Sometimes it rains

...and you don't realize you're in the middle of something bigger than a rain storm. When I wrote my last post, I was saying ...ok, we had a little rain here. I was maybe understating the situation. Winnipeg was on the national--and then international-- news. I know this because my sister-in-law in Virginia emailed to ask if we'd been flooded out.

So far? No problems at our house, and we have a lovely sunny day right now. That's good, because over 500 homes in the area (and many more unreported ones) are busy taking all the ruined stuff out their basements. HERE is a photo of what things looked like.

It's supposed to rain again starting tomorrow. Uh Oh.

The student that is visiting here has been exploring our connections. In April of 2007, we both went to hear the Yarn Harlot speak in Lexington, Kentucky. Last night, our resident student looked up the Yarn Harlot's blog post from that day. Take a wander over there...and you'll see, first, a photo of a woman in a bright blue v-neck top, holding up stripey socks. Our Resident Student is the red head to her left in the photo. (No, we didn't know each other yet.)

Keep scrolling down, and you'll see a photo of me in a bright red wool sweater. It made sense when leaving my home in the cool early morning to make the 2 hour drive. It was darn warm when I arrived in Lexington. Here's what Stephanie aka Yarn Harlot said:
(Joanne)
Who I know in from the internet and was trying her best to look like a Canadian (that was the plan...right Joanne?) wearing her very best woolies. Fabulous socks...yes? (It was hot in Kentucky. Joanne looked - besides fantastic, like I always do...warm.)

Note: the Fabulous Socks are available here in case they distracted you.

Anyhow, at the time of that event, I had no idea that I was yearning to live in Canada. Now I do live here! I also had no idea that Resident Student would become one of the Professor's research students, and eventually live on the third floor of my house while visiting Canada.

Connections are sometimes a long time in the making, huh? It took years (and a persistent undergrad) to see the long strands of yarn that connect all these events!

Here's the kicker. Back when I was undergraduate at Cornell, I often thought they'd made a mistake in accepting me. It was sometimes such a struggle--I felt stretched sometimes academically. One cold and dark Saturday evening, I promised myself that if I studied at the library for a couple of hours, I'd let myself go out afterwards. As I trudged to the library, I looked up. In every single window, at each library desk, I saw a student studying. It turned out sometimes everyone else felt the way I did. I wasn't alone in feeling like maybe I wasn't good enough to be there...and that I needed to study on Saturday nights.

Today I got an email from a student intern at the Cornell Alumni News. She asked if she could interview me for the magazine. I was so excited and surprised! Good thing I was sitting down. Apparently, 15 years after graduation, I am worth interviewing. Wow.

If I had to rate all this? Living in Canada, not having a flood at my house, or this interview? I'd be hard pressed to say which connection is best.

Nah. Just thought about it. Probably not having a flood is best.

Too bad it's going to rain again soon. I am just hoping to avoid a flood...

Canada Day

In honor of Canada Day, I was reminiscing about the fun time we had last year visiting Winnipeg on July 1st. (scroll back to the beginning of July to get my full "first time to Winnipeg" posts.) The professor suggested I tell you this particular story about what's been going on lately.

On Monday, we received an enormous set of papers for buying our new home in Manitoba. Essentially, it was all the papers for closing on our new house from the lawyer. Bright and early on Tuesday morning, we went up to our local credit union branch to do all the signing in front of a notary. The professor wanted to go there particularly because, he explained, they all knew him personally.

The joke was on him when the notary smiled up at me and it was my friend (and talented artist) Myra! The professor is an exceedingly careful person and makes me look downright haphazard. (for those who know me, this is hard to believe but totally true.) So, he insisted on being in charge of all the paperwork, although we both were signing it. All went very well until...

We got to the piece of paperwork that asked for another notary to notarize the authenticity of the first notary's work. No kidding!! Now that's careful! Luckily, this bank had two notaries, and the professor pointed out that notary #2 had opened our bank account with us, six years ago. He again felt glad we'd chosen our local credit union branch. At that point, we were using the services of roughly half the employees!

All seemed great until last night, when the professor went through the paperwork one last time before sending it back northward. Then, he found the other piece of paper we needed notarized.

"No problem!" I said, with a smile. (because I had left it all to him, I was just cooperating...and packing boxes. 12 boxes yesterday..) It was another fun chance to see my friend Myra! Today, we hope, we will be able to send off the house paperwork to Canada.

We can conclude from this:
1) We've got something to learn from Canadians about being extra, extra sure that everything is just right.
2) It's just right that we didn't send out the paperwork yesterday, since everyone is celebrating Canada Day today! No one would have been in the office to receive it.
3) The Yarn Harlot does a far better job of celebrating Canada Day via blogpost, as a Canadian, than I (a US citizen) can. Maybe one day I'll get dual citizenship. I aspire, maybe one day, to being as careful as both the professor and the paperwork that requires that the notary's signature be notarized....but gosh, that's careful!

For now, I'm back to the boxes. We're up to 251. I just packed up the spindles from both of my Great Wheels, so no more spinning on those until they're in my new home. Only 9 days until the moving truck comes...and that's the news.