this was the summer that was

Oh, computer troubles. How you plague me! Seriously, I don't think anyone besides me is actually interested in the boring play-by-play of my computer troubles, and even I'M not all that interested. The short version: Old Desktop was working again, but has bit the dust, although who knows for how long, and New Laptop was sent back for repairs, even though it worked properly for everything BUT connecting to dial-up Internet. Unfortunately, that's all we have out here, at least for now, so that one frustrating flaw means no laptop until it comes back. And even though I have great faith in my Computer Guy, when he says "It'll be a week!" that tends to mean, "It'll be a month!"

So without either Old Desktop or New Laptop in service, my options become:

• Use the High-Speed computers at either the IT Center or the Library, and in order to do so, either bike 6 km both ways, or finagle a ride into town; OR
• Use Mum's (admittedly, given to us for free) Really Old, Slow Desktop, and do the bare minimum of Internet work.

Even if I had a working computer here at home that went as fast as I wanted it to, or at least, as fast as dial-up would permit, I have to admit that I'm getting tired of the Internet. Now, I know, there are many great things about the Internet, so please don't leave irate comments in my comments box. But it's also a vast time-suck, especially when most of the time, what I'm doing is puttering around on Facebook.

So there are the computer troubles. And there is the fact that a lot of the time, I don't want to sit at the computer for longer than 10 or 15 minutes, a length of time which isn't very conducive to writing blog posts. But no matter — here I am, at present.

The summer, at least that part of it defined by an academic school year, is nearly over. Next week is Mat's last at work, and then we're heading to the Annapolis Valley to take him back to school. August, as usual, feels like something to be survived rather than enjoyed, with so many things going on that one must practice the art of assertiveness in order to get any time to oneself. But assertiveness does take practice, so perhaps August serves a purpose.

The Olympics are nearly over, and my intake of them has been mostly on CBC Radio, which is how I hear about most world news, including, this summer, clips about Barack Obama and John McCain, Georgia and South Ossetia, Canadian soldiers dying in Afghanistan, and hurricanes in Florida. The Olympics aren't entirely my thing, but I did watch some of the coverage when I house-sat a friend's home for a weekend, and it was interesting, if not entertaining. What has been the most interesting to me about all of it, is when I hear the athletes talk about what goes through their minds before, during and after an event. I'm nowhere near Olympic-athlete level (as if that even has to be said!), but I do really enjoy physical activity, and get a lot out of it. And I'm also pretty conscious of my own thoughts and emotions (again, as if THAT even needs saying), so when I hear the Olympians talking about what it's like for them to go through this, it's a way for me to relate.

(Although, I will always prefer Coronation Street to the Olympics. Always.)

This has been the summer to take more bike rides, to get my bike (named "Rocinante" after Don Quixote's horse) properly tuned up by a man who does that sort of thing, and to buy a bike basket for the front of it, into which I put a baguette or two. Actually, I haven't yet transported a baguette in my bike basket, but I have used it to carry my water bottle and towel, on beach excursions.

It's been the summer to think more seriously about committing to Cape Breton, and to think about how I might make a living here, long-term. It's been the summer to daydream about getting my own piece of land, either with an old house already on it, or my building a new house. The daydream usually goes on to include me welcoming a good friend or three into my house, and showing them my peaceful and beloved patch of land. I figure that if you sort out what you want, even if it's nowhere near happening yet, then you're more alert when pieces of the dream start to come your way. And that way, you can start to make it a reality.

And it's been the summer of topsy-turvy weather, with hot, hot heat in July, turning into cold, wet drizzle for nearly three weeks in August, and now giving us a stretch of three or four days of sunshine and a high UV index. So what that means is that now, after spending abut an hour online, I'm heading to the water. I'm practicing both the art of assertiveness and my Olympian Dog Paddle.

I'm rich in vegetables.

Swiss chard, carrots, cabbage, lettuce, red peppers, zucchini, onion, cauliflower. All grown on a local farm.

Eating a big dinner of steamed veggies (with attendant protein, like tofu or what have you) just feels so good!

I'm also rich in: imminent thunderstorms, slugs and snails, laughter with lady-friends, frustrations with computers.

But mostly vegetables.

the subtleties, both named and unnamed

Note to future boyfriends: food gets me going.

Well, I should clarify. I don't mean as an aphrodisiac, although I won't rule out the sexy, intoxicating powers of a delicious, home-cooked meal, either. What I mean is reading about food, planning meals from food my neighbours grew, and just plain thinking about good, organic food gets me excited, in a way some people get excited over their academic calling or a trip abroad.

Just now I was on the couch, having a wondrously lazy Saturday afternoon, dozing off and then waking up and reading a bit more. I was reading some of "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle", a present from Grandmaman, which means I can savor it one paragraph at a time, and even write in the margins. (If there's one thing I like about as much as homegrown food, it's writing in the margins of my books.) Barbara Kingsolver, the bestselling author and Kentuckian mother of two who wrote the book, has a wry yet hopeful and enchanted tone that carries the reader through the book, and which was carrying me this particular afternoon.

There was more than just a tone of voice, though. Maybe it's the fact that we need food to live, and therefore, I hypothesize, I'm biologically hardwired to find it interesting. And even if this were the only reason I'm drawn to reading recipe books, it wouldn't necessarily have to be a mundane reason. Just because I have to eat, that doesn't mean it's boring to me. There isn't a causal relationship there.

But there really is more to it than that, to my mind. It's more than just an "instinct". There's a science about it, about gardening and growing, and there is also an art to it, to using one's intuition in mixing tastes and textures on the plate. And the supposed dichotomy of science and art isn't all there is, either: there are so many subtle enjoyments to "food life" that you'd have to be akin to a wine connoisseur to name them all. (Personally, I've never tasted hints of black currant or chocolate in wine, but I still like the wine. Just because my palate isn't as sensitive as another's doesn't mean (A) I don't believe them, or (B) I don't enjoy the subtleties unnamed.)

Even though Cape Breton's climate is behind Kentucky's, so that Kingsolver's harvest of peas and early broccoli in late May doesn't QUITE apply here — we're lucky if we're harvesting those veggies in late July — reading her words got my mind wandering through the garden beds, daydreaming about the tomato seedlings I planted the other day, which I had grown from seed. (Yes, the same seedlings I featured on this blog in May!) I also got thinking about the local farmers I know who grow far more than we do, quantity-wise, and from whose bounty I am excited about purchasing summer vegetables, as they ripen. Not only that, but these thoughts generated sparks of electricity which in turn touched off more thoughts. The possibilities of the future: of meeting other farmers as yet unknown, of exploring the properties of farmer friends I'm only just getting to know now, of maybe someday owning my own patch of Cape Breton land, and bringing up crops on it.

So now you can see why I say that food gets me going. And I'm only a third of the way through the book! Not only that, but it's only June and the peas are still vines climbing their way up the trellises!

Back to the couch, methinks. At least for today.

Also: I know, I said I'm on a writing break of sorts, but after reading and then getting all excited, well, I just had to write, and then once I had written, I had to post! I hope you enjoy both this one and the one I wrote yesterday. Lemme know.

computer hiatus

So my old computer of eight-odd years died not long ago, with an anti-climactic week of non-starting. "Disc Boot Failure — Insert Disc" it kept telling me over and over, and so after a week and a half I called my local "refurbished-computer" salesman and ordered a laptop*. It will arrive in a little bit, but until then I am computer-less**. Honestly, I'm enjoying this time away from the speedy, ad-filled channels of the Internet, but I did want to let faithful blog readers know what was going on. I haven't abandoned you! So tonight I came into the village, to the library, and am spending an hour of free high-speed Internet time culling the forwarded emails and things like that from my inbox, and posting this.

It's a beautiful late-spring (or would you call it early-summer?), with the apple trees just coming into blossom, and all the new, wet-looking green leaves on the trees. The sun is even shining today, and we have such long days this time of year! Everything is pretty and hazy, and young. A mowed lawn makes a property look like a person wearing a crisp, white shirt: simply put together.

I've been riding my bike a bunch, and today I got an apple tree for our property! I was and am very excited about this new "baby", a Honey Crisp, which I will plant in September, and which will live until then in the pot it came in, sunk into moist earth in a shady spot, to keep cool. No doubt I will write about baby Honey Crisp again!

You're all well, right?

***

*I won't go into the year or so of almost-deaths I have witnessed, and how there is no disc to insert, and all of that. Suffice it to say, I knew this was the end.

**With the exception of Mum's computer, but that is very slow. If I had to send a message to someone to save my life, then I might use that computer. I don't mean offense, it's just that it is really, really slow, and the days are so nice right now, that it frustrates me to sit still watching a page load for ten minutes. Y'know?

sweet.

I just wanted to make a few changes to the blog -- add a copyright notice, and perhaps a short bio of myself. I figured I'd play around with the template a bit, see what kind of a mess I could make.

Well, minutes turned into hours pretty quickly (I've noticed this happens a lot on the Internet) and before I knew it I was geekily reading source code for different weblogs I really like. Then I taught myself how to do two things that have always seemed so impossible (like reading The New Yorker if you're just learning your ABC's), and cool, which in hindsight were quite simple.

Thing #1: How to make titles appear over links when a reader runs the mouse over the link. To see what I mean, run your mouse over this next link, or try doing the same to some of the links in the tables to the left. The link is for the Syracuse Cultural Workers' catalog, which I visited today; click here to visit it yourself.

Thing #2: Footnotes! Now, most people that know me, at least on an academic basis, know my fondness for footnotes. These are a different kind but just as wonderful. Instead of sitting at the bottom of a page of written text, these pop up into little windows, when a reader clicks on the linked text. Marvellous!

So, I now know, thanks to reading source code, how to make footnotes, which I hadn't had a clue how to do before.

I'm guessing that my readers fall into three categories when it comes to my new discoveries about link titles and footnotes.

1. People who already know how to do these things and are mildly amused with my naivety.
2. People who don't know how to do this either but frankly don't care, or don't need to care.
3. People who blog and also want to know how to do this.

If you fall into the third category, just read the source code for this page, and mess about with your template, and you should have it. If not, we can communicate.

Now I think it's time to leave my computer and step back into the "real world" for some cooking. One of the cats has been hovering around, meowing, as if to say just that.

potential accusations of materialism, be damned!

I effing love my new monitor!

That's "monitor", not "minotaur", although if I had one of those I'd probably have to love it, otherwise it would eat me.

My new monitor, on the other hand, wouldn't do such a thing. It just sits there, looks pretty, and displays a heck of a lot better than my old one did.

That plus new memory and a new operating system makes my 5-year-old computer look like a filly rather than the sad, tired old mare she really is. Let's hope I can get a few more good "racing" years out of her.

In other, non-materialistic news, just to redeem this post and maybe get a few "points" for it, although where I get to redeem those points is beyond me, here is the link to the website for the book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle", which is really, really good and which I've already pushed on just about all of my friends, so now I'm going to let my readers know about it too. Oh -- you mean my friends are my entire readership? Oh well. It can't hurt to hear about it twice. Maybe even three times.

Now back to playing Solitaire. Because even that on this new monitor is fun. Seriously.

not exploding, just moving (at a slower pace)

"Unless you are utterly exploded, there is always something to be grateful for." (From Bellow, Saul. Herzog. Ed. Irving Howe. New York: Viking, 1976. p.7)

The other day Marlo was reading this book at the kitchen table, and I was reading Scarlet Feather, by Maeve Binchy. She laughed aloud at this quote and then read it to me, and then wrote it out onto a scrap of paper which I tucked into my book for safekeeping. I did that because it seems the sort of advice to keep with you at all times, and it will also remind me of Marlo.

Not that going home to Cape Breton is at all comparable to being utterly exploded, as there are many, many good things about home and being there. The sound of birdsong from the porch is one. The restfulness of the woods is another. But this is a big change for me, moving home and leaving here uncertain of return, and I've not yet completely recovered from the rough period that began this past February. Each day is still a question mark, some days are good, and some days I have very little energy and can't do very much. It will still be some time before I'm up to my usual tricks, or up to tackling anything too difficult. It is hard to admit this, because as Chloe said to me the other day, "You're quite a go-getter!"

I was very used to going and getting, it is true, and these days involve a lot of staying and resting. I find it hard to accept the fact that my body wants me to stop and let it rest until it needs no more resting, not just recharge enough to pretend I'm OK. I find it hard to accept that this can happen without my consent! I also find it hard to accept that when it comes down to it, after all my fears that no-one will understand, the person who understands the least is actually myself.

However, when I think about it, I realize that these things that are hard to accept are actually just fine. The harder it is, the better I will feel as I begin to accept them. Does that make sense? The harder the task, the better you feel when you accomplish it.

So, back to the point of this post: I'm going home to Cape Breton. I should also mention that none of the packing that has been happening lately would have been possible without my mother, who came here last week and is spending her week off here with me, helping me every step of the way. It sure makes a difference to have her here to tell me what needs doing, and do the things that I can't.

On Sunday we pack the little Golf and move. In the process I have to get rid of my old monitor, as it barely works right now, and I am going to dump it here and then buy a new one when I get home, a flat-screen model. I made many calls and nowhere in Fredericton is there a place to safely dispose of computer equipment, so unfortunately for my ethics and principles this monitor I've used for five years is going to end up in the landfill. It seems such a waste! Why, oh why, can't recycling technologies and businesses fill this obvious need as quickly as I would like them to? (She cried to the skies, not expecting a satisfactory answer.)

I probably won't get a new monitor right away, so I'll be using my mother's computer on a slow connection, or the computers at the library in town, my old fall-back method for when at home. That, combined with how little energy I've got these days, and the fact that I really do love posting, means I will still post, just not all the time. I just wanted y'all to know.

Allow me to counteract what seem like moderately unpleasant comments in this post with a few "good things", but have no fear, I'm not turning into Martha Stewart:

1. Maeve Binchy novels with their comforting predictability and take-charge heroines.
2. Driving out into the country with Mum, Marlo and a map.
3. The way the indoors feels when it rains out: cozy, complete.
   
4. Lebanese takeaway: falafel wraps, grape leaves filled with soft, tangy rice, tabouleh with lots of parsley, baklava with a melt-in-your-mouth texture.

So, that's all the news at this moment. And if you can't think of anything better to do, some Lebanese takeaway is always a good idea. I'll write again from the little island that could.

*Source of the photograph: unknown. Picked it up somewhere while trawling the Web for inspiration, saved it, and found it again today. If it's yours and you don't want it used, tell me.

bah, a rant! or, this is my blog and sometimes i do this

Good things about today:

I talked to my Mum on the phone for a good hour. I ate porridge and we both looked out our windows at snow on the ground and sun shining on it.

I walked in Odell Park for an hour, traipsing around in the snowy woods, in my boots, wishing I had snowshoes. I saw two older women with snowshoes and watched them through the trees, and then continued on my way. It was beautiful out there in the woods with the trees rustling against one another in the wind and big clumps of snow on the bridges, and stopping to look around I noticed that by breathing towards the sun the steam I produced became a rainbow.

Michelle lent me her laptop for Internet purposes and writing a paper, and that brings me to...

The Annoying/Irritating things about today:

My computer decided to be a jack-ass, or rather, some unspecified reason has caused it to be a jack-ass. The moniter image is flickering and the resolution's all out of whack. It's also not getting the Internet signal so I can't check for video card updates. I also have no car to bring the tower to Future Shop to check and see what is going on. I was going to go to school and finish a paper, but I'm not feeling that great, I'm tired and plus it's cold outside. This is why it's really nice that Michelle, gone to hockey, is letting me use her laptop.

I know, this is nothing but whining, but sometimes you just want things to go smoothly, and they don't. Sometimes you want a few days to just sleep and you can't do that without needing to play catch-up at the other end. Now you all know my troubles...do you have anything you want to get off your chest?

i am a piece of statistical data in the pie chart of life

Confession: I am a huge geek.

Wait, you all knew that? Ok. Well. Let me tell you the new depths of geekdom I have reached. After Friday's Research Methods class, during which Dr. Hale told us how on Monday we would start analyzing the data we had collected with our big questionnaire of last week (611 participants! woot!), I did not do what most other students would have done, which is go home at 2:30 in the afternoon because there was nothing else pressing to do. No, instead I went up to the computer lab and logged on to SPSS, and began labelling variables and entering values, making crosstabulations and analytical pie charts and bar graphs to check out things like how many of our participants had smoked in high school or been bullies, or to see if closeness to one's mother might predict things like alcohol use or anorexia. Two hours zipped by! I don't know where they went. All I know is that when Katie sat next to me and stared at me creepily, thinking it was a joke and I would notice, I didn't even see her. Sociology has taken over my heart, and apparently my peripheral vision, too.

So in the spirit of the season (which is clearly not Christmas, not yet, because we're not comfortable with trees in our houses til at least December, right Jan?) I present huminbean's latest interactive game (more evidence that I am indeed a geek) which ought to keep us all occupied until at least Last Class Bash (next Friday!):

Name Those Percentiles!

In the pie chart above, give me your ideas for what it represents, including what each color stands for. Awards will be given for: Most Intelligent, Most Crass, Best Overall, and Best Entry Which Uses the Word "Gumboot".

I'll see you all later. I'd love to stay and chat, but I have some sociological analysis to complete. *Pushes eyeglasses up at nosebridge with finger and snorts*.

Oh and--as a joint production of Huminbean's Department of This Couldn't Wait for Another Post and the Department of Education, Not Pointing Fingers, check this article out. Honestly, I don't know why I don't read Common Dreams more often, there's so much good stuff there!

fun activities

Well, if the Internet is going to be here, it might as well make me happy.

I say this because lately I've been struggling with addiction. Not the kind that robs you blind or keeps you from having meaningful relationships--although as Janice, Kate, P-Len and Cameron can attest, today I did begin my gambling addiction with a little "Set for Life" with the girls. So maybe I shouldn't speak so fast, but as far as I can tell right now, my addictions are relatively harmless. But that doesn't stop them from being addictive! I'm talking about Facebook, blogs, emails, and all the other nonsense on this old web that tends to keep me coming back for more, and not always sure why.

So since I didn't win the little friendly stare-eyes competition with the Internet (it always wins! damn automatons that don't blink) I figured I must concede. But that won't stop me from using it for my own fun and indulging in making lists with all y'all, so without further ado...

Pleasant Diversions!

(i.e. procrastination, what you do for fun on a Saturday morning or a Tuesday afternoon, the little joys in life that are free or else under 20 bucks, treats for the self for passing a really hard test or for no real reason at all, et cetera...)

My five favorites:

1. Internet coloring books. Save above image and then print it off. Use crayons or glitter pens or if you're feeling particularly adventurous/messy, finger paint with real hot chocolate. You might want to do that last one in the privacy of your own home, unless you are in fact six years old. This ties in with Janice's latest post about how awesome kids can be, and how we often--we being college students, of course--don't see many little kids, and tend to forget that all the other age groups exist.
2. Fashion magazines, whether sassy or conformist. Just make sure you've got a shaker of salt in your Fendi imitation handbag--and maybe some Gloria Steinem for good measure--and you'll be alright.
3. Hot chocolate. Either mixed at home or topped with whipped cream from your local coffee shop. Nothing better.
4. The Red Room at the library--as Jan said, the sense that you're trespassing in some old rich man's personal library, which besides for the trespassing, is true, since it was Lord Beaverbrook's personal collection.
   
5. Sunny days in November. Rare, and short, so I'm going to get out of the house and into one of them.
   

Now you.

hallelujah!!!!

ALL-FRIGGING-RIGHT.

The wireless gods and goddesses have smiled upon me in my hour of need. This morning, frustrated with technology that wouldn't work (apparently I had the wrong operating system for the wireless adapter and it took three hours for technicians of both companies to figure that out), foriegn-accented call-center technicians I could hardly understand (but who were polite, nonetheless), and being tired in general and potentially late for class specifically, I shouted some foul words into the air and gave up on the whole thing. "I'll figure this out when I get home tonight," I thought, in one of my few rational seconds, and also, "I just need to replace the adapter with one that works." (Never mind that that means trekking back to Staples and taking up more of my time. Never mind all that--I was trying to calm myself and be rational.)

I go to school. I take some notes. I see some people, do some research at the library. Every now and again I take a moment to stew over the idea that I might have dial-up for another year, since my computer is getting archaic by today's standards, and it would not be pleasant, but hell, I could deal with that. It's not like having to lose your legs. It's just internet.

I walk home. It's a sunny afternoon. I meet Julie on the way home and she tells me that her apartment has a rat, and she just went to Canadian Tire to get a rat trap. My situation could really be worse.

I get home, turn on the dial-up, am about to check my email when I notice--what is this? The four bars on my desktop which are normally red are GREEN??? Meaning, connected? What on EARTH? I don't think I've been this excited since Christmas 1990! I turn off the dial-up, attempt to load a page, which sort of works. Ok, ok, I'm dancing around the room, trying to figure this out. I use the cradle that holds the USB-adapted further away from the computer and closer to the signal, in the hopes that this might be it, turn the computer back on, look for the green bars and--there they are!

I do trampoline-style jumps around the room.

I am fully aware that this might not last, for whatever strange logic and power gave me wireless could take it away. For the moment, though, it's blowing my mind, and that of my computer. It has never seen pages load this fast! The ticker on the Globe and Mail website actually WORKS!

Halle-friggin-lulah. Like Donald says every year we finish the haymaking, "I can hear the choir!"

small town blues... and reds, and purples, and greens

After two weeks spent in the Cape Breton countryside (a lovely place, and one that people travel from all over to experience a smidge of) I started to go a little batty. Trees are pleasant company only for so long. So today finds me in Baddeck, small town of about 1000 people in the wintertime, who knows how many in the summertime, but it has cafes, a high-speed CAP site, a drug store that sells glossy magazines, and cars that drive by enough to create a constant background murmer. It rains today too, so Mum and I had chowder and sandwiches and coffees at The Water's Edge, and now here I am with headphones on, BBC Radio in my ears, tapping away and responding to emails that have long lingered in the inbox. Yargh! I realize that this is how life is, but it still frustrates me that I can't always be in touch with my far-flung friendships.

My time on this Internet portal is running out, so I'll just say, I'm getting excited for the fall, for the cooler weather, for the Farmer's Market. But before that happens, there is Ohio to visit (in a week and a half), people to hang out with, and of course, more rivers to swim and dances to dance. Always more rivers to swim.