under the cover of fog

It's been a pretty good week. Lots of little things add up.

Work is going OK. My first day at Bennett was pretty low-key, but I did spend some time on the desk and on virtual reference and that was OK. It's a little more stressful there because there are a lot more people who don't know how to use the library and the questions are a bit more involved than Fraser Library. I'll be teaching in a couple of weeks, which is kind of nerve-wracking, but I'm trying to remember that I used to teach for a living and it will probably be OK. Until I feel comfortable with how things work I'll probably still have a bit of anxiety about it all. What's kind of neat about working on the top of the mountain is that, while the city has been under a blanket of fog for a week, SFU gets full days of sun. It was amazing to go out for my break and have sunshine on my face. Seeing the fog hanging over the city makes the weird commute satisfying.

Friday I stopped off in Metrotown after work to pick up groceries, but was overcome by the lines at Superstore and decided to just look at a clothing store and get out of there. I found a pair of decent jeans for around $7, which wound up being half price, so jeans for $3.50. This happens sometimes and I'm so cheap that I can rationalise buying jeans for under $10, regardless of how they look. These looked pretty OK and just need a little hemming. I headed home and started making dinner for the movie night I planned with my friend. The food turned out pretty good (fragrant jasmine rice and jerked tofu. Smelled amazing), but the tofu I probably wouldn't make again because it took me two days to get all the marinade off the pan. We watched a doc about a little girl who painted and then "Nanook of the North," which is my new favourite movie. Love it SO MUCH. I joked I was going to get her a huge knife for her birthday tomorrow, and just might if I can find one that will cut through walrus meat. Such a fun time.

Yesterday I got my hair dealt with. What's always weird is that, months after I get my hair done, I start to get a barrage of compliments on my hair. The last couple of weeks I had a number of people asking about where I get my hair done because it looked good, and then of course I have to schedule a haircut and change it. Sigh. I don't care what my hair person does to my hair, truly, because I can't really do anything with it myself and she knows better than me. She's working my hair toward what she calls an ultra mullet, which is short bangs and a gradual cutting away of the sides to a long back. I think it's funny. We'll see what happens.

Last night I had my friends over for a night of baking and movie-watching. It may sound weird to bake on a Saturday night, but it was a lot of fun and we were all anxious to get more of that chocolate bourbon cake. I know I talk about it a lot, but it's such a nice cake. We accompanied our baking with bourbon and coke, and watched "Let's go to prison," which seems even funnier to watch since my friend is now a cop. It's a pretty hilarious film; can't believe I'd never seen it before. Rich showed photos of his last summer on the fire squad in Hope as we finished off the last of the bourbon. He and Christy kindly suffered through my long summary of why sumo is awesome. They're really great. Rich said he finally got called by VPL, 4 1/2 months after he applied for on-call, and the day of that orientation is the day he gets sworn in for the VPD. (Apparently they have the ceremony on the news every year, so I'm exited to see him on TV.) So he can't even work as a librarian because they took so long to hire him. Crazy.

This morning I had a brunch date with my newish work friend, Trish. She made a tasty cheesy mushroom strata and yummy potatoes, and we had orange juice and bubbly champagne-type stuff. She's got an awesome apartment with lots of cool art that made me so jealous of her co-op. I took a piece of the cake for her as a thank you, but she deserved so much more; she's a really fantastic hostess. We compared projects and had a good chat with lots of laughs. We decided to wander around 4th for a bit and then got London Fogs and walked around a park near her house. The fog was creepy and unexpected after having sun all morning and part of the afternoon. A really great day with a fun friend!

I'm excited to see TP tomorrow after work for dinner and a catch-up. I've wanted to go to the restaurant that took over Aurora Bistro's space and she suggested we try it. I'm just interested to see what kind of a nightmare the trip to and from Surrey is going to be now that the Pattullo is closed indefinitely. Wish me luck.