Musings on a Small Life

Aren't there song lyrics from the 70s, or maybe even 60s, that go "alone again...naturally?" Well, they apply! Dad left just after 1PM, pretty much on time. In spite of a leak under the sink, not from the faucet change, but from something else. I need a little plumbing advice from my co-worker's hubby, will send her a pic showing the problem. It's temporarily fixed. Very temporarily, I expect. But it was a productive morning: bus pass for October, stocked up on cat food, did a grocery run (and Dad didn't tell me he was going to go ahead in the line and pay for my cart-full, otherwise I would not have filled it up!), then a pick up of my ice-pik doohickies from Sears catalogue (the stretchy rubber things that fit over your winter boots and grip the ice--studded tires for your feet, they call them) and a couple of things from Zellers. Oh, and a quick run into Costco for some rosemary ham and some light Swiss cheese. Then it was back to the house for a sandwich, ...

Today Dad and I went to Bellevue House (one of the many that Sir John A. MacDonald lived in in this area. I had been back in April, but didn't do a guided tour, wandered around by myself after talking with the young woman on "duty." We did a tour today, and since it was pouring rain, it was just Dad and me, and it was quite informative. Dad said he hadn't been before, but I thought he had. Then we had lunch at Montana's and after, picked up a couple of things at Wal-Mart. I hope I don't have to go back there till the new year. LOL. Probably too much to hope for, though. My cold is hanging on, so I don't sound great with all the coughing and sniffling and sneezing. Still, it's a pretty mild "bug," which I attribute to all the echinacea and vitamin C. Tomorrow I have a bit of running around to do (it's payday) while I still have use of Dad's rental car. Dad plans to leave around 1PM, so he can get to Ottawa and return the vehicle (downt...

A bit of running around this morning, just to have a look around: Canadian Tire, the outlet centre Dad was at last week. He found a few items of clothing, but I didn't get anything, except litter on sale from Crappy Tire. We poked around downtown before lunch (I wanted to take him to a nice spot for an early birthday meal), and Dad found something nice for his wife. Lunch was fabulous--local food as much as possible, very well prepared, and a to-die-for dessert: warm chocolate bread pudding. Best I've ever eaten!

I woke with a sore, scratchy throat, so today we've not done much. I've not done much. Dad cooked an omelet for Sunday breakfast, then we popped up to Rona (again) for info regarding my bathtub faucets, made a quick trip to the mall so I could check on a couple of things (didn't find what I was looking for), then picked up a few groceries. Came home and I went back to bed while Dad replaced the bathtub faucet doohickies. Very technical. Not the faucet handles; I've replaced those recently. The metal thingie that the faucet handles screw onto. I've been having a problem with my cold water tap for a long time (few years) and it's been bugging Dad, apparently. Anyway, he made another trip up to Rona while I was napping, and presto! I have two taps that work properly. Not bad at all for someone who never was handy around the house. :-) I feel so crappy that I'd like to crash again and sleep for another couple of hours, but if I do I won't sleep tonight. Dad...

Uh, I'm struggling to remember what we've done today. LOL. Oh, oh, I know, I know! We loaded up the old Ikea "buffet" and the Ikea chair and hauled them off to Value Village. Of course I took some time to poke around in the store. Found a few fall sweaters (two sweaters, one multi-coloured blazer/jacket) but that was all. I'll need to go back a few times till I have enough heavy, warm sweaters to wear for the very long and cold winter we're facing. Stopped into Liquidation World -- nothing there. Then went off to Starbucks for a mid-morning snack, browsed in HomeSense and then Home Depot. After that we swung by the house, loaded up with the all the cardboard in the garage and took that to the recycling centre, then went down to the campus to walk around and take pics. I know there's the infamous student street party tonight, but I had forgotten about the First Nations' Pow-Wow, the football game, and all the other activities on campus this weekend. So ...

Starbucks (at Chapters) for a chai and piece of pumpkin loaf for me, cappuccino (spelling) for Dad. Then down to my dental office for something, Canadian Tire for a few things, a grocery store for distilled water for the cats, then the line-up for the Wolfe Island ferry. It was cold on the ferry. As in, I needed gloves and maybe even long johns cold. But I took a lot of pics, mostly of the downtown from the harbour and the Fort. And the windmills. Let's not forget the windmills. Okay, I was glad I went over to see them, because they are quite impressive, but it was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. No need to go over to see them again. Ever. If I need to look at the pics, I took a zillion. Then it was back over (more pics of the Fort and of RMC), lunch at the Amadeus Cafe, and then home. Annie got her meds, with protests on her part (it's just ear gel , for goddess' sake), and she's now taken off to the basement in a huff and/or panic. What a cat. I've said that I don...

I had a productive day at work, and Dad had a productive day changing my kitchen faucet. Three additional trips to Rona (but one of those was to return unused items) and no leaks--so far. Knock on wood. LOL. BBQ for supper and a Chapters run afterward.

I'm trying to remember what we did yesterday....Oh, I had been up at 4AM, went back to bed just as Dad was getting up. Great hostessing, huh? LOL. Anyway, we ended up going to Rona for a new kitchen faucet. This is Dad's idea, I'd like to state for the record. He wants to replace the old faucet and that's fine...just not while I'm at home to get worked up about it. Ha. So he's going to do that today, while I'm at the office. Then we went to the new outlet plaza that's nearby, the one Dad shopped at the other day. I found a pair of hiking shoes (SO comfy) at the Reebok/Rockport outlet, and also a pair of walking sneakers. I'd have had two pairs of those hiking shoes if they had them in my size, but they had only the one pair, more's the pity. They have air cushions in the sole and heels and oohh, do they ever feel good. Hope they feel just as good after I've walked in to work one morning. (Not this morning, Dad's driving me...I hope.) Afte...

Nicki was in and out pretty quickly at the vet. Yes, his anal glands were partially filled and needed to be expressed (gross), but fortunately there was no sign of infection. The vet also got a urine sample: Nicki's kidneys are still concentrating too well, meaning they will give out sooner than later. He still needs to drink more water....I had hoped that cutting the back dry by half and increasing the wet would have helped, but apparently not. *Sigh* It's always something. No more fur kids after this--or so I keep telling myself. The stress is just too much sometimes. Anyway, after we brought Nicki home we ran around and did some errands: CAA for Dad, Rona to check on kitchen sink faucets, Costco to stock up on necessities, Wal-Mart for more kitty litter, and then Jysk to check a couple of pieces of furniture. The one piece I had thought would be great for a microwave stand turned out to be not as great as I had thought--I didn't like the top of it, it wasn't a smooth...

Not much to blog about for Monday. I had a massive headache, from 2AM onward, that lasted all day and night. It's still hovering in the background this morning; I'm telling it to go away and stop bothering me till Dad's visit is over. I can only guess it was either the sheer stress of highway travel (I still have knots in my neck like you would not believe) or the nitrites (?) in the smoked meat I had for the late lunch on Sunday, or a combination of both. Anyway. The day was not a complete write-off. We got the Expedit sofa table put together, and then the four-drawer bureau. That took us a couple of hours, but the three-drawer one should be faster, now that we know how to do it. I've got some rearranging to do upstairs because I think I'll take one of those bureaus for my bedroom, since I don't have one. It'll mean moving the bed, though, if I want to keep the bookcase in the room too. I'll play around with it and see. After that we popped over to Swis...

No pics, yet, I'm still editing them. We left at 7:15AM yesterday and drove through the fog for part of the way, headed up to Ottawa. Dad wanted to make a pit stop and so we got off the #416 in Manotick....There's nothing in Manotick. Not even a Tim Horton's on the main drag as you go in. How anti-Canadian is that?! Plus, the entire "downtown" area is torn up with construction, so we wasted 15 or 20 minutes there before having to get back on the highway and get off at the next bedroom community. At least they had a "golden arches." Gees, I hadn't been to McDonald's in about a dozen years--who eats there?--but we stopped for a bio break and for breakfast. So we got to the Museum of Civilization around 10:30, by the time we negotiated the one-way streets in downtown Ottawa and managed to get the parking pay machine to work. (We parked across the street, not at the museum.) I took tons of pics at the Museum, not because there was anything spectacula...

We did the run to the County today, to the winery we visit every year. Had lunch in Bloomfield, though, at Angeline's, rather than at the Inn at Lake on the Mountain. Slow service, only two wait staff for the entire dining room, but the food was fabulous. French cuisine, gourmet stuff. Even though I had the Mediterranean platter. Creme brulee for dessert, a trio of vanilla, chocolate and coffee. Mmm! Took plenty of pics, all uploaded into my Picasa album. :-)

Friday--yesterday, that is. Again, nothing to get excited about, just some routine stuff: hauling stuff to the dump, making a couple of trips to Value Village with the car packed with donations. (The Salvation Army wasn't accepting clothes yesterday.) We did go back and look at TVs again, but here's the thing: I don't have HD at home (via my cable company). The regular monthly price is $46 for the HD, $10 for the receiver and $6 for the channels, plus tax. They currently have a promo on with Best Buy to waive those fees for 8 months. All well and good, but after that I'd have to pay about $62 plus taxes a month. There's no point in getting an HD TV until I do this, because the analogue broadcasts are at about 400-something resolution. Blowing that up on a 37-inch or 40-inch television that has the capacity of 1080 resolution means the image will be grossly distorted. So until I decide I can take on the additional expense, I told Dad to put the TV-buying on hold. We ...

Nothing exciting today, no sight-seeing. I woke up 3AM, wide awake, so wasn't that energetic, frankly. Annie had her vet appointment at 9:20AM and the vet was running about half an hour late. Poor Annie. Not the vet's fault that her first appointment of the day showed up with two additional animals, not planned for. At least that's what I gathered from what the vet assistant or tech or receptionist said. Anyway, I have to wait till tomorrow for the blood work results, hope all is well, though you never know. Annie does need dental now, though, has moderate to severe tartar on her back teeth and has some gum disease. So I'll make the appointment within the next month or so, provided she's healthy otherwise. That'll run me about $450. First time she's needed dental though, and she's about 9 now. So not too bad. And by the way, the vet was actually quite quick with her. She must have the magic touch--she and whoever the vet tech was who helped get the blood...

Okay, not that you really care, but I'm sitting outside on my cold step, typing this, via my new wireless connection. Yay! Dad bought a router last night, from Best Buy, and I installed it this morning. I was worried I'd need a 2-hour customer service call to someone in India (ha), but nope. Took a bit of time for Link Sys to download updates, but other than that, it was easy. Two-step process, though. One to get the wireless network running and the other to get my laptop connected to it. I wondered what the ethernet cable was for.... Anyway, all seems fine! We'll see if Dad can easily connect when he gets up (he brought his own laptop), once I give him the password. Today's agenda will just be Annie's vet appointment at 9:20AM (someone cross their fingers that I can get her, then get her into a carrier, and finally that's she healthy) and perhaps some LCD TV comparison shopping. We checked Costco and Best Buy last night, will check a couple of other places toda...

The first one outside my living room window and the second in the garden. *Shudder*

I found a really good hot cocoa mix recipe on-line. I've tried a few before, but have found them to be sickly sweet and not particularly tasty. This one, however, is quite good. It's now my morning wake-up drink, instead of coffee. The secret ingredient is the chocolate chips, which melt in the boiling water, of course, and give the drink a very nice flavour. http://jas.familyfun.go.com/recipefinder/display?id=40885 RECIPE INGREDIENTS: 2 cups nonfat dry milk powder 3/4 cup sugar 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa 1/2 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips 1/2 cup powdered nondairy creamer 1/8 teaspoon salt NOTE : I used 1/3 cup of Splenda for this, because I prefer a sharper chocolate taste. Then I added most of the package of chocolate chips. When I make this up again I'll skip the sugar/Splenda entirely and just throw in the entire package of chips. This makes about about 4 cups of mix, of which you use only 3 - 4 teaspoons per cup.

I'm going to be fidgeting at my desk till mid-week. Heck, I'm fidgeting now! I want out, out , OUT of this cubicle and can't wait till Dad arrives on Wednesday. I emailed him and told him to feel free to show up (long) before 3PM, that I would be willing to bear the hardship of leaving the cube farm early. And while I had planned to work two or three days the week of the 21st, to save a few vacation days for "emergencies" until the new year, I just don't think I can. I have to be at the office on the 24th, and unless Dad and I drive each other crazy, that's the only day I intend to be at work. I need a break, a real break, from all this squished-in togetherness in cubicle land. More like cubicle la-la land. Ha! Anyway. I'm posting a snapshot of the gigantic plant in my neighbour's back space, because I'm looking for an ID on it. What the heck is it? It's at least 12 feet tall now, probably significantly more. Anyone know?

Hanging pics in the lower hallway, I mean. :-) I know they're only my little snapshots, not "photographic art", but so what? It's just me who sees them and I'm okay with what they are. The snapshots are grainy because the hallway was lit enough that the flash didn't automatically engage, but there wasn't enough light to produce a good pic. The Canon Powershot S3 IS I have doesn't do well on the various auto settings in low light. And I don't know enough to adjust the various aperture settings to compensate.

Hair hi-lites! Yay! And she really gave me a good cut, texturized it and cut it shorter than she did last time. Makes it much easier to live with--I don't have to do a thing. Which is just my kind of hair style. The other "hi-lite" for the day was getting to Michaels Crafts and finding the frames--and mats--that I needed. Last weekend they had only one mat, so I didn't bother, as I needed six. There's irony in the fact that I've spent a small fortune on cheap frames now. Would have been far less expensive to go out and buy dry-mounted artwork for the hallway, rather than put my amateur-ish little pics in frames. The bonus for the day is that after I left Michaels and was waiting for a bus, I saw one of the transit supervisor's drive up to put up a new bus stop sign (someone stole the old one). He's a really nice older man, close to my dad's age, used to drive my neighbourhood route a couple of years ago. Often had candies or chocolates, even gave m...

This yummy bit of eye candy is a real life firefighter, from a previous year's calendar. I had Googled; this might be from a NYC calendar. :-)

So I'm gonna ask: How old are the condiments in your fridge? 'Cause mine have been around a long time -- it's not like I use them often or use much when I do. Mayo excepted; I rarely have any to begin with (not a huge fan of it) and of course toss it out when it's expired. But ketchup, mustard, relish? Sauerkraut? Seafood cocktail sauce? Pickles? Man, I had stuff in my fridge that had been around for more years than I care to count. Apparently, however, most of these things have a life span measured in months, not years. Who knew? And how did I live before I had Steven and Chris to tell me these things? So on the weekend, everything got pitched out. Because I wouldn't want my dad to open a jar and discover some terrible "experiment" gone awry. And I bought new-- small jars this time. Never mind that buying small sizes is not cost-effective. It's not cost-effective if you use only a tiny bit and then have to throw the rest out. Of course, it might hav...

Sure it's a day away from the cube -- yippee! -- but I've been "labouring" far harder, at least physically, than I would had I been at the office. Tackling the gross cleaning jobs that we all put off until we have to--such as when one is expecting company, even family. Things like cleaning the stove burners, taking everything out from under the kitchen sink and scrubbing that down...You know, the "fun" stuff. However, I did take a couple of hours and go out walking/busing, camera in hand. A few pics are below. So I've had a fairly productive weekend all round: got lots of pictures hung, cleaned out a couple of storage units and put more stuff aside for donation, did a few loads of laundry, vacuumed top to bottom twice, moved the fridge and cleaned behind it (that wasn't pretty), did the stove and under-the-sink as mentioned, did some dusting. Still lots to do, but frankly, I'm running out of steam now. I might have to save the other disgusting jo...

How the heck do you hang pictures up a stairway? I've seen how to hang them when you have a wide variety of sizes and can form a grouping, but don't have any info on how to hang four horizontal and four vertical frames. I tried this, my Rogue's Gallery, but am not really satisfied with it. Not sure what else to do, so suggestions are welcome. Oh, and I'm not even going to mention how many additional holes require Polyfila. Suffice to say it took me three tries before I got even this layout. LOL. I really don't care, though, because this wall desperately needs to be painted--it's never been done since the original builder's beige, because of its height and difficulty accessing the upper parts. So what's a few (dozen) holes? BTW, I had a great fur-companion sighting morning, while out on errands...twice. Pics and explanations are on my Fuzzy Tales site, " Fabulous Four-Legged Day ."

I left the house at 6:40AM and headed to the conservation area, taking the long way so I could stop at Starbucks for a short chai. Which meant I got out there around 8:10AM. The sky was overcast with a bit of rain off and on, though it was supposed to have been sunny. In fact, it did clear up -- once I was out of the park and on my way to do errands. Had I waited a couple of hours, the weather would have been fabulous for snapshot-taking. As it was, I took mostly pics of wildflowers, i.e. weeds. With one big, mother-effin' spider, a couple of fishermen, and some ducks and gulls thrown in for good measure.

That's not a question. This is my life: So I leave work at 1PM today, an hour early. Because hey, it's gorgeous out and it's the start of a long weekend and I'm all caught up on my work. I don't feel like walking home, so I grab a bus downtown, intending to transfer to the bus heading up to the Centre, transfer from there. The bus is a no show, so it's a 15-minute wait. The next bus shows up on time and it's packed. It's almost standing room only, in fact. I greet the bus driver, as usual, and she's kind enough to warn me about a free seat at the back that has a milkshake spilled all over it. So I squeeze in between two other people in one of the few remaining seats by the back door. The poor mentally ill schmuck, who's carrying on quite the non-stop conversation with himself, plops himself down right onto the spilled milkshake. Gross. We finally get going. The bus hits every single red light and almost every stop, with more people squeezing on. ...

Just a bit of tasteful eye candy to get the day off to a great start. ;-)

Well, who isn't? Especially when the weather is slated to be gorgeous , the kind of weather it would have been nice to have had during the summer. Barring unforeseen circumstances, a trip out to the conservation area, with my camera of course, will be on my agenda for early Saturday morning. After that, another trip to Michaels crafts for more inexpensive frames. Those "inexpensive" frames really add up in cost, though, when you have a lot to do. Also on the agenda will be some serious cleaning, prior to Dad's visit. I mean, I'm great about vacuuming and keeping the kitchen and bathroom clean, but less-than-stellar about dusting or doing more than a surface swipe. My entertainment centre's shelves are grey with dust and grime. And it's a pine Ikea unit, by the way. So yeah, the dust is pretty thick in the house. Oh, and boy, do I need Polyfila! I made more holes in the drywall last night, as I moved some upstairs hallway prints around. Guess that means I...

I came across this Toronto newspaper's Act of Kindness section and wanted to share it: http://www.thestar.com/kindness I believe what we focus on becomes our reality, so if we focus on only the negative, we will draw more of it into our lives. The trouble is that, being bombarded by heinous crimes and horrific tragedy every day, via the news, we can become conditioned to having a very skewed outlook on life. It's easy to become cynical, bitter and jaded when all you hear about and read 24/7 is suffering--that of two-leggeds and four-leggeds. So stumbling across this link was a "godsend." Or Goddess-send, maybe. Reading the posts made me think of the times that strangers have been kind to me, including a woman at a grocery story who insisted she drive me home, rather than me wait for the hourly Sunday bus. (I was lugging a very heavy order, was quite weighed down with bags.) This was last year, I think--can't quite recall when--but I do know it was at Price Chopper...

Apparently I haven't reached my limit yet. Can you say "Polyfila?" I knew you could. So, yesterday evening I rummaged around for some of the photos that Dad has sent me over the past handful of years, photos he uses for his cards. They've been tucked away in my old den, unseen. Which made no sense to me. Since I'm doing a "gallery" of my own favourite snapshots, why not display Dad's pics too? I even had frames -- nice wood ones, black, matted to hold two 4x6 pics each. I've had those frames for the better part of a year, got them initially for cat pics, but didn't need them. They were covered in dust. No matter, they cleaned off just fine. Once I got that sorted out (keep sending me pics, Dad!) I decided to move some of my art prints around, the ones that are dry-mounted. Now, I'm not particularly good at this kind of layout, and even worse at hanging them. I have a couple of large Gustav Klimt prints I really like, thought I'd juggl...