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Not My Blog
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Friday, July 30, 2004
I gotta' start blogging more regularly: every time I start a new entry, the Blogger template changes. It's beginning to look alarmingly like MS Word. As soon as that "String Being" figure shows up, or that animated paper clip, I'm outie. (Yeah yeah, sure sure...me quit blogging ha ha funny.)
Not a lot going on in my world lately, although I fear that the next-door condo has been sold as a rental property. I know I've always said I loved the Trailer Park Boys, but that doesn't mean I want to live it. Again. Luckily, the condo board seems to be pretty good about enforcing the by-laws, so if my new neighbours turn out to be crazy drunk 20-somethings fond of blasting their stereos and holding driveway raves, they'll run interference. Myrmidons Need to Get Hungry. After a month of uncontested prowess on the lawn bowling green, we've been handed our own bums in two of our last four games. My suggestion of spiking next week's dinner, which the Myrmidons are cooking, with ergotamine, so that our rivals will have nasty hallucinations in the heat of the game, was firmly rejected by my teammates. "Look, it won't kill them," I said by way of persuasion, but no. Maybe that's it. Maybe that's what's behind the writing slowdown of late. I haven't been in love in about three years. That's a damned depressing realization, you know? There are lovely boys at work, but they are either much too young or much too married, or both. I'll have to start chatting up more dog owners at the off-leash parks. Don't get me wrong, I'm not expecting a relationship to sprout up from any of this (as my bygone shrink, The Fish, once said, "Let us attempt to remain within the realm of the possible")--I'd just like to get a reason to fall in love again before I die. The last one lasted close to two years and was the impetus behind a lot of writing -- most of it admittedly execrable, but writing nonetheless. But then the obscure object of desire moved town, damn his limpid, melting blue eyes. Of course, there are always celebrities, but I just don't obsess about them the same way as my younger self would have, Eddie Izzard excepted, says the dolt who bid on the Izzard-inspired MAC lipgloss on eBay. Oh, I'll always like watching Clive Owen, Johnny Depp, Harvey Keitel, Ben Miles, Ioan Gruffudd, Dave Foley, John Malkovich, Brendan Fraser, Ben Cross, Vincent Cassel, Patrick Bergin, Neil Finn, Brendan Shanahan, Bill Maher and Eugene Levy. But the urge to covet everything they've ever said, done, or liked, is gone. Fucking maturity. Monday, July 19, 2004
I dunno what my favourite part of the weekend would have been. Maybe the dogs floundering after sticks thrown into warm, murkish Gull Lake. Maybe the nightly chicken salad -- i.e., gathering a large pail of dandelion greens for the happy, cackling hens to eat, not eating the chickens themselves. Maybe lying on the couch, guzzling cold, cheap Riesling and watching DVDs. Maybe walking in the fields with the horses, while the dogs protested. Or feeding leftover coleslaw to the Trailer Park Goats. Or coaxing Jean's cow to come over for a scratch in exchange for some oats. Or waking up before daybreak and watching does and fawns meandering across the corn field. Or maybe just all of it.
Friday, July 16, 2004
Three goats, 150 chickens, eight horses, four dogs, two cats, 12 cows. And who will you be looking after this weekend? Actually, I can't wait: my pal Jean, her boyfriend Tyke and her parents are on a road trip to Manitoba, so that's two farms to play on until Monday morning. Will I start that short story? Will I finish that poem? Or will I swill discount Zinfandel and fall down in the thistles?
Or perhaps I will run away in terror from an approaching tornado. Considering the weather in my fine province lately, i.e., wrath-of-Jehovah hailstorms and floods, I guess I should be prepared for anything. Apropos of Jehovah: [That piece of halibut was good enough for Jehovah!] When I was a young and depressingly ill-informed child, I thought that the mild epithet "Jove," as in "by Jove, Bertie Wooster," was a contraction of "Jehovah." Thankfully, that Child's Own Book of Roman Mythology set me straight. Thursday, July 15, 2004
Yes, yes, I am aware that successful retrenching does not involve tossing bids on e-Bay. These were over a week old, you see, and I really didn't think I had much chance of success -- wait a minute, why do I feel obliged to explain myself to you? It's that damn inner Catholic again, beaking away. She never shuts up. (confess confess CONFESS!)
Wednesday, July 14, 2004
Help, I have e-Bay syndrome: Sometimes just for the sheer hell of it, I toss a bid or two on e-Bay, especially if it's a seller I really like and want to help him/her get a better price for their item. Usually I only bid on DVDs and books, but occasionally....well....let's just say the words "English saddle" and "paddock boots" and be done with this topic, shall we? It was just so weird--I mean, the bids I put in were laughably small. No, I do not own a horse, but I do have feet, so I will make good use of the boots, at least. I'll probably send the saddle along to my beloffed pal, Nik, who rightly says that one can never have too much tack.
Speaking of e-Bay books, I've been amused by a US bookseller who has written me three e-mails bemoaning the hideously steep charges for shipping a single book to Canada. Each time I reply and offer to pay the shipping costs, but no. This seller would rather continue to complain, which I suppose is meant to remind me just how good it is of him to send me this used book, and how lucky I am. So I plan to send a cheque to cover the shipping, just to shut him the hell up. Dog Park Interlude #1: A Saturday afternoon romp with Piper took a frightening turn. She had been running and playing with a group of dogs, when a Doberman Pinscher came by. Piper headed over to check him out, when the Doberman suddenly attacked, flipping her and biting her in the face. When I finally managed to catch her, I saw that she had a goodish gash on her right lower lip, with a puncture wound below. The Doberman's owner raced over, his dog now on a short leash, and immediately offered to pay for a vet. His dog was 11 years old, and this was the first time, he said, that the dog had ever hurt another. I was inclined to believe him, but it turned out that Piper wasn't hurt as badly as I had first feared. The bleeding stopped within 5 minutes, and after I'd cleaned both wounds with antiseptic, the puncture wound was already closing over. She's a bit more cautious about approaching large unknown dogs, though. Particularly large geriatric dogs of uncertain mood. Interlude #2: During yesterday's noontime walk we encountered a man with a border collie. The collie growled as we approached, and Piper growled a challenge right back, in a high pitch that made me chuckle. "Oh, yeah, what a couple of tough customers," I said. The collie's owner looked at me strangely and said, annoyed, "He's just trying to protect me!" I was confused by his miffedness until it suddenly occurred to me that he thought I had been talking to him, not to the dogs. Heh. Friday, July 09, 2004
Oh, of COURSE... The same day I downgrade my cable TV package from "Addict" to "Peasant," I watch the funniest episode of "Trailer Park Boys" that I have seen to date, and which is a series I now won't be able to watch, since Peasant Vision doesn't include Showcase, home of TPB. Gaijin, if you're reading this, stay tuned for "The Green Bastard" episode in Season 4: it's a beauty.
The downgraded cable is all in aid of the Great Retrenching of 2004, in which Jane attempts to remember that there are not unlimited funds in her chequing account, and that banks tend to be heartless, especially where mortgage payments are concerned. Still, in classic "Darkest Before Dawn" tradition, the financial crisis of Monday was allayed to some extent by the cost-of-living salary increase of Tuesday. Nick of time and then some. Thursday, July 08, 2004
It seems that if you don't like Michael Moore, you are automatically labelled a Dubya-lover. Not true. I frequently find myself astonished that so many people I know accept Moore's pronunciations without question. What irks me most about the man is that he's a bozo propagandist, and I despise propaganda of any kind, even if it supports the causes I believe in. If he would present both sides of an argument, just once, or refrain from passing off his opinions as facts, I might regain the respect for him that I had after seeing "Roger & Me" and "The Awful Truth." I have to admit that even though it contained inaccuracies, "Bowling for Columbine" put gun control under the spotlight where it should be, despite the best efforts of the NRA. And probably "Fahrenheit 911" will put Bush in the spotlight, uncomfortably, in an election year. Again, I think this is probably good. So why can't Moore make propaganda-free movies? Why does he have to espouse myths such as no one locking their doors in Canada, or the bin Laden family flying out of the US after September 11th without hindrance? Because there was "hindrance," albeit mild, in the form of questioning: all but 3 (my own apologies if I'm wrong on this number, but I'm quoting from memory) were subjected to it before they were allowed to leave the country. "So what?" said my friend, Craig. So what, indeed: it makes no difference to the fact that the bin Ladens were allowed to leave when others weren't allowed to fly -- but why not mention it anyway, instead of perpetrating an inaccuracy? I'll indulge in a bit of reductio ad absurdum: it's like saying it doesn't matter what the surgeon tried to do in the operation, because the patient died anyway. Bottom line: I do not trust Michael Moore's brand of truth, any more than I trust George Bush's brand.
Where did that come from? I must be low in some systemic enzyme or nutrient. The dog was invited to run free in the office during the studio clean-up this afternoon. Add to that clean-up one little baggie of canine waste, scooped up after having been secretly deposited in the corner of an empty office. Heh. That's my dog. Tuesday, July 06, 2004
What the Dreams have Taught Me:
What the Dog has Taught Me: To practise your vomiting, chew grass continuously on your walk, then repair to the passenger seat in the owner's van to blatz up a bolus of slimy herbage. What Lawn-Bowling has Taught Me: I suck amazingly. Friday, July 02, 2004
If my horoscope for the day said I would spend the afternoon learning African drumming on a sheep farm, I might just become an astrology convert. As it is, I am looking at the metal-coloured clouds and overflowing gutters, and thinking, yep, just the kind of weather you want for an outdoor all-afternoon drum fest. Also, I should specify that this is West African drumming, or even more specifically, West African coastal drumming. I doubt knowing that makes any difference to anyone, but precision is our house style. Oh, I guess I should also explain why I am going to a sheep farm to learn how to tappity tappity tap those drums: because it's Staff Appreciation Day, and back in the early winter, some genius decided to spout off to one of the partners about how cool it would be to get a bunch of people together to play the drums. I swear, I was just making conversation. The sheep farm is a bit of an Alberta landmark, and anyway the office administrator really wanted to go there.
Summer rain, summer head-cold: This afternoon's percussion will be punctuated with sneezing, hacking and croaking, and I can't do bang-shots of NyQuil because I have to drive to and from the farm. He's baaaack!> Theo the Wonderhound is bunking with us for a couple of days. He's a consummate gentleman of a dog, but even so that didn't stop him from meting out some much-needed correction to Piper, who was being especially nasty to him any time he came over for a pat or a quick smooch. I didn't see what happened, but there was a snarl, a bark, and a high-pitched yelp from Piper, and now they're the best of pals. Sometimes I envy dogs for being able to bite the ones who annoy them. Although I expect I'd have been muzzled about 30 years ago, personally. The Prisoner of Azkaban was by far the best of the Potter movies to date. And I predict (and they can just send me the royalties for the idea) that Disneyland will one day have a Whomping Willow Ride, as well as a Quidditch roller coaster. Mark my words. Copyright © 2000-2014 Jane Farries All blandishments herein are property of the proprietor. There you go. |
