Knitnut.net. Watch my life unravel...
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Posted by Zoom! on January 31, 2007, at 7:27 am |
When I was fifteen, my foster mother, who was a photographer for the Ottawa Citizen, introduced me one day to everybody at the Canadian Press offices as “Suzy Scrotum.” It wasn’t really that far off…just switch a couple of letters and replace one more, and you’ve got Scrotum. Nevertheless, being fifteen and shy, I was mortified. Too mortified to speak, too mortified to correct her, even though it happened about twenty times in a row.
“Joe,” she’d say brightly, “I’d like you to meet my foster daughter, Suzy Scrotum.”
And Joe’s eyes would jump, startled, to meet my mortified eyes, and then he’d compose himself and say something polite like “Nice to meet you Suzy.”
Then we’d move to the next person. “Julie,” she’d say, “I’d like you to meet my foster daughter, Suzy Scrotum.”
Over and over and over again.
It wasn’t until we got outside that I told her my name wasn’t Scrotum.
“Oh, I’m sorry Suzy,” she said, “Well, at least Scrotum doesn’t mean anything!”
I stared at her. And then that cell fired and she suddenly comprehended, and she apologized profusely.
Years later, my workplace migrated from WordPerfect to Microsoft Word. The very first letter I wrote in Word, I got that paper clip guy saying “It looks like you’re writing a letter.” Right. I turned him off. I finished writing my letter and signed it and saved it. But then the spell-checker leapt into action. It scanned my letter and balked at my name. “Are you sure you don’t mean Scrotum?” it suggested helpfully.
Even though I had a better sense of humour than I had at 15, and was not so easily mortified, I turned the spell-checker off forever. But of course I knew that anybody else who ever typed my name in Word would get that same question: “Are you sure you don’t mean Scrotum?”
Recently I checked to see if Word still does that, and I’m pleased to report it does not. It suggests a few alternative words, but none of them mean anything. Thank you Microsoft.
Posted by Zoom! on January 29, 2007, at 9:55 pm |
Here’s a do-it-yourself project for absolute beginners. Like me. (I hope the rest of you don’t think I’m a moron for taking so long to figure out something this simple.)
I’ve had this pottery plate for years. It was a gift and I love it. I never use it. It has been sitting on a succession of kitchen counters for years, and because counter space has always been limited, it was always in the way. Not only that, sitting on counters didn’t do it justice from a display point of view. Many times I wished I could hang it on the wall, but it had no hanging mechanism. And I didn’t perceive myself as the kind of person who could do stuff, so I never really thought about HOW to do it.
Then I bought the house and I’ve slowly starting becoming that kind of person. The kind of person who looks at things that aren’t quite right and tries to figure out how to make them better.
So one day I was moving the plate off the counter in order to wipe under it, and as usual I thought “Wouldn’t this be nice, hanging on the wall?” And then I took a second look at it, and really started to consider the possibility of hanging it on the wall.
In my basement, I’ve being accruing a nice little collection of useful little things. There’s a pegboard down there, and I hang the useful little things on it. Little tools and hardware and screws and hooks and things. I went down there and looked. I found a package of assorted hardware that I got for a buck from the Dollar-It store that replaced Big Bud’s. I bought it because I needed one little thing in the package. I found a little flat triangular hook in that package. Then I found a tube of silicon sealer that I bought at Michaels for this cool photo magnet marble project from A Peek Inside the Fishbowl. (Andrea said this project was easy, and it was, but sadly my results were not as charming as hers).
 Anyway. I used the silicon sealer to attach the triangular hook to the back of the plate, sat a bottle of wine on it overnight (in lieu of a clamp), and in the morning I had a good solid hanging mechanism on my plate. I hammered a nail into the wall and hung up the plate!
The moral of the story: Think of yourself as the kind of person who can do stuff and you just might find yourself becoming that kind of person. Especially if you have a nice little collection of useful little things.
Posted by Zoom! on January 28, 2007, at 10:08 am |
Some of you might remember a few months ago when I received a surprise cheque from the government of Ontario for a portion of the child support my ex has owed me for many years. They’d seized the money from his bank account.
Well, about six weeks ago, I got a call from that same government department (The Office for Family Responsibility), asking me to send them a photo of my ex. They said they wanted to serve him with a summons, and a picture would be useful in making sure they served the right person. I thought about it and decided not to do it. It’s one thing to be sitting there minding my own business and a cheque for $8000 comes waltzing through the door, but I wouldn’t feel right helping them hunt him down. Besides, his mom had just died and I felt bad for him.
Today I saw something on Yahoo Canada News: apparently Ontario wants to create a deadbeat parents website for the purpose of shaming deadbeats into paying their child support arrears. It would include names, photographs and information about Ontario’s deadbeat parents. I wonder if that’s the real reason they wanted a photograph of my ex.
Here’s an example of what they have in mind: Wanted for Failure to Pay (Illinois). Tacky. It’s not that I think deadbeat parents shouldn’t pay up (they should), but the concept of snitch sites seem more American than Canadian to me.
What do you think?
Posted by Zoom! on January 27, 2007, at 6:35 pm |
 My housekeeping routine now includes cleaning blood off the walls and floors. It’s from the tumour on Sam’s neck. It’s not Truman Capotesque quantities of blood, just enough to splatter on the walls when he shakes. There are trails of blood droplets on the floors too. I clean it up regularly, but the next day there’s more. I look at the tumour…it’s an open wound. Not gushing blood, but oozing. It freaks me out to look at it, but I look at it compulsively. I think the tumour is growing…or maybe it’s just more open and gaping than it used to be.
The vet opened it up last month, shaved the fur, removed the scab, prescribed antibiotics. That made it smell better but look much worse. Now it doesn’t smell so good either. I’ve been putting hydrogen peroxide on it to try to keep it clean. It’s not going to go away: the vet says he’ll have it for the rest of his life.
He poops on the floor daily now. Sometimes twice a day. In the beginning, he used to look embarassed when he did that. Now…he just casually does it anywhere; it’s like he’s forgotten he’s supposed to go outside. Sometimes he just poops on his way up the stairs and doesn’t even seem to notice.
I’m taking him back to the vet on Monday so she can monitor his anemia and look at his bloody tumour and prescribe more anti-anxiety drugs. The drugs don’t seem that effective anymore. He has had some good nights since she increased his dosage, but he has a lot of bad nights too. Sometimes I sleep through the bad nights, but I can always tell in the morning if he’s had a bad night by how much fur there is in the tub and on the stairs. When he’s anxious he climbs in and out of the bathtub repetitively and up and down the stairs over and over again. It has only been 3.5 weeks since the dosage was increased, and she did tell me that I wouldn’t see the full effects for 4-6 weeks, so maybe there’s still some improvement ahead of us.
I sometimes wonder if I’m making him stay alive, and why. We drag ourselves from milestone to milestone: first his 14th birthday, then his 100th birthday in dog years, then the first snowfall, then his 14th-and-a-half birthday. I don’t know why. Sometimes I wish he would just go to sleep and never wake up.
But then we go outside for a walk, and he’s a puppy again, happily exploring his world with a bounce in his step, a twinkle in his eye and a wagging tail. I think that’s why I keep him alive – because sometimes he seems genuinely happy. Or maybe it’s because all this physical and mental deterioration is gradual…it’s always just a little bit worse than what he and I have already gotten used to. There’s never any dramatic change that clearly tips the scales between letting him live and letting him die. Or maybe it’s because I’m selfish: I’d rather suffer slowly with him than take that sudden plunge into grief all alone.
Posted by Zoom! on January 26, 2007, at 9:55 pm |
 Earlier this week my son called to say he needed a passport and he couldn’t find his birth certificate. He had last seen it in a coke can, and he had left it there because he knew he would remember where it was. Unfortunately, he couldn’t find the coke can.
“You know what?” I said, “I was looking for MY birth certificate a couple of weeks ago, and I couldn’t find it – but I found one of yours!”
He was happy. He was even happier when I told him I’d also found his SIN card while looking for my birth certificate. (I had finally given up looking for my birth certificate, and applied for a new one. I was born in Quebec, which was a big mistake since they didn’t issue birth certificates way back then and you had to jump through hoops involving baptismal certificates which had to be obtained from churches that had changed names or burned to the ground years ago, and then you could use the baptismal certificate to obtain a birth certificate. Then, when you finally obtained the almost-unobtainable birth certificate, they changed the entire system and declared all those birth certificates invalid, forcing everybody who was ever born in Quebec to get a new and improved birth certificate. I did all that and then lost it!)
Back to the story. James wanted to pick it up his birth certificate that evening so he could go stand in line at the passport office before it even opened the next morning. Apparently getting a passport is like buying highly-coveted rock concert tickets now. But I had plans right after work to help a friend install one of those floating floors, so I told him I’d get the birth certificate and drop it off to him immediately after work.
“But,” I said in that unavoidably motherly way, “You really should buy one of those accordian-type file folders and keep all your important papers in it.”
“I know,” he said, “I will.” (He won’t.)
“Or,” I said, “You should give it back to me so I can keep it in a safe place for you and you’ll always know where it is.”
“I know,” he said, “I will.” (He won’t.)
I got home from work that night, dashed to the filing cabinet, and searched the two folders labelled “miscellaneous.” No birth certificate. I searched the five folders labelled “James” but they were mostly full of childhood artwork and stories he wrote and letters from principals and report cards saying he was disorganized. Hmmm.
Then I ransacked every box in the basement. I couldn’t find it. I phoned him and told him I couldn’t find it and I was out of time, but I’d look again the next evening.
The next evening I found it in a box in my bedroom. Eureka. And then I found his SIN card in the funny-face plant pot. He was happy.
“Make sure you give it back to me when you’re done,” I said.
“I will,” he promised, “And I’ll keep looking for my copy.”
“You won’t,” I said.
The very next morning I was tearing around my house getting ready for Paddy Mitchell’s funeral. I had left too many things to the last minute: ripping a CD, testing a new digital voice recorder, making room on my camera, finding a bag to carry all my stuff in, finding out what bus to take, getting dressed, updating Paddy’s blog, etc. So I was doing it all simultaneously. I was multi-tasking. At one point I was dumping stuff out of a briefcase so I could put other stuff in it, and guess what I found? MY birth certificate! Woohoo. Then I decided I didn’t want to carry a briefcase so I transferred all my stuff into my knapsack. Then I realized I had put down the digital voice recorder and couldn’t find it. It’s about the size of a Bic lighter and I searched everywhere for it. I finally found it in the briefcase that I wasn’t taking after all. I even found my T-4 slip in my knapsack – I hadn’t seen it since the day I got it at the end of December.
Maybe I should thank St. Anthony, the Patron Saint of Lost and Stolen Things. He’s also the Patron Saint of sailors, travellers and fisherman. (Coincidentally, the venue for Paddy’s reception ended up being changed at the last minute to St. Anthony’s instead of the Prescott Hotel, because the Prescott wasn’t big enough. As we know, Paddy had his share of involvement with lost and stolen things, and he was also a traveller and a fisherman. It’s probably just a coincidence. But it did give me a moment’s pause…)
Posted by Zoom! on January 25, 2007, at 7:25 pm |
Last year my friend Jane took advantage of the January White Sales and bought all new bedding. She raved about her new bedding. I was envious. All I had was a mattress protector, some thin sheets, some worn pillows, and an ancient threadbare duvet. Over the years, all the feathers in the duvet had migrated to one corner.
Being a pragmatic person, I did not rush out and buy all new bedding…I waited almost a full year for the January White Sales to roll around again. (That’s on TOP of the 12 years since I last bought any bedding!)
 Last week I went to three different bedding stores: Homesense, Linen & Things and the one whose name I can’t remember. I felt all the pillows and squished all the duvets, and inspected baffles and compared thread counts and so on. And then I splurged, even though the White Sales didn’t seem all that impressive. This is the mountain of new bedding, sitting on my dining room floor.
I bought a down duvet, a flannel sheet set, new pillows and a feather bed! Then I re-built my bed from the bottom up, with layers and layers of bedding. First the feather bed, then the mattress pad, then the bottom sheet, then the top sheet, then the duvet in its duvet cover. Then I crammed the new queen-size pillows into the standard-size pillowcases, and I was done. The bed was much taller than it had been.
 I didn’t allow myself the luxury of climbing into the new bed right away, because anticipation is a big part of any good experience. I admired the bed, turned down the covers, and enjoyed several hours of anticipation. I folded the old duvet and put it on the floor at the foot of the bed for my arthritic, rickety dog.
When I finally climbed into bed…it was delicious. So comfortable, so cozy, so decadent, so warm. I slept well all night, and in the morning I felt a little extra resentment towards the alarm clock. The next night I went to bed at 9:20 instead of my usual 11:30, just because the bed was calling to me. (I find as I get older, I think of sleep as some kind of accomplishment. I used to think it was a waste of perfectly good living time, but now I feel oddly proud of myself when I sleep for eight hours.)
Anyway, the bed is wonderful. It makes me happy. I deserve such luxury, and so do you. If you hurry, you can catch the tail end of the January White Sales.
(As an added bonus, Sam seems to like my hand-me-down bedding. I love this picture of him all curled up in a blissful ball.)
Posted by Zoom! on January 23, 2007, at 12:09 pm |
I was looking at my blog stats the other day because of a spike in the number of visitors here, and, not surprisingly, a lot of them got here by googling Paddy Mitchell. I also seem to be popular among googlers who are trying to decide what colour to paint their room, or those who want to knit an Inca hat. However, I couldn’t help but notice a few surprises in the keyword list:
knitting behind bars
irene’s pub brooklyn
giant genitalia
self steam addicted people
blow nose ears
can dogs spread hepatitis c
goat knit men socks
humanely kill a pet hamster
blow nose water in ears
dreadlocks ottawa
i killed my bird
ottawa crack house
stopwatch gang
just nut bread
blowing your nose
collapse and thrust car photo
bbs charming girls
brown cozy room
litle girl starting modeling
brown color palates and painting
how often should you replace the brillo in a crack pipe
crack mothers addiction sex photos
collapse civilization
ear squeak blow nose
clapotis mistake
designer rooms in blue and brown
tricycle truck
hidden room
how to know the date and time of your death
squeak in ear blowing nose
zoom swiffer pattern mistake
furnace is blowing out cold air
heather blows cold air
thigmomorphogenesis
budgie rescue
i killed my bird
feminism rape cut off his balls
i am a hoarder
secret hidden
chateau mannequin 2005
bob purcell
winning complaint letter
frostbitten ear photo
why does my ear squeak when i blow my nose?
nepean sportsplex perfume sale 2007
breast simulator
stumper funeral
moving furniture through narrow doorway
frank plummer bike courier
pictogram of man with walking stick
fuck
i wanted to pee
tantric master seduction style
what should turquoise and brown themed rooms be painted?
stimulate dog pee
glass stem crack lip balm kit
dog pants and paces
chick balls stormy night
post-mortem daguerreotypes
smelly scab
health after getting cut by a rusty knife
torque knitted hats patterns
free knitting pattern winter torque
knitting pizza
ottawonk pierre
tantric seduction
pulsating clitoris video
It kind of makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Like who googles “I wanted to pee”? Why not just go ahead and pee?
What colour should turquoise and brown rooms be painted? There’s a stumper.
Speaking of stumpers, I’ve never heard of Stumper and I didn’t attend his funeral.
I’m sorry I wasn’t able to provide an actual VIDEO of a pulsating clitoris. Geez.
There are steam addicts? Talk about a cheap date.
Fuck? Surely there are other sites that say fuck more than I do.
Knitted torque patterns? I don’t know exactly what torque is, but I don’t think you can knit one.
Who knew there were so many people concerned about their ears squeaking when they blow their nose? I thought I was the only one.
Moving furniture through a narrow doorway? That one cracks me up, because that’s something I’d do: get the furniture wedged in the doorway and then go google it.
Posted by zoom! on January 22, 2007, at 7:20 pm |
Most bloggers I know are a little puzzled about why we do it. Non-bloggers seem even more puzzled about why we do it.
Darren Barefoot of Vancouver is giving a talk on the subject in February and is asking for input from bloggers. He’s got a 16-question survey: Why Do You Blog?. The survey is quick (5-10 minutes) and thought-provoking.
So. Why DO we blog anyway?
Posted by Zoom! on January 20, 2007, at 7:22 pm |
When Sam was younger, he’d do what every self-respecting dog does: he’d ask to go out, I’d put his leash on, we’d go to the dog park, he’d search for the perfect spot, sniff it carefully, circle it three times, and then squat and dump. Then he’d jump up and go play with his friends while I discreetly scooped it into a plastic bag and threw it in the garbage can.
Now? Now he just goes wherever and whenever the urge strikes. More and more frequently, it’s not in the park, or even outside. The other morning he just stopped in the middle of the street, right in front of a car at a stop sign, and assumed the position. A tiny turd plopped out immediately. I took my plastic bag out of my pocket and quickly scooped up the turd. Still in squat position, Sam waddled a few steps and stopped. He strained over the second turd. While the seconds ticked by, I glanced sheepishly at the driver of the stopped car. A second, more substantial, turd was eventually liberated, and again I quickly scooped it up. Sam shuffled slowly forward, and then positioned himself for the third turd. This turd put up a struggle of epic proportions: it wasn’t going down without a fight. I stood there helplessly and shrugged apologetically at the waiting driver. He glanced at his watch. I’m sure a full minute had passed since he arrived at the stop sign. I tugged on the leash. “C’mon Sam,” I implored, “This is embarassing. Let’s save that one for the park.”
But of course my words fell on deaf ears, because Sam is, after all, deaf. He held his position. He splayed his legs a little further apart for a wider squat. I couldn’t bring myself to look at the driver again. I just stared at Sam and felt acutely aware of the relativity of time. Sam finally wrestled the third turd to the ground. It was about the size of a mothball. He turned around and studied it with a confused expression.
I briefly considered photographing the third turd for the blog, but I didn’t want to humiliate myself further in front of the waiting driver. I grabbed the microscopic turd with my bag, flashed a triumphant smile at the driver, and Sam and I finished crossing the street. I kind of wish I had photographed it. Maybe the driver was a blogger. He could have blogged about being being late for work because of a constipated dog and his photographer.
Posted by Zoom! on January 17, 2007, at 10:26 pm |
There have been a lot of people passing through here on their way to Paddy Mitchell’s blog, so I’m posting some information about the memorial service here too.
The service will be held on Thursday January 25th at the Pinecrest Memorial Gardens, beginning at 11:00 A.M (the actual service will start around noon).
Following the service there will be a reception at the Prescott Hotel on Preston Street from 2:00 to 5:00, which will include an open mike for sharing stories about Paddy, music, pizza and a cash bar.
I expect this will be Quite the Event.
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