1:55 p.m. - 2003-12-01
Holidailies Begins!
Happy Holidailies, everyone!
Life is ticking along nicely. NaNo is wrapping up, and we're having an Edmonton party on Thursday, which I'm looking forward to. The Edmonton writers have turned out to be a hilarious and fun batch of people, and I'm looking forward to hanging out with them without the looming need to be at home writing hanging over our heads.
Choir concert season is upon us, and we had a performance yesterday, another one tonight, and then six zillion handbell concerts like always. This weekend is the show with the symphony (or rather, shows, since we have about 4 of them), which is always fun because it involves a lot of sitting around shooting the shit with the bell ringers and not that much work for a fair amount of glory. It's extra enjoyable this year because I don't have papers and finals to worry about.
The new house is pretty good, and we're settling in well. We're all surprised and pleased by how well Lucy is adapting - she seems to be enjoying herself and has stopped falling down the stairs (the peril of mediocre eyesight), although I'm not sure she's forgiven me for laughing when she fell off the deck into a snowbank. It was funny! I couldn't help myself!
My room is a total disaster, because it's getting painted in a few weeks and I don't want to unpack all my books just to have to move them all when we paint. My bathroom is a piece of crap, basically: the toilet wobbles and the shower leaks and also makes me feel like I've had a run in with a very angry fire hose, and I have to tell you, it's not exactly soothing to shower when you can't face the water without protectively covering your boobs.
I seem to have successfully talked Jamie's family into adopting my aunt's cat, who is looking for a new home due to the endless abuse of their other cat. Jamie's cat died last year, and they all miss him like crazy, especially Jamie. However, his mum really misses having a cat and I've persuaded him that their cat would want them to be happy. So hopefully that will pan out - his mum would be really happy to have a cat in the house again.
I read a lot of journals which feature in-laws from hell, and I should really mention more often just how wonderful Jamie's family is to me. When I was sick, his mum looked after me on the day that our house was getting packed up, and took care of me while I lay on their couch feeling sorry for myself. It's nice having a back-up mum for when yours isn't available, and I couldn't ask for a better one. He has two brothers, one of whom lives with them and is absolutely hilarious, and he and I always have great nerdy conversations. (He's a big language nerd and studies both Greek and Hebrew, and we've been known to get into exciting grammar conversations that cause Jamie to leave the room rolling his eyes.) The other brother is married, and he and his wife are both great, and have two fabulous kids who I am very fond of.
It's neat, having a second family. Jamie and I were talking yesterday about the fact that both of us come from single sex sibling households - he has two brothers and I have one sister - and I think we both benefit from the relationships we have with each other's siblings. He gets along with my sister about a million times better than I do, and often keeps the peace between us. She loves him (as does everyone, naturally, because he's so wonderful), and the two of them get along quite genuinely well, not just out of being forced to spend time together. Having brothers to borrow is quite a novelty for me, and I like having two older brothers to watch out for me. (His brother that lives at home is quite funny about mothering us sometimes.)
I think we're going to introduce our parents tonight after the choir concert, and it'll be interesting to see how they get along. (It's really quite disgraceful that they haven't met yet - Jamie and I have been together for almost two and a half years and have been playing in bands and choirs together for 11 years - you wouldn't think it would be impossible to introduce our parents. And yet, here we are.)
I should consider myself very lucky to have two families I like a lot. There are people in the world who don't have any real family, and Jamie and I have two families who like both of us a lot and will support us in whatever we end up doing. That's a very comforting thing to know.
There are two piano players in the practice rooms next door (one of whom is Jamie), and they are playing such unrelated things that I think my head will explode soon. So I think I'll go get ready for our dress rehearsal, and maybe find time to read some more of my book. Exciting life I lead, isn't it?
