The house next door has a child-sized scarecrow on its front porch, dressed in what appears to be a green velvet jumpsuit with lace trim around the sleeves, pant legs, and collar. This would be disturbing enough on its own, but the scarecrow doesn't have a head. Every time I walk past in the dark I think there's a headless baby standing on my neighbour's steps. It's creeping me out.

It's a bit late, but here are the highlights of my Thanksgiving weekend:

1. Introducing Dee to the ferry.


2. Apple picking!


3. A visit to the Roma settlement near Montague.


4. Thanksgiving dinner with my family


5. A Trivial Pursuit showdown. Alas, there are no pictures, but Liam handily crushed Lynda, Dee, and me.

6. Meeting my cousin's one-month old baby. I'm in love.

Earlier this week I discovered the giant shelf of musicals at Video Difference, the movie rental place just a block away that's operated by the same people as That's Entertainment and open 24 hours. I am not exaggerating in the slightest when I say that I thought I'd died and gone to DVD heaven. It's probably the biggest collection of musicals I've ever seen in one place - and most of them I've never watched before!

For our first selection, Dee and I settled on Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in Shall We Dance and we weren't disappointed! At one point, Fred and Ginger tapdance on rollerskates to the song "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off." On rollerskates, people! And I can't even walk in high heels! The music and lyrics were by the Gershwins (including the classic "They Can't Take That Away From Me") so it was pretty high quality, but it's the dancing that gets me every time.

Video Difference, this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Happiest of birthdays to my Mel, who is awesome and turns 23 today!

I am happy to report that today I got my second MMR vaccine. No mumps for me! Yay for immune systems!

As many of you know, the neighbours I had last year liked to relax by smoking massive amounts of marijauna. In fact, they smoked so much that sometimes I would step off the elevator to find clouds of pot smoke billowing through the hallway. Unfortunately, these clouds would also billow under my door, making my apartment reek at all hours of the night and day.

Well, there's something in the air of my new apartment too - but it's much pleasanter than pot smoke. The Ben's Bread Bakery is at the end of the block, and the scent of freshly baking bread wafts down the street several times each day. I've discovered that if you walk past at about 10:00 pm you can even watch the loaves of bread as they truck along their little assembly line.

Just another reason why I love living in my new apartment.

Grrr to the loud machinery operating under my windows this morning at 8am. This was supposed to be my day to sleep in!

I'm back in Halifax, refreshed and ready to blog again.

Liam and I are slowly getting settled in our new apartment. Moving was absolute pandemonium, but I guess that was to be expected. However, I can't really complain: we managed to finish up just before the torrential downpour started. We couldn't have done it without help from Dee, Emily, and Vinny, who were awesome.

We had a mini-visit from Laura, who saw the place at its most chaotic. The three of us had just enough time to grab some crepes at the Farmer's Market before she headed home to gear up for her adventures in Hamilton.

The first day of orientation for the new SIM students was yesterday, and the second years got the cutest little file folder buttons to wear. I'll post a picture as soon as I can get Liam to take out his camera. Today I helped give a tour of the campus and tonight is the Faculty of Management mixer, which I would totally skip except they're giving out free drink tickets.

Liam's classes start Friday morning, but I don't have anything until Monday, so I'm hoping this will be a relaxing weekend. There's a SIM picnic on Sunday, but I don't think anyone has three-legged races or egg-in-spoon races planned. Sorry Lynda!

I'm starting to be able to help answer some of the complicated reference questions at work, and I can't tell you how excited this is making me! I'm going to be a really, truly librarian who can find things! People come into the library and think I know what I'm talking about. I love this!!

I think everyone has a list of books they'd like to read someday and movies they mean to watch when they have the time. Usually I'm much better at reading the books on my list than I am at getting around to watching the movies, but in the past week I've seen three movies that have been on my "To Watch" list for quite a while.

I started last Friday with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which Michelle first told me to watch several years ago. I've always thought the premise for this movie sounded strange, but I actually really enjoyed it. I like the idea of an enduring connection between two people who've been in love, even when they think they hate each other, and I thought the plot was extremely clever. I wonder what it's like to be able to think up stories like that. By the time Kate Winslet whispered "Meet me in Montauk" I had already decided I wanted to watch the movie again because I bet it will be even better the second time. And who knew Jim Carrey is such a good actor when he's not making weird faces?

Then on Thursday I psyched myself up to watch Shindler's List, which I've avoided for a long time. If you've ever heard my story about watching Life is Beautiful I think you'll understand why. In fact, if you know me at all you probably understand why. Surprisingly, I wasn't as emotionally affected as I thought I would be, but I also don't think I let myself become fully absorbed in the movie because I knew if I did I would 1) use an entire box of tissues and scare my blind cat whenever I blew my nose and 2) probably not sleep well for several weeks. I made it through most of the movie without too many tears, although the part where the bodies of all the Jews who've been killed have to be dug up and burned did use up a lot of kleenex.

I saw the first half of Forrest Gump when I was twelve, but tonight I finally watched the whole thing. I definitely understood a lot more of what was happening than I did in 1994. I really, really loved this movie. Really loved it. I know it might be a little syrup-y, but I'm a syrup-y kind of girl. Tom Hanks is brilliant, although it was a little odd to see Mack from CSI New York as a legless man with long hair.

Anyway, I'm interested to know what other movies should be moved up to the top of my "To Watch" list. What do you guys think? What do I need to watch next? I know several of the people who read this blog have very strong opinions about movies, so please suggest away!

Yesterday saw the return of Lynda and Rosey's Fabulous Adventures. Taking advantage of a sunny Sunday afternoon Lou and I piled into her car and set off to explore. Our last PEI adventure took us out to New Glasgow and Rustico, so this time we decided to go in a completely different direction and headed towards Montague. Instead of taking the main roads we meandered a little, which meant we got to see Sharon and Kieran's new house in Valleyfield.

After we hit Montague we continued on to Murray River and Murray Harbour. Alas, the bakery in Murray Harbour was closed, which meant we couldn't sample the Brad Richards cookie (which Lynda says is delicious), but we did see the large "Pride of Murray Harbour" sign. (Why is it that only sports figures or musicians seem to be the pride of places? What about all the people who gets PhDs or do other impressive things?)

Next up was a drive along the beautiful southern shore of Kings County. The scenery here was absolutely breathtaking. Everything was saturated with green and the wind smelled like grass and ocean. Even the cows looked happy. We stopped in at the Cape Bear lighthouse and played tourist for a while.

Then it was time to head home. On the way back we drove through Pownal and Alexandra so Lynda could have a trip down memory lane. Lynda and Rosey's Fabulous Adventures return next weekend, although we haven't decided what direction we're going to go yet.

Yesterday I was looking for something in the stacks at work when I noticed a row of books about pigeons. "Why," I wondered, "would Veterans Affairs be interested in pigeons?" My question was answered a few minutes later when I took a closer look at one of the books and realized it was about pensions, not pigeons. Once again, I was left shaking my head at myself. But not too hard. I didn't want to damage the brain cells that remained.

My civic duty is done. I voted on my way home from work and now I'm looking forward to an evening of watching election results.

However, there is one issue I felt was never fully discussed during the campaign. How is it that no one else noticed the lion is eating Robert Ghiz's head on the signs in his riding?

It snowed a little again today. Seriously. I have had enough.

Two exciting pieces of news:

1) I just got back from spending the weekend in Halifax, and I am happy to report that Liam and I have a place to live next fall! We'll be moving into Katie and Dave's super awesome apartment. Remember, visitors are welcome!

2) Dee's sister had a 9 lb. baby boy on Saturday. Welcome to the world Jonah Victor! And congratulations Auntie Dee.

To the various deities in charge of the weather:

I would like to register my extreme unhappiness with the several centimeters of snow that were on the ground when I woke up this morning. I realize you are occupied with larger concerns, such as climate change and the upcoming hurricane season, but today's date is May 17th, which means the merry month of May is more than half over and summer should be on its way. Snow is highly inappropriate.

Sincerely,

Rosey

PS. I promise I will never leave my parka liner and winter boots behind to save space in my suitcase again.

This is truly the cat of a future librarian. He's blind and yet continues to be attracted to books.

I am now an official employee of Veterans' Affairs Canada. I have one of those little identity cards to wear around my neck and everything. The VAC library is extremely different than any other library I've worked in so far, but I really love the lady with whom I'm working. She's always laughing and we share a love of chocolate and cats.

Speaking of cats, it's amazing to see the difference spring has made in Socks. He has a spring in his step (still a little bit of a limp, but he is sixteen, after all) and his tail is waving up in the air. I take him for a walk in the backyard every day when I get home, and his favourite thing to do is follow Kahlua around and bite her tail. It sounds mean, but I think they like sparring with each other like a big brother with an annoying little sister. His sense of smell is so strong that sometimes it's almost like he can see.

In another exciting news, my family bought a second-hand canoe. Canoing used to be my favourite part of summer camp, so I'm looking foward to trying it again. Hopefully this won't be as traumatic as Catherine's boating experience in Ontario a few summers ago.

And that's it for now. I know my posts lately have been erratic and pretty boring, but hopefully as the stresses of schoolwork continue to fade away I'll feel more like being interesting.

Well, I finished my practicum on Thursday. Making a little boy laugh until he fell over was definitely the highlight of my three weeks in the Children's Loft, but I also enjoyed being the troll in a puppet version of the Three Billy Goats Gruff, playing with construction paper, having a four year old tell me I was soft (I assumed it was a compliment), hearing a boy gasp excitedly when I showed him the shelf of books about dinosaurs, helping an elderly lady send emails to her nephew in Japan, and explaining to a little girl from Columbia what the word "poo" means. And if any of you have a chance, look up the book Bark, George by Jules Feiffer, because it might be one of the funniest stories I've read in a long time. That's what I was reading when the little boy fell over.

Friday I went out to UPEI to visit at the library and hear about all the groovy things that are happening since the new head librarian's arrival. I spent the rest of the weekend making myself walk around in the great outdoors (can anyone explain to me why it was snowing on Satuday?) and watching ridiculous amounts of Season 2 of Grey's Anatomy. Oh, and I bought pants, which is a significant achievement for me.

Tomorrow is my first day working at library at Veteran's Affairs, where I'll be for the rest of the summer. I'm looking forward to learning about life in a special library and Nicky, my new boss, has promised field trips to several other types of libraries in Charlottetown as well. Who knew there were this many libraries on PEI? I sure didn't.

Still in the Children's Library and still having fun.