Fall ... down

I've got my autumnal cold.

Now I'm at the BORED OUT OF MY MIND part. I can't imagine how I'd be if I'd stayed home in bed the whole weekend... I ventured out a few times for an hour or two...

This morning I went for a walk at the harbour... It's getting pretty empty... I turn to a friend and say "do you think they take them out of the water, or do you think that those were all visitors that have left?" ... they laugh... and then I see the sailboats lined up on the pier waiting for the trailers to come take them to storage.

In my defense, there was a tall yacht blocking my view of the pier.

Then a massive salmon launched itself out of the water (twice!) chasing a bug... saved by the splash.


Random thought- I'm actually missing the gardening job this week. Not just the extra money, but the excuse for being outside, and the clients... I really miss one of the families we worked for.

nyquil

My green bottled best friend at the moment is making me sleep thru fun things...  groggy at best.

I moved the rabbit back upstairs again.. He's been on the main floor for about 6 hours and I've swept 3 times... I can hear him tearing up a newspaper... where did he get a newspaper?

toes

I'm not a shoe person.
I could care less what's on my feet most of the time... I'd be happy if it was birks or blundstones every day...

There has only ever been one shoe I ever begged for as a kid.. one shoe I eyed as a teenager... one shoe that I never owned, but often borrowed...

Guess what I spotted in a front window downtown tonight?

Gazelles.

That all said... I do love a little sling backed kitten heeled something something once in awhile....

*shoes in the front window were men's... I'm now on the hunt for purple ladies' gazelles*

Pirates (Always) Pirates

Sometimes, when there's nothing better to do (than clean my house)
I look at old blog posts.

Yesterday felt a little meta when I found one talking about future digital archeologists digging thru the layers of the blogosphere, it linked back to an old post from Will's blog.

(greatest quote ever)

"Note to digital archaeologists of the distant future: Those cats could not actually has cheezburgers"

::side note, I've said it before, if you're not following Will's current project at "A Year Of Billy Joel", you're missing out::

I'm so off topic I've nearly forgotten the point of this post.

While digging thru old posts, I discovered I could look up history based on tags..which is why they're there in the first place.. They just don't make it very convenient. They've even changed the name of tags to "labels".

The number one tag used in this blog? "Monday Bunday" with something like 99 entries.  I've been known to dress up my pets. Next most tagged is "Community"... then not too too far down the line... "Pirates".

Of course Pirates.

All this to say... Today I opened my email to discover  this.. an invitation to audition for the part of a pirate. IN PETER PAN!

It's like my entire being has been waiting for this.

yarrrrr.

1500

Yes.

For some strange reason I've stuck to it... 1500 entries to the blog.

For your enjoyment (and mine)... here's a treat from my longtime favourite fiend Amy Winfrey.

(click for awesome)

*yes, I realize if you add the numbers on the side bar it doesn't add up- that's because there are a number of "secret" posts that you don't get to read*

It's like I'm 12

I'll admit it- the girl growing most of her food... the one who bakes the bread she needs when she doesn't buy from the wood fired oven down the road....

I found a few slices of cheese in the fridge. You know, the processed type? Kraft single slices or whatever?

I totally went out and bought a loaf of white bread just to make a grilled cheese sandwich.
And a "cheese dream" (broiled cheese on bread). Because apparently I'm 7.
Or maybe 12.
I don't think I was allowed to use a frying pan before I was 10.

Oh yeah.

I might even make a tuna melt tonight.

story time

Not all stories have a point.

So... picture with me: Salsa day.... going on hour 13... well, 14.
(I know I said it was only a 10 hour day, but I did start at 7:30am, and the last person left at 10pmsomething.)

I'm in the house, Jen and I are doing something? Cleaning maybe? I don't know.
I've turned away because I've just discovered a large scratch on my stomach ... so of course, I'm poking at it trying to figure out where it's come from... when from my front window- which is of course where I'm picking at dried blood on my stomach- I hear "Hey! Lesley!... It's Lesley's house, hey, can we come in?" I'm confused... but it sounds like Steve's voice (my once-upon-a-time-pretend-fiance) so I tell him to come to the back door... (reminder: all that crap from the festival has filled the porch).

Steve and a gaggle of handsome teenaged boys are in the middle of a game.. a game where they are trying to "trade up". Think Red Paper Clip. They need something "bigger or better"... Somehow, they went from a broken pencil to a love seat .. in one trade... and they needed something.. someone... to rescue them from their terrible prize.

I have NO need for a love seat. Dearly... I have too much furniture as it is! But I wanted to play the game too! Mostly... I wanted to give them the Xbox and the Ipod, or some worms... but.
I just couldn't do it.

I sent them on their way.

And they came back half an hour later with some tupperwear and a gravy boat....
Desperate for the Xbox.
So I gave them my tent.

The end.

nearly awesome

After the festival... well, I can't be bothered to do much of anything.

Sunday after the fest ended, my front porch was loaded with all the items that belong to the artists' and children's village that can't be packed into the trailer (things that can't be frozen like paint and glue and markers). Seems like that shouldn't be much stuff right? Markers don't take up much space... except that I can barely go out the front door due to the piles of boxes...
I told the team I wouldn't be storing things at my house this year- it's not my job anymore, and I want to do some work in my basement... I can't do those things with extra boxes in the way. Which is the main reason the boxes are still in the porch. (not just because I'm lazy)

That's not the point of this story.

There's so much crap in my front porch, it took me a few days to figure out there was something extra in the porch... it took me 5 days to actually bother to check to see what it was.

And then, when I knew what it was? I left it there for another 3 days before doing any investigative work.

A backpack.

Mind you, it was a backpack with an xbox, several games, and an ipod touch. I figured some drunken friend had dropped it off at the wrong house, an would eventually get it figured out. Nope.

It sat there.

As I've never owned an ipod, let alone played with an ipod touch, it took me a good while to figure out who it *might* belong to. Thankfully whomever had used it last, had left it signed into their facebook account, so I was able to send a message... but then... I started thinking "why was there no other contact info?" and "who has a nearly empty (aside from music) ipod touch?"... so then I worried it had been stolen, cleared, and dumped...

Obviously I didn't care too too much, I nearly gave the whole thing away **, and then handed it over to the first person who could correctly identify the items in the bag.

Turns out the guy had been drunk when he lost it... best part of the story? He used to live in this house years ago.

I nearly owned an ipod.

Well, at least I've got some reward grocery money now.


**story to come.

Red necked Urban Farmer's guide to a quick frost cover...

I'm interested in what the neighbours are going to say when they wake up tomorrow and see my pepper and toms tucked into bed under old feed bags.

I've been meaning to get down to the second hand store and get a great old floral bed sheet to protect my fragile babies... tonight's early frost warning came a little too soon.

can can

It was only 10 hours work in the end... there were coffee breaks, and second breakfast breaks, and dinner, and shopping breaks...
And what is the result?

Something like 30litres of salsa
more than that in chili sauce
I can't be bothered to count jars of salsa verde... let's say 6 litres of that

Ketchup is resting (separate out some more liquid before we add the vinegar and spices and boil it down...)

I'm wiped.
But happy.

hey!

That moment when you realize you have more followers than people you follow on Twitter....  then have to go back and read a million back tweets to figure out why...

yup.

les tomates

It's nearly salsa day... Friday.. boxes of peppers, a freezer full of tomatoes, basket of garlic, bags of habinaros ... oh man... it's going to be awesome.

40% chance of rain....
meh... better than sunburns.

I've got my favourite apron ready, the kitchen tent will go up tomorrow (if it's not raining too hard), tables will be out and bleached.... Propane needs to be picked up, the new cooker needs to be assembled... jars need to be washed... We need to pick up onions, and the rest of the tomatoes....

oh! And we need a playlist... or a DJ!

And does anyone have a small canoe paddle we can adopt as our new spoon?


Photos will follow.

some things (rated R)

Tonight, for the first time since I moved into my house (nearly 3 years ago),  I'm going to bed with the doors locked. (well, other than that time I accidently locked TLS out of the house and he had to come in thru the window...)

I have an odd neighbour. She mostly keeps to herself... I'm pretty sure she's got some sort of developmental delay... but who really knows. Tonight, I was sitting on my couch when a man came to my door. He was very abrupt, introduced himself as my neighbour's brother, and asked me to come to the porch next door... I thought from the shortness of his words/manner that maybe my neighbour was sick, or had something important that she wanted to talk to me about, so I told him I'd be a second and went to get my shoes. He hollered at me "beer or wine?" and walked away without waiting for an answer.

I then entered into one of the strangest conversations/situations of my life.

The brother was the rudest, most foul mouthed person I've ever met... seriously. Twice I nearly just walked away from the foulness that came from him. After 30 minutes I couldn't take any more... and I took leave, saying the mosquitos were too bad for me... but before that happened....

he insulted my neighbour COUNTLESS times, insulted LOUDLY two other neighbours out for a walk, admitted it was the first visit to his sister in 42 years- he lives a few blocks away, insulted his mother, bad mouthed his niece, made fun of the clients from his job, mocked my neighbour's dead husband, called every person in his conversation "shit for brains" or "fuck hole", turned to my neighbour and sneered/said (about me) "I'll be having her later"- then turned and stared directly at my breasts while he talked about hockey, and then finally, asked me if I liked to "fuck around".

That last one? I responded with my "work voice" that he was asking a personal and inappropriate question, and he responded with "I'll take that as a yes then" and asked some other lewd questions/proposed we go back to my house..  I turned to my neighbour and said "I understand why you haven't bothered to invite him over for 42 years".

I'm a little shaken by the whole thing.

The doors are staying locked. He's sleeping on her couch tonight, after she told him he couldn't.

I'm thinking that her family situation explains why she's so odd....

remembering

I'm not good at this sort of thing...
I worry that I'll open the flood gates and have no control over the tide that comes of it.

So, I'm thankful for people like Rae, people who have words.

August Rush

Whew!
Survived the summer.

Things that happened in real life: campfires, dinner parties, house concerts, heat waves, lake waves, walks, naps, too much netflix, camping trips, births, deaths, work, play, gardens, city trips, hospital visits, family,new friends, old friends, festivals.

Too many fun things to be written.

Tomorrow we're celebrating the life of dear Little Sue.
Sue was one of the first people I met when I started volunteering with GTI (now Greenwood Coalition). At first she terrified me a little... how could someone be like her? How could anyone survive her past... and her present life? Slowly I got to know her for the beautiful woman she was. We laughed... holy crap... we laughed a lot. We talked. I learned. She taught me. We both grew.

A little over a month ago we sat out front of her home, drinking her signature bad coffee, talking about the changes we'd both seen happen in the 5 years we'd known each other. A while later we got together to celebrate the end to her chemo and radiation treatments... and now we're gathering to celebrate her life.

I'm still processing what's happened.

Sometime I'll write about it.

(sue giving me her grumpiest of faces - generally followed by side splitting laughter- at my expense)