Yeah, they're Toronto hipster douchebags. This may not shock you: they're very popular in Germany and Iceland.
Visit with my mother was good! Every year she gets me a gift (or series of gifts) designed to Really Improve My Life. She always pretends that the gifts are something that everyone needs to be whole and she's doing me a huge favour. They are civilizing missions or at least unsubtle messages that my appearance is not measuring up. The gifts always backfire (not because I sabotage them! They just do) and that's what makes them and the whole ritual endearing. One year it was *a lot* of anti-wrinkle cream (I think that was more about my mother's insecurities about self and less about me), another it was "accent colour" (read: orange) sweater vests, every 4 years (like the Olympics) it's some kind of makeup, there was the earrings year, and ubiquitous yoga and "skin clarifying solution" years. This year: The Flat Iron. WTF do I need a flat-iron for? I have no idea. When I didn't express enough happiness with my new gift, she was quite miffed and said something like, "I just wanted to get you something that could really help you!" Help me do what? I asked her if she really thought that I was going to use the flat iron everyday even if it did make my hair AMAZING. She thought about it for a few seconds and said, "No." Did we just have a breakthrough? She told me to keep the flat-iron for E. But that was the only bad moment. The rest of the time we ate and ate and had a good time. And she did help me in the end, she took my car to get the winter tires put on while I was in class and that was a HUGE help.
We're planning an elaborate roadtrip in the Spring from here to Baltimore (stopping at umpteen Amish quilt-y places along the way).
