When I woke up last Monday in our bed at home, I questioned whether we had actually just returned from Cuba, or if it had all been a dream. Sadly, our vacation has come and gone, but on the plus side, we had an absolutely wonderful time!

Everything was wonderful. Before heading down, Neal and I had made the mistake of looking on Trip Advisor to read recent reviews about our resort, only to see - to our dismay - that it was suddenly getting an influx of negative reviews. Most alarming were the reports of a sewage-type smell. At first, we figured that something must have happened to the resort’s sewage line, and hoped that as there was still almost a month before we were heading down, the problem would be fixed by the time we got there. Then people started speculating that the smell might actually be from a natural gas refinery that is relatively close to the resort.

But there was really nothing to be done, and as some reviewers seemed to think the smell was creeping into the rooms through the bathroom vent, we figured that if worse came to worse, we would simply stuff some towels in the vent or something.

As it turned out, though, either it was a problem that was subsequently fixed, or the reviewers are crazy.

Similarly, EVERYONE I know who has gone down to Cuba (and loved it) warned me that the food isn’t the best there and is, in fact, quite bland. I can’t say that Neal and I were all that crazy about the breakfast selection, but we always managed to find something to eat, and lunch and supper were always good. Maybe not the best cuts of meat - but it is, after all, a buffet - but there was plenty of flavour. In fact, I really enjoyed a Cuban dish they served at lunch and supper everyday called “paelle”, which I liken to a gumbo-type dish where you throw whatever you’ve got in the fridge in. It always has rice and a sauce with spices and some kind of meat and some vegetables.

The resort was wonderful. The staff were very friendly and were very hard workers. Our room was always cleaned very well - in fact, we are only entitled to one free large bottle of water in our room. You can get as much as you want in glasses at the bars (and the water is filtered on the resorts, so it’s safe, though they don’t recommend you use the tap water in the rooms for anything other than showering and brushing your teeth), and you can buy those large bottles for two pesos. However, our cleaning lady left us a free bottle each day that she saw that ours was almost empty. I loved our cleaning lady!

The drinks were not watered down at all, the nightly entertainment was actually much better than I expected, the beach was GLORIOUS. If you need to be pampered while down south, then perhaps the Barlovento is not the best place for you. I, however, feel pampered enough by the fact that my bed was made each and every day, and I never had to clean or cook. I don’t need 24-hour room service or a butler or little chocolates left on my pillow. I much preferred our location, which was right at the beginning of the downtown strip of Varadero, unlike a lot of the more posh resorts which were way the hell out and you’d have to take a bus to come into town. Our resort was right next to a small craft market and five more minutes down the road brought you to another, larger, market. We went for a few walks, ate at a couple of small restaurants (everything is ridiculously cheap in Cuba).

Our big trip of the week was to Habana (supposedly we all spell this incorrectly when we spell it as “Havana”). We were picked up at 8:30 in the morning and only got back to the resort at two in the morning. Varadero is a little over two hours away from Habana, so we got to see a fair bit of countryside on our way.

One word of advice for any would-be travelers to Cuba: bring some toilet paper. We were fine in our room at the resort, but they did sometimes run out in the bathrooms around the resort before a cleaning person had an opportunity to replenish it, and when you leave the resort, you may have to pay for some toilet paper. Cubans get everything in rations, including toilet paper, so they are very conserve-minded. It’s just easier if you bring your own.

Another interesting tidbit: a lot of toilets off the resorts don’t have toilet seats. There was some discussion as to the proper way to use such toilets: do you squat or straddle? I chose to squat, myself, but whatever works, I guess.

Habana was awesome. The tour was a bit of a whirlwind, which was unfortunate, but when you only have a day, there’s really no way around it. We saw the Capitol building, Revolutionary Square, some old churches, the HUGE market (where the vendors are much more aggressive than those in Varadero, which is a downside, but on the plus side, they are much more willing to barter), Hemingway’s bar for writers where you can buy expensive mojitos - or you can do as we did, thanks to the advice of our tour guide, and simply take some pictures of Hemingway’s bar and then have a mojito that is just as good but half the price down the road. We were then brought to a hotel where we were given a room in which to change and freshen up (four people to a room) before having supper and then going to the Tropicana show!

It was surreal to enter the Tropicana. It’s an outdoor amphitheatre, with lush greenery and trees all around. Walking in, I could almost imagine all the big-wigs and mobsters who used to go to the Tropicana before the Cuban Revolution. The show itself was… amazing. That’s not even a powerful enough word to describe it. The music, the dancing, the costumes, the makeup… I loved the entire day in Habana, but really, I think that was the highlight of the trip.

For the rest of our time in Varadero, we managed to strike a perfect balance between lying around relaxing on the beach and sight-seeing. We took the double-decker bus all the way out to the other end of the peninsula and back to see the big posh resorts (and again, as nice as I’m sure they are, I preferred our location), we went to an ecological reserve, we saw a dolphin show where I got to pet and be kissed by a dolphin.

It was wonderful, and it went by much too quickly. Alas. And here (finally) are a bunch of pictures from our trip!

On the first leg of our trip to Cuba, from Halifax to Toronto, we got to see the sun rise.

Our hotel, the Barlovento

My sexy husband enjoying the water!

Modeling one of my new bathing suits

This picture makes me laugh whenever I see it. I really was as happy as I look!

This made me so very happy, to get towel-art! Nancy had gone to Dominican last year and was very discouraged when, regardless of tips and presents left for the cleaning lady, she didn’t get a single piece of towel art. I would have been so disappointed!

On Cuba Day, we had some entertainment at lunch time

Neal was very excited to be able to get a pina colada in a coconut!

We saw police around Varadero, but they never seemed to hassle tourists in any way. Supposedly, corruption among the police is very uncommon in Cuba

Many of the people who have cars in Cuba drive these old cars from before the Revolution.

Me at one of the Varadero markets

One day we were hot and thirsty while walking around downtown, so we stopped in at a small restaurant/bar where I had a beer and Neal had a pina colada. There was no one else sitting there when we arrived (it was fairly early, around 11 a.m.), but the band started playing for us anyway!

And some sights on the way to Habana:

View of Habana:

Capitol building

Inside the Capitol building

Statue of the Republic of Cuba

Amazing ceiling

This is found in the lobby of the Capitol building, and is considered to be the zero starting point for all of Cuba. There used to be a real diamond inside the star, but after it was stolen and then - thankfully - recovered, it was considered imprudent to leave it there. There is now a fake diamond inside the star.

Revolutionary Square (with Che Guavara in the background)

Some of the remains from the old wall that used to surround Habana

A couple of shots from the Tropicana:

And some more shots from our excursions around Varadero:

Those are Coco-cabs which tourists can hire to go around the downtown part of Varadero. They’re basically scooters with a back seat built on that’s covered by a dome-type shelter, and that’s where the passengers sit. We were running a bit late on the day we were heading to the dolphin show, so we thought we’d find out how much it would cost for the coco cab. She first quoted us 15 pesos as it’s kind of far, but we told her that as we could take the double decker bus for 5 pesos each (and that would do us all day), we’d just take our chances with time and take the bus. She then said she’d charge 12. We still didn’t budge (this wasn’t us haggling. We were really just going to take the bus). Then she said, “Okay. The bus is 10 pesos, I’m 10 pesos. So we jumped in!

I talked to some people at work who’ve gone to Cuba several times and they refuse to go in the coco cabs because, well, they probably wouldn’t pass our safety inspections here. But we couldn’t resist! Who wants to take a boring ol’ regular cab that you can take at home? It was pretty far though, so we gave her an extra peso.

The dolphin show was really amazing!

SMOOCH!

The hike through the ecological reserve was also pretty cool.

Looking inside one of the caves

In the ’80s, a burial plot was found here in this cave with remains believed to be approximately 2000 years old.

See that big dark mound in the background? That’s a termite hill. There were tons of those in the reserve, which made Neal very excited. Me? Much less impressed.

On our last night in Cuba, we went to the Mexican a-la-carte restaurant with a couple we had met at the beginning of the trip (we were on the same flight, actually) who were from Newfoundland.

And then, waiting at the Varadero airport…

… we were very sad to go!

Ahhh, vacation!!

It was one hell of a crazy week, and not only because I was about to leave for a little over a week, but thanks to some stuff that just had to get done this week. Yesterday wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I’ve learned to stop expecting that I’m going to wrap up a bunch of stuff the last day of work before vacation. It just doesn’t happen. Instead, I focused on getting a few high-priority things done, and writing up memos for the lawyer I work for on how to do a few things that I normally take care of which he may or may not tackle while I’m gone.

The day also went by relatively quickly, thanks to the busy-ness that is my work life, and I was more concerned about how slowly today would drag by, but honestly, it hasn’t been all that bad.

Last night we bought a few last-minute things we need for Cuba. We ate supper and drank beer, and I called my parents. I knew it would probably be a bad idea to call them today as I would inevitably only get to it later in the day and then talking about the trip would only get me even more hyped up than I am anyway. Neal talked to his parents after, and then we settled down to watch “Dirty Dancing”. And you know, that movie just makes me so happy. Neal hadn’t seen it in a very very very long time and didn’t really remember a whole lot about it. It’s been a few years since I’ve watched it, but I have watched it so many times that I know absolutely everything that’s going to happen. There was even one part where I chuckled before the funny thing happened, and Neal turned to me and said, “You remembered that that was going to happen, didn’t you?” Yup! Probably one of my all-time favourite movies!

We headed to bed after the movie was over, and luckily I didn’t have too much trouble falling and staying asleep. My alarm clock went off around 7 o’clock, and although I did get back into bed, I didn’t fall asleep after that. I was way too excited!

We had breakfast, I read my book and Neal read the paper for a bit, I did some laundry, we brought a couple of finicky plants over to the neighbours, all by about 10 in the morning. I headed out to an appointment - my first-ever bikini wax, and ohmygod, it hurt! (but only for a minute, so definitely bearable and certainly worth it if I’m going to be living in bathing suits for a week!) - came back home, then we headed out so that Neal could pick up a couple of t-shirts and pairs of shorts. He went through his closet this week and some of his shorts are a little too big for him and some of his t-shirts are a little ratty-looking. He’s gone back out to Wal-mart as he forgot to bring his prescription for contacts, and here I sit, typing away.

Most of our “packing” is done, which is to say that I have most of our stuff laid out on the bed in the guest room. Neal will have to add some clothes because most of what’s there is mine, and then there are just a few other little things to put out. Plus all the stuff we can’t pack until tomorrow morning or later on tonight. We’re probably going to bring three suitcases. That’s a lot, but we are bringing some regular clothes as we plan on doing some excursions, and we’re bringing down a few items to give to some locals. Plus, we don’t want to risk going over the weight limit when we come back. We’re not planning on buying a huge amount of stuff, but we’ll definitely bring back the allotted amount of rum, we might bring back a few cigars, I want to buy some jewelery down there (I hear that silver jewelery is pretty cheap in Cuba and I wouldn’t mind getting a ring), and maybe a few other things.

Other than packing, we don’t have much on the go for the rest of the day. We’ll each shower tonight, and then try to do something quiet and calm. This may involve some cognac on my part and Scotch on Neal’s - nice stiff drinks to (hopefully) help us nod off. I’d like to be in bed by 9pm at the latest. I don’t expect to be asleep by then, but I’ll read for a bit. That’s why I wanted to get up so early today. I expect to be up at 2:30 a.m. so that I have time to have my anxiety attacks without stressing about time. I might eat something small because it can sometimes help soothe my stomach. Then we’ll be off by 4 a.m. at the latest, so that we’re at the airport by 4:30 (I’d like to leave a little earlier, but we’ll see. 4:30 is probably leaving plenty of time especially since the first leg of our trip is considered to be domestic). Then our flight leaves at 6:30!!

It’s hard to believe that this time tomorrow, I’ll be in Varadero, in awe at the heat and the turquoise water and the white sand. Yippeee!

See you on the flip side!

It’s becoming more and more difficult to concentrate. A friend at work sent me a link to a website showing the weather for Varadero for the upcoming week - the week we will be there! - and I noticed that you can click on some pictures on the left-hand side (if you click on “Varadero”, not on the picture shown which can be anywhere). I went on and went through a bunch of the pictures, and honestly, I almost wanted to cry I wanted so badly to be there RIGHT.NOW.

I know that Sunday isn’t far away at all, but it feels like an eternity. I still, after all, have to get through tomorrow at work and then (ugh) Saturday. This has been the Week From Hell at work, and has seen me scrambling, working from 7:30 to 4 straight-through without an actual break at lunch, my heart pounding, getting into a worse and worse mood. I have a To-Do list of over 30 items and I have been hard-pressed to get to many of them thanks to all the other shit tasks that have come up and taken priority.

That being said, at least it keeps me busy. It doesn’t keep my mind off of Cuba - I don’t think anything could - but at least it occupies a part of my brain.

But Saturday? Oy.

I am going to get up early on Saturday - I’m thinking around 7 a.m. or so, which is an atrocious time to get up on a Saturday, in my mind - so that I can (hopefully) get some sleep (ha) before getting up in the middle of the night (say, 2:30-3 a.m.) in order to have my anxiety attack that I’m sure I will have (and it’s better if I can have the biggest part of it at home rather than en route to the airport) and get out the door so that we can be at the airport between 4 and 4:30.

My stomach is clenching even as I type this. Oh the joys of being a person prone to anxiety.

I don’t want to give the impression that I’m not looking forward to it. Because OMG, I’m so excited that I could just about jump out of my skin, but unfortunately, I get jittery whether I’m excited or anxious, and then there’s the whole changing planes in Toronto part that is of concern (we have 2 hours between flights. Which I thought was a long time. I’ve been informed it’s not, as we will have to find our luggage that was checked between Halifax and Toronto and bring it to Customs, go through the various checkpoints - someone told me that there were recently FOUR - then get to our gate before time runs out). But then, the people who gave me this wonderful news saw the panic on my face and assured me that it IS do-able; we just have to boot it and not waste time.

Honestly, I just can’t wait until I’m on the plane in Toronto heading down to Cuba. THEN I’ll be able to relax.

But I really should just focus on one day at a time. Focus on tomorrow, getting through that, and then being On Vacation!

Woo!

Back in May 2008, I took on a long commitment, and braces were glued onto my teeth. It was both a happy day because I was actually going to do something about my smile - something I never dreamed would ever happen - and daunting because I was about to have metal in my mouth for anywhere from 18 months to 2 years.

I was never one to willingly offer a wide smile for a camera, but I gave in back in May 2008 for the sake of posterity:

Before braces

And holy god, but this next one is an AWFUL picture, but again, for posterity (and only because I know it gets better):

::Cringe

And it sucked, having braces. Brushing one’s teeth and flossing was sometimes enough to make me want to cry (well, especially the flossing and especially at night right before bed), and over the course of the almost-two-years, I developed many many many calluses and canker-type sores on the inside of my mouth, I had frequent appointments that involved my teeth being pushed and prodded and listening the sound of cracking inside my head, there were times when I would go for a tightening and I therefore had to eat hash for supper because there was no way in hell I was going to be able to chew… And basically, having braces? A big ol’ pain in the ass.

But when I look at that first (and UGH that second) picture, and then look at this next one, I know that it was definitely well worth the time, pain and money:

Last week, I mentioned that I am to have my braces removed - permanently! - on the 19th. To say that I am excited, relieved, and impatient for the 19th to roll around would be putting it mildly. That being said, I was also a little concerned.

I ended up calling the orthodontist on Monday to discuss whether it was really the best time to have them removed, given that I’m going to Cuba on the 24th. I was completely honest with him, and told him that I know I won’t be very diligent with my retainer while I’m down there. Granted, yes, I haven’t had braces on my bottom teeth since before the wedding and I would therefore have to contend with a retainer for those ones anyway, but I’ll have had that retainer for almost six months by then. Generally, after six months, you only have to wear your retainer from about 8pm until about 8 a.m. the next morning.

Well, he told me that in all his years of being an orthodontist, he’s never had a patient say they wanted to keep their braces on longer. I laughed, and clarified that I don’t want to have them on longer. But being an adult and considering the fact that I have been the one paying for these straight teeth, I wouldn’t say that I am his most common type of client (this being young teenagers whose parents pay for all of this).

Much to my relief, however, he assured me that it would be fine, especially since I’m only going for a week. He told me to try to wear the retainers in the morning, and if I don’t wear them much in the afternoon/evening, then it’s no big deal. He also told me that unless I’m drinking something with red in it, I can keep the retainers in. I’m sure it would matter if I was drinking different things with the retainers all the time, but for a week? They shouldn’t stain too much, even if I’m drinking things like rum and coke. I’ll remove them when I drink my cup of tea in the morning, of course because tea stains like crazy. But I don’t drink anything with grenadine in it since I think there’s something in that that I’m allergic to, and I’d only be drinking red wine at supper (if at all; I don’t know what the red wine is like in Cuba).

Woo hoo! Back to being excited about next Tuesday!!

***

There’s a group of us who go out to lunch on the first Tuesday of every month. Some work with me, and the others are women who used to work at our firm but who have since left. We weren’t able to go last Tuesday, so we postponed it to this week, and we went to Boston Pizza in downtown Halifax.

Now, allow me to begin by saying that before Christmas, we all got together and the service at Boston Pizza seemed to be quite slow. We still managed to scarf down our food and pay our bills and get back to work on time, but still. But hey, it was just before Christmas, and it was pretty busy in there.

This Tuesday, by comparison, it was pretty quiet when we arrived, pretty much right at noon. In fact, many of the tables were empty. We were seated, ordered our food, and then waited. And waited. And waited some more. The conversation was great, but our bellies were starting to growl quite loudly, and we grew more and more impatient. We asked our waitress how our food was coming along and she said that it was close to being ready.

We waited for 40 minutes to get our food. And we all ordered from the specials menu!!

Waiting 40 minutes for lunch at a restaurant catering to downtown business people - ie, people who usually only have an hour for lunch - is ridiculous. Especially when you are not ordering something special.

By the time the food arrived, there was no way we could stay there to eat it. It’s bad enough for the rest of us, but one of the women is our receptionist, so she really needed to be back by 1pm in order to relieve the person who covers her lunch hour. So we asked the waitress to box up our food to go and to ask the manager to come out.

And then we waited and waited and waited some more for our food to be put in boxes and for the manager - who apparently was helping to box up the food - to come out.

Finally, our food came with the manager carrying out the last couple of boxes. We explained what happened and how unhappy we were, and he proceeded to argue with us. The manager!! Not once did he apologize for the delay. Rather, he informed us that we were the only table to complain.

“Well, aren’t we lucky then!” I said. I pointed to a few tables around us. “They were all here after us and they’re all happily eating!”

He continued to argue, so I interrupted and said, “Regardless, we are NOT paying for this.”

He shrugged. “That’s your choice. If that will make you happy…”

WTF?

He obviously didn’t want to tell us to take the food without charge, but knew there was no way we were going to pay for it. I clarified for him that we wouldn’t be going there again and he didn’t seem to give a shit. This guy must have next to no managerial experience.

So we took our food and didn’t pay for it. Katherine joked later that we’ll probably walk by Boston Pizza one of these days and see our pictures up on the window as former customers who are not to be allowed to be served. Well, that’s really no problem in my books.

Thankfully, this is just one Boston Pizza. The food is pretty decent, so this isn’t to say that I would never go back to any BP. Just not that one.

I’m feeling a little “off” today. Around 9:30 this morning, I was feeling kind of weird and weak, as though I needed food, but my stomach felt sort of full. I got up to make myself a cup of tea, and realized that I was a little shaky, a sure sign that I needed food (and little wonder, really, considering that I hadn’t eaten since my bowl of cereal this morning a little after 6 a.m.), so I made myself a piece of toast (with peanut butter, YUM) and got my yogurt, and that made me feel a little better. But still, my stomach feels more full than it should. Strange.

It could have something to do with the fact that I didn’t sleep very well last night. I fell asleep rather easily, but woke up a few times, which is highly unusual for me. Going to the gym tonight should be interesting!

On the plus-side though, I’m being remarkably productive today despite being tired and it being a Monday.

***

And speaking of the gym, I think my body is a little confused. Before Christmas, I was only really going to the gym twice a week, but now Neal and I are going Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays (or Sundays if Saturday is impossible), and then going for walks after supper on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I’m also pushing myself a little harder than before with both cardio and weights.

But hey - Cuba is only 13 days away!!

***

The weekend was pretty good. Considering how quiet it was, it was surprising to arrive at Monday morning so quickly! We watched “The Hangover” on Friday (pretty funny!) and “Julie & Julia” on Saturday (loved it!). A friend dropped in for a couple of hours on Friday right after we got home from work and grocery shopping, and we ran a couple of errands on Saturday. We cleaned yesterday and then I headed downstairs to write while Neal headed out to pick up a few things and then tried to fix our water cooler (successfully, I might add). We rounded it all out last night by getting lunches and clothes ironed while watching “The Simpsons”, including the anniversary episode.

(And really, none of those other animation shows are as good as “The Simpsons”. I tend to roll my eyes A LOT at “Family Guy”, and “American Dad” is just… okay)

And that is about all I’ve got. I suppose I should get back to work and being productive!

Yesterday was a crappy day. Nothing overly terrible happened, but I was scurrying around at work for the entire day, up until the last moment before I left. Things were more difficult than they should have been. To complicate matters, I also had to leave two hours earlier (though I did work through lunch because of that, so really I only lost an hour) to go to an appointment, and while it’s lovely to leave work early, it also means you have less time to complete your work.

It was, however, a worthwhile appointment as it was to go see the orthodontist. And, after 19 months, I finally have a date to have my braces taken off!!! The appointment is on January 19th at 9 a.m., and then I have an appointment with the dentist at 11:10 to get some scaling done so my teeth will be all pretty!

Anyone who has had braces will know that as far as pain is concerned, it’s not so bad once you get through that initial movement stage at the beginning. But still, it’s a hassle. Flossing, brushing around the braces, and although it’s not unbearable, there is often tenderness after you get a tighter wire put in. In fact, because of some of the final things the orthodontist wants to accomplish before the 19th, my teeth were pretty sore this morning and I had to take some ibuprofen.

I am very excited that I will not have braces on our honeymoon in Cuba! Granted, it will be a little annoying to have to pop the retainer in and out. Today’s retainers aren’t like the retainers of old where you had the plastic thingie stuck to the roof of your mouth and a wire going in front of your teeth. With those, you could probably drink whatever you wanted with the retainer in your mouth, only having to remove it to eat and brush your teeth.

Today’s retainer, on the other hand, is clear plastic, which is great because it’s not as noticeable, but unfortunately, it can also stain. So they say that if you’re drinking anything other than water, you should take it out. Given that we’ll be at an all-inclusive resort, that might be slightly problematic. I may not bother taking it out if I’m drinking a light-coloured beer, but for anything else, I will have to. But I’ll manage, even if it means I have to carry my retainer case around with me all the time, heh. Besides - although I know I’ll be drinking more alcohol than usual, I also fully intend to drink a crazy amount of water so as to keep hydrated. That’s how I’ll keep feeling all right!

Anyway, very exciting news!

I may be inviting the wrath of some moms out there who may be very quick to point out that I am not, yet, a mother. I do not, however, think that means I don’t have the right to an opinion.

I often hear, from the women at work, about how difficult it is to make lunches for their kids. I’m not going to sit here and say that my sister and I had to eat every single thing my parents put in front of us whether we loved it or hated it; we were indulged as well, but only to a certain extent. Sandwiches may not have been my favourite thing in the world, but I didn’t write them all off completely. There were certain types of meat or what-have-you that I didn’t like, but perhaps because I wasn’t overly difficult, they probably didn’t mind avoiding certain foods. I still ate sandwiches afterall!

It’s the same with vegetables. Now, my parents were lucky with me in this regard because I was never opposed to vegetables - not all of them, anyway (stew was my favourite supper). So what if I didn’t like asparagus and brussel sprouts and spinach? I ate carrots and potatoes and green or yellow beans, and so on. If there was a vegetable that wasn’t my favourite but I could tolerate it, such as carrots (which I now quite enjoy), then I would simply mash them into my potatoes to hide the taste a little bit.

The point is, other than a few choice things that we absolutely hated, my sister and I ate what was given to us. When we opened our lunch boxes, we ate what was in our lunch boxes because we were hungry (except in high school when we could buy stuff from the cafeteria, but then we were using our own allowance).

I’m not against trying to find things that your kids enjoy eating. I’m sure that dinnertime is much more enjoyable and peaceful if you don’t have to fight with them to get them to eat what’s on their plates. But to get to the point where you’re agonizing over it and ‘breaking the bank’ buying a bunch of specialty items and whatnot and spending hours making lunches instead of, y’know, spending time with your family, just seems to lead to raising a spoiled society (please, don’t send me hate-mail…).

Wow. It seems like it’s been awhile since I wrote an opinionated entry. It’s kinda fun really!

It’s hard to believe that it’s back to work for a full week tomorrow. It’s maybe not as big a deal for me as it is for Neal, given that he’s been on vacation since December 19th, whereas I worked until the 23rd, then went in for two-and-a-half days last week. Still though - five whole days! Oh well, at least there’s Cuba to look forward to!

The forecast snowstorm that hit the east coast was only supposed to start yesterday afternoon, but it started way early, on Friday afternoon. Neal decided to come with Nancy and I to see “New Moon”, so we just picked Nancy up and drove her home after. It was pretty good - truth be told, I probably wouldn’t have bothered to go see it in the theatre if Nancy hadn’t mentioned that she really wanted to see it, but it was fun to go to the movies; it’s not something we do very often.

There was quite a bit down when we drove home, and when I got up early on Saturday morning to go the washroom, I peeked outside and saw that it was still snowing away. It later changed to a rain/snow mix, then back to snow while we were at the gym in the afternoon. The wind really picked up last night, making it that much nicer to be inside. Thankfully, the snow had stopped overnight - I think we’ve had enough for now!

***

Last night, we watched “Inglourious basterds” (just in case, I do want to clarify that that’s their spelling, not mine!), and I’ve realized that I’m just not a Tarantino fan. To his credit, he has made some of my favourite episodes of TV shows when he’s allowed to direct (CSI and Alias come to mind), but his movies? Just not my thing. “Pulp Fiction” was all right, and I did like “True Romance” (though he wrote that, but didn’t direct it), but I hated “Jackie Brown” and I’ve had no interest at all in seeing any of the “Kill Bill” movies and definitely not those other crazy “Grindhouse” movies. Violence in movies doesn’t bother me, but pointless, purely gratuitous violence just irritates me. After having heard possibly too much hype, I also wasn’t terribly impressed by “Reservoir Dogs”.

“Inglourious basterds” wasn’t really all THAT violent, by Tarantino standards, anyway. But it was really slow and the characters seemed very one-dimensional. I thought I kind of liked one character, but when that character died, I realized that I didn’t care all that much (MAN, that sounds heartless!).

So. Not the worst movie I’ve ever seen, and I was curious about it, but let’s just say that I’m looking forward to next Friday when we rent “The Hangover”!

***

That’s about all I’ve got, I’m afraid. I’m off to make meatloaf for supper!

It was a very quiet New Year’s Eve indeed, which was precisely what I needed! We had thought about popping over to our neighbours’ place, or seeing if they wanted to come over to our house for a bit, but when we called, there was no answer, so we figure they went somewhere.

In the early part of the evening, the fire was going and while Neal did… something (read the paper perhaps?), I sat down in the rec room and read for a good long while. Once we realized that we probably were not going to be hanging out with Brad and Nina, we decided to watch “Boondock Saints”. I had never seen it, and Neal had watched it years ago but didn’t remember everything about it. Walmart had a big Boxing Day sale on Blu-rays, so that was one of the movies we bought (along with “Dirty Dancing”!!).

I wasn’t sure what I would think of the movie, because I’m not always a big fan of that type of film, but it was really quite good and entertaining. It was over a little after 11, so we had time to flip over to the local TV station to watch some of the live entertainment taking place in Parade Square downtown (and watch all the crazies that pile in there to watch an outdoor concert in December). We watched the countdown, watched some of the fireworks going on in Cole Harbour - and which we could watch from the comfort and warmth of our living room - and then headed to bed.

Neal got up a little before 7 this morning because he had to set up the P.A. system for the mayor’s levee. As I am not a fan of Peter Kelly (our mayor, unfortunately), I opted not to get out of bed to go to the event, but rather to roll over and go back to sleep after Neal left.

I got up around 9:30, had a quick breakfast, read on the couch while I finished my tea, then went down to start a fire. At first, I wasn’t even sure I’d get it started. I’ve been pretty lucky so far this year, being able to get it started quickly, but it was being stubborn today, probably thanks to the cloud cover. After much muttering and poking around though, I managed to get ‘er going and she’s been going strong ever since. On the plus-side, the struggle makes me feel a sense of accomplishment once it does get going! And it is so worth it, to have that wonderful wood heat.

In the meantime, the phone rang. “Can I speak to Leading Seaman Guthrie?”

“Oh, he’s working, setting up the P.A. system for the mayor’s levee. Is this ‘the floor’?” (ie, the place where a bunch of equipment is kept).

“Yes”

Well, I knew then that Neal wouldn’t be home anytime soon, as he is the guy on call for a couple of days. The guy on the phone didn’t seem to have the duty cell phone number, and neither do I, as it’s not supposed to be used for personal use, but luckily, the guy told me that Neal had just walked in to check on things. Awhile later, Neal called to say that he didn’t know how long he’d be, but would call me with an update a little later.

With the house quiet around me, the cats napping somewhere, and the fire crackling merrily away, I went into the office (or The Writing Room, as I like to call it) and worked on my book for awhile. I have to say that it’s kinda nice to have a day, now and then, when nothing is open so you can’t do any errands, and you can just take it easy.

Luckily, Neal and the other guys were able to fix the problem and he was home by noon or 1. I washed the floors, we ate lunch, then I did the dishes while Neal had a short nap.

Soon we’ll be having a quick supper and then Neal is going to drive me over to Nancy’s so that she and I can go to see “New Moon”! She’s just recently gotten into the books, and she mentioned the other day that she really wanted to see “New Moon” but everyone she knew who wanted to see already had, and I told her that I hadn’t seen it yet. So, a little girl’s night (or evening)!

All in all, it’s been a very good day (more so for me than for Neal, I guess), and the best part of it is that it’s still only Friday!