Orienteeration

Contrary to his expectations, Sean loved orientation week. When he told me about it, he reminded me of that Simpson's episode where Springfield Elementary goes to the Springfield Knowledgeum (Science Centre) and Homer, after begrudgingly going along as a chaperon, joins the children in enjoying the zaniness that is discovering science. SCIENCE!!! After running around like an 8 year old all day, Homer tells Marge, "me and my friend found this red button, and I told my friend not to press the button, but he did and oh man...it was hilarious...and then, me and my friend..." to which Marge replies, "Homer, you're overstimulated. Let's get you straight home to a beer and then bed".


I searched the entire internet to find a copy of that clip so I could link it to the blog, but I was unsuccessful. I will award a prize to the swashbuckling sleuther who can find it. The episode is called "This Little Wiggy".


I'm happy he had such a great time, because a week of not having a great time would suck. He made some friends and is now eagerly awaiting the first day of school (Tuesday).

It's a long weekend (Thank-you, Ontario), so I'm working away like mad to get the house ready for viewing. It's coming along nicely. My parents came by yesterday to help out. It's amazing what a power washer can do for a deck that's a few years old. My mother picked about a zillion tomatoes out of the garden and there are more in there (she got freaked out by the earwigs, etc that would jump out and threaten to take her wallet). I also made a trip to IKEA yesterday to pick up some jazz for the house. Hopefully it jazzes appropriately.

I also bought an amazing antique piece at Value Village. VV in Kitchener now has a drive through at the back so that you can drop your stuff there and when dropping off a couple of bags of stuff, I came across this crazy chair. It's made of wood and crimson upholstery. I left, thinking, "we're purging - we don't need anymore stuff". I took another few bags to VV the next day and the chair was still there. I asked the nicest toothless boy (seriously) how much it would be once they sticker it. He said, "I don't know - I'll go check with the manager. It will probably be pretty expensive". He came back with a sorry-it's-going-to-be-expensive look on his face and he said, "yeah, like I thought...it's going to be $19.99". See, now I had psyched myself up so that if it was more than $50 bucks I'd walk away. I wouldn't even haggle. At $20, I would be losing money if I didn't purchase it. Seriously, do the math. So, I ended up taking it home the next day with a little help from my friends. There was no way I was going to be able to fit this thing in Joan Jetta. Check out the pic below. Obviously, the cats approve.


Sean spent a couple hours today touring around T-Bay with our realtor, Bob Pfaff. In an amazing twist of fate, we found out that Bob went to highschool with my parents. Small world. There wasn't anything that Sean felt was right for us, so he'll keep up the search. Here's hoping he finds something soon. I'm anxious to start my northern adventure. I at least want to be there before the snow falls at the end of September. Kidding...I know that the snow doesn't fall there until early October. ;)

How many bankers boxes would it take to fill Lake Michigan?

Boxes! Man...I don't want to see another box again in my life, but I guess I have to understand that my life is about boxes for the next while. Emptying boxes, packing boxes, acquiring boxes, boxing boxes, lunch boxing, lunch with Box Boxerson. Boxes!!

I had a break from my boxed hell earlier this week. I went to Chicago for business and I got a pleasant little surprise from the Hyatt in Schaumburg, Hella-Noise (that's my pet name for the ILLest state in the east). My room was awesome. They're redecorating the Hyatt that I usually stay at when I'm visiting our Chicago office (it's actually in Rolling Meadows, but "I'm going to the Rolling Meadows office" sounds so uninteresting - I may as well say "I'm going to a wheat field in Saskatchewan" - my apologies to any Saskatchewanese/Saskwatch in the readership. Damn...there's my GTA upitiness coming out again). Whoa...tangent. So, back to my story, they're redoing the hotel, which kind of made me sad because the previous decoration style was very art deco and it made me feel like I was in the roaring 20's without the threat of economic collapse looming in the near future. Oh - wait...now that I think about it, the US did smell of musty old mortgage crises while I was there.

Anyway...I was sad until I saw the 37" LCD TV in my room. Now, many of you out there may be saying, "so what? it's just a TV", but for someone who doesn't watch a lot of TV, my business trips are my opportunity to watch TV for hours with no nagging voice in my head saying "you should be grouting the bathroom tile" or "shouldn't you be doing something that involves a box?". Such a treat! Anyway, it was exciting to me, so shut up all you haters out there who don't understand my no-cable, life-full-of-boxes pain. Boxes!!

Here are some pictures of my awesome room before I threw tags from Target garments all over it.









































I wonder what will happen on my trip to Seattle in September? The office is actually in Bellevue, but once again..."I'm going to Bellevue"...doesn't make me sound very interesting or invoke any jealousy, which is my general goal in life. I wonder if I'll be surprised by a delicious Pacific Coho jumping out of a box onto a plate of fresh box shavings?
Alright - back to my boxes. They're the only ones who understand me. I wonder if it's possible to get box poisoning? Is there a future doctor in the house???

Set Sail on Lake Superiority

Sean left on his pilgrimage to Thunder Bay on Thursday morning. NOSM (Northern Ontario School of Medicine) orientation week starts on Monday.

Some goodbye pictures...

It's all happening. Sean's new career, my career miraculously continuing, a pretty ring on my finger and a very empty house. Despite having to wave goodbye to Sean this morning, I'm in great spirits. This is a pretty exciting change for both of us. I will still be in KW for another couple of months or so and then back in town for work quite frequently.

Sean did an amazing job putting the finishing touches on the house before he left. Check out the craftsmanship below.
















Actually, Sean replaced the phone jack, so it doesn't look like that anymore.

There are still a few small things for me to do, but for the most part, the house is done. We just need to stage it and then sell it. Simple, right? Riiiiiiight.

People seemed to enjoy our house blog, so I figured I'd continue the tradition of publicizing the ups and downs of our life transitions, with lots of pictures, in a new blog. BLOG!

As you may or may not know, Thunder Bay is located at the top of Lake Superior, hence the blog's title. The title also comes from the fact that I'm a born and bred Southern Ontario girl, and in a lot of ways, I'm totally ignorant to the ways of the North. I'm looking forward to getting to know a new area of our large and beautiful country. In order to make some friends, I'll start by talking to the T-Bayers about how awesome S. Ont (pronounced So-ahnt) is and how everything's different there. People are smarter, prettier, nicer, wealthier, smellier (in a good way) and less sauna-fied, etc. Hardly anyone is Finnish and those who are Finnish just put cute Finnish flag stickers on their cars and wouldn't ever force you to eat kippered herring. As you can see, my southern biases will make me extremely intriguing to the northern-folk and I'm sure they'll want to be around me just so that they can tell people that they met someone who once lived near Toronto. It will be like that scene in 2010 where the chimpanzees are intrigued by the monolith and then it teaches them how to make tools and drive a car and make computers that can beat you at chess or convince your wife to cheat on you.

I'm looking forward to making new friends...maybe with a moose or a wooly mammoth?

In all seriousness, I don't want to come off as an ignorant Southern Ontario fashionista. I've heard Toronto referred to as the United States of Canada in the past, and if I'm going to be compared to an American, I'd prefer to be compared to the ones who say, "you're right - I know nothing about your world. Educate me" rather than the ones who say "I only know about the countries we're at war with" (True conversation I had with two very different Americans many years ago).

Ok. I'm done explaining my new blog...long story short, it will be about my transition to Thunder Bay and all the humourous fish-out-of-water experiences that come along with a culture shift. I promise that the next post won't have any pictures that are from decades old movies (unless my readership likes that sort of thing). Ok - let's be serious...I will continue to make reference to old movies. I don't want to lead you astray.