The Seated View

Before the fun starts, I'm doing like the Harlot and linking to help a friend. Ken is doing a very long bike ride for very good reason . Please pop by and consider helping him out. A nd now for something completely different... Not unsurprisingly, I liked this test (strange habits? Moii??) You Are Teal Green You are a one of a kind, original person. There's no one even close to being like you. Expressive and creative, you have a knack for making the impossible possible. While you are a bit offbeat, you don't scare people away with your quirks. Your warm personality nicely counteracts and strange habits you may have. What Color Green Are You? Supermarket music these days is a complete crapshoot - one moment, it's good, the next it's awful. The other day, I became trapped between the butter and cheese, listening to some woman attempt to ethereally wail U2’s In the Name of Love. It went right past milquetoast, blasted through irrit...

Remember the TV show Ally McBeal? Years ago, my sister and I would get together once a week for our female bonding evening. During the week, I would tape various "chick shows" and we'd settle in front of the TV with something yummy to eat - although we paid lip service to a proper dinner, it was really the yummy desserts and other forms of not-so-healthy foods (usually involving chocolate) that formed the primary meal. We'd watch Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place , Dawson 's Creek - shows that no member of the male species would be caught dead watching and due to their soapiness, were really best watched in company with another woman. We'd get all caught up in what ever deep emotional crisis going on within a show, thoroughly enjoy the trashy evening and it was a fantastic way of building our relationship. We've found other ways to achieve the same thing now, but I'm hoping that someday, when the kids have left home, we can go back to the ...

A few posts ago, I mentioned how it was the phone that started it all and in more than one way. It turns out I had no idea how many ways. Turns our that the phone started what appeared to be some sort of domino effect of calamities worthy of an irritable and hungover Mercury Retrograde. First, the telephone crapped out. Once I'd gotten a new phone, my voice crapped out. When I got my voice back, I cracked a tooth. There was a deadline and a nasty case of writer’s block and then my computer developed an incompatibility between Word and Dragon (what? Is this the universe’s subtle way of telling me I should give up writing?). I'll spare you the rest of the details of last week, suffice to say that it went downhill from there and included a number of events that by Thursday had me convinced that if I did not supervise every single thing that could possibly, remotely impact me, the world would end. Thursday was also the day that I officially lost my composure ...

Today is my darling sister's 35th birthday. Here we are in 1973, before Janne had a name (it only took 11 months for my parents to agree on one). Janne's the one with no hair. (photo by Jens Bloch) And here I am with her daughter Morgan (alas, Liam's too solid for this). The emotional whiplash of having held her and now holding her child is enough to make me go back to bed. When did my little sister got old enough to have children?? (photo by Janne/TinkMama) Happy birthday, Chickie!

I just came back from my doctor’s office. Well, not right this very minute, as this post was started yesterday by the time you read this, but before I befuddle myself utterly, I’ll move on, without getting lost in some sort of time travelling experiment. The clinic used to be a peaceful place to sit and wait – you could read a book or a magazine or disappear into a meditative misery if you were feeling crappy. Sure, there was a television there, but it was used mostly to entertain children and the sound was always low or off. Now the bleedin’ thing’s always on and fairly loud at that, and did I mention how it’s competing with the music entertaining the staff at the reception desk a mere 2-3 metres away, plus the new number system for the lab that dings! as each number is called? And the funny thing is that the patients, the people in the waiting area, rarely watch the TV, instead sitting with glazed eyes and a slightly stunned expression. I imagine they’re trying to escape t...

I was thinking of my father the other day when I couldn't speak and was trying to get someone's attention. Just around the time I was born, he had something going on with his vocal cords (nodules?), had an operation and was never able to yell after that. When he was in another area of the house from us or in the garden and needed something, he would whistle. The dogs never came running, because they knew theirs was a different whistle, but every now and again, I did feel a bit canine. My father was fond of saying that Canadians were lunatics, especially during the period of transition between winter and spring. Sometime in March, when the temperatures are barely above freezing, you'll see some guy walking around in shorts. Far would shake his head and so would we, because we were still wearing sweaters, as were most sensible people. But there was always one of them, the really hardy sort, who would be walking down the street in shorts during weather where you co...

It was the phone that started it all and in more than one way. In the middle of last week, my phone crapped out. The jack for the headset plug started emitting screeching feedback noises that threatened to burst the eardrums of whoever I was talking to, so I switched to speakerphone (can't hold the thing to my ear) while waiting for the snow to clear enough that I could get out there and buy a new phone. As I was on my way home last Friday, new phone in my backpack, it occurred to me to notice that I’d been pretty busy for a few days. I’d done rather a lot of photo editing, rattled along in a van to visit my mother, had paid for it, sure, but yet, judging the hike down to Staples the day after as an acceptable risk was new within the context of the past few arm-injured months. And that’s when I realized that my arm was better. And that my mind had become more clear, that I could think. That I had ideas I was itching to write down. I t’s funny how it can sneak up on you, h...

As may have become apparent (from all the whining?), Southern Ontario has been having the winter from hell and yes, this again, because as I may have mentioned, there’s nothing else to do or think about! Anyway, a lot of other areas have also been hit hard (or harder), but as I live in southern Ontario, I'm going to limit my discussion to that geographical zone (I have decided not to take any more pictures of snow - I mean, how many do you need? - but if you feel the need for illustrative photos, go here ). I t is so hellish that it is hard to remember last year's drought, how all this snow is going to mean good things for Ontario's produce the summer and that come June and July, I'm going to be ecstatically munching strawberries, raspberries, tomatoes, etc., etc. I mean, there's going to be flooding north of Toronto because Lake Simcoe is full . Full! On Friday afternoon, I was keeping an eye on yet another storm approaching, one that all the weather reporter...

My life these days goes something like this: *Day 1: significant snowfall, day spent inside. Day 2: roads and sidewalks eating cleared, snow piled up by curb cuts, unable to leave house. Day 3: run around stocking up on groceries and in general preparing for Day 4: significant snowfall, day spent inside. R epeat from* Today is a day 3, which means that posting is going to be quick and easy. I really liked the Make My Day meme and it was so hard to choose just 10 blogs that I have decided to every now and again do a post with links that make my day. Enjoy! Yarn Tails . I've been reading Diane's blog for several years and enjoy the look into a life much different from mine. For one, there are horses and that's always enjoyable. There's also knitting, cats and a very adorable dog. And best of all, Diane and I have met in real life, too - every time she and her mother pop over from across the lake, we meet up and Diane's mom is a delightful as human being a...

I know. Neither do I.

After I'd finished Duma Key , I went hunting for reviews to see what other people thought of it and made my way over to the New York Times. There, I found a review by James Campbell - no! Don't click on that link! Not yet, finish reading this post first. Trust me – there’s a very good reason that I’m trying to stop you from clicking on the link and it’ll become apparent in a moment. To say that Mr. Campbell doesn't like the book is the understatement of the century. I think it's fair to say that he loathes it with a burning fervour. Or rather, he appears to be holding a grudge and have a taking this opportunity to express his feelings in a newspaper (much better than therapy!). The review starts quoting King's speech made in 2003, when he was awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. In it, he expressed how he wished that this could be the start of building bridges “between the so-called popular...