Snow Day

Jake is enjoying the snow in front of the house. Underneath that pile is the sidewalk and about 4 feet of street where we normally park the car. We are meant to get another 15 cm dump tomorrow. If this keeps up, the house will completely disappear by February.

Food Adventures

Food is a big part of the holidays for me. Being in a foreign country, I have experienced some unusual fare in the last month at parties.
First it was cod spread. Believe it or not this was pretty good. Salt cod, rinsed until it was only very salty, flaked up and then mixed with lots of garlic and some cream. Spread on crackers or a baguette as a snack. I was told this was a traditional thing except the garlic which is a modern addition.
Then it was moose sausages. These weren't all that moosey if you know what I mean. I expected them to be gamey like deer, but mostly they were like ground beef.
Tortierre was at the same party as the moose sausage, it was ground lamb and pork in a nice pastry, but a little dry for me.
Seal flipper pie. Yes, the LeXy TD insisted on this one. We found it at the apparently famous institution of Bidgoods Grocery in the Goulds. They have a licence to sell game and it is probably where the moose and the tortierre came from as they also have quite a specialty section. We went looking for mince meat for Christmas pie, but were unsuccessful. I think seal flipper must be an acquired taste. It was a traditional meat pie with chunks of veg and gravy and a thick bread crust on top, but instead of beef or chicken it was flipper. Just flipper the label said, we made a few jokes about dolphins and bought it for lunch. Studyboy described the taste as smoked liver. The texture was stringy like stew meat but the taste was a strong smoked liver with a soupcon of fish. LeXy and I finished ours off but didn't go back for seconds, Studyboy gave his to the dog. The dog LOVED it.
We bought partridge berries at Bidgoods too, in case we never found the mincemeat for pie. I have had fresh partridge berries before, because they grow in Nova Scotia, but we have so many nicer berries there that we don't bother with them like they do here. The partridge berry jam we bought at the farmers stall is nice on toast, but the frozen berries in a pie leave rather a tart taste on the back of the tongue. "Like cranberries trying to be blueberries' is how LeXy described them. Thinking that they were a relative of blueberries and cranberries I put lots of tapioca in the pie to sop up the extra juice. Partridge berries are not as juicy when cooked so we ended up with a really thick solid filling. A jam pie.
After several attempts to find real mincemeat, we found a jar imported from England at Auntie Crae's, another institution here in town. It essentially made raisin pie. Whenever I would ask for mincemeat at a butcher or deli counter, they would try to sell me ground beef. When I described what I was looking for, one woman pointed out that there are no deer in Newfoundland so I was not likely to find any. Good point.
We saw lots of bake apple preserves too, but they were pricey and one woman said they were difficult to pick so it was worth it to pay for them. I kept asking what exactly bake apples were but really didn't get a good explanation from anyone. A low growing berry was all the description I could elicit so I googled them. They are a ground cover version of a raspberry/blackberry cousin, but yellow when ripe. It must be the prickles that make them difficult to pick. Now that I know, I'll splurge out on a small jar.

As Christmas As Moving the Furniture

Anyone who knows Studyboy, knows that he is a master at modifying his work environment to suit his purpose. This is true if the work space is a wood shop or a class room, and it is true of his StudyLair.
We had to dismantle the StudyLair and make it a bedroom because the LeXy TD came to visit for Christmas (she wanted to be called Catwoman but dc comics threatened to sue.) In fact it was necessary to rearrange the whole apartment to accommodate Christmas and another human.
The hall closet moved to the Laundry Closet so the area by the door could be Tree Central.
The Reading Chair from the StudyLair moved to the living room so all of us could sit at one time and we didn't have to play a week long game of Christmas Musical Chairs.
On the feasting day, bits of living room furniture were stuffed into other rooms so it could double as the dining room because the kitchen is too small for three to sit at the table. Truly, the living room is also too small to sit three at a table but one of my superpowers is the ability to shoehorn large objects into too small a space. It's called Yanaspace, sort of like what librarians do in L Space.
Once we moved the table out of the kitchen we realised how much easier it was to move in there. We decided that Studyboy would use the larger kitchen table as a desk in the StudyLair, and the kitchen would get his narrower make shift desk that was really just a coffee table jacked up on empty boxes. So early this morning after the LeXy TD flew off out of the sunrise, we started rearranging the furniture (again).
Away went the spare bed from the StudyLair and back went the Reading Chair into its place. The table swap happened, but instead of boxes to support the weight of the vintage 1982 microwave we snagged at a yard sale last fall, we used a small shelf unit from the StudyLair (also a yard sale find.) That shelf was used to hold up the swing arm book rest that floats in front of Studyboy's Reading Chair. Lesser humans would just hold the book in their hands, but this is what I mean by his talent for workspace modification. So today, when the rest of St. John's was out for Boxing Day Sales and Armageddon Shopping ahead of a big storm, we were out looking for a drill bit and a box of screws to jury rig another support for the book rest.

No More Sleeps!

Merry Christmas to all from the Cabot Tower in St. John's (Just to prove that we really are here and not just hiding from you all)

Happy Solstice

If you think about it. Everything is really just about how dark it is in December.
We went to a Swedish St Lucia party last week. One of Studyboy's classmates is Swedish so we learned the whole story.
St Lucia is a Catholic Saint, patron of the blind because she had her eyes poked out by a spurned lover. Her feast day is Dec 13. In Sweden, girls wear a crown of candles and sing a song, boys wear a dunce cap with a star and carry a wand. It is the Swedish festival of light. But before Pope Gregory introduced the new calendar and corrected for leap year, Dec 13 was the Winter Solstice, longest, darkest night of the year. So having a Saint with fire hair whose eyes grew back and now she can see in the darkness kind of fits.
Today is Solstice the pagan Festival of Light. We burn candles or Yule logs all night and make wreaths to attract back the sun that has gone for a holiday down south. Can't blame it really.
Later today, thanks to Prince Albert, we're going to haul a tree into the house and cover it with lights and sparkly bits. We call it a Christmas tree, but really, what does a Balsam Fir from Lunenburg County have to do with the birth of a kid in the desert?
Hanukkah finished last week. That was a Festival of Light too. Candles are really popular with everyone at this time of year, especially if the power goes out.
Lights on the house outside, a star on the tree, candles in the window.
Whatever your inclination, burn something today and bring a little enlightenment back into the world.
Happy Solstice

Christmas Samosas

Christmas is a time of traditions. Cooking is one of those traditions I enjoy. The eating bit I mean, not so much the cooking bit. Usually I just eat what other people (read: my mother) make, but that is impossible this year so she kindly sent me the recipes for my favourites so I could make them myself.
Christmas cooking has always struck me as a BIG Production. I once stayed with a Portuguese lady in Kitimat just before Christmas. Her daughters were coming home for the holidays so she was making the traditional bean salad for them. This required having the beans sit under cold running water for a week. In Kitimat she did this in the laundry sink, but at home in Portugal she explained they would be placed in the local stream. This seemed like a lot of work to me, but the bean salad was delicious.
At my mother's house, cooking was a big deal there too. I mean, there are at least 4 or 5 standard cookies alone that must be made, plus the War Cake, the gumdrop cake, and three or more pies. This is usually all done by the time I breeze in, so it is terribly impressive to see. (and eat)
The War cake was always the most intimidating. I never understood the name. Why, when it has all kinds of fruit and stuff in it, when it was so rich and moist, was it called War cake? I had a vague idea that the name came from rationing, but it seems to me that it is full of stuff that would be rationed. Cherries, dates, candied citrus; these are not local products.

Theory number 1: Studyboy thought it was sent oversees to England (where there was stricter rationing) as a present to the soldiers during the war.
Theory number 2: I thought people saved up rations for months as a treat to be able to make this at Christmas.
Theory number 3: It is so heavy and dense, it could be used as a weapon in a slingshot or a trebuchet.

All good theories, but all wrong apparently. I looked it up. Butter, milk and eggs were rationed during war time, and true War Cake doesn't have any of these things. I'm still not certain how you were meant to get the exotic fruits during naval blockades but there you are. My mother's War Cake recipe does have eggs and a bit of sugar. The sugar, I suppose, could be honey.
Incidentally, War Cake came before the 2 World Wars, I found an internet recipe for Civil War cake that is exactly my mother's recipe. I'm not saying she's that old, just the recipe.
So I was a little intimidated to make it, what with all the ingredients, plus it is huge. I imagined it taking days and days to make. My mother always seemed to make it so early, I thought this was because it took that long to make. You have to chop up all the stuff, you have to measure it out. It's a BIG production.
Turns out it's not. You can buy all the stuff pre-choppped and measured at the bulk barn. Throw it in a pot, boil it 5 minutes, stick it in a snowbank to cool, toss in the flour, throw it in the oven and have a cup of tea. You don't even have to grease the pan.
I'll tell you what is a lot of work though. Samosas. Studyboy and I went to an end of term/holiday pot luck last week, and he had the bright idea that I could make samosas. Here is the irony: War Cake if full of exotic stuff and is dead easy to make, samosas are full of bog standard ingredients like potatoes and frozen peas, and they take hours and hours and hours.
It took an 90 minutes in the morning to cut up and boil the veg, mash the potatoes and let it cool to make the filling. I cleaned up the mess and made lunch. It took an 90 minutes in the afternoon to make and roll out and cut the pastry, and then fill the pastry and clean up the mess. Then I decided to take a tea break before I fried them, so the samosas wouldn't be cold when I took them to the party. This was a bad idea, because as I was about to heat the oil the power went off for an hour. Once it was back on, it took 25 minutes to heat the oil, and that's when I learned you can't pile raw samosas on top of each other because they stick together. Happily, Studyboy had just returned from passing in his last paper and he was drafted to gently peel them apart and repair holes while I took another 35 minutes to fry the stupid things.
Next party, I'm taking War Cake.

Words

I keep meaning to add new newfoundland words to a lexicon list on this blog, but always forget them before I get here.
Tonight I learned that a traditionally shaped kettle, the squat angular type with the handle that goes over the fill hole in the top is called a slut.
Excellent.

Parking notes

About a month or so ago, the landlord's dad came by to put a new screen door on the back door and at the same time, he took away some rotting timbers that had been part of a raised garden bed in the front. The raised bed was next to the house sitting on the sidewalk pavement, and as he removed them he mentioned that if we got rid of the soil we could park there in the winter. Both Studyboy and I thought the idea of deliberately parking on the sidewalk was a little strange but we let it pass. In fact, it was the second time someone had mentioned the possiblilty of using the sidewalk as a driveway. The landlord had mentioned it too, when we moved in. We live in an area called Rabbit-town, and mostly the neighbourhood is comprised of row houses sitting directly on the sidewalk of a narrow street. Our house is an infill house, it is detached and is set back a little more than the others next to it. Our sidewalk is 5 feet wide instead of three. If we got rid of the raised bed soil we could just about fit a motorcycle in that space, but not a car, let alone the truck, unless you were planning on exiting the vehicle out the sun roof, which neither Erica or Casper have.
We let the idea pass without comment because we assumed the landlord and his dad were missing the obvious point that people would need to use the sidewalk for walking. Silly us. Now that we have had some snow, I understand that snow removal is, at best, just a suggestion in St. John's. The city gives the streets a lick and a promise when it snows, but sidewalks are not cleared by city workers unless they are close to schools or hospitals. Fair enough, but most cities have a bylaw stating that people are responsible for clearing sidewalks adjacent to their house. St. John's apparently does not have this bylaw, so people don't. In fact, people who do have driveways shovel the snow onto the sidewalk, creating undulating King of the Castle hills all the way down the street. This means, between the mounds and the iced packed footstep tracks that the sidewalks all over the city are impassable and dangerous. Everyone just walks in the streets, which is also dangerous but easier. So we were silly to assume that people would need to use the sidewalks for walking.
It turns out, people do pull their cars up onto the sidewalks for winter parking. It's like the city version of a front lawn during a summer barbecue. Now of course, the left over soil that we didn't remove is frozen solid until April, so no chance of extra parking space for us.

Now You Know

How did I ever live without high speed internet?
Studyboy and I have many dubious habits, one of which is to eat dinner in front of the TV while watching whatever bit of bad movie we can find on Space/Bravo/TCM... you get the picture. It doesn't matter that we didn't see the beginning because we have probably already seen it a dozen times before, and it doesn't matter that we will stop watching when we are finished eating because we know how it is going to end already. Tonight's Film Banal was the last 15 minutes of Dragonheart II (I did say dubious, didn't I?) But as the end credits rolled I found myself wondering what the theme music was. It was very familiar, more familiar than a B movie theme would normally warrant. We both assumed it was stolen from something or someone more famous. Like Bach or Haydn.
How to find out? Studyboy suggested Song Tapper. It is the internet sight that gives you the name of the tune after you use the spacebar to tap in the rhythm of the melody. It is a fun and amazing sight to visit and if you don't know it already, try it out; you will be amazed.
However Song Tapper let me down, because it is more geared toward pop music than the symphonic stuff. I was at a loss, until Studyboy had an even better solution; just Google "Theme from Dragonheart II." Duh. It turns out that it is an original, so we were wrong. But it is familiar because it is the most requested theme for movie trailers ever. So now, thanks to the internet, I know what music I'm humming, but now I can't stop humming it.
Well, at least it erased Nickleback's "Rockstar" from my head. That was stuck in there for days.

Let the Games Begin

Welcome December. Winter is threatening to arrive on the Avalon today as the weather network posted their first RED SCREEN of DEATH for a snowfall and mixed precipitation warning later today and tomorrow. The only hope we have is that so far the weather network has been 100% wrong on their forecasting for the city since we have been here. Unfortunately the local stations are saying the same thing so this weekend could get messy.
Let the Games Begin.

Oh Yeah

I had a "Oh Yeah" moment this week. An "Oh Yeah" moment is when you used to know something really well, and then forgot about it completely until something triggers the memory and you slap your forehead with your hand and loudly say "Oh Yeah!" to no one in particular.
My moment happened Wednesday afternoon. I spent the morning in the clay studio because I am the Wednesday morning open studio volunteer. If someone needs to buy clay or have questions answered I do that, and if not, it's free play time for me. I arrived there Wednesday morning to find that a glaze firing had been done and finally I had some pieces completed. After open studio I dutifully wrapped them carefully in newspaper and came home. I lovingly unwrapped them and set them proudly on the kitchen table where Studyboy could admire them when he got home.
That's when it happened. The "Oh Yeah" moment. What I used to know but forgot about doing pottery is that eventually your house becomes the repository for every gawdawfuluglyasspieceofcripcrap you make. Then, not only must you constantly be reminded of your inadequate skills, but you also have to dust them!
Here's the thing. Each piece takes so long and has so much effort put into it that you are loathe to toss it out. Each piece may have one small element about it that you like, say for example the colour or the shape. Each piece may almost approximate a useful article like a mug or a plate but there is something wrong so that it doesn't work that well. It's too heavy, too small, doesn't pour well, whatever. So what you get in the end are a lot of dust magnets, paperweights and door stops. You can't give them away because it would be cruel to do that to the people you like, and it is too much bother to do that to the people you dislike.
Anybody need a mug shaped paperweight?
These could double as anchors for an oil tanker.











These are too small for anything except maybe sake.

Perverting Democracy for a Good Cause

Nothing better to do than read this blog?

Here's a project:
My friend Sharon has entered a story contest with Airmiles in which she can win lots of Airmiles if her story gets the most votes. Currently (Tuesday morning) she is sitting in second place in a race of 10. The first place contestant is a woman who wrote her story from a baby's point of view. (That is just wrong in so many ways.) Also, she probably has more people in her email contacts than Sharon.
Go to www.airmilesforeveryone.ca and click on the picture labelled Sharon from N.S. to vote for her story. You don't have to read the story, just click on 'vote now' once you have reached Sharon's page. Warning! If you do want to read it, and (like me) you are the sort to weep at long distance commercials then make sure you have a hanky close by before you start.
Don't get sucked into actually reading all the other stories because I can tell you now that most are pretty lame, including the pseudo baby leader.
Like the man said, "Vote early, Vote often."

Vehicle Ballet

Although it is still hovering around 12 degrees here most days, last week's little snow dump in Labrador did motivate me to change over the tires on Erica and Casper. We have snow tires for Erica and getting them on was as easy as walking past the local neighbourhood garage and asking what day to bring her in. On Tuesday they were booking for Friday. Everyone is getting their snow tires on this week it seems. So Friday morning I was up at the crack of 8:30 to do this errand. And as I try to be as efficient as possible about these things, my cunning plan was to drop off the car and continue on with the dog for morning walkies as the local garage is close to an entry point for our favourite Grand Concourse trail.
I was so intent on this plan I nearly forgot to load the snow tires into the trunk. We were all ready to go when I realised that the tires were still on the back deck. My defence is that the usual division of labour has Studyboy dealing with snow tires and I have never actually done the loading before. So the dog then had to wait impatiently while I humped them out the door and attempted for several minutes to fit 3 large tires into 1 small trunk, (the 4th rides on the back seat) but damn if I couldn't even fit three into the trunk. After 4 separate attempts I managed to wedge them in after removing absolutely everything else in there. Unlike me, Erica does not lave a large back end.
Casper's change over yesterday was a little trickier still. He needed new snow tires this year and an annual MVI. Off I went to Cambodian Tire, which is located out beyond the overpass in a business park. It turns out that NL doesn't do annual MVIs, and after a confusing conversation about needing one and how to get one with the nice man at the automotive counter we concluded that this wasn't something I needed at all. Apparently you can happily drive any old death trap forever in this province, which may be one reason auto insurance is so high.
I also learned something else on this adventure. Snow tires come in various sizes to fit different vehicles. I mean it makes sense when you think about, I've just never had to think about it because, again, this is Studyboy territory. Just like jeans have a waist number and a inseam length number, tires have numbers related to something that I wasn't really listening to because the man at the automotive counter wasn't that cute. He was nice though, and he walked out to inspect Casper to determine the correct size. The wait was going to be 4 hours and there is not enough to interest me for that long in the business park, so I took a bus home. It meandered around the Avalon Mall and the Janeway hospital and Memorial campus before dropping me off, and with the initial wait and the meandering I concluded that it was almost as fast to walk. It was nearly dark however by the time they called to say I could pick Casper up, and so I had Studyboy drive me back to save aggravation.
Studyboy is really quite the gentleman and he waited in the parking lot until I was ready to leave just to make sure everything was fine and I wouldn't be stranded in a desolate parking lot after dark. He pulled out first and made for the exit, I pulled out behind and had to wait for a silver Toyota to go by before following. By this time it was dark, and the parking lot, like all box store parking lots has traffic calming islands in strategic places, which make no sense when they are empty of cars. Studyboy mistook one of these islands for the exit and drove toward it until realising too late his error, had to swing round to the right to avoid a median. The silver car apparently was just following him, and had to make the same right swing correction. I was just following both cars and had to do the same manoeuvre, Casper meeting Erica on the way back in the process. It was like an impromptu vehicle pas de trois. I don't know which was funnier, the foolish look on Studyboy's face, or the confused one on the driver of the silver Toyota. At any rate I didn't stop laughing until we were home.

Birthday Greetings

Jake the Dog sends birthday greetings to his Grandma Nonie today, and his Auntie Lou tomorrow.

Guy Fawkes Day

You gotta love a province that celebrates both Halloween and Bonfire Night. That to me is just perfection.
Last Monday was Guy Fawkes Day, and a classmate of Studyboy had the makings of a fire from some renovations but needed a way to transport them to Middle Cove Beach. This was a good enough excuse for us to take the truck for its monthly spin.
We very nearly hit a herd of cows on the road to the beach. Studyboy pointed out the irony of travelling to NL and only hitting a cow instead of a moose. Figuring there would be a fair amount of traffic on that stretch of road we tried to call the Constabulary, but Middle Cove is one of those divine places without cell phone service. So all subsequent arrivals to the fire had the same story of near misses but all the cows survived the night and we were left with only marshmallows to roast.
Studyboy and I, with 25 years of theatre between us didn't think to bring a flashlight for this adventure, so the process of unloading the truck and carrying armloads of nail riddled lumber down to the beach was a little treacherous. Finally though, the pile was built and as no one brought a Guy to our fire, we topped it with a box and used some charcoal to make a face.
He looks a little too happy for someone about to be torched but it was so dark, you couldn't actually see that until I used the camera flash to take a picture.
With the pile in place we had only to wait until the others showed up for the 7pm torch up time. This meant standing around for 30 minutes on a beach in November as a thick fog rolled in, wondering why we hadn't though to bring a hat and mittens.
At 7pm, with only two new arrivals to the party, and out feet going numb, we lit 'er up.
It was the biggest fire on the beach, and also the shortest. The whole pile went up quickly fueled by century old wood and a stiff wind from the ocean. Those who arrived at 7:30 missed it completely. Not ready to give a up yet, some made forays into the dark for more wood, but the beach had been cleared by all the other bonfirers, and all they could find was the waterlogged carcass of a spruce tree. It eventually burned, a little more slowly that the first, and we were all glad.

50 Ways to Lose a Pottery Project

I once knew a recording engineer who stated that drummers have the hardest gig. This was significant because he was a guitar player and musicians usually only sympathize with their own kind. His drummer theory stemmed from the fact that your average drum kit consisting of: a bass drum, a snare, two or three toms, a high hat and symbols. Add to that various types of drum sticks and brushes and Drummers therefore were required to play several instruments all at the same time.
I have extended this theory to pottery. Pottery is not just one hobby, it is several sequential ones all rolled into one, and so the number of ways you can screw up a piece is astounding. I've been at it for a month now, and I brought my first completed piece home only today. The problem is the sequence I think. You can do the first 3 or 4 steps OK and then bodge it up at the end.
You can't just unravel the yarn, or pick out the stitch, or wait until the paint dries and have another go. You can't cut a new angle, or erase a pencil line or add some more flour to the dough. When you screw up pottery, you get to start back at the beginning again.
Or, if you're like me you call it a "learning exercise" and keep going just to get to practise the steps that otherwise you would never get to.
Here are some of the ways to screw up a simple pot:
Don't attach it to the wheel properly - and it goes flying off across the room...
Use too much water to centre it - and it is too soft to hold its shape
Don't get it centred well - and it is wobbly or twisted (but not in a good way)
Don't put the hole in the middle - and it is lopsided
Don't open the hole enough at the bottom - and it weighs a ton
Use too much water to shape it - see problem 2
Use too little water to shape it - and it sticks to your hands
Schmuck it up when you cut it off the wheel
Schmuck it up when you wrap it up for drying - this only happens to the really really good ones...
Don't centre it well for trimming - and it goes wonky
Trim it too wet - and you can push it out of shape
Trim it too dry - it will crack
Trim it too thin - and you put a hole in the bottom or the sides

At this point, if you have an object that isn't half bad, don't even think about decorating it. Just go straight to firing. If however you are a masochist like me, now is the time to get clever with painting or carving or stamping or texturing. But obviously this is just a whole host of other ways to screw it up.
Once it is shaped and decorated (ha!) and a handle is attached if necessary, it needs to be dried to green ware stage.
This is where it might start to crack. Or maybe the handle will fall off. But whatever you do, be careful because it will definitely break if you knock it.
The first firing is the bisque firing. It will lose about 10 - 15% of its size and that's when you figure out the perfect sized mug is actually too small, and now you can't get your finger through the handle anymore.
Next comes glazing. If you have gotten to this stage, congratulations! Take a picture because you are sure to ruin this step. Glazes drool, streak, bubble, or just turn out to be a really ugly colour. Glazes also have the ability to accentuate any imperfections in the shape, so something that was quite exciting in the bisque stage is really quite embarrassing after it is glazed.
Thus far, I haven't so much made Seconds as thirds, fourths and fifths.

Vanity Sizing in a Post October World

In keeping with the spirit of All Hallows Eve, I went jean shopping this week. For those of you who don't see the connection, jean shopping is the scariest retail experience a woman can have.
It is so scary I haven't done it for over a decade, preferring instead to buy my jeans pre-loved at Frenchies. Lately my favourite pair of Frenchies jeans are starting to get a little frayed in some important areas, and in anticipation of total denim failure I thought I should find some replacements.
We seek them here,
We seek them there,
At Frenchies, we seek them everywhere...
Alas, Frenchies in St John's does not live up to its reputation, so it was with much trepidation I made the trip to Losers. News Flash! I can report that vanity sizing, until this moment only a rumour hotly denied by all the fashion houses, does indeed exist.
My proof for this is simple: The last time I went jean shopping...in the year 3 (BPC) - that's before Peter's cooking - I was a perfect 7/8. Fast forward to present day, or 13 (APC) and I am still a perfect 7/8.
It's a miracle! I gained an average of 2 pounds a year for 16 years but my jeans size didn't change. To celebrate I held communion with all the left over Hallow e'en chips!
I was so happy with my new purchase, I began to wear them immediately. I wore them at various times all week.
It is a peculiar quirk of my sweetie, (and perhaps most men) that he does not understand the wardrobe must fit the activity. He complains that I change my clothes at least 6 times a days, and to that I reply "Of course I do."
First thing you put on schlepping around the house clothes. Then you have to walk the dog, so you put on street clothes. Then perhaps it is time for yoga, so you put on yoga pants (yes, I do own a pair) Then it is off to run errands or buy groceries so back come the street clothes, and not necessarily the same ones as before. Then perhaps you go to the pottery studio, and that requires something different again...
On Friday my only necessary activity was a long dog walk and so I did actually wear the new jeans all day. Friday was a pre-post tropical storm day here. (Coincidentally, when did the 'tail end of a hurricane' become a post tropical storm? That's like calling November, Post October.) At any rate, on Friday we had interesting weather as an apparently nameless mass of precipitation was pushed ahead of the Noel leftovers. The winds were high, the temperature spiked up to 16 degrees from 3 overnight, and the air was muggy while the dog and I made a brisk 90 minutes loop around Georgetown. It poured rain in the afternoon while I went out to the bakery. Maybe it was the muggy dog walk, maybe it was the rain, maybe it was simply that I had them on for 15 hours non stop. When I finally removed my jeans at bedtime my legs were blue. A perfect tan line from the my socks up to my underwear.
The pre bed shower reminded me of those bright pink pills dental hygienists used to give out to show how to better brush your teeth. I had to really scrub to get the dye off my legs, and I can report that you all should be paying closer attention to behind your knees.

Fall in St. John's

One of the nice things about living in the country was watching the progression of seasons. All cities on the other hand, seem to have the same progression; one day it is summer and the next it isn't. Those in between stages seem to happen without much fanfare. St. John's is no different than any other city I have lived in, in this way. We have one tree in our back yard. It is a pin cherry, Prunus pennsylvanica for those of you who care. When we moved here in early August, it had green and lush leaves on the last foot of each branch but the rest of the leaves were skeletonized from an earlier infestation of what the neighbours called 'worms'. Over the next month it recovered and grew some new leaves where the first ones were damaged. September came and went and there was no change to the tree or the distant view of Pippy Park beyond. Thanksgiving came and went too, still no change to the tree, but a little fall colour began to show in the distance. 'Out beyond the overpass' as they call it here. Then about a week ago we finally got a hard frost that affected our neighbourhood. In two days our lush green Pin Cherry went the clear yellow of a Post It note.
St. John's weather so far has been a lot like Vancouver. Grey, overcast, and light rain most days. The difference between here and there is that St John's also gets wind. In Vancouver, wind was such an anomaly that it was remarkable. Really, as in "Wow, it's windy today" if there was more than a hint of gentle breeze in the air. In St. John's it is remarkable when there isn't a wind. So for a day and a half, our Pin Cherry was yellow, and now it is bare from the constant buffet of the gale they call a breeze. Poof, that was fall in St. John's, all 6 days of it.
And here is a little strange but true fact of weather in St, John's: if it is above 3 degrees Celsius then the neighbours are sure to remark "Beautiful day, isn't it?"
If it is sunny but the wind cuts through you like a knife its "Lovely day..."
If it is overcast and raining like a Bible story, but warmer than usual its "Nice day...'
If the wind is still but the fog reaches from the harbour to 'out beyond the overpass' it's "Gorgeous weather...it's enough to kill ya."
These are actually the words that our neighbour used today to describe a dull windy morning with intermittent showers. I can only surmise that the important factor is the temperature, which admittedly at 12 degrees C is higher than seasonal.
The funny thing is that I find myself doing it too.

Just Keep Telling Them You Are From France

I remember once sitting around with some friends and someone made the comment that it felt like we were living in a bad modern day version of La Boheme. They meant we were all youngish, artsy-ish urban dwellers living in grotty apartments who were always just on the edge of something good and then tragedy would strike and a set back would occur. Nobody ever died though.
That was several years ago, and we have all moved on to being not so youngish, possibly more responsible parents and spouses with lifestyles to match. If I had to characterize my life now as a play, it would undoubtedly be a Chekhov play in the way that nothing much happens but all the characters have at least 3 names.
I won't torment you with all the saccharine things Peter and I call each other, but the list of epithets that the dog will respond to is astonishing, and revealing.
His formal title is Jake the Dog. Not Jake Harrington or Jake Little as the vet insists on filing him.
He also responds to Little Dog (a play on words that) and Silly Dog and Bud. Evil Dog makes his tail wag because he knows he's been naughty but he's not going to be punished for it.
His Auntie Susann calls him Stinky. So does his cousin Lester. Occasionally we label him Farty Dog or Poopy Bum.
When he employs his talent for lying down in the most inconvenient place he can find we call him Speed-bump or Dead Dog.
Grumpy Dog and Growley Dog make their appearance more often than I would like, especially at the vet where his file is marked CAUTION! in red ink.
Last Thursday, Jake the Dog had an emergency spleenectomy to remove a large growth which may or may not be a malignant tumor. In light of that fact, we have (at least temporarily) stopped calling him Dead Dog because not even our humour is that bleak.
While we await the test results on his spleen and he recuperates from having his tummy sliced open and his innards stirred around we have given him a new moniker, Mr Conehead. Just keep telling them you are are from France, Bud.

How to Cook Cod (or How NOT to Cook Cod)

This week seems to be about cooking adventures. Yesterday, our neighbours gave Peter some fresh cod. This is the last week of the food fishery and someones brother in law had been out to catch some fish. Food fishery is one of those odd terms that seems redundant to me. Like why else would anyone catch fish except for food? But what it means is that non commercial people like someones brother in law can go out and get some cod for personal use. Or to give to the crazy Nova Scotians next door.
According to our neighbours who are gay, but otherwise true Newfoundlanders through and through, there is only one way to cook fresh cod. In fact, they were so adamant about it, they gave me explicit instructions. Twice. You chop up some salt pork fat into little squares and fry them until the fat is all rendered ( this is called scruntcheons). Then you dredge the cod in flour and fry it in the pork fat. You buy the salt pork fat in the grocery store in the meat section, right next to the salt pork riblets and the blood pudding. This is not a joke.
But here is the thing, the day before I had made breaded pork cutlets for dinner and I didn't really want to eat something fried two days in a row. Plus, I don't really like cod that much, and I knew the only way I would enjoy it was to disguise it. So I opened the Joy of Cooking and found a recipe for Fresh Cod a la Portuguese. Now even a Newfoundlander has to admit the Portuguese must know something about cooking cod. Essentially it is cod poached in a tomato and white wine sauce, and it was pretty good. When I told my neighbours what I was doing they were utterly horrified. I think if they had been able to demand I return their cod they would have. (Waste of Cod!) But then again, they are getting used to hearing about the crazy stuff we eat: the other day I made Dave try some halva.

My $50 Bowl of Soup

Six weeks ago I signed up for a mushroom ID class offered through the City of St John's rec department. I wanted belly dancing but it was full. The mushroom class was every other Tuesday night for 3 sessions at the MUN botanical garden. We had our last session two days ago. I knew nothing about wild mushrooms before, and I still know very little but it was an interesting introduction none the less.
One thing I learned; people who like wild mushrooms really like wild mushrooms. I am only mildly interested myself, and I confess that even though I could now distinguish a King Bolite from a Morel I am no more likely to go foraging in the forest for them than I was before. However, it is nice to know that if I ever find myself wandering through the woods in the fall, post apocalypse, I won't starve like some people.
Another thing I learned was to properly ID a mushroom, you need to do a spore print. Each mushroom has a specific spore print based on its pattern and colour. This is important because there are a lot of mushrooms that look a like and some are good to eat but others will kill you. This means that if I am wandering around in the forest post apocalypse I better remember to bring a field guide. And a microscope. And some paper for the print.
Possibly, it might just be better to have a large supply of those military emergency rations on hand...
At our final class on Tuesday, the instructor brought enough Pine Mushrooms for everyone to be able to take one home. Pine mushrooms, also know as Tricholomata magnivelare, are a highly sought after delicacy. They call them Matsutake in Japan where good specimens will fetch $100 each. One of their distinct identifying features is their smell. We spent a lot of time smelling mushrooms in this class, it was a lot like wine tasting that way; people trying to come up with crazy adjectives that describe a particular mushroom. Some just smelled earthy and mushroomy, but some really have a surprising smell. One smelled like pears. The Matsutake smells just like Cinnamon Red Hots. I picked one that looked like it would make a good spore print, and also had a good strong smell. It wasn't a perfect shape though, so my instructor said it was probably only worth $50.
Behold, the $50 mushroom and its spore print. The instructor told us to make a soup using chicken broth and shave some thin slices of Matsutake into it. I did this today, and I can report that it was pretty good. It was so good in fact that I was going to save half for Peter when he came home from school today, but I ended up eating it all myself instead. His loss. I was surprised it tasted so good, because I used some home made chicken broth I had in the freezer, and I had put quite a lot of savory and parsley into it when I made it, so I really just expected it to taste like chicken broth. But the mushroom gave it a really unusual flavour which I can only describe as like miso, only earthier. The slivers of mushroom too had a texture similar to an oyster mushroom, like a firm tofu. It lost all its cinnamon qualities, but the soup itself had a hint of paprika.

Pottery Bum

It's like a ski bum only dirtier.
We went to a potluck last weekend and I met many of The Sweetie's school mates there. I experimented answering the question "What do you do." It's not supposed to be a hard question,
and many people only have one answer to this question, I know. My answer changes as often as the colour on my mood ring. But the fun thing about party chit chat is you can just make stuff up and most people never question it.
First, I tried out "Housewife."
Not a lie, and weird as I have never used it before. Ever. I got a very favourable reaction from the woman studying the WI for her Master's thesis. If you don't know what the WI is, you don't qualify to be a housewife, but I do, so we had a chat about that - which led to an earnest conversation about crafts.
I tried out "retired" with one woman, who didn't even bat an eye. This leads me to believe that I need to revamp my wardrobe and hair.
Next I said I was a bum. Also not a lie. The first reaction was a bemused laugh, but no questions for clarification. Obviously they couldn't see anything interesting about being a bum. So I tried it again with the next person. This time it did get a reaction, "What kind of bum, like a ski bum?" Obviously she was taking a Methods in Research course, and I was impressed she had enough imagination to want to qualify my bumminess.
For a half second I pictured myself careening down a slope and knew I wouldn't be able to pull it off (I don't know graupel from piste) so I clarified with Pottery Bum. Also not a lie. I started at the craft council pottery studio last week. This also led to an earnest conversation about crafts. It is the year of the craft in Newfoundland. I don't think they mean dories.
On second thought I should have qualified myself as a Curling Bum, because curling would have been a nicer contrast to skiing. One is what the rich, fashionable elite do in Europe and the other if you haven't figured it out, is curling. I didn't think of it at the time because curling hadn't started yet.
Pottery, as it turns out, sounds too interesting to be funny. Particularly in a room full of sociologists. Someone labelled me as an Artiste, but I don't think it was meant maliciously. After all, I stopped wearing mismatched earrings in 1988.
For as long as I can remember I have had a secret desire to be a potter. Maybe it was all the playdoh I ate as a kid. I seem to remember watching a TV segment, (probably from Sesame Street or the NFB) of someone demonstrating throwing pots on a wheel. It was mesmerizing to watch a lump of clay being pulled up into a tall pot and then widened into a fat bowl, like it was something alive. I have always been very good at getting dirty and this was obviously something very dirty and gooey and so it was hugely attractive to me.
Saturday at the studio, a group of Brownies came through on an impromptu tour. They arrived at the Craft Council and wanted to see some potters at work. Unfortunately they got me instead. I hated to tell them it was only my second day back after an absence of 8 years. Longer than most of them had been alive. I was making pinch pot mugs and the other woman was making pinch pot wine goblets so there was no impressive display of wheel work. Consequently, they didn't look all that impressed. I did let them handle some clay though, and told the group leaders (are they Owls?) about other modelling projects they could do without a kiln.
Next week I start a class, and then the clay will really hit the wheel.

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

When we lived in Vangroovy, friends of ours lived the basement apartment of the house we rented on John St. One day Corey announced he was taking up the violin. At the tender age of 20something when most violinists start at 8 years of age, Corey began his musical career. It was fun to hear Corey sawing away in the basement, and both Peter and I would silently cheer him on as he made his way through a barely recognisable Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. That is when I knew what my parents felt all those years ago when I would plink my way through "Lion in the Long Grass' on the piano in the basement.
Now we are on the other coast, and we are again sharing a house with a musician. Tiffany lives in the loft apartment upstairs, and she is working on her Master's degree in Ethnomusicology. But to get a Master's degree in music you first has to have a Bachelor's, which means that she plays a little better than Corey used to. Her instrument is the cello, and Friday mornings are her time to practice. Mostly she does fingering exercises which I don't profess to understand, because when you play the piano you either hit the key or you don't. (mostly I didn't) Occasionally you can hear the cello part for a quartet or a symphony and with a little imagination, you can fill in all the other parts and it sounds really nice. Last week though she treated us to a very rousing rendition of Three Blind Mice. Only she plays it sadly, like gypsy music.
Peter and I both thought of Corey at the same time. And laughed.

What I Did on my Summer Vacation

Usually this essay is written the first week back at school, but my summer vacation is still happening and I thought I should start making notes. Ironically I don't ever remember writing one of these ubiquitous essays when I was in school.

Regatta Day - Thursday August 2
Usually the first Wednesday of August or the first sunny day after that. People in St John's have to listen to the radio in the morning to know whether it is nice enough day to get a holiday or they have to go to work as usual. I like this method and I think we should adopt it for all holidays.
We walked to Quidi Vidi lake and watched the rowing for a few hours. As we got closer we joined throngs of people doing the same thing. It was like going to a huge music festival. I have no idea who won, or even what the categories were. But the regatta is really just an excuse for eating fried things and playing games of chance. There were dozens of food and game kiosks set up by service groups as fundraisers. It was charming to see that they were still using the same kind of plywood and paint stands from my childhood instead of giving way to trailers by Timmies or the Scottish restaurant. I forgot the camera, no pictures.

Signal Hill - We went on a particularly windy day, and realised it was windier there still. Beautiful views, good interpretive signs about the military history of the site and the famous transatlantic radio signal by Marconi. You can go into the tower but not to the top. We watched what looked like a very small boat coming in through the Narrows, but when we got down to the harbour it was really quite a big boat about 60 feet long. From the top of the hill it looked like a bath toy. Too many tourists for pictures, but I did snap this one of Peter. We have to go back to explore the trails with Jake.

On August 4th we went to Middle Cove beach for the Craft Council Annual Beach Day firing. They dig a big pit in the beach sand and wrap clay pots in seaweed and throw various minerals on top. Then they pile firewood on top and set it on fire. A few hours later when the ashes are cool enough, they uncover the pots and see what patterns the firing has produced. It is a fundraiser for the craft council, they sell the pots on the beach once they have cooled. We ate a picnic lunch and explored the coastline while we waited for the firing to finish. Middle Cove also has thousands of Caplan that come ashore in summer to spawn, and it was crazy to see the waves wash them ashore. And crazier still to watch the children running back and forth throwing them back into the water. In earlier times people would scoop them up and use them as fertilizer on the garden. Ewww.

The Fluvarium and the Geo Centre got a post of their own. Nuff said.

On Labour Day weekend we went to Cape Spear. Also a very windy day, and the ocean smelled fabulous. Used up all my camera battery trying to get this goofy picture of us with Signal Hill in the background across the bay so I don't actually have a picture of the lighthouse. Bummer. Have to go back to explore the trails with Jake.



St. John's hosted a Door's Open Day on Sept 8th and 9th. Many places that usually charge admission were free, and some places that are not normally open to the public, were. I went to Government House, built in 1829 as the home of the colonial governor of Newfoundland and adopted for the Lieutenant Governor when NL became a province in 1949. Much of the furniture is original including a very cool dining table for 28 that I covet. The ceilings are painted plaster to look like carved relief. They were gorgeous. I forgot my camera.

Last weekend we went to Ferryland and toured the archaeological site of the first English colony of Newfoundland. It was fascinating. The colony of Avalon was started in 1629 by the same guy who then decided the winters were too cold and moved to Jamestown in Virginia instead. The foundations are extremely well preserved because the French attacked in 1696 and burned everything to the ground. When the English returned the next year they just built on top and kept going so the first 75 years are undisturbed until this dig started in 1993. The camera battery died again before we got there, so you'll have to explore the website at www.heritage.nf.ca/avalon

During the week, Jake and I have been using the Grand Concourse for our daily strolls. St. John's has an excellent series of 35 walking trails that link up various parks and green spaces in the city. Each trail section has a signboard that tells you what you'll see along the way. You can pretty much walk from Pleasantville to Paradise. So far we've wandered from Quidi Vidi to Long Pond to Mundy Pond. Without oppose-able thumbs though, Jake finds the camera operation difficult, so you'll just have to take our word for it.

One more for the licence plate file

This one is funnier if you say it quickly. Like Diagon Alley. Or that Gibert and Sullivan song:
"A pair a dogs,
A pair a dogs,
A most ingenious pair a dogs..."

A thanks for the thank you

Today my nephew 'Jamin sent me a painting he completed recently as a thank you for his birthday pressie. He was 2 in August. It's called Philosophy. I like it, although I prefer to think of it as Paeonia and Solidago. I am a fan of his work, as I am a fan of his mother's before him. Her Mountain and Seagulls in the Upstairs Gallery, Mahone Bay, is a particular favourite of mine. Although knowing her much more structured style leads me to believe that 'Jamin must take after his father.
I guess I would be remiss if I didn't mention that my nephews Claude and Lester have also sent us cards since we have been here. Thank you boys.
Peter thinks it is strange that the only people who write to us are toddlers and cats, but I pointed out that everyone else has email.

Good Night Bluenose, Good Morning Pitcher Plant

Driving home from the DMV after getting our shiny new licence plates, I realised that Newfoundland and Labrador don't have a slogan on their plates.
Nova Scotia of course boldly ignores at least 7 other provinces with salt water coastline not to mention at least 2 territories to proclaim itself Canada's Ocean Playground.
Ontario is Yours to Discover, Manitoba is Friendly and BC is Beautiful.
In Quebec you can be your own souvenir. The French are always a bit esoteric.
So we started making suggestions for Newfoundland and Labrador's licence plate slogan.
"Nothing to Say" Newfoundland and Labrador
"Our name is too long to fit a slogan in this little space" Newfoundland and Labrador
"We couldn't afford the extra ink" Newfoundland and Labrador
But then Peter had the perfect one. Scroll down and have a look.

How to Make Newfoundland Screech.

"Any sufficiently advanced bureaucracy is indistinguishable from molasses." Author Unknown

There is a link between Newfoundland and molasses, and I'm not just talking about the screech.
I spent last week sorting out insurance. Auto insurance it seems is not automatically transferable between provinces, and my underwriter does not insure vehicles in Newfoundland. My broker in Nova Scotia is also not licenced to find insurance here, leaving me to do everything myself. This is why they call Insurance a service industry. Finding insurance in Newfoundland is not really the problem. There are lots of brokers in St John's and some of them even return a phone message shunted through the Automated Press One For English telephone system. Well, one did. Eventually.
And that is when I learned that auto insurance in Newfoundland is roughly double the price in Nova Scotia. I asked the woman on the phone if it was because there were more moose to hit here. She didn't see the humour.
It gets worse. At home, all our insurance needs were covered by one company, and for that we apparently got a discount. But because we could no longer insure our car and truck with them, they refused to continue covering our motorcycles. Well, we left them in Nova Scotia so we are not riding them anyway, but we could not insure them as property sitting in storage either. Something about them having a Registration, so a lawnmower and a snowblower are OK but... For those of you who don't know, it can sometimes be a little tricky to find insurance for motorcycles and I anticipate this being a bit of a headache when we go home.
It gets worse. To get vehicle insurance in a province, the vehicle must be registered in that province. I didn't know this. We weren't going to bother to change our registration, but apparently if you are living in Newfoundland for more that 90 days it is required anyway. To get a vehicle registered in Newfoundland, you must have a Newfoundland driver's licence.
You are starting to understand the molasses comment aren't you?
On Monday, we spent 2 hours at the DMV doing the paperwork. We had to appear in person because there is no online form for provincial transfer and we needed new pictures on our licences. (To be honest, my new picture looks much more glam than the last, so I'm not complaining) We very nearly didn't get our motorcycle classifications transferred but we managed to catch that one at the wicket. We didn't catch that Peter's name was omitted from the car registration though. I suppose that is OK because my name appears twice. Unfortunately I only noticed that once we were home.
Home. Let's talk about home insurance. Having all our insurance with one underwriter means that now they are flagged to the fact we are not living in our home. We are considered absentee landlords, and while I'm sure that our friends Chris and Shelia are taking very good care of the place, the insurance company is convinced that they are irresponsible hoodlums planning to trash the joint and then set fire to it. The insurance company did however agree to continue coverage for more than double the price but only if we had the woodstove disconnected. I would like to point out that our woodstove is a cast iron, low emission Jotul, 8 months old and professionally installed by a WETT certified technician and is in compliance to all building codes. Apparently that is not good enough for this insurance company though. They are afraid of fire. I asked our broker if water damage from rain streaming into the kitchen from a hole in the roof was covered. She didn't see the humour.
Happily our new insurance underwriter is a national company and they are willing to cover our house in Nova Scotia as it is, at only slightly more than quadruple the original cost. Isn't that nice of them? So that holiday in Greece we were planning next month has been put on hold.
But the molasses was enough to make me screech.

Back to School

Yes. It's that most wonderful time of year again. Yesterday was the first day of classes for my Little student. I wish I had a picture of him in his new sneakers and with his new brightly coloured backpack on heading out the door with his lunch. But knowing how I would make fun of him he refused to pose.
Yesterday's class was cryptically called Graduate Seminar. When I asked him what it was about he said that it was to teach them how to think.
Thinking 101. Got it.
Tomorrow he has a class called Methods. I dubbed this Doing 101. He says it is more like How To, but I think that sounds like a workshop at Home Despot.
Today's class is Theory. It seems a bit of a rip off to make you pay for a class that hasn't been proven yet. On the up side it makes passing in papers easier. "Honestly sir, theoretically it should be right there on the pile..."
Perhaps that's why they call it Piled Higher and Deeper.

Instant garden

The far end of the back yard is a mere 20 feet away from the house. This bit gets sun from morning to mid afternoon.

This bit gets sun in late afternoon.

The rest of the yard is taken up with a table and chairs and the clothes line. The virtue of a small garden is that you can install it in a few hours.

Veni, Vidi, Veedy

I came, I saw, I gardened.
We've been here a little over a month now. And I have been coveting my neighbour's garden since day one. His entire back yard, small though it is, is planted with small shrubs, annuals, perennials, houseplants and any other growing vegetation you can think to stuff in.
Wistfully I have been gazing over the fence as he peppers me with gardening questions.
For a month I was strong. I passed by the leftover plants at Home Despot and Cambodian Tire in the first weeks when we were sorting out house needs. I turned a blind eye to the plants begging to be taken home at the grocery stores. I told myself I was content to use our back yard merely as a sitting area for catching up on my reading. I didn't need to buy plants. This isn't my house. It would be silly to buy plants for a yard that I don't even own. Right?
But this week, a number of factors conspired against me.
1. The weather turned warm and sunny again. And I started having breakfast in the back yard, surrounded by weeds.
2. I started looking for a job, which meant visiting several nurseries.
3. Most of the nurseries in Newfoundland close for winter in a few short weeks and they have put their stock on sale to avoid tossing it out.
4. The hardware flyers announced that bags of topsoil were only 98 cents.
5. I am usually the only 'customer' at this time of year but on Thursday there were other customers about too. This proved to be fatal.
I fell off the wagon at a place called Bickerstaff Gardens in Portugal Cove.
They had their annuals on sale for $1.
This was not a big temptation as I know I am hopeless at overwintering annuals in the house. We don't have the room either.
But as I was about to leave, some ladies were buying perennials because, as they pointed out to me, they were only $1 too. What? The perennials are only $1 too?!!!
Essentially, I bought a garden on Thursday. All the plants and the soil in one short spree. Just add hard work.
Today I added the hard work.
At the back of the yard, beside the gi-normous shed and under the clothes line went a double mock orange surrounded by double coreopsis, bi colour gaillardia, chocolate foxgloves, some lavender and a charming blueflowered plant called Cupid's Dart that looks like it is a member of the pink family.
Between the deck and the compost bin became a new bed full of tall blue speedwell, red geum, some more Cupid's Dart (white this time), purple heuchera, candytuft, more lavender and red dianthus.
Then it began to rain, saving me the chore of carrying water from the kitchen. It was like the weather fairy was anointing my labours.
I still have plants left to make a bed in the shady corner.
But I think this proves that looking for a job is never a good idea.

Am I Blue?

I am trying desperately to be blue. Blue is the local term used here to refer to recycling and water conservation, but with apologies to Kermit the Frog, it's not easy being blue.
St. John's doesn't have recycling pick up with garbage. There are depots that you can take your refundable containers to, but they don't take non refundable items. So containers like juice jugs or pop cans can go, but soup cans and milk cartons for example are just tossed into the regular garbage stream. Plastic shopping bags can be taken back to the grocery stores, but plastic packaging is garbage. I gotta tell ya, after nearly 15 years of recycling indoctrination in both Vangroovy and Nova Scotia I am having a serious moral crisis about this.
At first there was denial. "Somebody must take these items somewhere" I thought. So off I go to a depot, and most of my material is kindly rejected by the ladies who do take some of my bottles and give me 75 cents in return. They didn't want my cardboard. "Nobody is taking cardboard, dear" they said.
So I drive around for a few days with all the boxes we used for moving in the back of the truck wondering what to do. As luck would have it, the neighbours got a new washer and had to dispose of the old one last week. If you have large items like this, you can call for special pick up. Old appliances are called white goods, and two guys in a big truck came by to do a white goods pickup. Interestingly enough, when the truck appeared, all of a sudden people were emerging from their houses up and down the street with other large metal things to go too. It was like the "Bring out your dead" scene in Monty Python movie. Broken metal chairs, tables, rods, you name it appeared and went onto the truck. One guy tried to get rid of a mattress, but the driver stopped him saying that was a different pickup. He looked at me and said "It took 50 years but they are starting to sort it now."
I thought, "this guy will know where I can take my recyclables," so I asked.
He didn't know. He suggested a depot on Elizabeth Avenue.
So off I went again, thinking maybe it was a different kind of depot than I had been to already.
It was mayhem. People were lined up waiting to be served, as every container is counted and sorted by a depot employee for people to get their refund. This takes some time. Adding to the confusion that day was a sign posted on the door that said 'Not Taking Glass Today, Sorry for the Inconvenience'
While I am waiting in line, a guy comes by to empty the paper bin. He sees my paltry collection of metal glass and plastic and says "We don't take any of that. That stuff is recyclable everywhere else in Canada, but it is not recyclable here. We're 20 years behind everywhere else." He is outraged. So I ask him about my cardboard. "No cardboard, just paper" he said.
I decide that this is absurd, so I go to the main municipal depot thinking I can at least get rid of it there. When I get there I realise that the main municipal depot in St. John's is not really accessible to members of the public. It is only for those big trucks that drive around doing pick ups. Having come this far though, I put on my biggest ditsy-girl smile, drive up to the kiosk window and using the thickest Nova Scotian accent I could muster, ask where I can drop off my cardboard. The guy inside didn't know. But my charms must have worked a bit because he offers to make some calls and find out. Seven calls later, (and with three large trucks lined up behind me as I block the entrance to the depot) he gives me an address of a recycling centre that will take cardboard.
Off I go.
Depot #4 is also mayhem, and it also has the sign that states No Glass Today. An employee directs me to where I can dump my cardboard on the floor, but it isn't like I can back the truck up to a door and unload. I am parked in the only free spot across the parking lot, and to deposit my cardboard I have to weave though the lines of people waiting for their refundables to be sorted.
I arrive at the same time as a woman in a mini van that is packed full of large plastic bags stuffed with bottles and cans. She is accompanied by a teen in a soccer uniform who is practicing her bored look. We take turns walking in and out the door several times. Interpreting the hundreds of containers and the surly helper as clues, I ask if she is with a group, thinking that she is co-ordinating a bottle drive fundraiser for the team. The woman gives me the look that is usually reserved for hairy men in dirty singlets and says, "No." A guy in line snickers.
Ok then.
More trips, back and forth, in and out.
Finally she warms up to me, and starts to chat as we pass. "They don't make it easy to actively recycle here. "
"No kidding," I think.
She points to the No Glass sign, "Some days it's no glass, sometimes it is paper or plastic."
I tell her this is my fourth attempt to get rid of cardboard.
She tuts her disapproval.
I'm finished. I don't have to wait for a refund so I leave her, waiting in line with her 9 large bags of recycling at her feet.
Now I'm in the resignation stage. I still automatically wash out a can, and then wince when I toss it in the garbage, along with the food that can't go into the backyard composter. There is no green bin pickup here either.

The Art of Yard-saleing

I'm convinced that Peter and I would make a good Road Rally Team. We have perfected the art of city yardsaleing. On Saturday morning the alarm is set for 7:30am. This is not for Peter, as he gets up with the sun around six, but for me who could happily sleep until well after the radio shuts off.
One of us gets the paper at Coleman's, the local grocer's and perambulates the pooch at the same time. I say one of us, because it is not always him, but well yes, it usually is him.
I call out the names of streets from the list of yard sales in the classified section while Peter hunts for them on the large map of St. John's. When he finds the street, he writes the house number on the street and the time the sale starts. It is an interesting local fact the some don't start until 10am. Anyone who knows the art of yardsaleing knows that most everything worth getting is got by 10am, so the late starters can allow for more location hits if you can navigate them correctly.
We don't mark down all the sales. We weed out the ones too far away to be practical; Paradise and Conception Bay South for example. We also weed out the ones that are only Sunday (another St. John's oddity) and we discount those that are advertising kid's toys as we know from experience that kids stuff and clothes is all they are really likely to have. We're not in that market.
Once we go through the list, we survey the map to decide which areas of the city are most likely to have the best cast offs. The cardinal rule is; Always yard sale in a better neighbourhood than you live. Rich people get rid of better stuff than poor people. In St. John's we live in Rabbittown, (inner city) but we yard sale in Mount Pearl and the west side (middle class suburbia) Of course there are swanky neighbourhoods right in the city of St. John's itself, but the concentration of yard sale per neighbourhood is much lower than out in the burbs. I'm convinced that the urban elite just give their stuff to black tie charity auctions, or maybe they just pawn it off on their less fortunate relatives. ("We were going to take the Spode to the cottage the next time we went but if you like it...")
Once we have a plan, off we go, usually by 8:30am. Today we had a late start due to the fact that I didn't hear the alarm until the dog jumped on my head. We always use the truck. It holds way more than the car and you never know what you will find. I drive, Peter navigates while keeping an eye out for bristle board signs advertising yet more sales along the way. St. John's is an old city, and the streets are every which way, making route planning and navigation a challenge to the newbie. Once we meander into the suburbs though, the one way streets and cul-de-sacs designed to calm traffic are a different navigation nightmare.
I have an idea that "The Yard Sale Challenge" is the next Reality TV hit. Take teams of 2 people, not necessarily couples, but the bickering that ensues is bound to be funnier. Send them to a city in which they don't live, give them a list of items to buy and a set amount of cash in small bills and change. The fastest team to get the most on the list, with the least amount of money wins. Everything must be in working order to count, extra points awarded for bargaining down. Shooting it would be tricky, but a camcorder on a headset might work.
Today, we hit about 15 sales. Our haul included: a filing cabinet, a CD rack, a desk chair, a floor lamp, a microwave, two book cases, a boot tray, and a cookie tin. Total cost $32.50. Our last purchase was about 10:38am, meaning the whole spree last about 1 hour 45 minutes. I bargained down on the book cases, but the floor lamp doesn't work. We bought it at a church sale. Go figure, we were burned by the Jehovah Witness and we weren't even driving the car with the Darwin Fish on the back. Peter wants to buy a $20 multi-meter to figure out why it doesn't work, but I figure we can buy 4 more lamps for that and one if them is bound to work.

Building Withdrawl

The first week we were here, both Peter and I suffered from Building Withdrawl. We were both so used to visiting the Canning Maple Leaf everyday (twice and three times on some days) that we found ourselves gravitating towards those Godless box stores here in St John's just to get our fix. By the second day we had already sussed out Home Despot and Cambodian Tire on Kenmount Road ( a strip we call "Not the Blip")
Pictured above is Peter installing a transition strip on the floor between kitchen and living room. Ho Boy! Do we know how to live! But wait it doesn't end there. We also purchased a Yakemshelf for the kitchen (because we needed more room for our Stuff of course.)
What is a Yakemshelf?
A long, long time ago, in a province far far away... Vancouver in 1994 in fact.
Our first apartment was the ground floor granny suite of a Vancouver Special. We rented it from an elderly Ukrainian couple that lived in the main part of the house upstairs. They were the Yakemchuks; John and Olga. As I type I realise that he is almost certainly dead now as he was mostly dead even then, and I am sad. The kitchen in that apartment has almost the exact layout, counter and cupboard space as this one. Read: Inadequate for our meal preparation style. I introduced Peter to the art of yardsaling way back when, and though slow to warm up, he was converted the minute he scored several pieces of plywood which he proceeded to make into a shelf unit for pot storage in the Yakemkitchen. (It was Vancouver, we had a lot of pots)
The plywood also became a bookshelf, a micowave stand, two tabletops, a desk and a plant press for my school herbarium project. It was a lot of plywood.
Skip forward a few short years. Almost as soon as we arrived here, Peter deemed it necessary to have a Yakemshelf in the kitchen. I understood right away what he meant. Scary isn't it?
Lady Catherine deBourg would approve I think.

What's a Fluvarium?

Fluvarium. Sounds like one of those made up words like Phytotron doesn't it? Making up new words for tourist attractions must work because we went last week.
A fluvarium is the name they gave an interpretion centre attached to the Rennies River reclaimation project. Rennies River runs right round St John's. (Well through it actually but that is not as alliterative) Apparently it was dead and toxic in the 70's because, well, because it runs right through a city. They cleaned it up and have restored the natural ecosystem and now they do waterway management education. I am not all that facinated by fish or aquaria normally, but the displays were well presented and the basement of the fluvarium has glass windows that look out into the actual stream giving you a fish eye view of the habitat.
They feed the fish everyday at 4pm, we didn't stay for that, but I'm thinking it would be hilarious to have an accomplice on the bank outside with a worm on a hook and line about the time an interpreter is doing their tour. Just to ramp up the suspense a little. Think of the photo op.
We also visited the Johnson Geo Centre last week. It is about rocks on the Rock. It was intersting for about 6 minutes and then it was just about rocks. Compared to fish, rocks don't do much. The Geo Centre is very modern and has swanky expensive displays and interpretations, but it lacked the creative use of materials the Fluvarium displays employed. It was like the difference between watching a mega musical and a good fringe show. I'll take the fringe everytime.


A fishing shack is used to explain the lifecycle of a salmon at the Fluvarium.

This Urban dispay highlights environmental pressures on waterways in cities.

Let's Start at the Very Beginning...

We had a 2 hour
delay at the
ferry in North
Sydney. So we
took a photo.
Look closely
and you can
tell how
stuffed the
car and
truck are.
People around
us were laugh-
ing at us.
That seems to happen a lot.

This is a synopsis of the trip from Habitant to St.John's.
Yeah, I know that it is 2 week old news, but like the song says,
"Let's start at the very beginning..." This is from an email I
sent to some of you when I was back online, if you've already
read it, too bad.

We had a really lucky trip. We packed the car and
truck on Saturday afternoon, and only had a few other
odds and ends to stuff in on Sunday morning during
that torential rain storm. We had planned to leave
about 10am, but we didn't actually get on the road
for Sydney until 2pm, so we had good clear weather
until Truro. This was good as both cars were so full,
we had no rear view mirror and neither of us could see
to shoulder check. Heavy rain would have made the
drive so bad. We got one spot of heavy rain outside
Bible Hill and then we seemed to be ahead of it again.
Our late start meant we arrived in North Sydney about
9pm, just before dark, and we got lost looking for the
motel, and got caught up in fireworks, but made it
there eventually.
We were also a day after the bomb scare, but that
mostly interferred with the other ferry timetable, and
we were only 2 hours delayed. We didn't even know
about it until the morning we were going to the ferry
as we hadn't heard the news while we were driving to
Sydney. I was sitting in the line for the ticket gate
with Peter in the truck behind me wondering why there
was such a big line, and starting to get worried that
we wouldn't make our reservations when the radio
announced that there were backups at Marine Atlantic
due to a bomb scare. Then I watched a boat leave the
dock and wondered if it was mine, and I asked a worker
if I was going to miss my boat because I was still in
line when I should have been checked in, and he just
laughed and said my boat wasn't even at the dock yet.
The Port Aux Basques boat was so backed up because it
runs back and forth every day, and apparently they
were loaded with people when the threat was called in.
During the delay to search the whole terminal, they
had to give the people on board free food and that
meant they didn't have any food for the return trip.
All the stores are loaded from Nova Scotia so the
ferry was delayed even more in NL while they sourced
food for the trip back. The Argentia ferry only
travels 3 times a week, so the 12 hour delay wasn't a
big problem with schedules. We did luck out, all in
all.
The ferry was fogged in the whole trip, but the seas
were calm and the temperature was warm. Mostly I
slept, after serval days of last minute house things
and packing and the stress of trying to stuff it all
in the vehicles, sleep was what I needed.
At this end, we had reservations in Placentia for a
motel because we were meant to arrive about 9:30pm and
I didn't want to drive to St John's and arrive at
11pm. We actually got off the ferry at 12:30am, so I
was really glad we had opted to stay there for the
night and travel in the morning. A lot of people
though seemed to be driving straight through, and it
was a dark, foggy, winding twisty road. I was very
glad I wasn't part of that traffic.
We arrived here the day before the Big Rain storm that
washed out the Placentia Highway and rerouted the
ferry to Port Aux Basques so we were very lucky to not
have to deal with that headache. It was a beautiful
day when we got here and we unloaded the car and
truck, and then the next day it poured rain. But we
live on top of a hill, so no flooding.

Home Improvement - The Bathroom

The apartment we are renting is small for us. We have Stuff. We like our Stuff. We are Stuff people. And over the past 12 days we have been accumulating more Stuff. Mostly it has been in an effort to organise and make the small space we have work for us. The kitchen and bathroom had inadequate spaces for our Stuff.
The bathroom had one small towel rack large enough for a hand towel and a facecloth, and two corner shelves of wire designed for clean towel storage I think; but only if the towels are the minicule type they give you at tourist class hotels.
The bathroom is about half the size of our laundry room at home so there is not a lot of room for anything else, but we did shoehorn in 2 stackable shelf units 12x12 inches square and 6 feet high for the bathroom Stuff. Thankyou Home Depot.
Towel racks were a problem. No wall space for a start. Peter is an Engineer at heart though and we had several tries at solutions.
1. We looked for an over the door towel bar but no one makes those it seems.
2. We attempted to make an over the door towel bar using 2 over the door hooks and a dowel between them. We discovered that the door wouldn't close, and the door was so narrow it only allowed one towel anyway.
3. We tried to use the above device on the top of the shower stall frame. Frame too thin to hold the hooks properly, and the dowel would fall off when the towels were touched. We used the over the door hooks for our bathrobes in the bedroom and abandoned the dowel idea altogether.
4. Yesterday at a yard sale Peter scored one of those chrome, floor to ceiling spring loaded towel racks with the rings that everyone had in the '70s. Perfect. Compact. Holds 4 towels. Unfortunately we have a suspended ceiling in the bathroom and the ceiling tiles would not stay put to hold it in place. Hmmmmm.
5. Today, under the heading "Box, what box?" Peter erected the "floor to ceiling" rod as a "wall to wall" rod, proving once again that my sweetie is at 90 degrees to the rest of the world.
Yes, this is the whole bathroom. Shower is behind the door.