What am I? Thirteen?

Your Personality Cluster is Extraverted Sensing

You are: A true admirer of beauty and art Someone who seeks out variety and adventure Not interested in status or material wealth Able to act wisely without stopping to think

What's Your Personality Cluster?

Har har. Able to act without stopping to think, maybe. Not so sure about the "wisely" part.

Why do I find these things even remotely amusing? Don't answer that...

Canadian Idiot

So, as you may have noticed, I have migrated to the "new and improved" Blogger. The migration was uneventful, except that all during the migration process my lights were flickering, which often happens during a blizzard such as the one we had last night. I had visions of my entire blog going kablooey into the blogosphere if the power went out. Not the best time to migrate, but a girl's gotta find her excitement where she can.

So far, two complaints. Two and a half, really.

1. Commenting on other blogs is complicated by having to remember to type something different than before.
1-1/2 . I've been told commenting on my blog isn't as straightforward as before.
2. Can no longer post YouTube videos straight to the blog from YouTube as before.

Grrrrr and indeed, raaaaar.

So, you'll have to settle for a link instead to "Weird" Al Yankovic's Canadian Idiot (based on Green Day's American Idiot).

Canadian Idiot

Signbot found at Fussy

Shaye - Beauty

One of my favourite songs by one of my favourite groups. Go to YouTube and check out the group, as well as the individual members, Kim Stockwood, Damhnait Doyle (both Newfoundlanders!) and Tara MacLean (from PEI).

16 months, or 15,000 hits, whichever comes first

15,000

Wow.

Thanks for coming back time and again, all!

Books and rain and Oh look! A bird!

*waves at Ricardipus*

Plz to suggest books for nice lady to read. Ta.

*goes to face nasty rain and wind*

Apropos of nothing above: I live in the bi-polar weather capital of the world. On Wednesday and Thursday, it was -16C with a -25C wind chill. Today? +2C and raining cats and dogs with high winds with gusts up to 80 kpm. And if you've ever been hit by a wet Chihuahua travelling at 80 kpm, you know my pain.

P.S. I have had to publish this post 7 times (make that 8) because I can neither proofread nor use the correct date nor* spell nor pick a font. Should I really be getting in my car to drive in this mental state? I think not.**

* *sigh* Thanks, R'pus!

**P.P.S. It's hereditary. When I dropped my daughter at work, as she was retrieving a knapsack from the backseat, she got her scarf caught in the car door in just the right position so that you couldn't open the door from the outside, so that I had to get in the other side crawl across the seat and open the door from the inside. Luckily, she has also inherited her mother's ability to find humour in EVERYTHING, so we just laughed. Oh, how we laughed. Yeah, we're crazy, but it's working for us.

But you don't have to call me Mr. Johnson

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Her Most Noble Lady Dawn the Apocalyptic of Lower Hellswicke Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Well, that would explain next door, then, wouldn't it?

It's that time again...

Time for the lurkers to come out of the closet, if only to say, "Hi!" and then dash back between the coats again...

Happy New Year! - OR - Mama, hide the matches, Jethro is a-comin'!

So. New Year's Eve. I'm expecting a fairly quiet evening. I can see the city fireworks, or the highest of them, from my living room window when they set them off at midnight, so I'm planning to have a look. Other than that, I'm just hanging around, relaxing.

9:00 p.m. finds me sitting in my favourite chair, reading a book, having a drink, faithful dog by my side, when... BANG!!! There's an explosion right outside my house. I almost drop my book. The dog almost drops her liver. Then, BANG!!! BANG!!! several more times, then nothing. My darling neighbours, they of the charming backyard trampoline (10 feet from my bedroom window- see my post of Feb 1/06) that gets more use at ridiculously late hours than I care to relate, have... FIREWORKS. Fireworks which they are setting off in their backyard... 10 feet from my bedroom window.

Now you must know this about my dog. Despite the fact that she's a Beagle, and meant to be a hunting dog, she has an awful, terrible secret. She is terrified, ABSOLUTELY PETRIFIED of gunshot or anything that sounds even remotely like it.

So she spends the better part of the next hour with her ears scrunched up, tail between her legs, the whites of her eyes showing because she's rolling them back in her head the way frightened horses do and is pressed firmly against my leg at all times, which makes it very difficult to walk.

By 10:00 p.m., she's starting to relax and will actually allow me to move an inch or two away from her, when, BANG!!! BANG!!! it starts up again.

And I suddenly find myself with a Beagle in my lap, the poor thing shaking from head to toe.

By 11:00 p.m., she's gotten back down on the floor and has calmed down again, when (brace yourself), BANG!!! BANG!!! they set off half a dozen more fireworks. She doesn't freak out quite so much this time but still eyeballs me with that, " I gotta get outa here!" look on her face.

And by this time I'm beginning to worry about my roof. My neighbours may have lots of money, but what they don't seem to have is a surplus of brains. Should they be setting off fireworks so close to houses? Are they watching to ensure they don't burn any of us down? Should I go outside and check that flaming bits of fireworks aren't landing on my roof? It's freezing and very windy out there. I relunctantly decide to balance the fear of hypothermia against the fear for my roof and trust that they will not set my roof on fire.

So the dog and I hunker down again and await midnight. And we are not disappointed. The clock ticks over to 12:00 and BANG!!! BANG!!! off they go. About 10 minutes of constant noise with a grand finale of about six rockets that sound like they may be nuclear warheads. The dog has completely lost her mind by now and just stares at me hopelessly, too traumatized to even move.

And then blessedly, silence.

I've theorized before that the spot where the trampoline sits is a portal to hell, as it's exactly the same spot upon which sat the previous neighbour's "lovely" fountain that sounded exactly like a running bathtub.

Based on the events of December 31st, it seems that portal to hell is still alive and functioning. So that's nice.

It's murder, I tell ya!

Apologies for the quality of the shot. For obvious reasons, I couldn't use a flash and, let's face it, I was barely awake. And before you say, "There aren't 30 crows in this picture!" This is just one tree. It had over 20 when I first looked out and there were about 18 left when I took this picture.

On Wednesday morning past, the alarm clock rang. As I was turning it off, I heard a crow cawing from one of the trees in the back yard. Nothing unusual there. Then, I heard a few more join in...

And then I heard a whole freakin' choir of 'em cawing like mad things. I looked out the window and I swear I counted over thirty crows sitting in the trees at the top of my yard, every one of 'em screaming at the top of his little birdy lungs.

What's that old rhyme?

One crow, sorrow
Two crows, joy...

Any chance 30 crows means The cheque from your winning lottery ticket will be delivered by the man of your dreams in a BMW convertible registered in your name on the same day you fit into those size 7 jeans again?

No?

What?

Thirty crows, you will find more crow poo than usual in your yard next spring.

Oh.

So, that's nice. It'll be like the apocalypse but with more poo.

Caw.

Recent keyword activity...

... can sometimes, frankly, be rather disturbing.

Not so long ago, "excrement explosion" topped the list. Now if this were Scaryduck, I could understand that but the only time the word "excrement" has actually been used on this blog was in a comment made early last year and I had a heck of a time even finding that.

Second was "pokemon/misty sex." *ahem!* This was brought on by the last time I posted about keyword activity. Which means this post will only extend the cycle.

And subsequently:
wolfgangerl
my first ekg
answers to trivia
canuck tire universal engine coolant
wet paint sign photo - ebay

I checked keyword activity today and found a new, less startling, but equally puzzling list. The higher ranked ones make sense, more or less:

quidi vidi lake - Perfectly normal thing about which to enquire.

animator v animation - An excellent bit of animation.

dawn christmas - Um. Not sure how you equate the two, but okay.

2 crows joy - Looking for the poem, obviously.

mr trampoline man - Please, please, please tell me no one thinks that is truly the lyrics.

david morgan-mar - Who?

one of these days, alice - I understand this one. Probably someone not old enough to have seen "The Honeymooners."

mr trampoline man pictures - First, you get the lyrics screwed up, now you want pictures? Puh-lease!

wrathful people - And you wonder why...

A disturbance in the force

[attributed - Sir Francis Drake -1577]

Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.

We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

Found in comments of the Nov 6 post at Althea's blog, Humans in Science.

Christmas 2006 - Part the Fourth - OR - There's more of gravy than of grave

Good day and welcome to this, our fourth and final installment of Christmas 2006 - What Could Go Wrong?

This year I was more organized preparing Christmas dinner than ever before. The fact that I was alone in the house due to WO1 & 2 having gone out to make their appearance at FU's place probably didn't hurt. I was so organized... well, it was a thing of beauty. I say, a thing of beauty.

The table was charmingly set with best china and silver, bestest Christmas crackers ready to be cracked, everthing was ready at exactly the same time - the bird, the veggies, the dressing and the gravy... why. the gravy was the best I've ever made. The apple pie and ice cream were ready.

So we won't mention the fact that for the first time in my life I burnt the dressing to a crisp, all right? It'll just be a secret between you and me.

And the lesson I learned from this? It doesn't take the dressing as long to cook outside the bird as it does inside. Where it was cooking because it was a small bird and we like lots of dressing and it's worked fine before, so nyah. Also. Pay attention to EVERYTHING when you're cooking, even the things you know you can't mess up. Don't be a eejit. I see a theme for 2007 emerging here.

Stay tuned for the New Year's saga - Happy New Year! - OR - Mama, get Jethro away from that fuse

Christmas 2006 - Part the Third - OR - Light me, Harry!

Now before we go any further, let's establish one fact. I HATE putting lights on a Christmas tree. DEEEEEE-SPISE the task. Are we clear on that? Okay, let's continue...

So of course it falls to me to put the lights on the Christmas tree. WO2 did it last year, but has a parttime job this year and didn't get around to the lights. Although she did assemble the tree, which is my second least favourite job, so she's still in the will. For now.

So. Out of the box come the strings of lights. One torturous part of the procedure has at least been removed. The Former 'usband (hereinafter referred to, if ever, as FU) used to insist that the lights be stored the way they were purchased, meaning all the bulbs had to be unscrewed and inserted into the little cardboard sheet and the whole gubbins put back into the box. Every year. Which meant they all had to be screwed back in again the next year. It added at least an additional hour onto the job. But I'm not nearly as big a fussbudget, so more sensible traditions prevail these days, which makes it a bit less onorous but there is still a bit of de-tangling to do.

First up, the angel. That's easy enough. Then the first string of lights. Plug the angel into the light string and then wrestle the lights onto the tree, cursing under my breath. There! The first string done!

Reach for the next set of lights. Pay closer attention to which way the plugs are facing, make sure I've got it the right way round so as to be able to plug the connected strings into the wall outlet when I get to the bottom of the tree... reach for the end of that string and find myself looking at... the wrong end. Because I had not taken note of the fact that the angel has one of those double plus on it...

I had put the first string on backwards. And I'm here to tell you, if there's one thing even more heinous than stringing lights on a Christmas tree, it's having to immediately take them off and restring them because you're a eejit.

And the lesson learned? Don't be such a eejit. Make someone else put the lights on from now on.

There is one good thing though. At least I didn't have all four strings attached and put them all on as one long string. Had I put each and every frickin', frackin' light on that tree upside down? They would have stayed that way. That's why there's extension cords.

Stay tuned for the final installment, Christmas 2006 - Part the Fourth- There's more of gravy than of grave.