I've got a big fat ROM sticker on my forehead right now. Clearly, my fellow membership colleagues are completely comfortable with me, as not one of them has commented on it. I will remove it from my face before I go volunteer at the Material Ball tonight.

I'm helping to usher people to where they need to be. It's a big do for the swanky members - the ones who donate lots of money - in honour of the opening for Elite Elegance, a couture exhibit celebrating the high fashion of the 1950s. I'm only volunteering for two reasons: 1) for the fashion show and, 2) in order to dress in evening wear. I'm such a gussy-slut. I'll do plenty in order to get gussied up. The food and dancing are fair reasons, as well.

It's too bad that I woke up at 5:30am with a migraine, but happily, though I came to work two hours late, I feel a good deal better now. I blame the chocolate that I've been eating, the Rockets candy at work, the weather, and probably the lemon gin and tonic I had last night, which was light on the gin, heavy on the lemon. Anyway, I'm alright now, though there's a sort of weightiness over my eyes that I probably won't shake until tomorrow morning.

On Monday night, I went to Ryan's to play some Mordheim with him. I made a bad decision, opting to go as the attacker in a break-through match, forgetting that though my Sisters of Sigmar are stronger than his Skaven, I was one character short. Of all the characters, it was the heaviest hitter, the Matriarch, so in the end I had to surrender. Colleen came home toward the end of our game and flounced about, griping about someone at the opera company, but eventually, having enjoyed a chocolate that I gave her, she settled down and relaxed. She is soooo highly strung, my God. I do get some great enjoyment out of the fact that they've got this fancy, expensive apartment in a trendy part of town, with air conditioning, etc., and yet, they are being harrassed by their crazy downstairs neighbour. I can smile and nod knowingly, having experienced that myself when I lived on Manning ("I tell you ! No boys ! No boys ! I call my son, he come ! No boys ! Oh, oh, oh.") Not only that, but they've been getting a free ride on their hydro for the last few months and just got hit with a $500 bill. Heh. So, I guess it's not all that it's cracked up to be.

Rick and I had a lovely time on Tuesday night. We had a date ! You stop having dates after a while, you just start going out to the restaurants you like, and stuff, but I got a little gussied up and transformed the event into a date. We ate at our favourite Indian restaurant, Red Rose, by Honest Ed's, and then walked along Bloor to Spadina (I stopped in at Midoco and bought... Letraset ! Of all things...). We went back to his place, etc., etc.. When I came back home following work the next day, Willi didn't even appear to have noticed me. My cat is fickle.

Tomorrow Tanya (and maybe her boyfriend Chris) is coming into the city in order to get fitted at Sandra's. Inevitably, the fitting will turn into a social call, but that's half the fun. Tanya's spending the night and then we're all heading into Lindsay (near the Petes) on Saturday to attend the wine-tasting and dinner at Carrie's parents' place. That should be super fun. Rick and I will be going, Ryan and Colleen, and Tanya (hopefully with Chris), Richie, Bill, Sherrie and various significant others and family. Rick and I will spend the night at my mother's house, and she's invited us to come along to the Peterborough Children's Orchestra primiere concert. The tickets are cheap, so what the hey?

Such a long time since my last update, partially due to my ongoing lack of computer, and partially because even though I ended up staying at Mom's until this past Thursday, I had the flu.

Thursday night, I went to the Royal with Juliane, which was great fun - like old times. I wish I'd felt better for it, but there's nothing to be done. At least I was able to go at all. Juliane is looking extremely healthy, and quite happy. We talked about old times and new times and generally had a good evening together. She's working on finishing her undergraduate degree at Mac, and she plans to take a year off between that and her teaching certification in order to ride full time again.

Happily, the dressage kurs that were ridden, mostly did not suck, and two were even performed so well that I could chance to call them very good. The Gambler's Choice competition was very odd. The riders get to choose their course as every fence is weighted with a value and there are neither ground lines nor directional flags. The point is to rack up as many points in just over a minute's time as possible. It was keen.

It really showed off the mature riders compared to the younger ones, and the horses' agility really came into question. I noted that the riders were mostly using their smaller, athletic horses over their more typical mounts. The jumps were not as difficult as a normal stadium course, but the competitors had to make some really fancy roll-backs to get over the fences they'd decided on.

Friday was... HARRY POTTER and the Chamber of Secrets ! Rick met up with me at Al and Carrie's where we had delivery Chinese food. It was tasty (oh, that greasy chicken) and we watched last year's Potterific flick just to get us pumped. I think I enjoyed this one as much as the first, and possibly even moreso, though it will probably take another viewing to know for sure. I might also re-read the book as I couldn't remember what bits had been cut out.

Saturday, Rick and I went back to the Royal, but this time without tickets for the horseshow. After the adventure of finding a parking space we went in and found food. Rick was very tolerant of my desire to pet every creature's nose, pull on their lips, scratch their necks, and blow in their nostrils... He thinks I'm weird, but the animals love me for it. More beernuts were eaten than absolutely necessary, and altogether, it was very much fun. I griped about the little hunty girls 'working' (I use that term VERY loosely) their ponies in the warm-up ring and looked longingly at the horse-for-sale ads pegged up everywhere. I indulged myself in a new dressage whip - it was very cheap ! Finally, after several hours of manure and animal sounds we decided it was time to go. When we came out, everything was dusted with snow.

The snow continued all night and long into the following day, and last night, the official word was an accumulation of between 18 and 22cm throughout Toronto. I took a short walk yesterday afternoon, to get some air and enjoy the beauty of the snow. There are few things in life that I enjoy as much as a tromp through clean white snow. I had to peel off my coat and pants, hat and mitts, to let them dry over the banister. I had a cup of hot chocolate and some soup and set to work on A&C's invitations. I think I'm going to do the final piece on heavy watercolour paper, but for now, I'm roughing out colours and designs on tracing and computer paper. I experienced honest boredom last night for the first time in years. I'd worked on the invites, and did some costume work for the movie, finished reading Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and then absolutely was at a loss. Nick saved the day by producing the movie, Donnie Darko, which was so bloody cool ! Cool and it unexpectedly made me cry at the end. It was a shame that it didn't do well in theatres, but it's definitely worth the rent.

Tonight, I'm hammering (hopefully) Ryan in a game of Mordheim. We'll see how that goes.