it's good to have a master baker.....

for one of your bestest friends.... on your birthday.....more later.....

It's my birthday and I'll mop if I want to, mop if I want to

I know I have mentioned my need to clean once or twice on this blog...it's not anything too irrational...at least I don't think so. My house does not look like a biosphere bubble or anything...in fact, right now, it seems downright dirty to me. I would take a photo of my floors, but it is far too embarrassing. Honestly. The desire broke down a bit after Maggie left me...I didn't want to sweep up the last of her hair or wash away the smell of her from my furniture throws...it took a while to get it back, that cleaning bug, but on mornings like today, the broom feels nice in my hands and the mirrors are shiny...and I love that feeling of supreme accomplishment that I get when I look at the end result. This looks like a dream I honestly might have at night...a good dream, a clean dream...I might be smelling Mr. Clean and Murphy's Oil Soap and be smiling in my sleep....aaahhhh....sweet, sweet dreams. My sister has these dreams, too, only she smells lysol. My mom vaccuums every day....
The reason this comes up is this...last night, my good friend DB was here for a girl's cocktail hour. Michael came home just as I was lamenting how horrible my floor looks because I have broken, yet again, another mop. I don't know how I keep breaking them. All I am doing is MOPPING. Anyhow, Michael laughs and says with my birthday coming up, maybe he could just wrap up a new mop. DB told him "NO WAY are you getting her a mop for her birthday. That's like getting a vaccuum for Christmas!" I didn't dare to tell her that I ASKED for a vaccuum once for Christmas from my dad....and I really would like a mop for my birthday...a Super Duper Unbreakable Mop... and these!!!!

Look at this... they make sinks for mops!!!! Isn't it beautiful? I want one of those in the best/worst way....and an automatic dust mop like this little cutie ....


Ah, a mop, just a mop....simple enough... why do they disappoint me so? I really want to have a clean floor today so it looks like I am doing the old Cinderella again today... so I better get to it...I can't have clean windows and a dirty floor...have a good weekend, all.

from one coast to another

Cara posted this on her site, carawinsorhehir , yesterday... this is the Rescue that brought Emma to us...I love how small the world gets sometimes, don't you? My little Emma was from the same town as my new friend, Cara! So there you have it....that's all I got today...but get on over to her site and check out the art work. She's a talent and then some!

Chase River Estuary Dog Walk

Thought I might take you all along on my dog walk by the river.... this giant steel circle is at the beginning of the walk...I am not sure what it is, but it sure looks cool. It would be a good place to take an album cover shot(CD, album, whatever). Coal mines were here long ago and maybe this is some leftover of that age gone by...they loaded ships with coal here... Foundations of miners' housing or coal mine offices, I will assume. There are numerous old foundations here and the trees growing through them are big...so they were abandoned long ago...
I like this one...
A derelict old piece of rust....
Little white balls of something...I don't know what this bush is....do you? Barb, are you reading this? You must know the name of this.
Rose hips
Emma
and cattails at the end of our walk...thanks for coming along.

wow! photos!

So, only yesterday did I not say I didn't want to curse us by saying the neighbourhood had been so quiet? No sooner did I press the Publish button than I turned around to see, out my front window, a white work van(Active Contol Services, by the way, I will be sending you a letter!) pick up a hooker in front of my house!!! I haven't seen a hooker on this block in weeks...really. The timing was just too uncanny. Then later, not one, but two drug deals out front in these two vehicles...at the same time....with two different dealers!!!! The photo of the dark van? You can just see the dealer approaching...he is everywhere in the southend...totally recognizable and creepy... the other dealer I had not seen before but he got out of a pretty nice vehicle and was selling to whoever is in that white truck...pretty fancy vehicles for crack so I don't know... occupants of both went to Spanglish, the CrackHead Convenience Store across the street....
D&L 's renters have been broken into twice in the past two weeks.... D thinks it might have something to do with her run-in with that one particular pimp a while back...though it may have something to do with the renters... all students with some pricey 'puters and such and maybe someone knew what was in there. The thing is, the second break-in was at 3 pm with D&L in the back yard! Creepy and bold, no? Hmmm...let's see, oh, I was walking home the other evening alone, and a creep in a silver pick-up did the slow-down-drive-by. He thought I was a hooker but realized his mistake when he saw me glaring at him. I SHOULD have smiled and waved him over so that I could have had a little "talk" about what the eff he is doing cruising my hood...but I can't think of those things that quickly.
I think there is a grow-op in the little blue house on the corner...seems weird that they put so much effort into cleaning it up and painting, etc... and they DID kick out the crack heads as soon as they were made aware of it...but now the cars are only there for a while in the daylight hours, and there are people about in there but not one stitch of furniture....but hey, a grow op is much quieter than a crack house, so it IS an improvement, if you ask me....and that's it for the neighbourhood haps for now...aside from yesterday's little spike, it really has been much calmer around here.

Dear Blogger

I have been noticing that you are temperamental lately...are you feeling alright? You are not doing the things you once did for me...for instance, why can't you load a picture anymore? I thought we had that all figured out long ago...and with all the practice you've had, I would think it would have gotten easier, not more difficult for you. I'm concerned. We're all concerned. We, your friends and I, have noticed a definite change in your attitude and performance...are you partying too much? Is there a new love in your life or did someone dump you in a painful and debilitating manner? Have you been drinking? Or worse? Honestly, we all want you to get better...we enjoy our times together....what can we do to help?
with much love and concern,
dilling

success at last

Poncho and
Lefty....I didn't want them to feel left out of the pet love fest...Sebastion is still holed up in his den....I will check tomorrow...everytime he does his disappearance, I count the days til he comes back out....it's been long enough, already. Doesn't he know I worry? How long can a hermit crab last in captivity?
We had to light the damn stove last night....waaaaahhhh...I hate it when winter arrives....it is so depressing...
One Kodak moment...Emma curled up on the couch next to my purse, a gift from one of my oldest and dearests, from a time ago when my life revolved around another beagle....Honest!!! This was not set up!!!! Neighbourhood haps tomorrow....g'nite.

three times, no charm....

Anyone else today having photo troubles in Blogger? It is just as well, I suppose. Just more photos of Emma...Have walked the neighbourhood more times in the past three days than the past eight months put together. I have yet to take the camera, as Emma is a handful without worrying about the damn camera. And I hate to curse us by saying how quiet the neighbourhood has turned lately(you all understand that when I say quiet that's it's in a "relatively speaking" kind of way, right?)...and with the rainy season coming along, it is bound to get even quieter...what will I write about?!?
Well, this was my third try to load some photos today without success, so I will leave it for now. Maybe later or maybe tomorrow...I haven't had much news anyway...talk to you all later!

Willie Nelson

Here is my hero, Willie, singing the song of another hero, Daniel Lanois, while Daniel plays a mean Telecaster and Willie plays Trigger...how good can it get?

one more call for alcohol...

2am and the lights are blazing out front...we are blocks from the downtown clubs, so this is really not an uncommon sight. The lights woke me and I stumbled out to the front of the house to watch, lurid lookey-loo that I am...it's not very exciting anymore but sometimes it's so damn funny, in a sick, sad way...cuz they haven't killed anyone yet. This guy thought he was on his way to an after-hours party, I think. He yelled at a couple of cars going by to pull over and wait for him. He thought he wasn't drunk. He is yelling at cars in the middle of a sobriety test, two cops, lights flashing, convinced he is not drunk... hmmm. You fail. While they were handcuffing him, two drunk as skunk guys stumbled up the road, loud and rowdy...but smart enough to walk home so home they went. You don't have to be brilliant when you're drunk...you just have to know you're drunk! I couldn't stay awake for the tow truck, the final humiliation. He had a blazer on wheels as tall as my entire car, so they had to call in a flat-bed tow...it took too long. I was tired.
Here she is...we decided on Emma...I don't know where that name came from at the final moment. We just had to have a name and Michael called her Emma...and it stuck, immediately. She must like it, as she is already responding to it...eerie, isn't it? Don't those ears just make you want to cry?
For the Adult in Question and for Life...don't you just love him?

asleep at last

We were thinking of calling her "Newfie." She knows no commands...she doesn't know what "no" means...she has no clue we are calling her...lord, for all the crap this little one has been through, and there is much more to her story, she is a sweet tempered thing(except with other dogs) and I have high hopes that she is going to blossom with all the attention that was previously lacking in her life...I need to go collapse now. G'nite.

I can breathe again

Up early, cup of joe and out the door to the ferry...shuttle on over, turn right around and come home again...but not empty handed! She looks, for all the world, in this first photo like Maggie...but of course, she is her own dog and I have figured that out already!!! She has had a rough start to her life...or first third of her life, I guess. Used for backyard breeding in St. John's, she escaped, dragging her chain behind her. She went to the SPCA. They turned her over to BeaglePaws, a Newfoundland Beagle Rescue. Her poor beagle ears were tattered from untreated infection... nobody knows how many litters she might have had but since she is so small, her puppies were pretty popular, I imagine.
She is a little camera shy...she will have to get over that living with me. She is 13 inches high, 13 pounds heavy. She is darling...a little, little girl. So far as I can tell, she doesn't know many(any?) commands but she is still pretty good, though completely unsocialized to other dogs...she is finally asleep and maybe I can take some better photos now that she has quit moving...and I can take a snooze, as well...maybe. We've had a bit of playtime already, she tried to eat a matchbox car(vw bus), she peed on the floor, and nearly had a fight with Yuko...after the ferry trip, the car trips, the flight from Newfoundland, changing hands numerous times, I'd say she has had a full week.
She won't hold still for a photo...you can just see the tatters of her ear at the top of the photo...it's healed now so it doesn't look too bad, but it is more than noticeable...anyhow, I should take advantage of her sleep to get some things done around here....open a beer, maybe.
Her name was Sylvan originally...Rescue called her Charlotte. I don't like either of those, but should come up with something quick...so send you suggestions....more later...

socks?

Sleep has been evasive lately...maybe it's the moon. Maybe it's the change in barometric pressure...we have gone from warm summer to definite fall overnight. The wind came up out of nowhere last night...we didn't sleep much...this morning I had to wear socks...Socks? I could just cry. Honest. Well, actually, I did cry but I did mention the lack of sleep, didn't I? And, in all honesty, I am utterly distracted the past few days...plus the lack of sleep, the wind, the high pressure-low pressure end of summer...there's more to the story, but I am holding my breath until tomorrow...evening....so I will let you know then, ok?

HEY YA CHARLIE BROWN OUTCAST HEY YA SONG

Who do you dance like?!?

Martha don't live here, revisited

Here is what a five gallon batch of Extra Special Bitter(Dark) Ale with extra hops looks like in the beginning....the smell, people, of warm hops cooking in my house makes me feel all warm and fuzzy...I am home again.... downwind of the brewery, smelling that warm, green smell of my childhood.
Here is what six pounds of organic basil, three kinds of parmesan(two are sheep cheese, mmmm), pine nuts, walnuts, cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil, sun-dried tomatoes and 1971 blender(poor thing nearly died) look like at the beginning.....a small fortune of moolah invested here to make....

the loveliest of pestos....in several flavours....already some of the bottles are disappearing around the neighbourhood...we celebrated the final result with a dinner of sauteed veggies over an herbed linguine with a most excellent creamy pesto sauce over it all....lordy, I am hungry again!
Will post with some stories later. Until then....

here and now

It is 9/11 and I feel I cannot post without acknowledging that fact. I cannot really put into words what I feel about it. I never will be able to do that. Sitting on the floor in Canada in front of the television five years ago, I felt cut of from my country, bereft. It is the only time I have felt that way, before or since.
The last best thing I can remember my country doing as one nation, one people, was grieve the loss of these thousands of lives, futures, hopes and dreams.
This post feels unfinished... but it is as much as I can say here and now.

fluevog

That's my whole post tonight cuz Willie Nelson's Stars and Guitars is on the country channel and I can't concentrate on anything else....g'nite.

Brought to you today by the letter Ass-Hat

It is the start of the revolution, everyone....grab your Ass-Hats and head out the door, get a can of spray paint, make a bumber sticker, shout it on the street....heh heh.
hickchic tells us the story of Ass-Hats today on her blog. I nearly shot my breakfast out of my nose while reading!!! Check it out...
I am busy today...so I may not have another chance to post later. We are feasting tonight for Duke's Mom's birthday...DB is making one of her drop-dead-too-gorgeous-to-eat cakes and I am making a huge platter of chicken and black bean enchiladas...labour intensive, honestly. And I still have to shop! And chop...and chop...and chop....yummy results, though.
And early tomorrow morning we catch the first ferry over to Vancouver to go to the big farmer's market to buy all the fresh organic basil we can and some delicious goat parmesan so that I can come home and make vast amounts of mouth-watering pesto!!!!! Enough to last all winter and then some... and(cue the angel choir here), a stop at Fluevog's for shoes!!!!!!!! Perhaps even two pair!!!! (is that choir still singing?) because the sale is THAT good and I have a gift certificate!!!!! Yay for me...we may even get to stop at the best hot dog cart on the west coast for turkey smokies with corn relish, beets and grilled onions...oh, it's gonna be a great day...did I mention that we may be looking at some puppies tomorrow(SQUEALING WITH DELIGHT RIGHT NOW!)! Nothing for sure!!! But we're officially LOOKING!!!!!

here there be monsters....

Sea monsters do exist and apparently they are beheading each other....
Here is Duke and Viggo, blatantly disregarding the NO DOGS ON BEACH(or in the picnic area) policy now established throughout Rathtrevor Provincial Park...Ass-hats. My taxes pay for Provincial Parks, too, Ass-hats...Hey Ass-hats, why didn't you tell me the dogs weren't allowed BEFORE I paid for parking, huh, Ass-hats?
Look at us go, Ass-hats! No leashes, even. I realize that there are pricey spas and resorts all over this beach and the money dictates the laws round here, Ass-hats...but, since that is the case, Ass-hats, make Rathtrevor an eff'ing private park and make the resorts pay for it! If I can't come here with my dog(s), Ass-hats, I don't want my taxes paying for it!!!! I will take my spending money to Vancouver, a big and giant city that makes room for it's dogs in the parks! If they can find the room, how come you, Ass-hats, cannot? Ass-hats!
Thanks, Heidi, for the new rant word, cuz the one I usually use is a bit too much for blogtown...those of you who know me best, know exactly what word I am thinking of, don't you?
So I have not been around too much the past few days...my "stiff neck" from a few posts ago turned into a highly painful bad back...sitting was something not to be endured...if I was laying down, sometimes I couldn't get up...so mostly I wandered from room to room in a kind of shuffle. I cried lots. It helps to cry, for some reason. I have chronic pain, it's usually a low-grade bearable type of thing that flairs into something less manageable sometimes, so when something ELSE comes into the mix, something unrelated and not so "familiar," I do become a real mess. I have a hard time coping then.
I did get out for some dog walks, did manage grocery shopping and finally yesterday felt fine enough to go out to Coombs Country Market with Duke and Viggo and Duke's mom...Viggo had a long day home since school started so I sprung him to go to the beach with us...only to find our beach is now completely cut off to us...ass-hats. Yesterday, I felt fine enough to climb a ladder, even, and help Michael repair the seams in the roof of the garage...woo-hoo. Exciting. It is exciting, honestly...pain-free(relatively) is exciting...
One quick neighbourhood hap(it has been so quiet around here, but I wouldn't live on Haliburton Street now for any amount of money!)... early yesterday morning, still dark, my good neighbour DB was snuggled into her pillow...her motion detector sprinkler went off in the yard and she heard a low-billy-goats-gruff voice yell out "FO-UCK." You know how sometimes there is a definite O sound to it when you really want to emphasize it, rightt?!? She smiled, snuggled back into in her pillow, pulled her blankets up and went back to sleep. I love that visual, her little smirk as she slips off back to sleep...and I know that the sprinkler has a dead aim about chest/face high...it is set to keep critters out of the yard, just not little critters! Teehee.

Crikey, goodbye!

Is it strange how hard I've taken this news? I guess it hurts to see someone who really, truly, fantastically loved life in an all-out- live-absolutely-every-moment kind of way taken away in such a shocking sort of way.
Anyone who can make me love a crocodile must be a truly special, kind of magic person...bye, Steve. Crikey, you were fun to watch.

Goodbye, Andre...

I'll miss you.

Tennis won't be the same...not that I will be watching anymore, anyway.

Good luck!

river rats

Three carloads of us were off to the river yesterday, with dogs in tow... the water is decidely colder now, and though the rocks were certainly enough to warm us when we came out of the water it took a little longer than it did last week, the sun was not as strong as it was only a week ago. Summer is coming to a close. I will miss all the impromptu gathering with friends such as these...where, in a whirlwind of glee, we gather towels and bathing suits, snacks, dogs, beer, snorkels and rush madly out to the river, as if every single moment counted...and, as summer days cool and the light leaves earlier each night, I guess that every moment does count.
Duke is contemplating yet another swim...or maybe contemplating what this is...and what it may taste like with some butter and garlic!
Can you see that little bugger?!? Here, everyone calls them Crayfish...I know them as Crawdads...one more thing that reminds everyone that I am not from Canada...ah well.

the Highest Tide

Hey there all(but especially Hick Chick with all your great recommendations and reviews) ...here is a book I recommend. Not only is it a fine book about growing up on the water, which really is a different life than one growing up on the plains, or on a mountain, or in a desert, it a fine book written lovingly about growing up in my hometown. It's a bonus that it is a great read because initially I bought it for the fact that I knew every place the author talks about in here...When he names a street, I know exactly where he is...when he names a bar, I have had at least one beer there(if not more)...and it was nice to remember some of the better parts of home because I don't always remember it so fondly. Well, that's it for now...the phone just rang and I am off for an adventure. Later.

one more, for good measure

Had to fool with this photo for a while so it wasn't ready to go up with the post...but I like it so here it isssssssssss.

Dog and Pony Show

Here we see our friends have come to the other field to meet the dogs at the gate...how cute, right? See how we are at the Off Leash part of our walk? See the gaping hole in the gate? The little chubby pony ran right up to us and jumped around like a little chubby fool and took off at a rambling kind of gait...Duke couldn't say no to that kind of invitation...Viggo follows where Duke leads...Duke's mom and I crawled through the gate and we completed the comic routine...I don't think the pony or the horse were frightened, they just pranced around in circles, flicking their tails...I don't think the dogs were frightened, the just followed around in circles....Duke's mom and I? Definitely frightened...definitely. We got the dogs and the horse and pony just moved along...like it was nothing but a game...who knows? Maybe it was, but we didn't know the rules! I think we are off to other hiking spots for a few days...besides, this morning I woke up with the stiffest neck I can recall and though I don't remember what I did to cause it, I am fairly sure it started somewhere during the Dog and Pony Show.
The little dog in the above photo is Yuko...the best damn dog ever..."Sit and Stay" are never just suggestions with her, even with so much temptation. She is a good damn dog!

Duke after a swim...

Viggo after a swim.
Snake eating a slug...he was unhappy with our disturbance...he was just trying to enjoy his lunch when our little troupe of hooligans passed through on our way to the swimming hole.