The Ripsnorter Post

The other day when W asked me what I was doing I told him I had to go see what my space people were up to.  How’s that for a ripsnorter of an answer.

“Ripsnorter” was the word of the day last whatever day it was, I can’t remember and it doesn’t matter, but it stuck in my head because my dad used to like that word to describe something he thought was particularly great.  Or terrible.  Or bizarre.  I liked the “ripsnorter of a storm” nights when he woke everyone up and herded us all downstairs into the living room where we waited for one of our big old maple trees to be struck by lightning and crash through our roof.  Best not to be on the top floor if that happened.

I think he might have called my sister Ann a little ripsnorter when she would jump into the pig pen with the dog making him bark and move the pigs around, generally causing mayhem in an enclosed space. It’s a wonder she didn’t get trampled.  She has calmed down a lot since then.

We have had such a mild and pleasant winter until just lately when the temperatures decided to plummet.  And I mean plummet in a completely ripsnorter-y fashion.  I am wearing big socks and a hoodie and drinking hot coffee mostly to warm up my hands.  Even turned up the heat at one point.  And I’ve hauled out my winter coat.  I think old bones feel the cold more intensely.

Or perhaps physical inactivity is a contributing factor, for example, sitting under a blanket watching multiple episodes of “Dark Matter” on Netflix and having a hard time remembering what the series is called and referring to it as a space show.  With space people.  They all woke up from stasis on their space ship with their memories erased.  Sort of like I feel some mornings before getting out of bed. What day is it?  Why am I singing “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence” in my head?  Why is this floor so damned cold??

The best character is an android. I love her. She has ridiculous hair.  It’s a ripsnorter of a hair do.

Also i am busy doing some Christmas baking even though I can’t eat any of it.  The fudge is done and also some rolled up concoction consisting mainly of chocolate and mini marshmallows and coconut which my kids once named the Christmas turds before they were unwrapped and sliced in to more appetizing cookie like shapes.

Shortbread today I think.  Then some butter tarts.  I came across a recipe for cranberry meatballs so I tried those last night.  Kind of sickeningly sweet, so maybe more of an hors d’œuvre than a main dish.  And this year I am going to make some kind of a steamed pudding and make everyone try some.  That’s the one thing I miss from my childhood Christmases.  Being absolutely stuffed but still digging into a plate of hot Christmas pudding covered in a rich butter and brown sugar sauce.

Neither my kids nor W liked it so I quit making it.  My moms version was the ripsnorter one for sure but I will make one less like a Christmas cake and tell them it’s something called sticky toffee pudding cake.  ‘Tis the season to be cunning and devious.  I love how steamed pudding makes the kitchen smell and steams up the windows, which will turn to ice which will make W freak out.

He has ripsnorter freak outs.  He will vehemently deny this, but its true.  After my baking I will be tired and grumpy so I’m looking forward to my space people having way worse lives than I do cheering me up.

In other unrelated non-holiday news, I have gone for my pulmonary breathing test from hell where I had to wear a clothes pin thing on my nose and mouth breathe into a tube for 30 minutes in various strange ways as instructed by some guy who has a very weird job for sure.  I will venture out into the cold again tomorrow to get some shopping done.  Less than two weeks to go.

Hope you’re having a ripsnorter of a December.  Stay warm.

Sharing My World 14

Share Your World – 2015 Week #1

How do you get rid of pesky phone calls from telemarketers?

By saying as many completely stupid things as it takes.

What are you a “natural” at doing?

Saying completely stupid things.

How often do you get a haircut?

I don’t like to admit this and I certainly don’t brag about it,  but most of the time I cut my hair myself.  It’s only hair, and it’s a pretty simple cut.  I’m familiar with its licks and quirks and how it grows.  It has to be left a little longer on the top where it’s thin and grows slowly,  and thinned out like crazy in the back where its thick and grows fast.  Some hair dressers get this.  Others get it backwards and then wonder why I have a mullet in a couple of weeks.   I have a different definition of a “trim” than they do and it does not include words like “scalping” or “buzz cut”.  I can trim other people’s hair, so why not my own?  I have excellent hair cutting scissors and a trimmer with different attachments.  I do the back with the help of a mirror.  Eventually my trimmed up locks get to the point where a professional needs to deal with them.  Hey, I pay them good money, they should have to work for it, right?

Since I no longer go to work or have to do something with my hair in a hurry every day,  I have been letting it dry naturally and wave and curl and do whatever it wants.  So far, no small children have been traumatized (as far as I know.)

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word “fun”?

If you were expecting it might be “saying completely stupid things to telemarketers” you would be wrong. That’s not fun for either one of us, really.   But spending time with family, where the stupid things you’ve said can be repeated and laughed at – that’s fun.   My artwork is fun.  So is blogging and reading and playing word games and staying at home and relaxing.  I’m not very high maintenance, I guess.

Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week to come?

I am grateful for a quiet New Years Eve, a warm and cozy house that keeps out the bitter cold, new movies on Netflix and my charcoal pencils.  It’s been lovely to watch the magpies coming and going in the big black spruce tree across the road, and to catch a glimpse of the white jack rabbit making fresh footprints in the snow.

I don’t know what I’m looking forward to.  Certainly not calls from telemarketers.  By now they probably have our number on their lost causes list anyway.

Winter Weather Jots

For those of you who don’t already know it, this month is officially Just Jot it January, or JusJoJan.  See, I have the sign to prove it.  You can even click on it for the link.

It is also cold outside, and I have proof of that too because I took a screen shot.

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My new weather network app informed me this clear sunny Sunday morning that the temperature outside was -34 C, feels like -43 C.  So it’s gotten considerably better since then, right?  Except that the early dark always makes me feel colder.

I got rid of my old weather app because it always showed me a pretty rural landscape which appeared to have inclement weather happening somewhere in front of it, or off to the side with little actual effect on the blue sky and green grass.  There was also a big bold and annoying sign hanging in the sky telling me how lovely the premium features of this app would prove to be if only I would decide to purchase the upgrade.  So I deleted it instead.

I live with a weatherman, and the app is just a heads up, so that when he stands in front of me looking out the window to inform me that it’s snowing, I can say I already knew that.  Today of all days he decided he had to get out of the house and do something.  So all by myself I have had to figure out that it’s snowing heavily in B.C. and there is dangerous freezing rain in the Maritime provinces and Newfoundland has some crazy winds going on.

It’s a very good day for all sane Canadians to stay inside and read a good book I think.  This thought brings us all the way back around in a circle to the first prompt theme for JusJoJan which happens to be Reading.  See how I did that?  But, back to the jotting part, the rules state that we can also jot down random thoughts and share them.

Being currently in a very share-y mood and a chronic haver of random thoughts, I decided to go through my list of the puzzling things I have on my notebook phone app.  Little pieces of paper can go missing or be thrown away.  These, on the other hand, tend to accumulate and defy deletion.

1.  dates, rice flour, coconut, espresso powder? (I think the question mark indicates that I feared not being able to find such a thing because it might not exist)

2.  sit in the fridge for 10 minutes (recipe instructions that cracked me up)

3.  4:20 pick up time 23rd (I believe that was about a bus on holidays.  You don’t want to miss a holiday bus.)

4.  Appt at 1, be there 15 min early, allow for traffic and parkade and bicycle accidents (Good advice I guess)

5.  A little mini list of my grandchildren and each of their birthdays.  (I remember doing this one, because I got tired of being asked their ages and having to be vague about it.  Bad grandma.)

6.  Scrubber Vileda (because brand names are hard to remember)

7.  A long and involved recipe for  Lebkuchen  (although I’m not even sure what that is)

8.  Sorry, I was busy expanding my inner bliss in to the universe. (Always put you excuses in writing)

9.  Glop is a valid scrabble word (Who knew?  Probably every scrabble player but me)

10.  De-calcify pineal gland (what?)

There’s  more than ten, but you probably don’t care what my cell phone bill amounts are.  Or the prices of organic produce.  Frankly, neither do I, once the moment has passed.

Well, that’s entirely enough jotting for one day.  There will be a new prompt on the 10th.  I’m sure I will be able to flub my way through that one too.  Or glop.  I could also glop.  Maybe I should jot that down.

Allergic to November

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It’s one of those dull and dreary overcast snowy days and I’m sitting inside my house sneezing my face off.  Would you not think all the airborne allergens would be frozen solid by November?  We have a constantly running air purifier on our furnace and I have another small one right beside me supposedly sucking the impurities out of my breathing space. Maybe I’m allergic to my choice of tissues.  Wouldn’t that be funny?  Whatever.  I’ve given up trying to figure it out and will eventually get tired of my sniffling and watering eyes and take a 24 hour relief allergy pill.  The strange thing is, tomorrow I may be perfectly fine with no symptoms at all. It’s a perfect day to stay inside where it’s warm so that’s my current plan. I am working on a drawing which is all about perspective and vanishing points and proportions and who knows how many other “p” words.  If pain in the ass comes up, you will never see it. This morning W got the stitches removed from his right hand where he had a procedure done to straighten out his ring and pinky fingers.  He has to wear a splint to keep them straight and will be going to some kind of hand rehab place starting next week.  My sister recently had carpal tunnel surgery on her right hand and is still in recovery mode.  Last night I started knitting a cotton dish cloth (you are officially old when you think this is an interesting way to spend your time) and my right hand went all tingly and numb so I stopped.  Taking frequent breaks helps.  This doesn’t happen when I draw.  Yet.   I cannot imagine what my mood would be like if my right hand suddenly ceased to function normally. Well, the problem is, I CAN imagine it and it’s not pretty.  So let’s all be grateful for the use of whichever hand we use the most to get through our day!  If you don’t type with a pencil between your teeth or paint with your feet, you are one of the lucky ones. Okay, I’m taking a pill now.  Because my nose is going all tingly and numb.  Along with my brain.  Hey, it’s a day and it’s a post   My work here is done.

In Good Times and Bad

They  travel by snow machine pulling a heavy komatik behind them, for hours and hours across the tundra and the ocean ice towards the horizon, getting nowhere.

The sunlight reflecting off the ice and snow is blinding and the cold dry air makes her face feel like frozen leather, chilling her body to the bone.

This is not the life she imagined.

Back home at a dinner party he is animated in the telling of their great adventure while she sips her wine with fever blistered lips and a puzzled stare.

Roxy looks at one and then the other and back again, suddenly raising her glass to drink to the notion that theirs is surely a marriage made in hell.

Five Sentence Fiction is about packing a powerful punch in a tiny fist. This weeks word – Marriage.

Just Jazzy 295

Jazzy Does 100 Days of Happiness 82

Happiness is hauling out the sweaters you had packed away and grabbing a warm throw against the brisk morning air, because it’s still August and we are NOT closing any windows yet.

What I Did On the Last Day of February

1.  Wondered how it got to be the last day of February all of a sudden.

2. Spent seven and a half hours (by the clock) and seventeen hundred hours (in my head) at work. Friday has become the longest day of the week.

3.  Listened to cold people complain about being cold, sick people complain about being sick, and people with broken glasses complain about their glasses being broken.  Glasses I can try to fix.  That other stuff, you’re on your own. Now please go away and stop breathing on me.

4.  Came home and ate an entire bag of Brookside dark chocolate Goji with Raspberry.  But not the big bag.  Found myself not caring that the small bag might still be a bit piggy for just one person.  (I’ve tried them all.  They’re all delicious, regardless of bag size.)

5.  On the advice of my baby sister, sat down and watched some episodes of Psych on Netflix.  Was happy to discover that even though I was tired, I was not too tired to laugh.

6.  Thought about this fun month doing Cin’s Feb Challenge and felt a bit sad that it’s over.  Today is ‘selfie and brag about your fun month’ day.  I’m too tired to brag, but trust me, it was awesome fun. Thanks Cin. ♥

This is not really me, but close enough.

Now I’m going to go to sleep for the rest of this month and tomorrow if all goes well I’m going to wake up in a brand new one.  The one where spring might actually happen.  Yay!  If it doesn’t, there’s always Netflix and chocolate.

What To Do With A November Day

 This is what it looks like here on my street on this snowy November late afternoon.  It’s hard to get a good shot of giant snowflakes, but trust me, they’re out there falling.   If you don’t have any snow yet wherever you are, perhaps this has made you ridiculously jealous.

Yeah.

It was not my idea to already be stringing Christmas lights on our bare and frozen little tree, but I suppose it does make this gloomy blue day a little more cheery.

I have no idea why I continue to live in this God forsaken climate.

No, that’s not true.  I have one idea.  Weather like this is custom-made for lighting a couple of candles and curling up somewhere warm with a hot drink and a good book.

“In the winter she curls up around a good book and dreams away the cold.”  
―     Ben Aaronovitch,     Broken Homes    

Seven Year Flight, No Landing in Sight

I SO love to state the obvious.  No one cares enough to disagree with you when you do that.

We got the snow the weather people promised us yesterday.  A lot of it melted during the day and froze again over night, so this morning it was seasonably cold and the roads were covered in ice.  Glare ice, actually.  As if the kind that glares is even more dangerous than the dull stuff.  Or the ominous black kind.  They’re all super annoying.  I chose this day to drive across town to my doctor’s office, going through three school zones all on the same street between 8:30 and 9:00 a.m.  Yeah, I don’t know what I was thinking either.

This normally 10 minute long drive took about half an hour of brake pumping and the odd sideways slide.  Then I had to walk across an ice-covered parking lot without falling on my head, go up a double flight of stairs and down a long set of confusing corridors, sit down and immediately have a blood pressure monitor cut off the circulation in my right arm.  Those things freak me out.  So although I took several deep breaths and thought calm and happy thoughts, my reading was high.  There’s a reason for calling it hypertension.

To make myself feel better about winter and all the damned ice and my life in general,  I crunched my way over the treacherous McDonald’s drive-thru on the way home and picked up breakfast for me and W, including two gigantic coffees.  Take that, high blood pressure.

I don’t even care if all this mundane blather about my morning is boring the hell out of you.  Well, maybe I’m a bit sorry about that, but I have my reasons.  For being boring that is.  Yesterday I got this notification from the Word Press stats people. Or a cheery enthusiastic computer perhaps.

You registered on WordPress.com 7 years ago!

Thanks for flying with us. Keep up the good blogging!

So there you go.  No wonder I’ve been feeling slightly bloggishly burned out lately.  I’m not that interesting a person or deluded enough to believe I could have seven years worth of astoundingly brilliant things to say.

This is post one thousand five hundred and eight.  Which means you could sit around all day clicking on my random posts picture top right (see that lady gazing at her glass of wine?) and probably never read the same thing twice.  Except I do tend to repeat myself a lot, so don’t hold me to that.  Because, come on.  It’s been seven years. Better open a bottle before you start.

Crazy.  But the first five years don’t really count because I posted so sporadically and was mostly talking to myself when I started.  It’s only in the last couple of years that I have ventured out of my little blogging cocoon and made some friends.

It’s been a rather long flight.  Sure hope the plane doesn’t crash.

Hotest Hot Vs. Coldest Cold

Which one is worse? Worse for what? They’re both the worst for different reasons. Extreme anything is always worse than things in moderation. Extremes tend to make people extremely cranky. Would you rather build a snowman on your front lawn or a sandcastle on the beach? Crank up the heat or crank up the air conditioning?

I don’t like the cold and the snow and seeing my breath in the air. I don’t like how the snow crunches under my feet at 40 below and how the house cracks and groans and how the furnace won’t stop running, and how the heating bill (and the heat) go through the roof. I don’t like winter driving on ice and how sometimes it feels like my tires have frozen into squares, and scraping off the windshield and stomping the snow off my boots and putting on and taking off layers of bulky clothing and still having popsicle fingers and toes.

What I do like about extreme cold is looking at it from the inside out (with a furnace that never stops running of course.) A warm fire and some candles burning, a cozy throw, a good book, a hot drink. I’d be happy to spend the entire month of January every year here inside my nice warm house and never venture out into the freezing cold at all. I don’t like it when my nose gets cold and my eyeballs freeze and my lungs hurt.

I guess I’ve never really experienced extreme heat for very long, since way up here in the frozen north we’re not even sure we know what that is. For a few days one summer our temperatures reached 45 degrees celsius. That’s well over 100 fahrenheit. And too damned hot. Especially for sleeping. Unless there’s a turbo fan pointed directly at your head. When I fly to Ontario in the summer the heat and the humidity seem somehow much worse than our dry windy heat here in the west. It definitely does unfortunate things to my hair.

Everyone at work has been complaining lately that they’re keeping it way too hot in the building. It makes us tired and lethargic. We yawn a lot. We feel strangely moist. Ewww. Not sure what will happen when the cold weather actually sets in – perhaps we’ll be slow cooked. More likely they’ll shut the heat right down to minimum and we’ll be wearing woolen scarves and ear muffs and gloves huddled at our computers shivering ourselves to death.

What’s the BEST thing about extreme weather? We get to COMPLAIN our butts off about it. We get to form fierce opinions about what we hate. We can strike up conversations with complete strangers because they’re sure to commiserate. Some like it hot. Some like it cold. Bitching about whatever it is never gets old. Poetry for the masses.

Give me extreme fog and drizzle with intermittent bursts of misty sunshine. Right now I can’t think of anything bad to say about weather like that. I can breathe in that atmosphere and it feels good on my skin. And everyone’s hair will look like hell, so the state of mine will cease to matter.