Ontario: There's no taste like home

I flew in to Ontario last night. My travels yesterday were fairly uneventful. I was happy to have my laptop to help pass the time at the airport. I had a panic attack during my flight home because I forgot that the time goes back when you go West. My family was meeting me at 6:30pm Toronto time. I looked at my watch in the air and saw that it was 6:30 and we hadn't started landing, and got really upset. It took me a good 5-10 minutes to finally realize that my watch was still set to AST, so I had another hour before I needed to panic. I was much relieved.

My mom, my sister and my niece met me at the airport. I can say that there is nothing quite so nice as being met at the airport by your 3 year old niece who has been counting down the days until you come home. As soon as I saw her, she handed me her Christmas photo that she had taken at Sears. Apparently she had been holding it during the whole trip to Toronto and refused to put it down. In typical 3 year old fashion, Anie shows her affection by choosing who she wants to do things for her. Thus, last night it was I who got to unbutton her coat and help her with her mittens and blow on her food to cool it down. I did not object. On the way home in the backseat we had a riot playing little games. I taught her what an Eskimo kiss is (is this a politically correct term? Do we say Inuit kiss now? Or is that still problematic in that we're essentializing a population by this one action that they are reported to do? The world has become a complicated place) and what a butterfly kiss is, and we made animal faces with our hands and attacked each other with tickling. Good times. My dad told me last night that he was over at my sister's on Wednesday and he said to Anie, "Two more days until Heidi comes home," and Anie corrected him, "No, ONE more day... One more sleep!" She knew better than he did. It's so nice to feel loved.

Right now I'm at Andrew's. He had an exam to write this morning and I'm waiting for him to come home so we can eat lunch. I wasn't really looking forward to coming home, at least not for a whole month because I'm going to miss my apartment and because my assignments still need a lot of work, but I have to say that it's great to be here. Plus, people here have stuff, like couches and satellite TV and free laundry, so you can't complain about that. My family is getting the Christmas tree this weekend, which is fun. I'm totally not in the Christmas spirit, but getting the tree should help.

Anyway, Andrew is expecting me to have nachoes made for when he gets back, so I'd best move on into the kitchen. More later!