I am going to HONG KONG over New Years!

!

I am really done with swine flu.  Because I'm a government employee there's been all manner of pains in the ass.  Here's one of the aforementioned pains: because I see premature babies all day and because I'm technically Regional Emergency Planning staff, I have to actually wait in line for however long to get this vaccine, which I wouldn't have any interest in getting otherwise.  (The Emergency Plan is a set of protocols in the event of massive staff illness/death.  One of the protocols dictates that in the event of zombie apocalypse, I may be required to take over the job of one of my now undead colleagues in a totally different department -- cue the image of me driving an ambulance... and mowing down zombies...)

Yesterday was the first day the H1N1 vaccine was available to high-risk groups (like kids under 5, medical staff, etc), and vaccinations were supposed to be going on until 8pm.  Instead, things got shut down at 1AM.  Today our program director left all Children's Developmental Services staff a message requesting volunteers for 2pm to midnight to assist with entertaining/helping with children who were waiting to be vaccinated.  I have no idea what they decided to do to entertain them.  Juggling?  Face Painting?  

Apparently the Regional H1N1 info hotline (colloquially known as the Swine Line), has been backed up since it started.  The wait is so bad that they've started taking messages and calling people back, sometimes hours and hours later.  One of the moms I work with called them in the evening before bed, and they called back at 3AM, scaring the living bejesus out of her. 

This morning at 10am in the Regional Main Office building, I saw a woman playing with a baby outside of the auditorium where afternoon vaccinations were going to happen later.  Another woman carrying some chairs to the auditorium stopped for a moment and said to the first, "Ma'am, vaccinations don't start here until 4pm."  The woman with the baby answered, "Oh, I know."

:(

I'm currently making yogurt cheese in the fridge.  It's a soft cheese you get when you drain the liquid from yogurt, and it's used sometimes in Indian dishes.  (Greek cooks will sometimes roll the stuff into little balls and then store the balls in a jar of olive oil with herbs and chili peppers... it's good stuff.)

What are you up to?

Okay, I'm posting this short video partly because it did actually make me "b'awwwww" a little ...and also because it demonstrates perfectly the effortless ability of Greek parents to guilt-trip their progeny:

This morning the McMaster radio station was playing a two hour set of just Parliament.  I have discovered that even when you're in stop-and-go freeway traffic at 7:30, funk can help. 

It occurred to me that someone needs to write this on the Michigan Central Station:

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

So Dan and I traveled to Detroit for a couple of day last week with some of our Canadian friends, Fr. Geoffrey, Matushka Linda and their lovable 8-year-old Sophia.  (I sadly discovered upon returning to Hamilton that mackensen and cumaeansibyl were in town at the same time - sorry, guys.)  Fr. Geoff went there as a child in the early 80s and recalled it being the post-apocalyptic wasteland of lore.  He was pleasantly surprised by the way it is now.  Sophia is cute and so she got a lot of free stuff from people, including a bottle of Faygo Redpop from the lady at the Pure Detroit store, several mardi gras beads at Fishbone's (one in each color of the rainbow), and a tour from Christopher, a gentleman at the Guardian Building who gave us a free guided tour, including the lower level vaults which I had never seen before.  We did a bunch of other touristy stuff (DIA, Riverwalk, Campus Martius, Detroit Science Center, Eastern Market, Belle Isle, Heidelberg project) and we visited the various neighborhoods.  The last thing we did was eat coney dogs at Lafayette. 

What else is new?  Dan and myself will apparantly be the baptism sponsors for three teenage siblings who are becoming Orthodox soon at our church.  So that will be kind of scary and neat.  I have little to no exposure to adult baptism, so I may have to revise some of my previous schemas for baptisee-godparent relationships; obviously there will be some spiritual mentoring involved, but not to the extent of a tiny child.  I'm also really curious about the basic pragmatics of full-immersion with adults (inflatable kiddie pool?).  I'll be learning a lot in the next few weeks.

Currently it is hot and sticky and gross.  Welcome back, summer.

Once again, my apologies for another lengthy period of separation from LJ. Stuff has been happening, but I seem to be having trouble actually getting around to writing things in this journal.  But know what helps you journal more?  Being sick!  I arrived at work this morning in a haze at 8 am and left 30 minutes later, having puked in the public bathrooms.  It will be really sweet if I wake up tomorrow feeling better.  I'm actually already feeling better than this morning, so that's a start.

Last Tuesday Dan and I had an exceedingly pleasant second anniversary.  We had a beautiful anniversary walk, ate some delicious anniversary fishes, and went to a local restaurant called The Bean Bar for some chocolate-orange anniversary cheesecake.  And alcoholic coffee, which I've always found to be a fascinating and delightful contradiction.  (The place described itself as a "lifestyle restaurant".  I've googled this and found no clues as to its meaning.  Anyone have any clue about this?  I find the phrase disturbing.)

Dan's mom came to visit this past weekend, for Dan's birthday, which was on Friday.  We had a pretty pleasant visit with her, showed her the Royal Botanical Gardens, the University, and Webster's falls, the biggest waterfalls in town.  The amount of weddings was bananas.  We probably wandered through the photos for 5 weddings over the course of the weekend.  Wedding photos are getting really stupid.  The new thing right now seems to be hot shots of the bride posing sexily without the groom.  I guess if you really want glamour shots, then that's fine, but somehow your wedding day, a day supposedly devoted to your love for each other as a couple, seems like not the best time.  Just how do you tell your brand new doe-eyed husband who just affirmed his lifelong committment to you that you'd rather not have him in some of the photos of your wedding day?  "Hey look over there, honey!  The bar's open!"

Not much else has been going on lately.  We're going to Stratford, Ontario this weekend to see Macbeth.  Then we might be able to make one more strawberry pie this season, before the berries go bad.  Immediately after typing that sentence I feel like an ol' farmhand's wife.  Ayep.  Sorghum's comin' in nice this year.

Happy birthday, birthday girls Cherie & Kelly!  I'm going to listen to "July, July" today and jump up and down in tribute to you.

• Ferris Bueller is on right now.
• Strawberry pie is delicious with in-season strawberries.
• "Up" is a fantastic movie.
• The hockey game last night was an outstanding beat-down.
• Dan is cuddly and warm.  He is also quite handy.  He rigged us some outdoor speakers recently. 
• We have finally triumphed over the squirrels who have been trying to get to our birdfeeder.
• When Cameron was in Egypt-land...
• Let my Cameron go.

( It was okay )

Happy Easter to everyone who celebrates today!

This Lent is JERKS.

Seriously, why did no one ever tell me about this in Greek school!?

I had a strange dream last night about a man who murdered his wife, but was never convicted.  After the suspicions of the police had quieted down, he decided to write his wife's biography in order to make a ton of money (she was some kind of famous scientist).  However, by some sort of divine retribution, he came down with a crippling case of writer's block, and was completely unable to settle on a title for the book.  The last scene in the dream was the man, sweating and tortured, desperately writing out possible titles for the book and, over and over again, furiously striking them out.  I woke up actually feeling terrified for this man.