yesterday when I was cleaning my bedroom, and I was rearranging things on top of the dresser, I realized I could hear a voice. I poked my head around the corner into Miguel's painting room and found that the radio was on, playing Mozart. No voice there. I went and opened all the drawers in the dresser, to see if someone had secreted something in the drawers, a walkie talkie or whatever. The voice went on. It sounded serious. I couldn't quite catch what it was talking about, but it was a male voice.

I moved back into the bedroom and sat on the bed. It occurred to me that perhaps this was it - I was losing my mind. I wondered if I should try to concentrate on what the voice was saying, or should I maybe ignore it. I put my hand in my pocket to get a Halls and found my IPod. It was on. I must have jostled it and turned it on, and it was playing an interview with a Holocaust scholar that I had been listening to earlier...

So, not insane quite yet. Phew.

We have cold. It's minus 40 and foggy today. brrr.

It's my birthday. I'm plus 40 today.

I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. I thoroughly enjoyed the party my friends had for me last night: they invited everyone I work with and all their significant others, plus other friends and I think it's the first time I've had a birthday party in a lot of years. More than 20, I'm sure. It was funny, Bryan Adams was on the stereo for a while, and one of the guests said she had taken her two boys to one of his concerts when they were living in Ontario. I said, he was the first concert I went to, in I think 1983. A young girl sitting opposite me said, "Boy, he must be old - I wasn't even alive in 1983". Sigh.

Miguel made me a cake - cheesecake, mmmm. The kids brought me breakfast in bed this morning, but I unwisely turned my back on half my bagel and Joeby ate it.

I went to church this morning, and I think that if the minister who is visiting at the moment decides to come and be the regular minister I will have to go back to my solitary practices because he is exceeeeeeedingly sexist and generally belligerent, and I don't think I can bear any more. He's leaving next weekend, so I won't have to go to any more of his services in the next little while, but he's muttering darkly about coming back. I don't really want to go into it, because it's all too silly, but he's managed to offend just about all the members of our little assorted "Anglican" congregation (it's the north, this is only one of three churches in town - Catholic and Glad Tidings are the other two, so we have all the non-Catholics and non-Holy Rollers by default - we have a couple of Mennonites, some United Church folk, one lady who is I think a Baptist, and three of four actual Anglicans including me).

This afternoon I am doing nothing. I think Miguel's parents are coming for dinner, but at the moment Ian and Rachel are at Cadets, Kirsten's cleaning her room and Miguel's downstairs painting, and I am sitting listening to the wind.

I know I've talked about this before. We played Trivial Pursuit tonight, the kids and I. Miguel is sick (he has a man-cold, which as we all know are much more debilitating than girly-colds) and was in bed.

Anyway. Did you know that the person who spent the longest time in jail after Watergate was Nelson Mandela? Or that the tennis player called SuperBrat was Marilyn Monroe? This last was my fault, because Ian was losing so I was mouthing "John MacEnroe" at him but he didn't quite get it. I liked some of the clues Kirsten gave him - the question was "Who made a boat out of gopher-wood?" and when he drew a blank she said to him, "He wasn't married to Joan of Arc..." and Ian got it.

And. As I said before, sometimes the explaining just gets too tedious. What was Watergate? I just said, "It's a long story."

Lucy is home safe with her mom and dad. Things are good.

It's Halloween. I had lots of candy, but the third group of trick-or-treaters let themselves into the porch and stole most of it. I walked in just in time to see them putting the bowl back on the freezer mostly empty. However, we haven't had many kids knocking on the door, and I don't really need to eat it myself, so - oh well.

my baby niece's name is now officially - Lucia Skylar, Lucy for short. And she's doing better, they're going to move her out of the NICU soon, she's sucking her thumb and cuddling with her mom. Thanks to those who prayed...

So on Friday, my brother and his wife had their first baby. Which makes me an aunt, for the first time. The baby is a little girl, and first reports on Friday, when my brother phoned me at work, were that everyone was happy and healthy. All according to plan.

What wasn't expected, yesterday morning, was the call from my mother, saying that the as-yet-unnamed baby girl had had a seizure and been taken to the intensive care unit. Later calls revealed that she had suffered two strokes, and her left arm had a residual twitch. My mum was a wreck, and I called her a couple of times yesterday to make sure she was ok.

This morning Mum called again, to say that she had spoken to my sister-in-law's mother (baby's other gramma) and that she had been told that they don't expect Sweetpea (that's what they're calling her at the hospital, given that her parents haven't been able to agree on a name) to have any more strokes, and that they're not sure whether the aftereffects will be lasting or not.

So, if you have a little bit of room in your prayers, there's a tiny Sweetpea in Calgary that needs all the prayers she can get...

The bay is freezing up...

Miguel built me a shelf for my singing bowl and candles. The cross in the picture underneath is at Eyam, a plague village near where I was born, in England. The stained glass window is in the Anglican church in downtown Melbourne.

A few years ago, Miguel and I made this coffee table. Now it's sitting in front of our new stove, in the ground floor of the house. The coffee cup is mine, I have not moved it. I am, in fact, still a terrible housekeeper.

All our stuff is here!

It was on the barge I could see from my window last weekend, and we went down to fetch everything out of the large wooden box it came in, on Tuesday. In the middle of a howling blizzard. Miguel wasn't tremendously impressed that we felt we couldn't wait until the wind dropped a bit and we wouldn't be stung with driving snow, but it felt like we'd waited long enough.

After everything was unpacked, we had three casualties. One mug of mine, that I quite liked, a jug I didn't feel very precious about, and Kirsten's favourite ornament. The box containing my good china was all lopsided and battered looking, but when I opened it up, the dishes had just moved over to one side of the box, and were unharmed. My friend who has been here about 8 years says it's making her want to get her stuff out of storage in Saskatchewan.

Now, all my pictures are up, my desk is sitting in the living room, and the books are happily in the bookcase. I had people over last night, and I was able to put chips out in the wooden bowl I got for an engagement present, and salami on my glass tray with cherries. It's funny, but the things I missed were little - my tiny green tea cups, my singing bowl, my Spanish shawl, my great-grandmother's bible. I got up in the middle of the night last night, and had juice in one of my little tea cups. Just because I could.

One of the reasons I cherish my IPod is that I can download podcasts of CBC and BBC radio, to listen to while I'm cleaning, at work. Today I was listening to Anne Lamott being interviewed on CBC, and she said something that I ran to write down (in my dispatch book, because it was on my desk, hopefully nobody will need that page for a file)
"The opposite of faith is not doubt, it is certainty."
So I've been thinking about that, today.

I've finally ordered a Book of Hours, to use all by myself. I've got a bunch of printed out stuff stuck in a book, but I've been craving a real book. Eventually I want to make my own, but I think that is a project that will have to wait... I've been practicing calligraphy but it's still very slow. And I find that my mind wanders and I lose my place. More concentration is needed. The story of my life.

The cadets have gone 'camping'. I say that because the cadet rescue phone tree has been activated, I got a call about an hour ago saying that the weather has turned, the wind's getting up, and they want us to go fetch them back.

Also, out my window, I can see a barge at the dock!!!! I'm really hoping all my lovely books are on it, and that they didn't get all wet and freeze on their long Arctic Ocean voyage. I'll let you know how that turns out.

My dad had cardioversion this week, they put him under again and shocked his heart, and it went back to normal rhythm and stopped being in atrial fibrillation, which it has been since his operation.

Well. Here we are again.

I want to buy a monastery.

Neat, huh?

Miguel has been building bookcases, (as seen here - and another similar one on the facing wall) ready for when our books arrive. We've been told there's another barge coming on Wednesday, so maybe our stuff will be on that one. I've also been begging bits of plants from people, and I'm growing some pineapple tops. They look very tropical. The piano stool that the dieffenbachia is standing on came from the metal dump. I love the metal dump. Too bad I didn't find a piano to go with it.

It's not so tropical outside... It has been snowing steadily, the last two weeks, and the land is now all covered. It's been about -3 mostly, which means that when the sun shines it melts the top layer of the snow and then refreezes it, so it's slow going around town. I fell on the ice yesterday, bringing Rachel back from the dentist. Miguel has been slithering a bit in the new truck, trying to get used to it. I sold the old truck while he was in Edmonton, just recently.

It is Ember Days, and I've been fasting. I love fasting. This time I've been doing it the Anglican way - with bread, fruit, and tea. In other words, banana for breakfast, slice of bread and slice of mango for lunch and supper, and lots of tea. It's called dry fasting, but it doesn't mean you don't drink anything, - you just don't eat anything hot or or particularly interesting. Although the multigrain bread is beginning to taste like the best thing I've ever shoved in my mouth. I feel nice and light, and my thought processes have slowed. Also I have lots of energy. I accomplished a lot this weekend, even though I spent most of Saturday morning in a semi-conscious state on the couch in the living room. I wasn't hungry, and yet I couldn't fall into a full sleep, and my thoughts were long and deep. I thought a lot about my parents, and I thought a lot about the readings I was going to do today in church. It's supposed to be conducive to prayer, and for some reason I feel as if that might be true, because my concentration is good and I feel happier when my stomach's not always trying to digest something difficult.

Truly I still don't think I'm a religious person. I enjoy, when it's my turn, standing up in front of the congregation and giving my stream-of-consciousness talks, just like I used to do with the Alternatives to Violence Project - I love looking for thought-provoking things to read out loud in front of everyone. I don't write my 'sermon' out and then read it, I try to think of the points I want to make and then I just talk to the people in the audience. I'm especially interested in the reactions of those I don't know very well, I find it interesting, what they take away from what I've said.

In other parts of my life, headquarters has sent out dire emails warning all of us that we are not to discuss our work lives on the internet. I'm becoming increasingly leery of having anything online, and so I probably won't ever talk about my work again. Which is a shame because it's by far the funniest things that happen to me. Oh well. When Ed and Delia come up here to visit me, I'll tell them stories until they die laughing.

You're a Wooly Mammoth!

A little heavy and a lot shaggy, you move a little slower than the
world around you. You definitely wish global warming would go away, and maybe even
reverse itself a bit. You like long walks on the ice floe, and could even get stuck
there without minding too much. Your favorite Sesame Street character is
Snuffleupagus. Beware of tar pits... although you really didn't need to be told that,
did you?


Take the Animal Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

That is just too funny!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We were just arguing yesterday with Kirsten's boyfriend about how it's hard to believe in global warming when it's minus 60 and your eyelashes are frozen together. I do like walking on the ice floes, and since Miguel and Ian are currently putting linoleum in the porch, my ground floor is full of tar.

We had Vikings last week. We made the Globe and Mail. Again.

Have I mentioned recently how much I love living here?

I know, I'm delinquent here. It's been court, the last week or so, and that means that I not only have the usual things to do at work but we also have remand guests in the cellblock and the Crown attorneys hang out at our office.

Court only comes to town about every two and a half months or so. The cycle of my work is very tied to the demands of court, and I find it takes all my energy for about two weeks beforehand and a week or so afterwards. The weekend before court is never really a weekend. It's just two more work days.

My dad is recovering. Slowly, but he sounds more like himself on the phone. My friend who went on the lam is still, as far as I know, at large. Ian's home from camp and it's wonderful to have him home. He had a great time and has come back very confident - he got top cadet in his platoon!

It's eleven thirty. It's the end of Miguel's 40th birthday. I got him a pig mug and some jellybeans and Kirsten baked him a cake, and Rachel gave him the 7th season of Seinfeld. We convinced him to go to Karen's for coffee after dinner, and our friends all dropped in casually and bugged him. One gave him a tape measure.

She explained it like this: although her husband is very handy and does a lot of work around the house, he always blames her and the kids when he can't find his tape measure. You rotten kids are always taking my stuff and losing it, how am I expected to get anything done around here, etc, etc. So last weekend when he cleaned out his workshop and found, in various places, no less than nine tape measures, my friend claims this as a moral victory of sorts. If the children had taken them they would be under beds or out in the driveway, not in the workshop. So the tape measure for Miguel was a symbolic gift, of sorts...

One of my friends from the prison I worked at in BC is 'on the run' tonight. I want a happy ending for this, but I don't know.

So many things don't count, up here. When I go somewhere else I remember.

We don't have cell phones. When I leave the house, no-one can find me unless they're willing to drive around and look for me.

Maclean's magazine sent me an email today offering to give me a chance to win a free car. There are no cars here. There are lots of old trucks, and some new trucks, but unless you count my friend Bella Rose's purple Jeep, there are no cars. The Dodge Neon that Maclean's is dangling would be completely useless here. I can barely get our big old black truck out of the driveway in the winter. A Dodge Neon would probably sit under a snowdrift for ten months of the year.

Unless you remember to go to the store after work and before seven o'clock, no food can be purchased. Except junk food from the game hall, if you don't mind braving the army of small children who hang there. And sometimes when you do remember to go to the store, the thing you were thinking you'd have for dinner is unavailable. David was here and he drinks Coke, but there wasn't any in town that week. We're used to this but I think he was pretty surprised. Like, if there's no Coke don't you just go to another store. Mmm. good thought.

We see movie trailers on tv and commercials for fast food, but we have no movie theater, no MacDonald's, no Taco Bell, no nothing but a pizza kiosk that generally shuts down around 5 pm, or earlier if they're bored. Our Friday night entertainment is usually sitting at my friend Patti's on her couch, or on her deck if it's not too too cold, eating her crab dip and talking. Sometimes we play Trivial Pursuit or argue with Peter (he's an atheist lawyer) about theology or justice. My friends all help with various things around town, Beavers and Cubs and the Education Authority (like a school board only not so much board) and we curl so we're together a lot in one capacity or another. If someone's building something, others come to help. We dog-sit and guinea-pig-sit. My father in law thinks we might be a commune. I think I could handle that.

Yeah, this is Kirsten and David at the beach in July. It's the Arctic. What can I say. (but don't they look cute?)

It has been busy here. Kirsten's friend is visiting from Ohio and it's been wonderful to have him here. Work is busy but they're mad at me at the moment because I took three days off this week to spend with them. Well, except one guy, who told me I should have taken the whole ten days off, and the rest of them be damned. But I did finish every scrap of work I had last week, and I've been in every evening to tidy up, and I'll be back tomorrow so hopefully they'll get over it.

We went out to the cabin last weekend, and stayed out there with Kirsten and David. We've been fishing a lot, and yesterday we went to the beach (in raincoats, mitts, hats...) and made a fire and had a picnic. Some muskox were running about in the distance, so David can say he saw some, but really they were just brown moving blobs.

My dad is recovering from his surgery, slowly, he's been at home since the weekend but is having home nursing as he still is feeling crappy and retaining fluid. He is probably not going to need a permanent pacemaker. My mum is talking about not going back to work in September, but staying home to look after him, but he doesn't want that.

My heart goes out to those who are struggling today. You know who you are.

Today while I was sitting with someone who took it into their head to run naked through the streets, I heard this song on the radio. It seemed apropos, somehow. REM, The Great Beyond:

I'm pushing an elephant up the stairs
I'm tossing up punch lines that were never there
Over my shoulder a piano falls
Crashing to the ground
I'm breaking through
I'm bending spoons
I'm keeping flowers in full bloom
I'm looking for answers from the great beyond

Headed for Alberta on Friday. Gonna go drop Rachel in Ponoka so she can go to horse-and-bible camp. And fetch Kirsten's boyfriend, who is arriving from Ohio to visit us.