You know that I like posting photos. I have neither the creative eye of some nor the technical expertise of others, but I enjoy it regardless. I have mentioned Doris previously and also posted a little memoriam for her mother, Mabel, when she passed away in January. Doris is a superior photographer and could probably have been a pro; she has just sent me two photos of Cedar Waxwings, taken ysterday at the Botanical Gardens in Montreal, and I can't resist posting them for you right away.
... and bodies.
I told you how the day began in the previous post — breakfast on the porch. The day kept on getting nicer and nicer, probably up to the mid-fifties, maybe as high as sixty. Speaking of high, that's how silly Canadians react to such days in March — we get high on warmth, sunshine, and life. In happens every year, you know, or seems to. We get an incredibly nice day which people causes house-bound northerners to flock outside in droves. Yes, it is enough to lift the spirits of we sombre Canuckleheads.
We went for a little drive with daughter and stopped at The Goose and Gridiron in Merrickville for refreshments. But, as I say, we were high with the weather: so high that Cuppa and daughter were somehow buoyed to the top of the sign. I, myself, didn't make it that far. I couldn't get past the roof of a neighbouring establishment.
Oh, I know that it won't last. In fact, although it will be even warmer tomorrow, it will be rainy and overcast. And then, it will get colder again, not freezing cold but not at all like this either. But that's okay; we've had a taste, a harbinger of even better things to come ... eventually.
It's true! Many Canadians bloggers are quite preoccupied with the notion of spring these days. While most of us gladly tolerate or even actively embrace winter, it lasts quite long enough, thank you very much. Come March, we begin to get just a teeny bit antsy for spring. We shouldn't really because the truly nice weather is still a long way off.
It's happened in this house too.
The cat got me up to feed him tuna at 6:30 this morning. I went back to bed, thinking that he would be satisfied for the nonce. I suppose that he was in a way, but he did make the choice to prowl, roam and cavort around the bedroom. He was on the bedside table, on the bureau, and here and there on the bed. Cuppa gave up the attempt to sleep at around 8:00 o'clock, which meant that he was happy to accompany her downstairs, no doubt in search of more tuna.
Another hour later (yes, I did manage to sleep in after all), he was back upstairs with me. I looked at the clock, felt somewhat embarrassed by the lateness of the hour, and trundled downstairs ... and found Cuppa sitting out on the porch. Yes, she had joined the Great Canadian March Preoccupation With Springtime and was sitting on the porch.
It's closed in but unheated, and it was only about 50F outside, but there she was. I joined her, and it was really quite tolerable: felt good really. As you can see in the photo, there is still abundant snow out front, but some has melted, and our hearts yearn for the next season.
There is something to be said for a genuine four-season climate, but no season is quite as anticipated and welcomed as spring.
Surely everybody has watched the original Dick Van Dyke Show, the one that started (and perhaps finished, I don't remember) in black and white lo these many years and included a young Mary Tyler Moore? Cuppa and I used to watch it when we were first married back in 1969. Even then, we were watching reruns although it is possible that new episodes were still being produced — I can't remember that either.
Ever since that long ago epoch, we have freely used a word that was coined on that show: fruital, which I choose to spell with a 'u'. It was used in an episode where a lovestruck teenage youth began to moon over Laura, the character that Mary played.
Aside: I was in high school when the show started, so I could and still can, if I jog my memory, certainly understand the attraction.
In that particular episode, the boy wrote Laura a note in which he acknowledged that "My love is fruital," a rather obvious malaprop of futile. That word has stuck with us, and we still use it almost four decades later.
And it pretty much describes our day, or at least many of the events of the day.
When we moved here from Sarnia, I used my feeble brain for once and loaded up on wax guards for my hearing aids. I change them when I change the batteries: every ten days, give or take. Now, six months later, I'm finally beginning to scrape the bottom of that previously well-stocked barrel.
The nearest audiologist to us works about a half hour away on the fringes of Ottawa. However, I speculate that he may not take his work all that seriously, for when I arrived at the office, he was out, for coffee and/or a chat, I surmise. His young and inefficient secretary couldn't help. I could leave my hearing aids (does that make any sense?) or try again later. Fruital.
I chose the latter option, but he was at a meeting (yeah sure he was), but once again, I could leave my hearing aids and/or make an appointment. At that point I thought, "Not in my bloody lifetime, friend jerk," and off I went. Fruital. (There are two audiologists in a town about a half hour south of here, and I'll give them a call tomorrow.)
But wait! There's more. However, I will slip into my short version mode since you possibly want to read another blog or two today.
Cuppa tried on jeans in an over-heated Sears store for about an hour. She decided on a pair from the sale table. They weren't perfect but adequate for the price. After surviving a rather long and slow lineup at the Cashier, she discovered that one-half of the sale table wasn't on sale. Guess which half? Fruital.
We headed to the only refreshment place closeby in an attempt to regain equanimity after the Sears debacle: Starbucks. Bad idea really: we never seem to have much luck there. In the event, we ended up paying twelve bucks for two drinks and one little, brownie type of dessert. I know that millions feel differently, and you probably do too, but I think Starbucks is an over-priced outfit that serves incredibly mediocre fare. Fruital.
She tried both Sears and Winners for table decorations. She had seen them at both places previously. There was nothing today. Fruital.
We couldn't find any relevant travel guide books for our trip at the end of next month at Mountain Equipment Coop. Fruital.
When we got home, the eavestrough man called to say that our drainage problem was pretty well unfixable. Fruital.
Not so fruital: finding a useful travel guide at Chapters and, especially this: having a very nice visit with daughter over lunch. Made it all worthwhile really. Ah yes, when you've got a kid like that, life is anything but fruital!
On a bit of a whim today, I styled a new template. I had long contemplated doing an alternate winter design and realized today that I'd best get at it before winter left us. In point of fact, it does seem to be over in the southern and northwestern states, but we still have a way to go here in the capital of Canada.
In case it's not totally clear on your screen, the background tile consists of snowy grasses. There may be some tweaking to do here and there, and I haven't really looked at it closely in Internet Explorer yet, so it's quite possible that some major mods might be necessary. What I have done for the first time is use an image map to make the imaged title clickable.
It was almost ten o'clock tonight, just about an hour ago. The Cupster and I were sitting downstairs in the living room watching Words Into Music, a documentary about the recent inductees into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. We were watching the segment about Leonard Cohen, which k.d. lang would finish with her rather sensational rendition of Cohen's Hallelujah.
It was then that one green eye peeked around the stairs, and it was then that the cat meowed at us.
This was neither a general nor indiscriminate meow, doncha know? No, it was the cat's call to bed. As I have previously mentioned, we generally all go to bed together, and he is beginning to let us know in no uncertain terms if he is ready for bed but we appear not to be. That's right, Mr Cat has taken to meowing to us that it is time to trundle off to bed. Just the other night, he sat at the bottom of the stairs, plaintively looking upwards, and insistently beckoning us with his meows.
Tonight, when he repeated the behaviour, from part-way up the stairs this time, we knew that it had been no fluke. After about five minutes, he tired of waiting and headed the rest of the way without us. Sure enough, we found him hunkered down at the foot of the bed when we ascended the stairs and poked our noses in the bedroom doorway a few minutes later.
I suppose that his calls were rewarded because a tired Cupster soon joined him. Normally, I go to bed with Cupster and read to her for a while. But we just finished a book and don't have another at hand. Any suggestions?
(There are two more cat photos that you might have missed on The Cupster's blog.)
