I would like to know...

...why all the stink bugs choose to die in this house?

Inheritance

Some families have jewels. Others have artwork, sets of porcelain dinnerware, property, cars, motorcycles, that form the bulk of the family assets. Actually, all of the aforementioned things are held onto by my particular family with two clenched fists,-for the record, we hoard...we don't distribute- but one asset stands above all the rest.

The Geraniums.

Actually, they are Pellargoniums: true geraniums are strictly annuals, but our family geraniums have been around since well before my time. I think my grandmother had insano geraniums and gave cuttings to my mother at some point (or this could be the story of the christmas cactuses...but it all works out to the same thing: I kill the plants and I am as good as dead,) and since that point the geraniums have thrived in the Has/Wil Ent. household.

They are beautiful plants, mature beings that completely fill 5 gallon planters with only a little bacopa to round out the edges.

About 5 minutes before my darling mother embarked upon her grand adventure she said something about bringing in the sensitive plants inside before the first frost. I think I may have written down which plants were deemed "sensitive", but clearly the most important were the geraniums.

If I kill them, the entire 23 years of my life is a mere blip on the radar of humanity. I will have committed geranium genocide.

So last night it was supposed to have dipped to 1C. That is 1 degree above freezing. And this is according to the dodgy CBC. (Can one with Liberal sypmathies ever really trust them again?) In true mature: I-can-take-care-of-a-whole-house style, instead of hauling the plants inside I invited a bunch of girls over to drink and hottub.

This evening the plants don't look dead. But I'm not taking any chances. No Protestant universe that I know will allow me to drink away two nights without consequences when the plants could be suffering.

They are all inside now. All ten planters that had geraniums in them. And the fuschia, for good measure. I am pretty sure that not all the geraniums are intimately acquainted with my inheritance, I'm not taking any chances though. They were suprisingly light to haul inside. Their lightness has nothing to do with my total abandonment of plant watering in the last 3 weeks. No, of course not.

Have you given it your best shot?

Yes, I have.

And now I am quitting. And it feels great.

A word of explanation. I rarely quit anything. I hang on until the bitter end, gritting my teeth and grimacing, destroying my health and mental well being, because I started this and I will finish it. Quitting is for the weak willed, and that certainly doesn't aply to me.

But today, or last night really, while watching TV, the realization came to me in a flash: Nobody is forcing me to keep going. I am not happy with this situation. I can quit. Everyone involved will be happier. My mental well being (such as it is) will be restored. There is no shame in this decision.

The yarn for the leg warmers I am, er.. was knitting was only 3 dollars a ball (which should have been my first clue that it is total and utter rubbish.) Secondly it is acrylic and "fun yarn". A more misleading label has never been created. I cast on the suckers 4 times before surrendering to the hideosity of the yarn and its complete inability to do the most basic of knitting patterns: 2x2 ribbing. So I quit. Or, if you like, I fired the yarn.

This afternoon's excursion is to the yarn store in Duncan. Twice the size of the store at home. It's like a porn shop for knitters.

Stay tuned for my newest love affair: braided cables. Be still my beating heart.

To the man caught stalking my friends:

Dear Sick Fuck:

I realize that you are quite possibly suffering from a mental illness and need serious treatment, and that the system failed you and that you belong in a home somewhere on serious medication. If this is the case, forgive me for the rampant thrashing of your character that I am about to embark upon. Of course it's not your problem... it's the system.

That being said:

I fail to see how anyone EVER can convince themselves that spying on two women is acceptable behavior. In fact, I am rendered utterly speechless at your audacity of standing on their porch and staring into the kitchen window for TWO HOURS. Of course you weren't doing anything, I know, just watching. Not planning to break into the house later when they were sleeping and fondle them like you did in Town X and Town Y, near here, last month.


I think you are totally and utterly the dregs of society. It is people like you that makes me question my adherence to liberal principles and my adherence to the The Charter. Even in the depths of my imagination I cannot comprehend a way to replicate the subtle violation you perpetrated upon them. Thus, I am relegated to the relatively unsophisticated option of physical torture. If I had my way, I would hurt you physically, maybe with razor blades dipped in Habanero sauce, since there is no way to replicate the amount of terror and insecurity and fear that you have instilled in two of my friends.

You sicken me.

Claire

soundtrack 1

The scene: Grey day, the type that should be whiled away in front of the fire, eating soup and reading Wuthering Heights.*

The reality: Grey day barely noticed amid a flurry of house cleaning. Our protaganist wonders why she is cleaning before the party she inadvertently offered to host.

The sountrack: Requiem Op. 48 by Gabriel Faure. Suitably fiery and melancholic: mirroring exactly our protaganist's feelings about aforementioned house cleaning. The Oxford Camareta does a nice version, but really, almost anything will do as long as the soprano isn't warbley. Warbley sopranos should be strangled and/or made to sing alto. Quietly.

*for the record, I've never read WH. But seriously, it has the word "wuthering" in the title... how can it not be good to read on a rainy day?

Paris

this is for my darling neasa, at this very moment moving to Paris to have some spectacular adventures accompanied by red wine, amazing cheese and stylish people. It is also stolen shamelessly from the other newly minted Parisian.

I would like everybody to know that I have been working on being happy for you neas, since you blythely fired off an email which ended 'and Monday I move to Paris,' as if it was the most normal thing in the world to be doing. And, 4 days of battling paralyzing jealousy later, I have succeeded. I am happy for you that you are in Paris. However, more than that, I am happy you will be in Paris in the spring when I will come and sleep on your floor until you kick me out or just stop noticing that I am there, until I become so infused with Paris that I blend right in to the cafe curtains.

I love you so much my dear, and I am awaiting the stories...

"Is this simply the unique perversity of the human heart that it wants (and wants and wants) what it doesn't have--Italian food in Paris, American Jazz in Saint-Germain--and, only when it is about to lose it, returns to the things that drew it to the desire in the first place? Or was there a kind of peace in it too? We would now never be Parisians or integrate; we might not even stay in town more than another eight weeks. Loss, like distance, gives permission for romance. In a better-ordered Vienna, Romeo and Juliet would have grown up to be just another couple at dinner." --Adam Gopnik, Paris to the Moon

at this rate, menopause will be a breeze...

So I have heard that women in menopause start to kind of lose their minds. Not in an old, aging synapses kind of way; more along the lines of sporadically misfiring cylinders on 20 year old motorcycle. Nothing too serious, but disconcerting nonetheless.

At my current rate of mind loss, there won't be anything left by my 24th birthday, let alone for menopause to destroy.

It's the little things:

I was completely oblivious to the upcoming birthday of Charlotte, until she emailed to tell me her plans. (New York City... please excuse me while I die of jealousy and go drown myself in the mill pond). And I know exactly when her birthday is.

Forgetting to eject the damncat from the interior premises before going to bed for three days in a row. The damncat wakes me up at 4 am to be let out if I don't do it before I sleep, and thus one has to wonder how many times I will stumble, cursing, up the stairs to the front door in the middle of the night before I clue in.

Leaving the iron on while I am at work all day.

Usually such instances of stupidity would be evenly spaced over a month and the repercussions would only affect me. Circumstances have changed drastically from the norm-if the phrase "normal circumstances" can even be applied to my life with a straight face-and I am now in charge, and the boss of, a whole house, large yard, two cars and many many kilometers of carpet that needs to be vacuumed regularly. The parentals have gallivanted off to Europe (mummy) and to circumnavigate the Mediterranean on a motorcycle (daddy). I have been left at home to feed the damncat and to water the plants. The responsibility might just kill me.

And then there'd be nobody to let the cat out.

all I need...

In my life, is a carpet cleaning blog.

no more anonymous comments people. leave a paper trail. That way the government can find you.

Mungry

Mungry: adjective. A contraction of the phrase "money hungry". Most often used to describe people in the service industry who get pissy when they have a slow night and try to cadge more tables from the manager or the hostess; and who are all fine on busy nights. Rarely performs back duties (ie: polishing glassware), often tries to get other servers/bartenders/co-workers to leave early in hopes of taking over their section. Pejorative.

bon voyage

So today is departure day pour papa... off to London, Belgium, Italy, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Greece, Italy, France, London. All on Motorcycles. With the godfather who used to be a spy.

I am so jealous I could puke.

Travel safely daddy. I love you.