Nicholas & Maureen Renaud

So, um, apparently it’s December. I think I missed the memo warning that November would be flying by at lightening speed.

Because I have a bit of a busy day today, I went into my church job an hour early this morning. My eyes hurt when I got out of bed and I was a zombie on the bus ride in. It was not pretty.

But, once I got in I was a machine of productivity. I completed lots of things on my to-do list, and not only my have-to-do-right-now list, but even my have-to-do-quite-soon list! Wednesday, I’ll be ready to tackle my ought-to-do-for-the-near-future list. I was that productive.

This is terrible news. I don’t wanna be a morning person! I wanna sleep in!

This morning I got a Candy Cane Latte (tasty!) while waiting for the bus to come home from work. I don’t often get fancy drinks at Second Cup, but this morning’s purchase reminded me of something that happened not that long ago.

I was getting a Vanilla Hot Chocolate (also tasty!) and the coffee lady happily chirped, “It’s now trans-fat free, you know!” I suspected she was the owner of the shop, since the ordinary working minions don’t really offer such information. “That’s great,” I replied with a grin. “But, I do hope it’s still full of sugar!” She gave me a look that would have shot daggers and handed me my drink. I think that, as the owner, she didn’t like my being clever, my reminding her that “trans-fat free” didn’t mean her drink was good for me. But I didn’t do it on purpose. I think it’s just how we are these days.

What I mean is, these days we are people who listen to Age of Persuasion. We get our news from Jon Stewart. Our BS Detectors are set to ultra-high sensitivity and if someone tries to tell us something we know isn’t the whole truth, we notice. We look for the other side of the story and we don’t take things at face value.

I think these are good characteristics to develop in a society. We shouldn’t let the shopkeepers or politicians use smoke and mirrors to make us believe their half-truths and I think I’m glad that we’re becoming so conscious. But what does that mean? We’re so skeptical of everything, so conscious of spin coming at us from every direction, we must have lost something as a result. But, it’s now 8:30am and it’s way past my bedtime, so I just can’t put my finger on what. All this philosophizing will have to wait until my brain clears after a nap.

Although it’s sad to have to come back to real life after a couple weeks’ vacation, in ways it’s good to be home. After weeks of trying to avoid touching the carpet, shower curtain, bedspread and remote control, it’s nice to be surrounded in my own dirt again.

Why is it that I can’t just accept good things without expecting bad things to follow? Things are really going well around here and I see myself facing it all with a thankful skepticism. I mean, I’m certainly pleased at the turn of events, but how long can the good times last, really? My jobs (both) are reshuffling and it seems I’m going to come out on top once the dust settles. Nicholas and I are enjoying some free time together, even managing to take a bit of a vacation. December is coming filled with parties and visits with friends and family. Things are looking up for our future.

So why do I keep expecting a bump in the road?

That’s right, les jeunes! Montréal. Beautiful, beautiful Montréal. I’m eating a bagel right now, fresh today. And yes it’s after midnight. (Bagels: they’re not just for breakfast anymore.)

Location one:

• Buildings are grey
• Women wear sneakers with business suits
• Traffic lights have a momentary pause where all lights are red, before the next set go green.
• Pedestrians follow the lights

Location two:

• Establishments are open past 10:00pm
• Pedestrians mob together to jaywalk en masse and stop the traffic with the green light. Pedestrians ignore the persistent horn honking.
• Bagels are as sweet as doughnuts and melt in your mouth like Wonderbread.

Nicholas and I are taking a brief vacation (in Location Two, in case you didn’t guess) and are having a great time. They have cable tv here - with the Discovery channel and HGTV! Looking forward to a few more restaurant meals and some long walks in fun neighbourhoods before we head home on Thursday.

shaun of the dead

Originally uploaded by cakeyvoice

I don’t know how people get with the creativity (and the pop culture savvy) to come up with something like this. Go, visit cakeyvoice’s Knitted Minions on Flickr.

Let’s preface this story with this fact: I have a high tolerance for people that work on the telephone.

Today, I was called by a telephone survey guy who wanted to ask me about my shoe habits. It was my own fault since I sold my info to Naturalizer in exchange for a $20 coupon on my birthday. Because I have a lot of opinions on footwear, and because I was just watching Oprah, I didn’t really mind answering his questions. For a while. But when it got to be over 10 minutes of multiple choice answers my interest began to waver. I asked him how much longer it was going to be and he asked if there was a better time to call back. I said, “not really” (since I refuse to make an appointment for a telephone guy) and suggested I could still answer questions, but just had about five minutes of time left. He thanked me and then, he hung up on me.

Score one for the good guys - I out lasted a telephone surveyor!

I’m beginning to feel a deep affinity for older folks, specifically the older folks that get in a routine and stick with it. I’ve noticed that Nicholas and I have fallen into a pattern of going out for dinner on Sunday afternoons. In fact, 95% of the time, we go to Lonestar. We share an order of fajitas, I get a Corona and he gets an iced tea. (The other 5% of the time, I may get an iced tea, too.) It’s just what we do.

The thing is, it’s a good spot. It’s reliable and it’s tasty. By the time Sunday rolls around, I need something to look forward to, but don’t have a lot of extra brain power to make decisions. I want to spend time with Nicholas and I certainly don’t want to spend time in the kitchen. (By Sunday we’ve usually run out of groceries anyway.)

I’m not sure why I feel the need to justify our routine. It does seem a bit retiree to have a pattern like this. But cardigans are nice, too. And so are peppermints. And knitted slippers. Maybe older folks have it figured out.