A Few Pet Peeves

Maybe they're not even pet peeves but just a few things that mildly irritate me. Four have to do with how people drive, and three others have to do with bloggers (other bloggers, not you).

First, my Driving Peeves

1. Slow drivers who speed up noticeably as soon as they reach a passing zone on a two lane highway. They then slow back down the second the passing zone reverts back to two lanes.

2. Drivers who approach stop signs going about fifty miles an hour when I am entering the intersection perpendicular to them. I am always affeered that they might not stop.

3. Cars that sit on my bumper when I'm already exceeding the speed limit on a two-lane road. I don't mind so much if they pass when the opportunity arises, but when they don't, I feel like frightening them just a little by touching my brakes. I don't though; a car is no place for games.

4. This is specifically directed to the guy around the corner who decided to back into his driveway while I had to wait for him. I didn't really mind the waiting, but what was the dirty look all about? Would you have preferred that I didn't stop but plowed right into you? You are a very silly twit. Sir.

Three Peeves Aimed At SpecificBloggers

1. There's a certain romance involved in linking up with another blogger and following him or her. When a stranger posts a comment to my blog I reciprocate, or at the very least I go to his or her blog and decide whether I would like to reciprocate. If we repeat the process a few times, I tend to assume that I've got a regular visitor, and I add this person to my list and begin to follow and not wait for his or her initiating comments. So far so good, but it really peeves me when I never hear from that blogger again even after I comment a number of times. I don't really care who follows me, but let's not do the dance if you don't want to go home with me — so to speak.

2. Then there's the blogger who had an old template that didn't really lend itself to following. So, when he finally updated his template, he sent me a note that I could now follow easily. Except he never bothered to follow me. Really, Mr Professor, you're not all that special that I would find your writing so irresistible that I would follow you one-sidedly with endless devotion. Blogging is at least partly about relationships and give and take. Otherwise, I can find better writers than you in the newspaper.

3. And to you Dear Lady: you've blogged for a long time and we became blogging friends. Then you moved and no one that I know of has ever heard from you again. Have the courtesy to at least say goodbye. Someone else just did that — said goodbye — and I'm really cool with that, but I am somewhat miffed that you stepped into the void without a departing word. Common courtesy, my dear.

AC and His Unfortunate Mousecapades

I am mainly an essay-style writer, and Cuppa is the story teller. In that vein, I think you would be advised to sit back and read her anecdotes of my famous mousecapades which I mentioned in yesterday's post. Do it. Really.

From Oh No! Not again!

We were merrily driving along the highway going about 60mph when all of a sudden the car began to swerve from side to side. I turned to look at AC and was shocked to see him flapping his arms wildly and banging the steering wheel repeatedly. What the heck was going on? I soon saw that a mouse was running to and fro on his person. Read More

From Mouse in the House

We were in bed early one morning, and I was in a deep, deep sleep. All of a sudden AC sat bolt upright in bed, made an ungodly guttural sound and grabbed his chest. He thrashed about and continued to make horrible sounds. Read More

Of Moose and Mice

Depending on where you live in this huge province, moose hunting season is upon us; different zones begin on different dates. (But let me throw this bit of information out there for warm climate tourists. You will never sight nor hunt moose in Toronto, Montreal or other fine southern Canadian cities. Well, if you do attempt to sight and/or hunt, you will do so in vain. I say this because I hear that it has been attempted by some visitors. It may very well be an urban myth; however, you can't be too careful.)

Not being a hunter, you'd think that the moose season would not be relevant to me, and it isn't except that for me personally, the mouse season is also upon us. It's only a one letter difference after all.

You see, as the weather cools, for some reason local mice begin make a beeline mouseline right into our garage casting longing looks at the basement wall, knowing that there lies a modicum of warmth on the other side.

We've caught four of the blighters in the past week.

I really don't like snapping their little necks and snuffing their little lives like that, but they simply can't be permitted access. It just wouldn't work out. In times past, I've shared both my car and my bed with with mice, and let me tell you that the experience did not work out to our mutual satisfaction.

But I really hate it when the trap doesn't spring properly, like it didn't a few days ago, when one poor little, terrified fella was caught by the cheek.

What to do? He's injured, so you can't set him free. I mean, what do you do?

Fortunately (I guess), I have role models to follow.

For one, I have my father's example, for I vividly remember the cat bringing a trophy in the form of a live mouse into the kitchen one fine day. I was even more shocked by my dad's rapid response of stomping the critter. I never thought of my dad as a quick thinking sort of guy, but he sure was on that day. He stomped with great and fervent alacrity before said mouse could even begin to think of making a beeline mouseline to any sort of nook or cranny. It was a most impressive display by dear old dad.

On another occasion, somewhat later in my life, I saw how Cuppa's dad put a badly trapped mouse out of its misery by holding under the faucet until it drowned.

So, what to do with our poor wee mousie caught by the cheek? Personally, drowning doesn't seem like fun to me, so I opted for the quick, booted stomp.

I hated doing it. I don't like killing. I remember a Clint Eastwood western (I think) where he opines to Morgan Freeman (I think) that it's an awful thing to kill a man because you take away the only thing that he really has — his life (I think). I feel the same way about killing animals and even insects. To wit: I will try to capture a spider who has found its way into our little abode and release it outside. I am also here to inform you that I only take a small amount of satisfaction in swatting the life out of a biting mosquito. So, it was really hard for me to stomp the mouse into oblivion. Really hard: heart poundingly and body-shakingly hard. And if that admission makes me a womanish wimp in the the eyes of blogdom, so be it.

I know that others feel differently about taking animals' lives, but this is the way that I feel. Yes, I eat meat, mostly because I'm too tired and harried these days to figure out how to be a planet and life friendly vegetarian. It would please me if I could or would though.

So that's my little mousecapade. Let's hope that the news of our unfriendly welcome gets around and that any other mice searching for winter warmth take their little bods to one of the many other fine and more hospitable neighborhood establishments.

For a little light relief, I offer you Mouse in the Mug on the Uilleann Pipes. I know I'm reaching, but it's all I've got.

Fiddling in the House

Cuppa and I went to our first house concert last night. If my count is correct, 24 fine folk attended, not including the two hosts and two musicians. Such concerts occur semi regularly in this neck of the woods, where there are a lot of fine musicians, and I had wanted to attend one to sample the experience, and for twenty bucks apiece last night, we got our chance. The price was right, the entertainment was delightful, and the dessert provided by the host were to die for as they say ... somewhere.

Both the location and genre suited me well as the house was very local and the genre was a combination of fiddling (several styles, including Swing) and voice by a performer whom I had encountered previously — Kelli Trottier. She was accompanied by Halifax guitarist, Greg Simm who kept us all loose and entertained with his wonderful sense of humour.



The above clip was taken in a little burg in Ontario; Kelli is the second from the right. This is my kind of fiddling. She didn't a lot of that style last night, but I thoroughly enjoyed what she did. (There is some camera shake in the first few seconds, but it soon settles down.)

Below is a clip of Kelli singing with her somewhat renown touring company of fiddlers and violinists, Bowfire. The group very recently performed for Sean Connery's 80th birthday party in The Bahamas.



Both Cuppa and I were pleased with our first house concert experience. My horoscope predicts that I will attend more house concerts in the future.

Thursday Takes

I've been updating garden progress periodically as it evolves ever so slowly. We have completed another little job — lining the inside of the driveway border with stones ↑↑. We've also added two Chrysanthemums (as you can see) and two little Daylilies (which you probably can't see). I was hoping to do some renovation in the centre garden last weekend, but I was down with a cold. Given the time of year, I think I'll just make a few notes now and wait for the spring.

School is in. The neighbours with little children gather at the bus stop across the street; everyone stands around in a loose circle. I think it's cute, so I took this picture from my window. ↓↓




Since we had yesterday off from our babysitting gig, we took a little walk in the park after sitting and munching on fries/chips from the chip truck. Since I met our mayor at the truck and compared our chip-enhanced tummies, I have decided to vote for him in the upcoming election. To the point: the walk goes past the local high school and kids were our playing lacrosse in gym class. ↑↑

Further along, a little motor boat passed up and a lady and her dog walking on the other bank. ↓↓




Finally, I thought these geese ↑↑ were kind of framed nicely through these diverging tree trunks. Too bad they weren't interested in posing nicely and were already on the move. Because they were so anxious to be off, I wasn't able to get their names or to have them sign a consent form to allow me to post this. So, I am presuming.

Wheelbarrow Photos Found

Perhaps you recall me posting these two wheelbarrow photos last week, the first with Grampa Me with Nikki Dee and the second with Little Me in my grampa's wheelbarrow.





Perhaps you also recall that we thought we had similarly-themed photos of Thesha with her grampa. I had looked through many old boxes of slides in the hopes of finding it — to no avail. However, I picked up one more box the other day. Lo and behold.

These were taken in 1973 at grampa's cottage when Thesha was less than a year old, probably seven or eight months. While I had forgotten about both photos, even Cuppa had not remembered the one with her included ... and Mac the pooch, of course.

Belated Cottage Pics

Even though it's not Christmas, like Cratchit I am a little behind my times with this post. We have been back from the cottage for almost three weeks, but it took me awhile to get around to posting these pictures because I first had to finish working with photos from our Down East trip,. Let's face it; it just had to be done. This batch I like from a photographic point of view.

I walked into the woods, not very far in, to see what I could see. Soon, I heard chickadees cheeping and headed toward the sound. They were brave enough to stay within camera distance for awhile.

While I was standing still and taking chickadee pictures, a chipmunk stopped in front of me for quite a long time, trying to take the measure of such a weird, clumsy creature.

On another occasion, I passed this Monarch butterfly in the trees. Apparently, they have been somewhat scarce in the past few years, so I was glad to see this one and others later on.

Evenings found us down at the planer mill. We'd light candles inside and start a campfire outside. As you can see, it gets quite dark in the country.

There is a garage/shed on the property. I have taken pictures of the front, but this time I focussed on this simple picture of the window in the back wall.

There is also a picturesque red bar on the property. Again, I focussed on a small area including a window.

Every year I seem to take a picture of the planer mill. It really was a working mill up until about fifteen years ago. Now that it has been screened in, we can be indoors away from the bugs but still feel like we are outdoors.

We call this cleared area Bench Sward because years ago, my nephew and his friends built a Friendship Bench there (to the left of the willow tree in the photo). Although it's hard to see from this angle, we can get down to the river for a swim at one spot. It's a bit of a steep access, but we can manage. It's always cold in the Crowe River, however.

Through the screen, I spied with my little eye Auntie Lychee walking with Zach. I quickly took two pictures: one with the people in focus and one with the screen in focus. They're both okay, but I prefer this one with the screen in focus.

That's about it. Whatever will I think to blog about next?