Ooooh, Scary Boys and Girls, Very Scary

Remember Monster Chiller Horror Theatre from SCTV? Remember Joe Flaherty playing Count Floyd? If you don't then you are very young or you didn't pay any attention to the greatest show on television. Count Floyd used to try really hard to convince us that a particular Bergman film (for example) was terrifying.....usually with no success.

So Happy Halloween, now that you've got an old tv show in your head.

I knit a little earwarmer, akin to a headband but it's got a button closure. The pattern and yarn are from a kit sold over at Redlipstick, but you'll notice that Staceyjoy's button is much closer to the end of the earwarmer than mine is. This is because I apparently have a freakishly small head, and so in order for the thing to fit me I had to move it in a ways. I'm going to move it back out and it and the accompanying bracelet will be a little holiday gift, possibly to one of the children's teachers.



I am attempting to find my place in the universe, and this is a difficult thing, to attempt to figure out where you belong when you no longer belong where you used to. That's a bit of a convoluted sentence, but since I'm not a practicing scientist any more, what the heck am I? Still analytical and scientific in my approach, but I don't get paid for it. Finding my way I suppose, and it's hard to put it all into words because right now there aren't any. I could change careers but I don't feel any real motivation to do that. It's possible that I'm depressed although I don't feel badly at all, I sleep well and eat well and don't do anything to extreme. I get some exercise but I'm slightly lazy in that regard and don't try very hard to get a lot of exercise.

I must sound very boring, and perhaps I'm depressing you with my normalness. I'm actually not boring at all, I'm just trying to indicate that depression is not my reason for not talking about what I'm thinking. What I'm thinking is that I have no great desire to do paid work. At all. I love volunteering. I love helping people out, and I love the freedom of saying no if I need to do that. I do not love obligation, in fact it's a burden I have no desire to carry.

Important reading material added: you'll see a link to What is Stephen Harper Reading, a blog kept by Yann Martel. Go there.

Patiently Awaiting My Invite

I signed up for Ravelry, and when I did there were over 14,000 people ahead of me in line. As of this afternoon:

Found you!

• You signed up on October 11, 2007
• You are #42609 on the list.
• 6125 people are ahead of you in line.
• 7104 people are behind you in line.
• 70% of the list has been invited so far

Tada! There are now more people behind me than ahead of me. The way they're moving along, I may be in there this week. Guess I'll have to organize my knitting and the stash...

When I moved last summer, FFS and our other labmate helped pack not only the lab, but some of my house too. Yarn was stored all over the house, and every time they'd find another box/bag/trunk full of the stuff, they'd yell. "More Yarn??!! What are you going to do with all this yarn??"

Well darlings, I knit. Now certainly it will take me the rest of my natural life to knit up all the yarn I have, but that's the point isn't it? They were not crafty boys, they couldn't understand the obsession.

I don't save the best for last

I could save the pretty flower to the end, but the pretty flower, a dahlia actually, is helping me realize that I don't have to get upset about the fact that the week hasn't gone exactly as it should. What should be happening, is that we should have beautiful crisp fall days, and the dahlia should not be blooming because it should have bloomed a month ago. (We had a summer of drought and the flowers are a month behind. They are beautiful though.)



I should be enjoying my children's company, and the house should magically clean itself. I should wake up every morning with a song in my heart and a spring in my step, my neighbours should be smiling and they should have fixed the starter on their stupid van so they don't have to smash it with a wrench every morning at 6:03 bang bang bang varrrrooohm and while they're getting their vehicles fixed maybe the broken window on the driver's side could be replaced before the snow flies. Maybe I shouldn't be so preoccupied with my neighbours and their appearances...and oh, I would, but I'm really a petty person, ungrateful for life and my relatively good health.

A couple of days ago The Big One really really wanted a tiara for her Halloween costume, and so after school on a day that was raining, we went to The Mall. I don't go there very often, but I'd already exhausted other tiara possibilities. Even The Little One didn't mind going to the mall, what with its sparkly lights and pretty girls and bump and grind music everywhere. The children were groovin' and slidin' all the way along the long mallhallway to the store with the tiaras, and The Little One, true to form, was making eye contact with every female over the age of three. When asked if she liked being there, the Big One said breathlessly, "Oh yes Mumma. I love it."

I've taught you well then.

We picked the biggest tiara, suitable not only for Halloween but also for everyday wear, because you just never know when you will need to be a princess.

It turns out that the need to be a princess happened about five minutes later, because on the way home, within sight of the house in fact, we got clipped and the mirror flew off the car. It can't get fixed until next week. Single parenting and having to take care of everything bites ass.



Below are the pieces of a sweater that I made for The Big One. They are made from a really pretty purple heather wool from Briggs & Little Mills in Harvey Station, New Brunswick. I had to stand up on the edge of the bed to take this picture but the lighting is still uneven and crooked. The pieces are beautiful, and they fit together really nicely into a little sweater. Too little for Big One. Agh. Luckily, I have a church bazaar to donate to in the next couple of weeks, so I'll give it to them to sell. When I thought of this I was reminded of my grandmother and her sister, who would start knitting for the Christmas Cheer Board in Winnipeg every fall, and race to see who could make the most sweaters. "Damn," Grandma would say after hanging up the phone, "Louise is up to 17 sweaters already." Then she'd knit like a fiend, nonstop for three days and make 20 to surpass her sister. Usually Grandma won, because Louise's arthritis was bad and she wouldn't be able to hold the needles.

Really then, making a sweater that's too small wasn't a waste of effort at all.



Finally, here you see the shit machines that have taken up residence in the soccer field across the street. They strut around stupidly and drop loads of guano into the grass. I guess that's good for the grass, and maybe that's good for the mushrooms that grow in the field, but the place is a goose-poop land mine field.



In all, the week has been interesting as opposed to overwhelming. It was nothing like my weeks when Hub was in Southern ON and I was still back on the East Coast, managing a huge job and kids and daycare and feeding and eating and drinking...ye gods the drinking. I hardly drank anything alcoholic this week, but then I also had a raging flu (and I wasn't going to post a picture of phlegm, because really, this isn't a medical forum) and fever. Forgot to mention that part of the week. Hmph. Funny how these little details escape you.

Sunday of the Wine Tour

I woke up, and BF1 claims she was awake also, but she didn't move, so I did and went and showered and did the girly things one does first thing in the morning, like brush the teeth and apply mascara. While I was doing this BF1 actually did haul herself out of bed and looked out the window. We had a great view of the lake and of a small harbour full of small craft, and Sunday was Haul Your Boat Out of the Harbour with a Really Big Crane Day, which provided amusement while one or the other of us was getting dressed to find some breakfast. We eventually settled on just eating in the hotel restaurant, so that we could continue to watch the drama of the BoatHaul, but as it turned out, other than the two small powerboats the only thing they managed to do while we ate was get the mast off a big sailboat. It was slow going, but there were a few of the moneyed class milling about, and Hummers circling the area, and general waiting while being dressed in the latest in outdoor fashion.

We packed up and checked out, and then since it was 11:00 a.m. on a Sunday and everything was now Open For Business, headed down to Jordan to start our day off at Cave Spring. They've basically rebuilt the town so there's a raised boardwalk and several little Shoppes ("they" being Cave Spring themselves, I suspect) .... we tried some wine and found the whites to be to our liking, specifically a 2005 Estate-bottled Gewürztraminer that was rockin' for before noon drinking. It's always noon somewhere, after all. I also picked up a bottle of chardonnay brut, having been promised that it would suck all the moisture right out of my mouth and that I'd be loaded in record time. I'm pretty sure there's nothing more that a girl can ask for, really.

I asked if we could step into the restaurant to check out the view, and was told Sure, They won't Mind, Go for It! which is not quite what one does in a refined establishment, but I did ask permission again when we breached the threshold of the restaurant and we were indeed told to go ahead and get an eyeful. We did this, and it was lovely, and two weeks later it would have been even lovelier with the foliage colour and all....and then the inevitable question that I knew was coming, "Why didn't we eat here last night?" and I just didn't have an answer. Um, because I've been here? wasn't the correct response (although I had, because BF2 and I were there for lunch) but it was lunch, and the dinner menu is different, so we could have gone there, but when you're choosing between the two best restaurants in the region, you just flip and then say that you liked one wine list better than the other, which you did. You also liked the decor of Treadwell better, but that's hardly a consideration of the food, which would have been just as good at Twenty. So you're stuck for an answer and now you really need to stop talking about yourself in the third person and get on with the story.

Now being cute little shoppes, we stopped into one that reminded me of a place in Invermere, with furniture and trinkets and stuff like that, and they were decorated for Christmas, which was a bit off-putting but we soldiered on anyway, because it was a whimsical Christmas and we all like the whimsical, right? We do. We especially like it on our Christmas tree, and so we found ourselves looking at the decorations, and BF1 was really taken with these sequined fishes that would stand on the mantle, but settled for little crazy fishes for the tree for each of her darlings. We took about 20 minutes sorting through all the boxes and by that time my arm was numb because that bottle of brut was heavy! but we got the whimsy and tossed it all in the car (which was starting to get full of bottles. We used the green Superstore bin for most of it but by the end of the day it was overflowing.) and moved along.

I definitely had a destination in mind...and I'd only seen a description and a picture in a magazine...still, I knew we were en route for another Oh My God moment. I really wanted to stop in at Tawse, although I hadn't heard anyone say anything about it, and I only liked the review. I knew they were working with small lots and I knew that they used a gravity filtration process, and that the place had been started out by a banker from Toronto. We drove along the road, which goes up a hill a little bit and then Tawse would be on our left. "Holy Fuck!" was the only comment from the passenger seat, and with good reason:

our only picture of the trip. Sad, but true, because really, this would have been a better story with way more pictures. Still, if you turned the corner not expecting much because really, the Niagara region isn't about giant chateaus and landscaping and incredible vistas, it's about scraping together enough money to survive and make some drinkable wine before you're laughed off the planet for a wasted venture. Luckily, Tawse dispelled that myth, and not only provided us with the Oh My God moment but also a tour of the winery and some excellent tasting. I don't know who the guy was that toured us, he was maybe an owner or the owner, because he certainly went on about how many cases of each thing he had in his basement, but he was a fantastic tour guide, starting off with, "This is a bar. Let's go see where the wine is made..." and we did. First to the area just behind the bar, where the gravity filtration takes place, consecutively down until the wine reaches the bottling area. Then over to a barrel room, where he turned the fans on before we went in so that we didn't succumb to the CO2. We discussed estate vs. export barrels (export are thicker) and French oak, and whether to use argon or nitrogen to get the wine out of the barrels. Of course I'm more in favour of argon, seeing as it's heavier than air and prevents most/all oxidation much more effectively than nitrogen will, but argon is expensive, way more so than nitrogen...so mostly they use nitrogen. Then it was back to the bar for some tasting, and let me tell you, we were not disappointed. We were treated to a comparison of 2002 vs 2003 chardonnay (not the Robyn's Rock, which wasn't being opened and he only had magnums left, and at $111/bottle we were a bit shy) and the 2003 won out, handily. We tasted the Echo Red, a blend of the leftover barrel remains (oh that sounds so sexy, doesn't it? barrel remains. leftovers. better the next day. yummy.) that is a wine made specifically for food, and it was quite good (good enough for me to donate to our school's pasta supper in November) and then we bought bottles of the 2005 merlot/cab franc that he also wouldn't open but I knew about and bought. Their wines are expensive, but then so are the wines at 30 Bench and so far, so good. Daniel Lenko is expensive too, but truth be told, you totally get what you pay for.

Tawse was really, really a lot of fun. If not for Hub (who is quite the wine guy except for the words part) I would totally fall for a wine guy, what with all their talk of the feel of the wine, its textures etc....I'm a sucker for the decriptive as long as it's not pretentious, and that's a fine line to toe. T married the wine guy and it has paid off in spades for her. Sure, he doesn't work and does the stay at home dad thing while she is a brilliant scientist, but he's the wine guy. He can be forgiven for not working; he cooks and puts the perfect pairing of alcohol beside her plate. I have another brilliant scientist friend who married the wine, music and food guy all in one, and she is so happy it's unbelievable. Seriously. Find the wine guy, reel him in and marry him. You will never regret it. Well, unless you're a guy and you're not gay and the wine guy isn't either. Then you must find a wine girl, there are plenty of them after all. More winemakers are women than men now, the women have better palates; they can smell more stuff, better. And yeah, I have a flare for the descriptive, don't I? After all, I used totally in two consecutive sentences.

We leave in awe and way poorer than when we drove in but wow again. Off to Crown Bench, hoping for some Livia's Gold, but that was sold out. Their specialty is dessert and late harvest and ice wine, so it's tough to get into this sweetness after the excitement over untasted red wines in the back of the car. I tried the Ambrosia, which was stupid of me because of its overwhelming chocolate flavour and nothing else. They only allow one tasting, since we're talking about stuff that's $50+/bottle, so that was it for us. We asked about the cab franc icewine, but the winemaker (Peter, Livia's husband) was not a fan, said he wouldn't make it again because after all, it only took away from his cab franc (they do make a few reds and whites). On the other hand, Livia herself indicated that the cab franc icewine was amazing, she loved it best, it's so complex and exciting....so I said to the winemaker, you know, you should not sell this wine. Let her do it. BF1 and I walked around, what to do? She got a bottle of the cab franc that she'd tasted and liked, but really, I was curious about the cab franc icewine, when the winemaker came over with a taste for us. "Here," he said, "give it a try."

Well you could have knocked me over with a ... I don't know ... pretty easily. I tasted the stuff, and it really was incredible like Livia said, full-bodied and yes, sweet, but not overwhelming. Slightly port-ish but not with the medicinal taste that port sometimes has. A bottle of that came home with each of us.

Finally, we were going to head up the road to Thirty Bench, since I have my membership there and we could have a free flight of tastings, but much to my surprise, Daniel Lenko was open. I squealed and pulled in to the driveway up to the tiny bungalow. Bill Lenko was outside with the dog, and they came over to greet us. Bill recognized me (it's the hair) but couldn't place me, so we talking about the hearing aids yet again and he remembered. The dog knew me. Bill said that Danny was inside so we went up the steps and he met us at the door, all wearing his overalls and dirty and stuff. He's so tall and handsome I was positive that BF1 was going to have a flirting-induced coronary, but she managed to keep hold of herself as we sat down at the tiny kitchen table. Unoaked chardonnay, cab franc, old vines merlot (our very good friend from dinner the previous evening) and something for dessert....it was an experience. I was so excited that they were open I forgot to buy anything, but should have split with BF1 on a case of the OVM (Hub was a tiny bit disappointed that we hadn't).

And with that, we drove back home. Our quest was done, BF1 had her requisite 12+ bottles and I had 10 or so, we were sated. Tomorrow: how to get all that wine across a provincial border when you're flying.

Another Wine Tour

Two days driving around the Niagara region can wear you out. All that tasting, smiling, driving around and eating at fabulous restaurants....too much for the weak of heart.

Not for me and BF1 though. We went, we bought, we conquered.

I have been meaning to write about this for the last three days, but I've been struck by a congestive flu that has left me weak and wordless. I'm coughing up a lung here, but I am finally physically stable enough to soldier on and write the post. Last Saturday (the 13th) we left at around 11:00 a.m. to begin the adventure. We would have left earlier but I have no sense of timing, and tend not to rush to get ready to go anywhere, especially when there's no set time for leaving. Once I'd finally packed all my stuff and rearranged it all and then made sure that the map and the Canadian Wine Annual were in the car in the proper orientation, we were finally ready to leave.

Most people who don't live in Southern Ontario freak out about Highway 401, the big highway that runs from Windsor to the Quebec border. It's busy and full of transport trucks and you usually have to drive very fast on it. Posted speed limits are more like guidelines than actual limits (this is actually true for almost every highway), and if you're only doing 100kph then you'd better be way the heck over in the right hand lane. There used to be big signs telling you how much you'd be fined for 20, 30 or 40 km over the limit, but now they've been replaced by even bigger signs that say 50 km over the limit: $10,000 fine and immediate impounding of the vehicle. That is, if you're not a road taco already, having rolled your little street machine into a floured tortilla with you in the middle.

Truly though, the 403 is the highway of challenge. There are trucks, yes, but there are also tourists, and people who live in Hamilton, where speed limits are practically meaningless, driving to Toronto. There are also left-side entries and exits from the 403, adding a certain amount of danger and terror to your holiday driving experience. Looking for a leisurely drive down to Niagara Falls? Forget it. Strap yourself into your motorhome and get the hell off the highway and find another way to get onto the QEW. Really, we'll all be happier for it.

We do have to get on the 403 on the left, and this is a terrifying experience for BF1, because by the time the entry ramp runs out I'm doing 110 and the guy in the lane beside me isn't quite ready to relinquish his piece of road real estate. He does, I speed up to 130 and get the hell over a little bit, because really, I do not like to go that fast and would prefer a grandmotherly 110 so that I can at least read the road signs. I've got seven km to get over to the far right hand lane to get onto the QEW, but there are two big trucks in my way playing chicken (boys! it's Saturday! don't you take a day off?) and going faster faster faster then slowing down just enough to close the available gap. It wasn't a big deal, really, but there are about 15 signs for the QEW in those seven km, and this ramped up the anxiety for BF1 just a tiny bit. Certainly I have had to scoot between big trucks before, and it turned out that this time I actually didn't have to do it, but it was very amusing, especially the guy who got on the highway behind one of the trucks and had about 10 feet between each vehicle in each subsequent lane, but still managed to move all the way over three lanes to the far left. Bravo!

The rest of the drive was comparatively quiet. We headed along the QEW toward Niagara-on-the-Lake with Strewn Winery as our first destination. Okay, actually, Chateau des Charmes was actually our first destination, but BF1 had an attack of map dyslexia and we wound up going in the opposite direction from our intended one, and since I take this type of thing as a sign that we were not meant to go to Chateau des Charmes, I said okay, we'll go to Strewn instead. The place is at the end of a road that seems interminable, like any road does when you're looking for something, but it was an excellent start to the day. We found out that 2004 was not a great year for most of the Niagara region, and that 2005 was much better. We had some good reds (including one that would be Sunday evening's "burger wine" when we got home for the barbecue Hub had planned) a couple of reds to sit, and a sauvingnon blanc that rivalled anything I've had from New Zealand or anywhere else for that matter. Very crisp and full of flavour, this was something we had to pick up.

At most places, as we could have predicted, we picked up almost exactly the same thing. We have an uncanny habit of buying the same things, especially shoes.

Next on the list: Marynissen. This time, the navigation proceeded smoothly, as it did for the rest of the trip, which is good because I didn't want any other signs indicating that we shouldn't visit a particular place. We were going to places I hadn't been to after all, and they were all places I wanted to visit, so I didn't need signs from above (or to the right of the vehicle) telling me that I was wrong. Marynissen is a little family operation, and while Hub's coworker had extolled the virtues of their whites, it was their reds that we were taken with. Now, sadly, without going down to the basement and opening up boxes I can't quite remember what we got, but I think one was a cabernet-merlot and one a cab franc....but they were good.

Hungry! so a stop at a little harvest grocer bought a sandwich for me and a pizza bread for BF1, who cannot abide the sandwich. Then on down the Lakeshore Road toward Port Dalhousie (and I know, any east-coaster would be saying Dal-How-si, but guess what? It's a French word, and in Niagara it's pronounced Da-loo-zie .... so you might go to Dalhowsi University but you eat at Treadwell's in Port Daloozie.) which is almost a suburb of St. Catharines and very quaint and cute and fuzzy. Oh, but wait, first you take a detour into Stonechurch Winery, because the woman on the road ahead of you is making you nuts. Stonechurch had a really useful bathroom.

Back on the road again, and far away from the Echo from Hell's Driving School, we proceeded to find Treadwell, which was a good thing seeing as we were going to eat there that night. We could have stopped in at the hotel to drop our things, but decided to hit a couple of other places before resting up a bit before dinner. The first was Creekside, where we were hoping to score some Mike Weir Pinot Noir for BF1's hub, but that was not to be because they were totally sold out of the stuff. (I can probably get it at the LCBO though.) She did pick up a bottle of their shiraz, which was quite nice, but I was trying to be a little bit responsible and not buy everything that tasted good. Along the road, one more stop at Flat Rock Cellars, the first of our "oh my god" stops, because the place was breathtaking. The sun hadn't been out much all day, and it was really windy and chilly, but when we pulled up to the glass structure, the sun came out and we had a great view of the vineyard. Now, like a dope I forgot the camera, and my cellphone camera just wouldn't capture the place in any kind of decent way, so I'm without pictures. If you go to the site then you'll see what the building looks like, and really, it's quite spectacular. The grounds are well-kept and the pinot noir came home with us.

Hotel, nap, off for dinner. Port Dalhousie is about 4.5 minutes from our hotel because along that scenic service road, and really, one side of it was completely scenic, there are no stoplights. It was an amusing drive, 20foot concrete wall to the right, blocking the sight and sound of the QEW, and stately homes on the lakeshore to the left. Literally, on the lakeshore. These places couldn't waste space on frontage for fear of tumbling into the lake. Actually, come to think of it, our hotel was built the same way: bit of a parking lot out front, so when you get out of your car you have to yell to be heard over the traffic on the highway. You step into the hotel, and fall to your knees at the desk begging for a lakeside room, when the concierge informs you that of course all the rooms are lakeside, otherwise your head would explode and we don't have insurance for that.

While it only takes 4.5 minutes to get to Treadwell, we left almost 20 minutes early, so had to sit in the bar for a bit before our table was ready. Not the worst way to spend 15 minutes, we ordered a bottle of Daniel Lenko old vines merlot, since it's after August 30 and he's not open any more. I've had this wine, I know how excellent it is and we're not disappointed. Our wine steward was a handsome gentleman who was in moderately good humour, although not enough for us to flirt with him too seriously. We saved that for our waiter, who BF1 insisted looked like Michael Buble (follow the link and hear him sing...yeesh) and since I have no idea what he looks like (okay, I do now because I set the link, right?), I had to go along with her assessment. I did think the waiter walked a bit tightly for a singer, unless he's singing the high notes and I thought Michael Buble was more of the lounge singing variety. We had appetizers and we had lamb and we had dessert, all Ontario grown, in fact well within the requisite and trendy 100 miles (or 160.9 km). Highly recommend the place. The service was lovely, the food excellent, the atmosphere refined but not stuffy. Would definitely go back, in fact I'd let them cook me dinner every night.

Now really, I could go on, but you should follow all those links (except for maybe Michael Buble, because he's not really important in this story other than his resemblance to our waiter) and plan your own Niagara tour. In a bit I'll tell you about Sunday, because I have one and only one photo from the weekend, and it belongs to Sunday and quite frankly Sunday needs its own entry because Sunday was a whole bucket of fun.

Dressed Up

Last night we went to the Bishop's Dinner, an annual event put on by the school board to raise money for, right now, a new building over at the Jesuit Centre that's going to serve as a retreat and ecology centre for students. The Jesuits are all about the ecology. They have a very large farm and lots of walking trails through their property, and it's all well-maintained and very beautiful. The Bishop's Dinner is a posh affair, and several of the city's mucky-mucks attend it and drop some serious coin at the silent auction. For the record, I did bid on a wine fridge that we sort of need, but I didn't pursue the bid since I don't think we could have put the wine fridge into the car. Well, that and the fact that we don't have any spare cash right now, what with my unemployment being secured and my EI benefits running dry.

When you go to a posh affair here, you get to wear the best black beaded sparkly dress, the strappy sandals and the good makeup. You look fantastic in a found-by-chance dress that fits superbly, and you don't look out of place when you get all done up. Better to be overdressed I always think .... but last night I fit right in, and it was excellent to do that. I looked good but so did almost everyone else there, and there was some serious done-uppedness going on. I didn't do much to my hair for example, and without the backcombing and hairspray I didn't quite meet the grade that was set by the other babes in our midst. Hub was very popular at our table, being the only man, and being in an Ermenegildo Zegna suit. His hair is relatively long and curly, and The Sartorialist did a short feature a while ago on whether a man with longer hair should wear a suit, but personally I don't have a problem with it and Sart's series on the men confirmed my liking for longer hair. Not on everyone of course, because there are some for whom long hair is a crazy mistake, a decision made after too many trips to a bad barber leaves one with a bad taste in the mouth for hair-cutting and thus the hair grows unkempt and unmanaged, either to a curly tangled rats nest or a shaggy greasy mop of lankness, depending on the straightness quotient. Oh, am I passionate about the proper kemptedness of the hair, especially on men? You bet. (and am I having a too-obvious affair with the -ness suffix?)

The gathering was held at the Italian Canadian Club, which meant a five-course meal and wine at the table, but I really really wish they would find a different house wine, because what they forced us to drink is crap, barely suitable as cleaning fluid (the white) or tomato sauce builder (the red). With relief, I noted that the bar provided a better selection.

Catholics, luckily, can't find anything in the Bible that says you're not supposed to drink.

There were a lot of Italians there last night, which is no surprise, seeing we were at the Club, Italians are Catholic, and there are many many Italians living here (much like the rest of Southern Ontario). At one time this city was a Mafia retirement community, so if you went to a wedding and decided to take a baseball bat to the bushes around the church, you'd knock out a few surveillance cameras, and maybe the same number of RCMP officers with them. As it turns out, more than half of the staff who teach at our childrens' school are Italian, and since we live in the (old) west end of the city, most of our neighbours are Italian...even the ones we're not related to. Notably, some of the more well-known Italians and the Mayor were missing, since they were off in Toronto signing a pact between a city up in Treviso and our city.

Comments about the Mafia might be suitable here.

There probably isn't a point to this post other than the fact that we went out last night, had a good time, ate a lot of food, drank crap wine, talked to a lot of people and had a laugh when our 23 year-old Seminarian was so bent on going home with the 30GB iPod that he stood at the table guarding his bid for the last 30 minutes of the auction. Somebody ought to talk to that boy about coveting.

Right or Left?

Here's an amusement for you. Take this test.

Now guess which way I saw the dancer turn....and I will tell you, I wasn't surprised.

What One Does

You know, I could wallow in my unemployment, but I've been terribly busy volunteering at the school, doing churchy stuff that blows my mind, reading and knitting and dreaming up odd turns of phrase (but that's a topic for another post, mostly likely to be churned out tomorrow).

Speaking of tomorrow, BF1 is coming in for a visit. Now back in September BF2 came for a visit and we went down to Niagara and chased down some wineries and I got him to buy lunch at a very nice place (thanks again darling), so it's no surprise that on Saturday BF1 and I are piling ourselves into the car for an overnight tour of the region. "Don't drink and drive," said Hub the other day. "Uh....isn't that the point?" I asked him. "Well, don't drink and drive heavily," he said, whereupon we got into a tussle about how much weight one could put on after two sips of wine and whether that was really a necessary comment about the size of my ass.

Oh. Am I digressing again? Well, the girlies are heading down for some mischief, and it's a well-deserved break that we're taking. Our original plan had been to go to Chicago and crash with BF2, but that flight was prohibitive and just not working out well for any of us, timing-wise, so when I suggested this weekend getaway there was much cheering and back-slapping and flight-planning. We are staying at a regular hotel, so that we can have dinner here, and while I could try to outline our whole trek, I suspect we'll sit with a map and a drink and a piece of pizza tomorrow night and hash it out. I have ideas, but it should probably be more of a team effort.

So along with the volunteering I've been knitting more than usual. I finished this for someone tonight, and although it needs blocking it's otherwise done. Forgive the shadows and the crap quality of the picture, and enjoy instead the cosy cottony-ness of it all. It's ribbed (for her enjoyment) and very stretchy (I don't know whose enjoyment that's for) but if it gets lumpen and out of shape, one tosses it in the wash and then makes it dry in the right size and shape again, and finishes that in the dryer so that it shrinks up just a little bit. One problem with cotton sweaters is they stretch out to places you don't want them to stretch to, but that doesn't usually happen in the first wearing. It's from Sarah Dallas's Vintage Knitting, and she has a ribbed collar but ye gods in heaven I could not get the ribbed collar to match up with the existing body, so I gave up and made a rolled collar instead.

Now I'm going to make this, and I'm also halfway through a plain pullover for The Big One. It's made from Brigg's & Little's three ply wool, an heathery purple colour that is beautiful, but their yarns are itchy so I don't know how happy she's going to be with it. If she doesn't love it and refuses to wear it I will simply burst into tears and wail until she feels sorry enough for me to put the thing on already and not complain.

Hub said a funny thing tonight. After dinner he volunteered to go out to the grocery store because we need a few things for tomorrow and I won't have a lot of time to get them, but the trip did not go well. In fact, he said, when he got home, that "The whole thing was covered in Wrong Sauce."

And I think we all know what kind of shopping trip that was.

Resistance is Futile

Within the next 24 hours or so, I will find out whether or not academic (albeit staff academic, not faculty) employment is in my future or not. On one hand, of course I'd like the job and its associated paycheque, and I'd like to be among the land of the living (read: thinking) again, and I'd like to take a research centre that desperately needs a facelift, and give it one. On the other hand, I like being at home and doing whatever I want to do, almost all of the time. There are other hands that are in between these two extremes, i.e. employment and non, but I'm only one person and two hands are all I have.

If I don't get the job, I need to evaluate my skills and see where they'd be best applied. So let's see...what am I good at?

1) I am excellent at assessing a situation, considering all opinions brought forth by other people, and coming to conclusions that are well thought-out, articulate and intriguing. Sadly, I am able to do these things after removing myself from the situation: replaying all of the conversations and nuances of body language, and synthesizing all the verbal and non-verbal information into a cohesive conclusion. It usually takes a good four or five hours for me to do this, and sometimes it takes a lot longer.

In other words, while I'm very good at observing and analyzing, I am terrible at thinking on my feet. I'm pretty good at thinking on my ass, which is handy if I only communicate with people via the written word.

This is a major contributor to the fact that I interview like a brick.

2) I am really excellent at telling people what to do, especially when I've got legislation or some other kind of regulation behind me. I have all the confidence in the world as long as I know that I'm right, and as long as I can back up my directives with rules made by other people, or even rules made by me. Unfortunately, learning the legislation and/or rules is mind-bogglingly boring. All the same, I can usually pick it up in one read-through; for example, I read the collective agreement at my former employer in one evening, and was able to pull some of the more obscure articles from it without hesitation during negotiation discussions.

3) I don't waste any time with small talk, so if I need something from you, I knock on your door and ask for it. I do this even if you've been away for three weeks on the vacation of a lifetime, and you want to tell me all about it but won't until I ask, which I won't, because I need to do what I need to do, and I need to do it now, but you have the only Philips screwdriver in the department, and after you give it to me and I finish my task, then I might ask you about your vacation if I don't have something else to do. In other words, smalltalk is on my terms and I'm usually too busy to bother with it. While this is a good trait for assembly-line work, it gets less useful as one climbs up the ladder, since managers tend to have far less to do than assembly-line workers. In the business world I'd be seen as a bit squirrelly, but in science I'm normal. I'm even outgoing.

4) I am fair, and I can't be bought. Or, well, I can, but I'm very expensive and not really worth it, so mostly I can't be bought. Need that analysis done yesterday? Very interesting. Maybe you should have brought me your sample yesterday.

5) I will tell you what I think, especially if you ask.

6) I am not ambitious, I will not steal your job out from under you or make myself look better than you so that I can get ahead. I work hard because I like to work hard, not to show anyone else up.

7) I'm pretty smart, and I learn new tasks fast. And then I make them better. I can improvise if I don't have the tools I need.

There are other things, but these are what came to me this morning as I was putting wood filler into the cracks of the bathroom door this morning, in preparation for painting the thing. I am ridiculously direct, forthright, and pushy, while at the same time appearing (in the physical sense) to be sweet and easily manipulated. I find that people are always looking for my "soft side" as though I'm faking all the rest, and really I'm just a sweet darling. Truly people, I'm not a sweet darling, and I really am pushy and direct and I'll do what I can to get what I want, short of lying or deceiving, because those are not available options in my repertoire of Things I'm Good At.

For three years I worked for a chemical company, and after the first three months it was the most stultifying job I have ever held. My brain was totally on hold as I tried to work past the sales people and the marketing nutjobs, and past my own boss who had an unhealthy obsession with me. Product development was an oxymoron, and research amounted to putting old products in new packages with an updated MSDS. I felt insecure and stupid all the time, because I couldn't get a handle on what was really going on at the company, and yet I was slated for a promotion out of technical development and into management before I left to go back to school. Insanity!

Soon though, as I said probably within the next 24hours, I'll learn my fate. Am I to return to the hallowed halls of doing whatever the hell I want for a paycheque, or will I remain a sahm and will we eat a whole lot of rice and beans while subsisting on one paycheque brought home by hub? Stay tuned.....

Update (14:07): The pfo letter was in my mailbox. C'est dommage.

If it's so easy, why can't I do it?

It's not that I don't have many many interesting things to say here, because I do. During my day, so many things happen, so many little touching moments pass through and around me that if I were to write them all down for your reading pleasure, your heart would melt with agony. The myriad thoughts, the tiny longings and the overwhelming pleasure of a life well-lived define me.

And yet, if I sit down to tell about any of these things, they flee and I'm left here, a lumpen mess of missed words, bungled sentences and grammar traps. Where do the beautiful ideas, the gorgeous turns of phrase, go?

I believe that they run away to the recesses of my brain as soon as it's possible that they'd have to make an appearance. Perhaps they don't like to be judged; I've never been one to submit work to my peers without a great deal of trepidation, and instead I'd rather avoid it at all costs.

It's too bad, really, because I have some great things to say. I just need some kind of earth mover for the brain to dredge them up.

Everyday Occurrences

We are not finished with Angie's condo, so it hasn't gone on the market yet. I've been doing the lion's share of the work and the organizing, and the place is finally completely empty and it has been painted by our lovely neighbour, who is a painter and who did a great job and who charged lots of money. That's okay, because:

Several cans of premium paint: $400
Polyfilla: $25
Hourly Wage (I don't actually know this, I'm making it up): $40
Having someone else do the job: Priceless.

Now the place is all beige on beige, but it looks nice. There are laminate floors and a tile entryway, and the kitchen and bathroom are linoleum. I will finish scrubbing the place down tomorrow or Wednesday, but today I did a little jobbie that needed doing because mildew had invaded: I re-caulked the tub.

When one does this kind of work, one has to first make the decision as to latex caulk or silicone caulk. While I think that the silicone caulk has a greater degree of water resistance, it's hard to clean up after the job. The latex caulk on the other hand, easily washes off your hands and other surfaces, and looks just as nice in the end. Both caulks remain pliable after curing.

Removal of old caulk can be a difficult business. You need a scraper to get in under the edge of the caulk, and you need to pull it out of any crevices. I happened to be working from left to right, and couldn't actually get the 9-in-1 tool under the caulk, but as it turns out the tool was made for the right-handed variety of human. No matter, being ambidextrous I switched to the other side and worked from right to left around the tub to remove the caulk with the tool. It's rare that you'll be able to just dig out a little bit of caulk and then pull the whole thing out in one go; old caulk tends to want to stay put and you'll have to painstakingly remove it piece by piece. You might get part of it out and then find some of it remains, but be firm, because all of it must be removed. Old caulk is stubborn.

Once you've scraped and wiped and re-scraped and wiped yet again, everything has to dry before you slit open the tube of new caulk. I don't use a caulking gun on the tub, I prefer a tube of caulk and I chose latex because of the cleanup ease. White, if you must know, but certainly you could choose black or other colours depending on the existing tub and tile, or if you just wanted a little exotica in your bathroom. It might be necessary to get coloured caulk at specialty stores. Cut the opening in the tube (~ 1/2 cm, maybe a bit less), and run a bead of caulk along one edge to the corner, then use your caulking tool to smooth it out. I have used my finger in this case, but not today, since I wanted a very even seal that looked like someone who knew what they were doing with caulk might have done. (Aside: around a window or along baseboards, a finger works fine. Most people prefer the pointer or middle finger for this job.) You run the tool along the caulk, and then wipe off the tool when you get to the corner. No special treatment at the corners, just make it look like an even joint without fooling around with it too much. Caulk can be unforgiving.

It's actually very simple but now I need a bit of a lie-down after all that talk of caulk.