Whirlwind weekend road trip

Teapot and wine glass

GC, The Dog and I hit the road on Saturday morning.

First we swooped down on Chandler Swain’s house in the country for her Christmas pottery sale. Remember I said I don’t like tea? Well, I do like teapots. Especially Chandler’s teapots. I bought two more, along with a wine glass from her black and white collection. GC bought two mugs and a teapot. (Between us we now have six Chandler Swain teapots. We’re trying to stop.)

We headed for Orangeville directly after Chandler’s, sticking as much as possible to the back roads and small highways. The GPS is good for that, although every now and then it tells us to do something goofy, like turn right off the highway, then turn right, then turn right, then turn right again. Just for fun, we do it, and if we’re lucky we see something interesting like a herd of goats or an ostrich.

It took us a long time to get to Orangeville. Six or seven hours. We were going there to meet Chelsea. Chelsea’s the new baby: My niece’s daughter, my other niece’s niece, my sister’s grand-daughter, my great-niece. Chelsea, with the strawberry blond peach fuzz hair and blue eyes and long fingers and kiss-shaped lips.

Zoom and Chelsea

She was born a couple of weeks early, and she’s about six weeks old now. She’s still pretty little – about eight and a half pounds, but just the right size bundle for me to cuddle. She’s very sweet. I loved holding her and kissing her and talking to her and marveling over her tiny wee fingernails. I loved listening to all her new baby noises, from the sweet little sighs to the bubbly little farts. And I loved seeing everybody else in their new roles as moms and aunts and grandmas and grandpas.

She’s a very well-loved baby.

I wish I lived closer so I could see her more often. GC and I were talking a few weeks ago about how to be part of a child’s life when you live so far away. She has so many relatives who will be part of her everyday life, and I’ll just be Auntie Zoom who lives a long way away.

“You have to do something to distinguish yourself,” said GC. “You have to make an impression.”

And that’s when I came up with the brilliant idea that every year on her birthday, I’m going to give Chelsea a new puppy! I won’t just be some hazy great aunt off in the distance, I’ll be the the crazy great aunt with all the puppies. How’s that for making an impression?

The sweater I knit for Chelsea

Speaking of gifts, last week I finally got around to sewing the sleeves into the sweater I knit her. I don’t think it’ll fit her for awhile yet. Maybe next year.

Speaking of knitting, I started a sock on the road. It’s a Lorna’s Laces slipped rib sock, made from Arequipa yarn, which was a gift from a friend at my old job.

We also got to see Tucker while we were in Orangeville. Tucker’s my niece Kati’s cat. He’s hilarious. He’s kind of lewd, the way he sits around with his legs spread and a goofy look on his face. Sometimes he dangles a back leg over his head and chews on his toenails. He ambushed The Dog a few times.

It was a whirlwind trip – we were only there for about 20 hours and then it was time to come back. GC and I are not committed drivers so it takes us forever to get anywhere. But we do have fun along the way. We sing songs and play the alphabet game and stop frequently so he doesn’t doze off. I bravely offer to share the driving every now and then, but he knows I’m scared of driving so he doesn’t take me up on it. We stop for coffee, ice cream cones, burgers, fresh air, sandwiches, and pee breaks. And The Dog is no spring chicken either, so he needs frequent stops too, to pee and eat cookies. He’s a very good traveler.

Captain Morbid's Hearse

I took this picture when we stopped to check out Captain Morbid’s hearse which is really long but only seats two people. It’s still got the original sliders for the casket. The Captain’s wife and most of his kids aren’t crazy about the hearse, but he and his youngest daughter love it. Captain Morbid looks like a biker and he has two gold teeth and owns a tackle shop (Captain Morbid’s Tackle and Bait). He was lamenting this year’s late start to ice fishing season. I regret not taking his picture.

Speaking of pictures, we saw Santa Claus driving a motorcycle through Peterborough, but I wasn’t fast enough with the camera. And we saw multiple examples of incredibly tacky eye-popping 3D wildlife art at Kaladar’s general store, but I didn’t think a 2D camera would do it justice.

But here’s The Dog.

The Dog at the Potter's

And here’s the anthropomorphized ladylike teapot.

An anthropomorphized Chandler teapot

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Canadian Blog Awards: Vote

Knitnut.net has been nominated in two categories for the 2009 Canadian Blog Awards: best Personal blog and best Blog Post. If you’d like to vote, click on the banner* above to visit the voting site. (It appears you can vote repeatedly if you’re so inclined, which oughta produce some weirdly skewed results.)

*I took this banner from Robin’s blog, Watawa Life. His excellent photo blog is a strong contender in the Photo/Art category.