Christmas Number 1

Cast of Characters for this post:

MARK: Bearded money-maker and guitar player. Can ride a unicycle and juggle, yet is not in the circus. Occasionally wonders if it is possible to import a Capybara from South America.

JULIE: The writer. Considers herself a quiet person but suspects that others see her as boisterous. Can sing many songs in Gaelic but cannot speak it.

DEB: Mark's mother, and Gran's daughter. Has been referred to as "Poor old Deb" since she was a toddler. (This nickname mildly upsets her.) Deb runs a rest home (Mark says I'm not allowed to call it a "laughing academy"). She also goes to her mother's house at least once a day and tells her not to flush kitty litter down the toilet. Spends most of every day helping those who rely on her - that's over 20 residents, upwards of a dozen employees, and her mother - and might just go crazy because of it.

GRAN: A WWII War Bride, Deb's mother, and Mark's grandmother. Her three interests in life are: her cats; playing cards and/or doing puzzles; and upsetting her daughter. Likes to tell us that she thinks 89 is a great age to die. She is currently 87. (This upsets her daughter.) Gran recently discovered that there is a such thing as flushable cat litter, and promptly bought a bag.

HARVEY: The strong silent type, and also Deb's husband. Lover of dogs, cats, deer, and guinea fowl. Enjoys fixing things and wants to be a trucker when he grows up now that he is retired.

~~~
We all spent Christmas together at Deb and Harvey's house near Bridgewater. There was all the usual stuff: eating too much, drinking just enough, opening presents, playing cards for money, and asking each other if Gran had taken her pills. It was a pretty good day.

We woke up the next morning and decided to take a jaunt into "the city" to see what sort of Boxing Day sales were to be had. The answer was: none. Only in Nova Scotia, folks, are all the stores closed for Boxing Day in spite of the huge advertisements for "Boxing Day Sales" that we saw everywhere. We drove around several empty parking lots and said some bad words. Then we drove back to Bridgewater.

Along the way, we all decided that it might be nice to eat some lobster. Now, Nova Scotians who know what's what never buy lobsters from a store. We all know "a guy" and that is who we get our lobsters from. It's just the way things are around here. (Except for my parents, who sometimes buy their lobsters from the grocery store. But it's the grocery store where my mother works, so that makes it okay.)

So Harvey made a couple of phone calls and we drove off alongside the LaHave River until the river had reached the ocean. There we drove down a dirt road and pulled up to a charming fishing shanty. As we drove up I could see a fisherman in rubber boots next to a purple boat behind the shanty. THIS, folks, is who you buy a lobster from.


We got our lobster, and had a meal to remember. Gran piped up to ask whether she had come along to get them (she had). She then claimed not to care for lobster, right before she ate one whole one plus part of a second. Gran is as sharp as a tack but has NO short-term memory. Last time we went for a visit, she made a few mistakes while playing cards. She laughed, and in her proper London accent, said "it must be my De-men-tee-ah." I was relieved that her card-playing was back up to its usual standards during our Christmas visit.

Mark and I are back home now. I read in the paper this morning that people were lining up at like 10pm Friday night to get into the stores for the "Boxing Day" sales the next morning. Which was not Boxing Day. Ahem.

I'm kind of glad we missed out on it - we would have gotten trapped in traffic and if we'd actually made it into any stores I'm sure I would have had a stroke or something. I HATE crowds.

So that was Christmas #1. Christmas #2 will take place later this week in Truro, at my parents' house. It was delayed because we are Greek Orthodox.

Nah, just kidding. It was delayed because of my sister's fiancé, who had to work on Christmas day because he saves lives and all.

Hope you all had a great Christmas/ holiday/ whatever. I will let you know how round 2 goes in a few days.

overheard under the tree

ARLO: Just because you're teensy-tiny doesn't mean everyone likes you more.

OLIVER: Yes it does. Look at how many Christmas presents I got.

ARLO: I got some toys too.


OLIVER: Yeah, but you have to share ALL of those toys with me, and I got a gazillion adorable outfits to wear that make me look EVEN CUTER than I already am, and you didn't get any clothes.

ARLO: But it doesn't mean people like you more. Actually you're a bit of a jerk to people.

OLIVER: Yes, I am a jerk. I bark rudely at people for ten minutes, but then they LOVE ME as soon as I creep up next to their feet and stare at them with my disproportionately large puppy-like liquid brown eyes. Everyone secretly loves me the most.

ARLO: You know, I'm a Registered Therapy Pet. I'm pretty much the perfect dog. I gravitate to the injured and sick and am very gentle with small children. I am kind to everyone.

OLIVER: Yeah, but you're big. I'm little and cute. No matter how badly I behave, nobody cares.


ARLO: You know, I picked up a Miniature Pinscher in my mouth once.

OLIVER: You wouldn't.

my winter hero

We thought we lucked out this past weekend when it looked like we had nothing to do but laze around inside our cozy house. Hah!


Then, late last week, I ran into one of our new neighbours and she invited us to her little boy's sixth birthday party. His Zodiac sign is Sagittarius, which Wikipedia tells me is "The Archer". See that trivia I just gave you there? I'm a pretty useful person, you know.

So little Archer's birthday party was on Saturday. I asked his mom what time to come over and she said "whenever". Huh. I don't really do that well with "whenever". I figured early afternoon would be a good bet, and we peeked out our windows periodically to see if there were any signs of life across the road at the party house. I AGONIZED about showing up at just the right moment, and it turns out that we did! The kids were moments away from eating hot dogs and cup cakes, and the mothers were chit-chatting in the kitchen. We gave Archer some play dough, ate cupcakes that we decorated ourselves, and managed to socialize with the adults like normal people. I'd count that as a victory.

Late that evening Mark noticed that we had a message on our phone. It was Tanya, a close family friend who lives nearby, asking if we wanted to hang out that weekend. Seeing as how she had a NEW PUPPY we could not say no. I called her up and we made a plan, only when I asked her what time we should arrive, she said "whenever". Again with the "whenever"!! We took a chance with the weather and drove the half hour to her house on Sunday afternoon.


We were fed sushi and got to snorgle her puppy Maya. It was sheer heaven.

Until the snow hit.

As soon as we realized it had started to snow, we made our escape. The roads in Tanya's community weren't that bad, but as soon as we got on the highway our visibility was marred by giant puffs of snow that swirled in our headlights and ricocheted off our windshield at a high velocity. Oh, and we couldn't see the painted lines on the highway or, for that matter, where the pavement ended and the shoulder began. Woops!

The roads were not slippery so we kept on. Conditions deteriorated after about ten minutes and we started considering the idea of taking the next exit, wherever that might be. I was hesitant - as bad as it was on the highway, with the high winds and drifting snow, I could not fathom driving aimlessly down a lonely country road in the hopes that we would find some sort of motel or even just a cleared parking lot. Furthermore, once we stopped the truck, there we would be forced to sit until conditions were better. Maybe a plow would reach the smaller roads that night; maybe it wouldn't get there 'til morning.

We decided to stay on the highway and luck found us. We gained on a line of cars and trucks ahead of us, and at the head of the convoy was the plow! It was smooth sailing until we reached our exit, where Mark was forced to choose between running a stop sign or getting stuck in a snow drift. (He ran it.) After that it was only a matter of taking turns slowly - and finally, finally, we were in our own driveway.

I told Mark he was my hero and he looked very pleased with himself. The moral is: sushi and puppies are worth the risk of a snowstorm!

It's more than twenty-four hours since we pulled into the driveway and the wind is still howling outside. The snow stopped about three hours ago.


The day after tomorrow is Christmas eve. Drive safely, everyone. (We promise we will too, from now on.)

8 Days 'til Xmas

Our first Christmas tree ever in our new house is up. We won't be spending Christmas day here, but it would have been depressing to have no tree! We've done that in years past - didn't want to deal with it amongst hectic travel plans - and I wouldn't recommend it. Unless, you know, you're Jewish or something.

Happy Christma-Hanuk-Kwanzaa-kah, y'all.


It snowed today. It was the finest, most powdery snow! Later on it turned to freezing rain, which was not quite so idyllic. We took the dogs out for a short walk this evening after Mark was done working, and when we got back home my jacket had a layer of ice all over it. Oliver was not pleased with the weather - no big surprise there.


Oh, I almost forgot - I wanted to tie up a loose end. The courier from last week that I was complaining about came back the next day, as promised, and brought us our Dyson hand-held vacuum cleaner! It's AWESOME to the EXTREEEEME. And I didn't have to pay the $10 re-delivery charge.

Mark just came into the living room wearing a set of dark grey full-body thermal long underwear and a Mexican Lucha Libre mask. I think I have to go.

carpets (again!) & concerts

I am taking your continued carpet suggestions under advisement. You guys are still pretty rabid about this topic! There are two options that tempt me more than the others:

• Do a moss green carpet instead of the blue.

This would tie in well with the rest of the house, which has a lot of green in it. We also like green. However, I would be forced to buy further samples. They're only $6 for six samples, but still, I've ordered three sets of six so far.

• Do the blue, with a small number of random striped ones thrown in.

This way I can stay with the blue, which I like quite a bit, but there would also be a bit of oomph to the carpet. However, not sure if it would look weird and piecemeal to do this or not. I like the idea but can't visualize if it would be good.

There are a bunch of other good suggestions; some not my style, and some that wouldn't work in this room for one reason or another. I'm also listening to the 'general' carpet advice - you guys are so SAGE. And LEARNED. And WISE. You rock.

Our Christmas tree is up and half-decorated. We bought some bulbs and ornaments to put on it, but they don't come with the little hook thingies and we don't have any. We went downtown today to buy some and stopped at the first hardware store, a local independent place. They had none.

Then we went to Home Hardware. Sold out.

Then we went to the drug store. Sold out.

Alas and alack. We bought some paperclips - they're the plastic-covered coloured ones because that's all there was to be had - and we will hang the ornaments with those.

I'm not really annoyed by the fact that we can't get whatever we want, whenever we want it, in this small town. I think there's something to be said for having to work for what you want or make do with what you've got. Maybe next year we'll buy some real hooks, or maybe we'll just stick with our paperclips.

I remember when I was younger my mom would store her hookie thingies in baby food jars. I'm not sure why - I guess that's what she had available at the time - but now I've developed a very strong mental association. These two items, decoration hooks and baby food jars, each remind me of the other item.


So last week the elementary school across the road put on their Christmas concert. Mark and I snuck in. Well, we didn't sneak, but we certainly weren't sure if they'd let us in without a kid, but they did. The concert was HILARIOUS. This was the formula:

• Audience waits five minutes while children are shuffled into various positions on stage.
• Children stand stiffly staring at us for another minute or so.
  
• 30 children sing a song that apparently only six of them know the words to.
• Children stand stiffly staring at us.
• A microphone is thrust into a child's hand. It says a line while three other children stand stiffly with their hands outstretched, awaiting microphone.
  
• The next three children say a line once they get the microphone.
• Children stand stiffly staring at us.
• Audience waits five minutes while a different set of children are shuffled into various positions on stage.
• Children stand stiffly staring at us.
• The entire above sequence was repeated about six times, then the concert was over.
  

A few notable events in the concert:

• Cute skinny kid with glasses who had a line and pronounced his "r"s like "w". Like this: " SANTA AND HIS WAINDEAW WILL AWWIVE VEWY SOON!"
  
• Cute short blond kid who didn't sing a single word of the song, but looked very, very proud to be on stage. He didn't even try to look like he was singing. Stared at the girl next to him with pride for the second half of the song.
• A small selection of little girls who were wearing extra fancy party dresses under their costumes. Looked very festive.
• Mrs. Claus. Was she chosen because she was the, er, most matronly-shaped child, or was she chosen because she was capable of memorizing seven or eight separate sentences? We may never know.
• For variety, the children sang a swingy Christmas jazz song. Then the children sang a Christmas rap song. The jazz was better.
  

hapless

So Mark and I went out the door at lunch today and found a note taped to it from the "Sameday Right-O-Way" courier company.

We had both been home all morning with no music or anything going, so we were a bit surprised to have missed the courier.

"What do you think it was?", asks Mark. I told him it might be the hand-held vacuum we ordered with our Visa points. Yeah! We were both pretty happy.

I read the little blurb on the courier note and it said that I could either go get my package at their depot, or for a $10 fee they would re-deliver it. Uh-oh. This is Bridgetown. I suspected that the depot was probably in Greenwood, which is almost a half hour from here. Have I mentioned that the weather forecast for today and tomorrow is "ice pellets"? Yeah, here's the pic:


They weren't joking, either. It's not nice out. Check out those little triangles - someone at the Weather Network is getting creative on us!

ANYWAY, I was a bit surprised that the courier, who may very well have tip-toed onto my back porch, left the note, and ran, was now going to either make me brave the horrible weather and come get whatever the package was, or charge me $10. After one FEEBLE delivery attempt. Has anyone else ever heard of this?

So I called them to discuss, and the abrupt lady from the courier company told me that those were my only options, and that the depot is not a half hour away in Greenwood; it's AN HOUR AWAY in Kentville. So I either drive an hour in ice pellets, or I pay $10.

Ugh!

I asked her who it was from. "It's from us", she says. Uh, what? I asked her what it was. "It's a free reward - it's a gift" she says. What?? I ask her what it is again, and she says "a camera or something probably".

It was all very confusing. I told her that we were an hour from the depot, and that I wasn't paying $10 for a free gift that I hadn't asked for. So she asked if I wanted to send it back and I said whatever. She says "it's your choice, what do you want me to do?" and I said, AGAIN, that I wasn't paying for a free gift that I hadn't asked for.

That phone call thoroughly confused me. Who are these people? Why are they trying to scam me with free gifts? What is going on here?

I looked "Sameday Right-o-Way" up on the Better Business Bureau and didn't find an entry for that company. Drat! I DID find some online forums discussing the company, and it turns out that they're pretty big, and a legitimate courier company.

I was not feeling happy. What if it was my vacuum? I would pay $10 for that. It's a Dyson! DYSONS RULE. I've heard that if you have a pet you need a Dyson, but since the big models are waaay expensive we've never actually owned one. And now, because the courier company is mentally defective, my free hand-held Dyson vacuum might be kept from me!

I decided to call back and hopefully reach an operator who wasn't so abrupt and weird. So I call, and I get a girl with a brain. I told her that we were home but the courier left a note anyway, and that I'd called earlier and had a confusing conversation, and that I just wanted to know who the package was from. She says "it's from a Rewards Program". Aaaaah. That is a much less retarded way to answer my question, thank you operator. I asked her if I'd have to pay $10, and was ready to offer up the argument that we've always heard our door before, and if we don't the dogs do, and I shouldn't be forced to pay because their delivery guy is feeble. I didn't need to say it. She told me that they'd try again tomorrow, and there would be no $10 charge.

Alright, free vacuum! Hopefully!

rug saga: Part II

It seems that our rug ideas for the living room are a tad controversial. LOVE the comments and emails guys! For the most part, those of you who disagree are all sneaking around trying not to offend, which is really sweet - but seriously, blast away if our opinions differ. They're just rugs, people.

I think I should have given a few reasons for the particular choices we picked from Flor. You may have noticed that our dog Arlo is a big dog. A big white dog. A big white dog with LOTS of fur that falls off of him in handfuls. So we need a light-coloured carpet to hide the layer of white fluff that is a constant reminder of his presence.

When we were staying with my parents before we bought this house, they had a VERY red rug in their living room. Arlo would walk casually across the room, and suddenly the carpet looked, well, unkempt. I may be relatively immune to animal mess at this point in my life, but my family is not. They own a neat little Valley Bulldog with a neat little short coat of fur, and the animal vs. cleanliness balance was well in check before we showed up. Suddenly my messy Shepherd/mutt comes to stay and is wrecking up the place practically just by standing there. Alas. I had to vacuum that red rug constantly but it reinforced a valuable lesson. That lesson is: our carpets must camouflage white fur.

The next consideration is price - the living room is a big room to cover, so we picked moderately priced ones.

Next consideration: soft on feet. Check.


Final consideration: Not busy. Living rooms tend to be busy rooms to begin with, so we wanted something to calm the room down instead of jarring it. I DO get a kick out of the crazy, busy "Souk" carpet (pictured), but... it wouldn't work. (The above picture and the next one were lifted from the Flor website.)


Mark is actually toying with the idea of getting the "Stitch in Time" rug (pictured) for his office. We got a sample of that too and it's SOOO SOFT. It's very busy, but there's not much furniture in his office and it's a small room with lots of natural light, so I think that rug will look cool in there.

Thus begins the saga of the carpets. Like I said, we probably won't order them until January - we already accidentally ordered the bed and it's more important to have that anyway. First the bed, then the carpets. Also, with travelling and holidays and snowstorms and stuff life is going to be just a wee bit hectic this month.

Oh, and I almost forgot. By request, here is a picture of our door-floor-thingy. These are found at every door, and I guess this is the way they made them in the "olden days" when this house was young. They're bigger than those new-fangled modern ones - this one is an inch higher than the surrounding floor - but the Roomba can still make it over them so no big deal.

bed adventures (wink wink)

So we've been investigating options for new beds lately. We are currently sleeping on a bed that Mark's mother kindly kept in storage for us, but it's not one of those awesome antique things she kept for us - it's just an old bed - so in the long term we'd like to get a nice new mattress and a purdy bed frame.

We had already gone to Sears a few weeks ago and found a mattress that was nice to lay on. We went today to Leon's (don't laugh; it's Canadian made) to look at some stuff we'd found online, and they didn't actually have any of the stuff we liked online in the store. We got some info on a great enviro-friendly mattress, looked at a few bed frames that might be passable, and went home.

Now Ikea. Oh, Ikea. Why are your shipping fees so confusing? They are so confusing, they absolutely defeated me. We'd already been online looking at the Ikea stuff earlier in the week, and shipping fees were weird. Mark didn't remember looking so this morning he made me pull up the website again just to show him how complicated it was. The website still had those weird slats (the things they use instead of box-springs, which we actually had in Victoria and loved) in my shopping cart from when I'd looked the other day, and I picked a bed at random and started the order process, making fun of it the whole way. You see, halfway through the order process last time, they calculated the shipping fees for me, and then I stopped and closed the window.

That didn't happen this time. Before we got to the shipping fees screen, we were suddenly at a very nice screen that thanked me for my order. WHAT??! OH NO!!! I accidentally ordered a bed from Ikea.

We got on the phone to them and they said not to worry - someone will call me in the next day or so to confirm, and I can just tell them I don't want it. I blamed Mark for making me try to show him the shipping costs, and that was when we went to Leon's. The thing about Leon's is, that, their bed frames are a tad expensive, and they try to force you to use a box-spring and we don't want to.

When we got back home we lazed around reading books and surfing the net. Mark was reading a neat book we got as a gift - it's an environmentally friendly shopping guide for Canadian products. He told me that they kept saying how good Ikea was, so we decided to see if there was actually anything we liked from Ikea. After all, even with the shipping charges, it would likely be cheaper than Leon's. We looked at EVERY SINGLE ONE, and ya know what? Our favourite is the one we already accidentally ordered that I picked at random.

I guess we'll... keep it?

???