iPod woes

I know. Where have I been?

Moments of Note in The Last Week Or So:

• Went to Preeya's birthday party - saw many old friends, including Preeya, of course - she just turned 50 - her first birthday party EVER!! Very, very enjoyable.
• Spike's cast came off this morning. Which is good, since he has major gigs next week to play.
• On Monday, I washed a week's worth of dishes, and we grocery shopped. Those two facts combined mean we are eating again, which is good.

Also - my iPod died. Without warning or symptoms, just went dead. "Dead, dead, dead." A guy in my old church used to wander around, chanting that phrase while shaking hands with new people. Isn't that the craziest thing?? :)

Then a very smart (younger, of course) friend brought it back to life. My iPod, that is. (Try to keep up.)

So it lives, but on its own terms. It has apparently quarrelled with my laptop, and they are giving each other the silent treatment. What does this mean for me, you might ask?

It means that 9 months after I got this gadget for my birthday, I finally realized it could do more than play songs. It could keep my contacts and appointments in its cute little silver casing, thus making me feel that I am on top of things.

Once I learned how to do this, and thus became reliant on this feature, it promptly shut that feature down, presumably due to the strained relationship with my laptop.

So I can plug it in, and it will charge. But my laptop will not acknowledge its existence, and my iPod will not accept any new information from my laptop. So all my old appointments are in there. But no new ones. You can imagine how helpful that is to me.

I tried mediating between the two, pleading with one, whining at the other, "Can't we all just get along???" To no avail.

Don't tell me to go to Apple support. It has a cheery little webpage, but no matter where you click, it goes nowhere. And online conversations with technogeeks would be helpful if I had the faintest clue what they were saying. But I don't.

Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to go to Future Shop, clutching my grudge-bearing, crusty little iPod. I'm going to be bold and friendly, smiling with just a hint of danger. And I'm going to say, "Oh, hi. This is what I have. This is what it does. I think it needs a new cable to help it communicate. Either that, or counselling. Do you sell either of these things?"

And if they say, "Well, yes, but it would just be better to get a NEW AND IMPROVED one," I am not to be held responsible for my subsequent actions.

fame by association

We're going to a play tonight!

I feel all urban and sophisticated. It's back in the High Park area of Toronto, where we used to live. And my B-I-L and S-I-L (who are professional actors and directors, among many other things) are respectively acting in and directing this play.

This is the play.

And this is where we're having dinner beforehand.

I called the number to reserve theatre tickets. Gave my name ... which received an instant response of ... "Oh! You must be ... wow, I've heard so much about you and Spike, I just can't wait to meet you!"

I'm famous (not in my own right - just by association with my siblings-in-law). You may be surprised to learn that in Toronto's urban theatre subculture, pentecostal ministers apparently do not make appearances very often. Shocking, isn't it?

So my S-I-L takes great enjoyment in introducing her hard rock playing brother, and his pentecostal minister wife, to her artsy friends. I do my best to accomodate her by appearing as "cool" as possible, thus taking a stand against the preconceived notion of what a pentecostal minister might look like.

I really laugh when worlds collide like this. It's happened before. Hard rock ... urban church ... Toronto theatre ... what a great mix!

***

Note: I added a Blog List at the very bottom of this page. But it only shows 5 blogs at a time, and it picks the 5 that have been most recently updated. So if yours isn't there, and you are someone I know, post something new on your blog, and it should show up. Don't just assume that I deliberately left you out, and get all offended, OK? Because that takes a lot of energy from both you and me, and surely there are better ways to use our energy!

That being said, if you post and it STILL doesn't show up - tell me. I could very well have messed something up.

Father's Day

On Father's Day we had a family BBQ at our place. It was a ruse, a devious plan of mine to feed people, and then force them to help me finish planting things.

It worked too!

The girls went for a walk by the lake, and when we returned, we discovered that Dad and Nephew-the-Younger had dug out all the weeds in the vegetable garden, and it was ready to go!

So NieceJ and NtY and I went to work. We planted tomatoes, peppers and onions.


NtY also did some lopping of weird bamboo-like things, which I have mentioned before. He enjoyed lopping almost as much as I do.

Then we planted herbs, which include a chocolate-mint. Why? Because they were 4 for $10, and I only had 11 herbs in my cart, and they told me to get one more. So I got a chocolate-mint plant. No idea what one does with that.

And now...the planting is finished!!! Flowers, herbs, veggies, groundcovers - they are all in the ground, where they belong!!!! IRDUN!!!

On to the weeding.

the blues

I wrote a song. You might want to get "Bad to the Bone" or some similar blues tune in your head - that way you can sing along.

Woke up this mornin'

Body in pain

That's what I get

For bein' insane

I thought I was young

In shape and fit

Now I see clearly

I'm such a delusional twit

Oh I'm wailin' and achin' and limpin' and sore

I got those I'm-not-20-anymore blues

In my garden all spring

Man-handlin' dirt

Never stretched or slowed down

Thought I couldn't get hurt

Then Spike broke his wrist

He can't do anything

So I gotta cook, clean and iron**

All I can do is sing

Oh I'm wailin' and achin' and limpin' and sore
I got those I'm-not-20-anymore blues

Worst of it happened

On Saturday morn

Had a work bee to get to

And Spike was all snor'n

Didn't want to wake him

But he needed the car

So I dug out my ol' roller-blades

Figured it weren't too far

Strapped on the blades and gear

Wobbled down the drive

"Just gotta find my legs"

I was feelin' alive

But it was hot and muggy

And plenty of hills

By the time I arrived at the church

I was just about heavin' swill

Oh I'm wailin' and achin' and limpin' and sore
I got those I'm-not-20-anymore blues

Sunday was long

As Sundays always are

But not overwhelming

This time I had the car

Went to bed feelin' fine

"I'll get back in my groove"

Woke up this morning, and guess what?

I can't stinkin' move!

Oh I'm wailin' and achin' and limpin' and sore
I got those I'm-not-20-anymore blues

Can't turn my head

My hip's in a weird curve

Foot rolls to the inside

When I walk - I swerve

Called up my chiro

Told him my sad tale

I'll be there in two hours

My chiro never fails

He'll shake his head and groan

"Patti, what did you do?"

My answer - "I'm just a stubborn nincompoop

Now I got these stiff-necked blues"

Oh I'm wailin' and achin' and limpin' and sore
I got those I'm-not-20-anymore blues

Yes I'm takin' some Advil, then takin' some more

I got those old-and-rusty blues!

**Disclaimer: Some creative license was used in the phrase "cook, clean and iron". Not to be taken literally.

six random things

Mimi tagged me for a meme. Mimi is the first person that I have met only online, and it is my assumption that she is not a crazy psycho who is luring people into her online personna. Her blog is here; I found it through Blogs of Note some time ago, and got entirely captured by her story of evil condo developers.

Here are the rules I am to follow:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
5. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.
6. Let your tagger know when your entry is up.

I'm having a deja vu moment. Have I done this before? Maybe. I wonder if I will write the SAME six random things as I did last time.

OK, here we go.

#1 We never planned to NOT have kids. We just kept putting it off - "now?" "nah" "how about now?" "mmmm...no" We LOVE kids, and I always assumed that people who don't have kids either wish they could, but can't, or they just don't like kids. That's not true. But it's an overpopulated world - we seriously considered foreign adoption for awhile - and we both passionately love doing what we do for a living, and we finally came to the conclusion that we must not want kids very badly if we kept putting it off.

#2 When I was 14, I spent a summer in Alaska, after two weeks of training in a Florida jungle. I learned to lay cement blocks, mix concrete, do woodworking, check for scorpions in my boots and wash all my clothes in a bucket. I also ate moosemeat every single day.

#3 My original career plan was to graduate from Mohawk College's Office Admin program (which I did), get 5 years of office experience, move to France and work at the Canadian embassy there, gain tremendous experience and education there, move up a corporate ladder somewhere and eventually take over the world. While competently raising 2.5 kids with my as-yet-unknown husband. Instead I married a rocker and became an urban pastor.

#4 I love history - especially Eastern and Western Europe - and biographies. But only biographies with solid content, like Mary Queen of Scots ... Eva Burrows ... Peter the Great ... or Sojourner Truth. Her "Ain't I A Woman" speech makes me stand up and cheer. I am not even a tiny bit interested in biographies of celebrities.

#5 I do not respond to guilt that someone else dumps my way. It annoys me, really a lot. Why would I put this in my Six Random Things list? I don't know. I thought it needed to be said.

#6 I live near a Williams Coffee Pub, which I like to visit. Makes me feel all hip and such. But I do NOT like their coffee, not one little bit, which is odd for me. So I have strawberry-banana smoothies when I'm there. Or Earl Grey tea.

And I'm tagging DougieG, Bob, Starshine215, Kelly, Dwayne and ... Dan.

a teeny-tiny sprout

Well. I am deeply flattered.

I have a cousin, you may remember, who is a Famous Children's Author. She is also a highly skilled artist, gardener, canner, baker and seamstress, just to mention a few things. I have tried very hard to resent her amazing-ness, but I can't. She's too darn nice. Plus, she's really funny, and makes me snort right out loud with her hilarious comments, whenever I see her.

(And then she looks all classy and dignified, causing people to look down their noses at me, as they wonder how such a classy woman like her could be hanging out with someone that just snorted milk out their nose.)

Anyway. She emailed me this week, very politely asking about my life (you know, as if I'm not an under-achieving slug in comparison to her) and she mentioned that she may have left an anonymous comment or two on my blog.

I said I thought she had perhaps been by, because I have learned how to click the "sitemeter" button and see locations of visitors, and since she's the only one I know in the place where she lives, I put two and two together (clever, I know) and figured it was her.

But I was wrong.

It's her husband. My cousin-in-law, if you will, or C-I-L. Not to be confused with the paint.

I barely know him! He is also a genius. He is one of the brains that has been drained from Canada to the U.S. The Americans just couldn't do without him.

And apparently he has subscribed to my blog. I don't even know HOW to subscribe to a blog. I suspect he reads it to remind himself that he definitely married the smarter cousin.

I feel all pressured to perform now.

OK, I'm over it.

Everyone say hello to my C-I-L and enjoy some pics from my garden!

Do you see the teeny-tiny Morning Glory sprout that just poked through the dirt yesterday? It's in the centre, just to the left of the green bar that is part of a lattice-kind of thing.

I love teeny-tiny sprouts!