halifax oddities

The Parade of lights was on tonight - don't recall them mentioning Santa though the Jolly old elf did appear at the end, as he always does.

But only in Halifax does the parade include a whole whack of Klingons from Star Trek....

my little miss

Got home late tonight from the lab. Stephanie, how did you do it? taking care of kids, holding down a FULL time job, and still getting good lab results for your masters????

I have to write post it notes so I can remember what exactly I am analysing when. My data looks more like a .... I don't know.... nothing straight thats for damn sure. My classmate says his looked like numbers dancing all over the place when he first started lab work for his masters. great. I guess. I can just see my term paper - "well these numbers were supposed to mean something but because I am a big loser they don't mean anything - so let's pretend I got better numbers and then we can pretend that it means this".

Anywhoo - got home late tonight from the lab and there on the couch, sleeping away was a gourd, laying very carefully on a doll's pillow and covered by a doll's blanket.

My girl has decided that this gourd is her baby for some reason that eludes me. M takes it to bed with her (when she remembers) and I have to move the darn thing because unlike warm blooded creatures, this thing sucks warmth from all those around it. Its like curling up with an ice cube.

C takes pleasure in reminding his sister that one day the gourd, or baby depending on your audience, will start to rot and then we will have to throw it away. Or maybe we will eat it he says with a grin. This is around the time that M starts to yell. Loudly.

Poor little miss. she is surrounded by boys no matter where she goes. Back at home on our street it was boys boys boys, except for the baby next door who did not say a word. And now here there are 3 boys next door plus her brother. I'm not surprised she's taken to playing with gourds, the testosterone is driving her mad.

Mike was playing them a song by Radiohead called Creep, where Thom Yorke sings "I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo, I wish I was special...." and my sweetie miss said "I think he's special" she always looks after the underdog, even the highly paid rockstar ones.

the birthday boy

there is a big scary bionicle poised to attack my computer on my desk. he is greenish and silver, with menacing teeth and neon green eyes beneath his scary mask. in one hand he holds a sabre that lights up and in the other bright blue balls that he can shoot at the enemy.

he is a gift from the boys next door to the birthday boy.

I never had boys in my immediate family so watching my newly turned 8 year old is pretty neat.C love his bionicle and loves to attack any and all things (including his sister). He was almost completely overcome when he got his skateboard on the weekend. Dad had the great idea to hide his presents and have a treasure hunt.

My boy - and likely many boys - is a walking, burping, toilet humour loving, contradiction. While he loves his snuggles at night and in the morning - he does NOT want to be kissed anywhere near school. On his birthday I drove to school with him and he very quickly leaned in for a kiss by the car - with his eyes looking left to see if anyone was watching.

And yet my boy has a soft side - he loves his sister's my pony books - but won't fess up to it in public.I say this not to break a confidence but because I think we should celebrate our boys and all their sides. He still has his favourite colour that he had when he was 2, but to the outside world it is "green".

Mike took fiendish pleasure in reminding me that my baby will be 12 in 4 short years. It always reminds me of the time 8 years ago when I took my brand new baby to the deli and a very old lady came up to coo at him and tell me about her baby. After listening to her stories about her baby I asked her how old her baby was and she replied - "he's 60".

punk songs

the kids and I packed into the car and went off to Mahone Bay yesterday. I wanted to show them the membrane filtration pilot plants and get some water samples.

The kids seemed pretty interested in getting water samples - for about 5 minutes - and then were pretty happy just to run around screaming by the water.

We stopped into Mahone Bay for a bit to see the sights. There is a pewter store there where you can watch them actually make the pewter decorations. C was fascinated by the whole process, watching her melt the ingot of pewter into the bubbling pot, and then pour it into the decoration mold. Mike thinks that C will become a craftsman when he grows up - a glass blower or something.

The sun was shining on the way back the trees still have their leaves here and the kids were singing sweetly in the back seat. .... and through all this loveliness it filtered down into my brain that they were singing "should I stay or should I go" by the Clash - the kings of punk. how funny life is when a smoking tune from a defiant band from my angst ridden youth becomes a cheery silly tune for my own kids on a gorgeous day in my not so angst ridden middle age.

Happy Remembrance Day

For some reason C & M's school seems very concerned with safety.

It started with the public health nurse - for the next few days all five kids were really concerned about properly washing their hands to get rid of the germs, to the point where we were worrying about obsessive compulsiveness. Hands had to be washed a certain way and if not you had to start again.

Then came the firefighters - for a week the C would not stop worrying about the state of our smoke detectors, M kept showing me the fire sign on labels, we measured where the kids could be in relation to the stove, and M proudly announced how she would not hide in the closet if there was a fire but stay low to stay away from the smoke.

And just in time for Halloween - the police came in to talk about potential poison in their treats, the need for flashlights while walking. The kids didn't want to go out until I went to the store to get damn reflective tape for their costumes.

So I wasn't too surprised when I picked the kids up yesterday and asked how their day went and M said that the veterinarians showed up. I could just imagine them scaring the kids silly with stories of rabid drooling dogs. But the 5 kids said they didn't talk about that.
Me:"so what did they talk about?"
M: "they said nothing"
Me: nothing?
M: no they sat there
at this point I am imagining someone with humane society dogs showing them off and telling the kids horror stories of maltreatment while the local vets sit there just in case.
Me: so let me guess - you sat there and they sat there and you just stared at each other?
M: no we clapped for them

......

and then I remembered - it is Remembrance day on Saturday and those weren't silent veterinarians but veterans sitting on stage watching the remembrance day pagent and getting a round of applause.

School (or 30 days to get everything done)

As usual I had grand plans (always grand plans - never teeny tiny plans that are actually accomplishable - no, always big bold plans that never come up to snuff). Grand plans to blog about Halifax every day - or every other day. Ha ha ha.

Then reality hit in the form of School. It is the 7th of November, in exactly one month I write my first exam. In between I have to hand in two labs, a term paper, and a water treatment design project, not to mention various other assignments. Oh and do my CMHC work and try to be there for the kids so they don't forget what I look like. Who thought this was a good idea?

Last night I had one of those dreams - you know the type where you have to fill out tables and charts and graphs. If you've never had those dreams count yourself lucky. I remember exactly when I first started having them - it was in grade 12 when I was taking a grade 13 chemistry class and in way over my head. Oddly enough that's when the insomnia started too...

Aside - The window in my little coffee shop is closed for the season and now the fireplace has a nice roaring fire in it - too cute!

I visited Mahone Bay the other day - for school stuff. Mahone Bay is looking to upgrade their water treatment plant and so there are three membrane systems being tested to see how well they perform. It is up to my office mate Stephanie to keep them running and take samples each day. I'm going to use some of this water for my term paper so I thought I'd go check it out. Its funny - when you read a text book they say simple things like "membrane systems are easy to operate" - hmmm... the authors obviously haven't visited Mahone Bay. Almost every day one of the systems is down - and Stephanie has to check everything to see where the problem is.

As for the lab work - without Mark my other office mate, we'd all be toast. He essentially runs the labs and we just take our cues from him.

I used to think that lab work was an exact science. Maybe in Germany (where all the high end monitoring equipment seems to come from) but in good ol Dal. it is more of an art shall we say. some of the equipment is slightly broken, meters are slightly off, important glassware that is not supposed to have any scratches on it do. then there are the procedures - was I supposed to shake that water before testing? or was this the test where it is supposed to settle out first? yeesh. No wonder repeatability is so important in this line of work.

Anyways Mike is off to his second interview and I am off to "digest" aluminum.