Watcha doin’ ?
Making tea?
I’ll just wait here while it steeps a bit.
Mmmmm, yummy.
(This morning he actually got in the shower with me; unfortunately, like most people, I take my camera into the bath but not into the shower.)
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Watch my life unravel...
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Just a few random tidbits today: 1. I’m looking forward to learning the details of the latest Mayor Larry scandal. From what I can gather, it has something to do with his ex-wife allegedly raising funds for his legal defence. The mayor has taken a pre-emptive strike by calling a press conference to react to the story that will appear in tomorrow’s Ottawa Citizen. He says it’s not true. [Update: Here it is.] 2. The City of Gatineau has abandoned its responsibility to plow its sidewalks. They’ve simply declared that there’s too much snow and they give up. Meanwhile, they’re piling snow from the roads onto the unplowed sidewalks. Apparently a number of cities in Quebec have similarly decided to give up on sidewalks this year: Montreal, Quebec City, Trois-Rivieres, Longueuil. Instead, they are urging pedestrians to just walk on the streets, and the police will “watch for drivers who pass too close to pedestrians.” If I were a pedestrian in any of these cities, I would be screaming bloody murder over this. 3. In other news, some woman spent two years sitting on her boyfriend’s toilet. TAGS: Ever since the Yarn Harlot sent the “Knitting Mafia” over here, I’ve been feeling a bit guilty for not blogging often enough about knitting. But in order to blog about knitting more, I kind of have to knit more. So I’ve been knitting up a storm lately to assauge my guilt over not blogging about knitting. And now I’m going to blog about knitting, and afterwards I will feel guilty for boring those of you who have no interest in knitting. Okay?
I’m just having difficulty figuring out how to sew in the set-in sleeves. My knitting guru, Penelope, who is doubling as my adversary in collective bargaining this week, says to bring it in tomorrow and she’ll show me. It’s a bit weird, really. I’m on the union’s negotiating team and she’s representing Management, and during a break in today’s all-day bargaining session, everybody else went out for a smoke and Penelope and I pushed aside the collective agreement and drew pictures of sweater parts. We also oohed and ahhed over a delivery which arrived for me today. Yarn!!! Years ago, when Penelope was first teaching me how to knit, I saw a pattern that I loved and wanted to knit. It was a hoodie vest in Nashua Equinox Stripe yarn, knit in a basketweave pattern, and I loved it with every fibre of my soul. This was when I discovered that my local yarn stores could not meet all my knitting fantasies. They did not stock Nashua. I bought a substitute that did not live up to the fantasy yarn for which I yearned, and I never went beyond knitting the swatch (which, incidentally, is still thumbtacked to my bulletin board at work). Meanwhile, I found the yearned-for yarn online at Ram Wools in Winnipeg and I calculated how much it would cost me to knit the vest. It was $15 a ball, and a size small vest calls for six balls of yarn, plus delivery – the vest would be a little over $100 total. I thought that was insane (remember, I was new to knitting – I knew nothing!).
Today, during a strategic moment in collective bargaining, the yarn was delivered. And Penelope and I, who had only moments before been gasping in disbelief at the audacity of one another’s proposals, gathered around the box from Ram Wools, and ripped it open and oohed and ahhed and stroked the yarn and for a brief period, we both understood what truly matters in life: our mutual love of yarn. Tonight I cast on that hooded vest, and knit the first few inches. I hate my only 9mm needles because they’re clackety-clack metal needles, but I love everything else. Tomorrow we’re starting a knit-along at our Wednesday lunchtime knitting circle, and we’re all making Saartje baby booties which are adorable. The pattern is available free here.
There! I hope this post satisifes the knitting mafia without alienating the rest of you. Because, you know, I love you all. TAGS: Today was one of those days. If it were something other than a day, it would have been a dentist drill. But I am not at liberty to talk about the more irritating parts of this day in any kind of detail, so I will talk instead about some good things. Instead of talking about the perilously unplowed sidewalks during the first couple of miles of my walk to work, and the monumental effort of scaling sections of Parkdale Avenue on my hands and knees, I will talk about what a pleasure it was to finally reach Wellington Street, which was so beautifully plowed and an absolute pleasure to walk on. And Somerset Street too! Thank you, little sidewalk plow and little sidewalk plow driver.
TAGS: So. I see reverse psychology does not work on Old Man Winter as well as it does on cats. I figured if I pretended to like him, he would back off and play hard to get. Ha. Yesterday’s storm had something for everyone, including some thunder and lightning for those who like a little extra drama. I will say snowstorms are much more pleasant when you don’t have to go anywhere. If you’ve done some anticipatory meeting of your needs and laid in a good supply of food and movies and booze and yarn, you can burrow down into your own little world for some very pleasant me-time. I hope you enjoyed the storm as much as I did.
I fed Duncan and put on my Deep Snow Sorrel boots, then went out to shovel. It was gorgeous and deep! I had a little trouble getting my front door open – a few more inches and I might have been literally snowed in. I shovelled my snow and my neighbour’s snow. Even though there was massive amounts of it, this snow was mercifully light and fluffy. (By the way, do you think Rob Werstine has any idea how annoying Ottawa finds him?) Then I grabbed the camera and went for a stroll around my neighbourhood. If you haven’t done this yet today, I urge you to stop reading my blog and go for a stroll around your neighbourhood. Don’t forget your camera. I’ll wait right here for you. Here’s what my neighbourhood looked like at 8:00 (Daylight Savings Time) this morning: Some of the houses were looking pretty short: Yesterday’s news: Bus Shelter From the Storm: The Ethiopian Church didn’t just look pretty, it sounded pretty too because people were inside singing: I leave you with this. Lord knows I have no right to call myself the Fashion Police, but here’s What Not to Wear, ever, under any circumstances, even if you’re just cleaning the snow off your car: TAGS: While I was sick at home I watched a lot of daytime TV, including Steven and Chris who apparently used to be The Designer Guys but now have their own daytime show. They had Kim Woodburn – the “Queen of Clean” – as a guest, and she shared a number of household tips. Including this one: Unclogging Your Sink Today my sink was clogged, so I did that. It didn’t work, so I did it again. It didn’t work, so I did it again. It didn’t work, so I did it again. It seems that not only did it not work, it made things in the drain considerably worse because it filled the drain with goop. (Let me just say these are the instructions she gave on the show; they are not identical to the instructions on Steven and Chris’ website.) So, as the storm begain today, I bundled up and made the half hour trek over to Loblaws where I bought drain cleaner. Two bottles of one kind, and one bottle of another kind. (I got more grapefruits too.) Following the instructions on the bottle, I slowly poured half a bottle of no-name drain cleaner into the drain. It just sat there, unable to work its magic because of the 3 cups of goop in the drain. We take our sinks for granted, don’t we? How many times a day do we dump something down or rinse something off or fill something up or wash our hands or wash the dishes? ALL THE TIME. Every little thing we do is somehow connected to our kitchen sinks. After about five hours without a sink, my kitchen was a disaster. The dishes were piling up. There were no clean cat food dishes left. Clean cups had been pressed into service as “standing water receptacles” every time I scooped out all the water and poured more stuff down the drain. I kept poking a skewer down there and twisting it around, and all I could feel was the salt & baking soda goop. I tried plunging it. I tried pouring vinegar down. I tried pouring toxic chemicals in there and leaving it alone for awhile, but that was difficult because I had become obsessed. I updated my Facebook status to reflect my sink’s status. And then a friend called and asked me if I would like him to come over with his homeowner tools and fix my sink. Today. In the blizzard. He showed up with a professional plunger and a snake. He had even more tools in the car – wrenches and so on, in case the plumbing had to be dismantled. He worked at it for quite awhile with the plunger and the snake, and it wasn’t looking promising. Every now and then we poured a little more vinegar down the drain and it fizzed because of the outrageous quantities of baking soda and salt I had stuffed down the drain. And then suddenly, miraculously, something went “pop” and the standing water shot down the drain and the problem was solved. Both problems were solved, actually: the problems caused by the Clean of Queen’s problematic solution to the original problem, and the original problem itself. Then we had a cup of coffee and he ventured back out into the blizzard and I settled down to enjoy the fruits of his labour. I washed all my dishes. It was so satisfying. I’ve always said that the way to make someone happy is to take away something they have and then give it back. Getting my sink back made me much happier than I was before it stopped working. Update on falling down the stairs Several people were inquiring as to my well-being today after my tumble down the stairs yesterday. Well, I took Megan’s advice and had an epsom salts bath last night before bed. (I don’t understand epsom salts, do you? How are they supposed to work? Do they get absorbed through your skin?) This morning I woke up and took stock of my aches and pains before venturing out of bed (much to Duncan’s chagrin, I might add.) I felt not too bad. The only thing that’s a bit odd is that the parts that hurt the worst during the tumble (back, hand, butt) didn’t really hurt today. But other parts, that didn’t seem to be affected by the fall at the time, hurt today (neck, shoulders, arms). Anyway I’m fine. Thanks Megan!
I was heading down the stairs with my cat and my coffee cup, in my nice warm toasty thick slippery socks, and on the second step my foot just kept going and I flew up and then down and landed on the stairs on my ass and my spine, and then proceeded to slide and thump, feet-first, down the entire flight of stairs like this: “OW OW FUCK OW FUCK OW FUCK FUCK FUCK OW FUCK OW OW.” I didn’t stop till I ran out of stairs. I lay there dazed for a few seconds, and then peered back up the stairs to see Duncan at the very top staring down at me like I’d gone mad. He thought I’d done it on purpose!
I put on some more coffee and some no-slip slippers and made a mental note to do something about those stairs before I get old.
I say we’ve come this far, let’s go for the gold! BRING IT ON!! TAGS:
Someone emailed this to me today. I don’t know who to credit for the snow sculpture or the photograph, but they probably live in Ottawa. I should have stayed home today. I had to take the bus both ways because the sidewalks hadn’t been plowed and the 28 centimeters of snow-mixed-with-ice-bullets was too deep and heavy to walk through. I spent three hours either on buses or waiting for them today. I was talking to a woman on the #14 this morning who told me that she spent two hours last night trying to break the ice that had glued her garage door shut. Her snowblower was in the garage. On the way home, the #14 got stuck at Carling and Fisher and the driver’s attempts to free it resulted in something burning and stinky smoke billowing in the back door. It was a very crowded bus. I started thinking about what would happen if the bus caught on fire. Bus passengers have to be pushy at the best of times to get on and off crowded buses. It’s survival of the fittest. I’m pretty sure a burning bus would not bring out the best in us.
Dinner was one of the meals you suggested (chicken breasts flattened and dredged in flour and cooked in wine and lemon juice and capers, served with a rice and black bean side dish and steamed brocolli and dinner rolls – yummy).
Anybody got any good hat recipes? TAGS: I’ve been home sick for the past two days and that has meant lots of knitting and TV-watching and grapefruit-eating. I had to go out today and buy more grapefruits because I had depleted the stock. The grocery store is about half an hour away by foot, and about halfway there I started wondering why I had ventured out of my nice warm comfy house where I felt not too bad as long as I wasn’t doing anything. Here I was, slowly trudging through snow and ice on a busy, noisy street, feeling the strength drain from my body with every step, feeling the blood pounding through the arteries in my head, for a whole hour, and for what? A grapefruit. By the time I got to Loblaws I realized I needed to get more than a grapefruit, just to make the journey worthwhile, so I got chicken breasts, capers, Hagen-Dazs ice cream, cauliflour and a crusty roll, and then I put the ice cream back in the freezer because it was the only thing that didn’t start with the letter C. Except for the grapefruit of course. But grapefruit is citrus, and citrus starts with a C and has lots of Vitamin C in it. As you can see, I was feverish and suffering from a touch of fever-induced obsessive-compulsive disorder.
For me, this stretch of sidewalk is a nuisance and a potential hazard. For the person who abandoned their shopping cart, this stretch of sidwalk just wasn’t worth the hassle. But it crossed my mind that anybody who lives in the neighbourhood and uses a wheelchair probably can’t go to the grocery store anymore. Anyway, there’s another storm blasting into Ottawa tonight. I heard 20 more centimeters of snow, plus ice pellets and freezing rain and strong winds. And then another storm is expected on Saturday. The City apparently ran out of road salt, but has since found a more expensive source. I had trouble finding salt too. The stores were out of it. A friend gave me a bag from his personal stash. My letter carrier has been leaving notes in my mailbox saying my pathway needs to be de-iced. I agree it’s treacherous and I want to de-ice it, but I’ve totally lost the battle with winter. I forgot to clear it one night after snow or freezing rain or something, and I didn’t get away with it – my steps are covered in thick, uneven, chunky ice. I’ve been throwing salt on it, but it’s too little too late. I think the only thing that can fix it now is Spring. Tags: Little things are pissing me off today and I don’t know why I’m wasting cycles on them. They’re not worth getting pissed off about, and if they WERE worth it, I’d be pissed off all the time because there’s nothing unusual about any of it – it’s just normal everyday stuff.
The flyer has a photo of a “criminal” in an undershirt sprawled on a couch drinking beer. It says “Why should convicted thieves, arsonists and vandals serve their sentences watching TV, playing video games and surfing “websites” on the internet?” It pisses me off on so many levels, including why the hell is “websites” in quotation marks and isn’t ‘websites on the internet’ redundant? There’s a little tear-off bit for me to answer a question so oversimplified as to render it meaningless: “I think thieves and vandals should serve their sentences in jail.” My choices are Agree and Disagree – there’s no space provided for comments. I hope Mayor Larry drags John Baird down with him. Grrrr. 2. Oprah’s The Big Give. I haven’t figured out why I hate it so much, but oh my god it’s making me seethe. I didn’t watch it all but of the parts I saw, this was the worst: Why would anybody think that a mad dash through a toy store grabbing everything in sight would help small children deal with their father’s recent murder?? 3. The fast food commercial with the kids and the parents reversing roles and the parents have a meltdown because the kid won’t take them to Burger King. And the parents start crying and saying “You promised, you totally lied!” and finally the kid says in a dispassionate yet contemptuous tone, “All right, get in the car.” I HATE this commercial. I think it illuminates everything that is wrong with crappy families and tries to make it seem funny when it’s just plain pathetic. I feel much better now. Thank you. TAGS: |
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I stood up and checked out the damage. Several vertebrae were bruised, my butt hurt, two nails were broken and one finger was bleeding. I was oddly pleased with myself for not having let go of my favourite cup throughout the entire accident: it escaped unscathed. I got it at a garage sale a few years ago and I like it a lot.
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