and the Sunday sun shines down

[raven]

So, I may have mentioned at some point earlier this week that shimgray is the proud and somewhat bemused owner of a canoe. Well, a kayak. Well, a CANOE. (I named it Gnu the Canoe. He objects. He is quite wrong about this. I mean, if you had a canoe, what would you call it? Precisely.) I have spent most of my weekend doing things of and pertaining to said canoe. We got it home yesterday with what others may call a minimum of effort but what I call being squished on the floor covered in blankets in the back of a Ford Fiesta and hanging on to some ropes for dear life. We put the canoe on the roof, tied it down with blankets and rope and bundled me in the back, while they sat in the front and drove out very slowly. And then, over speed bumps and up and down hills and chiasmata mentioning blithely that she'd have trouble if we had to do an emergency stop.

"Yes!" I yelled, somewhat muffled, at this point. "If you do an emergency stop I WILL BREAK MY NECK!"

Quoth my dear friend and my boy, "It was nice knowing you. Goodbye."

(Note: Shim has just said that he didn't do anything to me yesterday save turn me into a "bonsai Quasimodo". I think I should just let this speak for itself.)

Sweethearts, all. Anyway. We passed policemen on bicycles, and I did hide under the blankets while clinging to the rope, and we were not arrested. We got the canoe home and carried it into the garden and felt very pleased with ourselves. The rest of the day was spent making cakes - glorious sticky chocolate golden-syrup things; we eventually made four batches of the things, and I fully plan to foist the recipe on likethesun2 later this week - and, once we had a pack of people to eat the cakes (triptogenetica and luminometrice found the house by asking the neighbours "which house had asbestos removed recently" and brought with them eighteen tubs of Petit Filous) we watched Doctor Who.

On which I have this to say: Donna, oh, Donna, I heart you. I think the resolution to her plot works in narrative terms, but it doesn't stop it being desperately sad. Oh, Donna. I love her and her awesome. And, Rose? Stupid, stupid pouting Rose and her life-sized Doctor sex toy. Rose was a decent character, once. I wrote fic about her, too! Because she was interesting and had potential. But, now, what does she do? Nothing. And, I mean, look at Donna! And Martha, and Sarah Jane, and Mickey and Luke and Jackie! They are all awesome and powerful. And, urgh, it's drippy agency-less Rose who is, urgh, special. Right. Enough about that. Moving right on.

Following Doctor Who, we watched Dr. Strangelove. Which was, frankly, a surreal experience. I'd never seen it before. I probably should have watched it before I spent three months of my life studying the Cold War. The evening descended into soft sticky-cake eating and dissecting Who, and, finally, lying around reading (currently, the latest by Mary Roach - she who wrote a book about corpses (Stiff), one about death (Spook - I bought it at the Strand in New York a year ago) and now, Bonk: a study of sex research. (I have to stop myself reading out the bits about penile implants when there are men in the vicinity; they tend to cringe.)

This morning, bright and early - well, no, at quarter to twelve - we went out to Hinksey Park, onto the boating lake, carrying a canoe down several streets to get there, and had a go. No one fell over, or out! chiasmata discovered a veritable talent for canoeing herself about, but I had a marvellous time too, pottering about scaring the ducks and just about mastering the art of cleaving a straight line through the water. It's odd, actually, being on a level with the ducks. And there were ducklings, and wee baby froglets bouncing about. It was a delight. I hadn't been in a canoe for about ten years, but it was great.

Tomorrow, quite probably - although, not for certain - my degree results come out. But, right now, I'm happy. I am not up north. I'm here, I'm happy, we have a canoe, I'm getting a cat. Next week, chiasmata and shimgray are going out again, possibly on the river. The river leads to the Thames which leads to the estuary which leads to the sea. Next week, I will be on the Pacific coast. I will go down to meet them being washed up in San Francisco Bay.

Comments

[likethesun2.livejournal.com]

Good luck on your degree results! I'll be thinking of you tomorrow.

And: foist away! *does a dance of excitement* I CLEANED THE BATHROOM FOR YOU TODAY, LOOK HOW MUCH I LIKE YOU.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Is there two-ply toilet paper? IS THERE, LEIGH.

(Seriously, I cannot wait to see you! There will be cake!)

[likethesun2.livejournal.com]

THERE ABSOLUTELY IS. THREE WHOLE ROLLS OF IT, OMG.

(I just checked weather.com, and it says there's an "excessive heat watch" for SF until Thursday. And then I checked the actual forecast for the week and it's predicting temperatures in the 70s F. Excessive heat watch. I cannot even. This place is like a different planet.)

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Fingers crossed for your results.

[chiasmata]

I texted my housemate to ask when you can move in. Her reply, this morning, was to ask me not to leave windows on the vent 'because it's cold and [she] thought we'd had a conversation about that.' THAT IS NOT A DATE!

I will continue to ask and think about my iPod. xx

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

I disagree about Rose and the agencyless in that episode, I have to admit. I thought that Donna was very suddenly agencyless and it bugged me tremendously. I will probably write up that thought properly at some point...

[marymac.livejournal.com]

Emergency stops with canoes on the roof are funny though. Although not so much if you can't see the faces of the other motorists as it happens.
*has not be involved in such ever, no, no mater what the Gardai think*

And Dr Stranglove is so much better when you've done the Cold War! Its just terribly confusing when you're 13 and have no idea except vaguely what you remember from the Berlin Wall coming down.

[amchau.livejournal.com]

The only canoe owned by my family was called Puddleduck. But I like Gnu; perhaps if it is technically a kayak it should be called Kojak the kayak? I think there are no closer rhymes.

The Doctor doing Donna's voice was hilarious.