|
Sunday, December 7, 2003: The future is bright
Oh, this is better. My house is clean, I am relaxed, I'm about to watch almost an entire movie without trying to do other stuff, and I have a peppermint mocha frappuccino and a pfeffernusse to eat without going over my caloric limit. The day started off with a chilly but sunny walk to Blake's parents' place where we had bagels and fruit salad for brunch. Then we left Blake and Erik (Morgan's boyfriend) looking after Delphine, and the rest of us went to look at a couple of condos my in-laws are considering purchasing. They were... interesting. They were structurally fine, albeit a little low in the ceiling, but the decorating was horrible in both of them. Of course, when you're looking to buy a home you don't look at the decorating, but when you're just looking at condos for fun, as I was, the decorating is pretty fucking funny. It was like Hildi Santo-Tomas had a aneurysm in there. In one of the condos, the bedroom was entirely wallpapered in dark green velvet. You'd have to vacuum the walls. The kitchen was wallpapered in orangy-red paper with big white poppies, including the ceiling, and the window had a roman blind of the same patterned-fabric, so you could get that "I'm trapped in a tomato" feeling. The bathroom, with its seven-foot-ceilings, was papered in orange and green fake tile, again on the ceiling as well. The other condo wasn't so bad, except that the bedroom was entirely painted lavender, and all the switch plates were those decorative ones. No problem, except they were all different, and all circa 1983. Anyway, one of the condos was on the south side and had floor to ceiling windows and a huge balcony, so it was drenched in sun. South of the building is a park with a playground, a dog run and a huge wading pool with a fountain, so it really wouldn't suck if my in-laws moved there. After condo-shopping, Blake and I headed back home and did a housecleaning blitz while Delphine slept. All the housekeeping which has been weighing on my mind for the last week took only about an hour to do. I felt kind of stupid that I had let it bother me so much, but then something that takes an hour to do with two people takes about four hours to do by yourself with a baby. Until I get my sling! My sling will fix all my problems, I swear. It's my Christmas gift to myself, and to Delphine. After housecleaning we watched some of Keira Knightley's commentary for Pirates of the Caribbean; funnier than you might imagine. We were interrupted in the middle to visit friends of my in-laws, who just had a grandchild. She is only six weeks old and I was keen to remind myself what a wee baby looks like. Unfortunately she slept through our whole visit. Babies are tricky like that. Dinner was a tasty concoction of leftover sausage, pasta and a delightful tomato sauce I made a couple of weeks ago and froze. I was then going to write some cards while we watched Spy Kids, but we decided to do the chores first and watch the movie later, so I could actually watch the movie instead of watching three eighths of the movie. So I wrote the cards, addressed the envelopes, wrapped the package, and now I'm free! Free! This is the first time I've been to-do-less in days. Weeks! I'm pretty psyched about the coming week, too. Tomorrow I'm going to buy auxilliary presents for my family; I've already bought them gifts of livestock through one of those charities which will allow you to buy a third-world family a cow or a goat or whatever. My mother got a rooster and two hens, because she used to keep chickens and loved them. My dad got a pair of rabbits because he used to read Winnie-the-Pooh to us and there's a rabbit in that (they didn't have donkeys), and my brother got ten fruit trees, because he moved to BC and I always think of fruit trees when I think of BC. But I'd like to get them all a little something more. For my mother, dietetic candies from the bulk food store (artfully packaged by moi, of course). For my dad, chocolate-covered ginger or something similarly strong in taste, because he's very aged and his sense of taste is shot. And for my brother, chocolate-covered marzipan because I got it for him last year and he really liked it. That will be a fun shopping trip because I like buying stuff for people, and because I'll take Delphine in the front pack so I can get into all the little stores, and she loves that. I'll also get stocking stuffers for Blake, Morgan and Erik. We're not doing real presents this year, but we're all buying each other stocking stuffers. (Delphine gets all the real presents from now on.) Also on tomorrow is the first rehearsal of Hodie with the full orchestra, which will be awesome, in the non-Bill and Ted sense of the word. It's always so powerful and stirring to put your part of a piece together with the rest of it, and perform it as it was written, for the first time. Later in the week I'm going to visit my friend Ellen and little Dexter, who is two months younger than Delphine. She's got a creep in her neighbourhood who assaults women, so it should be more exciting than usual. And then next weekend is the Christmas concert. I've seen the future, and it's looking pretty good, thanks. In 2001 I filled in a survey. |