Brand New Day!

It's done! It's deposited! [Aside: Isn't "deposit" kind of a strange yet fitting word? Makes me think of cremains and stool samples] At this exact moment, I really do believe that all the paperwork and whatnot is finished on my end!!! It's the first dissertation-free day I've had in 3025 days (thanks duration calculator website).

Okay, we all know this turd isn't going to get flushed so easily, but at least the diss form is no longer relevant. After the initial website failure and after learning everything about stitching pdf files together, the electronic deposit process went pretty smoothly. High five, grad college thesis office! [Aside: Heather, a person can't swing a dead cat in the 'paign without hitting one of your "contacts." That's what I've learned.]

Hey, it's December outside! Hey, I have a dog! And E! And friends and family! And a job! And housework! And an unregistered car with expired license plates!

AND 4 endives and 2 leeks. I've already crossed the leek bridge but I did not see you coming, endive. Michel clued me in about the mystery squash (of course): delicata. And he was right - they really are the most delicious squash in existence. Make them a part of your life.

Example of some of the emails that I have been neglecting to attend to because of The Deposit:

Prof K,

Did you know that people used to give themselves tobacco smoke enemas, even in the time of James I? Thanks,

Student

I haven't responded yet, mostly because I did know that.

In an effort to make my car compliant with Ontario law (and throw away $130), I took it into Canadian Tire to get yet another emissions test and safety inspection (and have the $2 coins stolen out of my cupholder.)

The Canadian Tire autoservice waiting room is an enclosed space with chairs and a television set. The hours I spent there waiting for my winter tires to be put on in early November were a special kind of torture: on the television was a show called "SickKids" where we met 4 pediatric leukemia patients and watched 3 of them die over the course of an hour and a half. After that was an episode of 100 Huntley Street devoted to Jesus' definition of happiness. There was a large sign on the television asking people NOT to adjust the volume or channel. That was an unfun day.

But this time I waltzed into CT knowing that I'd already hit rock bottom in terms of waiting room waits and had nowhere to go but up. This was confirmed when I sat down and saw that the TV was playing some cop show about something. Yes! AND I'd brought reading material! I wasn't even phased when Mother & Baby entered the waiting room. Baby was fine and I've flown enough to know that for me a crying baby is only like adultspeak in Charlie Brown.

But I knew nothing. We've all heard phrases like "buttload" and "pantload" and maybe even "diaperload" but all of these phrases stipulate a finite load. The definition of a diaperload, for example, would probably be the amount of load necessary to fill a diaper. Whatever this baby did, it was substantially more than a diaperload. Mother, a trooper for sure, was completely nonplussed by the leakage. She wiped it up and started to change baby right there in waiting room. I'm not even going to describe it all except to say the smell was INTENSE and the colorful and comprehensive smearage was a visual I will not soon get out of my head.

This is not a diatribe against children in public spaces - I know that ship has sailed. It's not even a diatribe against children because childhood happens, I get that. It's more of a question: Am I being punk'd in the CT waiting room? Did I knife someone in a waiting room in a former life and karma is having fun? Does the Scottish dude on CT money read my blog?

Suffice it to say, my car passed these made up emissions and safety tests with flying colours.

In other news (because it's a brand new day!), was chatting with my mother on the phone last night:

Mother: Have you been doing your yoga?
Me: I did it once. But I've been busy.
Mother: You need to do your yoga! You have the worst hamstrings I've ever seen and I've seen some hamstrings in my time.
Me: ...
Mother: How did they get like that? What have you been doing to them? It's not like you exercise regularly.
Me: I blame grad school.
Mother: You need to do your hamstring work every day. I know what I'll get you for Christmas, this new yoga video I just came across.
Me: Can't I have something else for Christmas?
Mother: No, this video is good, you'll like it. It's very gentle.
Me: Gentle.
Mother: Yes, it's for people who have just had major surgery or have cancer and are doing chemotherapy.
Me: I haven't had surgery and I'm not a cancer patient! I don't want an ultra-remedial cancer yoga video for people who don't have major appendages and can't walk and stuff. When you say things like that, it makes me feel bad.
Mother: It's an excellent tape. You'll love it. And then you'll do it everyday and your hamstrings will stretch out and you won't need surgery or chemotherapy!
Me: I don't think those things are related to a person's hamstrings.
Mother: This is wonderful! I'm almost done my Christmas shopping!

I sense a Hamstring Challenge 2011.