Remote Clutter

Saturday morning spent trying to figure out a new DVD recorder. This one chosen from the online reviews saying it's "easy" to use. Hmm. Using the Spouse Irritation Level barometer, I'd say I don't really concur with those reviews.

I also bought a universal remote, but he wasn't as thrilled as I thought he'd be. Guess that's a project for another week. If I can find it! I put it somewhere logical, or so I thought. The instructions on how to set it up are impossible anyway, so maybe it's a good thing it's AWOL.

Mall? What mall?

So a guy I work with says to me a propos of the town near my permanent home, is that place near the mall still there? I said, what mall? He said, the big mall on the corner of that intersection. I said, mall? There's no mall there. Well, turns out I was wrong and the proof is right here in this photo. Moving to a new town - well, the *last* thing I'd ever think about is, where is the nearest mall?

Who knew? In my old town, I went to the mall so rarely that one day I discovered a new shop there. I asked the clerk, wow, I didn't know that you guys were in this mall, how long have you been here? And she said, three years.

I loathe shopping. I loathe malls. I buy things online where I've no fear of stumbling across a mirror.

Wow !!

My life is filled with unbelievably exciting moments and this is one of them. This is the point at which the highway (the one I moan about weekly) goes from two lanes to three. Doesn't sound thrilling but then a half hour or so later it becomes four !! And then before I know it, it's 18 or so and I'm in the middle of Toronto and only an hour from my temporary abode(s).

My mom used to say: Small things please small minds. I don't think she was talking about me though, because this is a really, really, really big thing.

That Darn Cat

It was a toss-up today which photo to put in of the Agent of Terror cat - this one, where I discovered that she's been stealing my night-time water, which I carefully place near the sink and fill to the brim before bed (so that the chlorine and chemicals evaporate before they can pollute my pristine body); or the photo that depicts how she nearly clawed me to death (I'll save that one for another day - you can actually see the mark on my arm that she gouged during her vicious attack) (well, I exaggerate a bit, but if you look closely, you'll be able to see it) (I'll post it soon).

Anyway, I've been living here for 5 weeks, cat-sitting, house-sitting, and it turns out that she's obviously been pilfering my water. We've been lapping from the same glass. I've imbibed her saliva. And to be honest, I've not been that good about cleaning her litter box. This darn cat sure knows how to keep me in my place.

Sticks and Stones

I've been called a lot of things in my life - yeah, well, *those* aren't the ones I'm thinking of right now. I'm thinking how my husband calls me hedgehog, cauliflower, and other assorted flattering names - all to do with my hair in the morning. I have naturally curly hair but get more compliments when I straighten it than when I don't. So I do - sometimes. It's a long process and definitely doesn't fit in to my "get showered, dressed, ready for work, check my email, update this blog, search for my iPhone and keys, and out the door in 10 minutes" philosophy.

Spring in Winter

I love winter. Which means I'm living in the wrong province because we don't get a whole lot of it. We were in the middle of one of our fortnightly thaws when I saw this a few weeks ago - crocuses or something - popping out of the soil. Cute and all, but I'd prefer 2 feet of snow.

Oooooh I just realized, the previous owner Doug-of-the-Well, horticulturalist extraordinaire, may cringe that I don't know what variety of plant those green spots are going to grow up to be...

Doug's Well and Good

Some things about being new to rural life are plain embarrassing and one of them is pictured here.

This is our well. In fact, it's not just "a well": it's a Dug Well. The embarrassing part is that for the first year I assumed when people had need to talk about our Dug Well, that they actually were talking about our Doug Well - because the previous owner's name is Doug and I just assumed people called it that because he'd had it installed or something.

Tech Savvy (Not)

Got a new ('06) car. Then got a new radio. It has one channel programmed in to it. I'd program more, but I just cannot figure out how to do it and yes, I've read the manual (at red lights).

The installers set this channel up as a test (I'm guessing it was as a test - or maybe it was as a public service because they knew they were selling a radio that's impossible for people with only Masters degrees to figure out). This particular channel happens to be one that I like so I'm OK with the situation for now.

Flighty

I know people who know me will think that the title of this post, Flighty, indicates that it's about me ... but it's not. Where I live (permanently and not the temporary city abodes), there's a really cool bird population and a lot of birders come to watch them.

What I like to do, is to watch the birders. They behave sorta oddly. For example, the set of birders in this photo were driving down one of the two paved roads in the area and all of a sudden they stopped. All four car doors opened and they poured out. We were driving behind and ... had to stop. They seemed to be oblivious to the fact that they just stopped in the middle of a road with cars behind them. It's actually pretty funny.

Wails

Only a couple months in to this blog and by now you'll already have noticed a few recurring themes. Meaning that, there are a few things that I whine about over and over and over. One of them is the dreadful commute that I do each week. Hours and hours and hours and hours of exhausting tedium while driving a section of the ribbon that is the TransCanada Highway.

The problem (and it's not a small one) is, when I drive, I fall asleep. I put it down to my far-sightedness and the strain on my eyes. I dunno what it is but there are a few tricks I've learned to combat this. One is, stop for a sugar break. The other is to put The Carpenters on my iPod and sing along at full blast.

I often wonder if I'm the only one listening to The Carpenters on this whole stretch of road. And not only that, the only one who actually paid to download this album from iTunes.

Then I wonder if I'm the only person who wonders stuff like this, day in and day out.

Winter on a Boat

What a great way to live, surrounded by a moat.

Dead Cat Bounce

Before ya'll worry that this is a picture of the cat I've been harping about throughout this blog, relax. It's some poor critter that met its fate at the bottom of our yard sometime over the winter.

There was also a dead and frozen fish (that the dog ate before I could photograph).

We figure that one of the local bald eagles or hawks must've had something to do with the demise of this cat.

Sky High

This is taken as I drove across Hamilton Harbour one day - it's the Skyway Bridge at the very western edge of Lake Ontario. When I was a kid, there was only one bridge that handled both directions of traffic, but they built a sister bridge a few years back (well, it seems like a few years back but it was actually decades ago).

Another Ferry Crossing - Friday Night

The setting sun. Frozen water with a channel cut through it. Ferry packed to the rafters. End of another long week away. Home at last !

Peared

The Infamous Sanj, a buddy at work, is an artist and was working on his carving skills while we were whiling away the rest of a pre-holiday-weekend-but-still-at-work morning. He pared the pear 'til it disappeared (ouch).

Cat Self-Portrait

Where I go, my iPhone goes - and so does the cat that I'm house-sitting. She loves me and sleeps on top of me and causes me all sorts of issues - from dreams of spiders with large incredibly soft and fuzzy legs to no sleep at all to pinpricks in my skin from her kneading me all night (seriously makes me wonder about cat owners who've had breast implants) - not to mention the bleeding sinuses from allergies. I'm still not able to stop her from sleeping in the crook of my arm. I just don't have the heart to prevent her.

And I find that I now have begun to talk to her when we're alone.

Anyway, she managed to take this picture of herself.

Snooze

The other night after work, I had a snooze under a desk in an empty office - I was tired and far from home, with a competitive Bridge game to play that night in a still-further-away city. I managed to relax for an hour but the floor was cold and hard despite my having made an attempt to insulate myself with pilfered vests and jackets from the empty cubicles around me. And it's not as though I don't have built-in insulation of my own...

The funniest thing was that, when I told my sister, she said that she had once slept in her office's supply cupboard. I guess I'm the normal one in the family after all.

By the way, I'm pretty hopeless at Bridge but enjoy it immensely.

Car Wash

I live in a part of the country where the typical winter cycle is 2 weeks of cold and snow followed by 2 weeks of thaw. We've had a long bout of record-breaking snow and cold and now are in to the first real thaw. I waited 30 minutes for this car wash today.

Where There's Smoke...

This is the washroom in my office's new building. We've just moved facilities (uh, well, that too). This bathroom is half the size of our last one and serves about 1000 percent the number (last time I was 1 in 4 women; now I'm 1 in a zillion).

Thing about this washroom is that the women in this building seem to light matches when they are in there. It's difficult not to sit there and wonder who lit that last match and why and if they've taught their kids to do this and who taught them to do so - I picture communal washrooms and people clad in many layers of monochromatic, torn and old clothes in some far away and cold land, each with long-ago and carefully-knitted woolen caps with ear flaps - it's very distracting.

Thank God though, so far, all of the women I've encountered in there have been hand-washers.

Back Seat Driver

This dog is one happy camper. When spouse has brought him in to the City, we take him to the leash-free park. Funny thing is, my husband had to sit in the back seat because there was no way this dog was giving up the front seat view - it was as though he were thinking he'd get there sooner by sitting up front.

Dinner on the Go

Most Sundays you can find me on the road again - usually around dinner time - and usually, I'd not have food at any of my temporary, city abodes (of course I don't - see most of the January posts in this blog). So, this is a typical Sunday, solo dinner - one of the healthier ones (I'm kidding of course - I know it's not healthy). Today though, I'm commuting nowhere and stand a good chance of eating well because my spouse was in town and bought me some food (at a grocery store).

Glory Be

I enjoy taking pictures of signs that catch my eye. Nothing much to say about this particular one ... photo taken in Juneau, Alaska ... well, two things to say: first is a disclosure - I think I took this with a real camera and not my iPhone; second is, this is not what it appears, it's a soup kitchen. It was kinda sad, actually. The whole scene.

City Living

Sometimes when I drive back in to the City on a Sunday night, I stop for a solo dinner at a local pub. City life has many good points! Cold beer on tap is one of them.

Stockade

My neighbours down the road have a fence that looks like this...reminds me of what I think of as, a stockade. There are cows in behind there but it was too cold to wait for one to put its head through the gap - which I thought would've made a cool photo (but not as cool as if this were a cat stockade).

Wiper Schmiper

So a buddy of mine says while he's helping me move: can you take my truck to the store to pick up some supplies. I say, I'll take my car. He says, you don't have enough room, take my truck. I say, I'm not so comfortable with that, what if something happens, I hate driving other people's vehicles. He says, what could go wrong and besides, I have insurance. I say, nahhhh; he says, go on, and tosses me his keys.

I take the keys, climb in, snow's falling fast, I settle in to the seat, turn the ignition, find the wipers and turn them on...and the passenger side wiper catapaulted ten feet across the parking lot.

He says, what did you do now? I say, nothing.... but it reminds me of the time I was a student pre-computer days and I borrowed my landlord's typewriter, hit the carriage return and it flew clear across the room.

I am not comfortable borrowing stuff.

Catipulation

This is me (or my clothes, since I was taking a picture with my iPhone of me) lying prostrate on the ground in a state of complete capitulation to The Cat. She wins. There's no more fighting Her Power.

Last night, I did my usual thing of closing the bedroom door of the house I'm house-sitting and she howled all night long in indignation. Of course, this was punctuated by her flinging herself at the door and scratching. I took a sleeping pill and still was awakened (what seemed like) every two minutes.

So I give up. Tonight I'll take an antihistamine and sleep with the door open. I feel defeated.

Swedish Jungle

Our house, even though it's a rural Canadian century farmhouse, has an interior that's pretty much entirely Swedish. Ikea: what an overwhelming store. My spouse gets paralyzed the moment he steps through the door. Sadly, I know my way around all Ikeas within two hundred miles. I thought this was a funny sight: a Home Organization sign in the midst of visual chaos.

Zzzzzzz

Sometimes all I can do during the ferry crossing is flip the car seat back, put my legs up on the dash, and snooze. Which is what I did on yesterday's liquor store run. This was the view.