{"id":15425,"date":"2011-12-23T18:27:00","date_gmt":"2011-12-23T23:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/hameblog\/2011\/12\/23\/coma-for-the-holidays\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T07:50:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T10:50:15","slug":"coma-for-the-holidays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/2011\/12\/23\/coma-for-the-holidays\/","title":{"rendered":"Coma for the holidays"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a really fun fortnight in Toronto, I\u0092m now in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island with my mum, dad, and nephew. There\u0092s a blessed kind of rest that\u0092s available at my parents\u0092 house that just can\u0092t be had anywhere else — nothing like the complete abnegation of adult responsibility to put one\u0092s mind at ease!<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Almost as soon as I got here, we went shopping for food that would satisfy all my weird restrictions. Happily, Charlottetown turns out to be well-supplied with everything I could ask for.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

I snapped this picture at one of the local supermegagrocery warehouses — of which Charlottetown now sports at least four, whereas when we moved here there was just one little K-Mart that managed to feed everyone.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Moments after I took\u00a0a picture of the shop and joined my mum, a manager came up to me to ask why I was taking pictures. Apparently stupid terrorism-think has reached my home town, too. I spun her the story of the tiny little town where I live in the north Highlands of Scotland, blah blah blah… Everyone here on the east coast gets shortbread stars in their eyes as soon as you mention The Old Country.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Today it\u0092s snowing out, which is making everything look nice and festive.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Dad took a break from watching Hitler\u0092s Secret Barber<\/em> or whatever on the history channel and reading about the Third Reich, and went out to clear the driveway.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

(I\u0092m not sure what his obsession is; Adolph Eichmann is more of a fixture here at Christmas than Santa. My nephew\u0092s friends used to visit and remark that they thought Dad was a skinhead. I suspect this all started when Dad began working with Veterans\u0092 Affairs Canada, a big question-mark about humanity he\u0092s never been able to resolve.) Snow-shovelling is an obsession he used to foist on my brother and me. Now I would have gone out and helped if he\u0092d mentioned that he was going to do it. Funny how chores are much more palatable when you\u0092re not asked to do them.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, I baked and baked this afternoon. With my apron on (which was my dad\u0092s, at least), I felt like quite the wee wifey. We won\u0092t get into my excitement about Craig giving me a sewing machine for Christmas. (There\u0092s lots of bookbinding stuff the can be done with one, but now I\u0092m awakening to all the other things I could fix, change, and make.)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Then there was\u00a0my failed-yet-tasty brownies and successful-if-dry gingersnap cookies<\/a>:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Happily, I\u0092ve not compromised at all on my food choices. My client\u0092s Toronto office was like a strip-mine in Candyland, with a constant conveyor belt of junk passing by me, yet I didn\u0092t feel the slightest temptation to eat any of it. I guess I\u0092m far too conscious of the after-effect, which is like feeling drugged or concussed for a week afterward.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

But that\u0092s not to say I\u0092m being puritan or Spartan: I\u0092ve had lots of food I really enjoyed. It just hasn\u0092t been the default polyhydrogenatedwheatinjectedglucoinvertfructosugar stuff.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

~<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This trip, I\u0092ve been taking a different tack in being with people — at work and in my social time. Rather than rushing to blurt out all the things I\u0092m excited about, I\u0092ve been pretending I\u0092m interviewing the other person. I listen then ask a follow-up question to something that they said. Sometimes I can\u0092t help interjecting, but for the most part I\u0092ve been trying to listen more closely. As a result, I\u0092ve learned lots of things I wouldn\u0092t have if I\u0092d just barged in when it was my turn.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Funny how people think you\u0092re fascinating when you just listen to them.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

So this is the theme while I\u0092m away: I\u0092m here for other people, not myself. I\u0092ll get plenty of me-time when I\u0092m back home.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

~<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Gosh, I miss my husband. We got married a year ago. A year!<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After a really fun fortnight in Toronto, I\u0092m now in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island with my mum, dad, and nephew. There\u0092s a blessed kind of rest that\u0092s available at my parents\u0092 house that just can\u0092t be had anywhere else — nothing like the complete abnegation of adult responsibility to put one\u0092s mind at ease! Almost […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15425\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}