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The Before and The After

2010-10-16T16:16:00.000-04:00

All the talk about what we did on the house this summer warrants a few pictures. If you've ever clapboarded a house, you will appreciate the amount of work it took to get from the Before to the After pictures.


Before: Northwest side	After: Northwest side


Before: East Corner view	After: Northeast side

How it was done:

Step 1 - They removed the old clapboard and replaced any rotted sheathing boards, and there were some.
Step 2 - Old windows were removed and replaced by new. (In some case, this step had to wait because the new windows hadn't arrived)
Step 3 - A house wrap of breathable foam insulation was nailed on, and the seams taped with Tucktape (I have a real loathing for this stuff!).
Step 4 - John ripped 2x4's into 3/8" strips to make strapping which would support the clapboard. We borrowed a neighbour's table saw for this which helped some, but still a time-consuming job. On the 2nd side of the house, John gave in and purchased strapping in order to eliminate this step.
Step 5 - The strapping was nailed vertically over the house wrap 16" on centre.
Step 6 - At the base of the wall, a narrow (15") and continuous length of metal screening was placed in back of the strapping and then folded under and over the front of the strapping and stapled in place. The bottom of the strapping was then secured.
Step 7 - Window facing boards (not sure if this the right word), sills and drip caps are installed. They had all been made beforehand. Big job in itself. In most cases we had also pre-painted them.
Step 8 - Clapboard went on. One board at a time. I try to keep up with supplying the stained boards while two men nailed them on. (See previous entry for my clapboard factory!) I put two coats of stain on the front of each board, and one on the back. Wore out many rollers, but beats using a paint brush.


Terry and John look down, way down	After: East corner view

And so next summer, 2011, we will complete the clapboard on the southeast and southwest sides. I will have to get out my wrist support because my right wrist took a beating this summer. One step away from carpal tunnel syndrome, I'd say.
Hope Terry will be available for work again, because sure as shooting, I won't be getting up on that scaffolding any time soon.

I'm baaaack!

2010-10-15T15:03:00.022-04:00

I realized how long it`s been since I blogged when I logged on just now and found comments that had been left by some kind people who take the time to read this blog. I apologize to them for not having replied. I`m really not rude; I`m just scatterbrained.

The last post was almost exactly a year ago when John's mother died. The rest of the year was pretty much a blur after that. Some health problems surfaced and got taken care of. I spent a lot of time scanning all my old photographs. Everything. With the intention of editing/annotating them during the summer.

Well, intentions are nothing if not fleeting for a ditz like me. Needless to say the pictures did not get edited during the summer, but the Newfoundland house did. Two sides of it are now very different than they were when we arrived in June.

John did his Energizer Bunny impersonation all summer. I was to have helped him with the clapboard, of course, but needless to say my intentions once again were fleeting. Getting up on the scaffolding was simply beyond my capabilities (arthritis, fear of heights, general wimpishness) so we found a local fellow who was available for work.

Terry and John became an awesome duo, working in all weathers and even on Sundays, despite the disapproval of some in the community. Perhaps more on that later.

The intention this summer was to replace the worst of our windows -- the ones that had broken inner panes, rotting sashes, etc. Namely, four windows. Four turned into five. Five turned into seven. And before you know it, we had replaced ten and added one new window. Still have eight more to replace, but those are more modern (but no less ugly) and we can make do with them for a while yet.

We knew we would have company this summer so we had to make sure we had our guest rooms ready for visitors. The plan was to fix up the back bedroom to a point where it could be slept in. There had been a leak in one corner of this room which we discovered last year. The ceiling joist was rotten, as was one of the wall studs, so we knew we had to address that this summer.

The walls we knocked down

As is often the case, one thing led to another. Fixing the damage caused by the leak led to conversations about the other rooms at that end of the house being rather small and useless as they stood. Perhaps it would be a good idea to incorporate them thus making a much larger bedroom.

The expanded room

This triggered the thought that we should keep such a large room for ourselves and give our current bedroom to guests. After all, they wouldn`t be spending months and months. And so it came to pass. Not only is our bedroom the largest room in the house but one corner of it has been walled off for a future powder room. No more going down slippery stairs in the middle of the night to pee.

The new master suite

Our new bedroom has been drywalled (not a right angle in the place); mudding, sanding and painting will come in 2011. Our old bedroom is now a beautiful guest room. The ceiling tiles need replacing and peeling old wall paper, but for now, it`s okay. A second guest bedroom was cobbled together across the hall from the first. It desperately needs painting but it works for now.

The biggest job was outside. In addition to the windows, John and Terry replaced the wooden clapboard on two sides of the house, and on part of the third side. It went from peeling white to fresh Dory Buff (a historic colour). The guys did the cutting and nailing. I did the staining. And on days when the weather did not cooperate, I stained the clapboard in the shed.

Clapboard factory

John devised a great set-up for me. See picture at left. The supports in the middle held the board I was staining, the others supported the finished boards to dry.

The house looks beautiful and apparently I'm not the only one who thinks so. neighbours say the house has become a tourist attraction with everyone and their dog coming down to the cove to see the house that's being reno'd. Just wait till we get the rest done, a front door added and that wraparound bridge I want.

It was a very productive summer. Not only did we get a lot of work done, but we squired around three sets of visitors. We climbed Brimstone Head on Fogo Island twice. I would have done it a third time but we ran out of time that day and had to hightail it to the ferry. I should have lost weight with all that exercise. Alas, the story reads otherwise.

John is talking about going down early next spring to get a start on the indoor work so that when the good weather arrives, he`s ready to get going on the remaining clapboard work.

I'll make a separate entry with pictures of the outside of the house. Read on.

Obituary for Isabel

2009-11-09T13:44:00.001-05:00

ELLIOTT, Marion Isabel (nee McDermid) After a brief stay in hospital, Ottawa, on Wednesday, October 21, 2009, at the age of 84. Beloved wife of the late Donald. Loving mother of Jean Marengere (Yvon), and John Elliott ( Norma). She will be lovingly remembered by grandchildren Shauna, Tarryn, and Nathan; and step-grandchildren Marcus Joseph, Chantalle Marengere, and Phillipp Marengere (Elizabeth). Survived by sisters Beverley Devine and Grace Teske; predeceased by sisters Eileen McKay, Helen Murray; brothers Keith and Kenneth McDermid. Friends may visit at the Central Chapel of Hulse, Playfair & McGarry, 315 McLeod Street, (at O'Connor) Ottawa, from 2-4 pm and 7-9 pm Friday, October 23. The Funeral Service will be held in the Chapel on Saturday, October 24 at 11 am. Contributions in Isabel's memory may be directed to the Ottawa Heart Institute.

Sadness rains

2009-10-22T10:30:00.002-04:00

The funeral for Isabel Elliott will be held at Playfair and McGarry, 315 McLeod Street, Ottawa at 11 a.m. on Saturday, October 24th.

Immediately after the service, guests are invited to join us in the reception room for a bite to eat. Those who wish may accompany the family to the burial at Capital Memorial Gardens.

Today the skies are heavy in sympathy with our hearts.

We are sad

2009-10-21T11:18:00.003-04:00

John's mom, Isabel Elliott, died this morning. We are sad. We are busy. I'll write more later.

Red shag carpet project - Phase I

2009-08-22T12:08:00.012-04:00

As most of you know by now, we're slowly fixing up an old house in Newfoundland. It was built, we think, sometime around 1875, but nobody is sure. Could be older. Given the state the shores we in when we raised the house, I'd say so.

Red shag in living room circa 2007
Anyhow, we finally took the bull by the horns this week and tore up the red shag carpet that was in the living room and on the stairs and along the upstairs hallway. Actually, the upstairs hallway still has it, but the rest is gone. Took it to the dump this morning in the pouring rain. Fellow at the dump said that there's no doubt we're from Ontario because no self-respecting Newfie could be caught dead at the dump when it's this wet. He's probably right.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

We had um'd and ah'd about taking up this carpet since we bought the place three years ago. Not that we didn't want it up. Heck, it probably harboured life forms that nobody in their right minds would want living with them. But we had on several occasions pulled up a corner here, a loose bit there, just to see what was underneath. All we saw was plywood, pressboard, odds and sods of other kinds of wood filling in the gaps, and scraps of canvas peeking out here and there. Neighbours told us to expect newspaper in places as well. So we knew it would be dog's breakfast once we started. And thing is, once you start, it's hard to stop since one disaster leads to another.

But, curiousity got the better of us yesterday. And we debated the best way to proceed. We decided to pull up just one section and see what we were faced with underneath. If it was too awful, we'd put the plywood/carpet, etc. back again and forget about it until we felt stronger in a year or two.

We decided to start near the kitchen door in what would have originally been part of the central hallway. That carpet bit was easy since it was a separate piece that was just laid down. Two nails held it in place. Easy peasy. Underneath was three pieces of plywood, held down by mostly nails, but also enough rusty screws to give us trouble. And not only were they rusty, but they were bent. Watching them come out of the wood was like watching a flower emerge from the ground looking for the sun. Round and round the head went.

Floor boards as uncovered Aug 2009Under the plywood, once we swept up the dust of the last 50 years was something painted that I thought was floor boards because there were grooves like wide old boards. I was getting excited, but it turned out to be just painted wall paneling. Up that came.

Next was a layer of canvas - faded, worn, brittle and nasty. Up that came. And lo and behold, beneath that was wood. Wide wood boards. Worn down in the centre by many footsteps. Discoloured in spots, shiny in spots. In other words. Once we vacuumed and swept, they looked very nice. I could live with them like that if I had to. Might want to sand down the old knots that have risen up like pimples to the surface -- or rather that the boards have worn down around the knots.

And so Phase I was complete. We knew what to expect underneath, or at least what to hope for.

Living room with canvas floorWe felt so encouraged, we figured we could take the carpet up from the rest of the living room floor. This section had previously been a separate room from the hallway where we had excavated earlier and underneath the carpet here we found old canvas. Green wavy pattern with yellow flowers. Worn and cracked in places, but we can live with it until we're ready to excavate further. I'm sure I've walked over canvas like that many times growing up. Might even have watched my mother pull a mop over something very similar.

We did find a mess under the carpet around where the chimney used to be. There was no canvas there and the plywood was quite black. Figured we'd better get rid of that asap since who knows what was on it. Probably just encrusted soot, but we didn't take any chances and put on masks to take it up and throw it out in the trailer.

Phase II will come later. We'll work on a section at a time as we feel the urge.

Pink, white and green stepsThis morning, before heading to the dump, we decided to uncover the stairs. The carpet was held to the stairs by rods. The rods are held to the stairs by screw eyes that had been painted so many times they're part of the stairs. No way they we were going to get those off in a hurry. So we had to cut the carpet off. Took forever.

But the hard work was all worth it because under the carpet, the stairs are crudely painted in the colours of the old Newfoundland flag - pink, white and green. I love it. And I'm so tempted just to leave it like that. Maybe I should tidy up the edges but maybe not. What do you think? Let me know.

And so, the shagging carpet, er I mean the red shag carpet is no more. It's soaking up rain in the dump as I write. And the living room actually has a lot more light than before. Shows off the paint job we did on the walls a week or two ago.

Once we expose the floor boards, we'll see what we'll do with them. John is tending to want to leave them bare, maybe just some verethane. I'm leaning towards painting them and making a canvas rug for the living room (not anytime soon, needless to say).

Oh, and check out the cushions on the couch. I've been knitting and crocheting since we got here and these three covers are the result. Starting on a lap quilt next. With fish on it.

And so it goes.

Sweet William is bleeding?

2009-08-05T08:26:00.015-04:00

Our garden is only a little less of a mess than it was last year. In the fall before leaving, I planted some bulbs - tulips and daffodils and anything else that was interesting and available at the local hardware store. Neighbours tell us that they enjoyed the display of colour in the spring so I guess something worked. One thing for sure. I'll have to get a volunteer to deadhead the tulips next spring if we're not here. We found out what happens when you don't. They form seed pods. Strange things. I didn't believe it when I saw it and thought they were mummified tulips blooms. I didn't even know tulips produced seed pods. I thought they grew only from bulbs. Of course, Ottawa is not the place to find tulip seeds since the bulbs are whipped out of the ground before the blooms have even fallen. I understand that one can plant the seeds but then it takes about seven years to produce anything resembling a tulip. I'll pass. I cut the pods and put them in a dry vase where they very quickly deteriorated to a white, powdery rotten mass. Guess I'll throw them out and see if the birds like them.

The rest of the garden was pretty much fence-to-fence weeds. And tall. Fortunately, most of them were mature and were easy to pull out, leaving bare ground. I pulled the last of these yesterday. (And got stung by the tiniest nettle I've ever seen. A baby. Barely as big as the tip of the Bluenose on a dime.)

The Mother-of-Thyme that I planted in the fall hasn't died, but it hasn't prospered either. Still five sad mounds, although they did flower nicely. It may be because they're in the shade most of the day and most sources recommend full sun. However, if they survived a winter in Hillgrade, they are most likely hardy enough to withstand anything. I might just have to fill in with some more plants.

On one side of the house is a hill, okay a rise. A rocky rise. Probably eight to ten feet above the level of the rest of the garden. It's covered mostly with grasses, coltsfoot, sheep sorrel, some purple clover, ladies mantle and moss. The lady who lived here before used the outcroppings of rock to clean her paint brush so we have blue and pink and purple hued rocks between the wildflowers. Silas, the neighbour's cat, likes to view the world from this hill.

There is also a growing patch of Snow on the Mountain. I really don't want it and will have to see if I can at least contain it. But pulling it up will be tricky since I don't want to lose whatever bit of soil there is.

Growing among the Snow on the Mountain are Sweet Williams. Lots of Sweet Williams. Pink. White. Deep Pink, and multi-hued Sweet Williams. So many that they were spilling into the area that we want to use for a walkway. I hesitated for days but then decided it was best to just get it over with and I picked the ones that needed to be gone so that John could mow the area. I ended up with two large bouquets of Sweet Williams, one on the kitchen table and one in the window near the stove, for the enjoyment of all who passed.

We then noticed droplets of water on the table near the bouquet. Wiped them up and wondered if we'd been messy eaters the previous night at dinner. By nightfall, there were more drops of water on the table. Just under the perimeter of the bouquet on one side.

That was nearly two weeks ago. The bouquets are still looking wonderful (have changed the water only twice in that time) and we are still seeing drops of water on the table. A day or two ago we were finally able to find water on the plant just above the drops on the table. And again this morning.

Here are a few more photos: Left - Yellow Loosestrife growing up against the woodshed; Middle - Yarrow (as a child we called this Dead Man's Flower) and something whose name I don't know; Right - Monkshood which hasn't yet flowered.

So, are the Sweet Williams bleeding or crying?

Adventures in Iceberg Alley

2009-07-23T11:37:00.017-04:00

Okay, so we didn't exactly have an adventure, at least not by dictionary standards, but I thought it was a snappy title.

What does anyone do when they get close to Twillingate? They go see icebergs, that's that. There are so many bergs here now that locals can't remember when they had more at the same time. And that brings the tourists. They tell me that the TCH up to Twillingate the Sunday before last was bumper to bumper.

So we trailed up to Durrell (which is the best place to see the ice) last week, and again this week. Icebergs are living, breathing things, ever changing, every creaking and groaning, rolling and splitting.

Here are some pictures showing the view last week (on the left) and this week (on the right). I didn't exactly line up the lens this week, but you'll forgive me. My intentions were good.

Views of Durrell bergs on July 16 (left) and July 21 (right)

And two more, zoomed in:

Below, the two pics at left show a berg which disintegrated before our eyes. Poof! I managed to capture the final cloud of ice. Pic on the right shows a berg-y bit shaped like a whale, or a dolphin, depending on your preference.

Tonight we're going into Twillingate to see the arrival of Captain Bob Bartlett's ship The Bowdoin, as part of Celebrating Bartlett 2009 , a province-wide celebration of 100 years since Bartlett made his first Arctic expedition. I have to say I feel a special kinship, having grown up in Brigus, Bartlett's birthplace, and knowing his family personally.

So, expect another blog post tomorrow, or as soon as I can get myself organized. It's cold here, so it's a good time for doing stuff like blogging and reading and taking short, very short, walks. Frost predicted for tonight. Good thing I brought my hat and gloves. Odd thing is that I don't resent the weather here, but if it were to be this cold in Ottawa, I'd be furious. (At whom I have no idea!)

On the Rock Again

2009-07-23T10:50:00.005-04:00

So. Here we are. Back in Newfoundland. Back in Hillgrade. A little (okay, a lot) late getting here this year due to having stuff that just wouldn't go away at home (the other home). But we made it. Drove over 2300 miles in three days, had an overnight boat trip thrown in for good measure, and we finally put our key in the door on Wednesday afternoon, July 15th.

Three days later, we were off again, this time to Corner Brook for the celebration of my Aunt Edith's 90th birthday on Sunday. It was difficult deciding whether to beg off due to extreme fatigue (wouldn't have been a word of a lie) or to just suck it up and go, add another 700 km to the total. I called my Aunt Mary where we would be staying and she was looking forward to us coming. I just didn't have the heart to tell her we were too tired to drive all the way out there and back... so we went. I did the driving this time, giving poor John a much needed break.

On the way out, we came upon a car that had just hit a moose. The poor thing was lying at the side of the highway as though he had just lain down for a nap. His legs were in strange positions and I hope the RCMP officer who was at the scene had already put him out of his misery if he hadn't been killed outright. The people in the car were all fine. Milling about and moaning about their fender which was dragging on the ground.

I wish Newfoundland would do what New Brunswick has and erect fences along the highway to keep moose and other large animals from crossing. It would cost some money but lives (human, even) would be saved. That is usually enough to get people moving since saving lives of moose is not on anyone's agenda here. The poor animals are cursed left and right, but you don't hear anyone complaining when they get a bit of moose for their freezer.

As I was saying to John the other day, I don't remember wildlife playing such a large part in Newfoundland life when I was growing up. Moose were there, for sure, but not in the current numbers. Also don't remember any issues about bears. People go camping here now and are just as likely to come upon a bear as see a trout jump in the stream. Come to think of it, probably more likely, since the streams are getting fished out. And squirrels. Never had them growing up as well. Ditto for coyotes. I mean really. Coyotes are desert creatures, aren't they? Or have I just seen too many Wile E Coyote cartoons?

My aunt Edith had a lovely birthday party. Didn't get a chance to take any pictures except one of her. I used the flash which I think startled her and I thought she was going to say something to me about blinding an old lady. She didn't but it threw me enough that I put the camera down and forgot about it until it was too late and everyone had gone home.

Nice to see so many cousins and relatives of all descriptions. My son should come to Nfld with me sometime. He thinks his family consists of just me and him. (Gosh, can you tell I've been talking like a Newfoundlander for a week!) Ha.

Coast of Bays passage

2008-08-25T11:24:00.019-04:00

We just got back from a few days on the south coast -- should that be capitalized? -- and it was worth every minute of the l-o-o-o-n-g drive.

Left here on Friday morning around 9:30. Arrived at Southern Port Hotel in Harbour Breton sometime about 2pm, I think. John immediately had his nap. I went off exploring and to buy a hair brush after discovering I'd not packed mine.

What a gorgeous place. I had heard the south coast was beautiful, but I wasn't prepared for it to be THIS beautiful. It helped that the sky had not a cloud and the temps were in the high 20s. I started oohing and aahing right at the outset and never stopped until we got back on the highway yesterday afternoon to come home. And even from the road there were vistas that took my breath away.

As I said, we started out in Harbour Breton. Took a million snaps there. Went to a play in the evening (it was the last night; talk about lucky) at the Elliott Premises. It was grand fun and a bit of a challenge to tune our ear to the local accent. The actors were all young people and it was wonderful to see them involved in a venture like this. The stage had its limitations but they did a wonderful job and overcame them all. We had lots of laughs and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Next day it was foggy, which is apparently the norm in Hr. Breton, so they say. However, we went off to Deadman's Cove and would have walked the trail (2.5 hrs round trip) but my knee was giving me a lot of trouble so thought we'd better not risk it. We would have taken the trail up Gun Hill, too, if it hadn't been for my darn knee. Instead we took more snaps.

Hermitage - not what I expected. Thought it would be bigger, and (I hate to say it) prettier. Getting hungry. Went on to Sandyville. Saw a place that advertised convenience. Door was locked. Another place advertising convenience was also dark as a dungeon. On to Pass Island but it was very foggy and no stores loomed up there at all. So back to Hermitage and noticed that all the places in that town were closed too. Gas bar, included. Asked a lady near the Anglican church where we could buy groceries and she said Crewe's. So off we went and found it closed. Hmm. Went up to the door where a man was waiting and with sign language (his) and silly gestures (mine) found out the place didn't open until 1pm. Ah. The owners have to go for their dinner. Silly me.

We waited a bit and a lot of cars started arriving. Had to line up to get into the store which had a front door right out of the 1850's. Wanted to buy one of those little cans of potato salad we used to get years ago. This store looked like it ought to have it. But no. Considered buying a can of Vienna sausage just for old time's sake. Thought of the Maple Leaf listeriosis thing going on. Instead bought granola bars, fruit cup and cheese. Ate in the car.

The ferry to Galtois (pronounced Galtis) and McCallum wasn't at the dock when we were in Hermitage. If it had been, I would have been sorely tempted to make the trip. We were told it costs only $1 if you're over 65 and $1.50 if you're not. However, we didn't want to wait for it and moved on. Next time.

As we were leaving Hermitage, we noticed a sign to Furbey's Cove. Not on the map. Let's see what's out there. We were not disappointed. Furbey's Cove is the original name of a village from which the occupants were resettled back in the 60's. And it is now being re-settled by the daughters and sons of those who had been forced to leave. We spoke to a man who was originally from Galtois who filled us in on all the comings and goings. He said his missus had gone berrypicking on the highway and he had some time on his hands.

Headed out for Pool's Cove. Highway pavement was red all the way. Sign of something special at the other end? For sure. The place is extraordinarily beautiful. Spent a lot of time there, walking the streets with the camera. The fog lifted the minute we entered the town and stayed gone the whole time.

Fog rejoined us as we headed for Belleoram and lifted a little when we got there. Another georgeous little town. First things first and found a washroom at a little restaurant. Told the fellow we'd be back for supper. Turned out that the menu had only meat, so I hope he didn't wait up for us.

The rest of that little section along the Fortune Bay North shore -- St. Jacques, English Harbour West, Mose Ambrose, Boxey, Wreck Cove and Coomb's Cove (photo at left) -- was rather difficult to appreciate, it was that foggy. We had heard there were two B&B's at Coomb's cove but couldn't find either. Good thing we had already reserved a spot at St. Alban's for the night or we might have been sleeping with the fishes.

The drive from the north shore of Fortune Bay to the top of Bay d'Espoir^** is long when you're tired and hungry. We arrived at St. Alban's Inn just after their dining room had closed and they offered to make us a bowl of soup and a sandwich. John and I had both been jonesing for pizza all afternoon and headed off to the only take-out in town, mouths watering for veggie pizza. Turned out they had only pepperoni, and since it comes pre-made, it would have been hard to take the pepperoni off of it. Sigh. So we found another grocery store and bought some peanut butter, sandwich spread (I did finally get something I haven't eaten since I was a kid), bread and fig newtons. Back to the hotel for supper on the bed, and Olympics on the TV.

Sunday, up and out reasonably early. Off to see anything we'd missed the previous two days. So we roamed about the Bay d'Espoir area. Tried to get up to the hydroelectric installation but were stymied at every turn. Two long off-road expeditions (very narrow; very bumpy) were enough for us (and the car) and we gave up. Maybe next time we can pre-arrange a tour of the place, if they still do that in these days of terrorism and all.

We ate lunch at a very nice park down by the water in Milltown. Guess what we ate? If you didn't guess peanut butter and jam sandwiches, fruit cup and wet cheese (it had fallen into the watery ice in the cooler), you're not thinking hard enough.

I had to go pee in the woods and set off to find a secluded spot. Nearly did myself in by straddling an ant hill, but noticed the buggers crawling over my shoes just at the last minute. Nearly killed myself coming out of there. Had to grab on to alder branches to keep from tumbling out onto the path. I walked back via a very empty beach, and found lots of beach glass - blue included. Turned out that John had gotten worried when I didn't return and had set out to find me. Not sure how we missed each other since I was in full view on the beach and he was walking along the road just by it.

There was a heritage home as part of the park. It had been built there originally, moved in 19-0-something to another location, and then moved back to its original site in the last few years. There was a large sign and guess who the movers were. You got it: the same crew who lifted our house - Robert Coates from Glenwood (except they forgot the 'e' in Coates on the sign).

And that was about the end of our travels. We hit the road (Route 360) to head home. 45 km from the Trans Canada Highway, we stopped to pick blueberries. There had been a forest fire there some years ago and the area had grown over with lots of blueberries, as is often the case. John is not a happy picker so he napped in the car while I picked to my heart's delight. The temperature was about 30 degrees so I wasn't at it long. There are some things that even I can't do in heat like that. But I did get enough for a dessert that I'm making for tonight when Jo and Simon come over.

The whole time I was down on the south coast, I had to keep pinching myself. If someone had picked me up and put me down in China, I couldn't have been any more thrilled. I grew up in Newfoundland and had never been south of Grand Falls. Ever. Unless you count Buchans. There was just no road to the south coast. It was by boat or not at all. So just twisting my mind around the fact that I was there was mind-bending in itself. To find that it was so heart-breakingly beautiful was icing on the cake.

I actually started taking notes for poems during this trip and I haven't done that in a few months. I should go there more often.

Okay. So where were we?

2008-08-15T10:28:00.021-04:00

It's taken me over a month to get back to business. I just had to. Couldn't take any more of the nagging.

And I couldn't have picked a better time to write. I spilled my tea into my keyboard this morning and now I have no right arrow key. Who knew I used that darn key so much! And what's more, John tells me that you can no longer just take off a key-cap and clean the contact. Now you have to take the back off the keyboard (unplugging it first, natch) and clean the inside of the business. Maybe later.

So. Where were we? Oh yes, working on the house. Let's see. When we last chatted, the foundation and the pony wall had been finished and the house lifters had departed. The rest was going to be up to us. Many hours and dollars later, we are closing in on completing the goals we set for ourselves this summer. Several milestones have been achieved and celebrated.

Crawlspace windows. Check.

Crawlspace door. Check. Double check, since John actually built two doors. An inner door which is thick (hollow) and sturdy; an outer door which is 1/2 inch plywood to prevent the inner door from being exposed to the wind. The inner door has a padlock system. The outer door has just a push latch, for now.

Crawlspace window frames. Check. And nice frames they are, with drip caps and properly slanting windowsills.

Painting the pony wall. Check. We decided on red. Not sure why now except that we knew we didn't want the battleship grey that everyone else here uses on their foundations. This colour choice led us into a discussion of what colour we should eventually paint the house. We are leaning towards Dory Buff (a heritage colour) with red doors, drip caps and bridge surfaces, and white for the window frames and bridge railings. We'll see.

Landscaping. Semi-check. We've had five loads of shale dumped around the place, and shovelled and wheelbarrowed most of it ourselves. A neighbour found out we were doing this manually and came racing over to say that he has a tractor and would be happy to push the stuff around for us. Didn't have to ask us twice.
One of our challenges is that the dirt that was dug up from around the house when the foundation was poured is rather puggy. We did not want it put back around the house since it holds water so well and we are trying to solve wetness problems, not re-create them. So we piled that stuff up away from the house and replaced it with the shale. We have since re-distributed the puggy stuff (some of it was actually very good soil) over the top of the shale in order to grow whatever it is we'll grow. One more pile remains to be raked. Not urgent.
One of the days when we were digging & lugging dirt, we got to thinking that patch of stinging nettles and old damson trees at the left side of our backyard would make a great car park. But the problem was that our fence was inside that patch. Time to make inquiries. Turned out that the land is ours. We still don't know why the fence was where it was, and there was some talk in the cove about who owned the damsen trees that had gone to ruin among the nettles. It was finally decided that the land belongs to the house we're in so it's ours and was included in the sale. This was confirmed by the original owner once we got in touch with him. So. We now have a place off-street to part the car and the trailer. Check out the pile on shale that is about to bury the nettles. We had a second one after that. And now we have almost too much, but I guess it will settle.
Of course everything is still pretty rough. I've been keeping aside large rocks as we came across them. They'll come in handy for building a rock garden, or steps up the side of our hill in the back yard, or as a path to my vegetable garden. No shortage of them, that's for sure. And to think we have to pay big bucks for rocks like this in Ottawa. Would make ya weep.

Bridges. John has built a great bridge on the road side (picture at left). He even built a little triangular step down for it. From that step, we can go to the road, or to the side garden. The road-side edge of that step will be in line with the fence (when it goes up) and we'll put the gate I (okay, we) built last year right there so that when you step from the road, you'll open the gate right on to this step. Neat, eh?

The back bridge (right) is semi-done, too. It's bigger than the original one, which was rotted pretty badly. We saved the railings though because they were built by the former owner and it would be great to preserve his work. I like the railings a lot. How we'll use them, we still have not decided. In one of the pictures you can see that we've laid a section of railing on the back bridge. This was so that Mr. Dyke could see it when he came to visit last week. More on that later.

Wood stove. Check. We now have a new wood-stove in the kitchen (blurred picture at left). I might have mentioned that we had to get rid of the old kitchen wood range because it was not in good shape and would have needed an overhaul to make it safe. Not sure that it ever could have been restored to its original grandeur. So we purchased a Drolet Legend through Chester Dawe in Gander. It burns very well and turns the kitchen into a sauna. We will have to put a hole with a fan in the wall to the living room in order to draw the heat into that room. We'll also put a grill in the ceiling in order to let the heat rise into the upper bedrooms.
Since we had to take down the two chimneys, John installed a prefab chimney for the kitchen stove, taking it through the ceiling, through the upstairs room (called the Chimney Room) and through the roof.

Furnace. While the house was being lifted, the furnace had been dismantled and the pieces stored in the shed. Then we called the furnace man to come and re-install it, adjusting here and there to accommodate the new beams that are now under the house. Since the furnace chimney was a casualty of the lift, we were thinking of installing a prefab on the outside for the furnace. But the furnace man mentioned a power vent. After some research, we opted for this and now we have just a little box on the outer wall near where the furnace is mounted underneath the floor. We have not had to run our furnace yet (thanks to a scorching July and a still not too cool August) but are not anticipating any problems. It should apparently run even quieter than before now that it's fixed and not sitting on a rock.

Repair of outer walls and clapboard. Check. Because much of our lower walls on the north and north-west walls of the house had rotted, we had to tear away a large portion of the clapboard. The underlying matched lumber (tongue-in-groove) had also seen better days and needed attention. This week John spent repairing the board walls and putting on new clapboard as required. He put a new trim board (water table) all around the house, hoping that when he met up with the first piece that it would be lined up. As many problems as he had in getting it on, when he did join up, it was only about 1/2 inch out. Pretty darn good, I'd say. We don't have any pictures yet of the final job because he says, "it's not finished." He still has to address the corner trim.

That about covers it, I think. It's been a long month. With all the digging and wheelbarrowing (especially downhill) I wrecked my left knee. Haven't been able to do much since about the 15th. Luckily, we had lots of help. Boyce Sansome showed up with his shovel to help move dirt. As I mentioned above, Clayton Sansome brought along his tractor. Twice. Transporting it up and down the hill on a flatbed trailer each time. Ivan Sansome and his son Michael who was just here for a visit came over and moved the rest of the dirt from the road-side of the house. Since they were using our shovels, we could only watch. What a great place. What great neighbours. Kevin Butt has been down to help repair the roof when the chimney was installed, to install clapboard and to help with just about every other job that needed doing.

Since my knee didn't allow me to go berry picking, Boyce even brought us down a bag of bakeapples which he picked himself. I tell ya, it doesn't get any better than this. John remarked the other day that we've lived on our street in Ottawa since 1998 and we still know only a few neighbours. Here we know everyone and they know us. And here 'knowing' = 'helping' = 'sharing' = 'genuine caring'. Remind me again of why we're going back to Ottawa? Sometimes I wonder why.

Of course, if John had his way, we'd be staying here. For good. Sometimes, I think I should just let him have his way.

House-lifting pics

2008-07-03T08:32:00.025-04:00

Thought you might enjoy seeing a few of the pictures of the men working on the house towards the end. They are taking the rails out from under the house in the first picture.

Robert Coates, the boss man, is shown opposite. What a sweetie. Never grumpy. Never has an off day. The minute he opens his mouth to speak, there's a smile chasing every word. As John says, the mark of a man who loves what he does.

The third picture (above, right) shows just what brute strength is required to lift a house. Every man on the crew was as strong as two ox.

And finally another view under the house. You see the remains of one of the cribs on the right. We don't get to keep that wood. It gets loaded back on their truck for the next move/lift someplace else. I'm told there's a house move today in Twillingate. We might go up and have a look.

We're in!

2008-07-03T07:56:00.008-04:00

I have been chastised by a few people for not keeping up to date here. And I'll have to take my lumps because I have been negligent.

We're in the house. Actually living here. Sort of. Here's a picture of what the house looks like now with the foundation finished. In the first picture, the black stuff is tar, for waterproofing. The white stuff you see with elephants on it is a waterproofing membrane. The red stuff is a tape that glues the membrane to the tar. And now you know just about all I know about foundations and waterproofing.

When we get to it, the ground level will come up to the red tape. We'll slope the soil away from the house in front (sea side) and the side of the house showing will also have a slope towards the sea. Just how important this is was brought home to us a few days ago. We had the biggest rain storm anyone in these parts can ever remember. Not to mention the thunder and lightening. We had just gone to bed and I was sure we would all be washed out to sea. In the morning, there was a lake at the back of our house, still forming and draining from run-off from the bog across the road. It's imperative that we find a way to divert this water. Our foundation might be waterproof, but it can't be good to have this much moisture near a building.

So, what's it like? I have nothing but good to say about this house lifting business. For starters, we have a better view. We can see the ocean from the downstairs windows over the big old rock in the side yard. Previously had to climb up on the rock to do that. The view from the upstairs windows is glorious.

The view I like best though is the one from the kitchen window. Previously we looked up at the road, feeling rather like moles. Now, we can sit at the kitchen table, look directly out at the road and see who's coming and going in good Newfoundland style. Great spot for a cup of tea.

And our floors are level -- well as much as floors in a 130-year-old house can be level. No longer do we almost fall down if we turn suddenly in the kitchen. Balance issues have gone the way of the codfish. People who've come in say the place has lost some of its charm and quirkiness. Perhaps. But I can live with it.

One of the last tasks the house-lifters did was to replace the sills on the back addition of the house. They were rotted through. It was his opinion that if we'd left this job even one more year, we might not have had much to save.

The only downside of it all is that the carpenter ants that lived in the old sills now have to find a new home. They have been roaming around outside like lost souls -- very big lost souls, at that. I've never seen ants so big in my life. Some of them are at least an inch long. Hopefully they'll go across the street to the old general store that is slowly rotting from the ground up.

So now the real work begins. We haven't stopped much since we moved back in. The first task was to tidy up the yard a bit. Create a few piles - wood that we'll keep to burn, wood that the neighbour wants to burn, stuff to take to the dump. Then we moved the furnace components out of the shed to under the house in order to make room for the firewood pieces that were already short. We made another pile of wood that we'll have to cut later. It's the biggest pile.

John spent some time levelling off the soil under the house in order to make space to store his supplies and tools. We're using the old concrete forms as platforms for both storage and walking. I gather it was not easy using a pick under the house without room to swing it. And the soil being rocky as it is, is not easy to shovel.

I learned to make concrete the other day. I could probably make it again myself any old time now that I know what consistency it has to have to work. The only hitch is finding a way to life the bags of cement. Those things are heavy. We used some some of the sand the contractors left around with a few bags of Portland cement. From this we made footings for the back bridge. We bought some Readi-mix to make the posts. And they look very good, if I do say so myself.

So now, we have to fill in the trench. We could just push back the stuff that they took out of the trench and get a load or two of fill to put on top of it to get the grade we want. But the problem is that soil is rather 'poggy' (word used around here to describe soil that holds water like a sponge) and we don't want to give the run-off a place to live. So we've been thinking of having a few loads of a mixture of sand and shale dropped off. Problem is, where to put it. If we don't move the existing mounds, there's nowhere to put the new stuff. We don't really want to move the existing mounds to another location and then use it later as a top-soil. But we might have to.

I've been devoting most of my back-breaking labour to getting rid of the Mile-A-Minute that was growing along the road-side of the house. I really don't want it there. It takes up all the room on that side of the house and blocks light from the living room window. I've been told that even leaving one little bit of root in the soil will result in two new plants. I expect I'm defeating my own purpose by trying to dig it out, because I'm probably not getting all the little root bits. In fact, I'm sure I'm not. Sigh. I don't want to resort to poison, mainly because I tried that last year and the darn thing laughed at me. It shed the parts of the plant that the poison had touched and the rest of it flourished like never before.

We have not got our new wood stove yet. The one we want is difficult to get. The company sells stoves through at least two retailers - Home Hardware (there is one a few kilometers away) and Rona (several hundred km away). And it appears the stove we want is made for Rona only. However the manufacturer's site lists Home Hardware as their distributer in these parts so the fellow who runs HH is going to call them and give them what for and try to get the stove we want.

As I write, the furnace man is here hooking the furnace back up. Since we had to take down the old brick chimney that the furnace used, we thought we'd have to go with one of those steel chimney jobbies that everyone here uses. But it appears we can get something called (probably wrong name) a power exhauster. It is a short pipe that comes out of the foundation wall and that's it. It has an electric fan that exhausts the fumes and apparently does a great job. Doesn't foul up the siding or poison bystanders. Not sure how but that's what they say. So we're going with that. It's cheaper than buying a 24 foot chimney anyway.

The weather has been the shits, if you'll pardon the expression. We saw the sun yesterday for the first time in nearly two weeks. It was 28 degrees Celsius yesterday. I did two loads of laundry to take advantage of a great sea-breeze and the heat. Today the grey skies are back, but it's not as cold as it was last week.

At one point I was so cold I was starting to remember why I left Newfoundland in the first place all those many years ago. I said in a weak moment, "I want to go home." My dear husband looked at me and said, "I'm already home!"

Closing in on the finish line

2008-06-23T09:01:00.005-04:00

We're getting there. On the weekend, I actually went to Hillgrade and had a look at the house. First time I've been there in over a week, although it feels like forever.

It was a bit of a shock to see something concrete (serendipitous pun) under the house. The knee-wall is there too, as I knew it would be. Having seen it now a few times this weekend, I'm not as upset by it as I was at first. They have roughed in spaces for windows should we ever want to put some in. There's a door - extra wide - to the crawl space.

The front (sea side) of the house is now in it's final position. It will not be lowered any further. The back will be adjusted as its time comes to rest on the foundation. They still have to put the block wall in the back and sides and are doing that as I speak, I should imagine. They didn't work on the weekend although the bossman said he would have liked to. However, the fellows haven't had a weekend off in five weeks so John said he thought it was time they had one.

So today, apart from finishing the block wall (atop the concrete foundation), they will put the weeping tile into the trench to conduct away the bog water that was causing us so many problems to start with. (Heck, if it hadn't been for this bog water, our house would probably have stood another century without intervention.)

John figures we'll be back in the house by Friday, which means the men will be finished by then, and John will have hooked the plumbing up. He has more work to do than just reconnect what he disconnected because he decided to move the location of the septic pipe as well as the garden hose. However, he's confident he can get it done in a day. We're not going to worry about getting the furnace hooked up before we move back because the weather has turned nice and we likely won't freeze before the furnace man gets to do his thing.

Here are some pics that I took on Friday. You can see the foundation, especially on the front. It gives a good idea of how things are going. John is going to sort through the wood that's strewn on the ground today. It will all become firewood. Our neighbour has a wood furnace and will take whatever we don't want, even if it has paint on it or concrete bits. I'm not crazy about burning painted wood but I suppose it's not leaded paint so....

That Solstice Thing Really Works

2008-06-23T08:00:00.008-04:00

Summer has arrived. Right on cue. Sunday, June 22, was magnificent. The sky was a clear and heart-breaking blue. The temp was 20 when we were driving towards Twillingate. It must have gone higher because we had to take off clothing after that.

Yesterday we decided to take a hike to see the iceberg that is just off French Beach. It's really around the headland that is north of French Beach, but we don't know the name of that headland. There is bound to be a local name and I will inquire. But suffice to say for now that the iceberg is just north of French Beach.

We drove as far as is possible. Parked by the sign that declares the Road Beyond This Point Impassible. We ate the sandwiches we had made, reckoning that it was better to fuel up before we started than to eat them squished later. We packed a bottle of water into a knapsack and started off. We really weren't sure of the route but figured how hard could it be.

As we were tramping in, we met some people coming out. I stopped them and asked if they had seen the iceberg. Of course they had and reported that the trail was a loop. Even if you go the hard way, you can come out the easy way. Oookay. They were tourists and were not particularly friendly, being mainlanders and all.

A fellow coming out in a truck told us that the trail started just by an old cabin. Very good then.

We found what appeared to be the start of the trail and headed off. Before long, we were nearly up to our knees in a bog and had to double back. We took a rockier path, although to get across the boggy part, we had to jump stones. I didn't get my feet wet so I guess I must not be that old yet.

The path took us along the coast and the scenery was breathtaking. See pics below.
We had to scramble up some very precarious slopes, grasping at tree roots (at least I was), slipping and sliding. But I made it up! Yay. I consider it a personal achievement. The last time I was presented with a hill like that, I quit. (That was in Point Leamington a few years ago. And before you start calling me names, I'll say in my defense that I was wearing sandals when army boots would have been barely adequate.) But talk about worth it. We were atop a very large headland. Looking down I got dizzy. Looking up I got dizzy. It must be how astronauts feel. Sky everywhere.

What I remember most though is the smell. I can conjure it up now as I type. It's a scent sweet and sharp, high and low, gets into your nose and your stomach. You can taste it as though you had just eaten it. Like it seeps up through your feet. A mixture of moss and berries, lichen and spruce and juniper, and sunshine. It's enough to make you drunk. Certainly enough to make you cry.

Just when the sweat was pouring off us and we were about to strip off all our clothes, a very cool breeze brought on the shivers. We must be close to the iceberg. Over some more rocks, down a bit, around a bend and there it was.

Of course, we had to take a bunch of pictures. John took more than I did and certainly better ones. I was pooped and lay down on the moss. Got a picture of my feet with the burg beyond. It was glorious lying there. Nothing but me and the burg and the sun and the cliffs. I could have happily lain there the rest of my life. As it was, we spent about an hour out there. Then some tourists from Guelph (I know because I asked them after they had been sitting about 20 feet from us for twenty minutes. Only one of them actually spoke though. Maybe that iceberg had the rest of them tongue-tied.)

I took a picture of two of them as we were leaving. I like the way she's leaning as thought she wants to get closer to the berg.

[Reviewing this entry, I realize I MUST spend some time figuring out how this blogger thing works. I absolutely hate how it (or I) have handled this pictures. There must be a better way to integrate text and images so it doesn't look like a ham-fisted job like this one.]
Anyway, I'm off to watch Wimbledon at a friend's house.

Good news. Bad news.

2008-06-18T11:35:00.007-04:00

The men that were supposed to be moving a house in Stoneville today are not. They are instead working on our house. That's the good news.

The bad news is that there is a shortage of 8" concrete block. We'd have to get them from Clarenville or St. John's if we really wanted them. They were able to get enough for two courses and so the decision was taken yesterday afternoon to build the rest of the foundation out of concrete. So they made the forms for the walls yesterday. Today they are pouring the concrete.

As I understand it, the bottom of the foundation will be poured concrete. The top will consist of the two courses of concrete block. That's because -- again as I understand it and perhaps I don't -- as they get nearer to the bottom of the house, things get fiddlier. They will need room to pull out the rails. Blocks enable this process.

I might just get up the nerve to watch as they lower the house unto [I keep typing unto instead of onto; must be my religious upbringing, ha!] the foundation. Certainly not as nerve-wracking as the lift. Or is it? What could go wrong? Um. Let's not dwell on the negative.

Since John didn't come home for lunch, I imagine things must be in full swing in Hillgrade. Not literally, of course (or should I say, I hope).

So let's see. If they get the foundation poured today, I wonder how long it will be before they lower the house. I guess the concrete has to cure. Probably can't put any weight on it for a few days at least.

Nobody has mentioned the "knee wall" in a while. The original plan (concocted without me) was to build concrete block up to about 2 feet from the bottom of the house, and then put a knee wall (whatever that is) the rest of the way. I have visions of a very ugly facade between the basement and the house.¹

I have asked several times why a knee wall is the way to go and I still don't understand the reasoning. Stuff about making it easier to put in windows. Duh. I've seen windows in concrete walls. I know it can be done. Heck, they're putting a door in, why not a window? I shall have to ask the gods of house lifting again why a knee wall is the be-all-and-end-all. (Hey, that rhymes.)

And so here I sit. Waiting. Again. Like the prisoner of Zenda. [Sorry. Terrible analogy. I just like saying "prisoner of Zenda."]

The local library is open today from 12:30 to 4:30 and again from 6:00 to 8:00 tonight. I thought I joined the library last year but I didn't get a car. I hear now that I should have got one. Maybe it's time to take out my frustrations on the local librarian.

Over and out.

¹John saw a house in Cottrell's Cove the other day that has an area just below the roof line that is clad in fake brick siding. Did they run out of clapboard? Did they actually prefer this? Is this was a knee wall looks like?

²The picture above shows some little fellows who came to visit the other day in the rain. They could have made a great meal for those so inclined.

The store that time forgot

2008-06-17T14:22:00.002-04:00

iIn the previous post, I mentioned going into a store in Stoneville to ask for directions.

What a place! From the outside it was just a nondescript building. Could be a roadhouse, a storehouse, or an anything house. It had few if any windows that I remember. The door on the right side of the building was reachable by a few large wooden steps.

On opening the door, I thought I was on a stage head. Large coils of rope, balled up tarpaulins and other unidentifiable items crowded the entryway. I had to push the door all the way open to the right to find space to walk.

Ahead of me was a rather large open area and to my right, aisles and aisles of merchandise, some on shelves, some on the floor, some falling from shelf to floor. Some was hung from the ceiling, some propped against the walls. Still more was piled on the floor. None of it looked like it had been disturbed in decades.

To my left was a very tall display, if I can call it that, of more merchandise. It may have been stacked on a counter that I think ran the length of the front of the building. At the far end of this counter were two men: one behind the counter, one in front. Obviously store owner and customer.

I approached them and was completely unable to hide my astonishment at what I was seeing. I probably said something like "Wow. There's a lot of stuff in this store."

The customer remarked with a nod of his head towards the storekeeper, "And he's the only one who knows what's here." The storekeeper grinned, with what could be nothing other than pride.

I asked them if they knew who was having a house moved. They both shook their heads and mentioned the house that had been raised and which we had passed on our way into town. They figured that it probably wasn't going anywhere at this stage since the concrete blocks for its foundation had already been stacked at the side.

The storekeeper asked if I wanted him to call the gas station to see if they might know. Sure, I said. That'd be nice of him. He got on the phone and I could hear the names of a couple being mentioned and within seconds I had the information I had come in for. The house we sought was even further on the other side of town than we had allowed for so we had to go back where we'd come from in order to see it.

While he was on the phone, I was rummaging in the chocolate bar and candy display. It was very disheveled and I found a bar that I had not seen before. Its label said Peanut Snack, All Natural. It didn't have any indicator for Trans Fats. It's ingredient label had a category called Saturated Fats and Cholesterol. I've never known any products to have that breakdown of ingredients. It should have been a clue.

I put it on the counter and told him I'd take it. He said he wouldn't charge me for it because it was probably old. I told him I'd find another one since there were lots there. He said they were all old. I said that was probably okay because I was too. We all laughed.

He said the only way to find out if it was edible or not was to open it. He tore it open and took a bite. Old, he said. It didn't look too bad to me, so I asked him how much he'd charge for the bars normally. Oh, about seventy-nine cents, he figured. I put two quarters down on the counter and said I couldn't take something for nothing. I left, telling him I'd be back since we lived not far away.

And I will be back. Will get Jo to go with me. And I'll have a camera next time. I'll ask permission of course, but I'll get some good pics.

As I was leaving, I got a glimpse of one of those lamps that people used to put in their livings rooms in mid-70s. Like 3 lights on a pole, one low, one medium, one high. With an amber shade on each. Wow.

I'll be back and I'll tell you about it. In the meantime, don't buy any Peanut Snack bars. They probably don't make them anymore and if you find one, it's definitely old. Yowsa.

Things are still looking up

2008-06-17T13:32:00.005-04:00

And by that I mean, the house is still up in the air.

And if you're wondering why I've not posted in a while, I've got no reason. No excuse either. Just didn't feel like it.

This living in someone else's house [left] is for the birds. Don't get me wrong. It's a perfectly good house. And I shall be eternally grateful for the senendipitous collision of Pete's departure and our need for a place to live. Not to mention his generousity in offering it to us for as long as we need it. In my naïveté, I thought we'd be back in our place in a week or so. Alas, we may be here another two weeks.

And here we sit. Well, at least that's what I'm doing. John goes up to the house every day to see what's new, to make sure the workmen are not forgetting where the plumbing lines go through the walls, or the furnace fuel line or the water intake line, etc.

Yesterday the boss man (Coates) said that they might not be working on our place today, that they might be moving a house in Stoneville instead, if Nfld Light and Power was going to come through and move it's power lines. The deal was, if he wasn't at the work site by 9a.m., then he'd be moving the house. When he wasn't at the house by nearly 10 a.m., John and I and Simon went to Stoneville to see the house being moved.

When we were half-way to Stoneville, we saw one of the worktrucks heading up towards Hillgrade. Probably to our site. But we decided since we'd come this far, we'd go on and at least find the house that was being moved, probably tomorrow now.

Now you'd think that since Stoneville has a population of about 150 or so (my best guess), finding a house that is being moved wouldn't be difficult. I suggested we stop at the one and only gas station and ask if they know anything. Of course, that wasn't a good idea according to John and Simon so we soldiered on. We went as far as the road to the Stoneville dump and turned around, figuring we'd missed it. Then we drove back through the town looking extra carefully. Nothing. So we stopped at what appeared to be the only store in town. I went in to ask if they knew anything. They didn't but said they'd call the gas station to see if they knew anything.

Within minutes, we were on our way, past the town dump nearly to the town of Port Albert. We found the house which I'd describe as a large cabin [right]. The hydro people were there when we arrived taking down the hydro pole and dragging it away. The move is scheduled for tomorrow. Simon knew one of the fellows on the hydro crew who said when we walked up, "You never know what's going to walk out of the woods around here." I'm still laughing.

Below are some pics of our place showing the forms for the footings being made; and concrete being poured for the footings. Today the footings are curing. The men might be working on replacing the rotten sill plates at the back of the house, or they might be dropping plumb lines for the block walls which will be the next step in the foundation. John is supervising, no doubt.

Oh Shit

2008-06-13T09:48:00.005-04:00

We took a run up to the house last night because John remembered he left a tarp on the ground. If the wind came up, it would be down on the wharf or out in Friday Bay by morning.

He also went into the house to get a few things we needed (hair dye for me, the electrical meter for him).

I stayed in the car as has been my wont lately. I really don't enjoy seeing the house up in the air like this. But for some reason I got out and took a stroll around. I had my first Oh-Shit-moment of the day when I noticed that the crib under the porch seemed to be on a slant. What the....? It had been raining all day, off and on and perhaps the ground was soft. Did it cause the crib to slip? Or was it always like that and we didn't notice?

Needless to say, my stress level soared into the stratosphere. I called to John and made him come look. He said something that sounded like "Hmm". I think he was choosing his words carefully, knowing what I'm like. He did his best to make me think that this was the way the crib had looked the day before and was supposed to look. I was not buying it.

So we got in the car and we were very quiet all the way up through Fairbank and Virgin Arm. I think we spoke only once and that was when I made him promise not to go under the house again. Ever. I don't think he committed to that. I think he uttered another "Hmm."

When we were almost back to Summerford, I realized that we had not taken a picture of the damn crib. I didn't have my camera with me so I had a good excuse. I'm also not a photojournalist. Another good excuse.

I was hoping that we'd get in touch with Robert Coates last night but we didn't. I'm not in charge of phone calls to Mr. Coates so I don't know why we didn't call. And I'm doing my very best to give the responsibility of the whole thing over to the experts and tell myself that if they're not worried, I shouldn't be. It's just that I know these same people are probably expert also in not showing when they're worried.

Today John went up to the house to see if the men showed up to work. It's raining and they didn't. The forecast shows the next day without rain will be Wednesday. That's 5 (count'em) days away. Yikes.

There wasn't much John could do at the house. He waited to see if the crew would turn up and when he was just about to start the car and come back here, a semi arrived. It was headed to the wharf to pick up a load of crab.

The driver must have been new on the job because he opened his window and asked John if this was the only wharf around here. Poor fellow. I guess he was panicking at the thought of backing this behemoth down the lane to the wharf, especially since John was parked near the corner and there was a load of dirt on the road (from our digger this week). As is the case whenever a load of anything is picked up, there were inspectors up the yingyang with their vehicles parked all over the place.

The driver of the semi got out and asked our neighbour to move his pickup. He may have got a strip torn off him for not being able to turn this thing on a dime.

Finally the truck got turned and backed up. But not before cit tore through our pile of dirt, flattening most of it and leaving the rest in a precarious cliff on the road. I suspect most of the dirt is bonded to the eighteen tires.

Once he was able to get clear of the cove, John phoned to say he was definitely going to buy a wheel barrow. We'd discussed this earlier and I thought there were things we needed worse than a wheel barrow. But I just got outvoted.

Bonus: John said he'd move the dirt himself since we have only one shovel and one wheel barrow and also since he knows how stressed I'd be up around that damn crooked crib. I thanked him profusely - and then suggested that it might be a good idea to put a tarp over that crib to prevent it from deteriorating any more in all the rain we're going to get.

And the drama continues. Probably mostly in my head.

Postscript: Just noticed that today is Friday the 13th. Good thing I'm not superstitious.

A day off

2008-06-12T10:07:00.004-04:00

Today is a holiday, as it were. Nobody working at the house.

Yesterday the fellow from Lewisporte arrived with his digger. Of course, this digger has a name - maybe a Cat? a mini-Cat? a kitten? I don't remember. It's a smaller version of the ones you see working on the roads. It has a shovel and stands on legs that come out of the body of the machine to give it support. The shovel part is quite small and the whole thing can work in very tight spaces, a definition that fits just about any part of our yard.

Along with Jody the digger, there was Keith, one of the lifting crew from Glenwood. He was sent to take direct Jody where and where not to dig, to warn him if he was getting too close to the cribs, as well as to take care of any hand digging that had to be done. And there was a fair amount.

The south-west corner of our house is on sheer rock. Rock that is older than the dirt that is under the rest of the house. Can't be moved, this rock. So the trench that Jody dug was all around the house except where there was rock. Keith hand-dug the soil that clung to the rock. He suggested that we clean the rock off with a water spray to get the remaining soil off and allow a clean surface to put mortar on. Poor fellow had to dig from a tough position. He couldn't stand up straight there [see photo at left] and had to dig with a permanently bent back. He was diligent and the bottom of the trench there is as clean as a whistle.

The trench is (I would say) about three feet wide, maybe wider in spots. And John says it all worked out very well because the bottom of the trench is solid rock. Anything built on that ain't going anyplace. It's wet though. There is a boggy area back of the houses across the road. The moisture seeps through the soil under the road and because we are lower than road level, around our house. It was what contributed to the rot at the back part of our house all these years.

The plan is to put crushed gravel at the bottom of the trench along with weeping tile which will feed the water around the house instead of under it.

Up until yesterday, John was able to get into the house whenever we realized we had forgotten something. But not anymore. Now we will have to borrow a ladder just to reach the door.

John called Robert Coates, the lifter, last night to find out when he expected to resume work on the house. Turns out it won't be today. Today he and his men are off to Trinity to move a house from one location to another. John and I would have loved to head out there and take pictures of this but it's three hours away by car and with the cost of gas here (over $1.45 a litre, we think today), we just can't justify this expense for a day trip.

So. Instead John has gone up to the house to have a look around. He says he'll probably measure for the plumbing refit he will have to do once the house is on a foundation. He would start now but can't because there has to be work done under the house which would interfere with pipes if we put them back now.

Coates will be installing two built-up beams under the house from side to side under the main house, and from side to side under the back extension. These beams will provide the support that was previously provided (ha!) by shores which were under the middle of the house. From what I understand, we can have this built-up beam put in without any additional approvals being required. If we were to have an I-beam or a laminated beam we would need the involvement of an engineer or something. We don't need any more delays, hence the build-up beam. (For anyone not familiar with this term, I think a built-up beam is a bunch (3 or more?) of 2x10 or 2x10 lumber nailed together. A laminated beam would have this lumber glued together. And if you don't know what an I-beam is, look it up! It's metal.)

But I digress. Coates told John last night that he will be back on site tomorrow, building the foundation forms. Yay.

It's interesting what you hear when you least expect it. The fellow who was on site yesterday (the hand-digger) told us that he was surprised that they were doing the foundation for us since they are trying to get out of that business. They have enough work just doing lifts all over the province. He made it sound like they had just the other day decided to do the foundation, that they had not planned it for this summer's projects. Say what?

I said to John that this is one of the costs of doing business the Newfoundland way. Without anything in writing. You heard me right. We have absolutely nothing in writing for this project. Of course, we wouldn't dream of doing this if we were in Ontario. Hire a fellow whom we don't know to lift our house without a written contract? Never. But here, that's how it's done. Coates and probably every other tradesmen in the province would be astounded to be asked for a written estimate, never mind a written contract. I think they would be highly insulted and might not even do the job. Perhaps I'm wrong. But I have to say the relationship between us and the workmen would not be the same if we were to do it the official way. I'm sure of that. And I like how we all get along now.

Did I tell you that our house is now insured? Yep. We couldn't get insurance before because the house had only 60 amp service, was build on wooden shores and was x km from a fire station or some such. Now, it appears that our house is completely insured as long as it's up on cribs. That's one way to get coverage.

The pic to the left shows the bits of the side bridge that we want to save along with the fence boards that I lugged up the hill to save them from being damaged during the job.

And on to the dig...

2008-06-11T12:53:00.003-04:00

These pictures show what the house looks like in the light of day. You can see from one side to the other underneath it. If you look closely in the right picture, you'll see the furnace lying on the ground. We will put a tarp over it soon to prevent damage in case of rain.

There was no work going on today, Tuesday. We were still waiting to find out when the digger fellow would be available to do the work. It was a good opportunity for us to clean up a little around the site. John went under the house (no way I was doing that) and pulled out the old wooden shores that had been knocked out from under the beams the previous day. They will make great firewood. Very old. Very dry. Very heavy. Ooof.

So John tossed them out - okay maybe not tossed - I managed to heft them across the yard, up some rocks and over to the side of the shed where I made a pile of them. Didn't know I was so strong.

There were lots of bricks that needed to be moved to safety. I want to keep them to make something interesting in a garden one of these days. I had wanted to keep the kitchen chimney bricks but couldn't see a way of keeping them out of the way until I needed them so gave them away to a friend of a friend. I was determined not to give these away so John tossed them out from near the house and I carried them to a far corner of the garden where they should be safe. People have said that they are very valuable since this kind of brick cannot be purchased anymore.

We also took down the fence so that the digger can get his machine close to the house without damaging our nice fence paint job of last year. Those rails and posts had to be hefted across the yard too. I made a pile of them next to the blackcurrant bush near where we've stored the old back bridge which we are going to try to save. It was built by the previous owner of the house, a Mr. Dyke, who we are told is closely following developments with the house via phone calls to his daughter in Hillgrade.

John went into the house to get a few things that we needed. I have no intention of going in there while it's up in the air like that. He says it's very weird in there now. Like it has lost all of its character. I think I know what he must mean. It does build character to keep one's balance in a sloping kitchen where one quick turn can make you dizzy. Hah.

Since we could do no more at the house for the day, we decided to go to Gander and pick up a few things that we have not been able to get on NWI. I had a long list and we were determined to fill it without darkening the doors of Wallmart.

It's an hour to Gander on some teeth-rattling roads. We discovered the health food store had disappeared but were relieved to find it reloingcated at the Gander mall. Two hours later, we had everything but a few items and were on our way back to Summerford where we are staying for now.

Last night as we were driving back from Jo and Simon's, John's cell phone rang. Since it is against the law to talk on the phone while driving, it was a scramble to pull the phone from John's pocket and the car over to the shoulder at the same time. It was the fellow from Lewisporte returning our call earlier in the evening. He had contacted Coates the lifter (glad his name is not Shirts - sorry obtuse attempt at a joke) and work will be resuming on Wednesday. Yay.

And so it goes.

Post-lift pre-dig

2008-06-11T12:02:00.008-04:00

And so it came to pass.

On the first day, the house was lifted. That would be Monday, June 9, for anyone who hasn't been paying attention.

We got up early. John around 7. Me around 7:30. I was coherent by 7:45, sort of. Didn't really matter. What mattered was that I could heft and carry, shove and pull. Choked down some cold cereal with an apple on top. Had to get some carbs because it would be a long day.

We had a few things to do before the lifters arrived.
1. We had to take the top off the living room chimney. (Yes, I know I said in the previous entry that we were going to postpone any action on the LR chimney until later, but the lift man said that the top had to come off now to prevent damage to the roof during the lift. John also had had to separate this chimney from the floors during the previous day or two. I forgot to mention this. He had the pleasure of working in the attic where there hasn't been any fresh air in 100 years and where it is still the temperature of the earth when it emerged from the primordial ooze.
He could not proceed with this work though until the furnace man gave him the go ahead in case he (the furnace man who was due to arrive at 8a.m.) needed to run the furnace before dismantling it.)

2. The furnace had to be dismantled - or at least some of the ducts had to be removed because they would be in the way of the lifters. The furnace man would do all this, freeing up John's time, and also bearing the responsibility for any problems occurring with the furnace when we hooked it back up again. That part is worth whatever we paid him, which was very reasonable.

3. The sewage pipe had to be severed because it is not of the stretchy variety. and would not survive the lift - or the septic tank might be lifted from its resting place.

4. The water inlet pipe had to be severed so it would not get damaged.

As for me, I was tasked with getting us packed up and ready to leave. Clothing. Food. Stuff in general that we couldn't live without. You'd be amazed what's in that list.

By the time John got the chimney taken down to below the roofline, the furnace man was pretty well done with the furnace. John, bless his heart, left the sewage pipe until the very last minute. It's not wise to have a middle-age woman in a house without a functioning toilet for any more than 20 minutes.

The lifters arrived pretty much on schedule. Robert Coates from Glenwood and his crew of four men, two of whom were his sons.

Within the hour, they had cribs (crisscrossed square posts; see top left pic below) started under the house which would support the rails they were inserting from front to back of the house, as well as a place for the jacks which would raise the house, inch by inch.

Within a few minutes of starting to jack it up, the boss realized there was a problem. The floor in the living room was not lifting. Turned out that the living room chimney had been mortared to the sill plate. There was no choice. The chimney had to come down. So the strong fellows bunged a hole in the base of the thing (see top right pic below). John went up to the attic and started banging the bricks down through and they took them out at the bottom. It was down in less than an hour. And the lift could continue.

By 3pm, with lunch and two coffee breaks, the house was up as far as it needed to go. It is 38" higher in the back than it was before we started. They took a while to get it all level, tweaking this jack or that one to get it just right.

And so it was done. As predicted, my stress level came down as the house went up, although I confess I spent most of the day at a friend's drinking tea and worrying.

We were informed that we were responsible for finding a digger to dig the trenches for the foundation footings. Huh? So why weren't we told this beforehand. We could have had someone lined up to come the very next day. No that would be doing things the easy way. Let's do it the Newfoundland way.

Luckily we had hired a fellow from Lewisporte last year to dig the hole for our septic tank. So we put in a call to him, telling him to call the lifter and arrange a date. We would have see how long this wait might be.

Filling in the blanks

2008-06-11T10:40:00.014-04:00

I should have made a post between the last one and the one before to show just what we did to get ready for The Lift.

The biggest job was the chimney in the kitchen. It used to be hooked to the wood range but it had to come down since it was leaning dangerously and would have prevented the house from lifting.

It didn't take us long, John and I, to make short work of it last week. John started on the roof and really only had to push it with his little finger to make it come tumbling down. He got it down to below the roof line and then patched the roof with some pink bubble wrap that we had tied around the stuff in our trailer last year when we came down.
Then we got to work on the portion that ran through the Chimney Room (hence the name of the room)[see leftmost picture]. John had a 4-pound sledge hammer for knocking the bricks (I grew up calling them mauls). The bricks didn't take much coaxing to come loose. We opened the window in the room and threw the bricks out into the yard.

Pretty soon we could see down into the kitchen, so we cleaned up the Chimney Room and took ourselves downstairs. We had a cup of tea and a little snack before continuing.

It pretty soon became clear that we would need masks for the remainder of the work. The chimney, just below where the stove pipe joined it, was pretty much FULL. Of what we were/are not sure. It was like gravel, but damp and dark [see below]. Probably a mixture of creosote, soot, dust and precipitation that fell through the chimney over the years.
It stank. Acrid is a mild word for it.

We needed a tiny shovel to get this stuff out of the chimney before taking the bricks away. John remembered finding a wee shovel in the shed but it was falling apart. However, with a strategically position nail, bent at just the right angle, we managed to get a workable shovel.

We were unable to open the window near the kitchen chimney without totally destroying it. So the bricks had to be walked out the door to the yard, two by two.

When we were finished, we were left with a concrete chimney block [at left]. This top of this block would originally have been at floor level, or perhaps just above. Proof of just how badly this house needs to be leveled.

The living room chimney services the furnace. It was originally the chimney for the parlour wood stove. In fact, the furnace pipe comes up through the floor and enters the chimney in the same spot that the stove used [see right]. This whole thing had been boxed in to hide it all, with shelves built around in an attempt to make it somewhat useful. But it took up a lot of space in the Living Room (parlor?) and I was all for getting rid of it.

Except. The chimney was rather nice seen from outside. Gave the house character. Completed the roof line. But not practical inside. What to do? What to do?

We debated long and hard about it. John did a lot of online research to see if our furnace could work with one of those metal chimneys attached to the outside of the house.

It seems that it would, but we decided to postpone this decision until later. Maybe next year.

And so. With the kitchen chimney down, we were truly ready for the lift. Bring it on.

D-Day approacheth

2008-06-08T20:19:00.006-04:00

And so it has finally arrived. Okay, almost arrived. The big day. Tomorrow they will lift this house. And I won't be anywhere around. It would be like being awake when they cut you open. Who could watch that?

In the morning John will be in a scramble. He has to take down the living-room chimney to below the roof line and then cover the hole with plastic. He then has to put the furnace to bed (in cooperation with the furnace man who arrives around 8, we hope. Finally, he will cut the sewer line to the septic tank. And thus providing another excuse for me not to stick around. Women of my age have to be near a bathroom.

The house is almost naked tonight. The skirting has been removed from around the crawlspace, revealing the innards of the place. The furnace is sitting on concrete blocks, the sewer and water pipes are all exposed. The crumbling wooden shores are there for all to mock in their last moments of utility. Tomorrow they will mere firewood.

This afternoon I set out a row of onions. Kept some back for setting next week or the week after. Don't want a bunch of onions all coming mature at the same time. As it is we'll be eating a whole mess of onion soup towards the end of summer.

I also rescued some boulders that were dug up last fall when we trenched around the house. Rocks big enough to just get your arms around, some of them. Some not quite so big. All of them heavy as lead. I needed to make sure that they don't get covered with dirt or otherwise buried in the goings-on of the next week or two. I want them to put in the garden I'm going to build behind and to the side of the house when this is all over.

It's apparently 42 degrees on the humidex back home tonight. And here I was complaining about the cold breeze that's blowing up through the cold-air return duct from under the house now that it's open to all the ocean breezes.

So. Here's hoping the relation between my stress level and the house level is an inverse proportion: as it goes up, my stress level comes down.

Back at ya tomorrow night. I hope. Keep yer fingers crossed.

From our ASHES TO someone else's ASHES

2008-06-02T19:30:00.004-04:00

Yesterday Bev and Ivan did us a big favour. They took away the wood stove that had been in the kitchen of this place longer than anyone we know can remember. While we had it, it was the backup stove, in case electricity failed. It was also a source of heat when we didn't want to turn on the furnace.

It was probably what excited us the first time we saw the house. Owing our very own old wood stove. Just like the one my parents had when I was a child. Like my grandmother had. It was solid, dependable and beautiful. It had served many people for a very long time.

But it had seen better days. The firebox was starting to cave in, not leaving much room for birch chunks. We couldn't leave the kitchen when it was going because it threw flankers out the side. Heaven knows what it was throwing out the chimney.

It was a very large presence in the kitchen. When we want to seat more than two people at the kitchen table, we pull the table to the middle of the room. But with the stove being as big and as far from the wall as it was, it didn't leave much room for chairs and table or walking around.

With energy prices being what they are and our pocketbooks being strained in every direction, we needed to find a stove that would give a lot more heat more efficiently. It was time to part with the showpiece and get on with being practical.

When we left here last fall, I polished it up to look like it was when we got it. People here polish their iron stove tops to prevent rusting. Vaseline was the polish of choice. Had to borrow a crock from a neighbour. I mean, who has Vaseline anymore. [Aside: My mother asked me on the night before my wedding if I had any. That was the extent of the marital advice. Oh, yes, and a box of tissues, she said.] While I had the crock, I also wiped some over the shovel and axe and spade and whatever other tools we had in the shed. They look like new this year.

Anyway, the stove is now gone. In its place we had a large rusty rectangle on the canvas floor. I spent a while with some Comet and a scrubber and most of it came away. The chimney behind the stove will soon be gone too. We worked on it today to remove the wooden cladding that hid the bricks. Tomorrow we (I mean John) will go up on the roof to knock over the part that protrudes through the shingles. Then we'll take a sledge hammer to the parts that are in the house. We meant to buy some plastic to cordon off the area where the chimney is, to minimize the amount of soot that goes where it shouldn't. But we forgot to buy the plastic today. We were too excited to get fresh broccoli and sardines and other foodies.

My good friend Joanne gave us a spritzer bottle. The man who used to live in this house conveyed the message to us (via his daughter, our across-the-street neighbour) that we should spray the inside of the chimney with water to keep the soot from flying too much. I don't think we'll need much spritzing. The weather has been mauzy since we got here. I don't think the soot will be flying much.

But I could be wrong.

Four days on the road

2008-06-02T18:54:00.004-04:00

When we left home on Wednesday 28th a.m., the plan was to be in Newfoundland by Friday 30th, approx. 2 p.m.

Day 1 - drive through Montreal, past Quebec City and on to Grand Falls, N.B. for the night. This part of the trip went according to plan. We even got the same room at the Hill Top Inn as we had last year. Alas, the bottle of make-up I left in the bathroom last September was there no longer.

Day 2 - drive to North Sydney, N.S. in time for the 11p.m. ferry to Port-aux-Basques. Like clockwork. A bonus of a double rainbow in Cape Breton. Needless to say, I got all excited and snapped a load of pictures through a rainy windshield. A guaranteed way to fill up the trash bucket. ***** Alas, even a double rainbow didn't spare us the news we got at the ferry terminal. The MV Joseph and Clara Smallwood was out of commission and the replacement (MV Lief Eriksen) would not sail until the following morning. Once again, proof everything is random.

A night at a motel in North Sydney (which shall remain nameless because a place such as that doesn't deserve free publicity) on our own dime didn't make us any less grumpy about having to get up early to be at the ferry by 8am to get a good place in line. Marine Atlantic gave us meal vouchers, one each for a breakfast, dinner and supper. We used only the lunch voucher and have a year to use the others. Uh huh.

We landed in Port-aux-Basques at nearly 6pm, way too late (because of the danger of moose-car encounters) to be heading across the island. So I phoned my dear uncle Ben and aunt Mary in Corner Brook and begged their hospitality in putting us up for the night. Of course, they said, come on and we made record time over the road, driving up to their door by 8:20.

A grand night, by any standards. We sat around the kitchen table and caught up on all the family news. Aunt Mary had a meal of cod au gratin waiting for us and a real cup of tea - our first since leaving home on Wednesday. Uncle Ben was hoping we'd be staying for a few days but we had to break the news that we'd be off again in the morning, making tracks for Hillgrade.

And so, by 10 am on Saturday, we were off again, passing Deer Lake, the long drive to Springdale and Grand Falls and then off at Notre Dame Junction to Lewisporte and up the shore to New World Island and our Newfoundland home.

We saw a moose between Deer Lake and Hampton. A female, grazing at the side of the road. Never even looked up as we passed. Good thing she didn't decide to cross because we didn't see her until it would have been too late to avoid her.

A couple of Tim Horton's coffees later, we pulled up in Friday's Bay cove. Cora was planting carrots at the side of her squid-drying shed with her granddaughter Jenna. Big waves and hellos. Eileen and Gord came out of the lobster pool down by the wharf and waved wildly, called out Hello, Good to have you back. And it was good to be back.

John went under the house immediately to hook up the plumbing junctions. Inside an hour we had running hot water and electricity. Smooth operation. We were so pleased with ourselves that we had things under control so quickly that we decided to set up the computers. Bad idea. At 5:30, we realized that we had forgotten to go to the grocery store and so had absolutely no food in the house except what we had brought with us (organic honey, organic peanut butter and whole wheat pasta).

Our long-planned meal with Joanne and Simon, previously scheduled for Friday, took place on Saturday night. It was grand to see them again and we only scratched the surface as far as catching up goes. When we were leaving, Joanne handed me a bag containing the lasagna left over from supper. She pressed on us as well a bag of frozen fishcakes she had bought at a recent bake sale, as well as a loaf of bread. What a good friend she is. When we were unloading at home, we found also a large sack of homemade ginger snaps. Wow.

And so we're off to a good start. Food and friends. Don't need anything else.

Just a bit of snow

2008-03-09T13:21:00.005-04:00

We got snowed on last night. Actually all day yesterday and last night, too. I haven't heard the latest tally but somewhere around 50cm has fallen on the city, adding to the 385+cm which we already had.

My husband said, "Now that was a wicked storm!" Pshaw. That wasn't even a storm, never mind wicked. It was just a rather large-sized snowfall. A storm howls and this one didn't even whimper. It just dumped, very slowly and very attractively, too, I might add.

Here are some pictures taken after we had shovelled ourselves out today. Daughter just came and asked to borrow the car. Teehee. She wouldn't have even contemplated going out if she'd been out shovelling this morning. Youth!

(Above) Our front walk is like a cavern. I have a pic somewhere of me showing just how high these banks are but I'm not posting that. Ha.

(Right) Taken in front of our house showing the unplowed road.

(Bottom) A neighbour shovelling his (or maybe it's her) walk from driveway to front door. You can just see their head above the snow bank.

The Blogger uploader is complaining. Won't upload. More later.

The Quilting Plan - more or less

2008-01-09T20:43:00.000-05:00

I'm hoping to start quilting this week. I've been saying that for a while now. But this week is looking like it might be the time. I've got the stuff done that I had to get done for my MIL, it's not tax time yet and the weather is turning nasty again. All good reasons to get my wee stash out. I gave myself an early birthday present tonight and bought me a cutting mat. Wow. That's a few years worth of birthday presents right there. But, I had to have it if I'm going to get started so. . . . I got my rotary cutter as part of my Christmas gift from Secret Santa. Alas, I just noticed that it's not the Olfa one that I had my eye on, but here's hoping that it works as well.

So. What is my first quilt going to be? I borrowed some books from the library a while back and photographed anything that caught my eye. I did the same with some books my friend Jo loaned me last summer so I have lots to inspire me. The photo at left shows the one that I'm going to attempt, or some version of it.

My stash is still very small and was purchased with a completely different quilt in mind. I've decided that one is far too ambitious for a beginner and will postpone it. Meanwhile, I think I can use what I have in the new project. Will have to add to it, of course. And I think I'll have to do that soon because I will need to get a picture of the whole quilt before I can start any of it.

I have fat quarters (mostly) of four hues - oranges/reds, yellows, greens, blues/purples. I think I can make what I want with those colours. I'm thinking starting at top left with yellows, melding into oranges then into reds, then purples, then blues, then greens and finally, perhaps, ending up at the bottom right with yellows again. Not sure about that last bit. It might make it too balanced. But I like balance in most everything else so why not in a quilt. The individual blocks will be unbalanced with the various angles of the strips, so with the overall balance of the blocks themselves and the colour sweep, it might just work.

Once I have purchased all my fabrics, I have to figure out the most economical way - both in terms of time and materials - to proceed. I was thinking of sewing a bunch of fabrics (say the reds) into large (perhaps 12"x12") blocks, and then cutting the 12x12 into 4x4 or whatever size I've determined the individual blocks should be.

I want this to be a double bed-sized quilt, so what does that mean for quilt dimension? Double beds are 54 x 75. A quilt needs to hang down at least 1 foot per side so that would mean quilt has to be 75x85, at the very least. Will have to ask about this. The final dimensions will determine how large I make the individual blocks.

I'm getting excited about this and am looking forward to starting. Hmm. Wonder how much more fabric I will need. I definitely need more darker and warmer golds since my yellows are all rather monochrome right now. I love my greens and blues. Need more reds.

The quilt as it is shown in the pic seems to not use patterned fabrics, or if they are, the patterns are very subtle. Shall see.

Anyway, if you have any suggestions, I'm all ears.

Make me one with everything

2008-01-09T17:30:00.000-05:00

Heard this one today. Buddhist goes up to a hot dog vendor and says 'Make me one with everything.'

I'm betting that Buddhist didn't have my garage to come home to. Here are pictures to show you what I mean. And I haven't even mentioned the basement or John's office. No wonder I feel claustrophobic. And panicky at the thought of moving.

The last minute gang

2007-09-20T12:31:00.000-04:00

I can't believe it. Here we are. Three days away from crossing over on the ferry and my husband is up to his neck in a trench that stretches all the way around the back of our house. It was put there this morning by a lovely young fellow from Lewisporte who owns a small bobcat -- a mini-backhoe, for those who are not up on their machinery -- whom my husband previously hired to dig the hole for our new septic tank.

Today's trench is an effort to ascertain as best we can whether the sill plate of the house, along with the studs and the wall boards are in any shape to undergo the process of 'jacking' which we had hoped to have done either this fall or early next spring.

I didn't bother going outside. I could hear everything that was going on through the walls which are now full of holes where hubby has been tearing off tar paper to look at the boards beneath. He's tapping and banging right now as I speak.

The back end of the house -- a kitchen extension, in local parlance -- is now sitting with its ass all exposed. This same ass, for want of a better metaphor, was previously buried by dirt and grass and goutweed, all of which did nothing at all for the well-being of the ass. All it did was hide the rot that was taking place below soil level, although, I suppose, it was keeping the wind from whistling around in the underparts.

A fellow is supposed to arrive this afternoon to survey the situation and give us his opinion on whether the house can be safely jacked. I suppose it would be more correct to say that he will say it can be safely jacked, but for a much higher price than he originally hinted at.

Neighbours came to watch the bobcat. Of course, neighbours are always interested when a hole appears in their cove. They bobbed their heads up and down, with their lips tightly pressed together, and then allowed as how it might be best to just tear the sucker off and start over. Build a new kitchen extension.

When I finally managed to get outside -- had to jump the trench no matter which door I used -- I was dismayed. There is a lot of rot. There was even a fly that was landing on the trench, on the house, in the trench, back on the house that sounded like a bee when it flew, but like a giant mosquito hen it was landed. For a few minutes it had us worried -- like there was air escaping from somewhere, not a good sign when you've just exposed the innards of your house, plumbing, water supply line, and the like.

So. We wait. Like we waited all this week for this day to come. Wait for the fellow from Twillingate to show up with his crew. Wait for him to pronounce whether we will have to pay a lot to 'jack 'er up', pay a lot more to replace 'er, or pay nothing and just abandon 'er.

And I've made plans to spend the afternoon in Twillingate with a friend -- ladies' day off -- and I may have to go before I find out anything.

I hate waiting. I've never been good at waiting. Really, I suppose, it's not the waiting that is tough. It's not having information that I need to make a decision. And I like to make decisions when I have to make them. That's it. I hate having to wait before I can make a decision.

And all this with only three days to go before we pack the car and leave. Hubby is talking about moving the boat reservation. That might mean I have to go get groceries because we have barely enough in the house to get us through until Sunday.

Sigh. If only we'd dealt with the sloping floors problem when we first arrived. But it was like the elephant in the room. We completely ignored it, hoping, I guess, it would go away. So now we're doing it all at the last minute.

Talk about getting hi-jacked. What's that? I hear a vehicle. Maybe the fellow has arrived.

The price of going home

2007-08-20T12:28:00.000-04:00

A friend asked me yesterday if we were likely to live in Newfoundland year round anytime soon. This came on the tails of a conversation in which I inquired about tips on closing up a house for the winter, since that is what we will be doing in a little over a month.

My emotional answer is that I'd love to live in Newfoundland year round. Nothing I'd like more. Just the thought of going back to the big city is giving me nightmares. Back to house alarms, pass codes, pool closing, multi-bathroom cleaning, etc. Not something I look forward to.

So what's the problem, you ask? The problem, she answered, is heat. This old house is 120 or more years old. It was built before furnaces and insulation and R-factors and climate change. I've been told that retrofitting a house like this to bring it up to 21st century building code is well nigh impossible since it appears that the structure of the house can't take it and it will rot from the inside out. It has to breathe, summer and winter.

We've had a few cold days and nights so far and I have to say, the house is less than cozy when the wind is blowing or the rain is pelting. The crawl space is quite wet and the dampness moves up through the floors, keeping everything humid (nice in hot dry weather, but not on a cold day). We don't yet know what's in the exterior walls, if anything. We understand it's probably sawdust. There is nothing in the attic except very warm air. We do have a furnace which is bolted to the underside of the living room floor. It does provide a great deal of hot air most of which I fear seeps outside long before we can benefit from it.

And that brings me to my point - can I live with myself if I'm burning barrels of heating oil just to keep the house at a livable temperature? Surely this is not in keeping with how I live my life otherwise - to make the smallest footprint possible.

Saying this here though is not going to win me any friends. Most people here live in old, very drafty homes and crank up the furnace to keep them warm. They can spent more than $2500 a year on heating oil. Surely some of this, spent to upgrade the homes, would be a better investment and a kindness to the planet.

So. Am I staying here this winter? No. Even if the above problems didn't exist, we haven't made plans for it. Much preparation needed if we are to become resident Newfoundlanders again.

Next winter? Not likely, although one of the reasons for my reluctance to live here seems to be falling by the wayside. A comparison of health care experiences is showing the big city to be falling short of what is available here. If what I've learned is true, I would have been better served to have been diagnosed in Newfoundland than in Ontario. Would have gotten attention faster, by far.

Maybe it's time to just start researching what can be done with century old salt box houses. Can they be retrofitted to be energy efficient? I would love that to be the case. Our only problem then would be to find something for John to do as a photojournalist here that would interest the rest of the world. So far, we've not had a not of interest from other parts of Canada in what's happening in Newfoundland. It has been ever thus.

Getting resettled

2007-07-29T20:28:00.001-04:00

We saw a house today with a sign in front that said: "Resettled Bushies". Obviously a family -- with the same last name as the current US president -- which had been away from Newfoundland and has returned to stay. Also a reference to the forced resettlement of many Newfoundlanders in the 1960's at the whim of the government of the day.

Returning to one's roots is thrilling. I am still pinching myself when I regard the exquisite vistas along the road as we drive from place to place. Returning home is easy, for the most part. It just takes some readjustment.

For instance, yesterday while chatting with our neighbour, we discussed a tree in our back yard She called it something that sounded like Haps. Puzzled, I asked her to spell it.

It was her turn to look puzzled. "It spells the way I'm saying it," she said. Spelling is probably not her forte.

Haps? Hasp? Ah. Light bulb. Like many here, she adds "h" to words that begin with a vowel. "Aspen?" I asked. The transposition¹ of the last two consonants did not register with me until tonight.

"Yes," she said. "Haspen."

I have just looked it up. Aps is a good Newfoundland word for the aspen tree. It is a variant of Aspe² which is itself a good English word for the same tree. I feel I should apologize to my neighbour for having inadvertently corrected her. Many words here have remained unchanged from Old and Middle English. I should have known better.

From the Dictionary of Newfoundland English:
aps n also hapse, (h)apsen [phonetics unavailable]. EDD ~ sb s w cties. Trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides); also attrib.
1842 JUKES i, 160 The wood ... they here called the 'aps.' 1907 MILLAIS 86 On each side was dense forest of good-sized birch, white pine, 'haps' [etc]. T 50/2-64 You chop up bark off o' the trees—white spruce or apse; apse was good bark. An' you dry that on a flake or a wharf. T 203/5-65 An' then you'd get those apses; you'd cut two an' you wire 'em together an' the dead stick in the centre. That's what you'd tie your trap to. 1966 FARIS 240 Apsen (aspen) ... [used for] planking for boats. C 70-21 Christ's cross was made from an aspen (hapse) and that's why the leaves always tremble. P 148-72 No woman wants it for firewood because 'aps wood is full of water.'

I've been away too long.

Tonight someone mentioned his cousin's name. "Bice," he said.

"Bice?" I replied, looking puzzled, and able to think only of Bo Bice who competed on American Idol this past winter.

"Bice," he repeated. It didn't help that there was a downpour hitting the metal roof of the lobster pool shed, making conversation of any kind difficult.

"Bice." I said again, more to myself than to him. "Bice. Sorry, I'm not familiar with that name."

"B-o-y-c-e," he explained, spelling it rather quickly.

"Ah, Boyce", I said, feeling both relieved and foolish.

"Yes, Bice." He smiled.

And so it goes.

¹Reminds me of the way the word "ask" is pronounced in some places, Barbados among them. "Aks" is the common prononciation, rhyming with "axe". Can throw you for a loop at first, especially if someone says "let me aks you."

² Thus Gerard says of it:--"In English Aspe and Aspen-tree, and may also be called Tremble, after the French name, considering it is the matter whereof women's tongues were made.... (http://www.2020site.org/trees/aspen.html)

Bliss on a Rock

2007-07-25T17:33:00.001-04:00

Bliss on a Rock. Sounds like a drink. Isn't. It's just me being happy in Newfoundland.

We're still pinching ourselves that we're lucky enough to be living here, albeit for only a few months. But then, maybe that's why we're so lucky. We get to enjoy Newfoundland at its finest (in summer) and retreat to our cave in Ontario while everyone here does battle with winter. Some might say that you can't fully appreciate summer unless you've endured the winter. Perhaps. But if I appreciated it any more than I do right now, my face would split from grinning.

I had hoped to write while I was here. However, I doubt if the current novel will get finished or any new novel will be conceived. I'm just too excited to sit still to write anything of any length. Heck, just hanging clothes on the line keeps me blissed out for hours. And I'm dying to go blueberry picking in August.

Blogging will have to suffice. So watch this space.

Tears for Sears

2007-05-18T14:10:00.000-04:00

I just got off the phone yelling at some poor woman who works for Sears. I don't usually do that, but today I received a statement from Sears telling me that the credit I had on account of overpaying a while back is now being raked back to the tune of $25.00 for what they term a "credit balance admin fee". Say what?

When I explained that such a fee was unknown to me when I signed up for a Sears card, the lady on the other end of the line insisted that it was contained in a little booklet which I would have received once I got my card. I still have that little booklet (I bet most people throw them out and she was counting on that) and was able to go through it, page by page, showing that there was nothing in it about a credit balance admin fee. Then phone-lady says the information was contained in a "flying page" that came with the booklet. I assured her that nothing I received from Sears had wings, and the only insert I got was about the use of my personal information.

Her reaction when I asked to speak to her supervisor was to raise her voice to the point where I had to ask her to please not shout at me. I was already holding the phone a foot from my ear. However, it seems that raising the voice must be significant to reaching a deal, because when I raised my voice back, she said she was putting me on hold and would be back in a jiffy. While I hummed and waited and hummed, I looked at the sheaf of papers in my Sears file folder and noticed that I had been through this exact same discussion with Sears a few years ago on a previous account that I held with them. I didn't win that time, it appears and I cancelled my account without getting my $25 back. Hmm. Should I tell her about that time? Naw. Funny how a thing like that would slip my mind. I must be getting older faster than I feared.

When she returned, her voice had returned to mellow tones and she informed me that they would credit the $25 back to my account but that I would have to use the credit (all of $26.41) withint 12 months or the Credit Balance Admin Fee would reappear.

I assured her I would use it. (Maybe even tonight.) I also suggested that she tell her superiors that it would be a good idea to put a notice on people's bills that they are running out of time to use a credit, and that $25 of it will go poof in the next month's bill. Seems like a neighbourly thing to do.

What I didn't tell her was that the minute I use up the credit, I'm cancelling this account. You know what they say, Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on you again. Fool me three times? Not going to happen.

It could be worse

2006-09-22T12:01:00.000-04:00

I have been looking forward to this weekend for weeks, nay months. It's Ryder Cup weekend and I deliberately planned to have nothing at all to do from 8am to 6pm every day from Friday to Sunday.

So this morning, I got up at 7:30, got my breakkie, a cup of organic mint/green tea, today's paper, and in my bathrobe went back to bed to enjoy a day of golf. (I hate playing golf but I love watching Tiger.)

Tiger and Jim Furyk had just gone 3 Up when the screen went blank. Every darn channel was nothing but grey dots and static. Say what? Okay, probably just a temporary outage. Time to take my shower. 10 minutes later after an unusually leisurely shower (for me), I turn on the TV again to find the same #($*. Okay, now I'm getting upset.

I phone the cable company. From my number, they are able to tell where I'm phoning from and the recorded male voice says, "I see we are experiencing difficulty in your area. We are currently working on the problem and expect to have it corrected by ... [inserted female voice] 3 P.M."

I can't believe it. My day is in shambles. There is absolutely nothing else I want do. I made sure that everything else that needed doing this weekend has been done. Even stayed up late last night making some window panels (long story) that had been on my list for a few days.

Sigh. Double sigh. I just know it's some old lady that's bunged herself and her car up against a telephone pole. There's been a rash of senior driver accidents here lately. Just two days ago an old lady killed a man who was crossing a driveway in a motorized scooter. A few weeks ago, an old man who must have been blind as well as stupid, drove his car into a plate glass window of a house. It seems that he also accelerated as he did it. But I digress. That's a whole 'nuther rant.

I thought I'd content myself with at least keeping up with the score on the Internet. but alas, there's a time lag. The scores they are posting are for the afternoon matches, and I haven't even seen the complete morning match yet. I don't want to look at the score for the morning match in case TV comes back on again and I'll have spoiled all the fun.

Okay. Time to regroup. Take a deep breath. It could be worse. I could always be a Taliban wife.

Fog for the Blog

2006-09-17T10:11:00.000-04:00

John has gone off to cover the Terry Fox Run this morning so I was all alone when I woke up the second time. Came into the living room to find that there was a wall of fog surrounding the building. The railing on the balcony resembled the railing on a ship fog-bound outside of Port-aux-Basques. A familiar sight. A little startling not to see anything -- anything at all. This is the third time I've seen fog here. Must be the lake effect. Reminds me so much of Newfoundland which, by the way, we will be returning to sometime around Oct. 16 to spend our first nights in the new homestead. Doris and Tom will likely meet us at the airport and accompany us since they probably won't be building anymore that time of year.

John has recovered from his food allergy. We are now looking around to find a place where he can get some testing done to find out just what it was that did it to him. Since it was a fairly extensive anaphylactic shock, we have to arm ourselves with some knowledge so that it doesn't happen again. Poor fellow is afraid to eat anything now, although he has agreed to foods that he has had many times before, despite the fact that everything we ate last Sunday night was also very familiar to him.

I went home this past week to attend a Lymphedema workshop. Found out that I can get it, even though I now have no symptoms, just about anytime. Even thirty years from now should I be lucky enough to live so long.

Very sad this week to hear of the death of Oriana Fallaci. I did not even know she had breast cancer and I feel a kinship with her after the fact. I am going to check out her latest books from the library this week and see what everyone's been talking about. I do not believe that she went off the deep end in her old age, or that she mouthed off just because she knew she wouldn't be around much longer. I do believe that everything she said, she truly believed. And given that she was right about so much else in her life and work, she might well be right in these books too. I'll read and report.

What a weekend brings

2006-09-09T14:47:00.000-04:00

Some of the things I've learned this weekend:
1. Not everything at the Dollar Store is a bargain.
2. Shorts and t-shirts on other people are not an indicator that the weather is warm enough for you to do the same thing.
3. If you think things are going well, wait a few minutes.

Yesterday John and I went to the 7th annual Music on the Mountain festival. This is an fundraiser for spinal cord research with free music by talented and some very well known musicians, yummy food, silent auction and general outdoor enjoyment. John was assigned to cover it for The Pioneer and although he could have shown up, taken a few pictures and done an interview with the organizer, Chris MacKay (a young man with a personal stake in the outcome of spinal cord research), we stayed all afternoon. The MacKay family was grateful and might, in future, have nicer things to say about journalists.

John and I took our living room chairs to sit on. It was a people-watching paradise. I think some of these folks have been growing their hair since 1960, on their heads and/or on their chins falling to their navels. White and bushy.

We got home around seven o'clock and made the quickest dinner we could, including a green salad with toasted almonds and sesame seed dressing. John called his kids and his mother, I called my son and we then both settled down for an evening of this and that - John was going to edit his afternoon's pictures and I was going to fire up the computer and get myself ready for writing this week.

Around 9:45, John said he felt itchy and was scratching himself in some very odd places. I didn't pay much attention. At 9:55 he asked me to come to the bathroom where the light is good and check out something. He said, Is my bottom lip swollen? I said, Well, stop sticking it out and I'll let you know. He said, I'm not sticking it out. Whoa! And he had spots everywhere.

Maxi story, mini version: he ended up at the hospital today for nearly five hours and came home with prescriptions for Benadryl, raniditine (which I could have given him because it's what I take), antiobiotics (God knows why) and an epi-pen. The first and the last I figure he needs. The rest - well, it's money out of our pockets which are already rather empty.

So... now we go on a hunt to find out what it was he ate that caused all this. Almonds or poppy seeds are the most likely culprits. But he's food-shy now for sure and doesn't want to eat anything. Could be a long autumn.

Meanwhile we have to get him well enough to get back on the job. He's exhausted and wants to sleep non-stop. Still itching. Still some facial swelling. The managing editor was appalled today that he couldn't make it in (although sympathetic). Will he make it tomorrow? Watch this space.

Is this how birds feel?

2006-09-09T13:18:00.000-04:00

We've made the move and are now living in an apartment for eight months while John goes to school. I have to admit to a sense of freedom like I haven't had in a very long time. When I was unpacking the bags and boxes I'd brought with me, putting stuff away in the bathroom or bedroom or kitchen or wherever it belonged, I felt so light, that I thought I would float around the apartment. It was as if I'd had sacks of rocks removed from my shoulders that I didn't even know were there.

The view from the balcony is in itself freeing. The tops of houses, even the tops of some apartment buidings are visible. Lake Ontario is off to the right with the semi-islands of Prince Edward County providing a lush backdrop for the sailboats that race in and out of the yacht club on the waterfront. Since we are on the top floor, birds seem to fly right at us, then deke up at the last minute to clear our rooftop. You can hear the flutter of their wings against the air. No wonder I feel free.

Perhaps - actually, no perhaps to it, I'm sure this is the real reason - it is the lack of possessions that makes me feel free. We have very little - just the essentials like computers and desks for each of us (Ha!); folding lawn chairs in the living room for watching the one channel we get on TV (one my mother-in-law discarded when she got a new one, along with her old DVD and VCR players); a small round table in the dining room that was second-hand twenty years ago. Oak chairs in the dining room came with a house bought in 1972. I stripped them about 10 years ago and this summer I gave the two that had not come unglued a coat or two of varathane and they look pretty good. Not the most comfortable of all chairs, but servicable.

The bed we started out with was an inflatable one that we bought a few years ago for guests. Figured it would do us just fine while we're here. Not. John spent Monday and Tuesday on it and, by the time I got here on Wednesday, was determined that we needed an actual bed. I slept on it Wednesday night and after a completely sleepness night, on Thursday we went out and bought a real bed. The cheapest new bed we could find (about $300) and we're sleeping like kings now. What a treat. And that's the extent of what we possess. Our bedspread is one that I bought when I got married the first time 36 years ago. It has a tear in it now but it keeps us warm and it covers the queensized bed for which I have no other blankets that fit. It is snuggy and warm. We have four knives, four forks, four soup spoons and four teaspoons. The dishes we are using are the ones that John had when he was in University 26 years ago. The newspaper they were wrapped in was dated 1981. A few kitchen gadgets - like a can opener and a vegetable peeler and we' re good to go. I'm very happy.

Have been here nearly three days now and apartment living agrees with me. Housework consists only of sweeping the bathroom, vacuuming the living room and bedroom and wiping down the counters and sinks. The neighbours are quiet and must not cook much because there are no food smells in the hallway. They may not like us when I get started using the bottle of fish sauce I bought yesterday (found a store that sells Chinese groceries, and Caribbean, African, Indian and much more). I've heard "Hello" and "Good Day" from neighbours here more often than I've heard in eight years in Ottawa. Everyone is cheerful, polite and outgoing. They hold doors for you, let you in if you're fumbling for your front door key simply because they recognize you from seeing you in the elevator or at the mailboxes.

I don't have to worry about whether there's a groundhog building a condominium in our backyard or whether sumac is pushing its way up through the deck. If something breaks, I can just call the super rather than worrying about how to go about repairing it myself. I have to clean up only after myself and, if I tidy as I go, which I do, I minimize even that. Can't say the same for John but I'm cutting him some slack because he's so busy with his class assignments.

We went to a country fair last night in Picton. John is assigned to cover it and a music festival tomorrow. I'm looking forward to the latter. The fair was interesting from a sociological point of view but even that gets stale when one's feet are searing from all the walking and the bathrooms are nowhere in sight. I attended my first tractor pull and I have a feeling it will be my last. Luckily we were on the right side of the venue when the black smoke was pouring out of the exhaust as the tractors strained against The Terminator. I learned that there is an whole industry in building tractors especially designed to compete at these rodeos. The drivers even wear asbestos suits and full helmets. There were firemen on the scene. When I asked about that, John said it's probably because they're burning nitro. Sounds dangerous. Would the firemen save the onlookers or the tractors? The amount of fuel that is burned at these events is astounding. Let's see. Each tractor probably burns every ounce in its tanks trying to pull the weight. The weight machine itself has an engine for driving about. A front-end loader idles constantly at the side of the track to smooth the dirt back into position after each pull. Several generators rumble away, each powering four high-energy lights to illuminate the scene. What waste! What pollution! What obscenity! There oughta be a law. Maybe I should be grateful. At least they weren't using horses.

John has gone back to the fair this afternoon for the mutt (you heard right) competition and for the demolition derby later on this evening. A journalist has to be inpartial, so it wouldn't help him for me to be there muttering about the pollution and wastefulness of it all. I stayed home and will get myself in gear to start some writing this afternoon ... perhaps.

I just called all the Subways in town and none of them sell Garden burger subs. They didn't even know what I was talking about. The last lady said, when I explained what they were and that they were available in Ottawa, that they hadn't reached here yet. That's how it used to be in Newfoundland years ago. We will survive without Gardenburgers. Certainly we'll save money by not eating there. Too bad, though, because I love Gardenburgers. Maybe I'll write to Subway and complain.

More to come.

Blame it on the Walkman

2006-07-02T08:55:00.000-04:00

We're a nation of music-addicted zombies. Mp3's. iPods. Even our telephones play music.

The first Cassette Walkman appeared in 1979. Kids begged. Santa caved. CD Walkman showed up. Santa bought the bill of goods again.

We've created a generation of people that eat/drink/sleep music. They can't walk down the street without earphones. They study with earphones. They ride the bus with earphones, usually also with eyes closed, zoned out. They don't see the frail passenger who might need their seat. The cries of anyone needing help are drowned out by the boom-boom hiss-hiss in their ears. They are the most unapproachable, unfriendly creatures ever to walk our streets. Unfortunately for them, they are also being involved in accidents at an alarming rate when they fail to hear approaching traffic over the roar in their ears.

Other cultures encourage dialogue. People gather in coffee shops, doorways, street corners; slap each other on the back, ask about each other's families, pass the time of day finding out about each other, testing the temperature of the community to make sure all is well.

Not here. We not only prefer the privacy of our homes but we carry that privacy around with us in the form of earphones. Like tortoises we have our shells at the ready should we need to retreat. What better protection from the homeless man with his hand out. If we can't hear him, then we don't know that he's asking for something. Can't be expected to know what's going on if we have earphones on, now can we? Great way to stay uninvolved, not responsible, and answerable only to ourselves. It's hard to care about or even be aware of anyone or anything when music is tickling your insides, revving your feel-good metre, recharging your batteries, soothing your nerves, massaging your brain, eating away your eardrums.

If I was a conspiracy theorist, I'd be checking to see who's investing in this technology. Who has a stake in making sure we don't talk to each other? People who talk often discover that things are not as they should be. People who talk a lot often stage such anti-establishment activities as boycotts, rallies, protest marches. They refuse to serve in armies. They cast votes for people other than the reigning elite. They even help get the other guys elected. Can't have that. Keep them busy with heavy beat, empty lyrics. It's hard for them to organize if they don't talk to one another.

Should we blame it on the Walkman?

[The above was sent to the Ottawa Citizen as a letter to the editor, July 2, 2006.]

Where was France?

2006-07-01T13:11:00.000-04:00

And where was France this morning? From where I stood, I couldn't see all the dignitaries but I was standing point blank in front of a speaker and didn't hear anyone say that so-and-so of the French Embassy was present.

And when the wreaths were all laid, there was a wreath from France, but it was among the smallest. Why wasn't it the biggest? Why didn't someone from France stand up and say, Merci à tous vous Terre-neuviens. Merci de nous avoir sauvé. Merci d'avoir donné votre vie pour la notre. Merci toujours et rien que merci.

Where was France this morning?

We Will Remember Them

2006-07-01T12:48:00.000-04:00

I just got home from downtown where Canada Day festivities are in full swing. We normally don't join the masses until about now but today was special. The government of Canada had a service at the war memorial (in the middle of downtown) to commemorate the soldiers who died at the Battle of the Somme and Beaumont-Hamel in 1916.

In Newfoundland, July 1 was always Memorial Day. We wore artificial forget-me-nots in our lapels and went to the cenotaph for a service. I remember somber music on the radio and there was never much reason for gaiety. Once Newfoundland joined Canada (in 1949) it also became Dominion Day¹ for that was the day that the Articles of Confederation were signed in Charlottetown, P.E.I. in 1867 forming the original nation of Canada.

And so for us, July 1 had a dual purpose. Remember the dead. Celebrate with the living. Not a problem for most Newfoundlanders. We never forget when someone does something for us and we're up to celebrate most anything.

Today marks the first time that the valour of our Royal Newfoundland Regiment has been commemorated anywhere else in Canada besides Newfoundland. It is the first time that anyone but Newfoundlanders have publicly remembered that on this same day in 1916, only 69 of 801 soldiers answered roll call when the battle was over.

It felt good, so very good to stand there and sing the Ode to Newfoundland on Ottawa soil. I feel like finally we're part of the Canadian fabric in a way that we have never been before. Needless to say, I was a blubbering mess long before a young soldier read the Act of Remembrance.

They shall grow not old,
as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them,
nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun
and in the morning
We will remember them.

RESPONSE: We will remember them

Newfoundlanders in the crowd were visible by the Newfoundland flags they carried, the Newfoundland tartan ties around their necks, or simply by the radiance of their teary smiles.

I met my babysitter. She used to wheel me in my baby carriage around the harbour of Brigus when she was about 9, as near as we can figure. She told me she'd have recognized me anywhere.

What a morning! What a glorious day.
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¹Dominion Day was officially renamed "Canada Day" by an Act of Parliament on October 27, 1982 after the BNA Act (Canada's Constitution)was repatriated by Pierre Trudeau.

The root of all...obesity?

2006-03-13T14:20:00.000-05:00

Someone sent me a link this morning to an article about how the French are becoming obese, and how they blame it on becoming Americanized. (I'd include the link but it's one of those current affairs type sites where the links disappear in a few days so no point including it here.)

It occurred to me while reading that article that 'becoming Americanized' gets the blame for a lot of the things we don't like about ourselves. Fat. Pollution. Crime. Conservatism. And the list goes on.

Where does self-responsibility come into the equation? When did we lose the ability to say no to the things that are not good for us? Why did we not pass by the MacDonald's when they sprang up on the street corner? Why didn't we laugh when car dealers began displaying SUV's?

Seems to me that the root of the problem is money. The more affluent we become, the more we seem less able to make healthy and informed choices. Money to burn? Sure, then why not buy an SUV just because you can. Money to burn? They why bother cooking. We can pretend we're rich and never have to cook again. Eat out like the stars. Order in on a whim. Change the furniture every few years. Own more shoes than we can wear in two years. The good life. If you can afford it, why not?

Besides, hamburgers can't be that bad, can they? After all, Americans invented them and they're the most affluent nation on earth. Aren't they? They have the most choice, don't they? They have freedom of speech and Julia Roberts and gleaming teeth. Heck, if we get fat, we can just have liposuction.

And all it takes is a little cash. The fact that the amount we spend on lipstick per year is probably enough to feed an entire African nation has nothing to do with it. Well, if you insist, we could stop using lipstick and get it tattooed on permanently.

What song do you sing?

2006-03-09T11:05:00.000-05:00

The longer I live, the more I realize that most people on the planet just don't get it. We're here for such a short time. We're here by the grace of something much larger than any of us could ever, in any religion, conceive of. We're here in the same way that robins are here, or octopi, or the farthest star in the universe is here. And all us beings have more in common, so much more, than even we can dream of. We are as alike as blades of grass are alike, as snowflakes are alike (yes, I know no two snowflakes are alike but we all know what happens to each and every snowflake when it hits the ground.)

The other day on CBC there was an item about loons - how the male loon changes its song when it changes location, in an apparent attempt to distinguish itself from the other male loons that preceded it.

If loons in all their bird-brained wisdom can adapt to changing conditions, how come humans who - so the theory goes - have superior intellect, keep singing the same old song - "I'm right. I'm right. I'm right."

For more info on that loon see:
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2006/223/2

A Schmallmark moment

2005-05-08T19:47:00.000-04:00

Step-parenting has got to be the most thankless job in the world. Even counting those jobs which sniff out underarm odor, or test other people's turds for signs of disease. But then these are paying jobs so perhaps they shouldn't count. I can't think of any parallel to step-parenting. Wait a minute. Being a worker bee comes close. Slave and toil to make honey and along comes some schmuck in a net and steals it, puts a lid on it and says he made it. Yeah, that about covers it.

A letter to Peter Mackay

2005-05-03T13:59:00.000-04:00

Today I wrote a letter to Peter Mackay, who I believe is the deputy leader of the Conservative Party. I wrote it in frustration at the Conservatives who are threatening to force an election and spend even more of our tax dollars just because they want to be right.

Hello Mr. Mackay,

You seem to be the only voice of reason in the Conservative party during these frenzied days so I am appealing to you, as a very concerned citizen and frustrated taxpayer, to please, please convince Mr. Harper to get down off his high horse and think before he drives this country into another election all because he wants to be right.

Us little guys - otherwise known as ordinary citizens - feel totally helpless when we see what is going on in the halls of power.

Yes, we are totally repulsed by what has gone on under the Liberals. Mr. Gommery is getting to the bottom of that. But we also have no assurance that what has happened under the Liberal mandate didn't previously happen under the P.C. mandate, and all other mandates since Confederation. In other words, to us little guys, it looks like the system is broken. Plain and simple.

What we want and need is someone who will fix the system, not just grab the reins of power of the current broken-down, lice-infested system.

What we want and need is someone who cares enough about this country to make things right - and what better time to effect change than when the opposition has the government on the ropes. Mr. Harper could do so much good for Canada by sitting back, putting on his thinking cap and coming up with solutions for how this country is best governed. For that matter, under a minority government, we could have some of the best government this country has ever seen. All it takes is for people to care more about the country than they do about their political careers.

The prospect of another election when my vote will once again not matter one hoot under the first-past-the-post system, is discouraging, depressing and downright scary.

I would personally like to see the party system disbanded. Let every MP be elected on his or her own merits.

If we can't have that, then, for the sake of all that is fair and decent, then we at least need Proportional Representation. Why is it that neither of the two main parties will espouse that view? Probably because they have too much to loose. The country and democracy is the biggest loser.

Mr. Mackay, please, get your leader to stop screaming media-sound-bites that sound good but mean nothing. Please get him to stop wanting to be right and instead get him to think of Canada first, not his political future. I wrote to him very nicely last week to express my concern for the direction he seemed to be taking. I never even got the courtesy of a reply. This does not auger well for his future as a leader. My letter to him is attached.

Signed,
A concerned and sad taxpayer.

What a weekend!

2005-05-01T13:58:00.000-04:00

Last night someone came ringing our doorbell and hammering on the door at 10:30 p.m. I was immediately wary. Hubby was prepared to open the door to see who was there until I screamed at him to just look out the window and only open if we know who it is. He looked out. Nobody there. I looked out from the stairwell window. Saw nothing. Nobody. Hmm. We pondered a bit, looked out some more and then went to check the back door and the garage. Nothing unusual there. Back to the front door. Still nobody about. We opened the door and ventured out. Nothing to be seen. Could smell cigarette smoke though. Could also smell it in the hall and the kitchen. I was spooked by this time. Called the neighbour across the street to see if she'd heard anything. She hadn't but appreciated the heads up.

Hubby went to the bathroom. I went to water some flowers. While I was filling up my jug, there was light knock on the door. I panicked. Hubby said I was hearing things. That it was just him in the bathroom. I said if it was only him if he was knocking in there. He wasn't. We ventured to the front door again and looked out. Saw nothing. Eek. Then saw our neighbour's husband standing away from the steps. Phew. He said he hadn't wanted to spook us.

He said he had been in the garden doing some odd jobs and saw two fellows at our door. They had torn off down the side path (which is not visible in the dark so they had to have known it was there.)

Today one of the stone steps was overturned so we didn't dream this.

I hate living here. I hate having to be afraid to open my door. I can't wait to get back to Newfoundland where if someone will hammer on your door only if they need your help badly or if they're mummering.

A letter to Stephen Harper

2005-04-28T13:57:00.000-04:00

Today I wrote a letter to Stephen Harper who, at the earliest opportunity, is going to bring down the government. Someone must stop him. I tried to be polite and not let my distrust (and okay, dislike) of the man show through. Did I succeed? You be the judge. (I'm not hopeful that it will do any good. The last time I wrote him about something, he never even acknowledged my email.) Here's the letter:

Dear Mr. Harper,

With the testimony coming out in the Gomery inquiry, it is evident that the political system in Canada is broken.
- Taxpayer's money is not accounted for.
- MP's and cabinet ministers curry favour with their friends using government (taxpayer's) money.
- Ordinary citizens become millionaires at the public trough (i.e. taxpayer's wallet).
- Campaign workers are rewarded with plum jobs at taxpayer's expense.
- All and sundry lie, cheat and steal at taxpayer's expense and there is no mechanism of checks and balances to prevent, uncover or punish this in a timely manner.
- The system that we trust to give us good government is at the mercy of political parties.

I could go on but you know all of these things already. And I am troubled.

I hear you saying that you want to force an election, possibly as early as next week. I hear you saying that this government doesn't deserve to be in power. I hear you saying that the Liberals need to be swept away.

What troubles me is that I have not heard you say anything about how you would fix the system, what you would to to prevent this kind of thing from happening again.

What is needed now, Mr. Harper, is for a man of vision - you, perhaps - to come up with ideas on what can be done to fix the system. We need someone of vision to make parliament work. You are in a position to extract much from the government, to make things work as you think they ought and to do much good for Canada. It has long been my opinion that minority government is the best government for the country.

The people elected a minority government last year and that's what we still want. We want you to make it work. We want the people we elected to talk, to discuss, to negotiate, and to come up with the best plan for this country. We do not want you spending another half a billion dollars just so you can replace Paul Martin as the head of a broken system.

You have an opportunity here to effect real change, to be a man of vision that Canada needs more than anything right now. I am sorry to say that so far, Mr. Harper, all I see is another politician - and we have far too many of those already - who is eager to spend even more of the taxpayer's money to further his own political agenda.

Signed,
A sad taxpayer.

Is it better to know?

2005-04-18T13:56:00.000-04:00

On the weekend, I got talking to a neighbour who said that he no longer listened to the news or read the newspaper. There was just too much negativity in the world and the media dwell on it. I agree with him.

We also talked about our little neighbourhood park which is currently under threat by a mega-grocery store being built nearby. I mentioned that while I like the park, I almost never go there, even as a shortcut because the few times I have done so, there have been older kids lurking there and I feel unsafe.

Now. If I didn't read the newspaper or listen to the news, I probably would not know about the swarmings that happened in this town last year, or about the fellow who has been exposing himself to young girls this last few weeks. I would not know about the man who was attacked for no apparent reason while walking home in broad daylight and left seriously hurt. So. If I didn't know these things, I might go to the park more often, in fact, I might even go and sit in the park by myself and read or watch the birds or something. It would not occur to me that the kids lighting the fire a few yards away might not want me to see what they are doing. I'd be a Pollyanna. Would it show on my face and keep me safe?

I've stopped reading newspapers before -- I particularly remember during the Gulf War. I had had it up to here with killing and death and resolved not to watch any more. Maybe it's time to stop again. The problem is, I'm already cynical (like you wouldn't believe), so I doubt it would make me a more trusting person. Certainly, everything I hear now only serves to reinforce what I believe about human nature. That it is inherently self-serving and destructive to anything and everything around it. But more about that another day.

Things to do before I die

2005-03-24T13:56:00.000-05:00

With all this talk about dying lately - Terri Shiavo in Florida - my thoughts have understandably turned to that ultimate act. However, I just came across a site in which the author lists things he wants to do before he dies.
I think that I've somehow lost that enthusiasm for new things. Between keeping house and cooking meals and trying to write even when I don't feel like writing, I think I forgot that life is supposed to be fun. I think also because somewhere in there I started to feel old, I somehow assumed that because of time limitations, I will likely not do many of the things that I at one time assumed I would find the time for in the future. Things like - going back to university for another degree, becoming a truck-driver (semi), becoming proficient at the piano - like getting my Grade 10 in piano, visiting Japan (although in theory that could still happen assuming I could afford it.) I think it boils down to weeding out the things that are not as important as I used to think they were. Prioritizing.
So, I'm going to start a list of things I want to do before I die. It might contain some very frivolous things but that's okay. Will probably start a new page on my site for this. But not tonight. Right now I want to go finish reading the Da Vinci Code while I'm still halfway interested enough to want to find out what happens.

Shiny Candy Girl of Canada

2005-02-21T13:55:00.000-05:00

Someone on a list I belong to wrote a message this morning about blogs. She says that if you throw the words 'shiny', 'candy' and 'girl' into a blog together with the name of a country other than the US, your hit count is going to go up, up, up. So I'll give it till the end of the week and then check my web stats.

Onward, Forward

2005-02-09T13:55:00.000-05:00

CEL (CopyEditor's List) has a thread today concerning the misspelling of 'forward' when used to mean that section of a book that comes at the front and provides background or other elucidation to the book itself. I was reading along and guffawing at the thought of all those authors out there who self-publish their memoires or histories of their communities and churches and then misspell Foreword. Teehee.

I sobered up when I realized I didn't know whether the book I'd self-published (a biography of my first husband) contained a Foreword. I rushed to get the box that contains the remaining few copies and, with a good healthy fear of what I might find, begin to leaf through the first few pages.

There's a dedication page ("To Marcus") followed by a Preface. And Glory be, there's no foreword. What a relief. I know the difference between 'forward' and 'foreword' but my fingers don't always obey the inclination of the brain and since the mistake would survive a spell-check, I've been unpleasantly surprised before by errors that creep through to the final draft.

I would have caught it in the final copyedit/proofread. But of course I would. Mon dieu, oui! Don't be absurd.

What's on my mind. Not Georgia!

2005-01-18T13:54:00.000-05:00

Well, maybe Georgia would be a good thing to think about today. It's certainly warmer there than here. -40C. Am driving the kids to university today and I don't do that just for something to do.

I read recently that our city has been inundated by a great influx of owls from the north - Great Northern Owl? I forget the species - since their food supply - mice and voles - is scarce in their natural habitat. They are apparently very weak from the long flight on little food. I have to wonder how they are faring here. I haven't seen a mouse in a long time (except in our garage) and I can't imagine that the food supply is much better here than where the owls came from, especially today. Nothing is moving out there that doesn't have to. I was wondering how the junkos and the cardinals and black-cap chickadees are making out. They live in our hedge and eat from our feeder. I hope the owls don't make a meal of them. If I thought it would help, I'd go buy some meat at the store and scatter it about for the owls. Wonder if they would eat it. Perhaps they prefer their dinner warm and running.

Out of the mouths...

2005-01-14T13:54:00.000-05:00

I was reading some of my poems to a friend the other day, over the phone. After about line 6 or so, she interrupted me and said, "That's not a poem. That's a painting."

I'm still not sure if she meant what she said as a criticism or a compliment because I know she doesn't read a lot of contemporary poetry. However, she couldn't have said anything nicer to me. I told her so. I haven't stopped smiling since.

I try to remember this whenever I get nervous about having submitted eleven of my poems to a battery of editors in preparation for a chapbook that is supposed to come out in September. They have not yet make any comments (not even sure if they've read them). However, I can't help feeling like I've stripped and am standing in the middle of a busy street, waiting for people to notice and start pointing and jeering. Because I haven't had any feedback yet, I can't help wonder if the poor editors are at their keyboards, fingers poised over the keys, wondering how they can begin to tell me how awful my stuff is. But I have to keep remembering what my friend said.

Funny thing though. My friend keeps asking me to write a poem about her or our friendship. Now I can truly say, in response, that she has to let me paint a picture.

The day after

2005-01-13T13:52:00.000-05:00

I had a birthday recently. And despite my reluctance to 'be' the age I am, it really is okay. It was not the most feted birthday I've ever had. It was certainly not the most lucrative. But it was very satisfying. I had a lovely birthday card from my step-son. The kind that brings tears to the eyes, the sentiments were so sweet, and I believe, heart-felt. He picked it out himself and so I know that's what he wanted to say. I also had a nice card from my step-daughter, a very cute card from my son's girlfriend, an orchid and a card from my husband with a message that also brought tears to my eyes. Telephone calls from everyone else. In fact, I heard from everyone who matters to me.

Last night, I was thinking exactly this and then realized, wait a minute. I didn't hear from mom. This thought lasted about a 1/2 a second when I realized, of course, that my mom's been dead for 23 years. Funny how stuff like that happens.

My mother-in-law phoned to wish me a happy birthday and was unsure what the exact age was. When she finally figured it out (with a few Uh-uh's and Uh-huh's on my part, she said, "What? You're not that old, are you?" Thanks, MIL.

Inaugural Entry about Inaugural Balls

2005-01-06T13:51:00.000-05:00

My first entry of 2005 concenrns balls. Inaugural Balls, to be exact. George Bush's inaugural ball to be specific. It appears that he is about to spent 40 million US dollars (and we all know that a US dollar is bigger than any other dollar -is it minted in Texas?) on his inaugural ball on January 20th.

This is obscene when over 150 thousand people just perished in a tsunami and the survivors will need help for years to come to continue surviving. We're not even talking about bringing their standard of living up to that of George Bush. Simply just putting a roof over their heads again, giving them one square meal a day, with a job to go to and schools to educate their children will take billions of dollars. It baffles me how the leader of the free [cough] world can dance the night away with ladies in designer gowns while so many suffer not even half a world away.

A colleague of mine (I flatter myself by calling her this) has drawn up a petition to the president and was hoping to get it on ThePetitionSite.com but alas, they have failed to approve the petition as yet. So... I direct you to the text of her petition at:

http://editor-mom.blogspot.com/2005/01/urgent-petition-to-urge-bush-to-pare.html

Go and pick up the text, print it out and send it to anyone you know who might make a difference. I figure nobody in Washington even knows were Canada is much less cares what a Canadian thinks, so I'm not going to waste my time in sending it. But if you're US-based and reading this, then what are you waiting for. Get out of here and go stand up for the have-nots of the world against the haves. If enough people bring this up, maybe, just maybe, the man will be shamed into at least scaling back his festivities.

Post-Christmas, post-tsunami, pre-everything-else.

2004-12-28T13:50:00.000-05:00

What a way to end a really enjoyable Christmas! To find out that great hordes of people were swept away from their beach vacations, from their breakfasts and from their lives. I was driving my step-daughters to the mall and asked them if they had heard the news about the tsunami that hit Asia. They had not and I told them that the radio was reporting deaths in the thousands. They mumbled something about how awful it was and we left it at that.

By the time I went back to pick them up (don't ask, and I won't tell you) I reported to them that deaths were now known to be at least eleven thousand. One of the girls said, "That's not too bad. I figured it would be much worse."
Now, on what scale is eleven thousand people dying not bad? I don't understand this girl. Not sure I want to right now.

Christmas was probably the best I've had since my husband and I creaated this blended family of ours. Our kids seemed to genuinely like each other's company, or at least made a good show of getting along. There was a lot of laughter, more than we've ever enjoyed together, and when my son and his girlfriend left, the step-siblings exchanged hugs. That's a first. It made me feel good.

Also, my husband's sister and her boyfriend joined us for part of the afternoon and for dinner. She has not been friendly with my husband since their mother had a stroke in 2000. We're still not sure what happened way back then but ever since mother-in-law has been the go-between and it was time for that to end. I told hubby that we needed to invite his sister to dinner and he agreed. We phoned her and surprise, surprise, she also agreed. So, the family was all together at last. Mother-in-law phoned me several times since Christmas to thank me for arranging this. She was very grateful.

Now, the best part of Christmas was seeing a whole new side to my son. I had received a Dean Martin CD for Christmas (as per my request) which contained the song Amore. (I just love how smooth Dino is on this song!) When Marcus saw the CD, he got very excited about another song that I was not familiar with. He put it on and began dancing around and singing every last word of the lyrics. I was open-mouthed and absolutely delighted. I had no idea that he even knew who Dean Martin was (son is 31) much less that he would like any of his songs. And to have him say that A Kick in the Head was a totally awesome tune just knocked my socks off. I'm still tickled about it and it makes me smile every time I think of it.

All in all it was a very good Christmas despite my stress levels going into it. We have cut down the gift-giving to acceptable levels and the best gift I got was from my husband (via Paddington, a sculpted polar bear who gives gifts at Christmas) - a $100 donation to the Humane Society. It made me cry, just like the other years that he has done the same thing. But that's okay.

I wish I could give the feelings I have to everyone who is sad or alone. I have lots to spare and I know that for every bit I'd give away, I'd just get more to put in its place.

Now we have to get ready to go to mother-in-law's retirement residence for lunch - en famille. It's her way of giving back at Christmas now that she can't bake cookies or shop till she drops.

Bummed again!

2004-10-10T13:49:00.000-04:00

I'm bummed again. In fact, I'm doubly bummed.

I'm bummed because my son is bummed. He's bummed because his life has taken a sharp turn that he wasn't ready for and he's sad and upset and angry and frustrated and probably fearful and, did I mention sad? I'm sad because I can't do a damn thing to help him except be here in case he needs me for something, anything.

He didn't come to Thanksgiving dinner today because the wounds are still very fresh and he'd rather be alone. I understand that fully. But I've decided to call him at least once a day until I feel he's getting back on his feet. I've called twice today and he's not answering the phone. Maybe he's out with friends. I can only hope so.

Anyway, it sucks to have someone you love feeling like they're in the deep, dark woods at midnight without a flashlight. I want to put my arms around the whole forest and keep all the baddies out so he'll be safe no matter where in the forest he is. I want to put little candles on every path so if he happens by he'll know there's a way out if he wants it. I want.. I want... I want him not to be sad anymore.

So I'm bummed.

Yesterday I saw a man wearing a jacket which had the letters B.U.M. on the back. Big letters. On a big back. Just above a big bum.

Today I got dressed and reached into my closet and pulled out a sweatshirt I have not worn much, if ever, since getting it for Christmas a few years ago from my sister-in-law.

Nearly fainted when I looked in the mirror on my way out of the bedroom. Emblazoned right above my heart is the phrase

B U M Equipment

Do you think this sweatshirt was intended for cardiac patients?
Whatever. I decided to keep it on. I feel like bum equipment today.

Loyalty, teenagers and feeling grumpy

2004-08-22T13:47:00.000-04:00

I'm grumpy. I shouldn't be but I am. I should be able to let this roll off my back and say, "Not my problem." I can't.

A member of my family (who shall remain nameless to protect whatever innocence he may still have) is being a dork and a disloyal dork at that. I have failed miserably at making him understand what I see as disloyalty. Thus my grumpiness. I don't like to know that someone I have to deal with on a daily, familial basis, is behaving in such a manner and is unable to see it.

Let me tell you the story for the purposes of which I shall use the initial J. to refer to my family member, and A,B,C. to refer to others in the story. (And no, J is not his first initial).

Okay, so J. has a group of friends that have hung around together for at least the last two years. The group grew larger bit by bit over the last four years. One of the friends in this group, A., has known J. for at least six, perhaps seven, years.

One of the members of the group, B. has turned out to be rather obnoxious, whinging when the group does not go along with his ideas, sulking and generally being tedious. Through it all, the group has put up with his childish behaviour and never shunned him. Heaven knows why.

Somewhere along the line, B. developed a dislike for A. to the point where B would not invite A when the group was meeting at B's house. Would deliberately not invite A to various activities to which the rest of the group was invited - camping trips organized by B's parents, trips to chocolate factories organized by B's father, overnight parties at B's house, etc. He knows that J and A have been friends for much longer than he and J.

You might be asking, "So what? B has a right to invite whomever he wishes to his home."

And you'd be right. I really don't give a rat's ass whom B sees or doesn't see. What I do care about is how J is treating A. Whever B invites J, he goes. Never sticks up for A and says, "if A isn't invited, then I'm not coming." I can't believe he would do something like this. When I confronted him about it, he says that B has the right to invite whom he likes and that he, J, has to right to do things without A.

I counter with "But it's not that simple. You're not just doing something with B. You're doing it despite the fact that B has shunned A. And you haven't showed any loyalty for your friend A."

I can't believe that he could do something this insensitive. He seems not to believe that he would feel shunned if he were in A's shoes.

A still sees J as a friend, comes over whenever J asks him to, etc. Doesn't seem to see it as a problem, or if he does, he's not saying.

I still think that J is behaving very badly and if a friend of mine did that to me, I'd probably not be friends with him or her very long. I certainly wouldn't value the friendship much.

Perhaps I'm wrong about this. If you think I am, let me know.

Meanwhile, I'm still grumpy. Although, on second thought, maybe I'm grumpy because my skills at convincing someone that I'm right seem to have disappeared like summer in the Arctic. I know one of the reasons I'm grumpy is because I'm letting this get to me.

But I see it as a matter of principle. I have a hard time respecting someone who would do something like this, whether or not the supposed 'victim' of the piece doesn't seem to mind.

Of Groundhogs, cataracts and other sh*t

2004-08-09T13:46:00.000-04:00

Today has been the pits. I found out that our city council and their minions have been killing groundhogs at a park that I used to enjoy visiting. I don't know why.

And I found out that I have a cataract starting in each eye. Now if that isn't a topper for the day, I don't know what is. I'm only 55 for crying out loud. My mother-in-law just had her cataracts operated on and she's 78. I asked the doc how long from now she thinks I'll need to have something done about mine. She said, 'Are you trying to get me to look into the future?' Well, er, yes. How about just a ballpark, doc? Oh, 10 to 15 years. Heck. I'll be 65 in 10 years and that's way young to have cataract surgery. Ain't it?

John said to make sure I told her that I'm going deaf in my right ear. This may have something to do with the fact that the other day when I was watching tennis on TV, I realized that the court looked deep marine blue if I used my left eye, and mauve if I used my right. I told John that ears and eyes are not connected. He said to make sure to tell the doc anyway. I told the doc and unfortunately she was interested. Wants me to come back in a month.

Ugh.

But it was the news about the groundhogs that really has me bummed out. The city councillor who revealed this news to a friend of mind seems to think that the groundhogs were a victim of their own success, as is the park in general. People had started feeding the critters who were adapting just nicely, thank you, to having their groceries brought to them instead of having to forage. They would eat out of your hand if you were brave enough. I never did get up the nerve. I'm also not sure how I feel about feeding them. They could probably get enough food on their own and didn't need human intervention. But, there weren't that many groundhogs and it's not like they were telephoning their friends and telling them to come on over, there was free food enough for all. They did have babies this summer and that's as nature intended. What I do know for sure is that nature did not intend for them to be killed as they were.

Two species can interact in various ways. Sometimes it's disastrous for both. Sometimes for one of the two. Sometimes it benefits both and I have a feeling this was one of those times. The groundhogs were happy but still wild enough, I think, that had the food source dried up, they would have been able to feed themselves.

I'm rambling. I know. I know. But it really is beyond me why someone at City Hall thought these animals should die. Their homes were creating hazards for the patrons of the park, they say. Park visitors were in danger of being bitten, they say.

What about the garbage and litter these patrons leave behind them in the park? What about the danger of being run over by rude boys on bicycles and skateboards? There are children poisoning geese and chasing ducks until they die of exhaustion.

I am not feeling very well disposed to Ottawa just at the moment - not to the ones who call themselves city leaders, nor to those who destroy the parks and its wildlife.

Ugh. This is very disorganized and rambling. I'll have to come back and do it all over again. Perhaps tomorrow. Perhaps the next day. Perhaps not at all. It doesn't really matter anyway, does it? I mean, people are still going to go on hurting each other and animals whether I like it or not, no matter how many letters I write to city hall. No matter how loud I scream. The human species is going drag us all down.

I get the bloggiest feelings sometimes...

2004-03-30T13:44:00.000-05:00

I have a blog. Wow. I've been hearing about these things for a while now, not really knowing what they are but suspecting that they were something that I'd get off on. I made some half-hearted attempts to scout out a blog, see what it's made of, see whether it would fit into my clothes with me. And while I still am not really sure what a blog is, I know what I want it to be. And this is it.

It's a place I can come to write - about anything and everything, without censure or praise. A place to unload all the sh*t that collects under one's skin during a day. You know, the stuff that makes you gripe and groan, makes you feel helpless and out of control. The stuff that, if only you could tell someone how you feel, would go away and would maybe even get resolved. I mean, if you tell someone about a problem and what you think needs to be done to fix it, you never know what might happen. They might agree with you. They might go immediately to the source of the problem and apply your solution. It would then never bother you again.

Or they might know somebody who could effect some change. Just a whisper in their ear and voila, all is well. Worst case (or maybe best, I'm not sure) scenario is that what you feel is commonly felt by everyone in your community, province, country, hemisphere, planet. You realize that this is a problem that everyone else is putting up with so why the heck can't you. Or (and this is where the best case comes in) you find out that you are the first one to give voice to this particular problem, to isolate it from the garbage that normally disguises it. It is you that the world looks to and applauds when you tell them how easy it would be to dispose of this problem once and for all. And the crowd goes wild. [roaring in the background - or is that the tinnitis in my ear?]

Anyway, to get back to what I was saying, I intend to use my blog for good not for evil. Of course, most of the good will come to me, just by getting rid of whatever itch it was that needed scratching. Those around me might benefit, too, I suppose, if I'm easier to live with.

So... if you're still reading, come back sometime and see what else is in here. Maybe you'll have that Archimedes reaction (Aha!) when you read something here that you previously thought you alone thought. There are at least two thoughts there to start with and that's sufficient for one day.