is a terrible thing. Have to write my zine tonight.
Bah!
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Jersey Girl in the Ovens with Travel Chests - Part I
The summer is nearly over. The last two days have been horribly cold, for August, and although it is to warm up again for the weekend when we are going CAMPING at the beautiful lake where Himself planted me a rose garden on the lakeside in front of my tent last summer (thus scoring himself an Irish woman forever, poor lad) September will be bitter sweet. Although not as bad as last year, when I totally spoiled the beautiful weather that Nova Scotia gets in that month by worrying about the impending winter.
Not realising that the winter wouldn’t arrive until mid-December.
At least I know what the winter will be like now.
Although last winter was a ‘good’ one.
Thinks about that for a while… shudders… decides not to think about it until November.
Anyways, the summer. I got caught up in domestic stuff recently and left off describing the summer of visitors. I had done the Queen Parents pretty much, and half of Polly’s visit, in other words her weekend in Bear Cove, after which we piled everything and everyone back into the car and came back to Halifax, so Polly could have some of the bright lights of the city.
Of course she had just come from New York, so they were a bit mweh, I’m sure, but she seemed to have enjoyed herself nonetheless. After we all summoned the energy to go out again, which took a few days.
Then it was the weekend all of a sudden again and time to bring her to the airport.
I hate that damned airport. I spend too much time in it crying and not enough being a happy Queenie.
Himself and I had to go down the South Shore then, to meet Jersey Girl and her BH (beloved husband), who had been cycling towards Halifax from Yarmouth all week. They had gotten as far as The Ovens, which was a good bit of the way, so Himself and I only had about ninety minutes drive ahead of us.
I spent most of it wondering how we were going to get JG&BH’s bikes and camping gear in the back of the car, which was already stuffed with our camping gear.
We were past Lunenburg and heading down the last part of the journey when we saw a sign for a yard sale and a lot of interesting stuff in a garden. We sidelonged each other, but nobody gave anybody the nod and we kept driving. After about a mile, Himself slowed down and said ‘I really wanted to go to that yard sale’.
So did I.
We did a quick U-turn and sped back, in case all the bargains were gone.
First thing I saw were three enormous travel trunks; the old square-lidded ones with the brass bindings. One of them was in pretty poor shape with paint on it, but it can be removed and the other two were fine. Two were marked $50 and $40. The smallest of the three wasn’t priced.
I wondered whether it would be totally insane to get the smallest one. I could put some of the camping gear in it I reasoned. So I asked how much.
Fifty bucks for the three of them, the guy said. He was moving to Saskatchewan to be near his grandchildren.
I’ll take them, the insane person who takes over Queenie’s body occasionally had her wallet out before Queenie could say ‘what about the biiiiikes?’
Well, didn’t Himself and I have some fun then, playing our own personal version of The Krypton Factor (note to Canadians – TKF is a long-defunct, but pretty high end game show on UK tv, which tested physical and intellectual endurance, with one round of spatial awareness challenges that I could never figure out).
"This evening’s challenge is to fit these three trunks into an already full Chevrolet Equinox. Which is not a small car."
Eventually Himself, who is genius at stuff like this, put the smallest trunk into the biggest, put all the camping gear into the mid-sized trunk, which is my favourite, and finally got them into the car.
One of them had to be put on the back seat, though.
Finally we got to The Ovens camping site and eventually we found JG&BH’s campsite despite the owners of the site telling me they weren’t there over and over for a half an hour, while I freaked out completely thinking they’d been eaten by a bear or something, and as we were putting up the tent at the site, I looked up and there they were walking towards us!
Hooray! And not a bear scratch on either of them!
We explained about the trunks, which were now unpacked and lying on the campsite. JG didn’t say anything but she had that glimmer behind her eyes she gets when she thinks I’m on one of my little trips down crazy lane.
The apple never falls far from the tree.
Her mother used to spend Saturday mornings years ago trying to teach me (and some other teenage girls) how to play golf, and would give me the exact same look when I’d be trying to explain why it took me 112 shots to get round the back nine.
No wonder JG is a CEO of an organisation, and I’m not.
I must cultivate a glimmer sometime.
Actually, I should just adopt the apple/tree analogy I was using earlier and just inherit the Queen Mother’s. It’s pretty ferocious when it wants to be.
Anyways, enough about glimmering, back to the story…
Himself calls at this point for a chat. Chatting ensues. Time passes. The humour for writing is off me now.
… except it’s late and my hands are sore today from typing, so I’ll go to bed and finish this tomorrow.
Not realising that the winter wouldn’t arrive until mid-December.
At least I know what the winter will be like now.
Although last winter was a ‘good’ one.
Thinks about that for a while… shudders… decides not to think about it until November.
Anyways, the summer. I got caught up in domestic stuff recently and left off describing the summer of visitors. I had done the Queen Parents pretty much, and half of Polly’s visit, in other words her weekend in Bear Cove, after which we piled everything and everyone back into the car and came back to Halifax, so Polly could have some of the bright lights of the city.
Of course she had just come from New York, so they were a bit mweh, I’m sure, but she seemed to have enjoyed herself nonetheless. After we all summoned the energy to go out again, which took a few days.
Then it was the weekend all of a sudden again and time to bring her to the airport.
I hate that damned airport. I spend too much time in it crying and not enough being a happy Queenie.
Himself and I had to go down the South Shore then, to meet Jersey Girl and her BH (beloved husband), who had been cycling towards Halifax from Yarmouth all week. They had gotten as far as The Ovens, which was a good bit of the way, so Himself and I only had about ninety minutes drive ahead of us.
I spent most of it wondering how we were going to get JG&BH’s bikes and camping gear in the back of the car, which was already stuffed with our camping gear.
We were past Lunenburg and heading down the last part of the journey when we saw a sign for a yard sale and a lot of interesting stuff in a garden. We sidelonged each other, but nobody gave anybody the nod and we kept driving. After about a mile, Himself slowed down and said ‘I really wanted to go to that yard sale’.
So did I.
We did a quick U-turn and sped back, in case all the bargains were gone.
First thing I saw were three enormous travel trunks; the old square-lidded ones with the brass bindings. One of them was in pretty poor shape with paint on it, but it can be removed and the other two were fine. Two were marked $50 and $40. The smallest of the three wasn’t priced.
I wondered whether it would be totally insane to get the smallest one. I could put some of the camping gear in it I reasoned. So I asked how much.
Fifty bucks for the three of them, the guy said. He was moving to Saskatchewan to be near his grandchildren.
I’ll take them, the insane person who takes over Queenie’s body occasionally had her wallet out before Queenie could say ‘what about the biiiiikes?’
Well, didn’t Himself and I have some fun then, playing our own personal version of The Krypton Factor (note to Canadians – TKF is a long-defunct, but pretty high end game show on UK tv, which tested physical and intellectual endurance, with one round of spatial awareness challenges that I could never figure out).
"This evening’s challenge is to fit these three trunks into an already full Chevrolet Equinox. Which is not a small car."
Eventually Himself, who is genius at stuff like this, put the smallest trunk into the biggest, put all the camping gear into the mid-sized trunk, which is my favourite, and finally got them into the car.
One of them had to be put on the back seat, though.
Finally we got to The Ovens camping site and eventually we found JG&BH’s campsite despite the owners of the site telling me they weren’t there over and over for a half an hour, while I freaked out completely thinking they’d been eaten by a bear or something, and as we were putting up the tent at the site, I looked up and there they were walking towards us!
Hooray! And not a bear scratch on either of them!
We explained about the trunks, which were now unpacked and lying on the campsite. JG didn’t say anything but she had that glimmer behind her eyes she gets when she thinks I’m on one of my little trips down crazy lane.
The apple never falls far from the tree.
Her mother used to spend Saturday mornings years ago trying to teach me (and some other teenage girls) how to play golf, and would give me the exact same look when I’d be trying to explain why it took me 112 shots to get round the back nine.
No wonder JG is a CEO of an organisation, and I’m not.
I must cultivate a glimmer sometime.
Actually, I should just adopt the apple/tree analogy I was using earlier and just inherit the Queen Mother’s. It’s pretty ferocious when it wants to be.
Anyways, enough about glimmering, back to the story…
Himself calls at this point for a chat. Chatting ensues. Time passes. The humour for writing is off me now.
… except it’s late and my hands are sore today from typing, so I’ll go to bed and finish this tomorrow.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Whereupon the narrator seems to have Aquaired quite a bit of stuff
Queenie is alone tonight. With no pressing tasks to fill the silence. For the first time in seven weeks.
No visitors from anywhere.
No packing to do.
No furniture to find.
Apart from a table and chairs.
But they’ll happen someday.
Of that I have no doubt.
Himself and Tina and Martin, being from a place where possessions are recycled and handed around to those who need them and not thrown away until actually broken, went on Mission “Furnish Queenie’s House” last night, after we spotted a lovely, original 1960s wall unit on our way home, just sitting on the kerb waiting for the bin men.
It being Sunday night. Which is garbage night in the prosperous South end of Halifax.
Yes, I know this is being posted on Tuesday. Home internet access will be resumed on Wednesday, after which time blogposts will be timely again.
As quick as anything the unit, which needs a little bit of work but not much, was in the back of the van, being hauled round the rotary at breakneck speed and up the hill to the apartment, where it was dropped off with Queenie, who had to cook the dinner while the intrepid visitors went off scouring the south end for more finds.
Just as I was draining the pasta to go with the Bolognese sauce I’d slaved over for an hour, the van pulled up – great timing I thought – and was emptied, before speeding off again.
What????
I went downstairs to investigate. Martin was sitting guard over a pile of stuff that included:
A sun lounger
A sun parasol
Two garden chairs
Two beach chairs
Two red fold up chairs, one plastic, one leather
A stereo unit thingummy on wheels which fits underneath the fish tank perfectly and which means I no longer have a problem changing the water, having only to wheel the tank into the kitchen and park it alongside the sink
A brand new pull-along garden hose thingummy, replete with brand new hose
Three sets of shelves
A little wire vegetable rack on wheels, which contained a brand new apron, two oven gloves, two pot stands, a chopping board, and a packet of bag clips (I swear)
An interesting looking beige footstool with claw legs, which is exactly the right height for resting your legs on, upon which my legs are resting while I type
Two tall uplighters, neither of which appear to work unfortunately
A big bright blue plastic thingummy, the use for which Queenie still cannot ascertain, despite having stared at it for a long time
A desk in perfect condition
A wooden six-drawer bureau that will need to be sanded and stained to put in the spare room (along with the futon and the seafaring chest and the mirror) for all the visitors that will be coming to visit hopefully
A Wilson golf bag (minus the strap which is presumably why it was on the kerb)
Why a golf bag?
Martin and I sat and looked at the pile of stuff, not having yet realised that we had locked ourselves out of the apartment, and reckoned it must be an Aquarian thing, this passion for other people’s rubbish.
Himself and Tina both being Aquarians, d’ya see.
Having said that, once I get the uplighters, the golf bag and the big blue thingummy back into the garbage collection on Wednesday night it will have been a good haul.
And when you add that haul to what Himself had already Aquaired for us - a sofa and chair, a rocking chair, a huge chest of drawers for our room, an end table and a futon mattress – as well as what I have purchased – the biggest bed in the world, three seafaring trunks we got for fifty bucks the lot at a yard sale, and the makings of a pretty well-stocked kitchen and linen cupboard, and then add allathat as Gypsy used to say when she was little, to the free tv and microwave I got from Missy and Shazz, and my amazing basket of stuff which Jersey Girl and her BH gave us when they were here, which fuelled my ongoing amazement at the generosity of people - Queenie is back in the possessions game.
Sigh…
And to think I arrived a little over a year ago with two suitcases and a computer bag.
The one thing keeping me sane throughout all of this is the fact that the whole lot cost just over $1,000, of which $600 was for the King Size super deluxe Sears-O-Pedic bed with twin boxspring and soft-top mattress.
FOKO/ Ikea/ European Living/ Habitat can go and stick their over-priced Burmese teak futon with Egyptian cotton weave mattress thingummies up their own arse, boys and girls.
Also, note to self, Accent Monkey and anyone else who has ever bought furniture in Ireland – when the furniture people in Canada say they’ll deliver your bed between 12 and 5 on Saturday, which is two days after you buy the furniture, they apologise for the delay in delivery, turn up on time on the day and don’t moan about the stairs. Even if you only bought the furniture because it was being practically given away in the discount depot at the back of the shop.
I have learned two things this week.
The Sears Discount Depot in Halifax is the best shop in the world bar none.
One man’s rubbish is an Aquarian’s idea of a good time.
Anyways, so Martin and I started hauling the loot upstairs, only to realise that we had locked ourselves out of the apartment. Martin got quite anxious. But those of you who know me know that I tend to lock myself out of my apartment quite a bit. So it only took a minute to break in because I had already cased the joint because I knew it was only a matter of time before I had to break in. But we got in before the Aquarians got back, more importantly. And then we all sat around and ate pasta and drank Hemp beer in honour of the occasion and agreed where the new furniture should go.
So here I am, fully furnished, backside ensconsced in Himself’s mother’s former suite, legs resting on the new footstool, looking at the fish swirling around the tank which is resting on its mobile stand.
I feel like Del-boy Trotter. Before he hit the jackpot.
Although the apartment is a little nicer than his.
It’s the second floor of a three storey house.
The floors are all wooden, as they always are here in Nova Scotia. I think it’s real wood though, not laminate.
All the walls are a very boring shade of yellow but Himself is going to paint it when he gets a chance. There are many winter projects in this apartment, sanding and painting and staining, which will be good for both of us as we get a bit restless when the long evenings draw in and there’s nothing to do. Canadian television being awful.
The guy is coming on Wednesday to hook up the internet/phone/cable package. I ordered it today. He’s coming AFTER I GET HOME FROM WORK, so I don’t have to take a half day. He’d have come on Saturday, like the Sears guy, but that didn’t suit me.
Of course it’s probably like this at home now. So I should stop gloating. I just have such dreadful memories of ‘getting things done’ in Dublin. It always involved having to take a day off work and then spend an hour on the phone giving directions to someone who grew up in Finglas which was just down the road, or having to listen to some boring Dubliner millionaire carpet layer bang on and on and on about how he had to live in Carlow because it was so expensive living on the Northside now (because all us culchies were buying up property I supposed, I never used to take the bait) and how the wife didn’t really like it because she always had to drive home from the golf club instead of getting a taxi, but he needed to have a few scoops after all the commuting so he wasn’t going to go halves now ya know ...
The front door is up a narrow set of stairs. When you enter the apartment, the room that will be a study/dining room is on your immediate left. The living room and kitchen are both off of this space. The kitchen has tall white cupboards and a “Canadian Auto Workers circa mid-eighties productivity go slow” fashioned stove and fridge. Think Impact members making laptops – that’ll give you some sense of what level of innovation I mean.
The kitchen window looks out onto the street, which is residential and tree-lined. The living room looks out over the garden, which is mostly just grass, through the trees to the lake. The winter view will be nice I think.
Off the right-hand side of the hall, there is a large master bedroom, the bathroom, which is small and needs some work, and the spare room. Of which I am inordinately proud.
Because I know in my heart of hearts that if I had been able to afford to buy a nice apartment with a dining space and a spare room, instead of a rabbit hutch, I would probably never have left Ireland.
That’s the thing about Queenie: I never really wanted much. Just a nice place to live that I could afford, and a meaningful job with some nice people (part of which I had), and not too many traffic jams, so I could get to the countryside at the weekend. And maybe a nice person to share it all with (although I wasn’t allowed to admit that of course because that would have meant I wasn’t ecstatic about my life, which appeared to be verboten in Tigerland, although hopefully that’s not the case anymore)
But for some strange reason that I will NEVER fathom, that was not possible in the land of possibilities.
And now the fuckers have put my (Irish) mortgage up by $200 a month. Just to remind me of how insane it all is.
And Eddie Hobbs says I should put my SSIA money, what I’m counting the days down to getting just to see the number and translate it into Bahts or whatever, Eddie Hobbs (who the hell went postal in RTE and put the Del-Boy of the NGO sector in charge of the common man’s finances, although I suppose it’s better than that Trot they used to have – what was his name?) Eddie Hobbs told my mother that I should put my lovely SSIA money, which is for following my dream, that I should put the money into the gaping, yawning, greedy, panic-inducing chasm in my potential happiness and Sears-O-Pedic king sized comfy sleep at night that is my rabbit hutch of an Irish property investment.
My ass I will. The difference it would make? Fuck all, boys and girls.
Here, if whisked across the sea by the magic interbank transfer device (which I of course know how to operate, having had to explain it to the lady in the bank some months ago, along with the concept of overseas) and translated from strong EUROs into some of their Canadian dollars, I could use it to buy four acres of land by the sea, and still have enough left to go to Cuba for six months.
Or build the off-grid straw bale cottage with the organic toilet that’ll be flushed by the solar panels we’ll find on the kerb some night no doubt on the land, and just go to Cuba for two weeks.
Living the dream, eh?
I guess the trick is to try to live one. Not three or four.
But those of you who are getting yourselves sorted already know that, don’t you.
It’s difficult though, isn’t it? Managing expectations.
Why is it that we spend each of our decades extricating ourselves from the crap into which we got ourselves in the previous one?
By the way, when I was sitting on the doorstep thinking about what I was going to say this evening, the title of this blog was to be ‘Whereupon our hero emerges from the wilderness’.
And it was to be a contemplative piece on the concept of heroes. More particularly, an update on the hero for whom this blog was originally established. I mean one Percy, or Sir Perceval as he’s often known: Knight, Dragonslayer, Poet. Who has disappeared off the face of the earth for quite a while now.
But I got talking about myself. as usual.
Tomorrow.
I promise.
No visitors from anywhere.
No packing to do.
No furniture to find.
Apart from a table and chairs.
But they’ll happen someday.
Of that I have no doubt.
Himself and Tina and Martin, being from a place where possessions are recycled and handed around to those who need them and not thrown away until actually broken, went on Mission “Furnish Queenie’s House” last night, after we spotted a lovely, original 1960s wall unit on our way home, just sitting on the kerb waiting for the bin men.
It being Sunday night. Which is garbage night in the prosperous South end of Halifax.
Yes, I know this is being posted on Tuesday. Home internet access will be resumed on Wednesday, after which time blogposts will be timely again.
As quick as anything the unit, which needs a little bit of work but not much, was in the back of the van, being hauled round the rotary at breakneck speed and up the hill to the apartment, where it was dropped off with Queenie, who had to cook the dinner while the intrepid visitors went off scouring the south end for more finds.
Just as I was draining the pasta to go with the Bolognese sauce I’d slaved over for an hour, the van pulled up – great timing I thought – and was emptied, before speeding off again.
What????
I went downstairs to investigate. Martin was sitting guard over a pile of stuff that included:
A sun lounger
A sun parasol
Two garden chairs
Two beach chairs
Two red fold up chairs, one plastic, one leather
A stereo unit thingummy on wheels which fits underneath the fish tank perfectly and which means I no longer have a problem changing the water, having only to wheel the tank into the kitchen and park it alongside the sink
A brand new pull-along garden hose thingummy, replete with brand new hose
Three sets of shelves
A little wire vegetable rack on wheels, which contained a brand new apron, two oven gloves, two pot stands, a chopping board, and a packet of bag clips (I swear)
An interesting looking beige footstool with claw legs, which is exactly the right height for resting your legs on, upon which my legs are resting while I type
Two tall uplighters, neither of which appear to work unfortunately
A big bright blue plastic thingummy, the use for which Queenie still cannot ascertain, despite having stared at it for a long time
A desk in perfect condition
A wooden six-drawer bureau that will need to be sanded and stained to put in the spare room (along with the futon and the seafaring chest and the mirror) for all the visitors that will be coming to visit hopefully
A Wilson golf bag (minus the strap which is presumably why it was on the kerb)
Why a golf bag?
Martin and I sat and looked at the pile of stuff, not having yet realised that we had locked ourselves out of the apartment, and reckoned it must be an Aquarian thing, this passion for other people’s rubbish.
Himself and Tina both being Aquarians, d’ya see.
Having said that, once I get the uplighters, the golf bag and the big blue thingummy back into the garbage collection on Wednesday night it will have been a good haul.
And when you add that haul to what Himself had already Aquaired for us - a sofa and chair, a rocking chair, a huge chest of drawers for our room, an end table and a futon mattress – as well as what I have purchased – the biggest bed in the world, three seafaring trunks we got for fifty bucks the lot at a yard sale, and the makings of a pretty well-stocked kitchen and linen cupboard, and then add allathat as Gypsy used to say when she was little, to the free tv and microwave I got from Missy and Shazz, and my amazing basket of stuff which Jersey Girl and her BH gave us when they were here, which fuelled my ongoing amazement at the generosity of people - Queenie is back in the possessions game.
Sigh…
And to think I arrived a little over a year ago with two suitcases and a computer bag.
The one thing keeping me sane throughout all of this is the fact that the whole lot cost just over $1,000, of which $600 was for the King Size super deluxe Sears-O-Pedic bed with twin boxspring and soft-top mattress.
FOKO/ Ikea/ European Living/ Habitat can go and stick their over-priced Burmese teak futon with Egyptian cotton weave mattress thingummies up their own arse, boys and girls.
Also, note to self, Accent Monkey and anyone else who has ever bought furniture in Ireland – when the furniture people in Canada say they’ll deliver your bed between 12 and 5 on Saturday, which is two days after you buy the furniture, they apologise for the delay in delivery, turn up on time on the day and don’t moan about the stairs. Even if you only bought the furniture because it was being practically given away in the discount depot at the back of the shop.
I have learned two things this week.
The Sears Discount Depot in Halifax is the best shop in the world bar none.
One man’s rubbish is an Aquarian’s idea of a good time.
Anyways, so Martin and I started hauling the loot upstairs, only to realise that we had locked ourselves out of the apartment. Martin got quite anxious. But those of you who know me know that I tend to lock myself out of my apartment quite a bit. So it only took a minute to break in because I had already cased the joint because I knew it was only a matter of time before I had to break in. But we got in before the Aquarians got back, more importantly. And then we all sat around and ate pasta and drank Hemp beer in honour of the occasion and agreed where the new furniture should go.
So here I am, fully furnished, backside ensconsced in Himself’s mother’s former suite, legs resting on the new footstool, looking at the fish swirling around the tank which is resting on its mobile stand.
I feel like Del-boy Trotter. Before he hit the jackpot.
Although the apartment is a little nicer than his.
It’s the second floor of a three storey house.
The floors are all wooden, as they always are here in Nova Scotia. I think it’s real wood though, not laminate.
All the walls are a very boring shade of yellow but Himself is going to paint it when he gets a chance. There are many winter projects in this apartment, sanding and painting and staining, which will be good for both of us as we get a bit restless when the long evenings draw in and there’s nothing to do. Canadian television being awful.
The guy is coming on Wednesday to hook up the internet/phone/cable package. I ordered it today. He’s coming AFTER I GET HOME FROM WORK, so I don’t have to take a half day. He’d have come on Saturday, like the Sears guy, but that didn’t suit me.
Of course it’s probably like this at home now. So I should stop gloating. I just have such dreadful memories of ‘getting things done’ in Dublin. It always involved having to take a day off work and then spend an hour on the phone giving directions to someone who grew up in Finglas which was just down the road, or having to listen to some boring Dubliner millionaire carpet layer bang on and on and on about how he had to live in Carlow because it was so expensive living on the Northside now (because all us culchies were buying up property I supposed, I never used to take the bait) and how the wife didn’t really like it because she always had to drive home from the golf club instead of getting a taxi, but he needed to have a few scoops after all the commuting so he wasn’t going to go halves now ya know ...
The front door is up a narrow set of stairs. When you enter the apartment, the room that will be a study/dining room is on your immediate left. The living room and kitchen are both off of this space. The kitchen has tall white cupboards and a “Canadian Auto Workers circa mid-eighties productivity go slow” fashioned stove and fridge. Think Impact members making laptops – that’ll give you some sense of what level of innovation I mean.
The kitchen window looks out onto the street, which is residential and tree-lined. The living room looks out over the garden, which is mostly just grass, through the trees to the lake. The winter view will be nice I think.
Off the right-hand side of the hall, there is a large master bedroom, the bathroom, which is small and needs some work, and the spare room. Of which I am inordinately proud.
Because I know in my heart of hearts that if I had been able to afford to buy a nice apartment with a dining space and a spare room, instead of a rabbit hutch, I would probably never have left Ireland.
That’s the thing about Queenie: I never really wanted much. Just a nice place to live that I could afford, and a meaningful job with some nice people (part of which I had), and not too many traffic jams, so I could get to the countryside at the weekend. And maybe a nice person to share it all with (although I wasn’t allowed to admit that of course because that would have meant I wasn’t ecstatic about my life, which appeared to be verboten in Tigerland, although hopefully that’s not the case anymore)
But for some strange reason that I will NEVER fathom, that was not possible in the land of possibilities.
And now the fuckers have put my (Irish) mortgage up by $200 a month. Just to remind me of how insane it all is.
And Eddie Hobbs says I should put my SSIA money, what I’m counting the days down to getting just to see the number and translate it into Bahts or whatever, Eddie Hobbs (who the hell went postal in RTE and put the Del-Boy of the NGO sector in charge of the common man’s finances, although I suppose it’s better than that Trot they used to have – what was his name?) Eddie Hobbs told my mother that I should put my lovely SSIA money, which is for following my dream, that I should put the money into the gaping, yawning, greedy, panic-inducing chasm in my potential happiness and Sears-O-Pedic king sized comfy sleep at night that is my rabbit hutch of an Irish property investment.
My ass I will. The difference it would make? Fuck all, boys and girls.
Here, if whisked across the sea by the magic interbank transfer device (which I of course know how to operate, having had to explain it to the lady in the bank some months ago, along with the concept of overseas) and translated from strong EUROs into some of their Canadian dollars, I could use it to buy four acres of land by the sea, and still have enough left to go to Cuba for six months.
Or build the off-grid straw bale cottage with the organic toilet that’ll be flushed by the solar panels we’ll find on the kerb some night no doubt on the land, and just go to Cuba for two weeks.
Living the dream, eh?
I guess the trick is to try to live one. Not three or four.
But those of you who are getting yourselves sorted already know that, don’t you.
It’s difficult though, isn’t it? Managing expectations.
Why is it that we spend each of our decades extricating ourselves from the crap into which we got ourselves in the previous one?
By the way, when I was sitting on the doorstep thinking about what I was going to say this evening, the title of this blog was to be ‘Whereupon our hero emerges from the wilderness’.
And it was to be a contemplative piece on the concept of heroes. More particularly, an update on the hero for whom this blog was originally established. I mean one Percy, or Sir Perceval as he’s often known: Knight, Dragonslayer, Poet. Who has disappeared off the face of the earth for quite a while now.
But I got talking about myself. as usual.
Tomorrow.
I promise.
Monday, August 28, 2006
It was to have been the second last night in the little yellow house...
This should have been posted on Friday night, but the lack of internet access in my new apartment has meant it is late.
It’s funny how everything always turns out exactly the opposite to what I have planned these days, but it’s generally okay anyways.
This was to be my second last night in the little yellow house on the tree-lined street, beside the Montreal train line, at the edge of the peninsula, beside the sea, close to the university, where the first year in Canada took place.
I was to have two more nights in this gorgeous little house that took me in a year ago and got me through my first Nova Scotian winter.
I had it all planned in my head.
Had it visualised.
Saw myself doing it.
Himself had other ideas of course.
I had gotten rid of him for the weekend. He was gone back to the island with the children, who were wonderful if a little tiring for a girl who’s not used to children.
I was going to chill out Friday night, and by chill out, I mean sit and have a few drinks and blog and worry about the packing in the morning, because I’m going to be a bitch tomorrow, because Lady Moonbeam has announced her imminent arrival in the form of a low, grinding pain in my abdomen. So I was going to slowly drink everything left in the house to dull that ache, and then wake up with a hangover, and three ‘drunken landlady and her friends’ people in the house to deal with, and I was going to finish the packing.
But it was okay, because it was a challenge, and then I was going to go over to the new place, and wait for my super deluxe king-size Sears-O-Pedic bed to arrive, which I got for one third of the price for some strange reason, and then I was going to think about going out for a long time before hitting the shower/ clothes/ make up routine I haven’t engaged in for about four months, and head out with Hotspur, the Goddess of Spin.
For one of our evenings.
Because her man will have gone back to Maine for his university course. And she’ll be feeling a bit lost.
So I had gotten home and dealt with the ‘excited because she was soon to be drunk with her best mates’ landlady I had found sitting in my living room (her friend was over from Ottawa and they were staying here tonight to see could the landlady possibly live here for tax reasons for a year – of course, I thought, it’s the most beautiful house in the world – I do love my landlady, I have a bastard landlord now… but he has an Irish peasant which is probably worse) and I was sitting upstairs listening to my new Keane album and contemplating the packing (in other words the evening) when I got a text from Himself.
It said:
What are you doing
were coming up
tonight tiny martin I
help ya cleen going
on tear tomorrow
night
5.38pm 25/8/06
Even I, with my miraculous powers of understanding Himself’s texts, was baffled by this.
So I called him.
So Himself and Martin and Tina are coming up to move me into the new flat tonight and help me clean both houses tomorrow and then we’re going to Tammy’s sister’s fortieth in Kentville tomorrow night.
Whatever about Tammy’s sister’s fortieth, which I’d rather not go to it being in Kentville which is miles away, I saw the plan for what it was.
My last night in this house was Thursday night.
So the year in Canada will be over in about an hour.
It was a little more than a year of course.
But this is the last night.
I can feel it.
So I packed like a mad one for about an hour.
And now I am sitting on the smallest deck in the world for the last time drinking a raspberry swirl cooler I acquired at some bonfire this summer, and all the last bits of me in this house are packed and ready to go.
Except for the laptop of course.
I have finished the bottle of wine and all that’s left to drink before Himself arrives to find me drunk and maudlin is the leftovers of the bottle of sloe gin I got from the Queen Dad at Christmas.
That should do it.
The new bottle is in the new apartment.
You gotta reward yourself for change.
So I sat on the deck and looked at my trees, each one of which I know so well now, and listened for the last time, and looked at the golden light on the trees, which are thinking about turning now it’s nearly September, and thought about all the times that I sat here and whom I sat with and all the people who never sat here but whom I thought about while I did, whether thinking about them made me sad or happy or both.
Then the jays landed in their various gardens and screeched at each other for about an hour. They’re black and white and they scurry up and down the branches like they can’t fly, occasionally taking off like helicopters to gain a bit of height. I think there are three of them. The one in my garden hops from tree to tree so I suppose he/ she is marking out its territory.
I love to listen to their screeches. And imagine what they’re saying to each other.
How was your day, honey?
Disastrous! Thanks for asking but. I totally fucked up on that final part of the presentation.
Then the squirrels started up and nibbled at each other in a high-pitched tone for a bit. Clarence the tree surgeon came by a couple of weeks ago, when Polly was here, and took down their two favourite trees. So they had to move too.
I felt so bad for them, knowing as I do how traumatic change is.
Now it’s just the crows. Everything else is asleep as it’s almost dark. Except for the crickets are starting up.
They only arrive here in August. Do they sleep for eleven months of the year?
Their relations in the Mediterranean must think they’re crazy, moving to Canada.
Anyways, Himself will be here in less than an hour, with our friends, to move me into my second year in Canada.
How lucky I am to have such wonderful people to move me.
How I wish all the wonderful people in my life could meet each other, under my benevolent eye.
(yes, yes, I know I’m a control freak)
Is that why people get married?
I have always assumed it was so.
I have a sneaking suspicion some people do it for the presents.
But you can always tell those people, can’t you!
When I get married you will all have to bring a sleeping bag.
It’s up to you whether you buy one in the autumn sales.
Oh! There’s the first bat of the evening!
Talk to you soon, boys and girls.
It’s funny how everything always turns out exactly the opposite to what I have planned these days, but it’s generally okay anyways.
This was to be my second last night in the little yellow house on the tree-lined street, beside the Montreal train line, at the edge of the peninsula, beside the sea, close to the university, where the first year in Canada took place.
I was to have two more nights in this gorgeous little house that took me in a year ago and got me through my first Nova Scotian winter.
I had it all planned in my head.
Had it visualised.
Saw myself doing it.
Himself had other ideas of course.
I had gotten rid of him for the weekend. He was gone back to the island with the children, who were wonderful if a little tiring for a girl who’s not used to children.
I was going to chill out Friday night, and by chill out, I mean sit and have a few drinks and blog and worry about the packing in the morning, because I’m going to be a bitch tomorrow, because Lady Moonbeam has announced her imminent arrival in the form of a low, grinding pain in my abdomen. So I was going to slowly drink everything left in the house to dull that ache, and then wake up with a hangover, and three ‘drunken landlady and her friends’ people in the house to deal with, and I was going to finish the packing.
But it was okay, because it was a challenge, and then I was going to go over to the new place, and wait for my super deluxe king-size Sears-O-Pedic bed to arrive, which I got for one third of the price for some strange reason, and then I was going to think about going out for a long time before hitting the shower/ clothes/ make up routine I haven’t engaged in for about four months, and head out with Hotspur, the Goddess of Spin.
For one of our evenings.
Because her man will have gone back to Maine for his university course. And she’ll be feeling a bit lost.
So I had gotten home and dealt with the ‘excited because she was soon to be drunk with her best mates’ landlady I had found sitting in my living room (her friend was over from Ottawa and they were staying here tonight to see could the landlady possibly live here for tax reasons for a year – of course, I thought, it’s the most beautiful house in the world – I do love my landlady, I have a bastard landlord now… but he has an Irish peasant which is probably worse) and I was sitting upstairs listening to my new Keane album and contemplating the packing (in other words the evening) when I got a text from Himself.
It said:
What are you doing
were coming up
tonight tiny martin I
help ya cleen going
on tear tomorrow
night
5.38pm 25/8/06
Even I, with my miraculous powers of understanding Himself’s texts, was baffled by this.
So I called him.
So Himself and Martin and Tina are coming up to move me into the new flat tonight and help me clean both houses tomorrow and then we’re going to Tammy’s sister’s fortieth in Kentville tomorrow night.
Whatever about Tammy’s sister’s fortieth, which I’d rather not go to it being in Kentville which is miles away, I saw the plan for what it was.
My last night in this house was Thursday night.
So the year in Canada will be over in about an hour.
It was a little more than a year of course.
But this is the last night.
I can feel it.
So I packed like a mad one for about an hour.
And now I am sitting on the smallest deck in the world for the last time drinking a raspberry swirl cooler I acquired at some bonfire this summer, and all the last bits of me in this house are packed and ready to go.
Except for the laptop of course.
I have finished the bottle of wine and all that’s left to drink before Himself arrives to find me drunk and maudlin is the leftovers of the bottle of sloe gin I got from the Queen Dad at Christmas.
That should do it.
The new bottle is in the new apartment.
You gotta reward yourself for change.
So I sat on the deck and looked at my trees, each one of which I know so well now, and listened for the last time, and looked at the golden light on the trees, which are thinking about turning now it’s nearly September, and thought about all the times that I sat here and whom I sat with and all the people who never sat here but whom I thought about while I did, whether thinking about them made me sad or happy or both.
Then the jays landed in their various gardens and screeched at each other for about an hour. They’re black and white and they scurry up and down the branches like they can’t fly, occasionally taking off like helicopters to gain a bit of height. I think there are three of them. The one in my garden hops from tree to tree so I suppose he/ she is marking out its territory.
I love to listen to their screeches. And imagine what they’re saying to each other.
How was your day, honey?
Disastrous! Thanks for asking but. I totally fucked up on that final part of the presentation.
Then the squirrels started up and nibbled at each other in a high-pitched tone for a bit. Clarence the tree surgeon came by a couple of weeks ago, when Polly was here, and took down their two favourite trees. So they had to move too.
I felt so bad for them, knowing as I do how traumatic change is.
Now it’s just the crows. Everything else is asleep as it’s almost dark. Except for the crickets are starting up.
They only arrive here in August. Do they sleep for eleven months of the year?
Their relations in the Mediterranean must think they’re crazy, moving to Canada.
Anyways, Himself will be here in less than an hour, with our friends, to move me into my second year in Canada.
How lucky I am to have such wonderful people to move me.
How I wish all the wonderful people in my life could meet each other, under my benevolent eye.
(yes, yes, I know I’m a control freak)
Is that why people get married?
I have always assumed it was so.
I have a sneaking suspicion some people do it for the presents.
But you can always tell those people, can’t you!
When I get married you will all have to bring a sleeping bag.
It’s up to you whether you buy one in the autumn sales.
Oh! There’s the first bat of the evening!
Talk to you soon, boys and girls.
Friday, August 11, 2006
What mythological creature are you?
I went to see the Chimera the last time I was in Turkey, and very beautiful it was too.
Here's another personality test from Myles' blog.
What Mythological Creature Are You?
Here's another personality test from Myles' blog.
| You Are a Chimera |
 |
Anti-terrorism restrictions designed by men
Great.
Now if Queenie wants to fly somewhere, which she doesn't think she'll be doing anytime soon due to the awfulness of the security measures now, but if she does, and she has her period, she will be forced to walk around the airport before she boards with all her tampons in a see-through plastic bag.
In case she's a terrorist.
This society is becoming more and more of a nut job every day.
Now if Queenie wants to fly somewhere, which she doesn't think she'll be doing anytime soon due to the awfulness of the security measures now, but if she does, and she has her period, she will be forced to walk around the airport before she boards with all her tampons in a see-through plastic bag.
In case she's a terrorist.
This society is becoming more and more of a nut job every day.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Whereupon nature conspires to make everything perfect
So, the Queen Parents left last Monday, which is why Queenie was upset in her last post (for those of you who are NOT PAYING ATTENTION closely enough due to the having of lives of your own), and last Friday Polly arrived for a little visit.
It was great. We went to the airport and Queenie jumped up and down in a fit for half an hour while the planeload moved slowly through Customs, and eventually Himself got Queenie sat down and calmed down a little, and of course as soon as he did the door opened and there was Polly. Much screaming and yakking ensued until eventually everyone was very tired and had to go to bed around two.
Next morning, after some blueberry pancakes and maple syrup, and an hour’s chaotic packing, Queenie and Himself brought Polly down to the island for a weekend’s camping, it being the Natal Day holiday in Nova Scotia.
And Shazz and her boy, who were making their first trip to the island, came too. Five people, five tall people, all their tents and sleeping bags and camping gear, plus all the food and all the drink, plus all the clothes and hats and coats, in one 4WD. We just about all fit in.
We got down to the island and unloaded all the gear and it was only then that the other passengers in the car realised that the cove where we were camping was quite a ways on foot down a rocky track from the car park. We let Shazz’ son spend a minute freaking out about it before we told him that Himself had transportation organised so while he went off to get his lot and to organise everything, we brought enough stuff to pitch our tents and make a cup of tea.
Everything except the propane and the water of course. Queenie always forgets something. So she had to hike back for those.
Anyways, we got to the cove, which I’ve written about before and which is quite the nicest place in the world bar none, and the first thing that happens is that a little minke whale buzzes into the cove for a blow and a breather. She came in every day we were there at the same time. So we’re standing on the flat green ridge above the cove that is perfect for camping, looking down at the beautiful rock formations that tumble along the shore, with the blue, blue sea twinkling and pushing gently against the rocks under the hot August sun, just admiring the beauty of the cloudless day, when we hear bbbsssccchhhh!!!
(Queenie’s version of a blow, doncha know).
WHALE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I screamed. And there she was, a smooth black shadow gliding through the water.
I thought Polly was going to burst she was so thrilled.
And that was the weekend for us pretty much. If I had sat down to write a story about the perfect weekend for a girl from Ireland to experience on the island, I would probably have left some of it out as being too OTT.
It would have been perfect weather until just after we left. And so it was. We had two days of hot hot sunshine, and when we woke up on the third morning, the wind had changed and was blowing hard enough to make dismantling the tents a bit of a challenge. By the time we got back to Halifax we were in the middle of one of Nova Scotia’s extreme summer storms.
Each night, as we barbecued our steaks and chicken, dusk would have stolen gently over the outgoing tide and a bulbous golden harvest moon would have risen over the ridge and slung itself lowly, slowly across a cloudless night sky, spattered with stars.
And so it was.
The first night, our good friends would have made their way down to camp on the shore with us, and all the children would have disappeared over the ridge to do whatever kids do on the shore, while us grown ups had a few beers and lit the bonfire and watched the seals coming in all nosy to investigate what the kids were up to.
Then later everyone would sit on the beach and watch the fire and laugh at the men and boys as they fed the fire and undertook those strange rituals that men have when they’re engaging in something as primordial as making heat from driftwood to keep everyone warm on an island shore
And so it was.
Polly would have had toasted marshmallows and wieners to roast over the fire (not too primordial), and lots of local boys to chat to, as well as getting to meet all the local women Queenie has met through Himself, who are just like the women at home in Springtown where Polly and Queenie are from.
And so it was.
Next day the sun glared down on us, so Shazz made an Ottoman-style tent with four tree branches and a fly leaf (red), and we lay under it and talked for hours while Himself brought the kids swimming in the swimming hole further up the track. Then we emerged from the woods for a barbeque at Tee’s house before heading back for another bonfire under the perfect moon, where Polly sang old Irish songs that made people want to cry (because the songs were sad, doncha know, Polly’s a good singer).
Then everyone went to bed and Polly and Queenie sat by the fire for a while and told each other all the things in their hearts that they hadn’t been able to tell each other for ages, what with having to be on opposite sides of the ocean for ever such a long time.
Queenie’s very glad she didn’t have to make the weekend up; that it just happened the way it did. We all deserve a perfect weekend once in a while.
It was great. We went to the airport and Queenie jumped up and down in a fit for half an hour while the planeload moved slowly through Customs, and eventually Himself got Queenie sat down and calmed down a little, and of course as soon as he did the door opened and there was Polly. Much screaming and yakking ensued until eventually everyone was very tired and had to go to bed around two.
Next morning, after some blueberry pancakes and maple syrup, and an hour’s chaotic packing, Queenie and Himself brought Polly down to the island for a weekend’s camping, it being the Natal Day holiday in Nova Scotia.
And Shazz and her boy, who were making their first trip to the island, came too. Five people, five tall people, all their tents and sleeping bags and camping gear, plus all the food and all the drink, plus all the clothes and hats and coats, in one 4WD. We just about all fit in.
We got down to the island and unloaded all the gear and it was only then that the other passengers in the car realised that the cove where we were camping was quite a ways on foot down a rocky track from the car park. We let Shazz’ son spend a minute freaking out about it before we told him that Himself had transportation organised so while he went off to get his lot and to organise everything, we brought enough stuff to pitch our tents and make a cup of tea.
Everything except the propane and the water of course. Queenie always forgets something. So she had to hike back for those.
Anyways, we got to the cove, which I’ve written about before and which is quite the nicest place in the world bar none, and the first thing that happens is that a little minke whale buzzes into the cove for a blow and a breather. She came in every day we were there at the same time. So we’re standing on the flat green ridge above the cove that is perfect for camping, looking down at the beautiful rock formations that tumble along the shore, with the blue, blue sea twinkling and pushing gently against the rocks under the hot August sun, just admiring the beauty of the cloudless day, when we hear bbbsssccchhhh!!!
(Queenie’s version of a blow, doncha know).
WHALE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I screamed. And there she was, a smooth black shadow gliding through the water.
I thought Polly was going to burst she was so thrilled.
And that was the weekend for us pretty much. If I had sat down to write a story about the perfect weekend for a girl from Ireland to experience on the island, I would probably have left some of it out as being too OTT.
It would have been perfect weather until just after we left. And so it was. We had two days of hot hot sunshine, and when we woke up on the third morning, the wind had changed and was blowing hard enough to make dismantling the tents a bit of a challenge. By the time we got back to Halifax we were in the middle of one of Nova Scotia’s extreme summer storms.
Each night, as we barbecued our steaks and chicken, dusk would have stolen gently over the outgoing tide and a bulbous golden harvest moon would have risen over the ridge and slung itself lowly, slowly across a cloudless night sky, spattered with stars.
And so it was.
The first night, our good friends would have made their way down to camp on the shore with us, and all the children would have disappeared over the ridge to do whatever kids do on the shore, while us grown ups had a few beers and lit the bonfire and watched the seals coming in all nosy to investigate what the kids were up to.
Then later everyone would sit on the beach and watch the fire and laugh at the men and boys as they fed the fire and undertook those strange rituals that men have when they’re engaging in something as primordial as making heat from driftwood to keep everyone warm on an island shore
And so it was.
Polly would have had toasted marshmallows and wieners to roast over the fire (not too primordial), and lots of local boys to chat to, as well as getting to meet all the local women Queenie has met through Himself, who are just like the women at home in Springtown where Polly and Queenie are from.
And so it was.
Next day the sun glared down on us, so Shazz made an Ottoman-style tent with four tree branches and a fly leaf (red), and we lay under it and talked for hours while Himself brought the kids swimming in the swimming hole further up the track. Then we emerged from the woods for a barbeque at Tee’s house before heading back for another bonfire under the perfect moon, where Polly sang old Irish songs that made people want to cry (because the songs were sad, doncha know, Polly’s a good singer).
Then everyone went to bed and Polly and Queenie sat by the fire for a while and told each other all the things in their hearts that they hadn’t been able to tell each other for ages, what with having to be on opposite sides of the ocean for ever such a long time.
Queenie’s very glad she didn’t have to make the weekend up; that it just happened the way it did. We all deserve a perfect weekend once in a while.
Monday, July 31, 2006
Whereupon the reader hears about the quietness
It’s very quiet.
Nobody is sitting in the garden reading a book without joining in the conversation, despite travelling thousands of miles to see his daughter. Nobody is tidying up after supper, despite being told not to because she is on her holidays. Nobody has gone for a little walk down the road to look at the sea. Nobody is telling me a bit of gossip I missed about someone at home. Nobody is opening a bottle of wine, or enjoying a can of Monkey Beer, which is quite the nicest beer in the world apparently, so nice he insisted he had to pay for it. Nobody is talking about the nice meal, which was well cooked, and it was fine that it was fish again.
Nobody is intently watching Himself barbeque the steaks, looking back at us to see what we think. Nobody is sitting quietly, listening to me as I rant about work, keeping an eye out to see would Himself roll his eyes at her.
He was their ally. I kept catching him at it. Having a little joke with them at my expense.
And when I'd express my outrage at him he'd just give me a look that said, Get up the yard. You muppet.
It was strange at times. I felt like I was playing myself in my own movie.
But I was one of the minor characters.
Very unnerving, I can tell you.
Thank goodness I have a blog.
What would I do otherwise?
Nobody is sitting around the table after dinner, talking about the war. Or remembering stories from our families. Or bickering with each other over something the Queen Dad did, or Queenie, or the Queen Mum.
I’d get a different look when that happened.
Himself has a very complex body language. Which I’m starting to learn.
I wonder what mine is like?
Some time is spent thinking about this.
I’m probably just pretty verbal.
I just wrote my first stage direction!
Some time is spent thinking about this.
There’s no effing money in theatre.
Except… I was reading a review of a book (this is how slack I am) about John Osbourne, the angry young man, and it turns out that he made a fortune from the theatre.
I wonder how he did that?
Some time is spent thinking about this.
Nah, don’t know. Time to move on.
Time passes.
Beckett was rich too, of course.
Some time is spent thinking about the last two weeks.
And a bit of a weep is had.
A very bittersweet one.
And then a train went past. And a dog howled at it.
I kid you not.
And the train went by forever, like they know it does now.
I feel better now.
Even just remembering is making it less painful.
The quietness.
Then she heard the hiss of a car passing quietly down the road in front of the house.
Sorry reader, I couldn’t resist that.
Goodnight. Safe home.
All of you.
Nobody is sitting in the garden reading a book without joining in the conversation, despite travelling thousands of miles to see his daughter. Nobody is tidying up after supper, despite being told not to because she is on her holidays. Nobody has gone for a little walk down the road to look at the sea. Nobody is telling me a bit of gossip I missed about someone at home. Nobody is opening a bottle of wine, or enjoying a can of Monkey Beer, which is quite the nicest beer in the world apparently, so nice he insisted he had to pay for it. Nobody is talking about the nice meal, which was well cooked, and it was fine that it was fish again.
Nobody is intently watching Himself barbeque the steaks, looking back at us to see what we think. Nobody is sitting quietly, listening to me as I rant about work, keeping an eye out to see would Himself roll his eyes at her.
He was their ally. I kept catching him at it. Having a little joke with them at my expense.
And when I'd express my outrage at him he'd just give me a look that said, Get up the yard. You muppet.
It was strange at times. I felt like I was playing myself in my own movie.
But I was one of the minor characters.
Very unnerving, I can tell you.
Thank goodness I have a blog.
What would I do otherwise?
Nobody is sitting around the table after dinner, talking about the war. Or remembering stories from our families. Or bickering with each other over something the Queen Dad did, or Queenie, or the Queen Mum.
I’d get a different look when that happened.
Himself has a very complex body language. Which I’m starting to learn.
I wonder what mine is like?
Some time is spent thinking about this.
I’m probably just pretty verbal.
I just wrote my first stage direction!
Some time is spent thinking about this.
There’s no effing money in theatre.
Except… I was reading a review of a book (this is how slack I am) about John Osbourne, the angry young man, and it turns out that he made a fortune from the theatre.
I wonder how he did that?
Some time is spent thinking about this.
Nah, don’t know. Time to move on.
Time passes.
Beckett was rich too, of course.
Some time is spent thinking about the last two weeks.
And a bit of a weep is had.
A very bittersweet one.
And then a train went past. And a dog howled at it.
I kid you not.
And the train went by forever, like they know it does now.
I feel better now.
Even just remembering is making it less painful.
The quietness.
Then she heard the hiss of a car passing quietly down the road in front of the house.
Sorry reader, I couldn’t resist that.
Goodnight. Safe home.
All of you.
Saturday, July 29, 2006
So many restaurants, so little time
Queenie is having terrible problems with her wifi at the moment, so posting may be delayed….
Effing internet. What effing use is it if you can’t get onto it.
Well, if you can do nothing else in Nova Scotia, you can eat well. Of course you can do lots of things here, but ohmygod you can eat well. Queenie has a taut swelled bump of a midriff after two weeks of the Queen Parents being here.
Last weekend, I brought them down the Valley. Down the Valley is the Annapolis Valley, which is the farming area of Nova Scotia. It was generally agreed that it was very like Ireland. Although it is mostly dyked reclaimed land so it is like Ireland if Ireland were Holland.
We stayed in a B&B in a little village called Canning, which has apple blossom everywhere, and a number of Baptist churches, and nothing else. The breakfasts were amazing. First of all, you got fresh juice, coffee and warm muffins served to your room at 7.30. Then you had an enormous breakfast at 8.30. Then we went in the car on a little jaunt somewhere. Unfortunately, Tropical Storm Beryl crashed onto the South Shore and across Nova Scotia that weekend. SO. IT. POURED. ALL. WEEKEND. Apart from one day, Saturday I think.
We did mostly tourist stuff – went to the Habitacion in Annapolis which is a reconstruction of the original French settlement of 1705. And the Acadian museum in Grand Pre which marks the Grand Derangement, the deportation of 10,000 Acadians from Nova Scotia by perfidious Albionists. And pottered around Wolfville, which is where I Wwoofed last summer and which is a nice university town a bit like a small version of Kilkenny. If Kilkenny had clapboard houses and was by the sea.
There was always a nice lunch in a European run bistro about two pm. Then back to the B&B for reading and afternoon tea, which usually involved some kind of very nice chocolate cake.
Then we picked a restaurant and headed off to eat more at 7.30, which is of course horrendously late in Nova Scotia. But still, there needed to be a bit of space in order to clear the stomach for a further filling.
Wolfville has many great restaurants, but the best three are The Tempest, Actons, and Between the Bushes, in that order I think. The Tempest is a chef-owner, very trendy European type bistro, all of whose servers are resting actors I think. Actons is a more high-brow, professional server type formal dining type place, with a focus on fish and steaks, and Between the Bushes is a lovely farmhouse restaurant in the middle of a blueberry farm with nice sunsets and all kinds of interesting fauna. Of course, Wolfville has the Blomidon Inn as well, which is supposed to be the best, but it’s a bit expensive for us.
Anyways, after that it was back to the B&B again for thankfully, rest not more food and a big long sleep until it was time to eat muffins again. Before that though Queenie had to reverse the car into the parking spot every night, which involved the Queen Father getting out and giving her complicated hand signals which she couldn’t see in the dark and then she would make a complete shite of the whole thing and get a lecture about parking. Which would go down like a lead banana of course.
Since we got back to Halifax we have been alternating eating in and eating out and sampling the delights of Haligonian cooking, which are multitudinal also. And as tonight was our last night together as a group of four, we went to Chives.
Chives of course starred in my blog nearly a year ago as the site of the wedding feast of Mr. and Mrs. Monkey. And very nice it was then and very nice it was tonight too. Although the table wasn’t decorated as prettily :->
So, just the one night left and the QPs will be winging their way back to Ireland. I wonder what impressions they will be bringing with them?
They met Himself and various politicians that Queenie works for and Hotspur the Goddess of Spin of course and some of Himself’s family, so that was all good. And Halifax seemed to grow on them once they figured out the buses and the waterfront and the grid system and that. Maybe not enough defined shopping areas for the Queen Mum to browse in.
And the Queen Dad and Queenie did the Harbour Hopper today, which is the Nova Scotian equivalent of the Viking Splash.
Today it was so hot it was almost too hot and our room is like an oven tonight so we will have to use the fan for the first time this year. August will be hot hot hot. Not as hot as BC, where temperatures of over 40 degrees are being recorded in Kelowna and Nanaimo and the forest fires are raging fiercely.
Effing internet. What effing use is it if you can’t get onto it.
Well, if you can do nothing else in Nova Scotia, you can eat well. Of course you can do lots of things here, but ohmygod you can eat well. Queenie has a taut swelled bump of a midriff after two weeks of the Queen Parents being here.
Last weekend, I brought them down the Valley. Down the Valley is the Annapolis Valley, which is the farming area of Nova Scotia. It was generally agreed that it was very like Ireland. Although it is mostly dyked reclaimed land so it is like Ireland if Ireland were Holland.
We stayed in a B&B in a little village called Canning, which has apple blossom everywhere, and a number of Baptist churches, and nothing else. The breakfasts were amazing. First of all, you got fresh juice, coffee and warm muffins served to your room at 7.30. Then you had an enormous breakfast at 8.30. Then we went in the car on a little jaunt somewhere. Unfortunately, Tropical Storm Beryl crashed onto the South Shore and across Nova Scotia that weekend. SO. IT. POURED. ALL. WEEKEND. Apart from one day, Saturday I think.
We did mostly tourist stuff – went to the Habitacion in Annapolis which is a reconstruction of the original French settlement of 1705. And the Acadian museum in Grand Pre which marks the Grand Derangement, the deportation of 10,000 Acadians from Nova Scotia by perfidious Albionists. And pottered around Wolfville, which is where I Wwoofed last summer and which is a nice university town a bit like a small version of Kilkenny. If Kilkenny had clapboard houses and was by the sea.
There was always a nice lunch in a European run bistro about two pm. Then back to the B&B for reading and afternoon tea, which usually involved some kind of very nice chocolate cake.
Then we picked a restaurant and headed off to eat more at 7.30, which is of course horrendously late in Nova Scotia. But still, there needed to be a bit of space in order to clear the stomach for a further filling.
Wolfville has many great restaurants, but the best three are The Tempest, Actons, and Between the Bushes, in that order I think. The Tempest is a chef-owner, very trendy European type bistro, all of whose servers are resting actors I think. Actons is a more high-brow, professional server type formal dining type place, with a focus on fish and steaks, and Between the Bushes is a lovely farmhouse restaurant in the middle of a blueberry farm with nice sunsets and all kinds of interesting fauna. Of course, Wolfville has the Blomidon Inn as well, which is supposed to be the best, but it’s a bit expensive for us.
Anyways, after that it was back to the B&B again for thankfully, rest not more food and a big long sleep until it was time to eat muffins again. Before that though Queenie had to reverse the car into the parking spot every night, which involved the Queen Father getting out and giving her complicated hand signals which she couldn’t see in the dark and then she would make a complete shite of the whole thing and get a lecture about parking. Which would go down like a lead banana of course.
Since we got back to Halifax we have been alternating eating in and eating out and sampling the delights of Haligonian cooking, which are multitudinal also. And as tonight was our last night together as a group of four, we went to Chives.
Chives of course starred in my blog nearly a year ago as the site of the wedding feast of Mr. and Mrs. Monkey. And very nice it was then and very nice it was tonight too. Although the table wasn’t decorated as prettily :->
So, just the one night left and the QPs will be winging their way back to Ireland. I wonder what impressions they will be bringing with them?
They met Himself and various politicians that Queenie works for and Hotspur the Goddess of Spin of course and some of Himself’s family, so that was all good. And Halifax seemed to grow on them once they figured out the buses and the waterfront and the grid system and that. Maybe not enough defined shopping areas for the Queen Mum to browse in.
And the Queen Dad and Queenie did the Harbour Hopper today, which is the Nova Scotian equivalent of the Viking Splash.
Today it was so hot it was almost too hot and our room is like an oven tonight so we will have to use the fan for the first time this year. August will be hot hot hot. Not as hot as BC, where temperatures of over 40 degrees are being recorded in Kelowna and Nanaimo and the forest fires are raging fiercely.
Friday, July 28, 2006
Domestic Bliss on Beaufort
Friday evening. I am sitting on the smallest deck in the world as usual. We have had a barbeque. Himself cooked steaks and baked sweet potatoes. I did the fresh corn, drizzled with oil and wrapped in tinfoil. The Queen Mother made a salad. The Queen Father was driven by Queenie to the Liquor Store and bought an eight pack of Keith’s (for the Queen Parents), an eight pack of Olands for Himself, and an eight pack of Schooner for me. He had also been to the nice wine shop in Bishop’s Landing and bought a couple of bottles of Knife and Fork, the great wine we found which comes in litre bottles with screw tops but which is very drinkable and a reasonable price.
Then we had mangoes and ice cream.
As you can see, everyone has found their role and is doing their bit to make it work. It’s all very domesticated. We had a nice meal and sat around talking about Belgium and Holland and the second World War and what the Canadian role was. And what they did in Bosnia. And Rwanda. We circled around Afghanistan a bit but didn’t go there tonight. It’s too depressing.
I find myself reading voraciously every time a Canadian is killed. Trying to remember their names. Trying to remember where they’re from and what their girlfriend or wife said at the memorial. A lot of it is to do with the fact that I can only remember one or two of the thousands of people who died in the Troubles. That has always bothered me.
Canada’s role in Afghanistan is troubling. For many Canadians too. You forget how much combat this country has seen. Most of it against the will of most ordinary Canadians.
However, it was too nice an evening to spoil it with war talk. We are all feeling very relaxed at the moment. For different reasons, I suppose. Himself and Queenie are thrilled because we’ve found somewhere to live. A really gorgeous two-bedroomed place with a kitchen that you could have a party in, a dining room and a living room, out on Herring Cove Road, which is a lovely part of the city. It has a really nice big garden, with a gate in the back fence that leads to a path through the woods, that ends at a sandy beach on a swimming lake. Steeped we are. We signed the lease today and take possession in mid-August.
I spent a lot of time this evening discussing the possibility of getting a kayak for the lake until Himself not unreasonably pointed out that we needed some furniture first.
Spoilsport.
I cannot believe that I am finally going to live in a wonderful, light-filled, large, two-bedroomed apartment in a house with just two other apartments, with parking and heating included, on the edge of a lake surrounded by a maple tree wood, for six hundred euros a month.
This is why I came to Canada.
You are all invited of course. The options are: come in the summer and swim in the lake, or come in the winter and skate on the lake, or come in the autumn and admire the trees. Or come in the spring, but I wouldn’t recommend that.
Queenie will be hosting skating parties. Imagine that! So long as she doesn’t have to skate.
We alternate eating in with going out with the Queen Parents and it is working well. The Queen Father is astounded at Queenie’s ability to cook. It just sort of happened this year once I had a bit of time and a nice kitchen. And we’ve been eating a lot of really wonderful in season Maritime food – squash and sweet potatoes and fresh corn and blueberries and freshly picked raspberries and lobster, and crab, and wonderful haddock fresh off the boat. So it is a pleasure to cook and to eat. And the kitchen is big enough for two women to work in without killing each other. And then it’s time to watch the CBC news and moan about how terrible it is compared to RTE (it’s not really – one of the things I love about the CBC is that they have the young funky presenters doing the main news, and the old arses are relegated to the second channel late news, in direct contrast to RTE).
I’ve been working three day weeks for the last little while, so I can spend some time with the folks. And Himself. He has a job now, hauling logs in Nova Scotia, but his hours are crazy and his schedule is not a five day week, so we can go eight or ten days without spending any quality time together, so I have been trying to make sure we have at least two days every ten where we get to converse enough that we can get down to the mundane. Which is of course extremely important for the smooth running of a relationship that has recently moved from being together to living together.
So far so good. Queenie has a bit of work to do on a couple of issues but is determined to try. So has Himself of course. But that’s up to him.
Work is finally calming down. That’s one of the reasons why I have not been blogging. Well, crazy work, followed by visitors, followed by domestic chores, followed by time with Himself, followed by sleep. Takes up pretty much all the time. Anyways, this is the first night for a while everyone has had enough of everyone else and is off doing their own thing.
The Queen Mother is cleaning up in my kitchen. She’s not been too bad actually, for a mother staying in her daughter’s house for the first time. The only hiatus was the evening I came home from work exhausted and she had gone to clean the green bin and realised there were maggots in it, which could turn into bluebottles, which therefore needed to be exterminated. She had soaked them in water and something or other, but still the hose needed to be found, and a scrubby thing, and then it needed to be washed out and rinsed and bleached and etc, and Queenie had to act like she knew/ cared about what she was doing when really she just wanted a gin and tonic and bed, but we got it done.
The Queen Father is reading The Colony of Unrequited Love and grumbling at the news. Himself is looking for cheap furniture in this week’s issue of Bargain Hunter. And Queenie is updating, because Luke is sick of checking in.
Consider yourself updated until tomorrow. There will be another post tomorrow.
Then we had mangoes and ice cream.
As you can see, everyone has found their role and is doing their bit to make it work. It’s all very domesticated. We had a nice meal and sat around talking about Belgium and Holland and the second World War and what the Canadian role was. And what they did in Bosnia. And Rwanda. We circled around Afghanistan a bit but didn’t go there tonight. It’s too depressing.
I find myself reading voraciously every time a Canadian is killed. Trying to remember their names. Trying to remember where they’re from and what their girlfriend or wife said at the memorial. A lot of it is to do with the fact that I can only remember one or two of the thousands of people who died in the Troubles. That has always bothered me.
Canada’s role in Afghanistan is troubling. For many Canadians too. You forget how much combat this country has seen. Most of it against the will of most ordinary Canadians.
However, it was too nice an evening to spoil it with war talk. We are all feeling very relaxed at the moment. For different reasons, I suppose. Himself and Queenie are thrilled because we’ve found somewhere to live. A really gorgeous two-bedroomed place with a kitchen that you could have a party in, a dining room and a living room, out on Herring Cove Road, which is a lovely part of the city. It has a really nice big garden, with a gate in the back fence that leads to a path through the woods, that ends at a sandy beach on a swimming lake. Steeped we are. We signed the lease today and take possession in mid-August.
I spent a lot of time this evening discussing the possibility of getting a kayak for the lake until Himself not unreasonably pointed out that we needed some furniture first.
Spoilsport.
I cannot believe that I am finally going to live in a wonderful, light-filled, large, two-bedroomed apartment in a house with just two other apartments, with parking and heating included, on the edge of a lake surrounded by a maple tree wood, for six hundred euros a month.
This is why I came to Canada.
You are all invited of course. The options are: come in the summer and swim in the lake, or come in the winter and skate on the lake, or come in the autumn and admire the trees. Or come in the spring, but I wouldn’t recommend that.
Queenie will be hosting skating parties. Imagine that! So long as she doesn’t have to skate.
We alternate eating in with going out with the Queen Parents and it is working well. The Queen Father is astounded at Queenie’s ability to cook. It just sort of happened this year once I had a bit of time and a nice kitchen. And we’ve been eating a lot of really wonderful in season Maritime food – squash and sweet potatoes and fresh corn and blueberries and freshly picked raspberries and lobster, and crab, and wonderful haddock fresh off the boat. So it is a pleasure to cook and to eat. And the kitchen is big enough for two women to work in without killing each other. And then it’s time to watch the CBC news and moan about how terrible it is compared to RTE (it’s not really – one of the things I love about the CBC is that they have the young funky presenters doing the main news, and the old arses are relegated to the second channel late news, in direct contrast to RTE).
I’ve been working three day weeks for the last little while, so I can spend some time with the folks. And Himself. He has a job now, hauling logs in Nova Scotia, but his hours are crazy and his schedule is not a five day week, so we can go eight or ten days without spending any quality time together, so I have been trying to make sure we have at least two days every ten where we get to converse enough that we can get down to the mundane. Which is of course extremely important for the smooth running of a relationship that has recently moved from being together to living together.
So far so good. Queenie has a bit of work to do on a couple of issues but is determined to try. So has Himself of course. But that’s up to him.
Work is finally calming down. That’s one of the reasons why I have not been blogging. Well, crazy work, followed by visitors, followed by domestic chores, followed by time with Himself, followed by sleep. Takes up pretty much all the time. Anyways, this is the first night for a while everyone has had enough of everyone else and is off doing their own thing.
The Queen Mother is cleaning up in my kitchen. She’s not been too bad actually, for a mother staying in her daughter’s house for the first time. The only hiatus was the evening I came home from work exhausted and she had gone to clean the green bin and realised there were maggots in it, which could turn into bluebottles, which therefore needed to be exterminated. She had soaked them in water and something or other, but still the hose needed to be found, and a scrubby thing, and then it needed to be washed out and rinsed and bleached and etc, and Queenie had to act like she knew/ cared about what she was doing when really she just wanted a gin and tonic and bed, but we got it done.
The Queen Father is reading The Colony of Unrequited Love and grumbling at the news. Himself is looking for cheap furniture in this week’s issue of Bargain Hunter. And Queenie is updating, because Luke is sick of checking in.
Consider yourself updated until tomorrow. There will be another post tomorrow.
Friday, July 14, 2006
Whereupon the narrator gets comfortable...
Rambling alert. It's late and I'm *tired*.
I think it’s a mafia society.
Canada I mean.
Real old style garotte from behind mafia culture.
I often wonder where their sense of this cultural history comes from.
Somewhere really vicious.
They talk very openly about things that nobody mentions in Ireland. Or London. Or Paris.
Wife-beating. And murder. And drug dealing.
And they fight. The young men do. They attack each other in the streets. Except I don’t know if that’s true, because I don’t know anyone who was attacked. In some sense there's nothing unusual about it, it goes on everywhere, but they don't do anything about it. No zero tolerance here. The cops just ignore it.
It’s amazing how we only start giving a shit when it affects us.
And there's a sense of 'good luck to you, dude' for those guys who shoot up half a town and two Mounties and then disappear into the woods for months.
Apart from the Mounties. Who get incredibly pissed off and ALWAYS get their man in the end.
Half-starved, frost-bitten, lost in the snow.
Corporals January, February and March.
But then they all have a nervous breakdown when someone in the armed forces gets killed.
I think it's about being happy that the people involved chose their own path.
And soldiers don't, do they?
But yeah, they happily engage with and talk about feuds all the time.
And they're very fond of their local headbangers.
In the Irish sense of the phrase.
And then, they've such an incredible sense of order in society they bring in a law that supports gay marriage. And common law relationships exist after one year. As opposed to NEVER in Ireland.
I don't know where the latent violence in Canada comes from. Nor the tribalism.
It doesn’t come from anywhere in particular, I think people brought it from where ever they came from.
I think that might be the problem here.
They don’t encourage the finding out of tribal cultural history easily here, because they don’t want to allow tribalism. Because Canada would disintegrate into a series of forest and urban fiefdoms.
Or revert to, I should say.
But it exists anyway.
That sense of affinity with others of your kind.
And it’s getting stronger.
Why are we all starting to mass into tribes again?
I was thinking the other day, the movement of people around the planet must be wrecking the dwarves’ heads.
"There's something up boys... the weather's changing up top. All that thunder and lightening," they must say to themselves. The gods stomping around.
Or maybe we sound like a flock of birds.
Swirling around their mountains like nasty seagulls do down on the waterfront when you’ve got an ice-cream.
What do I sound like to a sparrow?
Or a blade of grass?
I explain further on why I am talking about these profundities.
Dear Reader,
I have always wanted to start writing a book with those words.
I love those kinds of books.
Dear Reader means:
Sit down, girl.
Why?
I’m going to tell you a story.
Really?
Oh yes.
Then Dear Reader would perk right up and say:
Fantastic, let me get comfortable.
Time would pass.
Pasta is cooked.
Eventually Reader would resurface with a bag of stuff
…. Have I got everything?
Smokes.
Chocolate.
Bottle of wine.
Vibrator. Just in case.
And the dvd.
In case I need to see his face (insert actor of choice).
I’d sell fifty million copies if I could continue in the same chatty narrator vein through a rip-roaring twentyfirst century version of the nineteenth century chick lit sprawl.
I would.
Anyways, back to the sparrow…
I think it’s a mafia society.
Canada I mean.
Real old style garotte from behind mafia culture.
I often wonder where their sense of this cultural history comes from.
Somewhere really vicious.
They talk very openly about things that nobody mentions in Ireland. Or London. Or Paris.
Wife-beating. And murder. And drug dealing.
And they fight. The young men do. They attack each other in the streets. Except I don’t know if that’s true, because I don’t know anyone who was attacked. In some sense there's nothing unusual about it, it goes on everywhere, but they don't do anything about it. No zero tolerance here. The cops just ignore it.
It’s amazing how we only start giving a shit when it affects us.
And there's a sense of 'good luck to you, dude' for those guys who shoot up half a town and two Mounties and then disappear into the woods for months.
Apart from the Mounties. Who get incredibly pissed off and ALWAYS get their man in the end.
Half-starved, frost-bitten, lost in the snow.
Corporals January, February and March.
But then they all have a nervous breakdown when someone in the armed forces gets killed.
I think it's about being happy that the people involved chose their own path.
And soldiers don't, do they?
But yeah, they happily engage with and talk about feuds all the time.
And they're very fond of their local headbangers.
In the Irish sense of the phrase.
And then, they've such an incredible sense of order in society they bring in a law that supports gay marriage. And common law relationships exist after one year. As opposed to NEVER in Ireland.
I don't know where the latent violence in Canada comes from. Nor the tribalism.
It doesn’t come from anywhere in particular, I think people brought it from where ever they came from.
I think that might be the problem here.
They don’t encourage the finding out of tribal cultural history easily here, because they don’t want to allow tribalism. Because Canada would disintegrate into a series of forest and urban fiefdoms.
Or revert to, I should say.
But it exists anyway.
That sense of affinity with others of your kind.
And it’s getting stronger.
Why are we all starting to mass into tribes again?
I was thinking the other day, the movement of people around the planet must be wrecking the dwarves’ heads.
"There's something up boys... the weather's changing up top. All that thunder and lightening," they must say to themselves. The gods stomping around.
Or maybe we sound like a flock of birds.
Swirling around their mountains like nasty seagulls do down on the waterfront when you’ve got an ice-cream.
What do I sound like to a sparrow?
Or a blade of grass?
I explain further on why I am talking about these profundities.
Dear Reader,
I have always wanted to start writing a book with those words.
I love those kinds of books.
Dear Reader means:
Sit down, girl.
Why?
I’m going to tell you a story.
Really?
Oh yes.
Then Dear Reader would perk right up and say:
Fantastic, let me get comfortable.
Time would pass.
Pasta is cooked.
Eventually Reader would resurface with a bag of stuff
…. Have I got everything?
Smokes.
Chocolate.
Bottle of wine.
Vibrator. Just in case.
And the dvd.
In case I need to see his face (insert actor of choice).
I’d sell fifty million copies if I could continue in the same chatty narrator vein through a rip-roaring twentyfirst century version of the nineteenth century chick lit sprawl.
I would.
Anyways, back to the sparrow…
Delicately poised over two rushes
So the rush is over. The work rush.
The holiday rush is about to start.
I am delicately balanced between the self-imposed stress of the two.
As I said to a colleague today, I have deep reserves of patience available if I need some, I just don’t think many people are worth dipping into them for.
He said he felt the same about life.
It was one of those afternoons.
We passed the budget and headed over to the Triangle for lunch which was very relaxed and nice and I did my thing that I do of not mentioning politics AT ALL, which seems to help the people from work when they’re very stressed, although sometimes I think it makes me look like a bimbo (what a horrible word) and I just burbled on at length about various things until I hit on the one they wanted to talk about and then sat back and listened to the stories.
Which was great because I learn so much about Canada when they tell those stories.
Also, even though they are about things I am still learning about, they are really comforting because they remind me of the swirl of the pub after work at home, which is the thing I think I miss the most about home.
The idea that it may be five o’clock, or three o’clock, or two o’clock in the morning and we might all have had a shitty week, and have partners at home who are expecting us, or chores to do, or someone we don’t like particularly to meet, or a meeting to go to. And I might have spent the week moaning about my life and bitching about you and getting paranoid about your motives and consequently trying to shaft you out of a job, but HEY…..
… I’m not done with you just yet, so let’s go for a pint and remember why we do this job.
At one point in the afternoon we found ourselves discussing McCarthy’s Bar, which two of them had read.
And then one of them said he was dead. Pete McCarthy.
I hadn’t known that.
I love afternoons like that.
They don’t come along very often.
And then someone told a story about the storm the other night, about how the dog was scared and couldn’t sleep. So they both had to go downstairs and sleep with the dog…
I would have put the effing thing out in the yard.
Canadians and their pets....
After enough time had passed and everyone was either gone or gone, Himself and I wandered out and walked down to a spot on the waterfront where the birds gather and watched them for a while.
Until he said, see that sparrow?
There were about fifty.
Which one, I said.
The one over by the wall.
I looked.
There was one. It was hopping anxiously over and back in front of a little clump of grass that was clinging to life in a narrow crack in the pavement.
Canada is full of cracked pavements.
Well, Nova Scotia is.
I watched the sparrow. I had a feeling this was going to be one of Himself's comments on my world. His humour is genius.
And one of my colleagues had spent forty minutes the night before trying to convince him that plants could talk.
Swampy had bailed on him of course.
I think that’s why he remembered it.
He’ll have to get used to Swampy’s disappearances.
That’s just what he does.
Anyways, I watched the sparrow for a while.
But I couldn't fathom what he had spotted.
What? I said.
That sparrow is trying to talk to that blade of grass.
Which blade?
The young one, in the middle.
I watched again.
Sure enough, the sparrow was zoning in on that blade for some reason.
Rubbing its brown breast against it.
It’s probably looking for food.
No, look, they’re all eating out of the stalk on the other side.
So they were. Humming around it like jewel birds.
Everyone, even sparrows, is a humming bird inside. But you gotta do the best with what you got in this world.
And they were on the waterfront.
In Halifax Nova Scotia.
So it was common or garden grass in a crack in the pavement.
Anyways, I watched some more.
And then I started to snigger.
Because he had noticed it straight away for what it was.
A stupid sparrow. Too dumb to notice all the eating going on just beside him.
It gets you thinking all the same.
All this hippy dippy stuff they come out with.
The holiday rush is about to start.
I am delicately balanced between the self-imposed stress of the two.
As I said to a colleague today, I have deep reserves of patience available if I need some, I just don’t think many people are worth dipping into them for.
He said he felt the same about life.
It was one of those afternoons.
We passed the budget and headed over to the Triangle for lunch which was very relaxed and nice and I did my thing that I do of not mentioning politics AT ALL, which seems to help the people from work when they’re very stressed, although sometimes I think it makes me look like a bimbo (what a horrible word) and I just burbled on at length about various things until I hit on the one they wanted to talk about and then sat back and listened to the stories.
Which was great because I learn so much about Canada when they tell those stories.
Also, even though they are about things I am still learning about, they are really comforting because they remind me of the swirl of the pub after work at home, which is the thing I think I miss the most about home.
The idea that it may be five o’clock, or three o’clock, or two o’clock in the morning and we might all have had a shitty week, and have partners at home who are expecting us, or chores to do, or someone we don’t like particularly to meet, or a meeting to go to. And I might have spent the week moaning about my life and bitching about you and getting paranoid about your motives and consequently trying to shaft you out of a job, but HEY…..
… I’m not done with you just yet, so let’s go for a pint and remember why we do this job.
At one point in the afternoon we found ourselves discussing McCarthy’s Bar, which two of them had read.
And then one of them said he was dead. Pete McCarthy.
I hadn’t known that.
I love afternoons like that.
They don’t come along very often.
And then someone told a story about the storm the other night, about how the dog was scared and couldn’t sleep. So they both had to go downstairs and sleep with the dog…
I would have put the effing thing out in the yard.
Canadians and their pets....
After enough time had passed and everyone was either gone or gone, Himself and I wandered out and walked down to a spot on the waterfront where the birds gather and watched them for a while.
Until he said, see that sparrow?
There were about fifty.
Which one, I said.
The one over by the wall.
I looked.
There was one. It was hopping anxiously over and back in front of a little clump of grass that was clinging to life in a narrow crack in the pavement.
Canada is full of cracked pavements.
Well, Nova Scotia is.
I watched the sparrow. I had a feeling this was going to be one of Himself's comments on my world. His humour is genius.
And one of my colleagues had spent forty minutes the night before trying to convince him that plants could talk.
Swampy had bailed on him of course.
I think that’s why he remembered it.
He’ll have to get used to Swampy’s disappearances.
That’s just what he does.
Anyways, I watched the sparrow for a while.
But I couldn't fathom what he had spotted.
What? I said.
That sparrow is trying to talk to that blade of grass.
Which blade?
The young one, in the middle.
I watched again.
Sure enough, the sparrow was zoning in on that blade for some reason.
Rubbing its brown breast against it.
It’s probably looking for food.
No, look, they’re all eating out of the stalk on the other side.
So they were. Humming around it like jewel birds.
Everyone, even sparrows, is a humming bird inside. But you gotta do the best with what you got in this world.
And they were on the waterfront.
In Halifax Nova Scotia.
So it was common or garden grass in a crack in the pavement.
Anyways, I watched some more.
And then I started to snigger.
Because he had noticed it straight away for what it was.
A stupid sparrow. Too dumb to notice all the eating going on just beside him.
It gets you thinking all the same.
All this hippy dippy stuff they come out with.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
When is the wimmin of Ireland going to learn?????
Jesus, when is work going to slow down!
Queenie is at a point far beyond her normal endurance levels. And of course because it's hot and everyone's tired, and stressed, and working far too long hours on the budget, the atmosphere is just peachy at the moment.
That's Queenie's charitable assessment of the situation.
Effing politics. Sometimes I hate it. Most times I don't hate it.
This week I do, but.
At least I'm just tired. I'll be alright when I've had a bit of a rest and the visitations to take my mind off things. (Visitations are starting on Sunday with the Queen Mother and Father, then Polly's coming in August, and Jersey Girl and her Boy, so there will be eating in July and camping in August - HOORAY!!).
Obviously we'll be eating in August too, but it won't be as raison de jour as the eating out with the Queen Parents when on holidays is. I do like a parents who like a good meal out.
Yeah, so at least I'm just tired.
I'm not STUUUPIID.
Like some women.
Some Irish women.
Like the 'big eejit' (according to Derval) who got drunk at Dubln Zoo and stuck her arm into the tiger's cage. And had it mauled. Big eejit is right, Derv. I loved the quote from the zoo director, who said she was lucky the tiger let go of something as new and interesting as an arm.
Sensible tiger.
Irish women...
We met a Waterford man in the 'Shoe last Friday night who told Himself ALL about Irish wimmin. Apparently we're a shower of selfish sleeveens.
I'm beginning to think he's right.
What's all this about some woman with some frozen embryos fertilised by her former husband, who is not only looking to have them implanted so she can have a child, but is planning on charging him child support for it?
What kind of a way is that to bring a child into the world?
How loved will it feel, reading back on the Irish Times coverage of the court case currently in progress?
Stupid woman.
I know having babies is difficult for some people and I have all the sympathy and encouragement in the world for people who are nice and would be great parents who decide to take one of the alternative routes to parenthood. If that's what's needed.
But to stick your ex-husband for the bill?
That's a bit vindictive, isn't it.
Jersey Girl and I were talking about it on the phone tonight and she said in America, the ex-husband would counter-sue saying he wanted them embedded in his new wife.
Man, Himself and I lie in bed at night thanking the stars we are not that couple.
Then there was the woman in the Observer a couple of weeks ago who managed to get paid for what was supposed to be an article about a life choice, but what was essentially a four page advertisement for the perfect father. To impregnate her in some way. And then possibly to contribute to the upbringing of said issue. But not to have any meaningful input into the raising of said issue.
I'm sure she's coming down with offers.
I don't know... you work hard and you pay your way and you insist on equality and you fight and fight and fight to convince men that you're worth taking seriously, and then three bints like that come along and just RUIN it for the rest of us.
Himself's truck broke down tonight and he's not home yet although it's almost eleven, so I should give him a call and see if he wants hang sangwidges made or anything.
Domesticity.....
Doncha just love it.
Queenie is at a point far beyond her normal endurance levels. And of course because it's hot and everyone's tired, and stressed, and working far too long hours on the budget, the atmosphere is just peachy at the moment.
That's Queenie's charitable assessment of the situation.
Effing politics. Sometimes I hate it. Most times I don't hate it.
This week I do, but.
At least I'm just tired. I'll be alright when I've had a bit of a rest and the visitations to take my mind off things. (Visitations are starting on Sunday with the Queen Mother and Father, then Polly's coming in August, and Jersey Girl and her Boy, so there will be eating in July and camping in August - HOORAY!!).
Obviously we'll be eating in August too, but it won't be as raison de jour as the eating out with the Queen Parents when on holidays is. I do like a parents who like a good meal out.
Yeah, so at least I'm just tired.
I'm not STUUUPIID.
Like some women.
Some Irish women.
Like the 'big eejit' (according to Derval) who got drunk at Dubln Zoo and stuck her arm into the tiger's cage. And had it mauled. Big eejit is right, Derv. I loved the quote from the zoo director, who said she was lucky the tiger let go of something as new and interesting as an arm.
Sensible tiger.
Irish women...
We met a Waterford man in the 'Shoe last Friday night who told Himself ALL about Irish wimmin. Apparently we're a shower of selfish sleeveens.
I'm beginning to think he's right.
What's all this about some woman with some frozen embryos fertilised by her former husband, who is not only looking to have them implanted so she can have a child, but is planning on charging him child support for it?
What kind of a way is that to bring a child into the world?
How loved will it feel, reading back on the Irish Times coverage of the court case currently in progress?
Stupid woman.
I know having babies is difficult for some people and I have all the sympathy and encouragement in the world for people who are nice and would be great parents who decide to take one of the alternative routes to parenthood. If that's what's needed.
But to stick your ex-husband for the bill?
That's a bit vindictive, isn't it.
Jersey Girl and I were talking about it on the phone tonight and she said in America, the ex-husband would counter-sue saying he wanted them embedded in his new wife.
Man, Himself and I lie in bed at night thanking the stars we are not that couple.
Then there was the woman in the Observer a couple of weeks ago who managed to get paid for what was supposed to be an article about a life choice, but what was essentially a four page advertisement for the perfect father. To impregnate her in some way. And then possibly to contribute to the upbringing of said issue. But not to have any meaningful input into the raising of said issue.
I'm sure she's coming down with offers.
I don't know... you work hard and you pay your way and you insist on equality and you fight and fight and fight to convince men that you're worth taking seriously, and then three bints like that come along and just RUIN it for the rest of us.
Himself's truck broke down tonight and he's not home yet although it's almost eleven, so I should give him a call and see if he wants hang sangwidges made or anything.
Domesticity.....
Doncha just love it.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
In search of Glooscap (and bears)
OhmyGod! What a long gap between blog entries.
Queenie hadn’t realised how long, so busy she was being the domestic diva.
June 18th…. A beautiful day….
It’s been raining pretty much since, apart from a couple of nice days.
So what’s been happening?
Well, Himself arrived home a few days after that Saturday. And got Himself a job within a couple of weeks, so now we’re setting out on that greatest of all journeys in life… shacking up together properly.
It’s going well so far. Very polite. Very nice.
Very nice, actually…(
And we’re going house-hunting soon, as the lease is up on this house soon and we’d like to get a place of our own.
Everyone say ‘aaahhhh’.
What else?
Work has been crazy busy. The Government herded us all back into the House for three weeks of budgets and Question Time and all kinds of complicated business when we just want to take a week off and lie in the sun.
If there was any sun to lie in.
Lotsa fog here at the moment. The Atlantic is still too cold and the air is too warm and Halifax is too near the confluence of both so we have misty mornings every day. Dreamy damp fronds drifting amongst the high rise buildings of downtown Halifax as people grumble their way to work.
I’m not too pushed while I’m in work, particularly since the warmth outside increases the blast of cold air inside my building. But I like my weekends to be a bit nice.
First weekend Himself was back we headed down to the island to catch up with folks. We had two barbeques over the course of the weekend, one at a reasonable 3pm on Sunday afternoon, and the other at a far more unreasonable 11pm on the previous Saturday due to the inability of the host to put down his beer until I turned up and dragged his drinking buddy away from him.
Men!! Tsk!!
And me after slaving over a hot Frenchie’s all day.
Frenchie’s is the chain store, with branches spread throughout Nova Scotia that sells remaindered high street and designer gear from the states. You go into a large warehouse, which is full of huge bins marked ‘Women’s pants’ or ‘Men’s shirts’ or ‘Evening Wear’ and you rummage until you faint through last year’s Gap, Ralph Lauren, Liz Clairborne, and other nice brands.
It’s two bucks for a top, three bucks for jeans, skirts and dresses, and two - three bucks for bags, belts, shoes, etc.
This is why Nova Scotians look at you like you’re insane if you buy clothes in a boutique. Particularly clothes marked ‘new arrivals’.
This is also why Nova Scotian fashion is about two years behind the rest of the modern world.
But so long as you don’t leave the province it’s okay.
So I got Himself an entire new wardrobe for less than sixty bucks.
For which he was suitably grateful when he sobered up.
Next weekend was Canada Day when Canadians go camping so being good little Canadians we went CAMPING!! With our new exciting tent and stove and toasting rack and other exciting camping stuff that I bought from Angel before she went out West.
Camping in the Bear Woods. Which are really called the Cobequid Mountains. I was very brave. But there wasn’t a bear in sight.
They are really beautiful, even though they are just big hills and not mountains at all. We did the Glooscap Trail. Glooscap is the Mik Ma’q god and he lived at the top of the Minas Basin, which is at the head of the Bay of Fundy. The Mik Ma’q believed that the fermenting waters of the Bay’s high tides and the tidal bore that runs up the Shubenacadie river were evidence of his presence in the area.
The landscape on one side of the Basin is very Irish, rolling green hills covered in a wonderful spread of wildflowers, hedgegrows and willow trees, small rivers and winding roads. Lots of cattle and horses in the fields; the only difference being that the farmhouses are all woodframed and the barns are all big red Dutch gabled wood barns.
It was the closest thing to Hobbiton I’ve ever seen.
Then we crossed through Truro, which is a big, bustling market town at the crossroads of Nova Scotia and headed west into the Cobequid side of the basin, where the landscape is more Canadian. The Cobequid Mountains are covered in Nova Scotian mixed forest, and roll gently down to wide red sand beaches that are a distinction of the Bay of Fundy.
The sky was blue blue blue, and together with the red sand and the green hills, it made for a most typical Nova Scotian landscape.
The wind was too southward (pronounced suthurd) to camp on the beach, according to the Old Man of the Sea, so we found a gentle little curve of riverbank with a nice copse of trees to camp in and a wide pebble beach to build a fire on, and set up for the weekend. We had such a lovely time hanging out and cooking steaks, making coffee and sitting by the fire drinking beer and looking at the stars and then the bloody RAIN came and ruined it so we had to go home.
But I really enjoyed our first camping trip in the Cobequid Mountains and shall definitely return.
This week it was back to work work work although it is only a four day week and Saturday is Queenie’s BIRTHDAY.
Queenie hadn’t realised how long, so busy she was being the domestic diva.
June 18th…. A beautiful day….
It’s been raining pretty much since, apart from a couple of nice days.
So what’s been happening?
Well, Himself arrived home a few days after that Saturday. And got Himself a job within a couple of weeks, so now we’re setting out on that greatest of all journeys in life… shacking up together properly.
It’s going well so far. Very polite. Very nice.
Very nice, actually…(
And we’re going house-hunting soon, as the lease is up on this house soon and we’d like to get a place of our own.
Everyone say ‘aaahhhh’.
What else?
Work has been crazy busy. The Government herded us all back into the House for three weeks of budgets and Question Time and all kinds of complicated business when we just want to take a week off and lie in the sun.
If there was any sun to lie in.
Lotsa fog here at the moment. The Atlantic is still too cold and the air is too warm and Halifax is too near the confluence of both so we have misty mornings every day. Dreamy damp fronds drifting amongst the high rise buildings of downtown Halifax as people grumble their way to work.
I’m not too pushed while I’m in work, particularly since the warmth outside increases the blast of cold air inside my building. But I like my weekends to be a bit nice.
First weekend Himself was back we headed down to the island to catch up with folks. We had two barbeques over the course of the weekend, one at a reasonable 3pm on Sunday afternoon, and the other at a far more unreasonable 11pm on the previous Saturday due to the inability of the host to put down his beer until I turned up and dragged his drinking buddy away from him.
Men!! Tsk!!
And me after slaving over a hot Frenchie’s all day.
Frenchie’s is the chain store, with branches spread throughout Nova Scotia that sells remaindered high street and designer gear from the states. You go into a large warehouse, which is full of huge bins marked ‘Women’s pants’ or ‘Men’s shirts’ or ‘Evening Wear’ and you rummage until you faint through last year’s Gap, Ralph Lauren, Liz Clairborne, and other nice brands.
It’s two bucks for a top, three bucks for jeans, skirts and dresses, and two - three bucks for bags, belts, shoes, etc.
This is why Nova Scotians look at you like you’re insane if you buy clothes in a boutique. Particularly clothes marked ‘new arrivals’.
This is also why Nova Scotian fashion is about two years behind the rest of the modern world.
But so long as you don’t leave the province it’s okay.
So I got Himself an entire new wardrobe for less than sixty bucks.
For which he was suitably grateful when he sobered up.
Next weekend was Canada Day when Canadians go camping so being good little Canadians we went CAMPING!! With our new exciting tent and stove and toasting rack and other exciting camping stuff that I bought from Angel before she went out West.
Camping in the Bear Woods. Which are really called the Cobequid Mountains. I was very brave. But there wasn’t a bear in sight.
They are really beautiful, even though they are just big hills and not mountains at all. We did the Glooscap Trail. Glooscap is the Mik Ma’q god and he lived at the top of the Minas Basin, which is at the head of the Bay of Fundy. The Mik Ma’q believed that the fermenting waters of the Bay’s high tides and the tidal bore that runs up the Shubenacadie river were evidence of his presence in the area.
The landscape on one side of the Basin is very Irish, rolling green hills covered in a wonderful spread of wildflowers, hedgegrows and willow trees, small rivers and winding roads. Lots of cattle and horses in the fields; the only difference being that the farmhouses are all woodframed and the barns are all big red Dutch gabled wood barns.
It was the closest thing to Hobbiton I’ve ever seen.
Then we crossed through Truro, which is a big, bustling market town at the crossroads of Nova Scotia and headed west into the Cobequid side of the basin, where the landscape is more Canadian. The Cobequid Mountains are covered in Nova Scotian mixed forest, and roll gently down to wide red sand beaches that are a distinction of the Bay of Fundy.
The sky was blue blue blue, and together with the red sand and the green hills, it made for a most typical Nova Scotian landscape.
The wind was too southward (pronounced suthurd) to camp on the beach, according to the Old Man of the Sea, so we found a gentle little curve of riverbank with a nice copse of trees to camp in and a wide pebble beach to build a fire on, and set up for the weekend. We had such a lovely time hanging out and cooking steaks, making coffee and sitting by the fire drinking beer and looking at the stars and then the bloody RAIN came and ruined it so we had to go home.
But I really enjoyed our first camping trip in the Cobequid Mountains and shall definitely return.
This week it was back to work work work although it is only a four day week and Saturday is Queenie’s BIRTHDAY.
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Still managing the comedown
So yesterday was a beautiful day.
In many ways…
I didn’t have to go to work.
Man, that was beautiful.
I hadn’t had a day off since Easter.
And the weather was gorgeous. So I got out the sun lounger, and my suntan lotion, and my towel, and my new book, The Navigator of New York, by Wayne Johnston, who is my current ‘isn’t he great? How did I not know about him before’ writer.
There is some great writing coming out of Newfoundland. It must be the long winters. Or maybe it’s the Irish influence – there’s great writing in Cape Breton too.
I just finished his Colony of Unrequited Love, which is a fictionalised biography of Joe Smallwood, the man who brought Newfoundland into Confederation and then nearly bankrupted it. As a young man, Smallwood walked around Newfoundland several times organising the fishermen and the railway workers, before eschewing socialism for a career in Liberal politics.
I highly recommend it as both a great novel – the love story between Joe Smallwood and his political nemesis, a journalist called Fielding is very well told – and an interesting account of how England shafted Newfoundland for three hundred years and then passed it on to the nice Canadians when they were done with it.
Although the Germans etc have been very good to us, I can’t help thinking sometimes that confederation with Canada might have been the best thing for Ireland, if we had been able to paddle the island across.
There’s a wonderful account of Smallwood and some other Liberals going to Ottawa to negotiate the terms of confederation, their gradual realisation that the Canadian negotiators were so nice that they would agree to whatever demands the Newfies made, and their complete inability to take advantage of that, due to their ongoing complete inability to see the woods for the Liberal trees.
Story. Of. Effing. Atlantic. Canada.
The Navigator of New York is set in St. John’s and New York and is the story of the abandoned son of an Artic explorer who tries to overcome the pain of his childhood by making it to the North Pole. As with the other book, Johnston peoples Navigator with real characters such as Robert Peary et al. And makes the explorer circle sound like the pack of egotistical maniacs I always imagined them to be.
Like today’s mountaineers.
I know this is a bit late, but I was really struck by the death of that climber on Everest recently. There was a big debate about it in Canada. Of course, two days later, some Canadian climbers saved a man in similar (but not as bad) circumstances. So it was all about how Canadians are the nicest people in the world for a bit. (They can be a bit smug sometimes, but it’s okay because they are tremendously nice people).
But then an Albertan (Albertans are not as nice as other Canadians is an unspoken national instinct here, usually unspoken because Canucks are too polite, currently unspoken because the Albertans are in charge) female climber, who had to leave a partner behind on Everest a number of years ago, got into the fray saying abandonment was the correct approach as you have to keep moving. Which of course, coming from a woman, was particularly difficult for people to take, and so on it went.
What the effing hell are they all doing up there in the first place, is what I want to know?
Is there to be no mystery in the world anymore?
What is it about men (and some women now too) that they have to dominate everything, or take it apart to figure out how it works, or have races over getting to some point on the horizon? Why can’t they just sit back and enjoy it for what it is?
That’s what I spent yesterday doing.
Sitting back enjoying it.
Of course, I’m still coming down from my experience so a lot of the day was spent wondering where all the people I spent all my time with were, and what they were doing. Sort of like the day after Glastonbury, the same type of exhausted emptiness, but with the glow of the experience keeping you upright.
Then Paul cooked me supper. Again.
I would not have made it through the last six weeks without my roomies.
Seriously.
And we ate and talked about religion, which is what we talk about because he’s a pastor who is on a very arduous journey at the moment, and I’ll talk about anything, so long as I can do it at length in a very opinionated manner.
Which religion is good for.
And also, because I have been forced to re-examine my attitudes to faith in the last few weeks.
The woman who administered the office in Glace Bay was a Baptist.
We’d have these endless arguments about original sin. She was convinced of it. I don’t have any time for it, as I believe it is just a two thousand year old male antidote to their ancient fear and jealousy of women’s ability to take part in the creation myth. Which we have never gotten round to reframing, despite the fact that since then, men have figured out how we do it, and taken over the business of birth, and even taken on the mantle of co-parenting.
Yes, I’m still thinking about framing.
Did you know that there are no midwives in Nova Scotia? Well, there are, but they are not allowed to practice here the way they are in Ireland. Isn’t that just insane?
Anyways, at the same time as disagreeing with her absolutely, I realised that it was Ruth’s faith that brought her into the office every day. And her contribution was tremendous.
And she was a lot more sure of her role in life than I am.
But maybe that’s because she was an older woman.
Paul and I talked about the Eucharist last night. We were eating flat bread with Nova Scotia’s famous German sausage (unbelieveably good) and salad, and I said it was strange that this is probably somewhat similar to what Jesus had at the Last Supper, and yet if we want to be Christians we have to sit in a cold building being lectured at before eating a stale wafer, in a totally stylised us and them event, instead of all sitting round in somebody’s house, eating pitta bread and olives with a nice bottle of cabernet sauvignon.
I’d do that anytime.
Paul just smiles to himself when I do this, and then goes off to the computer room to type furiously.
I have a strong suspicion that I am contributing to his sermons in some small way.
I saw a great poster in Just Us! a few months back. It said: “When I feed the poor they call me a saint, but when I ask why they are poor they call me a communist.”
That’s what annoys me about religion, and particularly the Nova Scotia versions of it – Unitarian, Baptist, Anglican, Catholic - which is very focused on the church being a tool for good in the community (as opposed to being an opportunity to socialise). Doing good works is a fine human endeavour and we should all do it. But questioning the underlying cause of human suffering is more important. Otherwise we are just treating the symptoms and not the disease.
Listen Up, United Way!
That's what I like about organisations like St. Vincent de Paul in Ireland. They got stuck into the politics of poverty. And reframed the debate in the nineties.
And Oxfam. Oxfam is one of the best organisations in the world for that.
My friend accentmonkey has just left Oxfam Ireland after making a tremendous contribution to the organisation. They hired her to run a second-hand bookshop, she figured that out in ten seconds, and then proceeded to position them as a funky, politically astute, trendy cause in the national media, building strong relationships with journalists and donors and other key groups. Which is what Oxfam in other countries was doing, but they hadn't figured it out properly in Ireland.
As well as raising their profile in the media, she developed a successful business in the shop and also had to face the challenge of going to work in a charity shop with a sofa near Junkie-ville, with all the stress that entails.
You say you're tired, girl. And you sound tired. Quite rightly. Remember, there is no more arduous job in the world than working your butt off for people who don't have the money to give you stock options.
Half the people in the world have never used a telephone. And you overcame your hatred of said object to make life better for them.
You need to refocus your energies on yourself and Mr. Monkey. If you never do this type of work again it's not a problem, because you've done more than most people. But knowing you as I do, I imagine it won't be long before you are writing letters of outrage about some other cause you've come across in your full, meaningful life. And then sorting it out without getting up anyone's nose, or asking for any kudos, or expecting any of the rest of us to get off our asses and get involved.
Before waking up again one morning to think bah!, why do I do this?
I love when you do that, because your periods of outrage at the world's seeming inability to let you fix it all by yourself follow the same modus operandi - overwhelming irritation at the incompetence of others, followed by a swift stroke of genius that ensures you glide majestically past the effing nincompoops who are blocking the solution - that you use in your many successful efforts to fix the world.
All that 'bah' is is mental exhaustion, I think.
And you probably won't get too much thanks for what you did for Oxfam, because it's an NGO, and you are a woman who doesn't see the point in wasting energy on promoting yourself when you can be promoting your cause.
Like so many others, who climb the Everest of poverty purely to clean up the discarded oxygen tanks and care for the Sherpas, while the mountaineers of charity sit around and brag about the glorious torture of their tough ascent and just GET IN THE BLOODY WAY.
You should be very very proud of what you achieved for Oxfam.
I know I am very very proud of you.
Big kiss from Nova Scotia.
In many ways…
I didn’t have to go to work.
Man, that was beautiful.
I hadn’t had a day off since Easter.
And the weather was gorgeous. So I got out the sun lounger, and my suntan lotion, and my towel, and my new book, The Navigator of New York, by Wayne Johnston, who is my current ‘isn’t he great? How did I not know about him before’ writer.
There is some great writing coming out of Newfoundland. It must be the long winters. Or maybe it’s the Irish influence – there’s great writing in Cape Breton too.
I just finished his Colony of Unrequited Love, which is a fictionalised biography of Joe Smallwood, the man who brought Newfoundland into Confederation and then nearly bankrupted it. As a young man, Smallwood walked around Newfoundland several times organising the fishermen and the railway workers, before eschewing socialism for a career in Liberal politics.
I highly recommend it as both a great novel – the love story between Joe Smallwood and his political nemesis, a journalist called Fielding is very well told – and an interesting account of how England shafted Newfoundland for three hundred years and then passed it on to the nice Canadians when they were done with it.
Although the Germans etc have been very good to us, I can’t help thinking sometimes that confederation with Canada might have been the best thing for Ireland, if we had been able to paddle the island across.
There’s a wonderful account of Smallwood and some other Liberals going to Ottawa to negotiate the terms of confederation, their gradual realisation that the Canadian negotiators were so nice that they would agree to whatever demands the Newfies made, and their complete inability to take advantage of that, due to their ongoing complete inability to see the woods for the Liberal trees.
Story. Of. Effing. Atlantic. Canada.
The Navigator of New York is set in St. John’s and New York and is the story of the abandoned son of an Artic explorer who tries to overcome the pain of his childhood by making it to the North Pole. As with the other book, Johnston peoples Navigator with real characters such as Robert Peary et al. And makes the explorer circle sound like the pack of egotistical maniacs I always imagined them to be.
Like today’s mountaineers.
I know this is a bit late, but I was really struck by the death of that climber on Everest recently. There was a big debate about it in Canada. Of course, two days later, some Canadian climbers saved a man in similar (but not as bad) circumstances. So it was all about how Canadians are the nicest people in the world for a bit. (They can be a bit smug sometimes, but it’s okay because they are tremendously nice people).
But then an Albertan (Albertans are not as nice as other Canadians is an unspoken national instinct here, usually unspoken because Canucks are too polite, currently unspoken because the Albertans are in charge) female climber, who had to leave a partner behind on Everest a number of years ago, got into the fray saying abandonment was the correct approach as you have to keep moving. Which of course, coming from a woman, was particularly difficult for people to take, and so on it went.
What the effing hell are they all doing up there in the first place, is what I want to know?
Is there to be no mystery in the world anymore?
What is it about men (and some women now too) that they have to dominate everything, or take it apart to figure out how it works, or have races over getting to some point on the horizon? Why can’t they just sit back and enjoy it for what it is?
That’s what I spent yesterday doing.
Sitting back enjoying it.
Of course, I’m still coming down from my experience so a lot of the day was spent wondering where all the people I spent all my time with were, and what they were doing. Sort of like the day after Glastonbury, the same type of exhausted emptiness, but with the glow of the experience keeping you upright.
Then Paul cooked me supper. Again.
I would not have made it through the last six weeks without my roomies.
Seriously.
And we ate and talked about religion, which is what we talk about because he’s a pastor who is on a very arduous journey at the moment, and I’ll talk about anything, so long as I can do it at length in a very opinionated manner.
Which religion is good for.
And also, because I have been forced to re-examine my attitudes to faith in the last few weeks.
The woman who administered the office in Glace Bay was a Baptist.
We’d have these endless arguments about original sin. She was convinced of it. I don’t have any time for it, as I believe it is just a two thousand year old male antidote to their ancient fear and jealousy of women’s ability to take part in the creation myth. Which we have never gotten round to reframing, despite the fact that since then, men have figured out how we do it, and taken over the business of birth, and even taken on the mantle of co-parenting.
Yes, I’m still thinking about framing.
Did you know that there are no midwives in Nova Scotia? Well, there are, but they are not allowed to practice here the way they are in Ireland. Isn’t that just insane?
Anyways, at the same time as disagreeing with her absolutely, I realised that it was Ruth’s faith that brought her into the office every day. And her contribution was tremendous.
And she was a lot more sure of her role in life than I am.
But maybe that’s because she was an older woman.
Paul and I talked about the Eucharist last night. We were eating flat bread with Nova Scotia’s famous German sausage (unbelieveably good) and salad, and I said it was strange that this is probably somewhat similar to what Jesus had at the Last Supper, and yet if we want to be Christians we have to sit in a cold building being lectured at before eating a stale wafer, in a totally stylised us and them event, instead of all sitting round in somebody’s house, eating pitta bread and olives with a nice bottle of cabernet sauvignon.
I’d do that anytime.
Paul just smiles to himself when I do this, and then goes off to the computer room to type furiously.
I have a strong suspicion that I am contributing to his sermons in some small way.
I saw a great poster in Just Us! a few months back. It said: “When I feed the poor they call me a saint, but when I ask why they are poor they call me a communist.”
That’s what annoys me about religion, and particularly the Nova Scotia versions of it – Unitarian, Baptist, Anglican, Catholic - which is very focused on the church being a tool for good in the community (as opposed to being an opportunity to socialise). Doing good works is a fine human endeavour and we should all do it. But questioning the underlying cause of human suffering is more important. Otherwise we are just treating the symptoms and not the disease.
Listen Up, United Way!
That's what I like about organisations like St. Vincent de Paul in Ireland. They got stuck into the politics of poverty. And reframed the debate in the nineties.
And Oxfam. Oxfam is one of the best organisations in the world for that.
My friend accentmonkey has just left Oxfam Ireland after making a tremendous contribution to the organisation. They hired her to run a second-hand bookshop, she figured that out in ten seconds, and then proceeded to position them as a funky, politically astute, trendy cause in the national media, building strong relationships with journalists and donors and other key groups. Which is what Oxfam in other countries was doing, but they hadn't figured it out properly in Ireland.
As well as raising their profile in the media, she developed a successful business in the shop and also had to face the challenge of going to work in a charity shop with a sofa near Junkie-ville, with all the stress that entails.
You say you're tired, girl. And you sound tired. Quite rightly. Remember, there is no more arduous job in the world than working your butt off for people who don't have the money to give you stock options.
Half the people in the world have never used a telephone. And you overcame your hatred of said object to make life better for them.
You need to refocus your energies on yourself and Mr. Monkey. If you never do this type of work again it's not a problem, because you've done more than most people. But knowing you as I do, I imagine it won't be long before you are writing letters of outrage about some other cause you've come across in your full, meaningful life. And then sorting it out without getting up anyone's nose, or asking for any kudos, or expecting any of the rest of us to get off our asses and get involved.
Before waking up again one morning to think bah!, why do I do this?
I love when you do that, because your periods of outrage at the world's seeming inability to let you fix it all by yourself follow the same modus operandi - overwhelming irritation at the incompetence of others, followed by a swift stroke of genius that ensures you glide majestically past the effing nincompoops who are blocking the solution - that you use in your many successful efforts to fix the world.
All that 'bah' is is mental exhaustion, I think.
And you probably won't get too much thanks for what you did for Oxfam, because it's an NGO, and you are a woman who doesn't see the point in wasting energy on promoting yourself when you can be promoting your cause.
Like so many others, who climb the Everest of poverty purely to clean up the discarded oxygen tanks and care for the Sherpas, while the mountaineers of charity sit around and brag about the glorious torture of their tough ascent and just GET IN THE BLOODY WAY.
You should be very very proud of what you achieved for Oxfam.
I know I am very very proud of you.
Big kiss from Nova Scotia.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Second may be first loser, but it's other things too
I woke up this morning to the phone ringing at ten. It was one of my election volunteers, one who mostly did nothing, except torment the vulnerable members of my team by finding their weak spot and poking at it.
He wanted to speak to the woman of the house where I was staying.
I said she was still in bed. I didn’t mention that he had woken me up, as I couldn’t make that sentence yet, never mind say it.
You tell her that A* Mc****, her first cousin wants to talk to her now.
This in a really peremptory manner that let me know the dislike was mutual.
Half asleep, really annoyed, and quite delighted not to have to be nice to him despite the fact that he didn’t pull his weight anymore, I just hung up.
And went back to sleep. A couple of minutes later, after he’d hopped round his living room in rage a few times, he called back.
This time he woke the woman of the house and she took the call.
But I got up anyway.
Meanie – depriving me of that precious lie-in, I thought.
Turns out his sister had died.
Ooops.
Anyways, it’s over.
OVEROVEROVEROVEROVEROVEROVEROVEROVEROVER!!!!!!
I am home in Halifax after a long, long drive back from Cape Breton which thankfully I got to share with my colleague and good friend Swampy (remind me to tell you why he’s called Swampy one day) after picking him up from the Tim Horton’s on Exit 21 an hour and a half late.
Bless him, he didn’t say a word.
Swampy did E-Day in his home riding of Pictou East. Which he won as I knew he would as he is a genius at that kind of thing. But we had a good chat about why my candidate didn’t win and I feel much better now.
That’s right.
My candidate didn’t win.
The incumbent held his seat by 1,100 votes.
http://www.cbc.ca/nsvotes2006/riding/023/
I was one devastated little Queenie last night. We knew about halfway through the boxes. But we had to sit there and take the beating.
Her grace was what saved me.
Up to the church hall then for the party which was a non-starter of course but I got to see a bit of the party in Halifax on tv. And learned that my home riding of Halifax Citadel went NDP to Leonard, who’s a good friend at this stage, what with canvassing since October with him.
And the NDP is up five seats.
And all my politicians got home safely.
We own Metro. Metro is Halifax Regional Municipality and the surrounding ridings.
The more urbanised Nova Scotia gets, the better we do.
The Liberals are in complete disarray. Their leader didn’t win a seat and said he was through with it.
The Tories lost four seats to us and have only 23 seats.
But they will form the next government.
And when my candidate made her thank you speech and said lovely things about me and the campaign manager, it was all I could do not to cry.
I bolted into the ladies and looked at my face under a strong light for the first time in about three weeks.
Ewwwww.
Need a facial real bad.
I mean real bad.
A five week diet of Tim Hortons doughnuts, coffee, cigarettes and take away has not given me the skin of a maiden. More like a midden.
But the benefit of not being in government is that I’ll have time to heal and get back to full health again.
My back is in bits.
Two weeks of a 5’ 10” girl sleeping in a 5’8” bed with a footboard, plus three weeks of working at a low desk while sitting on a conference chair, plus all the driving, plus no exercise has done for it.
Yoga class next week. Some soothing stretching is needed.
But my candidate got 29% of the vote. We pulled a hefty percentage of our vote.
And I had a wonderful experience. I learned a lot. I met lots of really interesting new people. I cemented some friendships forever. I found my Cape Breton experience very rewarding. Almost spiritual in a way that I cannot put my finger on. But it was a combination of spending time with people who are religious, but all different types, so it wasn’t dogmatic, and the kind of pastoral work I ended up doing in the office as well as working on E-Day.
Although at three am last night, as I was on the beach throwing stones at the moon and yelling at the stars about the unfairness of it all, I didn’t feel this way.
All the what ifs and could bes and should haves.
Did I work my team hard enough, did I train them well enough, did I get enough volunteers, were there people sitting at home wondering why they didn’t get a call to help out on E-Day…?
But you just gotta let them go.
It’s done.
We did eighty drives. We called sixty one polls. We had a team of almost fifty people on the day. We got over 2,000 votes out.
It’s done. I did my best.
The fact that many of the people I had working with me had cancer, or had learning difficulties, or had massive domestic challenges, or had no money, or had nothing else to do except hang around the office all day and chat was not a hindrance. It was part of the challenge of pulling it all together in a seamless piece where everyone felt valued and everyone gave their best. Whatever that was.
My campaign manager was a union guy from Ontario, who has spent the last couple of years organising Walmart workers and was both an inspiration and a hilarious example of how utter calm or sang froid and apoplectic rage or stress can easily co-exist in the same person at the same time.
He was a big man, so that might have helped.
And my candidate and her husband and family were a great example of how to treat your neighbour as yourself.
I learned a lot. I stretched my patience levels out a lot. That can only be a good thing.
I also ran my first E-Day by myself.
But we were up against it.
The old ways.
While I got hassle from the Returning Office for delivering sandwiches and cookies to our poll agents, the Liberal candidate was going round handing his agents envelopes containing $50 (I was told this, I didn’t see it myself).
Maybe that’s why he won.
Even if we had had $2,500 to spend on E-Day we wouldn’t do that. You volunteer for the NDP, you volunteer.
It’s why the Liberals are traditionally strong in Cape Breton. They get you your job, your pension, your compensation. Even if they don’t they pretend they do and some people believe them.
But I think what happened was that the Liberals pulled the heartstrings of Cape Bretoners by talking about emigration and jobs. Not that they actually have a clue how to stop emigration or create jobs. But they struck a chord.
Funny how Charlie Haughey died the day I got shafted by the Canadian equivalent of Fianna Fail.
Well, not me personally.
But he used to talk the same bullshit, didn’t he?
Well, my mother says I should be merciful and I know lots of people who think he was a great man, or an interesting and human character at least.
I just don’t like people like him.
I think if you find a vulnerable person’s weak spot, you should teach them how to cover it or protect it, or heal it. Not stick your fingernail into it.
Anyways, going to read the letter I got from accentmonkey and have a sleep.
He wanted to speak to the woman of the house where I was staying.
I said she was still in bed. I didn’t mention that he had woken me up, as I couldn’t make that sentence yet, never mind say it.
You tell her that A* Mc****, her first cousin wants to talk to her now.
This in a really peremptory manner that let me know the dislike was mutual.
Half asleep, really annoyed, and quite delighted not to have to be nice to him despite the fact that he didn’t pull his weight anymore, I just hung up.
And went back to sleep. A couple of minutes later, after he’d hopped round his living room in rage a few times, he called back.
This time he woke the woman of the house and she took the call.
But I got up anyway.
Meanie – depriving me of that precious lie-in, I thought.
Turns out his sister had died.
Ooops.
Anyways, it’s over.
OVEROVEROVEROVEROVEROVEROVEROVEROVEROVER!!!!!!
I am home in Halifax after a long, long drive back from Cape Breton which thankfully I got to share with my colleague and good friend Swampy (remind me to tell you why he’s called Swampy one day) after picking him up from the Tim Horton’s on Exit 21 an hour and a half late.
Bless him, he didn’t say a word.
Swampy did E-Day in his home riding of Pictou East. Which he won as I knew he would as he is a genius at that kind of thing. But we had a good chat about why my candidate didn’t win and I feel much better now.
That’s right.
My candidate didn’t win.
The incumbent held his seat by 1,100 votes.
http://www.cbc.ca/nsvotes2006/riding/023/
I was one devastated little Queenie last night. We knew about halfway through the boxes. But we had to sit there and take the beating.
Her grace was what saved me.
Up to the church hall then for the party which was a non-starter of course but I got to see a bit of the party in Halifax on tv. And learned that my home riding of Halifax Citadel went NDP to Leonard, who’s a good friend at this stage, what with canvassing since October with him.
And the NDP is up five seats.
And all my politicians got home safely.
We own Metro. Metro is Halifax Regional Municipality and the surrounding ridings.
The more urbanised Nova Scotia gets, the better we do.
The Liberals are in complete disarray. Their leader didn’t win a seat and said he was through with it.
The Tories lost four seats to us and have only 23 seats.
But they will form the next government.
And when my candidate made her thank you speech and said lovely things about me and the campaign manager, it was all I could do not to cry.
I bolted into the ladies and looked at my face under a strong light for the first time in about three weeks.
Ewwwww.
Need a facial real bad.
I mean real bad.
A five week diet of Tim Hortons doughnuts, coffee, cigarettes and take away has not given me the skin of a maiden. More like a midden.
But the benefit of not being in government is that I’ll have time to heal and get back to full health again.
My back is in bits.
Two weeks of a 5’ 10” girl sleeping in a 5’8” bed with a footboard, plus three weeks of working at a low desk while sitting on a conference chair, plus all the driving, plus no exercise has done for it.
Yoga class next week. Some soothing stretching is needed.
But my candidate got 29% of the vote. We pulled a hefty percentage of our vote.
And I had a wonderful experience. I learned a lot. I met lots of really interesting new people. I cemented some friendships forever. I found my Cape Breton experience very rewarding. Almost spiritual in a way that I cannot put my finger on. But it was a combination of spending time with people who are religious, but all different types, so it wasn’t dogmatic, and the kind of pastoral work I ended up doing in the office as well as working on E-Day.
Although at three am last night, as I was on the beach throwing stones at the moon and yelling at the stars about the unfairness of it all, I didn’t feel this way.
All the what ifs and could bes and should haves.
Did I work my team hard enough, did I train them well enough, did I get enough volunteers, were there people sitting at home wondering why they didn’t get a call to help out on E-Day…?
But you just gotta let them go.
It’s done.
We did eighty drives. We called sixty one polls. We had a team of almost fifty people on the day. We got over 2,000 votes out.
It’s done. I did my best.
The fact that many of the people I had working with me had cancer, or had learning difficulties, or had massive domestic challenges, or had no money, or had nothing else to do except hang around the office all day and chat was not a hindrance. It was part of the challenge of pulling it all together in a seamless piece where everyone felt valued and everyone gave their best. Whatever that was.
My campaign manager was a union guy from Ontario, who has spent the last couple of years organising Walmart workers and was both an inspiration and a hilarious example of how utter calm or sang froid and apoplectic rage or stress can easily co-exist in the same person at the same time.
He was a big man, so that might have helped.
And my candidate and her husband and family were a great example of how to treat your neighbour as yourself.
I learned a lot. I stretched my patience levels out a lot. That can only be a good thing.
I also ran my first E-Day by myself.
But we were up against it.
The old ways.
While I got hassle from the Returning Office for delivering sandwiches and cookies to our poll agents, the Liberal candidate was going round handing his agents envelopes containing $50 (I was told this, I didn’t see it myself).
Maybe that’s why he won.
Even if we had had $2,500 to spend on E-Day we wouldn’t do that. You volunteer for the NDP, you volunteer.
It’s why the Liberals are traditionally strong in Cape Breton. They get you your job, your pension, your compensation. Even if they don’t they pretend they do and some people believe them.
But I think what happened was that the Liberals pulled the heartstrings of Cape Bretoners by talking about emigration and jobs. Not that they actually have a clue how to stop emigration or create jobs. But they struck a chord.
Funny how Charlie Haughey died the day I got shafted by the Canadian equivalent of Fianna Fail.
Well, not me personally.
But he used to talk the same bullshit, didn’t he?
Well, my mother says I should be merciful and I know lots of people who think he was a great man, or an interesting and human character at least.
I just don’t like people like him.
I think if you find a vulnerable person’s weak spot, you should teach them how to cover it or protect it, or heal it. Not stick your fingernail into it.
Anyways, going to read the letter I got from accentmonkey and have a sleep.
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