watermelon submarine

Life continues to be lovely...I'm on vacation after all! I spend my days doing all the lazy things my heart desires, as well as helping Robi paint his baby's room. It's the perfect balance of uselessness and usefulness. I'm going to go find breakfast now.

tidied

We're home! Four Christmasses down, one to go. (We've done the Sportack Christmas, the Pankratz Christmas, the Reimer Christmas, the me-and-Aaron Christmas, and now we've only got the immediate-Sportack-family Christmas left.)

Toronto was good and filled with tons of wonderful people. I also learned that all sorts of people read my blog who don't comment, so I never knew about them before. Welcome to you all! I dub you my bonus readers.

Today we tidied and cleaned our apartment, and it feels marvellous. That is all.

One last time: Merry Christmas!

AWOL no longer

I'm in Toronto! It's good to be home. I consider myself to have 3 home cities, so when I go home to Vancouver it will also be good to be home. It looks like we'll be in Winnipeg for Christmas next year, so that will be the third home. It's just going to be a long wait until then!

I probably won't post much in the next week, so happy advent and merry Christmas to you all!

Tito Puente is my friend

Today I did some more people-watching.

I had my usual morning bus driver, and he looks like Bono...which really just means that he is a pretty generic-looking white guy who wears Bono shades. But anyway, he's a good bus driver, and Bono seems to be a good guy, so who can complain?

I also saw a caricature-like old man hobbling down the street all hunched over his cane. He was wearing an old grey-brown suit and had a decent-looking hat on, and his grey beard was over a foot long.

There was also a baby who was absolutely captivated by a ceiling fan. Its mother pushed his stroller underneath it, and the baby was so enthralled that it almost keeled over and out of the stroller as he was determined to keep facing that shiny, spinning fan.

I saw a nice cat.

A cute little blonde grade one girl tried to get me to do the splits at work today.

Oh, and this doesn't have to do with people-watching, but Aaron and I had a lunch date and I chose my sandwich off the menu because it was called Tito Puente. It came with really good fries. Plus, there was fun Cuban music playing in the restaurant, and the windows were warm to lean against because the patio heaters were on outside. It was a good lunch date.

good impressions

Today was another day filled with feelings of success!

First of all, I got tons of work done on my Christmas mailing at work, even though it meant postponing lunch until 3pm.

The other big thing I did at work today was hold job interviews for my teens who are applying to be Team Leaders. Team Leaders are basically supervisors of their peers, so they'll keep track of attendance and help delegate tasks and be good role models. Anyway, the interviews put me in a good mood because I basically get to chat with some of the best kids I've got and see how great they are.

Some of these kids have mad interviewing skills! When asked why they are applying, they say things like, "I see it as a great opportunity to develop my leadership skills," or, "I feel I'm ready to take on more responsibility."

It's also interesting to see which kids look good on paper. I basically know all of them and feel I could make good hiring decisions without any resumes or interviews, but the process is good practice for them and also gives everyone a fair chance to prove themselves. Interestingly enough, one of the girls I would hire in an instant used really informal teen-language and didn't spellcheck or use capitals. Another girl who is kind of young (and frankly too immature for me to actually hire) definitely looked the best on paper, her application package was neat and well-worded.

It was a day of being impressed.

communicate with post-rapture heathens!

Worried about your unsaved loved ones? Send them a letter with salvation instructions or an "I told you so" card via the Post Rapture Post, a group of atheists kindly offering their services for a small(ish) fee.

(Man, I love this stuff!)

a day of ups, downs and sides

First, I slept in. Huttah!

I also had a few moments of seeing red when I found out by accident (read: nobody tried to tell me) that the choir was planning on singing two songs this Sunday, and I'm the worship leader whose job it is to arrange the service and make sure it ends on time. Not only that, but they thought they would sing one during the lighting of the advent candles, and I had just stayed up late last night creating a litany to be read at that time. "But the choir always sings during advent!" does not count for squat unless I happen to have been told. How long have I been a full member of this church? Five days. I simply do not know what "always" happens. ARRRRRGH. Oh, and did I mention that somebody has already slotted them in to the order of service and printed the bulletins, and still nobody has told me exactly what those bulletins say?

Next, I held a job interview with one of my teens for a leadership role, and he is absolutely fantastic! Such insight and grasp of responsibility! I want to hire him, but there are circumstances (seniority and such) that put him a little further down on the list, so we'll see.

Also, I had a chat with my dad, and I'm excited about seeing lots of super people at Christmas! The end.

why I don't post as much as I feel I should

I think that when I used to work at the coffee shop, my brain simply was not being engaged, so I had a lot more free brainspace to just doodle and notice and such. Lately, with my new-and-engaging job, I haven't had as much brainspace available. Maybe that's a lame excuse. I dunno. I just feel like I don't have enough free brainspace these days. But I'll find some. I'm not giving up!

Happy St. Nicholas Day!

I forgot all about St. Nicholas Day until this morning, when it was too late to put my shoes out (or to hide goodies in Aaron's shoes). If you've ever been my roomie, you've probably heard me talk about St. Nicholas Day. For the rest of you, let me tell you about it!

In Germany there is no Santa Claus, there is just St. Nicholas. And the whole stocking-stuffing thing doesn't exist there either. And St. Nicholas' big day is December 6, not Christmas Eve. So, on December 5th, German children are supposed to polish their shoes and set them outside the door. Overnight, St. Nicholas comes by and leaves small gifts in the shoes of the good children. The bad kids just get switches, which are left by St. Nicholas' evil sidekick whose name I forget. Switches, as in, "You're getting a beating now, kid!" not as in electric light switches.

When I lived in Germany in the late 80's and early 90's, kids liked to set out their biggest pair of shoes, namely their galoshes. (Aside: galoshes! What a fantastic word! Say it several times and just feel the goodness. Maybe say it rhythmically and do a little stomping dance to go with it.) Their parents would also sometimes leave gifts that were bigger even than their galoshes. I generally just got oranges and nuts and a Kinder egg.

This is one German tradition that my parents got right. There is another German tradition, that of the "Schultuete", that they didn't quite get right. The first day of grade one is a very very big deal in Germany. Amongst other things, kids get Schultueten, which are giant decorated cones of bristol board that tie up at the top with crepe paper. Inside is a whole bunch of candy and school supplies and little toys.

When we first moved to Germany, I was half way through grade one, and some of the little old church ladies took pity on me having missed my German Einschulung, so they made me a Schultuete in March. And they gave a mini-Schultuete to my little brother so he wouldn't feel left out. When I started grade 2, my parents gave both me and my brother small Schultueten again. And the next year. And so on. Tobin and I thought it was swell, and it never occurred to us that our parents might not have realized that the only time German kids got Schultueten was on their actual first day of grade one, and then never again. It was great.

hair stick

Today I am enjoying my hairdo. It is my favourite hairdo, and I've been doing it quite regularly for maybe 2 years now. I use a chopstick and twist my hair around it, and then stab it back into the hair twist, and it stays. (Judi, I use the chopsticks you gave me. The Sonya-like ones that kind of look like twigs at the end.)

Here's what I like about this hairdo:

1. It's unique. I don't really see anyone else with their hair like this. Sure beats a ponytail!

2. It looks good. Funky and cute but not silly.

3. It's simple. All I need is a single chopstick, no silly bobby pins or such. And it's quick.

4. Sometimes you just need to have your hair up and off your neck. The chopstick lets you do that without having a severe ballerina bun.

5. I love how I keep finding new ways to tuck my hair into it no matter how long it gets.

6. I love feeling the weight of my hair at the back of my head. You can't really feel the weight of your hair when it's down, because it's so evenly distributed. But when it's all up and twisted into a small space, you can really feel its weight. It feels neat.

7. I feel SO cool when I pull the chopstick out of my hair and it all tumbles down. Like I belong in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Or in a shampoo commercial.

christmastime is here

Yesterday Aaron spent several hours organizing all our spices. Our apartment is now an even happier place to be!

We also got out our Christmas stuff. For me, there has always been a very strong line drawn between things that are "mine" and things that are "shared". So, when I got out the Christmas ornaments, I first arranged them into the section that was ours from gifts last Christmas, and the section that was mine (which has always been mine, even separately from my family's ornaments...they have a special red box to live in). Then, I realized that is our first Christmas as married people, and that our ornaments shouldn't be separate anymore. So I very deliberately mixed the two sections together and put away my little red box, empty.

I put up my icicle decorations over our big living room window, and I put the Charlie Brown Christmas CD in the stereo. Aaron bought lots of tealights. Candles are an essential part of Christmas!

Aaron and I have also bought chocolate to put in our advent calendar. There are a few mini-Lindt balls, but mostly there are chocolate squares from all over the world that we got at a fancy chocolate shop. We haven't bought chocolate for the last 4 days yet, because we want to buy fancy kinds that do better if eaten within 10 days, so we'll buy those later. I guess this advent calendar, shaped like a tree, is going to be our replacement for a real Christmas tree. We're not getting one since we're going to Toronto for a whole week before Christmas and so that messes with the time we would have to enjoy it properly.

In other news, I saw a bus being towed by a giant towtruck today.