So I’ve been on the US side of the border for nearly two weeks now, and busy as all get out for most of it. Part of the busy was spending the majority of this past friday evening at the Rochester public market. We were planning to check that out anyway, Jess and I, since she’d only been there maybe once before me, and of course I hadn’t been there yet. So i cruised by where she was getting off work, picked her and Kyle–who conveniently also hadn’t been there yet–up, met Heather over there and we crashed it for a few hours. And in doing so, were treated to a free performance by Donna the Buffalo. Apparently, both Kyle and Heather have heard/seen this group live before, which left both Jess and I to experience it for the first time. Hell of an experience, really.

From right around the first or second song, I had a feeling it’d be a pretty damn near wicked awesome performance. Of course, anyone who can perform “Ring of Fire” and not completely kill it deserves at least a shot at not making me cringe. I didn’t cringe. Instead, I find myself rather unsurprisingly in the category of those who highly approve. I don’t think any of my partners in crime were entirely all that surprised by it either–I’m looking at you, Heather.

They only played for an hour and a half, give or take–a lot less time than I thought they’d get, but apparently the organizers decided to do the headliner thing first. Still, it was long enough for me to decide when I do return to the cooler side, I’m gonna have me some downloading. Because I don’t have some downloading right now, have a video instead. Not Friday’s performance, but a performance. I approve by this. And if you find yourself not approving, evaluate your musical tastes. Right now. Enough said.

Folks will be aware Jess has been here since Saturday. what many aren’t aware of, at least until now, is what happened within 24 hours of her arival. More specifically, it became very official that she’d be stuck with me for about as close to forever as she could tolerate. On saturday afternoon, I officially asked her to marry me. And, surprising everyone except the two of us, she said yes. Effective as of then, we’re officially one step closer to that fateful dive off the deep end.

We haven’t set a date yet, but at least now we can start more seriously talking about it. The majority of the week thus far has escentially been mostly made up of doing just that–I had no idea just how many people actually end up getting told these things. So far, we’ve made and received quite a few phone calls on it, not to mention sharing the news in person. By the time she goes back she’ll probably be sick and tired of talking about it–just in time for the folks she hasn’t told yet to catch sight of the ring.

I had the ring picked out a couple weeks in advance, a bit before she finally purchased the ticket. I wanted it to be a surprise not just to her, but to family/friends on both sides of the equasion. So I was pretty much doing everything in secret at that point. That was probably the hardest part–talking to her and avoiding saying what I really wanted to say when she asked if anything eventful happened that day. But, shocking the hell out of me, I actually somehow managed to do exactly that. And keep it quiet amongst the non-immediate family–something ordinarily nearly impossible to do on account of info travels fasater than a wild fire in california on a bad day.

The rest of the week thus far was pretty low key, in comparison. Had a barbecue on sunday at the parentals’ place, for a combination of cellebrating all three month-end birthdays–mine, my mom’s, and the sister-in-law’s. The engagement became officially official there, when the parents, brother and sister-in-law all got a chance to gawk at the ring. And I was cautioned away from making the same mistake my brother did. Fortunately, that particular mistake can’t be duplicated so I’m safe in that department. Yesterday was equally low key–we stuck around the apartment, flaked out, enjoyed various degrees of lazy, had pizza brought in from the local place of awesome, cracked open the vodka and had our own, personal type engagement party. That lasted until 7:00 this morning, before we grabbed 4 hours’ sleep. the rest of the day, dead as it is, leads us to the announcement here.

This is something I know we’ve both been wanting for a while, so the decision to do it over the weekend was probably the easiest decision I’ve ever had to make. I suspect the rest of this week will probably be devoted to spreading the news even more so–hint: it’s up on Facebook if anyone’s interested. I suspect the next couple weeks, at least for her anyway, are going to consist of telling everyone else back home who hasn’t already heard yet. And thhe foreseeable future? It will probably consist of marriage/wedding plans. As for right now? I still have some evening time to spend. And I think I’ll spend it trying to get a little more used to this whole newly engaged thing. On the bright side, we already know the family approves. On the not so bright side, the poor girl may end up suffering further brain damage as a result. But, she’ll survive. Either that or we’ll be taking up refuge in someone’s basement until the insanity passes. Whatever this ride ends up doing, it’s gonna be a hell of a lot of fun. At least, it’d better be. I demand it.

So. Some folks already know, and others are about to. Jessica’s presently on her way up here for a week. She left at 20 minutes to 2 this morning, intent on catching a 6:30 connection. There weren’t enough warm bodies going to toronto, so they had to send another bus. That other bus was supposed to be right behind them. They waited in Buffalo until pretty close to 5:00 or so before finally crossing the border. Which, escentially, means no 6:30 connection for Jessica. Fortunately, that doesn’t put too bad a dent in our plans–we can just leave to pick her up 2 hours later. But now, she’s stuck catching a 9:30 bus to Ottawa from Toronto, which means by the time she gets here, she’ll have been on the go for nearly 16 hours. And that’s assuming we come directly here. Factoring in the fact she’s been awake since yesterday morning, and I probably wouldn’t want to be her body right now. Hopefully, the trip she’s taking at 9:30 doesn’t break. In the meantime, Greyhound, please stop failing. Thanks.

Some of you already know Jessica was up here for the week, having escaped back to Rochester this past Sunday. Mostly, we had her up here because we could, but a small part of it had to do with the fact it was the week of St. Patrick’s day. Naturally nothing overly spectacular was planned, but there was still fun to be had.

Saturday and Sunday were pretty much written off, on account of she just got here Saturday and well, needed all the rest she could get. Monday meant time well wasted with the family–we killed part of the afternoon over at mom’s, which has become pretty much routine for me anyway. We got to spend some quality time with my nephew at the same time, which is never a bad thing. I still need to post pictures up here–somebody needs to prevent me from forgetting. Or I need to stop being lazy, whichever. Tuesday was more of the same, except minus the nephew and plus a much needed trip to what passes for a grocery store in Petawawa.

Wednesday was when the party really got started. We got together for food and booze with mom, my aunt and uncle. A few beers and a couple vodka and cokes later, and we weren’t quite feeling it. So we came back to the apartment afterwards and picked up where we left off. There was music, the occasional slow dancing, we decided to pick right around that point to start fiddling with Gold Wave–because learning to edit audio is the thing to do when you’re buzzed. And, of course, there was interesting/amusing/entertaining conversation to be had. Although, it’s very likely it was only really interesting/amusing/entertaining to us, but oh well. We threw on Minority Report (2002), seeing as I hadn’t seen it and she liked the general description of the movie. And I’m considering seeing it again just because it’s on the computer now.

Thursday was our recovery day. We slept in fairly late, got up, and took it easy all day. Neither of us were hung over, but we weren’t about to pick up where we left off the night before either. We’d save that for Friday. And, naturally, we did just that. On Friday we cracked open what was left of the vodka, finished most of it, and I introduced her to 50 First Dates (2004). Because really, no Adam Sandler fan can make a claim of being just that without having seen that movie.

Saturday we took her into town so I could show her one of my favourite things about living where there isn’t really a whole lot of anything–the local pizza place, who’s quality I’ve not been able to match anywhere else. She took the opportunity to pick herself up a book as well–not knowing it was abridged, which still cost her damn near $40. I’ll be making an attempt to exchange that particular novel tonight hopefully. Then, because I kept saying I would, I took her to the local Mexican restaurant, the Santa Fe. As usual, I skipped dessert. Needless to say, the only thing we were considering doing when we got back was flaking out, relaxing, thinking about packing her up to leave on Sunday, then going to sleep. So we did.

Sunday was departure day. We got her packed and ready to go by 10, more or less. And we were gone by 11. Her bus didn’t pull away until 2:30, but we had no idea what to expect trafic-wise, and Ottawa has a nasty little habbit of always being worse than we plan for. Not an issue if I’m living in Ottawa. A huge issue if I’m just visiting temporarily. We did manage to get to the station just fine, though, and she got off with no problem whatsoever–at least until she got to Toronto, but that’s a whole other rant for another time and probably on her blog. I went to mom’s for supper, then back here to keep an ear to the ground and make sure she got to Rochester in one piece. She did, and after that point, it became pretty much back to business as usual for both of us. But, we did manage to learn something halfway interesting–again, probably only to us–in the process. The next time we do this, we really aught to not make it another 3 months from now. A week is just too little time to catch up.

Roughly 12 hours from now, Jess will more than likely be a good way through taking her exam for the New York state boards, and that much closer to being a licensed massage therapist in that state. She’s pulled I don’t even know how many 13-hour days over the last year plus, and that’s not counting the hours she’s spent studying, writing papers, stressing, or doing some combination of all of the above. She’s come close to burning out, but managed somehow to keep it together long enough to finish the course. And now she’s one final examination away from having exactly what she wants. I don’t know that you’ll have time to see this before your exam, but if you do, best of luck to you. I’d be there if I could, but you’re being thought of either way. You were awesome in class, so I have on good authority, and you’ll be awesome during this exam. Look out Rochester, I hear she’s good with her hands.

So I’ll go ahead and attempt to correct that minor malfunction now. The week’s been largely uneventful. Jessica got to her bus and to rochester in one piece, as usual. I went back to Pembroke, and hung out at my parents’ place for the evening–largely because, quite simply, this apartment would have been way too quiet to come back to after spending 5 or 6 weeks with Jess. I did eventually come back here, of course. And wouldn’t you know, it didn’t take 24 hours before my usual sleep schedule reascerted itself once again. granted, that was helped by the fact I’m not used to being able to spread myself out as much in bed–another side-affect of their being one less person living here. Monday and Tuesday were pretty well written off. I tinkered with the computer a little, and tried to figure out just why it is I’ve been experiencing about the reliability of a third world phone system where my internet connection’s concerned. Come to find out I was just choking it to death–go figure, moron. I finally unpacked and set up the laptop, so now begins the saga of trying to straighten that out. As for right now? On to attempt to determine whether I’ll be waking up or sleeping. There will be hockey posts coming. And a linuxy techy geeky post. Skip at will. You had your warning.

And in this case, our way involves all manner of creative thinggies that started last night. We took off from here at about 5 or so, and I proceeded to complete my own personal challenge to stay up since the morning before until past the official welcoming of the new year last night. My parents were having a sort of new years eve dinner, so we went over for that. It went a lot better than I actually expected it to, though largely because things have gotten a lot less dramatic in recent years. Mom made her usual spagheti and garlic bread, we hung out and talked, and then killed the rest of the night watching movies. At some point I’ll stop being an unmotivated slob and start posting movie reviews, but it’s probably not going to be today.

Today was spent mostly sleeping and recovering from the last two days. Then, the parents wanted to get together for a new years day dinner. Usually, it involves some kind of meat and potatoes at their place, but this year they felt like going out. Neither Jess nor myself were in much of a Chinese food mood, but that’s what the majority wanted so that’s what we got. It wasn’t all in all too terrible, just not something we were immediately looking forward to. Still, we enjoyed ourselves, not to mention filled ourselves to near busting. Now, the trick is to attempt to find something resembling a decent movie on TV, and try not to do the food coma thing. And to keep up with certain blogging traditions I’m trying to start up over here–those are next. The last few days were tiring, but definitely fun. I’d do them again if I could. Maybe this time next year, perhaps. And, possibly, with a few more people.

On our way back to Canada before Christmas, we did stumble across the required small amount of duh-worthy amusement that seems to find one or both of us on every trip. This in the form of an overly inquisitive and way too curious customs officer who decided, after establishing that Jessica would be visiting her boyfriend–me–in Canada, decided to ask her twice if she was planning to move there. And if she was sure she wasn’t. And every time, she reasured the officer in the same manner that no, there were no plans to randomly decide once she’s over here to just sort of stay put. At least not on this trip. After the interview was over and it was decided both of us were neither terrorists nor future immigrants–apparently they’re on the same list, now, we both had to ask. what would have happened if she’d said yes? The way customs person was going about her questioning you’d almost think a wrong answer to that particular set of questions would have had her haulled off the bus and questioned in more detail in one of those little dark rooms you’re only allowed to see when you’re in the deepest level of shit. I get security. I get paranoia. And I get amusing as hell. This, ms. customs lady person thing, was amusing as hell. Thanks for this. Oh, and by the way. The terrorists are in the next car over.

It’s amazing just how things tend to slip away from you when you’re in the middle of one of life’s chaotic moments. We had one such the past week or so. As expected we took off on the morning, early, of the 24th–about 20 minutes before 2, to be precise. The fun didn’t take very long to start after that. When we left Rochester, we were fairly well on time. Maybe 10 minutes late. By the time we got to Buffalo, we’d made that up. And By the time we got to the border, we’d lost it again and then some. We were about an hour behind when we hit the border, thanks largely to a changing of the bus drivers and the new one apparently not having a clue what in the 7 levels of hell he was actually doing. Jess and I cleared customs easily, as usual, and that actually took a lot less time than we thought. Our bus out of Toronto heading for Ottawa was supposed to leave at about 6:30 that morning. Pulling into the Toronto terminal at 7, therefore, was a very bad idea. But we did it anyway.

Sitting around the Toronto terminal for the 2.5 hours or so it took for the next bus heading to Ottawa to show up proved not to be as entertaining as some of the other times I’ve had to do that. We got caught up on at least a couple hours’ sleep, and were otherwise several different kinds of bored sitting there. By the time we saw the bus that would take me home and her with me, we were well beyond ready to get the hell out of there or risk death by lack of anything to do or comfortable seating.

Fortunately we didn’t have the usually required incident on the way from either end of the trip–once it was weather, once it was a broken down bus, once it was just plain stupidity on the part of Grayhound–and things actually managed to go off perfectly without a hitch. Well, with the exception of we got in at 2:30 when it was supposed to be closer to 12:30, but we got in. We didn’t do much touching the computer that afternoon when we got home, and even less the day after–hello, Christmas. Welcome to Canada. I don’t think we even said a word on Twitter until Saturday–sorry to folks who actually expected updates this time. After an awesome, as usual, Christmas get together involving much visiting and much foodness, we came back here, went comatose for a few hours, and took the rest of the weekend thus far to just be lazy and relax. Hey, for the first time in a year and a half we were actually both on vacation. We deserved it, dammit. Now, post-trip to the grocery store to restock the fridge, it’s back to more relaxation. And, more random blog posts from the both of us. Including some random observations I keep meaning to actually toss up here. As for new years? All I know we’re doing is whatever comes up at 11:55 on Thursday night. It will probably involve alcohol. It will probably involve a blog post. And it will probably involve hillarity. ‘Til then, have the first attempt at a post since Rochester. I’ll be back with another one later. Maybe.

Our second last day here in Rochester was yesterday. Conveniently, it also doubled as Jessica’s birthday. In cellebration of the latter, we decided to do the bbq thing. So we hit the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, also known as quite possibly the best I’ve had since the last time we did it at my parents’ place. We’d been there before, though never for a special occasion like a birthday or anything, and only once before–back before Jess started her massage therapy courses. We left here at about half past 8 last night, or thereabouts, and by about half past 9 we were stuffed beyond belief, relaxed from various alcoholic beverages, and roughly $50 poorer than when we arived–all in all, not a bad outcome considering what we got out of it.

As always, the food there was beyond awesome. And, as always, neither one of us had room for dessert. Or, for that matter, breakfast this morning. And probably not for much of lunch later today. While we were ordering and subsequently eating, we heard a band setting up for a live performance so decided to stick around for an hour or so afterwards to check them out. Neither of us are into blues music, but the performance last night, by the Beale Street Blues Band (MySpace profile is over here), was actually pretty good. I caught myself almost dancing in my seat to a couple of their songs and I think Jess was ready to as well. The concert itself was free, and it being unexpected by either of us, made the outing just that much more worth the $50 we paid for it. Another thing you don’t see all too much of in Pembroke.

We came back at about 11 or 11:30, somewhere thereabouts, and proceeded to unwind. She says she had an awesome time, which was the end goal, so I guess my work here is done. I wasn’t really planning to make a real big thing out of it, just dinner, conversation, and relaxation. But sometimes, it rocks your socks when the party decides to come to you. And did it ever come to us last night.

I have no idea how in the hell she manages to do it, but on both of the birthdays I’ve been around for, she’s managed to make herself appear just a little bit more inteligent, and little bit more relaxed, and just all around a little bit more the girl I love than the year before. Yeah, call me a sap if it makes ya feel better. I think some part of her can see she’s getting a little more like… herself, and a little used to the fact things aren’t quite as bad as they were. Maybe someday she’ll be able to look back on the craptasticness she’s been through and laugh her ass off about it. God only knows I probably will when I think it’s okay to. But for now, happy birthday, Jessica. You’re half a mile closer to supreme awesomeness than you realize. Or probably want me to admit to, but there just went that restriction.

This has been an all too rare extreme personal blog entry, brought to you by the date, and the fact she has absolutely no idea I’m doing it. And now, back to helping her with supper on the night before her birthday.

I’ve been trying to convince Jessica to get back into the whole blogging thing for, well, ever. I’ve even gone so far as to threaten her in various ways using various methods. She just wouldn’t budge. Until now. After offering to host her very own non-LJ blog, it running on the same software that powers this one, she’s decided to toss herself back into writing mode. And now, after much consideration given to where she wishes to call her new online home, I give you the nuthouse. It’s still largely under construction, and I’ll be helping her for a while get things to be exactly the way she wants them, but for the moment, it’s operational and mostly fully functioning. Drop in and give her a read at some point–and please do be kind.

Also, for those of you who have her LJ on your friends lists, I’ve set her up to crosspost to LJ in a way similar to what I’m doing, so you’re still able to follow her with a minimal amount of actual effort on your part. Hey, I’m lazy too. I know how it goes. And it goes kinda like this. So enjoy. Maybe wave hello. And don’t forget to leave your valuables here when you leave.

As expected, Jessica’s graduation went off absolutely with no problem whatsoever. She got her diploma, we got a picture, and everyone got to relax a little afterwards with something alcoholic and good conversation. We hit a local bar after the cerimony for a drink or two, and to do some general talking/venting/otherwise unstressing, before coming back to the apartment and crashing. We took it easy on Friday, the only thing going on being Jess having had to do that earning money thing–I’ll never understand why it is that can’t just go away for a day. The evening was spent around the apartment, not really doing a whole lot. There was, of course, the usual talking, relaxing, and being all kinds of glad the routine gets to change for the better. Saturday was the interesting part of the weekend.

Since the beginning of the week, I’d been planning to have a private get together among friends in honour of Jessica’s graduation from massage school. She’d worked her ass off for the past year and a half or so, and didn’t have time to do a lot of that while she was doing it. So I sent a few emails around, made a phone call or two, and got a couple of Jess’s closest friends–and, conveniently enough, folks I’m becoming quite good friends with as well–onboard for our own version of a grad cerimony. That happened last night. The morning was spent at Wallmart, picking up what little odds and ends we needed throughout the week. After that, the only thing we did other than generally cleaning up was making a run for alcohol. And, after $52 and some change was handed over, we had the keys to some goodly awesomeness.

Julie and her husband came over at about half past 3, and after spending about an hour just shooting the shit, we cracked open the booze. Before all too long we’d gotten to the point where we were feeling more than a little relaxed. And when that happens, the randomness knows no limits. We did everything from vent about our respective employment or lack thereof, to mocking certain less fortunate people who weren’t here–thank god–to defend themselves, to even tossing out opinions, thoughts and points of view on the government and its benefit or lack thereof to the average joe. They left early, and Jess and I did a bit more drinking and talking. We expanded on a few of the points brought up, and actually had a very nice little debate going on–I kind of wish I could have recorded it. I think in parts of the conversation we got a little bit too caught up, but hey, that’s bound to happen when you’ve got two very opinionated people in the same room with alcohol.

It was well after midnight by the time she fell asleep. I went and flopped over about half an hour or so after by rough estimation–I wasn’t exactly keeping track of the time last night. It was well into the afternoon, about 2:00 or so, before we were both up and mobile for the day. I don’t think awake came until later, though. Today’s been spent pretty well recovering from that. The most exhausting task on our to do list at the moment is laundry, and that’s being done now. We leave for Canada again on Thursday, Jessica’s birthday is on Tuesday, and Wednesday’s probably going to be spent packing and maybe stealing an hour or two’s sleep. As for the rest of the week, I have absolutely no idea what if anything we can safely say we have planned. Maybe we’ll get lucky and plans will invent themselves. In the meantime, here’s the picture we got from Jessica’s graduation. It was taken on a cell phone, so quality may end up sucking slightly. Enjoy, or something.

I guess it’s made that much more appropriate by the weather we’re having outside right now. Since late-ish last night, I’ve been more and more looking forward to events scheduled to take place tonight. Roughly 12 hours from now, Jessica will have graduated from a year and a half of massage therapy training, and be just that much closer to being a therapist licensed for work in New York state. Which, conveniently enough, will put her just that much closer to being ready to get herself licenced for work in Ontario. I could tell, even if she wasn’t exactly awake enough when she got home last night to show it, that she was very much excited–and, though she’d never admit it, probably a little nervous–about tonight. The sad part of it is, I think I might be more excited than she is. I hung around in bed last night while she slept, not actually managing to get that far myself. About 2 and a half hours later, I got up and killed an hour or so on Twitter–hey, random socialization with all manner of strange people has its benefits, okay? When I finally did catch some sleep, it was all too brief–really, only about 2.5 to 3 hours, but it felt like less. And when I got up, you could have told me it was Christmas morning and I’d of believed it.

We’d both been looking forward to this pretty much since it started. I know as it got closer she was a little more stressed than usual. This was kind of her thing–what she’d set herself up to do, and not much was going to change her mind. Something you could be proud of, especially when you considered it had a lot of areas that prior to this course she considered weaknesses. I suppose, in a way, it kind of is our Christmas morning. After tonight, she’ll have her free time back. At least until she takes the board exam and starts working. Which means, for the next couple weeks, we’ll have our free time back. Yeah, I guess it kind of is like Christmas morning after all. And if you look at it like that, the fact it’s snowing yet again outside doesn’t piss me off quite as much as it probably should. I’ll take it.

The latter is obvious to anyone who’s actually using the service, but I’ll get to that momentarily. Jess and I spent the majority of this weekend thus far kicked back and relaxing. She graduates on Thursday, so we’re sort of trying to gear up for that. Also, because we haven’t really had a weekend where we can just sort of not do a whole lot of anything that often since I came down here. Friday was taken up largely with music, dancing, awesome food and a little alcohol. We turned the majority of her living room into a dance floor, and just had ourselves a slow dance or 4. We ordered from a new–to me, anyway–restaurant,