Epidemic

Everybody is sick. My dad has had some kind of flu for the past few days, now his wife has it, my mom got a kidney infection today and her boyfriend woke up this morning with a fever of 102. Since my mom and Luigi were mostly bed-ridden, and it was such a gorgeous day out (a whole 13 degrees celsius. That's hot here in November), Graeme and I took the dogs out for a walk. Hmm... not much else to report. I'm feeling quite lazy.

Ziggy between our shadows.

I know that she's blurry, but I like it.

Graeme and Brody playing together.

The bridge on the way home.

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat...

Let's not even talk about my failed promises for this blog, okay?

Now that November has arrived, it is time to make gifts for the holidays. And since it is already November 3rd, I am a whole two days behind schedule, because as soon as those pumpkins get thrown into the compost by their respectable owners, or smashed by some totally badass kids, Christmas is shoved down everyone's throat with commercials of Santa, snowmen and douglas firs, all lined up and dancing like the Rockettes. I guess I don't really mind, the holiday season does have a somewhat cozy feeling to it, dancing trees and all. So anyways, I am starting my gift crafting by completing this giant granny square blanket I began making months ago, and then forgot about (what a surprise, I, Claudia, began something and neglected it. How unlike me). I worked on it for about two hours tonight, and didn't seem to get very far because it takes about 20 minutes for me just to complete one side at this point.

Christmas gift #1,

about half way to completion.

The blanket will be for Graeme's youngest niece Emma, who is about 7 months old, this will be her first Christmas.

Wednesday= better

Yesterday's school day did prove to be more interesting. This class was called "photo production" and had about a quarter of the amount of people from Tuesday's lecture (which was the entire first year image arts population). These lads were just photography students, so I actually got to meet some of the people in my program. But the best part was when I found out that my teacher for this semester is Robyn Cumming, a really awesome photographer who's work actually inspired my decision to choose Ryerson over OCAD (she went to Ryerson a few years back). I felt like I was in the midst of a celebrity! I kept looking around at the other student's faces to see if they had the same reaction as me, only to realize that I was alone in my star struckedness (not a real word). It made me not like them a little bit. Today, I had part of a Spanish class, a two hour break (which consisted of me eating, and then walking around aimlessly with nothing to do), and then a three hour talk about computers in a class called "tools and applications". Tomorrow, no classes. Hoorah.

Got my lunch packed up, my shoes tied tight...

Graeme and I in the
fun house mirror

Today I had my first official university class. It was a three hour lecture on something to do with trilobites possibly being related to me, the mesozoic era, why we're here... I thought I was in the wrong class. But then we started watching clips of pretentious art films with very long titles and I realised that I was exactly were I had to be. Hopefully tomorrow will be more interesting. The picture up there is of Graeme and I at the CNE (Canadian National Exhibition) on Sunday. I took many photos that day, and you can see some of them on my flickr account. If you like.

Kittens: Man's other best friend.

If you ever wish to turn somebody into a blubbering idiot, put a kitten in front of them and watch as they magically transform from a normal functioning member of society, into a drooling and babbling fool who can no longer form proper sentences or real words. That is me when I am around Graeme's new kitten Data, his namesake being Lieutenant Commander Data from Star Trek TNG (Data is an android who serves on the USS Enterprise and is the coolest character on the show. A very big responsibility, I imagine). I'm sure you are asking your computer "Claudia, have you always been this big of a nerd (/loser)?" to which the answer would be "yes". I've always been a nerd, just not a Star Trek Nerd. I blame this nerdiness on Graeme, and a tiny bit on my mom who I used to watch the show with when it was still new (Geordie was my favorite character at that time because he was also on Reading Rainbow). But I digress. So my friend Maite gave us one of the kittens that her kitty birthed a few months ago, and he is so very precious. Graeme and I like to give him big smooches and he in turn gives me head massages with his tiny, sharp kitten nails whilst I sleep. Then he bites me with his tiny, sharp kitten teeth and wakes me up. It's a thing we have. Here is Graeme showing Data off, they're the such buds.

Data and Graeme, having a cuddle.

Food, glorious food

Soup!

I'm not in such a writey mood at the moment, but I did promise to post more on this blog, so post I shall. Here is a picture of one of the bowls of the udon noodle soup I made for Graeme and I the other night. For those of you not familiar with the wonderful udon noodle, it is a thick wheat-flour noodle that when put into soup with some random fixens (ie. egg, seafood, veggies, tofu) makes for a very satisfying and delicious meal. The base of the soup should be made of something called "dashi", a very popular base for many Japanese dishes, however we couldn't find it at the local grocery store and had to settle for a vegetable soup cube. The soup still ended up being pretty tasty. Not very authentic, but tasty. Oh, and just a side note: we watched "The House Bunny", starring Anna Faris whilst we ate. And now you're jealous.

Must blog

I don't really know what my problem has been lately, I have no motivation to write or post. My friend Barbara, who is the most disiplined blogger I know (I don't know many bloggers, but even if I did, she would still be the best), keeps reminding me to keep blogging, and she is totally right. It's good to have a some kind of daily habit (as long as it's not something like smoking, or shooting up). Plus who wants to visit a blog that is never updated? Nobody, that's who. This is why I must continue to write and post as often as possible, even if I write about something like the A-team episode I watched today, or what I ate for lunch, or how hot it is in the projection booths were I work. Eventually, something interesting is bound to happen in my life... right?

Tonight, I am going to bake a yellow layer cake with chocolate frosting (my mom just bought some cake pans).