The Return (and Some Housekeeping)

A belated happy 2011!

My posting for the new year has been delayed, and if you’re the sort who really enjoys reading this blog (I’m not sure if that sort even exists), I am sorry for the wait! Over the Christmas season, I had a thoroughly lovely time at home, and I didn’t spend much extended time on my computer; thus, lack of posts. But I am back in The ‘Couv now, and the frequency of posts shall increase dramatically.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - right now, in fact: The best part about leaving home is returning back to it. I was back in Newfoundland for a month and it was time well spent. I definitely appreciated this Christmas more than I have others in recent memory, because every moment mattered. I saw almost all of my favourite people, met some lovely new friends, and rarely saw my bed before 3am. It was nice to sit on the couch and listen to Mom playing old hymns on her new accordion (and when I say nice, I really mean I tolerated it), watch Glee with the sister and the bro-in-law (who pretends he doesn’t like it but actually finds Sue hilarious), and play an endless number of board games.

Speaking of board games, I just need to point out how many I played over Christmas. I love playing games because you often find out a lot about people, and with the right group you can be in stitches from laughing. By about January 3^rd I was completely “Game Night”ed out, yet we played on. You know you’ve played too many rounds of Catchphrase when you start using clues like “This is the word that Megan had twenty rounds ago and no one could guess it,” and then someone gets it right. During a game of Monopoly, Kayla threatened to divorce Gavin if he didn’t sell her Marvin Gardens, Margot and Leah revealed their true fantasies in one round of Things in a Box, Mom schooled Dad and I in Wizard, and many, many people messed up the scoring in Catchphrase. Whatta time, indeed.

I also got to drive across the island and see pretty much all of my Newfoundland family while home. I stayed in Gander with Kayla and Gav and got to meet a few of their friends, then spent New Years in Corner Brook. I played (more) games with my aunts, uncles, and cousins, ate way too much good food, and had a splendid New Years with some extended family and displaced friends.

And now I am back on the West Coast. I had a harder time leaving St. John’s this time than I did in the fall, and I felt pretty bummed out for the entire journey back. There were some noteworthy events along the way, of course: There was a girl at the Toronto airport carrying her kitteh on the plane, so I chatted with the cat for a while. There was also a man with a steel briefcase in front of me in the Tim Hortons line up, and I suspected that he was carrying millions of dollars - or drugs, as it is Vancouver - onto the plane. I paid an insane amount of money for a sandwich and promptly dropped half of it onto the floor. The woman sitting next to me on the Toronto-Vancouver flight was a legit hippie (“My husband and I own a little piece of land where we bathe in the stream and raise chickens, and I teach art to people with disabilities and he is a wood carver. We’re one with the earth.”) and she sort of stared at me in disbelief when I told her I didn’t really like the book Where the Wild Things Are. Also, the pilot kept talking, telling us that we were going to “scoot” over to get the wings deiced, and then “scoot” up to our cruising altitude of 35 000 feet as we “scoot”ed over to Vancouver.

Anyway, I was feeling very discontent, tired, and generally crummy for the entire day until we flew into Vancouver. The sky was a clear, bright blue, the mountains were capped beautifully with a dusting of snow, and the grass was green. I could spot familiar locations as we landed, and there was a thick, bold rainbow arching right over the harbour. I don’t necessarily believe in, like, “signs,” but over the past few months rainbows have cropped up more often in my life than I think is perhaps normal, so I took this sighting as a good omen, and it felt good to be back in Vancouver.

Now, for the aforementioned housekeeping of this entry:

I’ve heard that some people have had trouble posting comments on the blog itself. I’ve fiddled with the settings and I think it should be easier now. It is possible to post without having a Google ID, you can just select the “Name/URL” option or “Anonymous” to leave your comment. Your comment will not appear immediately, as I have to moderate them to make sure no one is spamming before I confirm them. So I request that you post a comment here, just so we can see if I’ve got the problem fix’d. If it doesn’t work, send me an email or a Facebook message, and I’ll contact the Blogger people to see if they’ve broken my blog.

A bientot, mes amis

Jillz