Here I am in Lisse, Netherlands after an adventurous day today.

We´ve been staying with mom´s cousins here, which has been wonderful. They are so kind! They took us on a beautiful bike ride to the beach on our first day here (which we needed to stay awake after being awake for 30 hours straight). The hardest part for me was staying awake while we visited my mom´s uncle and aunt who only speak Dutch.

Then we went for a BBQ at another cousin´s house before I finally started to crash. We slept for over 10 hours.

Sunday, we drove to Scheveningen - a beach town south of Amsterdam. We had a look at all the sand sculptures and walked along the famous boardwalk and watched some fool bungy jump.

We drove to Den Haag and saw the Panarama by Mesdag, which was an amazing complete 360° view of Scheveningen. It was so realistic! We also saw the parliament buildings and a lot of really old beautiful architecture.

Today, we went to Aalsmeer to see the flower auction. It was amazing to see so many flowers. Afterwards, it was raining so mom and I decided to take the train to Amsterdam. There, it rained and was cold and we lost our train tickets and broke our umbrella and the museum we wanted to go to was closed and then the phone card I bought wouldn´t work and then the phone number I was using to get picked up didn´t work and it was a bit of a comedy of errors. But we´re home now and off to Zwolle tomorrow. WHEW!

Today I leave on vacation to Holland with my mom. Mom and Dad are picking me up at 2pm today from work, so I'm trying to get everything resolved there before I leave so that the poor guy who has to cover my most ginormous project doesn't have to hate me while I'm gone.

But even though that should be quite stressful, I'm so ridiculous, I'm actually all panicky about the packing. Do we see a trend?

Alex came over last night to help - and by "help" I mean that he told me I should bring three pairs of shoes instead of two and also wondered why it's called a "pair of pants" instead of just "a pant." To which, of course, I replied that you CAN call it "a pant" but that if he did I would immediately hate him along with all others who say that. After which, of course, he immediately tried to work the term "pant" into the conversation.

It's like that.

Then I remembered that my plants would die if I didn't get someone to water them while I'm away. So at 9pm I wandered up to the apartment of a girl I went to highschool with whom I just happened to meet in the elevator one day. Of course, since I'm a bad person, I have yet to actually get together with her and catch up. Instead, here I am asking her to do a favour for me. Selfish Cathy!

But at least I'm saving the plants.

And I think that I've remembered everything. Oh wait. I forgot my camera.

Crap. I suck.

Why do I drink?

Last night was Alex's 30th birthday party and it was a lot of fun. But we both drank too much. And then we ended up slothing on the couch watching TV, drinking water, gatorade, tea and eating toast all day.

And now, off to another birthday party.
Guh.

Went to the Sarah McLachlan concert last night at the ACC. It was the first time I've ever seen her in concert. She was - is - amazing. But, as Alex said, it seemed a little formulaic; no spontaneity.

Still, I'm jealous as hell of her voice and wish I were her just a little bit. OK, a lot.

I have had a really nice weekend.

Friday night with Raye, chatting and then for dinner and then a fashion show in my closet. Saturday, I woke up and had a leisurely cup of tea while I read the paper and waited for Raye to wake up. I even made cornmeal muffins before we went out for a walk down Mount Pleasant. We found some fantastic consignment clothing shops and second-hand bookstores and spent money we probably didn't need to. At least I didn't buy the second-hand hot pink pashmina. But you know, maybe I'll go back...

Then Alex and I met up to shop for his neices' confirmation gifts before racing off to catch the train to Oshawa. Today we went to the confirmation and out for a glorious lunch with his whole family.

Afterwards, we all went back to Alex's parents' house where all the guys shaved their heads in support of Alex's dad who has started chemotherapy. Alex is really self conscious about it, but I think it looks OK. He certainly looks tougher. All he needs is an earring and some cool shades to really pull off the look.

I think it's nice that they've done that. I'm really sad that his dad is going through all this. It must be really difficult to deal with. I don't know what I would do. His dad tried to tell me that I have to get my dad to quit smoking.

"He's killing himself," he said. I told him that we've all said something at one time or another, but I'm sure my dad is fully aware of the risks at this point. How could he NOT be? But I don't think it really matters what I say. He has to want it.

Other than these sobering thoughts, Alex and I had a nice weekend together. Very nice.

Happy Mother's Day!

The best part about Mother's Day is lazing around at my parents' house in the country, reading magazines and drinking tea in the sunshine.

Um, and eating yummy food and watching the cats play and not worrying about anything.

Except going back to work tomorrow.

It is done.

Elijah was a bit of a triumph. Mostly because of me.
OK, maybe not just me. But I did nominate myself as the Most Improved Player. I suspect that is not an exaggeration.

OK, I made a few mistakes. But all in all, I think I did really well.
And I'm still singing it in my head. I've been waking up and going to sleep with this music - it won't go away.

My mom was appropriately impressed. As mothers are. My dad only fell asleep once. It was so great to have Alex and Sarah there. Alex bought me roses and we all went out for a celebretory drink afterwards. I felt so high.

I can't believe it's over!
I'm quite proud of myself.
I'm a better singer than I thought.

Also note that if I'm not responding to your email, it's because I'm not checking my webgoddesscathy email. Sorry; no internet access yet.

Love the apartment, but there's so much to do. No time for internet access yet. It's an action of discipline.

Be patient.

Today I'm fully aware of what a nerd I am: I'm at a search engine conference.

You can tell who the techies are vs. the marketing guys: marketers have cool messy hair and nice shoes. Techies have long hair and t-shirts. What am I? Neither.

But it struck me how ridiculous the whole thing is.
People are taking this very seriously. Their search engine placement is top of their mind. Seriously. When was the last time something like this concerned YOU?

What a lovely weekend!

I finished unpacking all of my boxes, finally, and bought a few things for my pretty kitchen at Kitchen Stuff Plus. I went to a great bday party. I ate a wonderful seafood lunch at a great Portugese restaurant on College. I walked in the sunshine and bought fresh fruit at the local produce shop. I even practiced my choir music (performance this weekend!)

However, I still hate Logan Movers.

Oooh, drunken posts.
Oooh, hang-overs.

What a good party last night. People were so nice to me.

I had such good intentions to have only one or two drinks. Instead, I drank everything and then some. Why do I DO that?

At least Alex made me drink lots of water before bed. Yay. And now I need McDonalds.

Went to Scott and Kat's bday party and it cost about $50 to get home!

But it was good to see everyone.
bedtime now.