Sometimes I love to post blog entries with titles that will mess up or just get in the way of serious Google searches undertaken by serious people looking for serious information.
And so with this one.
Please be advised this posting will mostly be about vitamins. Not maritime conditions.
So eventually the weather systems aligned. What I mean is, the weather systems that are pounding Atlantic Canada eased off slightly and the weather systems pounding Ireland and the UK ramped up slightly and so there was almost a condition alignment. It brought about some interesting consequences.
The Queen Parents started to get quite panicky about the idea of me driving to Cape Breton by myself, until I pointed out that the snow is scraped/ pushed/ ploughed off the roads here, so it is safer than at home.
Certain random people sent me emails that said 'yeah, okay I understand now'.
I got to see photos of people I know to be grown ups making snowmen when they should have been at work.
I would just like to point out that people don't make snowmen in Canada as a rule. They're too busy getting on with the day. Tobogganing now or skiing is considered acceptable snow fun.
In fact, there's such an absence of snowmen in politically correct Canada, I am beginning to think snowmen is one of those Enid Blyton things along with all those bad, unmentionable things she seems to have encouraged many generations, including mine, to do in her seemingly innocent children's writing.
Maybe we'll all wake up one morning sometime soon and realise that to build a snowman is a really bad thing.
Anyways, back to the weather.
Now that you have the same weather as us, here's some advice.
Take plenty of Vitamin D. At least 1,000mgs a day. This week in Canada, it was announced that they're pretty sure that there's a positive link between Vitamin D deficiency and multiple sclerosis. So take it for that reason too.
Go on. Vitamin D is really cheap. It's sunshine in a bottle.
If the wind is cutting your face, and you live near the sea where there's lots of salt, or near the airport, where there's lots of salt right now, you're going to have dry skin by the end of March. Then one day in April the sun will shine very brightly and you will look in a mirror and go 'ohmygod deh wrinkels!!'
Don't panic!!! Go get some Vitamin E capsules, and take them if you feel like it. But about once a week, cut a capsule open and gently pat the goo onto the skin around your eyes. Let it dry in. Don't do this unless you have an hour to spare to just sit around and do this, as the goo is very very sticky. Do not under any circumstances go for a walk on the beach.
INSTANT WRINKLE REMOVER, EH! EH! EH! FOR LIKE NO MONEY AT ALL!!
See, the Queenie knows how to look after you all.
Those tissues with the goo in them to make your nose feel nice when you have a cold are really great for getting snow/ salt/ sand/ all the winter crap off your shoes/ boots.
WEAR A HAT!!!!
Look after your hair.
It is very important to use the right shampoo and conditioner in the winter because the snow/ ice ruins your hair and the continuous hat wearing gives you a bad case of hat head.
I have tried them all. Organic, non-organic, every supermarket brand, every stylist brand, Aveda, all of them.
The absolute best shampoo - conditioner combo for the winter hair that comes with wind, rain and snow is Head and Shoulders shampoo followed by Pantene conditioner for coloured hair.
So there you go.
Just think... for you guys, this is an exciting period that will end soon with snowdrops and tulips and daffodils. For us, this is what it's going to be like until April.
April is when the snow melts into the rivers, the birds come back, the fishing season begins, the hardy among us get out the camping gear.
And the black fly wake up.
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Thursday, February 05, 2009
MonoMeme to while away some time
I got this from Jersey Girl. You have to provide a one word response to each prompt. It is more difficult than it looks:
1. Where is your cell phone? bag
2. Your significant other? home
3. Your hair? limp
4. Your favorite thing? campfires
5. Your dream last night? unmemorable
6. Your favorite drink? juice
7. Your dream/goal? independence
8. What room you are in? 117
9. Your hobby? snapshotting
10. Your fear? poverty
11. Where do you want to be in 6 years? home
12. Where were you last night? sofa
13. Muffins? usually
14. Wish list item? iPod
15. Where you grew up? Birr
16. Last thing you did? Peed
17. What are you wearing? sweats
18. Your TV? convex
19. Your pets? murdered
20. Friends? scattered
21. Your life? stabilised
22. Your mood? grumpy
23. Missing someone? usually
24. Car? Icy
25. Something you're not wearing? shoes
26. Your favorite store? Biscuit
27. Your favorite color? Biscuit
28. When is the last time you laughed? yesterday
29. Last time you cried? Tuesday
30. Who will resend this? irrelevant
31. One place that I go to over and over? beach
32. One person who emails me regularly? mum
33. Favorite place to eat? Chives
34. Why you participated in this survey? whiling
35. What are you doing tonight? whiling
1. Where is your cell phone? bag
2. Your significant other? home
3. Your hair? limp
4. Your favorite thing? campfires
5. Your dream last night? unmemorable
6. Your favorite drink? juice
7. Your dream/goal? independence
8. What room you are in? 117
9. Your hobby? snapshotting
10. Your fear? poverty
11. Where do you want to be in 6 years? home
12. Where were you last night? sofa
13. Muffins? usually
14. Wish list item? iPod
15. Where you grew up? Birr
16. Last thing you did? Peed
17. What are you wearing? sweats
18. Your TV? convex
19. Your pets? murdered
20. Friends? scattered
21. Your life? stabilised
22. Your mood? grumpy
23. Missing someone? usually
24. Car? Icy
25. Something you're not wearing? shoes
26. Your favorite store? Biscuit
27. Your favorite color? Biscuit
28. When is the last time you laughed? yesterday
29. Last time you cried? Tuesday
30. Who will resend this? irrelevant
31. One place that I go to over and over? beach
32. One person who emails me regularly? mum
33. Favorite place to eat? Chives
34. Why you participated in this survey? whiling
35. What are you doing tonight? whiling
The View from the EconoLodge
So I'm in the EconoLodge in Port Hawkesbury, whiling away a February evening.
A February evening in Inverness County, Cape Breton is a pretty bleak affair to while.
Snow everywhere. Not much else. If things are not shut down due to arrival of the global meltdown, they're closed until the spring melt arrives.
The car is parked at a jaunty angle outside my motel room door, because I got the room at the corner where the snow drifts.
The room is cold, no matter how much I crank the heat.
The bathroom is not conducive to bathing.
I'm not seeing any extra blankets.
The whole thing is a little Bates Motel for me.
I drove up through the mainland of the province in the damp cold afternoon grey of a Nova Scotia day after the day after a twenty hour snow and ice storm. The roads were finally clear, but the landscape is starkly white on black. The only depth in the view is the chiaroscuro of the sky.
Up over Mount Thom, that depth flattens to a couple of feet in front of the car.
I do my usual thing and don't want to stop for fuel because it's too cold. Then I drive twenty kilometres on fumes searching for an exit with a gas station.
I stop at the Dragonfly in Antigonish for a latte and some chocolate cake. The break was warming inside and out, but it meant I drove the last fifty kms in the dark, spitting snow, facing the glare of the oncoming lights.
Driving up to Cape Breton on a snowy Thursday in February puts me in the kind of grumpy mood it takes me days to get out of.
Hopefully, the sunshine forecast for tommorrow will make the drive home bearable and I will be home by seven at the latest.
I still don't know what to blog about... February numbs my brain.
Maybe tomorrow.
A February evening in Inverness County, Cape Breton is a pretty bleak affair to while.
Snow everywhere. Not much else. If things are not shut down due to arrival of the global meltdown, they're closed until the spring melt arrives.
The car is parked at a jaunty angle outside my motel room door, because I got the room at the corner where the snow drifts.
The room is cold, no matter how much I crank the heat.
The bathroom is not conducive to bathing.
I'm not seeing any extra blankets.
The whole thing is a little Bates Motel for me.
I drove up through the mainland of the province in the damp cold afternoon grey of a Nova Scotia day after the day after a twenty hour snow and ice storm. The roads were finally clear, but the landscape is starkly white on black. The only depth in the view is the chiaroscuro of the sky.
Up over Mount Thom, that depth flattens to a couple of feet in front of the car.
I do my usual thing and don't want to stop for fuel because it's too cold. Then I drive twenty kilometres on fumes searching for an exit with a gas station.
I stop at the Dragonfly in Antigonish for a latte and some chocolate cake. The break was warming inside and out, but it meant I drove the last fifty kms in the dark, spitting snow, facing the glare of the oncoming lights.
Driving up to Cape Breton on a snowy Thursday in February puts me in the kind of grumpy mood it takes me days to get out of.
Hopefully, the sunshine forecast for tommorrow will make the drive home bearable and I will be home by seven at the latest.
I still don't know what to blog about... February numbs my brain.
Maybe tomorrow.
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
Settling down to it
After a couple of weeks, we are starting to feel settled into our new home, and maybe even I will be able to sit still long enough to blog - I have a list of forty books to review if nothing else - but right now, after foostering around with the title for an hour this morning, I really should go outside and refill the bird feeder and chip some more ice from the driveway and get some fresh air.
So far... chickadees, jays, sparrows, pheasants, rabbits, and a big old ginger tom cat that visits us from next door every day. We saw four deer foraging in a group when we walked the trail behind our house last weekend.
No sign of any human neighbours yet...
Maybe when the ice recedes...
So far... chickadees, jays, sparrows, pheasants, rabbits, and a big old ginger tom cat that visits us from next door every day. We saw four deer foraging in a group when we walked the trail behind our house last weekend.
No sign of any human neighbours yet...
Maybe when the ice recedes...
Sunday, January 18, 2009
It's about not being eaten...
This is an excerpt from an interview in the Observer with Bruce Springsteen:
"So the idea is: how do you manage that thing that's eating at you, without letting it eat you? 'Cause that's what it wants to do. The thing that's eating at you, wants to eat you. And so your life is... how do you keep that from happening? That's a pretty interesting story too, and that's what a lot of my records are about, maybe all of them. So now, you know - my records and the music and everything are me attempting to keep from being eaten."
'Xactly...
I think
"So the idea is: how do you manage that thing that's eating at you, without letting it eat you? 'Cause that's what it wants to do. The thing that's eating at you, wants to eat you. And so your life is... how do you keep that from happening? That's a pretty interesting story too, and that's what a lot of my records are about, maybe all of them. So now, you know - my records and the music and everything are me attempting to keep from being eaten."
'Xactly...
I think
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Giving up Chocolate
Our neighbour called up last night with a box of Okanangan Valley apple cider. Which normally would be what I would call 'a class thing to happen'...
What happened was typical Eastern Canada January behaviour.
It was late on a Saturday night in January.
Himself and I were half asleep on the couch. We were trying to remember why we are friends after a trying couple of days arguing over stupide things.
Also we were just about managing to yawn our way to the end of Episode 3 of Series 4 of The Wire.
So we ignored the first knock on the door.
Well, I said, 'that's our door' and Himself said 'no it's not' even though he KNEW it was.
After the second knocked we fessed up to ourselves and shouted 'come in' and then of course it was fine once it was our neighbour and not the landlord or an ax murderer or anyone like that.
But it was late which meant we didn't partake of any of the nice cider because we were too 'tired'.
(Before I continue, can I just say.... after the end of Series 3, which was STONKING, and I have to disagree with JB, I thought Series 3 ending was better than Series 2 ending, although Series 2 overall was GREAT... I'm finding it difficult to re-engage with The Wire, which I assume is the point of the early part of Series 4... also the political candidate it is portraying is too close to the reality of a political candidate to be funny and is indeed scary, and when is George Pelecanos going to write another episode?)
Anyways, we woke up and sat up and switched off the dvd (and now Himself is out ploughing snow all night and I can't watch the end of the episode because the deal is we watch it together.... grrroooaaaannnn) and made nice like grown ups because really, this is our last normal weekend at Chocolate Lake.
Next weekend we'll be moving and the weekend after we'll be sitting in our house in the country being all Johnny No-mates and Jenny No-neighbours, so we should enjoy our neighbours while we still have them....
Fuck me though, it's hard to be enthusiastic about anything in Eastern Canada in January.
Cold, dark, snowing, cold, snowing, did I mention cold.
My life revolves around my snow boots and packing tape.
A heady combo, I can tell you.
No wonder I'm dreaming about eloping to Cuba.
Atlantic Superstore is running an ad campaign that says 'we're lowering prices to cheer you up because it's January'.
They don't even have to pretend it's 'because we know you all maxed out your cards in December and we're trying to lure you into the shop to buy some food with what's left of your income'.
That's how bad it is in Eastern Canada in January.
Count your blessings, Queenie, count your blessings.
New house.
Exciting new house in approximately FOUR DAYS.
When one thinks of all the people in a certain part of the world who are having their houses blown up and if the reports are true, are having to clear up depleted uranium shells from the debris, and walk to hospitals miles away to get treatment for the phosphorous sticking to their children's skin etc...
... and you think about all the people in the world who are losing their houses at the moment because some arsehole told them they were 'richer than they think' and nobody introduced them to the credit union movement as opposed to the sub-prime predators...
Having a new house is an extremely rich blessing.
Thank you to the gods who are overseeing it.
I'm having a profound week, intellectually.
I'm reading Nino Ricci's Testament. It's like reading an award-winning Rolling Stone four part series on an early U2 Stateside tour, told from the point of view of a number of key entourage members.
Except it's the story of one Yeshua of Notzerah.
The four viewpoints are:
Yihuda of Qiryat,
Miryam of Migdal,
Miryam his Mother,
and Simon of Gerghesa.
See.... it's really smart, and yet beautifully simple. Four points of view retelling the greatest story ever told.
It won't get out of my head.
I think the fact that the war is going on right now in a relatively close location is making it stronger for me, but still...
We are nearly packed.
I have good friends who have provided me with all the necessary equipment and I scored big time by buying one of those plastic trays for packing tape so I don't have to keep picking the tape off the next layer of tape (people who are moving will know what I'm talking about - buy one of those devices, they are $4 and they are a life-saver).
I have only had four near-meltdowns.
Which is okay because there is a lot of other stuff going on right now too. Which will too work out, but which involve a lot of 'getting our heads into the right space'.
But happily, I know myself well enough to know that this morning I woke feeling better, and more importantly, in the zone.
I'll be okay now.
Whatever is thrown at us.
And Himself has only gotten annoyed with me the once.
We're doing okay.
We'll make it to Eagle Drive and/ or February in once piece, I think.
The main trouble in our lives right now is a divergence of views on the role of packing.
For Himself, packing is a way to move possessions from Point A to Point B.
Simple but effective.
Himself is nothing if not of the 'simple but effective' school of thought.
For me, packing represents many things....
... mourning the past moments that each of my possessions represent...
... considering the complexity of all of the possessions which are now randomly stuffed in a box...
... opportunities to worry about the lack of flat surfaces upon which to place the possessions in their new home...
... moments of concern that all this movement in my life is really for naught and I should just have stayed in that crappy one bed in that crappy block of flats in crappy south inner city Dublin all those years ago...
all of which are to do with needing to CONTROL MY ENVIRONMENT because despite being a Cancerian, I don't actually get to walk around with my house on my back and so have huge home environment anxiety whenever there is change.
Which in my case happens a lot, because my ascendant is Gemini.
I am truly fucked personality-wise.
The only person on the planet who gets this about me is Gypsy, because she are one too.
Add to this heady mix, the fact that I am living with an Aquarian, who is all about THE FUTURE.
Not HOW TO ACTUALLY MOVE EVERYTHING THERE.
Don't sweat the small stuff was written with Himself in mind.
I am so jealous of his laid back attitude it's making me ugly, I swear.
You see, I see the point in spending three hours separating cables and iPod wires and camera stuff (or the contents of the drawer that has all the pharmacy type stuff in it) and putting them in separate, labelled, Ziploc bags that are then placed in a box that's marked CABLES ETC. The point is:
1. I will be able to find things quickly if I need to. Which I will need to, because Himself will ask me to find the goddamn things for him some day when he's busy/ rushed/ sick/ whatever. And if there not findable, then psychically I will have failed him in some way.
I know, I know... it's january and I'm a crab..
In a pathetic attempt to offload the psychic payload onto Himself, I explain the system to him. Even though I know he will not even listen to the explanation because he is an Aquarian and knowing where stuff is is for LITTLE PEOPLE.
AND PROLES.
Of course, because of this fatal flaw in his personality (which he quite naturally doesn't see as such a bad thing), I will be able to LORD IT OVER HIM FOREVER when he can't find things because the afore-mentioned conversation took place.
That's what keeps me at it. In January.
I know, I know, I am truly pathetic.
... I told you it was in the Cable box...
Of course, being a Cancerian, I'm damned if I'm going to do all this work and not get any appreciation...
So Himself comes home from work and then gets moaned at over the home-cooked dinner because I'm tired. Then he asks why 'm tired if I had a day off, and I tell him why and then he, not unreasonably, trying to be helpful no doubt, points out that if I dumped all the cables onto the kitchen table, and then SWEPT them into a box with an arm, and wrote CABLES on the box and THREW it in the corner, we would still find them IF AND WHEN we ever needed them again.
And also I didn't have to cook dinner if I was that tired.
And that's when I have a meltdown.
Because the 'only' reason I am wasting time packing them is because if he catches me throwing them out he'll have a fit. Because he's an Aquarian packrat.
SO IT'S ALL HIS FAULT.
This is typical January behaviour in Eastern Canada, btw.
Couples all over the Maritimes are having equally stupid arguments over equally stupid stuff.
The advice is, this will end mid-February.
And as Myles said in a recent post, perhaps this global gloom and doom is affecting all of us in some way.
But still.... new house....
No more chocolate...
But in a good way.
What will I call the blog next?
Feel free to make suggestions which I will probably ignore, because I am a control freak.
What happened was typical Eastern Canada January behaviour.
It was late on a Saturday night in January.
Himself and I were half asleep on the couch. We were trying to remember why we are friends after a trying couple of days arguing over stupide things.
Also we were just about managing to yawn our way to the end of Episode 3 of Series 4 of The Wire.
So we ignored the first knock on the door.
Well, I said, 'that's our door' and Himself said 'no it's not' even though he KNEW it was.
After the second knocked we fessed up to ourselves and shouted 'come in' and then of course it was fine once it was our neighbour and not the landlord or an ax murderer or anyone like that.
But it was late which meant we didn't partake of any of the nice cider because we were too 'tired'.
(Before I continue, can I just say.... after the end of Series 3, which was STONKING, and I have to disagree with JB, I thought Series 3 ending was better than Series 2 ending, although Series 2 overall was GREAT... I'm finding it difficult to re-engage with The Wire, which I assume is the point of the early part of Series 4... also the political candidate it is portraying is too close to the reality of a political candidate to be funny and is indeed scary, and when is George Pelecanos going to write another episode?)
Anyways, we woke up and sat up and switched off the dvd (and now Himself is out ploughing snow all night and I can't watch the end of the episode because the deal is we watch it together.... grrroooaaaannnn) and made nice like grown ups because really, this is our last normal weekend at Chocolate Lake.
Next weekend we'll be moving and the weekend after we'll be sitting in our house in the country being all Johnny No-mates and Jenny No-neighbours, so we should enjoy our neighbours while we still have them....
Fuck me though, it's hard to be enthusiastic about anything in Eastern Canada in January.
Cold, dark, snowing, cold, snowing, did I mention cold.
My life revolves around my snow boots and packing tape.
A heady combo, I can tell you.
No wonder I'm dreaming about eloping to Cuba.
Atlantic Superstore is running an ad campaign that says 'we're lowering prices to cheer you up because it's January'.
They don't even have to pretend it's 'because we know you all maxed out your cards in December and we're trying to lure you into the shop to buy some food with what's left of your income'.
That's how bad it is in Eastern Canada in January.
Count your blessings, Queenie, count your blessings.
New house.
Exciting new house in approximately FOUR DAYS.
When one thinks of all the people in a certain part of the world who are having their houses blown up and if the reports are true, are having to clear up depleted uranium shells from the debris, and walk to hospitals miles away to get treatment for the phosphorous sticking to their children's skin etc...
... and you think about all the people in the world who are losing their houses at the moment because some arsehole told them they were 'richer than they think' and nobody introduced them to the credit union movement as opposed to the sub-prime predators...
Having a new house is an extremely rich blessing.
Thank you to the gods who are overseeing it.
I'm having a profound week, intellectually.
I'm reading Nino Ricci's Testament. It's like reading an award-winning Rolling Stone four part series on an early U2 Stateside tour, told from the point of view of a number of key entourage members.
Except it's the story of one Yeshua of Notzerah.
The four viewpoints are:
Yihuda of Qiryat,
Miryam of Migdal,
Miryam his Mother,
and Simon of Gerghesa.
See.... it's really smart, and yet beautifully simple. Four points of view retelling the greatest story ever told.
It won't get out of my head.
I think the fact that the war is going on right now in a relatively close location is making it stronger for me, but still...
We are nearly packed.
I have good friends who have provided me with all the necessary equipment and I scored big time by buying one of those plastic trays for packing tape so I don't have to keep picking the tape off the next layer of tape (people who are moving will know what I'm talking about - buy one of those devices, they are $4 and they are a life-saver).
I have only had four near-meltdowns.
Which is okay because there is a lot of other stuff going on right now too. Which will too work out, but which involve a lot of 'getting our heads into the right space'.
But happily, I know myself well enough to know that this morning I woke feeling better, and more importantly, in the zone.
I'll be okay now.
Whatever is thrown at us.
And Himself has only gotten annoyed with me the once.
We're doing okay.
We'll make it to Eagle Drive and/ or February in once piece, I think.
The main trouble in our lives right now is a divergence of views on the role of packing.
For Himself, packing is a way to move possessions from Point A to Point B.
Simple but effective.
Himself is nothing if not of the 'simple but effective' school of thought.
For me, packing represents many things....
... mourning the past moments that each of my possessions represent...
... considering the complexity of all of the possessions which are now randomly stuffed in a box...
... opportunities to worry about the lack of flat surfaces upon which to place the possessions in their new home...
... moments of concern that all this movement in my life is really for naught and I should just have stayed in that crappy one bed in that crappy block of flats in crappy south inner city Dublin all those years ago...
all of which are to do with needing to CONTROL MY ENVIRONMENT because despite being a Cancerian, I don't actually get to walk around with my house on my back and so have huge home environment anxiety whenever there is change.
Which in my case happens a lot, because my ascendant is Gemini.
I am truly fucked personality-wise.
The only person on the planet who gets this about me is Gypsy, because she are one too.
Add to this heady mix, the fact that I am living with an Aquarian, who is all about THE FUTURE.
Not HOW TO ACTUALLY MOVE EVERYTHING THERE.
Don't sweat the small stuff was written with Himself in mind.
I am so jealous of his laid back attitude it's making me ugly, I swear.
You see, I see the point in spending three hours separating cables and iPod wires and camera stuff (or the contents of the drawer that has all the pharmacy type stuff in it) and putting them in separate, labelled, Ziploc bags that are then placed in a box that's marked CABLES ETC. The point is:
1. I will be able to find things quickly if I need to. Which I will need to, because Himself will ask me to find the goddamn things for him some day when he's busy/ rushed/ sick/ whatever. And if there not findable, then psychically I will have failed him in some way.
I know, I know... it's january and I'm a crab..
In a pathetic attempt to offload the psychic payload onto Himself, I explain the system to him. Even though I know he will not even listen to the explanation because he is an Aquarian and knowing where stuff is is for LITTLE PEOPLE.
AND PROLES.
Of course, because of this fatal flaw in his personality (which he quite naturally doesn't see as such a bad thing), I will be able to LORD IT OVER HIM FOREVER when he can't find things because the afore-mentioned conversation took place.
That's what keeps me at it. In January.
I know, I know, I am truly pathetic.
... I told you it was in the Cable box...
Of course, being a Cancerian, I'm damned if I'm going to do all this work and not get any appreciation...
So Himself comes home from work and then gets moaned at over the home-cooked dinner because I'm tired. Then he asks why 'm tired if I had a day off, and I tell him why and then he, not unreasonably, trying to be helpful no doubt, points out that if I dumped all the cables onto the kitchen table, and then SWEPT them into a box with an arm, and wrote CABLES on the box and THREW it in the corner, we would still find them IF AND WHEN we ever needed them again.
And also I didn't have to cook dinner if I was that tired.
And that's when I have a meltdown.
Because the 'only' reason I am wasting time packing them is because if he catches me throwing them out he'll have a fit. Because he's an Aquarian packrat.
SO IT'S ALL HIS FAULT.
This is typical January behaviour in Eastern Canada, btw.
Couples all over the Maritimes are having equally stupid arguments over equally stupid stuff.
The advice is, this will end mid-February.
And as Myles said in a recent post, perhaps this global gloom and doom is affecting all of us in some way.
But still.... new house....
No more chocolate...
But in a good way.
What will I call the blog next?
Feel free to make suggestions which I will probably ignore, because I am a control freak.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Your turn to intern
From this morning's Guardian:
This year's graduates face the toughest battle in a generation for jobs, with tens of thousands facing unemployment, according to evidence documenting the impact of the economic downturn.
Ministers are so concerned that they are drawing up a rescue package to help the class of 2009 find a job or get new skills when they graduate this summer. The proposals, from the universities secretary John Denham's office, will target the 18-24 age group amid fears that a generation of young people will be scarred by recession. They include an internship scheme where students would work at a reduced wage to gain experience. Four firms - including Barclays and Microsoft - have agreed to take part in the scheme, which is being called the National Internship Scheme.
Denham told the Guardian: "This year there will be a large number of graduates - the children of the babyboomers - and we are keen to make sure that they get as good a chance as we can give them to get jobs and build good careers. We will not leave them to fend for themselves.
He says: "We don't want these spells of unemployment to get long. A spell of unemployment is bad when young, and the longer it is, the worse it is. We want to do everything to prevent it becoming long-term unemployment."
Evidence of the extent of the downturn in graduate recruitment uncovered by the Guardian includes:
• Major companies have narrowed their search for graduates to five elite universities as they cut recruitment numbers.
• The organisers of the annual graduate recruitment "milk round" say jobs in finance and retail are drying up. Even where companies are recruiting, vacancies will not necessarily last until summer as the economic slump worsens.
• The management consultancy KPMG, seen as a recruitment barometer, says its 600 graduate entry jobs are nearly all taken months ahead of schedule as students scramble for the top jobs.
First of all, don't panic, it'll be fine.
Back in the day, when I were a young one, whiling away my days in the Free Palestinian Liberation Cafe drinking god-awful organic coffee from Chiapas, the milk round dried up regularly. I still managed to get a free weekend in England (I think it was with Lloyds Bank) where I had a very nice time and failed miserably to get a job in finance because I didn't have the killer instinct they needed for retail banking.
Imagine if I hadda gotten that job. I'd be an unemployed branch manager by now probably.
More importantly, I'd be miserable.
When we left university, we had a two stop trip.
Stop one. Out the college, turn right, down to Tara St. dole office to sign on.
Every Thursday morning you had to go down to get your money - £59.63 if I remember rightly, and yeah it was a pain because you had to queue for an hour, but you met everyone you knew there and spent the time figuring out where to meet up that night.
Stop two. Continue down Tara St. to the quays, turn left, then left again onto D'Olier St. to the FAS office. Ask the nice man in the FAS office if you could get on a FAS scheme.
A FAS scheme was/ is like a National Intern Program, except the government paid you to work for a theatre or a charity, or a hospice or a school, or a community radio station, something in the public sphere that needed help and had no money. It differs from the new National Intern Program in that it didn't subsidize labour for a multinational that should be paying proper wages. And unlike the new NIP, if you needed to change your hours, or make your point strongly, or try new things, you were allowed. I have a feeling you'll have to work very hard in the NIP to be one of the interns that gets kept on.
On a FAS scheme everyone worked about 20 hours a week. Lots of important social capital got made and spent. There was a lot of sitting around chatting and learning about other people's lives and dreams. A lot of bad coffee was drunk. I sat in a Portakabin in Coolock for a few months and dreamed up a community arts festival. A friend of mine ran a radio station. Another friend of mine managed a domestic abuse shelter.
The other twenty hours a week, you lived your life. You made art, or wrote, or helped run a magazine, or a theatre collective and of course you had some class of a nixer job so you could eat meat a couple of times a week.
You went to the cinema during the day.
Eventually, the world turned, the economy got better, all those compatriots of mine who had studied real subjects, like computer engineering, got the multinationals interested in Ireland, and we all landed in the real world. Started making a little money.
A little money.
That's the thing. The wages will be lower now. You'll have to work your way up to the big bucks for a few years.
Life's a bitch to random generations.
This recession business happened to us.
It's happening to you.
It didn't happen to the one in between.
But, far worse things happened to previous generations.
And the fair trade coffee is at least drinkable nowadays.
You'll be the better generation for it.
And we should spare a thought for those Palestinian 18 - 24 year olds who have no future to look forward to, only the bitter harvest of what's being sown today.
This year's graduates face the toughest battle in a generation for jobs, with tens of thousands facing unemployment, according to evidence documenting the impact of the economic downturn.
Ministers are so concerned that they are drawing up a rescue package to help the class of 2009 find a job or get new skills when they graduate this summer. The proposals, from the universities secretary John Denham's office, will target the 18-24 age group amid fears that a generation of young people will be scarred by recession. They include an internship scheme where students would work at a reduced wage to gain experience. Four firms - including Barclays and Microsoft - have agreed to take part in the scheme, which is being called the National Internship Scheme.
Denham told the Guardian: "This year there will be a large number of graduates - the children of the babyboomers - and we are keen to make sure that they get as good a chance as we can give them to get jobs and build good careers. We will not leave them to fend for themselves.
He says: "We don't want these spells of unemployment to get long. A spell of unemployment is bad when young, and the longer it is, the worse it is. We want to do everything to prevent it becoming long-term unemployment."
Evidence of the extent of the downturn in graduate recruitment uncovered by the Guardian includes:
• Major companies have narrowed their search for graduates to five elite universities as they cut recruitment numbers.
• The organisers of the annual graduate recruitment "milk round" say jobs in finance and retail are drying up. Even where companies are recruiting, vacancies will not necessarily last until summer as the economic slump worsens.
• The management consultancy KPMG, seen as a recruitment barometer, says its 600 graduate entry jobs are nearly all taken months ahead of schedule as students scramble for the top jobs.
First of all, don't panic, it'll be fine.
Back in the day, when I were a young one, whiling away my days in the Free Palestinian Liberation Cafe drinking god-awful organic coffee from Chiapas, the milk round dried up regularly. I still managed to get a free weekend in England (I think it was with Lloyds Bank) where I had a very nice time and failed miserably to get a job in finance because I didn't have the killer instinct they needed for retail banking.
Imagine if I hadda gotten that job. I'd be an unemployed branch manager by now probably.
More importantly, I'd be miserable.
When we left university, we had a two stop trip.
Stop one. Out the college, turn right, down to Tara St. dole office to sign on.
Every Thursday morning you had to go down to get your money - £59.63 if I remember rightly, and yeah it was a pain because you had to queue for an hour, but you met everyone you knew there and spent the time figuring out where to meet up that night.
Stop two. Continue down Tara St. to the quays, turn left, then left again onto D'Olier St. to the FAS office. Ask the nice man in the FAS office if you could get on a FAS scheme.
A FAS scheme was/ is like a National Intern Program, except the government paid you to work for a theatre or a charity, or a hospice or a school, or a community radio station, something in the public sphere that needed help and had no money. It differs from the new National Intern Program in that it didn't subsidize labour for a multinational that should be paying proper wages. And unlike the new NIP, if you needed to change your hours, or make your point strongly, or try new things, you were allowed. I have a feeling you'll have to work very hard in the NIP to be one of the interns that gets kept on.
On a FAS scheme everyone worked about 20 hours a week. Lots of important social capital got made and spent. There was a lot of sitting around chatting and learning about other people's lives and dreams. A lot of bad coffee was drunk. I sat in a Portakabin in Coolock for a few months and dreamed up a community arts festival. A friend of mine ran a radio station. Another friend of mine managed a domestic abuse shelter.
The other twenty hours a week, you lived your life. You made art, or wrote, or helped run a magazine, or a theatre collective and of course you had some class of a nixer job so you could eat meat a couple of times a week.
You went to the cinema during the day.
Eventually, the world turned, the economy got better, all those compatriots of mine who had studied real subjects, like computer engineering, got the multinationals interested in Ireland, and we all landed in the real world. Started making a little money.
A little money.
That's the thing. The wages will be lower now. You'll have to work your way up to the big bucks for a few years.
Life's a bitch to random generations.
This recession business happened to us.
It's happening to you.
It didn't happen to the one in between.
But, far worse things happened to previous generations.
And the fair trade coffee is at least drinkable nowadays.
You'll be the better generation for it.
And we should spare a thought for those Palestinian 18 - 24 year olds who have no future to look forward to, only the bitter harvest of what's being sown today.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
A shift from Victorian thinking
I have mentioned to people here a number of times that I find the Victorian model of caring for the poor that is played out in Nova Scotia quite stunning in its dinosaurosity. I usually get the Nova Scotia huh stare for that, and it's not just my unacceptable use of the non-word dinosaurosity.
Poverty is usually structurally-based, I explain.
More staring.
People who are poor are generally poor because there's some flaw in the design of the society's structures, not because they are lazy or bad, I explain.
Shift to polite staring.
For example, the best way to get a job here is through networking, yeah... so, if you're poor and you don't know any working people/ golf people/ can't join a gym/ drive to a volunteering event, then your chances of getting a job go down, yeah... and that's a structural issue in society....
Extreme polite staring with added uncomfortable shuffle.
Sheesh.... I never know if they think I'm wrong, or they think I'm insane, or if they just don't know what the hell I'm talking about.
Then today, I get this in an email from some social policy institute in Canada (the Caledon Instititue I think.... I get so many).
How I chuckled... hahahaha.... they just think I'm a bleedin' socialist, that's what!!!!
Community Roles in Policy Sherri Torjman, January 2009
There has been growing interest in recent years in place-based interventions and their unique contribution to tackling complex issues, such as poverty. While communities are pursuing a range of direct interventions, they are recognizing increasingly that the problems faced by individuals and households living with low income result not from their own weaknesses but rather from problems and barriers in the broader economic and social system. This paper discusses the following activities in which communities can engage with respect to policy:
· monitoring policy developments
· building an evidence base
· enabling access to existing benefits
· improving programs and services
· creating new programs or services
· reducing basic costs
· designing appropriate environments
· creating contextual change
· reducing barriers and disincentives
· assessing policy impact.
ISBN - 1-55382-328-1
29 pages
Read away, boys and girls.
Now, I wonder if the wonderful Irish policy-makers who gave us the national anti-poverty strategy and the partnerships approach to urban regeneration, etc, have figured out the structural causes of the latest kerfuffle in the nation's finances.
Or do they give a crap about some rich blokes who've got caught with their billions exposed?
Prob'ly not.
Poverty is usually structurally-based, I explain.
More staring.
People who are poor are generally poor because there's some flaw in the design of the society's structures, not because they are lazy or bad, I explain.
Shift to polite staring.
For example, the best way to get a job here is through networking, yeah... so, if you're poor and you don't know any working people/ golf people/ can't join a gym/ drive to a volunteering event, then your chances of getting a job go down, yeah... and that's a structural issue in society....
Extreme polite staring with added uncomfortable shuffle.
Sheesh.... I never know if they think I'm wrong, or they think I'm insane, or if they just don't know what the hell I'm talking about.
Then today, I get this in an email from some social policy institute in Canada (the Caledon Instititue I think.... I get so many).
How I chuckled... hahahaha.... they just think I'm a bleedin' socialist, that's what!!!!
Community Roles in Policy Sherri Torjman, January 2009
There has been growing interest in recent years in place-based interventions and their unique contribution to tackling complex issues, such as poverty. While communities are pursuing a range of direct interventions, they are recognizing increasingly that the problems faced by individuals and households living with low income result not from their own weaknesses but rather from problems and barriers in the broader economic and social system. This paper discusses the following activities in which communities can engage with respect to policy:
· monitoring policy developments
· building an evidence base
· enabling access to existing benefits
· improving programs and services
· creating new programs or services
· reducing basic costs
· designing appropriate environments
· creating contextual change
· reducing barriers and disincentives
· assessing policy impact.
ISBN - 1-55382-328-1
29 pages
Read away, boys and girls.
Now, I wonder if the wonderful Irish policy-makers who gave us the national anti-poverty strategy and the partnerships approach to urban regeneration, etc, have figured out the structural causes of the latest kerfuffle in the nation's finances.
Or do they give a crap about some rich blokes who've got caught with their billions exposed?
Prob'ly not.
Thursday, January 01, 2009
The real New Year's Post
I've had a quick scoot around some of my favourite blogs and people are talking about resolutions and stuff. Some people are even looking back at last year's resolutions and seeing how they did.
So how did Queenie do?
Queenie didn't have any resolutions in 2007 that she wrote down.
I had to go back to 2006, and it's not even a list of resolutions, it's more a stream of consciousness about various aspects of my personality and life, some of which I really should improve if possible, and some of which is beyond my control completely.
http://sadpercy.blogspot.com/2007/01/in-response-to-my-previous-post-when-i.html
However, having looked at it, there's been some progress, so here is my new dictat.
New Year's Resolutions should run for TWO YEARS. That way, you get to faff around for a year not doing them, then get your act together the second year.
Much easier.
Which means less possibility of feeling bad because you've 'failed' in some way. Which I have always felt is the Achilles Heel of New Year's Resolutions.
So.... how did I do?
Sitting around feeling sorry for myself in November.
Many many Novembers have been spent this way. It was something that really really annoyed me about myself, but not something I ever felt I could change. However, this year I didn't sit around depressed and feeling sorry for myself. Instead, I bought a house and gave up smoking in November, which meant that I was very stressed (very very stressed) some of the time and my sleep pattern went to hell in a handbasket.
But I got shit done in November. For the first time ever.
December, I did some weeping. But that was due to tiredness, the crappy weather, and the lack of a trip home. And the continuing stress of moving, not smoking, etc.
And it was nothing like the depression that used to floor me in November years ago.
(I have a confession to make by the way, I fell off the smoking wagon over Christmas, but in my defence I can say: I was being driven demented by the karmic activities of the world, I didn't buy any cigarettes, I didn't smoke a daytime cigarette, I am back on the smoking wagon again, and 2009 is the year I won't smoke any cigarettes, so I am okay about it).
Wean myself off television.
We still have a television. When Kitty was here it was necessary, because she needed to have the tv on all the time, being a member of the reality tv generation. But now Kitty is gone, there's no need to have a tv package, which incidentally costs $54.95 per month plus tax.
Which is $745 a year.
Which is a tank of furnace oil.
Or a new laptop.
Hmmm, I wonder whether we should have a tv service this year. I should talk about it to the man who uses the service. The only shows I watch are News at 10 in the winter, The Tudors and The Border. That's nine hours a week for twenty four weeks. Himself only watches about another hour a day in the winter.
That's $3.10 per hour of television watched.
Christ, it's cheaper to park downtown.
Although, if you add in the NHL play-offs in the spring, that would come down some.
Needing other people's affirmation to feel good about myself.
Much better. Much much better.
Fuck other people. I mostly don't care what they think anymore.
Although I must say, the reader who made anonymous comments about how boring and self-indulgent my blog was really needled me and has me second guessing my writing a bit. But, then again, if it's that boring, move the fuck on.... Having said that, I suspect it may have been someone I have the joy to know, who has the personality of a thirsty rattlesnake trussed up in a plastic bag, which would make it less hurtful.
Also, I got my Permanent Residency last year, which meant I could get a better job, which meant I got away from a lot of negative stuff, which was great. Of course, there's negative stuff in my current job, because there always is negativity in a paid working environment, but I don't care about it, because it's just other people.
With regards to my appearance, getting a proper job meant all kinds of exciting, albeit really basic health and dental activity this year, which improved my confidence a lot.
Also, I have started using NeoStrata's Oil Free Smoothing Lotion, Level 3, which is one of those AHA type products, and it has taken about five years off my face (even before I stopped smoking).
The beauty manager in the Shoppers Drugmart on Herring Cove Rd. deserves a big shout out. She worked with me until we got a moisturiser that dealt with all my issues, and she didn't charge me a penny until we got the right one. She just gave me a bit in a little jar and got me to report back in a few days. Then onto the next one until we hit paydirt.
That's what a beauty manager should do. She's an older woman of course, so she understands its not about the packaging or the price, it's about pushing back against the inevitable as cost effectively as possible.
I went into her yesterday and showed her the bags under my eyes (which are gignormous right now) and she sent me off with some products to try out for a week.
If she sorts out the bags under my eyes I am going to nominate her for the Order of Canada.
Fuck the novel.
Well, this resolution went exceedingly well. I have had two guilt-free years where I can read whatever I want now without having to think that I should be trying to write something myself.
In 2007, I sold a lot of photos and photo cards, but 2008 did not go well at all, because I didn't have time to work on my photography at all. I didn't even take many interesting pictures this year. This year's third resolution is to take the Digital Photography course in the NSCC. I will leave it till the spring though, as I have too much on over the next two months.
I have enough things.
So I went out and bought a house to put them all in and a car to drive them over there.
Well done, Queenie. Nice bit of non-consumerism there.
Although, to be fair, I did save like a bastard this year, in order to afford deposit on said house.
But I have not stopped buying books. The African tribal art collection is growing apace. I made a few trips to Biscuit this year for some new clothes. And I invested in a couple of pieces of furniture so that we can have people to stay, a table to eat on, etc.
However, I think Himself and I do pretty well on the recycled, frugality stuff, so I'm not going to sweat this. And next year I will have no money at all, so I guess I will achieve the non-consumption resolution pretty easily.
Auld Dog column
That went pretty well, and I loved the stuff people wrote in their columns. I still treasure them. I was hoping to put them together with some photos and publish a little book of them, but we never got to the magic number (I can't remember what it was now), so I never got round to it.
Maybe this year....
So.... what is my resolution for 2009?
Apart from the three or four I've already listed, my main resolution for this year is to innoculate myself better against the irrational, self-obsessed rage that has pounded us for too many years now.
I hope this year is a good one for everyone, and that all the panic and mayhem settles down and we emerge from it feeling more like neighbours and less like consumer capitalist spending units.
And if you are in trouble, cut up your fucking credit cards.
It's the most liberating thing you will ever do, trust me.
Bless xx Queenie
So how did Queenie do?
Queenie didn't have any resolutions in 2007 that she wrote down.
I had to go back to 2006, and it's not even a list of resolutions, it's more a stream of consciousness about various aspects of my personality and life, some of which I really should improve if possible, and some of which is beyond my control completely.
http://sadpercy.blogspot.com/2007/01/in-response-to-my-previous-post-when-i.html
However, having looked at it, there's been some progress, so here is my new dictat.
New Year's Resolutions should run for TWO YEARS. That way, you get to faff around for a year not doing them, then get your act together the second year.
Much easier.
Which means less possibility of feeling bad because you've 'failed' in some way. Which I have always felt is the Achilles Heel of New Year's Resolutions.
So.... how did I do?
Sitting around feeling sorry for myself in November.
Many many Novembers have been spent this way. It was something that really really annoyed me about myself, but not something I ever felt I could change. However, this year I didn't sit around depressed and feeling sorry for myself. Instead, I bought a house and gave up smoking in November, which meant that I was very stressed (very very stressed) some of the time and my sleep pattern went to hell in a handbasket.
But I got shit done in November. For the first time ever.
December, I did some weeping. But that was due to tiredness, the crappy weather, and the lack of a trip home. And the continuing stress of moving, not smoking, etc.
And it was nothing like the depression that used to floor me in November years ago.
(I have a confession to make by the way, I fell off the smoking wagon over Christmas, but in my defence I can say: I was being driven demented by the karmic activities of the world, I didn't buy any cigarettes, I didn't smoke a daytime cigarette, I am back on the smoking wagon again, and 2009 is the year I won't smoke any cigarettes, so I am okay about it).
Wean myself off television.
We still have a television. When Kitty was here it was necessary, because she needed to have the tv on all the time, being a member of the reality tv generation. But now Kitty is gone, there's no need to have a tv package, which incidentally costs $54.95 per month plus tax.
Which is $745 a year.
Which is a tank of furnace oil.
Or a new laptop.
Hmmm, I wonder whether we should have a tv service this year. I should talk about it to the man who uses the service. The only shows I watch are News at 10 in the winter, The Tudors and The Border. That's nine hours a week for twenty four weeks. Himself only watches about another hour a day in the winter.
That's $3.10 per hour of television watched.
Christ, it's cheaper to park downtown.
Although, if you add in the NHL play-offs in the spring, that would come down some.
Needing other people's affirmation to feel good about myself.
Much better. Much much better.
Fuck other people. I mostly don't care what they think anymore.
Although I must say, the reader who made anonymous comments about how boring and self-indulgent my blog was really needled me and has me second guessing my writing a bit. But, then again, if it's that boring, move the fuck on.... Having said that, I suspect it may have been someone I have the joy to know, who has the personality of a thirsty rattlesnake trussed up in a plastic bag, which would make it less hurtful.
Also, I got my Permanent Residency last year, which meant I could get a better job, which meant I got away from a lot of negative stuff, which was great. Of course, there's negative stuff in my current job, because there always is negativity in a paid working environment, but I don't care about it, because it's just other people.
With regards to my appearance, getting a proper job meant all kinds of exciting, albeit really basic health and dental activity this year, which improved my confidence a lot.
Also, I have started using NeoStrata's Oil Free Smoothing Lotion, Level 3, which is one of those AHA type products, and it has taken about five years off my face (even before I stopped smoking).
The beauty manager in the Shoppers Drugmart on Herring Cove Rd. deserves a big shout out. She worked with me until we got a moisturiser that dealt with all my issues, and she didn't charge me a penny until we got the right one. She just gave me a bit in a little jar and got me to report back in a few days. Then onto the next one until we hit paydirt.
That's what a beauty manager should do. She's an older woman of course, so she understands its not about the packaging or the price, it's about pushing back against the inevitable as cost effectively as possible.
I went into her yesterday and showed her the bags under my eyes (which are gignormous right now) and she sent me off with some products to try out for a week.
If she sorts out the bags under my eyes I am going to nominate her for the Order of Canada.
Fuck the novel.
Well, this resolution went exceedingly well. I have had two guilt-free years where I can read whatever I want now without having to think that I should be trying to write something myself.
In 2007, I sold a lot of photos and photo cards, but 2008 did not go well at all, because I didn't have time to work on my photography at all. I didn't even take many interesting pictures this year. This year's third resolution is to take the Digital Photography course in the NSCC. I will leave it till the spring though, as I have too much on over the next two months.
I have enough things.
So I went out and bought a house to put them all in and a car to drive them over there.
Well done, Queenie. Nice bit of non-consumerism there.
Although, to be fair, I did save like a bastard this year, in order to afford deposit on said house.
But I have not stopped buying books. The African tribal art collection is growing apace. I made a few trips to Biscuit this year for some new clothes. And I invested in a couple of pieces of furniture so that we can have people to stay, a table to eat on, etc.
However, I think Himself and I do pretty well on the recycled, frugality stuff, so I'm not going to sweat this. And next year I will have no money at all, so I guess I will achieve the non-consumption resolution pretty easily.
Auld Dog column
That went pretty well, and I loved the stuff people wrote in their columns. I still treasure them. I was hoping to put them together with some photos and publish a little book of them, but we never got to the magic number (I can't remember what it was now), so I never got round to it.
Maybe this year....
So.... what is my resolution for 2009?
Apart from the three or four I've already listed, my main resolution for this year is to innoculate myself better against the irrational, self-obsessed rage that has pounded us for too many years now.
I hope this year is a good one for everyone, and that all the panic and mayhem settles down and we emerge from it feeling more like neighbours and less like consumer capitalist spending units.
And if you are in trouble, cut up your fucking credit cards.
It's the most liberating thing you will ever do, trust me.
Bless xx Queenie
Finally 2009 is here. Which means 2008 is over. Which is probably a good thing, but still, every year is precious.
I wonder what it will be like?
So far, it's a screaming white blizzard that started last night. My world has disappeared into white. All I can see from the window is next door's trees and the side of their house. No paths, no road (where is the plough?), no horizon. The wind is blowing the snow off the neighbour's roof onto the ground below. Thankfully they are not there, because they would not be able to open their front door now.
CBC Radio 2 is playing the full length version of Star Wars, by John Williams, on their classical music show this afternoon so I am listening to that. We are at the bit in the music where Leia and Luke find themselves having an irresistable pull towards each other, but somehow know it's not the gold bikini type of pull.
OH NOOOOO!!!! We're onto another piece!!
BOM BOM BOM BOMDIBOM BOMDIBOM...
I'm sure you know which bit we're at now.
One of my new year resolutions for 2009 is to convince Himself that I am walking down the aisle to this piece of music.
So far, he is pretty sure I am only messing when I say it.
Himself is ploughing snow of course, so I am on my own for New Year's Day until at least 11pm tonight. Oh Joy.
Count your blessings, Queenie!!!
1. I am not out ploughing snow. 2. The power is still on. 3. The Internet cable is still working. 4. I don't have to go to work until Monday.
I have to start packing though. Today is the day I promised to start packing up the stuff I have accumulated over the last three and a half years in order to be able to move it across the city to the new place in two weeks.
I do not want to do this. I do not want to pack. I do not want to move. I do not want to organize. I am completely fed up of the endless endless logistical and organizational bullcrap I end up doing here in Canada.
I want to go to bed for four days and not get up for anything apart from a hot drop in my coffee mug or a new book.
In fact, my second New Year's Resolution is to become afflicted by some mysterious ailment that reduces my vastly superior organizational skills to those of a normal person, after which I won't be compelle to organize everything and everyone anymore, because other people can in fact do it just as well, or... shock, horror Queenie... better than me.
In layman's terms, I will chill the fuck out this year.
Time passes as Queenie looks at vacation brochures.
Himself has just called and told me not to pack anything today. We will do it at the weekend together.
Sometimes, I swear he must have implanted a listening device in my brain early on.
His knowledge of what I'm thinking is uncanny.
Now the CBC is playing Beethoven's Ninth.
Very uplifting.
More time passes as Queenie messes around on Facebook.
Facebook was the crack of 2008, wasn't it?! I would sit down at the computer in the evening, all ready to blog, and after an hour of desultory faffing on FB, my eyes/ hands would be sore and that would be it.
It is very handy though. For checking up on your friends, without having to ever speak to them.
More time passes as Queenie starts to clean up last night's debris and sweeps half the floor.
Rich Terfry, aka Buck 65, hosts the CBC Radio 2 Drive show from 3 - 6pm every day, which is a most excellent Canadian, indie and some world music extravaganza every day. (That would be available on http://www.cbc.ca/ from 7 - 10pm every evening, for Buck's Irish fans). Right now he's doing a Montreal special for New Year's Day.
I am going to post this, because it is going nowhere. And start again.
So far, it's a screaming white blizzard that started last night. My world has disappeared into white. All I can see from the window is next door's trees and the side of their house. No paths, no road (where is the plough?), no horizon. The wind is blowing the snow off the neighbour's roof onto the ground below. Thankfully they are not there, because they would not be able to open their front door now.
CBC Radio 2 is playing the full length version of Star Wars, by John Williams, on their classical music show this afternoon so I am listening to that. We are at the bit in the music where Leia and Luke find themselves having an irresistable pull towards each other, but somehow know it's not the gold bikini type of pull.
OH NOOOOO!!!! We're onto another piece!!
BOM BOM BOM BOMDIBOM BOMDIBOM...
I'm sure you know which bit we're at now.
One of my new year resolutions for 2009 is to convince Himself that I am walking down the aisle to this piece of music.
So far, he is pretty sure I am only messing when I say it.
Himself is ploughing snow of course, so I am on my own for New Year's Day until at least 11pm tonight. Oh Joy.
Count your blessings, Queenie!!!
1. I am not out ploughing snow. 2. The power is still on. 3. The Internet cable is still working. 4. I don't have to go to work until Monday.
I have to start packing though. Today is the day I promised to start packing up the stuff I have accumulated over the last three and a half years in order to be able to move it across the city to the new place in two weeks.
I do not want to do this. I do not want to pack. I do not want to move. I do not want to organize. I am completely fed up of the endless endless logistical and organizational bullcrap I end up doing here in Canada.
I want to go to bed for four days and not get up for anything apart from a hot drop in my coffee mug or a new book.
In fact, my second New Year's Resolution is to become afflicted by some mysterious ailment that reduces my vastly superior organizational skills to those of a normal person, after which I won't be compelle to organize everything and everyone anymore, because other people can in fact do it just as well, or... shock, horror Queenie... better than me.
In layman's terms, I will chill the fuck out this year.
Time passes as Queenie looks at vacation brochures.
Himself has just called and told me not to pack anything today. We will do it at the weekend together.
Sometimes, I swear he must have implanted a listening device in my brain early on.
His knowledge of what I'm thinking is uncanny.
Now the CBC is playing Beethoven's Ninth.
Very uplifting.
More time passes as Queenie messes around on Facebook.
Facebook was the crack of 2008, wasn't it?! I would sit down at the computer in the evening, all ready to blog, and after an hour of desultory faffing on FB, my eyes/ hands would be sore and that would be it.
It is very handy though. For checking up on your friends, without having to ever speak to them.
More time passes as Queenie starts to clean up last night's debris and sweeps half the floor.
Rich Terfry, aka Buck 65, hosts the CBC Radio 2 Drive show from 3 - 6pm every day, which is a most excellent Canadian, indie and some world music extravaganza every day. (That would be available on http://www.cbc.ca/ from 7 - 10pm every evening, for Buck's Irish fans). Right now he's doing a Montreal special for New Year's Day.
I am going to post this, because it is going nowhere. And start again.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
The Cruiser departs
I see the Cruiser is departed this world at the ripe old age of 91. He had a good long life anyway.
His books always made me feel incredibly stupid, so I shall continue that tradition by not saying anything intelligent now either.
His books always made me feel incredibly stupid, so I shall continue that tradition by not saying anything intelligent now either.
Monday, December 08, 2008
Immaculate Shopping Lennon Day goes pear-shaped
When I was growing up, 8th December was a religious holiday in Ireland (well it still is I assume). The Feast of the Conception of the Virgin. Who was conceived by Elizabeth. Who is my favourite saint. For a number of reasons I won't go into, mainly around not really wanting to be the mother of the flippin' Virgin Mary.
It was also culchie shopping day in Dublin. Which is also known as GOIN"ONNATRAINTOSEESANTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Santy is the Irish for Santa.
Then it turned into John Lennon Died Day around thirty years ago, which was too early to mean anything much to me, even though I know it's important.
Now I live in Canada it's just another day when I feel all weird and homesick and everyone else has no idea why.
I am sitting in Cape Breton International Airport as I begin to write this, but there is no wi-fi so I will post when I get home.
If I get home…
Today was a day. I am going to rename this day Queenie's realization that winter is going to happen every year till she leaves Canada Day.
I wake at 4am because Himself’s cell phone is ringing. Normally when Himself’s cell phone rings at that hour of the morning in the winter, it means there is snow on the ground. I am so sleepy I don’t figure that out this morning, even as I listen to Himself wash, dress, make coffee and get ready to leave the house. I am irrationally annoyed because he is up so early.
Above me, the neighbours German Shepherd is pounding around begging to go out for a pee.
Finally, I call out to Himself and he says, ‘there’s a foot of snow on the ground, baby, be careful driving to the airport’ and then leaves to plough it away from all the shopping malls.
After an hour’s pointless worrying about snow and driving and lateness and the complexity of my day, I get back to sleep and have a bizarre dream about my aunt and cousin from Dublin who are visiting us in Halifax, but actually the city is Florence, Italy (this is my subconscious not wanting to deal with snow, I think). And in the dream Himself is a famous artist working in scrap metal (I don’t want to know what this is my subconscious not dealing with right now).
The alarm clock doesn’t wake me up at 5.30am when it was supposed to because I have forgotten to switch it on, so when I wake up in a panic at 5.47am, my day is already pear-shaped.
It takes about 15 minutes to scrape the snow off the car, see. And I have to be at the airport for 7am.
Up. Shower. Dress for a formal workshop presentation.
Coffee. Pot full.
I put snow clothes on over proper clothes.
Tramp downstairs. Scrape snow off car.
Tramp back upstairs.
Get coffee mug, laptop, proper boots for inside.
Tramp back downstairs with an armful of stuff.
Check I have torch, blanket, safety blanket, reflector panels, etc in the car.
Defrost the front windscreen again.
Finally, I back the car out of driveway at 6.36am. Everyone else in the building is still asleep. Apart from the dog of course.
Dogs don't shovel snow though.
Not too bad on time. My day is not too pear-shaped, but pear-shaped enough.
I drive to airport in the lightly falling snow.
In the dark of course.
On unploughed roads of course.
At 60kms per hour.
Because I’m too scared to drive any faster in case I crash, or in case Himself finds out somehow that I’ve done it, and has a fit at me for being so stupid.
I still haven’t recovered from the time I tried to sneak up to Cape Breton by road in the snow last winter because I was new at my job and thought it was important and Himself KNEW I was doing that, even though he was at work, and called me on my cell on the highway and told me I was to come home now or not at all.
Himself places a care call from the plough truck.
What speed am I doing?
I tell him.
Am I in four wheel drive?
Yes.
Good.
Keep ‘er slow now.
He listens to me moan through my blue tooth device about how unfair my life is from December to March every year. And how my snow driving stomach knots are really bad this morning, etc.
Then he has to go plough more snow.
At the airport, the signs for the long term carpark are covered in snow, and I have never parked there, so I drive around in confusion for a bit, then get lucky and follow the recently arrived LTP bus to the car park.
I park the Explorer in a snow drift.
There was nowhere else.
Anyways, it’s an Explorer, for chrissakes. It’s for moments like this.
I get on the airport bus at 7.35am.
Then I realize I am still wearing my snow boots.
I apologize to everyone on the bus for delaying the bus. Get off bus. Climb over snow drift to car. Change into proper leather-soled boots. Slither back down snow drift to bus. Re-embark bus.
We drive to the Departures Lounge in the dawn glimmer.
I have to re-check-in at 7.52am because my mobile device barcode check-in foolishness is just that.
That makes it too late for the latte and muffin I’d been promising myself on the highway…
I take off my boots and my belt in the security zone because I am beeping.
I put them back on.
I sit in the Departures Lounge for one hour with no coffee.
Finally, with the permission of the ground crew, I make a break for Tim Hortons…. Starbucks is too far away, way over in the International Flights Departure Area.
I get back to Gate 6 to find everyone has boarded.
But I can take my Timmy’s on the plane.
Hooray!!
Fifteen of us sit on the commuter plane to Cape Breton for two and a half hours while every other friggin’ plane at the airport gets de-iced before us.
No wonder Cape Bretoners are pure mule.
Now I am going to be late.
Frantically, as we barrel up to the de-icer, I email how-to-facilitate-workshop instructions to a colleague in Cape Breton and beg him to save my ass.
Then we are taking off and I have to switch off my phone without knowing whether my ass is being saved.
I panic the whole way to Cape Breton, while sitting in front of the man with the worst halitosis on the planet.
I can still smell his breath.
I decide to take my Champix on an empty stomach because I couldn’t feel any more nauseous.
Actually I could.
We get to Cape Breton only an hour after the start of the workshop.
Hoo-fuckin-ray.
The single taxi parked outside the airport has nobody in it.
I run around the airport trying to find the taxi driver.
I find the taxi driver.
I impress the urgency of my trip on the taxi driver.
He tells me he’s been here since 7.30am without a fare, so he’s taking a carload.
The taxi driver takes his time rounding up a full mini-van load.
It includes halitosis man.
I get into the front of the taxi, speechless with fury.
SPEECHLESS!
The workshop venue is the last stop on the taxi route.
I throw the money at taxi-driver who throws the receipt at me.
I burst into workshop to find everyone working quietly at correct point in workshop, thanks to innate genius of my colleague.
He is more pleased to see me than I am to see him, however, and he hands workshop over to me in alacratious relief before I even get my snow coat off.
I manage to complete the workshop in only a mild state of anxiety, which eases when I realize the participants are enjoying it.
This workshop is my baby right now. Everyone must coo at it. Everyone.
My colleague drives me back to Cape Breton International Airport.
I blag my way onto the early flight home. Which is late of course.
I go to the restaurant and order sausages and pancakes and tea for my nerves.
They burn the pancakes.
How can you burn pancakes?
The plane was due in at 4pm, but it’s arrives at 5pm covered in de-icing goo.
I wonder why…
Right now, I am sitting with seven other people and the pilot on the commuter plane from Cape Breton, bowling through the winter skies towards home.
Himself has texted to say he will be home around nine, hopefully.
That means it has probably stopped snowing in Halifax. But it’s supposed to go down to minus 10 tonight, so I hope that I scraped enough snow off the car so it’s not frozen too much.
If it’s not frozen too much, I can open my car door to get my snow boots on. With my snow boots on, I can stand up long enough to haul the ice scraper out. With the ice scraper in my hand, I can scrape the ice off the windscreen and windows and car lights. With my car in compliance with the highway winter code, I can see my way out of the snow drift and then out of the car park and finally onto the highway and home.
If not, I’ll have to hang onto the door and yank at it till it opens and I fall on my ass.
Normally I don’t drink on a Monday, but all I can think of right now is that I am two hours and a snow drift away from a big glass of red wine.
I get to the airport and I find the bus and we find my car and I get the door open after a couple of yanks and I sit there until my fingers are warm enough to drive (it's now -18) and I drive home in the dark and I get home and it's HOME and then I realise...
... NOBODY'S FUCKING SHOVELLED THE FRONT DOOR STEPS.
Anyways, it only took a few minutes and now I'm inside in the warm listening to Dragon's Den and finishing this and soooo glad I'm not out in the cold.
I hates the winter....
It was also culchie shopping day in Dublin. Which is also known as GOIN"ONNATRAINTOSEESANTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Santy is the Irish for Santa.
Then it turned into John Lennon Died Day around thirty years ago, which was too early to mean anything much to me, even though I know it's important.
Now I live in Canada it's just another day when I feel all weird and homesick and everyone else has no idea why.
I am sitting in Cape Breton International Airport as I begin to write this, but there is no wi-fi so I will post when I get home.
If I get home…
Today was a day. I am going to rename this day Queenie's realization that winter is going to happen every year till she leaves Canada Day.
I wake at 4am because Himself’s cell phone is ringing. Normally when Himself’s cell phone rings at that hour of the morning in the winter, it means there is snow on the ground. I am so sleepy I don’t figure that out this morning, even as I listen to Himself wash, dress, make coffee and get ready to leave the house. I am irrationally annoyed because he is up so early.
Above me, the neighbours German Shepherd is pounding around begging to go out for a pee.
Finally, I call out to Himself and he says, ‘there’s a foot of snow on the ground, baby, be careful driving to the airport’ and then leaves to plough it away from all the shopping malls.
After an hour’s pointless worrying about snow and driving and lateness and the complexity of my day, I get back to sleep and have a bizarre dream about my aunt and cousin from Dublin who are visiting us in Halifax, but actually the city is Florence, Italy (this is my subconscious not wanting to deal with snow, I think). And in the dream Himself is a famous artist working in scrap metal (I don’t want to know what this is my subconscious not dealing with right now).
The alarm clock doesn’t wake me up at 5.30am when it was supposed to because I have forgotten to switch it on, so when I wake up in a panic at 5.47am, my day is already pear-shaped.
It takes about 15 minutes to scrape the snow off the car, see. And I have to be at the airport for 7am.
Up. Shower. Dress for a formal workshop presentation.
Coffee. Pot full.
I put snow clothes on over proper clothes.
Tramp downstairs. Scrape snow off car.
Tramp back upstairs.
Get coffee mug, laptop, proper boots for inside.
Tramp back downstairs with an armful of stuff.
Check I have torch, blanket, safety blanket, reflector panels, etc in the car.
Defrost the front windscreen again.
Finally, I back the car out of driveway at 6.36am. Everyone else in the building is still asleep. Apart from the dog of course.
Dogs don't shovel snow though.
Not too bad on time. My day is not too pear-shaped, but pear-shaped enough.
I drive to airport in the lightly falling snow.
In the dark of course.
On unploughed roads of course.
At 60kms per hour.
Because I’m too scared to drive any faster in case I crash, or in case Himself finds out somehow that I’ve done it, and has a fit at me for being so stupid.
I still haven’t recovered from the time I tried to sneak up to Cape Breton by road in the snow last winter because I was new at my job and thought it was important and Himself KNEW I was doing that, even though he was at work, and called me on my cell on the highway and told me I was to come home now or not at all.
Himself places a care call from the plough truck.
What speed am I doing?
I tell him.
Am I in four wheel drive?
Yes.
Good.
Keep ‘er slow now.
He listens to me moan through my blue tooth device about how unfair my life is from December to March every year. And how my snow driving stomach knots are really bad this morning, etc.
Then he has to go plough more snow.
At the airport, the signs for the long term carpark are covered in snow, and I have never parked there, so I drive around in confusion for a bit, then get lucky and follow the recently arrived LTP bus to the car park.
I park the Explorer in a snow drift.
There was nowhere else.
Anyways, it’s an Explorer, for chrissakes. It’s for moments like this.
I get on the airport bus at 7.35am.
Then I realize I am still wearing my snow boots.
I apologize to everyone on the bus for delaying the bus. Get off bus. Climb over snow drift to car. Change into proper leather-soled boots. Slither back down snow drift to bus. Re-embark bus.
We drive to the Departures Lounge in the dawn glimmer.
I have to re-check-in at 7.52am because my mobile device barcode check-in foolishness is just that.
That makes it too late for the latte and muffin I’d been promising myself on the highway…
I take off my boots and my belt in the security zone because I am beeping.
I put them back on.
I sit in the Departures Lounge for one hour with no coffee.
Finally, with the permission of the ground crew, I make a break for Tim Hortons…. Starbucks is too far away, way over in the International Flights Departure Area.
I get back to Gate 6 to find everyone has boarded.
But I can take my Timmy’s on the plane.
Hooray!!
Fifteen of us sit on the commuter plane to Cape Breton for two and a half hours while every other friggin’ plane at the airport gets de-iced before us.
No wonder Cape Bretoners are pure mule.
Now I am going to be late.
Frantically, as we barrel up to the de-icer, I email how-to-facilitate-workshop instructions to a colleague in Cape Breton and beg him to save my ass.
Then we are taking off and I have to switch off my phone without knowing whether my ass is being saved.
I panic the whole way to Cape Breton, while sitting in front of the man with the worst halitosis on the planet.
I can still smell his breath.
I decide to take my Champix on an empty stomach because I couldn’t feel any more nauseous.
Actually I could.
We get to Cape Breton only an hour after the start of the workshop.
Hoo-fuckin-ray.
The single taxi parked outside the airport has nobody in it.
I run around the airport trying to find the taxi driver.
I find the taxi driver.
I impress the urgency of my trip on the taxi driver.
He tells me he’s been here since 7.30am without a fare, so he’s taking a carload.
The taxi driver takes his time rounding up a full mini-van load.
It includes halitosis man.
I get into the front of the taxi, speechless with fury.
SPEECHLESS!
The workshop venue is the last stop on the taxi route.
I throw the money at taxi-driver who throws the receipt at me.
I burst into workshop to find everyone working quietly at correct point in workshop, thanks to innate genius of my colleague.
He is more pleased to see me than I am to see him, however, and he hands workshop over to me in alacratious relief before I even get my snow coat off.
I manage to complete the workshop in only a mild state of anxiety, which eases when I realize the participants are enjoying it.
This workshop is my baby right now. Everyone must coo at it. Everyone.
My colleague drives me back to Cape Breton International Airport.
I blag my way onto the early flight home. Which is late of course.
I go to the restaurant and order sausages and pancakes and tea for my nerves.
They burn the pancakes.
How can you burn pancakes?
The plane was due in at 4pm, but it’s arrives at 5pm covered in de-icing goo.
I wonder why…
Right now, I am sitting with seven other people and the pilot on the commuter plane from Cape Breton, bowling through the winter skies towards home.
Himself has texted to say he will be home around nine, hopefully.
That means it has probably stopped snowing in Halifax. But it’s supposed to go down to minus 10 tonight, so I hope that I scraped enough snow off the car so it’s not frozen too much.
If it’s not frozen too much, I can open my car door to get my snow boots on. With my snow boots on, I can stand up long enough to haul the ice scraper out. With the ice scraper in my hand, I can scrape the ice off the windscreen and windows and car lights. With my car in compliance with the highway winter code, I can see my way out of the snow drift and then out of the car park and finally onto the highway and home.
If not, I’ll have to hang onto the door and yank at it till it opens and I fall on my ass.
Normally I don’t drink on a Monday, but all I can think of right now is that I am two hours and a snow drift away from a big glass of red wine.
I get to the airport and I find the bus and we find my car and I get the door open after a couple of yanks and I sit there until my fingers are warm enough to drive (it's now -18) and I drive home in the dark and I get home and it's HOME and then I realise...
... NOBODY'S FUCKING SHOVELLED THE FRONT DOOR STEPS.
Anyways, it only took a few minutes and now I'm inside in the warm listening to Dragon's Den and finishing this and soooo glad I'm not out in the cold.
I hates the winter....
Saturday, December 06, 2008
The Fall of the Court
Chocolate Court went on the rental market this morning.
Sniffle.
Queenie is sad.
Hopefully the next people will have as much fun here as we did.
Sniffle.
Queenie is sad.
Hopefully the next people will have as much fun here as we did.
To Coalesce or not to Coalesce
I can't be bothered trying to write about the mess that's going on in Canadian politics right now, so just read Jeffrey Simpson's article from the Globe and Mail this morning. It just about sums up what's going on.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081205.wsimpsonessay1206/BNStory/specialComment/home/?pageRequested=1
Alternatively, if you want a sense of what real Canadians think, you can read this article by Rick Mercer, from the same organ.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081205.wPOLmercer1205/BNStory/politics/home
With apologies to Knut fans.
Actually, the best comment I've read on all of this recently was from some Joe Bloe writing on the G&M site, who said what he wanted to see was Harper and Dion gone, replaced by Prentice and Ignatieff. Then we could get back to normal and watch them wiggle their stupendous eyebrows at each other across the floor of the House.
He he he...
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081205.wsimpsonessay1206/BNStory/specialComment/home/?pageRequested=1
Alternatively, if you want a sense of what real Canadians think, you can read this article by Rick Mercer, from the same organ.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081205.wPOLmercer1205/BNStory/politics/home
With apologies to Knut fans.
Actually, the best comment I've read on all of this recently was from some Joe Bloe writing on the G&M site, who said what he wanted to see was Harper and Dion gone, replaced by Prentice and Ignatieff. Then we could get back to normal and watch them wiggle their stupendous eyebrows at each other across the floor of the House.
He he he...
Thursday, December 04, 2008
The trouble is, we used to make things in this country....
... and now we just put our hands in the next guy's pockets....
We are about to watch Episode 12 of Season 2 of The Wire.
I don't know when normal service will be restored - there's too much to think about right now.
I still don't smoke.
Himself nearly doesn't smoke.
I don't know what kind of unfucked Canada is the last of right now, but it sure isn't democracy.
TTYL
We are about to watch Episode 12 of Season 2 of The Wire.
I don't know when normal service will be restored - there's too much to think about right now.
I still don't smoke.
Himself nearly doesn't smoke.
I don't know what kind of unfucked Canada is the last of right now, but it sure isn't democracy.
TTYL
Friday, November 21, 2008
House search: installment the latest
So the brilliant news is that Himself told his boss that he didn't want to do salt patrol this year because he was supposed to be getting married next year and he would like for that to happen and it definitely wouldn't if he worked 95 hours a week every week for the next five months. And his boss said that was fine, that he totally understood, so now he will be in charge of the biggest snow plough in the stable (big is best, of course) which means that he only has to go out when it's really bad. Instead of all the time. So we may even have a bit of a life this winter.
But of course we can't celebrate, because of course that has happened on the first day that we are all on storm watch here in Nova Scotia, with 30cm of snow and blowing snow forecast, and 80kmh winds until late tomorrow, so Himself is catching a few snores before he has to go plough the stuff away in the BIG PLOUGH (yet to be named), so people can go shopping tomorrow.
Why on earth people would bother leaving the house the day after that is beyond me, it's the first weekend of the year when you have an excuse to do absolutely nothing. But only five shopping weeks to christmas, so there you go.
So that means I am sort of alone right now and can blog. Hurrah!! Although James downstairs told me he was having a bonfire in the yard tonight. So I may have to go downstairs at some point to join in. Although it's too cold to stand in the yard, even in front of a fire. Plus the wood was all piled beside the firepit instead of under some cover, so it is wet and will take forever to light and will be smoky.
By the way, Accent Monkey, Himself and I are still laughing at that comment about trying to read your book .... still .... a day later....
I think some of you know now that we are coming to the end of an era. Apologies to those of you who don't. I can only send so many emails a day and then my hand seizes up. And I got an injection this afternoon and my left arm and hand is aching for some strange reason.
Yes, barring a major catastrophe, which is of course not unheard of Chez Queenie et Himself, we will be moving lake - and house - in January. The Melwood era will be over. We will be landing on Eagle, near Porters Lake.
We are finding solace in the continuation of the 'dark stuff' imagery.
But of course we can't celebrate, because of course that has happened on the first day that we are all on storm watch here in Nova Scotia, with 30cm of snow and blowing snow forecast, and 80kmh winds until late tomorrow, so Himself is catching a few snores before he has to go plough the stuff away in the BIG PLOUGH (yet to be named), so people can go shopping tomorrow.
Why on earth people would bother leaving the house the day after that is beyond me, it's the first weekend of the year when you have an excuse to do absolutely nothing. But only five shopping weeks to christmas, so there you go.
So that means I am sort of alone right now and can blog. Hurrah!! Although James downstairs told me he was having a bonfire in the yard tonight. So I may have to go downstairs at some point to join in. Although it's too cold to stand in the yard, even in front of a fire. Plus the wood was all piled beside the firepit instead of under some cover, so it is wet and will take forever to light and will be smoky.
By the way, Accent Monkey, Himself and I are still laughing at that comment about trying to read your book .... still .... a day later....
I think some of you know now that we are coming to the end of an era. Apologies to those of you who don't. I can only send so many emails a day and then my hand seizes up. And I got an injection this afternoon and my left arm and hand is aching for some strange reason.
Yes, barring a major catastrophe, which is of course not unheard of Chez Queenie et Himself, we will be moving lake - and house - in January. The Melwood era will be over. We will be landing on Eagle, near Porters Lake.
We are finding solace in the continuation of the 'dark stuff' imagery.
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Third time lucky
I see Myles has a nice photo of poppies on his blog today, it being Remembrance Day.
Lest we Forget.
Remembrance Day is a holiday in Canada, as there are many many veterans here from all kinds of wars, including two (I think) veterans of World War I who are still alive.
Of course, I totally forgot about what day it was, and booked a house viewing for the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Because I am from Foreign. So, when we tried to get down the road to see the house it was blocked off by the cops to keep it clear for the Legion parade.
The Legion won't mean anything to Irish readers, so I shall explain.
The Legion is a community centre for war veterans that serves cheap booze. Anyone can join a Legion and partake of said cheap booze whenever they want. They also hold dances and other socials and are the social centre of many small communities.
I suppose Legions are the Canadian equivalent of the local rugby or GAA club. Except that, instead of having to go to the odd rugby match in order to pretend you are in it for more than the cheap booze, you have to go to the Remembrance Day ceremonies.
Anyways, I digress, we got to the house eventually and it was not worth the gas to go look at it.
As usual.
I hate househunting. This is the third time I have done this.
Third time lucky I hope.
I keep moaning at my realtor; just find me a house and tell me what to write on the cheque. (Yes, in Canada, the purchaser has an estate agent as well as the seller).
She hasn't come up with anywhere yet. Well, to be fair, she only started being our realtor last week, when the old man we tried to buy a house from withdrew it from the market and wasted everyone's time for a week and a half. So in return for being nice about it (christamighty, it's HIS house, he doesn't have to sell it if he doesn't want to, although it would be nice if he didn't pretend he did), she said she'd help us find a house.
Up till now, we've found every house we've looked at. Himself spends hours on the Internet every night researching houses on MLS.ca (website of houses for sale through realtors) and kijiji (houses for private sale). If he makes me look at more than three a night I start to hyperventilate, so I am very glad that he is an Aquarian and likes this kind of work.
Those who know me know that the twice I bought a home, it was the first place I looked at. I just wanted a place.
However, this place has to be right, for the simple fact that it's not just me. It will be Himself's place too.
Also, it just has to be right. This is the house I will spend most of my forties in, I presume, so it needs to be hugely reaffirming and positive, so I can get on with whatever it is happens to me in my forties.
One of my friends, who is very organized, suggested we draw up a list of all the things we want in a house. That way, we can be sure everyone's needs are included and we can prioritise what we can do without.
It has to be the one.
That was all we could come up with.
I suggested we try harder. We thought for a while.
A garden, I said.
Not too difficult in Canada. Most houses come with a garden.
I came up with a house that you can have a puppy in.
Himself came up with woodstove.
That helped to narrow it down in wintery, pet-loving Nova Scotia, I can tell you!!
We're hopeless.
We'll know when we see it.
Anyways, after spending three months wandering around District 7 and telling each other that it was District 7 or nowhere, today we thought to hell with it and headed off in the opposite direction. I don't even know what District we were in. It was on the edge of the map.
An adventure.
Of course, even though it was a day off work, and the sun was shining and the sea was beautiful and it wasn't really too cold for Remembrance Day, I am on Champix right now and not supposed to want to smoke.
hahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
For most of every day right now, I am the Dark Overlord of Thundering Bitchland, and for the remainder I am a weeping mess. Also, because I am on Champix (the wonder drug that removes cravings, so you can break the habit- not), I am having the most vivid, lurid dreams every night and waking up completely freaked out by them at odd hours of the morning.
Put it like this, if I know you, you have been in one of my dreams lately, and you should be very relieved that I can't put them on You Tube.
Oh well, I want to quit. Third time lucky I hope.
As well as dealing with me, Himself has been fighting a deeply infected root canal gone wrong for the last couple of weeks, that has gotten so bad, it has sprouted a greenish-yellowish river of pus that seems to have spread up to his ear. He is on his second bout of penicillin and Tylenol 3 is his friend right now, so he snores like a bear all night and walks around with hot things attached to his face all day.
My, it was fun. Him driving around one-handed with a Large Double Double pressed against his jaw, and me crying with rage every time he didn't hear the mental directions I was reduced to thinking at him, because if I spoke out loud I would say 'give me a fucking cigarette NOW'.
Despite this, we found a house we liked.
If we manage to get this house, I will offer all my nicotine withdrawal rage up to whatever it is that ensures world peace and improved living standards for all.
If we don't, I will have to kill something. Hopefully just in one of my dreams.
Lest we Forget.
Remembrance Day is a holiday in Canada, as there are many many veterans here from all kinds of wars, including two (I think) veterans of World War I who are still alive.
Of course, I totally forgot about what day it was, and booked a house viewing for the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Because I am from Foreign. So, when we tried to get down the road to see the house it was blocked off by the cops to keep it clear for the Legion parade.
The Legion won't mean anything to Irish readers, so I shall explain.
The Legion is a community centre for war veterans that serves cheap booze. Anyone can join a Legion and partake of said cheap booze whenever they want. They also hold dances and other socials and are the social centre of many small communities.
I suppose Legions are the Canadian equivalent of the local rugby or GAA club. Except that, instead of having to go to the odd rugby match in order to pretend you are in it for more than the cheap booze, you have to go to the Remembrance Day ceremonies.
Anyways, I digress, we got to the house eventually and it was not worth the gas to go look at it.
As usual.
I hate househunting. This is the third time I have done this.
Third time lucky I hope.
I keep moaning at my realtor; just find me a house and tell me what to write on the cheque. (Yes, in Canada, the purchaser has an estate agent as well as the seller).
She hasn't come up with anywhere yet. Well, to be fair, she only started being our realtor last week, when the old man we tried to buy a house from withdrew it from the market and wasted everyone's time for a week and a half. So in return for being nice about it (christamighty, it's HIS house, he doesn't have to sell it if he doesn't want to, although it would be nice if he didn't pretend he did), she said she'd help us find a house.
Up till now, we've found every house we've looked at. Himself spends hours on the Internet every night researching houses on MLS.ca (website of houses for sale through realtors) and kijiji (houses for private sale). If he makes me look at more than three a night I start to hyperventilate, so I am very glad that he is an Aquarian and likes this kind of work.
Those who know me know that the twice I bought a home, it was the first place I looked at. I just wanted a place.
However, this place has to be right, for the simple fact that it's not just me. It will be Himself's place too.
Also, it just has to be right. This is the house I will spend most of my forties in, I presume, so it needs to be hugely reaffirming and positive, so I can get on with whatever it is happens to me in my forties.
One of my friends, who is very organized, suggested we draw up a list of all the things we want in a house. That way, we can be sure everyone's needs are included and we can prioritise what we can do without.
It has to be the one.
That was all we could come up with.
I suggested we try harder. We thought for a while.
A garden, I said.
Not too difficult in Canada. Most houses come with a garden.
I came up with a house that you can have a puppy in.
Himself came up with woodstove.
That helped to narrow it down in wintery, pet-loving Nova Scotia, I can tell you!!
We're hopeless.
We'll know when we see it.
Anyways, after spending three months wandering around District 7 and telling each other that it was District 7 or nowhere, today we thought to hell with it and headed off in the opposite direction. I don't even know what District we were in. It was on the edge of the map.
An adventure.
Of course, even though it was a day off work, and the sun was shining and the sea was beautiful and it wasn't really too cold for Remembrance Day, I am on Champix right now and not supposed to want to smoke.
hahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
For most of every day right now, I am the Dark Overlord of Thundering Bitchland, and for the remainder I am a weeping mess. Also, because I am on Champix (the wonder drug that removes cravings, so you can break the habit- not), I am having the most vivid, lurid dreams every night and waking up completely freaked out by them at odd hours of the morning.
Put it like this, if I know you, you have been in one of my dreams lately, and you should be very relieved that I can't put them on You Tube.
Oh well, I want to quit. Third time lucky I hope.
As well as dealing with me, Himself has been fighting a deeply infected root canal gone wrong for the last couple of weeks, that has gotten so bad, it has sprouted a greenish-yellowish river of pus that seems to have spread up to his ear. He is on his second bout of penicillin and Tylenol 3 is his friend right now, so he snores like a bear all night and walks around with hot things attached to his face all day.
My, it was fun. Him driving around one-handed with a Large Double Double pressed against his jaw, and me crying with rage every time he didn't hear the mental directions I was reduced to thinking at him, because if I spoke out loud I would say 'give me a fucking cigarette NOW'.
Despite this, we found a house we liked.
If we manage to get this house, I will offer all my nicotine withdrawal rage up to whatever it is that ensures world peace and improved living standards for all.
If we don't, I will have to kill something. Hopefully just in one of my dreams.
Saturday, November 01, 2008
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