Not broke; working for the NDP
For reasons I won’t get into just now, my personal finances have been rather better of late than at some points in months past, and it’s a nice change. Among other things, I’ve finally bought the new boots I needed for some time. I am no longer able to slide an entire block down a snowy sidewalk, but really, that’s probably for the best.
Still no word about the CPT hostages. An Iraqi-born UK Muslim cleric on The Current this morning suggested that the kidnappers may want to wait until after the election to make any announcements, so as to gain maximum media coverage, which makes sense. He had just spent two weeks in Iraq and Jordan working for their release, but mentioned that often kidnappers don’t make contact for extended periods — apparently a group of French aid workers were released recently, after two months with no news. He seemed to think this was better than receiving further threats, so I guess I’ll have to trust his instincts. In the meantime, Shannon’s asked a family member who was searching for Christmas gift ideas for a copy of CPT’s book Getting in the Way, and we look forward to reading that soon.
Aylwin has recently asked me to do some work for the NDP for the current election campaign, so I’ve agreed to take a few weeks off my usual day job and do that. This will mean being in Ottawa from New Year’s until the 23rd and working very long days, but it should be interesting, political junkie that I tend to be. I imagine that despite the schedule I’ll have time to go skating a few times on the beautiful Rideau canal (7.8 kilometres of ice!), so that will be nice.
Other than all of that, I’m weathering the first real winter temperatures here (lows of -18°C or so) and busily planning gifts for the coming holidays. I was a little overworked last week, so it’s nice to switch gears to personal projects. Both sides of my extended family have a complex system of drawing names for gift exchanges so I just have a few things to make or buy, which means I mostly get to avoid the consumerism and stress and skip right to the heartwarming moments with relatives I get along with, for which I am immensely grateful. I realize this season sucks for lots of people, but it’s always been great for me. Here’s hoping your festividad navideña is equally pleasant for you.