i'm writing poems about you, and they're not very nice

here's a suuuper brief snapshot of my christmas vacation:

after i got home from rosebud on friday the 21st, i was exhausted and so i had a little nap. then i walked down to steeps on whyte ave to meet emery and his friend stephanie for tea and a christmas present exchange before the two of them flew home for the holidays. he gave me two really amazing books on knitting, which was mega rad because i had just started picking up knitting. i'm fairly proficient in crocheting, but have felt that it's time to take the plunge from hooks to needles. yikes. good choice, emery. i gave him some green and red mittens i had made. i hope he likes them. after tea, i said goodbye to jessica (who was working there that night, and who i had just dropped off at home hours earlier when we got back from rosebud) and stopped at funky pickle to get some pizza for supper. then i walked to the university LRT station and rode the train to grandin station, so i could work from 5:30 until 9:30. i came home after work and went right to bed.

on saturday i worked at the ledge. from noon until 5:00. then i hung out at home until kaylin got off work, and then she came over around 8:30 and we hung out for a few hours and just talked. i sure do like her a lot. last semester we started hanging out together every wednesday afternoon at muddy waters, but then school got a little overwhelming so we quit for a while. hopefully we will start our weekly hang-outs again this semester, maybe doing it at steeps so we can hang out with jessica too.

on sunday i packed up some things from my apartment, drove to the library to drop off some books, and then drove myself to my parents' place in vermilion for christmas holidays.

on monday, i made crafts (mostly crocheted mittens), watched "march of the penguins" with my family, and my sisters and i decorated gingerbread cookies, which is our yearly christmas eve tradition.

tuesday was christmas! i got some good and useful presents: an iron (which is imperative to have for sewing), a flat iron for my hair, one of those things to clean the snow and ice off your car (which was very thoughtful, but a little useless, since i've parked my car at my parents' and don't plan on driving it for another 8 months or so), some money, some amazing "wigwam" brand socks, all of "degrassi high" on dvd, some hot chocolate, and some sharpie markers. my dad gave my mom a week long trip to mexico for april to celebrate their 25th anniversary. quite honestly, i was just as happy with my great socks and "degrassi." my grandparents on my dad's side, as well as my dad's twin lorraine and her husband, joined us for christmas dinner at our house at about 1:00. my sister's boyfriend ate with us too. my mom puts on a really great christmas dinner, but she hates cooking so much that every second year, we usually go to a tropical resort over christmas holidays because she remembers how much she hates cooking that dinner. funny. afterwards, we sat around and ate gingerbread cookies and cleaned up. later that evening, kelsey called me and told me to come into town to her brother's house so i could see the turtle he was giving her. since we're from a small town, no one ever gives street numbers for addresses - they just say, "turn at the lights by the bank, take a right, and it's three houses down" or stuff like that. kelsey gave me directions like that, and said, "my brother's truck is always running - just look for it. it's really huge." i think i didn't believe her, or i thought it was a joke or something, but when i got there half an hour later, there really was this giant truck just left running outside of her brother's house. her brother says he doesn't turn it off all day, he just keeps it running, because the company he works for pays his gas. what!?! that seriously blows my mind. he said that he once left his truck running for three days straight without driving it anywhere. apparently all the guys that he works with do that kind of stuff all the time. once kelsey and i pressured him a bit, he kind of tried to justify it, saying, "well, i don't want to go outside just to turn it off," and "it's a diesel, so it actually uses less gas by running all day than if you start it three times in a day." yikes. i don't know much about vehicles, but i'm preeeeetty sure that that's not true. with ordinary gasoline, you only need to idle them for 30 seconds in order for the vehicles to be properly warmed up. it's so crazy to me that such ignorance and wastefulness is being perpetuated out on the rigs. i usually love alberta, but man, i hate that oil industry. anyways, i marched outside and took the keys out of the ignition and put them on the kitchen table. i'm sure it didn't help the environment all that much, but it sure made my stomach feel better. anyways, at kelsey's brother's, we put his turtle in the bathtub and watched it swim around for a bit. mostly it just liked to sit under the running water. we also watched it walk around on the floor. i really love turtles a lot, but i don't feel so good about keeping animals as pets. but kelsey is taking that turtle back to calgary with her, and i am excited for her. kelsey and i stopped at mac's to get some coke and chips and dip, and then we went back to her parents' house and sat on a super comfortable bed in her basement and crocheted and watched the first four episodes of degrassi high.

on wednesday my parents and kelsey and i went to lloydminster. kelsey was a bit of a grump. it's okay; i still like her. we walked around the lloyd mall and i bought some coconut earrings at a girly store. i haven't worn earrings for about 10 years, partly because i am super allergic to metal earrings and because i had assumed that my holes had grown in. they hadn't. i've wanted to wear coconut earrings for years because they are so hip and cute, and now that i know i still have earring holes, i'm'a wear them all the time. kelsey and i ate lunch at a & w in the mall, and it was shockingly good. i had a kid's pack, and it was awesome because: a) it was just enough to fill me up, and b) it came with "gushers." gushers! i haven't had those since, like, grade 6! oh, also, while we were talking in line about dreading seeing people we know, some kid turned around towards us and said, “expect the unexpected!” ew. we laughed pretty hard. after the mall, we went to wal-mart. i've been trying not to shop there lately, but kelsey and i needed to get some things for a baby shower we were going to the next day, and didn't know where else to look. kelsey bought some little cloths and some receiving blankets with lions and giraffes on them, and a little plastic turtle that measures the temperature of the bath water. i bought, like, a travel pack of liquids that you're supposed to use on babies (obviously, i totally don't know anything about babies - i think they are kind of gross) and some reusable cloth diapers and some diaper pins. it's kind of a jerkish gift to give to someone who i know would rather use disposables, but i guess i am kind of an environmentalist jerk. plus, people have lived for millennia without disposable diapers, so i think that using a slightly less convenient but also less, um, landfill-y...(?) product is definitely doable. when we got home from lloyd, i watched the third "pirates of the caribbean" movie with emily. then i went over to kelsey's, and andrea met us there (wearing the exact same winter jacket as me - strange, since we'd been best friends in high school but don't talk or see each other very often nowadays) and the three of us sat on the comfortable bed and taught each other to knit and watched "degrassi" episodes. fun.

on thursday (the 27th?), i went to sammy's (an ice cream/fast food place in vermilion) for brittany's baby shower. in addition to kelsey and brittany and andrea, my three best high school friends, there were a number of other girls i went to high school with. i don't really want to talk about the shower. mostly, kelsey and i just made eye contact across the table and laughed a lot. then kelsey showed me a cute cd and cover art that her crush had made for her - jealous!!! - and we drove to craig's so kelsey could get some knitting needles and yarn and stuff. i think i bought some muslin and buttons and stuff. then i went to the bank to deposit a couple of cheques, and to vhq to return emily's "pirates of the caribbean" rentals. before i went home, i washed my car so it would be clean when i parked it for the winter. i went home and crocheted some mittens and made myself a knitting needle/crochet hook holder.