What a difference a year makes !! Last year ... 2007 / this year 2008..... from the depths of the ravine to the heights of a high - rise ! Fluff and I wish you all the utmost happiness and the best of health......... and why not a wee bit of prosperity to boot during these tough economic times. Hugs to all our friends and passers by !
Poor Fluff !! Ths last month and a half her new office has been cluttered up with debris from my never - ending climb up the learning tree......... boxes full of books ! Before moving I gave away almost 80% of my personal library to various individuals and organizations and hardly realized that in spite of all that giving away I had still brought about 25 boxes of books and documents along here to Saint John ....the leftovers of a long career spreading the good news of wisdom and knowledge ...... much like a farmer spreads manure !!
So I went out the Kent Lumber and bought eight 8 - foot by 1 inch by 8 " knotty pine boards .... plus two lengths of 10 - foot 4"x 4" spruce ...... both cut up into 10 - inch long pieces .... which gave me a total of 24 blocks all told. It's a make - shift bookcase , simple to put up and dismantle...... like a bedouin tent in the desert. I have already emptied about 15 boxes .... and the smile on Fluff's face broadens with each new one I empty..... less clutter !! I left a one - block space under the bottom shelf so that she might "swiffer " more freely. It would be rather complicated to sand , stain and shellac my boards and blocks in our new lodgings.... so I shall simply put it off for now until next Spring when I can take the pieces down the street to my friend , Dick Scott's backyard ........ and do the whole shebang outdoors in one fell swoop in the same afternoon with no worry about spilling or splashing stain or varnish on apartment floors , walls , etc.
Weatherwise we have been living a topsy - turvy existence ..... up and down like a toilet seat in public places. Yesterday it was snowing .... then raining downpour style when we hit the hay around midnight,,,,,, followed by freezing rain overnight into the wee hours ...... with thermometer hovering around zero. About 4 in the morning I woke up to make a pit - stop and decided to check out traffic movement through our panoramic windows in the dining room........not knowing just how frozen the streets and parking lots had become while " visions of sugar plums " were dancing in my head. Unbespectacled in the darkness I made my way to the window and gazed out . Not ONE car was moving ....... just a lonely gritting lorry over near the Fairview Plaza. Then I looked downwards at our own parking lot below and could make out the rather fuzzy outline of a pick - up truck with its high beams illuminating the whole lot with silhouettes moving about in the shadows....... seemingly darting back and forth between the vehicule and the parked cars . Carthieves , says I to myself and I grab my handy three million candle - power spotlight ....... once feared by undesireables on Chemin du Ravin in my other life...... and I lit those suckers up from nine stories up like deer in the headlights.
It was a private contractor hired by the owners of our building to salt and sand our huge parking lot which is built on a major slope and deadly after freezing rain for fender benders , etc
Another first for me today on Canadian soil. I went out in shorts on December 12th to move my car to a better parking space. It was 15 C ... or 60 Fahrenheit !! Wake up weather tomorrow morn they are calling for - 10C !
I had a huge feast of quahogs .... above pic ... a type of hard - shell , short - necked clam which is quite popular in these parts...... more popular in Rhode Island though where it is highly revered by shellfish lovers.
This is for Bill !! Here I sit at my new Hampton pine philosopher's desk ..... striving , as always , to find better ways of rolling back the frontiers of human knowledge .... Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time "on my left and the New Jerusalem Bible on my right ( hidden ) . By the way , Bill , my new bookcase is made of "naughty "pine !!
Fluff and I drove by God's gift to the retail world this morning and cast an eye of dismay upon the above scenario. At - 14 Celcius and covered with ice and snow the wee pines are "frozen dead " !! Even Frosty the Snowman and poor old Saint Nick are flat on their "donkeys " along with most of the Norfolk Island flora !! W - M has lowered the price from $ 14.00 to $ 3.00 each but noone is taking the bait..... I buy my meat dead but I like my house plants alive !!
I love plants and at Christmas I usually make a point of having 4 or 5 poinsettias , a couple of flowering Christmas cacti and also a Norfolk pine .... all enhancing the house during the festive season. One brisk sunny day ( maybe 35 F ) shortly after moving here in early November Fluff and I drove by America's giant retailer and noticed they had received their Yuletide shipment of Norfolk pine ...... roughly 80 3 - foot high plants ....... all well - shaped and beaming with evergreen colour and good health !! That night the thermometer dipped to a hair below freezing so the following morning we headed out to W - M 's to check out the fate of the Norfolk pines.... and even buy one since they were selling for only $ 14.00 whereas elsewheres they were going for $ 25.00 and more.
As we pulled into the W - M lot that morning I was hoping that some "associate genius "had thought about the overnight frost and had either brought them inide .... or had , at least , covered the plants over. But no !!! They were still outdoors and all frost - bitten and browning ... the early stage of slow death. I started searching through the mess and finally came upon one that had toppled over and had been protected from Mother Nature's wintry touch by those standing over it. Fluff went in and paid for it and it now stands proudly in our new apartment .... the only one of that batch to survive that first heavy frost.The picture on right was taken some two weeks later and they are even browner and "deader "...... and nobody is buying them.
The Norfolk pine is native to Norfolk Island in the Pacific Southwest.... and is , therefore , a tropical plant and should be treated as such The top pic is of the Norfolk Island flag...... with the pine highlighted at its centre.
Just a wee word of heartfelt thanks for all the encouraging comments and kind thoughts you have been sending my way through Fluff's blog during these last four months. It was a rough 'n tumble ... uphill struggle all the way ..... right down to the wire ..... but we finally pulled it off !! Driving home yesterday I pulled into a gas-station about two hours north of here for a last fill up. I well know that I looked like the wrath of God but managed to squeeze off a few words of wisdom to the chirpy young lady's query , " And how are you today , sir ? "....... I answered , " Tired , my dear , very tired ........ but still in the game........ and the damnedest thing about it all is that I have the deep feeling I'm winning !" . I got back on the road and the closer I got to Fluff , McDuff and the ocean the lighter that big black gorilla I had been lugging around on my back these last few months became until it finally jumped out the back door and disappeared into the mists near the Geary Woods and Enniskillen . I HAD WON !! What relief !! It will still take me some time to get back to blogging and commenting as before sooooooo....... greetings and hugs to you all and a special word to my friend , Jim.... reassuring him that he'll soon have a back - up rooster in the barnyard !!
P.S. As souvenirs and memories of my snow - shovelling days back in the "ravine " and my bouts with the Yellow River ..... Rivière Jaune every Spring for 34 years ....... I brought back my favourite shovel and one of 20 sump pumps from my basement.... installing them on my 9th - floor , penthouse balcony to remind my of my smart decision to come home to Saint John. Let's just hope and pray that God does not decide to afflick the earth by sending another epic flood as in the days of Noah.........
Now that the Mother Country's finances are back on even keel ..... and Mother Earth back on her axes and rotating well......and faith restored in the democratic process ..... I feel that I can once again fly the flag of the happy blogger. To boot ....one hell of a big decision has been made since the last time I posted ..... followed up with life - altering practical moves in its wake as you are surely aware of since you are all avid readers of Fluff's diary. My brain and emotions made the decision ... Fluff was on board immediately since she had already fallen in love with Saint John and the locals but my old bones took a wee bit longer to convince .... however , they finally came around to seeing things my way..
Not only are we moving back to my home town but our apartment building is nextdoor to my old grade school with a magnificent view from our livingroom and balcony northwestward towards Pokiok Road where I grew up ...... In fact , in the top left picture you notice a hump on the horizon just left of centre...... and that green speck on the cliffs overlooking the lower reaches of the Saint John River is the house where I was born. Unfortunately .... in hindsight I guess... I sold the house in 1993 when my Mom died.
In closing this blog I might add that I feel a kindred spirit with the Queen Mary 2 in background....... both our bows ( noses ) pointed in the same direction..... seaward towards new horizons. Best wishes to you all.......Mona and Timmy , Cindy in her new house on stilts , Julie - Ann , Jim , Chris , Pat over in Switzerland , Raenie in Mass., Barb who's voting Green Party.... as well as anyone else who might wander onto this site.
The above pic gives a "close up of the "hump on the horizon" which Raenie sweetly refers to as the "bump ". The drop off behind the house is roughly 600 feet over jagged rocks directly into the river below. Back in the 1940s two runaway horses dragged a delivery wagon and driver over the cliff . During a stag party back in the 1980s the groom's friends and brothers took him up to the cliffs to scare the living daylights out of him..... and they did just that !!! While trying to avoid being caught .... and being likewise very drunk......the poor fellow lost his footing and plummetted to certain death on the rocks below. Even my dear old Dad .......in his early 70s went over. Luckily for him and all of us the sturdy mountain cedars which grow profusedly there broke his fall and he managed to crawl back up to the top in spite of having broken his left arm.
