Am safely in Thunder Bay for a belated ("Canadian") Christmas. We had the whole fam for dinner last night and it was great. So much food, lots of wine and great joy.
There is definitely no snow here and it's pretty warm so I'm not sure how "real" this visit is but they still have Tim Horton's and the Hoito so I guess it will work out just fine in the end. In fact, we are headed to The Keg (SERIOUSLY) for dinner tonight and then later I'm joining my cousins to see my cousin Steve rock it out at Kilroy's. He is the charming young gentleman giving you the finger there. Myspace makes me feel old.
Anyway, I'm having a small problem today as my mother and I went shopping (good) and then she denied me Tim's and instead went to Starbucks for a gingerbread latte (you have to imagine "latte" pronounced like Kramer says it). So I'm in a bit of a shaky state here. I'm sure some Billy Miner pie will set it all right.
Perhaps breakfast at the Hoito tomorrow, though I am partial to the Scan I haven't been to the Hoito in very long and think I really should make appropriate gestures lest the pancake gods find some way to punish me, if I can get my ass out of bed early enough. I stayed up way, way too late last night reading a Donna Parker book I found in my bedroom.
I just purchased my ticket to Bangkok. I leave on the 22nd, giving me one day between when I arrive (at 11:55pm) and when I leave for the resort to try to get some kind of acclimation going and see a wee bit of the city. I also have a three hour layover in Narita going both ways which isn't ideal but at least I won't have to rush through and it could be kind of interesting.
The 22nd isn't that far away!
Next: Tickets for NYC in March
I'm in the office just for today before heading out to the Motherland tomorrow (crazy early - I'll need to be up at 3:30am). I'm using today as a "think" day to try to make some plans for the new year, set some Q1 goals and work out my calendar for January. Luckily, regular email is slow - but spam sure isn't! I came back to more than a thousand messages of which approximately 12 were directly applicable to me. The problem is getting worse and nothing we do seems to help. If I didn't already know what a p.i.t.a it is to ditch a domain name I'd advocate we just switch it up and abandon the one two we use for email.
Anyway, it was very slow here on Friday as well and I started to lose my mind by about noon. Sure, I could have used that time productively but how much can you really get done when faced with a big holiday weekend? Not very much. I had some Christmas crackers left over from my party and brought them in so we've been wearing crowns around here and my coworkers snapped this picture of me. I'd like to say that it's a horrible picture but I look pretty much exactly like that. I had a yellow crown and put the star on so it would be like Wonder Woman's tiara. Wonder Woman probably doesn't look that bored though. You can't see it but I'm sitting in my invisible plane.
A small travel complication. I was packing for my trip home and noticed that my new suitcase has a tear along one of the zippers where the zipper has separated from the bag. It's just a few millimeters but will definitely get bigger in the rough and tumble world of modern air travel. This is a bummer but a circumstance I can overcome since I possess at least 5 suitcases of various kinds (this is an extension of my never-ending quest for the perfect handbag). I'd wanted to take this particular one because it is nice and sturdy and a bit bigger so I wouldn't have to cram it super-full and would have plenty of space for hoarding coffee and pierogies on the return trip.
Instead, I am packing a smaller suitcase pretty full (that is, crammed, but not so much I had to use the magic expander zipper). I shoved in a duffel bag for the return trip and am taking a pretty big carry-on purse only a bit full so will have plenty of space for my precious comestibles. At a time of crisis, like this, it is handy that TBay has no snow and my big fluffy boots can stay in the closet. I'm happier with a smaller suitcase anyway as I sort of feel that it is making progress towards a lighter travelling scheme, a major goal of 2006 only partially met.
Luckily, this is an expensive enough piece that it should be covered under warranty - both from the luggage store and from the maker itself. Unfortunately it means I have to deal with getting it fixed. I'm going to try to drop it off tomorrow as I would very much like to have it back in time for my trip to Thailand!
That is basically my bag in the picture, though mine is a limited edition bright green colour which is fab both because the colour is nice but no one else has it so I can always spot it coming out of the baggage system. I hope they can repair it and not have to replace it because I fear they don't have that colour any more. I fear in these situations that I am not assertive enough. It was only in 2005 that I started returning things to stores!
I don't think I'm particularly tough on suitcases but I've not had much luck with expensive brands. The last piece I bought - and still have - is missing one of the feet on the bottom because people kept picking it up by the foot rather than the handle on the bottom. It quickly ripped right off. I'd bought it to replace another one that just plain exploded on me during a trip to NYC a few years ago. I was packing and, okay, overpacking and then it just ripped out the entire zipper. I had to make an emergency purchase on my way to the airport. But my cheap, Target $30, 20" no-name suitcase that I'm taking on this trip has gone around the world many times with barely a bit of dirt on her.
Merry Christmas to those of you celebrating it today. I will be doing mine on Thursday. It is hard for me to really get into the season here in California because Christmas is so very tied up with snow in my mind. Some years, even without the snow, it has seemed more "seasonal" than it does this year, probably because I am so very looking forward to my trip home. I had particularly looking forward to that magical element: snow.
Alas, I learn today, there is none. No snow! I find it really hard to believe and obviously very disappointing. I had previously been shocked to find snow in TBay in mid-May but to have none at new years is very shocking. TBay cannot be counted on for some things: a decent local news broadcast, post-secondary education of note, and a local economy of any worth but is surely, assuredly, should be capable of reliable holiday snow!
I am bummed and am holding out hope for at least a flurry, even if it doesn't stay on the ground long. I had been very much counting on bringing and getting my once a year wear on my furry boots! It does free up room in my suitcase, but those boots are staring at me from the closet with serious disappointment. If I didn't think my feet would get so warm as to force me to pass out I would wear them to work on Wednesday just to give them a bit of an outing.
I popped over to Draegers to pick up some food. I don't think people there were really in the holiday spirit. Lots of yelling at the deli people. That isn't nice. Of course it's going to be chaos on Christmas Eve. Just pop a sedative, take some cash and a deep breath and wade in but there really is no need to be unpleasant to the people that work there. As much as you think it sucks to wait an extra 20 minutes to get your faux Chinese dinner, it probably sucks more to be serving it to you on Christmas Eve. At most, the very most crap you should be giving anyone is an eyerolling and sigh. Suck it up people, and have some seasonal cheer!
I know that every woman reading this will understand:
Why is it so hard to find the right lip gloss? Why? I can't be the only one who has searched and searched for just the right shade (not too obvious but not too basically the exact shade of your lips but shiny), the right consistency (not too light so it eats off in two seconds but not so goopy that you can't open your lips again because they are stuck together and weigh too much) and doesn't smell funny (but not too good or you eat it).
You know my pain.
Well today, today I experienced a Sephora Christmas Miracle.
I found perfect lip gloss.
Now, I've been on the lookout for lip gloss since I did a big makeup purge a few months ago - tossing previous attempts and just generally getting rid of the crap that accumulates on the bottom of the bag. I was down to two - one brownish shade that I bought at a drugstore and a very very old Bloom gloss that, quite probably, contains a number of very unsavoury bacteria accumulated in the about six years I've had it. I can't give the one up it seems.
And associated problem is that I tend to have chapped lips so I can't wear proper lipstick. And entire category of lip products completely unavailable to me. So I've lived with, mostly, lip balms of various kinds. I love Smith's Rosebud Salve but I don't like having to put it on with my fingers.
I didn't even intend to go to Sephora. I was just going to go to Kiehls for some conditioner (and free samples!!) but since I was there already I thought maybe I'd try out some new perfumes at Sephora. Aside: the selection of perfumes at the Stanford Mall Sephora sucks donkey balls. V.v. poor. And it wasn't busy so I went over to the Dior section as I'd once tried a gloss there that seemed promising but I couldn't find it. I just wandered around for a while and ended up picking up a gloss from the Vincent Longo section. I know you don't get an accurate read from using it on the back of your hand but that looked good so I thought I'd take a change. I could always return it (I love that about Sephora), right? And I would have because it's ridiculously expensive ($22!!!).
Well. I just tried it on my actual lips and what do you know? It's PEFECT. The perfect shade! Just a little bit of colour but still natural. A nice wand. Excellent consistency. A little bit of a vanilla smell but not overwhelming.* Perfect!
A little Christmas Miracle. Vincent Longo Perfect Shine Lip Gloss in Aurelia.
* I am not the only person who gets a whiff of her lip gloss and then sometimes purses her lips up to smell it, sometimes smearing the gloss on the bottom of her nose, right? RIGHT?!
It is a plainly open secret that I love the Palo Alto Medical Foundation. I have great doctors there and the whole environment is very medicine-y and helpful. You almost forget that medical care in the US is massively screwed up. Part of what I love about them is their embrace of technology. I can access my records online, get prescriptions renewed online and also send messages to my doctor and advice nurse.
So in preparation for my upcoming trip to Thailand, I've made an appointment with the Travel Medicine department to get appropropriately vaccinated. While there are no required vaccinations my boss has advised I get them anyway just to be sure (and because the PAMF Travel Medicine department is cool) and apparently I will be getting vaccinated against Hepatitis A and Typhoid and make sure my tetanus booster is up to date (I think it is). And I'm listening to their podcast to find out what else I might want to think about before I go. A podcast! I love them.
Needles? Not so keen.
How do you take your tea or coffee?
Submitted by Vasquez.
Oh boy.
Tim Hortons: double double.
Starbucks: non-fat latte with 2 packages of sweet 'n low
Work coffee (nominally Starbuckian): half-n-half with 3 packages of Equal
Home coffee (Timmy's from a can): skim milk and 3 Splenda
In France: cafe creme
In Italy: espresso
Tea, black regular: skim milk and 1 tsp regular sugar (or 2 Splenda)
Tea, fancy green tea: no milk, 2 Splenda.
Got it?
I'm just catching up on my news today and I have to say this:
Virgil Goode WHAT THE FUCK?!
I think all immigrants should pick up a new religion. Personally, I'm considering Scientology. I feel, deep down, rather ... clammy.
