Tag: Weather, Holidays and Seasons

Christmas Cards 2006

It must be the holidays. I made the julglogg this afternoon (Polish vodka, frozen mixed berries into mason jars for 30 days or so), got ticked over the number of “special events” the kids are already booked up for and remembered to pull out the old “send me an address and I will mail you a card” GX40 post from last year which goes like this:

So because I have finished the Christmas shopping way before the usual afternoon of the 24th, I actually pulled out the address book to do a few cards. Then I realized that the internet has destroyed whatever relationship I ever had with the global system of postal services. The “sent to” address lists ends in 1996 when I send out 12 cards. Good Lord. I could do a performance art piece on the current residents of the former homes of people I could have kept up with better. But that would be sad and this is Yule.

So if you know me and want a card, email me at christmas.card.from.alan@gmail.com. And if you don’t know me – and are not the sort of person Michael does not let come to the party – send me your address anyway. I will see how the cheap drug store cards are holding out. Who knows? Maybe I will stuff every fifth envelope with Canadian Tire Money.

So then I go to check out the email address and see Marian sent emails to it well into January long after I stopped looking at that Inbox. Sorry about that. Keep in mind I am really bad at following up these things but let’s give it a go for 2006.

Tales From The Green Valley

Got a little Christmassy last night watching Tales from the Green Valley on TVO last night, a 2005 BBC production, in which a number of academics with good teeth live in a 1620’s Welsh farm and display how civilized it all would have been without the ignorance, disease, constant use of alcohol and religious fanaticism. But all very good and worth watching. Here is one participant’s website. It were the December episode that drew me back to the deep mid-winter:

To celebrate Christmas 17th-century style the farmers cut a giant yule log, find traditional decorations, brew contemporary tipples, and put all hands to cooking up recipes from the age of Shakespeare, like mince pies with real meat in them. At the same time they must find time to tend the livestock, make some winter clothes, and build a hovel, a period wood store.

But they did butchered a pig and made with it plump sausages and many a pie. ‘Twas the “contemporary tipples” that was of interest, the infusion of herbs in spirit that got me thinking of storing up something of a julglögg, then I reckoned it might be a pyment or metheglin. It reminded me of when at King’s I was in charge of the Gunpowder Punch in 1984 for the Christmas Readings: 7 parts red wine, 2 parts port, 1 part brandy simmered with old apples and spices.

Taking care of this in November leaves time in early December for some careful cheese planning. Oh, and I better buy a snow shovel, too.

Best Time

We live in cycles even as modernity trys to drive them out. With the fall comes the quietening of the FM band so that weak but neighbouring NPR comes in clearly without the irritation of co-channel soft rock stations from Ottawa. With each week comes the end of the week and the end of work if only for a time. In the day there are the three parts of plot: the beginning, middle and end. Some points in these cycles of cyles seem exceedingly good and just like I notice – since the digital clock became common when I was exactly nine – when it is 12:34 pm more than most times, I notice how good 8:21 am on a Saturday is when there isn’t much planned. Cheese toasts!

Mondayishness

We really ought to be scientific about it. All we need to do is address what is wrong with the day and respond directly to that. Then we would be relieved of both the moany groanings of pop tunes about having to get up yet we would want to get up.

Whatever it is, whatever the condition, it gets worse as autumn comes. Mybe it is the cloud formations. Coming back down 416 and the 401 – as only the 401 should get the “the” – there were ribbons of cloud running north-west to south-east insterspering rain with blue sky every five miles. Disconcerting it was all that structure in the sky. They cared nothing for my cares.

Friday Chat, Bad Day Chat

I can hear them even now – whiff, whiff, whiff. The sound of my new back to school cords, junior high late 70s. Crisp now, they would weigh me down in that cold October rain waiting for the bus, absorbing like a new sponge technology. This is the first bad day in the calendar since February. Mellow fruitfulness? HAH!

  • Here’s a bit of what I lost when I was taken to school as a kid. My access to Uncle Bobby and his ilk. I always thought that Bibmo the Birthday clown was freakish and the Mars landing quality picture of him under that link does nothing to help his cause.
  • Remember when Scotland always won at soccer? And by the way, that blown catch at Fenway by Rios the Blue Jay last night was the funniest thing I have seen in months.
  • I now like the Foo Fighters even more because it what you want to listen to when you are down under down under:

    The men were stuck in a Tasmanian mine when it collapsed in May, and passed the time listening to the Foo Fighters on MP3 players handed to them. Grohl said he would meet the two when the band tour Australia in November. “I’m not just having one beer with those dudes – we’re going for it,” he told the country’s ABC radio. “This is going to be a big night.”

    I have always thought that the mining disaster survivior population would be a nautral fit for rock star adoration.

  • Big doings with our forces in Afganistan who are going to take a province, Panjwaii, back soon. It is an example of how the Taliban are not terrorists or really even insurgents if this quote is correct:

    One Afghan leader from the area said NATO is in for a tough fight that won’t end once troops move in. He said the alliance should attempt some form of reconciliation with local militants. Haji Agha Lalai, the chief Panjwaii district elder who was chased out of his village by Taliban, said the insurgents have infiltrated every aspect of life there. “They own shops, they own homes there, they will not retreat,” Mr. Lalai predicted. “There are many types of Taliban, but these are the warriors. They have been told to fight and they will fight.”

    Whatever they are, they are nasty pieces of work and as will be actually capturing a large area from them and holding it. This is the area where Canadian troops killed 72 Taliban soldiers a few weeks ago after they ambushed an ambush.

  • Interesting to note that King for a bit more Ralph admits the Alberta boom was in fact unexpected, unprepared for, caused by a shift in a natural resource and is causing economic problems like local inflation and the inability to get projects off the ground due to shortgages. Interesting given those who say it was through hard work and conservative economic principles even though the same hardwork and conservative economic principles applies and have applied to most of the rest of the country for the last decade and a half.
  • I have been spending an inordinate amount of time at the Cooperstown Ballcap Co. . Their research prowess is phenomenal. Check out the cap for “BANANA WORKERS, 1935”.

So there you are. Enjoy the last real day of summer. A prize to the first person who spots some one else at work and an extra prize if that person is actually conscious.

Wednesday…Thursday…Chatday…

Tra la! It’s May, the lusty month of May!
That lovely month when ev’ryone goes blissfully astray
Tra la! It’s here, that shocking time of year!
When tons of wicked little thoughts merrily appear.

It’s May! It’s May, that gorgeous holiday
When ev’ry maiden prays that her lad will be a cad!
It’s mad! It’s gay, a libelous display
Those dreary vows that ev’ryone takes, ev’ryone breaks
Ev’ryone makes divine mistakes
The lusty month of May!

A little something for the Broadway set amongst you.

Time is flying, is it not? A few short moments ago I was in winter’s grip and now the weather is all July in Halifax – mid-20s and sunshine. Fabulous. You know all those people who say October is the best time of year? They are nuts. May is. Pre-bug, pre-smog, pre-heat, pre-kids-at-home-every-day-with-nothing-to-do. It’s been a busy week following on a couple of busy weeks but at least it is May:

  • I have been contacted by the Asparagus Growers of America to remind you to eat asparagus. Asparagus is one of the two foods that kids won’t want to eat until they find out that it makes your pee change colour and then they can’t get enough. My trick? A little orange juice in the steamer.
  • In other public service news, send your kind thoughts for portland who is waylayed by a unshakable nasty bug these days. And one for the Junk Store Cowgirl, Linda, who has been in radio silence for almost a month now. You will recall her good lad received a shipment of Marmite from the office workers here.
  • Nice to see that radio is confirming the lack of practical support for podcasting:

    Commercial FM radio has reached the billion-dollar revenue milestone in Canada, at a time when they are also preparing to sing the blues in Ottawa this month. Industry data released Thursday show Canada’s commercial FM stations collectively pulled in $1.03-billion in revenue last year, with pretax profits of $247-million. Those numbers are up substantially from 2004, and when combined with earnings from AM stations, helped drive commercial radio to an unprecedented $1.33-billion in revenue. Pretax profits also soared 24 per cent to more than $255-million.

    Radio really is the miracle medium, providing all your wireless needs for a wee $7.99 transistor rig from Radio Shack. If I were you , I’d think about a career in radio.

  • It has been a week when I have re-evaluated Mr. Harper to a degree. His budget was not a bad budget, keeping in mind that I disagree with both the Tory child bonus voter attraction scheme and the murky Grit shadow plan that really never was. If I was a booster of the military more than I am I might be a little offended by something of a gap between word and deed but otherwise it was pretty middle of the road and is not going to undermine the tidy little boom we are enjoying. The most troublesome part of it is the continued de-Federalization of the nation that really has been tripping along since Joe Clark fist uttered “community of communities” back in ’79. Where will it all end? Who gets the “D” in Canada when it is utterly disassembled?
  • BLork is a wizard but more so a person of intestinal fortitude as I have had such jars but dipped into said jars.
  • This bit from a memo obtained under access to information is a tad odd:

    The percentage of Canadians who hold a valid passport has steadily risen — to 36 per cent in 2004-05 from less than 28 per cent in 2000-01 — in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. The passport office expects the figure to reach 48 per cent of Canadians by 2008-09. “Since 9/11, passports are being seen as secure identity documents rather than just travel documents,” the notes say. “Passport Canada is now as much a security agency as a service agency, in keeping with the new international norm.”

    Does my government think I need a secure identity document other than for travel? I certainly do not. My me-ness is mine wherever I am and I don’t need no state papers to prove that. Sounds more like Passport Canada just bigging itself up. Silly puffery as I’d like to think, generally, that I am much more in keeping with the new international norm.

  • Update: Why the heck is a company in PEI importing workers from Russia? Even with a 1.5% unemployment drop from March to April, there is still 10.5% unemployed in the province.

Easter Week

An excellent picture from the BBC this morning, most excellent because of the trendy girls in to the back and right who are looking at the black wizardy lads.

Easter week has often meant in my adult life hitting the road as it will this year, seeking a little saltiness and a little spring. As those little blue spring flowers are popping up here now, who knows what there will be to see in the Mohawk Valley or around Worchester, MA as we travel through. God forbid a leaf on a tree but maybe a daffodil.

Once, I knew it was spring because I was reading The Master and The Margarita as a way to renew myself. Silly lad, as now or at least for four of the last six years, spring does not start unless I have been in the company of Mainers. Remember when I used to post short short movies? Well, it is three weeks early but one can only hope to see a spring day like this again.

Last Day Of Winter

Today is really the last day of winter. It is the last day like Labour Day is the last day of summer. The weather is not necessarily going to tell you but its days are numbered even with the sharp spell we face for a few days.

The days lengthen. Somewhere in the month that begins tomorrow there will be a day that will be shorts weather and there will be more green around the foundations of buildings. The day after tomorrow the Red Sox play the Twins in the beginning of the graprefruit league. Tomorrow, February will be eleven months away.

Shards

Yesterday was a big day. Sunny. Plus five or so by the eastern edge of the big lake. I found myself at an auspicious point hydrographically speaking. All around there were shards of ice packing together for chill as if to to keep themselves. Ususally ice like this would be far across the lake, deep within the cap, holding back the big lakers until spring, keeping commerce at bay. Todays rains will melt whatever is left.

Short short slow loading and uncompressed .AVI silent but entirely lovely movies of the same: #1 [13 MB], #2 [8 MB], #3 [10.5 MB]. The sound was like a gymnasium filled with tinkling crystal glassware. Click on any pic for larger scale.