Odds & ends

• February. Blah humbug. :p
• My parents found out a few days ago that they got the lease on a condo in Florida for a month. They were so excited, it was cute ; ) and they wanted dh & I to come visit. Well, I'm an obedient child. ; ) I've never had a sun vacation, & it seemed like I was finally going to get one.
• Scratch that brilliant idea. :p :( Half the time they are going to be there runs smack up against one of our busy times at work. And the dates when it was good for me to go, workwise, run smack up against our Family Day weekend (which, apparently, many parents interpret as Family WEEK and pull the kids out of school to travel) and "reading week" at many universities here. (When I was in university, it was widely known as "Ski Week," but apparently it is also Fun in the Sun Week these days.)
• So as you can imagine, availability for that week sucks, especially at this relatively late date -- and what is available is highly priced, at odd times, and often involves a side trip & flight change in Montreal, or Newark, or someplace exotic like that. :p I looked on the Internet & couldn't believe the prices I was coming up with -- so I called my travel agent. She couldn't do much better. One price she quoted was $1200. EACH. The next best rates were in the range of $700 per person. Even driving two hours & crossing the border to Buffalo (where flights are often much cheaper) would only net us very slight savings (& would mean either getting up in the middle of the night, or staying over at a hotel there to make an 8 a.m. flight).
• Did I mention that February sucks? :p
• My grandmother-to-be coworker didn't show up for work yesterday. Yep, her daughter went into labour, and the baby was born last night. She's coming in tomorrow to wrap up some loose ends & then will be off for a week or two, helping her daughter and revelling in her first grandchild (do you blame her?). Can I say I am NOT going to miss the daily baby status update at her morning team check-in meetings, held directly across the hall from my cubicle??? (But of course, I will be hearing plenty tomorrow... & when she returns to work...!)
• Thanks to everyone who left comments, voice outrage & offered suggestions on my recent post about being plagiarized. Dear Melissa actually came up with the name of the offending blog's hosting service, & I sent them an e-mail, but I got a standard form response, outlining all the steps I'd have to take to pursue my complaint (including, I think, a signed affadavit!!). I'm not happy about letting anyone get away with plagiarism, but on the other hand, I'm not sure I have the energy to pursue this & I'm wondering if it would do any good anyway? :p
• Thanks also to everyone who commented on the recent murder trial here in Canada. The Globe & Mail had an interesting article today about the polygamous first wife who died along with the three teenaged girls. And Judith Timson's column in tomorrow's paper, online already, has more to say about the family.