December stuff

I guess I'm a hippy.  *giggle*  Not that many of you haven't guessed.

I prefer to gad about the world barefoot, or at least my own little chunk of the world, more generally referred to as "the house."  Yet, this predilection goes beyond my front door in my choice of shoe wear.  Since I don' t have a formal job, I have no need of formal shoes and generally, those black dress shoes I brought from Calgary stay well back in the dusty corners of my closet.  I have crocs and casual runners for outdoors, neither of which actually need a pair of socks.  Maybe it's the socks I protest against.

Which is a preamble to where I find myself today.  Six years of not having to ever put on a decent pair of shoes  has resulted in  plantar fasciitus. Really?  Cold reality has crept into my world of awesome, bringing some pretty debilitating days.  Without whining and snivelling, which I'm sure my husband has heard a great deal, I'm in rehabilitative therapy at the moment.

Part of which includes foot massage.  I've always enjoyed reflexology .. in Calgary, I'd indulge myself on the way home with stop-ins to a spa that always seemed to have a massage therapist ready to give me half an hour of heaven.  So there is an upside to this as well!

Anyway, I've had some pretty bleak days as I try to imagine a world without pain, where the simple act of dropping your feet on the floor in the morning doesn't come with a reminder that your feet are attached to your body.  Most of us don't think about it.  I'm working on getting back there.  Okay, so maybe a teensy bit of  whining.

So that's why I've not been blogging.  Need to get a happy on before I sit at the keys.

Even the Burberry puts on a Christmas show in December

December this year has actually been good to us.  Carefully saved coins (loonies and toonies, right down to the pennies)! over the last three years went into a Christmas gift that Bruce and I chose on the 27th during the Boxing Day craziness at Future Shop.   So our new flat screen will be delivered on the 7th of January, hooked up and ready to roll by the time the delivery folks leave.

I spoke with my Dad this month .. I've been a particularly bad daughter about not calling him often enough, which happens come summer when he's busy working.  He's up with the sun in the morning and I ... am a nocturnal person generally.  And then I get out of the habit and .. excuses, excuses.  So yea, we talked.  It appears that he has a new lady in his life and he's happy and accepted into her family as well.  That makes me very happy too.

I've spoken with all my brothers this month, over Christmas day calls and emails or birthday greets back and forth with Larry.  We called and sang a Christmas carol for Kelly who was on the road between the north pole and Leslieville.

Gotta love a display like this in December!

We laughed a lot on our annual birthday call with Melvin.  Man, we miss him and Sandy.  They are such great friends.  I'm looking forward to the New Year's call.

We helped Cécile and Richard move into their new place.  Gone is the house beside the ocean where we lounged about on sunny afternoons.  The new one still has an ocean view, but is within walking distance of our house and is not full of the drafts and catch-basins of the old place.  It has a natural lawn that won't need much attention and a bit of a nautical theme with the roped deck and mooring pole flower bed.  We're already calling their tiny garden shed "the boat house."   Cécile's driftwood collection will be right at home there.

Why yes, that house across the street IS pink and grey.

And finally, I've reacquainted myself with an old friend from Dofus ... my character Oralind.  We've been keeping company in the late evenings.

So I bring this blog to its 2011 close and wish you a great New Year's festivity however you like to do it ... polar bear swims here are somewhat of a 'thing,' but I think I'll pass on leaving various bits of skin stuck to the ice.  *grin*

Of Dogs and Designs

My dog ate my December website design.

Okay, I don't have a dog.  Nor, at this point, a December website design.  But it's coming, honest!

Warning:  Gamer geekery coming.  Your eyes can light up or glaze over now, depending on your proclivity or aversion for all things Warcrafty.

I've had some wonderful company the past few days.  And a new update to World of Warcraft. These things relate to each other like a finely honed knife and a rogue hidden in the shadows.  <-- see what I did there?  Ha ha!

I've had the pleasure of knowing Eric since I was a green-behind-the-ears hunter and Gruul's Lair was uncharted territory for my guild.  His unfailing good humour was one of the highlight of joint raids with The Oasis Contingent.  (The Oasis Contingent has a history closely tied to the long-running webcomic Sluggy Freelance and I'll introduce you to the Sluggy gang at some point, probably soonish.) Of course, I didn't know him as Eric.  In game, we usually call each other by character name .. which makes for interesting times when people have multiple characters.  It's funny, but you learn to fluidly shift from one name to the next without event thinking about it.  Or, sometimes, like my pal Nick, you just call him Nick, no matter the 'toon he is currently playing.

So I've known Eric over five years now and we've become fast friends, occasionally levelling characters together and just generally making each other's day a bit more fun.  We know how to laugh and mock each other out of bad moods; always a pretty good characteristic of friendship.

I've known Frazer for the last couple of years since he and Eric are good friends.  Frazer has a tendency of disappearing from the scene occasionally, but one day he'll wander back in and pick up like he never left.  He's a delight on my guild forums, where he is known as The Grand  Vizier and Eric as the Comically Inept Henchman.  They run rampantly through my posts like a child with brightly colored crayons and bewitchingly white walls.  Except, like Calvin and Hobbes, they tend to find a way to create a crayon bazooka which they use both rampantly and randomly.

The video below is a find of Frazer's, but it could have easily been Eric who is fascinated by all Lego Mechanical creations - among other things.

So anyway, they were both out in Vancouver for the Grey Cup game and to ogle cheerleaders by the squadful, if the stories I heard are true.  Eric travelled from Quebec to the West Coast and Frazer from Edmonton for the game, so it was inconceivable that they not take a short ferry ride over to Nanaimo to come see me.

I've been preparing for the visit and ignoring the siren lure of my computer.  It wasn't easy, especially since a long anticipated game patch arrived while they were here.  We were all good kids though, and stayed away from Warcraft until after the visit.

I had a great time and feasted them suitably, even going to far as to make that most manly of all breakfasts ... a bacon log.  Frazer got a picture of it I'll have to share with you as soon as he sends it.

Eric helped me out with some computer stuff and I'll have some new goodies to show you soon.  Which brings full circle to the monthly website redesign.  And how I need to do that, like now ...

Wintry presents

It was my birthday a couple of days ago, and for the life of me, I can't think of anything profound to say about the last year or the coming year.  I'll leave resolutions to January, but I do think I'd like to be more physically active than the last year has been.  My svelte physique has gone walkabout and .. I need to catch up to it again.  'Nuff said.

I woke up to our first snowfall of the year and it had mostly disappeared later in the day.  I took some pictures of the backyard and the view from our living room to share with you.  I loved the interplay of sunlight and snow which is a staple of Alberta, but not BC so much.

Isn't this grand? I love the sky behind the trees

A few days ago, I showed you a picture of our Japanese Maple.
Still beautiful, but not quite the same fiery glow.

I have no idea why I like this picture so much, but it makes me smile and feel warm fuzzies inside.

If you look down there in the middle of this picture, you can see a hideaway for small
woodland creatures.  This is what I imagine the denizens of Laughing Brook saw when they
climbed out of their nests, dens, old logs or briar patch on a wintry morn and looked toward
their neighbors for signs of activity.

Ha .. I do get carried away sometimes. 

My husband got carried away and, for my birthday, indulged my spoken-aloud wish earlier this year for a camera with more features.  The one I have is really adequate for a lot of things, but it totally misses the mark on others.  I'm super excited about the camera, which should arrive in store any day now.  The only one they had on hand was the store demo model and no telling how much battery life is left.  The battery on the new camera is something I'm grinning about, since the one taking the pictures above will go through a set of batteries inside of a few hours.  I usually have a pair of AAs stashed about my person somewhere. *grin*  And no, I'm not talking about my boobs.

I have to give the sales rep credit.  He really tried to hit a home run when he saw he had an almost guaranteed sale lined up.  First, it was the Canon Rebel with not just one, but two extra lenses.  I have to admit, I got excited about it for a few minutes.  Then I took a breath and the world shifted back into focus.  (Ha ha .. at the camera store.  I amuse me.) 

Annnnyway, then he suggested I should get one of the new iPhones.  One extreme to the other .. the gent was grasping at the wind .. just couldn't figure out what I wanted, even though I was telling him.  So we nudged him over in the direction of stuff that looked affordable and not too complicated for what I need my camera to do.  He picked up a Canon, but I took one look at the baby below and I was hooked.  I am suuuuch a sucker for a pretty package.  In this case, however, I think I have exactly what I need for my 'next step.'  Looking forward to showing you how the view through the lens looks.

Steven Brust

I was thumbing through an index of author's blogs the other day when Steven Brust's name popped out at me.  I immediately clicked that link and bookmarked that baby because he's the author of the Vlad Taltos series, one of my favorites.  As a matter of fact, I pretty much love everything this guy has done, but Vlad holds a special place in my heart.  He and his jhereg Loiosh.

I'm a bit dragon infatuated, truth be told.  My martial arts background really helped develop that because of the dragon's relationship to disciplines, none of which I actually practiced for more than, oooh ... a month ...  and it was called Green Dragon, if I recall.  White tiger, green dragon?  Something like that.  Anyway, I have a rather nice collection of dragons in my possession, most of whom have homes in my bookshelves when I do actually have bookshelves.

A place of pride on those shelves is my collection of Steven Brust.  Imagine a world where the Chinese 12-year cycle rules your lives, your personalities, your friends, your livelihood and vocation.  Dogs and Tigers and Horses would get along famously, but we'd have little patience for Dragons and their haughty ways or the rest of their triumvirate of friends.  We'd do business with others, but shy away from the Roosters and  their tight-fisted dealings with money.  We might worry about Rats sneaking into our homes at night or operating gambling dens or we might seek them out to hire them for a bit of dirty work.

Enter Brust's playground, the world of Dragaera and the home of Vlad Taltos, of the House of  Jhereg.  Here's a bit of alonger description from one of the fansites; 


"There are two major species: Easterners and Dragaerans. Dragaerans are an elf-like species who live thousands of years. Easterners are a more real-world human population with a life-span of approximately 100 years and have more human-like characteristics ... like facial hair. Both species call themselves "humans;" however, Dragaerans consider Easterners something less than human.

There are 17 Houses in the Dragaeran Empire each named after a species of animal in Dragaera. Each House has its own uniform/color-scheme and its own distinct personality. The House of the Jhereg is the only one that admits Easterners. It is the House of criminal enterprises, much like the mafia.

In Dragaera, there exists witchcraft (primarily utilized by Easterners), sorcery (which relies on the presence of the Orb), and then the illegal and volatile Elder Sorcery. The main character in this series, Vlad Taltos, plays with them all."

Vlad lives on the shady side of the street and has a real Jhereg as a pet, his familiar, Loiosh, who is as reverent a sidekick as, say, my brother George would be, which is to say "not at all."  An assassin by trade, he trusts completely in his knife and blade, and a bit less so in the magical arts he employs. 

The series .. there are more than a few, probably more than "a lot," are all stand-alone adventures.  It matters not which order you read them in because Brust hasn't written them in chronological order.

Words, Words, Words, The Dreamcafé.
Steven Brust's blog

Now .. if this hasn't yet convinced you, I'm going to take you to visit the site of a free downloadable book .. a fanfiction, if you will.  I think I may have purred when I discovered this.  Because Steven  Brust has made a jump to hyperspace .. to a ship that many of my family and friends already know.

I think I’m so civilized cause I’m living my life saying hello and good-bye

But all around me people make me so mad I could be spitting in their eye

So I’m no better than the bad criminals who hit, cheat, and burglarize

‘Cos compared to all of those neat super-heroes I am a mean-guy.

I always say please and thank you and you’re welcome, ‘cos I am very polite

But overdraft fees and automatic phone help makes me ready to fight

I don’t wanted to listen to idiots blab

I don’t want drink until I’m in rehab

I just want go into my secret lab and make like a mean guy.

I’m a mean guy I’m a mean mean guy

Oh, I’m a mean guy.

I’m a Green Goblin guy I’m a Venom guy, oh I’m a mean guy.

Cos compared to Spidey so strong and so brave

Compared to Batman in his bat cave

Compared to a boy who knows how to behave

I am a mean guy.

In man’s evolution he has created boundaries between every nation

Which is nothing but asking for guys like to me to go for world domination

Cos I’m happier than I might seem

When I’m with my hand-picked team

Making an invisible destructor beam

Cause I am a mean guy.

I’m a mean guy I’m a mean mean guy

Oh, I’m a mean guy.

I’m a Marvel guy I’m a D.C., oh I’m a mean guy.

I watch the world through my periscope

Hatching schemes that will work I hope

Maybe next week I’ll kidnap the Pope.

I am a mean guy.

Come on and join me, by my mean guy pal.

We’ll share the world, you can have Lonsdale.

I’m a mean guy I’m a mean mean guy

Oh, I’m a mean guy.

I’m a Green Goblin guy I’m a Venom guy, oh I’m a mean guy.

I’ll be your Joker you’ll be Harley Quinn

I’ll make you rich and you’ll make me win

If our plans our foiled we’ll just try again

I am a mean guy.

I’m a mean guy I’m a mean mean guy

Oh, I’m a mean guy.

I’m a Doc Oc guy I’m a Burglar guy, oh I’m a mean guy.

I want to own everything I see.

I’m Ayn Rand’s child by Bill Nietzsche

Until the superheroes catch up with me.

I’ll be a mean guy.

He always smiled when Serenity first kissed atmo.

That was the moment that separated pilots; a sloppy entry cost fuel, a perfect entry saved fuel, and the difference could be the difference between a healthy profit and a disastrous loss. When you kissed atmo, it was all touch; suddenly the number of variables increased by an order of magnitude: the shape of the ship, the tilt of her nose, the attitude adjusters, speed, direction, the density and exact composition of the upper atmosphere—all of it.

Mal never noticed, of course; none of them noticed. They'd only notice if he did it badly; then he would, no doubt, get all sorts of looks and remarks. And it would cut into his profits as it would the rest of the crew's.

But none of that was why he made his entries as close to perfect as humanly possible: he did it because it was what he loved doing. The challenges to a pilot in the black were rare, and usually involved some form of terror. But the first touch of atmo on a new planet, setting up the slide, the deceleration, balancing skin heat with fuel cost, inert-damp with gravity—feeling part of the boat in a way even Kaylee, bless her heart, could never know—those were the moments of living. That was the best.

He was aware of the first hint of rudder to port, and nose up, and then the thrust control was under his right hand; and after that for a while he could no longer follow the details, because he was no longer using controls—it wasn't cause and effect, it was just one long effect as distinctions blurred. Pilot to control, control to boat, boat to atmo, atmo to gravity, gravity to pilot: they were all the same thing as Serenity sang the song only Wash could hear. After an interminable twenty seconds that was over so quickly it may never have existed, the decisions were made, the hard part past, and everything was, alas, easy again. It was morning on this part of Hera.

From the co-pilot's chair, Mal said, "How's the entry?"

"It's an entry. They're all the same."

My Own Kind of Freedom
A Firefly Novel by Steven Brust

Yes, yes, click the picture for the link

And because I know we're all in a sort of blissed out Kumbaya state right now ... let's all hold hands and sing the theme together ... c'mon, it's okay, we'll geek out together.

Take my love, take my land,

                  Take me where I cannot stand,

I don't care, I'm still free,

                  You can't take the sky from me.

Take me out to the black.  

          Tell em I ain't comin' back. 

       Burn the land and boil the sea.  

              You can't take the sky from me.

Have no place I can be            

Since I found Serenity.  

But you can't take the sky from me.

Things I Discovered Yesterday

I've been stumbling about the interwebs the last few days, looking at graphic novels, novelists and other what-not that captures my fancy. You might argue that I've not gone much done as a result, but I'd counter with .. I got a lot of stumbling done.  Here, in no particular order is some of that stuff.

Neil Gaiman, whose work I'm only now coming to appreciate, is a long time dectractor of Todd McFarlane, whom I happen to like from a "home town boy makes good" angle.  Now, this is ooooooold news to those of you who know who those two are.  Apparently, it stems from a time when they collaborated on something.  In the case of these two, the argument or lawsuit is not important, but the participants are on my radar for separate reasons.

Click this masthead to take you to Neil Gaiman's site

Neil Gaiman's Coraline was up for best animated picture last year.  His graphic novels of Sandman helped redefine and coalesce interest in the flagging genre.  He's a real believer in the future of online and audio books.

Click jersey for link

Todd McFarlane was born and came of age in Calgary, although he did spend some years Stateside.  You may have seen his work and not realized it was his ... Superman, Spiderman and his flagship title, The Spawn, created after he broke away from Marvel Comics and formed Image Comics.

You might also recognize this jersey, from the decade that Todd spent as partial owner of the Edmonton Oilers.

To move on to another graphic novelist, which is what I did, Frank Miller is the author of "300," a film you'll remember for the line 'THIS IS SPARTA!!" if nothing else.


If you're having a bad day and you're a somewhat well known figure, maybe you should just shut up ... instead of getting online and unclenching your balled fists long enough to stab your anger through your fingers into the keys and thus, onto the screen.  At least, I'm attributing this vitriolic rant by Frank Miller to be the result of  a bad day; a bad day which has gone viral, at least within literary circles.  Please don't think I'm against Mr. Millar having an opinion, but the name calling is poor judgement and not even creatively done.  I'm not sure which is the bigger crime, being angry and online (which is akin to drunk dialing in my opinion) or being angry, an author of some repute, online and communicating badly.

I confess that the "Occupy X" movement is a bit beyond my scope, not being a person who drives or walks by them daily or even someone who watches a ton of news.  But I get that they are trying to make change in a bumbling, pacifistic sort of way.  I recall that people of Mr. Miller's generation did the same thing with their college and university sit-ins .. and places other than campuses. There was draft-card burning in the States that went hand in hand as I recall ... it was a the beginning of the tide that eventually changed a nation.  And it started with people merely sitting.  Whether or not Occupy X is the beginning of a groundswell or fizzles out as an idea that never really went anywhere, only time will tell.

Now, author David Brin .. and you should recognize that illustrious name as writer of The Uplift  War, has taken exception to Mr. Miller's blog commentary.  So he responds.  And zomg ... he demonstrates the epitome of outrage so eloquently that you become interested in the subject if only for the education you receive.

 So there you have it.  Yesterday, I learned about wars of the internet kind .. and the Grecian kind.

I was standing upstairs, peering into cupboard and fridge, taking inventory counts and making lists in preparation for a pre-weekend trip to the grocery store.  I refuse to shop on the weekend anymore.  I remember that hell and how grouchy it made me ... so impatient with the blue-haired ladies who want to block an aisle with their carts while they catch up on the latest in their respective families.  I'm pretty sure all those working people out there appreciate me not being another clog in the aisle as they hurry about the insane amount of ordinary everyday stuff they need to cram into two whole days off.

I chanced to look distractedly out the window and thought to myself, "now that looks like an Alberta sky."  And since that was something that had never before crossed my mind .. that skies in different areas could have completely different temperaments and familial characteristics ... I walked over to the window to actively note the differences.

What I saw was a massive bulbous black sky, bright white clouds like ghosts fleeing in fright before the inky contortions behind them, their mouths extended in screams of horror, robes shredded by the winds as they ran.  The winds picked up and hurled bright sunshine and my neighbor's oak leaves across my balcony in vortexes of frightened Autumn.  My own forest pansy bent before the wind and gave up its crown of glory in seconds.  On the lower deck, the large pot of bamboo paid obeisance to Mother Nature.

And then ... then it did something I've never seen in six years of living here.  It hailed. Oh, not golf ball sized car bodywork hail, just pellets slashing down, bouncing from the patio.  It was exciting.

Now, half an hour later, the power flickers occasionally, but doesn't look like it will fail.  The skies are returning to their normal grey upon grey upon grey.  Or is that gray on gray on gray?  Never quite sure of that word.

Anyway, here are my pics.   Enjoy ... while I hit the grocery store.

Focus is a bit shaky here.  I was shivering.  LOL .. I really have become a British Columbian.

Taken through my office window .. you can see the screen pattern.

Forest Pansy .. this morning

Forest Pansy now.

Through it all, the Japanese maple stood and glowed!

The power of words

Yesterday, I was witness to an exchange of words in another online forum that brought back to me how much power there are in our simple little building blocks for communication.  In listening to the forum participants chat live later, it was readily apparent the respect they had for each other, which wasn't really coming through in the typed messages I read.

When I take care to write, which I try to do here most times, I tend to think of words in terms of impact in their sentences.  I choose the words that I would normally use in the course of conversation and then go back over stuff and re-read, editing words here and there.  I often choose words in terms of juxtaposition or force within the sentence and paragraph, to give the reader a visual to help them stay with me in wherever I'm driving, or to evoke an emotion.

The thing is, when I read the stuff I write, I read it with the intended inflection, the gentle tease, the twinkle in my eye.  Because of the exchange I witnessed yesterday, it occurred to me that this doesn't always come through in straight text form.

In light of that, I want to apologize to my Aunt Sandy for something I said about her fledgling computer skills. I know she's not hopeless, she's merely at the beginning process of discovering "how things go" and that you can poke that button and the world won't fall apart.  She makes me smile a lot as she discovers how to do things.  I see her progress when she forwards a mail or sends me a video link and I silently cheer for her.

I'm sorry for my poor word choice in my last post, Sandy.  I guess I let the flavour of the words get the better of me, which is a common enough failing for me.  And one I'm undoubtedly doomed to repeat more often than I should.  Not that I won't or don't already strive to be aware, just that I occasionally slip.  And not for malicious reasons.

A friend and I were chatting today and he asked what I was doing, so I told him about this post.  He thought for a moment, then came back with ... "Hmm ... brownies are always good way to say I'm sorry."

Still friends?

Hearts!

One of my friends acquired a watch last week that was encrusted in rhinestone hearts and was going a bit over the top about it.  She had been wanting this item for a while and recently came into a bit of cash, so she made the purchase.

Now, hearts are not a shape that I associate with myself.  I don't wear anything with a heart on it and unless I was looking for a Halloween costume, I certainly wouldn't go out of my way to shop for something that had cutesy hearts.  That's my problem with them .. cutesy.  It's like seeing an achorwoman wearing a fluffy sweater for official portraits .. simply contradicts the message of 'serious journalism' that they are trying to portray.  Lest you think that a bit sexist, I'd very likely make the same comment of an achorman in a fuzzy sweater.  And then add a couple of more comments just for good measure.  At any rate, it just doesn't fit my personality.  The hearts, not the extra commentary, because that's totally me.

My friend's enthusiasm for hearts got me wondering that if I were to be gifted with such an item, would I wear it?  So I did a bit of internet searching and came up with sixteen versions of a heart pendant I would wear and not feel too weird about doing so.

Would you look at that?  Three of these are pink!  I have to admit that these are striking pieces.  All in silver of course, since I don't wear gold.

And now, a word to my husband who will eventually wander to our site and then wonder if I'm trying to give him a birthday hint.   Nope, this was simply an exercise in 'what if.'  I'm not looking at adding to my jewellery collection just now.

My theme for November is an homage to my Aunt Sandy who gives me lots of little feedback and encouragement on my posts via email.  I don't think she's even seen the site since she is pretty much taking baby steps when it comes to computer jargon and abilities.  I automatically send my posts to both my aunts on my mother's side, trusting that they will pass along to my uncles anything they find interesting.  And since their emails contain the pictures I post,  they have all they need anyway.

When I was a youngster, I had the good fortune of being a part of my aunt and uncle's wedding party.  I still remember those white mary janes that were part of the outfit and the smell of shoe polish the day before the wedding.  I'm sure they weren't my first pair of new shoes, but they are the first I remember.  It was a BIG DEAL for my mom, I recall, and therefore, it became special for me.  My mother was  practically beside herself fussing over me and my aunt and anyone else who stood too close that weekend.

My mother was probably happiest when she had a reason to fuss, and she was deliriously happy for my aunt.  She was close to her sister, so when the newlyweds starting house decoration, mom was only too happy to keep tabs on colors.  It's a funny sort of thing to be remembered for, but my mother was one of those who file away people's favorite colors in the back of her head, at the ready in the event that a craft might be needed to fill up a space.

At any rate, my aunt painted her new bathroom a color that, at my tender age, I'd never heard before .. mauve.  My mother was over the moon about the color and I recall at one point in her life, one of her bathrooms also became a shade of purple.  I'm pretty sure my aunt received one of those bar soaps with sequins set into netting around it to make it look like a purple fish.  My mom did those kinds of things.  I think she kept a stash of pipe cleaners for every occasion.

But I've totally digressed, which I guess is my privilege as owner of this blog.

I'm trying to teach myself a bit about working with vector shapes, so I wrestled some of them down in somewhat of a grade school fashion and they are part of the bling of my November efforts.  Hope you enjoy and .. please ... if you find yourself experiencing something akin to a sugar rush when looking at my site, remember that sometimes, girls get to just be girls - complete with hearts and bling.

The less frilly sort of site will be back next month.  Maybe.  It will be December, after all.

Hedges

Oh man, the smell in the air this morning was incredible.  Layer woodsmoke and windfall apples, add in a touch of leaf mulch, the tang of the ocean just a couple of blocks away and top it off with the crispness of a Fall morning.  My nose was all a-tingle as I took in Harpooner Place today.

Across the street, an older gentleman pottered around in his garage ... he obviously cared a great deal about his yard.  He made sure to give me the eyeball, as I was an intruder in his area, so I felt like I had to surreptitiously get this photo.  I loved the hedge and I laughed, thinking about Bruce and how he hated the hedges of his teens.  Betcha, if a realtor had lined up this house to show us a few years ago, he wouldn't even have got out of the car.

Oh man, imagine the work necessary to keep this trimmed properly

Not a half hour later, I chanced upon another well-manicured hedge that caught my eye. 

Admit it.  You also thought "Hobbits!!"

Across from all that summer greenery was evidence of Autum.

Days like this make me wish I had a dog to go walk with .. or a pony to ride.  Or maybe a Shetland pony to take for a walk.

Shangri-La

Today's post found me off wandering into Lantzville, which is a small town on the northern edge of Nanaimo that gradually found itself surrounded by city on its landward side.  If our realtor had shown us places in Lantzville when we moved to the coast six years ago, I'm pretty sure we'd be living there today instead of the city proper.  Maybe we'd be living on Shangri-La Road.

And what's does Shangri-la look like?  Trees of spun gold, certainly. 

But mostly, it's a comfortable, quiet street where everyone knows each other and your pets, which is necessary when they wander off to snooze under the old vehicle parked in your yard, or in the cedar hedge.

This last has actually happened to us.  While they lived next door, our neighbors had a wonderful fluffy grey and white cat that adored our garden.  He liked people and would come up to the window to talk to us or Murray and Mr.  Tippy.  Strangely, the pair of our cats weren't all that territorial when it came to Fluffy.

During the summer, our neighbors moved and Fluffy disappeared from our lives.  We've recently found him back here though, sleeping in the sunshine below our cedar hedge, perhaps dreaming of the squadron of birds who land on our lawn to peck at the seeds and bugs. 

Bruce ran into our old neighbors the other day to find that they are now living only a few blocks away.  Turns out Fluffy is a bit of a traveller, having covered large distances to get back here.  Apparently, he likes the neighborhood.

An old shed at the corner of Shangri-La and Lantzville.

Across the road, the view is more rural than urban

Autumn in Nanaimo doesn't happen in gradual stages, at least in my experience.  The oak tree next door is a really good example.  Where the leaves are not glossy emerald, they've gone brilliant orange and carmine. 

All of these will end up just off our front step in the spot where
they eddy lazily and can't achieve escape velocity.

In Alberta, the leaves turn from green to a beautiful yellow outlined in green or gold with green freckles.  Sometimes, you'll find variations on the gold theme, but not color like we find here. On a sunny Autumn morning, you can drive around a corner and smack into color that takes your breath away.

Turner Road & Uplands Drive

Longwood Station Shopping Centre

The lights at Turner Road

Out here, it often seems like horticulturalists plant for Fall color rather than what will happen in the Spring or Summer.  I'm all for that. Fall is my favorite time of year.  :D

The grocery store parking lot

And that reminds me of something kinda funny.

If you're going to be doing jackassery on the road and slide around the corner into the shopping centre, maybe you should make sure that the police aren't behind you.  Maybe you should not pull over into the grocery store parking lot when the police lights start their dance in your rear view mirror.  And maybe you shouldn't park in front of the main doors of the grocery store where the lights and ticketing process get watched by every customer heading in and out of the store, and reported on at length by the cashiers working the tills.

I'm laying odds his mother heard about it before he got home.  *snicker*

A Sharp Kind of Day

You ever have one of those days when you can't find a sharp set of scissors anywhere? 

I have a love/hate relationship with scissors that stems, quite likely, from my love/hate relationship with my sewing machine, fabrics and my complete lack of ability to get fabrics to do what I want.  Which has nothing at all do with scissors, but when you're looking around for a scapegoat, a pair of dull scissors will do handily. 

All of my 'good' scissors somehow end up in the kitchen utility drawer until one day I pitch a hissy fit over not being able to find anything sharp enough to cut the end off one of those drink packets you put into a water bottle.  Now, if you're a good enough homemaker, you likely have an a pair stashed away in the sewing kit that you can access in an emergency such as this.  Which is how they end up in the utility drawer and ... cycle repeats.  Or your husband spots them on the counter before you get them put away and the next time you see your expensive fabric scissors, they're being used to cut those garden ties with the thin metal strip in the middle. 

All you women out there are nodding your head right now, saying "I feel your pain, sistah."

So today, I gathered up all my scissors with their brightly colored plastic handles .. blacks and aquas and oranges .. and put them into a bag to take to the knife store.  I was just hoping to get to the counter without looking like some scary homicidal whack job escapee from a bad B movie.  I think I managed, but it was touch and go for a minute or two when I looked down and discovered the ends of one pair poking through the bag.  I wrestled them down .. crisis averted.

So I wandered into the knife store and ... o.0 .. shiny.  

This is how things in my house get replaced .. you get frustrated with something, you put up with it for years and then one day you go nuts and come home with this ...

Five pairs of sharpened scissors, four brightly colored cutting mats, one knife tip replaced because someone broke it off five years ago trying to pry off a jar lid, two new paring knives, a utilty knife, a shiny fork to replace the one in the drawer with the rust marks and one big blue one because the colored knives were buy one, get one free.

Whew!  Can you feel the waves of contentment rolling from the West Coast?

A quick note

I just clicked on Tracy  Chapman's website when I changed the album cover below.  zomg!  Probably the best website design I've seen in a long time.

Tracy Chapman

Just sayin' ...

(By the way, if you click on any book or album cover in the bottom part of my website, it will take you to the author/artist's site.

Hey, just trying to help

I was just outside helping Bruce put up deer fence by offering suggestions and telling him how he should do things.  Hey, we've all got a job to do .. and mine is obviously supervision.   He chased me away, and I can't swear he didn't have some sort of tool he brandished in my direction in a vaguely threatening manner.

In my defense, this is his horoscope today:

I'm a map provider!

So I wandered off and inspected the garden.   There's evidence of fall all around, so I grabbed my camera for you ...

I still don't know what these are called, but they are really working hard on their display techniques.
This is the view from the neighbour's side of the fence.

This is the burberry with its variegated leafery and bright red berries.

Remember that stand of Pampas from our visit to the Crow and Gate?
I think ours has a long way to go.

And finally, Mr. Tippy enjoying his favorite sunbeam spot in the house .. Bruce's chair.

Hey Kristen

It's impossible to wax enthusiastically enough about that dense, moist, chocolate cake that Bruce brought home last night.  He told me it was your chocolatized recipe for carrot cake!

And since words are pretty much failing me, I'll just say this ....

Must. Have. Recipe.

Please?

A kindred spirit

Those of you who know me also know that I have weight issues.  When you see me infrequently, you can be greeted by almost any sort of body type .. thin, heavy or any of the stages in between.  I'm a regular Oprah in that manner, but without the expensive wardrobe.  Or the personal chef.  Damn, I need me a good personal chef.

I'm going to blame the genes that my mother passed to me along with the ones for curly hair and facial structure. (I'm not sure who gave me the short arms, but I'd really like to have a word with them about that.) Mom, however, had the luxury of being 5' 10" so her weight probably sat a bit more well distributed on the larger frame.  Be that as it may, I'm currently in a 'heavy' phase and am plagued by all the insecurities that go along with it.  I also know that I could easily turn this into a litany, but that's tedious and if you've been around any dieter or pre-dieter, you've heard them before, ad nauseam.

I tell you this only as a way of introducing you to an author new to me.  On the footer of this page, you'll see that I'm reading Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente.  The book was recommended to me by my fake French Montreal friend Eric and since we have a great deal in common, I thought I'd give the book a whirl.

I admit it's tough sledding for me.  The first few chapters have left me more than a bit confused with their shifting perspectives, yet I'm determined to get through because I trust Eric.  I'm starting to see the unifying thread that will drop all of the various stories into focus.  I think.  Time and more chapters will tell, but at least the thread that runs through the book is starting to pull at me as well.

I was somewhere on the 'net the other day and ran into a link to her website, which I followed because I wanted to see more about this author that Eric had recommended.  I was surprised .. often, author's sites are run impersonally by their publication companies or have been designed by a firm that allows little to no interaction with the author.  When authors do post, they are often very closed and private or simply regurgitate the information you can find on the back flap of any of their books; all of which discourages getting to know them.

The site is well designed and if you follow my pages, you'll know that I'm attracted by the steampunk genre.  Her site design spoke to that bit of geekery in me.

Catherynne M. Valente ... Cat ... is eloquent and blogs about day-to-day things in an open manner that manages to convey who she is, as a person and at the same time, excites me to read more of her works.  She paints the everyday on her page in strokes of interesting phrases.  She posted her views on dieting that forever linked us through the BS of dealing with all the crap that goes along with weight issues and the hyperlink I'm sharing with you now.

I hope you enjoy her blog as much as I do.

Here's the link for A Frivolous Post About A Girl, Her Thesaurus and Her Diet
Here's the main site link:  Catherynne M. Valente  or you can simply click on her site header above.

Eric, I owe you one introduction to an author you'll love but have never read.  Since your library is larger than mine, I'm not sure how I'll accomplish that.  The fun will be in trying.  :D 

The Crow and Gate

I hope the road from "turkey stuffed with bread" to "you stuffed with turkey" has been a wonderful trip, full of family and friends, and almost as importantly, pumpkin pie, which is the inspiration for my site design this month.

It has been a time of family lately for Bruce and I lately, with our trip to Vancouver a couple of weeks ago, followed by a visit from nephew Brad and his clever wife Kristen.  They reside in Richmond, Virginia and are up here for a trip to see her parents, a well-timed visit that coincides with Kent and Ilana's brief return from Singapore. 

Brad is a Geek, with a capital G, and he loves it.  It's hard not to become enthusiastic about his subjects as we sit and chat about random things .. internet memes, underlying differences between Canada and the US, his work, their activities, and various bits of geekery.  Kristen is the fairy in the family, full of mischief and good humour, flitting from subject to subject, but hitting all the important topics ... like how much cocoa is the precisely right amount for a chocolate bar.  She is the rememeberer of the two of them, bearing little gifts that might mean nothing, but in actuality, mean everything.  Your hazelnuts will find a home in our backyard somewhere, Kristen :)

I thought we'd take a walk around the area in Cedar around The Crow and Gate, but we arrived in time for a huge growl from Bruce's stomach, so we settled into a ploughman's lunch and more importantly for me, a pint of Smithwick's ale.  Mmmm.

Over lunch, we talked about the activities the two of them had been up to and discovered that Brad has been biking and went out for ride recommended by a bike store owner.  As it turns out, the group leader was our friend Cécile who, until this summer, worked part-time for the store.  The ladies in the group made sure he got a good workout, a rather exhaustive effort for a man who, although fit and a regular cyclist, hasn't been on a mountain bike in a few years.  He admitted he had to pack it in early, but he was going to be off with them again on Saturday, so he has resilience going for him.  Bruce and I had brunch with Cécile and Richard on Sunday, so we heard about the ride from her as well.

The parking lot edges on a duck pond where the Mallard pairs happily
cozy up on the bank when they are not demonstrating their
rather impressive swimming skills.

Nothing says English cottage garden quite like a pergola
of rambling roses. This is the entry to the Crow and Gate pub.

We talked about Kristen's spinning for a bit and when asked if she sewed, she ducked her head, looked over at me with a grin and said, "Not really, but I recently did have my apron-itzvah."  For the menfolk who may be reading this, in school where you get to take some version of home economics electives, the apron is usually the first thing you sew, making it a rite of passage for fledgling designers. 

Autumn is only just beginning to be sketched in chalky hues
across the countryside

We discovered there wasn't really so much an area to walk as to meander and take pictures of the vignettes carefully crafted by the owners.  So we strolled the grounds and Kristen attempted to get Brad to actually smile for a picture, Bruce jumping right in to assist her with the project and I grabbed some blog photos. Brad declined to be featured in my blog and since my photos of them include Kristen, I'm sorry I can't share pictures.  I could remove Kristen from the background, but generally, photos of her make more sense as a context of the two of them.  You might think her mentally deranged in at least one of them where she's attempting to get Brad to smile.  I'll save that one for a 50th wedding anniversary retrospective for you, Kristen.

The dahlia beds provided some stunning color and contrast against the emerald lawns.

Blue on blue on blue on blue ...

We have a stand of this grass in our yard, but its not nearly so impressive
as this.  The pampas grass towered over me.

I love old pathways, maybe because they remind me of visits to Granny Gideon in Bently.

Confession:  I added a blue layer to give the skies some more
dimension.  I loved this shot of the weather vane.

 

The late afternoon sun provided a bit of drama in the reeds alongside the stream.

I'm not sure if these were waiting to become dessert at the pub or are being saved for Halloween
jack-o-lanterns.  Either way, they showed the bounty of the large pumpkin patch we spotted.

On the way home, we stopped at the waterfront and strolled down to the crab dock where Brad chatted with one of the fishers hauling up crab traps.  We'd been watching them try to capture the crabs scuttling sideways after being released, which was a bit comical and not without its element of danger to fingers.  Most of the crabs ended up being under the catch size and released back into the water.

Its rare to see the ocean this calm, so this shot of Cameron Island
and the harbourfront docks was begging to be preserved.