Ol' Mickie's New Routine

Hullo hullo, me lovelies!

I am writing this post from a corner window seat at The Purple Pig Café. I've walked by this neat-looking little spot many times on my way to work. I've been meaning to come in for a while, but I've never had the opportunity. And by "never had the opportunity," I mean that up until now, I've spent 98% of my days off in my room and in my jammies. But I've been trying to do things a little bit differently since I've gotten back from my Christmas holiday. I suppose one could frame this shift as a New Year's resolution, but from my point of view, this autumn I had been living in a way that inhibited my happiness and the return from vacation was simply a convenient time to start things afresh. Regardless of how you choose to see it, the upshot is that I am nicely dressed, sipping on a latte and staring directly at a papier mâché purple pig's ass. 

The bum of yon pig is obscured in shadow as his head is gently lit by the early afternoon sun (a.k.a. "Chiar-oink-scuro")

A quick review of the Christmas vacation then: Very, very good. 

Just a little Snap art I did while waiting eight hours for my connecting flight in New Jersey

Of course, that's not all I have to say about Christmas (you know me better than that by now). It was, without question, the right decision to head home for the holiday. It just wouldn't have been the same to spend Christmas without all of the season's traditions like watching Scrooge while trimming the tree, Dad reading The Night Before Christmas, making reindeer food out of oatmeal and sparkles, poring over Where's Waldo-style search-and-find Santa placemats, and of course, spending half an hour chasing each other around the house in take-no-prisoners, parents vs. kids grudge match battle for Christmas supremacy. This year's weapon of choice was Nerf-style guns that shot these little round frisbee-disc thingies. I'm sure my parents are still finding some of the colourful li'l circles in odd spots in the house. 

The Twissmass Twee shines as Astro Boy watches on from the mantel 

My New Year's was fairly tame (probably because Marg was working that night, so she wasn't around to stir up trouble). The 'rents and I ate some finger foods, watched some comedy DVDs that I had brought home for them (Dylan Moran and Rob Brydon) and then when midnight hit, we lit a few sparklers, tooted some tooters and had a group hug. I was in bed by 12:15. It was brilliant. 

A small taste of the wisdom of Dylan Moran

I am still a little annoyed that there wasn't a New Year's concert broadcast for the Atlantic time zone this year. This won't mean anything to anyone who's not from the Canadian Maritimes. But, because we're on our own time zone there, we hit the new year an hour earlier than most of Canada (except for Newfoundland, which just does its own thing). Up until this year, Breakfast Television would film a live concert for the Maritimes featuring Atlantic musicians and hosts. But this year, nada. We searched and searched the TV Guide. The only options we could find were the ones in New York or Niagara Falls, which were both an hour behind us. It made me a little bit sad and a little bit angry. I hadn't realized that I had considered it to be a tradition to have our concert on in the background. And I feel that it was really rude to totally ignore a whole time zone, even if we are a pretty small one. I mean, come on guys. You ought to be nicer to the population who has experience of the future before the bulk of the country. Jumpin' Jaysus. 

Okay, back to the here and almost now. I didn't take on any overtime on my first week back to Scotland. Instead, I used the time to blitz clean my entire apartment and impose a little organization on my life. It felt good to have that all done. And now I have a colour-blocked wardrobe, a shiny new goal board and a very written-in agenda to show for it. Aww yiss, it do feel good. 

Brief side note - I just watched a city truck drive by on and sprinkle salt all over the road. This makes no sense to me as there is no snow or ice anywhere and, as far as I know, none expected to come in the near future. Either someone is being a little over-cautious or they're trying to get local animals to come and lick the road clean. Hard to say. 

This past week I've been back to work as usual, but with a little change to my routine - I've been getting up earlier in order to go to the gym before work in the morning. This has a few benefits: first of all, it turns out that if you work out before you're actually awake, you don't really feel the pain; second, it means that I sleep like a baby when I get home from the trains in the evening; and third, the shower pressure at the gym is a squillion times better than what we have in our flat, so I'm pretty sure that I'm actually cleaner now than I have been for most of the year. I've certainly been able to rinse more conditioner out of my hair at the gym, so it now takes a whole day before it gets stringy, gross and unappealing (instead of the 2 hours' worth of mileage I was getting out of it before). 

But of course, being who I am, I can't just let a good thing be. Just as I have gotten myself into a solid routine, I am about to yank myself right back out of it. A week from today I will be heading back to Ireland for another visit. You may be thinking, 'but Mickie, you've already been to Ireland at least thrice; should you not explore a different part of this great big world?' Well team, time to lay down a little truth. I've been holding something back from you for a while. Or rather, I've been holding it back from those of you who only get news of me from my blog (the rest of you already have most of the details about this, so you can skip this section if you'd like).  The reason that I keep going back to Ireland is that I know someone there. A man. A man-guy. Who is, I suppose, for all intents and purposes currently my man-guy. I mean, I didn't purchase him, so I can't really legally claim possession. But I think you know what I'm getting at. His name is John and he is good. He is Irish. He is a chef so he cooks things. That is a good thing about him. I met him last year when I was on holiday in Ireland. Then I stalked saw him this year when I was on holiday in Ireland again. Then he came to see me in Edinburgh, and so on and so forth. So, it seems that my turn to make the effort has come around once more. Ryanair conveniently put on a good flight deal for a week when I just happened to have six days off in a row. I'll be making the hop over the Irish Sea to Dublin (where he resides) next Monday. Then, after a day watching TV quiz shows and drinking homemade beer with him and his roommates, the two of us will pop down to Cork for a couple of days. In my past visits to Ireland, he and I have gone to every tourist site in Dublin short of the Leprechaun Museum (which he refuses to see out of principle), so to make sure that our conversation doesn't run dry, we realized that we ought to go see other things in other places. Cork is charming and he likes to make fun of the way the people there talk, so it should be a good time. He doesn't know it yet, but I'm gonna make him go to the Cork Butter Museum, which is, as the saying goes, the happiest place on Earth. Disney stole that phrase. Butter had it first. 

Okay, I'm hungry now so I'm gonna stop writing and go eat sumfin'.

Ciao!
(Get it?? Ciao? It sounds like chow! And I'm hungry! Hahahahahahahaha!)

Okay, but really, bye for now.