Final Report on 31 in 31

For a couple of years now, I've been taking my friend Tasha's lead and making an "X in X" list instead of New Year's resolutions. She started it with her 30th birthday, intending to do 30 things in her 30th year, and I liked the idea. To be fair, I like making these lists far more than I like facing them at the end of the year and seeing how much (or how little) of them I actually got done. But I know I'll get grief from a couple of friends if I don't review last year's list, so here goes.

What I achieved:

1. Bake a cake completely from scratch. (Note to self: ask Sarah for pointers!)

I've done this a couple of times now, starting with my red blood cell cake, and it wasn't nearly as hard as I expected it to be. I'm not yet convinced the result is worth the extra effort compared to the average box cake, but I've only tried one recipe so far and I'm willing to agree that some scratch cakes are better. The frosting was definitely better than the stuff in the plastic tub, though, and I feel like I've started down a scratch-frosting path and I can never turn back.

2. Update my phone and address book, transfer to memory of home phone and cell phone. I'm tired of having to search my Gmail archives to find someone's most recent address or phone number.

I did one better and got myself one of them newfangled smarty phones (I can hear at least three people shouting "FINALLY!!!") so I can get at my Gmail archives anytime I please. I spent the first hours with my new phone getting everyone programmed into the address book, so can we all please stop moving and changing phone numbers?

3. Blog regularly.

I don't think I've missed a week all year. I'm getting better at this! My Ornament Advent Calendar ended this year with a bunch of great posts, and I think I've got some momentum built up to get me over the holiday slump and into the new year.

4. Email (and call) my friends more.

I've kept in closer touch with my family and friends this year, although I still feel like I could do better. My new phone helps, since some people are so technologically advanced that they've evolved beyond speech and are now only able to communicate via text message.

5. Take a class. Any class.

I took a writing class! It wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but I got some writing practice and learned to take (and dish out) constructive criticism. I'm very interested in joining a local writing group now, to try and keep myself in line.

6. See the stars from the cruise ship.

Learned: There are a lot of lights on a cruise ship. I saw some stars, but it wasn't a glorious vista of astronomical wonder or anything. I did have a fabulous time on the cruise, though, and got to pet dolphins and shake Wil Wheaton's hand. (How to tell them apart: Wil walks on legs and is better at karaoke, the dolphin swims a lot and is better at flips and shit.)

7. Organize all my printed and photocopied recipes.

I can't believe I actually got this one completed, but I did. I received a pretty recipe binder for Christmas last year, and after staring at it for months, I finally decided to spend one rainy weekend afternoon on the family room floor, mercilessly culling my stacks of clipped magazine recipes. The best ones are all sorted by recipe type and protected in plastic sleeves in the binder now.

8. Make cookies that aren't for Christmas.

I made Easter-themed sugar cookies to share at work.

9. Impress them at my new job and get a good review and/or raise.

Three for three on this one! Go me!

10. Paint living and dining rooms.

And get new hardwood floors installed. And some new carpeting. And rip up nasty basement carpeting with my bare hands. And a zillion other home improvements. We've been busting our butts getting this place in shape and it's finally starting to show.

11. Get my sewing machine out of the box, plug it in, and stitch something. Anything.

I used my sewing machine to make a special Christmas present for a friend. More on that in a later post.

12. Read 50 books.

I don't think I quite got to 50 unless I count the audiobooks, but after much soul-searching I've decided that they count. I'm learning from them and enjoying them, and they make my commute tolerable.

13. Take my vitamins.

I finally caved and bought a little pill reminder box to help me out. I'm old now. Bifocals are coming, I just know it.

What I kinda almost accomplished:

14. Participate in Thing-a-Day. It'll be incomplete because of the February cruise, but that's ok.

I did make some things, but I find that I don't enjoy creativity under pressure. Instead, I participated in a couple of other challenges this year and had a blast with them. I played along with Marian Call's European Adventure Quest game to celebrate the release of her new album, and I had my own little December writing challenge. Those were tons of fun and I will seek out other writing-related challenges for next year.

15. Stay hydrated.

I was doing really well until about October and then I stopped trying.

16. Get us off mailing lists and reduce junk mail.

I did try to get this done. I filled out forms and canceled a bunch of subscriptions, but we're still getting a ton of junk going straight from mailbox to recycling bin. There are places online that offer to stop your junk mail for a small fee but I'm not falling for that.

17. Work on embroidery to figure out if I like it.

I don't think I like it yet. I also branched out and got a crochet lesson from someone at work, but I'm not convinced I'm the crafty type. I have a hard time just making something without a reason. With writing, I can create a thing, people can read it, and we're done. I'm not making a doily or tea cozy or bird feeder that I'm going to give to someone who will then have to decide whether to bring the damn thing out from hiding when I visit, or trash it and lie to me about how the dog ate it.

18. Try a CSA again. Research it better, get recommendations.

While I really want to broaden my vegetable horizons and support local farms, I can't quite get my husband on board to try again after our first disastrous CSA experience. Eating new kinds of veggies is enough of a challenge without them being bruised to hell and coated in a wiggling carpet of aphids. I visited the farmer's market often this year and got my veggie fix that way instead. Bonus: I discovered purple potatoes.

Complete misses:

19. Bake Pioneer Woman's famous cinnamon rolls.

I've got tentative plans to tackle the cinnamon rolls in January with my sister-in-law. Cinnamon rolls are an all-day commitment, and we weren't able to squeeze a baking day into the busy Christmas season.

20. Grow food - more than tomatoes and herbs. Maybe peppers?

We're working on a total backyard overhaul, so I avoided any big gardening projects this year. I could have tried some container gardening, but with the squirrels and rabbits we have in the yard, I'd have needed barbed wire and an armed guard to keep my beans and peppers from getting eaten. The plans for the new landscaping include a space for a raised bed, so I'm optimistic that someday I'll have something to work with.

21. Put together an emergency kit for the car.

I completely forgot this was on my list. Maybe next year's list will include "print out the list", or "actually check the list sometimes".

22. Read Darwin's Origin of Species.

It's pretty heavy reading - have you ever had a look at that thing? I'll get to it... someday...

23. Make a birthday list so I stop relying on Facebook to tell me.

Facebook ain't broke, so I'm not sure why I felt the need to fix this one.

24. Set up a safe deposit box for our important papers.

I forgot about this one too.

25. Try curling. Yes, the sport. Yes, it IS a sport.

I haven't been able to convince anyone to come with me for a beginner's lesson, and I'm too chicken to go alone.

26. See the National Christmas Tree in DC. I've wanted to since I got here and haven't managed yet.

Things were hectic this year around the holidays. Not a good excuse, I know, but it just didn't work out.

27. Make bagels from scratch.

I brought home enough bagels from Montreal that I really had no need!

28. Lose some weight.

29. Wear moisturizer.

I fail so consistently at these that they are hereby banished from all my resolution lists forever. I'm tired of them making me look bad.

As for the two I decided not to share on the official public list, one worked out and one didn't.

I haven't decided yet about posting a list for next year. I feel like it might help me to have a list of small goals to work towards, but it might also give me more to feel bad about if I don't do enough. What do you think?

2012 Review

The year is ending.

I think it's probably more useful, around New Year's Day, to reflect on the year that's leaving us, instead of making lists of resolutions to burden the new year with expectations before it's even begun. Maybe with the perspective gained from examining the good and the bad of the old year, we can approach the new year more constructively.

There was good this year. Much of it came out of my own efforts and decisions, and I can point to many of the joys of the year with a sense of accomplishment.

This year, I settled in at a new job where I never have to work on holidays, never have to skip lunch because I'm too busy to eat, and never have anyone yelling at me to work faster. I sometimes worry that the change was good for my blood pressure, but bad for my brain, who's going soft without all that pressure to think fast and solve problems before someone dies. Everyone assures me I'll soon have some opportunity to grow in the new place, and I look forward to starting that growth. I still miss parts of the hospital world. I can't say I'll never go back to the craziness, but for now I'm comfortable where I am.

This year, my husband and I went on a cruise so incredible that we're going to do it again. We visited tropical islands and got sunburned and ate fancy cruise food. We got to touch dolphins and witness some of the best karaoke of all time. We had so much fun and met so many wonderful people and we've stayed in touch with many of them. I'm getting better at this "social" thing. Slowly.

We made tons of progress on the house. Paint, wiring, electrical and plumbing repairs, ripping out and replacing floors... we've been really busy. Of course, as it always goes with houses, we're nowhere near done and new problems keep popping up as we fix others, but it's more "our home" every day and we love it.

I've written more than ever this year, dedicating more time to my blog and to commenting on the work of other talented bloggers. I took a writing class, getting over some of my fears of meeting new people and sharing my work in public, opening myself up to criticism. I've gotten involved with Twitter and started following and interacting with some fascinating people, who may talk me into joining writing groups who can help me improve at what I love.

I tried new recipes. I finally took my sewing machine out of the box and made something. I played with glass. I visited home and saw my brother's new place, and I spent a week in the Outer Banks soaking up the sun (and the rain). I got a smart phone. I lived through another hurricane.

I need to be honest with you. I had a very hard time being objective this week when I looked back at 2012. While I could find plenty of good in it to celebrate, it was also a very painful and difficult year for me. As the year ends, I find myself hurting, frustrated, and angry. There have been many tears.

When I examine my pain, though, I realize that everything that hurt me this year was outside of my control. I didn't fail. I can't look back and say that I didn't try hard enough, wasn't strong enough. That's difficult for me to accept - when you're brought up in an atmosphere where you're reminded daily that you can achieve anything you want if only you try hard enough, it's hard not to feel guilty as you face your failures.

Life isn't fair. But life isn't unfair, either. Life just is. Life is happening and you're caught up in it and sometimes bad people win the lottery and good people get cancer. That's very hard for me to come to terms with; just ask my therapist. The little girl inside me with a cape and a strong sense of justice is stamping her feet and yelling that it's just not right, but my task over the next year will be to try and explain to her that the world doesn't work that way. She'll be really mad about it, and she won't want to believe me, but there are some things that even the most super of superheroes just don't get to have control over, and that's important to understand. Of course, giving up any sense of control over anything that happens is equally disappointing, so hiding under the covers and giving up isn't the answer either. Somewhere between dark fatalism and sparkly idealism is the world of rationality and acceptance. I'll get there.

Merry Christmas To All

Merry Christmas, everyone.

I hope you've enjoyed a breakfast with your loved ones and shared some smiles and hugs beside the tree as everyone unwrapped their lovingly-chosen gifts.

As with a traditional chocolate-filled Advent calendar, the doors to all my daily ornament stories were opened by Christmas Eve. I hope that some of my stories made you smile, because I had fun writing them. I got a lot of writing practice done, and I'm pretty proud of myself for getting through 25 straight days of posts. I think I'll take a few days off now to think up some new stories and thoughts to share, and to stretch my wrists and fight off the carpal tunnel issues that are surely settling in.

Here's a list of the ornament stories, in case you missed any:

December Blog Project

1. The advantage of sensible shoes
2. It's not real, but it's spectacular
3. Bonjour, hi.
4. Night Owl
5. The Best Game you Can Name
6. The Chocolate Moose
7. Interdit
8. Reindeer Prints
9. She said Duh!!
10. Unphotographed Memories
11. Yes, Virginia, this is a honeymoon
12. Chocolate Raspberry is a Gateway Coffee
13. The Christmas Pageant Where I Was A Beet
14. Mononuclear summer
15. Fighting for the Top Spot
16. The hills are alive with Mozart
17. Cruisin' on down to Awesomeville
18. Ring in the Season
19. Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves
20. WYSIWYG
21. (Guest post) It’s Kind of Like They’re the Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsen of Christmas Ornaments
22. Plate it Out
23. Home
24. Not Pony Tails or Cotton Tails But Duck Tales (woo-oo) 

A final thought to leave you with, courtesy of Dr. Seuss:

Christmas Day is in our grasp
So long as we have hands to grasp.

Christmas Day will always be
Just as long as we have we.

Welcome Christmas while we stand
Heart to heart and hand in hand.

Not Pony Tails or Cotton Tails But Duck Tales (woo-oo)

This is the 24th of my "Advent Calendar" Christmas ornament posts. For some background information about this project and why I'm challenging myself to complete it, see here. Note: it's entirely possible some of these memories are inexact, but I'm sticking with them anyway.

Ducks are sleek and stately birds until they pop their heads under the surface to look for bugs. That's when they tip ass-over-teakettle and wave their ridiculous little tails at you. It's impossible to take a duck completely seriously, and I think that's probably the moral of my life story.

How can you take this seriously? You just can't.

Dave and I had one of those silly "OMG, no way" moments between us when we were first dating, when I discovered that his most beloved childhood toy was a stuffed Donald Duck. In what I thought was a world-stopping coincidence, "duck" had been my very first word, recorded for posterity in my baby book alongside a height and weight chart and a delicate curl from my first haircut. My grandmother, who lived next door to me when I was a baby, owned two geranium-filled plastic garden planters shaped like swans. Being a baby, I wasn't familiar with the phenotypic variations between species of waterfowl, so I excitedly petted them and called them ducks. 

Obviously, fate saw these two duck-admiring children and felt it right to bring them together. Luckily, we had more in common than an appreciation for aquatic birds, and we ended up married and living happily ever after, as you do.

In our home, the duck invasion has been a slow and insidious one. There's the big canvas print of an irritated Donald Duck placed where it can welcome visitors to our home. There's the brown ceramic duck-shaped dish I found for Dave to put his wedding ring in at night. There's the plush robotic Easter Bunny Donald Duck my Grandmaman sent us - he waddles in a circle quacking Polly-Wally-Doodle until you pick him up by his ears and he hollers at you in a true Donald meltdown. There's the duck-shaped teapot Mom gave us as a housewarming gift. There are the drawer pulls Dave chose for the dresser in our bedroom, with majestic mallards on them. There are the happy yellow bride-and-groom rubber duckies who sat atop our wedding cake.

I realize that we're absolutely doomed once we have kids. It doesn't matter if we want the nursery to be decorated with dinosaurs or teddy bears or classic 80s music videos. We're going to get ducks. So many ducks.

But I'm okay with that. There's an expression "Like a duck: calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath." Dave is the duck above the surface, calm and relaxed and with water flowing off his back like there's nothing in the world that can bother him. Meanwhile, I'm paddling like mad and never feeling like I'm out of danger, never getting enough done. I think people who know us see instinctively that if you put the two of us together, you've got yourself a damn fine duck.

Home

This is the 23rd of my "Advent Calendar" Christmas ornament posts. For some background information about this project and why I'm challenging myself to complete it, see here. Note: it's entirely possible some of these memories are inexact, but I'm sticking with them anyway.

I was addressing my Christmas cards last week and noticed how many addresses I've had to cross out as friends and family pack up and move to new places. For some who moved almost annually, I started writing in pencil, because I was running out of space on the page for new addresses. I've had eight addresses myself, but I hope that the current one is permanent enough to be safely written in ink.

The Little House

I grew up next door to my grandmother's house, in a tiny red house with a wide porch and a big yard. There was a birch tree that made me sneeze, and a tamarack tree so tall I had to lie down on the ground to see the very top without hurting my neck. We played outside a lot, even if "playing" meant lying on a blanket with a coloring book in the backyard. There was a path to my grandmother's house, through the cedar hedge, and we could run over for a visit anytime.

The Big House

We moved to a different city, twenty minutes away, when I left elementary school. It was a split-level style, with a garage, and a huge backyard for Dad to mow and Mom to plant gardens in. We got our own rooms - mine was gigantic - and there were two living rooms to watch TV in. It seemed like a perfect house, but at the end, there was anger, contempt, and bitterness in that home. Parents on the brink of divorce, and teenage kids feeling the pressure and acting out in different ways. My parents eventually split up and we had to leave the big house. I don't remember very much about the big house, now.

The Loud Apartment

Dad went to live with his mother for a while during and after the divorce. Mom found us an apartment and we all squeezed in. My sister moved out, and then back in when things didn't work out with her roommates. It was a second-floor apartment on a busy street, and the downstairs neighbors hated us. They screamed at us through our floor, banging brooms against their ceilings, threatening us with bodily harm if we didn't shut up. We were quiet, so I don't understand why they were always so angry with us. I think it may have been because we spoke English. The place wasn't really big enough for us all, and my sister was sleeping in the living room. I was going to McGill by then, and I decided to give everyone more space by moving in with Dad for a while, until I could get my own place.

Dad's place

But Dad didn't have his own place. He was still with his mom, my grandmother, while he looked for a suitable condo. I got one of the upstairs bedrooms and stayed a few months, but everyone's personalities clashed and I just couldn't stay. I found myself welcomed back to the Loud Apartment, and sleeping in the living room.

The Nice Apartment

Mom left the Loud Apartment as soon as she was able to. It wasn't a healthy place to live. She found a wonderful third-floor walk-up on a quiet street, a block away from a bus stop and a grocery store. We had a parking space and a square of backyard big enough for a patio set and a garden. We had big windows with wide sills for the cat to sit on and pretty views of winter sunrises through the trees. The neighbors mostly minded their own business. My brother and I each had a room, and my sister had moved out again, so we had enough space to breathe. Unfortunately, there was only one bathroom, which is why I still ask my husband if he needs to pee before I go shower, even though we have five bathrooms in our current place. Habits die hard. We were happier in that apartment. Mom redid the kitchen, put up flower boxes on the balconies. She's still in that kitchen or on those balconies with her coffee every morning. This is the place that's brightest in my memory.

My First Apartment

When I moved to Maryland, I didn't do it the easy way by moving in with my boyfriend. I wanted my own place, to prove that I could do it. I got an apartment near the hospital I'd be working at, and adopted a cat so I could blame the strange night noises on his prowling. I felt safe enough there, despite the loud foreign-language fights in the parking lot at night and the time a drunk guy banged on my door asking to be let in, because he thought it was his friend's apartment one building over. There was a solid deadbolt on the door, and I had a vicious attack kitten to protect me. I set up cable and internet. I paid bills. I did groceries and cooked for myself every night. I dragged laundry down three flights of stairs to the dark laundry room and fought with the coin slots. I did very well there on my own, but I was lonely between my boyfriend's weekend visits.

The Townhouse

I moved in with Dave when my lease expired, and I loved his townhouse. Sure, it was always freezing cold or burning hot in the bedroom, because of a high ceiling and terrible insulation, but we were happy there together. Parking was a creative endeavour because of how few spots were available and how many were taken up by assholes who had driveways and garages they didn't feel like using. We were always either tripping over the three cats or pinned under them on the couch. I tried to girl the place up by planting lavender outside and it grew to monstrous proportions, crowding the walkway with bee-covered purple stems. I attempted to cut and dry some in the oven... lavender is thus now forbidden from all gardens, all soaps, all candles, and pretty much everything that comes into or near our home for the rest of eternity.

Our Home

We chose this house, together, for our forever home. It's too big, and it's too old, and it needs too much work, but we love it. I joke that it's made of bathrooms and built-in bookshelves, with some bedrooms and stuff thrown in. We've been here almost three years now and we've made incredible progress making it into the home we want it to be. The mint green and burgundy paint is gone. The jungle in the backyard is under control and the sick trees were cut down. The silver wallpaper is gone, and the stained blue carpet is now beautiful hardwood. It's familiar now, and comfortable. It feels like us. It smells like us. It's home.

Plate it out

This is the 22nd of my "Advent Calendar" Christmas ornament posts. For some background information about this project and why I'm challenging myself to complete it, see here.

This week, I got a brand new ornament for my tree. My friend Natasha, who sent it, also contributed a great guest post for my blog, explaining why she bought it for me. When she saw it, she was reminded of me, and of microbiology, and thought it would be a nice way to connect us across a distance. I am very touched by the gesture.

But... it's wrong.

Not that Natasha chose badly, of course. I love it for what it is and what it represents. But the pattern on the petri dish, as pretty as it is, would flunk that artist right out of med tech school.

Microbiology is different from some of the other laboratory sciences, because it's about identification more than about quantitation. When you get a blood test done, you're getting a count of types of cells, or a measurement of the concentration of cholesterol or iron you've got in your body. With microbiology, it's a murder mystery, a whodunit. The aim of the game is to label the bug that's giving you trouble, so the doctor can deal with it properly.

I'll get into the details in a later post (I promise) but you should know that when bacteria are put onto tasty food like what's in a petri dish, they grow like crazy. Each individual cell stays in one spot and divides like mad, making a little spot. When you have a ton of bacteria, the spots smush together into a smear of goo. To identify the bug, we need a pure colony. Which means a spot that was made by one original bug, isolated from all the rest. We need to spread out the specimen so thin that we're planting single bugs at a time. That's not easy.

We use a technique of "streaking" across the quadrants of the plate. 

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

The idea is to smear a little bit of specimen on the plate, then use a new, sterilized tool to drag a tiny amount of it over to the next quadrant. By the end, you're dragging thinner and thinner concentrations of bacteria across the plate, and you'll get isolated colonies that you can then run tests on.

So, while the ornament gets the gist of it, I suspect it was created by an artist who was inspired by the beauty of microbiology, rather than a microbiologist who was moved to create art. Watercolor isn't the best way to go if you're trying to recreate the streaking pattern. A thick paint, dragged across the page like you'd do with the bacteria, would probably be more accurate.

But that doesn't mean I love it any less.

It’s Kind of Like They’re the Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsen of Christmas Ornaments

Note: Because I skipped a day of the Ornament Advent Calendar, and because I received a beautiful new ornament as a Christmas gift this week, I am doubling up on today's posts with the help of my good friend Natasha. She wanted to write a piece about the ornament she sent me, to explain the motives behind her choice. Here is her guest post. I'm going to call it post #21. My post about the ornament will be up later today, and will be #22.

Ornaments! Left: Natasha Right: Jen

You know what I mean. Fraternal twins that look so much alike you wonder if they’re identical. But if you look hard enough, you can see the differences.

Admittedly, our ornaments are more obviously different than some of those twins. Jen’s ornament is dark blue on dark blue. My ornament is dark blue on light blue. Totally different.

The pattern on the ornaments is the same though, and that’s most of what matters here. For most people, this pattern is just some strange streaks down the left side. However, once I laid eyes on it, I knew Jen had to have it for the pattern. And so did I.

See, that pattern is actually what makes these ornaments perfect. They’re little watercolors in petri dishes, so they’re already “sciencey” looking. But that pattern is a painting of how microbiologists isolate bacterial colonies. To isolate a single bacterial strain (thus, genetically identical), microbiologists or lab techs (HI JEN!) or students or whomever starts by streaking a big ol’ mess of bacteria from an old plate to a new one. Then, they sterilize their streaking implement (usually a metal tool called a loop) and draw a line through the heavy streak, and streak again a bit more wide-spread. Once you repeat that twice more, the last streak should result in not lines of colonies grown together, but isolated colonies that each resulted from a single bacterium. (Wikipedia has a great image. And about.com has a very clear write-up, if you want more details.)

I had to get this for Jen because she’s undoubtedly done this a million times. (I’ve probably only done this a half million or so.) Because she’s a total science geek, just like me. Because it’s beautiful in it’s own right, but there’s like a little secret hidden in the art if you’ve been there.

Because we have a similar background with a lot of shared experiences, and I realized this could give us a tangible link to those shared experiences that we mutually geek out about regularly.

I hope she takes it on that cruise she’s always talking about and shows it off.

Natasha and I are long-time Internet buddies. We try to get together in reality sometimes, but we live far apart. Still, we talk a ton online, and I think we get along so well because we both like to geek out over stuff in our own ways. She runs a blog of her own, MetaCookbook, where she discusses food, science, and beer, and treats her readers to some fascinating blather along the way. I encourage you to check out her stuff. She's not a recipe blogger, and she's not a rabid granola foodie. She's just someone who loves food, from growing it to eating it to the communities it can build. She's funny and smart and real and I get mad at her when she leaves the blog un-updated for more than a week. That should be enough information to get you over there for a look! 

- Jen

WYSIWYG

This is the 20th of my "Advent Calendar" Christmas ornament posts. For some background information about this project and why I'm challenging myself to complete it, see here. Note: it's entirely possible some of these memories are inexact, but I'm sticking with them anyway.

 

 

There's no mistaking the kind of man you're getting when he arrives to pick you up for your first date, your first face-to-face meeting, wearing cargo shorts, hiking boots and a classic Mickey Mouse T-shirt.

Dave didn't seem at all nervous that day, as I walked out to his car and he said hi to me for the first time. How could he be so sure that everything was going to go well once we left the house and drove off? Sure, we'd been talking online almost every night for months, and it felt like we already knew each other, but with an international border between us it was hard to know what kind of chemistry would happen between us in person.

The original plan was for him to come to the Jazz Festival Montreal in July with his brother, and we would meet on my turf and get to know each other. But as the weeks passed, I found I couldn't wait that long. I booked a flight and got myself to Maryland, and the rest is pretty much history. Turns out our chemistry was excellent.

He took me to see the Marines Silent Drill Platoon in DC, and when the marching band began to play, he sang along with the tuba part - boomph, boomph, boomph. I laughed. It was silly, and I thought it was adorable. I knew for sure then that he was being himself, completely and honestly, and not putting on any sort of persona to try and impress me. What I saw was what I'd get, no plays, no games, no tactics. Because really, who would set up a play using the tuba impression? Not this guy.

I've often told people that the tuba moment is when I knew I had to keep him. That's probably not completely true - I don't know exactly when I knew. Maybe it was when we were ignoring the crowds and focusing more on our conversation than on the fish at the Baltimore aquarium. Maybe it was when Animal surprised Dave by settling in my lap and giving his purring approval. Maybe it was when we stayed up all night watching Fawlty Towers. Maybe it was when I said goodbye at the airport that weekend, and cried the whole way to my gate and half the flight home.

I'm just glad he knew he had to keep me too.

Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves

This is the 19th of my "Advent Calendar" Christmas ornament posts. For some background information about this project and why I'm challenging myself to complete it, see here. Note: it's entirely possible some of these memories are inexact, but I'm sticking with them anyway.

They call it the Sea-to-Sky Highway for a reason. You can watch the tides come in along the Stanley Park Seawall while sipping your morning Starbucks, then get in your car and be skidding through snow in Whistler by lunchtime. It took that drive, that two-hour trip from the sea to the sky, for me to finally understand why my sister loves Vancouver.

She moved west a year before I moved south, and it took us all by surprise when she announced her decision. Vancouver may as well have been India - practically the other side of the world. As is probably the case for most families who are given that sort of information to process, we respected her need to shake things up and try on a new city for a while. We supported her wanderlust and wished her luck, but we didn't understand. She wasn't moving for love, or for work, and she'd only been to Vancouver once before. Why leave friends and family behind for a faraway place you barely know? We thought she would likely get homesick or bored after a year or two or three, and come back to Montreal with some great new experiences under her belt. But she didn't come back. She fell in love with the city, and she stayed.

I met up with my sister in Vancouver in October of 2008, and she showed me around her new hometown. We went to her favorite restaurants and cupcake places, watched movies in her apartment, and sat in her favorite spots on the beach. My little sister, all grown up and independent, was doing her thing and making her life in this new place. It was like she'd been there forever. Clearly, it was her element, her town, but I still couldn't understand why she'd left Montreal behind to settle permanently so far away. Vancouver was a nice, welcoming city, to be sure. But Montreal is welcoming, too, and familiar; why hadn't she just moved into a trendy apartment in Montreal and become a success closer to home?

We're very different, my sister and I. Leaving Montreal wasn't something I'd ever seriously considered, and I only found myself saying goodbye when I fell in love with an American and had to move to make it work. I'm risk averse, I'm cautious, I'm more comfortable when I know my place in the world and what's expected of me. But my sister has always made her own place, always made the rules bend to fit her better. I think that's why she had to leave the familiar behind and try something new.

As much as I wish she lived closer, I think I understand why she decided to stay in Vancouver. It's the sea. It's the mountains. And having them so near to one another that you can get an eyeful of both with one look up at the horizon. I didn't see the power of the landscape until we followed Highway 99 up out of the fog to visit Whistler, passing some of the most beautiful views I'd ever seen. I understand now why she's decided that Vancouver is home. I miss her very much, but I'm glad she's found a place that she loves, and I'm very, very proud of her.

Ring in the season

This is the 18th of my "Advent Calendar" Christmas ornament posts. For some background information about this project and why I'm challenging myself to complete it, see here. Note: it's entirely possible some of these memories are inexact, but I'm sticking with them anyway.

I will always have bells on my Christmas tree. They are a reliable early-warning system for cat-related tree disasters.

But that's not why I do it.

In my heart, bells mean Christmas. You've got the Carol of the Bells, Jingle Bells, Silver Bells, bells everywhere. There are so many Christmas songs about bells because bells are joy. Joy because you made it through another year. Joy because of the family around you. Joy on little kids' faces as they open their presents, and joy on their parents' faces as they watch with love.

I love the beginning of How the Grinch Stole Christmas when every Who down in Whoville, the tall and the small, are decorating the town for Christmas. There's a Who delightedly pulling on a rope and ringing a row of bells, ringing out joy over Whoville. Despite the efforts of the Grinch, Christmas came. It came all the same.

I love the end of It's a Wonderful Life, when George stands with his family in front of everyone who loves him, everyone whose life he has touched in ways he never realized. A little bell rings on the Christmas tree, giving old Clarence his wings at last. To be surrounded by love, to be the richest man in town and realize that you mean so much to so many - that is joy.

Bells feel like old-timey Christmas, like Scrooge running out into the street in his slippers after his night with the spirits, and hearing the church bells ringing out the joy of Christmas morning. Promise. Hope. Joy.

I can't hear something like this and not find tears in my eyes. Is it just me?

And now, to help you recover from an emotional moment, please enjoy what is, as yet, my favorite rendition of Carol of the Bells.