Where to begin?

It’s been a while since I’ve last blogged and I’ve so many different stories to tell that I’ll have to break up events of the past few weeks into multiple short blog posts. Today’s post will simply set the stage so that you understand my recent neglect of my blog and hopefully want to check in again to read more:
Since I last wrote, ManNorth and I headed waaay down south (and east) to my hometown to visit with my family, made a side trip across the border into the US to see more relatives and then flew to Prairie Town to pick up our pickup (sorry, I couldn’t resist) that we had had to leave behind when we moved to Northern Town by air last June. After a dinner with family and a day’s flurry of errands in Prairie Town, we were off on our next adventure, driving our truck over 4,000km home to Northern Town with hopes of ManNorth making it back to work on time. (This was a concern, given that we were driving through the mountains in winter and a few mountain passes we’d be travelling through are often closed in the winter due to poor weather and road conditions.)
Suffice to say, all went well. Big Red (our truck) behaved herself and we arrived home with a few days to sleep and relax by building and staining a 8 X 4 X 1 ft bookshelf from inexpensive lumber we purchased in Prairie Town (Northern Town doesn’t sell fencing lumber as no one seems to need or want fences.)
Stay tuned for more details of the trip and news from Northern Town.

'Tis the season

For giving of gifts and attending after work Christmas parties!

I recently joined ManNorth for his work holiday party. His department, along with at least 2 or 3 others, all got together for a big potluck at one of the departmental offices. After the meal, which included some roast moose that I mistakenly thought was a delicious roast beef dish, and much chatting, the gift exchange began and I immediately regretted the gift I’d added to the pile. It still makes me feel a bit sad, even four days later.

Allow me to explain: The gift exchange was one of those kinds where all the gifts are wrapped and assembled together. All the gift givers get a number, one for each gift given. The person with the number one picks a gift and opens it and the second person has the choice of taking the opened gift or choosing a new one. If an opened gift gets taken, the person who lost it gets to take a gift (not from the person who took from them) or opens a new one and so on until there is one gift remaining and everyone has been stealing gifts back and forth trying to end up with the one that they want without anyone taking it from them. The exchange ends when someone opens the last gift. There was a preset value to the gifts and no one was to spend more than $20, although I think a few gifts had to have cost more than that. As local prices are two or three times higher than in more southern locales, $20 doesn’t go very far here and as we’d rather keep our $40, we both opted for homemade gifts that we valued as at least $20 each.

I reused some of our blank newsprint packing paper from the move to wrap up a large tin of homemade fudge that ManNorth had made and prettied it up with a holiday ribbon. The paper was bland and crinkled, but in a homey, pleasing way. My gift was similarly wrapped but with a plain blue ribbon as that was all the decoration I had left to embellish it.
I realized though, that in this style of gift giving, gaudy advertising with sparkles, bright ribbons and holiday colours are necessary for getting one’s gift picked to be opened. My poor little gift sat there like the unpopular child being passed over as teams are being picked for a school yard game. What no one knew, though, was that under that plain wrap, my gift was the best of the bunch.

I had chosen to give four hand drawn and coloured cards that I had made, using themes from around Northern Town and in the nearby mountains. Each had taken a few hours to complete and had been done when I needed to relax and unwind. In spite of only using a permanent marker and a set of 24 coloured pencils, I was particularly pleased with how these had turned out and selfishly and perhaps a bit vainly, imagined them being opened to a chorus of oohs and ahhs and my person being raised just a wee bit in their estimation. (Which could be a good thing, particularly as I’d like to find future employment with one of the departments that was participating in the party.)

Stay with me here, as I wrap this up, no pun intended: Imagine the chaos of all the most valued gifts (which were mostly tools –saws, electric screwdrivers, compasses and jackknives etc..) being passed around like hot potatoes with the occasional mug or coffee blend changing hands and then someone, finally, takes a chance on opening my lowly looking gift.

“What is it?” someone exclaimed, anticipating a new gift to steal.

“A box of cards” was the somewhat sullen reply, to everyone’s immediate disappointment and dismissal, and the next gift was being opened before the cards were even looked through by the receiver, who was obviously disappointed to be getting them, although I’d been careful to label the package with a decorative script describing them as “original art cards” to make the point that these weren’t just standard printed cards from the local store.

That’s the chance one takes at these sorts of exchanges. If one happens to open a box of pink and purple frilled orange hand towels embroidered in violent blue lettering advertising Jenny’s kitchen in sunny California (!), they’re stuck with them and won’t be able to steal a better gift unless someone else decides Jenny’s kitchen is where it’s at and takes them.

All my hard work had been for nought, my ego remained unstroked and the recipient didn’t want the cards, and was disappointed at not being able to compete for the electric screwdriver or ratchet set he’d been watching change hands. I briefly considered stealing them back if I got a chance, partly out of sympathy for him and partly in response to my offended inner artist, but as I’d put my name on them (all other gifts were anonymous) and had already been introduced to the group, it’d be sort of a tacky thing to do. I ended up as the proud owner of a much sought after set of hand saws that ManNorth and I actually needed and ManNorth’s fudge was being passed around the room for everyone to try after two children, in their attempt to help the recipient open the package, spilled the fudge all over the floor. (Most of it was still edible and everyone declared it yummy.)

My hope is that the cards were later taken out of the protective clear plastic covers I’d put them in and examined in detail, the recipient finally realizing that he had indeed, received the best gift, and decided to keep them for himself, perhaps even framing them. Or perhaps, his wife saw some value in them and did the same, or used them for their holiday cards and the final recipients think they’re just wonderful.

I’m kind of glad that I’ll never know.

I should have given them to one of you, my faithful readers (Hmm. I seem to be channeling one of the Bronte sisters here. The gift/team picking theme had me thinking of plain Jane Eyre for some reason) Or I could have given them to other friends or family members who might value them , at least, for coming from me rather than from a random stranger.

Sigh.

ManNorth and I walked home chatting about the intricacies of gift giving and how much pleasure can be had from the giving of a gift, relative to receiving one. I took pleasure in creating those cards and knew I’d given a good gift. I just should have given it to someone else.

I’m glad though, that I scanned each card before I wrapped it up and I’ll show you the front of each card here. The images aren’t quite true to the originals as some hues weren’t picked up in the scan and they’re much more washed out than the real things (especially the lighter hues), but hopefully you’ll get the idea. Consider these my holiday gifts to you, my readers. Enjoy!

Viburnum edule

(lowbush cranberry)

Northern Highway

Campanula lasiocarpa

(Mountain harebell)

Winter at Big Lake

A farewell of sorts

The rising sun

Blesses my mind

With joy.

The setting sun

Blesses my heart

With peace.

The Rising Sun

-Sri Chinmoy

I've been thinking about the sun this week and am confident that I'll still have joy and peace tomorrow when the sun will neither rise nor set here in Northern Town. There are still a few weeks of twilight remaining as we ease into a month of darkness and I've been enjoying watching the sky change from black to deep blue and varied shades of purple, pink and gold during the few hours when the sun nears the horizon to peek out and then descends to fade away again.

For those who appreciate this sort of information, here's a clip from the NRCC's website and their sunrise sunset calculator for Northern Town. Note that the sun reaches its zenith today at 2:46pm local time (we're on daylight savings time) and sets less than half an hour later.

ManNorth has the camera today so I won't be able to share a photo. Instead, I'll share are a few I took this past weekend as the sun rose (and set) while we were out exploring on our skis. The temperature was a frosty -30C but I still managed to overheat and had to shed one of my wool sweaters.

Looking north at midday.

The sun reaches its zenith over Big Lake

Leaning trees along the shore at local noon

Cold? Bah! Never with head to toe wool!

A favourite view from south of Northern Town at midday.

I think my brain is cross eyed

Or, at least that's how it feels trying to do this:

Look at the image. Is the dancer spinning clockwise or counter clockwise?

Now, concentrate and make her spin the OTHER way. Then try changing back again once you do it.

I can do it if I focus on her planted foot, but it's really hard to change between directions!

Go to this link http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22556281-661,00.html for the original article, complete with brief descriptions of right brained (clockwise viewers) vs left brained (counterclockwise) dominant thinkers. (Although I'm still not quite convinced of one "side" of the brain being dominant over another and wonder if this specific effect -in this moving image) isn't due more to handedness, although we'll leave discussion of that for another day.

My favourite almost 7 year old

One of the disadvantages of living so far away from family is that I don't get to see family members doing this very often:



Thankfully, my niece is the only one who clambers around her grandparents' walls like this.
I'll let you know if her grammy tries it when I'm home at Christmas this year!

Acknowledging my inner stickler

I needed some scrap paper last night and found myself rummaging through an overflowing recyling bin during my hunt. I came across a newsletter published by town council a few months ago. The town has since switched to an electronic format (although they have yet to enable the internet link) so I can't enjoy the free monthly newsletters in quite the same way. ManNorth shook his head in astonishment when he found the newsletter shortly after it had arrived in our postal box and after I'd read it. And edited it. Profusely.

I couldn't help myself! I felt ready to march over to town hall and volunteer my editing services, if only to keep some sanity. Doesn't the mayor know what a run-on sentence is it looks like this and doesn't he know when to add proper punctuation and proper use of capitals or breaks between sentences or paragraphs and why oh why didn't anyone think to proof the newspaper before it was printed? I didn't volunteer my editing services of course, but bad grammar, spelling and run-on sentences drive me a bit nutty sometimes and usually when the writer should know better. This isn't to say that my writing is without error, as I know it certainly isn't and I've found both grammar and spelling mistakes in this very blog, but in a newsletter representing the people governing my town, I expect a wee bit better, and I don't think that this is asking too much.

I used ManNorth's handy scanner-printer-photocopier-in one (!) to scan the front page of the newsletter with my edits intact for this post but found them hard to read so I redid most of them on my computer. (Yes, there were more than I'll be showing and I had to just circle mistakes instead of actually correcting them in order to save space.) I admit that seeing the page dripping in figurative red ink on my screen brought tears to my eyes (figurative, not literal) and no small sense of accomplishment. Now, I'm not a mean person, and I think it more important that there is communication between the town council and the town's residents, but proper grammar, makes it better communication, with less potential for misunderstanding. (Hence, IMHO, my abhorrence of the current fad of texting and reducing everything to abbreviations and shortform. LOL! Sometimes NAOLPKT we've no idea what they are saying. NRN!)

It's been some time since I was employed as a teaching assistant and marked essays and exams and in a small way, I miss the tiny boost to the ego that correcting papers can give. (Aren't I horrible?) I once completely emptied two red pens while marking a batch of undergraduate essays and although I felt a bit badly as the essays became rather aesthetically unappealing in appearance -owing in small part to my horrid penmanship and use of rollerball pens, I felt that I'd done my students a service and one that was my duty. And it was fun.

Today I add to my blogroll a few links to blogs written by others with an inner stickler, as Lynne Truss so aptly explained it in her book, Eats, Shoots and Leaves. (I must thank my mother who knows me well enough to have bought me two of Lynne's books which I've gratefully added to my library as both comic relief and handy reference.) I'm not about to start an entire blog to fulfil the needs of my inner stickler but I'll happily visit such blogs now and again when I feel the need. I've sent a copy of the newsletter to Red Pen, Inc but don't know if the grammarphile will use it for her blog fodder, hence this post. I don't know if The Grammar Vandal actually advocates carrying around a permanent marker for impromptu corrections, but one might wish they would. Apostrophe Abuse is a fun, if distressing, read. Those apostrophe's just show up anywhere people 'think' they might want to 'hang! (Yes, those were all intentional apostrophe mistakes just now!) Finally, one might pay a virtual visit to Literally, A Web Log if they, like me, are bothered when others literally use the term literally when they mean figuratively. I mean, I just literally have a cow when others do that. Don't you?

A final word: although obvious grammar mistakes do bother me in published work, such as in books, articles and advertising, I really don't mind when encountering grammar mistakes in casual writing, such as in friendly email or in blog comments. I'm certainly more interested in what the author of such writing has to say than whether it is grammatically correct or not. (So please, keep commenting and writing me email without fear of offending my inner stickler!)

Without further ado, with the intention of comic relief, I present the front page of the newsletter, redacted (click to enlarge):

Another first!

The ManNorth is currently fending off blows at a defensive tactics training course and I'm watching in the growing darkness (the sun's down and it's just 5PM) as a woman slowly maneouvres around a nearby parking lot on her snow mobile, presumably for the entertainment of the toddler seated in front of her. Other snow mobiles have been zipping up and down on the snow covered gravel shoulders of mainstreet and I can hear the buzz from other machines that are racing along the nearby river. I have yet to see anyone wearing a helmet, although their use is required by law in town for anyone riding an ATV or snow mobile. Outside of town, helmet use isn't legislated and users typically move at much greater speed than the 40km/hr limit in town. Ah well, 'tis their noggins at risk and not mine!

Yesterday, I was pleased to see a novel (to me) use of a snow mobile: for training sled dogs! We were on a cross country skiing excursion along the river when a couple with a team of dogs raced up to us and we could see that the dogs were pulling a snow mobile instead of a sled. As we watched, the team slowed down and made a U-turn through a set of posts driven into the river ice and dashed back the way they came, passing between another pair of posts as they went. The ManNorth managed a few photos before they disappeared downriver.

I was rather pleased as this was the first dog team I've seen in action since we moved here and I've been anticipating them all summer and fall, particularly when hearing or seeing the local dogs yipping and barking from their kennels. We turned down an offer of free puppies a few weeks ago and will wait until we have a house and space to accomodate a few dogs. -Or perhaps a sled dog team of our own.

Cue oldies song: "DreeeeEEEEEeeeam, dream, dream, dream ...."

In the photo above, the team has just passed between the posts and are beginning their turn. The female passenger has jumped off and out of view on the right to replace a post that was knocked over.

Above, both people are back on the snow mobile and the team is racing back to the next set of markers.

They're a wee bit faster than me on my skis!

I'm at least moving on the ice, unlike this beached hulk, abandoned long ago on the shore.

A few hours later, we'd changed out of our drenched clothing (we'd worn a few too many layers for the mild -10C that it was) and were rehydrating with hot chocolate as we enjoyed a day old newspaper, flown in on the afternoon jet. (Hurray for the Globe and Mail!)