A year in review

I should do this now, because I will be busy later.

But I don't really want to do it.

Himself will be up in a bit, though, and then it will be all go, all of the time until tomorrow.

2006 - 07 - What have I achieved?

I can't even remember most of it, what happened? Let's see...

I moved house and found this place, which is great and which we love.

I sold some of my photo cards, that was pretty cool. Making money from something creative is very cool. I will do more of that next year.

I went to Ireland. That was pretty cool too. I will do that again soon of course.

I parented someone for a number of months. That was not cool. That was difficult. My mothering style is a sarcastic version of my mother's. Which would have probably worked if I was mothering me, but I was dealing with a whole different kettle of fish.

I also learned that there is nothing wrong with saying that X, Y or Z is a pointless piece of marketing-driven shit and that the child involved should walk away from it now. Right now. The ensuing absence of said piece of marketing-driven shit is a learning experience for them, not a privation. Parents need to re-assert themselves against the forces of advertising. Starting by ignoring it themselves a bit.

I read a lot of books. Much more manageable, books. Pop em on a shelf until you need 'em and then pop 'em back when you're finished with them.

I sold books for the first time so we could buy dinner, and a hole did not appear in my universe.

I managed not to blow my SSIA money on anything. (Did anyone else notice that piece in the IT about how everyone paid off their credit cards with their SSIA money, cutting debt by EU6 billion or something in one month - scary!!)

Yet.

I bought Albert the Stationwagon, and sold my car in Ireland.

I continued to pay some of my mortgage in Ireland as well as my rent here, on a pitiful salary. I have got to sort this out. This year's challenge.

I moved in with someone and it worked despite the slam dunk of a teenager right from the start, and we still get on. That's pretty cool.

I completed my immigration process and am now waiting for a decision.

I bought a new camera and took lots of nice photos.

I learned how to bind books.

I learned how to use a barbeque.

I planted a vegetable garden.

I lost my beloved fish and got the phish.

I learned whatever effing lesson about money Saturn is trying to teach me and am now anxiously waiting for 2nd September when he goes away for a bit.

I managed to keep this blog going.

I bought a bed.

I furnished an apartment for less then $1,000.

I guess I did okay.

I wonder what next year will bring?

It's not how old you are, it's how you are old

So my Google interface told me today anyway.


How apt, it being my birthday weekend.

I have a love hate relationship with my birthday.

I hate my birthday. But it is my birthday. So I get all sniffy if people don't mark it. But I get all sniffy if people do mark it because I find it embarrassing to be the centre of attention.

I am a pain in the ass about it, basically. Needy-needy in all the bad ways about it.

Who cares, it's MY birthday.

Speaking of, I am having a barbeque this afternoon to mark my birthday by feeding other people (that I can handle, being a Cancerian), and two guests have already emailed me this week to say, hewm...naaahhh... don't know if I can be arsed, maybe I'll come, type out all the instructions again for me in case I'm REALLY bored and decide to turn up.

The fuck I will.

Listen, petaleen (as Nabla says when she's mad with me), if you don't care about me enough to pretend that you are very busy doing some dreadful domestic chore, so you are terribly sad that you're maybe going to miss my birthday, then you have no business coming to my home to eat my food if there's nothing better on offer.

I am completely astounded at the rudeness of it.

Not the not turning up part, I've been doing that myself for decades.

The openly, cheerfully, candidly admitting they can't be arsed part.

What, do they think I am stupid? Do they think I have no feelings?

Of course they are younger than me, so that's probably why they think it's okay.

Us oldarses know better....

Thirty seven.

God how boring that sounds.

Some Potery for Ur Edification

I just took a notion to read this today. It reminds me of a lot of things... reasons why I came to Canada mostly...

The Fisherman
By WB Yeats

ALTHOUGH I can see him still.
The freckled man who goes
To a grey place on a hill
In grey Connemara clothes
At dawn to cast his flies,
It's long since I began
To call up to the eyes
This wise and simple man.

All day I'd looked in the face
What I had hoped 'twould be
To write for my own race
And the reality;
The living men that I hate,
The dead man that I loved,
The craven man in his seat,
The insolent unreproved,
And no knave brought to book
Who has won a drunken cheer,
The witty man and his joke
Aimed at the commonest ear,
The clever man who cries
The catch-cries of the clown,
The beating down of the wise
And great Art beaten down.

Maybe a twelvemonth since
Suddenly I began,
In scorn of this audience,
Imagining a man,
And his sun-freckled face,
And grey Connemara cloth,
Climbing up to a place
Where stone is dark under froth,
And the down-turn of his wrist
When the flies drop in the stream;
A man who does not exist,
A man who is but a dream;
And cried, 'Before I am old
I shall have written him one
poem maybe as cold
And passionate as the dawn.

It's not raining in Nova Scotia

Happy Canada Day, from the Bear Falls' frog

Camping Gear List

For Accent Monkey - hope they can fit it all on the plane!!!
(I jest, we will provide all except sleeping bags)

Accommodation Gear

Tent x 2
Sleeping bags x 2
Air mattress and blanket
Comforter and blanket
Pillows (Lorraine’s camping pillow)
Night lamp
Head Torches x 2
Tent lights
Wind up radio
Hammock and rope
4 x camping chairs

Cooking Gear

Stove and propane tank
Burner and propane tank
Kettle and coffee pot
BBQ tool bag

Cooking bag – frying pan, saucepans, 5 x plates, 5 x glasses, 5 x cups, 5 x cutlery, chopping board, sharp knife, corkscrew, can opener, wine cork,

Condiments cooler - salt, pepper, olive oil, BBQ sauce, tomato sauce, pickle, mayonnaise, mustard, margarine, jam/ honey, soy sauce, hot sauce

Wash up bowl - w-up liquid, kitchen towel, recycle, garbage bags

Washing bucket - soap, shampoo, shaving foam and razor, toothpaste and brushes

Food Cooler – burgers, hot dogs, sausages, bacon, eggs, mushrooms, bread, apples, oranges, grapes, cheese slices, ham slices, burger buns, hot dog buns, tomatoes, lettuce, onions, tinned beans, tinned soup, tinned fruit, box of rice, box of cereal, coffee, teabags, sugar, granola bars, peanuts, chips, hummus/ dips and pita wraps

Drinks Cooler– 4L water bag, beer, wine, pop, milk, juice packs (lots of)

Miscellaneous Gear

Swimsuits, life-jackets, towels
Basketball/ rings game/ pack of cards
Sweaters and long pants for evening
Off/ anti-mossie spray, Sunscreen
Hiking boots/ socks, Wind-breaker
Backpacks, Water bottles, thermos’

First Aid pack

band-aids, topical cream, needle (for splinters), ibuprofen, motilium, gauze, bandages, anti-histamine, cotton buds, cotton pads, sterile spray, insect relief, tweezers, scissors, electrolytes, sunburn cream, Optrex

Garden's all planted as well

My, don't you get a lot done when there's no teenager in the house needing to be fed and clothed and entertained and nagged and lectured. The day Kitty left for a trip down home Himself and I wandered aimlessly around the apartment for hours.

Couldn't figure out why.

Turned out nothing needed to be put away, no laundry needed to be done, no meals needed to be prepared, no shopping needed to be undertaken, no life lessons needed to be taught.

Nothing.

It took me one day to find stuff to do. There being a bit of a backlog.

Saturday was a bit of a washout what with it pouring rain all friggin' day. But at least we had the house warming/ shivering. As a result of the rain, however, most of the people left the housewarming early and it was up to us to keep the host company while he got drunk and turned his shed stereo up to eleven to welcome himself to the neighbourhood. Then we walked home. Down the dark bendy road (you'd swear we lived in the country, but we live in Armdale, which is very shady and treelined) past the house where the Red Chair Man lives.

Four tipsy adults and the urban myth of the Red Chair Man = silly time had by all.

Red Chair Man sits in a red chair in his yard all day smoking cigarettes and drinking tea. The chair is placed in the centre of his driveway which is a little odd. However, what is worrysome is the bag hanging from the tree on his lawn. The bag is an oblong, grey sac, that bulges.

It could be an alien breeding pod.

It could contain the skulls of his victims (Canada is currently living through the horrific trial of Willie Pickton, accused serial killer of down and out women in Vancouver, so the mind jumps to these conclusions currently).

It could be full of rotten fruit.

It could be his dirty laundry.

Whatever it is, what is it doing in the tree?

Lyse announced herself petrified of Red Chair Man and the contents of his bag. Lyse doesn't drink, I'd like to point out by the way.

Himself and Craig decided to open the bag and see for themselves.

It being one am and Saturday to boot.

Himself and Craig like to drink of course.

Off they 'tiptoed' across RCM's lawn. They neglected to notice that RCM was standing in his front room looking at them, so when he turned on his outside light to get a closer look at the intruders, they fell over themselves in shock and lay rabbit-in-headlights for a bit, trying to decide whether they'd make it to the bag before he murdered.

That's what they told me anyway. After they ran down the hill and round the corner.

Lyse and I were bent into each other laughing under the trees on the other side of the road.

Next day, I had to walk up the hill BY MYSELF to collect the car. Red Chair Man was sitting in the red chair in his driveway, smoking a cigarette and drinking a cup of tea. Rather than the scary looking older man I was imagining, he's about Himself's age, with nothing going on apart from a mullet. A slightly seedy looking blonde was sunbathing on the lawn UNDER THE OBLONG BAG.

They both looked at me as I scurried by.

I don't know what to think.

They looked normal enough.

It's the three word name that gives it away of course. Red. Chair. Man.

Anyways, when I got to Lyse's house, she had a load of seeds for me, so instead of having to go to the garden centre we got straight to it, planted our garden finally and hopefully, the horse manure I put in a month ago will do the trick.

We have:

Lettuce
Peas
Beans
Radishes
Tomatoes
Chives
Parsnips
Beets
Squash, summer and winter
Sage
Oregano
Thyme
Basil
Echinecea
Dill

and Sunflowers and Nasturtiums.

Just gotta get some carrots and some garlic and we're set.

Pat the phish, the neon paparazzi, Pee and Dee

In all the chaos that is my life these days I forgot to tell you all that I finally replaced Alexa and Peter, my goldfish, who slipped away one after t'other a few months back, leaving me bereft of animal company.

Well, replaced is a strong word. They are irreplaceable.

I finally got my act together one day and bought some fish.

A scarlet ghourami, two hatchet fish, and four neon tetras.

Put them in the tank. Watched them for a bit.

No personality emerged, so I ignored them, apart from feeding them the required amounts.

Very boring. No names jumped out at me or anything.

In fact, they just made me miss Alexa and Peter more. (I know, it's sad, but they had personality and liked music and all kinds of things. Plus I didn't know many people then).

Anyways, after a couple of weeks I was bored one night, so I watched them for a bit.

I don't like the ghourami. He's a big reddish fish with a pot belly and long whiskers dangling down either side of his pout. He swims around the bowl like he owns it. In fact, he reminds me of Pat Rabbitte a bit in his gait. (Except I like Pat).

And he was bullying the tetras. The four of them were huddled together in a corner of the bowl quivering as he sailed around imperiously.

I decided to call them the meeja.

So anyways, time passed and suddenly we were at the housewarming for our neighbours who just bought a house up the road. Which took place last Saturday in the pouring rain, so it wasn't really a warming, more a shivering under the gazebo on the patio avoiding the clumps of water falling from the sky.

Or an Irish Barbeque, as we call it at home.

Happily though, I ended up sitting beside a molecular biologist from Carolina called Amy, who had dressed for the Carolinas in June, not the Maritimes in June, but who was nonetheless interested in my fish dilemma. 'Buy another ghourami', she advised me, 'one about the same size'.

I considered that for a moment, and was trying to think of how I'd explain about how there was only one Pat Rabbitte the phish really and that wouldn't work because he'd take lumps out of another similar fish, when she sensed my hesitation and said I could buy a rake more tetras, so they'd have safety in numbers.

So now the meeja have turned into the paparazzi, and Pat Rabbitte the phish is the one skulking in the undergrowth.

Serves him right for scaring them.

I have two hatchet fish as well. I decided to call them Pee and Dee, because there's only two of them, he he, he. (People from Canada will not get this, Irish political Humour, d'ya see).

So there you go, the menagerie is complete again.

Oooh, I do love to go camping

Himself is cooking supper and singing 'We're goin' campin' this weekend, we're goin' to have sooo much fun!' while he works. Himself is happy, because he is making hamburgers and because we are going camping this weekend.

This weekend is Canada Day weekend. Start of the camping season. Hoorah!! We found an amicable compromise this weekend. While we both like wilderness camping, Himself wants to fish this weekend and that involves a lot of black fly this time of year if you are in the wrong sort of spot. And Queenie will have Lady Moonbeam visiting (there ain't nuthun in this world worse than eco-friendly wilderness camping with Lady Moonbeam and a swarm of black fly in tow). So I kinda put the foot down this year, having done back country camping last year in similar circumstances.

Himself was bitterly disappointed when I did, as was I really, as the provincial park campsites here are expensive and liquor free and most of the private sites are full of ATV wankers. There was a bit of a grump going on last night, about how Himself never gets to do what he wants. But happily a bit of interweb research this morning found the Bear Falls Wilderness eco-camping site, run by Eli Shannon. So I called Eli and he had a site or two left and booked us into one right on the river where there are some nice trout for Himself and handy access to an outhouse for Queenie.

And then I showed it to Himself who deemed it suitable, so we're set. In fact, Himself is very excited that it might be good, and then we'll have a handy weekend spot for the summer. Routine is nice, isn't it.

The campsite is just outside the Tobeatic Wilderness in Queens County, which is a wonderful part of the province that we haven't really explored yet. And it beats staying in Kejji, the big park there, which is run by the Official Anti-Fun Police.

So now the preparations begin. Preparations for the first camping trip of the year are intense and take about three evenings. First we have to take the stove apart and clean it and put it back together again (one person one evening swearing, other person half an evening assisting). Then we have to assemble the gear, which involves finding the gear, cleaning and fixing the gear (although I am pretty good about storing things clean), remembering the new gear we got during the year (mental note to self - hammock, new chairs, new burner, new wind up radio, new lamps). That will take another evening (one person), while the other has to go and get the canoe and lifejackets from Leonard.

Finally, we have to get the provisions ready. Food, liquor, kindling, games, clothes, tents, bedding, cooking and eating equipment (two people falling over each other in apartment, one evening).

Eli says not to worry about firewood, there's loads there. That's the kind of campsite owner you like to talk to.

After about the third trip it gets easier. Because it all gets dumped in a corner of the apartment until the next time.

Then there is the obsessive checking of the weather forecast all week. So far the five day forecast is good for Saturday and blank. Tomorrow will reveal more.

Oooh, I do love camping. The neighbours are thinking about coming too.

I wonder if there are any bears in Bear Falls? There have been a lot of black bears spotted this year in Nova Scotia so far.

Ooooh, shiver.

eMusic morning

Himself is still asleep, even though I have bribed him with the four yard sales that are on in the area this morning if he gets up. Himself prefers sleep to almost anything. Which is bad, because he lives with the early morning fairy.

So I amused myself for a while downloading my monthly quota from eMusic. This month I finished downloading the Elliot Smith album, New Moon, then I downloaded some random Malian music, because I do like it to be interspersed with everything else I listen to. Finally, I downloaded Mavis Staples, We'll Never Turn Back which is her performance of all the old civil rights music she sang in the sixties. This time, however, it is produced by Ry Cooder.

Most excellent. You should get the album.

Currently, I am listening to High Times, by Elliot Smith, whom I only discovered after he was dead. Like many other people I suppose.

It's quiet. Kitty has gone home for a while seeing as it is the summer and she is off school. So there is no television blaring or hip hop music blasting from her room.

Anyways, Himself has emerged so it's time to go yard-saling.

Back again at last. I'd say hooray but that would be unCanadian

Oh that's right, I'm not Canadian.

Hooray!!

I see Mary McAleese and the Irish contingent with her were amazed at how self-effacing Canadians are and how they look at their feet rather than accept a compliment.

Well, yes, that's Canader for yer.

Denis Staunton has a long article in the Irish Times today giving out about how Canadians have it all and they can't see it. He lists the enormous resource wealth of the country and medicare as two reasons to celebrate.

Then he mentions the treatment of Aboriginal peoples and the equalisation funding mess as two reasons why they might be depressed. He neglected to mention that the day before yesterday was National Aboriginal Day. He probably didn't realise. Most people here don't.

The reason that Canadians are self-effacing and depressed is because they elected a right wing idealogue as Prime Minister and now they can't get rid of him while he tears the country apart, pits rich provinces against poor and ignores the environmental issues that are starting to be a big problem here. He ripped up the Atlantic Accord (equalisation), the Kelowna Accord (aboriginal rights), and the Kyoto Accord because he can.

That's why they're all so self-effacing. They're bloody ashamed.

Got up early...

... to blog and got suckered into wasting half an hour on Facebook!

DAMN!

But I found Yoichi.

WOW!

Robbie Williams is hiding in my basement

This blog is older than I am.

In blog years anyway.

I wonder will people study blogs in the future, the way they study diaries nowadays when they find them in dusty libraries.

I hope they do. I keep meaning to read more blogs, to see if there are many good ones out there, but I don't want to spend that much time on the computer every day. It wears me out. I am suffering from ICT fatigue I think. I cannot concentrate on computer work for long periods of time anymore. I flick over and back between mails and other programs.

Tis very annoying.

Anyways, I don't want to think about work tomorrow. I want to think about the weekend. Which was great.

We eventually got up today and lay around for a few hours. Man, it was the first time I had done that in sooooo looooong. Just lay around. And then go back to bed for a nap. And then when I got up again the sun was out, so we went down and sat in the yard for a couple of hours and chatted to Sean, who wouldn't come into the garden last night because he had to work the next day, and his friend Neville, who used to be the drummer in a punk rock band.

Sean is a Cape Breton version of Robbie Williams. In fact, I think the real Robbie Williams is not in a rehab centre at all, he's actually given up the fame game and is now living in my house and training to be a hotel junior manager.

So Himself has his guitar jamming buddies now. Which he has been seeking out for some time. And they're going to set up the PA system in the yard and jam in the evenings.

We'll be getting ducks next.

Himself used to have ducks in his pond on the island and when he and his buddy would play guitar in the evening by the pond, the ducks used to line up and sway to the music. And sometimes they would waddle over and gently pluck the guitar strings with their bills.

We'll have to get punk ducks.

That's what they can call the band: The Ducks. A seventies-retro-post-punk three piece with Robbie Williams on vocals.

And so at last, the summer begins to widen out before us.....

Barbeque leftovers

Just Himself and Queenie and a few bits of chicken. That's all that's left of the barbeque.

The sun came out and blazed down just in time yesterday for us to set out the barbeque and all the food and plates and cutlery before people started to arrive. That meant everyone could relax outside and enjoy the heat, go for a swim in the lake and watch the kids get to know each other. The teenagers even deigned to join us for a minute.

Himself and I managed to feed everyone with the minimum of fuss. I do like entertaining with him, he's so laid back about everything and just gets on with the grilling. We only ever argue about his compulsion to cover everything in hickory smoke BBQ sauce - not everyone on the planet likes the taste of hickory smoke BBQ sauce, I explain. He just looks at me like I'm insane when I do. I think he doesn't believe me. I even caught him putting it on the potato wedges!! But he's great - he cleaned up everything and had the dishwasher on before I could stir myself, so there was nothing to do today but pick up the glasses and bottles left out overnight.

After a stint of cooking and chopping, we fed everyone eventually, who happily all got on with each other, and then when it got dark and a little chilly we built a fire in the old cast iron stove in the garden and sat round watching the kids toast marshmallows and Himself rummage around in the woods for more fuel.

All dead wood obviously.

Eventually our neighbours got up to leave, picked up the comforter that the children had fallen asleep on and carried them home without a murmur. I hadn't even realised they were there, they were so soundly asleep.

Superfun night was had by all. There were three left when I went to bed, arguing about whether to wait for the sun to come up or not.

Our garden is really a small piece of heaven... where else would we have a lovely green space surrounded by trees, a lake just beyond for that country feel, nice neighbours to hang out with and our apartment just upstairs when it's time for bed.

I wish I was in this photo! Or, how to age gracefully...

So there wasn't a peep out of anyone from Ireland for a few days and I couldn't figure out what it was until I clicked on accentmonkey's blog this morning and saw the pictures from the wedding.

Ah yes, of course.. Portumna will never be the same, I'm sure.

So I looked through all the pictures. And then I looked through them all again. All those familiar faces. Familiar faces that are gradually changing.

Mixed feelings...

Two years away from all those faces. Yet I still feel very strongly connected. Even though all the experiences are second hand for me now. Still, they are part of every day thanks to the wonders of technology.

Christ we're all starting to look a teensy bit middle-aged but!

In a perverse way I was glad to see it, as I had spent part of the morning panicking about getting old, it coming up on my thirty seventh birthday (what kind of an effing birthday is thirty seven!! Other than depressing!). Plus we had spent the previous evening in the company of Himself's work colleagues, who are all about twelve years old and MARRIED. Well, actually some of them are already divorced, which is even scarier.

We were celebrating my second anniversary in Canada. Well, what was really going on was that after almost six months of responsible living and parenting and with a night off due to Kitty staying with a friend, Himself announced we were going to go out and get liquored up. So I created a hook to hang the liquor on, not being able to face a night out without a reason anymore.

So I scored six tickets to the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation Annual Summer Drinks party and off we went. Queenie, Himself, Alex and Tristan, and Eric and Gillian.

The NSLC parties are amazing concepts. Three hours of free samples of everything they sell in their stores. With food and a band. It's like a big wedding. They have three a year - summer, a new wines fling in the spring, and a winter whiskey party.

I went to the whiskey one in my first year here. I remember watching everyone standing around sipping slowly and chatting and thinking that if they had these parties in Ireland, there would be a triage unit set up in the middle of the room.

A very sedate affair.

The Summer Beach party is a whole different kettle of fish.

And I realised finally that I am getting middle-aged.

There was so much skin on view. Oceans and oceans of pale skin, bad fake tan jobs, leathery wizened tan jobs. Mostly with long, bleached, straightened, sprayed fake blond hair.

Alex and Tristan spent the first half an hour running around in pointless alcohol and women free circles, shouting 'girls', 'liquor', 'ohmygod thankyou Queenie', until Himself pointed out that there was liquor to be had. Himself had worked his way up the wine stalls and was introducing himself to the Captain (Captain Morgan's rum - staple drink of Cape Breton) at that point.

I was stupified with shock. As well as the flesh and the hair, there were arses everywhere. Acres of arses. Whole prairie-widths full of them, poured into leggings atop stiletto mules.

I saw Paris Hilton from behind. It was definitely her. A little see through baby doll dress and long legs (mahogany) slipped into little pink slipper mules. A dog under her arm. Long silvery blonde hair. Then she turned round.

Fifty. At least fifty. Life lines etched into her mahogany face like runes on a granite pillar.

Whatthefuck?

All the men looked the same; khakis or shorts with a polo shirt and sandals or flip flops. Standard Canadian summer wear no matter what you're doing. Or what age you are.

All the women looked the same too; leggings or skinny jeans with a little strappy top and wobbly mules. Standard Canadian party wear no matter what age you are.

Except it does of course.

Why does wearing clothes designed for a twenty year old not work when you're an ageing woman and work just fine when you're an ageing male?

Because the frigging women's clothes are so ludicrous in the first place.

Queenie was wearing her jeans and her green long-sleeved top that she's had for seven years and her black zip up biker jacket that she's had for six and her flat pumps. You could see nothing but my face and hands.

Less is more after twenty five, ladies, less is more.

So it struck me how great everyone looked in the photos of the wedding. How all the men and women looked so confident and attractive and comfortable in their skins and how all their smiles were so relaxed and happy. Not a stiletto mule in sight, so no grimaces of pain, see.

There's a lot to be said for an uncertain climate!! And a lifetime of partying in a field.

And then I immediately felt better about getting older. Because all the people I will be getting old with are so cool.

And as Himself said this morning as we peeled our eyes open to survey the events of the night before, we may be getting old but we are the coolest old farts in Halifax according to Alex and Tristan.

Hmmm, he didn't look too cool when he was getting thrown out of Cheers pub at one am this morning.

His crime?

He asked where the bathroom was.

Apparently, if you don't know where the bathroom is then you shouldn't be there in the first place. They are lucky I wasn't with him when it happened. Although, I got thrown out of there once before for refusing to let them put my ID card in a scanning device unless they told me where the data went.

The bouncers of course don't have a clue where the data goes, or why data going somewhere would be a bad idea in a country that pretends to be free, so they barred me for life for having a bad attitude.

Anyways, Himself is barred now as well for wanting to have a pee in the bathroom. The official reason is that he was intoxicated.

Ehm, yes.. we paid six dollars to get in to a place that serves alcohol, and patiently allowed our bags and persons to be searched by a gimp, and then paid over-priced prices for drinks so yes... he was slightly intoxicated.

We weren't off our heads on drugs like everyone else in the place appeared to be but.

Anyways, we headed down to Gingers with Hotspurr to have a drink in a bar that 'spects you to get liquered up'....

... yes dear...

As we were leaving, Tristan and Alex came running out. Well, Tristan was trying to stand up and run at the same time. They were outraged at the treatment Himself had endured, so Himself suggested they all go back in and take on the bouncers. He's such a provocateur sometimes.

They were horrified!!

Young fellas... they had spent the entire evening telling me about this guy and that guy they were going to smash his head in yadda yadda. But a trio of bouncers with scanning devices? Nosireebob.

So Himself pretended to leave in a huff.

We were relieved really. Gingers is so much more enjoyable than a heaving throb of twenty something pheromes. Even if it doesn't have a seventies dinosaur guitar band doing Duran Duran covers in the back bar.

Hungry like the wolf.... time for breakfast... we are supposed to be having a barbeque today, but Mr. Sun has not appeared yet.

Irish property market in trouble - says AIB

And Queenie says back to Allied Irish Banks plc, 'whose effing fault is that?"

Giving people 100 per cent mortgages to buy overpriced little boxes all squished up together in fields sixty miles from the city...

Of course, people who do that also voted for Fianna Fail.

So at least they are going to have to preside over the ensuing meltdown.

Anyone want to buy an overpriced little box next to a cemetery??!!

Coming up on two years in Canader...

I realised today that Friday will be my second anniversary in Canada.

I was trying to think what I was doing this time two years ago.

I think I was in Springtown.

Hang on, I'll check...

Yes I was.

Blogs are great, aren't they.

I was thinking about Springtown today because it rained all day here. Dark hanging clouds with no sunlight breaking through and everywhere the sound of water gurgling. Just like home.

It's funny though, because Himself and I are finally thinking about this old place as home.

We went to his island for the weekend to open his house for the summer and when we got back last night we unpacked and cooked the lobsters we'd been given and sat on the couch eating them and thought... home...happy sigh...

It's not that we don't like the island - we do. Particularly in the summer, when the lobster season is over and everyone's relaxed and up for a barbeque or a bonfire.

It's just always such a hassle at the same time.

The joys of your life partner's past coming up to bite you on the ankle.

Himself's past is not much taller than my ankle and every time I encounter her I feel that if I take my eyes off her for a second she'll bite me. Not because I'm paranoid, but because she has threatened to beat me up so often I'm resigned to the fact that some day she'll finally do it. And I'll have to let her because I'm the sane smart one of the two of us.

So I spend the weekends down there looking over my shoulder, wondering when she'll turn up.

It can be tricky. I like to get it over with early on so I can relax and enjoy the weekend, but then again, it drives Himself crazy and he spends the rest of the weekend moaning about it.

If she turns up too early, that can often mean we get more than one visit. If she doesn't turn up, I am watching and waiting all the time. Sometimes she's on a bender for the weekend and we don't see her at all, just her car speeding to and from the pub.

Those weekends of course can be the worst, because she tends to pack the children off somewhere we can't find them. Which makes Himself pace around muttering for hours. Until I drag him into the woods to walk it off.

We had one minor encounter on Saturday which I ignored because I was in the house (and Himself always charges out into the yard when the car comes up the hill - to head her off at the pass), so I thought we were fine. And then yesterday, when we were on the ferry waiting for it to bring us to the mainland it happened. A shadow flickered over me as I sat in the car. I looked up and there she was, yelling and yammering about something.

I pressed the button and let the window slide down.

She wasn't making any sense, and I can't be arsed arguing with someone as stupid and irrational as her, so I pressed the button again and let it close.

Really slowly. Just the way she hates it.

Unfortunately, this time I was too smart for my own damned good and had forgotten to lock the door, so she pulled it open and told me she was going to punch me in that smart mouth of mine.

I hadn't said a word at this stage. But I've been told there's a look I get on my face when I'm really mad that maybe does it to her.

Plus, with her frizzy plum perm and her thick black eyeliner she reminds me so much of a rabid raccoon cartoon character that I sometimes have to try not to laugh.

At this stage, I am so used to her tantrums and screaming I can keep my face completely calm (for me) and not react. But inside my stomach is churning with rage that I am being subjected to this kind of intimidation by someone I completely despise, beng subjected to something to which I can't react at all.

And I'm nothing if not reactionary to anger.

I found it difficult to relax into the moment, but I can do it now.

Anyways, she eventually moved back enough that I could close the car door without cutting her hand off. Bereft of an audience she demanded her daughter open the back door of the car so she could yell at her for a while. Kitty opened the window, but didn't react either, so she yelled at the back of my head some more.

I wiped the back of my neck like she'd spat on me (really slowly, etc) and she suddenly stopped and ran off the ferry which could then get going.

Sometimes something as simple as that (wiping the back of my neck) can bring her to. She suddenly realises what a show she is making of herself there in front of half the island and stops.

Sometimes the unearthly silence the island creates to contain one of her tantrums filters into her head and she stops to listen to it and suddenly calms down when she realises the entire village has stopped hammering and mowing and is standing enjoying the show.

Sometimes she's so far into the rage you just have to sit there and let her yell herself into satisfaction.

Sometimes that takes a long time.

There is a Chinese saying I repeat to myself when I am being humiliated in public by the cheap slut who broke up Himself's family for a twenty two year old lawnmower repair man, who destroyed his home and his life and stole all his money and took away his children for two years, who still tries to turn them against him and who is trying in her own pitiful, tragic way to destroy my life now because she is so miserable inside she can't bear anyone but herself to appear to be happy.

I say it over and over like a mantra, to keep me in the calm quiet place in my head where I don't want to rip her stupid head off with my bare hands and throw it over the side of the ferry in one monstrous therapeutic moment of life-altering rage.

It says, if you sit by the river long enough, the body of your enemy will float past you.

I'd say that'll take some time this time but!

It always amazes me how much crap I am capable of putting up with.

I try to understand why it's happening so I can deal with it and I take it until I realise it's not me, it's just happening, and then I put up with it for so long.

And then one day I say it has to stop and if it doesn't I just walk away from it.

And I never go back.

Himself is the same.

As the ferry pulled into the wharf on the mainland we gave each other a look that said that day is fast approaching.

Which is a pity, because I love Long Island and the people who live there so much. They hold a memory of me when I was free and happy and unencumbered by life that very few other people have. And they watched Himself and I fall in love and engineered the situation slightly because they knew we were right for each other.

It's that time of year again...

DEPT OF NATURAL RESOURCES--Help Avoid Bear Encounters
-----------------------------------------------------------------
After hibernating through the long winter months, it is time for Nova Scotia's black bears to be out and about, constantly looking for food.

Storing garbage inside or in metal bear-proof containers and keeping your barbecue grill clean and grease-free are just some of the things that can prevent bear encounters at your home or cottage.

"Bears have the potential to be dangerous and more than 500 nuisance bear situations were reported last year," said Department of Natural Resources Minister David Morse. "Use caution when in an area where bears may be expected, and be sure to report all bear encounters."

While there is often an abundance of natural foods, bears are known to search for food from other sources, including rural backyards. Bears are attracted to garbage, compost, green bins, pet food and bird feeders. There are specific precautions home and cottage owners, campers and hikers should take to reduce the likelihood of attracting bears.

To find out how to prevent bear incidents and what to do when seeing a black bear, visit the department website: www.gov.ns.ca/natr/wildlife/Nuisance/bears.htm.

Bear sightings in communities and near homes should be reported to the Department of Natural Resources. Trained and experienced staff will determine the appropriate action. During business hours, call a local Natural Resources office.

Friday at last

And I shouldn't really be blogging, I should be packing. We are travelling down to the island this weekend. So although I have packed the food, there only being one crappy shop on said island, I also have to pack all the cleaning products. For to clean the house. Which has not been opened in six months.

There will be a lot of spiders I'm thinking.

And we'll have to rehook the water up.

And start a fire to wake up the spiders.

And Lady Moonbeam arrived with the full moon last night.

Never mind.

Later tonight we will be sitting on the deck looking out over the village and past it to the sea, and the moon will be huge and sitting directly in front of us, accompanied by all the stars.

And there might even be a whale or two!!

So it will be worth the packing and the four hour drive. And the cleaning.

I had an action-packed day yesterday. Firstly I had my immigration medical. I got all the paperwork ready and was waiting at the bus stop for the one bus that would bring me to the clinic when I realised I didn't have the form. Ran back to the apartment. Not there. Damn damn, left it at work. Called a taxi to drive me to work, wait for me to get forms, and drive me to the clinic. The taxi driver could sense my stress. Was I late for work? I explained. Turns out he was an Iranian Kurd, a refugee, who translated for other refugees at the clinic. The international brotherhood of Canadian immigrants kicked in and by the time he got me to the clinic (in time) I was no longer stressed and we had had a great chat about Kurdistan. I won the prize for passenger who knew most about Kurdistan.

Not a difficult prize to win in Nova Scotia, where the only place everyone (thinks they) know about is Scotland.

So I had my weight, height, sight, hearing, blood pressure, urinalysis and blood work done at the clinic, along with a lot of questions about my lifestyle that I didn't answer completely truthfully, but who does! Then it was off to the hospital for my chest x-ray. The whole thing was over in ninety minutes.

Out-patient queue chaos rules Nova Scotia, my ass!!

Then it was back to work for the rest of the day.

Sigh.

There is a growing contempt and lack of respect for staff in our workplace that is really starting to bug me. It stems from some recent appointments; a combination of the personalities involved and their interaction with other senior managers. To be truthful, I don't care who's in charge of the treehouse; so long as my contribution to the workplace is respected, and simple phrases like please and thank you and how is your day going remain the currency of the place.

The reason I don't care is because politics is a collaborative process and so there are no superstars (well, maybe the leader, but certainly not staff superstars). Unfortunately, self-indulgent macho bullshit appears to be gaining a foothold.

In the spirit of everything I've ever done in my life before and everything I will ever do in the future, and with the power invested in me by Lady Moonbeam (ie a grinding backache and consequent foul temper) I called it yesterday and told the ringleader he was to stop being a prick.

He didn't bat an eyelid before he said he was what he was and he wasn't going to change.

He is what he is all right. But I am not having it.

Nosirreebob.

It might be okay to pull this crap in the provincial backwaters of the world, but some of the rest of us have worked in places where this type of thing is not acceptable any more. And I for one am going to drag this workplace into the late twentieth century if it kills me.

In the full knowledge that it probably will kill me.

I just need a plan.

A plan, anyone?

In the absence of a plan as to how to put an end to it at the moment, though, I am going to invoke the spirits of the Stoics, as outlined in Farmer Brown's blog.

Cross-posting rocks, doesn't it!

Finally it's all about being hot!

It is a G-L-O-R-I-O-U-S day.

It was the same yesterday too.

Last evening I sat in the sun and tried to soak up some of the rays and got some work done and then Himself arrived home.

Feeling very sorry for himself and those like him.

Work has slowed down a lot now, and even though he's working the weekend shift there's not much to do except sit around in the lunch hut or the smoking shack and share with his colleagues.

Yesterday's sharing was all about the pissed off female partners apparently. Apparently all the lads got it in the neck from the partners when they went home Friday night. In fact, one of them had had to sleep in the truck. Such was the intensity of the domestic disharmony caused by working this one.last.weekend.I.swear.honest.guv.

Himself turned the pair of soulfuls on me.

Full blast.

Not a twinkle in them.

Just pure misery.

Pretty hard to resist they are.

And waited.

Ha, I said, Vindicated!

I can resist most things. Especially when I've spent the day washing dirty underpants and cleaning teenage bedrooms.

Where does the sand come from? Is she sleeping on the lake beach? Do I want to know?

Anyways, we're nothing if not reasonable so we assumed a negotiating position across the dining room table and hammered out a deal and then went for dinner.

Last night was so warm we spent most of it sitting in the garden with a bottle of wine. Our neightbour came over for a chat. The stars twinkled. Not a mosquito in sight yet. A little breeze swooshed in from the lake every now and then.

Bliss.

Happy days. I love it when the summer arrives here.

And the combined outrage of all the partners appears to have shifted the workers in the direction of not working any more weekends. But the male bonding has to continue, so we're all going to go out together some weekend night instead.

For the obligatory comparison and decision as to who has the hottest girl no doubt.

Himself has not told them that I am the hottest girl. Apparently that would be rude, even though it is true. Currently the boss is considered to have the hottest girl, so I will have to be produced in a subtle, offhand and low key manner that suggests that there is no inkling on Himself's part that he has the hottest girl, so as not to create an international incident.

Right.

After which I will no doubt be crowned the hottest girl.

Grand so.

But you must have said something about me, if you are all sitting around discussing your girlfriends when you are supposed to be working.

Apparently he has told his colleagues that his girlfriend is Irish and can drink them all under the table.

Christ.

Possibly. In 1995.

But not now.

I do hope his future in the company is not hanging on this assertion being proven right. You never know with those kind of guys.

Going to spend the day outside now with my stupid statistics.

I have to talk about Fianna Fail some more...sorry...

I got too sleepy to finish this last night. And today I have to spend the day working on a presentation for Tuesday, so I don't have much time.

Himself's alarm went off at six am and he turned it off and went back to sleep. So I poked him in the back to wake him up and he got up and dressed and went to work without saying goodbye.

Bad move.

He is so not winning this sulk.

Anyways, back to style v substance.

The reason why everyone votes for Fianna Fail is because they are the big men. Flash. Lots of money. Big cars. Rounds for everyone in the pub. Massive tent at the Galway Races. Plenty of champagne. They turn up at your funeral and pay their respects and say all the right things and buy the lads a few drinks. They turn up at your sport's big occasions and forget to mention that they used to run people like you out of town for playing 'foreign' sports.

They constantly remind you that they are as eternal and unchanging as the rain.

People love that shit.

They hate intellectual lefties with dodgy backgrounds in big labour. Who make you feel guilty about the poor. I'm alright, Pat, why don't those single mothers keep their legs closed and get an effing job.

They hate Mayo muck savages in suits and big farmers who are always whinging for more money. Who in the hell wants some bogger from Mayo running the Dublin property scene?

They hate the sandals and bicycle brigade. Christ, they're trying to bring us all back to the Stone Age.

They like bright shiny objects and the allure of power and privilege that wafts around Fianna Fail, and they are comforted by the fact that this naked will to power comes wrapped in a shiny green flag and some bullshit about pragmatic socialism that is uttered whenever their Capo thinks it's timely.

I effing hate my country's people's political pragmatism. My only (mixed) comfort is that it is the same over here. And the NDP don't win here for the same reasons that Labour don't get any rural seats in Ireland.

Anyways, back to work. At least it's all over for a while now. I do hope that Labour don't go into government with Fianna Fail.

And one final thing, Mark Hennessey made a remark in the Irish Times this morning, about how the Taoiseach had to face 'what has to be said was aggressive questioning from the media' during the campaign.

DO YOU WANT AN EFFING MEDAL, MARK?

As I have said to him many many times in the past, that's your frickin job, Mark.

I took advantage of the snoring to change the cd... so we're okay now

Style v substance.

That's what it is.

Himself is asleep by the way.

In case you were interested.

I suppose some of you are rooting for Himself?

I don't care.

It's my blog.

I'll portray Him exactly as I wish to at any given moment.

While we're on the question of questions...

I had to tell everyone in work today why I was excited.

Some of them vaguely remembered me talking about it once.

They're the clever ones.

Well they think they're clever.

They're not as clever as Fianna Fail.

I have that feeling again.

A sharp inhalation, painful.

The stiletto. Administered in the dark of an Irish pub at three in the morning.

A kind of gasp, and then an acceptance of the inevitability of it all.

Why am I never the one administering the stiletto?

This is the eternal question of my life.

I hope that Ray knows the answer to this one too.

I don't know what to say II......

Why is it that men always think that they can just win the argument because they're men?

I was in the pub this evening after work, celebrating Friday and the political demise of Michael McDowell, when Himself arrives in.

Sits down and tells me he's working this weekend after all.

Great.

Wouldn't be fair on the lads who worked last weekend not to.

Lovely.

Fuck the woman who cooks and cleans and raises his daughter while he's off bonding with these lads twelve hours a day. A shower of ingrates. Who are all going to be skinhounds tonight at Curly's bar in Dartmouth. And make him do all the work tomorrow.

Fantastic.

Fuck the fact that she was hoping for a bit of quality couple time this weekend, Kitty being at her mothers.

Smashing.

He could have gone to Curly's. He was invited.

Whoopie doo.

If I wasn't halfway through a bottle of wine I'd drive him over there and boot his ass out of the car into a pile of hookers myself.

Anything to get rid of the sulking heap on the couch.

Why is a man's sulk completely motionless, and still take up the whole room?

And why does a woman's sulk always result in a sparkling house?

Why do people always complain about the government and then vote for them again?

No.

Why do people get you to solve their problems and then not vote for you?

No.

Why do we let those people convince us they're going to vote for us?

That's the question.

Why do we do it?

No.

That's not it.

I know why we do it.

The question is, why do we keep doing it?

No.

There's an answer to that question.

I guess the question is, why does Ray know the answer? And I still don't?

Which of us is wrong?

Christ I hope someday if I live long enough and endure enough of this insane fucking motorbike ride we're all on that Ray and I will sit down and get drunk some night and he will tell me the answer.

And I'll remember the next day.

And it'll be true.

I sure as hell hope that I'm not right anyways.

Anyways, as if working all weekend wasn't bad enough, Himself gangs up on me in the pub about the Jared Diamond book with one of my male buddies. So they both sit there and pretend they're right and I'm wrong.

And I'm the only one of the three of us who's read the book.

So yes, why do men always think they can win the argument just because they're men?

And why did I have to read the book to even be in the argument?

Having a major 'life is not fair' moment tonight.

Bah.

I don't know what to say...

So I will start with the fact that Mike and Kate, my neighbours, are currently outside showing off their brand new compact Japanese something or other, having divested themselves of their lovely old crappy boat of a Volvo station wagon.

And I am too invested for my own liking.

I liked that old Volvo. It kind of said things to me about them. Having said that, the new car is much more energy efficient and safe. But it doesn't have the character of the Volvo.

Never mind. I'm sure they're the same people inside.

I am trying to think the same about Ireland right now.

Not working so good.

Vesey's Seeds

..... serving Canadian gardners since 1939.....

... seed catalogues. Last night, Lyse my neighbour dropped the Vesey's catalogue and I held it up to my face and inhaled deeply. It didn't smell the same though. It didn't smell of compost and smoke and wet damp soil.

Nevermind. I was five years old again, sitting in the shed with Paddy during a rain storm, looking through the seed catalogue. Paddy sitting on his tree stump smoking a Sweet Afton, me on an upturned bucket eating cola cubes, Bazz enthroned in the wheelbarrow, demanding a drive somewhere in it.

Paddy always focused on vegetables; cabbage, cauliflower, kale, onions, potatoes. I wanted to look at the flowers. I remember I had a thing about lupins. And sweet peas.

And snapdragons. I always wanted to buy snapdragons, because they were always part of the scenery in the Enid Blyton books I read when I was a child.

'Can I grow some flowers, Paddy, by myself?' I would always ask.

Last night I was marking seeds in the catalogue - onions, corn, beets, garlic, carrots and parsnips, peas and peppers and pumpkins. Rhubarb. Tomatoes.

The garden is dug out, we're just waiting for the frosty nights to end so we can plant.

Kitty wandered over for a look.

'Can I grow some flowers by myself?'

I had to laugh.

The Boy Wonders are here

I went to sleep last night - I'm so glad. Himself brought me for a drive. To Midleton and back. Midleton, Nova Scotia, mind, not Middleton, Co. Cork.

I am convinced I am suffering from some sort of retroactive colic/ cranky baby syndrome. Everytime I can't sleep for a while, and I get brought for a drive, I sleep.

We drove down to Midleton after he finished work to collect the Littl'un and his cousin Branden the Boy Wonder for the weekend. So we have a nineteen year old (possibly the other nineteen year old cousin too), a sixteen year old, and a ten year old in the apartment until Monday.

Also, BTBW is a very handsome youth, so the chances of half the girls from Queen Elizabeth High Grade 10 class descending on me for the afternoon are pretty high. Although it has started raining, so I might be safe.

Cue shopping this morning for: pizza, pop, crisps, chocolate chip cookies, cheese slices, chocolate milk, some godforsaken 'fruit' drink they all love, bacon, weiners, more weiners, weiner buns, tomato ketchup, eggs, more eggs, even more eggs, two board games that don't make any noise, and a blender for Queenie so she can make smoothies to counteract all of the above food groups.

And some beer for the nineteen year old of course. You can drink when you are nineteen in Nova Scotia. We are finding this very amusing, as he is only nineteen and three days, and we are used to BTBW begging us for the end of the beer can whenever we're having a beer or two. But he's a big-time hockey player, so he's not like an Irish nineteen year old. In that he doesn't think puking his rig up is part of being a man.

The weather forecast is not looking too good for the bank holiday weekend, but Littl'un and BTBW are currently playing basketball in the rain, so I am going to lie on the couch and watch an arty german movie I rented earlier in the week.

Before I start making weiner sandwiches...... eww!

Just call me the machinist

Last night I did not sleep for one second.

Not one. Instead I lay there listening to a spring wind storm howling round the house, rattling the windows, and shaking the trees.

All night.

I am so tired...

This happened to me once before. When I ended a long-term relationship in 2003 (I think), I didn't sleep properly for about three months. I just wandered round in a daze of exhaustion until it got too much and I fell asleep at last.

I hope it doesn't take that long this time.

Last time, I was alone during my insomnia. So I could get up, turn lights on, read or watch tv, do something to pass the time.

This time Himself is lying there of course. Himself 'has a clean soul', according to a German friend of mine. As soon as he goes to bed he gets sleepy, and about ten minutes after that he is fast asleep for seven hours at least.

So my insomnia is different this time on two levels.

Firstly, because I have to lie there quietly, so as not to disturb Himself who is working twelve hour shifts seven days a week at the moment and consequently needs to sleep, I am not actively insomniac. I descend into a strange meditative state, just by lying there not moving. I feel I am almost asleep, but I can, not quite hear but sense my brain telling my body to stay alert. Then I shift a little and realise my muscles are poised for fight or flight. So I try to relax and sink back into the state and then it happens again.

And again.

And again.

Sometimes I think I actually fall asleep even though I think I am awake. Then I have the strangest dreams, start to feel my mind pulling me out of them and I start awake again. There's this long noooooooooooooh and I start awake.

All very weird.

The other difference is the presence of a sleeping person beside you. You are aware of them, but they are not really aware of you, although Himself seems to be a little bit. If I get too squirmy, he rolls over, clamps a big arm around me and mutters poor baby try to sleep and then sinks back into whatever place he visits in his dreams.

Then it takes me about ten minutes to wriggle out from under the Grip of Iron.

I miss Himself when he's asleep. I see so little of him at the moment. Having him there but completely inaccessible is torturous.

A sleeping person is a strange thing, though isn't it. They're so vulnerable. How did we ever sleep in the wild way back when?

I just finished reading Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, which is an evolutionary biological proposition for why Eurasians took over the world. Basically we lived in areas of the planet that had enough domesticable plants and animals for us to urbanise. Then we developed technologies faster due to the separation of work in society and the development of a political and bureaucratic class. Our close living quarters relationship with our domestic animals caused the powerful germs that destroyed our enemies, the Incas, the Mayans, the North American indigenous peoples, the Aboriginals to adapt to humans. Consequently, peoples who had no domestic animals - hunter gatherers, Mezo-Americans, Australasians - were not able to fight the infections.

It was interesting. Basically, the people who were the least adventurous in the beginning of man's development, ie, the people who stayed in the Fertile Crescent and its surrounding land mass, ended up being the most successful, as those who travelled the furthest were at a disadvantage when we set off to explore eventually.

I have been trying to figure out the moral in that story.

Stay in school, maybe!!

Or maybe, those of us who live in the quieter parts of the world are feeling the same impact now as before, we just don't realise it. People who live in more hostile environments now - North West Territories, Australia - are at the pointy end of climate change. But the drivers of that change are still in the traditional Eurasian east-west axis (and North America of course).

I don't know. I spent a lot of last night thinking about it (I know I'm supposed to empty my mind, but I CAN'T, OKAY) and I can't figure it all out.

I wish someone would so I can get some sleep.

The rabbit got round to it eventually

So he did answer me eventually.

Q Hi Pat, Great to talk to you from Nova Scotia, where I'm following the election closely. Can you respond to the ongoing Fianna Fail threats that a Fine Gael - Labour coalition will undermine the stability of the social partnership infrastructure? Thanks

A Labour is fully committed to working and enhancing the social partnership model, just as I did in a previous existence. I believe there have been similar developments in Nova Scotia?

Ehm.... no, Nova Scotia has one of the worst union-employer relationships in the western world, but thanks for answering the question, Pat.

Don't sleep with a drip, have a beer with your neighbour instead

There are many things I love about Nova Scotia. One of them is the way neighbours interact in the summertime. Everyone just stays home and ignores each other in the winter of course.

If you find the right neighbourhood.

Which we have done now.

We are slap bang in the middle of mid-thirties, twenty-first century, work-life balance-oriented, professional/ trades suburbia heaven.

Think Slackers with gardens. Along the edge of a beautiful lake.

There are four apartments in the building. On the ground floor, James and Shelley from Cape Breton have been renting for a couple of years. They're going home for the summer, to run a famous pub in Mabou called The Red Shoe, which is owned by the Rankin Family. But they'll be back in the autumn, and for the summer they're subletting to Shane, who's also from CB and who is very nice. Albeit suffering from a broken heart at the moment.

Poor lamb needs a new girl. Never mind, I know lots of them.

Pat Rabbitte hasn't answered my question yet. I swear to God if that man ignores me yet again, this time on a live interactive internet Q&A, I will fly over there next week and vote for a Shinner.

I will.

Anyways, between James and Shelley and us are Chris and Matt. They share the apartment. Matt is older than the rest of us, but not any more mature, thank goodness. He has the loudest television in Christendom, but we can sleep through it mostly. He's an employer negotiator for the health service, so he loves to bait me. Chris manages the yacht club down the road, and is always out sailing. She's from New Brunswick, but she don't talk like she is...

How do I get someone to stop saying 'me and Shataya ain't got no money so we ain't going out tonight' and say 'Shataya and I don't have any money, so we're not going out tonight' without having to correct that person EVERYTIME they open their mouth?

Anyways, back to the neighbours.....

Above us are Lyse and Craig. They are house-hunting at the moment. :-( Lyse is an illustrator and works from home; Craig works for a car dealership. They are very involved in the Search and Rescue program here, so are constantly heading off into the wilderness to train or to find people. They have a big canoe which we all use on the lake.

Next door, Mike and Kate live with Conor (8) and Mica (5). Mike works with me too, so we hang out a lot. Mica and Conor get babysitted by Kitty a lot and they LOVE her because she lets them watch tv. Kitty and Mica go swimming in the lake a lot too.

Mike and Kate have two dogs, Molly and Minuit. Minuit is a black poodle rescue dog, who loves to bolt for freedom. Often when I am sitting on the doorstep having my coffee, I will see a flash of black curls streak by and have to give chase before he gets to the main road.

Molly is a much more sensible shepherd-lab cross. (I think, she has a shepherd's face anyway)

On the other side is the plumber and his girlfriend and his rental people, Mandy and her girlfriend. Who have an insane black lab who barks ALL THE TIME. But he's kinda sweet too.

The plumber's van has a logo: Don't sleep with a drip; call your plumber. It helps that he's very good-looking.

Nice sunny evenings are great. People tend to congregate in our garden because we have the most sunshine and chairs. We all have a couple of beers and sit around and shoot the shit with each other. Everyone just wanders in and out of each other's garden (apart from Mandy's as she has insane dog wired in securely).

It's so nice. I hated the high walls and 'let's pretend our neighbours are not there because then we'll have to talk to them and they might have more money/ less money than us' crap I had to put up with in Tenterfields and Addison Park.

Spearheading the Week, Franti but not frantic

I am multi-media-multi-tasking at the moment. I am writing this blog entry, following Pat Rabbitte's Q and A on the Irish Times website and downloading music from eMusic. I am also trying to listen to Michael Franti and Spearhead's album Yell Fire! album which is ROCKING MA SOUL.

Christ, he's got the sexiest voice on the planet.

And I am coughing a lot.

Me is sick....ehe, ehe, ehe...coughy, achey, painey, listlessly sick. No raging fever that prevent me from multi-media-multi-tasking or feeling guilty about being sick.

But sick nonetheless.

Yesterday I woke up and listened to my body and it said: go find a nice doctor, tell him what's going on with all of us, and tell him to get me into a state where I stop slowing you down all the time because I feel crap.

NOW.

I DON'T CARE WHAT'S GOING ON IN WORK/LIFE/BALANCE/ WHATEVER.

Cry at him if you have to.

So I did.

I cry at the drop of a hat these days anyway.

And since then body has decided to pack it all in for a week.

Poor body..... I guess keeping it all completely together for two years straight just proved too much for this one.

I am very proud of it though. So now I am going to listen to it and stay home for a bit and give it a rest.

Michael is telling me that From the East to the West... whole wide world keeps turning around.
I'm sure it will while I disembark for a quick stop.

Over at last!

D-day has proved to be indeed D-day.

A deal was done this morning; papers are being signed this afternoon; Himself is a free agent; we get to see the Littl'un next weekend.

I for one am glad this is over.

FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not that a paper means it's over, but you know what I mean.

D-day today!

Himself is gone to his home county today, all spiffed up, because today is D-day.

That's what we call the latest twist in his endless divorce, because today is the day it finally goes to court after a couple of years of pointless negotiations with his ex.

Of course, it is probably just the first of many appearances in front of a family court, as we finally, finally, finally start to sort out the Celtic triple knot of a mess that he has been in domestically for the last three years.

Kitty and I are staying in Halifax because today was the only day I could get an appointment for her to get her eyes tested. Her teachers said she was having problems reading; she was telling me that she was getting headaches after English class, I noticed she was reading the computer screen from about ten milimetres away. Finally the penny dropped and I asked her when she had gotten her eyes tested last.

Never, apparently.

Go figure.

So Himself is resigned to his fate; I am hopping up and down in a nervous funk, and Kitty is dreading the glaucoma puff of wind I described when I was explaining what an eye exam would be like.

Happy days all round.

Recently, I had lunch with a senior civil servant here in Halifax who has taken me under her wing to an extent and is mentoring me. I was telling her about my changed domestic circumstances and she told me that the same thing had happened her when she was my age. Except there were three of them.

And they went back to their mother after a year. And it didn't work out and they blamed her. And she felt sad and guilty forever after.

At the time, I said that I was finding the rearing/ mentoring/ feeding/ clothing/ caring aspect of the whole thing challenging but doable. What I was having trouble with was the complete opening up of my heart to a girl I didn't know very well. I have trouble with these things generally. And I was very nervous about it.

And she just laughed and said it would come. Which I have found helpful, as it helped me to stop fretting about it.

And gradually we have become closer.

Then last night, after we switched off an episode of Weeds, Kitty sat down and asked us would it be okay if she went home after school was out.

Home? Forever?

Yes.

Have you talked to your mother about it?

Yes. I asked her the other night.

I swear I heard the moon creaking across the sky, such was the stunned silence in the room.

A series of images flashed across my brain.

The special soft voice she uses with her mother on the phone. The pyjamas, three sizes too big, that she got a couple of weeks ago and wears constantly. The blog I found a couple of weeks ago, written by a girl called Kitty wondering why on earth she had ever left home.

Her sad little voice when she called late Saturday night to tell us her mom had fought with her and left her to babysit four kids until the wee hours yet again when she went home a couple of weeks ago. The pitiful bag of possessions she was allowed to take with her to our home in January. The tears on the phone most weeks when calls home.

The timing couldn't have been worse of course. We pointed this out to her. She said her mother had told her if she didn't come home now, the judge would prevent her forever today.

I pointed out that we had gone through this before and told her that the judge wouldn't do that as she was sixteen and considered capable of deciding by herself.

She stared at her feet for a while.

We asked her why she hadn't talked to us first.

She was too scared.

Too scared.

TOO EFFING SCARED.

We don't yell at her. We don't beat her. We don't drag her downstairs by the hair and throw her out of the house. We don't confiscate her things and use them ourselves. We don't take her Christmas money and spend it on alcohol. We don't read her diary and yell at her some more.

We don't call her stupid. We don't yell at her about her homework, or her marks, or her school work. We don't need to, because she doesn't fail when she's here. Because she's smart as a whip, but there are attention issues. Because she's SIXTEEN.

We don't make her stand in the corner with her arms outstretched to learn manners. We don't tie her to a chair until one in the morning because she can't figure out her maths homework.

We don't call her a fat *****. We don't ground her and invite all the local kids round to use the pool and make her watch from her bedroom window. We don't not even buy her a bra when she obviously needs one, or nice underwear, or clothes, or shoes, or a winter jacket and boots, or gloves.

We don't prevent her from seeing her brother for months at a time. We don't ground her for months on end and force her to do housework (apart from insisting she isolate the weird teenager smell in her room and remove the cause on a weekly basis!) while we go partying on the weekend. We don't put her in charge of a drop in centre for hyperactive kids whose parents go out drinking every night of every weekend.

We don't go partying period. We stay home EVERY EFFING NIGHT.

We don't prevent her from playing basketball because it would mean we'd have to drive her somewhere. We buy her a basketball and go out and train with her every night so she'll be good enough to try for the school team if she wants. And if she doesn't want that's good too. We'll just play basketball for the hell of it. Sprained thumb or not.

Too scared.

I thought her father was going to implode, such was the effort of keeping the tears of frustration inside.

You can go home if you want... we don't think it would be the best thing for you, but we can't stop you. You'll always have a home here.

That was about all he could manage. He went to bed. His heart is broken again.

We stayed up and talked a while. But her mind's made up. I can see it in her eyes. I didn't try to talk her out of it. I just tried to give her some tools to deal with what she's heading back into.

Hold back a little, I said. Keep some of your new mental strength to yourself, I said. Don't showyour strength until you have learned to control it, because people try to break you when they see you are strong. Just use it to keep yourself safe inside your head. But don't let anyone ever tell you you are stupid, because you have proved you are really really smart and responsible and creative.

She's worried she'll start failing school again.

I wanted to say Yes, yes, you must stay here and we will get you through high school and into college and you will have a qualification in four years and then your life will be full of potential in this amazing country and that's what your father and I lie in bed and talk about every night, how we're going to do this, and how great it's going to be to help you, and please please please let us do this for you. But I couldn't. It wasn't my place to say it.

I just said, you will always have a home with us. And we will help you go to college when it's time. And if anything ever happens to your parents, you will always have a home with me.

But you're going to have to keep your room tidy of course.

She finally started to smile again.

Off she went to MSN her friends to tell them god knows what because I don't monitor her private conversations with her friends.

LIKE SOME PEOPLE.

I went to bed and we lay there shattered.

Now I understand. Now I get it. Now, I finally know why people have kids.

Utter, unconditional, trusting love.

Forever.

No matter what kind of a dysfunctional selfish ***** you are.

Tempting.

Very very tempting.

All I can do is comfort myself with the thought that one day they sit there and tell you they need to go and live in a place that's full of danger and threats to them and their self-esteem and their future prospects, and there's nothing you can say or do because they have to make their own choices.

But I can't help but think how unfair it is that I have had to endure that bit without the payback.

Like my friend the civil servant said to me that day over lunch, they worm their way in, no matter how hard you try to stop them.

So true.

Still, she's sixteen. Himself was his usual optimistic self this morning. She'll change her mind, he said.

I don't think so.

The last thing she told me last night is that she's worried about her brother.

She's such a good girl. What kind of parent forces her daughter to come home because of the way she's treating her son?

One who knows that unconditional love will win the day, I suppose.

Now all our hopes are banking on a judge who has to figure all this out in a twenty minute hearing.

Then she might be able to change her mind. And stay in this new family we have built here together.

Somehow, I don't think so.

It's all about the importance of mother love in family court.

Fuck the rest of us.

Bits and bobbles of spare time entertainment

I can't think what to write about. My life is very dull at the moment. Also I played basketball last night after work and I sprained my thumb (of course) so I can't type very well.

We have finished watching Rome in the evenings now. It took us a while to find a tv series that would match up to the excitement of getting the next Rome dvd in the series, but we did eventually.

And the winner is..... Weeds. I had never heard of it. But one of my colleagues recommended it and when I rented it the woman in Blockbusters raved about it.

Damn right too - great show. Mary Louise Parker plays a suburban soccer mom whose husband has dropped dead and left her in a financial mess. So she sells weed to her neighbours to pay her bills.

Geddit... weeds/ weed... hur hur...

Her suppliers are African American and the scenes between her and them are a little laboured, but the scenes between her and her neighbour, who is a DH-type beyotch, and between herself and her competition, a local teenager, are very well drawn. Parker is her usual dead pan self.

Gilmore Girls meets Desperate Housewives with a Boys in the Hood twist that doesn't really work.

Well worth a watch.

I also watched Alpha Dog at the weekend. Good movie, although it took me ages to figure out what was going on because all the dawgs looked the same. Am I getting old? I watch new, fresh, exciting movies and sit there going 'oh, he's playing Ed Norton in American Hero X', or 'he's playing a Tarantino gang leader type', or 'all those girls look like they're from the OC'.

Maybe I'm right. Maybe I'm just over-exposed to the US body of film. Maybe I need to join the arty dvd store and bring home Brazilian street movies. There are people in my house who find it difficult to read sub-titles though, not being used to it.

I also just finished reading Cat's Eye, by Margaret Atwood. Great, great novel. If I were to write a novel about a young girl growing up I would say exactly the same things. That's what so great about Atwood. Her description of personal experiences is so universal that she pulls everyone in at some point.

So talented. There was a great story in the paper yesterday when she talked about promising a young British publisher to do a reworking of a myth - Penelopeiad - to help him with his struggling business. He worked on her guilt complex - he must really understand Canadians, she said. Then she found it too difficult, so she called her agent and asked whether it would be okay to pull out.

There was a long pause and then the agent said, well I'm sure the editor would have something to say about it. Then she said, I'm going to climb Mt Kilimanjaro and when I get back we'll have a nice chat. Apparently this frightened Atwood so much she got started on the Penelopeiad and had it well underway by the time her agent got back.

I love her self-deprecating humour - it's so Canadian, but she's one of the few Canucks that is proud of it and talks about it.

The idea of being able to scare Margaret Atwood!!!

Really!!!

El NaturaLista - shoes to die for!

Those of you who know me know I love my shoes. I went shoe shopping today. And I got the most amazing pair of shoes I've ever owned.

They're Spanish. Hand stitched in Galicia. From recycled leather, with recycled rubber shock absorbers in the heel. With the softest, softest. softest, foot-shaped, anti-bacterial insoles. Also recycled. Which lie over a recycled cork sole.




The leather is dyed with tree bark and natural extracts, then greased on with olive oil.

I shit you not.

The shoe is designed to put pressure on the reflexology points of the foot. The shoe is actually wide where your foot widens to encompass all five toes. It's like slipping your feet into bed after a long long day. When I tried them on, my back actually sort of sank into alignment with a sigh of relief.


Really funky green colour too, with cool stitching on the front.


A sort of flamenco version of the birkenstock.



Croc et all their moulded plastic buddies can kiss my ass. I am comfy, trendy, and oh so environmentally friendly.



The shoes all have funky names. My shoes are called Iggdrasil, which is the Scandinavian Tree of Life.



Here's a clip from their website. It's terribly happy clappy, but I do like websites that have green stuff and links to green organisations and congratulate staff for having babies and welcoming new members to the frog family, so I will be buying their terribly funky shoes forever:



The brand El Naturalista [The Naturalist] originates from La Rioja (Spain), a fertile, prosperous land known for its artisan shoemakers since ancient times. They know their trade, their quality and how to strike a healthy balance between tradition and modernity. Our products, however, are meant to be universal at El Naturalista we know nothing about frontiers, we are natives of the world and speak the language of plants, animals, water and stones.


Our name expresses a different way of thinking and acting. Being a “naturalist” entails respect for a rich, profound philosophy that lays its trust in life and attributes everything to Nature as a primeval driving force.


Our symbol, the frog, represents a land made fertile by water and it is meant to embody simple, worldly pleasures. In psychoanalytic theory, this animal, as an oneiric being, has a very positive connotation: agile and lively, it suggests adaptability and dynamism. The frog represents the permanent struggle against stagnation and shows the non-conforming nature of those who never shrink before difficulties.

And best of all, because I bought them in Canada, they weren't terribly expensive.

You can get them in Soulmates in Carrick on Shannon, apparently. I'd love to know how much they cost in Ireland.

And Hulit's in Princeton, NJ.

An alternative presents itself

An alternative to Nickelback has presented itself, in the shape of The White Stripes playing their tenth anniversary gig in Glace Bay.

I kid you not.

Those of you who follow this blog will remember that Glace Bay was the gulag I was sent to during last year's election. As in all gulags, the people were lovely; the town not so nice, the result, even worse.

And now, the White Stripes are coming. Not only that, Jack White thinks he's from Glace Bay.

Here's an article someone sent me without attribution, so apologies for the lack of it:

Jack White admits there's little that makes practical sense about the White Stripes' upcoming tour through Canada - an ambitious journey that involves stops in every province and territory, from B.C. to Newfoundland to Nunavut.

1. He doesn't expect the expansive - and expensive - trek to make any money. And in large part, it's rooted in childhood fantasies of life in the North.

"Even when it doesn't break even, it's still not the point of it, you know," White said by phone from a recording studio in Nashville, Tenn.

"As a kid, I saw some cowboy TV shows where they talked about the Yukon a lot, and the Alaskan-Yukon border. Sometimes there'd be like a bank robber or some kind of a cowboy outlaw that kind of went across the border to the Yukon side of it, and these cowboys or Lone Ranger types couldn't get to them … That was always exotic to me. I always liked that word - Yukon."

Besides, it's the rock duo's 10th anniversary this year, and to mark it, the guitarist and his drummer Meg White are on a mission to visit every region in Canada and the United States.
They start their 18-city Canadian adventure in Burnaby, B.C., on June 24 and wrap it up in St. John's, N.L., on July 16. The U.S. leg that follows includes stops in the 16 states they have yet to visit.

But the rocker with the wild dark mane is also on a quest to discover his Canadian roots. White notes that family from his father's Scottish side spent "a couple generations" in Nova Scotia before heading south to work in Detroit car factories.

"There's family all throughout there - all around Sydney Mines and Antigonish and all those places," said White, whose family background is also half Polish.

"Supposedly there's ties from me to [fiddlers] Ashley MacIsaac, Natalie MacMaster."
White admits he has no proof of this, so fans may want to take that claim with a grain of salt.

'I'd always wanted to go to Nova Scotia, I'd never been there and it landed on our 10th anniversary - it was kind of perfect.'-Jack White

After all, the man's own relationship with bandmate Meg White has long been a bone of contention since they claimed early in their career to be brother and sister. Court documents subsequently revealed them to be divorced.

White steers clear of questions that get too personal, but nevertheless insists that a highlight of the tour is a stop in Glace Bay, N.S., on July 14 - the band's 10th anniversary. White said the confluence of that landmark date with the Maritime province was a happy coincidence.

"I'd always wanted to go to Nova Scotia, I'd never been there and it landed on our 10th anniversary - it was kind of perfect," White said.

"We found this beautiful theatre, it's all red and white and black inside, and it seemed to be a 'God-bless-the-moment.' Hopefully it'll be a good show."

Most of the Stripes' other Canadian stops involve provincial capitals, but there are also smaller communities often ignored by rock itineraries.

For a time, larger centres like Montreal and Toronto were left off the Whites' list altogether.
"I first started off saying I don't want to play the major cities in Canada," White said.

"That's where my head's at. Let's just play everywhere else in Canada that we can. But, you know, you got to make the tour work, you got to pay for the bus and the truck that's got your gear in it. There's got to be something that makes sense business-wise, I suppose."

Tour economics aside, White insists that smaller shows tend to equal bigger fun. They often draw diverse crowds that are more appreciative of the performance, he said.

"Playing in a smaller club is better than playing in a big arena, playing in a small town is better than playing in a big town, and playing in a town that is on the outskirts that people don't usually go to is, of course, way better than playing a huge, major city in any country," he said.

"You're always going to have better shows because people are just more involved. In the bigger towns, sometimes you'll find crowds that kind of go to rock 'n' roll shows and kind of treat it like they're going to watch a movie or sit in front of a television. They're not involved actively in any way, and it's disappointing. Because the show, it could be so much better if people would sort of put forth some energy. Sometimes you're dying up there. You need a helping hand."

'Heavy record" set for release

The White Stripes' sixth studio album, Icky Thump, comes out June 19.

White said the name is derived from the expression "ecky thump," a traditional phrase from northern England that his wife, model Karen Elson, would use.

"I was just saying it out loud when we were writing the song and it sort of summed up that song and it started to sum up the entire album, and that sort of started to sum up the whole 10 years we've been together … It just felt right every time the word got written or said."

White said fans can expect "a heavy record" that touches on a wide range of genres including Scottish music, mariachi music, speed metal and southern American country music.

Amid all the tour planning, White is also hard at work on his second Raconteurs disc. He said they've put down about 20 tracks so far.

Lots of dinosaurs in the news today

Nickelback are playing in Halifax on Canada Day.

I hate Nickeback. They stand for everything I despise in music - generic anthemic rock; songs about lost love that stick in my head and drive out all the good music I know; bloated tours and raaawk venues that involve the usual over-priced tickets, drunken louts, and standing around in a field for ten hours.

I prefer to go camping on Canada Day.

Guess I'll be going to Nickelback though. Seeing as the rest of them can speak of nothing else at the moment.

And not even Arcade Fire supporting them. They'll be off playing the European festivals no doubt.

And of course, I'm the one has to get up on Saturday morning to buy the tickets.

Sigh.

Of course, I could always forget to get up.....

_______________________________

I see the British Tories did for Labour a bit but not as much as they should've, and the Lib Dems are going under in the scramble for the new Britain.

Good. I hate the Lib Dems. How dare they fire Charles Kennedy, he was the only interesting thing about them. Menzies Campbell for chrissakes.

__________________________________

And Fianna Fail are going to abolish stamp duty for first time buyers. Thanks Bertie. That will just increase the price of semi-detached houses and destroy the apartment market, I'd imagine.

As accent monkey says, Ireland is hateful because you know the bastards are going to get back in, because the default setting in my home country is 'did I say I'd do that? Well I've changed my mind'.

Sigh.

The Housework Rules!

I feel a certain sense of shame that I have to post this latest addition to our household, which is going up on the (dirty) fridge tonight, but I am tired of being the immigrant maid, so maybe a public shaming of certain people will result in more help around the house.

DEFINITION: The Housework is what is done IN ADDITION to cleaning up after ourselves. Cleaning up after ourselves shows basic good manners. Not cleaning up after ourselves will result in a fruit fly infestation this summer and more growling from me.

· If you eat/ drink/ prepare food – CLEAN UP AFTER YOURSELF!
· Put lids back on bottles, tie bread bags with ties, and put food away
· Keep bedrooms clean and tidy; bring dirty plates/ cups/ etc. to kitchen
· Put dirty dishes/ cutlery/ cups/ etc IN THE DISHWASHER.
· If the dishwasher is full of clean dishes, UNLOAD IT!
· If the dishwasher is full of dirty dishes PUT IT ON, at the eco-setting.
· Replace the empty toilet paper roll with a full one!
· If you dirty the towels in the bathroom, change them for clean ones and put dirty towels in the laundry basket.
· DON’T LEAVE YOUR SMELLY SOCKS IN THE LIVING AREA!!!

This diatribe of frustration is followed by a colour-coded chart outlining responsibilities, including sweeping, cleaning, cooking, tidying, in various rooms of the house. All with names after them. And times. And expected occurances, eg weekly, daily, etc.

Which I spent my lunch hour preparing....

I have turned into soviet pop!!

Blue jays out in force this morning

The sun came up and shone a stream of wild orange through my window this morning and forced me to open my eyes even though I didn't feel like it. So I got up. Himself is gone to work; his seventeenth consecutive day. He's starting to feel the pain of it.

Never mind, I said. Divorce pre-hearing next Wednesday so you'll get a day off.

I'm nothing if not positive about these things.

So I'm sitting here hoping the day will be nice as it has rained for five days straight. Four of those days I was off, and I'm back to work this morning, so the chances of it being nice are pretty high.

I'm nothing if not realistic about these things too.

The blue jays are out in force this morning.

Queegh; queegh; queegh they are screaming at each other. I wonder what they are saying?

They always make me think of Queequeg in Moby Dick.

I don't want to go to work today.

Ah well... who does I suppose...

I have decided that there has been too much focus on things that are duty and not fun, so I will have to think of some fun stuff to do this evening.

After I tidy the house and cook supper.

I had another tussle with Kitty yesterday. After she left yesterday morning I had to clean the kitchen and tidy everything away. Then when she came home and had a tuna sandwich I had to do it again.

I got very effing annoyed.

You don't pull your weight I said.

She got all weepy; I don't think she got any sleep last weekend when she was home.

I do a lot of work you don't see.

What, I said.

Sweepin' 'n' stuff, she sniffled.

Well, why is the floor filthy then, I asked.

I have about eleven letters after my name, I said, and so I am not really qualified to be your maid.

You said I didn't have to do too much housework, she countered.

PUTTING THE EFFING LID BACK ON THE MAYONNAISE JAR AND PUTTING IT IN THE FRIDGE IS NOT WORK, OKAY!

Okay! Okay! Okay!

Work is sitting in an office trying to think of something intelligent to write about for the week. It's far more pointless than putting the mayonnaise back in the fridge.

Anyways, our communications maven is returning to the fold today after a year's leave of absence, so at least that's something to look forward to.

I think I need a holiday...