I need another holiday weekend

It’s becoming more difficult to visit all my family as they grow older, move away, and generally get on with their lives. Shannon and I went to Ontario for Thanksgiving and I ended up sleeping in a different place each night: my father & step mother’s, Shannon’s mother’s, my youngest brother’s, my sister & brother-in-law’s, and my other brother & soon-to-be sister-in-law’s. (We travelled west together, but Shannon returned halfway through my own visit for work, after stopping in Ottawa to visit friends on their way to Kenya.) We also spent a night in the woods with my mother and most of my siblings, in the same campground as we were in on Victoria Day, and had lunch with Shannon’s father & step mother. After all that, I only found time to visit one friend, Paul, to present him with a jar of recently-made salsa as thanks for meritorious contribution in service of home food preservation (he single-handedly organized several large group cooking sessions which helped me take up canning again after not having done it seriously since childhood). I still miss my K-W friends but got back on the bus to Montréal (at the ridiculous hour of 5:30 AM) feeling even more out of touch with them. I suppose as I grow up this sort of thing will just continue to happen, though, and I’m glad to at least be able to remain close to my family.

I made it back in time for my choir rehearsal (they’re going well, but I’m worried we’ll have trouble when we start the hard twentieth century piece) and even managed to make it to half a day of French classes. It’s really frustrating sometimes that they treat these adult education programmes like high school classes — I had been warned that missing an entire week of class would result in the school “closing my file”. It’s unclear what effect that would have but I suspected it would require me to obtain a note from my mother.

Last night I had invitations to no fewer than three parties involving friends I’d like to see more of. Having averaged about four hours of sleep for the past three nights, however, I decided that bailing on all three wasn’t much worse than skipping any two of the events and so went to bed early for a good ten hour sleep. Tonight is slightly better; I have yet to pay back my sleep debt but I only have two party invitations (since when was I so popular?) and can probably remain awake for a few hours yet. And so, it’s out into the seemingly ceaseless rain I go. At least, as soon as I stop procrastinating here on the internet…