Inmytunes 2009: a cornucopia of Canadiana, brought to you by Queenie (and Rich Terfry)

Every year-end for the last few years, people who are members of the mailing list inmyday (of which I am a member, obviously) can put together a playlist of their favourite music of the preceeding year. Then share it with everyone else on the list.

Bingo!!

You start off the new year with a load of new music.

Of course, it being the inmyday Inmytunes compilation, there are rules, and of course it being Inmyday you are allowed to bend them. The original rule was that you had to make a compilation of the top 15 or so songs on your iTunes 'most played' list.

That turned out to be a little embarrassing if you had had a tough year emotionally.

So that quickly morphed into 'most played if I had a hyper-critical audience sitting with me at all times' list. Then as is normal on inmyday everyone just went off and did their own thing anyway.

By that I mean that I understand that sticking to the rules is some people's idea of doing their own thing.

Anyways, I have gotten to hear a lot of music that I would never have heard otherwise, seeing as I don't spend a lot of time buying music or reading about it anymore.

This year I was totally screwed. I think I bought two albums all year. And I gave them away before I ripped them. But I was saved by Buck 65.

Buck, or Rich Terfry as he was named by his mammy and daddy, who live near Enfield which is near here of course, DJs the Drive show on CBC radio 2. The show is for me and people like me.

People who don't like advertising.

People who like to listen to Rich shite on about baseball while they sit in traffic.

People who like the feel of the show, which feels like Rich is bringing in his own records to play for you.

People who want to know what's going on in the Canadian music scene, but who don't have the energy to go to gigs anymore because they don't start till ten pm, which is bedtime chez nous.

So, I cheated on the Inmytunes this year. Basically, anytime Rich and I agreed that a certain tune was a great tune, I made a note of it on a piece of paper I had stuck in the sun vizor (difficult on the highway trips). When I heard him spin it a few more times and we were still agreed that it was a TRULY GREAT tune, I put a circle round it.

Tonight I sat down and bought everything with a circle round it on iTunes.

Note to music promoters.... Rich Terfry moves downloads ... ohmylord he does... every song I bought was a massive spike of downloads, way ahead of everything else on the album.

So thanks, Rich. I really enjoyed this year's compiling.

If you're interested, on the Euro front, he plays Wilco and David Gray and the Waterboys to DEATH. And he's very excited about some woman singer from Dublin right now, whose name keeps escaping me, because he talks really fast when he's excited. But you should send him records. Because he sure sells them if he likes them.

I'm just going to take a moment to flip the playlist back to front. I had started with the electronica-type stuff and then got progressively folkier, but it's not working for me so I'm flipping it round.

Which is incidentally the order in which I downloaded them... I should've been a dj.

Inmytunes 2009

1. The Deep Dark Woods, All the Money I had is Gone (Winter Hours).

This is a very simple little song from a great folk band from Saskatoon. I thought it was pertinent for the year that was in it.

Rich and I dedicate it to all the capitalists out there who are hurtin'...

CBC Radio 2 had the strangest competition this year. The Great Canadian Song Quest. They got people to vote for 13 places (one in each province/ territory) and 13 bands (the same), who then had to write about said place in their province. DDW won the vote in Saskatchewan and wrote a song about Charlie's Bar, which sounds a bit like a Canadian Whelans and is being torn down.

Generally, the songs are a bit meh.... except for Quebec, which was won by...

2. Martha Wainwright, Four Black Sheep in the Snow (CBC Radio 2 Great Canadian Song Quest)

I think Martha missed the memo from Rich that said 'these songs are meant to be cheery for to cheer up Canadians who have lost all their money'. Anyways, I thought PFI would like to hear it, as Martha is 'known to us'.

Isn't it funny the way the guards say that about people. The Mounties don't say that. They just say 'he had a criminal record, that's probably why he got shot'. The guards say 'we don't know why he was shot, but he was 'known to us''.

Weird song. From a weird songstress.

3. David Myles, When it comes my turn (Things have Changed)

I think I am heading into my middle agedness, judging by the first three songs on the list. Or, maybe me and Rich are just feeling a little old arsey this year, what with getting to be married and all.

Not to each other of course.

I hate baseball.

I was about a month ahead of him I think.

Anyway, David is from New Brunswick I think, and he is just back from recording his new album on the SAME CONSOLE in some famous studio in Arizona as was used when Radiohead were there and recorded The Bends.

Which is my least favourite Radiohead album.

I'm shocked an album that miserable was made in the sunshine...

4. The Wooden Sky, The Late King Henry (If I don't come home you'll know I'm gone)

I just like the name of this song. And the tempo is kinda rollicking, maybe nice for kiddies.

Note to parents: Not only did I not put the song I really liked with the swear words on the playlist this year, I put on this song the kiddies might like.

Learning I am...

5. The Duhks, Mighty Storm (Fast Paced World)

I love the Duhks (ducks), who are from Winnipeg, Manitoba and so know a thing or two about weather. This is dedicated to all the Irish weather you`ve been having lately.

Bless.

6. Kathleen Edwards, Sure as Shit (Asking for Flowers)

This was our wedding song. So it goes on the list.

7. Bahamas, Southern Drawl (Pink Strat)

Man of mystery. Very difficult to find out anything about this guy. Apparently he's on tour with Amy Millan, so maybe he will turn up here some night and I won't go. Nice song though. Very smart.

Speaking of...

8. Amy Millan, Baby I (Honey from the Tombs)

Amy, the queen of Canadian pop. The homecoming queen for the nerdy boys. She pops up again later with The Stills. As she says herself: 'together, my own songs and these covers create a bed where the lonely can rest for a little bit, where little hopes, little deaths, and big loves are flammable but fallow'

Amy's fab. We are big fans, me and Rich. He nearly passes out when he talks to her.

9. Jenn Grant, Dreamer (Orchestra for the Moon)

Jenn has a voice like hot chocolate. Which is apt, because this song mentions her having a date at Chocolate Lake, where Queenie and Himself used to live (and dream), so it had to be included.

10. Cuff the Duke, Long Road (Sidelines of the City)

Okay, last of the alt: country, Canadiana type songs.

Onto more inmyday-ish type music.

11. The New Pornographers, My Rights versus Yours (Challengers)

According to the blog metatag, The New Pornographers are AC Newman and a group of ridiculously talented people uniquely equipped to realize his musical ambitions. You may know their album, Mass Romantic. It was considered the best indie album in Canada until Arcade Fire released Neon Bible. This song is from another album called Challengers. Either of them are worth a listen if you dont know these guys.

12. Metric, Sick Muse (Fantasies)

Emily Haines and James Shaw, the singer and guitarist in Metric also play with Broken Social Scene. Emily is one of those effortlessly cool blonde rockstars that make me feel completely inadequate, but despite that, I love this song.

13. Stars, This Charming Man (Nightsongs)

A lush retake of a Smiths classic, by the people who also bring you Broken Social Scene.

14. Stars, Your ex-Lover is dead (Set yourself on fire)

When there`s nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire.

`Xactly.

Plus there are cellos. I do like a bit of cello in my eloquent, Montreal-based pop music. Even if they did support Coldplay recently.

... ah, the almighty dollar does strange things to us all. But these are the best lyrics on the compilation:

I`m not sorry I met you.
I`m not sorry it`s over.
I`m not sorry there`s nothing to say.

15. Holy Fuck, Lovely Allen (LP)

From the boys who are known as the Toronto evil super group, who brought you the Cowboy Cat t-shirt. Anyone who wants to buy me one is very welcome to do so!!!

Reminds me of God is an Astronaut a bit.

Anyways, folks, that`s it for another year. Hope you like them.

The Noughties: the decade of stress and destress. Destress!

This was written last night during a power outage.

We got a weather bomb this evening, much to my amazement. It snuck up on me, whatever about other people. Yesterday the TV people talked about some snow and I thought, ah well, another evening on my own while my beloved ploughs shopping malls so people can buy crap even when it's snowing and they should be home where it's warm.

But when I got up this morning the weather network had a storm surge warning, a winter storm warning and an extreme wind warning. Despite all the warnings, I pottered about all day as usual until Himself's cousin mentioned something about candles, etc on FaceBook.

Shit.

Candles.

Even more importantly, etc.

Himself had already gone to work, so I rummaged around in the barn until I found the stove and the gas canisters and the camp kettle. I got the flashlight and tied everything down on the deck and the power went at 6.45pm, just as I was settling down to a night's mindless electronics-based entertainment.

Three long lingering flickers and she's gone for the night.

It's gone everywhere, so we'll have to take our place in the queue for service resumption.

It came back on at 3.15am, which was not so bad.

So instead of the opening of Season 4 of Dexter, I am sitting with a glass of Baileys (the ice is melting in the fridge so I have to use it up!), surrounded by the soft glow of candles. The furnace is out, but I have blankets and I heated water on the camp stove for a hot water bottle.

The dog is sleeping next to the back door, tired and sulky because I wouldn't let her run around the yard enjoying the 100 kph wind gusts.

I suppose that just about sums up the second half of the decade for me. I spent the first half of the decade feeling sorry for myself. The second half I spent accumulating the wherewithal to sit in the dark and cold with no company except for a crazy dog, and limited access to electronics, feeling thankful for the opportunity to do so.

Of course, I accept that this evening could not happen without battery power. I have a torch for when I need to walk around the house.

The northeast wind is HOWLING round the house.

I hope a tree doesn't fall on me.

So where was I with the decade... oh yes, I decided to move to Canada. To this day I don't know why. I get asked all the time by people who grew up here and think Europe is the bees knickers.

I just say it was a whim.

Sounds better than an inexplicable urge to get the hell out of the strait-jacket of a life I had put myself in.

Anyways, I don't know why I did it. Some days I'm glad I did, some days I'm not, and most days I don't think about it too much anymore.

The weird thing is how it all turned out. I came to Canada and something made me go to Nova Scotia, even though I'd planned on going to Alberta, and then something else made me go to a little island off its south west coast, even though there was no reason to go there apart from seeing a whale, and then I met Himself.

Destiny?

A series of bizarre coincidences?

Who knows.

And we decided to build a life together against pretty immeasurable obstacles at the time. But we have overcome every one of them.

So I guess the second half of the decade was also all about taking the stubbornness that I had honed in the first half, and putting it to good use.

Now I have everything I dreamed of having on those depressing Sundays so long ago. The soulmate. The home. The copse of trees. The ferns and the mushrooms and orchids hidden in its dank depths. The dog waiting for me every evening.

The deck with the bbq and the wind chimes I always dreamed about. The sound of the shore every day, every night. The dilapidated, monster camping 4X4. The canoe on its roof. The camping gear in the back. The special places we take off to by the lake, by the sea, in the forest. The friends we go camping with. The photos. The summer tan.

Not so much the mosquito bites on my legs.

The vegetable garden. The greenhouse. The flowergarden. The humming birds that visit in the summer.

The seasons. The colours of my maple trees in the Canadian Fall. The job (until March anyways). The trips home and away. The country of Canada to explore and love. The bookshelves. The books on them. The laptop. The global connection to everyone everywhere that I need to stay in touch with.

Peace. Peace and quiet. No sirens. No noisy neighbours. No fighting or yelling or loud television sets. Silence.

Yesirreebob, if you want silence, come to the Great White North.

What I don't have is a decent hair cut, highlights, lowlights, any kind of decent dye job, manicures, acceptable tights, a single suit or acceptable item of power wardrobing (although I have quite the collection of spark-burned fleeces).

Interestingly, I still manage the killer shoes... I wonder how that happens... but I have nothing to wear them with except denims!

I don't spend evenings in restaurants or at gigs or even in pubs, I can't spend more than $14 on a bottle of wine, or buy books when they are first published. I can't go to hotels for the weekend, and I'll probably never get to go shopping in Montreal or New York or Dublin again.

I miss every single one of those luxuries more than I will ever admit to my beloved. I still sniffle over the absence of Anthropologie clothes in my life. And I still lie awake at night worrying about stupid things. Because that's what I do.

I still try to talk myself into a funk every now and again, because that's what I also do, but it's hard to find the energy to be depressed when you have an animal who needs to be walked along glorious clifftops every sunset.

February of course, is another beast entirely, but everyone in Canada has the blaghs in February so it's okay to be morose.

The wind has dropped out completely now in the hour it took to write this. The moon is out and shining in the window. The Hunter is sparkling to the south east of the moon.

If the power was on I wouldn't have had the curtains open and I wouldn't see it.

I guess I should bring the dog out for a run.

One thing that interests me is where I got this dream from (Observer magazine? My childhood reading?) and whether all this positive thinking stuff is true - did I imagine it into existence as Mr. Chopra would have me believe?

Or is it just the culmination of a series of random choices I made this decade?

Who knows?

I wonder what I'll have done in ten years time?

As usual, I have no plan whatsoever, apart from a faint urge to move to the beach in South America (which I share with the rest of this huge country)!

Happy New Year everyone. Happy New Decade! Just think, in ten years, all those kids will be teenagers!!

The noughties: the decade of stress and destress. Stress!

I have been reading my friends' summations of their experiences in the last decade with interest. It's probably a factor of our age (thirties heading into forties), but really, the noughties seem to have been littered with stressful (not always bad, but still stressful) personal events and major investments which did or didn't work out.

Oh and careers.

Lots of career magic thrown in there to keep us on our toes.

No different for me.

I've been trying to think what I did in the last decade.

Good opportunity to sit down and think about it, what with the ice pellets flinging themselves against the front windows, the dog having her post-walk, mid-morning nap, and Himself upstairs asleep after working all night again...

The major event of the decade for me was moving to Canada in June 2005, roughly halfway through the decade. Consequently the first half is a bit of a blur in my memory.

The first couple of years were spent mostly trying to flog the dead horse of a relationship I was in. In my twenties and early thirties, I liked nothing better than to flog dead horses. Out-dated left-wing politics, selfish men, pointless arguments over a bottle of wine ... that kind of thing.

I remember sitting in the park in Ballsbridge having lunch with Accent Monkey explaining the latest series of 'death by a thousand cuts' that was going on, and she wasn't saying much, but I started getting this very strong vibe that manifested itself as a voice in my head saying 'would you just fucking leave him so we can all get on with things'.

I'm not saying the vibe was coming from Accent Monkey, but the voice in my head had a strong Dublin accent.

So I did, readers.

Took a while. A long while. Very painful. Very very painful. Thankfully I took a notion one day in 2001, and bought an apartment in a dingy part of town, so although I wasn't living the glamorous life of a Celtic tiger cub, I wasn't homeless. But for the first time in years all the animals had paired off two by two, and I was solo, bunking down the back of the ark. The loneliness was a physical beast that prowled around me. I didn't sleep for months. I thought I was going to go mad from the tiredness.

My parents and my girlfriends and their partners hauled me through it.

That and India. I went to India on a truck trip towards the end of 2002 (I think). It opened a crack of longing for something in my mind that ended up with me leaving Ireland. I went to find myself, but instead I found a place at the other side of the world that has such hope and despair and joy and sorrow and materialism and spirituality all wrapped up in each other... coiled round and round each other like snakes in the temple of Haripad ... presided over by a pantheon of gods and goddesses that encapsulate all that is good and bad in all of us and in the world.

A place where healing and politics and sexuality are all written about in the same texts ... where they lay fibre optic cables using families that live in the trenches to do the work ... where filth and rubbish and all kinds of human squalor wash up against sublime architecture ... where animals are worshipped and lepers ignored.

A place where all of the world's major religions jostle for position in ways that are ugly sometimes but where the overwhelming sense of culture is that there is a reason for all of this chaos... there is an energy in the world that we are all part of.

There is no either or in India. There is what there is and it is all connected.

I also decided in India that I didn't like cities.

Back in Dublin city I limped along for a while, but my heart stopped being in it sometime in 2003. I had moved to a new job and I was working very hard and enjoying the stretch in my brain and my energy, but the by-product of that job - hanging around the social partnership clique - was not good for either my soul or my liver.

Social partnership is a good idea, but it needs work. You cannot 'help' run a country without any accountability. The representatives of workers and employers and farmers and the like, sitting round the table were accountable to their members but not to a higher outcome (e.g. social cohesion, prosperity, competitiveness, etc). That meant that they looked after their members' interests (of course), and so hobbled the hard choices that might have led to us having a chance now.

As for the government ... I won't talk about that here.

By 2004, I was earning enough to get out of dodge, but not enough to buy a house of course (that was for lawyers and couples only), so I traded up to a classier version of the apartment I was living in.

It was interesting that throughout all those years of banks flinging, throwing, shovelling seven, eight times their income at people, offering 100% mortgages over 45 years, with a line of credit to pay the taxes and the moving costs on top of that ... I was never allowed to borrow more than 3.5 times my income, and never allowed more than a 90% mortgage ... despite the fact that I was earning good money working for the government and had no debt to speak of ... other single women I know encountered the same discrimination.

... Although I was annoyed at the time ... it does appear we were saved by our unemployed girlie bits in the end ...

After the excitement of the move and the decorating wore off, I took a long, long, look at my (admittedly) very nice apartment and realised that 467 square feet was all I was going to be able to afford by myself.

And slowly fell into the worst funk of my life.

The city was getting pretty chaotic. It was easier to walk an hour to work than to take the bus or drive, but a two hour walk on top of a nine hour day was pretty tiring.

I took to going to the supermarket at 9pm on a Wednesday night, so I could get a parking space. Getting petrol took an hour. Going to yoga took an hour. Everything took an hour.

Life consisted of work, shopping to cheer myself up about work, going out or entertaining, then lying in bed all day Sunday feeling sorry for myself and agonizing about how soulless my life was.

I took a few weeks off and went to Venezuela for another truck trip. I was hoping for another India (great driver, great people on the truck, great country). We had some nice people, but the truck was partly populated by the four rudest people Britain has ever produced in millennia of producing arrogant jingoist arseholes...

I still had a good time. Again, Venezuela got me thinking about the pointlessness of a job tinkering at the edges of the reality of the economy. Apart from it paying the mortgage.

Then one day I had a stupid argument over nothing but a status issues, with somebody in work. Went for a walk to clear my head. Picked up the paper and saw an ad for visas to Canada.

The light went on in my head.

Canadians don't have egos big as the Rockies, sure they don't!! They have trappers and lumberjacks and people who have calluses on their palms!!

I'll go there!!

A day of two halves

First half:

Woke up at 4am in the freezing cold because Himself had to go to work early.
Sort of went back to sleep.

Woke up at 6am in the slightly less freezing cold to the realisation that, yes, I do have to go to work today even though it's minus 25 and that means the car won't start for ages because the battery is on its last legs.

Walked the dog at 6.25am in the FREEZING windchill.

Got in the car and tried to start it.

Third attempt worked!! Hooray. Tried to open the window so I could heat the car for a minute while getting the dog's day organized.

If you leave the ignition running without the window open, the car locks itself.

Yes, I know I should separate the key and the locking mechanism. That would mean I would lose one of them.

The window was frozen shut, so I shut the car engine off, ran around in the FREEZING windchill for five minutes (which is a long time in FREEZING) and then got back into the FREEZING car.

Got to work and remembered I forgot to plug in the slow cooker.

NO GODDAMN DINNER SO!

Got off work early to get home before dark.

Bus broke down.

Waited eleven minutes (did I mention it was FREEZING) for another bus.

Fuel gauge on the car was on empty.

Filled the car at the Esso on top of Cole Harbour hill.

Stopped at the store to get groceries.

Finally got home.

Dog hadn't frozen.

Phew.

I think.

Walked the dog again in the FREEZING. At least I could see.

The diarrhea. Which I had to scoop up. Which meant taking my gloves off.

She's been in the potato chips again, judging by the look of it.

Got to the mailbox.

Two packages from Ireland. Hooray!!

Second half.

Slow cooker is on Fast.

Tayto crisps are unpacked.

Bottle of wine is in order.

I don't have to go outside anymore today.

Oh, and Reeling in the Years, the Nineties.

When I see my ex on the screen, should I point him out to my husband....?

I guess the memories are in my head anyways.

I just hate when i break my stuff.

I don't have many things, and they are all very precious, because they are all steeped in memories.

But I guess the memories are in my head anyways...

So I just broke the beautiful dusky purple and blue, square pottery plate I hauled all the way from the Dingle peninsula back to Dublin in 1996, and then to Birr in 2005, and then to Canada in 2007 in a suitcase (worrying about it the whole way across the Atlantic).

The one I had Himself build me a tall tall bookshelf with a special shelf to display it on in 2008. Because it is so precious to me.

The one made by the potter who had studied glazing techniques in Japan and is now living in the shadow of Mount Brandon.

Not Louis Mulcahy. Not his pottery factory.

The one with the glaze on it that looks like Mount Brandon.

The one I looked at every day.

Reason?

I was rearranging my books and picking out ones to sell so I can buy some more, because I am already running out of things to read, despite getting four books for Christmas.

And I took one too many off that shelf they were sharing with my plate, and the rest slid down and knocked it off its stand.

I knew I shouldn't be selling my books.

GODDAMN IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ah well, it could be worse.

It is the only thing left of Kerry that I had but.

I guess I will just have to make a pilgrimage back there.

Of course, I can't find the potter....

The weekend before Christmas is really the Christmas

Big snowfall tonight.

Maybe two thirds the way up the ruler.

Standard ruler... 30 cm jobbie. Like in school.

OK. Mathematics starting.

Mathematics in the sense of one of Mr. Hensey's classes (fifth year honours) ... I am hanging out with my friends talking about the weekend, but I am also supposed to be doing maths.

The driveway is 100 metres long and four metres wide.

A little wider at either end.

The snow shovel is 45 cm wide.

I think.

Why am I writing a math post? This is not good.

Side to side. From lawn to woodland.

Over and back.

Over and back.

Pick up the spill.

Then over and back.

By my calculations (which are usually wrong and need John Brown to fix), that's 222 shovel swipes across the driveway.

Over and back.

And then scooping up spill.

Say, another 150.

That's 372 shovel swipes.

I'm pretty sure it was more than that.

Put the shovel into the snow with the blade aligned to the edge of what's left, and push along the line to the far side. Turn on your heel, and clean up the spill on the way back.

Then put the shovel back down against the clean line of the snow.

Scraaaape.

In early November snows it's mostly rain with some ice in it, so when you shovel it's like pushing water up a hill.

Heavy and wet and no fun at all.

After January, it's all ice pellets and misery. The shovel stops up on the ice and pushes into your sternum and it's hard and miserable to move it.

After I finished doing it seven times last year I found out all the men on my road used to watch me shovel ice off the driveway, and wonder at how Himself got himself such a hardcore woman...

But there's a couple of weeks in December when it's light and fluffy and perfect if it snows.

And shovelling is a meditation.

That was tonight.

I think about a lot of stuff when I shovel the driveway in December.

I feel so lucky that I get to do it. I need to think about a lot of stuff.

Today I was thinking about Ireland, because I was very lucky this Sunday; people from Ireland were all home suffering from pre-Christmas hangovers, so they were vulnerable and I got to talk to a few of them for quite the chat.

Well, I have to admit that during the section of the driveway from the road to the garbage box (about 20 side to sides), I thought about how difficult it is to build and maintain a mature and loving relationship with stepchildren who are the powerless pawns in a ridiculous battle of control freakery being waged by their mother against their father and me.

But I think about that a lot and if I write about it she uses it in court proceedings, so we'll just move on, shall we.

From the garbage box to the rhododendron bush, which is not very far, the rhododendron bush being near the garbage box for a reason, I thought about Ireland.

The lights on Grafton St.

Winking against the wet paving.

The weekend that was.

What a weekend that must have been. Everyone finally had time to go out and chew down on a few things.

I'm sorry I missed that weekend.

I would like to fly home for that weekend and then leave before Christmas. Would that be so awful?

How well everyone is doing!

Everyone I love has survived.

The recession. The revelations. The floods. The everything.

For my New Year's wish, I would like everyone I know in Ireland to be in charge of Ireland now.

It's the fact that you're not that's making your teeth ache boys and girls.

The demography is on your side, guys...

I was halfway up the section from the rhodo bush to the back of the car (the long, difficult, middle section), when I had to put the shovel down and go get the dog.

Neighbours again, not approving of the dog being allowed to wander about in what is ostensibly a wilderness backyard area...

She's half wolf for fuck's sake... what do you think she's going to do in the snow.

I got feedback on the blog tonight and was told the dog bits were boring, which I knew, but dog bits = life right now, so maybe up the ante in the life is a priority for soon.

After Christmas, as Himself would say.

Anyways, got the dog, got back in the rhythm, over and back, over and back, pick up the spills, over and back, when I noticed it was blowing snow, like it said in the warning.

Your late thirties and early forties are all about 'blowing snow' aren't they.

You shovel and shovel and shovel.

And then you get up the next morning and all the snow is drifted up against the car again.

There you go, metaphor for next year.

I'm going to post this without a resolution because I am drunk and blind (dog ate my glasses)..

I will amend if something comes to me.

Oh yeah.... make Christmas about the kids for once eh?!

December temperatures going up and down like the proverbial's knickers

Plus 5. Then minus 6. Then plus 2 and sleet. Then minus 12 with the windchill. Then plus 6 and rain. Then back down to minus 6 with no precipitation this time.

Suede coat and shiny boots. Then winter parka and snow boots. Then raincoat and wellies. Then back to the suede coat. With a shawl wrapped round it.

This morning I walked the dog in the suede coat and shiny boots and about 5 minutes out the heavens opened (I didn't notice it was cloudy because it was pitch-black dark) and poured on me, and then I had no time to change and had to drive to work in wet suede and damp patent boots, which didn't dry out properly at work because I am in the office of crazy air, so they froze (with my feet in them, and they are very pointy) when the temperature dropped to minus 15 this evening and I couldn't get the car to heat up before I actually arrived home in it.

FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

So now I am sitting at the computer (in a heated house) wearing my polar socks and my polar fleece with a hot water bottle pressed up against my internal organs, and I AM STILL COLD.

I wish it was March 31st, I said to Himself.

I wish it was May 31st, Himself said back.

'Xactly.

And it's to be colder tomorrow, apparently.

And the work Christmas do is on.

Although it being the Canadian work do, I can wear my polar fleece and snow boots if I want, and it will be all over by 6.30pm anyways. None of your Irish wear a nice dress and stay out late rubbish over here in the North Pole.

It could be worse. I could have said yes when Himself wanted to move to Alberta and I could be dealing with minus 40.

Yes, that is a feasible temperature for human existence.

No, I don't know how they do it.

So I guess I should just suck it up.

I'm all in a heap because it's coming up to Christmas and I should be in Ireland and I'm not nor will I be and I'm very sad and I keep trying to push it out of my head and it keeps pushing its way back in.

Persistently. Like Shannon when she knows the reason you want her on the deck is because there's steak on the grill.

And of course Christmas in the 'new' house is not very exciting when it's just two people and no presents to open.

We bought a new water system instead. I guess I'll just tie a ribbon round a glass and hydrate all day.

Still, I shouldn't moan. We had lots of excitement and fun with the wedding and our trip to Cuba.

It's just that was THEN.

And this is NOW.

And Himself just came back from the postbox with a key that means there's a parcel (although I think it's presents for someone else) in the parcel box but he didn't know what it was so now someone has to go back down there.

IN THE COLD!!!!!!

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Maybe I'll feel better at the weekend. When it gets closer to Christmas.

The eye of the storm is quiet... maybe too quiet.

Sunday evening. Six thirty. Fed. Tidy kitchen. Very tidy house for reasons that are not good.

If this was the spring or summer I would be outside pottering around, but it's the winter so it's dark and cold and I am stuck inside with four hours to kill before I can go to bed with the only book in the house I haven't read which is a Patrick White, which is of course depressing the hell out of me. Which only a Patrick White novel can do.

Did he have a terrible mother?

All his novels (well not so much The Tree of Man, which is great) are about beastly women who struggle against the boredom of 1950s Sydney/ some beautiful-sounding outback station. Their children hate them. Their husbands are gauche hillbillies who get most of the sympathy.

And they take forever to die.

The current one is The Eye of the Storm. I'm not complaining about the writing, mind. it's beautiful...

... I just don't understand his obsession with the subject matter.

I'm reading an online essay about him now... apparently I am looking at the book through the wrong end of the analytical telescope... it's about Elizabeth Hunter reconciling living and dying and trying to find that 'eye of the storm', inner peace and a touch of the divine.

I had decided that the eye of the storm was the peace her family had at the beginning of the end... as in when you get to the eye of the storm, even though there is the rest of the storm to get through, it's usually not as bad as the first bit...

No wonder I didn't get a first in college!

As well as not being able to 'see', I cannot see right now, because Shannon ate my glasses the other morning.

Despite having searched the house (and tidied it on the way and having found lots of things I thought I had lost forever, including a 'congratulations on your engagement' card I should have mailed in September) I cannot find my old glasses so I am blind for the foreseeable.

I have to wait till January to get a new pair on the health insurance... major pain in the ass.

Why on earth would a dog eat a pair of glasses?

We have managed to spend another weekend without setting foot in a mall, which is one of the things I try to do coming up to Christmas, and we got our new water system installed, the dog spayed, and quite a few odds and ends done, so we are feeling pretty good about things.

And my online campaign against the crapness of the company that we bought Little 'Un's present from seems to have worked because they emailed us today and said they were express shipping it to us in time for Christmas.

So thanks to them for that.

While I was outside trying to find chores to do to get some of the sunshine into me, Himself spent some of the afternoon looking at land online.

The reason he did this (I think) is because when we checked MLS the other day to see the sale price of the house next door (which is for sale again), we noticed that an acre of swampy land down the road by the lake was for sale (for $180,000, FFS!). Then we noticed that a beautiful swathe of land by the seashore, that we walk on regularly is for sale (for $600,000 FFS!!) and that got us thinking and talking about how ludicrous the price of land is around here.

So today, Himself started looking at land in other parts of the province, and found 100 acres in Victoria County, Cape Breton, for $29,000.

Remote woodland now, not Cabot Trail picturesque.

But still.

Good price.

I hope he doesn't want it for Christmas!

I'm kinda broke right now.

But he reckons this will be the land for the compound.

Those of you who know us know about the compound.

The compound started out as a game, round about the time I read Cormac MacCarthy's The Road, which scared the bejaysus out of me.

The compound was an ongoing project we discussed while having a beer in the yard in the summer. The compound is where we'll go when the world starts to go pear-shaped.

We'd need some land. Build an off-grid housing complex. Invite some friends to come along if things ever got tough for them/ they could get there.

Some of our Irish friends got to thinking about solar-powered sailing ships... to get to the compound (although they'd probably end up sailing around a lot).

It got popular, so we decided that everyone had to have a skill.

People got really into this... we had beekeepers, librarians, flax-spinners, (hunters, gatherers, gardeners, cooks, etc).

What would we put there?

Fuel, food, weapons (yes dear).

You can while away a number of hours quite pleasantly talking about the compound.

In the summer.

When everything's good in the world.

When the winter comes, Himself gets bored and starts scouting for land.

At least this year, it's Cape Breton.

Last year, it was Northern New Brunswick.

Anyways, applications for residency at the compound if the times get too bad can be submitted to us on the back of a renewable energy source diagrammatic.

Just mail it to Eagle.

We're looking for engineers.

Specifically electrical engineers.

And, yes, I'm still in charge.

Somebody has to be and it was my idea.

That's why.

Apart from issues regarding perimeter security, of course.

And so the winter begins... a long, long drawn-out effort to not get too bored in the evening and end up gnawing my own arm off for something to do.

I need a hobby.

Any suggestions?

Nothing too expensive, I'm really broke right now.

And knitting I think is beyond me.

And nothing chewable of course.

For obvious reasons.

Maybe if I think about Cuba, I won't be so cold

Tonight is the first big storm of the winter and the wind is very strong - it's knocked the Yule wreath off the door twice now - so I am praying the power doesn't go out, because we haven't gotten round to installing a generator yet.

We take a long time to get round to things in our house.

We are getting round to installing a new water softener/ filter system on Friday. This is very exciting, because we don't have 'city water', we have a well. Unfortunately the geology of our area means we have a lot of manganese in the water. This means reddish stains on the bath, toilets, washbasins, dishwashers, etc., plus non-potable water. Which means when guests come and try to get a glass of water you have to shout NOOOOOOOOOOO and explain.

On Saturday, we will have a brand new filter system and a drinking water filter installed under the sink with its own tap.

I am very excited. I have been dehydrated for months, and I can't get the shampoo out of my hair.

Saturday, I will have firm, plump skin and shiny hair.

HOOOOORAAAYYY!!!

I just have to go check the dog is still alive... she won't come inside... she loves sitting out on the deck face towards the prevailing blizzard...

The dog is back inside now for a bit, eating her squeaky toy.

For somethin' to do, as Himself would say.

I just had to stop typing and run around the house twenty times with the squeaky toy pretending to kill the dog with it.... when does this bit end...?

Yes, anyways, storm, blizzard, potential for no heat, light, water, alone in the house of course...

... think of Cuba, Queenie.

Cuba was great.

The air smelled of vanilla.

As opposed to petroleum.

The people were lovely.

Whether or not you gave them convertibles.

But as is the nature of humans, they were particularly lovely if you gave them convertibles.

I never did an all-inclusive before.

Here's the thing.

THEY ARE FANTASTIC. Unless you have deh guilt.

about food, liquor, lying round getting waited on hand and foot.

and deh guilt goes away after a bit.

We got up in the morning and wandered over to the buffet for breakfast.

I felt like a hobbit.

First breakfast.

Then second breakfast.

Then coffee at the bar, a nice cafe con leche made just right.

Then wander down to the beach.

Maybe take a trip out to the reef on a hobie cat.

Around eleven Roberto would walk down from the beach bar and ask me did I want a mojito.

I did wake up every morning promising myself I would go to yoga rather than have a mojito.

But Roberto just looked so sad if I didn't want one.

Lunch.

A three course affair just off the beach.

Back to the beach/ book.

Or maybe a little wander over to archery at three o'clock.

Around 4.30 the sun started to go down behind the hills and we would head back to our room for a beer on the patio.

Then dinner at one of the seven restaurants they had.

Then drinkies at the bar with some nice people we met.

Columbo spent a few days with us, despite the best efforts of Air France.

Two weeks of that.

Plus one or two little excursions outside the bubble.

I know I should talk about the interesting things I saw, but for me the interesting stuff was the all-inclusive. The rest was standard Carribean island stuff.

We have been wondering if we would ever do it again.

It is very seductive.

I'm sure my carbon footprint was enormous.

It's just, I love my food, and it was soooo good, and I didn't have to put any effort into it at all.

And I love my wine and cocktails, and again, I didn't have to think about it at all.

Maybe in a couple of years.

My arm is killing me now from my flu shot so I have to stop typing. Also I am getting a mini-flu I think.

Maybe more when I am feeling better.

Winter arrives unexpectedly... weatherwise in Nova Scotia and financially in Ireland

So there I was the other day, talking to the Queen Dad on the phone, rhapsodising about the benign long term forecast for Nova Scotia for December....

... and here I am tonight, sitting listening to the blizzard wailing outside the house, wondering what the hell happened to our balmy Fall.

Nova Scotia weather. Bah.

Stingier than a Fianna Fail recessionary government.

First off. A big shout out to all my Irish public sector friends who got royally shafted in today's budget. I reckon if I was still working there, I would have taken a hit in my pay of almost EU9,000 per annum.

That is a sum not to be sneezed at.

There are arguments for and against how it all happened and whose fault it was which I am not going to get into (because I'm not qualified to speak on it), but I guess partnership is reaping the whirlwind it sowed when benchmarking took a second bite at the revenues.

Still.

It's not nice to be an essential service provider and get yourself kicked in the nuts because a shower of selfish greedy bankers and property developers (who have plenty stashed in an offshore account for just this eventuality) messed everything up for everyone.

If I were a nurse or a guard now, I'd be keeping a keen eye out for those boyos entering my sphere of influence.

I would.

The Wire comes to Lawrencetown

This is an old photo of Shannon, she's about twice as big now, but this is pretty much what she's doing this evening. Very unusual.

Himself and I are racked with guilt.

We installed the InGround Petwire today.

Apparently, now that I know, what you do is, you buy the pack, you read the instructions, you install the wire, you hook it up to its electrical charger, you place the collar on your pet, you read the instructions again, then you take two weeks to train your pet.

We are a household that does not read instructions.

Why would we?

Most things that come in a box can be stripped down and put back together in thirty seconds flat by one member of the household and the other can't wait long enough to read an instruction manual because she wants to GET STARTED RIGHT NOW!!

Anyways, our neighbours had installed one for their dog and it was working really well for Simon, so we drove into Crappy Tire today and handed in all our C Tire money ($27 in 5c notes) and brought the device home and got to work.

We had discussed the best layout for Shannon. We laid out the wire in a nice big square that included lawn (to dig holes in), garden (to dig muddy holes in), bushes (to hide, lie, poop, hunt, stalk birds in), trees (to check for squirrels in), the deck (to view the world from) and under the deck, etc etc, then we hooked it all up and set the perimeter warning and laid out the marker flags and checked the perimeter about six times and thought it was okay.

Shannon was crying and whining on the deck because we were walking around the yard without her so we popped the collar on and walked her round the flags a couple of times.

According to the manual, which I have since read, you are supposed to walk your dog around the flags for 4 days before you put the collar on.

Ooops!

It went well for a while. Every now and again, as she veered past a flag she'd get a little Beeep beep beep.....

This means she is in the 'danger zone' and has a few seconds to get out before she is zapped.

It was all going really well.

I think she's getting it, dude, I said, let's see what happens.

I took her leash off.

She gave us a long look and then crouched and sailed over the wire and down the road.

While Himself got the car to go look for her, I consulted with the neighbours.

Put the collar on tighter, she's so furry it probably isn't affecting her.

And turn the charger up a bit, she's so furry it probably isn't affecting her.

Okay.

I'd just like to point out that in no way do I feel the neighbours are in any way responsible for what happened next.

Caught the dog. Took the collar off. Walked her through the zone. Put the collar back on really tight.

Turned up the perimeter setting.

Himself checked the collar against his hand and said, that's a bit of a jolt.

Walked her round the flags again.

I could hear the beeper going but she didn't seem to be getting any shocks so we kept wandering round and round (like we were supposed to apparently, according to the recently-memorized manual).

I noticed at one point that Shannon's fur was undulating. Ever so slightly.

Was it the wind?

Somehow I didn't think so, but she was acting fine. And we were pulling her away from the flags if the beeper went off for more than a few seconds.

She's one tough dog, of course.

We decided that if she walked very close to the wire we would let her have one shock, just to show her what it was like.

Sort of fast-forward training.

She walked over to the wire and kind of jumped and then walked back.

Poor puppy...

We decided to finish that round of the flags, and that would be it for today.

I'm standing by a flag waving her squeaky ball at her.

C'mon Shannon, good puppy, come over here....

Our poor dog kind of sighs, then jumps into a juniper bush, buries her head in the middle of it, and cries.

Sobs her little heart out.

Jesus, we are the worst puppy parents on the planet.

Later, much later, collar off and hopefully forgotten about, and Himself tries to take Shannon out for a pee.

She refuses to leave the deck. Legs planted. Immoveable.

Anyhow, a pig's ear and some chicken fillet pieces later she's still playing me like a violin, but at least she's sitting up eating her squeaky ball now.

Tomorrow we are doing it by the book.

Numb-assedness requires short post

I did promise myself at least three posts while Himself was away. I reckoned without the lure of True Blood Series 2, which I couldn't possibly watch while he's here.

It's not The Wire, or Dexter or Hung, so why would I watch it?

Why indeed, dear, certainly not because of Eric the Vampire.

At all, at all.

However, I managed two, and tonight I have a numb ass because I got a gignormous injection in my right buttock this afternoon and the pain has made everything between my hip bone and my knee numb.

So sitting down is a challenge.

Which of course was good for Shannon, who is currently lying on the wet deck in the moonlight absolutely POOPED.

Due to all the FUN ACTIVITIES we had because Queenie needed to stretch her legs.

And Series 2 is over.

So despite that, this will have to be short, and then I will get back to Bored to Death, which showing on HBO Canada at the moment and is fun in a silly way, not least because Ted Danson plays an old lech in it.

A Mr. Big for Real Women who like to have fun. Not silly women like Carrie. Who wouldn't know fun if it bit them in the numb buttock.

Also, I now want to go to Brooklyn on my holidays.

Anyways, I have been home alone for a week now, Himself having gone to NB to work. And there's no point in posting about work, even if I would, so it'll have to be a post about the dog.

I know, I'm sorry.

Although, I must say I find her endlessly interesting.

Things I find interesting and amusing about my dog

1. We have a game called the saucepan game, where I chase her round the house banging a saucepan lid against the bottom of the saucepan. We have an open plan-ish type place, with no doors downstairs, so it's round and round and round the stairwell through three room until one of us collapses. (tonight I win, for a change)

Although there is a lot of ridiculous running around, the real object of the game is for one of us to sneak up on the other one and FRIGHTEN THE BEJAYSUS OUT OF HER! The interesting thing is that she's so good at it, I actually enjoy the game. There's lots of sidling up along the sitting room wall without breathing and trying to figure out where the other player is. Or hiding in the washroom. Or nipping up the stairs and jumping down at just the right moment. Or changing direction without making a sound (which she's really good at).

Tonight she hid under the dining room table and it took me five minutes to find her. Totally silent.

The other interesting thing is that for such a rough game, she has never broken anything, despite her route through the sitting room being under the coffee table and under the tv table.

2. Tonight she opened the coat closet, which has a round knob, tugged down my smelly old blue camping sleeveless jacket which she just loves because she spent so much time wrapped in it as a puppy, spread it on the ground, put all her bedtime toys on it and scratched the kitchen door until I went in and took a photo of it (see above).

Unfortunately, I will never be able to guilt trip her into putting all the stuff away.

3. She sniffs exactly the same bushes/ plants/ rocks/ bins/ trees every night on our poop walk.

How does she remember?

How do I know this?

4. Although she makes a good show when I get home at night, I know that she will be as excited to see the oilman when he delivers oil tomorrow. She's remarkably self-contained for a being that's dependent on me for pretty much everything. I am never quite sure if she gives a shit about me. Those eyes of hers are freaky too. Bizarrely, the blue one is the softer, more expressive of the two, and the brown one is the one that you can't see jack in.

When she needs fun, it's all 'me me me, talk to me, no get off the phone, me me me', but when I need some canine company it's 'so long sucker.... gotta go kill millers on the deck'.

5. I have never seen a dog spend so long chasing moths around a deck. The bluejays come and pick at her food all day every day and she just ignores them. But come nightfall, there isn't a miller safe on this property.

6. She hasn't peed in the house since Himself went away. Which proves my theory that it was his way of dealing with it that was the problem.

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaa.... I win this dog argument.... Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Of course he will say that his way dealt with the problem JUST BEFORE he left, and I am merely reaping the benefits.

In reality, now that she has my undivided, her routine is rock solid and probably she can relax and not worry about it. So we're both ini the wrong.

7. I was playing God Speed You Black Emperor very loudly tonight and she stretched up onto the countertop and turned the volume down on the stereo.

Coincidence?

Surely!!

I won't have a dog that doesn't like GSYBE.

8. She has figured out that if she doesn't poop on the post-dinner poop stroll, she gets another one later.

Go figure.

9. She has figured out exactly the distance between us that she needs to maintain when she's off-leash. Any more and I get anxious and start trying to trick her back onto her leash. Any less and I can catch her and put her on her leash.

We have an uneasy truce right now. Trying to get her off the highway was a nightmare, but she hasn't run out there since. Ideally, I would like her to be one of those dogs who trots ahead a little, but will come back.

We have 'trot ahead a little' down pat.

Babysteps.

10. She has wormed her way so completely into my heart now that when I think of vacation all I can think of is her in some awful kennel having a miserable time.

Which is horseshit of course because she's going to puppy heaven.

Never mind, Himself will be home on Thursday and the house dynamic will be back to normal.

If there's one drop of pee..... he's cleaning it.

All Soul's Day - getting set to live in the dark

Today was such a beautiful day it was difficult to believe it was 1st November.

Positively balmy here on the Eastern Shore.

I got bitten by a mosquito.

The last time I got bitten by a mosquito in November, I was in Venezuela.

But of course the year has turned slightly and it got dark at 5.25pm so it is November.

Shannon and I went down to Lawrencetown beach to watch the sunset. Our sunset walks will be curtailed for a few months now, as I won't be home in time to walk her in the daylight, so I was happy our last one for a while was a beauty.

The surf was pounding the shore and about a dozen surfers were out bobbing on their boards like seals on driftwood.

Although there are generally at least two people out in the water when I am on the beach, I rarely see anyone actually stand up and surf in. They just bob around on their boards. Nova Scotian surfing I suppose! Not too much effort, just hanging out in the cold water for kicks.

The sun went down over Halifax Harbour and the nearly full moon rose simultaneously so we had half a sky of rose pink and slate blue clouds, and half a sky of luminous light filtered through the gauzy cloud the moon was veiled in.

Shannon picked around and sniffed stones (in the absence of trees) and I walked the shore and thought about my grandmothers and Jim and Eileen and Paddy Egan and Geraldine and Himself's Uncle Glen and all the other wonderful people I know who have passed over to the other side of the hallowed gate and wished them peace wherever they are.

Then we came home and I went downstairs to find something for supper and when I came back Shannon had an enormous block of Gouda (left on the worktop) in her mouth and a guilty look on her face.

Pulling expensive food off the worktop is the new chewing.

Anyways, we had a little row and she got put out on her line and sulked for a bit and so did I but we eventually made up and went for a moonlight gander around the neighbourhood.

It's too bright to let her out by herself when the moon is full. One of my well-meaning neighbours always spots her and brings her home.

Now it's about nine and cloudless: so bright out you can pick out individual trees in our wood.

The temperature has dropped substantially. I harvested the last of the garden today, probably in good time. I got a fair-sized bucket of onions - Spanish, red and 'normal' - and the last of the tomatoes and cabbage.

We had a middling garden this year, mostly because it was our first year and so the earth was not well composted or fertilized. I bagged four big sacks of leaves today for spring compost, and as soon as it gets cold enough I will start a proper compost bin.

We had plenty of radishes (of course), tomatoes and zucchini, and our corn was pretty good and our squash. Everything else was a little late, so our leeks and beets were small and our cucumbers never even tried.

Himself being an Aquarian loves beginnings. He loves getting the earth ready and planting. Tomatoes mostly, but he'll plant anything if you get him interested in the idea.

Then apart from watering, which is a manly chore that gets him out of cooking supper, that's it for him.

Unfortunately, that's not it. But fortunately, I don't mind weeding, thinning, weeding, thinning, weeding, thinning, harvesting and finally pulling and cleaning up. Usually it's up to me to remember to do it, and he is pretty good at helping.

If he can't think of anything to begin instead.

I got him and Littl'Un to help me clean up the main garden a couple of weeks ago, but I have been on the road a lot recently due to work commitments so when I went in the greenhouse today it was the first time in over a month.

It was a tomato plant mausoleum. Tall, rotting tomatoes groaned under the weight of their fruit and leaned against each other in an orgy of decay.

It took over an hour to clean out.

GRRRR.

I think I need to hire a garden help who's a Capricorn. They're good at detail. Or another Cancerian... even better... the plants are their children.

Anyway, we have successfully completed one cycle. Hopefully it will be the first (and worst) of many. I am kind of annoyed (in a bizarre gardner way) that I am going away because the next three weeks present the cleaning up and readying for winter tasks that I like the best in the garden (it's cool, there aren't many bugs, you can't really mess it up). Hopefully we'll have a really mild November and I can get some work done when I get back.

When to do it though...

... why do they put the clocks back anyway? I hate gardening in the dark. I hate walking the dog in the dark. I hate cooking supper and not being able to watch the sun set. I hate wanting to go to bed at 8.30pm because it's been dark for so long.

GRRR.

Lucky I have a fortnight to prepare myself for what's coming.

So yeah, the wedding ...

... it was a good wedding.

Apart from the incident with the hair stylist.

And the fact that it rained.

Which didn't do a whole pile for my hair either.

We got up at 5.45am and got our shit together and Himself went to get Dukie our Yugoslavian friend and pig roaster, and I tore the house apart and put it back together again so it would accommodate forty people.

My nearly husband and I bumped into each other again about 8.45am as I was going to the hairdressers with the Queen Mother and Tina my MOH and he was drilling holes in the timber frame we had built to cover the pig roast because the forecast was for rain and it had already started and he needed to get the tarp. up.

So he was wet at that stage. But I was still in bride mode and had a jacket on.

Status to date: no food.

At the beauty salon, the door of which I will never darken again in my life even though it is the nearest Aveda spa to me (Pure Energy, Cole Harbour, if you're interested), I got my nails done by a girl who talked about her immigrant boyfriend who couldn't get a visa and what did I think.

Well, I thought it was my wedding day so could we talk about that please, but I didn't say it of course because I am Canadian now, so I did the spiel. Yadda yadda do this don't do that call your MP don't call too often I think you missed a finger there love....

Then I got my hair done.

I should've gotten Gabriel to do my hair. But I just couldn't afford to. Either the time or the money. So I went the cheap/ fast route.


Stupid wench that I am.

Anyways two hours later, Tina my MOH's hair had been immaculately curled and then put in a ballerina bun, the QM had had a blow dry she could've done herself, and I looked like EmmyLou on a bad day in 1976.

Finally we got out of the place and got back in the car (in the rain) and I undid my hair.

I cannot begin to describe how FUCKED OFF I was. I'm a girl who likes a good hairdo.

Suffice it to say that I described the incident in work a few days later, and when I mimed the bit where I tore my hair out of the ridiculous clip she had it in, I actually tore a handful of my hair out.

I could have spent two hours in bed. I could have spent the money on starving children in Africa.

That kind of pissed off.

Status. Still no food and no coffee for two hours.

Back at the house, it was pouring, just pouring, and the pig was being turned on the spit by the first of a number of volunteers who are the real heroes of our wedding day. But it was looking a little pale for 11.20am.

I mentioned the paleness.

Ready at 5.

Supposed to be ready at 3.

Hyperventilation ensued.

The MOH gave me the second of many lectures on how it was my day and I wasn't to worry.

It's not my day. It's never the bride's day. It's everyone else's day. When are we going to just say it like it is.

Did I mention the pig was turned by hand?

The squeaking sounded like a mediaeval instrument of torture.

It was relentless. For six hours. Christ, I could've spent the hairdressing money on an automatic spit!

Although, in hindsight, I really like the fact that the entire day had a sound track reminiscent of a 60s B-movie about Torquemanda.

I bumped into my nearly husband again. He was soaked to the skin.

Have you eaten? no. Eat. I haven't got time. EAT!!!!!!!!!!!!

When I got back into organizational mode I realised the liquor was in the shed and had to be moved to the house and the pig needed all the men in the house to focus on it (of course), so Kathlene who is my guardian angel forever and I moved the booze and that was the absolute end of my hair.

Time to eat. I did. Not Himself.

Then upstairs to dress.

I was wearing a backless dress.

Could I find the expensive boob things I bought to give me a bit of a lift?

CIF!

Could I find the pashmina I spent a fortune on because it matched the underlying gold in the dress so perfectly?

CIF!

It's 1.30, the house is full of people, thirty minutes before I plighted my troth to my beloved forever I'm wandering around upstairs in my knickers looking for my lifters and someone to iron my dress.

The QM was downstairs being the hostess.

The MOH was downstairs writing the best man's speech.

Kathlene was on the phone to her fiancee trying to organize a lift for Dukie's wife who was home baking bread for the wedding party.

It's not about the bride, it's about everyone else.

I screeched for help!

My beloved happened along, soaked to the skin and still fasting from the night before, trying to find somewhere to have a shower and change, grasped the seriousness of the situation and proceeded to try to iron my dress for me.

With his eyes closed so he couldn't see it.

This is why I married him, readers.

A few minutes later, Kathlene and the QM made it upstairs and did it properly.

My mother looked so beautiful it made me want to cry.

She popped the dress over my head and I slapped on a bit of make-up and I was ready to go.

Fay, one of the servers the PFW hired to save me from a meltdown came up with a glass of wine and made me neck it.

The Queen Dad came upstairs and gave me a hug that said goodbye and good luck and all that stuff, and that was it.

I cried, readers.

I cried in the bedroom.

I cried going downstairs.

I cried during the opening ceremony.

I cried when Swampy read his piece. And added in his own comments about vehement independence.

I cried when Elizabeth the JP told us to look at each other and Himself was staring in the distance worrying about the pig and I had to poke him with my elbow and say 'focus, dude' and everyone fell around laughing.

I cried during the vows.

I cried during the exchange of rings.

I cried while I signed the papers.

I cried when Noel read He wishes for the heaven's embroidered cloths

My voice wobbled the whole way through and Himself's was clear as a bell. And I'm the professional communicator. Which was vaguely irritating.

And all the while in the background was the 'eeetch, eeeetch, eeetch' of the pig spit.

And then Elizabeth said it was done and we were married to each other.

But not forever. Because it's Canada and they don't make outrageous commitments.

But as everyone there said, it is of course forever.

Lucky I do love a good cry. It was great. I loved getting married.

Then it was over and time to mingle and make sure everyone got fed.

It was a blur.

An hour into it, there was two bottles of red wine left and the Queen Dad had to reassure me that it was all going to be okay and there was enough white and beer left.

The servers started getting anxious to me about the food.

It's not the bride's day. It's everyone else's day.

It was 3.15, the appetisers were well gone and everyone was getting a little peckish, so I went out to Dukie on the off-chance that 5pm was the outside forecast.

Nope.

5pm.

Maybe.

Luckily, we had bought a turkey boiler so we did a turkey in twenty minutes.

It involves twelve litres of burning peanut oil, so a turkey boil is a guy thing.

After fifteen minutes Fay started hopping up and down, so I trundled out to the shed in the rain in my velvet Simon Chang ball gown.

We figured it was ready.

The guys brought it in and proudly presented it to Fay and the Queen Mother.

It's not done.

Yes it is.

No it's not.

The guys looked at me.

It's my mother and Fay, dudes, put it back in the boiler.

Fifteen minutes later they pronounced it done and we had food.

Twenty five minutes later we had no food left.

Apart from the pig.

The pig became the main focus of the day.

It's not about the bride, it's about the pig.

The wedding separated into two groups - the pig-roasters, and the people watching the pig-roasters.

It was generally felt that the pig-roasters deserved their own tv show.

During a lull in the tv show, we decided to cut the cake.

Mostly because I was sick of wandering around in the rain in a velvet ball gown and I wanted to be like my husband who had already put his jeans back on.

The Queen Dad made me cry again, with his beautiful speech.

Himself gave all kinds of hostages to fortune with his adamant promises that he would look after me forever.

I was sitting there thinking... .mostly I look after myself dudes, but whatever...

Then I went upstairs and put my jeans on and suddenly I felt like it was my party and I could relax.

Time passed.

The pig was roasted, Gordie who had a previous career in the meat industry took out the sharpest knife I've ever seen in a domestic situation, butchered a 55lb pig in fifteen minutes and everyone dug in.

Shannon the husky positioned herself under the deck and looked extraordinarily hungry and did very well I thought.

There was one small plate of pig left for the day after.

Thankfully we don't have 'afters' here.

We lit a bonfire and sat in its glow and enjoyed the conversation.

The neighbours came round, better late than never and some late guests turned up and replaced the early leavers.

It was a great wedding.

I think next time I do a pig roast for forty, I'll do it in August.

Postscript.

I forgot the absolute best part of the day. The music, which we'd argued over for months, it being the most important part of the day for us, didn't work during the ceremony, because I had forgotten to tune in the speakers.

This was something that Littl'Un knew that we missed. Him being thirteen and knowing all about how important music is to an event.

Also, he'd been around for most of the arguing.

So when everyone was gone, and it was just family again and everything and everyone that matters to me was together in the one place for one beautiful moment in my life, he lit some candles and arranged them around the sitting room and turned off all the lights, and set up the playlist, and the three of us slow danced to our wedding music.

Snowpatrol: Crashing Cars
Kathleen Edwards: Sure as Shit
The Waterboys: Fisherman's Blues

Thanks Little'Un. Guess now you're thirteen I'll have to negotiate a new name for you.

The day before the day the gate opens

So tomorrow is Hallowe'en.

First one in the forever house.

Hopefully, tomorrow I'll get to hand out treats to a generation of kids that we will watch grow up. There are a lot of kids in our area, and they're mostly very small yet, so we will have at least twelve years of them before they grow up and leave.

I say I because I'm home alone again, Himself is in New Brunswick decontaminating a pulp mill or some equally necessary but truly gross activity. I am never quite sure.

It's kind of annoying because we had a date for Hallowe'en.

We don't have many dates.

Also, I've pointed out that we are going on our honeymoon in seven days so to make sure to come home before next Friday to get a ride to the airport.

Several times.

It's not that I think he'll forget, he's as excited about our first 'doing nothing' vacation in four years as I am. (As opposed to Ireland/ camping which are 'doing too much' vacations).

I just feel that pointing it out twice a day on the phone while they're all listening makes it easier for him to stand up to the company if/ when they decide he needs to stay in NB.

"She'll kill all of us."

They all know me.

So it works.

My codename is Grumpy, apparently.

Which is good.

Better than Pushover, anyways.

So tonight is three nights before the full moon. The moon is bright and the sky is clear. The temperature dropped twelve degrees when the sun went down and the omens are good for the gates opening tomorrow night.

We shall find out if the house is haunted.

We..

I mean me..

Whoooooooo...

On acquairing a Consort

Queenie has a Consort.

It's Himself of course.

He was always her Consort, even before she knew him, but it's official now.

Elizabeth the JP sent the paperwork in.

We wrote our own vows and neither of us said 'till death us do part', I am not sure why.

Too much like tempting Fate I suppose.

Tonight, though, I am Consortless, Himselfless, as He has gone to the island to visit his parents.

Shannon the Husky has gone for a little wander in the woods by herself (because she is a big girl now), and so for the first time in about three months, I am the only being in the house on a Saturday night.

The only other thing using oxygen is a candle.

I have a glass of wine on the go.

The Radio 2 jazz show is on in the background (although I haven't heard any actual jazz yet), and the only other sound is the odd POP as the pickle jars seal themselves.

Zucchini pickle, chow chow, pickled beets.

Only two more batches to do, but I have run out of jars.

I am still trying to come to terms with being married.

I was trying to work it out today while the dentist wrestled with my inability to feel no pain while he drilled. And again while I was pickling (they should make pickling mandatory in prisons, it is the most soothing occupation in the world, you figure everything out while you're watching your beets simmer).

I always thought I would be the Elizabeth 1 of the Queenie world.

There are some advantages to being married though.

When somebody tried to talk me into spending $100 an hour on getting Shannon to be better behaved, I said I'd have to talk to my husband about it and they backed right off.

Then I told my husband to get a rolled up newspaper and smack Shannon on her pert little ass for chewing on my arm.

Unfortunately, it all went Pete Tong at that point, because my husband pointed out that he was already the Alpha in the house, so I would have to do the smacking if I wanted to achieve the deputy Alpha position.

I can't smack my dog without intense trauma on both sides. Himself waves a newspaper at her and gets instant model dog behaviour.

When I do that, she tries to chew the newspaper.

I smacked her once with a paper on her ass, when she shat in my brand new shoe while I was telling her not to, and it was so traumatic for the pair of us we have not gone back there again.

In any sense of the word.

Is there anything more mortifying than being ignored by a being who depends on you because YOU FAILED HER EMOTIONALLY?

I'd be a terrible mother....

I figure she'll just stop doing all the annoying things eventually. Thereby saving me hundreds of dollars in dog whispering fees.

Also, she's going to Chris at the kennels for a fortnight soon.

Chris takes no shit from any dog and yet they all adore her.

So Chris'll put manners on her and then she'll be so happy to see me when she gets home, she'll be good.

Kinda like me after I got out of Colaiste na Leanai, or 'the prison camp in Ring' as we called it.

Last Days of Summer on the Eastern Shore

Tonight is the last night of summer here in Nova Scotia. It has been a beautiful seven weeks or so (July was a wet, foggy write-off) and today was no exception, 22 degrees in the afternoon and yet another beautiful starry, windless, still night tonight.

There are only two downsides to a windless night here on the Eastern Shore. You can't hear the surf roaring against the beach. Which is why we live out here.

And the mosquitoes have free rein.

Yes we still have mossies. On 21st September. I think I will enter ours in the mossie equivalent of the round the world race, they are that hardcore. They have to leave soon, btw, I hope they realise this.

Last weekend was the Eastern Shore yard sale extravanganza. It didn't stretch up the shore as far as I thought it would; when we hit Musquodoboit Harbour there were no sales, but the road from Gaetz Brook to Lawrencetown was pretty good.

We spent sixty dollars. We got:

- a pair of barely used Rossignol cross country skis and poles for me
- a brown leather handbag for me
- a hand-tooled leather tool belt for Himself
- Bill Clinton's My Life
- Dog training for Dummies (which include sad people who own huskies that are totally spoilt and think they are the alpha of the pack)
- an enormous box of camping equipment including a stylish kettle, numerous plates, cups, bowls, one of those plastic egg holding devices, an egg poacher, two saucepans, etc etc
- and a framing nailer (which is well hardcore I am told)

Not a bad little haul.

Last yard sale of the year...

Then we went home and painted the deck and the steps to the deck, and the other steps, and the steps up to the front door, and I hid the disaster of a side garden that I started deconstructing and got bored with, and cut down rag weed and trimmed bushes and we ignored the flower garden which needs to be sorted out (the Queen Mother has tonight stepped up to the plate on this one)

And hung the new curtains and the framed pictures we had sitting in the spare room for seven months.

And started cleaning the house.

So busy, you say....

We are getting married in the house soon.

Thanksgiving weekend to be exact.

So it has to be clean.

The house, I mean.

Normally it is tidy. Tidy is not clean, but it is enough for me as I am immune to my germs, Himself's germs and now Shannon's germs. But there will be foreigners and children and older people at this event, so clean is necessary.

That's a lot of cleaning, though.... And as I talked with the Queen Mother on the phone this evening, while watching the beautiful glow of the sunset light on the 'beginning to turn' trees and while realising I live in a wonderful house and how lucky I am (yet again), I also noticed that the dog has licked all the windows in a not even pattern, up to a height of about two feet so they will have to be cleaned too.

FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No I am not stressed. I did the stress and told everyone but nobody felt it was special, so I gave it up because it was giving me indigestion with no positive outcomes! Also I decided against a hen party, which relieved me of all my stress immediately.

Really, I am not stressed. I am very happy and excited and looking forward to our beautiful day and if we have invited too many people and they all turn up and it rains and there is no room in the house, well then we will all just have to pile into the basement to party, and hey, it won't matter if anyone drops their plate of roasted pork down there.

We are having a pig roast.

Our friend Dukie is organizing it.

And Elizabeth is marrying us. And there will be music on the iPod. And maybe a few carved pumpkins.

And then we will be married.

How about that!!

And then it will be back to routine, which now includes puppy school.

I already hate puppy school.

I have been to one class.

But that's a whole other post.

Which may come tomorrow, as I had quite the chunk of the top of my big toe (left) cut off today as I cut it in a bizarre argument with a door frame, then didn't look after it, then went camping in the woods with it, then yadda yadda, so it was 'gone septic' and needed to be removed. So what with the antibiotics and the anaesthetic and the glass of wine to give them a little edge, and the pain and the blood that won't stop and the need for copious amounts of epsom salts and polysporin and clean gauze, I may have to keep my toe home tomorrow for a little rest.

I would prefer not to have to wear flip flops to my autumn country wedding. It would remind me too much of the fact that I was supposed to wear flip flops to my Carribbean beach wedding.

Maybe I'll just wear my comfy slippers.

Much love to all the sick puppies/ kittens/ cats in Laytown and other places!!

Critter attack at 1am

In true Canadian fashion, at 1am this morning I was standing in my peejays throwing garden furniture at a raccoon on my deck that wanted to get in the crate to eat my puppy, or at least give her rabies.

The raccoon ignored the garden furniture so eventually I had to sidle up to it and beat it off the deck with a broom. Which took a while. Then I took a completely frazzled dog out of the crate and had to let her pee all over the deck to reassert her dominance. Which also took a while.

And then I had to clean all the critter waste off the deck.

Did I mention that it was 1am while I was doing this?

Goddamn critters.

Break in the Indian summer

It rained last night and this morning.

I nearly didn't remember what it was, this mysterious water falling from the sky, but I'm not so formerly Irish that I didn't figure it out eventually.

It has been a pretty good four weeks weather-wise.

And a good six weeks company-wise.

Haven't posted for a while, but then a hot happening August is something to be lived rather than written about.



Also, puppies take up a lot of time. So no blogging time. Or putting on make-up in the morning time. Or lying on the couch in the evening time. Or faffing around reading other blogs time. Or putting up photos time. Or all the dozens of little things I spent my evenings doing, like the one acre garden (now jungle) I have.

No me time in other words.

Christ, at this rate, I could've had a kid and gotten some presents at least ....

Yes I know having a kid is more time in the long term... it just feels like all the time right now.

Myself and my neighbour commiserate each other daily, as we are haulin' one puppy away from the other in either garden.



Having being begged and begged and begged and promised and promised etc for a puppy by men and kids, they're off doing manly things and we are the sole proprietor of the chewy, poopy little flght risks for the foreseeable.

It's like having a baby in the house she says.

And she should know, with two young boys.

Her puppy is a Bassett Hound called Simon who arrived on our street the day before Shannon.



Simon's ears are longer than his legs but he can still haul ass down the street faster than either of us.



As for Shannon, well, Shannon's a Husky, born to run. And like the airport she appears to be named after, she's always taking off. And I always know when she's about to do it, because I get 'the look'.

Some people reading this now will laugh that the girl with THE LOOK is now, finally gettin' some karma from her dogma.



The photo above encapsulates the look, as explained by a friend who also owns a husky. It says 'hmmm, I'm thinking about running away now, and I'm looking behind at you to make sure you know, because I don't care if you do, because we both know I can run faster than you. And even though I recognise my name when there's a treat bag in your hand, I would prefer to run than have a treat right now, so um.. ahm.. I forget my name (lalalalalaa, can't hear you ca-a-a-lllin' me...).... until you catch me of course .... get ready, sucker.'

Having said that, it's a lot of fun too.

And she won't break out of the house to go into town to meet boys with cider bottles and then fall on her face drunk and get brought home by the cops when she's sixteen.

She'll be old and incontinent and farty instead.