(no subject)

Me: Do you want me to take you to the Chinese grocery store today?
Mum: All right, but your father wants to go all the way to Bell's Corners.
Me: Why?
Mum: He needs to buy screws. *laughs*
Me: Ah, so they're all out of screws in Aylmer? XD

My first week back at work is already over; it wasn't so bad. We haven't switched groups yet, because a certain department is oh-so-not good at organizing and planning ahead, but I should be starting with a new group in a week. That'll be good, because I'll be able to stave off doing full days of interviews for a little longer yet. I know that once I get into it, they're not so bad (all right, after four months, they are), but I'd like a slight change of pace all the same.

Weekend fun

For our andragogical outing yesterday afternoon, we went to a bingo parlour. Very educational, I tell you. So educational, in fact, that one of my students won 120$ and I never even got close to winning anything at all.

G is so malade that it looks like I'll be making supper tonight. This wasn't part of the deal! Oh well, I told him not to expect anything too elaborate, so he's going to buy fish to slice us up some sashimi. That, I can live with.

My living room is now clean and it looks so much bigger after having moved the chairs around. The coffee table, however, looks more cluttered than it's ever been, because I went through my books and piled up all the ones I've either never read or haven't gotten around to finishing or that people have lent me or that belong to my parents, most of which they've probably forgotten I have (24). Then there are the new books I got for Christmas (5, 7 if you count Tigana and A Song For Arbonne which I already had and read but these are nicer copies) and the books I borrowed from the library at work (3, one of which I'm currently reading).

Grand total is... 32. 34 if you count the ones I want to re-read. That's a lot of words. But because I'm already reading 5 books at once, it's not so bad. And 3 of them are manga and I can whip through those quite rapidly. 3 of them I'm already half done, but I haven't touched them in so long that I'm not sure if I'm going to start at the beginning again or not. Probably not, because they are Powerful Novels (Of Human Bondage, Jude the Obscure) and I remember the story thus far passing clearly. Two I've already started on (including my current bus book), some of them are fairly short and if I manage to stop wasting time on the damn internet, I should have finished a good number of them by the end of the month. I think I'll make a list and see how well I do.

Bells Corners didn't have the screws my father needed, but we stopped at a lighting store. Oh god. I felt like Rebecca Bloomwood* discovering luggage for the first time. Why on earth have I never considered luggage lights before? I mean think about it, having a fabulous lamp would be like having a Christmas tree year-round, just for the pleasure of looking at it. They had these gorgeous lamps shaped like stands of delicate, long-stemmed flowers and I WILL have one. Sorry G, I'm afraid you won't get much say in the matter. The only choice is which one -- they run between 100$ for the smallest table one with three flowers and 350$ for the floor model with lots of flowers and an additional non-flower light. And if I could convince him to get that green-toned stained-glass ceiling lamp that looked like either fantastical fish scales or bird feathers...

Just to clarify, it's not lights in general that interest me, it's what can be done to make them look beautiful. I'll admit I'm mostly a sucker for Art Nouveau-looking things. And all those pretty lamps with twisting wines and leafy motifs got me thinking about actual design. When I helped G pick out the paint colours, we had nothing to go on except personal preference, because neither of us has anything to really design a room around, except for my bedside lamp and my LotR posters. :D

* Confessions of a Shopaholic, more on that later.