Oh my.

Today, after banging out an assignment, I went down to Chinatown with my friend A_____ to go to this awesome dumpling place that she had been hankering for. Well, it was quite delicious. I ate so much that I could barely walk afterwards, which was a bad thing because I had to go around and collect groceries for dinner this evening.

Then, shortly after arriving back home, I got an email from B___ that said, "Is this the restaurant you went to today?"

Yes. Yes, it is. Please note the date on that story, folks. Today. Meaning, it got closed right after we left.

I am feeling fine. Frankly, I'm not too worried about plague or anything, but I guess it's an amazing coincidence. Or something.

In honor of this turn of events, we watched Ratatoille tonight after dinner. It was a cute movie, and cleared up a lot of things up for me.

I know it probably seems impolitic to complain about the weather right now when my family and lots of friends live in Tennessee, but damn.

It is cold today. The temp is reading -16C, but Environment Canada says with wind chill it "feels like" -31. I wouldn't really know, because I don't have any idea what -31 feels like, but I know that when I walked outside the library to come home for dinner tonight, my eyelids hurt.

Right now, I'm peering out the window with a equal measures of fear and mistrust. What is this place, anyway?

It's 12:15am on a Saturday night and I'm sitting in my chair, working on an assignment and watching snow pile up outside.

It's not the most exciting life, but it's got a kind of quiet charm that I'm sort of digging at the moment. I'm starting to think I could get used to this place.

i was only saying yesterday that i haven't been having too many problems with migraines since we moved here.

well, that'll teach me to open my big mouth.

they came back with a vengeance today, though i'm feeling better now. B___ dragged me to the doctor but they couldn't see me. definitely need to make an appointment post-haste to get a Canadian prescription

Sometimes it pays to have your every movement tracked by your government and to have that information shared with anyone who comes knocking.

Today, we walked into Service Ontario (which incidentally is the absolute nicest place I've ever had to go to do official goverment business), sat in the waiting room for a half hour, and after being called walked out 5 minutes later with our Ontario drivers licenses.

Thank you Inter-provincial Record Exchange!

Hi everybody!

Well, we're officially landed immigrants of Canada now, having crashed through the red tape yesterday without too much trouble at all. This morning we went and got our SINs (Social Insurance Numbers, basically the Canadian equivalent of the SSN) and ran home to meet the Rogers guy, who kindly hooked up our Internet, phone, and cable (hence, this post).

I have lots to talk about from our road trip, but not much time right now. Our stuff isn't going to get here until Friday, so we're basically camping in the house right now, with a few amenities like laptops and DSes. Having no stuff at least gives us a chance to clean up the house really well, and the are cefrtain parts that need it. Well, one part in particular: the basement. We're talking about a Lovecraftian level of untidiness here: squamous mounds of indescribable offal, eldritch vapours, and potentially even madly-gibbering-mouthed myconids. I swear to god they have a priesthood down there.

It falls to me to take the first stab at rooting out the evil that lies beneath our house. Mainly, because I was able to bargain my way out of cleaning the rest of the house if I did that, but also because any Southern-born man of even a little character would NOT want his best girl going down there. I've been to the hardware store and got gloves and respirator masks. I've steeled myself, and stocked the liquor cabinet for my hopeful return trip, to drink away the thousands of voices and the horrible memories of down there....

Wish me luck, gentle reader.

I remain,

Steve