How to feel delightfully silly

Knit a monkey's bum:

and say to yourself "I'm knitting a monkey's bum."

Really. How can you feel anything but silly? It's a fun way to feel silly. Try it for yourself, if you don't believe me!

Lovely Lilies

Lovely lilies from J:


(She had borrowed the phone overnight too, so that she could make a call in the morning before I got up, and then forgot to give me the phone back before she went out. She felt bad about that. Frankly, I hadn't needed it, and told her not to worry about it, should it happen again.) Aren't they beautiful? :)

The Drama of Gardening

It's amazing how much drama is involved in gardening.

To begin at the beginning, the caretaker takes reasonably good care of the building and grounds, although he doesn't have/use a weed-whacker to trim up the edges of things, and he pretty much ignores "gardening"... so there are plenty of dandelions in the grass, and there's grass and weeds growing up where the flowers are. Back in the spring I asked the landlord if he thought the caretaker would mind if I pulled the grass out of the flowers, and edged around them. (The caretaker is a bit odd, and I didn't want him to feel that I was stepping on his toes, or criticizing his work.) I got permission to do what I asked.

A little while later, I ran into the caretaker outside, and he asked if I was going to plant flowers. Still thinking he might be upset at me doing stuff, I said no, that I was just going to weed. He said he'd really like it if I planted flowers. So I started talking to neighbours with perennials that sometimes need splitting... but didn't get around to starting gardening here, because my gardening efforts started off at my mom's, dad's, and neighbour's (she's in her 80's, and lives right beside my mom, so the tools are right there).

Summer arrived, I ran into the caretaker again, and he mentioned that I hadn't found time to plant flowers, and sounded disappointed. I told him I was still planning on gardening here.

Earlier last week I was talking to a neighbour again, and she mentioned that she had two perennials that she wanted to split/dig out, and did I want them. We arranged that I would come fetch them on Friday.

Due to the rain, I didn't have time to prepare the bed in advance, so I ended up with quite a bit of heavy digging on Friday. (Stupid modern tools aren't designed for hard work... I bent the shovel, and had to bend it back.)

This is what the front of the building looked like before I started digging:

Attractive, no?

Since I don't know what all I'm getting from different people, I decided to just dig enough space for what I have, get it in the ground so that it doesn't die, and then arrange things in the fall when I have all the plants I'm going to end up with. hence, I ended up with this oh-so-attractive placement:

That's a bunch of day lilies, several bachelor buttons, and two half-dead plants that another tenant stuck in the garden... one in it's original spot right in the corner, and another one that I moved so that it was easier to dig the bed. Here's how it looks from a distance:


So, now for the drama. I was talking to my neighbour across the hall (I'll call her J) on Thursday, and invited her and her kids to join me in the gardening attempt. She was quite excited about the prospect. When I went to fetch the tools from my mom's, there was no answer at her door. (Apparently she wasn't sure she heard a knock, and then she saw me walking away from the building. I didn't knock again when I came back with the tools and the plants, but I'm guessing that she had gone to her in-laws by then anyway.) Half-way through digging the bed, I saw her, her kids, and the kids' father (I'll call him "sperm donor") coming down the street. From a distance, their behaviour looked a bit odd, but I didn't realize anything was wrong. I continued digging, and then I hear the kids crying. I look up, and they're over near some bushes, and I thought that perhaps the kids had a spat (they're generally pretty good kids, though). I see sperm donor grab one of the kids, and drag him towards the door. Then a guy driving past stops, and starts yelling at sperm donor, how he can behave that way, especially in front of the kids. I ask him what happened, he sort of brushes it off, and the kids says daddy pushed mommy into the bushes. Just then J comes up with her other kid, who is bawling, and J is crying, cut and bruised too.

I ask J if she wants to borrow the phone, but she declines. I tell sperm donor that I think it's time for him to leave. He says he needs his work clothes from J's apartment. I'm trying to figure out what to do, because I don't really want to leave my mom's tools on the front yard for anyone (especially a pissed off sperm donor) to wander off with, but I want to help my friend. Shortly she goes up with the kids, then brings down his clothes. He complains that she brought stuff he didn't need, and didn't bring his work boots. Then he storms off.

I look at the half-done garden, the tools, and wonder if I should go up to see if J needs help. I decided to finish the garden... I didn't want the plants to die, and I had to finish before going to a potluck that night.

After getting everything planted and cleaned up, I knocked on J's door, and loaned her my phone. I told her that I didn't want to leave her without a phone because I was going out that night. She told me some of what had gone on. I'm not going to type that up, but one stupid thing that sperm donor said to J, because he's jealous/suspicious of her spending time with people other than him, is that "she's upset because she's missing her play-date" with me. Sheesh.

*Anyway*, turns out there was *more* gardening drama while I was out. Another tenant (I'll call her Mrs C) was startled to see my gardening attempt, and asked who had done it. J said I had. Mrs C then said, "She thinks she can do better than me, does she?" I'm not sure if J said it out loud or not (I suspect not), but J's response was, "She does garden better than you!"

Here is a sample of Mrs C's gardening:

I saw Mrs C putting these plants in the ground. They didn't look like they had come from a garden centre. A couple of years ago, a neighbour of mine mentioned that she had caught "an old lady" pulling up flowers she had planted along her fence by the back lane. I have no proof, but I highly suspect Mrs C's plants came from my friend's garden, and probably without permission. (I'm not sure I want to know.) At any rate, Mrs C only cleared tiny spots for them, and then didn't water them so now they're half-dead. (The green thing in the first photo is a cosmos that grew from seed... I think it self-seeded.) My intent was not to show her up, but it would be pretty hard not to, unless I didn't do any gardening at all. *sigh*

To take the bad taste away, here's the lovely hollyhocks at the back of the building:

(Those two shrubby things are heavily pruned elm trees. I'm not sure if they're intentional, or self-seeded and never removed. Elm trees should not be that close to the building, and they look ugly pruned like that.) Hollyhocks close up:

Bus Photos

I was sitting on the bus after a lovely day spent gardening, and then at a potluck with friends. I was feeling rather snoozy, and saw this through my half-slit eyes, and thought it looked pretty and striking.


The Paddlwheel Queen looked lovely on the river at dusk, but it took me a moment to get my camera (back) out, and didn't have time to turn the flash off before the bus was over the bridge.

You'll just have to trust me that it looked magical. (It looked better from the other angle too, but the bus was zippy, and I wasn't.)

What a lovely end to a (mostly) lovely summer day!

Grumpy

Harumph. For some reason I'm grumpy. The day started off lovely, but in the last couple of hours my mood went south. I'm grumping at a student, which is not good. (I'm not actually grumping at him, but I think perhaps I'm also not putting the same effort into gaining his understanding that I otherwise might.) *sigh* An hour and a half to go, and then I won't have to worry about whether I'm grumpy until Monday afternoon. Not that I'll stay grumpy that long, but that I won't have to worry about my ability to explain while grumpy.

Yay! I apparently managed to successfully explain something, even while grumpy. :) (Whether or not I managed to explain it in a way that will be memorable in the exam, I don't know. I normally want to *teach* for understanding, rather than just get past the current program bug.)

*sigh* He keeps saying "okay", but I don't think he really understands.

Knitpicks sent out another pretty e-mail. I went over, and added a whole bunch of things to my cart... which brought it up around $170. Then I clicked "save for later" until it got down to around $100. Then I was good, and put the rest in "save for later" and closed the window.

I want to watch some short YouTube videos, but I'm allowing a student to work in my office between questions... and sound would probably disturb him. (I don't want to use headphones.) I'm not in a lab, this is my "office", and he's here because I let him be here... and yet I don't want to disturb him with my goofing off. (There's nothing wrong with a bit of goofing off between when I'm needed, and I stop the instant someone has another question.)

Grump. I wonder if it's the gloomy weather, or the fact that I'm not getting true understanding from my student? *sigh*

Miscellany, With Pictures

It's a bit slow in the help centre today, so I'm typing this up between helping students. My computer is slow as molasses again, so I'll be catching up on "Found on Flickr" posts fairly soon too. (When, exactly, depends on when I get the time.)

Funny... I write that the help centre is slow, and two more people arrive. However, everyone is working along until they get another question, so I can type until then. (I seem to be able to get two sentences between questions.)

I googled the grey ladybug:

It's an ashy gray ladybird beetle. Their range is mostly in the USA, but they peek across the border a bit. (So I guess we'll see more as global warming gets worse. Except that so far, global warming seems to have resulted in unseasonably cool weather in Winnipeg.)

Last night I managed to be all grown up, and managed to have a balanced meal with protein, starch, and vegetable all ready at the same time:

Mmmmm! I had a chocolate chip banana muffin for dessert. (I had made and frozen the muffins myself, but the perogies are courtesy my grandma.)

I started attacking the dandelions in the front lawn. Here it is, as seen from my kitchen window (through the screen), before I started:

and here's another shot taken the day after I pulled a shopping bag full of dandelions:

Don't hurt yourself looking for the difference... there's so many dandelions, it'll be a long time before I make a dent. (The weeding wasn't all in the same place either... I kept getting up to stretch my legs.)

Mystery Solved!

Bartholomew and The Dog

Thanks to a Flickr member, I have now confirmed my dog is a Hagen-Renaker miniature early boxer. (Click here... there's photos half-way down the page. Mine has slightly different paint, but apparently all the different potteries had different painting styles.) Fun! :)

Fiddly-Twitchy

Gah, I am all fiddly-twitchy today, and have been since last night. I think it started last night when I had some fish and then orange juice not long before bed. (I had a craving for some protein, and then a craving for orange juice.) The fish was heavenly-blissful. (My eating habits have been crap lately, so, beyond the fact that I have a great recipe for fish, I think my body was really grateful to have decent nourishment. Part of my problem is laziness (cooking, cleaning dishes, and shopping for ingredients), the other part is lack of ideas... I've been eating the same stuff for long enough that it's time to introduce some new variety, but I haven't yet figured out what the new stuff should be.)

The orange juice could be the culprit, because sugar in the evening can make me jittery... but that would have worn off by now. It could also be accumulated lack of exercise... I guess weeding a bag of dandelions out of the front lawn last night doesn't count as exercise.

The fact that I got my joint-aches last night doesn't help. I blame the cool weather for them, although it wasn't all *that* cool.

I was going to do some gardening and/or house-chores this afternoon, but I guess I should finally get on the bike, and see if that makes a difference. This jittery feeling is really annoying... not only is it in my muscles, but it's making my head and ear pressure feel funky too. It's like I can feel my heartbeat all over.

Anyway, should you wish to make it, here's my recipe for heavenly-blissful fish (originally from the back of a package of on-sale white fish of some variety I had never heard of before... nor can I remember what it was called. I do remember that it was fished off of South Africa, though. What a long way my cheap fish comes from.):

Over medium heat, heat a bit of olive oil (extra virgin, cold pressed) in a cast iron frying pan. When the oil is hot, add two pathetically thin fillets of whatever frozen white fish is cheapest (this probably works with thicker fillets too, but the cheap fish in my grocery store is wafer thin... I think I currently have sole), then add a liberal squeeze of fresh lemon juice from a lemon that has been getting scary looking in the fridge. (I don't get around to cooking fish as often as I intend. As long as it hasn't gone brown inside, it's fine.) *After* the lemon has been added (the "after" is important, as the juice will wash off everything else if it isn't added first), sprinkle on some salt, pepper, parsley, and whatever else in the spice cabinet floats your boat. (Last night it was savory. I've also had success with poultry seasoning (hey, it's a white meat too), and Montreal Steak Spice... but I wouldn't recommend both at the same time.) After the fish has browned, flip it over, and apply lemon juice and seasonings to the other side too. Finally, once the fish is brown on the second side and has cooked all the way through (with the thin fillets, the cooking all the way through probably happened when the first side got brown), transfer the fish to a plate, and squeeze on some more lemon juice if there's any left in the lemon. (With a particularly juicy lemon, sometimes there's even some left after this third application. So as not to waste it, I squeeze it into a little tupperware container I keep in the freezer... I suspect it'll taste as good as fresh should I crave fish when I have no real lemons left.) Eat. Swoon. Consider cooking a vegetable for an afterthought side-dish. (I've never really gotten the hang of cooking so that multiple things ready at the same time, and overcooked vegetables are dreadful.)

Although that recipe typed up long, it's really quite simple if you ignore all the commentary. ;)

Oh... two unrelated items: The first is that "I Capture the Castle" had a quite unexpected ending, but I won't say what it was in case you want to read it. It's not quite how the fairy tale romantic hidden inside me would have liked it to end, but it was a good ending... and open enough that my fairy tale romantic self could choose to add a bit on after where the actual text stops. The second is that I did indeed forget something in my last long post... the bottom of one of my window panes has come off again, but I think I know how the caretaker fixes them now, so I'll try dealing with it myself. (I'd want to deal with the remaining unpacked boxes in my office, and then my not-quite-finished desk in the hall, before I asked the caretaker in. They make the window rather hard to get to.)

Well, the bread is done and cooling, so now I should cut my hair then have my shower so that I can go out and hopefully burn off the twitchies riding my bike.

Miscellany, With Pictures

Peony season is almost over now.

For a period, when I was young, I didn't like peonies. I thought they were too showy and old fashioned, plus they always had ants on them. Now I love them for being showy and old fashioned, and just put up with the ants. Funny how preferences change over time, isn't it? I think it was a house with a border of peonies all around the yard that changed my mind... I happened to see it when the peonies were at their best, and have loved them ever since. Recently I've been enjoying the lovely scent that peonies have. I've noticed it more with the ones along the busy street where I walk to catch the bus, than with the ones in my mom's and neighbour's yard. The above peonies are in the neighbour's yard, where it border's my mom's yard. (They're the ones I edged earlier this year.)

This peony is in my mom's yard:

I bought it out in BC, and managed to get it back to Winnipeg alive. The centre petals were supposed to be yellow. My mom's yard also has old fashioned peonies, in addition to this fancy-pants hybrid I planted for her.

Mom grows amazing oriental poppies:

I think it has to do with the sun and compost. I tried to grow a poppy once, back when we were living in a townhouse... it was scraggly, leggy, and managed to have it's one bloom through a knothole in a tall fence between our house and the neighbour. I gave up on poppies after that. I think I'd like to try my hand again... I love the Icelandic poppies I saw in various gardens elsewhere. Perhaps I'll have better luck this time.


Have you ever seen a green mosquito? I killed this sucker (well, not a sucker... he was male) in my apartment last week. I found the colour so bizarre that I took a photo (several, actually, and all bad).

How about a grey ladybug?

This is the second one I've seen now.


I love snapdragons. I once showed my grandpa why snapdragons had that name. That was a fun time I had with him. :) (He's long since passed away.)

I love dictionaries... especially if they're big and illustrated.

Its even better if they're old. :)

My latest pair of crochet socks:

These are for Bob. I thought there'd be enough in the ball, since it claimed 410 meters, but I was short and had to buy something to lengthen the legs. I felt buying another 100 gm ball was silly, and so tried for a coordinating yarn. The coordinating yarn photographs rather differently than it looks in real life. It's one of those mysterious yarns that look quite a bit different depending on the light. Isn't it strange how some yarns do that, and others don't?

This is the odd shop across the street from my apartment:

When I was a kid, it was a candy store. (Okay, it was probably a convenience store, but I was only interested in the candy.) This store and another one closed a long time ago. The other one was converted into a residential apartment, but this one has remained commercial... and now sells satellite dishes and similar things. It's run by an old Chinese gentleman. I find it entertaining watching him from my window as he tries out different sidewalk displays to attract customers. The night before I took this photo, we had crazy rainstorms. The cardboard part of his display didn't survive... I found the melting boxes funny, which is why I took the photo. I have no explanation for the plastic snowman with the umbrella.

Recently our local post office closed, and now we need to go a couple miles to get our packages. (Actually, the real post office in the beautiful old building closed many years ago, in favour of a tacky postal outlet in a 7-11. The reason was supposedly so we'd get longer hours. This spring the hours in the 7-11 post office cut back it's hours, and now it's gone altogether.)

Although it's nice not to have to travel long distances to get my mail, I rather wish my postman would be a bit more discriminating as to what and how he crams things in my mailbox.

In other news, I apparently now have benefits with my job. (That's what arrived in the big, battered envelope.) I need to go through the package more carefully to see what sort of pay-cut these benefits result in. The pension appears to be optional this year, but mandatory next year.

One thing that didn't arrive in my mailbox was the DVD that an online survey person asked me to watch on Sunday. (I try to be nice to online survey people. From the sounds of things, it was a new sitcom being considered. I was supposed to watch it Sunday, and then answer some questions about it Monday.) I wonder if they decided not to send it, or if Canada Post decided to sit on it for a while longer?

I miss USPS.

I found a friend for Bartholomew today.

I think the dog might be a Hagen-Renaker figurine. (Those are the ones that come glued to the paper squares... I remember loving them as a kid, and saved up my dollars to buy one once. I had forgotten the name, and had to google for a bit to find it.) I saw him when I popped in to Sally Ann to see if they had anything interesting. They're having a 60% off sale for red tag items... the dog had a blue tag, but was only $1.50, and I have a bit of spending money again now that I'm back to tutoring. I picked up some pretty buttons too. I haven't named the dog yet, but he's very fond of Bartholomew already. (Bartholomew seems to like him in return, even though he's very focussed on his sock.)

Wednesday I also splurged on a new pair of gardening gloves (pig skin!) and a dandelion weeding tool. The gloves are lovely and soft... although I discovered after I got home that they were miss-sewed, and so have a rather large hole in them. It happens to be on the back of the left hand, though, so it's not a big deal. (Home Depot is a pain to get to by bus, and they were by far the softest pair there for some reason, so I don't plan on taking them back.)

Recently I've been reading "I Captured The Castle" by Dodie Smith. I was really enjoying it until the main character sunk into depression... and since I tend to be strongly affected by how the main character feels, I was rather distraught. However, she (and I) are coming out of it now. :) I'm getting close to the end... I sure hope it ends well!

While at the library, I also borrowed "Cold Comfort Farm" by Stella Gibbons, as well as the sequel, "Conference at Cold Comfort Farm".

Harper's making an ass of himself again, this time on the international stage. *sigh* Can't he stop picking fights with his rivals long enough to accomplish something useful? I hope we get someone better before he completely tramples Canada's good name.

My... this post has taken me two hours to write! I'm sure I forgot something I was planning on writing, but it's time for bed. Good night!

Adorable!

So cute! Have you seen the Spud and Chloë hoot hat?