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.

Turkey Day

I noticed a lot of families out and about today while I was on my run. Granted, much of this presence can be chalked up to ________ finally being in the middle of the warm stretch, and people are out enjoying a nice, warm Sunday afternoon at the park. But I'd also attribute the family frequency to it being Thanksgiving weekend--and more to the point, I was in the mood to notice family more because it was Thanksgiving weekend.
Holidays in general aren't a huge thing in my family, especially Thanksgiving. A big part of Thanksgiving is the big meal: turkey and cranberries and pumpkin pie and such. Given that in my immediate family of five, we have one vegetarian (me) and one who abstains from a lot more than just meat (don't ask), the traditional meal is often waived in favor of ordering pizza, especially if my folks aren't around. I can even remember more than one Thanksgiving where I opted to do a solo option. But there was always the CHOICE of being able to participate in a big family thing, and I kind of miss that. A little. Just a little. Shut up.
Anyway, that was why I so glad for the chance to participate in a fairly impromptu pot-luck supper with other grad students this weekend. While I haven't been a complete recluse, my grad student interaction has not been breaking any records, so the chance to get to know some of them a little better was nice. Also nice was just being with a group of people on Thanksgiving--or close enough to it for spitting (I can't imagine why this phrase isn't more popular).
The food was great; with the exception of my own contribution, which consisted of dinner buns and a tossed salad (very well tossed; your view on cooking changes considerably when you realise that whatever you make must be able to withstand the rigour of a 6 k bike ride). Sadly, my contributions were largely ignored. Isn't it funny that that's what one notices on these occasions? I mean, I got a chance to speak to my contemporaries without making an ass out of myself (or so I surmise), and yet what really sticks with me the next day is how many dinner buns I've got left. (And I want to make it clear that I don't mean to make any attendees of the event uncomfortable; the issue here is probing into my reaction, not a hard-hitting expose on why tossed salad is on the decline.) I'm going to chalk this one up to perverse human nature. Or maybe just my perverse nature.
Anyway, it was an evening of good conversation, good company, and the consumption of more food than was really good for me. And really, isn't that all anyone can ask of a holiday?

Later Days.