Christmas Holidays Update

Well, here we are, at Chad and Leanne's house in Stratford. We just finished a riveting game of Settlers of Catan--Leanne won, no surprise--and are winding down our evening and getting ready for bed and all that jazz.

So anyways, we've passed a quite exciting and enjoyable couple of days. On Friday we arrived in Toronto, at the airport because we flew West Jet, and Chad and Leanne picked us up in the early afternoon. But before our rendez-vous with Chad and Leanne, we picked up our baggage--my suit had been doused in some kind of alcoholic beverage so we got a free dry-cleaning, compliments of West Jet--and then we had lunch at Swiss Chalet, and then we looked around the airport for a dry cleaner. Since we couldn't find one, we gave up looking and sat in a quiet location to wait for Chad and Leanne. Janelle had a nap and I read Anna Karenina.

At two o'clock I woke up Janelle and we started walking to the Rendez-Vous location. Leanne was already there, looking for us, and we quickly got on the road, destination: North Bay.

We arrived in North Bay for a nice supper at Mr. and Mrs. Black's house--that would be Leanne's grandparents--and we had a fantastic time. The Blacks were wonderful hosts and very funny. We spent the night and got on the road to Kapuskasing later in the morning, after we had breakfast with the Blacks and did some Shopping at the North Gate Mall.

I have to say that the drive to Kapuskasing was almost as enjoyable as the time we spent there. Chad and Leanne are so much fun; they're fantastic. We played games and had exciting conversations, and listened to music from Chad's Palm Pilot device. For lunch we stopped in New Liskeard, at Subway, and we hit up the Tim Horton's in Cochrane, but aside from that our drive was uneventful until the roads started getting a little rough near Kapuskasing. We counted four--or was it five?--cars in the ditch between Cochrane and Kapuskasing. Wow.

So we made it to Kapuskasing quite safe. I can't remember if we were in time for supper or not, but I'm sure that if we were hungry, they fed us. After we arrived the storm set in for real and it started snowing and raining for most of the night. Sunday morning was kind of rough too, but we made it to meeting and afterwards had lunch at the Bechards. Robb and Angele were also there, and Melina too. Matt was missing--apparently he had already come and gone; we missed him.

Chad and I were scheduled to preach Sunday night, so as the storm worsened over the afternoon, our hopes that gospel meeting would be canceled increased. Shortly after lunch we learned that the highway between Hearst and Cochrane had been closed and the snow started to fall with increased vigour. Giant flakes coming out the sky--it was awesome.

Anyways, it turned out that meeting wasn't canceled. Chad and I preached. I did a pretty sucky job, even forgot to pray when I was opening with my four hymns. Afterwards Matthew and Kimberley had us over and we played a couple rounds of thirty one and had some great conversation. Because the highway was closed, we had to use the back roads to get home, which was kind of exciting and scary.

Monday, Christmas Eve, we did some last minute shopping in the morning. Toured the mall, Canadian Tire, and Wal-Mart. Especially the photo section. After lunch we went home and Dad, Chad, and I shoveled the driveway. Sophie came out to help for a bit too, she melted a bit of snow with her cigarette butts.


For supper, the extended Labelle Family came over for supper. It was fun, we had a gift exchange game... I ended up winning the "Worst Gift For a Child" prize and was given something else as a consolation, I forget what it was though. The "Worst Gift" was three miniature parachutists and some smarties and stuff like that. I liked my gift and argued that Heidi got the "Worst Gift"--a plastic gorilla. Anyways, that's what it was.

After everyone left we opened our presents and stockings. Wow. Mom and Dad went all-out this Christmas. Crazy. It was very nice. Except that we had been expecting to leave with less luggage than we came with. That expectation was delightfully dashed.

Christmas Day we spent together, Janelle cooked some garlic bread and potatoes; we spent a nice relaxing day. Dad, Chad, and I had a stimulating conversation about perpetual motion, mortgages, Life Insurance, and investments. Uncle Bert and Aunt Chris and Scott, Tim, and Erica came over for supper with Grandma, Aunt Doris, and Aunt Alice. After supper we played Things--Leanne's birthday gift. It was very funny and great.

We left for Stratford on Wednesday Morning. Spent the whole day driving with short stops in North Bay, Huntsville, and Mississauga. We arrived at Chad and Leanne's later that night. Today Chad and Leanne worked, Janelle and I slept in, relaxed, and did our laundry.

Tomorrow we head for Michigan! We miss everybody back home.

(Awesome Camera, Joey!)

Our Chirstmas Apartment

I took some pictures of our apartment decorated for Christmas... we even decorated an artificial tree!

Dear Mr. President by Pink

these are the lyrics to pink's song: "Dear Mr. President":

Dear Mr. President
Come take a walk with me (come take a walk with me)
Let's pretend we're just two people and
You're not better than me
I'd like to ask you some questions if we can speak honestly

What do you feel when you see all the homeless on the street
Who do you pray for at night before you go to sleep
What do you feel when you look in the mirror
Are you proud

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye
How do you walk with your head held high
Can you even look me in the eye
And tell me why

Dear Mr. President
Were you a lonely boy (were you a lonely boy)
Are you a lonely boy (are you a lonely boy)
How can you say
No child is left behind
We're not dumb and we're not blind (we're not blind)
They're all sitting in your cells
While you pave the road to hell

What kind of father would take his own daughter's rights away
And what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay
I can only imagine what the first lady has to say
You've come a long way from whiskey and cocaine

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye
How do you walk with your head held high
Can you even look me in the eye

Let me tell you bout hard work
Minimum wage with a baby on the way
Let me tell you bout hard work
Rebuilding your house after the bombs took them away
Let me tell you bout hard work
Building a bed out of a cardboard box
Let me tell you bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
You don't know nothing bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
Oh

How do you sleep at night
How do you walk with your head held high
Dear Mr. President
You'd never take a walk with me
Would you 

So, Janelle came home today for lunch, she brought pizza and we had Bacon-feta-hot pepper pizza for lunch with a toblerone for dessert. yummy. I drove Janelle back to work, and went to Little Caesar's to get my schedule because I'm off today. So I was listening to the radio.

The first song that came on was this one. I don't know if it's hugely popular or not, and I don't really know much about it but I object to it.

Right from the start, I'll say this: I'm as anti-american as the next guy, I don't particularly like or dislike George Bush--I'm ambivalent. I make no commentary on him as a person or a president. That's it.

About the song... well:

She starts out promisingly enough, and I like this start: "Let's pretend we're just two people and / you're not better than me / I'd like to ask you some questions if we can speak honestly." I like it because it promises simplicity and asks for honesty. I think it's important and necessary to ask for honesty and to be simple and transparent, and that's what these three lines kind of make me feel for.

But then the rest of the song just kind of degenerates into a self-righteous, anti-George Bush preach that tries to blame him personally for homelessness, poor education, war casualties, and high-crime and overcrowded prisons.

I agree that government has to be held responsible for certain things but if I had written this song I'd be embarrassed if anyone heard it. The president becomes a convenient scapegoat when we see things we dislike, like homelessness. But we have to remember that homelessness isn't going to go away if a different president (or prime-minister, seeing as there's homelessness in Canada too) is elected. The same can be said about poor education, war casualties, and high crime.

We can't afford to be self-righteous about these things or try to blame someone else: it's you and me who's responsible. Did you know that for us to enjoy the luxury we enjoy the majority of the world's population HAS to be poor and starving? That means that for me to be able to afford to buy one of Pink's CDs and a stereo to play it on, dozens of kids in Africa have to go without food. And not just in Africa, I'm sure there are kids within walking distance of my apartment who aren't very well fed, while here I am listening to music on my computer and snacking on some junk food. There are kids out there who don't have any clean and whole clothes to wear while we complain that we don't have any 'fashionable' clothes. Half my wardrobe could probably clothe a whole Zambian village for a couple years. What I mean to say is, we're living in luxury at the expense of most of the world's population.

Anyways, what I object to about this song is its self-righteousness. Maybe Pink has gone through a rough time, had to make a bed out of a cardboard box, had to work really hard to get where she is. Maybe, I don't know, I don't know much about Pink. But nothing Pink may have gone through can justify the line, "You don't know nothing 'bout hard work."

The tone of the song totally undoes the beginning: "Let's pretend we're just two people and / you're not better than me," because for the rest of the song what she's saying is: "I'm better than you, Mr. President."

Anyways... I'm just ranting. Don't think I'm saying that you need to send all your food and clothes to Calcutta because I'm not. I'm not living any poorer to help poor starving street kids and I don't really feel all that guilty about it.

Winter Storm ... kinda

We had a major winter storm yesterday... turning to rain and +15'C weather today. Crazy.

We discovered at morning meeting that the Christmas program was moved ahead to directly after Sunday School because of the storm, expected to begin in the early afternoon. Dad and Mom Swan drove down from Truro to be at the program.

So after Sunday School we had a turkey dinner, which was delicious, and then we got ready for the program. I thought Janelle's class was the cutest, but I could be biased. They were dressed up as angels hiding behind sheep and Maggie was dressed up as the shepherd. They were a little uncoordinated, but so adorable.

After the five (or was it six, or four?) classes made their presentations it was "gift time" and everything degenerated into fun and crazy chaos with kids opening their presents everywhere and leaving wrapping paper all over, and people being generally in a hurry to leave because of the storm. (Storms out here and in Toronto are so much worse than in Kapuskasing because it takes a very long time to get the plows on the roads out here.) We drove Dan and Katie home because their car got hit by a snowplow and afterwards Janelle and I went home.

I was working at five, but Colin called at four and told me they were expecting to close early because of the storm. The roads were very bad and people were advised to stay in. Our delivery drivers were off the road. Colin told me to bring boots and stuff and be prepared to spend the night at his place because he didn't want Janelle driving out to pick me up in the terrible weather if the roads stayed bad.

So Janelle drove me to work and then went over to Daniel and Katie's for supper. Gospel meeting was canceled. At work, it had been dead for over and hour, but as I arrived more customers started coming in. Unfortunately they had been expecting to close and had nothing ready so that was frustrating, but we got everything going again and customers were coming in pretty steady for a little while.

We closed up at six thirty and I called Janelle to come pick me up. She came with Dan and Katie and we all went back to Dan and Katie's and had dessert. It was delicious Brown Betty--which is kind of like apple crisp. Afterwards we sat around and talked and then watched "Hairspray." The movie was funny and kind of cool, after I got over being creeped out by John Travolta in a dress and married to Christopher Walken, who's pretty creepy all on his own. It was a cute movie anyway and really funny with a really cool message.

When we left Dan and Katie's it was almost ten o'clock and the snow had turned to rain and everything was slushy and disgusting. So much for a winter storm...

This morning the sky is somewhat clear, it's kind of warm, and the snow is still melting.

Crazy Pre-Christmas Week

We leave on Friday, and are we looking forward to it!

What a crazy week. First, Janelle got a C- on an essay; the first C- in her life! And it was a bad C- too, and mainly because her professor was very vague about the essay's requirements, so that's very frustrating.

To add to that, today Janelle finished her tenth shift in six days! She's been working two jobs since school finished, which is very rough. Meanwhile, I haven't had a day off in two weeks. I mean, I was off last Saturday, but I went to work to collect more hours.

Last night there was a major Christmas party, and we missed it... because I left the lights on in the car when I went to work and the battery died. We spent about an hour trying to find booster cables and when we finally found some, the car wouldn't boost. Dad Swan and Uncle Ken came down today and fixed it, thank God for them! But we had to leave the car in the parking lot at Little Caesar's overnight. We were too tired to go to the party anyway, and went pretty much straight to bed when we got home.

Tonight we got off work at seven and went to do some Christmas Shopping. As we were leaving, we remembered gift cards we'd been given and I ran back upstairs and got them. Then we went to Wal-Mart, had a quick snack/supper at A&W and then went to Zellers and back to Wal-Mart... (I can't tell you what we bought though.) Anyways, we went back home and when we got to the door of our building, we couldn't find our keys. I ran back to the car and checked, in case they fell out of my pocket and onto the floor of the car. Not there. We tried to remember what we had done with them and came up with two possibilities: either they fell out of my pocket at A&W when we sat down or I left them in the apartment when I went up to get the gift cards; if that was the case, then it was possible that the keys would be still in the lock. So we decided that Janelle would wait at the apartment in case someone leaving or entering would open the door for her, while I went to the bank to get the $20 it would cost to have our landlady let us in.

So Janelle waited the whole time I was gone and no one came. One man finally came just as I got back and let us both in. We raced up to our apartment, carrying our packages, and the key was not in the lock... So, we decided that Janelle would stay by the door with the packages and I would go to the landlady's apartment and get her to let us in. So I did, but there was a sign on her door that said that she was off duty and to relay any trouble to another lady, who was managing the building next door. That was so frustrating that Janelle started to cry and I was pretty close too, at this point. Not to mention how dumb I felt for losing my keys.

So we went next door and Janelle buzzed the lady, who called our landlady, who agreed to let us in. We went back and she kindly unlocked our door for us... at ten to twelve. Thankfully, she was very nice about it and not grumpy at all.

It turned out that when I went back for the gift cards, I had left my keys on the dresser. How frustrating.

So we sat on the couch and ate some crackers and pickles... and now we're going to bed.

Goodnight.

I hope this story inspires you: this is what could happen to you if you leave your car lights on and/or forget your keys inside your apartmet.

Christmas is Coming

Hi Everybody. Sorry it's been so long but we've been very busy.

Janelle is now working two jobs. She wrote her last exam on Monday and is working at the Office of Admissions at MSVU and at Little Caesar's in the evenings. I'm still working there too but today I applied for a job at Staples. Hopefully I'll get it.

On Monday we had our Little Caesar's staff party. It was at Putting Edge--a mini golf place. Fun and interesting, albeit difficult. After minigolf, we ate a six foot long sub from Subway and exchanged presents. Janelle got a smelly candle and I got the Walk the Line movie soundtrack, which is excellent. (Thanks Janelle)

Aside from that, Christmas is most definitely coming. We have snow--and lots of it. This morning we woke up to heavily snowed trees. It was beautiful. It must have snowed all night. It turned to rain late this morning though, and now everything is just slushy. At least it's not cold.

I picked up Janelle during her lunch break and we went to get our christmas card photos at wal-mart. That was fun except I was grumpy and spilled water on Janelle's seat, so now she has damp panties. I hope they dry out.

Anyways, take care!

pretty much the best thing in the world

yesterday, patrick and i got dressed up and went to meeting. sitting there, people singing, praying, he had his arm around me and i couldn't have been happier. grateful to Jesus for dying for us, grateful for love, for happiness, for who Jesus is - His love for people, His mercy, His compassion and tenderness for sick and suffering people, His love for the humble, the sinners, the needy. His majesty, His power, His awesome goodness. His creation. the beauty He makes. warmth. snow. salvation. sweet baby Jesus lying in a manger. angels singing, trumpets blaring, gorgeous light streaming from heaven. loving and journeying.
love makes us travel. we're madly in love with our family, and we're going to see them this month. we love each other, so we travel to the store, and come back bearing gifts.
we visit our friends and decorate with lights, with pretty things sparkling and gleaming.
Jesus came down, with light from a Star. His arrival was greeted with singing, with gifts, with traveling, with love.
He brought love, brought gifts, travelled here, shone as the Light of the world, and makes our hearts sing glorious worship, joyous praise.
merry merry merry christmas everybody.

jennifer love hewitt makes the tabloids.

grrr. i'm so upset. if SHE'S fat, what chance do the rest of us have?!!?
jennifer love hewitt goes to the beach, playing with her family, whatever. a normal-person thing that even starlets like to do.
and some lame skeezebag takes pictures of her in her bikini, zeroes in on her cellulite, and calls her fat.
the woman is a size two. TWO!
i'm sure the photographer himself is thin as a rail.
gag.
if someone who is a size two can be called fat, then the rest of us have no hope at all.
i was laughing at the ludicrous statement about natalie in 'love actually' - the other women call her "the chubby girl." hugh grant's eyebrows shoot up and he goes, "oooo, would we call her chubby?" surprised at anyone thinking her to be the least bit chubby. and honestly, she's probably a size nine - maybe an eleven. and she's beautiful. way more beautiful than the woman who called her chubby. it was kind of funny - because it was so obviously ridiculous, the way women think about other women.
it's not even close to funny when it happens in real life. especially to someone who is so so so thin as jennifer love hewitt. it's just gross.
it's gross that we buy into a society that sets a really rigid parameter for beautiful and gawks at those who don't fit its most stringent requirements.
it's gross that, instead of looking for beauty, we look for ugliness. why do we see magazines with zoomed-in cellulite circled in bright yellow lines? why didn't the photographer show jennifer's relaxed smile as she enjoyed a refreshing day at the beach, her gorgeous figure, or her lovely hair?
is it because we want to see one of the perfect ones as less-than-perfect? because if they're imperfect, they have no right to lord it over the rest of us?
well, they don't have that right at all anyway. but we give it to them, we welcome it - we worship the set standard of beauty and close our eyes to the magnificent panorama of loveliness that is everywhere.
instead of tearing down beautiful people for not being skin-and-bone perfect, we need to see that more people are beautiful than we ever thought.
beauty is so so so much wider than we allow.
one guy wrote about jennifer love hewitt: "unless she's pregnant, she's a little bit bigger than i like my starlets to be."
that's disgusting.
he sounds like he's at mcdonalds, expecting his fries to be the same in l.a. as they are in pei. for mcdonalds - sure, that's how we want it - predictable, so we can decide what we like and stick with it.
but people are so much more than fast food. people shouldn't be commodified like that, as if you can put your quarter in the slot and out pops a cookie-cutter movie star according to your preferred and expected specifications.
people are whole-package, one-of-a-kind deals that God makes uniquely. unlike our society, God loves variety. He makes stars of every shape and size and puts them in the sky. He doesn't tell the southern cross to be the north star, or make the whole sky a copy-cat of big dippers. there are thousands of types of trees, millions of different bugs, hundreds of beautiful butterflies, a million changes of sunset. nature is gorgeous. and no two people are completely identical.
trying to squish a whole world of beautiful women into one size and one shape is just wrong.

think of all the beauty we will lose if we succeed.
think of all the beauty we lose as we try to make ourselves into that camazotz-nightmare.

look for it. try to find 'beautiful' in the unexpected. email me or post your replies with what you find. really.