Monday, January 30, 2006

We're going snowboarding tomorrow.
I'm excited. I'm going to have to walk the dogs early and block them off in the kitchen. Erin can let them out at lunchtime.
Greg and I are also going to Las Vegas this April. I've never been. WE booked the flight and room today. Our neighbours just sold their half of this semi-detached. Interesting start to this week.

Sunday, January 29, 2006


Cinnamon Posted by Picasa

Yegor

“He walks down the long road straight as a stretched-out belt…She stands pale, motionless as a statue, and catches his every step with her eyes. But now the red color of his shirt merges with the dark color of his trousers, his steps can no longer be seen, the dog is indistinguishable from his boots. Only his visored cap can still be seen, but.. suddenly Yegor turns sharply to the right in the clearing and the cap disappears into the greenery.
“Good-bye, Yegor Vlasych!” Pelageya whispers and stands on tiptoe so as at least to see the white cap one more time.”

Anton Chekhov, The Huntsman

raining

There was so much sun in my kitchen yesterday I had to wade knee deep through it to get to my fridge. I was going to shop for curtains but now I think I will leave the windows bare until summer. Sunshine = happiness. Today it is raining but I think I enjoyed enough sun yesterday to last for a while.

It is Anton Chekhov’s birthday. So I am thinking of spending a little time with “Anne,” a short story I am having some difficulty with. I am hoping a little of this day will rub off on me. I got a chuckle when reading the Writer’s Almanac – where Chekhov once wrote to a friend,

"Critics are like horseflies which prevent the horse from ploughing ... only [one] made an impression on me. He said I would die in a ditch drunk."

Saturday, January 28, 2006


its all good  Posted by Picasa

sunshine

It was an atypical day out there for January. Spring like. Winter has been pretty non-existent so far. I walked by my snowboard in the basement the other day and promised myself I would get to a hill a few times in February. I hope it snows more in February. (I can’t believe I just said that.)
However, since it was so beautiful out I took the dogs for a long walk. I would have preferred company but Greg had a meeting down town, Monica was too busy with a new computer game and Erin, who had her hair cut this morning, was too distressed over how short the hairstylist had cut it. I personally think it looks lovely but my vote doesn’t count.
Then Greg came home later in the afternoon and I went on a second long walk with him, without the dogs, down to the Boardwalk. We also stopped in at a bookstore and he bought a cookbook and I who should have kept it to one book, ended up buying three.
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susan Clarke (I wanted to read that one for awhile)
Love by Toni Morrison
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

I am very happy with my choices. Greg is happy with his. He is going to make Pan seared salmon with green pea risotto and red wine sauce for supper tomorrow night. You got to love a man who can cook.


Saturday Posted by Picasa

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

The Artist's Way

I found this site today while blog surfing. I shouldn't have been blog surfing because I'm behind in some work. Actually I'm supposed to have it finished by now but the day is still young. I can catch up. (I HOPE). Anyway, although I found this site a little too late to join in, it seems like a really supportive place. I do have the book The Artist's Way. My sister Nancy discovered it a few years ago and told me about it and so I went out and bought it. She did the whole twelve weeks and said it helped her tremendously. In fact she still does her three pages of long hand every morning. She has four kids and she works full time and so she makes sure she is up before six to do her morning pages. God I love her but her resolve makes me sick. I wish I could bottle a little of her. I think I got to chapter two before I sat it aside (for some fantasy novel, probably). Just before Christmas she told me about "The Right to Write" also from Julia Cameron. She loved it and said I should read it and I would have ran out and bought it except I had surpassed my book buying budget for the time being and well, sheepishly thought to myself I should complete the Artist's Way before I read any of her newer ones. I have no idea anymore where I am going with this post now -- oh right I think now, after reading some of Blogging the Artist's Way , I want to attempt the exercises in the book again – complete it this time.


 Posted by Picasa

those dogs

Bow is keeping me up at night now. She whines at the door to go out at two and then again at five. She wanders around the house, waking the girls up by pressing her wet snout in their faces and pushing at them. She is vocal at times wanting to make conversation at the strangest hours. I am a little at my wits end on what to do with her. Crating doesn’t work, she just becomes more vocal. I shouldn’t be giving into her demands to go outside but I am afraid she will not quiet down unless I do. I did start jogging again and I think I might start taking her with me in the evenings. See if I can tire that restlessness out of her. She does go for long walks and a run in the dog park every day and she wrestles with her sister but I guess it isn’t enough. She just needs to be good and worn out at night. Hopefully jogging with me will help. Now, this will devastate Cinnamon who will want to come too but I can’t jog with both of them. But Cinnamon is not as high strung as Bow – she loves her sleep and sleeps right through.

We had our first escape the other night. I had put the dogs in the back yard and sat down with a cup of tea to watch Coronation Street when my neighbour knocked on my door. He said I think I just saw your dogs running down the street. I ran out to the sidewalk and couldn’t see them at all thinking to myself this is just great, I wonder where those two girls are headed – probably across the busiest road they can find. So, I think I did what any dog owner would do first and let out one long, piercing whistle into the night hoping but not really thinking it would bring them back. But, they came around the far corner of our street at a mad dash and straight to me. I was very, very relieved.
What happened was the metal latch to our gate froze in place, so it didn’t come down over the bar automatically like it is suppose to do. The dogs easily pushed the gate open. I got to remember to check the latch every time I close the gate.

Sunday, January 15, 2006


brown Posted by Picasa

writing exercises

In the quarry yesterday, as Monica and I walked the dogs I really tried to take in all the little things – the toughen thorny burdocks looking a bit like medieval warriors, the leather like grass, the icy under coat of the field, the one lone hawk in the sky, circling, circling, how my dogs placed their feet at a run, the open pit at the edge, near the railroad tracks where kids and vagrants must spend some time drinking. It almost looks like a modern day Stonehenge with a circle of shopping carts and car tires instead of stone. Regardless it did look a bit like a place where spirits might gather. I wanted, as an exercise, to come back to the house and write about the field. But after twenty minutes and completely exhausting every word for brown – and there are many words for brown according to my new word finding friend – like chestnut, bronze, copper, rust, auburn, ginger, tan tawny, chocolate, coffee, hazel, walnut, bay, henna, umber - I gave up on my exercise.

“We stay at home to write, to consolidate our outstretched selves”. –Sylvia Plath

Well, the problem with me is I’m not so overly stretched – Not much here to consolidate. It is a difficult thing finding the right word, holding onto that thought, trying to attach meaning, saying it right. I don’t think there is anything harder.

When I was sitting watching the woman the other night buying her cigarettes before the shop closed I was in our car, waiting for Greg as he stopped in at the fish and chip place to pick up our order. I was listening to Stevie Nicks singing Landslide which seemed suitable and I immediately attached it to this small snippet of life that I was witnessing. Giving the scene a lyrical and emotional sway even too the pigeons..

Landslide makes me think of my sister, Sandy. She was big into Fleetwood Mac and Harry Chapin way back when. The day that Harry Chapin died I remember clearly her calling me down from upstairs and as she told me he died, she started crying and I remember feeling bad for her but at the same time wondering why she was taking it so hard. Wasn’t like she knew him. She had many of his albums and I can’t remember the name of her favourite song of his but it had words in it like, “I wish that I was beautiful or that you were half way blind and I wish I wasn’t so GD fat and I wish that you were mine.” Something like that – she played that all the time, I remember. But I digress - As I watched this stranger walk the width of her small corner of this universe – I wanted to follow her up those narrow steps into her apartment, sit with her, ask her about her life, how she got where she got – not that I’m weird or anything (well perhaps) it was just Stevie pulling at a string on me that is a little loose at the moment –
So, I wanted to write what I saw – but it was hard to attach any realness to it. I wish I could make my words real. It’s fine to have a thesaurus beside you chalked full of words but how do you put those words together into something real?

Saturday, January 14, 2006


bow Posted by Picasa

as i wait

Pigeons of white and ash sit huddled. Their egg like heads pressed to the dark cherry brick. Behind them anemic curtains fill the window. Directly below a small dollar store advertises calling cards – a list of countries and the price per minute covering a quarter of its window. A stretch of orange rope lighting wraps the frame, half of it now only a long brown stain ending at the "We’re Open" sign. The woman inside, behind the counter pulls on a white cardigan. With one arm half way down the sleeve she realizes it is inside out and tries again. She has a blue head wrap. She is finishing up for the night. A young woman of thirty, no more, steps from the doorway directly beside the shop. The doorway that eventually leads to the window with the pigeons. She has a cigarette with her that she has barely started and is wearing a white t-shirt large over her smaller frame. With purpose she walks to the door of the shop, stops, drags long and then places her cigarette on the low windowsill before entering. The owner smiles. The woman asks for something. The owner turns her back and takes down from the shelf a clean, plastic wrapped pack of cigarettes. Money is exchanged. The woman leaves the store, picks up her still burning cigarette and re enters the door off the sidewalk, closing it tightly behind her. The owner pulls the somewhat resistant gate across the front of her shop window and turns off the lights.

Friday, January 13, 2006

Dylan and some resolutions

In my Craft of Sullen Art

In my craft of sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart

Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Not for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.

Dylan Thomas


Why are the lovers grieving?


Little ways into the New Year and things are going fine. It is much too mild outside for January. I have a new Thesaurus (400,000 synonyms and antonyms). It sits beside me all shiny and new, feeling like a small dose of confidence. I am presently reading The Meditation Handbook by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso. I hope to start practicing – I want to fulfill my true human potential and find lasting peace and happiness. (Well that is what the jacket offers) - maybe I will start with trying to obtain a small amount of calm for small amounts of time. This year looks promising. However, the long, lasting mild weather makes me a little nervous. I keep thinking about global warming and those poor polar bears not having enough ice to wander across to hunt for seals and instead they end up in Churchill Falls eating toxic garbage and what not. Today the polar bear; tomorrow the icecaps melt and we all die. But you see that is why I need to learn to meditate.

This year I am going to read more, write less.
I am going to abstain from alcohol
I am going to meditate
I am going to run a half marathon
I am going to keep a cleaner house
I am going to get out of my head
I am going to be less negative
I am goign to get a job (like an outside the house job)

Now I must go paint the bathroom -

Tuesday, January 10, 2006


let sleeping dogs Posted by Picasa

I love the poem the writer's almanachas up today.