Friends, Music, BBQs and Summer

This was supposed to be the summer of no plans. Between a work project and a pretty big fall trip planned, my plan for the summer was to prep for my departure.

But then friends were all "let's go here" and "let's have a BBQ" or "I'm coming to visit."

In other words, it has been a summer full of that utmost first-world problem: I need a weekend from my weekends!

I know, totally doesn't suck and I should really just get over myself.

I haven't even had a chance to talk about a friend coming to visit, visiting the bug zoo, hiking out to Mystic Beach (in the rain, with a hangover), attending the Phillip's Backyard Weekender to see A Tribe Called Red, reciting poetry in a pub bathroom, or drinking too much.

Our picnic view

A wee bit wet but no worse for wear!

I completely missed telling you that "Noah" had his kidney transplant earlier this month and his recovery has been going so well, he was out of the hospital almost a full week before doctors projected. Also, I've been sending him awesome photos like this:

EDIT: Noah's recent tests are showing markers for possibly rejecting the kidney so he's back in the hospital. So some parts of this summer aren't as awesome as they could be. Guess I'll have to keep making crappy motivational jokes with my desk toys.

I attended multiple birthday BBQs because that's what you do when you're birthday falls in a summer month, apparently. I'm not complaining, I just didn't know it was an unwritten rule.

Speaking of BBQ, I got a lovely Texas care package in the mail from Cely.

BBQ FOR DINNER EVERY NIGHT!!

I also saw Ghostbusters. Loved it like Chris Hemsworth's Kevin loved himself.

How saxy! Be still my treble clef!

I spent a day walking around Victoria Snapchatting my version of our local history.

And I wrapped up this weekend by attending a Michael Kaeshammer performance. If you are unfamiliar with Kaeshammer, he's a German-born Canadian pianist known for his jazz and boogie-woogie style. His live shows are very interactive; if the music thing hadn't worked out for him, he could have made it as a comedian.

Have a wonderful week, everyone.

How To Get Out Of a Funk, According to Me

Do you remember the children's story Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day? Well, I lived that day excepted it lasted a whole week. There was no one big event that made last week bad, just a million little things that snowballed into a crappy week: forgot my trusty coffee cup every day, had a leaky to-go coffee cup which I discovered in the middle of a meeting with lots of higher-up employees, stayed late every day, missed all my gym classes because of staying late, painfully tore a fingernail, rolled my ankle running for the bus for the one gym class I thought I might make, left my wallet at home. Again, a million little things that separately would mean nothing.

On Wednesday, a conversation with a co-worker lead to a discussion about my time in Tanzania, and she asked the question I've been asked a million times: "would you go back?" I gave the same answer I've given a million times: "in a heartbeat." But then she added an extra question - why haven't you? - and I had no good answer for her. I started to question why I hadn't gone back or why I hadn't done more to ensure that I would go back. On top of all the other annoyances, the question of why aren't you back in Tanzania right now? started running through my head. And all these things just really started to harsh my buzz, man.

That is how I found myself, Friday night, alone at my parent's, overreacting to a bobbin issue with my mom's sewing machine.

My mom has a new machine and I have still not mastered the art of replacing the bobbin and having it catch. I have tried and tried and tried, and always end up having to get my mom to do it. Except she wasn't home that evening and in my rising frustration, I removed not only the bobbin, but the entire bobbin casing and it fell apart in my hands. I searched the instructions and amazingly, there was nothing - NOTHING! - about how to put the bobbin casing back together. I fumed. I cannot be the only person who has accidentally removed and destroyed the bobbin casing! That's when I got up from my chair and started leaping around the room, waving my fists and swearing violence on the machine as if I was Basil Fawlty assaulting his car. I'm sure if I a tree branch had been laying nearby, I would have used it to beat the machine.

I was defeated by a bobbin. To be honest, it was depressing and a little humiliating.

I woke up Saturday morning still in a funk. Everything I planned to do that day took longer than normal: trip to the grocery store, cleaning the house, baking the Raspberry Meringue Pie, getting ready for my night out. If I estimated something would take an hour, it took an hour and a half. This was really not helping with the funk and I half-wished I could cancel my plans for the evening but I knew there was no weaselling out the party.

That night, I was having a serious pity party as I arrived for the Downton Abbey Dinner in a dress that was decidedly not Edwardian thanks to the Battle of the Bobbin. Since the Downton Abbey Dinner party had first been proposed in January, I planned to make an Edwardian dress for the event. At the end of the day, however, it really didn't matter to anyone else that my dress wasn't period appropriate.  We sat in Julie's sunny backyard, sipped 'Carson Approved Beverages', munched on various dishes from the Unofficial Downton Abbey Cookbook (and a few that weren't from there) and laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

I needed that. Sunday morning came around and things just looked better. Sometimes a night with friends is exactly what you need.

Sunday Snippets: September

Well, it only took 10 years of not being in some sort of schooling for me to finally stop thinking of September as a new year. Now it's just September, killer of summer dreams and bringer of longer nights. Thanks a lot, September.

September is pretty much Omar in month form.

Many years, September is just a continuation of August weather-wise, but this year it is definitely the beginning of Autumn. While the days are still warm, nights are downright cold here at the moment. We also had some crazy freak rain storms over the last two weeks which left me with two very cuddly cats because, dude, thunder!

This year seemed to be the summer of out-of-town visitors which was a good thing.

It was also the summer of macarons which was a good thing for everything except my waistline.

It was the summer of a missed DietBet because it takes forever to set up PayPal. Lesson learned.

And it was the summer of setting up a bedtime schedule due to sleeping issues. For the first time in years, I turned down social evenings specifically because I wouldn't be home in time for bed.

Yup.

But summer is actually my least favourite season - go ahead, mock me all you want for that fact - so I'm not too sad to see it go. Autumn is my second favourite season and the rest of September is shaping up to be an awesome month. The only thing I'm not looking forward to? All the bloody pumpkin love on the blogs I read.

The only thing I like about pumpkins is carving them and roasting the seeds. I don't care for the Pumpkin Spiced Lattes at Starbucks, I actively avoid pumpkin pie as an option for dessert, and I will roast every other type of cucurbita there is but pumpkin. Every recipe posted on a blog between now and American Thanksgiving is going to have pumpkin in it. To be honest, it makes me a little stabby.

Sorry, pumpkin. It's not me, it's you.

It was also, in case it's not already abundantly clear from the gif choices, the summer that I bought and (re)watched all five seasons of The Wire because it is arguably the best show to have even been broadcast. It is the show that ruined all other cop shows for me because it is so good and it is rooted in reality in a way that no other cop drama is. Fair warning: there is strong language, violence and nudity - hey, it's HBO! - but if you want to know why the war on drugs will never be won then this is the show to watch.

Plus, it has Idris Elba in it; do you really need another reason to watch?

Yeah. I didn't think so.

Sunday Snippets

Being the anniversary of Elaine's disappearance, I took Thursday off work. The last place I wanted to be was surrounded by people who a) didn't know about her and b) I didn't want to get emotional in front of. It turned out to be the right choice as I cried twice before 10:00am.

I spent some time with my dad, went blackberry picking with my mom, and then baked a blackberry pie with said berries. All in all, it was a much better way to spend a day remembering Elaine then feeling alone and weepy in a soul-crushing cubicle. (This is not a commentary on my work place specifically, all cubicles are designed to be soul-crushing. In fact, I'm pretty sure the word 'cubicle' means 'four wall soul destroyer' in Sanskrit.)

Say hello to my mom, the woman who taught me how to bake.
Home Ec Teacher Moms for the win!

I love to bake but living alone (and not having a dishwasher), I don't do it very often. When I do bake, I tend to keep one or two pieces of the baking for myself and then give the rest away to family, friends, co-workers and the employees of my favourite coffee shops and restaurants.

If you are a proprietor of such an establishment and you see me coming, you want to befriend me. So far this year, I have given out Sansa's Lemon Cakes, Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes with Bailey's Cream Cheese Icing, Zopfe (a type of Swiss bread), and Blackberry Pie. Plus, there's another round of the cupcakes already in the works thanks to a certain beloved employee's imminent return to Dublin. I pay you to serve me and I give you food... not a bad deal.

My younger brother is significantly younger than me. This means that for the releases of 'Shaun of the Dead' and 'Hot Fuzz', he had to patiently wait until they were available on DVD. With the release of 'The World's End' this past weekend, we finally got to a Cornetto Trilogy movie in the theatres together. We decided to forego a sunny afternoon outside for the confines of a darkened theatre in which we proceeded to laugh our asses off. According to my text messages, we made our plans to see this together on June 21st. It makes me happy to know I'm not the only geek in the family.

Thanks!

Um, wow. I expected a bit of a response when I told my Facebook friends I was blogging again, but I got a few unexpected responses from people I didn't think even knew I was previously blogging, including a few DMs. (That would be a direct message, mom.) Thanks for making me feel so loved! All 10 of you!

Okay, so maybe that's a bit over the top to how it actually made me feel, but seriously, thanks.

In the process of starting this blog, I have learned a very important lesson: don't start a blog in the middle of the nicest summer your region has had in the last 5 years. Hot, sunny days are the biggest distraction...