Another year flashes before my eyes: 2010

January

GC and I went to anti-prorogue rallies and Constable Eric Czapnik’s funeral. We drove to Brockville where Grace fixed my socks. I acquired art from the Astronaut Love Triangle and GC built a scary fire. We tried to save the Hartman’s Piano, signed up for a creative writing course, got into Indian cooking, participated in Everybody’s Art Show, and mourned the death of J.D. Salinger.

Feburary

I took an eight-day career orientation course. We saw The Good Lovelies at a Bobcat house concert, started volunteering at Christie Lake Kids, and Duncan lost weight – five pounds by the end of the year. The strollers-on-the-bus controversy flared up again, the City rolled out the Green Bins, I started decluttering, and we filmed the spontaneous victory parade when Canada won hockey gold.

March

I found Duncan in Rachael’s novel, and we saw Blood.Klaat at GCTC. We attended a transgender workshop at Venus Envy. I was in a bit of a funk, and spent a lot of time watching webcams of owls raising owlets and hummingbirds raising hummingbirdlets.

April

I started taking anti-depressants, my friend Junkyard Gary Watson died, I visited my Dad and Merle, and Merle fixed my socks. Duncan and GC had an adventure, Tiger cheated, and Carmen fixed my socks.

May

Duncan caught a mouse, I took a two-week course for ‘mature’ unemployed workers, bought a rabbit lamp at the Great Glebe Garage Sale, and we watched the marathon.

June

I fell in love with a chair, we built and planted our square foot garden, I bought a bike, and we attended the Naked Bike Ride. We experienced an earthquake, took in the Roller Derby and sort of went to the Jazz Festival. We installed a webcam so people on the internet could watch the lovebirds have sex, lay eggs, and hatch. The G8/G20 debacle took place.

July

We went to the Mariposa Folk Festival and camped. I read my Nanowrimo novel, Inside-Out Pork Bellies. The eggs hatched and Lester killed the littlest baby live on webcam while we were at the Janie H Knits knitting sale. Stephen Harper killed the long-form Census and we went to a benefit for Kim, who got injured in a barroom brawl at Irene’s.

August

I brought the baby lovebirds to my house and hand-raised them. The whole month was devoted to baby birds. The only other things we did was celebrate GC’s birthday, visit the museum and fix the front steps, by order of the City.

September

I re-doubled my job-search efforts. We went to the Centretown Artists’ Tour, the West End Artists’ Tour, the Lumiere Festival and Montreal. We saw a play at GCTC, attended a creativity bee and took a tour of CBC.

October

We walked for Run for the Cure, got iPhones and went app-crazy. We attended a bird show and went apple-picking. Mayor Larry and I finally agreed on something, which was that he was a lousy mayor. I had the best birthday ever. I apologized for the rats, got hooked on the Hipstamatic, and Mayor Larry was soundly thumped in the polls.

November

We went to the Vintage Clothing Sale, got Kazoo, and attended TimeRaisers. The Ottawa Police finally got caught. I wrote a novel, started cooking for my birds, Billie and Lester laid five more eggs, we met Little Victor, and GC and I were both felled by Parainfluenza (I thought my doctor said PARROTinfluenza).

December

Billie and Lester’s five new eggs hatched. We considered adopting an African Grey parrot. We celebrated Christmas with a big fat turkey but we told all the birds it was a fish.