There can be dozens of black-capped chickadees in the bare branches near the bird feeders, so we were surprised to see our bird-chasing dog sitting quietly while Everett refilled the containers.

I talked to Joan yesterday and she said Baby Ben has had some peculiar seizures this past week and has not been himself. By the time I spoke to her today, he had been flown to Vancouver (yesterday) by air ambulance after having some kind of seizure that lasted a long time. Neither Joan or Gary were permitted to accompany him in the ambulance because another patient had to go, but it happens they had tickets to fly to Vancouver for a company social event anyway so were flying out at 1:30 today.

Joan sounded really good — calm and strong — but I know she can't possibly be remotely cool about it, and probably cracked up right after we got off the phone. Right Joan? Nah, I'm kidding, and just glad to hear that you are holding up so well. Tough little nut.

It makes my irritating bout with an allergy this week, if that is what this cardboard face and swollen eye is all about, look like small potatoes. It's very similar to what I went through after hearing the diagnosis of Mom's terminal cancer, only this time I'm not freaking out about anything so it's more confusing.

Scott's doing some painting at Golden Grain Farm today and I'm at home, taking antihistamines and relaxing, reading a murder mystery. He should be here shortly and we're to go to Karen's, where he's got some work to do in her house while I get a visit with my other little sister, who offered to cook supper for us. I hesitated, not sure I'd feel good enough to stay that long, but on second thought it would be foolish to pass up Karen's cooking. So we won't.

For those who don't know her, Karen has always had a particularly soft spot for animals and even as a child brought home strays and orphans. Now she is helping out a lady up north who rescues animals that have reached the "Time's Up" limit at the pound and are about to be put to death. Karen helps find homes for these poor animals.

Yesterday she emailed to say a pup's eye had been put out by a pair of scissors and the animal would be euthanized unless someone either adopted it or there were enough donations to cover the $400 it will cost for surgery to remove the eye. Everett and I have offered some money but I didn't say I'd give the dog a new home.

If you want to contribute to his medical costs, thereby saving his life, feel free to use my PayPal account (button below) or call or email (link in list on right) and I'll make sure your cash gets where it needs to go. But let me know first; there is no point in sending any if we aren't going to have enough for the operation.

There are already two dogs in this yard and we don't know whether one of them (Sara, in the photo above) will remain here after we move. I think she will—she was raised here and there will still be people living at the other house— but Scott has doubts, since she sleeps under our deck most nights and knows how to get to the new place. He thinks she'll go where we go, because of that.

We don't want to end up with three dogs. After we get moved and see what's what, and assuming Sara stays here, we'll surely welcome a dog that's been abandoned or lost or abused. Who knows what lands these poor little creatures at the pound. All I know for sure, after reading some of the life stories about a number of them, is that people can sure be stupid and cruel shits.

Suzanne posted a photo of herself without makeup and remarked that she was the first woman to do such a thing on her blog. I don't wear makeup these days so have been posting "honest" pictures all along, but in the spirit of Suzanne's hanging it all out there, thought I'd post one with the morning hair. I'd "see" her "no makeup" and "raise" the stakes. Or whatever you say when you're playing poker.

***

Yesterday CBC radio announced the five books that will be in the annual Canada Reads competition. I ignore the foolishness of choosing "the" book that everyone in the country "should" read — there's no such thing — but this contest introduces books that I, for one, might otherwise not hear or know much about.

Here's the five for this year:

1. The Outlander, by Gil Adamson (championed by actor Nicholas Campbell, a.k.a. Dominick DaVinci from DaVinci's Inquest)
2. Fruit, by Brian Francis - narrator is 13-yr-old boy whose nipples begin talking to him
3. Mercy Among the Children, by David Adams Richards -championed by Sarah Slean, singer and actor
4. The Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant, by Michel Tremblay, a Quebec playwright
5. The Book of Negroes, by Lawrence Hill

I've already put in my request at the local library.

***

Heard on the radio this morning:

It's a medical fact that if we are not cuddled or touched for three days, we get anxious.

***

When I visit Cathy in Saskatoon, we sit talking at her kitchen table for hours. Often I am flipping through a cookbook, copying down recipes that sound good or that she recommends. The following is one that has become a favourite and that I make a couple times a month now. Shelly asked for it, so here it is:

Sweet 'n' Sour Sausage

Fry up 1 lb of your favourite sausage. Drain on paper towel, reserving 1 tablespoon of drippings in which you will sauté these vegetables till they're tender-crisp:
1 cup onion, chopped
1/2 cup celery, sliced
1 green pepper, diced
While these are cooking, cut cooled sausages into half-inch coins. Add sausage back in with cooked veggies, and heat all in 12 ounces of sweet 'n' sour sauce. (I make my own—recipe below— but there are a variety of commercial sauces that work well with this recipe too, and they don't have to be sweet 'n' sour flavours. Experiment.)

Sauce:
Mix in pot-
1 and 1/2 cup brown sugar
3 heaping tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
(you can mince a clove of fresh garlic and a small onion instead if you like, or throw in a package of onion soup mix)
Add 1/2 cup vinegar or lemon juice
3 cups water
1 tablespoon soya sauce
Stir constantly over medium heat till sauce thickens. Takes about 10 minutes. Once it's thick I usually throw in a can of crushed pineapple, but it's not necessary.
Use about half the sauce in the sausage recipe; the other half can be frozen for next time.
Serve over brown (or any) rice.

That's it! Easy.

Up at 9, thanks to a mug of hot coffee handed to me before Scott left for Golden Grain Farm.
His buddy Rick was coming over to help blow insulation into the attic. Yesterday Scott was prepping for this and when I was on my way over to take him a thermos of hot tea mid afternoon, I found him next door having a visit with his sister and brother. So I took the tea in there instead, and drove over to our new place afterward.
After putting on a disposable pair of white coveralls, Scott began climbing up and down a ladder outside the wall. My part would be to hand the insulation up to him. I hadn’t realized that I’d be standing in the snow (had assumed he was entering the attic from indoors) and said I’d have to go home and put on winter boots, and would be right back. Scott said “I can do it. How about you go to town and get me some beer, and make supper?” No argument from me, especially since Emil has come down with a cold and we had run out of ColdFX. I had refused to run all the way to town “just” to stock up on that, since we had echinacea extract in the fridge, but this gave me more of an excuse. After picking up a few groceries while I was there I didn’t stop at Grandma’s, since it was shortly after 5, her supper time.

I expected the two hard workers around 1 o’clock for lunch, so stuck a ham into the oven and threw together a hashbrown casserole. Pulled the last of Shelly’s apple pies out of the deep freeze for dessert, and Everett made a batch of cookies, his usual weekend baking for school lunches. A caesar salad was the finishing touch. Or no, perhaps chilling their beer mugs was the touch that put me into their good books, in case the hot meal didn't do it.

And that's life in the fast lane.

* Uncle Bruce was released from hospital on Friday morning and all reports are good.

Joni Mitchell collaborated with the Alberta Ballet to create The Fiddle and the Drum, which is coming to Saskatoon's TCU Place for two performances in January. I just bought my tickets, or shall I say Scott did, as a birthday present. Saves him scratching his head and shopping.

Something to look forward to.

Special thanks to JT, a fellow admirer of Joni's, for the heads up. He writes a blog that always makes me laugh; it's only too bad I've never had the opportunity to spend much time with him in person.

When I stopped at the lodge yesterday at 4:30, these two Margo ladies were in the dining room, waiting for supper to be served.

Much of the talk on the radio in Saskatchewan today is about the meteor that many people observed last night. Everyone describes it differently; some saw it as white, some blue, some red.

I once saw a meteor, or now that I think of it maybe it was a comet, while driving home after dark, north of Edmonton. It was quite large and bright green. Thrilling.

Behind the trees is the house at Golden Grain Farm, a half-mile further up the road than I have been walking lately. You can see the snow on its roof.

Scott's over there doing some mudding tonight. Decided to paint the hallway now, after leaving its original colour when the rest of the house got painted, so he figures he might as well fix up the drywall first. He had been seeing every flaw in it and, while I hadn't noticed anything amiss, it had been bugging him.

Mon 17 Nov 2008

Tore off another cheque at Karen's for some new Princess House dishes—cooking and serving platters and bowls— and nibbled at some delicious snacks before making my way very slowly back home yesterday afternoon. Seriously icy roads.

After supper I had finally had enough of herb and spice jars falling out of the cupboard and miraculously not breaking as I dig around for this and that, and took everything out, gave the shelves a wipe, and stuck everything back in neat 'n' tidy like. Somebody needs to come over and paint the doors so they can be put back in place, too.

Watched the Sex and the City movie last night after everyone else had gone to bed. Enjoyed it, but was appalled by the fuss Kim Cattrall’s character made when one of the four women friends hadn’t shaved or trimmed her pubic hair before putting on a bikini. Christ, you’d think a woman’s pubic hair in its natural state is an eyesore, an embarrassment. For a movie depicting supposedly mature and self-respecting women, this scene was a poor example of female empowerment – which would be better demonstrated by women who accept and respect their own bodies, and those of other women, As They Are, not as fashion dictates.

“Grow up; who do you think you are?” I wanted to say to Kim Cattrall’s character, almost 50 years old, as she berated her friend. She is assumed to be the most sexually liberated of the bunch, but I don't see it. She seems more a slave to her sexual desires than free in any way, and sadly shallow. More of a man's dream woman than a real woman, someone other women might aspire to be.

There's not much point getting into the values of these New York women, who drool at the sight of overpriced fashion accessories and wear some of the ugliest get-ups (well Parker does) I have ever seen, and wouldn't be caught dead in. They live in a mental world I left behind around the time I turned 20. I get a kick out of them anyway, these gals. More often than not it's because I'm laughing at them, but a laugh is a laugh, what can I say. Sometimes I'm laughing with them, for sure. I think of these four characters affectionately as city bumpkins.

In comparison, my life and concerns are absolutely fascinating, I know. Thanks to all of you who wrote with ideas about getting that duvet and cover to stay properly connected. At the moment, due to your suggestions, they are fastened together with elastic bands, which I hope will do the trick until I get somewhere to buy snaps. Once those are in hand, it could be another six months before I get around to sewing them in. Longer, if the elastics continue to do the trick.

Hey readers, you asked me to post more often. You didn't request that my entries be scintillating. Not that I could deliver, if you had.

lovebirds/hambones Faye and Rick

11:25 am

“What time will you be back?” Emil wanted to know, as Scott and I were going out the door to meet Rick and Faye for supper.

“Likely around midnight; I don’t know for sure. We’ll be gone for the whole evening, anyway,” I said.

We’d had a drink at their farmhouse, then gone together to a Kelvington restaurant, then returned to their place for a delicious dessert and a couple shots of sambuca before making our way home carefully cross-country, on slippery roads. Scott drove and I mused silently about whether I would feel, at the time of my dying, that my time on earth had been worthwhile. What would I have to have done, to make it so? These moonlit drives are the ideal incubators of such thoughts; they bring a kind of perfect clarity.

I’d have to feel I had loved much, and obviously so— that those I love had benefited from my caring. That’s all. I don’t need to leave property or money or a great book or an impressive social achievement that makes strangers say Wow, what a woman. Just people whose lives were a little richer because I loved them and they knew it.

Grandma had just sat down to read the local paper when Everett and I arrived on Thursday evening. She set it aside so she could visit with us instead.

Email to Cathy on Friday:
Dear Martha Ritchie,
I bought Emil a new duvet and duvet cover, both twin size. Unfortunately although I fix it every day, the next morning I find once again the duvet has slid down inside and he has been sleeping with only a light layer of covering on him throughout the night. Aside from pinning them together with safety pins, which I fear might tear the fabric if it gets pulled on, or stitching the corners of the duvet to the inside of the cover (then how do you wash the cover without having to rip out the stitching and re-stitching every time? don't want to have to do that), what is your solution? For it seems to me that the duvet at your house always seems to be in place. How do you do it?
I could stitch ribbons to the inside corners of the cover and the corners of the duvet, and then tie them together. That's one idea. But I wondered if you have any others.
Love,
Clueless Kate
ps boys'll be home from school shortly and i hope everett will go for a walk with me. we didn't go yesterday, as he had his piano lesson in town and then a meeting with a youth counsellor. he gave her his sad tale of being overworked at home ... but scott and i don't believe he is, at all. still, he needs to be able to vent to someone without fear of reprisals from mom, so i'll take him to see her again in two weeks or so
pps no plans for the weekend except a 'princess house' party at karen's on sunday afternoon. a friend of hers had her house burn down about a week ago and karen is donating the profits from sales.

Sat 15 Nov 2008
10:53 a.m.

Everett's one daily chore, aside from feeding the dogs and cats, which is a labour of love, is to do the supper dishes. I usually help him, but last night we ate late and neither of us felt like cleaning up. So here he is, still in his nightwear, running water into the kitchen sink.

I buy Red Rose tea because that is the kind Grandma always made, and it was at her home that I fell in love with a cup of hot tea. But it is Orange Pekoe tea whose name sounds exotic and delicious to me.

I dreamed that I was on my hands and knees, with Emil behind me on his, making our way to the end of a dock jutting out into a lake. I began to feel nervous and turned to go back, as the dock seemed wobbly and narrow and I was afraid of falling into the water. I could not safely, without risking falling into the water, get around Emil so that I could lead, and he seemed hardly able to move. He put his face down into water on the dock as if he was weak or passing out. This upset me enough to wake me up.

This year, many days after school unless it’s particularly nice out and he goes walking around the yard, Emil lies down for a nap. It’s something he’s rarely done before unless he had a cold coming on, and I wonder if it’s anything to worry about. I assumed not— that he’s getting up when his alarm goes at 6 and thus it’s a long day for him— and he’s having to get used to being kept busy at school all day, after a summer of laziness. But why is his behaviour different from every other year? Is there something I need to be looking more closely at?
Most years when school starts he gets a nasty cold within the first few weeks. This year I advised him to start taking a ColdFX capsule once a day, to build his immune system. It seems to have made a difference, because it’s the first time in my memory that he hasn’t spent a week or two at home in the fall with a river of snot running out of his nose.

***
Suggestions for that duvet and cover are welcome. Please use email link in the list on the right, particularly if you are one of those folks for whom commenting on this webpage is a huge pain in the derriere.

That was the view late yesterday afternoon when I headed out for a walk after waiting for Everett to get home from school. When he arrived he announced that he had too much homework and couldn't go along, so I went alone with the trusty hound dogs. They are so reliable; never miss any venture out of the yard.

Today it looks considerably different out there. It's been snowing heavily all day; the trees are outlined in white and the ground and my vehicle are covered with a thick layer of cold fluff. The grid road, icy yesterday, will be even more slippery on my way to town this afternoon. I'll be sure to inch along, taking my time.

Hope the long-handled brush for cleaning snow off the windshield is where I think it is.