Sitting home Friday night

What shall I do? What are the options?

I could start looking through the constituency tally sheets to figure out where’s the best place to canvass for my candidate.

I could start my new book The Empty Ocean, which is about the depletion of fish stocks in the world’s oceans.

I could read the Genuine Progress Index Report on Nova Scotia’s ecological footprint, which is four hundred pages long. The report, not the footprint. The footprint is 8 hectares I think.

I could blog.

I could ring someone I know. Except you’re all in bed or busy right now.

I could watch tv, except I haven’t done that for four months now, so I don’t really want to start again.

I could go to bed.

I could take a bath.

I could start my novel.

I could play Blackshift – I’m up to level 16.

Hmmm……….. I don’t really want to do any of those things.

What have I been doing? I’ve been sitting outside. But I had to come in. It was getting kind of cold. So I’m in now. And I’m typing. Which is good. But I’m feeling kind of restless, so I don’t know how long this will last.

I think of great things to write while I’m sitting outside, enjoying the cold. And the students hollering. Man, they get drunk quick over here. None of that conversation in the pub rubbish. Let’s just get shitfaced and lift a car. I swear. Maybe I’m living in Jocksville. I probably am, I just haven’t realised it yet.

Hence the joggers.

But that’s another post.

So yeah, writing.

So anyway, weekends.

I was thinking about weekends when I was sitting outside. This is my first weekend on my own for a long time. I was really miserable all week thinking about it. And last night I crumbled a little bit. Hung up on Himself in Alberta. But he just thought the signal went. It goes a lot. In out, in out, oh there’s a deer running across the road, I just have to change gear and go down a big hill – c&(*&(*&_)&_*)&(*&)(*^%^$&$£%$£ BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

It does my fucking head in.

So I just hung up. And threw the phone against the wall. And started packing to come home. And then I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at myself. And started laughing eventually. And then I rang him back. And he was back on the road and the deer were all gone and the signal worked for a while, so it was alright.

I was close though. Man, I was close.

I don’t need shit in my life. Let me rephrase that. I get annoyed thinking about shit in my life. So I try to get rid of it. So I don’t have to think about it. But then I think about it anyway. And I know that. So this time I’m trying to just face up to it. But it pisses me off no end. I would much rather it was an eternal summer, where I don’t have to think about responsibilities of any kind.

I knew you’d understand.

You can tell Nancy rang tonight, can’t you.

JUST STOP THINKING ABOUT IT.

Yes, I know dear. It’s very difficult sometimes, is all.

But you know that.

That’s why we’re friends.

So yeah, weekends. I had a nice weekend last weekend. I ate a lot of lobster. Don’t say a word, Dirk. And don’t look hurt either. It doesn’t suit a man with the gift of communicating with bears.

I’d love to see you try.

Speaking of lobster, Simon sent me Toasted Heretic toons on the iPod mail the other day. It was really cool. It was like that scene in Harry Potter when the owl delivers him a letter for the first time. It was this big grey smiley envelope. With stuff in it. And at the bottom, a little file that said Present for Queenie. And I let out a little scream when I saw what it was. I didn’t think for a second.

I hope some of you go to the gig. I’d love to be there.

Say hello to Julian for me. Tell him I never forgot him.

Unlike many others I could mention. If I could remember them.

I should go to bed.

I’m very tired.

I’ve been making patterns with leaves on paper.

Night night.

Queenie

xx

Man kills bear, misses claims adjustor

Man survives grizzly attack as hunting friend shoots and kills bear
DAWSON CREEK, B.C. (CP) -

A local man credits his hunting buddy with saving his life after a grizzly bear attacked him during a hunting trip in the Williston Lake area last week. As the bear attacked Clint Switzer, his friend shot and killed the bear.
"As I approached the bushes I could hear a little rustling and then I was thinking a bull (elk) might come out but it was a grizzly bear in there," said Switzer. "It came out in full charge and with a dull roar. It came through the bush, I thought I had a little bit of time because I was 30 feet (nine metres) from it, but it was on the full charge."

The 34-year-old claims adjuster was in the bush with his friend Marty Anderson.

"It was one of the few times in my life I ever stepped off in the bush hunting without carrying my own gun," said Switzer. However, Anderson had his and it was a good thing for Switzer.

"I took off to the right hoping maybe Marty could get a shot at it before it got me," said Switzer. "But, I wasn't quite that lucky. (The bear) hit me full out in the back and bent me over backwards and as he flattened me he rolled right over top of me. I tried to roll and jump up, but before I could get to my knees he had already regained himself and jumped back at me."

While Switzer struggled for his life, Anderson took aim.

"I was just trying to defend myself, throwing punches to get him to let go of my leg. I had never heard them really roar like that before," he said. "I heard the shot ring out and that bear just screamed and immediately on a dime he spun around 180 degrees."

The wounded bear ran straight at Anderson while he pumped a second shot into his shoulder. A third shot killed the bear.

"I didn't have time to think," said Anderson. "Just shoot the bear and don't shoot my buddy, was the only thing I was thinking."

Switzer went to the hospital when he returned home for treatment of some minor bruises and cuts.
"I just had some bite marks on my thigh, lots of bruising and soreness," he said. Switzer praised Anderson for remaining calm. "He definitely saved my life," he said.

(Peace River Block Daily News)
© 2005 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

Bluenose Fisherman's Blues

Queenie’s got the blues. And when Queenie gets the blues, she makes a mix. So she’s making a mix tonight. It’s called Bluenose Fisherman’s Blues. It’s very sad, but uplifting, because just sad is boring, isn’t it. Pointless. There has to be a light at the end of the tunnel, otherwise you bang into the sides of the tunnel and get bruises on your arms. At least I think that’s where they come from. I can never remember how I get my bruises. And I bruise easily. But you all know that.

Here we go anyways:

Saor/ Free/ News from Nowhere – AfroCelt Sound System: Sound Magic Vol. I

News from nowhere – that’s what this is tonight. I feel like I live nowhere. I’m operating across four time zones at the moment. I have clocks set to different times all over the place. There’s Tracy time, which is three hours behind me. There’s Irish time, or Mom-time as he calls it, four hours ahead of me. And there’s Jersey Girl time, which is just one hour ahead, which is not so bad. We’re a thousand miles apart, which is a fifteen hour drive. But just one hour in time.

These things confuse me terribly.

So I guess I’m in the middle of it all. Nowhere.

Plus it has uileann piping in it that makes the hair stand up on the back of our necks when we listen to it.

Nos de Cariad – David Gray: Life in Slow Motion

New David Gray album at last. Hooray. There’s something wrong with the disk though. I’ve imported it a few times and it always comes out wobbly. I transferred this from the disk into the mix and it seems to be working.

I’m Not Tech© too, I think. But in a lower division.

This is uber-Gray: lots of hysterical piano and swooping vocals. And totally over the top lyrics. I love it though – it’s great for when I’m feeling blue, but uplifted. And I love the way he always uses water imagery when he’s miserable.

The sun above the cotton grass
Is sinking down like lead
The seagulls know the truth of it
And scream it overhead
Hold on to St. Christopher
The sky is murderous red
Go to sleep my one true love
Our glory lies ahead

The rest of the album is not grabbing me so much. Maybe when I iron out the wobbles.

© Trish Byrne

A Stroke of Luck – Garbage: Garbage

I found this album in Walmart last weekend for eleven bucks. I had it on tape and loved it, but never replaced it when I Went Tech. It is a stonking album. It has Stupid Girl on it, which is on my High Fidelity-type list of Top five songs with which to flagellate yourself when you’ve made a mess of things again. The other four being Garbage’s Crush, Blonde Redhead BiPolar, Mission of Burma That’s when I reach for my Revolver (or should that be a .357 magnum? Or is that just for cattle, dear!), and PJ Harvey’s Shame.

When we played it in the car coming back from New Minas, I pointed out that it reminded me of a girl we knew. So we cranked it up and listened to it a few times.

But it didn’t make the list tonight, because I’m not a stupid girl at the moment. I’m doing very nicely in the self-esteem stakes at present. And I don’t want to think about that other person. So I picked this one for the lyrics.

Here comes the cold again
I feel it closing in
It’s falling down and all around me
Falling

The leaves are starting to turn. Today when we woke, the sky was leaden, the wind was whishing around, pulling the leaves off the trees and swirling them to the ground. The light sparkles on the bay have morphed into angry little white caps of foam. After a glorious weekend of blue skies and weather too hot to even sweep up the leaves, it was a bit of reality check.

And we’re all sick. Nova Scotia has the flu. Thankfully, taking the day off seems to be allowed. I struggled into work to meet a bloke who thinks that gambling is caused by the CIA mind control programme. And who has self-published on it. Who of course didn’t turn up. Presumably they waylaid him before the truth got to me.

He’s the second nutter I had to meet in four days. I had a stand up row with a Buddhist environmentalist on Saturday morning who, when I shouted at him for accusing me of ‘being part of the problem’ apologised and said ‘all I want is to find another planet to go to and start a new biology’.

Whatever, dude. Why don’t you go ask the Yankees to bring you to Mars when they start raping it in 2028 or whatever their target date is. The rest of us are going to blow up Cape C. so they can’t come back, and try to fix things here.

Like Eating Glass - Bloc Party: Silent Alarm

I did recently. Eat glass I mean. I was making a salad nicoise, and when I took the green beans off the stove the reinforced glass saucepan I was using exploded and covered the kitchen and the salad in hot water, green beans and shards of glass. And I was broke, so I had to pick the glass out of the salad and eat it because I had nothing else in the food cupboard. I didn’t sleep so good that night, I can tell you.

I have put this in mixes before, but I’m including it again for a couple of reasons.

It has an incredible bass line. And we like a good bass line, so we do. Don’t we, dear! This one goes all the way down to my toes.

Bloc Party are pretty pissed with the state of the world. As am I. When I was coming back from the airport today I put this on full blast and sat in the back of the bus and wept hot little tears of rage at the unfairness of it all.

Someone whose opinion I value enormously put it to me very simply the other day. If you have an aquarium with fish in it, and you dangle a hook and line into the aquarium, maybe a dumb fish will bite, and maybe not. And you can probably outwit a fish with a lure if you’re smart enough. But it will take forever to catch all the fish.

If you put in a little net, you’ll probably catch some fish. But not all of them.

If you put in a huge net that drags everything from the bottom of the aquarium up, you’ll empty the aquarium.

The ocean is just a big aquarium.

The next person that tells me “we thought there’d be no end to the fish” is getting an aquarium toy – a little dragger boat maybe – pointy end first up the you-know-what.

And now they’re doing it with the trees. Except of course, they engage in sustainable forestry. What’s that you ask? Well, you clear cut a two hundred year old mixed forest, (clear cutting being the forestry equivalent of fish dragging) and when all the trees, and all the undergrowth, and all the insects, and birds, and pine martens, and other animals that only live in old growth forestry are gone, you replace it with a plantation of single species spruce, which you then spray with pesticides for four years to stop other plants from ‘competing for nutrients’. So you can rape it, I mean log it, again in forty years instead of two hundred. That’s sustainable forestry.

SUSTAINING WHO???????

And then you wave money at people to get them to move thousands of miles from their home and their family and their girlfriend to transport these logs from one place to another. And they do it because they have to, because there aren’t any fish left to catch.

What are they going to do with us when they run out of trees?

Oh that’s right, that’s not going to happen.

Queenie’s very annoyed. But apparently, she’s part of the problem. Her giving enough of a shit about these things to actually engage with the systems currently in place to offer solutions through, admittedly hugely flawed, representative democracy is PREACHING. She’s not like a REAL environmentalist, who’s had thirty years to put this kind of thing on the table in words that normal people can understand – like using the example of an aquarium, for example – but who has WASTED this time on middle class antics like designing little cards, made out of humanely chopped trees naturally, to hand to chefs in high end restaurants to prompt them to consider whether the fish they cook has been humanely caught.

When they could have been out doing something useful. Like scuttling draggers!

I suppose it would be counter-productive to engage in internecine warfare with the environmentalists just because their time has come and they are lording it over the rest of us because they KNOW.

But man, I really, really want to after the weekend I had.

I am so getting it in the neck from Jersey Girl when she reads this!

B + A – Beta Band: The Three Eps

I included this song, because it always catches me out. It starts off a little slow; it hides itself from me; I can’t put my finger on why it’s in the mix. Then, when I’m about to move on to the next song, it throws a little curved ball at me and stops me in my tracks. So I start paying attention. Then it backs off again, just to make sure I’m really interested. But when it’s sure it has my attention, it throws everything it has at me, and it’s all stuff I like – strong rhythm, quirky melody, clever structure, long build up, great crescendo - and it hits me like a tonne of bricks that I love the energy of the song, and the warm glow I get whenever I listen to it.

That’s the answer to your question, Jersey Girl, by the way…

Lift Me Up – Moby: Hotel

I’m really trying to find a song I like on this album. It’d make you weep, wouldn’t it - the absolute disappointment of it all. But I think this is it. Everyone put their hands in the air and do the Keith Brady.

Plain talking
Making us so cold
So strung out and cold
And feeling so old
Lift me up Lift me up Oh la la la la (10)

Cosmic Tree – 4Hero: Two Pages (1)

Environmental drum n bass. That’s where I’m at musically at present. With thanks to the good doctor.

Stop – look around
Can’t you see
The galaxy of life will shed you from its tree

Can I go a gorgeous shade of reddish gold first?

Of course, that’s what I’m trying to do with my hair. The Gorgeous Gabe made a stab at it a couple of weeks ago. He put too much blonde in it though.

I - don’t - want - blonde - hair. There are only five syllables in that sentence. And yet, so many hairdressers just do not compute. They are Not (Hair) Tech.

Normally, I’d stick in a bit of Jamiroquoi after this, but I don’t want to mention Keith twice in the one post. Having said that, I have mentioned other people more than once, so I guess I could.

Cosmic Girl – Jamiroquoi: Travelling without Moving

Sorry, dude. Keith hates the cat in the hat. But I love this song. I’ll stick on some Rev next, to cheer you up. Remember the gig?

Black Forest – Mercury Rev: The Secret Migration

Another great bass line in this song. From the greatest band on the face of the planet. Bar none!…What did you say dear?…Apart from April Wine?…No!…You’re wrong!…I don’t care what you think!…Because they’re shit, that’s why!…I don’t care if everyone on your island thinks they’re great…They’re still shit…Why?…Because they could have written songs like this…

If I was a white horse
And offered you a ride
Through a black forest

If we took a strange course
Promised you a danger
For a while
Lorelei

There’s no way round the forest
The only way is through
And there’s no way I’ll ever make it on my own
Without you

If you are persuaded
By all those dragonflies
Offering you a ride
I’m the white horse
Lorelei

…and they didn’t…They wrote songs with their peckers….No, I won’t take that back….

Boys and girls, I think you just witnessed the first row.

I think I won that one.

Break Me Gently – Doves: Lost Souls

I just love the Doves. I have all their albums now, and I didn’t hear tell of them till January 2003. My cousin Damian introduced me to them the day I flew home from India and went to his house to collect the car. He burned me the disc and I played it all the way home.

I used to listen to this song when I was pissed off about work.

Back in the old country!

Heroes – David Bowie: Changes

My other cousin Mervyn used to have a sheep dog that had David Bowie eyes – one blue and one brown.

My eyes are brown with green bits in them.

Himself in Alberta has blue eyes. I thought they were brown for a while. But they’re definitely blue. Apart from when they’re green. Or grey.

When my love and I parted – Solas: The Hour before Dawn

Whisht now, while the little lady is singing…

Stupid Girl – Garbage: Garbage

Ah, to hell with it, it’s a great song.

Don’t believe in fear
Don’t believe in faith
Don’t believe in anything
You can’t taste
You stupid girl
All you had you wasted

Block Rockin’ Beats – The Prodigy: Dig your Own Hole

I was out having a smoke when this was on so I can’t think of anything to say about it. And I’m not playing it again.

We who are not as others – 4Hero: Two Pages (Disc Two)

This is a ten minute filler so as I can go to bed at some point tonight. But it is a fantastic piece of music in its own right, which is why I am putting it in rather than something by Orbital, which is what I usually do.

69MB – nearly on the nose. I’m getting good at this.

It’s late. Or is it only nine pm? No, no, it’s five in the morning. Or maybe it’s one o’clock in the morning. What the hell time is it anyways? It’s late. It’s midnight, and I have a three hour statistics briefing in eight hours.

G’night all, where ever you are. Keep a hold o’ the St. Christopher.

The Wild Sheep Chase

BLOOMFIELD, N.B. (CP) -

Investigators say it's likely that 16 sheep found slaughtered in a New Brunswick farmer's field were killed by a wild animal. The bodies of the sheep were discovered on Tuesday scattered across a hill, some skinned with precision. On Thursday, a necropsy report back from a lab in Fredericton said there was a "high probability" the animals were attacked by a predator.
The animals all died from puncture wounds to their throats. Mark LeBlanc, an SPCA animal protection officer, had speculated earlier this week the puncture wounds may have come from a flat head screwdriver. But on Thursday, he was uncertain. The sheep were discovered by their owner.

Bears are the only animal known to carefully skin their prey once caught.

© 2005 The Chronicle-Herald - Halifax. All rights reserved

A picture of Queenie

Someone was looking for a picture of me. This goes against all my principles of anonymity, but it was someone who reads my blog.

So there you go. You may kneel and worship me now. From afar.

Aaargh! Me pirate name at last

It come from Myles' blog, no less.
Now I be off to drink some rum and swash my buckle

And figure out how to get a cool one the next time.

My pirate name is:

Captain Harry Kidd

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

It's not all one-sided you know! Man Bites Bear!

Bear kill numbers hit 23 in Red Lake

BY BRYAN MEADOWS
NORTHWEST BUREAU

Looking at the numbers of dangerous bears killed in Red Lake this summer, the community could gain the dubious distinction of nuisance bear capital of Ontario 2005. As of Monday, 23 bears have been killed in the municipality by Ministry of Natural Resources staff or provincial police. And, just a short drive south, in Ear Falls, three bears have been destroyed. The bears appear to be more brazen than normal this year, MNR Red Lake District enforcement supervisor Dave Anderson said Monday.

They're wandering main streets close to schools and between parked cars, he said, adding some bears are not only coming out at night, but in the middle of the day. "It's like they're taking shifts or something."
Anderson stressed that officers normally kill bears only as a last resort.

Most of the bears destroyed were "repeat offenders," bears that were trapped and relocated, and then wandered back into the community. And they were exhibiting aggressive behaviour. Anderson said there's very little food in the bush and bears are coming into town to dine on garbage, fruit trees, barbecue grills and bird feeders.

"We've got the garbage problem a bit under control," but he said some people are still putting their garbage out too early for pickup, or not storing it properly. Some bears had ripped open screens on homes, or were half-way into buildings when officers arrived, Anderson said. Some didn't run away, but headed toward the officers when approached, he said.

"It's really becoming nasty . . . there's a real concern for public safety."

The nuisance bear situation is better in other Northwest communities, but concerns remain. In Dryden where city police deem any bear in a residential neighbourhood a threat, 10 animals have been destroyed. Two bears have been killed in Thunder Bay and Red Rock; and one each in Marathon and Kenora. MNR spokeswoman Jolanta Kowalski said Monday that the number of nuisance bear "occurrences" is down slightly from last year.

As of Sept. 11, there were 7,491 calls to the province's BearWise hotline that required response by the ministry, compared to 7,867 last year. Overall, calls to the hotline are down about 2,400 from the 12,876 calls recorded to Sept. 14, 2004.

Meanwhile, conservation groups have renewed their call for a return of the spring black bear hunt after a Cambridge, Ont., woman was attacked and killed by a black bear on Sept. 6 in Missinaibi Lake Provincial Park, north of Chapleau. Thunder Bay-based Northwestern Ontario Sportsmen's Alliance maintains the hunt would be an effective tool in managing the province's burgeoning number of black bears.

"The government is afraid of bears and they have every right to be when our government officials make excuses for not having a black bear management strategy in place that is even remotely effective," said NOSA president John Kaplanis.

Although NOSA acknowledges that nuisance bears will always be a fact of life in the North, Kaplanis said the group also believes the MNR has a responsibility to protect humans and their property in a meaningful manner by allowing a harvest of bears each year that will reduce number to a point where dangerous and nuisance encounters occur less frequently.

© 2005 The Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal. All rights reserved.

First Day of Fall - More Gifts for a Girl travelling Light

Tomorrow’s the first day of Fall in Canada. I saw it on a calendar the other day. We Irish are not so defined about our weather, autumn whisks in and out the door a few times before it decides whether or not it’s going to dance and rustle for us. I don’t know anyone that doesn’t like autumn/ fall. It’s such a glorious season. The warm summer is still lingering a little. The energy levels are up a bit. The excitement of Christmas is visible in the distance. The rain and the cold and the snow and the hail are in the same memory vault as PMS and childbirth. Remembered with mock horror, but best not to think about it 'till we have to.

It’s one of many differences between Ireland and Canada. Having a first day of Fall I mean.

Here in Nova Scotia, one of the most visible differences between my life in Dublin and my life in Halifax is the clothes people wear. Everyone goes to Frenchies, the second hand chain. Not everyone does the second hand thing at home. Frenchies is good; they rotate the clothes around the branches, so there’s always something to find in the shop. There are lots of really interesting one off second hand shops as well. Sadly, the availability of really funky, die-if-you-can’t-have-it new clothes is not so good. There’s the usual chainstores, but very few with that je ne sais quoi of Avoca, or Platform, or Rococco. Which is good, because I spent far too much money in them anyway. But I do miss being able to nip in there, look at what's REALLY trendy, then leg it up to A-Wear or Monsoon or Jigsaw and get the same same for half the price.

I love my clothes I do. And I really stand out here; even the colours I wear are different. People love my clothes and comment on them all the time. Stop me in the street and ask me where I’ve gotten stuff. (I always say Paris, just to annoy them). I’ve already worn a lot of the stuff that came over with Trish and Keith.

Just the other day, one of the women in work said 'surely you must be coming to the end of the selection!' And I am.

I walked down Spring Garden Rd. this evening, on my way home from work via the library. I stepped in to return Pat Barker's Border Crossing, a novel about a psychiatrist (quel surprise) who meets in adulthood a child murderer he had helped convict, which I really liked, and James Lee Burke's In the Moon of the Red Ponies (a Billy Bob Holland novel - I think he's finally getting into his stride with this series now) which I had read this week for FREE (yes, Ray I know they have libraries in Dublin, I just never joined one). I had sat outside the library as I always do for a few minutes, to catch the last of the sun. The Food Bank people were handing out some kind of curry to their clients. It smelled good. Then the unbelieveably irritating Acadian bloke who met me on the tofu stand and who takes pleasure in tormenting me every time he sees me (which is almost every day as he hangs out beside the library) came over to torment me so I got up and walked on.

I passed the posh clothes shop on Halifax’ main street and saw a black skirt in the window that reminded me of one Eileen bought last year. Not as nice as hers. But I thought of her anyway, and smiled to myself thinking how disappointed she’d be if she ever came here for a weekend’s shopping. It made me a little sad, thinking of her but when I got home I cheered up because there was a package waiting for me.

Boys and girls, to describe the rush I got when I saw it would be beyond me. I almost lost my balance for a moment. It was a yellow jiffy bag. I squished it a bit and then took it into my room and sat on the edge of my bed and squished it some more. It was soft. Was it from home? It said Canada at the bottom of the address so it must be. And then I saw the little An Post marker on the front. Oh joy. I didn’t recognise the bold capitals that spelled my name and address. I nearly turned it over to see a return address, then decided not to look at it until I had opened it. Then I ripped it wide open in one pull.

Out fell a clear plastic bag with a postcard of a sheep attached to it. It reminded me a little of the Murakami novel I read on the plane over to Canada – The Wild Sheep Chase – which begins with the main character studying a photograph of a field of sheep. It looked like a John Hinde special. Hello from Ireland it said. The sheep stood perky in the sunlight to one side of the picture. In the background was a landscape; it looked like one of the valleys in the Wicklow Mountains.

I opened the bag and shook the contents out onto the bed. Two wraparound cardigans. One emerald green. The other gold lame. It could only be…. Yup… Eileen. In case I missed the autumn essentials from A-Wear.

Does the friggin’ pope wear a silly hat?

I rarely buy that green, but it looks good on me. Maybe we should all get someone to buy our clothes for us sometimes. The gold is to die for. Good old A-Wear. They're so great. And thanks, girl! You made my day.

So I rang her to thank her and we talked about the summer being over. Everyone at home seems to have had a good one. I’m glad. Ireland deserved one.

So did I. Have a great summer I mean.

And now it’s autumn/ fall.

Round and round she goes. Like the stock in Frenchies, or the carousel of new releases they have at the entrance to the library. Or the Food Bank people in their little van. Or Queenie's wraparound cardigans.

I have Peter Carey’s My Life as a Fake to read this week and already it’s making me weep with envy at its absolutely perfect sentences that describe things perfectly and absolutely. Fixes them in my head so they can never be described otherwise. And the nerve of it – to write a novel about an editor writing a book about a poet who invented a poet, his oeuvre and life to deceive a friend. If I wasn’t such a fan I’d hate him.

The ManCupboard

Colombo was asking about Percy the other day. And when I looked round for him, I couldn’t see him. “Where is he”, I asked myself. Where indeed.

He’s in the mancupboard of course. But I seem to have mislaid it. Somewhere along the way. I’ll find it at some point. I have found everything so far. My camera in Montreal. My sunglasses twice. Somebody always finds my stuff and gives it back to me.

I pity the poor girl who finds the mancupboard. She won’t know what to make of it.

I remember the night I had the Good Friday party in my flat and Simon came over late and demanded to see it. And I was thinking, dude, you’re standing in it. But it was too big a leap of faith. People can misunderstand you. Well, they do me all the time. They think I’m being really aggressive and actually, I’m just getting my retaliation in first.

I did it at the weekend. I shouted at some poor hotel clerk because he wouldn’t sell me a packet of cigarettes. I told him he was a moron. Well, he was. But I shouldn’t have said that. I do a lot of things I am ashamed of afterwards. But it was weird, when we were all talking about it afterwards, Tracy said that I was right to call him a moron.

That stopped me in my tracks I can tell you.

What happened was, the guy wouldn’t sell me the cigarettes because he was doing his books. And I had to come back in a half an hour. This was at two in the morning, just after the nightclub had closed.

Legends Niteclub. If you’re interested.

In Kentville.

Which is like Smallville. Without Superman.

We were staying in the Wandlynn Motel. Me and Tracy and Tina and Martin. And Kevin was up visiting Tammy, so they called over on the Friday night.

Six of us sitting there with a very large bottle of vodka and Ophelia on the way.

Anyway, I eventually growled back to my room, sans cigarettes, and Tracy went and got them for me from him.

So then I went running back down to the foyer demanding that he sell me a packet. Which he did. I must have frightened the living daylights out of him. But we shook hands and parted friends.

I wonder does he like his job? Or does he just do it to feed his kids? Or does he beat his wife to make up for it? Or is he gay? Or does he have a young one shacked up somewhere that his missus doesn’t know about? Or what? What, what, what? What makes him tick? What makes everyone tick? And why the hell do I want to know so bad?

So yeah, Tracy rides point for me. We’ll be unstoppable. We’re going to drive a rig across America. I want to bring the truth about justice to some impoverished barrio south of Cancun, but I might have to talk him into that. That’s a long way away. Also, he sees angles I don’t. Between us, we have most of them covered.

We didn’t do much on Friday night. We were all tired. We just sat around in our room and had a few drinks. Chatted. They told me about Sarah’s Sister, the sex shop in New Minas. New Minas is the Blanchardstown of West Nova. We decided we’d go and get Kevin a present the next day. He was supposed to come with us, but he changed his mind.

We got up fairly early on Saturday and went for breakfast in the motel restaurant and I had maple syrup on my bacon because you can here in Canada. Then we drove down to New Minas.

Man, that shop is some busy. I couldn’t believe all the people traipsing in and out. It had its own carpark. I of course, being Irish, parked in the lot belonging to the shop down the block and made them all walk up in the rain. Just in case I got spotted. Anyway, it was just a normal store, with deep shelves covered in sex toys of one description or another.

I have led a very sheltered existence I think.

I saw my first Egyptian love swing.

I wonder do they do them in lilac?

We don’t love Kevin enough to pay eighty bucks for a proper luuurv toy, and he doesn’t need one anyway, so we bought him some class of erotic massage oil. Then we went to Walmart to get stuff for Tracey to take to Alberta.

It was my first time in a Walmart too. I usually refuse to go into them. But it was raining and I wanted to see what it was like.

I got my first lesson in Nova Scotia shopping. Buy the cheapest thing. No, not that one you’re looking at, you’re just paying for some doodaas that don’t amount to anything extra. This one. Thank goodness Tina was with me. I’d have bought the wrong thing. I was so busy freaking out about why I had to go and buy it when he was actually in the shop (looking at the electronics section). Then I realised that I was only being allowed to pick it because Tina was with me and I probably wouldn’t have been trusted to do it by myself so that was okay. When I thought about it, it made perfect sense. Buying the cheapest thing I mean. I don’t know why I don’t do it. It is one of my eternal self-obsessed think-ins that I have about myself. I hope I’m not a snob. I live in fear of being a snob. But I think it’s actually because cheap stuff used to be dreadful, but now it’s not, because the countries that make it have gotten better at it, but I just haven’t realised it yet. So I am getting my money’s worth.

Also, Irish people have been brainwashed into thinking expensive equals quality. When it just means expensive.

I’m sure there’s some really arcane leftie reason why I shouldn’t buy cheap stuff in a Walmart in New Minas but you know, I’m not going to think about it today. And the workers all looked reasonably chirpy. Not downtrodden like they are in the Tim Hortons’. Or insane like the people in the Subway outlets.

Then we got bored with shopping so we went back to the motel and crashed for a while and then went for a swim. They had a sauna. It was great. We sat in it for as long as we could bear, which wasn’t very long ever, and then jumped in the pool. We did it a few times and then we got bored again. It was a really dull day weatherwise. It rained, but there was no wind – Ophelia had run out of puff.

So we got ready to go out and went down the road to the Chinese buffet, which was all you could eat for $12.95. Which was also fantastic value. And I had a Chinese beer, the one you get in Dublin, I can’t remember the name of it. The one that tastes like Heineken.

I miss Heineken. The only beer you can get here that tastes like European lager is Schooner and it’s really expensive. Of course. That’s probably why I like it. Doh!

Then we did the girly make up thing (well, Tina and I did) and went to Legends.

It was legend.

I had to say that.

It was mostly hip hop. All the black kids stood around the dance floor drinking beer and watching us white folks try to dance. It was funny. Then they played the most awful techno I have ever heard.

And there was a slow set. Which I managed to avoid. I can’t remember how I did it; I think I just refused point blank.

A truly diverse musical occasion. Remind me to tell you about the Funky Chicken sometime.

We sat and watched a bloke with the biggest muscles and the smallest nose I have ever seen on the same person. You could tell he’d spent his whole adult life trying to make up for the size of his nose. He stood on the stairs near the bar flexing all night.

Then Tracy reached for something and knocked over a beer and in the confusion another one went. And he was sure he had accidentally hit me in the mouth. But I didn’t feel anything, so I reckon he must have brushed his hand against the window or something and thought that he’d done it.

But it’s a great conversation stopper: Honey, do you remember the time you knocked over my drink and punched me in the face in that nightclub in Kentville? Legends, wasn’t it?

The other day Mykyle told me in one of his endless paragraph sentences that although I was bright and educated and cosmopolitan in some way I was a bit trashy. I’m not quite sure where the comma is supposed to go – it’s difficult to know with him sometimes. Before ‘in some way’ or after? Nevertheless, I reckon he might be right. It’s just a mood I get into sometimes. When I’m happy.

I prefer to think of it as earthy. Earthy being the posh word for trashy.

We had to check out at eleven the next morning. That was tough. Seeing as the four of us were still playing jumping on the bed at three thirty. Man, we love jumping on stuff. I blame Tina and Martin for buying that trampoline. It's worse than a bouncing castle. I fell off the bed of course. Thank God Nabla wasn’t with me or I would have gone out and taken the hand brake off the car and rolled out onto the highway. (It’s a long story – we were very young). We went to the Irving gas station in New Minas for breakfast. It was really busy and I was ready to eat the table by the time my maple syrup with bacon under it arrived. Dozens and dozens of people having their Sunday lunch in a petrol station. These people love their petrol. They even eat out beside it.

Then we headed up to Wolfville to meet Kevin and his daughter and her boyfriend. They go to Acadia, the university in Wolfville. It’s a lovely college – it’s like UCG. They live in an apartment beside the bus station where I used to get the bus to Halifax. It was weird being back there. It was the first bit of context I have had, if you know what I mean.

The first time something wasn’t new anymore. That’s not Halifax, obviously.

We hung out for a bit and then drove over to the beach at Cape Blomidon Park. We collected stones for the board game I’m building and I put them on a rock to dry and somebody knicked them. I was well pissed. The stones on the beaches here are amazing – gorgeous moss greens and volcanic reds and sky blue and brown all mixed together in random combinations. Every stone is different. And clear white quartz. And red. Sometimes wrapped around a piece of basalt. And wonderful, mother of pearl-lined shells, glistening like a fingernail on a bloody hand in the red mud of the bay. Tina even found a piece of soapstone and gave it to me to carve the king out of it. I put it in my camera case so I still have that. I have enough to get started anyway.

Nova Scotia used to be part of Africa you know. A long time ago.

We stood around looking at the sea. They’re great to go to a beach with – they all know lots of things about the plants and the shellfish and the tides. I’d never go hungry with this lot. Even in Alberta. They’re going to kill me a bear so I can eat it. We’re going to get a cherry picker and put it on the back of the truck so when we kill a bear or an elk or a caribou, or just find some roadkill, we can grab it with the cherry picker and throw it up back and head off, quick as you like.

Martin told me a story about him and his mother being chased by a black bear when he was young. And his uncle went out the next day and shot it and then they ate it. He was trying to explain what it tasted like but I couldn’t get past the ‘oh, it just stood up on its hind legs and roared at us and then it started to run at us and we ran and my mother fell and I went back and helped her up’ bit of the story. I think he said it had a sweet taste. When I visit Alberta I am not leaving the house on my own I don’t think. I don’t care if they hibernate. They don’t exactly put an ad in the paper advertising the day they wake up, now do they? And knowing my luck with big hairy things, I’d pick that weekend to visit.

Myles, I’m going to take you to task about that comment one of the days. When I think of a witty enough riposte. :-)

Then we went back to Wolfville and went to Joes for supper and I had English fish and chips. Which wasn’t as exotic as bear steak, but which hit the spot. And then it was time to go back to the city. I didn’t get lost this time, thank goodness. More context I suppose.

It rained all the way back. Inside the car and out.

Coach Spankie rooting for Christopher

Teen recovering from grizzly attack, surgery in Vancouver hospital
The Canadian Press
VANCOUVER (CP) -

A 13-year-old boy mauled by a grizzly bear Monday is out of intensive care and recovering from his wounds in a Vancouver hospital.

"He's talking and he's making the odd joke," Christopher Solecki's aunt Catherine Fairlie said on Wednesday. "He said he'd like to have a bearskin rug, but only one particular bear."

Christopher and his brother were out for an evening stroll with their dog on the family's cattle farm near Burns Lake when the dog disturbed the bear and it charged. Christopher was bitten in the leg, breaking his femur, while his horrified older brother Matthew, 15, looked on. The bear grabbed Christopher and threw him, then either bit, clawed or stood on the boy's head, fracturing his skull.

"He wasn't sure where the bear was, so he was trying to crawl away, but he couldn't because of his broken leg," Fairlie said. Matthew ran to alert his father, Jon, who raced to Christopher's side and carried him to safety.
Fairlie said her nephew isn't quite sure what happened after the initial chomp, but his memory and mental faculties seem to be functioning normally.

"There aren't any concerns of brain injury," she said.

Christopher was helicoptered to hospital in Burns Lake, where he was stabilized, then flown to a hospital in Vancouver for surgery. He was groggy from painkillers on Wednesday, but otherwise recovering well with his mother Cynthia at his side, Fairlie said.

"He's in great spirits. He's a strong kid and an athlete. He just has to get past this physical impasse."

Ironically, Christopher is a star goalie for the Burns Lake Bruins. His minor hockey teammates, which boasts a bear paw logo, are pulling for him, said coach Grant Spankie. The coach is flying to Vancouver this weekend to visit. Christopher played all 40 games with the team last season and was the team's only goalie.
Team manager Brenda Payne said his loss will leave a void.

Meanwhile, the search for the grizzly continues. Conservation officers deployed traps snares and bait stations, but there was no sign of the bear on Wednesday. Conservation officer Bob Coyle said the bear likely won't be destroyed if it's captured. The grizzly apparently acted defensively, spooked by the dog, then alarmed to see the two boys so close.

"This encounter was totally outside of its experiences," Coyle said. "It seems to be reacting within the norms of bear behaviour." He said the bear is likely "long gone." Those who try to stand and fight a grizzly generally don't fare as well as Christopher did, said Coyle.

"This young fellow was fortunate," he added.

More gifts for a girl travelling light

Interesting fact no. 1: If someone sends a dozen red roses to you at your workplace, your co-workers spend all day trying to figure out why.

Interesting fact no. 2: If someone sends a dozen red roses to you at your workplace, you spend all day looking at them. And do NO WORK.

I can't post the roses, so here's another gift I got recently. Appropriately, it's called Gift.

GIFT
Czeslaw Milosz

A day so happy.
Fog lifted early, I worked in the garden.
Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers.
There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess.
I knew no one worth my envying him.
Whatever evil I had suffered, I forgot.
To think that once I was the same man did not embarrass me.
In my body I felt no pain.
When straightening up, I saw the blue sea and sails.

Thank you.

No point in just obsessing is there...

Jersey Girl sent me this website to ease my bear phobia.

Not working! Website under the title.


Staying Safe in Bear Country.
Recommendations from the International Bear Association (IBA)

Bear-Human Interactions
Most bears have previous experience around people and learn from each interaction.
Humans usually don't even know they came close to a bear, BEARS USUALLY AVOID PEOPLE.

Two major categories of Bear-Human interactions where bears don't avoid or even approach people: Defensive and Non-defensive

Defensive Interactions
Bear thinks you are a threat to itself, its cubs or its food cache
Usually you approached it, and entered into its personal space, surprising or crowding it
Most likely will appear agitated and stressed
Closer you are too it before it becomes aware of you, more likely it is to react defensively
Almost always stop short of contact, fight/flight is triggered
Defensive response that results in an attack (physical contact) almost always involve grizzly bears surprised at close range, on a carcass or protecting young. The few defensive attacks by black bears have been females protecting cubs (but these are very rare).

Non-defensive Interactions
A number of different non-defensive motivations that may appear similar to each other:
Curious bear
Human-habituated bear
Food-conditioned bear
Dominance-testing bear
Predatory bear

Avoiding a close encounter
LET BEAR KNOW YOU'RE HUMAN by talking or singing.

The Teddy Bear's Picnic wasn't such a bad idea, was it.

AVOID BEARS THAT ARE AWARE OF YOU AND UNCONCERNED
NEVER APPROACH A BEAR
LEAVE AREA YOU ENCOUNTERED A BEAR
IF YOU HEAR VOCALIZATIONS OR SEE UNATTENDED CUBS…be extremely cautious and leave the area silently the way you came.

Response during bear encounters:
Identify yourself as human to bears you cannot avoid by talking and slowly waving your arms. Try to give the bear your scent.
Increase your distance from the bear, even if it appears unconcerned.
Do not run, it could invite pursuit.

If a bear approaches you:

Stand your ground!
Quickly assess the situation. Is the bear behaving defensively or in some other way?
Remain calm, attacks are rare.
Do not run unless you're absolutely sure of reaching safety.
Group together. Prepare your deterrent.

If the bear is approaching in a defensive manner:

Stand your ground. Try to appear non-threatening.
Don't shout at the bear. Talk to the bear in a calm voice.
If the bear stops its approach, increase your distance.
If the bear resumes its approach, stand your ground, keep talking calmly, and prepare to use your deterrent.
If the bear cannot be deterred and is intent on attack, fall to the ground as close to contact as possible and play dead.
When the attack stops, remain still and wait for the bear to leave. If an attack is prolonged or the bear starts eating you, it is no longer being defensive.

No kidding!!

If the bear approaches in a non-defensive manner:
Talk to the bear in a firm voice.
Try to move away from the bear's travel path, that may be all it wants you to do.

If the bear follows you with its attention directed at you. Stop! Stand your ground and prepare to use your deterrent.

Act aggressively toward the bear. Let the bear know you will fight if attacked. Shout! Make yourself look as big as possible. Stamp your feet as you take a step or two toward the bear. Threaten the bear with whatever is at hand. A bear that is initially curious or testing you may become predatory if you do not stand up to it. The more the bear persists, the more aggressive your response should be.

If the bear attacks, use your deterrent and fight for your life. Kick, punch or hit the bear with whatever weapon is available. Concentrate your attack on the face, eyes and nose. Fight any bear that attacks you in your building or tent.

See, see, you do punch them on the nose!!

Remember:

If an attack (physical contact is made) is defensive… Play dead. (Don't play dead before you have used all possible means, such as deterrents to prevent an attack)
If the attack is predatory… Fight back.


HELPING SOMEONE BEING ATTACKED
You may be able to drive away an attacking bear from someone else but if you do this you risk drawing the attack to yourself.

Okay, so I'm obsessed

Family doctor mauled by black bear in Ontario woods

Police and wildlife officials were on the hunt for a wounded black bear after a woman was mauled to death and her husband injured as he was forced to use a Swiss Army knife to keep the animal from dragging her into northern Ontario bush.

Campers have been ordered out of the back country of Missinaibi Lake Provincial Park, about 80 kilometres north of Chapleau, Ont., as conservation officers equipped with a helicopter and a dog team scour the area.
Natural Resources officials said Marc Jordan of Cambridge, Ont., was armed with only a Swiss Army knife as he fought desperately to keep the predatory animal from dragging his fatally mauled wife, Dr. Jacqueline Perry, into the brush.

"He fought back as hard as he could with the weapon he had at hand," Jolanta Kowalski of the Ministry of Natural Resources said Wednesday. "But the bear was relentless in wanting to take her into the bush."
Jordan, 30, suffered lacerations while slashing the bear at least five times with the knife, police said. The computer specialist was flown to a hospital in Sudbury, Ont., where he was expected to require surgery. He was listed in serious but stable condition.

Perry, 30, was a family physician at a Cambridge hospital. Staff at the Grandview Medical Centre were devastated after hearing of Tuesday's attack, said the centre's lead physician, Dr. Jeff Main.

"Jacqueline represented vitality and youthfulness," Main said. "It's like losing a child. She was the youngest partner here."

Jordan's mother, Rosalind Jordan, said he suffered multiple lacerations, puncture wounds and severed nerves.

"They loved hiking, they loved the outdoors. They were also dedicated to the well-being of their community," she said.

Jordan and Perry were on a two-week holiday, camping and kayaking alone at a remote campsite when a black bear hunting for food attacked, said provincial police Const. Karen Farand.

In the frantic attempt to save his wife, the injured Jordan carried her to their kayak and began to paddle to the nearest campsite, Farand said.

He yelled for help and Vytas Abrutis, 54, and his 30-year-old son Rytis from Philadelphia, were camping nearby and went to help.

"When I ... saw his dead wife, I just couldn't believe it," said Rytis Abrutis.

Abrutis was so shaken he and his father have decided to leave the campground early.

"I can't deal with this," he said. "I hate bears. I've always hated them. They should all be shot. When it comes to human safety, there's no use for bears and sharks or animals like that."

Jordan put his wife into their boat, which carried them all off in search of help.

About a kilometre away, they spotted and flagged down another boat, which carried a doctor from North Carolina and an off-duty police officer.

The doctor tried to treat Perry while the boat continued on to the park's main office, about 10 kilometres away.

But by then Perry had succumbed to her injuries "and was obviously dead," said Farand.

"I've lived here all my life and this is a first for me," said Farand. "I can't even imagine what (Perry and Jordan) went through."

Farand said the area is home to many black bears and has more than its usual share of bear sightings this year because it hasn't been a good season for blueberries.

Keith Scott, a bear expert with the Ministry of Natural Resources, said such attacks are "very rare."

"There's only been four fatalities in Ontario through black bears dating back to about 1978," he said.

"This one in this particular case, it's early in the investigation, but it appears to be a predatory-type bear. These bears have learned to and often prey on humans."

The attack is just the latest in what has been a busy season for bear attacks across Canada.

Perry's death is the 10th fatal bear attack in Ontario in the last 100 years.

The most recent incident occurred in 1992, when a male geologist was killed by a bear in the Cochrane area.
Perry's death was the talk of the town Wednesday in Chapleau, where many residents go to Missinaibi to fish and view historic aboriginal rock paintings.

Coun. Bud Swanson said the attack comes at a time when locals are still seeing nuisance bears coming into town in search of food.

Conservation groups have renewed their call for a return of the spring black bear hunt following the attack.
Officials with the Northwestern Ontario Sportsmen's Alliance and the Canadian Outdoor Heritage Alliance argue that the spring hunt would help manage the province's burgeoning number of black bears.

NOSA president John Kaplanis said that less hunting pressure means bears are learning that they no longer need to fear people.

"These unhunted predators move to the top of the food chain, become more aggressive in search of food and are less fearful of man," Kaplanis said.

COHA chairman Bob McQuay agreed with Kaplanis, stating that "bears no longer fear humans and consider us just part of their wilderness buffet."

Kowalski was reluctant to talk about the ministry's bear management policy on Wednesday.

"(With one woman dead and a man in hospital) today is not the day to talk about this," she said.

© 2005 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

Sitting home, Wednesday night

Sitting home Wednesday night. Today was ridiculously hyper. There was an air of it in Halifax; I suppose it’s the students being back that’s doing it.

Sitting out on the deck. We have the smallest deck in the world. If I sit with my chair rammed up against the kitchen wall, I can prop my feet up on the railing at the far side, put the laptop between my stomach and my thighs and type with my elbows on the arm of the chair. The only problem is when I’m having a cigarette (sorry, mum); I have to lean forward to tip the ash.

Why have they not invented the ash-less cigarette? It is a total pain in the arse tipping one’s ash when one has one’s laptop balanced delicately as a creamy tankard of frothy Arthur’s between one’s stomach and one’s thighs.

That was a Baz sentence, by the way. Baz is my brother. I must tell you all about him some day. I talk about him quite a lot. I sometimes wonder does he ever talk about me. I can’t ask him, because to do so would be to invite a carefully crafted, superbly supercilious email about how far beneath his contempt I exist; too far to deserve the effort of a response. Which hits every one of my many buttons simultaneously.

There’s nothing worse than a bitter Piscean.

An insecure Cancerian possibly….

Anyway, I’m burning cds for the weekend. I’m going down to Long Island. Again. It is my new drug of choice, for so many reasons, none of which I am going to go into in any detail here. Those of you who care know. And the rest of youse can all fuck off, because I met someone I knew in the street today.

And she said hello to me first.

SCORE QUEENIE!!!!!

The insecure Cancerian in the Royal family. The one who spoils Christmas. The one who never knows when to shut up. The one that has to be the centre of attention all the time.

Why do I believe all this SHIT about myself. I’m febblus me. People I don’t know notice what I’m wearing and then when they meet me they say ‘were you walking down Barrington yesterday wearing a pink skirt’. And I pretend I can’t remember. Even though, inside, I’m on my knees weeping with gratitude at whatever divine being sorted this little victory out for me.

I love this city. It’s just the right size pond for me.

I guarantee you I will know everyone in this city in one year’s time. Then I’ll want to leave.

But I won’t really, because I’ll want to do another summer here. Tish was talking to the Gorgeous Gabe the other day while donating her beautiful hair to child cancer victims, as only Tish can do, and he told her that fall here is a long redolent slide into the hoary forgetfulness of winter. Well, he didn’t use those exact words, but that’s what he meant. I’m really looking forward to it.

There are five of us in the house. The last one arrived today. A deep, silent Cape Bretoner. Which means he’ll be mad on some level, but it might take a while to figure it out. But he’ll be mad, oh yes. He didn’t know what to make of me. This long stringy thing in painted on jeans and a low cut top babbling at him about how he should come upstairs more because the basement is very dark, isn’t it. And you need to get a bit of light all the time.

He came up, give him his due, and we sat on the tiniest deck in the world for a while and he opened up a little bit and told me he gave up engineering to go back and do nuclear medicine. Which I had to look up on the internet afterwards.

The deck is my perch. That’s what Bruce says. Bruce is the guy I’ve been sharing with since I moved in. We have a very strange relationship. He resents me on some level. I think it’s because I’m smart and I’ve got a good job and he’s smart and he’s got a shit job. And he can’t figure out exactly why I’ve one up on him but he suspects it’s probably got something to do with my having a nice ass.

Prick.

It’s unnerving sometimes. I get nervous when he’s around. But then I relax and he does too and we have great chats. And he does loads of stuff for me. He puts out the bins and he hasn’t asked me to do it yet. And he went to get us cigarettes the other night. After he had smoked all of mine. And he lets me into the bathroom first in the morning. But there’s always something bubbling under the surface. He reminds me of a lot of guys I knew in college. We’d have these strange afternoons, or evenings, or nights when they’d insist on walking me home and I’d insist they slept on the floor and they would keep me up all night talking as a punishment for not sleeping with them. I’d sit there and curse whatever divine being it was organised for me to be a woman.

I deserve my little victories. I do.

Marissa and Justin are the other two. They’re very young. Students. Marissa’s very bouncy and Justin’s a big stoner. Apparently he’s a good soccer player as well. I’ll have to give him the lecture about his lungs.

We’re all rammed into the little yellow house on PrettyArmyInstallation (PAI) Ave and everyone’s wondering who the troublemaker’s going to be.

Who’s going to spoil Christmas?

Why is Google so slow today? It’s not the internet connection. Everything else is humming along as usual. I started imagining that the internet collapsed today. I am extremely unprepared. I should find a website that tells me how to prepare for an internetless world, as I can’t remember what they’re like. I am such a goldfish. We all are I suppose.

Poor New Orleans. It puts everything into perspective doesn’t it. I find that when I’m done with the goldfish moment on that, it puts my own life into some sort of perspective. I used to feel really selfish about thinking like that, but now I realise that almost everyone does. And the people who don’t are really special and should be helped in whatever way to keep doing it. And not given to bureaucrats to manage, because if that happens they’ll just wither and die of pain from the neglect and indecision and penny-pinching that comes with that territory.

The rest of us are more selfish. The thought I had today was that I gotta keep travelling. Everywhere I go gets destroyed afterwards and a lot of places I haven’t been. That’s really selfish. But it just popped into my head. So I thought I’d write it down, to show you all how selfish I am.

Because it’s my blog.

This level of honesty is starting to freak me out a little bit. I’m starting to think of whom I’ll be upsetting. The weird thing about a blog is that once even one person starts reading it, you adapt it to ensure they won’t be offended. Well that’s what I do. Sometimes I end up writing stuff and looking back at it knowing I changed it in my brain before I wrote it down.

Which wasn’t the original plan.

I’ll never have the nerve to write a novel. Which is probably just as well for the rest of you.

Jesus! I’ve gotten another spam comment on Percy’s. GOOGLE! What the fuck is going on? I’ll have to switch my comment function off. Which is fine, because no one comments anyway.

Truly, there is no escape from the entrepreneur. I think they should be all taken out and shot myself. They do more damage to the world. Give the venture capital to the caring in the world and lets all sit back for a moment and watch them fall over in excitement and then tear themselves to shreds spending it. We had to watch the internet pioneers do it. It couldn’t be any worse this way.

Canadian Navy sets out to New Orleans from Halifax

I can see Halifax harbour from my office. Today I watched the Canadian Navy flotilla set out on its four day trip down to New Orleans. They removed all the weapons from the boats and filled the gaps with blankets and diapers, because 'they are what's needed'.

Indeed.

One of my colleagues has a brother on board one of the ships and says it is so rammed with supplies, he is sharing his bunk with boxes of diapers. The flotilla must sail through the two hurricanes currently making their way up towards the Grand Banks, then will go past the US Navy flotilla coming out of Virginia and will get to NO before them.

All the tankers, sailboats and yachts in the harbour stood to and let them pass. The fireboats accompanied them and sprayed them as they went. Each of the four ships sounded their foghorns, even though it is another bright bright blue day of blazing sunshine. It is a little windy because of the approaching hurricanes, so you could see the flags snapping in the wind and all the sailors on board standing to attention (while getting soaked presumably).

Everyone here is very proud of their quick turnaround, and a little nervous for them. I hope they stay safe and can deal with the unimaginable sights that await them. Not to mention the bacteria and disease and grief.

And I hope that Aaron Broussard and the Emergency Management guy and Sherriff Harry Lee can find some comfort from their arrival:

Tim Russert on Meet the Press talked with Aaron Broussard, president of hard-hit Jefferson Parish, immediately after Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff defended the federal response to the tragedy. An angry Broussard called for the firing of top officials responsible for the poor response, saying "the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina will go down as one of the worst abandonments of Americans on American soil ever in U.S. history."

But his appearance ended with the man in tears and even Russert barely able to keep it together, when Broussard said: "The guy who runs this building I’m in, Emergency Management, he’s responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, 'Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?' and he said, 'Yeah, Mama, somebody’s coming to get you.' Somebody’s coming to get you on Tuesday. [Broussard begins sobbing.] Somebody’s coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Friday...and she drowned Friday night!"She drowned Friday night!

[Sobbing] Nobody’s coming to get us! Nobody’s coming to get us."

Broussard also recounted: "We had Wal-Mart deliver three trucks of water, trailer trucks of water. FEMA turned them back. They said we didn't need them. This was a week ago.

FEMA--we had 1,000gallons of diesel fuel on a Coast Guard vessel docked in my parish. The Coast Guard said, 'Come get the fuel right away.' When we got there with our trucks, they got a word: 'FEMA says don't give you the fuel.'"

Yesterday--yesterday--FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in, he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards on our line and says, 'No one is getting near these lines.'"

Cute Baby Pandas, My Ass!

Oh, you all mock me, but I know a thing or two, I do!!

Bear attacks

Calgary man fights grizzly, rescues badly injured pal

Calgary - The terrifying image of a grizzly bounding toward him will forever be burned into the mind of a Calgary man who not only survived the encounter, but who also saved the life of his friend.
Michael Waldhuber, 29, had been separated from his hiking partner on the Bryant Creek Trail by about 15 metres, last Wednesday, when he heard his friend yell, "Whoa, bear!" Seconds later, a blood-curdling scream pierced the silence in the dense Banff National Park forest. Waldhuber ran towards his pal, but stopped cold when he noticed rustling in the bush.

"I thought, 'Oh my God, it's coming,'" Waldhuber said in an interview about their encounter with the grizzly about 25 kilometres south of the Banff townsite. The massive grizzly sow, with her cub nearby, lunged from the bush and charged toward Waldhuber. "I had my bear spray in my hand and I sprayed her in the face but she turned, circled me and tried to charge from another angle," he said. "I sprayed her again and she circled me a third time." As he aimed his bear spray at her a final time, the sow paused and fled.

But the real horror was yet to begin for Waldhuber. As he edged closer to his buddy who was screaming in pain, yelling, "I'm dying," over and over again, Waldhuber was terrified of what he would find. The man's face was covered in blood, and there was a massive gash in his head, revealing part of his scalp, and his tricep muscle had been ripped completely out of his arm, said Waldhuber. "I was wearing a long-sleeved shirt so I took it off and wrapped it around his arm," he said. "I pulled out the first-aid kit and wrapped a bandage around his head. "He was in shock and kept saying he was dying, but I said, 'No man, you're not dying, I'll get you out of here.'"

The victim was losing blood and the bear had ripped open his water pack, leaving the two men to share Waldhuber's limited supply. They were in such a remote area, it was an hour-and-a-half hike to the nearest lodge, and Waldhuber was out of bear spray. "When it was charging me I couldn't even think, but in the aftermath, I was scared," said Waldhuber. They reached the lodge and saw someone outside. Waldhuber then screamed for help and within 30 minutes, his friend was airlifted to hospital. He will likely remain in Calgary's Peter Lougheed hospital for up to two months.

The two men, both avid, experienced hikers, had been on a eight-day hike when they stumbled upon the sow and her cub. All other hikers were airlifted from the area Thursday morning and the trail was closed for the weekend to give the sow space.

There has been a rash of bear attacks this spring and summer. A Manitoba man fended off a black bear on Saturday, and the week before a black bear killed another Manitoba man. There have been four grizzly attacks in Alberta since June, including the one on Waldhuber's friend. In another of the recent attacks, Canmore resident Isabelle Dube was mauled to death while she jogged with a couple of friends.

Aragorn's very annoyed with Sauron

From his book publishing site:

In the often and rightly quoted words of Bill Clinton, "There's nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed by what's right with America." We see now how individuals and groups around the country are acting in any way they can to help their fellow citizens in Louisiana, Mississippi and other devastated places near the Gulf of Mexico. They refuse to stand idly by and wait for President Bush and his morally-bankrupt, pirate administration to respond in an appropriately urgent and compassionate manner to the escalating agony and desperation of our fellow citizens. This agony and desperation was caused in large part by a near complete absence of adequate federal government funding, preparedness, and leadership.

We the people will continue to help Americans and non-Americans alike, with or without the participation or approval of George W. Bush and his Neo-Conservative cohorts. While it is true that what is most important right now is to rescue, feed, house, and in any way possible care for those immediately affected by the disaster, it is equally true that in the long run those directly responsible for aggravating the tragic situation must be held accountable. The mounting evidence of the Bush administration's criminal mismanagement of the nation, as well as its consistently arrogant disregard for our planet's people and natural environments must be confronted immediately. Those who voted for Bush last year, or who have continually supported his outlaw administration in its destructively dishonest conduct, including not only extremist conservatives but also politically-calculating democrats, need not hang their heads or avert their eyes now. What they can and ought to do is join the increasing numbers of Americans who are demanding that presidential impeachment proceedings be initiated as soon as possible.

Members of the Bush Administration responsible for the blatant lies and self-serving manipulations that have fanned the flames of disaster from Iraq to New Orleans must be prosecuted as our laws require. We must insist on this. Furthermore, we must not allow these disgracefully unpatriotic public servants to be pardoned by any future president as Gerald Ford did for Richard Nixon. Please call or write your government representatives and help get the scoundrels out of government and in prison where they belong. Do not allow the subject to be changed, do not be distracted. The time to act is now. Take back your country.


- Viggo Mortensen, 1 Sept., 2005.

Attaboy, Viggo - you tell 'em!!

Oh Happy Day!

Trish and Keith got married yesterday in the Public Gardens in Halifax. It was a beautiful ceremony and I cried my eyes out as per flippin' usual.

Fantastic wedding.

Very tired and it's a beautiful day so I'm going to try and get the seven gallons of product out of my hair and go outside to the sunshine.

Wedding photos under the title.

From the waters to the wild: a winkle's journey

Queenie is feeling kinda dreamy these days. She doesn’t know why. Maybe it’s because of the weather. Even though the summer is drawing to a close, the sun still drags itself up through the mist every morning, burns it off and then draws us all to her warmth. I walk to work each morning with my iPod playing a mix I made lately. I just went through all the songs and picked the two hundred ones that mean the most to me. So the walk is like taking a warm memory bath every day. By the time I get to the office, I don’t want to go in just yet, so I get a coffee from Just Us! and sit in the little garden outside the building and look at the silver sparkles on the water in the harbour. Sometimes there are so many they make my eyes ache. So I look up at the blue blue sky instead.

Where to start, where to start….

And I think about the weekend past, or the weekend coming. And a great big sigh of happiness just comes bubbling up and warms my insides just like my skin.

It’s not that I haven’t had great summers; Queenie could find a party in a Taliban-run fortress with no doors and no windows for chrissakes. But this is the first where I haven’t had to depend on anyone else to go away for the weekend. I just go. And with nice weather and a more relaxed attitude to camping, I can spend two or three days in a beautiful peaceful spot without having to know someone well off enough to own a house there. Or organise a group of people to book somewhere. Or pay through the nose for a single supplement.

The Floating Fire

I have to tell you about the floating fire. I still haven’t gotten over the fact that I didn’t bother to bring my camera down to Oilean Fada two weekends ago. It being a full moon and us going to build a fire in Bear Cove. Silly girl. Never mind. It is burned on my memory forever.

By the time I got down to Digby, the guys had decided we were going to camp in the cove. So it was too late to go back to Halifax and get my camping gear. Never mind – they gave me everything I needed. One of the things I love about here is the fact that a trip anywhere involves at least two pickup trucks rammed with stuff: tents, chairs, coolers, barbeques, towels, sleeping mats, bags, comforters, food, boxes of condiments and sauces. I sat on the deck and let them pack the truck. When we got down to the cove, we had to unpack everything and carry it down. Except we didn’t, as two of them had brought their ATVs to move everything down.

I love this country! They’re so organised.

I suppose I should disapprove of ATVs, but actually I just want one. Who needs a car when you can fit two people and a beer cooler and a tent on one of them? And go anywhere. And then, when you get back, just drive it up onto the bed of the pick up and off you go.

Well, I suppose you need a pickup, now that I read that sentence again.

Anyway, the women made the fatal mistake of letting the guys and Queenie organise the camp, which meant that very little got done in the way of organising before they arrived. I am getting away with murder in the division of labour stakes at the moment. None of the blokes will let me do any of the heavy lifting stuff. And none of the women expect me to know how to turn the barbeque on. So I get to sit on a rock or take photos or generally just ponce around.

They’ll be onto me soon, I’d say. We’ll deal with that when it happens.

The winklepickers and the monologue

Anyways, M and T went winkle-picking and I sat on a rock and listened to an extensive monologue from R about some girl he wanted to go out with even though she had a kid with someone else, but that didn’t matter and he was just waiting on a phone call from her and he was going to go over to Bridgewater and pick her up because the guy she was with now was a real jerk and he treated her real bad even though she had a kid for him and she was real nice not like his current girlfriend who was a real bitch and the other girl (Lisa I think it was) was real sorry because she had introduced the two of them and she had rung him to apologise and he was real pleased because he really preferred her and had wanted to go out with her all along.

Nice save, Lisa, I thought.

The lads told me afterwards R had signed over his life insurance policy to the other girl BEFORE he even started going out with her.

Real nice save, Lisa.

I wonder did my ex ever unsign his? Probably. But if not, that would be a nice surprise to find out, wouldn’t it?

And then I’d get to hear about the money too.

Joke.

I think.

Anyways, M and T eventually arrived back with a big pot of winkles and set about deciding where to build the cooking area. This always takes a long time. They can never decide. And I’m no use, I can’t even figure out the wind direction. Eventually they agreed on a spot, which was conveniently situated right beside me. Actually, that’s usually what happens. The more I think of it, the more I realise I’m a natural. I just zone in on the most comfortable spot in any given situation and you should just build the kitchen wherever I am sitting. T set about building a kitchen. Man, that dude just loves heavin’ rocks around. While he rearranged the beach in order to cook a few hotdogs, M and I had a beer and watched the sunset.

The mossies were ferocious. Huge ones, tearing lumps out of us. They all ended up using my DEET spray even though they don’t normally. It was insane. You’d go for a pee and by the time you’d wiped your ass you’d have four bites in it. Because really, I don’t care what anyone says, you can’t spray DEET there. You could combust under certain circumstances.

Really big, lumpy, sore bites too. Not great for work the following week. Surreptitious scratching has to be just that, doncha know.

Grrrrl Power

M’s wife Tina arrived on her ATV then. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrl power with a big gguuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. The muffler’s gone on it, you can hear it coming a mile away, which meant a bit of a spring into action on our part and we had nearly everything organised by the time she arrived. Well, T did. M and I managed to clamber down off the rock and lookabusy.

It’s really interesting, when we go on these trips, the guys do the cooking. They set up the camp as well. But there’s an interesting hiatus in the middle where nothing gets done unless Tina or Amanda or Melissa give everything the once over and point out the mistakes and then take off again. Then the cooking starts.

I don’t know if they’re even aware of it.

Anyway, eventually everyone arrived and we had a bit of nosebag and started building the fire. It has been a very dry month, so we had to be very careful. And the tide comes right up to the grass in Bear Cove. So we had to build it on the beach, which meant it would flood come high tide, due about half past midnight.

So they built it in the lee of an enormous rock. In a little bowl created by the dip in another flat rock. Reckoned she might hold a piece.

And so she did. We drank beer and ate winkles. The wind rose a little as night fell and the tide crept up the beach, silent under the babble of our voices.

I’m not a winkle girl. I wasn’t feeling the best anyway, what with Lady Moonbeam coming to visit (when is she ever going to feck off). Better out than in I say. The fire was so hot I was burning up anyway. So I climbed up the grassy bank and released the winkles back into the wild, and sat on another rock and looked down on the beach. I could see the sea flicking itself around the fire. It slid in among the rocks and filled up the cracks and created a pool. The fire, supported by the lip of the rock upon which it was built, burned steadily in one corner. Not even the maddest Finns in the maddest part of that mad country could’ve built a steam bath like that one. It wasn’t long before they noticed. And they’re in. Well a couple of them, clothes and all.

Better out than in I say, I stayed where I was.

After a while someone came up to check on me and I told them I had chucked up my winkles.

“Oh? Where?”

Well, dearie, seeing as that was your first question, I won’t bother telling you I think it was around about where you’re standing. And I'm fine, thanks for asking.

We woke up at eight the next morning to gentle rain tapping on our tents, and made filter coffee with two saucepans and a roll of toilet paper. We drank it in the wet grass and looked at the work to be done taking the camp down, then walked back to the trucks and went home. It was all still there, untouched, on Wednesday when they went back to get it.

Sure, why wouldn't it be.

Long Tusket Lake, New France near Weymouth

Photos of the weekend's camping under the title as usual.