Monday, March 11, 2002
My New Computer is Being Shipped!Okay, I guess I am easily amused, but I just checked the online delivery status of my Dell order just for the heck of it. The original order confirmation email I got from them told me to expect the order by the 18th. But now I see that not only has it been assembled, but it has already been shipped! Woo hoo!
This was the first morning in a long-time that the sky was vaguely blue instead of inky black when I went to catch the morning streetcar on my way to the Oakville office. A sure sign spring is coming.
One of the worst parts about the long commute I make several days out of the week to Oakville is that during the winter months I find myself commuting entirely in the dark. At least now I can look forward to seeing some spectacular sunrises out over the lake.
The other sure sign of spring -- or maybe that should be "call" -- is that yesterday afternoon I heard the distinctive squawk of two red-winged blackbirds calling to each other. I never was able to see either of them, but one was so close that it must have been hiding in the dense thicket of our backyard pine tree -- and there's no mistaking their distinctive call.
Denial Dream
Last night I remember having what can only be described as a "denial dream". I dreamed that I had met my dead friend Mary at the office she worked at, and that everything was just as it was before her death. There was that curious unreality typical of dreams where everyone around her was seemingly oblivious to the fact the she was supposedly dead. At some point I asked her about her, well, you know, about her supposedly being dead when she clearly wasn't. She responded that it was a ruse to get out of some situation. Patently absurd reasoning, but then reason has little to do with dreams.
I mention this only because this sort of dream must be part of the grieving process -- I had the exact same sort of dream for a period after my father died. I don't think that there is anything the slightest bit spiritual about this, as I'm sure it is a coping mechanism the brain has cooked up (I’d be surprised if this ort of thing isn’t commonplace). I can remember a similar dream I had soon after my first daughter was born, and showing her to my Father, who died about a year before she was born. One of my chief regrets is that he didn't live long enough to see her, though this dream went a long way to comforting that regretful part of me.
It was nice to see Mary again too.
My Dell System is On Its Way
It took them long enough to get started, but my Dell system is finally being assembled. I ordered a Dimension 4400 system that runs at 1.8GHz with an 80GB hard drive, a combo DVD-CDRW drive and 256MB of memory (which I will upgrade further the soonest I can). I kept the price down by not going for the monitor, speakers and such -- I'll just be recycling those I currently use. It will be fully twice as fast as my 2-year old 900Mhz "base" system I currently use in my home office. Sweet!
The only problem is the estimated time of delivery, which is a full week from today. So I have an agonizing wait in order to get my "new toy". ;-)
A "Sunday" Sunday
Another peaceful, relaxed sort of day. Pretty much a repeat of yesterday.
Erika had a good long practice time with a fellow trumpeter from her band across the street, Vanessa played at Nicky’s house for much of the day, and while Annie gleefully played with her toys, I was able to read and jot down review notes for a couple of books for The Computer Paper.
We discovered that the previous night’s windstorm had knocked down a large branch from a neighbouring tree, which thankfully didn’t do a lot of damage to the house it was in front of (part of their eaves trough got demoed, but nothing more than that). It did knock down some power lines and hydro people were swarmed about it all that morning.
Over dinner that night -- sans kids! -- Erika and I talked about future vacation plans when the kids are a bit older. Our dream vacation (where money and kids are not an issue) would be to head to the Galapagos. More realistically, we both agreed that a return trip to Puerto Angel in the Oaxaca region in Mexico would be good (cheap and Vanessa would enjoy it) would be fun. I hadn’t realized that Erika had really enjoyed our vacation down to the British Virgin Islands, and would head there again if given the chance. She was somewhat stressed looking after Vanessa that first vacation (Vanessa celebrated her second birthday on the boat) but now that Vanessa is older, we figure she’d be much better on a return trip (and we’d leave the baby behind for this sort of vacation -- we learned our lesson the first time. ;-)
A "Sunday"-Type of Saturday
Originally I had planned to visit my Mother today, but I got up to find severe weather warnings being splashed on the screen on CTV Newsnet when I got up in the morning. I ended up having a nice long conversation with Mom on the phone instead, filling her in on all of the latest family stuff.
As it turned out, I needn't have bothered -- though the bad weather was predicted to come sometime just after noon, the nastiness didn't start until the evening.
I had planned on taking Vanessa with me, but she was still running a slight fever and was obviously not up for a marathon trip.
The morning started out as nice a spring day as you could hope for: warm (it rose just above 12C) and bright with sun. During one of Vanessa's more energetic phases she went out and got on her bicycle and had a "Mom and daughter" get together while I took care of Annie.
On the whole it was a very relaxed, unhurried sort of day. It was great!
In the evening we had Wendy and her young son Nicky over for dinner. We learned the other day that she is pregnant with her second child, which she is really happy about.
I had managed to get in a nap during the day, so I stayed up late and made some real headway writing for the new CSS book. I waded through what I could figure out of the current draft CSS3 specification for such things as multi-column layout, colors and backgrounds. Man, a lot of that stuff is poorly written, even in its final published, supposedly polished state. I found several grammar and spelling errors in the sections I read closely during my researches. I’ve communicated with some people at the W3C in the past, and will pass along my correction notes when I get the chance.
Friday - "The Sad Dragon"
I finished off work a bit early today from home in order to head to Vanessa’s school to watch the pre-March Break school play.
The play was, of course, very cute. It was called "The Sad Dragon" and was made up by the suggestions of all of the various kiddies taking part in the production. So there were lots of fairy princesses (which included Vanessa naturally ;-) several knights and a dragon. The story didn't really make a lot of sense -- the kid playing the "sad dragon" kept giggling and flashing his belly-button at the assembled parents, and I'm still not sure why one little girl kept singing the Annie theme song ;-) -- but the kids loved it and so did their respective parents. I took many photos. ;-)
Vanessa was still sick with her flu big, but we decided to head down and take her and Annie to the St. Lawrence Market with us.
If you have to head to the market, getting there on Friday late afternoon is hard to beat -- the stalls are all filled for Saturday's inevitable crush of people, and the market is not at all busy.
Once we got there I grabbed some cash from the bank machine there, and we headed over to St. Urbain's bagelry. We ordered six-dozen sesame-seed bagels, which all but cleaned them out at that time of the day. (I think the two people who came after I had placed the order may have been disappointed if they wanted the same type of bagel).
I gave my wallet to Erika and hauled all of the bagels back to the truck. Vanessa had the chance to go visit the live lobsters at Mike's Fish stall and Erika started spending the rest of my cash. ;-)
After taking another haul of fish and meat to the truck, we met up again at the local Keg. We had enjoyed going to this particular restaurant in the past, and I realized that we haven't been here since Erika's first pregnancy. I had Portobello mushroom fajitas, and Erika had the lobster and steak. Erika sent back her first lobster as it was too mushy, and got a second that was done "right". The steak and fajitas were great.
Vanessa was still feeling under the weather and didn't eat much of her chicken finger and French fries dinner -- a kiddie treat -- at all. Annie was a little bit fussy too. She was practically vibrating from being over-stimulated; there was the play, the kids running around afterwards, the experiences in the Market and now the Keg, all without a proper rest in between.
So it ended up being a somewhat harried meal, and I am glad we did it nonetheless. It's was nice to just "get out".
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