Wake Up To Life
Everyone I know or barely know or whose blog I read seems sure that Barack Obama. will win. However, I can't imagine that the big bad scary United States can forget its unrealistic, racial and political fears long enough to vote for a left wing black guy.
You have to watch both videos in order to make sense of the second one.
The same people filmed eight years later.
Via Fussy
There was more snow than we were led to believe. Even when I stepped, unaware, through thigh deep clean snow into the black muddy water of the bottom creek, and up on the windblown slopes, the suncrust was at least a half inch thick so every other step we punched through it, into soft snow up to our knees, we still managed to convince ourselves we didn’t miss our snowshoes.
I managed to wipe most of the mud off by scraping my dirty shins, like making a snow angel but only with my legs, in the snow.
It was nice to get to Grizzly Den cabin, light a fire and dry out my socks and boots. Before it got dark we boot whacked up the suncrusted slope, behind the cabin, to look over the other side of the ridge. The wind was so fierce we didn't stay long .
The next day we continued on, up and over the mountains towards the Raven Lake cabin.
Standing on the windswept ridge behind Raven Lake, trying to radio the day hiking group and take some photos was like being ripped out of my warm house, made to strip and stand still while a stream of cold water was sprayed all over me. I almost ran down the bare slope to huddle in the lee side of a clump of spruce, clinging to the lip of the ridge.
We scrambed down the rest of the slope, walked quickly around the lake, pausing briefly for more photos and to admire the patterns the ice made on top of the water. We finally got into the cabin. I immediately put on my down jacket. Making a fire was impossible since we had to replace the gasket around the stoves door. When it was done I was all for leaving, except the day hikers had caught up with us and were coming in for lunch. One of them had a fire in his pocket.
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It turned out to be some kind of slow burning gel in a tin. We all warmed up our fingers but my toes were getting colder by the minute. I thought it would be too much hassle to take off my boots and socks and try and warm them over the little tin can of heat. So Ric and I left the others to finish their lunches and drink the rest of the wine.
It took almost an hour before I felt that horribly familiar pain which told me I didn’t have frost bite and my toes would soon be warm. I’m sure it was the heat sucking wind that did me in. Despite the cold I had a fabulous time
For more photos go here
I surprised myself knitting this shawl. Despite only having to unravel it ten million times, I found it easy. Once I got onto the pattern I found reading charts to be a whole lot simpler then I thought. I was able to whip through the rows no problem. All the yarnovers and the repeating pattern made it easy for me to spot my mistakes and is the reason I was forced to unravel it so may times. If I was short stitches, at the end of the row, I made more, by knitting into the back and front of a stitch. Ditto for extra stitches, I just knit them together. I've really come a long way since I first picked up knitting needles with the serious intent to learn.
The yarn is silk lamb from Sweet Georgia Yarns. It is soft and lovely and knits up really well. As I was knitting it up I got a lot of dye bleeding into my fingers and on to my bamboo needles but after a long soak in Eucalan all the excess dye washed away and it is fine.
When I first got this yarn it was destined to be made into a camisole, something sexy I could wear with dress pants or a silky skirt to a Christmas party. But, I found the stitch pattern, of the camisole I wanted to make from Melanie Fallicks book, Hand knit Holidays, too difficult. I was going to make the yarn into a neck warmer but realized it was way to thin, even if I doubled it, for the pattern. While browsing my back copys of Interweave Knits I found the pattern for the Swallow Tail Shawl in the fall 2006 issue.
While I was messing around, deciding what to knit with my silk lamb, the yarn spent a couple of months half knit, the rest rolled up into balls in my knitting basket, sitting on a table in an east window. East sunlight is not very bright so I was surprised to see the yarn, wound around the outside of each ball, had faded. The yarn is actually a brighter blue than the photograph. What you can't see is the different colours, due to the fading. When I decided to knit the Swallowtail Shawl I found I needed another skein of yarn to finish. The colour of the new skein is much deeper and richer. At the top of the shawl the colour is a soft grey and gets gradually bluer towards the tip, sort of like a tie dye effect.
So, After all that work am I still going to wear it? You bet.
Despite my cat being gone for over a month I’m still pulling white hairs off my sweaters, extracting them from the depths of the far flung corners of the house, resisting the urge to vacuum everything, even my clothes, more than once at a time.
Last week I succumbed to nostalgia and watched a selection of movies from the last century. My favourite Goldie Hawn, Harrison Ford, not Star Wars, flicks and Hugh Grant in Four Weddings and a Funeral. I’d forgotten how cute and how young he was in that movie.
I changed the date of our play tickets from next Saturday to yesterday, Sunday. I had to pay four dollars for the privilege. It’s not the first time I changed my dates so I had my Toonies at the ready. Before the play started the director came on stage to give his usual pre show blurb. He said the seats for the next show, at the end of November, were filling up fast and we really should book our spots now to try and get the ones we want.
We have seasons tickets. Unlike other season ticket holders, who book their entire play season in August, I find the concept anathema. I‘m terrible at predicting the future, locking myself to a date in its murky depths for when I’m going to watch a play is like trying to stuff my unwilling body into a corset. I’ll take my chances.
The play was hilariously funny. If you haven’t seen it already you should but you will have to be fast to get those seats we vacated next Saturday because that’s all there is left.
I made crumbly dark red devils food cake following directions out of some, published three decades ago, cookbook. I substituted shortening for butter, I have no obsessions. The cake cooled on a wire rack while I went to see the play. When I got back home I ignored the recipe for icing which came with the cake recipe. Instead I melted some chocolate, some more butter and beat in enough icing sugar and milk, more icing sugar till I had enough icing to cover the cake, lick off the spoon and scrape out the bowl.
There is still at least half the cake left. Without any kids around it takes us longer to eat things up, we get to have more than one piece and I don't have to hide it.
At a dinner party, a while ago, the daughter of one of my friends was showing me her new iphone. She was ecstatic because she could fit over 1000 songs into its memory. Most of which she downloaded for free off the internet as well as movies and TV shows. Someone else said, that’s illegal, what about copyright.
The answer might not be what you think. According to the CBC program, Ideas, their latest podcast, Who Owns Ideas is all about copyright, who controls it and who benefits from it.
Copyright was invented in England at the turn of the 18th century. The Statute of Anne was created to grant writers exclusive rights to their work, to be able to copy it and sell it for a limited time. This new law also encouraged writers and artists to put their work in the public domain for everyone’s benefit. Later, the constitution of the United States endorsed the same law but those in charge of law making were nervous about giving anyone exclusive rights to knowledge and expression of ideas.
They debated the issue for a long time because even though they wanted to encourage people to come to the New World (United States) with their ideas and creativity they were worried about monopolies. Their experience, living in the Old World under a monopolizing monarchy, had taught them that monopolies were dangerous and corrupted the State. Eventually they decided to allow this “necessary evil” as long as the creators only had exclusive rights for a limited time. Copyright, it seemed, was a way to hire smart creative people relatively cheaply to contribute to the public domain.
Originally copyright lasted only fourteen years however, because recording labels, movie studios and book publishers are making a lot of money from copyright the length of copyright has been getting longer. Today copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years.
Many artists are worried, not their work will be stolen and pirated but that their work will disappear into obscurity. Having free copies of their work available on the internet gives them exposure and encourages the public to buy their work.
You can listen to the podcast by clicking on the link below.
http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/ideas_20081013_8080.mp3The kitchen is full of dirty dishes from all my baking projects. There are a dozen cinnamon buns on the counter and the table has three Christmas cakes and there is another one still baking in the oven.
I’m tired, my shoulders ache and I have a headache. Actually I’m not really tired I just feel stressed. The top of my right hand and all the way up my arm is hurting more than it used to. It hurts because of the scrolling I do with my fingers on the scroll pad of my Macbook. Trying to wean myself off doing this hasn't helped it to stop hurting. The only thing I can think of to do is to stop using my Macbook until the pain goes away. Arggh.
I finally had the time and motivation to go for a quick walk just before it got dark. It turned out to be raining so it wasn’t any fun. When I got back my cat wasn’t there to greet me. For the first time, since she disappeared I really have missed her at the door when I get home.
Maybe I feel like this because Robert is in Prince Rupert all week. Or maybe it’s because I have a conflict next weekend. There is an overnight hike I would love to go on but I have tickets to see the play on Saturday evening. Maybe I can change my tickets for another evening. I really need to get out and stretch my legs on a hike.
Maybe I feel like this because it is winter. It’s colder and darker and there is less sunlight and think I need to get out of this mood.
I‘m off to watch a movie.
Why am I not surprised we just elected more of the same.
I suppose I can take solace in the fact that Harper did not get a majority, but I sure he will act like he has a majority. Especially since the entire opposition will have to unite to get rid of him and how soon do we want another election?
I'm soooo depressed.
My mothers reaction was of staggering disbelief, when I told her we had snow yesterday. Winter is a bit of a foreign country to her, she lives on the west coast which only can pretend to have the odd winter day.
Last week, while celebrating a friends birthday the talk was all about the imminent ski season. I was still clinging to the last vestiges of summer trying to extract every last shred of heat out of the dimming sun. I was in no mind to turn around and face winter despite yellowing leaves and the occasional proof on the thermometer that the mercury was dipping below zero some nights. Even so my body has been lighting the fire on chilly mornings, digging the vegetables out of the garden and helping to build a cold room in the basement.
Yesterday we decided to cancel our camping/hiking trip to Jasper. The forecast is for lows of minus twelve.
I spent most of the day digging carrots out of the garden, making rye bread and chocolate chip cookies. The worst/best thing is there are still carrots yet to be dug. I have five huge bags full of them and there are still more. If anyone would like some organic carrots let me know and I will get them too you.
The cookies spread a bit too much making them thinner and crisper than I wanted them to be. I think it is because I followed the recipe. I even measured out all the ingredients exactly?
I put the bread in the oven and washed my hair. I used baking soda. This is the second time I have used baking soda and I still like it. I just put some in the palm of my hand and rubbed it into my wet hair then rinsed it out. It leaves my scalp feeling tingly and my hair feels soft. I was worried about the tangles I usually get in my hair after shampooing but there weren't any. I used to have to wash my hair everyday with shampoo otherwise it looked flat. I had to use conditioner otherwise it was too dry, frizzy and hard too comb. Using baking soda has eliminated all these problems and I can wash it less often.
The closet in the basement is finished and everything has been put away. It looks so unnaturally clean down here, like having a whole new secret ... except the new bedroom is still full of books.
I made borscht for dinner. By the time I got started and found a recipe I liked it was too late to roast the beets in the oven so I didn’t bother. I didn’t have any cabbage so I substituted left over peas from the garden and left over potatoes and zucchini from last nights dinner. I don’t do sour cream but I had Balkin plain yogurt (the best) Instead of water I used homemade beef stock. I’m sure all this substituting is the reason the soup tasted so freakin delicious.
Last week I bought home three truckloads of gravel, as if I need more. I saw the gravel on freecycle and because I can't pass up a good deal I said yes. We piled it all up beside the shed, to be spread out next spring on the site of the yet to be built firewood storage shed.
Two weeks ago a friend gave me about fifty daffodil bulbs she no longer had room for in her garden. This afternoon I dug two big holes, about six feet long by two and a half feet wide and around eight inches deep, beneath my apple trees. I layered about two inches of this gravel in the bottom of each hole. I was thinking how nice it would be to naturalize the daffodil bulbs beneath the trees. So in the Spring when the trees are flowering, in their pink and white blossoms, the daffodils would also be up making a yellow and white carpet underneath.
I put the gravel down because in my heavy clay soil, bulbs have a better chance of rotting. Hopefully the gravel will keep the soil draining.
