Tues 10 April 2007

So I'm sitting here reading a blog (love its name, which is what drew me to it in the first place: "My Boyfriend is a Twat"— darn, why didn't I think of that title for this webpage! har-dee-har-har—that'd go over good wouldn't it) from England that mentions a place over there called Maidstone (naturally i think oh! Joni Mitchell's hometown—when she was just a wee genius, not a full-grown one— [where is the band Haywire now, Joan, by the way??? Har-dee-har-har-oh my I do have fun here all by myself]— Maidstone, Saskatchewan, was probably named after the one across the pond) while on the radio station I'm listening to there is a segment on the large number of UFO sightings in Saskatchewan in the past year. There have been over 100. But anyway, scant moments after I read the word Maidstone on the blog, the radio guest says that there have been an inordinate number of UFO sightings near Maidstone, Sask.!

Oh you go ahead and say it's just a coincidence. I'll think what I think. Not that it's meaningful, just that I must be right where I'm meant to be.

When I went for a walk yesterday my ass nearly froze off. Frig, it's cold out there. I mean, yeah the temperature is hovering above freezing, but the wind is like to sear off your skin. I didn't go far. Walked out through this muddy road (discovered there is a hole in my rubber boots, dammit) far enough to talk to the horses for a few minutes, but came back in pretty quick.

Down in Regina, in the southern part of the province, there is a blizzard today. A blizzard! So I guess we are lucky up here, just a couple hours further north.

So, the icy wind is melting the snow somehow and we can probably thank it for the fact that only our storage room has a river running through it, so far. Not the living room and bedroom walls, yet, as happened last year on this date, when it was warm enough for the snow to melt quickly and seep into the thawed ground.

NP: Annabelle Chvostek, Burned My Ass

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On our way home from Kelvington Tuesday afternoon, Emil and I spotted this coyote standing on a frozen slough, watching/listening intently to something going on inside what is likely a muskrat house. Coyote probably thinks whatever it is will come out and be lunch if he waits long enough.

While down in Chicago, coyotes stroll right into busy restaurants! See this.

***

No ham and scalloped potatoes around our house for Easter. The boys are away; Scott cooked some pork chops and perogies around 3 this afternoon; and I went into town to see Grandma. We drove around for a while, got ice cream treats, and I had her back at the lodge in time for supper.

Then I came home and worked at my desk for a couple hours.

***

Spent Friday night in the city with Cathy and her girls; shopped like a mad thing on Saturday — spent $600 — half on food staples from Steep Hill and the rest on two new phones and polishing off some gift cards Dad gave us for Christmas.

Man there's heavy traffic in Toontown these days. Scott tried to get me to take his truck instead of the van (so the shake/rattle doesn't do more damage to things it's in contact with) but I am all about being able to see something when I shoulder check, and don't seem to when I drive his half-ton. It has a topper on the back and that just messes up my vision. I'm nervous enough driving in all that traffic when I haven't done it for a while, let alone not feeling confident that I can see what's happening in the lane beside me.

Betcha Huff is on; I'm going down to see.

Still no dead mouse. Scott discovered a crust of bread under a bottom drawer in the kitchen. Mouse must have dragged it there from the dog's or chickens' pail of scraps.

NP: Joni Mitchell, Travelogue

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Tuesday was a busy day in town. It was customer appreciation day, or better yet, dividend-payout day, and the street was damn busy as everyone in the countryside came to the Co-op store to pick up their cheque and make off with a doughnut.

Not me. I stood in the tire shop across the street, looking out the window, while the fella checked out the tie-rod ends on my van. You know that horrendous shaking we paid some crook in Regina $400 to diagnose and repair when we went down there in early February? Right, that. It's still going on. I swear ... can't find anyone to figure out what's wrong with the vehicle, can't kill a measly little mouse ... I'm starting to wonder if we aren't just plain inept people, us Saskatchewaners.

In the parking lot across the street sat a vehicle from a Yorkton radio station. Its driver must have been broadcasting from inside the store.

Yep, life is pretty exciting around here. Just the way I like it.

I'm off to North Battleford tomorrow morning bright and early, driving the boys to meet their dad there, which is halfway between here and Edmonton. Once the kidlets are unloaded from my vehicle and into Gord's, I'll head back to Saskatoon to spend some time with Cathy before doing some shopping on Saturday and then coming home. Next weekend, when it's time to pick Emil and Everett up, I'll do it again.

Now Playing: Scona Brae, Beyond the Well

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Our appointment for massage was cancelled last week when Emil had a cold, so we went yesterday. I picked him up at the school at noon, and he ate his lunch on the way to Kelvington. I had my massage first, while Emil sat in Ann's living room and rocked in her grandmother's chair and giggled, just glad to be sitting there in the sunshine I guess.

When he had his turn in the treatment room, I zipped over to the bakery to pick up some rye bread, then dropped in on my niece and her little boychik. Nine months old now, he's tiny, a mama's boy (Emil was one of those and still is), and button-cute. I forgot to get the camera out of my purse (but Joan, Cara has put up a bunch of pictures of him on a webpage ...).

I'm over my weekend cold, which never got too severe, thanks to the ColdFX I started consuming faithfully at the first sign of a sniffle.

That frigging mouse is still taking vigorous swipes at the bait (it leaves its little claw marks in the peanut butter, and eats most of the raisin, which it is unable to remove from the apparently useless trigger) in four traps without getting caught. How is that possible? After a week of house priveleges, Grandma's cat has been kicked back out to the barn; he wasn't doing anything but getting up on the kitchen table and pissing me off.

What next — poison? I wish we could catch that rodent and put it outside. Wonder if there's a live-trap to be had in town. Doubt it. Before I go downstairs, I call out "Here I come, Mouse!" I do not want to see it. Mostly I don't want it to take me by surprise, because that's when I'll get all squeamish. If it's at some distance, and my feet and legs are covered, and it's not running across the floor toward me, I will be perfectly compassionate and think it's a dear little thing and talk to it like it's ever such a sweetie.

Water is coming into the basement— ours and many others in the area. It was 17C-below yesterday morning and the day was cold; many are complaining, but I think the temperature is the only thing keeping us from serious flooding right now. There is still quite a bit of snow around and it's best it doesn't melt too fast.

Now Playing: Dennis Lakusta, Suusa's Room. Dennis is coming in May to do a house concert for us.

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~littlest sister and littlest niece~

I'm fighting off a cold here, so am still in my flannel pyjamas in the middle of the afternoon and after one more hour of deskwork I'm toddling off to bed.

Mouse news? Last night the diabolical beast left its toothmarks in the peanut butter Scott used for bait in the trap, and deposited a hunk of grey fur on the kitchen floor next to the dragon tree. Bugger.

When Scott's niece and nephew come over from next door, they like to join Everett and take pictures of themselves with the webcam. I have to kick them off the computer if I want to get any work done.

Both rain and snow today. We really could do without either of those. I made bread again but did not go outdoors longer than to gather up an armload of damp wood to keep the fire going. The bread dough rises best in a spot right next to the woodstove in the basement.

Before going downstairs or into the storage room, I call loudly, "Here I come, Mouse!"

That's right -- it has not yet been caught, to my knowledge. I'm all right with it because I haven't seen the thing yet, but I have to steel myself to get down on the living-room floor, which is in the basement, to do my daily yoga routine.

I'm pretty sure that was a mouse turd I found next to the toaster on the kitchen cupboard yesterday. Wah.

Now Playing: Mary Margaret O'Hara, "Apartment of Cheese Suite," one of my favourites from a CD of various songs burned for me off the internet by my "ex-stranged" hub (thanks Gord), but I'll buy one properly when I end up in a CD store. Where you also don't often see her CDs. Or maybe I can order it here. Hey, maybe you can hear her if you follow that link and have an MP3 player and know how to do the music download thing. Which I don't.

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~Trinket, my four-year-old niece, has lost her first tooth~

Wild animals I have not seen this week but Scott and/or Everett have:

1. a fox that ran back and forth in front of the basement window and across the yard
2. the mouse —still goddamn alive— coming from under the china cabinet in the kitchen and across the floor. Everett says it is small and quiet. I sit here in my housecoat with my bare feet up on the chair and wonder why the hell that thing has not yet had its neck crushed by a trap or been eaten by Ralph the Cat. Why, why?

***

The concert Sunday afternoon was very good, of course. These guys had incredible talent and we are fortunate to get acts like theirs out here in the boonies. But tell me, why is it that most every guitar player contorts his mouth while strumming and picking? Even classical types, like these guys; even me, who can hardly play. There must be some visceral connection between the lips and the fingers.

***

So. Emil is home fighting a sinus cold. I am on flood watch; the pumps have started running, which means every two hours I must go check around the foundation to see if water is coming in. On Saturday I moved things away from the basement walls, but if water starts coming in the carpet will have to be rolled back too, and the furniture dragged to the middle of the room. It won’t be pretty.

On the bright side, the Canada geese are back.

***

On Sunday night a TV show called An Audience with Coronation Street was on. Some of the Corrie Street actors are singers as well, and performed before an audience peppered with Corrie actors who participated in some question-and-answer exchanges. I was so tickled that I called Mom telepathically several times to make sure she was watching. She would have enjoyed it.

Tomorrow is her birthday.
She’d be 66.
I'll be making a donation to her favourite charity, the Sandra Schmirler Foundation, in her memory.

***

Yesterday on the way back from the neighbours', after having coffee with them and picking up three dozen eggs and a quart of fresh cream, I saw a bald eagle and a robin. Was so delighted when that robin flew past my windshield. Even though the flight of the majestic eagle, less often seen around here, is awe-inspiring, the little redbreasted robin’s return lifted my heart.

The mouse is still not caught. I am enjoying having the cat in, though; he is so cuddleable. If I don’t start seeing his hair everywhere, and if he figures out that he’s to stay off the kitchen table, and we don’t have to get a litterbox for him, then as far as I’m concerned he might be welcome to stay. I actually poured some of Violet’s Jersey cream into my cereal bowl, after I’d finished eating, and let the cat drink from it. Seeing an animal eat from a dish people will later use, even after vigorous washing with hot soapy water, is something I have looked upon with incredulous disgust, even in the very recent past. What is happening to me here?

Now Playing: Joni Mitchell, Night Ride Home ~~ in case you haven't figured it out yet, I never tire of Joni's music. Am thinking about her today, at her mother's funeral in Saskatoon. Poor thing. Even though Joni's in her sixties, it can't be easy for her.

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Sigh. Looks like we've got a smart mouse. Or a lucky one.

Scott set four traps baited with peanut butter before we went to bed last night. The one above is upstairs, tucked between kitchen cupboard doors that have been waiting for over a year now to be sanded and painted (no good-enough excuse, shame on me), and which are leaning against the wall in the hallway. This morning Scott found the trap sprung and dragged over to the kitchen stove.

And what good is Ralph the Cat, you ask? He definitely knows there's a mouse in here. He'll go right to the spot where the mouse was last seen, and he'll nose around there, tail twitching.

Last night he slept on our bed. At one point he flopped down next to my head and slung his arm over it, like a lover. At least there will be no mouse running over my head as I sleep, right? But did Ralph get that mouse? No! Methinks he knows he'll be booted out again as soon as he does.

***

Wild animals we have seen this week:
A muskrat came into the folks' yard next door. The dog went after it; when she got within three feet, it attacked her, bit her face, drew blood. By the time the muskrat was caged, all three families from both houses were out there watching the action. It sounds like Scott's brother will take it some distance away and set it free.

***

We're off to Wynyard this afternoon to see an acoustic group, the Montreal Guitar Trio. Everett at 14 is too cool to want to attend, and Emil is fighting a cold, so we will give their season tickets to Scott's mom and my Grandma, who will accompany us.

Now Playing: Katell Keineg, Jet

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There’s a mouse in the house. Scott spotted it in the porch this morning and, while trying to corner it, chased it down the stairs. It’s now hiding somewhere in the basement … which is where I sleep.

Grandma's cat has been sent for. As soon as Everett got out of bed, he went out to the barn to inform Ralph* of his mission: catch and destroy that rodent. Everett was set to work hauling up, from under the stairs where our storage room is, all food that is not encased in glass or tin. Even the flour, the salad dressings, the honey, all in their plastic containers. Mice can chew through plastic. Ralph the cat kept a close eye on things, tail twitching.

I am considering putting elastics around the ankles of my blue jeans, as Dad jokingly suggested when he phoned. I’d completely forgotten to make my usual morning call to him – other things on my mind, donchaknow. “Look on the bright side,” he said. “It’s not a tiger.”

I know, I know … the mouse has more reason to be nervous than I do. It’s soon to die a dastardly death. Still, I will not be able to go barefoot or barelegged till it’s gone.

How did it get in, we wonder. Scott always worries about the door being open too long while Emil stands there saying his goodbyes in the morning 10 times. He thinks if there’s a mouse on the deck it will dash right in, past Emil’s feet. I think that’s a bit ridiculous but he’s sure it’s a real possibility. I don’t know. I’ve never seen a mouse do that. Maybe Scott has.

You know we are freaked out when we’ve let a cat into our home! We love cats and dogs, but live on a farm and so can enjoy them outside and don't have to have them (and their hair) floating around the kitchen and laying in wait on the furniture. But I intend to cuddle him up good while he’s in here. And is he ever happy, himself. Didn’t stop talking for the first half-hour. I didn't understand his foreign language but I’m sure it was all “This is great, it’s about time, where’s the food? Ooh, nice and warm. What mouse? Lord but this couch is soft. Pet me. Who'll pet me first? Get in line. Finally, my rightful place. Took you guys long enough.”

And then, to banjo accompaniment, there is this little ditty I can imagine Ralph singing gaily:

"Love them little mousies
Mousies what I love to eat
Bite they little heads off
Nibble on they tiny feet...."

* Grandma called him Blackie, but Scott renamed him because he has this deep "raaalf" instead of a high-pitched voice like most cats; he is part Himalayan, maybe that's where it comes from

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~ Number One son, Emil ~

3:03 p.m.

Looks sunny and melty out there, but I am still working and may miss the bright part. The concrete in our storage room is sporting a very large wet spot. Here cum de fludd.

Sheet.

NP: Joni Mitchell, Chalk Mark in a Rainstorm