Daily Archives: June 13, 2008

Party Minus Twelve Hours

Well, here I am, writing my now annual night-before post. There is cake, but no icing yet, as HRH is designing the cake illustration this year and I had no idea how much icing to mix up. I have wrapped a couple of small gifts from us for the boy (one home-made, two actually separate parts of the same gift). There are small, adorable home-made gift bags to send home with small guests. There are a pile of balloons in the bathtub, hidden by the shower curtain. (There is nowhere else to safely store them overnight.) I have just finished printing thank you cards for those who have gifted the boy, but who are not small children and thus will not be here tomorrow. There’s not much else to do, as I’ll be mixing pizza dough and chopping fruit tomorrow morning. I’m not doing cookies this year, or extra cupcakes, since I am not feeding a small army. Small people, yes, but not large numbers.

HRH has just finished the design, so I am summoned to the mixing bowl.

Today So Far

This morning I woke up around ten past seven, and heard HRH and Liam talking about going to see Grandma. It’s Liam’s first Grandma day since she fell ill last month, and both of them have been missing their alternate Fridays together. By seven-forty Liam had his shoes on and was cheerfully heading out the door with HRH. I waved to them as they drove away, then made myself a cup of latte and settled down to enjoy my morning of nothing. This is my first day in ages of not being home with the boy, or taking him out to childcare then getting home to begin the day around ten and hit my stride around twoish, only to finish around four or four-thirty and go get him again.

After a week of business stuff and scrambling to meet a deadline because of how childcare days happened to fall, I have a day with nothing crucial scheduled in it. And I have kept it as a day of nothing instead of working on my own writing. Well, I scrubbed walls and most of the kitchen (our pantry doors are white, who knew?) which amuses me, because did I scrub baseboards and doors before my mother visited? No, I did not. But for some reason it seems important to do it before kids between one and six years come over for Liam’s party tomorrow. (Stupidly, I didn’t think of the whole FMS limited-energy-available thing, so I blew my whole day’s worth of spoons on scrubbing walls. I feel rather the idiot.) I have made a Totoro t-shirt for Liam as a birthday gift. I have made a list of Things To Do between this afternoon and tomorrow morning. And other than that, I’ve relaxed, read news and journals, discovered a pre-Ghibli Takahata film entitled Goshu (or Gauche) the Cellist and have been watching ten-minute sections of it on YouTube. It just feels really, really nice to not be watching the clock, trying to fit in as much work as possible between getting home and having to leave to pick up the boy, and stressing. Granted, there will be running around this afternoon when HRH comes home around 1:30, but until then, my time is my own.

I honestly don’t remember the last time I just relaxed and enjoyed a morning like I have so far today.

Aha!

I’m not big on posting news stories unless they relate to something I’m personally interested in, arts- or culture-wise, but:

Quebec companies charged with fixing gas prices;
Competition Bureau probe continuing in other parts of Canada

I’m not surprised that it happened, of course, but I am pleasantly surprised that the charge stuck, the companies actually pleaded guilty, and they’re being fined. Part of me keeps hoping that higher gas prices will push people to limit gas use (heaven knows we’ve curtailed unnecessary trips) but most of me knows people will just keep paying whatever the price may be to fill the tanks of larger-than-necessary vehicles. Speaking of which, HRH told me the other day that GM is officially considering ceasing the production of all Hummers (the H1s were already pulled at the end of the 2006 production year). And I’ve been metaphorically bashing my head against the stubbornness of Buzz Hargrove as he insists that GM keep the Oshawa plant open so no one loses a job. I’m very sympathetic to the plight of the workers who depend on the auto industry, but seriously, there is no point in producing pick-up trucks that no one is buying or will buy. It’s a waste of resources in every way.

There. Now onto more exciting things, like looking for a good recipe for modelling fondant.