Bullwinkle ...

On the weekend, Bernie asked me, "This scarf used to be you scarf?" and I told him no, it didn't used to be anybody's scarf, that I made it just for him. We went back and forth with similar questions and answers for a while, then he took it off and said, "I don't want this scarf any more." Oops. I told him the yarn used to be mine and I used that yarn that used to be mine to make a scarf especially for him. "That's my scarf, especially. Put it back on me." says he.


Bernie and Annailese watching a moose in Bernie's back yard

Barbara and Annailese came by yesterday, to bring me their camera so I could transfer all the pictures onto my computer. We stood on the warm wood of the deck in our bare feet and played in the snow with sand shovels and pails. What fun! I burnt my face for about the dozenth time in the last month.

The plough came through the front street after all, but did a rather cursory job of it, so there wasn't too much packed stuff to shovel.

Patty and the girls came for lunch with Nina and me yesterday, then went to visit Bobaloo and Lindsay and their kids. Nina stayed there for dinner, Patty and the girls went to Dave and René's. I got up at dark o'clock to take Brandon to the airport, then came home and made a salad to take to Barbara's tonight. Barbara has her hands full today with Annailise and Corbin, then Patty and the girls turning up early this afternoon ... I'm hoping she's not too frantic to delegate errands this afternoon.

They're here!

I shovelled some more in the front this morning, before heading off to Leduc with Barbara and Anailese and Bernie to see Patty and the girls at the Grandma's. There was hugging and smooching and showing of treasures and lunch and reading of stories and getting on of outside clothes and trudging to the park through snow and puddles and over the skating rink and the frozen pond. There was climbing and sliding on slides and swinging and making of snowballs and snowbabies and eating of icicles and snow lumps and then there was trudging back to the Grandma's and peeling off of drenched outer clothes in the building's foyer. There was snack and running and shreiking and wrestling and laughing and reading of stories and more hugging and smooching and putting on of dry clothes to go home. It was a good day. The part of Ms. Crabby Pants way played by Anailese today.

I hope to finish digging Epona out tomorrow. It takes a while, as there's nowhere to throw the snow, so I dig a shovelful and walk it around the car to the boulevard and dump it, rinse and repeat. Well, I don't have to do it this way ... I could do it as the neighbours did (yes, the very same neighbours from yesterday's post) and shovel it all out onto the next car in line. It's a good thing I had no plans to move the Lady Pumpkin anyway 'cuz there's no way she's getting out of there 'til thaw.

Patty and the girls and Chelsea and Bernie and I and possibly Nina are having a sleep-over at Barbara and Anailese's on Friday night ... four or five adults and five kids in a two bedroom apartment. Oughta be a blast!

Oh bother ...

In a fit of I-don't-quite-know-what yesterday, I hauled the fridge and stove out and cleaned them, the walls, and the floor. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be and I harvested a lot of cat toys. I talked to Barbara for an hour yesterday moring. She and Anailese tried to stop by, got stuck half a dozen times and finally gave up when Anailese fell asleep in the car ... so she called me from a payphone and we yacked for another hour.

The snowplough did the back alley today, so I went out to chip and dig the packed snow and ice out from the end of the sidewalk and driveway. The good news is I had to dig out only half the width of the driveway. Neighbour To The West (who is moving and apparently feels good neighbour relations are no longer required) shovelled out his three-to-four-car-wide driveway onto my barely-two-car-wide driveway, leaving enough room for one small car ... just. I am less amused by this than you might think. Nina and I were both going to park in the back, since the alley is in much better shape than the street.

I also did some digging on the front street. I got Epona about half dug out and Nina's parking spot a bit better cleared. More tomorrow. Gawds, I hope the city doesn't decide to plough the street and bury us again. They shouldn't as there are no city vehicles that use this street.

Happy Equinox ...

... Alban Eilir, Eostar, Eostre, Feast of Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Festival of Trees, Lady Day, NawRuz, No Ruz, Ostara, Ostra, Rites of Spring, or the Vernal Equinox. Thanks to Religious Tolerance.org for the list.

Stuff and Nonsense ...

Daylight:

Length of day: 12:11
Hours of dark: 8ish (twilight is figured differently on this site)
Sunrise: 6:36 am
Sunset: 6:47 pm
Start of twilight: 4:36 am
End of twilight: 8:47 pm

Current weather: Low drifting snow. -3°C (26°F), -10°C (14°F) with windchill, wind SE 26 km/h (16 mph) gusting to 35 (22).

Forecast:

Today.. Cloudy with sunny periods. 30% chance of flurries early this afternoon. Wind SE 20 km/h. High -1°C.
Tonight.. Cloudy. 60% chance of flurries overnight. Wind SE 20 km/h. Low -7°C.
Tuesday.. Cloudy with sunny periods. 60% chance of flurries in the morning. Wind SE 30 km/h Low -7°C. High -1°C.
Wednesday.. Sunny. Low -8°C. High -3°C.
Thursday.. Sunny. Low -6°C. High 1°C.
Friday.. A mix of sun and cloud. Low -4°C. High 5°C.
Normals for the period.. Low -10°C. High 2°C.

Jiggety Jig...

Home again. Home again. Nina picked me up from the airport last night. It snowed while I was gone. We stopped to pick up a few things at the grocery store on the way home and got stuck a couple of times in the parking lot. She ended up parked facing the wrong way in the parking spot she'd shovelled out for herself in front of the house. She couldn't back into it without getting stuck. The fellow from Kitty City is going to bring the cats home for me.


Poor l'il Epona's kinda buried ... so is my picnic table.


So today I stay inside and do laundry. Maybe I'll get to digging Epona out and shovelling the back tomorrow.

Holidaying ...

I'm still on holidays.
I got to see Shadow, yay! He drove three hours to Palm Desert to visit, bless 'is heart.
Yesterday, Mom, Dad and I moved from Palm Desert to Ramona, CA. It's very different here ... high desert, and very pretty.

Happy HNT ...

I'm not generally a Half-Nekkid Thursday participant, but since it's today and I just happen to have a cheesy picture of a wee bit of decorated flesh, Happy HNT!



Sweet Gauge did it when I was in San Francisco this summer. I'm very happy with it! I went to see him to talk about a cover-up of a bit of faded, blurry vineyness I'd been putting off having touched up and he came up with this, this, this ... wonderfulness! Did I mention that I'm very happy with it? Thanks, Gauge ... and thanks Vince for introducing me to him. *smooches*

Living in a snow globe ...

I can almost breathe through my nose today, and I've been living in a snow globe for the past 24 hours or so. Pretty! The snow, not the nose.
Here's what's out the front door today.


See those lumps on the front step? This is how they looked last summer.


Here's Hugh talking to his Dad, one of the coach/referees. One of his team mates is showing off the shoot and fall technique ... they pretty much have it down pat. The rest of them are trying to locate the puck, their coaches, their parents, each other, etc.


Hugh's Dad, Coach and Referee, talks to a coupla kids from the other team. They don't care if he's their coach or not. Coaches are coooooool!