots. Which is really quite disgusting until you learn that they are incredibly useful because they only feed on necrotic tissue, not the healthy stuff, so they do an excellent job of getting rid of dead cells in target areas. Anyway...

The leeches used for medicinal purposes are parasites, typically between two and four inches long, with disklike suction cups at either end of their bodies. They subsist on the blood of mammals, and have evolved over millions of years to take their meals with efficiency and stealth. At the center of a leech's head sucker are three jaws, arranged in a Y-shaped pattern and each containing about a hundred teeth, which penetrate the skin in a sawing motion. An anesthetic in the leech's saliva is pumped into the bite from minute ducts between its teeth.

That facet of evolution where an animal has developed the capacity to simultaneously sedate and feed on its prey is an intriguing one to ponder.

Like a man, powerless in the face of a beautiful woman. While he's still blown away by her charm and grace, she's knocking him down a few notches because she learns he works at Safeway.  | ¶ 1:01 a.m.

  How long do I have to climb up on the side of this mountain of mine I have come to the conclusion that real life living does not lend itself to quality blogging. The mundane routine of day-to-day 9-to-5 working-in-an-office is just not that that inspirational, I guess. My after-hours poker-playing, yoga-doing, socializing, dating life would not be terribly exciting to read about either.

I need an intervention. Something that will jolt me off the course I'm on and force me to do something I'm passionate about. I was discussing with froo today how somebody recently told me that he had made the choice in life to refrain from partaking in alcohol because "life is less of a rollercoaster" that way. I understand that. But we joked about liking the rollercoaster, due to this very boring predictability we find ourselves living sometimes. Not that alcohol is the answer, but I miss feeling invigorated about life. Persuade and I have discussed it, too - how going back to school after a few years away was fantastic but cruel, because it gave us a taste of another life that we really enjoyed and an identity that we're not ready to give up.

Today at work we finalized our subscription agreements for the next private placement. It's also called a "bought deal", because the agents/underwriters are committing to buying a specific amount of securities regardless of what they can sell up-front. Stacey and I drafted sub agreements for Canada, the U.S. and the U.K., then were told that our only European subscriber would just use the Canadian document. So two documents. Edited, PDF'd, sent out for comment and distribution.

See how not-interesting that is? But that's how I spend my days - urgently revising documents to meet deadlines. Oh wait, I also drafted a "Material Change Report" and started work on an "Amended and Restated Arrangement Agreement" (one of our client mergers has some terms that need to be re-addressed, after we published the circular that was mailed to shareholders).

Really, I need to experience something different. Travel, a serious career change, a real-life challenge. Because I'm surviving just fine, but the meaning is lacking. I don't want to whittle away my days like this.

[is this depressing or what]  | ¶ 1:21 a.m.

  I want to dive into your ocean Stuff:

I tried WinMX and Limewire and have settled on Morpheus for my music downloading. I've gotta be careful of adware and spyware. Yesterday I downloaded some Bee Gees stuff.

These days I am more likely to eat in front of the computer than the television.

I bought the new "Women's Health" magazine and tried a new one-legged deadlift exercise they recommended. I am all kinds of sore now.

Yesterday froo and I joined the same poker table on pokerroom.com and told each other our cards. We were on the phone. She won; I did not.

Drinking coffee at dinner time is a dumb idea when your caffeine tolerance isn't so great (mine isn't). I'm actually open to doing Boss's shoulder-dictation (his assistant is away) because that would take minimal brain power.

Towel shopping was more stressful than anticipated. The pressure to pick the right colours was intense, and so I left without towels. I bought a new dishrack, though. It's black.  | ¶ 1:05 p.m.

  let me bring you to where two roads meet U.S. 'slap' infuriates Canada

Alright, enough is enough. I haven't followed this super-closely, but over the years I've heard enough about it. The Americans have been making Canadian industry pay sizeable tarriffs on softwood lumber. For years now. Amounting to BILLIONS of dollars paid out. So, being the reasonable people that we are, we have diligently proceeded with court challenge after court challenge, after court challenge in an attempt to demonstrate that, under NAFTA, these import duties are bogus. And what does the court find? That we're right!

But the United States says that the NAFTA ruling is inconsequential and that it has no intention of scrapping duties on Canadian softwood that exceed 20 per cent for some companies today, or refunding the $5-billion in levies collected since 2002.

"Infuriate" is the right word. The Americans run around doing whatever the heck they want to in a lot of the world, but bringing it to our doorstep is about as insulting as you could get as a "friendly neighbour".  | ¶ 9:13 a.m.

  Alberta, Alberta, where you been so long We're all doing it. Moving West, that is. The Ryan family. Kris went farther to Vancouver, but here in Calgary, the next three of us (Keri, froo, me) are being joined by Jamie tomorrow.


Jamie is a Maritimer at heart (well, we all are), but hasn't had the best luck making a go of things in his chosen line of work, so he's going to give Calgary a shot for a while. Every night since Monday he's called to check in as he drives cross-country. North Bay on the first night. Thunder Bay last night. Tonight he's in Regina. He'll be here by dinner tomorrow.

It'll be good to have another Ryan around. Welcome, Jame.  | ¶ 12:46 a.m.

  you see I’ve conquered hills but I still have mountains to climb chief says: i talked to Dad last night.
froo says: what's the report from dad?
chief says: he asked about Dalton
chief says: i told him that God fixed him.
froo says: :P
froo says: did he like that? he knows god too, you know
chief says: he probably agreed that God did it.
chief says: i wasn't super-sarcastic. I said there'd been a lot of praying.
froo says: yeah

Here is my mini religion rant: I know it bothers my parents (both sets) that I'm not all into God and the church like they are. I happen to disagree with a lot of what organized religion stands for. But I do believe in a higher power - a power that I might be inclined to call "God" if it didn't quite have the meaning that these organized religions have given it. I also believe in the power of prayer, but I don't think that Christianity or any religion has the monopoly on that either.

When Dalt was in the hospital the first time because he was hemorraging from the blood thinners (he's back in now for monitored drug treatment) he had a lot of visitors from the ultra-serious church folks who are his friends. They're serious about God and serious about THE CHURCH. Mom told me this story about one man, a former pastor, who got down on his knees to pray at Dalt's bedside, and prayed loudly and clearly for not just Dalt, but for each man in the room. It kinda gave me chills. I think it's neat. But that doesn't mean I'm going to start going to church.

Dalt's blood clot has apparently disappeared. That's why I say "God fixed him". They all prayed and something good happened. Did "God" do it? Who knows? For all we know, there was a favourable planetary alignment, and the psychic energy they released combined with the positive currents of planetary activity. But we are all pleased with this good outcome, regardless.  | ¶ 2:34 p.m.

  you won't get to see the tears I cry "...scientists found that the male human brain has to work harder to listen to women than to listen to men."

From Harper's Weekly Review.  | ¶ 4:33 p.m.

  this was not your dream Some people have a lot of energy for socializing. Sometimes that's me. I made a new friend recently and have been going out a lot. But I think it's time to put a stop to all the energy expenditure and be a bum for a bit, because I'm exhausted. I think I'll get re-acquainted with my television; it just sits there feeling neglected most days. Also, the other day I made the jump from the "medium" bet tables on Pokerroom.com to the "high" bet tables. There's always a learning curve when you up the betting, so I mostly lost a bunch of fake money; I should probably get practising. Time to de-tox and unwind. For a few days, at least.  | ¶ 11:15 a.m.

  so, I hold my breath - to forget I was successful in my plan to sit around playing poker once my internet was connected. The Shaw guy showed up early this morning so I was all set up before 10, and managed to get in a few solid hours of poker-playing. Today I didn't win, but I was playing differently than I usually do (cautious). The only time I left the house today was to help froo bring in stuff from her car when she stopped by with some items for me. Champion slacker, I am.

I didn't just play poker today. You may notice my new banner. I played around with photoshop for a bit today and created that image, but I'm pretty sure it will be here only short-term, because I really don't like it that much. I just had to get the old one off, and this is all I've got as a replacement for now. I also did a bunch more dishes (and concluded that I have way too many dishes for one person). I re-arranged my bedroom (noisy tv-watching neighbour has proven that my bed cannot be on our shared wall). I continued to unpack the little stuff like candles, CDs, paperwork, some clothes. My place is starting to look mostly organized and settled.

Time for more poker before bed. My internet and computer speed are noticeably faster than what I was dealing with at the parents' place, so it's fun. Gotta win back my fake money.  | ¶ 10:52 p.m.

  lately I've been talking in my sleep I had an amazing, amazing day whitewater rafting on the Kicking Horse River. This is kinda what it was like:

They deck you out in wetsuits, splash jackets, wet booties, helmets and lifejackets, so we all looked just the folks in that pic. Wow, what a perfect day. Even with a water temperature of around three degrees, the sun was blazing-hot, so getting wet - and even swimming a bit - was totally tolerable.

Since we had to drive to Golden, B.C. this morning for our outing, Tone-L and Pammy P picked me up at 6:15 (eek) for the over two-hour drive through the mountains. Since I had a bit of a late night with my friend Karina, I was still desperately needing sleep at that time. I remember seeing Calaway Park on the highway outside of Calgary, closing my eyes, and waking up in Golden, in what felt like mere moments later. Nice, quick trip...!

The day consisted of a fairly easy raft trip in the morning, a steak lunch on the riverbank, the upper canyon section of the river, a short portage (by bus) past the class 5 and 6 sections, then an intense "lower canyon" ride. Excellent fun, and a positively breathtakingly beautiful mountain day. It really gave me an injection of aliveness that means so much, and made me wonder why I don't do more of those invigorating activities.  | ¶ 11:12 p.m.

  boys will be strong and boys soldier on Stepping out for beers now with the work crew. Please, try to keep the damn thing real over there.

My friend Mark is always making sure I "keep things real". He's too busy to attend to that himself. So I'm doing my best.
  | ¶ 5:49 p.m.

  I'm not the kind of girl you'd take home This story made me laugh. If you've seen or heard about Tom Cruise's recent appearances on Oprah or the Today Show, and comments about Brooke Shields, you'll get the joke.

MY DOG IS TOM CRUISE

What these beggars don’t understand is that if you hover around the dinner table long enough and you’re observant food will come. Food’s gonna come naturally, man. They’re gonna drop stuff and you can—hahahahaha! But, seriously, begging is a huge issue among our species. I did the research. And I speak out. I speak out about misinformation. Do you know people think that one dog year is seven human years? That is false. Total fabrication. It’s approximate.

  | ¶ 3:19 p.m.

  the headline says you're free to choose It kinda sucks not having the internet at home yet. I don't have much opportunity to update the blog from work. I know you're all wondering, what is she UP to? and how is she? Mainly I've been working away in the evenings at getting unpacked and organized. I decided NOT to do dishes last night since I did so many the night before and at least have enough clean ones to eat right now.

I set up my computer the other night. Yay, it works! There was a bit of anxiety about that because Purolator seems to have dropped my microwave (which was packaged up well) and smashed it to the point where the door won't close anymore. Keri and the kids stopped by that night, too, and I had him bang on it and see if he could fix it, but the frame seems to be bent too much. Guess I'm buying a new microwave. Or waiting 'til the end of the month when froo moves into her fancy new condo and sells me her old microwave cheap.

One nice thing I'm enjoying about having my own space again is just the place and option to do what I want as far as watching TV, listening to loud music, doing my yoga or pilates videos. Despite the abundance of televisions over at Mom & Dalt's place, I didn't typically have the option to watch what I wanted or have the space to do my exercising. So last night I did some yoga, then went out with my friend David for pizza and beers. The little things make all the difference.  | ¶ 11:00 a.m.

  when I looked for you I almost passed you by I have to wash all of my dishes. Since they have all been boxed up for either a few months or close to a year, wrapped in newspaper, and stored in basements, I think they should be cleaned. So that's a heck of a lot of dish-washing I've got in store for me. My kitchen is rather chaotic right now.

Due to the lack of clean dishes to prepare and eat food, I resorted to buying one of those pre-cooked chickens from the Safeway last night for dinner (and I picked up Wendy's for lunch). I also have a stack of emptied boxes in the middle of my kitchen. Most of them are pretty flimsy after two cross-Canada moves so I'll dismantle and recycle them. I need to get organized pretty quick so I can eat real meals...!

In pet news, Salsa might have a skoonie problem. For those who don't know, "skoonie" is what my niece calls mosquitos, and I've decided to adopt that word for all bugs. We were using skoonie spray after rafting, but the skoonies bit me anyway. Anyway, last night I found a critter crawling on Salsa's foot. I'm not too pleased with the whole thing, because she's 100% an indoor cat and has had no exposure to other animals, so God knows where she might have picked up fleas. We'll be tackling that problem tonight, too.

I'm so tired today.  | ¶ 6:13 p.m.

  I will come to you and tell you of your many charms I'm moved!

Yesterday my family became the super-moving-team; everyone, including 2-year-old Ella, pitched in to help me get into my new place, and we were done by noon. My apartment is great - lots of space and lots of light. I'm still in the midst of unpacking, so it's not quite "home" yet, but it's sort of a fun adventure even re-acquiring my old stuff. Some of it has been packed since I left Calgary last summer, so I'm being reminded of precisely what I own. Ah, the stereo. Ah, the double bed.

I have to wait until Sunday to get my internet hooked up, so I'm not completely connected yet, but I'll be unpacking my computer tonight and getting re-acquainted with it. Time to design my new banner for this page. Stacey, Inc. is going to be up and running. That makes it sound like I've got more planned than I actually do - we'll see I guess. I have to make sure it doesn't interfere with my poker playing. I'm totally hooked on the fake poker, you know. Now that I've got my own place, I can hang out in my underwear playing poker and eating kraft dinner all day long. Cool, huh?  | ¶ 7:20 p.m.