it's not the bee's fault

what a hazy, itchy and surreal time the past few days have been!

It's been a lovely early summer here; warm, sunny days, full of gentle breezes and general good cheer. I'd taken Wednesday off to put in some beekeeping time, and as hoped, it turned out to be a beautiful day. After a double shift in the beeyard, I had taken off my gloves and was wrapping up the the last of my notes when a bee decided she needed to make the ultimate sacrifice and stung me on my finger. I flicked the stinger out right away, briefly mourned for the bee, and carried on with my day.

Almost exactly 24 hours later I was sitting in the St. Michael's emergency room, getting a good dose of antibiotics through an IV. During those 24 hours I had observed, first-hand, the development of a vigorous bacterial infection. Fascinating! Also scary. It turns out that out of all of the bacteria that's crawling all over everything and everyone all the time, every once in a while one will be in exactly the right place at the right time,and unleash a very localized perfect shitstorm, featuring swelling! incessant itchiness! painful, violent throbbing and frightening pink steaks forming under the skin!

After a second round of IV antibiotics things are definitely looking better, but I'm still on Benadyl and  antibiotics for a while and this ridiculously puffy cartoon hand could be around for several days still.

gettin' old

It's been a busy week, full of reminders that I'm no Benjamin Button.  After several visits to my doctor, I've learned that my thyroid gland is underperforming these days. My doctor had me tested for a bunch of things, and this discovery seems to explain a number of worrisome issues that I'd been dealing with.

I've now started taking synthetic thyroid hormone tablets; as my doc explained to me, it's the same sort of thing my body makes on its own, but since my body's been slacking off lately, something needed to be done. Low thyroid activity makes people sluggish, among other things, so it's to top up my levels and speed me up a bit. The dosage may take some tweaking, but I'm looking forward to feeling peppier.

In other news, I'm now packing a blackberry for work when I'm on call.  It's probably good for my brain to have to learn to manage a new gadget, but I'm not yet in love with the thing.  I can manage to do what I need to do in a reasonable amount of time, still, it seems like a lot of button pushing to get anything done. Perhaps this'll be enough to help me stave off codgerism for a few more years though...

stung by bees, still lots to learn

The new bee season has started, and I've decided that I need to get serious in my commitment to the bee co-op. There have been some big changes in the off-season, and it feels like a fresh beginning.

 I've started the season off being a busy bee myself, spending a couple of hours in the beeyard both yesterday and today. 

Yesterday's session was a lighthearted affair, a nice reunion with my fellow beekeepers and the bees, with enough of us there that I was able to shadow someone with more experience and still be useful. 

Today's session only had two of us besides our staff beekeeper, and went a little less smoothly. I felt like a complete newbie. My allergies were terrible, a queen flew away (!) while under my watchful eye (luckily she was recovered shortly after), and a frame covered with bees slipped out of my hand, knocking a few dozen bees to the ground and infuriating them and their hivemates. One of them was upset enough that she made the ultimate sacrifice for the good of the hive and stung me through my shoe. I still had to deal with the hive, which turned out to be a very angry hive. I also dropped my hive tool on it, which probably did not soothe the bees. I later learned that one of the hives I'd worked on had an 'unfortunate amount' of excess honeycomb removed, which may have included some valuable queen cups. I fear that this was due to my enthusiasm in cleaning up the hive. And incredibly, to add insult to injury I actually managed to inflict myself with a second bee sting. An angry bee had gotten stuck in my pocket, and must have stung the tissues I'd had stuffed in there. At one point I went to blow my nose, and jabbed my face with the stinger embedded in the tissue.

 On the positive side, it was a wonderful warm, sunny day, my companions are gentle, kind and patient, and, when all is said and done, the whole point of being a member of the co-op is to learn. I'm starting with learning how much I still need to learn! I'm a big fan of learning through immersion, and take some small comfort in knowing that by the end of the season I may actually feel like a competent beekeeper. Looking fowrard to next weekend, when I get to reacquaint myself with the Royal York bees!

*hack*hack*hack*

Huh? wuzzzat? what day is it? It's Wednesday, a week from the end of February, I'm sick and all hepped up on Buckley's daytime yellow pills. I was going to say I'm sick again, but I don't think I stopped being sick from last time. As far as I can remember, the last time I felt really good was when we were in Jamaica. The sore throat started right after that, and never really went away.

I've done a fair bit of reading about the whole quitting smoking process (or what to expect when you're kicking a habit that's old enough to vote), and I understand that being sick is often part of the initiation into the world of non-smokerhood. My whole body and all of its chemical processes have been under the control of that evil sticky bastard Nicotine for almost half my life now, and it'll take a good while before my poor old body can figure out how to manage itself.

Pardon my moaning about being sick, what I meant to chronicle here is this: the sun was shining today, and I went and coughed my way around the garden. It was while I was wheezing over my tarragon sprouts that I came to the optimistic conclusion that this latest go-round of being sick is some sort of final push--my body's getting rid of the last remnants of cigarette-related badness, and I'm looking forward to sucking in great hearty lungfuls of spring air soon!

damned mystery atheist!

Can an atheist suffer religious persecution at the hands of another atheist? Looks like it.

I've had a little tiny bell at my desk for a long time, pinned to the cubicle wall; it's got a little card attached that reads "hope" and has a blurb on the back about how my contribution has helped the St. Something organization care for the community. The message isn't overly religious, but definitely has some sort of churchy association.

Today was my first day back at my desk since leaving on vacation, and while reorganizing all my desktop stuff I realized that someone had taken down my little bell and added a sticky note that read "c'mon, be reasonable, God doesn't exist!" and left this on the middle of my desk. This instantly made me unhappy, but it took a good 30 minutes or so of back-of-the-mind thinking to find that I was really angry about it. What kind of person does such a thing? Who goes snooping around someone's cube when they're not home, touching and moving their stuff, and then leaving an anonymous note with their unasked-for commentary? The note ended up with my manager, as I ranted in a fairly controlled manner about the inflammatory nature of this cowardly, presumptuous note.

I asked around a bit, thinking that perhaps someone who knows me was just joshing around, but I soon realized that the people who know me well enough to joke would know better than to do such a thing.

I'm not angry with the stealthy note-writing atheist for being an atheist, I'm angry with them for being a passive aggressive loser, for touching my stuff and for getting me to fall for such juvenile attempt to get my goat :P Not sure what else I can do except hang up the bell again.

I never realized this before

but I think smoking helped me get off my bum and do something else once in a while.

Now that I'm back at home (and not yet back to work) I'm finding myself at times just standing around wondering what to do now. A smoke break used to force me out onto the porch to look around and collect my thoughts. I think Byron is quite vehemently opposed to substituting chocolate for smokes, so I'll have to think of some other way of addressing this.

a new year, 7 days in the sun and $30 in my pocket!

hooray, it's a new year! Byron, Frank, Anne and I have just returned from a well-earned week in Montego Bay. Byron and I logged about 40 hours in the water, futzing around with our new snorkels and also managed to get a good amount of vitamin D and some pretty hearty meals as well.

Byron and I had also decided to quit smoking on this trip, and had our last cigarettes over a week ago. We purchased Nicorette inhalers but they're not really a great substitute for smoking, so Byron's going cold turkey, while I'm using the inhaler to hold in my hand and wave around in a cigarette-like fashion every once in a while. The change of scenery and routine certainly was helpful in distracting us from our cravings; I did feel a little unstable and cried a fair bit for the first two days or so, but a steady diet of cakes, watermelon, frequent naps and plenty of paddling around the coral reefs soon had me feeling better :)

During the flight home, I figured that I've already saved about $30 that would normally have gone towards smokes during the week. Over the course of the next year, that could either be a nice bonus chunk to stick on the mortgage, or a nice getaway next winter. I'll keep this in mind when battling the cravings that are bound to plague me over the next while.

While I'm busy patting myself on the back about being smoke free for over a week, I'd also like to brag shamelessly about my tooth flossing: I've flossed before bed for 399 of the past 401 days, hooray for me! This impresses no one but myself and my hygienist, but I just had to get it out there. :D

November!

whoopee!

a few things that make me say whoopee tonite:

my back feels much better...am now ambulatory and back to work and am hobbling my way back to a normal life, have been able to stop taking the brain-numbing muscle relaxants

the Live Green Toronto festival is on this Saturday and I'm helping to man the beekeepers' booth, it'll be grand to see my bee buddies again

Monday and Tuesday are days off for me

The last Harry Potter movie is out soon, and we're working our way through all of the previous ones, merrily shouting "Potter!" as we go

I got paid for overtime that I had completely forgotten about having worked

whee...

herming like never before

The past couple of weeks have been an exercise in full-blown hermitry for me. I've just finished looking at my hellokitty.com email, and it appears I haven't checked it in over a month! So then, I've been part-time herming for a month or so, but last week ended up being an actual house-bound hermit when my back decided I'd been taking being ambulatory for granted and blew up for no good reason. True, I did fall down several weeks back (twice, actually, both times on top of a ridiculously heavy bundle buggy full of mulch that I was pushing down the street-- the first fall-down was accompanied by a deliciously humourous shout of "UHHH!" that startled neighbours and still makes me laugh upon recollection) but that was *weeks* ago, and was the last serious trauma that I can recall.

The horribleness started with a twingy lower back, which quickly became a backache that extended down into my leg. A visit to my doctor got me a prescription for some anti-inflammatory pills and some muscle relaxants that goof me up and knock me out, as well as a diagnosis of sciatica. We made a quick visit across the border last weekend to pick up some audio gear, I spent many happy hours doped up in the passenger seat and enjoying the scenery. We also painted our new bedroom, with Byron doing most of the work and me being the drugged out trim-painter. It looks grand, btw :)

Beyond our road trip and the painting I've spent most of the last two weeks hanging out, missing work, making brief excursions to the back porch, creeping around the veggie bed, playing cribbage on my phone and having naps. Sounds like a relaxing time, and it is, except for the periods of excruciating pain and only being able to stand for about 10 minutes at a time :P

I'm confident that things will get better though, the internet tells me that the pain often goes away on its own within a couple of weeks. Looking forward to that happy day!

a quick question

what kind of person uses silicon caulking to put up shelving? the kind of person who feels that 6 screws on their own won't do the trick, it seems.

argh!

a new project

we're great at starting projects in this household...we love the potential brimming in a set of plans. When it comes to executing them, well, ehhh...it's often a lot of work and there are naps to be had, and relaxing to do, and...well, you know.

we're embarking on a new project that has to get done, though, it has us living in more chaos than usual, and we've got a deadline. Byron happened to hear some really nice speakers a few weeks ago, and at the same time I told him of my idea to change our master bedroom into our entertainment/listening room/guest room and move our sleeping quarters to the guest bedroom. (We use probably less than half the space in our bedroom, the rest of the space just accumulates stuff) We then had brunch with Byron's enthusiastic German audiophile friend, and mulled things over. The universe seemed to be telling us to go for it.

Well golly, isn't there a lot of work involved in switching bedrooms! our clothes are in various closets throughout our second floor, (which is an improvement over being strewn all over the floor and furniture) and there's a big decluttering project underway. Goodwill will be the recipient of a carload of stuff from us, lucky them. We're going to paint both rooms eventually, but at this point the plan is to get the listening room freed up to receive the new audio gear on Saturday, and then get ourselves organized enough that dressing for work in the morning isn't a scavenger hunt every morning.

Hopefully by the time our next rotation of houseguests arrive we'll have a cozy fully-kitted super-room for them to stay in. As usual, pictures will be available if I happen to remember to take pictures :)

a nice, nice day

It's been a challenging week. Byron's been working in Calgary, I was disgustingly sick earlier in the week and we've been getting some insane rain storms. I love 'em, but it's hard to get anything done outside when you're in the midst of an ark-worthy deluge.

I'm on weekend duty, and that always ensures my weekends are less spontaneous and lazy than usual. I love weekend duty in its own way, though, it's a chance to do my regular job at a totally different pace, under different circumstances, and in a familiar environment but with all of the external distractions removed. I think I'm very good at it. My 9-5 job definitely does not provide the optimal setting for me to excel.

As I was leaving on Friday I was told to expect a call from a very aggressive and unreasonable client on Saturday morning. I'd worried that this might be a hellish weekend, and wondered if I could make it a good one by wishing it so. This is probably wishful thinking (and rightfully so), but I believe it worked. Here are some of the things that made it a nice, nice day:

*I woke up not feeling tired, and early enough to get some yard work done before having to go on duty. The sun was coming up, and it was perfectly clear with a tiny chill in the air. Some birds were at the feeder, enjoying the fresh food. There's one hot mama purple finch that all the boy finches are fighting over, a pair of cardinals that feed each other, and a dizzy mourning dove that likes to just walk around the yard. I love watching them.

*I also did some laundry and was able to hang that up on the line before heading out to work. I love hanging clothes in the sunshine.

*I inflated my tires and rode my bike to Broadview station--my triumphant first bike trip of the season!) I didn't feel nervous riding in traffic (minimal traffic, but still, a successful venture)

* I got to King and Yonge just in time to go on duty and turn on the phone, then went to Starbuck's and had some tea and people-watched, ready to spring into action as soon as the phone rang. Downtown is delightfully empty and quiet on early weekend mornings. I had a good 20 minutes to myself.

*apparently was extremely helpful to all of my clients, and actually had fun being helpful to most of them. I've made a few changes in the way I work, and felt very organized. Only said "WTF?" twice, I think.

*accidentally found myself in the midst of a huge gang of walking photographers, and talked to a few of them. There were SLR'ers, digicam folk and even iPhone-cam wielding enthusiasts. am invited to check the website and come out on a walk with them.

*streetcar-ed it home, thankful to be leaving downtown just as the walking-along-and-being-macho MMA fans were swarming in.

*biked home to enjoyed a panzarotto on the back porch, with the birds and some enlightening IM'ing.

*heard from a guy on craigslist who is selling his metal forge and gear; we'd inquired, but it all appeared to be spoken for. Now it seems that's iffy, and he'll let us know if it doesn't get sold tomorrow.

The aggressive unreasonable man? He did call. He was indeed very aggressive and unreasonable. He also came across as ill-informed. I finally had to tell him I had to up because I couldn't help him.

So, over all, I think a fair rating of this is a nice, nice day :) of course, there's always Sunday....

nothing and everything

well well well, it's been a couple of weeks since our whirlwind trip Quebec city. It was a great and refreshing getaway, full of good food, wonderful sights and bonhomie.

In the weeks since then, I've had renewed energy and have thrown myself into reading (The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge and The Reformation: A Very Short Introduction by Peter Marshall), becoming active on a couple of Asperger's forums, getting out in the garden and being as happy as a little clam at work. My cubicle mate got moved, so now I have the whole cube to myself, and am no longer self-conscious about interacting with my clients the way that works best for me. All in all, these are some pretty good days.

Perhaps due to the assessment I had earlier this year (and the subsequent Asperger's diagnosis), I've come to feel that this year already has been pretty eventful. I've discovered new ways of thinking, slightly different ways of interacting with people and expressing myself, and seemingly more successful ways of managing problems. In the past I'd call each of these mini-triumphs an epiphany, but this all has been much more than just an epiphany...it feels more like a convergence of epiphanies.

To celebrate all of this, I went out and got a tattoo today. I had originally wanted an enso tattoo in white ink on my palm, but most tattoo artists flat out won't do palms, and many won't do white tattoos. I found a lady who suggested we do it in black, and then successfully talked me out of doing it on my palm (this is apparently a terribly painful place to get a tattoo, and is the optimal site for infection and other problems). We ended up doing a white enso on my right wrist, and you know, it didn't really hurt much. I think I could have handled the painon my palm, but she's probably right, being unable to fully use my right hand for a month might have become a bit of a hassle.

The enso can be said to represent any number of things, depending on who you ask or what you read. It can represent enlightenment, rebirth, the cosmos, the void, the cyclical nature of life. To me, it looks like a representation of change over time, as the brush loses ink and the brush stroke tapers off. The act of painting enso is sometimes used as mindfulness practice, where each enso is a one-off, representing the energy of the moment of its creation. No other enso drawn will ever be the same. During my reading I came across the idea of wabi-sabi, the belief that nothing is permanent, complete or perfect. The white ink is likely not going to be permanent; for me, this is part of the appeal. It made sense to me to get a tattoo (itself a symbol of permanence) that will eventually fade and become a scar over the years.

At the moment the tattoo looks like I was bitten on the arm by a rabid child (it is only 7 hours old), but I will post a picture at some point. :)

Quebec City, day 2

Day two in Quebec City started early, with a nice little basket of breakfast delivered to our room. A fresh croissant, jam and a little muffin and some coffee provided enough fuel in our tanks to get us out wandering up the hill into the old part of the city. The snow that was forecast for today held off, and we spent 7 hours or so wandering the cobblestone streets, browsing some galleries, looking at statues, climbing up and down many many stairs. This, of course, is a lot of work! So we had to make frequent stops for pastries, coffee, and lunch.

After a return to the hotel for a well deserved nap, we were up in time to make our reservation at a local restaurant specializing in rabbit. Good old traditional french homestyle cooking! I like to imagine that our dinners were originally very practical dishes whipped up by French farmwives with a surplus of varmint. We had rabbit rilettes to start, a lovely spread that reminded a little of flaked tuna in texture. Byron had a cassoulet with rabbit leg, and I chowed down on rabbit pie.

Now we're pooped...it seems like we're doing a lot of indulgent eating, but we did pretty much walk our feet off today, so hopefully it'll all even out. We'll see what tomorrow brings, perhaps a trip outside the city to explore the Ile D'orleans...

A load of photos to be posted once I have the energy to ;)

Quebec city, yay!

hahah! it's been ages since I've posted. so typical. It's not that I don't do anything, or that I don't do anything exciting, I just have such a short attention span that by the time I've got the laptop in hand (or on lap, as it were) so much other stuff has happened that I feel overwhelmed and I usually can't even bring myself to attempt to record any of it here. I blame Hans Asperger for identifying a number of traits that would later be collectively described as a syndrome that I dislike to name, because in my head it always is spelled Ass-burgers, which makes me giggle, and then brings great shame, because I know I'm being juvenile. If it weren't for him, I'd be able to be simply quirky.

But I digress.. the past 24 hours have been exciting. Here's what I (and Byron) have been up to:

Thurs, 6:00 pm: my first metalworking class, yay! got to handle an oxy/acetelyne torch, burned holes in my glove, a piece of sheet metal the work table and my finger. It was not a magic torch, it took much effort and several attempts to do all of this damage. I also almost poked my kind workmate (a huge south american gentleman whose smock proclaimed him to be Ella) in the face with a piece of wire, which he assured me was ok. My self imposed homework is to attempt to practice mindfulness.

Thurs, 10:00 pm: home to finish laundry, pack, try to ge to sleep early (manage to get to sleep around 1:30) Byron indicates a desire to 'sleep in' til 7 if possible.

Fri, 5:30 am: Byron wakes up to find my scantily clad and crawling around on the kitchen floor and being noisy. A seizure of some sort? sleepwalking, perhaps? no, just trying to catch a mouse. Sorry, Byron!

Fri, 6:30 am: on the road, Quebec City or bust!

Fri, 10:30-ish am: stop at Trenton for coffee, nibbles and a stretch. making good time, lovely, sunny weather.

Fri, 12:30 pm: stop at Benny Poulet on Autoroute Felix Leclerc (near Antoine de Lavalrie) for some poulet et frites delicieux! light snow.

Fri, 3:30 pm: beinvenue a Quebec! our hotel, the Hotel des Coutellier, is a lovely little place facing the harbour in the old part of town. snowing steadily, time for a quick peek around the 'hood.

Fri, 5:00 pm: looks like the area is full of galleries, antique stores and other neat little boutiques, time for eats! Time to mosey back to the hotel for dinner at the restaurant downstairs, Moss--specializing in Belgian food. What's Belgian food? Apparently, it includes good bread, beer, lots of mussels, and steak tartare! Yummy. Found a bonus layer of capers in my dinner, I love capers. Tricked the host into thinking we spoke French, right up until about 40 seconds in, when he asked if he could take our coats. I was pleased with myself. Snowing heavily!

Fri, 6:30 pm: up to the room, for some quiet time spent loafing around in hotel bathrobe and surfing the 'net, possibly bedtime soon :)

Looking forward to what Samedi brings...more snow, apparently, but also perhaps a visit to a cabane a sucre and more attempts to speak the local lingo.

preparing for the arrival

in a little more than 24 hours we will be welcoming our brand new baby car--a healthy, sturdy little 5 door 2010 Honda Fit. For someone who's not really a car person, I'm pretty excited about this. The Fit is highly rated for safety and fuel efficiency, and it seems pretty versatile as well.

It's coming to us all kitted out with various extras and warranties that'll keep us safe and sound (hopefully) for the next 7 years. This is comforting to me. The car that currently lives with us was born in 1998, and I haven't really trusted it since the day years ago when Byron (and the car) were cursed by a fellow motorist. Byron isn't the superstitious type, but the car might be; shortly after the curse was uttered the car refused to go and required some costly towing and repairs.

Looking forward to many happy years with our new baby! we're already starting to put together road trip ideas for next summer.

crabby letters that I'll never send

It's been a while since I've posted anything. Fall is here, with its blustery days and lovely colours, the nights are getting longer and chillier, and hitting the snooze button in the mornings and snuggling back down into that wonderful early morning sleep is all the more appealing.

Lately I've been reassessing my social interactions with people, and realizing that sometimes I'm not always the most delicate or diplomatic person-- especially when dealing with people who have a tendency to be emotional. I've been trying to watch what I say in an attempt to avoid being shrieked at, but really, it's hard to keep some of this stuff in.

So...here in the comfort of my own blog, I'm letting my deep inner opinions out on a couple of topics that have really rankled lately. Please feel free to not shriek at me or try to make me feel guilty or like a bad person, this is me thinking out loud.

#1) Dear someone I'm related to:

I'm sorry you are having a tummultuous time with your teenager. Teenagers do indeed lead very dramatic lives, and as I recall from my own youth, this drama often leaks out into the lives of those close to them.

I was looking forward to spending time with this youngster this weekend, as I have on a few weekends in the past. I like to think that she benefits from having an adult in her life who tries to treat her like an adult, and I have to admit that I enjoy the time we spend together, as she provides me with a unique perspective and appreciation of the world around us.

I understand that she has had a disappointing time at school this year, I'm as horrified as you are at the marks she's brought home. What I don't understand is this: she's not old enough to drink, or vote, or take driving lessons, she's not even permitted to select her own clothes or, in your own opinion, take the bus by herself. I don't think she's ever had to do any chores at home, or earn an allowance; everything she has has been provided for her by the well-meaning adults in her life. What in the world makes you think that she can be solely responsible for her own academic success?

You say that she should have asked her dad or someone at school for help if she's floundering. Do these resources make it easy for her to do so? Do you know how hard it can be to ask for help from someone who uses words like 'dummy' or 'idiot'? Do you ask her about school? If so, how could it be 8 weeks into the school year before you discover she's failing? Do you allow her to make mistakes without judging her? Do you help her to find solutions? And just FYI, I failed math a few times during my high school years; I acknowledge that I'm particularly dense sometimes, but I don't think that there are many teens who worry about what failing a class means for their future.

I know that you were surprised to hear that she helps out when she's here, and what I wish I could tell you (without you freaking out at one or both of us) is that I think she's cooperative because we do things *together*. I appreciate what she does and I'm not afraid to tell her when she does something well; she's almost grown up, but like pretty much every child, she responds to positive feedback. I'm also not afraid to disagree with her, which happened last time she was here, and our disagreements don't have to end in screaming or crying or someone being 'right'.

I can't even imagine what it's like to raise a kid in this crazy world that we live in. It must be scary. What I can tell you from my own experience as a kid is that shouting, guilting, threatening or belittling only serve to close doors. Please don't feel threatened by me, or punish your kid by denying her time spent with someone who cares and listens and speaks honestly to her, I can't see this doing any of us any good.

I'd love it if you could take the advice you've given her, and ask for help if you need it. I can't tell you this, though, because if you freak out I might be banished from your lives. If you could overcome your shame or pride or whatever it is that inhibits you from talking about this stuff, you'd find that other parents are in the same boat and things might seem a little more manageable.

#2) Dear clients and colleagues:

I do not "speak Chinese". Chinese isn't even a proper term for a spoken language, its' a nationality. People in China speak a number of languages, Mandarin and Cantonese are the most common. I am not even of Chinese descent. It doesn't matter if you thought I look Chinese, or if you've known me for a number of years and always thought I was Chinese. It doesn't matter how long you stand around my desk and ask, or what reason you give for asking, or how deeply you suspect I might secretly "speak Chinese", I regrettably do not, I'm Japanese, and cannot help you translate anything into or from Chinese (or Japanese, for that matter, so don't even ask). I do recommend you visit one of my colleagues for assistance in translating though, as I believe that some of them might speak African.

road trip day 2!

Day 2 of our road trip started out with a nice (and free) continental breakfast in the hotel, where we met one of our fellow guests, a lady from Ohio who was visiting Auburn with her husband. I tend to disagree with Americans collectively, but always seem to find individual American citizens amicable and polite; I think this is how my dad feels about Korean people. In fact, now that I think about it, this is how I feel about people in general. :)

From Auburn we continued along the small-town tour of upstate New York, making our way through Skeneatles (another quaint little town, reminiscent of the town of old Markham) and Lafayette, which was in the middle of some beautiful hilly farm country. Cazenovia had some beautiful and huge old colonial homes, I can picture Martha Stewart living in such a place.

The approach to Albany became little hairy, when we became aware of the deficiencies of the state's road signage around the same time we learned how imprecies our map is. Somewhere along the way, while still hurtling along at 55 mph, the navigator on our little expedition realized that she had never really looked at a US map from a driver's point of view and didn't really understand which little dots on the map corresponded with which town names, and which little numbers represented which exits on the highway. After a few detours and missing a couple of exits, we finally rolled into our hotel. A surprisingly good lunch at Panera Bakery got our day back on track, and after a nap and a dip in the pool we were feeling human once more.

Dinner at Chili's was interesting. Apparently all the big chain restaurants in NY state are now required to list the calorie content on their menus. It's an eye-opener, but I can see this being a good thing once people get used to it. With the help of the new menu, I chose a nice, relatively healthy (and tasty) margarita chicken (600 calories) instead of a burger (1400 calories). We decided to forgo the 500-700 calorie appetizers, figuring none of them were worth it. Knowledge is power! Unfortunately, having saved ourselves these unnecessary calories at dinner, we decided we were entitled to a few later, and have since discovered Nutter butter cookies. um...

road trip, day 1

we're finally on the road, en route to Windham NY where we will crawl through the mud and hopefully leap over a fire pit alongside several thousand of our American brould n';eetheren. It's going to be an exciting time for sure, but there are some adventures to be had before then...

we left home yesterday during an almost biblical downpour. the driving was...well, actually, I don't know, since I did absolutely none of it. Byron says our little rental Hyundai Accent is 'gutless' but I think if that's the worst he can say about it then it's not so bad. It's far better than being 'unsteerable' or 'difficult to bring to a stop', for example.

We tried to make good time, but the trip from Toronto to Auburn, NY somehow took almost 8 hours. We did spend quite a frustrating time trying to get out of Niagara Falls ("ooh, look, we can cross right at the falls! Won't that be nice!") and we wouldn't want to regret not getting wings for lunch in Buffalo, so we had to stop there for a while. We also passed through all sorts of tiny places that I'd never heard of: East Aurora with its surprising wind farms, Varysburg, a quaint little town, Attica (which has a gigantic walled-in jail in the middle of a suburb...unless the suburb grew up around the jail). Lima NY didn't seem to have a public washroom, and so found its soil amended ever so slightly...we also were stopped in Lima by a fellow in a car who offered to sell us meat out of the back of his truck. We eventually made our way to Auburn, where we slept like logs at the Inn at Finger Lakes. On to Albany in the morning!