December, 2008:

Today is my Dad and stepmom’s 25th wedding anniversary. Hurray! That’s a long time.

From what I’ve been told they had their wedding on New Year’s Eve for tax purposes, which seems to me like a silly reason to get married but some people will do anything to avoid paying taxes.

Actually, I remember earlier that year telling them they should get married (5-year-olds don’t think that’s an inappropriate thing to say) so I figure they were just listening to good advice. I’m pretty impressed; since then my matchmaking attempts have more often resulted in bad relationships and both parties hating me, so I should’ve just stopped at the one.

I remember the wedding, too, at St. John’s which is this massive church, though we only used a side wing. I was given the task of taking the wedding bands from the minister guy to give to Dad and Bertha, except he was holding out the rings on top of his opened bible, and first I tried to take the bible and then I tried to take something else (maybe the ring boxes?) but I was supposed to just extract the rings and hand them over. For years I was embarrassed by this but nobody else remembers that so I carried the shame of supposedly ruining their wedding ceremony for nothing.

In a society where 50% of marriages end in divorce, I’m glad to see that Dad and Bertha have continued that statistic’s legacy by each having successful second marriages*. I’m still trying to find a first husband so I can get my practice marriage over with in preparation for the real one, but alas, that sort of talk does not seem to convince men to propose. Don’t know why.

So, happy anniversary, parental units. Thank you for giving me a stable weekend home environment all these years, and thank you for letting me share in your happiness.

*My mom and stepdad are both on their second marriages, too, going on 23 years.

It seems all you need is a multimeter and two long tubes of chocolates. Pack the multimeter on top of the chocolates so that they look like one cohesive unit of pipes, electronics and wires in the airport’s security xray machine. Then enjoy as the security people take away your boarding pass and rummage through your luggage.

I had an interesting time on the flight back to Vancouver today. Yeah.

After the fun of being searched as a terrorist (northern BC being a hotbed for those, and me looking like one, being white and female and wearing a Lululemon hoodie) I got on the plane along with everyone else, but not before buying an overpriced bottle of water from the security area. Then we all sat around on the Dash 8 for 20 minutes as these two kids who were flying without guardians were yacking away to the flight attendant about how their aunt just had a baby? and how they enjoyed watching the baby drink milk? and not from the bottle? and that the baby pushed the towel away? when it drank? Ah, little kids and the things they don’t tell you. Then they started kicking each other. Then we were all taken off the plane, because the Vancouver airport hadn’t given the pilots the okay to start flying towards it, possibly because they’d heard about these kids.

I had enough time to pee and make a phone call before we were called to go back through security and start the fun a second time. So, I put my gear on the conveyor belt, completely sure of my innocence, except this time my carry-on luggage contained that bottled water I bought in security less than half an hour before. Obviously, though, it’s a bomb.

If I’m really a terrorist, I suck at it, if I can’t get past the security officers at Northwest Regional Airport. Good on them for protecting the world from me. Me big, me scary, me hijack tiny plane with water and chocolates, like evil MacGyver.

A few weeks ago I’d decided not to come up to Kitimat for Christmas, given the expense (nearly $1K for the flight, no, really, I know it’s ridiculous, but what can you do?) and then because I was going to be working on two job contracts this week and would be too busy.

Despite these legitimate reasons to not go, I got threatened with everlasting damnation if I didn’t, so here I am. And I have been too busy with the contracts, and prolonged my cold by working too much. I have to appreciate the irony in complaining about lack of work and then getting too much of it during Christmas week. Thank you, life, for fucking with me.

I am glad I’m here, however, given that Vancouver has gone all crazy from the snow (so I’ve seen on the news) and I have neither vehicle nor snow gear and would probably be starving to death in my apartment right now. Also perhaps freezing to death, as I had no hot water the day I flew here. If my flight had been a day or two later, I probably wouldn’t be here now either, since flights have been delayed or canceled this week and there are a bunch of people now slumming it at YVR tonight. I sort of hope I’m stuck here on Boxing Day for the same reason, but I get the feeling I’ll get back okay, and will be forced to buy a winter jacket.

When I arrived here on Saturday there was no snow, but it finally came last night and got us all caught up with the rest of the province. Everyone here has snow tires, though, so civilization hasn’t come to an end. It’s still bloody cold out, though, so it’s good I’ve been sequestered in the basement with Mom’s cat, writing code and watching the log burning channel.

I finished my wrapping (it’s my job to wrap most of the gifts not destined for me) and I’m now set for the night, so I will let you go by wishing you a good Christmas, that you are with family or friends or with whomever you want to be with, and that you are warm and safe and fed. As I am.

I’ve been wondering this, every Christmas, for several years now: how come they never show the movie White Christmas on TV anymore?

It is my favourite Christmas movie by far, and I don’t get to see it. I can see Bad Santa at various times of the day, but never White Christmas. I get several log-burning channels (my parents have satellite) but no Bing Crosby sitting in front of it.

I’m wondering if it’s some licensing problem, like whichever channel showed the movie would have to pay a small fortune to the Irving Berlin estate or something. The movie is over 50 years old, though; shouldn’t everyone involved be dead by now?

An internet search on the topic brought up nothing, so I don’t know if there is any legal snafu or conspiracy theory behind me not getting to see the movie. It could just be that people suck and have bad taste in movies. That sounds more plausible.

Or maybe it’s just that life isn’t fair and everyone else gets to watch it on TV but for whatever reason I miss its airing due to my annual trip to Mom’s, just like I missed sex ed in high school because I switched schools in such a way that I missed it twice. I regret never getting to put a condom on a banana in front of my classmates.

What were we talking about again? Oh, yeah. Any ideas about my Christmas movie miss-out?

That’s the wind chill factor at the Terrace/Kitimat Airport, or was a couple hours ago when we landed. Wind was over 50 kph.

(That’s -25F and 31 mph for those south of the border).

Power was out at the airport, too, which was mildly entertaining, but only because it was still warm inside the building. Winter in the north!

I can’t think of when I’ve been somewhere this cold. Mom speaks about being in Montreal during an ice storm and me crying from the pain and my tears instantly freezing to my cheek, but I don’t remember that and I wasn’t about to stay outside tonight long enough to reminisce.

I’ve been in Kitimat for Christmas many times since I moved here (briefly) in 1990, and I’ve never experienced anything like this. 6+ feet of snow, sure. Plane failing to land and ending up at Prince George or Smithers, sure. But this? How do you walk the dog in this?

(I’m now wondering about the dog, since Manchester Terriers are hardly built for this sort of weather.)

I had fingerless gloves on my hands at the airport. Mom went to start up the car and once Dad and I had the bags he sent me outside to scout for the jeep, since I might move fast enough to not die of exposure. I ran out, started to feel the life leaving my limbs, and ran back inside. I put down my purse, wrapped my scarf as often around my neck as it could go, took a deep breath and went out again, thankfully seeing Mom pull up. I was maybe outside two minutes in total, and when I got in the car my fingers were completely numb and stayed that way for several more minutes. Wow. I am far too delicate for this.

Thankfully, now that I have arrived at my parents’ house I may not have to go outside again until I fly back to Vancouver after Christmas. Never have I been so happy to be housebound.

Everybody cheer!

Because I’ve got a cold and have to work and am otherwise not celebrating, so please do it for me. Collectively, if you could down 31 beers in my name, that’d do it, thanks.

The biggest excitement for me so far this week was getting shoved and threatened at the local 7-11 Sunday night. Which was mostly lost on me since I was zonked out on cold meds and wasn’t sure of the day or planet. No, I can’t buy you matches, Ms. I’m-a-crack-whore-without-ID, I’m just here for toilet paper and ginger ale and as far as I know you’re just the NyQuil talking.

Okay, I’m not sure if she was a crack whore, but why would one be getting violent at a 7-11 in the late evening over matches? Does nicotine do that to people? I only get that way over programming languages.

Given that it was my birthday coming up, I wondered why the crazy fuck didn’t take it as a compliment that the poor immigrant man at the counter thought she might be too young to smoke (she was screaming that she was 29). Hell, I get the warm fuzzies every time I’m carded at a club. Take it while you can, I say.

Thankfully the chick was begging a stranger to buy her matches when I left the store, so she was too distracted to see me and I was able to escape before getting a smackdown. It’s a good thing, too, because I’m old and feeble and my body’s not what it used to be.

I’m having some rather silly luck with emails these days. Two events this week have made me reconsider whether or not I should be allowed to have an email address at all, or even an internet connection. Or even be allowed to associate with society.

The first event was simple enough: I was on my laptop, writing an email to a new client, saying how I was looking forward to working with him, yada yada. My cat was with me, curled up on my stomach with her hind legs dangling over the keyboard. So the email got sent mid-sentence, and I had to email again and finish the sentence and apologize that the cat did it. Great first impression there.

The next day, I had just emailed my friend Chrissy thanking her for some help she’d given me, and then discovered on lastfm that people were playing her podcasts and the site was attributing them to someone else. So I quickly emailed again, saying something along the lines of “look how you screwed up lastfm’s statistics! I think you’re way hotter than the chick in the picture though.”

Except I had clicked the wrong email to reply to, and it got sent to another client named Chris. What’s that smell? Professionalism!

I considered, in my apology email to this person, saying that I was sure he was hotter than the “chick in the picture” but since I’d never seen him in person he would see right through my back-peddling.

I’d like to blame my slow internet connection (must be all the gay porn I’m downloading) but really it’s the drugs. I think I’m turning into the person Mail Goggles was designed for, except I would need it enabled every hour of the day, and I can’t do math in my head.