It's too bad you're a boy.

While my mantra for most of the weekend was, "Not okay. Not okay. Not okay. Not okay," I am feeling okay now. Cheruby was truly an angel and told me he loved me lots, gave me lots of hugs and took me out somewhere in Saskatoon I'd never been and we made out in his new car (new to him, not NEW) for a while. He took me out for supper at Calories, let me stay home from the grocery shopping trip, gave me some alone time so my thoughts could run amuck without interference, and helped me chip the ice off the front walk and back patio. He made me a fantastic supper of chili lime chicken kabobs and asparagus and made me feel okay about not being okay.

Okay. I hate war movies. They almost always leave me feeling upset and sad and cranky. I actually scared Ferlak with my reaction to Life is Beautiful. I am plagued with the unanswerable, "Why?" which ruins my typically sunny demeanor. I have enough emotional reactions to real life so why would I willingly put myself into a situation where I was watching men being slaughtered for two hours? It's still a frakin' war movie no matter how many sexy bodies are being shown. There were some great scenes, but all the blood and violence are not my cup of tea. And not only did I go see this movie, the previous movie I went to was Pan's Labrynth. Can someone please remind me the next time they see a fantastic movie that I won't like it if it's ultraviolent and about war. Pretty please.

The bits of the movie 300 that were great were the queen and the traitor in front of the council, "... may you live forever," and the two soldiers flirting while cleaning up the bodies on the battlefield. Heh. Rilla had a good giggle at me when I waved to one of the soldiers who was about to be decapitated. Did I mention ultraviolent?

Oh and in other trivia about the movie, one of my favourite TV shows Hex has its villain appear in this movie as Stelios and I noticed despite the long blonde hair vs. short black hair! I was impressed with myself.

Babyface was staying with us on Wednesday night and Rilla came over so we tried Cheruby's new Marvel game. We were learning so it took us a long time, but it took us an hour to get through less than a round of the game. I'm not sure, but I think it'll take too long for my liking. It was great to see him.

Thursday Cheruby and I rented a van and drove to Calgary with the rest of Ferlak's stuff that was being stored in my house. Babyface stayed at the house with the kittenses for company and food until Friday when he went back to P.A. to his family for the weekend.

The drive to Calgary was quite nice, actually. The day was clear and sunny and the roads were clear. As we moved west, we saw less and less snow and then we saw some new green growth in some of the fields! You hear that those from Far Away? It's almost safe to come back! We got in at the almost perfect hour for Ferlak to be almost done cooking us supper. What a sweetie! Baby potatoes from farmer's market, chicken baked with black olives and other yummy spices, and a Sante Fe salad which was ... interesting and not necessarily in a bad way. Ferlak really likes it so he shared.

Then he shared something else with Cheruby - Shadow of the Colossus. Very, very, very pretty. Cheruby now owns this game.

After Cheruby played around with that for a while, we listened to my iPod on shuffle and played a little Dracula where Cheruby kicked our butts handily. He has now agreed that if he's playing Dracula, there has to be some extra advantages for the hunters. It was a really good night.

Ferlak left for work early the next morning and Cheruby and I had a lazy day. We walked to Phil's for breakfast around 11. He played a little more Colossus killing while I wrapped presents for my niece and nephew and the Very Tall One and Ferlak. Ferlak can't open his until his birthday in July. Heh.

Then we went to the Sentry Box and Cheruby was overwhelmed with the selection. Sensory overload. We found this fantastic game that made us think of a few of our friends. Heh. It supports 2 to 12 players. I bought a few more decks for my Blue Moon game, but Cheruby shockingly left empty-handed after an hour. Then we went to a mall and left fairly quickly as we didn't find anything we wanted.

The next part was also fantastic. Spending time with my niece and nephew. My niece turned 9 last week. This was probably the most fantastic evening I can remember spending with her in the last few years. She was fun and listened and it was good. I gave her a birthday present or two. My mom got her the second book in a series of which I got her the first book. It's about 12 year olds so I was hoping the age thing would appeal to her. The books are called The City of Ember and The People of Sparks by Jeanne DuPrau. I also got her the Blueman Group Keyboard. The drum parts and other play elements are set about by motion sensors. Very cool. We taught her how to play Mary Had A Little Lamb. Then we had some fun making our voices go really high and then really low. The Glad garbage bag song (Wimpy, wimpy, wimpy. Hefty, hefty, hefty.) is really good for that. My dad and I used to have a lot of fun with it and my niece thought it was hilarious. After supper we went to the park and played tag. There were some teenagers there and it was really interesting to watch my niece observing them. It was getting dark so we headed home and read with her for a bit. I tucked her in and kissed her goodnight.

Cheruby and I left early in the morning. I had to wake up my niece to say good bye. Her only point of protest was to say it wasn't 8 yet. Usually she doesn't want to hug me because she's so upset that I'm leaving. I was very happy with her very sleepy goodbye hugs. She wouldn't hug Cheruby, but she did offer to shake his hand. I was very proud of her.

The drive home to Saskatoon was excellent as well. Great sunshine and good roads although I didn't particularly enjoy heading back into the snow covered lands of Saskatchewan. Cheruby and I sang and talked and read on the journey. And it was really good.

Cheruby played at Lydia's on St. Patrick's Day and then had a gig while I dined with Drang, Mrs. Drang, His Nibs, Kaz, and Rilla. We went to The Ivy and it was really yummy. I haven't had a delicious meal like that one in a really long time. I'll have to convince Cheruby to go out more often. It was a really good time and I haven't seen the boys together in a long time. They ditched us girls for a few games of pool which was no big deal because it's happened a few times over the years. They got back fairly late and we girls been served cocktails by Cheruby so we were all tired so folks just went home.

We got to play a little Low Life the next day which was very much fun as usual. Although the bigger monkey was quite sick, she held up well throughout the festivities. Cheruby headed out to his uncle's right from there. I got a phone call at home later from him as his car had broken down. We collectively witnessed three rollovers and one vehicle just in the ditch with no rolling action. The roads were completely horrible around Hague. I was driving as slow as 30 km/hr because they were so bad. And now it looks like Cheruby is looking for a new car.

Babyface and family came up to stay late on Sunday night as well. Baby Babyface is very cute indeed and I enjoyed talking with Mrs. Babyface.

I was supposed to have lunch with Rilla yesterday and lunch was had, but it wasn't as good as it was supposed to be. She missed her bus and I had a very small lunch time window with meetings scheduled for the rest of the day. Of course, today, I spent 95% of my time on the phone as well. Hopefully, I'm pretty much done with my massive meetings schedule and I think I am for a while. I hope I get to spend some time with her real soon. I've taken tomorrow off to play video games all day with Cheruby.

Thanks, Rilla!

This time, I have a good excuse for not blogging. I've been too busy with work and recuperating from work to do any blogging. Really. Okay, that's a bit of a lie as I've been trying to keep up with others' blogs just not my own.

Last weekend in Edmonton, I got to see Neuba and Kaz. It was so exciting to see their new house. Oh my, the parties that could happen there!! It's absolutely wonderful.

It was very nice to see Siochain's mom. She really is a wonderful woman. And Siochain is going through lots of stuff right now and is being very brave and tough. She's so much stronger now than I've ever seen her before.

I really liked not having a car because I was then at the mercy of those that were willing to chaffeur me around the city. I didn't have too much opportunity to just do what I wanted and I was really okay with that. I really needed an evening to veg so I didn't go to the KC game, but hung out with the M ladies instead. We were all in a similar mood in that we were enjoying each other's company without needing to entertain each other. It was perfect and exactly what I needed. I was sleeping so soundly that I didn't realize that Bne had made it home at all.

I did get to visit a couple of friends in Edmonton who had a lot of other people over. They're all so wonderful and I hope they realize that it isn't a reflection on them that I don't come up to game as often as some others from Saskatoon do. I really thought I could manage the intensity I wanted for the game there, but I couldn't. It's too tiring and I would rather just be me now that I have so many people to visit when I go to Edmonton. My trip to Edmonton in April is going to be whirlwindy, I'm sure. More days there means more people to visit, but it means I'll definitely have time to visit with my Auntie Cool.

While I was in Edmonton, we spent some time at a mall. Not usually my favourite thing, but I realized there were some things that I wanted to get and so we found a spot that would suit everyone's needs. I got a new bathing suit that doesn't threaten to let the girls free while doing aquafitness. I was very proud of that purchase as the regular price on the tag was $78 and I paid $25 including taxes. I've made a monetary commitment to going to the YWCA here for classes for the next three months. So far, so good. I went twice last week as my schedule permitted (too much overtime so I missed the Monday after work class). Next week should be better, but even if I go only twice a week for three months, I've still saved quite a bit of money. I'd prefer to go three times though because then Cheruby won't bug me about using the elliptical downstairs which is far more boring.

I also printed some copies of a great picture of Bne and Siochain. I had another thing on my list but I don't remember what it was, but it wasn't important because it didn't get done.

The work week was tough because I worked a lot of overtime which sucked big time. My own fault because I didn't get this particular project done earlier. It was really supposed to be done at the end of January which I thought was ridiculous. Now, I'm paying for it.

We tried to play In Nomine on Tuesday evening, but that didn't work very well. It was requested that I finish this particular ProJEct^TM that Cheruby and I were working on for quite a while. The finishing touches took about 2 hours which was much longer than it was anticipated only because I had to redo a bunch of the liner notes. Totally worth it though. Then there was too much drinking to roleplay well so we just called it a bust. We'll eventually play, I'm sure. Anyone want to join us on Tuesday evenings?

A colleague was finally informed this week that she wasn't really right for her position, but that she's very valuable so what would she like to do. Well she's now doing the job one step above those she was managing before. While it'll be hard for her, I think she'll do better things in her new position. The worrisome part is that I'm not sure what they are going to do with her position. Of course, until we figure that out, another team manager and I are going to cover her hours at the end of the day which with the DST change this weekend, means only an extra 1.5 hours for me in the day which is better than the 2.5 extra I did on Thursday and Friday. [sigh]

Lots of exercise and crying for stress release, and lots of support and forgiveness from Cheruby has made me a happier girl.

Cheruby and I are off to Calgary at the end of next week for a very quick trip. Thursday night will hopefully be spent with the Furlak and the Very Tall One with Friday night being with my family. I'm very excited about the trip and not having to be at work for a few days. It's my niece's birthday on Wednesday and I get to take her the fabulous prezzie I got for her two months ago.

Why is it that some people think that being mean is the only way they can get things done? We've gone above and beyond for a client who is continuing to rant and complain about how awful we've been. At the end of the day, we did the work for her employees so that their lives were disrupted as little as possible. All the same, she's being impossible. I've been with her until 8 o'clock several evenings this week and the one day I wasn't, she phoned and complained to someone else. I believe in the past week, my company has had over 100 hours working time on the issues that she created. Arrggghhh!

*******SPOILER ALERT - PAN'S LABRYNTH********
Went to see Pan's Labrynth last night. It was good. So, my feeling at the end of the movie wasn't sadness as I was told it would be, but more happiness that Ofelia was finally where she belonged. I felt bad for Mercedes because she was going to have to carry guilt around with her because she felt that she didn't save Ofelia. The main characters got what they deserved. Ofelia's mom got freedom, Vidal definitely got what he deserved, the baby won't in the hands of a monster, Mercedes and the resistance triumphed over the military stronghold, and Ofelia got to go home. And I get to believe in fairy tales. Unfortunately, the brutality of the rest of the movie was too much for me and I had to shut down a little so I didn't get the full spectrum of emotions I enjoy. I will have to make due with my memory of the good parts so I don't have to watch it again. I think the bad parts would wreck me if I saw them again. Not that I watched them the first time, but the sound of him stitching his own face just about made me leave the theatre.

*********KEEP READING HERE**********
I'm off to Edmonton on a jet plane tonight. I will see Bne, Kaz, Neuba, Siochain and her mom, Jenn & Owen, and hopefully Binary Kitten and quirkykitten. There are so many others that I will miss, but hopefully, the next visit will be a longer one where I can see more of everyone.