We just got home from Thanksgiving at my parents' place, in southern Pennsylvania.  ("But it's not Thanksgiving there, right?" "Yes, that's right.  But they're retired.  Every weekend is a long weekend for them.  The issue is when we have a long weekend.")

It's still funny to me.  They moved back to Lancaster County 2.5 years ago, after being away for 25 years; we moved when I was 12.  So it's home, but it's the home I don't really know how to get around in (I never drove there), and the home I never had any adult responsibilities in.  I have no idea how far it is from the middle school to where I grew up (it was a long time on the bus).

I wish it were an easier drive there (the wonderful roly-poly Pennsylvania hills, which make my soul sing in a way almost nothing else does, also prevent convenient north-south roads, though it must be said that Google thinks my little detours added a full 48 minutes to what is already a very long day's drive), but it's just a joy visiting there. 

It's also great that my parents are much more relaxed post-retirement than pre-.  There are all kinds of standard health issues (my dad is about to become guy-in-his-60s-number-23582509121-who-gets-new-knees), but all told, I think they're happier than they have been in years, which is good news indeed.

So I am thankful.

We are in NYC this weekend.  No, not for the climate march; we didn't know that was happening when we planned the trip.  No, we are mostly here to see theatre, though we did see an excellent concert last night with some friends who live in Boston.

The two people in front of us as we went into "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" had gotten rush tickets for $35. I remember, when I was their age, getting the $5 tickets through the MIT Council for the Arts, which got me the chance to see the first production of "Angels in America" in Boston, and to see a couple of plays at the Huntington Theatre Company, and (most importantly) to come to NYC just before graduation, to see the Bang on a Can marathon at Lincoln Center.

Now, I come to the City with a pile of pre-purchased, full-price tickets, and "spontaneity" is taking the East River ferry, instead of the subway, to cross over from Queens to Manhattan.

That said, it's still an awesome place to visit, and it's a great trip. 

Rover is getting old.

She's 12.  (Actually, she's now 12.25.  I suppose that in the twilight of life, those fractions of a year start to matter again, much as they did when we were children.)

She sleeps through so much now.  And she's underfoot even more than before; she doesn't hear when warned to get out of the way, and then gets stepped on, or she forgets that 15 seconds ago she was exiled from the kitchen. 

And she doesn't have the bladder control she once had, meaning that the loveseat she used to sleep on had to be disposed of, despite my having owned it for 19 years.

Still, she's cute, she's enjoying her dotage, and she's just as snuggleable as ever.  I fear that the next few years of pet ownership are going to be tough.

It's Orientation here this week.  This mostly means that there are zillions of identically-t-shirted young people chanting out slogans and being forced to learn synchronized dance routines.

I hate it.

When I was a freshman, 23 years ago, MIT's orientation week was combined with the period when you picked your housing.  You were assigned a temporary dorm (mine was MacGregor, which is entirely made up of singles), and then there was a four-day frenzy of fraternity rush, sorority rush, "independent living group" [aka ex-frats that had gone co-ed, largely] rush, alongside a more low-key period to check out the dorms and rank them, if you decided not to join a frat/sorority/ILG.  And there was also Orientation. 

It was confusing.  By the time we got to the Orientation part of the week, most of us were exhausted.  I'd decided ultimately to live in the dorms (I think 30% of people, most of them men, joined FSILGs, which meant that the gender ratio in the dorms might even have been more women than men?), in part because I had met someone who was one class ahead of me who eventually became one of my closest friends.  (We're not as close nowadays, but really, who of us is as close nowadays to the people we met in our first week of college?)  Sharon had run an event at Random Hall (yes, that's its name) where we made gnocchi, and it seemed far more authentically fun than most of the BS that was happening at all of the other dorms/FSILGs.  (Unfortunately, I still can't make gnocchi that don't fall apart.  Perhaps I should email her and get her recipe.)

After all of that, Orientation was just exhausting.  We'd not slept for days.  Many of us (including me) had been told "no" by an FSILG.  (This is a really terrible thing to happen during your first week of college, I should note.)  And then they wanted us to get into groups of strangers and do trust falls and learn about cultural diversity and do physical activities and Make Friends.  They called it MOYA, for Move Off Your Assumptions (God, I want those brain cells back.)

I fled. 

See, there's nothing stopping you from just...walking away.  And while lots of Orientation was "mandatory", it's not as though it's, you know, mandatory.  So I left.  I wandered Boston.  I went shopping.  I read along the Esplanade on the Charles River. 

I did bits and pieces here and there of Orientation, and I remember my MOYA group leader being really frustrated with me.  But I thought then, and still think now, that Orientation is fundamentally misguided, because it presumes that by taking a group of culturally diverse (and neurodiverse!) people and pretending that they're all extroverts with lots of common ground, everyone will have fun and make friends.

What is actually true is that for some people, including me, it's basically the psychological equivalent to having people shout at them for four days.  And I didn't sign up for Boot Camp, I went to nerd college.

At times, I have tried to improve Orientation here, but the other big problem with it is that Orientation reproduces itself.  The people who lead Orientation are the people who love Orientation, and who see nothing wrong with acting as though our class of Math and CS students, which is roughly 60% non-Canadian-born, is actually made up of a bunch of culturally unified extroverts.  Year after year, this structure reproduces itself.

I hate Orientation.

This morning I got a cappuccino at Balzac's, in downtown Kitchener, toward the beginning of my walk to work.

This, in and of itself, is probably not worth a post, given that I think "what I had for breakfast" is not really a one-post wonder. 

But there was this cute moment where both the patron next to me and I wanted to get lids for our drinks, and we both couldn't find them. 

"Where are the lids?"

"They're in that tub."

"It's empty."

"No, they're there."

"No, it's empty."  *pause*  "Oh!  They're dark-coloured, and in the shadows.  I'm really sorry."

"That's okay.  I probably should top them up.  And I make a rule not to expect much of people before they have had their coffee."

"That's very generous of you."

It was also a good cappuccino.

Today's canoe ride on the Grand was the perfect length: including a little detour to the one side with a little lake and a beaver dam, we spent 2.5 hours kayaking from Breslau to Freeport.  It did rain on us at the end of the trip, but only a mild amount.

We'd originally scheduled the 4-hr trip (which starts 10 km further up the river); I think that would have been a feasible length if we'd been able to stop and enjoy a picnic, but in this weather, it wouldn't have worked.

I can't believe I've lived in K/W for 13 years and never done this.  It's only $60, including taxes, for two people.