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whatever gets you through the night, is all right, it's all right

I remember December 8th, 1980. It is hard to believe it's been 25 years. It makes me feel old to think that. I remember our living room on Lascelles Blvd. I remember the white shag carpet, looking up to the mantle piece and leaning on the speaker (which was only a couple of feet high, but I wasn't that much taller in those days) listening to the CBC. The last thing I expected was to hear that John Lennon had been shot. I was shocked to my core. I think it was the first time I understood that violence can happen to good people. I was transfixed, listening to the radio. I started to cry and went to my room because, with the arrogance of a child, I thought my parents wouldn't understand that John Lennon's death was so upsetting. I failed to understand that they were of his generation and had grown up with him as part of their lives.

On the news last night, they quoted one of his biographers as saying he was no angel but had made people think about something other than themselves and that that was as good a legacy as one could hope to achieve.

Imagine.

A cautionary tale

OK. This is a true story. This morning, I'm having a Monday. I got up to go swimming but there was a frost so I rushed in to borrow the egg lifter (aka windscreen scraper). I went swimming (good girl) but had to stop for gas and this horrible old yuppie woman cut in front of my with her SUV even though I was clearly there before her and I had to wait for an available gas pump and then I was on the wrong side. I debated confronting her, but made do with quietly and good naturedly complaining to the kid behind the counter. I rushed off frantically to the post office, because now I was behind schedule. I grabbed the package and lept from the car, smashing the package's sharp corner into my nose. I ran into a cheerful and ditzy elderly woman (she didn't know if she was coming or going) in my haste- luckily she thought this was hysterically funny. Who rushes in Sidney? I rushed in- mercifully no line. Yet since there was no one behind the counter I had to wait. Then I realized that my wallet had fallen out of my purse, so the postal worker had to cancel the transaction, flinging the small post office into disarray (since her computer skills lack much to be desired). I rushed back to the car and got my wallet. Luckily, this is Sidney, and one can leave a wallet in an unlocked car for 5 minutes without having it stolen. I came back to the post office and there were ten people in line! The one computer still wasn't working because postal lady A didn't know how to cancel a transaction. I finally got to the front. Postal lady A gave up and I luckily got Postal lady B (finally a break).

I made it to work, luckily in time to get some (bad) coffee. Bad coffee is marginally better than no coffee.

I checked my email. I am currently having discussions with colleagues about the possibility of:
1) shipping 2.2 metric tonnes from Germany to the Yukon
2) doing a marine electromagnetic survey ON LAND in the arctic with said heavy equipment, in the summer when the land gets flooded, dragging a kilometer of cable, say either behind a caterpillar type truck or one of those boats with the big fans used in the Everglades. Any one got a hovercraft I could use?
3) alternatively, we do a land EM survey in the winter at 40 below. Electrical tape will freeze and cut like a razor. Nuts and bolts won't match since they will shrink. We might have to heat up the electronics to get them to work.

I can't decide which of the people involved in these preliminary plans is craziest. I'm having difficulty telling if they are kidding me. The scary part is that I'm the one trying to convince them we could do this arctic survey and the harder I push the more bizarre the ideas they throw at me. Am I the craziest?

ch-ch-changes

So, I'm trying to swap my trip to San Fran next week into a trip to Amsterdam in April. Not that I don't like SF, which is a great city. Hehehe. Wish me luck!

Am I truly demented that I'm pleased I'll have more crafting time to finish xmas gifts rather than disappointed not to go to SF?

what happened today?

Today: snow on the ground! Invitation to China! Invitation to K&D's wedding in Ann Arbor sooner than I expected. Encouragement to go to San Francisco before I go to Toronto and Montreal for the holidays. I just might do that. Invitation to go to Halifax next summer. Three meetings. Dozens of email. Several phone calls. Somehow I'm supposed to work too. Scheming to go to Arctic and Korea. Suddenly there's action... it's all very strange. Mucho politics. Of course, everything could go down the toilet depending on what happens after the election! The money might dry up. A lot of behind the scenes jockeying for funds. It's all very strange.

Lando Carisian

So Dimitri pointed out this morning that we are now apparently living in the Cloud City with Lando. It has been foggy since Friday and we have about 25 m visibility. There is a white wall where the ocean used to be. As in the driving rain, to drive my car, I need to employ the brake lights of the car in front of me for navigation. The other day I sort of got lost on the 500 m walk home. I mean, I knew I was on the road and I was between work and home, but that's it. I had no precise knowledge of my whereabouts. It's creepy.

mushrooms

The mushroom season apparently begins immediately after Halloween. The next morning they had sprouted everywhere. Along my short walk to work there are trails of mushrooms varying in size from my smallest fingertip to a dinner plate. The caps vary in texture from fibrous and leafy to spongecake. Some are flat and some are domed and some are even concave. Some are round and some are irregular organic shapes. Colours range from beige, tan, chocolate, to tangerine through scarlet. Some form randomly and some in little fairy trails. Some I recognize from childhood hikes with my naturalist aunt, but most are foreign to me. I don't recall mushrooms in Ontario looking like the illustrations in children's fairytale books. I'd would like to know more. An industrious colleague goes on mushroom gathering walks to make gourmet meals. Less innocent friends know how to gather them for other purposes. Are they dangerous? Do I have to watch where I walk least I track psychotropic chemicals on my shoes? By 6:00 pm when I walk home, it is quite dark. There are no streetlights here, except at intersections. I carry little turtle-shaped LEDs, but that's really not sufficient. I'll have to get the BIG flash light out already. Mainly I worry about falling in the ditch or turning my ankle.

Today I went swimming before work and began to tackle the gravity data. Maybe as a treat for ceasing to procrastinate on both issues, I'll go home early. :) If I'm lucky, the awaited Halloween package will finally be there.