BOO!

What a great Halloween night this is - dry, calm and very mild. Usually, Halloween night in Nova Scotia can be relied upon to be cold and rainy, which is always the pits. I remember so many years when I was a kid, working to come up with a really good costume, then having it wrecked because it was freezing out and my mother insisted that I wear my snowsuit underneath. Oh, the indignity.

I raced home after work today (watching all the kiddies going door-to-door en route), lit the jack o'lantern and put it out on the deck...but thus far tonight, there have been no trick-or-treaters. *sigh* Not surprising - we didn't have any last year either. Since our street is a cul-de-sac, with only a handful of houses, I guess the local kids can't be bothered with us. And apparently, most kids get driven around by overprotective or lazy parents these days.

It was different when I was a kid. Granted, I grew up in a small village, where there weren't that many neighbours, and they lived far apart. But maybe because there were relatively few houses, we made sure not to miss any at Halloween.

The other great thing about trick-or-treating in the country is the quality of one's haul of treats. When my brother and I were very young, and living in Toronto, anything we brought home that wasn't wrapped was chucked out. But having then moved to a rural community in Cape Breton, it became OK to eat all the good home-made stuff, like toffee apples and fudge, because we knew all our neighbours and could tell our parents who had given us what.

Eh...it's just not the same these days, I tell ye....
*consoles self with unclaimed stash of Doritos and mini Crispy Crunch bars*

Recent Reading

This morning, I finished The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (loaned to me by Jana). It was not at all what I was expecting. I thought it would be a historical novel, but it was entirely contemporary. Wasn't sure that it would hold my interest, but it was really awfully good, and quite a touching love story. Not the kind of thing I usually read, but I liked it a lot.

On my iPod at the moment is another audiobook, The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan. I haven't read any pure fantasy like this in quite a while. It's OK, but like so many novels of its type, the story is heavily Tolkienesque; there's definitely a finite number of ways the standard sword'n'sorcery saga can be told. Still, it's fairly frothy, so in that sense it's not a bad thing to be listening to while commuting. And unsurprisingly, it's enormous - presented on a whopping twenty-nine CDs - whoooo!

Not sure what I'll start reading next - though I'm kind of tempted by Nick Bantock's Morning Star Trilogy (which I recently bought). Hmmm...

Adventures in Home Decorating (con't)

The second floor of our house is a half-storey; it consists only of two bedrooms and a large landing at the top of the stairs. The landing is a quirky, eccentric space, and it's one of the things I liked most about the house from the first time I viewed it.

I have envisioned the space as a little reading area. I went as far as buying a nice armchair and small endtable for it, but other than that, nothing much has been done so far. But yesterday, I bought a rug (as the landing is the only place in the house where the original wood floors have not been refinished). I saw this rug a month or so ago, and instantly knew it was the one I wanted - and so I snagged it yesterday when it went on sale. This is it (still somewhat rumpled from the packaging). I really like the circles, and the different shades of blue:


It's weird how a single item can inspire a whole space. As soon as I saw this rug, I suddenly knew how I wanted the landing to look: pale yellow walls, blond wood shelves for books, the armchair (which is beige), and roman blinds and an interesting lamp in shades of blue, echoing the rug.

Now that I can see it, I want it to look that way NOW. ;-) But I think I'll have to wait another month or two before there's time for things like painting.

To the Cemetery

Thank God for PBS, otherwise my brain would probably go to mush. Quite enjoyable (and timely) programme on last night. A Cemetery Special was a documentary about one of my favourite places - graveyards.

I always try to make a point of visiting old burying grounds whenever I travel; I've enjoyed the sprawling grounds of Highgate Cemetery in London and Père-Lachaise in Paris as much as those of tiny parish churches. The American sites visited for the show last night really were cemeteries, though - the nineteenth-century, rural garden-style type, full of marble statues of angels and sleeping figures - rather than graveyards. There are comparatively few graveyards in North America - we're just not old enough - though I visited several recently in Boston. And not forgetting the Old Burying Ground in Halifax, which dates mostly from the eighteenth century and has beautiful headstones.

But I digress. The show on PBS last night visited a sampling of cemeteries across America. Most interesting were Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta (which I visited nearly twenty years ago with my grandmother, who is herself very interested in old burial grounds), and Mount Auburn in Boston (which I have not yet visited, but which I've read a fair bit about). But oddly absent, I thought, were some of the cemeteries of New Orleans. In the wake of the devastation there, it's a shame it wasn't included.

Sunny Autumn Saturday

Such a beautiful October day today. I spent some time outdoors and took a few pictures. Across the lane from us, the light was filtering through the trees around our neighbour's house. I kept trying to capture it, but couldn't, really.


I need a better camera. No, I need actual photography skills. I could probably take better pictures with the camera I have, if I sat down and actually read the freakin' manual.

After I came back from shopping, the sun was sloping across the lawn and dappled through the leaves of the big maple tree, which is just starting to turn red. So pretty.

Dance Diane, Dance

Every time I go to ballet class, at some point I end up feeling like a twit and can't help but think of that old episode of Cheers where Diane decides she wants to be a ballerina. *snicker*

Found these stills of Diane at the 'bar(re)' after a cursory Google search:


Hehe ;-)

Je suis un danceur

Eh, well...not really. But I did go back to Dal Dance today. I had planned to try something different this term, after last year's ballet classes, but it didn't work out (bellydance massively oversubscribed; jazz being taught by rather snotty 'dancer-girl' type).

So I put myself on the waiting list to go back to beginner ballet, and finally was able to join the class today. Luckily, I've only missed three classes so far, and given that I did it last year, I didn't have any problems catching up.

Except physical ones, of course. Having sat on my arse all summer and taken a break from my usual exercise routine, my joints creaked and groaned throughout the class (which - dishearteningly - is almost entirely composed of lithe 18- to 21-year-olds). Felt much better afterwards, but really must dust off pilates and yoga videos and start moving again. You'd think the twenty miles I walk per week would be enough, but while it may be good for the ol' ticker, it's clearly not doing much for my strength or flexibility - as I discovered this afternoon.

Saturday Night

...and it's been a 'stay in with scrummy dinner and telly' kind of night. Absolutely chucking it down again today, and in the last half-hour the thunder and lightning have started.

Bit of yin/yang on the box tonight. Watched Nip/Tuck (which was remarkably unpervy this evening, for once), and then a PBS show about Boston in the 1940s. Bed and book shortly. Oh dee doe.

(My newest bedtime read is The Time Traveller's Wife, which Jana has recommended and loaned to me; only on about page 40 so far, though....)

"Who is that exquisitely-attired woman, and are my tax dollars paying for it?"

Damnation! Why didn't I think of starting a site like this?


The Lipstick Librarian is a delightfully facetious site. It's got everything - daft beauty tips, bibliographies, a blog, even an online store where one can purchase LL ephemera.

And if there was ever any doubt that I myself am an archetypal Lipstick Librarian, I'll have you know I took the quiz and scored a bodacious 92 percent! Whoo HOO!

Are They Mental?

News today that Diageo PLC, the eedjits who own Guinness, have decided that the best way to boost recently flagging sales of the black stuff is to...fool with the formula. Who comes up with these 'innovations', anyway?

Bloomberg has the story - apparently there are plans to release all these special limited-edition flavours, etc. I can't imagine it will go down very well. As it is, there are a million pints of Guinness sold per day in Ireland - a staggering figure, in a country with a population of just four million.

Autumn = Definitely Here

I think we need to turn the heat back on, in the house. Bedroom and bathroom freezing this (and the past several) morning(s).

When I left the house early this a.m., it was a mere 5°C. And I could see my breath.

ARGH.

It's the Great Pumpkin, Martha Stewart!

Grave disappointment in Nova Scotia yesterday. The CBC reported that after a week of negotiations to secure entrance to Canada, despite her criminal record, Martha Stewart's private plane was grounded in Bar Harbor, Maine, due to the terrible weather.

She was due to take part in Windsor's annual Pumpkin Regatta, and paddle a hollowed-out, gaily-decorated, 660 lb. whopper (supplied by Howard Dill, grower of the World's Largest Pumpkins™) across a lake. But in the end, one of her producers had to step in and do it for her.

Sometimes it's impossible to pretend that I'm not living in a wretched provincial backwater. This is definitely one of those times. ;-)

Thanksgiving

Well, in typical Maritime fashion, it's a miserable Thanksgiving day outside (it's been chucking it down since yesterday morning). So, not a bad day to fire up the oven. We're having the in-laws round this afternoon, for the usual turkey feast. A. always took it upon himself to cook for our Canadian friends for each of the Thanksgivings we spent in Ireland, so he's an old hand with this sort of thing now.

To wit, today's Bill of Fare:

Butternut Squash Soup with Garlic Croutons

: : :

Roast Turkey with Chestnut and Apple Stuffing
Roast Potatoes
Mashed Turnips
Asparagus
: : :
Pumpkin Pie
Trifle

Luckily, there's been some division of labour. My mother- and father-in-law are supplying the wines, as well as a main course for my sister-in-law (who's veggie) and some homemade cranberry sauce, as we forgot to buy cranberries yesterday (and this being Nova Scotia, all the grocery stores are shut today). SIL herself has made an alternative dessert of trifle, as my FIL doesn't like pumpkin pie. The offending pie in question has been my duty today.

The house smells positively ambrosial at the moment. Family due to arrive within the half-hour; iPod has been loaded with suitable music; a suitably autumnal fire has been laid in the living room grate upstairs. And I've just opened the sherry. Let the festivities begin.

EDIT 10.05 pm: *burp* oops ;-)

Adventures in Dildo

I was tickled to see this fun article in the NYT travel section the other week - a bit of reportage from the rather wonderful Carrie Fisher, on her recent trip to Dildo, Newfoundland. She had a larf, by the sounds of it.

And why wouldn't she? Over the years, while chatting with travelled acquaintances, Dildo has often been mentioned (and snickered over) when the subject of oddly-named places comes up. When it does, I do so enjoy playing my little trump card. See, I've not only been to Dildo, but some of my forebears hail from there. My mother's mother's family, specifically - though she herself left for Toronto at a young age. But there are still plenty of cousins there. My great-grandmother, 'Aunt' Marion Gosse (who passed away just a few years ago at the venerable age of 103), lived all her life in Dildo. And all of us in the family descended on her in the summer of 1997 to celebrate her 100th birthday.

Yep...a good time in Dildo was had by all.

Bill Philip

Imaginus, the travelling poster fair that has been going around Canadian university campuses since before I was an undergraduate, are at my workplace this week. As I still need a final picture for my living room, I wandered over to the Student Union after work and had a gawp.

Of course, it took ages to wade through the miasma of typical student dorm-room subjects - Bob Marley, Che Guevara, bikini babes, kittens, 'Beer: It's Not Just for Breakfast Any More', etcetera etcetera etcetera. But there were a few interesting things. I got a small reprint of a hilarious 1950s advert for Scott paper towels bearing the slogan "Is Your Washroom Breeding Bolsheviks?" Heh. I'm hanging it in the downstairs bog, of course.

And amazingly, I did actually find something for the living room. It's a triptych of photographs called Palazzo Staircase, by an English photographer called Bill Philip, whom I'd never heard of before. It's really quite nice and goes well with something else hanging on the opposite wall - an original photographic print of a spiral staircase in a chateau in Burgundy, which we bought at a market in Belfast. I googled Bill Philip and found that his work is really very good. And weirdly enough, he's based in Arundel, West Sussex - not even an hour's drive from Brighton. Small world.

In My Garden - October

Lots of work in the garden this afternoon. This past week, I bought loads of spring bulbs, and today we planted the lot, as they've got to be in the ground before the first frost (which is doubtless imminent). Of course, when I say 'planted', I mean I played Lady Muck with a trowel and gloves. Then one can employ one's manservant for the actual hard graft...hee. ;-)

The rest of the garden planning can wait, but it's nice to know that we should have a beautiful display in store come March and April. I bought multicoloured narcissi, parrot tulips, double-petalled tulips, grape hyacinths, wood hyacinths, crocuses, and snowdrops - all my favourites. I can't wait to see them come up - if they make it through the winter and don't get eaten by squirrels first, that is.

While A. was turning over the soil in the beds, we came across several salamanders. I haven't played wiv a salamander in years. My brother and I used to collect salamanders and froggies and toads when we were kids. I made a makeshift terrarium out of clingfilm, a glass dish, and some dirt and moss, and kept one of them captive for the afternoon until I had time to play with him later. Isn't he cool?


Don't worry, I let him go right after I took the pic!

New A-ha Video

A-ha - those darlings of my teenage years - are back. A new album is due soon, and a single, 'Celice', has been released in Europe. I like 'Celice' a lot - it's a bit dark, and has a pretty classic A-ha sound. The video, however, is quite unlike any other A-ha video I've ever seen. It's viewable online here - but don't watch it at work, cos it's a bit rude and has naked ladies in it. As sexy videos have never really been the purview of A-ha, it's quite surprising. There's no way it will ever be played on MTV in its current form, either. But maybe they thought a little video controversy would get the new album some attention? Who knows? 'Tis not for the likes of me to understand the workings of the music industry...