got home late last night after an exhilarating four-hour bus trip, 90 minutes of which was spent at the border - 20 minutes from my house - waiting for the guy in front of me to decide of which country he was a citizen. twelve hours later it was back up to st. catherine's to visit my grandma. another grand adventure. I wouldn't have known where I was going even if the QEW hadn't been closed; the choose-your-own-adventure detour through downtown niagara falls was totally unnecessary. at the moment, I'm sitting in the activity room at the retirement home where my grandma lives. she's never lived closer than 600 miles away from us, and I love that she's now (theoretically) only about 40 minutes away. a couple days of grandma always raises the spirits. but thank god they have a computer! it's 9:30 and the place is dead. normally, I'm just getting home from class and eating dinner around this time.


speaking of dinner. the roast beef sandwich and slice of melon we had four hours ago was great; I didn't have to make it and it wasn't kraft dinner, cheerios or stale oreos. in fact, it would have been a perfect warm-up for a good hearty meal had it been followed by a good hearty meal. a sandwich is what I generally eat to tide me over until the box of kraft dinner is cooked, which I then consume in its entirety. good thing breakfast will be on the table before eight. remind me never to get old.


this was a big day in the bishop household. today, the little bother left for university. the house is now kid-less (save for random, whose idea of higher education involves devising more efficient methods of squirrel hunting and new routes onto the dinner table). within two months of day my sister and I first left for school, the maternal unit had redecorated our room, joined a handful of neighbourhood clubs and taken up volunteering at church. now that her baby is gone, I am, quite frankly, a bit anxious to see what sort of trouble she'll get herself into. empty-nest syndrome just may be an understatement. geoff seemed a bit nervous, but he'll do alright. as long as he remembers to wake up in the morning and comes to realize that studying is not an extracurricular activity. it's syracuse I'm worried about. no person, school or town I know of has ever taken on the mighty g-blob and emerged unscathed.


10:02. less than 10 hours till breakfast. massive sigh. I may not make it.