Abstract Random

To provide some balance to all the posts you're reading from bloggers who have green thumbs and amazing gardens and are harvesting zucchini out the wazoo... Remember the flowers and spikes and grassy things I put out on the balcony this year? Yeah, well, the flowers are dead; I pulled them up this morning. They started wilting a couple weeks ago when it was really hot and I forgot to water them for a couple of days and never recovered, they just got more and more wilty, despite regular waterings, and in the end they looked very sad indeed.

Oops. The spikes and grass are still hanging in there though:

Next year I should probably just skip the flowers altogether...

In other news, I finished reading Infinite Jest this morning! I struggled with the first half but things started to come together for me in the second half and in the end I really enjoyed it. I'm glad I stuck with it. Just don't ask me to try to explain what it's about.

I got my new glasses yesterday! I'm still getting used to them, they're a lot funkier than anything I've worn for a while, glasses-wise. But I like them, they're the perfect balance of cool and retro and nerdy that I was looking for.

That's Starla on my shoulders, chewing on my hair, in case you were wondering. She insisted on being up there while I was taking photos.

Hey well-connected Ottawa folks:

Do you know a cool local photographer who would be interested in taking head shots of the lovely, dedicated staff of a small, progressive non-profit for not a ton of money and/or a charitable tax receipt? If so, please email me at abstractrandom.ca at gmail dot com.

Thanks!

I'm back at work this week and the summer slowdown is officially over. It's suddenly nuts again. Ugh.

I really enjoyed our week off though. It was a good mix of getting things done (or partially done, anyway), relaxing, and hanging out with friends and family. We watched a bunch of movies, both at home (Harold Lloyd movies we recorded on TCM the other week) and in the theatre (the new Harry Potter [enh] and District 9 [go see it!]).

We also went to see the papal art exhibit at the National Gallery and found it pretty boring. But then again, we should have known anything pope-related wouldn't exactly be our cup of tea. The most fun I had in the exhibit was giggling over Pope Sixus V's name and some story that went along with a painting about this guy who was going to be the eighth man to marry some lady, whose previous seven husbands all died on their wedding night. An angel appeared to him and advised him to cut up some fish bits to ward off the demons, which apparently worked and they lived happily ever after. Seriously. That's the story. Why after, like, the third guy wouldn't people clue in and, you know, stop marrying her? Maybe she was a super hot demon lady? I don't know.

In other news, Starla met my 3 month-old nephew over the weekend. She'd never seen a baby before so we weren't sure how she would react. Normally she avoids people or she'll slowly slink up to sniff them and then suddenly take a swipe at them and run away. She was much more interested in baby G than she is most visitors, maybe because he was at ground level a lot of the time, so the couple of times she started to slink up to him and sniff him we were pretty quick to shoosh her away before she could swipe. Disaster averted.

Hey, guess what? I'm on vacation! And—even better—Arun's on vacation too! We kicked things off with a trip to Montreal on Friday to celebrate Arun's birthday.

The whole thing nearly went very, very wrong Friday morning. As in, I almost killed Starla. We were rushing around trying to get ourselves ready to catch the train and literally as we were walking towards the door to go Arun said, "where's Starla?" and thank god he did because he found her locked out on the balcony. I had gone out a few minutes earlier to water the plants out there (for once) and she must have snuck out behind me. I totally didn't see her. She would have died out there in the sun without water all day. I can't even begin to explain how awful I felt.

We were already cutting it close to get to the train station before the Starla Incident and just made our train. Running was involved.

Thankfully things got better from there on out. So. Much. Better. We stayed at Hôtel le Germain and wow, was it ever nice. It reminded me of the hotel we stayed in in Madrid. It was really modern and well designed but still comfortable.

We did some shopping (ok, I did the vast, vast majority of the shopping*) and lots of walking around and went out for a really nice dinner. After a stressful start, it turned out to be a lovely little getaway for the both of us. We were only gone for about 36 hours but it felt longer (in the best way).

*Among my many purchases: a new pair of glasses! It's going to be at least a few weeks before I have them because I have to get my eyes checked first. And, of course, we forgot to take a picture of me in them at the store so for now you'll just have to trust me when I tell you they are awesome.

My summer project this year is reading Infinite Jest, a 1,000+ page book by David Foster Wallace. I've always wanted to read it but was intimidated by it's size and it's reputation for not being an easy read but some like-minded folks set up Infinite Summer, a sort of online book club/support group with the goal of reading Infinite Jest over the course of the summer. I figured I could read 75 pages a week (plus footnotes) for four months and bought a copy.

I'm halfway through the book now. It's nearly impossible to explain what it's about, mainly because the story telling is all out of sequence and has several different threads that have yet to be woven together, but it takes place in an odd near-future and it's got a lot about addition and recovery, technology, relationships, environmental catastrophe, Quebec separatist assassins in wheelchairs, and tennis. So, yeah.

Arun keenly observed that I don't seem to be especially enjoying the book and asked why I'm sticking with it. It's true that it's a hard book to read and it's been a real slog at times. But there have also been parts that I've really loved and because of the Infinite Summer blog I've been able to gain some interesting insights and read about other people's experiences reading the book and feel like I'm not alone.

People who've read the book say it all comes together in the end and the payoff is worth the effort. Arun likened it to his experience running the marathon: there are times when you think, "why am I doing this to myself?" but in the end the feeling of accomplishment makes it all worth while. I'm hoping so.