Sporadia

Winter has arrived here on the Edge.

I just took this photo of outside with most of the street snow gone (plows are quick on the job here, as is the super of the building with his mini snowplow and shovels and brooms)

In honour of winter, last night I fetched down my mother's old recipe for steak and kidney pie and made two. I was drooling. I only make them once or twice a year as they're a bit picky and energy consuming to put together. Bonus: being low in iron, I get a bit of a boost from such ingestion.

This evil man is dead, I won't even put his name or picture here. Millions and millions of deaths on his hands. If there is a hell, I hope he fries forever in agony. Nobel Peace Prize, my arse. How corrupt our world is in honouring such a monster.

An art piece brought back from Ireland by my daughter for me. It shows the famous "milk bottle" beacon which dominated my summers in the West Cork island where we spent years and years. I love it.

And this is an actual photo of the "milk bottle".

Winter

Snow in St. John's harbour.

She's early and it may be temporary. I had to cancel long made plans to stay overnight in the country. Daughter stayed last night as she had medical appointments running into late yesterday. She said her MRI at 8.15 PM at the hospital was a doddle. It was so quiet just the cleaning staff and a few others like herself and no waiting.

I told her I'd been unwell on Thursday so cancelled my Joanna who does the cleaning so therefore the kitchen floor wasn't up to Joanna's standards. Her response:

"When did we ever care about kitchen floors, mum, that's why we had dogs!"

"I raised you perfectly, darling," I responded.

So today, I'd been thinking about this blog post I'd written on a relationship I had at work years ago between a holocaust survivor and myself, at that point a practising RC. I thought it could be expanded and fictionalized into a play or a short story/novella, so I began working on that and was glad of the time that became available tonight.

There is snow outside and it is peaceful and quiet. A good time for writing.

I took a break and watched a muddle of a film, Certain Women trying to make sense of it. Couldn't. A waste of an extremely good cast with appalling continuity and much silent driving, often obviously on a set. Much horse action which was lovely and a galloping yippy dog, but all this did not a good movie make. Pointless drivel. Yeah, I'm harsh but I thought there might be a tiny payoff at the end but no sirree bob.

And oh yeah, our book made the front page of a local newspaper.

Friday night, chez Wisewebwoman.

Remiss

re·miss

/rəˈmis/


adjective

adjective: remiss

lacking care or attention to duty; negligent.
"it would be very remiss of me not to pass on that information"


synonyms: negligent, neglectful, irresponsible, careless, thoughtless, heedless, lax, slack, slipshod, lackadaisical, derelict......

Not to say I haven't been writing.

I have.

And designing and knitting too. And reading. And conversing. And playing Lexulous on line.

And storm watching. We were all worked about that, my town and I. But those forecasters and Environment Canada got it so very, very wrong. As they often do. There's something about meteorologists' brains and the sea and radar patterns that doen't mix well. Grandgirl cancelled her flight tonight as a result, so now she arrives tomorrow.

The bay is frozen, it is quite startling in its beauty. It's cold. But the fire is cosy. Some people lose their minds in weather such as this. I'm delighted with it. More me-time, no outside pressures apart from irritating phone-calls with demands which I'm ignoring for today.

I do miss my old girl, Ansa, though. Not the old and tired Ansa, the lively, funny one.

Coping

'Twas a weird week. Weather. How vulnerable I can be. This is one nasty winter. And my fall from last year is haunting me. Making me afraid. Making out of me a right wimp. Fearful of the ice under the snow. Horrified at the idea of walking down my drive from the garage to the house.

Feeling massively foolish and more than a little old-lady-ish. Disliking myself for not being more fearless, striding out, unworried about breaking bones and subsequently wheelchairing it around alone in my house with the deaf and blind elderdog for company and a port-a-potty in the living room.

All sorts of thoughts intrude: like am I mad to live out in this community. Should I listen to my city friends and move to a senior-friendly apartment by the side of a downtown glorious lake overlooking the ocean and have transit and accessible medical care and OMG a clean and ice-free parking lot to anchor my car and just a few small rooms and theatre nearby and movies and....all I need is for poor old Ansa to die as NO PETS ALLOWED.

See the temporary insanity that overtakes me?

Meanwhile, there are leaks intruding into my house from this massive icejam. You might think you're having a bad day until you look at the back of my house. This frozen waterfall extends all the way from the roofline to the ground. No one has ever seen anything worse out here. And no one has suggestions as to how to manage it. So that's my day. How's yours?

Yeah, weird alright.

< I took this pic last year at the side of my house. I love the red mailbox against all the white.>

That's me. I had a super busy week, jammed with meetings and sessions and training and budgets and planning. And at one point of it I was struck, when talking about making our community more age-friendly (all ages, not just elders)as we were discussing a few who are having challenges (loss of licence, mobility) and I reflected, internally, ah, the poor old things. And then realized, mein gott, they are waaay younger than you, babe. A kind of chill runs through me, you know? Gratitude I am so active, and extraordinarily mindful to make improvements in the lives in my community. We are seriously discussing appointing a volunteer "helper" to each challenged resident. Nothing too extreme: a daily check-in, a Sunday drive, coffee or tea in the community centre.

Anyways, after this week, there's a massive storm (20-30cm) forecast for tonight and you know what? I am so looking forward to it. Leo has brought in a load of wood. I have spare water in case the power kicks out. And I've now indulged one of my end-of-day's greatest pleasures: the bra comes off, the PJ's go on and the "robe" which isn't really a robe at all, it's an ancient oversized LL Bean hoodie, gets donned. Like a private uniform. The books are stacked, knitting's in the basket, the 3 oil-lamps are freshly wick-ed and filled, the candles are loaded and the car has been tucked into the garage. AND the snow shovel's put in the hall. I'm ready. Bring it on.

I love these kinds of days. Isolated and snowed in. No demands. No meetings. No office. Just me and the fire. And my pleasures, my knitting, my books and my writing.

Life is very precious and sweet in this moment.

The winter of my discontent.

Intermittent telephone and internet problems which Bob, the Bell repairman, has tried to fix a few times now. He's back again today. He's like an old friend.

How does he remain cheerful in the face of a biting blizzard of ice pellets hitting his face. Outside, wearing mitts as he splices narrow gauge wires and bits of plastic as I hobble around indoors, still in pyjamas and robe.

I feel proud I managed to offload and then reload the dishwasher. Everything is a remarkable effort in the jabs of pain crawling up and down my spine. Stoic I am not. My pain threshold is very low. I learned that in childbirth.

I do a tally in my fingers. My BFF dying so horribly, leaving me bottled up with grief and heartbreak.

My chimney fire, still unresolved, still waiting for parts for the chimney and for the weather to stabilize to let the repair guys on the roof.

Even though I don't heat most of my rooms, my electricity bills are high enough to leave me a little breathless each time they pop into my email for normally the wood stove heats the house.

I try and balance all this off with the positives, a series of workshops I'll be conducting on memoir writing with a publish at the end of it, my new musical drama back on track (we think – casting out here on the Edge is always a challenge) and private software training sessions. And knitting. And reading. And writing.

And somehow, it's not enough.

You can call me a whinebag.

I won't mind.

In fact, you can join me.

Perennially cheerful doesn't cut it today.

She's wearin' right thin.

Somewhere along the way, winter, most often embraced, the odd time humorously tolerated, sometimes escaped from, became an abscess on the arse this year.

Normally, the photo above, taken yesterday, would enchant me.

But the grey blurry line beyond the trees? Yeah, that's the snow/ice covered bay. Seriously.

If things would stay that way, like the photo? Well, yeah, it would be lovely, like.

But they don't. And there's the rub.

It all melts into a puddle within a day or two. The puddle ices up. Then yer freezing rain falls on top of that.

And then the snow piles on again.

And then 100k/hour gale force winds howl around tearing the snow and running it into six foot drifts. And the temperature drops to minus double digit Celsius.

And these endless cycles repeated ad nauseum from November on through to now.

Every journey planned has to be plotted out carefully in conjunction with forecasts. One could get dangerously trapped in a blizzard/sleet/wind storm. Or worse yet, black ice.

Worst. Winter. Ever.

/whingey whiny rant.

Status Update

Qidi Vidi Village in the heart of St. John's - photo by Perry Howlett

It's been an unusual December around here. Normally, our December is green. But we've had lashings of the white stuff. Then a layer of ice on top. Then more lashings of white stuff. I have a tunnel up my driveway to the garage. I am very lucky I've a lot of land around me to handle all the snow. In the city people are stuck. Nowhere to put it. And St. John's does not clear off its sidewalks. Seriously. Like at the first sign of snow it rolls itself up in an ice fortress for the winter and tells everyone to feck off. I fantasize, sometimes, about living there in the heart of downtown St. John's which is uber pretty. But holy Hannah, I would go mental in the wintertime. Especially at my age, nervous about breaking something in a bad fall. Hearing the horror stories of others who smash their pelvises and other sundry bits on icy sidewalks. Kids risk life and limb meandering through traffic in the middle of the roads going to school. I've seen sidewalks piled six feet high with the snow from the roads. Impassable. Completely.

I'm reading Caught by Lisa Moore. And I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I love her writing style where the small is magnified into something beautiful, the swish of fabric, the lupines at the side of the road, the lighting in a bar. I was fortunate to be her dinner companion at a conference and was in awe of her vast general knowledge.

I'm trying to put a priority list together and getting nowhere. Screen sucking distracts me. I need to unplug the effing Thingies and get on with my life rather than create these endless byroads in my brain. I can waste, um, two six hours and not be able to tell you what the hell I was doing or even try and sound minimally intelligent at the end of it all. Not good. For me. For anyone.

Avoidance.

I'm the expert.

Free lessons.

Snowbound

'Tis early for the snow. Very early. Normally we get it around February as we are so sheltered on this part of the Avalon Peninsula where I live.

I had to cancel a lot of plans for yesterday as I made the decision not to head into St. John's where I had a few commitments. I cancelled them and just hunkered down at home. Blizzards on the highway at night with flying trucks and wayward moose are not conducive to peace of mind. Not at all. I speak as one who has huddled in terror at the side of the un-safety-railed road as passing trucks threw snow on me in such quantities that the wipers could not perform.

The sun is brilliant right now. I took a picture this morning of it cracking the hill behind my house. It was minus 10 Centigrade and I was wondering why I was so cold. The fingers had it. My fingers tell me the temperature. Always.

Yesterday morning I spent in my brand new office up the road. Filing cabinets and bookshelves and guest chairs and everything. I never thought to be in such a place.

My present life continues to astonish me.

Winter's Arrival

Behind me

The cold fingers of winter stir around me. I bank the fire high. And look out the window at the racing blue water, white-capped, while some lingering foolish lupines on the banks of the road bob in the now brisker more serious gusts, reluctant to shed the last vestiges of their summer azure.

Leo hauls down more wood from the lot way over the top of the back hill. The barn is full. We have more than enough, I think securely. Not enough yet, says Leo, you forget we need enough for eight months of stove. Eight months of stove, I think. How comforting the rhythm of those words. How comforting indeed that Leo has the wood management skills that I lack.

For it is here. Every year, and particularly in this past glorious Indian Summer, I think: winter will creep in unnoticed. Before we know it.

Oh, we know it alright.

It has arrived in a sunlit fanfare of multi-coloured leaves flying off the trees and the chilling white foam of the waves pounding noisily on the beach stones.

In front of me

Weather, blah-blah.

~~~~~~Monochromatic, beautiful winter on the bay. Click to enbiggen~~~~~~

We're all in that weather obsessed mode, aren't we. My blog friend Friko wrote about the sloppiness of it all. At least for those of us in the northern hemisphere. My friends hanging off the southern half of ye old globe try not to gloat too much, they send me pictorial reminders of a non-white, non-wet landscape choking itself on lush vegetation.

Yeah, I can't make any plans without a massive consult with the weather network. Though I did manage a WHOLE day out yesterday and plan another one on Wednesday.

Weather talk is boring. I need to focus on my magnificent landscape, the fact that a plea for more firewood on FB (long, long story for another time)resulted in friends jumping in yet again with trucks and chainsaws, another play happening-nearly, and yes, thinking Toronto is a good idea, there's a ticket sale, yahoo!

Da Big One

This is the immediate forecast:

For Thursday night there's an additional 35 to 40cm of snow. Friday has another 20cm and this is all followed on the weekend by a dumping of rain. Winds are supposed to hit 100km/hour which will make it a first class STORM alright.

Right now it is -8c which is very chilly for here. It makes for a star struck night though. Every single star keeps the darkness of the sky awash in white. It is spectacular.

The dog barks outside. I can't see at what, but the bay bounces her voice back at her. There is an overstuffed cat who is patrolling the road out front lately. White with black splotches. You can tell by the strut that (s)he owns the place. It could be the cat out on night patrol putting the fear of gawd into the canines. I had a cat like that once. Owned the entire city block. Would walk with our dogs, head high. Other dogs would whine and run from him.

Grocery stores were so busy today with the impending storm coming. I am well stocked. Power outages are the biggest fear. I am grateful I have the wood stove which does just about everything except wash the dishes.

Hunker is the word I'm using. Lots of books, candles and even an oil lamp and Daughter has fortuitously stored a propane ring in my garage.

What could possibly go wrong?

I'll let you know.

And a picture of flower gifts from the weekend (as a scent-filled reminder of "can Spring be far behind?"):

Sometimes in Winter

I've always loved the unusual music and lyrics of Blood, Sweat and Tears since they first charmed my eardrums in my early twenties (Note to self: NO, seriously, that long ago?) and this is one my favourites of theirs. I've never found it sad, as one might expect, but quite uplifting.

BLOOD, SWEAT & TEARS
"Sometimes In Winter"
(Steve Katz)

Sometimes in Winter
I gaze into the streets
And walk through snow and city sleet
Behind your room


Sometimes in Winter
Forgotten memories
Remember you behind the trees
With leaves that cried


By the window once I waited for you
Laughing slightly you would run
Trees alone would shield us in the meadow
Makin' love in the evening sun


Now you're gone girl
And the lamp posts call your name
I can hear, them
In the spring of frozen rain
Now you're gone girl
And the time's slowed down till dawn
It's a cold room and the walls ask
Where you've gone


Sometimes In Winter
I love you when the good times
Seem like mem'ries int he spring
That never came


Sometimes In Winter
I wish the empty streets
Would fill with laughter from the tears
That ease my pain

Unwelcome Guest

Slithering from the sea,
You crawled in overnight,
Taking comfort in the
Fixings of my porch,

You touched everything,
The trees, the feeders
The broody roofs
The stark fences

The door stones
The withered herb garden
The potato drills
The strawberry beds.

You were early,
Way too early this year.
My back to you, Snow.
For I am not ready.

My Summer's Still With Me

It is extraordinary to me that I can plant all these pots of flowers in spring of each year and NEVER have to water them. The weather takes care of that. Rarely too hot and enough rain to keep these babies happy. Still in bloom today. We expect our first snow, usually, in February, which always startles people who view Newfoundland as a land still in the Ice Age. Well, no.

We have a micro-climate where I live and since I've been living here, we always have a green Christmas. Our trees are still more green than russet or rust as our spring is always later than others (May-June). Late June is when my lilac blooms for instance. So our fall is later too.

My driveway which is long and winding, was ploughed 4 times last winter. Yeah, 4 times. Not much of a winter and it was always worse in Ontario. It can get biting cold when the Nor'easter blows and being An Outport Woman I can be caught huddled around my woodstove when that happens, reading a good book and tossing bon-bons while my woodstove soup simmers away.

Ah poor me - life lived in the rough by the Outport Woman.

Sheila's Brush

Sheila's Brush

Yesterday.
And the day before.
And the day before that.
Liquid yellow touching blue.

Jaunty me.
Coatless, hatless, gloveless.
Ha-ha said the old fisherman
Patrick's not done with you yet.

For Sheila's not here.
Until she comes don't
Put any of the gear away.
Or 'twill be the death of you.

And today
Sure enough there's a roar
Down the chimney and the waves
Mount high and the snow

Oh the sharp snow cutting through
The sky and the trees and the
Birds all shivering from it
And me inside looking out at it

And looking around
For the gloves and the hat and
The scarf and the great winter
Coat and the boots. Brush on.

For more information on Sheila's Brush.