I’m visiting Calgary for the first couple weeks of December, alone. I’m imagining an espresso-fueled bender of cat-cuddling, manga-reading, project-finishing, family-cherishing, Daniel-missing, lurk-revisiting, happy times.

I logged in to Facebook and a Haagen-Dazs advertisement confessed to me that Oprah’s secret to staying slim and beautiful is their acai berry ice cream. I do love Haagen-Dazs; it’s probable that their coffee ice cream is my favourite ice cream ever. Oh, I’ve gone to their website now and it looks like their acai berry product is a sorbet, which makes more sense. I like their proposed idea of eating their fleur de sel caramel ice cream after eating salty oysters by using their shells as spoons, maybe I should try this except with the mussels I’ve been tempted to try every time I’ve gone to the French Meadow Bakery for the past five months and then I will die with pleasure.

I like this jacket a lot and it could be very useful as a top coat to my Prairie Underground hoodie in San Francisco. The reviews sound solid. I found it because on my way out today I had an idea for a coat to crochet, and was researching materials including a transparent waterproof shell or something. It always happens that when I get an idea for a coat, I find a sweet one that’s more suitable to the environments we plan to live in in the future. (San Francisco, Vancouver.) I could still manifest the idea I have, which is a longish hooded trench pea coat in red, probably this yarn, with silk lining. Honestly, the combination of all three could probably do me through this ugly winter creeping in. … Hmm.

Something smells like a sheep here.

It’s funny, if I haven’t eaten anything in a while then my mouth starts tasting like cilantro. No complaints here.

It’s a Sigur Ros day, rainy and dark and cold.

Don’t go outside to see flowers.
My friend, don’t bother with that excursion.
Inside your body there are flowers.
One flower has a thousand petals.
That will do for a place to sit.
Sitting there you will have a glimpse of beauty
inside the body and out of it,
before gardens and after gardens.

It is very much like my favourite Rumi poem, which is probably indeed my favourite poem, which goes:

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language – even the phrase “each other” doesn’t make any sense.

Hence such glee at reading.

We are nearly all moved in :) Daniel did a wicked job of unpacking last night. He organizes a mean bookshelf, utulizing his clever utilitarianism with stacks of books for bookends. I’m good with closets.

Going to swing up downtown while Daniel does musical errands in preparation for a recording tomorrow, then prepare our dinner which is Heidi’s slurptastic herb noodles. (I have chopped up the herbs and oh man, I just want to make a cilantro hand lotion or something!!) Daniel’s friend Nate is celebrating his 25th birthday tonight. I’ve never attended a party with a keg in attendance too, so add that to the list of growing-up milestones passed. I work tomorrow and begin training on milk this week! Very excited to work with the Synesso; its steam wand is particularly phallic.

I picked up two yards of incredible organic cotton sherpa to make some cozy winter pants, and have to get around to that soon because it ain’t too warm out yet when I catch my first bus at 5:40!