Wagons Roll.

Memo to self: Add a trans-Canada trip by Greyhound to my list of Things to Do Before I Die.
Since I retired from my honorary male job, the voice of my left brain is gradually being shouted down by the newly-assertive right brain. This is giving me endless fun and taking me on all kinds of new adventures; I never travel more than a mile or two now without a notebook and pen, scribbling away on any pretext. Just like painting, it teaches me to see.

Old folks are the new Roadies. The bus to northern Manitoba had a good share of unaccompanied women seniors; I noticed them in what I considered a most untypical bus line-up in Winnipeg--neatly groomed, with newish compact luggage. The lady in the seat ahead of me, Pierrette, had been on the bus for two days straight, coming from Ottawa and sleeping where she sat. She was sharply dressed and wiry, with a tan you don't get from a Canadian winter and a twinkle in her eye, and had brought along a mohair blanket and her CD collection. She was off to see her sister in Swan River--the price was right, and she couldn't refuse.

Imagine being left on the prairie by the Greyhound bus. It would be like falling off a cruise boat in the middle of the ocean. There's nowhere within a day's walk, and in the winter it would certainly be fatal if no-one else happened by within a minute or two. One thing the prairie has plenty of is distance. It's like those nightmares where you run and run and get nowhere. You have to admire the pioneers that settled here.

The North American system of measuring ingredients by cupful (rather than by weight, as in Europe) when cooking has got to stem from long journeys by covered wagon. "Supper ready, dear?" "You're gonna have to stop them danged oxen fer a bit, while I weigh the ingredients for the pie."

Ingleside crime wave shock

Six thirty a.m. I drew back the curtains and dang me! There it was. A foreign orange garbage bag squatting, overstuffed, right beside my garbage can, ready for pickup.

Now I pride myself on a modest garbage output (words aside.) My elder daughter, Charlotte, has trained me from way back to cook everything from scratch, eschew prepackaged food and to reuse everything. Not for me the huge mound of bags at the curbside on Tuesdays, ho no; not for the village council either, apparently--they recently passed an edict limiting household garbage to two bags a week. Kind of tough if you have a family of growing teenagers. If you have more stuff to go out you have to bite the bullet and buy extra bags at $1.50. Mind you, they do have the council's crest emblazoned on them, which adds extra cachet.

How had the alien bag got there? Some cheapskate was obviously trying to save a buck or two. But when had he left it? For it was obviously a "he"--I couldn't imagine a woman sinking to garbage piracy. I would comb the neighbourhood and find out where the orange bags were coming from. Was this going to be a weekly thing? Will I have to mount guard, shotgun in hand, over my patch of curb till the truck passes? Debbie, at the post office, observed that garbage day on her street was an all-out war for the available curb space, and Sue said that it was worse out in the country, where drive-by garbage scattering was rampant. Things were going from bad to worse. Next it will be biker gangs.

My friend Margo, giving me a ride to a function later that evening, mentioned that she was happy to see that "her" garbage bag had been picked up. Well!
Some months ago I'd agreed to let her drop off any extra bags at my place, but had forgotten.

Guess I can put the gun back in the cabinet. The village can breathe easier now the crime wave has passed.

Face-off

A bloody slab of fresh kill lay right there on the edge of the ice, and ripping at it was a big brown hawk, all shoulders and powerful haunches. He had an audience--three seagulls and two crows, all standing at a respectful distance, calling him "sir" and waiting for him to finish. Now and then an opportunistic crow would sidle up and take a few hasty pecks at the meat, whereupon the hawk would turn, swear at it and resume feeding. The crow, chastened, backed away and waited.

Up rolled three cars. The doors were flung open, spilling out families with cameras, field-glasses and restless children. The hawk shrank down into immobility, his dilemma obvious--lose the meat and stay safe, or wait this out? A moment before, he looked like the king of the skies; now he looked like a dirty little predator caught red-handed. I'm sure this wasn't what the onlookers had hoped to see, and I thought how often, in our rush to possess something, to make it our own, we ruin it.

After a few minutes when nothing much happened, the sightseers climbed back into the cars and roared away. The hawk at once regained his courage and resumed feeding; this time three more hawks were circling idly above him, waiting their chance. And then, from nowhere, came the bald eagle.

It was now the hawk's turn to watch in dismay at a polite distance, while the eagle devoured his lunch. The great bird tore strips off the meat--not pausing even when more sightseers drew up--whittling it down to something portable. Replete and bored, he flew lazily away, leaving what was left for the hawks and crows.

I've never seen a bald eagle around the village before. This isn't the west coast, so they're pretty unusual. In the summer, when everything's crowded, the wildlife runs for cover, so I'm happy to have the calm while it lasts, with these rare glimpses. I'm tempted, though, to buy a couple of pounds of stew beef to spread on the ice and see what turns up next.

Holy blood, holy moly!

This is, briefly, how to anesthetize a patient with trauma and blood loss: Lie them flat, possibly with the head lower than the feet, to maximize blood flow to the heart and brain. Give them lots of oxygen for several minutes, if there's time. Run in fluid or blood to fluff up what's left of their circulation. Have a strong mechanical suction hose running--nothing they've eaten for many hours has passed the stomach, no oral meds will be absorbed, and it may all come back up, run straight into their lungs and choke them. Gently, gently run in your anesthetic agent--anything intravenous may be too strong, flatten the circulation and stop the heart, so you may need to have them breathe a vapour/oxygen mix. Get an assistant to press gently on the trachea as the patient goes to sleep, to help prevent reflux of stomach contents. After they're asleep, quickly pass a cuffed tube into the trachea to seal off the lungs, heave a small sigh of relief and run them on "air and a prayer" until they're stronger.

The reason I'm telling you this is that I just caught Michael Baigent, author of "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" on CBC Radio One this morning, earnestly insisting that Jesus was quickly anesthetized with oral medication on a sponge, in the vertical position, with chin on chest. All this from several feet away, while crucified, then taken down unconscious and spirited away. Guaranteed to obstruct the airway and stop the heart. All I can say is, I wish I'd had magic like that on the many nights I spent in the OR. Sorry, but the human body just doesn't follow Michael Baigent's rules.

The theological expert the CBC had cleverly called in to refute him was a priest from "Opus Dei", of all people. He was gyrating anxiously as he made his points; no need--he should have been cackling with glee at such nonsense. Memo to Michael Baigent: Do your anesthesia research first.

To paraphrase the old saw, people who believe in nothing will believe anything.

The madness must stop.

The problem with living in vacation country is that for four months of the year we're overrun with campers, so come June we all take to our burrows and estivate. Some people are quite happy with this: notably the campers, who are sunburned and cheerful, and Patsy and Martin who run the village supermarket, with its eye-popping deli counter. In springtime it's hard to get round the store without falling into conversation with friends and neighbours. In summer it's just hard to get round the store.

Spring down by the St. Lawrence is deafeningly silent. This afternoon I happened on a muskrat as he was about his business, red-brown furry body, beady black eyes and little ratty tail. It was hard to tell which of us was the more surprised. When I lived in the country in upstate New York we had a muskrat (and many other animals) in the garage. Nasty pointy teeth. Big, normally a very savvy cat, tangled with him and got the worst end of the deal.

Alex, my trained-killer son, occasionally dips into my blog when times are slack in the desert in Arizona where he lives. He rolls his eyes and groans, but I think it gives him a feeling of stability. Mother's still nuts, all's right with the world.

I just realized why all three of my offspring never want children: they are afraid that this geek affliction is a dominant gene, and they are terrified that one of theirs will inherit it, and everyone will look at it funny, and point.

Solitary Vice

You can see more going on around you if you keep quiet and still; this is true for scuba diving, walks down by the St. Lawrence and life in general. The sun is stretching itself now and developing some real warmth; the only ice remaining is a thin fringe on the river bank, and sheets of candle-wax ice in the sheltered bays. Turning round slowly my eye was caught by a coyote crossing the field with a steady gallop like a fox's; he was bigger, of course, dog-size; sandy-coloured with a black tip to his tail. I was downwind of him, and motionless so as not to scare him, so he hung around for a few minutes, all business, searching for food. The deer must have picked up his scent; normally I have to beat them off with a stick, but there were none anywhere today.

The blue herons are back; one flew overhead with a stately slo-mo flap of wings, legs stretched out behind and neck coiled up. Two or three hawks were up there too, balancing on the thermals, checking out the progress of the geese nesting season; it doen't bode well for goslings, but it's early yet.

The high waters of last fall left a line of flotsam and all kinds of pack-rat treasure. Haul so far: abandoned fishing float (good toy for Riley the cat); two plastic toy spades (will do nicely for spreading salt on ice, and bird seed on lawns); a plastic tent peg; nice piece of two-by-four for campfire kindling, and a large plastic scoop to use as a bailer for my rented rowboat. Also seen: a complete set of sturdy steps which would have made a seviceable plant stand--alas! too heavy to carry.

The joy of a deserted riverbank is that I can indulge these eccentricities and no-one's any the wiser.

Fooled Me Twice

"Surely," I mused as I opened "Deception Point," which had been pressed on me by the urging of an otherwise well-meaning friend, "this has to be better than "The Da Vinci Code."

OK, here's the formula:
Comb ten of the best-selling recent thriller novels; select their salient features--all of them--mash them in a blender and throw them on to paper. The result is a food-fight: too, too much information; the usual over-exposition, the most obvious being two, count 'em, two, pages of perfectly-scripted plot exposition towards the end of the book--and this by the arch-villain, who's armed with a rifle and perched on a sinking ship in the midst of a maelstrom. Plus hero/ines with a background merely in desk jobs who can assimilate complex geological data, pilot underwater subs and run for twenty-four hectic action-packed hours in the arctic without food, sleep or bathroom breaks. Oh, come ON!

By the end I was gagging. Serve me right for trying Dan Brown twice.

My only consolation was that the books were borrowed.

Frozen Stiff

"What's going on?" is purely rhetorical in this part of the world; we are a small village, in a very big country whose climate can kill you. Out strolling--with crampons--in the local park beside the St. Lawrence as winter wound down, I was the only soul on the face of the earth, marvelling at the breathtaking silence. Bells of solid ice swung from the tips of the weeping willows. The river was frozen right across to the USA, less than 1km away, all motion suspended.

And then I heard it: the ice was singing. There was a soft background hum, like the echoes of a choir in the nave of a cathedral. From time to time came another sound like a rifle shot as distant floes buckled; there were crunchings, and what I took at first to be a dog barking. A crack flew by me along the river bank, with the scouring sound of a jet flying overhead. On another occasion I'd followed what I took to be a flock of small birds twittering, only to find a fringe of delicate ice plates blown by the wind into the edge of a patch of open water.

Yesterday the river was emitting deep, hollow coughs from far down below the ice; it was clearing its throat for the big thaw. Today the temperature soared to 10*C and everything started running; pools of water everywhere, the official start of Mud Season. Time to drag the ice-fishing huts back, and drive those pickup trucks to safety off the ice.

Borrowed Finery

I've just finished reading "Music and Silence" by Rose Tremain, which I scooped up while visiting my sister; a gorgeous historical novel about 17th century Denmark, lavish with texture, peopled with complex living and breathing characters.
What a stunner! Its time-warp wafts you away into this other world, so vivid that it's virtual reality. The first time I read it for the story, the second time I'll read it for the craft.
Mercifully, the blurb doesn't tell us how Ms Tremain divides her time.

Hoist on my own petard

Tax time's coming, the Sharing o' the Green, and the accountants' offices are busy as a cat house when the fleet docks. Frustrated by the goings-on of last year's firm, who treated me like chopped liver, I jumped ship and landed in a much more professional outfit. They did, however, remark that I was "too well organized". Moi?

Reading: "The Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey", mostly by Patrick O'Brian, very thoughtfully sent to me by Susannah.
It is well known that I am the man's geatest living aficionado, but this is ridiculous. If they could squeeze another corpuscle out of that man, this is it. Like underwear, no matter how clean, it was never intended for public viewing; it's the bare bones of a novel, the first draft, padded copiously with duplicates of every page in the original handwriting, and with an embarrassingly fulsome multi-page intro. If it reveals anything, it's that the finished books were brought to life by vivid, imaginative embellishment which is missing entirely in this rough sketch.

The man's dead, for heaven's sake. A marvellous, unmatched series of beautifully crafted novels/ripping yarns has come to an end. We'll just have to get over it.

Truite rotie boulangere: (for the boyfriend)
1 whole trout, about 1kg.
1 kg potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
1 onion
1 clove garlic, minced
250 ml bouillon or fish stock
1 bay leaf
Sprig of thyme
50 gm butter
1 tablespoon peanut oil
salt, pepper

Generously butter a baking dish; layer the potatoes, garlic and onion in the dish, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Add the bouillon, bay leaf and thyme.
Bake in preheated oven (gas mark 7--210*c or 425*F) uncovered, for 25 minutes. (Original recipe called for 15 min., but I found the potatoes remained crunchy)
Place the prepared trout on top of the potatoes, brush with the oil and adjust seasoning. Return to the oven for a further 15 minutes.
(Je cuisine--365 jours,730 recettes--marvellous book, unknown publisher, another gift from Susannah)

Hmmm...Why the Hype?

I've just finished "The Da Vinci Code", lured into doing so by the buzz about it. You have to admire the man for the sheer volume of the research that went into it. That being said, I found his prose like a dirty pane of glass--the view looks fascinating, but the flaws get in the way. The exposition on the first page is crammed with way too much information, too in-your-face. By the end I didn't give a rat's what happened to any of the protagonists, and was constantly reminded that John LeCarre would have done it so much better.

I've also read "Talk to the Hand", Lynne Truss's latest. "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" was hilarious, and I was hoping for more; this one is a lament for the passing of a considerate and compassionate society. It's witty, but too true to be comforting; starting lightheartedly, but gradually descending into a rant, rabbiting on in a way that will cause my nearest and dearest to have me put away if they catch me doing it when I'm a D.O.G. It probably started life as a single column in the Saturday "Lifestyle" section, and ends up as wonton soup--some good meaty bits, but overall pretty thin.

"Works of charity--almsgiving--are in effect a way for the rich to shirk their obligation to work for justice and a means for soothing their consciences, while preserving their own status and robbing the poor of their rights." Heavy stuff. It comes from Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical, "God is Love", out this year. I'm poring over the dense prose; it's quite short, but full of good stuff, and some surprises. Who'd have thought a 79-year-old celibate could come up with some of this? More on that, later.

The Last Post

When the title, "The First Post", flashed up there on the screen my immediate thought was that this was a reference to my advancing age; it has a whiff suggestive of "Taps," or the Last Post, the bugle call played at the hauling down of flags, at the change of command and at funerals of dead warriors.

In the immortal words of Monty Python, "I'm not dead yet."

What Have We Done?

These words were whispered, famously, by the scientists observing the detonation of the A-bomb. I imagine Pandora had the same sentiments. Consider, then, the wisdom of setting up a blog for one's own mother, whose ramblings will be up there for all the world to see.
OK, that's a bit of hyperbole.
But it's a bit like giving Dick Cheney a shotgun.

Test Post

What a great birthday gift from Charlotte and Susie!

The first post

Juliet Gill is my mum, and she has a thing for domestic systems. She loves paperclips, boxes and containers, labelmakers, and products that come from Staples. She has three kids, and we love to tease her about her organizational fetishes. This is me:


My mum has been reading our blogs for many moons now, and I figured it was time she started wasting time doing her own. Oh yeah, and it's her birthday on February 16th. Happy birthday, mama!