REGULAR POSTS WILL RESUME SOME DAY.

Honest, they will. Just not soon, because I'm taking off to Toronto for a few days with the parents. So here's a catch up session, bullet-style.

• The Folks Arrived Last Thursday. Me: Are you sure you guys want to stay here? I mean, I only have one bed. Folks: No problem. We'll stop after the airport at IKEA and buy a bed. Me: (envisioning free bed) Well, all right then. And you got me a new keyboard? And... my God, is that a printer/scanner? Welcome, parents!
  
• Oktoberfest. Doesn't any young man dream of a night on the town with his parents? Seriously though, it was a lot of fun. Highlights included: the middle-aged woman who decided to sit down and start talking to us for no particular reason; watching my parents be rather uncomfortable at the second Pavillion which featured a few hundred people with an average age of around 20; and watching a traditional German dance that involved chopping wood. There's something very Canadian about drinking beer and watching people chop wood.
  
• Best Thanksgiving Ever. Man, it was awesome. Last Saturday, I went over to a friend's house, and got a full helping or two of Thanskgiving, East Coast style. Then on Sunday, it was a family dinner with the folks, all Prairie style. (I honestly didn't realise how much I missed a family thanksgiving until I had one. Thanks so much for being here, parental units.) And on Monday, it was dinner at another friend's house, Ontario vegetarian style. At the third dinner, the hostess's niece (three years old? Six? I'm no good with kids' ages) ran around in circles singing nursery rhymes at the top of your lungs. (I honestly didn't realise how much I missed having little kids around until I had one. And then I quickly realised how much I missed not having them around.) There was much food eaten. Too much, frankly. I need to either pick up my running routine immediately, or make plans to hibernate. Most important part: I HAD SIX KINDS OF PIE. (I knew exactly how much I missed having pie. And it was glorious.)
• The Play. Yesterday, my parents took me to a play. More specifically, a musical. Which thus makes it more awesome. It was A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum. It's much, much better live than it is in the movie version, Zero Mostel and Buster Keaton notwithstanding. The down part is that I chose to spend from 1:00 to 6:00 reading lit theory, and it literally gave me a migraine headache, which is not particularly conducive to play enjoyment. Oh, lit theory. Is there anything you won't ruin?

That's it for now. Any one of these items would normally be expanded into something meaningful and deep, but... well, I'm out of practice. The swing in my step is loose in the chain. There's a disturbance in the Force. I'll fix it for next week. Probably.
Later Days.