Hey, It's Me

So. Hope you all had a merry Christmas and happy Hanukkah and all that. Mine was good, just went down to Katy on the Friday beforehand with a large suitcase full of dirty clothes and my presents for people. My presents weren't too extraordinarily exciting, but they were definitely good things. I got a little rice cooker (which I used today, and it worked well enough), a pizza stone, a calendar with knitting patterns, a laundry bag, some aluminum foil (yes, really), much-appreciated money from my grandparents, and the usual mix of kitchen and bath stuff in the stocking, as well as the traditional chocolate orange. (Mmm.)
I also got some collapsible chopsticks from Jerry while I was up there, as wells as a bunch of chocolate from Shai and Nadine. (Mmm again.)

Day after Christmas, my dad drove me off to IAH where I flew up to Detroit and was met by hanrow. As always seems to happen, I arrived at a time of unseasonable warmth, and thus did not get a hint of snow the entire time I was up there. We headed on over to Windsor, where I said hi to Jerry's parents and brother, watched hockey with Jerry, and then we went out for dinner, where I managed to do reasonably decently with chopsticks (eventually).
The next day, we met up with a couple of Jerry's friends in Windsor during the morning, then drove back to Hamilton that afternoon, where we I think ended up not doing a whole heck of a lot for the rest of the day.
Thursday we went to the mall, then to Canadian Tire, then to Fortinos. I believe I then busted out FFXII and killed time until we went by Shopper's Drug Mart (in an unsuccessful hunt for the big Kinder Eggs I had gotten the first time I visited, a couple of years ago) and then Tim Horton's for a quick donut to tide me over while Jerry did improv. Post-improv was the usual chinese food and we closed the place down (the staff actually left before us).
Friday we slept in. We went over to see the new apartment, which is huge and awesome. Then we headed back by the apartment, and my throat was feeling a bit wonky, so I stayed in and sucked at Guitar Hero while Jerry went and bought a hard drive and some "chlor-tripolon" (or chlortrimeton for us Americans).
Saturday I played massive amounts of FFXII. We went out to dinner with Helen and then plans for karaoke were scrapped after we ended up hanging around chatting with Helen in Jerry's apartment until after midnight.
New Years' Eve there was more FFXII until we headed over to Shai and Nadine's in the afternoon, where we stayed until 1, and then actually departed about an hour later, as I have come to realize is usual when departing Shai and Nadine's. I believe they may have a small black hole or some other sort of temporal disturbance ensconced in their entryway somewhere.
And then yesterday we woke up late, panicked slightly, drove non-stop across to the Ambassador Bridge, which was backed up all the way across into Canada still, panicked a bit more, then got through into Detroit with enough time to make a quick stop for donuts at a Tim Horton's that was actually open. Then there was the airport and sadness. And then I had taquitos as I waited while my flight was delayed an hour. Got back in to Houston and was retrieved by my parents, did laundry, watched some Sports Night with my mom, IMed Jerry, and tried to remember that I had been up there that morning.

Pretty much unexciting, but it was a really really great week and I wish it was longer.

Today I had a bonus day off due to Ford, so I slept in, loaded everything up, drove back after lunch, found my apartment intact, unloaded everything, tried to catch up online, and then bought a very cheap electric kettle.

Oh, hey. So, I went to Canada last week, and now I'm back here in Amarillo. The trip was a lot of fun, if a bit exhausting at times.

I want to go back.

( Very long and mostly unexciting daily breakdown... )

Things that made me happy/amused me over the trip:
1. Road signs with only a question mark on them and an arrow. (And occasionally "information" in letters far too tiny to see unless you're right up on the sign.)
2. Panic is not part of the mango lifestyle.
3. Putting faces to names.
4. Helping Alex "clean up" the backyard by shoveling all the leaves that had fallen in the yard through his basketball hoop.
5. Singing along with Jerry
6. Getting several more takedowns than necessary for a gold medal in Burnout.
7. Mint Aero bars.
and of course, Jerry, about a million times over. :)

I will probably remember random things to add at some other point, but I think that this is plenty for now. <g>

Blaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Back in Amarillo. I ended up sulking most of yesterday (cut to shots of me being dorky all morning, sitting in airport for two and a half hours in the afternoon, going "You know, it'd be a lot more interesting for me to sit and watch Jerry poke at computers rather than wander around this dinky area for this whole time by myself," on airplane which ever-so-kindly flew out over Hamilton -- I could see the Skyway -- going "I really really really really really really don't want to be here right now...."), and was looking forward to more sulking here too, but today has been taken over by random illness and lots of sleeping. I'm hoping it's a 24-hour sort of thing, since I'm just sort of fever-y and tired, but still, icky.

Brunch on Sunday was lots of fun and it was awesome meeting everyone there. Shame on all of you who weren't there (or, y'know, I wish you could have come. Whichever). More about the trip later when my brain is less fried.

So, I'm in Canada now.

It's nice. Definitely colder than Texas. But I find it a lot more comfortable to have confirmation that it's January by walking outside (as opposed to College Station, where a day in January could quite easily be 70+ and you could be wandering around in shorts). Apparently it's unseasonably warm right now here though (it was supposed to get up to 47 today, and it was raining).
Today, we were planning to go visit Jerry's family, but freezing rain and fog ended up keeping us here in Hamilton, and so we went and wandered around a mall here which had very few stores I actually recognized but did have a Steak Escape. Yum. And then we went to the previously mentioned "huge" grocery store (well....it was big, but on the scale and style of Market Street in Amarillo) and bought food and Kinder Surprise eggs. Apparently Jerry's one caveat about something they don't have there -- electronics -- was indeed incorrect as they do actually have a little electronics section in the middle of the store. And then we returned back to the apartment, had some dinner, crashed some cars (on Burnout 3, which I've decided is like Megarace with a lot more game attached and better graphics), and watched some TV.

Tomorrow, we're going to go down to Toronto, go up the CN Tower, go to Sam's (the late-night record shop) and some other places. And then we're going to Dave and Buster's to eat out with a few people.