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I already know I'm not going to get much sleep tonight.  But that doesn't really seem to matter, since I am well fed and relaxed.

I had forgotten how good this feels.

I'm on a bit of a mission to reclaim my weekends.  I have two whole days every week that are purely mine... they don't belong to my employer, they don't belong to the government, they are purely and simply mine.  I realized the difference in my mental health between when I live week to week as opposed to weekend to weekend is huge.  So this weekend, after a bit of an idiotic debacle involving me leaving my credit cards and chequebook at home, I was off to Vermont to take in the fall colours.

My friend Christine and I used to teach sailing together, almost ten years ago (man, time flies).  We couldn't really be any more different (me: corporate ladder-climber, her: lives in a van down by the river), but she is a tie to an important part of my life and my identity.  Every time I see her we just slide back into the same familiar, comfortable pattern, and even though everything changes, nothing does.

Christine and her old man bought a puppy last year.  Her name is Annie.  She's a red tick coon hound.  She's a pretty rockin dog.  I have a tendency, which must be extremely annoying, whenever I meet a dog for the first time to say "hi!  Yes, you are a dog!  You are!  You are a dog!"  I don't know why.  At least I don't do it in a woodgie-doodgie voice.  Anyway, Annie's pretty great; we all made the typical mistake of thinking it's "take a load off, Annie," but turns out it's Fannie who's supposed to be taking the load off.  Who knew.  But she's Annie after six-gun Annie Oakley.  And if you ain't never seen no sharp-shootin dog, you ain't seen nothin'.

I like Christine's old man.  He's funny.  She was wondering why everyone thinks she looks Sweedish ("is it because I'm tall and blonde?").  His response was, "the only way you could look more Sweedish is if you were wearing a Viking helmet."  I don't know if that makes any sense.  But it's funny.

It was a good food weekend for me; on Friday I had a gourd (squash, I think) stuffed with gorgonzola cheese, walnuts, and apples.  It was amazing.  Saturday, we packed up Annie and headed off to pick apples.  I haven't been apple picking since I was a kid, and now I wonder what the hell it is I thought I was too cool for.  I am now the proud owner of half a bushel of apples.  Well, it was half a bushel until I made some badass mamma-jamma applesauce, which I will be eating for lunch tomorrow.

It is a little bit mind-blowing, if you take a step back, to walk around an apple orchard.  The apples fall out of the trees and line the ground under them, hundreds of apples, but people still pick them out of the trees.  Partially because it's fun.  Personally, I didn't pick any apples off the ground after I saw Annie take a piss on a particularly shiny pile.  But when you look at the number of people that are starving in this world, and then we're getting to choose between the apples on the tree and the apples on the ground... it makes me sad, and it makes me grateful.

There is a deal at this particular orchard that you can bring a pickup truck and fill the bed with "drops" for $50.  Christine immediately started plotting how she could a) get a pickup truck and b) get a cauldron.  I may be a bit of an engineer here, but the amount of coring and chopping you'd have to do to turn an entire flatbed full of apples into applesauce is pretty rediculous.  But that's what I love about Christine; she thinks it's a perfectly normal thing to do to spend $50 to get, oh, around 2000 apples, and then even more normal to make a cauldron full of applesauce.  I promised her that if she got her act together to do this, I'd come chop.
Some of the apples that fell on the ground had gotten really rotten.  I discovered that you can wing said rotten apples at other people, and they make a satisfying thwack noise, and leave a little wet spot on their back.  It's too bad I have no aim when I throw things.  There are no pictures on my flickr set from this weekend (*plug!*) of the apple fight, because I was busy throwing apples.  (That's a lie, I was busy getting hit by them.)
So, all this brings me to a question;

What's the last thing you'd expect to find in the middle of an apple orchard in Vermont?

A Japanese drum troupe, perhaps?

Well, you'd be wrong.  Because there were not only one, but three Japanese drum troupes hanging out in this orchard.  Extremely unexpected and extremely cool.  I think I need to join said troupes and will be searching out my local equivalent.
I spent Saturday night in Christine's trailer (yup, she lives in a trailer.  I will have to devote a whole entry to her sometime; it's worth it.), which was cold as shit, especially because it snowed in Vermont last night. Yes, snow.  An unheated trailer with no running water and no heat is a bit chilly when it's below freezing.  But you know what?  I feel more relaxed after freezing all my extremities off down there than I would if I had stayed here.
I drove back in the rain, through the firy fall colours this morning, and went on a shopping run.  I do have to dress respectably at this job, and I barely made it through last week, so clothes-buying was definately in order.  Not my activity of choice, but a necessary evil, I suppose.  I felt like I'd tortured myself thoroughly enough, and rewarded my efforts with dinner.  Inspired by our success with the applesauce-makin' on Saturday night, I decided to wage war on a pumpkin. I've never cooked raw pumpkin, and now I know why people don't do that very much; a raw pumpkin is a bitch to cook.  Hacking off the hard outside without destroying the inner "meaty" part is tough.  But I made a pretty money pumpkin curry, and have enough pulp left over to make two pumpkin pies (which I will do tomorrow).  The amazing part is, for all this pumpkin-y goodness, I only paid $1.99.  I do feel like I deprived some kid of a good carving pumpkin, but I'm going to have to learn to live with the guilt.  I also made some more applesauce (yes, this is the theme of the week), and my roommate and I decided on a whim to mull some wine and watch a movie.  So I'm relaxing here, feeling very civilized, and also knowing that I'm only going to get about five hours of sleep if I don't shut up and get to bed.

But, my head's right.  And that feels good.

"why cut off my nose to spite my face?"

"because fuck my nose, that's why!"

This is going to be quick, because I'm just about to head down to Vermont for the weekend.  I wouldn't be writing an entry at all, except I forgot my credit card, debit card, and chequebook at home, and can't very well have a weekend in Vermont without a cent to my name.  Curses.  Anyway, I am going to go apple-pickin' and enjoy the foliage, so HA!

I'm a little miffed because I had to be fingerprinted today... corporate security and whatnot (don't ask).  Needless to say, my weekend plans for robbing a bank are now totally shot.  I guess I'll have to learn to knit to pass the time.

Now, what am I going to do with all these blueprints?

It is an unfamiliar feeling to write in blogly from my own desk at home, with the page taking up the entire screen.  Back at the old company, I'd write my blog entries in notepad, then copy/paste them at the end of the day into blog.com, and not think about it until the next morning.  I'd read blogs and comics and drink coffee for at least the first hour of every day.  Now, I have to do this at night.  Feels foreign.  I can't believe I was able to get away with that at my other job.  I was sorting out some stuff for my health insurance and benefits today and thought to myself "should I really be doing this now?"  I'm not even doing anything yet and I'm at work for nine hour days.  It's a very different environment.
Today was my third day at New Company (sorry, Super-Duper New Company).  Getting dressed in the morning is turning out to be more of a chore than expected.  I have enough cycling clothes to wear a different outfit every day (without re-wearing) for at least a week and a half, maybe two.  But dressing for work?  I'm three days in and already wondering how I'm going to make it to Friday.  And this after what I thought was a massive shopping spree last weekend.
Maybe it's just my age, but dressing up for work is such a hassle.  I have to blow-dry my hair in the morning.  I have, quite literally, blow-dried my hair more in this week than I have in the last two years.  I bought makeup.  I've worn it.  I keep a brush in my bag and give my hair a run-through in the parking lot to make sure all's smooth.  I'm wearing shoes that you don't run in.  There is not a hood or a rip in site.  I looked in the mirror in the washroom today, and asked myself "is this really who I am?"  Faking it is OK for the moment, but I have the sneaking suspicion that I'm just having fun playing dress-up.
Anyway.  If that's my biggest problem with New Job, then I can handle it.  At least I'm not a lawyer and don't have to wear suits.  (You try fitting mountain-biker/swimmer shoulders in a freakin' suit without it being like drapery around the waist.)
Well, that's that.  I need sleep.  Maybe I'll be creative this weekend.
By the way, who's going as what for halloween?  I have a good costume idea but need to work out (or work in?) the kinks.

OK, I do not like 6:30 in the morning. I especially don't like it when my roommate won't let me turn the heat on so I wake up and it's about 5C in my room. Other than that, job is good. I got my computer at work today. My boss was so happy that it took less than two weeks that he bought the entire group coffee. That, right away, is a good sign. A very good sign. My old boss would never, ever have done that. Anyway, compy 386 (anyone get the reference?) is a sexy little laptop that is securely leashed to my desk. Ooh, computer bondage... crap, I really am an engineer. Shoot me. (I named my ipod, too. His name is Podly.)

I would love to tell you what I'm doing, but I think blogging at all about this job, even if I do it from home, is a risky activity. Plus, perpetually reading about how one's job sucks is no fun. So no joblogging. But suffice to say, so far I really like the group of people I'm working with. One of them is, completely coincidentally, a guy I've ridden with once or twice (Montreal anglo engineering is a small, small, small world). I think there's a certain amount of bitching that's going to factor into any job, but people are working hard, knowledgeable, and genuinely excited about what they're doing (just maybe not about every facet of it, but that's true with anything). It's a relief and a good change. I'm just trying to catch up... it took me two days to figure out what the hell I even do there, and I'm not 100% sure that I know now. I printed out an 8-page guide of TLA's I'll have to know. (TLA=Three Letter Acronym) Anyway, 100% improvement, so far, over former job. Of course, every silver lining has it's cloud, so we'll see.

Yesterday, in my getting-up-too-early stupor, I accidentally turned on the wrong burner on the stove. There was a cast iron pan with a pair of silicone oven mitts in it on the one I turned on. Needless to say, there was some stinky mofo smoke and the pan is now warped. Oh, and there's a pissed roommate.

My new curtains are velvet. This is fabulous, because for the first time since I moved here in July, I don't see the strip club accross the street. That's part of the reason I never really worried about getting nekkid in my apartment... there's professionals about 25 feet away.

I think I'm gon' go apple-pickin' this weekend.  Woohoo.

I'm scared.

OK?  I admitted it.  I'm scared.  In 11 hours and 37 minutes, I'll be sitting in a new employee orientation.  Then I'll meet with my boss, who I've spent a grand total of about 35 minutes with in my life.  Then I'll fill out some forms and shake some hands and make some small talk.

I suck at small talk.

But I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth, I'm going to attack this job.  It is going to be my bitch.  It's just the scary factor; that if I mess up, someone could actually die.  As in, cease to live.  Theoretically, there are layers and layers of checks everything has to go through, but if I mess something up and it hurts or kills someone, I'm not going to blame the three guys above me for not catching it.  I'm going to blame myself.  Because it will be my fault.  But that is neither here nor there, and it is what it is.

I went to that bastion of cookie-cutter individuality, Ikea, today.  I go once a year, twice max.  I was nesting... I realized that I'm going to be here for a while, so for the first time in the last year, I bought curtains.  Yes, downtown Montreal will no longer be subjected to nekkid me two or three times a day.  Sorry, stalkers.  So in my nesting flourish I have installed things, washed things, matched, and gotten excited over sheets.  I need to be cured.  I will later leave a pile of dirty laundry in the middle of the floor, just to make it feel like home again.  Terrorist Kitty of course, when my back was turned, nuzzled up on my nice new blue rug, leaving a pile of white cat hair.  Stupid cat.  Anyway, Ikea is brilliant.  I would love to see what would happen if you compared a normal Ikea to one with no arrows to point you through all the lovely little setups you can have, and none of those damn yellow bags.  If I hadn't taken the stupid yellow bag, I would be at least $80 richer.  But you grab a few $0.99 wine glasses and a new cutting board, then you see that thing you can stick in your closet to organize it and... shit.  It always happens.

Anyway, I have to finish cleaning up, as Roomie is coming home tomorrow, and likes things how she likes them.  I need to iron my shirt, move my car, and gather up some important papers.

Wish me luck.

No, really, wish me luck.

Success.  Fed: seven people.  Served: wine and cheese, pumpkin-barley soup, cucumber-peanut-coriander Thai salad thing, tofu-peanut-pimento thing from Senegal, almond cake with coffee-chocolate icing (many hyphenated dishes).  Guests: one tree-hugging environmentalist law student cycling friend, one opera-singing military man, one concierge, one socially liberal politically conservative engineer/pilot, one rugby player, one guy from Southie (who I never met before).  Cleaned by hand: seven wine glasses, seven cutlery sets, four massive pots, six large mixing bowls, seven small serving bowls, seven smaller serving bowls, seven plates, various sundry cutlery items, all surfaces in kitchen (in addition to all floors in apartment, completed before guests arrived).  Bluders: three of five guests having allergic reaction to cat, lack of matching wine glasses for all guests, lack of dessert plates.

Realized: life is good.

Following my little gathering, I cleaned.  Then, I started taking pictures of my apartment.  50 pictures later (all of them crap), I had assembled my tripod, put the wheels back on my bike, mounted it on the stand, and was trying to take artsy-fartsy pictures of it.  However, as my tripod is missing a piece (I'll be hogtied, painted green, and dancing the boogaloo if I know where it is), improvement in camera-steadiness left something to be desired, since I was just holding the camera on the flat surface of the tripod rather than actually mounting it.  Anyway, if you want to see a little bit of where I live, they be here.  This includes a picture of the terrorist kitty.