<friday september 19, 2003 - 1:30 p.m.>

Working here... a large coffee from Bridgehead that contains no less than three sugarcubes and a large dollop of milk is resting on a coaster beside me. A caramel-coated cookie has been eaten. Oh, and an article I wrote has just been published in a pretty cool magazine. (!) Look out for Ottawa City Woman.

It's also being distributed through the Ottawa Citizen over the weekend (at least I think) so that means that all you guys out there won't have to suffer the embarrassment of buying a magazine with the word WOMAN blazing on the front cover.

My photo in the contributors section looks like I've been taken over by a bed-headed magenta-coloured alien girl. But I can live with that.

The world is a happy place today.

Have a good weekend everyone!

a

<thursday september 18, 2003 - 1:35 p.m.>

Have to keep this short. I suddenly have work coming out of every nook and cranny. Every spare moment of computer time is spent doing work! But this is good. This is not a complaint.

First and foremost, we wanted to wish Mary (a.k.a. Nana) a very happy birthday. Quicktime birthday-related singsong available here. Warning: it's about 3 MB, but it's so cute that it's worth the wait.

I had my second yoga class on Tuesday. There were a few more people this time, including some men. This shouldn't have bothered me, but it did a little bit. Suddenly I felt self-conscious about my contorted self.

The last part of the class is reserved for various poses for relaxation and meditation. I'm a little bit of a fidget, but I know it's good for me and I comply. During a longer stretch the instructor dimmed the lights, and speaking in soft monotone she set us off on our respective Journey Into Meditation. A few minutes into it the fellow behind me let out a hugely loud snore. I had to do everything in my power not to burst out in a fit of laughter. It struck me as totally hilarious, after that, I just suffered an attack of giggles. So much so that biting my lip wasn't helping. I had to imagine gruesome death to innocent wildlife to help me stop laughing.

That's all I need right now, is a failing grade in my yoga class. On the plus side, I have decided that I am a pretty limber person, despite the fact that I feel pretty creaky in the mornings. Yahoo!

<wednesday september 17, 2003 - 9:20 a.m.>

Discovery: Emma likes dried apricots.

It's not often that she's so agreeable about food. Yesterday morning she ate two bowls of banana yogurt. I was suitably impressed. Then she asked for a bowl of rice krispies. Why not? I poured her a small bowl, figuring she'd eat a couple of spoonfuls and realize she's full.

She picked up *one* of the rice krispies and announced that she wasn't going to eat this particular one. I couldn't see it clearly, so I took a closer look at what she was holding. At this point I though she was holding half an earwig, a rotten krispie, or a hair, but I was wrong on all counts.

This krispie was slightly more toasted than its paler beige counterparts.

I told her she was crazy and that she's not getting rice krispies ever again. (Ok, so this wasn't the best reaction for a parent to have.)

So she refused the entire bowl on account of the One Darker Krispie.

I must really work on my patience.

-

Yesterday morning, at 2:00 a.m. Mark and I woke up to shrieks of laughter outside our bedroom window.

Although we're on the second floor, the area acoustics are such that any noise on the street below reflects directly into our bedroom.

Two teenagers were trying to pull the stop sign out of the ground.

Mark called the police while I watched them from a downstairs window. They were doing their best to yank, pull, and twist it -- and at one point they were able bend it right to the ground. I kept waiting for it to bounce back and decapitate one of them. The edges of the stop sign are surely sharp enough to do some serious injury.

Their stumbling gave away to some level of intoxication. The other thing that gave it away was that one of them lost a shoe during the process. This just doesn't happen to sober people.

It took the cops four minutes to arrive at the scene. It was just in time too, because the guys were just about to move on to a second stop sign. (We live at a four-way intersection. Just how many were they planning to vandalize?)

Mark and I went back upstairs so we could hear the conversation.

Identification was shown, and we heard the cop threaten arrest. In a sign of panic, the two guys offered to try to put the stop sign back the way it was. (When they had finished with it, it was leaning at a 45° angle.) Suffice it to say their attempt to return it to its original vertical state was pretty pointless.

In the end the guys were told to go home.

I personally had hoped that they'd get a police escort home. At least that way they'd get some wrath on the home-front.

As it is, they probably went to school and told everyone the story of how they escaped the Clutches of the Law... only in their version they probably made a run for it as soon as they heard the sirens, and were easily able to outsmart the convoy of (fully armed) Green Beret Community Vandalism Squad who were sent to find these two destructive (and totally cool) young guys.

<sigh>

a.