Girl Gone Country

Countdown: 18 Days

2012-02-14T09:46:00.000-04:00

Sisters, Commit This To Memory (Then Put On Lingerie)

2012-02-14T09:36:00.003-04:00

Part of a comment by Russell Smith, novelist and columnist, from Saturday's Globe & Mail, regarding "typical male receptivity to female underwear", particularly if it is unsexy:

"A guy finding himself in the privileged position of ascertaining what is under your clothes is already counting himself blessed; he is not going to complain about the details. Nor is he going to care, at this point, that the present he has unwrapped is not exactly as advertised: Men generally care less about perfect slenderness than women think they do. Now, having said that, I admit I don't think that thick, rubbery undercorsets are the sexiest thing, largely because I think you don't need them. Self-confidence is a more attractive trait than lankiness, always."

Amen, and thank you.

Sudden Onset Memory

2012-02-13T15:01:00.001-04:00

I'd tossed a bunch of mixed CDs onto the turntable to listen to and just as we were finishing supper, the third CD, from our first year together, started playing a song by the Statler Brothers. It wasn't the song that had me longing for my father; it was the sound of those familiar voices.

During the first year he had his own room in the nursing home and I was still living at home, I would sit with him and play his favourite music, Rita MacNeil or the Statler Brothers. Suddenly, I missed doing that and wanted to be doing that again. It was such a sweet time under the circumstances, especially when there were so many evenings when it was possible to sit with him because he was restless, flailing, or worse - and restless and flailing because - he was unclean. Even though it was hard to lose him to Alzheimer's disease, to see him suffer like he did, listening to music with him was such a lovely, special thing to do. I could be so impatient, so unloving, it's what I grasp to keep from losing my mind that ultimately, I failed as a daughter.

I said some of this to Dwayne and he remembered, too.

"Before we were married, and after," he said, "I really enjoyed visiting your father."

For that's all Dwayne had with my father, those visits at the nursing home, the music, the hand shakes my father wouldn't let go of; he never knew my father any other way.

We didn't mention it but both of us had to be thinking then about the night in March 2008 when we had an extra day with Dad because a snowstorm delayed our flight, when we had another evening with him and when the Statler Brothers began to sing "King of the Road", Dad tapped a hand on his knee and tried to sing along.

Little over a year later, my father would be dying and in those final days, we continued to listen to his favourite music, Rita MacNeil and the Statler Brothers, and I would hold his hand and tell him that I loved him and, ultimately, finally, not fail him in the end.

A Boy and His Blower

2012-02-12T09:20:00.005-04:00

My devoted husband had just created a vast network of walking trails in the snow, through the plantation, up the road to the brook, and I enjoyed four days of walking on them with the dogs.
An enormous snowshoe hare is making tracks in the plantation but I have yet to see a wild rabbit, likely because I walk with the dogs. But before I had the chance to wander quietly by myself, peering under the low limbs of the pine trees to see if a rabbit was sitting there, we woke up to 20 centimeters of snow this morning, and it's coming down. Not a trail can be seen, four-wheeler or rabbit or deer.
My country boy, however, is delighted because he gets to use his snowblower again.
"It has heated handles," he told me after the last snow storm. So although he can't take it all over our back forty, he'll happily carve a trail for me to the chicken coop.

Writing Tip

2012-02-08T14:44:00.002-04:00

Get a large recycling box, the largest you can find and put every hard copy of everything you write in it. Don't worry about someone at the recycling depot claiming it as their own because 1) be honest, it's not THAT good, and 2) you're never going to empty this recycling box. Ever. Not like you obsessively empty the one on your computer's desktop. No.
This means that when you come to Chapter Five and neither the hard copy in front of you on your desk nor the version on your computer contain the new opening you KNOW you wrote last fall during a writing sample rewrite, you can dig in that large recycling box taking up so much space under the window and FIND, torn in half but still together, those pages.
THEN discover that the version on your computer is even better since you worked in the new opening and kept reworking.
Sweetest moment.
(Which reminds the writer that she needs to interrupt this easier-than-expected edit of Chapter 5 to look out the window and see if there are any deer in the garden. Some writing life, huh?)

Moonlight And Nibbles

2012-02-08T08:57:00.002-04:00

Arriving home yesterday afternoon, I was surprised to see a deer standing in our snowy vegetable garden. We've never had deer in that garden since it's too close to the house and too far away from tree cover. But the snow is deep and the temperature keeps fluctuating between minus 20 and plus 2 (really, what is up with that?) so what's a poor deer to do when winter suddenly strikes in February? How she knew there were carrots buried in that garden, frozen, under snow, I don't know (can she smell them?) but there she was. Pulling into the driveway scared her off but in the field behind the house were two other deer - this must be the doe and her offspring that Dwayne has seen travelling together - and they bounded away. Such a beautiful, graceful animal.

I let the dogs out and they tore around, piddling and pooping. I got to watch as the doe picked her way across the field to join the other two in the far woods. Stella noticed her and sat with me to watch but Abby has no clue yet about the wildlife around us and she was busy pouncing on a stick.

When I told Dwayne, he said they'd likely come back at night to eat.

Around midnight, the pup made noise and my mind is still tuned to her sounds in case she has to pee so I got out of bed to check but by the time I made it to the dogs' bed, everyone was curled up with each other and no one seemed interested in peeing. Good thing because I would have simply opened the sliding door...

...and ended up scaring off the three deer standing in the garden eating frozen carrots in the moonlight.

Beautiful Day, Beautiful Words

2012-02-04T08:44:00.003-04:00

What a perfect day to host a workshop. Thanks to the renovation, I now can host my writing workshops in my own home instead of at Mum's house on Pugwash Point, meaning they can take place year-round, not just in the summer. This country home provides a welcoming and comfortable setting. We have the expanded our dining/sitting area, a larger table so everyone can write properly (not on their knees while sitting on a couch) and the kitchen is off to one side so we don't feel cramped. With all the windows across the front of the house, the new snow outside and the sunshine, it's a lovely venue.
If I do say so myself.
This afternoon, I'm hosting a three-hour editing workshop and I'm really looking forward to it. Enough people signed up to make this afternoon worthwhile, and enough people expressed interest in one in the spring to make it possible to do this again. I enjoy providing workshops and sharing everything I've learned in the past 15 years of writing so it's nice to get such a positive response in this rural area.
Having offered "get writing" workshops in the past, I decided to offer one on editing. For people who are writing, it's important to learn how to edit. It's my favourite part of writing and since I've been working on my book for two years, I'm full of tips and experiences that should be helpful.
But first, I must bake cookies and hide the dust bunnies.

Looth Tooth

2012-02-01T09:28:00.006-04:00

The first baby tooth!

My friend Jane has been inspecting Abby's teeth the past few weeks for teeth falling out and until recently, Abby was holding onto all her baby teeth. According to Jane, the longer they keep their baby teeth, the stronger the new ones will be. Well, Abby was missing a tooth on Monday and I think she lost it while wrestling a stick with Stella, and last night, I heard a 'plink' on the hardwood floor and what I thought was a piece of popcorn turned out to be a puppy molar. It's very small...

Of course, I'm keeping it! I have all of my own baby teeth, why wouldn't I keep the first puppy tooth I've ever found?

The growth spurts continue. Abby now takes up most of the loveseat couch, and the stretching out is new (normally, she curls up tight against Stella). I wonder when Stella is going to get fed up and start asserting her older dog status again?

Feeling A Little Bit Country Today

2012-01-31T09:33:00.002-04:00

There's nothing to write about but thought I should just say Hello! Exerted all my creative energy, again, for my "Field Notes" column in this week's The Oxford Journal.

Oh, wait, you thought I was going to say The Globe & Mail? Bwahahaha. You know, Marfa, it's not that I'm not good enough to write for the Globe (been there, done that) but that I'm now not snooty enough. Did I just bite the hand that feeds me? But really, there is such a difference between living and writing in Toronto or Vancouver, and living and writing in rural Nova Scotia.

Which you do think suits me better, hmmmm? And all you city folk can live the good life vicariously through me.

Explaining The Mess

2012-01-27T09:44:00.003-04:00

When I came into the house at noon yesterday, the message notebook, old glasses, lip gloss, the spare car keys, and the shredded remains of two bags of cat treats were strewn around the floor. The phone was off the hook.
"So, Stella," I said, "how did the box on the telephone table get knocked onto the floor?
"She did it," Stella said, pointing at Abby.
"Is that true?" I asked Abby.
Abby, chewing on Stella's ear, replied, "Errrrr."
That's the challenge of interrogating someone who has a vocabulary of five words.
"I suppose it's my fault for putting the two bags of cat treats in that box," I said to Stella.
She nodded.
"I do recall, however, when I left that I told you that you were in charge."
Stella hung her head.
"You could have stopped her, you know," I pointed out.
Stella stared at me. "Are you kidding? She had treats."

*********
Fern is asleep in the chair behind me in my office. We solved the cat problem just in time for Abby to hit the "terrible two's", if that's what it's called in dogs. She is four months old today and has lost that cute puppyness. Now she is a long, thin, gangly tween. Tearing the house apart and we are only pre-adolescence! Thankfully, by the time Abby is a teenager, she'll be fixed and it will be spring. Lots of opportunities to be outside.
Oh. Right. Mud up to the belly. Dead things thawing. Tell me again why I don't just keep goldfish?
Ahhhh, how can I say that? This photo reminds me so much of when Stella was a kid. Sitting so pretty and innocent for a picture then...

Sunrise

2012-01-26T08:47:00.002-04:00

Taken last week when we still had snow:

Up, Up and Away

2012-01-25T08:48:00.004-04:00

So the cat has been going out since Saturday night (when we caught her, finally, doing the digging action on the bed and tossed her outside into a mere minus 19 night) and she seems better. More affectionate yet somehow more aloof, preferring now to be outside since the temperature has been mild the past few days. After a year of living inside the house, Fern races around as if excited to be "free" again. I wonder if she remembers how hard it was to be a stray?
I moved all the bird feeders, hoping to save some lives, and this morning, one chickadee showed up to eat suet. The more interesting sight was my black and white cat up in the maple tree. Halfway up. Way out on a branch. Holy crap (which is not exactly what I exclaimed at the time). Save my bedding (and my marriage!), sacrifice the songbirds. I have until April to convince Fern to stalk and catch only the black birds (grackles and starlings).

It is nice, though, to have her hanging around us in the house again, the way we were before the arrival of the puppy. Cleaning up the kitchen after supper last night, I had this urge to work on my manuscript and I didn't want to deny it. Because I enjoy my husband's company, I spend too many evenings watching television with him instead of going upstairs to write. Then I go to bed feeling shitty because another day went by without any writing being accomplished.

"I'm going to work for an hour or so," I told Dwayne. He was cuddled with Abby in the recliner so he wasn't going to miss me. Fern soon showed up in my office, wanting to lay across my lap, across my arm, across my papers. She settled in the dog chair across the room. It was nice to have company, and likely she was feeling that, too, since she's upstairs on her own so much now that I'm working out of the house four days a week. Abby showed up at one point but she doesn't settle down; she's not a writer's dog yet.

Even with the visiting, I managed to get through more than 100 pages of the 150 I have to edit the divorce stuff out of. It felt good to finally get to work on it. Editing is an exciting process for me; even just going through pages, crossing out paragraphs and making notes, transforms the work and makes me eager to get to the computer and start the harder work of rewriting.

Onwards (for me) and upwards (for Fern). I'm so excited, I could just pee...

Hanging On By Our Toenails

2012-01-23T11:24:00.003-04:00

I don't know what I was doing, flicking on a light switch or something that simple, ah, yes, rushing into the bedroom because the door wasn't closed and the cat wasn't lying on the blanket on top of the dog crate any longer. As I turned on the bedroom light, I thought, "I miss my quiet, well-ordered life."

Ha!

It's been a hard two months with the arrival of the puppy, the cat peeing on the bed, doing all the Christmas crap, but now there's no Christmas to distract me: It's all pee and poop and I'm just bloody tired of it.

"You know, Stel," I said to the old girl as we walked to the mailbox to pick up the paper Sunday morning, "the upside of all this chaos and incontinence is that it's given me a huge appreciation for you."

And it has. Seeing Stella in a whole new light, seeing Stella as a cool, laid-back, easy-going dog, taking all the hits and bites and loss of personal space and only objecting when someone wants a bite of the new bone has made all this crap worthwhile.

But if anyone pees in the house again, I swear, Stella's going to have her bed all to herself once more.

Cat Therapy

2012-01-21T11:11:00.004-04:00

It's been such a busy week (thanks in part to Fern), I haven't had time to update the cat crisis. Which, despite my best efforts, continues.
For the first time since I moved to Nova Scotia five years ago, I had a session with my friend, the animal whisperer. She explained to me what was going on in Fern's head so our theories were proven right. Fern had been dealing with all the changes around here - spending the summer at Mum's house, the newly renovated home, then my different work schedule (I'm not home as much as I was when I was subbing) - but the puppy pushed her past her coping skills. Plus, she was jealous. Imagine! I was spending more time with the puppy, even taking the pup to work. I suppose having the pup sleep in the bed with me was more than she could bear. Fern peed on my side of the bed, and on me, because she knew I'd try to find out what was wrong, because she knew I knew someone who could help.
My friend then provided some suggestions as to how to overcome what was becoming a peeing habit (the smell of her urine overcame her sense of right and wrong). Do you know how hard it is to find cat grass around here? She also wants to be an indoor/outdoor cat which can't happen until after we get back from our week's trip in March; it also can't happen until we move our bird feeders off the front deck. I gave her fresh chicken yesterday; she ate only one piece. I've tried explaining to her that she is part of the family, that she is our number one cat, that the pup is not more important than she is (although now the pup is house-trained and the cat is not...) but Fern won't sit still.
Cats are a pain in the ass, you know that? Even though I believe in Kim's ability to communicate with animals, it sounds stupid to be bending over backwards to solve this problem just because the cat is jealous of the puppy. I don't need a cat with emotional issues. What part of "stop peeing on the bed or you're going to live in a barn?" can't she understand? If she can ask for cat grass and chicken, surely she can overcome the urge to pee on the bed.
Apparently not: She peed on the bed Thursday night despite it being sprayed with odour-eliminating enzymes for three days, and she peed on it again last night. The waterproof pad under the cheap Walmart blanket (maybe that's what she's objecting to now) works, relieving me of the hassle of cleaning four layers of bedding but that's not the point. I'm not living forever with a cat who pees on our bed.
I've had her checked out by a vet and I've had her analyzed by a pet psychic. Now it's up to Fern. She has a month (and my husband will say I'm being overly generous) to return to normal. She pees most often in the early evening so perhaps she can go out at sunset when the birds are gone. The thought of euthanizing her makes me want to throw up but what other choice will I have? My marriage is more important than this cat, even if she is "our" cat.

The Weirdness of Cats

2012-01-18T16:46:00.001-04:00

Fern doesn't appear to hate the puppy; as far as we can tell, she seeks her out for play. And she seems to play with Abby the way Abby plays with Stella.

Fern could take a lot more shots at the puppy than she does. Stella is the same way. Everyone tolerates so much from her because she is such a nice puppy. Even her high energy isn't nearly as high or annoying as Stella's was (oh, the memories). Abby's big trait is her love of snuggles.
Hopefully Fern has reached a turning point and realizes the puppy is staying and is not out to get her.

A Cat In Crisis

2012-01-15T14:41:00.006-04:00

Fern is doing something unacceptable but we have no idea what is causing it or how to make it stop.
One morning in mid-November, Fern peed on my side of the bed. I discovered it as I was making the bed before heading to work; given the look on her face where she was sitting on a chair in the living room, we all assumed she was pissed off because I hadn't shared my peanut butter with her. I washed the quilt and blanket and made sure to give her PB every morning after that.
But in early December, Fern did it again. We assumed she was objecting to the pup sleeping with me. Yet even after Abby started sleeping with Stella, Fern has continued to pee on the bed. I removed the quilt for two weeks over Christmas and no more...but when I put it back on, pee again.
Can I tell you how annoying that is? Our beautiful quilt getting ruined by frequent washings. I learned last week when we took Fern to the vet, washing doesn't get rid of the scent of cat urine. The vet discovered a bacterial infection and she recommended a pheromone spray that is supposed to stop unwanted urinating and scratching. I also replaced all the bedding and bought an enzyme spray.
We went a week with no peeing and I was confident the problem was gone. Fern was saved! Until Friday...and Saturday...and today...
Why is our cat doing this? We can't see any other behaviour changes, not even where the pup is concerned. Believe me, if we could find some reason... So beyond keeping the bedroom door closed, which messes up the airflow for the furnace, how do I keep her from peeing on the bed? She's not peeing anywhere else in the house. Why always on our bed and why not consistently every day? If it's a message, I ain't getting it.
Here are my choices: If the vet doesn't find anything wrong with her this week, Fern will either be re-home and if that's not possible, euthanized. I simply can't dump a spoiled, lovely, sweet, indulged house cat in a barn and leave her to fend for herself. Fern may have been born a stray but she has lived inside our house for a year.
I don't want to lose my pretty girl but peeing on the bed for no reason other than habit isn't something I'm prepared to live with. I hate not knowing WHY.

*********

Monday morning update:

Fern peed on me while I was sleeping in the bed. Now that's escalation. At a quarter to five this morning, I woke up wondering why my arm was wet, and my side. When I smelled my pajama sleeve, I knew.

The pup had been in the bed during the night -- which I won't do again since she's all arms and legs and likes to sprawl under the covers at my feet -- but Fern had snuggled with me then laid on top of the pup for awhile.

The problem is definitely behavioural, and obviously linked to the pup. It's been suggested that we make her an indoor/outdoor cat but at the coldest time of the year?!

It's Alive! My Creation Is Alive!

2012-01-13T14:32:00.003-04:00

The dream lives! The editor who reviewed my manuscript had a very positive response to most of it. The part she hated...all the stuff about the end of my first marriage and the drawn-out divorce. I have no problems eradicating that person even further from the book.
"If you're not a celebrity, and you're not being humourous, there is no market for a divorce memoir," said the editor. "Your writing around your father, mother, friends, dogs and the setting is much stronger than your writing about the divorce."
So, given the choice between insisting on keeping that experience in the book and never being published or taking out everything divorce related that isn't pertinent to the theme and landing a book deal...well, it is a no-brainer, isn't it?
Besides the written evaluation, we had a one-hour follow-up phone call. I went into that conversation with three obstacles: 1) How will I edit my manuscript without a hard copy with comments on it? 2) How do I change the opening? and 3) How do I know if I'm on the right track? Very quickly in our conversation, I knew the answers. It's really the opening that needs changing, a major rewrite in fact, but funny: what the editor recommends (based on how I ended the book) already exists! Before I changed the opening of my book when I started writing for the mentorship program, I had a whole prologue written based on my lifelong wish that I knew how to catch a baseball...then finding out after I'd moved to Nova Scotia that my father had played baseball as a young man. (That still blows me away.) So in reality, not that much work to be done. Oh, for sure, lots of work! But not as overwhelming as it seemed between receiving the eight-page evaluation and the phone call.
The last line of the book is from the baseball story: "The miracle of a good catch didn't happen for my father; it happened for me." The editor says that's my theme. Which changes what I thought was my main theme. Which is not a problem. Which is easier to work with, frankly.
Regarding the third obstacle, I can send my rewritten opening (whether it's the first 50, 80 or 100 pages) back to the editor and she'll review them for me. It will cost me her hourly editing rate which is more than worth it, I'd say, considering the help she's already provided. My risk in hiring this editor paid off. This is exactly what I needed for this manuscript to get me moving forward again. Oh, the excitement! Can't wait to get working on this again.
Hope springs.

It's Easy Being Green and Dusty

2012-01-12T20:16:00.000-04:00

It may seem odd for the Queen of Unclean to be recommending a cleaning product but who are you going to trust when it comes to a great dusting mitt? If the person who hates cleaning (to be fair, I don't hate it but I'd rather write than clean my house) loves it, you can be assured, it's awesome. It must be magical: I put it on and I feel like dusting.

Retails here in rural Nova Scotia for $4.79. Cheap enough to buy one for each hand.

Glad I'm Not a Girl These Days

2012-01-10T12:44:00.003-04:00

While in WalMart on Saturday afternoon to buy a dog bed for work, I overheard someone say, "Oh, my dear, you don't need to lose any weight."

I glanced over and there was an older woman talking to a mother and daughter. I didn't hear the entire conversation so I don't know what prompted that statement but the woman wasn't addressing the mother; she was talking to the daughter, who was a young girl.

By young I mean six or seven years old.

Interestingly, the little girl was clutching a boxed Barbie doll in her hands.

The Mind's Eye

2012-01-09T19:15:00.003-04:00

There is a mad bull on the loose behind our house. Not mad as in angry but mad as in crazy. Apparently, he escaped while being dropped off at the farm next door then crashed through the fence and disappeared into the woods. As has been explained to me, it doesn't take long for a cow on the loose to "turn wild" and this guy is resisting capture. Resisting as in turning on the man who owns him and chasing him home. It never goes over well, being chased by one's own cattle.
Dwayne called me at work this morning to warn me not to walk further than the top of our field in case the bull has stayed in the area. I'd say he has.
After I get home from work on Mondays and Tuesdays, I take the dogs for a swift walk to the top of the lane and back before it gets dark, just to work off energy after being inside all day. For the first bit of the lane, the woods belonging to the farm next door run alongside the fence on my right (on my left is our field) then they pull back some to create a small field which further along opens up into a larger field. It's at the top of the lane that the woods close back in again on both sides. As that first break in the woods appeared this afternoon, my eyes registered something out of place along the treeline at the other side of this small field. I knew it was the bull.
How many times have I walked up and down that lane, muttering to myself, deep in thought, watching the dogs, listening to the pileated woodpecker hammering on a tree trunk, or whatever; not paying the least attention to my surroundings. Yet today, instantly, with a glance, my mind registered that there was something different. Even in a stretch of trees that includes white bark on old poplar trees, my mind knew that those clumps of white there were new, and thus could only be the bull.
The spot wasn't moving and it was just far enough away I couldn't get my eyes to properly focus on so I kept walking until the out-of-place white clumps moved; they were on the bull's face and massive chest. The very large, very red Hereford bull turned and slipped back into the shadows of the woods.
The brain is so amazing. Some neuroscientist would be able to explain this phenomenon to me and I'm sure I've read about it over the years yet without any of that, it was very cool to experience it firsthand even if I can't put the proper words to it.
The bull is still on the loose, by the way. Taking my husband's caution to heart, I made for home. My brain has a strong survival instinct, as well.

No Shame In Being Dirty

2012-01-05T17:41:00.003-04:00

In the January issue of Chatelaine magazine is an article about food allergies. They are on the rise, and getting worse, and the experts have some theories, four in the magazine, including this one: We're too clean.
WE'RE TOO CLEAN. The article's author explains,"Thanks to our fondness for antibacterial soaps and squeaky-clean surfaces, decreased exposure to illness and infections in childhood may make us more prone to allergies - basically, our immune systems aren't as tough as they used to be."
From now on, I'm embracing my inner Dirty Girl. No longer will I apologize for not having a squeaky-clean house because apparently, it's a healthy place to live, and I'd rather obsess about maintaining good health than about eating off my floors. I once heard John Travolta talking about his son, Jett, long before he died, and his seizures. Travolta believed that it was the chemicals Jett was exposed to as an infant - they had their rugs professionally cleaned every day when he was a baby - that made him develop seizures. (Sadly, one killed Jett several years ago at the age of 16.)
Dwayne quotes a now-deceased guy named Percy who claimed, "You gotta eat a peck of dirt before you die." That always makes us laugh but perhaps ol' Percy was on to something.
Put away those Swiffers, ladies, and name your dust bunnies. They're your true friends.

Kinda Cold, Kinda Blue

2012-01-04T08:46:00.004-04:00

Thought I should write something in the new year, considering it's already the 4th, but all this attempt did was show me how creatively dried up I've become.

I have nothing to say.

Nothing beyond it is cold enough, finally, to pull out the winter parka with the warm furry hood.

Nothing beyond reading the first good book of 2012: Simon Toyne's "Sanctus". If you enjoyed "The DaVinci Code", you should read this one.

Nothing beyond noting that my evaluation from the editor arrived and I've peeked at it but for some reason, I don't have the energy to face reading all eight pages. So much work to do on that book. At least the peek gave me good news: I do have a voice. Every writer fears not having a voice so at least I've found mine, and it's solid.

What can I do to kick-start my creative juices? I've never even battled Writer's Block so I'm at a loss for how to get through this.

My 1,000th Post

2011-12-31T08:50:00.005-04:00

One thousand posts since the spring of 2007.
How lovely that on the last day of 2011, a year that was a true real-life mix of the good and the bad (although really, most of the bad happened to someone other than me), I hit this milestone.
And I'm not stopping.
Despite my growing obsession with round number, and the last day of the year and the last post would be my ideal ceasing point, because of the puppy and because this just might be the year I break through with my book (hope springs!), I'm going to keep writing. I can't promise to write more than once or twice a week from now on - my Mondays and Tuesdays are especially busy - but I will keep posting.

Now for my annual list of my favourite books of 2011. These aren't necessarily books that came out in 2011; they are simply the ones I read this year that I enjoyed the most. In no particular order.

1. Modoc, by Ralph Helfer. (NF) Fabulous story of an elephant.
2. Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese. (F) Set in Ethiopia. Didn't want it to end.
3. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, by Stieg Larsson. (F) A satisfying end to the trilogy.
4. Homer's Odyssey, by Gwen Cooper. (NF) About a blind cat. Didn't want it to end.
5. Soul of a Dog, by Jon Katz. (NF) I read anything by him and this book includes donkeys!
6. The Woefield Poultry Collection, by Susan Juby. (F) *Canadian. Great characterization.
7. The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd. (F) Loved this book. Made me want to keep bees.
8. Poser, by Claire Dederer. (NF) A yoga book.
9. One Amazing Thing, by Chitra Divakarumi. (F) Lovely, lovely, lovely. An unexpected find.
10. Farm City, by Novella Carpenter. (NF) I learned so much from this book without it being a how-to, or preachy. Set in San Fransisco.

My resolution for the coming year is to read more. I'm simply not getting through enough books. Would help if I didn't fall asleep after three pages.
Happy New Year! May 2012, a year of even numbers and divisible by my favourite number, 4 (albeit into a horribly odd number: 503), be the year only good things happen for you...and the bad things happen to someone else. Yeah...that still sounds not-quite-right...

Welcome To The Real World (Again)

2011-12-29T14:41:00.002-04:00

Christmas was a learning experience. Usually, I don't even think about Christmas until December 1st; I am not one of these people who put up a tree in November or start buying gifts in September, and it takes all of my willpower to keep the house decorated through New Year's Day. Until this year, however, I had at least a week off before Christmas, likely more, because I was substitute teaching. Between the puppy's arrival on November 25 and my work schedule keeping me busy until December 23, it was a very stressful, very un-enjoyable December. For the first time, even with my annual misgivings about this commercialized, out-of-control holiday, I really couldn't wait for Christmas to be over.
Since there is no way to opt out of Christmas (I imagine saying in October, "I'm not celebrating Christmas this year" will elicit the same response as saying I didn't want children always did: "Oh, you'll change your mind.")...So since I must do Christmas, I'm going to have to be better organized because there's no yuckier feeling than wanting a major event to be over with. Hanging on by my fingernails is not how I like to live so next year, on November 1 (or the first Sunday thereabouts), I'm going to sit down with a list of everything that needs to be bought, baked, mailed, and wrapped by December 24, and start right away to gather the supplies for my Christmas projects. I'm also going to buy gifts for people when I see them, not try and remember to go back later (don't ask how many gifts I forgot to buy this year!).
Between being better organized and not having a puppy, I should be able to manage my Christmas obligations next year without eating very single shortbread cookie that I baked.

* * * * *

Since an uncle wrote in his Christmas card to me "Any books lately?", I supposed I should update that seemingly endless project.
Back in October, after yet another season of rejections, I decided to give the book one last, big kick-at-the-can: I hired a professional editor to do an evaluation on it. My book needed to be read by someone who doesn't know me and doesn't know my story, someone who knows the market and knows what publishers are looking for, knows what will sell.
It's hard to tell how I feel about my book, and about my creative writing in general, because right now, I have no creative force inside me at all. Between the bi-weekly feature I create for the Journal every month, the puppy and Christmas, I am empty. I'm like an engine that grinds but won't turn over. That's an even yuckier feeling than wanting Christmas to be over with. I suppose since the moment I emailed my manuscript to this editor in early November, my anxiety meter rose a few points in anticipation of her eventual response which we agreed would come in January.
I feel as if I'm at a cross-roads. The editor's evaluation, which I'm expecting to be blunt and detailed, will show me if there is any point in pursuing this any further. Since all I've ever wanted is to write books full-time, the idea that the dream could be over by next week scares the crap out of me but at least, no one will be able to say I didn't give this everything I had. Is it any wonder there's been this low-voltage current of anxiety running through me for the past two months? This is it, my friends. Either I remain your friend the writer, or I become your friend the... You see the problem? Who are you if you no longer what you've been for so long?
And sitting here on this cold, windy afternoon in my lovely yellow office, writing and tidying up in preparation - hope springs! - for doing some more writing in the new year, I must say I really, really, really miss spending my days here.
So cross your fingers that the dream doesn't end on Monday, January 2.

The Dogs Will Keep Me Sane

2011-12-29T14:31:00.000-04:00

So my niece and nephews, particularly George, are totally into "Angry Birds". My sister, she who is beloved specially of her brother-in-law, he of the chronically aching head, gave my two dogs Angry Birds squeaky toys for Christmas. It's not quite a symphony but Stella does try for that full orchestra sound...

Christmas Is Such Fun When You're Furry

2011-12-28T10:03:00.005-04:00

Christmas with a new cat and a puppy went off without a hitch, or a tumble, or a crash, or an emergency operation...

Here are the kids, checking out their stuffed stockings.

They obviously knew it was Christmas because they were wound right up -- and that was before they got into the catnip! So before we had breakfast or did our own stockings, the pets got their gifts. An indoor stick is just what we asked for.

Ooooooh, too much catnip....

Resting up between playing and eating and more playing and more eating.

That's the first photo of the three of them together. Peace on earth, goodwill to pets.
Ah, best Christmas ever!

We're Not Dreaming Of A White Christmas...

2011-12-24T13:43:00.005-04:00

...we're getting it.
While I'm a big fan of snow at any time, it thrills me when it snows on December 23rd AND 24th. One of my greatest pleasures in life is walking to the woods with my two dogs on a snowy afternoon (or morning, as was the case today).

Merry Christmas, whether it's blue, green or white. May peace and contentment be the greatest gifts you receive this year. Much love to my family. Miss you, as always. By the way, baking in the new kitchen: Awesome! New puppy, new kitchen. Santa, you don't need to stop here this year - my gifts came early. Thanks.

My X-man's Power

2011-12-20T12:57:00.005-04:00

We do other things that do not involve the dogs. I don't know what I was doing, or rather, what I was supposed to be taking a picture of but the flash didn't go off.

This photo reveals my husband's super power: He has the ability to become see-through.

I hope this doesn't mean he has X-ray vision...

Eight Days, Twelve Days, 24 Days

2011-12-18T19:30:00.003-04:00

Remember those annoying, aggravating, frustrating, totally inexplicable math brain teasers from high school? The title is not one of them!
It's been eight days since I last wrote here.
It's the twelve days of Christmas and all through the house, a puppy is scurrying and the cat's found a mouse.
It's been 24 days since Abby joined our family. "We live in a zoo," I say to Dwayne every evening as three furry creatures chase each other around the house. Last night was Abby's first full night sleeping with Big Sister in the Big Dog bed (which is, truly a big dog bed) and I kinda missed her. She's getting bigger; her chin reaches the top of the mattress. She just shticked-ticked down the hallway but she is now too big to sit on my lap while I type. She's a lovely little dog; house-training is coming along nicely, she is gladly going for long walks up the lane, and she sleeps through the night without having to go for a pee. I don't know what I was doing the other night, in the middle of the night, but both dogs were up and I thought one should go out so I was over at the dog bed which we move into our room at night. I thought Stella had left the room but she was standing next to me and I can't see Abby in the dark and I actually muttered, "How many dogs do we have?"
Busy week at work coming up: we have two issues to send to the printer this week since we get the week following Christmas Day off (slow week for community news and ads). This is where my ability to contribute copy pays off; I'll be able to provide content for the December 28th issue. Still loving my job. New work-related perk? We get an hour for lunch on Mondays so Abby and Jane's pup, Sam, get a playdate. Jane and Sam will be getting special gifts because I appreciate Jane's generosity in letting us invade her home every Monday (although I know she enjoys it).
Tree is up and decorated lightly but so far, no problems. We left Abby in the dog bed (in its day location in the dining room) with Stella while we went to Mom & Dad's for supper and the only thing she destroyed was a bow of a present that she'd been trying to get all day. She didn't eat it but it no longer resembles a bow in any form. She chewed the side of the toy basket, too. If that's the worst of her damage, we're certainly do have one good puppy.
But the last word of the day has to be about Stella: She is beyond fabulous. I didn't expect her to be awful with the puppy but she seems glad of the playmate, even one that chews on her ears and elbows. After our walk this afternoon, Abs and I came in, leaving Stella outside in the driveway holding a stick in her mouth. It was a sad sight but Abby is still too small to play with sticks with way Stella wants. And I must say it's a good thing that Stella has put on weight (she now sets off the seatbelt warning for the passenger seat in Dwayne's truck!) because she needs the bulk to put up with the climbing and bouncing and wrestling Abby does with her. It's lovely to see them curled up together in the bed. Stella has more than redeemed herself for being a terrible puppy and I, too, am redeeming myself for her terrible puppyhood.
We live in a zoo and we're terribly happy about it.
And even though it's not part of the sequence and it's an odd number...I have to add "3 Days". It's been three days since my last yoga practice, likely because for the past three days, I've been reading the final book in the Stieg Larsson "The Girl With/Who..." series. Even better, though, Dwayne and I just enjoyed three days together, uninterrupted by calls in to work, and since we won't likely see each other much until Christmas Eve, three is a lucky number.

No Need For A Therapist

2011-12-11T15:38:00.007-04:00

Apparently, Abby's problem with going outside wasn't really going outside to do her business; it was going outside in her coat. I learned this Friday morning, a day off from all things shopping and working and running around, and since I wanted very much to enjoy a nice day at home, after breakfast, I took the two girls for a walk up the lane. This was Abby's first "big girl" walk. Now, I'd been assuming that Abby ran away when she saw the coat because the coat meant "outside" but on Friday morning, with Stella standing in the open doorway ready to go, Abby deked around me and trotted right outside.
She wanted to be naked. As in, "If Big Sister doesn't wear a coat, then I don't wear a coat either."

It appears the pooping problem is now resolved since we realized she needs to poop twice, and right after she eats, and we provide a yummy liver treat after every successful touchdown. Nice to have that issue dealt with so quickly. As for the crate, a friend recommended feeding her and giving her all treats while she is inside the crate (door open) so that she learns to associate the crate with good things; that's working as well. Abby is even chewing her bone in there with the door open which is a smart move since that's the only way to keep Stella from stealing the puppy bone and eating it in one bite.
The two dogs, big and little, are getting along wonderfully. Who knew Stella would be so utterly cool about it? She doesn't mind being chewed on or climbed over, and she is sharing toys, including the little green frog. What she does expect is immediate possession of the small Kong when Abby leaves it behind and I'm getting used the great sucking sounds Stella's tongue makes as she cleans out the leftover peanut butter. Really, it saves me having to wash the Kong.

Finally, here is photographic proof that the puppy and the cat play together, often at Fern's instigation:

That's Fern's paw on Abby's head; Abby's mouth is around Fern's other arm. I think Fern is licking Abby. It's just weird, these two. Fun to watch but like having two puppies.
I imagine that both Fern and Stella can't wait for the "alligator teeth" phase to end. Those puppy teeth are sharp.

Training the Humans

2011-12-08T14:59:00.002-04:00

All is not perfect in the village of Newpuppy. We are developing issues.
First of all, the house-training is a 50/50 success. Piddling outside is fine; Abby gets that. Pooping outside, on the other hand, is more of a challenge. Actually, she poops outside just fine so the challenge is getting her to not poop inside at all. This happens in the mornings when she's running around playing with Stella and Fern; she's just a pup so if the urge comes on, she squats. Too bad I'm not seeing it. The squat, that is. Later I'm seeing the pile of poop quite well.
Learning to poop outside is complicated by the fact that Abby appears to not want to be outside when it is dark/cold/wet. Welcome to December in Nova Scotia. That's why everyone is playing inside; it's too dark and too wet (we had another 30 mm of torrential rain this morning) for the dogs, or at least the puppy, to work off any energy. But we have to figure this out soon before it becomes the norm for her and before I step in any more poop.
(Note to Santa: new slippers for Christmas.)
Crate-training is the second challenge. I think. Today, Abby had to be shut up for five hours because I couldn't take her with me and that seemed to result in some stress chewing on her tail. She's not been awful about the crate so far; I put her in it for 15 minutes every morning so that I can eat my breakfast and read the paper in peace and she lies down the whole time. Hopefully, as she gets older - it's another two weeks until I have to be gone for five hours - she'll relax about the crate. Funny, she's not a chewer (well, she loves the corners of cardboard boxes) but I won't trust her to be alone and uncrated until she's reliably pooping outside, regardless of the weather.
Egads, spring doesn't begin in Nova Scotia until the middle of May.
So two new regimes: using a strict routine for going out after sleeping and eating plus yummy liver treats after pooping outside (with cheering: "Yay, Abby poopies!") and more short stints in the crate when I'm home.
Where is Abby right now? After chasing the cat around for awhile, up and down the hallway and up and down the stairs - which is great exercise for her and the cat, which is why I let them do it; also it gives me time to write - Abby is sitting in the gold chair in my office (the writer's dog's chair), gnawing on a paper towel tube which means in about 90 seconds, she'll fall asleep. Excellent idea. I think we all should crawl into the big bed and have a nap. I'm pooped.

Good Dog Zone

2011-12-07T20:22:00.004-04:00

"I'm in relaxed-let-the-dogs-be-dogs-not-supervising-everything-they-do mode," I told my husband last night.
It wasn't a lie. The old dog had the small rubber frog and the puppy was gnashing on old dog's jowls in an attempt to take the frog away, only to jump up to chase the cat when she appeared, then wandering around the house looking for the cat or trying to remember where she last saw the old dog...and I'm not trying to control anybody's actions or intentions.
It's quite a place to be, in this calm, submissive state. This much-needed chilling-out where dogs are concerned has its roots in a book I read three years ago, Merle's Door by Ted Kerasote. Near the beginning of the book was an idea that obviously grabbed onto my dog nerve and held on tightly because it changed the way I view my dog's companionship, and the way I let her live.
Without the context, I quote from partway down page 60: "It may be impossible for dogs to become knowledgeable, and eventually wise, if they're not outside, being dogs." For several pages, Kerasote explains the science behind allowing dogs to experience challenges and how humans make dogs neurotic. I don't know exactly which phrase it was that struck me - perhaps the one I quoted above - but from almost that day on, I decided to let Stella be a dog outside. Despite the fact that she eats anything remotely organic, and the more pukable-later the better, I let her wander where ever she wanted and do whatever she wanted. Which resulted only in her establishing a morning routine of cruising around our property then barking at the door when she wanted in. As she's aged, and grown wiser, she's scaled back her routine, content with a been-there, done-that attitude.
By allowing her to be a dog outside, by ceasing to provide endless commands and demands every time she tried to do something - like eat something she'd puke up at two in the morning - I watched her calm down and mature. I really must read this book again because I now recall Kerasote talking about trusting his dog.
Yes, I trusted Stella. Since the energy I put out is the energy I receive back... The first time two summers ago when Dwayne drove away and left Stella alone, lying on the grass by the garage, I was shocked to learn she's stayed there until he returned; thrilled to know she understood that if we left, we would return, and she could just wait, on her property where she belonged, until then. I gave her space and trust and she came into her own.
So this is the outlook I have with the new puppy. I don't want to make her neurotic and I don't want to use up energy trying to control her so I'm trusting her - as far as a one can trust a puppy - and I'm trusting Stella. I'm letting the dogs be dogs; I can teach Abby to be a dog in a human world but what I really want is for Stella to teach Abby how to be a dog in a human world. And yes, I mean the dog formerly known as "Frankenstella"; trusting her and letting her be a dog outside has put our monster-puppy days behind us.
Inside, on the other hand, seems to be a completely different set of rules. How to take over the furniture seems to be the most important lesson to teach Abby.

Family Gathering

2011-12-06T21:05:00.000-04:00

This is the only photo with the cat in it that turned out!

A Perfect Puppy

2011-12-03T10:45:00.003-04:00

There was no other way to get much-needed Christmas shopping done yesterday in Truro than to take the pup with me in the car. We left at nine and returned home at three. Abby spent the entire day in the car AND THERE ISN'T A TOOTH MARK ANYWHERE. Anyone who saw the back seat of my old Subaru, or tried to turn on the lights, knows the damage that Stella did to that car. (Minor damage considering she never chewed off half the passenger seat like I've heard other dogs dog, but damage none the less.) Abby slept and sucked peanut butter out of a Kong and stood on the driver's side to howl but she didn't chew nothin' but her bone.
Now that's a Christmas miracle!
I highly recommend taking a nine-week old puppy Christmas shopping. My list was precise and the attack plan laid out strategically so that it wrapped up with the one place I could take Abby: the pet store. I've never shopped as efficiently as I did yesterday; not a single impulse buy because there was no time for wandering off-course. Go! Go! Go! There was even an opportunity for me to pee, and I didn't have to share my sushi on the drive home. Although I fail to see anything wrong with a dog who wants to eat sushi, it's nice not to have someone breathing on it as I eat it while driving.

**********
When we brought Abby home last Friday, there was an immediate issue with toys; Stella became ferocious in her defense of all toys, including the new ones lying in the pup's crate. Did I flashback? Did anxiety start to creep up my spine and claw at my neck? You betcha! With panic being my default reaction to most situations, I started to think I was in over my head again.
What a difference a week makes.
And what an amazing dog Stella is. Her reaction to other dogs, even pups, is so rough and fierce, that we give up and keep her away. There really isn't time for her to get used to another dog. But in two days, she was playing with the puppy - she lets Abby hang off her jowls and tromp all over her - and we'd reintroduced the toys. Stella has finally convinced Abby to start pulling on the other end of the tug toy. Stella loves tug-of-war and now she has someone who'll play with her.
Seriously, Stella is ONE GOOD DOG.

************
Abby spontaneously pooped this morning while I was doing chores. Really, only new parents get excited about poop but Abby going on her own in a different place without me standing around is a big step forward in our house-training.
I think I can stop getting up at 1:30 in the morning to let her out to pee. We get up early enough that after tonight (these new parents really, really need to sleep in), I think waiting till I'm up at 5:30 (a slightly less ungodly hour) will be fine.
Right now, she's asleep in the chair in my office, already learning how to be a writer's dog.
This is the best Christmas present ever.

***************

Abby Goes To Work

2011-11-29T11:28:00.004-04:00

Right now, Abby's head is resting on my right arm which is making it difficult to type. Every so often, she needs a cuddle then she goes back to her nest and chews on her bone or explores our space, seeking new treasure (so far, she has dragged back to her nest a small kitten belonging to Jane's dog and a shoe). She's been out to pee twice this morning. Ah, yes, back to obsessing about piddles and poops.

What a great puppy she is. Her personality is so calm and curious; she's not high-strung or nervous. Yesterday, she slept all morning then spent our lunch hour playing at Jane's house with 5-month-old Sam (A friend already! And one her size!) then slept most of the afternoon. How lucky I am that she's willing to accept the realities of her life: She has to work, just like her mama, so might as well make the best of it.

At lunch time, we're going to walk to the post office then pick up a parcel at Sears. If she can play with a puppy friend and have lots of different experiences, we'll be able to keep her calm and curious and well-socialized. And gainfully employed.

A Catastrophe For One

2011-11-27T10:09:00.005-04:00

Poor Fern. She took one look at the puppy when Abby came into the house and she ran upstairs into self-imposed exile. Stella came around in 24 hours but Fern is still acting as if we've brought a 100-pound cat killer into the house. Considering the cat is bigger than the puppy, perhaps Fern could chill out. Funny, when Fern came into this house, she had no problem with Stella, wasn't the least bit concerned about the 65-pound dog with the jaws of doom. Yet a small puppy freaked her out on sight.
"Cats don't like change," my mother told me. "She should adjust."
I feel like I've betrayed my lovely cat, and I certainly miss having her around. She was our 'puppy' for the longest time, playing and galloping and snuggling and being so darn cute. Now it seems like bringing home the puppy sucked the high spirits out of Fern. We've opened up the door to Mum's room to give Fern more space to roam but Dwayne did say Fern got up on our bed last night, on his side, and lay on his chest for a while. Apparently, she was giving me the hairy eyeball since I was snuggled up with the Big Bad Enemy; I didn't even know Fern was on the bed.
She hates me, I know she does.
So, we're adjusting to the new family member and the need to know where she is and what she is doing at all times. Plus, taking her out a lot for piddles and poops. Back to being enthusiastic about a dog going to the bathroom! Right now, Dwayne's cooking breakfast so I can write here. Until Fern comes around, I want to keep the upstairs puppy-free so the crate is essential for me to get any work done (I cleared my schedule, however, in anticipation of the pup's arrival). Abby went right into the crate when she arrived and that's where she goes to get away from Stella (who plays too rough BUT at least she's playing now and not trying to swallow the puppy whole) and to nap so I'm starting the process of getting her used to the door being closed.
Puppy barks are soooo high.
But enough about that. How about some photos?

Clean Sweep

2011-11-24T16:37:00.002-04:00

Obviously, I made the right decision. The decision being to listen to my gut and jettison substitute teaching from my life.
Front-page article in the paper earlier this week: "Hundreds of education graduates each year battle for few positions." Every year, my competition for substitute jobs was getting younger and hungrier; they want a job and are willing to do anything for one. I, on the other hand, had to do an hour of yoga before heading to school just to deal with the anxiety. (Although I'm learning that anxiety abhors a vacuum: Get rid of one, a new problem swooshes right into its place.) Not only are there not enough teachers retiring, student enrollment is dropping, particularly in rural areas, so there are fewer teaching positions needed. Larger class sizes on top of the bullshit teachers already have to deal with? I'm very grateful that when I said to the universe, "I am not going to sub anymore. I'll clean houses if I have to but I'm not going to sub any longer," the universe responded with a job at the local newspaper (and only two cleaning jobs!).
The only thing I miss about substitute teaching is the hugs from my great-nieces when they saw me in the hall.

A View From Her Room

2011-11-23T14:29:00.004-04:00

My mother wants to know what the view is from her chair during our snowstorm:

And this is Stella's lack of enthusiasm for going for a walk in the snowstorm:

Big News: Revealed & Postponed

2011-11-23T09:21:00.004-04:00

So, instead of heading down to Stellarton this afternoon to pick up our new puppy (did you guess that?!), we are waiting until Friday morning because of this massive snowstorm blowing up through the Bay of Fundy.

Thanks, New England. Great timing. Gee, sorry about your Thanksgiving plans.

Anyway...This delay gives me more time to prepare for the arrival of our new family member, Abby. She's named after our favourite town in Scotland, Aberfeldy (although it did occur to me just this morning that we could have named her "Edie" for Edinburgh. Next dog. "Pace yourself, honey," Dwayne replied.) Her birthday is September 27, making her a Libra - the life of the party! The rest of her litter went to their new homes on Monday and Tuesday so she's the only one left but her human mother assured me she'll snuggle her lots till Friday. The thought of someone else getting three days of solo snuggles with our little girl almost had me flying to Stellarton last night after work but common sense prevailed. Instead, I worked around home, setting up her feeding area in the laundry room, cordoned off from the food hound with my clothes racks, and putting the crate together. Seeing the crate freaked Stella out and I'm not sure if it's because she thought it was for her or because she knows it means Little Sister coming!

This photo is from meeting her last Friday. Her human mother runs a pet/tack store & dog grooming salon. Abby is coming to us with a big head-start on socialization so I'm relieved to know we'll be starting off with a great foundation. And I think she's going to be wonderful new addition to the Journal staff!

Big News: Hint #2

2011-11-22T08:49:00.004-04:00

Typical Nova Scotia: You've got big plans so in blows a big snowstorm.

Talkin' 'Bout My Girl

2011-11-21T19:28:00.004-04:00

Okay, so tried this whole thing with free feeding with Stella and, as Dwayne says, "Stella is who she is," which is basically a food hound. No, let's be honest, she's a food whore.
My dog is a slut for food.
And it's my fault (always blame the mother).
Likely, I underfed her as a puppy, didn't even think to try free feeding then, and now -- yeesh. I started out dumping a cup in but after a few days, it became apparent that at that rate, Stella would weigh a hundred pounds by the end of the month. So down it went to half a cup, then to just a sprinkle of kibble very quietly laid on the bottom of the dish.
Ask me how hard it is to sprinkle kibble into a steel dish with a food hound in the house?
After four days of finding kibble in her dish every time she checked it, she's checking for it all the time, but now seems perplexed by the fact her bowl is no longer spontaneously producing kibble. Even after eating her two cups chicken and wild rice and diced apple with probiotic yogurt this morning, Stella still went to check her bowl (empty). This is a dog with no concept of FULL. She'd eat till she exploded.
I'm a terrible dog mother (always blame me), and it's true: You can't teach a old dog a new food routine. At least, not when it comes to more. Or when it comes to Stella. Funny how a dog that's gotten so fat can looked so starved by five o'clock. Seriously, I think she sucks her jowls in.
"Ooooh, I'm so hungry. Is there a pot beef around I could eat? A 35 pound bag of kibble, at least? I mean, that would do."
"Stella, you just ate breakfast."

Big News: Hint #1

2011-11-21T09:19:00.002-04:00

We're preparing for a big day this week. Try and guess what it is!!

The Real Cat Pose

2011-11-20T09:52:00.002-04:00

Cat Pose

2011-11-17T17:18:00.002-04:00

Let's not underestimate the intelligence of our pets. After giving Fern a nickname and going public with my complaint about her, last night, Fern didn't bug me. She lay on my side of the bed all night and only walked up to me after I woke up - at four o'clock - with a lower back so stiff, it was painful to roll over. She ignored me until she knew I was awake but even then I fell back to sleep because she didn't show up wanting to play.
She showed up later, though, to do yoga with me.
Sometimes she wanders through when I'm on the mat but normally, she has a nap on the couch, knowing that only when I start rolling up the mat will breakfast be served. But this morning, she was all over me. As I was doing some back bends, she lay between my legs - which made it challenging to raise them together. Not strong enough to continue into Bow Pose, I stayed prone on my stomach, resting, and she climbed up to lay down on my back. When I slowly raised up and pushed back into Child's Pose, she stayed put! She kept her body steady as I moved mine. Never before has she participated so fully in a yoga practice. She once sat on my knee while I was doing my prayers.
I was following my favourite DVD, the Ali McGraw one, and during final relaxation, when Ali's body divides a blue sky and white sand, Fern stared at the screen. She watched and she watched even though there was no movement. It wasn't very relaxing for me: I was straining my neck watching her.
At the end of every yoga practice, I give thanks for the new day, the time on the mat, and the company of my furry friends. Fern didn't sit on my knee today but Stella got out of her bed to lay down in front of me and put her head in my lap. It must be the peaceful, healing energy that I get from doing yoga that attracts them. No other way to explain their fascination with what I'm doing since they don't appear to find it hysterically funny.

What Happened To That Extra Hour?

2011-11-16T09:02:00.002-04:00

I'm seriously in need of sleep.

Staying up too late reading because bedtime is the only time I have and it helps me fall asleep, plus I'm really enjoying Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese. It's hard to put down but it's even harder to read through closed eyes.

"How's the book, honey?" Dwayne will ask when he sees the book flopped down in my chest and my head flopped over to one side.

Since I don't have to operate heavy machinery at work (only the photocopier), I could get by on sleeping from 11 pm and to 5:30 am but for one member of our household: Four O'clock Fern. After sleeping all day then napping all evening, Fern is raring to go at four in the morning. Unlike me, who is sound asleep when she lands on my side of the bed, wanting to snuggle. Or get up on the dresser and knock things off or claw the couch or gallop through the house.

I cannot operate on five hours of sleep. Time to find her another pet mouse.

Snowbird

2011-11-13T09:20:00.004-04:00

The Little Red Hen is gone. Mother Goose has left the building.
My mama has gone south for the winter but she loves her tree-top, river view room so I know she'll fly back in the spring. She's pretty remarkable, really: 70 years young and doing the two-and-a-half day drive to Georgia by herself. Can a love of road trips be genetic? I was incubating when she and my father and her father drove to Florida four months before my birth day.
This means I have to start cooking again and shopping for groceries and running errands. No more "Mum, if you're going to Amherst today, could you..." No more car rides and Timbits for Stella, either. And Dwayne has lost his drinking buddy ("Is it Happy Hour yet?")

Funny how life's cycles around. Almost ten years ago, she took me in when I left a marriage; now it's my turn to take my mother in now that she is widowed. Mum says she feels no regret about selling the house on Pugwash Point or leaving that part of her life, and our family life, behind. I'm sure she'd like to feel settled again and that will come in time. Big changes for everyone.

Dwayne and I took Mum out for a nice supper last Sunday and with a couple of glasses of wine, she started talking. Telling stories. I've been wanting to write about our first family dog, Hazel, and how she was a funeral home dog but I didn't know more than one short story; Mum gave me the entire piece by filling in the other examples. The stories come from her, were lived by her, not me at all, but she's not interested in writing even the details down in point-form. There are a lot of details about our family, immediate and extended, that are going to disappear with her. I've told her to write her family history then hand it over to me; it would provide a wonderful foundation for a novel. But she's resistant. "I"m not a writer," she says. So I'll have to tap into a latent oral history tradition. Next year's project, then: fill up my mother's wine glass and get her talking. I can store hours and hours of conversation on a digital recorder so that will become our new Happy Hour ritual.

Speaking of rituals, we sent Mum off on her journey with one last "Friday Night Pizza Night":

The End Is Near

2011-11-11T15:30:00.002-04:00

There are only 25 entries left for this blog. Get 'em while they're hot!
When I hit 900 posts, I decided I'd quit once we reached 1,000 - hey, that's a beauty of a round number - and I'm going to reach that by the end of this year - hey, that's a beauty of a round experience. Other writing for other places, like the newspaper, are taking up my time and my creative energy. If 2012 works out the way I hope it does, it being an even year and divisible by 4 and all that (Yikes! Am I hitting "numerical menopause" or something?!), I'm hoping to be starting an author website. Plus I've started a blog for the paper about living in the country but it's not personal and includes the stuff that gets published in the paper. AND I'm going to be doing major revisions on the book in the new year because I hired an editor to go over the manuscript and that's a whole new meaning for "stranger danger". If that's what it takes to achieve my goal of being a successful book author, then it's worth the pain of having my work torn apart by someone who knows what she's doing (Only the brave create, my darlings, only the brave).
We're getting a puppy in the spring, though; a sister for Stella. Maybe that will inspire a new blog (Lisa, for you!).

Fingers Crossed: Happy Ending

2011-11-10T18:57:00.002-04:00

I got tired of calling her "the dog" so after Dwayne suggested we name her "Deck" because that's where she appeared...ah, men...I remembered that we had hollyhocks growing there so Mum and I agreed that "Holly" was a good name.
Not that it matters now.
We're a little sketchy on details since we thought she was our responsibility and would be taking her home but the woman who took her from the vet clinic in order get her cleaned up, and who apparently gets called when a homeless dog comes in, wants Holly. I know this woman and think she's great. Holly definitely will get the care and love she needs from this woman, and we're off the hook for the dilemma of what to do with her. The only glitch is food aggression; since she has other dogs and cats, this woman can't keep Holly if she's going to be nasty about food. Hopefully it's something that passes once Holly isn't starving anymore and knows there is food always available. Fingers crossed. It's a good home for her.
Dwayne didn't want to keep this dog because we rescued Fern the cat only to have Pickens die a month later. He's worried about a pattern...and I don't want anything to happen to Stella, either. Things work out the way they should.

Surprise Arrival

2011-11-09T10:11:00.007-04:00

We thought when the old porch came off the house, thereby closing the Stray Cat Hotel, that we'd ended our obligation for rescuing stray cats.

So we thought.

At 7:30 last night, Dwayne spoke through the small gap he'd op

ened in the sliding door to the front deck: "Sara, put Stella in the bedroom and come outside."

As soon as I stepped outside, a small, thin dog ran up to me. A female. Puppy?

"She has a quill in her top lip," Dwayne pointed out.

We couldn't get it out of her but I fed her from my hand

then made a bed for her in the new garage. She stinks and is covered in ticks but she has the sweetest disposition.

Her bed in a box in a warm, dry, safe garage. This might be her new home till we find a good home for her.

Breakfast was a scrambled egg and two tablespoons of oatmeal. Nothing too strong for a starving stomach.

She got into the car so easily, she must have been someone's pet. She's not afraid of people and she wasn't scared of the car. The Best Mother In The World took her to the vet at 8 o'clock this morning - without phoning first - and as soon as the three employees saw her, they took right over. They're going to take care of the quill, give her a thorough check-up, and call around to see if anyone has reported a missing dog. She's not a pup, she's not spayed, and she's had a litter of pups.

She is a lovely little dog and we'd keep her if we could but Mum's allergies make it impossible. So...we'll have to find a home for her.

In Conversation with a Veteran

2011-11-06T14:15:00.003-04:00

The best part of my job is my bi-weekly feature called "In Conversation With..." . It's one of those writing gigs that makes me thrilled to be a writer, to be honoured with these stories. Particularly since this is a community paper so I don't have to be cynical or scandalous or controversial. I can print feel-good human interest stories.
So Thursday evening as I was having my bath, it occurred to me, as these things do while I'm in the tub, that this week's conversation should not be with a bee keeper but with a veteran. So Dwayne suggested one, I met with him yesterday afternoon, and just finished writing the piece.
One: I hope I can do it justice.
Two: I have a headache from holding back tears.
Three: Everyone should have a conversation with veteran once in their lifetime. This is mine. I want to do more.
Four: Remembrance Day is 1,000 times more important than Christmas Day, particularly as we lose our World War II because World War II was about our freedom, the world's freedom. Mr. Mitchell said to me, "I feel sorry for those soldiers in Afghanistan. At least we knew who our enemy was."
Five: I should tell you to attend a Remembrance Day service but I don't go. It is too upsetting. I simply cannot wrap my head around what men like Mr. Mitchell experienced, and men and women today are still experiencing in modern wars that make no sense.

The Power of Art

2011-11-02T09:29:00.005-03:00

There are several large picture frames packed away in a moving box. One is a portrait of my sister and me and our dog, Hazel, from 1986. Another is a painting we commissioned as a gift for my father of his two dogs. I'm not sure what to do with either of those; they're staying in the box. The third is the picture above. I painted it in Kindergarten. That was 1975 so it's in pretty good shape for being 36 years old but it hasn't hung on a wall in many, many years.

What's the point in keeping things if you aren't going to use them? Sentimental value only takes it so far then it just takes up space. I'm 41 years old and I want to enjoy this painting so I'm going to hang it up in this little alcove in the guest room that is away from sunlight. I want to enjoy this painting because it reminds me of my mother.

(It also reminds me of the first time I was bitten by a dog. Likely the reason for tying the dog to a tree.

"What did the dog say to you?" my mother asked after she saw the bite on my stomach.

"Nothing," I told her. "It just went 'errrrrr'.")

There is nothing like the influence of a mother on a daughter. Nothing stronger, nothing more tangible, nothing more life-altering. Nature counts for a lot but nurturing matters more. The kind of mother a woman has determines the kind of person that woman turns out to be. (Even if that mother dies early, the stories one hears about her carry the same influence.) I am fortunate that my mother is kind and supportive and funny and easy-going, not manipulative or self-centred or controlling. When I told an older acquaintance that my mother was moving in with us, she recoiled in horror and in her New England accent said, "Oh my god, I would NEVER live my mother. She's a WITCH!"

Husbands and fathers would do well to not underestimate the strength of this bond because good or bad, mothers have all the power. If that power is used for evil, it ain't pretty. No one's perfect and we all have our quirks but if a man is lucky, he gets a woman with a Good Mother; even if she has defied her mother's negative influence, daughters of Bad Mothers carry a lot of baggage. Life is too short for that much carry-on but the mother-daughter relationship is the hardest to jettison. I'm glad I'll never have to try.

Why does this painting remind me of this? Because it shows the care and attention my mother gave to both of her daughters, that she takes everything we do seriously, that she never undermined our self-esteem or sense of self-worth. My mother didn't just frame this painting; she found an old frame in the attic and painted it in order to put this simple child's piece of art on the wall. That simple act of love told me then, and tells me now, I can do anything.

The mother-daughter relationship can be complicated. Like my painting of a dog and a tree and a rainbow, all things I love, I've been blessed with a simple, lovely relationship that makes my life easier and more enjoyable, not stressful and less-fulfilling. I can feel my mother's influence in the things that I say and the choices I make, in my perspective and opinions. Not everything works out the way I want it to and I'm aware of my faults but I like who I am and that's thanks to my wise and witty mother.

"What's remarkable about that painting," my mother reminded me, "is that you filled the entire piece of paper. That's unusual for a five-year-old. That's why I like that painting."

Ah, Mum, such a simple, uncomplicated reason. And such empowering words for a little girl to hear.

Homemade Hallowe'en

2011-10-31T12:55:00.004-03:00

Two things about Hallowe'en:

1) It only matters, or inspires, if you have kids.

2) Homemade costumes rock.

There aren't many photos of my sister and me in Hallowe'en costumes during our childhood in the 70's - "We didn't take a lot of photos back then," Mum says - but I know for sure we didn't do the costumes until we were in school. Then, it was all about what we could scrounge in the house to dress up in. As evidenced in our photo albums, my sister and I were great at playing dress up using weird combinations of hats and wigs and our mother's slips but we needed more for a Hallowe'en costume.

In this photo from 1977, I am a princess wearing an old caftan of my mother's that Dad had given her for their first Christmas together. Love the lipstick and eye shadow! More importantly, look at my sister's mask - her Santa face is made out of cotton balls! How clever is that?

The next year, I went as Miss Piggy. The picture was stuck to the photo album sheet so I couldn't scan it and let me tell you, you're missing the sight of my homemade wig: Yellow yarn stuck to a paper plate! Nice combination with my mother's royal blue prom dress and fox fur stole. Other years, I was a witch and a maid, both my favourite costumes. I was a short witch but a very classy maid.

The brilliant mind behind these costumes was my mother's. Perhaps if I'd had kids, I'd be passing on these fabulous memories, and a few more pictures, to them. You know, looking at that photo, the only piece of a really great princess costume that I'm missing is the tiara... How hard could it be to make one?

Ode to Oatmeal

2011-10-29T09:16:00.003-03:00

Oatmeal is such an old-fashioned food. It's so wholesome and whole and good for you. From the days before processed cereal in colourful boxes; often, the cereal is colourful, too. Poor oatmeal, so beige and bland.
But such an amazing food!
I ate oatmeal all last winter but I didn't notice then what I noticed when I resumed the breakfast habit this fall. In June, about the time I started my job, I reverted back to spoon-sized Shredded Wheat, and all summer I felt hungry. I had to have a snack with tea at ten; I had to eat at two in the afternoon, and often would be starving when I got home. I figured it was working so hard, using so much brain power, that was burning off my food energy. But since I started eating oatmeal for breakfast again in September, I'M NOT HUNGRY ANYMORE. I'm busier than ever but I can get to noon before feeling peckish and I'm not starving after work. I'M NOT SNACKING BEFORE DINNER ANYMORE.
All from a half-cup of oatmeal that is cooked with raisins and cranberries, flavoured with cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger, and served with flax granola (I do like crunch in my breakfast), and soy milk. Plus, a tablespoon of peanut butter for protein.
How can anyone skip breakfast? It's the most amazing meal of the day. More than worth the sticky mess that is always left in the pot.

Fern Discovers Nana's Room

2011-10-28T10:14:00.001-03:00

Noticed this lovely picture as I headed downstairs to brew a cup of tea:

A Good Morning..If You're Not A Deer

2011-10-28T09:57:00.001-03:00

The promised snowfall didn't happen and the sun is shining and the air is crisp. The dog and I went for a long walk this morning and I returned home with cold ears (despite the toque) and a red nose. A perfect fall day as we head into the last weekend of October.

Okay, maybe not perfect: Hunting season opens today so for the deer, it's a month of horror. I'm not a hunter and I have an aversion to killing anything that isn't a fly or an earwig. I can't imagine killing something as elegant as a buck or cutting up the body into pieces but I don't have a problem with killing an animal for food or to protect livestock (as beautiful as foxes are and as lovely as it is to watch them hunt in a field, protecting our chickens comes before a fox's life). Still, I don't like hunting season, don't like a lovely, lush summer coming to a deadly end right before the hardships of winter.

It likely doesn't help that I grew up watching Disney movies. Singing mice, dogs who are friends with foxes, an entire animal kingdom that talks, really. What's worse, my mother used to throw out one particular quote from one particular movie. I grew up hearing, "Mother, Mother, where are you? Your mother is dead, Bambi." I was 23 years old before I actually watched the movie Bambi and my room-mate came home to find me sobbing on the couch.

Egads. Who warped me more, Walt Disney or my own mother?

Such A Thoughtful Friend

2011-10-26T19:22:00.000-03:00

For weeks, I've been having great but one-sided conversations with the voice mail of my best friend. With two kids in school and her volunteering plus my four working days, it's getting harder for us to connect for real chats.
The other day, I left a message mid-day: "If you were there, I was going to do the dishes while we talked. Since you're not there, I'm going to go upstairs and write instead."
Later that day, she sent me an email, explaining she and her husband had gone out for lunch: "I like to think I'm supporting your writing career by never being home when you call."

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

2011-10-24T15:51:00.009-03:00

This is what I don’t like about living in a very small town: the small minds and big judgements. Plus a serious lack of fact-checking.

Someone called me “strange” today. Not to my face; a friend was told this by a friend of hers. This someone has never met me, doesn’t even live in the area any longer. We speculate she got her “facts” from gossip and Facebook. She also heard that I’m, quote, “Oriental” so it does make me wonder, and cringe, about what people say about me.

Because very few people around here know me. That’s as much by circumstances as it is by choice. What I love about living here in the country - the isolation, the wide-open spaces, the lack of suburbs and shopping malls - is also my curse. It keeps me from being around people, from keeping honed those skills necessary for polite interaction, for waving, and for small talk from getting rusty, or disappearing altogether.

Then again, I don't really care. I'm not exactly craving an active social life. With humans, anyway. The day I can work from home and spend my time with my dogs and cats and chickens and donkeys (still working on getting a Yes for the goats) will be a happy day for me.

“Is she odd?” my friend’s friend asked.

Of for -- name one person who isn’t odd. Odd makes us interesting and unique and not doze-off boring. Truly, I find ‘odd’ a compliment, and it takes the sting out of ‘strange’.

Besides, I couldn’t do conformity if I had to. It’s not something that comes naturally to me. It’s not that I’m a rebel or maverick or activist; I’m simply...odd. My non-conforming ways are only half-conscious; much of the time, it’s simply me lost in thought, focused on a task, shy, introverted, disinterested, shocked. It doesn’t make it easy to make friends but then again, I’ll take my 10 best friends over 500 Fakebook friends.

If fitting in and being accepted, if hanging with the “cool” crowd (I actually wrote that without gagging on the bullshit) means becoming one with the gossips and Facebookers and small minded community judges, I’m doubling up on my oddness starting today.

And that’s me being ornery.

Renewed Hope

2011-10-21T15:46:00.002-03:00

Had a conversation this afternoon with a prospective editor for my book. I had sent her the "About the Book" and the outline from my proposal and she gave me her impressions based on those. What was most interesting and most encouraging was learning that my manuscript is (still) too long.
The average book runs 80,000 words in order to keep it in the $20-$25 price range that publishers prefer for the average author. My book is 107,000 words which could explain some of the rejection: "First time author with memoir that is 300 pages? No thanks." So cutting 80,000 words/56 pages out of my manuscript should help since I'll really have to be picky about what stays in.
Imagine: My early drafts were more than 160,000 words! I've come a long way, baby.

Good Times

2011-10-21T09:43:00.003-03:00

What else to do on a rainy night? Snuggle with Papa on the kitchen couch:

One step closer to moving in. Stella checks out Nana's new bed:

Mouse In The House

2011-10-20T06:58:00.004-03:00

"Is that what I think it is?" I said to my mother, pointing to a small black speck on the dining room floor.
"I was wondering if that was mouse poop," she answered helpfully.
We both turned our heads to look at the cat. "Well, that explains why she's staring at the china cabinet," I said.
So that's what Fern has been doing since sometime yesterday: Stalking a mouse. Or perhaps, the mouse because we've been hearing it in the walls of the living room for a few weeks.
"It came in with the wood," Dwayne says of the cords stacked in the basement for use in our furnace all winter.
Fern spent the entire night stalking the mouse. Early this morning, we heard a crash; apparently, the mouse had moved over to another small cabinet because some of the framed photos on top had been knocked to the floor. By the time Dwayne left for work, she was hunkered down on top of the wire nest behind the television and just now, just now I heard a squawk and it appears she's chasing the mouse around the kitchen.
The right stray cat certainly found us: There have been several mice in the house the past year (Fern having discovered the first one) so we needed a good mouser. I'm grateful she didn't catch it in the middle of the night, though, since my mother's parting words to us last night were: "When she catches it, she'll bring it to you to show you...and likely it will still be alive."
*******
One of my cleaning clients has six cats, two of whom stay inside always and four more who are in and out all day. I came downstairs on this particular day to see "Ladybird" sitting in the living room. Her buddy, Stanley, was flopped out on the other side of the room. It struck me that Lb seemed to be staring at something, and lo & behold, there was a small grey mouse sitting in a patch of sunshine. In the middle of the living room rug.
Now, I couldn't tell if the mouse knew Lb was there, if this was a pet mouse (I'd seen mouse poop on the attic steps) or if the mouse simply ended up in that nice spot during a game of cat-and-mouse. As I wondered this, Hobo, this gorgeous, massive black cat wandered in between the two cats (Seriously, Stanley? Absolutely no idea. Ever.)
I laughed and went back to work. But curiousity overcame me and when I returned, Lb and mouse had moved and indeed, Lb was playing with the mouse. So I grabbed an empty dog dish (yeah, two dogs, too. My kind of house.) and a magazine and managed to get the mouse - small, grey, adorable - into the dish and outside to set it free.
My client informed me, "Oh, Hobo would never hurt a mouse in the house but outside, he'll rip it to shreds."
Oops.
******
Our mouse is no longer in the house. Fern had managed to corner in among some boxes of my mother's out in the mudroom.

It was another small, grey, adorable mouse so I shut Fern in the bedroom, made Stella lay down on the step up into the kitchen, blocked the other exits, opened the door and proceeded to 'sweep' the mouse outside.
It lingered on the doorstep. I don't think it wanted to go out because it was pouring rain.
It may seem like a small thing, to save the life of such a small thing, a rodent, no less, but as our mouse left, I handed it a pamphlet about a lovely little home made out of feathers that sits in a corner of our chicken coop.
****
After being up all night doing her job, the (unsuccessful) mouser flakes out on the dining room rug for a well-deserved rest.

Mini Me!

2011-10-19T09:45:00.003-03:00

My great-niece likes to write and wanted to know what it's like to work at a newspaper so yesterday, 8-year-old Emma came to work with me. She got to be a reporter (interviewed the editor, and the retired owner/publisher) and a photographer. She took nearly 40 pictures of everyone and everything - "Jane creates an ad" and "Aunt Sara updates subscriptions". She also had a tour of the printing area; this newspaper is also a printing shop and both have been around for over 100 years so you can imagine the antique machines - some still in use - that are hiding in this building. I joined the tour to to take photos for Emma and found it fascinating.

"You haven't had this tour?" the current owner/publisher - my boss - asked me.

I think it was a lot for Emma to absorb (she learned about photographs and printing a paper by hand) but she told her grandma that she learned a lot.

All the photos she took are going into a slide show for her to share with her Grade 3 class.

"Making a newspaper is hard work but a lot of fun," she told me. She gets it! Does that mean she's caught the bug?

Here, Emma holds the newspaper page we created together. We made copies for each student in her class. Yeah, I'd say she's caught the newspaper bug...

Just Because

2011-10-16T17:09:00.002-03:00

Now that they're all gone - autumn is certainly arrived - here is a lovely memory of the summer of 2011:

Fall-ing In Love

2011-10-15T13:42:00.003-03:00

It's the perfect fall day. Even with the wind, it's Autumn at its finest. It's why I love living in Nova Scotia, in the country.
We started out lazing in bed until the country boy said, "Why don't I take you into town to the farmers' market? We haven't done that once this year." I was out of bed, dressed and make-upped before he'd finished his second cup of coffee.
But it was so nice out, we didn't head for home. "Could I interest you in a cup of tea?" the county boy asked, and with take-aways in hand, we turned left instead of right and headed out of town. I couldn't believe what a beautiful day it was. The leaves have turned, the sun is shining, the sky is blue.
"No matter what else has gone wrong, this is a day to focus on all our blessings," I said. "We are so lucky to have each other, and to have this day together, and to live in a such a wonderful part of the country. Let's just enjoy being happy."
We drove by a sign announcing a yard and bake sale so we turned around to check it out and I spent $5 on a coat to wear for chores - a London Fog barn coat! Then we headed further up the road and when we pulled into the local snowmobile/ATV dealer, just for a moment I thought, He's gone and bought us a new side-by-side and he's surprising me. Not so, however; we just looked. And sat. And turned on. And discussed.
"What colour would you want one in?" the country boy asked. "Red," I said.
We kept on driving and found ourselves up the mountain, visiting friends, not wishing we had our own camp.
"I like waking up in our country home," the country boy said.
"We could put pine planks on the wall behind the bed if that would make you feel like you're in a camp," I suggested. Except that our bedroom is lovely the way it is. We crave nothing, we envy no one.
"Could I treat you to chowder for lunch?" the country boy asked as we headed back into town. Not yet ready to return home, not ready to come down from our happiness high.
What a day for being content, for counting blessings, for feeling lucky, for being in love.

Writing Advice

2011-10-13T15:23:00.004-03:00

For a possible short submission to an anthology, I asked two of my friends for the best writing advice they ever gave me, or that I gave them. Kim replied with "Write every day" - me to her - and "Writing is hard; that's why not everyone does it" - her to me. She forgot about the advice she gave me last December when I was feeling overwhelmed by having to rewrite my manuscript (new tense, new format, new focus...and a lot of editing) and she said to me, "Remember how you eat an elephant: One bite at a time." As creepy as that advice is, it helped (and it explains why I have an office full of elephants now).
So today's confession is: I have to rewrite my book again - new focus...more editing. In recognizing this, in not choosing to put the book aside and forget about it, I needed to hear that advice: Writing is hard. Plus my mother used to say, "Take small bites and chew them well," so I now I can get past the hard part - suck it up, buttercup - and if I work on the a little bit each day, it will get done. The good thing is the more rewrites there are, the less time and effort each one takes.
Wait, there's more. I listened to my gut on this rewrite. As I read my pitch out loud at that event in Halifax a few weeks ago, after the hook, it didn't grab me. Me! I wrote the book! Since several agents told me, in rejection, that "Your writing is fine but the story doesn't grab me," it's the story that is flawed. I've been mulling over what has to change to make it marketable without losing what I think is important. Then a request came from a (small) publisher regarding another project and he wanted to see some specific writing samples, including a chapter from my book. It's been five months since I read anything from that book and when I read through Chapter 5 as if this publisher was reading it, I realized: "This sucks." Writing is hard so instead of being depressed for more than 15 minutes, I knew how to fix it - less Me! - and started to think about ways of letting go of what I thought was going to make it a best-seller (!).
The next day, I checked into one of the agent blog I regularly follow, and saw that day's entry: "Maybe it's the book, not the query". That was the sign confirming what my instincts told me.
Dwayne once said to me, "Follow your heart." So even though it means more work, I have to do everything I can to make this book sell. Writing is hard. The trick is to be the last person hanging on by her fingernails.

Two Random Photos

2011-10-10T20:36:00.002-03:00

Fern checks out the strange object lying on the window ledge. I bought it at the farmers' market in order to make carrot-zucchini-yogurt muffins.

Dwayne enjoys the first of several turkey dinners. Yes, that's half a plate of mashed potatoes smothered in gravy!

But seriously, have you ever seen anyone look happier? Perhaps even giddy. "I get gravy twice a year," he says. That would be at Thanksgiving and Christmas because he married a woman who doesn't do gravy. So I guess we know what Dwayne is thankful for every year. Besides being married to me.

I Am Thankful For...

2011-10-10T15:13:00.003-03:00

...sunshine and sunflowers
...a locally grown and butchered 17-pound turkey
...friends from Ontario driving all this way just to have Thanksgiving dinner with us, again
...a new hen
...my pastry turning out
...Dwayne having two slices of my pumpkin pie
...a good night's sleep
...Joan's pumpkin spice bars
...a job I enjoy
...my interviewing skills
...a positive response from a publisher
...Fern and Stella making us laugh
..a three-day weekend
...no emergencies, no operations, no crises, no vigils, no worries

...but honestly, what I would be MOST thankful for this weekend is a magic wand that, when waved around my spare room, would put everything back where it's supposed to go - including the Christmas decorations in storage containers and taken to the new crawl space under the laundry room - and hang all the pictures on the wall (without making a couple of holes per picture in the process).

Time To Give Thanks

2011-10-07T13:55:00.006-03:00

My nephew George turned seven last month. Later this month, he and his family will walk in the annual Atlanta Heart Walk which raises funds for heart research. He does this because he was born with a congenital heart defect that could not be fully repaired. The more research that is done, the better George's chances of reaching his 17th and 27th and 37th...birthdays.
The more, the merrier, as they say.
Check out this link to view the video my sister produces, updated, every year chronicling the Marvelous Life of George:
http://jasonminna.blogspot.com/2011_10_01_archive.html#5477320970575397684

If you'd like to donate, for George's sake, check out www.atlantaheartwalk.org and search "Find a Team" for Team George.

George and me, Sept. 2010.

When All You Can Do Is Quote

2011-10-04T11:35:00.000-03:00

I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.

- Hermann Hesse

Feeling Fuzzy...But That's Not A Bad Thing

2011-10-02T11:06:00.002-03:00

It's a quote from the movie "You've Got Mail" which is an oldie but a goody (dial-up! so quaint!). It's my mother's favourite, and my best friend's, and we are able to make obscure references that no one else can understand. Even my husband who has been forced to watch the movie at least twice.
So today, "My head feels a little...fuzzy". Because I have a cold. But it's not as bad as it could be. So I'm upstairs putting my office back together. What? You exclaim. You're still doing that?
My desk has been usable for a few weeks but the rest of the room remains undone. Pictures and cork boards need hanging; books need to be returned to the shelf; knick-knacks need to find their place again. Still, it's lovely to have an office that feels much more professional now. Bring on the book projects!
It's the second day of rain. Why do people complain about rain so much? If you want sunshine every day, move to California. Where they have mudslides and forest fires and pollution and celebrities. Rain is nice. Quiet and soothing. We need rainy days, to be still and silent, to hear the rhythm, feel the chill on the cheeks. If I didn't have a cold, I would go for a walk. Since I found the box in which I'd packed my mitts and scarves, maybe I'll wrap up my throat and go for a walk anyway. To hear rain drops dripping off leaves.
My stereo is working. Last week, when I sat down to write my pitch, the speakers fizzed out in the middle of the soundtrack to Eat Pray Love. Thought I would test it today before detaching the speakers and they are working fine. Just listened to the soundtrack to Pride & Prejudice. Perhaps it's simply a preference my stereo has. Wonder what it will do when I play Jazz for a Rainy Afternoon?
These are the questions I ponder as I await the arrival of much-needed medicine from the apiary down the road. The curative powers of rain and honey and piano tunes.

About Last Sunday

2011-09-30T09:48:00.002-03:00

The weather was perfect on the Halifax waterfront and I heard Linden MacIntyre read from his newest book, but the event I was signed up for was a bomb.

It was also a bomb going off.

As soon as the three regional publishers on the panel took their seats, I knew there was no point in me pitching. None of them would be interested; two of them don't even publish memoir or autobiography. Luckily, I pitched second, which is such a great position to be in: everyone is fresh, unjaded, patient, hopeful. The value, as always, for a writer to read her work out loud is to hear it in public in front of strangers. It sounds much different than it does reading it out loud at home. My hook is good; the rest of it sounds amateurish. So now I have something with which to work and fix. Already I know how to rewrite my opening chapters, and overall, I'm going to return the focus onto the caregiving.

Other than that, listening to a dozen people present ill-prepared and ill-conceived ideas was disheartening (there is so much information out there, in books and on the web, about how to pitch a publisher that this ignorance is embarassing). I felt drained by the end, and bless him, even though I gave him an out just half an hour in - Bob Hallett of Great Big Sea was reading from his book - my devoted husband stuck through the whole 90 minutes.

He was there, then, after the third person pitched a memoir, when one of the publishers decided to get blunt.

"If you've written a book about your life, you know what it takes. But it's hard to sell a book like that. Do you think a thousand people would want to read your book? Why not find a person that many people would be interested in and pitch that?"

Then he said, "I'd love to publish a book about [so and so] but no one has pitched it to me."

And I said to myself, Holy shit.

Because the person he named is someone I've written about before. Someone with a strong local connection. Someone with a huge legacy. I didn't approach the publisher after because it didn't really connect with me. I know how much work writing a biography would be and I hadn't yet made the switch from disillusionment to a whole different possibility. I needed to sit down at the pub with a beer and my husband and run it by him.

"If you want to do it, hon, you go right ahead." As if I expected him to say anything else even though he knows, too, how much work goes into writing a book.

So...I emailed the publisher the other day reminding him of what he said at Pitch the Publisher in Halifax, telling him that I've written about this man before, and that I'd love to the biography. It's rather unorthodox to approach this way (it always works for my friend Kim but I don't seem to have the same luck), and I don't know how long it will take for that email to get to him (as in, it came from the website; who checks that account first?) but in the mean time, I'll put together a proper book proposal.

Did you know that before she wrote Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert published biographies?

4 am Epiphany and 5 am Ramblings

2011-09-28T05:04:00.003-03:00

The epiphanies are waking me later but at least they're still coming. After what happened on Sunday, I'm taking whatever inspiration comes to me whenever (although the beverage now is chai tea, not a half-pint of Propeller IPA. It was SO nice on the Halifax waterfront on Sunday...)
Alice Sebold says she wakes up at three in the morning and writes for a couple of hours. She likes the not-quite-awake state for writing (I'd quote her but the article got packed away for the reno). Funny how the not-quite-awake works better than the almost-asleep state of ten or eleven at night; I'll come back to this and edit it later but if I wrote it last night, I'd be deleting it. Having experienced the thrill/horror of getting up at 3 a.m. to go to work, I can't imagine doing it again - even to write - but when I read her comments, I knew what she was talking about. Knew, too, I should be doing it but I'd rather do yoga at 5:30 (early enough, thank you).
So I'm lying in bed awake at 3:30 this morning, thinking about this week at work (Jane is on vacation so I got to do the paper myself this week, which the perfection in me loves to do) and wondering how I'm going to get two bills paid and my hair dried plus all my animal chores AND reading the newspaper before going to work without giving up the yoga practice (it takes ten minutes to blow dry my hair and that's the difference between beating the school bus and going down the road behind it). I thought about what happened on Sunday and then it hit me: I've been pitching my book from the wrong angle.
I'm a journalist. I don't write fiction and I never will. My joy comes from crafting personal stories, either my own or someone else's, and I am fortunate to publish them in newspapers and magazines. I need to present my book as the work of a journalist. Sure, it's more memoir than narrative non-fiction but there are enough elements of narrative n-f that it's an angle that must be exploited. Because I'm finding that "memoir" is a turn-off word, which happened to "chick lit". The market is too saturated; too many people think their personal story will be fascinating to tens of thousands of people without realizing that they'd be lucky to find a thousand who will want to read it.
My opening is still shaky (but that's how it happened!) but my writing about living with Alzheimer's - about the so-called specialist who was clueless, about the torture of getting Dad into a nursing home, about the wonderful hospice manager, just to name a few examples - is strong enough to make the book informative without being boring or preachy. I have to be less Eat Pray Love and more The Boy In The Moon (Haven't read Ian Brown's book? Should.) I'm thinking: If Anne Lamott and Ian Brown had a kid, that would be me.
And that's how my mind works at four in the morning.
(Oh, you want to know what happened on Sunday? It's now time for yoga so I'll write about it later this week. Let me just say, when I did the hens that morning, none of my writing spiders were to be found...)
P.S. John M. in Vancouver, thrilled to hear about your career change. Thanks for checking in.

If I Were To Get A Tattoo

2011-09-23T10:01:00.011-03:00

It would be so easy right now to give up on the book. Working at the newspaper keeps me busy three and four days a week, the house needs to be put back together, my office book shelf needs to be filled, the gardens need to be rescued from the weeds, there are half a dozen stories to pitch to magazines. It would be so easy right now to put the book away, to lose myself in other activities, to decide it's too much work when there is so much other work that needs to be done. It would be so easy to say I tried my best, exhausted all possibilities, to give up and forget about it.
But I can't do that. Saying that I've queried every agent, submitted a proposal to every editor, exhausted every possible lead would be a lie. Putting aside this book right now would be giving up, full stop.
In the small flurry of interest in May, I heard: "Your writing is good but the memoir market is saturated," and/or "I'm not excited enough about your book to try and sell it."
At least my writing is not the problem, and there isn't much I can do about the market. There was also a lot of non-interest in May and June as well which tells me 1) the memoir market isn't easy to break into (unless you are a celebrity but really, how many of us read Shania Twain's book?) and 2) my query letter needs work.
I can't give up now because I haven't exhausted all possibilities. I've finally - after two years - figured out my one-line pitch. After researching in the Books sections of Oprah and Chatelaine magazines, I realized the one-line pitch does not have to be specific. One big review in Oprah had the headline: "In...a young woman discovers she needs to leave the past behind." That's vague! That doesn't tell me anything about the book! So in less than an hour, I had my vague one-line pitch. I've rewritten my query and apparently, if your query is considerably different from the first one sent out, you can re-query agents. I'll hit all those who didn't read the first 10/25/50 pages and/or who didn't reply at all.
When I mentioned to Dwayne that it would be so easy to give up right now, he shook his head. He won't let me give up. He's going with me on Sunday when I participate in the non-fiction part of the "Pitch the Publisher" event at Word on the Street in Halifax. These kind of presentations aren't my strong point but I don't feel nervous; as a friend said to me in an email, your passion for your book will come across. I'm taking three copies of my manuscript just in case someone says, "Hey, I'd like to read it." I'm taking book proposals and business cards. I'm going to spin a large web of paper around everyone on Sunday, hoping to snare someone who sees the potential in my good writing and a niche for it in a difficult market.
Out in our back yard, around the chicken coop and the fence around their outdoor pen, there are these huge spiders. They have long legs and a brilliant yellow pattern on their backs. They used to creep me out until Dwayne said they are harmless. So I admire them but still keep my distance. One of them is protecting a sac of eggs the size of a loonie; my mother says to destroy it since it will hatch out a hundred thousand baby spiders but I can't bring myself to do that. Feels wrong. As I was telling my co-worker Jane about them the other day, she Googled, "black and yellow garden spider" and we found out they are called 'Argiope aurantia', they are a common orb web spider, and each night they eat their web and build a new one. The zigzag of silk in the centre of the web is called a "stabilimentum". Because of this, Agriope aurantia is also known as "the writing spider".
As metaphors go, it's perfect (for one thing, anything I write at night usually gets rewritten in the morning). I'm all about my 100,000 words hatching out into the world and spinning webs everywhere. Perhaps one of these spiders should come with me in my pocket on Sunday.

House Before & After

2011-09-20T12:12:00.005-03:00

In August 2006, when we first met, Dwayne's house looked like this:

Five years - and three months' of labour - later, it looks like this:

(Technically, this is considered the back of the house but this is what everyone sees when they drive into the property. I haven't taken any After photos of the front yet, simply because I keep forgetting to.)

We never gave up our morning routines - I do yoga while he sits on the deck drinking coffee - while at my mother's house but it's nice to be doing them at home again. This morning, Dwayne came in from the front deck and said, "On June 10th, my last day of work, I was outside on that deck drinking coffee, and today, going back to work, I'm there again. And what a difference!"

We Didn't Forget About the Dog

2011-09-20T12:08:00.001-03:00

Even Stella got her own new kitchen:

It's All About the Kitchen! Before & After

2011-09-19T12:06:00.008-03:00

This addition and renovation, which is now completed (pause

for cheering), has been all about the kitchen. The entire house is wonderful and I am very appreciative of the new ceiling and floor upstairs and the huge laundry room and the lovely entryway but for me, it's been all about the kitchen.

Mum, Dwayne and I, we love food. We love to eat it and we love to cook it. Dwayne and I produced many Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, pizza nights, and BBQs out of the old kitchen so even cramped and inefficient, it did what we needed it to do. But let me tell you, getting breakfast in the new kitchen this morning was a joyful experience. Cereal in the pantry! No squeaking cutlery drawer! No more getting down on my hands and knees to find a pot or a can. Lots of room, lots of light. Oh, and that "rubber" floor? Awesome. It does look like "Colonial Plank" and it gives this kitchen the country feel I wanted (as opposed to the cabin feel of the old one).

The view from the sink is now of the back yard, instead of the front yard, and since I usually do dishes late in the afternoon or in the evening, it will be relaxing to stand there with the afternoon sun or a sunset. Plus, it's great for viewing deer and moose in the field (yes, the moose + calf have been spotted in the neighbourhood again).

It's amazing how moving that staircase in the middle of the house opens it up so much. Dwayne and I had our first dance in the new dining room space last night after our first meal in the new dining room space. Then we toasted Mum and Dad with the whiskey from Scotland.

All Dwayne has to do now is get used to the way my mother sings first thing in the morning...

Final Approval?

2011-09-18T09:28:00.004-03:00

We slept in our "new" home last night, the first time together in our room and in our bed since the middle of July. I was the first to use the new bath tub! It's so deep, I may have to get a dinghy.
So this morning, the plumber arrived at 7:45 to install the taps for our kitchen sink and Mum's, and hook up the dishwasher. I was puttering around then went looking for Dwayne. Turns out, the plumber didn't arrive in his small black car today. When I stepped outside, this is what I saw:

Well.
My father showed up for the installation of the tap for the sink. Of course he did. He wasn't one to scrimp on quality and the tap that matches the granite sink is very good quality so perhaps this is my father's approval of how we spent his money. C'mon: this is the plumber's fourth or fifth trip out here and on his last day, as he installs my most anticipated part of this entire reno (the kitchen and its sink), he brings his boss's truck and it says REG on it? If that doesn't make you a believer...
And yeah, it was emotional. At the end of this three-month process, with this beautiful kitchen and lovely, larger home, with Mum moving in shortly, it's kind of overwhelming. Such generosity. We say so often, "I wish Dad could be here for this...to see this...to hear this...", it's nice to find out that he is checking out the renovation - and expressing his approval.

Old Kitchen Before & After

2011-09-17T21:50:00.001-03:00

Need a walk-through?
The stairs were moved to the back wall, where the stove is in the above picture (behind the new stairs is the laundry room).
The doorway on the left in the above photo is now our linen closet. Where the old staircase was, above, is now the opening to the new kitchen, which is now located in the old sunroom, which you see through that above doorway. (Please note the late Pickens in the doorway!)
"Cinnamon Sizzle" is on the wall, which is the colour the dining room has always been.

Check This Out...If You Dare!

2011-09-13T11:59:00.003-03:00

It's nice to know one of the nephews thinks of his auntie even though she lives so far away... But remember this: he's THREE. How did he remember that I like leopard print??

http://www.jasonminna.blogspot.com

Bookish

2011-09-12T12:42:00.004-03:00

Here are the "ten million books" my husband claims I own. Pshaw. This is so nothing, I'm almost embarrassed (obviously I'm not reading enough - although in my defense, I do offload the books I didn't like in the annual yard sale). Just wait till Dwayne has to move all the books my mother has...

We moved my collection from the living room upstairs to Mum's room in anticipation of setting up the library after the trim is painting and the floor cleaned. The library used to be what I called "the landing" because the old stairs came up in the middle of the second floor. I still refer to it that way on occasion. Now, my mother recently read a book by Susan Hill called Howard's End Is On The Landing so you know what she says EVERY TIME I mention the landing.

Battle of the Brambles

2011-09-11T14:45:00.006-03:00

A neighbour called. "Do you want to go pick blackberries?"
Of course I did. When I was a kid, I watched my mother dress in layers and gloves to protect her from the thorns of the blackberry bushes and the poison ivy when she went to Grandma's "secret" blackberry patch near Fenella. I can't remember if she took us girls but I think maybe we went, also well-protected from the poison ivy. What good are kids, though, in a blackberry patch? We don't have the stamina for the pain of the prickles, no patience for the hunt.

When I arrived at my neighbour's back door, he said, "You're dressed for blackberry picking." He sounded surprised, pleased. Not knowing me well, but knowing I don't preserve like his wife does, I suppose he assumed I had no idea what it was like in a blackberry patch.
And what a large "secret" patch it is. We waded in deep, the blackberry canes chest high. They plucked at my shirt and my jeans, at the skin on the back of my hands, at my hair in its ponytail. The old canes, bowed with age and berries, have thorns that nick; it is the new canes, not yet bearing, that stick and cling. "Let go of me," I said, wanting to move forward yet caught by a prickly spread of green leaves.

For awhile, my neighbour chatted but as our concentration grew, as we went deeper into our patches, soon the only drone came from the flies buzzing in the warm sunshine around our heads. Occasionally, the silence was broken by a squawk of "Ouch." Scratches appeared, blood leaked.
Worth the effort, always, these diamonds of the woods.
Intent on filling my white gallon bucket, I didn't sample any until I returned home. Good thing I resisted for if I'd tasted the warm sweetness that splashed on my tongue, I would have eaten more than made it into the bucket. If you want to taste the end of summer, eat a fresh-picked blackberry that is still warm from the sun.
(Mum will make an apple-blackberry crisp for supper tonight and it will ease the red, stinging scratches on my hands. )

Man's Best Helper

2011-09-11T11:03:00.002-03:00

Before & After 2: Laundry

2011-09-10T09:43:00.003-03:00

Something else got bigger this summer besides this house.
My bottom half.
Not so anyone would really notice (I hope). I notice because I'm getting wedgies where none were before, and my belly is bigger, which drives me crazy because that is the one spot on my body that I've battled since my twenties (so probably not a war I'm ever going to win but I do like to put up a decent fight). Doing yoga every morning is great for the upper body but I don't work out my legs enough. My abs are in great shape; you just can't see them for the layer of reno-fat on top of them (giving a whole new meaning to "caulking").
The reason the dog and I have put on weight this summer is because we're not walking. Since moving to Mum's place in July, we've missed our almost-daily walks along the road, nor have I been walking around our yard. Luckily, this is easily remedied by returning to our regularly scheduled programming. Our yard is so big, I imagine just getting back into the regular chores of hens and gardens will trim a few inches off my arse.
******
When I moved in here, the washer and dryer were in the basement, so when we used our wedding money to buy an HE w&d (thanks again, everyone!), we moved them upstairs into the sunroom into the vacated closet (the black blob on the right is my treadmill):

Imagine this: The room above is now the kitchen and the garden door is gone, replaced by a window that is in the middle of that wall, above the sink.
Now we have a bona-fide laundry room which doubles as the guest bathroom:

Dwayne is standing in our new foyer/mudroom with the main door behind him. We have more closet and storage space in the house now than we'll know what to do with but it's going to be great having all our coats hung in one place - and in a proper closet.
By the way, the paint colour in the laundry room is "Sky".

Coming Clean

2011-09-08T12:40:00.003-03:00

Thursdays are an interesting day. They are my "keeping it real" day or my "doing whatever it takes to support my writing" day. Thursdays are the day I clean other people's houses. Two houses; one takes a full day and today is the half day. And I've been doing it since the end of May.
Back in the spring, I decided I couldn't substitute teach any longer. There was no fulfillment, no enjoyment, no future prospects. But I needed a job that would allow me time to write so I said, "I'm going to clean houses." The more I thought about it, the more plausible it seemed. I could arrange a schedule to have Mondays off, to be home by three or four, and to make good, steady money every week. Very much unlike substitute teaching. I thought up a name for my company and was looking into registering it.
A few days later, while subbing, I told one of the teachers that I was getting out of education and admitted what my plan was. "That's great!" she said. "You're hired!" She'd been without a house cleaner for a year and was desperate. Wanted me every other week. I agreed. She hugged me. Client number one.
I put an ad in the paper but received no responses.
A week later, the job at the newspaper was mine and on the same day, someone phoned about cleaning, also without a house cleaner for a year, also desperate. Wanted me every other week. I said yes. Client number two.
In letting go of the one job that made me unhappy and setting the intention of doing something else - anything else - I ended up with a great creative/writing job 3 days a week, and a one-day cleaning job that pays well and in cash. And let me tell you, I'm glad I'm not cleaning full-time. It's noble work and it's necessary - I have two people who NEED me - but now I know I couldn't do it four days a week, couldn't do six or eight different houses. One day of that kind of quiet, unthinking focus is enough for me.
With every swipe of my duster and every squeeze of my mop, I think, "This is giving me new material for writing." Wait -- not because I'm nosy!

Before & After 1: Bathroom/Closet

2011-09-07T10:35:00.006-03:00

First two pictures are of the closet in the bedroom and the bathroom which was off the dining room (such a nasty spot to have a bathroom!). Both photos were taken after we'd started renovating:

Now, here are the shots of the new walk-through closet - So big! My side has a shoe rack attached right to the wall! - and the new and improved bathroom - no more wall-to-wall pink formica! The vanity and mirror are were the doorway used to be, and the window now runs floor to ceiling (to match the height of the bedroom window on the same wall, although half as wide). The view from the toilet alcove (yes, we have one of those!) is fabulous. I'll never see Dwayne: with a newspaper and that view, he'll hide out in this spot for hours.

I took this photo before the vanity fixtures were installed; by the end of today, all the lights in the house will be attached, the switches and plugs plated. The painter will return to finish the trim, and Dwayne and I will keep cleaning. Drywall dust EVERYWHERE.

I hear my shoes calling out to me, from some dark, dusty box...

Childhood Relived

2011-09-05T14:01:00.003-03:00

Staying at my mother's house during the renovations means Dwayne and I are sleeping in separate single beds under a ceiling that slants sharply over each bed. Dwayne has hit his head three or four times; I've almost rolled out of my bed two or three times.
You'd think I was the one hitting my head, given the flashbacks I'm having.
When my sister and I were kids, my age three to nine, we lived in a sprawling, two-storey apartment above my father's first funeral home. Our bedrooms and bathroom were on the third floor, and those ceilings were sharply slanted. To kiss his girls good night, my father had to crouch-walk to the bed.
In the summer of 1977 or 1978, my sister and I returned from camp to find that Mum had bought new linens for our beds. I can't recall if there was more redecorating done - my sister will know - but I've never forgotten the feeling of coming home to find new, fabulous sheets on the bed. (This was in the days when you got, and gave, gifts only for Christmas and birthdays; if you wanted something - like the new ABBA album or a Shawn Cassidy poster - you waited for one of those special occasions, even if Christmas was months away. I also remember when my father brought home two stuffed animals - a Saint Bernard for me and a Scottie for my sister - after we'd admired them in the window of the Toy Shoppe and HE DID IT FOR NO REASON. It was not Christmas or a birthday. I've never forgotten that feeling of getting a totally unexpected gift. What will kids today remember from their childhoods, I wonder?)
So these sheets were not just any sheets: they were Sesame Street sheets.
So imagine a few nights ago, Dwayne and I in our separate single beds. We were talking, or rather, I was talking and he was wishing I'd shut up and fall asleep, and suddenly, I lost track of our conversation because I started to look at the sheets he's been lying on the entire time we've been staying there:

The Sesame Street sheets!
Two things: One, I spent a lot of time looking at the characters on those sheets when I was a child, and here I was, seeing them again while sleeping under slanted ceilings - and having to crouch-walk to kiss him good night. Two, talk about quality. There isn't a single pill on any of those sheets nor a worn spot. The only thing gone on them is the hem on the pillowcase, but then, I used it all through university so it's bound to show its age.
Think anything made today will last more than thirty years? And conjure up such sweet memories?
By the way, both my sister and I still have those stuffed dogs my father bought us.

Million Dollar Jeans

2011-09-02T09:10:00.003-03:00

So here's what I'm thinking: Take Dwayne's painting jeans (the man doesn't know the meaning of "painting clothes"; to him, those are the clothes you're wearing when you pick up a brush) and a six-foot by four-foot canvas, attach - artistically - the pants to the canvas, name it "Work In Progress" and sell it as art for 10-grand.
Then buy a hot tub in which to drink champagne to celebrate our new business venture: Selling his work clothes as art. We'll call it "The Working Man Collection".
Is this genius or what? Gotta have something good come out of yet another ruined pair of jeans.

Closer to Hanging The New Welcome Sign

2011-09-01T19:18:00.001-03:00

Thought we were going to be able to move back into our "new" house by the end of this long weekend but the plumbing and electrical has been postponed to next week while doors are hung and floors are laid.
Floors! Like in a real house! Amazing.
So...you want to know: Is the kitchen floor truly rubber?
The kitchen floor is
TOTALLY
AWESOME.
Throw in a couple of high-powered expletives, actually, for the real experience of just how awesome my faux-old-plank kitchen floor is (c'mon, I know you know a few good ones). I mean, I want to lie down on the floor and HUG it, it's that gorgeous. Who knew I could feel so passionate about a rubber floor?!?
Countdown to installation of the new kitchen: 15 days.

New Mascot for the Ad Department

2011-08-29T15:58:00.007-03:00

(I always laugh when I call us the Ad Department because there's only two of us and I'm part-time but I don't know what else to call our chunk of space inside the old Journal building.)

Finding this little fellow at work when I came in this morning was a pleasant surprise. Meet Sam, Jane's 9-week-old "baby". He's part-Golden, part-Nova Scotia Duck Toller; he joined her family Friday night, adopted from a couple with a newborn who realized they couldn't handle a puppy, too. I was here Friday afternoon, working on a story, and Jane never said a word!

Somehow, this reminds me of what the Ad Department (ha ha) looks like on a slow Monday afternoon...like today. We'll be curled up on the floor with him shortly.

Dear Nana

2011-08-29T10:29:00.003-03:00

I love the pink chair soooo much. It's my favourite place to sleep while I'm at your house during the renovations. It's the best possible spot to rest after a long day at the job site being Boss Dog.

I'm sooooo glad you've decided to take it to the library in the "new" house. It's been in the family for more than 20 years - how could you think of giving up something soooooo comfortable?

Aunt Minna will be happy, won't she? Every time she comes here and sees the chair, she gets soooooo excited. She beats on the chair and covers her eyes and groans. It must be very precious to her because she refuses to sit in it; I guess she wants to keep it in such good shape. Obviously, she would be very upset if she could no longer see it in your house. I promise to take very good care of it and only drool on one armrest.

Love,

Stella

Birthday Boy

2011-08-26T14:28:00.003-03:00

Today is Dwayne's 55th birthday. He's not keen on celebrating it - "I'm getting old" he is frequently heard to complain - but he married the wrong girl if he wants to ignore the day he was born. I'm all about birthdays but no big party for 55; I've no place to host it at the moment. I owe him a feed of mussels.
My husband is not an easy guy to buy for and I can't really top his Christmas gift - ever - so even though he's ruined another pair of jeans with primer and paint, I bought him a red maple tree to plant. It's a variety we don't have on our property, I know he wants one, and it's rather life-affirming to plant a tree on one's birthday (if one can't be canoeing in Scotland, that is). A new red tree for a new red house.
The good birthday story, however, comes from my sister. Trying to find the best card for her brother-in-law, she kept showing the four kids cards with women in bikinis on them (which is what any proper sister-in-law chooses) but they would say, "Uncle Dwayne wouldn't like that". She found a card that had a donkey and a cow on it that asked if he'd like some "teets and ass" for his birthday which she thought - and so did I - was absolutely perfect. Apparently, Mimi's look suggested that Uncle Dwayne definitely would not find that funny. So I was warned that while my sister vetoed anything Star Wars, the card he received in the mail (and has yet to open) is what is considered a funny birthday card by two seven year olds, a five year old, and a three year old.
Young at heart!

It Takes Awhile To Get To My Point

2011-08-23T12:12:00.003-03:00

Mum had a dinner party last night with the family who have bought our home and someone asked me if I'd read any good books lately. Do you think I could remember any of them? I provided my default, from last year: Joyce Maynard's the good daughters. It will always be a favourite. Then I remembered a memoir I couldn't put down last week: Claire Dederer's Poser: My Life In 23 Poses. If you do yoga, you should read it. (And if you want to get a memoir published in a saturated market, it provides much-needed hope that if a book with such a limited market can be published, so can mine.)

If my friend was spending the next few weeks at the back shore and not heading off to Indonesia (!) tomorrow, I would have loaned her my book. But I'll be damned if a book of mine gets to go to Indonesia and I don't. (But now that I know someone there...)

My favourite quote from Dederer's book is totally unrelated to yoga. She writes that after the age of forty, women stop being vain about their bodies and start being vain about their homes.

Hello! I'm finally on trend.

Except that yoga is about humility and acceptance, not envy and grasping so being vain about anything is frowned upon. But you haven't seen the door handles I chose for the new kitchen cupboards! Ah, as penance, I'll just do more Sun Salutations.

Like Scotland But Without the Beer

2011-08-22T12:09:00.005-03:00

As planned since the middle of June, we spent the weekend in New Brunswick at the annual GIANT flea market. Dwayne's parents made the mid-August pilgrimage to Sussex for years but haven't been able to go the past few summers because they can't walk the five acres that the market covers so we decided that we would take on the tradition at least for this year.

We haven't spent 48 hours alone together since the first blob of concrete hit the ground on June 13, and now I know why couples' therapists recommend "date night". It was so lovely to be "us" again. We stayed in a lovely B&B with the perfect morning-coffee and bedtime-tea verandah, and had a blast wandering around the flea market for four sunny, dusty hours. Dwayne broke the "You aren't to buy everything I admire" rule in a big way; he managed to sneak-purchase the one thing I really wanted.

"Someone already bought it," he told me as he walked away from the booth. I'd wandered off to look at something so I had to see it for myself, had to hear the words.

The guy behind the table said, "I just sold it. Just."

"Well, that's a lesson learned," I said to Dwayne as we walked out. "If you see something you really want, you have to buy it right away. If you wait, you run the risk of someone else getting it."

Only later, when we went back to our room to go through our bags did I discover the special ornament. It made it so much sweeter to find out that Dwayne got it for $30 less than the price tag (I was going to send him to barter for it anyway since he's good at that). That's what I love about Dwayne: when he breaks the rules, he breaks the right ones. (The first one he broke was marrying out of the county!)

After four years of marriage, he can still surprise and not only with gifts. We went into downtown Saint John for a late supper at a Thai restaurant I've been wanting to eat in (I had take-out from there several years ago). With only a small city map in a pamphlet as my guide, we managed to find Market Square and set our lips on fire with Firecracker Shrimp, Curried Mussels, and Southern Thai Curried Noodles. After, as we headed out of the downtown, I wasn't sure how to get back to the highway so at one intersection, I said, "If you're feeling adventurous, go straight. If you want to take the long way back to where I think we came in, turn right." By god, the man laughed and drove straight.

Back in the summer of 2006, when we first met, I said to someone, "If you find a Nova Scotia Country Boy who loves curry, should you not marry him right away?" So not only did I marry one that eats curry, he eats hot curry AND finds my navigation skills amusing, instead of annoying, or worse.

It was the right way to go, by the way. We always know the way to go forward together.

We Are Deck People

2011-08-19T12:46:00.004-03:00

We're nearing completion, despite the (unfortunately named) crack-fillers not showing up for a week. That's been the only glitch in this whole project so we consider ourselves lucky. Dwayne's getting a little punchy to be done, though; as in "punch somebody in the face" punchy! It's been a long two and a half months for him, living and working this pretty much 24/7. I think it's helped that he's had to stay with me at Mum's for the past week; nothing more relaxing than that front porch and a glass of wine.
By the end of next week, we should be all painted and all the floors laid. The kitchen isn't due until mid-September so we have a few weeks to clean up, over and over, and put back before it arrives.
So, here is the new garage door, installed today, with the new entranceway linking to the back deck, since we no longer have a door off the back onto that deck. Also, the long-awaited deck off our bedroom. Coolest spot on our property but someday the hottest as well: that's where we're putting the hot tub!

This is how you paint a lot of doors quickly and efficiently! In Mum's room, where there is so much space. The green curtain is actually the floor underlay, to prevent a glare from the sun.
(Mum says it's "Doorhenge". Such a clever lady.)

Soon, soon, soon we'll be back in our new and improved home, enjoying all the changes.

AND MUM JUST PHONED -- SHE SOLD HER HOUSE ON PUGWASH POINT.
Sold it to a long-time family friend, which is who we wanted to sell it to. When we first heard she was interested, all of us - Mum, me, my sister - felt all our muscles relax with the rightness of that. So she made an offer today and Mum accepted and it is very right. We've always known it would take a special person, a special family to recognize the spirit and beauty of that home; it's not your average suburban house.
Some losses are bittersweet and other losses are painful but there is always, somehow, joy underneath it all.

Best Friends, Reunited

2011-08-19T12:27:00.003-03:00

Diana's dog is gone.
Clancy died on Wednesday, suddenly, unexpectedly. He lost all use of, and feeling in, his hind legs. We know why: an X-ray showed compressed discs. How is the mystery.
I saw him Tuesday night, outside. I thought Diana's husband, Matt, was shaving the dog so I didn't go in, wanted to get to the end of the road and back before I stopped to visit. But Clancy gave one yelp and Matt looked up.
"Hi! How's it going?" I called out.
"Not good."
I stopped. "What do you mean, not good?"
"He's not good."
Matt wasn't shaving him; he was cleaning him with the hose because Clancy soiled himself while toileting. Not able to squat. But he could still wag his tail.
"I won't let him get any worse," Matt said and it took me a moment to understand what he meant. I cried all the way home. So glad I walk in the dark.
I'm a chicken shit. I haven't gone to see Matt. I didn't stop in after work on Wednesday because Mum warned me that she'd seen a man hugging Matt in his driveway. I couldn't bring myself to drive in, to hear the words, to feel the reality. I'm not in denial; it's just that the grief I feel, when I let it into my mind, makes me want to double over.
It's saying goodbye to Diana again. It's double-over grief. I want to feel it but I don't want to burden Matt with my pain. I snuck a card into his mailbox.
I'm such a chicken shit. I know better than to deny grief, not hold back tears, to not bawl. But Matt's a chicken shit, too: he hasn't told me. Neither of us wants to acknowledge this. Diana was my friend, and Clancy was Stella's friend. When I lost Diana in the fall of 2008, I lost a good friend. Clancy was the right-here reminder of her, our connection to her. His daughter told me at her baby shower in June that the picture of Diana and Clancy and me still hangs on their fridge. So now there is a grandchild, a granddaughter with Diana's name, and now Clancy is gone. As if he was free to let go, now that Matt had someone else to hold him here.
Not that it makes it any easier to drive by the house on Pugwash Point and not see that blonde body sprawled by the side of the road, waiting for a friend.

Good Quote

2011-08-15T14:55:00.001-03:00

I am grateful for all my problems. After each one was overcome, I became stronger and more able to meet those that were still to come. I grew in all my difficulties.

- J. C. (James Cash) Penney

Why, Life, You're Back!

2011-08-13T14:57:00.002-03:00

Life is back. My life, as I know it, that is.
Only better: life with a real ceiling and nice flooring.
Only better: working the regular part-time hours so I can toodle off somewhere with my mother on Fridays. (Ah, the "good ol' days" are back, too.)
Only better: the house is getting put back together, albeit slowly. The only construction left to do is the new stairs but other than that, it's all drywalling and laying floors and painting. (While I work and toodle off places with my mother.)
So close, so close...
"I can't wait until this is all put together the way you want it," my mother said as she stood on the roughed-in landing overlooking the expanded dining room into the new kitchen area.
"Are you tired of the mess?" I asked.
She looked at me then hitched a shoulder. "Yeah, I am." She was looking at furniture yesterday.
I suppose my whole life isn't back; some of it remains on vacation at Pugwash Point, sipping wine on the front porch. I must say, that is the World's Most Relaxing Porch. No wonder part of me hasn't come back yet.

Yoga With Fern

2011-08-13T11:27:00.004-03:00

I'm doing "Camera Pose" while Fern does "Under the Mat Pose".

Or is that the "I'm So Cute Pose"? I mean, really: there is no way to start the day in a bad mood when this happens every morning at 6 a.m. Gives a whole new beautiful meaning to "Cat Pose".

Life Is Weird...In A Good Way

2011-08-10T11:42:00.003-03:00

It must have been a four-day bender and I must have blacked out for most of it because I don't remember being on a bender but I imagine this is how the aftermath feels like, only without the vomiting.

Only I know it wasn't a bender; it was sitting on a damp baseball bleacher for two hours on a cold August evening!

"Jane," I said this morning when I arrived at work, "this job is going to kill me." That after four hours of in-the-field reporting.

Yes, dear readers, I am now a reporter with The Oxford Journal. It didn't take the editor (who really is editor/writer/reporter/photographer for this weekly community paper) long to pounce on the new employee who happens to be a writer. "I'm going on holidays," he said. "Could you cover these two stories for me?"

Of course I would! I live in rural Nova Scotia but I've landed this great job at a local newspaper. I live in rural Nova Scotia yet I'm getting paid to work at the local newspaper, creating ads and writing stories. I've never, ever wanted to live in New York City or Toronto or London in order to be a successful writer, and sometimes I've felt that I have screwed up my chances without those networking opportunities.

When I left to go cover the first of the two assignments last night, I called out, "I'm off to earn my first Pulitzer." (So I only have an American award to reference for writing. Saying "I'm off to earn my first Governor General" doesn't have the same ring to it. But it could be true.) It doesn't bother me at all that at this point in my life, in my writing career, I'm not on the track for a big writing award. I'm not that kind of writer, and I think this job is just great. It's not about the big news story or digging up a scandal or hanging out in a court room or covering political speeches. I get to write human interest stories about local people and I'm really excited about that.

And I'm getting paid, regularly. I keep mentioning that because so often, small-town and rural writers have to sacrifice a paycheque in order to do what they love. And even though substitute teaching pays much better, it was never a regular paycheque; I'd go three months in the summer without pay, and I certainly didn't enjoy the work. Not like I do now.

Sit down for this newsflash: I'm writing for a living!

Isn't life weird? Who ever thought I'd be sitting on a bleacher watching a baseball game...

A Moment In My Day

2011-08-08T15:41:00.003-03:00

"I'm on my way to buy a doorbell."

This is good. I wanted a doorbell in this 'new' house because if the dog is sleeping in the office with me, I don't know that someone is downstairs knocking on the door.

"Don't get a redneck doorbell," I told him. I have no idea what that would sound like but it's crazy that I'm sending Dwayne - who says "It's fine" every time I ask him if he likes a paint colour - to choose many of the fixtures for the 'new' house.

"I'll get one that you can change the chimes on, how's that?"

So I can have my choice of redneck sounds!

Reflections of Fern

2011-08-08T12:11:00.002-03:00

Fern hears "You're so cute" a dozen times a day. She knows her name, she knows "No!", and she knows she's cute. She has a thing for the rungs of chairs; she likes to twist around them, hang from them, lie under them. She stretches out on the floor like a dog. She bites and bats Stella until the dog bats back with her big paws and too-long nails.

I woke up Saturday morning with Fern sitting on my chest; I guess she wanted to know why we weren't out of bed and doing yoga. She likes to lie in the crack between the pillows on any couch. "Just say no to crack, Fern," I say.

Dwayne comes in the house and sees her lying there. "How's my kitty?" he wants to know as his rough fingers scrub at her belly. "How's my kitty?" She brings out a soft, gooey side of him. There is no "Fly the f*** out of here, fleabag," in the middle of the night like there was with Pickens. Not that he didn't like Pickens; it's just that Fern is our cat.

Did I mention that Dwayne dreamed her into our life? One morning late last December around the time we realized there was a cat living under the side porch, likely the kitten we'd seen around all summer and fall, Dwayne said, "I dreamed you befriended that Fern cat." The next night, as he sat out on the front deck, he heard her meowing in the pine trees and I had her eating food from my hand an hour later.

He dreamed about her and there she was. Never doubt the power of Meant To Be.

Fern is not my parents' cat, like Pickens was. She is not unwanted by one of us, tolerated only to keep the peace. She didn't come with me, as my pet, like Stella did (although Stella is as much his dog now as mine). Fern is truly our cat, the family pet of Dwayne and Sara.

Pickens was always trying to dash outside but Fern doesn't rush the door when we open it. Even though the few times she's gone outside (she can open the sliding screen door) we've rushed around to find her, track her, bring her back inside, she never took off, never disappeared; all she wanted was to chew on the grass. After spending the first nine months of her life surviving as a stray cat in the country, perhaps she doesn't want to wake up from the dream she's living. On some deep level, she must know, like Dwayne did, where she belongs.