displacement
I woke up a little later for this morning’s train than I’d have liked — Tyla’s lightning reflexes slayed the alarm clock after but a single bleat, it seems, so I never really noticed — but because it’s a Via train it turned out to not matter very much. By the time we arrived in Ottawa, we were running 45 minutes late, which apparently entitles me to a 50% refund-credit thing. It’s annoying to be late, as anyone who has ever done a time-sensitive thing with me can attest, but I wasn’t in an enormous rush, so I think I’m happy with the trade.
Chris graciously met me at the new Fallowfield train station, and after some en-route beer and wine purchases, we arrived at Chris and Kristina’s lovely house, where I got to meet their new kittens for the first time. Adorable as all get out, which I think is why they call them “kittens”. I apparently made quite an impression on Saba, because he sat on my lap for an extended period of time. Chris says that this is pretty much unheard-of, and I think that if he were going to lie to me he’d do it about something more important. Regardless, I squandered that goodwill later by hissing to get him (Saba, silly) and Miso off the table later in the evening, so it’s of little historical interest.
Between the waxing and waning of my friendship with Saba, there was a lot of snow-oriented fun. About a dozen of us trekked out to Bruce Pit, a short walk from — but, as you will hear, a longer walk to — the house in question, where we proceeded to fling ourselves down washboard-like hills until the combination of fatigue, deep-muscle bruising and dangerously low blood-beer levels drove us back to shelter. Well, some people drove back to shelter. I wanted to walk back and take the “shortcut” through the snowy park, because it was a nice night, and because I thought it would be fun, but mainly because I have the sort of foresight that may well someday lead me to attempt a mid-December infantry invasion of Russia. The trip back, distance-wise, was quite bearable; definitely under a kilometer. As the crow flies, it represented a significant savings over our previous route. Given that we were unable to find anyone in the “shortcut gang” with the gift of flight, however, we ended up trudging in thigh-deep snow for about, oh, a decade. These are my thighs I’m talking about here, so probably a good 80cm of snow. If you ever find yourself in desperate need of lower-body fatigue, drop me a line; I have a great source.
The rest of the evening was food and chatter and beer, all the ingredients of a wonderful party. Chris-and-Kristina’s house is truly lovely: wonderfully decorated and furnished, immaculately maintained and, of course, nicely catered. Some day I’ll grow up and be able to have nice things like this.
I wrote some code on the train, just a few hundred lines, because I finally had a few hours with a computer and without the seemingly-everpresent distraction provided by truly world-class test flailing. It’s good to be back, or something.